Have you ever lived when the US and the World were NOT in crisis?

[Armstead]

It struck me that I'm in my mid-50's, and with very few exceptions, I can't remember a time when the nation and world were not perceived as being in some kind of crisis and there was not a general public feeling that everything was "Going to hell in a handbasket."

I don 't mean this in a personal sense. We all live in the dual situation of our personal lives and public events and trends. Sometimes they overlap and sometimes they seem either disconnected or contradictory to each other. We also tend to romanticize the days of our youth, when we were relatively young and carefree.

But thinking back with a less nostalgic eye, I can't really remember a time when there wasn't a lot of widespread general griping and worry that the state of the nation and world was worse than ever and that were were in a period of crisis. I can remember many of those New Year respective programs saying annually that "This has been a year of wrenching change and turmoil."

The other oft repeated mantra has been "Things aint what they used to be."

I vaguely remember the 1950's, but my memories are more personal than social. I can remember, though, the widespread fear that we were on the verge of blowing ourselves up with atomic weapons or -- short of that -- we faced an invasion by hordes of Commies.

Then in the 60's we were pummeled by domestic turmoil, beginning with civil rights demonstrations that eventually led to sever racial divisions and urgan rioiting and crime waves. We also struggled with the traumas of the assinations of JFK, MLK and RFK. Then we experienced the social schisms in the wake of the New Left, the Generation Gap, Vietnam, War Protests, SDS, drugs, Redneck reactionaries and other forces that seemed to be tearing the fabric of society apart.

Then there was the malaise of the 1970's with Nixon, Watergate, the rise of the New Right, the Energy Crisis,and an stubborn economic quagmire that was squeezing everyone.

Then was the supposedly bright and shiny 80's, the rise of corporate fascism, the continuing polarization between Left and Right and a resurrection of the Cold War and Nuclear fears. We also saw the emergence of growing Class Gap in which the rich got richer while the poor and working classes got screwed. We also saw economic blowback, when the markets crashed later in the decades. There was also political gridlock, when there was widespread bitchin about the inability of the two parties to get anything done.

In retrospect the 90's were a relatively optimistic period. However, there was still no shortage of problems, such as growing frustration over the continuing grip of Corporate Power and the growing Class Gap; the rise of the New Right and the stress it placed on moderation, the beginning of awareness of global terrorism and the rising tensions in the Middle East, etc.

Of course, nothing needs to be said about the last six years.

In all of these periods, the public perceptions and media message was that the nation and our institutions were reaching the breaking point, or morals were being undermined, life was becoming more dangerous, and that we were in some kind of crisis or other that threatened us all.

I'm wondering how this tendency affects our view of right now. Will our kids look back at fears of another 9-11 with the sense of quaintness that those of my era look back at air-raid drills in school? Or will things degenerate, and they'll look back at 2007 as the "good old days" before the real trouble started?

Will GW be consigned to the same ironic status we now look back at Warren G. Harding or Calvin Cooledge, or is he the harbinger of even worse leaders to come?

Just wondering about this. What do you think?

[Buzz Clik]

1. When the biggest news was lying about a bj, it was a good day.

[Armstead]

2. Ah yes, those simpler days of eight years ago.

[ariellyn]

3. Exactly. nt

[Subdivisions]

9. I agree. The Clinton Era was the most peaceful I can recall despite

Somalia and Bosnia.

[Parche]

11. CLINTON

I feel our pain....

During the Cllinton years we had peace, and he had a peice!!!!

[Warpy]

4. The problem is that most folks saw the 80s as rather placid

because the USSR was bogged down in Afghanistan, China was starting to inch toward capitalism, and they were lulled into a false sense of security on economic issues. There wasn't the double digit inflation and unemployment of the 70s, and the double digit interest rates were blamed on Carter.

They didn't notice the end of the Fairness Doctrine, the way working folks were being stripmined by the ever richer rich, how their Social Security premiums were jacked up 6 times and the overpayments robbed to cover the budget gap caused by the reckless tax cuts. They didn't see major media being bought up and consolidated by ever fatter corporations and they didn't see the viewpoints narrow. They didn't notice what those boy geniuses were doing with mergers and megamergers in the absence of enforcement of antitrust laws. They barely noticed the S&L debacle and thought Iran Contra was political.

In other words, they were sleepwalking, lulled by that actor's delivery into thinking all the trouble in the world was over there, never here.

We malcontents are the only ones who noticed all that stuff.

[MADem]

6. The decade of bad hair, horrible clothing, and 'greed is good'

People started getting really vicious in that decade. I think that civlity got a death blow in that era...

[maine_raptor]

5. Some days I feel hopeful, some days not.

I keep thinking that this nightmare will be over, Bush et al will be kicked out ala "Watergate" and that people will wake up and realize what has been done to this country and make the changes necessary to get us back on track.

Then there are the others days; When I see a coming America that is an empty husk. A place where the words are mouthed ("We the People") but the reality for it's citizens is 180 degrees askew.

I too, am in my fifties. And as I follow the news and current event, I am slowly becoming grateful that the road ahead is now shorter than the one behind. I fear for future generations,

[Bobbieo]

7. I'm in my 80's now and remember it was quite peaceful

in the mid 1930s. The Depression was still on and Hilter had just begun his rise to power.

[Armstead]

32. Did that time really seem peaceful?

I wasnt around then. But reading about it (and hearing from my parents) it would have seemed to be a series of crisis, with the Depression on top of the rise of troubling dictatorships in Europe and elsewhere.

But perhaps it did seem more peaceful, without the hype of today's mass media. I wonder how today's media would have amped up the fear if it were covering events then.

[Hardrada]

8. Most of the Fifties (post Korea) were peaceful. Actually up

to the 11/22/63, all was tranquil for me (I was not in the South but was aware of earlier Civil Rights struggles but thought people would see reason). There were two crises of course. The Berlin Wall going up and the Cuban Missile Crisis, (They sure don't build crises like they used to). But otherwise all seemed to be progressing along well enough until 11/22/63. Only period afterwards that was OK was after Nixon's resignation up to the Fall of the Shah of Iran in early 1979. About 5 years I look back on as OK. Nothing since for those of us aware of the machinations of our corporate would-be rulers. I'm 62 and do retain some hope since the rest of the world is more sensible abou global warming etc.

[Armstead]

20. Did McCarthyism seem like a crisis at the time?

I was too young to remember that. I sometimes wonder if it seemed similar to today's climate of repression.

[raccoon]

27. True, most of the 50's were peaceful. However, the threat of

nuclear war hung over our heads. I remember when I was in fifth grade, at school they were talking about getting us dog tags. I didn't make the connection then of the purpose of the dog tags. I remember my community talking about building a community fallout shelter. (Talk was all that was done.)

In hindsight, it looks like a less worrisome time, because we know a nuclear war didn't happen then.

[FarCenter]

10. About '54 to '61

From the end of the Korean War and the McCarthy witch hunts up to the Berlin Wall crises was a fairly calm time. There was the Suez Crisis, the Hungarian uprising, the defeat of the French in Indo China, and the recession of '58. But these seemed farther away, with jet travel just beginning and satellite communications just on the drawing boards.

It is fair to say that Ford was right about the Eisenhower adminstration being competently managed. Alas, Ike's warning about the military-industrial complex was not heeded.

[otherlander]

12. Ike was a smart man.

He should have taken his own advice more.

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[Wwagsthedog]

15. As one of the elders on this site,

I'll have to agree with you. The only thing we really had to worry about was wrapping whatever wheels we were in around some kind of light pole or similar.

And welcome aboard!

[blues90]

13. Only the 50's when I was a kid

I did'nt really think about world issues then so it seemed good at this time for the most part .

When Kennedy was dealing with the cuban missile crisis that was the end of that for me and then Kennedy was murdered , since then I tried to do my best but there was always something to worry about .

I was fairly ok until 1980 when Lennon was shot down and reagan stepped into office shortly after . I was lucky enough to still be employed and making enough for my wife and I to live .

Now all is a complete disaster and all is shot to hell . I don't have much if any faith in the near future or much of a future at all , we seem to have finally gone too far and I see too much death and destruction each day here and all over the globe . Who will be reading this history , I cannot say .

[Armstead]

21. I remember everyone being scared witless during the Cuban Missle crisis

I remember Kennedy's speech. I think it was the first time i got really scared by world events.

[LostInAnomie]

14. If you count the cold war as a state of constant crisis...

... there wasn't a moment that we weren't in crisis from Pearl Harbor until the end of the first War in Iraq. During the 90's is was relatively peaceful, except for Oklahoma City and the brief anxiety that followed. The crisis mode picked back up as soon as Dubfuck took office, beginning with the Chinese capture of our spy plane.

It pays a lot of bills and makes a lot of people rich, for us to be in crisis.

[The Straight Story]

16. To understand your question, one must ask

what is a 'crisis' and who defines it, how, and why.

There are probably some folks living on some small island somewhere who don't recall any such crises. We have them because we have news, views, and instant communication. Everything is dynamic, and we will never have a static world - especially when we are able to see threats all over the globe in the blink of an eye.

It is when we focus less on the big picture and more on the local (our immediate life and family) that we start finding more peace of mind. Ignorance is bliss, and constant updates on the threats that face us leads us down the path of worry and stress.

The world and our very lives are always on the line, death could come at any moment and disrupt our happy times. The more threats we look at the more we are apt to have a sense of dread.

My mom was 70 when she died. She lived through a lot of hard times, the cold war, Korea, Vietnam, WW2, Iraq 1, Start of Iraq 2, financial ups and downs of the world, etc. Her thought was though that you could die any day so take it all with a grain of salt and do the best you can for others around you in the meantime.

True peace will come from within, never from the outside.

[blues90]

17. That's all true

My mother died at 88 three months ago and she was through alot .

Certainly I or anyone can suddenly drop dead from a heart attack or a car accident even fall down the stairs .

I really wish I could ignore what is going on and find inner peace . I had it but lost it in 2000 .

Now even though I had nothing to do with it I find I am dealing with the guilt of all this death lately . We have not had a break from this for 6 years now , not a day goes by without some bad news , distant bad news that creeps into out computers or radios every day.

I look at the same neighborhood I have lived in since 1981 and I barely recognize it now even the people seem to be in a trance either that or it is me that is in the trance .

[The Straight Story]

18. Well, one must ask themselves

Who is really responsible for the things going on?

There are those like me and you who detest the violence we see. We don't want it, we rail against it, and to me we should not feel guilt over it.

Sure we get bad news each day - but we could really get a ton more if we knew everything going on in the world. Torture in prisons in China, North Korea, the US, etc and so on. If we were privy to all things I am sure it would shock us and dismay us - but that does not mean we need to feel guilty. The people doing such things should.

As far as the 'hood. I know what ya mean. Most people here have either died or moved away, though there is still a small core of us here from the original days. Those new to the hood seem distant and uncaring about it all, while we want to preserve what once was (the decorating, keeping the yards up, etc and so on). The kids that made it vibrant have grown up mostly and moved on. It is like a ghost town here at times (like Halloween). But, such is life.

I know we cannot ignore what is going on of course, but we can put it into context and try to do more locally. I have looked at making a small newsletter devoted to this small hood, but I am moving soon so would not be worth the effort I fear. Perhaps when I get to Bakersfield I can make a difference (although folks here have called me a hero for stopping several crimes already).

We get back what we put in, and my problem is I have not put in enough of late. I focused too much on my own life to focus on the lives of others here. I can always do better :) If I wait on others to better I will be waiting a long time and find myself disappointed. Not that they are bad or wrong, it is just that I expect better from myself in my community, and I have not lived up to my own expectations.

[Armstead]

22. My opinion about that.....

Your point is well-taken.

Except where i differ somewhat is that it seems pretty common for people who have turned off outside events still have a sense of background crisis about the world. but they adopt the attitude that "It all sucks and there's nothing I can do about it" so they harbotr a resentment against the outside world.

IMO the defeat of liberalism and the rise of right-wing CONservatism is due largely to that. People felt that they were oppressed by the power structure and disgusted at the state of the nation, and the CONservative movement channeled that into resentment agsinst liberals, hippies, minorities and anyone else outside of their immediate sphere....Liberalism cold have helped to direct that to its's proper culprits -- big business and the oligarchy, but the CONservativeds managed to short circuit that.

[raccoon]

28. According to the MSM, everything is a crisis.

If you can't find emery boards at your local store, that's a crisis. :silly:

[Raine]

19. Clinton

would be the closest to a period when we weren't in crisis. Eight years of peace and prosperity and pride in being an American.

[Auntie Bush]

23. Yes, right after of the fall of the Berlin wall and Communism.

I can (falsely) remember saying. Now we have world peace and no one would ever have the nerve to fight against our fabulous military. I felt we were king of the mountain. Now I feel like we're on a tobaggon heading down with an avalanche behind us. Scary! Boy was I wrong! Who would have ever thought civilians with handfuls of explosives could be responsible for this death and destruction and wrecked our economy and killed so many men women and children? :shrug:

[Cleita]

24. I've been reading a lot of Noam Chomsky lately.

He explains pretty much how we got here with our foreign policies, which it seems we inherited from the foreign policies of the British, French and other European colonizers from the time of exploration. Since my personal memories go back to WWII, his insight has clarified many of the crisis's that I have lived through, how we have been duped and propaganzied by our governments, both Republican and Democratic, which brings us to where we are today. And guess what? It doesn't have to be this way. In the words of many a "Miss America" contestant, we can have world peace and prosperity.

[The2ndWheel]

25. Diminishing returns of increased complexity

We have a "problem", and the only way we "solve" it is by expanding and making the process more complex. Yet we end up with either large new problems, or the same old problems, just on a larger scale.

We never seem to get ahead. The reason for that being entropy. There is no perfect state to life. Like was said, it depends on who is defining the words crisis or problem. Was it really a problem that humans couldn't fly? Not particularly. So we make an airplane, and now we have all types of new problems, one of which being that now a couple hundred humans can fall from the sky to their deaths. It allows us to travel further, and quicker, but that wasn't a huge problem either. Now when you bring expansion, empire, and conquest into the equation, traveling further and quicker helps. Now that we all live like kings, we can all benefit from that. Of course we always end up coming back home, wherever that may be.

[Armstead]

34. Good points

The first trade-off we probably made was when the first cave people discovered how to use fire.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

26. you mean when America was owned by Native Americans before the 1st immigrants

no

[treestar]

29. Nationally we are drama queens

The MSM is at any rate. They are always manufacturing a "crisis" or making a dramatic crisis out of every conceivable possible problem. When they report a problem, it is always "skyrocketing" whatever it may be. It is always reported as getting worse, with dire predictions for more problems in the future.

We can't seem to stand peace and quiet and happiness. We have radios on everywhere, as if we couldn't stand the silence. TVs in public places, on, or somebody on the phone. We are like junkies who can't stop.

[Armstead]

33. I've had theTV on less lately

I have a tendency to leave the news channels on in the background. But I've been dong that a lot less lately, and it does seem better for the ol' nervous system.

[KT2000]

30. The Clinton Years

were relatively peaceful.
I believe he made it his job to keep it that way.
The only crisis was experienced by the RWer's - they could not stop obsessing about blue dresses.

[Hobarticus]

31. Things seemed pretty rosy in the Clinton years...

Economy was good.

We were at relative peace. More importantly, we were actually talking to those we had trouble with.

Terrorists who'd attacked us on our soil were being brought to justice.

Seemed pretty good times, to me.