quote:Originally posted by T e x: we pushed the status quo off high center, for sure...
But anyone who thinks it was all about dope and sex and whatever else mythology that has evolved...is severely missing the point.
Or was it all about resisting the big bad conservative lifestyle of the 50s? I do get that things were not diverse in the workforce by any means and there was still segregation issues on high levels.
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posted
Probably would be vacant, everyone would be at the drive in, hot rodding or Bobs Big Boy in Pasadena, picking up girls.
Besides we would have had to talk to everyone through the dial phone, wires and all, 3 feet was our range, or maybe a pay phone, we could have reverse the charges to Bob!
quote:Originally posted by CashCowMoo: What were the tax rates back then?
very high, the top rate from '51 thru 63 was 91%
from '64 thru 81? the top rate was between 70 and 77%....
the good old days were very high growth rates in the economy and high tax rates
the very idea that taxes hurt economic growth is only that.. an idea.... the facts show a very different story... one might even say it proves the lie...
look at the low tax rates before the 29 crash and see that pattern...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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quote:Originally posted by T e x: we pushed the status quo off high center, for sure...
But anyone who thinks it was all about dope and sex and whatever else mythology that has evolved...is severely missing the point.
Or was it all about resisting the big bad conservative lifestyle of the 50s? I do get that things were not diverse in the workforce by any means and there was still segregation issues on high levels.
one example: In Texas, you could go to the pen for one marijuana seed in your car.
-------------------- Nashoba Holba Chepulechi Adventures in microcapitalism...
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(CNN) -- In this acrimonious and bitter American summer of 2010, a summer during which at times it has seemed that everyone is angry at everyone else, I sat outside the other afternoon and read a magazine.
The magazine was Life.
The cover date on the issue was July 4, 1955.
The middle of the 1950s was the apex of the era in which Life -- the weekly Life -- was a mainstay in American homes. Arriving like clockwork in mailboxes in big cities and tiny towns, Life, with its 20-cent cover price and its red-and-white rectangular logo, represented America talking to itself. It didn't just mirror the national conversation; it was, in large measure, the national conversation.
Fat and prosperous, seemingly as tall as the Empire State Building when compared to today's magazines, Life in the summer of '55 offered on its numerous advertising pages remedies for the sweltering days and nights the nation was going through: four separate display ads for different brands of lemonade, ads for window-mounted air conditioners and fans, colorful full-page ads for fancy ice cream (Lady Borden Plantation Peach, Meadow Gold Hawaiian Sherbet).
But that was not the fascinating thing about this particular issue.
That is not what, in this rancorous summer of 2010, has the power, over all the years, to make you stop and reflect.
Near the front of the magazine, the lead story summed up the mood of the United States in the week that had just ended.
The headline was: "Nobody Is Mad With Nobody."
The magazine reported:
"Summer, announced by graduation and the Fourth of July, rolled over a nation up to its ears in domestic tranquility."
And:
"Embroiled in no war, impeded by no major strikes, blessed by almost full employment, the U.S. was delighted with itself and almost nobody was mad with nobody."
And:
"This week millions of Americans were purring with contentment -- when they were not roaring with exuberance."
And:
"The satisfaction showed in the grinning faces of Vermonters, hearing an easygoing speech by the President of the U.S. It was evident in the triumph of a Coloradoan standing amid chest-deep wheat where there had been only dust weeks before. The great nation, made possible by the bold planning of the Founding Fathers, had reached a peak the planners could scarcely have imagined."
How much of this may have been an illusion? What portion of Life's snapshot of the United States in that summer 55 years ago may have been a willful fantasy, a purposely comforting dream?
Certainly a case can be made that, even in placid times, the cloudless rendering of unfettered happiness that Life was selling was in part a carefully marketed image of the country. Alan Brinkley, in his excellent recent biography of Life founder Henry Luce, used that very issue of Life among his examples of Luce's desire to build national consensus: of Luce's determination to convince Americans that they had a great shared purpose, and that they were doing just fine.
History tells us that the United States of 1955 may not have been quite the unblemished, unremittingly joyful land described in that issue. You're probably already checking off the things about America that needed fixing back then: Racial inequity was widespread, constrictive conformity was all around, intolerance of anything different was itself tolerated ... your list could go on and on.
But here is what should give us pause:
If monolithic national happiness was, in fact, being sold as a commodity back then, a case can also be made that the commodity being sold to us today is national animosity. Just about every day, we are told how furious we are at each other. If Luce's Life magazine was endeavoring to promote the notion of consensus, what we are being relentlessly barraged with now is a message of anti-consensus. And that may be just as false an impression, in its own way, as the everyone's-joyful pitch was in 1955.
It's a possibility that is at least worth thinking about. The television airwaves these days are bristling with images of rage, yes. But is that rage truly a representation of how most Americans feel about each other? Combativeness has always been an easy sell; that early hit television show was known as the "Friday Night Fights," not the "Friday Night Handshakes."
In 2010 the three cable TV networks that specialize in news coverage are the place where America's disagreements are on perpetual display, where the conversations tend to be the most vigorous, and sometimes the most high-decibel. They often depict a nation ready to duke it out. Yet on a given evening, the combined peak total of people watching the three news networks on cable at a given moment seldom exceeds 5 million. Out of a U.S. population of 310 million.
Is there anything to be made of that -- of the fact that more than 90 percent of the country may be tuning out the constant battles, may be symbolically choosing to hit the "mute" button? And even putting that aside, is there a chance that in this allegedly angry summer, a significant portion of the country may elect not to wake up all that angry with their fellow citizens? That there may be an underreported reservoir of good will, and willingness to listen to the other guy, out there?
That the country yearns for lowered voices and reasoned conversation?
For a shared purpose, a steady middle ground?
Just asking the question, for your end-of-summer consideration. "Nobody Is Mad With Nobody," Life declared, 55 summers ago. It may have merely been a pipe dream.
But in the words of a great Southern California philosopher:
Wouldn't it be nice.
-------------------- It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
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You would like the 50's cash you could go to dinner all the men would be wearing black pants white cotton socks and pointy black shoes and the style was the legs were short on the pants like you were waiting for a flood.A ton of palm aid in your hair so your jelly role could look cool.Most people were uneducated and boring. I think you would love it. I suggest you try it in the south they would love you there
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.
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quote:Originally posted by raybond: They were bigger than now.
You would like the 50's cash you could go to dinner all the men would be wearing black pants white cotton socks and pointy black shoes and the style was the legs were short on the pants like you were waiting for a flood.A ton of palm aid in your hair so your jelly role could look cool.Most people were uneducated and boring. I think you would love it. I suggest you try it in the south they would love you there
' Sounds like a recipie for a great evening. What do YOU think?
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.
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posted
What do I think I lived it and I am glad I don't have to again.
Now that I think of it the furniture was the most god awful garbage you had ever laid eyes on unless you were rich and could get a good europian look. Maybe you would like it cash and it is not for me to say anything about it I am sure glad its over
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.
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quote:Originally posted by raybond: What do I think I lived it and I am glad I don't have to again.
Now that I think of it the furniture was the most god awful garbage you had ever laid eyes on unless you were rich and could get a good europian look. Maybe you would like it cash and it is not for me to say anything about it I am sure glad its over
Sounds like you are a bitter old man to me. Nothing wrong with being older, but the bitter kind...like the movie grump old men, that has to go.
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Its just plain better today if you have any kind of skill and can make some money you are better off. Fifty's were fun because it was better than the thirties for obvious reasons.
Everyday I put on a tie that looks good instead of a skinny black lack luster one and a shirt that has a decent collor made of better material. I am happy that the fifty's are gone.
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.
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Bitter old man because I compared the 50's to now I think the 50's was a time that was better than the thirty's and forty's but nothing like todays life of more awarness better clothes,furnitue and food.
Your problem is you are a twirl nip and a jerk weed a saying from the fifty's and what a shame that is when you figure that out cash cow let me know.
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.
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