VW Trailer ~ It's not what you think!

[Lanval]

Saw this elsewhere. Sometimes I really, really appreciate the simple enthusiasm of the 70s. I know for you who lived through it that it doesn't feel that way (since you didn't live in a commercial), but seen through the lens of time, things like this make me wish I'd been around then (well, in something other than my 5 year old form, anyway...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJfouPd ... e=youtu.be

[hippiewannabe]

Cool trailer, but I'm most interested in the "simple enthusiasm" comment. Coming of age in the '70s, I don't remember it like that. The Cold War, Vietnam, Watergate, Oil Crisis, Club of Rome Limits to Growth, Inflation, Malaise. Dark times that I'm glad are gone.

[Bleyseng]

"Dark Times"? Hmm, it thought the 70's were pretty good and more balanced than the wild greedy 80's with Reaganism, Wall street greed that still are a part of the American Culture.

[Lanval]

The Cold War < China becoming a global military power

Vietnam < Iraq/Afghanistan (longer and more costly, but happily, far fewer deaths)

Watergate < Clinton/Bush & Cheney/Obama (take your pick; personally, banking deregulation and the subsequent housing market collapse is the big one)

Oil Crisis < Global Warming

Club of Rome = Club of Rome (there are newer versions of this though)

Limits to Growth = Limits to Growth

Inflation < The Widening Gap between the Rich and the Poor

Malaise < The acceptance of a wide variety of political evil acts (anywhere)

The past always seems less of a problem, because it's the past. We're not having to deal with it. The present always seems like a major problem, because we're in the middle of it. The future always seems less of a problem, because it's not here yet.

That said: In fact, we have larger issues before us than ever before, mainly in terms of scale rather than general nastiness. Just as the environmental movement fought to make a difference, but now is accepted (generally; they still have to fight often enough), we have new battles to wage (global warming, governmental transparency, clean food/water for the developing world, etc.) so that these things need not come to pass.

On a side note, I can't believe I read this, but there are people in Love Canal suing again, because apparently they're being poisoned by chemicals in the ground...! When will people ever learn... when will they eveeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrr learn?!

[Amskeptic]

Cool trailer, but I'm most interested in the "simple enthusiasm" comment. Coming of age in the '70s, I don't remember it like that. The Cold War, Vietnam, Watergate, Oil Crisis, Club of Rome Limits to Growth, Inflation, Malaise. Dark times that I'm glad are gone.

We had hope then . . . that we could pull together and solve issues.
Colin

[ruckman101]

That was fun.

There was hope in the late '70s. Reagan really brought me down though.



neal

[hippiewannabe]

Fun, totally different lenses. The '70s to me were the nadir. Reagan really did bring "Morning in America"; hope and optimism vs. stagnation and malaise. I have always been fond of saying we live in the best time in the history of the world to be alive, in the greatest country the world has ever known. But upon reflection, the decade between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11 is the best as we've seen. Hopefully we can reach that again.

[Amskeptic]

Reagan really did bring "Morning in America"; hope and optimism

Naaah. Reagan initiated the big Greed Is Good party.
Those who enjoyed "Morning In America" soundly ignored the issues that are with us today as insistent and unsolved as ever.
Energy. Environment. Inequity.

*presided over a widening gap between the rich and everyone else, declining wages and living standards for working families,
*an assault on labor unions
*a dramatic increase in poverty and homelessness,
*consolidation and deregulation of the financial industry


Reagan is often lauded as “the great communicator,” but what he often communicated were lies and distortions.
Remember his oft-repeated “welfare queen” in Chicago story? She allegedly drove a Cadillac and had ripped off $150,000 from the government using eighty aliases, thirty addresses, a dozen Social Security cards and four fictional dead husbands?
Journalists have searched for this “welfare cheat” in the hopes of interviewing her and discovered that she didn’t exist!
But this phony imagery of “welfare cheats” persisted and helped lay the groundwork for cuts to programs that help the poor.
His lies opened up a "new normal" in political discourse still carried out by Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, and other graduates of the Lee Atwater School of Scorched Earth Political Games who lie with such jaw-dropping ease.

But what really gets my goat, Reagan’s —“Government is not a solution to our problem. Government is the problem”— became the Republican creed. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, the lunacy of Tea Party, the propaganda outfits like the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation masquerading as think tanks, were all incubated during the Reagan years. The damage in his wake is stunning in scope.
I do not expect you to get it.

Republicans credit Reagan with reducing the size of government. In reality, he increased government spending, cut taxes and turned the United States from a creditor to a debtor nation.
Reagan escalated the military budget while slashing funds for domestic programs that assisted working-class Americans and protected consumers and the environment.
Wages for the average worker declined and the nation’s homeownership rate fell, the minimum wage was frozen at $3.35 an hour, while prices rose, thus eroding the standard of living of millions of low-wage workers. The number of people living beneath the federal poverty line rose from 26.1 million in 1979 to 32.7 million in 1988.

Meanwhile, the rich got much richer. By the end of the decade, the richest 1 percent of Americans had 39 percent of the nation’s wealth. Now of course, they hold 46!%!! Reagan presided over the dramatic of the nation’s savings-and-loan industry. The deregulation allowed S&Ls to end their reliance on home mortgages and permitted banks to provide adjustable-rate mortgage loans. The S&Ls began a decade-long orgy of real estate speculation, mismanagement and fraud. The industry indulged in a wild ride of merger mania, with banks and S&Ls gobbling each other up and making loans to finance shopping malls, golf courses, office buildings and condo projects that had no financial logic other than a quick-buck profit. Neil Bush was a player here, Micheal Milken, destroyed savings led to well-publicized suicides, especially out in LA where I was living at the time. When the dust settled in the late 1980s, hundreds of S&Ls and banks had gone under, billions of dollars of commercial loans were useless and the federal government was left to bail out the depositors whose money the speculators had looted to the tune of over $130 billion.

Under Reagan, government’s role shifted from policing Wall Street and protecting consumers to a see-no-evil enabler, encouraging banks to engage in irresponsible practices. This was just the first chapter in the slide towards today’s financial crisis.

From The Nation:

Reagan’s indifference to urban problems was legendary. Early in his presidency, at a White House reception, Reagan greeted the only black member of his Cabinet, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Samuel Pierce, saying: “How are you, Mr. Mayor? I’m glad to meet you. How are things in your city?”

Reagan not only failed to recognize his own HUD Secretary, he failed to deal with the growing corruption scandal at the agency that resulted in the indictment and conviction of top Reagan administration officials for illegally targeting housing subsidies to politically connected developers. Pierce and others rigged the allocation of subsidies for housing projects to favor Reagan’s campaign contributors and GOP lobbyists, such as former Interior Secretary James Watt. Fortunately for Reagan, the “HUD Scandal” wasn’t uncovered until he’d left office.

Need we mention the Iran/Contra scandal, the birthday cake for the Ayatollah his treasonous communication to foil Carter's diplomacy to free the hostages?

Ronald Reagan brought a new spirit of meanness and moral torpor to the American Story, and for that, I dismiss all that stupid Morning In America happy talk. The lionization of Ronald Reagan by today's conservatives strikes me as strained and grasping, but most of all, Don, I still love your boundless optimism which you identify with Reagan's but is your own..
Colin

[Randy in Maine]

Reagan was elected in 1980. He was just a governor in the 70's.

[Amskeptic]

Reagan was elected in 1980. He was just a governor in the 70's.

I don't think anybody here is disputing that.
The "nadir" Don speaks of was the "Carter Malaise" era of the 70's.
"Morning In America" was simply laid onto the Clinton years as the beneficial legacy of Ronald Reagan.

There have been numerous inquiries into the fall of the Soviet Union, and the favorite pop-analysis is that Ronald Reagan "bankrupted the socialist empire". Touchingly naive. The Soviet Union had serious structural cracks opened by more street level forces, like the articulate populist, Lech Walesa, the poet and founder of Solidarity who galvanized Poland. Don't tell conservatives that a man of arts and letters might have such a stirring effect upon a despairing population. Michael Gorbachev, too, was a powerful figure in Soviet life, not because of his personal friendship with Reagan, but because he was a smart man who saw the writing on the wall.
Colin