We are almost all gone now. By our 50th grad reunion, nearly 25% were gone. We were born between the late 1930s and the late 1940s. Our parents, their friends, our neighbors, our teachers, our bosses – were almost all “Greatest Generation” members. THAT was our first stroke of luck. The second was growing up during the 1947-1973 great middle class prosperity era. We graduated high school in the 1950s-1960s – were often married, buying homes, having children before the “Age of Innocence” ended – our third stroke of luck.
Early TV “performers” were often former radio people – which meant they looked like normal people. Ed Murrow switched from London bombings to interview shows. Walter Cronkite and Huntley-Brinkley told us the news. Cronkite’s eyes watered on air on 11/22/63.
Featured kid’s shows were “Crusader Rabbit” and “Howdy Doody>”. “Father Knows Best,” “Ozzie and Harriet,” and “Leave It To Beaver” joined “Westerns.” Early “Rock ‘n Roll” had Elvis and Chuck Berry – it was mostly about innocent things like teen love and happiness. Minnie Pearl was on air. Movies featured people like Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day. Westerns had big John Wayne. Drive-In movies were a big staple – rumor had it a few kids were conceived in their parking lots.
Baseball was far and away THE #1 team sport. Cobb and Wagner replaced by Ruth and Gehrig, replaced by Greenberg, Feller, DiMaggio and Williams, later Musial, Spahn, Robinson, Berra, Campy, Mantle, Mays, and Aaron. Unlike future pros. Feller and Spahn in WW II, and Williams in Korea – were actually in combat. Hearing of Pearl Harbor, Greenberg re-enlisted.
1920s era sports stadiums predominated, especially for college football. Many were called “Memorial” in honor of WW I soldiers. NFL games were played in baseball stadiums. There were “box seats” but no “private boxes.” The famous 1957 NFL championship game was played in Yankee Stadium, often called the game that “made” the NFL.
Pro hockey was played in 6 Canadian and northern American cities. The NBA was largely a minor sport, some teams having multiple “home” arenas. Pro basketball at one time had the NBL, the ABL, and the BAA. Home games were played in Sheboygan, Oshkosh, Fort Wayne, Providence, Anderson, and Syracuse. At one time, Chicago had two pro teams: Stags and Gears.
All this was before high school and college sports were professionalized. Alumni ego and money [naturally – what else in America???] did that. At one time, the “Big Ten” actually had 10 teams, all in the upper Midwest; the SEC was only in the old South; the Pac 8 was only on the Pacific coast. Before pro sports expanded, local high school and college players were the heroes young kids aspired to be – part of the “Age of Innocence”. – which we, in our innocence, thought was “normal,” not the fleeting thing it turned out to be>
Then. – things began to change.
The “Age of Innocence” ended during the “Decade of Shocks” [Shachtman]. Assassinations: Medgar Evers, JFK, Malcolm X, Martin, Bobby. Then Vietnam [based much on the “Domino Theory” and ignorance of Vietnam]. Then – 1965-66-67-68. Then, in May, 1970 – Kent State and Jacksonville State. Then Watergate.
There were brief bursts of innocence: “the summer of love;” Woodstock [“An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace and Music”], a concert for 400,000 held on an upstate New York dairy farm; hippies; communes. Eventually the Beatles broke up.
But – this “Age of Innocence” was flawed. Not all people were treated equally – especially African-Americans, who had to fight to access rights guaranteed by the l3th-14th-15th Amendments. Women were second class citizens. Feminism considered by some a “deep illness,’ electric shock for neurotic behavior and seeking abortions {Coontz}, the sexual double standard and glass ceilings. Poverty rates increased. Conservative religious values imposed. Indians were shuttled off to “reservations” [never mind broken treaties]. Mexicans were supposed to be happy picking our fruits and vegetables.
Then – the empire struck back.
First attacks on labor: hostility to unions and moving jobs south to non-union states, then anywhere, including democracy’s #1 enemy, China. Corporate “lobbying” [legal machinations] escalated, its goals: reduced taxes [achieved], eliminate regulations [much achieved], eliminate living wage jobs [largely achieved]. The top 1% and corporations now have THE. #1. “business-friendly” Supreme “court” handing them major victories [“Citizens United,” “Janus,” “EPA-W.VA,” mandatory arbitration, etc.}
For perspective and reference: “The Betrayal of the American Dream” [Barlett & Steele] and “Who Stole the American Dream?” [Hedrick Smith] – from a Bloomberg book review: “..all the ways the rich have been sticking it to the middle class since the late 1970s read like a Times investigative report from hell.”
David Cay Johnston’s “Perfectly Legal..The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich – And Cheat Everybody Else” and. “Free Lunch..How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense [ And Stick You With The Bill]” Mother Jones, May-June, 2022: “Looted.. How Private Equity is stripping America for parts”. is the tip of the iceberg on how various legal pirate firms are looting America, piece by piece, affecting YOUR food, YOUR housing, YOUR medical care.
Then – the. “culture war.”
The top 1% and corporations couldn’t get what they wanted without people voting for the “right” politicians. The “religious right” declared war on America in the middle 1970s. Read Chris Hedges”. “American Fascists..the Christian Right And The War on America” or Katherine Stewart’s. “The Power Worshippers..Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalists.” Each side – the rich and the “religious” – get what they want: a plutocratic theocracy.
Don’t just believe this! Do your own [serious] research! Start with pre & post-1980 income tables and tax tables – UNPUN!!!!! – from the IRS official figures. Mother Jones, March-April, 2011, has an interesting story on this, including a table on “How much income have you given up for the top 1 percent?” Be sure to read “Plutonomics” on same page!!!
Those of us in the “Luckiest Generation” have not escaped this deliberate, planned. CORRUPTION, we just had that head start, so we were economically more secure when all the post-1980 damage began to occur.
Think of this as an indicator of how much things have changed: many in our generation paid for 4-year college educations by working at a grocery store, weekends and summer.
Some/many of us had retired when the Wall street-inspired 2008 crash occurred, so we escaped much of that corruption [but not the increased taxes for the crook’s bailouts.
And – when COVID hit, most of us did not have to go to work.
***** All this is NOT said in somer form of bragging. The motive”. for YOU. to place what has happened in the last 40 years in perspective. For YOU. to realize that once – 1947-1973 – America achieved, for the great bulk of the middle class – the real “American Dream.”
For YOU to understand that – all we enjoyed. – HAS. BEEN STOLEN. from subsequent generations. STOLEN. by people who are in most cases, already. OBSCENELY. RICH, but are so GREEDY. they want it all. As that 2011 Mother Jones article shows YOU – some were making, on average $27,342,212 EVERY YEAR. In 2023, they’ll be making even more.
*****”The society that loses its grip on the past is in danger, for it produces men who know nothing but the present, and who are not aware that life had been, and could be, different from what it is.” [Aristotle]
Things will NOT get better unless YOU do something!!! YOU and everybody YOU know need to tell politicians who refuse to vote higher taxes on millionaires/billionaires that YOU will not vote for them until they do; to tell them that the Social Security and Medicare “crises” can be solved by one simple thing: remove the stupid, ARTIFICIAL cap on income taxed for Social Security and Medicare. – so 100% of it is taxed [not just the first $160,000 that YOU pay]. – and YOU won’t vote for them until they do.
The 1947-1973 golden middle class age was NOT given to them. It was the result of people DEMANDING it, and only voting for politicians who promised to do it. YOU will have to do the same thing – and. NOT. get sidelined by other issues, most especially the “culture war” issues – because that allows the politicians working for the top 1% to escape. YOUR living standard has gone done because Americans fell into that trap. THE #1. factor behind the destruction of the 1947-73 golden age was: voters got stuck in voting on issues other than economics issues.
Go back to those pre and post-1980 income and tax tables: THAT is where the truth lies. It happened because rich and powerful people WANTED it to happen – and greased the skids with “campaign contributions” [legally laundered money].
*** “We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentration in the hands of a few. But we can’t have both.” [Justice Brandeis]
With Justice For All 