Which era I loathe most

[Backlighting]

Comparing the late '60s-early 70's with the status quo, with the intention of ascertaining which I loathe most, is no easy task. No need to outline here the current state of affairs, the manure is all around for those who choose to see (smell) it. Back in those "hippie days" we had LBJ's "Great (?) Society" programs, free love and the Vietnam War.

We had, what for me, was the most monumental assault on my individual rights, the Draft. I succumbed, rather than flee the country or do time in Federal prison. I was outgunned. Next up was Nixon's wage & price controls, I believe that was in '71. I hated what the country had become-an incoherent Socialist cesspool, or as AR called it, "a stagnant swamp".

Today I feel about the same as I did back then. Not much to feel optimistic about, except the fact I'm still above ground and engaged in activities I enjoy.

I keep up with the news of the day, only to be constantly reminded the cesspool grows deeper & the stench more offensive.

[Selene]

Amen Bro!

[syrakusos]

Ever hear of Jim Stumm? Google "Libertarian Jim Stumm" and follow some links. When President Nixon declared the wage and price freeze, Jim walked off his job at a bank. What did you do? (I was working in a factory already, so I had not much less productivity to seek at that point.) It was like living in Atlas Shrugged in many ways ... but what time was not?

I suppose it would be nice enough to live a "Groundhog's Day" in forever-1987 or forever-1995, your pick of the best "Reagan-Clinton" years with the national debt clock turned off, gold cheap, the space shuttle program active, promises on the horizon for the new millennium.

But the late-60s and early 70s were not all that bad, "Everything you wanted was legal and life was one big suitcase." (From "The Years in Your Ears," with Jim and Nellie Housafire from How Time Flies by Firesign Theater.)

Every era is what you make it. It is not so much the time as the place, and your own personal context. If you spun the wheel of Time Travel and landed in the Middle Ages with a purse of silver and the ability to speak a language, would you better or worse off than you are now. I think of the Great Fairs, the Oxford Calculators, We all just play the cards we are dealt.

Why think of the past? Which of the many futures you know from science fiction appeal to you most? How about Heinlein's Rolling Stones? The Lunar Revolution was won, the solar system was open for exploration... Maybe about the same context for Melissa Snograss's "Circuit" stories. In Asimov's Foundation trilogy, you could be a merchant prince at the rim of the galaxy. In the Asimov "Robot" novels, Earth is crowded and stressed, but colonization proceeds, and you could pick a Spacer world, being a lord on your own estate, though in his universe that stark individualism does not succeed.

When my wife calls me George, I sing back "... Jane, his wife..."

[Reidy]

Of the years in living memory (I didn't say mine), assuming the US, I'd pick the WW2 years. Even if you weren't at war, you lived with rationing, shortages and constant police surveillance. The general shabbiness of life in the early stages of Atlas Shrugged seems to come from Rand's experiences in the period.

[syrakusos]

... rationing, shortages and constant police surveillance. The general shabbiness of life ...

It was the last time Americans had class, when people wore suits to travel, and men removed their hats upon entering an elevator.

The war would be won and we would have a great new Art Deco future on the other side of it, as in Things to Come or Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. It depends on your experience. (And there were no shortages, objectively, in America, anyway. It was just propaganda for the war effort.)

[Backlighting]

Michael Marotta "But the late-60s and early 70s were not all that bad, "Everything you wanted was legal and life was one big suitcase." (From "The Years in Your Ears," with Jim and Nellie Housafire from How Time Flies by Firesign Theater.)"

Not that bad?

Being seized from one's home to fight & perhaps die in a war you may or may not support?

I can't think of anything more offensive to the concept of individual rights.

[PDS]

I would say the weltschmerz of today is quite similar to that of the 70's.

Perhaps a vote in favor of today being better is the immutable fact that there is less bad hair in the current era. Just barely.

[caroljane]

I agree with this, I remember a dingy hopeless feeling (I was in England for much of the early 70s). It was also however, the birth era of Monty Python, Dads Army, Steptoe etc,, so life was not all bad,

I also loathed the pre-fluoride era in my town because I had to go to the dentist.

[syrakusos]

Michael Marotta "But the late-60s and early 70s were not all that bad, "Everything you wanted was legal and life was one big suitcase." (From "The Years in Your Ears," with Jim and Nellie Housafire from How Time Flies by Firesign Theater.)"

Not that bad?

Being seized from one's home to fight & perhaps die in a war you may or may not support?

I can't think of anything more offensive to the concept of individual rights.

My uncles were drafted for World War II. My dad was drafted for Korea. Offensive as that was, we avoided the concentration camps into which the Japanese were put. (Like them, we had immigrated from nations with which the United States later found itself at war.) Of course, at least we were not Coloreds living in the South because then, even having served in the wars would not have purchased the right to vote, something perhaps even more offensive than whatever you can imagine. But I grant that offense, like preference, can be subjective.