Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghostvette
Re: Civil War/War of Northern Aggression we can save this discussion when we can sit down over an adult beverage or two.  Your points are valid and I understand them. It's difficult to look at past history without adding in what we've learned since then.
Re: Nature & politics; I agree. We had a strong nation, which enabled us to do what we did post WWII economically and in the rest of the world. But somewhere between Korea & Vietnam, we got lead astray. We got weak as a nation, post Vietnam, which lead to the November 1979 takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran and 65 American hostages. Then came the Reagan years and an increased respect for the US. National fortunes rise and fall like the tides, but right now we seem to be on the slippery slope to a place we might not be able to recover from. Instead of trying to unite the country, people 'in power' are doing everything they can to divide the nation by race, economic status and wealth. They are trying to cause a Civil War. Common sense is absent in Foggy Bottom and in the corporate board rooms. Common sense says that if you work outside/drive a truck, your exposure to others is very limited, but that level of 'common sense' has been removed. Over exposure to the talking heads on TV and corporate CEOs 'virtue signalling' is killing us as a nation.
/rant |
Ok, I feel like I missed/glossed over some of the economic stuff in my first part of my rebuttal but it’s good enough for 5am.
Edit, I will add one last thought re economic factors in creating angst, the increasing shrinking of the middle and working class has made many folks feel like the American dream we were sold that every generation is a bit better off than the last etc is dying.
Second factor for some feeling we are in decline, social changes:
So what’s the biggest thing that happened between the Korean and Vietnam wars? Well, the 60s happened, and that means we’re talking about the civil rights movement and then in the 70s, the beginning of the gay rights movement. The 90s and 2000s brought the trans rights movement as well.
Oh, and of course women’s liberation movement of the late 60s and 70s.
As the decades have gone on, the number of non Anglo European whites in this country has increased as well.
Now, if you see the stuff I just listed above as bad, then you think we as a nation are in decline and our values and culture are changing for the worse and things were better in the old days.
If, however, you are black, Hispanic (like yours truly), a woman, or LGBTQ, then the country is better now because the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness applies more equally to you now than on the past.
It’s easy to say you support equal rights for everyone when there’s very few that are different than you and you and yours dominate the cultural landscape. You gotta actually put your money where your mouth is when that means your power/popular culture is lessening and now sharing space with others. Aka, we are now truly becoming a multi ethnic and racial etc society— aka less white, less christian, less heterosexual.
The “make America great again” slogan was NEVER about economic return to 50s so called greatness, it was completely about returning to a old American culture from that era that favored straight white, christian men. — those folks get to play in the meritocracy and everyone else fights for the leftover scraps.
The changing of the cultural landscape has only been accelerating over the last 20 years even faster, it’s made many white, conservative leaning Midwest and southern folks feel like their country isn’t theirs anymore, that they don’t count as much anymore. And to be fair, a lot of the unfair privileges this group took for granted at the expense of the other groups I listed above ARE gone now. Now, more and more straight, white, conservative men have to compete in a world that is ACTUALLY more of a true meritocracy vs just amongst each other.
You said we got lead astray and got weak as a nation somewhere between Korean War and Vietnam.
I don’t agree with that at all, I firmly believe that as we increase the number of Americans who can truly have access to the right to life, liberty and the persuit of happiness equally fairly and justly, then we as a nation are better for it.
If you want all Americans to stop being so divided and come together more (as do I), then you have to support equality for all LGBTQ, black, Hispanic, women, non Christians etc so we can finally move past some groups of Americans being second class citizens and we can all focus on figuring out how to make our new economic/technological system work fairly for everyone.
PS- the only people I’ve seen ACTUALLY trying to start a civil war are the mostly white conservative men like the ones who attacked the capitol in an attempted insurrection on Jan 6.