Aha! If you click in the Comments box FIRST, then click on a Reply, Blogger opens the Reply box for you!
Alan, that's a good article. Anyone would feel a trifle blue after reading it, but it speaks truth. Interesting that Packer mentions Newt Gingrich's agenda and changes in the banking industry as top reasons for our nation's decline. Why we're left feeling blue is that he never speaks to what we might do now to turn things around!
I am going to send this article to Nurse Teri and to Susan Elliot, both of whom will be with Howard Dean on Saturday evening at the private Staff party. If one of them gives it to him, perhaps he will respond to it. Hope! Thanks for posting this timely article.
I don't buy it. Essentially he loses me in the second paragraph. His idyllic description of the half-century prior to 1978 doesn't match my memories of the 1940s and 1950s or my parents' descriptions of the preceding decades. And he mentions "stagflation," which was the result of Nixon's response to the FIRST oil crisis earlier in the decade. Indeed, he doesn't mention the oil crises at all, even though they were probably the crucial events of the 1970s and set the stage for much of what happened later.
I similarly don't get a sense of historical validity to his description of what occurred later. All these things happened, but at different times. And I don't have quite the same sense of a common dynamic, perhaps because my sense of what things were like when I was a kid and young adult just entering the work force doesn't match his view of that period.
Perhaps part of the difference is that I believe historical trends oscillate. Or spiral, if you prefer that metaphor. He tips his hat to the idea that what we are seeing is a return to the American norm. But my view is that what we saw in the 1960s was the end to one swing of the pendulum. It has now swung back the other way. But at some point -- perhaps fairly soon -- the return swing will begin.
"Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean energizes delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times / July 27, 2004)"
Huzzah for Howard!
ReplyDeleteDecline and fall: how American society unravelled [Click] Dystopian, yes; unfair or unrealistic? Doesn't seem like it. But I am tired and consequently a trifle blue.
--Alan
Aha! If you click in the Comments box FIRST, then click on a Reply, Blogger opens the Reply box for you!
DeleteAlan, that's a good article. Anyone would feel a trifle blue after reading it, but it speaks truth. Interesting that Packer mentions Newt Gingrich's agenda and changes in the banking industry as top reasons for our nation's decline. Why we're left feeling blue is that he never speaks to what we might do now to turn things around!
I am going to send this article to Nurse Teri and to Susan Elliot, both of whom will be with Howard Dean on Saturday evening at the private Staff party. If one of them gives it to him, perhaps he will respond to it. Hope! Thanks for posting this timely article.
I don't buy it. Essentially he loses me in the second paragraph. His idyllic description of the half-century prior to 1978 doesn't match my memories of the 1940s and 1950s or my parents' descriptions of the preceding decades. And he mentions "stagflation," which was the result of Nixon's response to the FIRST oil crisis earlier in the decade. Indeed, he doesn't mention the oil crises at all, even though they were probably the crucial events of the 1970s and set the stage for much of what happened later.
DeleteI similarly don't get a sense of historical validity to his description of what occurred later. All these things happened, but at different times. And I don't have quite the same sense of a common dynamic, perhaps because my sense of what things were like when I was a kid and young adult just entering the work force doesn't match his view of that period.
Perhaps part of the difference is that I believe historical trends oscillate. Or spiral, if you prefer that metaphor. He tips his hat to the idea that what we are seeing is a return to the American norm. But my view is that what we saw in the 1960s was the end to one swing of the pendulum. It has now swung back the other way. But at some point -- perhaps fairly soon -- the return swing will begin.
Howard in San Jose:
ReplyDeleteDecline and fall: how American society unravelled [Click]
--Alan
Oops--try again. Howard in San Jose:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-howard-dean-obama-spying-20130619,0,2142091.story
--Alan
P.S.: I really must get the template for clickable posts on this laptop.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-howard-dean-obama-spying-20130619,0,2142091.story
DeleteOMG! In the photo with this article, Howard is wearing The Whale Tie!!!!
DeleteBecause the pic was taken in 2004?
Delete"Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean energizes delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times / July 27, 2004)"
Yes, exactly why. But it is so hard to FIND a photo with the whale tie anymore!
DeleteDean sighting!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FhW4XmSzVcA
>
Dean article:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/06/20/us/ap-us-howard-dean-anniversary.html?hp&_r=1&