Have we progressed?

Before the Civil Rights movement in the 60s, blacks were discriminated against but had an 80% literacy rate. Now while discrimination still exists, it's much less and the literacy rate is somewhere around 35% . Is this progress?

Before the women's movement women were discriminated against and didn't have much choice when getting a job. Now while discrimination still exists, women can get any job they want, but the average American family now needs two incomes to stay in the middle class. Is this progress?

Before the gay/lesbian movement gays and lesbians were discriminated against, but most people never thought about it and gays and lesbians didn't get raked over the coals in divorce court. Once gays and lesbians can marry (it will happen someday) someone will be paying alimony. Is this progress?

It use to be that students would start their day with the pledge of allegiance and by praying and all they had to worry about was someone shooting spitballs at them. Now students are free from religion (instead of freedom of religion) and they have to worry about someone shooting bullets at them. Is this progress?.

I'm going to be preaching to part of the choir here, but LBJ's Great Society was the WORST thing ever for this country.

I don't care how one slices the cake, we aren't all equal.

Trav can describe buildings we were in 4 or 5 years ago. Jumper can run. AL can slice atoms or make time machines (anyone ever notice that she's strangely silent on exactly WHAT she does? Hmmm....)

We're all different. We all come to the table with different skills.

Being 50 with three adult daughters, two that I gave birth to and one by marriage, I'm glad that women now have more opportunites. But I will stand by my opinion that a woman cannot have a career and children, without one or the other suffering.

If I had my way, the feminists would just shut TFU. The point has been made.

If I had my way, the poverty pimps would disappear.

If I had my way, folks of different orientation (as long as it doesn't involve children or animals) would be left alone.

Please vote now for me as Queen of the Universe.

That's where I get so frustrated. A society with our technological and educational capacity should be a virtual utopia. Not perfect, of course, but close, and more importantly, getting closer every day.

But that's just it. We're not getting closer. We're going the other way.

At least Howard is going satellite....

Thank you to the previous 3 for stating so accurately what I could not. Verbal is not my strong suit.

[img]graemlins/sleepy.gif[/img]

We have progressed in many ways. The high divorce rate is one area that is often cited as a bad thing. But consider the women who were shunned for divorcing men who broke their bones or brought a new veneral disease home every six months. Of course some loonies like Brittney take it too far, but overall I don't see the wisdom in forcing people who hate each other to spend the rest of their lives under one roof. [img]graemlins/gulp.gif[/img] And yes, when gays have to suffer the pains of divorce, that will be progress from the good ol' days of "blanket parties", but relax it still goes on.

As to folks requiring two incomes to get along, keep in mind our standard of living is much higher than it was 50 years ago. One bedroom per child, not 3 children per bed, one car per parent and child over 15, air conditioning in house AND cars, college funds for children, massive entertainment centers, large music and video collections, cable TV internet telephone and cellphone services, and so on.

Eschew all of these modern conveniences, move your family into a two bedroom apartment without air conditioning, take the bus to work, and you can live on one income just like they did in the 50's...

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Originally posted by travelinman:
Before the Civil Rights movement in the 60s, blacks were discriminated against but had an 80% literacy rate. Now while discrimination still exists, it's much less and the literacy rate is somewhere around 35% . Is this progress?

Before the women's movement women were discriminated against and didn't have much choice when getting a job. Now while discrimination still exists, women can get any job they want, but the average American family now needs two incomes to stay in the middle class. Is this progress?

Before the gay/lesbian movement gays and lesbians were discriminated against, but most people never thought about it and gays and lesbians didn't get raked over the coals in divorce court. Once gays and lesbians can marry (it will happen someday) someone will be paying alimony. Is this progress?

It use to be that students would start their day with the pledge of allegiance and by praying and all they had to worry about was someone shooting spitballs at them. Now students are free from religion (instead of freedom of religion) and they have to worry about someone shooting bullets at them. Is this progress?.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I...I don't even know where to begin on this one...it's a jaw dropper. Go figure that this would make sense to Lake.

Are you making a connection between Civil Rights and illiteracy?

Are you making a connection that equal rights for women has resulted in two income families, and that if we kept women in the home baking cookies, we wouldn't have the need for two income families?

Are you saying the reason gays shouldn't marry is because straights have fucked up marriage so much that it's just not worth it?

I have a lot more to say, but I think this is enough for now.

<font color="#000002" size="1">[ October 08, 2004 07:57 AM: Message edited by: reason ]</font>

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Before the women's movement women were discriminated against and didn't have much choice when getting a job. Now while discrimination still exists, women can get any job they want, but the average American family now needs two incomes to stay in the middle class. Is this progress?

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ahhh....you mean before two car garages and SUV's? Before central air? Before automatic dishwashers, vcr's, wide screen televisions and fancy stereos? Before McMansions and vacation homes? Before ubiquitous fast food and routine dining out? Before a host of luxury items now available to the middle class?

It depends on your definition of progress.

We make things and create things to make our lives simpler, yet often times those same things make our lives more complex.

Who hasnt spent ten minutes looking for the remote instead of just walking over and turning on the tv manually LOL!

Just think about this, You can run an afternoon worth of errands without leaving your car.
You can get lunch, wash the car, pick up your dry cleaning, go to the drugstore, get some ice cream or baked goods, drop off your library books, go to the bank... all by using drive throughs.

[img]tongue.gif[/img] [img]cool.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img]

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Originally posted by travelinman:
Reason,

Please read my first post. I didn't say anything. I posted facts and asked questions.


I put the gay question in just for you, it really doesn?t apply [img]wink.gif[/img]

<font color="#000002"><font size="1">[ October 08, 2004 12:20 PM: Message edited by: travelinman ]</font></font>

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I know your MO. But I don't really care what the intent was, I'm going to play along.

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And with all this, the Democrats are telling me that the middle class is not as financially well off as we use to be.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm not sure where to begin, but the gap between rich and poor has been growing since the early 80's, and the middle class is bearing a greater portion of the tax burden in the last four years. And record numbers of people are ininsured.

But there is always the other side of the story. More people today are uninsured than ever before, but a higher percentage were uninsured under Clinton, around 1996. The problem is that the trend under Bush has been steadily up and it appears Bush will surpase Clinton's record if the status quo is maintained..

Then there's the issue of the wealthy middle class. True, the middle class has more things. Growing up, the automatic dishwasher was me, my two brothers and my sister. We had no air conditioning, despite me and my two brothers sleeping in a stifling attic. We had one car (no airconditioning), we rarely ate out - even fast food. A trip out of town was a big deal.

Yeah we buy more today, but a lot of things are cheaper. Adjusted for inflation the cost of food is dirt cheap and takes up a smaller portion of our income. Automobiles are less expensive than they used to be, adjusted for inflation. The same is true for all sorts of other goods - electronics, clothing, etc. That's the beauty of increasing productivity - we can buy more with less.

<font color="#000002" size="1">[ October 08, 2004 04:35 PM: Message edited by: reason ]</font>

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Yeah we buy more today, but a lot of things are cheaper. Adjusted for inflation the cost of food is dirt cheap and takes up a smaller portion of our income. Automobiles are less expensive than they used to be, adjusted for inflation. The same is true for all sorts of other goods - electronics, clothing, etc. That's the beauty of increasing productivity - we can buy more with less

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'd like a show of hands here. Who (besides Trav) was given a car on his/her 16th birthday? Who has been past a high school parking lot lately? Way back in the day when I was in HS, the kids who had cars had clunkers. Now, it's damned near criminal for a kid to drive last year's SUV.

In my mind, the middle class has pretty much decided that things my parents saw as luxuries are now necessities.

For as much as we watch it, Trav and I don't need the TV we have. We don't need the dish. Or the DVD player. Or two computers. They're wants, not needs.

Going back a few posts, I will equate the Civil Rights movement with illiteracy. Before LBJ told everyone that all American's should have the same standard of living, and before welfare was created, poor people in this country were proud and worked hard. They may have had litte to show for it at the end of the day, but there was still pride in a job well done.

<s>Satan</s> LBJ came along and decided that everyone should be equal, and ByGod, if you didn't want to work, you shouldn't have to. Black, white, green, purple, whatever... welfare promotes dependency on the gubmit.

Prior to the Civil Rights movement, poor folks took great pride in being able to read. Since the 60's, there is a "so what" mentality. The check will come very month, so why bother?

I KNOW whereof I speak. My last husband was from an Applacian white trash family. Why work when you can get "paid" for doing nothing?

I disagree. It's a choice you make. Right now there are 3 or 4 design firms I could call and have a job with a minimum of a 40% increase before I got off the phone. Why don't I do this you may ask, especially since I think Cincinnati is such a backwater.

Because they are all located in the Philly and New York area. I would be expected to maintain a certain life style, attend evening business functions, work 60 hour weeks, cut my hair and put on a suit every day. It's all BS. It's a great big rat race that most Americans have bought into.

Take a look around most Americans homes and tell me that need all the crap they have laying around.

<font color="#000002" size="1">[ October 08, 2004 03:49 PM: Message edited by: gae ]</font>

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Originally posted by travelinman:
I disagree. It's a choice you make. Right now there are 3 or 4 design firms I could call and have a job with a minimum of a 40% increase before I got off the phone. Why don't I do this you may ask, especially since I think Cincinnati is such a backwater.

Because they are all located in the Philly and New York area. I would be expected to maintain a certain life style, attend evening business functions, work 60 hour weeks, cut my hair and put on a suit every day. It's all BS. It's a great big rat race that most Americans have bought into.

Take a look around most Americans homes and tell me that need all the crap they have laying around.

<font color="#000002"><font size="1">[ October 08, 2004 03:49 PM: Message edited by: gae ]</font></font>

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You would need to make double in NYC to maintain the your material lifestyle. Your house alone could bring maybe $160,000 on the market. To buy something similar 15 minutes from midtown Manhattan would cost at least six or seven times that amount.

What you say reminds me of a salesman from Morgan Stanley who visited my company. At lunch, he explained why he moved to Chicago from New York City.

He bought a million dollar home in Connecticut - it was ancient...and it was a fixer upper.

The ride into the city was 2 hours. Of course, so was the ride back. Then there was the after hours obligations that would keep him in the city well into the evening.

It was all a quality of life thing.

<font color="#000002" size="1">[ October 08, 2004 04:45 PM: Message edited by: reason ]</font>

Trav claims he was merely stating facts in his first post.

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Before the gay/lesbian movement gays and lesbians were discriminated against, but most people never thought about it and gays and lesbians didn't get raked over the coals in divorce court. Once gays and lesbians can marry (it will happen someday) someone will be paying alimony. Is this progress?

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">However this glosses over past sins in saying "most" people didn't think about it. Correct, but it just means common folk didn't give a shit about fags getting beaten up every weekend outside of gay bars. Remember one of the favorite trix of the Cincy Police Dept. was to arrest a drunk for jaywalking across the street from a gay bar, then beat the crap out of him for "resisting arrest". That shit stopped only when AIDS came a calling.

The talk about gay divorce is not factual, it is pure speculation since it has not happened. I hope it does one day, why should they avoid the pain others enjoy?

I'm jealous, wouldn't it be great to be able to say to the chick that is bugging you to marry, "Hon, I'd love ta marry you, but it's friggin illegal!" [img]graemlins/angel.gif[/img]

I could be wrong, but the following smells like the right wing propensity for MSU. (Making Shit Up)

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Before the Civil Rights movement in the 60s, blacks were discriminated against but had an 80% literacy rate. Now while discrimination still exists, it's much less and the literacy rate is somewhere around 35% .

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Originally posted by LanDroid:
Trav claims he was merely stating facts in his first post.
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Before the gay/lesbian movement gays and lesbians were discriminated against, but most people never thought about it and gays and lesbians didn't get raked over the coals in divorce court. Once gays and lesbians can marry (it will happen someday) someone will be paying alimony. Is this progress?

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Remember one of the favorite trix of the Cincy Police Dept. was to arrest a drunk for jaywalking across the street from a gay bar, then beat the crap out of him for "resisting arrest". That shit stopped only when AIDS came a calling. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Source???

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I could be wrong, but the following smells like the right wing propensity for MSU. (Making Shit Up)

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">

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Before the Civil Rights movement in the 60s, blacks were discriminated against but had an 80% literacy rate. Now while discrimination still exists, it's much less and the literacy rate is somewhere around 35% .

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">[/QUOTE]

Year Total White Black and other
Total Native Foreign-born
1870 20.0 11.5 - - 79.9
1880 17.0 9.4 8.7 12.0 70.0
1890 13.3 7.7 6.2 13.1 56.8
1900 10.7 6.2 4.6 12.9 44.5
1910 7.7 5.0 3.0 12.7 30.5
1920 6.0 4.0 2.0 13.1 23.0
1930 4.3 3.0 1.6 10.8 16.4
1940 2.9 2.0 1.1 9.0 11.5
1947 2.7 1.8 - - 11.0
1950 3.2 - - - -
1952 2.5 1.8 - - 10.2
1959 2.2 1.6 - - 7.5
1969 1.0 0.7 - - 3.6*
1979 0.6 0.4 - - 1.6*

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Based on black population only
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970; and Current Population Reports, Series P-23, Ancestry and Language in the United States: November 1979. (This table was prepared in September 1992

Source

I'm sure those stats are part of the vast right wing conspiracy, aren't they Lan?

Oh, to be sure, there has been some fantastic development. I think of sanitation, for example. Think about how much better of a job we do in handling waste now than say even 20 years ago.

Medicine, of course, has made unbelievable strides. Look at how commonplace lasik surgery has become, which makes us forget just how remarkable a procedure that it is.

But as for our SOCIETAL development....yes, there has been progress in many areas, but a lot of failures, too, and they are inexcusable. My mom taught for 38 years in the hood, and she can vouch that the kids in the early 60s were better students than any of the subsequent decades. You walk around the UC campus today, you see so many mindless drones. Yeah, they all know how to log-on, but try asking them articulate a well-reasoned argument, supported by logic. Dum bastards.

Reason,

Please read my first post. I didn't say anything. I posted facts and asked questions.


I put the gay question in just for you, it really doesn?t apply [img]wink.gif[/img]

<font color="#000002" size="1">[ October 08, 2004 12:20 PM: Message edited by: travelinman ]</font>

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Originally posted by LanDroid:
As to folks requiring two incomes to get along, keep in mind our standard of living is much higher than it was 50 years ago. One bedroom per child, not 3 children per bed, one car per parent and child over 15, air conditioning in house AND cars, college funds for children, massive entertainment centers, large music and video collections, cable TV internet telephone and cellphone services, and so on.

Eschew all of these modern conveniences, move your family into a two bedroom apartment without air conditioning, take the bus to work, and you can live on one income just like they did in the 50's...

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I keep hearing about how the gap between the middle class and the rich keeps getting larger, how the middle class is getting poorer. It all BS. Growing up my parents were in the higher middle class. I had a boat when I was 8, but it was a 10-foot wood rowboat with a 3 hp engine that I had to spin around to go in reverse. We had one car, one black and white TV no AC and I wore Converse sneakers. My Mother was there when I got home from school and the only way to call her was with a pay phone. I had a home cooked meal with my family almost every day.

Move forward 43 years. I would have an 18-foot ski boat with a 200 hp engine $1000s of ski and wake board equipment. We would have a car for my Father and a minivan or SUV for my Mother. We would have three TVs (one home theater) and I would be wearing the latest Air Jordan?s. I would be home alone after school calling my dealer from our air-conditioned hot tub because my Mother wouldn?t get home from work with the fast food until 6:30. I would never see my Father because he would be working all the time when he wasn?t on the golf course or out with his mistress. And with all this, the Democrats are telling me that the middle class is not as financially well off as we use to be.

Give me a fucking break.

<font color="#000002" size="1">[ October 08, 2004 02:55 PM: Message edited by: travelinman ]</font>

Those stats are good, GAE, but I think you're reading it backwards. The title is "Percentage of persons 14 years old and over who were illiterate (unable to read or write in any language), by race and nativity: 1870 to 1979". The chart means the illiteracy rate for blacks in 1979 was only 1.6%! This proves my assmumption about Trav's statement being yet another case of right wing MSU (MAKING SHIT UP!).

LAN,

The gay "fact' wasn't a fact at all. see Reason's and my side conversation.

Actually everything I posted was opinion. If I was posting "facts" I would have provided a source.

After more then 5 years of this I thought you knew me better. [img]graemlins/party.gif[/img]

<font color="#000002" size="1">[ October 10, 2004 07:04 AM: Message edited by: travelinman ]</font>

You've called it both fact and opinion, I call it MSU.

Fact is, we are making progress. [img]graemlins/island.gif[/img]

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Originally posted by LanDroid:
You've called it both fact and opinion, I call it MSU.

Fact is, we are making progress. [img]graemlins/island.gif[/img]

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I called it facts when talking to Reason. See him and I have a special relationship. [img]wink.gif[/img]