Thread: Welcome to the Third World: AMERICA!

This writer pretty much sums it up!

Published: March 4, 2008

Welcome to the Third World: America

Jim Horn

When I was a boy growing up in a middle class blue collar neighborhood in the 1950s Minneapolis, I discovered pizza, a new cultural import from Italy.

There weren’t many imports around then. All of my neighbors worked, most in making things, a lot of which were exported. Aside from modified pizzas, the only other imports around were an occasional Volvo, a VW, one guy who drove a Messerschmitt, and cheap Japanese made trinkets and toys intermingled with French souvenirs, and Norwegian skis. Nearly everything was American made, and it was readily available to hard working Americans.



America was vibrant. We kids could go out at dawn and play until dusk unmonitored with little risk from predators. My teachers exercised corporal measures towards classroom miscreants. I did learn – I didn’t like the alternative – lumps on my head. If I complained at home, I just got whupped for acting up at school. My teachers were trusted – because they were trustworthy. They were honored and respected



America had won the Second World War. America had stopped the march of communism in Korea. With American support, the Greeks had beaten back the Communists, over there.



I graduated from high school in 1960 and went out into the world. I had a job the next day. There was no putzing around in and out of college for a half-dozen years. Many years have since passed. Our educational, religious, business (including unions), and political leaders have successfully dumbed down my wonderful America. They have created some of the greatest levels of institutionalized ineptitude, corruption, crime, and greed on earth. Real jobs have been exported. The once vibrant factories are relics. I am hard pressed to find Made in America products on the shelves.



President Truman retired to his modest Kansas home, and Ike retired to a small farm – neither of them terribly enriched by their stay in the White House. They were honorable and highly respected men.



Things have changed. t now costs a quarter of a billion dollars to buy – yes, to purchase “electionâ€

He nailed it, I would just add we must remove Wall Street from our government and setting foreign policy if not government will never do anything in favor of the American taxpayer.

Home Run!

Adventurers can travel all over the world searching for "resource extraction." No matter what people came here for previously, in the US in the last forty years the primary resource to be "extracted" is money. How many of our business leaders these days think "I want to make money but I also want to advance the American people." The motto of a lot of ordinary citizens has become "I'm getting mine." How many people put their own self-interest somewhere behind the common good in these time?

But I don't agree it has been all bad. The twentieth century saw huge wars and, only in the wake of those great prosperity. We've replaced that crazy cycle with careful, tense, tedious negotiations--but have, so far, avoided devastating wars. At least they are not so devastating in human cost--just in money. And the great world wars were not such glorious things either. They contributed seriously to degenerating American character and morals. The First World War saw a a lot of draft evaders deliberately contracting syphilis and paved the way for the decadent 1920's. . The Second World War vets came back hardened and cynical and gave rise to a generation of obnoxious, indulged brats. So our society has been spared the moral decay caused by really big conflicts--replaced with the existential uncertainty of the nuclear age.

What disturbs me is that the new generation of young adults. which has so far seemed to content itself with the virtual, electronic world, may change course and start lusting after hard, material items like previous generations have. But now, where will those items come from? I think it would mean an incredible level of imports and a seriously imbalanced foreign trade. I hope I'm wrong.

I remember the days when children went all over the nieghborhood after school and no one thought anything of it. I was a straight-A student and was PADDLED for chewing gum in the hall (a bit extreme I think, but imagine if that happened today!) On the other hand, the "Father Knows Best" mentality kept a lot of familial abuse hidden and I'm glad that cat got out of the bag. Most people I know who are very nostalgic for the pre-hippy period of this country weren't blacks or women. I especially take exception to the notion that people who go to college are "puttering around." His "heroes" in science got good educations - where does he think the computer and internet he is blogging on came from? High school grads who got a job the next day?
A lot of this article does make sense though. I've noticed a "dumbing down" in infrastructure as well - when you try to get something done or fixed you're often fobbed off to someone on the phone who hasn't done the job very long and wasn't trained well and doesn't know anyone to go to for the answers since they were likely laid off. Experience with your coworkers and company operations is now too often viewed as a negative; you aren't experienced, you're "old" and in need of replacing like a widget.