I think people during the Great Depression had it better than us.

[Breeze54]

They didn't have TV and have to hear, if you turn it on, the repeating of the same scary phrases...

Economic melt down

Economic freeze

Credit crunch/freeze

Massive lay offs

Homelessness rising

Bailouts for the rich, none for those struggling

The new poor

Foreclosure's running rampant

Financial crisis

Dismal holiday season

etc., etc., etc.

~~~~~


Feel free to add any you may have heard.

[ixion]

1. They had radio... and their imagination

probably equally as bad, if not worse.

[Breeze54]

6. Maybe but I doubt the many homeless back then had access to a radio.

Just sayin'.

:hi:

[Frances]

39. Many people did not own a radio

My husband says his father had a radio and people would come to his house to listen to the radio when something big was on (like a boxing match).

In the South (see To Kill a Mockingbird) many people in the winter time subsisted on biscuits and syrup made from sugar cane that they grew themselves.

Jimmy Carter's family was much better off than most but he still ate possum.

When I lived in Boston in the 60s a man told me that he and his brothers took turns going to school because they had only one pair of shoes.

In the South, again according to Jimmy Carter, kids went to school barefoot.

I don't think people born after the 50s can imagine what the Depression was like.

When I saw the relatively recent film Pearl Harbor, I immediately said that the actors looked too healthy and strong to be convincing to me. I forget what the rate was but many men failed their physicals in World War II because they were malnourished.

[Breeze54]

45. That's what I'm saying... they didn't have a radio, so were spared the crap from the M$M.

My parents lived through the depression.

It was terrible for them too, from what they told me.

[Cleita]

85. They also had a lot of print media, more so than today.

You didn't have to buy a newspaper if you couldn't afford one, because people threw them away as fast as they read them, so you could always pick up discarded ones. Throwing trash on the streets wasn't such a big deal then. Also, most cities had several main newspapers that printed both morning and evening editions, something you never see today. The papers were hawked by newsboys who shouted the headlines, so it wasn't like everyone was in a new's vacuum. Sometimes I think people were better informed back then than they are today with the steady stream of TV news pablum.

[Idealism]

2. No offense, but you should revisit that era

before you talk about how good they had it. Thousands waiting in soup lines is not preferable to having a TV tuned to a news channel, nor is sleeping on a dirt floor.

[Breeze54]

4. Wow! Do you not understand the difference between mass media then and now?!

Many back then didn't even have radio's or cars with radio's.

I don't need to 'go back there'. I heard all about it from my parents.

[GirlinContempt]

109. Not having to hear some phrases

doesn't mean you have it better.

You could go to a third world country and find people without TVs, radios, newspapers, etc, and I doubt they'd agree that they have it better than Americans now.

This is silly. Hearing crap on the TV or radio is worse than people building towns of cardboard boxes ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooverville )and 20% unemployment and like 56% of pre-depression income?

You can not be serious.

[Donnachaidh]

3. the news isn't reporting the HALF of it.

And the folks during the depression at least had some concerns for their neighbors. They also had some self-restraint - they new how to squeeze a dollar.

Years of being brainwashed into buying every single gizmo and plastic piece of crap, as well as the *I gotta have it NOW* attitude is going to have a much harder impact. You're going to see a whole lot of people getting a GRIM wake-up call.

[Breeze54]

7. I agree with you. The lack of empathy today is appalling.

:(

:hi:

[cliffordu]

5. Actually they did have it easier in one respect - that was energy was still

extremely cheap - so the New Deal was doable.......(Of course the war helped) but still, I don't know if we can dig out very soon or even at all......

[Breeze54]

8. We'll dig out... eventually. I have hope.

I was just thinking about the mass media today vs back then.

:hi:

[cliffordu]

10. Yep - you're right - I wasn't trying to hijack the thread, Honest!!

[Breeze54]

13. ROTFFLMFAO!!

:P

:rofl:

[cliffordu]

29. Anything I can do to help......

:hi:

[Fed_Up_Grammy]

18. Energy was cheap? Related to what?

[Breeze54]

22. Related to how much money you had and what you could afford.

Just like nowadays. ;)

[Fed_Up_Grammy]

30. How much money you had and how much you could afford

related to everything in those days,not just energy costs.

Everyone knew the price of a ton of coal-----it was tough going.

[Breeze54]

49. Exactly and it's the same today.

:hi:

[cliffordu]

34. no - I'm talking about the expense of major rebuilding projects by the fedgov.

oil was the least of their worries -

Now, the uptick in consumption will give the oil companies license to gouge the shit out of all of us again.....

[Breeze54]

50. You said 'energy', so I went with that.

:hi:

[cliffordu]

53. kool!!

We're all good..

:hi:

[cliffordu]

25. oil was domestic and cheap for the engines of the machines used to build the interstates,

the national parks and the infrastructure that the New Deal depended on to kick start the economy.


Obama is talking about a new infrastucture rebuild (which I firmly believe needs to be done) but it might be too expensive to do it.

I believe it will be too expensive NOT to, but I have my doubts as to whether it can be done.

[Fed_Up_Grammy]

33. We were discussing the thirties,not the fifties,

[cliffordu]

36. And the answer is: What was the WPA??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration


OK, OK, not the interstates, the roads.....

[GirlinContempt]

110. Yeah, that's why people were hooking their cars up to

horses and living in cardboard boxes.

[FedUpWithIt All]

9. I would rather know and be able to prepare...if only mentally. Cannot imagine being blindsided. n/t

[Breeze54]

12. That's one way of looking at it. ~ 'Knowledge is the key to success'....

or something like that. I remember now....

"Knowledge is power."

:hi:

You make a lot of sense. ;)

[RagAss]

11. Not to mention the Drs. who would treat children for whatever the parents could afford.

[Breeze54]

16. That was sooo cool!! Some still do it, but not many...

:(

Cripes! Now you can't even be treated without insurance and if you have it? Good luck finding a doctor! And if you go to the ER, you have to sign either an agreement to pay or a form that states you're indigent. How undignified is that? Poor, hurting and then they add insult to injury. :(

[RagAss]

21. Yup....Barbaric treatment is the norm now.

[knitter4democracy]

97. There still are some who do.

My favorite pediatrician did that when the SCHIP program got dropped by her hospital just a couple of months before we were moving out of state, and she told us she'd see our daughter for free if anything came up in that time.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. They understood what was going on better

and had a better idea of how the economy worked

Never mind that they had LESS formal education

[Breeze54]

17. Maybe some did but I doubt the masses did at all... at first.

:hi: nadinbrzezinski !

[AndrewP]

20. like that waving smiley

:hi:

[Breeze54]

24. LOL ! - Welcome to DU, AndrewP !

:hi:

:P

edited to add an 'i'

He,he,he!

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. Talked to some really old people

and they knew they were getting screwed by the rich and that they had to organize to work

These days we know we are getting screwed by the rich, but see all those people talking antiunion talk...

[Breeze54]

27. That really blows. The Mass Media and all it's anti anything democratic really sucks.

:(

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. Exactly, and why I think all that educamation is not helping

it is not designed to Teach actual useful stuff, I concluded, like oh the history of labor

You do not want people knowing WHY they need a union

This is a union home, I get to see some of the dark side (locally it is very badly run), but it is better than not having one

[jwirr]

44. I was born in 1941 and my parents and both sets of grandparents

lived to tell me about the depression. They were common farm families who did not own the land but worked it for others. If they knew what was going on then most did. There were radios - at least someone in the neighborhood had one, newspapers that were passed around, hobos who stopped at the door for something to eat in return for work and talked about what they had seen. I think the difference in the media today and then is the commentators - they all too often tell us what to think. Then they were told what the facts were and let to think on their own.

[Breeze54]

46. I agree.... that's what I'm trying to say. Thank You!!

:D

Word of mouth was probably the way back then, more than anything.

And yes, to any that want to belabor the point.

I know they had radio's. :eyes:

I'm not 17 years old!! :rofl:

[nadinbrzezinski]

51. Your parents never heard of Father Coughlin?

The Rush of the times that is

[jwirr]

93. Actually no they listened to the usual - FDR's fireside chats, sit-cons, etc.

So what was all about? Where was he located?

[jwirr]

100. I looked him up in Wiki and one reason we would not have listened to

him is his catholic religion. The article also said he was a supporter of FDR and the New Deal until we went to war with Germany. By that time almost everyone in our area had a radio and hated the anti-FDR stuff.

[lurky]

15. So, you're a victim of another Great Depression...

Here's your family:


Here's your home:


Here's your neighborhood:


Here's your dinner (if you're lucky):



Really, you think you have it worse?

Let's hope Obama can bring some sanity to our financial system and prevent this from happening again.

[Breeze54]

19. No, I didn't say I have it worse, did I? I'm talking about MASS MEDIA !!!

Jesus Christ on a pogo stick!! :banghead:

But you know what? During the Reagan years and Clinton year or so?

I and my kids were homeless!!!

So.. byte me.

[Mojorabbit]

41. Everytime I see that pic of the family

the lady on the right at the end creeps me out. She has really creepy eyes.

[Breeze54]

59. More like over worked and then over worked again... sad eyes with lots of pain.

:(

[backscatter712]

78. We haven't hit bottom yet...

If this shit keeps up, today's generation may very well end up living in Bushvilles...

[gravity]

26. The were too busy waiting in bread lines in tattered clothes

We still have a long ways to go before it is to the Great Depression

[pecwae]

106. No shit!

This comparison is ridiculous in the extreme.

[Sheepshank]

28. I can't imagine it's worse now

Because there is more media info now, you assume that back then they didn't notice 30% unemployment? People didn't notice the fallout (first hand) from all that unemployment? I hope you're not serious.

Life then was without excesses anyway, there was little wiggle room to give up luxuries. Today, there's unemployment and many at least have a 401K to tap into...there was non of that stuff back then. So I can't buy a new tv, new car, new coat, filet mignon for a while...boo hoo.

[Breeze54]

48. We're at the beginning of this and I was comparing the Mass Media of today to then.

So? Yes, I'm serious. They weren't barraged, day in and day out, by the M$M scare tactics of today.

That's all I'm saying.

JMO, YMMV

[amandabeech]

31. My Mom and Dad lived through the depression. It scarred them for life.

My Dad's gone now, but my mom is very fearful, and her batchelor brother will lose part of his pension and health insurance now that it looks like GM is going down.

None of me or my cousins is doing as well as we were a few years ago. Companies don't seem to like to hire those over 50, and none of us are really entrepeneurs.

Now we're all joking around about how we'll buy up some old mobile homes, park them around the big old farm house on the family farm, which the family almost lost in the depression.

None of us has farmed, so my ancient uncle needs to live long enough to teach us how to do it.

Talk about mid-life career transitions . . . Old MacDonald still has a farm.

[nadinbrzezinski]

35. My brother in law and I have talked about it

selling the houses, buying a farm and surviving this by substincence farming. We half joke now, but that is something I'd consider if it wasn't for a series of other reasons

[roamer65]

38. LOL...I had the same talk with my parents this last weekend.

Move the double wide up next to them and go into farming again if/when this gets really bad.

[Breeze54]

40. Thanks for sharing your story. I hope things get better,

I'm in the same boat... almost.

No one wants to hire anyone over 50. :grr:

At least you all have each other. That's a good thing!! :D

:hug:

[amandabeech]

42. Thanks. Really, I'm thinking about writing a resume that says I'm 46.

I'm only a little over, but with the right hair, clothes and makeup, I could pass, especially if I could lose 10 lbs.

I'd be curious if it made any difference.

[Breeze54]

47. Don't even mention age in your resume!!!

Besides, it's against the law to discriminate in employment based on age.

Just go in and apply looking all cute and fresh and energetic!! You'll do fine!! :D

[dysfunctional press]

61. "joking about how we'll buy up some old mobile homes, park them around the big old farm house..."

that actually sounds like heaven to me...instead of joking, i'd be seriously considering it.
i have a friend in i.t. who just lost his job- and if he goes too long without one, he could well lose his house. my wife and i have already told him that he nad his family would be welcome to share ours, as we have the room. i definitely see tough times ahead, and communal living situations for more and more people.

[kiranon]

37. No, they didn't. My parents went through it and it was awful.

All their dreams were wiped out. They worked for hardly anything when they could and still had nothing. To my father's dying day, he always left the car unlocked when he had groceries in it. He said that if someone took the food they needed it more than he did. It wasn't having a TV or a radio; it was having something to eat for themselves and their families.

[dysfunctional press]

43. that's kind of...well...ridiculous.

they had newspapers and radio- but they often had no idea what was going on in other countries, other states, or even other counties. there were lots of rumours- which can be A LOT scarier than the truth.
between television and the internet, we have a much more connected society- hopefully that will play to our advantage.

[davidthegnome]

52. While I'm way too young

for the great depression, and even my Father was born at the end of it... I do know a little bit about it.  I personally agree that, had they had television, it would have been a hell of a lot worse.  That the media of our time is extremely, insanely worse than their's was.  There were far more honest, half assed journalists in those days.

Our media gets off on these stories, the worse the better.  It's always been that way, but never before have the public been so bombarded by these moronic talking heads and lying buffoons.  It was a long damn time before the media was allowed (by their financial supporters) to even acknowledge economic trouble.

Now, put all the circumstances of that time together with the television media we have today... seeing a grim picture?  I think that's what Breeze was talking about.  It wasn't an attempt to demean or belittle the suffering of that time, certainly not to rate our current troubles as worse. I understand how from the post title, some people got the wrong idea... I came in thinking the same thing.  But Breeze makes a good point, however bad things get, we can count on our fair and balanced independent media to make them a hell of a lot worse. 

[Breeze54]

54. Thank You for helping to clarify my point, davidthegnome!!

That's it exactly, in a nutshell!! ;)

Sorry if my OP title was "unclear'.

Sort of did that on purpose though, I have to admit.

But I thought the body of my post explained what I meant.

I think that's where I may have screwed up. Sorry.

But at any rate, thanks again, David!! ;)

:hi:

[ElsewheresDaughter]

55. and the people knew how to grow, harvest, preserve their own food

[GrpCaptMandrake]

56. Some Depression-era reminiscences and observations

My Grandmothers and Grandfathers were full-grown adults by the time the Depression hit. My maternal grand-father was a prosperous young man in rural West Virginia, running a post office, general store and sawmill. My maternal grandmother taught school and kept the home. They had three children. In 1929, they were 35 years old.

My paternal grandfather was a coal miner and a union man, struggling then, for the common decency of a worker against a coal company that didn't even pay him in U.S. money. My paternal grandmother was a housewife with five children to care for, clothe, and feed. My paternal grandfather was also 35 years old. My paternal grandmother was 25.

In the case of both families, while they didn't have much, it can be argued that their rural or semi-rural way of life was to their benefit when the Depression hit full stride. Having little, they lost little. But there were days upon weeks upon months of mustard sandwiches and the Republican idea of three meals a day: oatmeal, miss-a-meal, and skip-a-meal.

My maternal grandfather was ruined by the Depression. Unable to meet his own bills, he worked his store credit for as long as his suppliers would sell to him. In so doing, he kept a country community alive, selling them goods on credit, knowing they could not pay, but knowing also that without his sacrifice, his neighbors would starve. He lost the sawmill, the general store and the post office. For a time, the family survived on my grandmother's teacher's salary, which was, to say the least, meager by any standard and moreso since it was a West Virginia teacher's salary.

My paternal grandfather was literally a slave to the whims and declarations of the coal company. If the family needed food, he had to purchase it on credit through the company store, which then docked his pay. Many men of that era received what was called "Snake" on payday, i.e. a check with a straight line across the Amount line where the company had taken ALL the wages to cover the company store's costs.

All four young adults were Democrats. One of my mother's earliest memories was being out with her father, who would ask, in 1928, before the excrement struck the fan, "Margie, who're YOU going to vote for?" to which Mom, all of three years old, replied "Al Smiff and Joe Wobinson!" Smith was slimed by Hoover and the Repiglickens because he was a Catholic. My family were all protestant, but recognized, even in the West Virginia hills, the toxic poison of another four years of runaway Repiglicken greed. Grandfather died in 1960 at the relatively young age of 66 and three years before I was born. Gran made it to 91. Neither of them EVER forgave the miserable bastards in the Republican Party for the future that was stolen from them. Grandad died of heart failure and black lung at 72. Granny died at 90. They, too, voted Democrat for all their days and raised their children to remember what Republicans do when Republicans get the bit in their teeth. All the sons of both families fought Fascism. One out of four didn't come back; those who did brought back scars and horrors they kept largely to themselves. The daughters served the war effort at home, working in far-away munitions plants and leading scrap metal drives at home.

If we assume that those people back then were somehow left out of the media "loop," we do them a disservice. They were frankly more literate than we. They devoured information that came out twice a day in a morning and evening newspaper, with stories transmitted by wire. It is rather smug to suggest that people of the Depression era knew less about their world. It may be argued that they knew more, and had a greater depth of understanding because they got it via print journalism. Ever seen a Depression-era Bible? If they're like the ones here, they're stuffed with newspaper clippings. That's how people hung onto information then. There's a direct correlation between the rise of "electronic" journalism, the demise of the print variety and the dumbing down of the citizenry. Reading, as well all know here, is an ACTIVE form of information acquisition. Radio is less active and television is utterly passive.

Two other things stood the Depression era Americans in good stead: (1) in rural America, which was, at that time, the majority of America, people still had the ability to feed themselves to one degree or another. For as long as she was able, my grandmother gardened and canned every year, and made her basement shelves sag with the weight of enough food to feed a small army for a winter; (2) America KNEW the Depression would end. The factories were idle, but a way could be found to get them going again. By 1937, FDR had gotten America well on the road to recovery.

What's different now? Now, if it gets as bad as 1932, we may actually be screwed. The factories aren't idle, they're GONE, and most people think food comes from the grocery store, not from the labors of a human being tilling the soil or tending the animals. Where we suffered from an economic collapse in the Great Depression, we still had a currency based on something arguably "real." Now we just het up the wires and transfer some more electrons around and call it "$700 Billion" or "$2 Trillion" or "$25 Billion" and no one ever sees anything. To that extent, the OP may be right: we may be in worse shape than we know. Rather, however, than being worse off for MORE information, we're worse off for our ignorance.

My apologies if this ran on too long. The more I see the present, the more I respect the heroes of the past. They deserve our reverence. More than that, they would hope we might learn from them.


Get On The H.O.R.N.!
www.headonradionetwork.com
America's Liberal Voice

[Breeze54]

57. I was NOT being smug at all!! Gheesh!! You're right!! They didn't have the asshat talking heads

that we do today!! THAT was my point.

"Neither of them EVER forgave the miserable bastards in the Republican Party for the future that was stolen from them."

And neither will I.

My family was in the depression as well. They took any job they could find to survive and they weren't paid shit for the hours they put in and my Dad always turned it over to his father, that was the way it was then,. Good luck finding many kids today that will work and hand over their pay to their parents.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

65. Sorry. I didn't get your original intent

My bad.

Today, we suffer from informational malnutrition. We're bloated with information, but of questionable worth. You can fill your belly with marshmallows (Paris Hilton, Natalie Holloway, shark attacks) and yet still be starving for reality.

Vis-a-vis the Depression, our greatest threat lies in forgetting. We've already forgotten a lot. No American city could survive 1929 to 1940 in the present era. They would starve, and then riot. Very little of America still has enough ground to raise a garden or the know how to do so or even put up the produce. Where once were family farms we have either McMansion Developments or corporate farms raising a single crop (most usually #2 Field Grade RoundUpReady corn or soybeans). Probably not one in twenty Americans could raise a chicken to maturity and if they did, wouldn't have the first idea of how to kill it and clean it.

Our culture is manifestly more fragile than it was then. The internet itself (our only bastion against corporate broadcast bilge) hangs on the thinnest of fiber optic hairs. Print journalism, if not already dead, is on life support. Television is electronic marshmallows and our culture is like the man who jumped off the Empire State Building and declared as he zipped past the 40th floor "So far, so good!"


Get On The H.O.R.N
www.headonradionetwork.com
America's Liberal Voice

[Breeze54]

66. All is cool and you are a fantastic writer!!!

:applause: :applause:

Thanks for that! ;)

[GrpCaptMandrake]

67. Thank you very much.

I try to talk purty, too! I'm one of those babblers. B-) I just happen to be a liberal one, and have an obsesssive-compulsive attachment to facts, unlike the right-wing asshats.


Get On The H.O.R.N.!
www.headonradionetwork.com
America's Liberal Voice

[jwirr]

96. Will horn come in in NE Minnesota. We do not get AirAmerica either.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

104. The H.O.R.N. comes in anywhere you have an internet connection

www.headonradionetwork.com Click "Listen Live." The stream's there 24/7 and we have free archives and podcasts at www.whiterosesociety.org

[MadinMo]

101. This is what worries me, too, GCM!

The majority of people just don't know how to get anything they need that doesn't come from a faucet, the grocery store, or the mall. Self-sufficiency will prove to be a real valuable asset if things get as bad as they did in the Depression. And I fear most people won't have those skills and/or the tools necessary to make a living.

[davidthegnome]

58. That was a fantastic post

I have to remind myself that the literacy rate is a heck of a lot lower these days, first of all (though to be fair, we also have a heck of a lot more people). So even though we have more information available on a variety of subjects... actually receiving and making sense of that information is another matter. Then of course we have the bias, which is perhaps not as clear today as it was then, certainly not to the majority of Americans who aren't well aware of what's going on.

I don't see the people of that time as less literate, less civilized, or less educated. I do believe however, that the media has been twisted to such an extent that it feeds more on fear and depression than ever before. The general, mainstream media, I realize that there are some few journalists who deserve our gratitude.

I don't believe the people of that era were left out of the media loop. Rather, I believe that today, Americans in general, are far more bombarded by the media, far more influenced by it. In this age of instant gratification, those of us with an interest can discover what's going on usually as it is happening, or shortly after it happened. Information does travel a lot faster today - though probably with less accuracy.

In any event, that was really an excellent post, and I am humbled by your wisdom.

[Breeze54]

62. I agree it was a great and informative post but

he/she did get my 'dander' up! :P

[nadinbrzezinski]

80. People have forgotten good ol' Father Coughlin, who by the

way was on the radio back then

He was the Rush of the era

That said, and I have argued, people were better informed, for a multitude of reasons

but never underestimate the power of talking heads, and they existed back then too

[jwirr]

95. An excellent summary. Hail to your maternal grandfather - the general

store in our home town was our refuge also.

[erinlough]

105. Great story and it is surprising how similar your story is to the one my mom told

I have to say I'm glad she is not around to go through this again, it would have been very frightening for her. The simple truth is that back then people starved, lost everything and the ability to have anything again, and they were so frightened. I don't know if it will get that bad for us, but I know it will eventually get better this time like it did last time. I think what is worse for us now is that we have lost any sense of doing something for the common good, we are so selfish and if we aren't getting it, no one should get it either. We won't help our neighbor, hell we don't even know our neighbor. I fear things will dissolve into violence.

[closeupready]

60. On bailouts for the rich, none for working people,

I was struck by this the other day - the government has given Wall Street, AIG and others so much money that on a per taxpayer basis, it would amount to tens of thousands of dollars. That would go far towards paying down consumer debt, but nooooo - they can't give such relief to average people, they give it instead to huge corporations who then give multi-million dollar bonuses, throw parties at spas, etc. The corruption of our government is so massive and obvious, it's unreal. I feel sometimes like I can't believe I am living in the same country I grew up in. Our government has abused working people for so long now, that we are like abused wives, taking the abuse and continuing to vote them back in - though I think that applies far more to those who vote Republican.

I don't know whether that makes me sad, angry, bitter or what, the fact that I can do nothing to change this, and that I don't have much hope that this will ever change, that our government has become like Rome in more ways than one, and we are headed down the same path Rome took.

[Breeze54]

63. But we did 'change' the government on Nov. 4th... they haven't taken over yet. ~ Just wait!!

Change is coming!!

I can hear it on the rails and it's beating a drum beat in my heart!!

We voted for a change, for a change, and it's coming!!! ;)

Hold on!!! :hug: January 20th isn't that far off!!

[GrpCaptMandrake]

68. I'm holding on to optimism for all I'm worth

I sincerely hope Obama recognizes that it's 1929 and we don't have a scratch, but a sucking chest wound.

I admit I was mightily disappointed in the Senate's capitulation to LIEberman, as well as with Obama's choice for Attorney General. In the latter, no man who's winked at murder, let alone four thousand of them, should occupy the seat of the nation's chief law enforcement officer.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/lawyer-for-chiquita-in-co_b_141919.html

Yet I do, indeed, hold on to hope.


Get On The H.O.R.N.!
www.headonradionetwork.com
America's Liberal Voice

[Breeze54]

70. Well; the M$M told me that Kovalik was a great guy....

So, what do I know?! :sarcasm:

And LIEberman gets to stay... :puke:

Although I think he'll be voted out in 2010.

Here's to hoping CT wakes the F up!! :grr:

At any rate, HOPE is all I've got right now.

It's a lot better than despairing, imho, and takes less energy.

:hi:

[GrpCaptMandrake]

74. Maybe the For-Profit media were right for once

Dan Kovalik IS a great guy. A brilliant lawyer, he's been one of the few to even TRY to force corporate accountability upon the murderous bastards in corporate America who funded the Colombian death squads.

Joe LIEberman won't be voted out until 2012, at the earliest. He was re-elected in 2006. We're stuck with this deal with him till 2010, not to mention Harry Reid and his brand of lily-livered "leadership." It's obvious Obama has guts. I'm hoping he brought some to spare for Pelosi and Reid, because they're going to need it for nasty fights like the Employee Free Choice Act, which may be the most important piece of new legislation to go through Congress in decades.

We bought the ticket. Now we get to take the ride. Me, I like a good fight. I hope our elected Democrats have as much taste for it as the people who empowered them


Get On The H.O.R.N.!
www.headonradionetwork.com
America's Liberal Voice

[Breeze54]

76. They did mention his reluctance to accept the post but

damned if I can remember, at this late hour, what it specifically was he was reluctant about. From what I remember the M$M saying, he had fought the RW and won and they were gunning for him and so, he was reluctant to accept due to that and worried (they said it, not him) to accept the position, fearing being Bar-B-Q...ued over such high 'steaks'! :P (pun intended) He is highly educated from what I hear and very experienced and respected in the Dem world too.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

77. Are we talking about the same guy?

Dan Kovalik is a human rights and labor lawyer from Pittsburgh. He sued Drummond Coal Company of Birmingham, Alabama for murders by right-wing death squads in the coal fields of Colombia.

Holder is Obama's nominee for Attorney General. He was #2 in the Clinton Justice Department. Later he was a corporate criminal defense lawyer. As such, he helped negotiate the plea deal that let Chiquita Brands' execs off the hook for 4,000 murders by right-wing death squads in Colombia.


Get On The H.O.R.N.!
www.headonradionetwork.com
America's Liberal Voice

[Breeze54]

79. Apparently not...

Kovalik was whom I was talking about, I think? :shrug:

Hell; it was a 2 minute sound bite and I had dinner burning on the stove....

I'll actually read more about it on the net in the AM with my coffee. ;)

Thanks!

[davidthegnome]

64. Damn do I ever feel that

I just saw three individuals I believe were the CEOs of these auto companies on television. Some form of official meeting (I only caught tiny clips during dinner) before a court. Not only did they all fly in on private jets, when asked if they would be willing to sell them to support their companies, not a single one of the blood sucking bastards raised a hand. It doesn't surprise me... but...

It really pisses me off. I say strip those blood sucking corrupt bastards of their assets and use THEM to support their failing companies. The CEOs, upper management, anyone who's earning a clearly very much undeserved salary while the really hard working employees get shit sandwiches.

Sorry for going off topic here - but then it isn't completely off topic. These assholes (upper management) who have run their companies and their poor employees into the ground are now doing everything they can to leech money away from the American taxpayer.

Well screw em all I say. Why not hold them financially accountable?

[closeupready]

92. Yep. It's a double whammy situation in my opinion - Congress lets exec. failures loot the Treasury,

but tightened Chap. 7 bankruptcy provisions. I mean, :wtf: :rant: It's like they are all part of some mafia, extracting protection money from the taxpayers, and feeding at the trough of government revenue. I'm sorry for being so negative but I am fucking sick of seeing them all behave so irresponsibly. :mad: :rant:

Okay. Back to happy thoughts. :rofl:

[jwirr]

98. Curious about the jets. Are they owned by the CEO or their companies?

[McCamy Taylor]

69. People in the Great Depression were burdened with a GUILT we will never have.

They thought that their unemployment was their own fault, their homelessness was a sign of their own moral failing, their inability to feed their families was their own shame.

When we finally hit the economic indicators that show that this recession is a Second Great Depression, the majority of Americans will not feel guilty. They will be angry. They will be looking around for someone else to blame.

That guilt is a very big burden that we will never have to bear. We are much more likely to tear the current system down than to bow our heads in shame this time around.

[Breeze54]

71. Good point but today's M$M is sure as hell trying to guilt and scare the masses

don't you think? Mostly trying to scare them, from what I'm hearing on
the news and all the political talk shows, night and day, ad infinitum.

Yup. The Great Depression was horrible for most!

That is true. This population hasn't seen nothing yet.

:hi: McCamy Taylor! Long time, no see!!

[GrpCaptMandrake]

72. You may be right

I hadn't looked at it that way, in terms of guilt. That was never a part of the way the history was related to me. I was always led to understand that my forebears knew EXACTLY who had done it to them. Given the fact that the times required every moment in a strugle for continued existence, all they could do was remember who was at fault and do their best NEVER to let them back in office.

It's one thing to know who to blame. It's another to make the punishment stick, let alone making the punishment fit the crime.

As to guilt, most of us here know who the guilty are. The guilty put us in this hole in 2000 and 2004 and prattled on about a "culture of life" and "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here" and "Saddam was an evil dictator who killed his own people" and "the tax cuts will trickle down" and other such right-wing palaver.

The trick now is to keep them flushed from their lairs, make them live in the open and run them to ground, politcally speaking. The one thing the Depression era Americans didn't do was finish the job. They had a chance to eliminate the threat posed by Repiglickenism and Conservatism and they didn't. The war intervened before they could and that, in turn, allowed families like the Bushes to re-fill their coffers.

Hopefully, we won't let it happen this time.


Get On The H.O.R.N.!
www.headonradionetwork.com
America's Liberal Voice

[silverojo]

73. That is insensitive beyond belief

You owe an apology to everyone who survived the Great Depression.

[davidthegnome]

75. I would respectfully ask

if you read the thread and the posts by the Author of this thread. If not, I would respectfully request that you do so before making judgments. It was not her intent to belittle or demean the suffering of that time, or the people of that time. The post title is misleading I agree, but it was generally regarding how much worse of a monster the media has become.

[Waiting For Everyman]

81. What Depression? This is all in our heads, Phil Gramm said so.

If we all just think happy thoughts about the markets, this will all go away.

Kinda like how we kids saved Tinkerbell, back in the 1950s. :)

[Breeze54]

82. We saved Tinkerbell?! ~ Who knew!?! ~ LOL!

That thinking happy thoughts and we could all click our heels three times fast and make it all go away!! :P

I think Phil may be onto something! :sarcasm:

:hi:

[Waiting For Everyman]

83. Yup, Tink recovered, remember? LOL.

And you're right :) it worked for Dorothy too. Only... where did we leave those slippers...
We'll muddle through somehow. (Probably.) :hide:

Just kidding. There is a reason though, why entertainment was so big at that time - the more awful it gets, the more relief is needed.

[Breeze54]

84. 'Where did we leave those slippers?'... I found them!!

:P

[Waiting For Everyman]

86. Dang! You're good. :)

That's a great pic. I'm so relieved now, that those slippers are found. I'm not worried at all now. (bookmarking for an emergency)
Yay! :fistbump:

(I was wondering before, though... if W could really be the WWotW in drag??? Because on Election Night, I had the weirdest impulse to break into "Ding dong, the witch is dead" and dance around like the Munchkins.)

[Breeze54]

87. Wah?! You DIDN'T sing and dance, "The wicked witch is dead"?!? - ("bookmarking for an emergency")

:rofl: I thought everyone did that Nov. 4th!! I did!! ;)

"(bookmarking for an emergency)" That is to funnyy!! :P

lmao! :toast:

[cali]

88. you don't need a radio to know you can't feed your children

sorry, your post is revisionist history of the worst order. The Great Depression was much, much worse than anything we're suffering now.

UGH.

[Breeze54]

89. Ugh a buga boo!!

Get over yourself.

[earth mom]

90. They had it better then because they had newspapers & radio news that didn't lie to them

like we have now. :puke:

[Breeze54]

91. or exaggerate everything and sensationalize it all...

I agree... :puke: on the M$M!!

[pnwmom]

94. At this point, most of us have "virtual reality." They had "reality" -- with

up to 30% unemployment. So far, they had it much worse.

[datasuspect]

99. no SSNs, paper driver licenses

birth records consisted of entries in family bibles in some instances.

local credit ratings: with the grocer; the coal man; the dairy truck; the tavern. no FICO scores back then.

you could move across the country, use a new name, and most likely, start a fresh life.

plus, "community" and community life and organizations were more solid and vital than they are now.

so yes, in some ways, they did have it easier. debt peonage was something you could ostensibly walk away from.

now it's a stone around your neck indexed by SSN.

[onenote]

102. Nonsense.

First, there was radio and newspapers. People were informed and they were struggling. As for the comment upthread that the homeless didn't have radio...well, isn't that just the thinnest silver lining...if you're homeless, you don't need radio to know that things are bad for you.

Second, I suspect that the 20-plus percent of AMericans without jobs during the Great Depression, and their families, don't think those were a golden age compared to today.

[gollygee]

103. My great-grandmother died of a bad gall bladder during the great depession

She knew what was wrong but didn't have any chance to pay for an operation. So she just suffered in great pain until she died.

[Burma Jones]

107. They had Busby Berkeley, we have Dancing With the Stars......

and there was a very well defined line between fantasy and reality.

Today's media really muddies that distinction.

[pecwae]

108. Yeah, some were too busy jumping off buildings.

Others started traveling by any means possible looking for work.

My maternal grandmother fed men who came to her little shack in the mountains begging for food. My father carried his dead dad down the mountain for burial after he was kicked by a mule while trying to plough. My paternal grandmother kept her kids fed on flour and water biscuits using her rationed handful of coals which never got the stove hot enough to thoroughly bake dough.

Yep, things were so sweet during the Great Depression. No worries at all.

[Raskolnik]

111. Yeah, you've got it pretty rough.

Being forced to watch the tv news is quite a burden to bear.

You better go lay down for a while.