Social Justice, Clean Energy and Health Care

 Many people would probably consider the 1950s the golden age of modern America unless of course you are Black. 

There was a seedy underbelly including the mob, poverty, a lot of undiagnosed PTSD and alcoholism, but most of those people stayed out of sight.

On the surface we had a booming economy, lots of jobs, the development of the interstate highway system and suburbs and the early days of television.

It preceded the major disruptions of the 60s although we did have freedom riders and the start of feminism.

If the American dream was ever in reach it was in those years as everyone graduating high school was likely to get a good job since American manufacturing was still dominating most of the world.

This was the time when the baby boomer generation was growing up and they have been so dominant demographically in modern America their nostalgia makes this seem like a Norman Rockwell portrait.

If you were to strip away the nostalgia you would find those years to be full of poverty, racism, misogyny, homophobia and the fear of nuclear destruction.

We have made a lot of progress in many areas and even economically we have created a safety net that while certainly not as good as many European countries allows people to survive, generally.

What has probably changed the most is the loss of manufacturing jobs that once dominated.  Many of those jobs were lost to other countries with lower pay scales or to automation.

These jobs were replaced with service jobs.  

There is only one path for America and that is to adapt to the new economy, keep innovating, keep growing and keep cleaning up from the past.

Social justice, clean energy and guaranteed health care shouldn't really be controversial.

Of course we didn't have those things in the 50s so I guess some view them as problematic.