My shortest blog to date. Frank Rich wrote a great article in the New York Magazine on the perceived decline of America. Click on the link below to read it.
http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/declining-america-2012-7/?mid=nymag_press
my take is that it was never as good as they would like us to believe.
I have been bothered for some time of this great fictional love affair people have with the good old days. They may have been for a few select groups but for the majority of people life in America wasn't what it was purported to be.
I am not by any means claiming it was better somewhere else (it probably was if you were black or Jewish or a woman). It just wasn't the idyllic world painted by Hollywood or Madison Avenue.
Read Upton Sinclair's book "The Jungle". In the more recent past - how about the Martin Luther King led civil right marches of the mid-60's. Smack dab in the middle of the 8 year run of the Andy Griffith show American citizens were being sprayed with fire hoses and had police dogs let loose on them.
But enough about what I have to say - Frank Rich's article is much better than mine. His focus is on the perception and he doesn't even have to point out the obvious like I feel compelled to.


