Popular 1970s television series Alice premiered on CBS. Based on the 1974 film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, it ran for nine seasons.
Linda Lavin starred as Alice in a role that I always thought was depressing, although the series itself is very 1970s. The 1970s featured a lot of dispiriting dramas in its second half.
The series played a role in the childhood of my wife, providing a role character which she acted out with her grandfather, taking orders as if she was a waitress.
I was driving through northern Colorado yesterday and noticed that in a small town, Walden, a flag was at half mast.
I didn't think much of it. I had been pretty busy down there on work and I assumed that somebody important in Colorado had died, or perhaps nationally and I'd missed it as I had been so busy.
Nope, Dolly Parton.
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
As a mark of respect for the memory of Dolly Parton, I hereby order, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, September 1, 2026. I also direct that the flag shall be flown at half‑staff for the same period at all United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-fifth day of August, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fifty-first.
DONALD J. TRUMP
This has gotten completely stupid.
Now, I have nothing against Dolly Parton. I don't like country music and I wasn't a fan, but I wasn't an enemy of Parton's, if there is such a thing, either. She was certainly a well known figure in the culture.
But it's not as if she was some sort of important figure to the well being of the nation. She was an entertainer. Did they fly the flags half staff for Jimi Hendrix? Given his iconic Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock, there certainly would have been a reason to do so.
In Wyoming it seems like flags are at half mast constantly. There's the national orders put out by Presidents, some of which are due to tragedies, some due to well known figures dying. Then there's the local ones, often when an obscure politician from some point in the distant past dies. Half mast ought to be reserved for really important observations.
Pope Pius XI promulgated the papal instruction Cadaverum cremationis, affirming the Catholic ban on cremation. The prohibition would be relaxed by Pope Paul VI on June 5, 1964, but at least with some Catholics, myself included, the practice is looked down upon. Subsequent popes have also written on the practice.
DeFord Bailey became the first African-American to be listed in newspaper radio schedules as a performer on the WSM Barn Dance (The Grand Ole Opry). He had performed on the show previously.
from the studio of the Nashville radio station WSM. As authors note in a biography of Bailey, "he had probably begun regular appearances before then.
Introduced on this day in 1926, the cartoon emphasized, in its introduction, electrical appliances and how they made life easier. Power companies used the cartoon figure for decades. I well recall it from when I was a kid.
There'd been a jail brake in Casper.
A railway disaster in Costa Rica resulted in the deaths of 248 people.
One via Reddit's 100 Years Ago sub, 16 year old Maybelle Addington married 27-year old Ezra J. "Eck" Carter, brother of A.P. Carter, in Virginia giving rise to the "first family of country music".
Country music, we'd note, is a bit deceptive in this context. As we've discussed before, Country & Western were actually two categories of music identified by early record companies, as was Rhythm & Blues. Western ballads, associated with cowboys and ranching, was really its own distinct genre, as was "Country", which was sometimes referred to as "Hillbilly Music". The current categories of C&W, Folk, etc, really hadn't set in, in a hard and fast way, either. Folk and Country music were in fact very rapidly evolving. Blues, which of course also had a Southern rural origin, was frequently picked up by Country artists at the time, even while it was breaking out in new directions in the Midwest and East coast, where it has already given rise to Jazz.
A real glimpse into how things have changed was provided by the denial of divorce story on the cover of the Tribune.
Both sides asked for a divorce, but the judge said no.
No fault divorce, as we've noted here before, did not exist at the time.
It shouldn't exist now.
The Saturday journals were out. Women seemed to be the theme.
Marty Robbins (Martin Robinson) was born in Arizona. He learned how to play the guitar while serving in the Navy during World War Two.
Alejandro Velasco Astete, the first aviator to fly over the Andes, died in a plane crash while landing. He was attempting to avoid a crowd of spectators that had gathered to watch him land at Puno, Peru. He was 28.
Spanish Olympic fencer Miguel Zabalza was killed in action in the Rif War. He was 29 years old.
Apparently, the Bibles that Trump has been selling omit the deuterocanonical books. No surprise, as Trump claims to be a Protestant and his religion's backing is primarily from Evangelicals, who follow Luther's dislike of them, Luther's reasons for having omitted them now proven to be based on a misunderstanding though they may be.
However, the omission of all the amendments to the US Constitution following the Bill of Rights, which is included in the Bibles he's selling, is a bit harder to grasp.
Of course, why the US Constitution would be included with the Bible, along with The Pledge of Allegiance and the lyrics of God Bless The USA, is also hard to understand.
Sgt. Sam Marinkovich, Anaconda, Mont., Sgt. Raymond Pasvogel, Davenport, Iowa, write up daily paper "The Cyclops Sentinel". Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea. 4 May, 1944. Sgt Marinkovich is wearing heavily hobnailed boots, something the US generally did not issue in World War Two. The boots are almost certainly British pattern "clodhoppers" that were issued as replacements in Australia. Boots are one of the very few items of Commonwealth issuance that Americans sometimes issued in World War Two.
Troops making C-Ration coco. The soldier on the far left is wearing the rarely seen light pattern field jacket. This photograph illustrates something that surprised Japanese soldiers, which was that American uniforms were comfortable and practical. Of interest, every single uniform item depicted in this photograph came into US use either since the start of the war, or immediately before, except for the boots depicted.
Sarah Sundin reports that another Overlord exercise occured:
Today in World War II History—May 4, 1944: In Exercise Fabius, a full-scale rehearsal for D-day, Allied troops who will land on Sword, Juno, Gold, and Omaha Beaches make landings on English beaches.
The RAF hit rail facilities at Budapest at night.
The U-371 was scuttled off of Algeria. The U-846 was attacked and sunk in the Bay of Biscay by the RCAF.
Smoke on the Water was recorded. . . the patriotic Red Foley one . . not the Deep Purple one.
The Saturday Evening Post went to press observing Easter with a Leyendecker illustration.
National Barn Dance, a direct precursor to the Grand Old Opry, premiered on Chicago's WLS, running a whopping four hours every Saturday night. It would run until 1968.
The Washington Post depicted Coolidge holding fast in a political cartoon.
In Casper, there was a big meeting to oust a city councilman who had been convicted on a liquor charge.
And Arizona tourists could get into California before Easter.
It's interesting to realize that motor tourism had become a thing by 1924.
The National Maximum Speed Law reduced the speed limit on the nation's highways to 55 mph.
While ultimately hated, the law had an immediate impact in reducing highway deaths, which of course was not its actual intent. Reducing the consumption of petroleum was.
The first Supplemental Security Income (SSI) checks were mailed in a program designed to address those disabled but unable to qualify for Social Security. The law allowing for this to occur had come into effect the prior day.
The People's Republic of China announced that eight senior military figures were being reassigned in an apparent attempt to disrupt their ability to form a base of power.
Early country music pioneer and actor Tex Ritter died at age 68 of what was believed to be a heart attack. His son, John Ritter, would die in 2003 at age 54 of aortic dissection and its likely that this was actually the cause of his father's death.
I have to give him credit, he's not accepting the co-opting of his song by the populist right candidates, and includes them in the class of those he's singing about.
Rich Men North of Richmond, which is independently produced, I think, had made a big Internet and music scene splash, and frankly, not because it's good.
It is, as of this writing, on Billboard's Hot 100.
The ballad is played by Oliver Anthony, a genuine blue collar Virginian, apparently. All of his music videos seem to be filmed in a heavily wooded lot, which also appears to be genuine, although the rural South provides a certain cache in country music to such an extent that a Canadian band has even affected it, calling itself The Dead South. All of Anthony's music is played on a Resonator Guitar, a type of guitar I normally call a Dobro. I associate resonated guitars with the blues, not with country music, so this is a bit odd in and of itself.
How I imagine a guitar with a resonator properly being used.
Fans have gushed on the "return" of "real" or "authentic" country music, and this may indeed be the first genuine example of authentic country music to become a big hit in decades. Even 1st Lt. Austin von Letkemann, the author (host? mc?) of the wickedly funny Army satire series Mandatory Fun Day mentioned it the other day, as a real fan, citing Colter Wall at the same time. Wall is authentic, that's for sure, but in a different genre, genuine Western, i.e., cowboy, music.
But I don't think it's the music that boosted Anthony's song to the top of the C&W charts. It's the content. Consider the lyrics:
I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
So I can sit out here and waste my life away
Drag back home and drown my troubles away
It's a damn shame what the world's gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Livin' in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don't think you know, but I know that you do
'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end
'Cause of rich men north of Richmond
I wish politicians would look out for miners
And not just minors on an island somewhere
Lord, we got folks in the street, ain't got nothin' to eat
And the obese milkin' welfare
Well, God, if you're 5-foot-3 and you're 300 pounds
Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds
Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground
'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin' them down
Lord, it's a damn shame what the world's gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Livin' in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don't think you know, but I know that you do
'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end
'Cause of rich men north of Richmond
I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
Rich Man North of Richmond, it might be noted, comes hard on the heels of In A Small Town, by Jason Aldean.
Consider its lyrics:
Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk
Carjack an old lady at a red light
Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store
Ya think it's cool, well, act a fool if ya like
Cuss out a cop, spit in his face
Stomp on the flag and light it up
Yeah, ya think you're tough
Well, try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town
Got a gun that my granddad gave me
They say one day they're gonna round up
Well, that shit might fly in the city, good luck
Try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town
Full of good ol' boys, raised up right
If you're looking for a fight
Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town
Ooh-ooh
Try that in a small town
Aldean, I'd note, isn't from a small town. He's' from Macon, Georgia, population 150,000 or so, so it's a mid-sized city. And In A Small Town isn't real country, but rather country and enjoyed the same popularity.
Both of these songs immediately became populist anthems. So much so that none other than liberal economist Robert Reich, whom this blog has an obvious love/hate relationship, just posted on the song, with frankly a typically disappointing analysis.
Reich offers his view, but he's wrong on what's going on here, at least in part, and certainly wrong on the fix. Like other left wing economists in the United States, Reich is a corporate capitalist, which is also what all the right wing economists are. Reich correctly believes that the system has gone wonky to the detriment of the working class (whatever the current working class may be), but he fails to grasp, as nearly every economist in the United States and perhaps the Western World, or maybe even the planet, that the economy is supposed to serve average lives and average lives come first. I.e., it's 1) my life and; 2) I need to work. Not I'm a worker in a glorious worker's state and work will exalt me, or I'm a consumer in a glorious consumption state and consumption will exalt me, which are effectively the flip side of corporate capitalism.
So what's going on here?
Well, the economy isn't serving people's lives, and that's because corporate capitalism doesn't. Neither right nor left economists get it. For that matter, left wing politicos, as exhibited by Reich's writings, particularly don't get it.
Reich is one of the people who keep interpreting this stuff from solely an economic prospective, while simultaneously, and increasingly from a bigoted prospective, issuing warnings about "Christian Nationalism", which actually isn't a movement this is part of at all. Southern Cultural Christianity is, but that's completely different, and indeed largely leans on a different branch of Christianity (the same people who go to Trump rallies and find him to be a fine Christian probably think Constantine the Great ripped the faith away from the Baptists, or something).
Constantine the Great watching the burning of the books of Arian heretics. Constantine would likely regard most MAGA Christians as appalling on religions grounds, while he'd recognize Christian Nationalist. He can't be considered one, however. He's regarded as a saint by the Easter Orthodox and the Ukrainian Catholic Church.
You can get a taste of what's actually up with these songs from the comments to Rich Men North of Richmond on Youtube.
1. 39 years old. Spent 12 1/2 years as a plumber until the small company I worked for went under as the pandemic began. Working for a big chain home store for the last 3 years getting beaten into the ground, treated like a disposable asset, and watching my earnings equal less and less as the prices of basic necessities goes up. Ive fought addiction and won. Ive found love and lost it. This song resonates on a level that I havent felt in a long time. Thank you and god bless. 🙏
2. As a disabled Marine, struggling to even be in public, struggling with all the bullshit in this world, struggling with thoughts of suicide, struggling to find pride in my Country, struggling to find the strength to get up every day to do the same damn thing to barely make ends me… as an American STRUGGLING with LIFE… thank you for bringing a little hope to my small part of the world… thank you for letting me know I am not alone with my thoughts and feelings… THANK YOU and God bless you Oliver Anthony
3. I’m a 42 year old ex addict living in a camper trailer pay cheque to pay cheque with my kids part time while working to help the homeless and addicted community. I won’t stop working like the rest of you because we know at some point that one day will come that we may get that one break that shows us it was all worth it.
Amazing song Oliver, thank you for sharing it
4. As a hard working black American man, this song is 🔥 📛 the first country song on my Playlist and I hope for more. In an Era where soul is gone from music THIS IS A BREATH OF MUCH NEEDED AIR. even put a tear in my eye 🔥
5. And just like that you became the voice of 40 or 50 million working men. Amazing work, sir.
And there are a lot more.
Let's break down the lyrics again, emphasizing the ones that are telling.
I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
So I can sit out here and waste my life away
Drag back home and drown my troubles away
It's a damn shame what the world's gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Livin' in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don't think you know, but I know that you do
'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end
'Cause of rich men north of Richmond
I wish politicians would look out for miners
And not just minors on an island somewhere
Lord, we got folks in the street, ain't got nothin' to eat
And the obese milkin' welfare
Well, God, if you're 5-foot-3 and you're 300 pounds
Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds
Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground
'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin' them down
Lord, it's a damn shame what the world's gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Livin' in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don't think you know, but I know that you do
'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end
'Cause of rich men north of Richmond
I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
Okay, some of that, like Mr. Reich notes, is economic, but a lot of it isn't. The protagonist notes:
1. He has "an old soul".
2. The rich men he complains about want total control, even over what he thinks.
3. He complains about the Jeffrey Epstein saga, but more in an allegorical way than a specific way, suggesting that politicians are more concerned with their immoral pursuits than the lives of average working people.
4. He takes a shot at the welfare poor, and unusually, notes fat ones (hardly anyone does that in contemporary America).
Hmmmm. . . Doesn't seem to be all economic. . .
There's a common liberal belief, and Reich is one of those espousing it, that if only the economy is good, everyone is happy. Reich is one of those who goes on to point out, and correctly, that the economy really is good right now. One who also does this nearly weekly is Donna Brazile, who is a Democratic political commentator I really like.
Nobody is saying the economy is perfect, of course, including Reich or Brazile.
But there's something they've noted, that they are missing.
If the economy is really good, and in actuality it is, and a large section of the middle class (and contrary to what pudits claim, its definately not all the "white male" middle class) are bitterly unhappy, what's going on.
The usual assertion is that the economy is doing well, but people just don't know it, which is a bit of a bizarre assertion. People tend to know if they're doing well or not, which raises this question, with unemployment down, wages up, and inflation slowing, are people doing well?
Well, they might not actually be, and COVID may have made that plain to them.
One thing that's underlying the tone of the song is the economic shift in the nature of work since about 1970.
Well, the economy isn't serving people's lives, and that's because corporate capitalism doesn't. Neither right nor left economists get it. For that matter, left wing politicos, as exhibited by Reich's writings, particularly don't get it.
Reich is one of the people who keep interpreting this stuff from solely an economic prospective, while simultaneously, and increasingly from a bigoted prospective, issuing warnings about "Christian Nationalism", which actually isn't a movement this is part of at all. Southern Cultural Christianity is, but that's completely different, and indeed largely leans on a different branch of Christianity (the same people who go to Trump rallies and find him to be a fine Christian probably think Constantine the Great ripped the faith away from the Baptists, or something).
Constantine the Great watching the burning of the books of Arian heretics. Constantine would likely regard most MAGA Christians as appalling on religions grounds, while he'd recognize Christian Nationalist. He can't be considered one, however. He's regarded as a saint by the Easter Orthodox and the Ukrainian Catholic Church.
You can get a taste of what's actually up with these songs from the comments to Rich Men North of Richmond on Youtube.
1. 39 years old. Spent 12 1/2 years as a plumber until the small company I worked for went under as the pandemic began. Working for a big chain home store for the last 3 years getting beaten into the ground, treated like a disposable asset, and watching my earnings equal less and less as the prices of basic necessities goes up. Ive fought addiction and won. Ive found love and lost it. This song resonates on a level that I havent felt in a long time. Thank you and god bless. 🙏
2. As a disabled Marine, struggling to even be in public, struggling with all the bullshit in this world, struggling with thoughts of suicide, struggling to find pride in my Country, struggling to find the strength to get up every day to do the same damn thing to barely make ends me… as an American STRUGGLING with LIFE… thank you for bringing a little hope to my small part of the world… thank you for letting me know I am not alone with my thoughts and feelings… THANK YOU and God bless you Oliver Anthony
3. I’m a 42 year old ex addict living in a camper trailer pay cheque to pay cheque with my kids part time while working to help the homeless and addicted community. I won’t stop working like the rest of you because we know at some point that one day will come that we may get that one break that shows us it was all worth it.
Amazing song Oliver, thank you for sharing it
4. As a hard working black American man, this song is 🔥 📛 the first country song on my Playlist and I hope for more. In an Era where soul is gone from music THIS IS A BREATH OF MUCH NEEDED AIR. even put a tear in my eye 🔥
5. And just like that you became the voice of 40 or 50 million working men. Amazing work, sir.
And there are a lot more.
Let's break down the lyrics again, emphasizing the ones that are telling.
I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
So I can sit out here and waste my life away
Drag back home and drown my troubles away
It's a damn shame what the world's gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Livin' in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don't think you know, but I know that you do
'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end
'Cause of rich men north of Richmond
I wish politicians would look out for miners
And not just minors on an island somewhere
Lord, we got folks in the street, ain't got nothin' to eat
And the obese milkin' welfare
Well, God, if you're 5-foot-3 and you're 300 pounds
Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds
Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground
'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin' them down
Lord, it's a damn shame what the world's gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Livin' in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don't think you know, but I know that you do
'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end
'Cause of rich men north of Richmond
I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
Okay, some of that, like Mr. Reich notes, is economic, but a lot of it isn't. The protagonist notes:
1. He has "an old soul".
2. The rich men he complains about want total control, even over what he thinks.
3. He complains about the Jeffrey Epstein saga, but more in an allegorical way than a specific way, suggesting that politicians are more concerned with their immoral pursuits than the lives of average working people.
4. He takes a shot at the welfare poor, and unusually, notes fat ones (hardly anyone does that in contemporary America).
Hmmmm. . . Doesn't seem to be all economic. . .
There's a common liberal belief, and Reich is one of those espousing it, that if only the economy is good, everyone is happy. Reich is one of those who goes on to point out, and correctly, that the economy really is good right now. One who also does this nearly weekly is Donna Brazile, who is a Democratic political commentator I really like.
Nobody is saying the economy is perfect, of course, including Reich or Brazile.
But there's something they've noted, that they are missing.
If the economy is really good, and in actuality it is, and a large section of the middle class (and contrary to what pundits claim, it's definitely not all the "white male" middle class) are bitterly unhappy, what's going on.
The usual assertion is that the economy is doing well, but people just don't know it, which is a bit of a bizarre assertion. People tend to know if they're doing well or not, which raises this question, with unemployment down, wages up, and inflation slowing, are people doing well?
Well, they might not actually be, and COVID may have made that plain to them.
One thing that's underlying the tone of the song is the economic shift in the nature of work since about 1970.
A meme version of the economics of the 1950s. . . dealing with more than economics. This depiction of the 50s drives commentators nuts, who decry it as a myth, but there's more than a little truth to it, both in what it states, and in what it otherwise depicts.
Americans tend to look back to the 1950s as some sort of golden age, and have a really mythologized view of the era. Be that as it may, in the 50s, most men could in fact support a family on their income alone, and not just from white collar jobs but from blue collar jobs. Not only could most men do it, but most men did do it. As late as the 1970s, a lot of husbands actually objected to their wives working, whereas now most married women not only do work, but must work. Perhaps an error in here, however, is that in the 50s that a lot of people were going to college. In reality, in 1950 only 7.3% of men had a college degree and only 5.2% of women did, which by 1960 was 10.3% and 6% respectively. This means, however, that a university degree was like gold. Of interest, both of my mother's parents had university degrees, which is phenomenal given that they obtained them in the early 20th Century. Neither of my father's parents did. Also of note, my mother had a college degree, an AS, but she obtained in the 1970s and was not a high school graduate due to the Great Depression, where has my father had a DDS and his brother and one of his sisters attended university in the 1940s/1950s.
The 50s through the early 1970s really reflect post World War Two conditions, however, and might not be the best era to look at. The 40s can't be looked at either, due to World War Two, nor can the 30s, due to the Great Depression. You really have to get back to the 10s and 20s for economies to compare to, with some comparison from later decades. Any way you look at it, however, a lot more families were supported from a single, usually male, income, but it was also the case that a lot more women always worked than is recognized.
Myths have power, however, and they also reflect aspects of reality as a rule. Beowulf may not have slain a dragon in Sweden, but a warrior named Bear (Bee Wolf) probably was an early Scandinavia warrior vassal of note. There really was a big battle at Troy, and it probably did start off as a totally juvenile spat over a girl that somebody regarded as a babe, although it's likely there was more to it than that. Arthur wasn't a chivalric knight, but somebody the legend was based on, probably was a British Roman who did take on the invading Teutons in defense of Roman Britain heroically before going down on a battlefield. There was indeed an era, not long ago, when a high school education could bring a person a living wage for not only the graduate, but a spouse and kids, and provide a middle income life.
And there was also a time during which, as harsh as the reality is, that you weren't in grocery store lines behind people who are paying for food with assistance, but who had money for tattoos, and who have suspended any regard for their personal appearance.
This is all obvious to people who are barely eeking by, but who know that their grandparents, with no more education than they have, did relatively well.
To add to it, although only subtly grasped, people are also aware, even as they participate in it, that the country's become a moral sewer. The problem, in a way, is not that Jeffrey Epstein is uncommon, but rather than he is common in a way. Only the rich, of course, used him as a procurer for teenage prostitutes, but the entertainment industry is essentially a society wide procurer for cinematic prostitution that has become increasingly debased.
All that does involve wealth, but part of the underlying tone, and one that people like Reich can't seem to grasp, is that the American political left insists that it all conduct be accepted and each person's choices, no matter how self-destructive, anti-natural, debased, or weird, be celebrated. People very well know that the entire movement to support surgical gender mutilation of children is wrong, for example, as well as deeply weird, but the left demands it be celebrated, just as it insists that what nearly amount to homosexual sex manuals be placed in public schools with public funds. It is not that the standard bearers of the right are moral people. Trump is a serial polygamist. It's rather that there's a difference in promoting immorality and demanding that it be accepted and distancing policy from it, even if you engage in immorality yourself. Double standards abound, but what the unhappy class is looking at doesn't seem to be grasped.
Indeed, as the left repeatedly fails to grasp in regards to the that unhappy class, is that the class itself may not really apply the standards it mourns all that deeply, in regard to at least some of them. Critics from the left, like Robert Reich, keep branding the movement "Christian Nationalist", as do some critics from the right, such as Susan Stubson. They're both in correct. Christian Nationalist take the practice of Christianity really seriously. Southern Cultural Christian Populist, however, have a world roughly framed out by the Southern Baptist Convention, the pre-1970 Episcopal and Methodist Church's, or the African Methodist Church loosely in mind, but as a framework, not as a fortress. Put another way, Christian Nationalist look to the Apostolic age and know what that meant, and aren't really comfortable completely with people who sit around watching NASCAR on Sundays. Southern Cultural Christians are perfectly comfortable with watching NASCAR on Sundays and attend church for weddings, funerals, Easter and Christmas. They aren't the same thing.
But what both are uncomfortable with, but in different ways, is a liberalism that insists that genders can be changed, and there's nothing wrong with books in public schools that explore sodomy. That exceeds the boundaries of the loosely defined structure for Southern Cultural Christians and is definitely gravely immoral to Christian Nationalists, as well as frankly gravely immoral to any Christians of any stripe who are serious about what their faiths hold.
In 2008, I stopped at the liquor store on my way home from work to buy a six-pack of beer. It was late summer.
In the liquor store there were two young women, in their very early 20s, with a young man of the same age. One of the young women was holding a baby.
The girl, and that's really what she was, holding the baby was pretty, but in a trashy sort of way, and in the way that you know won't last. The other girl was not. Both young women were wearing t-shirts that were too small for them, and too tight to be decent. They were both wearing Daisy Dukes. The young man was shaking and incredibly disheveled. It was pretty clear that he was the father of the baby, equally clear that he and the young woman weren't married, and just as clear that he was a tweaker.
The pretty girl holding the baby had eyeliner and a proud visage, sort of like the pretty but trashy girls did back when I was in high school. They'd retained the eyeliner sort of make up that girls in junior high wore, back when I was in junior high, after girls of that age first started taking up makeup. Most girls abandoned that by high school, but the ones that were of a certain type didn't. That girl, the pretty one, was wearing an Obama for President t-shirt. I knew at that moment, well before the election, who would win.
The image that was on the girl's t-shirt. It wasn't "Hope" that they had a vested interest in.
Now, this isn't a comment on President Obama at all, but rather on something else, and that something else gets back to Rich Men North of Richmond.
The young man in that group is likely dead by now. Tweaking in his early 20s, it's unlikely he survived another fifteen years. The girl who the mother likely is, and if she was 21 then, she's 36 now. She's also likely in the 300 lbs category the song referenced, the signs of that already being there. And indeed, what she was supporting, and likely at least her female cohort, wasn't "hope", as Obama was espousing, it was government assistance. The child, now 15, has probably spent his or her entire life on it.
And that, in some vague sort of way, is what Oliver Anthony is lamenting.
All of these people likely descended from people who had held blue collar jobs. But a modern society reconstructed in a liberal image had turned them into wards of the government in some ways, and they weren't ashamed of it. Their attachment to any sort of conventional morality had lapsed, perhaps beyond repair, and they were reproducing without structure and raising a generation behind them, perhaps as they'd been raised, that recalls Philippians, "Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things." They didn't go on to be Megan Rapinoe, who would be just about their age, almost undoubtedly, but probably heavily tattooed, and living on the funds generated by others.
A large number of abandoned rust belt and other blue collar Americans are well aware of this, even if they aren't necessarily beyond some of the call of that themselves.
That's what liberal pundits are missing, and that's what populist, some sincere and some not, have picked up on.
El Paso Sheriff : What's it mean? What's it leadin' to? You know, if you'd have told me 20 years ago, that I'd see children walking the streets of our Texas towns with green hair and bones in their noses, I just flat-out wouldn't have believed you.
Ed Tom Bell : Signs and wonders. But I think once you quit hearing "sir" and "ma'am," the rest is soon to foller.
El Paso Sheriff : Oh, it's the tide. It's the dismal tide.
No Country For Old Men.
And that's why their message is failing.
And for traditional conservatives, as, well as liberals, there may now be, by this time, something even scarier at work. . . .
