When in the course of human events a milestone of time passes and the general populace of the United States of America moves from one era to another, it is propitious that a review be made of that era which had occupied the public attention from its beginning to its end. It is freely acknowleged that Ph.D candidates and would-be Pulitzer prize winners may if it so pleases them do detailed observations of the immense amount of stock exchange thievery, savings and loan embezzlement, and other high points of this finally stiffening corpse of a tasteless and hopelessly stylized decade, but in a like manner, a short overview should be made to lightly re-expose that which had passed before the general view before being passed entirely, Thank God It's Over.
It has been declared that as relatively short periods of the history of general humanity, decades do not necessarily follow the course of ten years, but that they are cast instead from the forms of those great and small events which do occur in their own good times and not at the behest of the passings of the seasons.
Insofar as these things do happen, the time of The Sixties, as distinct from the time which passed between the year 1959 and the year 1970, did therefore begin in the first month of January, 1961, with the Inauguration of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who, while one of his generation who had taken his place in the momentous occurrences of the Second World War, was above all the first United States president to be involved in the events of the war in Vietnam. As these events did carry themselves forward with the assistance of many of set minds, this decade did thus continue beyond the assassination in 1963 of that same president Kennedy and did carry into the time of his successor and the announcement of his successor that he would not seek a full second term. As the time of The Sixties did continue the events of the decade did continue, carrying themselves past the Spring of the year 1973 and the withdrawal of the remaining United States troops from South Vietnam, and the release of many prisoners of war from North Vietnam, until the time of August of 1974 and the resignation of Richard Nixon, the second of the presidents from Kennedy.
As such times did pass to not be seen again, The Seventies did become a time of relative peace as they did lack the martial considerations which did precede them. Therefore in those times, as one can place oneself in assistance of or in opposition to some great occurrence which has but ended, one cannot give assistance or opposition to that same event which is not at all, and therefore the general populace did no longer concern themselves with the matters of how to react alone and with others but instead did severally concern themselves with what each would do among and with himself, thus giving a name to the time of "The Me Decade."
For as those in that time did seek their own interests in their own good manner, relying upon and giving aid of others as needed, when they did note the events of their time as they did occur, such events and notes were transient in their nature;
That President Ford did go skiing and did fall down,
That the First Brother did drink two beers and say something stupid today,
That the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini waved as he left his plane at the airport in Tehran, Iran.
For as the Iranian revolution did indeed occur during the decade of The Seventies, as did more so in the United States of America the capture and imprisonment of American hostages for the time of more than one year, these were more the purview of the flacks of the public relations departments of the network news and their repeated cries of "Day XXX: America Held Hostage," as were the reports exercised with much glee by columnists of the request by one hostage for Curtis LeMay Stoneware, wherein this was a reference to a Vietnam war era remark by Air Force General Curtis LeMay who did at some time comment upon the possible aerial delivery of munitions to North Vietnam so as to "bomb them back to the stone age."
Accordingly, as the entirety of these times did happen and another did, as it must, approach, The Seventies did come to an end, but did not feature a great cause for which they should be ended except that even as the President of those times did suffer greatly from the travail of the events of the Middle East and did suffer the error of passing his great judgment upon the smallest of matters which did occur among his people, he was suffered to be replaced by one who relied greatly upon empty images and emptier speech, causing instead that the daily concerns and protection of the nation should not be the providence of the many and the few but of the individual who could gain for himself the most without any regard to the well-being of others.
For as this time of The Empties did commence to occur, it did follow those varied harbingers of its vacuity and lack of reason for existence as did occur in the year 1980, the final year of The Seventies;
That these same harbingers, where the three greatest of note are shown here, were emulated in like manner by the many and the small, who, as two public events and one media apparition did guide, did do all to lower the times while proclaiming innocence and a lack of knowledge of these same activities;
Firstly, that during the time of the varied campaigns for public office there was a dinner during which one who had been given a degree claiming knowledge of the science of economics and who did support the presidential campaign of a onetime Hollywood actor called Ronald Reagan did cause to be drawn upon a napkin the origin of the claim that the hitherto accepted method of causing the government to continue in its existence by the method of spending such taxes as were caused to be raised for that purpose should be abolished;
That instead the percentage of taxes raised should be greatly reduced, so that those with a much reduced charge of those same taxes should use those taxes to invest in the economy, advancing the economy to a hitherto never before seen level, thus generating a greater amount of taxes to make up for the taxes which had before been gathered at such appropriate times;
That this fable, called as it was, supply-side economics, was sorely ridiculed by the wise and by others who would seek office including the candidate George Bush who did say upon the general television services of the words of his rival Ronald Reagan that "It sounds like voodoo economics to me."
Secondly, that after this same George Bush did say this, he did lose a nomination to be the president to the same Ronald Reagan in whom he demonstrated distrust of ability and function.
That having lost, he did not retire with honor, but did turn about and accept a candidacy of vice-president to the same man and continuing and unchanging campaign which he before did show great ambivalence towards, and did only say of this absolute turn and his earlier words nothing but "God I wish I'd never said that."
Thirdly, that the same general time did reveal an apparition of dubious taste and greatly observed lack of style entitled "The Official Preppy Handbook" wherein it was claimed that those portrayed therein and only those who would act in like manner could be considered the essence of the upper class and superiority;
That the area of origin mattered not in the purpose of the empty charade where the originators of the farce, no doubt lacking all the clutter local to them to which they thought they should be entitled, chose to inflict themselves upon a portion of the North-Eastern United States where the hopeless and totally obvious stylization could have equally been modeled after an idealized and thoroughly Caucasian 1965 Hawaii, colonial Shanghai, or 1885 Tombstone, Arizona.
That the general appearence is of collars that are yanked up toawrds the ears, as if to hide the scars from those who hold acual leashes;
of shirts called "polo", as an empty attempt to invoke a reference of that appellation, where the reality of the game called polo is that it is played solely by Charles WIndsor Mountbatten, The Prince of Wales, and a subjective seventeen or so others, all of whom know something about horses, about riding them, in adverse conditions, can afford the great costs of a stable full of horses, riders, and playing grounds, and are capable of all of the above, where those who would wear these costumes are incapable of any of this;
of some animal on one side of the same shirt, where the earliest was an alligator and was soon followed by both a fox and a tiger from manufacturers of greater import and respect, discounting that the tiger was presented as Le Tigre, in recognition that only gatsbys claim that that invoking an alleged French, or otherwise, European influence is a proof of anything other than extreme, obvious gullibility
of general objects placed on the feet refered to as "deck shoes," here the presumption is of the deck of a sailing boat which, in reality, shall never occur near said shoes.
That as time did pass, it was discovered that as many would be such a few, such a few must therefore be in great error, as they by their own definition may not be many, and this great abberation thankfully did no longer despoil the shelves of otherwise respectable bookstores.
That as the sole personal requirements for such few or such many are a vacant expression and a skull to match in a totally artificial enviroment, the equally diseased followers of these desolate falsifications did indeed adopt the tasteless Bermuda shorts in clashing pastels of an idealized Hawaii and the unchangeably outdated suspenders, pleated, cuffed, pants, and football pads in street clothing of an idealized colonial Shanghai.
That as these same creatures do imagine themselves to be sophisticated, a word which gives them an alternative to "I don't get it," they imagine that this requires constant immersion in a region of great population, or otherwise, the association of "The Best People", when in reality, the problem is precisely reality, where they are shown up by anything remotely resembling reality, and thus as some do emulate 1885 Tombstone and the possibility of being in an existant situation, they are not as these.
As further time did pass these further infected did come to be called by many different appellations, primarily yuppy, but that the entire whored of them could best answer to the title of gatsby, where they, as with the F.Scott Fitzgerald character of the same mane were equally useless and without value, and where the original Gatsby did become moneyed through being a smuggler, the later version often has been noted as lacking almost all of the maney and using credit with little or consideration of paying their debts, thus giving to both Gatsby and gatsby the traditional evaluation of No Visible Means Of Support, or, probably a common thief.
That the yuppy gatsbys being as impoverished as the preppy gatsbys did originally claim to be did claim themselves that money is capable of being more than a its universally acknowledged sole purpose of a staple of existance, that posession of it guarantees taste and respect as long it is also spent in the largest of amounts possible.
That one sign of this was the proverbial exotic restauant which did exchange artificial nothing for much, while genuine restaurants, if so besieged, would recognize that any who would clamor for entrance were as blind sheep who would be shorn and that better times and discriminating customers would someday return.
That another sign of this was a proliferation of objects which are advertised as and therefore considered by gatsbys to be the epitome of prestige, a guaranteed sign of Your Good Taste and Style, and other verbalizations made with the intent to defraud, which are uniform in that where thay sometimes are capable of actuial reason for existance, their prices are many multiples of their value, if any such exisits.
That the primary sign of this is the costume inflicted by these creatures upon the visual perceptions of those with taste, where these aberations have been alleged to be "classic" and "traditional" to save gatsbys from admitting that all of theirs is out of date and didn't work the first time either.
-Ralph Lauren, overpriced king of the lower middle class.
They claim---first appearance and exclusivity--- us preppy gatsbys all look a certain way,---collars on end, "deck shoes" that never see a deck, vile shades of costume etc not everybody can be us
As they claim to be upper class, lets look at them
Finally, that as the gatsbys who called themselves preppies did claim to be upper class and superior with a lack of money
Dockers---founded 18??----BS, the company, yes, the BS is a blatant claw for legibility.
Ralph Lauren----THe louder you preen, the lower the middle class
Further problem---the louder you yell, the lower you are.
that bizarre costume worn as clothing for the sake of being seen in is lower middle class
that professionals are as they have always been---comodities
Problems---from the top The higher the class, the more the elegance---elegance is as it always has been, the mathematical meaning
upper class is upper class as defined by (fussell, P3) upper class is independent in thought, assumes others to be, while noticing some are not, will fight for one's own, will not otherwise intrude upon others. will do what needs to be done---will not do what does not need to be done---lower classes require coercion. absolute understated elegance---not cold fish; enthusiasm for enthusiasm's sake, not for other's approval because it is not needed. the upper class isn't "hip" it's the entire body. anyone and everyone can be upper class.
that such things as pulled up collars, pleated pants and the like may work in a documentary or historical recreation, but that actual existence is neither, making such ridiculousness hopelessly affected
By such definitions, upper class is upper class, Lower class is lower class, and gatsbys are middle to lower middle class---the more the herd detailing the lower. The lower doesn't have the money and sometimes the concern, and the upper class doesn't have the stupidity.
yea, therefore, the three harbingers and their antecedents didi set the tone for the Empties.
Where good did occur, computers and the russain federation
where credit is taken for that which occurred on its own--the good things of the eighties such as the computer andf the fall of the soviet union
While it can be noted that good things did occur in the Empties, these can only be credited to those who directly took part such as the rise of computers and the fall of the soviet union---to claim it took place on my watch is nothing---so did everything else at their own times and not at the call of any alleged leader.
the empty calls of the chroniclers of equally empty calendars were not heeded,
from the beginning---the end justifies the means, the short term is better than the long term ideology is better than solving problems---hence From the beginning of the Empties, an absolute spin in policy, much commented upon by others as being bad airline deregulations which took a system of regulated prices and routes which served many to a system of prices either very high, or competitively cut so low the airline could not safely function on the few routes it still had left after stranding many other former passengers slashing taxes for a pipe dream to justify lower taxes and winding up with collapsing social and physical superstructure, and 4 trillion dollars in public debt. a public philosophy of its okay, I'll lie about it, as long as I get ahead---as seen in Iran-Contra, Michael Millkin, and BCCI. operation just because, the invasion of Panama---just because a us financed drug dealer got caught being financed---by the other side---end and means, again--- operation decoration, the invasion of Grenada----where someone was being unreasonably threatening, but five thousand took part and six thousand were awarded medals Where in the gulf war much praise and honor is given to those who went---but as with panama, one should not need to take out what one has built up. among others.
where the affairs of other are recognized to be their own---but where minority ideologues announce that practices deemed offensive by themselves must not simply be inflicted upon themselves but must not be inflicted at all--- where humpries says that 80/20 split---in US when 10 percent screamed about abortion and arts and whatever, 10 percent screamed back, and us 80% in the middle said what the hell is going on????
where one does find that good things did occur, but the explosion in computers and the fall of the soviet union would have occurred anyway.
therefore---no matter how light the overview, one declares that in the future, things will be better, ideology will be replaced by acknowledgement of what can and cannot be, that respect and responsibility will occur---our lives our fortunes and our sacred honor.