Friday, February 13, 2009

World Going Retro




"Those Were The Days"
from All In the Family
by Lee Adams and Charles Strouse

Boy, the way Glenn Miller played. Songs that made the Hit Parade. 
Guys like us, we had it made. Those were the days.
Didn't need no welfare state. Everybody pulled his weight. 
Gee, our old LaSalle ran great. Those were the days.

And you knew who you were then. Girls were girls and men were men.
Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.
People seemed to be content. Fifty dollars paid the rent.
Freaks were in a circus tent. Those were the days.

Take a little Sunday spin, go to watch the Dodgers win.
Have yourself a dandy day that cost you under a fin.
Hair was short and skirts were long. Kate Smith really sold a song. 
I don't know just what went wrong. Those Were The Days.

In that TV series our family gathered around the TV and laughed and laughed at the antics of Archie Bunker.  [by the way, Mom if you are able to look down from Heaven we could never figure out that one lyric "Gee our old LaSalle ran great."  Thanks to the wonders of the Internet I now know.  Guess we were a Chevrolet and Rambler family and you never owned a LaSalle]  Archie was a laughable fuzz ball.  A harmless puffer of cigars that now would be a focus of Code Pink.  Edith Bunker, a woman who lived her position in the scheme of things yet  led Archie to new ground.  She often was wiser than Archie but protected his ego and respected his leadership often.  That family was both a picture of a traditional family yet at the same time it  was a dysfunctional family.    I feel sorry for anyone who has no idea what I'm writing about and has never seen a single episode of this TV show.

"Meathead" dragged Gloria off into the future of liberal thinking and progressive approaches to life, liberty and pursuit.  The new next generation, they were, that opened the doors to the full opposite of the lyrics above.  Meathead and Gloria, if real, would've now had "children" and their children have even had children.  Likely out of wedlock if you were to write the rest of the story realistically.  Likely both of those generations represent the attitudes of the majority vote that funneled our nation into what looks to be a potentially very dark future if you are of the mindset of Archie, Edith or Republican or Independent or other conservative categories.

Focusing on my subject of going 'retro' now have you noticed the lines of automobiles that have been designed to hark back to earlier times?  Post LaSalle times but pre-80's.  The new Ford Mustang that is more perfect than the original but has those lines.  The Chevrolet HHR and sport truck, the Chrysler PT Cruiser, Dodge Charger and many others.  Oh, and let's not forget the new VW Beetle.  Have we run out of ideas?  Look around at many other examples besides cars and you will see something new designed specifically to call back to some undefineable sweet-spot in time.  Have we run out of ideas and are now trying to turn back the hands of time?

What about political climate?  With our latest offerings in Washington we not only have thrown Herbert Hoover under the bus along with mamma and Archie Bunker and Christian ideals we've gone overseas to envy the sordid pasts of other countries.  Russian governmental control, the iron fist.  The Atheist iron fist at that.  Mimicking and envying all the mistakes of Europe of the last 3 or 4 centuries at least.

Could this be the beginning of the end?  I mean if I were God and I looked down and saw all the recycling repitition of bad ideas I would severly want to press the Game Over buzzer on the clock.  But for one detail-  there is still hope that you might be saved from judgement, Archie, Edith, Meathead and Gloria!

You know the one idea from Europe that has not been recycled in our government is the concept of an official state run religion.  Or have we?  A religion is nothing but an -ism isn't it?  Can you identify what 'ism' the Democrat run Washington, Hollywood, and TV news is implementing?  The answers are hidden in the pictures below.  See if you can spot them.