"Boy the way Glenn Miller played. Songs that made the hit parade. Guys like us, we had it made. Those Were The Days" AmericaBlog An email making the rounds
REMEMBER
WHEN you displayed your flag on the front porch on the 4th of July, and
you didn't have to worry about whether it would be misinterpreted as
support for a corrupt president and his administration?
REMEMBER
WHEN'Support the Troops' meant equipping our military with everything
necessary for battle, instead of just being a catchy phrase that looked
good on a bumper-sticker?
REMEMBER WHEN your tax dollars paid
for things like improved education and social programs, instead of
making Halliburton shareholders millionaires?
REMEMBER WHEN you
watched movies about WWII, and it was the enemy who tortured captured
American soldiers, instead of American soldiers torturing the people
they'd allegedly 'liberated'?
REMEMBER WHEN you heard something
on the TV news or read something in a newspaper, and you didn't have to
go to the internet to find out just how much of it was fact, and how
much of it was 'spin'?
REMEMBER WHEN a politician was caught
with his hand in the cookie jar and he resigned in disgrace, instead of
excusing his own behaviour by claiming that his political opponents
were equally as guilty of wrongdoing?
REMEMBER WHEN 'Made in the USA' labels on products were the norm, and not a total oddity?
REMEMBER
WHEN you hitchhiked through Europe as a teenager, and you DIDN'T have
to replace the American flag on your knapsack with a Canadian flag in
order to be a welcomed guest in a foreign country?
REMEMBER
WHEN organized crime figures had to make phone calls from the corner
phone booth, because they were the only people who had to worry about
wire-taps?
REMEMBER WHEN telling a fellow politician on the
floor of the Senate to 'go f*ck himself' was considered behaviour
unbecoming an elected official, instead of being accepted as the way a
Vice President behaves himself?
REMEMBER WHEN you could pretty
well count on the fact that if the president said it, it was based on
sound intelligence and was probably true?
REMEMBER WHEN you
could rely on your elected representatives to put your interests ahead
of the corporations that filled their campaign coffers, or the
lobbyists who gave them great basketball tickets?
REMEMBER WHEN
you didn't even KNOW what religion the people you voted for were,
because it didn't really matter? Remember when you didn't know what
party your neighbour belonged to, because that didn't really matter
either?
REMEMBER WHEN the pension you’d worked for your whole
life wasn’t in danger of being wiped out by corrupt CEOs, assisted by
respected accounting firms that made that corruption almost impossible
to detect?
REMEMBER WHEN you could brag that as an American, you
were guaranteed things like free speech and due process of law, without
checking the nightly news to see whether those rights were still in
effect?
REMEMBER WHEN the president upheld the law of the land,
instead of coming up with 'legal loopholes' to support the idea that
he's above the law?
REMEMBER WHEN you could say, "I'm a proud
American," without qualifying it with a list of all of the things your
government is doing that you’re not exactly proud of?
REMEMBER WHEN you actually thought that the people in charge of running your country were smarter than you were?
REMEMBER
WHEN your parents worked all their lives to ensure you a better life,
instead of worrying about how bad the life they'd be leaving their
children might be?
REMEMBER
WHEN'patriotism' was judged by your words and actions, and not by
whether you were a member of the party currently in power?
REMEMBER WHEN the 'American Dream' was attainable through diligence and hard work, and not the luck of the 'outsourcing' draw?
REMEMBER
WHEN the election of a president was considered the result of democracy
in action, and not the result of Diebold executives doing the job they
were expected to do?
REMEMBER WHEN you sang 'God Bless America'
as a kid, and never thought you'd grow up to wonder if, in view of your
country's actions, asking God's blessing was asking a bit too much?
I
REMEMBER WHEN … and I wonder if these ideas will become ancient history
by the time those of us old enough to recall them are dead and gone.
JFK's death changed everything. The beginning of the end.
The sad thing about that post is that it could go on and on.
