The America Of My Youth

I remember a time when my clothing was made by union labor in the United States. Those who made our clothes had well-paying jobs that could support a family with a single income. And yet the Levi’s I wore were always affordable, so that a young and irresponsible punter such as I was had more pairs of jeans in his closet than he really needed. I remember commercials for the Garment Worker’s Union on which it was sung “Look for the union label”.

 Hanes came with an inspector’s tag in each package, showing there was a real person at the other end. 

At some point our country was capable of paying fair wages to the people who made our clothes, whereas now we are told we need children working long hours in sweatshops to make them. And we’ve come to be okay with the fact that the clothes on our backs cost somebody their childhood.

I remember butchers being paid very well for the hard work they did. Hell, my grandfather was able to raise thirteen children as a butcher who later owned a small butcher/grocery store. 

There are no small, locally owned grocery stores any more, and they’ve streamlined the butchering process so that now migrant workers are paid a pittance to work at extremely repetitive tasks that wear out their bodies at far too young an age. But it’s just the way the economy works, I guess we’re not smart enough to realize how that makes things better for everyone in the big scheme of things. Thank God we have people like Thomas Friedman to make it all seem rational.

I remember being told I needed glasses when I was young. My mom took me to the local optometrist who had a little shop of his own. He wasn’t working for some larger corporation that syphoned off the profits and sent them to people who knew nothing about my eyes or cared about me. Same with my doctor and dentist, they didn’t have to work for someone else, didn’t have to share the fruits of their labor with people they didn’t know. Nowadays if you’re an optometrist or pharmacist or beautician, chances are you’re working for Walmart or some other corporation that sets wages for you and dictates how you will serve your clients. When anybody bothers to point such a change out, it is called progress. Unavoidable, don’t you know.

My sister was a cashier. Not the looked-down upon cashier of today, not one of those who should be replaced by a machine and should show more grit in order to advance herself. No, she was a cashier who worked hard at her job and was good at it, and was rewarded adequately for it. I remember her finally getting a full-time position and knew from the money she earned she would be able to provide for herself and her young son. It too was a union position.

The America of my youth was a forward-looking one: we were building agencies to ensure the environment was taken care of. We appreciated the arts and gladly funded them We offered professors permanent positions. We knew we had to start building more fuel-efficient vehicles. We were intent on joining the rest of the world and converting to the metric system, a system so very superior to our own.

The U.S. of my youth was one where we spoke to people in other nations rather than threatened them. The Vietnam War had just ended, and Richard Nixon had paid a visit to China, of all places, proving we could work diplomatically with just about anybody. We debated and we argued with nations we disagreed with, but we did so to a great extent within the confines of the United Nations, a democratic institution based upon the principle of peace. Today we act through the military alliance known as NATO, where we do not negotiate but threaten.

We had fewer news channels in the 70’s, but they managed to provide us with a much greater degree of perspectives. I don’t recall the angry talking heads that are all about us now. Perhaps that was because for every point there was a counterpoint, so that everyone had to be respectful lest they get back what they dished out. Audiences today can find their own niche, where they never have to listen to opposing positions.

Those televisions on which we watched fewer channels with greater diversity were most likely made in the United States and those workers were adequately compensated for their labor. Many of the components to today’s TVs are made in Malaysia, Thailand, or China. In my youth, I don’t recall any stories of workers committing suicide or companies installing netting to keep workers from jumping to their deaths, but perhaps time has dimmed my recollection of them. As if time could ever erase such memories.

We were able to pay for people to answer phones and provide us the answers we needed, rather than being forced to endure endless hours lost in answering systems that never resolve our issues until we are finally able to speak to a real live person. We paid people to pump our gasoline. A small thing, I know, but a nice touch. You left the gas station with a clean windshield and the knowledge you had the proper amount of oil. It wasn't yet unheard of for a doctor to make a house call or a milkman to deliver you eggs. And job security. God, we had job security, with a pension awaiting us at the end of our work-life.

What happened to us as a culture? How did we get from there to here? And how dare we continue to call such a movement “progress”? How long do we continue to accept what today’s society provides for us at the expense of those who toil and are not rewarded? Do not the very clothes you wear itch and chafe at the thought of the suffering and wasted lives of those who created them for you? Do you not long to see Walter Cronkite’s image when you turn on the television, or Noam Chomsky when you turn to PBS? When you go to your optometrist, wouldn’t you like to know he was looking out for you and not his employers? Don’t you wish the people who are handsomely, no, obscenely, rewarded for overseeing business and politics started making life better for the average man rather than worse? Damn, it’s time to make some changes in our nation. And we’re going to have to do it on our own, because the people who took us from where we were then to where we are now are not interested in you. It’s time we became active in those democratic institutions such as labor unions, politics at the grassroots level, and international outreach. Because those who have been ruling us from the top down have failed us, failed us miserably. And it’s just going to get worse.