Missing the 80s...am I insane?
I am currently watching Season Two of Miami Vice , which ran in my 85-86 school year, think I was in third grade. Didn't really appreciate it, but then again I couldn't as it came on about 9:00 on Friday nights and while it was the beginning of two full days of freedom from school, it was still a little late for me. The show can be cheesy at times(there is currently a guy threatening Crockett and Tubbs dressed in a purple business suit), but I think it is a great thing to watch if you want a time capusle type look at the 80s. Who would have guessed that a show where two men showing off a bit of chest hair would hit so big?
Watching this show makes me miss the 80s, and for that I think something must be wrong with me. Last night I was watching the cult classic movie Dazed and Confused, which takes place in 1976, the year in which yours truly was born. During a scene in which some of the characters sample some recreational drugs, a girl remarks that she thinks the seventies were a bust, and that when the eighties hits, and their all in their roaring twenties, things must get better. I have two words for her: Ronald Reagan!
I loved the carefree life of that time period where I could spend a fall afternoon watching cartoons and then going to the Sears Catalog wishbook to mark what new plastic products I wanted for X-Mas, then watching a little MTV at night when they actually showed music videos. However, aside from Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. and maybe Dire Straits Brother's in Arms , not much music existed that wasn't made of synthesizers and drum machines, and most of the groups had one hit and disappeared. Clothing, as I am sure you can infer from the wardrobe mentioned above, was laughable, and our nation was accumulating the largest debt we had ever had, and my grandkids will be paying off when I am long gone.
Yes, the 80s was mostly one big guilty pleasure from a social standpoint, but politically and for the future it wasn't much. We had a man who, possibly under orders from the President, sold arms to the people of the Middle East. Senator Al Gore questioned this individual (name's Oliver North, may have heard of him) and apparently one of the reasons he gave for his actions was that he feared some of the terrorists residing in the area, one of which went by the name Osama Bin Laden. Senator Gore laughed him off, at least at the moment. North was disgraced in the long run, but the President, who might have commited an impeachable offense, went away scratch free.
What many conservative historians who had their heyday in that era fail to mention is that when Gore was Vice President of the nation, and his boss was someone named Bill, they did take an interest in Bin Laden and were about to launch a mission when something happened. Apparently Bill, in spite of making the nation a surplus of several billion dollars and booming economy, not to mention taking the nation's security into consideration, was impeached for getting a blowjob. Maybe his rough times were a payback from those in charge of Congress for what happened to North and Reagan, maybe it was just that they had nothing better to do with our income tax dollars, but it hindered his moves on Bin Laden. Several years later individuals that were not stopped as an indirect result of the impeachment proceedings destroyed the World Trade Center, some of the Pentagon, and sent the nation's already suffering economy into a backslide from which it has not yet fully recovered.
I guess the conclusion I am trying to reach is that guilty pleasures aside, the 80s was the decade in which the seeds were planted for the state our nation is in today; an overall arrogant and consumer driven culture full of people with kids, but not many parents. An America that most of the world, after the actions of our current President, seems to despize. Thank you Mr. Reagan, and thank you to that decade. Happy 4th of July everyone!!!!!
(Can't be lighthearted and whimsical all the time you know; the 80s was that for a decade and look where we landed?)
Watching this show makes me miss the 80s, and for that I think something must be wrong with me. Last night I was watching the cult classic movie Dazed and Confused, which takes place in 1976, the year in which yours truly was born. During a scene in which some of the characters sample some recreational drugs, a girl remarks that she thinks the seventies were a bust, and that when the eighties hits, and their all in their roaring twenties, things must get better. I have two words for her: Ronald Reagan!
I loved the carefree life of that time period where I could spend a fall afternoon watching cartoons and then going to the Sears Catalog wishbook to mark what new plastic products I wanted for X-Mas, then watching a little MTV at night when they actually showed music videos. However, aside from Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. and maybe Dire Straits Brother's in Arms , not much music existed that wasn't made of synthesizers and drum machines, and most of the groups had one hit and disappeared. Clothing, as I am sure you can infer from the wardrobe mentioned above, was laughable, and our nation was accumulating the largest debt we had ever had, and my grandkids will be paying off when I am long gone.
Yes, the 80s was mostly one big guilty pleasure from a social standpoint, but politically and for the future it wasn't much. We had a man who, possibly under orders from the President, sold arms to the people of the Middle East. Senator Al Gore questioned this individual (name's Oliver North, may have heard of him) and apparently one of the reasons he gave for his actions was that he feared some of the terrorists residing in the area, one of which went by the name Osama Bin Laden. Senator Gore laughed him off, at least at the moment. North was disgraced in the long run, but the President, who might have commited an impeachable offense, went away scratch free.
What many conservative historians who had their heyday in that era fail to mention is that when Gore was Vice President of the nation, and his boss was someone named Bill, they did take an interest in Bin Laden and were about to launch a mission when something happened. Apparently Bill, in spite of making the nation a surplus of several billion dollars and booming economy, not to mention taking the nation's security into consideration, was impeached for getting a blowjob. Maybe his rough times were a payback from those in charge of Congress for what happened to North and Reagan, maybe it was just that they had nothing better to do with our income tax dollars, but it hindered his moves on Bin Laden. Several years later individuals that were not stopped as an indirect result of the impeachment proceedings destroyed the World Trade Center, some of the Pentagon, and sent the nation's already suffering economy into a backslide from which it has not yet fully recovered.
I guess the conclusion I am trying to reach is that guilty pleasures aside, the 80s was the decade in which the seeds were planted for the state our nation is in today; an overall arrogant and consumer driven culture full of people with kids, but not many parents. An America that most of the world, after the actions of our current President, seems to despize. Thank you Mr. Reagan, and thank you to that decade. Happy 4th of July everyone!!!!!
(Can't be lighthearted and whimsical all the time you know; the 80s was that for a decade and look where we landed?)
posted by Darth Liberal at 2:06 PM
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