What was social decay in the US like during the Cold War?
461788
believe that we have degraded since the 50"s and early 60"s. think that is the last time America stood together on life issues. there was not family fall out like now. think people tried to do what was right even when it was hard. man tried to provide and make households survive while woman were trying to be thee best to be a mother not 100 different things and then a mother. (no way intended as a slam meaning trying to be a worker teacher home maker taxi driver sister daughter wife then mother is very hard. and not far back in the 50S most woman stayed at home and had the ability to be th mother they dreamed of. ) we treated our kids different as the future not as a necessity or interruption.
670778
Other than having "atomic bomb" drills when I was in school---like sitting in the hallway with my head between my knees and my hands over my head was really going to stop an atomic blast or protect me from radioactive fallout LOL-it was absolutely wonderful for me. We had the birth of "Rock-N-Roll", employment and secure jobs for all, and our depression-era raised parents made sure that we had things they had only dreamed about. A new car was $1000.00 and $10,000 bought a NEW 3 bedroom brick home in a nice neighborhood.\n\nBUT....I was a white child in the South...My Black friends of today experienced a totally different reality. Unemployment or employment at or below minimum wage.  Black women were lucky to find housekeeping jobs within a 2 hr bus ride for $5.00 per day.  They could not shop in white owned stores, eat in white owned restaurants, drink from the same water fountains as whites, go to school with whites, swim in city owned swimming pools with whites, go to most theaters (although some of the more "liberal" theaters would allow them to sit in the balcony), vote or run for public office, and stood the chance of being hung if they were so "uppity" as to try any of these things.\n\nHow was life in the 50's.....as with all things it was, and is, a matter of perspective.
681363
Strasveetya!  You really need to study more about the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, its a very intereting time in history.  Most of the American movies, by the way, called the Soviet Union "Russia."  For many, many years our countries were the worst of enemies.  It started around the end of World War II, and officially ended when Yeltsin took power.  Why?  Because America believed communism to be the greatest evil, and the Soviet Union believed capitalism to be the greatest evil.  We were in a state that is known as a cold war.  A cold war is essentially a state of war, but at a constant state of cease-fire.  Some shots were fired, mainly planes shooting down other planes, but no major battles were fought between the two countries.  However, we had enough nuclear missiles pointed at each other to completely destroy all life on this planet several times over.  The Cold War was never more tense than when Khrushchev and Kennedy were presidents, and Khrushchev said on international television that the Soviet Union would crush America (taking off his shoe and pounding it for all to see while he said it).  I believe two of the greatest leaders our nations ever had were Gorbachev and Reagan.  They did much to clam things down, and both began the process of disarming our nuclear missiles.  Slava Bog!
893749
It wasn't fun, you can bet on that.  Who knew if we would win or not.  All of my friends went into the service.  So did I.  Some of my friends never came back.  Limited gas. Certain food not available. Hard to buy new clothes. However, life went on and we finally pulled out of it.  When I came home from Italy in 1946 things had already returned to 90% of normal.  After the war, things boomed.
893668
wow spakarun really wants you to think it was that bad. come on man, chin up, it wasn't like we were all living in a Jewish ghetto.\nYes, times were hard, especially for inner city people and farmers out west. It wasn't called the Great Depression for nothing. But the people weren't turning on each other like dogs. Families were working together, supporting each other. In some parts of America, like the Ohio valley, farming was still successful. The people also turned to silent movies and radio to take their mind off their troubles, which helped Hollywood become the booming place it is today.\nThe point of the question was women in the 1930's. Women had the right to vote. Many of them had turned from the ankle-length skirts of their grandmothers, and were wearing more modern dresses, with short sleeves and hemlines to their knees.\nMost of them still prefered to stay home and be housewives, unless they were single or widowed. In those days, if a married woman was working, it was a shame on her husband. \n.
347984
There's like a buttload of differences. I'm 45. I walked or rode my bike to school. Lots of kids did, even in high school. Now the bike racks are gone. We had no internet, not even desktop computers. No Ipods. Not even Walkmans. No cell phones. No CDs. We had records, cassettes, and 8 track tapes. There were no school shootings, drugs were extremely limited, the big deal in high school was smoking. If you could get away with smoking, you were a big deal. Limos at the prom were rare. Most of us drove ourselves. It was much much smoggier when I was a kid. The air in Southern California was brown and smelled bad. Gas was cheap compared to now, but wages were lower, so it didn't much matter. When I was a kid, we had Vietnam on TV every night until the early 70s. Now we have Iraq on TV every night.
420937
Yes, the media was " alive " when Communism was a bad thing. Actually, Communism is still a bad thing.\nLiving under Communism would be like living under your parents only on steroids.
641254
Try this link and it talks about the war in containment terms. http://faculty.washington.edu/rhennes/KORSUCCESS.html
243940
Socially: Everyone ignored the ban on alcohol and partied a lot.  Economically: The stock market crashed and the economy plunged into a depression.  Politically: People blamed Hoover for the lack of jobs and money and elected FDR.
487755
The great depression seemed to hit the American people a lot harder then the cuban missile crisis. American people were forced to live in shanty towns which they named 'Hoovervilles' after the president...The riff with Cuba though has still has not been sorted out completed with the US...
153470
You know, you really should do your own homework.  But I'll give you some starters: \n\nNormative: social norms shape human behaviors, as such, it approaches the policitical science from a "top-down" point of view.  The dominant social norms will determine the political environments during that time period.\n\nBehavioral: individual behaviors directly determine the outcome of political activities.  This is a "bottom-up" approach, where people's actions/reactions will dictate who gets to be the government and the direction of the government
1039649
socially, isnt that subjective? a lot has changed, but whether that's considered progress or decline is debatable. (50's housewives, 60-70s civil rights movement, hippies, etc, 80-90's hair bands and fads etc etc)\n\neconomically, we've been doing the same cycle of highs and lows as the economy is historically known to do, though if you're talking about economic systems and structure of american economy, not too much has changed.\n\ntechnologically speaking of course, there has been plenty of progress, at an exponentially higher rate than ever before.  (medicine, internet, even video games and cars)
553724
I hear you loud and clear.The social collapse is happening as we speak.It's just that at the rate it's happening it looks like slow motion.I think that one day we will be living in a different country and will have happened right in front of us.It's a gradual process.The new world order is for the world to be under one government.I don't know if that will ever happen.I do see that everyday Americans are powerless to do anything to stop what's happening.To me that's a scary thing.
625867
This smells like a research paper you should be doing your own research for.  I'll just say the foreign policy of the 1950's was totally dominated by worldwide struggle with the USSR for allies and hegemony.  Everything else was secondary.  On top of the perpetual war footing and a major shooting war in Korea there was the threat of nuclear holocaust.  And the American imagination has latched onto the idea that this decade was innocent and carefree, a Golden Age that makes our own times dark and frightening in comparison.  This grotesque glorification of the past plays right into the hands of the current regime, which manipulates fear to stay in power and strip away our constitutional rights.
487958
well, sorry, but Ronald Reagan is involved in my answer.  The end of the Cold War was a pretty major one.
554639
Social: class-ridden & female disenfranchisement\n\nPolitical: surging nationalism chafing at multi-ethnic empires; democracy in countries like UK, France & Italy but little or none in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire or Russia.\n\nEconomical: mercantilism dying away, free trade growing, Germany becoming so rich & confident that the established balance of power in Europe was out the window.\n\nGeographical: Far fewer countries in Europe than exist today, mainly because of the empires with lots of territory in Europe (Austro-Hungarian, Russian, Ottoman and German).
76921
I wasn't gonna answer this question, but the more I thought about it, I figured I may as well.  I think the 80s were.  Well.. no... maybe the 60s.  AW HELL I don't like this question.  I say the 60s for breaking down the racial wall.  (Not that they were fun times, at all, but the strength of those fighting was amazing and did wonders for society today).  But in the 80s we realized that we are a united country that can fight for hunger and sickness. Remember when AIDS came out?? Suddenly musicians took a stand to do more with their money than spend it on parachute pants and cases of hairspray. It was a time when the nation came together with Hands Across America and Live Aid, etc etc etc.  Kids in my school started focusing on world news, instead of highschool ball scores. We had presidents shot at, a Beatle was murdered, space shuttles exploded, Russia toke their finger off the button, gays and lesbians were coming out all over the place and fighting for their equallity.  Microwaves became a household product. Didn't viagra hit the market in the late 80s? lol  It was a year of eye opening things. Maybe not a technological boom, as much as a psychological boom.  Shrinks were less shunned upon. Divorces were no longer taboo. Massive hurricanes hit the coast, and I personally saw neighborhoods becoming one family- taking care of each other like none before.  Limits were being put on music and euthanasia issues hit the scene when a girl named Teri Shaivo was in coma, and her parents wanted to keep her alive, while her husband wanted to pull the plug.  Walls fell in Germany. The 80s really influenced the way I saw the world.  It seemed almost like the decade pulled many countries closer together so our people and their people could hug. I'm not sure what happened in the 90s, and I'm not so sure the 2000-2010 decade will be much better.