Potemkin prosperity

[Carl Remick]

>Carl Remick wrote:
>
>>Please note that I said "from *at least* Reagan onward" and would
>>never argue that Carter or anyone earlier represented some
>>prelapsarian paradise.  But I think of the Carter years as being the
>>last time there was any willingness at all to acknowledge that US
>>society is Fundamentally Fucked Up.  Contrast Carter's "national
>>malaise" speech (which, admittedly, contributed to his getting the
>>old heave-ho from office) with Reagan's fatuous "morning in America"
>>palaver.
>
>From the American bourgeoisie's point of view it was. It may be past
>last call now, but they had a great 20-year party, didn't they?
>
>Doug

Yes, and with spectacular fireworks.  In the mid-80s I worked as a corporate 
staff writer at the World Financial Center in Battery Park City across the 
street from the World Trade Center.  One of my projects was to assist with 
an annual report that featured a cover photo of the then-new World Financial 
Center lit up by the lurid glare of harbor-wide fireworks shot off for the 
Statue of Liberty Centennial, July 4, 1986 -- a Reagan-era, triumphalist 
show if ever there was one.  I just dug out a copy of that annual report, 
and it is eerie how that photo of of the World Financial Center outlined by 
pyrotechnic bomb bursts prefigures the horrible images of 9/11, with those 
huge orange explosions erupting from the World Trade Center.

Carl

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