• Today@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Plane hijackings, gas lines/limits, mortgage interest rates over 10%, school bomb threats, …

    We had movies and songs about nuclear war, Russians, bombing Iran, etc. because these were daily concerns.

    • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      Rivers on fire, gay bashing, satanic panic, abortion clinic bombings, acid rain…

      Shit was wild, and often not in a good way. 70s fashion was groovy, though.

      • 4am@lemmy.zip
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        1 day ago

        My town when I was growing up used to test the air raid sirens at noon on Saturday. Two 30 second runs, 5 seconds apart (so we’d know it was the test and not a real warning).

        I used to call it the “noon whistle” and it was how I knew to come in from playing in the yard for lunch.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Rivers on fire, gay bashing, satanic panic, abortion clinic bombings, acid rain…

        Okay, but we have all of that now, too. What was different?

        • CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          No - literally rivers were on fire.
          And gay bashing was mainstream, fully tolerated, very common. Lakes were turning clear like swimming pools due to acid rain - kinda pretty, but totally dead.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            21 hours ago

            No - literally rivers were on fire.

            BP lit the Gulf on fire a while back. Nevermind the drought induced wildfires all through the Mountain West.

            And gay bashing was mainstream, fully tolerated, very common.

            Texas Senate Bill 12 is bringing it back.

            Lakes were turning clear like swimming pools due to acid rain - kinda pretty, but totally dead.

            We had a climate-related disaster every four days last year.

  • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe
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    1 day ago

    Major optimism, like everyone was breathing a big sigh of relief.

    Bit naive perhaps, but there you are.

    Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

    That said, it’s still much better today, just that power brokers never change - they just always look for the new way to sell the same old ideas.

    The Hapsburgs didn’t go away, they just changed team jerseys so people wouldn’t realize it was still them.

    • You mean the period where people in my birth country weren’t allowed to leave, still doing “cultural revolution” and “struggle sessions”. Poverty everywhere (actually still a lot of poverty nowadays too, but it wasmuch worse back then).

      Meanwhile in America, even though this was after Civil Rights, Black people are still getting hated on and lynchings still happen. A time where it’s still practically impossible for someone who looks like Obama to become president. Discrimination was rampant. Disability rights wasn’t even a thing yet. LGBT rights aren’t definitely not socially acceptable at that time.

      Why do people always worship the past so much?