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Fifty years ago today, two Americans walked on the moon. I was seven years old at the time, just old enough to appreciate how remarkable that achievement was.
I still get chills thinking about the summer of 69. My world revolved around two things: the New York Mets and the Apollo moon mission. And while the heroics of Seaver, Agee, and Kranepool thrilled me beyond words, I instinctively knew that they and their teammates were still the undercards to Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins. In 1969, astronauts were the supreme, top-dog idols in the pantheon of American Idols. And this was especially true for every red-blooded American child in Plainview since the lunar module was built right next door in the town of Bethpage.
So around 10:30 at night on July 20, 1969, my parents roused me, my brother, and my sister from our beds and ushered us into the family room. And there, a little after 11, I stared at a clanking monstrosity of a television and watched a man step off the Bethpage-built lunar module and plant his feet firmly on the moon.
Peak Competency?
I’m damn proud of the Apollo program. It wasn’t Russian, Chinese, or Mexican feet that walked on the moon; it was American feet. The Apollo 11 mission was the exclamation point on American exceptionalism. America worked. America got things done. America routinely made the impossible possible. Consider the following:
- In a little over a year (410 days, to be precise), America, in the throes of a horrific economic downturn, no less, built the Empire State Building, an astonishing 102-story skyscraper that remained the world’s tallest building for 41 years.
- In less than four years, America invented the atomic bomb, built the planes to drop that fearsome weapon, and then dropped two of them on the last remaining Axis Power to end WWII.
- In less than nine years, America built the rockets, equipment, and technology to put people on a rock that is 240,000 miles away from earth.
Now consider a few things that recently came across my radar:
- According to US Debt Clock.org, America’s national debt has now eclipsed $22.5 trillion.
- According to a Seattle radio station, KOMO News, homeless people are seriously marring the quality of life in Seattle. Check out this rather sobering video.
- And, finally, according to the John Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, the Providence, RI, public schools are worse than dismal. Ninety percent of Providence students aren’t proficient in math, and 80 percent of Providence students aren’t proficient in English. Let those numbers sink in. At least 80 percent of Providence students are being left behind.
I’ve brought up these stark examples of incompetence, not to rain on the supreme competency of the Apollo 11 mission, but to voice a concern that’s been troubling me for several years now. Did America reach peak competency in 1969? I know that probably strikes you as ridiculous. After all, the typical American’s cell phone today has a hundred thousand times more computing power than the computer in the Apollo 11 command module. But I think I’m on to something, and to prove it, I want you to ponder these questions:
Over the following time intervals—one year from now, four years from now, and nine years from now—what do you suppose will happen?
- Will America’s national debt become more onerous or less onerous?
- Will the homeless situation in Seattle become better, worse, or remain the same?
- Will Providence students become impressively more literate and numerate or pretty much exhibit the same level of ineptness?
Frankly, I don’t see any of these things improving. Whether we’re talking about a year from now, four years from now, or nine years from now, the national debt will be just as terrifying (if not more so), the homeless situation in Seattle will be just as heartbreaking, and the students of Providence will be just as ill-equipped to thrive in a knowledge-based economy as the students of Providence today.
Something happened to America. Instead of the eagle landing, the dodo has landed. Oh, sure, we still show flashes of supreme competency—the space shuttle, the internet, and the cell phone immediately come to mind. But when it comes to the everyday competencies of rearing children, managing household finances, mastering workplace responsibilities, and governing waistlines, we appear—to say the least—bewildered. And when it comes to the crucial societal competencies of educating children, cultivating safe communities, providing affordable healthcare, managing pensions, controlling our borders, and protecting the public purse, we appear equally flummoxed.
Again, I don’t want to come across as a nattering nabob of negativity. I sincerely hope I’m wrong. I just can’t say with conviction that America works, that America can tackle any challenge. For far too many Americans, especially those at the helm of our most important institutions, it not only appears that “failure IS an option” but also appears that failure is NO BIG DEAL.
Neil is surely spinning in his grave.
Final Thoughts
Okay, groovy freedomist, that’s all I got. What say you? Did America reach peak competency in 1969? Or am I delusional and America is just as competent as it was 50 years ago? But more importantly, do you have any Apollo 11 stories to share? I’d love to hear them if you do. Peace.
It feels like the golden age has come and gone. This is the fall of Rome, man. We turned our focus inward since then and this is the result. Someone recently said kids in China dream of becoming astronauts, but kids in the US dream of becoming a YouTube star. That’s really true. Something went wrong in the last few years.
“Someone recently said kids in China dream of becoming astronauts, but kids in the US dream of becoming a YouTube star.”
That says it all, my friend. I also fear that twenty years from now we’ll be way behind China in engineering. But we’ll have them beat hands down when it comes to stripping and porn. Sigh.
Mr. Groovy you really hit a nerve with me on this one.
Sadly, for quite a long time I have felt there is great symmetry between the decline of America and what it has stood for and the fall of the Roman Empire. As a student of history, the similarities are stunning.
Every civilization and world power that has risen to greatness has eventually fallen, every single one. When you study those declines you almost always see the trend line that includes moral decline, class divisions caused by societal economics, wasteful spending and government corruption, overextension and military overspending, and ultimately war or revolution that caused them to topple and crumble. They resurrect and then repeat the cycle over and over again. Just ask Napoleon and Hitler about that just to name two of the megalomaniacs who thought they had all the “solutions” to all the issues.
That isn’t to say that there are no great people doing great things and accomplishments every day. But while the majority of Americans (and for that matter all the people of the planet) refuse to take the decline as a serious reality view and take total collapse as a looming possibility, I don’t.
But, the problem this time is even bigger than who dictates what goes on inside some patch of dirt that we call “borders”. This time the threat is to the entire planet and life itself.
I can’t tell you when, but I can tell you it will happen. If you could ask anyone who has lived through any of those past civilizations, they would probably say they never saw the end coming either.
Gary @ Super Saving Tips recently posted…What About Your Retirement Debt?
“I can’t tell you when, but I can tell you it will happen. If you could ask anyone who has lived through any of those past civilizations, they would probably say they never saw the end coming either.”
Very sobering, my friend. And I couldn’t agree more. Thank you for such a thoughtful comment. It’s comments like these that keep me blogging. You’re the best, Gary. Hope all is well up in the Garden State. Cheers.
Man, I usually get to take my shit storm goggles off when I enter into the comments section here. I think I got a little something in my eye…
Aside from everything being great AND horrible back then, I think we’re often crapping out nowadays and more importantly making up excuses….and everyone is gobbling them up. “How about we just fix the problem?” “Well, we can’t because of (points finger elsewhere)”
a lot of people get paid good money to trot out grievances and invent new ones. as things improve the standards get more and more picky. if we fixed X (any social issue) think of all the X activists who’d be out of work.
When supposedly strong and powerful people get the vapors over the president’s tweets, you know all is lost. We are no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave. We are the land of the perpetually aggrieved and the home of the perpetually whimpering. How sad. How pathetic.
The need to be a “victim” is strong in a lot our fellow Americans. It’s sick and depraved and nothing good will come of it. Great comment, my friend. I couldn’t agree more.
Do not cite the Space Shuttle as anything but an exemplar of crony capitalist ineptitude. The thing killed two crews, spent billions to fail to keep its promise of cheap, reusable space flight. And after it reached its end of life, its successor the STS is repeating the overspending and underperforming. If NASA ever makes it back to the moon they’ll find SpaceX. You know, the company founded by an African American legal immigrant.
Haha! You had to bring up the O-rings, didn’t you? Fair point, my friend. Fair point.
Peak competency in 1969? You wouldn’t say that if you were a woman, a minority or lgbt.
Haha! I love it, S.P. We certainly didn’t achieve “peak civil rights” in 1969. And we still have a ways to go in 2019. Anti-white and anti-Asian discrimination in college admissions is a disgrace. And the double standards of big tech against conservatives and Christians are pretty disgraceful too. But you make a fair point. How individuals and institutions treat others is a component of a country’s competency level too. Thanks for stopping by, S.P. You really made me think. Cheers.
if you were alive in 1969, you’d know that the rights held by women and minorities in the US were better than most places and most times. For one, women could own real property and could vote. For another, fellows like my ancestors had spilled blood, sweat, and treasure freeing the minorities held as human chattel. In fact, by several social metrics, illegitimate births and intact families, 1969 was significantly better than today. Segregation was a pernicious evil, but it had the side effect of putting middle and upper class blacks in the same neighborhoods as the poor. This gave the poor exemplars of people just like them with money who weren’t pushing dope. i’m not advocating anything, but observing that everythnig has consequences.
Spoken like a man! So women could own property and vote. But earned less than a man ( a problem we still face but getting better) and only if that woman could even get the job. Mr. groovy was referring to America, not the Middle East where women still struggle. Yes, I’d rather be in America in 1969 than Saudi Arabia today, I’m just saying women, minorities and LGBT individuals wouldn’t say, ah, 1969 when we had it so good.
Intact families in 1969 were greatly the result of women being afraid to divorce because they had no means of supporting themselves.
I disagree that Steve is speaking “like a man.” He’s speaking like an observant human being who recognizes that the history of mankind is the history of the strong subjugating the weak. He’s also speaking like an observant human being who recognizes that no country on earth has done more to check this all-too-human inclination than the United States. Bringing up his sex in no way advances this conversation. You have a keen mind. Just tell us where Steve is wrong and we will all–including Steve–respectfully consider your arguments. No need for ad hominem attacks.
kudos!!! i believe this breaks new ground in argumentum ad hominem
My point is that you are not taking into account that women didn’t have the same job opportunities or wage equality in 1969 as men.
If you didn’t experience that as a white man, then you can easily remember how great life was in 1969 and say how marriages were more likely to stay intact. But there were reasons why divorce was rare and it wasn’t because women were so happy in 1969.
http://www.attorneys.com/divorce/why-have-divorce-rates-increased-over-time
So what does Steve have as proof to say how intact families mean that 1969 was better than today. I don’t know what he means about legitimate births making 1969 better than today.
1965 The Supreme Court (in Griswold v. Connecticut) gave married couples the right to use birth control, ruling that it was protected in the Constitution as a right to privacy. However, millions of unmarried women in 26 states were still denied birth control.
1972 The Supreme Court (in Baird v. Eisenstadt) legalized birth control for all citizens of this country, irrespective of marital status
So it was ILLEGAL to use birth control until 1965 in America!
Heck, I went on a job interview in 1998 and was asked how old my children were. No man is EVER asked that question. It was illegal in 1998 and yet I still had to think about how to answer the question. So I didn’t blow the interview. So is that an example of the strong subjugating the weak? Because I needed that job and that question sure made me feel weak. Imagine that question asked in 1969 when a woman had no recourse.
Read how much gender discrimination women encountered below:
https://www.history.com/news/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-landmark-opinions-womens-rights-supreme-court
So I stand by my remarks.
And saying that segregation, while evil, had the wonderful side effect of allowing poor blacks to live among middle and upper class blacks … I can’t even imagine how you think this is ok. You assume poor people would have no idea that they could hope to achieve a better life unless they met other people of their own race to prove it were possible. And you label those poor black people as drug dealers, which is a racist assumption.
My point is that it is very difficult if you have no experience as a woman or a minority living in the 60s to know that life was not so great. America had a long way to go. Thankfully we’ve improved and can still do better.
Awesome response, S.P. As a freedomist, I fully appreciate the formal and informal barriers to black, female, and gay advancement that existed in 1969. And I’m pleased as punch that most of those barriers have fallen. But I think your impulse to focus on the civil rights failures of that era blind you to the main point of my post. I don’t think Americans are as competent today–in a building and fixing sense–as they were back then. For instance, I think the Providence public schools were far more competent back in 1969 than today. Back then, most of the students came from two-parent households, there was surely robust vocational training at the high school level, disruptive students could be expelled, and incompetent teachers could be easily fired. Now it’s the opposite. Most of the students come from single-parent households, there’s no vocational training to speak of, it’s hard to expel disruptive students, and it’s even harder to fire lame-ass teachers. So excluding the civil-rights component of societal competency, what say you? Is America more competent today or less competent? I think less so, and desperately want to be proven wrong. Please help me, S.P.
Ok here goes. Invented after 1969 in the US to make life better was:
Health— the CAT scan machine and the MRI machine;Modern knee replacement that is a whole lot better than Mickey Mantle’s surgery;Vaccines for HIV, meningitis, and pneumonia; Advances in bionic limbs; cancer treatment like immunotherapy.
Technology—reducing cost of solar panels(Exxon); the bar code; the internet and email; the first electronic calculator.
Society—advances in treatment and education of Down Syndrome children; deinstitutionalization of mental patients into group homes.
I could go on.
I have no answers to the problems in impoverished school systems but I am sure parent involvement is key as is early childhood education. Going back to 1969 is not the answer. The problem is getting parents involved — one issue is having time for those parents who are struggling economically and working multiple jobs. Sweden and Norway pay women 80% of their salaries to stay home and care for their children for many months (Sweden for more than a year)….maybe that is a good start. I agree that lack of vocational training is a mistake, and I don’t know why many school systems insist on every student getting an academic HS diploma including studying geometry and chemistry where they would be better suited to vocational training. In Florida, the option of vocational education exists and I know a young man there who decided to forego college and is studying plumbing and electrical skills.
http://www.fldoe.org/academics/career-adult-edu/career-tech-edu/
I hate the advent of big box stores. Americans love cheap prices which Those stores provide along with cheap goods from overseas where the people producing the products are treated and paid poorly.
The loss of mom and pop stores led to what you describe… someone who doesn’t own his store is less likely to care. It’s a shame we have trouble finding things made completely in America. My family owned a factory and went out of business in the 70s because of the expense of paying a living wage to Americans and they couldn’t compete with China. So I’ll agree with you there except the number of start up companies in America give me faith in our future.
Will you start a blog already! Why are you wasting your first-rate mind in the comments section of this lame-ass blog? All kidding aside, S.D., thank you. I do feel a little better about our country after reading your comment. I’m still worried, though. I think about the old Soviet Union and how many American commentators used to describe her as having a first-rate military but a second-rate economy. Could it be that we’re somewhat similar? Could it be that we have first-rate technology but a second-rate culture and all the competency woes that accompany cultural weakness? I mean, it’s never been easier to pay my bills. I just went online and set up automated withdrawals from checking. But then I sit in the Walmart parking lot while Mrs. G shops, and I can go 10 to 15 minutes without seeing a single skinny person. Once again, S.D., awesome comment. You made a very convincing argument. Bravo.
I think you raise a good point that needs consideration. We must keep in mind some distinctions:
– competent at WHAT? and
– WHO gets to be competent?
There are skills of 1969 that are (for good or ill) no longer cultivated. Other skills today are far more cultivated (for good or ill). In my father’s generation, my mad software skills would find few takers in the job market. (But I would be a lot better mathematician.) My lapsed competency with a slide rule accompanies mad skilz framing google queries.
In days of yore only a rare Ramanujan could rise from 3rd-world poverty to stratospheric mathematical accomplishment. But nowadays any kid with a passing interest in STEM can assemble a Raspberry Pi based development system for less than a hundred bucks.
The advantage of today over 1969 isn’t skin color or XY chromosome distribution, but that a kid can join the tech elite for the price of tennis shoes instead of the price of a house.
“The advantage of today over 1969 isn’t skin color or XY chromosome distribution, but that a kid can join the tech elite for the price of tennis shoes instead of the price of a house.”
So true, my friend. There so many free resources online the mind boggles. If only I was younger, had the same discipline as I do now, and had access to the Khan Academy, I would rule the world!
S.P. – You have lots to say. I assume you want people to listen to you. Here’s an observation: You’ve started several of your messages denigrating a person based on gender. Saying things like “You wouldn’t say that if you were a woman, a minority or lgbt.” and “Spoken like a man!” are going to turn away many of the people listening to you. I won’t even discuss the irony overall of you making those comments. I can’t imagine starting a message with “Spoken like a woman!” Yikes.
Yaknow, you aren’t thinking color-blind or sex-blind when you say “spoken like a whatever.” And if being a member of the wrong tribe mades what you say wrong on that basis, then the racist, sexist, whateverist is not where you suppose it to be.
I never said anyone was wrong….just that you need to walk in someone else’s shoes to understand the inequality. I merely wanted to point that out. A woman wouldn’t take such offense as was noted above ( ad hominem) because we are used to struggling for equality and often had to take it.
I made a point and your answer was how much better women had it in America than in other countries. That didn’t make it fair in America just because it was worse elsewhere.
How would you like to make less than a woman on average just because of your gender in 2019? Not to mention what it was like in 1969….that was my point.
https://www.businessinsider.com/gender-wage-pay-gap-charts-2017-3
If women are being paid less simply because of their gender, I would suppose the forensic evidence would be readily available and the discrimination lawsuits would be flying left and right. I would also suppose that businesses in every sector would be firing men and hiring women to reduce labor costs. But this isn’t the case. A female NYC cop with five years on the job, for instance, is paid the same as a male NYC cop with five years on the job. The income statistics that feminists taut are simply bullshit. They don’t account for such variables as hours worked and occupation preferences. Here are just a few videos that put the “wage gap” into proper perspective.
Do Women Earn Less than Men?
There Is No Gender Wage Gap
“Equal Pay” Feminist Myths Debunked…Thoroughly!
You can believe what you like and find whatever you want to believe in the internet. Some companies and government jobs are doing a good job of equality because unions are watching. But there are lawsuits :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Ledbetter_Fair_Pay_Act_of_2009
https://fortune.com/2016/04/12/how-to-sue-for-gender-pay-discrimination/
you never experienced this so you deny it. I know because I experienced it in an engineering career with an advanced degree.
Hey, S.P. I disagree. People are surely taken advantage of at work. At my last job, I saw guys who were very good at their jobs get passed over for promotions because they didn’t have college degrees. Mrs. G saw a variation of this at her last job as well. She was hired at a higher salary than two other co-workers because she had a college degree and they didn’t. I contend that there is far more credential discrimination at work than gender discrimination. And I also contend that statistics which provide a 30,000-foot view of things are a poor barometer of social justice. I, for instance, had a least two girlfriends that earned 79 percent of what I earned but were paid more. How can this be? Simple. I had two jobs while they each had one. As usual, S.P., you make fair points. But on this issue, I think feminist talking points have clouded your judgement.
I respectfully would like to say this that my experience and dozens of interviews with women INFORMS my judgement. You claim if there was wage inequality against women there would be lawsuits. I pointed out that there are lawsuits, and the federal Ledbetter law enacted. Another lawsuit: http://andrusanderson.com/farmers-insurance-agrees-to-settle-equal-pay-class-action/
Saying if this were so, then why wouldn’t companies only hire women and therefore save so much money is exactly the point….companies are saving money by paying women less. Of course it is silly to say companies would just fire men.
I don’t disagree about other workplace discrimination … but that should not discredit my position…that two people with the same skills doing the same job deserve equal pay.
Of course this is your blog and you deserve to get the last word. I am moving on to direct my energies to stop gun violence. Something that I do miss about 1969 is that although there was gun violence then, it wasn’t as prevalent as it is today.
No, S.P. You get the very well deserved last word. Please come back and comment on future posts. My readers and I need your thoughtful commentary. Peace.
“I would also suppose that businesses in every sector would be firing men and hiring women to reduce labor costs”
….Oooohhhh, I hadn’t thought of that. You just discovered a way to reduce payroll across the board!
strangely, we’ve not seen a lot of doctors, airline pilots, and lawyers getting the sack so that they can be replaced by minimum-wage high-school drop-outs on drugs. that’s a lot of money to be saved. why doesn’t business do this?
We had a conversation about this when you were over here. I said that I wondered if the Great Experiment that America was when it was founded, (no king, the first real democracy and capitalism), was dying. Or at least is on the decline.
When you said your moon landing experience happened at night, that made me smile. When the moon landing happened, in Australia it was during the day. Mum kept us home from school and we watched it at home on our black and white tv.
I heard from my friends the next day that the teachers gathered all the kids at school into the hall and they watched it together. I never thought about anyone seeing it at night before. Though to be fair, I was only 6 at the time!
Frogdancer Jones recently posted…“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
It is on the decline, sadly. Americans no longer hold in awe the tenets of freedom. Things such as free speech, equal protection of the law, limited government, unbridled competition, and rugged individualism are openly mocked and derided by much of our elites. And when the flame of liberty ceases to flicker in the average American’s heart, the demise of liberty is a certainty. Sigh. On a brighter note, however, I too chuckled seeing the moon landing from the Aussie perspective. When Mrs. G and I visited the space center near Canberra, the exhibit about Apollo 11 indicated that man landed on the moon on July 21. “No, no, noooo,” I gasped to Mrs. G. “We landed on July 20.” But then I remembered that Australia was 15 hours ahead of us. Too funny. Thanks for stopping by, FDJ. You’re the best.
I unfortunately agree 100%. We’ve lost something along the way.
Yeah, from the cleanliness of fast-food restaurants to the decline of marriage, something’s amiss. We just don’t seem to have as much pride as we used to. The real rub, however, is this: how do we make pride and personal responsibility vogue again? Tough problem, my friend. Thanks for stopping by.
Nice article. Without delving into it really i will give my no doubt very unpopular opinion that diversity is killing this country. We have lost something all right, the unity of the American Spirit and a deep abiding faith in God. Back in the days you are talking about there was no doubt that whether Dem or Rep we might have different ideas on how best to govern but the idea that people wanted to fundamentally turn this country away from a Democratic Republic to some form of unrecognizable socialist country never entered most peoples mind.
How dare you! Don’t you know that diversity is our strength! It’s right there in the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men require diversity, that they are endowed by their betters with certain unalienable rights, that among these are multiculturalism, inclusion, and equity.”