1) New York City

2) Page 334 — American Empire : New York City had provided a national model for an expansive, liberal notion of government in the decades after World War II. Government services included a large, free university system, a large public hospital system; a large mass transit system;  public housing projects with over a half million residents; and a large, relatively generous welfare system.

3) This quote and institution or organization is relevant to Freeman’s view of the current situation. During this period, there were many organizations, presidents, plans that weren’t effective and as a result, everything was stagnant. This bright spot about New York City as a whole shows that things will progress later on and “Stagnation” will be gone eventually. There was pressure to lower the presence of government in everyday life and it is basically where the direction will sort of be headed.

1) Amtrak

2) Page 304 — American Empire : “The number in Philadelphia on public assistance jumped from roughly 200,000 in 1970 to nearly 340,000 in 1980. North Philadelphia so decayed that eventually Amtrak all but stopped using the stations there.

3) Freeman’s argument about the era is that it is on a slow decline and the landscape in general is changing. Everyone from the Northeast is moving south and west. The population is decreasing in major states like New York, New Jersey, and like the quote mentioned, Pennsylvania. I chose Amtrak as a significant representation of the state of the situation because the creation of Amtrak is like showing the direction the people are heading towards. Every time a new station is built, the city is starting to lose population, increase in inflation, and unemployment rate will increase.

“Congress rejected almost all of Ford’s proposals” page 323

There was a raise in inflation and a increase in unemployment, the government did not know how to deal with such problem. The price of goods were on an increase and the jobs were on a decrease. This type of problem has never occur in the past and the government’s Keynesian solutions were not going to work.  The economy is in trouble and the conflicts between the Democratic majorities Congress and the Republican President does not solve the economic issues. The President Ford want to tackle the inflation issue first and the Congress, House and Senate, want to tackle the unemployment issue first.  So the Congress would reject most of Ford’s proposals and Ford would not work with the Congress to come up with a solution that both parties agree on. So the economy suffers from the tension between the two branches of the government. Americans sees this problem and their trust in the government falls every year. The percentage of eligible  voters who actually vote also falls by every election. The government’s inability to fix the economy and  scandals from politicians really push people to lose trust in the government as well as being political actively.

(1)  During the 1970s the American public was disillusioned with government, and as the activism of the 60s began to decline and fade away as a unified movement  Americans began to search for their own individual answers and prosperity.

(2) “Finding that larger society could not fulfill sometimes inflated expectations of happiness… many Americans experimented in seeking it on their own…” Freeman p.314

(3)   As the 70s progressed the nation faced a serious time of economic decline for its major cities as industrialization continued to migrate South and South West. Cities in the Northeast were rapidly declining into wastelands as less revenue flowed in from industry, becoming hollow shells of what they once were. Unlike in the sixties Americans were no longer rallying together to fight the injustices that still plagued the nation. In a sense there was for a long period of time that social stagnation pervaded the American public. The economic pressures most likely made some Americans more bitter at fighting for causes as a mass movement as situations improved for some and declined for others. I think that Freeman most likely included this “great awakening” of the “me” generation because it shows where American interests now lay post-Vietnam. There was no longer  a sense of working together to achieve a goal but one of survival and personal success. This wave would influence life for Americans across the nation.

” A onetime Navy officer who ran a family peanut business, he  [Carter] had limited political experience and none in Washington to tar him with a public fed up with their national leaders”     Pg. 326

In the post-Watergate America, the general population had grown very untrusting and unsatisfied with their government. They saw that their leaders had grown corrupt and the idea that the government should be made up of representatives speaking for their incumbents and leaders who worked for the people was all but forgotten. The people made it clear that they wanted a change during the election of 1976. They were presented with two options. The first was Ford the incumbent, who was most associated with pardoning the disgraced Nixon and being stonewalled by Congress. The second was Carter, a no-name military man whose lack of experience was seen as a positive rather than a negative. The fact that Carter was the one that was chosen showed how the American population would no longer stand for stagnant government.

“No hope could be found in the web of emotions that left the singer unable to stay and unable to leave, not wanting to cry but ‘crying anyway ’cause you’re all broke down.'” -page 310

This line really represents the spirit of Americans during the 1970’s. Industrial jobs were moving from eastern regions to the south and the western regions. People either had to move with the jobs or find a new field of work. This lead to an increase in unemployment in the eastern regions as well as high unemployment in the cities. With the high unemployment in the cities came high levels of drug use and crime which lead some of the middle class to move out to the more peaceful suburbs. When the middle class moves out of cities and the poor class losing their blue collar jobs, many cities in the eastern regions such as New York City faced financial crisis due to the loss of industries and tax income. Causing the cities to crumble under the financial crisis brought on by the loss of tax revenue. With the downfall of the eastern region, there was a movement of wealth and people into the south and Midwest which lead to an increase in the political power of those regions with an increase in population. Americans felt like their world was falling apart due to of high unemployment, increased inflation, the feeling of losing the cold war, and deregulation of its media. Film industry used to be heavily censured, but when the monopoly of the film industry broke, so did the censorship of the whole industry.  Without censorship, movies “capture(d) the downbeat sensibility of the 1970s. (Freeman, 310)” With the increase of the television, the images of violence from the war across the ocean could be brought to the homes of millions of Americans every evening. American spirit was at an all time low as they lost hope in their own country and the politicians who were running the country.

” The combination of more crime,more arrest,and longer sentences swelled the prison population. After a half century during which the incarceration rate had fluctuated only moderately, in the mid-1970s it began to rise steeply”(pg. 338-339).

The rate of violent offence more than doubled between 1965 and 1975. Liberal’s solution was to limit access to firearms with gun control laws, but conservatives and gun owners saw gun control as an unconstitutional limit on the rights of law-abiding citizens. More incarceration became  a popular solution to control crime. Conservatives rejected the ideas of liberals of using therapeutic approaches to dealing with lawbreakers,and promoted incarceration as means of punishment,retribution,and prevention to keep dangerous people of the street. Incarceration and longer sentences became the solution to control crime.  Prison population swelled due to the incarceration approach and it as rising steeply since 1970s , and keep rising today with lower crime rates. Prison population consist of nonviolent offenders and most are blacks. Tougher drug laws has also helped increased prison population.

“Anti-rational thinking seemed to be on the rise, perhaps a rational response to a moment when technocratic rationality has seemingly brought social failure on both the national and international fronts”  Pg. 314

Freeman notes on the  trend of the rise of nontraditional religions during the 1970’s in America, saying that its rise was an direct reaction to the dystopian like culture that had swept the nation during that time. The Church of Scientology offered an alternative belief system to  the classic Protestant ideology that was once so commonplace among the American public. The hard truth of the matter is that people had become desperate and destitute. They had look at the world around them, compared it the lifestyle they knew during the 1950’s, and were shocked by the decline in their nation. When the saw one system fail, many felt that they had no choice but find another. One of the mantra’s for Scientology is  “A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights, are the aims of Scientology.”