Was There Ever Such A Thing As The " Good Old Days? "

  Ecclesiastes 7-10; " Say not thou, what is the cause that the former days were better than these? For thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this."
   There is not a one of us no matter our age who have not been told, or even said it ourselves; the way things used to be were much better than they are now. My grandmother was born in the early 1900s. She was intelligent and well read. She sang the songs that were popular during the first half of the twentieth century. She lived through the first great war and the influenza epidemic right after the war to end all wars. She saw the decedent 1920s, prohibition, the great depression, WW2  the holocaust and the Korean conflict. Yet she always insisted that those times were much better and morally superior than the current times. ( I grew up in the 1960s and 70s )
   Not having lived then and still very young I had no argument to counter with. As I grew older and learned more than a little about history. I began to understand all was not well in her world anymore than it was in mine. She told me with pride about watching American troops in a parade marching off to World War One in Europe, and would sing me one of the soldier's songs
  About the time, or shortly after America entered the first world war there was another war raging in Russia. It was led by the Bolsheviks, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. Millions would die of starvation, millions of others would be murdered and tortured. Pravda called for the killing of all clergymen and capitalists. It was certainly not the good old days in Russia. It was a time of unprecedented misery.
   The segregation of Jim Crow was still in effect here in the United States. Black men were being lynched in record numbers all across the country. In 1917, 13 black soldiers were lynched after Houston race riots. That same year 200 people were killed in a race riot in East St. Louis Illinois. Women did not yet have the right to vote and were often arrested when they peacefully protested for that right. These things are not something one usually  remembers fondly or longs for. My grandmother like many of us, chose to remember the good as much as she could.
   In 1917 Jews were expelled from their homes in Tel Aviv and Jaffa by Turkish authorities. The Arabs were then allowed to ransack Tel Aviv. My grandmother was an educated woman she was born into a Jewish family that had at least in part converted to Christianity. She was not unaware that these things were going on. She was very supportive of the women's suffrage movement, and very much an advocate for racial justice and equality.
    She was raised and lived in Marion Indiana in the 1920s. The sight of one of the most notorious lynchings in all of America. On August 7th 1930 three black men accused of killing a white man and raping a white woman were taken from the Marion jail and beaten and dragged to the town square. Two were lynched the third a 16 year old miraculously survived. Several thousand locals including women and children witnessed this horrific event.
   When all of this was taking place a black friend of my grandmother's began to protest and to ask what they had done. Some in the crowd turned on him and threatened him with the same treatment. I remember being told this story by my grandmother for the first time when I was about 7 years old. I must have had a look of disbelief on my face because she lowered her voice and looked at me, and said " It is true I was there." After I grew up and had told the story to my children. PBS ran a story about it and even interviewed the 16 year old who by then was an old man. My grandmother had not lied or exaggerated at all. The case was never solved no one knows for sure if these men were guilty of anything they were murdered for.
   She had lived through some of the most violent times in history. Even then my grandmother still maintained like any of us would and still do , that our times were morally superior times than what we are now living in.      I think if there is such an animal as "the good old days" It existed in the garden of Eden, or in the minds of people who for whatever reasons were not too horribly affected by the horrific events of history. Some were fortunate enough to be raised by loving and protective families in a somewhat safe and stable society. Many if not most, are not so lucky. Most of history is the story of the suffering caused by people who would not compromise or acknowledge the humanity or rights of others.
  I have said all of this to say. The changes we need are not a return to an imperfect past. We need to make things better now and in the future. An example  of what I am trying to say can be understood by applying it to what is happening in Wisconsin with union employees of the state. In the past ( before the 1930s ) business or government could use almost any method including thuggery to fight union membership and/or union demands. Then came the unions version of thuggery helped by organized crime it was every bit as unfair and blind as what they accused business and government of doing. Not allowing or listening to what unions ask for is not the solution. Anymore than allowing unions to hold businesses or the public hostage for financial gain is the solution.
    The answer does not lie in an advantage for either. There are those on both sides who long for the good old days I am sure. There are those in business or government who long for the advantage they had when they could rest assured that the law, and the police would always side with them. Whether business was being unfair and brutal was not the concern. You had to be pro or con no middle ground.
    There are those on the union side who long for the days when unions were more numerically superior than they are now. A time when they owned more politicians who  protected  them, and did their bidding often at the expense of employers, the public, and many times even the union members themselves.  Too often people in their greed want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. This story can be applied to employers as well as employees. Few things in a political debate are black and white or all or nothing.
   History more often than not, does not hold the answers to today's problems..What history is good at, is teaching us what will happen if we try to use yesterdays methods to solve today's problems. We can long for the days when our group or race or faith held an unfair advantage over everyone else. Or we can set about fairly and honestly solving problems in a way that is neither harmful to one group or gives an unfair advantage to another. Because you do not give in to every demand of one side, does not make you their enemy. Anymore than giving them everything they want makes you their friend. ( refer to the goose that laid the golden eggs story ).
   We do not have to be anti-business to believe employers, private or public should deal honestly and ethically with employees, and bargain in good faith..We do not have to be anti-union to believe some union demands hurt the businesses ability to make a profit and pay their employees.Unions help insure fair treatment in the work place..But to blindly give them anything they ask for to avoid a strike; is allowing them to hold others hostage and is a form of coercion.
   I have belonged to a union in the past. Not all union demands are trivial or unfair by any means. On the other hand sometimes their demands are unreasonable and detrimental to employers and the public at large..An all or nothing, pro or con mentality only results in making the same mistakes that were made in the past. Mistakes have consequences and those usually involve human conflict and misery..In my opinion to be pro-labor one has to also be pro-employer. Someone needs to make money to pay the employee. To be pro-business is to be pro-employee . Trained employees have to be kept, they are an asset. They need to make enough money, and have enough free time to purchase and use the products or services business and government provides. I am very suspicious of politicians who can not comprehend this.