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If. I know
that I do not know how being that guy. From middle America. A special documentary produced by. Ne. Your program director is Joseph Bailey director of department of radio production. America is a land of contradiction. People
proud of their country. People worried about their country people proud to sing their country song. People marching through the streets singing chants on the enemies of war. A country with thousands of war dead. And its people clamoring for peace. America is a land of contradictions a country richer than any other yet with millions still lacking shelter clothing and food. A country which has stood the test of differing man. Different ideas for over three centuries. But with its people now play by social distrust. And logical. People talking about their country. And their fellow citizens middle America is talking. We send our northeastern information network microphones. Through 27 states all across this country to major cities and to rural town on purpose. To find out what middle America
is thinking. People in California Iowa Indiana and Rhode Island agree that America is a land to be proud of. Aligned with a past worth cherishing with a present worth living in and a future worth hoping for. Wonderful history to look back and think it's still that an exciting future to look forward to. Yeah we should be great. No we shouldn't gripe. We were well off we don't know if. The country is on its. Way to bigger and better things for you but I don't think John writes about it. Well I haven't given up yet. I still hold with my tradition my upbringing. I haven't lost anything. Well our government isn't perfect we all have faults. Every every nation got faults and I believe that our country has. Better. System as possible him and the. Believer in Jesus Christ and he's an
answer that's a big problem. I believe. America's back porch philosophy reveals a people grown accustomed to freedom the freedom to exchange ideas. I think freedom of life means that you can go down the street and there's It was paper and tell you a pencil and then understand discuss the principles we're left with you. Well you know you have a choice you can do what you want. Well as long as it's not. You know out of the mind. But if Middle Americans are proud of their freedom. They are also worried about the cost. That freedom. Hardworking people middle Americans express their concern for the shrinking value of their weekly paychecks. Naturally one of the things that that is about most important in my mind is inflation and how to control it without creating a. Depression or a financial crisis.
I feel that our country is governed our responsibilities and the dollar as much today. Well inflation is bad rather for you have given the people money for nothing is very very bad. I try to keep my neck up out of the water. However if things seem bad now most middle Americans would still agree that they have never been better off. If this be the case. The question becomes obvious how in fact have their lives changed. Well I can remember being poor. I can remember not having enough heat in the house not having And I remember when 10 cents a week and wines was a lot of money and if you save that 10 cents up on enough you know you could go. Bison Well when I was a kid we had other things to do. We had to help our family that wasn't as affluent society. I read after school I got $3 a week after school and they sat in a half a base on me and I got $3 a week for that.
I remember that in the family nothing was allowed ever to be charged if you didn't have the money to pay for it. You just you didn't buy it. I mean I mean I got about and about it. But as for me I was happy when I came here that I was coming here for the purpose of my life my Heavenly Father. Of course there is there's a hell of a lot of wonderful positive things to say about America you know and I for one disagree with 1960 who one of the worst times balladeer Pete Seeger because the old days were not really so good after all. Anybody who thinks that the depression. Didn't go through very early days of the union struggle 50 to 60 years ago when people would get paid. But as for me.
I've been Irish but I have to splain and see a little commercial or you know I'm going to do it because there are many temptations to do because people can have many change today but I can't confirm. I don't know how to read a rant but I don't care for me in those good old days. Middle Americans were of course kids themselves but now they have raised their own families and they are worried about the seemingly growing cause of between the generations. The question. One of the most obvious differences between the parent and the child we were raised different were very strict and already the difference is that the youth of today are not thinking the way their parents want them to think our generation wouldn't have wouldn't have done it because number one we were very much influenced by our parents and we were thrust at this age the age between 20 and 25 with
pressed into which was a word which was something that you you know you had to be proud of. Because you knew that you listened to your country was involved and you had to help you plan to. I really can't remember what happened but as you know you know people are thinking about today. I can't be involved in politics and questioning the war. But this is a different generation and America is fighting a different war a highly controversial war and America finds itself separated into battle camps at home. Senator George McGovern describes the dilemma that confronts the nation. And I think if decadence we're writing about a period he would have that in mind when he sat at his the best of times it is the worst of times.
Well being an American right now of course Cantor is that the picture of the war to me and I'm extremely distressed that we haven't done more than we have to stop the war. And this in spite of my pride in my heritage I am very disturbed and frankly angry with the politicians and powers for not stopping it long before this. War you don't want to go to war. With the English. No way. To look my way. Give. Me a. Long term military service. If you have to go you just have to go because I don't want to go that doesn't mean that I would go AWOL left. The. Country. I want you to take. Everybody can take along feelings and be with others. You. See the country whether it's right or wrong you have to be a pleasure to point you to I think that if I continue to
ride a country music and the police. If they are drafted should. But America has fought wars before and the country realizes that this war too will end. We found that middle Americans are already looking beyond Vietnam. Wondering what sort of a mark their younger generation will make. For the generation then I think that they could put the victory behind them. And got to a better way of life. I'm not sure that the kids are going to be able to quit this stage of their life right now and go on. That's not the only thing the kids have done. They also lead the peace marches. They also picket where it's necessary. They have supported the great picture of the Union where the adults have not. So why bring up the negative thing. Would China make a utopia of our country and there and in the way that they try to do it before Snyder's Mansour on the strength of AI because we are a
bunch of idiots. I think there's lots of hope because I think the kids are marvelous and I think eventually something may happen if the if the kids keep on the path that they are right now I think this is very helpful if the only hope I see for some this is a time to reflect. For others a time to demonstrate but not time enough perhaps to reflect on luxuries never afforded previous generations. Do the bump to deselect kids you know. Just to be sure. Don't know any better. You don't care if they get we were little. That's ridiculous. They need rest to be these days that it's been given to them that the family son was fired so that he could be used to it to individuals. Perhaps the sense of responsibility with the advent of the effluents said it takes away from that responsibility. Besides. The medal you
wanted with it was. The emergence of new social values and ideals contributed to the doubt already present in the minds of many middle Americans about youth. They have seen young people rioting in Chicago. And the occupation of college buildings all across the country. They have heard of young people smoking marijuana. They have read the stories of free love and on married couples living together. Not surprisingly the picture of all time I knew this characterized by sex drugs and violence. Not to matter with a lot of our younger generation anymore I bet. Don't sing below them too much about it I don't think these these hippies allays said. That on marijuana and. And if you have access to that. Certainly the Mannlicher and things are doing anything for this entertaining or I get rid of the hippies it was me do I put them in the army or something. Do something with a good forum and a little training were good for in your little military or something.
Straighten them up like we got the first war. Decide on the proof of the drugs. And some of the way they are living where you know how lazy to go wrong they're slovenly though they don't care sort of business and beg in the streets that's awful. I like Hep B. It is an awfully free love I think I'll. Run the course because we still have more to offer young people in this country than any other nation I know of. Disenchanted with a disruptive younger generation. Middle Americans are twice troubled by a judicial system which seems to them overly contoured today's perpetrators of violence. I think the laws are. Get more they protect all of their friends instead of the citizens. I think our argu additional system has let us down. It came from the Supreme Court. It has filtered down all the way through local. Politics
and even our local judges. Our county judge just tinker. I let her off or the police do their duty. To the best of their ability I would think. But they're hamstrung. I would say the judicial system has let us know. And if you let the law enforcement officials enforce the law like they know how to enforce it we could prevent and stop the breakdown of law. Because when George Wallace exult strongly for the border he strikes a response of the known to the hearts of many middle America. However others are unaffected by the Wallace appeal. But this business of playin with the folks who distrusts it is and letting people run over people up and down the streets and in the parks. And then when you arrest them you can do anything with them because a Supreme Court makes it almost impossible to convict a criminal. We just go back to law enforcement in a country and you can stop and
prevent riots in the breakdown of law and order if I become the president that's going to be the policy of our administration we've got to have order before we can solve any problem. And I'm tired of an ARCA that prevailed in the country what the truth will stand for you don't stand for anything that I agree with. I guess I get tired of a lot of. The. Rebelling things like that. He was dogmatic because I thought it would take me back to him. For some. Racial problem in this country has been a factor. Sore on the side of the American public.
And people seem unable to agree either on the cause of the sore. Or on the proper medicine for its treatment. Each person conducts his own examination. Some argue that the problem has been given an overdose while others including Congressman Adam Clayton Powell of Harlem say that the case has gone almost completely unattended. The American Way as of the day. Just because a black man in his place which means second class citizens. Jeff I'm trying to establish an American way there's never been an American way. I think today as a whole that course and I have been all over the state but assuming that the constitution and then I think that every race has pretty well the there are equal rights and I think that we are more than a fair deal. We're getting more than that I think a lot more than they deserve. If they can gratify and compel by right. It should go to rock college if they can't hold a rally.
Like that any better lads Why should I get the preference every right I think some of them are just overbroad they want more than that and more than their share. I don't think this is the answer. This isn't the answer we can't want more than you or I faint I bet people has been inspired. By saying they did not have the right instructions. The right information in Baghdad today. Sure sure Stanley has made it a political stunt. No one single person starts a riot that way now. Georgia legislator and Julian Bond have no comments on the role and you have black leadership. Yes unless it is someone who has been arrested by police or someone who had thinks that someone else has been arrested never asked by police those kinds of individual start riots but the Stokely Carmichael is in the rap brands and Julian Bonds in the with the Youngs of the mind of the kings of the mouth of excess. Don't start right.
I think they should be informed by by many that Reed has the affair of the black people. Not just for political reasons. Right. Most certainly I was brought up to believe that black was black. They were. I don't know. They were black and I said Well. Like yourself are you doing totem or rights to try to get all the Han. And since I started work and I work with them I find out that things are altogether different from the tradition I was brought up and I never went to school with them I never went to church with them. I think in the speech that sometimes they have laws and they're not giving you know they're not given the right to have a
voice in and to say what they want. I never had any one of them in my house. But in working with them I find that. They are they have the same the same ideas they want. Things the same things in life. That I Want. They want the same thing for their kids that I want for my kids. We don't have much of that out in this matter community. The racial problems there are few upcoming years and throughput in the interstate here and we have kind of been here make it a law that the right Americans here. I'm surrounded here. Chris is my neighbor across the street has 13 kids. Puerto Ricans there will always be dissatisfied people are white or black Puerto Rican. Or whatever. Whatever. But. I would. Say that there are as many dissatisfied whites who are possibly more. Because
we outnumber them and there are dissatisfied. Minorities is the result of this conflict to be a social civil war a war between blacks and whites or rich and poor or young and old. Some social commentators have predicted in fact that in 70 or 80 years history books will describe not the Civil War of the 1860s but a second war a war taking place in the 1970s or the 1980s. The question a crucial one what America ever possibly let herself be drawn again into a second civil war. Comedian and black spokesman Dick Gregory gives a qualified yes when you state you know we have a political crisis and really has not been armies of people going to a political crisis was going to go in the next three to four years if we don't go eons down the problem. I don't believe for a minute it's going to be the civil war unless it's all the blacks today all the whites
and there's not going to have a civil war because the blacks and when you're going to accept the so-called white liberals it's also clear that the so-called right liberals are not going to form a coalition of the workers as people have argued they must of those to be any kind of resolution. I'm really optimistic on the situation I believe that America has some of the greatest brain power in the world black and white and I do believe that if the two races get. They will be able to solve some of their problems without. So who wants a strike. Obviously we're. Black and White have a stake in. Society here. And unless we solve our differences and I'm sure that we will see differences that we lost right now. Because people are. Dissatisfied and I am imagining anough friends and about a voting share
well with the way things are more now I would say it's very possible it's possible. I think it's a possibility I think there's enough flexibility left in our system. And enough. Hope. Left in our people that it can be avoided. But I certainly don't think it can be discounted as an eventual possibility if things don't change considerably in the near future. Well that's a possibility but I think it can be avoided. They're dreamers. There will never be or there will be always. HORTENSIO. Dissatisfied guerrilla. Wars people will parade in droves and occasionally wreck a train or bridge but people in this country have got it too good there will not be a civil war. Middle America is hope. But it is also tired. Frustrated and confused he will learn by the chaos he sees around him.
Today a citizen reaches out for answers and a farm's view and a good many. Educated people that have to refine it up to back and let her. Body against the wall. Don't know which major tend to happen by running ahead and abet main east is the stashed and most everybody gain and that's right have such a higher time delighted. And hidden than is standing at the gate in Iran had nothing but they will be in desperate looking to be changed and we'll go to Sunday school. Respect your parents. Rock a little bad. For your back door. There's a lot smarter people than I am that don't know how to hammer it so I sure wouldn't pass an opinion. Perhaps significantly most men and women today can provide a ready description of the middle American. His characteristics and his impact on
national politics. Well I think that's something of a family gathering of those that are not saying anything and just imagine the worst and has just enough to know just enough money just enough security. To keep them identified. Reading them little American is probably those he did for President Nixon who supports his present policies and who agrees with Vice President Agnew's attacks on just about everybody he's attacked. Agrees that education is a good thing but that kids are put in place for a while and will hopefully someday get inflation. War youth riots. America is a country with a wealth of problems and a wealth of goods. And just as the people share in the wealth so also do they share in the bubble. Puzzle by the war. Yet believing that America is their country wife or was frightened by youthful demonstrators yet sending their children to
college in unprecedented numbers worried that their paychecks are being cut by higher taxes. Yet agreeing that money must be spent on city problems on foreign military and economic commitments. Confused by their courts yet remembering that America is and must be a nation of justice. American men and women are buffeted on all sides by the dynamic forces of change which bring more and more problems. They are a confused people. A proud people a hopeful people. A tired and frustrated but quite clearly an honest and determined people. The people who are middle America. The feelings and opinions expressed on the preceding program do not necessarily represent those. The program narrator Joseph major Northeastern University or the state.
Northeastern University has brought you the view from middle America. A special documentary produced for the office of educational resources at the Hurricane Center. The nation's largest private university Northeastern University. Comments on this documentary. More requests are recorded. The program may be addressed to the Department of radio production. Northeastern University Boston Massachusetts 0 2 1 1. This special documentary The view from Middle America was produced by Jeffrey have new Feldman and Carolyn guardrails directed by Jeffrey Feldman with script. Direction. By David as both audio engineer John by. Your program narrator has been Joseph Director Department of radio. The producer for the north eastern information network.
Your announcer. This is the national educational radio network.
Series
Issue and inquiry
Episode Number
12
Producing Organization
Northeastern University (Boston, Mass.)
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-930nwz6v
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Description
Series Description
Issue and Inquiry is an analysis of public affairs issues such as environmentalism, public health, education, and politics. Produced for the Division of Instructional Communications at the nation's largest private university, Northeastern University.
Date
1970-00-00
Asset type
Episode
Topics
Social Issues
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:29:00
Embed Code
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Credits
Producing Organization: Northeastern University (Boston, Mass.)
AAPB Contributor Holdings
University of Maryland
Identifier: 70-11-12 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:30:00?
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Citations
Chicago: “Issue and inquiry; 12,” 1970-00-00, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 28, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-930nwz6v.
MLA: “Issue and inquiry; 12.” 1970-00-00. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-930nwz6v>.
APA: Issue and inquiry; 12. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-930nwz6v