Murray Sabrin: America Has Changed Dramatically Since That Hot August Day Seven Decades Ago

(MurraySabrin.com) On August 6 1949 I arrived in America with my parents who were the only members of their respective families to survive the Holocaust and my older brother after a five-day voyage across the Atlantic. My parents had no more than $150 with them. We were met at a west side Manhattan pier by my mothers aunt and uncle from Paterson New Jersey who thought I was a two year old girl because of my long blond hair. In West Germany before we left for America. We settled in lower Manhattan and lived in a three-room railroad apartment sharing a hallway bathroom with neighbors and having a bathtub in the kitchen. Soon after my younger brother Max was born we moved (August 1953) to a two-bedroom Bronx apartment (eventually moving downstairs to a three-bedroom apartment) where I lived until I married Florence in 1968. And in 1959 60 years ago this past June I raised my right hand at the Federal Courthouse in lower Manhattan and swore to support the US Constitution. America has changed dramatically since that hot August day seven decades ago. The good newsthe standard of living has increased substantially for youngsters of the baby boom generation who became of age in the 1950s and 60s. The bad newsthe welfare-warfare state which I have been criticizing for more than for decades is undermining our prosperity and has been violating our fundamental American value of no entangling alliances and peaceful commerce around the world.