I'm sorry, but 1961 America is a much more troubled place than is 2011 America. Yes, we have problems, but that America had institutional barriers to achievement for large segments of our population. We need to perfect the time we have, not romanticize the past.

Having lived through the 1960s as a young adult I find this time much more troubling than the 1960s in America. The changes necessary back then were those which would bring the country into alignment with its basic founding principles. As such there was a certain feeling of inevitability about them. Today those who wish change seem to be in support of other principles incongruent with those upon which this Republic was founded and flourished.

"When the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away." --
Not in my lifetime, though.

I find Mad Men best understood as a parody--an immitation of the times for ridicule. To view it as a period piece or a take on the culture of the early 1960s, is to be lured into the trap of today's superiority complex (the opposite of an inferiority complex, IYKWIM). The fact that the actors play it straight--yet with today's massive narcissism and ego, is a dead give away for me.

I agree. The so-called authenticity of Mad Men amounts only to the art direction, however well-acted or well-written it may be. Today's bien pensant sensibilities inform the dialogue, circumstances, and attitudes of the show -- cartoonish portrayals of a time and place about which the writers have no insight or knowledge.

The KKK did have a short period - maybe 5 years in the 1920's - when it was a burgeoning national force. I know that some states not in the list of usual suspects - Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Massachusetts - had very formidable Klan presences, but can't speak to the historical accuracy of Altantic City. I know Worcester, MA is one place they took over briefly. Its focus in the 1920s was anti-Catholic, anti-Immigrant, and anti-Jew, along with its historical anti-Black stance, and its effect on the 1924 Democratic National Convention, was comparable to the effect of the leftist radicals on the Dem's 1968 convention.

Why would the KKK switch sides? They were the unofficial enforcement arm of the Democratic party in the years ofter the Civil War (when they lynched freed slaves and Republicans) all the way thru the 60's.

There was far more to America than Jim Crow in the deep south. We got rid of that with the civil rights acts of '64 and '65, but we've also gotten a nation awash in crime, drug abuse, gangs, broken families, illegal immigration, out-of-wedlock children, single mothers, and welfare doles. We've conjured a burgeoning entitlement state, a tottering economy, urban sprawl, the decay of civil society, manners and common decency, and a popular culture that is by turns coarse, vapid and ugly. Additionally, we've got a guy named Obama who is worsening all of the above and will probably do so for another five years. And that's just off the top of my head.

I don't care for what America has become over the course of the last several decades, and I am far from alone in disdaining the postmodern present and sorrowing for the good that has been destroyed.

I thought the same thing when I saw that episode. It was not beliveable. I was a child then. (I could have been Sally) and I remember quite vividly the "Don't be a Litterbug" campaign. I think if they had wanted to be more realistic about the message they were trying to portray, they would have scattered litter on a Highway (or just used an actual highway in Philadelphia, dirty, dirty city) and then they would have had the children roll down the windows of the car and through candy wrappers out the window. That was the true thrust of the 'Don't be a Litterbug.' I remember my mom actually getting a bag for trash for our trips and making us promise to never roll down the window to throw trash. As we drove on family trips, we often saw gum wrappers, cigarette butts and candy bar wrappers floating out of the cars in front of us. I can still see the giant Bee on the bill boards. I think that was a very successful advertising campaign!