Madame:
The “right” does
indeed bemoan much and sentiments are often similar. While George Will correctly points out some
similarities, much of what the rest of the right bemoans does not stand up to
historical or factual scrutiny.
The more things stay
the same... Your laundry list is a
concise but accurate one. It would seem
that those who want things to stay the same are winning…
Your questions on
possible reasons for the lack of “change” are not necessarily mutually
exclusive…
Yes, two years. My, my.
Wouldn’t that be something today.
We do, actually, occasionally get those, but they are from unknown
individuals who are usually quickly marginalized in an era where the
press/media is expected to make money on “news”—meaning, for the established
media, things mostly all become about infotainment at best.
This weekend was the
50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. The title of your post seemed perfectly
appropriate given the similarities between then and now—billionaires funding
hate media and political interference; radical politicians fanning hate and
extreme positions; questions of healthcare; a distant war; etc. While the Tea Party blanket might be
overwide, the article by a Texas journalism professor (how sad that journalist
professors are doing the work of historians who have largely abdicated the task
of being modern-relevant) gives food for thought that today’s environment didn’t
spring whole born from nowhere.
Something he doesn’t
bring up is that America was far more prosperous then, had a thriving middle
class, and had dramatically less debt, although it did also have the diversion
of the Cold War. It was also in the
midst of a youth bulge that would have transformative possibilities (and perhaps
consequences!). Comparisons are rarely
perfect or complete.
But there is little
dispute that American optimism, aside from moments—fleeing moments—has not been
the same since.
How wrenching to
realize how much that one person’s life/death, or one event, can affect a
society, even a world society, for decades, even generations, and that some
effects just don’t seem to go away even over long periods of time.
The lives of those who
at least seem to want to do great good affect us that way when they are cut
short. Whether those lives be named
Lincoln, Gandhi, Kennedy, Malcolm, King…
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