As the adage goes: what's old is new again... and vice-versa. So it begs the question... is this 2008 or 1968?
Believe it or not, the two years have quite a bit in common. One could chalk it up to coincidence, but it seems America enjoys repeating history and just labeling it differently the second, third or fourth time around.
Be kind, please rewind.
In 1968, the wind was fully knocked out of that era's "change" campaign when Robert F. Kennedy met the same fate as his brother, JFK. Until then, people were rallying their support for the Kennedy family and everything it represented.
Flash forward to 2008.
Ted Kennedy is battling a brain tumor and the remaining Kennedy clan members have rallied around Senator Barack Obama... a candidate hugging the "change" slogan.
Hop back into the time machine for a moment.
1968 also happens to be the year Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Racial tensions in the country could only be cut by a jackhammer. Today, many believe Obama's race will play a factor in the general election. A very sad thought, indeed. Of course, from an observatory stand-point, it's somewhat of a catch-22. On one hand, there could be people who might not vote for Obama because of his race. On the other, there are a number of key policy differences between Obama and McCain. It would be an absolute mistake to assume that race plays the ultimate deciding factor.
[Sidenote: Obama will be giving his nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver on August 28, 2008 -- the 45th year anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.]
On 4/29/68, the controversial musical Hair opened on Broadway. Currently, The Public Theatre, where Hair made its off-Broadway debuted 40 years ago, is doing a revival. Many of the songs became anthems for the anti-Vietnam War movement. Sound familiar? Nevertheless, the Vietnam-Iraq comparisons are endless from every angle. In fact, the U.S. Department of Defense started sending troops back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours that year. Oh... and after a 1968 coup, Saddam Hussein began his rise to power. Hm.
There were also a number of manned space missions.
Looking back on it, civil rights, racial relations, assassinations, earthquakes and war all marred the country and the world in '68, too. To quote the band Matchbox 20, "Let's see how far we've come."
It's not nearly as far as we think.
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1 comment:
seriously depressing. Is a society that is locked in repetition doing so because it wants to relive a time when it had supremacy? I think a major difference is that in 1968 the US was at the height of it's golden age of superpower imperialism. Today, the US is just another player whose influence is largely checked by China, Russia and the EU. Do you think to move forward at some level we have to acknowledge that our moment is over, we're an empire in decline and just like European Colonial powers and Russia, it's time for us to recalibrate our priorties and use our existing wealth to restructure our society for future generations to enjoy? (i.e. become a trust fund nation, like all of the former European Colonial powers)
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