The following post is from August of 2010::
It was just my lot to be 18 years old in 1968, a remarkable year for disasters. President Lyndon Johnson gave his State Of The Union address on January 17th and began with Vietnam, "He (the enemy) continues to hope that America's will to persevere can be broken. Well...he is wrong." He talked about the cessation of hostilities in the Middle East and prospects for peace. American's living standards were rising for a seventh straight year but violence continued to plague our cities. He addressed means in alleviating that violence but then cautioned "this does not mean a national police force." He proposed a surtax that would only cost the American people one penny on the dollar and that tax to be repealed in two years. He concluded this short address with "If ever there was a time to know the pride and excitement and the hope of being an American..it is this time."
It was just my lot to be 18 years old in 1968, a remarkable year for disasters. President Lyndon Johnson gave his State Of The Union address on January 17th and began with Vietnam, "He (the enemy) continues to hope that America's will to persevere can be broken. Well...he is wrong." He talked about the cessation of hostilities in the Middle East and prospects for peace. American's living standards were rising for a seventh straight year but violence continued to plague our cities. He addressed means in alleviating that violence but then cautioned "this does not mean a national police force." He proposed a surtax that would only cost the American people one penny on the dollar and that tax to be repealed in two years. He concluded this short address with "If ever there was a time to know the pride and excitement and the hope of being an American..it is this time."
Less than a week later North Korea seized the USS Pueblo which would remain
a crisis for the rest of the year. The next week would see the beginning of the
Tet Offensive in Nha Trang, Vietnam. North Vietnam's forces would be not only be utterly defeated but destroyed in the weeks that followed.... but so would the
American public's will to persevere. One Viet Cong, who had summarily executed
the family of a Vietnamese police officer, was caught and also summarily
executed, this in front of a lens that would result in a Pulitzer Prize winning
picture that would prove... our... inhumanity towards man in this war.
One day
later Richard Nixon would announce his candidacy for President. The week of
February 11th saw 543 Americans killed in Vietnam. On The 27th of that month
Walter Cronkite pronounced the Tet Offensive as a draw. On March
12th, Eugene McCarthy won the New Hampshire primary and four days later Robert
Kennedy entered the race. On March 31st I was standing at the counter of my
favorite hangout, Ted's Variety and Dairy Store, eating a snack and
watching President Lyndon Johnson's speech on the television. He pronounced the
Tet Offensive a failure, but the huge loss of life, on both sides, and
the emergency situation of a projected $20 billion deficit for the following
year (it was actually a $3.2 billion surplus), and in the need to prove his intentions for peace, he concluded with
"Accordingly, I shall not seek, and will not accept, the nomination of my
party for another term as your President." Five days later Martin Luther
King's lifelong quest for equality of opportunity for everyone came to an end in
Memphis in an act of terrorism.
The beginning of May saw Paris in flames from
student riots and on June 4th Robert Kennedy was shot. Songs like Arlo Guthrie's
Alice's Restaurant "inspired" the youth. Before August was
over the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia was crushed and violent protests
rocked the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In Mexico city, in
October, hundreds were killed in student protests and riots and two weeks later
the summer Olympics began in the same city and also saw protest. On November 5th
Richard Nixon was elected by 500,000 votes and the unemployment rate was 3.3%.
Now it is 42 years later. Peace talks will start again soon in the Middle East.
We are leaving Iraq with the promise to keep their government secure, as we did
in Vietnam. Socialism succeeded in putting one of its own in our White House and
top positions of our Congress (actually Communism succeeded in securing the White House). Globalist elites artfully pull the strings
of their puppets who many gullibly believe. Student protests are now citizen
protests. The deficit is over a trillion dollars. Our Justice Department has
lost the trust of the people and Homeland Security often seems more worried
about citizens trying to help our nation than those trying to hurt it. We have
placed two unqualified young judges on our Supreme Court, presidential
appointees usurp the responsibilities of the Congress and there is talk of
policies perilously close to a national police force.
We are being torn
apart as a people with government sector employees, bailout recipients and
entitlement beneficiaries on one side and most everyone else on the other. We
have a young president who has given us two autobiographies but no personal
records. Our foreign policy shows the discernment of a Neville Chamberlain in
Munich and we cut military weapons systems to replace monies burned elsewhere.
We have a "foot in the door" health reform that Americans will despise
when they see what it is and what it has done. Our Constitution is being held
hostage by political correctness.
Yogi Berra was right in that the future
ain't what it used to be but, Biblically speaking, the future is closer
than it used to be for it proclaims a Second Coming of Jesus Christ and in
a linear time paradigm we are 42 years closer than we were in 1968.
