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Thanks for that Yeledaf. I was only 9, but I had friends and relatives on all sides of the war, all sides of the civil rights movement, and I can still see my Mother, crying for John when I was just 4, then crying for Martin, and finally crying for Bobby. An Irish American woman who could not believe the passing of the hope of a generation.
Take a gander at the political history of the U.S. This is really quite civil compared to the early years of this country.
Oh man, things were very wild away back when- however, there was also a sense of civility for the most part (excepting the time around the civil war). Today, there is no civliity. I think they need tro teach civics again.
There used to be a LOT of active political parties, many of them "single issue," which added loads of shenanigans. But the big difference now is that the media has injected itself into the process to a very uncomfortable level, especially considering that it's available 24/7. The rules have changed.
Can you imagine the media these days keeping quiet about a president with polio or a president who made Bill look like a celibate?
Nothing in my memory. I'm 43 years old. If you think this is bad, wait until the Repubs. enter the equation!
Teatime, I have enjoyed most of your post as being pretty insightful and noncombative. However, to say the Republicans are worse than the Dems in these dirty tactics is off base. The Dem agenda is to atack without any answers or solutions to the topic they attack.
I can only speak for my times;but it seems to have gotten worse starting with JFK. But it was not inview. JFK started the dirty tricks squad where they would plnat peole to boo nixon. Weh nixon next ran he did the same thing. From there it seems like people have gone pretty wild on their own.Now some of the worst attacks are by independent groups going after a candidate with their own money since the laws were changed.
Teatime, I have enjoyed most of your post as being pretty insightful and noncombative. However, to say the Republicans are worse than the Dems in these dirty tactics is off base. The Dem agenda is to atack without any answers or solutions to the topic they attack.
Luke, I've been hearing commentators say that they're chomping at the bit to get a piece of Obama. There's a difference, though. The Dem candidates bite the heads off their own and eat their young. The Repubs, generally speaking, have designated pitbulls who do that. Surely, you can't say that the "black love child" rumors they planted against McCain last time weren't horrendous?
I was in the infantry in Vietnam, and I can remember so clearly coming in one sunny spring morning in early April from an all-night ambush patrol. I remember the soft sandy soil of the village just northwest of Saigon where we had set up our company perimeter. I remember the faces of the villagers we had befriended, and with many of whom we had grown close in the months since the terrible Tet offensive that had decimated their families. I remember most of all that I was the only caucasian on that patrol (there were six of us). Word had already spread from "the world" (America)that Martin Luther King had been murdered in Memphis. My last memories of that day were the stricken faces and slumped shoulders of my five black platoon mates. For a while, nobody said anything. Nobody could. They just put down their packs and weapons, joined the other black guys in the platoon in quiet conversations, and faded out of sight as the morning turned into day and we all sought to sleep for a few hours.
Jump ahead a couple of months, and we had a replay. We came in from another ambush, in the red-clay country near the Cambodian border this time, and were met by our buddies with the news that it was Bobby Kennedy who had been shot down this time -- back in "the world."
It was with a feeling of total desolation, compounded of our surroundings in the death-smelling part of Vietnam that we had been fighting over for the past couple of weeks and our feeling that things back home were no better than they were here, that we set down our heavy packs, our ammo belts, our claymore bags, our rucksacks, and our weapons.
"World is f*cked up just like here, dude, " one of my black friends finally told me. Then he added something that haunts me to this day: "Now you hurt like we do."
1968. Bad year. I've never seen one worse. The current bickering is as nothing compared to that miserable time.
Thanks for adding some perspective to that "memorable" year.
Keep in mind, politics often are a reflection of society and the state of things. Its not just politics that are divided and dirty, it is an entire people who have replaced a sense of fellowship, with personal pride.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SALteacher
I've heard presidential politics in the 1800s was beyond belief.
Ask McCain, he was there.
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