In 1968 I was 22. The Vietnam War was raging and the Democratic convention happened in Chicago. There were riots, cultural clashes, violence, and a general atmosphere of chaos over everything. Both Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King had been assassinated. Hubert Humphrey was running against Richard Nixon and the end result was Nixon was elected President. I remember how we thought the establishment was wrong and no one over 30 could ever be trusted. My older relatives thought we were all communists and criminals.
Today I am reminded of those times. Everything seems to be coming loose and it has to be someone’s fault — the Republican party, the Democratic Party, the President, the Congress, Planned Parenthood, Black Lives Matter Movement, Immigrants, Evangelicals, etc etc It all feels so familiar.
It just seems so sad that we have fallen back into this. I can’t imagine Donald Trump as the President. Can you see him calling Vladimir Putin a “Pussy”? Or calling the French or Italians “Losers”? What about Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz trying to cancel gay marriage? Or Bernie Sanders plan for Universal Health Care and free college tuition that will certainly not happen even if he is elected? Will Hillary Clinton be prosecuted? Will Bill Clinton be getting more blowjobs in the Oval Office? Are we really a god less country? What about the Chinese, North Koreans, Iran, Isis?
I remember countless late night discussions trashing the “Man” and how he didn’t understand. There was Woodstock and Country Joe and the Fish — “Be the First One on Your Block to Have Your Boy Come Home in a Box!” There were guys coming home from the war and being spit on. One of my real issues over the last few years of my practice was seeing guys in their 60s who still hadn’t gotten over what happened to them in Vietnam. The suicide rate of our returning veterans now is a real tragedy. There are people coming back after multiple deployments who have no real chance of making it thru a normal day. They really don’t know what normal is. Should we really send 10,000 more troops over there when we can’t seem to care for the ones we have now?
One of the “answers” people had back then was just to get high. Marijuana, Acid, Speed , Smack and whatever you wanted were always available. Timothy Leary was telling us to “ Turn On, Tune In, & Drop Out”. Many people did and there was an epidemic of addiction. Today Heroin addiction is a real concern for the same reason. When a young user was asked why she was doing it she said “It gets me thru the day”
Perhaps it is time we all took a breath and looked at reality. This is not a predominantly white middle class country any more. We can’t turn back the clock to fifty years ago—besides it really wasn’t that great then. We have changed and will continue to change. I dislike the phrase “Make America Great Again”. America is great. My grandparents came here because of that. . I don’t know what is the right way or who is the right person to lead us out of this. I just get concerned that there will be increasing volume and accusations and false promises. It just seems like it is all happening all over again. The thing is it doesn’t have to. There is a way thru this if we could just learn to listen to each other and find the middle way. Otto Von Bismarck wrote the answer over one hundred years ago: “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best”. Maybe that is the history we should listen to.