Really?OK, you should probably skip this post. I wrote this for myself, just to put some thoughts down on paper. Or ramblings down on a keyboard. Sometimes I like to play around with ideas, and writing them out helps me see them from different angles. So not only should you not take the following seriously, you'd probably be better off watching a Happy Days rerun.
Even in this era of blindingly fast change some years stand out as especially significant for the transformations they bring to our daily lives. I can think of two such years in my lifetime. The first is 1968, which included world-wide protests, often violent, against the war in Vietnam. It was the year both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. Race riots broke out in major U.S. cities and “Watts” became synonymous with race fueled anarchy. That summer three African Americans stood on the Olympics medal stand in Mexico City and raised their fists in the Black Power salute while our anthem was played.
I realize even as I write this that these events all occurred in or are tied to (in the case of the Vietnam war protests) the U.S. But 1968 was well before globalization and we were one of two superpowers. The other, the Soviet Union, used force to prevent any significant change, as the brutal crackdown on an independence movement in Czechoslovakia that year demonstrated.
Which suggests the next pivotal year in my lifetime, 1991. On Christmas Day of that year the cumulative effect of many small developments brought the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Younger adults, those under the age of 40 or so, can’t imagine how that Union dominated world events. I climbed under my desk at Daniel Webster Elementary school in drills to prepare us for the atomic bombs that might come from Russia. The U.S. put billions of dollars into weapons systems to keep the Soviets at bay and, in an early sign of a shrinking globe, undeveloped countries were seen as turf to be controlled by one superpower or the other. The Iron Curtain separated the East from the West and Rocky & Bullwinkle matched wits with the evil Boris & Natasha. Everything on the world scene and in our country changed on December 25, 1991.
And that’s part of what makes those two years so important. An assassination in itself isn’t enough. It’s when that assassination affects the daily life of people otherwise disconnected from the event living thousands of miles away. Every American’s life was dramatically altered by the events of 1968. The way we looked at each other, the way we saw government, our music, our schools...nothing was the same after 1968. Late that year the Voting Rights Act codified many of those changes in what is still considered a truly landmark piece of legislation.
The same is true with 1991. Why keep building bigger bombs and more missiles? It was now time to woo the “former Soviet states” and draw them into relationships with western democracies. Even international sport changed with the disappearance of the cohesive and intimidating Eastern Bloc athletes. We all breathed a sigh of (naive) relief when, in one day, our archenemy disappeared. Even James Bond had to come up with all new plot lines.
Has their been a year as transformative since 1991? One might argue that the World Trade Center puts 2001 on that level. We’ve come to accept as normal the changes in daily life that came in the aftermath of that act of terrorism. Even that word, terrorism, suggests the extent to which the world is different post-9/11. For all the talk about Iran and North Korea it’s the terrorists acting independently, not some nation’s army that pose the greatest risk for the next event.
Watching the news of the last month I wonder if 2011 will get the “pivotal year” tag. Apparently not even our government’s best saw the mideast transformation coming. Egypt??? Now Bahrain, home to our 5th Fleet, Algeria, and...? Will Iran follow? What will the Middle East look like in twelve months.
Things here in the U.S. could turn almost as revolutionary, but in terms of government spending not the overthrow of rulers. Madison, Wisconsin looks a lot like Revolutionary Square in Cairo, with crowds, placards and chants. We are now engaged in a great fiscal war, testing whether this nation or any state can continue to spend money that isn’t there. A year from now will fiscal conservatives have carried the day? Or will the spirit of entitlement keep us from the hard choices? It’s hard to see how a middle ground is possible. Draconian cuts or spendthrift ways.
I think that unless the Lord returns before then we’ll look back ten years from now and see 2011 as a year that changed our world and our country in big ways.
Fun times to be a news junky.
Even in this era of blindingly fast change some years stand out as especially significant for the transformations they bring to our daily lives. I can think of two such years in my lifetime. The first is 1968, which included world-wide protests, often violent, against the war in Vietnam. It was the year both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. Race riots broke out in major U.S. cities and “Watts” became synonymous with race fueled anarchy. That summer three African Americans stood on the Olympics medal stand in Mexico City and raised their fists in the Black Power salute while our anthem was played.
I realize even as I write this that these events all occurred in or are tied to (in the case of the Vietnam war protests) the U.S. But 1968 was well before globalization and we were one of two superpowers. The other, the Soviet Union, used force to prevent any significant change, as the brutal crackdown on an independence movement in Czechoslovakia that year demonstrated.
Which suggests the next pivotal year in my lifetime, 1991. On Christmas Day of that year the cumulative effect of many small developments brought the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Younger adults, those under the age of 40 or so, can’t imagine how that Union dominated world events. I climbed under my desk at Daniel Webster Elementary school in drills to prepare us for the atomic bombs that might come from Russia. The U.S. put billions of dollars into weapons systems to keep the Soviets at bay and, in an early sign of a shrinking globe, undeveloped countries were seen as turf to be controlled by one superpower or the other. The Iron Curtain separated the East from the West and Rocky & Bullwinkle matched wits with the evil Boris & Natasha. Everything on the world scene and in our country changed on December 25, 1991.
And that’s part of what makes those two years so important. An assassination in itself isn’t enough. It’s when that assassination affects the daily life of people otherwise disconnected from the event living thousands of miles away. Every American’s life was dramatically altered by the events of 1968. The way we looked at each other, the way we saw government, our music, our schools...nothing was the same after 1968. Late that year the Voting Rights Act codified many of those changes in what is still considered a truly landmark piece of legislation.
The same is true with 1991. Why keep building bigger bombs and more missiles? It was now time to woo the “former Soviet states” and draw them into relationships with western democracies. Even international sport changed with the disappearance of the cohesive and intimidating Eastern Bloc athletes. We all breathed a sigh of (naive) relief when, in one day, our archenemy disappeared. Even James Bond had to come up with all new plot lines.
Has their been a year as transformative since 1991? One might argue that the World Trade Center puts 2001 on that level. We’ve come to accept as normal the changes in daily life that came in the aftermath of that act of terrorism. Even that word, terrorism, suggests the extent to which the world is different post-9/11. For all the talk about Iran and North Korea it’s the terrorists acting independently, not some nation’s army that pose the greatest risk for the next event.
Watching the news of the last month I wonder if 2011 will get the “pivotal year” tag. Apparently not even our government’s best saw the mideast transformation coming. Egypt??? Now Bahrain, home to our 5th Fleet, Algeria, and...? Will Iran follow? What will the Middle East look like in twelve months.
Things here in the U.S. could turn almost as revolutionary, but in terms of government spending not the overthrow of rulers. Madison, Wisconsin looks a lot like Revolutionary Square in Cairo, with crowds, placards and chants. We are now engaged in a great fiscal war, testing whether this nation or any state can continue to spend money that isn’t there. A year from now will fiscal conservatives have carried the day? Or will the spirit of entitlement keep us from the hard choices? It’s hard to see how a middle ground is possible. Draconian cuts or spendthrift ways.
I think that unless the Lord returns before then we’ll look back ten years from now and see 2011 as a year that changed our world and our country in big ways.
Fun times to be a news junky.
1 comment:
As I scrolled through the email I decided to heed your early warnings, although I couldn't find Happy Days on T.V. anywhere.
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