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of 1968.
Perhaps this is our chance to resolve the matter without such acrimony.
There are differences. The political landscape of 1968 was shaped by the greater turmoil that year experienced.
Without the draft, the war in Iraq has not generated the consistently large protests and the level of discomfort in society that Vietnam had. As Barak's presence in the current lead shows, the climate of black white relations in America do not even vaguely resemble the nightmare that was 1968.
The topography of the world is far more stable and far more chaotic than 1968. By that I mean that the omnipresent horror of near instantaneous annihilation for the lucky is not as paramount an issue. The people younger than me don't relate to my childhood nightmare duck and cover dreams. But the world is without the anchors of two superpowers with well understood and consistent ideologies.
We live in an age of murky motives and inter relatedness reminecent of the turn fo the 20th C in Europe in Tuchman's The Guns of August. The difference is that instead of treaty, we have trade agreements with governmental authority. This lack of clear ideology in any of the world's major multilateral powers is about to change.
The climate change is becoming the new polarizing line in world relations. We are not on the right side of that line.
The economy in 1968 was not great, but it was better than now. Energy prices on the upside may exceed 1971 levels of upheaval and rationing is a distinct possibility.
I feel a sense of oncoming urgency, and maybe others like Howard Dean feel it too. We can secure unity if we can agree as a party that the third way is over. We can cooperate with the fascist side of the aisle if they can assume the role of loyal opposition and lay down their monkey wrenches. We are on a rescue mission for the middling class and the constitution. If they get in our way, perhaps they might discover the joy of the storeroom meetings, no-fly list treatment, and having their email hacked and all the other smashmouth crap that the Dems reeled under before they ducked their heads and decided to wait it out.
August may be our finest hour, but only if we realize by that point how bad the alternative to a united, populist march to DC would be.
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