50+ Lifestyles

History Repeats Itself!

By Mary Schricker Gemberling

“Change comes fast; it’s acceptance that’s slow.”
-Will Rogers

Americans are disenchanted with both presidential candidates. Racial tension is widespread. The second amendment is being threatened by gun control advocates. Technology is mindboggling. And we are engaged in a war without an end! The year is 1968!

Mark Kurlansky in his best selling book, The Year That Rocked the World, writes, “A controversial politician takes the Republican party in a surprisingly ideological direction. An unpopular war threatens the stability of American society. Across the globe, people clamor for change, as the youth exploit a new form of media to organize on a scale that takes the older generation by surprise.” Sound familiar? If it weren’t for the crummy pop music flooding the airwaves, you’d think it was still 1968!

Vietnam, like ISIS today, had escalated into a war that Americans thought they might not be able to win. In 1968, gun violence had so intensified that President Lyndon Johnson supported passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968. Opponents promoted the anthem, “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” In April 1968, Martin Luther King Jr., was gunned down by an assassin. At the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, U.S. track stars and medal winners, John Carlos and Tommie Smith, raised their fists on the victory podium in a symbolic “Black Power” salute as tensions of race escalated. Blacks were so profiled that Congress adopted the Civil Rights Act of 1968 that prohibited discrimination based on race, religion, sex and national origin. There were riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. From New York, Miami, Berkeley and Chicago to Paris, Prague, Rome, Berlin, Warsaw, Tokyo and Mexico City, spontaneous uprisings occurred around the globe. The Kentucky Derby winner was stripped of the crown for drug use. The Miss America pageant was stormed by feminists carrying banners that introduced to the television-watching public the phrase “women’s liberation.” An amazed world watched the first live telecast from outer space, and the TV news expanded to half an hour. For the first time, Americans watched that day’s battle – the Vietnam War’s Tet Offensive – on the evening news. The fact that television was needed to make things happen was a cultural revelation with enormous consequences. In many ways, 1968 led us to where we are today. Whether through youth and music, politics and war, economics and the media, it transformed who we are as a people.

And it appears we are there again… with two Presidential candidates few seem to like, race riots in many major US cities, a war that knows no end, and technology that once again separates generations! The good news… we survived 1968 and will likely do so with 2016. And if the world is feeling very 1968 these days and history truly repeats itself, at least we can expect some great music soon!!

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all lessons of history”
-Aldous Huxley

Mary, a former educator and Seniors Real Estate Specialist, is the author of three books, The West End Kid, Hotel Blackhawk; A Century of Elegance, and Labor of Love; My Personal Journey Through the World of Caregiving (available at www.amazon.com)