Tuesday, November 21, 2006

43 Years Ago Tomorrow, America Started Its Long Descent

November 22nd, 1963, isn't just the day before my friend Tim was born, although it is that. It's somewhat better-known for being the day on which John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated, and it seems like things have gone downhill, in some regards, ever since.

You've got the 1968 killings of his brother, Robert (topic of the currently-in-release film, Bobby) and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. The Vietnam War would dominate and corrupt the psyche of the latter half of the 60s in the States, and a good few years at the start of the 70s, too. Even landing people on our moon for the first time.. well, ever... did little to lighten up the mood for long.

Nixon left the White House in shame in the middle of the 70s, after proving what everyone had always suspected: politicans will lie every time to cover their asses. Strange happenings in the oil world gave everyone a brief taste of what gas lineups might look like, but apparently not many learned any lessons from it as car use has only grown in the 30+ years since, becoming even more of a dependency and spawning thinly-veiled Oil Wars like the one in Iraq right now.

The 80s saw Reaganomics widen the gap between the Haves and Have Nots in that country (the trickle down economy that never quite seemed to trickle all the way down), as well as the first widespread awareness of just how bad the environment was getting. It seems like it was the 80s that ushered in the American Litigation Age, but I'll admit it could've started in the 70s or even the 90s. Certainly the woman who spilled hot coffee on herself and won millions in the ensuing lawsuit deserves to be the Poster Girl for that movement, but I'm not sure when it first hit its stride.

The 90s taught kids that it's OK to steal as long as you don't get caught, as piracy of all kinds began to flourish and become the norm. I'm not sure we've even begun to feel the full impact from that loss of a moral compass yet. It's a slippery slope once you can start rationalizing away the fact that you're stealing someone else's livelihood by justifying it because you can, or because everyone else does it, or because those musicians are already rich enough! Makes me think I probably shouldn't leave any 20s lying around on my kitchen counter if guests are coming over.

And here we are in the premiere decade of the 21st Century, more than halfway through it in fact and still no good, catchy name for it: "the naughties", "the zeroes", "double aughts" and others have been floated, but nothing's stuck. I guess we won't really know what characterizes this decade until we're through it and can look back, but so far Bush and his Agents of Paranoia seem to have owned it from 09/11/01 onward. I suspect historians will look back on this stretch with disdain, noting just how quickly all of the civil liberties the U.S. had been so fond of pounding their chests over were put on the shelf in the interests of stopping those damned terrorists!

And did it all really start with the shooting of JFK, in Dallas, 43 years and a day ago? How the Hell would I know? Do I look like a historian to you? :-)

No comments: