Dr. Forbush Thinks

I began to think about the similarity between the 1960s and the 2000s and I began to see mirrors. As most people know, when you look into a mirror and you raise your left hand the image in the mirror raises his right hand. Similarly when you raise your right hand the image in the mirror raises his left hand.

So, if we go back to the 1960 presidential raise we discover John F. Kennedy running against Richard M. Nixon. The race was very close. In fact some people claimed that cheating in Chicago by the union bosses was the reason that Kennedy won the election. This exact situation played itself out in the 2000 election when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore by a small number of votes in Florida. The difference between the elections was simply a mirror image. The Left won in 1960 and the Right won in 2000.

It turns out that the US was challenged in the first in both of these presidencies. Kennedy was challenged in 1962 when the Soviet Union moved nuclear missiles into Cuba, only 90 miles from the US. In 2001 George W. Bush was challenged with the terrorist attacks on September 11th. John F. Kennedy’s reaction was to force the Soviet Union’s missiles out of Cuba and he was successful, although the US did have to remove our own nuclear missiles from Turkey. George W Bush’s response was to attack the terrorists known to be hiding in Afghanistan. We are still looking for the leader of the terrorists, Osama bin Laden four years later.

John F. Kennedy and George W Bush both started wars that could easily be argued to be unnecessary. John F. Kennedy sent advisors to Viet Nam in an effort to prevent the Communists from taking Southeast Asia country by country like dominos. The idea was to promote US influence and get some oil from the Gulf of Tonkin. Amazingly similarly George W Bush has nearly the goals in the Middle East if you replace Communism with Islamic Fundamentalism, Viet Nam with Iraq, and Southeast Asia with the Middle East.

Social Issues in both of these time periods are also on a remarkable parallel. In 1964 civil rights was a major issue and now Lyndon B Johnson took up John F. Kennedy’s social values and was able to pursue civil rights as far as racism in the south was concerned. George W Bush is also pushing a major social issue, that being abortion and he would argue the civil rights of the unborn. With the appointment of John Roberts he may actually achieve his goal as Johnson did in the 1960s.

All of these things and actually more parallels seem to show a mirror in the space-time continuum. For example, Richard Nixon was the defeated vice president that ran against John F. Kennedy just as Al Gore was the defeated vice president that ran against George W Bush. However, being defeated in 1960 didn’t prevent Nixon from winning the election in 1968. Since there are three years until the 2008 election we don’t yet know if Al Gore is planning to run, but even if Hillary Clinton were to run the mirror image would still fit. A defeated person from the left rising up to defeat the person from the right.

But, even if the left wins back the presidency in 2008 we should be aware of what happened to Richard M Nixon. The social issues of the left continued to take form as the people rose up to oppose the War in Viet Nam and to fight for even more civil rights. The legacy of the 1960s was only barely forming under Lyndon B Johnson but went into full steam ahead under the presidency of Richard Nixon. By 1970s the social fabric of the US was changed beyond recognition. I am sure that the radical right would like to do the same and reverse the changes that occurred in the 1960s. So, even if Hillary or Al were to win the presidency and even if they won re-election by a landslide in 2012 there is no promise that conservatives could change the America that we know and love into some type of Religious State that would have a hold on our country well into the century.

I am not trying to say that America is lost to the radical right. What I am trying to say here is that we need to remain vigilant because even when we think that we have won the radicals can still pull the rug out from under the feet of the country.





politics