When WILL Americans take it to the streets?

   I was born in 1960 and I was not quite a year old when John F. Kennedy boldly delivered his “New Generation” inaugural speech on January 20, 1961 where he spoke of hope and change, of taking on difficult challenges because they WERE difficult and doing for country and not waiting for country to do for you.  To some, it was the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius.  This was the New World Order.  Tragically, this young new President was assassinated in less than three years of his promising administration, never getting to see his bold ambitions and challenges to the country bear fruit.  The 1960s produced the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and America WAS successful in sending a man to the moon and returning him safely to Earth.  There was the Summer of Love that turned the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco and Golden Gate Park in San Francisco  into social icons that have been forever burned into the soul of America.  The 1960s also gave us the Free Speech Movement that was born across the bay from San Francisco on the University of California at Berkeley campus; a sexual revolution and the National Organization of Women (NOW).  It WAS a New World Order indeed!    
   The 1960s also was a decade of tragedy and heartbreak.   The President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated (The Assassination of John F. Kennedy); his brother, Robert Kennedy, another proponent of hope and change, was assassinated in Los Angeles while campaigning for President in 1968 (The Assassination of Robert Kennedy) ; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the ULTIMATE advocate of hope and change, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and advocate of NON-VIOLENT protest and a leader of an entire RACE of people, was assassinated. (The Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.) (The pattern by now should be clear: the strongest advocates of hope and change in the 1960s [seemingly] were ALL assassinated.  We have the tragic habit in America of MURDERING advocates of change … especially those in a position to MAKE change become reality.  There is an obvious correlation as to what’s happening today in America.)  There was the Vietnam War; the Watts Riots; the ensuing riots in most of the major cities in America after the King assassination; the Manson Family; the Black Panther Party  (founded in Oakland, California) and an explosion of a drug sub-culture that continues to this day.  America was coming apart at the seams.  It was a"Ball of Confusion".
    This trip down memory lane was necessary in order to draw comparisons to where we are today in America.  Some of the aforementioned ingredients of the social-political gumbo of the 1960s are prevalent today in 2011.  In the 1960s, Americans took their anger to the streets.
    Americans had seen ENOUGH.  They were angry about many things … the Vietnam War; racial and class discrimination; a government that constantly misled the people; high unemployment; the rich getting richer while the needs of the poor and under-represented were completely ignored.  They took it to the STREETS.  In the minds of many, there was NOTHING to LOSE.  The common enemy, ANYONE or ANYTHING representing authority, was referred to as "The Establishment" and "Pigs".  "The Establishment" responded in kind by telling the American people that OTHER Americans were the enemies of the state (sound familiar?) and approximately 40% of America bought into that dogma.  The government declared war on Americans exercising their First Amendment rights.  It reached a crescendo on May 4, 1970, when the Ohio Army National Guard opened fire in a crowd of student demonstrators on the campus of Kent State (OH) University and killed FOUR students.  (The Kent State Massacre) The Guard had been dispatched to the campus on the order of then Governor James Rhodes (a Republican) after students there protested and demonstrated over the U.S. invasion of Cambodia that expanded America's military presence into Indochina .  This was a case of the government KILLING other Americans because they decided to exercise their First Amendment rights.
    At this moment in America it is, as Yogi Berra is quoted as saying, “déjà vu all over again.”  There is high unemployment; the gap between the rich and the poor has grown exponentially; there are TWO wars that America is fighting and “The Establishment”, in this case the GOP, is looking out for the interests of a fortunate few while at the same time, severing the lines of survival of many Americans in the form of cutting government services and unemployment benefits.  It’s 2011 and once again, America is coming apart at the seams.  Tension and anxiety is high among the populace.  Far too many have lost their American dream … their homes; their life savings; their 401Ks; their DIGNITY.  The pot has been boiling for sometime and the heat is intensifying.  It won’t be long before the pot boils over.  All the elements are there.  What will happen when the pot DOES boil over?

When WILL Americans in 2011 take it to the streets?

Peace, peace in the Middle East!

Craig Riggins

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