The Crystal Ball is getting scary...

[softball]

Originally Posted by LizAEBN

Are you sincerely drawing a parallel between the current world and the world in which Kent State and Altamont took over the news cycles for days on end?

Really?

'Cos I'm sorry, Rhet, but I gotta call bullshit on that one, because that's about like putting The Exorcist and Saw up against one another and calling them the same movie. They're not - and the general reception of each is a fairly clear indicator of shifts in societal mores and inurement to things that in the period you reference would have been unimaginable. Immersion in breaking news and the media shrieking at the top of its lungs on the NEXT BIG STORY drives home the point.

Well, that is a mouthful, but here goes....l.
Yes they are the same. The world may have appeared to have changed but it hasn't changed all that much. The spin has become more sophisticated as has the delivery system. The results are the same. The Viet Nam war is a great parallel for this mess in Iraq. Societal mores have evolved somewhat, but if you think they can't do a 180 in a few short years, you might want to reflect on the past thirty. Why would you not put the Exorcist and Saw up against one another?
As far as immersion in news, sorry to say, but back in those days of foolish wars, oil embargoes, scary, scary inflation, we were all immersed in it. Gas line ups, violent protests around the world, the Cold War.

And if you think what we are going through is serious, wait until Mr. Putin jerks our chain shortly. And as long as America is living in this current mess, there will be no defense against the shit he will rain down. Please do not think this is a paranoid rambling, because it is not. It is a 180 degree shift back to the cold war coming at us like a freight train. We need to build a much more successful society to fend off the coming storm in a very dangerous world.

[softball]

[miz_wright]

Originally Posted by rhetorical

Well, that is a mouthful, but here goes....l.
Yes they are the same. The world may have appeared to have changed but it hasn't changed all that much. The spin has become more sophisticated as has the delivery system. The results are the same. The Viet Nam war is a great parallel for this mess in Iraq. Societal mores have evolved somewhat, but if you think they can't do a 180 in a few short years, you might want to reflect on the past thirty. Why would you not put the Exorcist and Saw up against one another?
As far as immersion in news, sorry to say, but back in those days of foolish wars, oil embargoes, scary, scary inflation, we were all immersed in it. Gas line ups, violent protests around the world, the Cold War.

And if you think what we are going through is serious, wait until Mr. Putin jerks our chain shortly. And as long as America is living in this current mess, there will be no defense against the shit he will rain down. Please do not think this is a paranoid rambling, because it is not. It is a 180 degree shift back to the cold war coming at us like a freight train. We need to build a much more successful society to fend off the coming storm in a very dangerous world.

My point with the movie references was the sheer difference in response to them - when The Exorcist came out, it was nightmare inducing, and the public at large was terrifying; compare and contrast to Saw and you see just how different the world in which we live is in comparision, because the response to it, while it was a much more horrific movie overall, was a resounding "Meh." It's indicative of the response the horrors with which we are innundated on a daily basis - things that 40 years ago would've inspired visceral responses now simply don't, because we are so flooded with news, images, and stimuli that would be horrifying if they weren't so overwhelming.

There are lots of things I agree with you about - but my point stands that I think it's a very different world than it was then, and the tactics that worked at one time don't work now. Marches are larger scale, but have less lasting impact, and people have wildly different methods of rebellion and action available to them. I maintain that your perception of Americans "deserving" what they get is faulty as a result of bias. *shrug*