And I think, Is it 2010, or 1980? Or 1970? Or 1960?
Matt Yglesias had a downright depressing post on the oil spill the other day:
I wanted to make sure that everyone got a chance to see Rachel Maddow’s segment last night on how much oil spill response mechanisms have (not!) changed over the last 40 years. She digs up archive NBC coverage of the 1979 Ixtoc I oil spill in which a blow out preventer failed and oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico for 9 months. The Ixtoc I response featured failed top hats, top kills, chemical dispersant, and all.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...
On a similar note, it is somewhat fascinating how the public's view of Roe v. Wade has effectively not changed whatsoever since the case was decided in 1973. And whenever I hear the phrase "Second Intifada," all I can think of is John Houseman's line from Three Days of the Condor, discussing his entry into the intelligence field after "the Great War, as we used to call it. Before we knew enough to number them."
The promise of Barack Obama's campaign was to move us past the debates of the 1960s, and in that regard, that promise of "Change" has utterly failed. Rand Paul's absurd comments about the Civil Rights Act brought Barry Goldwater into the limelight again. This country can still not have a serious conversation about race. Republicans yell about "big government" and "small government" as if we were still trying to figure out if the Great Society was a good idea. We are led by a president who ran against his war-initiating predecessor, only to expand upon his belligerent frolics. We are struggling—and failing—to cope with a natural environment that is crashing down around us. And meanwhile, Arizona is mere inches away from requiring immigrants to wear stars to identify themselves.
I want to become in involved in political life someday. Whether as an elected official, a staffer somewhere, or a federal judge, I want to have an impact on the big questions of policy that we will face in the coming generation.
But on days like today I ask myself: What is the point?
One of the two major political parties still refuses to believe in climate change, 40 years after NEPA. The leaders of the Republican party are still motivated by the same racism, classism, and misogyny that motivated them 40 years ago. Israel has been fighting for its survival for over 60 years, and in valuing the lives of its citizens over those of the Palestinians in Gaza, it still cares more about the Palestinians than Hamas does. After lining up at gas stations in 1979, we are driving cars that are no more efficient than they were 30 years ago, and we wonder why the Gulf of Mexico has turned into the world's largest oil slick. Today, women are still paid 70 cents on the dollar for doing the same jobs as men, and the goal of many Republicans is to make them have more children—or die trying to unsafely abort them.
The world has changed. Many things have gotten better. But many things have not. The health care legislation was perhaps the first step forward on progressive reform in over 40 years, and based on the political climate, it may be the last for a long time. I longed for the Obama administration to usher in an era of politics fueled by the worldview of Generation X, and I find myself heartbroken. Try as we might to leave it behind, it is still 1968. The bullets that killed Robert F. Kennedy killed the next 40 years of American politics, and perhaps more than that.
One generation passes away, and another generation comes.
There is nothing new under the sun.
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