everyone loves a good redscare

for some reason, I got distracted last night and eventually found myself reading comments posted in response to news items on cnn.com. I would say in the 80% range of all posts, there are huge grammatical mistakes (I know, who am I to speak of such things, I am well aware of my own), completely uneducated rants, people still holding on to dead ideas that are obviously not working, desperate attempts to get in touch with people for jobs, or just to be heard. All of this is heartbreaking and leaves me feeling hopeless and depressed. It makes me want to set fire to almost all of these individuals, one in particular blamed the failing of "the big three" automakers on a lack of patriotism: "buy American" - I wonder if he realized that they import more parts from foreign countries than toyota or honda do, so in fact it doesn't matter who you are buying from. Never mind the fact that we are a global community etc, and that this situation is affecting the entire world, not just Americans. Ignore that the American Way is the cause of this mess. It is the American influence on these other countries that is also the impetus of a world collapse.

I am slightly intrigued, perhaps even obsessed by the year 1968. At a future time I will explore this further. The civil right's movement, Black Panthers, the RAF, the SDS, student and workers revolts all over the entire world, Kommune 1, the environmental movement, the Weather Underground (though they began in 1969, however they embody the spirit of '68), and so on. What happened? Where has that level of involvement gone? Is it a matter of intelligence, time, care, selfishness, or what? I keep coming back to my naive 14 year old self, the brink of discovery of the more political punk, the believing in the revolution.

again, I will return someday to expand or come as close to completion as I can.