I disagree with most, but not all of your conclusions. You are right that people in the USA will try to be getting back to business as usual. That's because business as usual is what most of us do.
You are incorrect that the events you mentioned did not have an effect on the body public.
If you don't think the Civil Rights movement had any effect on the US, take a look at our Secretary of State, our National Security Advisor, among others. I remember when black people rode in the back of the bus and drank from separate water fountains, and I am only 49.
What becomes of old hippies? They get gray hair and don't wear tie-dye anymore. You have to be able to look into people's hearts to see what they really believe. The culture of the US went through a great transformation in the 1960's-1970's, and we're all used to it now.
The struggle to make political institutions honest is old, old. You didn't study Tammany Hall and the Teapot Dome scandal in school, probably, but these were the 19th century versions of Watergate. The impeachment of Bill Clinton was a recent manifestation, and the fight over campaign finance is another.
I think everyone who is old enough to have lived through it will never forget the Teheran hostage crisis. The abortive attempt by Carter to rescue the hostages is something that gets talked about, too, especially now. It's a wonderful example of what *not* to do. Maybe the Iranians learned something, too. One of the interesting things that came out was that the students who captured the Americans in the Embassy didn't know what to do with them - had no goal in mind, just wanted to do something to get in our face, and then were stuck taking care of them.
We remember the Gulf War, too. How could we forget it? We are still fighting it every day. We are still flying over Iraq's "no fly" zones. We keep bombing Iraq, almost every day. There was a major bombing earlier this year. Saddam keeps trying to shoot our planes down. |
