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In reply to the discussion: Since November 22, 1963... [View all]
Hekate
(100,133 posts)There was Before and After.
What you perceive as rose colored glasses are really a mist of tears in the hearts of those of us who were young then, with a young president. He made us believe in the possibilities of our future, from civil rights to outer space to the Peace Corps. He was a human being with human flaws, like the ones murdered after him -- they were not some collection of plaster saints, but men who strove toward a mighty dream and made mistakes along the way. Heroes are not saints.
Like 9-11, the murders of our heroes (JFK, RFK, MLK, Malcolm X, and others) were a wound in our national generational psyche. Unlike 9-11, we didn't throw away our Constitutional rights with both hands in the name of some illusory security, but got up and continued the fight for Civil Rights, women's rights, pro-peace, anti-Bush-Cheney, and all the rest, right up until the struggle to get the first African-American elected President.
On this day, we who were young then look back and remember being young, with our hopes and dreams before us and a dashing young president pointing the way, and we grieve for what was lost.
Yet our work is not done and never will be; though at some point we will tire and die, and by the gods your generation is going to have to do the job. Are you up to it?
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