I was not alive in 1963 when President Kennedy was shot down in Dallas, TX, nor was I alive in 1968 when both Martin Luther King and Senator Robert Kennedy were killed.   If I was, I am sure that the time period before the Brothers Kennedy and Dr. King  were killed was very similar to the political temperature in Washington now.

During the 60′s the world was riddled with a set of problems — not dissimilar to the problems that we are dealing with now.   We were in a war in Vietnam, the womens rights movement was building, and African Americans desired equal rights.   Today, we are at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, dealing with whether or not every American should receive Health Care, barely recovering from the largest recession since the Great Depression, and now gays are advocating to remove the military albatross known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” from their necks.

I am not a fan of Peggy Noonan, I find her articles filled with the conservative rhetoric of an age long passed.  However, in her recent opinion called,  ”The Heat Is On, We May Get Burned,” Noonan introspectively brings up many issues many of us are afraid (possibly because of our bloody history) to speak or even think.

Noonan states:

What I keep thinking of is a beehive.  A modern, high tech, highly politicized democracy is a busy beehive, and sometimes the bees are angry, and sometimes someone comes by and sticks a big sharp stick in the hive.  The biggest thing Washington should do right now is stop it, stop poking the stick.

The beehive was already angry about a million things a year ago, and most of those things, obviously, were not the fault of the administration.  People are angry at their economic vulnerability.  They are angry at the deterioration of our culture, angry at our nation’s deteriorating position in the world, at our debts and deficits, our spending and taxing, our threatened security in a world of weapons of mass destruction.  Their anger is stroked by cynical politicians and radio ranters and people who come home at night, have a few drinks, and spew out their rage on the comment thread.  It’s a world full of people always cocking the gun and ready to say, if things turn bad,  ”But I didn’t tell anyone to shoot!”

Today, Former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin (she did it earlier in the week on Facebook) asked Tea-Party protesters to “reload”.   One of the attendee’s said the following about the health care bill.  ”It’s a joke, just another way to enslave the American public.”  Many of the problems in American are the result of failed politicians, but the answer is not to be violent it is  to vote them out of office.  Not use language, which can (despite Palin’s supposed good intentions) in the minds of the mentally fragile invoke our nations worst nightmares.

In 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald someone apparently obsessed with Marxism and Communism, and unhappy with his the world (the American world) around him (according to Wikipedia) loaded a gun and shot [then] President Kennedy.   Does another collective sacrifice have to happen to wake us up and unite us as a country?  I pray that we become a nation of spirited debaters, rather than a nation collectively possessed by our own ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, left and right, and good and evil.

I pray for the future of our great nation!

Angelina C. in New York
– March 27, 2010

The Heat Is On, We May Get Burned — Peggy Noonan
Nancy Pelosi’s Triumph — A Long Time Coming — William Bradley
5 Dems Who Wish They Had Last Week Back — Sean Trende
The Power of Zero — Richard Reeves
What Really Matters — Susan Estrich
Damn!  I Wish I Was a Republican– Ted Rall
The Wingers Who Cried Wolf — Joe Conason
Can ‘No’ Revive the Republicans? — Tobin Harshaw
The Rage Is Not About Health Care — Frank Rich
Health Care Reform, at Last — NY Times
Federally Funded Abortions Are In Our Future — Kathleen Parker
Why Did Health-Care Reform Pass?  Nancy Pelosi Was In Charge — Vince Bzdek

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Related posts:

1. Must Read Blogs and Op-Ed’s — October 27, 2010 #p2 #tcot
2. Must Read Blogs and Op-Eds — January 11, 2010
3. Must Read Blogs and Op-Ed’s — March 2, 2010