Events and politics absolutely are violent, unhinged, and bizarre now. Everyone is twitchy. The election is 114 days away. It reminds me of 1968, a truly insane year. Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Martin Luther King was also murdered, and cities burned in protest. There were massive college, antiwar, and civil rights protests, and a “police riot” at the Democratic National Convention.
The good news is we survived it. The bad news is it’s starting to feel like 1968 again. I hope not.
Events of 1968 from a Smithsonian article.
After a battle for the Vietnamese village of Ben Tre, an American officer tells Associated Press reporter Peter Arnett, “It became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it.”
That’s how deranged our military was in the Vietnam war. Destroying villages to save them. Madness.
Martin Luther King Jr., in Memphis for the sanitation workers’ strike, is fatally shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. Over the next week, riots in more than 100 cities nationwide leave 39 people dead, more than 2,600 injured and 21,000 arrested.
MLK was murdered by a piece of trash who was clearly getting paid by someone. We still don’t know who.
Students take over five buildings on Columbia University’s campus and briefly hold a dean hostage, calling for the university to cut its ties to military research. Before dawn on April 30 administrators call in the police, who respond with about 1,000 officers. More than 700 people are arrested, and 132 students, four faculty and 12 officers are injured.
Columbia wasn’t the only university with massive protests.
Robert F. Kennedy wins the California primary—and is assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
We sure have a lot of unhinged lone gunmen.
At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, police and Illinois National Guardsmen go on a rampage, clubbing and tear-gassing hundreds of antiwar demonstrators, news reporters and bystanders, with much of the violence broadcast on national TV
The official report afterwards said it was a “police riot.” It may also have contributed to Nixon being elected president because people blamed the protesters.
I have no words of wisdom except to say, be safe out there. The runup to election day may have seriously crazy.