We were young. We were confident that individuals with like liberal ideals would inherit the Earth. And why should be we not be confident? Who would not want to see the downtrodden raised up, a noble nation looking out for the little guy, a system that brought out the very best in us?
But that year Nixon won, and since then our nation has pursued a path of blind greed and usury. We have slid inexorably down a path of sleazy expedience to a point where Water Boarding scarcely raises an eyebrow.
But there is something new coming...
Sure, there were attempted counter-attacks by the forces of light; President Carter, President Clinton, but in reality these were mere rear-guard actions that were ultimately overwhelmed by organized greed.
And as I now sit on my back porch and contemplate the demise of Human dignity through the Regan-Bush years, I realize that we are a defeated generation.
"Expect the worst and you won't be disappointed" - This is a maxim that has kept me sane for the past forty years of my life.
But there is something new on the horizon...
Yet again we head into a campaign season, Choose Bim or Dim - your choice.
This time there is Obama and - yeah, OK - Hillery, McCain. Perhaps if I were younger and more naive I could work up some kind of artificial enthusiasm for the game, but I know now the opposing forces out there are so dark and powerful that little will change.
Yet, there is something in the air...
So - what's new? What is this truly bright light that makes me sit up wide-eyed in awe?
It's the Internet.
The damn thing is so hard to control that the middle-men of consumerism are either perplexed or in free-fall, such as the music and film industry.
It's personal. I can even remove something as innocuous as the advertising from my Google email on my browser. Softwares and operating systems that were unobtainable unless you were quite well off are now mimicked by freeware applications.
YouTube. I must confess I sneered at it's arrival on the stage - until its true import slowly dawned on me. YouTube can be compared to the Gutenberg Press in two ways:
The ease of text reproduction and the dissemination of the Bible in languages other than Latin essentially brought down the strangle-hold of the Catholic Church in Europe.
But what often escapes notice was the thousands of pamphlets that suddenly proliferated; "How to thatch a roof", "How to build a brick wall" - these pamphlets brought down the secretive guilds that hoarded their knowledge and restricted technological development. Within fifty years, most of the guilds were gone. If you explore YouTube, you will find the generosity of spirit that the individual is imbued with. For little or no recompense, individuals freely give their knowledge to any and all. Can you see where I'm going with this?
Alas, I am no visionary; I can't see into the future. But for what it's worth, my godson who is about to turn twenty one, was sitting on my porch with a mixed bunch of his friends, all internet savvy and aware of what's going down. At some point the conversation turned to the political scene. I started to ask what they thought of the upcoming campaign and my godson interrupted me, saying "We don't care about that crap. It's all going to be swept aside." I glanced at his friends sitting silently in accordance, and suddenly I knew this was going to be a better world.