I was born April 1st 1942 when World War II was almost 4 months old. My memory goes back as far as VJ Day, the victory over Japan. I remember the block party we had on Brighton 1st Street in Brooklyn in celebration of the end of the war in August of 1945. Since then I have witnessed the following evil shit:
The killing and crippling Polio Epidemic of the forties and early fifties until the Jonas Salk Vaccine was developed through SCIENCE.
Duck and cover drills in 1949 and 1950 in my first and second grades done to make us feel safe if a bomb that could wipe out an entire city should land on our doorstep. That’ll give 7 and 8 year old kids a boost of optimism for their future.
In June of 1950 the Korean War (deemed “a Police Action”) began and
resulted in 5 million deaths half of which were Korean civilians. Forty-thousand American soldiers were killed and 100,000 wounded until a truce was agreed to in 1953 but no peace treaty has ever been signed.
Also in 1950, to fuel his own sick ego and gain recognition for his reelection campaign in 1952, Senator Joseph McCarthy began his “Red Scare” trumped-up witch hunt for communists in and out of the US government. Thousands lost their jobs and careers and some their lives. In March of 1954 McCarthy was verbally vanquished by Edward R. Murrow on his on Morrow’s CBS program See It Now. Subsequently, public opinion turned against Senator McCarthy and following thirty-six days of public hearings the special counsel for the Army, Joseph Nye Welch was prompted to ask McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” That question is still pertinent of many today.
The Cuban missile crisis which had the world as close to World War III as it has ever been. It was avoided by a winning combination… diplomacy and reason.
The shocking assassination of President John F. Kennedy 57 years ago and we still do not know what really happened.
In 1967 an Arab – Israeli conflict known as the Six Day War.
In 1968 the assassination of the beloved and vaunted religious leader
Reverend Martin Luther King.
A second assassination in1968 of Presidential candidate and Former Senator and United States Attorney General Robert Kennedy
The Viet Nam War sanctioned by many administrations and eventually proven to be bullshit through and through
1973 another Arab Israeli war called the Yom Kippur War..
In 1973 – 1974 there was the impeachment inquiry and resignation in of the
Presidency by Richard M. Nixon who said “I am not a crook.” Sound familiar?
Three major space program accidents in which 17 American astronauts died. Three on the ground and 14 in flight.
In December of 1981 a documentary called Warming Warning was broadcast on the Thames TV channel in the United Kingdom. It warned of the negative planetary effect of fossil fuels and stated unequivocally their ongoing use would double the CO2 levels in the atmosphere. The poisoning of Earth, our only blue and green oasis in space, continues to occur with full awareness of those who are doing it.
Considering all of the above, the current coronavirus pandemic is the scariest of all. This so mainly because, and I am quoting the former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson when he said about the current White House occupant, “he’s a fucking moron.”