The Times They Are A Changin’

 I have friends that email me those nostalgic photos of the “good old days.” Well, some were good; some weren’t so good. These days, though, the balance seems to be in favor of the not so good.

Today, we have terrorist hordes causing mayhem and mass destruction. In the “good old days”, we heard of terrorists, but they were called anarchists, and their aim was not a religious revolution or even a political one, really. They just seemed to want to cause trouble, i.e. terrify people.

Then there was the “red horde”, the commies. The Soviet Union even had a school for “revolutionaries”, the Patrice Lamumba School in the Moscow University. This is where such notables as Carlos “the Jackal” learned his trade, followed by the Bader Meinhoff bunch. I have no direct evidence, but it is not hard to believe that groups like the Weather Underground, Black Panthers, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Symbionese Liberation Army, et al were influenced, if not directly spawned, by teachings of the Patrice Lamumba school.

Well, the Soviet Union is deader than last week’s road kill. The Communist revolution seems to have taken a different tact, at least in this country. Today the Commies are called socialists or progressives, and they are part of our government. They no longer preach the violent overthrow of our way of life; they simply legislate socialism.

Today we have the Muslim throngs taking up the conquest Mohamed started some 1400 years ago. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, those misguided followers of the Islamic faith have now become the Anarchists of today. Their goal is to put the world under Sharia law and seventh-century customs. They educate (a better word would be indoctrinate) their people only in their subverted version of Islamic teachings, arm them, and send them out to annihilate the “infidels.”

When I was a kid, the “Persians” were cool people zipping around on flying carpets and working magic spells. Now they are suicide bombers.

In my youth, kids had firearms. We went hunting and shooting. I even remember bringing my shotgun to school to go hunting before and after school. I kept it in my locker (also a thing of the past). No one ever thought of shooting up the school. The bullies would beat up their victims after school with the threat of “Wait until after school.” That wait caused more anxiety than the actual beating. Again, no one ever even thought of shooting the bullies or their toadies. They either faced down the bullies or recruited a bigger kid to clean a bully’s clock.

We didn’t have video games or even computers to play them on. Today anyone old enough to handle a game controller can place themselves in games more horrific than could ever be shown on television. Heads bashed, guts spilling out, severed body parts flying, and blood everywhere are what sparks the adrenaline of young people these days. They have a whole arsenal of realistic and imagined weapons at their disposal for them to act out their morbid dreams. Those that are killed can easily be resurrected or come back to life after re-booting the game.

When I was young, WWII was a big thing. We won that war, and we all played soldier. We also played cowboys and Indians, and cops and robbers. Our cap guns made a loud noise, and yes, we aimed them at the bad guys. It was great fun, but nobody got killed, no blood and guts, just a lot of energy spent chasing imaginary enemies.

Yes, Bob Dylan “the times they are a changin’”. Change isn’t always a good thing.