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.
