by Victor Davis Hansen. On whole I think this article is just dumb.

Starts out saying things are not nearly as different as we might think.

Follows that with a disjointed laundry list of similarities between 1966 and 2016, with requisite spin to make the list seem a true inventory of similarities.

Then ends by saying well, things are both different and the same.

So I feel like I know exactly what I knew before I read it.

Which is the world is dominated by people, just like it was 50 years ago. A lot of the nations are the same (although many aren't - Hansen skipped those), and since we're only roughly one or 1.5 generations removed from 50 years ago, some of the tensions that existed then exist today in some form or fashion. How profound!

Of course, he could have taken virtually all of his examples and spent more time on differences. Take Russia - back then it was the Soviet Union, few Americans had probably even heard of Ukraine, since it was part of the same country, and now today, that is the flashpoint of the tension.

The ME is really much more different than it is the same - the 6 Day War had not even happened yet, and Israel was arguably as aligned with the Soviets as it was with the US.

And this thing called the Internet, which could not even have been imagined back then, led to an Arab Spring, resulting in much of the current tension there. The protests that led to all the upheaval would have been impossible back then.

I like articles that warn against too much nostalgic longing for the "good ol' days", because they were never as good when we were living them. But I can't even imagine why Hansen even bothered to write this. It kind of says nothing at all - guess he had a busy weekend and had a deadline to meet.

None of this ranting is meant as an attack on you, Abdul.
[Post edited by hoolstoptheheels at 09/06/2016 10:30AM]