zmetro.com

Charles Andres posts an interesting look at 1968 vis a vis 2004
http://www.e-pix.com/1968/
Recent comments about how we live in dangerous and chilling times (after 9/11) should be seen in perspective to 1968, when

• 25000 American soldiers had been killed in 3 years of the Vietnam War.
• The leading proponents for change (Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy) were assassinated.
• The Soviet Union was considered a nuclear threat that could wipe out the United States in a day.
• Protesters against the war in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention were stopped with police-state tactics.
• I have posted rare video tape footage of CBS News on April 4, the day Martin Luther King was assassinated, and ABC News coverage of the Democratic National Convention from Aug 28, 1968, the night of the largest riots, the fight over the Vietnam War plank (whether to change Democratic party plank to allow Vietnam the right to determine its own government and stop bombing the north) and Vice Presidents Humphrey’s nomination.

In May 2001, the professor of law at Georgetown University was tapped by the Justice Department to work for two years as an assistant attorney general, working primarily on judicial nominations for the department.
But three months later the World Trade Center towers collapsed, and Dinh was drafted to work on the USA Patriot Act, a bill that would give the government some of its most controversial surveillance powers. The bill, coupled with the government’s subsequent treatment of immigrants and native-born citizens, prompted critics to charge the administration with overthrowing “800 years of democratic tradition.” Wired.