I had turned 11 just a week before. I had been promised flying cars and vacations on Mars by The Jetsons. I was a huge Star Trek fan, disappointed in the cancellation of my favorite show, but excited over the space program, which I had followed my entire young life. And, on July 20, 1969, I was treated to this:
Things were looking up. I knew as much as you can expect for a kid about the civil rights movement, but things seemed to be settling down. Vietnam was still going on, and I remembered a Nixon TV commercial from 1968 promising to have all the troops home within six months. Well, it was six months later, and they were still fighting and dying in a place that had no resemblance to the Westerns and World War II films I’d grown up with. For the first time, it occurred to me that Presidents lied, but Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were bouncing around on the Moon, and those flying cars and vacations on Mars seemed a lot closer that day.
On July 20, 2022, I was treated to this:
Yes, it happened on the 19th, but I didn’t see it until the next day. I thought, Wow, the US government’s ability to put on a good show has sure gone downhill. In 1969, I got “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” In 2022, I get grotesque pandering from a poser of a celebrity politician, followed shortly thereafter by emailed fundraising appeals to finance a political party which seeks only to preserve to kleptocratic status quo.
In 1969, the United States was bogged down in Vietnam, but Nixon had announced a plan to get out and most Americans believed him. This was before the invasion of Cambodia, before Kent State, before Watergate. The economy, however, was booming and for most, times were pretty good. The Soviet Union and Communist China were around, but Nixon had lessened tensions with them and the specter of nuclear suicide had receded somewhat.
In 2022, the US Empire is wrecking its own economy and that of its allies waging an economic war against Russia, a war which Russia gives every appearance of winning. The US is sending tens of billions of bucks worth of weapons to Ukraine. For some reason, I do not believe that financing a war against Russia in a place that was long a part of Russia is exactly conducive to peaceful coexistence.
As for flying cars and vacations on Mars, I can’t afford electric cars and a vacation beyond easy driving distance in an era of $4 + a gallon gasoline might as well be on Mars.
Looking back, I miss those times that seemed so hopeful to me. I miss the space program and how the world once came together to watch a human being step on another world for the first time and think that maybe, just maybe, things would get better.
I’ll take Neil Armstrong’s small step over AOC’s petty pandering any day, and if there is anyone out there thinking that Joe Biden is preferable to or smarter than Richard Nixon, please seek professional help.
Thanks for reading. Good night, and good luck.