Started my day with a thoughtful retrospective on 1968 from Robert Reich.
I find such strength in history. This reflection on another year that broke people's idealism is a fortifying read as we close out 2023.
There will come years that break our hearts.
And if fortunate, we will survive them.
@MLClark Yeah, people who complain about current times should have lived through 1968. 2023 is a vacation compared to 1968.
I had an argument with a family member who was proud that the West had "won" the Cold War in the end. Some "winning" for all the men whose lives were tossed to the meat grinder of Viet Nam, and the civilians in My Lai, and all the others suffering war time atrocities in that terrible churn. What a country and what a half century might've been had, if more effort had been put into wonder then, and less into hate and warfare to fuel the ego and arrogance of a few men in Washington.
@MLClark We didn't "win" the Cold War. We survived it.
Decades of lives and resources wasted, on both sides.
Some people like to claim that SDI or whatever caused the Soviet system to collapse. That's just nonsense, in my opinion. When the Soviet government declined to roll troops into eastern Europe to put down independence movements, that was it.
Had not the Soviet system collapsed from within, we'd probably still be at it. Putin sure is.