HISTORY JUST KEEPS ON HAPPENING

Another year down the tube already. My, how time flies, and history keeps on happening all the while time whizzes by. As 2008 begins, will this be a great year that we’ll all look back on fondly, or will some catastrophe wipe the good memories of the year from our minds?

Whatever happens, this will be a major year in politics. For the first time we have a woman and a black man as candidates for the presidency who actually stand a chance of being elected. Of course, they have to survive the State caucuses and primaries, then the Democratic convention first. The best thing happening is that we have candidates in both parties who offer us real choices, for a change.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of 1968, when politics was in turmoil. We lost civil rights leader Martin Luther King and democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy that year to assassins. As the Democrats headed for their convention in Chicago that year, a lot of young people had lost hope for decency in politics because their dreams of someone in the White House who would end the war had been shattered by assassin, Sirhan Sirhan. Remember, young people under 21 couldn’t vote then, so their only chance to even be heard was to demonstrate outside the convention hall. They could be drafted and die in Vietnam fighting a war they didn't believe in, but they couldn't vote against the leaders who were willing to eagerly send other parents' children off to war while helping their own children avoid the draft. There was a lot at stake for those young protestors!

The convention would get ugly as Chicago’s police attacked demonstrators in the streets. A lot of young Americans, like me, refused to go to the polls that year because we thought our choice was limited to the lesser of two evils. Those of us who lived through the turmoil of the late ‘60s remember what it was like to lose both faith and hope that the world could be a better place. Maybe we still have a different set of expectations for our political leaders than those of you who weren’t yet born, or for those who really weren’t paying attention in 1968. And yes, there were many complacent voters back then.

I’m not a political pundit, nor am I an avid student of politics, but I believe that this year, trustworthiness will be the leading characteristic voters will be looking for. Which Republican or Democratic candidate can be trusted to lead our country in a new direction? Which one will keep the promises made in the heat of the campaign? Which one really cares about the plight of the lower and middle economic class, the category most Americans fit into?

I have studied the reputations and backgrounds of candidates already and narrowed my choices. I only hope everyone reading this will take this campaign seriously enough to go behind the headlines and sound bites on television so that they can learn the real story. Too many of us are too busy to even watch the evening news, and instead turn to late night shows or parodies of politics for information. Folks, these TV personalities have their favorites, but their choices should not necessarily be yours. Think about that! Mostly, though, their political comments are jokes. They’re meant as jokes—not to be taken seriously.

And TV channel flippers who happen to hear a loudmouth screaming some obscenity about a specific candidate shouldn’t accept that as fact, either. What I’m saying is that each of us has a responsibility to study issues and read a variety of newspapers and magazines to get our information. I’ve taken it a step further by reading the various biographies of all the candidates because I have the time and enough interest to make sure I don’t live to regret my vote. Plus, I'm a speed reader.

I have a feeling this will be one of the most important votes I’ll cast in my lifetime and I want it to count this time. I hope you do, too!