World War II ended before I was born, and I was a tot during the Korean War, but before they just become “memorization points” for some high school student’s history test, I thought I might take a shot at my short list of modern historical events that most shaped my world. What’s your list?
August 10, 1964 – Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (officially, the Southeast Asia Resolution, Public Law 88-408) was addressed by Lyndon B. Johnson as a joint resolution of the U.S. Congress passed in direct response to a minor naval engagement known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. It is of historical significance because it gave U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorization, without a formal declaration of war by Congress, for the use of military force in Southeast Asia (specifically to support the corrupt South Vietnamese government against the potential spread of Communism – the Domino Theory – espoused by the North Vietnamese). The resulting Vietnam conflict (also known as the Vietnam War) continued even after a peace treaty was reached with North Vietnam in January of 1973. U.S. forces withdrew, and on April 30, 1975, the North overwhelmed the South, Saigon fell, and Vietnam was unified. Congress reacted to this debacle by limiting Presidential authority (see below). However, during this seemingly interminable war, the government filled the ranks of the military by means of an exceptionally unpopular draft that gave rise to an anti-war movement that seems to have defined the mind-set of the Baby Boom Generation, including the minds of the outgoing Administration. The War literally polarized America as never before. Moments etched in people’s minds include the four students were killed by National Guardsmen at Kent State University during a protest in Ohio.
November 9, 1989 – The fall of the Berlin Wall. President Reagan spoke at 2:20 p.m. at the Brandenburg Gate, separating East from West Berlin, on June 12, 1987: “[Soviet] General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe , if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Actually, the above November date is when East Germans were allowed passage into West Berlin ; the physical dismantling of the Wall itself actually took place over time. To Europeans, the “Fall of the Wall” signaled a reunification of Europe itself, destroying the Eastern/ Western bloc mentality, and although Communist governments fell sequentially (the Soviet Union fell in the fall of 1991), November 9th is still referred as the seminal date. To Europeans, this collapse signaled hope, an era of peace, the end of the Cold War, and the beginning of a “better time” in the world. Europe, unlike the United States , was not particularly reconfigured by the events that reshaped the United States in the next major event.
September 11, 2001 – The terrorist attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. As much as Europe was defined by the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States was stunned into a bitter reality that Islamist forces, not tied to any one particular country, were now destined to attack and destroy the United States at every turn. Unlike the hope-filled Europeans, Americans were paralyzed with fear. The Administration, having embraced the “unitary executive” theory to solidify and concentrate power into the hands of the President in times of crisis (taking back the Presidential power they felt had been withdrawn by Congress in the post-Vietnam War era – statutes like the War Powers Resolution, passed in 1973 over a Nixon veto, which limited a President’s right to deploy our military against hostile forces), had an attack without a country to respond to. Attacking Taliban in Afghanistan was only marginally satisfying. The “if you’re not for us, you’re against” strategy, the Patriot Act and the need to consolidate power by having a real war with a real country all coalesced into a fabricated “weapons of mass destruction” explanation that pushed America into a dollar-depreciating and unwinnable war (how do you win a civil war, when you’re not backing either side?) with Iraq. We’re still there.
September 15, 2008 – The Fall of Lehman Bros. and the collapse of the underlying financial markets. We know that the cards were all set to fall (see my Tipping Points blog earlier), based on an ill-constructed and unregulated derivatives market, hyper-inflated real estate values supported by unqualified borrowers, exceptionally high levels of unsupported corporate debt and a government afraid to raise taxes but having no problem borrowing the United States into an unsustainable deficit. But when Lehman Bros., a company founded before the Civil War, announced its intention to file bankruptcy on September 15, it was as if someone had pulled the drain plug on the global economy.
November 4, 2008 – The election of the first non-white President of the United States . Regardless of whether you supported John McCain or Barack Obama, with the world watching to see whether the United States could actually elect an African-American as President, the American people did just that and made history.
I’m Peter Dekom, and I hope I did well on the history test!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment