I am 56 years old, I graduated high school in 1969, the Vietnam war was raging, Richard Nixon had been elected to his first term, two genuine American heroes ML King and Robert Kennedy bodies lay in their graves fatal wounds to their heads made by assassins bullets, and America was divided by race, age, religion and politics.
There was so much happening, now 39 years later, so little change, why?
Please stick with me for a narrative from a Boomer's perspective.
I had yet to turn 18 when I entered college in the fall of 1969, I was just another kid from a medium sized town in North Carolina looking towards my future and not really more than a child in many ways.
I remember the morning I left home to go out of state to a University in a neighboring State, walking around my home, knowing that the end of my childhood was at hand, I cried a little, not in front of anyone, just a few tears of recognition that things would never be the way they were.
Over the summer after graduation, word reached home that a friend had died in Vietnam after stepping on a mine, he was the manager of my high school basketball team, he had, graduated in 1968, one of those guys who was gung-ho and ready to go to war, just like the bumper stickers of the day "my country right or wrong", still a really nice guy, gone.
Every week someone within the region paid the ultimate price in that war a half a world away.
Then there was another guy I graduated with, he was working as an electrician's assistant after graduation, he was killed by accidental electrocution on the job just a few weeks after school got out.
My "Summer of 69" was the last one of my innocence and by the time that September day came for me to leave home my world was changing, never to be the same.
In May of 1970 I became a father, and while being totally unprepared for the job, there was no real choice as to options, Roe v Wade was in the nation's future in 1969 only a few states and DC had safe legal abortion.
Many a couple joked prior to that Supreme Court decision that many an engagement began with the words "You're gonna have a what!", that was the way it was in 1969.
I will try not to inject many more personal references and stick to my observations but, I felt it would at least give some background, and as I experienced these times firsthand, what I saw and what I did are part of who I am.
In the fall of 1969 the Selective Service Administration held the first Draft lottery. I remember being in the recreation/TV room at the dorm and witnessing over 100 guys around my age sit in silence witnessing what each of us viewed as our own personal destiny, in the form of a numbered ping-pong ball pulled from a rotating bin.
One by one the room emptied, those with low numbers, meaning should they for any reason have their college education interrupted, they would be entering the Military and not of their own choice.
The first number called was my mother's birthday, my number didn't come up until 339, this lifted my spirits as I felt that I would always have a choice whether to serve rather than an impending obligation.
Almost all of those who got low numbers and had a poor academic record spent the rest of the night drinking, many continued to stay drunk and stoned until they left school for the life of a conscript.
With Richard Nixon in the White House, I think, as a result of the fact Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were gone, the optimism of the youth and of the nation was weakened, the elements of our society that abide with us, you know them, those who live fearful lives, voted for the tough guy image of the Republicans.
Boomers were not all Hippies, or radicals, they were and are products of their/our times and experiences.
Great factions from both sides of the political spectrum exist within my generation and those millions in the middle seem to be the prize that form the basis for political success and failure of American Politics.
Hubert Humphrey just couldn't energize people like the Kennedys or Dr King and this nation sort of just slipped onto the grasp of the Republicans.
The riots and demonstrations and the rapid rife of events unfolding one after another divided this nation and frightened it simultaneously the Baby Boomers were coming into adulthood and it was big, big news that the average age of Americans was about 25.
Because of this social turbulence and with the Democratic party holding the White House with LBJ the nation wanted change (sounds like now) and the Republicans were happy to give this nation change.
This led to 40 years of incremental dismantling of the New Deal and to infanticide of the Great Society via Republican policies that now more shaped towards "private enterprise" curing the ills of our nations poor by injecting money into commercial projects that benefited the disadvantaged in some manner but, not before private business ran those government dollars through their sieve of profit taking.
Looking back over time, I doubt that Richard Nixon could win one Republican Primary today as what passes for the Republican mainstream bears little resemblance to the Republican Party today, yet those first steps toward the darkness of today's GOP happened 40 years ago.
The passing of the Civil Rights Act with a great push and strong arm tactics used by Lyndon Johnson split the Democrats into and Republicans benefited nationally and basically took over Political control of the South winning Federal offices and State Government for the first time since Reconstruction following the Civil War.
Our Constitution places the direction of the nation in the hands of the President and like it or not that is the way it is.
Witness George Bush's first six years in office and the amount of pure Republican philosophy enacted into law and policy and contrast the same basic Congress under President Bill Clinton to understand the power of the position.
For 28 of the past 40 years Republicans have held the Presidency, and of the 12 years the Democrats had a Presidency Republicans controlled Congress. The four years of Jimmy Carter came about at a unique time in the aftermath of Richard Nixon, the initial energy crisis brought to us by a newly powerful OPEC, rampant inflation, and a general "too nice-ness" towards Republicans after what they and Nixon had done.
That leaves two years of Bill Clinton's administration where the Democrats were in total control, and even then, our Southern brethren, fearing those old Dixiecrat times somehow, fought too much with each other and failed to accomplish anything except make the times ripe for Newt Gingrich.
This year, 2008, it looks like those folks in the middle have had enough of Republicanism and want to break out of the old formula and start anew.
I hope Barack Obama is the one to pull this nation in a new direction.
That being said, I will work to elect any Democrat who gets our nomination.
I believe there is a dire necessity for the voting public to be repeatedly instructed to the facts of our Constitutional system.
No Congress will control the nation's agenda without a consenting President!
Congress' will never have the ability to run roughshod over a President and the office's power of the veto.
This is vital!
Look no further than this Congress and it's ineptitude.
The only thing the current Congress can accomplish would be to hold Impeachment hearings, and possibly vote to Impeach George Bush and or Dick Cheney.
Chances of conviction in the Senate are slim to none.
Our nation proves that it does not understand the power of Congress by the 11 percent approval rating they give it.
That is why our overriding Democratic narrative must contain the fact:
Without a Democrat in the White House, there will be no change in direction of this nation.
There will be no transcending of politics until politicians and political Parties transcend themselves and that cannot begin until the party now in power, the Republicans are repudiated, and their misdeeds disowned, only then till this nation begin to re-emerge as a beacon of freedom and an example to the world that hope and positivity rules this nation once again.