MISSOURI WATCH: DEPRESSING REPUDIATION OF HISTORY

Many Missourians are old enough to remember when a U.S. senator from our state was removed from the Democratic national ticket because he had been treated for depression. Years after the event, the man responsible for the decision, George McGovern, admitted he had made a serious mistake in judgment, that removing Tom Eagleton from the ticket raised doubts among voters who were better informed than himself.

As this fiasco was being played out, others were in the planning and execution steps of a campaign, called, CREEP, to re-elect the president, with one strategy dedicated to discovering details of the McGovern campaign, thus hatching the infamous Watergate burglary which later brought about the painful resignation of Richard Nixon.

Throughout this terrible chapter in American politics, the nation as a whole was becoming increasingly concerned over a conflict fought by U.S. troops in a country half way around the world. We were engaged in a war we seemed unable to win, or even score many victories, while at the same time we watched as more and more of our finest young men were falling in battle.

America in the 1970s, like the senator from Missouri, was depressed, one could even say clinically so. Not only did America seem unable to conduct a presidential campaign, we seemed incapable of emerging from Vietnam with any degree of grace or respect, and as we diddled and dawdled, our fellow countrymen were returning home in an increasing number of body bags.

I cite this unhappy period in history not to make us feel better about today's troubling crises, both at home and abroad, but to find some consolation as we begin to recognize that mankind has perhaps advanced not as far as is popularly believed and that, despite the troubling aspects of contemporary dilemmas, we can resolve these problems if we will but face them with courage, responsibility and sincere faith.

In numerous ways America in the late 1990s resembles our nation in the early 1970s. We are currently involved in an effort to inject democracy in a war-torn area of the world where such freedom is relatively unknown and almost never practiced. At home we face a restive population of bright adolescents not yet old enough to recognize how unsettling their actions have become. As a nation, we continue asking ourselves "Why?" while seemingly incapable of responding rationally.

Most of us are, correctly so, concerned about U.S. involvement in Yugoslavia, which like Vietnam began as a principled human rights crusade but which has proved so complex we have decided to resolve it by a means most believe will not achieve the desired results. Remember when Jack Kennedy approved the use of Americans as "advisers" to the South Vietnamese?

We all know what happened: advisers soon became participants in a war our political leaders told us was essential to our national security. As it turns out, our leaders were more interested in their political reputations than enlightened public policy and, unfortunately, their assessments were wrong.

And we were wrong for believing them.

Bill Clinton now tells us that we are fighting for the rights of innocent persons who have lived for years in a small republic we never heard of, never cared about and is mentioned not one time in any Department of Defense strategic plan. Suddenly it has become the keystone to world peace, as if we had it before with Iraq, Iran, China, Libya, North Korea and numerous other countries.

Some of us are old enough to recall the early promises in Vietnam, and unfortunately, some are still angry enough that we no longer trust political leaders who have betrayed us through their cynical, sometimes illegal, actions. I say this with sadness, admitting that I once believed Nixon when he said he had no knowledge of Watergate, and Clinton when he declared he had never had sex with "that woman." Both men lied to us.

The similarities in the 25-year interval from Nixon to Clinton do not end with moral turpitude in the White House. Like the 1970s, America views, unbelieving, its younger generation that includes those willing to follow psychotic voices demanding violent action. So convinced of their causes were the youthful protesters of the 1970s that they wantonly engaged in civil disobedience that had few bounds. Today's adolescent protesters are dysfunctionally obsessed, not hesitating to carry out crimes that were unthinkable just a few years ago.

Just as America asked "Why?" during the Vietnam War, we are asking the same question following each of the senseless school bombings that are so horrific as to be unimaginable in a presumably civilized society. Just as in the 1970s, today we are asking what we can do, and this question has been asked following each tragedy, with the very same answer given by our leaders: we cannot answer with any degree of certainty.

The same societal causations of the 1970s are appearing today: excessive exposure to crimes and criminal acts, dysfunctional families headed by negligent and indolent parents, commercialization of the worst order, indifference to spiritual values and a decline in church attendance, loss of moral yardsticks, media saturation made worse by competition, corrupt and overly ambitious politicians, affluent indulgences of children, poor citizenship, a laconic public ... and the list goes on and on. You're free to add your own explanations, which undoubtedly are as troubling as those listed here.

I happen to believe it is necessary for a mature society to resolve today's problems with more answers than were supplied in the 1970s, particularly if we are to avoid times of great national stress in the future. It is essential we resolve them for we cannot risk having the lives of our children destroyed along with their schools. If we fail, we will soon recognize each new tragedy by its similarity to the last one.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.