Respond to Barbara's article

James Koo

Optimist

Being an optimist, after reading Barbara's article on the Lighter's website, I wrote to her expressing a much rosier view. She asked me to submit that to the website also and here it is:

I believe every generation, as they grow older, they tend to forget their wanton days of youth and become critical of the current generation. The 60's and 70' (when we were young) brought us the Vietnam, the anti war demonstrations, the draft dodgers, the Kent State, the Pentagon Papers, the Meilai massacre, the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, the attempts on life of Ronald Reagan, and George 
Wallace, the Watergate, the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Chicago 7, the Weatherman, the Unibomber, the riots at Watts, the LSD, the Woodstock, the free speech movement, the hippies, the acid heads, the flower girls, the Playboy, the Penthouse, the pornography, the Miranda rights, the Roe and Wade, the civil rights movements, the pill, the sex revolution, the ERA, the feminism, the woman libers, the streaking, the Woodstock, and ??.

Now let us listen what we shouted then: "Hell no, we won't go!" "Make love not War," "We shall overcome!" "ERA Now!" We coined the word "pig" for police or macho man (chauvinistic pig). And we advised our elders "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land. And don't criticize what you can't understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command."-Bob Dylan, 1964. If you do not know who is Bob Dylan, then did you "Turned on. Tuned in. Dropped out?" Now did you hear what they shouted in Seattle?

Look at this hurricane list of events, what happened at Seattle is cloudy day drizzle at best, and a tempest in a teapot at the worst. We are fortunate to be either the witnesses or participants of these momentous events during this historical period. Good, bad, beautiful, or ugly, I will not want to miss them for the entire world. Largely because what has happened, America is a much better place to live today, especially for us Chinese Americans.

Now regarding the comment about coarse language used by presidential candidates, I happened to upon a cartoon from 70's during Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign. Since this re-appeared in a family magazine recently, I can reproduce it here without offending somebody's sensitivities. Now what do you think? Is the world getting worse or better? I think it is better.

Having seen it, been there, and done it, it is time for us to move aside and let the younger generation do their things and cheer them on. Let us celebrate (especially during this holiday season) what we have done, enjoy everyday as they come and count our blessings as they are bestowed upon us until we meet at the next re-union. What do you think?