Is this really a happy 4th of July? Depends on your beliefs in America and how (or if ) they are being threatened by executive orders and judicial nominees. I am nervous about the future of freedom as we’ve known it. Still, The United States is a country built on laws that have long underscored, if not upheld, ideals of liberty and equality, of all its citizens regardless of race, religion, politics or gender. Let’s hope that does not change. But for a moment look at an earlier period of crisis during the 50s and early sixties when the U.S. was attacked from within and without through these graphic images.
When I was a kid in the early 60s our collective day-mares included fears of Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoes on the U.N. General Assembly podium announcing “We will bury you!” That was on one side. On other Senator Joseph McCarthy was calling for an inquisition of the hundreds of Communists in government (not to mention the spill-over of the “black list” that ruined the lives of thousands of Americans).
The U.S. has always been a land of extreme contradictions. This is a day of celebration but also a moment when reminders of national psychosis bring us back to extremist realities that easily can happen again.
Yet on an optimistic note, the Cold War spawned some great graphics.
