If your were writing about an historical event that shaped your life, what would it be?

[graywarrior]

Poll question: If your were writing about an historical event that shaped your life, what would it be?

I picked a few. Add your own.

[annabanana]

1. I see three that I should choose.

I wish we could set up polls that let us do that. I guess if I had to choose one to write about, The Beatles would be the most fun... Vietnam would be hardest...JFK would delve deepest into who I have become.

[vadawg]

2. mongol invasion :)

[Robb]

20. I figured you'd say Valley Forge

:D

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Reagan getting elected in 1980. The end of my childhood and naivety.

[ngant17]

15. Raygun probably did it for me

I was a little too young for the JFK hit to have made an immediate impression. That happened later on when I began to fully understand the implications.

But as I grew into adulthood, with Raygun, we had the Nicaragua and related scandals (Iran-contra, bombing the harbor, the death squads in Central America, ect.), the Evil Empire, Star Wars, his absolute refusal to reduce nuclear proliferation with Gorbachev in Rekjavik (I think that one act did it for me), KAL007/Challenger (and the subsequent military spending increase), all of this was happening on his watch. It was a non-stop horror show.

The only bright note in all this was Gorbachev and perestroika/glasnost. A glimmer of light in all that darkness.

And to think the rightwing still worships this weirdo Raygun character!!??!! I wouldn't waste my urine to piss on his grave.

[salin]

16. bingo +1 eom.

[harun]

37. Agree. It was when we moved to a worship of the rich society

and away from an actual "society".

[Saphire]

4. the death count of the Vietnam war...every night with Walter Cronkite.

[REP]

5. Watergate; Iran/Contra

I was young when the Watergate hearings were on, but I watched it all.

[MineralMan]

6. Montgomery, Alabama in 1965. I was there. It was a

life-changer for me.

[Shell Beau]

7. I wasn't born during any of that.

I guess 9-11 would be that. It turned me on to politics and changed my opinion of things.

[graywarrior]

9. I totally forgot about 9/11. What does that say about me?

[Shell Beau]

11. Well, it has gotten lost in the bogus Iraqi war unfortunately.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

8. A tie between the fall of the USSR and the fall of Apartheid.

Can't decide which was more jaw-dropping.

[pampango]

30. I would go with the fall of the USSR in terms of changing my perception of the world.

I would go with Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat or the sit-in at the restaurant in Greensboro as close seconds for the same reason. They changed my perception of the world.

[bemildred]

10. Vietnam. Raygun 1980, Bush 2000.

But we are not done yet, are we?

[Lifelong Protester]

12. JFK assassination kept our family glued to the set

I guess that was so life-changing because I saw how it affected my parents so.

Watergate also did it for me. I still have a complete set of the senators' photos of the Watergate Senate panel.I visited DC February of 1973. That's when I got my Teddy Kennedy signed (I know, more than likely autopenned...)

Remember Chairman Sam? I have his picture~it was a print. He didn't like photos I guess.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. The Civil Rights Movement and the horror of Vietnam.

The best and the worst of our country.

[Kitty Herder]

14. 9/11, the subsequent war on Afghanistan and the passage of the Patriot Act

Those things politicized me.

[OrderedChaos]

17. I was too young for the options in the poll

I chose Other. The taking down of the Berlin Wall & the protest in Tienanmen Square are the 2 big things that changed my outlook on life.

[Bluzmann57]

18. Watergate

I remember the JFK Assassination and the MLK assassanation and the RFK assassanation, I remember them very well, but Watergate really and truly changed not only my view of everything, it changed this nation's view of everything. Before Watergate, we at least had a glimmer of belief that we could believe our leaders. But then that no good bastard "Tricky Dick" changed the way we all thought about politics. Watergate had a lasting effect on this nation which still goes on today. How else does one explain bush, rove, cheney, rumsfeld, and all the rest of the nixon era crooks nearly finishing off our nation? They learned from the mistakes of Watergate and perfected the nearly total destruction of the middle class for their own personal gain, and nearly destroying this nation in the meantime.

[gleaner]

19. I chose Viet Nam ...

When it was heating up I was just about 18 and it was my friends who were enlisting and being drafted. Not all of them came home, and the ones who did were traumatized and broken. All my male cousins, a lot of high school friends and even some husbands of girlfriends. I had been a young Democrat since I was 15, so it was natural to me to became an antiwar activist as well. That was a life changing experience on a large scale.

The political assassinations one right after another were life changing as well. Medgar Evers, JFK, Dr. Martin Luther King (a hero of mine), Bobby Kennedy. So many deaths of necessary people and it seemed to set this country on a downward spiral into Conservatism and just plain meanness that we have never been able to recover from it.

[dmr]

24. There's no doubt Viet Nam affected all our generation

I chose Viet Nam, too.

From the loss and injuries of those we knew and loved, to the squabbles that caused heartache and split families. From the deaths at Kent State, to the division of this nation's people. From the healed wounds to the wounds that won't heal.

Viet Nam was bad news.

[gleaner]

31. Yes it was ...

and then came Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen. It is like a wound that keeps getting torn open over and over again and is never able to form a scar.

For me, war is always bad news. Viet Nam is the first time I ever really understood what war does to a nation and it's people.

Kent State came out of Viet Nam and so did Jackson State. Who said that violence ever solved anything?

[graywarrior]

21. Awesome responses! Thank you.

[Odin2005]

22. 9/11

Bush's BS turned me into a radical.

[johnnie]

23. John Lennon's assassination

I was 16. It made me do a lot of thinking.

[graywarrior]

27. That was totally an event that changed a lot of us.

[Duer 157099]

25. Watson & Crick's discovery of DNA's structure n/t

[damyank913]

26. The assasination of MLK, and RFK and then Kent State-I thought the whole world was on fire.

[Quantess]

28. I see these are geared toward people older than 50.

Notthat there's anything wrong with that.

[Cid_B]

29. 9/11 - Iraq and Afghanistan

Seeing as how I am currently sitting in one of those countries...

[DailyGrind51]

32. The Vietnam War + the Draft = Student Activism + a Genuine American Left

[LWolf]

33. The election of Ronald Reagan. nt

[raccoon]

34. The presidential "election" of 2000. nt

[cally]

40. The selection of Bush by the Supreme Court

and the media and public apathy to the coup. I think that event makes it almost impossible to address global warming, and caused our country to face huge fiscal crisis with rising debt due to massive tax cuts and increased war spending as well as no regulation of financial markets. I'm not sure we'll ever recover from this.

[bigwillq]

44. That's probably right up there for me.

That's when I really started to become interested in politics. I was 22 years old. Yes, I voted in every election since I was 18, but it wasn't until that election that I discovered an interest in politics. Then it kind of faded until I first saw Howard Dean speak. Then I was hooked. :)

[GoCubsGo]

45. Yup.

If it weren't for that event, I would still have my old job now. And, those 10 years of my life the stress of losing it has taken.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

35. Other. The Halo 2 release.

n/t

[slackmaster]

36. The landing of Apollo 11 on the Moon on July 20, 1969

Way too many connections to even begin explaining it here.

[Tsiyu]

38. MLK Assassination

Horrified me.


Viet Nam runs a close second.

[tabbycat31]

39. I was not alive for the events on your list

except for blizzard, which is not very specific.

I'd probably say 9/11 then the election of Obama. On both those events I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when each event happened.

ETA you mentioned blizzard of 78 so you can cross that off my list of events I was alive for too (I was born in 1980)

[Renew Deal]

41. Why isn't 9/11 on the list?

It's not my answer, but it should be on the list.

[hunter]

42. From your list, the war in Vietnam

My parents were pacifists and very outspoken about their opposition to the war. The war ended before I got to be draft age. I suspect our family would have left the U.S. before any of my siblings had a chance to get drafted. Most of my ancestors came to the U.S. to escape some war or another, and to California to avoid the Civil War too.

But I vote other, and I've got a couple of things.

(1) The Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 and the collapse of brown pelican populations from that and pesticide pollution, and (2) the invention of the internet and the release of BSD Unix.

The invention of the internet is the big one. If technological civilization is still around a thousand years from now it's birthday will be January 1st, 1970 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time ). I imagine they'll even have reset the calender by then to remove its Christian bias.

[RedCappedBandit]

43. 9.11

I was at an age where I would have either developed an interest in politics or not. I can say without a doubt that 9.11 sparked an enhanced consciousness of my government and the world around me that I don't know if I would have developed otherwise, at least in the same capacity.