Flash forward
: I’m having a bad flash forward right now, after watching tonight’s premiere of American Dreams: I fear that 40 years from now. somebody will make a show about how everything in America changed not in November 1963 but in September 2001 and we–you and I, real people today–will be turned into period pieces, made quaint in our clothes and attitudes and lives, stereotypes in stereo.
The ’60s were my time; I am their child. I was in third grade in 1963, when JFK was killed; I was in high school during Vietnam and the ’68 elections; I marched in protest against that war; I was ready to risk jail or my citizenship to fight against the fight (and I was saved only by the luck of numbers: my birthday and lottery).
Now I’m looking at a show that is going to turn much of that time into a cliche.
But then, I get the exact same feeling when I watch protest marchers on the news today: anti-capitalism, anti-trade, anti-Americanism, anti-war, anti-meat. They mock a time of real protest worse than any TV show ever could.
