36 Years

****** It slips by most of the time now with scant mention by the media and in most minds. It was on the night of 8/8/74 that the Political Left in the USA scored it's Greatest victory(of sorts & temporarily) as Pres. Richard Nixon announced his intention to resign the Presidency in anticipation of a certain House Impeachment & probable removal by the Senate.

***** At noon the next day he was gone and shortly back in San Clemente.Calif. a virtual (for then) broken man. In actuality the smashing victory of the 1972 Election was reversed and South Viet Nam & the Lon Nol Government in Cambodia had like 10 month's left to live. Those events are without question linked.

***** A good deal of our present massive political divide stems from Nixon's Fall and the events leading up to it including massive MSM irrisponsibility and outright collusion. The Pentagon Papers episode as well as the May 1971 D.C. protests come easily to mind. Indeed the Nixon Administration decidion to sidestep the law was a result of those & other earlier slanted occurance's. Nixon was beset with difficulties from Day One in January 1969 that were unprecedented since FDR's time yet the knives were out early in an absolutely unprecedented manner. Much of our present animosities stem from those days and this was heavily compounded as Bill Clinton's Impeachment in 1998 came about.

****** We are thoroughly divided along regional, class & demographic lines that has been added to by an undigestable wave of Immigration.

****** We are clearly running out of time and I doubt even in better economic times that things would be much different.