1968: The Year the System Lost Its Grip – Part 3: Assassination Nation

[Luis Gonzalez]

1968: The Year the System Lost Its Grip – Part 3: Assassination Nation

Two assassinations in two months, a nation under Vietnam pressure, and institutions struggling to hold the line.

The Last Wire

In this installment, the series enters the most volatile phase of 1968.

Within a short span, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy hit a country already stretched by Vietnam, rising urban unrest, and declining confidence in political leadership. The reaction is immediate and widespread. Major cities see riots and emergency responses, while federal and local authorities struggle to maintain order.

From a more critical lens, the period also exposes a deeper failure of coordination and institutional authority. Media saturation amplifies every escalation in real time, compressing public perception and reaction into a continuous cycle of crisis.

The result is not just tragedy, but systemic strain under pressure, where events begin to outpace the ability of leadership to stabilize them.

Read the full post at The Last Wire.

Reply below: What do you think broke first in 1968, trust, leadership, or the system itself?

[Cyber Liberty]

 

I think it's "trust."  Everything is downstream from that.  People correctly guessed that we had been lied to about almost every aspect of our involvement in SE Asia.  The poison pumped into that was encouraged by the press as they saw an opportunity to change minds for "the better."

Back in the 80's, one of my Cousin's children told me she wanted to go to Journalism School.  I asked her, "Why?"  She told me, "To make the world a better place!" to her Mother's beaming pride.

I told her, "That's exactly the wrong reason.  We need Reporters that tell us the truth about what we are paying them to observe, not what they want us to believe!"  I didn't get invited to any more parties, and she washed out of J-School.

[DefiantMassRINO]

If the Draft for the Vietnam War had not been class-based and gender-based, its conduct would have been different.

Class-based?  Yes.  People with privilege, money, and opportunity were able to shield their children from the Draft by enrolling them in college, or getting them spots in National Guard / Reserve units there were not being deployed to VietNam.

Gender-based?  Yes. Only males were subject to the Draft.

The only options for poor bastards was to go to jail or runaway to Canada.

The class-based chasm opened by the VietNam War Draft continues to this day.  When it came to the Selective Service, Deplorable and minority young men were less equal and more expendable than college kids.