There is no historical reference point for what we all are now experiencing...

[PeaceWave]

Those of us who are old enough have numerous historical reference points to draw upon in our lives. We think back on times when we were children, teenagers and young adults. We reflect upon marriages, the birth of children and the approach of middle age. We carry with us physical pain from various injuries and illnesses suffered over the years and holes in our hearts from loved ones no longer with us. It's all there, a carousel of memories going back decades, constantly circling us, reminding us of times long gone. Which inevitably leads to comparisons of times past and present and a sober realization of where we are at any one moment in time. Some might call that wisdom. Others might call it a form of time travel...The simultaneous blessing and curse of being able to reach back in time to all of the moments from our lives and the awareness, all too often, that things weren't quite so bad as we made them out to be. Until now.

Right now, you and I are experiencing in real time a historical reference point unlike anything that any living American has ever experienced in the course of their life. As such, there is no comparison to anything any of us know. It's only natural that we should feel jolted. This is not a mere inflection point, as the pundits would have us believe. It is an abrupt right angle, detaching completely and flung far from the carousel of our collective memories. There will never be a time quite so bad as the present. It's an unsettling thought but there it is. Today is bad. And, tomorrow will be worse still. And, the day after that will be that much worse. Until we choose to change things.

None of us will ever forget these days. The young will acquire what the old already possess...The simultaneous blessing and curse of being able to reach back in time to these moments happening right now. Only then, hopefully, having learned from our mistakes, we'll appreciate what we have, knowing that nothing we ever again face will be quite so bad as what we all faced then.

[creon]

1. almost none

There ws Lincoln suspending Habeus corpus in the Civil War.
There the Palmer Rais under Woodrow Wilson. And Debs being put in Jail.
That is about it.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. Oh I can think of a few people who might want a word.

Folks who have lived under Jim Crow. Those who have experienced occupation of their land. People of Ferguson. Cobbs Creek in Philly in 1985. The list goes on.

[Cirsium]

3. Not true

There is no historical reference point for what most white people are now experiencing.

[JCMach1]

4. 1933 Germany

Pains me to say it.

[NickB79]

5. Was gonna say the same thing

Remember those halcyon days a year ago when we were assured we weren't on that same path and were just being alarmists?