Plus la change, plus la meme chose

A few days ago as I was getting ready to go to work, I switched on the tv and surfed for something to stare at while eating breakfast. Hubby and the cats were still sound asleep, so it was just me and the idiot box. I landed in the middle of an episode of an old comedy series, “Good Times”. This series originally aired in the early and mid-1970’s, and for those who don’t remember this show, it was about an African-American blue-collar family living in the projects. It was an interesting mix of stereotypes and social commentary, and for the time in which it originated it was pretty revolutionary and it broke a lot of ground from a sociological and cultural perspective. Bear in mind that segregation had only ended a dozen or so years prior to the beginning of this series.

As I watched this particular episode of “Good Times” I found myself not harmlessly distracted and amused as I had expected, but instead riveted and thoroughly engrossed as I compared the 35-year old story line with our world today. In this particular episode the younger son did a school project which somehow involved Cuba and Castro, and the U.S. government blew it all out of proportion and began investigating the whole family for Communist ties, which caused the father to lose his job.

There was a fair bit of clowning around with the notion that the house may be bugged or the phone tapped, but as I watched these antics I realized that at least back then citizens had some legal protection against warrantless wiretapping – the government had to have probable cause that a crime was being committed before they could tap a phone. Now, well, sometimes I fight the urge to say Hi to the CIA when I pick up the phone or send an e-mail.

Of course this episode turned out to be total fantasy, as proven when the FBI decided that the 12-year old who had obtained Communist propaganda wasn’t really a threat to national security. That simply makes too much sense. These days toddlers wind up on the no-fly list because of an unfortunate coincidence with their names.

The FBI agent was the kindly sort that only existed on tv, and he went beyond the call of duty to help the father get his job back. That would never happen in real life. But to justify doing the investigation in the first place, the agent says “Let’s face it, we’re living in crazy times.” Back then the fear was communism, today it’s terrorism, but it’s really all the same – government-orchestrated fear of a faceless boogeyman.

When the FBI agent tells the father about getting his job back, the father’s response was to say Great, but what about other innocent people who are harmed by this sort of investigation, what about them? This question was greeted with shouts of “Right on!” from the live audience all those years ago. Back then the spirit of protest and change was still alive; it hadn’t been beaten into an unconscious stupor by reality tv, paparazzi, video games, or any of the other bells and whistles that now serve to distract the masses from what’s really going on in our world.

At the end of this episode, the father says something that was surprisingly poignant and touching, especially for a 30-minute situation comedy. He says “Yeah, everything is cleared up and I got my job back, but I still got this feeling that somewhere, someplace, my name is still in somebody’s file.” This last line is spoken directly to the camera, and the effect is chilling because there’s truth and fear there.

I watched this episode with a sense of deja vu. Plus la change, plus la meme chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same. And that's going to continue to be true until we, the silent rabble, unite and exercise our collective power to restore our rights and make our country and our world a better, safer, more peaceful and just place. Until then, we will continue to live in fear of whatever faceless boogeyman our government dreams up next. Doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me.

“The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.” - Aung San Suu Kyi

Later,
AuntieM