Plus Ça Change, Plus C'est La Même Choisi

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As 1967 drew to a close there seemed little indication that the required massive efforts from the total American society would be toward meeting the Negroes' demands for full equality and participation, and a decent life, in an affluent society. Rather, it seemed more probable that the violent unrest in the black ghettos would be met with even more stringent police action designed to maintain 'law and order' and 'national security.' It seemed a pity that all concerned could not heed what might have been a warning by the late George Bernard Shaw. 'Security, the chief pretense of civilization, cannot exist where the worst of dangers, the danger of poverty, hangs over everyone's head,' Shaw wrote. 'All other crimes are virtues beside it...It degrades the poor and infects with its degradation the whole neighborhood in which they live. And whatever can degrade a neighborhood can degrade a country and a continent and finally a whole civilization.' Hoyt W. Fuller, The Black Temper (1968)

Fuller, who was black, wrote that piece about American race riots up to 1967, the year before Time's chosen date of similitude, 1968. The unrest did get worse the next year but then it got better.

Fuller quotes George Bernard Shaw, from a play called Major Barbara. The play is a polemic, and probably relevant today, especially for those arguing for a general redistribution of wealth, like George Bernie Sanders. The fuller Shaw quote is:

Security, the chief pretence of civilization, cannot exist where the worst of dangers, the danger of poverty, hangs over everyone's head, and where the alleged protection of our persons from violence is only an accidental result of the existence of a police force whose real business is to force the poor man to see his children starve whilst idle people overfeed pet dogs with the money that might feed and clothe them. Link

I had the oddest thought while reflecting on this. Most of the nation's worst race riots have occurred under  Democratic Administrations: the 1943 riots in Detroit; the 1964 riots in Harlem; the Watts riots in 1965; the Chicago and Cleveland riots in 1966; the Boston, Newark, and Detroit riots in 1967; and finally, riots in the aftermath of MLK's assassination. To borrow a page from the President's approach to Cuba:

In the most significant changes in our policy in more than fifty years, we will end an outdated approach that, for decades, has failed to advance our interests, and instead we will begin to...