When past is present

mickeyrat

gift article op-doc.....

A Warning From the Past: ‘You Haven’t Learned Anything From Our History’ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/opinion/stay-with-me-world-devastating-place.html?unlocked_article_code=sxDLD1CAvp43LPBNRb25hJqUWdUQ05S1EdfS-7-HwRhb--5LHQ995KXxnOB7wczcpCeKccK9btcC426rpy6si2qXWHEb6opagjTMaWYulGOtR-Rc4vhdvNWBHl4q0SQ0n4GMwaCK6YAncLxSYNHK40LBvZb36qxB2vnptcdtADqc1SDrZPDomzYV6x1ufttXSjq1U02dA2E6KFlNfJuUluwrnWHG9-dzAvyVGB8YXmcGrjN6jycLFs4pJZDeKblgQQjGa4fBmvLBPUIryUw2VKjMO9_9UqMWu226AR6fXPPIGSjXwIjHdb-MtuFz9qf0aKKSak4MA0-NnWqNuuY0J1FGjv8RVSTesefbN_wk

 

It was 1970. Over 50 years later, these words serve as a dire warning.

By Angelo Madsen Minax

Angelo Madsen Minax is a visual artist.

In 2020, I was invited to delve into news archives from 1970 at Southern Methodist University’s G. William Jones Film and Video Collection in Dallas. I didn’t know what to expect.

The regional coverage was mostly banal: local politics, high school athletics, school board votes, county fairs, a beauty pageant, etc. But the national coverage compelled me. The stories the archives told were resoundingly clear: climate disaster, racially motivated violence, police brutality, poverty, war, domestic violence, housing crisis and voter fraud.

If we could swap the 1970s collars and feathered bangs for whatever’s currently viral, these news anchors, politicians, micro-celebrities and everyday Texans could be delivering us today’s headlines. As I watched, the visible markers of decades past became undone by the direct lineage to present-day struggle. Time became cyclical. When confronted with this anachronism, I could think only in terms of science fiction: that we can imagine a future based only on what the past — a once momentary present — looked or looks like.

continues....

mickeyrat

fuck. I'm sorry. I  should have watched first. really hard for me to catch the meaning with the series of cuts and edits to complete the narrative.

brianlux

The point the author is trying to make is a good one: that we have not learned much from history.  The difference is that most journalists from 1970 would have written her article in much clearer, more articulate prose.