Tom Hanks and 1968: Engulfed in Mediocrity

[Jim DiEugenio]

Tom Hanks marches onward and downward, somehow thinking he is doing America a service. What a delusion.

But as long as he does so, I will object as well as I know how.

https://kennedysandking.com/reviews/tom-hanks-and-1968

[Alan Ford]

Yet another exemplary piece, Mr. DiEugenio, no great surprise considering the credible source. Thank You for caring enough to set the record straight.

How anyone can make a definitive movie about 1968 without fully examining the deep, lasting impact to this very day of the lost legacies of Dr. King and Senator Robert F. Kennedy is a sham....

What good was orbiting the moon, while young men were being slaughtered at an alarming rate in the jungles of faraway lands amid a rich man's war; what good was orbiting the moon when poor people (especially families & children barely surviving in deplorable conditions in Appalachia), were existing on the bare minimum, experiencing a "quality" of life lacking the basic necessities of life; and, what good was orbiting the moon, when seniors nearing their "golden years" found themselves amid harsh realities of challenging struggles just to make ends meet? Not in Bobby Kennedy's America.

A genuine examination of 1968 would require some serious soul-searching, and more than an admission that the country is in denial about what really matters in a free, open democratic Republic. We are left only to imagine what kind of nation America could have become ---->

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=rfk...&FORM=VIRE

Tom Hanks can orbit the moon amid his tunnel-vision, but it takes real courage to come back down to earth, roll up one's sleeves and address real issues without a self-serving agenda.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Hanks has always thought that somehow the Apollo mission was the greatest achievement of America in the 20th century. And that somehow it was a metaphor for what this country could do.

IMO, that is really wrong. I mean just look what happened to it.

Meanwhile America was still dropping tons of bombs over Indochina well into the seventies. And then we were supposed to forget what we had done when Saigon fell.

1968 was the premature death of the sixties. Once King and RFK were killed, that was it. I mean it was over. The Rightwing decided: hey the JFK hit worked. Let's play some more hardball. They did and it worked again--twice. And this time they didn't have to kill the patsies.

And we got the anti RFK, Dick Nixon.

It was a horrible tragedy. Hanks' film does not begin to tell the story. IT would take an Adam Curtis to do it.