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GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIALBOARD How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@ redbluffdailynews.com Fax: 530-527-9251 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 728Main St., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS The latest fad, propagated by many mem- bers of the commentariat, is to equate the America of 2016 with the America of 1968. I heard it more recently from Chuck Todd of NBC News: "Not since the summers of the '60s and violence in Watts, Detroit, and Chicago has the nation felt so hopelessly divided." Thismemeisparticularly popular among those who have no living memories of 1968. Todd, in fact, was not on this earth in 1968. But I my- self was very much alive — as a high school kid who paid close attention to the news — and if it's any comfort to those of you who are freaked about the latest race-based events, I can state with a high degree of confidence that America was far, far worse in 1968. That year, the nation's most prominent civil rights leader bled out on a motel balcony af- ter his jaw was shattered by a racist's bullet that traveled at a velocity of 2,670 feet per sec- ond. Just two months later, a major presidential candidate got whacked in a hotel kitchen moments after winning a piv- otal primary. In the time be- tween the King and Kennedy assassinations, huge swaths of our nation's capital went up in flames. Twelve people died in the D.C. riots, and 1,600 were injured. And the death toll was higher in the two most serious riots that raged a year earlier — in Detroit (43 dead, more than 1,000 in- jured) and in Newark (27 dead, roughly 1,000 injured). Chuck Todd also mentioned Watts, the L.A. neighborhood that burned in 1965, but the toll there — 34 dead, another 1,000 injured — was far more dire than any of the disturbances today. The U.S. Army was sent to Detroit as well. Imagine the hysteria today, fanned by social media and the 24/7 cable cycle, if the U.S. Army was fighting in our streets. Todd also mentioned "Chi- cago." Presumably this was a reference to the street violence outside the Democratic Con- vention, where Mayor Richard Daley's cops clashed with kids protesting the Vietnam War. It's almost an insult, to those of us who experienced 1968, to equate it with 2016. According to the official stats, 16,592 Americans died that year alone in Vietnam. An av- erage of 45 guys each day. Imagine if that was happen- ing now — 45 a day in a futile war — with millions of kids at home fearing the draft. Obviously, I'm not trying to minimize our current civil un- rest. But we should be able to console ourselves with the knowledge that 1968 was more horrific by every objective measure — even the homicide rate was markedly higher (6.9 per 100,000 Americans) than it is now (4.5 per 100,000, in 2014) — and that somehow we as a nation survived. Heck, to- day we have black police chiefs (thankfully, including Dallas), whereas, back then, big-city departments were overwhelm- ingly white. And today, the electorate is far more enlight- ened about race; according to a 2014 CNN-ORC poll, 51 per- cent of Americans said that blacks are treated unfairly by the criminal justice system. Unfortunately, we also have a presidential nominee who has romanced aggrieved white peo- ple like nobody since George Wallace — in the campaign of 1968. The good news is that not even Trump dares to traffic in the kind of hate rhetoric that Wallace employed in 1968 ("the nigra would still be in Africa in the brush if the white people of this country had not raised their standards"). On the other hand, Wallace never got near a major party nomination. Leave it to the Trump Republicans to keep Wallace's spirit alive, al- beit semi-sanitized. But lest we forget, we have prominent voices eloquently urging calm. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, for instance:"This has been a long week for our country .... Every member of this [House], every Republican and every Demo- crat, wants to see less gun vi- olence. Every member of this body wants a world in which people feel safe regardless of the color of their skin .... Some- times we disagree on how to get there. But let's not lose sight of the values that unite us. Let's not lose sight of our common humanity." Those shared values helped us survive the nadir of 1968. I can't help but believe that this time should be easier. DickPolmanisthenational political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia (newsworks. org/polman) and a "Writer in Residence" at the University of Pennsylvania. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com. Dick Polman Take a breath, folks, 2016 is not 1968 Cartoonist's take One story broke in June that, in hindsight, held great relevance to our November election: It was the Benghazi re- port from Con- gress on the Sep- tember 2012 attack on the dip- lomatic post that killed 4 Amer- icans, includ- ing Ambassa- dor Chris Stevens. It revealed the stunning news, covered by NBC's Andrea Mitchell, that U.S. Marines were told to put on and take off their Ma- rine uniforms four times due to State Department/Hillary Clinton interference and inde- cision. American military were not free to respond to and rescue besieged diplomatic personnel and the skeletal security force because of the primacy of State Dept. control, not a mil- itary chain of command. De- fensive force was inadequate to the demands and expecta- tions of armed attacks, due to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's refusal to respond to some 600 requests for greater security, even as other nations' staffs were removed due to evi- dent threats in Benghazi. I've written previously, based on authoritative sources, that American jets were based in Italy and could have scram- bled, been refueled, and made it in time, not for the initial at- tacks but for the later siege on the CIA annex. That's where some 30 Americans were des- perately clinging to hope amid the heroic efforts of security contractors and former SEALs. Flyovers by F-16s have been proven to scatter the kind of armed attackers swarming the outpost. Here's talk host Hugh Hewitt describing, on his Tuesday, June 28 show, the report from the House Select Committee: "The Benghazi report is damn- ing to the State Department and Hillary Clinton—damn- ing, damning, damning. The rescue mission never left the ground; it never left the ground because in a video conference with State, back and forth they went, the Marines that were go- ing to be dispatched to the be- sieged people in Libya had to change in and out of uniform four times because of State De- partment, read Hillary Clinton, interference…Boy did Hillary Clinton blow this; people died and she has lied, people died and she has lied repeatedly. "They never left the ground before the attacks were over. It's not clear if we will ever see the video conference in which Hillary Clinton participated; it's very clear why she went home. The idea of Marines changing in and out of Marine Corps gear because of State Department orders, read Hill- ary Clinton orders, four times is damning. "There's lots of other stuff but the lead is a video con- ference never before heard about in which State is med- dling (with) the Marines that were supposed to fly to their aid. Remember how it was, that they were beyond help—it was not true, it was a giant lie. There has been a huge cover up of the video conference." Congressman Mike Pompeo, member of the House Intelli- gence Committee and the Select Committee on Benghazi, was in- terviewed and referred to a sep- arate report that he and Repre- sentative Jim Jordan released, saying that they "chose to high- light a number of facts that we believe are most important for the American People to draw their attention to those things that we believe demonstrate be- yond a doubt that Secretary Clinton put politics ahead of the Americans in Benghazi. "On the evening of the at- tack, in Washington, D.C., the picture was incredibly differ- ent than it was in Benghazi, Libya. In Benghazi, Libya, these folks were in a firefight for their lives. In Washington, D.C., on a telephone conference call called a SVTC, Secretary Clinton was on the call for part of the time, but the depu- ties all across the government were talking about things like whether our soldiers could go into the country in uniform or out of uniform. "They were seeking permis- sion from the Libyan govern- ment, frankly, which didn't ex- ist, and certainly didn't pro- tect our guys that night. They were talking about things that were totally superfluous to the primary goal at the time, which was to find the U.S. Am- bassador who was then miss- ing, and rescue the 30-plus Americans who were on the ground there. "They were hypersensi- tive to looking like there were Americans coming into Libya when this was truly a terror- ist haven. Somehow, they had this idea that a big American force in uniform would pres- ent some risk that the Liby- ans would protest, because we were invading their country. "In fact, the military folks knew that that wasn't going to help keep our soldiers safe. And there was this debate back and forth about what the appropriate attire was for go- ing to rescue Americans while our embassy was burning and mortars were falling in Beng- hazi. It is new, it is important, and it is inexplicable." The gravity of what you just read will not diminish; neither will the inescapable conclu- sions and judgments relating to Hillary Clinton as a poten- tial commander-in-chief. She was in the position as the top decider and presided over a catastrophic dereliction of her most basic of responsibilities. She failed miserably to pro- vide for the security needs of her diplomatic personnel that repeatedly pleaded for help as they were clearly in harms way. She forced them all into a scenario for the purpose of burnishing her resume and credentials with an overthrow of Libya's Muammar Gad- dafi; she expected it to be a masterful implementation of an arms-for-rebels, we-can- work-with-terrorists-and-not- get-burned achievement. Ev- ery mouthpiece she controlled peddled phony narratives— lies, as it were—to salvage her reputation and viability as a presidential candidate. She is in the company of other pres- idential-grade liars like Rich- ard Nixon and, now that I think about it, Bill Clinton. It's rare that we get such insight into the inner corruption and manipulation of a candidate before voting. To be continued. Don Polson has called Red Bluff home since 1988. He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@ yahoo.com. The way I see it A very big little thing happened It's almost an insult, to those of us who experienced 1968, to equate it with 2016. According to the official stats, 16,592 Americans died that year alone in Vietnam. An average of 45 guys each day. Imagine if that was happening now — 45 a day in a futile war — with millions of kids at home fearing the draft. Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. One of the good guys, always treated me fairly and with respect. Enjoy your retire- ment. Debbi Bowen: On the retirement of Dale Eddy from the Tehama County Sheriff's Department Congratulations Deputy Eddy you are my fa- vorite deputy. I have spent some of my time talking with you over the years. Thank you for all the good advice and being so caring. I hope to see you again soon, whether behind the wheel of a STARS car or in the store. You are a great man and friend to many people. Don DeGraw: On the retirement of Dale Eddy from the Tehama County Sheriff's Department Don Polson StateandNational Assemblyman James Galla- gher, 2060 Talbert Drive, Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 895-4217, http://ad03.asmrc.org/ SenatorJimNielsen,2634For- est Ave., Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 879-7424, senator.nielsen@ senate.ca.gov Governor Jerry Brown, State Capital Building, Sacramento 95814, 916 445-2841, fax 916 558- 3160, governor@governor.ca.gov U.S. Representative Doug La- Malfa, 507 Cannon House Of- fice Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202 225-3076 U.S.SenatorDianneFeinstein, OnePostSt.,Ste. 2450,SanFran- cisco94104,415393-0707,fax415 393-0710 Your officials OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, July 19, 2016 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6