comforting or worrisome?

as a youngun who grew up under reagan and didn't really grasp the problems of the day, i can't tell whether to be comforted or worried by the recurring perception that this latest grave political turn--symbolized best by the re-election of dubya--is nothing new.

last week while watching the stellar series angels in america, i was struck by the despondent mid-80s new yorkers who couldn't believe reagan had been elected to a second term and who were scared by prophecies of a "republican lock" on the government. their gloom has proven to be somewhat premature, which gives me hope. (of course, if you think that clinton may as well be a republican with his welfare-cutting, retard-executing, centrist bullshit, then you may not be so comforted.)

in a piece in this week's voice, i saw the same observation made again, this time harking back to an earlier era: "The '70s has provided ample amounts of gritty chic and ironic glamour to '00s pop culture: Witness the big-screen resurrections of Charlie's Angels and Starsky & Hutch, hairstyles largely intact. But independent filmmakers are digging past gags to investigate the politics of a bygone America that looks increasingly like our own, complete with Middle East conflicts, massive protests, political terrorism, and the re-election of a Republican president during a messy, morally questionable war."

sounds terribly familiar. and yet, that time passed too. but i can't decide whether i should be hopeful that the country can indeed swing back in the other direction or haunted by the nietzschean eternal recurrence of it all. especially when the "swings" in my direction are, like a slowing pendulum, ever closer to the "center." it seems likely that bush will fuck things up so badly that the deep problems of his approach will become obvious. of course, i thought that shit was obvious already.