It is 1968 across North Africa and the Middle East. That brief period in Czechoslovakia when Alexander Dubček tried to institute reforms within the communist party calling it “socialism with a human face” (a precursor to republican “compassionate conservatism”?)  Months later, his attempts were crushed by the invasion of some 2,000 tanks from the Soviet Union. But then, turmoil was commonplace around the  world in 1968. Protests occurred worldwide in countries such as Spain, France, Italy, England, Poland and the United States. The United States had the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago (two years later, the National Guard shot and killed four anti-war protesters at Kent State).

Now in 2011, we have Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Iraq and Bahrain (home to the headquarters of the US fifth fleet)…More later once I have had a chance to ponder recent events.