[MRM]

The first sentences are mine, of course, but the lyrics come from the old 60s song "The Eve of Destruction" by Barry McGuire. I didn't credit him because I thought everyone would recognize the song. I reread the lyrics again and was struck by how prescient they were.

I was making a secondary point by quoting this song from the 60s. And that is that we are always on the brink of destruction. Every election is the most important one in history. We are on the edge of making decisions that will end the world. But that is no different than it as 20 years ago when Reagan was eye to eye with Gorby, 40 years ago when LBJ was promising the light at the end of the tunnel, 70 years ago when Neville Chamberlain promised peace in our time, or 90 years ago when an entire generation of Europe's finest men died in a day on Flanders Field. This election is the most important one in history, and will remainthat way until the next one is held. Wedo alwys hold the fate of the world in our hands. It's easy to imagine that it's worse today than it was in the past, but it's not. The threats were different, but not lesser. That is not to minimize the problems we face today, just toput them into perspective that we have alwaysfaced great challenges, and have usually made decisions for a better world eventually.