It feels like 1968 all over again; America faces a call to action to stop more tragedies; terror threat is greater in USA than in Afghanistan and Iraq

I remember 1968 vividly, because even while I was growing up back then, I was avid reader of the morning newspaper and viewer of the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.

And in that year, it seemed each day brought forth a calamity that no one thought possible -- be it in Vietnam, or with the loss of Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy, or LBJ withdrawing from the race or a host of things on campuses and in deprived sections of urban centers. The Soviet Union was on the march in putting down rebellion in Eastern Europe. And the Middle East was still touchy after the 1967 war.

It was the year that the world cracked, as one magazine noted in an anniversary edition.

All I know is that "1968 Feeling" has returned to my gut with what I am seeing happening to this nation, where large and small communities take the world's attention with the latest mass killings or other tragedies.

Seven police officers have been murdered in one week. And these are the folks who are supposed to keep order.

There is more terror and threat of terrorism here than in Afghanistan and Iraq. President Obama should keep the 24,000 Marines he wants to send to Afghanistan in America and dispatch them across the nation.

As I have been trying to tell folks for months on this blog, this Depression in America's spirit and loss of wealth is unlike any other. We are going to keep seeing things unthinkable. And the reality of this doom coming to place near you like a crowded shopping mall is only one gunman away.

And it will be someone trying to make a larger statement of anger than the previous ones. That means more carnage.

The simple loss of a job has been shown to be the trigger. And this nation lost more than 650,000 in March.

I believe this nation barely survived 1968. I do not see the resilency in this generation as back then. A failure to cope is a clear and present danger.

Communities, politicians, mental health authorities and clergy had better start preparing a plan of action to reach out into these masses and disarm potential gunmen before they start shooting ... or 2009 will make 1968 into the good old days.