I am just a "normal" American, I grew up in the late 50's early 60's and watched some of the best of times and the worst of times, "Leave It to Beaver" America, the assasinations of J.F.K, his brother Bobby, and M.L King, the Vietnam War, the Cuba Missile Crisis, the end of the Cold War.
I saw the Berlin Wall when it seperated the West from Communists, we watched it fall. I remember Munich 1972 and the rebirth of terrorism in our lifetime, what was the name of the other groups? Bader Mein Hof etc, Entebbe, Idi Amin, Qadaffi and his terrorism. But we came very close in the past few years of losing many of our "freedoms" as we know them because of "fear" of terrorism, rightly so or not, the Neocons used this to try and take our society as we know it away, our safety nets.