Autobiography: back in high school I was moved to a new state and a new school. I didn’t take to it too well and ended missing the last half of my sophomore year. I just never showed up. The new school didn’t know who I was and never even bothered find out where I was!
Looking back, ironically, it was during that period that I acquired what turned out to be a most influential education– I began reading what I wanted to read rather than what someone else wanted me to read. And some of the first books I picked up– Jack Kerouac’s On The Road and Dharma Bums and Woody Guthrie’s Bound For Glory— changed my life. After that all I wanted to do was hit the road, and so I did. I spent much of the next five years ramblin’, by thumb, by Hound, and with friends, traversing much of the country and western Canada. I made it to nearly every state, many of the national parks, and a ton of concerts and festivals along the way. With countless hours and miles of two-lane blacktop under my feet I learned what an amazing place this country really is– equal parts beautiful, intimidating, scary and awe-inspiring. So here’s to Woody and Jack:
During the Vietnam War nothing got under the skin of the war managers– LBJ, Nixon, their generals, top cops and political cronies — more than public criticism from liberal, and sometimes moderate, members of the intelligentsia, college campuses and the media. The war pushers tried every dirty trick in the book, and then some, to shut these voices down– they labeled dissenters as traitors, commies and un-American; used the FBI to spy on them (Cointelpro) and the IRS to audit them; created laws to throw them in jail for protesting, or sent in ringers and police to start riots during peace marches; and in some cases even shot them dead.
But these tactics ultimately failed. Over time the chorus of voices demanding peace steadily grew in strength and in retrospect history has shown that the opposition interpretation of the war was not only more informed, but also much more honest, than that of the establishment. In fact, we know now that, from Tonkin to Cambodia, there was no lie too big for LBJ and Nixon if it served their purposes of continuing a failed policy in the hopes of pulling off a hail Mary pass late in the game–which of course did not happen.
A true turning point in modern American politics, the shady events of the war years marked the beginning of a damaging turn toward cynicism by the American public regarding the honesty and integrity of their government. Prior to Vietnam, people may have disagreed about politics, but they essentially believed their leaders were, for the most part, honest people, public administrators with honorable intentions. But the Vietnam War– with its phony after battle briefings, trumped up body counts, constant false optimism, secret bombing campaigns and duplicitous foreign diplomacy– shattered that glossy veneer. The trend was accelerated by Watergate and then officially codified into right-wing ideology by Ronald Reagan. The fallout from the war, the war at home, started the nation on the path that has left us deeply divided, and apparently paralyzed politically.
Listen to archival broadcasts from the period featuring those who stood up against the war:
Note: with the most recent national military debacle – the Iraq War – flaming out of control again, and the hawks circling above calling for US involvement, these recordings take on a renewed significance, if for nothing else than to remind ourselves that it is possible to speak out and influence events– it’s one of the only real powers “we the people” have.
Richard Nixon played upon the growing resentments of “regular Joes” across the country. He defined this target audience as a great “silent majority,” and rallied them to his cause by railing against the elites, not the least of which were anti-war college students and professors with draft deferments. Nixon cheered in 1970 when construction workers brutally attacked peace protesters in New York. “Thank God for the hard hats!” he said. He was so successful that he rode his silent majority to electoral victories in 1968 and again in 1972.
Nixon’s political and social maneuvering was masterful, Machiavelli would have been impressed. His scheming led to wins in two presidential elections but in so doing he created a deep rift in American society that persists to this day, polarizing the United States. But Nixon didn’t dream all of these tactics up on his own. He didn’t have to look far to find the prototype for his winning strategy. It was right there in front of him, devised by another California Republican, a lesser known personality to the nation at the time, but that would change….
Frankly, anyone who cares deeply about protecting the environment and the national parks owes a great debt to Joseph Grinnell and his students. Why? Because recent surveys of Yosemite have turned up some troubling results. It seems that nearly all species used to living in cold weather through evolution have moved to ever higher elevations. For scientists, the unquestioned culprit in this developing potential tragedy is global warming. For creatures adapted to the highest elevations there is an even greater sense of urgency because there is no place higher to go!!… More>>
Parallel Narratives 