I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America... I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown, but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating.
-- Barack Obama, January, 2008
In the early years of the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War, defenders of the status quo often accused anybody who questioned the wisdom of government policies of being unpatriotic. Meanwhile, some of those in the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties reacted not merely by criticizing particular government policies, but by attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of America itself - by burning flags; by blaming America for all that was wrong with the world; and perhaps most tragically, by failing to honor those veterans coming home from Vietnam, something that remains a national shame to this day..
-- Barack Obama, June 30, 2008
Dear Senator Obama:
I was one of those 'so-called counter-culture' DFH's in the late 60s and early 70s. Let me tell you a little about it from one who was there...
I WAS BORN IN 1953 SMACK IN THE MIDDLE of white, lower working class suburbia. Grew up with Leave It To Beaver and his impeccably dressed mother, including pearls and high heels at breakfast. An ideal world, all in all, both at home and on teevee.
But then as I got older, the real world began to intrude bit by bit, disturbing my utopian view.
Once a week, on Fridays at 10 a.m., the local air raid siren was tested. And along with that, starting in kindergarten, came the 'duck and cover' drill, where we crawled under our desks and covered our heads with our arms while the teacher lowered and closed all blinds to protect us against the shards of glass which would fly inwards if the thermo-nuclear attack was actually under way.
But such drills were not the only intrusion on this child's peace of mind. JFK came on TV to announce something called a blockade, and though I had no understanding of what was meant by it all I could see the worry on my parents' faces. Something was very wrong. Something they could not prevent, or fix.
And at that same time something strange happened around the neighborhoods I biked through as well. Suddenly, places that sold built-in pools (and oh how I wanted to dive into their display models) began selling something they called shelters, which on the one hand seemed really neat because they were rooms buried underground, and you got to climb down a ladder and everything -- but also a little weird because they were all about stocking food and locking yourself in and filtering air.
Newspapers and teevee also played their part, with pictures of mushroom clouds and something called 'above ground testing' and how it might hurt children, if the wind blew just so.
And not just this, but newspapers and teevee started showing me pictures of black-skinned people being arrested or shot at with water canons, and a man named King being handcuffed and slammed against a car by white policemen in a faraway place called 'the South'.
And then there was the day that the principal came into my class, whispered something to the teacher, and told us school was canceled and we should all go home. Then the next day pictures of a woman wearing a bloody dress, standing next to a man being sworn in. And the day after that I got to see my very first real person gunned down on teevee.
And along the way more disturbing things showed up on teevee. Things like The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson on CBS, about how pesticides were poisoning birds and animals, and if we kept using DDT there might be no eagles left at all. And things like Harvest of Shame, about how migrant workers were almost like slaves, and a scene from Florida as the deep-voiced man intoned:
This scene is not taking place in the Congo. It has nothing to do with Johannesburg or Cape Town. It is not Nyasaland or Nigeria. This is Florida. These are citizens of the United States, 1960. This is a shape-up for migrant workers. The hawkers are chanting the going piece rate at the various fields. This is the way the humans who harvest the food for the best-fed people in the world get hired. One farmer looked at this and said, "We used to own our slaves; now we just rent them."
True I didn't understand all the ins and outs of what I'd seen in my short like thus far, but each year the feeling increased in me that there was something basically wrong with what was going on in my country.
And it was all very different than what I was being taught in school.
BY THE AGE OF 12 I THOUGHT MYSELF pretty sophisticated about it all, and read every bit of information I could find on the environment, and nuclear war and civil rights, with Dr. King being a particular hero of mine.
True, I became plenty distracted as I entered puberty, but still I had enough presence of mind over the coming years to see that there was a growing disconnect between what I was being officially taught America was all about, and what was happening on the streets.
The civil rights protests were getting larger and the official reaction against it more violent. Malcolm X was assassinated. And race riots were breaking out (I can still remember watching the smoke in the distant skyline as Watts burned).
And protests were starting about someplace called Vietnam, and there were images on teevee of soldiers crouching as they ran through the thickest jungle I'd ever seen, and soldiers on stretchers, and children running naked screaming and crying while the village behind them burned.
And then came 1968. I was fifteen. Martin Luther King was gunned down. Then Bobby Kennedy. North Korea captured a U.S. ship. Prague Spring and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. The Mexico Olympics, and the athletes who lost their medals for giving the black power salute. The police riots against protesters in Chicago. Richard Nixon elected president.
ALSO BY THAT TIME, AMERICA WAS OFFICIALLY in an 'arms race'. Where there had been only few hundred atomic bombs at the beginning of the 1960s, by 1968 there were thousands on each side being stockpiled to support the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction. And not just atom bombs, but hydrogen bombs which would make Hiroshima look a firecracker. With Richard Nixon's finger on the button.
All of which was well publicized to make us feel safer.
Meanwhile socially, there was also this growing group of women libbers, which was causing quite a stir because they wanted to do men's jobs. Which was very strange, because girls (and that's what they were called, no matter how old they were) were supposed to do things like make coffee for the men at work, and be telephone operators and such. And they couldn't be trusted with the important jobs men do, and it didn't matter anyway because they would just end up getting married and having babies.
AND SO THE SIXTIES came to an end (with much more happening that I've left out) and then came one day, in 1970, this:
I had walked into breakfast to find my mother at the table, looking at a newspaper and crying. She looked up at me and said, "They're shooting students now."
And nothing I can say could ever describe the shock, and the power of that realization.
And of course it happened again, 10 days later at Jackson State to prove that it was no fluke.
(By the way, it was that 'transformative' guy Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, who famously said about student protesters, "If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with. No more appeasement." and who later excused it as "just a figure of speech".)
BUT THROUGH ALL THOSE YEARS the largest issue of course was Vietnam.
Tiger cages. Operation Rolling Thunder. The Battle for Hue. The Tet offensive. My Lai. The secret plan to end the war. The secret bombing of Cambodia. The Pentagon Papers. The Boat People. Napalm. Agent Orange. Tens of thousands of Americans killed. Over a hundred thousand more wounded.
And my turn coming up.
Because back then there was a draft. And unless you were rich (or well connected) and white there was very little chance of escaping it (which is why it fell so disproportionately on the poor and the 'minorities').
'America' had decided that I would have to go and kill people, whether I wanted to or not, as soon as I turned 18.
I would have no say in the matter.
I would have no say in the matter.
I would have no say in the matter.
AND THUS CAME THE TIPPING POINT which completed my personal journey into becoming a DFH.
And no, we did not 'react merely by criticizing particular government policies', as you said yesterday.
Because something had to be done.
So we marched. We staged sit-ins and teach-ins. We burned draft cards and blockaded induction centers. We declared 'summers of love'. We stuck daisies into rifle barrels aimed at us. And some reacted, as you said, 'by attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of America itself'
Because the 'very idea of America itself' had become so distorted that it allowed for the napalming of children in their villages, and Mutually Assured Destruction through thermo-nuclear war, and the killing of presidents and civil rights leaders, and the destruction of the environment, and police riots against protesters, and the exploitation of migrant workers, and the oppression of blacks, and the subjugation of women, and even the slaughter of protesting students.
And the idea that hundreds of thousands of us could be forced to go kill other people against our will.
And if that's what the flag represented to the other side, then it damn well needed burning.
So call them 'excesses' if you will.
But those 'excesses' led to...
An end to the nuclear arms race.
An end to Vietnam.
An end to the draft.
Full legal rights for blacks.
Full legal rights for women.
Legal rights for gays.
Environmental protections.
Occupational safety laws.
And far far far more than I could ever list in one diary, so many things that seem so ordinary that they are the culture... now.
Though I will presume to list one last thing...
It's partly because of those 'excesses', and because people did not 'react merely by criticizing particular government policies' that you were able to become the Democratic party's candidate for president of the United States.
Just something you might want to think about, the next time you feel like bad-mouthing us DFHs.
Sincerely,
-- Two Roads
p.s. It was not the DFHs who, in your words, failed 'to honor those veterans coming home from Vietnam, something that remains a national shame to this day'. It was the upholders of the culture which sent them there, and who had the power to throw welcoming parades in every city, who sat idly by, ignoring them -- because they were of no more use to them. But it was the DFHs who made movies like 'Coming Home', about their plight, and who stood by their side so they could speak the truth about what 'America' was doing in Vietnam:
And I hope their 'counter-culture' garb doesn't throw you -- they were all Vietnam Veterans against the war, and it was the DFH's who stood by their side, even while the culture at large tried not to hear what they had to say.