Jules Feiffer in 1973:
Jules Feiffer on Nixon - 1973
Bush defends his illegal actions:
Photo opts will soon tie Boy George to his buddy Jack Abramoff:
Tom Tomorrow at This Modern World
Take heart, decent Americans, the cycle has again hit bottom but will soon be headed back our way.
In the early fifties we had the Korean War, J. Edgar Hoover and Tailgunner Joe (“If you’re not with me your’re with the godless communists!”), but real patriots stood up (go see Good Night and Good Luck) and shut down the Empire Express.
It took ten years for the greedheads to get another war rolling and finally hit bottom again during the Nixon years: a quagmire in Vietnam, domestic spying, Nixon claiming that the president is the law. Decent Americans stood once more and forced Tyrannosaurus Nix (Ferlinghetti) to resign in shame.
It’s taken thirty years for new conservatives to drag us to the bottom again…but, their time is almost done. History will point to the Bush cabal as the worst ever and hopefully we will not see their kind for another fifty years.
Here is a small taste of Nixon from Puzzling Evidence: A Boomer Pop History:
…Nixon swore in his Inaugural Address, “For its part, government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways to voices of quiet anguish.” But, when it came time to make good on his promise, Dick simply ignored the massive demonstrations. Nixon suffered from extreme paranoia since the very beginning of his term. He watched the Inaugural parade from behind bulletproof glass, and when reporters asked of his plans, Dickie answered, “They gave me a key to the front door (of the White House) and I’m going to see if it fits.” But, much to his surprise, it did fit, and now no one could tell Dick Nixon how to run his country. Trickie Dickie was prepared to use the CIA, FBI, IRS and the National Guard against anyone whom he considered as a threat to his authority, and judging from the size and wide variety of names on his famous “Enemies List”, that could include just about anyone. p 65
Boomers declared this an age of miracles…bigger and better than ‘55 and the First Golden Age of Rock & Roll, or Kennedy’s Camelot in ‘62, with our last complete year of emotional virginity. We put the violence of 1968 behind us, as 1969 presented us with an American on the moon, a UFO sighting by Jimmy Carter, and the first rock opera, Woodstock, Broadway Joe and the Amazing Mets. All these lovely miracles have been overshadowed for decades by the trauma of Nixon, Charles Manson, Altamont and Lt. Calley, but now the time has come to think back to a time when Boomers stood united against the system. Society beat them back, but the kids put up one hell of a fight. No American generation since the Revolutionary War can claim to have been a greater thorn in the side of an oppressive government.
A funny thing happened on the way to Woodstock… Rock & Roll became the official Boomer religion and, as a result, the counterculture lost its sense of humor and an overall perspective. The new church canonized John Lennon as its initial saint. The Rolling Stone named him as their first “Man of the Year”. Actually, John looked and sounded more like the Second Coming than a Rock Superstar. “All’s we are saying is Give Peace a Chance”… a plea for sanity from a man of peace. Who in their right mind would argue with that? Nixon honored the celebration by placing St. John high on his infamous “Enemies List”. Lennon, at the appropriate season, staged the holy “Merry Christmas, The War is Over” bed-in with Mother Yoko (apologies to Phil Ochs- 1967). p 62
Arthur Penn directed Alice’s Restaurant, based on Arlo Guthrie’s classic antiwar song from 1968. Arlo played the lead, and at the draft board tried to use reverse psychology on the Army shrink: “You’ve got to let me in, Doc. I wanna kill. I wanna rape and maim. I wanna burn villages and massacre women and children.” Teens laughed at the absurd, black humor until November 16th, when TV news reported on a day in the life of Lt. William Calley at My Lai. Truth turned out to be more absurd than fiction for a Boomer kid in 1969. To this day, Gomer Pyle remains the only popular media military hero from the entire Vietnam era.
Nixon, jealous of Pyle, expanded the war into Cambodia. But, at home, Dickie lost ground… even in the once-friendly courtroom. The Chicago Eight Circus Extravaganza inflicted great damage to the system, and now, in “Cohen vs. California”, the judge decided that a young man could legally wear “Fuck the Draft” on his jacket. The Supreme Court also ruled that students could sport black armbands in protest of the war. On July 11th, a US Court of Appeals overturned the convictions of Dr. Spock and three of his peers for aiding and abetting draft resisters.
Nixon appealed to the “Silent Majority” and they answered in a Gallop Poll: 58% of America now strongly opposed involvement in Vietnam. A massive National Vietnam Moratorium Day took place on October 15th, including vigils and demonstrations in every major city. Thousands of young soldiers in Vietnam donned black armbands in support. Vice President Agnew called the protestors “the effete corps of impudent snobs”.
The Moratorium caught the media’s attention, but in the end turned out to be just a rehearsal for the main event. 250,000 Americans, including Dr. Spock, Coretta King, George McGovern, Eugene McCarthy, Senator Charles Goodell, Leonard Bernstein, and thousands of Vietnam vets and war widows staged a peaceful “March Against Death” exactly one month later in Washington, D.C. Police arrested 186 people at a “Mass for Peace” in front of the Pentagon. This group of “impudent snobs” included two Episcopal bishops and forty other clergymen. Nixon swore in his Inaugural Address, “For its part, government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways to voices of quiet anguish.” But, when it came time to make good on his promise, Dick simply ignored the massive demonstrations. Nixon suffered from extreme paranoia since the very beginning of his term. He watched the Inaugural parade from behind bulletproof glass, and when reporters asked of his plans, Dickie answered, “They gave me a key to the front door (of the White House) and I’m going to see if it fits.” But, much to his surprise, it did fit, and now no one could tell Dick Nixon how to run his country. Trickie Dickie was prepared to use the CIA, FBI, IRS and the National Guard against anyone whom he considered as a threat to his authority, and judging from the size and wide variety of names on his famous “Enemies List”, that could include just about anyone. p 65
Published by Greg at 11:06 PM on June 25, 2004