As a Berkeley graduate, I have spent a lot of time on Sproul Plaza, where the Free Speech Movement led by Mario Savio in some respects started the wave of student political involvement that we call “The Sixties”. It was 1964 or thereabouts, before Johnson had betrayed his election year promise and greatly increased US involvement in Vietnam.
What I think many fail to grasp is that the “1950’s”, at least on my reading, extended to at least 1963 or so. 1964-1966 there were “weirdos” doing drugs and having all-night parties, but they were fringe. They weren’t liked.
It wasn’t until the year of my birth, 1967, that things really heated up. I am told whatever that astrological line-up was, the revolutionary mindset, is in my chart too. And I do think of myself as a conservative revolutionary.
If I might indulge myself in a bit of droll self commentary, there aren’t many of us.
But the point I wanted to make–and I well remember that turning point in the song Alice’s Restaurant, as, again, I am a Berkeley graduate, even if I never had the money to eat at Chez Panisse–is that back then speech truly was limited. There were many things you could not say. There were many bounds you could not cross.
Few remember, but Urban Cowboy was X-Rated because without showing it, it implied a young man gave Jon Voigt a blowjob. I watched an episode of Mr. Robot where in one episode we have a pretty graphic portrayal of gay anal sex, women kissing while on hard drugs, and the hero going through morphine withdrawal.
The Free Speech people got what they wanted. But even if Savio’s principles were relatively pristine–and I’m not going to take the time tonight to research–those who followed used the path he created to relentlessly push Communist propaganda. This propaganda was allowed, and it cost us the war.
The Vietnam War could have ended after the first failed Tet offensive in 1968. It was absolutely devastating to the North militarily and psychologically. They were ready to quit. We know this, because many of their top commanders wrote memoirs, not a few of them from overseas after falling afoul of the Fascists who got control of the system.
But Jane Fonda and people like her gave them hope. That is how one phrased us: gave us the hope to continue.
So you push, push, push, so you can openly support the enemies of America–and mankind–then you take over the universities, and you pull, pull, pull, so that you can create free speech free zones, in the hope of gradually expanding them.
Shit, I’m wandering. I bought the last Odd Thomas book and am enjoying it like all the rest. I’m going to go read a while, while drinking some decent French wine.
Presumably, the world will be here tomorrow when I, presumably, wake up for the, hold on, 17,520th time.
I have a post I need to make about the Inner and Outer, but maybe tomorrow. Maybe the next day.
How does one, really, describe a life? Paper shells. Everything else is always already gone. You can’t take a picture of a sunrise.
No, I’m actually not drunk. Just a long day. But I still have time!!!!!