by
Walter Brasch
The anti-war
movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s was being forged by the youth,
energetic and willing to stand up to establishment values. They were the peace-loving
environmentally-friendly hippies, the more radical but fun-loving Yippies, and
those who held weekday establishment jobs and resented the structure and rules
of an older generation that had survived the economic depression of the 1930s,
the war years of the 1940s and early 1950s, and now wanted the “Happy Days”
comfort of the 1950s.
But it was
during this decade that the Cold War emerged; the right-wing surfaced and
declared anyone with non-establishment views were Communists. The witch hunts
of the 17th century colonies had morphed into the fear, panic, and undermining
of the Constitution by the demigods of business and government who decided that
anyone with liberal views, especially those in the arts and sciences, were
anti-American and needed to be condemned.
A string tied
the country to Southeast Asia where a civil war had begun, one that led
Americans to believe in a false political philosophy known as the Domino
Theory—if Vietnam fell to the Communists, then Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand
would next fall to the Communists—and then, like dominos, one country after
another would fall until the Red Menace would eventually invade and overcome
the United States.
John F. Kennedy
sent military “advisors” into Vietnam to save the south from Communism. And
then, Lyndon B. Johnson escalated the war. By 1968, the U.S. was digging deeper
into the war, more than 400,000 Americans were in combat, and the majority of
civilians were cheering what they believed would be a successful end of
Communism.
From Minnesota,
U.S. Sen. Eugene McCarthy, a white-haired 51-year-old former teacher and
college professor became the political leader of the anti-war movement,
catching up to the political activism of the youth.
The media,
always behind the cutting edge of society, didn’t report about McCarthy—and
largely ignored the increasing youth marches and rallies. After all, Johnson
was president, soldiers were in Vietnam, and the youth—and the millions of
anti-war, pro-civil rights, pro-environment liberals—were just rabble to be
ignored.
The establishment
media were certain that McCarthy had no chance to defeat the incumbent
president. But in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, McCarthy got 42 percent
of the vote to Johnson’s 49 percent. That shook up the party and the media, and
gave Robert F. Kennedy, an anti-war liberal, the motivation to enter the
campaign. In the Wisconsin and Oregon primaries, McCarthy won even more
delegates. Johnson, a Southerner who had pushed through Congress a liberal
agenda, especially in Civil Rights, surprised the establishment by announcing
that in the interest of the country, and because he didn’t wish to further
divide it, he would not run for re-election.
At the
Democratic convention in Chicago two months after Kennedy was murdered in Los
Angeles, McCarthy faced Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, a long-time liberal
with strong ties to labor and the civil rights movement, but tainted by having
supported his president’s war record. The largely peaceful anti-war movement clashed
with the political establishment and the largely-conservative police who wanted
people to believe that the hundreds of injuries to the youth were caused by the
youth deliberately banging their heads onto police billy clubs.
Humphrey won
the nomination, but lost the presidency to Richard Nixon, who would resign six
years later, enmeshed within scandal. Had
hundreds of thousands of McCarthy’s supporters not become disillusioned
with establishment politics, and not been nursing their own injuries from the
convention three months before the general election, Humphrey might have become
president, the nation might have been freed from the war sooner than 1975,
thousands of Americans would not have died or sustained permanent war injuries,
and Nixon’s unconstitutional attacks upon the opposition would not have added a
blemish to American history.
Flash forward
almost five decades.
From Vermont
comes Bernie Sanders, a 74-year-old white-haired liberal senator who is challenging
Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Only the rabid right-wing, who
believe lies are facts and propaganda is truth, doubt Clinton’s intelligence or
her knowledge of domestic and foreign affairs. But, even within her own party,
she is seen as the embodiment of establishment politics, with a moderate, even
conservative, edge. Her wall of advisors protect her from the masses; she seems
aloof, while Sanders seems to be the kindly, intelligent Jewish grandfather
with a soul burning for social justice that liberals identify with.
Sanders began
drawing crowds of hundreds, and then thousands, mostly liberals and the youth
who believe they are alienated from having a voice in the American system and
who, like the youth of the 1960s, have an idealism that cries for social,
economic, and political equality and justice, the same political agenda that
defines Sanders.
But the media
of 2015, like the media of 1967, barely noticed Sanders. Although his rallies drew
as many as 20,000, the media still ignored him, reporting about Clinton, the
Democrats’ establishment candidate, while also acting as the megaphone for
every ridiculous and absurd statement the Republicans’ eventual nominee, Donald
Trump, uttered.
Soon, like
McCarthy, Sanders began winning primaries while also getting significant vote
totals in those primaries that Clinton won. And the mainstream media still
devoted significantly more air time and column inches to Trump than to most of
the Republican contenders, or to Clinton, Sanders, or Gov. Martin O’Malley, who
eventually dropped from contention.
Hillary
Clinton, not completely dissimilar to Hubert Humphrey, will likely be the Democratic
party’s nominee, even though Sanders says he is in the campaign “to the end.”
It’s probable that millions of Americans who would prefer to see Sanders become
president will be justifiably disappointed. Many may vote for a third party
candidate—perhaps, liberal Jill Stein, the Green Party’s nominee. Perhaps, they
will stay home, disgusted by the process and not vote. To prevent that, the
Democratic National Committee needs to incorporate much of Sanders’ political
philosophy into its planks, the Clinton campaign needs to give Sanders and his
senior campaign staff significant roles in the campaign and possible presidential
administration.
If that does
not happen, and if history repeats itself because Sanders’ supporters vote for the
Green party or sit out the election, Hillary Clinton will not become president,
and Donald Trump and his Ego of Ignorance will occupy the White House for at
least four years. This nation cannot succumb to the rule of the fool who is
masquerading as a Republican leader.
[Dr. Brasch has covered government and
politics for more than four decades. He is the author of 20 books; his current
one is Fracking America: Sacrificing
Health and the Environment for Short-Term Economic Benefit.]
