Light/Breezes

Light/Breezes
SUNRISE AT DEATH VALLEY-Photo by Tom Cochrun
Showing posts with label Democratic National Convention. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Democratic National Convention. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 1, 2024

This is not 1968...

 


The spring flurry on American campuses has caused some to say it’s like 1968. It is not!

 

As someone who was on the ground as a reporter in 1968 please understand that while  some of the visuals are similar, what is playing out this spring is far different.

 

The protest movement of 1968 was focused on a singular objective, to raise hell mobilize public opinion and force a change of policy on the war in Viet Nam. 1968 was punctuated though by assassinations which fevered the frenzy of the national delirium. The murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were accelerant to a nation on fire.




 

The intellect of 2024 is vastly different than 1968. There are multiple “causes” and even aberrant reasoning behind the current occupations, forced entry of buildings and festival like eruptions on campuses this week. Some, there is no way to measure how many of the participants are sadly misguided and even ignorant to facts. Most administrators behave as if they are ignorant of history. At IU, the president acted in contradiction to long standing policy and history. The presidents have been boneheaded resorting to behavior more befitting a prison warden than an overseer of academia. There is good reason for the votes of no confidence. Schools have failed to recognize the teaching and learning moments presented by this time in history.

 

Where have these presidents come from? Apparently the land of professional academic careerism includes no training in reality, or history, or the constitution. 

 

The head of the Indiana state police, called to IU where a sniper was stationed on the roof of the student union, said he didn’t really understand the first Amendment. 

 

Welcome to America 2024 where we get our news with dance moves from TickTock and influences and where precious young things adopt restrictive dress for solidarity with what? a patriarchal terrorist group who slaughter babies and who keep women oppressed and repressed. There is no sane reason an American college student would voice support for Hamas or Hezbollah. They are enemies of even their own people, certainly the freedom of thought and expression the protestors are exercising. That behavior under Hamas and Hezbollah would cost them their heads. 

 

It is a signal of failure, a nail in the coffin, that American students cannot possess two truths in the same thought. One can, and should, be against the violence and be for Palestinian and Jewish people. Hamas has done no favors to the Palestinian people. Netanyahu’s war policy is criminal and is detested by the people of Israel.  A university student today should be able to discern the difference between Jewish people and the State of Israel, between Palestinian people and the evil of Hamas and Hezbollah. 

 

In 1968 when protests around the world targeted the US War policy  in Viet Nam, the anger was not with American citizens rather with the US Government. The victims today are largely the Palestinian people, but Jews in Israel, as well as Muslims and Christians also suffer.

 

In 1968 a few idiots carried the Viet Cong flag or sang about Ho Chi Minh, but they were rare. The bulk of the animus and demonstrations was toward the war policy. Americans disagreed with the government and carried out their right to protest.

 

Of course, those air head students who betray their ignorance have the right speak their less than reasoned minds and state their views as much as those who speak with knowledge and conviction. This could be a time of great learning, challenging the easy assumptions and misdirection of “influencers” and their own lack of intellectual vigor. 

 

That is a point lost on university presidents, chancellors, state police superintendents, local and campus cops whose first response is to start pushing and shoving on rights.

 

Breaking into building, stopping the function of a school, denying others their rights, speaking or chanting hate, intimidating or harassing other students is wrong and there are policies and laws to handle it. One need not point weapons of war at children, even belligerent children. 

 

Response must be measured and appropriate with an eye on history. I covered street demonstrations where tear gas cannisters flew and where people were manhandled and truncheoned. In those days police looked like police and were not outfitted to look like a combat ranger squad ready for lethal action. Recall that just two years after 1968, as the nation remained ripped apart our own national guard, city and state police shot and killed college students. 4 students died and nine were shot at Kent State by Ohio National Guardsmen. Two weeks later 2 students were killed and 12 were wounded by cops at Jackson state In Mississippi. Those tragedies followed a national commission that decried police and government heavy handedness in the city and street violence of 1968. You’d think cops, and college Presidents would have some residual memory.





 

What happened at the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968  was called a “police riot” by a national study commission. The police beat and brutalized hundreds of demonstrators and others. The cops turned on the media too. In what was called “a rare moment of collective courage” all of the major newspapers telegrammed a protest to the Chicago Mayor. NBC News Anchor Chet Huntley reported  “the news profession in the city is now under assault by the Chicago Police department.” CBS Anchor Walter Cronkite was also outraged by the strong-arm tactics.

 




If you are interested, and I would hope that means a few academic leaders too, you can look back at 1968 via on line archives at Vanderbilt University, or CSPAN.

 

This is not like 1968 and it is simplistic notion to say so. 


See you down the trail. 





Saturday, August 22, 2020

Decency and Normalcy

    Fleeting as any generation may be, we live amidst certain constancies. Confrontation, conflict, is as certain as sea and earth. Forces collide.
     The American republic is ground zero for a collision that historians tell us is the most severe test of our existence since 1860, the cusp of the Civil War.
       Last week those who paid attention saw decency, normalcy and were transported to a reality far away from the toxic bedlam of Trump world. 
     The Democratic National Convention, the virtual edition, was effective, loaded with voices, faces, expression of hope, examination of issues and powerful in message. Obama and Biden delivered the best speeches of their careers. Kamala Harris crossed an historic threshold with dignity, force and intellect. The many other speakers were passionate and pointed. Because they were not speaking to a hall full of delegates, they were able to speak more directly, more one on one, to the heart and the mind. 
     As someone who began reporting on presidential politics in the late '60's and a veteran of decades of conventions, I found the virtual presentation to be more intelligent, focused,  and in depth than the circus like exuberance of the old school. Once those conventions served a purposed, but since the 80's they've become staged productions and big parties.
     The Democrats were the first in this modern pandemic to build a structure. We were imbued with family, earnestness, purpose, commitment to equality, a vision of caring, plans for healing and rebuilding, and the normal tradition of America aspiring to greatness and competency.  
      Now the Trump party will take center stage, and those fractures that divide us, and the forces of deception and fraud that threaten us will be in the spot light.


toxic 2020
     The bad year took a turn for the worse this week as the air on California's central coast was listed as the most dangerous in the world. It happened as smoke from fires to the north and south were trapped in a heat wave. Since midweek houses have been closed, outdoor activity was a no-no, and the temperatures set new high records.
    The milky sky was acrid and full of a fine soot and ash that covered houses and cars. Most of us who live on this side of the Santa Lucia Mountains do not have air conditioning. The mountains would normally be seen in this view, but have been obscured by the bad air. 
    A local air quality expert said it is the worst he's seen in his 30 years of measurement.  We take precautions, stay inside and know that soon this will clear, an inconvenience. But we share a concern for our fellow Californians fighting the blazes, evacuating, worrying about their homes, on top of the pandemic. 
tender mercies and gentle victory
   A quick trip to the shore, where the air is at least moving, presented a couple of sights worth sharing. 
   The green patina on this outcropping is visible only during seasons when the low tide exposes it. I took delight in the artistic shading of Providence.
   I marveled at this discovery of clay figures of some composition, set atop rocks on the shore. Someone, with care, added to the tableau of the Pacific shore. A thoughtful and creative kindness.
    And there was the joy of this duo. Notice the bend in one of the rods.
   Look carefully in the frame below and you'll see a trophy of this day of fishing on the rocks. 


   So, even as we journey on in this historic passage, there are moments of the normalcy we seek.
   Stay well, take care of each other.

   See you down the trail.