The Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968 came unglued for one reason and one reason only: OUR BEST CANDIDATE WAS ASSASSINATED!
Just like his brother, only five years earlier.
Robert Kennedy, once a "Cold Warrior," was leading the anti-war movement in the Democratic Party and in the country. He was running a world peace and pro-social & economic justice campaign like his assassinated brother would have run in 1964, if he had lived.* Robert was even more charismatic than his brother, and was absolutely on his way to the White House after winning the California primary, the night he was shot.
So, in a period of only five years, we were deprived, by assassination, of our best leaders--including, in between the first two, Martin Luther King who was also assassinated, and had also come out against the war a year before.
The sick fucks who did this*, and who were slaughtering TWO MILLION people in Southeast Asia, with nearly 60,000 U.S. soldiers killed and tens of thousands wounded and disabled for life, tried to shove THEIR war candidate down our throats--that part is true--and we had nobody--NOBODY--to champion the creation of a better country. There was nothing TO do but PROTEST. There was literally nothing else we could do.
To compare this crushing, heartbreaking loss of an entire generation, and all of its hopes and dreams, and the loss by assassination of its three most important, most viable, most admirable political leaders, to the bilious billionaire Donald Trump and his nazi rallies of privileged white men is the height of cynicism. I've come to expect nothing less from Rotters, but I still find it disgusting.
The Democratic Party establishment abandoned the people of this country at that time. That WAS the split that we are seeing now. It took about of decade for the abandonment to be complete, which, among other things (Reaganomics, union-busting, et al) has resulted in this, today: Hillary Clinton now has Henry Kissinger as her adviser! Kissinger, the architect of the second half of the slaughter in Vietnam, spread to Cambodia and Laos. And not only Kissinger, Clinton also has Robert Kagan, architect of the Bushwhack "Project For a New American Century" as her adviser! Given these advisers, it is no surprise to me that Clinton supported the war on Iraq, and created further disasters (Libya, Syria, Honduras) as Secretary of State.
And we are supposed to choose this because of Trump? I guarantee you that when my generation (in our 60s and 70s now) finds out who is advising Hillary Clinton, it's all over for her. Even I didn't know this before a few weeks ago, though I try to stay informed. There are plenty of good reasons to oppose Clinton, but this beats all: The 1960s all over again, with a Democrat once again throwing our young people as "cannon fodder" into a war that is nothing but war profiteering, and throwing our treasury and our democracy into the flames after them.
History may repeat itself, but it never does so exactly. Themes recur, and each time we are presented with choices for the greater good, or not. The choice this time is to reject the Democratic Party establishment, as it is now constituted, and send Bernie Sanders to the White House, to reform our government and our political system. And if the DNC establishment continues to blockade this choice, they are ASKING either for 1968 to happen again, this year or soon, or--more likely on this turn of the wheel--to become irrelevant--a mere Tory party with a liberal tinge.
Our children and grandchildren want to be part of a good and decent society, as we did when we were young. From what I've seen, they may succeed where we failed.
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*(Very important book: "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters," by James Douglass (2007).)
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