Can anyone remember the country split like this?

[raysr]

Split and ANGRY!

[Wwagsthedog]

1. Vietnam

n/t

[Nay]

8. Yep. Vietnam.

And the correct side won that time. This time I'm not so sure that will happen.

[MnFats]

29. If you think on it, you have to agree. Vietnam was it.

partly because there was discord over so many other things.
And this current situation could wind up being worse.
But thus far we haven't had mobs of hard-hat types beating the shit out of demonstrators in the street with the definite approval and possible participation by the White House.
No national guardsmen have gunned down students on their own campuses -- including some who had nothing to do with any demonstration (One Kent State victim was walking to class!)
We probably have illegal surveillance of dissident groups by the government, but are only finding out about it now. It was very extensive back then. Kissinger bugged his OWN STAFF!

Yeah, there was a whole lot of dirty shit going on then. Lots of police departments had domestic surveillance units and they never bothered with search warrants or court orders....again, this is probably going on now, too.

No one has opened up on dissidents like the Black Panthers as the Chicago P.D. did, killing people in their beds and then calling it a battle....(Fred Hampton)...but someone may yet....

It's getting very bad, however....Bush's attitude seems to be "Yeah, we're screwing the constitution and we're going to enrich our friends in an obscene manner, but not enough people give a shit about your complaints, so just try to stop us. Bring it on, heh, heh."

[Iverson]

30. Yep, VietNam.

See you all in Guantanamo!

[stevedeshazer]

33. As someone who has been pepper-sprayed

and threatened with a baton by some big dude in riot gear in my own home town, I disagree with your second premise:



I do agree with the rest of your post. And, no, there hasn't been a Kent State type incident...yet. I think it's only a matter of time.

[diamond14]

43. yes, a Kent State is coming...especially after some DUer's vehement

attacks on the brave American Patriots returning from the DC anti-war protests...the hate was there...a Kent-State-type police shooting is definitely being fueled by interlopers here and on other boards....

[maha]

62. Try to be accurate.

I didn't see anybody dump on the people returning from the DC anti-war protests. What I saw was a lot of reservation expressed about ONE SPONSOR of the DC anti-war protests.

[Kanary]

36. There's still time...

While I agree that so far we haven't come near the ugliness of that era, at this point in the Vietnam war, there weren't the protests, either, so.... it's early.

Your recounting of Kent State has me in tears.... all of that just doesn't go away. The pictures posted here brings it all back as if it were yesterday. Thanks. I think....

I wonder, also, how much is happening that we aren't hearing about. I just came across this article about a house burned because of the protestors who lived there...
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1101-07.htm

Peace, everyone...

Kanary

[diamond14]

45. nixon called students who disagreed 'communists'...NG was ordered

to shoot to kill....all thirteen students shot at Kent State were full time students...there was a big cover-up...many Americans agreed with nixon, since these were 'communists', they deserved it...


A total of 67 bullets were fired by the guardsmen from the hilltop. Most of the bullets were fired over 300 feet into the distant Prentice Hall parking lot. Two of the students killed, Allison Krause and Jeff Miller, were protesters. Two others, Sandy Scheuer and Bill Schroeder were bystanders. Jeff was killed 275 feet away from his killer. Allison was 350 feet away. Sandy and Bill were approximately 390 feet away.

Nine others were wounded. Dean Kahler remains in a wheelchair after he was shot in the back.

[maha]

52. I'm not sure we've hit Vietnam levels yet.

But then I was young and sassy in those days. Now I am old and cranky.

[maveric]

2. Yes, 1965-72. There were more protests and violence in the streets

and on college campuses. The good ole GOP/RW and their war policies in Viet Nam, along with the generation gap had this nation split into two angry armies. Its going to get that way again and I fear much worse.
Boy, those repugs sure are uniters arent they?

[JanMichael]

22. The acme of the current division could get very ugly.

For one communications are appreciably better due to the organisational capabilities of the internet.

I'm not really looking forward to it.

[ikojo]

27. One of my friends, who is in her 50s, told me that

in 1968 she really worried that the US was going to have another civil war...this time between the anti establishment types and the nixonian establishment types (I am sure that included some Dems).

Of course we know what happened....the Viet Nam War ended and the baby boomers got their degrees and began having children. They then took their parent's place in the suburbs and pretty much became the establishment they so dispised.

I hope people my age (Gen X) raise their children with greater awareness of the need for change.

[Minstrel Boy]

37. I think the loss in '68, within two months of each other,

of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, can't be underestimated. Resistance continued, and even grew, but it sputtered off into hopelessness. It took the wind out of the 60s, and a lot of people threw up their hands and turned inward.

[Kanary]

39. You got it, ikojo

"They then took their parent's place in the suburbs and pretty much became the establishment they so dispised."

I'm discouraged and even ashamed of my generation. WE had so much idealism, so much belief in our ability to change things, so much potential. poof...

However, to be fair... I don't think it was all selling out... I think some horrible assassinations took the wind out of our sails, too. Kent State, and other very frightening events left us shaken and weakened. Maybe not an excuse, but.... something to understand.

Maybe your friend in her 50's can share a lot of valuable perspective with you. We've had time to do a lot of thinking. ^_^

Kanary, full of memories...

[stevedeshazer]

40. In 1970

Only about 11% of US adults over 25 had a college degree, according to the census.

[Mountainman]

41. Baby boomers did not all change their politics

Many of us believe in the same things we did back then. I am 57, a Vietnam vet with a degree and there isn't one ideal that I had then that I don't have now.

I think it is a convenient myth to say that all baby boomers changed their ideals. Clinton and Gore did not and much of their support came from baby boomers.

One thing that hasn't changed much is the arrogance of young people who blame their parents for all the world's problems. We did that just the same as you are doing it now.

[diamond14]

48. the change came for those born around 1960, not the baby boomers

the real gluttonous, lack of ideals and enjoying the suburbs really came AFTER the baby-boomers...suddenly, young women decided to start sporting African blood diamonds, went back to wearing skirts, and the uniform greedy suburbs boomed for that age group (those born around 1958-1966), and their ideals were simply 'I am what I own', and I'll walk over anyone to get what I want....

that should never be blamed on the post WWII people, the baby-boomers, which were the people who fought the Vietnam war, lived in cities, worked in the Peace Corps, fought for Civil Rights, Women's Rights, Gay Rights, and the war on Poverty, discovered recombinant DNA, demanded an Environmental Protection Agency.....

it was AFTER the baby-boomers that the big down-draft started...

[Iverson]

51. sweeping generalization

Your assertion is kind of silly. Shallowness and opportunism are distributed pretty evenly.

[diamond14]

55. no more sweeping than slams thown at 'baby boomers'....

the 'suburbs' didn't even exist when 'baby-boomers' were growing up....there were no great big shopping malls and walmarts...the consumerism just wasn't there...

it came following the baby-boomers...

BTW, almost 25 % of baby-boomers have college degrees...

[Iverson]

60. and therefore ...

One admittedly false claim is not rehabilitated by a second admittedly false claim.

I'm sure that we agree about the negative effects of urban sprawl, disposable culture and so on, but playing generational politics with these issues is a complete waste of energy.

[Dookus]

3. well...

it was definitely a lot worse about 140 years ago. Probably worse about 40 years ago.

Unity is rare (if nonexistent) in American political life. What we have today is neither new nor unique. In any two-party system, the parties will continually shift in response to the times and to the other party so that each maintains roughly 50% support.

[izzie]

25. I think it goes in waves.

Once we had 'wars' and army called out to stop the unions. Lots of people killed. It has always gone up and down.

[Syncronaut Seven]

4. Was the plan all along

remember? "I'm a uniter, not a divider" :puke:

[kentuck]

6. That was another lie, wasn't it?

He has taken every opportunity to divide this country along partisan lines. He does it intentionally because that is the only way he knows.

[Ress1]

17. That's the way he does things.

I suspected the mis-leader would turn out to be a divider, despite his claims of the opposite.

[ikojo]

28. Shrubby didn't mean that he united right-wingers

with those perceived as left (I hardly consider the Democratic party to be left-wing although some members are more left leaning than many of the leaders and it is those Dems I support, such as Kucinich).

Shrubby meant that he united the mainstream pugs with the extreme right-wing of the pug party. He could care less about those who aren't going to vote for him anyway...recall what James Baker III said about Jews...F**K the Jews, they don't vote for us anyway. This is the sentiments of shrubby and the pug leadership.

[karlschneider]

5. I'm guessing you're too young to remember Vietnam...

google Kent State for starters.

[Military Brat]

12. Four Dead In Ohio

Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'.
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drummin'.
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it.
Soldiers are gunning us down.
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her and
Found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?

(Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)

[Donna Zen]

49. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Can go fuck themselves...they didn't contribute one nickle to the Kent State Defense Fund. And yes, we asked.

Reading this dribble I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Who are you to paint ALL sixties people with one broad brush? My friends and I who WERE THERE did not chose the cushie burbs. Many, many of us live right here! We are a fucking lot more radical than the lot who break their arms painting us as cop outs. And our children? Phooh! Our kids our very fine, thank you very fucking much.

Some of us left for the woods the day they lifted martial law...some of us moved much later. Some of us live on collective land. Most of us live with solar. We have many fucking degrees and so do our kids.

Labeling people is a bitch and indicative of small closed minds.

[raysr]

19. Too young

Actually not. I was on the inside looking out, in the Army, I saw the protesters and had to drive through them as I was a courier in DC. But I never got a feel for the population in general. At the time just heard it was "draft dodgers". 21 when I got out and fell off the map for a few years, so to speak.

[karlschneider]

24. Okay, I get it. I was one of those protestors but I never was against the

military people who were largely drafted. I know they endured a lot of anger from others who hated the war so much they had to take out their frustrations on -somebody- and Nixon (especially) was a pretty insular prick in those days, yet not as much as Shrub is. (In fact I was in the USAF in the mid 60s but was never ordered to Asia.)

[raysr]

57. No

I never meant that at all. I just wasn't politically active then. The best thing that happened to me in my 2 years in Baltimore was going to the Woodstock Rock Festival. I was all for the protestors, just wasn't very astute politically.

[Military Brat]

7. Calling Bill Clinton ...

HELP!!!

[caledesi]

9. The Big Dog - A real leader.

[sandnsea]

10. Possibly the Civil War

I wasn't there, honest, I'm not that old!

But I don't think we had the same kind of animosity between regular people in the 60's that we have today. There is division on many more lines than just the war and race. And also, you just couldn't deny the race problem the way people do today. The division is with everything today, religion, jobs, economy, education, poverty, crime, race, war, just everything.

[James T. Kirk]

42. Yes, the Civil War was the worst.

I just time-traveled back to the 1860s, and trust me, the political divisions really got out of hand. Much worse than the stuff that goes on today!

[GalleryGod]

11. Fall,1969.

Slept in a church that weekend
"Armies of the Night":grouphug:

[sistersofmercy]

13. No I can't! But I'm amazed the same issue under Papa Bush are

back but this time around 100 times worse. Yes I was too young for Vietnam.

[Donna Zen]

14. Another lens:

I've been wondering about this split myself and would like to float a theory. The country has historical swings between the two major parties with the mid-point of a 50/50 being brief. After the Nixon-Ford-Raygun (not including Carter because it was too brief) years we should have been headed in a new direction; and we were. The Clinton years should have allowed for a rebuilding of a majority base that would reflect the emerging liberal policies, a needed correction to the pro-corporate repub agenda. What happened instead was a refusal by the rightwing to permit Clinton to govern....gate...gate...gate... Instead, with the help of an already shifting media, the country entered the neutral zone.

Gore might have sent the country back on its course, but we all know how that story ended. So here we are: stuck with a government that doesn't like American style democracy, and a populace that can't get in gear. Americans know the future does not look as good for their children as it should, but with a lying ass media and hate-radio to guide their philosophical queries, they sit and wait. The neutral zone...ah_but for a few Romulans.

[RandomKoolzip]

15. The washington Post article from this morning...

Would have you believe that the USA is split 50/50 between Repub and Dem, but I suspect the real numbers are more like:

70% know what's what (of these, only 55% vote)
25% are republicans
1% earn over a million a year and control what the media says about the rest of the country
1% are dedicated followers of talk radio and make it seem like the repubs have a huge listener/voter base
.5% actaully ARE talk radio hosts
the remaining 2.5% are constantly on the fence.

[mandyky]

16. The Vietnam era which was

combined with the Civil Rights Movement.

We've been this split since election 2000, and I am afraid there will be a revolution or an attempted coup, esp. if the GOP rigs the voting machines.

[Eloriel]

53. Whadya mean "if" - ?

Count on it.

Another thing to count on: you'll never know. And if you just "know" anyway, you won't be able to prove it.

Eloriel

[wryter2000]

18. I dunno

However, I think the split is a good thing. I think that for too long we've been dealing with the rw with courtesy. That's a losing proposition. I think our anger will end up winning our country back.

I hope I'm right about that.

[raysr]

20. What if there was ......

Talk Radio in the Viet-era, what would that have been like? Maybe wouldn't have taken off though because we were shown what was going on every nite on TV.

[stevedeshazer]

58. There was

Believe it or not, there was talk radio before Rush Limbaugh.

It was a mix of opinions, unlike the all-radical right version of today.

[in_cog_ni_to]

21. Yes, Vietnam. n/t

[DuctapeFatwa]

23. Some differences with VietNam

The president was not appointed by the supreme court.

People did not get disappeared.

There were large crowds in the streets.

Today, despite the events of 2000 and 911, and the fact that people do get disappeared, and there are not large crowds in the streets.

[Kamika]

26. lol BUSH THE UNITER

I never seen the country in such two opposite sides (born in 82)

[MnFats]

31. Anybody remember 1968 & the little girl with the sign?

let me set the stage:
The Vietnam War is raging.
Nixon is campaigning, promising to end the war with his "secret plan," (At 15 I knew that was bullshit! I yelled at the TV, "Tell us now! If it works we'll all be grateful!")
We didn't know it at the time, but Nixon had Kissinger sabotaging the Paris Peace Talks between Johnson's representatives and the North Vietnamese. ("Just wait until after the election. Nixon will give you a better deal.")
Nixon is out campaigning in a motorcade (I forget where), standing up in a car, waving to people. "Suddenly" he sees a little girl among the crowd holding a sign: "Bring us together."
He "spontaneously" orders the whole motorcade to screech to a halt. He gets out to go meet the girl and shake her hand. He gives a quip about this being the whole point of his campaign, blah, blah, blah.
It didn't come out until much later that she was a "plant" and the whole thing was a set-up. The kid was the daughter of a Nixon campaign worker.
sick, huh?

[Mountainman]

35. I think it was Dayton, Ohio were the girl with the sign took place.

I was in the crowd at the Dayton, Ohio court house to hear Nixon's speach. I did not like the SOB but I went to see him. He asked "How many people in the crowd were under 21?" I put up my hand with a number of other people. Then he said, "See how many young people we have on our side?" I was pissed! Nixon pulled on of is dirty tricks on me!

[Yupster]

32. 1880 - 1888

Look at the popular vote percentages for president three elections in a row. (winners listed first)

1880 Garfield 48.27 %
Hancock 48.25 %

1884 Cleveland 48.50 %
Blaine 48.25 %

1888 Harrison 47.82 %
Cleveland 48.62 %

[ComerPerro]

34. You must be very old

If you can remember that.


:P

[NoPasaran]

44. 1876

And in 1876 Tilden had the election stolen.

[dbt]

38. In living memory, not since Viet Nam 1

The regime has precious little time left to get us out of Iraq Nam or to find a way to shut down the Internet.

:freak:
dbt

[mlawson]

46. During Vietnam, the death count often went over 100 a day!

Not to minimize what happened this morning, but imagine how 'split and angry' THAT war made us!

[Piperay]

47. Viet Nam, much much worse

an ugly dark period in the history of the US people. :-(

[AlinPA]

50. If war were the only issue, yes, Vietnam; otherwise no, US is now split

on many issues. The split is deep and wide. Blue states vs red states on everything from war to the environment, covering many social issues.

[iangb]

54. A question.

I remember the Vietnam era in Australia. Here the split became political with those favouring the War supporting the (Lib) Government, and those opposing the War supporting the Labour Party (which had a strong anti-war policy).

I had the impression that the pro/anti divide in the US had no such political element, and that both parties were equally ambivalent about the War.

That does not seem to be the case today. The divide is purely political, with Iraq being the most important (but not the only) issue dividing the Nation.

True?

[kayell]

56. Vietnam was hell

I was a teenager, living 3 miles from Andrews AFB during Vietnam. As a pacifist teenager, known to be sort of a nerd anyway, living in a community filled with airforce families, it wasn't fun. A teacher at my high school once initiated a discussion of how people felt about the war. Foolish me announced that my parents planned to move the whole family to Canada if the war was still going on by the time my brothers were close to 18. Not only did I get blasted by the other students, the teacher ripped me open, and held up my family as examples of people aiding the enemy. My dad got some anonymous calls later. very scary. :scared:

The whole neighborhood was falling apart too, as fathers came back totally changed. Even at my age, I knew about several who came back with serious alcohol or drug problems. There were several divorces, abused families, and 2 suicides of recently returned air force fathers.

My grandfather for no apparent reason at all one day announced that if he ever saw me or my brothers with an american flag patch on our jeans, that he would rip it off and beat us black and blue.

People were crazy, many were violent towards people they even suspected might hold different opinions. I remember seeing a letter in the Readers Digest IIRC stating that the Kent state students should have been shot for their long hair alone!

Vietnam is a good comparison to what is happening now, and what can happen, both in Iraq and at home, in far too many ways. I am afraid that it could be even worse though, because at least during Vietnam, a substantial part of the press really was still liberal, or at least committed to showing and telling the truth. The BFEE has power Tricky Dick could only fantasize about, a much more scary threat in terrorism than communism was by the '60s, and a complicent media.

[nomatrix]

59. You didn't have the internet

so you had to get together to protest. Concerts (remember good music?) might be the last time you saw those drafted, and the ones who made it back from hell, changed forever. Connected through the pain of betrayal that you'd never trust the establishment (gov't) again.

After VietNam most of the enlisted I knew, came from rural, no chance to get ahead states, looking for education by the millitary, nuclear navy to get into nuclear plants and paying jobs.
Chasing the Soviet subs. Remember what a threat the cold war was suppose to be? It didn't just disappear. Those weapons are still out there. Whose got it all? If there's anything to fear it's how we're recreating the same mistakes in the Middle East. Distracted.

The only things that will give us that sense of absolute helplessness is to reinstate the draft and shut off the internet. It will force resistance into the streets of civil disobedience. All yets...

[SoCalDem]

61. Haves vs Have-nots.. It has ever been thus

Humans are an odd bunch.. We have always taken sides and demonized the "other"..

We are just getting "better at it", with the ever-intrusive media and polling companies..

If you consider that children become socially conscious at around 13 years old, and do not usually become complacent until they become parents, it's easy to see that there will always be "noise"..

My issue may be everything to me, but yours may be equally important to you, and not even a blip on my radar..

Every generation seems to focus on an issue or two that resonates with many different groups, and if it's a life & death issue, things get really ugly..

Sides were taken regarding women's lib, but since it was not really a blood & guts issue, the fervor did not last and things settled down..

Wars are a different thing though, people DO die and DO get maimed for life.. These differences fester and ooze hatred of the "other"..

1968 was the "perfect storm" for differences.. It was not long past the ugliness of civil rights, the two Kennedy assassinations were still vivid in people's minds.. King's assassination , that April lit the fire and it burned for a long time.. The anger stirred up, did end the war, but it still took SEVEN years until it was officially OVER.. Youngsters today, think that we marched around, smoked some weed, taunted some cops, and everything ended..


As for Boomers becoming complacent.... what would you have us do?? Life does go on, and when one marries and has children,it's not uncommon to support them.. Housing prices have always been "affordable" at the edge of communities, so naturally the suburban way of life evolved as we did.. We were creatures of our habitat, just like the young ones today will be of theirs..

What needs remembering, is that a lot of the environmental, workplace,gender equity,civil rights, etc.. issues that are taken for granted today , are issues that OUR generation pushed for and actually managed to make happen..

Just like a relay race, one person does not carry the baton for the whole race, ...we had our turn...now it is YOUR turn..

[moz4prez]

63. yes, back in the 60's

the 1860's, that is :P