our history

Our Legacy on America’s and the world’s history is yet to be fully written.  We have the makings of a great generation, adversity, intense issues with the world, issues worth solving.  Yet I worry about our decisions to push things off onto the next generation.  Global Warming is an issue we must move on now, or our future will be bleak, people consider education and science to be things not needed.  The lethargy of the 80s and 90s generation will haunt us later I believe.  No one seems to care about the important things enough to solve them, only enough to either say they care and not make amends for it, or to capitalize on the issue and make money off of it.  I am among the former sadly, I feel very strongly about particular issues, but not to go any farther than to write my representative and senator.  The issue that this causes is perhaps the idea of Nixon’s silent majority.  We may hold a majority on most issues, but no one cares enough to do anything about it, save extremists on both sides.  We are far too alienated to do anything but allow the status quo to continue on its march.  Our lives take up too much time to make any rational moves on national and international policy, so we do nothing and allow those who do not have our best interests in mind to make what they will of our world.  So this is our history.

Reagan

The rise of Conservatism within the political world of the United States was one of paradoxical ascension.  The standards of shrink government, increase freedoms for businesses and individuals, and allow the economy to grow how it naturally would was contrasted by the increase in federal spending, a continued expansion of the military, and a change in the tax code to greatly favor the wealthy.  The separation between grassroots activists serving Reagan and the wealthy Americans who funded his campaigns was an ideological one, and a red herring at that.  The issue was, and the reason Reagan was elected, was that he spoke to people about tax cuts to wealthier Americans as if they were to get those cuts, while for the most part, those people wouldn’t see a dime of the break he proposed.  The ones who supported him financially, on the other hand, were about to see a large increase in income from his tax policy.  The disparaging conflicts between his grass roots followers  and the upper class supporters was fixed by his use of class confusion within his speeches.  Class confusion allowed the poorer grass roots supporters to feel as if the tax breaks for the upper class were actually for them, because in their mind at the time, both the upper class and them shared income, thus would share in the tax cuts.  This idea that helping the rich helps everyone was the base for trickle down economics, and we can see its effects on today’s economy.

Hippies

The term counter culture insinuates a subculture that rejects the basic core values of the primary culture. The issue with using counter culture as a term to define the 60s is that all of the groups that protested the war during the 60s and 70s still adhered to the core values of the primary culture. The core values of America are individualism to a hyper extent, and a basis of capitalism. All the hippie movements from height-ashbury and the black panthers still use the core values. Even in group marriage convents, people had been raised to follow certain rules, and when they attempted not to, things fell apart. They were enculturated to follow monogamy, and utilize their individualism to the fullest extent. A culture isn't about espousing ideals, but living them. Thus perhaps the only counter culture we have had since our countries founding were the native Americans and perhaps the Amish. The reason people use counter culture as the term for the hippie and antiwar movements was due to the great rejection of the status quo by these people. It was a social movement, a great one, but not its own culture. This change of words between social movement and a counter culture creates a bit of a red herring about culture, race, and social stigma. If we let this continue uncontrolled it has the possibility of setting us back 100 years in talk about culture. That's an issue that needs to be addressed by people before its too late, culture is culture, and hippies share ours.

Perspective

Perspective is what makes us who we are, its how we analyze today, its how we look at history. I wanted to look at Vietnam from a different perspective, specifically the Vietnamese pro-communist. In their mind the French, then Americans, each were attempting at a colonial land grab. The US urges them to suspend elections due to the support of the communists within the country, and when the president of South Vietnam agrees to talk with Ho Chi Minh, the US stages a coup against him. To imagine what a common Vietnamese man, or woman must have felt at this. We waged a revolution over taxes, yet when their very government is usurped by the US, they must not be upset? Between 500,000 and 3 million Vietnamese lost their lives, compared to 58,000 U.S. Soldiers. Both sides numbers are upsetting, but the Vietnamese not only lost soldiers, but children and Women, who were shot with suspicion of being the enemy. The carnage felt on both sides is astounding. When we left and the North crushed the South, it was not because they had a great superior force, they held the keys of popular belief and opinion. Those same keys that the french and US abused in order to play their hand against the Soviets.

This is my point, we speak only of our loss, of our missions, of our victories. If we were to gain some perspective on situations we may not fall into this mess again, and again, and again.  

on Malcolm X

The civil rights leaders of the 1960s all met violent deaths.  Dr. King and Malcolm X were assassinated, others gunned down outside their homes.  What about the social change caused such an uproar that people would rather kill them instead of let them preach?  The social movement that had and still does change the minds and hearts of people throughout the country was still raging in the streets.  Malcolm X had left the NOI in favor of a more moderate approach to Islam, even accepting whites.  This ended in his death, as members of the NOI gunned him down in 1965.  MLK did not live much longer, as he was killed in 1968.  The doctor said that at 39 years old, he had a heart that looked 60, perhaps from the stress of his life.  Both these men have conspiracy theories around their deaths, and both of them had begun to change their views to a more global scale.  One could wonder what the world would be like if these men had lived.

The post war era

With the allied victory in WW2, there was a large divide of power and influence between the two leading rival powers, the United states on one hand, and the USSR on the other.  With the US's advance via nuclear weapon stymied by the Soviets development of it, an arms race was started in order to maintain supremacy of each nation.  Eisenhower saw this as a necessary evil, one that may disappear in a later time.  The rise of the red scare, fueled by right wing xenophobes, gave rise to a great conservative movement.  Barry Goldwater and McCarthy both took advantage to this, and gained power with fear as a base.

On world war two

World War two is labelled as perhaps the classic view of good versus evil, the complete evil that was Hitler against the sparkling wonder of the allies, the United States especially.  This is not true, in fact many on all sides viewed Hitler as a great leader, even with admiration, before the war broke out.  Antisemitism ran rampant while governments across the west flirted with fascism.  When the Nazis conquered France they set up a puppet state that was supported by a small part of the population.  Meaning, that even after being conquered, portions of the French people thought that the Nazis still had it right.  This combined with the native Gestapo in each country shows the inherent issue with the Allies begin knights in shining armor.  This glamor was placed on it by post war PR spins by political and media moguls.  While we were complacent to the destruction of several peoples, the Jews in particular, we acted in hindsight to save face.  Such is the way of our great nation, we weren't the shining knight who saved Europe from Hitler, in fact we didn't care enough to act sooner.