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Imperialism Inc.

(2,495 posts)
Wed Sep 21, 2016, 01:23 PM Sep 2016

The lousy reason I didn't vote in 1968 — and why Sanders supporters shouldn't fall for it


http://www.vox.com/2016/9/21/12987108/sanders-clinton-nixon-humphrey
...
As 1968 unfolds, it seems as if the entire globe is caught up in a struggle between the old and the young, between a tired, bloody present and a very different future. In Prague, reformists challenge Soviet domination and orthodoxy. In New Hampshire, anti-war Sen. Eugene McCarthy challenges Lyndon Johnson, and suddenly Vietnam is the most important issue in the Democratic presidential primaries. The forces of change and of the status quo keep colliding.

...
We have a failure of political imagination. We have a failure of moral imagination.

We sit out the election. We organize street protests. We march. We mock. We do not organize young people to vote in one of the closest elections in American history. There are tens of thousands of young people looking to us for direction. We do not say, "Make history. Swing this election to Humphrey and show how powerful we as a group now are." No, we say, "A plague on both your houses," and walk away.

...
Looking back, we young idealists and activists were not so much wrong in our assessments of Humphrey as we were totally wrong in our assessment of whether it matters if a corporate center liberal is elected over an insecure, unstable, right-wing candidate who does not respect the Constitution.

...
Our refusal to participate started a process of making our movement profoundly irrelevant. We allowed Richard Nixon to come to power. We allowed a right-wing counter-reformation to hold power and warp American politics for most of the next four decades. Within our movement, we allowed militancy to replace strategy.

...more...
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The lousy reason I didn't vote in 1968 — and why Sanders supporters shouldn't fall for it (Original Post) Imperialism Inc. Sep 2016 OP
Perhaps not the best analogy. malthaussen Sep 2016 #1
Presidential pardon expanded to cover future or unrevealed actions bigmonkey Sep 2016 #2
I agree. Trump is much much worse Mary Mac Sep 2016 #3
Personally, I was 12 in '68 :) malthaussen Sep 2016 #4
Nixon was really pretty bad struggle4progress Sep 2016 #6
I'm hip, I was there, it saved my bacon. malthaussen Sep 2016 #7
Agree strongly with this SCantiGOP Sep 2016 #5

malthaussen

(17,066 posts)
1. Perhaps not the best analogy.
Wed Sep 21, 2016, 02:48 PM
Sep 2016

How bad was Nixon, after all? Oh, yes, yes, I know, paranoid schizophrenic with delusions of godhood who abused power and -- gasp! -- bugged the DNC because he wanted to dig up dirt on his political enemies, who were legion.

He escalated Vietnam, yet he also pulled us out. He established detente with the USSR and opened China to diplomatic relations for the first time since WWII. He was instrumental in reducing international tensions and easing the Cold War -- which didn't last, once Reagan got into power. Query: were these bad things?

Several important reforms were enacted during his watch, whether he particularly wanted them or not. Does the EPA balance out against the DEA? Say it does, we're still back at zero. One could argue that he was not particularly good for domestic matters, but once he pulled out of Vietnam and the draft was discontinued, the continual riots and protests died down. Was this a bad thing?

He did, or rather the GOP did, start the whole movement towards the "Moral Majority" and the politics of hatred, and fed this for reasons of expediency. That, I'll stipulate, was unqualifiedly bad. But I suggest that if Mr Trump has his way, we will all look back upon the age of Nixon as a Golden Age. It might just could be that the present threat is bad enough without invoking generations-old boogeymen, about which I feel pretty confident in guessing most of the rising generation care not at all.

-- Mal

bigmonkey

(1,798 posts)
2. Presidential pardon expanded to cover future or unrevealed actions
Wed Sep 21, 2016, 04:00 PM
Sep 2016

You left that out. The Nixon crisis left us with that, which was the legal basis for the executive impunity the right wing has asserted ever since. The realization of Nixon's famous statement that if the president does it, it's legal.

It's the real dagger to the heart of our country that Nixon left us, if you ask me. He was its champion.

malthaussen

(17,066 posts)
4. Personally, I was 12 in '68 :)
Wed Sep 21, 2016, 04:54 PM
Sep 2016

I didn't know HHH or RMN from JFK. When forced to participate in a Presidential vote in social studies class, I said "I'm for Humphrey, but I voted for Nixon." Or maybe it was the other way around, I don't precisely recall.

I suppose it was much more significant to those a few years older than I, or more savvy. Me, I was much more interested in the Apollo program.

-- Mal

malthaussen

(17,066 posts)
7. I'm hip, I was there, it saved my bacon.
Thu Sep 22, 2016, 08:56 AM
Sep 2016

That proves that the extension of the draft had nothing to do with electing Nixon, Humphrey, or McGovern, so there is no call to lament Nixon's election on that score. The foreign policy shift that was concocted by him and Kissinger made the draft unnecessary; it might be fun to speculate whether the foreign policy shift was making a virtue of necessity or part of the famous "Plan" Nixon had for ending the Vietnam conflict. The war protesters like to claim that their activism created the necessity for a change, and the claim is not without merit; but it is possible that Nixon and Kissinger, once they figured out that military victory was impossible through the simple expedient of trying to achieve it, switched to Plan B.

-- Mal

SCantiGOP

(13,856 posts)
5. Agree strongly with this
Wed Sep 21, 2016, 10:32 PM
Sep 2016

I couldn't vote until '72 but I wouldn't have voted for Humphrey. That would have been a huge mistake because my best friend died in Viet Nam during Nixon's war, but I couldn't forgive LBJ for his war.

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