OMG, was living in Houston at the time, and I remember some of that, like the God-awful sentence for pot. Huntsville prison was notorious so I’m glad you didn’t walk that walk. That Dem convention pretty much tanked Dems that year. Hope for better this time. Dickie was enough punishment. Chump will finish us off if given the chance. Now that the whole Repub party is a cult, it could happen. Shockingly true, since the money seems to love his promise of more and the poor fools who contribute their last dime to him are brain dead. Go Kamala and Tim.
What the fuck? Over! The part about the Blooper brought back a lot of memories of 1968 for me and the M-79 grenade launcher I had in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive that started at the end of January. My tour of duty ended by early summer and I watched the Democratic convention in August on television, drinking beer and smoking pot, wishing it was the same righteous ganja we had in the war. Two of the dudes in my circle of friends then had been Lurps, (Long Range Recon Patrol) in country and went AWOL when they came home and got orders to join crowd-control units in Washington, D.C. After a year of serious combat in Vietnam and then being told to police peace protestors back home in America was the last straw for these guys. Both ended up with dishonorable discharges of some sort. Another Fine Mess created by the warmongers running the American Empire!
My memory of the DNC of 1968 was watching the shit going down in Chicago on TV with Mayor Daley’s PD goon squads busting up protesters on the streets around the convention. I couldn’t believe that this was happening in the USA, but it was. And from it all, we got the biggest booby prize of all (at that time) in November when Tricky Dick got the Presidency and the body bag count kept ticking up in ‘Nam…
Yeah, we got Tricky Dick because 100,000 of us decided the Democratic Party wasn't worth voting for. Humphrey lost by less than that. I learned my lesson. Not voting got us what we didn't want: Nixon and four more years of war, with the majority of the total casualties of the war in those years.
I did vote for Humphrey because I didn't trust Nixon. But I was still in shock over the loss of Bobby Kennedy. I still believe RFK would have defeated Nixon. My lasting memory from 1968 was a phone call from my brother back in Canada. I had just become an American the year before and Gary was chastising me for no longer being a Canadian. He said aren't you sorry now? All you've got is Tricky Dick or Humpty Dumpty and we've got suave, debonair Pierre Trudeau.
We definitely share that memory. I was a college student and we had been protesting (loudly) against the Vietnam War. I thought Mayor Daley was a backroom thug, a leftover political machine from the turn of he century.
I turned 17 in 1968 -- the year I came of political age. The next year, as a college freshman in D.C., I was a marshal at the huge November 15 Mobe march. And I'm still learning about what 1968 was about. Thanks for adding to the story!
I have a friend who got her head bashed in Chicago when Mayor Daley loosed the cops on the crowd.
What a year, starting with the Pueblo being taken by North Korea, the TET offensive, student protests here and abroad, Martin Luther King Jr. assassination in April, Bobby Kennedy shot in LA a couple months later, Chicago DNC, Then there was the Bobby Seale trial in ‘69 when he was bound and gagged in court. and then a landslide victory for Nixon in November.
My parents voted for Nixon. I’ll never understand that, did they hate me so much they wanted me drafted? I asked them and they assured me I wasn’t a consideration in their decision. They may have actually been a nastier sentiment (when Bobby got shot, we had a major falling out).
My memory of that terrible day is still with me. My mother took us four children to the beach in NC. We were ages 17, 16, 15 (me), and 12 years old at the time. We didn't have much money, so the 5 of us stayed in a single motel room -- 2 doubles and a cot. My Mom was always very on top of the news (lifelong Democrat, very active in the Civil Rights and antiwar movements). So we turned on the TV to watch the Democratic convention in Chicago. What I remember is my mother's HORROR at what we were seeing. She was stunned, and so we were, too. My mother was LIVID that Hubert Horatio Humphrey had become the Democratic candidate. She believed that he had stolen the nomination and was in there, very tight with the mobster (too strong a word, I know) Mayor, Richard Daley. She was certain that HHH would lose. Of course he did. She and my father was extreme supporters of Eugene McCarthy. I remember how furious my father was when RFK joined the crowd of Democratic candidates. They believed that RFK was nothing but a spoiler, and it was his fault that McCarthy didn't become the candidate. It was a black, bleak day for our family. Worse than the day that RFK was killed. [Now his assassination freaked ME out. First was MLK, Jr.; then Bobby. I remember going up to my French teacher, who happened to be Black -- I was in 10th grade that Spring -- and almost in shock asking, "Now what? Who's next??" and her response: she shook her head and whispered, "I don't know. I just don't know." What a terrible time to come of age.]
"Chicago 1968" & the 'Chicago 7 Trial" afterwards had a massive generational impact on my fellow undergrads at UCLA through graduation changing many lives forever. Some split right away for abandoned shacks in the 'Gold Country', some to Trinity Lake area where dirt roads led to cheap land patches & others split to Canada.
Other friends stayed to actively resist the Vietnam War, others -- the stay-inside-and-fight crowd changed majors to get those pre-med courses completed; joined legal defense funds, appeared in pro per to defend a no-show induction order delivered on the 1st day after graduation & won.
Of course, the Draft Board did not make it easy for this SoCal guy; I was ordered to appear in Salt Lake City, UTAH.
A fitting requiem for the era was Alan Ginsberg's testimony under oath at the Chicago 7 Trial which is the first & only testimony I have ever read that was essentially a poem-chant in a courtroom:
Mr. Weinglass: Are you still studying under your former teachers? [Gary Snyder & Bahkti Vendata]
Alan Ginsberg: " Yes ... I have chanted in different cities ... especially on public occasions" ... "relax the body & calm the mind".
The Court: "The witness' profession is vague".
You get the 1968 picture ... when world's collide! "You do not need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows". The Weathermen went underground.
What happened to the 41 black GIs that refused to go?
I seem to remember that they were treated more harshly, or, more to the point, just how one would expect how they would be treated given the place and time.
Once they were released from prison, they seem to have dropped into obscurity. Unfortunately, the story of the Fort Hood 43 never got wide play. The Army made sure of thatr.
Texas, ahh, Texas. You must have been there on a dare, right?
I hope the self-styled militia types don't show up--with or without--disguises to taint the Dems' proceedings. Pro-Palestinians will be there, which is to be expected, but when the armed right wingers show up, it's a given that there'll be casualties to stem the JoyTide. (Anybody know the current whereabouts of Kyle Rittenhouse? Yes, I have my wellfounded anxieties.)
Sort of a dare. After the RFK assassination, I wanted to do something solid againstthe war. Marvin Garson, my editor at the San Francisco Express-Times asked me to write an article about an event where some people were speaking about the GI antiwar movement, and one of them was a recruiter for the coffeehouses. Linda wanted to get away from the job she had, and the two of us decided we'd volunteer - two weeks later we were in Killeen the day before the coffeehouse opened.
A well told tale, Tom. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
And worthy of the telling.
OMG, was living in Houston at the time, and I remember some of that, like the God-awful sentence for pot. Huntsville prison was notorious so I’m glad you didn’t walk that walk. That Dem convention pretty much tanked Dems that year. Hope for better this time. Dickie was enough punishment. Chump will finish us off if given the chance. Now that the whole Repub party is a cult, it could happen. Shockingly true, since the money seems to love his promise of more and the poor fools who contribute their last dime to him are brain dead. Go Kamala and Tim.
What the fuck? Over! The part about the Blooper brought back a lot of memories of 1968 for me and the M-79 grenade launcher I had in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive that started at the end of January. My tour of duty ended by early summer and I watched the Democratic convention in August on television, drinking beer and smoking pot, wishing it was the same righteous ganja we had in the war. Two of the dudes in my circle of friends then had been Lurps, (Long Range Recon Patrol) in country and went AWOL when they came home and got orders to join crowd-control units in Washington, D.C. After a year of serious combat in Vietnam and then being told to police peace protestors back home in America was the last straw for these guys. Both ended up with dishonorable discharges of some sort. Another Fine Mess created by the warmongers running the American Empire!
"What the fuck? Over!" was the funniest thing I ever heard on the ship-to-shore radio in Vietnam.
My memory of the DNC of 1968 was watching the shit going down in Chicago on TV with Mayor Daley’s PD goon squads busting up protesters on the streets around the convention. I couldn’t believe that this was happening in the USA, but it was. And from it all, we got the biggest booby prize of all (at that time) in November when Tricky Dick got the Presidency and the body bag count kept ticking up in ‘Nam…
Yeah, we got Tricky Dick because 100,000 of us decided the Democratic Party wasn't worth voting for. Humphrey lost by less than that. I learned my lesson. Not voting got us what we didn't want: Nixon and four more years of war, with the majority of the total casualties of the war in those years.
Dems are flawed. Repubs are evil, going back a’ways
I did vote for Humphrey because I didn't trust Nixon. But I was still in shock over the loss of Bobby Kennedy. I still believe RFK would have defeated Nixon. My lasting memory from 1968 was a phone call from my brother back in Canada. I had just become an American the year before and Gary was chastising me for no longer being a Canadian. He said aren't you sorry now? All you've got is Tricky Dick or Humpty Dumpty and we've got suave, debonair Pierre Trudeau.
We definitely share that memory. I was a college student and we had been protesting (loudly) against the Vietnam War. I thought Mayor Daley was a backroom thug, a leftover political machine from the turn of he century.
It’s going to be different this time!!
It definitely is.
I love your personal stories like this one.
I turned 17 in 1968 -- the year I came of political age. The next year, as a college freshman in D.C., I was a marshal at the huge November 15 Mobe march. And I'm still learning about what 1968 was about. Thanks for adding to the story!
I have a friend who got her head bashed in Chicago when Mayor Daley loosed the cops on the crowd.
What a year, starting with the Pueblo being taken by North Korea, the TET offensive, student protests here and abroad, Martin Luther King Jr. assassination in April, Bobby Kennedy shot in LA a couple months later, Chicago DNC, Then there was the Bobby Seale trial in ‘69 when he was bound and gagged in court. and then a landslide victory for Nixon in November.
My parents voted for Nixon. I’ll never understand that, did they hate me so much they wanted me drafted? I asked them and they assured me I wasn’t a consideration in their decision. They may have actually been a nastier sentiment (when Bobby got shot, we had a major falling out).
What a story! I remember this day too...it was two days after our wedding and we were in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
My memory of that terrible day is still with me. My mother took us four children to the beach in NC. We were ages 17, 16, 15 (me), and 12 years old at the time. We didn't have much money, so the 5 of us stayed in a single motel room -- 2 doubles and a cot. My Mom was always very on top of the news (lifelong Democrat, very active in the Civil Rights and antiwar movements). So we turned on the TV to watch the Democratic convention in Chicago. What I remember is my mother's HORROR at what we were seeing. She was stunned, and so we were, too. My mother was LIVID that Hubert Horatio Humphrey had become the Democratic candidate. She believed that he had stolen the nomination and was in there, very tight with the mobster (too strong a word, I know) Mayor, Richard Daley. She was certain that HHH would lose. Of course he did. She and my father was extreme supporters of Eugene McCarthy. I remember how furious my father was when RFK joined the crowd of Democratic candidates. They believed that RFK was nothing but a spoiler, and it was his fault that McCarthy didn't become the candidate. It was a black, bleak day for our family. Worse than the day that RFK was killed. [Now his assassination freaked ME out. First was MLK, Jr.; then Bobby. I remember going up to my French teacher, who happened to be Black -- I was in 10th grade that Spring -- and almost in shock asking, "Now what? Who's next??" and her response: she shook her head and whispered, "I don't know. I just don't know." What a terrible time to come of age.]
and here I just remember Dan Rather getting roughed up!
"Chicago 1968" & the 'Chicago 7 Trial" afterwards had a massive generational impact on my fellow undergrads at UCLA through graduation changing many lives forever. Some split right away for abandoned shacks in the 'Gold Country', some to Trinity Lake area where dirt roads led to cheap land patches & others split to Canada.
Other friends stayed to actively resist the Vietnam War, others -- the stay-inside-and-fight crowd changed majors to get those pre-med courses completed; joined legal defense funds, appeared in pro per to defend a no-show induction order delivered on the 1st day after graduation & won.
Of course, the Draft Board did not make it easy for this SoCal guy; I was ordered to appear in Salt Lake City, UTAH.
A fitting requiem for the era was Alan Ginsberg's testimony under oath at the Chicago 7 Trial which is the first & only testimony I have ever read that was essentially a poem-chant in a courtroom:
Mr. Weinglass: Are you still studying under your former teachers? [Gary Snyder & Bahkti Vendata]
Alan Ginsberg: " Yes ... I have chanted in different cities ... especially on public occasions" ... "relax the body & calm the mind".
The Court: "The witness' profession is vague".
You get the 1968 picture ... when world's collide! "You do not need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows". The Weathermen went underground.
That
What happened to the 41 black GIs that refused to go?
I seem to remember that they were treated more harshly, or, more to the point, just how one would expect how they would be treated given the place and time.
Once they were released from prison, they seem to have dropped into obscurity. Unfortunately, the story of the Fort Hood 43 never got wide play. The Army made sure of thatr.
Thanks for shari9ng the memory, Tom
Texas, ahh, Texas. You must have been there on a dare, right?
I hope the self-styled militia types don't show up--with or without--disguises to taint the Dems' proceedings. Pro-Palestinians will be there, which is to be expected, but when the armed right wingers show up, it's a given that there'll be casualties to stem the JoyTide. (Anybody know the current whereabouts of Kyle Rittenhouse? Yes, I have my wellfounded anxieties.)
Sort of a dare. After the RFK assassination, I wanted to do something solid againstthe war. Marvin Garson, my editor at the San Francisco Express-Times asked me to write an article about an event where some people were speaking about the GI antiwar movement, and one of them was a recruiter for the coffeehouses. Linda wanted to get away from the job she had, and the two of us decided we'd volunteer - two weeks later we were in Killeen the day before the coffeehouse opened.