Let me share with you a passage I recently discovered in a very revealing essay:
"Those of us who opposed such tactics [to oppose the war] argued they would alienate the moderate potential opponents of the war, whose support was needed to bring a change in policy. We argued that to equate [the President] with Hitler and America with Nazi Germany would make it impossible to develop a wide alliance against the war."
Let me add this passage as well regarding war protesters in countries other than America:
"[The war], of course, could justify anything [insofar as protests were concerned]. And yet the same ferocity can be seen in countries such as Germany, Italy, and Japan, which are really scarcely involved, allies though they are in other respects, in our war ... and in a country like France, which actively disapproves of our role. Undoubtedly [the war] has enormously strengthened the movement of antipathy and anger, and not only because our powerful nation was engaged in the destruction–whatever the reasons for it–of a small and poor one."
Why am I so enamored of these passages? Because they were written by a self-described liberal intellectual in 1969.
You see, this (now f0rmer) liberal was Nathan Glazer, and his words appeared in an article entitled "The Campus Crucible: Student Politics and the University" published in The Atlantic Monthly. In his essay he describes, in part, the split that occurred in 1964 between American intellectuals, with radical and liberal split asunder by disagreements over methods of political activism.
How noteworthy is it to learn that 1960s radicals were comparing Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat president, to Adolph Hitler; or the United States to the Third Reich? It is incredibly noteworthy; there is indeed nothing new under the sun. Have you not heard the radicals on the left currently chime in with the same sort of opprobrium and invective directed at President George W. Bush and America, particularly the Neoconservative leadership of America? Were not Rumsfeld and Rove and Wolfowitz and Cheney all described as nasty nationalists, you know, Nazis? (NH bumper sticker outside polling station: Bush-Cheney '04–Sieg Heil!)
But Glazer's descriptions were of Vietnam and the 1960s revolt against that war. Why should we care?
We should care for the simple reason that the Age of Aquarius generation is now at the zenith of its political power, and much of the political activism we saw between young radicals, liberals, and conservatives in the streets and academies in the 1960s is now repeating itself in the baby-boomer, grey-haired sets we watch and listen to on TV and radio; in our artists and pundits; and our professors chairing university departments. We should care because the 1960s are trying to be relived, particularly in the leftist sets pining for the bygone days of grandiose revolts against the status quo. And we are seeing the children and grandchildren of these postmiddle-aged revolutionaries emulating their forbears' political and ideological bliss by trying to create a Vietnam scenario of their own. In short, we should care because perhaps much of the protestation we see today is so much vanity and self-aggrandizement.
It is positively chilling to read Glazer's essay, because it provides more than enough fodder to prove my thesis: the current anti-war movement is about power and nostalgia. It is not about defending Iraqis or American soldiers; it is about using the war to "justify anything" that will shatter the status quo; that will work politically to set the electorate against the "Institution" embodied by Republicans in order to restore Democrats to their lost glory. It is about their "feelings" and "identities." It is about finding a new Rosa Parks (God bless her soul), a new cause célèbre, a new paradigm for which these deliverers can be proud.
And let us be candid: George W. Bush was not ever a 1960s radical. Hence he and his supporters represent that constituency that defies the beatnik, bohemian, counter-cultural hippie leftovers now sitting in high places in the Senate, at the New York Times, and in Hollywood. George W. is a square. He ain't never going to be hip.
So what does this mean? What this means is that if George W. Bush wins in Iraq; if he secures a real peace there, establishes a bona-fide government and begins withdrawing troops from the mid-east, the 1960s Age of Aquarius has ended. THAT is what is on the line here: the end of a mythology all tied up in drugs, freedom, and the Vietnam War. Bush will prove what could have been done in Vietnam by manifesting what can be done today, with leadership and commitment, in Iraq.
A Bush victory in Iraq represents the victory of the square. "The man" will have been right.
Contratimes
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
Nathan Glazer's essay, "The Campus and the Crucible: Student Politics and the University" is excerpted from The Essential Neoconservative Reader, edited by Mark Gerson and published by Addison-Wesley, 1996. Pages 41-63.
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