It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.
~Voltaire
It was the late sixties. Every night the slaughter of Vietnam was displayed, cataloged and counted on television screens, black and white footage, and the fury of war right before supper. Body counts, and chaos, and KIA reports as an appetizer. Somehow it didn’t seem odd to my ten-year-old mind.
Neither did the protest marches, sit in’s and draft card bonfires happening around the country. Nor did the small, poorly choreographed protests at the small liberal arts college in the town where I lived. It was all part of the fabric of America, the tapestry of life.
It just happened, and people always came to watch.
Almost every weekend there was something. It called me, and I responded. Riding my bike down to the small campus, in the middle of town, I would watch as the lines formed, youth, rebellion, fringed leather vests, beads, long hair, beards, and mistrust on one side.
On the other, retirees, age, establishment, a civic-minded belief in the sacrifice for duty. Mistrust gripped both sides, drove both to loathing and contempt. In a way, it was all just a show.
In a way, it was all just a show. More vigorous outdoor activity than anything. It was a small town and people didn’t really have the taste for violence. Shouting, and finger-pointing and animosity would boil, and die. Occasionally things got out of hand, and the authorities would have to intervene, but mostly it was an elaborate dance. Performance art with picket signs.
At the time, though the connection was lost to my inexperienced mind, across the country the scene was being played out, over and over. Lines formed, surged, clashed and retreated. A wire spread across the whole country, taut, humming constantly, the reverberations echoing from coast to coast.
A change in New York reverberated all the way to California. It was building to something, a horrible crescendo. In some places, protests weren’t viewed as performance art. In those places it was serious. Deadly serious. Those things are lost on a ten-year-old.
As the war grew in scope and ferocity young soldiers kept dying. The nation turned on itself, anger spilled over into the streets. Frustration clouded judgment. In Chicago, the democratic national convention turned into a war scene. Protesters clashed with police in the most horrific scenes. Scenes that scarred the national psyche, and tortured the foundations of freedom and liberty.
Then one day it happened. A National Guard unit opened fire on protesters at Kent State University killing four of them. It was an unbelievable tragedy, and the country was torn between mourning and insurrection. It was the brink of the abyss. Nothing was sacred and nobody was sure what was going to happen next.
Things changed, everywhere. But, in my little town the fear of insanity, the loss of control, the potential for the most awful, irreversible conflict caused both sides to walk a little more politely. The marches stopped, and people looked stricken. Eventually the war ended, and the students graduated, moving on toward a brighter future, chasing the American Dream.
But, there was a terrible lesson there. An avoidable tragedy. Lives lost in a fractured minute of misunderstanding. I look at the country today and think all of those things have been forgotten, that the cycle has started again. The madness has to be fed.
Our government is fueling divisions in the population. It is called “energizing the base.” People are mobilizing. Battle lines are being drawn, camps established. Armed militias patrol the borders. The freedom of the press is under assault. Every day we crawl closer to the edge.
Nineteen seventy seems like the distant past. I worry what is going to happen. We should all worry.
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