Battle for the soul of the sixties just getting started

It’s been four decades since the battle over the 1960s to determine the direction of the country. The kids from the era are grown, grandparents, AARP members, but still fighting the same old fights.


National politics remains a battle between the doves and the hawks, with the battle lines determined during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Chicago.

The factions remain the same, but what has changed in 2008 is the team that is winning the latest skirmish.

After years in the hinderlands, away from the power in D.C. the Clean for Gene crowd have finally found their Messiah and are prepared to follow him to the halls of power.

The struggle in the sixties can be encapsulated as a clash between the two sides’ lovable losers: Barry Goldwater representing the hawks and Eugene McCarthy representing the doves.

The kids that followed these two real mavericks are now the sometimes power brokers in the Democratic and Republican parties, but remain the “America, love it or leave it” crowd versus the “Make love not war” gang.

Neither side has the slightest idea what the opposition is all about.

Take for instance the controversy over William Ayers. One side thinks living within a three-block radius of his residency is enough to disqualify a Presidential candidate. The other side sees Ayers as a 60s hero. Classic -- failure to communicate.

The “I’m with Barry” crowd of 1964 learned a lesson from their huge defeat in 1964, but the “Clean with Gene” crowd weren’t nearly as quick to crack the books as their Republican counterparts after their big defeat at Chicago68.

The Goldwater kids were trainable: Nixon wasn’t the One, but he was going to be the One for the time. They managed to go to the capital and learn about how to work the system.

The McCarthy followers were named Clean for Gene in 1968 because many of the followers were youth who cut their hair, replaced their sandals with shoes, and put away their beads and flowers to canvas for McCarthy.

After their loss in 1968 the Clean for Gene crowd went home to run for their local water districts and city councils, assuming all they had to do was bide their time and pay some dues.

The McCarthyites would occasionally show up in national elections, but always with poor results – George McGovern, ABC (Anybody But Carter), Governor Moonbeam, Teddy Kennedy, John B. Anderson, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and John Kerry.

The Democratic party winners since the 1960s, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, were hardly the Clean for Gene types. Both were moderate Southern governors who took off the 1960s. They weren’t even in Chicago, damn it.

Meanwhile the Goldwaterites had found their man, the heir apparent to Goldwater, but much better at the getting elected part: Ronald Reagan.

While 1976 was too early for the Gipper, by 1980, everything was perfect, and all fractions of the Republican party were in line to get Ronnie elected, and for them, it was Morning in America.

One thing Ronnie could do better than Goldwater, Nixon, Pete McCloskey, Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney, Gerald Ford, or any other GOP wannabe, was pander. Ronnie was everything to everybody and combined all the remnants of the party behind a cause, with that cause being getting Ronald Reagan elected.

Their party’s problem was a lack of a Ronnie Jr.

Bush the Elder served as Ronnie’s VP, but the Grand Old Party served with Ronnie, they knew Ronnie, he was a friend of theirs, and Pappy Bush was no Ronald Reagan.

Bush was from the rather small but sometimes powerful Kennebunkport segment of the GOP.

Still, they’d grown accustomed to their Georgetown brownstones, and really didn’t want to give them up for ideology. They could handle one term of Bush, but heck if they were going to work hard for him against some Arkansas governor.

To get back to their Georgetown brownstones, the GOP was going to have to be trained by the enemy: William Jefferson Clinton. They went looking for their own Bubba, and found him right next door to Clinton's old stomping ground in Arkansas.

Who would have imagined Ronnie Jr. would be none other than Pappy Bush’s Texas boy? He had the pandering to the groups down cold, and he would let the old Goldwater gang do what they wanted.

Then came John.

It was finally John McCain’s turn. McCain wrote in his memoirs, “I admired him [Barry Goldwater] to the point of reverence.” Surprise, surprise! Eight years of George Bush has torn apart the Grand Old Party that has nothing left for the oldest and loyalist of the Goldwater gang.

He tried to pander. Even his sacrificing his VP pick to the base wasn’t enough for the old hands. One thing they had learned is patience. With the country in such bad shape – caused by their own hands – Palin in ’12 could be their Ronnie III (or is that Goldwater IV?)

Everybody knew it was the end of the line, for Big John.

The Democratic party in Ott-Eight was having their own mini-battle over the soul of their party. Hillary was no Clean for Gene type. She even dared to write in her memoirs, “I liked Senator Goldwater because he was rugged individualist who swam against the political tide.”

Former Senator Tom Daschle never forgot his first love. As a 20 year old, then not even old enough to vote, he was there at O’Hare airport greeting Eugene McCarthy in 1968, the last great moment for the Clean with Gene crowd. Daschle had no need to get clean for Gene -- he was an ROTCer at South Dakota State University -- but the feelings from the tarmac in Chicago stayed with him for 40 years.

Daschle went looking for his own Ronnie Reagan and found him in Barrack Obama. It seemed a strange choice: inexperienced, a product of the Chicago Daly machine, African American, a funny name, young, and not involved in the sixties at all, but who would have thought the heir to Goldwater would come from the Bedtime for Bonzo movie (and not be the chimp.)

The Clean for Gene crowd now have their own Reagan Jr. ready to lead them to the promised-land, and surprisingly enough it looks like it is going to work.

And it only took 40 years.

The only thing the Goldwater/Reagan/Bush gang hadn’t counted on is the drop in value on their Georgetown brownstones. Will they sell them to their old nemesis, the Clean for Gene crowd, and take a chance they’ll still be in the tank in four years, or will they hold onto them hoping for Palin ’12?

Loosin' my freak flag

There is a movement in the air. For lack of a better name, let’s call it Barely Hairy for Barry or perhap Sheered Locks for Barrack. We'll need to focusgroup the names to see which one works better.

The original plan for this week was to continue looking at 2008 through acid-flashback eyes by writing about how the Barack Obama campaign is the Clean for Gene crowd of 40 years ago finally having their shot at the brass ring. But the story needs a bit more gestation and perhaps a bit of investigative reporting.

To get started on the investigation process, the first step was have brownish-grey locks sheered.

As mentioned last week, for the first time in many Presidential votes this reporter is supporting a major candidate who actually has a shot at winning.

In 1968 Eugene McCarthy ran for the Democratic nomination for President against the sitting Democratic President, Lyndon Johnson. Plenty of kids pissed off at LBJ about the Vietnam War jumped to the chance to oppose the hawk Johnson and supported the dove McCarthy. They cleaned up their act so they could canvas for McCarthy, hence the catchy phrase, Get Clean for Gene.

Additionally, Mom turned 75 on Friday and she claimed all she wanted for her birthday from her loving son was to cut his hair. Not just the usual haircut of pulling out the scissors or razor and doing self-inflicted surgery, but one done by a professional.

Barbers are about as important a part of life as tax accounts are for many college students. They have a place on the trust ladder a rung or two below lawyers and arms dealers.

Growing up in the sixty, barbers were the enemy. The hierarchy was:

Spiro Agnew
Tie between LBJ and Tricky Dicky
Barbers
The Cops
Sellers of skunkweed

Back in the day, barbershop visits had to happen. In a career as a member of the military industrial complex, no way freak flags could fly. Getting locks trimmed then was something that had to happen at least yearly, regardless if needed or not.

Luckily there was a barber in the family, a father-in-law, generally a nice guy despite his chosen profession. The divorce brought an end to that relationship and the closest ever gotten to a bond between barber and barberee was ended with the marriage. Who knows how different life would have turned out had that relationship been allowed to proceed?

After NASA, it was off to start Internet businesses. Hard to say if it was to get away from the military industrial complex or just to have the freak flag freedom.

Now in retirement, why worry about this barber-phobia. It’s all in the process of falling out anyway.

But whatever Mom wants, Mom gets, especially on her 75th birthday.

Driving around Sacramento looking for the telltale red and white barber pole is a hopeless endeavor.

While walking through a mall there was a sign $15.99 for a haircut.

The last time this reporter stepped inside a barbershop, haircuts were around $4.50, or the price of about three gallons of gas. The current price of a haircut was closer to four gallons of gas. Since so many are complaining about the price of gas, $15.99 must be reasonable for a haircut.

Better to pay $15.99 than $6.66.

No time to peruse old Playboys, Car and Driver, or Old Scratch Quarterly. The hair butcher didn’t look too scary. She looked like she might be pregnant, but one thing learned over many years, don’t ever make that assumption.

No evil smile or smell of sulphur.

She sat me down in a chair, asked what was to be done and then hardly spoke again. Barbers back in the day were famed for talking all sorts of garbage, generally obnoxious political ideas. They knew you weren’t going to argue with them since they held the sharp instruments.

The only concern sitting in the high chair was if blood pressure meds were taken that morning as prescribed.

A mere 10 minutes later out of the chair. Even tipped the gal a double fin for her troubles. What the heck, what’s a tenner when haircuts only happen every few years.

Mom loved it, blood pressure remained out of the danger zone, and as they say, it’s the thought that counts…

How do we go from one person getting a haircut for his Mom to a movement? The warrior-poet Arlo Guthrie once said exactly how to start a movement.

If one person does it, they’ll think he is sick.

If two people do it, they’ll think they are faggots (Arlo’s words, not mine. It was much less politically correct age then.)

If three people do it, they’ll think it is an organization.

And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in getting a haircut and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

And that is what this could become, the Barely Hairy for Barry Movement.

My September Rant

Lipstick on a pig? You gotta be kidding me! All the critical issues we could be talking about and we have gone mad over a tired old cliché.

What else is off limits? Casting pearls before swine? Paying lip service? Come and put a lip lock on my love pork chop?

Apparently Sarah Palin now owns lipstick references, just like Rudy Giuliani owns 911. How about we just pay her a royalty every time we reference pigs or lips? I think I owe her about a quarter so far, but maybe I’ll send her a couple bucks just so I got some credit in the piggy bank.

Unbelievably they call lipstick references sexist. Telling women they are baby incubators isn’t sexist, but lipstick on a pig… String him up! (But not in a racist, lynching fashion.)

This is an election that should be about ideas. Obama and McCain have as dynamically opposite views on the future of America as LBJ and Barry Goldwater.

Forget the reform crap. Hiring politicians to change the system will never work. They are successful politicians thanks to the system. They are as likely to bite the political hand that feeds them as our own President Gonzales is going to move into a cubicle after spending a quarter of a mil on remodeling his digs.

We’ll get something like McCain-Feingold, full of enough loop holes the politicians will have no trouble backing up the armored truck through them.

We got real problems in America. We are on our way to Banana Republic status, and the Bushies have been busy speeding up the process for eight years.

We are borrowing money at shylock rates like a Las Vegas high-roller told he only has six months to live. Our politicians don’t care. They’ll have cush jobs on Fox or MSNBNC when the bills come due.

Our energy policy was to ask the oil companies what we should do. Surprise, surprise, they can’t think of any reason to change our policy of filling up their pockets.

McCain says ignore all that stuff. We owe him the presidency for his honorable behavior after being captured and tortured by the North Vietnamese.

Yes people behaved honorably in the dishonorable war in Vietnam. We should not blame the men and women fighting for their country for leaders sending them were they have no business going. But still when discussing McCain’s service, lets not forget what he was doing in Southeast Asia.

This wasn’t Francis Gary Powers taking photos. This was McCain flying bombing missions in his A-4 Skyhawk. We can make the argument American sorties tried to reduce civilian casualties, but reducing isn’t the same as eliminating. Folks died.

When innocent civilians were killed on September 11, 2001, Americans were ready for revenge. There were calls for bombing just about every country that began with an A or an I. If we had the technology to kill every person in a country, many Americans would have gladly pushed the button.

Does it really matter to the Afghani or Vietnamese farmer who gave the order to kill his wife and children? Is he perhaps missing the fine point of an order coming from an Islamic fanatic hiding in a cave, a Commie despot in his palace, or a Democratically-elected Christian fanatic from his well-guarded mansion in Washington D.C.?

Yet we are shocked when told Vietnamese civilians beat up McCain when he crashed during his 23rd bombing mission. What would you do when face to face with someone who dropped bombs on your neighborhoods, schools, and homes?

John McCain wants us to remember his sacrifice for us in North Vietnam. Yet John McCain has forgotten. At one time McCain opposed Americans torturing their enemies. He cited his experiences in the Hanoi Hilton as why he opposed torture. McCain has forgotten his experience in that box and now supports torture.

We have always tortured. But now, instead of the Colonel who allowed the torture being prosecuted when he was found out, he is now patted on the back and told, “Heck of a job, Brownie.”

The torture McCain went through and his service in our name can and should be honored. But since he has clearly put it behind him then it is time we did also.


We need a leader who believes in prudence and empathy, virtues that have fallen out of favor in the U.S.

Use either word in a Bushie meeting and you have to go stand in the corner. If we have any desire to slow America’s slide into third-rate power, these are virtues we will need to embrace. I have doubts about Obama’s ability to make either a national policy, but I know both virtues would be just as repugnant to McCain as to the Bushies.

Democratic or Republican politicians – they are just two sides of the same coin. Neither will do much beyond advancing their own base and repaying their campaign contributors. Voting for either party was always throwing your vote away. That last thing either party needs is yet another vote, especially in California where it is obvious long before election day which party will win. It has always been better to give your vote to a third party who could actually make use of every vote they receive.

However, this year, we need to hold our noses and vote for Barrack Obama. Regardless of how we believe he might do as a president, it is time we make amends for the disaster of the last eight years. We need to send a clear message to the rest of the world that the Bushie era is over.