The big screen magnified two important reflections from the previous year in 1969. Haskell Wexler’s hard-hitting documentary, Medium Cool revealed even more horrible details of the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Arthur Penn directed Alice’s Restaurant, based on Arlo Guthrie’s classic antiwar song from 1968. Arlo played the lead, and at the draft board tried to use reverse psychology on the Army shrink: “You’ve got to let me in, Doc. I wanna kill. I wanna rape and maim. I wanna burn villages and massacre women and children.” Teens laughed at the absurd, black humor until November 16th, when TV news reported on a day in the life of Lt. William Calley at My Lai. Truth turned out to be more absurd than fiction for a Boomer kid in 1969. To this day, Gomer Pyle remains the only popular media military hero from the entire Vietnam era.
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Nixon, jealous of Pyle, expanded the war into Cambodia. But, at home, Dickie lost ground… even in the once-friendly courtroom. The Chicago Eight Circus Extravaganza inflicted great damage to the system, and now, in “Cohen vs. California”, the judge decided that a young man could legally wear “Fuck the Draft” on his jacket. The Supreme Court also ruled that students could sport black armbands in protest of the war. On July 11th, a US Court of Appeals overturned the convictions of Dr. Spock and three of his peers for aiding and abetting draft resisters.
Nixon appealed to the “Silent Majority” and they answered in a Gallop Poll: 58% of America now strongly opposed involvement in Vietnam. A massive National Vietnam Moratorium Day took place on October 15th, including vigils and demonstrations in every major city. Thousands of young soldiers in Vietnam donned black armbands in support. Vice President Agnew called the protestors “the effete corps of impudent snobs”.
The Moratorium caught the media’s attention, but in the end turned out to be just a rehearsal for the main event. 250,000 Americans, including Dr. Spock, Coretta King, George McGovern, Eugene McCarthy, Senator Charles Goodell, Leonard Bernstein, and thousands of Vietnam vets and war widows staged a peaceful “March Against Death” exactly one month later in Washington, D.C. Police arrested 186 people at a “Mass for Peace” in front of the Pentagon. This group of “impudent snobs” included two Episcopal bishops and forty other clergymen. Nixon swore in his Inaugural Address, “For its part, government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways to voices of quiet anguish.” But, when it came time to make good on his promise, Dick simply ignored the massive demonstrations. Nixon suffered from extreme paranoia since the very beginning of his term. He watched the Inaugural parade from behind bulletproof glass, and when reporters asked of his plans, Dickie answered, “They gave me a key to the front door (of the White House) and I’m going to see if it fits.” But, much to his surprise, it did fit, and now no one could tell Dick Nixon how to run his country. Trickie Dickie was prepared to use the CIA, FBI, IRS and the National Guard against anyone whom he considered as a threat to his authority, and judging from the size and wide variety of names on his famous “Enemies List”, that could include just about anyone.
Tyrannosaurus Nix (as christened by Lawrence Ferlinghetti) quietly went about his work to keep the war rolling, and to divide and conquer the opposition. Dick made what can only be considered as a masterstroke of genius on November 26th, as he took aim at his biggest problem. He signed into law a bill for a lottery of Selective Service draftees. “Now let’s see how hard a Boomer kid protests against the war after he knows that he is not among those condemned to go.” Nixon figured that his new law would quiet down the wimpy WASP teens. Black radicals might require a stronger message. Police broke into a Chicago apartment and shot down unarmed Illinois Black Panther Chairman, Fred Hampton and one of his peers. The ACLU claimed that the two men had been murdered.
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John Fogerty predicted, “I see a bad moon on the rising/ I see trouble on the way/ I see earthquakes and lightning/ I see bad times today.” Let me make this perfectly clear… Nixon did not defeat the hippie/ Yippie/ Boomer counterculture. Instead, a series of rapid-fire, distorted, nightmarish reflections of their peers blew them away. Teens experienced heaven at Woodstock, only to find hell at Altamount. They hung on every word as one of their messiahs delivered the gospel of “Give Peace a Chance”, then watched in horror as the Anti-Lennon, Charles Manson, twisted the Master’s words into a gruesome message of hate and violence for his zombie family. Charlie was completely nuts, but he had long hair and a beard like Jesus and/or Lennon, and even played guitar, so the group of pathetic losers chose Manson as their leader. Too much isolation, desert sun and LSD caused Charlie to hear all secret messages as the family played Beatles’ album over and over again. He shared his warped revelations with anyone who would listen. Manson declared the “Helter Skelter” meant that Blacks would soon start a nationwide revolution. Charlie promised his group that they would be the only White survivors, and as visionaries, Manson’s clan would be worshipped as the leaders of the New Society. “Little Piggies… What they need is a damn good whacking”, according to Charlie meant that the time had come for the family to show slower people of color how to get the war rolling against the White Ruling Class.