Photo by Nick Fewings, Unsplash
Once There Was Hope
Readers may react in shock that there was a time in not-so-recent memory where there was hope for a better nation and a better world. Looking out of any window today, the prospect for hope looks worse than dim; in fact, hope seems to have disappeared.
But it was just after the Vietnam War when hope seemed a real possibility. We, in the peace movement, had stopped a vicious, lethal war half a world away, and peace and a better society seemed possible. We knew that we were exhausted after fighting against that war for about a decade, but the US was unlikely to send troops off to foreign adventures in the near future. The public would not sanction foreign wars. That’s what was called the Vietnam Syndrome, and it was real. The government says, in writing, that I have Vietnam Syndrome, and that is a blessing.
There was the feeling among those of goodwill that people’s lives would be improved in material ways. Science would expand life expectancy and cure diseases. Racism that had plagued the nation would give way to a fair shake to Black Americans and other minorities in job opportunities, equal access to better education, and improved housing and other staples of life.
Women would be freed from the bonds that held them as second-class citizens with expanded job opportunities and control of their own destinies with better reproductive health.
The nascent environmental movement would address pollution and the misuse of the environment through the production of toxic elements and the overuse of fossil fuels. The movement for gay equality would break the bonds of homophobia and offer an equal chance at living a full life without fear.
All of these hopes have turned to absolute shit and are lost. The far right has turned societal progress on its head! I don’t say this lightly because I wanted a better life for all, and now I look around me at the violent national and international landscape with attacks against immigrants, Jews, Palestinians, women, gays, the environment, and education. The list the far right attacks daily is endless. While I condemn violence against individuals and nations, flying the flag at half- staff in honor of a person who fanned the flames of violence, was anti-women, antisemitic, racist, and anti-environmental, and supported the endless violence the US supports both overtly and covertly, flies in the face of everything I believe in. Yes, again, condemn the violence, but don’t celebrate the fascism growing all around.
Tracing the long way down of US actions began with Jimmy Carter and ended with Trump. Carter, despite his later work for peace, began the war footing of the US in his push against the former Soviet Union. Then Reaganism took the stage. For anyone truly liberal or left in their philosophy, the ignoramus Reagan was a national and international disaster! He had called for a bloodbath against those protesting the Vietnam War long before the three campus massacres that defined the reaction to the peace movement. Reagan began the party of wealth and tax cuts that define Trump and his billionaire class. He attacked workers through his firing of air traffic controllers. He put an anti-environmentalist at the head of the Interior Department. Sound familiar?
George H.W. Bush made a joke of the Vietnam Syndrome with the “turkey shoot” of the first Gulf War. His successor, Bill Clinton, launched nearly endless bombing attacks against the former Yugoslavia, ended welfare, killed Glass-Steagall, and began the war on poor people through imprisonment. Some liberal!
George W. Bush, the fundamentalist and warmonger, made endless war, torture, and regime change his hallmarks. He could have ordered a limited “police action” against Bin Laden, et al., but instead, he gave us endless wars. Bush would have never examined prior US foreign policy as it impacted Afghanistan.
Barack Obama expanded the war in Afghanistan, and who knows how many other covert wars, and made the world safe for the bankers who had tanked the economy. Trump I, who hated anything resembling an open society and peace, was Obama’s heir, just as no credit card debt forgiveness, lock them up, and warmonger Biden was heir to Trump I, and guaranteed Trump II. It’s the duopoly, pandering to the power elite of weapons manufacturers, bankers, with their exotic financial “instruments,” and a whole host of other predatory capitalists.
Those of us who remember the Vietnam era are faced with fascism in our faces with its violence, hate, and endless wars. We knew long ago that if we kept our eyes open, this disaster is what we’d see. Most of my comrades from that era became well-ensconced careerists who couldn’t care less if we’re on a trip to the ninth circle of hell!