Day 10 Issues in Modern America February 7, 2002

1. Names. A couple of events/displays, of many worthy things going on.

Roger and Me Monday night. Tuesday, we’ll talk about that film and about other issues related to the distribution of wealth in America. You can visit Michael Moore’s web site at http://www.michaelmoore.com/ . The letter to G. Bush there is wild reading.

Color Purple: here’s a note on reading it. 1-61, 62-124, 125-187, 188-end. Re web sites: look for stuff about the novel and Walker, if you like, but also about social conditions and issues that come up. Women’s issues, economic issues, questions about the practice of nonviolence as well as race and racism. Don’t be afraid to roam a little ways afield.

Pass out slips: write Q’s or comments on them as I talk, about today or anything so far. We’ll take some time to talk about them later in the day. Names optional, but try to make the Q. or comment clear if you want to remain anonymous.

2. A bit more on the Vietnam legacy and the sixties. As I said last time, the stormiest period internally in recent US history, the most divisive time. Besides the antiwar protests—which were mostly nonviolent--there were violent underground groups like the Weathermen; the rise of the Black Power movement, the Black Panthers and other groups who became convinced that white America would never give up its grip on power without a violent struggle; assassinations of JFK in 63, RFK and MLK in 68, major riots in Detroit, Newark, Washington, L. A., and other major cities just about every summer, with hundreds of dead and thousands of National Guard troops patrolling the streets; campus unrest, most famously the takeover of Columbia University by student activists demanding more say in their educations; major altercations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 1968, what is often referred to as a “police riot” in which Mayor Daley’s police attacked not only protesters but bystanders and newsmen as well, prompting Newsweek magazine to run a photo of their own newspeople who were beaten up and to shift their position on protests significantly. The Kent State shootings of 1970, a kind of turning point, partly because these were nice white kids, not blacks or long-standing revolutionaries.

So why didn’t the revolution happen? There’s a question. I lived through all this, but I can’t say for sure. After about 1970 it seemed clear that the war was winding down, which lessened the impetus for major protests. The violence of Kent State shocked everyone, somehow, and there was at least some drawing back from confrontation by people on both sides. And the protest movements were never really unified and coordinated; a lot of people went back to school, got jobs, got married, did all those standard human things and found that they didn’t have time to go to the barricades.

There was still much to come: the Watergate break-in, the long efforts by Nixon and his staff to cover up their involvement, investigations and hearings, finally his being forced to resign in disgrace. Still to come were energy crises and recessions and the Carter presidency—he was possibly the most intelligent and moral president we’ve had since, who, Lincoln, but unable to make anything happen as President. Then the Reagan era, when we learned that greed was good and that the Soviet Union was an Evil Empire and that an impregnable missile shield would someday protect us all. Then Bush the First, the Gulf War, the astonishing collapse of his popularity and rise of the Arkansas maverick Bill Clinton, another intelligent man who frittered away his presidency in lost causes and stupid scandals, hounded by the Right just as savagely as Nixon was hounded by the Left. And here we are.

2. On Ch. 13, and “peace with the land.” My little conversation with A.D. about rain and how it didn’t do him any good . . . The problem with ecology is that it seems so distant, doesn’t it? But as J/H suggest, the threats of military disaster and environmental exhaustion are not really separable.

The awareness that nature is something we can use up is, historically, kind of a new idea. Much of American history is based in the assumption that development is good, that “wild” nature is there mainly as a resource for us.

The Rule of Unintended Consequences, and the Dust Bowl. The steel plow made it possible to plant crops all across the Midwest and the Great Plains. As far west as, say, mid-Kansas this has worked out pretty well, so far. But where there’s not enough rainfall, crops failed and the loose soil ended up all over the place; the Dust Bowl disasters of the 30’s were economic as well as environmental. Grapes of Wrath.

The rise of environmentalism, with Silent Spring and Earth Day. Agent Orange and the devastation of Vietnam, and U.S. veterans with lingering health problems. The EPA and continued controversies about the proper role of environmental regulations. Some progress has been made: the Cuyahoga River that runs through Cleveland hasn’t caught fire in years, as it did in June 1969. Photos at http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/engl/marling/60s/pages/richoux/Photographs.html The Clean Water Act.

Environment and Nuclear Issues: J. Schell’s The Fate of the Earth made phrases like “nuclear winter” and “a republic of insects and grass” current. The movement for controls of nuclear weapons, ending above-ground testing, and non-proliferation went well into the 1980s, dissipated with the collapse of the USSR.

Now the issues are global warming, overpopulation, ozone depletion; do we despair, or hope? Many things have begun to change. It is possible. There’s continued resistance, and legitimate debate about just what actions make sense. But it’s still possible that there will be a planet left for you folks to wander around when you retire . . .

3. Epilogue, history and hope. The language of “master narratives” and “revisionist history.” Is there something between “triumphant nationalism and radical criticism,” kill-everything-that-moves violence and do-nothing passive pacifism? Well, as J/H have been trying to show all along, of course there is. Really none of us believe in always being violent nor in absolute nonresistance. And from there it’s really a matter of strategy and tactics.

What might it mean to make constructive nonviolence, rather than redemptive violence, our master narrative? To make mutuality and interdependence, rather than America First and a great war between American Good and Foreign Evil our master narrative? To do so would not, surely, mean throwing all our weapons away tomorrow. It would take decades, maybe centuries, to come to pass. It’s a big job. Maybe it’s not ever going to be finished. But it won’t ever be finished if we don’t begin.

4. So, OK. Let’s shift gears. Collect those slips, see what questions and comments you have.