Anyone catch this?
(Anyone visited the Vietnam Memorial?)

SF State: Hayakawa rippin the speaker wires off a sound truck; Ed Meese talkin about advising Gov Reagan to send the CHP to State to protect its new 'conservative' (Read: anti- the antiwar 'mob') Chancellor, etc. 'Ol Spiro talkin 'bout them nattering nabobs of negativism (not long before resigning over some graft.) Meese later had a similar problem, but I don't recall how that turned out. He's not in jail now though, IIRC.

MLK said in '65, My country is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. Pity that most-all here Missed all that exciting stuff - maybe scanned a few soundbites of our 24/7 daily fare, in some archive for a class? Hey.. there were, in fact: some actual street barricades! Some got heads cracked, some maimed - a few deaths. Kent State + callow-youth National Guard. Nothing like 'Nam, of course.

Reminded me of how many, and how massive - had to become the public demonstrations before the likes of Nixon, Kissinger, McNamara et al would move an iota from Staying The Course - towards ceasing the slaughter. That toll (just-US is all We count, natch) reached 58,nnn; don't recall % as occurred during the throes of getting-ready-to Start to actually Get Out of that charnel house.

Nixon kept the pot boiling, (thanks to the assassination of RFK == only way he got in, in '68) -- for ~5 years. All that napalm, Agent Orange, megatons of CO₂ producing detonations: signifying, producing, improving.. absolutely Nothing.



In the newest, daily Hotting-Up charnel house it's a mere 19xx dead + the thousands of permanently-maimed (just Our boys And girls, of course).

But.. it seems that the $$-cost of the recent water unpleasantness is the larger driver of Negative Ratings on the cabal: than any appreciation of the direction that the Insurrection is heading - some say has already arrived --> the Iraq Civil War.

(And there're few of those alleged $100Bs for schools, infrastructure (blown-up then restarted) etc. as are not being spent mostly, now - to 'train Iraqis' to [Hah] Impose Democracy.) Amidst the 3- 4-Way? w/Kurds irreconcilable God supporters with centuries of traditional, lethal polarization.



Will many be able to afford the gas / fare for 1M or so walking bodies in DC, this time around? Will it take 5 years, again - or 5 months?

1968 + 40 = 2008
Gimme 50:1 odds, and I'll bet $20 on Impeachment(s) or resignations by mid-2008. (However the 'withdrawal' is choreographed, in Save-Face-space.)



(Of course I ain't prescient - can't estimate when? how? the wanna-be martyrs we've manufactured (of those multiple surviving relatives and clan-members) - will hit a ground-zero or three, here in the Fatherland. Doubt Lloyds will take any bets on that one, either. Yet.)



Perhaps I'm being impatient.
Unlike Klaatu, I don't live on a planet where, We've abolished stupidity. (But I'm sure that Patricia Neal's character really wanted to join him in that saucer..)
Robert Wise (director of Day the Earth Stood Still) died recently.
Are all our smarter Old Ones dropping like flies - or does it just seem so?

of academic rationalizations + stream of unconsciousness masquerading as story-telling. He was a mondo- ""bright"" (which I think, too-often ==> glib) young Turk; many of the mannerisms of JFK - but without the humanity (?) (If there was any of that? I never saw it in the numerous video and other sources of the day).

Hey.. just imagine you're hearing 'ol Chainsaw [whatsisname], The Donald or any wanna-be MBA: 'explaining' how to Grow the Enterprise. An Object devoid of any social consideration whatsoever - except as supplier of 'goods' (fodder, in the 'Nam case) and for a certain 'profit' - Credit as a Winner (in the 'Nam case).

The Enterprise for McN was (solely): 'Winning' this War, which was happening on His (Ego)-Shift.)

Building a bizness which regards its employees as overhead and solidly in the Debit column - is no different from prosecuting that 'war', well beyond there being no hope of prevailing: only Killing More and saying,

We're Making Progress ... .. No, Really! this time I Mean It ... Check The Body Count!

So study the sucker and look around -- his Extremely Costly example should not be lost to another generation.. by imagining it was some past, solitary personal fuck-up: it's a really Popular Model, still.

(And I agree: we'll never Know where the on-camera McN ruminator begins/ends. AFAICR - he's never overtly said), ~ It was Wrong! / I was Wrong! / I can't now Imagine how I could atone!