I Tried But I Ain’t Going To Chicago
From Vietnam To Gaza
The “Demonic Suction Tube” Is Alive And Well
But I ain’t going down
That long old lonesome road
All by myself
I can’t carry you, baby
Gonna carry somebody else. ~~~ “OnThe Road Again”, Canned Heat (1968)There’s blood in the streets, it’s up to my ankles
Blood in the streets, it’s up to my knee
Blood in the streets, in the town of Chicago
Blood on the rise, it’s following me. ~~~ “Peace Frog”, The Doors (1970)
[Update below]
The Democratic Convention in Chicago next week is an historic event.
In my mind, it recalls the politics and violence of Chicago 1968, where a police riot assaulted hundreds of peaceful anti-war protesters and a fascist demagogue like Chicago Mayor Daley ruled the Democratic Party.
I vividly recall that I watched this vicious spectacle from a cabin on the shores of gorgeous Lake George in the NY Adirondacks while on vacation with my mom and two sisters. I can not and I will not ever forget that scene and what it meant.
Then, as now, the Democrats were supporting a genocidal war (from Vietnam to Gaza).
Then, as now, the Democrats spent billions on war and failed to invest in America, and, as Dr. King compellingly argued, were destroying the fabric of American society: (“Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence”):
Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.
In 1968, my mom was a huge Humphrey supporter.
I was just 11 years old and didn’t understand the politics, but I knew that something was very, very, wrong.
I saw cops beating protesters and the news media and mainstream American culture approved all that.
It sickened me then and has my life since.
So, I thought I might try to drum up support of some old friends of mine – who shall remain nameless – to see if we might take an awesome road trip to witness that history. We’re now old men. A last hurrah.
In short, I got zero support.
It’s hard not to despair, when those whom you respect let you down like this.
[Update: 8/18/24 – Norman Solomon echoes and drills down on my thinking – but with more emphasis on morality than domestic justice – in a superb piece at CounterPunch comparing Harris to Humphrey,
Like Hubert Humphrey six decades ago, Kamala Harris has remained in step with the man responsible for changing her title from senator to vice president. She has toed President Biden’s war line, while at times voicing sympathy for the victims of the Gaza war that’s made possible by policies that she supports. Her words of compassion have yet to translate into opposing the pipeline of weapons and ammunition to the Israeli military as it keeps slaughtering Palestinian civilians. …
If maintained, that stance will continue to be a moral catastrophe — while increasing the chances that Harris will lose to Donald Trump. In effect, so far, Harris has opted to stay aligned with power brokers, big donors and conventional political wisdom instead of aligning with most voters. A CBS News / YouGov poll in June found that Americans opposed sending “weapons and supplies to Israel” by 61 to 39 percent. …
If Kamala Harris loses to Trump after sticking with her support for arming the slaughter in Gaza, historians will likely echo words from biographer Offner, who wrote that after the 1968 election Humphrey “asked himself repeatedly whether he should have distanced himself sooner from President Johnson on the war. The answer was all too obvious.”