{"id":261166,"date":"2024-04-29T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2024-04-29T11:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=261166"},"modified":"2024-04-28T10:59:37","modified_gmt":"2024-04-28T09:59:37","slug":"the-years-1968-and-2024-will-history-repeat-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/04\/the-years-1968-and-2024-will-history-repeat-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"The Years 1968 and 2024: Will History Repeat Itself?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Vietnam War Protest – Photograph Source: S.Sgt. Albert R. Simpson, Department of Defense \u2013 Public Domain<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThose who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u2013 George Santayana, 1905<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

26 Apr 2024 <\/em>– In the summer of 1968, I was assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency\u2019s task force on the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.\u00a0 The task force met around the clock in the CIA operations center, which was outfitted with myriad television screens.\u00a0 Most of these screens were showing the Soviet invasion.\u00a0 But several screens were devoted to the violence and mayhem on the streets of Chicago, where Mayor Richard Daley\u2019s police force was pummeling young people holding a protest rally against the Vietnam War.\u00a0 The chaos and the violence, which a federal commission labeled a \u201cpolice riot,\u201d played a key role in Richard Nixon\u2019s narrow defeat of Hubert Humphrey in the election several months later.<\/p>\n

Once again, we are looking toward a Democratic Convention in Chicago in August as well as an election in November that will be close.\u00a0 It could well be decided by the national reaction to the chaos that is taking place on college campuses around the country and that will presumably be followed by demonstrations in Chicago.\u00a0 Does the Biden White House understand this?<\/p>\n

In 1968, the Vietnam War was the decisive moral issue of the time.\u00a0 In 2024, Israel\u2019s genocidal warfare in Gaza is the decisive moral issue.\u00a0 The likelihood of an ugly Israeli military campaign in southern Gaza will lead to additional Palestinian deaths and to increased fury at home and abroad.<\/p>\n

Hubert Humphrey lost support in 1968 because he was terribly late in speaking out against the immoral war in Vietnam being pursued by President Lyndon B. Johnson.\u00a0 Joe Biden is losing support on a daily basis because he is unwilling to stop underwriting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s immoral military campaign in Gaza.<\/p>\n

In 1968, the Prague Spring and the Tet Offensive contributed to violent activism and protest activity in the United States.\u00a0 The assassinations of two key anti-war leaders, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy in April and June, respectively, meant the absence of two key anti-war protagonists at the Democratic Convention.\u00a0 When the peace plank was defeated at the convention, additional college students and an assortment of activists and progressives rallied against the U.S. role in Vietnam.\u00a0 Prior to the convention, there were walk-outs at high schools around the country, which contributed to the anti-war fervor that was building before the convention.<\/p>\n

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley contributed to the tension by orchestrating a news blackout in an attempt to keep the public from learning about the protest activity in the city.\u00a0 The Chicago police beat protestors at will with clubs and fists.\u00a0 At the convention, Senator Abraham Ribicoff blasted Mayor Daley for what he called the \u201cGestapo\u201d tactics of the Chicago police.\u00a0 Daley called Ribicoff a \u201ckike\u201d from the floor of the convention. These events garnered more attention than the nominations of Humphrey and Senator Edmund Muskie.<\/p>\n

Just as the violence and madness in 1968 pushed conservatives and independents to rally on behalf of Richard Nixon, the potential for violence in Chicago in August could hurt Biden\u2019s chances for reelection in November.\u00a0 Nixon won in 1968 by a narrow margin\u2014less than one point\u2014in a nation divided by the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement.\u00a0 He prevailed in most states outside of the Northeast, and won the electoral vote easily.<\/p>\n

Joe Biden is facing similarly beleaguered international and domestic situations.\u00a0 The international situation is particularly ominous, as Biden tries to maneuver on behalf of Ukraine in Central Europe and Israel in the Middle East.\u00a0 Ukraine is losing ground; Israel is losing credibility.\u00a0 Biden is citing the \u201crule of law\u201d to challenge Russia, but is ignoring the \u201crule of law\u201d by underwriting Israel\u2019s war in Gaza.\u00a0 Two additional nations complicate Biden\u2019s situation\u2014Iran and North Korea\u2014but the United States does not officially recognize either Tehran or Pyongyang.<\/p>\n

The Republicans are doing their best to exploit this situation.\u00a0 Aid to Ukraine was help up for several months by Republican demagogues and obscurantists, and Republican leaders are pandering to supporters of Israel.\u00a0 This week, House Speaker Mike Johnson traveled to Columbia University to encourage the dismantling of pro-Palestinian encampments and the resignation of President Minouche Shafik.<\/p>\n

Shafik has been targeted by Republican members of the House of Representatives who are pummeling college presidents (particularly female presidents) at so-called elite universities. The resignations of the presidents at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University have already taken place.\u00a0 Johnson\u2019s demagoguery could result in the resignation of Shafik as key Republicans in the House pursue their \u201canti-woke\u201d agenda, which is in fact part of a right-wing campaign against the diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at key institutions.<\/p>\n

George Santayana argued in \u201cThe Life of Reason\u201d that if our world is ever going to make progress, it needs to remember what it\u2019s learned from the past.\u00a0 Sadly, President Biden has learned little about both the deceit of Benjamin Netanyahu and the danger of supporting an immoral war.<\/p>\n

________________________________________________<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Melvin A. Goodman\u00a0is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University.\u00a0 A former CIA analyst, Goodman is the author of <\/em>Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA<\/a>; National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism;<\/a> and <\/em>A Whistleblower at the CIA<\/a>.\u00a0His most recent books are <\/em>American\u00a0Carnage: The Wars of Donald Trump (Opus Publishing, 2019) and <\/em>Containing the National Security State (Opus Publishing, 2021).\u00a0<\/em>Goodman is the national security columnist for\u00a0counterpunch.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – counterpunch.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

26 Apr 2024 – In 1968, the Vietnam War was the decisive moral issue of the time.\u00a0 In 2024, Israel\u2019s genocidal warfare in Gaza is the decisive moral issue.\u00a0 The likelihood of an ugly Israeli military campaign in southern Gaza will lead to additional Palestinian deaths and to increased fury at home and abroad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":261167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[532,1854,2898,1199,2242,87,865,1643,1029,1966,1644,88,2416,715,427,124,70,965,1025],"class_list":["post-261166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","tag-colonialism","tag-crimes-against-humanity","tag-ecocide","tag-ethnic-cleansing","tag-famine","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-genocide-convention","tag-hamas","tag-hunger","tag-international-court-of-justice-icj","tag-israel","tag-israeli-occupation","tag-massacre","tag-palestine","tag-united-nations","tag-usa","tag-war-crimes","tag-west-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261168,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261166\/revisions\/261168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}