http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/1968/ en-us Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:15:01 GMT Focus Forum 15 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2064823/posts Forty years ago, in the third week of August 1968, something horrible happened to the American Left and to its host, the Democratic Party. We have been living with this horror ever since. Democrats once embraced patriotism. Scoop Jackson, a true liberal on domestic issues, was as passionate a supporter of America against our enemies as any other politician in America. JFK, in his 1960 campaigned against Nixon in 1960, argued that the Eisenhower Administration had neglected national defense and he promised to defend freedom anywhere. Harry Truman was wrong on many things, but he defended the Republic of Korea,... American Thinker http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2064823/posts#comment Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:15:01 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2061323/posts Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice is holding a press conference at the State Department. It was being covered by Fox.The hot quote by Rice is her telling Russia "this is not 1968" where they can go into a country and topple the government like was done by the Soviets to Czechoslovakia. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2061323/posts#comment Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:35:42 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2056654/posts The summer of 1968 was a great time to forget the unpleasantness of changing schools that had happened earlier in the year. I found escape in television and the offerings of the three and only networks along with "educational television" that would soon be known as PBS. The game shows of daytime ("Match Game", "Lets Make A Deal") along with the entertainment of prime-time ("Dragnet", "Red Skelton") were running as usual until early August when political convention coverage took over. It was wall-to-wall day and night coverage of the Republican National Convention I was seeing. The convention was being held... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2056654/posts#comment Tue, 5 Aug 2008 05:55:39 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2043730/posts How perfect it was that while running for president in 2008, the 40th anniversary of "1968," Barack Obama should denounce the 1960s. His candidacy and his times are bland compared to what was happening then, or so everyone thought. The year 1968 had a torrent of cataclysmic political events, each of which might have destabilized any other year. We just passed Robert Kennedy's assassination, and before that the Paris student riots in May 1968. Up next month, the Democratic convention in Chicago - with its pitched battles in Grant Park between the cops and antiwar demonstrators, the anti-Vietnam protests inside... RealClearPolitics -- Articles http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2043730/posts#comment Fri, 11 Jul 2008 01:18:47 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2041096/posts [Click through to article to view interview with author James Piereson.] The central thesis of James Piereson's Camelot and the Cultural Revolution was that JFK's assassination was the key moment that caused a large portion of once sensible liberals to begin to tilt to the far, far left, and for lack of better word, become Unhinged. Like this calm, rational fan of the New Frontier! In the (admittedly totally tasteless) formulation of a friend of mine, the best thing that ever happened to civil rights in this country was the bullet through JFK's head. Along the way, as I wrote... Ed Driscoll.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2041096/posts#comment Sat, 5 Jul 2008 14:53:27 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2034060/posts Sometime later, after the events of 1968, I would look back at Hayden’s Bratislava speech as a turning point not only in the short history of the New Left but also in the history of American radicalism. Protesting against America’s wars has an honorable tradition, running from Thoreau to Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas. But starting with Hayden and continuing in the turbulent outbursts of 1968, that tradition of legitimate democratic opposition morphed into outright collaboration with the enemy. City Journal http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2034060/posts#comment Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:09:02 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2026480/posts By late in the evening of June 4th, 1968 it was clear that Robert Kennedy had defeated Eugene McCarthy in the California Primary to establish his preeminence as the "outsider" Democrat candidate for president. Bobby Kennedy did one-on-one interviews with the big network television reporters and then walked into a ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles to make a victory speech. Kennedy told his audience "we can end the divisions within the United States" and then spoke of "change" happening if delegates would consider how he had won in California. It was now after 3am in the East... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2026480/posts#comment Thu, 5 Jun 2008 15:13:42 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2025805/posts He had a doctorate in education from UCLA, but his ideas were anything but "Piled higher and deeper." Max Rafferty had been elected twice (in 1962 and 1966) as California's Superintendent of Public Instruction. Dr. Max Rafferty wrote books with titles like "Suffer Little Children" and "What They Are Doing To Your Children." Rafferty blasted modern public education and its emphasis on "life adjustment." His conservative views on education appeared in a nationally syndicated newspaper column. Rafferty's conservative supporters put him up as an alternative in the June 4th, 1968 Republican U.S. Senate Primary. Rafferty faced incumbent liberal Republican U.S.... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2025805/posts#comment Wed, 4 Jun 2008 13:34:38 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2025326/posts The assassination was over in a few seconds. In the photograph of that moment, Bobby Kennedy, his eyes open and glazed, lies on his back on a hotel pantry floor, his head cradled by a busboy dressed starkly in white - a tableau that seems almost angelic were it not so brutal. Less than 26 hours after being shot early on June 5, 1968, right after winning the California presidential primary, Kennedy was dead. He was 42.Three major assassinations rocked America in the 1960s. Two of the assassins - Lee Harvey Oswald, the killer of John F. Kennedy, and James... San Francisco Chronicle http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2025326/posts#comment Tue, 3 Jun 2008 14:54:27 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2025263/posts The Robert Kennedy campaign began in the ashes of Lyndon Johnson's re-election effort. Eugene McCarthy had spoiled LBJ, but if there was a favorite among anti-Johnson forces in the Democrat Party, it was Bobby Kennedy. He was warmly received at the 1964 convention and those who loved his brother always looked to him to bring back the Kennedy Administration. Lyndon Johnson did not bow to pressure to make Robert F. Kennedy his running mate in 1964. Instead, LBJ chose Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey, a man who proudly wore the label "liberal" and who would buckle under to Lyndon Johnson's leadership... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2025263/posts#comment Tue, 3 Jun 2008 12:21:25 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2024733/posts The killing of Robert F. Kennedy has always been submerged in mythology spread by a liberal media and educational elite that has its own ideology and "theology" in mind. Kennedy's killing is bunched together with the assassinations of his brother John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King in a "Holy Trinity" of martyrdom that is an object of idolization and worship. It is ironic that all three men were far from deities, but all too human as has been evidenced by the details of their extramarital "relationships" that have emerged over the years. The other common mythology that was spread... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2024733/posts#comment Mon, 2 Jun 2008 12:45:23 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2023583/posts It’s been 40 years since his passing, but Robert Kennedy is again in the news. One reason is Hillary Clinton’s imprudent mention of his assassination. Barack Obama and media accomplices managed to turn that molehill into a mountain in near-record time. Another reason is that Obama has invoked Bobby’s memory throughout his campaign. People who weren’t around 40 years ago have been instilled with the fable of Kennedy’s pristine greatness and Barack hopes to benefit by the association. I wonder how many of Obama’s young, college-educated liberals know much about the real Bobby Kennedy. Would their admiration be diluted if... The New Media Journal http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2023583/posts#comment Fri, 30 May 2008 16:43:02 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2021395/posts I sat in the same kitchen this morning and listened to the same song I heard on the radio every morning in late May and early June of 1968. I knew nothing about a movie called "The Graduate" back then but my eight year old mind easily comprehended the common phrases Paul Simon put into the song. Those lyrics were drummed into me: "Jesus loves you more than you will know.... "God Bless You please Mrs. Robinson, heaven holds a place for those who pray...... "Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you..." Of... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2021395/posts#comment Mon, 26 May 2008 12:43:37 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2020757/posts Lost in the uproar over Sen. Hillary Clinton's invoking of the assassination of Robert Kennedy when explaining why her staying in the race won't hurt party unity is an actual examination of her comparison of the 2008 Democratic primary season to the one from 1968. Clinton yesterday before the Argus Leader editorial board also invoked her husband's race in 1992. We've already twice now looked at how her reference to how her husband was still campaigning in June 1992 is a disingenuous claim. ABC News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2020757/posts#comment Sat, 24 May 2008 17:22:44 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2014132/posts 'WHY don't we just vote to strike tonight - and we'll decide to morrow what we're striking for?" Those were the words of a student protester thoughtfully deliberating at Yale University, as recounted by Roger Kimball in his book on the left, "The Long March." It was a question that captured much of the heedless spirit of the student demonstrations of the 1960s, for which "May 1968" is shorthand. That spring 40 years ago saw a radical takeover of Columbia University - eventually duplicated at other elite campuses - and student protests around the world. In France, the government was... RCP http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2014132/posts#comment Sat, 10 May 2008 18:53:19 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2014130/posts Nineteen sixty-eight was one exciting moment in a much larger movement. It spawned a whole range of movements. There wouldn't have been an international global solidarity movement, for instance, without the events of 1968. It was enormous, in terms of human rights, ethnic rights, a concern for the environment, too. The Pentagon Papers (the 7,000-page, top-secret US government report into the Vietnam War) are proof of this: right after the Tet Offensive, the business world turned against the war, because they thought it was too costly, even though there were proposals within the government - and we know this now... newstatesmen.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2014130/posts#comment Sat, 10 May 2008 18:51:37 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2010357/posts The ACLU of Colorado has filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Secret Service and the city of Denver to ensure that protesters are within "sight and sound" of delegates attending the Democratic National Convention this August. "Ultimately, it's the federal courts that are sort of the last resort protectors of constitutional rights," Mark Silverstein, the ACLU's legal director, said today. "It's been the federal courts that are the ones to say law enforcement has not struck the proper balance here between security concerns and citizens' fundamental First Amendment rights," he said. Silverstein said the city is dragging its feet... Rocky Mountain News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2010357/posts#comment Fri, 2 May 2008 19:01:35 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2013208/posts Americans are well acquainted with presidential candidate Barack Obama’s legendary pledges to bring “change” to America’s political and social landscape. (For example, see here and here and here.) Indeed, “Change We Can Believe In” is the slogan that adorns the homepage of his campaign website and so many of the placards displayed by the supporters who attend his speaking engagements. His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, is also well practiced at issuing calls for change. Her “Change and Experience” ad campaign was but an outgrowth of her 1993 declaration, as First Lady, that “remolding society is one of the great challenges... Point Of View http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2013208/posts#comment Thu, 8 May 2008 19:59:52 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2007630/posts NEW YORK, April 26 -- Forty years ago, they launched a student protest at Columbia University that involved the occupation of five campus buildings, the hostage-taking of a dean, 712 arrests and injuries to scores of students, faculty members and police officers. This Story At Columbia, Remembering a Revolution The 1968 Protesters, Then and Now Now, they are lawyers, judges, playwrights, poets, professors and ministers. They gathered this weekend back on campus with former classmates to hear memories of those events and occasionally raise a revolutionary fist for old times' sake. "Strangest reunion I ever saw," said Victoria Benitez, a... The Washington Post http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2007630/posts#comment Sun, 27 Apr 2008 14:55:16 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2001237/posts Spiro Agnew's political career rose like a phoenix from the ashes. In six short years he went from being elected Baltimore County Executive to being elected Vice-President of the United States. He would be a bulldog for President Richard Nixon, playing a role that many future GOP Vice-Presidents like Dan Quayle and Dick Cheney would, making tough speeches to keep conservatives in line with the more moderate president who would "stay above it all." Agnew's attacks on the mainstream media ("the nattering nabobs of negativity") would make him as hated at the president himself in MSM circles. Agnew's election as... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2001237/posts#comment Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:27:28 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2000418/posts The conference program on the sponsors’ website promises to air a “wide range of viewpoints” on what happened and why, but the list of speakers shows no range at all—everyone seems to be a proud ex-protester or at least a familiar partisan of the Left. While Todd Gitlin (formerly the president of Students for a Democratic Society, now at Columbia’s journalism school) is a sober and reflective thinker, most of his fellow speakers are far from that standard. They include Kathleen Cleaver, Eldridge Cleaver’s widow and a former Black Panther official; veteran activist Tom Hayden; several former members of the... City Journal http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2000418/posts#comment Sat, 12 Apr 2008 03:23:24 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1997524/posts Tributes poured out from all over the world in honor of Martin Luther King with Father George Clements of Chicago saying King "is a saint" and "should be canonized." Meanwhile on the streets of Chicago rioting broke out after King's death. Three thousand National Guard troops were initially deployed as many fires burned on the West Side of the city. Dozens were injured by rocks thrown at their cars or by gangs on the streets. Bricks were thrown at firefighters trying to put out the flames and stores were looted. Mayor Richard Daley called on President Johnson for regular Army... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1997524/posts#comment Sun, 6 Apr 2008 12:30:04 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1997129/posts "go home and get your guns"-Stokely Carmichael April 4,1968 in Washington D.C. I had a habit of sitting in the kitchen and eating my breakfast while the radio was turned on to the morning news. The morning of Friday April 5th, 1968 I heard the account of a radio reporter (from UPI) who hid under a car while mobs rioted in the street around him. He sounded scared and he had reason to as rioting broke out in the nation's captial following the assassination of Martin Luther King late on the evening or April 4th and early on the morning... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1997129/posts#comment Sat, 5 Apr 2008 13:13:21 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1996600/posts On Thursday April 4th, 1968 the City of Memphis was back in federal court seeking a permanent injunction against any protest by Martin Luther King to support the sanitation workers strike. Police Director Frank Holloman spoke of black adults buying guns and young black people receiving training in the use of molotov cocktails. In the evening I watched the "Huntley-Brinkley Report" on NBC and saw the story of the day before including the King speech. I was seven years old and this was the first time I had ever heard the name "Martin Luther King." In the evening just after... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1996600/posts#comment Fri, 4 Apr 2008 12:46:31 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1995995/posts Dr. Martin Luther King originally wanted to stage a new march in Memphis on Friday April 5th, 1968 but decided to push the march back to Monday the 8th so labor leaders could show up. The City of Memphis was afraid of more violence if King led another march on behalf of the striking sanitation workers. They went to federal court seeking an injunction. Federal District Judge Bailey Brown issued a temporary restraining order against a march on Monday April 8th. It was with that court order in mind that Dr. King made what would be his last speech. The... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1995995/posts#comment Thu, 3 Apr 2008 12:58:01 GMT