I thought the world had ended when Richard Nixon was elected.

[Raven]

In the summer of 1967, I attended the National Student Association conference in Maryland. I was president of my student government at the time and an anti-war activist. While at the conference, I attended a small session hosted by Allard Lowenstein. The purpose of the session was to take the "Dump Johnson" movement, which Lowenstein had started, to college campuses. We were given our marching orders and I went back to my senior year in college and organized and worked...and worked...and worked. When Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not run again, I was thrilled and felt that my actions had made some small contribution. Fast forward to the summer and fall of 1968 and I'm now in graduate school in D.C. Robert Kennedy had been assassinated, Hubert Humphrey was the Democratic Candidate.I went to work as a volunteer in the Humphrey Campaign as a part of the Young Democrats for Humphrey initiative. As November approached, Humphrey was running out of money. Johnson had a pile of it and refused to lift a finger to help. I vividly remember being unable to make long distance phone calls during the week before the election because there was no more money. I learned a hard lesson during those years:

= Sometime Democrats can be more distructive to their own than the opposition

= Grassroots organizing works but campaigns are all about who has the $$$$

= We always seem to lose those who are the best among us:

Jack Kennedy...assassinated when I was in High School
Martin Luther King...assassinated when I was in College
Bobby Kennedy...assassinated when I was in College
and
Allard Lowenstein...murdered by a deranged gunman in 1980 when he was 51 years old.

Oh, and one more thing: Lowenstein ran for Congress fron NY in 1968 and won. He lost in 1970 because of redistricting.

40+ years later, I'm walking back through my memories and experiences and trying to make some sense of why we are where we are today.

Can you make sense of it all? I think that if we don't fully understand how we got to this place then, in the future, we'll be where I am now: wondering what the hell went wrong in this Country.

[baldguy]

1. In a sense, it did.

The Nixon Administration was the last act in a decade that fundamentally altered the way Americans relate to their govt.

[rug]

2. Electoral politics has its limits.

Meanwhile, Dennis Sweeney is in recovery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Sweeney

[Raven]

3. Yes, I know. That illness is a horrible thing. I have seen its destruction

in my own family

[denimgirly]

4. I wonder though if Nixon would be Viewed as More Left than Obama is today?

One instance is that his Health Care bill was more progressive than Obama's

[Catherina]

5. He already is n/t

[harun]

6. I think the lesson I get from where we are is majority of people don't vote based on reason

or rational arguments. They vote based on fear.

The implications of this are a long discussion.

[Bitwit1234]

7. One thing Nixon had over the current crop of republicans

He had good foreign policy that did not include yelling for wars at the drop of a hat.

[retread]

8. Forgot the sarcasm tag. n/t