Political people in US

The 50's

Men wearing hats to work and Stepford-type wives discovering Valium. It was all about noir without anyone realizing that it was all about noir. It was "back in the day." Returning servicemen. Happy times. The baby boom was underway... Levittown . . . people could afford single family dwellings and suburbia was born. College. A privilege instead of an entitlement. The smell of burning leaves on a crisp fall day. Schwinn bikes. Drive-in movies. "I like Ike" memories. Happy times.

Terms like dysfunctional families, attention deficit and bipolar disorders were unknown. Those who suffered under them did so in silence without awareness, recourse or remedy. Back then, no one used words like "dysfunctionality" or "depression." Many were consumed by emotions that were kept closeted and could not be articulated.

No graffitified tenements, sinking potholed streets or garbage strewn parks, but the smell of winos and urine in the subways also existed back then and there were plenty of slums to go around.

Chopped and channeled Merc Coupes and rumbling duel pipes. Drag races. Outlaw biker gangs. 1 percenters. Rebels without causes. Leather jackets, engineer boots and skin-tight Levi's or khaki's and loafers. Blue suede loafers. Greasers and mods. "Hollywood" and "Detroit" hair styles or flat tops or crew cuts . . . split the difference with a "Duck 's Ass."

No political correctness back then, You ate what you wanted to eat and smoked where you wanted to smoke. No seat belt laws because there were no seat belts. Lardy chili and greasy bacon and eggs in diners late at night. Apple pie with a piece of American cheese. The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports on the 9' Admiral TV. The Kinsey Report findings. Sexual awareness out of the closet.

City kids went to "Geek" shows in the early 50's that were featured in some of the traveling carnivals that came to the outskirts of urban centers. These geeks, however, were not like today's. Stag films. Precursors to porn.

"The Wild One," "Blackboard Jungle." Brando and Dean, and Sidney Portier calling Glen Ford "Mr. Daddio" in "Backboard Jungle." Joe Louis, Marciano, Joe DiMaggio, Sugar Ray and Ted Williams. Marilyn Monroe, Gable, Bogart s. "Bad Day at Black Rock," Spencer Tracey, Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin, Anne Francis, and Walter Brennan. The pure noir of "The Killing" and "The Sweet Smell of Success." "12 Angry Men." Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam, Ed Begley, Jack Klugman, E.G. Marshall, Jack Warden and Robert Webber all in the same room. "On the Waterfront" . . . .mob violence and union corruption. "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Death of a Salesman." Heady stuff.

"The Organization Man ", Ayn Rand, "The Affluent Society," "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit." The Martian Chronicles," The Catcher in the Rye, Jack Kerouac, "The Lonely Crowd." Stuff staring to happen. Beats and Beatniks coming out.

Ike, The H Bomb, and a fragile peace. Not everything was Pollyannaish. Some things seemed to have a noir-ish, gangster-ridden quality that had a palpable existence. Modern jazz . . . Bird, Miles, Stan Kenton , Chet; Chicago blues performed by blacks who traveled North from the Delta on the Illinois Central. Little Walter, Howlin Wolf, Jackie Wilson, Fats, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, The Big Bopper, Doo Wop. Honky Tonk. The sound of the harp. Hard bop, rebop, West Coast Jazz and Delta Blues were the 50's.

A time of extreme anti-communism suspicion. McCarthyism became synonymous with demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations. Black lists. The 50's version of the Patriot Act. Decency finally wins out. Senator Joe censured into obscurity.

The Korean War . . . the "Forgotten War," June 1950 - July 1953. Recalled by MASH on television. A footnote in our history. Veterans of that intensive and deadly conflict wore jackets from Rhein-Main, Quantico, Paris Island, Great Lakes, Fort Leonard Wood, and Cherry Point. Tough guys who did their duty without complaint and paid dearly for it.

Racism undergoing subtle changes for the better. Still, it rears its ugly head far too often in the North. Callous cruelty and unfairness commonplace until the 60's. Being called a "kike, mick, "wop" or "polack" an everyday experience. Many first generation Americans suffer quietly. Scary white sheets and burning crosses. Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Then 1964 and civil rights and hope. Martin Luther King. Malcolm. Rosa Parks. The Little Rock Nine

The 50's, a time mixed with equal portions of love, fear and loathing. Of course, looking in the rear view mirror through the prism of nostalgia makes everything look better. The innocence was soon replaced with a grim reality, turbulence and cynicism that manifested itself through the next decade. A Cuban missile crises, Viet Nam , the draft, multiple assassinations, hippies, drugs, protests, riots . . . and racial unrest that exploded.

" . . colleges being nothing but grooming schools for the middleclass non-identity which usually finds its perfect expression on the outskirts of the campus in rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and television sets is each living room with everybody looking at the same thing and thinking the same thing at the same time while the Japhies of the world go prowling in the wilderness..." Jack Kerouac

"I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour looking at my face on their television screens." Dwight D. Eisenhower

The 60's:

The conduit from the 50's carried cheerful optimism. John Fitzgerald Kennedy. "Ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country." Inspiration and hope. Jackie sets the example in class. Fear of nuclear war comes to a head with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Soviets back down. "Ich bin ein Berliner." JFK at the helm equals comfort and security. Proud to be an American.

Dallas makes it all a bad joke . . . destroys Camelot and justifies cynicism. No more peering through rose-colored glasses. Oswald or a conspiracy? Jack Ruby. Dealey Plaza, the Depository, Stemmons Freeway bring back memories that chill.

The 50's..a time of innocence, laid back. The 60's after 63 . . . full-tilt boogie, balls to the walls. Flashpoints going off like a photographers light bulbs. Too many to track. Riots began on August 11, 1965 in Watts after which blacks are no longer taken for granted. Then, amid coups and assassinations, Vietnam brreaks out in earnest. More justified cynicism. Body bags and Jane Fonda. Vo Nguyen Giap and Westmoreland. Bad juju.

James Meredith becomes first black student at Ole Miss. Violence but also hope abounds. Then Medgar Evers killed by an assassin's bullet amidst voter registration in the South. Bloody Sunday" in Selma. More unrest. More killings. Malcolm gunned down to punctuate the morass.

" I Have a Dream" renewes hope. 1964 Civil Rights Act. MLK awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. " . . . And so I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. My eyes have seen the Glory of the coming of the Lord!" But Memphis shatters the Dream. The MLK riots follow. But the unflinching dignity of the civil rights marchers wears down the oppressors. The Dream prevails.

Nation of Islam and Black Panthers, Weather Underground Organization, SDS, Yippies, "Black Power," Berkley . . . .Sexual revolution, Feminism and Gay rights. Flash bulbs going off constantly.

To Kill a Mockingbird, Norman Bates and Psycho, The Apartment, On the Beach, Lolita, James Bond, The Group, In Cold Blood, The Peter Principle, Profiles in Courage, Elmer Gantry Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, In the Heat of the Night, Green Berets, Midnight Cowboy, Butterfield 8, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Easy Rider. Mo Town. Boston Celtics, Green Bay Packers, Clay knockes out Sonny. Later becomes Ali . . . the right man for the right time. Andy Warhol, Surfing. The Beatles hit the big time. Elvis's star fades over the decade. The Pill and the miniskirt. The Space Race permeates.

1968 is the seminal year. Hippies, bell bottoms, Woodstock, acid, LSD, Chicago, Daley, Nixon are all part of the mix. Psychedelic Haight Ashbury. No fear of criticizing society's typical behaviors. Speak out, protest, march. Rebels with causes. Every injustice or perceived inequality is suddenly open game and ripe for examination and protest.

Tet Offensive turbo charges LBJ's decision to say "no more." Bobby then says, "There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not? More hope. Sirhan Sirhan snuffs out the dream. Amidst mass rioting and chaos, Nixon wins over Humphrey on a "law and order" platform while Chicago police incongruously and brutally beat anti-war protesters.

Woodstock Music Festival at Max Yasgur's farm in August 1969. Jimi does his thing. Manic Depression. Purple Haze. The Who. Joan Baez. Santana. Janis. Sly takes everybody higher. People gather together in the spirit of caring and sharing, Unique and legendary stuff. A new beginning. Men walked on the moon in 1969.

Altamont music festival is held later in 1969. Santana, the Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, and The Stones. Hell's Angels are the Stone's security force. Angels confront the people and violence ensues. The real music becomes Sympathy for the Devil." Unique and chilling stuff. Counterpoint to Woodstock. Fans are held "Under My Thumb." An Angel stabs a man holding a gun in front of the stage. Horror. At the end, cosmic flower children wander across the hills toward home and an uncertain future. Windmills in the background. More bad juju.

A bad way to end the 60's, but it's about a generation that realized it could make a difference just by standing up and being heard. It did just that.

The radical ideas of the 60's gain acceptance in the new decade, and are mainstreamed and assimilated into American life and culture. The 70's prove to be sharply different, but that's another, albeit more tranquil story.

"I like ideas about the breaking away or overthrowing of established order. I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos, especially activity that seems to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road towards freedom - external freedom is a way to bring about internal freedom." Jim Morrison

"[In the 60's] there was madness in any direction, at any hour ... You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was `right', that we were winning ..." Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"