23-09-2013, 07:48 PM
Dawn, I appreciate very much your kind words about the book and am
glad you identify with my odyssey. I think there are many of us
who have gone through similar cycles of admiration, loss, disillusionment,
and gradual understanding through study of this case. Although I wasn't
intending to try to speak for our generation, sometimes when you speak
for yourself, you find it has that effect, as you and others have told
me. I look forward to having a talk with you in person in Dallas
as well, about points of agreement or disagreement. I am glad
we're having that dialogue already through the book. I had
hoped it would open more dialogue, as we have on DPF
and in some other media outlets (though not enough of them).
I welcome reasoned disagreement and argument; we need more of that
in our discourse today rather than the shouting and sloganeering that
passes for dialogue on cable TV.
And along the lines
of what you and Magda have written about the left, one of the most
disappointing aspects of the case over the past fifty years has been
the unwillingness of many leftists and liberals to engage in it, as well as the state of
denial in which many seem to prefer living. I quote Mort Sahl in the book
as saying, "The social democrats in this country have a lot of guilt.
They didn't stand up to Vietnam. They didn't stand up to the encroachment of the intelligence
community. And they walked away from Jack Kennedy. The most they could
come up with after he was shot in the street like a dog was to say,
'He wasn't that good a president anyway.' Yeah, let me tell you, he had
a strange group of friends. Remarkably absent when he fell." That quote has long haunted
me with its painful truth.
Being unable to engage
one's friends in serious discussion of this case or of JFK's legacy has long been a hindrance. I find
it has become somewhat easier today. The younger generation seems
more openminded and free of some of the old hangups many boomers have dragged
along from the fifties and sixties. I think both you and Magda hit on
different aspects of why many 1960s leftists remain in denial. Of course,
some radicals of the time also became stockbrokers. And though
the antiwar radicals of the time used to say they were going to change
the world, the students who actually did so were such hawkish rightwingers as Dick Cheney
and Lynne Cheney, who were attending the University of Wisconsin, Madison,
when I was. Dick Cheney hurried past our October 1967 Dow Chemical
demonstration (which turned into a police riot) on his
way to his internship at the State Capitol with the
Republican governor, Warren Knowles. Lynne Cheney
professed horror over the participation of the San
Francisco Mime Troupe in our protest of Dow's manufacture
of napalm for the Vietnam War. I go into all this history and personal witness
in the book to help give context for people's attitudes today.
glad you identify with my odyssey. I think there are many of us
who have gone through similar cycles of admiration, loss, disillusionment,
and gradual understanding through study of this case. Although I wasn't
intending to try to speak for our generation, sometimes when you speak
for yourself, you find it has that effect, as you and others have told
me. I look forward to having a talk with you in person in Dallas
as well, about points of agreement or disagreement. I am glad
we're having that dialogue already through the book. I had
hoped it would open more dialogue, as we have on DPF
and in some other media outlets (though not enough of them).
I welcome reasoned disagreement and argument; we need more of that
in our discourse today rather than the shouting and sloganeering that
passes for dialogue on cable TV.
And along the lines
of what you and Magda have written about the left, one of the most
disappointing aspects of the case over the past fifty years has been
the unwillingness of many leftists and liberals to engage in it, as well as the state of
denial in which many seem to prefer living. I quote Mort Sahl in the book
as saying, "The social democrats in this country have a lot of guilt.
They didn't stand up to Vietnam. They didn't stand up to the encroachment of the intelligence
community. And they walked away from Jack Kennedy. The most they could
come up with after he was shot in the street like a dog was to say,
'He wasn't that good a president anyway.' Yeah, let me tell you, he had
a strange group of friends. Remarkably absent when he fell." That quote has long haunted
me with its painful truth.
Being unable to engage
one's friends in serious discussion of this case or of JFK's legacy has long been a hindrance. I find
it has become somewhat easier today. The younger generation seems
more openminded and free of some of the old hangups many boomers have dragged
along from the fifties and sixties. I think both you and Magda hit on
different aspects of why many 1960s leftists remain in denial. Of course,
some radicals of the time also became stockbrokers. And though
the antiwar radicals of the time used to say they were going to change
the world, the students who actually did so were such hawkish rightwingers as Dick Cheney
and Lynne Cheney, who were attending the University of Wisconsin, Madison,
when I was. Dick Cheney hurried past our October 1967 Dow Chemical
demonstration (which turned into a police riot) on his
way to his internship at the State Capitol with the
Republican governor, Warren Knowles. Lynne Cheney
professed horror over the participation of the San
Francisco Mime Troupe in our protest of Dow's manufacture
of napalm for the Vietnam War. I go into all this history and personal witness
in the book to help give context for people's attitudes today.