Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, Crosby Stills Nash and Young

First of all I would like to Mention what looks like a great opening of an Art Gallery Bar In Ivanhoe Village —

THIS SATURDAY 7/29 AT LOUD GALLERY…with art works, live music, a best shoe contest and live models….WOW

Check it out at their site–check the “Soft Opening” box on the right side to give you some idea what the 29th has to offer and since they were doing some major work on the site I anticipate you’re in for ever bigger and better:

Loud Gallery

and thanks for the sneak preview for me and my blog including a view of the Stand Tall Show being set up—which I have not included in my pictures since my theory is—you want to see it—go to Loud on the 29th and get your own personal look —

We’re finally on our own.

And a BIG THANKS to Rock ‘N Roll Heaven also in Ivanhoe Village on N. Orange for the main picture and my ones of records, and goods from the 60’s on this Blog—This huge record store has years and years of records to CDs as well as posters and all manner of other collectibles. If you’re looking for something to do with Rock and Roll—check here first.

This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Just click here for the song of the day.

So today we’ll look at some of the peoples and organizations that make up the interaction, activities, dramas and even deaths of that troubled yet tremendous time.

First there were the men who put us there….neither guiltless in the war, but neither a villain—important men that were governed by history and tradition as much as they themselves governed. A famous army general who was the commander and chief of War War II Dwight D. Eisenhower and a wealthy Senator from Mass–the first Catholic president of the USA, John F. Kennedy. They were the men who given the horrid fear we had of the Communists both in Europe and the newer growing threat in the Orient , along with their possession of that ultimate weapon we created but found we could not keep to ourselves; coud not fail to act with if not fear then with at least extreme caution. One passed the presidency along after the defeat of his party to another president—the second would die in office, a young president shot down in a Texas town in the prime of his life.

The Texan who took over on Kennedy’s death of course was Lyndon B Johnson–or more commonly referred to as LBJ (just like Eisenhower was Ike and Kennedy JFK), Born in 1937 in the Texas town of Stonewall, he started as a high school teacher and went on eventually to the Senate and then VP—when Kennedy was killed he became of course president. The man and his Democratic party had the potential for good and his Great Society did much for civil right law changes as well as Medicare and Medicade not to mention his war on poverty—but the man who was elected in 1964 by a landslide on a platform to de-escalate the war effort–would at no time allow that promise to have affected his escalation of the conflict in Nam. The record speaks for itself with 16,000 advisors on the ground in non-combat roles in 1963 to 525,000 active combatants (i.e. troops) by 1967. He became a major point of anti-war protestors and in fact he announced in 1968 that he would not run for re-election and his party went on to loose the presidency to the Republicans. LBJ went on to lament his loss of his Great Society by his involvement with the war, but not for long as he died in 1973 at his Texas home.

The Republican’s Richard Nixon (not so lovingly referred to as Tricky Dick) had lost the presidency to John Kennedy, many thought due to his poor showing against the TV camera’s “love” of Kennedy. Those of us who were anti-war didn’t like him any better than we had liked Johnson—they all had become part of the ESTABLISHMENT—the Them in the us against them…..that many of the youth of American perceived the world to have broiled down to. Many remind us that he did get us out of the war….But he again, like Johnson, advising of a plan to end the war in his campaign he went on to preside over as many years as his predicessor , with about 1/3 of the total causalities of US combatants in the entire conflict, being attributed to his presidency—the reason for the reduction was his putting Viet soldiers on the battle lines instead of American troops, not from de-escalation– and he eventually extended the war into Cambodia before we finally signed a treaty and withdrew our troops in 1973 allowing the fall of the South despite all the years we had fought to prevent just that. Nixon would go on to the Watergate Scandal and became the first president to resign (he was facing an impeachment hearing) in 1974, pardoned by his successor Gerald Ford he survived 20 years more before passing on in 1994.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down

BETTY FRIEDAN was one of the women who stepped forward in the 1960’s to push for women rights. We were in a generation, the first, when women who were no longer held to the reproductive norm–the pill had given us freedom and now we started looking around. The woman who authored THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE was in 1966 drafted by a group of women, who were tired of being put off by the government, as the first president of the National Organization of Women (NOW). The organization began with lobbies against labor laws that prevented women from working in certain jobs and ads that limited job applicants by gender. In the 70’s she left NOW to lead Women’s Strikes for Equality . She passed away in Washington DC in 2006.

Abbie Hoffman was to me totally irritating and terribly self-centered—but he made his point and became a bigger than life activist for peace and a poster child for the movement. In 1968 he co-founded the Youth International Party (Yippies) against the Viet Nam War as well as the U.S. economic and political system. He spent the rest of the 60’s protesting, interrupting first Pete Townsend of the Who in performance at Woodstock (he was high on LSD and Townsend and the Who would reference this in a later song decrying what the movement had become); then the Democratic Convention in Chicago, which further made his recognition soar when he stood trial as the best known member of the Chicago 7–after this he went on to a notorious drug deal (coke) then bail jumping, a complete redo of his face with plastic surgery and paper identity with a new name. but never content to stay under the radar he resurfaced and did a short time in jail. In the 80s he sank from sight and worked as an environmental activist before he left the fray forever in 1989,

Martin Luther King has been mentioned frequently in my accounts. Rev. King was a Black, Baptist and Civil Rights activist who worked peacefully for his people’s rights starting in the 50s. Dr. King, who was the son and grandson of Baptist ministers, was born in Atlanta, Ga in 1929. In the 60’s he continued to work all over the country from Alabama against extreme segregation practices to DC where he marched for peace and told the world “I Have A Dream.” And places further north like Chicago for issues on segregated housing. In 1964, Dr. King who worked tirelessly for his people and had been jailed and decried at various demonstrations, won the Nobel Prize for Peace. Dr. King never saw the results of his work as he was assassinated in 1968 while in Memphis, Tenn. on the balcony of his hotel where he was staying in preparation for a demonstration to support striking garbage workers in that city. Despite his death he has continued to be an icon for the movement and his story and image lives on in the hearts of those of us who have always believed in peace and love.