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My parents were lifelong Democrats but they had a hard time believing that the US could have gotten things so wrong. They didn't like the war, but they believed that the political process was still working. When Nixon announced the Cambodian invasion, I was visiting my parents and watched him make his speech on TV. I went over the top, opening their window and screaming, "Fuck you, Nixon!!" to their neighborhood. That was too much for them. They thought I should cool it. But then Kent State happened and they understood my rage a bit more.
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I was opposed to the Vietnam War, but never had to make a decision about what to do if drafted.
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I went from being a straight-A pom pom girl and high school civic leader to a college dropout, bona fide hippie communard, and movement "member" within less than one year, dur to exposure to the college environment, active minds, active movement, and drugs.
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Q: Do you think the madness started earlier...?
I was baptized, by my own choice, on December 10, 1961, at the age of eleven-and-a-half. I mention this because it so closely predates the time that I began having serious doubts about the existence of God. I continued to attend church for a couple more years, amidst increasing discomfort. By the time I entered high school, in 1964, I had decided to reject Christianity altogether. My adolescent doubts coincided with bigger social changes.The assasination of President Kennedy and the subsequent controversies, the coming of the Beatles to the US a few months later, my introduction--by my elder brother--to Allen Ginsburg's Fact Magazine, and my involvement in high school debate combined to make me see American society as being quite a bit different from its representation. I had entered high school having rejected God as the ultimate authority. I learned in high school to question the official version of just about everything.
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Through most of high school (1962-1966) I supported the war, in sort of a semi-conscious "hooray for the USA" kind of way. But then as I saw that I had no choice but to be involved--it would suck me in one way or the other-- the issues became much clearer. The war had no moral purpose--the regime we were propping up was as corrupt and dictatorial as anything we accused the Communists of. And worse, in terms of my own belief in the American system, the Johnson administration could not be trusted. The President of the United States *lied*! That was a devastating revelation.
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as you requested, some free associations:
yes, i agree that [the Vietnam War] was a rite of passage, in several respects. it was the first time that i felt i was not just a passive traveller in society, but an active player with a stand and a power that could be felt. it was a major source of generational identity. i remember how the war suddenly became a real thing when i realized the boys i knew were eligible to be drafted. it made the world large and small at the same time - large because my perspective now included something much bigger than my previous high school concerns, and smaller because vietnam did not feel far or distant. it was the first time i felt that it was my turn to take a stand.
joined: yes, i think joined is the right word for me. my family has always been organizers; labor activists, civil rights activists. i was a high school student when the moratoria started, and i was approached by a peace group just by happenstance to be an organizer on the high school campus. i said yes because all my life i had been taken to marches. but when i started working with this group the issues took on a larger life. it connected me with people who thought a lot about peace, not just regarding this war. and, when i started organizing and saw the hostile reaction, it gave me true feeling of "oh, shit, there's *lots* to be done - better get going!"
i was a high school student when this began, so my parents never let me go to any of the marches in dc. my role was to organize simultaneous marches and protests in my home town. now, i grew up in a white privileged family in a white privileged suburb. leading my first march was the first time that i was on the other side of the system. i was shocked by the rage and fury this march for peace and an end to the killing inspired. we had to be surrounded by police for our own safety. people tried to throw things at us and hit us and splash us with paint. it really made me begin to think about what made people have such a strong stake in supporting the war, with frightening conclusions....
i also did a lot of fundraising to bus people to the dc marches, and i became aware of how limited most people's concept of social consciousness was. very few could see any personal benefit from ending this war (remember, privileged: had lots of ways of keeping their *own* kids out.) i was accustomed to my parents, and was shocked at all the lip service, no action, no sense of an intangible good.
and as to the sixties, well they seemed more like a call to arms than a madness to me. i remember standing in a service with my father while he tried to explain to me what had happened to martin luther king, and going to the strategy session of the civil rights group he worked with afterwards. it seemed unreal until rfk's death, when the picture finally jelled for me. i remember going to see rfk's coffin just because i felt a need to really witness it, to be a part of the changes that were happening.
and i guess i believed that we were changing the world. that we would bring about world peace. that we would bring about a time of human understanding and caring.
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