- [ ] [Timeline of events - 1968](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/timeline-seismic-180967503/) - After a battle for the [[Vietnam|Vietnamese]] village of Ben Tre, an American officer tells Associated Press reporter Peter Arnett, "It became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it." - Walter Cronkite, in a CBS-TV special on his recent tour of [[Vietnam]], says the U.S. [[war]] effort is “mired in stalemate” and amplifies public [[skepticism]] of the [[war]]. - [ ] [Senator John Heinz History Center video:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2Pcwq6m-9s) - 1968 was a turbulent year. It was a year of fun and excitement. It was a year of tragedy, but it ended. - [x] [Timeline of events - 2020:](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-12-18/what-a-year-it-was-a-2020-timeline) - The Dow Jones industrial average falls by 2,997.10, the largest single-day point drop ever, amid the coronavirus outbreak. - March 24: President Trump tweets that the “cure” cannot be “worse than the problem itself” and calls for country to reopen on Easter Sunday. - March 25: One million Californians file for [[unemployment]]. - April 4: President Trump, touting hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19, says, “What do you have to lose?” - April 30: Armed protesters enter the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich., to demand an end to the pandemic lockdown. - May 8: The U.S. [[unemployment]] reaches 14.7%, with more than 33 million jobless claims filed since mid-March. - May 25: Minneapolis police officer is filmed while pressing his knee on the neck of George Floyd for about eight minutes, killing him, as three other officers stand by. Video of Floyd’s death goes viral; the four officers are fired the next day. - July 8: The Supreme Court rejects claims of presidential immunity and rules President Trump must release his financial records to prosecutors in New York. - July 22: President Trump announces a “surge” of federal officers into [[Democratic]]-run cities, following a crackdown on [[protests]] in Portland, Ore. - July 30: President Trump suggests the 2020 presidential election be delayed, saying increased voting by mail could lead to fraud. - Aug. 20: Former Trump advisor Stephen K. Bannon is arrested and charged with fraud over a private fundraising campaign to build a border wall. - Aug. 25: Two people are shot and killed during unrest in Kenosha, Wis.; a suspect is arrested. Soon after, professional athletes start to boycott their sports to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake. - Sept. 29: Shouting, insults and misinformation, mostly by President Trump, dominate the first presidential debate. - Dec. 17: The availability of intensive care unit beds throughout Southern California hits 0%. - [x] [The Atlantic article:](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/1968-and-2020-lessons-from-americas-worst-year-so-far/612415/) - The current [[protests]] are about not one black man’s death, but thousands of them, and centuries of discrimination, dehumanization, and denial of basic [[Civil Rights]]. - “[[War]]” is not how public officials have referred to the [[protests]] by pro-Confederate and white-nationalist groups in recent years; those gatherings have not generally been dispersed by tear gas and rubber bullets. Nor were the armed “Liberate” protesters who swarmed the Michigan statehouse earlier this month removed by force; instead, the legislature canceled its session. - Most of the time, heavily armed police units such as SWAT teams are used not for the hostage and active-shooter scenarios for which they are ostensibly designed, but instead for work like executing [[SEARCH]] warrants, a 2014 study found. And agencies that use military equipment kill civilians at much higher rates than agencies that don’t, according to a 2017 study. - “I’m glad [protesters] only took down a sign and defaced a building, and they’re not killing human beings like that policeman did,” he said. “I’m glad that they only destroyed some brick and mortar, and they didn’t rip a father from a son, they didn’t rip a son from a mother, like the policeman did.” - [x] [NPR Podcast](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/878070770) - [[Nixon]] had a reputation as a pretty pro-[[Civil Rights]] guy. During the [[Eisenhower]] administration as vice president, he had been the point man on [[Civil Rights]]. He had supported [[Eisenhower]]'s 1957 [[Civil Rights]] bill - So what he did was very clever. He triangulated between the sort of explicit [[racism]] of George Wallace and what he portrayed as the permissiveness of Hubert Humphrey. And that - the reason it worked is because that's where most white people in [[America]] were in 1968. And I think that the country is both demographically different than it was in 1968, but also, white people are a lot more progressive on issues of race than they were in 1968. - PRESIDENT [[Nixon|RICHARD NIXON]]: And to those who say that law and order is a code word for [[racism]], there and here is a reply. Our goal is justice, justice for every American. If we are to have respect for law in [[America]], we must have laws that deserve respect. - SERWER: What I meant by that was that the president has made it clear that law and order means the use of state violence against his enemies and the protection of his allies against enforcement of the law. - So Trump is a person who views law enforcement's job, ideologically, as enforcement of the color line. - The [[Democratic]] Party is not more progressive on race because liberals are - white liberals are inherently better people; they are more progressive on race because they have to share power with nonwhite people. That is the actual source of the [[Democratic]] Party's progressivism on race. - It's important to remember that there's a segment of the [[Democratic]] - of white voters in the [[Democratic]] Party who have become substantially more progressive on issues of race - But that's what I find so interesting. Like, when I'm out here at these [[protests]], the crowds are literally half white, and they are louder than the people of color there, and it seems particularly earnest this time. And I can't help but thinking, like, half of that energy wouldn't have come from them unless they were responding to someone who seemed as toxic to them as Donald Trump. - [x] Textbook - [[LBJ]] sought to overcome [[America|Americans]] fear and give them a sense of forward movement in troubled times. (pg. 1033) - Result of the Great Society - Infant mortality dropped, college completion rates soard, malnutrition disappeared fewer elderly lived below the [[poverty]] lines (pg. 1033) - Medicare and Medicaid two of the most popular [[government|govt]] programs - The deaths of [[MLK]], [[Malcolm X]], [[JFK]], and [[RFK]] brought a death of idealism and important leadership for [[the left]]. (pg. 1040) - [[The Left|New Left]] focused on [[democratic]] equality and [[anti-war]] policies over ardent Maxist-Leninism (pg. 1049) - The weatherman's violence broke the [[The Left|New Left]]'s moral legitimacy and led to its decline (pg. 1054) - [[Nixon]] spokesman for middle-[[America]] and appealed to their want of law and order and their view of themselves as the silent majority. (pg. 1040) - The Equal Rights Amendment died in 1982 three states short of passing and was a success for conservative movements that opposed changing [[women]]'s role in society. (pg. 1059) - [x] Lectures - 1968 - 1960s - More Liberal [[America]] - Part A:  1968 is sometimes referred to as "The Year That Shattered [[America]]."  Consider this nickname.  Was 1968 the year that broke [[America|the United States]]?  Why or why not? Identify and discuss three events which support your position. - I think your view of whether 1968 shattered or broke [[America]] is completely dependent on your political position. Senator John Heinz says "1968 was a turbulent year. It was a year of fun and excitement. It was a year of tragedy, but it ended." 1968 had a large amount of turmoil, but for something to shatter [[America]], it must have lasting negative effects. While I do believe lasting effects of 1968 exist, whether they are negative or positive depends on which side you are on. Those on [[the left]] will remember 1968 for the loss of some of their most loved and progressive leaders. [[RFK]] was an ardent [[anti-war]] senator who could have won the election and ended the [[war]] while maintaining liberal leadership if he had not been assassinated in 1968. (Lecture 24, part 3, 1:00-2:30) [[MLK]] would have continued on to fight for [gurranteed minimum income](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/martin-luther-kings-economic-dream-a-guaranteed-income-for-all-americans/279147/) and a variety of other causes that could have helped shape the American view of [[poverty]] if he had not been killed in 1968. These deaths compounded with the deaths of [[Malcolm X]] and [[JFK]] would leave a vacuum of leadership on [[the left]]. (Textbook, pg 1040) These events combined with [[LBJ]]'s decision not to run for re-election (Timeline, 1968) and distress and chaos at the DNC (Lecture 24, part 3, 9:00-15:00) that lead to a weakened view of the [[Democratic]] party, and their loss in the 1968 election. Meanwhile, those on the right might view 1968 as a political triumph. [[Nixon]] was elected into the White House endorsing the ideas of "law and order," the "silent majority," and as spokesman of middle-[[America]] (Textbook, pg 1940), which are still at the core of the [[Republican]] party. While his presidency would later be marred with corruption, this only paves the way for small-[[government]] anti-corruption candidates like [[Reagan]] to sweep the country in 1980, and Trump in 2020. As a person on [[the left]], I don't view 1968 as a shattering of [[America]], but rather the infliction of a wound into the new flesh of a slightly less racist, slightly more caring country that had been growing since [[FDR]]. This wound would then be infected and rotted by corrupt politicians and corporate money for the next fifty years. - Part B:  1968 has been compared to 2020 by historians, by the [[media]], and by a number of other groups.  Is this a good comparison to make?  Why or why not?  Identify and discuss three points of comparison between the two years. - I do see some interesting parallels in the elections of the two years. The assassination of [[RFK]] is similar in result to the political assassination of [[Bernie Sanders]] on Super Tuesday. Both robbed [[the left]] of a chance to get the most liberal president in history. Another parallel is the almost single-issue vote for president, in 2020 it is COVID-19, and in 1968 it was the [[Vietnam]] [[War]]. That is where I see the parallels end. I think the years are fundamentally different due to events leading up to and during these years. 2020 followed four years of an openly racist, openly corrupt, and extremely conservative president, whereas apart from his [[foreign policy]] [[LBJ]] was mostly liberal and accomplished programs like Medicare and Medicaid. (Textbook, 1033) [[LBJ]] also sought to bring [[America|Americans]] together (Textbook, 1033), while Trump was openly partisan in the way he treats [[Democrat]] lead cities and states, (Timeline 2020, July 22). I also do not see a comparison between [[Nixon]] and Trump other than their corrupt presidencies. In the NPR podcast, Sanders remarks that [[Nixon]] was seen as a pro-[[Civil Rights]] politician, and coded his [[racism]] much better, whereas Trump was more obvious about his [[racism]]. (Podcast, 5:30-7:30) I also see the role of White [[America|Americans]] in race relations as much different then than now. 1968 followed several years of very well-organized and influential movements by [[MLK]], [[Malcolm X]], and the [[Black Panthers]] that were focused on the upliftment of [[black people]]. The country was mainly white and white people were still mostly unsupportive of these movements. The BLM movement of 2020 had much larger support among white [[America|Americans]], but this support is not as well organized as the movements of the 1960s. White support for BLM is based on a few things, one is the obviousness of the transgressions. Social [[media]] has allowed for more widespread viewing of police brutality, and also a better understanding of the reasons for the [[protests]]. "The current [[protests]] are about not one black man’s death, but thousands of them, and centuries of discrimination, dehumanization, and denial of basic [[Civil Rights]]." (The Atlantic) Sanders credits this as one reason for increased white involvement but says that the reason that the [[Democratic]] party is more progressive is not that white liberals are more progressive, rather it is because of their need for non-white voters. (Podcast, 23:00-28:00 ) This larger support for black lives does not mean larger support for the policies that will actually stop their murder. 1968 surely did have more than its fair share of tragedy and unease, as did 2020, but tragedy and unease are not unique to these two years. We have had multiple race riots in every non-wartime five-year period going back to the [[Civil War]], including notable summers in 1919, 1967, 1968, 2014, 2015, and 2020. We had a pandemic in [[1918]] that also killed hundreds of thousands of [[America|Americans]]. We have been involved in wars as useless and costly as [[Vietnam]] in the middle-east since the 1990s to the present day.