Saturday, June 14, 2008

Election 2008; A Comparison

As the national elections of 2008 approach, less than five months away, it's interesting, and a bit puzzling, to reflect on the presidential election that took place in 1968. Interesting because both elections will come to be, I think, pretty important and exciting as elections go. And too there are such similarities. We'll learn later about the differences.

In 1968 the Democratic convention was held in Chicago, and riots resulted in the form of protests against the Vietnam War. Lyndon Baines Johnson was president following the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963. Johnson had accomplished some remarkable things, notably civil rights legislation and a war on poverty that cut the level of poverty almost in half, to around 12 percent, about the same as now. (Yeah.) And he was the last president up to Bill Clinton to balance the budget. But the war was still going on and it was very unpopular, even though the invasion of South Vietnam by North Vietnam appeared to be pretty scary and something to defeat if possible, inasmuch as the Communists appeared to be still going strong internationally. The Communists did in fact take over South Vietnam, and Laos and Cambodia too, as I remember.

Anyway Johnson had decided not to run for reelection, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey was the Democratic nominee. Richard Milhous Nixon was the Republican nominee, and, as everyone knows, he won the presidency, taking office in 1969. The riots in Chicago could well have been a deciding factor in that vote. Now in the news we're reading about some of the protests being planned for the Democratic convention to be held in Denver in August of 2008. Could they have similar consequences?

What is puzzling to some of us is why the protests now over the Iraq War, during a very unpopular presidency, and with the war very unpopular, are so muted compared with the uproar in 1968. Indeed casualties were much higher then: more than 58,000 Americans lost their lives, while the figure in the Iraq War is now only a little over 4000. The numbers reflect no doubt the existence of a draft in 1968, contrasted with an all-volunteer military force in Iraq today. One might suspect that were there a draft now the protests would be much louder. As for the outcome of the Obama-McCain election campaign now going on, that remains to be seen.

1 Comments:

Blogger clark myers said...

With respect to Chicago only I would not say riots resulted in the form of protests since in Chicago the rioters were police.

In my memory the riots were mostly a generational conflict with almost no one against war - Tom Hayden/Jane Fonda pro-communist; Joan Baez anti-war.

Mostly the kids identified US interests with their parents and wanted the US to lose. Students at the University of Chicago partied to celebrate the fall of Saigon much as the Mid East partied to celebrate the fall of the World Trade Center.

3:42 PM  

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