Chapter Content
Okay, so, like, where do I even start? This whole thing, you know, with taxes and government… it's a mess. So, like, these higher payroll taxes? Can you believe it? Three-fourths of the wage earners were paying *more* in Social Security than they were in income tax. Which, like, is kind of a bad look for the Democratic Party, right? They're supposed to be the party of the working class, and it was under Jimmy Carter that these taxes even started, which, like, wow.
And then, get this. If both parties are just ignoring what the public wants, where are people supposed to turn? Americans have always said they want taxes that are actually, you know, fair. This William Greider guy says that, back after World War II, when the rich were paying like, 90 percent… *90 percent!*… of their income in taxes, most people thought the tax code was fair. But then, all these “tax reforms” happened, and suddenly, like, eighty percent of people thought the tax system was benefiting the rich and screwing over the average person. Sounds about right, right?
Speaking of rich… the gap between the rich and the poor? It just ballooned. I mean, at the beginning of the eighties, CEOs were making forty times what the average factory worker made. By the end of the decade, it was *ninety-three* times. Ninety-three! The richest one percent saw their income go up almost eighty percent, while the poorest forty percent? Nada. Zilch. Actually, it went down a bit.
And because of the tax changes, the richest one percent, like, almost doubled their *after*-tax income. Meanwhile, the lower eighty percent? Either it went down a little, or it went up by, like, barely anything. Seriously, it's messed up.
And, obviously, things were worse for certain groups. Black people, Hispanics, women, young people… they all got hit especially hard. Black families, especially, with their existing lack of resources and, like, still facing discrimination. The civil rights movement helped *some* people, sure, but a lot were just left behind. Like, a third of African-American families were living below the poverty line. Black unemployment was, like, always way higher than white unemployment. The life expectancy of black people? Ten years less than white people. And you know what else? In some cities, the baby mortality rate was worse than in Jamaica or Costa Rica. I mean, come on.
And, you know, that kind of poverty? It leads to broken homes, violence, crime, drugs. In D.C., almost half of the young black men were either in jail, or out on parole or probation. And instead of, like, addressing the poverty that causes crime, the politicians just wanted to build more prisons. Makes sense, right? NOT.
You know, way back when, the Supreme Court said schools had to desegregate, but, like, poverty kept black kids stuck in ghettos. And then, the Supreme Court also said that poor school districts didn't need the same amount of funding as rich ones, and they didn't need to bus kids between the suburbs and the city. It was like, ugh, what's even the point?
And all these "free enterprise" people? They’re, like, "Oh, poor people just don’t work hard enough. It's their own fault." They, like, ignore single moms busting their butts to raise kids. They don't ask why a baby should be penalized for growing up poor. I mean, come on.
It’s ironic, honestly. One of the Republicans, Kevin Phillips, even pointed out that less and less money was going to people who were actually, you know, *producing* things. The big rewards were going to lawyers, financial advisors… people just manipulating stuff.
And then, there was this huge scandal with the savings and loan banks. The government made it easier for them to make risky investments, and they lost a ton of money. The government had to, like, bail them out with billions of dollars. But nobody really talked about it much during the election because, well, both parties were kinda involved in the cover-up. Nice.
Remember Eisenhower saying that spending all that money on the military was like, stealing from human needs? But everyone just ignored him. Both parties kept approving these massive military budgets. Like, they were scared that the Soviet Union was gonna invade Western Europe, even though, some experts said that it was just not realistic. Still, fear is a good way to justify buying all kinds of crazy weapons.
Like, this Trident submarine cost, like, one and a half billion dollars. And it was only useful in a nuclear war. That money could’ve paid for five years of child vaccinations all over the world and saved five million lives. But who cares about that, right?
One analyst said that all those weapons weren't really for military reasons, but were to, like, create an image. It’s for "domestic stability as well as international perceptions." So basically, they're spending all that money for show. And the CIA even admitted they exaggerated Soviet military spending. I mean, the whole thing was just, like, a massive waste.
And the Star Wars program? Billions of dollars to build a space shield. The first three tests failed, but, like, they faked the fourth one to make it look like it worked.
Eventually, the Soviet Union collapsed and then, there’s no more "Soviet threat," so the military budget gets cut a little. But it was still *huge*. And you would have thought that once the Soviets were gone, that we could breathe a little easier but no.
And you want to know the crazy thing? While the Republicans and Democrats were bickering over, like, minor cuts to the military budget, a survey said that most Americans wanted to cut *half* of the defense spending. But nobody listened. The politicians know better, right?
They still spent, like, a hundred and twenty billion dollars to "defend" Europe, which, like, everyone knew wasn't in danger anymore. So basically, everyone was just ignoring the public they were supposed to represent.
Oh, and during the Reagan-Bush years, the US government, like, got *super* aggressive with using military force. Either invading countries directly, or supporting these right-wing dictatorships.
Like, there was that revolution in Nicaragua, and the US started funding the "Contras" to overthrow the new government. These Contras were, like, terrorists. They were raiding farms, killing people… It was horrible. But, the American public was, like, "We don't want to be involved." But Reagan just ignored them.
The CIA put mines in Nicaraguan harbors. And when people found out, they lied about it. Congress even made it illegal to support the Contras. So, of course, the Reagan administration just found ways to do it secretly. They got money from Saudi Arabia, and got arms through Guatemala and Israel.
And then, the Iran-Contra affair? Selling weapons to Iran (who were supposed to be our enemy), getting them to release hostages, and using the profits to fund the Contras. President Reagan told, like, four lies about it. It's all, like, a perfect example of how the establishment works. Deny the truth, and then investigate, but not *too* much, you know?
And even after all of that, nobody really asked the important questions. Like, what is U.S. foreign policy all about? How can they support terrorists to overthrow a government that their own people are welcoming as an improvement over what the U.S. supported for years? What does any of this say about democracy?
Instead, they just investigated the lower level people, and the press kept the public in the dark about anything meaningful.
And guess what a leading Democrat, Senator Sam Nunn said as the investigation was starting? “We must all help the President restore his credibility in foreign affairs.” It’s like, who is he working for?
It became super clear that Reagan and Bush were in on the Iran-Contra affair, but their, like, underlings just kept them out of it. It’s called "plausible denial." And you know what? Nobody really got punished. They just put some of the smaller people on trial, and Reagan retired in peace, and Bush became president.
And get this, one guy ended up getting arrested. This minister named Bill Breeden from a small town, because he stole a street sign that was named after one of the people involved in the Iran-Contra affair.
And all of it? This Iran-Contra thing was just *one* instance where the US government broke its own laws to get what they wanted in foreign policy.
After Vietnam, Congress passed a law saying that the President has to consult with them before sending troops into dangerous situations. But Ford ignored it when he invaded Cambodia. And Reagan ignored it when he sent troops to Lebanon, and then Grenada.
And you know, with Grenada? The government said they were protecting American students. But a New York Times reporter basically proved that was a lie.
The real reason, one official said, was to show that the US was still a powerful nation. As for Grenada, an article in the Wall Street Journal, eight years later, talked about "an invasion of banks" and noted that the capital had more offshore banks than residents. Because what better place for "money laundering, tax evasion, and assorted financial fraud?”
And a lot of times, people died in these countries so that the US could send a message that they ruled the Caribbean. They didn’t do all that to help the citizens.
And look at El Salvador. The US backed a government that had death squads. Like, when an Archbishop asked Carter to stop military aid, they kept sending it anyway, and then the Archbishop was murdered.
When Congress wanted Reagan to say that they were making human rights progress before sending more money, he just lied. And when the press started reporting on the atrocities, they got pulled off the story. And you don’t hear about that.
You know, the US got mad when Libya had a hostile government. But they didn’t care about the dictatorships in Latin America. They dropped bombs on Khadafi’s house, and probably a hundred people died. So who are the real terrorists?
Then, the Soviet Union started falling apart. East Germany united with West Germany, and new non-Communist governments came into being. But the US claimed that Reagan’s policies brought down the Soviet Union. But that wasn't the whole story. Some people said the US policies actually *delayed* it. And the cold war also, like, cost the American people a ton of money, and created a huge amount of weapons that could destroy the planet. Great.
But when the Soviet Union collapsed, the US didn’t change its foreign policy. It seemed like the foreign policy was just motivated by a fear of revolution in other countries. They didn't want any “independent nationalism,” because it might hurt some powerful American businesses. Interventions were done for, like, those special interests. So they had to make up "the national interest."
The CIA had to prove it was still needed. And the military budget stayed huge. They just needed to scare the rest of the world. Which is exactly what they did when George Bush started that war with Panama and Iraq.
Panama’s dictator, Noriega, was corrupt, but the US had been using him for years. And then, when he wasn’t useful anymore, they invaded. They said they wanted to protect Americans and bring him to trial for drug trafficking. But they bombed neighborhoods and killed a ton of civilians.
And you know what Liberal Democrats like John Kerry and Ted Kennedy did? They supported it. It’s like they’re trying to prove that they can be as tough as the Republicans.
But the Panama thing was too small. They wanted something bigger. And Iraq taking over Kuwait? That was their chance.
Bush needed something to boost his popularity. And some people thought that he'd have to start a war to get re-elected. So they made it super clear that they weren't going to negotiate.
Even though the UN put sanctions on Iraq, and people testified that the sanctions were working, after the elections, Bush sent a ton more troops. He knew that a short, successful war would give him the votes.
And a lot of people have always wanted control of the Middle East oil. So those things, and some political reasons? That's why they went to war with Iraq.
Of course, they didn’t say *that* to the American people. They said they wanted to liberate Kuwait. And it was a nuclear bomb away from being built, but the evidence was weak. You know, Israel already had nuclear weapons, and the US had thousands.
You know, months before the war, there was actually a chance to negotiate an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, but they didn’t respond from the US. And the Secretary of State was told, "No negotiations."
Polls showed that most people didn't want military action. But Bush asked Congress to give him the power to make war. And most of them said yes. It’s like they were all for it, but still acting like it was up to the people.
So, they started bombing Iraq. And they said the bombs were super accurate, and they wouldn't hurt civilians. The press repeated the claims without question. I mean, maybe that’s why public opinion shifted from being equally divided to almost everyone saying it was for going to war. They didn’t want to betray the troops.
But it turns out a bunch of those bombs missed their targets.
And American reporters were kept away from the war, and their reports were censored. Because the government knew that showing civilian casualties hurt the public opinion in Vietnam. And now? They didn't want to risk that happening again.
They bombed an air raid shelter in Baghdad, and it killed hundreds of people. And the Pentagon said it was a military target, but, like, there was no military presence there. And what did the leading television news commentators do? They behaved like they worked for the U.S. government.
When the Soviet government tried to end the war, one reporter asked, "Isn't this the nightmare scenario? Aren't the Soviets trying to stop us?" Right.
And get this, as the Iraqi army was retreating, U.S. planes kept bombing them. All in the name of the same thing.
And after all that, it turned out that the bombings caused starvation, disease, and the deaths of thousands of children. And that the U.N. reported that Iraq was almost destroyed. But they kept Saddam Hussein in power. They just wanted to weaken him, not eliminate him, because the US sold arms to both Iran and Iraq.
So, the US didn't support Iraqi dissidents. It’s like the US wanted everything just in control, but not too much under control. It’s all just a game of power.
One of the politicians who got screwed up by the US involvement in Vietnam, said that there was a lot of upside for all that. I mean, “a blatant act of aggression was rebuffed and punished. U.S military power is henceforth likely to be taken more seriously. The Middle East and Persian Gulf region is now clearly an American sphere of preponderance.”
But it also raised the moral question of proportionality of response. I mean, you kill thousands of civilians.
But it was all good. At the end of the war, Bush said that "the specter of Vietnam has been buried forever in the desert sands of the Arabian peninsula." And the press agreed.
But this poet named June Jordan called it "a hit the same way that crack is, and it doesn't last long."
You know, a writer for the New Republic warned people about a "permanent adversarial culture" in the United States. And I think that’s so important. People, just like, don’t give up on fighting for a more equal and humane society.
And things aren’t perfect, because a lot of things still get in the way. Like how both parties are too reliant on corporation money, and how the US keeps wasting money on the military. There’s the War on Poverty in the sixties. But then the war in Vietnam happened, and it didn’t go anywhere.
So in the Carter years, a movement against nuclear arms began to grow. Small peace activists got arrested for protesting nuclear war at the Pentagon and the White House.
And then these people known as the Plowshares Eight used sledgehammers to smash nuclear missile nose cones and smeared blood on missile parts at a G.E. plant. They said they were trying to set an example.
And they had a huge point, because all the taxpayer’s money goes to these corporations that produces weapons. The Plowshares said, G.E. drains 3 million a day from the public treasury - an enormous larceny against the poor."
They just took a chance. It didn't come to a halt. The movement against nuclear weapons kept going. They were willing to go to jail to make others stop and think. Millions of Americans got scared and were, like, "Okay, these nuclear arms races are outrageous because they drain from money that could’ve been used for life’s necessities."
And that feeling wasn’t only shared by, like, the radical activists. Jurors who convicted the Plowshares Eight even showed sympathy for their actions. Even Middle-American Pennsylvania jurors!
After Reagan’s huge military budget happened, a national movement against nuclear weapons was provoked. And people got referendums and said they believed in a mutual halt to testing and wanted Congress to devote funds for civilian use.
And women were in the forefront of this movement.
A small group of doctors started to organize meetings around the country. And doctors spoke about how a single bomb could kill two million people.
At a national meeting, Catholic bishops opposed any use of nuclear weapons.
And the biggest political demonstration in the history of the country? It took place in Central Park, New York City. Close to a million people gathered to end the arms race.
Even the scientists who worked on the atom bomb said things that would scare the living daylights out of people, including their president.
So just like that, things had changed really quickly in public opinion. People were less willing to spend money on the arms race. And students started to refuse to register for the draft. It got so widespread that this former politician started to worry about it, because he was seeing it everywhere. “There is a Jane Fonda on every doorstep,” he said.
So then, there was pushback.
But one student, James Peters, said he didn’t want to join because he saw that militarism has failed the human race.
And this other resister, Benjamin Sasway, protested US military intervention in El Salvador, as a good reason for not registering.
It's just all about this one way to see the nation as a hypocritical society with a materialistic roadblock along the path of human progress.
To say that we need to talk about the fact that we can’t ignore human needs and be militaristic, is to say what the average Joe is not saying on the street.
And even though the people in Harvard shouted at Reagan’s Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, people continued to die in El Salvador.
You can start to see the whole reason it’s so hard to feel like people in Washington are looking out for the interest of Americans.
But then there’s these people like Charles Clement who worked with these Salvadoran rebels. He basically said he saw the US government was lying and couldn’t keep doing any missions for them. But after he refused, they sent him to a psychiatric hospital, then to discharge him. What a joke.
There’s one Harvard Commencement where people gave Carlos Fuentes an ovation for criticizing the U.S. involvement in Latin America.
And when I look at the journals my students kept, I don’t see the pervasive selfishness people complain about with them, even still.
That male student I knew from Roxbury told me he thinks anything good that’s happened in the world has anything to do with the government. And another student, a graduate of a Catholic high school, told me he won’t die for the defense of the honor of the government, just American society.
So that's when she said, if they take their rights away, they can act on the injustice directly.
And there’s protests at Federal buildings against U.S. involvement in El Salvador. You can see that even the so-called "average citizen" is frustrated.
Over 60,000 Americans signed pledges to take action if Reagan invaded Nicaragua. In Boston alone, 550 people were arrested in protesting the blockade.
There were hundreds of actions throughout the nation against Reagan’s policies in South Africa. And so Congress took action, over Reagan’s veto.
People get angry with these government cuts. In East Boston, people blocked main streets to protest cuts in funds for fire, police, and teachers.
And I think people in Washington underestimate how far these protests will grow and take hold. Because I think people are more frustrated and are making more of a stand.
People in the arts world also got angry about government cuts. Two hundred people got arrested at this big historic Broadway theater they razed to make way for a hotel.
Surveying this period shows that people moved from a state of fear to a state of anger, testing civil order. I feel you.
The Reagan administration gave people a lot of reasons to go on strike.
And in Pennsylvania, when a teacher was sent to jail for striking, 2000 people demonstrated in front of the jailhouse.
These farm foreclosures were causing a lot of problems in that area and people were angry at the government, so they decided to stop those things from happening.
Even Reagan showing up in Pittsburgh was met with a demonstration by the unemployed steelworkers.
So that’s when all the Miami blacks rioted against police brutality, since they haven’t been taken care of the same way as other cities. And the sad thing is that the plan by the government was really to create more jails instead of giving people resources. But that isn’t to say that it’s all going wrong, you know?
As we move toward these solutions, Marian Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund made this commencement speech at Milton Academy in Massachusetts, because people were getting so riled up. You know, you’re graduating into a bankrupt nation on the brink of moral and economic bankruptcy. Then since 1980, the government has basically brought good news to the rich.
And she says the numbers tell the story, because so much is spent on arms while billions of people all over the world are struggling to survive. She urges people to see where they can put themselves and help solve the problems.
And the truth is that they’re so wrong. They’re taking funds away from things to help the poor and they don’t care how they balance the budget.
When Reagan gave 51.6% of the popular vote, it was with only 54 percent of the population voting. So that only works out to, like, 27% of the total eligible voters.
So that only works out to a slim electoral plurality in what people claim is a landslide of support for the Reagan-Bush era.
And to get to what a lot of this comes back to, public opinion surveys showed the voters expressed beliefs that neither the Democratic or Republican parties paid attention to.
They never asked if people would be willing to pay higher taxes for healthcare and education. The majority say yes. And a December poll in 1990 revealed that 84% of people are in favor of a surtax on millionaires. In spite of people being in favor of raising the capital gains tax, neither of the major parties favors it. It's like a popularity contest in the schoolyard but for politicians.
So people are always talking about welfare, when they mean to talk about something deeper, in ways that make people oppose those things. 23% of people oppose allocating money to welfare. Then when they ask people if the government should help the poor, 64% say yes.
There’s a big disconnect that leaves an electorate with a government incapable of dealing with fundamental economic illness. That's because of that illness, which is that the United States is a class society. The richest 1% own 33% of the country’s wealth, while there’s an underclass of 30-40 million in poverty.
The social programs don’t help much more than to keep the historical distribution of wealth. The Democrats will give more money than the Republicans, but in the end neither can really seriously make changes in an economy where corporate profit comes before human need.
There's a need for big social movements. Not social democracy and the same failures that you see in Europe or New Zealand, you know? But something new. Something more radical. But these local actions get no media time. That’s exactly why the elites want all these things squashed.
Like, The Citizens' Clearinghouse for Hazardous Wastes in Washington, D.C. gives aid to 8,000 different local groups. Like the one in Oregon that made lawsuits to make the EPA do something about the drinking water near Portland.
And those persistent protests that happened for years against a nuclear power plant in Seabrook, New Hampshire. By 1994 the Tennessee Valley Authority had stopped the construction of three nuclear plants.
I think it's because we see how Chernobyl and Three Mile Island end up happening in 1979 and 1986.
Plus thousands of people in Minneapolis demonstrated because of military contracts with Honeywell Corporation.
People want those who commit violence to be seen in court, with sympathetic jurors giving acquittals.
In 1984, citizens in Vermont refused to leave the hallway of an office in protest of arms to the contras. Because those contras are bad news, who would want to sell to them?
Then there was Abbie Hoffman and Amy Carter being charged with blocking the CIA.
It gets hard to stomach if the middle of America rejects the CIA.
So in the South there were things happening with the organizing of poor people. And people did their best to stay organized and fight these things.
Remember the workers who were told to rebel against their feudal working conditions? Farmworkers had that going on, and the struggle against poverty was real because there was too much inequality.
Because they couldn’t deal with it all, people got angry at National Guardsmen in the area, resulting in a lot of fighting, until the power finally defeated them.
Even victories were hard-won, such as with the cannery workers, most of them Mexican women. But at least then the government tried to help them.
But most people were getting laid off. Because Levi Strauss closed down their place in San Antonio, and people needed to protest by saying no to their hunger strike for the cause.
But as much as all these protestors were getting to do, activists have to campaign more to get the government in line. Those from Latino heritage and roots, anyway.
It helped that people on the border and around had all these Latino radio stations. Now there were 14 stations on the ground, with 12 being bilingual.
In New Mexico, people fought for land and water rights against those people who were in real estate.
Cesar Chavez fasted for 35 days to call attention to cancer rate problems, as well as the water and the earth, for the people of Latino descent.
We had to deal with the terrible conditions for Mexican workers, as all those workers were being brought in. There were thousands that lived in North Carolina.
In 1991 the border arts workshop was formed by writers and artists to deal with racism and Injustice.
In Northern California people gave performances at schools and other places as theaters. These cultural events had huge impacts on the way people fought for what they believed.
People were more conscious that America had an imperial role to play. A great march in Los Angeles against the Vietnam War in 1970, where a lot of the marchers got killed, was something they kept close to their hearts.
As the Bush Administration prepared for Iraq, thousands of people did what they did before, and marched along the same route to protest.
In 1992 Resist, a fund-raising group that helped people get involved in the Vietnam War, gave donations to over 100 organizations - for a lot of different causes.
But a new generation, those schooled in the sixties, took a small but socially conscious role in the legal system. And they represented those without anyone to stand up for them, against the powerful corporations.
Because we have this movement of women who have made people everywhere conscious, that women face unique struggles. But since the courts backed down and let states discriminate, it started to look like we weren’t being heard. And the battle with the Supreme Court was ongoing.
Then comes another issue: gay and lesbian rights. In the seventies these people had to fight, but when they joined together it changed things in our nation.
Things had to be said on the books. The movement grew and we were open about everything.
Then in 1994 there was the Stonewall 25 in Manhattan, which commemorated the raid that sparked the gay fighting movement.
In Rochester NY, after the decision barring them, military recruiters couldn’t come around.
And as for our labor movement? Well, it was weakened a lot since manufacturing had declined, so we all had to stand up and fight. And rank and file workers even rebelled. And in the 90s new organizers had a new focus: helping Latino, Asian-American and African-American people.
But hey, what can we say? At least the leader of the Teamsters got voted out.
Still, against the powers that controlled the wealth and government, this spirit kept a light shining with courage and defiance. They made something called Food not Bombs and were arrested for handing out food without a license.
By 1992 these historical ideas were being revised.
Oh, yeah, even when the FBI and CTA did the wrong thing the people spoke out.
The former CIA agents were not staying quiet. They told their stories and wrote books about what had happened.
But there are even veterans speaking out now, saying what went wrong with their war. Now they are all saying there shouldn’t be any war at all.
What a long way we’ve come.
We get to the question of this thing called the Vietnam Syndrome.
Because people got to be afraid of the war, the government was ready to do something drastic. Now we’re seeing all this Vietnam stuff being brought up again.
In Missouri, even the children are getting involved in saying they won’t go. And despite all that, in some surveys people are still saying that they’re in favor.
So people aren’t going to have that good feeling with being pro war like they did in the past.
But now there’s those people who are joining the Veterans for Peace. The protestors are saying “Oil and Blood do not mix, Wage Peace.”
So despite the military having control, we can see a lot of college kids, in Minnesota, having a huge demonstration against war.
People at the town meeting in Colorado ask “Do you support Bush’s policy for war?” and only like, 4 people raise their hands. 4000 people in Santa Fe blocked the road for an hour to say they don’t want war. 6000 people in Ann Arbor showed up saying there should be peace.
Even before the bombing started, some people just couldn’t understand the pain. And with the bombardment that happened, the news was completely skewed.
So even though there wasn’t much time to organize, the movement against the Gulf War expanded really quickly. It was only a minority, but it had the potential to grow.
So in the first week of war, tens of thousands of people took to the streets, in towns and cities.
Two women sat atop a concrete entrance with signs that read Teach Peace not War. So then more people started asking what was so important about all of this, with the news.
They get to the core of the question.
There were people who spoke at a rally where people are chanting peace now. Because it was so wrong to be killed at war.
It’s better to say that they want those men and women to be home.
You would think, after this period of violence, and because the war was devastating, that someone in power would say, let’s not do this again.
Well that’s where the problem lies. One official who used to be Reagan’s Secretary, said that this guy was the U.S. was all about just giving lip service.
And people like Al Molnar wrote open letters to the president to say they were going to support their kids by saying no to any kind of action against the Persian Gulf.
There’s even a lot of famous people like Margot Kidder, who are fighting to do everything they can to make the war go away, even though it could cost them.
And as a response to the war, one man even killed himself. A war should never make someone that sad.
A young man at Amherst kneeled and lit himself on fire. With two hours having passed, students gathered in the darkness and the site turned into a memorial.
One Marine, named Corporal Jeff Peterson, got down on the runway and said he wouldn’t be going to Saudi Arabia. The people on the force thought he was crazy.
Fourteen Marine Corps reservists asked for conscientious objector status. That guy said what he was doing wasn’t worth a life with the things that were being taken away from his country.
One physician called what her government was doing unconstitutional. The woman, Huet-Vaughn, ended up spending two and a half years in prison for what she did.
There was also a woman, from Illinois, who said she thought the United States was in the Persian Gulf because of the oil.
And there was an army physician who said he would rather go to jail than support the war.
After it was all said and done, a number of people said they had trouble reconciling the killing. That what there were doing was for what they believed in.
Then there was another group called Rob. They said that they believed they were serving the country by being true to their consciences.
You know, that type of stuff is a big point.
Anyway, people want to get information out. There are alternative newspapers in cities and there are community radio stations out there. It goes so much further than anything in mainstream media.
After the war, it began to die down, and people realized that the costs were crazy. But still, to make way for the peace the government determined to start, they found a way to spend all the money instead of going for peace. In effect saving them from a peace dividend.
As well, another historian named Marilyn Young pointed out some big problems after the war was over. She said she felt like they could destroy cities in Iraq, but they could do nothing about their own highways, with all the resources at their disposal. There was a moral crisis happening in the US during the years of those wars.
The Indians got a whole lot more visible in the 60s and 70s. They organized against the Quincentennial celebrations. Because it had to be brought out that Columbus’s time here had been less about finding freedom, and more about starting a genocide.
There were official commissions and counter commission being set up for that quincentennial thing.
So, they didn’t receive permission to land in the western hemisphere unless they apologized for the original incursion, said by these Native nations.
Oh and there was a call by the National Council of Churches to refrain from celebrating. Basically, what the people were saying, we have done a great injustice and we are asking people to come back together.
Then the exhibition came through and it got protested. That’s what happens if you teach things wrong. And there was one kid who took her protest to a whole new level.
But at least in their thoughts, a small voice can reach an audience.
In Corpus Christi, people denounced the US by bringing up history.
Then there was this exhibit by Deborah Small, a professor. Her exhibit dramatized the horrors that accompanied Columbus’s arrival in the hemisphere, with the words that he said in his diary to the people that greeted him.
Then another American Indian said they wanted the government to be free. What the heck’s the difference between now and when Columbus got here and we got taken?
It just made a lot of people, mostly schoolteachers, want to tell those truths from the Columbus experience, where people were being taught with lies.
This got one teacher, Bill Bigelow, super mad. He’s the one who put together Rethinking Schools. In the end, though, he realized he was just getting mad and there was no reason.
So this lady, Rebecca, one of the students, said something simple in her heart and her mind. Because of having the things in the past not mattering? It makes her feel angry.
There was all this that caused people everywhere to ask themselves questions about how society was being put together.
These groups formed on the west coast said that Native and Italian people, if they did more together, could possible make good change.
What a way to bring together what Columbus had done with what people are doing. It brought people closer to changes in the world. Because people were wanting more than what was being given.
A high school student went before the council in L.A. to argue against the Quincentennial. Then on a talk show the Haitian spoke her truth. She didn't have any statues. But what she really wanted were statues for those aborigines.
This movement led to so many educational activities. We got dozens of new workshops, films and shows, in the name of honoring a just cause.
In New York, there was an opera about what Columbus did to the Indians.
This caused a big change in education. Now, the history was being brought to children differently.
In response, conservative voices pushed back and said these new changes were because of "political correctness.” Some people didn't want to have expansion criticized, because in their minds, it was just a normal part of civilization.
I think in that way we got too caught up on