Click on the headline to link to an American Left History blog entry, dated, Thursday, August 23, 2007, entitled ON COMING OF POLITICAL AGE-Norman Mailer's The Presidential Papers to give a little flavor to the commentary.
Markin comment:
On Saturday afternoon, October 16, 2010, I spent some time in downtown Boston awaiting American President Barack Obama’s appearance in support of his friend, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, whose is running in a tough reelection race. Oh, make no mistake I was not there to hail Caesar, but rather I was down there with others, precious few others given the occasion and infrequent chance to confront warmonger-in-chief Obama in person, to protest his Iraq and Afghan wars. Naturally, we were outnumbered by Patrick/Obama supporters but that is neither nor there for this comment.
During the course of the afternoon that event (the Patrick campaign event), and the particular locale where it was staged, brought back a flood of memories of my first serious organized political actions in 1960 when, as a lad of fourteen, I set out to “save the world.” And my soul, or so I thought at the time, as well. That was the campaign of our own, Jack Kennedy, as he ran for president against the nefarious sitting Vice President, one Richard Milhous Nixon. In the course of that long ago campaign he gave one of his most stirring speeches not far from where I stood on this Saturday (near the Hynes Center).
Although gathering troops (read: high school and college students) for that speech was not my first public political action of that year, a small SANE-sponsored demonstration against nuclear proliferation further up the same street was but I did not help to organize that one, the Kennedy campaign was the first one that hinted that I might, against all good sense, become a serious political junkie. Ya, I know, every mother warns their sons (then and now) and daughters (now) against such foolhardiness but what can you do. And, mercifully, I am still at it. And have wound up on the right side of the angels, to boot.
The funny thing about those triggered remembrances is that as far removed from bourgeois politics as I have been for about the last forty years I noticed many young politicos doing their youthful thing just as I did back then; passing out leaflets, holding banners, rousing the crowd, making extemporaneous little soapbox speeches, arguing with an occasional right wing Tea Party advocate, and making themselves hoarse in the process. In short, exhibiting all the skills (except the techno-savvy computer indoor stuff you do these days before such rallies) of a street organizer from any age, including communist street organizers. Now if those young organizers only had the extra-parliamentary left-wing politics to merge with those organizational skills. In short, come over to the side of the angels.
But that is where we come back to old Jack Kennedy and that 1960 campaign. Who would have thought that a kid, me, who started out walking door to door stuffing Jack Kennedy literature in every available door in 1960 but who turned off that road long ago would be saying thanks, Jack. Thanks for teaching me those political skills.
Oh, not so fast, though. Let us not get all musty-eyed yet.We have a little unfinished business yet. No thanks, Jack, for the Vietnam War. And no thanks for handing it off to your boy Lyndon. And Lyndon handed off it to Tricky Dick who you thought you had finished off. And Tricky Dick handed off to Jerry. Finally the DRV/NLF put paid to all of that. But while we are at it Jimmy, no thanks, for Iran. Ditto Ronnie for Central America and Bush I for Iraq I. And Bill for Serbia. And George II for Iraq II and Afghanistan I. See, that is one big, one very big, reason I was not out there working with those young Markins this past Saturday. I haven’t forgotten about the real business of being warmonger-in-chief. As For Iraq II and Afghanistan II I haven’t forgotten that either. Obama-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Note: The See Jack Run in the title refers to the title of an exhibit on the 1960 election at the JFK Library in Boston.
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