Posted on 03/17/2016 3:08:10 PM PDT by Kaslin
I have been an attentive observer of political protests for many moons. You might say I was present at their creation. For me, that would be back in 1968 at Chicago, Illinois's Grant Park. My brother and I stood between a line of young Chicago policemen as they grew increasingly anxious, their backs to the hotels that faced the park. In the park, luminaries of Democratic politics -- Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey -- were putting the final touches on their convention performances. What provoked the young cops (those mainly of Irish and Italian descent) was a mob of college-age demonstrators, members of the vaunted youth movement of 1968 who were proponents of the new politics movement. They were about to get what any sane observer would have anticipated. But the Tyrrell boys were reliably sane and faded from the scene.
Shortly thereafter the cops rioted. Blood was spilled and bones were broken. Years later I appeared on the Bob Grant radio show with one of the organizers of the Chicago mayhem, Tom Hayden. Tom looked great. Well, he looked about as great as a dissipated middle-aged man and his genetic endowment would allow him to look. I asked Tom to tell Bob Grant's radio audience what his youthful provocateurs were taunting the cops with that faraway afternoon. Tom blanched and hesitated. I helped him, reminding him that the demonstrators were saying lines such as, "Hey, Pat, who's home f---king your wife?" Kaboom! Thankfully, we Tyrrells were safe back at the Conrad Hilton Hotel.
So it went for all the decades between the Grant Park protest in 1968 and the Donald Trump rallies in Chicago and Ohio this past weekend. I did not have to be at these rallies to report on them. Cable television provided me with the local color, which was pretty much the same as 1968: smug young people, provocative language, menacing gestures and middle fingers in the air. Some things, however, were new, such as professionally printed anti-Trump signs, professionally printed signs for Sen. Bernie Sanders and cellphones. What's more, smug demonstrators were not as badly beaten as in 1968, but then again the police are trained better now.
One thing has not changed: Both these demonstrators and the earlier ones have experienced the high point of their lives. From now on it will all go downhill. Perhaps some will pursue a mediocre degree from a third-rate diploma mill; then they'll reach years of middle-aged tedium, and finally the ravages of old age -- for some an early old age. Those will be the lucky ones. Others will not do so well. I know. I have followed generations of protesters.
The billionaire Trump plans to prosecute each arrestee, and that would not cost him much of his fortune. If we had been serious about keeping the peace and maintaining the rights of peace-loving citizens back in 1968, American democracy would have been spared a lot of angst with no loss to peaceful protest whatsoever. Incidentally, Bill Ayers, of the Weathermen organization, was out on the street in Chicago over the weekend. At 71 years of age he looked about as pulchritudinous as Hayden. He is still stirring up trouble despite having been hit with federal charges in the past, and notwithstanding all the death and destruction that he and his radical colleagues have left in their wake.
One thing was different from 1968. Then, only the demonstrators and their leaders like Hayden blamed the political candidates for the youthful demonstrators' violence. Today, all the candidates running against Trump -- the Democrats Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton and even Republican candidates -- blamed Trump and his followers for the assailing demonstrators. One opportunist, Mitt Romney's former political strategist named Stuart Stevens, even compared Trump to the 1968 segregationist George Wallace. That was ignorant, but not as ignorant as the commentators who compared Trump to Hitler and Stalin. Obviously the derangement syndrome of the Bush years is still with us.
Meanwhile, Trump continues his astonishing campaign. He has even had a heroic episode, though it went largely unreported. In Ohio, as he was speaking to a vast throng of people on Saturday, there was a disturbance behind him. It sounded to me like a gunshot, though it was not. Some lunkhead leaped a fence and headed in Trump's direction. Barely fazed, the candidate lunged directly toward the source of the trouble. The Secret Service ascended the stage to surround him.
Now, Trump, you have had your Ronald Reagan moment and you passed the test admirably. Get on with the campaign in the dignified tone that you and your opponents struck Thursday night in debate, when all the Republican candidates were more statesmanlike than crazy Sanders or Clinton. We need to replace these 1968 Democrat retreads next year.
Proving once again that for liberals history begins the day they are born.
The key difference between 1968 and 2016 is that in 1968, Mayor Daley gave Chief Conlisk the green light to bash heads and kick ass. In 2016, Mayor Emmanuel told the police not to make arrests.
Sorry, HUGE DIFFERENCE. Last Friday (in Chicago) it was an attempt by OPPOSING PARTY DISRUPTERS to shut down the right to speak to supporters (although you may not think they were the opposition party, given the support they got from Cruz and other GOPe) - many of them paid to be there.
Back then it was activists of the SAME PARTY - we’ll get there in Cleveland if the GOPe continues their suicidal march towards denying Trump the nomination.
Emmett Tyrrell is a liberal? Who knew?
Exactly! The 2 events have nothing in common other than the city where they happened and the fact that the violent thugs were leftists in both cases.
So he’s just stupid? The comparison of what happened at the Trump rally to the riots at the ‘68 DemRat convention was even dumber than is his ignorance of history.
History simply repeating itself.
No, he’s not stupid. He’s pretty much on the mark. In Post #3, I identified the key difference.
I hope this is not a rehash of 1968! I remember Bobby Kennedy (who would have been President) very well, the shock and hysteria that followed!
Post #4 was really the key difference.
Don’t see my Post #12
Classic Emmett Tyrrell, I love it!
If they want the return of 1968 maybe the police could thump some libtard heads like they did back in the day.
Post #12 is just the keyhole!
“Barely fazed, the candidate lunged directly toward the source of the trouble.”
Trump wanted a piece of that POS, but the SS tackled him first!
TAS’s Tyrrell? He’s the best thing about TAS.
1968 was much worse. I know. My dad commuted in/out of Chicago everyday and we had curfews going on in the suburbs.
Uh, no, yesterday was not like 1968.
Try radical leftists shooting citizens, bankrobbing to finance their revolution, assassinations, bombings and extremely widespread protests with head bashing, fece flinging and tear gas as the perfume d’jour. Finally, add the fear of Viet Nam which garnered widespread popular support by the middle classes.
The revolution still failed.
Today, as Hillary krinton said - the revolution must come from the top down. And so it is. Corruption is widespread and statesmen are few. The watchdog media has become the lapdog bootlickers and the rabble on the street is just that - rabble.
Another difference is that in 1968 the riots didn’t start until the ‘rat convention.
This year it’s starting in March.
I must respectfully disagree.
Those filthy degenerate hippie scum that protested in 1968 are the ones in power now.
Their politics haven't even changed.
Kookball leftists are MAINSTREAM democrats in 2016.
They were protesting people like Humphrey. An anti-communist democrat who would be considered a "right-winger" today.
FGS, there are two full-blown commies running for the democratic nomination.
And they aren't even ashamed to admit it.
In 1968, a commie running for president would have been run out of town on a rail... by the DEMOCRATS.
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