1972: The Year That Made 2018 Seem Sane

Reason ^ | June 23, 2018 | Brian Doherty

[untenured]

The early 1970s were a strange, chaotic, terrifying time. Exactly how strange, chaotic, and terrifying has been largely forgotten, to judge from how many Americans on both sides of the Donald Trump divide view our current tensions as unprecedentedly intense.

Journalist-historians Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis are not deliberately trying to deliver a message about historical perspective. But in their thrilling The Most Dangerous Man in America: Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon and the Hunt for the Fugitive King of LSD, they show how bad things got in a nation truly troubled by vicious culture wars, wracked by violent ideological conflict, and ruled by a near-lunatic abusing his power to pursue personal and political grudges.

Timothy Leary was a Harvard professor–turned–psychedelic advocate, a leader of the "head" faction that was rebelling against the establishment. He had been a voice for personal liberation and for "dropping out" of a stultifying culture, not a politically motivated leftist revolutionary. The U.S. government helped change that.

The war on the troublemaking psychologist is in progress as the book's narrative begins in May 1970. Leary, who had received a maximum sentence of 10 years for being caught with two charred marijuana roaches, is being shipped to a minimum security prison in San Luis Obispo, California...

[Windflier]

Either your memory isn't doing a good job for you tonight, or you didn't live near the craziest places; perhaps you just wasn't as aware of it all.

My memory is just fine. 1972 wasn't as crazy and "terrifying" a time as these authors are making it out to be.

I think you're reading more into my post than what I said. I never claimed that 1972 was idyllic, but it was far more peaceful than today.

And yeah, I was near the "action", as you call it. I was just graduating from Compton High in Los Angeles county. Trusi me, I know about "action".

[KC Burke]

About my era as well. I didn’t feel Timothy Leary was all that central, more symptomatic.

The ineffectual posturing by both sides in congressional hearings was similarly bad drama.

[Fedora]

No, 2018 is exponentially worse than 1972 due to the way the New Left of that time has become entrenched in the intelligence community, the court system, and culture at large since then.

[Windflier]

McGovern was the so-called “youth candidate”, but he did not represent my views at the time.

I didn't have a mature set of political views in 1972, but I was strongly influenced by my environment, which was almost solid Democrat. I voted for McGovern, of course, though I had no real idea what he stood for.

Young skulls full of mush, eh?

[KyCats]

In the early 70’s, there was huge stress over Vietnam. Kids were being drafted into the military against their will and then sent to some godawful jungle half a world away to suffer and die for no discernible reason. It was massively unfair and it made no sense.

Vietnam was the opening the cultural marxists had been waiting for to really grab the US by the throat. They absolutely maxed out on the opportunity presented. What they sowed then they are harvesting now.

But even with Vietnam and the rise of the left, Americans basically agreed about culture and shared values in the 70’s. That is no longer true. Now we hate each other and have no common ground. There was only 1 other time in our history when that was the case and it led to war. If we don’t fix what’s happening right now, the result will be the same. You can deny history if you want. But that doesn’t keep it from repeating.

[plain talk]

I believe that in the early 70s, a small percentage of America went crazy and got a lot of media coverage. Most Americans looked at the TV and said, “Those people are no good.” In 2018, about half the people in America are crazy and they control the entire media. Half of America watch these people spout madness and they say, “See? Everyone agrees with me! Trump really is Hitler!”

Exactly right. The media and educational institutions were not as biased as it is today which accounts for some of it.

[CaliforniaCraftBeer]

I like this post

[nopardons]

LOL...I gave you several "outs"; my friend. ;^)

Well, did YOU live near/work where bombs were going off? I was, in Manhattan. Granted, that was 1970, but it was still that era.

Then there were all of the INSANE, who were wandering the streets of NYC, because the damned Libs shut down the insane asylum.

The damned BLACK PANTHERS were stealing ambulances, stealing money, blackmailing pols in NYC, and yes, killing people with impunity.

And it's THAT kind of stuff, as well as lots of other things, that I'm talking about...as well as intimidation.

Some things were worse, some things better than today, but it's worse today, in that the with cell phones and the net are here now, which enables larger crowds to descend on places. OTOH...it hasn't yet reached the "war" stage, as it did back then.

[CaliforniaCraftBeer]

Neil Young ‘Heart Of Gold’ (1972)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO8kTRv4l3o

[Luke21]

You forgot the Broad Street Bullies. Hockey was lawless in the early and mid seventies.

[nopardons]

You’re right...Leary was NOT really as “central”, nor was he “hounded”, and Nixon was faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar less of a “tyrant”/”dictator” than the Clintons and the Obamas were, as is being claimed!

[RightGeek]

70’s - the golden age of terrorism
https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/28/opinions/bergen-1970s-terrorism/index.html

[dfwgator]

“The Year of the Gun” is a real good movie about that time, it was about the Italian Red Brigades, who killed the Italian politician, Aldo Moro.

[nopardons]

It was bad and my memory is still excellent! :-)

[HandyDandy]

Leary made a run for President and John Lennon wrote his campaign song, “Come Together”. That is how I remember it. Turn on, tune in, drop out.

[Bratch]

Tim Leary, the LSD prophet and proponent, also had some study time at the University of Alabama. He was acquainted with Mary Meyer, who was also a pioneer LSD user and was an influential mistress of President Kennedy. She was murdered on the C&O Canal towpath less than a year after the Dallas assassination of her lover.

Leary wrote of deep dark wild conspiracies involving her murder but in reality it was a sort of reverse-To-Kill-A-Mockingbird. The arrested killer was as guilty-as-Hades but the DC justice system and an all Black jury freed him.

Who Killed Mary Pinchot Meyer?

Vassar College

Mary Pinchot Meyer.

[1_Inch_Group]

Ah...then the 80’s.

With Counter-Counter Culture hard, grindy, crunchy metal.

Still love me some Megadeth.

[PhiloBedo]

I was stationed at Ft. Polk at the time. Having come from a very liberal college town, for me there was this kind of schizophrenia, being too young to understand the big picture of the culture war, at the time.

We were being pulled in different directions at the time. It was easy to know what was right as far as God duty and country was concerned, but the press made the government out to be the villains. And in fact, many in it probably were, as well as the fourth estate, i.e. the MSM, Walter Cronkite, et al. Remember, there were only the established 3 networks for news.

I envy those that profess to have fully understood what was happening at that moment in time. Maybe they were older or spent more time studying current events. Most 19 year olds don’t.

At least today, we have the internet, with unfiltered information available, and President Trump!

I like to think his world view evolved like many of us in that time period. I also like to think Donald Trump’s attending a military academy had a part in his pragmatic, realist approach to problems. It did for me.

[Windflier]

New York City isn’t representative of the U.S. at large today, and it wasn’t in 1972.

I get that the left was causing mayhem in New York back then, but that was far from true for the whole country.

Do you remember the Symbionese Liberation Army and the kidnapping of Parry Hearst? They had a big shootout with the LAPD. That happened maybe five miles from where I lived at the time.

The Black Panthers were still quite active in my neck of the woods, back then. They had tried to recruit me less than two years prior.

Yeah, there was still tension in the air, but your car wouldn’t be vandalized for displaying a Nixon bumper sticker.

Hell, man, California was still a red state, and most of Hollywood was patriotic. And the homos were still in the closet!

Sheesh, Detroit was still building muscle cars, and the NFL was a respectable organization.

Yeah, America was a better place in ‘72.

[KevinB]

“Come Together” was on the Abbey Road album released in 1969.