Posted on 06/23/2018 5:33:04 PM PDT by 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...
No.
It wasn’t that bad in 1972.
I came of age in the late 60s - early 70s, when heavy metal was born. The roots of the genre go back even further.
One thing I really loved about those times, was the breadth and depth of popular music. Most mainstream Americans who grew up in those times, have a wide appreciation for all sorts of popular music.
Given the artistic influences that surrounded us, many of us also appreciate classical, musicals, operatic, blues, show tunes, big band and swing, folk music, and movie soundtracks.
It was an awesome time to grow up.
Metal Gods - British Steel.
We rest our case.
;)
Thank you for the link. Of course the Left would rather it be a CIA hit than a “reverse-To-Kill-A-Mockingbird.”
Remember Kent State, the Columbia riots, et al?
Damned straight I remember the SLA; I also remember the FALN, the bombing of Fraunces Tavern, a nd far more stuff that isn't happening today...yet.
And thanks for proving my point, re the real Black Panthers! You were lucky that they didn't kidnap and/or murder you, when you refused to join them.
There was NO cable, no internet, no cell phones back then and the damned MSM were LYING TO ALL OF US; though sadly, not all that many knew/could see, or refused to see.
California was sort of still a RED state; however, a whole LOT of the crap started there; t'was ever thus! :-(
No, Hollyweird was NOT "patriotic" back then! The death of the studio system and the new BLACKLIST of our kind, was begun then. LETS TALK SUBVERSIVE/COUNTER CULTURE........
Okay, most late '60s and to a lesser extent '70s movies were superior to today's, but many were absolutely pushing the lefty stuff...though perhaps not as openly as today.
T.V.?
LAUGH IN, THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS, SNL ( really, really REALLY bad; though not quite as dreadful as today...but getting close [how President Ford was treated!} to it ), ALL IN THE FAMILY, the truly forgettable show ( and yes, I've long ago forgotten the title of it )in which Bill Maher and another guy played flaming homosexuals, who everyone loved and accepted, and on and on and on.
Whilst some things were better back then, some things were a lot worse.
Yes they were.
In retrospect.
I managed to avoid or escape the siren call, and I have managed to generally experience an anonymous, but good and satisfying life, and would not change a thing that I've had sole control over.
I guess you had to be there. It wasn't at all like you think.
In the black community, the Panthers really didn't mean sh!t. Our parents reviled them, and few of us kids trusted or respected them. We thought of them more as deadbeat street thugs and criminals who were trying to glom onto the (mostly) positive black pride thing.
I mean, come on. These guys were trying to sell a bunch of teenagers on Marxism, overthrowing the government, and killing all the white people.
Seriously? I can't tell you how ludicrous that sounded to us kids.
I suppose the Panthers realized their message wasn't biting, because I stopped seeing them around campus shortly thereafter.
OUCH!
That is a really sore subject with me since I've lived in California all my adult life, and Ronaldus Magnus allowed (did not veto) the ironic closure of insane asylums in California and started the national trend.
The result?
Every city and town over population 10,000 in the country is now an insane asylum. In the murderous sense.
Then David Horowitz was wrong/lying about them?
Maybe you just knew the lower levels ones.
And the ones in NYC, were then far MORE nasty and dangerous, I guess. OTOH...at 17, just how much did you actually know about them?
Look, I'm really not trying to have a fight with you, but from my own personal experience ( and I'm older than you are and was extremely aware of what was going on, at that time )as well as from reading books by people on the "inside" of things, our views apparently are somewhat different about this topic.
It was because of the Black Panthers,in California, IIRC, that David Horowitz, a for real card carrying STINKING COMMIE and RED DIAPER BABY, whom I hated with a red hot HATRED back then ( and still do, though I now like him for what he has done since ), stopped being a stinking COMMIE and one of the lefty "leaders", because of them and what they did to a black woman, who was a friend of his!
Have you read "RADICAL SON"? H
It’s a hot button issue for me as well...and yes, not keeping the actual insane, tucked away and treated, was not only deleterious for the mentally ill, but a HORROR for everyone else as well!
This article is a farce trying hard to be relevant. 1972 was a walk in the park on a spring day compared to 2018 America.
I was nineteen and voted for Mister Nixon and still proud of it!
Young skulls full of mush, eh?
Wow! You really were from California, weren't you?
Proud to say I knew McGovern was an old commie trolling for the youth vote. I voted for Nixon and I was even getting high back then.
I lived through that in a major hippie locale.
Today is worse. Much worse.
Ask Michael Savage.
No. The early 70s was a piece of cake compared to today. People made fun of Tricky Dick but saw McGovern for what he was, weak, socialist, Quota King.
It was an unsettling few years. I suggest that the difference today is the speed of information due to the Internet and cell phone technology.
1968 was the Nixon vs Humphrey race. That was also the year that the SDS rioted outside the convention in Chicago. 1972 the Commies were inside the convention getting parts of the party platform passed. Amnesty, acid, and abortion. Humphrey, Jackson, and one other candidate were saying “anyone but McGovern”.
The left doesn’t like it when we fight back. To them its chaos.
Same here.
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