'Nixonland,' Chronicling a Political Sea Change

NY Sun ^ | May 29, 2008 | CHRISTOPHER WILLCOX

[neverdem]

You don't have to agree with everything in this monumental account of politics in the 1960s and 1970s to find Rick Perlstein's "Nixonland" (Scribner, 896 pages, $37.50) interesting and even engrossing. The book is a masterful retelling of the turbulent period between the crushing defeat of Barry Goldwater by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and the equally stunning loss by George McGovern to Richard Nixon in 1972.

Mr. Perlstein's use of the elections of 1964 and 1972 as ideological goalposts may be arbitrary, but it is easy to see why he selected them. Could two such different countries really be separated by eight short years? It was as if a great dam broke following Johnson's election. He signed the historic Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965, which led one observer to declare, "There is no more civil rights movement." Five nights later, the Watts district in Los Angeles erupted in one of many major race riots to come. Drug taking, which had been largely confined to the ghetto and the cultural avant-garde, was mainstreamed and celebrated. A tiny antiwar movement mushroomed into a national mobilization campaign, involving the seizure of college campuses (Columbia University) and resulting in the shooting of student protesters (Kent State).

The liberal consensus — represented by Johnson's triumphant performance in 1964, with 61.05 percent of the popular vote and 486 of 538 Electoral College votes — seemed to signal the country's embrace of the great Democratic coalition built by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Two short political cycles later, that coalition was in tatters — a casualty of antiwar and countercultural excesses and the near absolute takeover of the party by elites devoted to a more radical extension of liberal policies than could be countenanced by the voters who normally animated Democratic turnout. The same Mayor Richard...

[FARS]

“Sea Change”? what is that? The heading for this article shows the ignorance of the MSM and many others, when they wish to indicate a major change of some kind.

The correct expression is “C” change, which refers to changing a tune from the Middle ‘C’ as the “anchor” on a piano to a higher or lower ‘C’ key for that tune or piece of music.

Once that is done the whole tenor of the music changes and is the source for the expression. Our media is so ignorant as are many of its readers that they use “sea” change without understanding why this should indicate a huge change or be the source for the experssion.

[Jet Jaguar]

“Sea Changes” is the name of a book I used to own. I gave it to a friend. I found it to be a boring novel.

Year was 1992. It was a hard cover book. I cannot find it through google.

[BARLF]

Thanks for the ping.

[null and void]

In Shakespeare’s Tempest, Ariel deceitfully sings to Ferdinand:

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

[19th LA Inf]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This
sea change
–noun
1. a striking change, as in appearance, often for the better.
2. any major transformation or alteration.
3. a transformation brought about by the sea.
[Origin: 1600–10]

[Chinstrap61a]

Sea Change:

Meaning

A radical, and apparently mystical, change.

Origin

From Shakespeare's The Tempest, 1610:

ARIEL [sings]: Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell

"Sea Change" has actually been in common usage for decades when describing a dramatic diiference in state.

[patriciaruth]

Thanks taking the lead and informing those who were not brought up with Shakespeare (William Shakespeare, England’s greatest writer) of one of the many bits and pieces of his enduring contributions to the English language and to human wisdom.

[null and void]

Me and so many others.

Poor FARS!

[Clemenza]

You forgot to add the REAL name of England’s greatest writer: Edward Devere, the Earl of Oxford.

[potlatch]

You just taught me something I didn’t know - the “C” change referring to music!!

Sometimes when a word or phrase is used for years, correctly or incorrectly, it ends up in Webster’s Dictionary. Guess they quit fighting it, lol.

They do list ‘sea change’ as a transformation or something changed by the sea.

When a teenager in Galveston I felt a ‘sea change’ each time I swam in the ocean [Gulf]. Lying on your back and floating in the sunshine and comfort of the waves and you would feel a sense of peace and tranquility unmatched.

Just a memory that might not make sense to all.

[patriciaruth]

LOL!

And here all this time I thought it was that other fellow, also named Shakespeare...or was it that poet who was exiled to Paris (the great name slips my aging mind...)

[patriciaruth]

Marlowe?

[boop]

"Two short political cycles later, that coalition was in tatters — a casualty of antiwar and countercultural excesses and the near absolute takeover of the party by elites devoted to a more radical extension of liberal policies than could be countenanced by the voters who normally animated Democratic turnout."

The pendulum swings. In 1964 voters gave LBJ JFK's second term, thinking he would be "moderate". Instead, the left went nuts and blew it big time in '68 and '72. Too bad if the liberal kooks get back into power this cycle. With overt marxist Obama they may just have gone overboard again.

[devolve]

.

I could post a graphic.....

[potlatch]

First time I’ve laughed out loud in awhile!!

No graphics!! I have one of a girl floating in the water but this is a serious thread. Note my serious comments....

[devolve]

.

LOL!

Well.....

[potlatch]

‘peace and tranquility ‘ were the keywords.

[FARS]

Having grown up and gone to school in England, the Shakespeare version was never referenced as the basis for the expression. The musical one was the standard.

Then again, here we have an American language based on other parameters that are accepted here but like having “fit” insead of the grammatically older and more correct “fitted” for the past participle, denotes variations that are USA only.

Or new schooling modes that vary from original concepts but defend tha changes with “languages are living things and change is to be acccepted”

Or the affectation of pronouncing “herb” as “erb” thus “herbal” as “erbal” and thus requiring your friend Herbert to become the Cockney “’Erbert”. Cockneys pretty much drop all their “h’s”.

Also in America pronouncing an “h” followd by an “u” as a “y” thus “yuman” for Human.

Reminds me of trying to interpret Afghan Dari Farsi. Although Persian Farsi is the official language taught in Afghan schools, Afghan Dari Farsi fluctuates almost by the individual’s home valley and can end up a mix of Farsi, Pashtun and Tajik variation used in a particular valley.

Less or totally uneducated women also use their local dialect/vocabulary only. On one ocasion I could understand and converse easily with a woman’s Dari speaking husband, who had gone to school but could not understand a word she was saying - in her version of Dari.

The Turd’s regime in Iran has banned foreign words so they have invented a new vocabulary for words like ‘computer” that are lingua franca worldwide. Or for “helicpter” (though pronounced with a Farsi accented stresses). Helicopters are now “spinning wings” in the new Mullah Farsi.

Meanwhile, though the Mullahs rely on Koranic Arabic and have coined and used Arabic words much of the population does not even understand, several universities, fed up with the Mullahs are resorting to replacing commonly used Arabic words(even before the revolution) with pure Persian Farsi from before the Islamic era in Iran.

Revered, ancient authors/poets like Ferdowsi and Saadi’s sagas made it a point to write without using a single Arabic word in reaction to the Islamic yoke they faced in their own days.

[Cyropaedia]

According to some historians, it was either Francis Bacon, Marlowe, or Edward DeVere.

I think the tide has turned and there are more historians who now believe there actually was a Shakespeare.