We blew up in the 1960s over abuse of the draft, not over the draft per se. We all watched Jack Webb’s The D.I. and took its point to heart: be worthy of trust by legitimate higher authority. We also got that there are noble and ennobling loyalties more important than to our selves, country being one of them and God another. We valued the established order, we could see its benefits and reason for being. Governmental power we knew was needed and appropriate and should be justly and intelligently deployed and administered. We knew our country’s and communities’ affairs were not clean as a whistle, that neither we nor our fellow citizens, young or old, were moral paragons nor were expected to be, or could be, and we were confident soot regularly would be scrubbed from our institutions and that we would do the same to our own lives and persons.
We got all that, we who blew up in the 60s.
We accepted the use of power in and for national affairs. But we knew the 50s and Korea. By the early 60s (Mario Savio) and, far more widely, the late 60s (David Harris), we saw that The Establishment, who had legitimate authority to use power, were misusing power. We figured that misuse of power is abuse of power and of us. We were right about that.
We tried telling them. As we said after, they did not listen. Meaning, they refused to stop misusing power and thereby abusing us, much as an unjust father and mother refuse to stop beat their children. Korea entailed a gigantic misuse of power by civilians in Washington D.C. Vietnam was coming clearer and clearer as more of the same. We blew up. We were not against defeating Communism. We were against not defeating Communism.
GOA MacArthur wanted to defeat Communists and did defeat their Red Army in Korea. But he was sent in under false pretenses, that he was supposed to defeat Communists. After GOA MacArthur was relieved of command — for defeating the Red Army in battle — it turned out that defeating Communists was not the mission intended for him by civilian command in Washington D.C. Vietnam turned out that way as well, except there even military command accepted, without saying so directly, not to defeat Communists and their Red Army, just push them around the countryside. Their successors and their civilian command did likewise decades later in Afghanistan, between 2001 and 2021.
We were never unpatriotic. Quite the opposite. We blew up because our patriotism was being misused, and thereby we were being abused. We knew enough history to have had quite enough of that. So we blew up.
The children of some of us did not get the message because their parents never taught it to them. They went for power and thought it does not matter if they misuse power, that power is their inalienable possession. The rest of us and our children are giving those children and their parents — to include Bill Ayres — a compelling lesson in statecraft.
For the record, this post reposts part of a post
titled On Purifying And Creating Institutions,
which dates from 02 May 2020.
Principle I
Principle II
Principle III
Do as much as you can, as quickly as you can. If you cannot do any good, at least desist from doing harm; or from finding fault with those who serve you. Know that seva is a better form of sadhana (spiritual effort) than even dhyana; how can God appreciate the dhyana (meditation) you do, when adjacent to you, you have someone in agony, whom you do not treat kindly, for whom you do not make all efforts to help? Do not keep yourself apart, intent on your own salvation, through japa or dhyana. Move among people, looking for opportunities to help; but, have the name of God on the tongue and the form of God before the eye of the mind. That is the highest sadhana. ‘Dil me Ram! Hath me Kam!’ – Ram in the heart! Work in hand! Proceed in that spirit. God’s Grace will be showered on you, in full measure!
