The average elderly person is a walking history lesson, even if they themselves and the people around them often forget that. This came up recently when my 25-year-old, Dylan, asked me a question about something he's reading for graduate school that took me back 45 years to September 1976, when Lowell Bergman and I co-authored a piece in Rolling Stone called "Revolution on Ice."
The book he's reading covered some of the same ground as our article, which focused on the massive disruption effort the U.S. government employed against the Black Panther Party through its program code-named COINTELPRO.
Our article (though not our picture) was indeed featured "on the cover of the Rollin' Stone," as Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show would have put it, but we weren't rock stars and we probably didn't "buy five copies for our mothers." (Shel Silverstein was the guy who actually wrote those classic lines.)
Dylan was curious about what I thought about the Panthers this long afterward, and also about David Horowitz, a key character in the book he's reading. David was a leftist and a big supporter of the Panthers who very publicly turned against the group and became an extreme right-winger after the bookkeeper for the group, Betty Van Patter, was murdered in 1974.
The only way I could answer my son's questions was that sometimes I have to hold two, seemingly contradictory ideas in my head at the same time when evaluating people and organizations. I explained that while the Panthers did some really great things like standing up to police violence, creating a free breakfast program, and promoting a positive image for young black men, they also devolved into essentially a street gang involved in violent crime that victimized many people, including BettyVan Patter.
Horowitz never could get over his own feelings of guilt and responsibility for recommending Betty for her job with the Panthers. And that was perhaps the major factor causing him to swing from what was probably an excessively extreme position on one side of the political spectrum to a similar position 180 degrees away on the other.
For Dylan and me, this may have been one of the first times that I was able to get substantively involved in one of his academic matters since he was a little boy, somewhere around third grade. I doubt I talked much about the Panthers as he was growing up; in fact I think it has been the Black Lives Matter movement in the past year, arising in response to the murder of George Floyd, that has provoked renewed interest among his generation in the iconic groups from the Sixties.
We compared notes and agreed that history moves in cycles. If you wait long enough, everything comes around again. In the meantime I'm glad *I've* been around long enough to voice an opinion he finds relevant.
***
Monday evening I "attended" a discussion moderated by the aforementioned Lowell Bergman at U-C Berkeley on the First Amendment in the Internet Age. The guest speakers, Martha Minow and Erwin Chemerinsky were terrific.
There seemed to be a consensus that we're living through an era when the explosion of information via the web has outpaced any governmental ability to both protect free speech and limit the spread of mass propaganda like that promulgated by Donald Trump.
The danger is the mass distribution of lies can in fact become the mass basis of fascism. Democracy cannot survive those conditions, as it relies on the fragile balance among citizens of a consensus on what is truth and what is *not* truth.
Thus we are living in perilous times, which is recognized clearly by the intellectuals speaking and attending that virtual event.
But I also sense a consensus among thoughtful people that we may be powerless to change the dynamics undermining that which we desperately need to survive as a civilized society.
If that sounds dire, we need only go back in another place and time in history, Germany in the 1930s. The danger, in the form of Trump and his allies remains eerily similar to Hitler's rise. They represent a ticking time bomb that could destroy everything we hold dear.
***
The headlines:
* Biden faces growing Republican skepticism over infrastructure plan (Reuters)
* Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg encouraged evangelical Christians reluctant to get vaccinated against COVID-19 to consider that the shots might be a “part of God’s plan.” About 40% of white evangelical Protestants said they likely would not get vaccinated, according to a poll conducted last month, compared with about 25% of all Americans. [HuffPost]
* Recent Rise in Covid-19 Cases Driven by Younger People (WSJ)
* Blackout That Hit Iran Nuclear Site Appears to Be Israeli Sabotage (NYT)
* More Bloodshed in Myanmar as Crackdown on Coup Protests Continues (NYT)
* As Chauvin’s ex-bosses condemn him, ‘policing in America is on trial’ (WaPo)
* Cardiologist testifies that Derek Chauvin’s acts caused George Floyd’s death (WaPo)
* Recently, a study by researchers with Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, found that fine particulate matter from wildfire smoke can be several times more harmful to respiratory health than from other sources. (NYT) * Crowds of counterprotesters showed up to oppose a planned “white lives matter” rally in Huntington Beach: “I’m here to help keep the peace and show people we are not violent rioters and also to reject the KKK and white supremacy.” [Orange County Register] * San Franciscans rallied in solidarity with India’s farmers. [KQED] * Don’t Get Attached to Your Favorite College Basketball Player. He May Transfer. -- More than 28% of 4,500-plus scholarship basketball players in the NCAA’s Division I have indicated a desire to transfer, anticipating new rules that wouldn’t force them to sit out a year. (WSJ) * Domestic terrorism incidents surge, led by white supremacists, far right (WaPo) * The San Francisco Giants welcomed some 9,000 spectators to their home opener at Oracle Park, after fans showed proof of being vaccinated or a recent coronavirus test. (SFGate) * Nepal’s Rhino Population Grows, Likely Boosted by Covid-19 Closures (WSJ) |
* India records another surge in COVID-19 cases (AP)
* Drained by a Year of Covid, Many Mayors Head for the Exit -- Local officials nationwide are announcing plans to step back from elected office. Many offer the same explanation: Covid burnout. (NYT)
* FDA to urge limits on heavy metals in baby foods, starting with arsenic and lead (WaPo)
* Controversial Theory Suggests Aliens May Have Built Ancient Egypt’s Intergalactic Spaceport (The Onion)
***
P.S. Dr Hook & the Medicine Show did appear on the cover of Rolling Stone the year after their hit record on March 29, 1973, but in caricature form rather than a photograph. The group's name was not used; instead the caption read simply, "What's-Their-Names Make the Cover."
***
We got golden fingers
And we're loved everywhere we go ("That sounds like us")
We sing about beauty and we sing about truth
At ten thousand dollars a show (right)
We take all kinds of pills that give us all kind of thrills
But the thrill we've never known
Is the thrill that'll getcha when you get your picture
On the cover of the Rollin' Stone
(Stone) wanna buy five copies for my mother (yes)
(Stone) wanna see my smilin' face
On the cover of the Rollin' stone ("That's a very, very good idea")
Who embroiders on my jeans
I got my poor ole grey haired daddy
Drivin' my limousine
Now it's all designed to blow our minds
But our minds won't really be blown
Like the blow that'll getcha when you get your picture
On the cover of the Rollin' Stone
(Stone) wanna buy five copies for our mothers (yeah)
(Stone) wanna see my smilin face
On the cover of the Rollin' stone
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