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Friday, March 12, 2004

It has come, at last...

9:43 PM

Liar, Liar, Flight suit's on Fire: Is AWOLgate a legitimate story? For those who support Bush, of course it's not. But I'll bet the mortgage that the same folks thought Monicagate was an essential moral crusade against a most evil prevaricator: Liar, Liar, saxophone and thongs and un-inhaled joints on fire? Lying about sex, even to a grand jury, versus lying about exactly how one managed to avoid the opportunity to be killed or maimed in Vietnam�are they comparable? Whether one thinks so or not is interesting, but not truly on-point in the current issue of political mendacity�it is only a set-up to put your mind in gear for what this flap is really all about. Which is...?

It has finally happened; I have waited decades for this battle to be waged: the mother of all counter-culture versus establishment battles. We are finally going to settle America�s Cultural Revolution, and this time we are going to do it with voting machines. Clinton versus Bush Sr. and Bob Dole were tussles between two quite separate generations: World War II's "greatest generation" and their very own off-spring, we ubiquitous baby boomers. Not this time: this time it is the now middle-aged "heads" and "freaks" and "longhairs" and "Berkeley free-speechers" against the likewise middle-aged "straights" and "crews" and "Frats" and "Billy Bobs." The old yippies, hippies, freedom-riders, anti-war protestors, the formerly youthful banes of Johnson, Nixon, Hoover, LeMay, Westmoreland, etc., etc., versus their peers�in age only�who supported the men that lead or mislead us during arguably the darkest years in the nation's domestic and social history since the third-quarter of the 19th Century, 1850 to 1875.

There is much I want to write about this issue. But not at length in this post. This is only an introduction of a larger thesis, a larger canvas. As I said, I have been watching the march of time knowing that this had to come, expecting it, preparing for it intellectually; but I did not know the exact presidential election, or the exact opponents, of course, only an approximation on one (I have long had an informed hunch about Senator Kerry). However, I could not have hoped for a better match-up: A Yankee blue-blood Vietnam War hero who turned sharply and bit the hand that sent him there, versus a carpet-bagging silver-spoon "frat" who rah-rah'ed the war in privileged safety, whose family was as establishment as it gets, from the Mayflower to the October Surprise to Iran-Contra and Iraqgate. As has already become clear in just the past month, in a head-to-head between John F. Kerry and George W. Bush, all of the searing complexities of the Vietnam War era are present, and will be thrashed�and trashed�thoroughly between now and November.

This is going to be one hell of an important�I believe, epochal�year in our lives. Please, please, let the right side win, and the nation be safe for at least another full generation. Which side is the right side? You know my answer; I have watched and admired Senator Kerry's career since shortly after he came back from Vietnam. There is actually a pointed personal tale involved in my 30-plus years waiting for the day when I could work for the election of John F. Kerry as President of the United States. But this is not the time nor the place to tell it.

However, in closing, I should note that the wild-card in this mother-of-all elections, the third element in the great cultural divide wrenching America today, the 40-and-under generation, is what will make this battle for the heart and soul of America so fierce and unpredictable. These are the younger folks who don�t remember when America was not so "free," who believe that the freedoms and privileges they take for granted have always been there. Not surprisingly, a great many of them have taken the establishment side in what has become the most rancorous political era since the 60�s. Look at the age of so many of the conservative pundits�but much more on that another time.

The months to come will not be pretty, but they will be momentous.

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