Woodstock ended 39 years ago today; peace and love; I miss Nixon

Woodstock may mark the height of the counterculture and rock and roll of the 60's.



Sure the US had a "No good lying SOB"--Truman's words in Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman--as President who won with a secret plan to end the Second Indochinese War.

Surprise, Surprise, secret plan escalated conflict with thousands more American troops dead and wounded, illegal exspansion of war into Cambodia and Laos, tens of thousands more Vietnamese civilians dead and maimed, US troops and civilians still poisoned over 40 years later by dioxin, some vets now homeless, and Nixon still got the same terms to get out 3 years later: "peace with honor."

Extra side of surge with your escalation anyone? Depleted Uranium for dessert?

"There is nothing new under the sun," wrote the preacher in Ecclesiastes. Then, US supported a small Catholic military minority in a mostly Buddhist country. Now our troops sit amidst a religious civil war, sparked anew by President Cheney, of longer duration than the 100 years war.

At least then we had a media that questioned rather than caved and legislators like Senator Sam Ervin who defended the Constitution rather than cravenly crush it to fight a "global war on terror."

Now we have a presidential candidate who preaches "victory" in the Iraqi war but can't define it,

Peace with honor indeed.

What a fascist, cowardly crock! Like Vidal wrote, "You can't declare war on a noun."

May the Lord have mercy on my soul. I actually miss Nixon!

Lest you think this frivolous ar nostalgic, read a contemporary account by NY Times reporter quoted at Wikipeda saying: ""Every major Times editor up to and including executive editor James Reston insisted that the tenor of the story must be a social catastrophe in the making. It was difficult to persuade them that the relative lack of serious mischief and the fascinating cooperation, caring and politeness among so many people was the significant point. I had to resort to refusing to write the story unless it reflected to a great extent my on-the-scene conviction that 'peace' and 'love' was the actual emphasis, not the preconceived opinions of Manhattan-bound editors. After many acrimonious telephone exchanges, the editors agreed to publish the story as I saw it, and although the nuts-and-bolts matters of gridlock and minor lawbreaking were put close to the lead of the stories, the real flavor of the gathering was permitted to get across. After the first day's Times story appeared on page 1, the event was widely recognized for the amazing and beautiful accident it was."