Ron Jacobs's Blog, page 8

On September 8, 1974 Gerald Fordpardoned Richard Nixon for any crimes he may have committed whilepresident of the United States. I remember when I first heard thenews. A friend and I had just taken our seats in a lecture hall atthe University of Maryland’s main campus in College Park, MD. Theclass usually began with a series of announcements from theprofessor—guest speakers, upcoming tests, book purchases and so on. On that day, the only announcement was that Ford had just pardonedNixon. A murmur went through the overflowing lecture hall. Twohundred students expressed their anger and cynical acceptance. Thosewho supported Nixon were either non-existent or very quiet. As theclass continued, whispers about a protest on the green began tocirculate. Maybe they reached the podium, because the professor letclass out half an hour early. A couple dozen of us headed to themall. There was little going on. Some people sneaking hits of weedin the bushes and raised voices disparaging the pardon. People’scynicism was magnified. The overwhelming sentiment was confirmed—thepowerful always get away with their crimes. I had to work thatevening, so I headed to the IHOP where I cooked over a grill forty ormore hours a week. Lots of pork products, eggs and pancakes. Shortstacks, if you know what I mean.

That same month the Universityof Maryland student newspaper had a strange letter regarding a rumorthat the university was going to pay the former Israeli military“hero” Moshe Dayan lots of money to speak at the college. Yes,the eye patch wearing member of the zionist terror group Haganah wasinvited to tell Israeli lies for a hefty sum. I don’t recallwhether or not he did come to the campus. I do remember that a tableI was sitting at dispensing left wing newspapers and books wasoverturned by a couple members of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) because some of the books we had supported the Palestinian LiberationOrganization. Back then the PLO was a predominantly socialist andcommunist organization opposed to the Israeli occupation ofPalestine. Washington and Tel Aviv wanted it destroyed as much asthey want today’s Palestinian resistance destroyed. Indeed, it’seasily argued that the destruction of the mostly secular PLO informedthe rise of the religiously inspired resistance of Hamas and othersuch groups.

The JDL was a group founded by the racist, supremacistNew York rabbi Meir Kahane. Its attacks on Soviet installations andcultural events, Black organizations and organizers, and US leftistgroups together with anti-socialist rhetoric indicated its essentialfascism. The group was illegal in Israel. Nowadays, individuals whoconsider Kahane a hero and inspiration are part of the Israeligovernment. The JDL’s hate-filled politics are part of themainstream in Israel. Similarly, although the Anti-Defamation League(ADL) had the JDL on its watchlist for years, many of the ADL’scurrent posiitons are distressingly similar to some of Kahane’snumerous statements back in the day. This is especially true inregards to the movement against Israel’s apartheid regime. Althoughmany zionists in the United States probably never heard of Kahane,too many of their sentiments come straight out of his philosophy.

Meanwhile, Richard Nixon drownedhis sorrows in San Clemente, just up the interstate from the neonglow of the San Onofre nuclear power plant. His buddy Elvisperformed at the university’s basketball arena. A regular hunk ofburning love. On May 11, 1975, the Vietnamese liberation forces tookSaigon and renamed it Ho Chi Minh City. Lots of us celebrated. A fewdays later, Nixon’s replacement Gerald Ford ordered an attack onKampuchea after a US Navy ship was temporarily captured by the KhmerRouge. The Khmer Rouge, who were in control of Cambodia thanks inpart to Washington’s relentless bombing of the country since 1969and its replacement of the monarchy with a CIA fascist named Lon Nol,turned back to its killing fields.

No photo description available.

A few weeks earlier, Marinerecruiters set up shop in front of the University of Maryland studentunion only to be met with a fairly large blockade of their table bystudents, staff and some faculty. Right wing students attacked thoseof us who encircled the table several rows deep, attempting to breakthrough by pushing people to the ground and punching a few. Mostly,these big men went after the smallest women. Campus policeeventually intervened and the Marines went inside the Union behind aclosed door. A couple protesters were able to get into the room anddisrupted the recruiting procedures there. They got arrested. Wetook over the office of a university administrator and they releasedthe two arrestees.

Hundreds of students had beenprotesting cuts to the university staff over the academic year.Faculty in the Women’s Studies and Black Studies departments werethe first on the chopping block. Unionized staff joined us students. We rallied a few times, held pickets and interrupted classes to getpeople’s attention. It didn’t matter. The next fall we woulddisrupt a meeting of the Regents while they voted to go ahead withthe cuts. Higher education was looking to the future they had decidedon and those that ran it were already working on how to cash in. Neoliberalism was just around the corner and the foundation was beingbuilt much quicker than we could tear it down. Jimmy Carter wasdown-home talking to the young people and hanging out with the AllmanBrothers while their manager distributed cocaine. Gerald Ford didn’treally have a chance in the upcoming election. His boys talked aboutgetting high in the White House. Something was happening, but itwasn’t what it seemed like, Mr. Jones. At least nobody in powerwas making abortion illegal again.

After Carter got elected andbegan privatizing public services under the guise of reform andretreating somewhat on his amnesty for draft resisters proposal, someof us saw our fears confirmed; the assimilation of the countercultureinto the mainstream meant the purging of the politics many of usconsidered to be part of that culture. There were lots of corpseslittering the ground of SE Asia. Israel was expanding its illegaloccupation. Anti-colonial wars in Africa raged. Nixon and hisfascists almost took down the US government and even though theyfailed, they made it even worse than it already was. Marijuana wascompletely illegal and friends were getting put away for months andeven years for possession. The Democrats were retreating from theirMcGovern moment and the corporate party leadership was taking theparty back while the neocons—who were led by Democrat Henry ScoopJackson, the senator from Boeing—were working on making warreasonable again. It would take them awhile. The GOP was watchingthe Birchers and other right wing clowns start to groom Reagan forthe White House. The lines were being redrawn and the right wing inboth parties was doing the drawing. I still wonder how many of thepeople I used to get high with in my youth later voted for RonaldReagan, who once called for a bloodbath of young people on TelegraphAvenue in Berkeley and sent in lots of cops to facilitate it. Likewise, I wonder how many, if any, regret those votes. After all,the Reagan years are a big reason why the two current mainstreamcandidates include a raving fascist and a Ronald Reagan in Democratdrag.

Speaking of which, I wonder how many of those who I used todrink and get high with voted for Trump. Or think Ralph Nader lostthe 2000 election for Al Gore and Jill Stein could ruin it for KamalaHarris. We’re told electoral politics matter in the United States,but the results of each election I live through makes me wonder as tothe veracity of that truism. I guess they matter for certain classesand sectors of the US population. For me, a worker now mostlyretired, the only way they matter is how much and in what ways I willbe getting shit upon after the polls are closed. That and howthey’ll affect women and children, especially those who don’thave white skin or money. Some things never seem to change.

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Published on September 30, 2024 06:31