Yes It’s True: Protests in 1968 vs. protests in 2020

“All the memories came flooding back… old Mrs. McAvoy eating that horrible chicken and the terrified child running from the burning wreck.” — Vivian Stanshall, “Rawlinson End,” 1972

I suppose this past month full of protests at the State Capitol in Lansing should prompt memories of me marching against the Vietnam War more than 50 years ago. And don’t forget the Kent State tragedy observed its 50^th anniversary earlier this month.

The first anti-war protest in which I was engaged was in November 1967 during a visit at Grand Valley State College by Democratic Senator Phil Hart. The results were pleasing because by the following summer Hart had switched from a milquetoast position in support of the war to leadership in the anti-war effort. He later was accorded the nickname, “The Conscience of the Senate.”

Perhaps the most interesting moment during the protest was when David Hopper told Hart, “While you talk, men are dying… and not from boredom either.”

As time went on during the next two years, my comrades and I took part in a variety of protests, which back then were not particularly popular with the public because they included unwashed long-haired hippies who some believed were guilty of treason in opposing the war. I recall my stepfather asking me why my comrades and I let outside agitators and wackos carry pictures of Chairman Mao and chant anti-American slogans.

There were times back then I actually believed that it might be more dangerous to go to a West Michigan bar with long hair and attire adorned with the peace symbol than confronting the Viet Cong half a world away. Indeed, there were only a few watering holes the likes of me felt safe going into.

In 1968, presidential candidate George Corley Wallace promised, “If one of them long-haired, pot-smokin’ protesters ever lay down in front of my car, it’ll be the last time he ever does that.”

There certainly were times the ant-war protesters became unruly, and they paid a price. Look at the Democratic Convention in Chicago and Kent State.

But upon examining the more modern versions of protests in the past month, it has become painfully clear that the unruly hippies of the 1960s posed less threats than what we’ve watched in Lansing since April 14. I don’t recall anyone back in the day toting a menacing firearm or demanding the death or maiming of a public official.

To be sure, some of us chanted, “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” Or even worse was, “LBJ: pull out (of Vietnam) like your daddy should have done nine months before you were born.”

But we never brought along a doll with a noose around its neck. The pictures of Chairman Mao certainly were no worse than Nazi or Confederate flags.

We were making very public and criticized statements in protest of killing. The modern bunch is protesting staying home rather than going to work because of a dangerous and contagious virus.

I’ve been told by those who took part in the recent protests but weren’t themselves packing heat that it’s perfectly legal to carry guns into the State Capitol and nobody got hurt. Such unnecessary acts of intimidation are recipes for disaster in the future, and I worry about someone with a gun who is angry and whipped into a frenzy of hatred.

There were many a half century ago who accused us unwashed long-hairs of being dupes of communists and socialists who were steering us into selling our beloved country down the river. Today there are reports that these freedom fighters in Lansing are being organized by far-out militia groups and funded by right-wing billionaires.

If we were being played back then, are they being played now?

As Groucho Marx told Margaret Dumont when remarked she’d never been so insulted in all her life, “Well, it’s early yet.”