A question for those who are reading along in NIXONLAND: Two chapters or three for next week’s discussion? “The Bombing” and “Summer of Love” are only 30 pages between them, but it’s not easy reading for those of us who lived through the period Perlstein’s describing. On the one hand, I don’t want to dump too much on our collective psyches during these dreary February evenings; on the other hand, if we tackle a third chapter (“In Which a Cruise Ship Full of Governors Inspires Considerations on the Nature of Old & New Politics”), we’re that much closer to reaching the 1968 conventions…
In either case, same time same place next week, Sunday 2/27, 4pm EST still good?
cleek
why not?
hilts
Anne,
Great supplementary reading for the 1968 conventions is the book American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968 by Lewis Chester, Godfrey Hodgson, and Bruce Page
Linda Featheringill
Same time is fine. Getting into the habit now.
Three chapters would be all right. Go ahead and jump into the reading. Look on it as therapy. :-)
But you are right about it being disturbing. Each new chapter seems to uncover some resentment and/or grief that I thought I had gotten over. Sigh.
Maybe I ought to find a new way to piss off a conservative this coming week. That might make me feel better.
Suggestions?
frosty
Same time same place is OK, 3 chapters is OK. I’m with Linda at #3 on reliving the ugly past.
Maybe I should read a little “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail” to lighten things up. Or “Miami and the Siege of Chicago.”
General Stuck
I am having a hard time reading the book, not because it isn’t fantastically written, because it is, and well researched. But it brings back the memories of incessant anxiety that was a constant companion in those years. And since I got the book just last week and am only on chapter 2, or so, I am sticking to finishing up The Family, which I will recommend to DougJ to read about what the coming fascist state leaders will look like. Not goofy aging wingnut tote baggers, but fair haired 30 something jesus freaks that are smart and secretive beyond belief, and highly capitalistic. They are not particularly religious in the normal sense, but are organizing around a well thought out plan to match any OBL Muslim caliphate with instead a baby jeevus one, beginning in the US of A. You can find their smiling faces at a lair called Ivanwald, or “The Cedars”
frosty
@cleek: Why isn’t it easy reading? Because this brings it home all too clearly that WE’RE LIVING THROUGH THE SAME DAMN THING AGAIN!!!
When Nixon resigned, we thought it was behind us. I thought Reagan was a new version of crap. I thought GW Bush was warmed-over Reagan crap.
No, what I’m finding out with Nixonland is that it’s the same tactics, the same characters, the same polarization, the same shit. And it’s incredibly depressing to find out this country has made no progress in getting out of the death spiral, and had no interest in getting out of the death spiral, in 50 years.
Essentially, my entire adult life has been fighting and losing the same fucking battle against the same evil people.
mclaren
Why not cover the entire book in one session? And allow people to post only one-word comments.
That’s by far the best way to do it.
kdaug
Since this is a late-night thread, which will invariably degenerate into some discussion about the proper way to serve scrambled eggs with Moon rocks or whatever, let me preemptively digress:
Anyone else feeling a serious worm turning? Not just talking ME riots, or the WI protests, but it feels like a sudden shift – lurch – in the zeitgeist.
May turn out to be nothing. May turn out to be an inflection point. We’ll see.
Just it feels like we’re the recipients of the “interesting times” to me.
frosty
@General Stuck: Gee, thanks for that. Let’s not think about combining The Family with the Koch Brothers.
At least it would be a new direction down the death spiral, and not the same old Red Scare / Islamofascist bullshit.
kdaug
@mclaren:
No.
frosty
@kdaug: If. If Wisconsin sticks it out, and IF it moves to Ohio, then I could maybe agree that Cairo might have changed the zeitgeist. Otherwise, no.
The other thing about Nixonland? Man, people took to the streets and made themselves be heard. Not so much of that in the last 30 years. Or maybe they took to the streets and were deliberately Not Heard by the new media.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
Since this is supposed to be an open thread, I just read this NYT op-ed by the co-founder of Palm Computer/Handspring on her difficulty buying individual health insurance even though she had the money to. Fascinating read:
Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance
MikeJ
@kdaug: 8pm is late night?
frosty
@mclaren: Bad idea. FOAD
frosty
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): Wow. My advice to her would have been to try to get insurance through a professional association. In my line of work, ASCE is constantly sending me offers.
Comrade Luke
I would love a week where you cover a smaller amount of material so I can catch up.
General Stuck
As if there was not enough crazy going on in the world right now, this is something that has the potential to make Egypt look like child’s play, if and when Mr. Davis is released.
I should just say “when” he is released, because he will be almost certainly.
kdaug
@frosty:
Ah, yes. If you didn’t see it TV, it didn’t happen.
But media control can only go so far, no? Sooner or later, people are going to talk to each other. And the intertubes appear to be an accelerant. So…
(I think I’m starting to sound a bit m_c here, so I’ll open the floor.)
Another Commenter at Balloon Juice (fka Bella Q)
Yes to both questions from here. And let me denounce Stalin for the day, and well as the broccoli mandate. Thanks, Stuck, for the recommendation. I confess that my mood might suffer if I tried The Family so soon after Nixonland. Damn, but I did not realize just quite how much things have not changed.
Tuesday in Ohio. Carpools are being arranged to head to Columbus.
kdaug
@MikeJ:
It is, or it will be.
MikeJ
Was that really Nick Park on The Simpsons?
Mary G
@frosty: I was thinking of “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail,” too. Excellent antidote to Republicans.
I didn’t participate much this week as I am behind on the reading, so I’d vote for two chapters. It is going to be hard slogging. Any time on Sunday is fine with me until baseball season gets going.
Nicole
Three chapters are fine. I keep having conflicts during the thread times, but I love reading the comments later. Should be there next week though.
As someone who didn’t live through the time, I really appreciate those of you who did being so open about it. I’ve been really affected by your thoughts and feelings and reactions.
asiangrrlMN
Hey, Minnesotans. Anyone planning on going to the march on the Capitol on Tuesday, weather permitting?
frosty
@Mary G: My favorite bit was when Thompson interviewed McGovern at adjacent urinals in the men’s room. You just don’t see that kind of reporting any more.
PanurgeATL
@frosty:
Well, I guess if you keep a majority feeling OK, you’ll do all right politically.
OH, BTW…
Alert to GenX: This is why people can’t let go of the Sixties. They never really got resolved. For just a couple of years there it looked like they were gonna be, and then the whole process got sabotaged on both sides (call it “the punk coup” and “the Reagan squeeze”).
freelancer
@Comrade Luke:
I would second this as I’m two chapters behind, but shut TV off for the night and am plowing through it. Jesus, America is screwed up.
Platonicspoof
Either two or three chapters works for me, unless three means fewer people are involved in the discussion.
Also, too, the title of chapter ten triggered the memory of the neocon cruise where a Palin star was born.*
More parallels to now?
*Excessively coincidentally, the story at this link also says
“But the ‘dean’ of the group [the top policy advisors in the Sarah PAC network] is Fred Malek, an old Nixon hand who was deputy director of the CREEP (Committee to Reelect the President) campaign of 1972.”
From the About page of this site:
“In addition to political topics, The New American also publishes articles about economics (from a free-enterprise perspective of course!), culture, and history. It is published by American Opinion Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of The John Birch Society.”
Platonicspoof
@asiangrrlMN:
That’s about 1500 miles away from me, but via Credo Action,
here’s an SEIU link for other solidarity actions this week.
Suzan
Same time is great, any number of chapters works.
As to “doing the same damned thing over and over again” I wonder how much, if any, has to do with being in the minority for so long. Hadn’t it been like 800 years since the GOP had a majority in the house prior to 1994? I’d be desperate too. In fact, I’m hoping for a break between the social conservatives and the fiscal conservatives. Just not ready to do dirty tricks to get there. yet.
Dee Loralei
I’m personally having a very hard time keeping up with the book club. Some of it’s because I was a young child then, and all my memories of the time are jumbled and a mass of emotions. And part of it is because my Great-Grandmother, (whom I knew and loved) was dear friends with RMN and Pat and she was on the RNC. And a few years after she (my great-grandmother) died, I asked how she would have felt about Nixon if she had known about Watergate.(She died in ’72) The most succinct response was from her oldest son, that she would have been mad about him(Nixon) getting caught. Not about what he did, but the fact that it was so ill-planned that they got caught! So, my great-grandmother, who was in her 90’s when she died, who lived through the Depression, WW1 and WW2, the Spanish-American War, where her hubby rode with Teddy R and the Rough Riders, she lived through Diptheria and the Spanish Flu, through Yellow Fever etc, saw the introduction of telephones and electric lights,went from horse drawn carriages to the automobile. She flew on aeroplanes, before they were called airplanes. She marveled at Lindy and at Amelia Earhart. She knew people who knew and served under Lincoln. She had friends aboard the Titanic. She could trace her families ancestry to 1630’s New York. She was a relative of Aneka Jans.She traveled to China as a private citizen, before Nixon to help open the way for Nixon to travel there. (And there is no official record that this happened) She was all this. A woman who was on the RNC and on their board. And all she could say about Nixon was, he got caught???
Historically, and intellectually, I know and understand and agree with Perlstein, but dammitall, my personal perspective is still all tied up in knots over Nixon’s presidency.
When I was much younger, late 70’s/ early 80’s I knew that the Republicans would be the first party to nominate a woman or a person of color, because of Lincoln, because of TeddyR, and because at the time my great-grandmother had been on the RNC, and my Grandmother had a Masters degree and was considered a Republican in good standing.And because back then, they at least faked believing in the merit of a person, no matter the sex, color or religion. Back then, the Republican Party seemed like the only “meritocracy” going. How could these strong, intelligent, powerful women be so wrong???. I’ve been on a learning curve since then. And I completely left the party in the early-90’s. But my gut still gets knotted going back to the 60’s and 70’s. I have like 5 or 6 TV memories from that time period, Laugh-In, Star Trek, The Moon Landing, or all Apollo flights, plus a few Gemini flights, Bonanza, the 68 Dem Convention; some of the race riots ( and I was trapped near one) But the one most seering memory is when I was laying on a gurney in the hall of an emergency room at some Buffalo, New York Hospital profusely bleeding. I had been there for hours. Separated from my parents, because that’s how the Medical profession dealt with people then. I was 5 or 6 years old.But Dan Rather was on the TV, and he was reporting from Vietnam and I saw the carnage behind him, while looking at the tartar that was my own arm.And my own parents weren’t allowed to be with me! After Dan finished his report, CBS ran the list of those Killed in Action, they called them KIA’s and the list grew each evening, and then they ran the ever expanding list of the MIA’s, those missing in action. So after many stitches on my right arm, I bounded out of the emergency room and into my parents arms, and demanded that instant that they buy me an MIA bracelet. And they did. And for the life of me, I can’t remember that poor soldiers name. And I wore that bracelet every day for more than a year. I don’t even remember if he was KIA or MIA. I think MIA.So, if that war only touched me periferaly then it was a most horrible police action, and had no rhyme nor reason. Two of my uncles where scheduled to go, neither did. By the time Nixon came to power he concocted a most beautiful game, and instituted a drawing of dates.And that drawing of lotteries separated the guys who were scheduled to go, and their families from 3/4ths of the general population. It was brilliant strategy on Nixon’s part, and stopped the Anti-war protesters in their tracks And I gave him credit for not sending my uncles into that meat grinder. But yea, Nixon is shit. And I’d rather not read three chapters, but will, if you guys say.
Comrade Luke
@freelancer:
I did the same thing tonight, but only got within two chapters of everyone else. This is not a fast read; you really need to focus to absorb everything, especially since I wasn’t alive at the time (well, born in ’67, so not to the point I’ve read to yet) so most of this is new to me.
Anne Laurie
@efgoldman: @efgoldman: You’re in Rhode Island, I think? Alley Cat Allies has an “interactive email form” where they can put you in touch with the RI cat-rescue groups. There are some groups listed here, a Providence group with a phone number here, and a group in Briston here. Worse comes to worse, there are some insanely dedicated groups in MA that might, at least, be able to put you in touch with their RI counterparts. But even if you just call your local animal control, they should have a list of local shelters (who, unfortunately, are probably pretty overwhelmed at the moment). If you want to email me directly, click my name near the top of the right-hand column…
Anne Laurie
Sounds like “two chapters” may be winning the concensus. Unless something changes overnight, I’ll announce that tomorrow when more people are paying attention…
Villago Delenda Est
I’m cool with three chapters :)
In fact, I’ve read ahead, again, and I’m into Book III now. The hits just move right along.
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We’re finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in O-hi-o.
catdevotee
I am hoping that some younger people will read this because the era is impossible to explain in a conversation. The constant anxiety, anger, and outrage. When I think things are bad now, I just reflect on how absolutely horrible things were in the late 60’s.
I’m reading as much as I can stomach in a week… I’m having a hard time being reminded of the awfulness.
Linda Featheringill
@Dee Loralei:
I realize that I am coming in later and you may not see this at all but here goes:
I understand the ambivalence that arises when people you love hold asshole positions. I never fully resolved that conflict. I decided to hold on to my love and let the rest of it just blow around me.
Peace.
morzer
@Linda Featheringill:
Often all you can do is wait for them to realize that it’s now their turn to bend over, grab their ankles and hope for some lube. Sadly, even then, they sometimes still find a way to blame their fellow-victims.
Kirbster
If I may, I’d like to suggest another recent book in the “we-are-so-screwed” genre — Russ Baker’s Family of Secrets, about the Bush clan and their cronies. It revealed a whole new side to “Poppy” Bush, as well as to “W”.
Phoebe
I’m still finishing the second chapter of the last assignment, and it’s not the page turner it was at the start [for all the reasons mentioned, and I didn’t even live through it as an adult], so my vote is for 2 chapters. It’s not like there’s a deadline, right? Or like there won’t be enough to talk about if we only do 2 chapters? I’m glad you are leaning that way. I, like the others, will try to do 3 if it’s assigned, but would prefer 2. Same time is fine.
As for what book next, if we keep to the pattern of “this makes me read a really good but depressing book because I have company in my misery” then I nominate The Dark Side by Jane Mayer. I bought it when it came out and could not get past the preface. Whee!