The following video from Woodstock features what is almost unarguably the most iconic moment of the entire festival-Jimi Hendrix performing the Star Spangled Banner, complete with a multitude of sound distortions mixed in which was meant to represent the noise, carnage, and horrors of war, something that was deeply on the minds of the vast majority of festival goers during this, the height of the Vietnam War. Note also for roughly three seconds the inclusion of Taps, at about 2:53. Prior to this performance, Max Yasgur (who owned the 600 acre dairy farm at which the festival was held) had stepped briefly onto the stage in order to congratulate those still in attendance (the majority of festival goers had already left by the time) on the way they comported themselves. They had proven to the world, he said, that "500,000 kids" could get together for three days of fun and music and "have nothing but fun and music".
Vietnam was probably the greatest hot button issue of the day, with only civil rights coming close in importance. Jimi Hendrix encapsulated for all time the prevailing sentiments of the day towards the war for the majority of those young people (and a growing number of others) who stood to be the most affected by it.
It is not in keeping with the spirit of Woodstock to cast stones, perhaps, but I will anyway, by pointing out that Vietnam was a Democratic Party war-a boondoggle fought more for political than for patriotic reasons, and mismanaged to such a degree that it soured public opinion not only on the Vietnam War, but also did irreversible damage insofar as public attitudes regarding any war, regardless of how justified it might or might not be. Hendrix expresses those sentiments here to greater effect than any speech by any demagogue or politician possibly could.
Hendrix was a true impresario, managing to artistically blend in the horror of war, the overall anxiety over which was palpable, with what is perhaps the most beautiful instrumental recording of the National Anthem ever recorded, all in a three minute instrumental piece of music that ended not with the sounds of war but instead with the hopeful and beautiful sound of the anthem's conclusion, and lead into a rendition of Purple Haze.
4 comments:
oh, come on, Viet Nam was about as bi-partisan as you could get !
In a sense it was, but it was the Kennedy Administration that started it, as a police action. It was never a declared war. Had Kennedy tried to go to Congress to declare war on North Vietnam, it would not have been so bi-partisan, for the very good reason it would have been tantamount to an invitation to a declaration of war by the Soviet Union.
Kennedy didn't have to have permission of Congress to initiate a police action, nor did his successor Johnson when he ratcheted it up. It was Johnson's Administration that ruined everything with its general incompetence.
They tried to repeat the same scenario as occurred in Korea, hoping to eventually get an agreement with the North by fighting a defensive war of containment. Problem was, this wasn't Korea. This was Vietnam, where, unlike Korea, a significant percentage of the South was sympathetic and/or openly supportive of the North.
Nixon and the Republicans wanted to end the war but they realized that the only way they could do so was by increasing their offensive operations in the North. Any other method of ending to the war would have involved a strategic retreat which would have ended in total victory by the North, which is precisely what happened. As it was, public opinion was so soured on the war effort, Nixon caught pure hell from the peace factions for literally refusing to what would have been tantamount to unconditional surrender.
Nixon still might have succeeded if not for Watergate, which brought him down and brought about the Presidency of the minimally qualified Gerald Ford, who had to devote his presidency to healing the nations wounds and divisions, something he tried to achieve in part by finally ending the war which never should have come about to begin with.
So yes, the war was bi-partisan, in the sense that once it started, Republicans wanted it fought to a successful and honorable conclusion. The question is, would they have started it to begin with. I would guess probably not. People tend to forget that, up until the late sixties and seventies, it was the Democratic Party which was the war party.
This idea that they are the "party of peace" is pretty much a modern innovation.
Pretty sure Truman sent cash & Eisenhower sent "advisors" & resurrected/kept a draft going. Nixon thwarted peace talks while he was running for office, damaging the Dems reputation. Nixon's first successful campaign was on the premise that the Dems hadn't been able to get us out in 4 years. It came back to bite him on the butt when he ran for re-election, especially when he promised not to escalate the war & then invaded Laos & Cambodia.
But that's just presidents. I forget the make up of congress those years.
I misspoke in a sense when I said the Presidents didn't have to get permission from Congress. They had and still do have to get their funding from Congress, and have to ask for continued funding periodically, but its rare that Congress will refuse funding for soldiers engaged in a military action. It does take an act of Congress to declare war, however, and a president can, without consent of Congress, in his role of commander-in-chief, send soldiers abroad at any time. Congress can and does exercise oversight, but their powers in this case is more limited, chiefly to as I said, funding.
The main point I was making is that this was basically a Democratic war, and that the Democrats have historically, up until right about this period of time, been generally considered the war party. They have deftly positioned themselves since that time as the party of peace, just as that same party of slavery and Jim Crow positioned themselves around this same period of time as the party of civil rights.
I would also point out that Abby Hoffman, who featured prominently in the history of the previous video, first acquired infamy by his actions as part of the Chicago Seven, when he and they protested the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Hoffman would have had no problem whatsoever with a characterization of the Democrats as the party of war and war profiteering.
It was the Robert Kennedy-Eugene McCarthy wing of the party who was the liberal, pro-peace wing of the party, and it was about this time that they took control of the party, and have never relinquished it. Prior to this they were the minority wing. In fact, Johnson's Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act would not have passed without support from the Republican Party in 1964-65, when the liberal wing of the Democratic Party was still very much the minority wing of the party.
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