We are our own worst enemy

Walt Kelly had the right idea in 1971. Let us remember that in 1971, Vietnam was still a very active conflict. A year later, in December of 1972, Nixon unleashed a carpet bombing campaign on Hanoi, which did not deter what was then North Vietnam in the least. Four years earlier, in 1968, the USA had started peace talks with Hanoi. It was not until 1973 that the pullout ending the war happened. As you may remember, the photographs from the last days and the helicopters flying out are not that different from what happened in Afghanistan after the Trump-negotiated “peace.”¹

Both in 1967 and 1969, massive demonstrations against the Vietnam War took place. In November 1969, half a million people demonstrated in Washington, DC. By 1971, when Kelly published the cartoon above, everyone knew that the end of Vietnam was coming. I was drafted in 1971. Few things are worse than being drafted into a war that is finishing. No one wants to be the last body bag out. Fortunately, I served in the USA without ever being on the firing line. I have sometimes wondered what would have happened had I been sent to Vietnam as a medic or a medical lab specialist. But those are irrelevant thoughts.

By 1971, this country was severely divided. Having lived then, I think we are worse split today. But Kelly had the right idea, as the same thing is happening today. Our culture was about to be divided back then but managed to pull itself together. Kelly’s warning was that the problem was not outside of us. We were the problem, not any external situation. I think the same is true today, but various degrees worse. Unlike back then, we are not blaming outside entities. We are openly fighting to silence each other.

The far-left plays innocent with its claims that it wants equal treatment with everyone. However, cancel culture was one of the final straws that led to the massive cultural conflict in this country. It was one of the most ambitious attempts to force-change the current culture. Cancel culture was not merely an attempt to teach people different speech patterns, different modes of behavior, and a libertarian acceptance of differences. It was a blatant exercise in punishing any who disagreed and shut down discussion by blaming everything on either some discrimination or a psychological problem.²

The far-right learned to respond in kind. First, Republicans “started playing footsie” with extremists on the right. Then, accusations equivalent to the far-left allegations began to fly. Thus, the persistent drumbeat that charges gays and transgenders of being pedophiles. This is the same psychologizing false accusations that the far-left employed for years. The right-to-life groups also started to use increasingly harsh language. After years of saying that the abortionists were the murderers and women the victims, the approach changed. The moment that the Supreme Court announced the repeal of Roe v Wade laws began to be passed that did what right to life had denied for decades that they would do. Laws punishing the people previously called victims began to be passed. The promise that women would not be prosecuted were right to life to be adopted was quickly discarded and not mentioned again.

Sadly, the far-right lost all grasp on epistemology. No theory was too extreme to be discarded. Suspicion of the government grew to be suspicion of scientists, of teachers, of anyone who did not agree with any outlandish theory that contradicted generally accepted wisdom or generally accepted scientific formulations. Sometimes, the stranger the theory or the more it contradicts anything that could be considered accepted wisdom or formulation, the more the far-right must believe it with strong arguments that are articles of belief more than tested theory.

And so, we are back to 1971. We are our own worst enemy. The cancel culture of the left has now become the cancel culture of the right. Book bans are becoming common in our libraries.³ Criminalizing groups has become as common an approach in the far-right as the cancel culture of the left. The firings in federal and state governments are the far-right expression of cancel culture.⁴ But, the real intent is for the far-right to cancel the far-left.

I fear that what never happened in 1969 may happen today. I may live to see a country that breaks out into another Civil War situation. The adjustments that allowed the South to rejoin the North after the Civil War are breaking down. Both sides want a monoculture in the USA, which must be their monoculture. Those who disagree with their monoculture will be silenced.

So, we are back in 1971 and heading for 1973-1974. It took President Ford’s pardon of President Nixon to finally settle that mess. I hope we make it through this mess.

1. See, https://kyivindependent.com/in-negotiations-with-russia-trump-is-repeating-his-complete-disaster-peace-deal-with-taliban/ published earlier today. [↩]
2. For instance, note how the terms homophobia, transgender phobia, etc., all psychologize the discussion. Thus, the person who disagreed with the far left had mental issues. Failing that, then racism was blamed, or religion, or… What is true is that no legitimate agency was permitted to those who disagreed. [↩]
3. Shades of Fahreinheit 451. [↩]
4. The language used is military language, and it is said that this country is recovering control of its institutions. That argument is illogical as this country was in control of its institutions. The subtext is actually that this country is changing control of its institutions from the left to the right. [↩]