Eugene McCarthy

[G_j]

I'm in my sixties, protested against the Vietnam war, was a conscientious objector. Whatever...I was there.
What eerily strikes me today is the amount of energy around the "Bernie drop out", "it's over" meme. I remember Eugene McCarthy, even shook his hand. I also remember the 'establishment' pushing a similar meme, math and all. Eugene had no chance. But really, they just couldn't bear his message.

They wished we would all just go away. But Vietnam was not going away. I also remember the Chicago convention. You don't get people to shut up by party loyalty platitudes. The central issue then was the Vietnam war, today it is a bundle of issues, from income inequality to global warming. But it's the sense of dire urgency fueling a real grassroots movement that is the same. In my opinion, it is the future.

You can not 'spain' it away. Learn something from history. It's happening again. It's simply foolish to mock it. People mocked the young then also. Look at history.

Thanks for listening, peace..

[BillZBubb]

1. McCarthy was a great guy. Too bad the status quo establishment

marginalized and ignored him. Things would have been a lot better for the Democrats and the country had the party accepted the message he was sending.

But they didn't because Humphrey could beat that weasel Nixon! Yeah that went well...

Eerily familiar.

[immoderate]

2. Gene McCarthy politicized me.

--imm

[CTyankee]

7. me, too. At the time I was a Westchester housewife with a baby boy that I didn't

want sucked into a war like Vietnam. He's a senior prosecutor now with the DA's office in Brooklyn...

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. History does not repeat itself

But it does rhyme

[G_j]

5. That's very funny

I suppose you supported the Vietnam war also? Or was that before your time?

[dwrjr]

8. Maybe it was Humphrey

Maybe it was Humphrey who never had a chance? Maybe that's the real analogy? As things turned out, we young ones being strong armed by the Democratic party establishment and the Chicago Daley machine were on the right side of history re the Vietnam War. If it's more important for you to be winning, maybe you would have supported Nixon? Maybe you should pick Trump over Hillary if you just want to win? I followed my conscience then and I'll follow it now. Bernie is on the right side of history, and has been, ever since those dark days for the Democrats back in 1968.

[G_j]

9. True, Humphrey lost..

and, also no thanks to Henry Kissinger sabotaging the peace talks.

[Tarc]

10. The Sanders camp is not in any way, shape, or from carrying on the message of the 60's

Any pretense of that blew up last night in Nevada, where the Sanders people acted more like Hell's Angels at Altamont, if you really need to cast about for a 60's group comparison. The counter-culture didn't demean women, didn't dismiss the African-American vote is unimportant, didn't try to subvert the voter's will, among a host of other dissimilarities.

Whatever y'all have morphed into, that'll be for future sociologists to puzzle out.