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Monday, June 30, 2003 Page: 7A
On June 5, Bob Arnot of NBC News spoke to a gathering of 500 people for
Leadership Wilkes Barre. His comments focused on the brave soldiers and
reporters of the Iraqi war.
It brought to mind something I wrote a while back: “I am a real liberal. I
knew the Panthers and I marched arm in arm with the SDS. I burned my draft
card and called every cop a pig. I voted for Eugene McCarthy. Nixon and Agnew
were the establishment and I was gonna tear down their walls. I listened to
Grace Slick sing, `Up Against the Wall Mother******’ I reveled in the writings
of Ginsburg and Dylan. I defiantly spit in GI’s face and cursed them when they
returned from ‘Nam. I wasn’t just a liberal, I was a radical! I belonged to
the Peace Club where we held hands and sang songs and swore we were gonna
change the world. We knew the rest of the world would follow suit, if we would
just throw down our arms.
Then gradually the craziness ended and things started to settle down. It
was time to pursue a career, get married, have a family. Though I was no
longer a radical, I still wore my liberal label on my sleeve. It was still
hip, and sexy, and in a conservative little town, pretty cool. After all I
loathed Reagan (but supported detente); I loved Clinton (but hated the
spinning). And like all others of my ilk, I cried when the Village Idiot
cheated my Idiot out of the election.
Then things changed. No it wasn’t exactly 9/11 or Osama bin Laden. And it
wasn’t exactly the incursion into Iraq. My mind started to spin. I found I
couldn’t miss a night of O’Reilly; I was agreeing with Hannity (ugh!) and not
Colmes. And to my surprise, Rush was coming over for dinner! Actually what
really put me over the edge was that wonderful young reporter in the field, on
the tank, with his news shots of the soldiers saying hi to their Moms and
sweethearts. The same guys I spit on 30 years ago. They never heard of
McCarthy and Agnew and Ginsberg and Slick. And they were wearing fatigues and
carrying guns and they were really hip and cool. And they were sincere with
their down home erudition, their character, their aplomb. And the irony of it
all is that it seemed like, even though they were fighting a war, they really
didn’t want to kill anybody. It was a different kind of mission. Sort of like
some futuristic version of the Peace Club. You know, holding hands, singing
songs, throwing down their arms …… I was a real liberal.”
Alan Frank
Kingston