1968: The Year the System Lost Its Grip, Part 4 — Ideology, Race, and Authority

[Luis Gonzalez]

1968: The Year the System Lost Its Grip, Part 4 — Ideology, Race, and Authority

The Last Wire

What began as protest became something larger in 1968. Something harder to contain and even harder to define.

Part 4 examines the point where race, ideology, media, and authority stopped interacting as separate forces and started fusing into a single national pressure system. Universities, city streets, and political institutions were no longer just sites of disagreement. They became stages for a deeper conflict over legitimacy itself.

As civil rights struggles, anti-war demonstrations, and urban unrest intensified, the question was no longer only what America should do, but who had the right to define what America was. Government authority, law enforcement, journalists, activists, and political movements all began operating under competing moral frameworks that no longer overlapped cleanly.

The result was not just instability. It was fragmentation of trust. Institutions that once mediated conflict were now seen as participants in it. Every major event fed into the next. Every response deepened suspicion. The system stopped feeling neutral, and started feeling contested at every level.

By the end of 1968, the country was no longer simply experiencing unrest. It was reorganizing around permanent tension points that would shape politics, culture, and public trust for decades to come.

This installment traces how that shift happened in real time, and why its effects never fully faded.

1968: The Year the System Lost Its Grip — Part 4, Ideology, Race, and Authority

[Free Vulcan]

The thing is, looking from the rural Midwest perspective, is the recognition that much of this was Marxist fomented primarily in the urban areas, taking advantage of at the time young and naive Boomers who grew up with a comfortable suburbanite lifestyle with zero comprehension of the destitute poverty just 30 years earlier during the Great Depression and the sacrifices of WWII.

And they played the classic Marxist passive-aggressive card of 'well it ain't perfect, our institutions 'failed' us, and we can't accept that, so we gotta burn it all down'.

And they did it with rhetoric, sermons, finger wagging, and projection, and it was all smoke and mirrors to trojan horse Marxist dictatorship upon this country, and not much else.

Meanwhile, the rural areas and small towns went on as usual, working hard, being prosperous, and living the Americana life till their foolish DC policies brought the Rust Belt upon is.

[Bigun]

The thing is, looking from the rural Midwest perspective, is the recognition that much of this was Marxist fomented primarily in the urban areas, taking advantage of at the time young and naive Boomers who grew up with a comfortable suburbanite lifestyle with zero comprehension of the destitute poverty just 30 years earlier during the Great Depression and the sacrifices of WWII.

And they played the classic Marxist passive-aggressive card of 'well it ain't perfect, our institutions 'failed' us, and we can't accept that, so we gotta burn it all down'.

And they did it with rhetoric, sermons, finger wagging, and projection, and it was all smoke and mirrors to trojan horse Marxist dictatorship upon this country, and not much else.

Meanwhile, the rural areas and small towns went on as usual, working hard, being prosperous, and living the Americana life till their foolish DC policies brought the Rust Belt upon is.

  

Marxism has been FAR more active for a longer period of time in this country than most realize.

[Luis Gonzalez]

The thing is, looking from the rural Midwest perspective, is the recognition that much of this was Marxist fomented primarily in the urban areas, taking advantage of at the time young and naive Boomers who grew up with a comfortable suburbanite lifestyle with zero comprehension of the destitute poverty just 30 years earlier during the Great Depression and the sacrifices of WWII.

And they played the classic Marxist passive-aggressive card of 'well it ain't perfect, our institutions 'failed' us, and we can't accept that, so we gotta burn it all down'.

And they did it with rhetoric, sermons, finger wagging, and projection, and it was all smoke and mirrors to trojan horse Marxist dictatorship upon this country, and not much else.

Meanwhile, the rural areas and small towns went on as usual, working hard, being prosperous, and living the Americana life till their foolish DC policies brought the Rust Belt upon is.

Thanks for the great post.

I’m fixated on 1968. It was my first full year in the US, and I was absorbing change at a rate that it’s difficult for me to actually imagine today. The new language was the least, and most easily addressed, for me. I can recall my Dad wondering out loud whether the decision to migrate here was the right thing to do, as we were inundated with more data in a day (even in 68!), than what we were normally exposed to in a year, back in the island.
Still… we moved from the dark ages to living within sight of the launch pads in the Cape, and rockets going off damned near daily.

What a ride.

[Bigun]

Read about Woodrow Wilson, Edward M. House, John Dewey, and Edward Bernays. @Luis Gonzalez

[Smokin Joe]

The thing is, looking from the rural Midwest perspective, is the recognition that much of this was Marxist fomented primarily in the urban areas, taking advantage of at the time young and naive Boomers who grew up with a comfortable suburbanite lifestyle with zero comprehension of the destitute poverty just 30 years earlier during the Great Depression and the sacrifices of WWII.

And they played the classic Marxist passive-aggressive card of 'well it ain't perfect, our institutions 'failed' us, and we can't accept that, so we gotta burn it all down'.

And they did it with rhetoric, sermons, finger wagging, and projection, and it was all smoke and mirrors to trojan horse Marxist dictatorship upon this country, and not much else.

Meanwhile, the rural areas and small towns went on as usual, working hard, being prosperous, and living the Americana life till their foolish DC policies brought the Rust Belt upon is.

That's how it looked to me, too.

Where better to find relatively wealthy urban young minds to pollute than Colleges and Universities, where the avant-garde became commonplace, and classical thought was being discarded for the latest craze?
In the mid-70s, there was an amazing assortment of philosophies, but we only had one card carrying Communist in our department. He was a student, and it was interesting that he could not discuss his beliefs in his own words, but only quoting his catechism chapter and worse. It was not well received.

[Luis Gonzalez]

That's how it looked to me, too.

Where better to find relatively wealthy urban young minds to pollute than Colleges and Universities, where the avant-garde became commonplace, and classical thought was being discarded for the latest craze?
In the mid-70s, there was an amazing assortment of philosophies, but we only had one card carrying Communist in our department. He was a student, and it was interesting that he could not discuss his beliefs in his own words, but only quoting his catechism chapter and worse. It was not well received.

A whole lot of what I experienced in those days, insofar as any sort of political ideology I may have held at the time, was driven by a total aversion to the idea of being sent off to some Asian swamp, to be shot at from anywhere and everywhere, by people I knew nothing about.

That was just self-preservation.

[Smokin Joe]

A whole lot of what I experienced in those days, insofar as any sort of political ideology I may have held at the time, was driven by a total aversion to the idea of being sent off to some Asian swamp, to be shot at from anywhere and everywhere, by people I knew nothing about.

That was just self-preservation.

We all had that, whether we went out and protested, enlisted, or got drafted. (I was two years too young for VietNam, had my draft card (1-H), but didn't turn 17 until my first semester of College). By then the lottery was over.

For those of us who had older friends who watched the lottery numbers come up, we were sweating our turn. Some guys who did come up, went ahead and enlisted (Navy, Marines, Air Force) to not end up prowling jungle in SE Asia in Army olive drab. 
I don't know of anyone from that area who was called who did not go (that would have been unthinkable where I grew up), but that did not do away with the dread you speak of.
Of course, television coverage, (subtly biased, even then), and daily body counts did nothing to relieve that trepidation.

Maybe that penumbra made us drive faster/get laid (or at least pursue that), and be a bit more rowdy than we might nave been otherwise. It's hard to say with country boys, and every High School yearbook had at least one memorial page for someone who had left this world long before ever seeing an M-16.

[mountaineer]

Marxism has been FAR more active for a longer period of time in this country than most realize.

Read this book:


Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century
In this startling, intensively researched book, bestselling historian Paul Kengor shines light on a deeply troubling aspect of American history: the prominent role of the "dupe." From the Bolshevik Revolution through the Cold War and right up to the present, many progressives have unwittingly aided some of America's most dangerous opponents.

Based on never-before-published FBI files, Soviet archives, and other primary sources, Dupes exposes the legions of liberals who have furthered the objectives of America's adversaries. Kengor shows not only how such dupes contributed to history's most destructive ideology—Communism, which claimed at least 100 million lives—but also why they are so relevant to today's politics. ...  https://www.amazon.com/Dupes-Americas-Adversaries-Manipulated-Progressives/dp/1610171462

[Bigun]

Read this book:


Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century
In this startling, intensively researched book, bestselling historian Paul Kengor shines light on a deeply troubling aspect of American history: the prominent role of the "dupe." From the Bolshevik Revolution through the Cold War and right up to the present, many progressives have unwittingly aided some of America's most dangerous opponents.

Based on never-before-published FBI files, Soviet archives, and other primary sources, Dupes exposes the legions of liberals who have furthered the objectives of America's adversaries. Kengor shows not only how such dupes contributed to history's most destructive ideology—Communism, which claimed at least 100 million lives—but also why they are so relevant to today's politics. ...  https://www.amazon.com/Dupes-Americas-Adversaries-Manipulated-Progressives/dp/1610171462

  And this one:



https://www.amazon.com/s?k=blacklisted%2Bby%2Bhistory%2Bby%2Bm.%2Bstanton%2Bevans&crid=3P3V74JJRNJO3&sprefix=Blacklisted%2Caps%2C189&ref=nb_sb_ss_p13n-expert-pd-ops-ranker_2_11

this one:



https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The%2BNaked%2BCommunist&crid=3C3K15HNSUQ7G&sprefix=the%2Bnaked%2Bcommunist%2Caps%2C132&ref=nb_sb_noss

this one:



https://www.amazon.com/Lincolns-Marxists-Al-Benson-Jr/dp/158980905X/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2NH31Y4WW3Y1I&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.2nNIyvHJfsYEd_8HtkNpssjSzjjkWFfH0RHR5eP1YQUzQCWDXaJWIa6llH649keFxHVvJh_S5Gtr-GvRsylvAWqV9U79J4EtqiskuSrGPaz0Q8INnqPZBOjEw3YrbyEY0cdanQpkXpEPLjw6bWaPWLqyuKDuEMXEpxz9NDAxF_a1ARjnpyMXc6frev7CDsY12Quma9AT0-TVdrFdrlLKSvjJMMF8qMd756mXGCwIKdA.HyVuHDsKLup2GAF4p6ZgrMNT0zX3cT7F1fQmjNkTvng&dib_tag=se&keywords=lincoln%27s+marxists&qid=1779715608&sprefix=Lincoln%27s+Marx%2Caps%2C160&sr=8-3

ALL of which I personally own. There are plenty more for those willing to look.

[Luis Gonzalez]

We all had that, whether we went out and protested, enlisted, or got drafted. (I was two years too young for VietNam, had my draft card (1-H), but didn't turn 17 until my first semester of College). By then the lottery was over.

We must be damned near the same age.

[Luis Gonzalez]

ALL of which I personally own. There are plenty more for those willing to look.[/size]

Thanks @Bigun... adding to to reading list.