friday, november30, 1979 fathom page 5
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action similar to the takeover?
' "No, because today's students are first and foremost
for lizier," he said, acknowledging that his reaction was a
generalization. ,
l He said he cannot pinpoint a. time when the change in
attitude took place, but he thinks Watergate had a lot to
do with it.
' "THE LARGE majority of students were disillusioned
(after Watergate)," he said. "I fault Nixon for that more
than for anything. Students began to wonder, "if we can't
believe our president, who can we believe,"
: Dan Ladely, a student involved in the M & N Building
incident and current director of the Sheldon Film
Theatre, is also disillusioned, but his feelings are directed
toward the students.
"I see students as out.for a good time and to make lots
of bucks," he said.
He said the students of the 60s had, and continue to
have, attitudes which promote change and are now involv
ed in other forms of protest, such as those against nuclear
power and weapons. ,
Ladely said it is true they are not as visible, but noted,
"You can't make a living off of protesting." '
.; The activities at UNL during the 60s were "pretty
tame," according to Ladely, adding that the even such
small happenings contributed to keeping the country
aware of the conflict.
It would take another war and the draft to get students
to react in the way they did in 1970, he claimed.
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Photo by Daily Nebraskan
Students arehurrying toward the 80s with career goals and personal plans, neither of which allows time to worry
about war or the draft. Societal concerns belong to the students of the Vietnam era, when anti-war protests riled
even the docile Nebraska campus. v
Society minus draft equals passivity
By Randy Essex
It was the end of the 1960s.
Earlier in the decade, a songwriter named Barry
McGuire had told America it faced the "Eve of Destruc
tion." But in. the fall of 1969, at Max Yasgur's upstate New
York farm, the lyrics were different. Yasgur had provided
the site for the largest and most famous gathering of the
counter culture, which emerged in the 60s.
The hundreds of thousands at Woodstock inspired
Joni Mitchell's words: ". . . And I dreamed I saw the
bombers riding shotgun in the sky, turning into butter
flies above our nation. . ," ,
At the same time, American bombers flew raids over
North Vietnam, destroying supply routes and defoliating
the jungles with hapalm,
The bombers did not turn into butterflies in the 1970s,
but, in time, the deadly strikes ceased. The draft ended,
anti-war protests stopped, and many have felt the political
climate of the 70s has mellowed.
"The counter culture is dead," according to State Sen.
Dave Landis, who finished his undergraduate study at
UNL in 1970.
"The big thing missing (politically in the 1970's) is the
draft," sand another state senator who was active ia the
anti-war movement. ' .
'The experts promised us a short war, designed to pre
serve democracy. We kept hearing that we were turning
the corner, that the light was at the end of the tunnel, . .
after years of hearing that, one had to realize that was not
going to happen," Steve Fowler said.
Bill Arfmann, an administrative assistant for Landis,
was an ASUN senator in 1970-71. He said the draft per
sonalized the war for students, and "was clearly the
reason for the visibility of the movement on that scale."
"Students then said the grading system was A, B, C, D
or Nam," said Pete Maslowski, a UNL history professor.
John Braeman, another UNL history professor, said he
thinks three groups of people joined in the anti-war move
ment. , , .
'The first group- was worried about the draft. They
didn't want to get their ass shot off. It was self-interest,
pure and simple," Braeman said. He characterized the
second anti-war group as "fuzzy-minded liberals," who be
lieved in passivity and "one-worldism."
The third group, he said, provided the driving force of
the movement. 'They were either pro-communist or so
violently anti-American that they really wanted the Viet
Cong to win the war." A ,
Maslowski said "we thought we were trying to make
this government live up to its ideals."
Maslowski. was a graduate student at Ohio State in
1971, when four students were killed on the Kent State,
Ohio, campus by -National Guardsmen who were called
out during anti-war activities.
"My apartment was next to one of the streets where
the Columbus (Ohio) police were mobilizing for one of
their sweeps through campus. I heard the police saying
things like, 'I can't wait to club one of those little fuckers
over the.. head.' It was some of the most obscene, foul
language you could imagine," Maslowski said.
He added, however, that he felt the National Guard
and the Columbus police handled themselves well, under
"enormous provocation," like students throwing marsh
mallows at the guardsmen or getting on their knees "going
oink, oink, oink."
Braeman said he thought most Americans felt anti-war
demonstrators got what they deserved. He also said very
few people were involved in the anti-war movement -that
most Americans normally sit back and watch political
events unfold. .
But Maslowski said it was idealism that motivated the
demonstrators, not only in the anti-war movement, but
concerning civil rights and environmental issues, which
began to surface in the late 60s.
' Fowler also said the supporters of civil rights, the anti
war movement and certain other issues of the 70s have
challenged status quo presumptions. ' -
Rallies for the issues of the 70s lack the immediacy of
war, and are not as deeply felt as the civil rights cause, all
sources said,
Maslowski noted that the events of 1968 - the assas
sinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy,
the black power demonstration by John Carlos and
Tommie Smith in the Mexico City Summer Olympics, the
riot in Chicago during the Democratic National Conven
tion and the Tet offensive in Vietnam - had to have a
psychological impact on the American people.
The Tet Offensive was misjudged by the American ,
press as a Communist victory, Maslowski said. In the
offensive, 90,000 Viet Cong, who normally fought in the
Vietnamese hamlets as guerrillas, exposed themselves in a
traditional attack, he said.
Of the 90,000 Viet Cong in the offensive, 40,000 were
killed.
Because the Tet offensive was portrayed as an Ameri
can loss by the press, it contributed to the negative events
of 1968.
1968 was followed by Kent State, Watergate and the
resignation of a president.
"It's hard for a people to keep up a high emotional
pitch for too long," Maslowski said. Since 1972, he said
Americans have been subdued in their political action.
"But I see a recuperative factor emerging. I see a will to
stand up and rebuild."
Fowler said although political action has not been as
visible in the 70s as in the 60s, he thinks a great deal has
been accomplished in the women's rights movement
Handicapped rights, personal liberties and the nuclear '
power issue have also been' brought to the forefront.
Braeman said not much has changed from the 60s to
the 70s. The 1972 presidential election, with the resound
ing defeat of George McGovern, showed that the values of
those leading movements in the 60s did not represent the
will of the country as a whole.
The more radical you were (in the 60s), the more
crushed you are now," Landis said. "The more directly
involved you were, the less nostalgic you are.w
'The system is omnipotent to a bunch of students
carrying placards around on campus.
"But not shattered was the idea of participatory demo
cracy," he said.
Braeman disagreed. .
"This is not a democracy; it is a republic. In a republic,
the citizens' participation usually is through representa
tives. '
"One of the great fallacies of the 60s was that of parti
cipatory democracy, ne said.
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Photo by Daily Nabraskan
A familiar face. It brought new connotations to the
presidency and government in general during the
past decade. Former president Richard Nixon "felt
comfortable" when he visited the UNL campus in
1971, when anti-war sentiment ran high elsewhere
in the United States.