I was a student at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY, when Fr. Daniel Berrigan taught there. Although I never had him for class, I remember sitting with other students gathered around him in the cafeteria asking questions and listening to his thoughts on topics of the day. As mentioned in the NY Times article after his death this week, he was very popular with the students.

At Le Moyne College in Syracuse, where he was a popular professor of New Testament studies from 1957 to 1963, Father Berrigan formed friendships with his students that other faculty members disapproved of, inculcating in them his ideas about pacifism and civil rights. (One student, David Miller, became the first draft-card burner to be convicted under a 1965 law.)

Our generation was criticized as being too complacent and out of touch with the menace of both communism and the American military adventures around the world. Ironically, it was on college campuses all over the country where the most vocal and violent protests would erupt just a few short years after my graduation in 196l.

I didn’t think much about Fr. Berrigan again until I opened a fundraising letter asking for donations for an orphanage in Vietnam a few years later. I was living on an Air Force Base where my husband was stationed. Recognizing Fr. Berrigan’s name on the list of those asking for aid, I donated to the cause. What I did not know was that the orphanage was for children in what was then called North Vietnam, our enemy in that conflict. I’m sure that, if there had been the kind of electronic spying on us that the NSA has today, my husband would have gotten in trouble for aiding the enemy. Luckily, that didn’t happen. Frankly, I didn’t have an opinion one way or the other about the war at that time. My husband was in the medical wing, and we just wanted to serve our time and get out.

Decades later, after studying international relations, US foreign policy and taking a peace studies class at Illinois State U, I received another request for a donation. This time it was to establish a Fr. Daniel Berrigan Peace Academy at Lemoyne College. I gladly donated to that cause.

I wish I had just a tiny bit of Fr. Berrigan’s tenacity.  As recently as 2008, he joined the Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zucotti Park. From the Times article:

While he was known for his wry wit, there was a darkness in much of what Father Berrigan wrote and said, the burden of which was that one had to keep trying to do the right thing regardless of the near certainty that it would make no difference. In the withering of the pacifist movement and the country’s general support for the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, he saw proof that it was folly to expect lasting results.

What an exceptional human being. I’m glad he lived long enough to see a Jesuit become Pope, and not just any Jesuit, but one who preaches what Fr. Berrigan exemplified during his long trial here among us.

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I was 17 and skeptical when I saw the movie poster for Chicago 10 at the Missouri History Museum where I work. The exaggerated cartoon figures seemed almost comical and when my boss tried to tell me that was I was about to see was like none of the other documentaries we had screened I was decidedly doubtful. Then it began. Then it changed me.

It was in fact, like nothing I had ever seen. It was a partially animated documentary based on the infamous court transcripts of the equally infamous Chicago 8, a trial so infamous that I had never heard of it. The Yippie Party had been omitted from my history textbooks. I had no idea that for three days in 1968 Chicago became a police state. So when I saw the video of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin dance across the screen, when I saw the mob “take the hill” and one man plant the Vietnam flag on a statue only to be beaten by police, and when I saw Bobby Seale gagged and bound, demanding his right to be heard, my pulse raced and my all of my perceptions, about the sixties legacies had to be reconstructed.

As protesters shouted, “The whole world is watching” I watched. When the tear gas and the beatings began, I saw the smallest battle of Vietnam play out outside the Hilton Hotel in downtown Chicago. It was vulgar. It was terrifying. It was radical. And I wished I could’ve been a part of it. I couldn’t keep from feeling a grudging admiration for the radical young men and women who were willing to be beaten if it brought peace. I wanted to join the movement.

The convention was the democrat’s nightmare incarnate. It exposed the cracks in the party’s foundation that had been becoming more and more prominent as LBJ’s war progressed. It was probably the most derisive moment within the Democratic Party in recent history.  It was a plea to start anew and it was a battle; the Yippies’ Last Stand, against a violent society that allowed Vietnam to happen. It was “The Second American Revolution” that heralded Nixon’s presidency.

Yet, the way they protested was actually quite ingenious. Everything they did had a purpose. They created what they called, the Yippie myth and made outlandish claims such as they’d poison Lake Michigan with LSD (clearly impossible) and they would burn Chicago to the ground, claims that were almost as outlandish as the lies coming from Vietnam. They were careful to preach for peace and their recruiting tool was simple, Chicago was a human be-in, they would be-in Chicago’s parks for the convention and that would be enough.

The Chicago 8 used the trial for publicity, to expose the court system as corrupted. They were charged with conspiracy so they answered the phones calling themselves “the conspiracy.” It was all a challenge to authority. It forced Chicago and America to show its totalitarianism thereby proving what the Yippies ultimately wanted to say: Violence was ingrained deep enough in our society it could be exercised on peaceful protesters. They were not just fighting for Vietnam; they wanted to “create a society where Vietnam could never have been possible.”

I admired the radicals. Their demonization seemed like a double standard. The media and politicians could demonize protesters but wouldn’t dare attack Kennedy’s personal life. Their propaganda was extreme, and their language was vulgar but they had to be extreme, they had to be the polar opposite of war.

It wasn’t just their message that was intriguing. It was their speeches and actions. I will never forget hearing Abbie Hoffman respond to reporters when they asked him what his price would be to call off “the revolution.” His answer was “my life.” I’ll never get over the chants of the “whole world is watching” from the convention that preceded the violence. And I’ll always have an image of Bobby Seale being bound and gagged in his chair still struggling to demand his right to defend himself.

During Hoffman’s testimony he called himself an orphan of America.  I could relate. There are undeniable parallels between our society today and the turbulence of 1968. Just like Vietnam, I live in a world where Americans have been lied to about war. I live in a world that was shocked by 9/11 similarly to the shock of JFK’s assassination. The sixties were the epoch of assassinations. Today, guns are taken up against children in our schools. The destruction of the Voting Rights Act has pulled us into the past. Modern America is closer to sixties than it ever has been before. As a millennial. I can look back at the era of turbulence and relate it to my life.

But unlike the protesters in Chicago, the youth in America is refusing to stand up. Our technology is no longer used as a tool for activism but as a distraction that lets us isolate ourselves from the issues. Unlike the rich meaning of rebellious protest music from the sixties, today’s popular music feels soulless, and meaningless. We live in a world where all the components are there to create a movement, and to create change, but no one is willing to take a stand. No one wants to stand up for the greater good.

Now I realize that the Chicago 10 made me awaken to my reality. It’s a reality that desperately needs change. The world of the protesters at the Chicago Democratic National Convention and my own are so similar, so why do I feel so far away from the era of change?  We are making the same mistakes today but have forgotten our spirit of activism.

And I am an orphan of America. Here. Ready. Waiting for a movement.

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Until about a week ago, I couldn’t find Mali on a map—except that I knew to look in Africa. I knew that it was a poor nation. But I didn’t even know that it was previously known as French West Africa. I should have known more, but I just didn’t. We Americans are not very good at knowing stuff about Africa.  At least this American isn’t. And I’m not proud of that fact.

Now, suddenly, I’m learning that France is using fighter jets against a radical Islamic faction in Mali, and I know nothing about that, either. And as the news trickles out—particularly the news that the U.S. has been helping France with logistics, and that they’re asking for even more help—I’m starting to worry. Isn’t this how things started in Vietnam, when the U.S. got gradually more and more involved after a French military debacle in its former colony? Is there a new “domino theory” at work? Are we—and by “we” I mean U.S. foreign-policy decision-makers—operating on the premise that radical Islam, like communism, will spread from one country to another? [I’m old enough to remember newsreels that showed a scary red communist blob oozing across eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.]  In this view of the world, is Al Qaida the new Viet Cong? And, by the way, were the Cold War theories on which we based our military actions ever borne out in fact?

I listened to President Obama’s second inaugural speech and felt good when I heard him say that America doesn’t need to be in a perpetual state of war.  I hope he can stick to that conviction.

I suspect that I’m at the first stage of this news story—the one where I have very little information on which to form an opinion. I intend to upgrade that status. Right now, though, all I have are questions. But at this stage, questions seem more important than answers—especially at the decision-making level.   I just hope that events don’t overtake the president so quickly that he doesn’t have a chance to ask the questions that seem not to have been asked when the U.S. entangled itself in previous conflicts.

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The war in Iraq is officially over. But did anyone notice, really? The last troops [except for the ones that are staying and the 5,000 mercenaries—oops, I mean contractors] are on their way home. President Obama welcomed them and thanked them. And that’s it?

Of course, there was no dancing in the streets, no victory parades, no flashy photos of sailors kissing nurses in Times Square. Why would there be? No one is proud of what the U.S. did in—or should we say “to”—Iraq. No valid mission has been accomplished. There’s no victory and nothing to celebrate. It’s just, sort of, over. Poof.

At least when the last U.S. combat troops finally left Viet Nam in 1975, the long overdue, ignominious ending was a media event: For those of us old enough to remember, it’s hard to forget the images of desperate Vietnamese citizens rushing the gates of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon and clinging to the skids of helicopters airlifting out the last few Americans. Those scenes were ugly and uncomfortable—a fitting visual punctuation to the ugly war they symbolized.

What a contrast with our last days in Iraq. Surely, given the absence of coverage and analysis of the U.S. exit from Iraq and the deafening silence in Congress, Dick Cheney and the neo-cons who ginned up this so-called war must be chortling and high-fiving, realizing that they got away with one of the biggest military con games in American history.

In the run-up to this bogus “war,” there was at least some debate and analysis. [An outspoken, courageous Illinois State Senator Barack Obama—remember that guy?—was an early critic, and his skepticism launched his ascent toward the Presidency.] But most of what opposition there was [to their credit, 23 U.S. Senators voted against the invasion] became overwhelmed by a sustained propaganda campaign to whip up support for a war that had been looking for an excuse since neo-conservatives hatched “The Project for A New American Century” plan in 1998. Those of us who protested [as I did, on a bridge in central Florida, where I was one of about 20 peace activists in a crowd of at least 400 war supporters] were told that we were unpatriotic. It wasn’t a very productive debate, but at least we were confronting the issue.

Now, at the other end of this thing, media coverage and meaningful analysis are hard to find.

When the invasion of Iraq began, CNN and every other American media outlet couldn’t wait to get on board a troop transport, ride along in a tank and breathlessly document the operation. Admittedly, there wasn’t much critical thinking going on then, either—just a mostly blind acceptance of the Bush Administration’s [false] assertion that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction,” and that Iraq was a player in the September 11 attacks.

In the intervening years, as 4,483 Americans were killed and thousands more wounded and disabled, fighting for…what, again?…the facts emerged and public opinion—and attention—turned away from the invasion/occupation. Maybe it was just too painful to watch. Or, perhaps voters, politicians and policymakers just lost the energy to keep debating the demerits of a military action that was so clearly wrong from the start, yet so difficult to disengage from.

Sure, now that it’s “over” [and even that is debatable], we’d all rather close our eyes, walk away, focus on something easier—like the latest celebrity wedding—and dismiss what happened in Iraq as a thing of the past.

But it’s not. The war-mongering, xenophobia, American exceptionalism and profiteering that led us into an unjustified invasion of a sovereign nation that posed no direct threat to the U.S. lives on. Just listen to the Republican candidates for president. Incredibly, just as the U.S. is getting out of Iraq, they seem to be shifting their attention to Iran, duking it out in the “debates” to see who can rattle the sabers loudest. [Ron Paul stands alone as the one candidate with a sane view of war in general, and U.S. policy in the Middle East in specific.] Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney have been spouting increasingly warlike rhetoric, and their contention that Iran poses a threat because it might be developing a nuclear weapon sounds alarmingly similar to what we heard about Iraq 10 years ago. And, of course, there’s the issue of Abu Ghraib and torture, elements of our sojourn in Iraq that have fallen off the media radar screen–except for some frightening pronouncements by Republican candidates who assert that “waterboarding isn’t torture,” and that they’d use “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the future.

If there was ever a time to pause and reflect on the meaning of Iraq, this is it.

The post This is the way the war ends: not with a bang, but a whimper appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon said it about the soldiers they commanded in Vietnam. The two presidents did not want any fallen soldier in Southeast Asia to die in vain.

Over the past decade of American involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan, and a variety of other Muslim countries, Presidents Bush and Obama have similarly said that every fallen soldier was valiantly serving his or her nation and had not died in vain.

It may not be politically correct to ask it, but when does a soldier die in vain? I will not pretend to have a definitive answer but some situations are rather clear.

1. If a soldier dies following the conclusion of a war, that certainly is in vain. It has happened repeatedly in American history, perhaps most egregiously following the War of 1812 and the Civil War.

2. It could be argued that if a soldier dies due to friendly fire, it would be in vain. We must keep in mind that frequently there are uncertainties in alleged cases of friendly fire.

But the focus of the assertion that “we do not want those who have fought so valiantly to have died in vain” is that the United States should not bring a war to an expeditious end because it would devalue the sacrifice of the soldiers who, to use Lincoln’s term in the Gettysburg Address, “gave the last full measure of devotion.” Lincoln went on to say, “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”

Lincoln gave his speech as two regions of the United States struggled to define what America meant. Our experiment with democracy had unfinished business, namely whether it was the states or the federal government who had primary powers in this unique system of federalism.

When the Civil War came to an end, it meant that the fighting ended, but the issues were not settled. They continue to this very day.

Did the more than 600,000 soldiers who died in America’s Civil War die in vain? Some would argue that all deaths in war are in vain because there are better ways to settle disputes. In the case of the Civil War, it’s doubtful that any leader could have done more than Abraham Lincoln to search for peaceful ways to avoid the bloodshed. When the first shots were fired at Ft. Sumter, SC on April 12, 1861, the rules of engagement had been set and they included bloodshed.

While many opposed the war as it was being fought, the prevailing views on each side were that it should be fought to a fitting conclusion. Only when the Confederate armies were either defeated or surrounded, did General Robert E. Lee sue for surrender. Did those who fought for the Union and the Confederacy die in vain? The prevailing sentiment on each side was that every soldier who died did so in support of an important cause in which he believed.

To justify the deaths of the Civil War, we have to conclude two things. First, the outcome with the union remaining intact was a worthwhile resolution. Second, as a nation, we had learned lessons that would prevent us from repeating the mistakes that lead to and perpetuated the war. With varying degrees of certainty, most people would probably agree with these conclusions.

The current question is whether U.S. soldiers in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq are dying in vain. It is helpful to look at the two questions we posed regarding the American Civil War and adapt them to Afghanistan.

First, is the outcome of war likely to be what the United States wants? This is difficult to answer, because of the lack of clarity of the American mission. However, few people assert that even if American soldiers remain until 2014, the Taliban will not be a political force in Afghanistan and that pockets of al Qaeda will not remain.

Second, will we have learned to not repeat the mistakes that plunged us into a prolonged war in Afghanistan? The answer to that lies in the future history of our country.

What we do know is that in Vietnam more than 58,000 American men and women died, presumably to keep territory from falling into the hands of the Communists. Two years after the last American soldier left, all of Vietnam was under Communist rule. So the mission of preventing the spread of Communism into South Vietnam did not succeed.

The second question would be did we learn lessons that would protect us from repeating our mistakes? Regrettably, it seems that American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan would provide evidence that we did not learn that lesson. We appear to be fighting for causes that we cannot win. The problem is, as Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon experienced in Vietnam, no American president wants to be the first to preside over a war that the United States loses.

Here are two possible solutions to the problem. First, let’s acknowledge that we lost the war in Vietnam. By any reasonable standard of measurement, we did. If we accept that, however painful it might be, then President Obama need not worry about being the first president to lose a war.

If President Obama were to pull American troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq as quickly as possible, then we could better answer the questions about whether American soldiers had died in vain.

First, we could say that the 58,000 American soldiers who died in Vietnam did not do so in vain. They fought valiantly, but provided us with evidence that the United States cannot win every war that it enters. As for those who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, the same can be true. The Vietnam lesson has not been thoroughly learned, but perhaps the similarity of the outcomes in Iraq and Afghanistan to Vietnam is a necessary reminder for us to learn the lesson to not fight wars that we cannot win. If we learn that lesson now, then those who have fought and died for their country did so for a reason, though not necessarily the reason that they thought had been put in harm’s way. They died so that we could finally learn the lesson to neither enter nor remain in wars that are fruitless.

It can be argued that every soldier who dies in Afghanistan and Iraq from here on out may die in vain because he or she should not have been there. Once the time to have learned the lesson passes, then there is no purpose in the death of soldiers.

These are questions that must be addressed by President Barack Obama, by the United States Congress which has the power to cut off the funding for the wars, and by the American people who can tell their leaders that they will no longer accept America at war under unwinnable circumstances.

It is certainly my hope, and I think that of many others, that no soldier has died in vain. But anyone who might die as a result of any delay in getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan ASAP, may die in vain. It’s a terrible thing to say, and perhaps not true. However, it is something to talk about.

The post When do soldiers die “in vain?” appeared first on Occasional Planet.

You have to be deep into middle age to know, first-hand, what Daniel Ellsberg did in the early 1970s to expose the top-level lies that created and perpetuated the Vietnam War. Ellsberg was the Defense Department insider who leaked the now famous Pentagon papers to the New York Times and helped turn the tide of public opinion against the war. Ellsberg’s is a story of courage and principle that deserves retelling to a new generation, and that should be a role model for action.

Whether Ellsberg’s story is old news or completely new to you, the documentary, “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” offers a powerful chronicle not to be missed. Released earlier in 2010, it’s making the rounds of film festivals, receiving award nominations, and is, at last, available on DVD.

With Ellsberg himself as the narrator, the documentary reveals his gradual transformation from conventionally defined “patriot” to anti-war activist. In a matter-of-fact tone, he describes his evolutionary path from a stint as an officer in the U.S. Marines, to State and Defense Department policy analyst, to anti-war activist labeled a “traitor” and convicted of illegal possession of top-secret documents. Each step is documented via still photos, contemporaneous news film, dramatically staged re-enactments, and interviews with politicians, news reporters, Ellsberg’s family, his contemporaries and his co-conspirators.

Putting one’s subject in the role of principal narrator of his own story always runs the risk of creating a self-laudatory portrait. Ellsberg’s commentary is anything but that. He bares it all: his unabashed, gung-ho attitude as a Marine; his complicity in helping to create paper-thin rationales that enabled military escalation in Viet Nam; his inability to speak out when top-level, Johnson-administration officials publicly lied about facts he knew to be untrue; and his regret at having jeopardized the careers of co-workers.

Eventually, no longer able to tolerate the lies and fabrications, Ellsberg risked it all—his livelihood, his reputation, his family, his freedom—to do what he knew was right. In a particularly poignant moment in the film, we see Ellsberg—now 79, and still speaking out against government hypocrisy—sitting at a table with Randy Kehler, another renowned war protester. As he talks with Kehler, Ellsberg chokes up, remembering how Kehler inspired him to act, and how that moment was the turning point in his life.

The film is a masterful retelling of a time in American history that still has relevance today. Who among us would respond as Ellsberg did, when asked by a reporter, outside the federal courthouse where he was being tried, whether he was willing to go to jail for what he had done? Ellsberg replies, “Wouldn’t you go to jail to stop this war?”

Ellsberg’s act of conscience had repercussions that still resonate today. When the New York Times published the first excerpts from the Pentagon papers, the Nixon administration attempted to block further publication. The Supreme Court ruled against Nixon’s attempt at “prior restraint,” thereby institutionalizing a firewall between government and the press. How well that firewall has held is a question that is worth discussing: Today’s corporate news media can be seen as an extension of America’s plutocracy. Seeking profits over facts, newsrooms are underfunded, under-trained and understaffed, resulting in lazy journalism that routinely fails to challenge the statements of public officials.

Another issue raised by Ellsberg’s story is the believability of government pronouncements. We learn in the documentary that every President who was involved in Southeast Asia—Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon—lied about America’s rationale for and management of the war in Viet Nam.  We already know that the Bush administration lied about “weapons of mass destruction” as a reason for pre-emptive action in Iraq. Watching “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” one cannot help but wonder about what additional lies we have been told—and may be hearing right now—about  our involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and potential action regarding Iran.

I attended the movie with a small group of high-school students who are interested in current events. Their reaction was that, as Ellsberg’s story was completely unknown to them before they walked into the theatre, it would have helped to have had some explanatory material at the beginning. For them, the movie assumed too much prior knowledge. I can only hope that they left the theatre with an urge to be more courageous and with the inspiration to be part of a new generation of truth-seekers and principle-driven activists in the spirit of Daniel Ellsberg.

[Editor’s note: This review first appeared on Occasional Planet in April 2010.]

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Mike Mansfield was a legislative giant, yet his two favorite words might have been “Yep” and “Nope.”  He could be a Sunday-morning news show host’s worst nightmare, because the brevity and directness of his answers meant that the host would have to prepare more like 50 questions rather than 15, for what in reality was a 22-minute program.  Asked if he agreed with a policy or with the words of another public official, he would simply say “Yep” if he did and “Nope” if he didn’t.  He had his reasons, but preferred to reveal them without embellishment and only when the interrogator showed that he too had some understanding of the issue.

He became one of the giants of the mid-20^th century as a gentle yet strong senator, born in New York City, who as a young boy moved out to Big Sky country (Montana).  Mike Mansfield served as Senate Majority Leader from 1961 – 1977, longer than anyone else in American history.  It was not an easy task to succeed Lyndon Johnson, the savvy but bloviating leader from Texas, who had gone on to the Vice-Presidency and then the Presidency after John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

Think of what Congress accomplished during Mansfield’s sixteen years as leader of the Senate.  Three important Civil Rights bills passed Congress, one in 1964, covering public accommodations, a second in 1965, strengthening voting rights, and a third one in 1968, enacting fair housing rules.  This was after a century in which Congress essentially stood by while a few presidents exercised what power they could to advance civil rights, and the Supreme Court came to acknowledge that the “equal protection” clause of the 14^th Amendment applied to African-Americans as well as whites.  In 1964, Mansfield cleverly convinced Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois to ally members of his side of the aisle with northern Democrats to stifle the filibuster of Southern Democrats; the kind of individuals who would have felt right at home with Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s recent declaration of April as Confederate History Month without any mention of slavery.

Mansfield also helped Johnson shepherd through the monumental Great Society, which while important and lasting in many ways, was cut off at the knees when Johnson turned his attention and resources to the war in Vietnam. Before Johnson was sidetracked, Congress, under the leadership of Mansfield in the Senate and John McCormack in the House, established the War on Poverty, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Higher Education Act, the Bilingual Education Act, Medicare, Medicaid, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Public Radio, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Truth-in-Lending Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act.  The significance of these accomplishments shines even brighter as we see that today’s Congress took fifteen months to pass a watered-down health insurance reform act.

Mansfield also collaborated with Johnson to ratify the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.  But the Vietnam War caused a schism between them.  As Joel Connelly of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said in a 2001 eulogy of Mansfield, who had died at the age of 98:

After a 1962 trip to Southeast Asia, Mansfield warned that the United States was nearing “the point at which the conflict in Vietnam could become of greater concern and greater responsibility to the United States than it is to the government and people of South Vietnam.”

He privately told Kennedy it was wrong to send U.S. “advisers” and that America should pull out entirely if the South Vietnamese government was unable to stand on its own feet.

“I got angry with Mike for disagreeing with our policy so completely,” JFK later told aide Kenny O’Donnell, “and I got angry with myself because I found myself agreeing with him.”

During the Nixon era, Mansfield was the initiator of the Senate Select Watergate Committee that investigated Nixon’s role in the cover-up of the famous break-in and other related transgressions.

Mansfield retired from the Senate in 1977 to “pass the torch to a new generation” and to enjoy Big Sky Country.  But public service beckoned again; for eleven years he served as U.S. ambassador to Japan, retiring from this position in 1989 at the age of 85.

Perhaps Mansfield was best described by former Minnesota senator and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, a man not given to sentimentalism or embellishment, when he said that Mansfield was an example that “a man of gentle exterior can be framed in steel.”

So a message to all of us: let’s keep our eyes out for leaders like Mike Mansfield; they’re hard to find and quite valuable.

photo credit: Corbis

The post A strong and quiet Democrat appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I went off to college at American University in September, 1965; the Cardinals were still technically world champions, but there would be no miracle this year.  American University was a logical choice; I loved politics and where better to be than Washington, DC.  I also loved baseball and the old Washington Senators always had plenty of seats available.  The Baltimore Orioles (formerly St. Louis Browns) were just 40 miles up the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

I had been in Los Angeles the month before, but not when the impoverished Watts neighborhood exploded with one of America’s largest race riots to date; 34 people had been killed, 1,032 injured and 3,952 arrested.  It was then that we began to hear the term “rising expectations;” that African-Americans (then called ‘Negroes’ and about to be called ‘blacks’) found that legislative gains and increasing white awareness of their plight had not resulted in decent jobs, good schools, adequate and accessible health care, and de facto equal rights.

The next three summers were characterized by “racial disturbances” (i.e. riots) in over 100 American cities.  St. Louis was the only major city that seemed to escape the carnage.  Theories abounded: St. Louis was neither a northern nor a southern town; there was less (or was it more?) police brutality than elsewhere; and of course everybody’s favorite; the town was otherwise occupied in 1967 and 1968 as the Cardinals once again won the National League pennants.  True or not, race relations and the Cardinals were inexorably mixed in the late 1960s.  What did Bob Gibson, who could be so intimidating on the mound, think about the civil rights struggle and accompanying violence?  What about Cardinal center fielder Curt Flood?  When he was traded following the 1969 season while making $90,000 / year (among the highest salaries in baseball), he likened the reserve clause which took away his freedom to decide for which team he wanted to play, as slavery.  The players didn’t speak publicly about political issues, which while frustrating to a fan, only allowed us to play the game of speculation all the more.  When Flood (along with teammate Tim McCarver) was traded following the 1969 season, it took a large bite out of the hearts of many Cardinal fans.

It almost seemed that the Cardinals were cursed by the trade during the 1970s; they almost always competed but never won the National League Eastern Division (baseball was now

fragmented into divisional play).  There was still a political presence on the team; catcher Ted Simmons openly expressed his opposition to the Vietnam War and for those of us who questioned blind authority, he was a refreshing presence on the team.  His wife, MaryAnne, started a magazine exclusively for baseball wives.  It brought the women’s liberation movement to women who otherwise never would have been enlightened.

Before the 1982 season, manager / general manager Whitey Herzog traded Simmons, perhaps because Herzog thought that his authority would be questioned.  But that same off-season he acquired shortstop Ozzie Smith.  Mr. Herzog must have known something because he put together a championship team that year.  In 1985 and 1987 the team won the National League pennant only to lose seven-game World Series in the most frustrating of ways.   The teams of the 1980s were richly integrated with Smith, Jack Clark Vince Coleman, (Silent) George Hendrick, Tommy Herr, Lance Johnson, Tito Landrum, Jim Lindeman, Willie McGee, Terry Pendleton, Lonnie Smith and Andy Van Slyke.  Had it not been for an errant call at first base in Game 6 of the 1985 World Series and an outfield wall made of Hefty bags in 1987, the Cardinals teams of the mid-1980s might have qualified as a dynasty.

A dry spell ensued; nine years after the 1987 pennant-winning team, Tony LaRussa took the helm of the team.  After a slow start, the team romped to winning the Central Division of the National League by six games.  In the first round of the playoffs they swept the San Diego Padres, but blew a 3-2 game lead in the League Championship Series by tanking in the final two games in Atlanta.  The team had a diverse group of players; over 46% of the at-bats were taken by African-American players; a remarkable figure for any team in any year.  But the team did not seem to have the harmony of the Cardinal teams of the 1960s or 1980s; the impact of long-term contracts and some inflated salaries took their toll on the Cardinals and other teams as well.

Two years later Mark McGwire was on the Cardinals and along with Sammy Sosa they revived baseball with their combined 135 home runs.  As you know, there are associated factors to this story and you can read about them elsewhere.  The team continued to win, but baseball began to change in St. Louis.  It became more and more corporate and there was less diversity on the field.  The new owners bullied the community into an unnecessary new stadium with fewer seats, more luxury boxes, higher prices, and a still unfulfilled promise of a “Ballpark Village” on the site of the previous stadium.  Ownership prospered; taxpayers sacrificed tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue.  The fans didn’t seem to mind; they passed through the turnstiles of the new stadium at a rate of over three million a year, including 2009 in the midst of “the great recession.”  And as we said, the team, while very likable and competitive, entered the 2010 season without a single African-American on the roster as a player or coach.

The teams of the 1960s were intricately tied with the social progress and upheaval of the time.  A large part of the excitement of going to the ballpark was seeing integration work; a special bond among a diverse group of players.  It helped build an ethos that served as a model for people in other industries.  This was especially so in St. Louis because the team was so successful and the team as a group was a collection of very unique individuals.  It was true elsewhere; I loved going to games in Baltimore and seeing the Robinsons (Frank and Brooks) form the nucleus of outstanding teams that also reflected the demographics of the community.

In many ways today’s Cardinals team may reflect a portion of our current body politic.  For me the opening of Spring Training this year was somewhat disturbing when relief pitcher Ryan Franklin took issue with the league’s policy of no guns permitted in the clubhouse.  Somehow his concern for his gun rights just doesn’t measure up to Curt Floods personal sacrifice to remove the shackles of the rules of the game that bound a player to a single team for the entirety of his career.  It’s a different game now for a different audience.  I hope that you’ll pardon me if I this season I choose not to visit Mr. DeWitt’s palace and further fill his coffers.  I still love the game, and when the renaissance occurs, I’ll be there.

Link to Part I
Link to Part III

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