Memories of Nixonland

Memories of Nixonland

by digby

Jesse Kornbluth featured this compelling bit of history in his piece today about the Berkeley brutality. It’s a good one.

I’m not a child. I’ve always thought of Berkeley as sunny and friendly, crunchy and stoned, but I also remember it as the site of one of the greatest political speeches I have ever heard. Mario Savio. Sproul Hall. 1964. The conclusion:

There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all…

The video is even stronger. It’s only a minute. Do watch:

I was reminded of something else that happened two years later:

As the Vietnam War expanded and the death toll climbed, students at Berkeley launched a determined and, at times, confrontational attempt to stop the war with demonstrations and protests that eventually spread to college campuses across the country. Years later, much of the public came to agree with the students but in 1966, those opposed to the war were a distinct minority in America. Candidate Reagan capitalized on this.

“Just show me one of them Beatnik varmints.”
(A political cartoon from the San Francisco Chronicle, reprinted in Clark Kerr’s “The Gold and the Blue”)

Smelser, assistant chancellor for educational development at the time Reagan ran for office, recalled that “Reagan took aim at the university for being irresponsible for failing to punish these dissident students. He said, ‘Get them out of there. Throw them out. They are spoiled and don’t deserve the education they are getting. They don’t have a right to take advantage of our system of education.'”

Reagan had two themes in his first run for office. The man who later became known as “The Great Communicator” vowed to send “the welfare bums back to work,” and “to clean up the mess at Berkeley.” The latter became a Reagan mantra.

Earl Cheit, dean emeritus of the Haas School of Business, was executive vice chancellor at Berkeley from 1965 to 1969. Like many at Berkeley, he remembers being at the wrong end of Reagan’s political broom.

“Incidents of campus disruption and reports about what was going on here – often exaggerated reports– became a standard part of his campaign rhetoric,” said Cheit. “Reagan also argued that the faculty was too permissive, or supportive, of the students. One of his great skills was to understand popular feeling. He really tapped into the discontent people felt about what was happening on the campus. I have no doubt that this was a big factor in his election as governor.”

Rick Perlstein reported that all of his advisors told him it was no big deal and he overruled them. His great gift wasn’t being a “communicator.” It was having excellent political instincts.