The Fantasy Years

My wife and I watched the 1970 classic ‘Joe’ a few weeks ago. The movie, starring Peter Boyle who was excellent and Susan Sarandon who was, well, young was set in New York in the late 1960s and directly concerned the cultural and generational clash known as the Generation Gap. Joe was a “hard hat”, an intolerant, racist, sexist, WWII veteran factory worker. Joe is in state of unceasing backlash against the liberals and hippies. He makes common cause with the ad exec father of Susan Sarandon. Both Joe and the ad exec, who oh-by-the-way bashes in the brains of his daughter’s junkie boyfriend, represent the so-called “silent majority” in two different classes. The “silent majority” was the group of fearful, law and order lovers who helped Nixon to victory in 1968. On the other side are the smug, high, lascivious flower children, who in their 19 and 20 year old arrogance, and highness, believed like millions of adolescents before them, that they were going to teach the elders how the world really worked. To me, in retrospect, it turns out the real factor driving the messianic, stoned sense of mission many hippies must have felt was simply numbers: demographically they had the squares outnumbered. And so everything must have felt possible.

What I like about this movie is that it shows neither side of society in a positive light. You cringe listening to Joe spout off hate filled invective for blacks, women, anyone. You cringe watching the hippies preach to their elders, even as they steal the cache of drugs the ad exec takes from his dead victim. And the orgy scene is enough to make anyone’s skin crawl.

Yet at a distance of 37 years, it’s hilarious too.
You feel thankful in the end that the hardhats are gone. And watching the hippies, I’m reminded of the warning that seems to come with every generation, “We’ll be lucky if society survives these sociopaths.”

I first heard that sentiment about what I guess would be Generation Y. A friend who later became a cop told me: “It’s not a matter of reforming them; it’s a matter of us surviving them.” Now as I watch the nightly news, I wonder if the most destructive generation threatening us today are the Baby Boomers. Bush is one. Osama is one. Bill was one and he sold out the Democrats just for the sport of the game. Yeah, it’s the older generation, which as I write it does make me sound like a flower child in 1968 talking about the squares.

Two things.

First, the film’s portrait of the hard hats and the flower children delineated the original fissure in American culture that would be successfully exploited by Republicans using the “Southern Strategy” for years, culminating in 2004 and crashing by 2006. Now, I wonder what will replace it. All the culture and political stake holders are in play – everyone from evangelicals to good governance people. Of course whatever replaces the hard-hard- vs. hippies divide won’t be an invention of the Republicans or Democrats alone but an emerging, intractable disagreement between the two.

Second, there is a scene where Joe and the ad exec talk about their lives and earnings. Joe asks how much the exec earns. The exec hedges. Joe tells him how many dollars an hour he makes. The exec explains that he’s paid by the year.

Joe takes another stab at it, telling the exec he has $10,000 saved and how much, he asks, does the exec have saved? The exec hesitates again saying his lifestyle costs were higher. Then, out with it, he says, $18,000.

$10,000 in 1970 would be $53,595 in 2007.

$18,000 in 1970 would be $96,471 in 2007.

And that one exchange in this gritty look at America circa 1970 said volumes about America today. Today the working class is so beleaguered, so broke and so busy, they can’t imagine the wealth of the well-to-do. And in fact, the well-to-do can’t imagine the wealth of the wealthy. In this way, the ugly portrait of America in a time of turbulence looked almost quaint.

THERE WAS NO EQUAL TIME for the opposing view to Rush’s rantings. Millions of Americans heard only the braying voices of one side. Rush was syndicated across hundreds of stations. His imitators filled up the time slots surround his, imitating his tone, if not his ideas. America was pissed off and the listeners wanted to hear it said so. Rush could say anything he wanted. He and his imitators were free to critique, to attack, to exhort, to demand, to bully, to belittle whoever they pleased and no one could stop them. No one could stand up to them. So in rural Indiana:

“Troopergate is the same as Watergate.”
“It’s the same as Nixon’s use of secret operatives.”
“Clinton’s abuses are the same as Nixon’s mismanagement of the White House.”
“Nixon’s flawed personality is the same as Clinton’s flawed personality,” a voice in Ohio said.
“Nixon’s paranoia was like Clinton’s overactive sex life.”
“Except Nixon was a super patriot who stepped over the line.”
“And Nixon served proudly in the military,” said a voice in Texas.
“But Clinton avoided the military.”
“Like the rest of those maggot-infested hippies from the Nineteen Sixties.”
“Yeah, Clinton is as flawed as Nixon,” declared a voice in Oklahoma.
“But Nixon is guilty only of being overzealous.”

But surely this wasn’t America. Surely no one could get on the radio day after day, hammering away steadily at the same targets – liberals, the Clintons, the Kennedys, political correctness, welfare, social security — without the targets getting to talk back. Where was the balance? The rebuttle? The ability for the accused to defend themselves? Surely, a provision was written somewhere that demanded equal time for this inflammatory speech. A guideline. A principle. There was: the Fairness Doctrine. But the FCC Chairman stopped enforcing that rule a decade ago: it inhibited the freedom of one-sided debate.

And so the barrage of bombast just kept spilling forth, it kept cascading down in thunderous torrents. And in South Carolina.
“National healthcare is the same as communism,” said a voice.
“And communism is the same as atheism,” replied another.
“And atheism is the same as godlessness.”
“And Americans are a God-fearing people. So we have no place for communism here.”
“Not even in its first stages like nationalized socialized medicine.”
“Nazism is short for national socialism. People don’t know that.”
“I bet the Nazis had no trouble seeing a doctor.”
“And you can see what happened to that society.”
“Hitler promised the German people the world.”
“But he delivered only destruction.”
“And that’s what you get when a politician promises you an easy life.”
“Like Bill and Hillary. Offering to make the government bigger to supposedly make life easier.”
“But we say no thanks to their snake oil.”
“Life may be a little harder.”
“But we say no.”
“We don’t expect handouts.”
“We understand that we might have to get our health insurance through our work, and the paperwork might be a little hassle, but it’s better if it keeps us free.”

Brandon worked regular hours at the Blockbuster now that he left Denny’s. The hours got him home at a decent time. In his own way, he was on a path. Already he felt slightly embarrassed for being a 24 year- old at the community college, instead of being just out of high school like most of the young people there. Of course, Dallas County Community College had all kinds of students – even ones much older than him. Some of them were even old people, with gray hair and everything.

He’d bumped up to twelve credits a semester since he met Carolyn. Just to get it done. And now in the evenings, when he got his homework done, he paged through applications for four year college. Real college.

Only after everything was done, all the work, all the class work, the homework and the applications to school—only after that—would he call Shane and have a couple beers to watch the Cowboys. “My Cowboys,” as Brandon called them. And sure enough, Shane would arrive, trusty twelve pack of Bud Light in hand.

“You sure it’s okay for you to drink beer?” he asked, settling into a chair.
“Yeah. What do you mean?” Brandon said.
“You sure Carolyn doesn’t mind?”
“Dude.”
“I’m just kidding.”
“I know you are.” Brandon said, working the TV sound against the CD player blasting Pantera. Carolyn was out at her sister’s tonight.
“I still like to party but I’ve got a lot going on.”
“I guess you do,” Shane said, shaking his head.
“Oh, shut up and drink.”
“I mean, it’s cool that you have a girlfriend and all. But you’ve really let her go to your head.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, dude, you don’t have to totally give up on your friends.”
“Who says I’m giving up on my friends?”
“No one. It’s just that we were there for you when you didn’t have a chick. And now you’re all about getting ahead and school and all that.”

“But you’ve gotta understand this is the real me. I was always the guy who was going to go to school. All that staying out all night. That…You can do that a while. But then you grow up.”
“Dude,” Shane said, waving a lazy hand at Brandon’s explanations. “Just say it and cut all this bullshit about the ‘real you’: you’re glad you finally got a girlfriend.”

The TV was on in the bar in Michigan after the Lions beat the Cowboys. The two customers had enjoyed so much making cracks at the players, and had drank so much beer and so many shots between them, they couldn’t stop themselves when the game finally ended.
“Hillary thought she was going to ram big government down our throats,” said the customer with the mustache.
“Her health plan was going to be like a big tongue depressor. And she was telling us to say ahhh,” said the other, wearing his gun club gimme cap.
“Like a big horse pill of communism to swallow. Cause that shit was communistic, the government telling us which doctors we can go to.”
“Like she was saying to the American people ‘Bend over. This won’t hurt.’”
“Turns out she and Bill had their own bitter pill to swallow.”
“Their own party voted against her. Did you see that?”
“Because Hillary doesn’t understand socialized healthcare is like anything else socialist.”
“This county doesn’t work on socialism.”
“It works on freedom.”
“Socialized healthcare is like Cuba’s communist healthcare.”
“It’s like dressing us all in the same clothes.”
“It’s like making us drive the same kind of cars.”
“It’s like making us all eat the same kind of food.”
“And the American people don’t want that.”