Plasticity of Good: An Essay by Douglas Matus
Douglas Matus is a writer, editor, and educator who lives in Marfa and Austin. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and California Institute of the Arts. In addition to his writing, he is an avid musician whose work can be heard at https://therosestx.bandcamp.com.
Political activism via the imagination. The Hungry Generation and the plasticity of good. Ever the astute marketer….
Our progenitors came to America for peace and happiness, religious and political freedom. When they arrived, they immediately set out to rob, murder, poison, and exterminate the race of people to whom this continent belonged. Then, they invaded a foreign land, kidnapped its residents, and enslaved them en masse to sustain an atavistic economy. At the commencement of the gold rush, they targeted Mexicans in the same way as Native Americans. Even the Mormons, though white themselves, suffered the wrathful intolerance and persecutory tendencies of our forefathers.
As you view the photos from the 1965 VDC protest, you would ideally recall these facts and see their iteration in 20th century America. What would the Native American say if he saw the lines of jackbooted police officers, and the crowds of screaming college students risen in opposition to the authority they represented. He’d probably say: “Where the fuck were you at Wounded Knee?”
The modern American protest movement matured and crystallized in the 1960s. Promoted through the media and the presence of luminaries like Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Michael McClure, and Hunter Thompson, protest became cool. Get hip with it, man, make the pigs eat flowers.
Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture,” said Ginsberg himself. In this media, photos of a protest that occurred over two days in October 1965, control appears relative. On the one hand, you have the vibrance of youth and the commanding presence of Ginsberg himself. You also have the Hell’s Angels, called in by protest organizers for “security.” Did these allies control these two days, however? The lines of black-clothed, white-skulled police were unflappable. The protesters never made it out of Berkeley.
Ginberg also said “America, I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.” In the 1960s, conscription into the United States armed forces transformed thousands of young men into nothing. There is no space for ideology in the army, nor for identity. In the 19th century, American soldiers swallowed their morality and slaughtered those whose skin differed from their own. In the 20th century, American soldiers slaughtered those whose politics differed from their own. The Cold War was a wrestling match for market dominance. Who could sell more missiles and airplanes, which country’s consumers would celebrate patriotism with the incessant purchase of more worthless shit. In every American home, a white Jesus, the soothing balm that legitimized Manifest Destiny and all its horrors. In every Russian home, a picture of Marx or Lenin, patron saints just as corrupted as white Jesus, and just as much prisoners of their own ideologies, perverted for the sake of economic gain.
American soldiers did not belong in Vietnam, said the VDC protesters. What they meant was, “I do not belong in Vietnam.” Proclaimed from the comfort of Berkeley, the protesters united as an act of self-preservation. It was one thing to shed a tear for the genocide of Native Americans, or join a sit-in for civil rights. It was quite another to protest the Vietnam War.
For the first time, citizens of the U.S. realized en masse that the government did not exist to serve their best interests. Instead, they — meaning young and white — were revealed as just another resource to burn for capital. Sure, there was an element of concern for the slaughtered North Vietnamese. But the slogan of the VDC protesters is telling: “We do not belong in Vietnam.” We — meaning once again, young and white — do not belong in the killing fields. We belong in Berkeley.
“I don’t think there is any truth. There are only points of view.” Another Ginsberg quote, this one conducive to a discussion on the plasticity of “good.” When rival groups meet in conflict or protest, both claim the laurels of good. We see this in the VDC photos in the lines of police officers, standing straight-backed and confident in their roles as protectors. We see this also in the horde of protesters, holding signs that proclaim “Peace” and “No More War.” Both aim to protect the same thing: their vision of America.
Once upon a time, the United States got the benefit of the doubt. We were the “good guys” who stood up to the Huns and Nazis and saved the world through the brave sacrifices of our soldiers. That all began to change after Hiroshima. It changed more with the Korean War. The Vietnam War, if it accomplished anything, served to bury that particular ideal. Politicians were vilified. Soldiers were, despite claims from the protesters that the “soldiers [are] our brothers,” famously shunned upon their return home.
America is no longer the good guy. Educated liberals across the country question every war, every budget bill, every Supreme Court nomination as a power play by whoever happens to be in charge. The atmosphere of suspicion, of us versus them, originated largely in 1960s Berkeley. We see it today in the BLM movement, and throughout a national state of antagonism that has seen deaths on both sides of protests. Thankfully, no one died over the course of those two days in Berkeley. What did happen, though? What, exactly, does this photographic record document?
The photos on display here at Marfa Open capture a moment in which vocal dissent prevailed among the counterculture to become a visible presence within mainstream America. Whether the Vietnam War ended due to the body count or the volume of discontent, protests like these penetrated through the fog of pop thanks to the presence of people like Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Conor Cruise O’Brien, and Ken Kesey.
Unfortunately, we can no longer rely on literary heroes to save us. Once upon a time, however, it looked like they could.
The 1960s were perhaps the final era in which literary authors could achieve popular stardom in America. This was exemplified in the figure of Jack Kerouac, a man who eventually became a casualty of celebrity. Kerouac, despite his all-American good looks and popular accessibility, was never suited for the bright lights. Whereas some individuals can blossom and grow under this heat, Kerouac wilted and disappeared into alcoholism.
However, the popularity of his writings, On the Road in particular, provided a springboard for other figures to vault into the limelight. Of all his Beat brethren, Allen Ginsberg most easily assumed the position of literary figurehead. Partly through the influence of Ginsberg, the Beats evolved into the hippies, a movement that Kerouac frankly hated. While his brethren carried the torch at the head of the protest movement, Kerouac sat in his mother’s house and watched Happy Days.
Kerouac’s friend and muse, Neal Cassady, may or may not appear in one of the photos displayed in this exhibition. In the photo, a man who bears a startling resemblance to Cassady stands next to someone who might be Ken Kesey. The inspiration for Dean Moriarty, seen just a few years from his death, appears like a ghost or faded memory, a relic of the past whose road would shortly run out.
Protests like the VDC 1965 were, essentially, an attempt to punch through the screen of Happy Days into the heart of American reality. Turn on, tune in, and drop out became the mantra of countless students and artists. In a sense, they succeeded. As mentioned above, the reputation of America among its liberal denizens has never fully recovered from the Vietnam era. The government is not to be trusted, every action comes with ulterior motives, and the seeds of conspiracy lay at the bottom of apparent goodwill.
The marquee names at the protest did not fill the main roles. The student protestors and the police, co-stars in this spectacle, toss back and forth the roles of protagonist and antagonist. Depending on your viewpoint, the students are either the voice of democracy, or a rabid crowd intent on forcing its will. The police appear either as defenders of the social order, or stormtroopers that would stop at nothing to preserve the status quo.
The 1960s saw an entire generation of young adults depart on a journey for fundamental change. The conformity of the 1940s and 1950s began to shatter, thanks in part to literary works. Young people around the country, primarily students, read books like On the Road or Howl, and underwent a sea change of shifting loyalties. In short, they owed the state nothing, and instead put their “backs to the wheel” in an effort to force change.
Unfortunately, history shows again and again that societal change occurs in only two ways: gradually, over the course of decades, as perceptions among the populace slowly shift; or immediately, thanks to violence. The student protestors in Berkeley in 1965 avoided violence, and thus avoided a direct confrontation with the police. Violence still appeared there, however, in the figures of the Hell’s Angels.
In 1965, author and journalist Hunter S. Thompson was deeply imbedded in this motorcycle gang. His resulting book, Hell’s Angels, does not shy away from the endemic violence that informed the gang’s criminal dealings. Here, however, they appear as bodyguards for the left, a role they would repeat to disastrous consequences at the famous Altamont concert in 1969.
As for the change desired in the platform of the protestors — no more conscription and an end to the Vietnam War — it was violence that eventually accomplished this end. Throughout the 60s, television and network news underwent a startling transformation. With the ability to reach directly into people’s homes to demand full attention, the media began to flex its muscles in defiance of government policy. In short, neither the student protestors nor the famous speakers ended the war; it was the images of horror beamed into American homes on a nightly basis.
For the first time, the public could witness directly the ravages of warfare. While protests like the 1965 VDC gathering may have added a little tinder, it was Walter Cronkite and CBS News that set the fire ablaze. In 1965, CBS News correspondents on location in Vietnam followed a group of Marines as they blithely destroyed a village that had no connection to the Viet Cong.
In response to this broadcast, President Lyndon B. Johnson made a direct call to network executive Frank Stanton. The conversation went like this:
“Hello Frank, this is your president.”
“Yes, Mr. President.
“Frank, you trying to fuck me?”
For the next three years, CBS meekly avoided any attempt to fuck the president. Then, in 1968, Walter Cronkite fucked LBJ six ways from Sunday. While imbedded in Vietnam, Cronkite collected a wealth of footage that depicted the base violence of the war and blew the lid off a policy of deception. Like the student protestors, Cronkite wished to lift the funereal shroud that obscured the true nature of the conflict. While one could argue that the protest movement primed the American public for this revelation, it was Cronkite’s hourlong TV broadcast, and its focus on abject violence, that turned the hourglass toward U.S. withdrawal.
As you look at the photos of the 1965 VDC protest, what impresses most is not the appearance of people like Kesey and Ginsberg. Instead, it’s the polyglot nature of the crowd, and the exuberance with which they climb atop street lamps and roofs. In most of the images, we see crowds of young protestors or the orderly ranks of the police. Some of the images reveal a darker picture, however.
The chaos and foment of the protest served to draw all manner of fringe activists out into the California sunshine. In a couple of images, we see a man wearing a Nazi armband. In another, a man hoists a sign that claims “Communism Is Jewish.” In one particularly poignant photo, a deputy stands atop a roof with a young black man. There is no apparent animosity in this interaction, and the stance of the pair actually reflects a degree of comfort. As with the stratification between the ranks of protestors, we see here a different type of law enforcement. This lawman stands not face to face in a moment of confrontation, but rather side by side in a moment of reflection.
Overall, the quality of the photos is phenomenal. Excellently framed and variegated, they capture a fitful moment in the maturation of America. No longer would “the people” blindly accept the leadership of the government. Never again would young men march forth eagerly to sacrifice their lives to a capitalist cause.
Walt Whitman considered America the greatest of all poems, one in which divisive elements could persist in the shared experiment of democracy. At the moment in history depicted in these photos, student protestors added their own verse to this living poem. The lines of police did the same, while Ginsberg, Ferhlingetti, and the other famous poets composed a few more.
Today, words are pocket change. In 1965, however, they were still a viable currency. Fifty-five years after the protest depicted in this exhibition, the gross inflation of words has cheapened their value. And despite this, the American Talking Machine continues to roll them out like Confederate dollars. For the VDC protestors, words and solidarity were the only weapons on hand. The hand-painted signs were rifle shots, the chants an orchestrated barrage; when Ginsberg or Kesey rose to speak, their words ascended and fell like missiles.
Today, we use our words to either defend ourselves, or attack those we disagree with. The American democracy that permitted and encouraged the Berkeley protests has all but disappeared. Now, protestors are reviled as “looters” or “terrorists.” As for their words, the public barely hears them, and instead falls in line behind whichever party looks best for their finances.
Despite a smaller audience, the great American poem lingers on, however. It is sustained by those who “no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look / through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books, / . . . [they] listen to all sides and filter them from [themselves].”
If you count yourself among this number, as many of the Berkeley protestors surely did, there remains just one question: how will you style your verse?
Essay text copyright 2020, Douglas Matus - Images copyright Marfa Open Arts
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