What Formeth Thee?

Matt Singer has an entry over at Left in the West commemorating the death of Paul Wellstone. That event did not have much impact on me, though I’ve always been suspicious about it. Being a student of American activities in Cuba, Central and South America during the 50-70’s, I’m always suspicous of timely plane crashes (especially given the cynical and power-hungry Machiavellians that currently hold office). Wellstone’s death did swing the senate over to the Bushies. It was indeed timely. I think I give voice to many deeply held suspicions, which will remain silent but shared.

But that’s how it goes in banana republics. I was more intrigued by Matt’s reference to the Wellstone death as a formative event in his life. It made me wonder – what events most impacted me as I was growing up? I’m 57.

For sure, the Kennedy assassination impacted me. I was 13 at the time. My parents were Republican, and my mother said that night that we had a better president as a result. But still I cried. Did it affect my thinking? No. I was only 13 – I would cheer for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and watch in awe and anger as the press crucified him. But the images of Dealey Plaza would leave a scar – my first close encounter with violent death

The Communist scare had a deep impact on me. They actually had us do “duck and cover” in our classrooms. People I knew built bomb shelters, and we were told that our neighbors would shoot us if we tried to get in when the war came. Paranoia about communism was everywhere, and that kind of scare propaganda had deep impact on us kids. It wouldn’t be until my late 30’s (before the fall of the Soviet Union, he hastens to add) that I would finally realize that we needn’t fear communists or Russians, that the whole thing was American propaganda. But scare me it did. (Read the Mencken quote on our masthead above.)

It’s still going on, by the way. Just substitute “terrorist” for “communist”, and you’re right back where I was in those days.

Finally, there was Vietnam. Due to our indoctrination about communism, most Americans blindly supported the war. Me too. I was a high school student in the 1960’s, and we all had the draft hanging over our heads. I pulled a Cheney – I got myself into college. (The Texas Air National Guard was not available to Montanans, and anyway, I didn’t have a rich daddy.) Later they did the draft lottery, and I pulled number 335 or so – my mother would go to Vietnam before me. But the war, the campus riots (which I opposed – contradiction was my middle name), Nixon and Kissinger and Bobby Kennedy and the Dr. King – it all affected me deeply. As Republican as I was, I wept for Bobby – such a dynamic man, so vital, so dead.

I grew up during interesting times.

So tell me, what impacted you? What formed you?