On Monday August 25th, 2008 the Democrats began enacting the ritual of nomination that will hopefully elect the next president of the United States, Barack Obama. Forty years ago, nearly to the day, the 1968 Democratic National Convention was held in Mayor Richard J. Daley's Chicago, one of the last strongholds of Party machine political control. In that troubled time the nation looked to the Democrats to perhaps reverse the deadly politics that had so polarized the nation over the War in Vietnam. With Lyndon Johnson's decision not to seek another term, the field seemed open to a change of the War politics that had so fractured both the Party and the nation. This brief video clip was assembled from footage I shot during that period. From Lincoln Park to the front door of the Hilton Hotel where the delegates were housed, the street life was a tumultuous mix of theatre and bloody confrontation. Much of it is captured in my video. They say, if you live long enough, history will recycle itself. I had hoped that after the disaster of Vietnam, our politicians and the American people might have learned a few basic lesions. Sadly that has not been the case. The chaos, and turmoil of that era, in retrospect, now seems so much more productive, and seem to contain so much more hope than our present sad era. As they say, even nostalgia ain't what it used to be. So, briefly now, return with me to those halcyon days of yesteryear, when for a few all to fleeting moments the whole world <b>...</b>
War
Politics
Chicago
1968
Yippie
Daley
Vietnam
Peace
