Several months ago, while reading Who Spoke Up? — a fascinating (and more than a little unsettling) book about the Vietnam War and the protests surrounding it — I noticed some striking similarities between the arguments coming out of Washington in support of the war during the early years of Vietnam and the arguments coming out of Washington in support of our present war.
(Vietnam is a topic of particular interest to me because none of my history teachers would tell me anything about it. Every time I asked, they’d try to shut me up, the same way my English teachers did when we were reading Chaucer and I asked when we were going to get to the Miller’s Tale: “Shhhh! If you keep asking about that, all the other kids are going to start asking about it, and then I’ll have parents to deal with!”)
Anyway, as I was reading this book, I wondered to what extent history would repeat itself. And last night, while dinking around with Google, I got my answer:
“Strange days, indeed. Most peculiar, Mama.”
— John Lennon
“Meet the new boss … same as the old boss.”
— The Who
“When will they ever learn?”
— Pete Seeger
Red Fork Hippie 