It's Now or Never - Elvis Presley

Elvis was back on top of the charts in September 1960 with "It's Now or Never".  Enjoy!

Cassius Clay - Olympic Gold

September 5, 1960  Rome, Italy

18 year old Cassius Clay defeated Poland's Ziggy Pietrzykowski to win the Olympic Gold Medal in the Light-Heavyweight division.   The Gold Medal win would mark the end of Clay's amateur boxing career and the beginning of his pro career.

In 1964 Clay defeated Sonny Liston, becoming the World Heavyweight Champion.  The next day he changed his name to Muhammad Ali signifying his relationship with the Nation of Islam.  In 1966 Ali refused the Draft and became an outspoken critic of the War in Vietnam. 

"The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 

has wasted 30 years of his life."
Muhammad Ali

The Beatles in Hamburg - 1960

 Pete  -  George  -  John  -  Paul  -  Stu

The period from August 1960 to December 1962 marked a significant period in the development of The Beatles.  Beginning on about August 17, 1960 The Beatles played at a series of Hamburg clubs including the Indra and the Kaiserkeller.  The group at this time was John, Paul, and George with Pete Best on Drums and Stu Sutcliffe on Bass.   Pete was auditioned and recruited the day before they left Liverpool!

Their schedule was intense.  The Beatles performed 7 days per week, often for 7 or 8 hours per night.  Living conditions were squalid, as Paul McCartney remembers... "We lived backstage in the Bambi Kino, next to the toilets, and you could always smell them. The room had been an old storeroom, and there were just concrete walls and nothing else. No heat, no wallpaper, not a lick of paint; and two sets of bunk beds, with not very much covers—Union Jack flags—we were frozen."  

These were the years that The Beatles gelled. Their skills were honed, their repertoire was expanded, and their reputation was begun.  The Beatles emerged from this period ready to be launched into the stardom that would follow.

 
Rock on!!  Rob; in Vancouver 

"In Hamburg we got very good as a band because we had to play eight hours a night and we started building a big repertoire of some of our own songs, but mainly we did all the old rock songs. In fact, we did everything." George Harrison

The Beatles in Hamburg

"Love is Strange" - Mickey and Sylvia

Ewan McGregor and Louise Germaine lypsynch this classic '57 hit by Mickey and Sylvia.  Enjoy...

August 6 - Hiroshima Day

On August 6, 1945 the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.  15 years later, August 6, 1960 saw the US and the USSR in the midst of the nuclear arms race and the Cold War.   65 years later, August 6, 2010 sees us still living under the threat of nuclear annihilation.

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Muddy Waters 1960 - "Hoochie Coochie Man"

Newport Rhode Island Jazz Festival

July 1960

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Personnel

• Francis Clay – Drums
• James Cotton – Harmonica
• Pat Hare – Guitar
• Otis Spann – Piano, Vocals
• Andrew Stevenson – Bass
• Muddy Waters – Guitar, Vocals

Top of the Charts - "Shakin' All Over"

UK #1  August 1960 - Johnny Kidd and the Pirates

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British Skiffle Music

Enough on the American political front.  There was certainly a lot more happening in the Summer of 1960 than the lead-up to a US election.  There's British music!  August 1960 would see the Beatles begin a 2-year stint in Hamburg, Germany.  This is a significant period which would see them refine their music, settle on the their band, and develop their early repertoire.  The Beatles would emerge from Hamburg in late 1962 and begin their meteoric rise to stardom.

But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves in this story.   Where did their music come from?   We've already looked at Buddy Holly as a significant influence in the formation of The Beatles' sound.  Now let's have a quick look at the British "Skiffle" scene.

From Wikipedia...

"Skiffle is a type of popular music with jazz, blues, folk, roots and country influences, usually using homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a term in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, it became popular again in the UK in the 1950s, where it was mainly associated with musician Lonnie Donegan and played a major part in beginning the careers of later eminent jazz, pop, blues, folk and rock musicians."

Lonnie Donegan made a musical living on "Skiffle Revival".  His hits included the great hits of the "Skiffle Genre" from across the pond in the US.

• "John Henry" (1955)
• "Cumberland Gap" (1957) 
• "Gamblin' Man" (1957) - UK #1
• "The Grand Coulee Dam" ('58) 
• "Midnight Special" (1958)
• "Tom Dooley" (1958) 
• "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose It's Flavour..." 1959) - UK #3
• "Battle of New Orleans" (1959) - UK #2
• "I Wanna Go Home" (1960) - UK #5
• "Michael, Row the Boat" (1961) - UK #6
• "Pick A Bale of Cotton"  (1962) - UK #11 

Wikepedia

"He was the first person we had heard of from Britain to get to the coveted No. 1 in the charts, and we studied his records avidly. We all bought guitars to be in a skiffle group. He was the man." — Paul McCartney

"I wanted to be Elvis Presley when I grew up, I knew that. But the man who really made me feel like I could actually go out and do it was a chap by the name of Lonnie Donegan." — Roger Daltrey

More from Wikipedia...

"A large number of British musicians began their careers playing skiffle in this period and some became leading figures in their respective fields. These included leading Northern Irish musician Van Morrison, British blues pioneer Alexis Korner as well as Ronnie Wood, Alex Harvey and Mick Jagger; folk musicians Martin Carthy, John Renbourn and Ashley Hutchings; rock musicians Roger Daltrey, Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore, Robin Trower and Dave Gilmour; and popular beat music successes Graham Nash and Alan Clarke of The Hollies. Most notably The Beatles evolved from John Lennon's skiffle group The Quarrymen."

How cool is that!!  A few fun "skiffle" clips follow.

SKIFFLE ON!!   Rob; in Vancouver

"Skiffle was a name that was attached to what was, in essence, 

American folk music with a beat."
Van Morrison

Lonnie Donegan - Jimmy Page

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1960 US Campaign - The Stage is Set

Author David Pietrusza describes the 1960 campaign as "The Epic Campaign That Forged Three Presidencies", JFK, LBJ, and Nixon.   Considering the continuation of the Nixon presidency under Gerald Ford, the 1960 campaign would influence the next 16 years of presidential leadership.

This is indeed a pivotal time in American politics.  A new era of leadership is emerging and a new generation is stepping up.  Nixon and Kennedy are both younger and have recruited older, seasoned running mates to bolster the appearance of experience on their respective tickets.  The choices made by these three men, JFK, LBJ, and Nixon, in the course of their presidencies would determine the course of the nuclear arms build-up, the cold war, the Vietnam war, the civil rights movement, the space race, and a score of other issues which would define both the 60's and the 70's.

Rebuilding the Republican Right
This would also signal a time of rebuilding the "Republican Right",  as alluded to in Barry Goldwater's 1960 convention speech...    "...let's grow up conservative's.  Let's, if we want to take this party back someday, and I think we can, let's get to work!"  Goldwater would be back as the Republican Presidential nominee in 1964, but it would not be until the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 that the Republican Right would finally find their muscle.  They have been flexing it ever since.

Lodge-Kennedy Dynamics
Another significant element of this campaign is the nomination of Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. as the Republican Vice Presidential nominee.  The Lodge's were long-time Kennedy rivals from Massachusetts, with Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. narrowly losing his senate seat to JFK in 1952.  Lodge's son George would lose a bid for the same seat, vacated by JFK when he was elected President, to Ted Kennedy in 1962.  (I still have a Kennedy '62 tie-clip to commemorate that Senate race!) Despite the historic rivalry, Kennedy would appoint Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. as his ambassador to Vietnam at a crucial moment in the history of US involvement there.  One wonders if the two weren't working at cross purposes then, but that is another story.

Remembering and Reflecting... Rob; in Vancouver

"Few presidential elections have been quite as close, 

as dramatic or as controversial as the 1960 election 

between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy turned out to be."

Isaac McPhee

1960 Republican Convention

The Republican Party met in Chicago from July 25 - 28, 1960 to nominate Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge as their President and Vice President candidates for the 1960 election.  The following videos highlight the convention with speeches from Nixon, Goldwater, Lodge, and a brief clip from Martin Luther King Jr.

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Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

 1960 SUMMER FUN:  Brian Hyland

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JFK Acceptance Speech: July 15, 1960

The New Frontier

50 Years ago today John F. Kennedy accepted the Democratic Party nomination with this rousing speech on the New Frontier.  It is filled with a sense of optimism about the future that I remember as a child growing up in Michigan.  In spite of all the threats of the Cold War; the nuclear arms race, and the Vietnam War, there was an abounding optimism and faith that our new found technological prowess would help us to eradicate hunger, cure diseases, and usher in a golden age of peace and prosperity for all.  Alas!

Ella Fitzgerald: "Mack the Knife" 1960

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1960 Democratic National Convention

The 1960 Democratic National Convention was held in Los Angeles from July 11-15, 1960.  The central work of the convention was the nomination of a ticket for the 1960 Presidential Election.  John F. Kennedy was in the lead coming out of the primaries but was challenged by two significant rivals at the convention.  Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson and former Democratic Presidential Candidate Adlai Stevenson entered the race in the week before the convention.

Kennedy went on to win the nomination on the first ballot.  In a move to unite the party and bring Southern Democrats aboard he chose LBJ to be his running mate.  Ballot results were as follows:

John F. Kennedy 806 (52.89%)
Lyndon Johnson 409 (26.84%)
Stuart Symington 86 (5.64%)
Adlai Stevenson 79.5 (5.25%)
Robert B. Meyner 43 (2.82%)
Hubert Humphrey 41 (2.76%)

The following post includes a couple of videos that highlight the convention.

Bye for now... Rob

"The world has been close to war before–but now man, who has survived all previous threats to his existence, has taken into his mortal hands the power to exterminate the entire species some seven times over."   JFK  July 15, 1960

1960 DNC: July 11-15, 1960

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July 11, 1960 - A Snapshot in TIME

TIME Magazine featured a picture of the Kennedy's on their July 11th cover as the 1960 Democratic National Convention got underway in Los Angeles. Much of the edition was focused on U.S. politics in the lead-up to the 1960 general election.



AFRICA:  The Independence Movement

World stories focused on Africa which was in the midst of a continent-wide independence movement.  The Congo,  Somalia, and Ghana were each featured in stories which both celebrated their independence and analyzed their challenges.  The Congo was already on the brink of a civil war with the mineral-rich Katanga Province threatening to secede.  

SOUTH VIET NAM: Problem of One Man

Vietnam is just beginning to emerge in the News.  This particular story looks at the challenges faced by the unpopular South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. 

"...he is an aristocrat by birth, has no real contact with ordinary citizens or confidence in their judgments. Since an assassination attempt three years ago, Diem is constantly surrounded by police; he has neither the desire nor the ability to be a folksy man of the people. The peasants, who blame the government for a one-third fall in the price of rice this year, view Diem as a remote and austere figure, while they must contend with nightly raids by Red terrorists. To the city intellectuals, Diem's one-man rule is increasingly galling. They argue that his administration could be more liberal without impeding economic progress or exposing itself to Communist infiltration." Read more

CANADA: Acadian Winner

TIME had a small story on the Liberal win in the Provincial election in New Brunswick which saw Louis Robichaud elected as Premier.

"The decision surprised nearly everyone. In Ottawa, Liberal Chief Lester Pearson, who leads the Opposition to Diefenbaker's Tory government, confessed: "I didn't think we would win." Apprehensive shudders ran through the government benches in Ottawa's House of Commons; defeats for federal governments are customarily heralded by provincial defeats." TIME Magazine



More to follow this week on the historic 1960 Democratic Convention.

Remembering and reflecting... Rob; in Vancouver

"Elmer Gantry" - July 7, 1960

"Elmer Gantry", starring Burt Lancaster and Jean Simmons was released on July 7, 1960.   It went on to be one of the big hits for the year with Lancaster winning an Oscar for Best Actor.

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"House of the Rising Sun" - Joan Baez - 1960

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Republic of Congo - June 30, 1960

The Belgian Congo achieved independence on June 30, 1960 under the nationalist leadership of Patrice Lumumba of the the "Mouvement National Congolais" or MNC Party.  The new African nation initially took the name "Republic of Congo", changing it to "Democratic Republic of the Congo" in 1964 to distinguish it from the former French Congo which also took the name "Republic of Congo".

June 30, 1960 marked the end of a long colonial period that included the brutal "Congo Free State", a private holding of King Leopold II of Belgium, and the "Belgian Congo", a slightly more enlightened arrangement overseen by the Belgian parliament.

These words from newly elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba expressed the hope of the fledgling nation.

"The Republic of the Congo has been proclaimed, and our country is now in the hands of its own children.
Together, my brothers, my sisters, we are going to begin a new struggle, a sublime struggle, which will lead our country to peace, prosperity, and greatness.
Together, we are going to establish social justice and make sure everyone has just remuneration for his labor.
We are going to show the world what the black man can do when he works in freedom, and we are going to make of the Congo the center of the sun's radiance for all of Africa...
We are going to do away with all discrimination of every variety and assure for each and all the position to which human dignity, work, and dedication entitles him.
We are going to rule not by the peace of guns and bayonets but by a peace of the heart and the will ."   Patrice Lumumba  June 30, 1960

Unfortunately, the end of Belgian colonialism did not mean the end of troubles for the Congolese people.  Tribal infighting, cold-war politics, resource conflicts, dictatorships, and civil war have plagued the "Democratic Republic of the Congo" from day one to this very day. 

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Today we mark the 50 year anniversary of the formation of the "Democratic Republic of the Congo".  In so doing we remember the oppressive era of colonial Africa, the great African independence movement of the 1960's, and the ongoing struggle for peace, freedom and unity faced by so many African nations today.

Remembering and reflecting... Rob; in Vancouver

"The Congo's independence marks a decisive step 

towards the liberation of the entire African continent."

Patrice Lumumba

"Patrice Émery Lumumba" - Elijah Kalswe

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"Chain Gang" - Sam Cooke 1960

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1960 Cold War Realities

I was just a pup in 1960 and have no real appreciation of the Cold War realities that the world faced at the time.  Even a study of the history of that period fails to give a full sense of the risks and perils inherent in the nuclear arms race.

Doomsday Clock

1960 was actually a bit of a lull in the arms race.  So much so that the "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists" adjusted their "doomsday clock" from 2 minutes to midnight to 7 minutes to midnight in response to the "belief that a new cohesive force has entered the interplay of forces shaping the fate of mankind, and is making the fate of mankind a little less foreboding."  

Nuclear Tests

The United States and Soviet Union had even managed to observe a moratorium on nuclear testing for 1959 and 1960.  The moratorium would ultimately be broken in 1961 as relations between the superpowers deteriorated and a new and aggressive period of testing would begin.

"Plumbbob"

I find it personally interesting to note the extensive series of nuclear tests conducted under the code name "Plumbbob" at the Nevada Test Site in 1957.  Being born in Arkansas in October 1957, I find it noteworthy to consider what was going on back "in the day".

Operation Plumbbob was a series of nuclear tests conducted between May 28 and October 7, 1957, at the Nevada Test Site, following Operation Redwing, and preceding Operation Hardtack I. It was the biggest, longest, and most controversial test series in the continental United States.

• The operation was the sixth test series and consisted of 29 explosions…
• Almost 1,200 pigs were subjected to bio-medical experiments and blast-effects studies during Operation Plumbbob…
• Approximately 18,000 members of the U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines participated in exercises Desert Rock VII and VIII during Operation Plumbbob…
• Plumbbob released 58,300 kilocuries (2.16 EBq) of radioiodine (I-131) into the atmosphere. This produced total civilian radiation exposures amounting to 120 million person-rads of thyroid tissue exposure (about 32% of all exposure due to continental nuclear tests)…
• Statistically speaking, this level of exposure would be expected to eventually cause between 11,000 and 212,000 excess cases of thyroid cancer, leading to between 1,000 and 20,000 deaths.

Wikipedia

Our Morgan was not impressed that one of the nuclear shots during "Operation Plumbbob" was code-named "Morgan"!

What a wonderful world... we are so lucky to still have it!

Be well... Rob; in Vancouver

"The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable."
J. Robert Oppenheimer

"Operation Plumbbob"

50 Years Ago Today - Japan and Okinawa

June 19, 1960: Japan-U.S. Security Pact

"The controversial Japan-United States Security Treaty got the automatic approval of the Diet on June 19 despite demonstration by nearly 300,000 people in Tokyo to prevent the ratification of the Treaty. The Treaty was automatically approved when the ruling Liberal Democratic Party decided not to call a plenary session of the House of Councillors (Upper House of the Diet) on June 18 as had been planned. Under the Japanese Constitution a treaty passed by the Lower House gets the automatic approval of the Diet if the Upper House fails to act on it within 30 days of its passage by the Lower House."  The Hindu

Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi was ultimately forced to resign over the treaty.  He is pictured below with Dwight Eisenhower.

June 19, 1960:  Protests Mar Ike's Okinawa Visit

President Eisenhower was met by angry protesters during a brief visit to Okinawa on his Far East tour.  A planned visit by the President to Japan had already been canceled at the the request of the Japanese in response to mounting protests over the Japan-U.S. Security Pact.  In Okinawa the residents had more local concerns, namely, the continued occupation and administration of Okinawa by the U.S. and the extensive U.S. military bases built on misappropriated land.

50 Years Later

The most recent protests against American bases in Okinawa were held this past April when 90,000 people gathered to oppose the continuation of U.S. military bases.   U.S. bases have been an ongoing sore spot in Japan - U.S. relations.  Okinawans complain of the noise, violence by U.S. military personnel, and the large amount of land tied up in the bases.

With continued tensions in Korea and unresolved issues between China and Taiwan it is unlikely that the U.S. will be drawing down it's military presence in Okinawa anytime soon.  Alas for the Okinawans!

Remembering and reflecting... Rob 

“The natives on Okinawa are growing in number and 

are very anxious to repossess the lands they once owned.”  

 President Dwight Eisenhower, 1958

Patsy Cline - "Lovesick Blues" - June 1960

Patsy Cline was at the height of her career in 1960. 

June 16, 1960 - "Psycho"

Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller "Psycho" was released 50 years ago today.   Starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, Psycho is remembered as one of Hitchcock's best films.

Based on the 1959 novel of the same name, "Psycho" is loosely based on the story of Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein. Ed Gein was arrested in 1957 at which time he confessed to the killing of two women and digging up the remains of others.

Gein's grotesque practice of creating a "woman's suit" from the tanned skins of his exhumed victims also became the basis for the "Buffalo Bill" character in the 1991 film "The Silence of the Lambs".    Gein was also the model for the killer "Leatherface" in the 1974 film "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".  Gein was convicted of murder and spent the rest of his life in a mental health hospital.

Defying Tradition...

"Psycho" was a ground-breaking film in terms of challenging the censor codes that governed American film making in its day.  From Wikipedia... "Psycho is a prime example of the type of film that appeared in the 1960s after the erosion of the Production Code. It was unprecedented in its depiction of sexuality and violence, right from the opening scene where Sam and Marion are shown as lovers sharing the same bed. In the Production Code standards of that time, unmarried couples shown in the same bed would be taboo. In addition, the censors were upset by the shot of a flushing toilet; at that time, the idea of seeing a toilet onscreen — let alone being flushed — was taboo in American films and television shows."  read more

A number of sequels, a prequel, and a remake couldn't quite hold a candle to the original "Psycho", directed by the master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock.

Enjoy the clips below.

Retrospectively yours... Rob; in Vancouver

"A boy's best friend is his mother."

Norman Bates

Psycho - 1960

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Retro Field Trip - The Buddy Holly Story

Historical research requires the occasional field trip!  I did just that on Saturday with Pam and our friends Dee, Harry, Amanda, and Chris as we took in the local stage production of "Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story".   "Buddy" was an awesome musical show that told the story of Buddy Holly's short musical life starting with his first recording sessions and ending with his final concert on the 1959 "Winter Dance Party" tour in Iowa.

Buddy Holly was an amazing musician who influenced many of the rock and roll bands and singers that were emerging in the late 50's and early 60's.  He was a significant influence on the Beatles, who were playing as "The Quarrymen" while "Buddy Holly and The Crickets" were touring England in 1958.  The Beatles took their name as a tribute to Holly's "Crickets"

The Day the Music Died
Buddy Holly (22) died in a plane crash on February 3, 1959, along with early "rockers"  Ritchie Valens and JP Richardson, aka "The Big Bopper".  This day would go down in history as "the day the music died" thanks to Don McLeans 1971 classic hit "American Pie".

The post below includes some of the hits that would have been played at the "Winter Dance Party" in February 1959.  Enjoy. Link here

Retro Reporting from  Vancouver... Rob

"Death is very often referred to as a good career move."
Buddy Holly

The Day the Music Died

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Rocky and Friends - 1960

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1960 - The Year of Africa

1960 has been known as "The Year of Africa".  Decolonization was in full swing with 17 African nations declaring independence in 1960.

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Wikipedia records the 1960 African independence progress as follows...

Granted independence in 1960 from France...

• Mauritania
• Mali Federation (split into Mali and Senegal on August 20)
• Gabon
• Republic of Congo
• Central African Republic
• Chad
• Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire)
• Upper Volta (renamed to Burkina Faso in 1984)
• Niger
• Dahomey (renamed to Benin in 1975)
• Madagascar
• Togo (formerly French Togoland)
• Cameroon (Cameroun, joined with the British Cameroons in 1961)

Granted independence in 1960 from the United Kingdom...

• Somalia  (British Somaliland and the Trust Territory of Somalia)
• Nigeria

Granted independence in 1960 from Belgium...

• Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly the Belgian Congo) 

CBC News has posted a short article on Africa in 1960 with particular reference to Kenyan Author Ngugi wa Thiong'o.  CBC Article

In South Africa it was the year of the Sharpeville Massacre and the year in which the ANC was "outlawed".  Elsewhere in Africa there was "cold war chaos" as the US and USSR engaged in all manner power struggles and "proxy wars", with scant regard for the welfare of the budding new nations.  Nowhere was this chaos more pronounced than in the Congo of 1960.  The violence in the Congo from '60-'67 would claim over 100,000 lives including Patrice Lumumba.

TTFN... Rob

"Don't weep my love. One day history will have its say. Not the history they teach in Brussels, Paris or Washington, but our history. That of a new Africa."  Patrice Lumumba

Louis Armstrong in the Congo - 1960

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Alley-oop

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Tommy Douglas Wins Again

June 8, 1960 - Saskatchewan General Election

Tommy Douglas and his Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, or CCF,  party rolled to its 5th consecutive majority victory on June 8, 1960.  The CCF elected 37 members of the 54 seat legislature with Ross Thatcher's Liberals electing the remaining 17 seats.  Douglas, a Baptist minister, was the premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 until he retired from Provincial politics in 1961.  

Innovations under his visionary leadership included:

• the creation of the publicly owned Saskatchewan Power Corp., successor to the Saskatchewan Electrical Power Commission, which began a long program of extending electrical service to isolated farms and villages;
• the creation of Canada's first publicly owned automobile insurance service;
• the creation of a large number of Crown Corporations, many of which competed with existing private sector interests;
• legislation that allowed the unionization of the public service;
• a program to offer free hospital care to all citizens—the first in Canada.
• passage of the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights, legislation that broke new ground as it protected both fundamental freedoms and equality rights against abuse not only by government actors but also on the part of powerful private institutions and persons. (The Saskatchewan Bill of Rights preceded the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations by 18 months).  Wikipedia

Canadian Medicare

Douglas won the 1960 election on the promise of a Province-wide medical care system.  The Provincial program put in place in Saskatchewan became the model for the National medicare program implemented by Lester Pearson later in the decade.

Social Gospel
Tommy Douglas was a man of spiritual faith.  His political activism and his passion for human rights, social justice, and freedom were born of the powerful impulse of human compassion and the resultant desire to alleviate suffering.  

It would be nice to see some political leadership along those same lines today!

Remembering and reflecting... Rob; in Vancouver

“The religion of tomorrow will be less concerned with the dogmas of theology and more concerned with the social welfare of humanity.”  Tommy Douglas

Classic Tommy Douglas

On Medicare - 1983

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The Cream Separator

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On Jobs and the Environment - 1983

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"The Beast is in Chains"

A Snapshot in TIME - June 6, 1960

"The beast is in chains". With these coded words Israeli agents operating in Argentina informed Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion that Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was apprehended.  A few weeks after being covertly taken in Buenos Aries Eichmann was smuggled out of the country and transported to Israel.  

From TIME Magazine... "The Israeli Parliament assembled last week for a humdrum budget debate. Then Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion rose and, in a voice breaking with emotion, said: "I have to inform the Knesset that one of the greatest Nazi war criminals, Adolf Eichmann, who was responsible together with the Nazi leaders for what they called the 'final solution' of the Jewish question—that is, the extermination of 6,000.000 of the Jews of Europe—is under arrest in Israel and will shortly be placed on trial in Israel."   Read more

Eichmann was tried, found guilty, and hanged on May 31, 1962.

THE BANALITY OF EVIL

Historian Hannah Arendt, who covered the Eichmann trial for The New Yorker, coined the phrase "banality of evil" in an attempt to account for the committing of unspeakable atrocities by people who seem not to be fanatical, malevolent, or otherwise "beastly", but who rather seem quite sane and normal.  She points to a lack of self-reflective thinking and an uncritical acceptance of state authority as factors in the erosion of personal autonomy and morally responsible judgment. 

"The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together." Hannah Arendt

Trappist monk and author Thomas Merton picks up on this theme in his 1964 essay entitled "A Devout Meditation in Memory of Adolf Eichmann".  Merton points to the same factors at work in the machinations of strategic nuclear war planners.

"One of the most disturbing facts that came out in the Eichmann trial was that a psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane. I do not doubt it all, and that is precisely why I find it disturbing.  If all the Nazis had been psychotics, as some of their leaders probably were, their appalling cruelty would have been in some sense easier to understand. It is much worse to consider this calm, "well-balanced," unperturbed official conscientiously going about his desk work, his administrative job which happened to be the supervision of mass murder. He was thoughtful, orderly, unimaginative. He had a profound respect for system, for law and order. He was obedient, loyal, a faithful officer of a great state. He served his government very well...

...No, Eichmann was sane. The generals and fighters on both sides, in World War II, the ones who carried out the total destruction of entire cities, these were the sane ones. Those who have invented and developed atomic bombs, thermonuclear bombs, missiles; who have planned the strategy of the next war; who have evaluated the various possibilities of using bacterial and chemical agents: these are not the crazy people, they are the sane people."  Thomas Merton

Merton and Arendt help us to become more aware of the true nature of systemic evil and of our inextricable complicity in it.  Alas!

Remembering and reflecting...  Rob

"The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil."  Hannah Arendt