This is the gist of my meaning, summed up in this paragraph from the above linked-to article:

Without the clashes at Grant Park, Karl Rove’s political success could not have happened; without the counterculture, Pat Robertson would very likely be a more obscure preacher than he has become; and without the antiwar movement, the ability of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to have led the country to war in Iraq is difficult to imagine.

It’s interesting that Alan Wolfe chose those four people to name as the conservative heirs to the 1960s liberal movement. To me, they represent the moral bankruptcy of today’s social conservatives. As a member of a mainline denomination, I’ve said before that we have entered into what I call a Protestant dark ages where salvation is sold to the highest bidder and indulgences offered by the entertainment committee.

Wolfe goes on to make other interesting points, but the essence of the Boomer generation’s curse on America has to do with its most endearing qualities. There is a natural inclination to rebel against authority, but that rebellion is based on, first and foremost, a disdain for reason and the intellectuals of the generation – both leftist and rightist – usually offer nothing more than a faux logic grounded in either rosy sentimentalism (the left) or cynical spiritism masquerading as faith (the right). The result is that the entire culture is destroyed as the extremes from both ends lock us in a deadening vice.

This phenomenon is further compounded by the fact that many of today’s leading conservatives were liberals in the 1960’s. The dominant arm of the Republican Party for the last eight years has been the hawkish neo-conservatives, who Irving Kristol, founder of The National Interest and The Public Interest magazines, said “is a liberal mugged by reality.” It’s interesting that Kristol’s son, William, is one of the chief architects of the Iraq War, through the enormously Trotsky-like PNAC think tank.

For my entire life the 1960s spirit has dominated American culture, either through the heirs of the hippie love-niks and their romantic notions of peace at all costs or through the heirs of Nixon, who opined “we are all Keynesians now.” Conservatives, who have traditionally argued for a non-interventionist foreign policy, which I support, ashamed at the national embarrassment that was Vietnam, have waited patiently for the day that they could prove Americans aren’t just a bunch of pussies fit only for defeat. Liberals have just largely wanted to get naked and have fun, but they wanted to make sure that the MIC wasn’t looking over their barren shoulders with loaded guns.

I joined the National Guard in 1997, after a 10-year hiatus from Reagan’s active duty military. That was the same year that Kristol the Young and, practically, Bush’s entire cabinet formed the PNAC (Project for a New American Century). Had I known then what they were up to I would not have joined the Guard and I’d have been spared wasting 18 months of my life on a failure of a political revenge call.

I may not be old enough to remember the 1960s, but that decade has affected my life in every way. Aside from Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, I’m pretty pissed off about it all.

As an aside, we had driven all around Adams County, Pa. a few days ago looking for a strawberry patch that would let us pick our own. After a phone call to my wife’s father, ever the resourceful one, we were onto a lead within 24 hours. Hence, this morning’s foray into nature’s humidifier.

After 9 a.m., when we left the patch, we drove to Gettysburg to drop Leah off at home so she can sleep through the day and go to work again tonight, then my wife and I drove to her grandmother’s house to drop off a load of berries then to Hanover, Pa. to drop off another load for her maternal grandmother and pick up the grandchildren. By the time we got back home it was after noon and the heat was reaching a fevered pitch.

The fog this morning was unbelievable. The condensation from the past two weeks of rain was rising from the ground and I could barely see the road as I drove to pick up Leah. The afternoon sun drove us crazy and to top it off my seasonal allergies have been making me nutty for two weeks. In Texas, the allergies always hit me earlier, but the Locust trees and the rain at this time of year, with its accompanying tree mold, is what gets me. And all of that added to the children being antsy due to being at our house instead of with their mother and being affected by the heat, well, it’s been a doggone misery of a day.

Ah! Except the beer.

I brew at home and today I started my first summer batch. Last year was my first batch ever and we enjoyed a good party after an initial success story. This year I went with a honey-flavored ale.

I started by washing and sanitizing all of my equipment because I haven’t used it since last year (for financial reasons we didn’t brew in the winter). Then I boiled the brew and prepared it for fermenting. After the boiling, I set my boiling pot on my patio and drove to East Berlin (about a 10 min. drive) and picked up some ice to help with the cooling down. The beer is supposed to be below 80 degrees before I add the yeast and begin to ferment it. I finished the process and cleaned all of my equipment just as it was getting dark.

Just a few minutes ago I had a bowl of ice cream (yum yum!) that we picked up along with the ice and as I started writing this post my wife handed me a book that I had ordered – George Held’s chapbook titled W Is For War. I can hardly wait to dig into it as I’ve heard Mr. Held read and he is just fabulous. Plus, it is always good to see who is publishing the same type of material that I plan to publish as it could be a potential publisher for my own work down the road. Be on the lookout for my reaction to the chapbook in the near future. Meanwhile, have a beer and some ice cream topped with strawberries for me.

Read these litmag reviews.

Poetic pugilism: Bob Creeley vs. Yusef Komunyakaa.

Damn!

Ashberry’s hound.

Future bookstores – a serious threat?

Why go to university?

Whitman’s throbbing, flowing, pulsating human voice.

The Harlem Renaissance in Kalamazoo.

Poetry with juvenile qualities.

Did you write a poem today?

(Source) “Split this Rock calls poets to a greater role in public life and fosters a national community of activist poets. The festival will feature readings, workshops, panel discussions on poetry and social change, youth programming, films, parties, walking tours, and activism, while we debate and assess the public role of the poet and the poem in this time of crisis.”

I have mixed feelings about these kinds of mixture of poetry and politics. I’m not sure what the debate is about. My role as a poet is to write poetry. If I address a public issue or take a political stand then it’s no different than if I write about loving my wife or eating a bowl of chili. The impact my be stronger or weaker depending on how I express myself, but a poem is a poem.

The Split This Rock Poetry Festival does look like a grand event, though. What I can’t figure out is why it costs $75, $85 after March 10. What is the money going toward? Judging by the list of featured poets, it looks like the event will draw a crowd. I mean, there are some big names in there: Jimmy Santiago Baca, Robert Bly, Lucille Clifton, Mark Doty, Carolyn Forche, Sam Hamill, Galway Kinnell, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sharon Olds, Alicia Ostriker, and Sonia Sanchez. And those are just names that I recognize.

It’s not that I don’t think peace and justice are worthy causes, but whose definition of justice is being promoted here? Looking at the names again, I’d say it isn’t President Bush’s. And that’s the problem. I see this event as being a propaganda movement against the neo-conservative dominance of the past eight years. That puts poets like me in a rather precarious position.

On the one hand, I’m supportive of any movement that is against the Iraq War. Unfortunately, too many poets who involve themselves in these types of “witness and resistance” movements are anti-war in all its nuances. Extreme liberals, of which there are many in poetry circles, like extreme conservatives, only see one view: Theirs. One can hardly reason with minds that see the world through a single lens. That’s what makes cavorting with them a difficult decision.

I’d like to be able to attend a political rally that stands against unjust war yet affirms the necessity of just war. Unfortunately, if such a rally existed, it likely would not be hosted by poets. Is there a way to make sense of this?