“We are now as far away from X as X was from Y.” Do you know that formulation? I thought of it this morning. We are now as far away from the 1968 Democratic convention — and everything else in 1968 — as the convention was from 1918, in the middle of World War I. My old colleague Christopher Caldwell, at The Weekly Standard, was very good at this game (the “far away” game). I think he wrote a couple of newspaper columns, playing the game. The exercise can play with your mind, for sure.
Today on the homepage, I have a piece on ’68, a new musical that memorializes and celebrates the famous (or infamous) Democratic convention in Chicago. Everyone loves an anniversary. The 50th anniversary of the convention was the occasion for the musical. Still, the convention is a good idea for the musical theater, anniversary or no anniversary.
The convention and its protests were heavily theatrical as they were. WFB had a phrase, which I quote in my review: “the street theater of the Left.”
This year, 2018, also marks the 50th anniversary of the Prague Spring, and the subsequent Soviet invasion. You may have read — here, for example — that Miloš Zeman, the president of the Czech Republic, is refusing to participate in commemorations. Why? He does not want to offend his friend in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin.
Huh. Wasn’t there supposed to be a sharp split between the Soviet Union and the new Russia? This is what Kremlin-friendly Westerners tell us all the time. “Don’t confuse today’s Russia for the Soviet Union!” Then why would Putin & Co. be offended by a commemoration of the Prague Spring and the crushing of it?
Some of my friends on the right are pro-Zeman because they are anti-EU, and they hope that Zeman takes the Czech Republic out of the EU, thus hastening the demise of the union. I am anti-Zeman because he is one of the pro-Putin leaders who currently blight Europe.
Did you see the Austrian foreign minister dancing with Putin at her wedding? The party that nominated her (founded by SS men) has a friendship-and-cooperation agreement with Putin — of course.
I’ll have more to say about this later, but back to ’68. Here are my concluding paragraphs:
Needless to say, this musical was not for me. It was not for me in the same way that Abbie Hoffman, rock ’n’ roll (much of it), Howard Zinn, and drugs are not for me. But listen: I credit the show with sincerity — with an earnestness and even an idealism. Being in the theater was a bit like being in a political church. Not my church, mind you, but many people’s. (Actually, I have no political church, just church church — which is probably how it should be regardless.)
’68 strives for a message of mutual understanding. Of dignity, respect, and all that (excellent) jazz. To borrow another phrase from Bill Buckley, this “can hardly be gainsaid.”