More Rumblings of the Weimar Culture

For about six years, beginning in the mid-sixties, I attended a large urban university frequented by several violent anti-war demonstrations. Although I never joined in those confrontations, the contempt that settled over American intentions in Vietnam led me to question many values that had been the bedrock of my upbringing. I turned both inward, exploring new spiritual paths, and outward working with the political system but on the radical edge. Unitarian ministers, blood-tossing priests, an assortment of Quakers, flower children in training, and amateur druggists crossed my path. Some of those folks probably held more than a passing interest in socialism, but I don't recall those sympathies outweighing their desire to see a war come to an end. Indeed, the war ended a few years later, as did my flirtation with "progressive" ideology.

Today, anti-war protests in the the West have some disturbing new ingredients. First, the socialists/anti-capitalists now march under the mantra of the environmental movement. Second, the communists, unhinged by the fall of the Soviet Union, join with the anarchists in search of profound "political" change. Third, and I believe the most disturbing, is the introduction of often violent religious opposition toward others. In an earlier post, I mentioned how our national experience could be taking on some of the qualities of the Weimar Republic in Germany during the years between World War I and the creation of the Third Reich in 1933. Other political bloggers seem to be noticing this trend; however, their observations are based on far darker elements of that culture. Could protests opposing the Iraq conflict and the current Israel-Gaza Strip fighting be a mere prelude to greater, wider unhappiness? Here is one "take" on that scenario from Gateway Pundit. Zombietime has the photo essay of the January 10 anti-war march in San Francisco. Does the call for putting Jews back in the ovens fall under the protection of free speech in America? This is a question we will face any day. The "oldest hatred" has had serious consequences for those pursuing such a course. Mark Steyn provides the enlightenment here.

To me, the behavior of today's anti-war protester has about it a pathology, an element of madness, that was not there in the 1960s. Did I overlook something? Was I on the wrong campus? Has wisdom set in with age? The answer will be of little consequence if we are indeed entering the Weimar of the West.