AUGUST, 1968 CHICAGO

The insanity of the Democratic National Convention was the "happening".
The violence was filmed, recorded, and remembered by people like me.
I heard stuff like,
"We shall overcome, The whole world is watching, Move out, you are in violation of the law, and run!" It was the age of psychedelia, beads, incense, feathers, bells, dope, the smell of dope, revolution, Black Panthers, and Hell no, we won't go!
The Chicago Police Department was prepared.
The Illinois National Guard was prepared.
The news media was prepared.
The Yippie Party was prepared.
The SDS was prepared.
The freaks, poets, acid heads, feminists, communists, artists, Black Panthers, conservatives, democrats, and republicans were prepared.
Every damned body was prepared!
The times were ripe for violence and social change.
We attended universities, worked in factories, drove cabs, tended bar, served time in jails, Viet Nam or the National Guard.
We camped out in Lincoln Park.
We listened to Allen Ginsburg and Abbie Hoffman.
The violence came.
It was unavoidable.
We knew it would come.
Mayor Daley senior said, "The police aren't here to create disorder, they're here to preserve disorder." You had to know what we were up against, after reading this simple little statement from one of the nation's most powerful politicians.
I can't believe it was forty-two years ago.
The innocence was lost after the assasinations of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy. Today, it's still an insane scene.
The whole world is watching.
Yet, nothing has changed.