Recreate 68 or It Was 40 Years Ago Today - CDNC68

On Monday August 25th, 2008 the Democrats began enacting the ritual of nomination that will hopefully elect the next president of the United States, Barack Obama.

Forty years ago, nearly to the day, the 1968 Democratic National Convention was held in Mayor Richard J. Daley's Chicago, one of the last strongholds of Party machine political control. In that troubled time the nation looked to the Democrats to perhaps reverse the deadly politics that had so polarized the nation over the War in Vietnam. With Lyndon Johnson's decision not to seek another term, the field seemed open to a change of the War politics that had so fractured both the Party and the nation.

This brief video clip was assembled from footage I shot during that period. From Lincoln Park to the front door of the Hilton Hotel where the delegates were housed, the street life was a tumultuous mix of theatre and bloody confrontation. Much of it is captured in my video.

They say, if you live long enough, history will recycle itself. I had hoped that after the disaster of Vietnam, our politicians and the American people might have learned a few basic lesions. Sadly that has not been the case. The chaos, and turmoil of that era, in retrospect, now seems so much more productive, and seem to contain so much more hope than our present sad era.

As they say, even nostalgia ain't what it used to be. So, briefly now, return with me to those halcyon days of yesteryear, when for a few all to fleeting moments the whole world was watching and a universal vision of Peace, Love and Hope almost took hold.


Peace,

Bob Boldt

This video is dedicated to the imagination of John Lennon.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• War
• Politics
• Chicago
• 1968
• Yippie
• Daley
• Vietnam
• Peace

[unionguy36]

"The policeman is not there to create disorder. The policeman is there to preserve disorder." Daley's words of unintended honesty came back to life this week in the police attacks in Oakland and Manhattan.

[thewildpearl]

Didn't quite show all of us getting our skulls cracked and bloody, but nonetheless a good compilation. Thanx.

[skaistagalda]

More important archives which you are making available to the world through Youtube. Congratulations and thanks; you should take confidence in the importance of showing things which truly reflect and let us see the time as it was; you really need to realize so much stock footage of factories making cans or whatever is what we are used to seeing as stock footage; your footage gives life to an era which needs to be shown; run with it, man! and thanks!