RIK: to a level where it, where it functioned
very well. And people got very rich, fat and
comfortable and had a chance to sit back and
look at itself. But also it invented one of
the most terrible weapons at the same time.
So that cycle sort of went through, but in
order to maintain that cycle of wealth, you
had to go outside. It could no longer be generated
within the country. It had to go outside to
look for cheap labor because the labor movement
had become strong and the wages had gone up and so on.
So I think it's very complicated. I don't
think you can really say "Why did we elect
Reagan this time around?" One could say that
we were on another one of these crazy cycles,
you could also attribute it to Kennedy and
the democrats. I mean, there was this big
baby boom coming along. If you look at the
curve in the growth of the size of government,
from Kennedy administration on, it goes like
this and then it goes like that. Right from
the Kennedy administration, the size of the
government goes almost straightline up. If
it had continued to go up, we would've had
more government than people, y'know in 10
years at the rate of growth that it was going
through. So there's another factor, what role
did that play? I don't know. I think it's
real complicated.
SANDERS: I think another factor that took
place, and I remember a very very significant
polictical event took place in 1968, it didn't
get much…I think the people who write the
history books now wouldn't see it as significant,
but I do. 1968, a guy named George Wallace,
actually today is still governor of Alabama.
Who at that period was an admitted racist,
that is,  he won international recognition because
he stood, as some of you may recall, at the door at the front of the University of
Alabama when it was about to be integrated.
President had sent down troops down there
and he was defying the federal government
and so forth and so on. He was an admittedly
a white supremecist and uh in '68 he decided
to run for president of the United States.
And all the very politically sophisticated
people said "Well, this is a joke." I mean here
you have this admitted racist who will certainly,
probably get some votes among white southerners,
but once he gets out of the south he's gonna
be laughed out of the ballpark.
So he goes marching into Michigan for Democratic
primaries and I think he lost the primary,
I don't remember. He got an enormous amount of
votes, and this was a very astounding phenoma.
People were saying "I don't understand this."
Here you have an admitted white racist, running
in a Northern state, which was a liberal state
or a moderate state, getting a tremendous
amount of votes. What is going on? See that takes us to
where we are today and it was very shocking. Remember that Rik?
And then the word was out that there were
a lot of white people for example, who were
not all that happy about the changes that
were taking place in the civil rights movement.
That in fact, America was a lot more racist
than people had thought.
And in fact somewhere around that time, came
a study done by, after I guess during the
period that Martin Luther King was killed,
around that period there was a study done
on racism in the United States. Done by Otto
Kerner, the Kerner Commission it was called. And it really
made the point that in fact, racial feelings,
racial hostility, racial prejudice was a lot
deeper than people had, the academics if you
like, had been allowed, had allowed themselves
to believe. And I think what began to happen
is, as this becomes apparent, then politicians,
whether it's the Ronald Reagans or the Spiro
Agnews, began playing on that point.
Began playing on the racism which was becoming
quite apparent, so I guess one of the things
if you talk about the 60's, which I think
is very important to understand the 80's.
You understand the backlash, you know we can
talk about Janis Joplin, The Beatles and all
these wonderful things and 500,000 young people
coming together at Woodstock, and etc. Fine,
you gotta talk about that.
But that's not all that was happening, George
Wallace is suddenly getting votes running
a campaign of racism in the United States.
How do the two go together? How does that
relate to what's happening in the United States today?
Okay? Important issues. Again, things, don't
only look at the young people doing all these
wonderful things, there were other things
going on in the country at that time.
And in fact, in taking your question a step
further, Nic, we can open this up to how do
you go from the 60's, to where you are in
the 80's?
What's the process? What are the important
events? Questions or comments.
