In Touch w/ Inner Feelings

The 70’s brought us songs that reflect that decade’s youthful longing and loss. We inherited ” I’ll never fall in love again”, “Feelings”, “I will give everything I own”.

From the Youngbloods ( Get together) to America (Daisy Jane), we got a feeling that there are more behind those long hair and bushy beard: “we have seen the enemy, and the enemy is us” or ” we have traveled the world, and come home, knowing it for the first time”.

Blame it on Vietnam with its Five-O-Clock Follies (daily press briefing at Hotel Continental). On the 57,000 deaths and many missing.

Horror, horror.

On the one side, body count (accounting), on the other, peace and love (intangible).

The 70’s generation grew up confused and dazed. Which way to turn??? It’s truly a crisis of confidence. So we elected a President who forever regrets he did not order more helicopters to rescue American hostages in Iran.

BTW. It’s Iran, not Vietnam that has been America’s quagmire.

Vietnam ended 44 years ago. Iran oil embargo and economic sanction is still in place. Back to “in-touch”. The 70’s generation turned inward: Me, Me, Me.

If the world doesn’t respond or isn’t responsive to my need, I will have to do it myself: I elect a government of one: of me, by me and for me.

The 70’s is a hybrid between the Peace movement and the Pentagon insurgency. It grew up watching the confrontation between McNamara and the “Hell-No” folks. “How many roads must a man travel”.

The answer is still blowing in the wind, even today. Jack Ma of Alibaba deflects the blame (that China is a culprit of America’s economic woe) by saying that it’s the USA’s fault for spending trillions of dollars on warfare in the past three decades, and not China that takes away American jobs. In every situation, the tendency is to scapegoat, assign blame and deflect guilt.

The 70’s folks absorb Vietnam. The acidity of post-war guilt ate up that generation (long passing). The Vietnam Memorial Wall in D.C. reflects that. You see yourself on that shinny black marble wall, even when your name isn’t there. At times, you wish it were: to do away with the guilt, shame and self-recrimination. Have I done enough to stop the senselessness of the event? Horror, horror! It’s been 44 years that I carried this uncalled-for blame. I was just a freshman in college, trying to do good (raising money for displaced war refugees from the Central regions of Vietnam). All of a sudden, the dominoes fell, upending my world, my life and everything I held dear.

Without a home nor homeland, I overheard Wake Island Armed-Forces radio playing Diana Ross’ “Do you know, where going to, do you like the things that life’s been showing you”. I felt like Paul Mc Cartney’ s “Band on the run”. In that context, was I the one to take the blame for what happened (The Fall of Saigon), or it’s someone else? The situation? The quagmire? Or the human condition from the dawn of time i.e. self-inflicting and self-sabotage?

I will leave this to historian, psychologist and warfare strategist. All I know was, in the second-half of the 70’s, kids in college were just “doing time”, knowing that the system was rigged i.e. poor kids get killed in war while rich kids protest it. And from there, we got Lionel Richie “chills” it for us in ” Easy like a Sunday morning”.

Gosh! I miss that era despite its vulnerability and helplessness. Just carry on and hope tomorrow be better. And true enough, we are still here, now.