That's a one-dimensional interpretation of a complicated musical gesture. I hear a highly ambivalent mixture of emotions--anger and grief, yes, but Hendrix served in 26th Airborne, and though he was a fuck-up, he was not dishonorably discharged, as many believe, but discharged on the grounds of "unsuitability — under honorable conditions" (in 1962). He never lost a certain affection for the military, if only for his fellow soldiers, many of whom would go on to die in a war I and eventually more than 1/2 of Americans disapproved of--to say the least. I hear anguish at an America gone wrong with a misguided policy that killed almost 60,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese--and accomplished less than nothing.
(SOME HELPFUL BACKGROUND: I love my country, and I say fuck you to anyone who says I don't just because I believe we made a tragic mistake getting involved in a civil war in a minor third-world country based on a policy-wonk theory. Did the dominoes fall, did the Chinese take over Vietnam? No, war broke out between the two countries in 1979, and the war involved three Communist nations (add Cambodia). Our leaders fought the war in total ignorance of the historical geopolitics of the region--a history of constant rivalries between and among China and the small nations of Indochina. These rivalries long predated the Vietnam War, played a part in it, and also figured in the intra-Communist war that followed. McNamara was a shallow technocrat who coldly used the draft to send thousands of hapless 18-year-olds to their deaths in what he KNEW was an unwinnable war (so did Johnson).
Tens of thousands of Vets came home maimed and traumatized and stuck with sub-par VA medical care; spat on by fellow Americans for fighting for America, many of them because they were forced to; ending up homeless on the streets in droves (maybe some of them are out there to this day); and some of them so embittered that they joined the anti-war movement. McNamara was a soulless bastard who deserved to be pushed into the river by an enraged Vet. Compared with Johnson and this spreadsheet bureaucrat, Bush and Cheney's reckless interventionism in the Middle East looks pretty mild. To anyone who accuses me of America-bashing, I say America's greatness consists partly in its sense of fair play and its willingness to recognize and correct its shortcomings--e.g., the Civil War and "a new birth of freedom." (Sadly, going from Vietnam quagmire to Middle East sand-trap doesn't suggest any lessons were learned.)
Hendrix was beyond dispute a genius who was a fucked-up individual and anything but a role model in his personal life, yes; but his musical theme (besides drugs and sex and extra-terrestrials) was Love. He was a typical Hippie in that sense. "Peace and Love" are facile sentimental slogans, certainly, but as far as you can get from today's Leftist hate-mongering.
Most Hippies were self-indulgent, drugged-out, affluent pseudo-anarchists, but only a few poisonous individuals like Bill Ayers and his Weather Underground advocated and practiced violence. Sadly, that's what the Hippie movement evolved into--today's Alinsky-ized Far Left Chicago-style machine politicians destroying every city they control, cynical exploitation of racial grievance, blatant anti-Americanism, crypto-Communism culminating in a traitor named Obama.
Hendrix was no fan of Communism, and in his last years the Black Panthers were already criticizing him for not being (as we now say) "woke" and on board with anti-white identity politics. Unlike them and their modern-day descendants, he was not a hater.
With all this in mind, that Anthem performance makes a lot of sense in its surreal way. I'll quote this Quora comment: "Hendrix evoked the majesty of America while also summoning the howling undercurrents of dissonance and violence echoing the Vietnam war and the nation's racial struggles.” At the right historical moment at a now-historic event Hendrix turned in a performance that was also a dramatic piece of performance art, iconoclastic and yet, to this day, an icon standing for that entire period, creative and destructive, peace-and-love on the one hand, massively violent on the other. But in retrospect, tragic at the time and tragic in its consequences.
One hallmark of the Left is being offended by complexity. Ideology-driven people are allergic to truth, and the truth is rarely simple. That goes for Hendrix, his version of the Anthem and his attitude to America. If anyone's offended by the fact that I don't see this issue in "black and white," I don't give a fuck. I'm voting for the same man you are.
That's a one-dimensional interpretation of a complicated musical gesture. I hear a highly ambivalent mixture of emotions--anger and grief, yes, but Hendrix served in 26th Airborne, and though he was a fuck-up, he was not dishonorably discharged, as many believe, but discharged on the grounds of "unsuitability — under honorable conditions" (in 1962). He never lost a certain affection for the military, if only for his fellow soldiers, many of whom would go on to die in a war I and eventually more than 1/2 of Americans disapproved of--to say the least. I hear anguish at an America gone wrong with a misguided policy that killed almost 60,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese--and accomplished less than nothing.
(SIDEBAR: I love my country, and I say fuck you to anyone who says I don't just because I believe we made a tragic mistake getting involved in a civil war in a minor third-world country based on a policy-wonk theory. Did the dominoes fall, did the Chinese take over Vietnam? No, war broke out between the two countries in 1979, and the war involved three Communist nations (add Cambodia). Our leaders fought the war in total ignorance of the historical geopolitics of the region, which long preceded the Vietnam War, played a part in it, and also figured in the intra-Communist war that followed it. McNamara was a shallow technocrat who coldly used the draft to send thousands of hapless 18-year-olds to their deaths in what he KNEW was an unwinnable war (so did Johnson).
Tens of thousands of Vets came home maimed and traumatized and stuck with sub-par VA medical care; spat on by fellow Americans for fighting for America, many of them because they were forced to; ending up homeless on the streets in droves (maybe some of them are out there to this day); and some of them so embittered that they joined the anti-war movement. McNamara was a soulless bastard who deserved to be pushed into the river by an enraged Vet. Compared with Johnson and this spreadsheet bureaucrat, Bush and Cheney's reckless interventionism in the Middle East looks pretty mild. To anyone who accuses me of America-bashing, I say America's greatness consists partly in its sense of fair play and its willingness to recognize and correct its shortcomings--e.g., the Civil War and "a new birth of freedom.")
Hendrix was beyond dispute a genius who was a fucked-up individual and anything but a role model in his personal life, yes; but his musical theme (besides drugs and sex and extra-terrestrials) was Love. He was a typical Hippie in that sense. "Peace and Love" are facile sentimental slogans, certainly, but as far as you can get from today's Leftist hate-mongering.
Most Hippies were self-indulgent, drugged-out, affluent pseudo-anarchists, but only a few poisonous individuals like Bill Ayers and his Weather Underground advocated and practiced violence. Sadly, that's what the Hippie movement evolved into--today's Alinsky-ized Far Left Chicago-style machine politicians destroying every city they control, cynical exploitation of racial grievance, blatant anti-Americanism, crypto-Communism culminating in a traitor named Obama.
Hendrix was no fan of Communism, and in his last years the Black Panthers were already criticizing him for not being (as we now say) "woke" and on board with anti-white identity politics. Unlike them and their modern-day descendants, he was not a hater.
With all this in mind, that Anthem performance makes a lot of sense in its surreal way. I'll quote this Quora comment: "Hendrix evoked the majesty of America while also summoning the howling undercurrents of dissonance and violence echoing the Vietnam war and the nation's racial struggles.” At the right historical moment at a now-historic event Hendrix turned in a performance that was also a dramatic piece of performance art, iconoclastic and yet, to this day, an icon standing for that entire period, creative and destructive, peace-and-love on the one hand, massively violent on the other. But in retrospect, tragic at the time and tragic in its consequences.
One hallmark of the Left is being offended by complexity. Ideology-driven people are allergic to truth, and the truth is rarely simple. That goes for Hendrix, his version of the Anthem and his attitude to America. If anyone's offended by the fact that I don't see this issue in "black and white," I don't give a fuck. I'm voting for the same man you are.
That's a one-dimensional interpretation of a complicated musical gesture. I hear a highly ambivalent mixture of emotions--anger and grief, yes, but Hendrix served in 26th Airborne, and though he was a fuck-up, he was not dishonorably discharged, as many believe, but discharged on the grounds of "unsuitability — under honorable conditions" (in 1962). He never lost a certain affection for the military, if only for his fellow soldiers, many of whom would go on to die in a war I and eventually more than 1/2 of Americans disapproved of--to say the least. I hear anguish at an America gone wrong with a misguided policy that killed almost 60,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese--and accomplished less than nothing.
(SIDEBAR: I love my country, and I say fuck you to anyone who says I don't just because I believe we made a tragic mistake getting involved in a civil war in a minor third-world country based on a policy-wonk theory. Did the dominoes fall, did the Chinese take over Vietnam? No, war broke out between the two countries in 1979, and the war involved three Communist nations (add Cambodia). Our leaders fought the war in total ignorance of the historical geopolitics of the region, which long preceded the Vietnam War, played a part in it, and also figured in the intra-Communist war that followed it. McNamara was a shallow technocrat who coldly used the draft to send thousands of hapless 18-year-olds to their deaths in what he KNEW was an unwinnable war (so did Johnson).
Tens of thousands of Vets came home maimed and traumatized and stuck with sub-par VA medical care; spat on by fellow Americans for fighting for America, many of them because they were forced to; ending up homeless on the streets in droves (maybe some of them are out there to this day); and some of them so embittered that they joined the anti-war movement. McNamara was a soulless bastard who deserved to be pushed into the river by an enraged Vet. Compared with Johnson and this spreadsheet bureaucrat, Bush and Cheney's reckless interventionism in the Middle East looks pretty mild. To anyone who accuses me of America-bashing, I say America's greatness consists partly in its sense of fair play and its willingness to recognize and correct its shortcomings--e.g., the Civil War and "a new birth of freedom.")
Hendrix was beyond dispute a genius who was a fucked-up individual and anything but a role model in his personal life, yes; but his musical theme (besides drugs and sex and extra-terrestrials) was Love. He was a typical Hippie in that sense. "Peace and Love" are facile sentimental slogans, certainly, but as far as you can get from today's Leftist hate-mongering.
Most Hippies were self-indulgent, drugged-out, affluent pseudo-anarchists, but only a few poisonous individuals like Bill Ayers and his Weather Underground advocated and practiced violence. Sadly, that's what the Hippie movement evolved into--today's Alinsky-ized Far Left Chicago-style machine politicians destroying every city they control, cynical exploitation of racial grievance, blatant anti-Americanism, crypto-Communism culminating in a traitor named Obama.
Hendrix was no fan of Communism, and in his last years the Black Panthers were already criticizing him for not being (as we now say) "woke" and on board with anti-white identity politics. Unlike them and their modern-day descendants, he was not a hater. And that includes his attitude toward America.
With all this in mind, that Anthem performance makes a lot of sense in its surreal way. I'll quote this Quora comment: "Hendrix evoked the majesty of America while also summoning the howling undercurrents of dissonance and violence echoing the Vietnam war and the nation's racial struggles.” At the right historical moment at a now-historic event Hendrix turned in a performance that was also a piece of performance art, iconoclastic and to this day an icon standing for that violent, vital and tragic era.
One hallmark of the Left is being offended by complexity. Ideology-driven people are allergic to truth, and the truth is rarely simple. That goes for Hendrix, his version of the Anthem, the life he lived and the times he lived in. If anyone's offended by the fact that I don't see this issue in "black and white", I don't give a fuck. I'm voting for the same man you are.
That's a one-dimensional interpretation of a complicated musical gesture. I hear a highly ambivalent mixture of emotions--anger and grief, yes, but Hendrix served in 26th Airborne, and though he was a fuck-up, he was not dishonorably discharged, as many believe, but discharged on the grounds of "unsuitability — under honorable conditions" (in 1962). He never lost a certain affection for the military, if only for his fellow soldiers, many of whom would go on to die in a war I and eventually more than 1/2 of Americans disapproved of--to say the least. I hear anguish at an America gone wrong with a misguided policy that killed almost 60,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese--and accomplished less than nothing.
(SIDEBAR: I love my country, and I say fuck you to anyone who says I don't just because I believe we made a tragic mistake getting involved in a civil war in a minor third-world country based on a policy-wonk theory. Did the dominoes fall, did the Chinese take over Vietnam? No, war broke out between the two countries in 1979, and the war involved three Communist nations (add Cambodia). Our leaders fought the war in total ignorance of the historical geopolitics of the region, which long preceded the Vietnam War, played a part in it, and also figured in the intra-Communist war that followed it. McNamara was a shallow technocrat who coldly used the draft to send thousands of hapless 18-year-olds to their deaths in what he KNEW was an unwinnable war (so did Johnson).
Tens of thousands of Vets came home maimed and traumatized and stuck with sub-par VA medical care; spat on by fellow Americans for fighting for America, many of them because they were forced to; ending up homeless on the streets in droves (maybe some of them are out there to this day); and some of them so embittered that they joined the anti-war movement. McNamara was a soulless bastard who deserved to be pushed into the river by an enraged Vet. Compared with Johnson and this spreadsheet bureaucrat, Bush and Cheney's reckless interventionism in the Middle East looks pretty mild. To anyone who accuses me of America-bashing, I say America's greatness consists partly in its sense of fair play and its willingness to recognize and correct its shortcomings--e.g., the Civil War and "a new birth of freedom.")
Hendrix was beyond dispute a genius who was a fucked-up individual and anything but a role model in his personal life, yes; but his musical theme (besides drugs and sex and extra-terrestrials) was Love. He was a typical Hippie in that sense. "Peace and Love" are facile sentimental slogans, certainly, but as far as you can get from today's Leftist hate-mongering.
Most Hippies were self-indulgent, drugged-out, affluent pseudo-anarchists, but only a few poisonous individuals like Bill Ayers and his Weather Underground advocated and practiced violence. Sadly, that's what the Hippie movement evolved into--today's Alinsky-ized Far Left Chicago-style machine politicians destroying every city they control, cynical exploitation of racial grievance, blatant anti-Americanism, crypto-Communism culminating in a traitor named Obama.
Hendrix was no fan of Communism, and in his last years the Black Panthers were already criticizing him for not being (as we now say) "woke" and on board with anti-white identity politics. Unlike them and their modern-day descendants, he was not a hater. And that includes his attitude toward America.
With all this in mind, that Anthem performance makes a lot of sense in its surreal way. I'll quote this Quora comment: "Hendrix evoked the majesty of America while also summoning the howling undercurrents of dissonance and violence echoing the Vietnam war and the nation's racial struggles.”
One hallmark of the Left is being offended by complexity. Ideology-driven people are allergic to truth, and the truth is rarely simple. That goes for Hendrix, his version of the Anthem, the life he lived and the times he lived in. If anyone's offended by the fact that I don't see this issue in "black and white", I don't give a fuck. I'm voting for the same man you are.
That's a one-dimensional interpretation of a complicated musical gesture. I hear a highly ambivalent mixture of emotions--anger and grief, yes, but Hendrix served in 26th Airborne, and though he was a fuck-up, he was not dishonorably discharged, as many believe, but discharged on the grounds of "unsuitability — under honorable conditions" (in 1962). He never lost a certain affection for the military, if only for his fellow soldiers, many of whom would go on to die in a war I and eventually more than 1/2 of Americans disapproved of--to say the least. I hear anguish at an America gone wrong with a misguided policy that killed almost 60,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese--and accomplished less than nothing.
(SIDEBAR: I love my country, and I say fuck you to anyone who says I don't just because I believe we made a tragic mistake getting involved in a civil war in a minor third-world country based on a policy-wonk theory. Did the dominoes fall, did the Chinese take over Vietnam? No, war broke out between the two countries in 1979, and the war involved three Communist nations (add Cambodia). Our leaders fought the war in total ignorance of the historical geopolitics of the region, which long preceded the Vietnam War, played a part in it, and also figured in the intra-Communist war that followed it. McNamara was a shallow technocrat who coldly used the draft to send thousands of hapless 18-year-olds to their deaths in what he KNEW was an unwinnable war (so did Johnson). Tens of thousands of Vets came home maimed and traumatized and stuck with sub-par VA medical care; spat on by fellow Americans for fighting for America, many of them because they were forced to; ending up homeless on the streets in droves (maybe some of them are out there to this day); and some of them so embittered that they joined the anti-war movement. McNamara was a soulless bastard who deserved to be pushed into the river by an enraged Vet. Compared with Johnson and this spreadsheet bureaucrat, Bush and Cheney's reckless interventionism in the Middle East looks pretty mild. To anyone who accuses me of America-bashing, I say America's greatness consists partly in its sense of fair play and its willingness to recognize and correct its shortcomings--e.g., the Civil War and "a new birth of freedom.")
He was beyond dispute a musical genius (and poet) who was a fucked-up individual and anything but a role model in his personal life, yes; but his musical theme (besides drugs and sex and extra-terrestrials) was Love. He was a typical Hippie in that sense. "Peace and Love" are facile sentimental slogans, certainly, but as far as you can get from today's Leftist hate-mongering.
Most Hippies were self-indulgent, drugged-out, affluent pseudo-anarchists, but only a few poisonous individuals like Bill Ayers and his Weather Underground advocated and practiced violence. Sadly, that's what the Hippie movement evolved into--today's Alinsky-ized Far Left Chicago-style machine politicians destroying every city they control, cynical exploitation of racial grievance, blatant anti-Americanism, crypto-Communism culminating in a traitor named Obama.
Hendrix was no fan of Communism, and in his last years the Black Panthers were already criticizing him for not being (as we now say) "woke" and on board with anti-white identity politics. Unlike them and their modern-day descendants, he was not a hater. And that includes his attitude toward America.
With all this in mind, that Anthem performance makes a lot of sense in its surreal way. I'll quote this Quora comment: "Hendrix evoked the majesty of America while also summoning the howling undercurrents of dissonance and violence echoing the Vietnam war and the nation's racial struggles.”
One hallmark of the Left is being offended by complexity. Ideology-driven people are allergic to truth, and the truth is rarely simple. That goes for Hendrix, his version of the Anthem, the life he lived and the times he lived in. If anyone's offended by the fact that I don't see this issue in "black and white", I don't give a fuck. I'm voting for the same man you are.
That's a one-dimensional interpretation of a complicated musical gesture. I hear a highly ambivalent mixture of emotions--anger and grief, yes, but Hendrix served in 26th Airborne, and though he was a fuck-up, he was not dishonorably discharged, as many believe, but discharged on the grounds of "unsuitability — under honorable conditions" (in 1962). He never lost a certain affection for the military, if only for his fellow soldiers, many of whom would go on to die in a war I and eventually more than 1/2 of Americans disapproved of--to say the least. I hear anguish at an America gone wrong with a misguided policy that killed almost 60,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese--and accomplished less than nothing.
(SIDEBAR: I love my country, and I say fuck you to anyone who says I don't just because I believe we made a tragic mistake getting involved in a civil war in a minor third-world country based on a policy-wonk theory. Did the dominoes fall, did the Chinese take over Vietnam? No, war broke out between the two countries in 1979, and the war involved three Communist nations (add Cambodia). Our leaders fought the war in total ignorance of the historical geopolitics of the region, which long preceded the Vietnam War, played a part in it, and also figured in the intra-Communist war that followed it. McNamara was a shallow technocrat who coldly used the draft to send thousands of hapless 18-year-olds to their deaths in what he KNEW was an unwinnable war (so did Johnson). Tens of thousands of Vets came home maimed and traumatized and stuck with sub-par VA medical care; spat on by fellow Americans for fighting for America, many of them because they were forced to; ending up homeless on the streets in droves (maybe some of them are out there to this day); and some of them so embittered that they joined the anti-war movement. McNamara was a soulless bastard who deserved to be pushed into the river by an enraged Vet. Compared with Johnson and this spreadsheet bureaucrat, Bush and Cheney's reckless interventionism in the Middle East looks pretty mild. To anyone who accuses me of America-bashing, I say America's greatness consists partly in its sense of fair play and its willingness to recognize and correct its shortcomings--e.g., the Civil War and "a new birth of freedom.")
Hendrix was beyond dispute a musical genius (and poet) who was a fucked-up individual and anything but a role model in his personal life, yes; but his musical theme (besides drugs and sex and extra-terrestrials) was Love. He was a typical Hippie in that sense. "Peace and Love" are facile sentimental slogans, certainly, but as far as you can get from today's Leftist hate-mongering.
Most Hippies were self-indulgent, drugged-out, affluent pseudo-anarchists, but only a few poisonous individuals like Bill Ayers and his Weather Underground advocated and practiced violence. Sadly, that's what the Hippie movement evolved into--today's Alinsky-ized Far Left Chicago-style machine politicians destroying every city they control, cynical exploitation of racial grievance, blatant anti-Americanism, crypto-Communism culminating in a traitor named Obama.
Hendrix was no fan of Communism, and in his last years the Black Panthers were already criticizing him for not being (as we now say) "woke" and on board with anti-white identity politics. Unlike them and their modern-day descendants, he was not a hater. And that includes his attitude toward America.
One hallmark of the Left is being offended by complexity. Ideology-driven people are allergic to truth, and the truth is rarely simple. That goes for Hendrix, his version of the Anthem, the life he lived and the times he lived in. If anyone's offended by the fact that I don't see this issue in "black and white", I don't give a fuck. I'm voting for the same man you are.
That's a one-dimensional interpretation of a complicated musical gesture. I hear a highly ambivalent mixture of emotions--anger and grief, yes, but Hendrix served in 26th Airborne, and though he was a fuck-up, he was not dishonorably discharged, as many believe, but discharged on the grounds of "unsuitability — under honorable conditions" (in 1962). He never lost a certain affection for the military, if only for his fellow soldiers, many of whom would go on to die in a war I and eventually more than 1/2 of Americans disapproved of--to say the least. I hear anguish at an America gone wrong with a misguided policy that killed almost 60,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese--and accomplished less than nothing.
(SIDEBAR: I love my country, and I say fuck you to anyone who says I don't just because I believe we made a tragic mistake getting involved in a civil war in a minor third-world country based on a policy-wonk theory. Did the dominoes fall, did the Chinese take over Vietnam? No, war broke out between the two countries in 1979, and the war involved three Communists nations (add in Cambodia). Our leaders fought the war in total ignorance of the historical geopolitics of the region, which long preceded the Vietnam War, played a part in it, and also figured in the intra-Communist war that followed it. McNamara was a shallow technocrat who coldly used the draft to send thousands of hapless 18-year-olds to their deaths in what he KNEW was an unwinnable war (so did Johnson). Tens of thousands of Vets came home maimed and traumatized and stuck with sub-par VA medical care; spat on by fellow Americans for fighting for America, many of them because they were forced to; ending up homeless on the streets in droves (maybe some of them are out there to this day); and some of them so embittered that they joined the anti-war movement. McNamara was a soulless bastard who deserved to be pushed into the river by an enraged Vet. Compared with Johnson and this spreadsheet bureaucrat, Bush and Cheney's reckless interventionism in the Middle East looks pretty mild. To anyone who accuses me of America-bashing, I say America's greatness consists partly in its sense of fair play and its willingness to recognize and correct its shortcomings--e.g., the Civil War and "a new birth of freedom.")
Hendrix was beyond dispute a musical genius (and poet) who was a fucked-up individual and anything but a role model in his personal life, yes; but his musical theme (besides drugs and sex and extra-terrestrials) was Love. He was a typical Hippie in that sense. "Peace and Love" are facile sentimental slogans, certainly, but as far as you can get from today's Leftist hate-mongering.
Most Hippies were self-indulgent, drugged-out, affluent pseudo-anarchists, but only a few poisonous individuals like Bill Ayers and his Weather Underground advocated and practiced violence. Sadly, that's what the Hippie movement evolved into--today's Alinsky-ized Far Left Chicago-style machine politicians destroying every city they control, cynical exploitation of racial grievance, blatant anti-Americanism, crypto-Communism culminating in a traitor named Obama.
Hendrix was no fan of Communism, and in his last years the Black Panthers were already criticizing him for not being (as we now say) "woke" and on board with anti-white identity politics. Unlike them and their modern-day descendants, he was not a hater. And that includes his attitude toward America.
One hallmark of the Left is being offended by complexity. Ideology-driven people are allergic to truth, and the truth is rarely simple. That goes for Hendrix, his version of the Anthem, the life he lived and the times he lived in. If anyone's offended by the fact that I don't see this issue in "black and white", I don't give a fuck. I'm voting for the same man you are.
That's a one-dimensional interpretation of a complicated musical gesture. I hear a highly ambivalent mixture of emotions--anger and grief, yes, but Hendrix served in 26th Airborne, and though he was a fuck-up, he was not dishonorably discharged, as many believe, but discharged on the grounds of "unsuitability — under honorable conditions" (in 1962). He never lost a certain affection for the military, if only for his fellow soldiers, many of whom would go on to die in a war I and eventually more than 1/2 of Americans disapproved of--to say the least. I hear anguish at an America gone wrong with a misguided policy that killed almost 60,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese--and accomplished less than nothing.
(SIDEBAR: I love my country, and I say fuck you to anyone who says I don't just because I believe we made a tragic mistake getting involved in a civil war in a minor third-world country based on a policy-wonk theory. Did the dominoes fall, did the Chinese take over Vietnam? No, war broke out between the two countries in 1979, and the war involved three Communists nations (add in Cambodia). Our leaders fought the war in total ignorance of the historical geopolitics of the region, which long preceded the Vietnam War, played a part in it, and also figured in the intra-Communist war that followed it. McNamara was a shallow technocrat who coldly used the draft to send hundreds of thousands of American soldiers to their deaths in what he KNEW was an unwinnable war (so did Johnson). Tens of thousands of Vets came home maimed and traumatized and stuck with sub-par VA medical care; spat on by fellow Americans for fighting for America, ending up on the streets in droves (maybe some of them are out there to this day); some of them so embittered that they joined the anti-war movement. McNamara was a soulless bastard who deserved to be pushed into the river by an enraged Vet. Compared with Johnson and this spreadsheet bureaucrat, Bush and Cheney's reckless interventionism in the Middle East looks pretty mild. To anyone who accuses me of America-bashing, I say America's greatness consists partly in its sense of fair play and its willingness to recognize and correct its shortcomings--e.g., the Civil War and "a new birth of freedom.")
Hendrix was beyond dispute a musical genius (and poet) who was a fucked-up individual and anything but a role model in his personal life, yes; but his musical theme (besides drugs and sex and extra-terrestrials) was Love. He was a typical Hippie in that sense. "Peace and Love" are facile sentimental slogans, certainly, but as far as you can get from today's Leftist hate-mongering.
Most Hippies were self-indulgent, drugged-out, affluent pseudo-anarchists, but only a few poisonous individuals like Bill Ayers and his Weather Underground advocated and practiced violence. Sadly, that's what the Hippie movement evolved into--today's Alinsky-ized Far Left Chicago-style machine politicians destroying every city they control, cynical exploitation of racial grievance, blatant anti-Americanism, crypto-Communism culminating in a traitor named Obama.
Hendrix was no fan of Communism, and in his last years the Black Panthers were already criticizing him for not being (as we now say) "woke" and on board with anti-white identity politics. Unlike them and their modern-day descendants, he was not a hater. And that includes his attitude toward America.
One hallmark of the Left is being offended by complexity. Ideology-driven people are allergic to truth, and the truth is rarely simple. That goes for Hendrix, his version of the Anthem, the life he lived and the times he lived in. If anyone's offended by the fact that I don't see this issue in "black and white", I don't give a fuck. I'm voting for the same man you are.
That's a one-dimensional interpretation of a complicated musical gesture. I hear a highly ambivalent mixture of emotions--anger and grief, yes, but Hendrix served in 26th Airborne, and though he was a fuck-up, he was not dishonorably discharged, as many believe, but discharged on the grounds of "unsuitability — under honorable conditions" (in 1962). He never lost a certain affection for the military, if only for his fellow soldiers, many of whom would go on to die in a war I and eventually more than 1/2 of Americans disapproved of--to say the least. I hear anguish at an America gone wrong with a misguided policy that cost almost 60,000 American lives and millions of Vietnamese lives, North and South--and accomplished less than nothing.
(SIDEBAR: I love my country, and I say fuck you to anyone who says I don't just because I believe we made a tragic mistake getting involved in a civil war in a minor third-world country based on a policy-wonk theory. Did the dominoes fall, did the Chinese take over Vietnam? No, war broke out between the two countries in 1979, and the war involved three Communists nations (add in Cambodia). Our leaders fought the war in total ignorance of the historical geopolitics of the region, which long preceded the Vietnam War, played a part in it, and also figured in intra-Communist war that followed it. McNamara was a shallow technocrat who coldly used the draft to send tens of thousands of American soldiers to their deaths in what he KNEW was an unwinnable war (so did Johnson); he deserved to be pushed into the river by an enraged Vet. Compared with Johnson and his flunkies, Bush and Cheney's endless interventionalist war(s) in the Middle East look pretty mild. To anyone who accuses me of America-bashing, I say America's greatness consists partly in its sense of fair play and its willingness to recognize and correct its shortcomings--e.g., the Civil War and "a new birth of freedom.")
Hendrix was beyond dispute a musical genius (and poet) who was a fucked-up individual and anything but a role model in his personal life, yes; but his musical theme (besides drugs and sex and extra-terrestrials) was Love. He was a typical Hippie in that sense. "Peace and Love" are facile sentimental slogans, certainly, but as far as you can get from today's Leftist hate-mongering.
Most Hippies were self-indulgent, drugged-out, affluent pseudo-anarchists, but only a few poisonous individuals like Bill Ayers and his Weather Underground advocated and practiced violence. Sadly, that's what the Hippie movement evolved into--today's Alinsky-ized Far Left Chicago-style machine politicians destroying every city they control, cynical exploitation of racial grievance, blatant anti-Americanism, crypto-Communism culminating in a traitor named Obama.
Hendrix was no fan of Communism, and in his last years the Black Panthers were already criticizing him for not being (as we now say) "woke" and on board with anti-white identity politics. Unlike them and their modern-day descendants, he was not a hater. And that includes his attitude toward America.
One hallmark of the Left is being offended by complexity. Ideology-driven people are allergic to truth, and the truth is rarely simple. That goes for Hendrix, his version of the Anthem, the life he lived and the times he lived in. If anyone's offended by the fact that I don't see this issue in "black and white", I don't give a fuck. I'm voting for the same man you are.
That's a one-dimensional interpretation of a complicated musical gesture. I hear a highly ambivalent mixture of emotions--anger and grief, yes, but Hendrix served in 26th Airborne, and though he was a fuck-up, he was not dishonorably discharged, as many believe, but discharged on the grounds of "unsuitability — under honorable conditions" (in 1962). He never lost a certain affection for the military, if only for his fellow soldiers, many of whom would go on to die in a war I and eventually more than 1/2 of Americans disapproved of--to say the least. I hear anguish at an America gone wrong with a misguided policy that cost almost 60,000 American lives and millions of Vietnamese lives, North and South--and accomplished less than nothing.
(SIDEBAR: I love my country, and I say fuck you to anyone who says I don't just because I believe we made a tragic mistake getting involved in a civil war in a minor third-world country based on a policy-wonk theory. Did the dominoes fall, did the Chinese take over Vietnam? No, war broke out between the two countries almost as soon as the last American troops had withdrawn. Our leaders fought the war in total ignorance of the historical geopolitics of the region; McNamara was a shallow technocrat who coldly used the draft to send tens of thousands of American soldiers to their deaths in what he KNEW was an unwinnable war (so did Johnson); he deserved to be pushed into the river by an enraged Vet. Compared with Johnson and his flunkies, Bush and Cheney's endless interventionalist endless war(s) in the Middle East look pretty mild. To anyone who accuses me of America-bashing, I say America's greatness consists partly in its sense of fair play and its willingness to recognize and correct its shortcomings--e.g., the Civil War and "a new birth of freedom.")
Hendrix was beyond dispute a musical genius (and poet) who was a fucked-up individual and anything but a role model in his personal life, yes; but his musical theme (besides drugs and sex and extra-terrestrials) was Love. He was a typical Hippie in that sense. "Peace and Love" are facile sentimental slogans, certainly, but as far as you can get from today's Leftist hate-mongering.
Most Hippies were self-indulgent, drugged-out, affluent pseudo-anarchists, but only a few poisonous individuals like Bill Ayers and his Weather Underground advocated and practiced violence. Sadly, that's what the Hippie movement evolved into--today's Alinsky-ized Far Left Chicago-style machine politicians destroying every city they control, cynical exploitation of racial grievance, blatant anti-Americanism, crypto-Communism culminating in a traitor named Obama.
Hendrix was no fan of Communism, and in his last years the Black Panthers were already criticizing him for not being (as we now say) "woke" and on board with anti-white identity politics. Unlike them and their modern-day descendants, he was not a hater. And that includes his attitude toward America.
One hallmark of the Left is being offended by complexity. Ideology-driven people are allergic to truth, and the truth is rarely simple. That goes for Hendrix, his version of the Anthem, the life he lived and the times he lived in. If anyone's offended by the fact that I don't see this issue in "black and white", I don't give a fuck I'm voting for the same man you are.
That's a one-dimensional interpretation of a complicated musical gesture. I hear a highly ambivalent mixture of emotions--anger and grief, yes, but Hendrix served in 26th Airborne, and though he was a fuck-up, he was not dishonorably discharged, as many believe, but discharged on the grounds of "unsuitability — under honorable conditions" (in 1962). He never lost a certain affection for the military, if only for his fellow soldiers, many of whom would go on to die in a war I and eventually more than 1/2 of Americans disapproved of--to say the least. I hear anguish at an America gone wrong with a misguided policy that cost almost 60,000 American lives and millions of Vietnamese lives, North and South--and accomplished less than nothing.
(SIDEBAR: I love my country, and I say fuck you to anyone who says I don't just because I believe we made a tragic mistake getting involved in a civil war in a minor third-world country based on a policy-wonk theory. Did the dominoes fall, did the Chinese take over Vietnam? No, war broke out between the two countries almost as soon as the last American troops had withdrawn. Our leaders fought the war in total ignorance of the historical geopolitics of the region; McNamara was a shallow technocrat who coldly sent tens of thousands of loyal American soldiers to their deaths in what he KNEW was an unwinnable war (so did Johnson); he deserved to be pushed into the river by an enraged Vet. Compared with Johnson and his flunkies, Bush and Cheney's endless interventionalist endless war(s) in the Middle East look pretty mild. To anyone who accuses me of America-bashing, I say America's greatness consists partly in its sense of fair play and its willingness to recognize and correct its shortcomings--e.g., the Civil War and "a new birth of freedom.")
Hendrix was beyond dispute a musical genius (and poet) who was a fucked-up individual and anything but a role model in his personal life, yes; but his musical theme (besides drugs and sex and extra-terrestrials) was Love. He was a typical Hippie in that sense. "Peace and Love" are facile sentimental slogans, certainly, but as far as you can get from today's Leftist hate-mongering.
Most Hippies were self-indulgent, drugged-out, affluent pseudo-anarchists, but only a few poisonous individuals like Bill Ayers and his Weather Underground advocated and practiced violence. Sadly, that's what the Hippie movement evolved into--today's Alinsky-ized Far Left Chicago-style machine politicians destroying every city they control, cynical exploitation of racial grievance, blatant anti-Americanism, crypto-Communism culminating in a traitor named Obama.
Hendrix was no fan of Communism, and in his last years the Black Panthers were already criticizing him for not being (as we now say) "woke" and on board with anti-white identity politics. Unlike them and their modern-day descendants, he was not a hater. And that includes his attitude toward America.
One hallmark of the Left is being offended by complexity. Ideology-driven people are allergic to truth, and the truth is rarely simple. That goes for Hendrix, his version of the Anthem, the life he lived and the times he lived in. If anyone's offended by the fact that I don't see this issue in "black and white", I don't give a fuck I'm voting for the same man you are.