Just realized that the Democratic convention is in Chicago this year.  It was also in Chicago in 1968.  That was the first time I took an interest in our national politics.  There were a lot of protests of the Vietnam war.  It was total chaos.  I think Dan Rather, who was a young reporter then, got hit by the police inside the convention hall.  The republicans blamed the democrats for allowing lawlessness.  Ironically, mayor Richard Daly had run the city like a republican would have.  He was very tough on the protesters.  Add to the infighting between the liberals and the centrists of the party, the convention contributed to the defeat of Humphrey by Nixon in the general election.

So will the democratic convention this year in Chicago turn out to be a repeat of 1968?  Will it be a disaster for Biden?  Only time will tell.  But the protests of the Gaza situation seem eerily similar to the protests of Vietnam.  The only thing is, the U.S. is not fighting today in Gaza.  Also, no young men are being drafted today.  But things will be volatile still.  And given the closeness of the election, if the convention is not peaceful, it will hurt Biden.

 As Pro-Palestinian protests rage across the country's college campuses, I find it hard to not say anything about the hypocrisy of so many of the people in power.   For the most part the demonstrations have been peaceful.  Yet many students and faculty member have been arrested.  There are calls from many politicians to send in the National Guards and arrest and kick the students involved out of school.  There have been businesses which fired employees for supporting the Palestinians.  There have been powerful law firms which have said they won't hired those students involved in the protests when they graduate.   Wealthy donors have threatened to take back donations to schools if they continue to allow the protests.  Is there really free speech in our country?

Josh Hawley, Senator from Missouri, is one of those people who advocated the National Guards be deployed to stop the protesters.  This is the same guy who went to Hong Kong to root on the so called democracy seeking students.  Never mind those protesters burned people and subways, built bombs and stormed and took over government buildings.  Yes, sort of like the January 6 insurrection in our country.  Hawley was also photographed giving the insurrectionists a power fist to encourage them.  So Hawley encourages people protesting violently and trying to overthrow governments but is against people who are protesting peacefully.  This is a great example of hypocrisy of those in our government.