i know i often sound like i'm a marxist, but i'm actually an anarchist. and, one of the things that anarchists tend to be fairly queasy about is this idea of vanguards.

i actually don't claim that vanguards are impossible, i just claim they are inherently counter-revolutionary, because they concentrate power into an exclusive zone. the best you can hope for with a vanguard is that it can carry through with reforms, but more realistically you're just looking at a renewal of the ruling class.

the vanguard movement of the 60s never made it anywhere near to challenging the ruling class. the few isolated attempts seem to have questionable intelligence contacts. consider john kerry's membership in cia frat house skull & bones, for example. it maybe got a little closer to power in canada, but it was implemented through a careful interpretation by the older generation, and hence was largely co-opted.

nonetheless, popular culture presents the middle of the century as a period controlled by this vanguard, which was in truth largely just a popular media phenomenon. i guess it's really a question of context, as if the media industry is presenting it's own history then it's going to narrate it through it's invented counter-culture. but, this is not an accurate people's history.

in truth, the people born after the war were born into a deeply traumatized culture. it is true that america suffered minimal casualties, in comparison to other nations like china and the soviet union, germany and even the uk. in canada, we lost a lot more people. regardless, the expectation that it should have been a lot worse carried on; the threat of nuclear war had every reason to feel real. today, it's hard to deny that a war did happen, through dozens of proxy conflicts, and that this war is as yet unresolved. it is the long war, the ancient cold war. this war may never resolve. it may even be extended into space.

if you were born early enough, and experienced a situation traumatic enough, then one of your earliest memories is no doubt of the red scare. this fear was broadcast through a crude but dangerously effective overwhelming of the senses. as terrible as it no doubt was, there was a need to ensure that people could be deployed against an enemy. the propaganda was essential. such is the nature of the ancient war.

this is what this generation was truly borne into, this overwhelming messaging to hate communism. for some, it was merely a slogan. others interpreted it through nationalism. others sought to internalize the messaging, and still others sought to rationalize it by exploring it intellectually. surely, there must be reasons to hate communism.

and, a small number rebelled and formed a failed vanguard. these ones had the most interesting stories.