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It’s very interesting to compare the usages of the ‘68rs’ i.e. the ‘Radical Left’ activists  that Mr. Lind and Mr. Will argue in their respective essays, on the Occupy Wall Street movement. Both are highly selective historical interpretations, that tell a carefully managed historical tale, but are absolutely incomplete by design. Their respective rhetorical ends are to situate the historical victory of  a ‘Law and Order’ Conservatism at the feet of the nihilistic ‘Left’. Although they reach different conclusions, their use of the “68rs” is what I find fascinating, in their respective attempts at revisionism. The most salient point of both their arguments is that they leave blank two key events in the political life of 1968: the assassination of Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968 and the subsequent assassination of Robert F. Kennedy on June 5, 1968. These two events are crucial to any deeper understanding of the victory of ‘Law and Order’ Conservatism.These shocking, violent murders, of significant persons who represented the possibility of political reconsiliation and redress, can only be argued as traumatic to the national psyche: with that highly determinative to the votes that Americans cast in 1968.To leave these events out is to engage in pure historical dishonesty, by their omission. To further illustrate the deep political fracture of America in 1968, we need only consult the data provided the Presidential election of that year:

9,901,118 votes for George Wallace, 13.5% of vote

31,783,783 votes for Richard Nixon, 43.4% of vote

31,271,839 votes for Hubert Humphrey, 42.7% of vote

(Data provided by Wikipedia)

Mr. Nixon was a .7% victor in 1968. Hardly what could be considered a mandate for ‘Law and Order’ Conservatism.The political turbulence of 1968 cannot be denied, Chicago 1968 etc., but to argue that the ‘68rs’ were responsible, in the broadest terms, for the triumph of Law and Order Conservatism: Nixon, Reagan and their epigones, serves short term rhetorical ends, rather than a fealty to the ethical demands of a rigorous historiography.

Political Observer