It's 1968 all over again

There is nothing new under the sun! (Ecclesiastes 1:9) We’ve been here before:
Protest—Pandemic-more Protest. The difference this time is there is more money and organization on a global scale involved.

IT’S 1968 ALL OVER AGAIN

PANDEMIC

The first recorded instance of the outbreak appeared on 13 July 1968 in Hong Kong. There is a possibility that this outbreak actually began in mainland China before spreading to Hong Kong, but this is unconfirmed.[6][7] By the end of July 1968, extensive outbreaks were reported in Vietnam and Singapore. Despite the lethality of the 1957 Asian Flu in China, little improvement had been made regarding the handling of such epidemics. The Times newspaper was the first source to report this new possible pandemic.
By September 1968, the flu had reached India, the Philippines, northern Australia, and Europe. That same month, the virus entered California, carried by troops returning from the Vietnam War, but did not become widespread in the United States until December 1968. It reached Japan, Africa, and South America by 1969.[8]
In Berlin, the excessive number of deaths led to corpses being stored in subway tunnels, and in West Germany, garbage collectors had to bury the dead due to insufficient undertakers. In total, East and West Germany registered 60,000 estimated deaths. In some areas of France, half the workforce was bedridden, and manufacturing suffered large disruptions due to absenteeism. The British postal and train services were also severely disrupted.[9]
The outbreak in Hong Kong, where population density was greater than 6,000 people per square kilometer, reached maximum intensity in two weeks; it lasted six months in total from July to December 1968. Worldwide deaths from this virus peaked in December 1968 and January 1969. By that time, public health warnings[10] and virus descriptions[11] were widely issued in the scientific and medical journals.
In comparison to other pandemics of the 20th century, the Hong Kong flu yielded a low death rate.[8] The disease was allowed to spread through the population without restrictions on the economic activity until a vaccine became available four months after it started.[9]
The H3N2 virus returned during the following 1969/1970 flu season, resulting in a second, deadlier wave of deaths.[1] It remains in circulation today as a strain of the seasonal flu.[1]
Clinical data[edit]
Flu symptoms typically lasted four to five days but some persisted for up to two weeks.[8]
Virology[edit]

The influenza viruses that caused the Hong Kong flu (magnified approximately 100,000 times)
The Hong Kong flu was the first known outbreak of the H3N2 strain, though there is serologic evidence of H3N1 infections in the late 19th century. The virus was isolated in Queen Mary Hospital.
Both the H2N2 and H3N2 pandemic flu strains contained genes from avian influenza viruses. The new subtypes arose in pigs coinfected with avian and human viruses and were soon transferred to humans. Swine were considered the original "intermediate host" for influenza because they supported the reassortment of divergent subtypes. However, other hosts appear capable of similar coinfection (for example, many poultry species), and direct transmission of avian viruses to humans is possible. H1N1, associated with the 1918 flu pandemic, may have been transmitted directly from birds to humans.[12]
The Hong Kong flu strain shared internal genes and the neuraminidase with the 1957 Asian flu (H2N2). Accumulated antibodies to the neuraminidase or internal proteins may have resulted in many fewer casualties than most pandemics. However, cross-immunity within and between subtypes of influenza is poorly understood.
The reproduction rate of the flu in this period was estimated at 1.80.[13]
Mortality[edit]
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that in total, the virus killed one million people worldwide,[14] from its beginning in July 1968 until the outbreak faded during the winter of 1969–70.[15] The CDC estimated that about 34,000 to 100,000 people died in the U.S; most excess deaths were in those 65 and older.[16][17] However, fewer people died during this pandemic than in previous pandemics for several reasons:[14]
1. Some immunity against the N2 flu virus may have been retained in populations struck by the Asian Flu strains which had been circulating since 1957;
2. The pandemic did not gain momentum until near the winter school holidays, thus limiting the infection spreading;
3. Improved medical care gave vital support to the very ill;
4. The availability of antibiotics was more effective against secondary bacterial infections.
For this pandemic, there were two geographically distinct mortality patterns. In North America (the United States and Canada), the first pandemic season (1968/69) was more severe than the second (1969/70). In the "smoldering" pattern seen in Europe and Asia (United Kingdom, France, Japan, and Australia), the second pandemic season was two to five times more severe than the first.[18]


PROTEST/RIOTS

The protests of 1968 comprised a worldwide escalation of social conflicts, predominantly characterized by popular rebellions against the military and the bureaucracy.
In the United States, these protests marked a turning point for the civil rights movement, which produced revolutionary movements like the Black Panther Party. In reaction to the Tet Offensive, protests also sparked a broad movement in opposition to the Vietnam War all over the United States as well as in London, Paris, Berlin, and Rome. Mass movements grew not only in the United States but also in most European countries. The most spectacular manifestation of these was the May 1968 protests in France, in which students linked up with wildcat strikes of up to ten million workers, and for a few days, the movement seemed capable of overthrowing the government. In many other countries, struggles against dictatorships, state repression, and colonization were also marked by protests in 1968, such as the beginning of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City, and the escalation of guerrilla warfare against the military dictatorship in Brazil.
In countries in the Soviet Union, there were protests against lack of freedom of speech and violation of other civil rights by the Communist bureaucratic and military elites. In Central and Eastern Europe, there were widespread protests that escalated, particularly in the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, in Warsaw, in Poland, and in Yugoslavia.

History[edit]

The Chicago Police riot[edit]

Chicago Police helmet and billy club circa 1968 (photographed 2012)
On August 28, 1968, around 10,000 protesters gathered in Grant Park for the demonstration, intending to march to the International Amphitheater where the convention was being held.[18] At approximately 3:30 p.m., a young man lowered the American flag that was there.[39] The police broke through the crowd and began beating the young man, while the crowd pelted the police with food, rocks, and chunks of concrete.[57] The chants of some of the protesters shifted from "hell no, we won't go" to "pigs are whores".[58]
Tom Hayden, one of the leaders of Students for a Democratic Society, encouraged protesters to move out of the park to ensure that if the police used tear gas on them, it would have to be done throughout the city.[59] The police soon gained the upper hand after firing tear gas and chased the demonstrators down the streets, beating them with clubs and rifle butts before arresting them.[18] The amount of tear gas used to suppress the protesters was so great that it made its way to the Conrad Hilton hotel, where it disturbed Hubert Humphrey while in his shower.[58] The police sprayed demonstrators and bystanders with mace and were taunted by some protesters with chants of "kill, kill, kill".[60] The police responded by shouting "Get out of here, you cocksuckers!".[37] The police indiscriminately attacked all who were present, regardless if they involved in the demonstrations or not.[37] Dick Gregory, the comedian who attended the protests, told the crowd that the police were merely following the orders of Mayor Daley and "the crooks downtown".[37]
The MOBE leaders then decided to march down Michigan Avenue to the Conrad Hilton hotel where many of the Democratic delegates were staying.[37] The Illinois National Guard guarding the hotel fired tear gas while the police moved in to beat the demonstrators.[37] The police assault in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel on the evening of August 28 became the most famous image of the Chicago demonstrations of 1968. The entire event took place live under television lights for 17 minutes with the crowd chanting, "The whole world is watching".[58] Samuel Brown, one of the organizers for Senator McCarthy, lamented the violence, saying: "Instead of nice young people ringing doorbells, the public saw the image of mobs shouting obscenities and disrupting the city".[18] Brown stated the demonstrations at Chicago had been a disaster for the anti-war movement, as the American people saw the protesters as the trouble-makers and the heavy-handed police response as justified.[18] The general feeling at the time was the hippies were intent upon destroying everything good in America and the Chicago police had acted correctly in beating such dangerous anti-social types bloody.[21] 
In a telephone call to President Johnson on Saturday 7 September 1968 Chicago Mayor Richard Daley described some of the activity undertaken by the elements of the protesters, which he described as "Professional Trouble Makers", these activities included the burning of the American Flag, raising of the Viet Cong Flag and throwing both manure and urine at the police.[61]
In its report Rights in Conflict (better known as the Walker Report), the Chicago Study Team that investigated the violent clashes between police and protesters at the convention stated that the police response was characterized by:
unrestrained and indiscriminate police violence on many occasions, particularly at night. That violence was made all the more shocking by the fact that it was often inflicted upon persons who had broken no law, disobeyed no order, made no threat. These included peaceful demonstrators, onlookers, and large numbers of residents who were simply passing through, or happened to live in, the areas where confrontations were occurring.[62][63]
The Walker Report, "headed by an independent observer from Los Angeles police – concluded that: “Individual policemen, and lots of them, committed violent acts far in excess of the requisite force for crowd dispersal or arrest. To read dispassionately the hundreds of statements describing at firsthand the events of Sunday and Monday nights is to become convinced of the presence of what can only be called a police riot.”"[64]
Illinois delegates (including then-Mayor Richard J. Daley and his son future mayor Richard M. Daley) react to Senator Abraham Ribicoff's criticism of the Chicago Police. Reports differ as to whether the elder Daley shouted "You faker!" or "Fuck you, you Jew son of a bitch."[65][66]
Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff used his nominating speech for George McGovern to report the violence going on outside the convention hall and said that "With George McGovern as President of the United States, we wouldn't have to have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago!"[67] Mayor Daley responded to his remark with something unintelligible through the television sound, although lip-readers throughout America claimed to have observed him shouting, "Fuck you, you Jew son of a bitch." Defenders of the mayor would later claim that he was calling Ribicoff a faker,[65][66] a charge denied by Daley and refuted by Mike Royko's reporting.[68] Ribicoff replied: "How hard it is to accept the truth!" That night, NBC News had been switching back and forth between images of the violence to the festivities over Humphrey's victory in the convention hall, highlighting the division in the Democratic Party.[69]
According to The Guardian, "[a]fter four days and nights of violence, 668 people had been arrested, 425 demonstrators were treated at temporary medical facilities, 200 were treated on the spot, 400 given first aid for tear gas exposure and 110 went to the hospital. A total of 192 police officers were injured."[70]
After the Chicago protests, some demonstrators believed the majority of Americans would side with them over what had happened in Chicago, especially because of police behavior.[70] The controversy over the war in Vietnam overshadowed their cause.[47] Daley shared he had received 135,000 letters supporting his actions and only 5,000 condemning them. Public opinion polls demonstrated that the majority of Americans supported the Mayor's tactics.[71] It was often commented through the popular media that on that evening, America decided to vote for Richard Nixon.[72]
After the convention, which had very publicly exposed the fault-lines between hawkish and dovish Democrats, Humphrey was 22 points behind Nixon in the polls.[31] By contrast to the violence and chaos in Chicago, the Republican Convention in Miami had been a model of order and unity, which made Nixon appear better qualified to be president as even Humphrey himself conceded in private.[31]
On 30 September 1968, Humphrey gave a speech in Salt Lake City that he had intended to deliver at the convention in Chicago, saying he was willing to unconditionally stop the bombing of North Vietnam to break the deadlock in the peace talks in Paris.[73] (Which put him at odds with President Johnson.)[28] At this point, Humphrey who was behind in the polls saw his numbers began to rise, and Nixon was certainly concerned in October 1968 that he might lose the election.[74] By late October 1968, Humphrey had a slight lead with 44% intending to vote for him compared to 43% for Nixon.[75] The election of 1968 was one of the closest ever in American history with Nixon winning 31.7 million votes, Humphrey 31.2 million votes, and Wallace 10 million votes.[75]
The Chicago Eight[edit]
Main article: Chicago Seven
After Chicago, the Justice Department meted out charges of conspiracy and incitement to riot in connection with the violence at Chicago. This created the Chicago Eight, consisting of protesters Abbie Hoffman, Tom Hayden, David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale.[76] Demonstrations were held daily during the trial, organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the Young Lords led by Jose Cha-Cha Jimenez, and the local Black Panther Party led by Chairman Fred Hampton. In February 1970, five of the remaining seven Chicago Conspiracy defendants (Seale's charges had been separated from the rest) were convicted on the charge of intent to incite a riot while crossing state lines, but none were found guilty of conspiracy.
Judge Julius Hoffman sentenced the defendants and their attorneys to jail terms ranging from two-and-a-half months to four years for contempt of court.[77] In 1972, the convictions were reversed on appeal, and the government declined to bring the case to trial again.[76][78]

The two bookends of destruction by the anti-war and race riots along with the Hong Kong Flu in 1968 were:

SUMMER OF LOVE

Before the Hong Kong flu hit and the political riots broke out there was the Summer of Love (Spring-Summer 1967) where a group of the young idealist wanted to show the world peace and love in the Haight district of San Francisco and Golden Gate Park.

WOODSTOCK
Hopefully, this all ends with an event like Woodstock (Aug 15-18, 1969) where thousands converged to listen to music and have fun and care for each other.

It's too bad that we can't get rid of the bad stuff in the middle and just "get along". Where does all the hate come from?