Oregon's Woodstock (1970). Or, where have all the good Republicans gone?

[99th_Monkey]

What our nation sorely needs is more Republicans like Dwight Eisenhower, Wayne Morse,
Mark Hatfield, and Oregon's Governor in 1970, Tom McCall. These men had remarkable
leadership qualities. For example, check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_I

Here's OR's Republican Gov. Tom McCall's 15-minute speech, announcing Vortex
One, a state-sanctioned but grass-roots free 3-day hippy love-in musik festival. The "public
purpose" being conspicuously served by the festival, was to avert the specter of violent
confrontation between two antithetically political foes: The Dick Nixon himself was
scheduled to give a pro-war pep talk to the American Legion (a very conservative RW pro-
military group of Viet Nam War Hawks), and the SDS-affiliated "People's Army Jamboree"
(anti-establishment, anti-military activists openly advocating "world revolution&quot . McCall
just lays out what the "issue" is (high likelihood of violent confrontation), and announces
what he is doing about it -- hand the peaceniks an olive branch. It was truly a masterful
move, despite the fact of an occasional helicopter and the barely visible National Guard
presence on the surrounding hilltops.

Here are two video clips of the actual event, the second one being an amazing 30-minute
historical OPB documentary with lots of actually footage (warning: some nudity)

Link to OPB "Vortex 1" documentary:
http://www.opb.org/programs/oregonexperience/programs/player/28-Vortex-I

Yes, I was actually there, with my first wife. We had one of those old Army tents, canvas
that was super-heavy, and we had to walk in from our parking place for about 2 miles.
There was all kinds of misfits thrown together in the revelry, from Hippies to Hell's Angels,
plenty of nudity, drugs, free delicious food, first rate bands playing music virtually 24/7.

Vortex 1 was the ONLY state-sponsored rock festival in U.S. history, and it was very wise,
logistically adroit and highly effective public policy-in-action, being masterfully executed
ahead of the game, so as to shape events. i.e.. aside from some nasty initial skermishes
between protesters and police, there were NO other significant violent confrontations
in Portland that weekend.

[asjr]

1. The "good" Republicans died off a long time ago. I am beginning

to feel nostalgic about Strom Thurmond!

[99th_Monkey]

2. Totally! Morse, Hatfield and Ike were like "commies" in GOP disguise. ~nt

[HiPointDem]

3. interesting.

[PSPS]

4. I remember that

Nixon cancelled and sent Agnew instead.

A few years after this, shortly after he left office, I had the pleasure of having breakfast with Governor McCall and his lovely wife Audrey in Lincoln City (a coastal town.) He was a devoted environmentalist and responsible for many good land use policies that still exist today in Oregon, such as the "Beach Bill" that makes all Oregon beaches public property. He was a very popular governor (and a Republican!) And he never lost his mild Massachusetts accent.

[99th_Monkey]

5. Yes, that's him. Lucky you to have had a meal with Gov. McCall.

I had the good fortune of lunching with US Senator Mark O. Hattfield once,
back in the 80s, who is another Oregon Republican who was a true statesman,
who courageously stood up for peace when the Viet Nam War drums were
beating the loudest.

This blast from the past is such a mind blower, because today's GOP is so very
different from that. About all that remains of the GOP today is a carcass consisting
of the most loony-toons bat-shit crazy bunch of Bozos to ever aspire to public
office in this great nation.