The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Sixties w/ David Talbot

On this edition of Parallax Views, can any valuable lessons be gleaned from examining both the accomplishments and failings of radical activist leaders fighting for Civil Rights, an end to the Vietnam War, and economic justice in the 1960s? In their new book By the Light of Burning Dreams: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Second American Revolution the brother and sister duo of David and Margaret Talbot make the case, through the profiling of a number of radical political activists in the 60s, that there is. Some of the figures and topics covered in the book include the antiwar activism of Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Black Panthers, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, the feminist health collective Jain Collective and pro-choice rights, the LGBTQ+ and the Stonewall Uprisings, the United Farm Workers and Cesar Chavez, and more.

We begin this conversation by discussing David's relationship to the 60s and his issues with Harvard Boys School as a student who opposed the draft and Vietnam War. We then move onto a number of topics related to By the Light of Burning Dreams including the life and activism of Tom Hayden, Jane Fond, and the Red Family; the radicalism of Martin Luther King, Jr.; the question of drugs being introduced into the counterculture to hinder activism; leadership vs. leaderless resistance; J. Edgar Hoover's COINTELPRO and the dangers faced by radical activists of the era; the mistakes made by activist leaders in the 60s and the lessons we can learn from those mistakes; the Native American Movement and Russell Means; and more.

Also stick around for till the end of the show to hear David give a good story about notorious B-movie filmmaker Ed Wood, who cast David's Hollywood actor father in GLEND OR GLENDA and PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.!