[rad-green] “The Great Society” a brill iant play about America’s violence against U.S. bla cks and the people of Vietnam

https://www.thekomisarscoop.com/2019/11/the-great-society-a-brilliant-play-about-americas-violence-against-u-s-blacks-and-the-people-of-vietnam/

*The Komisar Scoop          11/20/19*

*“The Great Society” a brilliant play about America’s violence against U.S.
blacks and the people of Vietnam*

*By Lucy Komisar*


This is an amazing play. With Robert Schenkkan’s 2014 “All the Way,” first
part of his Lyndon Johnson story, it is among the most important historic
American plays.

It could be a Shakespeare play, a tragedy that engulfs a complex,
larger-than-life figure. And one who is brought down by his own hubris. The
story moves between the civil rights movement and the American war against
Vietnam. And because I knew some of the characters, I have strong feelings
about it.
*Brian Cox as Lyndon Baines Johnson, photo Evan Zimmerman.*

It’s done in a way that tells the history as a dramatic story, the dialogue
and events move you along, but it is as powerful and truthful as a
documentary.

First, as Robert Schenkkan tells it, Lyndon Johnson was not as committed to
civil rights as he appeared later. He seemed to care about the poor, albeit
the white poor. Folks, backs bent, hands crabbed, who walked to get
firewood — he brought them electricity. So, when he could act, he cared
about education, Medicare, the right to vote, anti-poverty programs.

But he wanted to be elected in a segregationist South. And he understood
how to deal with the politics, the South – swing votes were the Southern
Democrats and Chicago Mayor Daley, and the equally corrupt black
congressman Adam Powell, shown comically in his favorite Bimini with a
Caribbean umbrella drink, who defeated an education bill, because he wanted
$400G in a personal appropriation.

Of course, the real corruption was Johnson’s bad judgment/cowardice giving
into the deep state on the war against Vietnam.

The play moves between those two major poles of the 60s, civil rights and
Vietnam. The substance is so important that it is worth detailing. The
major characters are all excellent in their roles.

LBJ (the superb Brian Cox) is not in favor of a push for voting rights.
Martin Luther King (very fine Grantham Coleman) says: “Despite your
promise, you are not prepared to even offer a voting rights bill.
LBJ  – right now –
MLK  – or provide us any meaningful protection while we demonstrate against
policies which you yourself deplore, while simultaneously making us
responsible for any violence that local authorities unleash on our
non-violent demonstrators.”

He is told keep the pressure on. Don’t give them excuses.
*Grantham Coleman as Martin Luther King Jr., photo Evan Zimmerman.*

King says “This is the South. They don’t need excuses.” And FBI provocateur
Edgar Hoover continues to spy on him. To try to take him down.

Meanwhile, a Saigon coup is being plotted against a dictator too weak to
carry out the plans of his American sponsor. And Johnson, arrogantly: “I
don’t want to be the president who lost Asia.” When did the U.S.  *have* Asia?
Of course, this is reflection of American imperialism, the policy of a
government which believes it should run the world.

Back in the South, people who try to register to vote are beaten, shot by
white cops. Jimmy Lee Jackson (Christopher Livingston) who tries to
register to vote is murdered, tells of it.

Stokely Carmichael (I liked the insouciant Marchant Davis) in overalls,
reports that LBJ won’t send people to Selma for the march to Montgomery to
protest the attack on Freedom Riders and the death of Jackson.

Back to Vietnam, Defense (War) Secretary McNamara (Matthew Rauch) and
Pentagon General Westmoreland (Brian Dykstra) are getting ready to pump up
the killing with a massive “Operation Rolling Thunder.”

Poor Vice President, the once liberal Hubert Humphrey (Richard Thomas)
declares with great irony that “this escalation is going to be very
confusing to the American people. All we have is a very thin claim of
National Security.”

And LBJ, reflecting American government leaders’ typical stupidity and
cowardice, declares, “If I don’t act, the right-wingers will hammer me for
being soft on communism. I don’t need to worry about the Left.” (Better to
kill millions, isn’t it?) But LBJ better think again about the Left in his
pocket!
*Brian Cox as LBJ and Bryce Pinkham as Senator Robert F. Kennedy, photo
Evan Zimmerman.*

There’s a funny aside of some American Medical Association officials
meeting Sen. Robert Kennedy. The old white guys argue that “Medicare will
hurt the sacred relationship between doctor and bank account.” Oh, no, they
said “doctor and patient!”

And Johnson: “If we lose Vietnam, what’s next? Thailand? Indonesia?
Australia?” Was he that stupid? So, Vietnam was taken over by the
communists, and Thailand and Indonesia? Australia? Nothing.

The play sets out the good, Medicare, some steps on civil rights, against
his macho insanity on Vietnam.

We see a photograph of civil rights marchers attacked on the Selma bridge,
March 1965.

SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) leader John Lewis
(Marchant Davis) declares, “I don’t know how President Johnson can send
troops to Vietnam but he can’t send troops to Selma, Alabama!”

Fifty-seven marchers are hospitalized. The only arrest is of two violent
policemen who by mistake assault an FBI agent. King will lead the march the
next day.

The drama: Stokely Carmichael: “That is your bridge! You gotta right to
march across it! If Sheriff Jim Clark tries to stop you, what’re you gonna
do?”

Crowd: “March across it!” And they do.

Attacks, then the cowardly Congress is shamed into passing the Voting
Rights Act. And King moves to the north, to Watts. August 1965. Where the
slogan of the riots is “burn baby burn.” Ironic, since that is what the
U.S. troops are doing to the Vietnamese. On the screen flashes the numbers
who are dying there.

As War Secretary, McNamara, with trademark slicked hair, talks about
sending more troops. Johnson declares the point is not to draw attention to
it. “We want to avoid any premature publicity.” Not to worry, the media is
in his pocket, just shout “anti-communism.”
*Brian Cox as LBJ, Richard Thomas as Hubert Humphrey and Gordon Clapp as J.
Edgar Hoover, photo Evan Zimmerman.*

Humphrey tells Johnson: “A land war in Asia will be ruinous to everything
we’re trying to do.” He keeps saying it is a change in policy, but he
doesn’t have the guts to say it out loud.

June 1966 Greenwood Miss. Stokely is arrested for 27th time. He declares,
“No Vietcong ever called me nigger.” A bit of a black accent. Stokely went
to Bronx High School of Science, I knew him in the early 60s, and he
sounded like any New Yorker. But, that’s okay!

Now we get a focus on Chicago, and suburban Skokie where people fought
blacks who wanted to live there.

More interesting, the role of Cointelpro, the FBI operation to infiltrate
the civil rights movement and to run provocations.

The South Vietnam military is running away from battles, the situation is
dire, the Pentagon wants an increase of 300,000 soldiers, to increase the
draft by reducing standards.

McNamara wants another $12 billion. Wants more Vietcong dead. But there are
also American dead.

And the FBI’s Cointelpro aims to discredit the civil rights movement.
Massive surveillance. It would get more sophisticated in another 50 years.

Protests:* “Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today.”*

By the March 68 bombings, 27,587 Americans had died. Few in the U.S. cared
about the Vietnamese. The massive citizen protests forced Johnson to
declare he would not run for president again.

This is an incredibly important play. And brilliantly performed by Brian
Cox and the others. It should be staged around the U.S. in major theater,
community and college settings.

“The Great Society. <http://greatsocietybroadway.com/>” Written by Robert
Schenkkan, directed by Bill Rauch. The Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln
Center, 150 W 65th St, NYC. 212-239-6200. Opened Oct 1, 2019, closes Nov
30, 2019. Running time: 2:40. 11/20/19.

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