The Romance of Resistance

Friday, February 6, 2026

The ’60s have come to be viewed in a faint romantic glow – a time when civil rights were asserted, an unjust war was stopped and people celebrated peace and love.  Heroes were born in the 1960’s – the girl screaming over the dead body at Kent State –  protesters standing against water cannons in the South.  But that’s the thing about images – they are always prettier than reality.

As a young boy I wanted to be a superhero, desperately.  The closest I could come to flying was when I jumped out of a swing – you know, pump the thing as high as you can and then at the forward apogee of the swing let it launch you into space.  I did this continuously, determined to, while I was in the air, assume the face down, arms forward position that Superman classically flew in.  After weeks of effort, I made it, got there, nailed it.  But my joy was most momentary as in my most persistent efforts I had neglected how to calculate a landing.  And so, I landed on my face and belly, fully stretched out – knocking the wind out of me and making considerable grass burns on my face.  A tearful “Mommmmmm!!!” carried forth as soon as I could breath again and let’s not remember cleaning out those grass burns.   Being Superman was not all it was cracked up to be – the image on my TV was much prettier than the reality.

Then there is the fact that a hero, especially a superhero, is only as good as his or her nemesis.  Superman without Luther is dull.  The Hulk’s story is all about Bruce Banner’s psychological difficulties because “No one is stronger than Hulk,” so the Hulk has to be his own enemy.  Despite what the movies and comics try to tell you, Captain America is at his absolute best fighting the Red Skull, trying to revive Nazism, again, even in the 1990’s.  Without the Red Skull, Cap is just over-muscled and posing like a professional wrestler.

The 60’s had genuine villains – at least when it came to civil rights.  Racism was very real and very ugly.  It is impossible to see racism today if you have witnessed the “Whites Only” signs, and heard the shouts of “Out of my neighborhood ni^^$#” in the segregated south as I did in my youth.  Vietnam is something of a different story.  Resistance to communism was a worthy cause, but the war was poorly executed and created countless unnecessary deaths on our side.  The war became justifiably unpopular, but the villainy of communism was real, the problem was the villainy of LBJ trying to micromanage the war.  But the overwhelming villainy of segregation gave all the protesting and fuming an air of respectability.

The problem is we don’t have that kind of villainy afoot today, at least not within our own boundaries.  And if there is a great villain these days, it is the evil we have imported with drugs, fraud and death in tow.  But because that evil comes in a package of color, those clinging to the past, wanting desperately to be heroes have declared the evil to be good, the good to be evil and go about their swashbuckling only to land on their faces and bellies, not really heroes at all.

Reality is much uglier than the images. We need to live in reality.