| TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG VOLUME IV THE ROGUES OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND OTHER SOCIAL MISFITS Chapter 20 |
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1970s; THE DISILLUSIONMENT DECADE
Florida’s population reached 7,000,000 up from 5, 000,000 just ten years earlier. It would double by 1990. The first
million came to Florida by the 1920s.
1970 a monumental event happened that went almost unnoticed in American history. The United States of America
for the first time in its history became a net importer of petroleum and would forever after roam the world
overthrowing government after government to keep its insatiable addiction to oil satisfied on its gluttonous
hydrocarbon high.
It had become every Gringo’s inalienable right to consume every last drop of oil on the planet earth with a 50 mile
daily commute and cool their 5,000 square foot home with a mega-ton mega-watt air conditioner.
The Americans are financed into 5,000 sq, foot climate controlled decadent domiciles with 200 amp electrical
services…damn the expense!
(The advent of air-conditioning for private homes became a turning point in the avalanche of Florida’s population
explosion.)
Millions of Americans marked the first “Earth Day” with anti-pollution demonstrations.
At Kent State University in Ohio; National Guard troops fire on anti-war peacenik protesters and killed four.
1971 The voting age is dropped to 18…”old enough to fight is old enough to drink!”
The U. S. carries out massive bombings of North Vietnam and Nixon mines all of North Vietnam’s harbors.
The Pentagon Papers came to be published by the Beacon Press thanks to whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.
The New York Times first published excerpts from these top-secret documents in June 1971. The Beacon Press, a
Unitarian Universalistic Association - came to publish the complete 7,000 pages that exposed the true history of U.S.
involvement in Vietnam.
This story of America’s fraudulent involvement in the Vietnam War has rarely been told in its entirety and has been
hushed up over the years by covert means dating back to Henry Kissinger, who once described Daniel Ellsberg as;
"the world's most dangerous man."
We have 140,000 troops on the ground and we are NOT winning the war!
1972 President Nixon and his wife visit communist China.
Governor George Wallace is shot while campaigning for president and civil rights tensions are high.
President Nixon goes to Moscow and signs an arms pact.
The Nixon Watergate scandal/cover-up begins.
1973 The Watergate cover-up becomes a can of worms for the Nixon presidency.
Roe versus Wade; The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that a state may not prevent a woman from having an abortion
during the first three months of her pregnancy.
North Vietnam released 590 prisoners of war after the Paris peace talks.
The government officially ends the military draft which had been initiated in 1940 before American involvement in
WWII.
In Latin America the U. S. is covertly involved in the violent over throw of the governments of; Chile, Argentina,
Guatemala, Bolivia, Peru, Nicaragua and El Salvador.
Vice President Agnew scandalously leaves office and Gerald Ford takes his place.
A total ban on oil exports to the U.S. was imposed by Arab oil-producing nations after the outbreak of the Arab-
Israeli war. The effect of this Arab oil embargo instantly brought America to its knees and sent it into recession
coupled with out of control inflation that was in large part brought about by out-of-control war spending.
25 cent a gallon gas quickly became $2.00 a gallon gas and was cleverly marketed to the public by rationing each
customer to a $5.00 purchase and people eagerly stood in long lines to be screwed by the oil companies. The net
result was that gas-hogs were out and economy cars and bicycles were in.
1974 Nixon resigned as he was in the process of being impeached.
Gerald Ford becomes president and immediately pardons Nixon.
1975 The U. S. launches an evacuation of its troops and bails out of Vietnam, next South Vietnam surrenders to
communist North Vietnam.
Illegal CIA operations included illicit records on 300,000 persons as well as infiltration into black, anti-war and
political movements were investigated by a panel headed by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.
1976 The U. S. celebrates its bi-centennial on July 4th with Liberty and Justice for ALL…except of course minorities
and women.
The US population topes 200 million.
1977 President Carter launches a big campaign to give away the Panama Canal and he is successful.
President Jimmy Carter pardons more than 10,000 Vietnam draft dodgers on the grounds that the Vietnam War was
illegal and immoral.
(In a country that was politically divided President Carter’s stand on the Panama Canal issue and his pardon of the
draft dodgers made him very unpopular with a lot of people. Also the crushing war debt inherited from previous
administrations, two Arab oil embargos and former President Nixon’s price and wage freeze sent inflation spiraling
out of control and it reached an astonishing 22% under Carter. This stagnated the economy and ultimately Jimmy
Carter became a one-term president.)
A super patriot, a peacenik and a person of impeccable moral standards, Carter went on throughout his life to set a
high standard of admirable human conduct.
1978 Chrysler gets bailed out of bankruptcy by the federal government.
Florida’s famous adorable American beauty film star and spokeswoman for the orange juice industry, Anita Bryant
goes all out to campaign against gays…and the joke going around was; “orange juice makes you queer.”
1979 Ninety American embassy workers are taken hostage in Tehran, Iran in a protest against America’s
involvement in the over throw of their democratically elected president and the subsequent role the U.S. played
along with the British in siphoning off the country’s oil reserves.
1980 President Carter takes punitive measures against USSR and backs the rebels fighting Russia in Afghanistan.
At President Carter’s request the U.S. Olympic committee voted against U. S. participation in the Moscow Summer
Olympics.
John Denver, The Rolling Stones, Tom T. Hall and Jimmy Buffet sang the songs that were inspirational to the
dropout, love-in, spaced-out, peacenik, flower children and back to the earth 70s protesters.
Authors like Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson and Robert Pirsig, famous for his book Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance, fit these frustrated and troubled times of a divided America on an emotional rollercoaster.
So ends another decade in American history. The U.S. has less than 5% foreign born citizens the lowest percentage
in its history.
GEORGE TAPPIN AND THE ARAB OIL EMBARGOS;
Our dear old friend George Tappin came up in a hardscrabble existence and made his own way in life as best he
could.
One of George’s biggest thrills was to own a “long car” and as he always said in later years; “John, women got the
first thirty years of my life and GM got the rest.” Another colorful statement George made in that regard was; “I want
a big house, a young wife and a long car.”
Needless to say the automobile salesmen always loved to see George coming.
Wouldn’t you just know it when the Arab oil embargos of the 1970s shocked the American motorists into instantly
buying economy cars one of the first to succumb to this new wave of dump the gas hog and down-size into a nifty-
thrifty diminutive vehicle was our dear old friend George.
Well, not only was this the era of economy cars but it also happened to be when non-leaded gasoline was being
priced into the market by government sanctions.
A clever gimmick employed by government sanction was to make the fill tubes of the new non-lead consuming
vehicles smaller than the standard gas pump nozzles. The idea being that you would have no alternative when filling
the tank of your new non-lead using vehicle but to use the new lead-free gas that came out of the smaller gas pump
nozzle.
At this same time of governmental mandated clean air programs; a new device known as a catalytic converter was
installed on all gasoline engines in their exhaust system to superheat the exhaust fumes and break down harmful
environmental emissions.
(If you burned leaded fuel in these engines fitted with a catalytic converter the result would soon be that your engine
would suffer a distinct lack of power as the catalytic converter clogged up and this condition could eventually lead to
burnt valves among other things.)
Well, George bought his nifty-thrifty diminutive vehicle to save money and pumping in the higher priced lead-free
gasoline just didn’t make any sense to him so he naturally remedied the situation and knocked out the gas fill pipe
restrictor that only let you fill your new car with lead-free gas.
Now George was again happy with his nifty-thrifty diminutive vehicle but he still missed his long car.
In a couple of weeks when George came by to visit us he began to complain that his new little economy car just didn’
t seem to have the power it once had. In fact George even went as far as to say that his car was getting so feeble
that it would hardly make it over the painted centerline on the highway!
The net result of this all was that when George finally took his feeble little nifty-thrifty diminutive vehicle to the dealer
to get it fixed, the repair bill was so high that it would have bought him another car.
next chapter
Florida’s population reached 7,000,000 up from 5, 000,000 just ten years earlier. It would double by 1990. The first
million came to Florida by the 1920s.
1970 a monumental event happened that went almost unnoticed in American history. The United States of America
for the first time in its history became a net importer of petroleum and would forever after roam the world
overthrowing government after government to keep its insatiable addiction to oil satisfied on its gluttonous
hydrocarbon high.
It had become every Gringo’s inalienable right to consume every last drop of oil on the planet earth with a 50 mile
daily commute and cool their 5,000 square foot home with a mega-ton mega-watt air conditioner.
The Americans are financed into 5,000 sq, foot climate controlled decadent domiciles with 200 amp electrical
services…damn the expense!
(The advent of air-conditioning for private homes became a turning point in the avalanche of Florida’s population
explosion.)
Millions of Americans marked the first “Earth Day” with anti-pollution demonstrations.
At Kent State University in Ohio; National Guard troops fire on anti-war peacenik protesters and killed four.
1971 The voting age is dropped to 18…”old enough to fight is old enough to drink!”
The U. S. carries out massive bombings of North Vietnam and Nixon mines all of North Vietnam’s harbors.
The Pentagon Papers came to be published by the Beacon Press thanks to whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.
The New York Times first published excerpts from these top-secret documents in June 1971. The Beacon Press, a
Unitarian Universalistic Association - came to publish the complete 7,000 pages that exposed the true history of U.S.
involvement in Vietnam.
This story of America’s fraudulent involvement in the Vietnam War has rarely been told in its entirety and has been
hushed up over the years by covert means dating back to Henry Kissinger, who once described Daniel Ellsberg as;
"the world's most dangerous man."
We have 140,000 troops on the ground and we are NOT winning the war!
1972 President Nixon and his wife visit communist China.
Governor George Wallace is shot while campaigning for president and civil rights tensions are high.
President Nixon goes to Moscow and signs an arms pact.
The Nixon Watergate scandal/cover-up begins.
1973 The Watergate cover-up becomes a can of worms for the Nixon presidency.
Roe versus Wade; The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that a state may not prevent a woman from having an abortion
during the first three months of her pregnancy.
North Vietnam released 590 prisoners of war after the Paris peace talks.
The government officially ends the military draft which had been initiated in 1940 before American involvement in
WWII.
In Latin America the U. S. is covertly involved in the violent over throw of the governments of; Chile, Argentina,
Guatemala, Bolivia, Peru, Nicaragua and El Salvador.
Vice President Agnew scandalously leaves office and Gerald Ford takes his place.
A total ban on oil exports to the U.S. was imposed by Arab oil-producing nations after the outbreak of the Arab-
Israeli war. The effect of this Arab oil embargo instantly brought America to its knees and sent it into recession
coupled with out of control inflation that was in large part brought about by out-of-control war spending.
25 cent a gallon gas quickly became $2.00 a gallon gas and was cleverly marketed to the public by rationing each
customer to a $5.00 purchase and people eagerly stood in long lines to be screwed by the oil companies. The net
result was that gas-hogs were out and economy cars and bicycles were in.
1974 Nixon resigned as he was in the process of being impeached.
Gerald Ford becomes president and immediately pardons Nixon.
1975 The U. S. launches an evacuation of its troops and bails out of Vietnam, next South Vietnam surrenders to
communist North Vietnam.
Illegal CIA operations included illicit records on 300,000 persons as well as infiltration into black, anti-war and
political movements were investigated by a panel headed by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.
1976 The U. S. celebrates its bi-centennial on July 4th with Liberty and Justice for ALL…except of course minorities
and women.
The US population topes 200 million.
1977 President Carter launches a big campaign to give away the Panama Canal and he is successful.
President Jimmy Carter pardons more than 10,000 Vietnam draft dodgers on the grounds that the Vietnam War was
illegal and immoral.
(In a country that was politically divided President Carter’s stand on the Panama Canal issue and his pardon of the
draft dodgers made him very unpopular with a lot of people. Also the crushing war debt inherited from previous
administrations, two Arab oil embargos and former President Nixon’s price and wage freeze sent inflation spiraling
out of control and it reached an astonishing 22% under Carter. This stagnated the economy and ultimately Jimmy
Carter became a one-term president.)
A super patriot, a peacenik and a person of impeccable moral standards, Carter went on throughout his life to set a
high standard of admirable human conduct.
1978 Chrysler gets bailed out of bankruptcy by the federal government.
Florida’s famous adorable American beauty film star and spokeswoman for the orange juice industry, Anita Bryant
goes all out to campaign against gays…and the joke going around was; “orange juice makes you queer.”
1979 Ninety American embassy workers are taken hostage in Tehran, Iran in a protest against America’s
involvement in the over throw of their democratically elected president and the subsequent role the U.S. played
along with the British in siphoning off the country’s oil reserves.
1980 President Carter takes punitive measures against USSR and backs the rebels fighting Russia in Afghanistan.
At President Carter’s request the U.S. Olympic committee voted against U. S. participation in the Moscow Summer
Olympics.
John Denver, The Rolling Stones, Tom T. Hall and Jimmy Buffet sang the songs that were inspirational to the
dropout, love-in, spaced-out, peacenik, flower children and back to the earth 70s protesters.
Authors like Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson and Robert Pirsig, famous for his book Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance, fit these frustrated and troubled times of a divided America on an emotional rollercoaster.
So ends another decade in American history. The U.S. has less than 5% foreign born citizens the lowest percentage
in its history.
GEORGE TAPPIN AND THE ARAB OIL EMBARGOS;
Our dear old friend George Tappin came up in a hardscrabble existence and made his own way in life as best he
could.
One of George’s biggest thrills was to own a “long car” and as he always said in later years; “John, women got the
first thirty years of my life and GM got the rest.” Another colorful statement George made in that regard was; “I want
a big house, a young wife and a long car.”
Needless to say the automobile salesmen always loved to see George coming.
Wouldn’t you just know it when the Arab oil embargos of the 1970s shocked the American motorists into instantly
buying economy cars one of the first to succumb to this new wave of dump the gas hog and down-size into a nifty-
thrifty diminutive vehicle was our dear old friend George.
Well, not only was this the era of economy cars but it also happened to be when non-leaded gasoline was being
priced into the market by government sanctions.
A clever gimmick employed by government sanction was to make the fill tubes of the new non-lead consuming
vehicles smaller than the standard gas pump nozzles. The idea being that you would have no alternative when filling
the tank of your new non-lead using vehicle but to use the new lead-free gas that came out of the smaller gas pump
nozzle.
At this same time of governmental mandated clean air programs; a new device known as a catalytic converter was
installed on all gasoline engines in their exhaust system to superheat the exhaust fumes and break down harmful
environmental emissions.
(If you burned leaded fuel in these engines fitted with a catalytic converter the result would soon be that your engine
would suffer a distinct lack of power as the catalytic converter clogged up and this condition could eventually lead to
burnt valves among other things.)
Well, George bought his nifty-thrifty diminutive vehicle to save money and pumping in the higher priced lead-free
gasoline just didn’t make any sense to him so he naturally remedied the situation and knocked out the gas fill pipe
restrictor that only let you fill your new car with lead-free gas.
Now George was again happy with his nifty-thrifty diminutive vehicle but he still missed his long car.
In a couple of weeks when George came by to visit us he began to complain that his new little economy car just didn’
t seem to have the power it once had. In fact George even went as far as to say that his car was getting so feeble
that it would hardly make it over the painted centerline on the highway!
The net result of this all was that when George finally took his feeble little nifty-thrifty diminutive vehicle to the dealer
to get it fixed, the repair bill was so high that it would have bought him another car.
next chapter