Chicano Moratorium August 29, 1970

The protest against the war in Vietnam and La Raza in Los Angeles on August 29, 1970 was broken up by armed police who attacked the crowd and then just kinda' went crazy.  A popular liberal Chicano journalist named Ruben Salazar was murdered by police.  Hunter S. Thompson, who was hanging with his friend and attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta (later known as Dr. Gonzo), wrote a great piece about the protest that appeared in Rolling Stone in 1971....here is a link (there's a pdf you need to click on to read the piece)
http://www.eastofborneo.org/archives/strange-rumblings-in-aztlan

Oscar Zeta Acosta wrote an entire book about the protest and the movement.  That book is titled The Revolt of the Cockroach People.  
http://nationalbrownberets.com/files/PDF-Revolt_Cockroach_People.pdf

Bonnie Raitt and Friends Record her first Album

In August 1971, Bonnie Raitt, Freebo and a bunch of other musicians, including Junior Wells, gathered at an empty summer camp on Enchanted Island, about 30 miles west of Minneapolis on Lake Minnetonka. They pulled out their four-track deck and recorded one of the ultimate albums of Raitt's career and of the 1970s.  Titled simply Bonnie Raitt, The music ran from straight out blues to the Buffalo Springfield song "Bluebird."  Along with her 1972 release titled Give It Up, Raitt brought a new authenticity to rock music...and helped bring in an era of rock that included many women who didn't play the pop songstress game...I attended more than a dozen of her shows over the decade.  She often was accompanied by older blues artists like Sippie Wallace, Roosevelt Sykes, and Mississippi Fred McDowell.  Intensely political, her in between song banter featured sarcastic remarks about political figures and the war in Vietnam.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGTyNA0nI90&list=PLuy3A6rgaEgn2cjuJbrGruB8ys6_wQYIU

August 23, 1972: Last Official US Combat Troops Leave Vietnam

Although the combat troops had left, there were still several tens of thousands of troops in country, not to mention CIA mercenaries, Special Forces, and others.  In addition, the bombing would go on for years, including the Christmas bombings at the end of 1972--some of the heaviest bombing raids in the history of bombing raids.  I thought I would link to this pamphlet written by Overseas Weekly writer Richard Boyle describing GI resistance to the war....Overseas Weekly was an unofficial newspaper written for GIs and sold in the PX alongside the official Stars & Stripes.....The resistance Boyle writes about is part of the reason the war was Vietnamized and US troops were slowly removed from in country....while the killing dragged on....

https://libcom.org/history/gi-revolts-breakdown-us-army-vietnam

Elvis and Panama Red

Remember the death of Elvis.....

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/17/panama-red-and-elvis/

Elvis is Everywhere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7NWXJ8iPQw

Pronounced 'Lĕh 'nérd 'Skin 'nérd

Lynyrd Skynyrd's first album was released in August 1973.  This album represented the beginning of the rock genre that would become known as redneck rock.  Its successor today would be what is now called "bro-country."  The song "Free Bird" from this album would go on to become a rock classic.

Here's a link to the album...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRrzymFRUec

The Day Nixon Resigned

Nowadays, high school history books tell students that the Watergate episode and Nixon’s resignation prove that the US way of government works. Personally, I think that the real indicator of how (and for whom) the system works is Gerald Ford’s pardon of the man the following month.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/08/09/in-memory-of-deep-throat/

here is the speech itself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEOGJJ7UKFM

Feats Don't Fail Me Now--released August 1974

This album, from the Van Dyke Parks cover to its last track, is a masterwork.  Recorded in early 1974 at a studio in Hunt Valley, MD.  Little Feat were quite popular in the Baltimore-DC region, thanks in part to the fact WHFS-FM in Bethesda played their music a lot.  I saw them for what would be the first of many times at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium in June of 1974.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3LNhZ7msI4&list=PL8v2U0Ce53KD1tHAxxL2qMO40Ejf_EbD9

Innervisions...August 1973

Stevie Wonder at his peak.....still on my playlist

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-juice/5638082/stevie-wonder-innervisions-classic-track-by-track-review

ZAP Comix Redux

http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/03/12/zap-comics-redux/

Rahsaan Roland Kirk Prepares Us to Deal With a Miracle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17JgEYTmE-o

High Drama--The House of Representatives Votes to Impeach Richard Nixon....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxOhBa5IO9Y