Back to the Future

We've been back at the University since the start of December, plowing through those admissions applications again, and, as last year, enjoying ourselves in all sorts of little ways. It's not like we're involved in some great creative endeavor that satisfies the soul in ways that retirement just can't accomplish. It's simply a pleasant change of pace for a couple months or so, and it puts us in daily association with some interesting people who we've enjoyed getting to know.

For the next two weeks, though, we are getting major reinforcements from various offices on campus that provide staffers who've pledged blocks of hours to Admissions so we can pick up the pace and make significant progress on our task. All of us gather in one big room for this process, and this year that will be in the large formal lounge at Anacapa Hall, one of the original on-campus dorms built in the mid-1950s.

It so happens that I lived in Anacapa Hall for my freshman and sophomore years at UCSB, and I'm just a little bit curious about what will seem familiar and what has changed. I'm not one to wallow in nostalgia, but I imagine some essence of those formative years will come flooding back when I take a stroll down the hall of Modoc, where I began dorm life in the fall of 1964.

I haven't walked through those doors since the spring of 1966. Considering how rough the typical undergrad is on the tiny rooms alloted them--the current locution "crib" fits in more ways than one--I'd be surprised if there's anything left that I'd remember.

In those 42 years since I moved in to Anacapa, I've picked up a B.A., an M.A., and a California Standard Secondary Teaching Credential valid for a lifetime. (They literally don't make 'em like that anymore!) I've married a beautiful, wealthy woman (well, at least beautiful), pursued a teaching career for 35 years, and lucked into a very satisfying life-after-the-classroom, which has brought me full-circle to UCSB, where I'm part of the process that selects the freshman class of 2007--some of which will fill those same old rooms in Anacapa. Life goes 'round and 'round.

Contemplating the re-location to Anacapa, I recently dug out my UCSB yearbook from my freshman year. The first thing that smacks you between the eyes, of course, is the incredible uniformity of the student body. There seems to be only three hairstyles for the girls--the bubble, the flip, and the modified beehive--and fewer than that for the guys. And for all those group shots of clubs and residence halls, everyone is dressed for church: every boy in a suit or sports coat, white shirt and narrow tie; every girl in a black skirt and white blouse (some add a dark cardigan sweater, but only if every girl in the picture has one on).

This was the mid-sixties, mind you, the era of youth rebellion and individual exploration, but my personal recollection is that the shit didn't hit the fan until 1966. I remember returning to campus that fall, moving to digs in Isla Vista for the first time, and noticing that overnight--actually it was over the summer--nobody looked the same. We dressed (or undressed) as we pleased, cut our hair (or not) as we pleased, said what we really thought, and cursed conformity as the universal evil.

But it doesn't take more than a few minutes flipping through the 1965 yearbook to notice the most obvious way we were all the same: we all belonged to a club that was rigorously white and middle class. Clearly, whatever the admissions process had been in those days, there was no mandate for diversity. Looking through photos of the 400 young men of Anacapa Hall and the 400 young women of our sister hall, Santa Cruz, I can't find a single African American student, nor any Latinos or Latinas either, judging by surnames and complexions.

What sort of world--what kind of future?-- were we being prepared for, one might wonder. To tell the truth, I don't think the Revolution hit UCSB in 1966, or even with the so-called Summer of Love a year later. The Revolution was already taking place in the streets of Detroit and South Central Los Angeles, in Newark and Miami. And it certainly was televised.

Even UC got the picture, just a couple decades late. Now at the start of a new century, one of our priorities in the comprehensive review process is to make sure Anacapa Hall isn't confused with the Jonathan Club. I've been there and can tell the difference.

Not Blinking

As we wait uneasily to see what the next futile tactics will be in the war we can't admit we've lost, there is much speculation and argument over which direction troop levels should move. Up or down? In or out? Surge or withdraw? Even the Pentagon brass know it's a giant game of Texas hold 'em, so why not be frank with the terminology? The options are basic: raise or fold.

Tony Snow, the White House's chief propagandist, got pissed off the other day at senators who were criticizing Bush's "way forward" before it had even been announced. But if you're into the gambling mode, honestly, which way are you going to bet? Is anybody willing to put money on this president taking a sensible course?

It's clear Bush is still in denial about what has happened in Iraq and why. Making strategic use of the wounds inflicted to our national pride by the events of 9/11, Bush and his neocon Power Rangers pushed us into a war that cooler heads--most of our long-standing NATO allies, and (now we know) four living U.S. ex-presidents would have counseled against. Despite what looked like early successes, we began immediately laying the foundation for the unmitigated disaster that has ensued: fired the general who told truth to power and said we'd need more troops to occupy a country this size, disbanded entirely the Iraqi military and police, discarding every ounce of military and law enforcement expertise they contained, and failed to recognize or admit that things were turning sour until it was too late. (Rumsfeld quibbled over words like "insurgency," "guerrilla war" and "quagmire" instead of dealing with problems they represented.)

And now Bush is still touting the need to achieve "victory" in this misbegotten escapade. The path to resolution, though, has to start with facing the truth. We have already lost this war. We can toss more American lives on the heap if we choose, but if we refuse to admit we've gone beyond the point of redeeming or recovering our loses, it will make no more sense than tossing more black chips on the poker table as the winner rakes in his winnings.

But if that's so, where do we go from here? We are warned that forthright, rapid withdrawal of forces from Iraq would lead to unimaginable bloodshed. There seems to be general agreement that since U.S. action brought about this grisly civil war, it's our duty to find and foster a solution.

But we can't accomplish that by pursuing the illusion that we can reverse time and shove the toothpaste back in the tube. The all-out sectarian battle has already begun, and one side or the other is going to win. We can continue to stand in the middle and draw out the bloodshed over more months and more years, but we can't--no matter how generous, constructive or diplomatic we may feature ourselves--make a unified nation out of the tribal factions who have so many reasons to hate each other.

If there is any hope for this disjointed nation that exists despite itself, it will arrive on the wings of hard work and difficult compromises among the contending factions of Iraqis. If Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Kurds cannot bring themselves ever to cooperate for the sake of a functional state and civil well-being, then there is nothing further for the U.S. to accomplish with troops and tanks. We acted with quixotic impulse, but we did manage to lift the Baathist boot from these people's throats. And the argument that we can't leave now for fear of sectarian bloodletting obviously begs the question of why can't this supposed "unity government" that our president keeps touting make some tough decisions to avoid the same bloodletting that American soldiers are supposed to prevent.

The bets are down. If we blink now, those guys across the table won't even have to show their cards.