Where are the student revolutionaries today?

[Cleita]

On Canadian news there was a report on how the Serbs and Ukrainians got rid of their dictators. It was the students and young people who eventually put so much pressure on them they were forced to resign. They spent a lot of time protesting in a forceful way and they finally got the will of the people done under adverse circumstances. It made me wonder.

Why aren't our students out there objecting to this government? In the sixties it was also the students that put themselves in harm's way to force the government to do the right thing. Students out there if you are reading this. It's never easy.

We need that young blood forcing our government to do the right thing. How do we inspire them to start a revolution? I think Californians could start by storming Sacramento and forcing Musclehead to resign.

I hope I don't get in trouble for this post, but I have been thinking about how things were and how that same dynamic is missing now.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

1. I've been asking the same thing

The simple answer is: no draft.

Institute a draft, and watch how fast those college kids get off their comfortable asses and fill the streets just as we did in the sixties.

[enigmatic]

3. Bingo

When it becomes their asses on the line, they will get busy.

[Maru Kitteh]

4. Amen.

There it is.

[question everything]

6. As it was in the 60s

Students did not start rioting until all the college deferments were canceled.

[dbeach]

2. Nothing gets em moving faster than the "D" word..

most are like the rest of the amerikens..


If not..I second your question..

comfortable fascism is still faascism..

[marmar]

5. And they need to get motivated...

'cause it's their future that's really fucked. The way things are going, they'll be marching their master's degrees right into Wal-Mart for a teller position, wearing a gas mask from all the polluted air, wearing an I.D. bracelet from Homeland Security, and going home to an apartment they share with three roommates.

[G2099]

7. No draft no revolutionaries

People only care about a issue when it affects them "personally."

As long as people have food to eat, sports to watch, a job, games to play, it's somebody else's problem.

No personal pain, no gain.

Americans are not taught to think "collectively" and see how something a far off affects the "collective whole" and eventually individuals "personally."

[marmar]

8. True that...

I was in Denmark last month, and there's definitely a sense of collective responsibility there. They don't mind paying the incredibly high taxes, because there's kind a national feeling that that helping fellow Danes out with their extensive social welfare system benefits everyone.

[ReadTomPaine]

9. I've noticed an apathy problem on many campuses since the 1980's

Maybe it's just me.

[babylonsister]

10. With the internet and parents/people who lived through

the 60s, I'm a bit surprised myself. I guess there has to be a 'moment' that coalesces with people. The draft might produce it or something more enraging. :scared:

[Cleita]

The torture revealations should have been that enraging.

What happened? Did our kids lose their soul?

[babylonsister]

13. Did we? We're aware of it, so by not doing

something besides bemoaning it on DU we're part of the problem, myself very much included.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. Do you realize how long it took for the antiwar movement to reach....

...critical mass during the Vietnam War? Ike sent the first combat "advisors" to Vietnam in 1954, and we suffered the first KIA in 1956. From 1956 until 1964/1965, we lost a little over 2000 KIAs.

The war escalated rapidly after that....another 34,000 were lost during the years 1966, 1967, and 1968. And that corresponds to the years that the antiwar movement began to build serious momentum. It still took another 7 years and 19,000 more KIAs to pull the last US combat troop out of Vietnam.

[lenidog]

12. In these days of self interest and comfort you wont see them beside a

small minority till the Republicans institute a draft. Then they will come out of the woodwork because it is finally effecting them.

[Mass_Liberal]

14. they are all over the place

campuses are often very active politcally these days, and were even more so during the beginning of the Iraq war. Don't you remember any of the hundreds of thousands of people who marched against the war? Many of them were students and student-organized groups. I see college students working for political campaigns all the time. Certainly it isn't as big as the anti-war movement in the 60's because they aren't about to get drafted.

[teach1st]

15. Besides the draft...

..there were big time cultural and even spiritual changes going down in the 1960s, something I don't see happening right now.

[BeTheChange]

16. Playing PS2 and poking smot..

Some of them are half assed studying or going for yet another degree because there are no jobs and college is the neverneverland of generation y.

[American Tragedy]

17. Well, many of those children of the sixties have short fucking memories

judging from the fact that the majority of voters in the age group, indeed most voters over thirty, cast their ballots for the Chimp.

So, Cleita, what do you recommend? So far, the strategy of wielding signs at choice locations and bitching hasn't convinced Bush of the error of his ways. Use force? Even aside from the ethical issues of such an action, I suspect that the US Army and the state law enforcement would have a rather considerable advantage over any paramilitary group. Do you really think that they're going to be intimidated into submission by some kids packing heat?

And do you really think that the American people would immediately rally behind that group? If not, then what's the final aim? Self-righteous martyrdom? The dream of imposing a 'benevolent despot'?

[Cleita]

19. Well from what I saw on Canadian news the students

actually went into one of the legislatures (can't remember which one) and demanded the resignations of the officials in charge physically removing them. I have been trying to find a link to this, which is why I haven't posted a lot. But for purposes of making a point, I don't expect you to physically remove anyone, but you need to scare them somehow.

In the sixties, we weren't afraid to go to jail for disrupting normal business and we did get hurt a lot, so did these students. Now I do like us to follow Ghandis principles of non-violence, but you should be disrupting the business of government. Now you can't do much in Washington. They have built a moat around it, but you can upset a lot of other elected officials. All senators and representatives keep offices in their respective states.

Sit ins would be appropriate in these places. There is so much you can do to get their attention and so far you aren't getting their attention, so you are going to have to be creative. That is the challenge. In the sixties, we started from scratch too.

[Cleita]

18. It looks like the sick and disabled are doing in Tennessee

today what we should be doing nationwide.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=222

[Lannes]

20. Not all of them but many

Grew up during one of the greatest periods of prosperity this country has ever seen (The Clinton years) and were spoiled by their baby boomer parents.

I believe part of it is that they are too comfortable.A looming financial crisis and the expansion of the "war on terror" will snap them out of it Ill bet.

[ucmike]

21. they're standing over there...the guys with the ipods

and the che gueverra t-shirts.

[Lannes]

22. I was on a plane recently and this kid was wearing torn up jeans

and a CBGBS T-shirt in first class.

[Vladimir]

23. In fairness, although I appreciate the sentiment

I think you overemphasise the role of students and youth in these matters. And in particular, I'd like to make a few points about the Serbian situation, because I know a bit about it. Otpor certainly did a lot of the legwork in Serbia, but what really hurt Milosevic was the collapse of support amongst the army and police, as well as an objective decline in popular support amongst all sections of society. The students had been campaigning since 1992, and Otpor grew out of that, but it wasn't until the political parties who they were campaigning for ditched their differences and won the electorate over that Milosevic was got rid of. I have always considered the 2000 'coup' to have been a collective venting of anger at 10+ years of misery, but Slobo was finished long before the parliament was raided (a truly sad moment IMO, one might even say a microcosm of everything wrong with Serbia for the decade prior) because he had become both bad for business and bad for nationalism, hence losing simultaneously his appeal among the two sections of the community who had most fervently backed him before. We might also note the funding these groups recieved, from foreign sources, which allowed them to effectively counter the government media. So it is true to say that the students and youth were radicalised, and indeed put pressure on the government, but the telling pressure came from elsewhere... and you can also see that by the political map of Serbia now, where far-right parties have been the ones to fill Milosevic's void long-term.

[Cleita]

25. Thanks for the short history lesson. I admit I wasn't entirely up on it.

However, I don't think our students are making themselves visible at all. If our side has to do things like disruptions of various sorts like sit ins, which is what it's going to take, we need the young men and women to do it. They are best able to get the job done with the least damage in the long run.

[Vladimir]

26. I get frustrated too

when I see the general apathy on my campus, and I do wonder sometimes what its going to take to get people off their arses and into the streets. Its often far easier to mobilise older people for action in my experience, but I really don't know why.

[lonestarnot]

24. The draft is the only factor missing... then watch what happens.