60's folks: Could we muster enough young people today

[LuckyLib]

who are angry enough to gather together, sing and protest the war? Just watched the "Fixin to Die Rag" video of Country Joe McDonald at Woodstock. Amazing.

[Booster]

1. IMO, not without a draft.

[NYCGirl]

2. That's it. Everyone I knew during the 60s was petrified of getting drafted

(or of their loved ones getting drafted).

[HereSince1628]

8. I dunno about petrified, but it hung over every working class teenage boy

even with the birthday based lottery, it was a lot of years to wait to find out what your number was.

[NYCGirl]

10. Every guy I knew who was of draft age was thinking of an escape plan...

and some finally had to go.

[HereSince1628]

14. Most of the guys I knew were trying to get in the Coast Guard

or Naval Reserve. Unfortunately it was an idea that about 10 times more guys had than positions that were available. As a tiny guy I tried to get a commitment from the Navy to serve on a submarine (not too many VC out at sea 200 ft deep, ya know?) but that was way over enrolled too. In the end I volunteered for 4 years to get a non-combatant MOS but it didn't keep my ass from going into Vietnam 42 days after my older brother left.

No one I knew went to Canada. It was outside the realm of possibility for kids raised on Walter Cronkite's narration of "THE BIG PICTURE." And I wasn't one of those who hung out with kids who went off to college. Most working class guys didn't see college and an educational deferment as an option. The draft was just an everything or nothing crap-shoot you had to figure your way around on the way to the rest of your life.

Remember that much of the 60's was a time when only the top 10%-15% of graduates from a midwestern suburban High School earned admission to a 4 year school. And student loans weren't generally available until late in the game. Most people think of current access to college and university and couldn't imagine, let alone recollect, what the 60's were like.

Initially college deferrments were conditioned on things like studying in a critical field. One of my colleagues at my first college teaching position told me he had to enroll for an education certificate in order to qualify for a deferment.

[LuckyLib]

17. You're right HereSince -- I grew up in CA and college was so

cheap that everyone who could remotely get into community college signed up. Even among friends at the Univ system, the number of guys with low lottery numbers who had "bad backs" was amazing -- my friends found doctors in San Francisco who were anti-war and wrote up an inordinate number of 21 year old guys with aging backs. I'd forgotten that other states did not offer such low-cost college tuition, thus foreclosing lots of kids from going.

[bobbolink]

32. Raygun fixed CA's educational wagon

Bless his little pea-picking heart.

:mad:

[LuckyLib]

35. Yes he did, didn't he? The damned system is broke and costs

a fortune in student tuition to attend.

[bobbolink]

45. yet, do many realize what they lost by following this clown?

Unfortunately, in a Democracy, we have to look in the mirror in dealing with these messes, rather than blaming it all on the politicians.

We are culpable.

Damitall.

[Crazy Janey]

3. Talkin' 'bout my generation

I'm a child of the '60s. Went to Woodstock. Got tear-gassed and pepper-gassed at demonstrations. Tied up traffic in Manhattan and DC to protest Vietnam.

I think you'd have an impossible time trying to get people out in the streets today like we did in the '60s. For one thing, it helps to have a draft to protest against. Most of today's youth aren't affected by the war in Iraq, and until they are, they'll stay in their comfortable colleges or jobs and not get out on the street.

I would have loved to have seen mass protests when the SCOTUS selected Bush and stole the election from Gore. Or when Bush launched a war he had no business starting.

Believe me, I don't favor a draft (I've got a 19-year-old son), but I'm not sure what else would get people riled up enough to get them out in the street.

[wryter2000]

4. The draft and more

You're all right about the draft, but I think there's more. Back then, we thought we could change things. I think now we all feel helpless, so what's the point?

On edit: back then, we had just watched the civil rights movement and were inspired by that.

[babylonsister]

5. Crazy Janey, welcome to DU!

:toast:

[SteveM]

11. I echo the sentiments about the lack of youth activism.

I can only add that the post-modernist bird of paradise has flown up our collective arses. Most young folks (and many adults) are convinced that they can't do anything and that 60's activism was a failure with regards Vietnam. (How many years did that war persist after big-time anti-war activism started? Four years? Six years? 8 years?) I was in plenty of demonstrations (and still go out to some to keep my file updated), yet I'm not sure if "we" did any good, either. Even the "Vietnam syndrome" has been killed off along with 3,000 Americans and God-knows how many Iraqis and others. Activism is seen as tradition, way in the past and a spike-tail thing. And activists don't learn. We still have every special issue
group show up to a one-purpose demonstration; copping someone else's show, fucking-up, and showing their selves. Great stuff for T.V., if they cover it. Today, a couple hundred thousand folks in the street is relegated to item-status in main-media.

Ask the average soul of any age: "what would you support, what's your position?" And they will equivocate, mumble snide remarks -- even act offended, that you would trick them into saying something "politically correct," that loveliest whiff of post-modernist blow, essentially introduced to the culture by conservatives. (I've always believed that FOX News Corp. owes its success to mastering the great American schism: they can creditably quote you the Bible even as they shake a tit in your face.)

We're neutralized by ourselves. Howard Dean had more trouble with LIBERALS than with conservatives; the GOP was scared of Dean. There's only one group that right-wing theorists truly hate and fear:

The '60s counter-culture. It ain't the young. It's what's left of us.

[Esra Star]

15. Steve, welcome to the asylum (DU)

I remember something from the French revolution about "bread an circuses".
I think it is the same today except you can add prozac if the bread and circuses
don't keep the populace quiet.
Throwing out habeus corpus is the biggie though.

[SteveM]

19. It could be the biggie if police pressure increases dramatically.

Thank you for your welcome. At present, I am an independent and have been for 31 years. I used to be a Democratic Party activist (many campaigns, referenda; delegate, precinct chair, etc.), but became disenchanted by the drift not so much to the right as to nowhere. Anyway, I'm sounding out this group. By the way, did you know that DU is commonly taken to mean Ducks Unlimited, an old conservationist/hunting group Dems should be inviting to parties on a regular basis. Think they will?

[Esra Star]

24. Before this forum DU was Depleted Uranium to me

I guess it is fairly generic and an acronym of sorts for alot of things.
DU is a very broad church. Sometimes it is just a cacophony.
After a while you get to know those worth reading. There is generally a
good feel about this cyber-community.
Enjoy

[nadinbrzezinski]

41. Welcome to DU

[frogcycle]

37. Hey there Janey!

You wouldn't be the chick I watched putting longstemmed flowers into the rifle barrels of of the troops surrounding the pentagon that lovely Saturday afternoon, would you? Lovely until the tear gas grenades went off, at least.


My draft number was 22. There was a big hoo-rah over whether, if you had a deferment the first year you were eligible, then did you get a new number or keep the original. The next year my birthday came up something like 345, but they decided you kept the original number. I was in college in Tn - really cheap to go to state school there - dutifully filled out my progress reports to show I was really going to school - I was a co-op student so didn't make the standard progress - had to take a heavy course load the half-year I was in school, or I'd have been off to VN. A friend forgot to sen in the form; they called him up. He went to the draft board with all his report cards and stuff - no matter - no form, no deferment. He was in VN within four months. Still has issues from that pleasant sojourn.

Ted Kennedy decided deferments for such frivolities as college, critical jobs, being married, having kids were all unfair and got them knocked down one by one. So I got called for physical with one month left to graduation, pregnant wife and all. I was trying to decide whether Canada or jail would be preferable. I had pretty much decided on Canada, since I'd be able to take my wife. Going to VN was out of the question. Might as well go throw yourself in front of a train.

Damned if I didn't flunk the physical. I have been blessed with hypertension, and if it kills me now that I'm an old fart, well, it saved me back then.

I cannot get over the general complacency over this war vs that. Granted we heard much, much more then - daily body counts were often 40 or 50, over a hundred not uncommon. We had five killed today, double the average since the war began. But all we had were the three network nightly news reports then. Now there are several all-news outlets and less coverage.

You think bush is in a bunker-mentality situation? I recall the day the movement tried to shut down Washington. They had city buses bumper-to-bumper around the White House like circling the frickin wagons!

I don't know that a draft would change things. We were a special generation. There was something different about us. Hell, I'm listening to 60's music right now, with Dick Biondi! But "Hell No, We Won't Go!" did have a nice ring to it, and without the draft it would have been hollow.

[Paranoid Pessimist]

59. You're lucky about the hypertension

During my physical, they discovered a heart murmur that I didn't know I had, scared the hell out of me; I fainted for the only time in my life. But that wasn't enough to flunk me out. This was late 1965 and they needed lots of troops to escalate in Viet Nam and you had to have something major wrong with you to not pass. I joined the Army to avoid being drafted, going for an extra year in exchange for a choice of job specialties (MOS), a choice that turned out to be bogus.

As it happened, I did not go over -- so I'm a Vietnam-era veteran who did not go to Vietnam. A combination of luck and playing the system kept me out of the line of fire, although orders were cut sending me there twice, both rescinded in the nick of time.

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. Welcome to Du

[Radical Activist]

54. You must not be paying attention.

Me and my 20-something friends have already been doing those things. Millions of young people have been protesting this war and getting arrested. The question for me when I'm at protests is, where did the baby boomers go?

[AtomicKitten]

9. I think you are right.

I've been biting my nails all through Junior's reign of terror because my son has been of cannon fodder age. I was a senior in HS when Kerry testified before Congress in 1971. It seems life has gone full cycle. Now my son just finished his second year of college and, although politically savvy and aware of current events, his nose is to the grindstone. I do and have done the worrying for both of us. We must leave Iraq immediately before more life is lost for a lie.

[Double T]

6. If bush goes ahead with 'HIS surge' and fills the ranks with a military draft......

I'm certain that the protests will at least rival those of the '60s. I'm afraid the reinstatement of a military draft would also embolden bush to start a war with Iran. We are dealing with insanity and EVERYTHING is possible.

[blues90]

7. even though I am against a draft

I feel as other here that is one way , maybe the only way to get the youth involved . From what I see and those I have talked to not many at all even know what's going on and don;t think about it .

Another thing or issue we had was the murder of JFK and other great leaders to tell us something was wrong with this picture .

We also had full TV coverage telling us and showing us just how things were going in Vietnam .

But a draft would possibly be a start to wake up the youth and send a clear message this is their problem too , not us from the 60's generation , we had our time and now it's up to them , I doubt most of us have the reserve to get out and march again either .

[Lowell]

12. For this generation to get involved it would take

something that really threatened them. Like the draft, and even then I don't know if they have it. There was more to the 60s than the draft. There was a new way of thinking brought about by the civil rights movement, drugs and the music. I'm afraid it will be the old blue heads of the 60s who storm DC next time. With our walkers, canes and hearing aids whistling.

[frogcycle]

44. Sounds good to me

[quickesst]

13. Not enough unless.....

you throw in a PS3, a couple of video games, and some pants that don't fit.:hippie: Thanks.
quickesst

[LuckyLib]

18. I had to laugh, quickesst, as my original post had a snide remark about

multitasking on three pieces of electronic equipment. I edited it out!:hippie:

[MrRobotsHolyOrders]

23. Tee-hee.

My pants fit fine, my XBOX sits nicely on my shelf, and I just spent the better part of four months (along with countless peers) fighting desperatley to unseat Dave Reichert.

BUT FAR OUT, MANNNNNNN.

[Le Taz Hot]

28. Oh, chill, dude(ette)

we hate your music, we hate your clothing and we think you are lazy and uneducated. In other words, it's EXACTLY the same thing our parents' generation ragged on us about. It's a generational thang and yes, it will happen to you.

In all seriousness, when we were out protesting the entrance into the Iraqi war, I looked around and saw LOTS and LOTS of youngbloods out there being just as active and vocal as everyone else. It made me proud.

Now. 'ere. Noe mean? ;-) :hippie:

[newyawker99]

29. Hi MrRobotsHolyOrders!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[alcibiades_mystery]

16. Why do you think 1960's era solutions are appropriate for today's problems?

It seems to me that the genius of the 1960's social movement was the INVENTION of a set of political methods appropriate to the times. The 1960's social movements were deeply historicist: they understood that social movement rhetoric and tactics borrowed from the 1940's would no longer work. They understoood that they had to invent new political weaponry to face the specificity of their own times.

We've lost all this. Now we pine for 60's type protest movements, either because we're too stupid or too lazy to invent new methods. It's pre-packaged nostalgia at best, conservatism masquerading as "social protest" at worst.

1960's social movements invented new weapons. But the 1960's are over. We have to invent new weapons, too, rather than relying on the outmoded and utterly normalized weapons of our parents.

[SteveM]

20. I agree in main with your outlook.

What are your ideas on this? Everyone seems to talk-up big the internet/blog/hand-held technology & its social traits as the arena for the next big thing. But doesn't it all come down to a more fundamental issue: What is the new community (which legitimizes the whole notion of nation and society) or do we go on without community, embracing increased individuation and (as a corollary) the consumption-celebrity imperatives of this culture?

[Dr Fate]

22. I tend to agree with you on this. But music, pop-culture and youth should be a part of it. n/t

n/t

[Jacobin]

31. Until it hurts personally, you won't understand the 60's

with 500 body bags a week flying home, your friends from down the street drafted and coming back either so screwed up mentally or physically that you no longer knew them, with the fear that you would be drafted next, with the national guard on campuses to control riots, draft buildings burning, college kids being shot, strikes closing colleges for weeks, the entire country in a full blown, down and dirty almost armed insurrection, with Nixon lying to get re-elected, RWers hating on the lefties physically.

While you are coming up with your 'new and modern ways' you might want to think about what 'ways' are used when they are dictated by raw fear, utter desolation and desperation, and see what happens when almost intuitively, almost mystically, almost simultaneously, 30 million young people come together to bring down the government's foreign policy.... out of FEAR and PATRIOTISM and DESPERATION. But go ahead....sit in your armchair and think about coming up with a 'modern approach' to dealing with fascism.

[alcibiades_mystery]

33. You make my point for me

The tactics of the 1960's social movements (which were not - of course - restricted to the anti-war movement) were dictated by the specific historical circumstances. The circumstances now are quite different, as your very post proves. I'm not sure what your hostility is all about, unless you are miffed that I'm not valorizing your generations remarkable inventions as universal tactics for all times? Besides, you don't know shit about me, so your speculations on armchairs, etc., are premature and without merit.

Cheers.

[omega minimo]

48. What is this "set of political methods appropriate to the times"?

What is this "set of political methods appropriate to the times" you think was INVENTED in the "genius of the 1960's movement."

How does it differ from "new political weaponry to face the specificity of" these times? Are there similarities?

"We have to invent new weapons, too, rather than relying on the outmoded and utterly normalized weapons of our parents."

What would "new weapons" be?

And what do you mean by "outmoded and utterly normalized"? That it's, like, cliche or whatever?

[Radical Activist]

55. Protests don't accomplish much anymore.

The media ignores them unless there is violence. Moderates dismiss them as radical. Its a good time but not the same as doing real organizing work.

[MrRobotsHolyOrders]

21. No.

Most politicaly active "young people" today are far too busy putting in place the groundwork for youth based voter registration and education campaigns, driving net based fund raising, and all around hustling ass to win races to waste time smoking too much pot and listening to folk rock.

[frogcycle]

43. Their loss :)

but seriously, despite the admirable ones you refer to, there are a ton of young people who relate better to a keyboard and/or joystick than to marching on Washington or taking over the deans office.

The 'net provides a great vehicle for exchange of ideas and expressing ones hostilities - but I wonder if maybe sometimes it's too great an outlet. All the angry young people are sitting in the dark pounding on keyboards instead of tying up traffic and getting their heads busted.

[MrRobotsHolyOrders]

50. Well, true...

But I can't help but notice that "we" (you, me, most people with hearts, souls, or an IQ over 12) went to the streets in incredible solidarity before Iraq 2...

...and achieved nawt.

We stood as brothers marching against the WTO, kicked from piller to post all the way up Pine street by the Seattle PD...

...and achieved nawt.

Marches are really neat, but all they do is give the reactionists conservative types an excuse to say, "Bolshevism!", and walk away from the issue, and give cover to fence sitters to wait out important issues for two more cycles. If that energy was focused into winning elections, from the school board up, we'd have less to march about.

[nodular]

52. "...and achieved nawt."

Well, I'm not sure that nothing was achieved by the marches. What if John Kerry had been elected? Then the marches would have been seen as part of the process.

But that is all they are, just part of the process. They won't always work, but they sometimes can work. Apparently, they played a significant role in the successes of the Civil Rights movement. In Vietnam, the marches also had a great political impact. The critical failure I suppose, was the inability of the Democrats to defeat Humphrey in 1968.

I would say the anti-Vietnam marches were a significant factor in convincing LBJ not to run in 1968. Had Robert Kennedy not been assassinated, he very well might have won the nomination and run on a peace platform. Once Humphrey won the nomination, it was a pro war Democrat against Republicans. In fact, the antiwar movement probably ended up helping elect Nixon. People were very dissatisfied with the Democratic handling of the war, which Humphrey supported, and they elected Nixon, in part, because he had a "secret plan" to end the war. This plan ended up taking about five years to execute.

True, the results were completely unsatisfactory---but I still think it is wrong to say the Vietnam marches did not have an affect. A better lesson would be that it is pointless to march without an effective political organization backing up the cause.

Of course your points about voting and political organizing or well taken---that is still the best focus.

[frogcycle]

56. Marches in recent years

may fit your description. Lord knows Kent State, the Poor People's March, Selma, The takeover at Berkeley got a lot more attention. And there was plenty of reactionary condemnation then of the rabble rousers, malcontents, etc. But collectively all that civil unrest DID have an affect. Unfortunately, Eisenhower's "vast militaryindustrial" complex got smarter, and infiltrated news media more thoroughly and has been much more adept at keeping the populace in line in the past few decades. Just make sure those kids are indoctrinated that the world revolves around them and them alone, raise a "me generation" and then all you have to do is throw them the occasional bone to get them to do what you want, vote how you want. That's how the republican juggernaut has gotten this far, and why it is still going despite the stirrings of unrest exhibited at the polls in November. Some of those folks are going to have to realize that just voting and then going back to business as usual is not enough. THE MACHINE that controls this country will not go quietly into the night.

[MrRobotsHolyOrders]

58. Dividing the debate

I don't really like equating "the sixties" as one lump sum moment:

Doctor King winning a focused campaign of nonviolent protest against an American fascist regime in the south was one of the great moments in the history of our country, and he understood the ONLY way forward was through reenfranchisement of the African American population.

The Vietnam protests may have done something, and maybe someone can tell me what it was. Putting down Johnson only to lose with Humphrey? McGovern, probably one of the greatest minds of American politics in the last fifty years, getting stomped across 49 states? Did all the marches, the riots, the demonstrations, stop Nixon? What we ended up with after all that turmoil was Ronald Reagan.

The "Day without a Mexican" demonstrations woke people up, but with it came Sensenbrenner (if that's how you spell the evil cunts name), and all the other reactionist movements against it. There will be no need for marches by 2016, when whatever political party hoping for power comes to an effectively organized latino voting block begging for support in the southwest.

[NoPasaran]

25. We probably could

But we'd be shocked by the violence of the mosh pit, and at the end they'd burn down the stage.

[HuffleClaw]

26. apples and oranges

the kids of today aren't facing the possibility of dying in vietnam. if (and/or when) a draft occurs, i expect youth will be very much active and will be waaaaay more organized than the youth of the 60s too.

[lfairban]

27. You mean like these:

I took these on 3/20/03.





more at:

http://www.freepress.org/dispatches/2003/display/73

[SmellsLikeDeanSpirit]

30. I'm 20 and I couldn't see it happening without the "D" word.

That's one thing thats irrated me about this war. If its so unpopular where are the massive protests in Washington and around the country? My generation is so apathetic.

[MrRobotsHolyOrders]

51. But then again

I can't speak for everybody elses experience with the 2004 Dean campaign, but I've never seen the under-30 set so ready to drink the blood of their political enemies as Dr. Dean's electoral commandos. It could really, honestly be that people are focusing their energies into activities that speak more to their times.

[Doctor_J]

34. One of the right wing's main thrusts has been disengagement

their foremost election "strategy" is to get people to tune out. And since they control the mass media, they would tend to get their way.

[angry_chuck]

62. that's how it works best

when people are too stupid to discern the difference between propaganda and news, the propaganda becomes the news, to the benefit of the despots.

Ask Lyndon LaRouche. Haha.

[Morgana LaFey]

36. And you didn't post the link?

For shame!

[LuckyLib]

49. Sorry -- here it is! Enjoy!

http://doherty.vox.com/library/video/6a00c2251d393f8fdb00c2252575f0604a.html
:smoke:

[Morgana LaFey]

57. Ah, that's great. Everyone is so young. So was I -- once.

And only once. :D

Great video. Thanks.

[LuckyLib]

60. That was my reaction too -- all those beautiful young folks with

long hair!

[Morgana LaFey]

64. Long hair, radiant smiles, having groovy fun.

DAMN, I'd like to go back. :D

[MrSlayer]

38. No way.

They have no reason to protest because they have nothing at stake. No one is forcing mandatory suicide upon them so why should they care at all? That was a far different time.

[nadinbrzezinski]

39. Only if you get a draft a' going

that was told to me by a 22 year old...

He reached that sad conclusion over the course of the week.

I also infected him. Walked into the living room one fine morning and here he was... watching inside baseball, aka C-Span on his own volition

[Lydia Leftcoast]

42. Getting young people to sing, period, is a challenge

:shrug:

[omega minimo]

47. GIMME AN "I"!!! GIMME AN "M"!! GIMME A "P"!!!............

:spray: you funny :hi:

[omega minimo]

46. Don't forget that generation raised the current young one and the two

are talking straight past each other in this thread.

[Radical Activist]

53. Young people already mobilized faster and better than boomers.

There were Iraq war protests with hundreds of thousands of people BEFORE the war started. Hundreds of campuses across the nation protested before the war or soon after it started. How many years did Vietnam go on before there were protests of that size and in that many cities?

The only difference is that our protests are ignored in the media, while boomers get to watch footage of their protests in chevy commercials. Face it boomers, you have been shown up by a new generation of protesters who showed up quicker and in larger numbers.

[DrDan]

61. no - would never happen

[RandomKoolzip]

63. LSD: Let the Sixties Die

[madrchsod]

65. bring back the draft and all hell will break loose.

we did`t have the internet back in those days. we under estimated the red squads,cia,and the fbi informant networks so maybe this time we would be smarter.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

66. I think because of the sixties draft, there might not be another.

Too many people in Washington still remember the powerful anti government movement that was born of this system, and they would just as soon avoid the probable ramifications if they did it again.