Mr. Fish: Mad in America

[marmar]

from truthdig:




Mad in America

Posted on Feb 3, 2011
By Mr. Fish


It is a queer fact, indeed, that none of the most outspoken and anti-authoritarian radicals in this country are under 65 years old.

Queer because radicalism and the job of saying f-you! to the bureaucratic versions of Mom and Dad have traditionally fallen to much younger men and women, who, as they approach early adulthood, are suddenly outraged to find how disinterested the dominant culture is in their ideals and their passions and their deep desire to live, perhaps even raise a family, in a saner society.

One thinks of Voltaire, Rimbaud, Phil Ochs, the young Picasso, the Beats, the yippies, the hippies, the Panthers, Warhol’s Factory riffraff, the Gen X, Y and Z-ers, that sort of thing. One doesn’t typically think of somebody who might smell faintly of mothballs and Metamucil or somebody who is likely to loose his teeth in a sneeze or who might proclaim loudly and repeatedly that Velcro, microwave ovens and cable television are newfangled and faddish and cockamamie.

However, when Howard Zinn died last year at 87 there was something about the silencing of his voice that seemed unfair and tragic. How could a spirit that was so intellectually vibrant and forward-thinking and balls-to-the-wall energetic die, literally, of old age? It was like reading the impossible headline: James Dean Dies in Porsche 550 Spyder at Age 91. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/mad_in_america_20110203/

[xchrom]

1. that is a really good read. nt

[DCKit]

2. Bread and Circuses + NCLB + Fox "News" + OxyRush... the list goes on. nt

[GliderGuider]

3. Yeah, I came out as an anarchist well after I turned 50.

I had good roots - solid socialist parents, cut my folksong teeth on Phil Ochs, turned on, tuned in, dropped out - but then I took a long detour into the Asperger-land of the high tech boomtown. I finally woke up one day, remembered what I'd been so pissed off about in 1974, discovered that things had gotten waaay worse while I'd been asleep for the previous quarter century, and decided that I had little enough to lose to take a risk or two.

I suspect there are a lot of boomers out there who are having these kinds of re-awakenings.