The Difference Between 1967 and 2005

[mtnsnake]

HERE'S HOW WE PROTESTED IN 1967:







HERE'S HOW WE PROTEST IN 2005:

[whistle]

1. I get the picture (even though the 1967 pics don't show)...

...and I suppose this is how our military leaders are fighting the wars in the middle east as well.

[mtnsnake]

2. Sorry, I don't think they're showing up on Netscape. Try IE if you can

Thanks for letting me know :)

[Coastie for Truth]

3. Came up (very slowly) on Mozilla Firefox

[mtnsnake]

24. They're showing now. See post #23

Thanks to photo bucket!

[Jacobin]

4. The draft has a way of making people wake up and take notice

I know it did for me.....my lottery number was 15 and my college deferment was running out.

It's too bad that's what its going to take to end IraqNam.

[Snap]

10. Yes Indeed,

The Draft had a very powerful way of getting your attention. That and receiving word of childhood friends getting their shit blown away, these things have a way of focusing ones' mind.

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. Explain why the first way is better

Are we just being nostalgic?

Perhaps its time to stop mourning the loss of one way of protesting and start developing protest ideas better suited to the 2005 method. A big crowd in one place is sure enough interesting and useful, but we have huge crowds across the globe on the Internet, and its time we start harnessing that power, instead of bemoaning its lack of resemblance to other forms of power.

The flower children lost, by the way, and lost big time. So maybe we should get away from their model, which was not really all that successful.

Return to Yesterday
The Lilac Time

It was the day before the day before yesterday
When we thought everything would now go our way
We inherited a fortune of innocence
And they took it all away

We travel on the last bus from sanity
Through provincetown to cities of obscurity
And somewhere down the road it occurs to me
That I... I might have missed my stop

But I will not
Return to yesterday
Or smooth out the human clay
We'll face this new England like we always have
In a fury of denial
We'll go out dancing on the tiles
Help me down, but don't take me back

I heard a lover calling to Saint Anthony
Sadly treating love like her property
Only battles can be lost and so it seems we do
But I'm hoping for a change

I left you at the bus stop in workingtown
Now the service has been cut re-named slumberdown
I can see you on the bars of your brother's bicycle
Now I hope you're not alone

And all the politician creeps
I know they want them back
And the couturier weeps
She knows they won't come back
And the lovers who seldom speak
I know they want them back
And me falling back into your half term kisses
No I will not...

Return to yesterday
Or smooth out the human clay
We'll face this new England like we always have
In a fury of denial
We'll go out dancing on the tiles
Help me down, but don't take me back

[Jacobin]

6. We didn't lose. We won.

It wasn't just 'large groups'. There were riots, destruction, civil disobedience....the country was on the verge of a civil war.

If you make it pleasant for the warmongers in power to make war for no good reason, they won't stop.'

If those protests and civil disobedience and deaths at Kent State hadn't taken place we would STILL be in Viet Nam....light at the end of the tunnel, doncha know

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. The reaction was swift and devastating

You won minor skirmishes, and lost the battle spectacularly.

And you left us - the generation born in the 1970's and 1980's - with the legacy of your defeat, and worse, with the constant illusion of your victory.

[Snap]

11. Your idea of Victory is an illusion.

It's like president shithead and his quest for victory over "terror".
Life is like a dance, it's always 2 steps forward and one step back. The movements of people don't obey the laws of physics, rather they tend to obey the laws of "whack a mole". A new and improved form of greed and power always rises to the surface, and the battle continues,
some become too tired and broken and can fight no more, and some step up to the plate to take the challenge.

[alcibiades_mystery]

13. Well, I do understand that

I'm not, of course, looking for a "total victory," politically, or over suffering in general, and I do recognize that as a totalitarian desire.

But it is pretty clear that the struggles of those movements, while successful on many fronts, began to disable the emergence of new weapons for new movements, that the left has been stuck in a Vietnam era nostalgia mode all the more farcical for its tragic repetition, and that, while not a "total victory," the right has made massive political inroads over the last 30 years mainly using that image of protest being lauded here as its foil.

The fact that the original poster plays out the same old tired story with the implicit valuation of the comparison should be point enough.

[Snap]

69. Right

there's plenty of bullshit nostalgia. Few have kept up with what the struggle requires, and quietly have gone off to live the american consumer dream. So it is with mass movements, but there is still a community that keeps on keepin' on. I'm not sure who to blame, but the part that has the spirit, that's who we must look to.

[Mountainman]

8. The flower children lost ? It wasn't a game to win or lose it was a

message.

They had a message and they delivered it. Please don't bring up a bunch of that retro history of the sixties we get so often here. I was in Vietnam back then and was very greatful for the flower children and joined them in 1968.

[alcibiades_mystery]

9. Long term

The movement was unsuccessful.

I would never claim that the protest movements weren't effective in putting the brakes on more escalation to Vietnam after 1967. They certainly were. As we know now, Westmoreland asked for another 260,000 troops in December 1967 and was turned down because, among other reasons, Johnson's cabinet thought that they might be needed at home (!). So yes, there was a great deal of pressure exerted and there were very many successes, from feminism, gay liberation, latino/latina and of course African American movements as well. No question. But the era of the big protests also made the big protest little more than a spectacle for cultural consumption, divorced from its political content and effect. The weapon bacame blunt, and continuing reliance on it led to severe losses throughout the 70's and 80's for that same "message."

So I ask now, why is that older version better for us here and now?

[Mountainman]

14. The losses of the 70's and 80's were the responsibility of the people of

70's and 80's not the people of the sixties.

What happened in the 70's and 80's was a reaction to how we felt about ourselves in the 60's.

Americans could not say, "We were wrong to go to war in Vietnam and we have to learn by our mistakes."

The Carter years were years of humility and misery, bad karma from all we did wrong in the sixties. The thing most wanted to do was to elect the good guy in the white hat Reagan and to this day people blame it all on the protests of the sixties.

If only we could take a look at ourselves from the perspective of the rest of the world. We don't need to be the mightiest nation or the richest nation or the most moral nation we just need to be the most just and honest nation and that is what we were saying in the sixties.

[alcibiades_mystery]

18. My only point here

Is that the TACTICS of the 1960's may not be the right TACTICS for the 2000's.

I suppose I shouldn't have written the part about the 60's folks losing (though they did lose, precisely in the reaction you discuss), since the "message" was so strong. It's also interesting to me that the SDS and other groups actually had theoretical foundations in contemporary thinkers and recent (Marcuse, Buber, Niebuhr, Friedan, etc. - and let's not forget Althusser, Gramsci, etc.), whereas today we behave as though coherent theoretical frameworks are the purview of academia and activists have no business being so "impractical"!

That said, nobody has answered my main question: Why is the earlier (1967) version better than the later (2005) version for the problems we face today. Everyone has focused on the side comment, but nobody has addressed that question at all.

[Mountainman]

19. Right now we don't get any coverage in the media, only if we make a lot of

noise will anyone notice. I think that the tactics of the sixties would do great things today because then we would get noticed. Not at first but if we were persistant, like a monthly anti war march that got bigger and bigger each month or a march every Sunday by lefties of faith to show that the right doesn't own God is just what we need. Maybe then our message would get some attention. Lord knows nothing we say gets out now to anyone but ourselves. We are daily preaching to ourselves.

"Hey fellow DUers ! we are getting screwed by the right" If a blogger wrote and no one read it, did he/she make a sound?

[alcibiades_mystery]

29. If there were a monthly protest

And it was nothing but the "monthly protest" (there they go again), would it really make a sound?

[lyonn]

35. Could it be that we haven't had a VN

until now. The 60's and VN made a serious impression on a couple of generations. In the 60's people began to realize they had a voice in all things, not just VN. Women realized they had rights, we could discuss "Is God Dead", Gov't. needed to be questioned, etc.

In 65 I made a comment to someone in the military that I didn't like what we were doing in VN and he got indignant and acted like I was uninformed and stupid. Does that sound familiar? It took 10 years from then to get out of there. Media is failing us but the internet is forcing some info to get out. We don't need soft spoken Dems that's for sure. Protestors don't get media attention. People apparently are getting their homes searched if they speak out. No one can get near the Pres. The press corp won't get on AF-1 if they ask the wrong questions. Maybe troops coming back telling the truth about the happenings in Iraq may be the thing to stirr things up. Photos always help.

[mtnsnake]

27. "but we have huge crowds across the globe on the Internet"

That's my point! That isn't working!

Your "2005 method" of protesting is by doing what we're so used to doing now....protesting among ourselves on the internet. The message is getting across, sure, but TO EACH OTHER, and to whomever spends hours on political posting boards.

This is all fine and good, but the problem is that our message is NOT reaching everyone and it's not hitting home because for every message that's posted on the internet by liberals there's another one posted by conservatives.

We have got to take our message to the streets. THAT'S the way it'll hit home with all the "undecideds" or with the masses of people who can be influenced one way or another. THAT is what will MOVE and INSPIRE people. Believe it or not, there are MILLIONS upon millions of people who are influenced by what they see on television...people who don't have a clue about what's going on in cyberspace.

What's going to inspire people for change......seeing hordes of dissatisfied citizens protesting in the streets or seeing nothing because they don't subscribe to political forums on the internet?

Look, I'm not advocating any reduction in what we're accomplishing here at DU, but we need to take it to another level, which is up into the streets.

[welshTerrier2]

12. it led to a HUGE win for Nixon and we're at risk again now

couldn't see the 1967 photos (firefox) but you've made a very interesting point ... the anti-war protests of the 1960's had a huge impact on this country ... it's sad we can't get the same type of commitment and energy today ... citizen activism, in all its many forms, is what democracy should be all about ... having said that, i do think particiation in online forums (e.g. DU) is a valuable process ... of course, it should never be the only process and perhaps that's the problem you've highlighted in your photos ...

a more important comparison between the years you cited, however, shows that the Democratic Party, the establishment wing of the Party, rejected the anti-war wing in 1967 and is doing the exact same thing right now ...

the anti-war movement in 1967 lead to Johnson's decision not to run in 1968 and it lead to a disasterous rift in the Party between the Eugene McCarthy forces and the Humphrey hawks ... and Humphrey lost to Nixon ...

and we're seeing the exact same rift right now ... Dean and his merry band of Senators seem to think we are "stuck in Iraq" and have offered absolutely nothing to the anti-war majority in the Party ... it is today's Party establishment that refuses to dialog and refuses to offer an iota of compromise ... and the failures we'll see in 2006 and 2008 will be the fault of those who refuse to negotiate a middle ground ...

in spite of the obvious failures of the neo-con agenda, the Democratic Party is so screwed up right now that they will not be able to take advantage of obvious republican vulnerabilities ... i can see no year that paints a clearer picture of where the Party is today than 1967 ...

[deutsey]

15. Had RFK/MLK not been assassinated, I think 1968 would have turned out

much differently (for the better).

They were the leaders of the "groundswell" that had grown since the early '60s. Once they were eliminated...well, you know what happened.

[tjdee]

16. Well, what the hell happened to you people?!

I think it's real cute to post pictures like that, but I don't think they killed everyone in the 60s/70s...where did all the big bad protestors go?

??

The first president I remember is Reagan. And people mumbled about him, that was basically it. He got two terms, and Poppy won after that. It wasn't until we, the oft maligned young people, were of voting age that Bill Clinton appealed to us and won.

So, after Jimmy Carter's election, where did all the righteous protestors go? Why did they raise their children like they did?

???

[Mountainman]

17. You make a big mistake when you lump everyone into a single group

Many of us,that includes Me!I! a bleeding heart liberal Vietnam Vet have never changed. Why just yesterday the HR lady where I work accused me of having "liberal" values.

Stop blaming us for the problems of your generation. We all do what we can when we can with what ever means we have available.

We had the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war to take on and we did. If we haven't made the world a better place for you well excuse fucking me! Get off your ass and do someting with the hand you have been delt today, I am.

[tjdee]

30. Where did I blame you for the problems of my generation?

Or were you just speaking as generally as I was? :silly:

I wrote a snarky reply...but, what I was trying to say was that what the OP did, implying that 'back then' you all did so much, and today we don't do anything, bothered me.

I'm not saying you all didn't make the world a better place, I'm saying that if you (or the OP, or whoever) thinks young people do such a piss poor job of taking down the man, maybe he/she should wonder why they weren't raised to do so.

[mtnsnake]

31. Not just young peope, ALL of us

are doing a piss poor job "of taking down the man".

Sorry if my last 3 pics showed only young people. When I did a search to find some pictures of people sitting behind their computer screens, the only ones that I could find quickly just happened to be of younger people.

The point of those last 3 pictures was to show where we (young and old) are now, as compared to where the protesters were back then. We're doing it from behind our monitors and they were doing out in the streets. Their way got the attention of the entire country.

[Mountainman]

32. I don't know what younger people think politically since I don't interact

much with them but I would like to see some demonstrations where people of all ages come together to fight the right and this war.

I'm 59 yrs old and much of what is taking place politically won't change my life much but it sure will have an effect on those younger than me.

If we don't fight the right we will end up with a theocracy in this country and no middle class, just the wealthy ruling class and the working poor who will be forced to fight neocon wars of profiteering for the foreseeable future.

Now I am ready to get out there with young people and fight for your future just like I fought for mine back in the sixties.

[mtnsnake]

33. I'm with you 100% on that, Mountainman!

Well said.

And I, too, am ready to join up with young and old alike to fight for our future. AFAIC, there's a big difference between bitching about the right from behind our screens and fighting what they stand for out in the open.

Like your handle, btw ;)

[spacelady]

42. Well, Mountainman, I hear the drums

I am 43 and I have a comfortable life...there is no reason to stick my neck out, it will only lead to trouble in the short run (playing devil's advocate here, bear with me)-----BUT, in the long run my Jiminy Cricket whispers in my ear, " you MUST do something, they can't just get away with this in MY America!" So, we will take our chances and hopefully turn the tide; it will take a mighty groundswell to get noticed though--WHAT to do ?

[spacelady]

41. Well Mountainman, I hear the drums

I am 43 and I have a comfortable life...there is no reason to stick my neck out, it will only lead to trouble in the short run (playing devil's advocate here, bear with me)-----BUT, in the long run my Jiminy Cricket whispers in my ear, " you MUST do something, they can't just get away with this in MY America!" So, we will take our chances and hopefully turn the tide; it will take a mighty groundswell to get noticed though--WHAT to do ?

[Mountainman]

43. Well first write letters to the editor blasting right wing letters

Join groups like the UU church and see if you can get them to march with you. Go to gay rights parades and march. Put anti war posters in your yard and hang a flag upside down in your window.

Stand up in your church against the conservative Christian and Conservative Catholic points of view.

All pretty scary stuff I know. Not very comfortable to be out there in the public.

At work we this week we had this life style questionaire to fill out if we want health insurance. It asks a lot of very personal information and I refused to fill it out. The HR lady accused me of having "liberal" points of view and beliving in a right to privacy. I had to decline the health insurance. I won't fill it out.

[spacelady]

45. Thank you for your response.

I am an artist & I have a vision of making a painting of a burning flag and having it hanging in a visible place, but in smalltown alabama it might get me or my family hurt. I'm sorry, but that is a deterrent in this big brother world.

edited to add that I am ashamed to feel this way...perhaps this is part of the problem.

[Mountainman]

50. I understand were you are and I don't blame you. There will come a

point in time when there is a critical mass of people who hurt enough and feel like they are not listened to and they will begin to form groups and march and the crowds will get bigger and bigger each time.

The media will at first ignore them which will make the marchers more determined to get coverage. The majority will mock them and later begin to join when they no longer need the approval of their peers.

We just don't have enough people who hurt enough yet but we will, trust me. If the right has it's way DU will become illegal and we will have to meet in secret on the net somewhere. That alone will get us off our asses and into the streets.


The inevitable end of the ideologies of the right is the destruction of lifestyle choices and of individual freedoms. There is always a spark of hope and imagination and vision in certain people and they make the way for the rest of us to join them.

It is always darkest before the dawn.

Gandhi said, "When I despair I remember that the way of truth and love have aways won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall, think of it, always."

It may not happen in my lifetime or yours but it will happen.

[spacelady]

53. Subject: You express yourself beautifully, tears come to my eyes...

When there are people who have such passion for the way it SHOULD be, It does give hope--Let's keep it up!

[Mountainman]

54. I'll tell you this, the things that we believe in are the things that lift

up the spririt. Things like individual freedom and knowlege and social justice and tollerance and caring and love and emotions and feelings.

These are things that you don't have to force on people because they are natural and people desire them.

The things that the right believes in like religious fundamentalism and preemtive war and greed and hate and intollerence are negetives and eventually people reject them.

[welshTerrier2]

20. here's my take on it ...

i was very involved in the anti-war movement in the "sixties" ... i've been to several demonstrations against the Iraq "war" ... i've always been very political and i am even more political now ...

having said that, i never believed that many who protested the Vietnam War were going to be in it for the long haul ... part of the way demonstration organizers were able to boost their turnouts was by adding a cultural element to the demonstrations ... either there was free pot or good music or both ... demonstrations were something of a "happening" ... i think some percentage of those who protested were not there primarily for political reasons ...

and, as others have said, we had a draft ... you just can't minimize how that changes things ... without a draft, and without a war, many of those demonstrators were off getting MBA's and buying SUV's or investing their 401K's ...

i see no benefit to the protest movement in creating generational rifts ... i have the greatest respect for the energies of people younger than myself who see the light and get involved ... in fact, contrary to the tone of your post (i.e. righteous protestors), i can tell you that i was truly saddened when the generation that followed mine (Gen-X) started following me into the workplace and i suddenly found that the "new recruits" to the movement were often much more conservative than i was ... not all, but many ... seeing a renewed political awareness in the younger people today is highly inspirational ...

don't attack the baby boomers ... most of us have great respect for your generation ...

[Mountainman]

21. You are right about what attracted the large crowds to the demonstrations

The possibility of meeting a new sexual partner and getting high and listening to live music was a turn on. There was that core of workers and organizers but it was the crowds that made the news and it was the crowds that gave the message a voice.

There was the backlash from the "straights" who told the media to stop giving the demonstrations coverage because that's all we wanted was coverage and they were right.


I think the idea for Woodstock came from the political and anti war demonstrations. It was the sex, drugs and rock and roll without the political motivation yet they couldn't keep the message out of the music even at Woodstock, see 'Fixing to die rag"

Without the coverage we had no voice and I think that is just the thing we need today. Imagine the main stream media giving leftie anti war rallies TV coverage! Man I am ready to tie dye all my t-shirts and paint some signs. Let's go get em!


Hell no our grand kids won't go!

[welshTerrier2]

25. tie dye and demonstrations ???

where? now?

oh shit ... where the hell is my headband ???

dammit i can't see anything ... honey, where the hell are my glasses ...

OK ... i'm ready now ... I heard Country Joe's going to be there ...

[mtnsnake]

28. Most of us are still around and we're waiting anxiously

for some energetic young liberals to get up off their cushy little chairs and start organizing some protests! Oh wait a minute, that's too hard. It's much easier passing the same old message around among us. Geez, college is out and it'll be another summer of silence and letting Bush get away with murder. Yikes

[Marnieworld]

22. WAIT! I know this- 38!

:D

[mtnsnake]

23. On Edit--Here's those first 4 pics from '67 that disappeared from my OP

HERE'S HOW WE PROTESTED IN 1967:






HERE'S HOW WE PROTEST IN 2005:

[omega minimo]

51. I'm amazed at all that's falling thru the cracks in this thread

Is it still on?

Thank you for raising these images and the ideas....

:kick:

[mtnsnake]

63. Me, too

and you're welcome! :thumbsup:

[omega minimo]

66. See #58

[zippy890]

77. The younger generation today is living through

the political historical "backlash" to the social protests of the 60s and 70s.

I realized this after reading this article by a member of the younger generation.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/05/04/23_tide.html


-snip-

Surely, man, there is some point to all this depressing yammering? Let's get to it!

Perhaps there is. Those of us in that enigmatic 18-30 voter demographic (from which I am scheduled to emigrate in the frighteningly imminent future) have spent our entire lives enduring the massive right-wing backlash to a progressive social movement whose fruits we never tasted. The grave insults to conservative sensibilities that were the civil rights movement, the collapse of the Vietnam invasion, and the fall of Richard Nixon are just chapters in history books that our teachers never quite had time to cover in high school.

-snip -

I think there's a lot of truth to this.

There is no right way or wrong way to protest and dissent, the process evolves out the dictates of the times we live in. The voice of the anti-establishment movement of today is cautious, necessarily so, but the results will be more effective and long lasting than the massive eruptions of protest that happened in the 60s.
The country couldn't handle it all, so much so quick back then.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE
We'll get there comrades, soon come.

:hippie:

[Dr Fate]

26. Plus the music and TV shows were better. And there was a draft.

n/t

[autorank]

34. Walkin & talkin', that was us. Now we're sittin & typin. WTF?

[Mountainman]

36. There is something that always comes back to me when I think of the

demonstrations of the past.

That is this. The people who were willing to lay it on the line,(and some died in the civil rights movement and at Kent State and other places) were not there to make their lives better but were there to make the lives of those who came after them better.

Sure people wanted equal rights for them selves and wanted out of the war, but like Martin Luther King Jr said, "I may not get there with you but as a people we will get to the promised land,"

Look at the faces in the first set of pictures. There is determination on the faces and there is fear in the eyes of the marchers. They knew the police could very well bash in their skulls that day. They my lose their jobs or be thrown in jail or maybe face losing the support of their families and friends. Marchers were hated back then and beating them up was supported by the majority.

Folks you have to be willing to lay it on the line and lose it all for those who come after to have a better life and sitting at our screens and typing away risks very little. Even now I worry about being seen in public or on the news standing against the war or for gay rights or agaist the religious right, what would I have to risk? My job, my life? It's more comfortable to sit here at my computer.

[mtnsnake]

38. Bingo.

Folks you have to be willing to lay it on the line and lose it all for those who come after to have a better life and sitting at our screens and typing away risks very little.

And that, folks, is one of the differences between the way it was done then and the way it's done now. There's nothing wrong with the second way, but that in itself will never get the results that the first way got.

[Mountainman]

40. The act of standing in public and burning your draft card was asking

to be thrown in jail and having your future ruined. I was drafted and don't know if I would have had the courage to do what so many others did. I did not want to go to jail so I faced the war and luckily I was not killed but I think the anti war protesters were just as courageous or more so than I was.

[spacelady]

44. I'm ready... So who is going to start and/or who is with me? n/t

[H2O Man]

80. You are not ready

if you are asking someone else to "start" or be with you.

[icehenge]

47. my thoughts

I'm in my 20's and let me say it is hard to find people who have
the same concerns as me about the political climate. A lot of
people don't seem to be reading or listening to the news. Even
though, I always try and educate friends on what I feel is IMPORTANT.

I protested on Jan 20th with about 75 other people in downtown
Nashville. I tried to recruit friends, "I can't take off work"
"or I'm not interested" were the answers I got. Can't take of work
that was a just an excuse same with not interested. Both these
guys are very opinionated but didn't want to get involved.

Strange you mentioned about being worried to be seen on the local
news. I too felt that way. It's hard to feel your doing the right
thing when people driving by yell out "four more years!"
Lack of concern seems to be a major issue to overcome for my friends.

[spacelady]

49. This is exactly what I am feeling. Thank you for speaking out. n/t

[icehenge]

55. Thanks

:hi:

[Mountainman]

52. "Lack of concern seems to be a major issue to overcome for my friends."

Back in my time we called it apathy.

Funny how things don't change much. Your friends don't have much to lose yet I'll bet. If they are your age and a new draft comes they may want to get involved. It sure lit a fire under a few butts in the 60's!

[icehenge]

57. Right

I've got a buddy who didn't vote in the 2004 election and he
seems to be leaning republican. Now I hadn't talked to this friend
for a few years but I really figured he'd be a Democrat. He used
to be so inquisitive and questioning. Heck now he listens to
Bill O'reilly on the radio. Mind you this is Tennessee and
Republican talk radio is big, Rush, O'Reilly, Savage nation, etc.
Air America Radio just came to Memphis though. Maybe sometime
it will come to our area. I did get him listening to AA Radio
over the Internet though for a short time...

[high density]

37. Vietnam != Iraq

If a draft comes, then you might start to see people go out on the streets.

[mtnsnake]

39. Bush is reason enough for us to go out on the streets, draft or no draft.

Why wait?

[unkachuck]

46. yep, when Rummie needs....

....100s of thousands of low-cost low-tech bodies with rifles to hold oil real estate, dodge IEDs or for grand new invasions, I'm confident tomorrows draftees will know what to do....

[sakabatou]

48. I think I know that guy in the top picture!

[seg4527]

56. you want a bet?

I was just at a protest two days ago where a group of 100 students confronted policemen in riot gear who had pepper spray guns, after they maced a student and arrested other students sitting in on my campus.

http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2005/05/05/64529

http://www.wcco.com/topvideo/?cat=5&next=40

first video


We're out there, trust me, and we're building a big base.

We're out there, we're camping out in front of an admin buidling, and we have ourselves a tent city. i think these are tactics the people of the 60's are proud of. just because we're not getting attention doesn't mean we are there, and i think declaring that in declaring we are not there while we are, you are hurting the cause that so many students and other people are working really hard for.

the base is growing, and i'm pretty sure that it'll keep on growing for a number of years.

[mtnsnake]

61. Thanks for what you're doing

I hope that group of 100 students turns into 10,000.

[omega minimo]

58. The difference is the real world vs. the mediated world.

alcibiades_mystery’s lyric contained the answer to his/her question: Why is one better than the other?

“I left you at the bus stop in workingtown" (real world)
"Now the service has been cut re-named slumberdown” (New World Order) (slumbering citizens slogging around cut services)

alcibiades_mystery:
“But the era of the big protests also made the big protest little more than a spectacle for cultural consumption, divorced from its political content and effect. The weapon bacame blunt, and continuing reliance on it led to severe losses throughout the 70's and 80's for that same "message."”

The notion that the Movement was unsuccessful is not true. THE SUCCESSES OF THE MOVEMENT IS WHY THE BASTARDS BOUGHT THE MEDIA. And invented the first cartoon president-- Ronnie Raygun. The rest is (altered) history.

With due respect, alcibiades_mystery, your words smack of someone well-versed in an official version of events you did not experience, as if you are expressing someone else's interpretation. Rather clinical. The blunt weapon thing is great verbiage, but what happened is: the weapon was sharpened to a point by the powerful who yanked it out of the hands of the people. Every aspect of daily life becomes "little more than a spectacle for cultural consumption" when major media moguls pablumize and present it to the public in pretty predigested packages. (Pringles anyone?)

Mountainman 
“Without the coverage we had no voice and I think that is just the thing we need today. Imagine the main stream media giving leftie anti war rallies TV coverage!”

Yeah, imagine. The successes of the Movement is why the bastards bought the Media.

:evilgrin:

Like Jello says: Become The Media. You can stand for somethin right where you are. Everywhere you go. Even in the real world.

[Withywindle]

70. Yes! This is part of the crux of it.

Anybody remember the March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian rights in 1987? At least 10s of thousands of people. Maybe almost half a million, depending on who you ask. The AIDS quilt was laid out on the mall for everyone to see, and there was so much grief and anger and longing for a better world it would have been deadly at 10 paces to anyone who didn't share our passion. I was there. (Mind you, I identified as straight at the time; I was there for my friends and because I didn't want to live in a world that oppresses people based on who they love.) What about the anti-nuclear, anti-Contra, anti-apartheid in South Africa movements that were going on all through the 80s?

There was a March for Choice, for Women's Lives just two years later, that was even bigger. I was there too. I was in college; it was easier to hop on a bus for a weekend to go do that than it is now. There were so many of us.

The mass protests, the direct actions have never stopped. They might have gotten smaller (arguably). They might focus on different issues. They might have dwindled in frequency.

But as far as I can tell the biggest difference is the coverage. The novelty has worn off. It's easier for the talking heads to dismiss protesters now. It's easier to ignore, downplay, diminish--and they do, oh they do. And the "silent majority", once reassured that the march isn't going to mess up the traffic too bad, just shrugs and writes us off as quaint hobbyists, no real threat to anything.

I don't know what to do about this. But to say that only in the 60s did thousands take to the streets and that my generation and the ones after it never bother is just not fair. We're just having doubts about the actual usefulness of the technique.

I am not at all interested in perpetuating that ASININE "generational" conflict crap. I am not the least bit interested in blaming Boomers for failing to fix everything, nor in being blamed for being apathetic when it just isn't true. Those are divide-and-conquer tactics. I'm interested in learning from people who were there before and passing on what I learn to those who come after.

To those who were warriors on the justice front in the 60s and 70s: Thank you. :toast:

[mtnsnake]

72. Excellent post, but PLEASE, it is NOT a "generational" thing. It is a

distinction of the fact that WE.....young people, old people, and baby boomers alike....are for the most part willing to sit behind our computers to "pass the word". Protesters in 1967 didn't have that luxury, thank goodness.

Hey, we're all in it together. :toast:

[orleans]

59. can you imagine people actually taking to the streets?

we might have to do it if this shit keeps up. and it's hard to imagine it happening

[mtnsnake]

62. Peace marches shouldn't be hard to imagine

Yes, we might have to all join in at some point. Nothing else is working.

[orleans]

78. that's how i feel--it's just hard for me to imagine

millions of others going out their doors and into the streets

[mtnsnake]

79. It's easy for us to feel like that. But imagine for the fun of it that

we had no computers....

Then it wouldn't be hard to imagine the millions going out into the streets, since there would be no other choice of getting the message out.

Nowadays, we have the luxury of choosing. We can voice our dissatisfaction in the streets or we can voice it online. The latter is much easier, although not nearly as effective in showing that the country is royally pissed at Bush. At some point we're going to have to turn our computers and do it the hard way.

We do have computers, though, and they're a great tool. Computers can be the mobilizing tool to get us into the streets at some point. They're already being used to organize what few peace marches we're seeing.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

60. Here in the UK

Protest:
One million people (about one sixtieth of our entire population) take peacefully to the streets to protest against the incipient war in Iraq

Result:
War in Iraq


Protest:
A few thousand people launch a campaign of violence, intimidation, vandalism and harrasement against incipient medical animal research labs in Huntingdon

Result:
No lab in Huntingdon

[Jack Rabbit]

64. We still do the old fashioned kind

Photo of peace march, New York, February 15, 2003
from Associated Press via CommonDreams

[mtnsnake]

65. That's a good picture, even if it is from more than 2 years ago.

Where's the passion lately, though?

We're in a horrendously crooked war, the economy is in the pits, Bush is preaching democracy abroad while he takes our freedoms away at home....yet we're satisfied to complain about it mostly from behind our computer screens.

I'm not saying there aren't any people out there, but it's not anywhere the number it should be.

[Joebert]

67. The economy says stay home.

With gas expensive
High paying jobs heading overseas
People working two or three low paying jobs
No media involvement

You can't get throngs of people any more. The media stifles any ability for people everywhere to know what's up and to find out where to march.

Many people don't realize there is a problem because they work so hard, they just do that.

With the lower paying jobs, and more expensive health care, gas, food, people can't get up and leave for a week to make themselves heard.

[Radical Activist]

68. I've been out protesting with other young people. Where are the boomers?

Maybe you need to show pictures of baby boomers sitting at home on their fat ass because they're too lazy/establishment/scared to do what they did when they were young.

[mtnsnake]

71. You don't need to get nasty & you don't need to make this a young vs old

thing.

BTW, if you're talking about this baby boomer, you should know that fat, lazy, or scared doesn't apply, although I'm not quite sure why you'd think that being fat would have anything to do with what we're talking about here.

Please read post #31 and you'll see I never intended this to be a young vs old debate. It's just what it is....the way they did it before the internet and the way we're doing it now. Because the last 3 pictures are of younger people, you shouldn't assume I'm only blaming our youth. I just didn't spend enough time to come up with pictures of OLD people sitting behind computers when I did a search.

[omega minimo]

73. Above all

Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality of a revolutionary. -Che

[kodi]

74. the future ain't what it used to be, that's all

boundless horizons make for a sense of freedom.

limited horizons make for a sense of rats in a cage.

[Dr Fate]

75. I'm practically a Southern Redneck- and I organized a protest in GA.

How many peace protests were there in Augusta GA in the '60s?

Give us a little more love, please?

[harpo]

76. we protest on the streets here (Texas)