Sadly, The Times Have Stopped A-Changin'...

[Lucki Chaarms]

And started a-suckin'.

I live my sad little latent-hippie life wrapped in an upper class white boy life, and you know what? It just stops mattering after a while.

When Bob Dylan sang "The Times They Are A-Changin'" every word was true. There was revolution in the air, people everywhere were beginning to examine their assumptions, and America was becoming a new place. The Peace Sign stood for something, young people all over this country were making a difference, and being listened to. There was of course a conservative reaction to this movement, but it was crushed.

What happened boomers? You were the last generation who had a chance to really change the world... in the late 60's it seems like it was inevitable that this country would rise above the stagnation that had been there before, and that maybe we could have a society about love and community.

When people gathered in the thousands in 1969 in Woodstock to live freely, they left a mark on the world that we still feel today, and it's still talked about in reverent tones. People loved each other, and it was largely genuine, I have to believe it was. Bob Dylan's words sound so silly when applied to the country right now, but when he wrote them they were dead on. It was "clear" that the world was gonna be different, so help or get out of the way, right? Hell, at this point we're in a country where the religious right has so much push we have a redneck frat-boy dumbass in the white house. The times have come to where the only rebellion is pointless little things, conterculture. We live in a time of "Zero Tolerance" in schools, where anyone who speaks any differently from the pack is accused of being potentially violent and is ostracized and faces disciplinary action

I know that it wasn't like we see it throught the glass of time, but you know that there was a chance to make a lasting and wonderful change. Instead we got the decadent, burned-out, uncaring 70's. And now, it seems like all the real freedom and beauty in the world has to hide from the rest. Fuck it all! Where did this come from, and where did it go back to? We need another time of national cleansing so badly. We need to return to an innocent time where it's all about love and experience. We need to stop this. I can't even describe it all, but I think you know what I'm talking about. It's what Cameron Crowe called the "silly machinery". I don't know what I expect in the way of response, this might really belong in MPSIMS, but dammit people, what went wrong? Why are we here? Why is there no hope left, at least not like there was? Where has the optimism gone?

Lucky Charms (Formerly MarxBoy)

[Guinastasia]

Vietnam. Kent State. Police beating protestors. AIDS. Watergate. Recession. Ronald fucking Reagan. John Lennon being shot. Altamont.
Lots of things.

[E-Sabbath]

Meet the new boss... Same as the old boss.
There's nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the party on the left
Is now the party on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight


I guess we just got fooled again.

Seriously, there is a new revolution. There always is. The one that will be remembered, for this decade, is the fight against corporations, not against government. About freedom of information, against restricted distribution. The RIAA and the MPAA and Microsoft is the _man_, brother, and they're trying, in the dinosaur-like brain that the corporations have evolved, to crush freedom, so that all we see is the pablum that they dish out in their generosity for us to consume.

Well, support your local bands.
Fight against zero-tolerance, and against anything that takes a human being and inhumanizes it, whether into a "discipline problem" or into a consumer.
Hey, at least this time, we've got IBM on our side. And when IBM's the good guys... you know there's evil out there.
Cites on request, though a brief search of /. should give you everything you need.

Course, there's real evil out there, and people are getting hurt. But the government's good at that sort of thing. Draw their nose to it, and if it involves saving people, hey, it'll get fixed.
Problem is, when it involves fighting against someone who's paying the PAC that feeds the congresscritters... well, we got a problem. But it's okay. Sooner or later, if they don't adapt, they'll become irrelevant.
Peace, Love, and Linux.

[Homer]

Lucky, the times are getting ready to change. Your generation, my generation, is starting it's slow rise to power. We've been oppressed depressed and repressed since day one, and we're getting tired of it. The next battle, yes, is against business. It's a fight for freedom of information, freedom from the choking hold of greed and corporate corruption. It's a fight to prove that every man, EVERY man, is made equal and will, nay, MUST be treated as such. The next war is against stereotypes, it's against judgement, and it's against preconceptions. Youth no longer means ignorance, nor does it mean innocence. Youth must be recognized as a force to be reckoned with, both intellectually and socially.

Our fight, friend, is just beginning. You feel there's nothing there for us, but that's because we haven't grabbed the reigns yet and demanded respect. We must NOT allow our freedoms to be taken away. I sit and watch as the last generation, and the one before it, remove the last bits of freedom that our predecessors fought and died for, I sit and watch as they take away everything that's meaningful. I sit and watch as ignorant, ineffectual buffoons control the means of education, destroying the hope of the youth. I watch as our potential is squashed before it has a chance to bloom. I won't sit and watch any longer. Will you? Join me, join your brothers, your sisters, your friends, join up and say NO MORE! You will NOT keep us silent any longer as you take our sweat, our money, and our potential and translate it into a twisted money-pump. The greed of generations past must be stripped away so we, as a nation, can begin anew in this new age, this age of information, prosperity, and PROMISE.

Email me.

--Tim

[Cat Whisperer]

Lucky Charms, I do know what you're talking about. We all have ideas about what is wrong with the world, and what should be done to fix it, but the world is a big, complex place. I think in this situation you really need to pick your battles. For me personally, I believe that the love of money, and money as the motivator for everything we do as individuals, corporations, and governments is very wrong, and should be re-examined. I believe that people should learn more about sustainable growth for their country and for themselves (that is, progress that is slow, steady, and creates a stable system, rather than a system where there is no concept of *enough*, but is based on *more* instead).

I believe that nobody can have it all, and that people need to make decisions for themselves, and take more responsibility for themselves and their actions. People need to examine their lives and make decisions based on what is right for them, not what corporations, advertising executives, governments, or their parents have decided that they should want. I believe that people should start thinking for themselves; I believe that saying people are stupid masses is a cop-out; people *can* think for themselves; I think they need to learn how (and corporate America is not interested in teaching them).

These are the battles that I've chosen to fight. I don't have solutions to all the problems I see, but I fight these battles when the opportunity arises.

[matt_mcl]

LC, please email me.

I believe it's coming. Slowly but surely, it's coming. With every footprint on the streets, every placard raised in anger and hope, every vote for a party that cannot possibly win, every person who looks within himself or herself and decides to act on principle rather than accept the easy drift of individual prosperity and pre-mapped simplicity.

There was hope in Vancouver, Seattle, Washington, Prague, Windsor, Melbourne, Montreal, and Quebec. The latter was 50 000 people come to protest in a city of 200 000. Every one of those things is a blazing manifestation of hope.

As much as things must change, nonetheless they are better than they were. Police brutality in my city and country is still a deplorable fact, but they can no longer get away with driving motorcycles through crowds and randomly clubbing them. Despite that people of colour, women, gays and lesbians still have so much of a row to hoe, nonetheless it is true that they enjoy freedoms unthinkable 200, 100, 50 years ago. And despite that corporate rule and the dictatorship of the stockholder is on the rise, at least it has been curtailed from where it was in the industrial revolution.

When I get depressed about the fate of my country and my planet, and I do, I remember a few important things. That something is urgent does not make it hopeless. That something must progress doesn't mean it hasn't already. And that I am one person doesn't mean I am nobody. 1These sound like platitudes, I know, but they've been hammered out within my political and ethical soul in many a bleak hour.

Optimism is not necessary for hope. Hang on to your principles in your darkest hour, for true despair is not in depression, but only in acquiescence.

[Lemur866]

What's so wrong with what we have now? Liberal democracies cover the globe. Free trade, free exchange of ideas, free thought are everywhere. People recognize the creative and liberating force of capitalism. Capitalism is one of the levers that has created our free society, and you people want to destroy it? Of course you do...anything that threatens the status quo is frightening to you, and capitalism eats away the status quo like a cancer.

Look around you, look at what's happening. You people are trying to STOP the changes for the better the world is going through. Wake UP!

[Linear Crack]

Originally posted by matt_mcl
That something is urgent does not make it hopeless. That something must progress doesn't mean it hasn't already. And that I am one person doesn't mean I am nobody.

Damn straight!

[Odesio]

Originally posted by Lucky Charms


What happened boomers? You were the last generation who had a chance to really change the world... in the late 60's it seems like it was inevitable that this country would rise above the stagnation that had been there before, and that maybe we could have a society about love and community.

What happened? The boomers grew up and got an introduction to the real world. I'd like to know what stagnation in particular that you're talking about though. From everything I can remember reading about there were quite a few changes in the US during the 40's and 50's so I don't know where you get stagnation from. I don't think the 50's get enough credit for the introduction of positive changes like the civil rights movement.

When people gathered in the thousands in 1969 in Woodstock to live freely, they left a mark on the world that we still feel today, and it's still talked about in reverent tones.

They got together to listen to listen to rock music. While there's nothing particularly wrong with that I fail to see why anyone would be reverant about that. In fact it wasn't even suppose to be a free concert but due to various events it ended up being one. Well, for those who tore down what little of the fences were put up in time.

People loved each other, and it was largely genuine, I have to believe it was.

HA HA HA HA HA! Sure people loved each other. They loved each other so much there were riots and discontent across the land. I think maybe you're looking at the 60's through rose colored glasses.

Bob Dylan's words sound so silly when applied to the country right now, but when he wrote them they were dead on.

So do most other songs that are era specific. That's ok though.

It was "clear" that the world was gonna be different, so help or get out of the way, right? Hell, at this point we're in a country where the religious right has so much push we have a redneck frat-boy dumbass in the white house.

And our last president was a draft dodger commie lover so there's how much power the right has.

The times have come to where the only rebellion is pointless little things, conterculture.

When people have time to bitch about small things it really shows you how well they're doing.

I know that it wasn't like we see it throught the glass of time, but you know that there was a chance to make a lasting and wonderful change.

Were there no positives? Civil rights for blacks and women made some great progress in the 1960's. And for the most part I think Americans are better off today then they were in the 60's.

And now, it seems like all the real freedom and beauty in the world has to hide from the rest. Fuck it all! Where did this come from, and where did it go back to? We need another time of national cleansing so badly.

Things seem pretty good to me right now. Most Americans have real freedom. Although I do admit sometimes I do get upset.

We need to return to an innocent time where it's all about love and experience. We need to stop this. I can't even describe it all, but I think you know what I'm talking about.

Well you really haven't described anything.

Marc

[TwistofFate]

And our last president was a draft dodger commie lover

And thats bad compared to a Big Oil puppet redneck Dunce?

[Odesio]

Originally posted by TwistofFate

And thats bad compared to a Big Oil puppet redneck Dunce?

It certainly shows that the "religious" right doesn't have a strangle hold on this country.

Marc

[SPOOFE]

Unless, of course, "The Religious Right" and "Big Oil" are really the same group...

[gobear]

LC, the 60's fantasy you've described in your OP has little to do with history. Woodstock, for example, was set up by two New York City investment bankers to make a profit. The grossly incompetent promoters they hired to organize the show didn't set up adequate security or facilities, and they had to declare it a free concert because with the hippies trampling fences, they didn't have a whole lot of choice. You can read about it in Young Men With Unlimited Capital: The Story of Woodstock by Joel Rosenman and John Roberts.

People loved each other, and it was largely genuine, I have to believe it was.

Altamont. The 60's was not a caring, tranquil decade. We had assassinations (JFK, MLK, RFK, Medgar Evers), we had a citizenry divided over a war in a country we knew nothing about, we had race riots, antiwar riots, and the start of a major drug problem that remains with us.

What happened boomers? You were the last generation who had a chance to really change the world..

Sez who? What are you doing to change the world? I know you're not old enough to vote yet, but you can volunteer to help out for a candidate or issue that gets your blood up.
You can enroll as a literacy volunteer, you can deliver meals to AIDS patients, you can help out at a soup kitchen for the homeless.
Every generation has its crises and struggles and its up to you to make a difference. Oh, and stop criticizing President Bush; picking on the mentally challenged isn't nice.

[gobear]

Change that to, "Every generation has its crises and struggles and it's up to you to make a difference."

[Cat Whisperer]

To those of you who posted that things are great because we have the freedom to make as much money as we possibly can and damn the consequences:
Things are good (for most North Americans), I'll give you that. For now. How long they will stay good, nobody knows. It's a pretty sure thing that if your country policies include using up unreplaceable natural resources at astounding rates, you will run out of these resources some day, and if these resources are necessary to the standard of living we all enjoy, then it follows logically that the standard of living will change at some point in the future.

I'll even agree that Capitalism has its place, and is not evil of itself. Unfortunately, Capitalism combined with human greed and self-servingness could prove to be a deadly combination for humans as a whole.

[Jonathan Chance]

I think someone has been believing the hype.

"FIGHT THE POWER" - Public Enemy

Lucky Charms, I salute your idealism. I may not share it now but I did have that brand of idealism at one time.

But I think the real error in your thinking is the assumption that some huge mass movement made a difference. It can't, it didn't exist. What movement actually occured consisted of millions of individuals making endless discrete decisions. Anyone who tells you that so many people agreed on so many issues really needs his 'media filter' adjusted.

You want change? The opportunities for it surround you. Be kind to strangers, volunteer, live a good life and set an example for the people around you. Those are FAR more effective long term means of change than any amount of marching and sign waving.

In my experience (media-wise) all having thousands of people group to march does is acheive a critical mass where SOMEone will become violent. And that isolated case of rioting will be what makes the lead on the evening news (thereby making the case that ALL the protestors were rioting, if you follow the way the media works).

50,000 people marching against globalization (something I don't really feel that strongly against right now, I admit) won't accomplish much. Take those same 50,000 people and have them all commit to never again purchasing a product from a large, self-aggrandizing corporation and you have power. If you want to communicate with corporations you have to speak their language.

I got stuck in the traffic a while back when the protests moved to Washington DC. While they weren't as big as Seattle I can remember watching the kids as I drove along wearing Nikes and Birkenstocks, drinking Gatorade or water bottled by the Coca-Cola company and thinking, "These kids just don't get it."

So, I repeat, if you want to make a change, make a change. Don't drive a car. Don't buy from huge corporations. Dodge the genetically engineering foods if that's what you care about. Whatever you do, don't just complain or bemoan your fate, do something. If you set an example and encourage others to do so, eventually, if enough others join you, you have a real honest-to-God volkerwanderung.

And that's real power for change.

[Saint Zero]

Bravo, JC!

I can't think of a dang thing to add. You really might want to consider taking off those Rose-Colored glasses when reading your history books. History is made by people, not movements. All the wishing for things to change won't change a dang thing. Things only change when you stand up and start working.

[Protesilaus]

Originally posted by featherlou
I'll even agree that Capitalism has its place, and is not evil of itself. Unfortunately, Capitalism combined with human greed and self-servingness could prove to be a deadly combination for humans as a whole.

That situation's not unique to capitalism. Replace it with socialism, for example, in the above paragraph and it still holds true.

[UncleBeer]

Peace and love, my ass. These were violent and bloody times, my friend, not all of it caused by "The Man." Much of the mayhem was simply sensless violence for the sake of violence. I, for one, wouldn't care to repeat them.

Anyway, if you, Lucky Charms, are so hep on the flower-power generation, the Black Panthers are still looking for a few good radicals. http://www.bobbyseale.com/ And the Weather Underground is probably looking for some new bombmakers.

That situation's not unique to capitalism. Replace it with socialism, for example, in the above paragraph and it still holds true.

It's probably more true for socialism and still more true of communism. The neat thing about capitalism is that the smooth operation of it actually depends on greed, one of the most reliable of human emotions. Where communism depends on the altruism of the baker to supply bread, capitalism need not; it relies on people acting in their own self-interest.

It's a pretty sure thing that if your country policies include using up unreplaceable natural resources at astounding rates, you will run out of these resources some day ...

Or find replacements for them. This same argument was made about whale oil. Ya know what happened whe we ran out of whale oil? Not a damned thing. We found replacements. And prosperity continued. Have you no faith in the inventivess of man? Damn poor humanist you'd make.

[hawthorne]

Posted by UncleBeer
Where communism depends on the altruism of the baker to supply bread, capitalism need not; it relies on people acting in their own self-interest.

Yes and no. True enough within a non-corrupt institutional structure. But it is not clear how such a structure could come about or be maintained by self-interest alone. It's the same problem, even if it is of a different magnitude.

[Lemur866]

Originally posted by featherlou
To those of you who posted that things are great because we have the freedom to make as much money as we possibly can and damn the consequences:
Things are good (for most North Americans), I'll give you that. For now. How long they will stay good, nobody knows. It's a pretty sure thing that if your country policies include using up unreplaceable natural resources at astounding rates, you will run out of these resources some day, and if these resources are necessary to the standard of living we all enjoy, then it follows logically that the standard of living will change at some point in the future.

Could you please enumerate the natural resources that we are "using up"? Yes, fossil fuels, in their most available states. OK, I give you that one, although we'll still have hundreds of years of coal even after all the oil is so depleted it's no longer economical to develop.

What other resources are being used up? Metals? Gravel? There's a difference between using and using up. Most resources are either re-usable, or are available on a vast scale.

I'll even agree that Capitalism has its place, and is not evil of itself. Unfortunately, Capitalism combined with human greed and self-servingness could prove to be a deadly combination for humans as a whole.

If an economic system requires that humans not be greedy or self-serving it is destined to fail. The beauty of capitalism is that human self-interest is harnessed in usefull ways.

Picmr: Of course capitalism is impossible without the rule of law. Without police, without enforceable contracts, without independent courts, without civil society, capitalism can't work. What you have in those situations is a kind of feudalism like Russia is developing.

[Chas.E]

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

[Drastic]

Raw untapped idealism, so eager to find a pretty story to believe in. Not quite ripe yet, but current and future cult leaders, take notice. He's getting there.

[Lucki Chaarms]

Originally posted by Drastic
Raw untapped idealism, so eager to find a pretty story to believe in. Not quite ripe yet, but current and future cult leaders, take notice. He's getting there.

Actually been there, more or less. I was asked to be a cell leader in this terrorist organization. This looks kind of innocent, but believe me, they have violence on the mind. It will probably never come to be, but damn it was scary how much I believed in that shit until I saw what they were willing to do, and how fanatical they were.

I understand that I am overly idealistic, and I am too eager to find something to believe in, but dammit I need something to embrace and love and move with. I need a movement, I need to be a part of something larger that WILL make a difference. I don't want to run off and be a part of some alternate society, and just live outside. I want to be inside and make a change. I don't even know how or what really, I just want to spread... love. The protests, the violence, the fighting, they don't make any real change, they just isolate people.

The social unrest and uprisings during that time seemed like a sure sign of change to more than a few people who were around then. I go by their accounts because I am overly idealistic. I try to keep this in check, because I know it gets me in to trouble, but sometimes it just comes out. Other times I am really at peace with myself. I'm the kind of person who can tell random people he loves them and be serious. I do love people. I really do, and it fucks me over every time, because people don't know how to be loved.

Lucky

[jayjay]

Originally posted by Lucky Charms
Actually been there, more or less. I was asked to be a cell leader in this terrorist organization. This looks kind of innocent, but believe me, they have violence on the mind. It will probably never come to be, but damn it was scary how much I believed in that shit until I saw what they were willing to do, and how fanatical they were.

I understand that I am overly idealistic, and I am too eager to find something to believe in, but dammit I need something to embrace and love and move with. I need a movement, I need to be a part of something larger that WILL make a difference. I don't want to run off and be a part of some alternate society, and just live outside. I want to be inside and make a change. I don't even know how or what really, I just want to spread... love. The protests, the violence, the fighting, they don't make any real change, they just isolate people.

The social unrest and uprisings during that time seemed like a sure sign of change to more than a few people who were around then. I go by their accounts because I am overly idealistic. I try to keep this in check, because I know it gets me in to trouble, but sometimes it just comes out. Other times I am really at peace with myself. I'm the kind of person who can tell random people he loves them and be serious. I do love people. I really do, and it fucks me over every time, because people don't know how to be loved.

Lucky

If you want to spread love, then spread love. You don't need to have an organization to do that. Some people made excellent suggestions in their responses to the OP. Volunteer...food service or housekeeping at a shelter, food and clothing collection for Salvation Army, volunteering to work the campaign of a political candidate that you think can further your goals, senior services volunteer, simply visiting a nursing home on a regular basis...some of those people have family that haven't visited them in a decade or more. There are thousands of things you can do as an individual that are just as (more, actually) effective in spreading love as joining a revolutionary group.

Every generation has their "revolution", and every generation eventually grows out of it and realizes that they have to enter the world of rigid demands or starve to death. The baby boomer flower power revolution only looked bigger because it was. There were more baby boomers than any other recent generation...but sheer numbers do not a relevant philosophy make. The hippie philosophy was no more relevant to the world of realities than the flapper philosophy was in the 20s or the bobbysoxer philosophy was in the 50s or the punk philosophy was in the 70s.

No revolution that is not pursued by individuals as lifetime personal philosophies (rather than "something to do in my spare and boring time" philosophies) is going to persist. There are people still living the flower power lifestyle today. But they're damn few. And there aren't huge numbers of people looking to them as the leaders of the revolution anymore.

And there have been significant changes made...not necessarily because of the flower power movement, but rather because anything that doesn't change stagnates and dies. The way businesses function internally has mostly changed...a lot. The way parents and children relate has changed a lot (and in some ways, for the worse). The way that Americans, at least, interact has changed radically...race has a much smaller impact now (and I'm not saying it has no impact, just smaller), opportunities and friendships and relationships between races are much more open, gays and women have better opportunities and treatment legally and socially than they've ever had before. There are still things that haven't changed much, but expecting everything to change overnight (or even in 30 years) is a bit impatient. Society doesn't move quickly, and even less does it move smoothly. AIDS set gay rights and recognition back at least a decade, probably two. Women had to fight against the sudden mobilization of the Religious Right against the Liberation movement. These things happen, and there's no corporative way of fighting them. Individuals do things. If enough individuals do the same things, then those things become the norm and societal change is effected. If not enough people do the same things, then it remains a subculture and there's not a lot you, as a member of that subculture, can do other than keep doing those things and advertising them and trying to convince others to do them. But patience is not only a virtue, it's a requirement.

jayjay

[Lucki Chaarms]

Ok, I already spend most of my summer working as a volunteer for Habitat For Humanity, and this summer I will be working as a volunteer counsellor at a camp for disabled kids.

I already volunteer to help out pretty much anywhere I'm asked, and I go out of my way to be courteous to people I won't see again. Basic stuff like letting someone in during a high traffic time on the highway, holding a door open, saying thanks to the clerk at a store. Nothing big, but I am always sure to spread at least that much joy around.

I understand that I don't need a group, but that doesn't stop me from looking for one. I have a sad little fundamental need to be a part of something larger, and that just isn't much of an option here. We don't even have something as broad as flappers or bobbysoxers. What original movement do we have here in the 90's 00's? We had grunge I guess, but I missed that by a couple years, and that was a pretty weak-ass movement. Now everybody conforms, and the way that they flaun their "non-conformity" is by listening to corporate rock bands and wearing $30 T-Shirts with a licensed band logo or something. It's fucking silly.

I have to study for exams now, but I will check the thread later on, and maybe post again tonight. If not, see ya tomorrow.

Lucky

[Drastic]

Actually been there, more or less.

You're likely to be again. Someone will come along with a prettier story. And you're in a prime market for them.

I was asked to be a cell leader in this terrorist organization. This looks kind of innocent, but believe me, they have violence on the mind.

No, it doesn't look innocent, and I do believe you. If you said they didn't, I wouldn't.

I understand that I am overly idealistic, and I am too eager to find something to believe in, but dammit I need something to embrace and love and move with. I need a movement, I need to be a part of something larger that WILL make a difference. I [etc.]

There is no such thing as a "movement" or a "society" or a "culture" that is anything more than individuals and the relationships between them. The relationships are subordinate to the individuals. The movement and actions of individuals, the relationships they form and dissolve, that is what makes the world. Others have told you the only way anyone can improve it; by choosing actions that add, little by little, to reducing the amount of suffering around.

This doesn't sit well with you. It doesn't sit well with many people, frankly, because as narratives go, it's not a pretty one. Truth-with-a-T may be Beauty-with-a-B and vice versa as the good Mr. Keats insisted, but the truth, the kind with a small t that you can touch and demonstrate down here in the trenches, was he died early drowning in his own blood, as did millions of others without leaving work for later individuals to remember them by, and that particular truth is a tangible thing, and an ugly thing. Tuberculosis is now almost unknown in the modern world that subsequent individuals have made--and that too is a truth. It didn't magically go away. Individuals made it happen, and they didn't need a Movement to do so. There may not be Beauty in that, but there is wisdom. There may even be Wisdom, but I'm hardly qualified to judge Important Capital Letters.

Many people who need Movements don't want to change the world. When it comes down to it, they don't want to do anything. What they want is for a Movement, some giant magical hand--whether The Proletariat, or The People, or Love, or Jesus Christ, or Horus the Crowned and Conquering Child, or whatever narrative face is being slapped on an appealing Messiah-brand meme--to sweep down and pick them up, change the world for them, while they get the thrill of the ride.

Life doesn't work that way, and thank god. Idealism doesn't have to die. The world will improve much more rapidly, however, when it gets a lot less stupid and credulous.

[DoctorJ]

My mother gets very angry about 60s nostalgia.

She was a particularly outspoken activist against the Vietnam War. Was it because she disagreed with the politics of the war? Was it because she wanted to be part of a movement that would change the world?

No. She spoke out against Vietnam because she had a brother, a boyfriend (I call him Dad now), and countless other friends who were prime targets for the draft. People she knew and grew up with flew around the world to fight for a country they loved and trusted, and came home in body bags, for reasons no one could articulate.

Yes, the monied interests are in control, but what is the direct effect on our everyday lives? It's getting harder to buy a decent cheeseburger or find something good on the radio. Health care and gasoline are expensive. Farms are being torn up to create yet more Luxurious Townhome Communities and Applebee's restaurants. Sure, the corporate oligarchy is committing much more insidious crimes than these, but they still don't create the sheer visceral impact of seeing your friends sent away to die. That's why you don't find that many people (relatively) rising up against The Man these days. We're like the lobster resting comfortably in the pot with the water temperature slowly rising.

That doesn't mean you have to sit comfortably with everyone else--you can do your part. Walk to work. Don't go see "Pearl Harbor"--rent "Requiem for a Dream" instead. Better yet, go see a local band. Don't eat at McDonald's. Live in a house that doesn't look just like the one next door. Turn off your television and create something. Save money, invest it responsibly, and give generously. Concentrate on making the world better for the people around you, and I'll do the same.

Dr. J

[Klaatu]

I don't think morons with masks on (re the WTO protests)
have a fucking thing to say.

I don't recall the antiwar demonstrators in the 60's wearing masks and destroying/burning neighborhood businesses.

Sorry if it comes off as a contrarian attitude, but a lot of "protesters" today just want to destroy shit. "Yo dude, lets start a riot downtown".

Ask them what they are protesting, they say "who fucking cares, lets raise hell"

And yes, I think people protesting things today should have a voice, it's just that the fucking idiots get the press, taking away from the whole point.

[Klaatu]

Oh, BTW, before you say, "well they burned down Watts", I am talking about antiNam protests, which with a few exeptions were peaceful, not race riots.

[Abe]

I wholeheartedly agree with Klaatu, although I was not around in the '60s.

It is really depressing to see idiots going on a rampage in almost every corner of the world for some foolish reason or the other. Today the Indonesian Parliament meets to decide whether to impeach president Wahid, and already Wahid's supporters have been destroying property and heading to Jakarta the past few days.

It's sad that people cannot make a point without violence or insult. Whether it's always been like this, I am not qualified to say!

Who was it that said that to calculate the average intelligence of a mob you take the IQ of its smartest member and divide it by the number of people in the mob? I think Heinlein wrote about this in one of his books, but I he may have been quoting someone else.

[whiterabbit]

Originally posted by Lucky Charms

Now everybody conforms, and the way that they flaun their "non-conformity" is by listening to corporate rock bands and wearing $30 T-Shirts with a licensed band logo or something. It's fucking silly.

I have to study for exams now, but I will check the thread later on, and maybe post again tonight. If not, see ya tomorrow.

Lucky

Several years ago my dad talked to me about how back when he was a teenager, he and all his friends wanted to be DIFFERENT, so they all dressed and acted...THE SAME. Some things just haven't changed, I have to tell you.

Heck, why else is there a hippie "look"? They wanted to be different, so they all ran around looking...the same as each other! (My dad was not one of them. My mom, on the other hand, was.)

This is not a new phenomenon. I must congratulate you on noticing it at your age, but it has happened before and will happen again. I don't mean to be patronizing, but I see people in their mid-twenties who really should know better still doing this shit.

[Jonathan Chance]

Originally posted by Lucky Charms
Ok, I already spend most of my summer working as a volunteer for Habitat For Humanity, and this summer I will be working as a volunteer counsellor at a camp for disabled kids.

I already volunteer to help out pretty much anywhere I'm asked, and I go out of my way to be courteous to people I won't see again. Basic stuff like letting someone in during a high traffic time on the highway, holding a door open, saying thanks to the clerk at a store. Nothing big, but I am always sure to spread at least that much joy around.

I understand that I don't need a group, but that doesn't stop me from looking for one. I have a sad little fundamental need to be a part of something larger, and that just isn't much of an option here. We don't even have something as broad as flappers or bobbysoxers. What original movement do we have here in the 90's 00's? We had grunge I guess, but I missed that by a couple years, and that was a pretty weak-ass movement. Now everybody conforms, and the way that they flaun their "non-conformity" is by listening to corporate rock bands and wearing $30 T-Shirts with a licensed band logo or something. It's fucking silly.

I have to study for exams now, but I will check the thread later on, and maybe post again tonight. If not, see ya tomorrow.

Lucky

Did I mention that I liked 'MarxBoy' more? But 'Lucky Charms' is still pretty damn cool.

I know it doesn't seem like much but your second paragraph up there contains the seeds of a life-affirming ability to influence the world.

Just being considerate of others can have a tremendous impact. I know there's no way to trace it but doing whatever you can to make someone else's life a little easier is worth all the 'movements' in the world. Make it policy for yourself and mention it to others. I once had a freshman (I was a senior in college) remark that he thought I was really strange for saying 'thank you' and 'please' to whomever was doing directory assistance on the phones when I needed it. In that I was setting an example.

Or, to quote a Death, from the Sandman, "It's just as easy to be nice as to be creepy. And it's a lot more fun."

Look, there is something very primitive in all humans that makes us want to be a part of a larger group. Whether that's joining Amnesty International or tailgating at a football game that drive has a grip. But you have to define your groups carefully to make sure you're doing the right thing. You don't need to join a 'cult' (not that I think you will, you seem to question too much right now)(ask me sometime about my dork-a-rama pals who just joined the Landmark Forum) or a 'terrorist cell' or a 'movement' (which, as I stated before, I believe to be mostly hype) to get that feeling. Realize that you are already part of a unique group, the largest one there is: you're human. You're part of the only intelligent species we've ever known. A species who's history isn't static, it keeps getting better (anyone who disagrees with that should have the polio vaccine in their arms removed surgically). The only species with the ability to make the world a better place and that, despite the evidence, chooses to more often than not.

And that's something to believe in. So be kind and considerate. It's more important than most people think.

Oh, and study hard. That's more important than most people realize as well.

[horowitz]

I hate 60's nostalgia.

When I think of the 60's all that comes to mind is a whole bunch of self-important teenagers dressing like shit and fucking anything that moves.

[Cartman]Hippies! Hiiiippiiiies! Everywhere! They wanna save the earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad![/Cartman]

There is a movement that I associate with the 60's. That's that the 60's were the bowel movement of the 20th Century. We tried to flush is the 80's but a few stubborn flecks remain clinging to the side of the bowl.

There is one great tradition of the 60's I'd like to see return. Whatever happened to turning the fire hose on to a mob of protesters. I would dearly love to see a couple million gallons of water turned loose on those WTO protester pukes. And throw in a couple bars of soap for good measure.

[jayjay]

Originally posted by horowitz
I hate 60's nostalgia.

When I think of the 60's all that comes to mind is a whole bunch of self-important teenagers dressing like shit and fucking anything that moves.

[Cartman]Hippies! Hiiiippiiiies! Everywhere! They wanna save the earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad![/Cartman]

There is a movement that I associate with the 60's. That's that the 60's were the bowel movement of the 20th Century. We tried to flush is the 80's but a few stubborn flecks remain clinging to the side of the bowl.

There is one great tradition of the 60's I'd like to see return. Whatever happened to turning the fire hose on to a mob of protesters. I would dearly love to see a couple million gallons of water turned loose on those WTO protester pukes. And throw in a couple bars of soap for good measure.

Archie Bunker lives...

It's not so much that the right wing is full of assholes, it's just that they're so much more vocal than the nice folks...

jayjay (who agrees that the hippie culture is overhyped)

[matt_mcl]

Originally posted by horowitz
There is one great tradition of the 60's I'd like to see return. Whatever happened to turning the fire hose on to a mob of protesters. I would dearly love to see a couple million gallons of water turned loose on those WTO protester pukes. And throw in a couple bars of soap for good measure.

*dour* You mean like they did in Quebec City? Along with breaking people's skulls, spines, and windpipes with plastic bullets, shooting at journalists, clearing out medical centres and indy-media outlets at gunpoint, and firing enough tear gas aimlessly into peaceful crowds to give asthma attacks to everyone in the area code? As has been since condemned by Amnesty International?

[Olentzero]

Originally posted by Klaatu
I don't think morons with masks on (re the WTO protests)
have a fucking thing to say.

And what about those of us who didn't wear masks in Seattle, Washington, or Quebec? There were more of us than there were of them.

And yes, I think people protesting things today should have a voice, it's just that the fucking idiots get the press, taking away from the whole point.

See, here's where ya got me confused. Are you lumping the whole WTO protest movement together as "morons with masks on" or are you just saying that the mainstream press focuses disproportionately on the anarchistic elements?

Originally posted by horowitz
I would dearly love to see a couple million gallons of water turned loose on those WTO protester pukes. And throw in a couple bars of soap for good measure.

Bull Connor would be proud. [heavy sarcasm]"Them niggers 'n' hippies didn't wash much either before they came to Birmingham."[/heavy sarcasm]

Me? I protested in Washington. I shower daily. So does my comrade Ben, who protested in Quebec. We both have steady jobs too, fuck you very much.

[Lemur866]

Olentzero, why don't you peaceful protestors DEMAND that the assholes remove their masks? You know, I know, and the American people know, that the only reason a protestor would wear a mask is so they can be anonymously violent.

You complain that only a few violent people are getting all the press. Dude, it is up to YOU to control the violent people in your fawking movement. If you cannot control the violent people, then your movement is a violent movement. It doesn't matter how many people want it to be peaceful unless they are willing to take the steps to ensure that it is peaceful. If you aren't willing to do that, you are endorsing the violence. Not judging the violence is judging the violence.

In my experience, the most pernicious idea of the 20th century is the idea of a "movement". If only enough people get together and act and think the same way, then we can create a better world. And anyone who gets in our way is trying to prevent that better world. And that makes them a criminal. And criminals have to be dealt with.

I say, let's hear it for the individual! I agree not to enslave and destroy you, even though I disagree with you, if you agree not to enslave and destroy me, even though you disagree with me. Fuck movements.

[Cat Whisperer]

Lucky Charms, what I'm hearing you say is that if you could figure out what would work to improve conditions for humans in North America now and for the future, you would do just about anything in your power to make it happen. This is a very commendable attitude; if you could figure out how to do it, I would vote for you to be benevolent dictator of North America. Maybe discussions like this one are the most powerful tool we have for making things better (and I think we would all agree that there are *some* things that could be improved, even if we don't all agree on which things they are).

[Manda JO]

It's worth noting that the myth of the 60s is an idea that has been pretty ruthlessly sold to us by the man--the rhetoric of nonconformity sells a hell of a lot of products.

Perhaps the biggest part of that myth is the idea that everyone was in on it, that it swept everyone away, that it was this force everyone could see. The best comparison to the sixties I ever heard was to the American Revolution: 1/3 of the people in the colonies were rebels, 1/3 were English, and 1/3 really didn't give a damn. Years later, everyone wiht an ancestor in America in 1776 assumes that they were at Valley Forge. Same deal here.

Remember, too, that any widespread movement demands that you shelve other issues: the various groups in the 60s were concentrated on a handful of issues that everyone more or less agreed on. These days, the "causes" out there have multiplied exponentially: If you want a groundswell of interest in one issue, you gotta decide which issues people should stop caring about and jump on your bandwagon instead. Then you gotta convince them why capitilist explotation of the 3rd world is more important than female genital mutilation or the humane treatment of animals or continued discrimination against African Americans or layoffs of American workers or the depletion of old growth forests or unreported sexual molestation in America or untreated Gulf War Syndrome or honor killings in Pakistan or At Risk kids or rights for the disabled or anorexia or first amendment rights or global warning or so on and so forth.

Lastly, remember that as much as the rhetoric around the 60s lambasted the thinkers of the 40s and 50s as being to simple-minded and naive about the world, the activists were also pretty naive. The reason so many of the world's problems linger is because they are sticky. There are no simple answers, and something like a movement needs a simple, unambigous goal. These days we try to teach kids to see both sides to a story, to recognize that the world is filled with shades of grey, and movements tend to founder when the single-minded purity of the cause is diluted by the fact that almost every change in the world causes something bad to happen to somebody.

[Olentzero]

Originally posted by Lemur866
Olentzero, why don't you peaceful protestors DEMAND that the assholes remove their masks?

Just because it is demanded of the masked anarchists that they take off their masks is no guarantee that they'll listen. See below.

You complain that only a few violent people are getting all the press. Dude, it is up to YOU to control the violent people in your fawking movement.

Well, see, the problem is that these movements aren't big unified groups of people operating under a common banner or even a single group of coordinators/marshals/whathaveyou. The anti-globalization movement is a loose confederation of groups and parties and organizations. There was a lot of pre-protest organization going on before Seattle and Washington and Quebec, meaning many of the larger groups (including mine) got together to discuss tactics, strategies, and how to handle things in general. That doesn't mean we can control the individuals who aren't affiliated with any of the groups and who don't feel they need to listen to someone they don't agree with. Hell, even groups that *did* show up to coordinate used the "let's hear it for the individual" attitude to justify doing whatever the hell they felt like at the protest.

Having said that, the anarchistic elements didn't get a warm-hearted reception when they pulled stunts like smashing a McDonald's front window to hell in Seattle. Most of these were met with shouts of "peaceful protest" from the crowd or stony silence.

If you cannot control the violent people, then your movement is a violent movement.

Don't lump us in with people who use tactics we don't plan on using and who won't listen to our arguments as to why they shouldn't be used. If the protests were the result of one big organization rather than several, it would be a lot less violent.

Fuck movements.

Movements are what get things done. The eight-hour day wouldn't have been won without a movement. The Scottsboro Boys would have dangled from trees and been another historical statistic without a movement. Hell, civil freakin' rights would still be a pipe dream without a movement. Long live movements!

[Olentzero]

Originally posted by Manda JO
Remember, too, that any widespread movement demands that you shelve other issues: the various groups in the 60s were concentrated on a handful of issues that everyone more or less agreed on.

Absolutely not. Successful widespread movements are based on the connection of issues. They then cease to become economic or political movements and become social movements. While I'm not disagreeing that this is what happened in the 60s (I can imagine what the 70s would have been like if the civil rights, women's rights, and antiwar movements had started connecting their issues), I'm disagreeing with your assessment of what a widespread movement means and requires for its existence.