This Blog began with a song I wrote decades ago about those of us in the ‘60’s generation. The title of the song is also the title of this blog. This is how some of it goes:
We marched and sang, and we screamed out loud,
We were sure about our fight,
We wore signs for peace, we were young and proud,
And I think that we were right.
Yes we were right, but we didn’t listen to our song,
We were right,
Now we’ve become what we thought was wrong.
If there ever was an issue that plays exactly into what this song and this blog are supposed to be about, it is the issue of today’s campus protests. The song is intended to communicate how we of the 60’s generation have turned our backs on what we once thought was so essential – ideals like “The Big P’s” – Peace and Protests.
If you were really into that mind-set then, you know that there was nothing more important to us (with the exception of getting laid) than The Big P’s. We didn’t even have to be stoned to get into a heated debate over the need for peace and it wasn’t hard to find a good protest somewhere nearby, sometimes even on subjects we had heard of. But that didn’t matter. It was the idea of protest that was important. The prior generations had gotten it all wrong. We weren’t going to be bound anymore by the rules that those generations imposed on us. Why follow people who had given us a world of racial discrimination and war? That was our code (except for maybe the members of the Young Republican Club).
But today? Today we watch the protests on campuses, and we’re appalled. What happened? Some will say. “Life happened.” But that’s an easy way out.
Imagine this scene in a bar in a college town in the sixties:
Student 1: I’ve been thinking something. You know all those protests we’ve been doing.
Student 2: Sure. It’s the best thing we do. The war is a mistake. People are dying for no good reason.
Student 1: I agree. But I just have this feeling that when we grow up and our grandchildren are doing the same thing, we’re going to be against it.
[The two of them then stare at each other for a long second. Then Student 1 starts to laugh. Then they both laugh, uncontrollably.]
Well, they shouldn’t have laughed. Sadly, Student 1’s joke was prescient. We now live in his imagined world.
Listen to us. Here’s a comparison of what the “adults” said during the 60’s protests and what we hear our generation saying now.
| 60’s | NOW |
| “What happens in Vietnam is none of those kids’ business. They don’t know anything about it.” | “What happens in the Middle East is none of those kids’ business. They don’t know anything about it. |
| “We can’t let those kids carry signs supporting commies.” | “We can’t let those kids carry signs supporting Palestine.” |
| “These kids don’t get it. South Vietnam is vital to our national security. If we don’t stop them now, they’ll take over all of Asia.” | “These kids don’t get it. Israel is vital to our national security. If we don’t stop them now, they’ll take over all of the Middle East.” |
| “There is no right to scream stuff about the war and call the other side disgusting names. They deserve to be locked up. | “There is no right to scream stuff about the war and call the other side disgusting names. They deserve to be locked up.” |
| “We have to get those commie teachers out of our schools.” | We have to get those Muslim teachers out of our schools.” |
C’mon. Re-capture your youth. There still is time. Listen to the protestors with the same ears we had before we needed closed captioning on our TV’s. Hell, I’m not asking for anything impossible. Give it a try. It’s not like I’m forcing you to touch your toes.
Dial your brain back to when it first discovered ideals and back to when we had the gumption (i.e. “balls”) to express them. Isn’t that everything that the democratic sense freedom is supposed to encompass? Maybe not everything we did in the sixties was right, and maybe not everything the students are doing now is right. But we were right to do them.
We were right 