<\/p>\n
With revolution in our hearts, we cut our hair, we leaned on the railing and we went forward into the clockwork of daily life.<\/p>\n
The car clicked past 25, past 30, into the respectable future. Spouse,
\njob, house, dog. A world of boundaries: Fence, car, child.<\/p>\n
It’s the way we’re brought up. A thousand voices in our ears saying
\nsettle down, sit back, relax, close your eyes. It’s there on the
\nbillboard, on the train, on the walls lining the escalator, on the TV,
\non the radio, on the phone when the family calls, on your lover’s
\nbreath. Hold on, it’s a natural thing, that’ll be .95.<\/p>\n
You’re all growed up now. So, stop.<\/p>\n
But what of the minds that question? What of the revolution?<\/p>\n
Forget it. It’s the territory of the young and you, yes, you are grown
\nup. You have failed. You have lost the war. There was no war to loose,
\nanyway. It was lost before you were born. So sit back, put your hands
\ntogether, and let’s talk about how you can bring the walls crumbling
\ndown without wasting your words in meaningless shouting and your
\nSharpie on signs ignored.<\/p>\n
You see, the people won’t change. We need the machine. We need the
\norganized life. 20% of the world will do our thinking, our dreaming,
\nour forward motion. The remainder will work the handpumps, build the
\ncitadels, wash the feet of the noble and the mighty. They are mindless,
\nthe unread, the uneducated, and we need them.<\/p>\n
You there with your computer, you there with your booze and your
\ncigarettes, you there with your microwave and your DVD player and your
\ncell phone. You’re a radical, I can see. I can tell from all the way
\nover here that you aren’t about to shut down when you turn 25 or 30.
\nBut you love those things around you. You tighten your laces and you
\nsneer at the settling down instinct, but you love your comfortable
\nmaterial desires. You know what, that’s just fine. I do, too. There is
\nthe confusion.<\/p>\n
Is the modern American rebel a hypocrite? Not at all. We all must fit
\ninto the machine in some way. Even the lunatic fringe culture is part
\nof the world of the billboards and the Golden Arches. America absorbs
\nrevolution. Our culture learned how to do that after the 60’s. Never
\nagain will there be social upheaval on that scale. What is considered
\ndeviant and radical today will be on a Nike commercial tomorrow. There
\nis no niche within our society that will allow you to be free.<\/p>\n
But, in a mindless, machine society, you are even more empowered than
\nin a society that allows a fringe youth culture to spring up. In a PC,
\ncontrolled, pseudo-fascist society, the power of the rebel knows no
\nbounds. Especially when you get older, when you cut your hair and stop
\ncoloring it pink. The rebel in the cheap suit can cause more damage
\nthan an army of hippies.<\/p>\n
It’s a great Human paradox.<\/p>\n
Besides, the counterculture of the 60’s and 70’s wasn’t run by the The Port Huron Statement is where historians say the New Left, what Let’s take a look at some choice selections from the Port Huron Statement that can be applied to modern America.<\/p>\n We’ll start from the top:<\/p>\n We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, When we were kids the United States was the wealthiest and strongest As we grew, however, our comfort was penetrated by events too troubling to dismiss.<\/p>\n The authors of the Statement said that it was a living document that Although mankind desperately needs revolutionary leadership, America For them, in 62, the revolution was made clear by the beginning stages We have war today, we have troops out there fighting, but it isn’t the The vast majority of our people regard the temporary equilibriums of Some would have us believe that Americans feel contentment amidst The Statement tumbles down an intellectual trap, discussing the values Especially true in our brave new world, the best path towards For the counterculture, when they splintered, the old establishment was So there is no revolution. The counterculture is dead. Your parents lost a war and have left you as the latchkey kids, Fight Club’s<\/em> There is nothing. So when you’re told to shape up, you do so. Why not?<\/p>\n You there, with your computer. The rebel. Come back for the second
\nyoung. Everyone behind the varied movements – the Hippies, Yippies,
\nWeathermen and Panthers – were men and women in their 30’s. People who
\nhad grown up and seen a hole in our culture through the eyes of the
\nestablishment. Abbie Hoffman was 36 years old when he wrote Steal This Book<\/em>.
\nHuey P. Newton was 25 when he started the Black Panthers. His
\nco-founder and Chicago Eight member Bobby Seale was 30. Eldridge
\nCleaver, the Panther’s “Minister of Information” was 32 when he joined.<\/p>\n
\nwould become the counterculture, began. It was written by a graduating
\nclass of students in 1962, representing the Students for a Democratic
\nSociety, which had been organized in 1960. These were the leaders of
\nthe cultural explosion that grew throughout the 60’s and flew apart
\ndramatically between 1968-1975.<\/p>\n
\nhoused now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we
\ninherit. <\/em><\/p>\n
\ncountry in the world: the only one with the atom bomb, the least
\nscarred by modern war, an initiator of the United Nations that we
\nthought would distribute Western influence throughout the world.
\nFreedom and equality for each individual, government of, by, and for
\nthe people — these American values we found good, principles by which
\nwe could live as men. Many of us began maturing in complacency.<\/p>\n
\nwould change with the times and experiences. A “dialogue with society.”
\nWe have changed. Insert terrorism for Cold War, insert the continuing
\nsegregation of America for the Civil Rights Movement. The paradoxes of
\nAmerican society continue to exist in full force. Instead of
\nindignance, however, the next ruling generation meets them with
\ncomplacency. Apathy. Because there are no statements for us, because
\nour media can stop every revolutionary act over night. But that, of
\ncourse, was also true 40 years ago, with the exception of certain key
\nevents. Let’s continue:<\/p>\n
\nrests in national stalemate, its goals ambiguous and tradition-bound
\ninstead of informed and clear, its democratic system apathetic and
\nmanipulated rather than “of, by, and for the people.”<\/em><\/p>\n
\nof Vietnam. We had just entered that colonial war. The final, great
\nworldwide revolution against the last vestiges of imperialism had
\nbegun, and it would last until the 70’s. The dissatisfied youth culture
\nof the late 50’s and early 60’s had a gift delivered to them – a world
\non fire. The perfect seedbed to rise up and gather like minds around
\nthem. A purpose. International disorder.<\/p>\n
\nsame thing. If there is international disorder, it’s washed clean by
\nthe press and sold to us on the silver platter of entertainment, of
\nschadenfreude. But, of course, today’s international disorder isn’t
\nclose to what it was then. Where the second half of the 20th century
\nsaw the dismantling and destruction of Empires, the 21st century sees
\nthe slow decline of our own very unique empire. Democracies aren’t
\ndismantled, they just fade away.<\/p>\n
\nour society and world as eternally-functional parts…the message of our
\nsociety is that there is no viable alternative to the present. Beneath
\nthe reassuring tones of the politicians, beneath the common opinion
\nthat America will “muddle through”, beneath the stagnation of those who
\nhave closed their minds to the future, is the pervading feeling that
\nthere simply are no alternatives, that our times have witnessed the
\nexhaustion not only of Utopias, but of any new departures as well.
\nFeeling the press of complexity upon the emptiness of life, people are
\nfearful of the thought that at any moment things might thrust out of
\ncontrol. They fear change itself, since change might smash whatever
\ninvisible framework seems to hold back chaos for them now. For most
\nAmericans, all crusades are suspect, threatening. The fact that each
\nindividual sees apathy in his fellows perpetuates the common reluctance
\nto organize for change. The dominant institutions are complex enough to
\nblunt the minds of their potential critics, and entrenched enough to
\nswiftly dissipate or entirely repel the energies of protest and reform,
\nthus limiting human expectancies. Then, too, we are a materially
\nimproved society, and by our own improvements we seem to have weakened
\nthe case for further change. <\/em><\/p>\n
\nprosperity — but might it not better be called a glaze above deeply
\nfelt anxieties about their role in the new world? And if these
\nanxieties produce a developed indifference to human affairs, do they
\nnot as well produce a yearning to believe there is an alternative to
\nthe present, that something can be done to change circumstances in the
\nschool, the workplaces, the bureaucracies, the government?.<\/p>\n
\nof our culture and the potential of our people. It studies the attitude
\nof modern America, especially outside the halls of academia. It
\npreaches bringing awareness and change to the world as a whole which,
\nas I’ve suggested, is slightly misguided. The platform for the SDS is
\nlaid out, the battle plan for the counterculture is pieced together
\nthroughout the Statement. A decade later, the New Left would be
\nsplintered, and extinct before the Republican backlash of 1976. The
\nmistake, from my viewpoint, was ambition: The perfectly justified (for
\nthe times) desire to correct a very sick society that was spinning off
\nits axis. What they got was revolution, and that’s something that can
\nonly succeed if it is achieved completely. When the New Left
\nsplintered, it was because the voice of revolution had been muddled,
\npartly by politicians and Nixon’s Silent Majority, but also by the
\ncounterculture itself. They couldn’t change the world. No one can.<\/p>\n
\nsuccessful personal revolution is subversion, culture jamming,
\nhacktivisim, guerilla tactics. Activities and thoughts that quietly
\nchip away at the world around us.<\/p>\n
\nreborn with a new face. Thus began a world best marked by Reagan. He
\nlost the game in 76, but he was always above the waterline. The media,
\nnewly empowered after the fall of Nixon, grew to dominate every facet
\nof our lives. Keep track of how many advertisements you see in a 24
\nhour period. Keep track of the percentage of those ads, movies, and
\nshows that tell you how you should live – even if it’s an abstract
\nimage. A man and his wife in the background on an ad for allergy
\nmedication. I can’t contribute enough intelligence to the machine to
\nsay these are intentional social controls. Instead, I believe they are
\nthe images and expectations of a world that rode the tiger and didn’t
\nlike it one bit.<\/p>\n
\n“middle children of history.” You raised yourselves with TV and frozen
\npizzas, and when you were old enough to speak with your own voice you
\nwere living in a world where John Lennon sold Nikes and Dr. King sold
\ncell phones, not to mention that you would get three to five at San
\nQuentin if you called your roommate a nigger. Now you’re 30. Now you’re
\nin a world that is shockingly complacent in the face of terrible Human
\ntragedy. But it isn’t Human tragedy with a cause. It’s the Human
\ntragedy that has always been with us. If it has a cause, it’s to strive
\nagainst America, and that just doesn’t set right. Impossible. Petty.
\nOur world, here in the land of “modest comfort,” is one where the only
\nunifying causes are unnecessary road projects and additives placed in
\nour wheat. Even those select social causes that haven’t been
\nbastardized by the media and our celebrities are a mockery of
\nthemselves.<\/p>\n
\ninstallment. We’re going to discuss how to apply the sentiment voiced
\nin the prologue of the Port Huron Statement to the 21st Century. We’re
\ngoing to discuss how best to rebel against the machine in the face of
\nyour 30th birthday, how best to remain loose and unsubdued.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[352],"tags":[111,353,400],"class_list":["post-2446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gsarchive","tag-commentary","tag-gs-archive-2004-2008","tag-wage-slave"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2446"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2909,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446\/revisions\/2909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}