A Ca Ira

[poliphilo]

I was a student revolutionary - and I'm happy to see the kids are back on the streets and occupying lecture theatres again.  A bout of political activism is an education in itself- and will teach you more about politics and the psychology of crowds and what the individual human being is made of than you will ever get from books. I learned to despise the Trots and how brittle potheads are and how easy it is to mislead the press and what comradeship feels like and all sorts of useful stuff like that. Really, it was one of the formative events of my life.

Comments

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

How were potheads brittle?

The revolution had long flamed out, by the time I came of age. Looking back from an advancing middle age, I can see how, culturally, everything seemed to have been reduced to ashes by the time I arrived. The baby boomers themselves refused to accept a hand-me-down world, but they did not mind handing theirs down to us, after they grew tired of it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We were occupying a building on campus. The head pothead and his acolytes were there, chilling for the revolution- and stuck with it until it got to be a little demanding and there was a possibilty of the police being called. At this point he stormed out, blethering- with his acolytes at his heel.

I'm not proud of my generation. We fucked up.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is indeed rather brittle.

I honestly don't know about your generation. To say that they fucked up seems a bit harsh. I have very mixed feelings about it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Some of us fucked up- Tony Blair and George Bush, for instance. Others didn't.

I was an idealist. I thought governments headed by children of the sixties would be less warlike, less materialistic, more humane. I was wrong.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I have been praying that the young people in America will see the light and also take to the streets again. So far they seem to have embraced the conservative view...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Amen to that.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

If young people had really embraced conservatisn, John McCain would be president right now.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

I'm not big on student activism.

I think it's mostly a bunch of spoiled brats getting out to protest issues they don't know anything about which take place in a world they systematically avoid in favor of shallow social networking.

Your generation was probably different and maybe it's completely different in Europe. The last time I was impressed with student activists they were protesting how the US treats illegal immigrants brought over as babies. You saw a lot of those babies, now grown, their brothers, sisters and friends.

Other than that, though, you just get something vaguely left-wing but mostly concerned with how witty the slogan is.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Young people are callow, ignorant and easily led. They're also idealistic, relatively uncompromised and don't see why they shouldn't change the world. I like to see them sticking it to their elders and betters. Where there's youth, there's hope.