Undermining the Patriarchy Every Chance I Get -- And I Get a Lot of Chances
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Monday, January 17, 2011
Someday
More and more, I look back at the Sixties -- Summer of Love, Selma, Consciousness Raising Groups, and Woodstock -- as a kind of Brigadoon, that settles down unnoticed on our Moors, gives us an example, and then goes back off into the clouds to stay pure for another time when it's needed. I was, pace Mr. Dylan, so much younger then; I'm older (better funded, more grounded, smarter, more focused, and more committed) than that, now.
And, I agree with Joan. We shall overcome, someday.
Sadly I think our best chance was then. If the things we pushed then - solar power, organic farming, equal rights, etc had been embraced in larger numbers then we would be way ahead now. I think it was our insistence on staying out of the mainstream that killed the progress. We had no clue to get into politics and change it from within. Not saying it would have worked, the old boys club and moneyed interests would have worn any progressives down then as they do now, but it was easier to marginalize the dirty fucking hippies then, since so much of what we were proposing was outrageous to the staid, law and order thinkers. The past 40 years have taken their toll and achieved what power wanted...a dumbed down people who have no interesting in voting, people who are more versed in the latest reality showy than they are in their own country's history. If another uprising is to come, it will come from all faiths, all politics, all persuasions because of the monetary security they take away from the 90% of us.
I remember 1968 well. Martin in April and Robert in June; the police riot in Chicago during the Democratic convention in August, and the election of Nixon.
In many respects, the United States is even now living with the fallout of those events. "We shall overcome, someday." As my grandmother would have said, "From your mouth to God's ears."
Sadly I think our best chance was then. If the things we pushed then - solar power, organic farming, equal rights, etc had been embraced in larger numbers then we would be way ahead now. I think it was our insistence on staying out of the mainstream that killed the progress. We had no clue to get into politics and change it from within. Not saying it would have worked, the old boys club and moneyed interests would have worn any progressives down then as they do now, but it was easier to marginalize the dirty fucking hippies then, since so much of what we were proposing was outrageous to the staid, law and order thinkers. The past 40 years have taken their toll and achieved what power wanted...a dumbed down people who have no interesting in voting, people who are more versed in the latest reality showy than they are in their own country's history. If another uprising is to come, it will come from all faiths, all politics, all persuasions because of the monetary security they take away from the 90% of us.
ReplyDeleteI remember 1968 well. Martin in April and Robert in June; the police riot in Chicago during the Democratic convention in August, and the election of Nixon.
ReplyDeleteIn many respects, the United States is even now living with the fallout of those events. "We shall overcome, someday." As my grandmother would have said, "From your mouth to God's ears."