The Aftermath of Occupy Will Surpass the Gains of 1960s Activism

[Fire Walk With Me]

Last edited Wed Sep 5, 2012, 01:21 AM - Edit history (1)

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/10125-the-aftermath-of-occupy-will-surpass-the-sixties

A tsunami of citizen activism, initiated by Occupy Wall Street, is poised to wash over American society. The coming battle to correct the grotesquely unequal distribution of wealth and power in this country is likely to have an even more profound impact on our society than what occurred in the 1960s.

Fifty years ago, a few white students like me were outraged to find that the sugarcoated view of America we had been taught in the 50s did not match reality. The notions of justice and human rights we had internalized motivated our actions, and as idealists, we opposed the Jim Crow laws in the South and the needless killing in Southeast Asia.

Young activists taking to the streets today harbor no illusions about justice in America. They are cynical, worldly wise and unemployed; many are weighed down by debt. They know they have few prospects for meaningful or even gainful employment. They protest in their own economic self-interest. They are a wholly different phenomenon than the 1960s activists.

(more at the link)

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Edit: I've run into 1960's activists here and elsewhere who decry having failed to change the world. I say you DID change the world, forever, in a drastically meaningful manner. Can you possibly imagine a world without hippies, peace, love, Woodstock? Try to for a minute. It is horrifically bleak. And the powers that be would not call today's activists "hippies" in an attempt to demonize them, if "hippies" hadn't evidently had a drastic and genuinely feared effect! It's a back-handed compliment. THANK YOU!

[polichick]

1. I hope the older generations will join them - I know I'm with them...

I think of it as the next phase of a movement interrupted.

[Downwinder]

2. After the 1960s we gave up.

This time we have to keep after it.

[RoccoR5955]

4. Speak for yourself.

Some of us have been fighting all along. The media just gives us a blind eye.
Hopefully the media will not do the same to the Occupy movement.

[msongs]

3. occupy is still around? where? nt

[RoccoR5955]

5. Not on Fox "news," or the corporate media...

There are things still going on in many places in the US. You just have to look for them

[Fire Walk With Me]

6. Snerk...if that's what you think, why are you even looking in this Occupy sub-forum?

[Joe Shlabotnik]

7. The game is much bigger now.

The stakes are higher, and the whole world is involved. Never before have so many people been able to communicate and organize, and never before has the right to communicate and organize been more important and at risk. If a free and open Internet ever falls to corporate control, then the 1% gain our greatest tool. If civil liberties continue to be curtailed in the guise of 'security', than the 1% will never fear retribution for their corruption.

These rights are bigger than political parties, as are the just grievances of an educated and connected generation that can now discuss corruption, examine propaganda and question the entire system that previous generations were resigned to accept as intrinsically unchangeable. What scares the PTB the most is not that people will temporarily snub the sugar coating, but that they'll realize that what their eating is economic,social and environmental soylent green.

[tama]

10. Well said nt

[eridani]

8. I certainly hope so.

One thing both eras have in common--an itch for really creative action.

[Scuba]

9. Let's hope so, and thanks for the nod to the hippies. As you know ....

[limpyhobbler]

11. hell yeah and amen. nt

[antiquie]

12. Main DU GD interesting article; limited bashing in comments.

Reihan Salan: How the Occupy Movement May Yet Lead America
Posted by Hissyspit
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021343536


Thanks for the edit. This old hippychick has experienced many it-was-all-for-nothing moments.