What a Long, Strange, Thoroughly Obnoxious Trip It's Been 2: Battle Lines
Oh the sheer volume of e-mail I've been getting over the past 48 hours from outraged Boomers and Woodstock-philes. I thought those guys were supposed to be all about peace and love.
I'm not going to bother addressing every single complaint I've received or every issue taken with the piece I posted two days ago. I won't get into how the nonsense I write is, above all, designed to entertain, provoke and make people laugh -- and how even semi-regular readers should be able to spot when I'm being deadly serious and when I'm purposely amplifying my opinion on a subject just to see who I can poke with a stick.
But I will expound on one quick point hinted at in the middle of all that "disgusting, megalomaniacal venom" (as one reader so poetically put it) published here and at my own site on Tuesday. I'll do this because a lot of people latched onto what was essentially a throw-away line and used it to really hammer me -- and I feel like it might be a good idea to clarify exactly what I was getting at.
The line in question was this one:
"...It can easily be argued that the real reason for the Vietnam protests in the first place was that none of the hippies wanted to get stuck going to war -- 'cause, wow, bummer man."
First of all, at its core this was mostly me being a glib smart-ass. Of course it was an oversimplified generalization of what was happening on the streets of America during the Vietnam war -- and I freely admit that it bordered on being in bad taste. (Once again, what do you expect from a guy who lists himself as a "Guitar Hero" in his bio?) But there actually was and is a point worth making about the Vietnam protests as organized and carried out by the Woodstock generation I was so gleefully lambasting -- the people young enough at the time to risk being drafted and sent overseas.
Let me explain it by way of a personal belief of mine (it's one I've also heard Bill Maher espouse): You don't get to call yourself courageous when your actions are essentially being undertaken to save your own ass. Specifically, if you were of draft age in the late 60s and were protesting the Vietnam war, there's a pretty good chance that the impetus for all your outrage at the injustice being perpetrated on the other side of the world -- and make no mistake, Vietnam was absolutely an immoral, unjust, thoroughly unnecessary war -- wasn't so much your conscience as it was the desire not to wind up in a body bag. Yes, of course you didn't want to see innocents die, be they American or Vietnamese, and you certainly understood that 'Nam was a political miasma above all else. But would any of this really have spurred you to action the way the potential threat of losing your own life could? You would've been angry and indignant, yes, but to the point where you were willing to face down a phalanx of riot cops, burn a government document or surreptitiously kite off to Canada? Would you really have taken such drastic measures had you not been so personally affected by what was going on in Vietnam?
Let me answer for myself (and the Woodstock crowd will no doubt claim that this is the chicken-shit nature of my generation, running and hiding while theirs would just as soon have stood up and fought for what was right): If I thought I was gonna be drafted to go get blown up in the jungle somewhere, I might very well be out in the street raising holy hell, calling every political figure currently in power a war criminal. I protested Iraq, but I admit that I rallied with nowhere near the ferocity that I would have had my own rear end been on the line. The threat of imminent death to yourself or those closest to you whom you love -- your friends, brothers, boyfriends, etc. -- tends to really put things in perspective.
Incidentally, do me the favor of not lecturing me on how many of those who protested Vietnam were in college and therefore theoretically may have been subject to exemption. Regardless, the knowledge that all it would take was one slip-up on your part -- or an escalation on the part of the government -- to suddenly land your ass on a bus to Parris Island must've felt like the proverbial Damocletian sword hanging over your head 24/7. Once again, would I be marching in the street and/or doing drugs by the handful if I thought that's what the future might hold for me or someone close to me? Probably.
If the end justifies the means, then regardless of the reason, the Vietnam war protests were an unquestionable good. My issue as stated two days ago was never really about that anyway; it was about how that brand of protest -- the crazy street fair as effective activism -- has been held up as the standard to which all protests since the 60s must, ironically, conform. It goes back to my central argument in the piece -- that those who lived through the 1960s believe that their way of doing things was and still is the right way because, well, it worked back then. The fact is, that kind of activism doesn't really work anymore -- mostly because the political power structure in this country doesn't fear the individual anymore. It fears numbers. It fears group-think.
Regardless of what the "right way" to protest these days may be, why weren't the protests against the war in Iraq larger and smarter than they actually were (when God knows they should've been)? Because hundreds of thousands of young people -- the ones right up the street from you, maybe even you yourself -- weren't in danger of being forced to go to war.
Which leads to one final question, and it's a tough one: Given what we can now witness firsthand, live on TV and the internet, about the horrors of war -- will this country ever see another conflict that mobilizes an entire generation of American kids to march willingly into battle, without protest?
You do a lot of thinking about just what's worth dying for when it's you who's being told -- not asked, told -- to put your life on the line.
Follow Chez Pazienza on Twitter: www.twitter.com/chezpazienza
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Democracy died with the age of the musket.
Leaders today know you can't do anything to them as individuals. If you try you'll be tazed, beaten, thrown in jail and your story won't even appear on the news as it's all owned by the same people who pay to elect the politicians who pass the laws allowing it to happen.
Millions of people protested the Iraq war in 'free speech zones' and in ways that 'did not disrupt'. They didn't care because even if every single one of those people was a legal gun owner and rushed the white house at the same time, the president knew he was safe. When it's you with your 'legal guns' with legal ammunition that can't even put a hole in a vest, and they have tanks and jets and precision guided missiles launched from drones....Military hardware has evolved away from the person(Assuming it's even legal to own, which it's not) and toward the machine. Machines are notoriously easy to control.
You have no voice because you can not do anything. The people that matter have all the guns, and there's nothing you can do.
The republic has been dead for decades, keep drinkin the kool-aid kids.
I'm a boomer who understands the self-interest of those who faced the draft. It tended to be a great unifying factor, particularly when it became legitimate, even hip, to protest the war.
I became a military officer through ROTC. I figured that I'd get drafted otherwise. My attitude changed toward the war as I closely followed its course. I also began to learn first-hand about the military's careerism, the "ticket punching", the gross waste and inefficiency, and the insidious influence of the Military/Industrial Complex.
A senior officer once questioned a large group of young 2nd Lieutenants. "Raise your hands if you would take the option of an immediate discharge from the Air Force," he asked. He was trying to determine the future of the Air Force by the reactions of its newest officers. He was crestfallen when confronted by a forest of raised hands, including my own. At least 90% would have left immediately.
Nixon's smartest move was to accede to the demands of my generation to end the draft. You could almost hear the air going out of the political balloon. Protests got smaller, and apathy toward the war became greater. Much as I hate to admit it, perhaps the way to avoid more wars is to reinstate the draft without exemptions and applied to both sexes. If every young person had "a dog in the fight", perhaps they'd care more and we'd fight less wars to protect the outlying provinces of the dying American Empire.
I would like to point out something for you youngsters out there who have only read about the 60's and the war protests: women like myself were not subject to the draft, yet put ourselves in harm's way to protest the Vietnam War. Like many others, I had no family members or close friends at risk of going to Vietnam. Those protests, the "crazy street fairs" as you call them, in which people were beaten and killed, were not effective for many years, either. Since you can tell us what does not work, please tell us what does. Frankly, I don't know what is wrong with this generation, but casting aspersions on whatever methods turned out eventually to change public opinion is not helpful. We can laugh at ourselves, but war is not a laughing matter.
What's becoming tiresome to me is the predictably of another writer, self-described as a member of Generation X, who castigates the Boomer generation for all its alleged evils. The most convenient and consistent way these writers spin their arguments is by simply transforming anything associated with Boomers into another example of self-absorption and grandiosity.
What follows is also predictable: handfuls of commenting acolytes praising these writers for their genius, clarity and penetrating sentiments.
Yawn.
Aren't you getting bored with the topic of bashing Boomers? It happens so frequently that it seems to be an integral part of the narrative of Generation X, at least the generation’s fearless social commentators. I can share some theories about why this happens so frequently among X notables such as Jeff Gordinier and Virginia Heffernan, but why bother trying to convince malcontents of anything other than their acerbic, cynical views?
I do however have a challenge for you, Chez, one that I'm fairly certain you're incapable of meeting.
Write a positive essay about the value of Generation X: all that your generation has accomplished collectively, all that you have contributed, all that generations 1,000 years from now will recall as golden history.
Let's see if you can ennoble your own generation and do so with sincerity, clarity, substance and maybe a touch of humility. Let's see if you can accomplish this without mockery and juxtaposition. Let’s see if by focusing on the positive alone, you can win so many devotees.
I find it disingenuous at best that HuffPo's comments policy would easily ban attacks such as have been made in this blogger's past 2 columns yet they not only post such articles, they continue to cull any meaningful commentary that dares to oppose the many logical fallacies exemplified in these 2 rude posts.
It is not "fair and balanced reporting" (to borrow a mangled term from Fox News) to have on a respected WWII scholar and a Holocaust denier. Guess where Mr. pazienza's ramblings fall on that spectrum.
I demand both better blog posts and a more liberal commentary policy from HuffPo.
I can tell you from experience, if your goal back in the '60s was to avoid getting inducted into the service, there were *far* easier and more effective ways of doing that than participating in political protests. Let's not pretend that pre-induction testing and physicals were staffed by geniuses back in the day -- you could definitely "get by with a little help from you friends," some rudimentary acting skills, and pure chutzpah.
Oh, ho-hum, the novelty is lost here... and has been for a millenium of generations.
See K.J. Dwyer's Profile
"Regardless of what the "right way" to protest these days may be, why weren't the protests against the war in Iraq larger and smarter than they actually were . . .? Because hundreds of thousands of young people . . . weren't in danger of being forced to go to war."
This is a false conclusion. Besides the obvious misinformation being spewed by the Bush administration (which was delivered unchallenged and wholesale through the media), the fact is that there were enormous demonstrations (hundreds of thousands of people in NY alone) that were relegated to "free speech zones." The media downplayed their size and significance (as well as those in other countries where literally two million people took to the streets in London alone) and tacitly accepted the notion of "free speech zones."
The reduction of the media to a corporate propoganda tool has resulted in the ridicule and suppression of dissent and has encouraged the kind of false equations and conclusions that you make. That coupled with outrageous limitations on peoples' ability to peacefully gather in political demonstration while protecting the "free speech" and "ideas" of Fox News, etc. combine to represent a true perversion of the First Amendment.
If your intent was to be provocative, you can do better than to ridicule anti-war demonstrators. There's a wealth of material just screaming to be burlesqued. I'm not sure I understand what you hope to gain from shaming, mocking and further marginilizing and debilitating what could be an awakening potential
See K.J. Dwyer's Profile
majority.
When reading the comments posted here upon the death of Michael Jackson, I was struck by how people who grew up in the '80s are so defensive about it.
I lived through the '80s, and it never occurred to me that anyone would so fiercely defend an era that promoted the shallow, selfish behavior typified by Jackson's "man in the mirror" pose. (Gotta hand it to MJ for coining a phrase that perfectly captures the '80s mentality.) It was kind of like Romans looking back longingly at the reign of Caligula--except, of course, Caligula was never the hypocritical bore Reagan was.
Chez's original post seemed to me just an extension of the tortured rationalizations for the vapidity of the Reagan years that began pouring in after MJ's death. Like Chez's post, those comments also engaged in gratuitous insults of previous generations to make their own look a little better.
P.S. Since when is protesting an unjust, illegal war ignoble just because the protester himself might be killed or maimed in that war? Haven't all generations of Americans protested bad policies that might have hurt them directly? Aren't many people today agitating for health-care reform precisely because they themselves have bad or no health-care insurance?
Have you ever heard MJ's "Man in the Mirror"?
As I, Turn Up The Collar On My
Favourite Winter Coat
This Wind Is Blowin' My Mind
I See The Kids In The Street,
With Not Enough To Eat
Who Am I, To Be Blind?
Pretending Not To See
Their Needs
A Summer's Disregard,
A Broken Bottle Top
And A One Man's Soul
They Follow Each Other On
The Wind Ya' Know
'Cause They Got Nowhere
To Go
That's Why I Want You To
Know
I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change
Having digested the history of the all-volunteer Army, I've come to the conclusion that what we need is a Constitutional Amendment requiring an actual Declaration of WAR and an automatic draft for any deployment of over 100,000 soldiers.
That would end the days of war as policy.
Might I suggest drafting the richest man first. The second richest man second and so on.
Apology accepted.
Now, repeat after me:
WAR, AS A POLITICAL TOOL, IS NO LONGER AN OPTION IN THE 21ST CENTURY.
Line 2:
WAR IS A BLUNT INSTRUMENT. IT IS NEVER "PRECISION" ANYTHING.
Oh, Please. Nobody's telling you that old-school protest is the only way to oppose war.
Since you clearly see that new ideas are needed, why don't you come up with some instead of whining about Joan Baez?
The protest tactics of the 60's won't work anymore because the Establishment has adjusted to negate those methods. The protests of the 60's were reported on by serious journalists working for news organizations that had integrity. Now newspapers are dead, TV news is part of the entertainment division, networks are owned by the war-profiteer corporations, and they were all in favor of the war (good for ratings). There were actually some very large protests against launching the Iraq War, but they were not well covered by the corporate media.
Nobody's telling you that old-school protests are the only way to oppose war. Since you recognize that new ideas are needed, why don't you come up with some?
I agree. The big street protests back in the day were worth doing because they were on TV. When you ask people to take it to the streets today you are asking them to get beat up and thrown in jail and nobody ever knows it happened.
You make an excellent point. A draft would not work, because there would be too much protesting. I'm certainly not going. War is useless and absurd. It's too late for the romanticism of the pre WW1--WW2 days, the "red badge of courage" and all. Most of my generation--X or Y depending on my mood-- believe that making any group the villain is short-sighted.
From the perspective of someone who volunteered for the Army in 1967 (in order to get an MOS that would ensure that I wouldn't get sent to Viet Nam), then spent 21 months in Viet Nam (lesson learned: never believe anything an Army recruiter tells you) and then came home in March of 1970 to join in the protests against the war, I have to say that Chez is probably 95% right. The anti-war movement consisted of a handful of dedicated activists and a couple of bazillion kids who were either a) scared of getting their butts blown off (a perfectly reasonable concern, IMHO), b) pissed that they'd missed Woodstock and determined not to miss the protests, or c) hoping to get laid by someone in one of the previous categories.
I remember how all of this was driven home for me personally when the University in which was planning on re-enrolling come summer finally bowed to the students' demands to cancel classes for the final few weeks of the spring semester. The campus went from a hotbed of anti-war activism (with daily protests which drew thousands) to a ghost town literally overnight.
I'm just sayin'.
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