I was fortunate to have attended college (Paterson State was a college at that time, later became William Paterson College, I believe to disassociate itself from Paterson which had the image of being black and poor which it was in some areas, and would become somewhat violent in those summer days when the urban poor looked at their plight and seeing no positive way out took to the streets with stones and fire. Of course it was no Watts nor Newark neither, the latter providing us the spectacle of tanks rolling down the street of this old American city to defend property by arresting, beating and shooting the natives) during exciting times. Wearing the uniform of the non-conformist (in that time long hair, whatever beard I could muster, jeans, an army jacket, and beads) I protested with others against the war because it appeared to me that we were fighting on the wrong side, for a corrupt government propped up by a nascent global corporate power structure, and against the people who had shook off the yoke of French colonial exploitation. Somehow that people and the people here at home in the USA became one in our minds, well in mine anyway. The military industrial complex that Eisenhower had warned us about had become a supra-governmental power, killing those who would not submit, poisoning our rivers and inventing things like napalm and agent orange. Dow Chemical's slogan was "Better Living Through Chemistry." The irony eluded them.
So there we were with a lot to be pissed about, with a government that was sending our youth off to kill and/or die defending capitalism in Asia. With a government by the people but for the powerful and wealthy.
With a government that sent tanks against its own people.
Now mostly we had peaceful protests and teach-ins, mild stuff, though the Black Student Union did take over a building and we white radicals stood in solidarity outside the chained doors, but elsewhere, like in Columbia (the university, not the country) there was more violence and the development of the non-negotiable demand. It seemed like a good idea to me at the time, after all, we were right and they were wrong and it was our duty to impose our righteous will by any means necessary.
Now here's the point: isn't this exactly what Republicans have been doing ever since the American people had the temerity to elect not only a Democrat but a black man President? You could argue that they did it during the Clinton era as well but never so egregiously as now. Was it right when we did it and wrong now or is it always wrong?
I have a memory of being with my mother in a department store, I was five or younger (I have a lot of old memories) and I had had enough of shopping so I consciously decided to force my mother's hand by throwing myself on the ground and refusing to get up. It is not a fond memory. It was not a proud moment but I was a child behaving like a child so it was understandable. The hope was that I would grow up and learn to behave in a more decent fashion. Eventually I did.
So there we were with a lot to be pissed about, with a government that was sending our youth off to kill and/or die defending capitalism in Asia. With a government by the people but for the powerful and wealthy.
With a government that sent tanks against its own people.
Now mostly we had peaceful protests and teach-ins, mild stuff, though the Black Student Union did take over a building and we white radicals stood in solidarity outside the chained doors, but elsewhere, like in Columbia (the university, not the country) there was more violence and the development of the non-negotiable demand. It seemed like a good idea to me at the time, after all, we were right and they were wrong and it was our duty to impose our righteous will by any means necessary.
Now here's the point: isn't this exactly what Republicans have been doing ever since the American people had the temerity to elect not only a Democrat but a black man President? You could argue that they did it during the Clinton era as well but never so egregiously as now. Was it right when we did it and wrong now or is it always wrong?
I have a memory of being with my mother in a department store, I was five or younger (I have a lot of old memories) and I had had enough of shopping so I consciously decided to force my mother's hand by throwing myself on the ground and refusing to get up. It is not a fond memory. It was not a proud moment but I was a child behaving like a child so it was understandable. The hope was that I would grow up and learn to behave in a more decent fashion. Eventually I did.
