3392

Could the problem be safe seats? None of the GOP members that would have to make changes are worried because heavy gerrymandering has made the immune to the political pressure of the opposition? Heck our president won the office on a small minority, and plans to run on that same minority vote if possible.

3393

I think you are underestimating how important that being shot and killed part is to BLM. I mean people dying is a big part of it. Asking for it to continue when people stop dying is like trying to redefine what the movement is in the first place. Violence against black people is a big part of it.

Perhaps the reason Vietnam felt so big to you was your age at the time, and the reason these others don’t seem to have in impact today to you is also your age when they occurred. I assure you, they’ve had meaningful impacts already, and they were not one and done events.

3394

If only we had been so careful decades ago when an unsponsored criminal German slipped in to the country.

3395

God i hate Trump so much. This is generally getting to be unhealthy for me, i suspect. Hating people is bad for you, but i just hate him so much.

3396

How are these poor people that have lost everything – their homes, their loved ones – supposed to have all their documentation in order when they are evacuated?

Fuck this guy so much. I’d like to wish some things on him that would likely land me on a watchlist.

3397

Gang members and drug dealers huh… think something might have encouraged him to think those are the “very bad people,” something like every stereotype a racist white man might have about black people.

3398

You know if Marianne Williamson was smart she’d use her great Mental Power to give Trump the gift of empathy. He’d still be an a idiot, and braggart, but just normal human empathy for those that lost everything would make the next 16+ months so much better.

3399

This guys tweet inspired me to not wish that Trump dies tomorrow in an an excruciatingly painful manner.

Direct link http://www.jonathancarl.org/2019/09/TrumpTwitterWar.html

3400

Amusing that that poor guy was a victim because DJT is a sloppy idiot in everything he does. If incompetency manifested itself in physical form, DJT would be Everest.

3401

3402

Yeah, you’re absolutely right about this. The contemporary situation is markedly different from the protest counter-culture of the 60s, and I’m as dismayed as @Clay at that fact.

I think part of it is how women’s rights and the Civil Rights movement built up momentum and got things done, largely because they were so long in coming and had specific objectives. I just don’t see Black Lives Matter working on the same lines, because its goals aren’t as tangible as common sense changes like letting mixed-race couples marry or recognizing women’s reproductive rights. I mean, yeah, the cops shouldn’t shoot black people just because they’re black, but where do you go from there? Beyond prosecuting specific cases, Black Lives Matter isn’t moving towards specific objectives.

As for opposition to Vietnam, you’re definitely right that it relates to casualties. It was was fought with draftees. The prospect of fighting in Vietnam was something direct and personal for anyone over 18, either because they qualified for the draft or were the parents of someone who qualified for the draft. That’s a very different situation from what Nesrie is trying to compare with the Womens’ Marches or Black Lives Matter. For many Americans, today’s protests and causes have less dire implications and require a stronger empathy than the prospect of having your child or best friend maimed or killed in a war of questionable intent on the other side of the world.

Also, I don’t think there was any counterpart to Fox News during the turmoil of the 60s. Does right-wing media “bleed off” some of the pressure by selling alternative facts to people who might otherwise express counter-culture? The poor schlubs in red states are on the receiving end of the some of the worst bits of Trump’s presidency and Republican policies, and they should be among the angriest.

Also, what are the modern expressions of counter-culture or protest in movies and writing and music? What are today’s Credence Clearwater Revival, or Merry Pranksters, or Easy Rider? Are there any such things? Not that I can think of, but maybe because I’m just too hung up on the differences between the modern political scene and the 60s.

-Tom

-Tom

3403

Am I allowed to use Childish Gambino or does that tie too close to Black Lives Matter which I guess doesn’t count? I mean that piece was… a statement, “counter culture”, and it’s mainstream. There’s another one from the other doesn’t count movement… she was there, sang it there.

3404

How does anyone have the time to protest? Between longer work hours, higher cost of living, and god forbid, you get injured, the increased cost of medical services, it seems like protesting is much more of a risk then it was back in the day.

3405

I was going to say this is probably a personal blindspot for Tom. And that Hip Hop has a lot, I’m sure (not my thing so I can’t directly speak to it)

I’ll add in A Perfect Circle’s latest, Eat the Elephant, Roger Waters extremely political tours there is plenty out there.

We just don’t have a unified musical sphere, instead fractured musical communities. Which is great for listeners! I’ve never been happier. However there never is really a true zeitgeist defining band or song the way there was in the 70’s anymore.

3406

Yeah because just like we don’t have only 12 TV stations anymore, we have a gazillion ways to consume music now, very fractured.

There are a ton here. I tried to pick a couple that were… well pretty well talked about at least, but they’re also for movements that apparently don’t seem… important enough somehow.

Oh yeah several things from Lemonade, lyrics and visuals.

3407

I’m sure it felt that way to my parents, but at the same time, I’ve had this thought often. But… then I think that maybe I’m just a bystander coward and that I need to wake up to that fact.

@Nesrie There are some protest songs here and there, but by and large, there’s not an entire music genre of modern protest music out of which you could make the Forrest Gump 2 soundtrack (j/k sort of). Or, maybe it’s out there and just not surfaced because the same 2 companies own every radio station.

3408

People protesting in the civil Rights era got beaten and arrested.

I think the idea that we might not have the TIME to protest? Kind of weak.

3409

I would say there are more than a few protest songs, but asking for the 60s and 70s to show in in 2019 in 2019 skin is completely unrealistic. You don’t take old culture, slap it into a modern year and say that’s what it looks like. A 2019 protest will look and feel like a 2019 protest and not something older people say it should be. The Women Movement, Black Lives Matter, Lemonade on the Superbowl Stage, trending themes, MeToo… 2019 movements will not look like old repeats.

Expecting repeats from that era is like those sad folks that keep trying to recreate Woodstock every year. The youth will make their moments when it’s time for the youth to make their moments, not when the generations ahead of them demand it. I am sure vets from WW2 might not even call Vietnam a real war… in fact, I know they did, some of them trying to point how less it was… when we all know war is war to those who are in it.

3410

I didn’t really mean a repeat as much as a certain, let’s say, saturation level. I’ll be the first to admit I’m a horrible judge of this because I don’t consume much media. It feels like maybe we just aren’t as focused on what needs to change as folks were back then.

(However, doesn’t it seem like a popular antiTrump song would REALLY get under his skin?)

3411

I cannot imagine how a single song in this date and age will ever represent even a large significance of a single young generation. There are too many choices, too many outlets, and so much content.

I also can’t imagine a war that would be so significant, so devastating and involve so many people that we would create war time recipes showing people how to make common things without usually available ingredients because all those resources are going to the war. I can’t really imagine getting rations for stockings either… because at that point I’d assume we’re in some sort of Mad Max situation… world burning.

If we don’t get ration tickets for stockings, does that mean somehow the sacrifice from the population wasn’t real enough?