During the recent rash
of Occupy Wall Street protests, there have been a lot of comparisons to the protests of the 60’s and 70’s.
While I was certainly around then and was aware of all the ruckus going on, I can’t say that I was paying a lot
of attention to the causes.
Oh, sure, I wore an “ecology” patch
on my jeans and drew peace and love art when I should’ve been paying attention in class. However,
that I was just a punk kid mirroring what I was seeing and hearing in my surroundings.
But back to the OWS stuff and the comparisons to
those of the past, I started thinking about the accuracy of those comparisons. From where I sit, while
there does seem to be some similarities to the passions driving the protests, there are obvious differences.
One difference is that, in the sixties, the protests
seemed to be equal in their “opportunity”. Both Presidents Johnson and Nixon were named as
villains when it came to anti-war sentiments and “the establishment” was viewed as a whole instead of selectively
being railed against based on ideological categories. The kids of those days were actively trying to save
their necks from an involuntary draft into what they felt was an unjust war. The establishment, as a whole,
was to blame and wasn’t categorized into pigeon holes of left/right, Democrat or Republican. All
were to blame.
Today, there’s no draft but the stated reasons
for the protests against our involvement in multiple wars more global and humanitarian in nature, to hear them tell it.
For the most part, the blame for this is being placed on the Republican Party as opposed to Washington in general.
While “millionaires and billionaires” are being publically derided, the targets of those verbal grenades
are, more times than not, aimed at those who appear to be more on the right side of the political spectrum instead of the
left. Perhaps they feel that, in an “Animal Farm” sort of way, all millionaires and billionaires
are evil but some are more evil than others.
The current political scene is horribly divisive. People
who are friends on every front devolve into shouting matches when it comes to defending their favorite politicians who wouldn’t
give them the time of day except during election season. Friends call friends nuts, wackos, Commies, Nazis,
idiots and morons (and that’s just some of the nicer labels) who hold differing political views and opinions.
Since our society is viewed as being more highly educated than ever before, I’m not sure if the name-calling
is an indictment of the name callers, our educational system, or both. I do find it amazing that individuals
can don the cape of being the sum total of all wisdom and knowledge without giving it a thought that the “other side”
could be quite (if only partially) accurate in their views.
Dalai Lama said, “People take different roads seeking fulfillment
and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.”
While he was speaking of religion, I apply try to apply this thought in my attitudes towards others who think different
than I do, politically. The political climate would be much less divisive and toxic if we embraced the
spirit of that thought without selling out one’s heart-felt political ideology.
I also like the quote at the top of this page by
Goldie Hawn, who played a ditzy blonde on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh. Judging by those words,
I don’t think that she was all that ditzy.
