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Recreate 68, the DNC and the Urgent Need to Reinvent Our Political Language
Recent reports about the protests and other activities planned for next month's Democratic National Convention (DNC) make me want to throw on a tie dye, smoke some sin semilla and blare the the song, Times They Are NOT a-Changin'.
My point is that, rather than frame the protests as a response to the unique confluence of issues that constitute our crisis -- war, declining empire, worldwide starvation, the death of the American Dream and the rapid decimation of the planet itself, to name a few -- the writers and editors at major media outlets simply cut story lines and even images(!) from the 60's protests and paste them onto the present. But most problematic is not so much the reporting as the fact that DNC protest organizers themselves provided the frame. They did so from the moment they chose the unhappy name for the coordinated protest effort in Denver: Recreate 68.
Sources in Denver told me last year of plans to call the event Recreate 68 and my initial reaction was, "Have they no political imagination?" Asked how they came to this decision, my sources, who didn't want to be identified because of their need to coordinate with the protest organizers, told me that a most deadly combination was largely responsible for coming up the Recreate 68 tag: aging white leftists and young people anxious for history and change. Those who say that the language matters less than the real life issues being discussed have zero sense of how language and framing can completely block and deaden your main message.
While the motivations of both the young people and the aging white leftists are understandable, their political logic is not. By framing things in this way, they are basically denying the uniqueness of the political moment, the specificity of specific struggles. Also, local activists and their activities, their language will be beamed out to a country and a planet unable to distinguish the Colorado political accent from that of the rest of us who do not wax as nostalgic for 1968.
Some will argue that the mainstream media will inevitably spin against protesters anyway. Maybe, but we don't need to do the work for them and, more importantly, we ourselves, especially young people, must forge a political identity and create language unique to current challenges, something made exponentially more difficult by the deadening nostalgic mediocrity of the Recreate 68 frame.
Keeping a line of political tradition constitutes a necessary part of any good movement-building-but not at the expense of eliding the burning issues or our time. I can already hear the deployment in Denver of political language so dead and compromised that even presidential candidates are using it: "Yes we can", "Si Se Puede", etc. Denver points to the urgent need to reinvent and reinvigorate our language and political framing.
More than ever, we need to focus national and global attention on the unique and daunting problems we face. "Recreate 68" sounds more like something more appropriate for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young reunion concert than for a movement of our troubled times.
Roberto Lovato is a New York-based contributing Associate Editor with New America Media and a frequent contributor to The Nation Magazine. You can find him posting regularly on media, migration, politics and other issues at his blog.
Copyright © 2008 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
40 Comments so far
Show AllIs anybody going to protest the Republican convention?
What, is "Change You Can Believe In" losing its pizazz?
What's wrong with "Another World is Possible?"
I think I have to agree. The only good thing worth pointing to about '68 was that at least there were people motivated enough to march en masse on the convention. The republicans won't do it because they would be afraid of being labeled "unpatriotic," which, of course, depends on your definition of patriotism. Apparently it means to never disagree with your elected officials. But with only 27% approval for our current administration, and even less than that for our congress, it seems there are a lot of unpatriotic folks in this country.
I was quite young in '68 but still saw what was going on. Personally, I think we ought to call this one the "Hold their damned feet to the fire" protest. Or maybe "no contribution without representation." OK, it's not as catchy as "no taxation without representation" but I'm no founding father either.
roberto's on it...again.
As an "aging white leftist" who was politically active in 1968, I agree with this article. The 2008 convention protests should be framed as what they are, a protest "in the now" about the problems of today, not a nostalgia fest.
While I can understand young people wantig to participate in an action that makes history like the 68 Chicago protests I do think the issues young peole face today are just as critical or maybe even more so than those of 1968. What is common with 1968 is that the Democratic Party is still prmoting the same agendas of war and corporate domination. But now the wars could become a world war and the crisis of global hunger, economic failure and the threats to our environment are so urgent our life is on the line. We need to pressure the Democrates to wake up while we also need to build our own systems to grow food, provide our families and friends with water, shelter and healthcare. The political parties have little interest in facing reality so it will be up to each of us to develop a plan. We are growing and storing food and figuring out how to live without oil and a central government. Visit www.foodnotbombs.net if you care to work for solutions.
What's important is that after all the disappointments we've experienced, most of us are still pinning our hopes on parties and candidates.
www.nationalinitiative.us
Confused me, ReCreate68, I thought was a republican effort to distract from the democratic convention, by bring up the derisive protests back in Chicago. At least that is what the repubs on the pro-gun sites see it as. And they are very happy with it.
Little warning folks. Act like you need to be caged, and you have really done their work for them.
Of course, no one will investigate later whom exactly started the violence, either.
So the trap in pretty much set.
"Recreate 68" sounds fine to me. please spare me the derogatory hippie cliches! The spirit of 1968 was pervading and international - a time of both anger and optimism that we haven't seen since. Why NOT try to recreate it?
It seems the powers have been been quite successful at memory-holing how momentous a year 1968 was - it was the only year, possibly in world history, where from Prague to Paris to Chicago - the powerful, if only briefly, were fearful of losing control to popular will. Damn right I'd like to recreate it!
As far as those who would have us line up behind the Dems and not rock the boat in Denver, a quiz:
Q: Which US president has the greatest number of murdered Iraqi Children blackening his soul:
A. Rpublican GHW Bush
B. Democrat Bill Clinton
C. Republican GW Bush
D. All equally
Answer: B
...
Keith, keep up the great work. FoodNotBombs is a great example of people in the present working as individuals to help others, (inspired at least in part by the spirit of past social change workers, like the Diggers.)
I'm quite delighted, and I'm clearly a dissenting opinion here, with the provocative and tactical choice of the name ReCreate68. Look what's happening as a result. The center-liberals and progressives who have been ineffective in launching and sustaining a change movement are now actively discussing strategies for change. My take is that for someone like Mr. Lovato, a determined worker for and creator of ethnic media, to be uncomfortable with a call to action by people who want change on the basis of its languaging - to be so uncomfortable as to write about it and to initiate a dialog on what a contemporary change movement might require--- is just plain fabulous. This is a sea change, and a necessary one. I mean the one where the people putting out the presses get directly involved in the movement.
If seems to me that many of our 'traditional' liberals and progressives have comfortably sat by as the so-called 'loony left' voices of Code Pink, World Can't Wait, Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, and United for Peace and Justice (sorry to leave anyone out here) have taken to the streets in the past few years and taken all the public heat. These groups of individuals have been using their bodies and time to demonstrate their desire for democratic change. Unlike the largely white and aging (with some exceptions, Mr. Lovato), generation of academics, fundraisers and alternative journalists, who came to political awareness around age '68 and cut their teeth on 'radical' change, and who don't want to do it again. Because, as they repeatedly say, it's too risky to rock the boat: "anything but another 4 years of the GOP".
I can't figure out what has happened to the boomers. The largest group of Americans, with the most cash and clout, rolling over for the continual re-funding of the war, spying on citizens, etc. Either we bring the democratic party to task at the DNC, or we shut up for another four years about today's FISA bill, the coming privatization of Iraq's oil fields, and the continually imminent war with Iran.
I'd like to tip a hat to and express loving gratitude for the participants in the US social change movements of the past 40 years. From the Free Speech movement, where the governor used water canons to dislodge 'radicals' from visibility, to the anti-war protestors, to the Black Power and gender rights movements, the early environmentalists, the civil rights movement elders, to the poets and musicians and journalists who spoke it out loud. We need to remember their work, and build on it. To forget OUR history is irresponsible. And hobbles our ability to move forward.
Mr. Lovato, everyone knows it's not really 1968, none more than the self-labeled 'failed revolutionaries' of the 60s social change movements.
It's just that it's time to pick up the heavy load again, and walk up the hill.
It's not been enough, yet, to create social networks that raise money to take out ads in the traditional and collapsing media.
And we'll all agree that it is also not enough to send up a flare like R68 has done. But it's something. R68 has repeatedly advanced a commitment to non-violence, and it's put in long hours to obtain permits for those who would visit Denver in August and have their say.
Who will be to blame if the DNC and the officials of Denver want to discourage a visible departure from the script in the Pepsi Center and turn the tools developed by Homeland Security to take out 'terrorists' on the citizenry? We're not going to blame the victims of the police riot again, are we? (I mean, the Rainbow Gathering folks are planning on attending, for goodness sake. And at least three Unitarian Churches' peace committees. So far.).
It's going to take a sustained effort from intellectuals, journalists, citizens, historians, participants in prior change movements, lawmakers: many people, to come up with a viable strategy for actual change so that we can create the kind of country we'd like to live in.
I hope, as this summer progresses, that we don't fall for the old cointel-pro tactics of creating discord among the so-called 'protesters' ---and shining the media glare on diversionary sidebars instead of the real deal. I hope that we can remember the past at least well enough to be able to talk about, and to address, real current conditions, instead.
I was 13 yo in '68 at DNC, and Wed 28th August started as a nice day passing near one of my fav museums ( Field Natural History ) to enter the music stand area of Grant Park.
Of course the many barb-wired covered jeeps and sharpshooters all along the museum's roof -- made an indelible impression on my young eyes and mind -- not to mention the juxtaposition of mothers with their babies in carriages, and my own mom.
Now having a similarly aged son, I know my wife would never consider taking him similarly on a demonstration of that scale and risk, but I already have taken him to one of Cindy's rather mild rallies, although we arrived late after the action had ebbed to a whisper.
Knowing what I saw myself back then, of tear gas and cops bashing innocents heads in that day, I would avoid such disastrous occasions today -- but of course one never knows ahead of time ( at least we could say that back in '68 ) what might happen.
Good luck and my blessings for our new generations of PEACE "fighters" however absurd that sounds, it is appropriate to the illogic of WAR -- and the delightful promise of the possibility of PEACE
Namaste « Presence »
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world » — Gandhi
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed » — Gandhi
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — ML King
recreate68 is one group. Another is called unconventionalaction. Maybe that one won't offend the author's delicate sensibilities.
In the Convention Demonstrations of '68 much injury to a person physically and mentally was provoked to occur, that it did. I no longer care for a recreation of That than the recreation of Kent State. We that grew up throughout the 60's and 70's try, I do hope try to move ahead to what ends, who knows. Namaste, you understand osme glitches i'm not patient enough for, lately only CD I log on, yet on articles with a certain main ideology prevents me from logging in, 1.I am already logged in, 2. I am already logged in! I refresh but that starts it all over again, I go to 'home' go back, same, go on where I'm recognized as'logged on', since I am logged on and post and try on those 2 and 3 each day that it happens. Glitch? I am just grasping some of this all to time consuming dreadfully repetative step by step routines, I hate it. That's why I like my toolbox, I can repair the electric, fix the plumbing but that, argh!
sleep deprivation has appeared to make be dyslexic.
SEE? be, me, I wish I could sleep. I know if I do I'll wake up in 2 hours and be up all night again.
Recreate '68? What, a police riot, great numbers of active and excited government instigators and inciters, confused and disorganized protestors, and the selection of an establishment candidate who didn't win a single primary and who didn't seem to have a clue what all the violence and shouting was about?
I agree with the article. '68 was a pivotal year, no question, and I would love to see a ratcheting up of anger and risk and numbers; but, really, what did the thing in Chicago accomplish other than create an little iconic and resonating spot in the soul, mixed with the rest of the events of the year?
Don't get me wrong. I was 18 in 1968 and getting involved in political and protest activities. The year was the most formative of my life - politics, music, protests - and I think drawing on our dissident past is necessary and natural. It's just the "Recreate68" seems a bit simplistic and ingrown.
I understand why the corporate media constantly trashes the sixties. Of course they want to disparage a time when people organized and actually had some political power. They've spent the last forty years trying to role back what good was accomplished then, and of course they don't want to see a return of those days when they were actually challenged.
But I don't understand why I see activists disparaging the sixties. This is the second or third time I've seen that in the last few days. And it leaves me puzzled.
Now, I'm never one to blindly try to do something like its done before. If anything I tend to get into trouble by doing the opposite and thinking I can do it better. :) So I understand some resistance towards the idea of just recreating the sixties. It is a different world and we do need to think differently (and the organizers of this group are from what I can tell).
But it makes me wonder if some of the young people who talk this way have somehow sub-consciously picked up the corporate 'sixties were bad' message and are just repeating it.
To give you an idea of the political power of what happened in the sixties, you could pretty much equate the political movement that got George McGovern the 72 Democratic nomination with one today that would get the same nomination for Dennis Kucinich. If you think about how incredibly far short DK fell in his effort, and then think about McGovern defeating the established powers in that day's Democratic party, you get a picture of how strong the people were then.
Sorry, but I want to see that again. Doesn't have to be a replay of the sixties. But I want to see a movement for change that powerful afoot in the country again.
Arry ... its a friggin name ... get over it.
Seriously ... if you want to see what they are doing, go to www.recreate68.org.
Or, catch a plane and come to the next meeting in Denver (every Thursday as posted on the website).
Wow, you'd think people on the left could think in segments just a little longer than a bumper sticker. But the number of people hung up on that name amazes me.
"Recreate 68″
The 68 convention protest was a disaster and better informed people above have already stated why it shouldn't happen again.
Pax
Samson -- Nothing to get over. It's not a big issue with me. Just puttin' in a few cents. I really don't care deeply. :)
But it wouldn't have been my choice for some of the reasons given.
Re-Create Sixty-Eight! Has a nice ring.
Still, it reminds me of the Woody Allen movie, Annie Hall, where the Allen character - distraught over the breakup with Annie and missing "the way they were" - tried to re-create with a new girlfriend the same kind of thing he had with Annie. It fell like a lead balloon. (the lobster scene, if you've seen the movie).
"Peace Train." or "imagine Peace" or "Get Peace." Not a big deal. It's the substance that matters.
1968 was only a disaster because we didn't because the activist's relented and didn't escalate.
Right now in my town we are seeing a rather ugly attack on our young activists by the rich, white, privileged, baby-boomer, quaker/catholic "pacifists".
Recreate68 co-founder Glenn Spagnuolo has made it clear he is not among the peaceful seeking action, he is not among the truthers seeking prosecution of Bush/Cheney. Glenn Spagnuolo is a provocateur who is apparently seeking to misdirect and discredit protesters in order to dilute real political messages. As a provocateur he has made no successful associations or contact with various authentic groups and instead has been outed as nothing more than likely a shill for the Republican party to discredit the Democratic party. Anyone who wants to know about him can simply look at his history he is not a consistent activist, he is troublemaker who apparently has funding now from sources setup to discredit and distract effective groups.
The issues associated with Glenn Spagnuolo as a provocateur have been made public. Search on his name and provocation and see what you find. This article is also suspicious in that it distracts from important issues by sidelining into a false and irrelevant one such as the naming of recreate68 relationship to the year and era of 1968 which is by no means a relevant or important criticism. As readers we question the point of this article by Robert Lovato and its' relationship to recreate68 as both lack of clear issues or direction. Both are examples of misdirection.
Not a bad ideal, but they got the wrong city, try St. Paul Minn.
68 - It Was Great - I just don't remember too much about it.
The details are a little hazy and fuzzy.
I wonder why the protest should center on the DNC. Weren't the Republicans in charge for most of the last 8 years? (I agree the Dems helped them by caving in on every vote.) As long as the Republicans are targeted as well -- and with bigger crowds and louder protests -- it would make sense. I suppose demonstrating at the RNC would be a lot more hazardous -- they wouldn't have any problems with shooting the protesters. I guess I'm beginning to see the logic of protesting at the DNC: all the party, way less risk.
Well said, Roberto. Folks need to think about how language sets the frame for our story and our issues. I recommend the following book by Geoff Nunberg:
Talking Right-- How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a tax-raising, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, volvo-driving, NY Times-reading, body=piercing, hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show.
It's a protest.
The DNC is such a scripted sterile thing that some citizens' action needs to be taken. Mostly, it'll be a cops vs. protesters story, attracting the mainstream media, which never shows up at any other time for a public demonstration.
Frame all you want, but it's kind of a moot point. The protesters demands will not be heard, and that's not because they failed to heed George Lakeoff's advice. It's that the Democratic Party doesn't want democratic participation.
Recreate 68 plays right into the hands of Rush Limbaugh who called for riots in Denver two months ago. Seems to me like protest organizers may have been infiltrated by agent provocateurs.
Where do the CD editors find such psy-ops and RNC drivel to print? Another '68 would be a McSame political wet dreeam come true.
It has just been announced that Obama has moved his acceptance speech from the Pepsi Center toi the 72,000 seat stadium where the pro-football team plays.
This means (if only Barack's handlers will "pretty please" let him)that he has the opportunity toi recreate 1936 when FDR did the same thing in Philadelphia by moving his acceptance speech to 60,000 seat Franklin Field at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speech he gave is most notably remembered for his declaration that "to some generations much is given, of other generations much is expected, this generation has a rendezvous with destiny".
It was the kick off to a national campaign that saw FDR win every state but Maine and Vermont (no worry for Obama on that score!)and (more importantly) enlarge his already substantial congressional and senatorial majorities. This enabled him to continue the New Deal.
That would be a much more potent symbol to emulate than a bunch of angry anti-war anarchists screaming "dump the Hump".
Recreate68 is not associated with Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, United for Peace and Justice, Veterans for Peace, Code Pink, or any of the groups that have been working so hard to end the Iraq War and prevent the next war with Iran. The Recreate68 website's home page has been updated since I last looked at it - the one I saw previously had a black background and sported a single raised fist whereas the current home page has a group of people with raised fists in silhouette below a cutesy header with a VW bus. The language and symbols they are using are inflammatory. Agents provocateur? Perhaps yes. If not, definitely unhelpful and inciting potential problems.
Please read their "Statement of Non-Violence and Principles" carefully and see that they actually leave room for violence as part of the scenario.
For anyone on this site, reading these comments, who is interested in protesting, please go to the websites of one of the organizations I listed above. You can be sure of their commitments to non-violence and peace.
As someone not yet born in 1968, i would give my right arm to have been there. All this curmudgery just denigrates the 1960s like corp media intends. Today's weak attempt at resistance is generally liberal swill, and cynicism. Perhaps you are too old to imagine you have much of a future left. I don't know. But the 60s participants have done a PISS POOR job of sharing the fruits of the experience, insights, stories, tactics and strategies. The current time has much more in common with 1968 than not. In 30 years the corp backlash has meant little has changed. There is a powerful iconography and cultural appeal (music, vibe, etc) to the 60s that can be revamped. It's better than anything out there today.
All power to the people. It worked then and it works on me.
So stop trashing the 60s you dried up liberal fools.
We'll see what this whole open platform Obama is talking about is all about. I'm not holding my breath, but it sounds good on its face.
Every four years, the Democratic Party assembles a platform that outlines the party's
position on a number of issues.
Traditionally, the drafting of the platform is not open to ordinary people.
This year, that's going to change.
For two weeks in July, people all across America will hold Platform Meetings in
their own communities to discuss the issues and share their input. The outcome of
these meetings will be reviewed by the Drafting Committee as it creates the final
Platform.
No political experience is required.
Your thoughts and experiences are all that matter, and they will shape a platform
that -- like this party -- is owned by the people.
Sign up to host or attend a Platform Meeting in your neighborhood:
http://my.barackobama.com/listening
@barely human there are people protesting the RNC. on raw story has an article about how FOX news is spinning a rumored protest by anarchists as being this horrible, evil, trying to trap the delegates on a bridge thing. besides anarchists - other groups will be there protesting, too.
i'd like to see thousands upon thousands of protesters at both of these events. i like that "Recreate 68" is being used. Today, so many people are apathetic but still talk about how things now just "arent like they were back then." maybe using that name will get people excited in thinking that things CAN be now even better than they were then.
im interning for the movie battle in seattle that is about the 1999 WTO protests - it was the single biggest protest in such a long time - since the 60s/70s. www.battleinseattlemovie.com and www.whocontrolstheworld.com have a ton of information on the different issues and protest stuff. i really hope that a ton of people protest and really stand up for their right to assemble and have their voices heard. we definitely need change in this country.
Amen chips.
I am of your generation and was an activist every day during the 60's. I was out marching on the streets, being chased by police or organizing in tedious meetings before work, after work and on weekends. We made some differences, maybe helped save some lives in Vietnam, maybe prevented some lynchings here. But you can see from where the country and the movement are now that the work was terribly lacking.
Nostalgia for "The Greatest Generation" or the 60's is self-indulgent and hampers creativity. It crowds out young people and new ideas. We should embrace the new consciousness on issues like the environment and then apply our experience and help identify the mistakes the peace and civil rights movements made (such as not recognizing and throwing out police provocateurs, such as looking down on ordinary working people, such as letting a few egoistic males dominate everything, such as not building bridges and alliances sufficiently).
We should not impose the style and substance of the 1960s on today's movements.