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The 60's are Back: Students March for Environmental Change
Radicalism, student power and nonviolent direct action spark images of the 1960s protests against the war, the free speech movement and the civil rights movement. Student activists lobbied the U.S. Congress, marched the White House, staged boycotts, strikes and sit-ins and participated in civil disobedience. This was a time marked by such overt societal decay that people, especially young people, became sick of the powers that led the country. Young people raised their voices and refused to be an accomplice to what they believed to be wrong.
The 1960s movement was limited by its ability to create widespread engagement and change. Rallying and protesting prevented people's ability to interact and get involved. Now we have entered a time in history fraught with such moral, environmental and economic uncertainty that people from all disciplines are coming together to find solutions to eminent challenges: ending the use of coal power, creating green jobs and building a clean energy infrastructure.
It seems like today's movement is shaped by constantly evolving sustainability conferences, energy town hall meetings, interactive environmental justice workshops, ecological literacy outings and local food parties. These gatherings emphasized the cultural, entertainment and lifestyle aspects that create a positive energy and vision.
This weekend, thousands of students from across the United States gathered in Washington, D.C., to attend Power Shift 2009, a historic youth summit and lobby day aimed at pressuring congress to take aggressive action on the climate crisis. The summit, organized by the Energy Action Coalition, featured workshops, a green job fair, music and fun. "The workshops, lectures and panels covered just about the whole spectrum...from environmental justice, to the nation's energy policy, to transportation," explains Donald Nielsen a Cal Poly student and Power Shift attendee. Events frame the way we perceive the world, connect us to quality people and create a community around our efforts.
Some of the speakers included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Environmental Protection Agency's Carol Browner and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights Director Van Jones. "The result of Power Shift isn't in the conference itself, but rather the energy that will translate back into the college communities across the country," said Tyler Hartrich, ASI Environmental Affairs Officer and attendee of the conference. Events become a cultural experience with great leaders, and a site for renewed strength.
The Power Shift events were followed by yesterday's rally to the Capitol's very own coal-fired power plant. Members of Congress promise to close the Capitol Power Plant from coal power. "We strongly encourage you to move forward aggressively with us on a comprehensive set of policies for the entire Capitol complex and the entire Legislative Branch to quickly reduce emissions and petroleum consumption through energy efficiency, renewable energy, and clean alternative fuels," says Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. It takes demonstrations to show Congress that the citizens want change.
As the youth of America, we must network and connect with all sorts of people in order to do the work that most needs doing. It is our generation that must uphold a moral compass and create a vision for our shared future. Sometimes, we must stand up and speak out against the engine that drives our challenges.
We know sustainability rejects the notion of over-consumption and promotes equity and resource conservation. So what's the next step? It is time to identify a new vision for our community, our state and our nation. I encourage you to find an issue that interests you and make Cal Poly and your community a test-bed for your ideas. If we all take a little piece and work together to share our efforts, we can reshape our future.
14 Comments so far
Show AllEnvironmentalism?
Is that the safe political religion?
Wouldn't want students marching in opposition to military-industrial-security complex.
It might affect their career prospects.
I scorn their antics . . . till I see corporate militarist scumbags hanging from lampposts.
Actually there's a march for that in a few days up here. Check out answercoalition.org
You scorn their antics? My response: no one cares.
I scorn your anonymous online naysaying and negativity. I don't see you getting off your butt and getting active.
He's just afraid of change.
This is new day.
This is a new era - the Progressive Era!
Thank you Obama!
In the first paragraph, the author identifies "overt societal decay" as the driver of 1960s reform.
In the second paragraph "moral, environmental and economic uncertainty" is identified as the driver today.
Having observed both timeframes at close range, I would reverse those characterizations.
While the 1960s were an era of uncertainty, overt societal decay was the exception, not the rule. Today, overt societal decay is omnipresent in the US and the US has imposed it on other parts of the world, and the forces of evil (I am not referring to "the terrorists") are more powerful than ever.
I wish the 60s WERE back, but I do not believe for one moment that they are.
Nancy:
Don't believe what the mainstream corporate media tries to tell or not tell the people. The truth is, the era of mass protests never ended. It was not just a phenomenon of the "60's".
In the 70's we had mass protests for civil and women's rights, and the Poor Peoples march on Washington. In the 80's we had huge nationwide protests against nuclear power plants and weapons -- that were somewhat successful. People were in the streets over U.S. support of the Contras in Nicaragua. In the 90's we protested forest destruction, pollution, civil and gay rights all over the country. And 80,000 people shut down the WTO in Seattle. And for the last 8 years, we have seen millions in the streets all over the world opposing the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. All through these decades, we protested Apartheid in S. Africa, immigration rights, the WTO in Cancun and Canada, anti-GMO demonstrations, anti-discrimination protests, Take Back the Night/womens rights, Nevada Test Site protests, School of the America protests, and I could go on.
There are people in jail today whose protests efforts should not be ignored. I was part of many of these movements, and have been arrested over 16 times for stopping business as usual to draw attention to these important issues.
Please do not deny these facts.
The same issues of the 60's, WAR and CIVIL LIBERTIES, are as relevant today, if not more so. But what a great way to siphon off youthful energy. Get the kids to ignore government militarism, and feel important by pressuring the Congress to impose new taxes (extorting even more money from us all.)
Christ! If Nancy Pelosi was a speaker, you know the whole shebang should be taken with a copious amount of skepticism.
"The 1960's movement was limited by its ability to create widespread engagement and change. Rallying and protesting limited people's ability to interact and get involved." Wha?
I pretty much join in raydelcamino's comments on this, given our apparent common time frame.
The '60's antiwar movement was fueled by its ability to create widespread engagement in public demonstrations, and there were deep, stark cultural changes at work in matters as trivial as hair style, dress, and recreational inebriants of choice, along with things as fundamental as sexual politics, class consciousness, and dealing with cross-racial barriers. Rallying and protesting were often (but certainly not always) near carnival atmosphere participatory events - enabling (rather than somehow limiting) the ability of the people taking part to interact and become involved in changing the political process.
I'm delighted that student activism has returned, and that global and local environmental issues are a big, broad focus and source of motivation. Sure, there were protest events in the 60's and early 70's that turned incredibly ugly. But the overwhelming majority (like the anti-Iraq war demos I've attended during the last six or seven years) were entirely nonviolent and enjoyable.
It's great that teens and twenties of today are experiencing activist events similar to those of that earlier era. It continues to amaze me how deeply a revisionist history that villifies the peace movement of the turbulent 60's (which eventually forced an end to the Vietnam war) has become internalized in the prevailing American cultural perspective.
Bill from Saginaw
You go, Nancy. And frankly, nevermind the 60s (or any other previous decade). Everybody who was there has their own story. Often those stories bear no resemblance to each other. The Neocons grew up in that era too. Speaking of Neocons, politely listening to Nancy Pelosi is just good manners (though stifling outrage can be difficult). Believing anything the woman says is, however, completely unjustified and would be a tragic waste of the obvious good faith and decency extended by all these young people. Pelosi is not an ally; she is an obstacle. Don't let the SF address fool you. Pelosi is a multi-millionaire investor, real estate developer and corporate shill, like her colleague Dianne Feinstein.
Trust nothing these people say. It's all posturing, posing and preening and while your votes and volunteer efforts may be desired, you are not their audience, unless you are very wealthy and well-connected. Only a few youth activists are very wealthy and well-connected. The rest of you are supposed to staff the phone banks, send your $20 checks, vote and otherwise shut-up, except when politely posing at one of their photo-ops.
When Pelosi and Feinstein start to vote your way, you have succeeded. When you start to feel they "understand" you, then they win. And when they win, their cronies win and the planet loses. It's that simple. There is no "access". You don't have a place at that table and unless they have to they are not ever going to listen.
Go forth, kids, "rattle their windows and shake down their walls". You may not win but you'll lose with your dignity and integrity intact.
A big difference between the 60s and post-Reagan America is that while we can understand the need to help save the environment, we don't connect with the need to help save fellow Americans. We can do whatever it takes to save a piece of prairie land, yet show utter apathy toward hungry children in our own communities. There is a lack of connection between people today, with lines firmly drawn on the basis of class, and that is a terrible loss.
You have no idea what you're talking about. I am sure just about everyone who attended Powershift also works on other problems. I and many of my fellow USF students who attended the conference worked last year on starting up an organic farm/CSA project to serve the needs of the community around the school, because it is very poor and very food insecure. I do not know what became of it, my contribution was to research global food problems and link them to the need for local food production, but trust me, we worked very hard on it. Many of us, and our friends, worked with CIW to protest Burger King in an effort to persuade them to raise the Immokalee workers' wages, convinced the school administration to start offering Fair Trade foods and beverages on campus, and now, with luck, the Green Fee will pass on my old campus, which will collect hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to use on sustainability and rewewable energy projects on campus, assuming the Florida legislature allows it. The environment is simply the biggest concern and problem we have, for if the entire planet becomes a toxic wasteland, nobody will survive.
There are many differences between today and the 60's. A time when there was "music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air". The feeling of togetherness and brotherly love was palpable. You could go to any city and find kids to stay with, sleep on the floor or couch "crash with them" as we said. There was less fear. The magic at concerts and demonstrations was a force you could feel, touch and see. We were all together in a struggle against the Orwellian machine. And we won. The War was stopped, women did pretty well, blacks and latins as they were called improved their lives and working conditions and had more freedom. Gays came out. People became accepted for what they were. But the corporate machine that controls the USA wanted none of this. The media stopped covering all the protests. There was nothing about the huge anti-iraq war protests even though they were more numerous and global than the sixties protests. The war was sanitized by the media's collective refusal to show the result of the violence of America's military might. Reagan's childish nonsense became the religion of teh entire generation X who were raised to believe "social security will not be there for them." and other nonsense that favored consolidation of the wealth in the hands of a few. Rush Limbaugh and other pundits formed opinions out of thin air to support ridiculous ideas that separated people and made life hard for the poor and easy for the super wealthy. Clinton completely blew it. He was elected as a progressive and governed as a moderate republican. The kids today have to emerge from systimatic brain washing before they can even glimpse reality. Hats off to those who are trying. But the 60's was the zenith of a cultural explosion. Great music that still today is better than anything done since. Last time i looked the Stones and Dylan were still filling concert halls. Imagine if Janus and Jimmy were still around or the Doors. Kids keep marching and you will get there some day.
Thanks for a good article, Nancy. Though the other points in it stand on their own, since a major part of the lead-in comments on the 60s, that deserves discussion, as other readers have said.
Having lived from 1954 to 2009, I can say that the 60s (and early seventies) has seldom been portrayed accurately in the mass media, including by those who lived through it. Many at Woodstock or mass protests may have believed they were at the cutting edge, but these were just small edges of widespread change that was happening across society, not just among youth. In many circles, including ones that lacked any long hair or hip-hugging pants, it was acceptable or encouraged to talk about real things, in real ways. The conversation on the sidewalk, in the bookstore, at work...these were the building blocks of change. Built on tops of these were all kinds of conferences and meetings, often lacking the financial resources of similar events in the 80s or now, but sometimes resulting in more improvement.
With respect to colleges, I'd say the biggest difference between now and then is that a lot of reading was done in order to bring about better changes, whereas today's reading leans more heavily toward completing assignments, getting careers, and soaking in infotainment. It was a great time to be an unknown writer, publisher, or bookseller, and books like Deep Economy, Natural Capitalism, and Plan B 3.0 would have been gobbled up by progressive thinkers, probably sitting on bookshelves in one of every ten dorm rooms.
Lest any of us get romantic about all this, we should note that trends toward the status quo and getting engulfed by consumer capitalism were very strong in this era, including among ages 16-25. 1960-1981 didn't come close to fulfilling its promise, because none of us did a good enough job leading, in that period, or in the period since.
The popular idea that people were at odds with each other all the time is complete balderdash. If I think of 1969-1973, there was never a better time for having a real conversation with someone from any walk of life, in part because there was not the false need for smoothness we see today. It was understood that disagreement was part of forming friendships. Whether we agreed or disagreed, as a conscientious objector I never once experienced alienation with a soldier on leave. Many soldiers quickly became overtly against the war as soon as they were out of the army. For militarism to continue, it's been very important to revise the actual trends of the times.
Jim Shackelford