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Colorado State SDS, Jenne' Andrews anti-war movment, power to the people, Robert Bly, Tom Wayman
Out of our customary Sunday somnolence here in Fort Collins, one of America’s most yupped up and hyped small cities, we wake to an Egypt on fire yet again, and people in the streets.
Why the lump in the throat, I question myself, pouring a good, strong cup of joe with canned milk and sugar added.
Other winter moments come back to me right here in this town, before I ever trekked out to Minnesota and began life as a poet, when I was a hippie chick and a self-anointed revolutionary. We resolutely marched in all weathers calling for an end to the Viet Nam war.
It has been extremely easy for nearly everyone coming after us– and some of us ourselves– to romanticize this period. I remember it as grueling and very frightening– and exhilarating. One very cold day we took over a building on the Colorado State Campus. At the last minute my amor and I got ourselves safe– others stayed and went to jail. Eventually it all blew over and now it’s so many years ago. For un-watered down versions of our story, surf around; I withhold certain names.
Who knows how much taking to the streets effects change? Perhaps it did here; perhaps it was instrumental in ending the Viet Nam war, the great American shame story next to Iraq sans WMD and Afghanistan where a confused young president stuck us. Many think so, and I hope it’s true, as I revisit the Kent State photos.
Much of our saga has been recast in a terrific novel I ought to have earlier pitched on this blog, Woodstock Rising, by Canadian writer Tom Wayman. We are all on every page of this tour d’force of cultural history and how we saw things. You can also read a little bit more about where I came in on my About the Blogger page here; I had the distinction–and great good fortune–to be Tom’s “old lady” of that period.
I wonder what it would take for us to fill the streets now? We didn’t do it over Iraq, or Afghanistan. Why have we gone numb?
On one of those days the amazing Robert Bly was here on a reading tour and he led us downtown to the Veteran’s Memorial to give a speech against the war. The previous night he had read his great anti-war poem The Teeth Mother Naked at Last to a packed house. We had visionaries of our own among us who talked us off our asses and fired us up, and taught and enlightened– and loved us. We had our own CIA plant who stood revealed.
We’ve all drifted away into the rest of our lives, to all of the winds. Lonely are the brave, one thinks. What about you? What causes get you revved, and how do you feel about the Egyptian revolution?
Loquaciously Yours 
To be able to see in our lifetimes true freedoms come to the Middle East and Africa and South Asia would be astonishing and wonderful. What is remarkable here is that this seems rooted in the hearts of the people, and so has, I deeply hope, the chance to succeed. I for one am rooting for the people.
When the U.S. first invaded Iraq, I wrote letters to the papers (they were printed), in at least one of which I asked the same question you ask about why Americans aren’t marching? The paper this morning noted we have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan. If the deaths of tens of thousands of men, women, and children can be viewed as “collateral” and dismissed as “what happens in war”, what will it take to get Americans to say no more?
There’s so many causes I feel strongly about. I am pro-life and never cease to be shocked that the state sanctions the cruel killing of unborn babies. Which of us grew up in perfect circumstances, yet I’m sure we’re all thankful to have survived the experience and some of us become far stronger for it. I also think of a friend who adopted a child a year ago who could never have been a mother if it wern’t for the sacrifice of a birth mother.
I have zero tolerance for drunk drivers. Here in Canada they get a slap on the wrist – it’s pathetic, it really is. People DIE everyday or are maimed for life because another wouldn’t take a cab home or have a designated driver, and the Government does very little.
Another thing is funding for children with special needs. Often parents with special needs children are forced to put their children into foster care so they can get the care required, that they cannot afford to give. There’s definately something wrong with this picture. Excellent foster parents who love to adopt certain children cannot, because if they did then they couldn’t afford to raise them because of the costs of care only provided in certain circumstances.
Anyone who abuses an animal should not be allowed to own a pet the rest of their lives.
Is this enough?!!
I understand…thanks for weighing in, Elizabeth!
I was having babies (2) while you were risking life and limb to stop the war in Veitnam. I truly believe you and others made a difference and it pleases me to be able to thank you!! I think it is heartbreaking that most young people have little interest in working to change things. I heard Thomas Friedman say that the young people in Egypt want to be a part the modern world. I’m trusting that is their purpose and I hope there won’t be a bloodbath in the process.
Thanks, Gerry– I like Friedman…. sometimes change does require a blood-bath, but here’s hoping and praying…xj
What gets me revved? I received an forwarded email meant, I’m sure, to be funny but to me was anything but. It was pictures of actual shoppers at Wal-Marts around the country with some smart comments under them making fun of the way they were dressed (what many would call rednecks, I guess). One poor older woman had a pair of elastic pants pulled up so that they covered her sagging breasts and she had no shirt on. That about broke my heart. Yet people laugh at that kind of thing and put others down. I have a real problem with that.
As for Egypt, I believe democracy is the last thing that will bring peace to the troubled Middle East, or secure the liberties of the still-free West. Democracy cannot be achieved in autocratic countries without costly, long-term internal and international turmoil. Lebanon (Hezbollah), Gaza (Hamas), Iran (the Ayatollahs), Iraq (The Shiites), Afghanistan and Pakistan (the Taliban) are all cases in point. The democratic process was used to destroy itself.
The only way to avoid such turmoil is through the establishment of principled, morally-motivated, benign autocracies that will work toward their own demise through long-term education and the construction of national political infrastructures through which democracy can function. To expect the emergence of such autocracies is worse than naïve. To expect their emergence in a Muslim environment is recklessly irresponsible.
with you on the photo but surely the people in any society may have a shot at democracy/freedom. xxxj
I met Bly back in the 80s at a small conference on William Blake that he conducted. America’s grandfather back then in the drum-beating age of the mythopoetics. “The Teeth Mother Naked At Last” is a great anti-war poem, but Bly for all of his public stature didn’t fare as well there as in the interior spaces he kept exploring. Latin American poets have much more of a gift for political prose, though their poems can’t get into the fray without dissembling into their symbols. Maybe poetry is water to political oil; can’t mix. Prose may be much better suited for the task.
Happy to have you stop by, Brendan– thought-inducing comments and I’ll get back to you. xxxJenne’
For the Egyptian revolution, my heart goes out to the people…and I cringe to see what Mubarak’s doing now. It seems his thugs are going wild on the crowds, trying to break up what has been only peaceful, and their vaunted military has inadvertently ringed them in at Tahrir Square, trapping them, where they provide all too easy targets. Camels and clubs I heard. Despicable.
I wish for all the world that they achieve what they set out to do. The protesters, I mean. As happened in Tunisia. If they do, they set a real precedent – and one that’s already taking hold across the Middle East. Jordan, Yemen, Qatar, and now talks of Syria as well…all of these are facing similar protests. Similar revolutions. All stemming from one movement. It’s inspiring, really. But as in all of these, there’s always danger. Supposing they survive, supposing these revolutions take hold, and narrowing to Egypt, supporting that single revolution works, overthrows Mubarak…there is always the danger of becoming what one hates. I hope that in the turbulence following his overthrow, protesters could unite to create something good, rather than falling prey to human desire, to the temptation that comes with power.
I think it is something with a lot of potential. And I’ve been covering it since it’s come out, and watching, and writing…and wishing the world would do more, but the world seems to withdraw into itself with things like this, emerging only occasionally to wag a finger or two…
yes– I understand. Posting poem about it all later today on La Parola Vivace…take care, Chris