Where Is the Anti-War Movement?

One of the themes in my classes is how young people today are at a deep, relative disadvantage in terms of political power, especially compared to the elderly. It's a really complicated topic, actually, worth some serious scholarly introspection. For example, to what extent has technology-increased prosperity, especially for young people, who are so connected to mobile technology, in fact demobilized the youth demographic from consequential political action? Further, Barack Obama's presidency may have in fact set back the prospects for the improvement of life chances for young Americans, because they were used as cogs in the Democrat Party electoral machine. In fact, once the maw of the Obama-Democrats' electoral machine achieved critical mass, it spit out young people as so much spent fuel, as nothing more than human refuse. Look at the student loan debt crisis and you get an idea of how totally screwed are today's youth by Democrat Party indifference to generations of indebted student lumpen-proletarians.

But then again, leftist propaganda of race, gender and social welfare entitlement is a powerful narcotic for young people, who've been made so stupid by their gadgets that they simple don't realize when the leftist powers-that-be are f-king them up the ass.

In any case, that's why I'm fascinated with '60s-era folk and antiwar music, which I love to listen to. I love the idealism, for example, of Peter, Paul and Mary, "'Yes, how many times must the cannon balls fly ... Before they're forever banned?'" But where is the comparable social protest movement today? If you look at that playlist the Sound L.A. had going this morning, much of that music is iconic and representative of the revolutionary social change of the times. Peter, Paul and Mary sang at the March on Washington in 1963, but oddly it was their music that activists played in 2003 at the Iraq war protests. I'm not as plugged into pop musical trends nowadays to know --- and sure, folks like Rage Against the Machine, for example, certainly capture the angst of contemporary generations --- but it seems to me that political change is not in fact a driving factor in today's youth culture. At least with punk rock in the '70s and '80s you had intense, even anarchic, anti-government tendencies geared toward mobilization, even if that was basically anti-statism. Today purportedly revolutionary folk rock bands are simply shills for Democrat Party power and corruption. The '60s aren't calling, brother.

In any case, this paradox of increasing youth evisceration and impoverization (amid what's often flippantly referred to as a new age of Democrat progressivism) vis-à-vis the dire absence of a genuine revolutionary, anti-establishment movement will continue to bedevil American politics in the years ahead. Who will once again lead the next generation, screaming "Fight the system. Fight back!"???

And with that, for your reading enjoyment, check out Richard Seymour, at the Guardian UK, "The anti-war movement's dilemma – and how to resolve it," and his really excellent and complicated interview at the New Left Review, "Where Is The Anti-War Movement?"

This desire results from people's anger
Towards the system
Fight the system fight back
Fight the system fight back
People die in police custody
Why dont you go see if God can see them
Fight the system fight back
Fight the system fight back
We been shit on far too long
London wants is no freedom
Fight the system fight back
Fight the system fight back
Stand up fight for freedom
Stand up fight for your rights
Fight the system fight back
Fight the system fight back
Fight the system fight back