We have a gaggle of about a half-dozen scraggly old farts in town that gather some weekends on the corner outside the post office to protest the war. It’s not much of a war, but then they aren’t much of a protest mob either. They were a lot more active when GW was in office but seem more comfortable with Barak as CIC. Funny how that works with these folks, isn’t it?
Her sign read, “WWJB? – Who Would Jesus Bomb?” First thought that came to my mind was that Jesus didn’t have any bombs back then…not that he couldn’t have had some if he had wanted them. However, I’ve heard that the last time God got irked with us, he just flooded the earth, drowned everyone, and started over again. Maybe she hadn’t thought her question through thoroughly enough.
Anyway, it got me to thinking about protests. Those back in the late sixties were pretty numerous and large. I didn’t participate in any of them myself, although they were going on in the neighborhood. Had a war to deal with and after that, I had to work to eat, pay the rent, buy food, gas the car, and romance some ladies. There was a lot of protesting going on in my old neighborhood, but since I was done with the war by then, I turned more toward my own account and let the others deal with their own problems.
However, it did seem to me that those old protests had a certain character to them that latter day protestors can’t quite replicate. Where is their Abby Hoffman and Wavy Gravy? They tried a Woodstock redux in 1994, but it fell short, didn’t it? The old one was filled with some real grime where the redux had a kind of tofu feel to it. Maybe it’s just me, but if you’re going to get caked in mud and really get f**ked up, shouldn’t the folks in the background and all around you be caked in mud also? The weather was nice in 1994 and the folks in the background appear to have been nicely dressed for an afternoon outing. I think the 1969 mud resulted from a downpour where the 1994 redux mud resulted from a fire hose.
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