[extropy-chat] darfur

[Samantha Atkins]

On May 2, 2006, at 7:37 AM, Ned Late wrote:

> Okay, it was wrong to single out America.
> What is discouraging is observing countless protesters up close to  
> see so many of them are sentimental for the distant past, they  
> remember or have heard of the protests of decades ago but don't  
> remember or ignore the negative, the heads that were broken & the  
> boredom.

I am old enough (barely) to have attended a few Vietnam era  
marches.   I wasn't bored and there weren't that many heads broken.   
It is not about being "sentimental".  It is often about wanting to  
take more of a stand than sending letters to unresponsive Congress  
critters, sending money to this or that cause, writing letters to the  
editor and voting when there really isn't a fit choice.   Getting on  
your feet and into the street doesn't get you a lot more but it is a  
bit more active and beats sitting at home griping.

> Countless hippies who don't remember or were born later don't  
> realize that for every person who danced in the sunshine at  
> Woodstock there was another who was shivering in the mud; they tend  
> to remember the good times and forget the negative. Point is, the  
> counterculture in general-- many of whom participate at protests--  
> are backward looking. Far too many of the protesters are  
> participating out of nostalgia for a mythologized past, and this is  
> the very thing I've spent decades trying to get away from.

Baloney.  There was nothing backwards looking about hippies and I the  
current generation isn't all that impressed by hippies, some of whom  
are their parents or grandparents.  Where do you get this stuff?  Nor  
are older people there out of nostalgia.  They are generally there  
because they are fed up.

- samantha