Where are the students?

As I cast about vainly for someone, anyone, to save the vestiges of our nation before we are irrevocably hacked into little privatized serfdoms - it came to me - where are the students? Specifically college students.

Where is their idealism? Where is their outrage? Do they march? Do they protest? Do they sit-in? Do they care?

I ask because I certainly never seem to hear or read anything about any college unrest or activism going on as a result of the activities of the Administration. Are they just as cowed as the rest of the population? Is it because there is no draft?

Also missing from our current bad times is music for the most part. Remember "Something's Happenin Here"? I mean does Neil Young have to carry the whole weight of the frigging world on his two bony shoulders? (I love you Neil!)

Any insight into our campuses?

I know these kids are motivated. The National College Dems group will be holding its convention in July.

I think my generation was so involved because we all knew someone at war. The lack of a draft may be a reason these kids aren't as engaged as we were. I'm sure they are doing what they can and it's hard to compare now to 35 years ago. I've known a lot of college age kids - some posting here in fact - who are very very active.

I'm looking forward to the responses to your question. I'd like to know how we older generation can reach out to the future of our nation, our young people, and get those who are sitting back to become engaged.

Very simple.

Most college students are either rich and upper mid class and are not worried by bushies. The poor ones are working too hard with full time job to maintain any extra activities. If you hadn't looked around lately... who are the one's really going to college and why would they rock the boat.

Music is bought. You have to buy your airtime.... things just aren't the same anymore.. for better or worse... I just don't know.

that may also affect our perception of how active students are these days.

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but they are talking the talk rather than walking the walk.

Bring back the draft and see what happens.

I was in college in the sixties. Most the politically active folks at that time had a lot to lose if they went to Vietnam. Not just the men, but the women who loved them. We worred about our boyfriends, our brothers, our friends. And a WHOLE lot of us went to protests to met guys!

I personally went to a number of DC protests mostly for the free ride to DC where I put in the obligatory time on the mall, but then hit the museums.

fostered, ironically, by many of the same once-idealists that populated the movements of the 60s. Part of why that decade appeared to be what it appeared to be is the fact that those who came of age in the 60s grew up in the "ideal" 1950s. And even the 50s, in reality, were far from ideal, the post-war years represented growth and optimism, and when that optimistic vision was unveiled--when the underbelly of racism became evident and assassinations and war tore at society's fabric, the people raised on that optimism said: "this ain't how it's going to be and we can make it better." And so you had the 60s.

Simplistic, of course, but accurate in the broad strokes. Then, you had Watergate, and Vietnam fizzled and gas prices rose and the economy stagnated and everybody stopped doing pot and acid and started snorting coke and listening to disco. And the people raised on optimism became cynical. And they also started thinking about money. And then Reagan came along, and said he could put an end to this national malaise, and the people raised on optimism, who fought in Johnson's War on Poverty and fought against Johnson's War on SE Asia and waged war against the racism of Jim Crow thought: "we can be optimistic again, and make a lot of money in the process," and so the Reagan Democrat ushered in the coked-out, greeded-up 80s. And as the sun began to set on Reagan's empire, some of those raised on optimism evolved into neocons, but many of them simply became cynics. (And some, fortunately, continue to fight for things they believe in.)

College students in the 60s honestly believed (because they had been told) they could make a difference. I work with college students, and I don't think most of them, if asked, would honestly believe they can make much of a difference on a grand scale. I don't think they've been raised to think that way.

sitting in their bedrooms zoned out over their IM-myspace-cell phone substitutes for real life?

ooops is this an over generalized stereotype?

Msongs

hear our song demos
www.msongs.com/msongsdemos.htm