unpopular protest

now this bothers me for all the obvious reasons, but something - in the current political climate - really rubs me the wrong way about these poor, dunderheaded kids who are "crippling the movement" with selfish vandalism. it falls - i think - under the rubric of "movement of despair" (whoever made such sentiments in the ronan thread.)

I was reading the Punk Planet interview compilation book called "We Owe You Nothing", and some of Jello's comments were pertinent here. To paraphrase, he talked about how the whole Maximum-Rock-n-Roll- ization of left wing politics -- be it band, diet, etc. -- is quite parallel to fundamentalism.

I mean, I hope that protesting such black-n-white thinking people can become more popular...

Then again, I've never seen the graffiti or posters at Evergreen in question. In fact, I've never seen much of that in downtown Olympia, period, to my slight surprise. In Seattle though, there is an ice cream store in the Wallingford district that recently got graffitied with "DAIRY IS RAPE"... but I think that's a different story here.

moderator: please delete this thread. It might possibly have the potential to be divisive and could be offensive and some people might get the wrong ideas from it. Best not to find out.

Hey Jess, I recently (err 2 years ago) graduated from Evergreen (now live in Portland). I think if there's any place on earth the counter- protest revolution is going to start, it's there SINCE YOU'RE CONSTANTLY BOMBARDED WITH EVERYTHING YOU AND THE WORLD DO WRONG ALL THE TIME. It can be depressing, but it has to be viewed in context. I mean, it is a small world unto itself and most of the activists there aren't really speaking to anyone but each other, so I don't know if I'd place it in the scope of larger trends (if I'm reading you right, that is. I know you're upset about the vandalism, but is it this or the original anti-anti-meat posters you mean by "unpopular protest"?).

The "we should have dialogue" bit cracked me up. Ho ho ho. Ho. How true.

i suppose it bothers me because these kids political views -are- so nancent and undeveloped (i'm assuming from my own experience as a student and being around them more or less, on and off, since then) but of course being cocksure hormone bags they're taking what little they've cobbled together so far (this is WRONG, that is WRONG...so what's right?) and using it is as muscle (even skinny armed muscle.) evergreen is a bit of a bubble from what i can gather. it's got such a high percentage of "freaks" (lefties, queers, transgendereds) that it uses the walls of campus a bit like a womb. on the one hand it's solidarity with like-minds, hurrah! on the other, it's a way of avoiding the fact that things are not like this ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD IN MY EXPERIENCE. it's that muscle...they've got the majority (whoever "they" are...vegans or gun nuts or fundamentalist christians or radical athiests) that they can rip down some poor schlubs posters and giggle about it as they quote angela davis to each other or whatever.

brian is spot-on about the fundamentalism.

the "unpopular protest" was about the "pro-meat" posters. i just found it kind of odd and funny at first, in a world where the new chevy ad is "a juicy steak in a world of tofu" or whatever. but the more i thought about it the more rankled i got.

i just realized that my last post above makes me sound like the charlton heston of ile. but i hope everyone knows where my actual "political sympathies" lie.

You're pretty spot on there. The thing about the pro-meat posters (I'm assuming) is that it's going to seem very reactionary in that particular context, whereas somewhere more, umm, *normal* you'd be able to actually have a reasonable, constructive dialogue about pros vs. cons of eating meat. Meaning, yes, it is full of fundamentalists (who I believe are actually just a really noisy minority).

Nice thing about Evergreen: unconventional program structures are attracting more and more crazy interesting boffo artist types (and not just the political ones). And emo kids are SO MUCH BETTER than the nappy stank hippies who infested the place when my mom went there oh so many moons ago.

Jess, if Charlton was as even-keeled and sympathetic to differing viewpoints, then I might actually think of joining the NRA.

Regardless of good intentions, such out-of-touch political grandstanding, meeting w/ the real world, is going to make for some very miserable "freaks". I would think that most college campuses are like that - there's a whole little world to get lost in, if you want.

When I attended UCONN, there was a brief flare-up over some sort of racial slight allowed by the student newspaper. Students marched down to the Daily Campus HQ, demanding an audience. (Of course, I didn't know about this until the day after it happened.) I wish I remembered the particulars, but I don't, and my desire to misquote some sort of racial conflict isn't all that high right now.

Isn't any sort of clique just as womb-like as a college campus? I read about "culture jamming" in Adbusters, and it sounds like a great idea (separate from all the logistics), but then I think about how it'll fly in Society, and it seems quite silly. The same w/ those Infect Truth ads - leave the magazine open to a two-page spread reading NICOTINE KILLS; crash Big Tobacco conferences w/ tanks of ammonia; leave body bags in front of the Philip-Morris building; put it in everyone's face. Who's really going to listen?

This reminds me of the time David Horowitz (an idiot however you actually spell his name) ran an ad in the UC Berkeley Daily Cal against slavery reparations. Of course everyone over-reacted, it being UCB and all, but people also ended up stealing and throwing away every copy of the paper that they could get their hands on, as well as basically forcing the paper to retract the ad and apologize for it, which I do not agree with. Well, it turns out the asshole was just doing it to highlight the extreme and hypocritical reactions that radical left can have to opinions they don't agree with, and all the total fucking morons on campus had played right into his hands. Of course he made a huge deal about it in the press. I heard he did this on campuses across the country, so this might be what happened at UConn too. God I hate that guy.

Is this the same David Horowitz that had a syndicated "consumer test product" show called "FIGHT BACK! with David Horowitz"? (I can hear the session choir backing the 80s midi right now... "Fiiiigh Baaaack"!)

If you don't mind me asking, how does this make Horowitz an idiot? Or are there other issues with the man?

Horowitz = scary manipulative ex-leftie-turned-far-rightwing vampiric demon who can feed off stupidities of liberalism.

And oh yes, evergreen = weird weird place. I can't stand campuses where everyone is special.

have you seen PCU staring David Spade? P-Funk is in it! that movie is silly.

Dan, I do believe you nailed it. That was EXACTLY what happened. Horowitz ad published; students protested; newspaper officials said they just printed the ad impartially. I believe the newspaper was forced to apologize, too. Woo hoo. Freedom of choice is what you got if you keep everyone happy.

Hole's Olympia only thing I am prepared to agree with Courtney Love about.

I found most of the Evergreenies to be very cosseted, both in terms of their academia and - mostly - privileged upper West Coast upbringing (everyone I have ever met from there seems to be in a band and have a trust fund). They go to a College theme park for four years, come out too correct to ever be effectively political, and whine that the world's not the way they'd like it in that way all spoiled kids do.

I say this, and I went to Sarah Lawrence (also a school where everyone is 'special', but more of them at least have an honest claim to the label). We had a PC war when I was there and it was really too ridiculous to hash over.

Different Horowitz, Brian. I was confused there for a while myself.

And some of y'all wondered about the source of my especial animosity towards those fools who voted Green in 2000. Practically every Naderite I've encountered was some species of trustafarian or other described herein (if they weren't 60s hippy relics) -- both are just as obnoxiously self-righteous. The Christian Coalition wannabes of the Left, I say.

If anyone cares, this type doesn't get better if they go to grad school or law school. Matter of fact, they get worse. Till it's time to graduate and the colossal grad/law school debts are staring them in the face (doing commercial litigation work doesn't look so bad, after all).

horowitz = horoble

(ps "vampiric demon": this shows prejudice towards our undead brothers and sisters the Children of the Night: there will be a supportive erm vigil on campus next wed midnight, the Otherkin Pride Bloody Orgy remember Garlic is Murder)

Suzy, you should definitely tell about the PC War as it sounds amusing. And you don't bring things up and then not tell!

I read that the same Horowitz debacle occured in Madison, but that the student paper there refused to apologize. Good for them.

also a school where everyone is 'special', but more of them at least have an honest claim to the label

I didn't realize Sarah Lawrence was a school for the mentally handicapped. . .

Ahh, Adbusters. Living in the same town as Nike, I was intrigued by their "culture jamming" idea that I should go into their stores and set off stinkbombs, the logic being that people will then massively associate Nike = stinking. Hahahaha (this thread is very amusing).

Suzy, we had Mumia "speak" at our graduation first! I think that officially makes Greeners much more special than SLC'ers ;-)

In defense of Evergreen, I will say that it is a state college. If you're a WA resident tuition is a measely 3K/year.

The trustafarian thing is true up to a point, but because of the low cost it does have (I'm guessing) a larger proportion of lower-class students than most other comparable colleges. It's a popular choice for adults who are going back to school, and has a strong labor studies program which is usually 75% 40-year old union types.

TESC: Where Your Dreams Can Come True. Write me for a catalog, etc etc.

"scary manipulative ex-leftie-turned-far-rightwing vampiric demon"

If you're British, that's Peter Hitchens right there.

FWIW I'd classify the anti-modernist folk music-loving Britleft of the early 60s as the very definition of this thread's title.

"scary manipulative ex-leftie-turned-far-rightwing vampiric demon"

My future stares me in the face!
What gets me about those lefty types is that quite often their cause is just and noble etc and I usually agree with them, but after a while their Rik-from-The-Young-Ones posturing makes me want to FEED THEM TO THE LIONS.

"My future stares me in the face!"

You're far too hard on yourself, DG. And I'm not just saying that because of how exhausted I am :).

Yeah, you'll never get into University (ho ho - sorry DG). Well I could talk for hours about quashing of debate and liberalism here at SOAS but actually the place has become a lot more open of late. I put it mainly down to students who come here thinking they can save the world, and save Africa in particular and soon realise that there is no svaing something - not in the original black and white terms as all develpment is a form of economic, political or cultural imperialism. Which then breeds self hatred in thesmselves and a general distrust of good intentions and causes.

Of course there are a lot of hippies here too just to smoke weed in the bar.