MUS and I recently watched a documentary on the Weather Underground. Hardcore shit. A student organization that went totally guerilla, bombed the pentagon and capitol among other things, robbed banks to finace operations, broke Tim Leary out of prison for $20,000 paid by a collective of acid kings. US history THEY don’t really want you dwelling on - not to say the perps weren’t a bunch of freaked out kids caught up in their own self-righteousness.

The point I want to make here is how different young people today (and this is sort of a joke, as I am 5 years past ‘untrustworthy’ by the common 60’s wisdom) react to an unjust war. Youth will bitch and joke, Tivo and youtube choice bits of The Daily Show, but they aren’t about to start planting bombs and writing manifestos. True, the stakes are completely different - both in terms of govt. survellience and the new laws against dissent. Today we are more concerned with a terror war than a cold war, as manifested by the conflict in Vietnam that so effected them. But the main difference today I think is the abscence of a draft. The nuclear bomb is one thing to make young people think they are up against a wall with little to lose, but regularly learning of men in their lives - brothers, cousins, friends - dying as result of being forced to fight a resilent ‘enemy’ population on their own soil, that’ll get your back up against the wall really quick! And it’s interesting how hopelessness often lends itself to extremism: from south central LA to the Isamic world, which has one of the fastest growing under-educated, poor demographics on earth.

The global pedulum has swung back from leftist days as well. Nor are modern white American youth inspired by armed struggles of other members of the general population, such as Panthers, Natives, and prisoners. Selfishness has taken on new forms and distraction culture is ubiquitous. Lots of things were changing in those days with the social code. Lots of things are changing these days as well, but very little of it is anti-caplitalistic. Then again, the truely poor don’t have the luxury of blogging…yet.

True, there was the Battle of Seattle in ‘99 just before ‘the change’, and I used to hear about eco-terrorist action all the time out west. Once again, the rules are much different now. They took advantage of the collective fear to paint some really broad strokes. I still think Kaczynski’s manifesto will prove prophectic as we progress through the genetic revolution. I want to be clear about something: whenever you take violent action against a population in order to promote your ideals, you have gone beyond the realm of civilized human interaction and must face the music. Yes, I am also talking to you, Mr. Bush.