Are we looking at a return to the idealism of the 1960's

At 70 years old, I was raised though the battles of the 1960’s. That decade was full of protests of the Vietnam War, a war that many people of my generation, including myself, considered an immoral war. Students rallied along with many of the adults in the nation, markedly including Martin Luther King Jr, agreed on. We saw the Vietnam war as being against the morales of a nation that stood, or said they did for equality and self determination.

Those feelings were even prior to the later revelations about Agent Orange and the harms way that the United States military not only imposed on the Vietnamese (both allies and opponents) but the solders we sent to fight. There has even been evidence that a couple of latter generations that were affected by what WE exposed our own soldiers to.

There is a difference of opinion on what we should now do. Many of my generation, some of whom may have even been involved in the anti-Vietnam protests are saying that the students at the colleges about the nation protesting against our siding with Israel despite their killing of something like 40,000 people including 15,000 that are children. Whether we agree with them or not, I don’t think the answer is to silence them.

It is a trope by many in my and slightly younger generations that kids today are misguided and being led astray by nefarious agents. That if not for “bad influences”, they would be in full support of Israels reaction to the Hamas attack on Oct 7, 2023. However, people are putting a lot on the line to do this protesting, and I don’t believe dismissing them is the real answer.

Yes, what happened on Oct 7, 2024 was an atrocerity. Yes, Israel has a right to a homeland. However, this war has been going on for some time with beneficaries of the Israel government given free land with Palestinians being routed out of their homes and displaced. Of course Palestinians are angry. If somebody, say France or Italty came to the United States and tried to throw me out of my house (or in my case apartment) simply because they claimed they should have out land, I would be royalty ticked off as well.

No, Hamas is not doing any good for the Palestinians but that is a different problem that denying Palestinians all liberty or a home for themselves. Yes, the Jewish people deserve their own home, but it still seems to me that killing 40,000 Palestinians because of one incident where 1200 were damaged, killed or kipnapped is totally disporpional.

I also think that the United States blind support of the Israeli government, which doesn’t even truly have that much support even in Israel is a bad look for a country that claims to be for human rights. Human rights should belong to everybody, not just certain ethnicities and not others.

Those are my thoughts. Setting that aside, no, I don’t agree with those who are refusing to vote for Biden. Biden is STILL a better choice than any other in my opinion. I have expressed my beliefs to the Biden White House of my opinion, and even warmed them that they are endangering their chances of getting the young voter, but when it comes down to it there is no way I will vote for trump, or Kennedy or any of the other people running. That just leaves me with Biden, obviously…for my own life and liberty.

However, that being said, I can not fault the student protestors nor those supporting them in their fight to be heard. Many of their chants are a bit extreme, but extreme is what gets the message out. There is no doubt in my mind that they mean the core of what they are saying just like Hogg means what he says about gun violence and the school that he went to that got shot up. Idealism is still a thing and I think we “elders” are remise when we forget that at one time, some of us fought even protested for ideals, just like they are…some even going on hungry strikes.

If my generation hadn’t done it in the 1960’s Civil Rights may not have had the forward strikes it has had and no one can know how long the awful war in Vietnam would have gone on.

Here are some video’s from Democracy Now showing just how dedicated some of these students, and their professors are.

New School

Princeton

Now this guy, I don’t agree with on his vow to vote “uncommitted” for reasons given in the body of the article, but I do appreciate that he is a possible addition to Bernie Sander’s in their reluctance to side every single time with Israel no matter what they do. I do like the recap he gives of the Apartheid protests.