Your zeitgeist post

by liberal japonicus

I was one of the authors of the Port Huron Statement - the original Port Huron Statement, not the compromised second draft. And then I, uh - ever hear of the Seattle Seven? That was me... and there were six other guys.

 The Dude, Big Lebowski

In January of 1968, the reform movement known as Prague Spring began, which was initially/fundamentally President Alexander Dubček's program of economic decentralization and relief from censorship. The movement led to the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the USSR and Warsaw Pact allies 8 months later.

In March of 1968, Edson Luís de Lima Souto was killed by Brazilian Military Police during a student protest about the high price of meals at a student restaurant. This incident led to a number of protests in Rio de Janeiro and resulted in the enactment of Ato Institucional Número Cinco (Institutional Order 5), which closed the National Congress for a year, made political gatherings illegal and suspended habeus corpus for crimes that were politically motivated

In March of 1968, students occupied the administration building at the University of Paris in Nanterre. In the previous decade, the student population of the university had tripled, with little extra funding to support the university. The students occupying the admin building, issued a manifesto that called for "Outright rejection of the Capitalist Technocratic University". After the manifesto was distributed, the students left. 2 months later, on May 2nd, the French government closed down the university. Students at the Sorbonne organized a protest the following day and police entered the university. Protesting that hitherto unprecedented police invasion of a French university, the UNÉF (Union Nationale des Étudiants de France) and the union of university teachers marched thru Paris on May 6th. 20,000 protesters were sealed off by police, barricades were erected, and hundreds of students were arrested, with a confrontation between police and students in the Latin Quarter yielding many of the iconic images of that event. High school student unions also organized protests, and on May 7th, a large demonstration took place at the Arc de Triomphe focused on three demands: That all charges against the students be dropped, that police leave Nanterre and the Sorbonne and that both those universities, which had been closed, be reopened. The French government was not too concerned with these protests, there were industrial labor actions the previous year and continuing industrial action at Renault. On May 13th, the participating unions issue a call for a general strike. This is picked up in the press, and the call was published on the front page of L'Humanité. The action was held on May 15th. link and link  

In June of 1968, students at Tokyo University boycotted all classes. This action was led by medical students whose initial grievance was the service they were required to do upon completing their degrees. The boycott led to other actions at university across Japan. While a huge range of sweeping changes were enacted, a sit in at Yasuda Hall, continued until January 1969, when 8,000 riot police evicted the protesters. Protests occurred at approximately one-third of all the universities in Japan, all with various local origins pdf link

In October 1968, a large riot over the banning of a university lecturer active in the Black Power movement, Walter Rodney, occurred in Kingston, Jamaica. link

On Oct 2nd, 1968, October 2, a student demonstration in Mexico City resulted in the police and paramilitary forces killing over 100 people, in what is now known as Tlatelolco massacre link

In October, 1969, the party of Korean president Park Chung-hee forced through a constitutional amendment that permitted him to seek a 3rd term over the objections of the minority party. Park declared a state of national emergency in 1971, martial law in 1972 and Korea was riven by protests and riots for the next 10 years until the assassination of Park by the head of the director of the Korean CIA. 

In addition, there are a number of other incidents and historical points that I think are related, but may occur outside this 1968-69 period. The Cultural Revolution began in China in 1966, and by 1968, the Red Guards were virtually in charge of the country.

In Thailand in October 1973, 400,000 students and residents of Bangkok protested and were suppressed by the military. The student organization that was one of the main organizers, the NSC of Thailand, was formed after a bus fare hike in 1969 led to a protest. (link)

In the Phillipines, January 1970 marked the event known as the First Quarter Storm, where 50,000 demonstrators stormed the Presidential Palace.

I've purposely left out the 1968 events in the US (MLK assassination, Chicago, etc) and in some places in Europe because there is a tendency for USAians to view those events thru the lens of civil rights and Vietnam (I dare say we have a number of people who were at those protests here, and I'm not trying to denigrate or minimize what was done). I don't think that is wrong so much as I think looking at the period of time as a worldwide phenomenon, you get a different picture. More about that picture is below the fold. (if I did the extended entry code correctly.)

All of this is to try and suggest that there is a synchronicity to what is happening in Egypt, Wisconsin, Yemen, Libya, Tunisia, Bahrain. At the moment, we have basically six data points if you are feeling generous, and two if we take the middle eastern countries as one. But maybe there are others, like this from last fall or maybe this in the coming months

Bob McManus pointed out in this comment that one link between Egypt and Wisconsin, but again, that's one datapoint, so seizing on that serves to convince those who see some deeper current, while simultaneously convincing those who demand hard evidence that those folks are cherry-picking. One of the math whizzes here could calculate the random probablity that in a 10,000 person demonstration in Wisconsin and a 10,000 person demonstration in Tahir square that there is a first degree connection. Or a second degree or third. Or we could hire HBGary to scrape friendbook friend lists. :^)

In our demand to have cites and cold hard evidence, we tend to dismiss notions of relatedness that can't be poked, prodded and otherwise checked out. That wonderful German word, Zeitgeist, is not something friends let other friends blog about, unless they want to do a Tom Freidman parody. But I do think, in our rush to robustly challenge these sorts of claims, we may go too far in the other direction. I'm still not sure if these things are related, and I don't think we will know until a sufficient time has passed. And it also ignores the possibility that looking into this, and writing about it, is going to serve to create those links, especially when a local blog post can be picked up on the other side of the world, and anyone with a credit card can donate to support the Wisconsin 14 or order a pizza for the protesters.

This, via Harry Brighouse at Crooked Timber, is worth noting, as are the comments.

 

The comments from the Crooked Timber post talk about whether Moore or others are using this to broaden the issue beyond collective bargaining and educational questions or whether Moore's role (as well as others) are as cheerleaders. I'm certainly not sure, and I'm a bit revolutioned out, now trying to figure out what is going on in Libya. Here's Bernard-Henri Lévy, looking fashionable and chic in the midst of it all.

And I'm sure that my blog sempai, Von, might have a few words that start with 'class warfare' and I'm not trying to throw down a gauntlet here. But I do wonder. How about y'all?

Comments

[Slartibartfast]

I guess I should have added that he's running for President, for those who hadn't heard.

[liberal japonicus]

Did some more googling. This Mother Jones article is interesting and mentions the and it points to the google books link, start at page 259. Funny stuff.

[Donald Johnson]

Here's an interesting Zeitgeist piece at the New York Review of Books blog. And no, it's not mainly a "bash Obama" piece, but more about the sorry state of our country in genera, though certainly Obama comes in for a certain amount of bashing, both in the piece and in comments underneath.

link

[Donald Johnson]

"In general", not "in genera". And maybe the bashing Obama theme belonged in the other thread, where it was being argued, but I thought since it was about the spirit of the times the link belonged here.

[sapient]

Charles Simic is an interesting surrealistic poet. He should leave the surreal with his literary endeavors rather than incorporating it in essays. Obama has repeatedly stated that wealth disparity is one of our biggest problems. He even said it to Bill O'Reilly on Fox, pointing out that the wages of the middle class have long been stagnant, and that tax policies favor the wealthy.

I'm not sure why so many people are devoted to hating on Obama. They must have gotten such an adrenalin rush from hating Bush, that they just can't give up the hate.

[Bernard Yomtov]

sapient,

I'm not sure why so many people are devoted to hating on Obama.

Not hate. Disappointment.

[Duff Clarity]

Exactly, disappointment.

Obama has repeatedly stated that wealth disparity is one of our biggest problems.

And its a bigger problem today than it was when he took office, and it will be a bigger problem when he leaves office than it is today.

Talk's cheap, oh yeah.

[dr ngo]

Back (briefly) to the original topic.

Was 1968 a Year of World Revolution? No.

Did 1968 *feel* like a year of world revolution to those of us who were living through it? To a considerable extent, yes. There was a real sense - not just in the US (as LJ kindly pointed out originally) - that "the system," or whatever it was, was breaking down for better or worse, and that nothing would ever be the same again. (Though such was not the case, as we now know.) All around the world. Whatever was happening didn't feel like "same old, same old"; it felt apocalyptic.

If you lived through it, you would probably remember that. If you didn't, it's hard to imagine it.

And that is the ineffable nature of zeitgeists

[russell]

I'm not sure why so many people are devoted to hating on Obama.

Seriously sapient, WTF is your problem? Nobody can criticize Obama, or express disappointment in what he has and has not achieved, or discuss things they wish he would do differently?

And what's with the "hating" BS? Criticism is not hate. Disappointment is not hate. Anger is not hate.

Nobody in public life is above criticism. It comes with the job, and in fact it is both appropriate and constructive. It's how people make their wishes known.

[bedtimeforbonzo]

"Obama has repeatedly stated that wealth disparity is one of our biggest problems. He even said it to Bill O'Reilly on Fox, pointing out that the wages of the middle class have long been stagnant, and that tax policies favor the wealthy."

Nice that the Great Obama noticed the obvious.

And?

What's he doing about it?

Oh, yeah, he extended the Bush tax cuts that favored the rich during the end of the 2010 lame-duck Congress.

That showed real conviction on the Great One's part.

Did someone just say talk is cheap?

Sure, Prez Obama is better than his predecessor -- but then, so might my 16-year-old Beagle, Hamilton, and he's half senile, but still with a much greater sense of humanity than W ever possessed.

So George Bush spent eight long years losing the future.

And now Barack Obama is into his third year -- in campaign mode -- and has decided winning the future might be a better alternative.

Did the Great One just stumble onto that grandiose idea? Or did his handlers remind him that his re-election campaign is just around the corner and, so far, the economy is pretty much still in the shitter -- whatever growth we've enjoyed hanging on by a thread with the threat of $4 a gallon gasoline -- and unemployment is a whole lot closer to 10 percent than 7 percent.

Yeah, Barry, it's time to start winning the future.

Screw any Revolution. That ain't happening. Not enough Jeffersons and Franklins and Washingtons to go around these days.

What we do have, and it's only going to get uglier and meaner, is class warfare.

It's Big Oil and Big Pharma and Wall Street and the banks who concocted money-making schemes that even they didn't understand that brought down the economy and left millions of Americans homeless and/or jobless while all of the aforementioned Too Big Too Fails raked in profits during the Great Recession and continue to do so today.

If that ain't class warfare, I don't know what it is.

Once again, the Republican Party is a tool for the rich and privileged, a party that has made good use of those confused and gullible Tea Partiers, at least until now. (Perhaps they will wake up soon and see they have been pawns in a rich man's game, or perhaps they're mostly stupid.)

Once again, the Democratic Party is the working man's last hope, and not that great of one at that, unless it suddenly discovers a spine that's been missing since the Great Obama took office.

America, the home of the brave and land of the free and all that good stuff.

The home of the very, very rich and comfortable.

It's their world and we're just living in it.

Maybe not a recipe for a Revolution, but it ought to be the makings of something -- something that will make the working men and women of this country feel good to wake up in the morning and go to work and return home to a decent life, not a 24/7 life of being played.

Otherwise, what has this once great and original idea called America become?

[Countme--In]

I'm on my way to being disappointed with the President, though I hate circular firing squads.

And one good reason is that he felt compelled to explain wealth disparity to Bill O'Reilly.

Do we really need to explain meat-eating to carnivores?

Only a boiled frog would discuss the tastiness of boiled frog with a zombie.

I don't hate Barack Obama.

But he's become a bystander in the hate-fest. Staying above it all is no longer an option.

I know who the haters are and I know who needs to be hated back.

Hate returned in infinite, ferocious quantities.

Remember last summer, was it, when the President invited the Republican caucus to a meeting to air out and discuss the new heath care law?

Remember the contempt he received for his efforts.

I wish he had done a "Carrie" near the end of the deal when the ideologues were filing towards the exits after spilling the pig blood over Obama's head at the meeting and in their hate media.

Lock the doors, seal the windows, and set the joint on fire.

Just burn the whole effing thing down.

[crithical tinkerer]

I remember thinking that we are stepping over point of no return toward civil war when Obama uttered "look forward, not backward". Leaving that many powerful, influential people, who did not care how much blood will be spilled in Iraq to fill their pockets, to roam freely and keep ploying to do more blood sucking is just mind boggling. Maybe his advisors suggested that investigating war crimes will cost too much for reparations and that many Democrats will go down with it that made him decide so. But that works only with naive people. And i know Obama is not really naive.
Also the same goes with bankers that are left with more riches to keep doing what they did before which led to the Wall Street panic of 2008. Sooo many influential, flushed with cash criminals left free to keep doing what they did before. They do not have to hold the public office positions to buy the MSM, and constitutional checks on power.

[bedtimeforbonzo]

This is why I continually keep coming back to this blog, so many stronger and smarter voices than mine:

"I don't hate Barack Obama.

"But he's become a bystander in the hate-fest. Staying above it all is no longer an option.

"I know who the haters are and I know who needs to be hated back."

Count me in, Countme--In.

Of course, the key thing I hope the President understands by now: "Staying above it all is no longer an option."

The Queen of England does that, not the President of the United States.

---

"Remember last summer, was it, when the President invited the Republican caucus to a meeting to air out and discuss the new heath care law?

"Remember the contempt he received for his efforts."

And what an embarassment that was.

Sure, it's admirable to find common ground with your opponent. But when your opponent keeps rubbing your nose in your attempt to do so, well, admirable becomes lunacy.

Not to mention a waste of time.

Maybe President Obama keeps trying to get the GOP to like him because he realizes -- no matter how foolish it looks to dyed-in-the-wool Democrats -- he isn't going to have any competition in the Democratic primaries that will be here before you know it.

Maybe Ronald Reagan really is his hero.

Or maybe -- the Health Care Act notwithstanding -- President Obama has forgotten what it was like to be a community organizer.

I don't know.

But The Count is right: "Staying above it all is no longer an option."

And it hasn't been for some time now.

---

"Maybe his advisors suggested that investigating war crimes will cost too much for reparations and that many Democrats will go down with it that made him decide so. But that works only with naive people. And I know Obama is not really naive."

Or maybe he is, CT.

You can be smart, real smart, and still be quite naive.