Prince of Darkness
As Uncle Hugh used to say, “Whoever said, ‘There’s no fool like an old fool!’ never had children.”
So, the Students for a Democratic Society is back and battling high tuition.
If we ever left.
Let me save you guys some grief.
Don’t expect to outlast the war.
Most of your comrades are just here for the dope and the girls.
Uh, make that women.
Unless you are a woman.
And if you are a woman, what’s your sign?
Another sizeable percentage of your ranks just don’t want to get drafted.
In the long term, most will end up as Republicans.
And the rest will end up like me.
Not much of a future, hunh?
So, consider the alternatives and just go jump off the university tower.
If you have a tower.
We didn’t have one at Austin College.
Well, there was a chapel steeple, but that would have been a bit melodramatic for a Presbyterian.
Even if it was predestined.
So I transferred to East Texas State, where the only tall building on campus was the preppy dorm.
Not the crowd for a James Dean road trip.
You could drown yourself in the campus lake, if you didn’t know how many people had barfed in it or . . . well, let’s just say there are some things worse than death.
I suppose now you could make some kind of solidarity statement with your fellow Middle Eastern student brothers and become a suicide bomber.
But considering that in the traditional SDS lexicon, a bomber was a marijuana cigarette the size of your thumb, it wouldn’t be much of a statement.
Not a very coherent one, anyway.
Now you are a bullhorn crying in the wilderness.
With too many syllables.
We had it simple: Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today? Make love, not war! U.S. out now! Hey, man, spare change?
Now sloganeering is tough: One, two, three, four, we don’t want your fuckin’ deficit! Outsourcing is not healthy for children and other living things! Hell no, we won’t join the National Guard!
The short answer is, there is no short answer.
You can’t oppose globalization without appearing racist.
At least you can’t without a five-page policy analysis.
Immigration is simply a nightmare, because the issue isn’t immigration.
It’s a decent life for working people.
And let’s face it, most people who are part of SDS, then and now, aren’t exactly Joe Hill.
More like Westlake Hills.
But then that’s where most revolutionaries come from, isn’t it?
Thomas Paine, Lenin, Chè Guevarra.
Pretty yuppie bunch.
I could emphasize that this radical point of view is brought to you by the first generation middle class son of a couple of public school administrators from Detroit, Texas.
So, hello, young radicals where ever you are, I’ve had a cause of my own.
And have some free advice, which is probably worth exactly what you paid for it.
First, accept that there’s practically no chance that you’ll win.
Certainly we, your predecessors, haven’t dealt you a lot of high cards.
I’m sorry, but we used up all the fun in the 60s.
No more sex, drugs, and rock’n roll.
All we left for you is STDs, Just Say No, and Dave Matthews.
You may not even make a difference.
And the matters you do change will eventually be hyped to sell boxed set CD collections commercially interrupting old movies in the early morning hours.
Second, who cares?
You aren’t in this for yourself, and if you give a damn what anybody else thinks about you one way or another, you’re in the wrong business.
Try insurance.
But if you want to shave or make up a face each morning that you can look back at with no guilt or regrets, then pick up your sign, go to your meetings, and do battle with the Prince of Darkness on Meet the Press.
Maybe you can fix some of the things we failed to make right.
And even if you can’t, when that first shovel-full of dirt lands on the lid of your casket, you will know that, even if you didn’t make too much of a difference, they damn sure knew you were here.
Even if they hate you for it.
And by the way, yes, it was worth it.
Hell, it was a gas!
I’m even sorry I’m not young enough to go with you and do it all again.
Being hated by all the right people ain’t half bad.
