The Sixties as Fables of Protest
Just finished watching Chicago 10 and my first reactions are that today's modern world is the servile anti-thesis of the sixties. Free, critical thought encouraged to question authority and power has been annihilated by a materialist education system. Brett Morgen's Chicago 10 is a documentary film about eight antiwar protesters who were put on trial for attempting to disrupt the 1968 Democratic Convention being held in Chicago.
It is told using archival footage mixed with animation and some stellar rock music and takes you back to 1968, the days of Lyndon B. Johnson.
It was a time very much like today. The Vietnam antiwar sentiment, like the Iraq antiwar sentiment was at its peak. At that time it was not the Republicans but the Democrats who were in power. Johnson, when he took office after JFK's assassination, escalated the war from 16,000 American soldiers in Vietnam to 550,000 by the end of his term. John Frankenheimer's A Path to War is an excellent film about the LBJ years.
But coming back to Chicago 10, one the most noticeable differences of today's world and the sixties is how independent and critical the news media was of the government and the authorities. I mean today's media is reduced to a mouthpiece of the government and the corporate world. Just forty years ago, this was not the case and this film documents that so interestingly.
Sure we've got Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and they're great. But they're great because their material loops on mocking servitude and bias of media towards government. In India we've got The Great Indian Tamasha. The irony is that this mockery just becomes entertainment fodder for a numbed docile audience.
Chicago 10 is political theater taking place in a real court-room and a real fight for free speech. I emphasize real because the threat is real. These guys can and would be sent to prison. It is provocative, humorous and designed to make you think. The closest parallel I can think of from recent times is Stephen Colbert's amazing stand-up act at the White House Press Correspondent's dinner in 2006. To ridicule George Bush to his face requires immense courage and the consequences could be the Gulag. But he did that without flinching. These rare bursts are still what's great about America.
There's a hilarious moment in Chicago 10 ten when Abbie Hoffman is sitting at a press conference and gleefully saying to himself.. its like La Dolce Vita, its La Dolce Vita. He's aware of the political theater he's playing out in real life and comparing the press coverage to his case with the success of the Beatles. The business world is even thinking of creating a soda pop drink called "Yippie" (after the Youth International Party which Hoffman formed). In today's political and media milieu, the idea of an antiwar protester or an antiwar movement or any alternative thought getting any screen time or even decent press attention is out of the question.
Here's a promo for Chicago 10 along with a few additional clips from the film and the 1968 Democratic Convention. Click a thumbnail to view the video.
You only need to look at the fortress like protection provided for World Economic Forum and World Trade Organization meetings. There is not even an effort in mainstream media to provide some space for the huge protests which always accompany these events. They are simply dismissed as lunatics. Yet, it is the protesters who have pushed these organizations to at least offer the pretense of caring for the people they railroad upon. If nobody speaks out against them many of the WTO and World Bank programs which have been shelved or changed due to the pressure of protesters would have carried on unhindered.
The same goes for the huge anti-Bush protests which accompany him where ever he goes. So in India, for example, Bush's visit in 2006 was met with massive protests which got no attention, not only in American media, but also none in Indian mainstream media. The picture below should give you an idea of what those protests were like. Bush had to address India from inside the Delhi Fort which was at that time and still is the national zoo!
But in today's world we see biased politics in protest coverage. The pro-Tibet, anti-China protests were given a lot of attention world wide, especially in Europe. But in India, where the Dalai Lama lives, the media space was completely closed out to the protesters. Nepal, which had just had a leftist "people's" revolution successfully take over the Himalayan kingdom and was the world's latest democracy was especially cruel and charged upon the protesters with a vengeance.
When you compare the sixties with the world today, it is delusional to believe that we have developed a more open space for dissent in ideas. If anything, the contrary has happened. Governments have tightened their controls on dissenting ideas and the education system has been perfected to fulfill one function only... the creation of an obedient and efficient workforce.
1 response
Have your say
[...] The Sixties as Fables of Protest [...]