Occupy Underground

...I can only say "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."

We were the "New Left" then.

So who were the "Old Left?"

They were locked out of auto plants, shot in the streets when they tried to unionize, and witch-hunted by Senator McCarthy & Co.

They thought we were self-involved, self-interested lightweights, too dumb to listen to them, more concerned with scoring points for "sticking it to The Man" than doing the hard, dirty, longterm work of lasting change that would benefit everyone. More interested in grand standing and the grand gesture than in the unglamorous, dangerous work of organizing and building support.

And they laughed at our language, and we laughed at theirs, those antiquated, outdated, irrelevant old fogies from the "Old Left" who had no idea what it was like in Vietnam, no interest in going to the wall for affirmative action or the ERA. They thought structural economic change would bring about social equity. We thought social equity would lead to structural economic change.

We were all wrong. We were all right.

I wish I'd listened to those Old Lefties more at the time.

I wish I could hear more from today's New Lefties.

wistfully,
Bright