JOSH WOLF AND CRITICAL MASS
Disaffected youth are a sign of health.
Each generation receives the-world-as-it-is from the whole of human history, as a gift, or a mandate, or a debt, or maybe just a big old mess.
The whole of human history has devised stories to convince the next generation that the-world-as-it-is is great, or pretty good, or at least workable.
Some youth look at the gift and go bleahhhh!
Whether or not particular disaffected youth can actually accomplish anything to improve the world, their disaffection should encourage us.
We tell them This is the best we could do.
Youth replies, You could have done better than this. And they’re right.
Two recent events highlight the frustration of two youth groups, who want to fight battles but have no obvious battles to fight. They wind up turning over newsstands and disrupting traffic in a poor neighborhood. Or they attack suburban housewives for driving their kids in a minivan.
Each generation receives the-world-as-it-is from the whole of human history, as a gift, or a mandate, or a debt, or maybe just a big old mess.
The whole of human history has devised stories to convince the next generation that the-world-as-it-is is great, or pretty good, or at least workable.
Some youth look at the gift and go bleahhhh!
Whether or not particular disaffected youth can actually accomplish anything to improve the world, their disaffection should encourage us.
We tell them This is the best we could do.
Youth replies, You could have done better than this. And they’re right.
Two recent events highlight the frustration of two youth groups, who want to fight battles but have no obvious battles to fight. They wind up turning over newsstands and disrupting traffic in a poor neighborhood. Or they attack suburban housewives for driving their kids in a minivan.
[Click on pictures to view web sources.]
Josh Wolf, an anarchist video blogger recently posted the raw footage (see it here) involved in his record-long imprisonment. Without reference to the justice of Wolf’s ordeal, the footage shows leftykids all revved up with no where to go.
And this lady and her kids got their van window smashed when trapped in a Critical Mass ride. Back in literature class they talked about “mock-heroic,” in Chaucer.
The Boston Critical Mass logo below sort of says it all.
Revolutionary bicycling.
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1 comment:
The lady got her rear window smashed after she drove through a gaggle of cyclists, knocked one over, and drove over his bike. Of course, you'd never know this news if you just read the stupid "Chronicle."
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