TO BE YOUNG WAS VERY HEAVEN, PART II

DVD REVIEW

REBELS WITH A CAUSE, DOCUMENTARY BY HELEN GARVEY, 2000

DON’T REMINISCE-ORGANIZE!

In previous reviews in this space this writer has alluded several times to the 1960’s movements for social change –the defense of the Cuban Revolution, the fight for nuclear disarmament, the centrally important black civil rights fight, the struggle against the Vietnam War and the emerging struggles for women’s and gay rights. And ultimately, for a few (too few) of us, the necessary struggle to change the social organization of American society-the fight for socialism. In short, all the signposts for that part of a political generation, my generation, which in shorthand I will call the Generation of ’68. Let us be clear, nostalgia and the ravages of time on the memory on the part of this writer aside, this was a short but intense period that he believes requires serious study.

Militant leftists today face many, if not all, of the social problems that confronted the generation of ’68. Thus, a careful viewing of this film is warranted by those who want to understand what went right and what went wrong with student movement centered on the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) of the 1960’s that held out much promise but in the end left the field to the ugly predator capitalists and their agents. Many of the points discussed in this documentary parallel those made in Professor Todd Gitlin’s seminal book: THE SIXTIES: YEARS OF HOPE, DAYS OF RAGE. I have fully reviewed that important book elsewhere. One can profit from using both sources, although Professor Gitlin is now as then a political opponent of mine.

I would make two additional comments concerning the ‘talking heads’ that are used to tell the story of the student struggles. I found that not one of interviewees mentioned the word socialism as an animating force behind their very deeply held convictions of the time. Now that is neither her nor there except that in the end the fight for socialism was dictated by those struggles not only for its positive social value but as the only way to effectively fight in the ‘belly of the beast’. That tells part of the tale. The other is that these people have ‘made it’ in capitalist society, as the final credits make clear, since that time. However, we have a little problem that the ‘monster’ is still with us. No one would surely deny that racism, the question of class, sexism and other social problems that we had just begun to address are any less pressing now. And I will not belabor the point about American militarism. That is self-evident. I would be the last to begrudge anyone from that time their memories of a time ‘when to be young was very heaven’. But I prefer the slogan – Don’t Reminisce-Organize!