Spin Control: Are campus protests like those of the ‘60s? in some ways but not others

I was grabbing an extra large cup of drip at a local coffee house when I spotted Sparky, a fellow Baby Boomer, muttering into his mug.

I suspected it was a usual complaint, like someone ordering a half-caff vente caramel macchiato, but when I asked him how things were going he brought up something else.

“Getting pretty sick of these 24-hour news networks having a 40-something anchor and a 30-something street reporter discuss with a 20-something protester how their actions are reminiscent of the ‘60s,” he said.

As someone who’d participated in some protests “back in the day” and covered lots of others in the years since, I tried to stick up for my colleagues, even though I also had problems with the way the analogy was sometimes applied.

“Right,” I said. “We sure didn’t have all those colorful nylon easy-to-setup tents the students use to create protest villages on the campus quads back in the ‘60s.”

“More than that,” Sparky said. “People covering the Columbia University protest seemed to think the anti-war protests started with students occupying Hamilton Hall in 1968, because, you know, everything revolves around New York City.

“Anti-war protests started in ’65. There were 100,000 protesters at the Lincoln Memorial in 1967, and about a third of us marched to the Pentagon to surround it, join hands and try to levitate it.”

I avoided asking how that worked for them, as I knew the answer, and settled instead for “Uh-huh.”

“And remember in the ‘60s and ‘70s, when Hoover was claiming that all the protests were being run by ‘outside agitators’?” he added. “Isn’t that exactly what Mayor Adams said about the folks inside the building before they sent cops in riot gear across that plank? And how many outside agitators did they arrest?”

Apparently not dozens, I conceded, but we’ll have to follow the court cases to be sure. “But you’ve got to think the police learned something from the ‘60s, the way they cleared the Columbia protesters with a minimum of casualties.”

“Yeah at Columbia. But in Los Angeles, they were busting heads at UCLA,” said Sparky. “The people who really seemed to learn the lessons of the ‘60s are at Brown University, where the administration listened to the students and agreed to bring up their concerns with the trustees. And the protest ended.”

There have been reports of anti-Semitism at some protests, I said.

“Well first, Palestinians are Semites, too, so someone who is pro-Palestinian can’t be anti-Semitic. You can be pro-Palestinian but anti-Israel AND anti-Hamas for what’s happening to that country,” Sparky said. “It’s just like you could be anti-war in the ‘60s and not be anti-America, although the ‘Love it or Leave It’ crowd never seemed to grasp that. And the next time any politician denounces anti-Semitism in the protests, check to see if they denounced the frat boys with Tiki torches in Charlottesville.”

Still, some Jewish students have said they don’t feel safe on campus, I said.

“Well, all students have a right to be safe on and off campus,” Sparky said. “But aren’t all students likely to be less safe if some of those loud-mouth congressmen have their way and the National Guard gets sent to a campus?”

Considering Saturday was the 53rd anniversary of the Kent State massacre, I could hardly disagree. Instead, I suggested there were some lessons of history that could be learned from the protests of the ‘60s, including things like talking is better than shouting; listen to everyone but put blind faith in no one; and try not to make more enemies than allies with your tactics.

“Yeah, like blocking the entrance to Sea-Tac airport to call attention to the war in Gaza,” Sparky agreed. “No one would’ve tried that in the ‘60s because we could be sure the drivers wouldn’t slow down and stop long enough to set up the blockade.”

Also be careful of who you elevate to hero status, I said. Chanting “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, NLF is going to win!” didn’t win the ‘60s protesters any points and praising Hamas leaders probably won’t help today’s protesters.

“Yeah, the Beatles had a line about that in ‘Revolution,’ ” Sparky said. “ ‘If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow.’ ”

The next line of the song is “It’s going to be alright,” I reminded him. With elections coming up, if the protesters get involved in politics, that could be a good thing.

“Depends on how they get involved,” Sparky said. “You know where the Democratic National Convention will be, don’t you?”

Chicago, I said.

“Yeah. What could possibly go wrong?” Sparky said, getting up from his chair. “Well, gotta go. Time for me to get home and yell at the neighbor kids to get the heck off my lawn.”