University of Virginia Library

David Giltinan

The Strike -
Intellectual Picnic

Aside from a few scavengers, out
for a buck, nobody glorifies the
Student Strike these days.

Not that is failed, mind you.

It succeeded brilliantly in its
primary mission, the elimination of
final exams.

It exalted, for those fleeting,
bittersweet moments, yet another
student crop of eager bureaucratic
cretins.

It developed, magically, its own
pork barrel, replete with dinners for
Senate aids and an 'office' in
Washington where pompous little
world shakers made
APPOINTMENTS to discuss
"progress on the Hill" with their
erstwhile classmates.

It ended with a leer, its
constituency off to the beach tra la,
the troops still in Cambodia and
Field Marshal Stu Pape at R.O.T.C.
Summer Camp, dragging his arm
bands behind him.

Frisbee sales sky rocketed all the
way to Keswick.

The Strike, called to 'educate'
people about Vietnam, turned out
about as intellectual as any other
picnic. Its one redeeming quality
lay in a demonstration that what
we mistakenly fear as 'polarization'
is nothing more than the arrogance
of ignorance.

At a campus where beery
arguments are traditionally won
with lung power and selective
studying from frat files replaces
thought-ignorance has become a
fine art. The newly 'radicalized'
students who carted their crib
sheets out to Barracks Road to
'educate' Middle America have long
and carefully nurtured their
pretensions.

Strained Illusion

That no one learned anything
about the war during the Strike,
(except that opposing it was
de riguer for the Spring Season,)
simply demolishes the strained
illusion that U.Va. liberals are less
anti-intellectual than U.Va.
conservatives.

This in no way implies that
liberals monopolize
anti-intellectualism. Our local
reactionaries seem to have managed
the impossible-regression on masse
from last year's political
'sophistication'. (More on this in
coming weeks). I cite, as an
example, the following dialogue at
the Young Republicans to be on
Activities Night.

The speaker, an over-dressed
gorilla with a R.O.T.C. moustache,
has been buttonholing and
intimidating first-yearmen all night.
He's quite impressed with the job
he's doing. We'll call him 'Croaky',
for Cro Magon, giving him the
benefit of the doubt even though
he didn't give his name.

Croaky and Column

CROAKY-Can I interest you in the
Young Republicans?

COLUMN-So interest me.

CROAKY-Well, we have beer
parties and..

COLUMN-Beer Parties? How about
candidates?

CROAKY-Yeah, them too. We got
Ray Garland for Senate.

COLUMN-Who's Ray Garland?

CROAKY-Ahhh, I think he's from
Roanoke somewhere.

COLUMN-What's he stand for?

CROAKY-He's a... Republican.
We got pamphlets about him

COLUMN-You don't know what he
stands for? Where does he stand on
the war?

CROAKY-He's a Republican. He
supports the War.

COLUMN-Why?

CROAKY-(getting mad) Listen,
you ever read the Geneva
Convention? Huh? Ever?

COLUMN-(awed silence)

CROAKY-Hal Well if you ever read
it maybe you'd find out that they
set up a free and independent and
sovereign state of South Vietnam,
which has since been invaded by
North Vietnam and....

The tragedy here is not that
Croaky is utterly incorrect, which is
to be expected, but rather than 98%
of the well intentioned anti-war
'students' of the conflict would be
unable to quote from Articles 6 and
7 of the Final Declaration of the
Conference of 1954 to refute his
bluster. Croaky's technique is in the
highest U.Va. tradition.

Nobody Listening

During the Strike a few people
could quote from the Final
Declaration, or tell you about
Thich Tri Quang, or John Foster
Dulles in Paris, or Wesley Fishel, or
Law 10/59... but nobody was
listening. Over these years it's
become a point of honor to ignore
these people-they are permitted to
lead cheers at rallies since nobody
else will, but they are not permitted
to influence our 'thinking', (to
employ euphemism).

So the war goes on, and the Big
Croakies fill Washington with hot
air and Vietnam with lead, and the
campuses, those repositories of
reason, stumble in yesterday's
cliches and wonder why they are
ignored and hope Bruce Wine will
do something with all that money
before our numbers come up.