University of Virginia Library

Confrontations

For socially-involved
people, their persistence and
patience were alike remarkably
short. Whether fairly
significant change resulted
from their efforts and others',
as in the case of civil rights, or
whether little or none was
apparent, as in the case of the
rotting central cities, the
committed ones soon got
bored with their Cause.
However, as the luster of one
movement dimmed with time,
a new one would come along:
civil rights was followed by
Appalachia, by urban decay,
by student power, by Clean
Gene Mc C., by the plight of
the migrant workers, by the
wars in Biafra, Vietnam,
Bangla Desh.

Some of the Sixties
Radiclibs, faced with
non-success, became
discouraged and hijacked
planes to Cuba; others became
self-proclaimed anarchists and
blew up Banks of America;
some tripped themselves out
on mescaline. Most became
lawyers and hospital janitors
and housewives. All their
demonstrations, all their
placards and rallies and
dope-smoking and slogans and
songs and trips and be-ins and
confrontations have, despite
their arrogant hopes, resulted
in driving Joe Blow back to the
Fifties.

So long as he can buy a new
car every three years, send his
daughter to secretarial school
and watch the Redskins play
the Dolphins, Joe is not
concerned with abstract issues
like genocide, detente,
price-fixing, or political
scandals. Joe voted for L.B.J.
because a nuclear war would
have meant gas-rationing.

Sixties Radiclibs attached
this short-sightedness of the
middle class, yet they
themselves never had much
contact with their Causes. How
many of them had ever seen a
migrant worker or a
Vietnamese? How many of
them could have run the
universities they disrupted (e.g.
"Honk for Peace")?How many
had ever been cold or hungry
or in danger?They were the