Not Your Father's Antiwar Movement

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young are playing the Hollywood Bowl tonight. Their Freedom of Speech Tour, the first in four years, winds through the country until September. My membership in Generation X is supposed to preclude me from appreciating such baby boomer stalwarts. And indeed, I did bristle at Neil Young's contention that he starting singing about Bush and the war because "nobody else in the young generation was doing it," which is simply not true (as Ann Powers illustrated in a fantastic LA Times article a few weeks ago).

But this video, featuring live clips from the concert, and regular people discussing their views about Iraq in the most sane and reasonable way possible, is a stunner.



The current situation at home bears no resemblance to the caricature of the antiwar movement of years past. These are moms and dads, sons and daughters, working class and middle class, rich and poor, black and white, all of them willing to articulate that we will not stand for unnecessary wars that end up making us less safe around the world. This video may harken back to the halcyon (or is that hallucinogen?) days of the 1960s, but it reflects a new paradigm of communication and activism. You don't have to be at the Haight Ashbury to get the message, and this time, the revolution will not be televised. It's an under-the-radar groundswell, a silent majority (to use a 60s phrase) that desperately needs to be inspired to vote resoundingly against the idea of perpetual war.