Althouse: "A few decades ago, left wing politics meant getting your skull cracked by company goons rushing a picket line..."

July 16, 2015

"A few decades ago, left wing politics meant getting your skull cracked by company goons rushing a picket line..."

"... not listening to Disraeli Gears while doing bong hits. It meant getting millions of people to cast their presidential votes for a man who the U.S. government feared enough to put in prison, not for a former bomber pilot whose leftism consists of being more liberal than Richard Nixon (No offense to McGovern . . . BUT COME ON PEOPLE!)... Forty years from now today’s kids will have become the biggest pain in the ass generation of old people ever. If only because there’s so many of them! Their kids (and grandchildren) will never stop hearing about the good old days, when 'we' 'stopped the War' and a bunch of other equally preposterous claims. Through sheer demographic force, they’ll probably ensure that some kid born in 1995 can sing along to Beatles and Stones songs, if not Led Zeppelin and Grand Funk Railroad!"

Wrote The Last True Leftist, August 8, 1974.

33 comments:

Gahrie said...: Through sheer demographic force, they’ll probably ensure that some kid born in 1995 can sing along to Beatles and Stones songs, if not Led Zeppelin and Grand Funk Railroad!"

Well, yes and no. Guitar Hero helped.; 7/16/15, 6:23 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: Nicely prescient.

In my misguided youth it was that Old Left, with it's roots in the great Labor struggles, that I romanticized. Hippies have always sucked. Steve Miller is the only person I can think of who was actually less vile as a hippie.; 7/16/15, 6:32 PM
john said...: Ann, you left out the best part:

At this rate, they’ll end up electing Ronald Reagan president, without ever noticing the Summer of Love ended a long time ago.

Dirty fucking hippies.; 7/16/15, 6:38 PM
Ann Althouse said...: At least we left Grand Funk Railroad in the past.; 7/16/15, 6:39 PM
Birkel said...: First,what is wrong with Grand Funk Railroad?
Second, the Reagan prediction was the best part.

If only the author had predicted a socialist in 2008, for whom many "sensible" people would vote, I would start betting on the author's predictions.; 7/16/15, 6:42 PM
Pete said...: Hey, I like Grand Funk Railroad.; 7/16/15, 6:55 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Seems a little too prescient to be true.; 7/16/15, 7:05 PM
Sebastian said...: A little too hoaxy for my taste, but :

"Forty years from now today’s kids will have become the biggest pain in the ass generation of old people ever"

True, that.

So this Old Lefty predicted both Reagan and O.; 7/16/15, 7:11 PM
Carol said...: I recall seeing a screed in the LA Free Press circa 1968, shouting at all the kool kidz that they should stop being so infatuated with rock bands, because it was all fucking HYPE HYPE HYPE and they were being used as TOOLS by the Establishment..it was very disturbing to me at the time. Gee I'd love find that thing again. I wonder who wrote it.; 7/16/15, 7:35 PM
Ann Althouse said...: I agree that it's hoax-y.; 7/16/15, 7:42 PM
cold pizza said...: 40 years from now we'll bemoan the lack of "true-human" versus "augmented-human" or "aug-human-hybrid." Left, right, whatever. We will see the end of homo sapiens sapiens and the emergence of a new, weird, frightening and exalting species with new, weird, frightening and exalted politics to go with it. -CP; 7/16/15, 8:08 PM
YoungHegelian said...: A few decades ago, left wing politics meant getting your skull cracked by company goons rushing a picket line

Oh, and don't forget all the fun that the left had decades ago sucking cock for a regime that was busily murdering tens of millions of its own citizens. The Old Left knew well that this mass-murdering was going on, since many of their buddies were among the murderers & the murdered in the USSR. It was also covered at the time it happened by ex-commies & refugees, but those were counter-revolutionary sources, enemies of the Revolution, who were not to be believed. Until, of course, in 1956, when Khrushchev admitted that, yeah, Stalin really had been a jerk, hadn't he?

As vapid as the 1960s New Left was, they never had the blood on their hands that the Old Left did.; 7/16/15, 9:04 PM
Michael K said...: I am (correctly) quoted as saying that I expected to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. What is omitted from the reports is a final phrase I added about the bishop who follows a possibly martyred bishop: 'His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.'

Cardinal George of Chicago. The late Cardinal George. Who died in bed.; 7/16/15, 9:06 PM
Ambrose said...: "A few decades ago, left wing politics meant getting your skull cracked by company goons rushing a picket line."

Did it go on to say: "Forty years from now, it will mean being a union goon and cracking a few skulls yourself."?; 7/16/15, 9:16 PM
The Godfather said...: When I was young, I was interested in Left politics only because of the folk songs and the general understanding that the Left girls were easy. I never found the girls all that easy (maybe my Nixon-Lodge button turned them off), but the folk songs were good.; 7/16/15, 9:33 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: I was just a few days too early. Suck it, boomers.

I am Laslo.; 7/16/15, 10:09 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: "At least we left Grand Funk Railroad in the past."

We're an American band
We're an American band
We're comin' to your town
We'll help you party it down
We're an American band

They are COMING to your town: to help YOU party down.

But maybe you are too cool for that.

I am Laslo.; 7/16/15, 10:15 PM
William said...: It's a hoax, but a credible one. The left has always been good at creating credible frauds.; 7/16/15, 10:46 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: I don't think that I like the history.com website. It seems to think that it was a good thing for the US to stop persecuting communists.; 7/17/15, 2:00 AM
tim maguire said...: I'm with Ignorance is Bliss--it's too spot on to be true.; 7/17/15, 6:02 AM
Anonymous said...: At least we left Grand Funk Railroad in the past.

7/16/15, 6:39 PM

Grand Funk Railroad is playing the pre-race gig at the Lqbor Day NASCAR race at Darlington SC; 7/17/15, 6:42 AM
Ron Winkleheimer said...: I get the impression that the professor feels that music should be relevant and profound.

But many of us just want it to be conducive to partying down.; 7/17/15, 7:52 AM
Tank said...: Only two posts with Cream tags. The first was for Jack's death. Maybe made the tag in anticipation of Clapton and Baker kicking the bucket? Amazing really that Baker is alive at all. Clapton too now that I think about it.

You could listen to a whole song and just listen to Jack Bruce on bass. Not too many of those bass players.; 7/17/15, 7:55 AM
Gahrie said...: I get the impression that the professor feels that music should be relevant and profound.

Transcendent is the word you are looking for.; 7/17/15, 8:20 AM
Peter said...: "A few decades ago, left wing politics meant getting your skull cracked by company goons rushing a picket line"

Actually, a few decades ago (relative to 1974) left wing politics meant the Popular Front (aka, "Communism is just 20th century Americanism").; 7/17/15, 9:21 AM
Robert Cook said...: "I don't think that I like the history.com website. It seems to think that it was a good thing for the US to stop persecuting communists."

Do you think it was a good thing for the US to persecute communists? What about our supposed freedom to hold and express any ideas or creeds we please? What happens when the precedent that it is acceptable and permitted to persecute particular political or religious groups is applied to your preferred political or religious group?

"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." ---Thomas Paine; 7/17/15, 9:37 AM
Robert Cook said...: "Did it go on to say: 'Forty years from now, it will mean being a union goon and cracking a few skulls yourself.'"?

Are there union "goons" cracking skulls today?; 7/17/15, 9:39 AM
mikee said...: The university professors of Wisconsin are union, goons, and have tried in their ineffectual way to crack skulls, or at least the skull of Governor Walker. So yes, there are union "goons" cracking skulls today, Virginia! I mean, Robert!; 7/17/15, 10:30 AM
Robert Cook said...: University professors are not union goons and they are not cracking skulls.; 7/17/15, 10:35 AM
mikee said...: Pardon my symbolism, dear sir. And quick cracking my skull over it, you union goon.; 7/17/15, 12:38 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: ""He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." ---Thomas Paine"

Trying to think of one, just one, example of the Left following this admonition in recent years.; 7/17/15, 1:18 PM
Robert Cook said...: The Cracker Emcee: Paine's admonition applies to everyone, as everyone is equally subject to violating it. That said, I believe those who rightly excoriated the Bush administration for their illegal war of aggression against Iraq, and the torture regime that became official policy of our war of terror, were of the left. I certainly don't recall any notable voices from the right objecting.; 7/17/15, 6:07 PM
Bad Lieutenant said...: Thomas Paine never saw a Yezhovshchina. If there being a USA means you can't kill commies, to hell with the USA. Fortunately all we need is another SC vote and all's jake. In any case Paine cuts no ice and to hell with him. And the commies aren't sparing anybody, never have, never will. When all else fails, tit for tat will always break you out of that flat spin.; 7/18/15, 12:00 AM