The most iconic protest songs of the 1960’s addressed issues affecting that generation. It was called counterculture unrest. Today that counterculture may be fading, but the meaning behind the songs that defined their concerns are still valid.
“There's battle lines being drawn; And nobody's right if everybody's wrong; Young people speaking their minds; Are gettin' so much resistance from behind.”—Buffalo Springfield
“For What It’s Worth” was written to protest a 10 p.m. curfew on the Sunset Strip, police brutality, and the closure of Pandora’s Box club. Its lyrics resonated with broader conflicts against authority and were soon used to express anger over the Vietnam War.
The 60’s counterculture movement was driven by the conformity of the 50’s with its consumerism and strict social norms. In addition to the Vietnam War, we had demands for racial equality, women’s liberation, concern for the environment, and personal freedoms. It would be nice to say that we made a difference but, while those efforts made progress, today’s shift to authoritarian rule has been a major setback.
We have recently seen civil rights attacked on all fronts. The president has gone so far as to ridicule and attack the nation’s first Black president by promoting a graphic meme of the Obama’s as apes. He has wiped out years of efforts in civil rights by branding them as “too woke” and has sided with white nationalists in their demented racist ideas. I can hear Pete Seeger’s, “We Shall Overcome,” Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and Sam Cooke’s, “A Change is Gonna Come.”
The environment is no longer important as it interferes with unrestrained capitalism. Fossil fuels are the new champions, and renewable energy will have to make its own way and fight the headwinds of this administration. That Big Yellow Taxi may have run on gasoline, but Joni Mitchell made her point with the line, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
Women’s rights were early winners in the counterculture fights of the 60s but, as evidenced by the sexual deviant in the White House and his protection of wealthy sexual predators from the Epstein files debacle, the movement has run into a roadblock. Sexual depravity is now accepted as a lifestyle but only with the proper credentials, i.e., wealth and political influence. While Pam Bondi refuses to open cases on behalf of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and his friends, both she and Kristi Noem are flooding the airways with stories about the immigrant hoards raping our children. I can hear refrains of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” fading in the distance.
The biggest loss in the last year has been with our civil liberties. They are guaranteed within our founding documents and protected by law, but they are now meaningless. They have been superseded by the whims of a man for whom the law is whatever he says it is. His new DOJR, Department of Justice and Revenge, is headed and staffed by sycophants (pronounced sick-o-fants, with the emphasis on sick), who enforce laws only when it is to promote the desires of America’s emperor or to exact revenge in his name. With an SS-like masked army trampling on the civil liberties in the name of national security, I remember Buffalo Springfield once again with their words, “There’s a man with a gun over there, A-telling me I got to beware.”
Bob Dylan wrote, “The Times They Are A-Changin’”, and Sam Cooke gave us, “A Change Is Gonna Come”, and CCR sang “Fortunate Son”, in the decade of the 60’s. Will the alphabet generations of today rise in protest or are they too addicted to their latest TikTok, Snapchat, or Instagram post? When they look up from the latest cat video will they recognize the world around them? Maybe the cats will rise and protest their exploitation.
I leave you with the final verse of Dylan’s The Times They Are A Changin’
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'
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