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Young People! Visit Chicago, But Don't Revisit 1968...
an interview with John Sack
Once again there's a Democratic Convention in Chicago. Should young people march on it?
Yes! In the inspirational words of the Late Great Jerry Rubin, "Do it !"
Should the young people riot in Chicago? No! That's what the cops did in 1968, don't emulate them! Don't march up State Street, that's what the Wobblies and Charlie Chaplin did, don't lower the American flag that's snapping over Grant Park-- Chicago in 1968 didn't deserve that flag but Chicago does now. Oh yes, and don't bring drugs, for just like at Woodstock-- that's all the press will discern.
What should young people do in Chicago?
Celebrate life. Ecstatically dance. Stand on your heads, walk on stilts, and tumble on Lincoln Park like Dominique Dawes, hey, Dominique, be there, y'hear? and in a welcome inversion of Hamlin play on your pennywhistles while leading the pack journalists' cameramen out of the convention hall as the world and the Democrats watch.
Why should young people do it?
Why? You ask why? You should do it, dear children, to send an unprecedented (except in 1968) message to the Democratic delegates, "We are alive!" To tell them you'll still be alive, or anyway hope to, in 2050 and would appreciate it if among all the auto exhaust there still is some oxygen, if in the chemical spills there still is some H-2-O, if the soil doesn't writhe like the Mud Volcano at Yellowstone as blobs of plutonium bubble up, if bears and buffalo roam in your homeland, and if there are trees outside of the $1.50 tree museum, aw, come on, kids, get with it, I'm quoting from Joni Mitchell. To tell the delegates, "No! Don't grow the economy if, to do it, you're stunting us!" Young people! Do it!
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