{"id":7030123,"date":"2026-08-06T11:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T11:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/affiliate-marketing\/i-thought-there-would-be-more-college-activism-in-the-1980s-%e2%8b%86\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T11:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T11:58:12","slug":"i-thought-there-would-be-more-college-activism-in-the-1980s-%e2%8b%86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7030123","title":{"rendered":"I Thought There Would Be More College Activism in the 1980s \u22c6"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

When I was a teenager, I would watch the Woodstock documentary whenever it was on PBS. Those days seemed so passionate and politically charged, and I wished I were around for it.<\/p>\n

\"Shawn<\/p>\n

As Country Joe and the Fish came on stage to sing the \u201cI-Feel-Like-I\u2019m-Fixin\u2019-to-Die Rag,\u201d the lyrics would take me back to those protests against the Vietnam War. <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s one, two, three, what are we fighting for?<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t ask me I don\u2019t give a damn<\/p>\n

Next stop is Vietnam.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates,<\/p>\n

Well there ain\u2019t no time to wonder why,<\/p>\n

Whoopie! We\u2019re all gonna die!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019d grown up hearing my dad play records with protest songs from the likes of Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, and the Weavers, and it had a big impression on me.<\/p>\n

I cared about the world and wanted to make a difference. So much of the music I was into was railing against Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. <\/p>\n

I was deep into stopping apartheid in South Africa, calling attention to the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and fighting for human rights all over, protesting animal experimentation, and being outraged by U.S. military intervention in Central America.<\/p>\n

I even spent a year not eating meat after getting radicalized by the Smiths\u2019 \u201cMeat is Murder\u201d album.<\/p>\n

When I discovered Billy Bragg on MTV\u2019s 120 Minutes, I raced out to get his \u201cTalking With the Taxman About Poetry\u201d album, as well as his earlier work, and I loved songs like \u201cHelp Save the Youth of America,\u201d \u201cThere Is Power in a Union,\u201d and \u201cBetween the Wars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Activism to Apathy<\/p>\n

When I got to the University of Maryland in fall 1988, I was sure it was going to be just like the grainy videos I\u2019d seen of college campuses in the 60s and early 70s.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure there was activism going on, but I didn\u2019t see it anywhere. I went to the various events for freshmen about campus organizations, and the only groups I saw that looked interesting were fraternities, and they cited philanthropy as a core part of their groups. That was cool.<\/p>\n

So, I rushed and pledged Pi Kappa Alpha during my first semester, and while I kept listening to my music about various causes, I wasn\u2019t really doing anything about it.<\/p>\n

When the first Gulf War came along, I was sure that was going to be the moment when I could join protesters on campus. I\u2019d heard how on May 1, 1970, there was a rally in front of McKeldin Library at the University of Maryland that turned into a nearly two-week violent protest after President Nixon announced expanding the war into Cambodia.<\/p>\n

But 1990 was a long way from 1970 in College Park, MD. Some modest protests happened, but it wasn\u2019t the scale I was anticipating. <\/p>\n

By 1992, I did the most politically radical thing I\u2019d done in my college years and voted for Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Before the general election, I went to a rally on campus where I shook Al Gore\u2019s hand and got a Clinton\/Gore sign to put in my frat house room window. <\/p>\n

I wanted to make a bigger impact, but it never happened; that election did usher in an exciting new day when the decision-makers weren\u2019t all older than my grandparents.<\/p>\n

Related<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a teenager, I would watch the Woodstock documentary whenever it was on PBS. Those days seemed so passionate and politically charged, and I wished I were around for it. As Country Joe and the Fish came on stage to sing the \u201cI-Feel-Like-I\u2019m-Fixin\u2019-to-Die Rag,\u201d the lyrics would take me back to those protests […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7030124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11761],"tags":[9964,14104,486,6692,11417,1178,4821],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7030123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-affiliate-marketing","tag-1980s","tag-activism","tag-college","tag-politics","tag-protest","tag-rally","tag-thought"],"yoast_head":"\nI Thought There Would Be More College Activism in the 1980s \u22c6 - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7030123\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Thought There Would Be More College Activism in the 1980s \u22c6 - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I was a teenager, I would watch the Woodstock documentary whenever it was on PBS. 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