Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Meanwhile on the Left Coast

They've finally dug up Mario Savio at UC Berkeley in a somewhat belated recognition that the same site he used for his iconic speech calling on us to throw our bodies on the wheels of the machine is the focus for the current tumult at Cal.

http://www.dailycal.org/2011/11/15/mario-savio-and-the-free-speech-movement-47-years-later/


http://www.dailycal.org/2011/11/10/what-would-mario-savio-say-about-the-occupy-movement/

“There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part; and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop, and you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, the people who own it, that unless you’re free the machine will be prevented from working at all.”


I find it appropriate.

There are "teach outs" going on on Sproul Plaza right now; how the strike is going, though, I have no idea. Reports are sketchy to say the least.

We'll see.

With all this chatter about non-violence, Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, it is always appropriate to bring up Mario Savio on the steps of Sproul Hall.

And such iconic images as this:



Does anybody remember SDS? Well, go here:

http://studentantiwar.blogs.brynmawr.edu/

Jeebus, an anthropological study no less. Or is it archaeological?

Heh.



I like this, though (from New York):

2 comments:

  1. Rachel Maddow had some great archival footage that highlighted the irony of cops clubbing protesters on the "Mario Savio Memorial" steps.
    His widow had a few choice words.

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  2. It was quite the irony. I've been blabbing about Mario around here for YEARS. And so what finally happens?

    They remember at Berkeley.

    (They did the 45th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement and Mario's Speech on the Sproul Hall steps two years ago. Many of the survivors showed up in their walkers and with their oxygen tanks and whatnot. They gave speeches. Just like before, they were heckled by the jocks -- but these jocks were of the current generation. It was... a little creepy.)

    I did see Rachel's piece. I know she had to explain what was going on to her viewers. Only the old timers remember any more. I think she did it well, but she might have referred to Galen Tyrol's "homage" to Mario in Battlestar Galactica. Not being a teevee watcher, I had no idea it had happened.

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