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Ihe Rhinelander Daily Newsand THE NEW NORTHPublished Every Evening Except Sundays byTHE RHINELANDER PUBLISHING COMPANYRhinelander, WisconsinCLIFFORD G. FERRIS, Publisher'AWM '1Editorials:Year of ProtestWe ma remember this as ,he year oi the protest..%ol trial ihtie hasn't been plenty oi it in previous years sit-ins, ireedom marches, aem-onsirations, beat poetry and the lute—ana not that there won't be more oi it in the iuture.bui it was in i9oo mat dis-conicnt with the way things are in this country auu me woria. heretoiore rumbling distantly Iikc underground streams, suddenly burst into the open and spilled into a number ot channels.Ihe urge to protest, to change, to correct, to tear down a.idbuild up anew has intected people of all ages. If it isn't concerned with civil rights, then u's the Viet Nam war. If it isn'tthat, then it's academic freedom.Usually it is all of these, plus a general attack on society's conventions and beliefs to boot, and some ot the same peopleare swimming in all of the currents at once.We became aware in 1965. for instance, that rock *n* roll had evolved into “ioik-rock,” with message lyrics bewailing the sickness and futility ot ihe modern world and prophesying the doom that awaits it.T n r e e Americans burnedthemselves to death to protest man's inhumanity to man in Viet Nam. Others burned theirdraft cards.In a Cleveland high school,some teenagers took to wearing black armbands to mourn the dead 011 both sides of an undeclared war.Stud groups calling themselves “free universities” sprang11up to challenge the allegedlyhal-pro-stultifying environments and curricula of our traditional schools. Subjects ranged from Communist China toaay to drugs as a means of personality enhancement to forging a new sexualmorality.A new school of theologians shocked the lay public by proclaiming that God is deadand called for reassessment of man’s spiritual condition and needs 111 the 29th century.Some of this revolt against custom and the status quo is silly and self-indicting, like ragged beards and dirty clothes. Some ot it may even be dangerous, like pep pills and lucinatorv drugs. But a lot ot it is healthy and could work found changes 111 life.The trouble is that few of us— activists and onlookers alike— are always wise enough to tell which is which.The arious streams of protest have not yet merged into a general flood knocking out ihe underpinnings of “the establishment”—a handily vague term for the prevailing political - religious - ethical - cultural ideas and leaders. It is unlikely thatthey will.But if this surging activism has any real strength and depth, it cannot but help to wash away an accumulation of prejudices and injustices, preconceptions and complacencies that clogs]tsociety, leaving what better and cleaner.1remains
Newspaper Details
Rhinelander Daily News
Rhinelander, Wisconsin, US
Mon, Jan 03, 1966
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 02 Jan 2021
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