How did news travel in the 60s, RE: protests,

[babylonsister]

without everyone being hooked up to a computer? I realize the MSM consisted of 3 channels then, but they must have been a lot fairer in getting all messages out.

[PDittie]

1. People talked to one another.

Face to face, on the telephone, they wrote letters to each other...

[babylonsister]

15. Wrote letters! Hey, I DO remember that!

And face to face. People have moved so much since the 60s. Everything is different. The phone is what I still use because my family lives so far apart from each other.
I think people might have collectively gotten pissed off, in most cities, regarding VN. They made their plans, then acted. The messages from musicians helped tremendously; songs became popular or were aired quickly, reflecting what was going on (EX: 4 Dead In Ohio CSNY(Y?)).

[MADem]

34. I notice that young people

...do not have a massive BUMP on their "f-u" finger of the dominant hand, from gripping pens and pencils. They compute!

[Maple]

2. Smoke signals

runners, semaphore...that kind of thing.

The old days had their methods. ;)

[ElsewheresDaughter]

3. luv ins....head shops...radio.....concerts.. the village grapevine :)))

[ChiciB1]

18. You Said It!!

It was a very DIFFERENT TIME! Our protests had real TEETH, and even with the opposition hounding us, we marched on!

You young guns just HAD to BE there to REALLY understand! Memories of those times really hit hard THESE days!! Remember Abbe Hoffman?? I do understand why he took his life! He tried so so hard, and it finally got to be too much!

Vincent D'Onofrio (spelling) really did a good job in the movie about him. Oh, I can't remember the name of that movie. Steal This Movie?? No, not that! What, what???

[ElsewheresDaughter]

30. Steal This Book.......

how to live free and fighting against the machine

TABLE OF DISCONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
AIDING AND ABETTING
SURVIVE!
1. FREE FOOD
Restaurants
Food Programs
Supermarkets
Wholesale Markets
Food Conspiracies
Cheap Chow
2. FREE CLOTHING AND FURNITURE
Free Clothing
Sandals
Free Furniture
3. FREE TRANSPORTATION
Hitch-Hiking
Freighting
Cars
Buses
Airlines
In City Travel
4. FREE LAND
5. FREE HOUSING
Communes
Urban Living
Rural Living
List of Communes
6. FREE EDUCATION
List of Free Universities
7. FREE MEDICAL CARE
Birth Control Clinics
Abortions
Diseases Treated Free
8. FREE COMMUNICATION
Press Conference
Wall Painting
Use of the Flag
Radio
Free Telephones
Pay Phones
9. FREE PLAY
Movies and Concerts
Records and Books
10. FREE MONEY
Welfare
Unemployment
Panhandling
Rip-Offs
The International Yippie Currency Exchange
11. FREE DOPE
Buying, Selling and Giving It Away
Growing Your Own
12. ASSORTED FREEBIES
Laundry
Pets
Posters
Security
Postage
Maps
Ministry
Attrocities
Veteran's Benefits
Watch
Vacations
Drinks
Burials
Astrodome Pictures
Diploma
Toilets
FIGHT!
1. TELL IT ALL, BROTHERS AND SISTERS
Starting a Printing Workshop
Underground Newspapers
High School Papers
G.I. Papers
News Services
The Underground Press
Switchboards
2. GUERRILLA BROADCASTING
Guerrilla Radio
Guerrilla Television
3. DEMONSTRATIONS
Dress
Helmets
Gas Masks
Walkie-Talkies
Other Equipment
4. TRASHING
Weapons for Street Fighting
Knife Fighting
Unarmed Defense
General Strategy Rep
5. PEOPLE'S CHEMISTRY
Stink Bomb
Smoke Bomb
CBW
Molotov Cocktail
Sterno Bomb
Aerosol Bomb
Pipe Bombs
General Bomb Strategy
6. FIRST AID FOR STREET FIGHTERS
What to Do
Medical Committees
7. HIP-POCKET LAW
Legal Advice
Lawyer's Group
Join the Army of Your Choice
Canada, Sweden & Political Asylum
8. STEAL NOW, PAY NEVER
Shoplifting
Techniques
On the Job
Credit Cards
9. MONKEY WELFARE
10. PIECE NOW
Handguns
Rifles
Shotguns
Other Weapons
Training
Gun Laws
11. THE UNDERGROUND
Identification Papers
Communication
LIBERATE!
1. FUCK NEW YORK
2. FUCK CHICAGO
3. FUCK LOS ANGELES
4. FUCK SAN FRANCISCO

[ChiciB1]

19. Are Those Buttons Available Anywhere???

Or maybe bumper stickers??

Or maybe BIG FLAGS?????

[ElsewheresDaughter]

32. yes at cafepress.com..............link

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/browse/Ne-25_p-3_N-3949_bt-2

[ChiciB1]

44. Thanks So Much....

For ALL the Info! Really appreciate it.

Haven't checked out cafepress for a while, I should have. I bought a lot of stuff right after the election to put on my car. Extras for when the FLORIDA SUN fades the ones on there now.

Thanks Again!!

[MADem]

31. UNDERGROUND NEWSPAPERS!!!!!!

Flyers, magazines, and so on. People read the paper. If you were lucky and lived in a big city, you could go to a newsstand and get out of town papers, both 'underground' and main stream news. And radio, always FM radio (as opposed to the top 40 crap that dominated AM radio at the time--funny, that would be preferable today, instead of the right wing shit that pervades the air!).

[MichiganVote]

4. Well, the telephones for one thing...

And people talked to each other face to face in those days. I know, its hard to believe. Plus, whoever people bought good drugs from also talked up the protests. More people in one locale, drug sales were up. Yeah, I know, don't let it burst the bubble of faith in democracy but that is what really happened.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. The MSM, such as it was, didn't get the word out.

They reported the protests when they happened, but we communicated and organized mostly through leaflets and posters, meetings and phone calls. Primitive, but effective.

[TomClash]

6. Real Grassroots

Grass and other herbs and assorted ambrosia included.

You can win elections and move minds through old fashioned grass roots. You'd be surprised how effective that is.

[babylonsister]

23. Oh, my stars, that can't ever happen now. A boob

changes the system. Give me my weed and my liberal prez, or at least the mouthy liberal who I think I would have bonded with were I old enough to.
Man, I need a smart, mouthy (meaning intelligent and articulate) dem who can represent us! NOW!

[despairing optimist]

7. In NYC we had Dial-A-Demonstration

It had recorded messages listing the various happenings, at least the planned ones.

Also, lots of leaflets and pamphleteers, community papers, radio announcements, phone trees, word-of-mouth in popular meeting spots.

We asked the same question back then that you're asking now. We were so advanced and plugged in. ;-)

[babylonsister]

27. Thanks, d o,

I "kinda" like your name. In the 60s, it was a lot more personal. Now? How do we make this more personal??

[despairing optimist]

37. Easy. Create online "trees" for actions

There was a happening of sorts at the Times Square Toys-R-Us a couple of years ago. People just showed up at the same time after contacting one another online.

Then there are the DFA meetups, which are neighborhood events, but they can be strung together like a--dare I say it?--boy scout jamboree.

There can also be online billboards announcing events in particular areas or even nationally, if they don't already exist. It's just networking.

Where one form of networking alone won't do it, add other forms. Start small, with word-of-mouth or mailings or leafletting, and if people want to participate, things will grow and they will move online too. I'm sure there are many people more wired than I am who can help answer your question, but I hope this helps.

[Mend]

8. There were a lot of protests on college campuses

where word of mouth let everyone know. A lot were televised. People were on talk shows. MSM showed news clips of demonstrations. We would interrupt baseball games with signs, break into parades, etc. We were in their face everywhere, every day. I was in Chicago then and there were tanks on the street, barbed wire rolls, soldiers with machine guns....you couldn't miss a thing just going to school in the morning. The great daily running word war was between "hard hats" , i.e. right-wing construction workers and hippies....on the street all the time.

[welshTerrier2]

9. the "people's bulletin board"

many of the campus buildings at my university were under construction during the late 60's and early 70's ... they were surrounded by a long fence that was about 8 feet high ...

the fence was made of vertical posts that were connected with sheets of plywood ... the plywood served as "the people's bulletin board" ... there was all kinds of political art that was regularly updated ... plus the board was covered with all kinds of "revolutionary" slogans ...

i can still picture things like "dogs run free, why can't we", "keep on keeping on", "Nixon sucks", "Out of Nam Now" ...

when a protest was planned, and many of them were spontaneous, notification was painted on "the people's bulletin board" ...

[formernaderite]

24. I graduated University in '72....having spent four years protesting

everything. But I remember taking a group of ninth graders back to my old campus in '76, wondering how so much had changed in four short years. There was virtually NO student activism. My once thriving campus had gone quiet. It's not that the world is so different now, the change happened rapidly back then.

[welshTerrier2]

28. me too !!

i also graduated in '72 "having spent four years protesting everything" ...

your reactions are very similar to my own ... after I was out in the work world for 4 or 5 years, my company started hiring some recent college grads ... they seemed to have had a totally different college experience ... they seemed more interested in disco than what happened with Watergate ...

and that trend seemed to continue for many years ... i remember being totally dismayed that many younger people wanted nothing more than an MBA and didn't seem to care much about politics at all ... and "the revolution" just faded away ...

[stillcool]

10. Universities and Colleges were

the real hubs of protest. The draft was the galvanizing thing and the students and their generation were being sent to their deaths for a war without end. I had really believed that things had changed everywhere. What a fool.

[1monster]

14. You are not the only one. I didn't believe that this could happen again.

I, very naively believed that we had moved beyond this kind of manipulation.

I remember wondering how the people of Iran could not see through Khoumani's constant holding up of the "Great Satan" for the Iranian to loathe every time there was bad economic (or other bad news) for Iran.

And yet, a very popular song in the days of and after the Iranian Hostage Situation was Charlie Daniels' "Stick It In Your Eyatollah." I didn't much like that song (although, previously, I will admit to having enjoyed "The Devil Went Down To Georgia"... mea culpa), but I'm not sure if I realized then that we here in the US were being manipulated in the same way....

[stillcool]

21. The part that really bothers me...

is its like it never happened. 30 years later and Roe v.Wade? The womens movement seemed to take a u-turn somewhere, and people are every bit as prejudiced, just a little quieter about it. I really believed that the age of free-love, and LSD, that anyone that lived in that time had to have had their minds opened. And they're the congressman now...I can't imagine where they grew up.

[1monster]

11. College Campus Underground Newspapers... They almost always got

newsplay when the college administrations tried to shut them down. Demonstrations, sit-ins, marches, and other methods generally were considered to be news by the mainstream media, even when they disagreed with the protestors. News media did a better job in those days of being impartial. Uncle Walter got his reputation as a straight shooter the old fashioned way: by being a straight shooter. The rest followed suit because CBS news once stood for integrity.

[htuttle]

12. In addition to all the other things, telephone trees

You have a list of names and numbers of people who each have a list of names and numbers, and so on. Organizational information propagates fairly quickly if the trees are well organized.

Of course, 'police intelligence' division was always trying to get their hands on those lists, so that was a bit of a drawback.

Plus, there seemed to be more 'underground' or alternative newspapers back then, even if irregularly published. Many of the successful ones from back then are nearly mainstream now, but new ones still spring up from time to time.

[Hekate]

13. Mimeograph machines, telephones, word of mouth, letters

Lotta face to face meetings. Posters on walls and phone poles. It was slower but it sure worked.

One of the first great innovations was the spread of Xerox photocopiers -- some of us used to fantasize about seeding the USSR with them because of the way they used the few they had to run underground newspapers which were then passed from hand to hand so fast the paper scorched. (And on a modern note: unlike material passed through a CPU, the photocopier retained no information.)

It's a great question, btw. We shouldn't let ourselves forget how to foster a movement by low-tech means.

I look at the Internet as a wonderful tool and a window of opportunity that may be closing even as I write this. A lot of foolish words have been written here about how no government can stop the Internet. Look at China and other repressive regimes -- governments can and do regulate computer traffic and monitor communications as much or as little as they want to. Thanks to everyone in the Western world's desire to make a buck by selling stuff, all the elements are already in place here: cookies, spam, spyware, filters, and more.

Your e-mail is far, far less secure than snail mail -- as far as I know the Constitution does not protect the privacy of this form of communication. So if you have very grave matters to discuss, think of developing low-tech methods of communication as an alternative to the Internet.

Hekate
old hags remember things

[JoMama49]

16. We handed out hand-made flyers - I know 'cause I

handed out my share, believe me! Remember the April 1971 March in SF? Over 600,000 folks marched down Geary Street? It was all communicated through flyers and word of mouth!

[EC]

17. MSM, was better at reporting, but they were infiltrated by propagandists

then just as now, I think it was Playboy that blew that out of the water, project Mockingbird: here:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/MOCK/mockingbird.html

Of course there were letters, posters in colleges and head shops,free press, many new free alternative newspapers (underground counter-culture press) started up then, like the Onion, Blacktower, The Haight Ashbury Free Press, The Village Voice, Detroit Free Press,The Digger Papers, the Oracle, Rolling Stone, the Classified Gazette, Avatar, EVO, Kaleidoscope many of these became reputable papers..and magazines. There were many establishments that only the counter culture hung out, (that is why we all dressed differently, to recognize one an other), like restaurants, head shops, parks and streets, then word of mouth was a good communicator...And as said flyers, lots and lots of flyers....

[Warpy]

20. Word of mouth, alternative newspapers,

mimeographed leaflets, and the people who could afford to travel to other cities (especially those with colleges) spread the word.

The MSM was staunchly pro war. If you weren't in a college town, chances are there wasn't much going on in the way of war protests.

The Quakers were always out there, though. I started standing silent vigil with them in 1962, when the war was starting to shape up to be a real stinker.

[Hardrada]

22. We had radical student organizations in my state.

Iowa was a bit slow off the mark but we eventually built up enough steam for some good demonstrations. We would have meetings, plan demonstrations, decide who was going to do what, MAKE SURE WE HAD A FUNCTIONING MICROPHONE, leaflet and just show up and get started. We would get people to listen to us, sometimes a respectable number. The planning was important but having functioning organizations like the SDS was more important than anything. We also put up posters announcing when our protests were going to be and where.

[ginnyinWI]

25. Radio, radio, radio

That's how you knew anything about anything that was going down. You would listen to your local rock station and hear what the counter-culture was doing--sit-ins, love-ins, peace rallies, whatever. :hippie:

[tsuki]

26. Yes, believe it or not, it was carried on M$M.

At that time, TV journalists had been trained in print by gruff old editors that chewed them out on a daily basis. Dan Rather is the first journalist that I remember that was not.

TV reporters were anxious to prove that they were just as reliable as the print reporters. Just as factual. Just as unbiased.

Walter Conkrite was low keyed, temperate, "And that's the way it is (was), date. Fred Friendly and Edward R. Murrow believed in facts, and only the facts, ma'am. The good looking reporters with the hyped metabolism had not yet made their debut.

And Americans read. And read. And read. It was the age of the news magazines. Do you realize that there is an entire generation between magazines and the internet that do not read, not even to this day. God Bless the Internet(s). Americans have started reading again.

TV media started getting a "liberal" bias reputation when they realized that stories that tugged at the heart strings meant ratings. No facts required.

Now TV "news" is neither liberal or conservative. It is bias toward the top, the corporations that control them. GE, Rupert Murdock. It is a muck raking of yellow journalism that has nothing to do with facts, just agendas.

That is how I see it. Misspellings, et al.

[burn the bush]

29. there were lots of free drugs- word gets around

plus they passed out handbills, and had several underground newspapers.

[Bake]

33. I honestly don't think the majority of people are as aware!

"Back then" (and God how it pains me to say that!) people gave a damn because it was THEIR ASSES ON THE LINE. In a volunteer military situation, your ass ain't on the line unless you volunteered to be there.

We have far more advanced means of communication today. There is no need for mimeograph machines in the Age of the Internet. But there are no == or damn few -- demonstrations comparable to the 60s because fewer (I'm not saying NONE, mind you) people care as much. Why? Because their asses aren't likely to be drafted (or so they think) and sent to the jungle/desert/choose-your-poison.

Simple as that.

Bake

[babylonsister]

42. Yes, but people today are, or should be,

frightened for their kids. We have all this technology at our fingertips, and don't take enough advantage of it.

[lyonn]

35. What I remember was many Repubs elected during

and after VN. Our Dem. candidates sounded weak and unsure of their direction. Or, was it the media even then? I voted Nixon thinking he would end it, he was forceful. Course he lied. Then Ford temporarily. Then Carter, who, on looking back was done in by the Repubs. Reagan had the hostage deal all worked out for his swearing in celebration. My gawd I was ignorant of the facts. For sure I was against the war, but didn't read the politicians right. It seems we are again looking for strong democrats. The truth is the dems. had it right, except for johnson, (what was his problem?) and they certainly do now. Most Dems. that I watch on C-span make the Repubs. look like idiots. So, With Dean at the head of the DNC and the Dems. having gotten beaten badly since "94", I do believe they will quit playing the "me to" game. We are running out of time.

[karynnj]

43. Anti-war sentiment didn't split neatly by party then

Although MCGovern and McCarthy were Democrats, there were Republicans that were very anti-war too. (McCloskey(Ca R) ran against Nixon in the primary - he was adamantly anti-war)

The other thing was that there was not the clear Liberal=Democrat, Conservative=Republican. I was liberal, graduated college in 72, voted and canvassed for McGovern, but there were Republicans then that I could support.

Watching the Going Upriver video brought back in to a greater clarity the fear of the government that we had in the late 60s, early 70s. What makes the present time scarier is that then you had a liberal Supreme Court and good people on each side of the aisle in the Congress who ultimately dealt with a paranoid President. Also, although a large part of the press was wary of the counter- culture, they became progressively more anti-war. (In fact the strength of Kerry then was he was anti-war, articulate and not counter -culture)

[Hekate]

46. Nixon's fellow Repubs convinced him to resign...

...A group of senators and/or house members went to visit him at the WH and informed him that he had to go, for the good of the country. I can't even imagine it happening in the present climate of winner-take-all and sorehead winners.

On the other hand, it WAS his second term. :evilgrin:

The thing with the draft really raised people's consciousness -- even though the Army was disproportionately blue collar and brown or black, many white college kids got sucked up too, and they all felt the threat. My classmate's 24 year old brother with a Master's degree died in Vietnam. It was only the "fortunate sons" like Dubya who got shuffled into champagne squadrons like the TANG -- they could afford to be as hawkish as they wanted to be.

An all-volunteer army seemed like a good idea when it was proposed, but I think that social policies -- some of them quite possibly deliberate -- still steered the disadvantaged there. This country can afford community colleges and vocational schools for every 18-year-old, but fails to provide them -- naturally the Army's promise of career training and education looks pretty good. Jobs have disappeared from big chunks of the country, ditto. Wanting to defend your country is a noble thing, but a country that makes joining the military the only viable option for whole classes of people is behaving ignobly toward its citizens.

We have much to do, and some of us feel exhausted. The Repubs love to mock the Baby Boomer generation as a bunch of self-centered feckless hippies, but we brought about or supported tremendous social change. What we need now is a mass infusion of people who are as young and energetic as we once were -- I know you're out there!

Someone mentioned songs. Yeah, we need some of those, too.

Hekate

[DemoTex]

36. VVAW was loud, too!

Kerry led us. I followed. It was a good cause for a change.

[prairierose]

38. Flyers in every head shop and any other place ...

you could get them. Plus talking; actual face to face & telephone. Networking before the age of computers.

[evlbstrd]

39. Lo-Tech, Baby!

Consider the 'Net your new mimeograph, underground rag, etc.!

[ribrepin]

40. Sometimes people would see a demonstration and just join the crowd

Demonstrators would call out to people to join in and they would. With young people, it was the thing to do.

I don't really remember how we knew, we just did. The draft had a lot to do with it.

[CWebster]

41. The counter culture

instead of the corporate culture

[CroixRoussienne]

45. The Berkeley Barb!

The alternative press was in High Gear, and people made their own pamphlets. We'd go to be-ins and love-ins and concerts and the grapevine worked well. It was an... organic thing.

[bobbieinok]

47. kick