Notes On Now: The Long Sixties Repeating and ‘No Kings’ Momentum

Currently, I’m reading a book that is inspiring me to my core. “Silent Spring Revolution” by Douglas Brinkley is a historic account of environmentalism throughout the “Long Sixties” and it’s like a firehose of introductions to environmental heroes across all walks of life, all over the country, of various professions, with each person focusing on one or multiple aspects of the environment that they care deeply about. History through the lens of environmentalism is a revelation. 

And boy does history repeat. Same as back then, we have Big Industry decimating and bulldozing nature, wildlife, and our health. Only now it’s with more precision and better technology, their fangs locked deeper into our political system than ever before. Greenhouse gases continue to be dumped into our air to the point of confirmed existential crisis. PFAS flow freely in our waters and poison our organs. Plastic and trash litter every inch of our world. The next, and perhaps last, frontier to be violated is our deep ocean floor, as the sea miners idle in waiting to begin their exploitation. Even our consciousness is polluted by digital infiltrators on our own screens or worse when it’s second-hand from nearby addicts getting their fix. We are bombarded at every turn by unavoidable advertisements for hyperconsumerism and drugs in the form of a pill, a wager, or a prompt. 

Just like back in the Long Sixties, with its eerily similar and significant mix of movements and aggressions, we have the backdrop of an unpopular war abroad. (Might this be the tipping point? A phrase we could adopt as our slogan under the current administration.) The cultural war at home is a fire that will not extinguish, incessantly stoked and kept burning by one of the most vile human beings to ever exist; a man who holds the highest seat in our country and rules by hatred. But still…history shows us, too, that tides change. Movements rise and converge. 

The ‘No Kings’ movement may not have a direct outcome now, but it represents an enormous wave of hope which shows that even in these modern times hijacked by apathy, distraction, and cognitive decline, the full story of what we want as a society has not been fully seen or accurately exposed. The quiet majority is growing louder and finding its cohesive voice. Behaviorally, humans are influenced greatly by others around us, and yesterday was a demonstration of people everywhere from small towns to big cities to entirely separate countries across the world caring out loud, choosing to show others what they stand for. This matters. This is how we grow the numbers. And numbers speak louder than posts.

By the magnitude that I am enthralled reading about the unsung environmental heroes of past decades, I am encouraged by the ‘No Kings’ turnout. As we head into April, Earth Month as it’s known in the environmental realm (and I wish beyond), we must keep this momentum of caring out loud continuing with vengeance. There is no shortage of topics, environmental and other, to be fed up about. Stay with that. Rage drives action. An undying belief in change for the betterment of humanity, society, and our planet charges and recharges our batteries. We have the chance to write the history of future books and reset the example. We must be the inspiration for future generations to rise up, defeat evil and hatred, and ensure that what is good and right prevails. Let’s show them it can be done.