Avila_America4

media type="youtube" key="L5pgrKSwFJE" height="349" width="425" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5pgrKSwFJE (Philip Ochs)

The "Festival of Life"


 * "A STATEMENT FROM YIP” Released in January 1968. **

"Join us in Chicago in August for an international festival of youth, music, and theater. Rise up and abandon the creeping meatball! Come all you rebels, youth spirits, rock minstrels, truth-seekers, peacock-freaks, poets, barricade-jumpers, dancers, lovers and artists!   "It is summer. It is the last week in August, and the NATIONAL DEATH PARTY meets to bless Lyndon Johnson. We are there! There are 50,000 of us dancing in the streets, throbbing with amplifiers and harmony. We are making love in the parks. We are reading, singing, laughing, printing newspapers, groping, and making a mock convention, and celebrating the birth of FREE AMERICA in our own time. "Everything will be free. Bring blankets, tents, draft-cards, body-paint, Mr. Leary's Cow, food to share, music, eager skin,  and happiness. The threats of LBJ, Mayor Daley, and J. Edgar Freako will not stop us. We are coming! We are coming from  all over the world!   "The life of the American spirit is being torn asunder by the forces of violence, decay, and the napalm-cancer fiend. We demand the Politics of Ecstasy! We are the delicate spores of the new fierceness that will change America. We will create our own reality, we are Free America! And we will not accept the false theater of the Death Convention. "We will be in Chicago. Begin preparations now! Chicago is yours! Do it!"

The purpose of adding this to my wall is to remember the generation of believers. I hope that our generation, the younger generation that will inherit all the problems of our parents world, will be able to make a difference and have a positive influence in defining our American character.

My purpose and inspiration for this page was to look at the future of our nation. As daunting as it may seem, we are in a time of change and we can create a revolution for youth.

Thus, I chose to have my primary focus on this page be the DNC convention of 1968. Clearly a time where the old, conservatives were questioning the young inheritors, it was a time of conflict and unrest.

Philip Ochs, to my understanding, was able to put these discomforts into words.

"It's always the old to led us to the war, and it's always the young to fall" -Philip Ochs

media type="youtube" key="vCWdCKPtnYE" height="349" width="425" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCWdCKPtnYE

LYRICS


 * The Times They are a Changing: Bob Dylan**

Come gather 'round people Wherever you roam And admit that the waters Around you have grown And accept it that soon You'll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you Is worth savin' Then you better start swimmin' Or you'll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics Who prophesize with your pen And keep your eyes wide The chance won't come again And don't speak too soon For the wheel's still in spin And there's no tellin' who That it's namin'. For the loser now Will be later to win For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don't stand in the doorway Don't block up the hall For he that gets hurt Will be he who has stalled There's a battle outside ragin'. It'll soon shake your windows And rattle your walls For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers Throughout the land And don't criticize What you can't understand Your sons and your daughters Are beyond your command Your old road is Rapidly agin'. Please get out of the new one If you can't lend your hand For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn The curse it is cast The slow one now Will later be fast As the present now Will later be past The order is Rapidly fadin'. And the first one now Will later be last For the times they are a-changin'.

How can you discuss the American character, as an oppressor, and not understand our history of race oppression?

media type="youtube" key="py5NZMlIL3g" height="349" width="560" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py5NZMlIL3g

**Songwriters:** Swift, Taylor Alison;
 * Change lyrics**

And it's a sad picture, the final blow hits you Somebody else gets what you wanted again You know it's all the same, another time and place Repeating history and you?re getting sick of it

But I believe in whatever you do And I'll do anything to see it through

Because these things will change, can you feel it now? These walls that they put up to hold us back will fall down It's a revolution, the time will come for us to finally win

We'll sing hallelujah! We'll sing hallelujah! Oh

So we've been outnumbered, raided and now cornered It's hard to fight when the fight ain't fair We're getting stronger now from things they never found They might be bigger but we're faster and never scared

You can walk away and say we don't need this [ From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/t/taylor-swift-lyrics/change-lyrics.html] But there's something in your eyes says we can beat this

'Cause these things will change, can you feel it now? These walls that they put up to hold us back will fall down It's a revolution, the time will come for us to finally win

We'll sing hallelujah! We'll sing hallelujah! Oh

Tonight we standed on our knees To fight for what we worked for all these years And the battle was long, it's the fight of our lives Will we stand up champions tonight?

It was the night things changed, can you see it now? These walls that they put up to hold us back fell down It's a revolution, throw your hands up, 'cause we never gave in

We'll sing hallelujah! We sang hallelujah! Hallelujah!