June 17, 2025: Resistance Rising

Are listening?  Voices of Reason and Resistance host Barbara Humphrey has been listening and watching and reading, and she is convinced that we are seeing a resurgence of the resistance to the state of our communities, our states, our country and the world that erupted in the 1960s.  In 1968, urban areas in the USA was burning after the assassination of MLK, millions took to the street to demand an end to the war in Vietnam, an economic crisis had led to inflation and high unemployment, and protesters disrupted the Democratic Party presidential nominating convention in Chicago for bypassing the peace candidate to nominate the current VP, who eventually lost the presidential election to Richard Nixon, who proposed to escalate the war (even perhaps with a nuclear weapon) to bring it to an end.  

So many of the conditions of 1968 that led to rising resistance are present today in 2025, and resistance is in the air, on the streets, in the "press" (aka social media) and in the art we make.

The 1968 resisters and their organizations, such as the Blank Panthers, were brought down not just by government infiltration and coercion, but also by interpreting their successes (such as the end of the military draft and war, a federal jobs bill to put people to work, and the resignation of Richard Nixon) as victory.  As the resistance of 2025 rises, resisters are urged to learn the lessons of 1968 if they are to bring about meaningful change.

Next week, we will have a special guest from Illinois in the studio via phone to lead a conversation about worker owned cooperatives, a tool to democratize workplaces for the workers.   We will be taking feedback via our Facebook page.  Please use our page to join in and ask questions and give feedback.