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Revolution — It’s a Gas

Deja vu all over again

William Mersey
2 min readMay 1, 2024
demonstration over war in Gaza
Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

Pardon me if I take a dim view of the current revolution on the country’s college campuses. I’ve seen it before. In fact, fifty years ago, my attitude wasn’t all that different from what it is today as I witnessed the drama unfold.

My college years were tumultuous times. The USA was losing a war — and I was of the age when I might have to fight and die in what history has taught us was a futile pursuit.

As with today, student bodies all over the map demonstrated — my generation against Dow Chemical for profiting from the manufacture of napalm in much the same fashion that today’s students want their institutions of higher learning to stop investing in Israeli industry responsible for the deaths of Palestinians — at least in their eyes.

My apartment mate back then was the president of the student body. He actually traveled to Vietnam on a state-funded fact-finding mission to see the carnage firsthand!

My friends and I used to make fun of Mark. He was a rich kid from Skokie, Illinois playing revolutionary while driving a Mach II Mustang. One of his professors used to raise his right fist in Mark’s face and proclaim “Horsepower to the people,” in a friendly gesture to mock his student.

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William Mersey
William Mersey

Written by William Mersey

"The spry old guy on a bike." New York Greenwich Village ex-hippy. Daily Beast, NY Daily News, Daily Mail, Independent contributor. I've been around the block.

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