"It's always the old to lead us to the wars. It's always the young to fall. Now look at all we've won with the saber and the gun. Tell me, is it worth it all?" - Phil Ochs.
If singer and song writer Phil Ochs were alive he would be 82 years old today.
“I ain’t marching anymore,” sang Phil Ochs back when we protested the war in Vietnam.
While the anti-war movement grew to include people of all ages, it began as a youth movement.
The first national protest against that war took place in Washington in 1965 and was organized by Students for a Democratic Society.
As an SDS member at Los Angeles City College in 1967 we played Phil Ochs at our recruiting table.
For I've killed my share of Indians
In a thousand different fights
I was there at the Little Big Horn
I heard many men lying, I saw many more dying
But I ain't marching anymore
It's always the old to lead us to the wars
It's always the young to fall
Now look at all we've won with the saber and the gun
Tell me, is it worth it all?
All these years later the U.S. is still involved, directly and indirectly, in more wars.
Campuses across the country are alive again with voices calling for peace in the middle east.
Young Muslim voices and Young Jewish voices.
Joe Biden’s support for the Israeli assault on Gaza and the killing of over 20,000 Palestinians is costing him support from young voters in historic numbers.
In fact, it may cost him the 2024 election and hand the White House to Trump.
That would be a disaster.
According to a New York Times/Siena poll today Biden has lost a ten percent lead he held over Trump among young voters before the Gaza war and is now losing to Trump among the youth.
Fifty years later Phil Ochs is still right.
Call it peace or call it treason
Call it love or call it reason
But I ain't marching anymore.