Woodstock Rising. Tom Wayman
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I assumed the choppers were ultimately headed toward the USMC’s Camp Pendleton, which sprawled for twenty miles along Pacific Coast Highway south of San Clemente, not far down the coast from Laguna. I had no idea where the Phantom fighters were bound when they screamed by. Neither type of aircraft ordinarily rattled Laguna this late, though. I watched the choppers’ blinking lights as their racket faded across the Pacific.
My attention slipped off to ponder Pump’s and Jay’s advocacy of a Woodstock Nation. The freak world, for all its flaws, was no supporter of the system. If their numbers could be combined with the political energy of active opposition to the root causes of the war, the result would be mighty. I knew this was the notion behind Abbie Hoffman’s and Jerry Rubin’s pronouncements, supposedly on behalf of the Youth International Party. But with no actual organization, the Yippies had to rely on the media to carry their message — a shaky basis on which to build social change.
Plus, missing from the Yippies was any hint of democracy. Had anybody elected Rubin, or his sidekick Hoffman, to their roles as spokesmen? Or were they essentially media creations — flamboyant, highly inflated egos posturing as emblems of rebellious youth, depending on attention from the media for their legitimacy?
I heard from a distance Jay taunt his brother. “Is there anything that would convince you the Nation’s real?”
“Wayman’s the history scholar,” Edward said. “Ask him what constitutes a nation.”
I was absorbed with considering how I enjoyed the Yippies’ energy and regarded lots of their pronouncements as right on. But there was no Yippie equivalent to SDS’s ongoing work at hundreds of universities and colleges, to the mass demonstrations on campus and in the community we had sparked or helped spearhead. SDS chapters across the country were involved, I knew from New Left Notes, with local labour issues, with high-school kids, with black and Chicano and Puerto Rican youth organizations, even with church groups. Few of these activities were covered by the mainstream press. The Yippies, for all their great rebellious theatre in the media spotlight, seemed to be solely about symbolic gestures by relatively few individuals. The idea of a Woodstock Nation, I concluded, could possibly represent the evolution of both aspects of the youth movement: the hippie and the political. Of course, the Woodstock Nation concept could also have zero potential to be anything other than hype, as Edward maintained.
“Wayman.” Someone was trying to get my attention.
“He’s tripping free.”
I tried to focus. Everyone was staring at me.
“What characteristics define a nation?” Edward demanded.
“Nation?” I stalled for time, mentally reviewing the disputes in the Frozen North about whether Quebec, or the rest of Canada for that matter, constituted a genuine country. I recalled Fanon’s thesis in The Wretched of the Earth about how a population effects the transition from colony to state. My thoughts seemed tangled in webs of molasses-like ganglia.
“Uh,” I finally managed. “A nation? A nation, uh, is a population with, um, common beliefs? Shared … usually a common language or religion? Also, uh, common attitudes toward certain historical events. Toward the past. Their past, I mean. It —”
“Check,” said Jay.
“What?” Edward and I both blurted.
“That all applies to the Woodstock Nation.”
I dredged up another facet. “Usually, um, there’s a geographic component to nationhood.”
“Check,” Pump contributed.
“Which specific territory does your addled brain believe the Woodstock Nation occupies?” Edward asked archly.
“When I went into the army,” Jay said, “I always felt it was California I was going to fight for, not the U.S.”
“Irrelevant,” Edward said. “Give me the name of the place you believe the Woodstock Nation inhabits.”
“Planet Earth,” Pump said promptly.
Edward rolled his eyes.
“Like Baba Ram Das says, ‘Wherever you go, there you are,’” Jay affirmed.
“Hippie drivel,” retorted Edward.
I wracked my brain concerning anything else that defined nationhood. “Uh, another characteristic would be a willingness, a desire to function as a nation.”
“Check,” Pump and Jay said in unison.
Fanon’s book sprang back into my memory. “This Algerian writer, Franz Fanon? He claims a colony can only win independence through armed struggle. Nationhood can … it can never be a gift of the imperial power, but must be won militarily.” I tried to recall more. “Otherwise, Fanon says, the new country is still hopelessly tied to its colonial past.”
“Pretty bloodthirsty concept,” Edward said.
“Look at the difference between the U.S. and Canada,” I continued, warming to the theme. “The U.S. won its Revolutionary War. Canada’s revolution against the British in 1837 was crushed. Which is unquestionably most a country?”
“Checkmate, regardless,” Edward purred. “The Woodstock Nation isn’t into armed revolt.”
“I didn’t ever think of Canada as not a country,” Jay said. “Isn’t that where the cold weather comes from?”
I grimaced. “Also Zal Yanovsky of the Spoonful. Neil Young. Paul Anka, if you remember him.”
Pump appeared agitated by the turn the conversation had taken. “You can’t have a nation without war? I don’t fucking believe it.”
“The Woodstock Nation could be the first,” Jay insisted.
“That’s just Fanon’s theory,” I assured him. “Nobody really knows how you’d prove it if you —”
“The war business makes sense, come to think of it,” Edward said. “All those Commie countries are the result of violent revolution — Russia, Cuba, Red China, Vietnam.”
“The Panthers also say liberation of the black colony in the U.S. will only occur once blacks are armed,” I said.
“You wouldn’t believe in the Woodstock Nation unless it goes to war?” Pump asked.
Edward smirked. “I doubt anyone would seriously claim a nation is a series of rock concerts.”
“Nobody’s saying that, man,” Pump burst out. “It’s how we live that’s the Woodstock Nation.”
“Why not the Bowling League Nation then?” Edward needled. “Or, think of Willow and Phil — why not the Surfer Nation?”
“Nothing else will convince you the Woodstock Nation is real?”
Jay began to roll a number. “Leave it alone, Pump. Eddie’s on a negativity trip.”
Edward raised his hands, palms upward, as if to appeal to reason. “A Woodstock Nation might be a nice dream. But I’ve worked in advertising.”
“What would make the Woodstock Nation not just a scam for you?” Pump persisted.
Jay fired up the joint. “Pump, you’re not going to convince him.” He took a drag.
“Some act of nationhood,” Edward said. “Other than attending rock festivals, growing your hair long, and smoking dope.”
“What kind of act?” Jay demanded.
“It would have to reveal a determination to be a nation,” Edward mused. “Something tangible, maybe even confrontational. Not simply buying concert tickets.”
Pump took a hefty hit off the joint and passed it to Edward. “Such as?”
“You tell me. This is your baby.”