You Say You Want A Revolution? - U.S. social history

Interview, Oct, 1999 by Evelyn McDonnell

Be careful what you ask for, because if you say you want a revolution you might just get one. In fact, you might get thirty

In 1969 revolution seemed not only some radical's wishful thinking, but something that could happen on the streets, in our beds, in the way we work, in our minds. John Lennon may have mocked its trendiness, but who was a better revolutionary than the man who imagined agnosticism, anarchy, and world peace as a hit song? In the years since, every conceivable aspect of our lives has been transformed, from the personal to the political. Here we present an opinionated overview of thirty revolutions that permanently rocked our world.

THE SEXUAL-IDENTITY REVOLUTION

When police raided the Stonewall Inn in New York's Greenwich Village on June 27, 1969, they must have thought it would be just another night of business as usual. But something new was in the air: The sexual-identity revolution was moving into full swing, and the homosexuals who hung out at the bar fought back; the week of subsequent riots vaulted the nascent gay and lesbian movement into the public eye. Now Stonewall is a symbol of everything the closet isn't: pride, resistance, unity, strength.

THE FIRST DEMOGRAPHIC REVOLUTION

In August 1969 the counterculture reached critical mass when half a million people gathered for four days of peace, love, and music at Max Yasgur's farm near Woodstock, New York. Albums and movies later memorialized the festival as an idyllic consciousness breakthrough, but many participants remember Woodstock as a muddy, logistical nightmare. Woodstock may symbolize yuppie nostalgia as much as anything revolutionary. Then again, it's where, for a few days at least, a generation shook off its uptight heritage, experimented, and experienced.

THE DENIM REVOLUTION

It's hard to pinpoint a moment when street style took over the fashion world. But we probably have to thank the hippies and the whole late-sixties phenomenon Tom Wolfe called "radical chic." Since then, as soon as the kids create it, Madison Avenue sells it: Punk's safety-pins made it to Bloomingdale's, fashion dipped into grunge, Chanel went hip-hop. In the past few years, in an ironic reversal, rappers are making haute couture trendy again, and flashing designer logos alongside diamonds.

THE HOME-OFFICE REVOLUTION

In 1967 engineers reduced the size of a computer's central processing unit to a solitary silicon chip. The microprocessor paved the way for the personal computer. The ongoing meteoric rush of technological development has completely changed how, and where, we work. Answering machines, fax machines, cell phones, pagers, etc., have made work flexible and mobile.

WOMEN'S SPORTS REVOLUTION

One of the greatest long-term successes of second-wave feminism was the 1972 passage of Title IX, which mandated equal opportunities for boys and girls in government-funded school programs such as sports. Twenty-five years later, it has borne fruit, with female athletes providing some of the most gripping sports moments of the past few years: the U.S. Hockey team's gold medal, the launch of the WNBA, America's victory in the last World Cup.

THE CHOICE REVOLUTION

In 1973 the United States Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that no state could infringe on a woman's right to terminate her own pregnancy in the first six months. Few issues have provoked as much rhetoric - and violence - as abortion has since that landmark decision. Subsequent rulings have hacked away at women's access to medical care, but nothing, not even a resurgent religious right, could take away the fundamental message of the reproductive revolution: Women should be free to rule their wombs, not be ruled by them.

THE INFORMATION REVOLUTION

The Internet may have been invented by Vinton Cerf in 1973 for the U.S. Department of Defense, but since it was made available to the private sector in 1984, it has been an indispensable tool of global communication, not a war machine. The World Wide Web and e-mail have accelerated and democratized information access - which means that everything, from breaking news to bomb-building manuals, is available to anyone online.

THE ANARCHY REVOLUTION

New York rockers got the ball rolling, but it was London's Sex Pistols that in 1977 thrust punk rock in our face. This wasn't just angry, amphetamine-fueled shock-rock, though; singing a sarcastic "God Save the Queen" in the year of Her Majesty's Silver Jubilee, the Pistols were the voice of England's disaffected youth. It took fourteen years and Nirvana for punk to impact on the same scale in the U.S. It remains an expression of alienation and disruption - a furious reminder that not everyone sees a future in the world's dreaming.

THE VOTER REVOLUTION

California voters staged the biggest taxpayer revolt since the Boston Tea Party on June 6, 1978, when Proposition 13 - a property-tax cut - was approved by 65 percent of them. The referendum was a clear attack on Big Government; it was also the first of several state propositions and referenda, in California and elsewhere, where voters were given a say on such issues as gay rights and affirmative action. Of course, the great instability Prop. 13 caused to the California economy and local government - and the reactionary, populist impulses that have driven many referenda - showed that direct democracy is not always the best system of lawmaking.