“History often provides an excuse for a party. In Europe and America, romantics are celebrating 1968. … But what was 1968? … In truth, instead of being the time when ‘the movement’ came together, 1968 was the year it flew apart, its pieces scattering weird directions. The year was more a death rattle than a glorious birth. If we must celebrate, let’s honor a different year, say 1964. On Dec. 2 that year, Mario Savio stood on the steps of Sproul Hall at the University of California and gave the best speech ever uttered by any ’60s radical: There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part. You can’t even tacitly take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus — and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it … that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.” [editor’s note: Not sure we’d agree it was “the best speech ever uttered” in that era, but it did have its effects - SAT] (05/13/08)