Where the radical lines merge April 18, 1985

 

 Dear Tim:

I’ve recently been thinking about the old days in D&B, that cruddy cosmetics placed we worked at together eight years ago. They’re still thriving from what I can see when I drive passed there at night or deliver my newspaper in places in that neighborhood.

But I haven’t set foot in that sacred realm since 1978 and I wonder what just what goes on inside.

Stan is still there, or at least he was as of last Christmas, but his old green car is gone. There’s a silver Chevy in the spot where the green car once park, there at all ungodly hours, day and night, so I presume Stan is still the overly dedicated Stan we knew when we worked there. I suppose he still feels trapped and disappointed that the dream job he thought he was getting when he signed on with Donald, turned out to be something of a nightmare.

Who know?

Your letter along with the song lyric you sent were truly appreciated and received a lot of comments on and off the WPC campus.

It’s good to hear that you haven’t lost touch with the past.

Most of the kids on campus these days have taken a sharp turn to the political right, spouting a lot of things about needing a strong America. Many wear uniforms they don’t know are uniforms, disguised as designer jeans, knowing very little about the slave labor elsewhere in the world needed to create them. They are a bit confused. Just as the remnants of the old leftist radicals on campus are. They all talk a good game but are largely full of horse manure.

Former President Carter visited New Jersey last night, making an appearance in front of the Leftist haven at Princeton University, spouting about how he believed we are about to turn Central America into a new Vietnam and our troops will be headed there by the end of the year.

I wouldn’t count on any of the kids on campus signing up to go any time soon. They are much like their 60s counter parts, tough talk, but little action.

Meanwhile, William Paterson College is rapidly becoming a police state of its own. Recently, the part time student council (which housed all the burned-out hippies and former leftist radicals) was dissolved and posters have been banned on campus billboards without express permission of the SGA. Most recently, the SGA at the urging of the SGA faculty adviser put up a proposal to control all campus publications (not mine, since we have very little to do with the campus except that we distribute there) and want to arrange the appointment of editor and the pre-publication censorship of newspapers, three magazines and the radio station, making them conform to “taste, content and form.”

Try to understand, these are not neo-Nazis establishing these rules, but people who are considered liberals. There are only two or three right wing professors on the campus, and all of them except the right-wing professors, remained mum about the proposal.

The extremely radical left-wing professor, Ripmaster, spoke up about it, recognizing perhaps that liberals are largely Nazis in sheep clothing. But he’s getting old and only has enough energy to protest against the guest speakers the college president has been bringing on campus to speak: Kissinger and Alexander Haig. I think Ripmaster was more upset by the fact that each got $10,000 to appear here.

Some of us wanted to sit-in on the SGA office, but only Michael, SPR’s poetry and editor and myself showed up. The SGA never opened its office.

So, you see even in this small corner of the world, things have changed. The next generation seems to have become even more selfish than previous ones, mean spirited, full of slogans, but no substance, some talk about the environment and such, but only repeat what some liberal professor has told them, they claim to be tolerant, but hate anybody who disagrees with them, on the right or the left. Most are determined to find careers somewhere where they can live the high life while spouting rhetoric about this cause or that, no doubt doing nothing when they finally get into the job they want.

While I was at college, I worked for Toys R Us for a while during the holiday rush and got to see how toys went in and out of fashion, GI Joe castrated as not to offend anybody, Barbie given some macho image, like a training manual for what we expect our children to grow up to become, sexually confused.

I’m sure the violence will come into fashion again as soon as we have a war that isn’t secret, and society wants to train us to be killers again.

It’s strange how left and right seem to merge at some point and they both seem intolerable to me.

Oh well, enough spouting.

I’ve read and re-read you letter several times and would apricate any more comments that you might have concerning life, liberty and the pursuit of cash.

Tell me about Philadelphia? Is life treating you okay?

 

Yours always

Al Sullivan

 

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