Dream Job

Sources: The Baader-Meinhof Complex by Stefan Aust  and The Way the Wind Blew by Ron Jacobs

I've decided that my absolute dream job would be working for a think tank, especially for the government. Nobody else seems to think like I do. I have a strange (dare I say delightful?) way of looking at the world, and people rarely completely agree with me. Though they may agree with my conclusions, they won't agree with my philosophical underpinnings or argumentative assumptions, and vice versa.

If any think tank recruiters are reading, let me give you a little taste of what I can bring to the table. I've been learning about the violence of the 60s and 70s (a period that I think needs to be studied much more thoroughly--it was not all about flower power and Dick Nixon), and I've been stuck with the impression that the domestic violence so widespread in this period was not a singular flare-up. Governments maneuvered quite skillfully to extinguish the fire, but the fixes were only temporary. The changes on higher levels produced the impression that there was more equality, but failed to really correct the underlying issues of disparity and conspicuous consumption. As we've seen with government bail-outs, even that invisible hand of the market won't be allowed to slap America awake to its destructive liason with consuming (as opposed to producing).

I've started to feel that much of my research in the next coming years will be to understand intimately groups like the Black Panther Party, the Weathermen, the RAF, etc., in order to see what embers are still lit or still flammable. I'd like to be in a position to change government policy in a way that corrects the underlying issues before we have another international flashpoint. For me, the end of violence is the ultimate goal, and while its abolition must occur on both the local level (i.e. the family) and the world level, it needs to happen from both ends simultaneously. How's that for a taste, Mr. Think Tank recruiter?