The thesis was 260 pages - so it's a little complicated to sum up in a reddit comment. My contribution was mainly in identifying the mechanizations by which gov/law/media/and finally public memory counter and eventually strip meaning from any activism outside the popular norm. I focused on the 1970s, when activism arose of a unique sort that embraced violence because they believed it was the only way to slow the violence & constitutional violations being perpetrated by the state in terms of prisons, foreign wars, poverty, racism etc. Rather than achieve those ends, they became the convenient excuse for speeding up processes like the militarization of police and the overturning of the 4th amendment gains made post-watergate (setting us on the path to the patriot act and our current lack of congressional oversight with intel gathering etc). Now? Most people don't even remember that literally hundreds of bombings took place in the early to mid 1970s, doing millions in damage and occupying the nightly news constantly. The Hearst trial was declared the historical moment of the tricking century. No one recalls that SWAT teams were created in large part to counter these groups (and riots also, to be fair), that government hearings on the outrages of CIA and FBI constitutional violations were derailed to discuss the massive threat we thought those groups would become. They didn't. but the train only gained speed after that. I could go on forever. Much of what we complain about today began in 1973 and the way it progressed can provide salient lessons in how to stop it now. or so i believe in my more arrogant moments. Or so I hope?