What you accomplished was a mass national hypnosis which works, for the most part, only on those of you who lived through the decade. KayWV hit this one on the head the ones who care about the '60s (and certainly the ones who are obsessed with it) are the Baby Boomers who lived through it. The rest of us really have very little to no interest in it. You've also made us learn about it pretty much ad nauseum until we can all repeat the stories our parents told us before they get out of their mouths. Hence an even more waning interest.

Whatever real acheivements there were in the 60s were quickly overshadowed by the enhanced sense of self-importnance that Boomers have and by their continuing inept leadership which seems to confuse even them. (Really if we can just get ONE MORE president, we'll finally have a great one.)

Women's rights, Civil Rights, the environmental movement and oppostion to an unpopular war were huge. People willingly listened to stories about these events, but of course over time they grew out of proportion and people opened books. They began to find out that it was Theodore Roosevelt (not the Boomers) who ignited the environmental movement, that there was a Susan B. Anthony before a Gloria Steinham and that there was a W.E.B. DuBois, Frederick Douglass and Marcus Garvey before Martin Luther King Jr. As for opposition to an unpopular war, we've had that since our inception. The country was split pretty much in half over the Revolutionary War at the beginning. Sorry you guys (and ladies) exaggerated to the point we have simply grown weary of hearing the same story for the hundreth time.

The irony is that the people you guys could most learn from are your own parents. The World War II generation is revered and has sparked so much interest precisely BECAUSE they learned how to be humble and reticent. They didn't exaggerate their acheivements, they didn't cling to power as if it was a life raft, and they didn't force all of us to proverbially listen to every rambling thought and deed they had and did between 1961 and some time around Altamont or Manson or 1970 or whatever you guys have now unilaterally declared as the end of your benighted decade.

" At least the young people of that time were proactive about their views than say...NOW! For the youth of the 60s there was a sense of purpose, whether you think it was idealized or not. It doesn't matter that historians like to point out the stoned-out masses that may have been along for the ride. SOME did believe in what they were doing and that's important enough. What's important to the youth of today? "

Yeah that's the problem. Umm I would argue they're pretty unified against ending this war. They're also rallying to the candidate who opposed the war from the start. It's what many of the older respondents on this site constantly take them to task for. Many of them are up-in-arms. And now the youth of today is suddenly doing nothing?

This is why you have the generational war. Belittling everything every generation that is not a Baby Boomer (and that includes the Gen-Xers on here, check out their posts) is why we now have the situation we do.

Don't forget it wasn't the young people who started this. All they did was express interest in a candidate. They were then shouted down by Hillary Clinton, her campaign, the mainstream media and pretty much the rest of society en masse yelling, "They won't vote. They don't vote. They never vote. Well what the heck do they know anyway? No one's going to listen to them. They don't know what they're talking about. No one cares what they think. They can't possibly make a difference."

What is so interesting about this is that it comes from the very generation who was told the same thing when they were young. So yeah, we do expect a higher standard from them. As on all things, they've fallen short again. So, now we're going to have to rise up and do something about it. People shouting that it won't matter and can't work will have no more effect than it has thus far which is to say absolutely none.

After a tenuous session between Obama, Crocker and Petraeus, where Petraeus just smiled through the whole thing and Crocker acted as if every idea Obama had was reminiscient of a fifth grader I found this from Nightline (and on ABC.com) interesting. Figured I'd post it, because I don't want to miscontrue Crocker's words.

"When asked if Americans were in a "proxy war" with Iran, Ryan Crocker said, "It may be that the Iranians see it in that light, we certainly do not."

But he also added that "we don't want to have just what you describe as a proxy war with Iran inside Iraq, and that is why we are willing to sit down with Iran face to face for talks on Iraqi security at the invitation of the Iraqi government. We've had three rounds of those talks and we've told them we are ready to again."

Link: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Vote2008/story?id=4612088&page=1

I found this interesting as it pretty much supports Obama's notion of talking to our enemies, particularly Iran. It's also the right-wing's favorite attack on him. Anyway something tells me this won't be picked up in the MSM other than ABC.