Letters to the Editor
-
Hello in there:
My fellow 60s-ers, it is not the 60s that is responsible for a black man and a white woman running for president, it is the 90s --that's the decade in which these "minorities" finally started attaining anything beyond tokenism in corporate and government life.
Good God, you didn't notice it's remained white man's land for the last 40 years?
-
@The 1960s
I graduated high school in 1968 and right now, I'm laughing my ass off, about how karma is biting us Boomers in the ass. I don't see why younger generations shouldn't turn against us as many of us rebelled. It's only logical, and they need to in order to build something of their own. Just as we did.
It takes awhile to evaluate a legacy. Oddly enough, I'm optimistic that ours will come through and be recognized a couple of generations from now.
Kennedy took us to the moon in 1969.
Many of us had a respect for education that amounted to faith that it could bring about social change. Now, it's more class-stratified than we'd like -- as university tuition soars.
I had five years of grad school for my Ph.D. from Harvard (please believe, I've mentioned the place in order to give an indication of potential costs, rather than to snoot at people: I've compared notes with a Marine DI, and we agreed that grad school was like boot camp, only with bad sherry. Total cost, $5500 in student loans, with debt service of $52 per month.
It is no bad thing to respect education that much and work hard for it. We didn't win a war that saved the world as our parents did. We didn't survive a depression as our parents did. We stopped a war with the help of other generations. We changed the face of our world until we are all sick with cultural change.
Being a crazy, narcissistic Boomer, however, I suspect some happy generation will get us well again, and then their kids will turn on them.
Personally, I haven't a problem with this, provided we continue to grow and learn.
-
SAY WHAT?
Why is it that one elitist is always trying to dissect - and then condemn - another elitist? lol
I see the book's point regarding separating the myth from the reality with respect to what many of the hippie groups accomplished. But I adamently disagree that little was accomplished in the 60's (unless the definitions - hippies, yippies, subculture, etc. - are so confused here that it's impossible to discuss the subject at all!).
Yes, there were groups of people who were not tuned into the political scene, and more concerned with drinking, drugging, and screwing than anything else. But, hey, they are still with us today. Look around. And yes, there were nut cases involved with the political scene too. And guess what? They are still with us today as well. G. Gordon Liddy ring a bell?
Don't tell me that people who died because they believed in the idea of American social justice were irrelevent and did not accomplish anything. Tell that to the families of those kids who went to Mississippi to help register black Americans to vote and lost their lives. Tell that to the black Americans who had family members strung up, beaten, and hosed down because they dared to stand up.
The idea of peace, justice, love, and understanding - the so-called hippie concepts of the 60's - came about from being fed up with a very violent status quo, violent world, a violent United States, and a Cold War that was destined to go on forever - or atleast until one or the other collapsed under the weight of it's ridiculous spending to fight this contrived "war." Those concepts were not created in a vacuum of nothingness while sitting around stoned.
Moveon.org, with all it's millions and rantings and supposedly controversial TV spots (mild-mannered crap, I might add, compared to the 60's political statements!), has yet to stop a single freaking thing going on in Iraq! One might suggest that it is as much a product of the today's status quo as any routine activity in the White House! It's use of the internet to make people "feel connected" is a freakin' joke. It's use of the internet to conveniently pick the pockets of people for their own agenda is closer to the truth.
Richard Nixon, James Dobson, Ronald Reagan, the neo-cons who love war and all the money it generates for their corporations, and the Republican party have used the worst part of the 60's as their badly needed political boogie man for over 30 years, except for when they were using Willie Horton and Bin Laden, of course. Wall Street and Madison Avenue have used the 60's to get richer.
Womens' rights, day care, racial and gender equality, concern for the environment and mindless pollution, international human rights, American civil rights, labor rights, and the demand for a more truthful and ethical American government is what came out of the 60's. Because of the 60's, we impeached a President for violating the U.S. Constitution, lying about bombing another country, and lying to Congressional committees because of the 60's. By contrast, the Republicans impeached a President for lying about a blow job.
The author, and others, try as they do to act like "nothing worthwhile" came out of the 60's is pissing up a rope.
Peace: It's still a good idea. Have a nice day!
-
Are you better off than you were 40 years ago?
I think the answer to this is yes. People are simply more compassionate. I recall anecdotally from my youth, that if a dog was hit by a car few people would stop. Now several people stop, and someone calls a veterinary ambulance. Television (the vast wasteland) is filled with programming which demonstrates how people care about each other, and their environment. (We still tend to stare at the TV violence, and this may be the reason behind the red state blue state divide. What does cable content in Montana look like?)
Aside from television, how do you measure this thing? I think you reread Joan Didion's Slouching Toward Bethlehem, a set of essays written ostensibly by a noted liberal. The essays are littered however with what are Conversative principles; fear of crime, rejection of the self indulgent, and repeated use of the symbols of decay. The Liberals of the 60's may have become the COnservatives of the 90's, without changing political values one whit. What has changed is how people treat each other outside these outdated parameters. Didion may have been prematurely aged, but the rest of society has been evolving. Even the most regressive Republicans were forced to pay lip service to the concept of compassion. That the system still doesn't get it, should remind us that 60's activism is still necessary.