Posted on 02/13/2009 11:00:52 AM PST by sldghmr300
I remember reading Dr. Spock in the very early 60s. And, for whatever it is worth, if you can get your hands on a copy of one of these editions, you will find that he wasn’t all that “permissive” back then.
In fact, he warned against this. In later writings, (after he married a “young’un), he switched over completely to the “dark side” of permissiveness.
Some of the blame placed on the ‘60s kids is properly placed on those a generation earlier, who were at the forefront of leading SOME of the 60s kids into the wilderness of drug use and sexual license.
Most of the kids maturing in the sixties did not protest the war, did not do drugs, and were “straight” sexually.
As usual, the media chose to spotlight and promote the few who promoted the counter-culture. These, in my opinion, were a very vocal minority, supported and promoted by elder radicals...
Nihilist German professors fleeing Hitler were allowed to embed in American universities bringing with them the intellectual virus that killed Europe.
“The much heralded “greatest generation” wasn’t so good at raising kids?”
Bingo! but they are good at writing history books and giving themselves cool nicknames.
Scholars tracking the generations have now split off the tail end of the boomers. That generation (1954-1965) is now designated Generation Jones. I am part of that. The most imporatant figure to that age group is Ronald Reagan. We just didn’t have the numbers that the boomers did. We were also the punks - who despised the hippies and radicals who began infesting the schools at that time. My personal experience in the Midwest mirrored that of my generation. Some of our favorite books are Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago and Nabokov’s Bend Sinister. I have fond memories of listening to a song with the following anti-Soviet lyrics:”If I die in the combat zone - box me up and ship me home. If I die on the Russian Front bury me with some Russian ****.” Although Obama is part of Generation Jones - he seems to have not got the memo.
The “Greatest Generation” would have elected FDR president-for-life if he hadn’t died.
Reason will be replaced by Revelation. Instead of Rational Law, objective truths perceptible to any who will undergo the necessary intellectual discipline, Knowledge will degenerate into a riot of subjective visions... Whole cosmogonies will be created out of some forgotten personal resentment, complete epics written in private languages, the daubs of schoolchildren ranked above the greatest masterpieces. Idealism will be replaced by Materialism. Life after death will be an eternal dinner party where all the guests are 20 years old... Justice will be replaced by Pity as the cardinal human virtue, and all fear of retribution will vanish... The New Aristocracy will consist exclusively of hermits, bums and permanent invalids. The Rough Diamond, the Consumptive Whore, the bandit who is good to his mother, the epileptic girl who has a way with animals will be the heroes and heroines of the New Age, when the general, the statesman, and the philosopher have become the butt of every farce and satire.
W.H.Auden (1944)
Oh, you mean the kids that were sitting in the back seat when dad went to the gas station and said, "Gimmie a bucks worth of regular" while he had his windshield cleaned and oil checked?
The kids from the 60s now pay more a year in freaking gasoline to drive to work, than their parents bought their "new" homes for.
The kids that in later years bought homes where their monthly mortgage payments EQUALS THE TOTAL COST OF WHAT THEIR PARENTS PAID FOR HOMES?
You mean the kids of the 60s that now have no medical benefits, no retirement pensions, losing their jobs, investments and homes they paid a fortune for?
My parents purchased a brand new home, on ONE INCOME, Mom never had to work...
TRY THAT TODAY SLICK!
Good God!
Spoon feed a kid socialism from infancy and you’re going to end up with a grown up socialist. Baby boomers get a bad rap on this. We did not invent socialism. It existed in this country in abundance before we ever came along. I think the failure of McCarthy to root out communism was the final nail in the coffin. After the “have you no decency” speech, democrats and their fellow travelers in Hollywood and the media began the brainwashing in earnest and it turned a lot of us into libs, me included. When you’re ten-years-old, you’re susceptible to it.
I realize Tom Brokaw wrote a book with this as the title. I think he called it that to sell copies. I think it worked.
I've asked this question before and will again. Greatest at what??? Besides advertising on the cover, no one, including Mr. Brokaw, has any clue what this generation was greatest at. In addition, there really is no reason to believe it was greatest at anything!
Like every other generation in the history of the world, there were role models, and there were bums. I'll wager there isn't a soul reading this who hasn't met some of each in that age group.
Listening to nonsense about "The Greatest Generation" gets to where it makes a thinking person desperately desire to upchuck.
If anyone has evidence that these people were or are better than folks of other generations, I'm all ears.
I don’t know about all that, but the Beatles do suck something fierce.
I saw ‘Eve of Destruction’ and it brought back ‘Ball of Confusion’.... (Sign things don’t change so much!)
Eddie: People moving out, people moving in. Why, because of the color of their skin.
Run, run, run but you sure can’t hide. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Vote for me and I’ll set you free. Rap on, brother, rap on.
Dennis: Well, the only person talking about love thy brother is the...(preacher.)
And it seems nobody’s interested in learning but the...(teacher.)
Segregation, determination, demonstration, integration, Aggravation, humiliation, obligation to our nation.
Ball of confusion. Oh yeah, that’s what the world is today. Woo, hey, hey.
Paul:
The sale of pills are at an all time high.
Young folks walking round with their heads in the sky.
The cities ablaze in the summer time.
And oh, the beat goes on.
Dennis:
Evolution, revolution, gun control, sound of soul.
Shooting rockets to the moon, kids growing up too soon.
Politicians say more taxes will solve everything.
Melvin:
And the band played on.
So, round and around and around we go.
Where the world’s headed, nobody knows.
[Instrumental]
Oh, great GoogaMooga, can’t you hear me talking to you.
Just a ball of confusion.
Oh yeah, that’s what the world is today.
Woo, hey, hey.
Eddie:
Fear in the air, tension everywhere.
Unemployment rising fast, the Beatles new record’s a gas.
Dennis:
And the only safe place to live is on an Indian reservation.
Melvin:
And the band played on.
Eve of destruction, tax deduction, city inspectors, bill collectors,
Mod clothes in demand, population out of hand, suicide, too many bills,
Hippies moving to the hills. People all over the world are shouting, ‘End the war.’
Melvin:
And the band played on.
[Instrumental]
Great GoogaMooga, can’t you hear me talking to you.
Sayin’... ball of confusion.
That’s what the world is today, hey, hey.
Let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya.
Sayin’... ball of confusion.
That’s what the world is today, hey, hey.
Let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya.
Sayin’... ball of confusion.
Now they want to get rid of the 22nd so they can get Obama for life.
Just off the top of my head, I can think of some reasons:
1) Birth control
2) Abortion
3) Women’s lib
4) Credit cards (people can live above their means)
5) Drugs
6) Divorce (destruction of the family unit)
7) Euthanasia
8) Political corruption
“The New Aristocracy will consist exclusively of hermits, bums and permanent invalids. The Rough Diamond, the Consumptive Whore, the bandit who is good to his mother, the epileptic girl who has a way with animals will be the heroes and heroines of the New Age, when the general, the statesman, and the philosopher have become the butt of every farce and satire.”
“Mama says, life is like a box of chocolates.”
- Forest Gump
I’m a boomer born 1953. Grew up with nuclear drills, Kennedy assasination, Vietnam protests. Took virtually every recreational drug known to man and in mass quantities. Got married, three kids, started my own construction company.
Before you know it, my ex wife divorced me saying I had turned out to be “to the right of Atilla-The-Hun”.
No complaints here, man.
TV
Why does Spock have 6 fingers?
Exactly. So go and look at the people who told us to do this...the Greatest Generation. BTW, Tom Brokaw wouldn’t have called them that if they hadn’t been fundamentally leftists.
I term it subliminal transformance, meaning that the unthinkable, irrational, obscene, distasteful, harmful etc. become acceptable and commonplace when packaged and presented repetitively and attractively to society. Certainly many of the affectations of the 60s have their residuals in contemporary America, but such would not be the case were there not a process for their acceptance. Just a long way of saying media has a lot to do with it.
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