Viewing The 1960s From My 60s

Modern Conservative ^ | April 25, 2008 | Burt Prelutsky

[thinkingIsPresuppositional]

Viewing The 1960s From My 60s

By Burt Prelutsky

Even though I'm embarrassed to have been a Democrat for so many years, I'm proud that even in my 20's, I thought the 60's was the worst decade in America's history.

Because I was born in 1940, I was at UCLA for some of those years and had a bird's eye view of my fellow college students. It was not a pretty sight.

What makes that time the source of so much nostalgia for so many people of my age -- the incessant folk songs, the tie-dyed shirts and blouses, the granny glasses, the bongs, the infantile anti-establishment content that permeated so much popular culture -- made me yawn even then.

The young folks in those days were on the right side of the civil rights movement, but that was the extent of their good works. The anti-war campaign was a charade, having far less to do with pacifism than with lack of courage and discipline. The draft was still going strong and it was fear, not moral principles, which led young men to flee to Canada or to burn their draft cards.

[Tzimisce]

Wow - bookmarking this one.

[catman67]

AMEN!!!

[Blood of Tyrants]

The Greatest Generation gave birth to and raised the Most Selfish Generation.

[Twinkie]

“The Greatest Generation gave birth to and raised the Most Selfish Generation.”

Amen to that. I was born in 1946 and now recognize even more strongly that they were truly The Greatest Generation, and my generation was not in many ways worthy of them as parents. - I woke up and realized it sooner rather than later (a famous Clinton mouthing), but a large number of leftists are still stuck in the old hippie in the designer suit rut and have never yet faced the truth of how selfish and spoiled they really are. We were just lucky that they didn’t put us in a weighted towsack and drown us at some points along the way. I outgrew it pretty quick, but not fast enough - was too busy taking care of a family to smoke dope and *march* in those days of the hippies’ LSD dreams, but gave my GG parents too many problems they didn’t deserve along the way - thankfully, tried my best to make up for it early on.

[Two-Bits]

How many of the "most selfish generation" went to Viet Nam when their country drafted them? How many of the "most selfish generation" went to college and didn't have a rich Mommy & Daddy to foot the bills so they could protest? How many of the "most selfish generation" held a steady full time job right after high school? How many of the "most selfish generation" raised this generation's men & women that are bravely serving their country now?

As now as then, the "loud" few represents the majority.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Mow many ran away from the draft? How many chose to smoke dope and screw their brains out? How many became the liberal professors screwing up the heads of our children? How many push the murder of the unborn as a “right”? How many are now supporting AARP instead of working to solve the looming SS crisis?

[Two-Bits]

Compared to the numbers that went to View Nam? Very few. Who in the hell do you think when to Viet Nam?

[Blood of Tyrants]

What are you? A freaking liberal who gets “offended” every time someone has the balls to speak the truth? Build a bridge and get over it.

[riverdawg]

I am not a liberal, and I am not “offended” by your over-generalized condemnations of young people in the 1960’s. They are simply wrongheaded, as Two-Bits pointed out. I was a teenager in the 60’s, and where I grew up (SE Virginia) there was virtually no draft dodging, dope smoking, or war protesting. Many of my friends’ older brothers proudly served in Vietnam, and at least three of them died there. You have bought into the San Francisco-style caricature of the 1960’s perpetrated by the MSM. The vast majority of the young people back then (myself included) were not involved in, affected by, or even very aware of the well-chronicled but exaggerated excesses of that decade.

[Little Bill]

You are right on about our generation. I grew, up in a Massachusetts Old Industrial City, we all went to Viet Nam all volunteers, Army, Marines.

[Two-Bits]

Thank you for helping to destroy the myth that seems to characterize us baby boomers. As then as now, our Viet Nam vets still do not get the respect they deserve. The majority of us did not have the luxury of college scholarships or rich mommies & daddies supporting us. A lot of us that went to college, took night courses while working a full time job supporting a family. Those of us that did not go to college, worked full time. The majority of us have never seem the inside of a jail, little on a court house except when called upon for jury duty. None of us had the money nor inclination to protest, smoke dope or abort our young. We are the silent majority that helped to elect one of the greatest Presidents ever in two landslides, Ronald Reagan. The majority of us still pay our taxes, social security & obey the laws but instead we are all lump together as pot smoking, baby aborting, draft dodging spoiled brats.

Hopefully, the next generation will not think that Code Pink, Michael Moore, and those that protest the war now represent this generation and somehow those that fought bravely in Iraq & Afghanistan fall by the wayside.

We will just have to keep getting the truth out regarding the sixties.