Posted on 04/20/2008 9:37:10 PM PDT by jazusamo
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.
The baby-boomers born in the years after World War II were members of the most coddled generation America had ever seen. From birth, they had been treated like royalty, privileged and spoiled not for any special qualities or accomplishments, but simply because they existed and were their parents’ little darlings.
Nobody should have been too surprised that as they came of age, they were a religion onto themselves. Their not so holy trinity consisted of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. I never really got a handle on how that made them so special. But gods do not have to explain themselves.
Their favorite line, the one about not trusting anybody over the age of 30, wasn’t just an inane catchphrase. It became the order of the day, not just for those under 30, but those well past it. It wasn’t just wars they got to judge, either, but movies, music, TV shows, books and politicians. It fell on children to bestow the equivalent of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
The fact that they weren’t particularly knowledgeable or even open-minded, except, of course, when it came to sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, only added to their mystique. Unlike adults, the thinking went, they hadn’t sold out. What made their bullshit so totally odious was the fact that their elders, for the most part, bought into it. In addition, because they were so lacking in humor, their solemnity was taken for sincerity.
Even back then, I found it disturbing that for the first time in human history, youngsters didn’t want to be adults. Worse yet, neither did adults. As a result, one could almost have sympathized with the contempt the kids felt for grown-ups if it hadn’t inevitably led to contempt for America. It also led to a soft spot in their hearts for any and all of our nation’s enemies, which, at the time, included such arch villains as the Viet Cong, Mao, Che Guevara, Chou En-lai and Fidel Castro.
The prevailing lies were so self-evident that I couldn’t imagine how it was that so many people could be so self-deluded. For instance, there was a great deal of self-serving blather about individualism. But most of those doing the blathering wore identical clothes, listened to the same music, went to all the same movies and mouthed the very same clichés. There was more individualism to be found in a flock of sheep.
Perhaps the biggest lie fomented back then was something called the Free Speech Movement. It was like something taken straight out of George Orwell’s “1984.” The title, alone, would have made Big Brother smirk. The movement, which stretched across America’s college campuses from UC Berkeley to Columbia, consisted of student radicals commandeering offices and classrooms, doing their level best to silence professors and administrators who didn’t buy into their fascistic dogma. Funny how little some things have changed over the years.
Today, the children and the grandchildren of those flower children are also in favor of free speech, but only so long as those speaking share their politics and their prejudices.
Because those radical idiots lacked both reading skills and any semblance of self-awareness, they didn’t realize that they were very much like the totalitarians that Orwell had in mind. When in “Animal Farm,” Orwell’s villainous pig dictator, Napoleon, standing in for Stalin, altered the original battle cry of the barnyard revolution from “all animals are equal,” to “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,” he had the Soviet oligarchy in mind, but, unfortunately, it very neatly summed up the thoughts and actions of America’s own youthful swine of the sixties.
Born in 1959 in a rural small community I missed the 1960’s and 70’s crap. I am glad I did.
I was always amazed by the lack of note of the obvious contradiction between wanting free sex, drugs, rock n roll, etc and admiring Castro, the Viet Cong, Mao etc. What would happen to a person who tried to live that lifestyle in Cuba, China, North Viet Nam etc? They would be in prison for sure. This was not a coherent philosophy, it was a fancy way of saying me first and adolescent silliness rolled into one.
Absolutely true..
Ouch! I love it. Fortunately a great number of boomers, especially those who went to Nam, never bought into the crap, or eventually grew out of it.
The one’s I hate the worst are those who were hippies in the 60’s and 70’s, went all Gorden Gekko in the 80’s so they could make their fortune and retire comfortably, then ran straight left to the Clinton’s in the 90’s and now are the elite trying to put their boot on the neck of us so called ‘intolerant redneck right wing racist conservatives’ today.
I’m a few years older than Bert and agree with him but those Punks have been in teaching positions in our colleges and universities for many years now. Something different I saw in the prewar vs postwar years was the rise of welfare of all types. There was little suffering of the general population...
Many of the young people were absolutely nuts during the 60’s but the shocker was so many of the elders putting up with it.
Ping...not that I really want to go down this memory lane.
I can relate, I’m not that far behind the writer in age. Two things come to mind - there was a sci-fi movie set in the future, made in the 70’s I think, with Michael York, where the world was made up of beautiful, young people living an ideal, indolent, laconic life. But...they all had this circle in the palms of their hands that activated and began flashing when they turned 30, at which time they must die (be executed an a “humane” and civil way). All very symbolic, for the times. Anyone remember the name of this flick?
The second thing that comes to mind is the old saying - When you’re 20, if you’re not a liberal, you have no heart.
When you’re 40, if you’re not a conservative, you have no brain.
(Just sayin’) :-))
I can sum it all up in three words...spoiled rotten brats.
Yes and fortunately the worst of that bunch are retiring and should be gone before long. The ones they taught are probably not quite as messed up, hopefully.
Logan’s Run
how right-on you are! Always amazing to me that those who most take advantage of our freedoms (especially speech) are also those most unwilling to fight for their defense and preservation.
That saying is true and there’s an awful lot of conservatives that are former libs.
Born in ‘42. Grew up in 50’s, 8 to 18. Best time of my life. But are you ever right about the BS 60’s college crowd. Four years of that crap, it’s a wonder I didn’t kill somebody.
I had fun in the 60’s, I think.
I was born in ‘55. In Junior High when I was 12 several of the freshmen came back from a summer in CA. They were completely indoctrinated and spread tons, and I do mean tons, of “free love”, drugs and rock and roll throughout the school. Lots of kids took lots of heavy drugs. Lots of kids were sleeping with lots of other kids. They were dirty and drugged out. We had the highest pregnancy per capita rate in the whole country. My best friend went to CA for a two week vacation during the school year. We were extremely close. When she came back she did not even let on that she ever knew me. She was very changed. Boy, did that hurt. I did dabble in the whole thing but it didn’t take me long to out grow it. I have hated the 60’s thing for years, just abhor it.
Not everybody fit the hippie flower-child or peace activist mold back then. I lived thru it without getting drawn into it. I even got drafted and didn’t come out like John Kerry.
Well. That indulged upbringing seems spartan by today's standards on child rearing.
I'm a mid boomer raising young kids alongside GenX and Echo boomer parents and they are incredibly weak parents as rule. Simply unbelievable. Never spank. Talk Junior into it. Kids raised on silly feminized PC cartoons. Scared of guns. Daddy's a meterosexual who has tats to try to look tough. Mommy is the boss...hands down.
Kids are allowed to run the parents and stay home forever till they mature maybe 5-10 years after 5-7 years of college. I'm 50.......I can't open my mouth at school stuff.....again the sole province of ninny women. We'll probably be 50% homo boys in another generation amongst the non-hoodie class
I am sick of overly earnest, chin stuck out women who have to get validated about everything. My wife's 42....much younger than her and that's what you get if they've been to school much.
No wonder so many white guys want Asian and Latin women today.
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