It's the Baby Boomers Fault, But it's NOT Too Late
Hey all you old fuckers out there. It's one two three what are you waiting for? You're getting old and you don't give a damn? You gave up and in to Uncle Sam?
I see a lot of quitting out there from the older set, and that points squarely at the "boomers". This coming from a generation that had a lot to do with the FUBAR predicament we serfs and peasants find ourselves in. I've argued against such generalizations in the past, about an entire generation being to blame for what ails us, but I'm getting pissed so I've changed my mind.
Sue me. Isn't that what the boomers do?
Sure, there's plenty of other blame to go around. And deep down, in our fucking bones, passed on generation to generation, we know the rich bastards that rule the country and the world are really to blame. Not the rest of us who couldn't stop them or didn't even try. No way, man.
No, the boomers know the deal, that's why it's their fault. It's not about who got what and who didn't. It's about not standing up when they know the truth. They know Vietnam was all lies. They watched the civil rights movement and the hippie movement and they know the truth about that. They know about the greed that has caused this capitalist system and infuckingcredible wealth inequality. They know about our fucking government, we had all those protest and anti-establishment songs in the sixties, they listened to them, lauded them, still play them. We lived it, the ch, ch, ch, changes.
And yet they don't want to do a damn thing except vote in the next fucking election. They still believe that's the only thing we've got. No more Power to the People, it's all power to the oligarchy. They don't want to stir the pot, act young again. They got theirs, or didn't, and now they want to moan and groan about how their poor grandkids aren't going to be able to live the lives they did, or didn't.
They say we can't win, we ought to give up. There's nothing we can do about it, the rich have won. That's just the way it is.
I knew it. It was all fake back in the sixties. People got stoned, sang the songs, protested the war, then they went out and had kids and got jobs, cut their fucking hair and started wearing ties. They traded the weed for martinis and cell phones and became democrats and republicans. They got them some new heroes that happened to be senators and congressmen/women instead of radical heroes that sought to overturn the establishment. They became the establishment.
But not all of them of course. This is a gross generalization after all. One must extrapolate and prognosticate and pontificate when it comes to generalizations. Many boomers are the fucking enemy. Many are fucking godsends.
Shit ya it's their fault. But it's not too late. They can still pull this out, redeem themselves and fight back against the "man". Pull their gray hair out of their asses and realize they ARE the ones who have to do this. It's not the young, they don't know what the boomers know, they haven't experienced it or have links to what came before. Boomers do.
I've always thought that if we had to have a war, which we never really have to but if we did, it makes more sense to send the old fuckers out there because they've already had decades of life whereas humans send out their young to die young. Die young.
What the fuck sense is there in making the young die young? Jesus. Fucking stupid.
It's time to quit complaining, work together and find some solutions. Finish what we started fifty years ago. It's not too late, it's never over til it's over. Shit, we can do this sitting behind our computers, man. At least for now. We can't let these psychos win. We can't let them keep killing and stealing and ruling.
Rock on boomers, keep on trucking, time to save the day. Quit acting like you're all old and useless. Time to finish that power to the people thing. The next generations depend on it.
Comments
Reminds me of my
"FUCKET LIST".
You don't wanna be on my fucket list.
It means when I find out I have some incurable disease, or some terminal illness, I will use what time I have left to hunt down those on my list and take them with me.
What do I have to lose?
So far, my list is empty.
You don't wanna be the first one on my fucket list.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Nah...
I blame it on disco. Disco music caused this mess, man.
Seriously though blame can be passed around but the fact is this shitshow happened on our watch. Acknowledging that is why this site exists. The fire that woke in me in '68 when I was 14 is still lit, that's why I'm here.
Peace and Love morphed into money and materialism after the Vietnam War. Most of the freaks sold out. To a certain extent I too had to sell out. I cut my hair in 1980 and developed a clean cut facade to raise a family. But the fire from the 60s was still there, I still flew the freak flag only a different color. I hadn't really changed from the cauldron that shaped me in the 60s but as many of you that are my age will understand, concessions had to be made to get along.
Now the kids are grown and on their own. I never really made gobs of money like many of my peers did, that probably factors into why deep down I'm still a child of the 60s and all that that entails. For those that lived through that period you have to admit it sure was a trip. What a ride that was and many times through the years I wonder how the hell I survived it. I always said back then that I'd probably not make it past 30 and here I am more that double that. Heh!
My question to my generation is: What happened to us, we were going to change the world, how did it come to this? I know the answer to that but it still haunts me. I've pissed off members of my generation the last few years with my admission that much of the blame lies with us. As I said before, it did happen on our watch. I can handle that weight. That's why I'm here with you all. I can't give up. I don't have any answers as to what we can do to fix this mess, but I can't give up.
Of course this is all just my opinion and you may see things differently.
Disco, don't get me going on disco.
I ask that too, what happened to us? The sixties and seventies had so much promise and then it all evaporated. Around the time of disco.
No one seems to have an answer but then again, the answer is probably pretty simple. Hard, but simple, It's going to take a lot of organization toward a common goal. I'm not sure what can spark that nor how we can agree on that common goal.
I posed that question the other day relative to capitalism. Someone indicated we had to take down capitalism first and foremost, that was the primary goal. But I wondered if we don't need democracy first in order to change the economic system to socialism. Iow, we need the power first before we can make the changes.
I don't know, maybe it's all the same and we just have to do something.
Yes, find true Democracy first.
The question is how? Clearly the political system is co-opted and corrupt so I feel there is no voting our way to Democracy. But I think you have effect Capitalism to get to Democracy. I feel nothing short of Nationwide boycotts, work stoppages and people in the streets is going to change a thing. Capitalism and the political system are tied together. If I could I would bring together Rev. Barber, the Standing Rock Water Defenders and RoseAnn DeMoro to plan it and hit the execute button for all of us. But shit what do I know!
O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.
Disco wasn't the cause.
Disco wasn't the cause. If anything, it was an indicator only. And at that, only the worst of disco culture.
The USA was out of Vietnam and the old late-stage capitalist selfish valueless "values" had taken over. Movement socio-economic conservatism was born and started taking over the country. "We" was out; "Me" was in. Marijuana was passè; cocaine was all the rage.
And the fruits of all that was the past 40 years of hell!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
What happened on ‘our’ watch? exactly
Exactly what is it that we’re responsible for but the following next generations are so guilt free from?
Just curious.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
@Amanda Matthews Actually that's the
Actually that's the crux of it. We're all boohooing for a paradise lost. A very learned woman once said that mental illness is a family disease passed down through the generations. But that's also the mechanism to pass down any thing, through the family, and what is a nation made up of?
Paradise was a lucky accident. During the Depression while German kids were learning how not to starve, and English kids ran behind coal cars picking up fallen coal, American kids were put into schools to get them out of the labor market. They had truant officers and police to enforce this. There were teachers to teach English, hygiene, nutrition, algebra, shop, how to brush their teeth, not to spit whenever they felt like it. Tax laws were put into effect that funded government programs that helped people, not things.
Then we had a war, and all those kids were relatively healthy, and smart. Smart enough to get thrown into bombers and submarines, and women into every job left open by the war. Then we won. When it was over our PTSD'd parents slid into a slice of heaven with a pile of nukes aimed directly at their heads. It wasn't all bad, the Cold War. It kept mostly intact the programs and tax system of the 30's and 40's cruising along on autopilot. Jobs were there, and we were never bombed. Life was good for a while.
We did a few things, but mostly it was a big party. Every generation has one, even if it involves suffering. We were told "lick that plate, kids are starving in India" "But ma, if I do or don't lick the plate, the kids gonna starve". Smartass. In the end though, we were too much the same as generations before, we can't help it. Thomas Picketty says the new Gilded age is pretty much like all the others past, and through history the "normal" state of nations and economies. The more wealth you have, the more power you have. The more power, the better the ability to increase wealth. It doesn't seem to matter by what methods.
So, for the next generation, it's already too late, but I have 3 suggestions #1, don't have kids or a family, they're a distraction. They're cute and fun but when the parties over you need to focus. #2, if you're a kid, kill your parents. Prob. about the time you can make your own P,B&J sandwich. You don't want to be infected with mental diseases and out dated values and nostalgia, and they'll obviously fail at whatever they try to do. #3 is kill anybody that doesn't agree with you, for obvious reasons, and besides, they'll be trying to do it to you.
PTSD
I've been thinking that PTSD must have a lot to do with the mindset and behavior of the Boomers, and of their parents and their children. In fact, the more genealogical research I do, the more I realize that PTSD has likely affected the American psyche from the very beginning.
It may not explain everything, but it fits: sleepwalking through life, allowing themselves to be led without much questioning; letting abusive authorities continue the abuse, and even covering up for the abusers and going back for more (this is trauma bonding, the best known example being Stockholm syndrome); the overwhelming sentimentality displayed by Americans; the embrace of exceptionalism and "specialness" as something that has been bestowed on us merely by virtue of being American. And the addiction to hoarding and consuming material things.
Narcissistic grandiosity, behind which is massive denial, psychological projection, scapegoating of others, and an underlying sense of powerlessness to affect anything.
(To note, I'm referring to the American psyche in general here, not specifically Boomers.)
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
Considering the early history of Jamestown and Plimoth,
this is a highly plausible theory. The Jamestown colony almost failed several times within its first decade, and went through at least two massive die-offs. After the Starving Time of 1610, the few surviving colonists did vote to pack it in and try their luck elsewhere (one wonders where - Bermuda perhaps?), only to be met a short way down the James River by an incoming (armed) flotilla under Lord de la Warr.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
I am not learned enough to say,
but the tool kit we have we learn from our families, and they learned from theirs. They were shaped as we were shaped. That the previous generation was so drawn to Fox news is something I can't understand. For all they had gone through I would think they would be far more canny, and rejecting, instead of embracing it. I read a 20 year old book called "Confederates in the Attic" about the south and it's nostalgia for pre civil war America and it's hate for, well, anyone but them, and was horrified. I could see how the Irish Protestants and Catholics, the Bosnians and Serbs could carry hatred through 8,9,10 centuries. We inherit more than our looks and genes.
Your questions were answered...
in my comment if you would have read it more carefully.
This "shitshow" we are saddled with and write about every day.
Being the largest generation in population, having lived through the crucible of the 60s and being up close and personal with what The Man had in store for us, and now for the most part, in control of said shitshow, then, yes, IMHO that qualifies the supposition that what has happened from the 60s on was on 'our' watch.
I knew my assessment would riffle some feathers, it almost always does.
First off a couple of quotes from my comment that you must have missed: "Seriously though blame can be passed around" and "my admission that much of the blame lies with us". Nowhere did I say that all the guilt lies with the boomers and nowhere did I say that subsequent generations are guilt free.
We're all in this boat together, it's just my contention that for those of us that were politically aware that lived through the crucible of the 60s and got a taste first hand of what the PTB had in store for us, that we, the politically aware, should have held a heightened awareness of that which unfolded in subsequent decades. Many of us did, but unfortunately too many did not. Life happened for many people and the headiness of the times wore off. Greed sucked the brains out of many. Many fell into complacency after the Vietnam War ended when things looked like they were getting better. Then Reagan happened.
Not all boomers went through the 60s politically aware, some lived in blissful ignorance and some believed just the opposite of my beliefs. But we knew, the politically aware, we lived through it. The generations that followed read about it in books, were propagandized about it by the media, and heard about it through word of mouth. That is much different that living it. We knew, we were there.
As most of you know from my past writings that I'm acutely aware of the divide and conquer tactics used against us. My favorite saying is: "The struggle is not horizontal, it is vertical", that's what this site caucus99percent is all about. My comment above is an honest assessment of how I see it. If you disagree with that, that's OK, I understand.
I see the younger generations falling into the divide and conquer trap and pointing fingers at the boomers. We did too. Maybe if we boomers acknowledge our due responsibility it will assuage some of the finger pointing and we can join together as the 99percent. Until we do that we are fooked.
PS: I wrote my original comment in the wee hours of the morning and then went directly to bed after publishing. I woke up this morning to read comments further down the thread that explain my position much more eloquently than my attempt. I ask you to read them to get a further reading of my point of view. Pluto hit the nail squarely on the head as did others.
I stay silent on most issues on this board to keep my opinions from becoming site gospel. I don't want to stifle the free flow of discussion (yes that happens--see any number of other sites for proof. But I think you all know what I mean). In retrospect, maybe I should have stayed silent on this one too. But it's a discussion that we need to have.
I DID read your comment. And I still don’t understand it.
This just doesn’t ring right. It’s not like anyone sat our generation down and gave us the facts of ‘life in Amurika’. We had to figure that out for ourselves. And we practically tore this country apart opposing what we knew was wrong. Subsequent generations had the Boomers lessons to learn from. It’s not like they were living in the dark. I just get a kick out of the “it’s all the Boomers fault” when we were the ones who broke out of the “my country right or wrong” mold.
I’m still up for a good protest. The last one I went to was at the Army Corps of Engineers building to protest the ND pipeline. And we drew a respectable crowd. Mostly people our age or a little younger and many Native Americans. But they were represented by all generations but since they had the most to lose, that made sense. I took my Grandson. I made him go. My picture even made it on the six o’clock news (and it was awful). Point is, the majority of that crowd WAS older men/women except fot the Native Americans and THEY were represented by all generations.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
That's OK...
my opinion doesn't need to ring right with you. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, hell, I don't expect most people to agree with me. I respect your opinion as I hope you respect mine. That's an ideation from back in the day that sets it apart from the current zeitgeist.
I DEFINITELY respect your right to your own opinion. I also
understand that maybe (although I don’t think so) it’s my opinion that is flawed.
Wouldn’t be the first time.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
You're still walking between the raindrops here.
It took me awhile to realize that you were a sage at this community thing. It takes time to see it. You never can look at it directly, just like you cannot look directly at the sun. All you can do is look at the shadows that it casts on the earth as it transits the sky. That tells you where it is and what it's nature is.
The business about staying silent — as one must do in your position in order to achieve a certain calibre of community — reminds me of something Lao Tzu said about the internet and how the best leaders are the most subtle and unobtrusive. Chapter 17, I think. He wrote his self-help book to bring enlightenment to Emperors. In fact, he was trying to skip town, the story goes, and the guards at the city gate wouldn't let him pass until he wrote down everything he knew about leadership. It took him a while. He handed over 81 bamboo plaques and left in a cart pulled by a water buffalo. There's no record that he ever returned.
On this topic, it only makes sense that those who faithfully carry the burden of the generation speak, and that those who keep the vision for the generation be heard. Soon enough it will pass into history and be forgotten, like all ideas that were never entertained.
Thanks Pluto...
as always, I cherish your insight.
While it did happen
on our watch, it was a stealth operation that even the most woke likely would have missed. It really wasn't until G. Dubya blew the cover off the dark op that we started to catch on, and by then it was too late. Not really our fault. We were busy living life while they were busy fleecing the country. They have stolen everything. The only thing left to steal is our S.S. money. Gawd forbid the little people keep so much as a crumb, we Oligarchs deserve every dime!
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
it was a stealth operation
Absolutely. The PTB created a plan right after the New Deal was made and have been patiently working on rolling that back. They knew if they did it all at once they would have a war on their hands. So they did it little by little. Reagan started their plan to go faster and then each president did his turn at making things much more difficult for us. They saw how people were very upset with the way they did it with their crassless ways, so they installed Mr. No drama Obama. He screwed us just as bad as the previous 4 presidents did, but he had the courtesy to smile while he was doing it. And it worked. Look at all who want him back as president. After he was Bush on steroids-with-a-smile.
Now we are have Trump whose cabinet picks aren't even trying to hide the facts of what they are doing. From the regulations roll backs to the increasing number of civilian casualties in our f*cking war OF terror.
Oh yes, they were patient. And they are almost there. The tax bill was the biggest f*ck you to the citizenry and still some of the rubes are cheering it.
Go figure.
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
PsyOps is so strong
You can watch a commercial for CocoPuffs knowing how bad they are for your health and see through all the psychological manipulation of the ad and still come out wanting some CocoPuffs.
When the media became part of the oligarchy's psyops we were doomed...until now.
The internet is allowing real people to share information and letting people think for themselves for the first time.
Dylan Ratigan is running for office!! That gives me hope today.
In my district, no less.
Go Dylan!
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Dylan Ratigan
Has he published an issues page yet?
EDIT: I just checked at his webpage; still no issues page. Lots of claims about "straight talk", but no straight talk on issues yet.....
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Dylan got beat in
the straw poll held
at the "meet the candidates"
event in Gloversville by those
that attended. The Berniecrat I
have supported beat him, but I expect that to change once this gets going, Ratigan eventually the nominee.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
beaten
Issues, Dylan. They matter!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
We were infiltrated . . .
by a well funded conspiracy. One of the major factors in the splintering of the movement was the increasing violence associated with it. I don't think there is much doubt that the worst of this violence was caused by paid provocateurs who intended to destroy the movement.
It's also worth noting that Vietnam was the greatest unifying theme of the movement and, once the hippies were joined by Vietnam Vets Against the War, it did end. So it was comfortable to declare victory. And as people aged and had families many did not find the movement lifestyle conducive to raising children.
We should not forget that the movement was more than a little elitist and it never found a way, or worked very hard at, forging an alliance with labor. (It worked both ways.)
We did some good things. We have a long way to go on civil rights, but TPTB haven't been able to strip away the progress so far. We helped start the environmental movement, then stopped watching.
But please don't underestimate how closely the 1% studied our success and worked to obliterate it. They have the money and are willing to spend a lot of it. And it's a lot easier to organize and coordinate a dozen oligarchs than millions of people.
Keep fighting.
Then the next generation
might want to get on board the train, too.
It's their generation that will have to live with the consequences of inaction, not us.
I'm more than happy to do what I can, but I'm not leading this parade.
That's up to "them."
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
What part of we fucking tried did you not get?
We were punched the fuck down just like you were. And now Generation Z will fuck themselves, because apparently they're more conservative than the turncoat Boomers ever were. This post Parkland shit means nothing.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
In all your righteous and ironic truth, this took the cake ...
"Sue me. Isn't that what the boomers do?"
[video:https://youtu.be/pR8aFDosQBQ]
Talk about being played.
We live in a society purposely engineered for maximum public division (to protect TPTB from any threat of a unified public, which if ever happened, would naturally unite against TPTB). All generations have been just as helpless against the public division designed and engineered by TPTB.
Throughout history, TPTB have effectively controlled populations through scapegoating. The practice of telling people that 'the other' is the cause of all their problems, (when the real cause is the corruption of TPTB)
If the people could ever take control (which I doubt), it would require a truce on the (largely engineered) socially divisive issues, then for everyone to unite against TPTB.
I know it's a pipe-dream, but that's what it would take.
Mike Taylor
Dear Mike: please run for public office.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
" Look, Joe, I know
you're a flaming wingnut el Rushbo Repub. I'm not going to convince you of jack, your mind is already made up, and you know the Libtards and Dummycrats are pure evil. I get it."
"But can we put all that b.s. aside, abortion v. anti-abortion, blah blah, blah, and bring all those issues back AFTER we kick the Oligarchy's ass?! Can we do that? Can we join together on just this one issue, kicking the Oligarchy's ass, so we have issues to fight about five, ten years down the road?! Becuz, if we can't, Joe, we're not going to have to worry about those issues, the Oligarchs will tell us what we can and can't have. Do you at least get that?! Becuz, if you do, then please come join our non-partisan effort to kick some Oligarchy ass! Hear me?! Wolverines!"
It's maybe the only way we can clear some hurdles.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
kicking Oligarchy's ass
No, he doesn't.
The Rushbo types want the Oligarchy to win. Rushbo himself certainly does!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
"Hey 99%, How About a Truce?"
Hmmmm. Could it? Would it?
I didn't make the same trip you made, but trying
to understand what happened I have other thoughts.
I blame it on the technology that came along in the late seventies, early eighties and then nineties. It's the thing that enabled most of you to make a daily living off and with and TPTB to make constant profitable wars with. A bread and butter issue for both sides, the poorer average joe and the richer cousins of the uncle Sam, the MIC inhabitants. All those dummies, who didn't have "the smarts" to get into the technological pants, became the underclass of dumb serfs to TPTB and the middle class became the little bit smarter serfs to lose everything they once had, a living wage, some moral consciousness and hope as well.
So, it became absolutely necessary to make the technology hip, the coolest thingy on earth, to keep it for the little smart asses and go on with it. It was sold as the savior of our freedoms by the UNIX aficionados, and the thing for the young, cool, hot self-made drop-out youngsters of garage entrepreneurs, who smelled the money everywhere they turned. Boy were those smart.
And they started to lie like there was no tomorrow. But there is always a tomorrow and now we see the mess THEY have gotten us into today. In the end I blame all those who believed in the technology of the platform we use right now to save us from inequality, serfdom, oppression and surveillance. The transparency of the internet was the "cure for all that was bad", it would save us all, right? You still believe it, no? Yeah, right. Look at what it really became.
/ranting mamma
But I don't want to discourage anyone here. One has to believe into something.
https://www.euronews.com/live
@mimi
Good point! 'Tech' isn't being treated as a collection of tools for human convenience and use but the other way around; as the be-all and end-all - and as a means to control the masses in so many ways...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
I have considered all the generations
...and only the Boomers really KNEW for sure. They were the only ones who experienced the soul of the machine and saw it for what it was. They were the ones who got up close to it. They took the drugs and had the visions, they tasted the first of the sexual freedoms, and the artists and authors and musicians among them were in touch with the Big Mind. Together they faced death as their friends and peers were rounded up and conscripted and sent off to be slaughtered for absolutely nothing. For a lie. They were the first to understand the Big Lies. They saw that it really was manufactured and could destroy them. For all of this, many also went to jail. They had an instant camaraderie and connection with one another wherever they went, and they went everywhere. A new age of spirituality was in bloom. They had history in their hands as it was being made.
No other generation KNEW like that. They even knew that it is up to them to shape the future. They understood utopia, that ideal of individual and social fulfillment that all civilizations strive toward. They were on the right side of the generation gap. And then, they simply dropped the ball and walked away. Plenty of them became Republicans, just like the people who wanted to kill them the most. At some point, there was a time described as the "Me Generation" and that was them, too. People were all about themselves. When they got pregnant, they instantly moved out of the cities and into the suburbs and bought SUVs. They knew the planet was dying but they needed the SUVs. They weren't bad people. They were doing what people their age did. They were just as ordinary and unexceptional as their parents. The gap closed.
The sin that I think Al is referring to — the lingering bitterness was that they all KNEW. They had brushed up against Enlightenment. The real deal. No other generation alive had that advantage, that gift, all at once. None had that collective vision and the foresight to see the risks ahead. But only a very few became the keepers of the vision, the shaman. Those who bore the conscience of the generation were considered freaks. It was impossible to walk the talk when the rest of the generation had opted out. They had crossed the generation gap and drifted into the familiar domestic herds, following the complaisant social conventions, obeying the authorities and then becoming the authorities. Taking the ride. Fitting in. Avoiding risk.
The Enlightenment hasn't returned.
I can deeply relate
to what you've written. In many ways, I think it's spot on.
I disagree about enlightenment being dead, however. I believe it just went underground, of necessity, where it continued to develop inside those of us who were aware and who didn't completely fall asleep. The spark remained alive inside of us.
In our own individual ways, taking into account the circumstances of our lives, we continued to "walk the talk", still growing the seeds that were planted in the '60s.
Maybe back then it wasn't time yet for a full manifestation of what the '60s promised. Maybe a gestation period was necessary. Maybe a vital element hadn't yet appeared, by which I mean the Millennials and now, as we've seen this week, the post-Millennials. 40+ years have passed, and it seems like a long time, but it's really not. In the story of the universe, billions of years, 40 years is a tiny blip.
Over the past 40+ years (pretty much all of my adult life), it feels as though I've lived my life much like a covert agent operating behind enemy lines. I can pass for "normal", but I've never led what the mainstream would consider a "normal" life. I haven't followed the normal life script that the mainstream expects.
It hasn't been impossible during the past 40 years to "walk the talk", but certainly difficult. There was a price to pay. Those of us who varied from what the mainstream expected had to be prepared to be marginalized and judged. That can be a lonely path to walk, and often there are financial sacrifices.
If I had made certain choices earlier in my life, I could have been well within the upper 10% now. I wasn't willing to do the things it would require. I just couldn't do them.
Not a bad thing, though. People in the upper 10% see themselves as having a lot to lose. People who have followed the mainstream path their entire lives, even if they're not in the upper 10%, also see themselves as having a lot to lose.
When you think you have a lot to lose, that tends to shut down the willingness to change and to take risks. You can't engage in a revolution if you're holding on for dear life to what you think you can't live without.
At what point do we (individually and collectively) free ourselves to take the risk?
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
Knowing and walking away is our generation's sin.
Most didn't just avoid the risk, they bought in hook, line, and sinker. They sold out. They are Trump and Hillary supporters today. They are righteously still taking the ride and fitting in.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
@dkmich
In the most heavily propagandized country on Earth... never to forget, never to forgive, never to let such as that stand as a done deal again, now that this is better understood, I hope. Should The People take back their government and should there be a future still.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
How much did the war on drugs contribute to people
giving up fighting the Man? Wasn't it during the Nixon administration that it took off? According to Ray Balko who wrote the The Warrior Cop, it did get started then.
Nixon hated the people who were turning out and all the other mottos that generation said.
Great topic, Big Al.
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
shaman
And where will you find many of the shamans?
Here.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
is this not "Nestbeschmutzung"? -nt
https://www.euronews.com/live
Nein!
Nein! No "beschmutzung" involved!!
The shamans were kicked out of other places, but JtC welcomed them here!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
ok, I misread or have to reread /nt
https://www.euronews.com/live
What a great thought.
Back in the 60s there used to be a segment of society called the freaks or dopers. The pot smokers. While the clothing and dos of the time got copied by the polyester people, they usually stuck with their alcohol and didn't smoke pot. If they did, they didn't appreciate it or all that it offered. It any event, vice preference was a clear line in the sand. I still believe it was the trend seeking polyester bunch that sold our values and the country out. Bet you a dollar to a Cheetoh that Alex Keating never smoked dope.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Well
And then there's
Well...
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Right on Pluto.
No, we didn't know.
All that '60s stuff
died by 1977.
Disco killed the '60s like
it was never here, Woodstock a myth.
It was sickening. And, by the time the '80s rolled around, Disco finally as dead as the '60s, we were busy like previous generations raising kids, politics in the rear view mirror.
So, no, we didn't know, never saw it coming. And here's why...
From the fifty years prior to Ronaldus Magnumus Reaganus, when voters voted for a Dem they knew they were getting a New Deal Dem. Okay, so we knew Jimminy Carter was a bit wishy washy, but prior to Reagan when you pulled the lever for a Dem your job was done. Done. If the Dem won, you knew you were in good hands, could go back to sleep for another two years. And, Bubba's '92 campaign was like any Dem before him. Another FDR Dem. Hell, I practically wet my pants driving home from work when I heard on the car radio, "Bubba has won the election," my head practically thru the sun roof! The country is saved! Repubs done fucking us! So, no, we didn't know. Wasn't until G. Dubya that it started to click, these futhermuckers are Serious! They intend to fuck America! And by then, by the time we figured it out, it was too late.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Wasn't like that at all,
actually.
I remember about 6, 7 months before I got out. One of the guys had just returned from Leave, having spent 3 weeks or so 'in the (real) world.' "Everybody's dressed up." This was winter of '73. "Everybody's dressed up, got their hair cut." Now, we were all mostly draftees from working class and middle class families, a year or two of college. Many of us protesting the war just two weeks before we took the oath and got on a bus. And, here we are just a year or so later and people are dressed up.
So, just like That the '60s hippies kumbayyah generation disappeared. When I got out later that summer I was amazed by the sudden change. If it wasn't for Python's Flying Circus and the brand new SNL I don't know if those of us lost in transition would have made it.
So, I don't know what lead to the transition, or if it was just the natural order of things, but I suspect Deep State had a role in ending Hippiedom, as it was totally against what they were doing. But even so, Hippiedom Did Not dominate the '60s like it's been portrayed. It was maybe 15% of the 18-24 demographic, and mostly college kids. Most kids, and most college kids, dressed "normal" for the day and had shorter hair than your average hippie. And some "normal" college kids would berate the hippie dippy college kids. So, it wasn't like hippiedom was the dominant culture. It wasn't. Not even close. Hell, we were closer to the hippie culture in military uniform than most college kids of the day. My college buds were studying computer science, not the Grateful Dead.
So it didn't happen like that. We weren't hippies one week, then putting on suits and ties, looking for work, abandoning "the movement" the following week. It happened fast, but not that fast. But, yeah, by the time I got out of Uncle Sugars Army it was gone, nary a sight or sign of remembrance. Weird how that happens. There was no sense, after I got out, of the summer of '71 just two years earlier. None. Like it never existed. So I don't know if there ever was the pot smoke filled rooms of those contemplating spirituality. Maybe among Hippiedom. My new gf at the time was an acid queen, my old gf, kind of a hippie of sorts, having split with another dude just before I got out. But my new gf, the acid queen, was of the old guard. There weren't many like her by '74. Everyone else was more "normal." Like my computer science buds before my Army days. There just wasn't the sense of what you speak. And maybe there never was. I never got the sense that we abandoned the '60s to turn into Stepford people, becuz Hippiedom just wasn't that dominant as history might suggest. The '60s wasn't Woodstock, it was the Beatles and Stones and Herman's Hermits. Pop culture, not hippie culture. Yes, the Beach Boys turned on, tuned out and recorded Pet Sounds. But, most that bought the album did not. And just like That the hippies were gone, the '60s generation - Boomers - off to get jobs, raise kids.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Changing styles are different than changing souls.
It wasn't about hippies. Or even disco. The arts were transforming and so were politics. The war on drugs began while we were still slaughtering our young in Vietnam, and damaging the brains of the survivors..
None of that caused a generation touched by the Enlightenment to all lose their moral compasses and accept the depravity as part of life, and then go on to ignore or deny it. Any other generation I could understand it. They were placeholders for the species. They were not change agents. They were never given the gift.
You may have not known it. And that's cool. But enough were fully exposed to it. There was a clear fork in the road that had never been there before. It could have gone either way. Whatever the reason, this generation turned away from it and took the low road, knowing what they KNEW. It's history now.
Don't buy it.
The hippies may have
been into the whole George
Harrison spirituality, flowers
in your hair, hari krishna,
Age of Aquarious stuff, but Not the entire generation. Were we aware of it? Sure! It was part of the culture, impossible to ignore. "Part of" being the key words. It was talked about at parties. But damn few of us "owned it." Damn few of us. So, you can't put that on an entire generation. Just becuz we were aware of it doesn't mean we embraced it. And we certainly didn't leave it in the dust, having taken the wrong fork. If the age of Aquarious is here it's havig a helluva time shaking the age before it, apparently not ready to be kicked into the dust heap of history. Nobody - Nobody - I hung out with at the time, '68-'74, talked about the hippie spirituality stuff. Nobody. I was fortunate enough to bump into one of those in the Army. He -ahem- "lived" (like we all did) just a few doors down. Barely ever saw the dude, always stayed in his room, never socialized. I don't recall ever seeing him in uniform or at work. Weird. I somehow bumped into him in the hallway, introduced myself, and asked why we never saw him. I'm busy. This was Way before the 'Net, and we didn't have tv's in our rooms. Busy? Alternating hands? Look, we "indulge" some most nights if you're interested... We "scored" hash by busting GI's. We didn't actually bust them. Didn't believe in it. We just stole their dope. Always had a strong supply. After a few days of bumping into this guy, and asking busy doing what, he let it be known that he did astral projection. Ah! One of them hippies! Long story short, he recommended some books, and I read a few, starting with T. Lobsang Rampa. So, yes, I'm somewhat aware of what you speak. But Not the entire generation. And I don't feel any sense of remorse for "dropping the ball," "turning our back on the movement." Wasn't my movement, not my movement. I'm more about the here and now - and how I can affect the future. I'll leave the transcendental stuff to the hippies. What's weird, though - and I thought nothing of it at the time - is I don't remember ever seeing the guy in uniform, or at work (duty shift). And I don't remember him leaving. enter Twilight Zone theme.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
I understand that it didn't touch you personally.
The way these cultural moments of great gravity are revealed are not through personal stories and anecdotes. It comes from what is left behind. During the Enlightenment, evolution accelerated. One can see it in the art, the music, the social dislocation, the literature, the lyrics. There was a profound peeling off of centuries of conformity and there was a defiant questioning of everything. The generation absorbed certain members of earlier generations — poets, scientists, philosophers — who became living mentors to this generation of seekers who held themselves open to transcendental experiences and new understanding.
There was a very wide gulf between those who survived Vietnam and those who stayed home and protested. As far as I know, it was never bridged. John Kerry is an example. He tried to straddle the two worlds, but in the end, he betrayed his generation and their moral sensibilities. He was a disappointment in every sense, a waste, and he cast a shadow on the Enlightenment. He KNEW.
It's not the only time the Enlightenment touched America and a different generation. It happened once before around the time the Constitution was written. The same rushing creativity consumed that generation. There were dreams of utopias and experiments with ideas that had never really been entertained before. The tyranny of religion was rejected and the rights of men over rulers was celebrated. The right of self-determination was established — where a people could choose how they would be governed in the land where they lived. That covenant would be broken one hundred years later during the Civil War, forever tearing the nation apart as they knew it would. There was Vision and prescience, and paths taken and not taken. The time is actually referred to as the Age of Enlightenment.
Thomas Malthus pushed new boundaries in applied mathematics and demographics and "saw" the overpopulated future that would damage the environment and diminish the species, as it is now doing. He bravely put out a warning which will be denounced until the day we are all gone. Under the same influence at the same time, some of the Founders "saw" that the economy of the nation could only evolve for the betterment of all if there was a basic equality that preserved life, a platform from which each individual could go on to evolve intellectually. They proposed a Universal Basic Income for all — a perfect form of Liberty — that would cover the cost of staying alive so that all men could reach for their dreams. After that generation died off, subsequent generations lived off of their papers and proclamations and intellectual property — but they did not evolve it with the times. The Boomer generation had the promise and talent and vision for that. But they didn't have the character to undertake it, even though they KNEW the corruption and moral bankruptcy that had come to riddle the body politic.
You're right. None of the blame for that is on you. But let's be clear, there is generational blame and bitter disappointment for the abject waste of the gift. Your denial of its existence does not lessen the burden that others may carry. Those who KNEW visit it at times when they contemplate their lives. Many are haunted by it. The music, the art, the artifacts of the times affect them in unpredictable ways. Some still carry the flame, as if it was real thing in this world — as if it might awaken again. It drives a deep political sentiment in the nation. It is how I knew that Hillary could not win. She extinguished the flame with everything she did and said.
In time, all this will pass beyond the reach of history.
"We" had a moment.
It was called Woodstock.
I was 18 then, the summer
of '69, between H.S. and
local community college,
and I had a Great job ("summer help") offered by corporations back then to kids (going to college) of parents who worked there. Imagine that happening today! (yeah, right). The summer gig (washing cars and trucks, gassing them up) paid for a whole year of community college, including books. So, I was old enough to go, and had the money in my pocket to go. I was living large, the summer of '69! Buying 75¢ Budweisers for babes was No problem! But I didn't hear of Woodstock - just a 4 hour drive away - until that Sunday. I was among the unwoke apparently. Nuthin' on the rock radio station, nuthin' in the newspaper... if the word got out up here in NY-21 I missed it. What? There's a rock fest just 4 hours away and I missed it? How does That happen? But it did. I settled for the album.
Granted, the (whatever) you're talking about lasted longer than a summer weekend in '69 we know as Woodstock. It lasted about three years, from mid-'68 to mid-71 (give or take a few months either way). About three years. While that period was ending I was heading off to Basic Training, courtesy of Uncle Sugar. Even then, the summer of '71, there still was the vibe you speak of, the vibe of '69. There still was a sense of continuity, that not much had changed in two years, that the vibe, while a bit weaker, would continue. But, by the time my GI Joe buddy had returned from leave in early '73, saying "everyone's dressed up," well... that party was over. And, when I got out later that summer, I could confirm that. "The '60s are over!" Just when we thought they would last forever! The '60s would usher in that Age of Aquarius! The age of peace and love and blah blah blah.
Well, no, not all of us Boomers Knew it. I would argue most of us didn't. Did we know about the '60s vibe? Couldn't miss it, was a part of pop culture as soon as The Beatles stepped on the Ed Sullivan Show stage. Bing! A seminal moment if there ever was one. And one that continued for a good 7 years! And, if you were luck enough to be a Boomer then - I was not yet 13, but almost - we were lucky enough to experience it. Talkin' about Beatles songs in 7th grade when you're barely 13? Priceless. Truly.
So, yes, everyone was aware of "it." The '60s vibe. Couldn't get away from it if you wanted to, it was literally everywhere - on buses even. Inescapable. Consumed by it. Vietnam just a couple years later a big part of it. But being acutely aware of it doesn't translate to embracing it. Many did, more didn't.
To hang leaving the Age of Aquarius in the dustbin of history on an entire generation is just simply unfair. The Age will get here whether "we" endorse it or not. Boomers didn't drop any ball. We got older, got married, had kids. Eventually that arc catches up with you and you wonder what happened to the bong you used to have, the bell bottoms. You look in the mirror and don't recognise yourself. (happened to me when I was 38, remember it as clear as a bell, as if it happened yesterday). So, no, we dropped no ball, took no wrong fork. If anything (this transition happening when I was in Uncle Sam's Army), I would guess that Deep State snuffed it out as much as anything - couldn't have the hippies winning the Vietnam War now, could they. I know of what you speak, I know there was "something" that was different about the '60s, and it wasn't just the music or clothes. I know about the "vibe" you speak of, and that many of us expected that to continue well into the '70s and beyond, usher in the New Age of Enlightenment. Nobody more surprised than me, when I got out in the summer of '73, that it was over, everything back to "normal," the hippies long gone. But it did. And nobody is to blame. Except maybe Deep State. When I got off the bus on my way home from Fort Dix after a flight to the 'cuse (Syracuse), when I stepped off the bus and called home for a ride home, becuz I had a yuuuge duffel bag full of crap, I knew just a few weeks later that I wasn't in Kansas anymore. A shame. But it wasn't an entire generation's fault we weren't able to manifest the summer of '69 into something grander. What happened? We grew up.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
This is a fascinating read.
Thanks for reminiscing. I first saw Woodstock decades after that time. I knew what had happened there and I tried to soak up any remaining vibe, but it was changed so much. It was a yuppy paradise, a Starbucks mecca. I still can't figure how all those vehicles made it there. It must have been chaos. Transformational chaos.
All these testimonies, yours certainly stands out, belong in a book. A compendium of the times.
I appreciate you sharing this. It is very touching and clearly it is vivid in your mind, so in a way you still inhabit that place and time. You were very much a part of it. I'm let down by the "we got old" or "we grew up." It's probably true for most, but I don't think a society should be anchored in resignation. People don't have enough time to explore themselves and the world around them. They are thrown too early into the grinder. Work should be very limited for humans. They need more time to play and enjoy their discoveries and accomplishments.
We have everything we need to build a society like that. We can afford a utopia, many times over.
The World Happiness Report shows that the happiest people live in societies that allow people to enjoy their lives. Norway is #1 again this year. If Americans wanted to live like that, they could.
Americans are all born
with that Pilgrims imprint.
Hard work, nose to the grindstone. It's in our DNA, there's no shaking that.
My idea of a hard day these days, now retired, is having to do a load of laundry; gone is the 40 hour work week, spend most of those hours now behind a keyboard or mic, doing what I like to do. But everything comes with a price. Ain't nuthin' free. I would have thought I'd have put politics in the rear view mirror by now, retired to the barcalounger, clicker in hand, waiting for Wheel to come on (like a lot of retirees), but nope. Deep State changed those plans. Them, and some old geezer from Vermont.
Is there a chance for a more socialistic America? Maybe, if the Millenials don't fold. But "we" have to drive a stake thru Deep State first. I believe I was "born for this" only becuz I'm somehow still breathing air. I've had so many close calls that I've walked away from - including a head on collision the State Police officer couldn't believe I was standing on two feet. "Dude, you may feel ok, but you've Got to go to the hospital... ). "That knee is going to bother you when you get older." Doctor was right, it does. So, I suspect I was born for this, the only reason I escaped death a few times to come face to face with Deep State. But I could be totally full of crap. But there were At Least three incidents that should have resulted in a funeral and I'm still breathing. Way on borrowed time. So I'm guessing Deep State is the reason. Doubt if it will make any difference, but I'm here to join the fight. But if Millenials want their Utopia they're going to need to join the fight, too. After all, I've got laundry to fold. A strenuous day ahead.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Truth be told, I'm here for the Deep State, too.
I fancy that I am the only one who can truly detect them. They have a smell.
See you at the hunger games.
Three chords and a six-pack
Man, I usually am with you on your comments, but what the hell does this even mean? "...touched by the Enlightenment"? Are you serious? "...placeholders for the species"? C'mon, dude.
This last comment doesn't even make any sense. NO ONE thought like this. Wink is right. His numbers are way too high regarding the percentage of "hippies." There were damn few. The guys wanted a GTO and an endless supply of Budweiser. The girls wanted a family. Not just a few were like this. The overwhelming majority was like this. I don't mean 75%; I mean 98 - 99%. The vast majority of Boomers were no different than any other American generation. What has you believing they were different is primarily Hollywood-generated distortions. And you are believing it and refusing to listen to someone like Wink who is trying to explain. No, the Boomers didn't get it. A handful did; maybe 1%, if that many. Probably the same percentage got it as with the Beatniks in the prior generation.
It. Was. Not. What. You. Are. Being. Told. No one was enlightened. No one had a gift. No curtains were pulled back. There was no magic. What there was were huge numbers of young people with hucksters trying to make a buck from them - they still are.
The hippies thought there was enlightenment, but it was just the buzz from that joint or the temporary insanity from that windowpane acid. When the rent was due, that enlightenment was worth squat. The Boomers not only didn't end the war, they couldn't. The entire nation was sick of it. The Greatest Gen was sick of it; the Silents were sick of it ... and THEY were the ones with the power (and total control) well into the 1980's and even beyond.
What Wink is telling you is not just anecdotal; he was there. I was also, and what Wink relates is what I saw and lived also. This includes living around major universities, major military bases, large cities, and small rural towns. It was not what is being portrayed today.
This thinking that one generation - Boomers - were somehow magically enlightened, super-aware, able to see behind all curtains, capable of x-ray vision regarding high-tech Harvard-educated propaganda-purveyors, creators of art that somehow eclipsed the classical masters (even though it had only three chords ... or resembled a soup can) --- and then somehow, inexplicably lost it all --- no. NO. It's the straw man to end all straw men. In the quest to blame someone - anyone, evidently - it's just too convenient. An ideal has been set up with the sign "Boomer" hanging about its neck. That ideal is a lie. Any argument based on that lie cannot stand.
I shudder to think what will be said of today's Millennials forty years from now. I won't be around to say, "I told you so," so I'll say it now.
yep. exactly. Wish I had
read this before I posted my latest. Well said, traveler.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Perhaps you're right
It was just another generation. It sure looks like that today. Nothing special.
But they changed things so much for a time, so much great art and revolutionary ideas. They added entire new genres to literature. They were definitely not the silent generation, that's for sure. Their numbers alone could have dominated politically all of their lives, if they possessed a compelling vision for the future.
The overarching theme of my words simply reflect the essay:
There's so sign of the Enlightenment that lingered for awhile. I've read and heard so many people talk of those times when so much bloomed and transformed creatively. They feel the loss of its promise; the loss of the hopes it engendered even after all this time. A lot of people saw it and felt it - both in reality and academically.
Perhaps those that felt it and knew it really were the exceptions. In a way that is probably more of a curse than a blessing for them. Those who didn't were probably more fulfilled overall. They fit in, no unmet expectations, hakuna matada.
I think my main point was
that we boomers saw and experienced changes no other generation has and society in general seemed to be heading in the right way, but our generation seemed to not have learned a damn thing. Remember 68, fifty years ago. And now we're actually worse off as a country.
I remember high school in the late sixties early seventies and there was a definite liberal atmosphere developing much different from the staid fifties but it all went to waste, that was the point. In my essay I noted that many boomers were posers ( it was all fake back in the sixties) and a good example of that, I think, is with the weed. I personally know many people back in those days who went to the "keggers" and partied and smoked the weed. Then later in life the same people are voting against legalization. What the fuck happened?
Ya, everyone knows humans are humans, it doesn't matter what generation was plopped down in our time it would end up the same way. But we had that chance.
You have to remember
that Much of the '60s
revolved around Vietnam.
Music, movies, books.
It can easily be argued that Vietnam was The central theme of the '60s, and started dying down, becoming less of an issue, when the Guvmint stopped the draft in '73. Not kiwinkidinkily, those '60s kids were graduating college by then, looking for work. If there was a '60s movement it needed leaders. It needed those college grads to get into politics. Fortunately, just as the war and the '60s were dying down Nixon found himself up to his eyebrows with this new news story, Watergate. Which made for a Great transition from the '60s to the '70s. But instead of going in to politics, college kids started dreaming of working for WaPo and the NY Times. So, any chance of your '60s movement expanding beyond those tie dye '60s pretty much ended when The Trickster, R.M. Nixon, waved goodbye as he boarded that helicopter, summer '74, a year after I got out of the Army. I enjoyed it immensely, hoisted a few beers as we watched it on teevee. If the '50s died with the assassination of JFK, and I would argue it did, then the '60s died with Nixon's wave. No leaders, no movement. Same thing I said about Occupy. No leaders, no movement.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Thanks, Wink
Two insights: The Boomers didn't flock to politics right away & there were no Boomer leaders.
I think you're right about the leaders. I wish it wasn't so, this need to follow leaders. I wish it were more communal or benign. I guess the gifted leaders gravitated to businesses large and small. Politics looked pretty horrible after Vietnam and then Nixon, I suppose. People turned their backs to government for awhile. That's when the corporations and Neocons slipped in and started running the place.
I would never trust anybody who ran for President, knowing what I know now. We all know what they must do to get there. I'm surprised the American people can bring themselves to participate.
when
Timothy Leary and Charles Manson occupied adjoining jail cells in Folsom Prison, they had the following conversation:
OK, what about the early labor movements
of the 20's and 30's? Think that generation didn't meet the Man on a first name basis, face to face? Think they did not see what The Man had in store for them either? They did see it and they fought it like hell, many dying in the process. But what did THEY do once they got union wages and 40 hour work weeks? Did they keep on fighting the Man after that, or did they too go off to live their own lives, dropping said ball?
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
That's a pitfall of capitalism.
Democracies are destroyed by capitalism and vice-versa.
We've known for hundreds of years never to put those two things together.
The reason the US exists is to continuously demonstrate to the world all the things that don't work and that neglect the needs of the people.
Enjoyed the good questions and the comments on
this thread, Al, and all.
OK, you win
what next?
We keep pushing.
Resist, reject and revolt.
and refuse.
And refuse (Αρνιέμαι in Greek):
[video:https://youtu.be/R7yGQGnfm9w]
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
OK Big Al, it's 1 - 2 - 3 - what're we fighting for?
Not being a snot, but back then there were a whole lot of followers (that's me) and very few leaders. After 3 well placed assassinations, even fewer. OWS is the closest thing I can remember to that time and I thought "this is it", but it wasn't. Should I lay the blame on the kids for that, for not having a leader and movement? The ones I went to were small, and had none of the menace that NYC provoked. Mostly more cops than protesters, and the cops thought the whole thing was a joke. I'm glad they had no leaders, no confrontation, because the force massed against them in NYC would be decisive. They had more self control in the face of confrontation than we did. But we didn't think TPTB would open fire on us, until Kent State.
We did some stuff, no nukes, civil rights marches, war on poverty, peace corp and vista. The war and taking down Nixon. It seemed we accomplished what we had on the table. But we breathe money, each red corpuscle has a dollar sign, and cut the supply down far enough and we begin to die. We won, Nam's over, here's the bill. We can't afford (put something worthwhile here) anymore. And us, we're scrambling. You know the rest. We scared TPTB, like OWS did. Because of us they organized. That ordinary people, that unions, that organizations had real power.... I don't think we realized that, that we had that much power. When Nixon fell is when the real war started. When democracy, elections, just about everything we understood turned into a game of three card monte. In all the years since It took a 200 year old muppet from Vermont with a modest agenda to excite people and now half or more of the people here think he's a sell out. So where are the leader's of any generation. We're running out of 200 year old muppets.
It is not just the baby boomers. It is the entirety of America.
It shared the same womb at the birth of America. It resides within the very genes of America. Our race conflicts have been created by it. It is taught in our schools. It is reinforced by our media. Our national heroes embody it. Our political parties spar with it during every election cycle. Our economy and domestic policies are based on it. Foreign wars and policies are driven by it.
It is passed down, generation after generation, like a genetic disease. It is found in the Boomers, the Xers and the Millennials. I can now see it cropping up in the Zeds. All have been infected/afflicted with this disease.
So what is this disease that is such an integral part of America?
Howard Zinn - The Myth of American Exceptionalism 1/7
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV69KpW5_cU]
@CB
It's psychopathic thinking. Lacking the human portions of the brain, involving essential species survival values including ethics and empathy, they are perceptually limited and can essentially only see themselves as 'real', as mattering. They'll group with others of their kind therefore sharing their limited-to-themselves world-view in order to achieve mutual goals, but they lack the capacity for caring in true friendship, sharing only mutual desires, at least as long as the other parties remain at least potentially useful and not therefore yet disposable.
But the best way to suck in victims would be to make them think they can be part of a 'special group', so that they'll go along with/support planned objectives intended to benefit these relative few who really do consider that they are truly exceptional - and those with human 'weaknesses' which they can coldly manipulate, disposable patsies.
And the sick - if initially seemingly childishly ludicrous - egotistical and dictatorial claim of one country being the only fit 'leader' of all other people's countries forms the public excuse for taking (often, when military/spy-agency-based, US publicly financed) control over them, also with governments influenced/run/cheated-in or forcibly installed sometimes more directly (generally via bribery/propaganda/cheating/threats) by corporations/billionaires using wealth and political power stolen from the American people (among others) to infiltrate and control the political structures of other people's industrialized democracies;
using the grotesquely bloated and intrusive military and military bases in most of the world's other people's countries, (over 75% of them, last I read, with more planned, but apparently also many secret bases, hinted at and sometimes found, won't be included in that) which the American people are bled to supply and fill, one assumes partly (the well-planned global fascist take-over anyway requiring military bases/private mercenaries everywhere, on any excuse) in at least some cases to (at best) intimidate the people/government of poorer countries, from which such corporate interests extract profitable resources but often leave the people only with the 'maximized cost-cutting' pollution and other abuses, even if public officials of that country might profit themselves;
such corporate interests/billionaires making their own global organizations and 'law courts' to control other people's once-public-protective domestic law as well as their trade and what they're allowed to produce, forcing unwanted limitations on the public together with enforced for-profit dropping of public protections, quality standards, labelling/right-to-know - and forcing unwanted toxic exposures known to destroy human and envionmental health and life to freely and unrestrainedly use up and despoil the planet in the pursuit of exceptional profits until they have it all.
(No public servant has any 'right' to hand over to anyone or any group - never mind destructive and hostile self-interests intent on 'legitimizing' their abuses - any control of public-protective domestic law or any illegal and non-existing 'right' to abuse and kill the public accepting and paying the transient holder of that public office existing in perpetuity in order (among other things) that any such office-holder has the power to protect the public interest against such predation. They can only surrender their transiently held public office's - which is not their personally owned power to use against the public interest at any point - right of legislation together with that public office, to the next legitimate holder of that public office, in order that the public interest be continuously protected in perpetuity.)
But psychopaths/corporations have no loyalties to 'home' countries, having arranged (illegal) 'law' to make them 'above all law' - unrestrainedly psychopathic - in 'legally' only having to consider their own profits, not the cost of what they've done to the free choices, happiness, health, and lives of humans, animals, the environmental life support system and local/global economies in maximizing the money they take, (while avoiding the requisite contribution of taxes necessary to maintain public systems they use,) all on the 'virtuous' excuse of corporate exceptionality and the (illegal) ability to avoid public-protective law in doing as they please, in the pursuit of ever-increasing profits at all cost to others, until the potable water, edible food and breathable atmosphere is gone, together with all planetary life.
Enough is never enough for the pathologically greedy, although it has long been a case of 'enough is enough' for the rest of us, lacking enough for ourselves as a result of this being sucked out of us and our countries.
The unsustainable obviously cannot be sustained; born psychopaths are 'scorpions' by the nature of their brain dysfunction, riding on victim's backs until they feel like polishing them off, even if they themselves perish as a result.
'Exceptionalism' has been made into a recognizable national social disorder, from a mental one afflicting a relative few ruthlessly gaining the wealth and power to influence government and control national media turned to propaganda/social-engineering machines and using this to manipulate the American people and country they drain for their own purposes - one from which the German people recovered, by careful and watchful eradication, after the US-PTB-sponsored Nazis were finally defeated, mostly because weakened by the Russians still detested so much by the US PTB in the process of enacting that same fascist (psychopathic/corporate/military enforcement of pathology, not a human political system) global take-over and still apparently eager to effectively obliterate - 'ethnically cleanse' - the country via nukes, being outraged that the Russians dare to defend themselves and their allies.
While the Russians and the US were close allies in WW2, nuclear obliteration was being planned for the Russian people when the US industrialist's Nazi proxies failed in their bid for global take-over, due in great part to the Russians fighting off Nazi invaders and thereby losing 'only' (30 million?) lives, rather than perhaps ultimately all, this unthinkable nuclear crime against humanity being intended for later implementation, following the war, when enough nukes could be made available, as they took time to make and had to be carefully handled - thank goodness!
(Was it 466 nukes they wanted to drop on Russian cities and civilians? need more coffee... also kinda started wondering if Dresden was bombed out of resentment at the Nazi failure or perhaps to destroy evidence - identifiable US industrialist-run factories and such? - of the massive degree of support those US industrialists had given Hitler... on the other hand, The Psychopaths That Be obviously do like killing lots of civilians anyway...)
'Exceptional' indeed!
Edited to add that of course even a hundred or less of such nukes would have utterly eliminated all sun/oxygen-dependent life on the planet - over a grossly murderous psychopathic hissy-fit. That's what we're dealing with, still - and so are Progs currently outnumbered in government.
We need to keep this in mind and hang together.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Interesting observation,
I wrote a paper once that rested on the bombing of Dresden, and I never even thought of that. It was enough, to me, that the myth of the event didn’t square with the facts.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
Right BA, it's not too late!
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
FWIW here's an action we support:
I like this as a step toward gaining more people in support of ending the war machine.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Good info d.o. Thanks.
We are a relatively small
group in the 'cuse (Syracuse),
but they are fairly active.
I help out when I can, last month
participating in their local DSA
(Democratic Socialists) group. The billboards and vehicles are a great idea!
I will pass the word along, though I suspect they're on top of it.
posted on FB
Thanks!
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Young Person's Game
Protesting is a young persons game as well it should be since it is your future. The kid that was teargassed and smacked in the shoulder with a police baton at anti-war/anti-capitalist protests in the 60s and 70s now has bad knees and a bald pate. I'll support you all I can but it'll be from the back seat and not at the ramparts. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.