Pajamas Media

56 Comments

1. huxley:

My what a cranky, close-minded, scattershot attack piece! Prelutsky sounds about as authoritarian and nasty as those “radical idiots” he denigrates.

Apr 13, 2008 - 2:38 am 2. Night Owl:

As a teen in the 70s, I could never get my head around the concept of conforming to non-conformity. The self-indulgent behavior of those around me seemed immature and ultimately self destructive. I saw a lot of young people from the neighborhood wrecking their lives with sex and drugs and alcohol; some of whom ended up on or welfare or Disability Insurance, or in jail; a few who died prematurely.

The negative repercussions of the irresponsible embrace of immaturity reverberate to this day in many poor communities. Would some of the people I knew have destroyed their lives anyway had the 60s never happened? Undoubtedly so. But the unfortunate legacy of the 60s was to make self destruction look cool, acceptable and desirable; and thus an easier choice for them to make.

Apr 13, 2008 - 3:28 am 3. Steve:

huxley

Very baby boomerish. Dismiss anyone who disagrees with you.

Being a member of the so called Generation X the one that came after I can say we don’t have much love for the Boomers. They refuse to give up one minute of the spotlight to anyone else. What’s worse is they aren’t going to age gracefully. They’re going to demand they be taken care of and provided for because..you know they were in the 60’s..the most important decade ever (just ask them). Of course it’s going to be my generation that will bear the first brunt of supporting them. Things might be getting ugly a few years down the road.

Apr 13, 2008 - 3:47 am 4. rascalfair:

Huxley…y’re dead wrong. I’m older than Prelutsky, and I remember those days too. They’re just as he said…most especially this “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.”

We lost a child to the 60s. She survived, but hasn’t lived since. The overwhelming remembrance I have of the times, is that as I fought back and tried to save my daughter we, my wife and I, were alone. The psychiatrists, the academics, the media, Timothy Leary and Lester Grinspoon..from Haaavaad, y’know…the world was upside down and my child was immolated on the wreckage. I’m not in a forgiving mood, all these years later. I thought at the time, “these kids are not going to be able to run the world…we’ll just have to stay and work longer, till the generation behind them shows up.” I had no imagination that they would instead take control of the world, and wreck it, as they have with control of the academy, the media, the law and government, the schools.

And the worst is yet to come, in the generational warfare implied in Steve’s comment, in the perfect storm of unfunded promises they’ve made to themselves, and when the results of 40 indolent, lost years arrive to finally straighten things around. It’s sad, America. I’m an old man now, but the world they’ve left to their children and my grandchildren won’t be a pretty sight.

Apr 13, 2008 - 4:34 am 5. Herr Morgenholz:

Heck, Steve, we support them now. We pay taxes, and those taxes go to state universities to pay their salaries.

But at least they left a cultural legacy that makes us want to lock our kids in their rooms so they can’t leave the house. And of course they won’t age gracefully; they’re 60 years old and don’t trust anyone over 30. Oh, and thanks Boomers for the pharmaceutical narcissism that makes it impossible for me to watch an NFL game with my young kids without hearing about your four-hour erection. You see, my generation can Make Love and Make War simultaneously. We figured that one out on our own.

Apr 13, 2008 - 4:58 am 6. RE:

There were many quite sane people in this generation, nonetheless I have to agree with Mr Prelutsky’s analysis. The 1960’s counterculture was a cesspool of mindless moral inversion, self-absorption , and reckless abandon.

I’m regretful that I didn’t do more to stand up against that highly destructive counterculture. Its survivors are still doing damage today.

Apr 13, 2008 - 5:10 am 7. JamesT:

The baby boom generation has always been narcissistic. They believe their generation is THE most important that has ever lived and cannot fathom the world going on without them.
So therefore, it won’t. They call it global warming.

Apr 13, 2008 - 5:11 am 8. Alifa:

I think part of the reason the boomer generation came out as it did has to do with the generation that went through WWII — if you read what people were writing during the war, it was a lot of longing for life to return to “normal” and a fantasy of home and family as soon as the war would be over. What they failed to take into account was just how radically society had changed because of the war effort. For example, women had become more independent as they took on jobs formerly done by men, but after their men returned, gave up their jobs to go back to the home and raise a family. Then in the 1960s they began to feel frustrated and cramped by the household life. And both men and women often felt that “what they were fighting for” in the war was to give their children a completely different life — untainted by the hardships the parents and grandparents remembered from the Great Depression, and hopefully in a world without war. Thus, a quite normal parent’s dream became a nightmare when the boomer generation they fostered “rebelled.”
Still, I wonder just what the percentage of those aging hippie protesters in pink actually is from among the whole boomer generation. I never did quite fit in as a hippie myself, though Lord knows I tried… I know there are many like me who also grew up eventually and had a long re-think about the issues and what we did back then.

Apr 13, 2008 - 6:02 am 9. jimw:

Prelutski nails it. John McCain vs Hillary Rodham. The “entitled one” faces a driven warrior. If you care who wins this time, at least you have the internet and you can speak for yourselves unfiltered by the mind-controllers running the mass communication media. Please do not stay home and let the “Children” of the 60’s install another pretend adult.

Apr 13, 2008 - 6:15 am 10. Kurt:

“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…” Curiously Mr Prelutsky doesn’t tell us about HIS courageous deeds in Vietnam – was he serving with McCain or Kerry or…W Bush?…

Apr 13, 2008 - 6:25 am 11. Uncle Ralph:

Enjoyed the essay. Two points with which I totally agree, but have not often seen cited, are:

“because they were so lacking in humor, their solemnity was taken for sincerity.”

“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.”

Further, I have recently discovered the Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937). I have a hunch his work plays a part in this, and in some other things (like the Jeremiah Wright phenomenon).

Apr 13, 2008 - 6:37 am 12. mark shaw:

futher investigation of Timothy Leary, the Beatles, Jimmy Morrison and the Doors, Hugh Heffner, etc. etc. see [ "Hells Bells" the dangers of rock music]. In order to find these people you need 2 things a flashlight and/or cheese.
I guess that will have to be my generation that will have to look after these narissists. But look at the bright side ( that’s the only side left) they might all overdose before the time comes, check out “dead rock stars” sorry i don’t have the website,,, last count was well over 300 and that doesn’t include natural causes or old age.

Apr 13, 2008 - 6:40 am 13. Monte E:

I am a Vietnam Vet who spent the entire decade of the 60’s in the Marine Corps. I was totally appalled at the things I saw in the United States.(I spent eight of those ten years overseas.) It certainly made me think that I was fighting for a country that lacked moral standards, loyalty to the country that gave them the right to protest, and patriotism to support the things that made the U.S. a strong country to stand for freedom. Those same things are currently lacking in our country today, which I believe is a direct result of the culture of that period. I am not a warmonger, and have seen the ravages of war and destruction, but for the U. S. to not fight for freedoms around the world is like handing our freedoms to tyrants on a silver platter and saying let me be your slave.

Apr 13, 2008 - 6:56 am 14. J R Green:

Right on, baby! I returned from a tour in Viet Nam and began attending college. I was ostrasized by fellow students and faculty alike. The faculty were liars. The students, impressed by the ivory towers and the distinguished instructors, were mostly just stupid… Long live Obama and the pet rock.

Apr 13, 2008 - 7:15 am 15. Tregonsee:

As someone born in 1948, I had much the same reaction at the time. My contemporaries were boringly self-absorbed, humorless, intolerant, and giving to extensive rationalizations. In other words what you see from the Left in Washington today. Probably the only thing they got right was Civil Rights, and we are paying for the rest even now. Much like many of the old segregationists, about all you can do is wait for them to die off, and hope they don’t do much harm along the way.

Treg

Apr 13, 2008 - 7:17 am 16. Increase Mather:

I was there too. You have it mostly right, it was fashion. Silly, childish, self-indulgent, fashion.

The anti-war demonstrations were for most of us a way of not attending class that allowed us to feel vindicated about skipping. What most of the young men were concerned about was being drafted. No one wanted to go, myself included.

It was an easy step to go from fear of the army, and adulthood, to opposition to the war.

May the souls of the millions who died after the American pullout please forgive us.

Apr 13, 2008 - 7:24 am 17. Paul:

I watched that movement from another perspective. Attending a prep school that shared its campus with a university. We couldn’t help but notice how the University’s students suddenly became activists the week before finals. We also noticed how these “non-conformists” looked so similar and moved in herds. We resolved to put our heads down and work when we went to college, hoping for something better.

Apr 13, 2008 - 7:27 am 18. len, the anti-fascists:

Those anti-war, anti-Americans who fled to Canada in the 60’s and are still there -are now approaching their sixties when, suddenly they will be collecting their Social Security checks.
I wonder how many of those AWHA (Americans who Hate America)will refuse to accept those checks from their hated government ?

Apr 13, 2008 - 7:37 am 19. huxley:

Very baby boomerish. Dismiss anyone who disagrees with you.

Steve — That was rather my point about Prelutsky’s piece: close-minded, disagreeable, as well as just a nasty laundry list of accusations and attitude.

It’s usually forgotten in these discussions that most young people of that time were not rebelling, dropping out, doing drugs, attending demonstrations etc.

I hardly think that the sixties generation was above criticism, but Prelutsky and other commenters in this thread are basically venting. A classic sixties tactic and mistake was to confuse emotional conviction with truth.

Apr 13, 2008 - 7:48 am 20. czekmark:

The big question is what is the cause of todays leftist movements. Certainly the 60s revolution was a contributor but I think it is too simplistic to give it the entire blame. For instance what caused the environment movement which in many ways today paralyzes technology advancements and industrial growth, and is probably the root for the crazed global warming fiasco. Certainly industries blatant disregard for the health of its employees and surronding communites had to be a factor and perhaps the basis. The rest may have been due to ‘do gooderism’, a key characteristic of our society, that often runs amok as can be witnessed by the zero drug policies of our primary schools and other over-regulated measures.

Apr 13, 2008 - 8:28 am 21. Charles Perry:

I’d just like to point out that the slogan “don’t trust anybody over 30″ was originally “don’t trust anybody over 35,” and it didn’t mean what everyone now thinks. It was coined in the very early Sixties when the nascent New Left was trying to find its own way, free of the orthodoxies of the past, and it was a warning against getting involved with the older radicals who liked to hang around college radical circles in the hope of dragging our generation into sectarian quarrels dating from the 1930s and 1940s.
Of course, the “new way” we eventually settled on was the ruthless, opportunistic fanaticism of the Old Left, but without the discipline of a party line. The New Left turned out to be preening, self-indulgent, virtually nihilistic pretend Communists. Now “don’t trust anybody over 30″ suavely took on the meaning it has today.

Apr 13, 2008 - 8:54 am 22. huxley:

For a coherent and constructive critique (as opposed to Prelutsky’s barstool rant) of the sixties generation, there is none better than David Horowitz’s work at Front Page magazine and in his book The Destructive Generation.

Apr 13, 2008 - 9:28 am 23. Jewel:

The nonconformists are always the most conformist in their nonconformity. Jackbooted thugs, the lot of them. Always a limited vocabulary of slogans instead of thoughtful opinions. And always the same slogans. Nothing nonconformist about them at all.

Apr 13, 2008 - 10:00 am 24. Sara:

I was in college between ‘63 and ‘67 and they were some of the worst years of my life. I hated what I saw around me. I felt nothing in common with my peers who, in my view, were traitors to their country. I did not want to engage in indiscriminate sexual behavior and after dealing with parents who constantly overindulged in alcohol to the point of stupid, the last thing I wanted to do was drink or do drugs. I did not feel like a woman held down by society. It never occurred to me that I would fail or not be judged on my ability and accomplishments and I could not identify with angry. And I was appalled at the attitude toward those brave men (and the few women) who served honorably and did their duty our country called on them to do. I felt betrayed, not only by many my age, but by the adults who had taught me one way and who seemed so willing to throw everything they believed in away rather than face a bunch of dirty loud kids who didn’t know their butts from a hole in the ground. And mostly, I couldn’t deal with the intolerance so prevalent in the flower-child set the same way I find it hard to deal with the intolerance so prevalent on the left today. Prelutsky nailed it and so does MonteE.

Apr 13, 2008 - 11:05 am 25. LT Nixon:

Excellent post, sir. But at least your generation actually stood for something. Mine stands for absolutely nothing except self-absorbed nonsenical matters. We can’t even get past our text-messaging, Facebook pre-occupation to realize that their are two wars of colossal proportions going on. Not just joining the military per se, but simply being aware seems to be a cultural problem. I ramble on and on about this here, but I’m afraid it is going to have little effect.

Apr 13, 2008 - 11:50 am 26. ~Paules:

A sizeable percentage of boomers are fully reformed ex-hippies. We cut our hair, gave up the drugs, accepted jobs, and began to pay taxes. Eventually hard work and sobriety paid off; we joined America’s middle class. When I look back on a decade of debauchery, I’m embarrassed for my generation. And yet a significant number of us today have become upstanding members of the community. A few like myself have even joined the ranks of conservatism. The rest, the unreformed, drug-addled narcissists are a pathetic remnant of the past. Such people are destined to be the kind of cranky old codgers that are best ignored. They will die in a stupor no doubt, but who will even notice?

Apr 13, 2008 - 12:11 pm 27. Saltherring:

Boomers who came of age in the 60’s evolved into two distinctly different groups; the hardworking, dependable, patriotic and politically conservative America that bought homes, paid taxes, raised/educated their children, cared for elderly parents and lived quiet, peaceful and productive lives. This group of boomers comprises the majority. The minority element, mentioned by many commenters above, were those who, in the 60’s, protested the war, the establishment and the American way of life. They exist with us today as a self-engrossed counterculture of unprincipled leeches. They protested then (and now) because it was (and is) easier to criticize and condemn than to work for a living. And due to their unproductive lives and predatory socialist attitudes, they now present themselves as an aging, unfunded liability to our society.

Apr 13, 2008 - 12:34 pm 28. K:

I went through that period, and I agree completely with Prelutsky. The only book which really “tells it like it was” is David Horowitz’s “Destructive Generation”. More books like that are needed. In fact, what’s really needed is a movie about the campus radicals and rebelions of those days. Of course that won’t be possible until said anti-capitalist radicals leave the halls of corporate and political power.

Apr 13, 2008 - 2:00 pm 29. LCSusan:

As a part of Generation Jones (apparently made up just for those who felt left out of the Boomers, what a load), I must admit that for many years I felt a nostalgia for something of which I wasn’t even a genuine part. While I’ve always been proud of the fact that I held onto my Dem roots even in the face of wrinkles and belly fat, I know find that the whole thing – Dems, Repubs, Libertarians – holds no allure for me. So, where do we go – those of us who have let go, for the most part, of the old moorings and have yet to find a new heading?

http://strictlyanecdotal.com

Apr 13, 2008 - 3:27 pm 30. Albert:

BRING BACK THE DRAFT !!!!!!!!

Apr 13, 2008 - 3:47 pm 31. joe y:

I agree with the bert p, but before we’re too horrible to everyone, let’s remember that the 60’s generation was in a situation that was unprecedented–cataclysmically so–in American history. The wealth, the opportunity, given to a group that was completely unprepared for it.

They really were poorly educated. I am only a few years behind them, and I remember reading JS Kunen’s(sp?) book about the Columbia U student riots, The Strawberry Statement, and while enjoying it immensely, as it sounded like terrific fun, being appalled at the author’s lack of education, his narrow-mindedness, and his blank incuriosity. He sounded like a fun guy to know and be friends with, but his total intellectual arsenal consisted of about 10 bumper sticker slogans. I was about 14 – 15 when I read it, and not particularly precocious, but I sure as hell knew that the NYPD had nothing to do with the Gestapo, that communists had wreaked nothing but homicide, hopelessness, and poverty, and that South Vietnam, whatever its shortcomings, would be a happier place to live than the North.

I must say, though, LT Nixon, that your generation is terrific, with unimaginably wonderful opportunities that most of you seem to be taking full advantage of. And, most relevant to this post, the opportunities and the generation taking advantage of them were for the most part a product of the baby boomers. The boomers themselves may have often been ignorant, wayward, and not have accomplished much, but somehow they worked hard and produced children who are going to be far more than they were–which makes this a very American story after all.

Apr 13, 2008 - 3:49 pm 32. Chris:

Bravo, Burt. And the same goes for most of the comments here, too. James’ comment is gold;

” The baby boom generation has always been narcissistic. They believe their generation is THE most important that has ever lived and cannot fathom the world going on without them.
So therefore, it won’t. They call it global warming.”

That encapsulates so well the psychosis on the left. I must say that I hadn’t given nearly as much thought, until just now, of the Boomer enablers. Would make for an interesting study in itself.

Apr 13, 2008 - 4:58 pm 33. Sue:

You have read my heart, my mind and my thoughts! Thank god some one else gets it. Sex, drugs and rock and roll should be read sex, lies and drugs. My regrets are many but the worst is wishing I could go back and NOT support the women’s rights issue…it was, as all of it was, bogus. They hated us unwashed multitudes and our belief systems even when we worked and kept things running. Today no one want to fly, drive or even walk in some areas of America. Lying is a pastime openly for politicians. Hatred is the reason, hatred is the focus, hatred is the means by wish the hateful mean harm to the hated!!

Apr 13, 2008 - 5:10 pm 34. Bill Perron:

I was born in 1940 became a hippie after I got out of the navy (Honorably) and after a few years of bumming around realized that I woldn’t get laid by any classy chicks, I decided to shave, get a job, and go to night school. It is just expierencing life at different levels that make it all worth while and interesting. We learn by our expierences, both positive and negative. I look back now and see how much I have grown, just really glad I was horney enough to make the necessary changes to advance my maturity.Prelutsky has a point of view that I agree with for the most part, if we didn’t have the draft there would have been a lot less resistance to Viet Nam. We lost that war in the streets of America not the rice paddies of Nam. And all you whiners get off your fat butts and stop your complaining, the opportunities are made by yourselves not by any government program. This is truly the land of opportunity, stop pointing fingers and just do your own thing creatively and honestly, you can earn money in this great land doing just about anything, I know a guy who made a fortune as a clown. ……Bill Perron

Apr 13, 2008 - 6:28 pm 35. John D:

I graduated HS in June of 1967 and by July was in Berkeley. I was expecting things to be really cool and to meet people that really thought about things.

What I actually found were a bunch of self-absorbed narcissists that all followed the same path, thought the same thoughts and believed the same things. There was no questioning, unless it meant getting some dope, some pussy or some money.

In October 1967 I went to a big antiwar demonstration at the Induction Center in Oakland.

The next day I went down and enlisted in the U.S. Army.

Bad choice? Yes and no. I closed some doors and opened others. I retired from the Army in 1989. They got what they wanted from me and I got what I wanted from them. There’s a lot of talk these days about “diversity” but I experienced more “diversity” in any given day in the Army than I would have on any college campus in the U.S. I also got to live in exotic land and meet the people. But contrary to the T-shirt, I didn’t kill them. I made a lot of friends, learned several languages, found that people are not all the same and married one of them. That was 36 years ago and we’re still married.

Some bad times, some good times. That’s about the best you can hope for.

Apr 13, 2008 - 8:05 pm 36. Tom W.:

The perfect encapsulation of the sixties is the documentary “Commune,” about the Black Bear Ranch in northern California.

The original hippies in it are almost all obese and hideously boring, except for a few skinny, smiling bizarros who look like beef jerky and are hideously boring.

Some of the kids raised on the ranch still live there. They like to be naked as much as possible, and most are wide-eyed low-talkers who prattle on in innocent wonder at the love and peace they experience daily.

How can young, beautiful, naked women be so boring? By opening their mouths and sharing their innermost thoughts on themselves and themselves and themselves.

Lots of still photos of huge, hairy, massively breasted hippie mothers giving birth to kids who as adults say that their parents were so intent on raising children the right way that they had no time for their children.

As a country, we won’t really be free until the last boomer is gone.

Apr 13, 2008 - 8:09 pm 37. James:

huxley:

“[C]ranky, close-minded, scattershot attack piece”? Why, how unbelievably witty and intelligent sounding! Your post kind of reminds me of how so many radicals of the 60-70’s generation often sound like they’ve said something intelligent when they’ve said nothing at all! One thing I will say, Prelutsky mentions that the misfit movement of the 60’s was the offspring of the greatest generation. In that respect, the great men and women of the 40’s failed our nation – they raised a bunch of self-rightous, self-indulgent Missies. Other than the civil rights movement, the babies of the 60’s did nothing to advance this country in the right direction.

Apr 13, 2008 - 8:13 pm 38. KotOti:

I remember the 60’s as a bad period, in which scruffy, dirty looking youth ruled the universities like little Chine revolutionary terrorists, stopping lectures, intimidating teachers, killing academic achievements and the rise of crime and drug use. Women became disposable commodity, and property (in colleges) became free for all. I remember that during the same week, while the trouble makers shut down the school, jane Fonda arrived and did her number, while prowlers from Harlem were walking into the administration offices and picking the IBM Selectrons and riding the Lexington Subway line (6) back to Harlem to sell them. I recall my professor being vandalized, beat, robbed in the toilet, and how extremists made sure no one could continue to study. In retrospect, these were the hallmark days of youthful Facism with a smiling face in America. Education went down the toilet-this was the same period when they instituted open admission which sank completely and level of standards to the bottom and the period of the Certified Moron with a diploma began. We live not only to regret it, but we have to pay for it daily. Only the hard-hats-down on Wall Street, stood up and whacked good the long haired anarchists, in their dirty clothes and bad manners. They are the unsung heroes of that era. I am sure, we are likely to revisit it soon.

Apr 13, 2008 - 8:17 pm 39. snichael:

As a (reluctant) Baby Boomer, I’ve always found it hilarious that many of my generation cling to the erroneous belief that THEY “ended the Vietnam War” by protesting, marching, sitting-in, etc. Let’s put the height of Anti-War Movement activity in ‘67? ‘68? Or, being generous, ‘69? Yet the American involvement in Vietnam didn’t end until 1973! You’d need an army of spin doctors to weave that into a ‘causal relationship’ over a span of 4+ years and 2 election cycles!

Apr 14, 2008 - 12:00 am 40. Ed:

I was in the middle of the whole ’60s vibe during my high school and college days on the Left Coast. I visited Berkeley, Haight, and all the other centers of the New Age in America. All I saw were scummy people and scummier looking neighborhoods riddled with drugs and venereal diseases. I then joined the US Navy, served as a hospital corpsman, finished college, got married and raised two children. Meanwhile, I saw friends and relatives who followed the New Age narcissistic mantra fall into drugs, alcohol, multiple failed marriages and early deaths. In the 1990s I thought that perhaps the first boomer elected as president would prove the worthiness of my generation. Instead, it proved what I saw 30 years earlier—scummy people leading scummy lives with absolutely nothing to show for it except a heap of social and financial carnage and destruction. As I near retirement and look to the next four to eight years, I sense that we are in for another absurd and violent ride that we saw in the ’60s. I pray otherwise, for the sake of my children and grandchildren.

Apr 14, 2008 - 4:11 am 41. Hotpatch 6:

I am too old to be a Baby Boomer, but I view the 60s as the beginning of the extended adolescence that we see in today’s youth. No job, no responsibility, not much of anything as long as you extended your schooling. I remember well the young male “war protesters” who admittedly stayed in college to avoid the draft (and also to delight in the drugs, sex and rock and roll that went with it.) That was the only real committment of the so-called Flower Children. Nothing but hypocrites then and now.

Apr 14, 2008 - 8:37 am 42. JP:

What an insightful, accurate, assessment of an inane generation.

Apr 14, 2008 - 10:28 am 43. asdfs:

Too bad it wasnt even the Dems who were fighting FOR civil rights, just ask Robert Byrd. It took GOP to pass the bills just like it took the GOP to end slavery… too bad they never get credit for either one.

Apr 14, 2008 - 10:29 am 44. huxley:

“[C]ranky, close-minded, scattershot attack piece”? Why, how unbelievably witty and intelligent sounding! Your post kind of reminds me of how so many radicals of the 60-70’s generation often sound like they’ve said something intelligent when they’ve said nothing at all!

James — Well, it a is “cranky, close-minded, scattershot attack piece,” is it not? Though now I’m thinking that “barstool rant” better sums it up. I notice that you make no effort to argue otherwise–you just add your own cranky, close-minded, scattershot invective.

I’m not crazy about the sixties in many ways myself. But being old-fashioned, I prefer reasoned argument, good writing and, if possible, wit, when making a point or two.

Cheers.

Apr 14, 2008 - 11:35 am 45. jreid:

I returned to college from a tour in Viet Nam in 1970. In one of my upper division history classes the professor threw out the fact that we had dropped more bombs in South East Asia than in all of WWII. Innocent me said ” I don’t see the significance of that.” He recoiled saying he thought it was horrible. I responded that it proved to me that the US was taking great pains to not drop bombs on people or infrastructure, otherwise there wouldn’t be anybody or anything left. Score one for someone that had actually been there.

By the way I disagree that the boomers, I’m one, were in the right on Civil Rights. The Civil Rights act was passed in 1964 long before the unwashed took to the streets. They are usurping the hard work that was done in the late 40’s, 50’s and early 60’s and claiming credit where none is due. What they did do was act as useful idiots in the Black Power movement, a totally different animal.

Apr 14, 2008 - 11:54 am 46. JCW:

What I can’t figure is how the boomer generation (I graduated HS in 1972) has forgotten what we claimed as our political clarion call:
We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

Apr 14, 2008 - 1:31 pm 47. Bugs:

As a late-Boomer (1960), I’d say I suffer from some of the “narcissism” that people talk about – only I’d call it something more like “unrealistic expectations.” I think I believed my parents’ standard of living, of which I partook, was just the way things were. You go to school, get a job doing something you’re really interested in, somebody pays you a lot of money, and there you are – middle class. It was supposed to be a natural process. It was never really emphasized that this process involved a lot of hard work, self-denial, patience, ass-kissing, and other unpleasant things, and it still contained a real risk of failure. I think my father tried to tell me. I didn’t listen – I thought he was “killing my dreams” or something.

Well, now I work at a relatively crappy job I don’t like and all my “dreams” are just hobbies or pathetic nostalgia. I did not do as well as my parents because I did not put as much planning and work and discipline into the process as I should have. However, I recognize the failure as mine, not my parents’. I don’t expect anyone else to pick up the tab. No feeling I’m entitled to retire on the public dime, thanks. My biggest fear right now is not being old, it’s being useless. To me, someone who has done as little as I have has no right to retire. You have to put something into the system before you get to take out. So I’m hoping the second half of my life – the wiser half – will be more productive than the first. Don’t count this boomer out yet. I’m not one for following the crowd.

Apr 14, 2008 - 1:34 pm 48. Teri Pittman:

I get so tired of this idea that boomers were the most pampered generation ever. Perhaps it’s because I was raised by a single mom back when that was uncommon. Frankly, the whole boomer thing was a marketing image. There was a certain amount of shared interests but honestly, not everyone was part of it. If I hadn’t been exposed to California in the 60s, I likely wouldn’t have been part of it either. There are a lot of us that woke up to the lies we were fed in those days. We’ve got a few years on us now. It’s going to be tough to turn things around, but it’s not too late if we work together. We can do that if folks will just stop bashing us for the decade we were born into.

Apr 14, 2008 - 4:25 pm 49. patruped:bun biped:rău : Ecouri din 68 (2):

[...] cu acurateţe gîndurile şi faptele tinerelor porcine americane din anii şaizeci. În original: Viewing the 1960s From My 60s — Pajamas Media  Print Posted by emil on Luni, Aprilie 14, 2008, at 9:46 pm, and [...]

Apr 14, 2008 - 6:46 pm 50. jw:

The babyboomers may have been attention-seekers because there were so many of them after World War II, that the schools were overcrowded. That plus the glamorizing of drugs, the praising of awful behavior – like Norman Mailer, Allan Ginsberg with his false complaints and narcissism (”Howl”), Communist organization and propaganda.

Apr 15, 2008 - 12:35 am 51. Boinkie:

Some of us weren’t the spoiled kids of the sixties. My cousins fought in ‘Nam, and I was busy in medical school.

The split in that generation can be seen in films like Rambo, and in the bitterness against the “anti war movement” that ridiculed returning soldiers and congratulated themselves for being for peace while Pol Pot killed a million people and VietNam ethnically cleansed their Chinese population (quick: how many boomers know about the Chinese-Viet Nam war?).

The press, which are the first group, support Obama.
The others, the quiet ones who stayed sober and grew up, will support McCain.

Apr 15, 2008 - 2:42 am 52. Closer to 60 than 50:

Most of this is, like “Viewing the 60s From My 60s”, generational claptrap from those who have yet to make their mark and earn their way as opposed to those who believe that we should have remained in some fantasy of the 50s.

The fact is that most of us boomers had parents who were of the Great Depression, possibly saved the world from totalitarianism, and raised us under the daily fear of nuclear annihilation with the expectation that we would still work hard and be successful. (Of course, all of the sex, booze, drugs and swing music of their youth were supposed to be a secret.)

As the 60s and early 70s unfolded, we fought an unnecessary war based on mistaken assumptions in which over 58,000 of us died. My Mother cried for three days when I was drafted the year after her baby brother came home all shot up.

We partied as they did in their youth. We too feared that we could not afford to keep them in their old age. We too feared that we would not have the money to retire.
Well, we were all wrong. My parents have an active, affluent retirement still, in their 80s.

We boomers came home, got educated, went back to church and worked hard. My wife and I made and contributed more money to more causes than ever before this year. Our children are grown, with productive lives.

My wife and our friends talk about retirement soon. Not of rocking chairs and porch swings. We talk of taking care of our parents, second carriers or starting businesses. We talk of travel, vacation homes and health care.

We will not be a burden to the generation after. We will make you rich. In our “retirement” we will create jobs for you and purchase countless goods and services from you.

We have built on and will continue to build on the wealth that our parents created. Your challenge will be to build on that which you inherit from us.

Apr 16, 2008 - 7:07 am 53. Sparky:

I am ten years younger than Mr. Prelutsky and I would not have trusted him in 1968 and I do not trust him now. The motivation for the anti-war movement was not fear but loathing. Richard Nixon was elected in 1968 with “a secret plan for peace”. When it turned out that the secret plan was a hoax we became bitter. This child of Quakers had been elected as the peace candidate and after he tricked us in the 1968 election he continued to prosecute a war which by that time just about everybody knew was pointless and vicious. He then invented a “silent majority” of imaginary friends to agree with him. This along with his marvelously amoral “Southern Strategy” created new and bitter divisions along class and race. I was drafted into years of pointless, degrading military service and even though my friends were coming home in body bags, fear was not what I was feeling. I hated Nixon then and for the sake of history and for the sake of my wasted friends I still hate him now.

Apr 16, 2008 - 8:38 am 54. Mike:

The problem is, yesterdays 60s radicals are today’s Clinton, Gore and college professors

Apr 17, 2008 - 9:30 am 55. platypus:

Not quite right on the wind-down of the Vietnam War.

Nixon didn’t take office until January 1969. “Vietnamization” was well under way by summer of 1970 and it continued until the South Vietnamese military could “stand up” (sound familiar?).

Thus, we were in a phased withdrawal during Nixon’s first term. US ground troops were virtually out completely in 1973, just like he promised in the 1972 election campaign.

The genocide came after the Demon-crats stopped all funding to South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese military was winning on the battlefield until the money dried up.

The slaughter was inevitable yet none of the true murderers (the Democrat majority that decided those “gooks” weren’t worth any more of our tax money) have yet to be held to account.

The very same mindset is operating today, with a different set of “gooks” being set up for slaughter if the “war costs too much” types have their way in the next election.

The Iraqis know that without McCain in the White House, millions of them will die. They’ve seen the Vietnam script in action, doncha know?

Apr 18, 2008 - 2:36 am 56. javamama:

Helping my 18 yr old son w/ research for a project on the 60’s and came across your blog and it completely articulated my feelings and thoughts exactly! Such great insight that I can share w/ my son.

Sep 29, 2008 - 7:03 am

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