The last 40 years of conservative growth in power is a reaction to the 10 years called the "60's"

[upaloopa]

Yesterday there was a thread about the younger generation and what they look forward to because of the actions of those older then they are.

I agree that their fortunes are bleaker than mine were and I am 66 yr old boomer, the first of our kind.

I think that if we boomers are to blame it's because of two different tracks that we took.

Some of us held true to our progressive beliefs. We like to look back to the 60's and say that we made a lot of positive changes happen and I am one of those.

Back then the "Romney types" hated us and they vowed to get even. They were the second track. It looks like they are about to have their dream come true.

My feeling today is one of sadness and frustration because the in the years between the 60's and now most of us let the gains we made slip away by supporting the DLC types and not remaining true to our progressive ideals. If that isn't your history I apologize but I think you are the minority.

We constantly rant about the lack of backbone the current Dems have and I think that is one thing we boomers can take credit for.

We tell ourselves that the Occupy movement could be our salvation but why didn't we "occupy" the 70's and 80's and 90's and 2000's?

It is the young people who are in the streets and some of us are joining them and it's about time. I only hope it isn't too late for their sake.

[Ishoutandscream2]

1. +infinity. The right is still fighting the counterculture of the 60s

[Nuclear Unicorn]

2. That actually makes a lot of sense.

[datasuspect]

3. They gloss over how close this country came to revolution in the cities

"Movement" ideology was empowering many in racial and ethnic underclasses.

The shedding of colonialism globally was expressed in this country through black power, brown power, feminist, and gay rights movements that sprouted up and asserted power and force during the late 60s.

The powers that be could in no way accept that much freedom moving that fast.

The last 40 years have sought to discredit and propagandize the real gains made during the middle part of the last century.

They've been very successful: from the vietnam "they spit on us and called us baby killers" myth to the current characterization of "hippies" as lazy, smelly, and otherwise ineffectual, the reactionaries won.

[jwirr]

7. But in the end us hippies are going to look like saints compared to the 2nd track who destroyed

our very nation.

[randr]

4. The right is still pissed off that they lost every fight throughout the 60's

and like other international radical fundamentalist movements they will not rest until they gain revenge.
They even want to extract revenge for their shame due to Nixon and Bush II and will never admit to any responsibility.

[Quantess]

5. Hmm, interesting viewpoint.

It doesn't get expressed much at DU, but you are onto something.

RWers have this idea that liberals are freedom dancing in a VW van on their way to the marijuana orgy. They are the ones who are fixated on the 1960s. It's kind of a ridiculous thing I noticed about conservatives, that they can't get over the '60s.

[Puzzledtraveller]

6. When people are relatively doing well they don't complain as much.

My parents being both boomers thrived in the 80's and 90's not so much now, for any number of reasons. Even if they disagreed politically during the decades I mentioned the impetus to affect change wasn't there. Then again, why would they, they were doing well, as were all of their peers, who were likewise boomers who all leaned left. It really comes down to the ability to gain and keep substantial employment enought to raise and sustain a family. I'm only 39 and even I can recall when if I didn't like a job I could quite and find one the next day. That is not the case anymore. I work in a food stamp and medicaid office, many of my clients are able bodie males between 18 and 49, they used to have to register for work, like unemployment to show they were looking. My state has dropped that requirement because there just is not enough jobs to even keep applying for to make it reasonable for the requirement. These same individuals 18-49's, in the 80's and 90's were not applying for food stamps. Eventhough there were some economic tough times then as well, many of them could get a decent paying job, enough to be able to by a engagement ring and daydream. I too lament that those days seem gone.

[randome]

8. The Left forced them to admit to an unwinnable war in Vietnam.

We're still paying the price for that but I think it will pass.

[Scootaloo]

9. If you do decide to "join in," I ask one favor...

Don't expect center stage. Don't ask for it, don't try to take it, just stay the fuck away from it. Accept that you are, ironically, "junior members," same as you would if you joined any other cause that didn't fall straight down on your shoulders. "I was alive in the 60's" isn't going to impress anyone, and frankly, the LAST thing we need are a bunch of deadheads trying to convince us that puppet shows are going to "bring down the system" or whatever.

[upaloopa]

11. I'm not your enemy. I may get screwed by the right for the next few years I have to live,

but you I take it have a lot more to lose than I do.

The young look to the future and the old look to the past because that's were most of the years of their lives are. You don't give a shit about what happened in the 60's and I won't be alive to see what kind of future you'll have.

If I choose to join in it isn't for my future I'll be fighting.

[LanternWaste]

10. I think that, the massive popularity of FDR's social programs of the 30's and 40's...

I think that, in addition to 60's, the massive popularity of FDR's social programs of the 30's and 40's were also part and parcel of that same conservative reactions. indeed, many of the sacred cows being targeted in the here and now-- the welfare systems, government assistance to both individuals and small businesses, social security, et. al. had their birth during the Roosevelt administration. I believe the political movements of the 60's in the US were simply carrying on this grand and progressive tradition.

[RoccoR5955]

13. Of course it is...

The RepubliCONs were against the New Deal since the beginning. This is not retaliation for the 60s, but the ongoing rage of the Cons, from way back.

[Evasporque]

12. No...it is the consolidation and stupidification of media and information...

More crap from fewer sources that control the crap....

America was made dumb by the Mad-Men generation...on purpose to buy crap and make a handful of people rich

[jtuck004]

14. It's more like liberal thought pops up in a continually right-wing world. The programs of the 30's

the growth of unions, etc, were almost an aberration, but they were really a response to the extreme (for the time) right wing policies. (such as Ludlow Massacre in the early 1900's, worker conditions, ), and the unemployment that resulted after the greedy bastards created the Great Depression. Those policies didn't even last till the 40's, got cut and back we went into a recession. If it hadn't been for WWII and the government\taxpayer investment that ensued, with the destruction of so many countries and resultant world trade we would likely not have seen the more affluent time that followed.


The 50-60's were more a freeing from oppression, and by implication economics, for a time, first with civil rights, then a revolution of the relatively well-off young of the "middle-class". But they, and most of us didn't follow up, insist that it be taught. We forgot to teach people about the very real investment millions of people made very day in simply going to work and making things.

All that working and reliance on cheap foreign energy finally bit us in the ass. But when Carter then tried to reign in the economy, Reagan offered a "painless" way out, and began a trend of spending the wealth our labor had created, people began to value capital more than people.

We did occupy those periods. With our credit cards, and oversize SUVs, and McMansions, and debt. And more debt, and forgot this is a running battle against a perpetually right-wing world. People have always been swayed from the harder work by "easy" money. Ask any prostitute, or maybe a politician that sends money to banks or votes with the NRA, lowers taxes for the rich while taking away heating assistance for the most vulnerable. (And I apologize right now to prostitutes everywhere for besmirching their name by the comparison to politicians. Your job is hard enough.).

We forgot that we have to teach these ideas every single day. And now we may have to wait until the greedy bastards kill it all again, so we can gain a hearing. Maybe we will find a way to keep the lessons going next time...

Oh, and that's in the U.S.

[hifiguy]

15. A very accurate analysis.

The reichwing and PTB have never stopped re-fighting the 1960s.