How the 1960's Cured America.

[alfredo]

This article makes me think the current GOP is still reacting to the sixties (and the FDR 40's).

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/05/12/1960s.era.baby.boomers/index.html?hpt=C2

Before 1960, only undivorced white Protestant men had ever served in the White House. Almost 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African-Americans lived in segregated communities and attended segregated schools on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, and none attended the all-white state universities of the South.

Gay people were completely invisible, except when they were fired from the federal government (or any company doing business with the federal government, where they were also banned from employment.)

There were no openly gay journalists, doctors, lawyers or professors and only two openly gay public figures in the whole country: James Baldwin and Allen Ginsberg.

[EFerrari]

1. And Baldwin became an expat. n/t

[patrice]

2. Have, on more than 1 occasion, heard how the 60s were where "It ALL went wrong."

We "ruined America."

[Drale]

3. Thats how the Right see it

[alfredo]

6. Rights were extended to those the right felt were less than human.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

16. From the bacteria's perspective, antibiotics ruin you. -nt

[LiberalLoner]

4. Oh, yes, my father says that all the time, he's a disgusting repug and he feels it was

horrible that minorities and women got any rights at all. But then he still thinks it is his right to beat his wives and molest any girls he can get his hands on so he's pretty disgusting even without being a right-winger on top of it.

[Arugula Latte]

15. Wow. Sounds like he should be rotting in prison.

[izquierdista]

5. But the head of the FBI...

had a FABULOUS closet! :rofl:

[alfredo]

9. the thought of Hoover in drag made me throw up in my mouth.

[defendandprotect]

7. Of course, 1960's was an attack on corporate America/authoritarianism/wars -- !!!

Think Mae Brussel tells it better, however --

Meanwhile, she also perceived an assassination plot, not merely against specific individuals, but against the entire counterculture that was burgeoning at the time.


"I realized that in this country we had a revolution--of housing, food, hair style, clothing, cosmetics, transportation, value systems, religion--it was an economic revolution, affecting the cosmetics industry, canned foods, the use of land; people were delivering their own babies, recycling old clothes, withdrawing from spectator sports. They were breaking the barriers where white and black could rap in 1967. This was the year of the Beatles, the summer of Sergeant Pepper, the Monterey Pop Festival, Haight-Ashbury, make your own candle and turn off the electricity, turn on with your friends and laugh--that's what life was all about."

http://maebrussell.com/Mae%20Brussell%20Articles/Ballad%20of%20Mae%20Brussell.html


This is when the rightwing began to invent their Hollywood sound stage of faked movements --

the GOP gave start up funding for the Chrisitan Coalition -- Richard Scaife funded Dobson's

organization -- and other wealthy rw'ers financed Bauer's org.

The first thing that had to be shored up was organized patriarchal religion -- the underpinning

for patriarchy.

From there we got the GOP/pro-life murders ensuring that women may have a right to abortion

but only over the bodies of dead doctors --

GOP radicalized the NRA and used it to target not only liberals in the Democratic party, but

liberals and moderates in their own party, thereby moving Congress to the far right.

Defying anti-trust laws, corporations took over our "free press" and bought government and

elected officials --

[Art_from_Ark]

22. The '60s have always been my favorite decade

and I think that's due in large part to what is described in your article. And the Great Society.

[defendandprotect]

27. You might also be interested in this ....

Keep in mind, Cheney's frequent boast that they "create the reality and we live it" --

John Mitchell pretty much made things clear when at the time of Watergate he told us

that this country "was going to go so far to the right that it would make our heads spin" --


http://maebrussell.com/Transcriptions/16.html

[Art_from_Ark]

32. Interesting reading

I must admit, I didn't hear much of the Tate murders at the time-- I think I was probably shielded from that. The first I really heard about it was a few years later when the movie Helter Skelter came out. My brother said he hated that song of the same name because of its association with Manson. I was always confused about that, since it didn't seem to fit-- if it was going to be a song from the White Album, then Piggies, I thought, would be the likely candidate.

It's also interesting, and this may be the first time I have really considered this, was that the Tate murders and Woodstock were in the same month. So the hippies were "evil bloodsuckers" in California, while across the country they were just long-haired kids who were groovin' to peace and love and music.

[defendandprotect]

34. Interesting about time line ...

CA/Manson and Woodstock/peace and love and music --

I didn't either pay any strict attention to Manson -- I thought it was insane --

it was -- and imagine that the violence and brutality of it kept most people from

looking very closely at it --

and, then, comes the opportunity for those who need to lie to us to make "up" into "down" --



:)

[raccoon]

8. Great article! Rec'd. nt

[Zorra]

10. rec'd. I think what he says here is so true:

"Our single greatest failure was to sustain the idea that corporate America is the biggest threat to a vibrant democracy, and today the power of corporate wealth over our politics has never been more absolute."

Yep.

Thanks for posting this article.

[wilt the stilt]

11. Great Article but I still feel I am fighting the same assholes

I was fighting in '68. What gets me is that the Koch boys aren't identified as the Birchers they are.

[alfredo]

12. Never thought the Birchers would come back. We whupped

them then, we can do it again.

[tk2kewl]

13. google "The Powell Memo" and your suspicions will be confirmed.

nt

[robdogbucky]

14. Aside from having lived it, I sometimes realize a lot more happened

than I can remember. This timeline site has a great day-to-day of the news headlines, etc.:


http://timelines.ws/20thcent/1967.HTML


Take the time to read down it, that was quite a turbulent year. The thing that comes back to me is all the death and violence in our cities with the riots. The summer of '67 alone saw riots in Boston, Tampa, Buffalo, Newark, Cairo, Ill, Durham, NC, Mmemphis, TN, Cambridge, MD, Milwaukee. These were deadly let's not forget. It was a horrible time for some people.

Then the war and the anti-war movement were both ramping up with LBJ escalating with 45,000 more troops and the first large demonstrations occurring on campuses. We had atmospheric testing still going on I think, and the Israelis had their 6-Day War. The Red Guard was taking China through the paces of the Cultural Revolution and we had a launch pad disaster in Florida.

And then there was Haight-Ashbury, The Monterey Pop Festival, Sgt. Pepper's debuted was #1 for 15 weeks, The Beatles hung with Maharishi and took their Magical Mystery Tour around England.

Sen. Brooke became first popular-vote elected black Senator.


Oh, what a year!

[defendandprotect]

28. Don't know if you're familiar

with Mae Brussel --

but she has investigated the attacks on the "hippies" and their efforts to

change society and our culture ---

Here's one part of it --

http://maebrussell.com/Transcriptions/16.html

Keep in mind Dick Cheney's frequent boasts that they "create the reality and we live it" --



:)

[coalition_unwilling]

17. The current GOP is still wrestling with 1648 (Peace of Westphalia) and

Newton's "Principia Mathematica" (gave us integral calculus). While Repukes grudgingly accept the latter (albeit with some yearning for the days when the earth was flat), they adamantly repudiate principles of the Peace of Westphalia.

[craigmatic]

18. Sure the 60's fixed some problems but they created just as many as they solved.

We got the pill and eventually roe vs wade but the cuture wars developed. We saw JFK's new frontier and LBJ's great society but then the new deal coation splintered and Nixon got in. That created the new right movement and republican think tanks. We ended segregation but we're still living with the southern strategy. We got the Great society which gave us medicare and medicaid but the republicans are always trying to cut it. Most of the great society has been dismantled now especially the welfare program as we used to know it. Most importantly the left really split in the 60's over vietnam and we've never really recovered yet. It seems like we took 2 steps forward but then 1 step backwards.

[alfredo]

19. As long as we come out one step ahead. Over time we can

travel a great distance.

[craigmatic]

23. Yeah but that was 50 years ago we really hsaven't come that much further since then.

Some would say that we've actually been going backwards since the 90's.

[alfredo]

24. Changing laws is "easy." Changing hearts difficult. The next

generation will be coming to the plate. They live in a much wider world and that will be reflected in the society they construct. I have high expectations.

[craigmatic]

30. Me too but the boomers are still having their culture wars and the Xers are right-leaning.

It's going to be a difficult next few years.

[alfredo]

33. The Reps are shooting themselves in the foot. Don't count

on a right wing revival any time soon.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

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[craigmatic]

31. I could see that Nixon and Humphrey were close enough in the polls for Nixon to steal it.

[defendandprotect]

36. Yep -- as I recall near the end Humphrey was leading -- and it was a squeaker ---

Either we have to believe that we live in a nation populated by the most

ignorant and stupid voters in the world -- or we've had a lot of stolen elections --



:)

[tanyev]

20. I absolutely believe the current GOP comes from a reaction to the 60s.

Can't you just picture a young Karl Rove swearing that one day he would get his revenge after being teased mercilessly by a bunch of hippies? Or laughed at by a girl who rejected him and ran off with a long-haired folk singer?

They entered college with the world as their oyster and by the time they got out, their world had exploded around them.

[alfredo]

21. Charlie Manson considered himself the anti hippie. The

Merry Prankster bus was all flowers and bright colors, but Manson's bus was painted black. Hippies wanted peace, Manson wanted race war. From "Helter Skelter."

Inside Manson's bus. I doesn't look black to me, but decades in the sun could have bleached it out.






Merry Pranster's bus.



Not drawing a parallel between Manson and Republicans, just that they also hated hippies.

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[alfredo]

29. I've heard the same thing about the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Charlie wasn't a hippie, he was a con man exploiting the counter culture.

[defendandprotect]

35. Agree ---

Go to Mae Brussel "home" -- she has something on SLA = CIA if I recall correctly --

She was astonishing in all that she figured out --



:)

[alfredo]

37. The reactions against the anti war, were born in the McCarthy era paranoia.

[defendandprotect]

38. Well, at some point the elites recognized what a bonanza war is for them ....

without it, all the repressions of the "national security state" wouldn't exist --

plus those profits -- and the imperialistic ventures -- big eyes for the property

of other nations' natural resources, etc.

Witchhunting has been a long-established technique -- !!

[alfredo]

39. Maybe I should go into business making red flags.

Sooner or later our people will be revolting against the corporate take over of America.