scarletwoman

scarletwoman's Journal

July 12, 2013

Speaking as someone born in 1949, I say no, not even a bit.

I graduated from HS in '67. I remember the 60s well. There is absolutely nothing in air now that resembles what was in the air back then. Nothing.

What was in the air in the 60s was hope and excitement and a splendid belief in the power of love, a belief in possibilities, a belief in freedom, a feeling of determination and a feeling of joy and empowerment in that determination. There was a feeling of mass rising up, and faith in the power of that rising up.

Faith, hope, and love - those were the forces that moved us in the 60s - not confined to just the religious sense of those words, although that religious sense was most certainly encompassed in the Civil Rights movement.

We had faith in the inevitability of social and spiritual progress. We had hope for the triumph of true humanity over war and hatred. And we were fired with the power of love - love of truth, love of justice, love of beauty, love of free expression, love for the greater world.

The 60s was a wave of light passing through millions of hearts. There's nothing like that now. Now, there's only impotent anger, frustration, seething resentment, apathetic resignation or accomodation as a means of self-preservation.

There's no overwhelming will to agitate. No sense of solidarity. No love, no joy.

July 7, 2013

Nothing but NOTHING will ever change unless we can get private money out of election campaigns.

Our system of privately-funded election campaigns has created a closed loop, unvirtuous circle of unrestricted influence by and for the Owner Class throughout every governmental institution.

No fundamental systemic changes are possible while this paradigm is in place.

Profile Information

Gender: Female
Hometown: Minnesota
Current location: up north
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 31,893

About scarletwoman

I'm an old white woman, born in November, 1949. My parents lived through the Depression and WWII (my dad's a veteran). I've witnessed a lot of history firsthand, plus I carry the stories handed down to me by my parents, aunts and uncles from their generation, and my grandparents from their generation. Basically, my memory is a depository for most of the 20th century of U.S. history, plus the 2 decades (so far) of the 21st century. //////Important quote: Milos Forman (film director, b. 1932, d. 2018) - "I hear the word "socialist" being tossed around by the likes of Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others. President Barack Obama, they warn, is a socialist. The critics cry, "Obamacare is socialism!" They falsely equate Western European-style socialism, and its government provision of social insurance and health care, with Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism. It offends me, and cheapens the experience of millions who lived, and continue to live, under brutal forms of socialism." (He lived in Czechoslovakia under Communism before emigrating to the U.S.A.)