Activists of the 60's...tell me what happened pls

[OKDem08]

I've been inspired recently by the writings of Abbie Hoffman and his idea of a society based upon cooperation rather than competition. I have this idea that you brought an end to the Vietnam War but it seems the intent was to go further. Pls explain.

[RandySF]

1. I wasn't around for the 60's

But I know that leaders and college students were beaten, jailed and shot dead for speaking out.

[Fuddnik]

2. And we made the nightly news.

Protests and demonstrations are completely ignored now. We need a new method of communication.

Plus, with the draft back then, everyone had some skin in the game. They were personally effected. With the all volunteer force, not anymore. Everybody I knew back then went to college, to get a deferment, except for a few who went to Canada. The ones who went to college, almost all majored in some shit called "Business". And they learned how to increase productivity and break unions, and such.

Some of us actually went into the military, though we didn't like it.

And, just for the record, I was a Yippee!, and I knew Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. We threw them out for being self-important, egotistical assholes. They did however, write some funny books.

[FreakinDJ]

3. The Draft was the Grease that moved the movement

Go to War and possibly get shot or hang out with some Cool Chicks and possibly .....

it was a No Brainer

[AndyTiedye]

8. Now in GOPMediaLand, Noone Can Hear You Scream

We had big protests against the Vietnam war.
We had big protests against the Iraq war.
The difference? No media coverage for the latter.

[CanSocDem]

36. Who's "noone"??? (eom)

[SwampG8r]

86. omg a yippee

what was the name of the pig yall ran for president against nixon?

[Mz Pip]

94. Yippee!

I still have my button from the '68 Chicago Convention. I wear it every election cycle.

[FailureToCommunicate]

113. Cleverly named "Pigasus" (No lipstick, just oink)

[burrowowl]

4. Taking to the streets

and being shot at made people wake up.

And I couldn't even vote then, you had to 21. We also achieved that for you young Wippersnappers, why didn't you vote in 2010, WHY?

[OffWithTheirHeads]

5. What can I tell you? We simply wouldn't put up with it.

Then we became stockbrokers and sold out.

[SpiralHawk]

17. Speak for yourself. A few posers were corrupted and became RepubliCons

That's human nature, and comes as no surprise...but the vast majority went on LIVING OUT their values of honesty, decency, integrity...etc...

[AverageJoe90]

104. And that's why the hard right tends to be so hard on Baby Boomers.......

.....especially the really leftist ones.

[moondust]

47. Meh. Most people eventually had to get a job.

FIVE MAN ELECTRICAL BAND
"Signs" (1971)

And the sign said "Long-haired freaky people need not apply"
So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why
He said "You look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you'll do"
So I took off my hat, I said "Imagine that. Huh! Me workin' for you!"
Whoa-oh-oh

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?

[Le Taz Hot]

54. Whose "we?"

Speak for yourself.

[OnionPatch]

70. No one I know became a stockbroker.

They dress a little more conventional now but they still have their values and are liberals. Like the others said, our side of the political spectrum is ignored (on purpose) by the media.

[Angry Dragon]

6. The young were the driving force

If this country is going to change then the young need to get angry

[OKDem08]

7. the young are mired in debt and preoccupied...by design perhaps?

[Angry Dragon]

12. The young feel immortal

When that begins to be threatened then the movement starts

As some say here the draft was a driving force, when you think you may die, you start thinking differently
The youth need to start feeling fear..........

[Sal Minella]

15. "Knowing one is about to die concentrates the mind wonderfully."

I haven't a clue who said that. Actually knew at one time.

The draft was a palpable, galvanizing threat hanging over many heads then (except the sons of Senators and Important People, of course).

[Recursion]

23. Samuel Johnson (nt)

[Recursion]

19. What did the young accomplish other than getting Nixon elected?

The Civil Rights acts were passed in the *early* 60s by the "establishment" politicians that the youth then turned against when the war didn't end immediately. What did the yippies actually accomplish?

[Gemini Cat]

96. What did the yippies accomplish?

Making a mockery of the movement.

[Odin2005]

26. Us young folks ARE angry.

It's just not visible in the MSM because they ignore us.

[socialist_n_TN]

49. Well in a LOT of cases (maybe most) the

demonstrations we had were ANGRY ones. We were pissed and they knew it. Sometimes the only way to MAKE them pay attention is to get in their faces.

[Odin2005]

67. That is what Anonymous is doing, getting in their faces.

[socialist_n_TN]

71. Yep and that's a good thing

But it IS only cyberspace. If you want them to pay attention in face to face confrontation there are two things to do. #1) As I said, get angry and confrontational. Don't be afraid to get arrested. SHOW them that you MEAN what you say. Nice polite gatherings don't really scare them. #2) (And this is something that I haven't seen a whole lot of) is to go to where the media is. Go to their TV stations and get in their face. If you want TV coverage get together a BIG demonstration at Faux News HQ and tell the OTHER media about it. They'll cover it because it's a competitor.

[Odin2005]

76. IMO it's going to take some time for any radicalism to heat up.

According to the generational social cycle described by social historians William Strauss and Neil Howe, right now is equivalent to 1930, we are still in the early "denial" phase of the crisis. The labor radicalism really didn't start heating up until 1933 to 1934.

[socialist_n_TN]

78. Agreed and, not only that, it IS happening

The 60s were the same. As I said in an above post, there were maybe 10% of the youth population that I would consider "active" when I first got into it. In two or three more years it had grown IMMENSELY to a MAJORITY of the youth and a lot of the elders.

You look to one small group to start the ball rolling, then more and more join in. You can look to this board as an example. Yes I know it's always been a left leaning board, but I would BET that MOST people on here would say that they were MORE radical now than they were when Obama was elected. In fact, I think I did a poll about that very thing a year or so ago and that was the case.

[Elwood P Dowd]

9. We had a free press, not a corporate propaganda machine masquerading as a free press.

The people, especially young ones like me, were far more informed on the issues back in the 1960s and early 1970s. We were also getting our asses killed for a big fucking lie called Vietnam. I was drafted and lucked my way through that mess, but some of my friends are no longer with us.

We have wars today based on lies, but there is no draft, and 50,000+ Americans haven't been killed yet. It's going to take another Great Depression before our "American Idol" brain-dead population wakes the hell up and starts searching for the truth.

[Pooka Fey]

18. +1. very well said.

[dissidentboomer]

33. THIS! I missed the draft by a couple of years but I remember.

The press was mostly neutral and had standards! Imagine! ALSO, WE were knowledgeable, even through the mid to late '70s during watergate and the Carter campaign. It SEEMS to me that entertainment was also permeated by protest but it was intelligent comment - read lyrics to many rock and folk songs from the late '60s through the '70s. The brainless fluff and crap didn't drown it out. We mostly LIVED what we believed. Of course, I think we were young during MUCH BETTER times than now and many of us didn't have to worry about whether Dad had a job and whether our folks could pay for college. Paying tuition was NO problem for very average middle class people through the 1970's.

[robdogbucky]

43. +1 everthing you said Elwood, except

The recent illegal adventures in the ME actually eclipse the amount of dead from the conflict in SE Asia.

Look it up.

That are other big differences between that and now, including transfer tubes (caskets), no deaths counted unless in combat w/boots on, (Pentagon covers the real body counts) cover bans,(heavy MIC censorship hiding these truths like never befoer and it appears to work, no?),embedded "reporters," once in a blue moon over there (we had actual reporters and even TV anchors in SE Asia all the time) etc., etc., etc.

Daniel Ellsberg, where are you?



Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 08:20

Richard Franklin + Henk Ruyssenaars


The U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs, in conjunction with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has released the truth because they need all people to know the US military is literally destroyed. They are under orders to conceal the truth at all costs, so they let slip a report which now cannot be "un-slipped."

FPF: "We don't do body counts." - US General Tommy Franks, who directed the illegal Iraq invasion, has said concerning their genocides abroad. But now also in the US the cemeteries are enlarged. - Text & links below.

Franklin's Focus 9/25/07 - I am forwarding a must read item sent to me by Phoebe. I've been waiting a long time for this report to emerge. I reported long ago on the methods used to conceal the true number of dead. This report is long overdue, and it once again condemns the American fourth estate as a hideous, slavish tool of the government.

As I said, this is a must read. I suggest forwarding this to every news broadcaster you can think of. Email addresses are available at the web sites for the news networks. - Warmest regards, Richard.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

73,846 U.S. TROOPS DEAD; 1,620,906 PERMANENTLY DISABLED*

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS ISSUES OFFICIAL REPORT CONFIRMING 73,000 U.S. TROOPS KILLED IN IRAQ

SAME GOVERNMENT AGENCY REPORT CONFIRMS 1.6 MILLION "DISABLED" BY THE WAR!

http://quebec.indymedia.org/en/node/28224



Tuesday, June 28, 2011




Iraq Deaths Far Higher Than Reported

Iraq War Deaths Exceed Vietnam War Numbers
Department of Veterans Affairs Reports 73 Thousand U.S. Gulf War Deaths
By Gary Vey for viewzone

More Gulf War Veterans have died than Vietnam Veterans. This probably is news to you. But the truth has been hidden by a technicality. So here is the truth.

The casualties in the Vietnam War were pretty simple to understand. If a soldier was dead from his combat tour, he was a war casualty. There are 58,195 names recorded on the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC.

Some of these brave men died in the jungles of Vietnam while others died in Medivac units or hospitals in Japan and America. A dead soldier can surrender his life anywhere in his service to his country. It really doesn't matter where this happens. The location of a soldier's death in now way colors his sacrifice to his country.

But something odd has happened with the Iraq War. The government, under the Bush administration, did something dishonest that resulted in a lie that's persisted since the war began -- and continues to this very day. They decided to report the war deaths in Iraq only if the soldier died with his boots on the ground in a combat situation. What's the difference, you might ask?......

http://cretincountry.blogspot.com/2011/06/iraq-deaths-far-higher-than-reported.html




Hands off my Social Security!
Hands off Latin America!



rdb

[coalition_unwilling]

91. 2-3 million dead southeast Asians vs. 1 million estimated Iraqi dead. 58,000+ U.S. Vietnam War vets

died in combat vs. 5,000 estimated U.S. Iraq vets.

I sympathize with your views but the numbers simply do not support your assertion that Iraqi deaths have 'eclipsed' Vietnam deaths, whether combatant or civilian.

[Pharaoh]

10. The draft and the war

were the rallying cry's of the hippie/love revolution. Down with the establishment, we wanted to create a better way. But when the draft and war ended the movement just kind of fell apart. But I think we planted lots of seeds in the psyche of our society. A whole lot of people woke up to the fact that our society was totally fucked up. We discovered that, mostly through hallucinogens which were quickly banned as they did'nt like all the peace love and sanity breaking out. The movement goes on.

[coalition_unwilling]

93. 2-3 million Americans (mostly youth) participated to some degree

in communitarian living and getting back to the land. Those numbers (some 1% of the population), while not enough to constitute a social revolution, definitely signify something profund. I just have not figured out yet what that is. Maybe an example of Marcue's idea of 'alienation'?

[Gemini Cat]

95. "We discovered that mostly through hallucinogens..."

Not for all of us, so I disagree. I (and many others) didn't need to be stoned or tripping to see what was going down was bad and needed changing. I think seeing our buddies, brothers and neighbours die in an unjust war, seeing civil rights workers get murdered, and little girls die in a church bombing and everything else that was happening then, had a lot to do with changing the ideas of the youth and thusly the rest of society.

[Pharaoh]

99. yes, your right

from a personal perspective it was kind of a spiritual awakening, so the horrors of this place were amplified.

but more than that, it was also incredibly beautiful. hard to explain O8)

[Stinky The Clown]

11. The force is youth.

Look to Egypt. It was the youth who effected change.

That is the closest in modern day society to what happened in the 60s. The youth were in the streets in huge numbers. The war was a part of it, but not all. The Civil Rights Movement was in the mix back then, too. So was the labor movement, but not as big as the anti war and civil rights activists.

Look at the US today. You hear about grannies marching. You hear about Code Pink. Laudable, to be sure. Young people participate . . . . sometimes. But they're not the driving force. The former 60s people are.

[tavalon]

13. The hippies were unprepared for the backlash that came from the establishment,

And, when being a hippie became popular, lots of kids who just wanted to do whatever was cool, became hippies but then traded that in for yuppiedom. The true hippies remain devoted to the cause even today. But since they were a really small part of the movement, when the hangers on left, people thought all hippies quit. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are a lot of intentional communities to this day (yep, communes), but as I said, the core of true believers was always small, unfortunately.

I really hate the meme where they say the hippies became stock brokers. The hippy wannabe's are the ones who moved on to the next "cool thing".

[OffWithTheirHeads]

20. Sorry, that's what happened.

Today, when I go to a protest (largely uncovered by the corporate media) I see the same faces I saw during Vietnam. Older, with more wrinkles, but the same faces. I don't care if it's Move On or Drinking liberally. The only people who show up are us old Hippies. It sems like the "kids" are too pre occupied with dancing with the Palins.

i guess it just has not hit home yet that we are all being fucked but many of us still grab our walkers and take it to the streets. Sadly, too many of us just became stock brokers. Sorry if you don't like it but it's the truth. How else can you explain the sorry state we are in? We shoulda been a contenda! Unfortunately, we are just an afterthought on the road to a better tomorrow. We knash our teeth and rent our clothing but the road to neo-feudalism is upon us nonetheless.

[Tesha]

28. I think that's an unfair characterization.

At the marches and demonstrations I've been at, youth has been
well-represented (and I say this as someone approaching "old age",
certainly to the kids).

In fact, I'm always amazed at the broad spectrum of our society that
is present when "the Left" demonstrates (as compared to the Old White
Farts and Angry Young White Guys Convention" that Republican events
always seem to produce).

Tesha

[tavalon]

30. I've seen that too. It's heartening

But the media deafness isn't the least bit heartening.

[tavalon]

29. What I'm saying is there were real hippies and false hippies

The false ones are the ones who didn't stay.

[kickysnana]

21. +1

[G_j]

44. right on the mark

every word accurate from my experience. thanks for the sanity!

[socialist_n_TN]

50. VERY good point and one I saw first hand

In the 60s we were a VERY small number, MAYBE 10% of the youth population ON A GOOD DAY. By the mid 70s it had become "cool" and EVERYBODY looked the part and even spouted the words. Even in my small southern city. However, for those latecomers it was a fad and faded by the time Reagan was elected. And yes, THEY were the ones who became yuppies. MOST of the original cadre just kept trucking on.

[tavalon]

83. I was actually a little too young to be a hippie

But have since realized that I am a rebel of the hippie variety so I didn't really miss what I thought I did. I run in a lot of alternative communities and I assure you, the kids, in pretty much the same small numbers as in the sixties, are carrying the flag. One thing they don't have, though, is the magical optimism that the sixties hippies had. They are more cynical, angrier, but just as doggedly determined to help Mother Gaia. It really is a shame that such small numbers through the years have truly embraced the hippie framework.

[socialist_n_TN]

87. Yeah and I HATED the term.........

:) I used to say, "I ain't no fucking hippie!" And I wasn't. I called myself a revolutionary socialist even back then. I shared some of the goals and DEFINITELY shared the look, but I took another road that a lot of us took. That road didn't work any better, but it was different.

[tavalon]

14. BTW,

Www.ic.org is a place to look to find the spirit still alive, albeit much smaller and much more exhausted.

[quaker bill]

16. The "southern strategy"

We pushed the republicans into becoming the party you see today, the problem is that they started winning elections with it. The dems on the other hand became a northeast and west coast party, until Obama came along. He was the first northerner actually able to take the message south.

One also needs to remember that Hippies were never even a majority among us, we got most of the news coverage, but the majority showed up for draft notices or would have if served. Most, like Limbaugh and Cheney, used college deferrments and did not protest at all. Protest would get you booted out of college and the draft notice came soon after that....

The bulk of us did not party or get any of the "free loving". I have always assumed that they remain pretty grumpy about it.

[SpiralHawk]

32. "Smirk." - Rush DraftDodger Limbaugh (R)

[canoeist52]

22. I'd say ithe movement was mostly about sharing

you know, that old democratic value. You took care of each other and the earth. Gardening and healthy living became a way of life. You could hitch rides almost anywhere and trust the people who picked you up. Young people shared apartments in arrangement called "overcrowding" by city officials.


Sharing, the idea that there are enough resources for everyone if we eliminate greed is, a dangerous threat to corporate power.

[Skidmore]

27. Yes, and the counterculture movement was not hooked on

technology. I think to get the youth today moving forward you need to wean them from their smart phones first.

[H2O Man]

24. Recommended.

Interesting OP & thread.

I attended a high school class reunion this weekend. The Friday night event was an outdoor picnic/party, featuring some of the aging but still rocking musicians from the good old days. A good friend (who had been a teacher when my class graduated), had consumed a few drinks, and came over to talk to me as we watched a classmate who can still sound a heck of a lot like Jimi.

He talked about watching Jimi and Janis and Jim, and marching in Selma. "What happened, Pat?" he asked, several times. "We had a Dream, but we moved away from it. I hold my generation responsible for electing George Bush."

This led to a great discussion among a group of us. Most said that it was the Civil Rights Movement that inspired them to become aware that society needed changing. Not one mentioned the draft as the primary motivator. The only real disagreements among the group were: The Beatles vs the Rolling Stones; and What would Jim Morrison be doing today, had he lived?

My friend won the national "Teacher of the Year" award years ago. He worked summers at Cornell with Carl Sagan. He now teaches -- I think part-time -- at Hartwick College in Oneonta. He is always available to answer my questions about "science" when I am working on Super Fund Sites, or against fracking.

(Note: Abbie was a good man. And he was usually correct in his analysis of society. I got to hang out in Oneonta with him years ago.)

[Odin2005]

25. The Hippies were a small minority of their generation.

Once the US pulled out of Vietnam interest in the left-wing political movements collapsed.

Also, a lot of young Boomers were into that stuff because it was "cool", not because they were serious about it.

[dissidentboomer]

35. Some of us were serious but, I agree, we young

activist boomers from about 1974 through the late '70's were a minority. Personally, I sensed a "dumbing down" in kids about my age and I was in college from '76 through '80 but I had several friends who were anywhere from a few years to 10 years older than me.

[postatomic]

51. You couldn't be more wrong

The foundation for everything that you see as "left wing" was established back then. The 'movement' back then was far more radical than the cute Street Theater that passes as "protest" these days.

Please buy a fucking clue before you lump an entire generation into your republican-like historical distortion. Education. Environment. Social Awareness. Without the "small minority" you wouldn't even be discussing the things you do today. The difference between then and now? We, the "small minority", got shit done. We created change.

[former9thward]

66. Get over yourself. You didn't do very much at all.

[Odin2005]

69. The labor radicalism of the 30s was far more effective than you guys were.

You know which generation the 30s radicals were of? the same one you called pigs.

[socialist_n_TN]

72. You're right, but we were closer than anything that's

come after. And a lot of us learned from those 30s radicals. Hell, I became a Marxist because of those guys.

[Odin2005]

75. The difference was that the radicalism of the 30s was by working class folks.

Much of the radicalism of the 60s was by educated middle class kids who tended to turn off working class folks. Still today on this very site you find posters that spew hate towards the working class, insinuating them to be backwards bigots.

[socialist_n_TN]

77. True, but this commie WAS working class

all the way by background and inclination. Although I did make it to college for a couple of years by working my way through (it was cheap enough to be able to do that back then) AND by social security survivor benefits, I wasn't no fucking latte liberal. Or the 60s equivalent of same.

Now don't get me wrong. At 17 or 18 years old you get exasperated by your elders and in the south those elders were often backwards bigots, including a large part of my extended family. But I still respected them for their roots, even if I didn't like a lot of what they believed.

As I said though, I became a Marxist because Marxism squared best with my working class experience. And a LOT of that reading involved the 30s and the labor movement.

[Bragi]

31. Two interesting books on the topic

Both books are by Theodore Roszak (who invented the term "counter-culture")

The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition, With a new introduction.

And the more recent (and even hopeful):

The Making of an Elder Culture: Reflections on the Future of America's Most Audacious Generation

[dembotoz]

34. the visible issues (war, draft) went away

the other social issues did not draw as much emotion.

we won some victories--civil rights, poverty--but the victory would be diluted with the bureaucracy.

it was like the EPA grew out of the earth day movement so some extent, but it is really hard the get teary eyed and emotional about the epa

[dissidentboomer]

37. I also think we kept pressure on to bring down Nixon AND

get the US out of Vietnam. During the late '70s, many of us pushed for drug law reform and, especially, legalization of marijuana. It's been a long time comin'.

[Atman]

38. A free press and the draft...a brutal combination

Everyone my age remembers Walter Cronkite giving the nightly "score" in the Viet Nam war. A little Vietnamese flag and a little American flag over his shoulder with the body counts for each side. We saw the cost of this every night, and it had a huge impact, especially since so many of us either had brothers over there, or had Selective Service (draft) numbers looming over our shoulders. Equally as important was the fact that the news divisions of the only three major broadcaster were not profit-making ventures. They were never designed to be; they were loss leaders providing a service. Once the "evening magazine" programs started coming to be, and the networks saw that "news" could turn a profit -- as long as it was entertaining -- real journalism began dying off. Sixty Minutes was the last of its breed. Back then, it was much-watch tv, as Morley Safer and the gang would do commando raids with tv cameras in tow, surprising crooks and liars at their front doors. Now, we get endless celebrity gossip, and all the news is about profit and/or protecting the bottom line of the corporate masters. And since most of those corporate masters have vested interests in endless wars and things like nuclear power, we're pretty much f*cked when it comes to getting any real information from the media.

[dissidentboomer]

39. Yep. News for profit killed the US press. If some of the investigative

journalists of the '70s were around today and we didn't have the corporate shiny object noise machine for news we have today, many republican and some democrat politicians would have NEVER seen the light of day, even thought about running for president, or have gotten within 500 miles of the nation's capitol. Really, really sad.

[Art_from_Ark]

73. I think 60 Minutes started going downhill

when they shifted from the Kirkpatrick-Alexander debates to the incessant whining of Andy Rooney. :puke:

[msedano]

40. nothing's changed

in the earlier parts of the 60s counter-culture folk identified themselves with long hair, colorful clothing, beads, and the "peace" sign that, in isla vista, actually meant "I'm high on grass, are you?" as visible as flower children were in the day, there remained in place a substantial cadre of right-wing assholes who held aloof from the parties and demonstrations. once in a while a hippie chick would lure in a frat boy and convert him to our side, but for the most part the rightwingers remained as stodgily stick-up-the-ass conservative as their parents.

then i got drafted and disappeared between 1969 and august 1970.

when i got back after 13 months in korea i stepped onto the streets in seattle, portland, san francisco, los angeles and thought, "my gawd, we won! we won!" because wherever i looked, everyone it seems sported long hair and many facial hair and loose, colorful clothing. but no, we had not won anything but a style contest. don't forget, repression was alive and well back home in 70: 3 dead at kent state. 3 dead at jackson state. the day after i got home, 3 dead in east l.a.

the assholes remained among us. remember donald segretti and the nixon cabal of dirty tricksters? these were people of the hippie generation, only there's always some asshole who doesn't get the word.

have a look at the coifs of the people in these fotos. it's jane fonda at usc in 1973. the assholes who hang her in effigy have long hair, too. and loose colorful clothing. we won nothing. the war dragged on. drugs remain illegal. abbie hoffman and that whole yippie caba were assholes, selfishly in the "movement" for personal benefit, or mere nihilism. http://readraza.com/janefondausc.pdf

for a researcher's bent, here's a novelized account of the burning of the bank of america in isla vista in 1969, well worth tracking it down: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Flabloga.blogspot.com%2F2010%2F04%2Freview-burning-banks-and-roasting.html&ei=vUwkTqHeN4_SsAO17pBY&usg=AFQjCNEIy1PC13C68dm1sfcsQaH0g1Cvgw .

mvs

[bklyncowgirl]

41. Being too young to have been a real Hippie but old enough to have wanted to be one here's my take

Looking back, you'd tend to think that everyone of a certain age was a hippie and/or a political activist. They weren't. Wearing bell bottoms and smoking weed do not a hippie make and carrying a sign protesting the Vietnam war did not make you an activist. As several people have stated here, the real activists were a distinct minority.

The Vietnam War was a unifying issue. Anyone could get drafted. The actual outcome though was largely determined by class. Most working class guys ended up going to Vietnam--it was do your service, go to jail or go to Canada. (Some guys I knew volunteered for the Navy figuring that sitting out on a ship off the coast of Vietnam was better than hauling a pack through the rice paddies). The guys who were able to go to college could postpone the draft and had the strongest motivation imaginable to protest the war while in college--as did the women who loved them. The politically connected, including those who strongly supported the war, of course, got deferments or cushy slots in the National Guard. Needless to say many of the working class guys who served did not think much of the protesters who hid from the long arm of Uncle Sam in college and sometimes derided them as tools of the state. The war wimps at least praised them for their service.

Once the war ended and the draft became history the motivation for much of the movement also died out. Let's face it. It's easy to get people riled up about getting their asses shot off in an unnecessary foreign war. It's quite another to get the great majority of people outraged about lesser issues including getting other people's kids asses shot off in unnecessary foreign wars. I've always thought in retrospect that getting rid of the draft was a bad idea. If everyone's kids had a good shot at getting sent into a war zone, our Presidents would have a great deal less freedom to go off on military adventures than they do with an all volunteer army.

The hippies had beautiful ideals--but were short on coming up with ways of actually carrying out those ideals in the real world. The reality was sometimes less flower power and more bad trips and the occasional truly warped individual preying on naive middle class kids with a dream of utopia. Needless to say the media made the most of the dark side. If Charles Manson hadn't existed they would have had to invent him.

As far as the real world goes, many of us hit the job market just at about the time the economy was collapsing. Suddenly faced with the need to actually make a living or spend the rest of our lives mooching off our parents, some, I would say quite a few, became cynical. I never personally knew someone who actually traded in their rolling papers for cocaine spoons and hit the (Wall) Street but I have no trouble believing that they existed. At any rate, we all got dumped in reality land and there we've remained.

Some of us still have our ideals more or less intact. Scratch a fifty five to sixty five something social worker or teacher or librarian and there's a good chance you'll find an old hippie or hippie wannabe lurking behind the professional facade. Many of us still protest the excesses of our government and raised our kids to be free thinkers and follow their hearts. It's not exactly "Imagine" but for many of us it was the best we could do.

[FailureToCommunicate]

42. I will never forget that evening of the draft lottery in '69. My fellow high school

buddies and girlfriends stared in disbelief and growing anger as some pasty old white guys on TV were deciding our future, pulling number out of a jar. Deciding whether we got drafted and sent to Vietnam or went on to college or jobs. As birthdays were drawn, friends in the room either whooped with relief or swore in dejection, consoled by sobbing girlfriends...

We all hated Nixon, hated that the network coverage of the deeply divided '68 Democratic Convention in Chicago helped to get him elected. But that was just the end of a terrible year for America.

Many of us had been involved in the civil rights efforts of that decade. When the Kerner Commission report came out we were already setting up community organizations to address institutional racism.

We were further radicalized by the repressive response by police and National Guard in the hands of right wing politicians, like the bayonetting of protesters in New Mexico, and of course, the shootings at Kent State and Jackson State.

Yes, some of us considered ourselves part of the Youth International Party. Some of my friends were ardent Black Panthers (and White Panthers). The media focused a lot on "the Hippies" - far out of proportion to their actual numbers. We always assumed the media found the idea of young people dropping out, getting high and peacefully listening to music as far less threatening than covering other youth who marched, sat-in, draft board attacked, organized voter drives...
Though the media was less tainted back then also...

My generation's youthful innocence was stolen by the specter of nuclear annihilation, burned by white racist resistance to civil rights progress, sent back in body bags from war, and our promising leaders were assassinated...

On the other hand, we DID, however, have THE BEST DAMN SOUNDTRACK those years!


Thanks, OKDem, for looking into that era.

-FTC

P.S.: Another decent book is by someone I met back then: Todd Gitlin's "The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage"

[tuckessee]

45. It degenerated into terrorism and murder.

See the Weathermen and the Black Liberation Army.

[FailureToCommunicate]

63. Only if one believed Time Magazine. "It" (the Movement) was not

disintegrated by a few Weathermen or BLAs.

[Bandit]

46. Many things were involved and it seemed like Mario Savio started it all

at Berkeley in early sixties. Back in those days college kids were considered children and had to "behave". They could not wear certain clothing or long hair and women wearing pants was frowned upon. Mario Savio held the very first sit in for freedom of expression and things sort of escalated from there. There was the Civil Rights Movement and the women's movement and the anti-war movement and at the end the hippie movement..The battle cry was "Never Trust Anyone Over Thirty" and then "Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out" Anything to fight the "establishment" as it was extremely restrictive and out of touch with American Youth.

[FailureToCommunicate]

64. Savio was an interesting catalyst in Berkeley, but hardly the spark of a generation

of protest. He had learned his non-violent ideas along with many other young whites at CORE and other Civil Rights activists long before action in California...

[postulater]

48. That was chapter one. This is chapter two

My daughter in Madison this winter. Age 16.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nangar16/5523291471/in/set-72157626133386693/

[marions ghost]

55. Chapter Two

:thumbsup:

[Drew Richards]

52. Its not that simple or cut and dry

This is an old mans view so it may be colored by being there sorry...

70 mall protests
71 gassed on the elipse during the mall protests
72 beaten by cops and fled to adams morgan for free concerts and weed...

There are many factors that brought the end of the war and protests are just one of them, not the in total reason...

Public sentiment from having it continually broadcast on the TV had as much to do with it as the protests...

Domestic issues and civil rights violations...how can we be spreading democracy around the world to another race and country and still have racial inequality? Lynching black men and deny women the right to vote...the 19th amendment was ratified on Aug 18th 1920 and yet still some states did not ratify or allow women to vote...The final states to ratify the 19th Amendment were Georgia, North Carolina, and Louisiana, in 1970 and 1971. South Carolina finally ratified it in 1973, but Mississippi not until 1984.

Domestic economic recession and low minimum wage and disparage wage earnings across economic boundries.

I personally believe public sentiment was the driving force through the continual broadcasting of the horrors of the war and the desire of the nation to focus on our own socio-domestic and economic problems first...remember back in the 60's and 70's it was pointed out repeatedly....we got into Vietnam specifically to rescue the French from Colonial collapse in SE Asia even though the presidents involved always tried to tell the American public that we were fighting communism and spreading democracy...

Kinda hard to have that be the only message when the French are spilling the real reasons in print and television on a weekly basis...

While the rest of the country burned in sentiments of in-equality to certain classes of people...

You see there were actually multiple groups and sentiments against the ultra-conservative ultra-militarization occurring inside and outside the US.

There were radical leftists that believed in total revolution by any means necessary these were the radical and violent wing of the 60's abbie, the chicago 8, SDS, bill airs, black panthers, cells of the nation of islam and many more...

There were passive leftists that believed in governmental re-idealology through passive protests, directing the government to a more passive nature...communal living, free love...Hippies and later the Yippies (abbie and bill aires again when they chilled out a bit)

And Moderate Leftists...who wished to do it through the vote. Who wished to work within the political structure to change the world...sadly every time one of their candidates got to higher office they seem to magically die by natural causes, accidents or assassination...

It was a turbulent time.

As bad as I hate what is occurring in this country today...I would hate to see it degenerate back to a US against THEM police state with violence and death and no accountability and recourse...

Of course maybe I am too late on my wish and it is like Neo says..."You were right, Smith. You were always right. It was inevitable".

[Drew Richards]

53. Oh Heck ok so I admit it...

I just went to the protests to get laid...

[Taverner]

56. I'm not a boomer, but having studied it what happened was: Divide and Conquer

Just like Jay Gould, one half was paid to kill off the other half...

[mistertrickster]

57. If you want to see how to organize for change, DO NOT LOOK AT 60's RADICALS.

They blew the biggest opportunity for structural change this country's seen since FDR.

They did succeed -- by literally DEFECATING on the American flag -- in creating a right-wing backlash that elected Ronald Reagan and lives on in the mind of the dues-paying right-wing today.

BTW, Abbie Hoffman died a suicide.

[proud patriot]

59. BS ...IMHO

I met Abbie a few years before he died .. He was suing the CIA . I will never
believe it was a suicide. He had a lot of hope for the future.

There is a lot to learn from the 60s activists. even if it is from their mistakes.

[mistertrickster]

60. The right-wing hangs Jane Fonda in effigy even today. That's the indelible image

60's radicals have tarred progressives with--anarchists who reject everything the mainstream consider good and decent.

Saul Alinsky, who successfully organized people for power, knew that one doesn't alienate potential allies by offending them to their core, and that seemed to be what the Yipees were all about: reject whatever mainstream American embraces--religion, patriotism, hard work, marriage and family, sobriety, and common courtesy.

That's why Alinsky, who always wore a black tie and suit, believed their tactics were insanely counter-productive.

[FailureToCommunicate]

68. So...if I understand you, todays progressives are ineffectual because 60's

radicals saddled them with legacy that the Right Wings denigrates. Well, in my experience there is no pleasing the Right Wing no matter what the era...

As far a Saul Alinsky, yes he dressed nice and behaved nice, unlike the long haired radicals that sat devotedly at his feet. Heck, he was older than my father!

I was a big fan of what Alinsky was doing in Chicago and met him thru a stint with comunity organizer Dick Criley. They were old school lefties from Woody Guthrie's era. They were still debating the merits of Trotskyites for goodness sake.

No, he didn't care for some of the most hot headed attention seekers like Jerry Rubin, but he was a strong believer in the power of youth activists when they were organizing around issues central to their own lives - like civil rights, war, and the Draft.

[mistertrickster]

80. You're right that there's no pleasing the right wing. But Archie Bunker wasn't

right wing until the 60's radical crapped on everything he held dear.

[FailureToCommunicate]

84. So in your mind the 60's activists not only messed it all up for this

CURRENT generation of would-be progressives, but those same activists turned normal, average Joes back then into bigoted conservatives like (TV fictional) Archie Bunker. Is that it?

In your opinion, then, the 60's generation not only was ineffective; worse, they were the cause of the strife between the Conservatives and Progressives then AND now?

Many of us can argue about the lasting merits of my generation's actions in the 1960's, but to blame us for all subsequent failures stretches reason a bit too much.

[mistertrickster]

102. Yes . . . when cigar smoking blue collar guys in hard hats cussed the "hippies" marching in the

streets, we lost.

<>

Workers, students, and soldiers are natural allies in terms of class struggle. But the yippee movement fell victim to a very old and common problem: dogma. Once the dogma is established, it becomes "us" (orthodox movement conformists) versus "them" (the people who are unenlightened). From that moment on, the big tent flaps close, and the circle gets smaller and tighter.

(BTW, you can see it right now with what's left of the Tea Party.)

By rejecting mainstream values--actually REPUDIATING and RIDICULING in the harshest terms mainstream values--the radical 60's left rejected taking control of the power structures (gov't / think tanks / the courts / education / law enforcement / the military) that run our society.

Dropping out doesn't change society. It just lets the bad guys win.

So, yeah, the 60's radicals screwed it up for their one brief shining moment and cast a long shadow down through the decades.

FYI, I was a 60's radical too.

[FailureToCommunicate]

106. "...we lost" ??

"When hard hats...cussed the hippies... in the street we lost"

Are you serious?

Perhaps you are playing devil's advocate here, but "we" didn't lose just because some hard hat yahoos decided to bust up a peaceful protest (Kent State had just happened). That kind of us versus them polarization had been encouraged by Nixon and the media for a long while before the so called Hard Hat Riot on Wall Street. Funny that your photo and most of the sites featuring it (on the anniversary of Kent State) were conservative blogs extolling the supposed patriotism of the construction workers for beating up peaceful anti-war and Kent State demonstrators at a rally that day in New York City. Mayor Lindsey had ordered the flags at half staff for the students shot dead days before at Kent State. The construction workers already had little love for City Hall and all the requirements imposed on the construction of the World Trade Center, so their demand to force the Mayor to raise the flag was hardly surprising. What was bad at the time was how the polarization had affected the police as well. They did little to protect the men women and kids protesting that day. They were not "hippes" as the press reported it. One of my friends was injured. I was coordinating a county wide protest strike from schools that day -May 8th-and didn't go into the city.

Though many disagree when they happen, the ability to march and protest is one of those pesky but important things about America. (So far)

You're correct that dropping out of society doesn't change things. Committed activists had little patience for stoned out hippies.

You say you "were" a 60's radical. Does that mean your cynicism for the tactics of a few from back then (Weatherman, Panthers, etc) has lead you to disavow all the good progressive successes achieved from that era? If so, I am sorry to hear that.

[mistertrickster]

108. My point is this:

Does that mean your cynicism for the tactics of a few from back then (Weatherman, Panthers, etc) has lead you to disavow all the good progressive successes achieved from that era?

******

Incorrect frame. I disagree not only with the tactics of the violent fringe but the tactics of the movement in general.

When you parade with a North Vietnamese flag, when you burn the American flag, when you travel to Communist Vietnam and are photographed sitting on an anti-aircraft gun used everyday to shoot down American airmen, when tell 95 percent of Americans that everything they believe in and fought for and pray to is A DESPICABLE LIE, you will fail.

And we failed. Big time. We didn't end the war . . . we didn't even shorten it. We didn't change the way America does business, it got worse. The tax structure and wages for the workers? Worse. We told organized labor to go fuck itself, the only vestige of power for the working man still left in this country, hastening its demise.

It was fun throwing the tear-gas canisters back at the police but for real lasting achievement? I don't see a lot of results.

On edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp6-wG5LLqE Pete Townshend got it right . . .

[mistertrickster]

82. Check this video at about 20 minutes in . . .

http://keywiki.org/blog/?p=1484

Alinsky--you can have 1 percent of the world organized and the other 99 percent as hippies, the 1 percent is going to run the world.

Question--Isn't that what's happening now?

Alinsky--Yes, because the hippies have dropped out.

[Odin2005]

74. Very good point about Alinsky. The 60s movements failed because they turned off working class folks.

Here on DU right now you have "liberals" that shit on working class people as uncultured idiots.

When ever a "movement" becomes dominated by bourgeois upper-middle class bohemians it is doomed.

[mistertrickster]

79. Thank you. You got it right from what I can see. nt

[Zorra]

81. Your post is a classic example of how successful Reagan and crew were

with their RW propaganda program.

I remember you hippie bashers coming out of the woodwork starting in 1980. Hated hippies, civil rights, Medicare, Rowe v Wade, Jimi Hendrix, gays, marijuana, women etc

It got unbearably boring decades ago.

[FailureToCommunicate]

85. Agreed. And Reagan's media manipulators also had to vilify Freeze supporters

as "hippies" because Reagan was greatly increasing the Cold War expenditures after some years of scale back.

Sadly, it looks here on this thread that they were quite good at rewriting who should be remembered as 'the bad guys'

[Zorra]

98. Ronald Reagan VS The Hippies--the Great White Father of hippie bashing speaks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCr3nL78qWs
:rofl:

[FailureToCommunicate]

101. "...images of gyrating torsos, some of them naked..." Oh, the horror!

Why did voters fall for that impostor?

Worst. President. Ever. for his ruining of America!

thanks for the link.

[proud patriot]

58. According to my Dad it was a few things that destroyed the movement

1) Bikers with Meth (see altamont)
2) hippies turned crispie (found Jesus and Church)
3) He had a kid to support (me)

of course weather underground,and Manson didn't help either IMO

[Drew Richards]

61. Now that I think about it...

I blame cocaine and disco for killing the movement...

[dissidentboomer]

62. That and

the issues that personally affected many who were active went away. ALSO, the majority of the folks at protests, "sit ins", etc., never really cared. They were there to get laid, drink, smoke weed, listen to music, etc. They really didn't care. Once they gout out of school, had jobs, kids, all of that was over.

[FailureToCommunicate]

65. Well, sometimes dad's aren't always correct. What he asserts is interesting, but

there was much more to it than just those things.

[robdogbucky]

88. Other things, you mean like

My Lai?

Watergate?

Kent State?

Secret Bombing of Cambodia?



Those were some of the reasons people got off their butts and went into the streets. It was not just some slow cultural show that was a fad or a convenient thing to do.

Some people had more skin in the game than that.



Just sayin'

[FailureToCommunicate]

97. Is your reply for me or the sub-thread, 'cause I agree about

the things that got people into the streets, and skin in the game...

[robdogbucky]

109. Ooops, sorry, no it was not directed at you

I was responding to #58 above, my bad, typing fu.


There was more but those reasons just jumped out of my memory first.


rdb

[WinkyDink]

89. There are library SHELVES devoted to the 60's, and you want the time wrapped in a POST?

[bemildred]

90. In short: civil insurrection and collapse of the military chain of command.

Unfortunately, it stopped short of full replacement of the old ruling elites and political reform, so we have to do it all over again.

An’ here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice.

Bob Dylan, ‘Memphis Blues Again’ (1965)

[Locrian]

92. prisoner's dilemma.

Capitalism is the prisoner's dilemma: it is NOT the most efficient and beneficial for ALL. It rewards selfishness, and in the end, it leads to perfectly "rational" decisions that are against your own interests.

Cooperation is the best system, but if "the system" is in place then it rewards the "zero sum game" ie capitalism, then it (cooperation) "loses".


The problem that never got adequately addressed is a new way of 'valuing' things w/o money. What is critical NOW is that this point in time (global warming etc) is when we most urgently need a better way to cooperate - or we are doomed to fighting against each other.


Read this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Dilemma-William-Poundstone/dp/038541580X

[county worker]

100. Here is my view of things. I was drafted in 1966 and was sent to Vietnam.

I was drafted before the lottery was in place. I graduated from high school in 1964. Kennedy was assassinated the year before. We almost went to war with Russia over Cuban missiles.

Blacks were demanding equal rights. The pill was available. We were told we could take drugs and see god. Timothy Leary was experimenting with LSD. All the stuff we were told was "the way it is" wasn't. We learned we were being manipulated by lies. Our parents, our teachers, our clergy all were lying to us. There just wasn't only one fucking way to live your life! My dad told me that life was this. You go to school and when you get out you get a job on the "line" get married, buy a house have a couple of kids and a new car every three years. That was what life was about.

I went to Catholic school and didn't believe what they taught me. I said fuck this, got a job in a grocery store, started a rock band, got my own car and joined with other kids like me. We hung around the court house, listed to rock and roll and got the message from the songs. We had underground news papers. After I got back from the war I joined the anti war movement. We became anti establishment.

Our cry was "Up against the wall mother fucker" sort of what would happen if there was anarchy. The authority would be put up against the wall instead of them putting us up against the wall. We pretened that we could wipe all athority out.

Basically every thing we were told to put our trust in was fucking us! We wanted a counter culture. We didn't want any authority to run our lives because they were the liars. We wanted to be with kids like ourselves and experiment with drugs and sex and trying to make a better world for ourselves.

There were riots in the streets over civil rights. Students took over campuses. Kent State masacre, Dr King's assasination, Bobby Kenney's assisnation. Nothing meant anything anymore. All the shit we were taught was just that, shit!

What changed everything was the invention of electronics. The easy jobs were going away. life changed in the 70's. Our parents who missed out in the sixties started the sexual revolution in the 70's. The all got divorced or joined swing clubs.



We actually became the sane ones!

[RegieRocker]

103. We began working in the slave market and then became

what we fought against. Materialistic.

[pinboy3niner]

105. Like VN, perspective depends on when you were there, where you were, what you did

Your experience and your view are interesting, but like so many others, they are one snapshot of a movement that spanned a couple of decades, from Civil Rights and Free Speech to the later environmental and other causes.

No wonder that participants often offer differing and even contradictory snapshots--just like VN. Yet the testimonies are all valuable contributions to the history.

--From another VN draftee who had one friend involved in planning the antiwar demo on the Mall, discovered that a second friend had been the state coordinator for VVAW for his state, and had a third friend not long ago pull out and show me his tattered VVAW membership card.

:patriot:

[FailureToCommunicate]

107. Winter Soldiers

"These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated." --Thomas Paine

:patriot:

[county worker]

112. What did it for me was the Tet offensive. In February 1968 near Bein Hoa air base

we were attacked by 12,000 North Vietnam regulars. My life was saved by gun ships that circled overhead firing mini guns and rockets all around my position.

The next day we were walking through what was left of the town of Bein Hoa and a Vietnamese woman was standing in a door way crying because her family were all killed. She was mad at me because I was alive. She said that in America we had cars and radios and all kinds of things that she didn't have and that we should be the ones to die and not her people. I told her "fuck you" this is your war not mine. I stopped fighting and volunteered to build a barbed wire fence for the next few months. I got stoned every day, worked with a couple of guys in our 3/4 ton truck and passed the time until we could go home.

To me that whole war was another lie put on us to use us to make some other people rich. Nothing has changed and I doubt it ever will. We got mad and marched in the streets and Walter Cronkite told Americans what we were saying in the streets, what was really going on with the war.

We were not saving freedom, or making the world safe. We were killing people so those who make a profit off of war materials had customers for their products.

I have never changed my thinking though I got a job and an education and started living for myself and my family.

[Terry in Austin]

110. Two aspects of activism in the 60's

Just my own take, in broad strokes:

"Radicals" - social justice political activism
* Draft resistance - big base for mobilization
* Ad-hoc causes: individuals wrongly jailed, etc.
* "Missionary politics" style carried over from civil rights activism. Empowerment of the oppressed.
* Anti-imperialism agenda - missionary style internationalism, working class solidarity.
* Explicit ideology. "New Left" was not so much left-wing as anarchist/libertarian with some Marxist themes included
* Demonstrations a favorite tactic. Essentially, manipulation of the "straight" media to harness public opinion. (Back then, the media were sincere enough to be manipulated!)

"Hippies" - social progress & human potential activism
* Cultural focus - music & psychedelia were a big base for mobilization
* Holistic/visionary narratives
* Communitarian style. Empowerment of the self and the group.
* Anti-capitalism/puritanism agenda.
* Ignored explicit political identity or ideology
* Personal example a favorite tactic. "Don't say it, be it." Often, this was flamboyant enough to garner media attention. (In cases like Abbie Hoffman, this passive style of media manipulation became a lot more active and deliberate.)

These two weren't completely distinct -- a lot of us were involved in both aspects. There was also the inclusive "gathering of the tribes" ethic that emphasized solidarity among radicals, hippies, bikers, heads, rockers, flower children, ethnic minorities and all the various counter-cultural identities. "Liberation" was the common theme, though each had their own take on it.

[Terry in Austin]

111. Dupe - delete