General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Is DU a Liberal Message Board? [View all]Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)I grew up surrounded by lost hippies and I swear to god if every memory they had of hte era wasn't cut directly out pf "easy rider" and "Alice's restaraunt" - also amusing to hear a bunch of furry white people declare themselves instrumental to the civil rights movement... then gripe about how "them n****rs is takin' everything over... there's gonna be a revolution!" - Ahhhh. southern-fried Hippybillies, gotta love 'em
...it's a nerve of mine, is all, and it's been worn raw on DU. so... hair trigger, I guess?
I would again draw exception to your characterization of the revolution - I would hardly call the result of feudal landowners and turf pirates slaughtering their countrymen in order to evade taxes and expand their personal holdings to be "freedom from empire" - particularly not for anyone even a shade down from rose pink.
Another point of argument? This idea that Americans had a say in ending the war. No. whether it's hippies slapping themselves on the back for it, or Birchers punching hippies in the head over it, it's a false narrative. protest and resistance against Vietnam was futile. By no means wasted - ethical gestures are always good - but they didn't change policy. The war ground on for nine years, protest be damned. It lasted until one side won - and one side did win, and it wasn't the United States. From what i can figure, both right and left have this stupid little patriotic suicide pact thing going where they claim it was the left in the US that ended the war - rather than nearly half the population of south Vietnam, bolstered by the North Vietnamese, who drove us the fuck out with an insurrection that should make even the Iraqis sit back and go "damn, y'all."
Like I said, I like the sixties. I admire the strides and achievements. I just don't like the people who are still living there, or who think simply existing made them part of "the movement" and worthy of fawning adoration.
Maybe it's just the nihilism of being on that narrow bridge between X and Y. Too young for the full grab bag of burn-it-down bullshit, but too old to pretend that the shitty state of things now is "normal."