Getting Past the '60s? It's Not Going to Happen.

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Getting Past the '60s? It's Not Going to Happen.
By Rick Perlstein
Sunday, February 3, 2008; B01

One of the most fascinating notions raised by the current presidential campaign is the idea that the United States can and must finally overcome the divisions of the 1960s. It's most often associated with the ascendancy of Sen. Barack Obama, who has been known to entertain it himself. Its most gauzy champion is pundit Andrew Sullivan, who argued in a cover article in the December Atlantic Monthly that, "If you are an American who yearns to finally get beyond the symbolic battles of the Boomer generation and face today's actual problems, Obama may be your man."

No offense to either Obama or Sullivan, but: No he isn't. No one is.

I realized that when I read this e-mail from a friend, a passionate Obama supporter who's a veteran of the anti-Vietnam War movement: "Who are you supporting for prez? You know my feelings -- and my son has been working 16-hr days for him up in NH. Kind of like his 60s . . ." I realized it again when I saw the online ad produced by Sen. John McCain's campaign, arguing that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton didn't deserve the presidency because she earmarked one-millionth of the federal budget ($1 million) for a museum commemorating the rock festival Woodstock.

I realized it, too, when Bill Clinton accused Obama of leaving the role of Lyndon B. Johnson out of the civil rights story, and when Sen. John Kerry announced his endorsement of Obama with a quotation from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. -- and both set off a strange bout of opinion-journalism shadowboxing over which camp, Clinton's or Obama's, better grasped the historical legacy of the civil rights movement.

I realize it anew just about every day of this presidential campaign -- most recently when a bevy of Kennedys stood behind Obama last week and spoke of reviving the spirit of Camelot, and when the conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks responded by making fine distinctions between "the idealism of the generation that marched in jacket and ties" -- the "early-60s," which he took Obama to represent -- and the "late-60s," defined "by drug use and self-indulgence," of which the Clintons are the supposed avatars.

The fact is, the '60s are still with us, and will remain so for the imaginable future. We are all like Zhou Enlai, who, asked what he thought about the French Revolution, answered, "It is too early to tell." When and how will the cultural and political battle lines the baby boomers bequeathed us dissolve? It is, well and truly, still too early to tell. We can't yet "overcome" the '60s because we still don't even know what the '60s were -- not even close....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/01/AR2008020102827_pf.html

[THUNDER HANDS]

1. the 60s are dead

the arguments are stale. and the warriors are old and gray now.

if the activists of the 60s were still young today, they'd be telling the 50-year-olds to move out of the way.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. You know that's an interesting point -- they probably would have said to get out of the way. nt

[splat]

8. Just as we're finally acquiring the power to change it, you want to start over with a beginner

It's taken a lifetime to get into positions to change the system rather than protest it.

[rug]

26. But not so they can shake hands with Republicans.

[AX10]

2. Feel free to offend Sullivan.

Sullivan is a conservative. His kind hate the progress that was made during that period.
The battles of the 1960's advanced us to where we are today.

[lvx35]

4. Good read. Though I disagree with this:

"The fact is, the '60s are still with us, and will remain so for the imaginable future. "

That's not true, they have maybe a decade of life left in them, seriously. But are they here now. I think part of it is that we haven't risen to the challenge of creating a new left, and I do think Obama has advanced some decent vision there. But I think the larger part of it is that we haven't we seen historical events large enough to make the 60's seem small. However, if nothing seriously changes fast we will. We have the perfect storm brewing here, and it will turn the 60s into the musings of geezers talking about the "good ole days".

[DeepModem Mom]

7. Thanks for your post. You're right -- a new left has yet to be created...

so the left is tied in the minds of the young to something that's old. I don't think Gen Y is conservative; I think they're, naturally, different.

[madrchsod]

10. this geezer from the 60`s never would want to go back

to those good old days...other than the music and jobs the 60`s sucked. growing up with the knowledge that soon i was going to be cannon fodder and i had no vote sucked. waiting for your number to come up to decide your fate-sucked

knowing no matter what we did the war never stopped


but what really sucks is that our generation voted to go into another war just as bad as the one we said we would never let happen again...

hillary did`t get the message of no more war...will obama and his generation? that`s up to you guys and gals not to repeat our failures...

[lvx35]

15. I hear ya. We've got some good ideas of our own on that.

A lot of has to do with openess, information sharing. Our experience is very informed by the Internet and things like the open source movement, the belief that information wants to be free. I think Obama has his finger on this pulse pretty damn well, to be honest. But at the same time, I don't think your work is done. I think in addition to the civil rights movement and so many other good things you brought us, your final achievement should be Universal health care. That's why I like to see Hillary in before Obama.

[madrchsod]

18. i had a mimeograph machine

three tv channels, to find foreign papers i had to travel a hundred miles,to listen to world broadcasts-shortwave.

i`d go fucking crazy if i had to go back!

i think either will be good altough i think obama would be better but that`s not really important in the big picture. if we don`t get the senate at 60 and as many in the house as possible either candidate is going to have tough sledding

[lvx35]

19. Yeah, my mom told me about the scene back then as far as information.

On one hand there was just a lot less available she said, but she also said that it gave people more time to focus on the bad that was really going on, while nowadays there's some new bad every day, so people can't hold on and get behind one issue.

And Yeah, I agree either one would be good. I have to say I'm a backer of the "Dream Team", with Hillary/Obama. If I could have my way it would be Hillary till 2012 then Obama.

[madrchsod]

5. learn from the mistakes of the past and try not to repeat them

and next generation will do the same. that is why i`m not a hillary fan..i think she never understood the failures of our generation. that is why obama appeals to me..i really think he understands those failures.i`m willing to give the kid a chance

[amandabeech]

11. Frankly, I don't hear Obama saying much about U.S. history in general

that I wouldn't contest. When he makes statements about history, I so seldom think that he's clearly right. I've always had an interest in history, and I was a history major in college. I also lived through some of the later '60s stuff. I genuinely wish that he would post citations to authorities that back up his statements. Sometimes I wish that he'd taken more history in college and less poli sci.

He may be able to point out some failures, but I haven't heard or read about him acknowledging the successes of that time. If he can't articulate them, then I think that we might have to go through the processes again that produced positive change during that time. I don't want to go through that again, and it sounds like you don't, either.

[amandabeech]

6. Pearlstein makes an interesting point about national trauma later in the piece.

He likens the '60s to the Civil War and the Great Depression, both of which events left scars on the American psyche for decades. In the Civil War, of course, the nation went to war with itself, and Republican politicians "waved the bloody shirt" (a symbol of the perfidy of the South in killing Northern soldiers) for at least 30 years after Lee's surrender.

In the Depression, may intelligent and reasonable folks thought that the country would burst into anarchy and class warfare. Witness the Smedley Butler affair. My parents were pre-teens, then teens and young adults during the Depression, and my Mom's family nearly lost their farm which is in the family yet today. The experience scarred them, that's for sure, and others like them. They were and my Mom still is frightened to death of any kind of debt. Of course, right now, lots of people are thinking that being free of debt may be a good thing.

Which is to say, that if you believe that the '60s were a trauma, and I do, the effects will continue until for some time because the people who were affected, baby boomers and their kids, even those who were and are in reaction to the '60s, can't let it go. It brings a huge reaction--notice the incredibly rude first post--in everyone.

The 60s will work themselves out in time, and we will all just have to wait.

[DeepModem Mom]

9. You're so right about the effects of the Depression staying with folks...

who lived through it their entire lives. Thanks for your thoughtful post.

[amandabeech]

13. You're welcome, and thank you for your frequent and thoughtful posts. n/t

[madrchsod]

16. yes they will....

during one of my bouts with unemployment my family had to move back with my parents. some smart ass asked my dad assed what he thought of me moving back home..my dad said .."a lot of people did this in the 30`s" the guy did`t say anything. that is the lesson i learned from almost 80 yrs ago and passed it on to my children...

[cgrindley]

12. Fuck the 60's

what a useless, stupid, self-centered and obnoxious time period. Good fucking riddance. They were utterly meaningless and will die with the baby boom.

[Adelante]

14. I wish you would shut up

I've told you before very many of Obama's supporters are baby boomers. Why do you want to alienate people?

[cgrindley]

23. I just don't want to hear about the 60's and how great the 60's were

anymore than I want to hear people waxing nostalgic for the 80's or really for any other decade. Romanticizing the past and misrepresenting the past merely keeps us from a better future.

[madrchsod]

17. Good fucking riddance. yes to you

[cgrindley]

24. Romanticizing the 1960's merely shows that no one remembers

the 1960's in their correct historical context. It was a decade like any other. Jesus. No one romanticizes the 1970's and yet that's when the draft ended, women got freedom of choice, and the fifth estate finally grew some balls.

[BringBigDogBack]

20. Bullshit

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. "We cannot escape history.." Abraham Lincoln.

We can't escape the '60s anymore than we can escape the '50s that brought about the revolution of the '60s.

The struggle between opposing forces in those generations still goes on with fresh troops from both.

[BeyondGeography]

22. The 60's made this campaign possible

The trick for this country if it is move forward is to embrace the eternally positive legacies of the 60's (which start with equal rights and civil rights) and reject the accompanying culture wars for the destructive sideshow that they are. It won't be easy, but this campaign season has convinced me that time is on the side of progress. The dumbest things said about gender and race have been by older people; younger voters are not as easily sucked in to mindless divisiveness; I think it's a big reason why they support Obama who presents a plausible version of unity to them.

[Radical Activist]

25. More boomer arrogance.

Of course the 60's will stay with us to some extent just as the Depression era generation is still with us and issues of that era still effect politics today. The writer is setting up a straw man. The arguments of the 60's will still be here but that doesn't mean we have to let those old arguments continue to completely dominate political debate. Its a shift in focus, not a total abandonment.

[peoli]

27. Evolution? Fuggedabouddit