Can we revive '60s-era ideals?
http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/685427,CST-EDT-simpson07.article
December 7, 2007
BY DICK SIMPSON
Politically, 1968 began in Chicago in 1967. The country at the time
faced three great crises: racial discrimination, the Vietnam War, and
the imperial presidency in which all executive, legislative and
judicial power was being gathered into the hands of the president.
Behind these loomed the cultural clash of the '60s generation. The
hippies, Yippies, Beatle-loving, pot-smoking free lovers doing their
own thing came up against Richard J. Daley, the Chicago cops and the
National Guard upholding the status quo against their own
''barbarian'' children. Society was sliding into stereotype, and
anger was rising.
The clash had begun with civil rights protests, which had morphed
into anti-Vietnam protests and a third-party convention held in a
downtown Chicago hotel in August 1967. At the time forming a third
party of students, some community leaders and protesters seemed
plausible. We sought to draft Eugene McCarthy as our candidate before
he entered Democratic Party primaries. There were no rules for how to
defeat a seated president, end racial discrimination, stop a
disastrous war and return power from an imperial presidency by giving
"all power to the people."
Those of us who came of age in the 1960s were optimistic. We actually
believed that peace, democracy and justice could be achieved. We
naively thought it would only take a few years of dedicated struggle.
None of us in the "movement" believed that 40 years later we would be
fighting another disastrous war abroad, fighting yet another imperial
president, one who spies on American citizens, and living in a
country in which minorities are still not equal.
Still, some real progress has been made. Richard M. Daley is more
enlightened than his father, for instance. Many African Americans
(and women, Latinos, Asians and gays) have made major strides
individually and collectively. Our great enemy since World War II,
the Soviet Union, no longer exists. Times have changed.
In the '60s, though, we didn't really worry about getting a job,
about finding health insurance or about saving for retirement. We
weren't fearful of crime walking our city streets. We felt free to
demonstrate, protest and work inside and outside the system for our
idealistic goals.
Today, we no longer believe that anything is possible. We no longer
expect to achieve peace, democracy or justice in our lifetime.
Some of my fellow '60s activists have dropped out over the last 40
years. But there is still a hard core of us in human services,
mid-level government positions, the halls of Congress, foundations
and other places in society. We have not lost our zeal. For us, the
question is whether today's youth can overcome their own generation's
doubts and current cynicism. Peace, democracy and justice still
demand the same noisy protests as they did then.
The '60s began with Kennedy in the White House, folk songs in the
parks, civil rights marches in the streets and hope in the air. They
ended in assassinations, urban riots, the epic clash at Chicago's
1968 Democratic National Convention, and the quagmire of the Vietnam War.
By contrast, our 21st century began with the terrorist attacks on the
World Trade Center and Pentagon, followed by the Afghanistan and Iraq
wars. Now we face a housing crisis and a looming economic recession
-- in part brought by tax breaks for the wealthy and the drain of the
wars abroad. Previous imperial empires have been broken not by defeat
on the battlefields but by corruption within and a waste of resources
in wars they couldn't afford. The fear is that we will remake their mistakes.
Our hope is that the spirit of the '60s still lives or may be reborn.
If so, we will achieve more progress this time around if we learn the
'60s' hard lessons. It still must be the youth who provide the energy
and leadership. But we all need to rediscover the idealism and the
determination we had back then.
--------
Summer of Love
Dick Simpson Whitewashing 60s Radicals
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/907
By Warner Todd Huston
December 10, 2007
They always say that the passage of time sometimes dulls the memory
of a person's past, that oft times only the good memories remain.
More often, though, time plus a large dollop of myth making and lies
creates a whole new world out of the past. Dick Simpson is more
evidence of the latter than the former.
In a whitewashing of the foolishness and destruction wrought by his
anti-American comrades in the vaunted "summer of love," Chicago
Sun-Times columnist Simpson wonders "Can we revive '60s-era ideals?"
Surely, anyone who has a clear memory of those tumultuous days would
quickly reply, "I sure hope not!"
To start with, Simpson ridiculously presents as fact at least one of
the arguments for what the country "faced" in 1967 as framed by the
radical leftists that formed the emerging counter culture of the 60s.
He states in a factual way that the country, "faced three great
crises: racial discrimination, the Vietnam War, and the imperial
presidency in which all executive, legislative and judicial power was
being gathered into the hands of the president."
Now, who cannot agree with his first two issues? But that third one
in retrospect is as silly as it gets. If LBJwho was the Democrat
president in 1967 and 1968, as you knowhad created an "imperial
presidency" in which was vested "all executive, legislative and
judicial power" then why did he have to bow out of running for a
second full term in the upcoming 1968 presidential election during
those same years? LBJ did make a mash of Vietnam, it is true, but to
imagine he had created the so-called "imperial presidency" that the
country "faced" as a problem is not a rendition of the factual
situation in 1967 but is merely a parroting of the uninformed opinion
of the 60s hippies that began their efforts to undermine society at that time.
Now, the only real quibble Simpson's uninformed contemporaries had
with LBJ was his conduct of the war, yet Simpson includes civil
rights as an issue they protested for and an issue this legitimately
nation faced. But LBJ was a leading figure in helping to push the
civil rights agenda so Simpson's protesters could hardly have had too
much against Johnson on that count. State laws and practices were far
more the obstacle to civil rights than Federal, in the final
analysis. Yet, Simpson uncritically regurgitates the far left's
talking points even this far removed from the era when any unbiased
review of the real history of the era proves those claims to be
balderdash by now.
In his next colorful paragraph, he continues to employ the failed
assumptions of the losers in the counter culture movement quite
despite sense and reality.
Behind these loomed the cultural clash of the '60s generation. The
hippies, Yippies, Beatle-loving, pot-smoking free lovers doing their
own thing came up against Richard J. Daley, the Chicago cops and the
National Guard upholding the status quo against their own
''barbarian'' children. Society was sliding into stereotype, and
anger was rising.
Simpson states that the "anger was rising," but from whom was that
true? Only from the radical leftists. The rest of the nation didn't
have nearly the problems with society (civil rights aside) that the
malcontents and anti-Americans in the counter culture had. In fact,
the Vietnam war enjoyed majority support from most Americans almost
until the last days of the thing. So, Simpson's attempt to invest the
fraction of discontent that the hippies had into America's entire
populace is a blatant lie.
And, let's not kid ourselves. Few of the flower power generation,
those "free lovers" that Simpson so warmly remembersprobably in a
haze of pot smokecared a whit about civil rights. The civil rights
movement was organized and supported by the previous, older
generation of Americans than those who were beaten by King Daley's
police forces in 1968. The criminals of the Chicago 7 had little
interest in the real and important issue of civil rights. Radicals
like Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, and the like were
socialists looking to destroy America. In fact, justice and law had
nothing to do with their interests. Hoffman, for instance once tried
to extort money from the promoters of the Woodstock Music Festival,
so no "cause" but his own power and wallet was ever in his mind.
Civil rights were not really on the radar for any of these
hatemongers. Though they often appropriated the vernacular of the
true civil rights movement, their goals never much coincided with
those of Martin Luther King, Jr. (at least for most of his life) and
his followers. Chicago 7 member, Boby Seale, though a black man
himself, was also uninterested in rights for blacks that might be
obtained within the American system of laws and governance. He wanted
war between the races and separation of them, not equal rights and
harmony. So even his interests in the race question did not jive with
that of the true civil rights movement.
These are the scumbags that Dick Simpson wants us to fondly recall
and emulate. Certainly, time has dulled Dick's memory.
Next Simpson waxes poetic about how these troublemakers and criminals
were so interested in the democratic process that they came to
Chicago to start a "third party" for which they wanted to hold a
"convention." So serious were these "third party" supporters that
their candidate for president was to become a pig they anointed
"Pigasus the Immortal." Yes, it is easy to see how serious they were
about creating a third party, isn't it?
Simpson congratulates himself and his tie-died miscreants for their
efforts but admitted they hadn't a clue on how to go about it all.
"There were no rules for how to defeat a seated president," He droned
on (and, yes, he did write "seated" instead of "sitting") "…end
racial discrimination, stop a disastrous war and return power from an
imperial presidency by giving 'all power to the people.'" Again with
the ridiculous "imperial presidency" stuff. Naturally, Simpson is
completely wrong that "no rules" for how to achieve their goals had
ever been written. But like most of his kind, he was not interested
in that little thing we call the Constitution of the United States of
America. Well, none of them were interested in it until it came time
to invoke its protections to get themselves out of jail, that is.
We are up next for some more starry-eyed frivolity in Simpson's
assessment of the mood of his buddies awash in cut flowers and drugs.
Those of us who came of age in the 1960s were optimistic. We actually
believed that peace, democracy and justice could be achieved. We
naively thought it would only take a few years of dedicated struggle.
He has a funny definition for "optimism" when one contrasts the
laments by his comrades that everywhere the world had gone wrong and
this supposed "optimism" he claims they felt. Worse, if one reads the
drivel that was written by the so-called leaders of Simpson's day,
not a bit of their theories and ideas hold up nor stand the test of
time. It is quite evident that Simpson's assumptions that these
people had the slightest clue about the concepts of democracy,
justice and dedication is laughable at best.
And now to bring those creaky leftist tropes to today's world…
None of us in the "movement" believed that 40 years later we would be
fighting another disastrous war abroad, fighting yet another imperial
president, one who spies on American citizens, and living in a
country in which minorities are still not equal.
Obviously he learned zip, nada, zilch if he still sees the world in
the same murky light he did over 40 years ago. To assume, for
instance, that we are in a day when "minorities are still not equal"
is an appalling lie. Racism will, of course, never be vanquished in
mankind, but to say that minorities in this country aren't equal is
just a damned stupid comment.
We must clear up another whitewashing of reality by Simpson in the
next sentence. He proclaims that, "Our great enemy since World War
II, the Soviet Union, no longer exists," as if he is triumphantly
announcing the destruction of an ardent foe. On its face, Simpson is
right, of course. The Soviets were our enemy and some would say that
Russia still is or portends to be. But, for Simpson to celebrate that
fact in light of this lauding of his fellow 60s hippies is laughable
for it's disingenuousness. His pals in the counter culture movement
loved the Soviet Union, touted its "advances" and held up that
oppressively murderous regime as the beau ideal for the world to
emulate. Were you to inform them that their beloved Soviet Union
would fall with a whimper instead of a roar, they would most
assuredly not have welcomed the news. For Simpson to celebrate the
U.S.S.R.'s fall in this gauzy reminiscence of 60s radicalism is as
dishonest as it gets.
Of course, Simpson cries that his day was filled with the unconcern
of carefree youth, but that it's all gone bad. "In the '60s, though,
we didn't really worry about getting a job, about finding health
insurance or about saving for retirement," he whines. "We weren't
fearful of crime walking our city streets. We felt free to
demonstrate, protest and work inside and outside the system for our
idealistic goals." One could argue, naturally, that our current
societal ills could be laid at the feet of his irresponsible generation.
Simpson tries hard for some pathos with his wrap up, but succeeds
only in weak rhetoric and nutty comparisons.
The '60s began with Kennedy in the White House, folk songs in the
parks, civil rights marches in the streets and hope in the air. They
ended in assassinations, urban riots, the epic clash at Chicago's
1968 Democratic National Convention, and the quagmire of the Vietnam War.
By contrast, our 21st century began with the terrorist attacks on the
World Trade Center and Pentagon, followed by the Afghanistan and Iraq
wars. Now we face a housing crisis and a looming economic
recessionin part brought by tax breaks for the wealthy and the drain
of the wars abroad. Previous imperial empires have been broken not by
defeat on the battlefields but by corruption within and a waste of
resources in wars they couldn't afford. The fear is that we will
remake their mistakes.
The drama of riots and assassinations pales in comparison with a
shaky housing market, doesn't it? So, his contrast seems quite
anticlimactic to the point where one wonders what all the fuss is
about? After all, if all today's generation has to fear is falling
housing prices and high taxes, then what the heck is he all weepy
over? And his failed get-the-rich theme is so tired that it isn't
really believed by anyone anymore. At least it isn't believed by
anyone with half their wits about them. And Simpson is just as
witless by his inept economic figuring to imagine we have spent
ourselves into decline because of Iraq and Afghanistan. The amount of
money spent of these actions pales in comparison to our past wars and
we came out of those just fine, thank you very much.
Finally, after failing at so many analyses and historical allusions,
Simpson closes invoking that "spirit" that his generation held so
dear. But it was a spirit squandered and was so empty of any
meaningful solutions that all one can do is look back in sadness at
all the energy and all the potential wastedin the same sort of way
that many view Bill Clinton's years, so empty of meaning, in the White House.
Our hope is that the spirit of the '60s still lives or may be reborn.
If so, we will achieve more progress this time around if we learn the
'60s' hard lessons. It still must be the youth who provide the energy
and leadership. But we all need to rediscover the idealism and the
determination we had back then.
God forbid that the useless, uneducated, soulless, faux "spirit" of
the 60s should ever be visited upon our unsuspecting nation again.
Let us pray that our future youth have far more sense and
intelligence than the empty headed followers of the radical
hatemongers of Simpson's generation. And let us hope that such
leaders as he lauds die stillborn in their crib of self-loathing and
destruction.
The sooner these aging hippies pass from the scene, the better for
the country. A pox on their houses.
.
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