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I wish I had been around for the 60s

posted August 30, 2006 - 11:07am
I wish I had been around for the 60s

I wish I had been around for the 60s. People actually cared enough about this country then to riot, to speak their minds, to do everything in their power to make a difference. Maybe the media has just changed, or the events which occurred with the Vietnam war made the government more apathetical to its citizens, but I don't see much of anyone standing out anymore.

Yes, Bush's approval is low, and the newspapers are littered with conflicting opinions about whether this war in Iraq is making any difference or not. But that doesn't really catch the eye anymore, and bantering in the local paper doesn't make much happen.

I read in the paper today that our friend Rumsfeld stated that anyone who opposes the war in Iraq is akin to those who encouraged the Nazis.

My reaction: WHAT?!?!??!

Honestly, that's ridiculous. I think we, as Puritanically bread Americans don't have much of an understanding of what's truly going on in the Middle East right now. It's not all about us, and it's certainly not about killing off races of human beings. Are the terrorists wrong? Absolutely. But Rumsfeld called the entirety of the Middle East our enemies, and I think that's kind of where we're going wrong here. Because you know what? They're not our enemies, they're just different.

That's not to say that everything else going on around there is acceptable, especially from our American mindsets, but I don't know enough to argue any of those points.

The real point I'm trying to make is that everyone appears very apathetical. We all have an opinion, but mostly we're content to blog about it or mention it in vaguely heated conversations with our friends and loved ones. Where are the Hippies? When did things become so complicated that it isn't as easy as choosing sides and fighting for one belief at a time? We just sit around and wait for someone else to take a stand, to make the difference, to do something, to do what we know is right. I'm guilty of this as much as anyone, but mostly because I watch South Park and the Daily Show instead of investing time in news reports. And what's the point in that anyway with media biases?

I don't know where the medium is, and I don't know what can be done. But I wish I lived in a time where people acted on their beliefs. As wrong as they are, at least the terrorists do.

Author: eholody
-A +A


Comments

"How we can enact

Publius - Sun, 2006-22-10 9:55 am
"How we can enact change..." Well, I was always taught that voting helped. I hear a lot of complaining about everyone's "choice" but how many people voted in the primary elections? That is where the problem originates. If you want to make a difference, that is the time to be heard. If you only vote when it's time to choose between the parties, most of the time, you're too late. And if a majority of people are so defiant and want our president out of office, why did he win re-election? Don't get too caught up in polls and opinion shows that always tell us how much our citizens hate this president's administration. All you need to do is look at the election results.

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How we can enact change

Phillip Lorenz - Sun, 2006-22-10 5:35 am
The problem is that people feel helpless. That's why they don't protest. They feel that one person can't make a difference. However, the number of people on the streets fighting for what's right is irrelevant. You will be victorious when you embody the majority of willpower in the country.

Good point. I just read the

eholody - Thu, 2006-28-9 4:35 pm
Good point. I just read the article, "Why does the whole world hate America?" and was livid when I read that, because everyone judges Americans as one people. All I wish is that we could be seen as a conflicted country, which I guess, in the end, we aren't. We're too lazy to do anything but watch Jon Stewart and laugh. Instead we're seen as braindead drones who can't stop eating and want to take over the world. I wish the other side could be seen, but I guess the side that was seen in the 60s is the side that is plopping their kids in front of the computers to let the media raise them.

got grounded due to heavy fog

AnthonyB - Thu, 2006-28-9 11:42 am
lol, yeah, it was the fog. Fuel prices are coming down a bit now though. Election season lol

anthony b

Hey, aren't you in the Bahamas now?

Idlewild - Thu, 2006-28-9 11:32 am
Or was that your online alter ego posting that last night? Must cost a lot to fuel up your jet these days. ;-)

Idliwild IDL

AnthonyB - Thu, 2006-28-9 11:21 am
Right, generalizations or labels are never meant to be applied to everyone. Just the ones who were or did buy into the masses which created the label to begin with. Basicly the genuine founders and their lemmings.

anthony b

Most decades are 'overrated' ...and don't even fit into decades

Idlewild - Thu, 2006-28-9 9:47 am
AnthonyB, people like to name eras with catchy titles, but they don't apply to all people, and times don't conveniently change every 10 years. The hippies, drugs, antiwar movement that people associate with the '60s didn't really begin until the mid-'60s, and continued well into the '70s. The '70s, of course, were called "The Me Decade," but not everyone was selfish and self-centered, naturally. Not everyone of my parents' age was necessarily part of a "Great Generation," just like not everyone was "Roaring" in the '20s. And someone really needs to come up with a good description for the current decade--the "oughts"? The "zero-"something decade? Ugh! Let's get some slick PR types to work on this. ;-)

the 60's were overated, I was there

AnthonyB - Thu, 2006-28-9 2:12 am
You hear the clever sayings, " the generation who changed the world " " the free love generation " " the rebellious generation ". Bob Dylan, the weathermen, the black Panthers, the chicago 7, woodstock, blaaaaahh. In reality what it all was were a bunch of spoiled kids. The sons of the WW2 victors. They had color tvs and air conditioning and tv dinners, fast food and all the drugs they could get their hands on. No other generation ever had all this. They were superior to everyone. Their feeling of superiority was backed up by the bomb. They were spoiled. They would'nt have to go dirty their hands in a war. They could sit in judgement of their countrys decisions. They could question everything. They were scared shitless. Truely the first selfish generation. Had their fathers acted the same way, we'd all be speaking Japanese and German. English only would'nt even be an option. If they had computers they would'nt even have protested. They ran to Canada. They went to school. They got deferments. They left the fighting to the poor slobs who had no way out. Now the sons of these are out and about . And the rumblings are similar. Only now, no worries. What we do is pay a " Volunteer Army " so that keeps em off the streets protesting. Bring back the draft and you'll see how much they're like daddy. If you can tear them away from their computers

anthony b

Re: "The old protests were just excuses to paint faces"

Idlewild - Wed, 2006-27-9 11:39 pm
Now that's quite a generalization, isn't it? Were you even alive back then? I was, and not everybody in that era was like the stereotypes you mentioned. Just like not everybody who was in their 20s during the 1980s was a rich yuppie Wall Street stockbroker, as was the media stereotype at the time. Much of the reason there was so much uproar over Vietnam is because unlike today, there was no volunteer army--there was a DRAFT, and if your birthday came up in the lottery, you went to Vietnam, whether you wanted to or not. Today I often hear people express sadness over soldiers dying but add, "Well, they knew what could happen to them and signed up anyway." Believe me, if there was a draft today and you saw congress member's and wealthy people's kids being drafted to serve in Iraq, you'd hear plenty of protesting.

Ken -- It is indeed

Lysandra - Sun, 2006-3-9 1:03 pm
Ken -- It is indeed tempting to abandon ship. All of my artistic / intellectual / intelligent friends are battling the temptation to move to Canada, Spain, Sweden, England, anywhere but this island of ignorance and arrogance. But we would feel pangs of guilt over abandoning this country that could be great. We don't want to recreate the kind of brain drain that happened all over fascist Europe in the early twentieth century. You're right. Americans fight for what we believe in. It's just that much tougher when we have to fight our own government, and it's not even a level playing field.

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