Quoted:
KBaker, I really agree with the first part, but would like to ask a couple of questions...
What would have been so different if JFK and MLK had lived, would it have made that much of a difference?
How did the 60's f#%$ us up so bad?
No flame, just curious about your thoughts.... fullclip
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It's not so much about JFK and MLK living as the manner of their deaths. I honestly don't believe that Oswald was the "lone gunman," and it pi**es me off that the conspirators got away with it. MLK wasn't a saint, but what he was doing was overall right and good, and James Earl Ray's actions made it worse and made it take longer. Not to mention the fact that the '68 GCA was a direct result of those two assassinations. That's not to say that something along those lines wouldn't have passed eventually, but there wouldn't have been as much impetus behind it.
How did the 60's fvck us up? Boy, I'm glad GB allows more than 3500 characters now.[8D]
IMO America started its decline in the 1950's with the Korean "police action" and McCarthyism. The people who came back from WWII after winning the last "good" war got to go back, or watch their younger brothers go fight another damned bloody war. And anyone who has gone to war will tell you it's not noble or honorable or gallant - it's hell. Between WWI and WWII there was enough time to romanticize, but not between WWII and Korea. WWII was supposed to make the world safe, but here we were interdicting Communism and worrying about the Russians having the bomb. That kind of thing makes people uneasy.
When things went to hell in a handbasket in Korea, America started becoming disillusioned. The invasion of the Chinese and the firing of McArthur didn't help. And, we also started the "consumer society" at about the same time - conspicuous consumption and planned obsolescence really got moving. Teenagers, who always rebel against adults, rebelled a bit more. And McCarthyism, while the Red Scare was real, threatened our normal way of life by attacking the rule of law as we had always practiced it. We began to not trust our government.
We didn't win Korea. First real war we didn't. It was very poorly run, and not all that well followed here. The men coming back were not treated the same as WWII vets, and were more disillusioned than normal. By the late 50's the nuclear family was starting to unravel.
Then came Vietnam. This one didn't even start as a police action. It just kept gradually building. In the 60's when teenagers rebelled, the parent's let them. Dr. Spock told them to. Besides, they were too busy self-actualizing and consuming to care much about the kids. It was a decade of "if it feels good, do it." Hedonism is fun, but it's destructive to society. Hell, it's the antithesis of society. And we REALLY started to distrust government.
The 60's was the first time that kids said "I don't want to be like my parents" - and made a point not to be when they got older. They lost respect. They did what they wanted, when they wanted and were accountable pretty much to no one. And when they woke up one morning and were 30 years old, they didn't know what to do. But they had kids, and didn't know what to do with them, either.
The current educational system mess can be traced back to the late 50's, and 60's. The lack of parenting can too.
A society can stand a small percentage of the ignorant and irresponsible, but there has to be some threshold at which the system begins to slide into failure. I think we have or are rapidly approaching that threshold.
Comments?