Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Generation Gap Blue Democrats lost red America back in 1965.
Opinion Journal (WSJ) ^ | November 5, 2004 | by DANIEL HENNINGER

Posted on 11/05/2004 7:09:52 AM PST by aculeus

And you tell me over, and over, and over again my friend Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

--Vietnam War Protest Song, 1965

How did the 2004 election map of the United States come to look like a color-field painting by Barnett Newman? In fact, if you adjust the map's colors for votes by county (as at the Web sites for CNN and USA Today), even the blue states turn mostly red. Pennsylvania is blue, but between blue Philadelphia and Pittsburgh every county in the state is red. California, except for the coastline, is almost entirely red.

This didn't happen last Tuesday. The color-coding of the 2004 election began around 1965 in the politics of the Vietnam era. The Democratic Party today is the product of a generational shift that began in those years.

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial
KEYWORDS: 1965
America's Worst Generation.

(Vets and other "real" Americans excluded.)

1 posted on 11/05/2004 7:09:52 AM PST by aculeus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: aculeus

The western world has a common dedication
To keep free people from Red domination
And maybe you can't vote, boy, but man your battle stations
Or there'll be no need for votin' in future generations

So over and over again, you keep sayin' it's the end
But I say you're wrong, we're just on the dawn of correction

There are buttons to push in two mighty nations
But who's crazy enough to risk annihilation?
The buttons are there to ensure negotiation
So don't be afraid, boy, it's our only salvation

So over and over again, you keep sayin' it's the end
But I say you're wrong, we're just on the dawn of correction

You tell me that marches won't bring integration
But look what it's done for the voter registration
Be thankful our country allows demonstrations
Instead of condemnin', make some recommendations
I don't understand the cause of your aggravation
You mean to tell me, boy, it's not a better situation?

So over and over again, you keep sayin' it's the end
But I say you're wrong, we're just on the dawn of correction

You missed all the good in your evaluation
What about the things that deserve commendation?
Where there once was no cure, there's vaccination
Where there once was a desert, there's vegetation
Self-government's replacing colonization
What about the Peace Corp. organization?
Don't forget the work of the United Nations

So over and over again, you keep sayin' it's the end
But I say you're wrong, we're just on the dawn of correction
But I say you're wrong, we're just on the dawn of correction

So over and over again, you keep sayin' it's the end
But I say you're wrong, we're just on the dawn of correction


2 posted on 11/05/2004 7:13:53 AM PST by Question Liberal Authority (THANK YOU, FREEPERS for re-electing President George W. Bush!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: aculeus

duplicat thread ...


3 posted on 11/05/2004 7:16:35 AM PST by gobucks (http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/classics/students/Ribeiro/laocoon.htm)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: aculeus
I agree that the change started in the 1960's. Those radicals such as Jane Fonda, John Kerry, Tom Haden, Black Panthers, Hillary Rodman Clinton and others set the Democratic party takeover in motion. However it wasn't until the late seventies that these snakes crawled out of their holes. Hillary Clinton will be the next candidate for President, no doubt. The strangle hold on the democratic party by the radicals will not be broken in time.
4 posted on 11/05/2004 7:16:49 AM PST by OKIEDOC (LL THE)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Question Liberal Authority

Hey, that's really good! I like it.


5 posted on 11/05/2004 7:16:55 AM PST by Kay Syrah (nice finish)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: aculeus

BTTT


6 posted on 11/05/2004 7:18:21 AM PST by Fiddlstix (This Tagline for sale. (Presented by TagLines R US))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kay Syrah
It's a song called "Dawn of Correction" by the Spokesmen, which was a reaction to "Eve of Destruction".

If you like that, you should hunt down this record album:

You can listen to samples at this web site:

http://www.conelrad.com/media/atomicmusic/sh_boom.php?platter=25

7 posted on 11/05/2004 7:21:38 AM PST by Question Liberal Authority (THANK YOU, FREEPERS for re-electing President George W. Bush!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Question Liberal Authority

BUMP


8 posted on 11/05/2004 7:41:38 AM PST by Nowhere Man (We have enough youth, how about a Fountain of Smart?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Question Liberal Authority

I have that on a song on MP3


9 posted on 11/05/2004 7:46:10 AM PST by philo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: aculeus

ping


10 posted on 11/05/2004 7:56:00 AM PST by Jack Black
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: gobucks; Admin Moderator
duplicat thread ...

Thanks. I did the search using the same title I posted and came up with NADA.

AM: Kill if you must this second thread

...But spare your country's flag he said.

11 posted on 11/05/2004 8:33:22 AM PST by aculeus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: aculeus; Question Liberal Authority; gobucks; OKIEDOC; Kay Syrah; Fiddlstix; TaxRelief; ...

I was too young, thank God, to get totally involved with the leftie agenda of the '60's. But I was also old enough to have had a good dose of traditional teaching (in elementary and middle school). Once I started seeing the Truth of the '60's, I was appalled that I had embraced, albeit loosely and somewhat unknowingly (my parents reared me right -- all mistakes were mine and mine alone!), many leftie ideas. This started me on a quest to find out what the heck happened!

It was hard to believe that things just turned without ryme or reason, like in a vaccum or something. One of my biggest questions to the previous generation was how could they have just let it happen? How was it that so many supposedly in charge just capitulated to the student uprisings, etc? Why did the previous generation just sit back when they were accused of all sorts of evils (real and imagined)? What did they do with the feelings of resentment they must have had about being made to look ridiculous??

One answer from a woman who was like a mother to me was that they just didn't believe "it" could happen in America. They thought it was a fad or something. They didn't understand the power that the baby boomers would have, nor how the boomers (their precious children who would be given every opportunity) would greedily grasp and corrupt that power. I think they were innocents, so to speak.

Another huge turning point for me was reading "Venona Secrets" (subtitle was, I think, "Communist Espionage in the United States"). I used to laugh with the rest of the lefties at people who "saw commies behind every bush." Hahaha, those poor deluded saps, such provincial thinking, etc. Turns out, they were right. Commies were placed in strategic positions in the '40's and '50's (education, government, media, law, religion) and, it's my opinion after lots of research, this led directly to the horror of the '60's, bolstered by the sheer numbers of baby boomers.

(Robert Bork's book, "Slouching Toward Gommorah" was also hugely instructive. Highly recommend both books.)

Another book that was very instructive (was fairly balanced, surprisingly) for me was Landon Y. Jones' "Great Expectations: America and The Baby Boom Generation." Some points from that book as well as my two cents follow.

The boomers started out with such promise! I think up 'til the Rock Nation was usurped by the Woodstock Nation, my generation showed signs of being "all that" and more. Instead, we threw out tradition (the baby with the bath water) and created our own standards. The electronic babysitter won our minds. We had a kind of sophistication, but without understanding. Adults followed us instead of leading. Such an abnormally large generation couldn't be pacified or controlled by society. Special treatment, in the form of student deferments (again the questions: Why and how was this allowed??), was given to a huge percentage of male boomers who were eligible for military service but didn't serve -- it was an educational and economic gap, not racial, contrary to the poverty/race/war mantra. Many were really just refugees from affluence!

The self-indulged, pampered, enshrined boomers were NOT going to Vietnam. Anxiety set in and radicalism festered. Jerry Rubin. SDS (the Port Huron Statement of 1962, my GOD!), Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Fonda, radical politics, Weather Underground all reared their ugly heads. By '69, the best and brightest boomers were increasingly politicized and alienated from the greatest generation.

By Fall 1970, the rads went underground, which included cutting their hair, cleaning themselves up, exchanging bell bottoms for brief cases and pot for designer drugs, and moved into the mainstream -- education, gov't, media, etc. -- where their presence swelled the numbers of lefties who had been placed there earlier. Lots of rads (the political revolutionaries) and some of their dupes and followers (the cultural/hippie revolutionaries) were disenchanted, pessimistic, old, cynical; they could not and would not adjust to society and vice-versa. Anger, alienation, suicide, drugs; the summer of love turned into rampant, unthinking rutting.

The Woodstock Nation became a disaster (it should have been obvious that it would). Because we were so numerous, our needs so compelling, our energy so robust, we believed we were special (our parents/society told us as much), unique, powerful. And we were, but beliefs are not always Truth and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I can only look back at the late '60's and early '70's as a time of great sadness for my generation and what it had wrought upon itself and the nation -- the tarnishing of our great national spirit, the wreak of our great promise, the dawning realization of the bills of goods we bought and sold.

Boomers and their impact on society is easily tracked -- the pig in the python. In this order: Education (God out, revisionist history in), military (ridiculed and dessimated), marriage (ridiculed, redefined), family (our children murdered in the womb), parenting (turned over to schools, gov't, and "experts") all changed drastically. We are coming into our time of being "in control" as our parents pass away. The next institution we will affect greatly: Old age. It's possible that the last, self-preservating deal the boomers make will be with the new breed of immigrants: Come, work, pay taxes to support me in my old age and we'll overlook the fact that you'll change America forever. We'll turn a blind eye if you're here illegally, if you aren't innoculated against infectious diseases, if you have criminal records, if you come from enemy nations.

One end scenario of the boomer legacy could be doom and gloom, which is where it was going up until recently. But the other end scenario is that we come to our senses, that we use our huge numbers to turn us back to God and tradition and American values. We can do it. We can do it quickly and decisively. We cannot be ignored -- we are too many. The 2004 election gives me great hope that my generation will make necessary changes in order to leave a legacy that honors God, respects the heritage of the greatest generation, and gives hope and courage to the next generation.

Prodigal baby boomers, come home!!

Phew. I must have had to get that off my chest!!! Sorry so long.

<><


12 posted on 11/05/2004 9:21:36 AM PST by viaveritasvita (God poured His love out on us! Romans 5:5-8)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: viaveritasvita

Thanks for the ping!


13 posted on 11/05/2004 9:24:49 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: viaveritasvita
Phew. I must have had to get that off my chest!!! Sorry so long.

I read the whole thing. Well done.

Read The Black Book of Communism for a global look at the movements these people favored. It's written by (yes!) a group of European intellectuals the lead author was (oui!) French.

14 posted on 11/05/2004 10:25:48 AM PST by aculeus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: viaveritasvita
Thanks for the ping. It's a really good read, and well done. I guess since I came of age during the 60's went to school in a hot bed of radicalism, I would have to say you have captured the zeitgeist pretty well. One of my favourite books from the era, read oh so many years ago was Hoffer's "The True Believer."

I was really a little puzzled by my cohorts, tho I liked them heartily, found them a bit foolish. I always thought they's outgrow it.

Sorry so long

if I had a dollar for every time I have had to say that, I'd be rich.

15 posted on 11/05/2004 12:53:08 PM PST by Kay Syrah (nice finish)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: viaveritasvita

That would have made a good post (vanity) all by itself. Thanks.


16 posted on 11/07/2004 6:25:14 AM PST by lancer (If you are not with us, you are against us!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: lancer; Kay Syrah; aculeus

Thank you all kindly!

<><


17 posted on 11/07/2004 10:23:18 AM PST by viaveritasvita (God poured His love out on us! Romans 5:5-8)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson