The Sixties: The Years that Shaped a Generation

PBS ^ | 9/29/2005 | PBS

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"It was the age of selfishness. It was the age of self-indulgence. It was the age of anti-authority. It was an age in which people did all kinds of wrong things."

- Ed Meese III, U.S. Attorney General, Reagan Administration

"It was absolutely exhilarating. It was the greatest time to be alive ever, for sure."

- Charles Kaiser, Author/Historian

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On PBS now... Cindy Sheehan wishes she was there!

[Siena Dreaming]

It was an age when millions of kids screwed up things they would have to spend much of their lives straightening out.

[ncountylee]

"Cindy Sheehan wishes she was there!"

Hey Cindy...with all the babes in the 60's you would have been lucky to have been in a crowd shot.

[Mike Darancette]

The 60's were good because we were young.

[jess35]

The decade of selfish self-absorbed leftist jerkoffs.

I am soooo glad my parents didn't buy into that BS.

[NickatNite2003]

President Bush finally grants a meeting to
Mutha Cindy and her Ghouls of the 60's Past
delegation:

Bush: "I apologise!" "Really!, We had no idea
any of you were still around!"...

(smirk)

[ElkGroveDan]

I stood in wide-eyed amazement thinking my older cousins and babysitters had lost their minds. I now know that in fact they had.

[bannie]

My siblings and I were too busy working with the family to become hippies.

Thank you, again, Mom and Dad.

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It was an age when millions of kids screwed up things they would have to spend much of their lives straightening out.

As kids are likely to do, but most kids do not have a national media to egg them on.

[ElkGroveDan]

I was only a kid, but the depiction of the 60s that best fit my memories were the Austin Powers movies.

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I stood in wide-eyed amazement thinking my older cousins and babysitters had lost their minds.

I was to young at the time, but looking back.... me to.

[Huck]

The 70s rule now and forever.

[uncbob]

I couldn't stand the middle 60s to turn of the 70s

Bunch of bare footed dirty unkempt spoiled brats complaining about conforming while all the while looking and acting like cookie cutter clones of each other and enjoying the benefits that all the hard working Americans squares earned for them

[wingman1]

The sixties was a rudderless ship.

No leadership.

Unless one counts Timmy Leary, The Smothers Brothers, Eugene McCarthy and The Chicago Seven.

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The decade had begun on a high note. Initially, Americans accepted the Vietnam War as a larger struggle against communism. Optimism grew as Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act in the mid-60s. A counter-culture movement was also taking root. Young people, in particular, were denouncing the traditions and norms of the establishment. For this affluent and educated set, drugs and music, rather than violence, would change the world.

Is this how people really viewed the 60's, while it was happening?

[Miss Marple]

Well, I lived it, and I don't want to go back. I graduated from high school in 1966. The years prior to my graduation were happy years...sort of like Animal House times. The years AFTER my graduation (1967-1970) were nothing but anger and fear.

I was an Air Force wife in those years...my son was born in 1968. Constant complaining, unhappiness, anger, rage, paranoia...no thanks! I have NO fond memories of those years, and that was when I became disenchanted with the media.

If you want to get a good idea of the 60's (and the early 70's), rent Forrest Gump. It was not a time that anyone should recall with fondness.

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The 70s rule now and forever.

I turned 15 in 1980, so I'm fond of the 70's, but the 80's really ruled... in my context of history!

[Little Bill]

It has been my opinion for many years that the modern conservitive movement is a reaction to the 60's. I was young then but I missed most of the "Fun" because I was occupied with other things, the Army for one.

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I graduated from high school in 1966. The years prior to my graduation were happy years...sort of like Animal House times. The years AFTER my graduation (1967-1970) were nothing but anger and fear.

Thanks for your thoughts.... It seems like one step forward, two steps back since then.

[Miss Marple]

To answer your question, NO, it wasn't that way at all. Not where I was, anyway. People opposedthe war because of the draft, and the bottom line is that people didn't want to get killed. All of this talk about "principled" resistance is hogwash. Boomers who pretend that they weren't afraid of getting killed are simply re-writing history. I sat in on too many dorm conversations to believe anything else.

The people who believed music would change the world were dopers who are by now institutionalized or dead. Those of us who were in the real world were scrambling to make lives while the entire country was torn apart by the demonstrations and later Watergate.

I will speak out whenever I hear clueless types talk about how wonderful the 60's were. ONLY the early 60's...the rest was crap.