Did the 1960s Really Happen? (Part Two)

pjmedia.com ^ | 1/19/2015 | Kathy Shaidle

[rktman]

As last week’s epically embarrassing “James Taylor” fiasco demonstrated, the Western establishment acts like the Sixties never ended.

But as I’ve been insisting for some time, in many respects, that “Sixties” never really happened.

All that “peace and love,” “soixant-huitard” stuff comprised but a slender slice of the 1960s, and much of that was bogus, a cynical scam that ruined millions of lives.

“OK,” some of you have said in the comments, “but at least that decade had a hell of a soundtrack!”

Yeah, about that…

[ifinnegan]

I read the article and the title and intro have nothing to do with the article.

It was a great article.

[Mears]

“Did the 1960s Really Happen? (Part Two)”

—

Beats me !

I spent the 60s in the kitchen.

.

[rktman]

Wikipedia says melanoma. Yes to the doris day being his mom. I have to thank her for my disdain for celebrities. When I was a youngster in the mid 50’s living in Carmel CA, they were filming a movie there and I approached her for an autograph and she blew me off like a 3 week old salad(?) and from that point on, I have held celebrities in the same ranking as an outhouse. (I know some are nice folks but for an impressionable little kid, I was crushed. But thanks doris.)

[Borges]

And she was the Queen of Nice!

[blueunicorn6]

Old, filthy, stinky, pot-smoking hippies.

[Rusty0604]

I’m glad you are still here to tell that story. Thank you for your service.

[gunnyg]

remebering jimmy swaggart back in the 60s.....turned out, he was right about most everything...despite his photography hobby...
Dick.G: AMERICAN!
aka: Gunny G
Semper FIDELIS
*****

[MaggiesPitchfork]

Anyone who is still romanticizing the 60s needs to be forced to watch the movie Hair. Guaranteed to make you want to punch a hippie in the face.

[dhs12345]

That wouldn’t happen on my watch and these days. Thanks to the new “instant” media, people can’t get away with as much and everyone has a camera. The door swings both ways — it can show a person being treated unfairly or can show that same person being destructive and violent.

[dfwgator]

Now, can someone tell me… why, in 1975 we pulled our troops out of Vietnam?

Student: The failure of Vietnamization to win popular support… caused an ongoing erosion of confidence… in the various American… but illegal… Saigon regimes.

Is she right? 'Cause I know that's the *popular* version of what went on there. And a lot of people like to believe that. I wish I could, but I was *there*. I wasn't here in a class room, hoping I was right, thinking about it. I was up to my knees in rice paddies, with guns that didn't work! Going in there, looking for Charlie, slugging it out with him; While pussies like you were back here partying, putting headbands on, doing drugs, and listening to the g-----n Beatle albums! Oh! Oh! Oh!

[stephenjohnbanker]

punch a hippie in the face.”

I did this a couple of times. I wasn’t real “fashionable : )

[Resolute Conservative]

So was McCarthy.

[Colinsky]

I missed The 60s even though I was there. I flunked my draft physical and didn’t have to worry about conscription. Half the guys at college were there only to get a draft deferment. The demonstrations and riots were actually against conscription.

Most of the music of the 60s was pap; I scorned rock&roll and was an elitist jazz aficionado. A friend of mine played in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and did side gigs at Motown; he was scornful of rock and called it “the music of minimal competence.”

But then Jimi Hendrix came along and I doubt he was some studio musician’s puppet. I became entranced with Cream and Led Zep. But that was pretty darned late into the 60s.

[kidd]

I grew up in a suburb of Minneapolis.

The 60’s didn’t show up until 1971.

And then it was just longer hair and goofy clothes for a short time. Not much attitude.

[a fool in paradise]

The Weather Underground supported the action of the Manson family’s murder spree “they ate the capitalist pigs’ food!” but by the time of the Oscar nominated documentary, they claimed that the Manson Family was used by the establishment to smear all hippies.

Feh.

[Chainmail]

"he’d been killed because he would not follow orders and was dumber than monkey shit."

We used to break men into three categories in combat: Killers, Fillers, and Fodder.

Killers were the 10-20% or so that learned to step where they were supposed to, keep very quiet and when the shooting started, aimed.

Fillers were most of the folks: they were noisemakers. The shooting would start and they'd blast away full-A and if things went well they didn't hit any of us, just a lot of leaves on trees and they might have a few rounds left afterward.

Fodder was going to die no matter what you did for them. No matter how much you protected them, taught them, even threatened them, they'd sleep on watch, smoke cigarettes on Listening posts or ambushes, or just stand like dullards on the skyline. Sounds like Mr. Woodstock was one of those. At least your tried.

You're right. In many cases it's best the families remembered them as well as possible.

[a fool in paradise]

James Taylor’s “You’ve Got A Friend” is from 1971.

[Chainmail]

For me the 60s were just those of us who served in Vietnam (or at least tried to) and those that didn't.

The guys who served were the best and the bravest, the most selfless of American young men and the true descendants of the Founders.

The rest were excuse-finding weaklings that missed the chance to really find out who they were as men.

You can easily see why things descended rapidly from that rift in our concepts of manhood. And why unbelievably dippy styles like flowered shirts and bellbottoms existed.

[nanetteclaret]

I loved the early 60s. The music “had a great beat and you could dance to it.” It seemed like life was really fun, in spite of “duck & cover” drills, until the Beatles introduced psychedelic music and lyrics. Suddenly, almost overnight, much of the music was un-danceable and depressing. The culture descended into a black hole and it has never come out. “Turn on, tune in, drop out” is in the White Hut.

[Safetgiver]

I flunked my draft physical and didn’t have to worry about conscription......Not puttin’ you down, bro, but when I got on the bus to Pittsburgh for the induction center I was with twin brothers. One was a quarterback in his sophmore, junior and senior years who got a free ride with Penn State. His brother had Coke bottle glasses, was half his brother’s size and was so mousy he jumped if anyone addressed him. At the end of the physical, on the way home, I found out I was accepted, the brother was accepted and the QB was rejected because he had hemmorhoids. I found out the brother retired with 20 years in the Army.