I remember the leftovers of this movement when I was student in the Bay Area in the late 80s. What I can't believe is that that this movement has, in effect, undergone a revival. It's nutty.
'Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy.' - Fitzgerald
In life we make choices without fully realizing the path we are taking.
Reading your description of 1968 made me realize that as much as 2024 worries us, it was arguably much worse back then. There was more anger then and (1/6 hysteria aside), more people willing to take up arms.
I was also struck by the similarities between the criminality of the activists then and Antifa/BLM now.
And the support of the useful idiots of the intellectual left.
Ah, the Sixties! So much was going on, especially for young folks like me, graduating high school, and going to college or getting drafted, Civil Rights, assassinations, protest demonstrations, campus strikes, the proliferation of interesting, mind-expanding substances and the sexual revolution — feminism and The Pill — and political upheaval, all in one heady concoction. And Woodstock.
I missed out on a lot of the excitement and most of the above (except for college), but had erstwhile friends who had to experience these things first-hand. One former classmate, who began his college career as a would-be dandy in the style of British rockers of the time, ended up joining the Weather Underground. If he was as disorganized as a radical bomb-maker as he was at showing up for class, I expect his radicalism was born out of a desire for exciting distractions, rather than ideological conviction. Most of the people I knew of who spent a lot of time in demonstrations (like “The Mobe” anti-VietNam War protest in DC) seemed driven by a desire to be part of something that made headlines, rather than headway in changing society. They/we were just college kids, and this was like a taking a course in current events with the classroom in the streets. Fortunately, nobody I knew got hurt that way. The one guy who got drafted — a smart fellow doing Russian literature (in Russian), but not smart about attending classes enough to keep his grades up, and got his butt drafted into the Mean, Green Machine — came back a much less ebullient character after several years’ having been through Chinese language training and sent to a listening post in Thailand monitoring ChiCom transmissions along the PRC/North VietNam border.
I remember the leftovers of this movement when I was student in the Bay Area in the late 80s. What I can't believe is that that this movement has, in effect, undergone a revival. It's nutty.
Highly educated but clearly had mental health issues.
A wasted life. so much more could have been done with her intelligence and skills. Pearls before swine.
It’s a sad story indeed.
'Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy.' - Fitzgerald
In life we make choices without fully realizing the path we are taking.
Reading your description of 1968 made me realize that as much as 2024 worries us, it was arguably much worse back then. There was more anger then and (1/6 hysteria aside), more people willing to take up arms.
I was also struck by the similarities between the criminality of the activists then and Antifa/BLM now.
And the support of the useful idiots of the intellectual left.
Yes, those similarities struck me as well.
Ah, the Sixties! So much was going on, especially for young folks like me, graduating high school, and going to college or getting drafted, Civil Rights, assassinations, protest demonstrations, campus strikes, the proliferation of interesting, mind-expanding substances and the sexual revolution — feminism and The Pill — and political upheaval, all in one heady concoction. And Woodstock.
I missed out on a lot of the excitement and most of the above (except for college), but had erstwhile friends who had to experience these things first-hand. One former classmate, who began his college career as a would-be dandy in the style of British rockers of the time, ended up joining the Weather Underground. If he was as disorganized as a radical bomb-maker as he was at showing up for class, I expect his radicalism was born out of a desire for exciting distractions, rather than ideological conviction. Most of the people I knew of who spent a lot of time in demonstrations (like “The Mobe” anti-VietNam War protest in DC) seemed driven by a desire to be part of something that made headlines, rather than headway in changing society. They/we were just college kids, and this was like a taking a course in current events with the classroom in the streets. Fortunately, nobody I knew got hurt that way. The one guy who got drafted — a smart fellow doing Russian literature (in Russian), but not smart about attending classes enough to keep his grades up, and got his butt drafted into the Mean, Green Machine — came back a much less ebullient character after several years’ having been through Chinese language training and sent to a listening post in Thailand monitoring ChiCom transmissions along the PRC/North VietNam border.