Really, who didn’t what to blow up stuff in the 60’s?
There were a lot of us, and we were young. The government was obviously corrupt, we were in a war which saw thousands of people our age being killed weekly that no revisionist history was ever going to make right. They had the guns, but we had the numbers. We still do.
Really, who didn’t want to be Bernadette Dorns bitch?
I still remember when I realized that I was no longer collecting baseball cards to store in the attic for my old age but was, rather, using them to separate the stems and seeds from my pot to keep my joints from exploding.
And now these things of our youth, like tuna, clean air and Taiwan, are coming back to haunt us. All the high school squares and chuckles are in charge, and they are grinding out their frustration and resentment on our elderly best and brightest.
In the 20’s, all except the lost, were communists – it was fashionable and sensible – like good shoes. The fact that people tend to work for their own interest and not the common good had not been established yet, but it was clear to the elites (i.e. Smart people without money) that Capitalism was nasty and brutish when naked.
We forget that the New Deal didn’t just come from nothing. The prep work for it came from Eugene Debs getting millions of votes for President while sitting in prison. It came when Montana put all its intellectuals (There were nine, for the record) in prison for criticizing the government. People were unhappy and complained. Marxism looked good to a big percentage of the population and we the people had no choice but to change and accept parts of their program.
As Steven Lendman puts it in his blog:
“Marx condemned "free-market" capitalism as "anarchic" and ungovernable.
‘Because it alienates the masses. Prevents the creation of a humane society. Produces class struggle between the "haves" and "have-nots." The bourgeoisie (capitalists) and proletariat (workers). The destructive contradictions of the system. Exploited masses so a few can profit.
He predicted what's clear today. Competition over time produces a handful of winners. Powerful monopolies controlling nearly all production and commerce. Finance capitalism as well. Exploitation increases. Successive crises erupt, and ultimately fed up workers react. Recognizing their collective power and bringing down the system. Replacing it with a self-managed one. Ending exploitation and alienation. In his view, an inevitable socialist revolution. “
When you see how far we have swung to the right since Reagan, the left looks pretty good – and so it was earlier this century.
Of course those intellectuals with warm thoughts and fuzzy ideas paid for it in the 50’s when fear and a drunken congressman made their lives uncomfortable. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree with time, and the battle continues.
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