re: All things considered, do you think the 1960s were positive for society?

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Anytime people question authority, it is a good thing.

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Who's authority? Your parent's, the government's, God's, all of them? Questioning authority is very different then completely rebeling against norms and customs that have been established to protect the individual, as well as society. The 60's had a huge impact on America - some positive, most negative. I ask you this: is life, society, or the world better now then it was before the 60's?

BTW, what's up with your personal identifiers? Mark Twain with Wahlberg's body? "The Third Leg" moniker, coupled with the Southern Miss symbol - are you aspiring to be Mississippi's version of Andy Warhol?

John Trudell quite eloquently summed up the mindset in his poem/song "Baby Boom Che":


You wanna know what happened to Elvis?
I’ll tell ya what happened.
I oughta know, man, I was one of his army.
I mean, man, I was on his side,
He made us feel all right.
We were the first wave in the post war baby boom.
The generation before had just come out of the great depression
and World War Two,
You know, heavy vibes for people to wear,
So much heaviness
Like some kind of voiding of the emotions.
Their music,
You know, the songs life always carries.
You know, every culture has songs?
Well, anyway, their music was restrained emotion,
You know, like you didn’t wanna dance
If you didn’t know how,
Which says something strange.
Well, anyway, Elvis came along about ten years after the nuke
When the only generals America had and the only army she had
Were Ike and Mac
And stupor hung over the land,
A plague where everyone tried to materially free themselves,
Still too shell-shocked to understand
To feel what was happening.


The first wave rebelled,
I mean, we danced even if we didn’t know how,
I mean Elvis made us move.
Instead of standing mute he raised our voice
And when we heard ourselves something was changing,
You know, like for the first time we made a collective decision
About choices.
America hurriedly made Pat Boone a general
In the army they wanted us to join
But most of us held fast to Elvis and the commandants around him
Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly,
Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Gene Vincent,
You know, like a different Civil War all over again
I mean, you take ‘Don’t Be Cruel’, ‘I Want You I Need You I Love You’
And ‘Jailhouse Rock’,
Or you take Pat and his white bucks singing love letters in the sand,
Hell, man, what’s real here?
I mean, Pat at the beach in his white bucks,
His ears getting sunburned,
Told us something about old wave delusion.


Then before long Elvis got assassinated in all the fame,
Taking a long time to die.
Others seized control while Elvis rode the needle out
Never understanding what he done.
It’s like we were the baby boom because life needed a fresher start,
I mean, two world wars in a row is really crazy man
And Elvis, even though he didn’t know he said it,
He showed it to us anyway
And even though we didn’t know we heard it,
We heard it anyway
Man, like he woke us up
And now they’re trying to put us back to sleep.
So we’ll see how it goes,
Anyway, look at the record, man,
Rock ’n’ roll is based on revolutions
Going way past 33?
You gotta understand, man,
He was America’s baby Boom Ché.
I oughta know man,
I was in his army.

I would add that the decade was a positive just for the music it produced alone. That balances out all of the bad in my book.

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As I child of the 1970's I paid a terrible price for that. We were the most under-parented generation in American history-basically forced to be little adults at 12, because our flaky arse parents were off getting their "I'm ok, you're okay" on. We then doubled down the mistake by raising the most over-parented generation in American history.

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It was definitely a different time growing up as a child in the 1970's. My parents were the only parents in my group of friends who weren't divorced. Definitely a more laid back, freewheeling time. But that is not necessarily a good thing for children because I saw many of my friends go down the wrong road because of too much freedom and independence and probably not enough supervision.

I'm going to say that some of this parenting angle depended on what part of the country you were in. I grew up between Orange County, CA and Nassau County, NY and my parents sure never went for any of that pseudo-hippie pop psychology shite that was making the rounds back then.

Likewise, I'd think the South and Midwest was somewhat more immune to it as well. Seems like the media was trumpeting it up to be a lot bigger than it really was.

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The 60s were atrocious and the beginning of the end.

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I find it ironic that the people in this thread who think the 60s were terrible are some of the same people who spout libertarian ideals over on the poli board. Let's take stock, shall we:

1) Eliminated government control over the behavior and economic possibilities of black people in the South.

Check.

2) Started the crusade against the nonsensical prohibition of drugs that is only now coming to fruition.

Check.

3) Protested a war for global hegemony and control over third world economies.

Check.

4) Started the crusade to get government out of individuals' sex lives.

Check.

shite man, the 60s was a libertarian dream. The inconsistency that some of you display on a regular basis is utterly astounding.

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Who's authority? Your parent's, the government's, God's, all of them? Questioning authority is very different then completely rebeling against norms and customs that have been established to protect the individual, as well as society. The 60's had a huge impact on America - some positive, most negative. I ask you this: is life, society, or the world better now then it was before the 60's?

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There is nothing wrong with questioning all types of authority, and it is almost always a good thing. If authority operated reasonably in the eyes of the people, there would be no purpose to question them.

I don't know if the world is a better place because of the sixties, but I know that because of the sixties the draft is never coming back. I do believe the sixties started the prison complex though, which is not good by any stretch.

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BTW, what's up with your personal identifiers? Mark Twain with Wahlberg's body? "The Third Leg" moniker, coupled with the Southern Miss symbol - are you aspiring to be Mississippi's version of Andy Warhol?

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That's a genuine, trademarked Iowa Tigerhawk, partner; it is not the stolen intellectual property of Southern Miss.

I don't think those are the same people.

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I think it's fairly obvious with the luxury of hindsight that the '60s counterculture movement was the most destructive single non-military event in the history of western civilization.

Personally, I think it was some kind of commie mind-control propaganda event to try and destroy the West from within. Jury is still out on whether or not it worked.

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I don't get why there's no hope for millennials. The oldest millennials are 30, most are still in high school. I'm not sure what people expect out of that age group.