And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thursday, February 29, 2024
So Sixties/Seventies. Sometimes that era seems so much more sane.
I know it's not 55, 56, 57,58,59, 60. I can't tell which of the early 60's. I say that I know something about computers, radios and Fords of the 50's & 60's but I guess that doesn't include 60's Thuderbirds.
I am pretty sure that each successive generation has its own problems. I went through high school and the USMC during the 1960's and got an ear full of bitching and moaning from the "Greatest Generation" about how f*cked up my generation was. Turmoil is a ever present thing in America.
Well, John, I, too, went through high school in the 60s, but through the Marine Corps in the 70s. Our generation WAS f*cked up.
If you think about it, the arrival of the Beatles in 1964 probably works as a good dividing line, "BB" (before the Beatles) and "AB" (after the Beatles). It's not that the Beatles actually caused the decline that followed their arrival, but the country began a major transition after that.
In the early 60s, it was Beach Boys, Corvettes, and Summer Safaris. By the end of the 60s, Baby Boomers had screwed up this country in so many ways that they are hard to count. "Flowers in the hair" and "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" were never going to be a good foundation for a strong society.
It was all downhill after that. As an example, in the 60s, heroin use (and the social ills it caused) was confined almost entirely to Harlem (or areas in the country like it). Now, fentanyl deaths are commonplace daily in most cities and in every part of those cities, from the most affluent gated communities to the "sidewalk cities" of homeless.
Here's another example. In the 60s, the vast majority of children of every race lived with both parents. Now, "Father's Day" is an anxiety-producing affair because so many kids don't know who their mothers' Baby Daddies are.
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that there is little reason to believe that things are going to turn around any time soon.
Most of the problems attributed to Boomers were actually caused by the two to three generations before them, and even before that.
Those were the people who actually inflicted the damage that Boomers became the unwilling recipients and victims of.
Birth control was invented by whom? In what year? No-fault divorce was passed by whom? When? LSD was invented by whom? In what year? Popularized by whom?
For any actual Boomer you can name bearing any shred of responsibility, I can point to 20 earlier generations' representatives at fault. You had to be 21 to vote, until 1971, so Boomers had a say in nothing until 1966 at the absolute earliest, and represented virtually no meaningful input in society until the 1980s and beyond. When Reagan was elected.
No Boomer voted for a president until 1964, and for most of even the oldest, not until 1968. The year Nixon was elected. On a Law-and-Order and End The Vietnam War platform, as a reaction to the problems created by Silent Generation types and before, when Boomers were still teenagers or younger.
Boomers didn't create the Federal Reserve. They didn't pass the income tax. They didn't take America off the gold standard. They didn't give women the right to vote. They didn't pass Prohibition, and create the Mob. They didn't enact social security, or twenty other bastions of socialism. They didn't invent the atomic bomb, nor drop it. They didn't destroy the nuclear family with welfare and AFDC. They didn't found Planned Parenthood. They didn't create the KKK. They didn't create the ATF or the FBI or the CIA. Boomers weren't the communists in the federal government and Hollywood in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. They weren't the communist spies working for Russia then either. They weren't the professors in colleges in the 1960s. They didn't throw open the floodgates to foreign immigration in 1965. They didn't start the war in Vietnam.
The only thing you can lay at their feet is they didn't want to be drafted into that last war, to defeat Michelin to help Goodyear and Uniroyal sell tires, and make the military industrialist complex rich on a heap of their bloody broken bodies. Even then, that was mainly the privileged kids; the working class and lower class kids mostly put their heads down and pulled their weight, showed up when they got drafted, fought, and died, like every generation prior to them. And they did it with less support and more scorn than any generation of Americans ever got for serving in the military.
All the societal problems of the country dropped at Boomers' feet happened mostly before 1970, when even the oldest Boomers were as old as 25, with the youngest of that generation still in kindergarten.
25-year olds, then and now, control nothing, run nothing, and influence nothing, other than music sales and clothing choices.
The "Boomers Ruined Everything" trope is a cop-out and a myth, and the reality is that everything was ruined for Boomers, not by them.
Usually and overwhelmingly by the so-called "Greatest Generation" (5/6ths of whom never served in WWII), and their younger brothers and sisters of the Silent Generation, or generations even before either of those.
Vexxing perhaps, but nonetheless inarguably true. The Boomer Blame Game needs to be retired. Mainly because it's pointless, but in no small part because it's simply a Big Fat Lie.
Definitely a 1962. I learned to drive in that car; it’s the only car my father bought new from the dealer. It was his pride and joy. He converted it to propane right away and it ran on propane 99% of the time (he kept the gas fuel system intact). In 2012 I sold it to a guy from Australia who restored the car but he didn’t have to rebuild the engine as it was in such great shape because of the propane.
Every generation has issues. I was a teen in the 60s and can remember looking at the TV in the evening and seeing the daily body counts from Vietnam. All I could think about was how the draft was going to play in my future plans. I went to college at LSU which was land grant and thus had to do ROTC. We had constant bomb threats and people would throw things at us, all we were doing was taking a required course. Then a General desired for me to be an officer, got in trouble by telling him that buck LTs had a limited life span, about 6 days. Then there were riots every week, somebody always grieved. The SDS came out to tear down the flag one day, but the news said they decided not to, they did not show the 5000 ag students with baseball bats. Gas was 25 cents, problem was nobody had 25 cents. There is always an issue.
In 1960 - 1961, I went to 9th grade at a small military school outside of Syracuse, NY. One day, my roommate's married sister drove up in a 1962 T-bird and it blew me away since it was BIG and nothing like the original (smaller) T-bird with the porthole window.
I was raised in semi rural San Diego county '50's, '60's. It was paradise...now lost. Phuque the Globo Homo, Shape Shifter, Satanists...not to put too fine a point on it...
The 60's and 70's were a much saner and safer time. It was back when the communist left weren't blatant and open in their efforts to destroy America. And we hadn't started importing turd world savages by the millions. It wasn't perfect....but it beats the hell out of the hell we are now facing.
Only sometime?
ReplyDeleteSeems?
ReplyDeleteI know it's not 55, 56, 57,58,59, 60. I can't tell which of the early 60's. I say that I know something about computers, radios and Fords of the 50's & 60's but I guess that doesn't include 60's Thuderbirds.
ReplyDelete1962 I think, a friend in high school (circa 1977) had one about that year.
ReplyDelete...that's what's on the licence plate
DeleteI am pretty sure that each successive generation has its own problems. I went through high school and the USMC during the 1960's and got an ear full of bitching and moaning from the "Greatest Generation" about how f*cked up my generation was. Turmoil is a ever present thing in America.
ReplyDeleteThey weren't shy about getting in your face, even if they didn't know you.
DeleteWell, John, I, too, went through high school in the 60s, but through the Marine Corps in the 70s. Our generation WAS f*cked up.
DeleteIf you think about it, the arrival of the Beatles in 1964 probably works as a good dividing line, "BB" (before the Beatles) and "AB" (after the Beatles). It's not that the Beatles actually caused the decline that followed their arrival, but the country began a major transition after that.
In the early 60s, it was Beach Boys, Corvettes, and Summer Safaris. By the end of the 60s, Baby Boomers had screwed up this country in so many ways that they are hard to count. "Flowers in the hair" and "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" were never going to be a good foundation for a strong society.
It was all downhill after that. As an example, in the 60s, heroin use (and the social ills it caused) was confined almost entirely to Harlem (or areas in the country like it). Now, fentanyl deaths are commonplace daily in most cities and in every part of those cities, from the most affluent gated communities to the "sidewalk cities" of homeless.
Here's another example. In the 60s, the vast majority of children of every race lived with both parents. Now, "Father's Day" is an anxiety-producing affair because so many kids don't know who their mothers' Baby Daddies are.
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that there is little reason to believe that things are going to turn around any time soon.
Show us on the doll where the Boomers hurt you.
DeleteMost of the problems attributed to Boomers were actually caused by the two to three generations before them, and even before that.
Those were the people who actually inflicted the damage that Boomers became the unwilling recipients and victims of.
Birth control was invented by whom?
In what year?
No-fault divorce was passed by whom?
When?
LSD was invented by whom?
In what year?
Popularized by whom?
For any actual Boomer you can name bearing any shred of responsibility, I can point to 20 earlier generations' representatives at fault.
You had to be 21 to vote, until 1971, so Boomers had a say in nothing until 1966 at the absolute earliest, and represented virtually no meaningful input in society until the 1980s and beyond. When Reagan was elected.
No Boomer voted for a president until 1964, and for most of even the oldest, not until 1968. The year Nixon was elected. On a Law-and-Order and End The Vietnam War platform, as a reaction to the problems created by Silent Generation types and before, when Boomers were still teenagers or younger.
Boomers didn't create the Federal Reserve.
They didn't pass the income tax.
They didn't take America off the gold standard.
They didn't give women the right to vote.
They didn't pass Prohibition, and create the Mob.
They didn't enact social security, or twenty other bastions of socialism.
They didn't invent the atomic bomb, nor drop it.
They didn't destroy the nuclear family with welfare and AFDC.
They didn't found Planned Parenthood.
They didn't create the KKK.
They didn't create the ATF or the FBI or the CIA.
Boomers weren't the communists in the federal government and Hollywood in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.
They weren't the communist spies working for Russia then either.
They weren't the professors in colleges in the 1960s.
They didn't throw open the floodgates to foreign immigration in 1965.
They didn't start the war in Vietnam.
The only thing you can lay at their feet is they didn't want to be drafted into that last war, to defeat Michelin to help Goodyear and Uniroyal sell tires, and make the military industrialist complex rich on a heap of their bloody broken bodies. Even then, that was mainly the privileged kids; the working class and lower class kids mostly put their heads down and pulled their weight, showed up when they got drafted, fought, and died, like every generation prior to them. And they did it with less support and more scorn than any generation of Americans ever got for serving in the military.
All the societal problems of the country dropped at Boomers' feet happened mostly before 1970, when even the oldest Boomers were as old as 25, with the youngest of that generation still in kindergarten.
25-year olds, then and now, control nothing, run nothing, and influence nothing, other than music sales and clothing choices.
The "Boomers Ruined Everything" trope is a cop-out and a myth, and the reality is that everything was ruined for Boomers, not by them.
Usually and overwhelmingly by the so-called "Greatest Generation" (5/6ths of whom never served in WWII), and their younger brothers and sisters of the Silent Generation, or generations even before either of those.
Vexxing perhaps, but nonetheless inarguably true.
The Boomer Blame Game needs to be retired. Mainly because it's pointless, but in no small part because it's simply a Big Fat Lie.
Definitely a 1962. I learned to drive in that car; it’s the only car my father bought new from the dealer. It was his pride and joy. He converted it to propane right away and it ran on propane 99% of the time (he kept the gas fuel system intact). In 2012 I sold it to a guy from Australia who restored the car but he didn’t have to rebuild the engine as it was in such great shape because of the propane.
ReplyDeleteEvery generation has issues. I was a teen in the 60s and can remember looking at the TV in the evening and seeing the daily body counts from Vietnam. All I could think about was how the draft was going to play in my future plans. I went to college at LSU which was land grant and thus had to do ROTC. We had constant bomb threats and people would throw things at us, all we were doing was taking a required course. Then a General desired for me to be an officer, got in trouble by telling him that buck LTs had a limited life span, about 6 days. Then there were riots every week, somebody always grieved. The SDS came out to tear down the flag one day, but the news said they decided not to, they did not show the 5000 ag students with baseball bats. Gas was 25 cents, problem was nobody had 25 cents. There is always an issue.
ReplyDeleteD'oh!
ReplyDeleteYou could ride the CTA in Chicago for 25 cents, including a transfer. Including the bus and the Elevated.
ReplyDeleteIn 1960 - 1961, I went to 9th grade at a small military school outside of Syracuse, NY. One day, my roommate's married sister drove up in a 1962 T-bird and it blew me away since it was BIG and nothing like the original (smaller) T-bird with the porthole window.
ReplyDeleteIt was! You could actually drive places and stay in a motor hotel. Wouldn't even think about that nowadays.
ReplyDeleteI was raised in semi rural San Diego county '50's, '60's. It was paradise...now lost. Phuque the Globo Homo, Shape Shifter, Satanists...not to put too fine a point on it...
ReplyDeleteThe 60's and 70's were a much saner and safer time. It was back when the communist left weren't blatant and open in their efforts to destroy America. And we hadn't started importing turd world savages by the millions. It wasn't perfect....but it beats the hell out of the hell we are now facing.
ReplyDelete“Admit it, white America was better.”
ReplyDeleteMy dad let me drive his 1962 Thunderbird to my Senior Prom. Never so nervous before or since!
ReplyDeleteOh and the majority of Americans went to church, not anymore.
ReplyDeleteChicken and egg.
DeleteMost churches then weren't preaching straight communism and secular humanism.
You get what you pray for.