Posted on Jul 31, 2020
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Please Note: The below (----) came to me from a friend just a few moments ago. I was very busy writing a white paper, but because I respect this friend took a few minutes to quickly read it. If center is 0 degrees then my friend maintains 1 degree both left and right of center in narrow oscillation.
I have simply read the article to follow and re-posted it here for comment on RP. Yes, the writer, Victor Davis Hanson, who is with the Hoover Institute at Stanford University.
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https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2020/07/23/why-this-revolution-isnt-like-the-60s-n2572910?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=07/23/2020&bcid=febf33dc62d4caaa472a3e2ec69f7970&recip=4495362
Why This Revolution Isn't Like the '60s:
In the 1960s and early '70s, the U.S. was convulsed by massive protests calling for radical changes in the country's attitudes on race, class, gender and sexual orientation. The Vietnam War and widespread college deferments were likely the fuel that ignited prior peaceful civil disobedience.
Sometimes the demonstrations became violent, as with the Watts riots of 1965 and the protests at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Terrorists from the Weathermen (later called the Weather Underground) bombed dozens of government buildings.
The '60s revolution introduced to the country everything from hippies, communes, free love, mass tattooing, commonplace profanity, rampant drug use, rock music and high divorce rates to the war on poverty, massive government growth, feminism, affirmative action and race/gender/ethnic college curricula.
The enemies of the '60s counterculture were the "establishment" -- politicians, corporations, the military and the "square" generation" in general. Leftists targeted their parents, who had grown up in the Great Depression. That generation had won World War II and returned to create a booming postwar economy. After growing up with economic and military hardship, they sought a return to comfortable conformity in the 1950s.
A half-century after the earlier revolution, today's cultural revolution is vastly different -- and far more dangerous.
Government and debt have grown. Social activism is already institutionalized in hundreds of newer federal programs. The "Great Society" inaugurated a multitrillion-dollar investment in the welfare state. Divorce rates soared. The nuclear family waned. Immigration, both legal and illegal, skyrocketed.
Thus, America is far less resilient, and a far more divided, indebted and vulnerable target than it was in 1965.
Today, radicals are not protesting against 1950s conservatism but rather against the radicals of the 1960s, who as old liberals now hold power. Now, many of the current enforcers -- blue-state governors, mayors and police chiefs -- are from the left. Unlike Democratic Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley in the '60s, today's progressive civic leaders often sympathize with the protesters.
The '60s protests were for racial assimilation and integration to reify Martin Luther King Jr.'s agenda of making race incidental, not essential, to the American mindset. Not so with today's cultural revolution. It seeks to ensure that racial difference is the foundation of American life, dividing the country between supposed non-white victims and purported white victimizers, past and present.
In the '60s, radicals rebelled against their teachers and professors, who were often highly competent and the products of fact-based and inductive education. Not so in 2020. Today's radicals were taught not by traditionalists but by less-educated older radicals.
Another chief difference is debt. Most public education in the 1960s was bare-bones and relatively inexpensive. Because there were no plush dorms, latte bars, rock-climbing walls, diversity coordinators and provosts of inclusion, college tuition in real dollars was far cheaper.
The result was that 1960s student radicals graduated without much debt and for all their hipness could enter a booming economy with marketable skills. Today's angry graduates owe a collective $1.6 trillion in student loan debt -- much of it borrowed for mediocre, therapeutic and politicized training that does not impress employers.
College debt impedes maturity, marriage, child-raising, home ownership and the saving of money. In other words, today's radical is far more desperate and angry that his college gambit never paid off.
Today's divide is also geographical in the fashion of 1861, not just generational as in the 1960s. The two blue coasts seem to despise the vast red interior, and vice versa.
Yet the scariest trait of the current revolution is that many of its sympathizers haven't changed much since the 1960s. They may be rich, powerful, influential and older, but they are just as reckless and see the current chaos as the final victory in their own long march from the '60s.
Corporations are no longer seen as evil, but as woke contributors to the revolution. The military is no longer smeared as warmongering, but praised as a government employment service where race, class and gender agendas can be green-lighted without messy legislative debate. Unlike the 1960s, there are essentially no conservatives in Hollywood, on campuses or in government bureaucracies.
So, the war no longer pits radicals against conservatives, but often socialists and anarchists against both liberals and conservatives.
In the '60s, a huge "silent majority" finally had enough, elected Richard Nixon and slowed down the revolution by jailing its criminals, absorbing and moderating it. Today, if there is a silent mass of traditionalists and conservatives, they remain in hiding.
If they stay quiet in their veritable mental monasteries and deplore the violence in silence, the revolution will steamroll on. But as in the past, if they finally snap, decide enough is enough and reclaim their country, then even this cultural revolution will sputter out, too.
-------------------
Albert Einstein said "Try not to become a man (person/human-being) of success, but rather a man (person/human-being) of value"
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Looking forward to responses. OK, I must get back to work!
COL Mikel J. Burroughs; COL Lee Flemming; Maj Robert Carson; CPT Aaron Kletzing; Maj Marty Hogan; SMSGT Gerald "Doc" Thomas; SCPO Morris Ramsey; Lt Col Charlie Brown; LTC (Join to see); Maj William "Bill" Price; Maj Alea Nadeem; LTC Stephen C.; LTC Stephen F.; Capt Dwayne Conyers; CMSgt (Join to see); SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth; LTC Jason Mackay; MSgt Robert "Rock" Aldi; MSgt Paul Connors (Publishing); SFC James J Palmer IV (JP4)
PS - I am sure someone will not like this question post and want to change it to a regular post vs leaving it as a question to be polled and the various points to be discussed. But who knows!?!?!?
Remember, the article is not mine, so, like many I am looking for 'healthy' and substantive, yet respectful, debate on its merits. Emotional outburst will not be tolerated, and I am happy to "cancel" (in other words 'block') your responses or ability to respond further should the discussion get out of hand.
OK, so, let's put on our "big kids" pants and attempt a mature discussion reflecting on the points made with some degree of evidence pro or con. Pick (1) point and argue it. Pick each sentence and argue the whole thing. Whatever? Agree or disagree make no difference!
But, how novel would it be to have a 'contextual' discussion about the article. Let's see what happens.
Finally, via back channels I have been warned that some who troll RP, with the word that was used most often - are "dangerous". I took these, not so subtle suggestions, as a warning that in rocking the 'narrative' boat some people would not like that and work to hurt me either literally or perhaps figuratively (aka in the shadows).
It is a small and immature person or group of people who by implied threat or direct threat cannot stand on the merits of their ideas or speak to both the negative and positive of those ideas - honestly. These back-channel warnings by my RP friends implied a potential that some of the loose cannons may perhaps advocate violence. I found that interesting!!! Do my posted extract a desire in some to come unglued, causing some on RP to question their level of balance? Who knew?
Clearly no idea or system is EVER perfect. Nice to wish for, but not very realistic. St least where human being are concerned. Perhaps such ideas or systems have perfect intentions, which is the very nature of the words "...to form a 'more perfect' union...." and perhaps, just perhaps why they were penned in the first place.
To form or reform something or process "...more perfectly..." requires 'dialogue'. It requires the intensity of a method like the “Scientific Method” that is very Socratic and can facilitate forward movement in the hands of a skilled practitioner.
So, I have drawn the line in the sand. Let's see what kind of meaningful discussion will arise or will some who read this post just take their marbles and go home - pouting, unable to respond with honest substance vs 'bullying' emotion!
BTW, I am not given to the "Seduction of Appeasement" that some want to advocate {http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/the-seductions-of-appeasement/#more-8100}. This article is an interesting companion to this post. Please take some time read and reflect on its subtle and interesting messages.
I have simply read the article to follow and re-posted it here for comment on RP. Yes, the writer, Victor Davis Hanson, who is with the Hoover Institute at Stanford University.
---------------------
https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2020/07/23/why-this-revolution-isnt-like-the-60s-n2572910?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=07/23/2020&bcid=febf33dc62d4caaa472a3e2ec69f7970&recip=4495362
Why This Revolution Isn't Like the '60s:
In the 1960s and early '70s, the U.S. was convulsed by massive protests calling for radical changes in the country's attitudes on race, class, gender and sexual orientation. The Vietnam War and widespread college deferments were likely the fuel that ignited prior peaceful civil disobedience.
Sometimes the demonstrations became violent, as with the Watts riots of 1965 and the protests at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Terrorists from the Weathermen (later called the Weather Underground) bombed dozens of government buildings.
The '60s revolution introduced to the country everything from hippies, communes, free love, mass tattooing, commonplace profanity, rampant drug use, rock music and high divorce rates to the war on poverty, massive government growth, feminism, affirmative action and race/gender/ethnic college curricula.
The enemies of the '60s counterculture were the "establishment" -- politicians, corporations, the military and the "square" generation" in general. Leftists targeted their parents, who had grown up in the Great Depression. That generation had won World War II and returned to create a booming postwar economy. After growing up with economic and military hardship, they sought a return to comfortable conformity in the 1950s.
A half-century after the earlier revolution, today's cultural revolution is vastly different -- and far more dangerous.
Government and debt have grown. Social activism is already institutionalized in hundreds of newer federal programs. The "Great Society" inaugurated a multitrillion-dollar investment in the welfare state. Divorce rates soared. The nuclear family waned. Immigration, both legal and illegal, skyrocketed.
Thus, America is far less resilient, and a far more divided, indebted and vulnerable target than it was in 1965.
Today, radicals are not protesting against 1950s conservatism but rather against the radicals of the 1960s, who as old liberals now hold power. Now, many of the current enforcers -- blue-state governors, mayors and police chiefs -- are from the left. Unlike Democratic Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley in the '60s, today's progressive civic leaders often sympathize with the protesters.
The '60s protests were for racial assimilation and integration to reify Martin Luther King Jr.'s agenda of making race incidental, not essential, to the American mindset. Not so with today's cultural revolution. It seeks to ensure that racial difference is the foundation of American life, dividing the country between supposed non-white victims and purported white victimizers, past and present.
In the '60s, radicals rebelled against their teachers and professors, who were often highly competent and the products of fact-based and inductive education. Not so in 2020. Today's radicals were taught not by traditionalists but by less-educated older radicals.
Another chief difference is debt. Most public education in the 1960s was bare-bones and relatively inexpensive. Because there were no plush dorms, latte bars, rock-climbing walls, diversity coordinators and provosts of inclusion, college tuition in real dollars was far cheaper.
The result was that 1960s student radicals graduated without much debt and for all their hipness could enter a booming economy with marketable skills. Today's angry graduates owe a collective $1.6 trillion in student loan debt -- much of it borrowed for mediocre, therapeutic and politicized training that does not impress employers.
College debt impedes maturity, marriage, child-raising, home ownership and the saving of money. In other words, today's radical is far more desperate and angry that his college gambit never paid off.
Today's divide is also geographical in the fashion of 1861, not just generational as in the 1960s. The two blue coasts seem to despise the vast red interior, and vice versa.
Yet the scariest trait of the current revolution is that many of its sympathizers haven't changed much since the 1960s. They may be rich, powerful, influential and older, but they are just as reckless and see the current chaos as the final victory in their own long march from the '60s.
Corporations are no longer seen as evil, but as woke contributors to the revolution. The military is no longer smeared as warmongering, but praised as a government employment service where race, class and gender agendas can be green-lighted without messy legislative debate. Unlike the 1960s, there are essentially no conservatives in Hollywood, on campuses or in government bureaucracies.
So, the war no longer pits radicals against conservatives, but often socialists and anarchists against both liberals and conservatives.
In the '60s, a huge "silent majority" finally had enough, elected Richard Nixon and slowed down the revolution by jailing its criminals, absorbing and moderating it. Today, if there is a silent mass of traditionalists and conservatives, they remain in hiding.
If they stay quiet in their veritable mental monasteries and deplore the violence in silence, the revolution will steamroll on. But as in the past, if they finally snap, decide enough is enough and reclaim their country, then even this cultural revolution will sputter out, too.
-------------------
Albert Einstein said "Try not to become a man (person/human-being) of success, but rather a man (person/human-being) of value"
-------------------
Looking forward to responses. OK, I must get back to work!
COL Mikel J. Burroughs; COL Lee Flemming; Maj Robert Carson; CPT Aaron Kletzing; Maj Marty Hogan; SMSGT Gerald "Doc" Thomas; SCPO Morris Ramsey; Lt Col Charlie Brown; LTC (Join to see); Maj William "Bill" Price; Maj Alea Nadeem; LTC Stephen C.; LTC Stephen F.; Capt Dwayne Conyers; CMSgt (Join to see); SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth; LTC Jason Mackay; MSgt Robert "Rock" Aldi; MSgt Paul Connors (Publishing); SFC James J Palmer IV (JP4)
PS - I am sure someone will not like this question post and want to change it to a regular post vs leaving it as a question to be polled and the various points to be discussed. But who knows!?!?!?
Remember, the article is not mine, so, like many I am looking for 'healthy' and substantive, yet respectful, debate on its merits. Emotional outburst will not be tolerated, and I am happy to "cancel" (in other words 'block') your responses or ability to respond further should the discussion get out of hand.
OK, so, let's put on our "big kids" pants and attempt a mature discussion reflecting on the points made with some degree of evidence pro or con. Pick (1) point and argue it. Pick each sentence and argue the whole thing. Whatever? Agree or disagree make no difference!
But, how novel would it be to have a 'contextual' discussion about the article. Let's see what happens.
Finally, via back channels I have been warned that some who troll RP, with the word that was used most often - are "dangerous". I took these, not so subtle suggestions, as a warning that in rocking the 'narrative' boat some people would not like that and work to hurt me either literally or perhaps figuratively (aka in the shadows).
It is a small and immature person or group of people who by implied threat or direct threat cannot stand on the merits of their ideas or speak to both the negative and positive of those ideas - honestly. These back-channel warnings by my RP friends implied a potential that some of the loose cannons may perhaps advocate violence. I found that interesting!!! Do my posted extract a desire in some to come unglued, causing some on RP to question their level of balance? Who knew?
Clearly no idea or system is EVER perfect. Nice to wish for, but not very realistic. St least where human being are concerned. Perhaps such ideas or systems have perfect intentions, which is the very nature of the words "...to form a 'more perfect' union...." and perhaps, just perhaps why they were penned in the first place.
To form or reform something or process "...more perfectly..." requires 'dialogue'. It requires the intensity of a method like the “Scientific Method” that is very Socratic and can facilitate forward movement in the hands of a skilled practitioner.
So, I have drawn the line in the sand. Let's see what kind of meaningful discussion will arise or will some who read this post just take their marbles and go home - pouting, unable to respond with honest substance vs 'bullying' emotion!
BTW, I am not given to the "Seduction of Appeasement" that some want to advocate {http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/the-seductions-of-appeasement/#more-8100}. This article is an interesting companion to this post. Please take some time read and reflect on its subtle and interesting messages.
Edited >1 y ago
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 5
When I came back from Vietnam, I did not recognize our country and despised the maggots that greeted me at LAX and elsewhere. Those were difficult days but they do not compare to today when socialists and radicals are calling the shots. Conservatives are largely remaining silent because to speak up you are shouted down or called a racist. Rioters and looters are praised, cities are taken over by thugs, and the police are demonized.
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The Revolution of the 1960s did some great things. But it did some really terrible things too. It heralded a departure from traditional morals and values. While the Civil Rights Movement brought about needed change, the Hippies and anti-war movement brought with them an attitude that supported an unfortunate departure from morality, leaving in it's wake a legacy of broken homes, fatherless children, kids having kids, and basically humans stooping to their baser nature and acting like lower life forms. The Anti-War movement, regardless of the rhetoric, or catch phrases that they used was led by males (Men serve their country and do not make excuses for why they did not), again it was led by males that were mainly motivated by a desire to not have to go themselves. They may have wanted to stop the war but it was hardly for the humanitarian reasons that they gave, it was their own cowardice.
Unfortunately, the schools, universities, and social services departments are filled with those that are themselves of were trained by Children of the Sixties. They have in fact trained multiple generations of American kids that now feel no patriotic need to serve their country, do not believe that there is something greater than themselves, and believe that they are owed something by society just because they can convert oxygen into Carbon dioxide, water into urine and food in waste. These young snowflakes get "Triggered" and have tantrums in public is they are "Offended" by a MAGA hat, or see a police officer actually enforcing the law. These liberal teachers are teaching kids to not trust the Police, and that the Freedom we fought for is not worth fighting for. The left wing is pushing for Socialism and is using Class Warfare and classic Marxist/Leninist strategy which is nothing more than taking the "Have Nots" and instead of teaching them to achieve, they teach them to be jealous.
Universities now are Big Business and kids are a hundred grand in debt when they graduate and can;t find a job in their liberal degree, not too many jobs out there for a Degree in Lesbian Dance Theory, but you have to offer it...Teaching them that it is OK to be confused about your gender, but that Socialism is the only way to go.......
Communism failed, but the system to overthrow this country that the Soviets set up is still going strong. Lenin said "Give us the child for eight years and it will be a Bolshevik forever."
God forgive America for squandering the Freedom we have been blessed with.
Unfortunately, the schools, universities, and social services departments are filled with those that are themselves of were trained by Children of the Sixties. They have in fact trained multiple generations of American kids that now feel no patriotic need to serve their country, do not believe that there is something greater than themselves, and believe that they are owed something by society just because they can convert oxygen into Carbon dioxide, water into urine and food in waste. These young snowflakes get "Triggered" and have tantrums in public is they are "Offended" by a MAGA hat, or see a police officer actually enforcing the law. These liberal teachers are teaching kids to not trust the Police, and that the Freedom we fought for is not worth fighting for. The left wing is pushing for Socialism and is using Class Warfare and classic Marxist/Leninist strategy which is nothing more than taking the "Have Nots" and instead of teaching them to achieve, they teach them to be jealous.
Universities now are Big Business and kids are a hundred grand in debt when they graduate and can;t find a job in their liberal degree, not too many jobs out there for a Degree in Lesbian Dance Theory, but you have to offer it...Teaching them that it is OK to be confused about your gender, but that Socialism is the only way to go.......
Communism failed, but the system to overthrow this country that the Soviets set up is still going strong. Lenin said "Give us the child for eight years and it will be a Bolshevik forever."
God forgive America for squandering the Freedom we have been blessed with.
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CPO Nate S.
SSG Roger Ayscue Since recorded history and before that this statement from Lenin "Give us the child for eight years and it will be a Bolshevik forever" has been true. The Soviets had the Young Pioneers. A more poignant example is the Hitler Youth.
It is very easy to draw a vivid picture on a clean slate. Thank you sir for reminding us of how precious the minds and hearts of our youth are to us individually and collectively.
Also, your statement "...the system to overthrow this country that the Soviets set up is still going strong..." could not be more correct. Part of that systemic thinking begin with the largest system the capacity to impact nearly 66 +/- million people in the K-12 ranks every year. 66 million minds. If one does not believe the number then go to the Census and do some simple math. Then cross-reference the number with other data sources.
Again, thank you!
It is very easy to draw a vivid picture on a clean slate. Thank you sir for reminding us of how precious the minds and hearts of our youth are to us individually and collectively.
Also, your statement "...the system to overthrow this country that the Soviets set up is still going strong..." could not be more correct. Part of that systemic thinking begin with the largest system the capacity to impact nearly 66 +/- million people in the K-12 ranks every year. 66 million minds. If one does not believe the number then go to the Census and do some simple math. Then cross-reference the number with other data sources.
Again, thank you!
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VDH is a man with a deep understanding of the things happening in our world today.
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