I too, was there in the '60's. I pretty much agree with what Lazs and Easymo said.
There were "Two '60's". "Sixties I" was the period from 1960 to Feb.- March, 1968. Though we had lost President Kennedy(we got over it pretty quickly, despite what revisionist historians and purveyors of psycho-babble may say) , life was as good as it gets during this exciting time. We also didn't "lose sleep" or wring our hands over the "Nuclear Armegeddon" threat either, despite Hollywood's/the "Media's" fascination with this theme, we pretty-much ignored it.
Good economic times, cheap prices, amazing advances in science and medicine, the Space Race, the Civil Rights Movement, the "British Invasion", creatively inspired music, the emergence of Jazz and "Black Music" into national popularity, un-bounded freedom, optimism, and the terrors of Viet Nam were still mostly on the periphery of the American consciousness. Things were only going to get better and better.
Then came "Tet", Martin Luther King's assassination, Robert Kennedy's assassination, massive race riots, bitter and violent war "protests", and the whole fabric of American life seem to come apart at the seams. 1968 was easily the most frightening year i have ever experienced in my life. Many of us thought that the United States was going to crumble before our very eyes. I was there for some of the war protests, riots, etc.
I know who organized some of them as well as their political affiliation. I won't go into it here, but suffice it to say there WERE "foreign elements" involved, that they were indeed Communist, and that they forged an alliance with elements of the domestic Leftist/Anti-War sympathizers in the Democrat Party.
"'60's Part Two" went from '68 to 1973. The great "Gas Crisis I" and finally Richard Nixon's resignation brought the '60's to a bitter end and gave us the "Great Cultural Nadir" known as the '70's.
And we have been "recovering" ever since. In my life i have seen the "pendulum" swing both ways indeed. The balanced, societal "equalibrium" between some of the failed, destructive, wild-assed "new ideas" of the Left and the restrictive, "this is the way we've all ways done it", worship of the "almighty dollar" by the Right is tenuous and short-lived at best.
I have been on this earth for over a half-century and this i have learned:
Whoever called it "the thin veneer of civilization" knew exactly what he was talking about.
"Only the dead have seen the last of War" is an absolute truth.
"The play is the same. Only the actors have changed." is an absolute truth.
And these quotes of Sir Winston Churchill:
" To work from weakness and fear is ruin. To work from wisdom and power may be salvation."
"What is the point in crying out for the moon when you have the sun."
"We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar-candy."
"An appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile hoping it will eat him last.
"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."
" The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions."
In the end, the '60's weren't "good or bad". They just, were.......
C.
