The '60's = the '06's

The '60's = the '06's

By VerityINK

I'm making some 'luv' beads... I'm sporting my Birkenstocks or plain bare feet. I'm getting out my whole-grain bread recipes, making earrings out of feathers, and looking to see if the domain name 'diggerfreestore' is registered on the Internet...

Why, you ask? Because the sixties are coming back, silly! In fact, they're already here--or desperately trying to be.

The d'Rats, the Democrat party, the Left, has their new-Levis-made-to-look-old packed, their weed properly baggied, and they've asked the name of their parents' old Doors albums--hoping to hell they can find them on CDs--or download them to their iPods from the Web. They're scribbling protest signs in their basements, spending their vacations at the Crawford 'Peace House', and organizing protest after protest concerning every conceivable thing about which they can manufacture a complaint. If a Republican does it, then it can be complained about--and the d'Rats aren't wasting any time.

It's become ubiquitous. You can't fall over a post at DU without hearing the starry-eyed bleat about today's political happenings, "this is the greatest civil rights movement since the Voting Rights Act of 1965!" (said of the immigrant rights marches on Monday), or discussing conspiracy theories about the Kent State shootings of 1970, or planning tent-city protests near the President (though all those middle-class babies could easily afford a motel), or busy joining Richard Nixon and George Bush at the hip. One genius even penned a ridiculous post titled "I Am Already Against the Next War!", as anti-war protests are, again, at the center of their activities.

At first, I put the whole thing down to simple nostalgia; they wanted what their parents (or even, their parents) had--and that was understandable enough. But it was more than that--the fixation just grew and grew and grew. It's really entrenched now, with all their nihilistic plans to tear down our culture, our society, our country from the top, just like before. The only difference is they don't call the 'bad' stuff The Establishment anymore--they call it 'BushWorld', or the 'BFEE' (Bush Family Evil Empire), or 'Freeperville' (after the conservative posters at the popular Free Republic website)--and, for this, they've planned their own war.

Of course, if it were only about protesting the war in Iraq, or President Bush, that'd be one thing; they wouldn't have to use all this hippy-dippy imagery, sing the same songs, or gather on the Mall when the President isn't even in town! No, if it wasn't about the sixties too, they'd simply wait for Bush to leave office (he has to in '08), and protest the war more effectively than sweating in D.C. with a homemade sign on a stick. This IS about the sixties... and the children of the sixties, and their children... (and it'll be about their children's children, too).

I had to sit and think hard about why. I mean, this hasn't happened in awhile--despite other wars, other times, other presidents...

And then it hit me that that's why! The sixties were the last happenings--an entire decade of them--where things mattered. The things done back then matter forever; for some, it's the only history they'll know. There will always be a book to pick up about them, scores of music to listen to, pictures taken and films made--and a granite black wall in our nation's capitol to visit...

The kids of today--now adults--have no happenings of their own to which history lays claim. In the last 30 years, few books have been written about their 'struggles'... living in mom's basement?... trying to get through 4 years of college in 6 years?... attempting to get a job in a world that suddenly demands college or trade skills? I'm asleep already!

These young adults (and not-so-young ones), raised in the large-screen world of American privilege, want fame, love the large gestures, crave the recognition that they imagine posterity will give them--if only they can do something BIG--something as big, or even bigger. Thus, rather than create their own, they go back to the only template they know. I guess that's easiest...

If only the d'Rats had a true leader to tell them that the 'big' thing they could do to trump the sixties and cement their forever-existence could be found in a new movement building UP this country--not planning it's destruction--but supporting it, loving it, valuing it like never before! In this, they could find the uniqueness and recognition they crave--and America would have back the patriots she lacks. This would truly be something for history to capture: a wonderful nation created by it's founding fathers and, 200+ years later--beloved by her receiving sons!