22. THE LATER 1960s

THE BOOMER COMES OF AGE

Meanwhile, back on the American home front, America's young Boomer generation was just reaching early adulthood by the mid-1960s.  They were eager to become heroes by challenging on all fronts any form of suspicious social "authority," something they had been prepared for since their early school years. Unfortunately, the authority at hand to challenge was not some conspiring Communist intruders into American life (that fear had proved groundless).  Instead, the only authority that otherwise stood before them available to be challenged by young crusading hearts was their Middle-Class parents' own highly patriotic political-cultural legacy.

Also, much had been made publicly about the blemishes afflicting American society and the need for deep reform.  Clearly – to the Boomers at least – the America that the Middle-Class American Vets lauded as the best of all possible worlds was an idea itself that needed to be rejected as foolish – even dangerous – blind patriotism.  Thus (with considerable encouragement from the intellectuals who commanded the university classrooms the Boomers attended in increasing numbers), virtually in every aspect of Middle-Class life that stood before the Boomers as America's traditional cultural legacy they found some element to be challenged – if indeed not even the whole Middle-Class cultural package to be put aside in the name of serious "progress."

Furthermore, they were a highly-pampered generation.  They had been well provided for by an indulgent Vet generation anxious to see that their Boomer offspring had every material advantage that the Vets themselves had been missing in their own youthful years lived during the Depression (and then World War Two.) Sadly, Boomers therefore were used to being taken care of.  It was their basic entitlement as Americans.

Indeed, as the "entitled generation," Boomers saw society as something that owed them support and not the other way around.  Happiness was "personal freedom" – in other words, not having to do anything you did not feel inspired to do.  If you did not like the social situation you found yourself in, you were invited to "do your own thing" and dump the social ties, whether a job, or a marriage, or any social obligation that others were trying to lay on you.

The growth of Johnson's new federal state thus worked nicely to the Boomers' advantage, because, despite their supposed distrust of public authority, Washington's takeover of the management of society allowed them to escape their own social responsibilities in order to give full attention to their own personal agendas (usually the advancement of their schooling, and ultimately their professional careers).

But in the meantime, there was a huge war going on in Vietnam, caused by "American Imperialism," (actually Johnsonian folly) that needed to be ended … immediately.  Thus, it was the Boomers' heroic duty to oppose the war by whatever means necessary.

The Vets were perplexed, even irate.  Wasn't America trying to bring democracy to Vietnam?  Did the Boomer youth not see the importance of setting up a viable democracy in South Vietnam, one that would act not only as a barrier against Communist expansion coming from the North, but like America itself, serve as a beacon of light, lighting the way to other countries in the region to find democracy for themselves as well?  How in the world could the Boomers be missing the point?

But the Boomers instead saw simply raw imperialism, American imperialism, motivating the Vietnam venture.  This was pure evil: the strong dictating their social-cultural organization to the weak, the very thing the Boomers had been carefully programmed to resist, as heroically as possible.

Thus a war of words broke out between the two generations, words that actually had more emotional content than true rationality.  Thus it was that "democracy" and "imperialism" were becoming mere slogans rather than items of carefully-thought-through debate.  And that sloganeering grew hotter as the 1960s advanced.

Chubby Checker showing a young lady theTwist

The Beatles in Liverpool's Cavern Club – 1963 (just prior to their American breakthrough in January of 1964)

The Beatles arrive in America to take it by storm – February 1964

The Beatles:  Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and John Lennon – 1964

The Rolling Stones – 1965.  Top center:  MickJagger; bottom left to right:  Bill Wyman, Brian Jones, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts

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BUT AS THE 1960s PROGRESS, THE BOOMER YOUTH TURNS MORE "COUNTER-CULTURAL"

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez (both 22) in a 1963 hootenanny in New York (both artists picked up early on the social consciousness trend of the 1960s youth)

The "more evolved" Beatles

Members of a hippie commune on Martha's Vineyard.

1960s youth in Central Park painting a psychedelic design on his girlfriend's sneakers

Participants in a Los Angeles "love-in"

Be Your Own Goddess art bus (1967 VW Kombi)

Arlo and Jackie Guthrie being serenaded by Judy Collins at their outdoor wedding

For many young "Boomer" Whites, 1967 was supposed to be a summer of "hippy" love (But:  128 cities were hit by race riots in 1967)

Recreational drugs were also supposed to be part of the age of youthful bliss.

Timothy Leary – lost his Harvard professorship advocating drug-use for "religious" purposes

Sharing a joint in Tahquitz Canyon, Palm Springs, California

And the idea of "religion" took on a greatly expanded meaning. For Boomers, this was supposed to be the “dawning of the Age of Aquarius”

Hare Krishna devotees - 1967

This was also supposed to be an age in which the younger generation of Boomers was supposed to stand against the hypocrisies (even tyranny) of the middle class culture of older American generations ... and set American culture "free"  to be the untarnished model culture for the world

Dustin Hoffman starring in the hit movie "The Graduate" – 1967

  He portrayed a listless youth who was unwilling to be drawn into the plastic world of his parents, who was seduced by a close friend of his parents (the hypocritical and scheming Mrs. Robinson), and finally found freedom by breaking himself and his girlfriend (Mrs. Robinson's daughter) free from the clutches of the shallow adult world.

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BY THE MID-1960s THE YOUTHFUL COUNTER-CULTURALISM IS TURNING INCREASINGLY MILITANT

It is now the fashion of Boomer youth and their university mentors (professors and grad students) to blame America for all the sins of the world.  They regard America as the primary cause ... and primary solution ... to the world's problems – and they (the utopianist intellectuals) are confident that they hold all the answers necessary to solve those problems.

Anyone who begs to differ with them simply represents the unenlightened views of dead American traditionalism.

The "Age of Aquarius" indeed has finally arrived.  Get out of the way old world!

The start-up of the Free Speech Movement (FSM) on the Berkeley campus – October 1, 1964 (student speakers standing on top of a captured police car – decrying the University's policies on a broad range of issues)

The Free Speech Movement on the Berkeley campus – late 1964 – early 1965

A faculty member showing support for the FSM

Popular folk singer Joan Baez demonstrating her support for the FSM

One of the big issues of the day was the military draft – the ticket to the war in Vietnam

A march in Boston in protest against the stepping up of the draft – 1965

Police clearing out students at an anti-draft sit-in at the Selective Service office in Ann Arbor, Michigan – October 15, 1965

A sit-in demonstration at the City College of New York – June 1966 in protest against the releasing of student class standings to draft boards

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THE OCTOBER 1967 MARCH ON THE PENTAGON

In October of 1967 thousands of American youth converged peacefully on the Pentagon to demonstrate the proposition that what the world needed was more "flower power" and less military power.

"A female demonstrator offers a flower to military police on guard at the Pentagon during an anti-Vietnam demonstration"

A "Peacenik" at the March on the Pentagon – 1967

March on the Pentagon protesting the Vietnam War – 1967

March on the Pentagon – October 1967

The anti-war protest at the Pentagon – October 1967

The anti-war protest at the Pentagon – October 1967

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YOUTHFUL "CONCERNS" BECOME ANGRIER

As demonstration spread around the country this demonstration of the youths' concerns about how the adults were shaping their world became angrier – a foretaste of things to come.

"Dirty Fascist" screams an angry University of Wisconsin protester at police – October 1967

The arrest of Dr. Benjamin Spock and anti-war protesters at a New York Induction Center – December 1967

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Go on to the next section:  1968 – A Year of Shock

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  Miles H. Hodges