Seriously?

(Gen X) So embarrassing!

How it is that so many of my generation abandoned their leftist hippie ideals and became RW tools is beyond me. I guess Fox and AM radio played a big part. They got tired of listening to classic rock on the FM dial and tried switching to AM talk for a change and that was their doom.

Some thought the only way they got off drugs was with the help of supernatural forces and the RW politics just followed.

Sad.

Things were tight and the rules had started to change right after we got out of college. We bought our first house when inflation and interest rates were high--16% mortgage! Jobs that were supposed to be careers for life began to disappear, eaten by the take-over mania. Family farms were dying (I grew up rural) and the future looked bleak for people who had been taught that playing by the rules would work but now the rules were changing. Fear and the desire for hope helped fuel the Raygun Revolution and Boomers turned inward. If they listened to talk radio, it was because they were being told it wasn't their fault (which they already believed) and they were given a scapegoat to blame--it's alway 'the other'.

More nurturing to return to a safe, secure, imaginary childhood America that never really existed except on TV.

and Nixon's election. Changed everything. Don't ever question the power of the oligarchs to persuade the working class that capitalism is king, the free market always wins, war is always the answer, and the military is always right.. far right, and, the biggie, poor people suck and are lazy takers. If you can't make it on your own in America it's your fault. Disabled? Mentally ill? Abused? Damaged? Go live on the street, we don't want to expend the resources to change that. Even Democratic majorities in Congress and two strong Democratic presidents couldn't get us off the corporate agenda because they too bought into the narrative.

The 70's was the decade of extreme propaganda. We fought back a tiny bit with Carter, but that was just a blip. Reagan's landslide times two was just what America needed to turn right and never look back. The vast majority of wealth is controlled by a few, and they want it all at our expense, and they'll get it. Redistribution is a dirty word donchaknow.

Because I'm not so sure that "leftist hippie ideals" were as common as legend/memory makes them. I went to a middle-class, virtually all-white suburban HS in a very progressive area, but the only "leftist hippie ideals" that most of my fellow students shared were selfish ones: I don't wanna go to Vietnam (or have anyone I care about go there), I wanna smoke and fuck and do drugs (and vote and drink; this was Pennsylvania), I wanna say what I want, wear what I want, and basically do everything I want. There were no "bigots" because everybody was already white as snow. There was not a lot of social consciousness or empathy floating around, in other words. So, as they got older and most of the stuff they wanted they got, or didn't matter, they just continued in their focus on their own desires (and those of their families), and voted Republican and started hating everything that "threatened" their own status.

Anecdote is always suspect, of course, but the true "leftist hippies" were in a very small minority in that school. But I suspect that if it had become common for people to break into schools and start shooting students at random, my classmates would have been just as likely to raise their voices in fear and outrage as the rising generation is. Self-preservation and self-interest can often resemble altruism.

-- Mal

by an active minority, were really not completely mainstream.

I'm that generation, but I dropped out of college after a semester, went to work, and while I wasn't crazy about the Vietnam war, I didn't protest it and didn't completely understand the protesters. And yes, I think the protests were largely for selfish reasons, not wanting to go there and be killed. Which is, of course, entirely understandable, for what despite our elders were claiming, it was not a good war, not one that made any sense for this country to be fighting.

... or couldn't wait to get in it. One senior I remember had as his yearbook tagline that he couldn't wait to get to Vietnam and "kill twenty Cong a day." I've always wondered how that worked out for him.

-- Mal

I really wish, at the time, I had known that I could have been voting and drinking (legally) while in high school. In New York state, where I worked for a couple of college summers, I well remember, fondly, that you COULD legally drink at eighteen in those days

... although since I was in the Philly area, it was pretty typical for kids to drive across the bridges to Jersey where the drinking age was 18. Still needed a fake ID, though.

-- Mal

In too short of a time, so there was reaction to all the change.

I know people who were turned by the triple whammy of legal abortion, Feminism and Gay rights.

... and the GOP decided to ride them all the way to the WH. There were many other factors that invented the "Moral Majority," but abortion lit the fire, IMO.

-- Mal

In 1776, Alexander Hamilton was either 19 or 21 (precise age not known), and Jefferson was around 33. Many other founders were in their 20s and 30s, with one of the oldest being Benjamin Franklin at 70. Some were in their 40s and 50s, but overall the group was quite young and dedicated to their purpose to have accomplished the feat of creating a country. It makes me happy to see young people like the Parkland students who will be helping to shape our country.

It was more than Vietnam. There was a movement for a lot of change. Women's rights. The environment. Civil rights. Student rights.

A popular phrase was "give a damn"

There were lots of changes that resulted that we take for granted today.

Implying we just opposed the war to stay home was a bit much....that would be like saying today's students just wanted to get out of class

I'm a few years older than the OP.

I can remember when we as teenagers were fighting for the right to recycle items, like cans and bottles! We were considered to be "trouble makers" for this position if you can believe that! Today, recycling is mandatory! I am glad to see this needless to say.

It was not all abt. just Vietnam. It was about a huge array of issues, many of which you point out.

I can remember being at the Martinez, Calif. county courthouse sitting-in on the sentencing surrounding some of the shackled and chained up Indian people rounded up from Alcatraz, yes Alcatraz!

This issue had nothing to do with Vietnam but it had everything to do w/civil rights. We were there in the courtrooms observing the goings on of the day and taking notes, believe me.

And then there was a lot abt. woman's rights too, ranging from a woman's right to choose to birth control to abortion which was legalized in 1973.

It was a was a time filled with much activity on many many levels and much of it was good and some of it was not good. Overall, the impact was that of change!

It seemed once Tricky Dick was impeached, a whole new era was birthed!

And yes, it was not just my generation that did these things, it was in a huge part the American people et al. that brought forth much of this needed change. It seemes to me in retrospect that that many Americans were chomping at the bit for this change.

A fed up society will do that to a country.

I often wondered how the same generation that could do 'the summer of love' and produce all that social change could then reverse upon itself and actually hand this nation over to oligarchs.

But you're right. Most people don't really educate themselves on issues. My parents and grandparents were all right wing Republicans, and I was too, for awhile.

Then I went to college and the coursework opened my mind to some things that made me feel damned uncomfortable. I took one class called 'Social Change,' and the teacher came in, said, "I'm a Marxist and I'm going to teach this course from that perspective."

My head EXPLODED. I fear I ruined that class for everyone, because I argued every single little point.

It took some years for me to turn around, but finally the cognitive dissonance made me go back and do some very serious reading - things from authors like Chomsky and Zinn.

Then I registered as a Democrat in maybe 1984 and never looked back. Now, because I have read many, many things, am a practicing economist, and just generally have empathy for people, I have become a new New Deal Democrat - a socialist Democrat. Other posts of mine can reveal how I feel on certain points such as forcing change to corporate charters, health care, etc.

But the point is that it took some years for the cognitive dissonance to break through my conservative armor.

The term we younger boomers used for older boomers who went corporate was 'sell-out.' Yeah, everyone's gotta make a living. I get that. But you don't need to make your living raping the treasury on behalf of freakish billionaire parasites like the Koch brothers.

You are right, I think, about most people. Guys like Trump just never thought about it. In fact, I'm not sure Trump has thought of anything but sexual gratification for many, many years.

You might as well ask how the generation that produced the Summer of Love could produce that.

-- Mal

WTF were they thinking when they hired those guys.

Kids today are very smart and very practical and more united on causes that are best for society. Kids of the sixties were a lot more interested in public spectacle (not all, case in point were the freedom riders, lunch counter sitters and bus seat sitters who risked being killed without the public knowing about it). Most of the sixties protesters were hangerons who grabbed on to am popular causes for their own reasons (group think, free love , ect). Today's kids are savvy about bring attention to causes and backing up that attention by forcing real change on a broad level.

of issues requiring their attention. The same approach of being outspoken and articulate about how these policies hurt their generation will work on all fronts, including:

--tax policy. Stop the wealthy from stealing from the rest of us and cheating the system through the tax code.

--financing of higher education.

--voting rights

Many more. And every other generation should participate, to the extent that the members are aware of the need for change.

I love them

How could any child learn in such an environment? It's madness to expect they would, especially given the increasing frequency and intensity of mass shootings in the U.S. It's no wonder our children have become politically activated. They put us all to shame. We have failed them, tremendously, giving priority to those who demand the right to possess military-grade weapons over our children's very lives. We can all do better.

I'm either X or millennial (or xennial) depending on who you ask (I turn 38 next week). One difference I've noticed about these kids and my generation is that they don't take bullshit like many older people I know do. I have two cousin in HS that I'm basing this off of (and I've met several of their friends). They're aware of the world around them and question things. If they're taking on the NRA as teenagers, I can see them growing up to take on Citizens United (please).

My mom was taught that women were to be polite and passive. She cringes at phrases like 'nasty woman' and is the furthest definition of a fighter as they come. She doesn't approve of my 'grab em by the midterms' shirt. She thought many of the signs at the Women's March were way too mean spirited. I tried to explain to her that being polite to people like Trump is bringing a knife to a gun fight but she didn't want to hear it.

Another thing to remember about high school kids today. They were born after Columbine. Most seniors were born in late 1999/2000.