my rant about change

T H E    S I X T I E S

When those who did referred to the "turbulent" decade, even they only captured the half of it. The WW2 gang were all in their maturity, taking on the responsibilities of their respective arenas; America and Americans suddenly thrust into the spotlight, dictating policy around the world, creating a post-war reality vastly different than their fathers. Riots, marches, red-necks and crackers confronting a changing socio-economic revolution, a strange little bush war in some tiny country near the equator south of China, the Big Baaad Wolf from K-O-R-E-E-E-E-A, brrrr. All these, plus the coming of age of countless young men and women, collectively referred to as the “Baby Boom“, all of some talent, for good or ill (or worse), each intent on a passage across the span of their lives, in a consumptive rather than productive manner. The infusion of the Beatles, the Berkley scene of freeee speech and freeeee-er love led to the Swinging Sixties; the birth of the Consumer Society (?) set off a cultural clash striking to the core of Western culture, because, after all, we were kings of the world, weren't we? We, the America that had emerged from WWII as hero and undisputed (at least in our own mind) world leader, were by this time in the habit of telling every one else in the world what to do, to some extent or other, interfering liberally wherever we pleased, along an uneasy division with the "communist" menace, enforcing a nascent Pax Americana. The Military-Industrial menace didn't like the Post-War strutting of the Soviets, who had taken the world to the brink of the nuclear nightmare in the fall of 1962 by way of the Cuban Missile Crisis; in Southeast Asia that dirty little war was getting dirtier courtesy of the Nightly News, while at home racial unrest generated tremendous civil turmoil, which in turn led the crime and control system touted as Law and Order to take on a life of its own, as an archetype.

The rest of the world was still recuperating from the effect of two "world" wars, while US engineers and hustlers of every stripe scattered about a world they knew somewhat well, courtesy of their solicitous "Uncle" Sam, seeking bargains, treasures, opportunities, "targets of opportunity", in nooks and crannies across the world. Developing World Strategy focused on the "first" world, with its attendant "2nd" world of underlings and such, ignoring a vast part of the world's population as the Third World, those misfortunates whose lack of status doomed them to a twilight world of semi-consciousness and diminished expectations, prey to whoever wanted what they had. The profound conflicts that arose between someone from "back on the farm", and someone to whom a means was just a way to an end, generated the "GAP", a widening such as between mountains, with far-off clouds and all.

The Rock Era, The Draft Era, the VietNam Era, the deaths by murder of one after another leader, troubles in Africa, Lebanon, Cuba came rat-a-tat, along with the onset of the Drug Culture (legal, not-so and "other") altering the perception of the problems, pro and con, as the Modern World emerged. The generation coming of age, the so-called "Youth" Culture, in reality the onslaught of "Boomer" Culture, tilted the world toward an urban rather than agronomic society, exchanging the ethos of one for the other as dominant in American society. In the arena of International Dominance, American interests were enforcing the early versions of Pax Americana with sometimes more, and too often less, cordial relations depending on who was Americanus and who wasn't. Some may dispute the results but it was gooood to be the KING. It wasn't very good to NOT be the King in many parts of the world. Some would hold, it was damn near miserable to be NOT. As in any society, a system of fairness has to be maintained, else there be a "palace" revolution, and we'll have ourselves a NEW king, thank you very much. It should have come as no surprise then, when "fairness" and bluster and cajoling/bribing/supporting, resulted in tremendous levels of enmity directed at the “Yankee“ who would not go home.

VietNam flared up as a gnat grown to a glowworm, mutated into a flying insect that couldn't be shooed away until suddenly it was a bumble bee, loose inside the gates of our society, predatory and menacing, increasingly malevolent until one day it was the Africanized swarm boring into our consciousness, the angry buzzing a constant background noise, further rifting the generations, and now, the classes. War and the threat of war kept the dogs at bay, the lesson of the great conflict well-learned in the main, but misinterpreted by the military-political alliance that was stumbling into the blastfurnace of VietNam. The casualties included two brothers slain, one a vibrant popular president with human flaws, who had just begun to consider getting us out of VietNam soon, the younger more intense, more intellectual, whose base mainly consisted of those who wanted out of VietNam NOW. The powers-that-be were threatened by the "Camelot" of the Kennedy presidency, were doubly impacted by Bobby's hippie, Anti-War following. The attendant death of Martin Luther King, a strong voice for moderation in the pursuit of Civil Rights goals, led to increased tension with Black Panther and Nation of Islam organizers; the Counter Culture excesses, and the headiness that came from the kids identifying as such, further alienated the opposite sides of society.

Space, from the thrill of a super cannon shot for Alan Shepherd, to the trials and triumphs of the Mercury astronauts, and ultimately the Gemini and the Apollo teams who pushed the envelope even farther into the stratosphere, gave the world a shining example of what was good about American ingenuity. Life was by turns good, tumultuous, trying, dangerous and challenging, as the Generation Gap widened into a chasm, the conflicts between the Old Guard and the Counter Culture took on near-militaristic tones, the Civil Rights movement splintered into militant Black Panthers and those trying to assimilate along the lines endorsed by Martin Luther King. Television came of age during the Kennedy assassination and matured during the course of the VietNam War, bringing the violence in the jungle into our living rooms in living (and dying) color. Coverage of the moon landing of Apollo 12 on July 20, 1969, provided the coda for the decade, a triumph of American can-do and know-how and a by-then long-dead, but long-missed, president who exhorted the country to discover what was best in the national character, as well as what was best for the national interest. The state of the union at the outset of that challenge bore only passing resemblance to the state of our union at the end. The world was forever changed, never to be the same again.