>Please, please, spare us from 60s nostalgia. The Civil Rights movement was
>admirable and the embryo of the environmental and women's rights movements
>spun off from the New Left, but the general core of New Left activism can
>only be considered an abysmal failure. And a lot of that came from their
>general scorn for working class power in favor of "do your own thing"
>self-expression and self-indulgence.
Whoa Nellie, there was a lot of self-indulgence from what I've heard - having been born in '70 - but it's advisable to guard oneself against being affected by the Right's constant demagoguery about the period. You forget to mention the Vietnam War and the unprecedented accomplishment of a citizenry of a democratic nation who forced it's government to halt an imperial war. Check out the new Baffler (#13) for some excellent pieces on how the ruling class stoked "Americanism" and patriotism within the working class (e.g. Reagan Democrats) in order to divide and conquer.
Peter