andie nachgeborenen wrote:
In some ways the world is worse in some ways, better in others. Don't indulge in this Golden Age fantasy. It's as old as the first grandfather/mother. (In my day . . . . ). For money money there has been considerable improvement since, say, November 1942, midnight of ther last century, with the Nazis knocking at the doors of Stalingrad, Jim Crow and lynch law firmly entrenched in America, Japanese militarism dominating the Far East. But opinions can differ and there is not exactly any objective test. But even if it were worse overall, it is absurd to blame that on the student demonstrators of the 60s who struggled for racial and social justice, women's liberation, and socialism. If they failed in part -- in part! not altogether -- does that mean the deterioration is their fault rather than the fault of the other side?
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I agree. I hate this self-hatred on the left. A lot of it is based on ideals of perfection which seem to those who have them to have succumb to some kind of decadence. Most of the people on this list have tried very hard to change the world in ways which accrue to the interests of the majority of people and as a whole the left has succeeded in many ways in doing just that. I only have to think back to times when I rode the Trailways buses as a kid through the South in the 50s and was confronted with choosing which water fountain I could drink from. I hadn't been taught racism and was confused. (Of course, the same thing happened on Greyhound bus trips--geesh.) Or, at other times, when the Army/McCarthy hearings were daily fare on TV and nobody said a word. Or, when Walter Cronkite presented the casualty numbers from Vietnam, as me and my pals shouted at the TV and planned the next demo. Or, when coat hanger abortions were considered the norm for those "immoral" high school girls who got pregnant.
We haven't won, but we haven't lost either. The right has won some battles too, that's for sure. But to make their victories into our failures is self-destructive. We've come a long way from those halcyon days of yore and I'm quite happy about that. Thanks lefties!
The struggle continues, Mike B)
P.S.
I now await the inevitable denunciations for being naive about the Democrats, the Stalinists, Trotskyists, liberals and anarchists.
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