The more things change the more they stay the same.
In 1969 if you were younger than 30 years old and over 10 years old you were considered part of the Woodstock Generation.
It was the generation of Peace, Love, Understanding, Enlightenment. Celebrating the diversity of Mother Earth.
Out of the turmoil of assassinations, the Kennedys and Dr. King, along with an unpopular war causing unrest on college campuses and in many communities across the nation, the unrest of civil rights and a not so great economic climate, Woodstock was an almost inevitable happening. As was the Democratic Convention in Chicago just a few years earlier.
The decade of the 60s saw the birth of some of today’s greatest movements and achievements. We sent men to the moon and discovered that we could save the earth by hugging a tree.
Yet 40 years later we can not guarantee equal rights to all, either by races, gender and/or personal sexual preference. We are yet again in the midst of wars that grow more un-popular by the hour, a world-wide economy posed for fatal collapse and more willing to hug a tree to save it then to embrace our fellow citizen who may need medical insurance in fear of “socialism”.
What has become of the Woodstock generation? Sadly it seems we have grown into those very adults we rebelled against so long ago.
We find those peace loving, tree hugging, celebitorians of diversity now as over paid CEOs lobbying for more bail-out dollars for corporate America (Government involvement please) while rallying cries of less government for those in need of medical (health) insurance.
Guess we haven’t changed that much after all… we still want it all and believe we deserve it….
Interesting blog. But it's not true that anyone over 10 in 1969 was considered part of the Woodstock Generation. Arguably, the biggest legacy of Woodstock is its huge impact on the real children of the sixties: Generation Jones (born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X). This USA TODAY op-ed speaks to the relevance today of the sixties counterculture impact on GenJones: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090127/column27_st.art.htm
ReplyDeleteGoogle Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten a ton of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) now specifically use this term. In fact, the Associated Press' annual Trend Report forcast the Rise of Generation Jones as the #1 trend of 2009.
Here's a page with a good overview of recent media interest in GenJones:
http://generationjones.com/2009latest.html
Point made and taken. But it does not dismiss the fact that the generation that gave us "free love", and designer drugs, ie. LSD and more, Haight Ashbury, also gave us the Mason Family, brought us to the "brink of destruction," by their greed and seek to eradicate the middle class be seeking more and more bail outs from the everyday taxpayer.
ReplyDeleteEven if this means taking away from our senior citizens as well as our grandchildren today with cuts in Medicare and Medicade, as well as education.
They can call them selves Generation Jones or Generation Smith... it is still greed.