Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    you're welcome...
    

    One of the characteristics of revolutions is that very often at the
    tail end of the revolution, there are activities that are not only
    excessive but actually counter-productive.
    Indeed a word has come into our vocabulary to characterize people who
    engage in such activity.
    They are called Jacobins. 
    The Jacobins were radical democrats advocating egalitarian democracy
    and engaging in terrorist activities during the French Revolution of
    1789. (I don't remember my history well enuf to say for certain, but I
    will hazard a *guess* that the Jacobins provided huge impetus for
    Napolean)
    
    In my opinion, we *can* thank the 'Jacobins' of 1968 for ensuring the
    election of their 'favorite politician'. The quite sincere radicals of
    1968 by their excesses in Chicago (during the democratic national
    convention) as well as elsewhere, sufficiently sabotaged and isolated
    the moderate left as to ensure that Hubert Humphrey not be elected.
    The events at the Democratic convention of 1968, did more to determine the
    course of domestic history for the next decade than any other single event.
    
    What would domestic Americal life had been like had Nixon *not* been
    elected?
    Where would you be Joe Dimaggio?

    The excesses of those Jacobins -after the *!@$*&# war against
    THE WAR had ALREADY been won- stopped in its tracks the liberal avalanche
    that had been started by Clean Gene and Bobby
    Thankyou Abby Hoffman etal
    
    			sign me 
    			a veteran for McCarthy (in New Hampshire primary)

    you're welcome!  and I never thought I'd be thanked! :-)
    
    In another string, Dave Dawson (I think it was Dave) asked, what
    happened to us?  Us being those of us who came of age in the 60s.  You
    might look in that topic too.
    
    There's a lot left to do.  I would not want to burden any generation
    with utopia.  (Not that I think there's any danger of that happening.)
    
    I enjoyed the series very much (it was broadcast on Vt PTV last week).
    
    Sara
    

    
    Michele,
    
    Being born in '53 the '60s were a part of and influenced my life.
    I don't know that I would say the 80s politics undid what happened
    in the 60s, it was certainly reaction to what went before.  
    
    The 60s had lots of chaos and activism that in later years became solid
    movements that continue.  Environmental concern became focused then.
    As did the individual rights movement.  The concept that society was
    not monolithic and the individual was a key element was further
    focused.  The idea that an individual can make a difference was from
    many years before, the 60s was the lens that focused on the actuality
    that individuals can make change happen.

    One thing that was assured it was the whole idea of uncertainty of who,
    what, and if.  Every where you looked the ideas were challenged, history
    was no longer a good reason or excuse for something being the same.
    Even history itself was examined and exposed for it's inaccuracies.
    
    The 60s wasn't as much an era as a wave that crested and continues.
    The ripples that started that wave were from generations before.
    
    Peace,
    Allison

RE:  .0

Amen Sister!

PS:

I also watched the show with great interest.  I was born in 59 so I
remember some of the stuff (like JFK and RFK and MLK being shot) and
my parents (God Bless Them) were infused with values and ideals of the
time that they passed on to me.  Of course, living them is harder!

    
    	I think the sixties still has a tremndous impact in many parts of
    	our life today. The values and ideals are still out there. Maybe
    	not up on the stage standing beside Ronald Reagan, but they are
    	still out here in many people, even if buried deep inside. Just
    	look at all the emotions people like JFK and RFK and MLK still
    	bring out in us.
    
	No, I think ideals of the sixties are not dead. I think they will
    	revive again after this current conservative swing swings back
    	again. 
    
    	And thank you, Mom and Dad, and other people active in the sixties...
    	you gave us a great starting place to resume from once we get back
    	to the more liberal swing again. 
    
    	-Erik
    
    	(PS- I was deeply moved by the PBS program last night too)
    

    To disagree just a bit with Herb regarding the single event that
    influenced the succeeding decades (to paraphrase :) ):
    
    The event that preceeded the '68 Democratic Convention, it is my belief
    that had he lived, Robert Kennedy would have been elected President,
    not Nixon.
    
    Interesting thought, no?
    
    sue

    I agree that Bobbie was a seminal force in the 60s and that his death
    was an awesome tragedy. I think it hit me MORE even than the
    assasination of his brother. My personal belief is that Bobby was by
    far the most emotionally committed to liberal ideals of all the
    Kennedys of his generation.
    I also feel a tremendous sadness for Teddie, who saw three of his older
    brothers suffer premature death. He simply wasn't able to carry the
    burden thrust upon him by his father and his country. And he collapsed
    beneath the burden.
    I don't know whether Bobbie would have been nominated and elected had
    he survived. If true then Sirhan Sirhan is an even greater figure in
    history than I felt.
    I do however feel certain that Humphrey WOULD have been elected had it
    not been for the understandable excesses following Bobbies death. I
    believe that statement would be shared by most contemporary historians
    
    
    				herb
    

>    I also feel a tremendous sadness for Teddie, who saw three of his older
>    brothers suffer premature death. He simply wasn't able to carry the
>    burden thrust upon him by his father and his country. And he collapsed
>    beneath the burden.
    


    I get the sense that good ole Teddie NEVER was destined for 
    greatness on a National level.  He just never had it in him
    and only is riding the Kennedy name.  He collapsed way before
    he even finished prep school!

    justme....jacqui

    ok
    

    Interesting reply, herb.  I was a senior in high school at the time of
    the election, taking US Government too.  It's interesting to see an
    "adult" perspective, as my frame of reference was high school.  I think
    that I grew up that year, forming some mature opinions that I still
    hold today.  I think tha't when it all became "real".
    
    I too supported Humphrey, and was saddened when he died, because his
    passing, to me, meant that a person that could bring about and influence
    society to better understanding and tolerance of other was now silent. 
    I remember that I had a picture of Humphrey hanging in my room, much to
    my Republican mother's dismay.
    
    We still agree to disagree to this day. :)
    
    sue

    	My observation was that a lot of people accepted a lot of rhetoric
    as gospel during the sixties (and still do) without ever examing the
    real premises behind it.  Am I one of the only people who sees an
    inherent conflict between "Ask not what your country can do for you;
    ask what you can do for your country." and "...to secure these rights
    governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from
    the consent of the governed...", or "...government of the people, by the
    people and for the people...".  I think that the "ask not" statement is
    contraty to everything that a constitutional republic stands for. 
    Although I must say that it makes a nice "sound bite".
    

    
    The ask not clause is not at all contradictory to our constitution. 
    The clause is saying that you will get more from your government if you
    put more into your government.
    

    I believe, though I was just a tad at the time (*8, that President
    Kennedy's quote was directed to those who were saying *only* "What will
    this country do for me?" I believe it was a reminder that the country's
    citizens *are* the country, and have to give something back.
    
    E Grace

say what you will about "ask not..." I say it sounds and comes across a whole
lot better and is more elegant than "a thousand points of light"

;-}

Sara

    	Just to clarify, in no particular order:  The ask not quote is
    Robert Kennedy not John.  The other two were from the Declaration of
    Independence and Lincoln's Gettysburg address, not the constitution.  
    	Surprisingly there are a lot of things in the constitution that we
    often assume are in it.  For instance it doesn't prohibit taxation
    without representation.
    	Personally I still consider any government or politician that feels
    that people should serve their government rather than the converse to
    be an abomination.  I also reject the idea that our rights are handed
    to us by our government.  We surrender some of our rights to our
    government in excange for having our freedom protected.  Lately the
    biggest threat to our freedom has been our government.
    						John
    

    
    
    RE:  .16 
    
    Of course the people should serve their government.  The government is
    not our father, it is our child.
    
    Governmental threat to freedom?  What gives you this opinion of the
    government?
    
    NICK
    

    <the ask not quote is Robert Kennedy not John>
    
    I believe the ask not statement was made by John Kennedy in his
    Inaugural Address Jan 20(?) 1961.
    
    (Spose it might have been conceived by Bobby)

    'Ask not' was indeed JFK at his inauguration
    
    BJ

a friend has said to me, that the most feared words in the English language are

"we're from the government and we're here to help you."

    re .17 Government is a tool. Not a father or a child. Just a
    way for a bunch of people to secure their rights. 
    
    "Lo, men have become the tools of their tools."

    My guess as to who 'created' those words would be either Arthur
    Schlesinger Jr. or Theodore Sorenson (leaning toward Sorenson).
    
    Even Kennedy, as eloquent as we like to remember him, had some very
    gifted speech writers.

    
    
    RE:  .21
    
    What happens when you neglect a tool's need for maintenance, yet continue
    to make it work for you?
    
    NICK
    

    You said 'serve'. Quite different concept than 'maintain'.

>    'Ask not' was indeed JFK at his inauguration
>    
yup, he said it ... altho proclaimed would be a more 
accurate verb. It absolutely rang!

I believe Richard Goodwin wrote it; he was a speech
writer with the K's for years.  I'm foggy about what 
else he did, other than the politically knowledgeable
think he is terrific.

    <what else he did>
    
    Well he married LBJs biographer (and putative mistress?) Doris Kearns.
    
    
    
    			h

        re .25,
        
>>	>    'Ask not' was indeed JFK at his inauguration
>> [...]
>>	I believe Richard Goodwin wrote it;
        
        I vaguely recall reading where Sorenson was asked if he
        had written that.  He answered somelike like
        
        	Ask not what I wrote for JFK ....
        
        Dan

You may say that I'm a dreamer,

But I'm not the only one....

There really did seem to be a lot of us then.

Barb

p.s. Anyone go to The March?

    RE: "Ask Not" and "The Sixties"
    
    Kennedy didn't really say that in The Sixties. The Sixties are NOT
    the same as the 1960's. The Sixties (The Commie-pinko-hippie-fag era.
    And I say that with great affection and nostalgia) actually started
    around 1966 and went to about 1976.
    
    Kennedy was definitely not A Sixties person, although I think his
    election presaged the times when the younger folks and idea would
    take the country by storm.
    
    --DE
    

    
    RE:  .29
    
    
    "The Sixties"        1964-1973
    "The Seventies"      1973-1981
    "The Eighties"       1981-1989
    

    ... I graduated college in '64 and missed the whole dang thing!  :-)

    Dan
    
    I graduated in '66 and missed most of it too...
    
    I was a college prof. by '69 and a mom, when most of the stuff
    let loose I was too p.j. (Woodstock) or involved in parenting
    (marches in Cambridge, etc ) as a nursing mom, or too conservative
    (never smoked pot), to be involved.
    
    Bonnie

    The Sixties ended the year I got pregnant ('73).  That makes sense to
    me.  Things have never been the same since. :-)
    
    (Although, I think my daughter would have loved The Sixties.)
    
    Lorna
    

    I graduated in 1972, so I got to enjoy, and live that era,my children
    (two boys 19 & 16) wished they could have lived that era, they
    love the music of that time.If we call all go back......

I was sixties all the way. Graduated high school in 68. Dropped out of college.
Joined the peace, love, dope crowd and hitch hiked around the country between
hospital jobs. I wore a white uniform during the day and hippy drag at night.

Everything seemed intense and spirituality was in the air. There was a feeling
of change and excitment, as if the world really could be affected. 

Everything I owned could fit in a VW bug and leave room for a passenger. I look
around me sometimes and wonder why I've come to need more. 

One thing I do remember, the crowd I hung with, the back to the land types, were
not big on women's liberation. My husband expected me to cook everything from
srcatch and be the earth mother. We were expected to be able to talk about all
the events but the bottom line was we made dinner and cleaned up afterwards. 
liesl

    This week' Newsweek (3/25) contains an article on the Sixties by George
    Will.  The article is smug and somewhat too harsh, but it also contains
    a lot of truth.  Among them...
    
    ...
    ...It reflects a vague--very vague--desire to (in the words of The
    Doors' anthem) "break on through to the other side."  Through what?  To
    what?  Don't ask.  The Doors didn't.  Peopel who talk like The Doors
    are not, as such people say, "into" details.
    
    ...In Randall Jarrell's novel "Pictures from an Institution" a foreign
    visitor says, "You Americans do not rear children, you INCITE them; you
    give them food and shelter and applause."  the problem is juvenophilia. 
    It is the foolishness of listening for wisdom from the mouths of babes
    and hoping that youthful vigor (the favorate word along the New
    Frontier when the Sixties were aborning) will liberate by smashing
    suffocating old structures.  Remember the Founding Father, Chuck Berry:
    "Hail, hail, rock and roll, deliver me from the days of old."
    ...
    
    I personally do not think the Sixties left much legacy at all.  It
    didn't produce any great art which always serves as an indicator of a
    great era.  Much of the rock and roll is indeed, as as Will puts
    it, juvenile; or to use a phrase I just learned, "brain dead".  But 
    it weren't too bad.  Will says it was boring, but so were the 
    era of 50's 70's and 80's.  May we live in a more interesting time.
    
    Eugene
                 

    That's an interesting perspective, but one I disagree with.  I've done
    a fair bit of reading about the sixties and think that it has left a
    significant legacy on the U.S., at least.
    
    Some things that came out of the sixties: a woman's right to an
    abortion.  Women's rights.  Civil rights for minorities.  Anti-war
    organizations.  Serious environmental concern started during that
    decade.  The 60s left such a legacy, IMO, because the 50s were such
    a conservative decade where very little was done to challenge the
    status quo.  Even though most of these movements started earlier, its
    been my perception that they only really took off during the 60s.
    
    Jim 

    And let's not forget the Rolling Stones, who continue to roll today
    as good as ever...
    :-)
    

    Oh, there was art.  Op Art.  Peter Max.  There was an entire nation
    wrestling to break out of its forms and its function, testing its
    preconceptions.  Not all of the attempts were successful, but the very
    fact that people QUESTIONED their givens was fantastic in its
    originality (I know, I know, they did that during the revolutionary war
    too, but I don't think they did it to such an extent).
    
    -Jody
    

"...deliver me from the days of old..."  Chuck Berry is Black.  He knows the
days of old were not all fun and games.

"Break on through" - that is, question authority.  Something about that dusty
old document, the Constitution, makes me think this is not such a radical idea.

The 40s were about this nation waking to its own power in the world, about
defeating Evil (really).  I'm grateful to our parents for that. But they are not
invincibly pure.  We expected that of them, in the 60s.  Turns out they are
only human, doing the best they could...

The 50s were about smugness, confidence, export of the Amemrican Way, since the
confidence in the virtue of the U.S. was not questioned by most.  this is when
our parents raised us to be idealistic, to do right.  Some of the bad stuff was
hidden from them (as now, from us!), and some they didn't see because they
weren't looking for it.  I think humans get complacent very easily.

The 60s were about questioning the smugness, the virtue, of the country because
the contrast between the IDEALS our parents fought for, and believed in, and the
REALITY of the applications we saw all round us, were so stark. We questioned
what we saw, well they got upset.  Things were not the way they were supposed to
be --  change it, NOW! Fix it, NOW!  Do it, NOW!

Yeah, Sara, I like that perspective.  I flashed on another aspect of the 60s 
while I was writing a letter last night; seems to me that this was an era when
the youth found its voice, found within itself the confidence to shrug off any
need to pay lip-service to their parents' values.  New generations of teenagers
have ever since, tried to define their own independence from their parents in
socially visible ways.  The media has been engaged in a multi-generational bid
to entice them back into the materialistic fold, with large amounts of success.
Youthful idealism hasn't been entirely sold out, its created anew with each
generation...but within each generation, many are corrupted, and many cannot
find ways to reconcile idealism with living in the real world.  (It was a fun
letter to write. ;-).

DougO

    
    re .36
    
    "may we live in more interesting times"
    
    Careful, Eugene!  That's an arabic curse!!!  (May you live in
    interesting times)
    
    :-)

Nit - I always heard "May you live in interesting times" described as a Chinese
curse, not Arabic.

    me three, and I think Eugene should be our reference on this 
    one..
    BJ

    re .43, .44, .45,
    
    If it is, I am not aware of it.  However, translation has a way of
    turning out the unexpected.  Perhaps, it is indeed a creative
    translation of some common phrase.  It is just that I can't think of
    any.  It is most likely one of those mythical "Confucious said" things 
    from Fu Man Chu.  And for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how
    Kun-Fu-Tsi became "Confucious".  Anyway, I think it is great.  If you
    all think it is a Chinese phrase, I will be glad to take the credit on
    behalf of all the Chinese here.  By the way, I didn't know
    anything about "fortune cookie" until about 2 years after I arrived
    here, and I have yet to see a fortune cookie written in Chinese, but I
    like them anyway, and I think they are great.  I would also like to add
    that all those things happened in the 60's, so this note is by no
    mean a rathole.  :-)
    
    Eugene