1968: The Year That Changed Everything

I am so sick of hearing about the Baby Boomer generation and their precious decade of tumult and rebellion. In all the history of this country there has never been a more self-indulgent, sickeningly spoiled group as those middle-class and upper-middle class kids from the 60s, who had every possible advantage and every cushion of comfort a generation could dream of... and what did they do with it? Ha. Look around you. Some good came out of the Sixties, but it's painfully obvious that most of it was nothing but sheer horror or just out-and-out crap. And then this babied, whingy generation had the gall, once they started hitting middle age (in the 80s) to turn around on their vaunted ideals and become self-serving yuppies. And today they continue to dominate and make a misery of the world for all of us.

I was born in 1965 and proud that this phony bunch refers to me and my fellows as "slackers" and "generation X." At least we never claimed to have all the answers, never had your overweening arrogance, and never would have imagined that the world revolved around us. If anything we've been left at a loss in the face of the wrecked world you Boomers left behind. Sadly it seems we'll have to put up with you for a while longer. And no, I'm not confident that it'll be a happy day when the first "Gen X" president assumes office---because unlike you, we don't *know* ourselves so well---we don't pretend that we've "found the way." We're just trying to survive and deal with the mess you've left us. And I don't know that we can---because another Boomer (Bush) has made it a hell of a lot worse---and who *will* be there 20 years down the road to clean it up? That'd be us. But the work involved, I think, will be a lot more than a single generation can accomplish.

Hope the love beads and revolution was worth it, you sods.

Born in 1950, 1968 was my high school graduation year. Your comments take me back to those years and the struggle for our national identity since then. You raise the pertinent questions, I have grown pestimistic that we will ever elect a government with the courage and wisdom to even begin to address them. I will continue to hope for the best and fear for the worst. Thank you for the article.

This battle is as old as history. Realism versus idealism or Truth versus Sophistry. Socrates and other philosophers through time have battled it. Unfortunately nihilism is winning in the west and it will result in our suicide. I am an optimist that understands we will go through another Dark Ages and human reason will move forward. Oh, wait a minute, this time the radicals will have nukes....well, maybe we won't survive....

America has run itself into the ground for not standing on the principles is was founded upon. Why do have double standards for people of color? Why do gays have to have special "rights"? Why do we allow Muslim children the opportunity to pray in school and deprive Christians of the same right? I'm not stuck in the 60's, I'm wondering when people will wake up and recall the changes since then. Justifiable? Hardly...

Some people out there watch too much TV. If you are willing to listen to the media and take their perspective everytime you hear about the war, the economy, the housing market, etc., you are just as bad as the reporters and journalists that can never get both sides of the story. America will restore its position in the world, and it is still out there. It just has to be taken back out of the box and dusted off a little. Maybe someday Americans will stop being pessimistic about the future, blaming the past, and work towards an optimistic future by...maybe...ohhhh, giving solutions to America's problems. You can start off by electing a president that will get us back on track.

Dear Boomers,
Thank you so much for everything you've done for us, your children.
Thank you for abandoning your ideals and going for the payout. Thank you for bringing us free love, and higher divorce rates. For fatherless children and two income families. Thanks so much for giving us radical politics and violence.
Thanks for lowering the morals of our society and giving rise to rampant recreational drug use and promiscuity.
Thanks a pantload.
So what happened? You started off so well!
You were 'Idealism' in it's most undiluted form--you were young, and angry and RIGHT! Except when you sowed those seeds of discord, what you reaped was rage and disillusionment from your children.
Don't get me wrong, we loved the Atari for Christmas back in '78, but we'd probably have been happier with a little guidance. I know how proud you must be that you burned your bras back in the day, only to let your granddaughters show off their thong underwear and back tattoos now.
Thanks for the TV babysitter too...Our lifelong battles with A.D.D have been such a pleasure.
Now, I sit and watch television and I see Dennis Hopper - the posterboy for non-conformity- shilling for Ameriquest, or Ameritrade (or whatever obnoxious name they've tacked onto it)talking about never giving up your dreams...Oh really?
Did you dream of your 401K's and Medicare part B?
Did you dream of this complete idiot C-minus, Legacy Yale "educated" idiot driving our country into the ground?
When you marched at Kent State and sang songs and placed daisies in the barrels of guns, is THIS what you hoped to accomplish?
Thanks for making all of this possible...thanks for killing the middle class, thanks for making it impossible for your daughters to stay at home and take care of your grandkids, and your sons have no legacy and no character. Thanks for making the dream of owning a home nearly impossible.
Oh yeah, your parents were just so wrong.
And you call us slackers? Hah...Thanks for nothing.
Enjoy that retirement...

Someone help me out here - what year was it that Newton invented the telescope?

The 60's? The 2000's? No difference. The era does not define the problems, the problems define the era. Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex, Vietnam and Iraq are too examples that we are not heeding his warning. Perpetual war has become our foreign policy. Bush "says" we are establishing democracy as a shining example in the Middle East, and Pakistan's dictatorship pops up to discredit it all.

We MUST wake up, as Americans, to what we first discerned in the 60's. As the world's strongest nation (at least militarily), we DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT to pre-emptive war. WE DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT

AThat part about not being able to escape the ???60???s how true and I am a baby boomer born in 1957. That year was the technically the biggest year of the boom that is most actual babies born. But this article demonstrates once again always in the shadow of those born between 1947-52. We were in grade school listening to the 1910 Fruitgum Company while the world was burning in 1968 . By the time we got to high school and college we got the bad leftovers drugs, undisciplined schools, sexual confusion. Our professors called us apathetic our own generations Richard Hell and the Voidoids called us the ???Blank Generation???. It was not that we did not appreciate the ???60???s generation. At least one Beatles song played every hour on our rock stations and The Doors and Grateful Dead were more popular in the late 1970???s then the late 1960???s. Some us tried to move on getting into punk,new wave and computers and other things. There were some real innovations that could compare within anytime during that period. It made us outcasts then but by the 80???s and beyond dominated the culture and fooled us into thinking we were out of the shadows of our older boomer compatriots. In 2007 we know that we will never be out of their shadows we just have to take the good, the bad and the ugly that comes from that and make the best of it bout not

I am sorry, but the 60's are of little import, it was and is the 70's, the 1770's. I was called for a ploitical donation the other evening just as I was watching Lou Dobbs and in spite of her sweet young voice, my ire spilled over a bit on her. In the process I said I could see no suitable candidate of either party and James Madison's great concern in designing a system that would control factions. However, we now have a multitude of factions ignored by our incompetent president and a cowardly congress to do dtheir duty and be "Of the people, By the People, and For the People
No, Jefferson thought Newton one of the three greatest men that ever lived and I suspect the reason was the telescope, looking beyond these little nodules of time written by repdorters, not thinkers of stature. To me, the greatest event in human history was the invention of language but few seem to know of John Locke, another of the three greatest men to Jefferson and his words about words. We need to look through telescoopes and see both back and forward of time. We are little pimples and 1968, 78, or 98 cannot explain today. It began when Madison wrote the Federalist Paper #10. If we do not use Hubble in body and spirit there was no need for Newton to be born.