I was around then and I remember some of that era, the one noted as the Love Generation and how everyone was preaching peace, love, and understanding. I recall coming home from school to the news of John Kennedy being assisinated, and I can even recall when his brother Robert was murdered as well. I can even now see that horrid image on the news of a soldier pointing his gun at the head of a Viet Namese clad in torn tshirt and shorts and pulling the trigger.
I can still see the tiny figure in grey saluting as the gun carraige moved passed him, the flag draped coffin in the back, the empty riderless horse alongside. I felt the tears then and even now as I remember that moment in time, when a generation stood still in grief and pain. Yet it didn’t stop, it didn’t surrender to the dark forces of the world or the evil that some did.
I recall all that and in looking back see how the sight of dead people was everywhere. The war in Viet Nam was in full bloom and students took to the streets in protest and then too there was the clashes at the Democratic Convention. I saw it happen and I look around today and wonder…
What happened to that Generation? Where did they disappear to?
Surely what happened then is no different than what is happening today. In the early 1960’s I might have been too young to fully understand the Cuban Missile Crisis but I saw the fear etched on everyones face as the whole mess unfolded, and I look at Iran and North Korea today and shake, wondering again, how did we all let this come about?
You have people of religion not marching on Selma to right a wrong, but instead preaching about Hate and how evil others are simply because they believe differently in God than them. Or you see men of religion, including the Pope, condemning world leaders because they dare to reach out to a minority in their own country and give them equality. What happened to all those Priests, Pastors, and Preachers who walked side by side with Martin Luther King Jr on the road to Selma?
I remember the election campaign where a Republican pledged to end a war of aggression no matter what and then turn around and commit a crime and walk away in disgrace. I recall the news of a convention divided but where you knew exactly where every candidate stood on the war, on civil rights, and today I see those same parties sling more mud than at an all girl mud wrestling tournament.
What happened to that outspoken and idealistic Generation? Where did they disappear to?
50 years ago we had just finished the second middle east war, one where the United States first entered the region to meddle in its affairs. We saw them then push Israel back from its gains, promising that there would be no more wars there. We saw Presidents preach about Peace and new trade barriers and yet no one needed to secretly wire tap the nation, or hold people in secret prisons. They wouldn’t dare think of it, let alone commit those types of outright civil right violations, and yet today it is accepted practise, even legislated under the two Patriot Acts.
Where did that generation go so wrong?
We in Canada had a superior fighter jet and yet our Government surrendered it to the Americans, all in the name of appeasement, and despite continued efforts of good friendship, we are still ignored and trod on like some vermin or ant. Despite losing that entire market, we still reached out in friendship with NAFTA by the successor to the Diefenbacker sell out, and that too failed. Still Canada kept faith with America and took in its citizens and aircraft in time of danger, and now, five years later we get a semi thank you and once more, we have chosen a government that is willing to sell us out at the drop of a pin.
Yet it was Canada who was the bastion of Freedom for those Americans who abhorred war and fled. It was Canada that opened its arms and borders to those flying from death and mayhem and murder in Asia and here we are, five decades later trying to once more get in bed with the biggest bully left on the block. What ever happened to that generation of Peace Makers like Lester Pearson and Trudeau who realized that sex was not the jurisdiction of Governments but of the people?
Where did all those from the 60’s generation disappear to?
I suppose they all grew up and became today’s Republicans, New Conservatives and still I wonder, where did they all disappear to? How did the values of then suddenly become redundent and inconsequential in the name of Conservativism? How did we all suddenly wake up and no longer feel for our brothers, our sisters, our cousins and cease to have the real spirit of God, the one of compassion and love? Where did it all go?
They had such promise back then. To end wars, to bring about Freedom all over the world, and to stand and oppose those who would take that freedom from their hands. They took to the streets, to roads in the deep south, and they won. It cost a lot in blood, sweat, and tears, but they won. They ended a blood bath in Asia and they brought about social changes. African Americans were no longer were hunted down and lynched because a bunch of men told others to do that, to do it because of the color of their skin. They no longer thought of Black people as sub human and unworthy of the same rights as other citizens. Women were given control over their own bodies, something many in the Arab nations like Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran still are fighting for.
Humanity took center stage in the world, and it was those from the 60’s that led the way not in rhetoric, but in action and with courage. They stood up to the old political hacks and fought them in the streets of their own cities, not in newspaper by lines or on news shows, but out in the cold bleak streets. They stood up the batons and blue clad men on horseback, and they won. They valued honor, integirty, compassion, and justice more than their own lives, as three young men showed in Alabama as did others.
Pulpits rang with the truth of God’s words, not with words of hatred and racism like today. The people spoke and the world shuddered and changed, and now, where has that generation gone? Where have they disappeared to?
If you find them, tell them they are needed again. Tell them that the world is not better as they had hoped and fought for. Tell them all, tell those of the 60’s to come back and reclaim what they had fought for so hard for back then. Tell them, time is running out.
