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The sixties are coming back to haunt us. Now that people who came of age during that era are coming of the age to take prominent roles in public life, a terrible dilemma appears.
If the person joined the spirit of the times -- drugs and sex and rock 'n' roll and protest marches and dodging the draft -- then he finds himself embarrassed when those youthful follies are brought up now. If his judgment was that errant when he was 22, isn't that a good indication that he's still unreliable when he's 42?
But on the other hand, if he led a life of sterling Eagle Scout purity 20 years ago, then we wonder what's wrong with him. How could he have been so caught up in himself that he missed the great events of the day? Obviously, there's something abnormal about him, so he can't be trusted.
What this means is that an entire generation of people -- the biggest generation in American history -- is totally unfit for any sort of public office. The only other option is to borrow a trick from the Soviet Union, and rewrite our history so that the sixties never existed. It would be easier to skip over the seventies, too, as we look at America today, almost eight years after Ronald Reagan took office after Dwight D. Eisenhower's two terms in the White House.
Foreign policy, especially in Latin America, is of
continuing concern, with local Marxists attempting to gain
power. We need to look at the lesson of Vietnam,
said Richard Nixon, former vice-president and a respected
elder statesman. We failed to come to the aid of our
allies there, and the result was that the Communists took
over the country and expanded their influence in Southeast
Asia. If we had sent troops, instead of just a few arms and
advisers, to Vietnam, we could have prevented that.
Domestically, civil rights remain a nagging, if not
prominent, issue. Most public schools continue to be
generally segregated, despite the 1954 Supreme Court ruling
that ordered integration with all deliberate speed.
The drop-out rates for black and Hispanic students have
soared. Those who do stay in school discover, upon
graduation, that even if they go on to college, they
frequently make less than a white who didn't.
On the college campuses, professors have expressed some
worry about the apathetic nature of students. All they
care about is making money,
one professor said. Other
educators have expressed similar concerns. We shouldn't
be just training them for business careers. We should have
a liberal-arts core curriculum that focuses on the
important works of Western Civilization.
American culture likewise worries other academics, who fear continued blandness and conformity. There were a few beatniks hanging out in coffeehouses during the Eisenhower years, but even they seem to have vanished. The most popular fiction is predictable romance and adventure. Moronic situation comedies with canned laugh tracks dominate the network television schedule. The only change in music is that an inoffensive crooner named Bob Dylan appears ready to take Perry Como's place.
Other members of a bright young generation also appear to be living up to their promise. Dapper Tom Hayden is a rising force in the California legislature. His wife, actress Jane Fonda and a prominent member of the Hollywood establishment, has won academy awards and her films have done well at the box office. Jerry Rubin and Bernadine Dorhn are making careers on Wall Street. However, not much has been heard lately of black entrepreneur Eldridge Cleaver, since the failure of his line of designer trousers.
The Soviets might have trouble rewriting their history. But maybe that's one way that America is superior. In the America of 1988, it's hardly any work at all to imagine what things would be like if the sixties had never happened.
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