[Marxism] the sixties

[Bradley Bauerly]

>I believe that if there is any hope for socialist revolution in the U.S. in
>my lifetime --say the next two or three decades--, and probably in the other
>"advanced" imperialist countries, too, and --I fear-- even in the lifetime
>of my 13-year-old-son, it lies precisely in "the sixties."

Joaquin you show your age in this statement.  The only people who still hold onto the sixties as a time of great social advancement and as a possible road out of humanities collision coarse are those who lived through it.  Those who have come since the 1960's, I beleve, see it for what it truly was; a self indulgent, individualistic attempt by those who had everything to rebel against thier parents.  

The sixites were one big falure as far a revolutionary attempts go (if one can even call it that).  Any gains were quickly absorbed into the capitalist system and in fact, used to expand capitals tenticles into new, highly profitable, cultural comodities.  Now I must say that I don't count the civil rights movement as a project of the sixties, sure it was still going in the mid sixties but the bulk of the sixties was the anti-war and counterculture movement, both of which did not advance anti-capitalist struggles in the least.  In fact, if you take the totality of the impact of the babyboomeres, of which we have not even begun to see the worst of, the world is probably worst for the weather.  

I know this is going to come off as heresy to those who still cling with all of there might to their 'glory days' but as the babyboomers age (and grow more conservative and religious) we are all paying the price.  I am generally fearful of what is going to happen as this cohort ages further and we continue to fight the same old battles, which aren't really the important battles anyway, for the cultural core of the US.  95% of those who lived through the sixties have sold out and that leaves behind the what would be the average amount of radicals as any generation.

I have long thought of doing research and possible a book on this same subject but am afraid the hegemony of babyboomers in the publishing and academic circles would leave it to the gnawing of the mice.

brad