mark roth, (c) 2000
Seems to me, that most folks "don't believe" anything that they didn't believe in the first place, and vice versa. So much of it is crap, of course. But why believe anything, then? Why not take it *all* with a grain (or a shaker) of salt?
Because that requires thinking, and most folks have been trained to profess a horror of that, even if they don't come by that horror naturally. Have y'all ever heard someone answer a man-in-the-street interview, and not start out by saying, "well, I don't really know...", or some such?
Gee, and here I thought that it was the responsibility of the citizen of a democracy to be well-informed, so that they can vote intellegently.
So, let's look at a few things that "Everybody Knows"....
Drugs: just say NO!
So, when are y'all planning on giving up aspirin, and coffee, and
tobacco, and alcohol, and ...?
Oh, I see, you don't mean drugs when you say drugs, you mean just
the ones that can be used to get high and feel good. Like alcohol?
Oh, sorry, you meant just the ones you point at, when you say
drugs. Ok.
So, Bill Clinton is bad, bacause he Used Drugs (smoked grass)? Is not Dubya bad, because he used cocaine, a drug that's a fair bit more dangerous than marijuana? Or, for that matter, let's take a trip down memory lane: according to the statistics that I've seen over the years, between the seventies and the early eighties, somewhere between 33% and 50% of THE ENTIRE YOUNGER POPULATION AT LEAST TRIED DRUGS. Therefore, somewhere between 33% and 50% of all politicians, police, and, oh, yes, your parents tried or used drugs regularly. So, should you believe any of them?
For that matter, if I remember correctly, students in journalism classes were among those groups who tended to have a higher than average drug use. So, how many reporters and media mavens will admit to drug use, and recuse themselves from making any comments about how bad they are?
Oh, and let's ask, while we're at it, if it was true that the Good Folks who brought you Marlboro cigarettes trademarked "Acapulco Gold", back in the late sixties.
Depending on who you're listening to, and what they want to prove, hippies were/weren't political. The answer is that a hell of a lot were.
Most Boomers were hippies, and they all got laid: Grade A bullshit. Adding all the political-only, and the political hippies, and the apolitical hippies together, and I'd be surprised if it was over 5% of the teenagers and 20-somethings of the time. And just 'cause they were "cool", or whatever, why do y'all think that we got laid, any more than the "geeks" these days?
"Those who can remember the sixties, weren't there." (if anyone can tell me the name of the asshole who said this, please email it to me: I want to insult him by name). Anyone who can't remember them, didn't learn anything, and they were no more than the plastic hippies, who put on the long-hair wigs, and love beads, on the weekends, and came down to git laid, an' git high, and went back to mommy and daddy and the 'burbs when the weekend was done.
The truth is that maybe 10% of us - the best and the brightest, were anything - about half volunteered for 'Nam, diong what they'd been brought up to believe was the right thing to do for their country, and another half of us saw the lies, and stood up for our Constitutional rights, to petition for redress of grievances, and just representation. The rest of the boomers - maybe 80%-90%, had what fun they could, kept as low a profile as they could, and did what they could to not wind up in 'Nam. They had as much to do with the times as the spectators at a game have on how the game goes - zip, nada, nothings.
So what do those of us that I call the best and the brightest get? We have a choice of character: either we're commie-sympo-pinko-crazies, or we're babykillers. Those are our only two choices. And the media, and the emotional and intellectual cowards who sat on the sidelines, and did nothing, and who, to a large degree own the media, want to make sure that y'all believe this. You don't think the sons and daughters of the rich went to 'Nam, do you? Did Dan Quayle? Did any of the younger Bush sons? The alternative, that we actually had something serious to say, and that if you look back, over the years, at what the majority (not the flakes that the media likes to look at (1)) had to say... and who's been convicted, or pardoned, or exceeded the statutes of limitations, of doing exactly what we charged2)
To this day, the generation before us, and the one after us, excoriate us, to a large degree, for media-created lies.
But, don't worry, I know y'all don't believe the media, owned, as it is, by 9 companies(3). They're all reputable.