Are we repeating the 1960's?

There's a lot going on in our world right now that is very similar to the 1960's. A big theme of the 60's was counterculture going against culture, or more simply, "out with the old and in with the new." That pattern seems to be repeating itself now. However the similarities run deeper than just that.

-The hippies of the 60's are like the New Agers of today.
-The unsupported war then was Vietnam, but now it's Afghanistan/Iraq.
-Civil Rights then, Gay Rights now.
-Pentagon Papers then, Wikileaks now
-Medicare then, Obamacare now
-JFK assassination, Obama being seen as a modern-day JFK (though that's another argument)
-There was a ton of upheaval and riots then, and seems to be happening again now.

There might be many similarities, but a huge difference is that now we have the Internet, a very big way of communicating and linking all of us together, which makes me wonder if the outcome will be different this time...

We need a to hear the truth about aliens.

If I could I would like to start a rivival and a movement aimed at reconciliation, restoration and liberation, and the celebration, of the human being, to reclaim our birthright, and throw off the chains of oppression and mass media programming, which is cultureless, and nothing but the dead bones of a dying civilization. A new hippy movement, a new age movement, where the words "new age" needn't have a negative stimga, since surely we all want to see humanity make it through and into a new age, an age of reason and spirit both.

Guys, you're totally missing my point, which is that our current world bears much resemblance to the world of the 1960's, which that era ended up being very much of a cultural renaissance.

reply to post by mossme89

Yes, it was. Too bad it got short-circuited by too much drug-use, faciliated in part by the CIA which was stockpiling '___' by the block and who has Tim Leary on their payroll.

But you're right to see the similarities, but the Internet will hopefully be the game changer in this case, so that any movement or revival is perpetuated with continuity as historically formative. Let's not forget that some of those hippies became future war mongering neocons..

We must always be careful never to become the thing against which we are opposed and keep moving forward creatively and affirmatively.

The only thing missing is the free love and the great music
Think should have the summer of love 2 ...

reply to post by mossme89


It would seem so on the surface, but I doubt it. Interesting topic,however.

IMO,The main reason I doubt it is for the very reasons most( as you touched upon) seem to think they ARE repeating: social networking and net-tech. Twitterlutions. It's my opinion that todays generation simply wont maintain any will to protest once the cell batteries need a charge. Todays 'revolutions' seem mainly to be geared for some cyber audience that these would be activists need to draw from or impress upon. A mock sense of 'community' that is intangible and elusive.

Not to seem harsh or anti-youth, but it just isn't gonna happen as long as some are so dependent on technological gadgetry. Real protesting means sore feet and thirst and exhaustion and will. Hard to tweet when the firehoses are turned on....and no one wants that new iphone ruined in the scuffle.



The new 60's are dead on the vine. Our goal should be to try for the new 1980's instead.

In a word....No.

Your couple comparisons are good but the Obama JFK thing is shoddy.In a sense it's all cyclical, yet each cycle had to exist for the next to arrive. Each decade had its own feel. And the laidback defiance in 60's is not the cracked out schizophrenic eccentric consumerism of today.

I'm not seeing it.

Someone's gonna have to provide some connection.

Obama the new JFK... eh no. JFK was a good president. He didn't listen to the powers that be and that's what got him killed. He was the real last president this country had.

That whole free love thing sounds good on the surface but it caused more STDs than anything. Prior to the 60's there was 2 STD's that were common: syphilis and gonorrhea. Now there is 25 STD's that people can get. Link

The whole Wikileaks thing is shady. It could be done by the government as disinfo. Things aren't always what they seem and we should be cautious on the matter until things are further investigated. He had come across anything above top secret he would have been in jail by now. Remember the British kid that hacked US government computers to find UFOs? The US wants to extradite him for prosecution.

The only protests so far in America are over union busting. Kent State it isn't. There is no rioting in America yet, it seems to be confined to countries over seas. let us hope it doesn't ignite WWIII.