In a message dated 06/05/2000 7:01:19 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
bodhran@earthlink.net writes:
<< > I am increasingly interested in the role of World War 2 babies (not baby
> boomers) in the sixties. Anyone with experiences, theories, evidence,
> notions etc. about this - please reply. If it is so that they (we)
> played a big role --- why? Why this cohort? >>
Is it OK if we talk about our own experience as opposed to any particular
theories on the matter? I am a war baby. I was in high school in the
fifties, and what I remember from that time that was very important in
forming my views were 1. our relationship to McCarthyism. The committee on
Unamerican Activities was still there but we were not afraid of it, which
somehow was empowering. 2. sputnik which gave the first boost to geeks 3. the
beatniks who expressed our teenage rebellion against our parents and thus
against middle class 50's American values. My family was very conservative
middle class Barry Goldwater Republican, so it was a BIG step for me to
become a revolutionary leftist. When my mother discovered I was reading On
the Road, she tore it into shreds. Whereupon I went out and stole it so I
could finish reading it. Anyway, I remember the later 50's as being an
extremely exciting and hopeful period. We felt change in the air.
Gretchen Dutschke
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