As a member of your parents' generation, who was adopted into
yours for the decade of the 60s and retains very close
connections with it, I would like to express my agreement with
your list of things it contributed. Regrettably, I have to
disagree with your "Never again...." assurances. When you get to
be my age, you learn that "never" is an exceedingly unsafe
prediction. When the Korean War was brought to an end in 1953,
the thought that masses of Americans would again be fighting an
undeclared war in Asia a dozen years later was unthinkable. It
happened.
Vietnam did not end that. Desert Storm, also undeclared, was
a massive undertaking, brief only because the other side chose to
try to match the U.S. at what it was strongest in: mechanized
warfare.
Women? When I wrote my SOVIET WOMEN (1975, Anchor-Doubleday),
their position in that country's society, science, culture, the
mass professions (engineering, medicine), administration of
justice, administration of education, was far in advance of that
in any other country. The restoration of capitalism brought the
reappearance of mass unemployment, and with it both
discrimination against women and the revival of prostitution,
which had been statistically non-existence. Can you predict the
future of the American economy?
Racial minorities? Think of what happened to Germany's Jews
under Hitler, in a country where they had advanced to an
unparalleled degree.
Companies autocratically controlling employees' lives. I'm
afraid that reflects a very serious lack of knowledge of the
status of the American working class right now, never mind what
will happen when a depression reverses the present shortage of
labor in some fields.
Dumping of poisons into the environment? Do you know how few
of the Superfund sites have actually been cleared up?
My chief point, however, is to take issue not with Lance's
list but with the idea that history is predictable. It is not.
William
Mandel
BrentLance@aol.com wrote:
>
> Dear Fellow Sixties-L List Members:
>
You may find of interest website www.BillMandel.net
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