M. Jezer wrote: >>Folks, >> >>The discussion of what this list is about raises the question of what the >>sixties were about. >> >>We all assume it was about radical activism, civil rights, anti-war, >>personal liberation. But >>one could also say it was about the rise of the Right. > and in response J. Johnson replied: >No one couldn't. Hear of the KKK, the White Citizens Council, Posse >Comitatus, etc. All right-wing to Nazi like groups active from the Fifties >and before all the way through the Sixties and there after. >In the early Sixties the right was dominate, not only from the groups like >the Birch Society but from the Capitalist class itself. One early anti-war >demo was surrounded by hundreds of Birch Society members. We had rocks >thrown at us. Remember Nixon's hard hats. We were vilified by right wing >media and still are. >The country has always had a strong right wing present and agenda. Nothing >new about that. >What was new was a strong grassroots, democratic progressive and radical >movement using militant, creative and daring tactics. >And the government, business and the right launched massive counter >revolution actions against this movement and they still are. I disagree, chiefly because we are talking about a new "respectable" right wing interested in electoral politics rather than the right-wing movements you cite, such as the KKK - of course they remained on the scene, but it was folks like H.L. Hunt and Fred Schwarz who the JFK admin. worried about - and used the IRS to target - from the ruins of the 1960s GOP convention arose YAF, and that group, aided by key adults who often operated on parallel tracks, boosted the Goldwater candidacy - and became infatuated with Reagan after his 1964 speech on A Time for Choosing backing Goldwater. That group remained active, and remains active today John Andrew John Andrew email: J_ANDREW@ACAD.FANDM.EDU Department of History fax 717-399-4518 Franklin and Marshall College Lancaster, PA. 17604-3003 "Fantasy Will Set You Free" - Steppenwolf
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