Re: [sixties-l] Let's break new ground: The Sixties and the Right

From: John Andrew (J_Andrew@acad.fandm.edu)
Date: 10/02/00

  • Next message: monkerud: "Re: [sixties-l] Re: break new ground sixties and rightwing"

    >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.
    >
    >In college, between 57-61, I roomed with one of the first members of Young
    >Americans for Freedom. A socially tolerant nice guy who happened to have
    >his socks blown away by Ayn Rand. Some of these early right wingers became
    >part of the radical movement (Goldwater's speechwriter Karl Hess being the
    >most notable). Others remained on the Right, as activists, on the margin,
    >but busy building coalitions, trying to find issues and organizing methods
    >that worked.
    >
    >Ultimately, they did pretty well.  Some say they gained power because of
    >the failures of the left, but they were also busy building their
    >infrastructure before the left was large enough and vocal enough to
    >influence anyone.
    >
    >It's kinda like the tortoise and the hare. We were the hare. We looked like
    >winners in the sixties. But the right/tortoise got its act together and
    >passed us by.
    >
    >This greatly simplifies things, I know. There are institutional reasons for
    >the left's failure: campaign money, repression, the power of corporate
    >media, etc. But we also screwed up.
    >
    >Similarly, the ideological  Right struck gold when Nixon adopted his
    >southern strategy and
    >recruited all the Democratic racists into the Republican Party (e.g. Trent
    >Lott) -- and then exploited the backlash from the women's, gay liberation,
    >abortion rights movement and other social gains.
    >
    >Still, food for thought. The Right was not dormant during the 1960s -- even
    >though it seemed invisible (or, as with the John Birchers, laughable).
    >
    >One story. I'm involved in support groups for people who stutter. (a
    >movement, like disability rights in general, that came out of the activist
    >sixties). In this context, I meet all kinds of people (our only commonality
    >is that we stutter).  I once described living on a commune, raising
    >animals, farming, etc. . A guy who was a teenager during the sixties came
    >up afterwards and said, yeah, he remembered reading about communes and
    >hippies in Time Magazine but didn't know about them first hand. That didn't
    >interest him, however. What he wanted to talk about was my experience
    >raising pigs. During the 1960s he raised pigs as a 4H project. For many
    >people in America during the sixties, what we call "the sixties" was a blip
    >in their consciousness.
    >
    >Marty Jezer
    >
    I'd second Marty's idea - as one who was NOT on the Right during the 1960s,
    but who has written about it, I'd be interested in others' take on that
    budding movement. YAF was in many ways more active in the early 1960s than
    SDS - and certainly concern about the right-wing was paramount during most
    of the Kennedy years. Just look at the contemporary public literature.
    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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