Right on, Indigo! I printed that one out - it brought me to tears. I
remember - loosing our heroes, one after another, JFK, RFK, Martin Luther
King. Each generation has its losses - its spiritual crises. The real
world imposes its own school of character education on us all. As Aretha
sang, R-E-S-P-E-C-T .... for each of us and every generation. "We are each
others harvest." (Gwendolyn Brooks)
Thank you!
Sharon
----- Original Message -----
From: "Indigo Nights" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 4:23 PM
Subject: Re: Going to Hell in a Hand Basket
> I don't think I can concur that it's getting worse.
> There are, in fact, appalling things that are ongoing,
> sort of symptomology of the pandemic of violence
> prevalent in our society.
>
> But every generation seems to have sort of horizontal
> thinking. They can see no further than what was on
> the horizon during their lifetime.
>
> It wasn't easy being a Boomer kid. Your friends and
> classmates went off to war in Viet Nam (a police
> action, never a declared war) or undeclared actions in
> Cambodia, without choice, and others left for Canada
> after chanting hell no, we won't go. Those who served
> came home in pieces, or with PTSD, or in body bags to
> an ungrateful nation.
>
> Think Kent State and watching your peer group get shot
> by the government on a college campus--or spied on and
> reported as a traitor to our country for simply
> dissenting.
>
> How about don't trust anyone over 30, and living in a
> J. Edgar Hoover era (well, I suspect an Ashcroft era
> may come close, what with spying on dissenting
> individuals but that's for a political forum)?
>
> Students for a Democratic Society, Dr. Leary and the
> LSD crowd, Woodstock, Civil Rights struggles, George
> Wallace, and the Watts Riots. Angela Davis, the Black
> Panthers, and Stokley Carmichael (can I get a "Right
> On, My Brother"? Power to the People!), Malcom X and
> Dr. King.
>
> Mario at Berkeley and the Chicago Seven. Jane Fonda
> and Hanoi.
>
> Assassination of two Kennedys and a King. The suicide
> of Marilyn (Monroe--not Manson), Castro's Cuba and the
> Bay of Pigs, the death of Che, that "Commie Pinko"
> Kruschev and his infamous shoe, the Berlin Wall, and
> the disgrace of Thomas Eagleton when running for high
> office simply because he had suffered from depression.
>
>
> Getting sent home from school if your dress didn't
> meet the middle of your knee, and your hair got cut by
> your teacher if it touched your ears. Couldn't vote
> until 21. Great dissension between the young and the
> "Silent Majority." God was dead, and the most fatal
> sin of all was apathy!
>
> LBJ and his belly scar. Burning the bra for women's
> rights. Fighting for Roe v. Wade (and with that I'm
> not inviting debate on the pros or cons of abortion,
> so please don't start). The inaccessibility of birth
> control. Pregnant teens were rushed off to distant
> areas, hushed up, and compelled to relinquish lest
> they shame their family and left with lifelong wounds
> instead of kept at home or termination of pregnancy.
>
> We were the group following Happy Days and there was
> much tumult throughout our nation. When they did the
> remake of "What's Going On" last year, they had to
> take the words "Picket Signs" out of the songs because
> they were afraid kids of today wouldn't even know what
> the hell that meant.
>
> But we didn't go to Korea.
>
> Or to World War II.
>
> Or survive the Holocaust or the Great Depression.
>
> Or World War I.
>
> We had a better chance of living past 12 and not being
> killed by influenza or whooping cough or small pox,
> but we lived through vaccines for small pox and bear
> the ugly scars and saw our friends fall ill to polio
> while we rushed to get first the series of shots and
> then the sugar cubes.
>
> We froze during the Cold War and had regular Civil
> Defense drills where you dove to the floor, covered
> your head and hoped your ass didn't hang out in the
> breeze because girls HAD to wear dresses to school.
>
> Did we have it harder than kids today? Who can say?
> Did we have it harder than our parents? Harder, I'm
> afraid is subjective.
>
> We were the Make Love, Not War Generation that
> believed in Free Love and lived to see the
> consequences come back to haunt in an era of AIDS and
> HIV.
>
> So let's be careful about comparing generations. It's
> probably not a fair thing to do.
>
> --- Merri Pemberton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > I think that looking at Columbine, metal detectors
> > and drug dogs in schools,
> > and knowing of a situation where a first grader had
> > a pair of scissors,
> > gripped them in her hand with the sharp point
> > directed at the other student
> > and threatened to stab her- should give plenty
> > people reasons to say that
> > this next generation is at least a little worse.
> > Kids have even admitted that
> > they have much more to worry about than when their
> > parents were growing up
> > e.g. heightened school violence. When I was a senior
> > in high school (1994) we
> > started to see the police and drug dogs patrolling
> > our school, and we were a
> > small town school at that. So, it is getting worse.
> > Not every kid has serious
> > problems, but the problems existing in this society
> > are having a great impact
> > on the generations to come.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> >
> > Merri
>
>
>
>
> =====
> Indigo Nights
> [log in to unmask]
>
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