Is the 40+ years of the Right Wing Revolution simply payback for the 60's?

[AZ Progressive]

If it wasn't for the people's revolutions of the 60's, there wouldn't have been the critical mass in fear and anger that would have drove the right wing to organize and fight back.

They are so willing to take America to the edge of destruction to prove their power, and prove the point that you should NEVER try to go against them. How dare you ask for civil rights and regulations and equality and egalitarianism. It's like the Kennedy assassination, Kennedy was an example for future presidents. They want to make Americans feel powerless, a stark contrast to the 60's when the people felt most like they had power.

[enough]

1. I think that fear and anger was there long before that, never lacking a critical mass.

American history has been continuous.

[elleng]

2. Part of it is,

and they've never gotten over 'impeaching' Nixon.

[guillaumeb]

3. and the Pentagon Papers

showed them the importance of media control. When was the last time the corporate media wrote anything about Pentagon waste or even truthfully reported on the obscene size of the war budget?

[jberryhill]

4. Pretty much

[Warren Stupidity]

5. new deal.

their goal since 1932 has been to undo the new deal.

[AZ Progressive]

9. Economic progressivism wasn't enough to make critical mass, but when you added in...

social progressivism as well as environmental regulations, and the sense that America's changing too fast, that apparently was enough to make a critical mass in fear and anger on the right.

[jwirr]

6. LBJ himself told us that the civil rights movement lost us the south for decades. But that is okay I

for one will take the civil rights movement regardless.

[hatrack]

7. Yep - the guys who during the 60s - EVEN DURING THE 60S!! - couldn't get laid . . .

Revenge is theirs at last!

[KT2000]

8. didn't Reagan come down on the protests

at Berkley? He made a name for himself outside of California by doing that. He was regarded as a hero because he got tough with people who were all about change. The young republicans loved Reagan but were considered nerds. I think it has more to do with "Revenge of the Nerds."

[AverageJoe90]

10. Yes, I believe so. But, on the other hand.....

I'll have to be honest; it seems to have gone the other way, too: I have come to the conclusion that so much of the fringe far-left stuff we've been seeing coming to the forefront over the past 10 years or so, based on all the research and observation I've ever done, whether it be "rape culture", or collectivized "white privilege" theory, etc., has itself mostly been a reaction to the hard right(whether it be arrogant know-it-all "Libertarians", or the holier-than-thou Religious Right, and the Teabaggers, etc. not to mention the various RWNJ pundits like Limbaugh, Savage, Hannity, etc.) being allowed to get away with just about anything over these past 30 years.....and coming to a final head with the GOP's obsession with politically destroying Obama's Presidency as badly as possible.....though, sadly, the short-term gratification some of our fellow progressives may have gotten from their dalliances in extremes is really being to hurt our image now; for one example, fewer people are willing to openly identify as feminist, or pro-feminist now, than they were even 5 years ago, let alone 15 or 20. And I could go on for hours, providing links and statistics to support that.

The mainstream conservative milieu has largely been permanently lost to it's extremists at this point. And the last thing we need is for the left to suffer the same fate, especially with so many insane and dishonest Randian "Libertarians" and other political sociopaths ever increasingly trying to prey on the still rather disillusioned Generation Y college kids and other young adults. No, we *need* to turn ourselves around, and if that means publicly criticizing and calling out the failings of our own extremists, then perhaps it's what's best for us.