The Maelstrom of Violence

[Eric the Green]

(10-02-2017, 11:46 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(10-02-2017, 11:20 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: We liberals think we ought to catch up to the rest of the developed world in regard to such things as social insurance and green values, and not remain in a regressive condition as we have now for 40 years. And subject to the counter-awakening that dates from 1964, and triumphed in 1980.

Good post overall.

A nitpick on dates.  1964 feels just a bit early.  What event(s) of 1964 do you consider important?  You are likely just picking up the early turn of the tide, not waiting on the flow being obvious.

The Goldwater campaign and the "backlash" it spoke to was very successful in taking over the Republican Party and shifting it far to the right. Goldwater's followers and fellow travelers became the heart of the Republican Party from then onward. The backlash was a huge part of American discourse through the sixties as it defended the Vietnam War, "stood up for America," and railed against cultural "permissiveness" and "immorality," "hippies," "drugs," welfare, taxes and government spending, black activism, and lawless disorder and black riots. The 1964 Goldwater campaign was the signature event that shifted the South into the GOP, forming the early basis of today's red and blue states. 1968 continued the shift further. This was one of those major political realignments that happen in every 4T and 2T (so far). 1964 also well and truly launched the political career of Ronald Reagan, who became the counter-awakening's chief spokesman and patron saint to this day. No, the backlash aka the counter-awakening was very obvious from 1964 onward through the 2T to today, and was more successful than the Awakening itself.

A preview of the PBS doc on 1964:
https://youtu.be/3hLHAX68ZKA

Entire program:
https://youtu.be/aOkwpqlOQgo

bootleg copy: https://youtu.be/XkA2Nys7WGA

AIRED JANUARY 14, 2014
1964
THE YEAR THAT CHANGED AMERICA
Film Description
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/1964/

It was the year the Beatles came to America, Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali, and three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi. It was the year when Berkeley students rose up in protest, African Americans fought back against injustice in Harlem, and Barry Goldwater’s conservative revolution took over the Republican Party. In myriad ways, 1964 was the year when Americans faced choices: between the liberalism of Lyndon Johnson or Barry Goldwater’s grassroots conservatism, between support or opposition to the civil rights movement, between an embrace of the emerging counterculture or a defense of traditional values.

As champagne popped on December 31, 1963, America’s optimism was tinged with a deep anxiety. Just five weeks earlier, President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated, leaving Americans shaken and vulnerable. Eight days into the new year, the new President, Lyndon B. Johnson, gave his first State of the Union address, demanding an end to racial injustice and an “unconditional war on poverty in America.” Only a few days earlier, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater had announced his intention to seek the Republican nomination for president, igniting a conservative movement that would reshape the politics of 1964 and transform the American political landscape for generations to come.

Based in part on The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964 by Jon Margolis, 1964 follows some of the most influential figures of the time -- Lyndon Johnson, Barry Goldwater, Betty Friedan -- but also brings out from the shadows the stories of ordinary Americans whose principled stands would set the country onto a new and different course.