pynchon-l-digest V2 #548

[FrodeauxB at aol.com]

Mr. Badger:
   From someone at least a bit older than you, you raise an excellent
question. No doubt, those decades were shaped by Nam, but would they have been
so tumultuous (at least as I remember them)? I doubt it. As a male of draft
age, and unlike my father/WWII vet, there was no reason to fight, or at least
no reason to buy into among those given us. Nam made it more intense, and
still is responsible for what I see as a love-hate of the Federal Government
among many today. We're damn glad they seem to have done something in civil
rights (please, no flames here. There's a long way to go, but anybody out
there think we'd be where we are today w/out the Feds? Really!) but we live
our lives knowing they lie and manipulate the truth (oh, sorry, spin the
facts) to insure their own survival. The Nam made it different, more drugs,
sex, and rock & roll. Maybe some things would have happened (Martin Luther
King's crusade) but it would have been a lot slower and more bloody and
violent. But, wadda I know. I was only one among many, even if I was at the
front of the local vanguard. As Buffalo Springfield says, "For What It's
Worth."