VLVL"the Movement"

[jbor]

>> I think it's fair enough to say that by the end of
>> '68 and into 1969 and beyond things were starting to
>> fall apart pretty badly for the counterculture, in
>> terms of it having once been a more or less unified
>> and potent sociocultural entity and political lobby.
>> Internal bickering and fragmentation, Nixon in
>> Washington, Altamont, the Manson murders, the slow
>> disintegration of SDS, Kent State, the failure of the
>> campus strikes, the Weathermen Underground and the New
>> York apartment bombing -- all these things and more
>> were sounding the death knell of "the Movement".
> 
> It might be fair, but it's inaccurate, in that it
> assumes a unity in--God--the "movement"--that was
> never the case.  You're noting and mourning the death
> of a figment.

Not at all. There was a unity of purpose and organisational solidarity in
the earlier '60s which was starting to fall apart pretty dramatically by
'68-9, and which collapsed entirely in 1970-1. It's a simple point, one
easily substantiated through a multitude of first hand reports.

>> It's easy to deride generalisations for their
>> generality, and more often than not there will be
>> specific exceptions and valid demurs. However,
>> to imply that an opposite situation was prevailing --
>> that everything with "the Movement" was as vibrant and
>> idealistic and hunky dory in 1969 as it had been
>> earlier in the '60s, at Berkeley say -- simply isn't
>> on.
> 
> One isn't dismissing your generalizations for their
> generality; what you describe as specific exceptions
> to what I assume you believe was the rule were not
> exceptions, rather examples of what was, for the most
> part, the case.  That there was more strife later than
> what existed at Berkeley--a single university campus
> during a relatively brief period--well; how could it
> have been otherwise?

You seem to be arguing against any suggestion that there ever was a student
movement or counterculture in the U.S. during the '60s. Sorry to burst your
bubble, bud, but there was. The sit-ins, Freedom rides, anti-war marches and
civil rights rallies, and the campus activity at Berkeley in 1964
specifically, received massive publicity, brought together a range of very
different activist groups and causes, and created ripple effects all across
the globe. But, by the end of 1970, the wheels had totally fallen off.

best