About that Vaccination...

Eve of Destruction
“Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I’ve grown older and wiser
And that’s why I’m turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal.”
-Phil Ochs, 1966
From Beats to
Baby Boomers:
When it was
cool to be
countercultural
The violence
of the
Vietnam
War was
emblematized
in this Pulitzer
Prize-winning
photo of a Viet
Cong prisoner being shot by
General Nguyen Ngoc Loan.
10
Sixties counterculture left its stamp on America. Baby Boomers dominated the era,
spurring civil, feminist, environmental, and gay rights activism. A privileged white
majority worked with minorities to end discrimination. But despite the far reach of
the counterculture, these problems persisted.
After the destruction occasioned by World War II, Americans wanted a rebirth, a
return to normalcy, a revival of what made them human: life. Birth rates “boomed,” and
76.4 million babies were born from 1946 to 1964, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
As the biggest generation in American history to that point, Baby Boomers dictated
culture, media, and politics. Doug Owram, history professor and author of Born at the
Right Time, explained, “The baby boomers came to overshadow the smaller generations
that preceded and succeeded them…[Their] sense of self was due, in no small part, to
the fact that they had the luxury of being free to think about such things.”
Instead of returning from the war to poverty, WWII veterans came home to the nation
in the best economic condition. Barring disenfranchised minorities, largely white
America celebrated a new age of affluence and luxury.
Beat poet Allen Ginsberg mixed offbeat humor with social commentary in his poetry.
Two years later in 1948 the Cold War ramped up, and the Red Scare
returned with heightened severity. Meanwhile, the rise of commercialism
coincided with the rise of television. Ninety percent of Americans
owned TV sets by 1960, according to history professor Jordan
Winthrop, becoming increasingly exposed to mass advertising. In
response, marketers widened their appeal to multiple audiences
simultaneously, homogenizing American culture.
The American Yawp surmises, “Perhaps yearning for something
beyond the ‘massification’ of American culture but having few
other options beyond popular culture, American youth turned to
rock ‘n’ roll.”
Artists like Elvis Presley represented rebellion, injecting
the sexualized lyrics and dancing reminiscent of ‘20s
speakeasies into the heavier beat of rock ‘n’ roll, disturbing
Depression-era parents taught to pull their weight without
complaint. Combining nostalgia for a liberated time with
the revolutionary beats of a modern generation, Baby
Boomers soaked up rebellion and radicalism.
In 1955, just as the first Baby Boomers came of age,
the U.S. entered a fourteen-year “military action.” Pew
Center for People and Press reported a 73 percent trust
rating in the government in 1958. President Richard Nixon
attempted “Vietnamization” in 1969--a plan to withdraw American
troops and turn fighting over to South Vietnam--with little success. By 1976
North Vietnam seized control, reforming the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The
Watergate scandal and Nixon’s resignation just two years earlier reinforced the perception
of corruption and inefficiency in politics. Public trust in U.S. government fell to 36
percent.
Baby Boomers consistently staged protests on college campuses and city streets
against Vietnam, and addressed sociopolitical issues including civil inequities and the
suppression of women’s rights. Owram explains, “Conformity was assaulted by deliberately
outrageous clothes, behaviour, and language. An age of timidity was supplanted by
civil disobedience. Patriotism was smashed by cynicism.”
Political power waned, and the power of counterculture increased. Kevin Campbell,