I read two road's excellent diary and found myself baffling myself. This statement could have been written by me:
I WAS BORN IN 1953 SMACK IN THE MIDDLE of white, lower working class suburbia.
The historical setting seemed so clear when reading the diary. Yet, I began to simultaneously agree and disagree within single points made in the comments. It seemed important to counter my own arguments within myself. But it all seems to converge on one main idea:
Children of the 60's did change the world -- if even just a little -- by just changing our own perceptions and living our lives differently. And for many of us, it has been hell.
I tire of people who criticize the 'protesters' as just complainers who did nothing -- just a bunch of pot heads who sat around getting high. Some of the most philosophical conversations of my life were in smoke-filled rooms in my youth -- discussion that broke me from the rigid leash of that 'socially acceptable' prison of suburbia.
When I joined the Air Force as a female airplane mechanic in 1974, there was no blue print to follow -- no role model to show me how to be a woman in a man's world. It was the words of philosophers in hazy thoughts that helped me to understand how to get through it and learn from it.
When I talked to the chaplain about being a single mother and the possibility of giving up my child, it was not his 'divine guidance' that convinced me to keep my son. This 'man of God' told me that I had done a terrible thing by becoming pregnant, and it would be an even worse 'sin' to keep the child. After all, there were many 'deserving' couples who could raise a child much better than a woman airplane mechanic. I have never regretted standing against the status quo and raising this wonderful son.
And there were costs involved in living against the norms. Those friends who had enlightened me during my youth were no longer around as I journeyed to other places. While I could not consult them, or seek comfort from them, they were somewhere inside this conscience that I had grown inside those smoke filled rooms. So when I was ridiculed, condemned, or dismissed, my shame could be eased in knowing that this simple act of living was changing a tiny piece of the world.
I could go on with stories of resisting the meat grinder that churns out hamburger patties rounded into consumable bites. They were small things, really, but they slowed me down on the path to the "American Dream" and the "fast track" career paths. Little things like being kicked out of an apartment for having a black man visit me, or my arguments about women's rights interfering with promotions, or speaking up when I saw workers being downtrodden, or questioning the poisons that an employer was dumping into the neighborhood.
So here is where I get pissed off when I read some of the comments about hippies.
I have paid the price of following my own drummer. And continue to pay. I am making as much at my job now as I did at a job 25 years ago. Without a degree, the years of nightschool mean nothing to an employer. I beat myself up all of the time that I could have worked so hard in my life, struggled against such odds, have been clean and sober for 24 years and I am still a complete and utter loser.
BUT I NEVER SOLD MY F**KING SOUL!
So DON'T tell me that I should be happy when I see a politician try to sell my principles: "vote for me while I tell you what a loser you are and at least you won't have that other guy".
And DON'T tell me that the 60's were a mistake -- we fought for 'truth in lending' (what the hell happened to that?), for 'freedom of information' (what the hell happened to that?), for civil rights (watching our local sheriff round up brown people this week), for an end to sending our youth off to die in an illegal war (here we go again).
So DON'T tell me that we have to 'reach across the aisle' to get things done -- it was public pressure that made those changes in the 60's. It was in taking the pressure off that we lost so many of those gains. It will take pressure to fix it again.
And DON'T tell me that I never did anything to change anything. My whole life has been about working for change and I'm still eager for more.
And DON'T tell me that after all our candidate is only human and has flaws and we just have to accept that. Hey, it's okay to be human. Have a fling, throw up at a state dinner, fall down stepping off of a stage -- but DON'T F**CKING MESS WITH THE CONSTITUTION!
And DON'T tell me that we were bad parents -- this younger 'enlightened' generation didn't materialize out of wishful thinking.
And DON'T tell me that the 60's didn't produce greatness. There are so many 'ordinary' people from that era that strike awe in me. They are still standing, still fighting against the machine while I tiredly try to get through another messed up day.
Maybe Obama shouldn't listen to people like me -- I am not an example of shining success. If anything, my life proves that standing on principle will only keep a person down.
But of my life in its entirety, my principles of respect, human dignity, and fairness are all that I have to pass onto my children. Somehow, I thought we could have a candidate that lived by those principles, but now I wonder if Camelot can only exist in a peon's dreams.