Defending Woodstock: We Were Naïve, But it Was Fun

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If this is supposed to be a defense of the Baby Boomers and The 60's Woodstock Culture, it is unbearably weak. I agree with John Lennon's comments and look forward to the arrival of an intellectually and morally rigorous body of work defending the ideas and values of the 60's counterculture.
There may have been some things that the Baby Boomer generation was wrong about but there were definitely things they were right about. No generation after them has produced music as colorful (ie., voices and chords as crisp and colorful as The Beatles and everything that came with them (some of which include some of tha musicians well into the seventies) such as ELP, Yes, CSN&Y, Cream, The Grateful Dead, etc.). Social awareness, Meditation and Yoga, Environmentalism, all came with this generation.
If we leave everything up to these people who put down the Baby Boomers then the Earth is in trouble. Either that OR we'll all go back to the "Ozzie and Harriet days" when the Earth was believed to be flat and a healthy diet was considered to be a stack of pancakes with towers of butter and greasy bacon on th side.

Jordan Hal Mosman of FL 12:47AM September 21, 2009

We all thought we were going to change the world, but it turned out the world didn't want to be changed. Indeed, it slowly squeezed us into is mold, and ended up changing us!

Alabama Jim of WA 1:24PM August 31, 2009

An example: When I was in elementary school in the 50s, bullies on the playground were at least tolerated, if not encouraged. They helped keep the playground under control and enforced the social order. The 60s, Woodstock and all, were needed to shake up the status quo, which was unbearably authoritarian.

Vern of CA 1:50PM August 25, 2009

Seems like once the bullets started flying at Kent State, agitating for change was done. The problem with non-violence is that you have to be willing to die for it. The boomers were not prepared to do this, so they rest on the laurels of their glory days to hide their ultimate failure...they didn't change a damn thing.

Andrew Baum of WI 4:30AM August 23, 2009

"We were naive but it was fun"
That should be the epitaph of the boomer generation!

Jeff of MD 2:45PM August 21, 2009

America may have lost more with the assasination of Robert Kennedy than even what we lost when they shot John Kennedy.
Had we elected Robert Kennedy in November, 1968, instead of Nixon, there probably would have been a very different Woodstock the following summer, or maybe none at all.
As it was, we "needed" a Woodstock, I guess. But we shouldn't have. We should have had the chance to do at the polls what was later done in the muddy field. Agitate for change.

Muser of NM 11:26AM August 21, 2009

Well this is America and he said what he felt mia, yet it was over 400.000 people who wanted to be there good or bad. today one can not get two to agree on how to cook a chicken less loan get them to go into a mud hole eat a peanut butter sandwich and be glad that someone just gave it to me, it cost nothing. Yes I was at Woodstock and would do it again, but may need some help getting to my feet and pulling my oxygen bottle around. Repeat, it was an experience I will always have. It was grate.

k bardin of NM 10:02PM August 20, 2009

Woodstock was,indeed,a disaster,made so by poor planning,lax security and no cooperation between the organizersand local authorities,not by the people who attended.For the most part,the people who attended made the best of an horrendous situation.It is a tribute to them that "WOODSTOCK" has entered our vocabulary as a symbol of peace,joy,love and idealism.Did my generation stop the war?YES.By refusing to let America get on with buisness as usualIn November,1968,my parents' generation gifted us with a choice between the"NEW NIXON"and HUBERT"HE'LL BE HIS OWN MAN AFTER THE ELECTIONS" HUMPHREY,both of whomwere committed to continuing the war.ROBERT KENNEDY,DR.KING were dead and WAYNE MORSE,J W FULBRIGHT,ERNEST GRUENING,ALBERT GORE,SR,REV WILLIAM SLOAN COFFIN,DANIEL and PHILIP BERRIGAN and anyone else who dared say the war was wrong were in political or religious exile."WORKING THROUGH THE SYSTEM "was a joke.Don't think so?Compare 1994,when,having lost their majority,dozens of Democrats declared WASHINGTON "hopeles"and skulked away.In 1968,no one spoke for us,except us when we said"NO MORE" in prison,in Canada,in dropping out,in protesting week after week.Too bad our elders paid little attention till the body count got too high to stomach(but that's what ends most wars).

M I A of NY 6:45PM August 20, 2009