Defending the 1960s

Defending the 1960s

Peter Marcuse in In These Times:

The protests of 1968 — symbolically, the occupation of the Columbia University buildings, the student uprisings in Paris and the street protests in Berlin — are now in danger of being denigrated as the actions of spoiled, confused, if not neurotic, students and rebellious youth who were “finding” themselves in making trivial demands of their uncomprehending and benevolent societies.

…Internationally, the ‘68 protests changed the character of post-war politics, helped end the Vietnam War, and legitimized concerns about peace, welfare and democracy beyond the prevailing mainstream consensus.

And on a related subject, here’s an article on the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the Prague Spring over at the Socialist Worker. (Via 3 Quarks Daily.)