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I was a science nerd, but here’s the culture and politics I grew up in, that I took seriously, and formed my expectations for the future. We actually sang this song in our 6th grade chorus concert:

When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
Age of Aquarius
Aquarius
Aquarius

Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind’s true liberation
Aquarius. ~~~ The Fifth Dimension (1969)

It was a time of compassion and caring:

When you’re down and out
When you’re on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you (ooo)
I’ll take your part, oh, when darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down. ~~~ Simon & Garfunkel (1970)

The social studies curriculum included civics and an entire semester of critical thinking, where we were encouraged to question authority, participate in government, engage in protest, and challenge the conventional wisdom printed in the NY Times.

We can change the world
Re-arrange the world
It’s dying … if you believe in justice
It’s dying … and if you believe in freedom
It’s dying … let a man live his own life
It’s dying … rules and regulations, who needs them
Open up the door. Chicago, CSNY (1971)

We were confronted with questions:

What’s it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?
Are we meant to take more than we give
Or are we meant to be kind?
And if only fools are kind, Alfie
Then I guess it is wise to be cruel
And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie
What will you lend on an old golden rule? ~~~ Dionne Warwick, 1966

Dr. King led the way – in a letter from a Birmingham jail (1963)

“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

So how the hell did we get to the current Neoliberal nightmare?

Funny how this all comes back upon my mind –

My “Pandora Channel” is Gregorian Chants.

I listen to them at night. They comfort me and remind of the Pre-Vatican II Catholic Church I grew up in.

Yesterday, I learned of a 30 day offer to get other channels with no commercials and no financial commitment.

So, tonight, I searched for “1960’s folk”.

And, in an amazing and ironic technological feat, here we are.

But how can I even begin to convey what that music meant to me as a young boy?

The time has come for closing books and long last looks must end
And as I leave I know that I am leaving my best friend
A friend who taught me right from wrong and weak from strong
That’s a lot to learn, but what can I give you in return? ~~~ To Sir With Love (Lulu, 1967) 

And how disgusted I am with the current culture and politics and their Neoliberal intellectual foundations?:

Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. ~~~ Ayn Rand

We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice. ~~~ Friedrich Hayek

The error was a legacy of New Deal thinking, which glorified elected officials and career bureaucrats as disinterested servants of the public good, despite the obvious coercive effects of the programs they put into place. Why not instead see politicians and government administrators as self-interested players in the marketplace, trying to “maximize their utility”—that is, win the next election or enlarge their department’s budget? ~~~ The Architect of the Radical Right – How the Nobel Prize–winning economist James M. Buchanan shaped today’s antigovernment politics

“They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. ~~~ Margaret Thatcher (1987)

“Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” ~~~ Ronald Reagan, 1981

“The Era of Big government is over.” ~~~ Bill Clinton, 1996

The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer … From this moment on, it’s going to be America First. ~~~ Donald Trump, 2017

Please stop the nightmare, I want off.

Horror grips us as we watch you die
All we can do is echo your anguished cries
Stare as all human feelings die
We are leaving, you don’t need us

Go take your sister then by the hand
Lead her away from this foreign land
Far away where we might laugh again
We are leaving, you don’t need us. ~~~ Wooden Ships, CSNY (1969)