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Listen To Cream 
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1968 The Watershed Year 
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1968 was a watershed year in the West. It heralded both political revolution and one
could argue a 'Rock' revolution. In 1968, the US position in Vietnam was collapsing and
it began to retreat from Asia. America was torn by social upheaval and international
condemnation as, to a lesser extent, so was Australia. Western political and social
culture was being challenged by the growth of a radical youth counterculture spurred
on by, and reflected in, Popular Music at the time - and the emergence of the `Hippie’
movement. It was the time of Psychedelic Rock and the music many claim introduced it
all - or was symbolic of it, was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
The Beatles - Sgt Peppers
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Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles
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The Tumultuous Year Of 1968 - What Happened?
OK, now let us turn for awhile back to 1968, the year many regard as a watershed year
in World Politics in the 20th century. From this year there flowed the decline of the US
War effort - or the collapse of its position in Vietnam, the decline of the West
economically, and the growth of enormous disillusionment socially in the West - a lot
of which was triggered by two failings: the failing of Western traditional culture and the
beginnings of the decline and ultimate failure of the hopes and dreams of the
Counterculture.
So What Was Significant About This Year?
It was the year Saddam Hussein took control in Iraq (and also the formation of the
ultra leftist urban guerrilla group - the Baader Meinhof group in Germany), and the
year General Suharto took full power in Indonesia after deposing President Sukarno.
An event which changed the destiny of Indonesia and still indirectly impacts on
Indonesia and its allies.
It was also the year French students and workers revolted in the streets in a revolution
that shook the French Government and took President De Gaulle some time to put
down, but not without first granting the students and workers significant reforms. It was
a revolt nevertheless that shocked the West. The world watched anxiously as the threat
of France falling to communism seemed to grow each day and foreign student radicals
arrived to man the barricades. Such revolt had not been seen in Western cities for a
long time.
ultra leftist urban guerrilla group - the Baader Meinhof group in Germany), and the
year General Suharto took full power in Indonesia after deposing President Sukarno.
An event which changed the destiny of Indonesia and still indirectly impacts on
Indonesia and its allies.
It was also the year French students and workers revolted in the streets in a revolution
that shook the French Government and took President De Gaulle some time to put
down, but not without first granting the students and workers significant reforms. It was
a revolt nevertheless that shocked the West. The world watched anxiously as the threat
of France falling to communism seemed to grow each day and foreign student radicals
arrived to man the barricades. Such revolt had not been seen in Western cities for a
long time.
It was also the year of the 'Prague Spring' in Czechoslovakia - when the Soviets crushed
the Czech government's reform movement with tanks, signalling to the world that
communism could change and the Soviet Empire was beginning to crumble from
within. This was an extremely important event and forerunner of possible things to
come as the days when the Soviet Union could crush rebellion largely unseen by its
own citizens, as what had occurred in Hungary in 1956, were over. The entire world
was now watching, and detested what it saw.
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And 1968 was also the year that people worldwide were listening to the Beatles’ Hey Jude and viewing their 'Yellow Submarine' movie.
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The Beatles - Hey Jude
Tiny Tim - Tip Toe Through The Tulips
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But The Music Didn’t Stop The Rioting In The West, Or In The US Specifically.
1968 was also the year of the Chicago Democratic Party
Convention, the Vietnam anti-war demonstrations and the
'Chicago Conspiracy trials' which resulted from it. This
was the convention wherein Mayor Richard Daley sent in the
police to batter the protesters into submission.
Political Activist Jerry Rubin who helped found the Youth International Party (The
Yippies) and campaigned for their candidate, a pig named Pigasus, gained his 15
minutes of fame from the convention when he and six others were tried on charges of
conspiracy to incite violence and crossing state lines with intent to riot. They were
acquitted, eventually, after a mockery of a trial.
A Year of Assassinations
1968 was also the year, two prominent Americans were assassinated - Senator Robert
Kennedy and Human Rights Activist Dr Martin Luther King. These killings - in the
middle of the UN Human Rights Year - symbolised the death of hope for many
American liberals, particularly young people who put their faith in the ability of
activists, such as King and Kennedy, to right a society considered to have gone badly
wrong.
1968 Also Saw The Beginning Of The End For The Counterculture
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Go To Counterculture
The Counterculture
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1968 was the year many argue represented the end of the swinging 60s - an era that
really died the year earlier, as pragmatism replaced idealism and a hard core of hippies
moved from trying to change the world by love to changing it by force.
The shift was marked - and partly caused by the increasing commercial use of the
'Love Generation’s activities, as with the musical Hair, which shocked middle class,
middle aged Britain when cast members stripped and faced the audience. `Full frontal
nudity’ became a catchphrase but Hair was at the extreme end of the scale, (average
women contented themselves with see-through dresses and most men declined to flash
their body parts at all. )
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Hair - 1968 - The London Cast
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Much Of The Love Bubble Was Burst By The Vietnam War And
Particularly The Tet Offensive
But above all, 1968 marked the year of the end of innocence for many people. The
dream was over, the bubble had burst. And much of this bubble bursting was done by
the Vietnam War, as 1968 saw the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. We concentrate on
Vietnam because it was this conflict which brought about so much change in the West
and caused the United States so much self-inflicted pain and ultimately to redefine
itself.
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The Tet Offensive 1968
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Tet 1968
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Tet 1968
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The Tet Offensive
1968 was the watershed year because it was the year of the Tet Offensive in which the
Vietnamese proved to the world that they were not beaten but in fact were beating the
US - the world’s greatest military power.
Nearly 85,000 communist troops broke the truce arranged for January’s Tet Lunar
New Year religious celebrations. They attacked 36 major South Vietnamese cities,
broke into the American Embassy in Saigon and held the city of Hue for several weeks.
US and Australian forces counterattacked - but Tet was the turning point of the war,
convincing many 'Hawks' that Vietnam could not be subdued by force.
Vietnamese proved to the world that they were not beaten but in fact were beating the
US - the world’s greatest military power.
Nearly 85,000 communist troops broke the truce arranged for January’s Tet Lunar
New Year religious celebrations. They attacked 36 major South Vietnamese cities,
broke into the American Embassy in Saigon and held the city of Hue for several weeks.
US and Australian forces counterattacked - but Tet was the turning point of the war,
convincing many 'Hawks' that Vietnam could not be subdued by force.
Divisions At Home
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Still the division ran deep at home in the US with
demonstrations and riots, and even the killing of US students. So many at home were against the war and the nation was divided and bitter. US Commander General William Westmoreland requested more troops but was turned down by President Lyndon Johnson, who three months later announced that bombing north of the 20th parallel would be stopped and he would not seek re-election. |
General Westmoreland
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President Richard Nixon
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President Lyndon Johnson
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Presidential candidate Richard Nixon - who was to win the election - called for the war
to be scaled down and Johnson, in one of the last acts of his presidency, ordered a halt
to all bombing of North Vietnam. Explanatory peace talks began in Paris. But the war
went on with all its butchery.
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Normie Rowe - It Ain't Necessarily So
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The Vietnam War was increasingly in the news, with the Tet offensive shocking those
who had believed in the inherent military superiority of the US and its allies. Of course
the most famous Australian Pop soldier of the time was Normie Rowe, who injected his
own amount of questioning of the system - although at this stage of his life -only
commercially.
who had believed in the inherent military superiority of the US and its allies. Of course
the most famous Australian Pop soldier of the time was Normie Rowe, who injected his
own amount of questioning of the system - although at this stage of his life -only
commercially.
All In All - 1968
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So, all in all, 1968 was important for the West and primarily
the US political and youth culture. For after the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, the renewed violence that rent US society was all too much persuading so many young people that society could not be reformed democratically. The Blacks had already come to this conclusion with the formation of groups like the Black Panthers. |
A Certain Violence
Charles Manson
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And this led to a certain violence in the counterculture -
which we shall deal with later. But many in the counterculture also came to such conclusions and demanded change even if violently undertaken - and we only have to think of Charles Manson for that. So in 1968, the rioting that broke out in US cities after the killings of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, combined with the general student unrest and protests over Vietnam, convinced US conservatives that society as they knew it was at an end - as, in a way, it was. |
So What In Sum Came Out Of 1968 - Which Added To Its Exceptionality?
(From the Courier Mail, Australia)
There was of course the drug culture. Few have looked frankly at this waste of
potential, or the unworthiness of the drug for which so much was sacrificed.
But apart from drugs there was a great democracy of thought. A 15 year fashion for
casual sex that AIDS ended. A tolerance for abortion that saved a lot of souls and
ended a lot of tiny lives, and rendered a good few unknowing girls incapable of child
bearing.
There was also a wistful need for new religions to replace the ones that were gone, or
found worthless. There was a lot of excellent popular music of course and excellent
musicians such as Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa and so many, many others. And there was
intricate clothing design and backyard careers in pottery and surfboard polishing and
abstract sculpture.
It was a tidal retreat for threatening grey cities and green and welcoming arcadias of
drugs and quarrelsome promiscuity and art and poetry and deaths by overdose and
good companionship.
There was of course the drug culture. Few have looked frankly at this waste of
potential, or the unworthiness of the drug for which so much was sacrificed.
But apart from drugs there was a great democracy of thought. A 15 year fashion for
casual sex that AIDS ended. A tolerance for abortion that saved a lot of souls and
ended a lot of tiny lives, and rendered a good few unknowing girls incapable of child
bearing.
There was also a wistful need for new religions to replace the ones that were gone, or
found worthless. There was a lot of excellent popular music of course and excellent
musicians such as Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa and so many, many others. And there was
intricate clothing design and backyard careers in pottery and surfboard polishing and
abstract sculpture.
It was a tidal retreat for threatening grey cities and green and welcoming arcadias of
drugs and quarrelsome promiscuity and art and poetry and deaths by overdose and
good companionship.
There were Sex shops, Encounter Groups, Acupuncture therapy, Wholisitic Dentistry.
Aerobics, Chiropractic medicine, Vegetarian Cafes, The Australian film renaissance.
Hemp in Pot plants for personal use. Daily deaths by heroin in Australia's better cities.
There were campaigns to legalise it, and make it free. There emerged the tendency to
foreign travel and Third World journeys, and religious and political comparisons that
have brought a perspective into our lives.
Aerobics, Chiropractic medicine, Vegetarian Cafes, The Australian film renaissance.
Hemp in Pot plants for personal use. Daily deaths by heroin in Australia's better cities.
There were campaigns to legalise it, and make it free. There emerged the tendency to
foreign travel and Third World journeys, and religious and political comparisons that
have brought a perspective into our lives.
Indeed, without 1968 we would still be stifling in the buttoned up world that the movie
'Grease' so pungently shows - of short haircuts and lying to parents and hypocritical
religiosity and fraught careerism and tedious life plans and souped up cars and
censorship and tight communities and sexual ignorance, a world some still yearn for.
'Grease' so pungently shows - of short haircuts and lying to parents and hypocritical
religiosity and fraught careerism and tedious life plans and souped up cars and
censorship and tight communities and sexual ignorance, a world some still yearn for.
'I too, some nights' - says the author - who also closed his article with: `I remember in
particular a designed postcard of Martin Sharp’s in 1968, that year when all things
changed, "These ARE the good old days, it said. And They probably were." -
unquote.
But above all, 1968 saw the death knell for the spiritual chant of the 'Flower Power'
movement: `Make Love Not War! - which not too subtly changed to - Make Love and
Make War! And with the deaths in 1970 of many of its icons - of Hendrix, of Janis
Joplin and of Jim Morrison, the counterculture was finished.
particular a designed postcard of Martin Sharp’s in 1968, that year when all things
changed, "These ARE the good old days, it said. And They probably were." -
unquote.
But above all, 1968 saw the death knell for the spiritual chant of the 'Flower Power'
movement: `Make Love Not War! - which not too subtly changed to - Make Love and
Make War! And with the deaths in 1970 of many of its icons - of Hendrix, of Janis
Joplin and of Jim Morrison, the counterculture was finished.
Jimi Hendrix RIP Janis Joplin RIP Jim Morrison RIP
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