1968 by Tom Brokaw
1968 by Tom Brokaw
“Documentary: 1968” covered all the usual events of that year, protests over the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the race riots, women’s lib, black power, hippies and drugs. This documentary was a little different in that it was more of a personal take on the events as Tom Brokaw was already working as a reporter at that time and these were his personal recollections. Also, he interspersed many interviews with contemporaries of the present year, 2007, and asked them to look back and interpret events of that year.
The 1960’s was first and foremost a rising up of freedom: freedom of choice, freedom of lifestyle, of gender, of government, of human rights, and of artistic expression. And it was an era of individualism as opposed to accepting the society and roles of society as ordered. But what is hard to understand now is how this wasn’t nearly as all pervasive as it might now seem, but at the same time how far reaching this energy was. In the sixties, more people pursued freedom than any periods.
It was still a small minority but when the creative individuals are doubled or more, it seems earth shattering. Now at the time things weren’t so dramatically different, but as a lot of borderline people saw the changes and opportunities to be free or different they latched on to the movement and expanded their own freedom. A lot of these people then retreated to their conventional ways later (in the 70’s) and readjusted to the order of society as handed down. These people never really believed in “the revolution” but they swelled its ranks for a while and sometimes for the better as in protesting the war. Some of these people simply dressed freaky or used the sexual liberation to prey on women to get laid more often. But there were true believers who got a whiff of possibilities and dared to dream that things could be better, that people could be more responsible, that politicians could be more honest, that
“Documentary: 1968” covered all the usual events of that year, protests over the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the race riots, women’s lib, black power, hippies and drugs. This documentary was a little different in that it was more of a personal take on the events as Tom Brokaw was already working as a reporter at that time and these were his personal recollections. Also, he interspersed many interviews with contemporaries of the present year, 2007, and asked them to look back and interpret events of that year.
The 1960’s was first and foremost a rising up of freedom: freedom of choice, freedom of lifestyle, of gender, of government, of human rights, and of artistic expression. And it was an era of individualism as opposed to accepting the society and roles of society as ordered. But what is hard to understand now is how this wasn’t nearly as all pervasive as it might now seem, but at the same time how far reaching this energy was. In the sixties, more people pursued freedom than any periods.
It was still a small minority but when the creative individuals are doubled or more, it seems earth shattering. Now at the time things weren’t so dramatically different, but as a lot of borderline people saw the changes and opportunities to be free or different they latched on to the movement and expanded their own freedom. A lot of these people then retreated to their conventional ways later (in the 70’s) and readjusted to the order of society as handed down. These people never really believed in “the revolution” but they swelled its ranks for a while and sometimes for the better as in protesting the war. Some of these people simply dressed freaky or used the sexual liberation to prey on women to get laid more often. But there were true believers who got a whiff of possibilities and dared to dream that things could be better, that people could be more responsible, that politicians could be more honest, that