They say Gitmo now. I see Pete Seeger standing tall and resolute strumming out Guantanamera. And Joan Baez. It's curious how "blowing in the wind" is still the description of political and personal direction for many.
But I look back at my own youth with the swing songs, and they seem a little simpy. Because I cannot abide TV commercials, I miss any good new music. If there be any such, please clue me in.
Curious little phrases from the 60s protest period turned out to be downright ironic. The movement people were talking about living off the land. Because the women were wearing Mother Hubbards and old-fashioned glasses, they seemed to be returning to an agrarian environment. As I investigated further, I realized that cooperative farms grew more pot than potatoes. And then there was an inside joke for us techies. At the time I worked for Honeywell (a big bad company to the movement) where they had a computer similar to one of the time from IBM. We had a program to change Honeywell code from IBM's and called it a liberator. Since "liberate" was synomous, in some circles, with theft, protesters started talking about how we stole IBM's programs.
I currently have a 22-year-old friend, who works with computers. When I try telling her about the old days, I describe how computer programmers were not well looked upon. She simply couldn't understand why, even after I explained that people were afraid computers would get their jobs. It's no wonder the current population is confued about the meaning of globalization and technical change.
So I think back. "On the road to San Jose" and "Monday morning, Monday morning" were where the youth of Nam days were heading as they burned bras (female) and draft cards (male.) The music made it all gel.