Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts about the Sixties

by Peter Collier and David Horowitz

Book Overview

Destructive Generation is the untold story of the 1960s-the tragic consequences of everything-goes hedonism and the destructiveness of revolutionary passion that typified the attitude of many young radicals. Destructive Generation, which critics have compared to The God That Failed and to Whittaker Chambers' Witness, is a modern conservative classic-imperative reading for anyone who wants to understand the New Left and its sad legacy for America.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671667521
• ISBN13: 9780671667528
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Summit Books
• Length: 382 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Book

Arrived on time Good book

WOW!

I was growing up in California while this was all going on and somehow I was pretty much oblivious. David Horowitz and Peter Collier are remarkable authors and I am so glad to have had the opportunity to read this book. Why isn't it used as a history text in highschools? The drivel that's out there dispensed in all it's liberal bias glory is perverse in it's politically correctness. I just hate it when history is distorted so that we can pretend things happened to acommodate feminist or liberal rhetoric. After reading this book (and others by these authors)I have a deeper understanding of modern US history and appreciate the candor with which the books are written.

The Real Sixties.

These essays are priceless and they tell a tale that many have never heard. We are presented with the personal impacts of radicalism on human relationships and also on communities that sponsor it. Progressivism and its sympathizers practically imploded the city of Berkeley and still exert a noxious influence upon that locality today. The life of Fay Stender, a lawyer/groupie of the Black Panthers, teaches the reader just how much ideological blindness can bring a person down. The Weatherman Underground is given its own (pathetic) chapter length treatment. Believe me, you'll be horrified by the specifics of their pseudo-struggle and laugh when you discover that they viewed sex as being an ideological statement. The anti-Americanism of the New Left has long been denied but Horowitz and Collier reveal much about them that has been hidden by the sixties. If you're appalled by what the country's become, read this back and learn the causation of our cultural decline.

Not when you discover that... it isn't really where its at..

How does it feeeelll... To be on your own... no direction known... like a rollin' stone... This Dylan lyric depicts the disarray in which the intellectual Left finds itself in the aftermath of voluminous setbacks over the past century. David Horowitz and Peter Collier recount their personal intellectual metamorphoses' as they wend their way through the chapters of "Destructive Generation."They begin with a particularly heartfelt portrayal of a Leftist attorney, Fay Stender, trying to do good for poor black victims of a racist society. What Stender fails to comprehend, which leads to one of the purported victims shooting her in a bizarre ritual of hatred for all white people, is that these victims are thugs who prey on the very people she presumes she represents. Her actions are borne of a fatal miscalculation of murderers like Jonathan Jackson and his friends. This story, skillfully related by H & C, shows that the law of unintended consequences always seems to prevail, and often fatally, when put to the test by Left-Liberal nostrums. They next visit the rise and fall of the Weather underground, Huey Newton, and the Black Panthers, all grisly stories with a less than savory end. The Second section of the book deals with how the Left-liberal press poses as a 5th column for America's Marxist intellectuals. It shows how their intellectual allegiance to the social policy concepts of Marxist regimes leads them to conspire to deceive the American public. Their goal is shown to be undeniably subversive to America's national interest. Prominent public figures of the Left mentioned here include man of the cloth William Sloane Coffin, former Democratic congressman from Oakland Calif. Ron Dellums and his aide Carlottia Scott, NYT journalist Anthony Lewis, and former Dem. Cong. woman from Denver, Patricia Schroeder, with a host of lesser light attorneys and enablers achieving minor notoriety.They next romp through the Left's portrayal of Joe McCarthy. History has absolved McCarthy even though his method for outing U.S. government Communists was reprehensible. This chapter is followed by a marvelous piece on the Left's takeover of the city council in Berkeley California. All the familiar antics of Leftist rule are on display here and the chapter provided me with many belly laughs. In another way it's just plain sad that these people seem to learn nothing from history. They act like an intellectual version of the mindless Kudzu weed that if left untended continues to grow and expand over any and all obstacles until it consumes the landscape. All Communist-Socialist governments end up creating shortages and a vastly reduced standard of living for all people, but these idealists never seem to get the message. H & C hope to help them. Perhaps a 12-step program will be forthcoming. In chapter eight H & C reveal their assumptions which have led to their transition from Radical innocence to Radical guilt. They do a wonderful job of dissecting the Am

Thought the sixties were cool? Take a closer look ....

We tend to think of the sixties as being filled with cuddly and earnest activists. We applaud their struggles and imagine their innocence and naivete. This book puts a stop to such foolishness. The real story of the sixties is laid out by two people who were there - and immersed in the thick of things. What is astonishing about the text is that it relates intimate stories - one after another - concerning people who were involved in the sixties' struggles. The authors don't rudely talk about or lambast these characters. They don't have to. Their actions speak for themselves. You'll hear about the self-absorbed anarchy of the "Weathermen", or the self-absorbed violence of the "Black Panthers". You'll feel like you were there, watching each of these groups operate in an America that not only stepped back from, but actually pandered to such groups. One chapter describes how Berkeley went from being one of the nicest towns in California to one of the silliest. And you'll read an excellent essay on how the actions of Joseph McCarthy have made America vulnerable by limiting criticism of anyone actually involved in anti-American activities. So the next time you put on that Grateful Dead album,( oops, CD ) you might want to also pick up this book.In the end you may feel as silly as the last time you went through your music collection and saw those K-tel albums sitting in the back.

Miss those Chicago riots? Catch up now.

Must read for anyone who overslept and missed the riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. If you always wanted to know what it was like to hang with the Panthers, but couldn't find the Ramparts office, get a peek inside those romantic days of yore. Of course Horowitz and Collier may not remember quite the way you heard it on the street back then, but, hell, what do they know? huh? If you figure the millions massacred after the US left Nam got what they deserved, this book is not for you. But if you're willing to take an honest look at the consequences of the 60's and more, plug in the coffee pot, unplug the phone, and dive in. Very, very thought provoking