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40 Years After Woodstock, a More Harmonious Society

USA Today, 8/14/09

Abstract:

Historians often look at 1968 as the apex of that strange era known as the '60s. But running through the many 40-year anniversaries this summer, it is hard not to conclude that 1969 reveals more about where the nation was then and how far it has come.

The moon landing, Sen. Edward Kennedy's accident at Chappaquiddick, and the bizarre murders engineered by Charles Manson all happened within a few dizzying weeks of each other in July and August 40 years ago. And this weekend marks the anniversary of the ultimate '60s happening — the Woodstock music festival in rural Bethel, N.Y.

Woodstock, like the moon landing, was supposedly going to usher in a new era that never came. Today, we aren't living in space colonies. Nor have we arrived at some utopian society dedicated to peace, love and free music.

Axx-Moon-14 What has changed since then is almost all for the better. In 1969 the fissures over the Vietnam War, racial tensions, and social and sexual mores were incomprehensibly vast. The fabric of American society, already strained by the assassinations the previous year of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

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