The Revolution will not be twitterized

There’s a little subthread below about whether Bernie Sanders was a hippie in the 1960s, or some other species of leftist. Bloix suggests that he was a characteristic New Left type, which seems fair.

Sanders wrote some pretty wacky essays in the late 60s/early 70s, which have a distinct Greening of America flavor. One of them contains an error which suggests strongly that Sanders was not really much of a fan of the post-Elvis rock & roll culture:

In Miami, the American Legion sponsors a “rally for decency.” Even Jackie Gleason attends. Ron Morrison of the Doors is arrested for giving a lewd performance. He is “immoral.” The President of the American Legion calls for more bombing of Vietnam. “Bomb them into the stone age”, the general says after cocming out of church. This is the morality that civilization is made of. The general is “moral”, Morrison is “immoral.”

This is from November, 1969. Sanders was 28, and Jim Morrison would be dead in less than twenty months. (A melancholy thought — in both directions — for tail-end baby boomers such as your unfaithful correspondent: Sanders is pretty much the same age as: Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Jimmy Page, among many, many others).

Anyway, the essays are interesting period pieces, to put it as neutrally as possible.