This is an article that I wrote two years ago; in light of what is going on now in Washingtion, you might find it of some interest. Sam

The settlement reached more than a week ago to reopen the federal government constituted a major victory for democratic governance. It firmly rebuffed a reckless attempt by a small group of right-wing extremists to leverage the routine lifting of the debt ceiling and funding of government operations (what the right wing calls “forcing events”) into something much more serious and consequential.

Defunding Obamacare and winning other White House concessions by undemocratic means was to be but the first trophy in a far more ambitious and longer term power play by a reactionary clique and their big-pocketed financial backers to reverse the 2012 election results (which left them, much to their surprise, in a subordinate position in Washington), disempower President Obama for the remainder of his term, bypass democratic institutions and rules, and, above all, impose its deeply reactionary political agenda on the country – not to mention position itself to gain control of Congress in 2014 and the presidency in 2016.

http://peoplesworld.org/no-ordinary-crisis-the-shutdown-and-its-aftermath/

I just read a thoughtful article by Chauncey Robinson in the PW, posted below. I would only add that when comparing this generation and the zeitgeist of  that time with the generation of the sixties and the zeitgeist of that time, it is important to keep in mind the differences in the material conditions in which each generation grew up. I remember a friend in Detroit, for example, telling me a few years ago that he could get fired from one auto plant and go down the street and get hired in another at union wages and a full package of benefits on the same day. Not like that today! And to mention another example, the right wing then was a pale imitation of its current self. Its presidential candidate – Barry Goldwater – had been taken to the woodshed by Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 elections. Without acknowledging such major differences, such conversations may generate heat, but no light. I would further add as a cautionary note that the term generation is a broad generalization that can easily conceal as much as it reveals. Many of the most prominent personalities of the extreme right today – Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, etc. – came of age in the radical, counter cultural sixties.

http://peoplesworld.org/millennials-vs-babyboomers-who-is-the-true-problem-generation/