Posted on 03/26/2007 5:56:04 PM PDT by PJ-Comix
Most notalgia for the past is either fond or bittersweet. In the case of Hippie nostalgia it is mostly ANGRY. Why? Because the Age of Aquarius never came to be. Back in the Hippie 60s the tambourine playing New Agers were CERTAIN that they were just the beginning of a new era of Peace, Love, and unlimited drugs. The Disco 70s began to cast doubt on that vision and the Reagan 80s pretty much destroyed it. Instead of a Collectivist Future we now live in a mostly Free Enterprise Present. On top of that the youth of today not only don't emulate the Hippies, they MOCK them as can be seen on South Park with its Die Hippie, Die! episode. As a result, the old Hippies HATE the youth of today as you can see in this DUmmie THREAD titled, "Vietnam-era protesters....are you getting angry?" So let us now watch the angry old Hippies drop acid in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, who is also a noted Hippie Hunter, is in the [brackets]:
Vietnam-era protesters....are you getting angry?
[SOB! We lived in the time of Gimme Shelter and now we are in the horrible present of Gimme Tax Shelter.]
It's more than four years into a war that the public overwhelmingly rejects, yet if you attend Iraq war protests or watch the coverage of them you'll notice that the vast majority of marchers are in the 40-60 age range.
[Young people have better things to do with their lives than to relive your acid trip fantasies.]
There's a generation missing in action. The same generation which is currently doing the fighting and dying in Iraq.
[There was a generation missing their sanity. The Hippie generation.]
I bring this up because a small blog I frequent posted some old footage of a Vietnam-era protest and the comments that footage prompted showed, shall we say, a certain fraying of patience with those who aren't making the same sacrifices we made 40 years ago. Perhaps seeing footage of just how violent some of the protests got - violence against us, violence in return for violence - presented a real contrast to the meek, tame, and silent generation of today. I speak broadly, of course. I know that many young individuals are starting to act, but not nearly enough. How long can we continue to carry their water? Are you getting resentful?
[What sacrifices did you make? Going on acid trips and fouling yourselves while comatose in Golden Gate Park?]
Those old footages evoked long buried memories, and many complex, contradictory thoughts. My first routine reaction was a pride for belonging to that depicted generation, and the frustration I feel about the present one, who doesn't 'rattle the cage', or clashes with our oppressors as energeticaly as we once did, along the line of anoymous and jukebox.
[It's called an acid flashback.]
Then the more I thought about it, the more it troubled and humbled me. In one of my somber mood I observed, how little we have accomplished through all that protestation: We couldn't even hold-on what we had inherited from our elders, instead we lost a significant portion of it, and as a result, we give markedly worse Human and social conditions to our inheritors to deal with, than what we have enjoyed during the post-war boom.
[You couldn't hold on to what was handed down to you because you were stoned out of your minds.]
...It appears that the 'masters and the 'oligarchs' have the upper hand now, and scant hope left for us. We need to face the reality, that they have almost succeeded to atomize and alieanate contemporary Western society, in order to eliminate social solidarity and cohesion, and indeed sowed plenty of animosity among us worldwide, using any characteristics which might divide us, be it religion, nationality, language or culture, so they never have to face all of us at once, and also how they harnessed technological powers to their diabolical purposes, such as to keep Humanity under constant surveillance and in chains, instead of using it to liberate Humanity
[We enslaved you while you wasted years sleeping off your overdosed fantasies.]
Why haven't we done a very good job getting this generation involved in the war policy? Is it impossible to break through the apathy? Or have we dominated a leadership that should properly be turned over to the next generation?
[The next generation has just one message for you; "Die Hippie, DIE!!!" And now on to the other angry Hippie rantings over the Age of Aquarius that never came to be...]
They are not being drafted, they have nothing to loose. Bringing back the draft will bring back the young protesters
[Hmmm... Maybe Charlie Rangel who introduced the draft bill that he voted against was really trying to bring back the Hippies.]
If they thought they would get drafted DC would explode with protesters.
[According to MTV scare campaign of 2004, we already should have had the draft.]
If there was a draft today, IMO, we would see the same thing we saw back then.
[So maybe we'll see the Hippies protesting FOR the draft this time.]
I agree - a lot of young kids - but they do not number in the thousands - and they walk too fast!
[They number in the dozens and that's about it.]
IF (BIG IF) there is a draft...then NO deferments, IMO. Yeah, those with physical and/or mental disabilities which would prevent them from serving, that would be the ONLY thing and they would basically be a 4-F and not a deferment. Line 'em up and issue a draft number. IMO, does not matter if a lottery or older ones first. Want to end this war??? Start a draft with basically NO deferments. The outrage would have EVERYONE out on the streets and that would include parents like GWB's who might have the strings to pull to get their kid into the champaign unit of an ANG unit. Like Rangel proposed ~~ put their feet to the fire and watch the sentiment turn to the point that Iraq would end post haste.
[The same Rangel who voted against his own draft bill proposal.]
Since a lot of us were in the protests in the 60s and 70s, I am trying to think back on the make up of the crowds. I do not recall the numbers of older protesters like we are seeing today. Primarily, IIRC, it was the 20-ish crowd and on the college and university campuses, the liberal older profs. I gotta laugh ~~ back then, a 35 year old prof was old to me and now 60 sounds YOUNG! Oh, my....where have all the years gone!?!?!?!
[The years passed by while you were sleeping off a massive 60s OD.]
I ran into folks from the 30's. Anarchists and communists and assorted others who were in their 60's, 70's and older who were glad to see us youngsters out in the streets again. The wheel has turned and now we are the old ones.
[The wheel has turned and now you are as irrelevant as the IWW Wobblies.]
Do you feel that the internet alone will cause enough movement of opinion that things will change?
[The internet has allowed Mommie's basement activists to believe they are making a difference while posting on the Web and mainlining pizza. DUAC! DUAC!]
I'm not hostile to hippies per se. It's just that "Hippie" in my mind is associated with "New Age woo woo."
[I know hippies. I've hated them all my life. I've kept this town free of hippies on my own since I was five and a half. But I can't contain them on my own anymore. We have to do something, fast!]
There has been a lot of propaganda against what some call "New Age" and some call spirituality. From my personal experience, those who are really into spirituality leave those who think it "woo woo" alone. The ones who make fun of it and say it exploits others were never really a part of the movement.
[These are what we call the giggling stoners, pretty common form of hippies, usually found in the attics. Problem is, if you see one hippie, there are probably a whole more you're not seeing.]
Dobie Gillis' best friend was a role model for me - whenever the word "work" was said, he would shudder.
[WORK!]
And "New Agers" go back even further than that with the Theosophical Society ca 1910, Inayat Khan (1884-1927) bringing Sufism to the West around the same time. Most of the Eastern mystical schools that became known in the West have their roots that go back hundreds of years. Even Spiritualism was popular in the latter half of the nineteenth century; I'm sure my great great great uncle Andrew would be quite at home with some of the things I do today.
[Did your great great great uncle Andrew get a 10 quart yogurt enema from Mr. Kellogg at the Battle Creek Sanitarium?]
I blame it on Ipods.
[Ipods are killing off the remaining Hippies.]
We blew it in the '60s. We failed to dismantle the aggressive war machine.
[You blew it when you dropped your first acid.]
American young people have to negotiate a very different political world than the one we knew as young people. It is a world of hypocrisy and denial. It is a world constantly infused with a false rightwing narrative, created and promulgated by the 5 billionaire CEOs who control all "news" and opinion. It is a world in which democracy hardly exists any more, if you consider the Bushite-controlled voting machines, and other dismal facts--like, it takes a million dollars to even think of running for Congress (if you're going to play the game by their rules--pass money from sincere, hopeful, citizen donors, right into the pockets of the war profiteering corporate news monopoly moguls, for TV campaign ads). It is BushWorld.
[Right now we're proving we don't need corporations. We don't need money. This can become a commune where everyone just helps each other.]
I have been closely studying the awesome, leftist (majorityist), democratic revolution that is occurring all over South America. We need to look beneath, and outside of, this dead corporate culture that is oppressing us, for new inspiration. And it there, let me tell you. In the '60s, the thing that saved this country's soul was the youth culture. Privileged white kids from the north traveling to Alabama and Mississippi, to support the black civil rights movement. Really remarkable things like that happened, because something was happening with young people--this awakening that I tried to describe. Well, that awakening is now happening in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Nicaragua--all of which have elected leftist governments in the last few years--and also there are great leftist movements occurring in southern Mexico and Mexico City, in Peru and in Paraguay (and even in Guatemala). And much of this inspiration is coming from the indigenous--the most oppressed people in the western hemisphere--finally coming into their own, as a political force. It is a beautiful thing to see.
[Yeah, we'll have one guy who like, who like, makes bread. A-and one guy who like, l-looks out for other people's safety.]
If we could all afford shrinks; real shrinks, ones like Sigmund Freud, and study the techniques of the great actors like Brando -- the world would be at peace.
[May I laminate that profound thought and place it in my wallet for all eternity?]
Its like they are angry because there is NO draft. You know the whole "well, I had to deal with the draft, so you should have to deal with the draft". A warped version of "if it was good enough for me" or of the "slacker, I had to walk 10 miles to school uphill both ways". As I'm a boomer and my children are of the so-called "missing generation", I am resentful of this whole attitude. My son has volunteered and is serving his country - they want to put him down for stepping up and standing to preserve their freedoms. Geesh!
What I've seen is mostly hispanic between the ages of 20-35 usually pulling on a Budweiser and spitting at people.
And if this author would like to really know what happened to us old hippies, we sobered up, signed up, grew up and went to work for the Nixon and Reagan campaigns.....
"Well, that awakening is now happening in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Nicaragua--all of which have elected leftist governments in the last few years--and also there are great leftist movements occurring in southern Mexico and Mexico City, in Peru and in Paraguay (and even in Guatemala)."
Yep, I would sure want to make a home in those third world paradises.....
These poeple are insane.
the "60s" were 100% about the draft. At least these idiots recognize that, even if they don't see the irony. When the draft ended, they traded tie-dye for polyester and hit the discos almost immediately.
You are correct - David Horowitz documents this in his book "Radical Son".
Heck, I do that myself sometimes and I've never done any drugs harder than caffeine and alcohol -- and not much of the latter.
OTOH, I freely admit I'm more than a bit eccentric.
They completely miss the irony that they're reacting to today's "kids" in the same way most of their parents reacted to them. "How dare they think and act different than we do."
This is possibly the stupidest thing I have ever read.
I have no idea what it means. An explanation would probably be worse.
What really killed the 60's generation was that some of them became the Establishment they supposedly hated and the rest became the bums they wanted to be. The latter post to DU.
Sounds like she's mentally ill.
That's because you protesters are narcissits living out your faded glory years. All that free love and dope just left you lonely and brain scrambled.
Death metal. Hippies hate death metal.
Frank,
You made my day with that comment.
Thanks.
And why is it the Germans have all the cool words?
Yep, that's their problem, laziness! Spent my life telling my son to clean his room. I might as well have been pulling teeth (although he did find rather creative places to shove the mess so it wouldn't be seen when I opened his door). Now, instead of living at home, playing video games, partying and protesting on the occasional weekend he joined the Marines. Just look at the opportunity he squandered...all so he could get out of doing his duty and protest the fascist oppressors keeping him down!
Cindie
Uh, ok let me get this straight. The "brilliant" liberals like Rangel want to start the draft and end any deferments so that people will go out and protest. But what they will be protesting is the draft that the "brilliant" liberals put into place. If the protesters get what they want there won't be any draft anymore (like it was before the "brilliant" liberals had their way). And people are suppose to vote for liberals so this circus can get underway?
Ya THINK!
Mentally ill people didn't necessarily partake in recreational drugs. Usually you can't make them take them at all so they wander around wearing...well, floppy hats and talking to themselves.
In other words, she may not be a hippie so much as an individual who is ill or sick and on the street as the result of the wonderful efforts (/sarc) of JFK who felt these people needed to be mainstreamed and now we get to see them up close and personal as they flip out and/or die on the streets rather than institutionalizing them so they could live with some dignity.
$20!....boy...you are old!
(I must be older....I paid $18)
"Dobie Gillis' best friend was a role model for me - whenever the word "work" was said, he would shudder." Nice to see one of them finally admit it.
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