What were the hippies right about (My new t-shirt The Hippies Were Right)

[graywarrior]

I don't remember those days as I was stoned most of the time, but nearly everyone I met today asked me the same question. "So, what were the hippies right about?"

How about giving me some good political responses as I am brain dead lately and can't string more than 4 words together on my own.

[skooooo]

1. ..

:popcorn:

[graywarrior]

7. Xactly

*snort* (and not coke)

[LaPera]

115. Here's what the "hippies" were right about - And said PERFECTLY!!

By the excellent Mark Morford....

The Hippies Were Right!
Green homes? Organic food? Nature is good? Time to give the ol' tie-dyers some respect

Go ahead, name your movement. Name something good and positive and pro-environment and eco-friendly that's happening right now in the newly "greening" America and don't say more guns in Texas or fewer reproductive choices for women or endless vile unwinnable BushCo wars in the Middle East lasting until roughly 2075 because that would defeat the whole point of this perky little column and destroy its naive tone of happy rose-colored sardonic optimism. OK?

I'm talking about, say, energy-efficient light bulbs. I'm looking at organic foods going mainstream. I mean chemical-free cleaning products widely available at Target and I'm talking saving the whales and protecting the dolphins and I mean yoga studios flourishing in every small town, giant boxes of organic cereal at Costco and non-phthalates dildos at Good Vibes and the Toyota Prius becoming the nation's oddest status symbol. You know, good things.

Look around: we have entire industries devoted to recycled paper, a new generation of cheap solar-power technology and an Oscar for "An Inconvenient Truth" and even the soulless corporate monsters over at famously heartless joints like Wal-Mart are now claiming that they really, really care about saving the environment because, well, "it's the right thing to do" (read: It's purely economic and all about their bottom line because if they don't start caring they'll soon be totally screwed on manufacturing and shipping costs at/from all their brutal Chinese sweatshops).

There is but one conclusion you can draw from the astonishing (albeit fitful, bittersweet) pro-environment sea change now happening in the culture and (reluctantly, nervously) in the halls of power in D.C., one thing we must all acknowledge in our wary, jaded, globally warmed universe: The hippies had it right all along. Oh yes they did.

You know it's true. All this hot enthusiasm for healing the planet and eating whole foods and avoiding chemicals and working with nature and developing the self? Came from the hippies. Alternative health? Hippies. Green cotton? Hippies. Reclaimed wood? Recycling? Humane treatment of animals? Medical pot? Alternative energy? Natural childbirth? Non-GMO seeds? It came from the granola types (who, of course, absorbed much of it from ancient cultures), from the alternative worldviews, from the underground and the sidelines and from far off the goddamn grid and it's about time the media, the politicians, the culture as a whole sent out a big, wet, hemp-covered apology.

Here's a suggestion, from one of my more astute ex-hippie readers: Instead of issuing carbon credits so industrial polluters can clear their collective corporate conscience, maybe, to help offset all the savage damage they've done to the soul of the planet all these years, these commercial cretins should instead buy some karma credits from the former hippies themselves. You know, from those who've been working for the health of the planet, quite thanklessly, for the past 50 years and who have, as a result, built up quite a storehouse of good karma. You think?

Of course, you can easily argue that much of the "authentic" hippie ethos -- the anti-corporate ideology, the sexual liberation, the anarchy, the push for civil rights, the experimentation -- has been totally leeched out of all these new movements, that corporations have forcibly co-opted and diluted every single technology and humble pro-environment idea and Ben & Jerry's ice cream cone and Odwalla smoothie to make them both palatable and profitable. But does this somehow make the organic oils in that body lotion any more harmful? Verily, it does not.

You might also just as easily claim that much of the nation's reluctant turn toward environmental health has little to do with the hippies per se, that it's taking the threat of global meltdown combined with the notion of really, really expensive ski tickets to slap the nation's incredibly obese ass into gear and force consumers to begin to wake up to the savage gluttony and wastefulness of American culture as everyone starts wondering, oh my God, what's going to happen to swimming pools and NASCAR and free shipping from Amazon? Of course, without the '60s groundwork, without all the radical ideas and seeds of change planted nearly five decades ago, what we'd be turning to in our time of need would be a great deal more hopeless indeed.

But if you're really bitter and shortsighted, you could say the entire hippie movement overall was just incredibly overrated, gets far too much cultural credit for far too little actual impact, was pretty much a giant excuse to slack off and enjoy dirty lazy responsibility-free sex romps and do a ton of drugs and avoid Vietnam and not bathe for a month and name your child Sunflower or Shiva Moon or Chakra Lennon Sapphire Bumblebee. This is what's called the reactionary simpleton's view. It blithely ignores history, perspective, the evolution of culture as a whole. You know, just like America.

But, you know, whatever. The proofs are easy enough to trace. The core values and environmental groundwork laid by the '60s counterculture are still so intact and potent even the stiffest neocon Republican has to acknowledge their extant power. It's all right there: Treehugger.com is the new '60s underground hippy zine. Ecstasy is the new LSD. Visible tattoos are the new longhairs. And bands as diverse as Pearl Jam to Bright Eyes to NIN to the Dixie Chicks are writing savage anti-Bush, anti-war songs for a new, ultra-jaded generation.

And oh yes, speaking of good ol' MDMA (Ecstasy), even drug culture is getting some new respect. Staid old Time mag just ran a rather snide little story about the new studies being conducted by Harvard and the National Institute of Mental Health into the astonishing psychospiritual benefits of goodly entheogens such as LSD, psilocybin and MDMA. Unfortunately, the piece basically backhands Timothy Leary and the entire "excessive," "naive" drug culture of yore in favor of much more "sane" and "careful" scientific analysis happening now, as if the only valid methods for attaining knowledge and an understanding of spirit were through control groups and clinical, mysticism-free examination. Please.

Still, the fact that serious scientific research into entheogens is being conducted even in the face of the most anti-science, pro-pharmaceutical, ultra-conservative presidential regime in recent history is proof enough that all the hoary old hippie mantras about expanding the mind and touching God through drugs were onto something after all (yes, duh). Tim Leary is probably smiling wildly right now -- though that might be due to all the mushrooms he's been sharing with Kerouac and Einstein and Mary Magdalene. Mmm, heaven.

Of course, true hippie values mean you're not really supposed to care about or attach to any of this, you don't give a damn for the hollow ego stroke of being right all along, for slapping the culture upside the head and saying, See? Do you see? It was never about the long hair and the folk music and Woodstock and taking so much acid you see Jesus and Shiva and Buddha tongue kissing in a hammock on the Dog Star, nimrods.

It was, always and forever, about connectedness. It was about how we are all in this together. It was about resisting the status quo and fighting tyrannical corporate/political power and it was about opening your consciousness and seeing new possibilities of how we can all live with something resembling actual respect for the planet, for alternative cultures, for each other. You know, all that typical hippie crap no one believes in anymore. Right?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/05/02/notes050207.DTL&hw=hippies+right&sn=004&sc=801

[madokie]

118. Remembering what we used to do for peace

I think in a lot of ways we got the love part right. Us real hippies found love in all walks of our lives whereas the ones who only done the drugs so as to horn in on some of our love got it all wrong and its them that shines a less than ideal light on us now.

[Liberal Veteran]

2. War is NOT the answer.

Give peace a chance.

The Vietnam War was wrong.

Taking care of our planet is a good thing.

[Maat]

6. All those!

Give peace a chance.

Let people make choices about their own bodies.

The Vietnam war was wrong; virtually all wars are the wrong choice.

We need to be responsible and take good care of Mother Earth and Father Sky.

You're right, Liberal Veteran!

[Maat]

3. They were right about 'war.'

We need to stop the violence and wars, and live in peace!

That's what I was right about anyway!

;-)

[Faygo Kid]

4. War, peace. love, and the best music ever.

The granny glasses and bell bottoms were a bit much, but the tie-died look was cool.

Far out.

[Liberal Veteran]

13. Bell bottoms are great...unless they are on a Brady.

[graywarrior]

44. Ha ha...or any early 70's detective on tv

[AndyTiedye]

53. I Have a Batch of Fresh TieDyes Setting Out on the Patio

Just did them up yesterday.

[Radical Activist]

5. peace, civil rights, rejecting materialism, sex, pot

were all good things. What happened?

[Maat]

9. Indeed .... n/t!

[tridim]

15. Hard drugs happened.

Not entirely their fault, but I believe that's what killed the movement.

[gateley]

32. So many of us went from

"expanding our consciousness" to just getting fucked up. Gotta personally agree with you on that.

[conscious evolution]

57. It is a pattern I have noticed

Everytime the mind expanders start making a comeback it is followed by some sort of drooldonkey drug that wrecks lives instead.

[tridim]

74. It was certainly a "mission accomplished" moment for Nixon.

It started when they cracked down on LSD, which I believe can be a beneficial drug if used in moderation.

Amphetamines screwed the hippies, just as meth is screwing responsible cannabis users today.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

21. I don't think society in general was ready for it

Though there are still pockets of hippies living their ideals.

Interestingly enough, I never considered myself a hippie, though I shared the first three ideals you listed.

[jobycom]

23. Well....

The sex led to babies, the pot interfered with the jobs needed to raise the material goods for the babies, and peace went out the window when they told you all those other people were trying to steal your money.

Think about it, every war we fight is that excuse--communists want to take away your possessions, the terrorists want you to pay too much for oil... That's always how they get people behind a war. WW II was different for us, but for the other side it was about money.

So, stop having sex, and all is fine. :(

[Warpy]

52. Nixon and a bunch of bitter old suburbanites happened

They really didn't like the way the kids were turning out and were deeply offended at the rejection of the crass materialism, social regimentation, and various segregation policies that had seemingly served them well.

We were right about a lot of things. We were antiwar and in favor of living sustainably. We favored self determination and respecting the rights of our neighbors to be different. Violence of any type was a buzzkill, so we avoided it. We did enjoy getting a buzz on and there's nothing wrong with sending your brain on a short chemical vacation.

Our fashion sense sucked, that's all.

[skooooo]

55. Flag burning didn't help either...

In the end the "movement" alienated a lot of people, which is a shame.

It would have been a scary time to be a parent, imo.

[Warpy]

63. Funny, I was a political hippie and in the thick of it

and I never saw a flag get burned. I did, however, see draft cards get burned. I suppose the confusion is natural, that flag burning was large scale. It wasn't. It was isolated and rare and quite possibly false flag operations. We might have been young but we knew we didn't need that kind of stuff on the evening news.

[Fumesucker]

80. Fashion is for suckers...

I've been wearing the same style of clothing since 1968 or so.. I couldn't tell you how much money it has saved me but it must easily be well up into the multiple tens of thousands by now.

But then I'm a biker/hippie and give not a fig for what anyone else thinks, anyone who judges you by what you wear isn't worth knowing anyhow.

[tridim]

89. That's very true.

I dress for comfort, which usually means jeans or shorts and a T-shirt. That's basically my entire wardrobe. I would have made a great hippy, except that I enjoy a shower every few days. :)

[skooooo]

97. me too..

Jeans, tshirt. Nothing else is as comfortable.

[TroglodyteScholar]

8. Haha, I'm wearing that same shirt right now...

My brother asked me what the hippies were right about, and I said, "Smoking a lot of dope and having sex all the time."

[graywarrior]

11. Ha! the conservative rednecks in NH would drool over that

[Radical Activist]

54. rednecks in NH?

I'd have to see it to believe it.

[graywarrior]

72. Northern NH, on the Maine border

:scared:

[bread_and_roses]

10. pollution. environmentalism. organic gardening. (n/t)

[L0oniX]

12. Corporations are evil. Plastic people suck. Down with the establishment.

[Crabby Appleton]

14. Not to take the brown acid.

[laststeamtrain]

16. I'm trying to think of something profound. I'm coming up short.

Maybe: We're all in this together.

That's the best I can do at the moment.

[jobycom]

17. The Man is a liar. It's all designed to make you a slave.

Possessions own you. You can't be free when you're doing what you're told. No one owns anything except the body they walk around in, everything else is use. There's nothing you can do that can't be done. All you really need you can make for yourself--the rest is want.

Of course, I was five when the 60s ended, so all of that was especially relevant to me. :)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

18. Cooperation and communities

Even during the early part of the hippie movement, it was all about community and working together. It was about seeing things from a world perspective rather than just a local or national one--to realize how interconnected we are. Samuel L. Lewis, Sufi master of San Francisco, was inspired to start the Dances of Universal Peace in order to express the ideals of the times. http://www.dancesofuniversalpeace.org

Around here, the hippies have farms where they live together, using solar/wind/alternative energy. They are the organic farmers. They are the environmentalists. They are the ones who continue to teach tolerance and talking rather than confrontation and war.

[World Citizen]

38. greetings

wa, A.S.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

41. Salaams to you as well n/t

[laststeamtrain]

70. Sufi Sam! I remember him.

I appreciate your thoughtful posts on this thread.

:hi:

[World Citizen]

19. they were right about...

that there exists a "THEM"

an enemy of humanity that comes in the guise of a human being. A potential human that can't get past the level of selfish animal.

[graywarrior]

20. Oh oh, I just found something that would stun them!

If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

26. Actually, I don't think it would

The intellectual ones would start a conversation on Buddhist koens.

The practical ones would go out to tend to their plants.

The mystics would go into meditation to

gate gate para gate para sam gate Bhodi Svaha.

[Webster Green]

22. We were right (on) about everything!

We were (are) against the bullshit wars, opposed to corporate greed, and very concerned for the environment.

As another poster noted, the music was incredible. They play our hippie music on their fucking Hummer commercials today!

Man, it was fun being 20 years old in 1967! :hippie:

[graywarrior]

24. I remember some of it.

And you're right, the music is still unmatched even today. I just read a nice two word description: Dharma Bums. I dig that.

[skooooo]

25. Dharma Bums is a book by Jack Keruoac.

[graywarrior]

30. It's so sad that we can't ever do what Jack did

Hop in a car with a few bucks and drive back and forth across the country.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

120. Thank God we have been doing it all these years- the idea that it may be over

is most horrifying to me. I am a road-trippin nomad. I don't know how I would survive (or if I would care to) if I couldn't keep doing it...

[skooooo]

27. Hippies derived a lot of their ideas from the Beats.

Beats don't get enough credit around here, imo.

[graywarrior]

28. True. But beats were exclusive. Hippies loved everyone.

Beats wouldn't talk to you if you were squaresville.

[skooooo]

29. People are people.

I don't know where you get your information from, but it sounds like a gross generalization if not something completely fabricated.

[graywarrior]

31. I make shit up.

When you lose a decade in a swirl of drugs, you tend to do that.

[skooooo]

35. lol...

Ok.

:thumbsup:

[JanMichael]

33. Communal living, nutritious food, yoga, meditation

music, acceptance of personal expression through clothing, etc.

What weren't they right about?

[graywarrior]

34. THAT is the line of the day! ! ! ! ! !

What weren't they right about? Awesome!

[skooooo]

37. What weren't they right about?

Free love.

[JanMichael]

56. Define "free love."

If you mean open relationships--- I have always been opposed to that. Personally. However, if the neighbors are into it, I could care less.

So what else were they wrong about?

[skooooo]

61. Free love...

I think "free love" espoused back then by some people was an effort to avert some of the natural (and healthy) defenses we all put up when making decisions about who to have sex with. You can see examples of this in ads. from the old Berkeley Barb (as an extreme example). Maybe it worked for some a time after birth control was available, but it's not something that's very realistic.


Tune in, Turn on, Drop out.

Despite the idea that's promoted on DU that every hippy was an activist. This just isn't so. It's hard to organize anything of substance if everyone's stoned.

---

Hey the young people back then did the best they could, and were able to explore more freely than previous generations. There are a number of ideas that blossomed back then that need to be brought back, but I don't think over-idealizing the past helps anyone...that's all.

[gateley]

36. Make Love, Not War. nt

[EFerrari]

39. Everything except the bad hair thing.

Peace and love are great but so is nice hair.

[graywarrior]

42. The hair thing still has a hold on me

I question whether Frank was a hippie. He was sooooooooooo anti-drug.

[Canuckistanian]

59. Frank made fun of Hippies all the time

He thought it was a ridiculous movement.

About the only thing he agreed with them about was rejection of authority.

[graywarrior]

73. He scared the shit out of me

I met him once when the MofI played at the Psychedelic Supermarket that was on the first floor of my art school. He had eyes that zeroed in on the bullshit.

[EFerrari]

86. That was the whole theoretical underpinning, though.

Except these pins. lol

[skooooo]

96. I had one of those in my room...

...as as teenager, and never used it to smoke with, or even think of it in that way. Parents didn't believe me.

:eyes:

[EFerrari]

99. My mom thought a bag of peppermint tea I left on the counter was pot.

She vastly overestimated me. :)

[skooooo]

101. My brother went to great lengths ..

...to hide his marijuana, usually to no avail. He called one of our parents a "dope dog." LOL

[orleans]

69. HEY!

:rofl:

[EFerrari]

82. You want to see disturbing?!

:rofl:

[TroglodyteScholar]

94. That conservative-looking Frank...

...was the same Frank who was daily ripping a new asshole for all the fake Christians and other fearmongers/power hoarders in govt.

If he'd lived, I'd be writing his name in for President this year. Actually, I might do that anyway.

[orleans]

100. god, i loved that man. n/t

[Taverner]

40. War is not healthy for children and other living things

[murray hill farm]

43. They were the ultimate grass roots activists.

They brought real power to the people and literally changed our society....in ways that never would have occurred without them. They showed us that if enough people stand together for..and stand up for societal change together, that it can and will happen. I grew up before the 60s and grew old since then..ha! I can tell you that it was a different usa before the 60s...not one that most of you would want to live in..especially if you are a woman or any minority..any minority. They hippy generation took the action to change our country...and maybe the world for the better. I was not a real part of that generation. But...they are my hero's.

[skooooo]

45. literally changed our society

How did they change our society?


As noble as their intents, I don't think much has changed as a result of the hippies.

[murray hill farm]

65. Guess ya had to live through it.

The all out demand to end the war most definitely had it's effect in that their presence was so huge it could not be ignored or denied. The civil rights changes that evolved from the 60s changed the face of this country. If you get a chance, go to the library and try to locate an old copy of an encyclopedia written in the 40s or 50s...or an old "home ec." book from that era. It was a different world. I know it is hard to even imagine if you are young and have grown up completely in a world that never experienced...or even remembers what it was like to live as a minority or as a woman in that pre 60s time. If you get a chance, check out those old books to get some feel for what it was like. You will probably be amazed.

[skooooo]

67. Well...

The civil rights movement was not a product of the hippies, or even just the 60s.

I know there were many changes, but those changes were brought about by many different kinds of people.

[EFerrari]

76. Maybe the Civil Rights Movement could be dated from

the St. Louis race riot of 1917. That's true.

But what the hippies did was put rebellion, multiplicity and alternative life styling into mainstream media and culture. A lot of them were from middle class white families and that meant a majority of the culture (and its consumers) were involved in some way.

[skooooo]

81. That's true, I'll give them that..

...they pushed some codes of society as far as fashion, acceptance of more than just the status quo - which is pretty important.

Other than that, I dont' see much of anything that the hippies espoused that continued on any profound level. Especially in America - if you go to Europe, I think the some of the ideas they made popular had a bit more lasting power. I say "made popular" because the hippies borrowed heavily from the beats and people that went before them.

[EFerrari]

87. Hippies were more a social movement where the Beats were

an intellectual one. You're right about that.

[SpiralHawk]

93. Organic farming

Rather that the republicon corporate petro-chemical industrial rape of the earth & genetically mutant plants and animals. Gack.

[skooooo]

95. That's probaby true..

..and it's been making a real comeback lately, hasn't it?

[SpiralHawk]

108. Yes, because petro-chemical corporate-industrial farming is perhaps the world's

biggest polluter, fouling aquifers, streams and rivers -- and thereby creating vast Dead Zones in the oceans.

And besides, petro-anything costs have gone through the roof.

[livetohike]

46. Saving the planet, getting back to the earth, organic farming, etc

:hippie:

[arcadian]

47. The hippies co-opted the peace movement

popularized it, commercialized it and thus drove it into the ground.

[Greyhound]

48. Cooperative is better than competitive (even the corporations figured that much out).

Helping each other is better than stepping on each other.

And most importantly (IMO), you can utterly defeat the system by simply not taking part in it.

:thumbsup::hippie::hippie::hippie::hippie::hippie::hippie::hippie::hippie::hippie::hippie::hippie::hippie::thumbsup:

[DailyGrind51]

49. "Hippie" is kind of a catch-all term used to label any member

of the '60s counter-culture. The true hippies, however, dropped out of main society, contributing little in terms of protesting the war or supporting social justice and civil rights causes. The activists of the time, SDS, Student Mobilization Committee, YSA, Black Panthers, etc. were not hippies, although many dressed like them.

[skooooo]

51. That's what I'm saying....

There are no bonafide group of "hippies" that you can paint with a broad brush.


Tune in, Turn on, and Drop Out? That was really helpful, not.

[World Citizen]

68. "hippie" is a convenience label...

conjured up by "them". Everyone brings their own interpretation based on their own experience. Were you there?

Even if you accept that media created catch phrase you quoted as significant in defining a whole movement. Here is a personal interpretation of what it intended to characterize.


Tune in--- Become aware of your surroundings. Don't accept what is being told. (i.e. Was JFK really killed by some random guy unrelated to a political power struggle?)

Turn on--- Expand your consciousness. There is more inside you than is readibly available. Question the nature of your existence.

Drop out---Demonstrate to the status quo that you reject their values.



Sounds alot like what people in this place spend their time talking about.

[skooooo]

71. If hippie is a convenience label..

...then maybe we should call it something else?? Because what happens on here is that someone posts some nostalgic praise for the hippies, and then when it's pointed out that not everything about the 60s worked or was positive, then they say --- oh, that's the *media* that has made that notion of the hippies.

It seems that word means different things to different people.

[Lex]

77. Did someone say "everything about the 60s worked"?

:shrug:

[skooooo]

83. Just adding some perspective...

...because accuracy is valuable. Is that ok? And yes, without a realistic discussion one would leave with the impression that everything utopic sprouted from the hippies and made some big lasting impact forever and ever and it didn't.

[DailyGrind51]

98. The phrases "Tune in" and "Turn on" were coined by Dr. Timothy Leary,

to describe the LSD experience, nothing more.

[World Citizen]

106. really?

are you familiar with the LSD experience?

[DailyGrind51]

122. Follow this link!

It explains it all.

http://books.google.com/books?id=kO7i5wXIZkwC&dq=timothy+leary+turn+on+tune+in+drop+out&pg=PP1&ots=zpvB9yBEig&sig=bYU14_umI9lksfCrkkqU1E6Eluk&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

[World Citizen]

127. No google link by itself can substitute for experience.

I was there. And it turns out my forty something year old memory stands up.

The phrase was part of a speech that Leary delivered in 1966. He did not intend to coin a catch phrase. The conservative media latched on to it for purposes of derision. To the point where Leary decided to explain it as more than some trivialized and ill informed statement like you made when you said:

""The phrases "Tune in" and "Turn on" were coined by Dr. Timothy Leary,to describe the LSD experience, nothing more.""

He explained it as follows: "'Turn on' meant activating your neural and genetic equipment. 'Tune in' meant interacting harmoniously with the world around you. 'Drop out' meant a voluntary detachment from involuntary commitments like school, the military, and corporate employment."

When the anti-drug/anti-counterculture elements continued to pump it and eventually turn the phrase into a meme, the counterculture elements were inclined to use it to mock the RW scare tactics for its superficiality. (I was among them.)

http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/turn-on,-tune-in,-drop-out/

[EFerrari]

79. It's more helpful to the peace movement than going to Viet Nam.

Hello?

[EFerrari]

78. There were plenty of experiments in communal living

that involved elements of social justice going on in the Haight, iirc. And the way they lived was their protest.

[skooooo]

84. A lot of them got their ideas from Tolstoy.

He was into communes.

[AndyTiedye]

50. Peace, Love, Music, the Kind, Practically Everything

Peace and Love are the only antidote to all the fear and hate that surrounds us.
That was true then, and it is true today.

Music brought us together.

[On the Road]

58. The Counterculture Was All Over the Place

The thing that held it together was opposition to conventional middle-class lifestyle and politics. And what ultimately broke it apart was its partial absorption into the mainstream. Not that that was a bad thing.

Whenever a movement is defined negatively, it can be a little hard to get a grasp on. Politically, the common thread was pacifism. Socially, the most common threads were being present oriented, seeking pleasure, avoiding societal power, developing meaningful personal relationships, and taking personal control over the material details of life (natural food, crafts, conservation, etc). Spiritually, the theme was pretty much anything other than the mainstream Christian church.

But ultimately it's a Rorschach blotch. Everyone has a different understanding.

[baldguy]

60. Not a new idea.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/02/915/

[Speck Tater]

62. Turn on. Tune in. Drop out. NT

[madmom]

64. Everything..?

[kevinmc]

66. Never Trust Anyone over 30 ..... n/t

[Lex]

75. Off the top of my head: Peace, Organic Foods, Meditation, Solar Power, Yoga, Going Green,

Growing your own food, Community over Corporatism, Anti-Materialism, Civil Rights.

[Lex]

85. An article (link)

entitled "The Hippies Were Right"

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2007/05/02/notes050207.DTL&nl=fix

[kentuck]

88. War is not healthy for women and small children.

The hippies were right about many things. Most of them revolve around the idea that we must live in peace and that we should not be willing to die for corporations.

[orleans]

90. i think the basic formula was peace and love n/t

[Imagevision]

91. If the "hippies" didn't raise hell and protest Viet Nam would probably still be in play....

Once the hardhats got passed being stuck on stoopid the media started paying closer attention to the message they were trying to get out.

[skooooo]

92. We didn't get out until 1974 or later.

I think the timing is off to credit the hippies for that.

[DailyGrind51]

102. The "hippies" were not activists, they were drop-outs!

The hippies preferred not to engage on the war or anything else, but divorced themselves from established society, going off to the wilderness or cheap apartment buildings to live in cooperative living arrangements (communes) with others and/or just tuning out with LSD and other hallucinogens. Having long hair and a beard did not make one a "hippie"!

[skooooo]

103. We need to find a better way of talking about the 60s.

That's for sure. There are generalizations, many of which are inaccurate. It's a VERY important time to understand and deserves to be understood in its complexity.

[DailyGrind51]

123. If it hadn't been for the Vietnam War, the '60s might have been

a different decade. The War proved to be the catalyst for change in nearly every area, and it was largely precipitated by young people in college protesting the military draft. But, it wasn't only about the draft, we didn't want the same things our parents wanted because what they wanted didn't seem to make them happy. They spent their whole lives building walls of security, only to find those walls crumbling over time. We decided not to have walls! What a concept!

[graywarrior]

113. No, Hell's Angels had long hair and beards, too.

[DailyGrind51]

125. Try calling one of those guys a "hippie"!

And you'd get a tire iron in your skull!

[conscious evolution]

117. We didn't drop out

of society,we started building a new one.
So far,it looks like we are succeeding.
Of course,it may not appear so to those who have not tuned in,but to those who have,it is easy to see the changes in society that have come about since the movement started in the sixties.

[Octafish]

104. Peace. Love. Understanding.

[omega minimo]

105. What was the question?

:boring:

[Chovexani]

107. They were right about The Man.

DON'T TRUST HIM.

[Arugula Latte]

109. Not only that -- Stick it to him!

:hippie:

[Chovexani]

110. Right on

:D

[Blue_Tires]

121. and run off with his daughter!

[librechik]

111. "Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope

or hope

[retread]

112. Hippies??? What the hell are hippies?? n/t

[graywarrior]

114. Anyhow, I'm wearing my new t-shirt when I get my license picture taken tomorrow

See what the Registry of Motor vehicles does with that.

[LaPera]

116. Once again, If this doesn't help you....well....

By the excellent Mark Morford....

The Hippies Were Right!
Green homes? Organic food? Nature is good? Time to give the ol' tie-dyers some respect

Go ahead, name your movement. Name something good and positive and pro-environment and eco-friendly that's happening right now in the newly "greening" America and don't say more guns in Texas or fewer reproductive choices for women or endless vile unwinnable BushCo wars in the Middle East lasting until roughly 2075 because that would defeat the whole point of this perky little column and destroy its naive tone of happy rose-colored sardonic optimism. OK?

I'm talking about, say, energy-efficient light bulbs. I'm looking at organic foods going mainstream. I mean chemical-free cleaning products widely available at Target and I'm talking saving the whales and protecting the dolphins and I mean yoga studios flourishing in every small town, giant boxes of organic cereal at Costco and non-phthalates dildos at Good Vibes and the Toyota Prius becoming the nation's oddest status symbol. You know, good things.

Look around: we have entire industries devoted to recycled paper, a new generation of cheap solar-power technology and an Oscar for "An Inconvenient Truth" and even the soulless corporate monsters over at famously heartless joints like Wal-Mart are now claiming that they really, really care about saving the environment because, well, "it's the right thing to do" (read: It's purely economic and all about their bottom line because if they don't start caring they'll soon be totally screwed on manufacturing and shipping costs at/from all their brutal Chinese sweatshops).

There is but one conclusion you can draw from the astonishing (albeit fitful, bittersweet) pro-environment sea change now happening in the culture and (reluctantly, nervously) in the halls of power in D.C., one thing we must all acknowledge in our wary, jaded, globally warmed universe: The hippies had it right all along. Oh yes they did.

You know it's true. All this hot enthusiasm for healing the planet and eating whole foods and avoiding chemicals and working with nature and developing the self? Came from the hippies. Alternative health? Hippies. Green cotton? Hippies. Reclaimed wood? Recycling? Humane treatment of animals? Medical pot? Alternative energy? Natural childbirth? Non-GMO seeds? It came from the granola types (who, of course, absorbed much of it from ancient cultures), from the alternative worldviews, from the underground and the sidelines and from far off the goddamn grid and it's about time the media, the politicians, the culture as a whole sent out a big, wet, hemp-covered apology.

Here's a suggestion, from one of my more astute ex-hippie readers: Instead of issuing carbon credits so industrial polluters can clear their collective corporate conscience, maybe, to help offset all the savage damage they've done to the soul of the planet all these years, these commercial cretins should instead buy some karma credits from the former hippies themselves. You know, from those who've been working for the health of the planet, quite thanklessly, for the past 50 years and who have, as a result, built up quite a storehouse of good karma. You think?

Of course, you can easily argue that much of the "authentic" hippie ethos -- the anti-corporate ideology, the sexual liberation, the anarchy, the push for civil rights, the experimentation -- has been totally leeched out of all these new movements, that corporations have forcibly co-opted and diluted every single technology and humble pro-environment idea and Ben & Jerry's ice cream cone and Odwalla smoothie to make them both palatable and profitable. But does this somehow make the organic oils in that body lotion any more harmful? Verily, it does not.

You might also just as easily claim that much of the nation's reluctant turn toward environmental health has little to do with the hippies per se, that it's taking the threat of global meltdown combined with the notion of really, really expensive ski tickets to slap the nation's incredibly obese ass into gear and force consumers to begin to wake up to the savage gluttony and wastefulness of American culture as everyone starts wondering, oh my God, what's going to happen to swimming pools and NASCAR and free shipping from Amazon? Of course, without the '60s groundwork, without all the radical ideas and seeds of change planted nearly five decades ago, what we'd be turning to in our time of need would be a great deal more hopeless indeed.

But if you're really bitter and shortsighted, you could say the entire hippie movement overall was just incredibly overrated, gets far too much cultural credit for far too little actual impact, was pretty much a giant excuse to slack off and enjoy dirty lazy responsibility-free sex romps and do a ton of drugs and avoid Vietnam and not bathe for a month and name your child Sunflower or Shiva Moon or Chakra Lennon Sapphire Bumblebee. This is what's called the reactionary simpleton's view. It blithely ignores history, perspective, the evolution of culture as a whole. You know, just like America.

But, you know, whatever. The proofs are easy enough to trace. The core values and environmental groundwork laid by the '60s counterculture are still so intact and potent even the stiffest neocon Republican has to acknowledge their extant power. It's all right there: Treehugger.com is the new '60s underground hippy zine. Ecstasy is the new LSD. Visible tattoos are the new longhairs. And bands as diverse as Pearl Jam to Bright Eyes to NIN to the Dixie Chicks are writing savage anti-Bush, anti-war songs for a new, ultra-jaded generation.

And oh yes, speaking of good ol' MDMA (Ecstasy), even drug culture is getting some new respect. Staid old Time mag just ran a rather snide little story about the new studies being conducted by Harvard and the National Institute of Mental Health into the astonishing psychospiritual benefits of goodly entheogens such as LSD, psilocybin and MDMA. Unfortunately, the piece basically backhands Timothy Leary and the entire "excessive," "naive" drug culture of yore in favor of much more "sane" and "careful" scientific analysis happening now, as if the only valid methods for attaining knowledge and an understanding of spirit were through control groups and clinical, mysticism-free examination. Please.

Still, the fact that serious scientific research into entheogens is being conducted even in the face of the most anti-science, pro-pharmaceutical, ultra-conservative presidential regime in recent history is proof enough that all the hoary old hippie mantras about expanding the mind and touching God through drugs were onto something after all (yes, duh). Tim Leary is probably smiling wildly right now -- though that might be due to all the mushrooms he's been sharing with Kerouac and Einstein and Mary Magdalene. Mmm, heaven.

Of course, true hippie values mean you're not really supposed to care about or attach to any of this, you don't give a damn for the hollow ego stroke of being right all along, for slapping the culture upside the head and saying, See? Do you see? It was never about the long hair and the folk music and Woodstock and taking so much acid you see Jesus and Shiva and Buddha tongue kissing in a hammock on the Dog Star, nimrods.

It was, always and forever, about connectedness. It was about how we are all in this together. It was about resisting the status quo and fighting tyrannical corporate/political power and it was about opening your consciousness and seeing new possibilities of how we can all live with something resembling actual respect for the planet, for alternative cultures, for each other. You know, all that typical hippie crap no one believes in anymore. Right?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/0...

[graywarrior]

119. Well, that's the whole enchilada!

[RedShoes]

124. Four words: "peace, love, and understanding"

I'd add "baby" but whatevs.

[harun]

126. It isn't an idea hippies created but certainly one they agreed with

and that was in modern war (what we call war today) no one wins but bankers and arms manufacturers. Now you also have big oil as a BIG winner. There is going to be violence and struggle but modern war with its technological mayhem is inhumane in all forms and should be shunned by humans.