The fucking hippies were right!

[go west young man]

The left wing, free thinking, tree hugging, antiwar, peace, love, and understanding hippies were right about everything. And Jimmy Carter was the best president this country has ever seen.

They were right about drilling in our seas and now the Gulf of Mexico is filled with oil.

They were right about war and now we are a broken, divided country with debt flowing into a desert drain and soldiers dying for oil and imperialism.

They were right about the corporatization, monopolization, and The Federal Reserve. Now we have Goldman Sachs and the big banks performing daylight robbery whilst infiltrating the highest levels of our government. We have the greatest joke for media on the planet. And we have corporations that are so large if they fail they take down whole portions of our economy.

They were right about our foreign policy and going to other peoples lands for their resources. Hence we had September 11th, 2001. Terrorists didn't attack Norway. They attacked us because we steal the worlds resources under the guise of spreading democracy.

They were right about overfishing our seas and treating animal life well. Now we have depleted fish stocks around the globe and dwindling endangered species in bodies of water around the globe.

They were right about green house gases and the hole in the ozone layer and treating Mother Earth with respect. Now weather conditions around the world are skewed each year, ice caps are melting and Kilimanjaro and many other mountains are growing barren of snow.

They were right about gas guzzling cars and clean energy. Our cities are filled with pollution and the price of oil continues to rob our families. We had the chance to adopt clean energy back under Carter and the big corporations killed the best ideas.

They were right about having healthy pregnancies. We have one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world and also one of the highest C-section rates. Those doctors need to be able to make those tee times!

They were right about legalizing marijuana. 30 years later and the drug war rages on. Alcohol still kills many more people. Mexico is full of headless corpses. Americas jails (which are now corporate workhouses) are full of our young people. And Columbia our only friend in the drug war is the only South American country that deals with us. The rest have had a Bolivarian Revolution and gone completely left against us as we robbed them of their resources and performed coups in their countries for the last century and a half.

They were right about trusting our leaders. Those leaders lied us into war, stole our retirement savings, and gave away our taxes to their friends. Our current leaders are still entrenched with large corporate interests to the point of making their own leadership nearly ineffective.

They were right about saving the Whales. New research indicates dolphins and whales have an intelligence on par with human beings. Japan, Norway, and other countries continue to slaughter the whales while the U.S. does nothing of serious consequence to enforce the U.N.'s decision to ban commercial whaling.

They were right about religion in government. The alliance of the Christian Coalition and the right wing Republican Party brought us George W. Bush and the two wars he decided to implement. Creationism is being taught in many schools, Church's pay no tax and they actually receive our tax dollars for spreading their religion. Many states actually vote in their Church's. Religious schools are on the rise and public schools are being denied funding.

They were right about the CIA and our media. We now have a dumbed down population that doesn't stir while all these terrible things are implemented in our name. The hippies said don't trust em during Vietnam and they were ignored but thanks to the antiwar movement and people like John Lennon, Abbie Hoffman, and Allen Ginsberg the war was eventually stopped. Now the hippies continue to be correct but our military industrial complex continues to expand. Even under the current administration.

The were right about drilling for oil in Alaska and now that formerly unspoiled territory has pipeline's running through it and a sound that is amuck with oil.

They were right about free love. Now we have lecherous senators having sex with prostitutes (who are found hanged) and closet gay congressmen who tap their toes in public restrooms looking for a seedy blowjob. We have poor young women on our streets who become drug addicts and murder victims while the roots of the problem continues to be ignored. The roots being repressed sexuality, lack of education, and terrible upbringings due to our screwed up society.

They were right about feeding the world. World hunger is on the rise and men, women, and children all around the world are dying from disease and starvation. Food and life saving drugs are so corporatized that people are actually not receiving them when they need them. We are now manufacturing genetically engineered seed and injecting cows with Bovine Growth Hormone. Opening the door to mutations and new diseases.

They were right about nuclear power. We have had a reactor melt down on Three Mile Island. We have had Chernobyl. And we have had a nuclear arms race that has wasted trillions of dollars and poisoned our planet.

They were right about a rising police state. We now have cops that use gestapo tactics, who dress like stormtroopers, who use tasers regularly to control the population. We have designated off site protest areas, heat rays, agent provocateurs, and mass arrests of peaceful protesters and innocent bystanders.

They were right about unregulated capitalism. The cream doesn't rise to the top. The crap does. Bad guys get away with their crimes and even get promotions when they lie and steal. While the middle class goes broke. The rich grow richer and pay less tax.

They were right about deregulation. TV, radio, the music industry, big pharma, power companies, cable companies, telecoms. They all fix prices. They all promote inane crapola. They all collude. They all hurt the little guy. They all suck.

They were right about the death penalty. We now have a country that thinks war is the answer and has no problem with the killing of innocent people. We refer to them as collateral damage. The death penalty is social conditioning as our government puts citizens to death. The lesson taught to our children is that some killing is ok. As long as the government does it. This paradox is eating away at our humanity. The death penalty should be abolished and peace and love should be the answer.

Joseph Campbell had it right. The musicians, artists, writers, poets, inventors, and dreamers are the ones who will enlighten us and bring about a true golden age. They are the liberal left. They are the hippies. They are the progressive left. They are the best this country has and Jimmy Carter was the best president this country has ever seen.

Yes the fucking hippies were right and Jimmy Carter was the best president this country has ever seen. And Obama is no where close to a Carter. He's miles from him.

[saltpoint]

1. I give the 60s their fair due. The social politics model

that questions brainless consumerism and growth for growth's sake is a model that was not new to history but pretty new to the U.S., and the 60s revolt against that thinking was persuasive in a lot of ways.

Plus, the music was outstanding then, too:

"You could have been more / Than a name on the door / On the 33rd floor in the air..." (Joni Mitchell)

I'm not on board with Carter being an effective president. I'm on board with Carter being a hell of a decent guy. But that administration was wobbly from the start and got wobblier, plus he came around some years after "the 60s" and just at the crest of disco.

[go west young man]

4. So true about the music.

Mainstream music these days is digitalized brainless drivel. There are some great bands out there like the Jayhawks, a Band of Horses, and Super Furry Animals (to name a few), but nothing mainstream on par with the 60's or 70's. Such cool warm music was being created back then. Music with meaning and real depth and warmth. Hell even the 80's was pretty cool musically.

[pinboy3niner]

98. When they can even make MY voice presentable today, something's wrong.

I remember the days of the garage bands (that actually recorded IN garages), when the technology was limited and you had to be good to succeed. Nowadays, it seems the talent premium has shifted from the artists to the producton. Fortunately, we still have a lot of artists who resist the kind of over-production that seems to be prevalent toay.

[mrcheerful]

14. Try I can feel him in the morning by Grand Funk Railroad probably one of the least known but

most anti war songs made in the late 60's.

[saltpoint]

16. There are some mighty fine anti-war and anti-violence

works of music and other art from that time.

And most of them still sound pretty good this morning, too.

I think the Beats and a few others were never especially celebratory of our military victory over Germany and Japan and had their hearts and minds on other things. They seemed to be among the first of that time to insist that the labels be stripped away. And many of them stripped beautifully!

[NoGOPZone]

34. Great song

I'll go ahead and link it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2aLx8R0JT8

[bahrbearian]

67. Thanks for link

[whathehell]

117. Give a life, take a life by Spirit. n/t

[Steely_Dan]

2. Careful...

While you are mostly correct...nice assessment...you may be drawing fire from the young Dems.

[Dogmudgeon]

35. Care? The devil may care!

I criticized the OP most strongly -- see below.

But let it be known that in spite of my subject line "Mark me down for an unrec", I appreciate the writer's openness and guts. Rec and re-rec again. We need this kind of give-and-take. In-group arguing can be strongly positive if the idea is to reinforce the good and expunge the bad.

Maybe I'm being arrogant in saying this, but "Fire = Good. Hate = Bad."

--d!

[go west young man]

39. I totally agree.. DU needs more good debate.

[YOY]

79. I'm young. I'm a Dem. I agree.

And I hardly think the mainstay of those who argue otherwise would be "young".

[JerseygirlCT]

3. I'd say mostly correct

9-11 didn't happen because we steal the world's resources. That seems to imply some sort of social justice reasoning for the attacks. It was extremism, not social justice, behind the attacks.

[go west young man]

6. I totally disagree. And I think America is in denial.

[JerseygirlCT]

9. That the attackers weren't motivated by a sense of social justice

doesn't take away from our obvious sins in that area.

But while those sins have motivated a fair amount of worldwide hatred for the US - a tool that is often used in recruiting people to the "cause" of AQ - the attackers themselves - and the planners - were largely elites. I don't think they were motivated by a desire to help the poor...

[go west young man]

18. True, but if we weren't in their countries stealing their resources

they wouldn't have used their extremism against us. They may have used it against someone else. As I wrote earlier, they are not attacking Norway they are attacking us. It takes two to tango. Hence the nationwide denial. Just like the Gulf oil spill we look elsewhere for the bad guy when in actuality it is ourselves. We are the government that allowed it to happen.

[RBitt]

131. Saudi oil is sold to us..

I think they were hell bent eliminating western influence in their culture. The brand of Islam that they profess is not tolerant or open. ps the hippies nailed it, but the hippies were sold out by the posers. Woodstock was the end, not the beginning. Madison Ave (the old euphemism now morphed into Wall St.) saw the numbers at Woodstock and moved in. The hippie ideals are what we liberals want, in a nut shell.

[Enthusiast]

102. Indirectly the 9/11 attacks

were motivated by a sense of social justice. We had been manipulating the internal affairs of a number of Middle East countries for years(we still are. We engaged in coups, assassinations and other injustices, all to protect the interests of our corporations. So the attacks were indirectly a backlash against our national policy of meddling.

[bvar22]

29. Why do you think they chose the "World Trade Center"...

...and The Pentagon?

[JerseygirlCT]

53. Oh absolutely for the symbolism

My point is that while they may have positioned it as an attack against the US and our piggish ways with world resources, I do not believe that to be their motivation - a difference between real motivation and PR, perhaps.

[bvar22]

64. That sounds like a distinction without a difference....

...unless you buy into that "They hate us for or Freedoms" nonsense.

[Enthusiast]

104. Nonsense if there ever was any. nt

[Greyhound]

36. It happened because our military occupied what they consider Holy Ground, which we did

in order to prop up our dictatorship, which we maintain in order to get their oil.

Without the oil-grab, 9/11 doesn't happen & fundamentalist Islam remains a problem for their own to deal with (which they did).

[robdogbucky]

60. The CIA's own assessment of the causes for 9/11

were:

#1 US presence in Saudi Arabia

#2 US support of Israel

#3 Sanctions against Iraq






Just my dos centavos


robdogbucky

[conscious evolution]

121. Do you really believe what the CIA

has to say about anything these days?

[robdogbucky]

155. No, of course not

but in light of the comments stated here, I thought I would return to the official line, given after the fact and largely ignored against the noise of "they hate us for our freedom," or some of the other theories stated earlier in this thread. I posted this when there were only about 50 posts. Now, how many posts are there? I almost forgot the gist of the underlying thread, that the GD fucking dirty hippies were right. My Mom said that to me in 1975, sans cursing.

The CIA was right to a degree in this regard, just not in the order of things listed. Of course they could have just as easily concluded "It's because of our meddling, assassinations, election-rigging and general de-stabilization in a region considered vital to US strategic interest," and Dick and the elders thought it was time to secure the ME oil, please our client states and resume that good ol' gravy train known as the MIC in these parts.

Don't ask me what I think happened re: 9/11, you won't get a response that fits this thread, it would be dungeon material. Too many unanswered questions to be satisfied by a whitewash commission and a general public eager for revenge for something they were told happened due to middle-eastern religious fundamentalist extremism. The drumbeat for Arab villains had been pounded since the seventies and this event was just the culmination of long-laid plans. Something had to fill the vaccuum left by the end of the cold war and the fall of the eastern bloc. Follow the money is what I always say and look to those that benefitted.

"On That Day"

Some people say
It's what we deserve
For sins against g-d
For crimes in the world
I wouldn't know
I'm just holding the fort
Since that day
They wounded New York
Some people say
They hate us of old
Our women unveiled
Our slaves and our gold
I wouldn't know
I'm just holding the fort
But answer me this
I won't take you to court
Did you go crazy
Or did you report
On that day
On that day
They wounded New York

Leonard Cohen



9/11 was the best thing that happened to the rethuglican party since the Soviets got the bomb.




Just my dos centavos


robdogbucky

[AndyTiedye]

78. Yes, Extremism Was Behind 9/11

"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor." Rebuilding America's Defenses PNAC, 2000.

[DireStrike]

81. It is attributed to Bin Laden that he got the idea for the attacks

walking the streets of Lebanon after the Us 6th fleet's bombardment.

"God knows it did not cross our minds to attack the towers but after the situation became unbearable and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed -- when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the U.S. Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way (and) to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women."
Osama bin Laden
Admitting responsibility for attacks on US on September 11, 2001, on videotape shown on Al Jazeera, October 29, 2004

[OZark Dem]

124. Oh wait ???? Wasn't 9/11

Because they "hate us for our freedoms" ??? Awwww, did old GW and Dick lie to me?

[BillGates]

5. The Dirty Fucking Hippies Were Right!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKEZoY-TMG4

[HughMoran]

11. Good video

[dana_b]

59. Welcome, Bill!

good video but tell me, why do you hate teachers so much? ;)

[annabanana]

125. +1. . (saved for distribution). . n/t

[Silent3]

7. At least half right

Lots of good ideas, some of which even changed our culture in a lasting way, but they were hardly perfect. They had a lot of good ideas they had no idea how to make work in the real world. They suffered from a lot of narcissism and self-destructive excess.

You can take away from the hippies what was good about the hippies without overly romanticizing them.

[immoderate]

17. "make work in the real world"

There's the problem. Is there enough meaningful work to go around? And if the decisions on where to place resources reside with an elite (such as in capitalism,) why would they distribute the wealth?

--imm

[Silent3]

25. In what system has the placement of resources...

...ever been in the hands of other than an elite? Other than perhaps very primitive societies -- to which you'll find few people really want to return, despite their rhetoric?

Besides, what does this have to do with real hippies being far more flawed than some romanticized ideal? Do you think the entire hippie message was something about allocation of resources?

[immoderate]

46. The ones you call primitive...

Are you referring to their social structure, or their technology?

I'll agree that most real hippies were no more enlightened than anyone else. In fact, they are all around you. A lot of them voted for Reagan. Some say that if you ever left the couch, you weren't a real hippie. My test was peace and tolerance. Long hair, beads, fringes, helped to identify. It became a style. Not totally bad.

I would submit that the intellectuals and drivers of the movement, Ginsburg, John Lennon, Woodie Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Abbie Hoffman, Mario Savio, etc., were not on the side of the elites. The contribution of the hippies, at least was to alert people that the elites were not your friend. The backlash -- moral majority, silent majority, war on drugs, and southern strategy, combined with the inevitable swing in styles (back to clean cut) left the promises unfulfilled.

As to the "entire hippie message," I think it goes something like *sex and drugs and rock & roll* and furthermore to promote "good vibes" and to avoid "hassles." This requires stepping up our level of civilization. We have to do it, as automation increases the productivity of workers and eliminates meaningful work.

--imm

[Silent3]

72. I don't think you can separate the two so neatly.

Our technology depends on a certain kind of social structure -- not necessarily exactly what we have right now, but a social structure with enough order and regularity and discipline to maintain a fairly complex infrastructure. If every single person "tuned in, turned on, and dropped out" you'd get anarchy, technological and social collapse. All the good intentions of such a movement would fall apart.

I think a hippie-like movement can only exist as an opposition movement, not as a dominant way of life.

As for the problem of finding meaningful work for everyone... there I agree you're on to something. Cheap labor isn't so cheap any more in China, and while there still may be a few places left to shift cheap labor (maybe Africa next?) eventually the cheap labor will be robots -- provided at least we don't run out of energy first and have the whole industrial technological world collapse on us first.

If we solve our energy and environmental problems, the day will come when much of the world economy will hum along with very little need for human help in turning energy into wealth, into food, into manufactured goods, and more and more even into services. There will be plenty of wealth to go around, not much work to go around, and basing who gets what on work will be a terrible scheme for distribution of that wealth. Even worse that real labor, chains of licensing agreements and buy-outs of "intellectual property" -- all taking the not-too-bad basic idea of rewarding innovation and distorting it grossly out of proportion.

[immoderate]

152. Hippie was a style. It's an ongoing humanistic movement.

There's an ebb and flow but the political aspects continue in the peace movements.

As for the work problem, I've been considering that a long time. What do we do for a living when automation eliminates work, sell derivatives to each other?

Strangely enough, one of the best solutions came from Nixon -- the negative income tax.

--imm

[laughingliberal]

84. AIR on the allocation of resources issue, we were pretty open about our more socialist leanings.

Of course it wasn't our only concern but it was high on the list. Peace was probably the most important issue for the movement. I read through the OP and it all looks like the concerns we had at the time.

All humans are flawed. Flawed humans are often be right about issues. Killing the messengers does not change the fact that the message is correct.

[go west young man]

22. I'm not over romanticizing them.

I like their ideas. Compared to the the current generation they offered a lot more in terms of depth and humanity. The citizens of the US today are much more narcissistic and much less educated and much more superficial. I doubt many of them have a basic understanding of Greek myth and how its lessons apply to our daily lives. We accept corporatism as the norm and fight for nothing. We are docile and powerless. all the while claiming higher intelligence than the generations before us. I don't see it. If devolving was possible we would be considered as doing it.

[Silent3]

27. Each and every one of their ideas?

And what good is it to have an idea you don't know how to implement? What if you could implement all of your ideas, and the real thing didn't work out as well as you'd imagine?

You might think to yourself "if everyone, all at once, adopted hippie ideals all together, what a wonderful world this would be". For one thing, I'm not so sure of that would be true.

Most attempts at communes failed, for instance, and the hippies made a mess in Haight-Ashbury. Secondly, systems that work if everyone adopts them are a dime a dozen -- the real problem is creating systems where very different people with different values can get along as best as possible.

[go west young man]

30. I'm not so naive as to think we need to return to that time.

I believe systems need to evolve, change, and borrow from the past in order to make the future brighter. I'm an idealist and an optimist. Underneath it all I believe one has to be, or else accept that things are as they are and always will be. Cheney called himself a pragmatic realistic and Rove was considered by many as intelligent. I see both of these characters as flawed negative monsters for their actions were always self serving and didn't truly consider others. Idealism vs realism. That debate is something we all deal with every day in our beliefs. I'd like to see a more idealistic America. The one that represented by those words on the Statue of Liberty. It's Machiavelli vs Voltaire's " Candide". The world needs more "Candide".

[Silent3]

71. First of all, not everyone who calls themselves a "pragmatic realist" is one.

Doctrinaire free market ideology, for instance, is a form of idealism too. Idealism, in and of itself, is no virtue.

If what you're looking for is a more community-minded spirit, more "us" and less "me", I'd agree we need more of that. I just don't see the hippies as such a great example of how to achieve that.

[lunatica]

8. It's pretty obvious now isn't it?

Those dirty baby boomer hippies have been right all along.

[azul]

10. If only they were breeding instead of just fucking.

And watch your language BTW.

[go west young man]

23. Thanks mom.

;-)

[femrap]

74. Hippies

believed in population control. Just look at the world's population now.

You sound as if you don't like the fact that the Pill was invented.

[HughMoran]

12. Basic idea = good. Obama has accomplished more than Carter did in 4 years though

So, you're missing something somewhere in your logic.

[LWolf]

21. While I can't say that Carter was the "best president this country has ever seen,"

I certainly prefer him over Obama. I don't LIKE what Obama is accomplishing. It's not the change I can believe in.

I don't know if there has ever been a "good" president, or a good Congress, in this country. There have been administrations that helped the country move in a better direction, and those that moved the country in bad directions. They have all been a mixed bag.

I don't like the direction we're heading now. Anti-union, anti-labor, pro-privatization, pro-war...not the change I can believe in.

[go west young man]

24. Political accomplishment is one thing.

What you really stand for is another. Carter stood for true good and accomplished little politically but now his ideas are being realized all too late. Obama is a corporatist Harvard educated lawyer who is aligned with the center. His political ideas will move us back towards a center which has long since shifted right. In the long run Obama will not have the umph to fix the nation. We need the fucking hippy president. Either that or Obama will need 8 more terms of office to equal what one Carter could do.

[HughMoran]

31. Standing for something good, but being ineffectual brought us Reagan

Sorry, I love Carter and all that he stands for, but he was not an effective President.

Do you also think that Nixon was more liberal than Obama? If so, then I think this conversation is over. Understanding that politicians are elected by people in the current political environment, and not that of 30 years ago is common political sense 101.


Oh, and:

"Either that or Obama will need 8 more terms of office to equal what one Carter could do."

is a non-sequitur to: "Carter stood for true good and accomplished little politically"

This is why I'm questioning your logic - you're not making sense.

[Greyhound]

40. Lest we forget, Madison Avenue and a criminal conspiracy brought us Raygun.

Carter was the first person to use the new Primary/Convention system to get by the Democratic Power Brokers and get the nomination.

Raygun was the first to utilize a straight-up product advertising campaign, run by professional advertising people, not political operatives. And committing treason got him elected.

[HughMoran]

51. Ahhh, so when the ideologically pure Carter loses, we make up excuses and conspiracies

Where have I seen this before?

:crazy:

[Greyhound]

55. Nothing made up about it at all, and your labeling it such doesn't change that.

His campaign did negotiate with the Khomeini regime to delay the release of the hostages, it was pretty big news when it came out and there was atrial and everything, but I guess you missed it (or like Raygun himself, you can't recall). And the Raygun campaign did hire professional marketers to create his campaign, that is also well documented.

So did you have a point?

[HughMoran]

56. No, do YOU have a point?

Making excuses for ineffectual Presidents is the lamest thing one can do here.

[jgraz]

88. AHAHAHAHAHAHA

You did NOT just say that.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Yuugal]

89. That is the funniest thing you have ever posted!

[Spheric]

96. LMFAO - Good one. Best post eva!

[Forkboy]

100. !

[Enthusiast]

106. Ineffectual Presidents?

:rofl: :patriot: :spray:

[girl gone mad]

110. So.. let me guess..

you're going to "out" yourself in a big flameout post after the midterms?

[QC]

122. !!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[YOY]

140. You sound outraged. Please don't be!

It's so much better to not be outraged.

Take some time and drink some chamomile tea.

[HughMoran]

145. I assume you're talking about those who are laughing at "Obama the ineffectual'

It's kind of pathetic that people are indeed this angry with the most productive President since Johnson.

[Spheric]

159. I doubt anyone is laughing at Obama. What's happening in this country is not funny.

I believe they are laughing at the irony of your post.

[HughMoran]

160. That I'm not a hate-filled instigator?

Laugh 'till your heart's content.

I'll be getting the last laugh - trust me on this...

[Spheric]

163. No, that is not the irony.

I prefer not to trust you on that. I hope you don't mind. Because if we continue down this path of greater corporate control and disappearing human rights, we are truly doomed. I doubt even you will be laughing.

[YOY]

182. Yes...chamomille tea. Maybe a bubble bath.

n/t

[Enthusiast]

105. Actually we don't have to "make up" conspiracies..

I was there. :crazy:

[jgraz]

170. The really sad part is, you don't even know enough to pull your OWN talking point.

Carter was NOT ideologically pure. Kennedy challenged him from the LEFT. Carter was consistently dismissive of the liberal elements in the Democratic party (sound familiar?).

Since it seems I have to do your work for you, here's your talking point: "See, the dirty fucking hippies ran leftie Ted Kennedy against our lovely, centrist, corporate-friendly incumbent and what did it get us? Eight years of Ronald Reagan."


Sheesh, Hugh. Do I have to supply both sides of this argument? Get it together, man.

[go west young man]

43. Nixon was a right wing assmonkey.

Obama is a much better man. Yet still not as good as a Carter. Nixon and Obama do have something in common however. They both inherited immoral wars and kept them going.

[HughMoran]

44. So you're not going to address the nonsequitur in your logic?

Just make up another reason to criticize Obama and equate him to Nixon?

Is it a wonder that people don't listen to you?

[go west young man]

47. I'm sorry but it was you who drew the Nixon analogy in post 31.

I just handed you my opinion on the two men. As far as people listening to me, at this time this thread is seeing roughly 700 views, 46 responses, and 32 recs. That says more than either of our opinions. You appear to get upset when I criticize Obama. I'm sorry you do.

[HughMoran]

50. So you're not going to address the complete lack of logic in your thinking

'Nuf said.

[go west young man]

58. You wrote.

Do you also think that Nixon was more liberal than Obama? If so, then I think this conversation is over.

What that has to do with my OP I don't know. And you demand logic? I never professed to be logical or reasonable. I am simply making some points I find relevant and apparently many here agree. I think politics is often illogical and unreasonable. We are all human and can be wrong and disagree. Your Nixon question was illogical. But I am glad you asked it. Spock out.

[HughMoran]

61. Address the blinding contradiction in the post above:

"Either that or Obama will need 8 more terms of office to equal what one Carter could do."

is a non-sequitur to: "Carter stood for true good and accomplished little politically"

Why won't you address this bizarre contradiction you posted?

[go west young man]

66. I will just refer you to Carter's wiki page for his accomplishments

and not bother with discussing his effectiveness. I will point out that no matter what Obama does we are now so far right his presidency will be relatively ineffectual in the long run. We are still bleeding dollars into the Middle East for two regrettable wars. Corporations still pull all the strings. His admin is full of corporate lobbyists and Goldman Sachs big wigs. We still do rendition and torture. Guantanamo hasn't closed. We still do domestic spying and now even can execute our own citizens secretly by decree. If Carter was allowed to implement his former ideas we wouldn't have even come down this road. After all oil always has been our Achilles Heal.

[Enthusiast]

107. This thread really wasn't about Obama. nt

[Bluenorthwest]

133. You are the only one trying to bing Nixon into this

That tactic is so very dishonest, it is many sorts of mendacity in one snarky package.

[azul]

41. I think that what people stand for today is becoming irrevelent.

From the state of corporate control over much of every thing today, it would seem that most people can be manipulated by their susceptibility to the power of money. It is a flaw in human nature that is being successfully exploited against those who value honor and integrity and conscience more.

Demonize those freaking hipsters, they have no money to defend themselves with, and it is ultimately profitable.

[Lorien]

92. For the Wall Street elite he sure has

for the rest of us? No comparison. Carter fought for Middle Class and working people, not big insurance companies.

[InvisibleTouch]

13. I agree with about 98% of that, so I will give it a Rec! n/t

[socialist_n_TN]

15. Well sure they were. And might I add

the socialists have been right all along too, economically. BTW, this is from a guy who came of age politically IN the 60s, so I saw it first hand.

[keep_it_real]

19. In light of the state of America toady, the hippies were superstars

As relevant today as they were yesterday. We could use some hippies today.

[Fire1]

20. Ditto! n/t

[femrap]

76. A lot of the posters are forgetting something very

important about the Hippie Era. The 'style' was very Unisex. The guys were wearing long hair, love beads, embracing peace...something considered as 'feminine' by the War Boyz of the day. This scared the hell out of them!!! Women and Femininity having POWER...that can't be! The Religions of the world united against that. No ERA. And the MSM got busy with the Brainwashing machine. Pretty soon, women were wearing ties and trying to look like dudes.

To show how upside-down we are from the Hippie Era, Sarah Palin calls herself a Feminist. :puke:

And all the dudes are shaving their heads and no more Afro hairdos. Women run around showing much skin and the dudes run around in clothes that are 5 sizes too big. Occasionally I see a dude w/ long hair and I always compliment him on it. We need more non-conformists. Bucking the trend takes guts.

These bald white dudes remind me of Nazis....sorry, it looks so military. Unless of course, it's natural.

[Enthusiast]

108. +1

We could use a bunch of hippies today.

[RedCloud]

26. back then, folks actually listened. There is way too much noise now.

[Taitertots]

28. Too bad the backlash against hippies is what brought us Reagan

While support for those ideas among ordinary Americas has been the driving force toward positive change.

Hippies were all fur coat and no trousers. When did hippies ever produce an actionable plan to get any of those things done? Sounds like a whole lot of pipe dreaming and listening to bad music.

[go west young man]

33. If they were so ineffective why was J. Edgar Hoover trying to kick John Lennon

out of the country? Why did those students die at Kent State? Why did Roe vs. Wade pass? Was the feminist movement not part of the San Francisco hippy scene? Did they help bring about an end to the Vietnam war? And did their actions not help weaken the Nixon Administration? Did they not give us Paul Wellstone? Sure they were a loose bunch. It goes with the mindset but in mass they were somewhat effective. Obviously the leaders worried the Nixon Administration.

[Gaedel]

48. Students died at Kent State

because an untrained, ill-disciplined national guard unit went out of control in a panic and the officers and NCOs could not or would not get the unit back under control. My Lai happened for the same reason. It takes very effective leadership to seize control of a military unit which has "lost it".

Did the deaths at Kent State have an effect on the mood of the country vis-a-vis Vietnam? Yes, it certainly did. Was it pre-planned on either side? No, it was not.

[go west young man]

62. I see the Kent State shootings as part of an overreaction of fear

on the part of the government. The protest movement had grown massive at that point due to Nixons incursion into Cambodia and the reinstatement of the draft. The hippy protest movement which originated in California and gained momentum under Abbie Hoffman and others was the fuel for the protests across the country. Kent State was one of many the antiwar movement organized and conducted. The government just happened to kill people there. Which led to 100,000 people protesting in DC the following week. As hippies tend to say "it's all connected man".

[oldhippydude]

99. the draft was not reinstated.. it never went away after ww2

most of you are not old enough to remember Elvis being drafted..it was not uncommon for draftees to be sent to germany during the early 60s..Nixons contribution to the draft was the lottery, by birthday.. not the use of the draft.. and yes your so correct about the cambodian incursion.. that destroyed prince sianooks (sp?) regime, thus setting cambodia up for the Kymer Rouge (killing fields).

[Bluenorthwest]

136. Reinstatment of the draft?!?!?!

See, it had always been in place, it was not reinstated. That is the level of fact and the quality of process in your thinking, right there. You are incorrect about basic, foundational facts.

[go west young man]

157. I do stand corrected. It was the draft lottery that was instated at that time not the draft itself.

[Taitertots]

63. Students died at Kent State

because there were days of rioting and they were attacking the national guard with rocks.

[Taitertots]

52. If they were so effective why did Reagan come to power in California?

The reason those things happened is because non-hippies wanted them to happen. Backlash against the hippie movement caused losses far worse than any supposed gains (reaganomics).

Why did only those things happen while the vast majority of the hippie pipe dreams never came to pass?

[Enthusiast]

109. I am so glad most of us don't

believe as you do.

[whathehell]

118. Nixon, actually. n/t

[Dogmudgeon]

32. Mark me down for an unrec.

The hippies, fucking or otherwise -- the far left, as it used to be called -- did get a lot of things right, it can not be denied. But they hated Carter and complained, incessantly, that he was a corporatist, a war monger, a religionizer, a destroyer of the environment, a Southerner, and "the best Republican president we've ever had", the same dumbass cliché that was repeated with Clinton and now with Obama.

Penthouse magazine had a monthly column dedicated to 100 of Carter's "lies" of the previous month. Some of these "lies" were events like adjunct advisors to undersecretaries filing paperwork with typos.

And if you're looking for a reason why progressive politics died with Carter's term in office, at least half the blame must go to the leftists who were too hip care about the Reagan tsunami.

Carter was trained as a nuclear engineer when he was a Naval officer. Oh, the anti-science crowd just loved that! They called him "President Nukes". The pre-M.U.S.E. anti-nuke movement loathed him with particular intensity. (Many people are still sentimentally tied to the know-nothing "movement" of phony, rich liberals that is No Nukes, Inc.)

As for feeding the world, they got a lot of that wrong, too. The organic food movement was/is excellent, but they opposed the "Green Revolution" for many years (particularly Paul Ehrlich) -- until its benefits could no longer be denied. The Green Revolution was based on the scientific work of non-hippie Norman Borlaug (though he was not a wingnut, either).

Anti-science bullshit dominated the Left between the late 1950s until about the late 1980s when right-wing science haters showed us what hard-core scientific ignorance led to. We must not make that mistake again!

The hippies may have been in favor of legalizing pot, but Carter was NOT. He floated the idea of decriminalization, then backed off of it, and appointed anti-drug fanatic Joseph Califano as his "Drug Czar". (He's usually been on the progressive side of issues, but Califano is basically a totalitarian when it comes drugs.)

In the late 60s and early 70s, nearly everyone smoked, leftists included, and I don't mean weed. Can there be any more consumerist activity than smoking cigarettes?

A whole lot of these "hippies" later put on suits and embraced predatory capitalism in the 1980s. Michael "Savage" Weiner was most famously a hippie. The rightward lurch wasn't exactly universal, but it was common enough that it's been its own cliché for a couple of decades now.

Our movement has made its share of mistakes, and every generation must correct those of the last. You will not be spared, nor will I. Romanticizing the 1960s and the hippies has led to a perverse kind of social amnesia that serves us poorly and encourages repetition of the same mistakes -- like the middle-class fantasies that music and other entertainment was more important than it really was, or that drug use could liberate society. For every anti-war struggle, there was an equal and opposite Pepsi Generation moment, the same way as we can push for an end to our central Asian occupation and for GLBTQ rights, while being gulled by big business' ads of wind turbines and cute little towns with WiFi installed.

I appreciate and admire Jimmy Carter. Not uncritically, mind you, but it was enough in the late '70s to get my ass kicked by other leftists. It was repeated with Clinton in the 1990s and is happening again with Obama. I categorically reject the angry-hipster attitude of the postwar Left. We need to become about beneficial change, not suicidal priggishness hiding behind slogans about conscience, consciousness, and truth -- three things to which we have paid little more than lip service.

Two-and-a-half cheers for the Hippies -- and time to move on.

--d!
Culture War is over / If you want it

[go west young man]

38. No movement is perfect.

And I agree we need to borrow from the past and move on. They had some great ideas and some bad ones. I do feel the current generation needs to realize what those ideas were and apply them to today. Idealism needs a revival after all the pessimistic corporate pragmatic realism of the last decade. We have lost our humanity and warmth as a nation. We live in a digital realm of pixels and binary code. We communication via email and texting. We are pretty damn hollow and superficial and it shows no sign of abating. We need a new revolution of human kindness. Politically we're stuck with a centrist right leaning government that professes to lean left. I've yet to see it. But change comes through the people. Those that are willing to push for peace and social justice. Many in the hippy movement worked towards that change and today we reap the fruits of their actions. For example female gender equality and the right to an abortion.

[Dogmudgeon]

45. Indeed

Perhaps my difference in point of view is that I don't think we're hollow at all -- but I can still see the problems we face.

Since the 1920s, each successive era has become faster-moving and less predictable. After I posted, I was thinking that the 60s generation, "warts and all", was the first group to really address that cultural acceleration.

They looked superficial, much as we look hollow. It's true that we all have feet of clay, but I think we now get to see things in larger-than-life detail. It's good for correcting mistakes, but I hope we don't give up on ourselves in the process.

--d!

[suzie]

113. I worked on female gender equality issues in the early 70s and there were no

male "hippies" around. There were all kinds of women across a wide political and economic spectrum, most of whom would have been appalled at ever being called a hippy.

In fact, the most effective lobbyist for women's issues that I remember was a woman lawyer from the days when there 3-4 female law students in that year's class, who'd been lobbying for 20 years. She had been employed by a women's business and professional group. She did a great job as I recall of making women who owned their own business, many of whom were beauty salon owners in those days, understand why women's issues were important to them.

In another state where I lived, the woman most responsible for actually going to the legislature and talking about women's issues was a university faculty member in a scientific discipline.

At the same time, many 60s male leftists that have been called "hippies" above were just as anti-female gender equality as conservative middle aged males.

If by the hippy movement's effect on female gender equality, you mean the reaction from women who activists to working for all kinds of changes and then being told by male chauvinist pigs who called themselves leftists that change didn't count for women, then you'd be correct. Women tired of running the mimeo machines, folding the leaflets, doing all the behind the scenes work of political organizing and getting no credit and no interest in their issues and decided to work on those issues themselves.

And were willing to work with other women--like beauty salon owners--to achieve equal rights. Something that the males in the movement, in their elitist condescension would never have done.

[Enthusiast]

111. Suicidal was legislation

like NAFTA, The Telecommunications Act and the Graham-Leach Bliley Act. There has been plenty to kick ass about. There has not been nearly enough ass kicking and THAT is the problem.

[Bluenorthwest]

141. Odd to blame hippies for Carter's second term loss

Unless you count Ted Kennedy as a hippie. If that entire wing of the Party, which went after Carter within the Party were Hippies, that is news to me. Ted in love beads? Edward Kennedy, Senator from the Counterculture. Yeah, right.
The notion that Hippies brought us Reagan, as opposed to inter Party fighting and pure politics, is hilarious.

[Greyhound]

37. Right about all but the Carter thing. He is a good person and he tries to do what

he felt was best, but he was no friend of the Hippies, nor was he a leftist. In fact, he was the first ConservaDem President. His policies had an extreme pro-business tilt, and he catered to the religious.

I know that from the utter insanity we live with today, he seems very liberal, and he was far better than what we have today, but he was far from a Hippie.
:kick: & R

[go west young man]

42. Being from Georgia he probably naively thought the religious groups

would do some good. I believe he's a baptist. I'm pretty sure he didn't anticipate the evangelical right wing movement. You are correct that foolishly he did some ground work for them.

[AndyTiedye]

69. Carter Has Been One of the Greatest Former President

He was so-so while he was President — but since leaving office, Jimmy Carter has taken on the role of elder statesman like no other former President in living memory.

[tranche]

49. They were wrong about getting people to listen.

Everything went to shit in front of their eyes as they were screaming about how they were right. Wished they could have changed more minds. Then all this would have mattered.

[slay]

54. You are, of course, correct

I've always admired the hippies. To see such a large, openminded, loving, generally peaceful group fight back against all the bullshit was awesome. Granted I've only seen it in film, but wow the hippies had it goin on. They had WAY better music than we get today too! I wonder how instrumental drugs like marijuana and LSD were in helping them pull back the curtain to see What Was Really Going On.

Hunter Thompson wrote about that time, and the potential for real change they had in his - The Wave speech: ""Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era — the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . . History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time — and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened. My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights — or very early mornings — when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . . There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . . And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . . So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

http://www.alternativereel.com/includes/top-ten/display_review.php?id=00076

[go west young man]

65. Thompson was great. Although a little dark for me.

My favorite music from the 60's wasn't necessarily the flowery hippy stuff. I am a child of the late 70's and early 80's but I love listening to early Queen, late Beatles, T-Rex, Led Zepplin, the Doors, Cream, and the Stones and Pink Floyd. Most people probably wouldn't consider those bands part of the hippy movement. I did however really like what the movement stood for. Peace, love, and understanding. And a big NO to war.

I do wish that Thompson had less of a Rimbaud/Van Gogh complex. His self destruct button was set too high for me. I hope for artists of the future who can say great things without destroying themselves in the process. We need them around.

[slay]

73. The way I look at it

it would be his life to destroy if he wanted - as opposed to all the politician fuckers sending other people off to die in a bullshit war. Also, I don't think Hunter would say he destroyed his life, on the contrary he would say he lived as free as he could, provided for his family, explored all sides of America, did some mind-expanding drugs, and generally lived the life he wanted. How many of us can say that?

[go west young man]

77. Your most likely right. I take it back.

He obviously lived on his own terms and chose his own way to die as well.

[glowing]

101. I'm not sure "better" is the word... Unfiltered from corporate jingles.

Most "stars" are packaged pieces of fluff who sing what and where they are told to. Many artists make it "big", play long enough thru the "hits" and dump their crappy contract as fast as possible in order to get creative control.


However, if you spend anytime on YouTube or alt. music sites, you will hear some great music.. It just won't ever make the mainstream of ClearChannel radio.

[slay]

172. Oh I agree

it's just that Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, The Grateful Dead were all small local bands that got mainstream back where as today I doubt they would cause they aren't 18 with big boobs - and they actually wrote their own songs (shocking!). But you're right - there is good music being made today, just not the popular shit that is pushed on us.

[Radical Activist]

57. But the celibate hippies were full of shit!

[Cetacea]

68. Can you give a list of examples?

j/k

Excellent. Thanks for this thread.

[Cetacea]

93. dupe

[Blue_In_AK]

70. We still are.

[grahamhgreen]

83. Yes, even the young ones.

[Blue_In_AK]

85. I'm an old one, but it's nice to know there are young ones around. n/t

[Stoic]

75. That's "Dirty Fucking Hippies", buddy. N/T

[PatrynXX]

80. Just gotta print that off for my mom.

Big fan of Carter's. And I think we found more and more the colussion between Reagan and the terrorist handover.

Obviously the fucking hippies were right. Only thing they did wrong was some mistreated the soldiers coming home from Vietnam. Why I have no idea. I wasn't around then.

[go west young man]

82. I think the soldiers took a lot of hell for the Mai Lai Massacre

and the ear collecting and such. There were many atrocities going on and the media back then actually reported some of those stories. Unlike now where the media sanitizes and buries the stories. Vietnam really was, like "Apocolypse Now", a descent into madness. Our current wars are also madness. It's just hidden from us. I personally don't wave flags for soldiers and I say that as a former Marine myself. I understand why many people don't like the military and what the uniform sometimes represents. It all comes down to wheather or not the war is a just one.

[sabrina 1]

86. You're a good writer. Great overview of how things have

turned out.

I see people saying that Carter didn't accomplish anything. He accomplished something no other president has succeeded in doing regarding Peace between Israel and an Arab state.

What did Reagan accomplish? Bush Sr.? Even Clinton, and Bush Jr.?

Saying someone accomplished something is one thing, Bush Jr. eg, accomplished a lot, but most of it was detrimental to this country and others. So WHAT they accomplished is important. Not all accomplishments are progress, many take us back as the last several decades have done.

As far as the Hippies being right, if your list is a way to judge, then they were. And if they didn't get all their ideas done, well, who does when there is powerful opposition to those kind of ideas?

Excellent post, food for thought ~ already rec'd.

[Timbuk3]

87. The Battle For America

This just seems so appropriate to post, here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veO_bGXuR6U

[LaPera]

90. "The hippies were right all along - We knew that" Fuck Yes, Just Read This!!!

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

I'm talking about, say, energy-efficient lightbulbs. 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. I mean yoga studios flourishing in every small town, giant boxes of organic cereal at Costco 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." 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").

There is but one conclusion you can draw from the astonishing pro-environment sea change 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.

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-GMA 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 grid and it's about time the media, the politicians, the culture as a whole sent out a big, 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 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 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 leached 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 butt into gear and force consumers to wake up to the 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 proof is easy enough to trace. The core values and environmental groundwork laid by the '60s counterculture are still so intact and potent that even the stiffest neocon Republican has to acknowledge their extant power. It's all right there: Treehugger.com is the new '60s underground hippie zine. Ecstasy is the new LSD. Visible tattoos are the new longhairs. And bands as diverse as Pearl Jam, Bright Eyes, NIN and the Dixie Chicks are writing 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 psycho-spiritual 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, ultraconservative presidential regime in recent history is proof enough that all the hoary 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 because of 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 junk no one believes in anymore. Right?

Mark Morford's column

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/02/DDG1UPIHBB1.DTL#ixzz0u6lSctQ1

[go west young man]

91. Great stuff. Thanks for adding it.

[LaPera]

164. Yep, Morford has his finger on it perfectly.

[Silent3]

144. There are errors of both underrating and overrating

I'm quite happy to admit that the hippies had a lot of impact, and a lot of that impact was good. But to say they "were right", as in the OP, is a very different thing than saying "hippies had some lasting positive impact".

I don't, by the way, agree "alternative healing" is all that big a plus. It's mostly harmless bullshit that demonstrates an endless variety of ways you can dress up the placebo effect, maybe the rare bit of true medical value, and a dark side that encourages con artists and discourages people from getting more effective treatment.

And sorry to be such a "square", but I'd agree with "Staid old Time mag" that a lot of what some hippies did with drugs was "excessive" and "naive". So called "mysticism" doesn't overrule fucking up your biochemistry.

[GreenTea]

162. All people make some mistakes, especially the young (and it appears many of the older as well)!

[Silent3]

166. If they made mistakes, then they weren't "right", not completely at least.

My main objection to the OP is that's it a bit of overstatement, a bit too heavy on the rose-colored glassed effect.

[LaPera]

168. One can be right about 100 things-and wrong about one-Yet you choose to blame/focus on the mistakes.

As if the people fighting, beating, harnessing, lying distorting and smearing hippies were right on the money - the same so worried about their lifestyle & monetary intake were threatened were right they loved it fine, the hippies knew it was bullshit and NOT for them-

Using your logic & criteria - if the hippies were wrong then the assholes jumping all over them and never considering the bullshit just might be discriminatory, unfair and not for everyone to fit into their little box were right - Get real - They didn't give a fuck about any change, just status quo....

But many things and ideas were simply new & foreign to the 'establishment' new movements and fuck the what one is "suppose" to do....You insinuate the negative as well thought out mistakes almost purposely....I find there are greedy people, egos, unaware, uneducated, unmotivated missing the point and direction in all aspects of any movement or endeavor....Why dismiss a whole idea because of what you see as mistakes - i certainly don't and I can give well thought out reasons and ideology why I support everything you found to be mistakes.

[Silent3]

169. I don't the hippies quite that much credit.

Maybe 50%, with a few bonus points for good intentions.

[LaPera]

167. Repeated below.

[Mojorabbit]

94. +10000 nt

[Cetacea]

95. Close, but no cigar.

It was a brilliant run but they lost the revolution. The remnants are good reminders but not much more than that. Bow to your corporate and military overlords.

"All Our dreams Are Sold"
Procol Harum, 1991

[BigBearJohn]

97. +1,000,000 I love this. Sent it to my entire address book. Thank you so much. K/R!!!!

[upi402]

103. Agreed 1000% ... we were so right about off-shore drilling

And right about the insanity of the new nuclear plants. Huge mistake. End times shit.
I tell my kids that all the time, the hippies were right. And America was a great country then, warts and all.

Who woulda thunk it?

[Hubert Flottz]

112. How could anything that seemed so right have been wrong?

WE, knew we were right...and it felt good to be right.(it still does) The GOP and their corporate establishment masters turned RIGHT, into something ugly and wrong. The GOP condemned us for creating our own reality, now they think it's fine to create "Reality" to suit their own greedy wants and needs.

Republicans don't pray, they prey and we always knew it. The Reich wing always hated us for being able to see through them. They still can't stand free thinking people. The GOP is short on "Leaders" but very big on Mis-Leaders.

[Sta au]

115. I don't know...

There are quite alot of things I just did not like much about the hippies when I was studying it. Honestly I think that the goths have it right.

[Fly by night]

114. One more thread for the "GD-Fuck" forum

As much as I would not wish it on anyone, folks who can't communicate without using the "f"-turd should spend some quality time in prison. In that environment, "f" is present in every sentence and used as every part of speech. Before I was locked up, I probably didn't give this sign of intellectual limitations much thought. Afterwards, all it does is grate on my heart and remind me of less free days.

That is not to say I don't agree with the sentiments in this thread. This is a recurrent theme here at DU and I have contributed to it myself in the past. To wit:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2101172

Peace out.

[go west young man]

127. Sorry about the language. I was just trying to make a very strong point.

[Silent3]

139. I don't think there's anything wrong with some occasional...

...use of the word, for emphasis, or, as in the OP, for irony.

We shouldn't let the people who talk like Joe Pesci ruin it for the rest of us. :)

[LaPera]

165. So Fucking what!

[Fly by night]

180. Thanks for sharing. Feel better now?

I appreciated "go west young man"'s response upthread to my comment. It was worth my time when I posted it to share how profanity affects some people perhaps more than others. As I said, before my federal lock-up time, I would have just thought serial profaners were boorish, unimaginative or immature and yet would have been just as free with my own usage of it at pretty inappropriate times back then.

The time inside gave me a new look at the whole ... thing. And a new set of reactions. My post above was made to share that fact and -- to be truthful -- to comment indirectly on the "fuck"-inflected threads that flow through DU in waves, like Montezuma's revenge. You'd think I'd be used to it by now. It's just that I'd like my community of like-minded progressives and hippies here to sound more like themselves and less like bone-thug wannabes.

Don't mind me. For every profanity you share with me/us, I can choose to respond with restraint (almost all of the time). This morning was one of those rare exceptions.

I'm glad it generated such a thought-provoking response from you.

[TheUnspeakable]

116. HUGE K AND R!!! from an ex hippie!

[whathehell]

119. +100 from this ex-hippie. n/t

[Tuesday Afternoon]

120. Where are the hippies of today's generation?

to whom do we pass the torch?

[annabanana]

123. Kay and Are!!!. . . . n/t

[spanone]

126. the brilliant hippies were right!

the dumbfucking right wing neocon warmongering sons of bitches were dead wrong

[elleng]

128. Naturally they were right; THEY were US!

[Bluenorthwest]

129. We are the music makers

and we are the dreamers of the dreams.......

[go west young man]

130. I wrote this little essay yesterday because I'm hoping the country will

start to swing left and I wanted to add my two cents. I'll show you the reason why. My little son Liam Ocean. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86jUiM_2TBM

[BrklynLiberal]

137. Adorable little sweet ones.

They are the reasons we have to try to save this planet...

[go west young man]

156. Another one with a song I wrote for him.

Just because I love him so much. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9_HJsAuwMc

[BrklynLiberal]

161. Lovely...really lovely. Thanks for sharing.

[BrklynLiberal]

132. One brief shining moment.....

ARTHUR:
Yes, Camelot, my boy!
Where once it never rained till after sundown,
By eight a.m. the morning fog had flown...
Don't let it be forgot
That once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment that was known
As Camelot.

[Romulox]

134. Many of the worst people in the world today are "ex-hippies"

George W. Bush was 23 in 1969. You don't think he flashed the peace sign at every possible opportunity?

[BrklynLiberal]

135. pres shit-for-brains is an ex-hippie?

It took alot more than flashing the Peace Sign to make one a hippie.

[Romulox]

138. "No TRUE Scotsman" would grow up to be W., huh?

:shrug:

[Mojeoux]

179. Flash:1971 Austen G Bush did drugs, partied to good music but was a total prick to Go Go Girls.

Defiantly NOT a "peace, love Hippy.

[YOY]

142. Um. No. No I don't. "Fortunate Son" was written about people like him.

Now Clinton? Ex Hippy.

[Romulox]

146. Bill Clinton is included in my above statement.

Bill Clinton is not well loved in Michigan, for what should be obvious reasons. :hi:

[YOY]

148. I would be a fool to argue with that. Anyone would.

n.t.

[Bluenorthwest]

143. We know GW did not burn his draft card

And his politics at the time were as they always were. Not everyone of that age was a Hippie, in fact, most were not. Most were fodder.
Now Laura, she was more hip, but she also, not a Hippie. Not even close, even with the lids and the chain smoking.

[go west young man]

147. Your right and I do believe I found proof of it.

http://klyam.com/2010/02/05/george-w-bush-is-a-fucking-hippie/;-)

[BrklynLiberal]

149. rotflmao!! He has been outed!!!

[go west young man]

150. Gotta love that copy of "No Bunny" to his left on that page.

[Romulox]

151. Put a dirty bandana on this, and it fits right into the crowd.

[BrklynLiberal]

153. Looks a lot more like Ted Bundy..a preppie..than any hippie I ever saw..

If pres shit-for-brains had not been born with a silver spoon up his ass, he probably would have been a lot more like Ted Bundy.

[Romulox]

154. Fuck. When you're right you're right. +1,000,000.

Plus he totally looks high on coke in that first picture.

[Hubert Flottz]

158. W is not stoned he's STUPID.

Pickled and Pickles!

[slay]

174. You're wrong

worst people are murderers, rapists, bankers, and most republicans. Your really think Georgy was a hippie? You must be kidding. :rofl:

[Romulox]

175. Bill was allegedly a hippy.

He grew up to be a corporatist shill. Why is it a bridge too far to consider that W probably considered himself part of the youth movement of his day?

[slay]

177. Neither of them were hippies

This is a hippie -->

So is this --> http://www1.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/Cheech+Chong+Announce+Their+Upcoming+Comedy+E_t0EaXVMNdl.jpg

I don't think either Bill or George was. Bill I'm sure liked the loose hippie ladies but he was much to career oriented to be a true hippie. I'm guessing you've never met a real one.

[LaPera]

171. One more time! Here again is an additional post of support & opinion for this insightful thread....

By an insightful young dude himself - Mark Morford - SF Chronicle Columnist


The hippies were right all along - We knew that

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

I'm talking about, say, energy-efficient lightbulbs. 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. I mean yoga studios flourishing in every small town, giant boxes of organic cereal at Costco 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." 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").

There is but one conclusion you can draw from the astonishing pro-environment sea change 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.

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-GMA 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 grid and it's about time the media, the politicians, the culture as a whole sent out a big, 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 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 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 leached 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 butt into gear and force consumers to wake up to the 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 proof is easy enough to trace. The core values and environmental groundwork laid by the '60s counterculture are still so intact and potent that even the stiffest neocon Republican has to acknowledge their extant power. It's all right there: Treehugger.com is the new '60s underground hippie zine. Ecstasy is the new LSD. Visible tattoos are the new longhairs. And bands as diverse as Pearl Jam, Bright Eyes, NIN and the Dixie Chicks are writing 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 psycho-spiritual 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, ultraconservative presidential regime in recent history is proof enough that all the hoary 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 because of 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 junk no one believes in anymore. Right?

Mark Morford's column

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/02/DDG1UPIHBB1.DTL

[slay]

173. "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 junk no one believes in anymore. Right?"

I still believe! Thanks for posting this. :hug:

[TNLib]

176. Kick

:dem:

[Mojeoux]

178. I sure agree

we must push Obama. November will be epic.

[go west young man]

181. My main point exactly.

I really would love to see a serious left swing in this country.