Did the Hippies actually accomplish anything in the end?

[sasquatch]

I'm on http://www.workingforchange.com and I see this logo:
I see that and I think the liberal movement would be better suited by intellectual types like Michael Moore and Howard Zinn, not a bunch of unbathed hippies sitting around doing drugs.

[Bridget Burke]

1. The hippies were not just unbathed drug-takers.

And we aren't at "the end" yet.

[madeline_con]

150. They stayed clean by skinny dipping.

:)

[MnFats]

192. actually....

skinny dipping was a regular outing for many of us.
still is, for some, though you probably wouldn't want to steal a glimpse as much as back then...
we solved everything in the water....

[redwitch]

2. Are you Cartman?

nt

[sasquatch]

5. Dude I'm not that fat

:cry:

[redwitch]

71. I'm sorry hunny bunny!

I didn't mean to hurt your feelings! I was just remembering the episode where he had to rescue the other kids ( and the entire town) from the hippies by blasting through to the stage and playing Slayer. It was hilarious! The hippies couldn't do anything to save the world because they were too stoned. :pals:

[billyskank]

3. "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out" hardly indicates a philosophy

that is likely to accomplish anything at all, in my opinion.

[sasquatch]

4. My point exactly

[ET Awful]

29. You did know that the person that coined that phrase was a highly educated

PhD didn't you?

Timothy Leary, who created the "Tune in, turn on, drop out" term and for all intents and purpose, philosophy, was a well educated intellectual with an intellectual following.

He wasn't exactly a "hippie."

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h3822.html

[hfojvt]

123. many of the hippies were college educated

Tuning in, means realizing the truth about society, and dropping out means rejecting the rat race, forward stampede in favor of something more sustainable, humanist, and copacetic.

[ET Awful]

128. That was kind of my point :).

I actually used Dr. Leary's own explanation down thread somewhere :)

[hfojvt]

140. I was kinda replying to Billy Skank (or meant to)

and before I read your later posts :thumbsup:
I thought my explanation was pretty close, although I skipped the "turn on" which would be a sense of hope that we can take on "the Man" and win. But, like you, I was born in the 60s (albeit on the other end :cry: ), and thus raised with many of its values without ever being part of it.

[Capn Sunshine]

166. That was the idea young jedi

That society was irretrievably failed, and one could benefit ones spiritual inner knowledge and path on this plane by withdrawing from it and pursuing another path that did not acknowledge societal mores.

It was not meant for accomplishment in the way you think of it, it was meant for fulfillment of being via alternative route.

At one time the finest quests involved higher spritual consciousness, not advancement within the boundaries of society.

[JVS]

167. Higher spiritual consciousness defined as drinking a bottle of cough syrup

[Capn Sunshine]

171. actually

there was a disconnect , a parochial distain for chemical highs such as alcohol; people who didn't smoke but drank were disparaged as "juicers". The "high" was too physical, not in the spiritual plane.

The funny thing was that LSD was considered a clean thing, not a chemical. It was due to the high , I guess.

Many of you seem to conflate the homeless guys you see drinking sterno in the park with the Hippies.

Long hair used to MEAN something besides not being able to afford a haircut.

[JVS]

173. Oh great, now we find out there were snob hippies who looked down...

on the other my-brain-is-so-fried-that-all-I-can-do-for-a-living-is-make-really-shitty-tie-dyes hippies

[Capn Sunshine]

181. snob hippies? Whaaa?

How did you get THAT out my post?
Do you think homeless guys are hippies? Maybe that's the problem.

[JVS]

186. Because when you have a certain group that's cooler than another...

group because they do cooler drugs, it's not about enlightenment, it's about being in the right clique. Hence, snobbery.

[dolo amber]

6. ...

:rofl:

[sasquatch]

9. Happy now I see

[Jokerman]

7. How about an EFFECTIVE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT???

I don't really know how you define "Hippie" but the counter culture movement of the sixties had a hell of a lot more impact on government policy than we seem to be able to manage today.

[sasquatch]

8. Or a opposing party that has a spine would be nice too while we're at it

[billyskank]

10. I assume he means Tim Leary and those like him

It might be a stretch to argue that he and his followers ended the Vietnam war.

[China_cat]

15. Well, the Nixon White House managed to do its job

on you if all you remember about that time is the drug culture.

What I remember most were the protests...and when big cities like NY actually had a 'dial-a-protest' phone number where you could call and check on the dates times and places of protests throughout the country. That you couldn't go a day without seeing people stand up against the war. I remember the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention. I remember Berkeley's People's Park.

I remember protests here in the SOUTH, where it definitely wasn't cool...or smart. I remember the music of protest and defiance, music that just isn't happening on the same scale today.

Yeah, there were drugs. There was sex. And there was so, so, so much more.

[billyskank]

23. I don't remember anything about the time

not having been there. I am of the generation spawned by your generation. What I do know is that you as a collective managed to end the war and impeach Nixon. But what then? You elected Carter who genuinely seemed to want to fix some of America's worst problems, but then removed him at earliest opportunity, preferring instead the genial selfishness of Reagan. A course was thus charted from which a fairly straight line can be drawn through the Bush and Clinton years leading directly to Bush II. Good job. :thumbsup:

[China_cat]

31. Nixon was not impeached.

He resigned before it could get that far and then was pardoned by Ford.

We have no idea how Reagan became president. Because nobody I know voted for him. Probably because Carter was perceived as being a wimp due to the Iran hostage crisis. Then you also have Reagan's machinations to make sure the hostages weren't released till AFTER the election. People have it stuck in their heads that Reagan got the hostages released simply because they were sent home on the day he was sworn in. The work was actually done by the Carter administration and they could have been home 4 months sooner if not for Reagan.

[billyskank]

36. I stand corrected

My beef mostly comes from being continuously told how wonderful my parents' generation are and how everything that came afterwards is shit (whereas everything that came before doesn't exist). This is an exaggeration of course, but it is also clear to see why this is the received wisdom. All those in positions of power, all opinion writers, media magnates etc., are of that generation. The 60s generation is now running the world and so it is their culture that is exalted above all. It's natural, of course, but it gets annoying sometimes.

[China_cat]

48. I think maybe one of the reasons it went wrong

is that we were young enough and naive enough to think that we'd 'won' somehow and that the truths we saw were now evident to all. We rested. We lost our vigilance. It doesn't negate what we did but damn, it's hard at my age to have to fight these same battles all over again.

[laheina]

85. History is full of cycles.

I think that the battle of which you speak is only one of them. The true victory of these battles comes in the few inches that are won by the populace in every successive turn.

Those inches may be hard to measure, but they are the force that drives society forward.

[ZombieNixon]

68. The 60s generation is now running the world...

...and they're certainly doing a great god damn job of it, aren't they? :eyes: :toast:

[sasquatch]

72. Hey, ET Awful this sums it up perfectly right here

[ZombieNixon]

76. It just my observation.

As someone born in 1987, I'm sure I'm not in the best position to make a judgement like that, because all the exposure I have to the 60s basically comes from my parents (actually, it was my father who said that, not me). I mean, Chimp "came of age" in the 60s, but he wasn't a hippie. I have issues with the hippies (mainly stemming from their annoying opitimism...sorry, I'm a cynic), but we can't blame any one thing for Reagan or Bush.

[sasquatch]

77. What's up with all this "Herk" business?

[ZombieNixon]

80. Click the link in my sig.

:)

[madeline_con]

151. Can Herk become as ubiquitous as "smurf"?

:eyes:

EDIT: ubiquitous AND annoying, that is. :)

[Reverend_Smitty]

79. and another observation from another person born after 1980

I'm actually quite surprised that nobody has mentioned the backlash movement of the Christian right. The Moral Majority was formed right around this time and they mobilized fundamentalist Christians like never before.

You also got to remember that the Conservatives were plotting their revenge since Goldwater got his clock cleaned. If you read up on how they recruited conservatives and set up all these RW think tanks, it makes more sense why they became so powerful in the 1980's. They were waiting for the right time to strike, and they were quite successful. If I give one complement to conservatives, it is that they know how to organize and form a united front. I can't remember what book I was reading that talked about this...it was either Lakoff's "Don't Think of an Elephant" or Frank's "Whats the Matter with Kansas"

[ZombieNixon]

83. That was Lakoff.

"What's the Matter With Kansas?" talked about how the right has succeeded in getting the "heartland" to vote against their own economic interest with wedge issues like abortions and homersexuals. :hi:

[Reverend_Smitty]

87. I read those two books back to back last year...

and their subject matter gets mixed up in my head. Still both of those books explain quite a bit about why the conservatives seem to have a death grip on this country. I'll blame Jerry Falwell before I'll blame the hippies for what has happened to my country

[tigereye]

107. um

they did do a lot

read: women's rights
consumer protections
environmental awareness
openenness to racial diversity
govt openness ( well, there was for a while!)
corporate awareness of the above
many laws regarding poverty and race that did not exist previously

just for a start. These things didn't just spring out of the ground.

Their intentions were quite good - their follow-through and lack of awareness of the impact of their vision, perhaps less so.

Plus, there really aren't any "hippies" any more. I think most of the hippies are suburban folk at this point. Maybe the word you all should be looking at is "activist."

[hfojvt]

129. sums it up awfully, you mean?

The sixties generation may or may not be running this country. If you look at who is on the board of directors of the huge corporations, there are probably alot of people over age 60. Clinton, Gore, and Bush are all part of the same generation. Not everyone in the sixties was a hippie. Some were squares, and those were probably the ones who came to power in the system and helped to empower the backlash against the hippies that began with Reagan and continued with Clinton.

[China_cat]

103. I hope you remember this

in 30 years when your offspring or those a generation or 2 behind you lay all the ills of the Bush years at YOUR feet.

[ET Awful]

111. Bingo, after all it's his generation that put Bush in power right?

Or so his logic would dictate anyway.

[ET Awful]

110. Once again, you fail to differentiate a generation from a subculture.

Well done.

Do you know the difference between the two?

Do you even comprehend the fact that the whole generation wasn't hippies, and that the counterculter that became known as the "hippies" is NOT in power anywhere?

If they were, you'd have a vastly different society than you do today.

Tell you what, if the people that were leaders in "hippie" circles were in power, you'd have people in power that valued things like peace, equality, you know weird ideas like that.

Or are you jumping on the uninformed bandwagon with the rest?

[laheina]

93. But Billy, are you not also a Gen Xer?

We may be lower profile than the hippies, but our turn will come. And I strongly believe that the social changes that we make will be deeper and longer lasting.

But I'm about thirty. I can't remember how old you are. Sorry. :shrug:

[XemaSab]

113. I hear ya

My mom was in thick with that whole scene and it's sometimes frustrating to be painted as the "slacker" generation by a bunch of folks for whom their own brand of dissent is valid but ours is ineffective or nonexistant.

[sasquatch]

33. Billy Skank is spreading on the truth very thick today

[ET Awful]

46. I guess if truth equals pig feces, you'd be right. n/t

[laheina]

89. He has a build up that he needs to get out of his system. :)

Not that I agree with him about the hippies, but I'm about 45 minutes from Haight Ashbury. :shrug:

[redwitch]

73. billy, billy, billy

we elected Clinton for two terms, then Gore (and he would have gotten two!). I am reasonably certain we elected Kerry.

[Karenca]

106. Hippies DID NOT vote for Reagen.................eom

[hfojvt]

125. but you blame that on the hippies?

Hippies probably never were a majority of the Boomer generation although many "followed" their lead superficially - with the hair, the clothes, the phrases, and the drugs, but not the tood dude, not the tude.
Their parents, and other squares of all ages still got to vote in 1972 and 1980. Even I, sadly enough, a young lad of 18 raised to be concerned about the environment, poverty, justice and population growth, voted for Reagan in 1980.

[ET Awful]

32. Once again, Tim Leary wasn't exactly a "hippie" he was a PhD

that most at the time considered an intellectual. He also had a big following among intellectuals at places such as Harvard.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. Ending a 10-year war. Not much else.

[billyskank]

12. Everyone who protested against the war was a hippie?

I suspect not.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

14. Were you there? I was. Ex-hippie and damn proud of it.

Not everybody in the antiwar movement was a "hippie" (and you could define that in a lot of ways), but a significant majority were young, long-haired, and at least hippie-looking; people who would be classified by the "straights" as hippies. Not everybody smoked pot, but a lot did. And most of us actually showered every day.

[billyskank]

17. No. I was born in 1976

Okay, so if you define "hippie" to mean almost everybody, then hippies ended the war.

In the 70s long hair was fashionable, therefore young people mostly had long hair. Young people protested against the war because they faced being drafted. Hippies thus ended the war. QED.

[ET Awful]

39. Ummm, the rason long hair was fashionable is because "hippies"

made it so. Without them, everybody in the 70's would have walked around looking like Johnny Unitas.

[billyskank]

43. Okay, okay, I give in

Hippies are wonderful. They changed the world. They stopped the war and gave us civil rights. They didn't invent sex, but they were the ones who made it fun. They gave us music and philosophy. Now I should get back to work in order to pay for their pensions, not that I will have one myself; I will have to work until I die because they also gave us Reagan, Thatcher, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Blair, monetarist politics and neoliberal economics and hollowed-out shells of Democratic and Labour parties that have no will or inclination to change anything important. Cheers.

[ET Awful]

45. Do you have any clue how ignorant it sounds to

sterotype and paint with such broad brush strokes?

Little clue for you . . . "hippies" went on to do things like form Apple Computers . . . I doubt seriously you're paying for their "pensions".

Your knowledge is so severely lacking as to be laughable.

Little hint for you - for your assumptions to be anyhwere near accurate (which they are not), you would first have to prove that EVERYONE of the generation was a "hippie." You obviously can not do that. Your stereotyping is so faulty it's pathetic.

[billyskank]

53. Hey, I said I gave in

You guys are great! You're awesome! :yourock:

[ET Awful]

54. Awww, so now you presume that because I listen to the Grateful Dead

I must be a hippie? Or is it because I defend the hippie culture against ignorant stereotyping?

I also listen to Otis Redding and support freedom of choice . . . does that make me a black female?

You're stereotyping and don't even realize it.

Little clue, not everyone who listens to the Grateful Dead is a "hippie", not everyone who defends a subculture is part of that subculture, not everyone who is part of your parents generation voted for Ronald Reagan.

[ldf]

146. You guys are great! You're awesome!

didn't you forget the sarcasm tag?

yeah, we're a hard act to follow. maybe everything didn't work out according to plan, but you have to give us an A for effort.

our hearts WERE in the right place. after all, it WAS all about peace and love.

as far as getting rid of carter at the first opportunity, if you check into the history, carter was beat by the energy crisis, topped by the iranian rescue fiasco.

why did that rescue attempt fail? because the military was more concerned about their own respective "turfs", than cooperating and getting the job done. that turf war resulted in an unmitigated disaster.

THEY shot down carter. not us.

[Capn Sunshine]

168. Not at all.

Housewives, priests, nuns, monks, truckers, bikers, copier salesmen, gas station attendants, bankers, the anti-war effort grew out of anti-war morality.

That some of this was shared with the hippie movement was what happened and the media of the day, reminiscent of the media of today, only focused on the long haired college kids and hippies in the moevment to allow disparagement ofthe whole cause.

Are you really that unschooled in all of this? Is this common among people your age?

[sasquatch]

13. What Billy Skank just said

[ET Awful]

52. So wait a second . . . you agree that not all war protestors were

"hippies" but downthread, you say that the entire generation from which the "hippies" arose voted for Reagan and are responsible for the downfall of society as we know it.

How do you make both of those statements true in your mind?

You attempt to lump the entire generation together in one place, then try to separate them to suit your argument in another.

You can't have both.

[sasquatch]

64. Not everyone that was against that war was in one generational division

The greatest generation and other generational groups were also against it as well.

[ET Awful]

66. You're the one that said that the "hippies" voted Reagan into office

You have yet to provide any proof whatsoever of that.

[sasquatch]

70. Uh hello, they were the biggest voting block then

They made and lost the elections then and all signs show that they voted overwelmingly for Reagan.

[ET Awful]

112. Yet again, you provide ZERO proof for your allegations.

Well done.

Is that how you always present your arguments?

You state that a small subculture constituted the entirety of a generation, blame them for everything that has happened since, make blanket BS statements and provide no proof whatsoever of your allegations.

[taterguy]

27. that's the problem with some hippies

The conflict in Indochina lasted far more than 10 years. Ho Chi Minh et al began their struggle against colonial powers just after the end of World War II. Major US combat involvement only lasted 10 years but there's more to the world than just the USA. Thanks for perpetuating the stereotype that hippies only care about themselves.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

193. One could easily argue that hippies didn't end that war.

And one could also easily argue that even if they DID end that war, it took them 10 friggin years, spanning over 3 Presidential election cycles and 5 congressional election cycles, to do it, which is highly ineffective.

[Jokerman]

16. "Hippie" itself has become a loaded term.

Like "redneck" it's a very broad brush that really doesn't tell you anything about the individuals it supposedly applies to.

[CanuckAmok]

18. This is somewhat tinfoil hat worthy, but...

There is a school of thought that the CIA-funded MK-Ultra program was restructured to discontinue experimentation in psych-warfare techniqies, and instead to introduce LSD to the counter-culture, as a way of diffusing the growing militant anti-war/"revolutionary" movement.

[sasquatch]

19. That sounds interesting CanuckAmok

[mopinko]

20. still a hippie, still proud of it.

we changed the world. we stopped the war. we started the people power revolution. the dominoes that we tipped went on to the phillipines, toppled the berlin wall, and hopefully are coming around to topple the bfee. if we are to be judged a failure because we were not able to make real the perfect world we saw, well i guess jesus was a failure, too.

[sasquatch]

22. You people didn't accomplish any of that stuff

The only thing you accompolished at the end was to make libertirianism sound like a viable political option(which it isn't).

[mopinko]

24. you have an opinion. good for you.

you can say it over and over, but that does not make it a fact.

[China_cat]

26. Sounds to me like people who are just jealous

that they missed it.

[sasquatch]

30. No what you stated was opinion and sure as hell not fact

[mopinko]

34. not arguing that

puttin' my opinion up there with yours. i was there. were you?
and why would we still be getting slimed all these years later if we did not change anything? hmm? if we had done nothing, we would be forgotten.

[ET Awful]

37. Not too interested in facts are you?

The cultural revolution that was spawned by those the media chose to label "hippies" (they sure as hell didn't come up with the term themselves, and the majority of "hippies" hated the term "hippie" with a passion), still echoes to this day.

Your overbroad brush strokes portray either an extreme lack of knowledge of what was actually occurring at the time, or an extreme willingness to buy into the propagandized BS that is spewed forth by right-wing pundits and commentators.

Without "hippies" there wouldn't have been an anti-war movement. Without "hippies" there wouldn't have been any highly visible source of dissent which gradually drew in the majority of the American public. Without "hippies" there wouldn't have been marches on Washington involving MILLIONS of people. Without "hippies" there wouldn't have been 1/2 the number of freedom riders in the civil rights movement that came from far and wide to help with the civil rights cause in the south. Without "hippies" many things wouldn't have happened.

Your OPINION has little basis in reality.

[sasquatch]

42. The Freedom riders predated the hippy movement

The reason why Harry S. Truman didn't get a third term was because of the disasterous Korean war which split the nation, so people weren't affraid to oppose the war then either. Civil Rights had to crammed down the thoats of southerners by the federal government and the Democrats which is why they vote for republicans now because the majority still have aspirations of white nationalism. The hippies for the most part ended up selling out and voting for Reagan, Bush and the Bush II so you can take your truthiness facts and add them up to my actual facts.

[ET Awful]

44. Really now . . . .

Please show us your source of "hippies" voted for Reagan, because I'll tell you right now it's complete bullshit.

Little hint for you, racist southerners left the Democratic party in droves as retaliation for the party's support of civil rights. They formed the Dixiecrats then became Republicans.

You are now attempting to say "hippies" were racist? Or are you just spewing nonsense in an attempt to salvage your non-existent point?

You really have NO clue what you're talking about do you?

[sasquatch]

47. Ok I'll just ignore the Hippy generation which voted in Reagan

and eventually moved to the suburbs and gated communities all over America.

[ET Awful]

50. Once again . . . you attempt to lump an entire generation into a

subculture, which is completely impossible.

That's like saying that your entire generation is a bunch of wannabe rap stars because of the hip-hop culture.

Do you even think things through before you say them? Or are you saying that EVERYONE who "came of age" in the "hippie" era was a "hippie?"

Do you truly believe that all individuals of that age belonged to the same subculture?

Are you honestly trying to tell me that you believe an entire generation of people all thought the same way?

[no name no slogan]

183. Well, Neil Young supported Reagan

And I would consider him a "hippie"

[China_cat]

51. The reason why Harry Truman

didn't get a 3rd term is because the Republicans got the amendment they wanted limiting the presidential terms to 2 right after Roosevelt died. The amendment they're trying to overturn now in order to keep Bush in office.

[Capn Sunshine]

169. I'm sorry a mean old hippy took your candy when you were young

But it was probably a biker anyway.
Your astounding lack of perception is mind boggling.

but after all, this IS the lounge.

[patcox2]

21. They spawned an enduring backlash and a negative stereotype.

A stereotype still being used to tar liberals. All in all, pretty amazing accomplishments, huh? I guess we could also blame them for lowering intellectual and artistics standards to the point that Jim Morrison could be considered a poet and John Lennon could be considered a philsopher, or god, or whatever it is people consider him.

[Jokerman]

25. A stereotype you're more than happy to promote.

"I guess we could also blame them for lowering intellectual and artistics standards to the point that Jim Morrison could be considered a poet and John Lennon could be considered a philsopher"

Who exactly meets your high artistic standards for philosophers or poets?

[China_cat]

28. Probably Barry Manilow.

[Bridget Burke]

38. And Thomas Kinkade.

(Let's not forget the visual arts.)

[Capn Sunshine]

182. Lets be fair

don't leave out Wyland

[Bridget Burke]

35. I regarded Morrison & Lennon as musicians.

Morrison had a bit too much art damage, but The Doors had their moments. And I loved Lennon, even though he could be an asshole at times. (Not to mention his taste in women!)

My favorite poets were the Beats. Especially Ginsberg:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz...

And Michael McClure, who also writes plays & interesting essays.

My favorite "philosopher" was Joseph Campbell. Who essentially laid out how myth, religion, psychology & art are interrelated. Then invited you to invent your own "philosophy." (Jung Rules!)

(I also liked poetry from earlier days, as well. Even T S Eliot, God help me. But I still like Willy Yeats.)

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

57. ROFL.... that response is perhaps a bit curmudgeonish

On the whole, I think the "hippy" movement inspired some wonderful art ( Peter Max, Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsberg and others), and a great deal of self expression that was heretofore unavailable in American culture. It started more with the Beat Generation than the hippies but the hippies took it one step further...frankly, hippies gave us rock in it's current form....and rock as a genre has lasted now for almost 5 decades (not including the more bare bones rock and roll from the 50's) That's longer than most genres remain "hot" and it is still one of the biggest money makers in music.

As far as Morrison and Lennon are concerned, they were great rock artists and are worshipped mostly for that just as we admire most accomplished people in their fields. If you are heavy duty into science, then Stephen J. Gould might be considered a "god". If you're into rock, you gotta consider Morrison and Lennon...you can't talk rock and roll without them.

As far as the stereotype being applied today...most people don't buy that. Your post seems a bit overly concerned with what others will think if one stands for full self expression and what they really believe.

[livetohike]

40. Free health clinics, food co-ops, numerous non-profit social

programs,Earth Day (the environmental activist movement) and many other things that people who weren't there at the time take for granted today.

[Beaverhausen]

99. I see your post is being ignored

All the things you mention are correct. The OP apparantly doesn't want to learn anything. He'd rather just criticize what he doesn't know about. sad.

[sasquatch]

100. That's because all of that stuff wasn't created or thought of by hippies

[Beaverhausen]

102. ok- whatever dude

:eyes:

what is with the hippie hating anyway? Geez- you weren't even there. You have no clue what the atomosphere was like in the country then. Why do you think you are such an expert?

[Squeech]

104. Sigh

I've been giving you the benefit of the doubt because it's your thread, but now I think you're using unfair arguments. Specifically I think you've implicitly defined "hippie" as "parasite incapable of accomplishing anything useful because of an addiction to sex, drugs, and/or rock'n'roll," therefore you can "prove" that hippies never did squat.

Granted not everybody in the boomer generation was a self-defined hippie, granted there were a bunch of that cohort who followed conventional lifestyles, granted some of those people leaned left anyway and were never part of the Reagan backlash-- I still think you're not giving any credit to ideas and innovations that were clearly borne of the hippie idea.

Go back to china_cat's posts, or whoever it was (EstimatedProphet?) that gave the proper definition of "tune in, turn on, drop out." That's who and what the hippies were, and still are, those of them who stayed true to their calling (and didn't turn their frontal lobes into scrambled eggs).

And come up with some reasoned arguments using actual data, as opposed to reflexive hogwash.

On edit: I do seem to be continually coming late to the party in this thread-- jokerman beat me to this post in almost identical words.

[Jokerman]

105. Yea, but you said it better! n/t

[ET Awful]

116. Damnant quod non intelligunt

They condemn what they do not understand (been in my sig for quite a while now).

I think "there are none so blind as those who refuse to see" is also appropriate in this case.

[livetohike]

119. It is sad. I volunteered at a free clinic for two years during my early

hippie days. The doctors and nurses were volunteers and I think you could define them as hippies, too back then.

All this hippie bashing makes me smile though. We know who we were/are. I haven't lost my idealistic values despite Nixon, Reagan and both Bushes. :-)

[Beaverhausen]

121. Right on!

:hippie:

[Shell Beau]

41. Some of the "hippies" did!

Some didn't. I can't say that I know enough to say.

[HuskerDU]

49. Thank God for Hippies!

They organized the counter-culture and bless 'em for it. These trailblazers created thousands of scenes where 'freaks' were the norm and 'straights' had to either be cool or go away.

Thanks to hippies there have been safehavens for all of America's misfits ever since.

[sasquatch]

56. Dude there has been counter culture in America since the "Bowery Boys"-

of the 1850's.

[HuskerDU]

58. I think the key word is 'organized.'

The hippies organized and made connections their predecessors hadn't. That is why many of the old hippy haunts are still in use by today's counter culture. Peace!

[sasquatch]

65. The hippies I don't think you could say they were ever really organized

[ET Awful]

69. Really? I suggest you take a closer look at the various peace rallies

the acquisition of permits, etc. for everything from marches on Washington to local rallies were all put on because of superb organization.

[ET Awful]

55. You know what's hilarious is that "intellectual types" include people like

Timothy Leary (who held a PhD), Ken Kesey (also a well educated man and an acclaimed novelist), along with many others.

So what was that about "intellectual types"?

[sasquatch]

60. "Turn on, tune in and drop out" isn't very intellectual if you ask me

In fact it seems to be anti-intellectual.

[ET Awful]

62. Only if you are ignorant as to what he meant by it when he said it.

Perhaps you should do some actual research on Dr. Leary instead of speaking from complete lack of knowledge.

Of course, if you consider someone with a PhD, who spent much of his early career as a lecturer at places like Harvard to not be an intellectual . . . well, then you're beyond comprehending anything the man ever said anyway.

You really DON'T know anything about him do you?

Leary explained: "'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."

Sorry, but I don't see ANY problem with that philosophy. I mean, if you're afraid to use your mind the way it can be used, afraid to interact with the world around you in a harmonious fashion, and afraid to give up the ties that bind you to the world of corporate greed and military jingoism, more power to you.

[Karenca]

75. How old are you???

<Yesterday's hippies are today's presidential candidates. Therefore it is timely to reexamine this hippie era which spans two decades beginning with the birth control pill in 1960 and ending with the death of John Lennon in 1980. It wasn't all about sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll. Sure, the prevailing views on sexual freedoms, civil rights, anti-capitalist beliefs, pro-ecology, drugs, and the war in Vietnam bordered on the extreme.

But as McCleary writes, "society threw the baby out with the bathwater in rejecting hippie ideals; what's most important here is to recognize the 1960s as a period of experimentation, where there was a sense of community, a spiritual revolution, and an evolutionary jump in consciousness." Some now regard the sixties and seventies as "the intellectual renaissance of the 20th century."

McCleary defines "hippie" as "a member of a counterculture that began appearing in the early 1960s, which expressed a moral rejection of the established society. The true hippie believes in and works for truth, generosity, peace, love and tolerance. The messengers of sanity in a world filled with greed, intolerance and war."


"The word is in turn derived from the word "hip", meaning roughly "in the know," or "aware.">

[sasquatch]

78. 25

[Karenca]

88. I know alot of people your age

My son's 22. And I attend New York University...so you can imagine I'm surrounded by 20-somethings.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion,
but,
you are the first person I've spoken to in that age group with THAT opinion.

[sasquatch]

91. I guess I'm just too damned cynical towards the baby boomer generation

[Karenca]

95. Well one thing you should be aware is that hippies DID NOT vote for Reagen

In fact, there was a popular song back then where he was nicknamed 'RayGUN". I'm pretty sure it was performed at Woodstock.

The hippies did quite alot of good....they started so many important movements,
which might not have even materialized to this day if the hippies hadn't been around.

I often wonder what happened?

I think the Fundamentalist (CHURCH=STATE, GOVERNMENT=RELIGION) movement became too huge, and that's a big part of what to blame for most of the crap that's going on in this country...

[Radical Activist]

84. Howard Zinn spoke to a lot of crowds full of hippies.

Whose to say he wasn't one.

[sasquatch]

163. Bush speaks in front of soldiers, but doesn't that make him one

[Squeech]

59. Yeah, but

(oversimplification follows) stereotypes like the ones you're indulging in have let it all get undone.

I considered myself a hippie then-- I wore long hair and bell bottoms and beads, but I also wanted to get "hip," i.e. knowledgeable. I confess that I wasn't ready then (and probably still aren't) for the psychic unmasking of LSD, so I never took any of that. Instead I read, attended teach-ins, and tried to get a good grasp of how the world really worked-- the stuff we read Zinn and Conason for nowadays. My notion of what hippie stood for was that self-improvement was fun, and its corollary that having fun was self-improvement.

Mistakes were made, as Nixon famously said. On our side, the mistakes included assuming that anyone who didn't enjoy what we enjoyed-- Fillmore-quality rock music, dope, creative hedonism, whatever-- would enjoy it if they got the chance. So we misunderestimated the American puritanical streak, which consolidated vague anti-hippie unease into a conservative movement called the Moral Majority. Also we made the strategic blunder of undermining a decent president tied to an ugly war (LBJ) and thereby allowed him to be replaced by a lying sack of shit fronting an evil cabal (Nixon), who as we now know not only prolonged the war but spread it into formerly neutral countries and destroyed them (e.g. Cambodia). In sum I'd say we failed to account for the guile and bad faith of our enemies.

We made one dumb assumption too, that everyone who did enjoy what we enjoyed (especially the music) was probably on our side in every important particular-- which allowed us to be marketed to with an efficiency and rapacity previously unknown to capitalism.

But if nothing else, I'd point with pride to the fact that our music is largely the best selling music there is, in spite of modern trends. It's a poorly kept secret that the back catalog keeps the modern music industry afloat-- they actually lose money on most of their Next Big Things.

[sasquatch]

74. You're right about the music though

[Tyrone Slothrop]

61. "Your revoultion is over, Lebowski!

Condolences. The bums lost."

[sasquatch]

63. "If you will it dude, it is no dream"

[Orsino]

67. You're really asking how things would have been different witthout...

...the hippies. The obvious answer, of course, is that the my-country-right-or-wrong meme wouldn't have been exposed as jingoism so early, and the Vietnam conflict would have dragged on longer.

A less obvious answer is that the culture of materialism would not have been temporarily derailed for a decade, and we would have had our neocon coup in the seventies.

Hug a hippy.

[Radical Activist]

81. Yes.

Although its easy to dismiss today, there was a huge amount of progress in a large number of areas like stopping the war, the environment, civil rights, women's rights, and consumer protection that the hippies helped make happen.

IMO, their biggest failure was not educating the next generation adequately to keep them from falling for another President starting another war based on lies. How did the nation forget so quickly?

[sasquatch]

92. Or not educating there's enough

Because we're still fighting those fights and it's the 60's generation that's running the world right now.

[Radical Activist]

97. We will always be fighting those fights

because there will always be forces of greed and concentrated power fighting against us. That will never change.

Things are much better today than they were in the 50's and that shouldn't be discounted. Remember that the radical left was almost completely wiped out by McCarthy and government witch hunts in the 50's. The hippies nearly had to start from scratch so they deserve some credit for that.

Unfortunately, the radical left has been nearly wiped with different methods since the 80's, mostly through brainwashing in the corporate media & schools, which promote stereotypes like the idea that hippies never did anything but sit around and do drugs.

[Karenca]

108. delete dupe

[Karenca]

109. There's something else you should take into account.

Not everyone from that era had the same wonderful beliefs as the hippies did. America may have been as divided then, as it is now.
Also, many young guys dodged the draft and left the country.....The immigrant population has soared....so the Demographics have changed a bit.


Unfortunately, the other side learned fast HOW TO STEAL ELECTIONS.

[ET Awful]

114. He's been doing that throughout the thread though.

He has a complete inability to differentiate between a subculture and a generation, he attempts to insinuate the same thing.

Of course, he's from the generation that made "drive-by shooting" a common term, made "ecstacy death at a rave" a headline, was the first generation that considered video games to be a necessary part of life, made methamphetamine the drug of choice for middle America, and formed his entire world opinion based on what he learned on television.

[XemaSab]

117. WTF????

You don't like how your own generation was treated in the OP so you have to bash ours?

[ET Awful]

118. It's a bit of an allegorical device.

If you wish to generalize and paint entire generations with broad strokes, you must be prepared for reciprocity.

Here's a little hint for you, my generation is more of an in between generation, I was born in 1969, too young to be a "hippie" and too old to be a member of the drive-by shooting generation.

But, if you feel that entire generations should be considered collectively for their worst members, instead of considering each of their various subgroups and subcultures based on their individiual merits, then you must be prepared to have the same treatment leveled at your own generation.

Is that so hard to understand? (Oh, I forgot your generation is also less well-read than prior generations as well).

[XemaSab]

120. You better check yourself before you wreck yourself

I'm hoping that last line is meant satirically.

If we're the least well-read generation since before the Protestant reformation, it's because the baby boomers DECIMATED education funding, leaving us to languish in piss-poor schools.

[ET Awful]

122. No, it's because the vast majority of your generation does not like to

read. They'd rather watch TV. Most people of your generation would rather play video games than read a book. That's fact. It has nothing to do with education funding. They know HOW to read, they choose not to.

Doubt me? Go ask 50 people your age if they'd rather read Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" or play with an XBox 360 for the afternoon.

[XemaSab]

130. The only friend I have who owns a video gaming system

Is also the only one who would be interested in reading Zinn in the first place.

I found "People's History" overstated and tedious.

[ET Awful]

131. Apparently your generation also has problems with math.

I said 50 people your age, not "the only friend" with a video gaming system.

As to "People's History" being overstated and tedious . . . would you have preferred the Cliffs Notes version, abridged for your convenience so you can get back to watching Dawson's Creek?

[XemaSab]

134. Why the fuck are you flaming me????

What the fuck did I do to piss you off?????

I will defend my generation just like other people in this thread are defending the baby boomers.

We've got our problems, yes, but so does any generation.

And for the record, I have NEVER watched Dawson's Creek...

[ET Awful]

137. Perhaps the Dawson's Creek line was over the top

:).

My point is that you, in your haste to defend your generation, failed abjectly to realize that what you were responding to was the same overbroad rhetorical devices as you are levelling at others, simply with the generational references redirected.

Rather than realize that, you attacked me.

I'm not trying to flame you, I'm trying to get you to understand that blaming an entire generation for the behavior of one subset or subculture of that generation or doing the reverse and stating that one subculture was the entirety of the generation is ludicrous at best.

It certainly got your attention didn't it?

Now, explain to me how my post is any different than someone saying that "hippies put Reagan in office." It's the same type of overbroad statement with the same lack of basis in fact.

[XemaSab]

139. I never said hippies put Reagan in office

And I understand perhaps more clearly than most of my generation the difference between the hippies and the rest of the generation.

My mom was a hippie and we've had many talks about this subject.

I will freely give the hippies credit for ending the war, but I think sometimes on other topics there's a little too much self-congratulation happening among the boomer ranks.

I think the 60's-70's hippies did some things that were good and they did some things that were problematic, like the drug culture.

I went to Humboldt State and I will say that I have little respect for most modern hippies. Some of them are very good people, but most of them seem to be into the scene because they are freeloading leeches who like to smoke pot.

I know that the 60's hippie movement wasn't like that, and I'll even go so far as to say it was a broader youth movement beyond the hippie movement that fomented the social change of the time.

It seems like most of the people who got stuff done then, like ending the war, were college students or otherwise associated with intellectual communities, and they just happened to look like hippies. :shrug:

[ET Awful]

142. Ah, but until the summer of '67 when the media created a phenomenon

the "hippies" were college students and the college students were "hippies" and the two intermingled quite well and with little to differentiate them other than one was at school (in many cases there only to avoid the draft).

I think you are falling into the trap of trying to define "hippie" too narrowly and with the right-wing concept smelly drugged up long hairs. That is too confining. I think you really need to expand your concept of what a "hippie" is.

[XemaSab]

143. Since nobody else's misrepresented definition of hippie suits you

What's YOUR definition of hippie?

[ET Awful]

144. Simple enough

Someone who eschewed the established conventions and morals which were thrust upon them from childhood, and instead chose to live life on their own terms. That ranged from rejecting the sexual mores brought on by repressive religiosity to rejecting the conventional "wisdom" that tried to tell them that marijuana was the devils weed and would drive them insane. It was more a subculture of people from different lifestyles and background who all through collective discussion or individual realization or simply to belong, came to the realization that much of what they'd been taught all their lives was wrong, and that there was more to life than women staying home barefoot and pregnant and men going off to bring home the bacon or off to war. The "hippies" (once again a term which many people who were "hippies" would reject completely) were simply the result of years of repressive thought and repressive upbringing rising to the surface and bubbling over in a thousand different ways. That bubbling over ranged from supporting causes like civil rights and anti-war efforts to supporting sexual freedom and drug experimentation.

It didn't just encompass dirty long-haired druggies, nor did it encompass an entire generation. It was simply those people who knew that a better life could be obtained by working together and respecting ideals such as peace, mutual cooperation to further mutual goals, etc.

[JVS]

190. Hippies suck because they are unwilling to just let you have your opinion

It isn't enough for them to be smug and self-righteous, they require others to beleive that the hippies are superior too.

[XemaSab]

202. Well put

[XemaSab]

136. I know what's going on.... you're high on reefers.

That explains it.

[ET Awful]

138. Nope, I don't do drugs, I also don't drink or smoke.

Hell, my only "drug" intake is an overabundance of Pepsi with caffeine.

[Telly Savalas]

184. Hang on.

For starters, "drive-by shooting" became a common term 20 years ago, so don't pin that one on today's kids.

But more importantly, many defenders of hippiedom also fail to differentiate between the subculture and the generation. They try to take credit for any good thing that happened between 1965 and 1975 without really demonstrating any causality from the action of hippies. Take the most common issues:

Ending the Vietnam War: Did hippies cause the war to end, or was it that "straights" got sick of seeing their kids and neighbour's kids being killed on TV every night for years and years? As has been observed many times in this thread, hippies were only part of the anti-war movement and one could make the case that instead of popularizing it among Middle America, they marginalized it.

Civil Rights: The big advances in civil rights were associated with MLK and Malcolm X and pre-dated the hippies. Isn't a touch arrogant to think that the largely white hippie movement was the prime mover with regards to civil rights.

Women's Rights: In the sphere of theory it wasn't hippies, but rather "squares" like Betty Friedan who advanced the feminist movement. In practice, it was women who moved into previously male-dominated professions and consequently redefined gender roles who made a big difference, not those who "tuned in, turned on, and dropped out". A lot of hippie political groups like the SDS maintained the same male-dominated culture that was found in corporate boardrooms of the time. (e.g. how many of the Chicago 7 were women?)

Consumer Protection: I don't recall ever seeing Abbie Hoffman and his ilk pushing for this sort of thing. I was under the impression that it was the Grey Flannel Suit Left of the time like Ralph Nader that were on top of this issue. "Peace, Love, and Cars that Don't Explode when Rear-Ended"? While Nader's groups shared the same sense of idealism as the hippies, the methods were quite different and arguably a lot more effective.

Environmental Movement: While its roots come from a number of places, one has to concede that to their credit the hippies played a pretty big role in this one. (Just listing it for the sake of completeness.)


I'm not saying that hippies are bad or that the world would be better without them. It's just that their accomplishments are exagerrated by those who romanticize the era. If they really changed the world then Ronald "Same Old Shit, Only a Lot Worse" Reagan wouldn't have been elected president less than a decade later. It's not a real change if it can be reversed that easily.

[XemaSab]

203. Rachel Carson was hardly a hippie

[JVS]

191. I love a nice meth pipe after a hard night of video games and a drive-by

That's what being part of "Generation our parents' retirement will destroy the world" is all about

[Telly Savalas]

180. Didn't educate the next generation?

Younger people voted for Bush with a greater frequency than Baby Boomers? I'm too lazy to google up the numbers on that, but I'd be really surprised if that were true.

[redwitch]

82. "Every generation blames the one before

and all of their frustrations come beating down your door". Mike and the Mechanics?

I "hung out" in my small town in New Jersey with a group of mostly young teens like myself. We had a place to go, run by the Methodist Church, a youth center. The people in charge of it were 20 -30 years old, seminary students from Princeton, NJ. They engaged us in nature, social activism, they talked to us about drugs, they talked to us about racism. A couple of them later went to jail for stopping a troop train from leaving the station, early 70's. I believe they laid their bodies down on the tracks. They were amazing, dedicated, loving, hardworking people. They wanted to change the world. This post made me think of them. Monica, Bruce, Zippy and John, wherever you are, I salute you.

[EstimatedProphet]

86. Damn hippy hater

Yes, they accomplished something. They got Viet Nam stopped.

[MadHound]

90. Let's see here

Hippies expanded a cultural revolution, the reverberations of which are still being felt today. They were a large part of stopping the Vietnam war. The spun off the movements of gay rights, womens' rights, the ecological movement, hell some of them even spun of the born again in Jesus movement(sadly)

And despite your blanket characterization, most hippies bathed, and didn't just sit around doing drugs:eyes: That is just more RW BS, don't fall for it.

In addition, many individuals went on from being hippies to being successful in many other walks of life. If Ben and Jerry hadn't been hippies, we wouldn't have great ice cream. If it hadn't been for the hippies, music today would be entirely different, as would art, theater, and movies.

Bashing the hippies is now some sort of RW sport, don't buy into the hype. Most hippies were very serious minded individuals, fully committed to their cause, be it anti-war, gay rights, the enviroment, etc. The ones who were sitting around doing drugs all the time were the posers and part timers for the most part. Sorority sisters and frat boys, wanting to make the latest scene in order that they to could look cool:eyes: Go out for a weekend of play and still be at class on Monday.

[LiberalEsto]

94. What would the world be like without

tie-dye?

Total bummer, man.

[Rabrrrrrr]

96. Hmm.. let's see, narcicism as a social value; a me-first philosophy;

the ones that became brokers managed to destroy millions of people's jobs...

Oh, wait, that's the yuppie fuck segment of the Boomers, not the hippie part.

No, the hippies managed to save the world from an impending, destructive pile of unsmoked weed and unpopped pills, and they gave us a hell of a lot of great music, and the really good hippies, that weren' just drugged out loser fucks, gave us the ecological movement, minimalist living, and people-friendly politics.

[sasquatch]

98. They also gave us Bode Miller

:eyes:
Overtalented douchebag that poses as a skier.

[ET Awful]

115. Ummm Bode Miller is YOUR GENERATION.

Or do you not get that?

[sasquatch]

156. His parents were hippies though

[Jokerman]

101. Circular reasoning at its best.

From your posts I gather that you define hippies as lazy, unwashed, drug users who never accomplish anything.

Then you ask if they ever accomplished anything.

If they did then, by your definition, they must not have been hippies.

[madrchsod]

124. yes- but i took to many drugs to remember.......

oh yes everyone i knew took a bath.

[madrchsod]

126. "beatniks are out to make it rich....

must be the season of the witch" donovan singing about beatniks and the same can be said for hippies.

[Oeditpus Rex]

127. Uh...

I forgot, man.

[NoPasaran]

132. The bong, man

They left future generations the bong.

[BamaLefty]

133. Hippies did absolutely nothing good

for "our causes." In fact, they are still hurting us today. The lingering effects of their batshit crazy insane lifestyle is one of the reasons the GOP is in power as I type.

[ET Awful]

135. Yet another person with no clue whatsoever.

Of course, can't expect much better from someone from Alabama (yup, I used a stereotype too).

It never ceases to amaze me how poorly informed people are, and how little they actually know.

The number of DUers who apparently gained their knowledge of the 60's from Rush Limbaugh and South Park is amazing.

[BamaLefty]

145. First of all,

I'm proud to be from Alabama. Is my state misguided politically? Yes, very much so. There isn't any other state in the nation I would rather live. . . Also, what does my residence have to do with this topic?

Another thing, I wasn't even born in the 60's. In fact, I wasn't born until 1987. So, I'll give you the chance to enlighten me about all of the wonderful accomplishments by hippies and I'll do my part to have an intelligent conversation with you. Leave the diatribes at the door, please.

Have a nice day.

[ET Awful]

148. LOL . . . leave the diatribes at the door? You're the one that dragged

them inside like a muddy dog.

I am having a wonderful day.

The fact that you weren't born until 1987 proves my point. You talk about things you have no knowledge of and pretend to be an expert.

Simply read the entire thread and toss out your South Park influenced notions of what "hippies" are and maybe you'll learn something.

It never ceases to amaze me how someone under 25 has no conception whatsoever of how the groundwork was set for many things they take for granted today.

Your state has a LOT to do with it. If you'd grown up in a less bassackwards state, you might have learned a few things that you didn't, like the fact that the anti-war movement that, in the long run, ended the Vietnam war started with . . . yup, you guess it, "hippies." While folks down in your neck of the woods were doing things like lynching black folks and screaming "love it or leave it" at the top of their lungs to anyone who wasn't gung-ho for the "My country right or wrong" mentality, the "hippies" were trying to end the draft. While people down in your neck of the woods were still celebrating the death of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the "hippies" were working diligently for issues ranging from womens rights to civil rights to ending the war.

If you want to talk about lingering effects of a batshit insane lifestyle, look no further than your fellow citizens in places like Selma.

[Name removed]

149. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

152. damn right fawkes... I'm in alabama... it's a tough job...

but someone on the left has to do it... a red-neck pushed me down when i was registering miority voters in the projects last month but he didn't stop me... maybe it was my pony tail or Democrtic bumper stickers... all I did was ask him if he thought we could afford to put these republicans back in office and said let's dump the crooks.

wanna judge me?

[Name removed]

155. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ET Awful]

154. Aww, isn't that cute, ever heard of Godwin's Law?

Here, I'll help you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

First, nowhere did I call him a backwards redneck (can you read?). I specifically made references to "folks in his neck of the woods".

If you can prove that wrong, feel free, I doubt you can.

Let's try this again . . . he engages in a diatribe against a subculture that engaged in efforts to end war, stop racism, push for more rights for women and minorities and a plethora of other causes and says that we're still "suffering" from a "batshit insane lifestyle" which they led.

Yet, pointing out that the lingering effects of the real batshit insane lifestyle (that of the racist south) are much more pronounced makes me "Hitler?"

You might want to read the DU rules before you post (hint, calling people "Hitler" is against them).

As to me being "high" nope, haven't been "high" in over a decade. Nice try though.

[sasquatch]

157. I know who I'm rooting for in the Iron Bowl

[Karenca]

161. Oh no, that is so wrong!

putting down the hippies like that....the true liberals of the 1960's

well,
kinda makes you sound like a war-loving, corporate-do-or-die conservative.

[Karenca]

162. In the 1960's there was a great deal of idealism around .

<We all ran to the Beatles and flower power and the sense of excitement. We really did believe we were going to change the world.
I don't think all of us who were there in the 60's went away. I think we went on working for a nonviolent society for stability and democracy to build justice in the world. We are passionately concerned that there is such injustice and there's famine and war in the world. But I know that we are still in there working.
It's going to take a long time to change the thinking, so we're not going to go anywhere-we're going to work. We will work with young people, we don't want a big gap between young people and us older people.

I recognize there's got to be space because they are the young after all. I think that we can learn of each other and share of each other and help each other because, after all, there are lots of problems. Those of us who have been around a bit longer maybe can bring a little bit of encouragement to the young people who too will be around in 30 years time working on it as well-it's going to take a long time.>
Mairead Corrigan Maguire

http://www.peacejam.org/index.htm

Mairead Corrigan Maguire was presented with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 for their efforts to create a grassroots movement to end the violence in Northern Ireland.

[Blue_Tires]

141. that whole 'free love' thing...

I'm down with that! :smoke: :evilgrin:

[sasquatch]

158. Who isn't

[Le Taz Hot]

147. Yo're living those changes

Pick up a book for goddess sake. Criminee!

[eauclaireliberal]

153. The Counterculture brought about Father Groppi

Which was a huge step; The good Father forced the Roman Catholic Church to face vital issues such as civil rights.

Sitting around, un bathed, and using drugs is at best generalization.

I'm Gen-X which means that I DID find the hippies that turned to yuppies and voted for Raygun a somewhat annoying transition, but I guess it was inevitable.

[APPLE314]

159. We completely lost about 6 years.

I've been told they were good years. I can't remember. Sooooooooo stoooooooooned.

[sasquatch]

160. Damn, that must've been good shit

:smoke:

[JVS]

164. They were critical in the development of the time-life "freedom rock"...

collection

[El Fuego]

165. I agree, they just galvanized the conservatives

[BlackVelvet04]

170. Every kid that wears blue jeans to school

has us to thank. That in and of itself was enough for any group to accomplish. :-)

[Yavin4]

172. Yes, The Personal Computer

Steve Jobs lived on a commune, and he brought that hatred of the establishment with him when he developed the Mac.

[JVS]

174. The Mac then proceeded to sell out far beyond what one would think...

possible for an inanimate object.

[Yavin4]

175. Before The Mac, No One Even Believed That People Would Need PCs

It took the counter-culture mentality to break IBM's stranglehold over the computer.

[JVS]

176. If no one ever believed people would need PC's, why had PC's...

been made since 1981 by IBM, while Macs only showed up in 1984?

Even Texas instruments and TRS were making computers for the public before the mac showed up

[Zorro]

177. Before the Mac there was the Apple II, Grasshopper

You might find it interesting to read up on the history of Apple Computer.

[JVS]

178. He said "before the mac" not "before the apple II" oh condescending one

I am familiar with the Apple II. It was certainly good, but there were similar products by commodore and Texas instruments at the time

[Zorro]

179. So sorry, Grasshopper

Stating "there were similar products..." reveals your youthfulness, since those working with computers at that time remember the differences between vendor offerings.

[JVS]

185. WTF does that have to do with Macs? He said macs. I talked about macs

So if you want to talk about macs, do so. Otherwise FUCK OFF pops.

His assertion that the Mac was what happened before people considered home computers is bullshit. I don't remember the introduction of the appleII, my grade school used them though and it didn't seem all that much better than the Texas Instruments I had at home, but I sure as hell remember the introduction of the Mac, and the idea of home computing was well on it's way by then.

[scordem]

187. I don't think we did.

[SoulGlo]

188. I don't know about the hippies of yore,

but the hippies around here in this current age of hippiedom are self-absorbed and apathetic. They sit at the coffee house armchair politicking and if presented with the opportunity to work for real change, they are suddenly too busy to help out. They totally annoy the shit out of me. But I havent given up on all hippies, maybe there are cool ones somewhere.

[XemaSab]

189. Do you live in Arcata???

[SoulGlo]

194. Texas

west texas:cry:

[XemaSab]

195. Arcata is a little piece of West Texas in California.

:pals:

[henslee]

196. Yes they popularized that art of stretched soda bottles.

[sasquatch]

197. Huh?

:wtf:

[henslee]

198. When I was a kid, there were all these cool adult comic/smoke shops....

that always sold stretched bottles, along with black lite posters. water pipes and legal highs.

[Metta]

199. We changed the world in ways known and unknown.

Learning to do meditation helped me let go of lots of anger so I never did have to carry that gun. Plus, I eventually lived in India on the Ganges and among Tibetans and in Thailand and have touched countless lives for the better because of what I brought back.

[qnr]

200. Technically, if you know the word, then we accomplished /something/,

even if it is only a matter of being a recognizable group.

[sasquatch]

201. But they didn't make an effective change though

Politicly all of our politicians ever since then have been Centrist or balls to the walls right wingers.