The Hippies Were Right!

[Flabbergasted]

Green homes? Organic food? Nature is good? Time To Give The Ol’ Tie-Dyers Some Respect

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

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

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

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

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

[Madspirit]

1. Yup...WE were right and WE still are...n/t

[hippiechick]

2. Yeah, they were.

I just hope our generation of Hippies has caught on in enough time to save what's left of the planet.


:scared:

[Greyhound]

3. Of course they were, they were liberals and the liberals (in the common usage)

have always been right, and when the rest eventually catch up they deny the liberals influence.

Whether we're being ridiculed, beaten, gassed, hosed, or hung up on a cross, it seems to be our sad lot to always lead with no acknowledgment or appreciation.

[Warpy]

6. The last 38 years of backlash have been fun, haven't they?

Oh, it was great seeing our parents vote in men whose main purpose in life was to dismantle the New Deal, bust unions, keep wages down, lie about inflation, start stupid wars, relieve us of those pesky civil rights through the drug war (which started as a war against US, by the way), and generally turn away from both liberal and Christian purposes and award the greedy while punishing both the poor and the folks who wanted to be generous to them.

It's no comfort being right at this late date. We just hope the people who come later will realize the same thing all over again, even if they think they discovered it all by themselves.

[Greyhound]

10. I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you blaming liberals for the last

four decades of misery and corruption?

[Warpy]

21. Johnson was the last liberal president

and liberals in Congress quickly became an endangered species with the advent of the new GOP order.

That's what I'm saying.

[primative1]

25. I resent that comment ...

It wasn't Johnson, it was Carter ... but I kind of agree with you on the rest of your sentiment.
Looking back ... it wasn't the movement that failed, it was its leadership that sold out. They never really believed in any of it, just played along for the glory of being in touch with all that cool-ness. When you look around today, the biggest pieces of crap capitalist shills you see are the people that supposedly saw the light so long ago.

[Warpy]

26. Uh, Carter was no liberal

He was only a Democrat.

It's amazing how many folks get that confused.

[primative1]

28. One of us is confused ...

He was liberal enough for me.

[Art_from_Ark]

36. Carter had a good energy policy

He made it possible to get a tax break for generating wind energy, and even sell it to the grid. He also fought for higher fuel efficiency standards and energy conservation, and led by example, such as walking from the inaguration site to the White House instead of taking a limousine and turning down the White House thermostat.

He signed the legislation that started Superfund.

He had the foresight to set aside huge tracts of precious lands before the anti-environmentalist Reagan took over.

He did what he could to support the ERA.

He had the good sense not to start any war, or walk around with a chip on his shoulder.

He did what he could to get other countries to respect human rights.

He was religious, but he didn't wear it on his sleeve.

He sounds pretty liberal to me.

[Flabbergasted]

34. Johnson was groomed to keep the masses happy while the war was waged.

[madrchsod]

27. oh yes they have

in 1973 i had a union job paying good wages and benefits. worse i actually got hired the same day i applied and if i did`t like the job i`d could quit and get another job the next day...those were the days... those were the days...opps having a Cream flashback.

[november3rd]

4. Yeah, but what's the use of gloating?

Being right didn't do us any good, or anybody else, for that matter. Being right and being well organized enough to weild some power, that's what would count.

Throw the Ching and you'll inevitably see that all this military force baloney is a dead end highway to nowhere, and that we all gotta get on board the peace train if anyone's gonna survive.

[Adelante]

5. But we're baby boomers

So guilty of every bad thing that's happened since, too, I'm told.

[jgraz]

7. Why can't you be both?

:evilgrin: :hi:

[Adelante]

9. Cuz I never changed

Death to Yuppie Scum :evilgrin:

[Greyhound]

13. Nearly all the hippies were baby boomers, but few baby boomers were hippies.

There were far more "day trippers" than there ever were hippies. They are the one's that cut their hair and became stock brokers in the 80's, not the hippies.

[Beam Me Up]

8. Yeah, but we WAY UNDERESTIMATED the opposition.

I mean, we made the mistake that a lot of folks here make -- that the system worked or could be made to work for common human interests. We thought one day everyone would just 'wake up' and realize that what was good for the planet was good for everyone (for example) and all this madness would come to an end.

We were wrong on all counts because -- as has been made abundantly clear in the last seven years -- the system does NOT work the way we're told it does, ordinary citizens do NOT control the system through their votes and elected representatives. The system is controlled by a relatively small minority of people who benefit tremendously from it as it is. Their wealth and power is dependent, for example, upon control (including military control) of the global hydrocarbon energy market. The last thing they want is renewable energy resources because renewables are inherently decentralized -- thus decentralizing wealth creation and power.

Everyone is still way underestimating the real threats to our Republic, not to mention our planet and our future.

[Flabbergasted]

35. Never thought about it in this way...Thanks.

The last thing they want is renewable energy resources because renewables are inherently decentralized -- thus decentralizing wealth creation and power.

[ArmchairMeme]

11. Small is beautiful

I remember when the smallest car became the sex symbol of a generation. The Volkswagon Bug was small but curvy. People had to sit close together and it was a good thing.

Now when there is the threat of the oncoming oil shortage customers are being urged to purchase the largest, most gas guzzling vehicles that can be made. Your passenger can ride three rows away from you - blegh!

Celebrities are purchasing the largest houses. Politicians purchase the most expensive shoes and everything else that the get the right answer.

Now is the time not to just "keep up with the Joneses" but to show them that you have five more bedrooms and five more bathrooms than your family of three has need for.

I guess the pendulum has swung from small to large and from smart to dumb.

I am ready for it to turn around and head back to when the hippies were right and the world goes toward being right-sized.

[iconocrastic]

12. Yes, and half of them are dead from drug overdoses

Speed freaks gulping vitamin B12 by the jar. Oh, the good old days.

[Greyhound]

14. In reality there were comparatively few ODs' among the hippies.

You've just been uncritically listening to the reich-wing lies.

[elizm]

16. Why such hatred....

...about something you apparently know very little about? Were you around during that time to witness firsthand that which you spew?

[KoKo]

17. You've been watching too many MTV Retrospectives designed to

make that era look like a drugged out, doped up, endless party of flowerchildren having sex and burning it all up.

That was what the media focused on. But, there were others trying to protect the environment and consumers...and community gardens and made in America wooden toys and grains and veggies grown with good gardening practices were more common than the freakish things the Corporate Media pulls out of their old files.

Just remember...Propaganda by the Media isn't new. :-(

[Amonester]

18. I think you seem to confuse hippies with punks,

It's alright, sometimes the difference was not always easy to make (and it still isn't). :)

[Enthusiast]

23. Speed freaks?

There are more speed freaks, now, by far, than during the hippy era. I don't hear many speed freaks of today all too worried about their own health or the health of the environment. Unrelated...............

[Flabbergasted]

33. nevermind

[Diane R]

15. Of all the smart baby boomers who 'got it', our leader is the stupid frat boy who didn't. n/t

[Amonester]

19. Sad that the stupid frat boy wasn't the only one too. n/t

[conscious evolution]

20. We can save the world

with an act of love.
http://www.archive.org/download/donna2006-12-31.madtaper.flac/donna2006-12-31d3t03_64kb.mp3

[Blue_In_AK]

30. It's dying to get better. n/t

[Voltaire99]

22. Also right about sex, authority, drugs and music.

Wrong, most grievously, on personal hygiene. Nobody's perfect.

[polichick]

24. Far out!

:)

[loudsue]

29. What I'm wondering is, what about the young college kids NOW??

I'm really worried about the reagan pablum they've been fed, and hope that they have managed to eek out enough of an education on our constitution in civics classes (that no longer exist) to take up the battle where it left off.

What could be so wrong with PEACE and LOVE? And with protests and values? It's like most of the kids 18-28 don't realize we've become a fascist country, and the battlefields are HERE, in the good ole USA.

:kick:

[xchrom]

31. yes we were -- make love not war, baby.

tune in and turn on.

open yourself to the universe -- we are all one.

[proud patriot]

32. as a love child born to 2 hippies

Thank goodness they didn't train me correct for nothing

[Honeycombe8]

37. You betcha! Thanks for putting into writing something that I've thought...

before! The greenie, long-haired, tie-dyed, bandana-wearin', dope smokin', rootin' tootin' hippies did indeed have it right!

And the country can STILL have a strong economy while going green! Just as Gore and others have said, and as I have been saying!

You find a way for someone to make a buck on it, and it's as good as done! Going green is good for bidness!

Thanks for the words and the link.