Where did the hippies go? Billy Jack in Hiding? The music? And confession

[The Straight Story]

Is this what we have become, an 'undergound' website where the avg american does not see the message?

Confession: I used to be a right wing conservative. I grew up disgusted at Nixon, Liked carter a lot, voted Reagan and liked him twice, then Bush I and then it all came to a crashing halt over the years. I didn't like Clinton eventually nor Bush.

As I paid more attention to the government I came to not like most in it, nor did I trust them. It became them versus us eventually. A government against the people instead of for them.

The more I saw, the more I saw that corporations were the ones most cared about. This was true even in the clinton era. He was better than bush by a long mile or two, but in the end the little guy was still seeming to be second fiddle.

You and I come and go, those big companies stick around. We just live our lives and search for happiness, they get all the breaks and love because they are seen to 'do more for america'. Without them we have no future - as future is defined I suppose by those in power.

In the 60's and 70's we had a cause, the people - black, white, Indian (ala Billy Jack in an odd way and others) - it was about Americans the people, not America the business.

Where did my hippies go? Those wild and crazy people who touted free love, rode buses, made music and movies, those people who still today make us pause when we think of the era.

Our leadership was not the DLC or Dean or Kerry, it was the wild eyed and tye dyed people. It was the people who challenged our sterotypes, it was the people who banded together to put the brakes down on a corrupt government. We had a cause outside of 'the man' in power (though that was one thing, and I still remember songs about that). It was about principle, freedom, love.

I am tired of bush bashing myself, I think the government as a whole has taken a crappy direction - bush or not. Someday soon we will gather again as a people and fight the power. I am not sure what the catalyst will finally be that gets us together, but I hope we do it soon.

Each day new laws get passed, more power passes from us to them, and our rights get drained. I am a leader at work - but like many others in this world now I try to balance family, work, bills, life in general and fear of how our government might destroy those who oppose it.

Where did all our hippie leaders go, and how do we get them back?

[katinmn]

1. Good post. I think the answer is...

it's up to us!

Are you pissed yet, people?

[NVMojo]

2. I've been pissed since 9-11 and not just at the terrorists but at the

liars who milked it!!

[Blue_In_AK]

3. Funny you should mention fighting the power.

My husband and I were just talking about that this afternoon, that the way things are going, a real revolution may be the only thing to save us. I was one of those hippies you were talking about, but like so many others I got caught up in settling down, raising a family, taking care of our immediate needs, and not paying much attention to our country's downward spiral. Now that I've reawakened (this past election robbery is what really did it for me, although I have been deeply suspicious since 9/11), I'm just so angry and frustrated. It feels so much like our hands are tied and that even when we send people to Washington who we think are going to work for us, they get corrupted and they vote against our best interests time and time again. I don't know what the answer is, but I think at some point if we're going to save ourselves, it's going to have to get really ugly.

Revolutions happen in other places...maybe it's time for one here.

[madrchsod]

4. we grew up and realized that it`s up

to the next generation to lead. it`s our job to educate,to advise and to support. it`s up to us to examine what went wrong and right and have that information to give to the children of the future

[The Straight Story]

10. I only hope that we can

I have slacked myself in that area, but here's to hoping I get better at it!

[NMDemDist2]

5. don't know about you, but I'm tired

i fought against the Nam war in the streets, i got arrested protesting Gulf One

i wore out two pairs of sneakers last summer and fall

i'm tired

you kids need to get off your cell phones and video games and take the reins. I'll send lawyers and money, I'll come down and hold a sign or make some (several hundred) calls for you, but I really don't have a dog in this fight. I have no children and we're too old to get drafted

i need to start getting ready to support myself in my old age after losing most everything in the last 5 years

let me know if you need some help and good luck, I (with a few hundred thousand friends) did it 30 years ago so it can be done


Carry on my wayward son
For there'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Now don't you cry no more

Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond the illusion
I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high
Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a madman
I hear the voices when I'm dreamin'
I can hear them say

Carry on my wayward son
For there'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Now don't you cry no more

Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know
On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about, I'm like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for winds of fortune, but I hear the voices say

Carry on my wayward son
For there'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Now don't you cry no more

Carry on, you will always remember
Carry on, nothing equals the splendor
Now your life's no longer empty
Surely heaven waits for you
Carry on my wayward son
For there'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Now don't you cry no more

[The Straight Story]

9. Can they rise up and lead?

I hope so. I suppose it may well may be different then how we did, so maybe I am being a tad too strict in my thought process on it all. Perhaps the internet is the new world of the hippie :)

[NMDemDist2]

27. don't see that they'll have much choice, or just lay down their lives

for oil

wait til the draft hits, they'll do their thing just like we did

[SpiralHawk]

6. The Human Beings you call Hippies are still here

in the good old U.S. of A.

Don't fall for stereotypes of this group, any more than any other group. They were a diverse lot. They are a diverse lot. Ever wonder who has perservered with solar energy, organic agriculture, sustainable house design, and a thousand other initiatives? The so-called Hippies of yesteryear.

They have grown up. Some failed miserably in life due to drugs and alcohol, others plugged along working at jobs to care for their families, and many many many persevered with their ideals and created the foundation for a sustainable society.

At some point, an enlightened corporate world and government may put their peculiar genius to high service, or perhaps the general Consumer Public will see the true value of what the 'Hippies' have brought forth. So mote it be.

[The Straight Story]

8. Thanks

Always good to have some hope :)

[shadowknows69]

24. I was born in 1969

but in the 80's when my friends were listening to Warrant and attending keg parties, I was absorbing books on Vietnam and The Civil rights movement, exploring spiritual paths beyond the protestant one I was raised on and tryying to catch every Grateful Dead or Allman Brother's concert I could. I am a born again hippie. The spirit has been passed on I assure you.

[distressedsister]

26. Me, too. Born during the same week as Woodstock.

I always knew I had missed something huge but got a little of it back when I became a Deadhead in the 80s.

I have the spirit but it does tend to turn to bitterness when the police won't even let the most minor of street protests happen. 9/11 will be exploited by these people for 100 years.

Please pass on this link. This video, shot myself on 3/4/05 in Westfield, NJ shows the police first arresting 4 young people and then forcibly dispersing the whole crowd. What's a hippie to do? Take their pictures and publish them on the internet!

http://www.seedsofdoubt.com/distressedamerican/main.htm

[SpiralHawk]

7. P.S.

'Dont follow leaders,
Watch your parking meters."
- B. Dylan

[Cleita]

11. Too bad you liked Reagan. He's one of the reasons the hippies are

gone. Back before Reagan created a permanent homeless class, there were a group of vagabond types who begged on the streets and crashed with other hippies in "crash pads". Some worked and some got money from home. Others did crafts and tried to survive on that, but there was always a place one could sleep at at the end of the day and a place where free food was distributed. There were communes and there was an infrastructure that made this possible like free clinics and other ways to get basic health care if it was needed.

Most of it is gone and what is left, the neocons are trying to destroy.

[potatoe]

30. A hippie culture can only survive

in the kind of highly productive, robust economy which can provide enough extra resources for freeloaders. "Free" clinics? Do you think health care drops out of the sky? Disciplined and well educated people have to work very hard to provide the health care available at "free" clinics.

Hard working squares provided the cushion of shelter, food, and antibiotics that made the hippie lifestyle possible.

Hippie culture went by the wayside because most hippies found it unfulfilling and a bit of a bore.

Because the Hippies & Yippies and the youth culture in general failed to give enough support to Hubert Humphrey, Nixon, who was quite beatable, won in 1968.

[Cleita]

33. Oh, damn, Where did you come from?

The "freeloaders", who were students at the timel all became Republicans and put on blue suits; still didn't do a day's work but got paid for it; they now take all the money and still don't do a day's work,

[porphyrian]

34. Hard work has nothing to do with wealth in America today.

Now it is the wealthy and the corporations who are the freeloaders, yet you show no righteous indignation towards them. It isn't the disciplined and well-educated working hard that pay for the "free" clinics' existance. It's the wealthy minority avoiding paying taxes.

[omega minimo]

12. How did the hippies turn into the yuppies?

How many "hippies" were along for the party and cuz its what everyone was doing, and dropped the "values" when fashions changed? How many old hippies are driving around in black windowed SUV's with magnetized Chinese plastic yellow ribbons on the back?

Corporations bought your hippie dreams and sold em back plastic wrapped and Clearchanneled.


:evilgrin:

[Beam Me Up]

15. I didn't.

Although the insult has been tossed my way a couple times by people less fortunate than I am. In other words, I may 'look' middle class (no more tie dies, blue denims and love beads--and the long hair is long gone from my shinny noggin) due to the accidental privilege of having been born white and male and with a slightly higher than average IQ (I'm mostly self educated). But the fact of the matter is, I don't watch TV, I try to shop only at family run businesses (I work in one myself and have for the past 27 years) and I drive a beat up old pick up truck with the paint peeling off. I can not STAND the sight of (looks like an ass-hole to me) *, am horrified at the deception hiding the death and destruction of so many for so few and I am absolutely heartbroken at what the elite criminal class has done and is continuing to do to the working class of this country.

I still maintain that reality is a social construct and, therefore, can be changed. However, clearly we of the 60s vastly underestimated the ruthlessness of the structures of power behind the ongoing theatre of politic. That doesn't mean we were wrong. Did some of us give up? Hell yes. Were some of us only in it for the 'cool factor'. Of course--what do you expect? We were the most pampered darlings on the planet and we were handed the world on a platter. The amazing thing is that so many of us so quickly caught on to the fact that most of what we were taught about how great our country was, how noble and honerable, was nothing but a LIE. We actually SAW that--saw that it was a potential but not an actuality--and began to try to figure out how the hell you change it from the inside out. We're still working on it! And a lot has changed. Hey, we're here. We're having this discussion as a result of technology 'we' invented and the world is still more insane and out of balance than it ever was.

One thing is for sure. The powers that be learned from their mistakes. They'll NEVER again report what is ACTUALLY going on in the cultural scene in a way that makes real revolution even remotely fasionable. I marched with 100,000 people before the Iraq war even started and the media coverage was almost NILL. That didn't happen in the sixties. They've learned that for the masses, if it isn't presented by the CON (corporate owned media) then it is AS IF IT DOES NOT EXIST. That is where we are now--down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass. There is enough energy and talent in the country to have a REAL revolution, but it will NOT be televised. Meanwhile there is a giant farting pink elephant in the White House masquerading as president.

/rant

[anarchy1999]

20. Sweet Rant! Kudos to you.

You said and expressed it all.

[omega minimo]

31. Thank you for a thoughtful reply to pointed questions

that were not meant as an insult. More delicately stated, one wonders how the values of the hippie generation got co-opted or dropped...unless large numbers of the participants WERE in it for fashions sake at the time. When styles changed, so did sensibilities.

You point out that there are different ways of negotiating these waters (or dealing with the dreaded "selling out.") There's a sliding scale from hippie dream to yuppie nightmare.

Your sig line has it:

"The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." -- Howard Zinn

:hi:

[Hardrada]

13. We in the SDS did not find the colorful Countercultural people

to be of much use in our efforts to change the political and social structure of our society. Doing this long term demanded a lot of discipline and mental rigor, not qualities the "hippies" were long on. But now and then we could get enough of them to rally for progressive causes to make some impact.

[Warren DeMontague]

28. I think this world could use more outside the box thinking

not less.

[potatoe]

35. Thinking outside the box can produce a lot of benefits

if you do it with an open mind, open even to the possibility of developing a deeper appreciation of the box. You sometimes realize that a lot of conventional lifestyles became conventional for good reasons.

[Warren DeMontague]

36. And sometimes you realize that people are keeping themselves chained

with imaginary manacles of their own creation- for no good reason at all.

[OneBlueSky]

14. funny . . . I've been wondering lately whatever happened to . . .

Sam Brown, the mega-organizer of the 60s and 70s . . . anyone know? . . .

but to answer your question . . .

38% went to work for corporate America
23% became stock brokers
16% became teachers or social workers
11% are self-employed
7% became Republicans
5% joined the Green Party or another third party

or something like that . . . :)

[ConsAreLiars]

16. Not gone ...

Almost every progressive organization existing today can be traced back to the sixties, and before, if you look closely. These range from those working on the March 19-20th protests to media organizations to research centers to ecology and environmental groups to true "Blue" businesses and community-based organizing groups. Many of us have been here all along.

Those young ones who have the wisdom and will to fight for peace and justice today have a LOT more infrastructure and legacy orgs at their hands than was available back then. We were "borrowing" mimeograph machines in church basements in the early days to get the word out. We built underground papers and bookstore and print shops and screen printed posters and worked in unions and churches and put together revolutionary art brigades.

And we raised out children to respect life, honor truth, and hate injustice.

Look around. You'll see us everywhere. (edit: Just not on the Corporate media, for obvious reasons.)

[norml]

17. Where did the hippies go? They went here. www.welcomehome.org/rainbow

http://www.welcomehome.org/rainbow.html

[anarchy1999]

18. Interesting post, good question, and we are still here just feeling a

little lost these days. I had the the good fortune of being able to spend the weekend with a daughter of one of the the leaders's of the Populist movement going back to the early 1900's.

We are all still here and we have all the same battles to fight that have been being fought since the founding fathers of this country wrote the "Declaration of Independence" and the "Constitution of this Republic". Viva Republica!

[VelvetMonkeyWrench]

19. Where did all our hippie leaders go, and how do we get them back?

IMO, the "real" hippies never had leaders in the usual sense - being "led" in the sense of current political party leaders was something we rejected out of hand.

There were a lot of posers out there pitching for their own particular agendas pretending to "lead" though, and a whole lot of hangers on who simply enjoyed the publicity, dope, sex, whatever. At the end of the day though - they were ABSOLUTELY NOT real believers that there may be another viable way to structure a society.

--- added edit ---
More disturbing is that there's little real difference between left and right in the way society should be structured at the most macro level. Both favor largish intrusive government rather than the localized self-determination type society John Muir proposed.

Want to be a bible thumping, anti-abortion religious nut? Fine, I got no problem with that as long as you keep it to a Murian Velvet Monkey Wrench community of like minded folks. Similarly if some like minded group wants have some sort of Stalinistic local dictatorship where one guy makes all the rules, that's cool too - just keep it within your Murian community and don't impose it on neighboring ones.

[bigtree]

21. here I am

doing my best

[datasuspect]

22. they "copped out" and bought volvos

or destroyed themselves with drugs.

"love peace and all that shit." jimi hendrix said that at one of his last shows before he dropped his guitar on the stage . . .

yeah.

well, probably not all of them though . . .

what about all the poor kids who HAD to go to nam because they couldn't sit stateside in college?

oh, those are the homeless guys i consistently run into.

yeah.

well, probably not all of them though . . .

[ComerPerro]

23. Phish called it quits. The hippies are in mourning

Or, at least, I am.

[shadowknows69]

25. Well, now that Phish is gone...

get up and go used some of the spirit they imparted to you.

[johnaries]

29. They've been "farmed out"....

http://www.thefarm.org/

sorry, couldn't resist the bad joke....

[hfojvt]

32. in the book "13th Generation"

there was a cartoon which showed the 1960s with a shirt that said "sex, drugs, rock and roll" and then the 1980s teen had a shirt that said "aids, crack, punk rock" (or maybe it was "death metal")