Reply #80: understood

[Two Americas]

Divisiveness is not a good thing, however I think the OP is talking about an existing divide, not creating one.

I also think that the outrage expressed whenever the boomers, hippies, New Agers, suburbanites, professionals, and dominant liberals are challenged is way out of proportion to the alleged offense.

Certainly younger people are prone to make generalizations about the older generation that can be unfair, and yes the right wing has been in a 35 year battle against "hippies."

However, what I am criticizing about hippies today I was criticizing about hippies in 1966 and I think that the validity of those criticisms is as strong as ever.

There is no doubt that millions of people converted to being hippies almost overnight in the late 60's, and that led to a collapse of the political left from which we have yet to recover. It is also true that the hippies won as much as the hippy movement ever could win, and that we are living with the consequences of that.

Had I not been saying this for over 40 years, since long before the right wing propaganda about it, it would be a different thing. But the hippy movement, a cultural and spiritual and lifestyle movement, prevailed, and it destroyed the political left and still dominates liberalism to this day.