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This one is really for those who remember them, but I do. I spent my teens dreaming of the Beatles and Star Trek, but with a great deal of anger and distrust and fear as well. The county was in insurrection and whatever side you were on there was no center. When you see the smiling faces with flowers and Luv written on their shirts its not kind of image most of us remember.
But I find myself remembering more and more. Back then I was a kid but wasn't blind. I learned to distrust the government and never have gotten that trust back. But I didn't see the danger I do now.
The 400 pound elephant is still in the room, only now he's florescent and has flashing lights. More and more people can see him and yet get called nuts and crazies and other worse things. Which doesn't change that the elephant is there.
My question is, with the way our economy has been destroyed, and the reports of National Guard troops planning a practice takeover of a town and the relief camp and the general feeling that all the politics is for naught, do you feel that anger again, except different? Is it the same? Do you feel as if the future as it looks is more or less bleak?
Please no delving into the politics of the 60's. Many still have just as strong a feelings but that isn't what this is about. Everyone had anger and that is what I feel in our world today. Please keep to the anger as anger rather than the politics of 40 years ago.
Not that I was alive during the 60's, my parents were in college then...but I really don't think many people care to the degree as they did then. Mass protests showed a great deal of energy and spirit, but it really took years for that to get done...where people put their lives on hold to fix things they cared about so they could show up for these protests. Being in Oregon I see people with this spirit still quite a bit.
I think that the issue is...do these protests really help and do anything of value? Standing outside with a sign saying "No War" is nice, but I'm not sure if it really did a great deal long term. IMHO it would be better to work hard and donate money to groups to further the same agenda, sign petitions, and do things that have a great deal of leverage/efficiency.
Damn right I feel the same anger now that I felt in the 1960's. And it is directed at the same idiots that were getting me riled in the 1960's, Godless, Gutless Hippies.
This one is really for those who remember them, but I do. I spent my teens dreaming of the Beatles and Star Trek, but with a great deal of anger and distrust and fear as well. The county was in insurrection and whatever side you were on there was no center. When you see the smiling faces with flowers and Luv written on their shirts its not kind of image most of us remember.
But I find myself remembering more and more. Back then I was a kid but wasn't blind. I learned to distrust the government and never have gotten that trust back. But I didn't see the danger I do now.
The 400 pound elephant is still in the room, only now he's florescent and has flashing lights. More and more people can see him and yet get called nuts and crazies and other worse things. Which doesn't change that the elephant is there.
My question is, with the way our economy has been destroyed, and the reports of National Guard troops planning a practice takeover of a town and the relief camp and the general feeling that all the politics is for naught, do you feel that anger again, except different? Is it the same? Do you feel as if the future as it looks is more or less bleak?
Please no delving into the politics of the 60's. Many still have just as strong a feelings but that isn't what this is about. Everyone had anger and that is what I feel in our world today. Please keep to the anger as anger rather than the politics of 40 years ago.
Not everyone was/is angry. It solves nothing. Many "Hippies" served honorably in the military. I did and I knew many others. Many did their duty in Viet nam. It was as General MacArthur said "The soldier more than any other, prays for peace". This generation coming up now, my youngest daughter's generation gives me a hope, and an optimism and a motivation I haven't felt in a very long time. The assassinations of JFK, RFK, Malcolm X and MLK, the betrayal of Watergate, the betrayal of Iran-Contra, and other similar events made it seem that the bad guys are in charge and willl always be in charge. Now I see a willingness to challenge that again. It will probably be crushed, but it may not be, and there's no reason to assume that. What it shows is that the human spirit is alive and well, and has not been bred out by generations of materialists and thieves.
Not everyone was/is angry. It solves nothing. Many "Hippies" served honorably in the military. I did and I knew many others.
Sorry, not buying it. If you did serve then, you were an extreme exception. I knew more than a few that served then and none were hippies or knew any that were. In fact, they were about as at opposite ends of the spectrum as it gets. Few things defined hippies then more than being against the war. Hell, it almost single-handedly gave them a credibility they would've otherwise never had.
Sorry, not buying it. If you did serve then, you were an extreme exception. I knew more than a few that served then and none were hippies or knew any that were. In fact, they were about as at opposite ends of the spectrum as it gets. Few things defined hippies then more than being against the war. Hell, it almost single-handedly gave them a credibility they would've otherwise never had.
You would be surprised. You did have to be careful who you discussed your politics with, whether you were in the military or not. Being in the military did give me the privilege of knowing more other soldiers than civilian life would have, so I'm quite confident in the statement I made. Besides the war itself, there were concerns about the treatment of minorities, the fairness of the draft law (this was before the lottery), and the military's abysmally poor record in administering the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I do think soldiers today get a fairer shake due to the efforts of soldiers back then.
I remember seeing a black guy who slept in the bunk across from me basically killed for not wearing his hat. I always wondered what story they told his family. I think the causes championed by the activists in the military were similar to those championed by activists outside the military.
I've quit being angry, quit defending others, quit poking holes in gubbermental balloons, quit playing Don Quixote (an appellation I earned from various attorneys, judges, politicians, and bureaucrats). I've gone all the way over to complete disgruntled disgust and a firm decision to let everyone else go hang themselves. If they're determined to go to hell in a handbasket I'll be da**ed if I'll knit them a comforter.
One old friend from High School I met after many years had a business card that said it best - On one side it said simply (In gorgeous script) "F*** 'EM" . On the reverse, same script, "F*** 'EM ALL". That's pretty much my philosophy now.
What really made me angry in the 1960's and still does today is the willingness to believe ideas that are POPULAR but without merit. Ideas from the 1960's that are still here today. These bogus ideas were taught in SOME of our colleges and University. The anti-war crowd told lie after lie and the news media reported them as truth. Many of the politicians of the 60's were corrupt and willing to sell our country down the river. Walter Cronkite was the MOST respected media person of the 1960's. History has proven that he was a DELUDED fool. The History I am talking about was written in the early 1970's by North Vietnamese General Nguyen Giap. Google his name and see what he has to say about events in Viet Nam in 1968 and Walter Cronkites delusions.
Fast forward to the present and we have more corrupt politicians than ever. Our Universities Liberal Arts positions are filled by the former Hippy (Socialist), Anti War students who were shooting their mouth off to avoid getting their asses shot in Viet Nam. The Mainstream Media of today tell and twist the truth even more egregiously today than they did then.
I am in my early sixties and for the first time since I was a kid I have lost faith in the future of this country. In 1960 then President Kennedy had my generation convinced we could put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade (actually my Father's generation did it) . Bush talked about possibly returning to the Moon and going on to Mars. It ain't going to happen in my lifetime and if it does happen in the 21st Century it will not be the United States that does it. Actually about the only thing I am even close to being optimistic about today is the POTENTIAL of the Internet to get the TRUTH out there. Of course the Internet is a two edged sword. Liars can use it to spread their propoganda and distortions. However when lies and truth can be compared there is hope.
I think I've gotten past the issues of the war, and am pretty sure about it until someone pushes a button. I don't think the great divide of the 60's will every go away until we who were there are gone. I've seen plenty of people who came along after trying hard to understand, but I still remember instantly disliking someone who came out with an insult about the anti-war side. I never really got over that, thought there *were* a few other things...
What I feel anger over now is the massive chipping away at our liberties that has done nothing but get worse. Hoover had his agents and phone taps to keep track of "them". The NSA has a record of everything posted on the internet, in texts and from taps on phones. How many of us here have a file because we used one of those "words" and especially two or three of them?
The whole cancelled exercise in Iowa practicing the take over of a town is chilling because it seemed okay to so many people. Where did all the sheeple come from?
The explosion of data bases about everything, and how the government can eventually do a complet birth to present profile of you, especially the unstated why. The cameras that are everywhere 24/7. What besides your speed will the traffic camera look for, and what would a 24/7 record of where you were driving have use?
And this proposal for isp's to keep records on Everything you enter on the internet for "two" years to help the police. Remember, once a data base is set up, it never ever goes away.
This is what I feel anger over. This is terminal cancer for out society where the government policies in the 60's were treatable.
When you look at the economic situation, how people are stocking up on food and buying gold and guns and how some of us moved from a place it would be really bad when the shtf moment comes... and how there is so little confidence anywhere that anything will get better, its hard to not feel anger and fear at those in control who are destroying our rights and economic future.
I have a son who will soon be 18. He has dreams. I am afraid that he will just have to keep dreaming while he survives and will never find any of them. I don't want to see him sent to yet some other war. I don't want to see the future he wants to be destroyed.
My parents said little about the way society went way back when, but then maybe it was because it didn't seem to have any point. I hope they would say what they think today because unless it is spoken of often and with determination, we can kiss the America they knew good bye.
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