PSA from a hippy in 1969

[River]

No. I knew enough that my brother was shipping out to Vietnam later that year, my cousin had already done a tour, and neighborhood kids who were my brothers age were coming home in body bags. That was enough for me.

+1 "Fixin' To Die Rag" is not difficult to follow.

 

[mudfinger]

So, you were 12-13 in 1967? As I suspected, just an observer and a student of the times. Your opinion of the hippy movement and all that it entails is as valid as mine and no more.

First off, I'm no hippy; like Geo, I'm a firm believer in the virtue of the 2nd Amendment as an obvious rebuttal to any such accusations.

I wasn't born until 1969, almost 2 years after the initial sociopolitical movement described upthread imploded.

That said...I was raised by hippies, and to describe my relationship to their experiences and philosophical outlook as being that of a mere "observer" or "student" would be missing the mark. By a wide margin, in my view. Most of the folks I knew personally remained committed to those values long after the movement had died, and did their level best to inculcate those values in me. Didn't really work out.....but to suggest that my perspective on the hippies is functionally equivalant to that of someone who was never associated the movement or the people who constituted that movement, seems a bit off.

 

[exPFCWintergreen]

Originally Posted by KSG_Standard
So, you were 12-13 in 1967? As I suspected, just an observer and a student of the times. Your opinion of the hippy movement and all that it entails is as valid as mine and no more.

Except his is based on facts while yours is fact free.

 

[KSG_Standard]

Except his is based on facts while yours is fact free.


[/I]

What facts are those? He smoke a joint in 67, played bass at a street party and attended an anti-war rally at 13? Those are some powerful "facts" chief. My brother's friends, my uncle and the guys in my neighborbood were shipping out too. I smoke my first joint at 14. Look I has facts too!

Feckin' dumbass, dirty, spiritual hippies.

The OP was from the Whole Earth Catalog...I wonder if the author of the story, Stuart Brand, Zach Brand and all their friends realized that they weren't hippies?

 

[SteveGangi]

Christians, like hippies or anybody else, are just people...fallible, imperfect, weak, sometimes stupid, sometimes ignorant, etc. Christian means follower of Christ, not perfect or Christlike. It's not up to you, me or anybody else to determine who's a "real" Christian or a "real" hippy or a "real" 99%er. Judge not, lest ye be judged.

Judge not, lest ye be judged. ? Give me a break
I'll judge that type all day long and not feel a twinge of regret.

What we have here is a thread of "dirty hippy", glorifying the assholes who used to attack them, we can judge filthy hippies because they suck, but we can't judge the assholes that attacked them. Look up HYPOCRITE in the dictionary.

I KNEW people like that, back then. Believe me, they were pussies who had no balls for an even fight. They could sure run fast too.

 

[KSG_Standard]

Not all hippies sucked. Some might not have been filthy. It's not up to me to say who was a "real" hippy.

 

[Roberteaux]

...to describe my relationship to their experiences and philosophical outlook as being that of a mere "observer" or "student" would be missing the mark. By a wide margin, in my view. Most of the folks I knew personally remained committed to those values long after the movement had died, and did their level best to inculcate those values in me. Didn't really work out...

This was a most salient and introspective comment, and thus wins the coveted Roberteaux Award for the Speaking of Cockeyed and Difficult Truths!



As Geo indicated of himself, I am not a hippie and never was. I really didn't have the right temperament and came up in an environment where those who refused to fight ended up suffering miserably and without reprieve. But I do appreciate the core values of that movement (Peace and Love), even as I appreciated the Quietist philosophers of China who, ironically, seem to have all lived during the Warring States Period of that country's history. And that, I think, is some sort of parallel, right there...

Even though I wasn't a hippie, I liked them a lot because I had two older sisters (eleven and twelve years older than me, respectively) who really *did* embrace the philosophy of the Diggers et. al., even though communes in Upstate New York weren't exactly a burgeoning phenomenon and we lived beneath the roof of a distinctly old-school (but highly tolerant) Republican who came from a time before that party was jacked by those whom he considered to be a group of immoderates...

So I became aware of the existence of hippies through those two flower-child sisters of mine, as well as through the mutterings and occasional belches of mass media. I also heard of the Death of Hippie shortly after it took place courtesy of the Sisters, who refused to step down and away from those ideals they had embraced. I was only about nine when the Diggers held their funeral for the Son of Media, and so only understood that the real leadership of that which was "hippie" had apparently packed up the bus to disappear into the mists of time.

This was nothing new, incidentally. Some things have a very short half-life, and yet continue to irradiate and influence many things around them. So it was with that which was Hippie... and before them, it was the Beat Generation (aka Beatniks), who likewise lived to see their leading lights falter and, in the words of Ian Anderson, "left a young brood to go on living without them."

The Pranksters weren't all hippies, as Geo pointed out, but there was a considerable degree of crossover between the Beats and the Hippies. I will never forget the sense of mourning my sisters assumed when Neil Cassady was discovered to have passed away. At the time when that took place, I had no idea who this model for Kerouak's character Dean Moriarty even was-- just that somebody great had apparently been taken from us...

The sisters did heroically attempt to sway me towards those values, but as I said: I wasn't exactly living in a society that put any value on pacifism and instead demanded that I embrace a cultural oeuvre that entailed plenty of blood-red paint. And so, as I said a long time ago in a different thread, their attempt to turn me into a little flower child blew up in their faces when they brought me to a biker-schlock movie festival and so introduced me to a subculture that was anything *but* hippie-like, despite the occasional crossovers one found in those two camps as well.

And though I never did quite join a motorcycle club or any of that (I am too much the iconoclast to stick with much of any formal group or organization for an incredibly long period of time, and truly dislike regimentation), the bikers did furnish me with a mold that I have generally defaulted to ever since-- and this, despite my occasional wayward forays into a more socially acceptable mode of being (as a soldier and police officer).

As for those who are still grousing about this long-dead Hippie Movement, I would say that the present-day "hippies" are often the type of people that the original movement members would themselves think of as irresponsbile, albeit being generally oriented in a similar direction. But let's face it: the people who are calling themselves hippies and being referred to as such these days are seldom of the same idealistic caliber as their predecessors. Their most staunch opponents, however, have changed scarcely one whit-- and no, KSG, I did not aim that barb at you. Compared to the hard-hats of yesteryear-- and the Cartman-esque hard-ons of today-- you're a damned hippie yourself!

But really: to call some of these specimens of "hippie" that exist in the here and now by that name is about as incorrect as comparing a wine made of Welch's grape juice and yeast to Chateau Lafite Rothschild '57... they are neither a fine Bordeaux, nor are they precisely what I would call a vintage pressing.

--R

 

[180gROC]

I miss the cinder block entertainment center with the reel to reel and lava lamp and the electrical spool patio table from when I was a kid. The view out our picture window was sick. Overlooked the Berkeley campus and the Golden Gate.

Hell I still use empty spools for tables out in the backyard.

 

[LPSGME]

"
...Think Hendrix or Clapton were hippies? No, not even close.
How about the 400,000 that showed up to party at Woodstock? Maybe if lucky about 1% of them, probably a lot less. Some members of the Hog Farm Commune that gave medical treatment and fed the masses there definitely were.

The Diggers were. Some of the Merry Pranksters were. In actuality there were very few that walked the walk, but many who aspired to be hippies but fell very short of the mark.

Herein lies the problem. There were a great number of displaced youth who felt alienated, did not want to be confined by the strictures of society back then, loved the same kind of music and shared some values, same kind of fashion sense and wanted change.... yeah and experimented with drugs.

Is that enough to make someone a hippie?

Have to agree that Harrison's view seemed a bit strange, like he forgot what it was like to be poor.

I think a lot of kids jumped on to the bandwagon but then soon sold out - or were never really true idealists or revolutionaries at heart.

At Woodstock I got let in for free by security people I knew; didn't stay because it was too wet; and then decades later asked Michael Lang for a refund.

 

[geochem1st]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6K8wfyzAJQ&feature=related]Simon & Garfunkel - Homeward Bound (Monterey 1967) - YouTube[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpKLIojvkJQ&feature=related]Jefferson Airplane - Somebody To Love LIVE Monterey Pop Festival 1967 - YouTube[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhBFRNBxT_o]JANIS JOPLIN Ball and Chain at Monterey Pop Festival 1967 - YouTube[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNO6Fvsc6wk[/ame]

 

[bertzie]

I don't find the comparison between Jesus and the hippies apt at all.
I'm 51 and am able to treat both sides of the argument with a modicum of respect as well...I choose not to treat outright stupidity with respect though.

He loved everyone, regardless of what they could do for him, or what sins they committed against him. He gave away free food wine and healthcare. He was a proponent of passivise and coexistence. He treated everyone as an equal. He wandered around preaching ideas that the establishment didn't much care for.

Put him in a volkswagen microbus, give him a bong and a ticket to woodstock and you got yourself a hippie.

 

[No. 44]

[...]EDIT:

Got to laugh at George at around 0:15 into the clip....."the Love of the Hippie Movement was destructive".

You may want to go back and listen to that again. First, what you have quoted are the words of the narrator, and not those of Harrison. Second, you have quoted inaccurately. The narrator introduces Harrison's statement with the words: "...Harrison would admit that the so-called love of the hippie-movement was a delusion, which was really destructive."

Nobody is claiming love is destructive. It is being claimed that what the hippies understood under love was a destructive delusion.

Have to agree that Harrison's view seemed a bit strange, like he forgot what it was like to be poor.
[...]

As I said initially, I found Harrison's statements surprising as well, but I quoted him, because I thought it was relevant to the discussion. I have never been a Beatles fan, and I know very little about the personal lives of the members, but I do know that Harrison was humanitarian, who tried to help the poor. This is from the UNICEF website:

""The Concert for Bangladesh was one of the most ambitious humanitarian efforts in rock music history," said Olivia Harrison, Founder of The George Harrison Fund for UNICEF. "The Concert focused global attention on the crisis in Bangladesh and raised the consciousness of other musicians and millions of their young fans to a new awareness of UNICEF and its mission in doing whatever it takes to save a child."

The 1971 concert pioneered the all–star rock benefit concert model, which has since been widely emulated for various causes worldwide. It produced an extraordinary contribution for UNICEF, exceeding $15 million to support programs providing lifesaving assistance to children caught in humanitarian emergencies. The George Harrison Fund for UNICEF continues to support UNICEF programs in Bangladesh while expanding its influence to include other countries in crisis where children are at risk.

For more information, please visit www.unicefusa.org"

Harrison obviously saw the hippie-movement differently than some of you seem to perceive it, but is that really a reason to question his character or to "laugh at" him?

 

[geochem1st]

You may want to go back and listen to that again. First, what you have quoted are the words of the narrator, and not those of Harrison. Second, you have quoted inaccurately. The narrator introduces Harrison's statement with the words: "...Harrison would admit that the so-called love of the hippie-movement was a delusion, which was really destructive."

I apologize, that is correct, its the narrators voice I quoted.

As I said initially, I found Harrison's statements surprising as well, but I quoted him, because I thought it was relevant to the discussion. I have never been a Beatles fan, and I know very little about the personal lives of the members, but I do know that Harrison was humanitarian, who tried to help the poor. This is from the UNICEF website:

No doubt that he was a philanthropist. Many wealthy people are and its a good thing.

Harrison obviously saw the hippie-movement differently than some of you seem to perceive it, but is that really a reason to question his character or to "laugh at" him?

I love his music and feel that he was probably the most talented Beatle. He is still just a person and can be laughed at for any reason seen fit. I still feel that he and the Beatles profited greatly from the movement and that for him to feel this way is hypocritical.

 

[mudfinger]

He loved everyone, regardless of what they could do for him, or what sins they committed against him. He gave away free food wine and healthcare. He was a proponent of passivise and coexistence. He treated everyone as an equal. He wandered around preaching ideas that the establishment didn't much care for.

Put him in a volkswagen microbus, give him a bong and a ticket to woodstock and you got yourself a hippie.

I love it; "He gave away...free healthcare"

Lazarus had the best PPO, ever.

 

[jeff_farkas]

I love it; "He gave away...free healthcare"

Lazarus had the best PPO, ever.

I think it was an HMO.

 

[mudfinger]

I think it was an HMO.

That would certainly explain how Lazarus died in the first place.

 

[geochem1st]

That would certainly explain how Lazarus died in the first place.

Worse, I'm fairly certain he was one of the uninsured before his death.

 

[mudfinger]

Worse, I'm fairly certain he was one of the uninsured before his death.

I can imagine Lazarus trying to get health insurance after that incident.

"Do you have any pre-existing conditions, sir?"

"Well, I was dead for a while, but I got better..."

 

[River]

"Well, I was dead for a while, but I got better..."

Not all dead, just mostly dead.

 

[SteveGangi]