An open letter to young hippies

Discussion in 'Hippies' started by Reverand JC, Oct 3, 2010.

  1. Reverand JC

    Reverand JC Willy Fuckin' Wonka

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    The best piece of advice that I have ever read about being a Hippie is "Be Here Now." I have been on this site a few months and keep seeing these posts asking "What were the sixties like?" or "I wish I was alive in the sixties." The thing is I seriously doubt that the kids who were Hippies ever asked, "What were the 20's like?" or say "I wish I was alive in the 20s."

    The thing about the "Hippie Movement" is that it was a progressive movement to build a better society. Saying "I wish I was there," or "Is it coming back?" is a very conservative concept. Wanting things to be like they used to be is very counterproductive.

    On another level I find these posts to be Racist and Classist. The fact of the matter is that most of the kids who are posting that they wish they had been alive in the sixties are white and upper middle class. I think that most Black or Hispanic people have a more sober view of the sixties thanks to the Civil Rights movement. It's hard to be nostalgic about a period that was marked by your parent's being murdered or at the very least being on the recieveing end of firehose.

    Then you want to talk about the drugs. The fact is that during the sixties posession of Marijuana was a Felony. John Sinclair the manager of the MC5 and one of the founding members of the White Panther party spent 10 years in prison for giving an undercover FBI agent 2 joints ("They Gave you ten for two/What ya gonna do?" John Lennon "John Sinclair"). They were experimenting with LSD which was a relatively new drug and they didn't have any clue how much was too much.

    Our society has evolved into the "Cult of Ego." Thanks to Facebook and Twitter people with smartphones are freely allowed to believe that they're actually interesting. Nobody gives 2 shits about the vintage patchwork pant's you found 10 minutes ago.

    So if you really want to know what the 60s were like I've got 2 ways for you to find out. The long term plan and the short term plan.

    The long term goes like this:
    Since you are already showing conservative leanings take it to the extreme. Vote Teaparty. They will outlaw abortion, ban sex education in school, take the war on drugs to new levels start passing new and more fascist immigration laws, and probably start another unpopular war and bring back the draft. Then you will have the same battles to fight that they did in the Sixties.

    The short term goes like this:
    Buy a "Probable Cause Mobile". You know a VW Van covered with legalize pot, Peace Sign, and Various other Hippie Stickers (By the way VW's also breakdown alot and are a bitch to find parts for). Then take a road trip across the Deep South using only back roads with no GPS, cell phone or laptop. Feel the full force of hate for your "Hippie, Commie, Pinko, Fag," ass.

    If you really want to be a Hippie in our modern culture you need to in the words of John Trudell, "Know the difference between the Illusion of freedom and the Reality of freedom." Question everyone including me. Take up some of the causes that are still going on. There are some civil rights issues that need to be worked on. Gay Marriage, Carding Hispanics, Legalization of Marijuana, Ending the War, Raising Minimum Wage, Disabled Rights the list goes on and on. Don't wish you were around in the past be thankful you are in the present and try to continue to be in the present.

    Peace Out,
    Rev J
     
  2. PB_Smith

    PB_Smith Huh? What? Who, me?

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    Damn rep restrictions!!!!!

    Again, Rev JC is a voice of brutal and frank honesty and consideration.
    I love it!
    :cheers2:
     
  3. boguskyle

    boguskyle kyleboguesque

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    SO very true. +1 (if i could).
    the main thing about this is "Know the difference between the Illusion of freedom and the Reality of freedom." and many people aren't realizing potential in one's beliefs, and so they become apathetic. this is me atm. i've never felt i wanted to live in the 60's though.
     
  4. odon

    odon Slightly Popular

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    When kids say: "I wish I was back in the 60s" why not ask them why.
     
  5. PAX-MAN

    PAX-MAN Just A Old Hippy

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    JC-
    Well written! I guess I should add my two cents worth or has inflation hit and it's really two dollars? I think the young kids of today wanna be hippies for the same reason as the kids in the sixties. What they wanted was TO BELONG. They wanted people to listen to them. They wanted their opinions to have some meaning. Most of all they wanted to have friends. And what better place to go than a hippie haven. Everybody was accepted for who they were, not what they were. One thing that you didn't see much of, at least in the beginning, were bullies. People wanted to push their views and opinions upon you. Charles Manson---perfect example.
    Unfortunately, most of the people who got involved later were more interested in the free love and the free drugs and all they were looking for was just a place to party. It makes we wonder if alot of the kids today who are looking to be hippies aren't doing the same thing. When the fun is over, they will just go back to obtaining wealth because isn't that what most people really want???It seems to me that most people want to be king of the hill and famous without putting any work into it. I think it's time that they got off their asses and started working at trying to make this world a better place.
    There is still an awful lot of intolerance and racism in this world and poor people are still treated like shit. I think I'm going to end my ranting here - I really dislike what this world is becoming : all the hard work that people put in in the sixties really hasn't gone very far. So farewell my friend, wherever you may fare.

    PAX
     
  6. samson

    samson Hepcat

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    haha nice

    The topic for the chatroom last nite was "be here now"
     
  7. Meliai

    Meliai Banned

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    I agree.

    The 60s were a tragic, heartbreaking, turbulent time. The 60s happened because JFK got shot, Martin Luther King got shot, the draft happened, thousands of young boys didnt make it back alive from Vietnam, americans were seeing images of children being burned by napalm on the news, schools began to be integrated in the south, women got sick of taking a backseat to their masculine counterparts. The impact of the 60s can't be denied, but it wasnt all a magical time. Anything good that came out of the 60s was borne out of some kind of tragedy and sense of injustice. Also consider the 60s ended with a compete feeling of disillusionment.

    What I like most about the 60s is that when things got really, really fucked up the youth didnt allow the rich white men that fucked shit up to continue running the show. The youth culture actually reclaimed their country. My generation has the opportunity to do that right now, and we just turn on our ipods and tune it all out instead.

    I think this time period is equally as significant as the 60s, if not more so, but instead of realizing it, this generation turns a blind eye and instead stares longingly at a 50 year old decade.

    If you want a counterculture, you've got to create it.
     
    1 person likes this.
  8. TheKitch

    TheKitch Member

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    These are definitely crazy times too but very different from the 60s. My generation is dumb, that's the bottom line. There are still hippies but we're in the minority. People are so lazy now. We have gotten smarter in a lot of ways, but that intelligence has actually made us dumber/lazier. Technology expansion and a general attachment to material things plagues our culture.

    Like the OP mentioned, things like facebook, twitter, texting, reality tv, abercrombie have emerged as staples in our society. It's almost as if people don't know what to do with themselves anymore. If they're not text messaging they become anxious. Instead of using their mind in positive ways they'd rather be sitting on the couch and being brainwashed. Instead of living free and expanding their minds, they'd rather live for the 9-5 lifestyle and focus their energy on making more money so they can buy more THINGS. Everyone wants and wants. If they don't get more, they aren't happy. People have separated themselves from nature/spirituality/open-mindedness. I'm young, but it seems to be getting worse, maybe it's because I'm a little older now and I didn't notice it as much before?

    Like I said, there are still hippies that exist. Genuine hippies that live a way that you would expect a hippie to live. They do it because that's who they are and that's what they believe in, not for social acceptance. It's just a very small minority though. It's those that aren't part of the machine. I think a lot of these people do wish they were alive in the 60s so they could've experienced a true movement and been a part of something so large.

    There are certain events that attract hippies crowds like music festivals and rainbow gatherings, but similar to what the OP mention, many are just there for the drugs and party, they're not really hippies. I wonder how many hippies that grew up in the 60s would be hippies if they were the exact same age in the year 2010. Even though it was counter-culture in the 60s, it was on a much larger scale obviously. It seems like a lot of baby boomer hippies have disappeared. Where did they all go? I think many of them have become victims of the machine too....
     
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  9. SpaceChive

    SpaceChive Member

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    Gee, that's sad, TheKitch!
    But I feel the same thing, and this may be the reason for people wanting to go back to the sixties. A lot of things have changed since the sixties though, think sexual revolution, equality for black people, more tolerance for spirituality, although all of these points are questionable as well:

    There seems to be this double moral: Sex for one, is now not a taboo anymore, but women are advertised as whores.
    BĂșt if a man sleeps with five women he's cool and if a women does this with men she is a slut. Although society expects women to be sluts it seems.

    Black people are still discriminated and still growing up in poor neighborhoods where they have less of a change to make it then others.
    HipHop culture is being worshiped (in Holland at least, that's where I am from), and great numbers of Morocan and Turkish young people love it, and they are being discriminated against here! There are lots of immigrants from those countries over here, and they are expected to be thieves and agressive antisocial people.. this makes me wonder if we advanced at all.

    And indeed, consumerism has grown exponentially.
    It scares me. Money... people want it because they don't have any idea how to achieve joy, and all the new spirituality is FOR SALE! Buy a yoga mat, buy courses from your city guru, buy anything and be enlightened. Even the whole The Secret book from that Rhonda Byrne lady seems to be talking about making money, mostly...

    We have more freedom, but indeed, we have become lethargic sheep. Look at what crap the supermarkets are selling and advertising as healthy, which is actually full of additives that are poisonous and when you ask people to question that they say: (and mind this, it's a key phrase for the deaf)

    "Well, the government would never allow for things to happen that are bad for us"
    Damn.. think people

    Ok, so thanks for bearing with me here (or not)

    I think what people miss from the sixties is the group spirit of the hippies. It's really hard to find unlethargic people around these days although I seem to have found some.
    So
    Here's my part, as a young woman who grew up in the nineties/2000s
     
  10. junglejack

    junglejack aiko aiko

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    on the same page again rev

    jjack
     
  11. Logan 5

    Logan 5 Confessed gynephile Lifetime Supporter

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    Yep. Except it's not racism that puts them there. They put themselves there. If they want change, they can make change themselves. Nothing was more depressing than when I saw a video of these young black kids marching in poor cadence into a room shouting "Alpha! Omega!" and that rhetoric. They were chanting praises of a black president because now they can become something. Now they can pursue their dreams. No, it's not the president that does that for them, they gotta do it for themselves. If they can't beleive in themselves, then their parents should be there to help the kids learn to beleive in themselves. Parental support is what counts, to hell with who the president is.

    If they want out of the ghettos, then they can stand up and do something to get themselves out. If their parents canm't beleive in themselves, much less believe in their kids, then how can they justify calling it racist? Because it's not handed to them? Other races don't get anything handed to them. I ain't never had anything handed to me. I earned everything I have. Is that racist? Not in the least bit.

    So if they want out, they can get off their asses and do something POSITIVE to effect a change. Ain't no one gonna do it for them. Their lives, their business, their control. Claiming it's racial is in reality cowardice because they aren't brave enough to make the change themselves.

    That'll change in about 30-40 years, maybe sooner.

    Your part is a good part. Though I am confused about the unlethargic label. Some people are lazy and some aren't. No different now than it was in the 60's.

    No Surprise. JC tends to pump out some good stuff.
    Right on JC!
     
  12. SpaceChive

    SpaceChive Member

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    By lethargic I mean indifferent to things happening in society and politics.
    Maybe a wrong term?
     
  13. Reverand JC

    Reverand JC Willy Fuckin' Wonka

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    @ the Kitch. I think part of what happened had to do with the concept of action vs. intent. The action was right but the intent was only half right. Wanting to fix the world because it is fucked up is one thing it is great and wonderful and it is alot of hard work. Wanting to fix the world to say "Look what I did" is shallow and narcissistic. What seems to me happened is that there were a few Hippies in the minority who honestly wanted to change the world because they saw it was fucked up. But the majority were only in it for the glory. It got to be too much work so they came up with an excuse to sell out by saying "The best way to change the system is from the inside." So they followed Jerry Rubin into the banking industry. The truth is their Materialistic values were so ingrained from their parents that they couldn't undo the conditioning.

    @Space Chive. I can empathize with the Turks. I was in Germany about 12 years ago. One of my friends brought me to a dance club. I was there and dressed nicer than the bouncer and they still denied me admittance. The popular theory amongst my German friends is it was because they thought I was Turkish. I don't feel so bad about not being let in because the same club denied Harry Belafonte admittance about 6 years earlier. There is an old saying in my family "Shit I've been thrown into nicer places."

    Peace Out,
    Rev J
     
  14. Shale

    Shale ~

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    ":iagree:
     
  15. Reverand JC

    Reverand JC Willy Fuckin' Wonka

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    Usually the answer on these posts are given as one or more of the following:
    Summer of love in Haight Ashbury
    Woodstock
    The Holy Trinity of Jim, Jimi, and Janice
    The Drugs
    The Clothes
    The Beatles

    They usually don't answer:
    The War
    The Watts Riots
    The 68 Democratic National Convention
    The Electric Prunes
    Altamont
    S.Sgt. Barry Sadler (Ballad of the Green Berets)
    The assassinations of JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X
    The Murder of Emmit Till
    The 3 Civil Rights workers that were kidnapped and murdered in Mississippi

    I think I've made my point.

    Peace Out,
    Rev J
     
    Born25YearsTooLate likes this.
  16. PAX-MAN

    PAX-MAN Just A Old Hippy

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    No. Alot of people really thought they were going to change the system from within. It was extremely difficult to really make any difference in this world when people looked down upon you and called you nothing but a dirty filthy hippie. What alot of people wanted to do was to go into the straight world and show the people in it that there was more to life than the need for material possessions. You had to treat people with more love and respect especially if that's what you wanted in return. The unfortunate thing was that people got wrapped up in trying to make a better life for themselves and their children and greed got the better of them and they forgot what was really important in life. And as my signature says, to love and be loved in return: and this is not on an individual basis- it's to love everyone and hopefully be loved in return.

    PAX
     
  17. oldwolf

    oldwolf Waysharing-not moderating Super Moderator

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    y'know...like hey man ...y'all have any idea of how the hippie movement in the main was a bunch of hypocrites ?....not judging - just fact.
    Most of us, who are now-a-days called hippies and still have anything to do with the purity of the underlying Intent: both back in the daze, never considered themselves hippies as we did not like (believe in) labels; and would probably not be recognizable because of both age and learning to fly under the radar (being invisible).
    And too often the dry humor that has become our communication staple, is never heard by others as it is meant.
    But maybe someone can hear that to really be a hippie (the ideal, not the reality;)), you've got to move beyond being one.

     
  18. barefootlocks

    barefootlocks Senior Member

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    :hurray::hurray::hurray::hurray:

    Well said Rev!
     
  19. psychedelicg1rl

    psychedelicg1rl Member

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    I can not say I want to live in the 60s, too much turmoil going on. I love the music, and the clothes. But I try to live peaceful and helpful each and every day. I am doing an group thing for prop 19. and soon it will be passed. I hope.

    thanks for your insightful post. a nd how honest you are. Truly you are one of the many older posters that I respect.

    Have to agree with all of what you wrote.

    : )
     
  20. liquidacrobat

    liquidacrobat Member

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    There have been great and hip times before. The 20s, the late 40s/early 50s in some places and on some streets, and I've always thought that there had to be some good scenes during the Renaissance - and right now some really good things happening, BUT as far as I know, there's never been anything like the 60s. There's never been an explosion of consciouness like in the 60s and into the 70s. Many more people went farther, faster than ever before and maybe ever after. THOSE WERE SOME DAYS! I can remember realizing how profoundly grateful I was to be a hippie.

    I'm untroubled by people saying they wish they were there then. It's not a bad thought, nor one that guides very many people's lives. I'm meeting some very nice, hip people these days.

    How about that mj decriminalization in Cali!
     

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