An open letter to young hippies

I agree man, Its allways a thing of looking back. I love all the music and culture of those times, but im also into all the revolutions of our history. If you respect that we have progressed at different periods to create different culture. Then you can find that today and now is where people need to be, if you want to be a hippie or alternative individual, you must recognize that we must act as a modern culture, and not look to the past for our strength and will. We can make now even more spectacular than the 60s ever was, if we just work together as a commune, and share the spiritual love and energy that connects us all. With everything i do, i try to be new and progressive. But i also feel that the energy and understanding, comes from the tribal knowledge of all time. With that knowledge we can make a utopia which uses our new found sciences and helps us live with nature in harmony. But at the same time, hippies will allways be a minority. Until people of all walks of life start understanding the true nature of things.

 

That's corperate America for ya.Anything to sell.

 

I guess what bothers me more about it is that the person who holds the rights to the image had a chance to tell McDonalds to go fuck themselves but didn't. The idea that a corperation can buy the image doesn't mean that the other person should sell it. If McDonalds opened an obesity clinic people would line up to pat those motherfuckers on the back.

Peace Out,
Rev J

 

By far, the most appropriate post in this thread, at least in terms of the original post...

It's very telling that not a single person mentioned it (that I saw, I perhaps missed it?)...

 

Everything seems to be for sale.Even things like dignity, integrity, and Concience.Funny thing is, King was known to be very uncomfortable about earning or recieving money!

 

^I've heard it said that "A Republican is just a Democrat who's been mugged."

Peace Out,
Rev J

 

I guess I misunderstood the 60's and hippies.

I remember the phrase; turn on, tune in, drop out.

Which to me meant, take a look around and see what's going on. That the system that is all around us, based on hatred, is not mandatory. That there is no reason to accept it and become a pawn in its machinery. Realize that this system of things is a artificial thing placed on top of what real life is. It is enforced by it's seemingly all pervasiveness, laws that force compliance and peer pressure.

Thus the drop out. The turning away from all this and walking away and living a life based on love. Interestingly when you leave this system behind, you find that if you look around you see the others who have discovered the same things and have left it all behind. As CSN&Y sang; we are leaving you don't need us.

Even the "causes" that everyone talk about, just tie you to this system of things and give it the support it needs to exist. The only way to defeat this system of things is to remove the support it needs to exist and that means walk away.

http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.php

 

I started to look at this link. While I have a lot of common ground with Anarchists I find them really aggravating. I've been to a couple of Anarchist Book Fairs and been treated like shit because I don't wear a leather jacket and don't have a pink mohawk.

I joke that Anarchy is like a really extreme version of conservatism. A conservative want's less government and less taxes. An Anarchist want's no government and no taxes.

Unfortunately my job requires the government to kick me down my paycheck. It is the price of helping the disabled.

Peace Out,
Rev J

 

The link is just a fun story that talks about what if no one plays the game.

As for Anarchists, for the most part, they're just playing the game as well. They seem to be caught in the trap of reverse psychology, doing things just to prove they are no part of this system of things.

To me the idea is to just decide for yourself how life should be lived and then live your life that way, regardless of what others think.

If it is against the law to make salt and you need salt and you would like to make salt, then make salt.

 

Anarchists say absolutely no government. Sadly that is a lot of the stuff I have seen with the Tea Party movement. Not as direct as the anarchists, but it's there. Me, I hate how the taxes are spent, but I sure am glad we have at least some of the services provided by those. Highways, Interstate highways, parks, museums, a lot of stuff. The same stuff the anarchists use. No one realizes though that there is no way to effectively re-build America in the fashion the Tea Party and anarchists want without placing America in harms way. Just what the drug cartels and anti-Americans want- a time when America's pants are down by her ankles.

Just my opinion.

 

Although I would love to agree with this statement, there is one part that is missing from it, which makes it an impossible statement.

It is assuming that everyone wants to be good and share the world with each other, and therein lies the problem.

What happens when that person you are telling should live their life the way they want to, wants to rape children? Now before a certain group on here jump on me and accuse me of being an asshole and pointing out that nobody said that in here... Let me try to make this as clear as I can... I am not saying anyone said this, or suggested this in this thread... I am not throwing this out there to shock or anger anyone...

I seriously want to understand how people think that on one hand you can allow people to live freely and on the other protect ourselves (and those we care about) from those who want to either subjugate, control, or kill others?

It is this very issue that has always caused me to clash with a lot of people who otherwise are my type of people...

Calling for freedom and the right to do what EVER you want, either shows that you care for nobody, including yourself. or worse, that you haven't put any thought into it beyond "me wanna be free"...

I will never be at a point where I will say... I think you should be free to do anything you want, because if what you want to do, is harm someone I care about, I will most definitly interfere and not think twice about it...

Back to the original statement. Lets say we're on an island with no exterior resources, and the water (and salt in it) is filled with poison... In other words you can't solve this by saying you will find another source.

Lets say for years, Jack has been digging into the side of a hill to get at this salt... Before he started digging, nobody knew or even guessed there was salt there... Nobody helped him dig to the salt... nobody helped him take it out... There he is living his life merrily getting his salt...

Then along comes Fred and says, hey I want some of that salt... Should he be allowed to free go and grab it off of Jacks table?? There is no possible way for Fred to get any salt without Jack offering it to him, that doesn't included Fred taking advantage of Jack's work... What happens when Fred decides that he wants to use that salt to cure hides or dry food and needs more?

Should Jack just become his little bitch and keep collecting the salt?

Even if fred went into where Jack has been digging for years and gets his own salt, the only reason he CAN do that is because of Jack... Shall Jack just stand back and say, hey fred feel free to take all the salt you want, even though you didnt once help me dig??

This is the reason laws and government came about, and what a lot of 'freedom' criers seem to miss...

The problem is that you can't have a totally free and equal society of humans... for the simple reason, not all humans want it...

As long as ONE doesn't want everyone to be equal and free... then no-one can be... You could have 99,999 people who all want to share and be equal and free from controls... and 1 that wants to sit back and have others do work for them and the 1 will always win...

Ask yourself how that can be....

Me, I ask myself how it could be anything else...

If everyone is saying that everyone is free to do what they want, how will they EVER stop that one from being in control?

The same idea also applies to the silly statement of 'it takes two to fight'... Which in a twisted form of logic is true... but it misses the point... If one of those two choose not to fight, and the other does, it won't be a fight, it will just be a killing...

... I have no clue what my original point was anymore.... lol

 

I'm not talking about freedom for every one, I'm talking about freedom of self. Someone can only control your life as much as you let them.

If someone wanted to rape your child and did, what would you want to do to that person?

If someone wanted to take the salt you had acquired and did, what would you want to do?

Also the salt was referring to what Gandhi did in India.

Have you read the story from the link?

 

I guess I'm just confused then, because if its not freedom for everyone you are talking about, I really don't understand who any of it is different then what we have now...

As for freedom of self... and your questions... I would torture and kill the person who harmed my child... but I do not preach peace, love and freedom for all...

If someone tried to take my salt, I would stop them, using any means necessary, but once again, I never claimed anything else.

What part of my point was though, was the other end of what you are talking about...

For a person to claim that they want to be free of all the rules, such as an anarchist or such, or that they want no government, is to say that they want to live in a world where might makes right and those with the most power rule... which is worse then what we already have... as we at least have the semblance of freedom... In the dictatorship that would result from the anarchy that is claimed to be wanted, there would be those in power, and slaves...

We need laws and we need government in order to protect ourselves from each other. Sad as that is, that is the simple truth. 90% of people would live a peaceful and happy life, co-operating in a sharing fashion and life would be grand... until the ones in the other 10% decided they wanted to product of that co-operation for themselves, without expending the same energy to get it...

The problem with our current set up is that the laws are not there JUST to protect us from each other. They are there for many reasons, that all come back to the same thing.. allowing those in power to remain in power...

That will never change as long as people sit back and try to fight the system by destroying it completely... It will change when each and every person stands up and says, thats it, I wont take it anymore and puts an end to the bullshit and games...

Unfortunately, that will never happen on a large enough scale to succeed... that is what all the 'noise' is all about... keeping people distracted long enough screaming about various non important shit, all in different directions...

Does it really matter to anyone except the people getting married what the gender of the couple is? Of course not, but if you poke people about it, it sure seems to, or at least enough to distract a whole bunch...

Does race really matter? Once again, only as a further distraction....

Look at the bullshit people get all worked up about... oh no, walmarts evil, let's not shop there... We'll buy our useless worthless crap somewhere else to keep the cycle going...

Windmills... oh my god, are those things ever noisy... and they kill birds that hit them... besides, that coal fired plant 50 miles away doesn't bother me nearly as much as those wind turbines... I'll fight them with all I have!

Did you hear the latest? Paris Hilton got caught with coke in condom she didnt wear while making a sex tape with donald trump and john mccain.. oh my god, what will we ever do????

Oh yeah... freedom...

I'm sure people are more then capable of running things 100% cooperatively from a perspective of freeing them from themselves.... lol

Oh, and no, I didnt read the story... it was way too long

 

When I was a teen, I found an old copy of the Whole Earth Catalog in a used book store.
It opened my eyes to a loose community of people who think outside the box. Some of them were developing renewable energy, some were living in communes and growing organic food, some revitalizing older city neighborhoods, some of them went camping and backpacking deep in the wilderness. Some people were apprenticing themselves to traditional crafters, potters, weavers, artists, leatherwork, and music makers, washing their hands of the mass-production plastic society they were born into.

I got the picture: You get to choose your own path and there are hundreds of paths available! The people and communities in that catalog were each in their own way making their corner of the world a better place.

You don't have to try to travel back to the 1960's. This movement is still alive and well, just horribly underreported by the news media and popular culture.

There are some evil things going on in our time and it can be painful knowledge, but the hippies in my life are some of the most optimistic people I have met. They have knowledge and resources that the first flower children only dreamed of.

I am late getting started, but I have become a part of something much bigger than myself, something that will offer millions a better way of life. I am just a small part of it, but with each of contributing our time and talents, it adds up.

 

I don't believe that I ever said anything about freedom for everyone, only freedom of self.

And you would be free to do so.

And you would be free to do so but perhaps there are other things that would work as well.

I don't believe that it is a either or neither nor situation. Living without rules does mean that the only alternative is might makes right. In fact with all the rules we still seem to live in might makes right world.

So what would they do attack the 90% and take what they want? Your "government" is already taking about 2/3 of what you make, the surfs in the middle ages only paid half. Seems like your rules aren't helping much.

Yep

I don't want to destroy this system, I just want to let it die of natural causes.

That's why I just don't pay it any attention.

I really don't much care what other people do, just call it something else and don't change the long standing meaning of the the word.

Race is an arbitrary distinction that has no scientific basis.

Preaching to the choir.

I was just talking about freeing yourself, everyone else has to decide if that is to much freedom for themselves.

Too bad you might have liked it.

 

See, the problem with this idea, and the one in the story is the same...

It assumes that voluntary cooperation and understanding is necessary on the part of the subjugated...

When the slave traders landed in africa and started raiding tribes for slaves to sell, they didn't have any problems making their desire clear... in fact, they didn't even try... They didn't go looking for a leader to get them to command people to jump on the boats...

They took their weapons and they went and took anyone they found who didn't resist to the point of death. Simple as that...

The 10% isn't going to gather the 90% up and say, let's fight... they are going to take them out a few at a time while the rest look on and mutter myob....

until none are left...

 

I know you are mocking the "not in my backyard crowd" who prefer a distant monster coal plant, but reject renewable energy when they feel inconvenienced.

But I thought I should mention:
There's a new kind of generator that uses wind power without the spinning blades that kill birds.

http://news.discovery.com/tech/wind-power-without-the-blades.html

 

I'd rep you twice for that if I could... awesome link!

 

well written man, imaginary rep till i can give more rep.
We should be focusing here in the now rather than the past.
Us hippies gotta stick together against present issues!