Born Out Of Time

The 60's seem like such an interesting time to have been alive. I would've loved to join a commune and expand my mind.

Help me under that magical mystery trip.

Peace

 

Sorry for bumping a 6 year old thread:

http://www.hipforums.com/forum/topic/386073-an-open-letter-to-young-hippies/?hl=%2Bopen+%2Bletter+%2Byoung+%2Bhippies

I hate that born in the wrong era bullshit.

C/S,
Rev J

 

Thanks for the article. And maybe I should have titled this thread 'Help Me Understand'; because I feel I can identify more with that Era then the one we're in now. So. Taking that identity into the now, and just being.

 

I would like to have lived in the early 1800s.

 

Everything was black and white. Then somewhere in about the early 60's some young kids started rubbing their genitals together and pretty soon they both started to feel real good. Then a little color started to appear in the world, then pretty soon more and more did it, and now everyting's in color.

Some say that there were people doing this sex thing before that but that they were just keeping it repressed and in secret. There were rumors that kids in the country side would do it in barns and hidden places. But its only hearsay----no one talks about it...



(Then again-----that might have just been the premise for a movie...)

 

All aboard for the magical mystery tour of the 60's!

First stop---a sense of helplesness in a world governed by a government overstepping its bounds. You are a male and just turned 18 (or you're a girl and your older brother who you've looked up to all your life just turned 18). Amazingly your chances of winning the lottery are pretty good. Unfortunately this lottery will send you to a fairly certain death in a jungle on the other side of the world. It isn't like the war of your father's generation where he was actually saving the world from an evil empire. This time you are just being sent to support a US puppet government that is oppressing a peasant class of farmers who were already raped and stolen from by the French. If given the chance you would support them, but instead you will be sent to hold a gun in a bona fide hell on earth where those very peasants whose cause you would like to support will kill you... The fact that a neighbor down the street just had their son come home in a body bag doesn't help you with that feeling.


Look to your left and see the lies the US Government tells---'plans to lessen troop involvement,' 'peace talks,' 'there will be no escalation of military operations, including accross borders into neighboring countries.'

Next stop---Chicago Police shoot and kill a Black Panther leader. They claim they responded to a gunfight. A blood stained and bullet riddled mattress validates what the people in the apartment said---that he was murdered in cold blood as he lay asleep.

Now we'll turn down assasination alley, with the shocking murder of a young President Kennedy still fresh in everyone's mind, now everyone's being assasinated---Martin Luther King--a beloved black leader who preaches peaceful change, Kennedy's brother----will the killing ever stop?

Moving on, here is Nixon talking about war against the youth of America. But surely he is just talking figuratively. I mean, there was all that protesting at the Democratic Convention---the whole world got to watch as American police tear gassed and beat senseless youthful protestors, but that was a convention after all, and...

...Oh my GOD! The National Guard fires on students at Kent State in Michigan and kills 4 of them!!!!

What is happening to this country? Have we truly lost our soul? Will we ever know peace and social harmony again?

Now we will turn down the cul de sac of moral dilema brought on by a helpless situation in an unjust war. Joe Public and his wife seem to think that if you turn off the TV before the evening news and spend your evenings at cocktail parties, Wednesday night prayer service, and Thursday night pinochle, that everything is fine with the world-----and we just keep sending our youth to die in jungles and have no concern for the oppressed South Vietnamese peasants. Well----we may just have to bring that war home so that they understand what is really happening there. We have to start blowing up ROTC Buildings and government installations.

(But our little Sally would never do anything like that. She is such a sweet Christian girl. She always went to church with us. She's at college right now---says she wants to help people and make a difference and... What do you mean the FBI is at the door asking questions...?)

Now we are passing through economy lane. Sometimes everything seems really nice. But other times it seems pretty crappy. And if you are on the lower end of the spectrum, it is downright scary---will you have a job that will continue to feed your family? It seems like only Wall Street makes money. Don't worry though---if you get a job making bombs, missiles, and other weapons you should do ok. In fact, its a great time to be an atom bomb scientist.

We don't want to forget this street----notice the Civil Defense symbols----they are fallout shelters. But don't worry---we just have to keep building more bombs, and more powerful bombs than the Soviets who are trying to do more than we are. It's safe really---because if we build more than they do, which we think we are, then the Soviets will never attack us, because even after we have destroyed each other---completely---we can still send a few more there way. It makes sense right? And it will work unless something crazy happens and one of us pushes a button. But don't worry---that's why we have the Civil Defense shelters-----and once inside, you will have plenty of time to realize that a nuclear death is certain anyway, and that now it will probably be a bit longer and more painful than if you had stayed in the open and were vaporized instantly.


And now we come to the end of our tour----yes it is the 1960's----undoubtedly the last years of this great nation of ours. Will we even survive another decade? The outlook is very grim. And we may not only collapse as a nation but destroy the whole world in the process. Ohhhh if only I was born in the 20's when everyone was having fun, and those flapper girls looked so cute...


Now be sure and get on the Crashing Down from the Long Strange Trip Tour of the 1970's bus. Actually, now that you've done the 60's ride, the 70's one is obligatory. You will get to lose all shred of respect for the government, and feel that it is completely undermined as a valid institution as we start down into the Watergate valley. And boy, if you thought the economic problems of the 60's are bad----wait till you see them in the 70's. Did you know we only have a few years left of oil supply? ...welcome aboard.

 

I'll admit i'm one of those people who would love to travel back to experience and different time and place. Although i'm a believer of enjoying life in the now it would be interesting to experience the 60's as a teenager. I work in a bong shop and i love the chats i have with the older fellows about the concerts and such they experienced. Just today i talked to this gentlemen about his experience watching jimi hendrix. Blew my mind.

 

what we need to do is build a time machine, and travel back to 1965.

 

that sounds like the 60s i grew up in. joined the air force to keep the army from getting me. made it by 3 days.
there were sit ins and protests, but it certainly wasn't all beatles, woodstock and summer of love.
there was awareness among our generation. and there were more of us, then any other age group.
computers furst becoming capable of simulating social complexities, but they were still something only governments, and corporations could afford. corporations gave them to universities to train computer jocks for the corporations. but of course, students invented ways to play games on them.
it wasn't easier to be counter culture then, it was just, there was more of us then anyone else. but you'd never know it listening to the evening news.

 

I'm glad that I am in the here and now.
Being Comanche back then, was a dangers matter .

 

I joined the counterculture back then, had a lot of fun, but keep in mind the counterculture grows when the culture becomes intolerable. Many dropped out of society due to frustration with the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the abuse of protesters and Wall Street profiteers. People talk about the "good old days" but forget that every age had its problems, and the 1960s certainly had more than its fair share.

 

I see a lot of the problems of the 60s echoed today, and have been wondering (and hoping) if we'll see a rise in counterculture. I think it is happening, but it's slow and not as sweeping as it was back then.
It seems as though there are too many distractions and too much propaganda keeping the masses down. I think it keeps the younger generation from being too cohesive to really get something going.

 

If Trump beats all his charges and gets re-elected President then you'll damn sure see a rise in the counterculture!

 

I definitely agree, and I'll be beside myself if he holds office again.
But I think a rise in counterculture is needed regardless.

 

No, we don't need a counterculture anymore. You don't need to be counter anything. You just have to drink Dr. Pepper, and be a Pepper. In fact, you just have to get the right X-Box or PlayStation game and you can be anything. Go on any adventure. Do just about whatever you want without any consequences. Hell, you could spend your days as a pirate, sailing the high seas, killing sailors and passengers, plundering... Screw change, we have all we need now...

Well, no, that's not right-----Herbert Marcuse, in his book One-Dimensional Man, which was very influential in the politics of the Baby Boomers, called dynamics such as these, that suck out the rebellious nature for revolution, and takes away the energy of what would otherwise be a ravenous angst to rebel and change the oppressive powers of capitalism, 'Repressive Sublimation.'

So yes there are too many distractions. What Dionysian powers can unite the youth of today? There was a brief movement in Wall Street about a decade ago. But it fizzled out. There were so many that flocked to Standing Rock to protect our nation's watersheds---all of whom were exposed to a spirituality of the earth. I had hoped that would be a spark to ignite the fire of rebellion. Maybe these forces are still shaping and change is happening in the shadows... I hope so.

And even in far-right societies, such as Israel, you find that when the stakes get high, the people come together. When Netanyahu tried to enact his version of the Nazi Enabling Act---the people took to the streets and shut Israel down. And now despite the unity created by the Hamas attack in October, more and more people are demanding Netanyahu to step down, and to negotiate for peace. Though sadly, the Apartheid against, and hatred, for Palestinians may continue. But this adds to the point that despite this fascist-inspired hatred towards the Palestinians, that Israelis still stand up against untethered control.

Yet here in America, the Supreme Court declares its own Nazi Enabling Act, giving the president unethered power, and the biggest protest we see is a bunch of memes on instagram... (More repressive sublimation because we feel like we are fighting for a change, when all we are really doing is sharing opinions with like-minded people while addictively glued to our phones.) Today we have the added problem of a dumbing down of America. Perhaps a difference between Israel and America is that Israelis are smart enough to know the implications of such things. Americans might not be educated enough. I don't know.

And there is no secret about what is planned for us----Project 2025 is there for anyone to read it, as is Agenda 47. The implications are very serious, it is very scary, especially knowing that we already know what kind of a chaotic nightmare a Trump presidency would present and yet Americans seem to be conned by one of the sloppiest, ill conceived, false flag operations I have ever seen (I'm talking about last weekends assassination attempt.)

I do know that time is running out people...

 

It took decades and decades and much strife and some blood for the liberalization of the US. Lynching was still occurring in the 50s and 60s. Those trying to form unions were beaten and killed in the 20s--30s--40s. We kept losing wars and sending the young to die because of the "domino theory", the fears that one after another country would fall to communism and threaten our precious capitalism.-----Korea--Viet Nam. Churches were bombed --people were killed. Our spy agencies helped to overthrow legitimately elected governments in other countries--Chile, for example. The save the earth movements, the sexual revolution, the underground newspapers--the Berkeley Barb--The LA Free press dared to print actual truth about our society and our wars. Some of our finest were assassinated. YET-----issues were beginning to get talked about and some were solved. And in the background of the right wing--republican party--the wishes and desires of of the stalwart conservatives were to eliminate anything and everything that remained of Roosevelt's new deal. To roll back unionism--to end welfare for those who needed government help,etc,etc. But they were not so loud about their goals--they knew most Americans did not agree with their stances on the issues that were designed to actually help citizens in their daily lives.

NOW: The pendulum has --and is --swinging back toward the past with all the ills that the liberalization has fought against for all those decades and decades. The right wing--republicans are not so quiet about their long sought goals now. Their authoritarian bent is now on full display. Roe is gone. The "supreme court is fully political , voting is being made more difficult and surprisingly--all it has taken was one outspoken , anti liberal , convicted criminal, an admitted sexual assaulter to start the inevitable slide back to early last century. 74 million voters in the last election gave their approval of this loud ,obnoxious , child-like fool ANNNNND---here we go.

I think that I was born in the right time. The 50s was a special time to be a teen age boy. The 60s and 70s was a special time to experience the changing society , often getting knowledge through some chemical help. I have had some fantastic times throughout the rest of the time --80s --90s on up. I think I have a pretty good vantage point into what's happening now. I don't like much of it, but there is still beauty to be seen and enjoyed if one is open to it. I'll be long gone and worm food, but many of you will hopefully see the pendulum swing back to where we were in the hopeful 60s and 70s.

 

To add: To those of you who have been around for a "while'---remember when the republican party was known as the law and order party?? Well forget that--they are now openly letting all of us know that they are damn sick and tired of having a democracy!! They are proving and showing that they do not intend to go through those god damn pesky election losses any more!! Stay tuned youngins' ---you're in for a rough ride coming up!! GET READY FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER.

 

This is where the Republican Party is today. The SCOTUS has already delivered the modern American version of the Enabling Act. So it's just a matter of this insanity coming to power, if we don't stop it:











Then, history tells us, what follows is this. This is the end result of Nationalism in an established nation (which is fundamentally different from the Nationalism of a people without a nation or a homeland). Nationalism in an established country, is also known as Fascism. The racial/national narratives of dominance that it creates, sooner or later are expressed through a horribly bloody war, which destroys its own citizens as much, or more, as anyone in neighboring countries.