60's Hippie Pics - View & Add or Comment

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Skip,
I am grateful for your service to this community as Webmaster and also grateful that you are shining a light on things we need to do to make life better for all.

I am not a leftist, but I think it is important that people like me who are more centrist find common cause with you. Many of us now also see that the status quo is not working. Atlanta is my home and I love many things about it, but in many ways the "good life" here is a dream yet to be realized. For many life has become a nightmare of unemployment, untreated sickness, foreclosure, eviction and homelessness.

My travels have taken me to places where better ideas are implemented than what prevail here. But maybe it shouldn't be necessary to cross the ocean to realize that our way of doing things isn't the only way and is probably not the best way.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Martin Niemöller

 

Maybe this is the place to ask:

I'll preface this with "I;m old now" to get that shit out of the way, but can you folks explain your take on the "Occupy" movement?

I live in a fairly large canadian city and all I've seen are a loose knit group of predominantly street people camping in the park. No daily press conference from which to push their point, no nothing-all I hear is "I need a place to live for free and think I'll camp here".

I've been working for 38 years, paying my share of taxes. I'd love to do nothing and have "the man" pay my way.

A friend of mine asked me a question-if wealth in the world was redistributed to every man woman and child in the world and they all had a million dollars, who would produce the stuff we would all buy. Who would work?

Just asking?

 

uitar9,
There are pages of discussion on the Occupy Movement elsewhere in this forum, but I suppose we could touch on it briefly here; then you might want to get the details in the thread dedicated to that topic.

If you have met people who are not articulate about what they want, just camping in your city park, I can't argue with that reality on the ground, but please consider that what you heard is only a small portion of the voices of those who have gathered in cities around the world. And maybe those who came out of curiousity, or the trendiness of it will stick around long enough to learn and grow and become real participants in the cause.

Pastors, government officials and community leaders have lent their support to this movement in great numbers. The Occupy participants themselves have often spoken in very compelling terms, putting a spotlight on both the victims of corporate crime and pointed a finger at the people and institutions that are threatening democracy, devasted families and small businesses everywhere.

The occupy workers have endured great discomfort and harassment in order to sound a wake-up call and they have earned the right to be heard. Okay! Enough about that here. The Occupy thread is the place for further discussion.

You have heard accusations from the 1960's that hippies are lazy and opposed to work and want you to support them.
Actually I have learned that on average, hippies work hard, perhaps harder than most people.
There were a lot of young people who moved to San Francisco in the late 60's, were caught in the media spotlight and yes, for that brief time in their lives, many took a sabbatical from work to seek new direction and purpose for their lives, sought new ideas, wanted to break out of the small town world they had grown up in to meet kindred spirits.
So if your image of the flower children is of that moment in time, you missed the big picture.

Nor, as has been commonly claimed, did all the hippies become corporate sell-outs.
They became involved in politics, environmental causes, organic agriculture, charitable organizations, the arts, to name a few things.

Their children and grandchildren have often followed in their footsteps. America and the world have been forever altered.
Not everyone of that first generation was a hippie and we saw the sad results of the rise to power of the non-hippie majority. The struggle goes on.

You said that you have worked for 38 years and paid taxes.
I believe in work too and I commend you for helping maintain the infrastructure that makes Canada such a beautiful and prosperous land.

But we can get so caught up in working for a living that we forget to ask if we are not some cog in the wheel of a big corporate machine that is working against the best interest of the Canadian people, against the environment.
I have been deeply conflicted when I found myself working for some heartless multinational corporation or smaller companies that are just as evil.

When you think about companies that close down plants in one-factory towns, throwing thousands out of work, overseas outsourcing to shave a few pennies off an already profitable product, retirees cheated out of their pensions, stockholders and investors duped by corporate liars and insider trading, and companies conspiring elaborate schemes to avoid helping pay their share of taxes to society, then maybe then you will understand why people are so angry, why a new generation of "hippies" or simply caring people has risen to take a stand against this and use their sojourn in the city parks to sound the alarm!

By the way, rich people continue working far beyond the point of having their needs met.
Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Sir Richard Branson, Sir Paul McCartney all still love their work. It's not about the money for them. If you don't love your work, I can understand.
A lot of men have what is called a "mid-life crisis". We finally realize what the hippies were trying to tell us: that life is not valued by how much we accumulate, but by how much we love and are loved.

 

Thanks garden guy.

Man I still don't get it.

Yes , thieves should be jailed.

But man, alot of those same folks who are hurting today, sure liked the stock run up when all those big manufacturers moved production to increase profits.

Interesting how a canadian or us manufacturer can maintain any domestic employment

 

I joined 'The Forum" just last month and checked out this thread and it really brought back so many memories so I thought I would contribute just a bit. If this has already been mentioned then I apologize for I must have overlooked it. In 1974 a few friends and I went to an outdoor concert in a small town in Missouri called Sedalia. It was billed as the Ozark Music Festival and Wolfman Jack was the host. Depending on who you talk to the crowd was estimated to be between 200,000 and 400,000 people. This town was really small and it was just paralyzed from the traffic and the people attending. Never saw anything like it in my life and I know I never will again. Everything was wide open and I do mean everything. Naked people everywhere and of course everybody knows what most people do while naked. No shyness there. Drugs being bought and sold nonstop. Not that I condone that......LMAO.... Had to fly the 'overdoses' out by helicopter. So many of them you couldn't keep count. As if one was able to count anyhow. I can't even begin to remember all the groups there but I do remember a few. How, I don't know. Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Marshall Tucker Band, The Eagles, Bob Seger, REO Speedwagon, Blue. Oyster Cult, Cactus, Spirit, Joe Walsh ............ Just one of the best times of my life and I'm sorry to not have any pictures to document it. Didn't even think about a camera as I had what I thought to be more important stuff on my mind.... What a trip!!!!!!

 

Welcome to the forum and like a lot of us at the time, didn't have a camera. Mine was the Atlanta Festival July 4, 1970. And tho I didn't get any pics someone did and they are on the Web. Maybe Sedalia 74 will get some hits.

 

Thanks Shale, I appreciate the reply.I remember the festivals in Atlanta and I will definitely check 'em out, Also going to see what I can find on the Ozark Music Festival. How ironic it is that my present address is Sedalia, Kentucky.

 

Wasn't there but was at Atlanta "70". God, Where did those days go. I weep even though I know the memory is selective toward the good things. Bless you man.

 

One of the Diggers hands out sandwiches

 

My aunt and uncle were hippies back in the day and I didn't get the whole hippie thing at first. But one day, I found a huge catalog in a used book shop that convinced me that some aspects of the hippie movement were timeless and could even save the world:
The Whole Earth Catalog. One of the most amazing things I have ever read.

 

Love this pic. So 1969. Love& peace.

 

That's an awesome sign of the times. Now, when food is handed out there are plastic gloves being worn.

 

I swear I know that guy, but I wasn't there and would have been 5-7 years separated in time.

 

Damn he looks wasted!

 

Far out to the first pic man totally in dept yet simply beautiful

 

Raquel Welch. Not a hippie, but she looked a hell of a lot better in that shirt than Abbie Hoffman ever did!

 

Some hot hippie chicks back then!

 

One of my favorite pictures of all time. I used to keep it on my desk at work. From Robert Altman's website if I remember correctly