Do you ever see the 60's making a comeback?

Complex subject, but here's a short course:

Because we have hundreds of millions of people who want more and more and
more material stuff. Without trashing _their_ environment_ . More stuff than
they could ever have if they had to do all the work involved.

Resources are used up, so new ones have to be acquired. Markets are saturated
so new ones have to be acquired. Cheap labor pools are exhausted and new ones
have to be found.

The corporations, large and small, have to constantly grow because if they didn't
then everyone would be stuck where they were until someone above them died
or retired.

Enormous numbers of Americans buy stocks and bonds, wanting large
amounts of unearned income. Income isn't created until someone turns
natural resources into trade goods and sells those trade goods to someone.
So the corporations have to grow to fulfill that demand, too.

So we are trying to make the Middle East over in our own image. While
claiming that this is what they are trying to do to us....It's just neo-colonialism.

What I'm pointing out here, is that this economy, which is extremely materialisitc,
has always needed to expand. Unfortunately, people live everywhere on the
planet worth living and they rarely just offer to turn their lives and their lands
over to us. That means warfare. That's what war is about: Imposing your will
on others. It's not that most people want warfare, it's just that there is no way
around it with an economy like this one. The people of early America did not
sit down one day and decide that they were going to steal the rest of the continent
and wipe out most of the people who already lived there. They just gradually
expanded and met with resistance and sent in their soldiers to deal with it. It's
worse now, because we are much more materialistic than we were back then.

Do you know what the 'Native Americans' who resisted the theft of their lands
and the destruction of their cultures were called back then? "Terrorists". Sound
familiar? (What I've listed above are various factors that contribute to the
need for expansion on many levels.)

Hope that helps,

LIttlefoot

 

I thought they were referred to as "savages"...

homeiswheretheloveis,
War is one of those things that is just like dominoes. One falls and then the rest follow. War is something that's nearly impossible to escape because it is everywhere. If OTHER people were not fighting each other, if EVERYONE actually had the goal of getting along, there would still be some evil person who would want to come along and take by force what is not his. There is no apparent beginning (who started this?) and no apparent end. THAT is why it cannot be escaped. Because there will ALWAYS be some guy who wants to fight and take for himself. They'll FORCE you to fight back or lose everything. So there is no end. As long as there is human greed and human ego, there is gonna be war.

 

I never thought of it that way, you make an excellent point earthmother, but if you think about it, its kind of stupid, i don't really think that they can force you to fight, but i can see how they can force you to lose everything if you don't fight back. in my opinion its all about choicing either to fight back against whoever this person might be, and either die, or win, but you can also choice not to fight, and try to escape that place of war, or stay and lose your stuff. I understand war is every were, and if you escape one, you enter another, i know what your saying. but what im asking is do we really need this kind of crap going on in our world?



_________________________

God Gave Rock N Roll to You

-Argent

Imagine all the people. Living life in Peace

-John Lennon

 

Ultimately nobody can force you to fight for anything. But it has a way of sometimes boiling down to either fight or be run over and robbed by those who are still barbaric enough to believe in fighting. This works on all levels from personal on up to global. No, we do NOT need war!!! That is a choice SOMEONE makes (someone who may very well be insane), but once made it's pretty hard to escape. I look around at everyone who lives in my neck of the woods and see at least 90% of them wishing to find ways to get along and be happy. NOT looking for things to fight over. I assume this applies to other humans in other places. WAR is the thing which helps these insane control-freaks keep everyone scared and in control. It's the thing that gives them an EXCUSE for this or that.... But it ultimately keeps them in power, because it cultivates fear. A fear, by the way, that THEY suffer from immensely, or they wouldn't feel the need for their wars. It's a classic example of people who do not like to suffer alone, so they must make others lives miserable too. A soap opera mentality.... WITHOUT all that drama, we could very well have a very happy and peaceful existence.

 

No we don't, but not everyone agrees with you & me.
“All mankind has grown strong through eternal struggle and will only perish through eternal peace.” -Adolph Hitler.
During WWII Gandhi, though blaming Hitler for the war, still encouraged non-violent passive resistance and thus sadly lost a great deal of credibility. We’ve seen a lot of large & small Hitlers since then; Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Pinochet, Saddam Hussein, etc. Tyrants such as these only respect military strength and harbor nothing but contempt for pacifists. They must be dealt with forcibly or with the threat of force.

Perhaps war is proof that the human race is still immature as a species.

Don't abandon the anti-war movement though. It's necessary to help ensure that war is used as only a last resort.

 

We don't _need_ war in any basic way. It isn't built into our nature.

War stinks. It's ugly and it's wrong. It's a disease of our own making.

We have a a greedy economy that needs to continually expand in order to be healthy.
As long as this is the case we are going to need warfare.

(The middle class of the world are a small minority, yet they consume most
of the world's resources.)

Doesn't matter how any member of our economy feels about it. Doesn't matter
how many flowers and beads they wear or how many protest signs they carry
or how many beautiful songs about peace they sing.

Taxes support the war machine. If it wasn't for the taxes paid by individuals
and corporations, there wouldn't be a war machine.

The corporations also make all the tools of war along with their more
ordinary products. Even the farmers provide the rations the soldiers
require.

When you pay federal taxes or buy whatever a corporation is selling,
you are supporting the war machine. You are voting for war.

There are no independent corporations. They are all dependent upon
one another. It is one vast machine. There are no small businesses
or charitable organizations or "hippy communes" that are not inter-
dependent with the corporations. The corporations are this
country.

Unpleasant truths. But they explain why the peace movement never
gets anywhere. Most people, in fact, don't want war. But this economy
has required war from day one and it has never changed in any essential
way. Except to become even more materialistic. Sometimes its hard
to see the forest for the trees. Especially when you don't want to.


Littlefoot

 

you make very good points. but i think its stupid how the taxes we pay, go to building things like that, they should go to much better things, like example animal shelter, and things like those. thats just what i believe.


_________________

Imagine all the people. Living life in peace

-John Lennon

 

Couldn't agree more. But as long as Americans expect to consume many times
what they produce, it's going to be that way. The thing is, almost nobody
understands how the system they are a part of works. In a truly equitable
economy, no one would be able to afford a car. Making and maintaining a
car and its share of the road and fuel infrastructure takes far more work than
any single human being is capable of doing. And that's just one element
of our supermaterialistic lifestyle.

No one means any harm. We were all raised to accept this lifestyle as
simply reality. It isn't. It's just one way that we can choose to live.

We can have a very good life without most of the stuff we now have to
buy or support with our taxes to keep this twisted economy going.

We can have a very good life without trashing the planet and making war
and exploiting poor people.

I think a lot of it has to do with the Darwinian Religion, which teaches us
that Nature is based upon violent competition for scarce resources.

We believe that Nature forces us to be this way. But that's not true.
The Darwinian paradigm is a theory. It is supported only by circumstantial
evidence that can be interpreted in other ways.

Nature is based upon loving cooperation. If there was any significant amount
of compettition in Nature, it would soon cease to exist. Just as every human
society, like this one, that's based on competition, soon ceases to exist.

Competition is just negative cooperation.

"What if they held a war and nobody came?" --Some Wise Hippy

LIttlefoot

 

Littlefoot, I understand your perspective, or at least I think I do. I want to know a lot more and I have a lot of questions. First off, are you a Native American/Indian? (I don't know what you, if you are, preferred to be called) I'm inferring that you are from your display name and your references of America being a stolen continent. Secondly, I noticed you say we are part of the problem and I want to know if you recognize yourself as part of the problem. I can't understand how you're not part of the problem if you have access to the Internet which would make you a consumer, unless you have a stolen computer, stolen WiFi, and some kind of renewable power source that doesn't depend on the economy. Do I have "blood on my hands" because I was born into American society or because I live off of the economy? I hope it's the latter. I'm not trying to attack your logic, I'm really just trying to understand it.

I'm also having difficulty understanding how living a sedentary lifestyle will help make the world a better place. I mean, maybe if enough people do it, there won't be such a materialistic demand and that may stop the need for war. But can that really happen? Millions of people would have to convert to that kind of lifestyle and I honestly don't see that happening. At least not in my lifetime, but that would be phenomenal.

And even if there was a mass transition to a communal lifestyle, wouldn't the government get pissed off? What if they decided to build a highway through a perfected commune? Then what?

I hope you can provide me with some further enlightenment that I can't seem to figure out for myself. I'm curious to know how you enlightened yourself; did you realize all of this on your own or did someone reveal it to you? Your posts have really affected my way of thinking, as I'm just really your typical, ignorant American teenager. I'm still a kid but I would like to change the world and I think I need to understand how this world works before I attempt anything. Thanks.

 

i don't want to be rude, and i'm simply not saying what your saying is wrong, but i seemly can't see how a religion can be blamed for this...but my first question is, are you a religious person littlefoot ?, and second, what do you mean that religion teaches us that nature is based upon violent competition?, i'm not saying that your wrong about it, i'm just not understanding why it would teach that. but maybe i shouldn't say anything, until i research more on it. but i understand that some people have large ego's that they sometimes use to start fights,with people that don't always want to fight. well anyways i'm don't going to say anything else until i know more of the economy i live in.


peace and much love to all of you


___________________

Imagine all the people. Living life in peace.

-John Lennon

 

My dad, who's 49 and myself
Both agree as much as we try...
WE CAN'T REINVENT THE 60's!
People aren't the same.

And even if we try. It would be a cheap version of it.

Nothing like then....

 

We shouldn't try to reinvent the 60's. That was a cultural revolution
that failed. Big time.

We need to do much better than that. We need to walk our talk, which
very few of the Hippies did.

Yes, people are different now. There are a lot more people who fully
understand that this System is rotten from its very foundations.

That it is a failed socio-economic experiment.

They know that the so-called 'progressives' who are telling them that
everything would be just fine if only _they_ were put in charge, are
are completely deluded.

What we need is plan. And it has to based upon the simple fact that
this System will not allow anyone to withdraw from it. That's secession.
It's a federal offense of the highest order, close to, or equal to, treason.

So it has to be an underground movement. Like the underground railroad
that took the slaves to safety and freedom in the North, and the other
one that took the draft-dodgers to Canada.

If either organization had tried to do their work in public view, they wouldn't
have succeeded. If they hadn't taken great pains to conceal their work
from the American people, they wouldn't have succeeded.

P.S. I forgot to mention, for those who aren't aware of it, that this
underground movment already exists. It's happenning. It's just way
too small, no more than a few hundred communities, to my knowledge.
We need tens of thousands!


Littlefoot

 

LF, i would like to know of this underground movement,thats if you know more about it, other then what you've already said.







_____________________

Imagine all the people. Living life in peace.

-John Lennon

 

i dont really want involved in all of this, but i do have a quick question for those that want to "reinvent the 60's".

i'm curious as to why you want to do so? is it because of the beliefs, the drugs, the music, the fashion, a mixture of all of these things? the reason i ask is because the way i see it. there will always be ppl with those same beliefs (i think there are more today than there were then, just not as flamboyant about it), there will always be ppl searching for more. the anti-war sentiment certainly hasn't decreased, the drugs - well we have access to way more "hippie drugs" today than they did (lsd may not be legal anymore, but its certainly easy to get, and we have a much larger knowledge of other items of the sort), we will always have the music, and im sure you can dress however you want.

in time many more movements will pop up, with ppl who want peace, and who want more, but does it necessarily have to resemble the 60's? or can this new movement be something completely brand new? With a new thought pattern, different style of music at the head of it, and implementing a different fashion.

just curious what your take on it is. to sum it up do you want a movement to help fuel our purpose in life / be our purpose in life, or are you looking for something that resembles bell bottoms, long hair, peace signs, lsd, and tie-dyes?

 

Mehime wrote: "In time many more movements will pop up, with ppl who want peace,
and who want more, but does it necessarily have to resemble the 60's? or can this new
movement be something completely brand new? With a new thought pattern, different
style of music at the head of it, and implementing a different fashion."

You are talking about very superficial things. Cosmetics. We need fundamental changes.

At the heart of the cultural revolution of the 60's was the clear perception that the System,
this system, was fundamentally flawed. That we needed to create a new and
different civilization.

Most of the hippies never got beyond the cosmetic stage, but many thousands of us
did. I spent about 9 years on a commune that became about 95% independent of
the mainstream economy. There were many others. We had essentially seceded
from America. We were walking our talk.

Our mistake was in believing that this was a free country. We should have known
that it was necessary to go underground, to camouflage our activities from the
Americans. Since we were stupid, America destroyed our movment. And it was
the Left as well as the Right that were behind that destruction. Both are heavily
invested in the status quo, fine words and noble ideals aside.

Now, there are people who have learned from our mistakes back then, and are trying
again.

But they aren't concerned with clothes or music or mere words. That's sub-cultural,
not counter-cultural.

Littlefoot

 

Well, back in 1999, a bunch of "hippies" thought they could re-vive the original Woodstock spirit of peace, love and music. Instead, what turned up was a demon of riots, rapes and generally cRappy noise, they called "music". :leaving:

If it's that kind of perverted brand of the 60's and of Woodstock to make a comeback, I sure hope it never does ever happen again.

 

I'm with you. But I don't see what the big deal about Woodstock was. It was just
a party with live music. Most of it corporate music using industrial equipment.
And they sure trashed that place.

I've been to a lot of parties with live music that were a lot more hippy than
that, where the people walked or bicycled or took public transportation to the location
and the instruments and voices were acoustic and there weren't any merchants there
trying to sell you stuff and the songs were mostly original.

Didn't have any problems with violence and drug abuse at those parties. Not that
we didn't smoke weed and drink wine, but there's a difference between use and
abuse, eh? And we didn't trash the land we partied on.

Littlefoot

 

Woodstock ’69 was all about peace, love, music and understanding. Woodstock ’99 was all about fighting, rape and confusion. “Break Stuff” and breaking stuff.

Damn kids and corporate greed. They didn't get it.

 

Apparently, you didn't even read my post.

Why then pretend you are responding to it?

The "hippies" who went to the original Woodstock were no more or less
involved with the corporations than the ones who went to the event that you
are referring to. Who do you think made and fueled those "hippy vans"
and "hippy busses"? And the roads they used? Who made the industrial
music equipment and the electricity that powered it? Who supplied the food
they ate and the clothes they wore and the camping equipment they used?

Littlefoot