DUmmie FUnnies 01-18-05 ("Doncha miss all the old '60's radicals/activists?")

In this DUmmie THREAD titled, “Doncha miss all the old '60's radicals/activists?” we hit the bong pipe and take a walk down memory lane to the Age of Aquarius. Most folks look back on the old ‘60s radicals/activists as somewhat ridiculous at best but to the DUmmies they are noble heroes. Let us now take a look at this blast from the past. As usual the DUmmie mantra chantings are in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, fingering his love beads, are in the [brackets]:

Doncha miss all the old '60's radicals/activists?
Chicago 7, Black Panthers, Weathermen, AIM, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman and such. Please don't tell me they are all conservative republicans now.

[Yes. We have such nostalgia for Weathermen terrorism. They were like the Al Qaeda of the 60s.]

I miss the hippie days--peace love and rock n roll and drugs...can't forget the drugs. Acid anyone?

[You might have forgotten the drugs but the drugs haven’t forgotten you since you are on a permanent acid trip.]

Today they'd call 'em terrorists and haul 'em off to Gitmo.

[Um….when you blow up buildings you do tend to get called terrorists nowadays. Back then they were just called “Weathermen.”]

Does Anyone Remember When "Weather Underground" didn't have ..anything to do with the weather or computers?

[They were more to do with bombs.]

I wasn't a "Weatherman" because they quickly
descended into random acts of violence.

[You prefer your violence to be more organized.]

Gawd how I miss the spirit of those days...I didn't love some of the extremism and violence of those days, but I sure miss the spirit of revolution, the expansiveness and breakthroughs of those times. The commitment to equality and the raising-up of all people. Revolution was in the air and we were bustin' through ALL the boundaries! Mini-skirts and flowers in our long hair, peace beads, Woodstock, The Pill, commonunes, natural foods, and all the rest...

[Granola, the Desdederata, Lava Lamps, Golden Gate Park, Granny Glasses, Peter Max, Earl Scheib….OOPS! Forget the latter.]

I miss the times more and more as OUR times go on. It hurts like hell, and I could easily spend most of my time in tears. I would go back in an instant -- and stay there. Forever. If I could. If I ever decide to loose the bounds of rationality, that'll be my destination. THIS era wouldn't be nearly so difficult for me if it had even some of the hope, idealism and bouyancy of that time, but that's missing, at least from my perspective.

[Such a pity that we didn’t remain a bunch of spaced out hippies.]

You speak for me, also. I've been crying all afternoon and evening - and much of the last 2 and a half years, since the 2002 elections - feeling the repressions of this era. The weight of it is mighty and hope is shrouded in the mists ahead.

[I shall beat out a mournful tambourine tune to grieve for our great loss.]

one reflection i have on those days, however, was that the "hippies" and "yippies" integrated "youth culture" with the political protests ... i remember "conning" people to go to demonstrations with me because their was going to be a great band there or they "always hand out free pot" at these things ...

[Sort of like how big crowds were conned into going to John Kerry rallies by offering free Springsteen concerts.]

It was a movement. A movement of its time, and when it's time passed so did it. The time of its passing was the early 1980's - when the hippies and yippies turned into yuppies and consumerism took over. When so many of the hippies became mainstream, started wearing suits, working on wall street and focued on making a lot of money, buying BMS's and living in up-scale houses.

[And became LOUSY FREEPER TROLLS.]

my "awakening" was rooted in revolution ... we had a vision for the future and it seemed, though it was all too brief, that there was such a large force of collective energy that we couldn't be stopped ...

[That vision for the future called Bolshevism...tinged with acid.]

I think that is what is so dispiriting to me now - the "me, mine" generation of self-centeredness and greed has overtaken the community spirit….. Ah, well.... Thanks for the invite to the PDA group. I stopped by earlier and will check back. Maybe I can scrounge up a few $ to donate to DU so I can post over there.

[The above posted without the least sense of self-irony.]


NONE of us turned into "yuppies". The "yuppies" were an entirely younger generation. "Consumerism" in mainstream never affected us as you imagine. Also, don't equate "hippies" and "yippies". "Yippies" was a word coined by Abby Hoffman when he ran a pig, "Pigasus" for President during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago - which led to the police riots and the Chicago 8 - then Bobby Seale + the Chicago 7 trials. "Hippies" was a media word used to box in young people in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco in 1966. It eventually became a media word to apply to our entire generation, whether we wore tie-died shirts and beads or not. And whether we like it or not. The revolution my generation was involved in and continues to live by was both political, cultural, and personal, and cannot be labeled so simplistically.

[“DUmmies” works just fine.]

Some didn't become yuppies. Let me here define what I mean by the term "yuppie." To me, it specifically refers to a group of people who, in the 80's, shifted their consciousness from trying to make the world a better place to being "me-and-mine" centered, strove join the ranks of mid-to-upper- middle class status, put their priority on climbing the corporate ladder and making money, maade a bunch of designers real happy buying brand-name everything from jeans to baby carriages, cared about "status" items like going to certain resaurants or buying certain brands of car for the status of it, etc. Mostly they were primarily concerned with making money and buying things of "status."

[DIE YUPPIE SCUM!!!]

I was born May 2, 1945. Hitler had just died two days earlier, (although the American press didn't print that news until my birthday) but the bombs had not yet been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "Baby boomer" was an expression used to describe the "baby boom" which occurred *after* WWII w

[Hmmm….So could someone be considered a Baby Boomer if he was born on August 14, 1945 when the Japanese agreed to the surrender or could someone only be a Baby Boomer if he was born on or after September 2, 1945 when the Japanese actually signed the terms of surrender on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri?]

I yearn for the spirit of those days to be present in society today, I keep thinking that we desperately need it. I have yet to see massive outrage against the unjustices of today that can coaleasce into such a spirit determined to progress liberty further. I keep looking for it, and I keep waiting for the majority of Americans to wake up and wonder what will take for them to do so.

[There’s always hope if we drop enough acid.]

You know what? If some genie had visited me when I was young and guaranteed me a billion dollars by age 25, a Playboy Playmate of my choice for a wife, and genius kids by age 30 if I just sold out and worked for the likes of Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan and the Bush family and voted Republican in every election for the rest of my life...

[I would take that deal in a heartbeat. Oh, and my choice for Playboy Playmate wife would be Petra Verkaik.]

…I'd tell him to get lost and I'll live my life my way... and in retrospect, wouldn't change a thing - not even all the lean years, and there were a lot of them.

[And too bad you ended up with a hag that looks like Rosie O’Donnell.]

I had a similar thought while I was writing the post earlier, something to the effect that your son could be one of the leaders of the next wave of "freedom fighters" in the US.

[“Freedom Fighters?” Let’s not be shy in our use of terminology. Post what you REALLY meant---“Terrorists.”]

My Mom first felt me kick when Pete Townshend kicked. Abbie Hoffman off the stage at Woodstock. LOL! I was born at the end of the age of Aquarius - January 1970.

[It must be a strange experience to look at a crowd photo of Woodstock and trying to figure out which guy is your daddy.]

When the YIPPIES took over the Disneyland Chicken of the Sea pirate ship and unfurled the "Free Mickey Mouse" banners, little did they know that Disney was soooooo CIA'd up.

[That sounds like just a humdrum Gay Day event at Disney World.]

Why is it so hard to get young people involved now?

[Probably because they looked at you and laughed. Then decided to become just the opposite.]

The New Left was an abysmal failure. It was spoiled children whining that they didn't want responsibility for anything. Rather than organize effectively, which was too much like work, they decided to sit around, smoke dope, and just try to shock people.

[LOUSY FREEPER TROLL!!!]

I was in the SDS albeit not in the Weatherman faction. I was active in antiwar movement and was an anarchist. (We did not, of course, see eye to eye with the Progressive Labor Party who were all Maoists). In March of 2003 I joined the parade again and marched under the good old black and red anarcho-syndicalist flag.

[God forbid that you ever consider marching under the good old red, white, and blue AMERICAN flag.]

I wish every day that Allen Ginsberg were still alive. To chronicle W and the torture and the fake on terrorism. He'd probably be on a watch list.

[Most likely Ginsberg would be humming mantras at the Disney World Gay Day.]

"When will they ever learn...when will they ever learn?" Where are all the anti-war songs...the silence can be deafening at times. It makes me sad. Where's the outrage?

[So who’s stopping you from downloading those songs to your iPod?]

I am very sorry we have forgotten the lessons learned in the 60's. I am very disappointed in my generation, I thought the future would be better when we were in charge,instead a black cloud has moved in and will never leave. Batman has lost.

[Paradise Lost…. Batman Lost.]