DUmmie FUnnies 03-14-05 ("Where did the hippies go? Billy Jack in Hiding?")

I have been saying for a long time that if you want to see a good example of the mentality of the DUmmies then just take a look at the “kids” at the Billy Jack School.” Remember those chip-on-the-shoulder kids from the Billy Jack movies? They were politicized hippie type kids who learned NOTHING practical at the Billy Jack School. Instead they were given lessons on performing Improv theater and on how to hate the evil corporate bosses as epitomized by Mr. Posner. Of course, this was just a movie and most of us have moved beyond it but NOT the DUmmies as you can see in this THREAD titled, “Where did the hippies go? Billy Jack in Hiding?” The DUmmie Billy Jack school kids rantings with that closed fist ala the end of Billy Jack are in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, wearing a black Billy Jack hat, is in the [brackets]:

Where did the hippies go? Billy Jack in Hiding? The music? And confession Is this what we have become, an 'undergound' website where the avg american does not see the message?

[Listen, children, to a story
That was written long ago
'Bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley folk below
On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath a stone
And the valley people swore
They'd have it for their very own.]

In the 60's and 70's we had a cause, the people - black, white, Indian (ala Billy Jack in an odd way and others) - it was about Americans the people, not America the business.

[Go ahead and hate your neighbor
Go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of Heaven
You can justify it in the end
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgment day
On the bloody morning after who...
One tin soldier rides away.]

Where did my hippies go? Those wild and crazy people who touted free love, rode buses, made music and movies, those people who still today make us pause when we think of the era.

[So, the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill
Asking for the buried treasure,
Tons of gold for which they'd kill
Came an answer from the kingdom,
"With our brothers, we will share
All the secrets of our mountain,
All the riches buried there"]

Our leadership was not the DLC or Dean or Kerry, it was the wild eyed and tye dyed people. It was the people who challenged our sterotypes, it was the people who banded together to put the brakes down on a corrupt government. We had a cause outside of 'the man' in power (though that was one thing, and I still remember songs about that). It was about principle, freedom, love.

[Now, the valley cried with anger,
"Mount your horses, draw your sword!"
And they killed the mountain people
So, they won their just reward
Now, they stood beside the treasure
On the mountain dark and red
Turn the stone and looks beneath it...
"Peace on Earth" was all it said.]

I am tired of bush bashing myself, I think the government as a whole has taken a crappy direction - bush or not. Someday soon we will gather again as a people and fight the power. I am not sure what the catalyst will finally be that gets us together, but I hope we do it soon. Each day new laws get passed, more power passes from us to them, and our rights get drained. I am a leader at work - but like many others in this world now I try to balance family, work, bills, life in general and fear of how our government might destroy those who oppose it. Where did all our hippie leaders go, and how do we get them back?

[Go ahead and hate your neighbor
Go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of Heaven
You can justify it in the end
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgment day
On the bloody morning after who...
One tin soldier rides away.]


Funny you should mention fighting the power. My husband and I were just talking about that this afternoon, that the way things are going, a real revolution may be the only thing to save us. I was one of those hippies you were talking about, but like so many others I got caught up in settling down, raising a family, taking care of our immediate needs, and not paying much attention to our country's downward spiral. Now that I've reawakened (this past election robbery is what really did it for me, although I have been deeply suspicious since 9/11), I'm just so angry and frustrated. It feels so much like our hands are tied and that even when we send people to Washington who we think are going to work for us, they get corrupted and they vote against our best interests time and time again. I don't know what the answer is, but I think at some point if we're going to save ourselves, it's going to have to get really ugly. Revolutions happen in other places...maybe it's time for one here.

[Bernard, I want you to know... that I try. When Jean and the kids at the school tell me that I'm supposed to control my violent temper, and be passive and nonviolent like they are, I try. I really try. Though when I see this girl... of such a beautiful spirit... so degraded... and this boy... that I love... sprawled out by this big ape here... and this little girl, who is so special to us we call her "God's little gift of sunshine"... and I think of the number of years that she's going to have to carry in her memory... the savagery of this idiotic moment of yours... I just go BERSERK!]

Back before Reagan created a permanent homeless class, there were a group of vagabond types who begged on the streets and crashed with other hippies in "crash pads". Some worked and some got money from home. Others did crafts and tried to survive on that, but there was always a place one could sleep at at the end of the day and a place where free food was distributed. There were communes and there was an infrastructure that made this possible like free clinics and other ways to get basic health care if it was needed. Most of it is gone and what is left, the neocons are trying to destroy.

[He's still in the rapture of the vision. A great Indian holy man, Wovoka, is speaking through him.]

How did the hippies turn into the yuppies? How many "hippies" were along for the party and cuz its what everyone was doing, and dropped the "values" when fashions changed? How many old hippies are driving around in black windowed SUV's with magnetized Chinese plastic yellow ribbons on the back? Corporations bought your hippie dreams and sold em back plastic wrapped and Clearchanneled.

[Martin, do you know what mental toughness is? Well, mental toughness is the ability to accept the fact that you're human and that you're going to make mistakes - lots of 'em - all your life. And some of them are gonna hurt people that you love very badly. But you have the guts to accept the fact that you ain't perfect. And you don't let your mistakes crush you and keep you from doing the very best that you can.]

I don't watch TV, I try to shop only at family run businesses (I work in one myself and have for the past 27 years) and I drive a beat up old pick up truck with the paint peeling off. I can not STAND the sight of (looks like an ass-hole to me) *, am horrified at the deception hiding the death and destruction of so many for so few and I am absolutely heartbroken at what the elite criminal class has done and is continuing to do to the working class of this country. I still maintain that reality is a social construct and, therefore, can be changed. However, clearly we of the 60s vastly underestimated the ruthlessness of the structures of power behind the ongoing theatre of politic. That doesn't mean we were wrong. Did some of us give up? Hell yes. Were some of us only in it for the 'cool factor'. Of course--what do you expect? We were the most pampered darlings on the planet and we were handed the world on a platter. The amazing thing is that so many of us so quickly caught on to the fact that most of what we were taught about how great our country was, how noble and honerable, was nothing but a LIE. We actually SAW that--saw that it was a potential but not an actuality--and began to try to figure out how the hell you change it from the inside out. We're still working on it! And a lot has changed. Hey, we're here. We're having this discussion as a result of technology 'we' invented and the world is still more insane and out of balance than it ever was. One thing is for sure. The powers that be learned from their mistakes. They'll NEVER again report what is ACTUALLY going on in the cultural scene in a way that makes real revolution even remotely fasionable. I marched with 100,000 people before the Iraq war even started and the media coverage was almost NILL. That didn't happen in the sixties. They've learned that for the masses, if it isn't presented by the CON (corporate owned media) then it is AS IF IT DOES NOT EXIST. That is where we are now--down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass. There is enough energy and talent in the country to have a REAL revolution, but it will NOT be televised. Meanwhile there is a giant farting pink elephant in the White House masquerading as president.

[I'm gonna take this right foot, and I'm gonna whop you on that side of your face...and you wanna know something? There's not a damn thing you're gonna be able to do about it.]

We in the SDS did not find the colorful Countercultural people to be of much use in our efforts to change the political and social structure of our society. Doing this long term demanded a lot of discipline and mental rigor, not qualities the "hippies" were long on. But now and then we could get enough of them to rally for progressive causes to make some impact.

[So easy for you to die dramatically! It's a hell of a lot tougher for those of us who have to keep on trying!]

funny . . . I've been wondering lately whatever happened to . . .Sam Brown, the mega-organizer of the 60s and 70s . . . anyone know? . . .

[Not "dead", their brains blown out! Because YOUR people wouldn't even put the same controls on their guns as they do on their dogs, their bicycles, their cats, and their automobiles.]

Phish called it quits. The hippies are in mourning. Or, at least, I am.

[By going on the mountain and being bitten by the snake over and over. Then he passes into unconsciousness for the last time. And if he lives, he has a vision. And in this vision, he finds out what his life's mission will be and who the spirit will be to guide him on this mission.]