Thanks for the comment, uther8. Aside from the drugs, sex, and rock and roll (hehehe), do you really see similarities between a 60s English Commune and a 60s American Commune? Some would say (like my sister) that the American Communes were dedicated "counter-cultures" and quite "Anti-American", in a sense (anti-establishment).
Others would say that the entire "Hippy thing" was purely American, and nothing but American. After all, we didn't have the "British Invasion" and the Beatles until much later in the 60s... that kinda drove out all the Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary types... forever. Folk singing went down the drain with yeah, yeah, yeah, and I wanna hold your hand....
Yeah, those were the days alright... of riots, and beatings, and lynchings, and racial hatred, and the KKK, and the draft and war, and death on our city streets as well as in the jungles of Viet Nam.... some kinda fun.
Lucky for you, you were there... not here.
I think that those who can't remember the 60s, didn't learn anything.
Ta!
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18 years ago
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trgusa
18 years ago
The problems today are just as large: with Pandemic Influenza, AIDS, Global Warming, Terrorism on a worldwide scale, War in Irag and Lebanon, Gang Violence, and so forth. What I DON'T see are any organized efforts or movements to combat any of it (from the people).
The 60s represented a spontaneous response to just such a set of problems... however confusing the messages may have been, they were still ACTIVE voices, rather than passive. That is part of what the Movie "Flashback" is trying to say... that involvement and activism are GOOD things, and should NEVER die.
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18 years ago
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ssny27
17 years ago
You don't see as many protests today because we all ive in our own little bubble...reality as we see it. On one hand, it's a horrible, ignorant existence. On the other hand, it's free-thinking at its best. The scary part, though, is that all the things that enable us to create our own little world can be taken away in a heartbeat. That's why people need to wake up.
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Studman_Productions
17 years ago
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gabby_bm
17 years ago
...uh... so why did the hippie communes fail? If they were so great, shouldn't there be thousands of them across the nation, with hundreds of people in each one?
Government is like fire- a dangerous servant and a fearful master
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Studman_Productions
17 years ago
they didn't fail! they are just lazy.
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Krustallos
15 years ago
I'm not an old hippy, but I just want to stick my oar in here to say that activism is far from dead. Quite apart from the Iraq war protests which here in the UK at least were the largest street demonstrations in history, there is a constant stream of anti-capitalist and environmentalist protest going on.
Personally I think the problem is that the activism is not political enough, in that the question of political power is not thought through - we really need to figure out what we are for not just what we're against.
In reality most people in the 60's were pretty conventional (see Easy Rider for a pretty accurate depiction of what Middle America made of Hippy); the counterculture was a minority interest then as now. I think where the 60's was different is that the counterculture was a new thing then, and people really thought they could overturn the establishment, instead of being kind of absorbed into it. (Dennis Hopper is now a Republican).
I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.
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