What happened to the Hippies & Flower Children...

[SheerLuckHolmes]

of my generation. Make Love - Not War! Live and Let Live! Do It Until It Feels Good! Don't Bogart My Joint!

There are more rules, regs, resitrictions, controls, oversight, penalty taxes, legislation, confromity and Nanny Consciousness coming out of my generation than ever was even considered by 'The Man' that we were all protesting while streaking the quadrangle.

Cigarettes were what's happen'n. Steve McQueen, James Garner, Clark Cable, Paul Newman, even John Wayne smoked cigarettes. It was the accepted, nay, expected thing to do.

Now, we of the 'freedom to be ourselves' gang, are steadly and purposely chipping away at ever freedom we protested for.

What happened to us?????? And how can we get back to those wounderous days of Woodstock, peace and love, brother?

Got 'em? ~ Vap 'em!

 

[chrisl317]

They grew up, got haircuts and suits, sold out and joined "The Establishment". They also agreed that they'd never let anyone get away with what they did once they rose into power.
I was born in '61, grew up in the era. The '70s were the last great extinction of freedom in this country. By the '80s they former hippies were already grooming their young to be "power-brokers" and only concern themselves about the well-being of their own "Me, me, me" generation. You want that back, fire Washington and start fresh.

 

[LaterSkater]

Hippy-crits! I am from the generation just after those dirty scums. We punkers did our best to kill them off, but they just keep getting "higher" up in the Corp/Political world. No concept of reality then, none now!

 

[scott58]

I believe they are responsible for the mess we're in.

 

[Nuck]

Yep..they are in power now and it's worse than ever. Damn dirty hippy sellouts.

 

[Mac]

They either became yippies (violent revolutionaries) or yuppies (money grubbing sell outs) or are living in cali eating beancurd and doing whippits. One of the 3 for sure.

 

[sherid]

of my generation. Make Love - Not War! Live and Let Live! Do It Until It Feels Good! Don't Bogart My Joint!

There are more rules, regs, resitrictions, controls, oversight, penalty taxes, legislation, confromity and Nanny Consciousness coming out of my generation than ever was even considered by 'The Man' that we were all protesting while streaking the quadrangle.

Cigarettes were what's happen'n. Steve McQueen, James Garner, Clark Cable, Paul Newman, even John Wayne smoked cigarettes. It was the accepted, nay, expected thing to do.

Now, we of the 'freedom to be ourselves' gang, are steadly and purposely chipping away at ever freedom we protested for.

What happened to us?????? And how can we get back to those wounderous days of Woodstock, peace and love, brother?

Got 'em? ~ Vap 'em!

Well, I'm still here. The pseudo hippies of our time who simply wanted to wear bell bottoms and peace signs have now turned to anti smoking and politically correct groups. They were posers then. They are posers now.

 

[azvagabond]

I believe they are responsible for the mess we're in.

X2....baby boomers.....blah, had all the doors of opportunity opened to them and then they slammed them behind as they waltzed right through!!!! Now they are making sure that WE and OUR children will have to pay to continue their lifestyles.

What happened to reward hard work, give a guy a try, support those who dream of more attitude?

Now its who you know or who you...well....um, know. And you have to have a degree to run a lawnmower!

 

[LaterSkater]

Yep..they are in power now and it's worse than ever. Damn dirty hippy sellouts.

 

[Moobyghost]

I wish I had lived in the hippie era, i feel so outta place in this time.

 

[azvagabond]

I wish I had lived in the hippie era, i feel so outta place in this time.

*says the guy who's pic looks like it came straight out of a 1940's noir flick!

 

[jj2]

Well don't clump the generation all into one group. I was born 1948 so I’m a baby boomer, and I was right there.
I drove a VW with daisies on it. Many a time, I went on some trip to some anti-authoritive event. Tried pot a couple times and didn’t like it---guess I shouldn’t have inhaled.
Partied like crazy, and wore the clothes.
Also had a factory job and worked a forty hour work week.
Except for the extremist hippy, that was the case.
We did tick-off a lot of people. So much that we were sort of the enemy, and I think we were an enemy that the ‘others’ thought they had to squash.
If you take a look at history, I doubt if you would find many hippies that went on and got involved with government. Those people are the people that my generation participated in sit-ins and picketed against.
‘Those people,’ over the years, I have complained to, gripped about, wrote too, and screamed ‘What the hell do you think you are doing.’
I’m not saying none of them sold out, because they have, but everyone I knew from back then isn’t one of them so I doubt if it’s a majority thing.
Since then there hasn’t been another generation like it. Right now, because people are getting out and picketing, is the closest.
Back then there were reporters that actually went out to uncover scandals instead of sitting on their butts waiting for someone to hand feed them a story.
And as much as we are hard to understand, we feel the same about other generations that followed.
We believe that we did our stint of making those in charge stand up and answer for what they did or where trying to do. What is needed is another rebel generation and I bet a lot of what you believe as former hippies would be right there to help in cause.

 

[LaterSkater]

jj2 - Speaking for myself, I am just playing around. It was fun for us punkers to give hippies a hard time. All in fun..... The truth is that most of the punk and hippy philosophy/ethos are very similar. Its like talking sh** to your big brother, you know? Just as many from my generation "sell out". I was born in 1965. I never can remember, am I the Llast of the baby boomers or the first of the gen-x'ers???

 

[WILDJC]

I'm still rocking and I'm still rolling, but man "the times they are a changing."

 

[rfun6]

I still like to wear bellbottoms

 

[chrisl317]

Well don't clump the generation all into one group. I was born 1948 so I’m a baby boomer, and I was right there.
I drove a VW with daisies on it. Many a time, I went on some trip to some anti-authoritive event. Tried pot a couple times and didn’t like it---guess I shouldn’t have inhaled.
Partied like crazy, and wore the clothes.
Also had a factory job and worked a forty hour work week.
Except for the extremist hippy, that was the case.
We did tick-off a lot of people. So much that we were sort of the enemy, and I think we were an enemy that the ‘others’ thought they had to squash.
If you take a look at history, I doubt if you would find many hippies that went on and got involved with government. Those people are the people that my generation participated in sit-ins and picketed against.
‘Those people,’ over the years, I have complained to, gripped about, wrote too, and screamed ‘What the hell do you think you are doing.’
I’m not saying none of them sold out, because they have, but everyone I knew from back then isn’t one of them so I doubt if it’s a majority thing.
Since then there hasn’t been another generation like it. Right now, because people are getting out and picketing, is the closest.
Back then there were reporters that actually went out to uncover scandals instead of sitting on their butts waiting for someone to hand feed them a story.
And as much as we are hard to understand, we feel the same about other generations that followed.
We believe that we did our stint of making those in charge stand up and answer for what they did or where trying to do. What is needed is another rebel generation and I bet a lot of what you believe as former hippies would be right there to help in cause.

The Old Hippies - Hippies From A to Z by Skip Stone

Famous Hippies, Friends and Enemies Hippies From A to Z - Hippiedom - Hippyland

let's see -

Tom Hayden
John Kerry
Charles Manson
Jane "Hanoi" Fonda

Yep, the Hippies had all the problems with the U.S. down pat. Too bad they didn't come up with the answers to fix it. Sex, drugs and Rock and Roll isn't a fix. Neither was "Turn on, Tune in and Drop out". Just like now-a-days every group knows whats wrong, but only has helpful tips that put their group before anyone else.

Oh, yeah, let's not forget Abbie Hoffman, someone I would really want coming up with social fixing policies!

Hoffman was 52 at the time of his death on April 12, 1989, which was caused by swallowing 150 Phenobarbital tablets. He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1980;[14] while he had recently changed treatment medications, he had claimed in public to have been upset about his elderly mother, Florence's, cancer diagnosis (Jezer, 1993). Hoffman's body had been found in his apartment in a converted turkey coop on Sugan Road in Solebury Township, Pennsylvania, near New Hope, Pennsylvania. At the time of his death, he was surrounded by about 200 pages of his own handwritten notes, many about his own moods.

Oh and those blown up explosive fonts are almost like writing in caps. You don't have to yell to justify your answer.

I don't know how to fix the U.S. myself, there are no longer any standard of values one can draw from. There is no cohesiveness amongst the people, no more teamwork for a common cause, only apathy and resentment against the people whom we employ to manage our business for us. Don't vote - don't ...... Don't like it, vote them out. Be the solution, not the problem.

 

[Pandora]

Gen X officially started in 1967. I am Gen X (1973)...my parents were hippies who got pregnant when they were 15 and 17 respectively. They got married right before I was born. Long hair, bell bottoms, pot, standing on a corner handing out hand picked wild flowers when I was 2 years old while my parents were trippin on ......yeah man! As I got older, I watched my dad turn into a drug dealing GM worker who was always trying to find a way to screw "the man" and never quite succeeding. In the end, he took a buyout from GM and invested his money into a marijuana growing venture - if only he had waited until medical marijuana was legalized in Michigan 20 years later...now his psychotic wife supports him and controls him.

My mom grew into a bitter man hater after being cheated on by him all the time (what happened to free love Mom?). Their marriage lasted 15 years surprisingly. After their divorce they both got involved with .......s. My dad just stuck with his ......., even though she tried to kill me twice and tortured my sister and I endlessly with her abuse (we got to pick who we lived with and my dad was still the cool hippie guy who brainwashed us against our uptight cold hearted mother). My mom has gone through a string of unsatisfying relationships because she advertises that she wants a corporate sell out type of man when what she is really attracted to is the hippie grunge guy who can fix her car and the plumbing. All the men who get involved with her get so confused they either become paralyzed or they run for the hills.

I won't go into more details about those two, but I believe that the reason the baby boomers are so confused by the generations that follow them is that they never paid attention to us from the start. It was always all about them. As long as they had their pot and their paycheck, they couldn't give a ***** if the world was falling apart around them because they could always take credit for Civil Rights, ending the Vietnam War, and Roe v Wade. Even the ones who were out campaigning for Earth Day and things that were supposed to be "for the children" had kids at home, sat in front of the television watching MTV or HBO on cable.

Michael Jackson, Madonna and Freddy Krueger raised me while my parents were so absorbed in their own drama they didn't notice I was selling my dad's skunk weed to the baby boomer teachers at my high school and having my boyfriend spend the night right under their nose while they got high in the other room. Hell, I didn't even sneak him into the house - he walked right past them, said hi and everything. The rule was no boys spend the night, but the reality was they forgot he was there as soon as he was out of their sight.

Ironically, both of my parents independently "found" themselves in fundamentalist Christianity and have spent the last decade or so trying to control my sister and I, now that we are adults, so they can "save" us from hell. LOL! We lived in hell when we were kids and it wasn't Jesus who led us out of it - it was psychologists. I would have traded cable tv for a little interest and attention from my mom and dad, but oh well.

I'm 36 years old, I have 2 children (20 & 17), 4 college degrees, no job, and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. But I still enjoy passing out daisies on the corner. I have no real chance at good health care and now that my generation has got old enough to actually fight for it instead of just giving it lip service, the baby boomers are out in droves picketing about Hitler and death panels. God forbid they contribute one red cent to anyone else's well being but their own! But it's okay for them to bankrupt Medicare and Social Security on our backs and leave nothing behind for us. It's been happening for years, how dare we demand they stop it? It's easier to just project their own faults on to us for trying to change things. Baby Boomers stole from the generation behind them and the generation ahead of them. Thanks Mom and Dad. And you wonder why OUR kids are so crazy?

 

[chrisl317]

Have you met my little friend? -

 

[LadyMaMa]

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind.

~Susan

 

[gep]

What an insightful post! Much of what you say is dead on. The ME generation is what was created by those of the 60's counterculture that never got past what was in it for them.

But there are still those that believe that War isn't the only answer, we've learned however, that sometimes it's inevitable and necessary.

Not all of the BB's believe in screwing over their fellow man.

And many who screamed about personal freedom, who were antigovernment and vocal in their opposition to the "man" sticking it to the little person are still around. You see us on these forums all the time, not backing away from debates, trying to get the word out that there are no definitives in this world so we might as well find common ground.

We have our music still, instead of yelling to get our point across, we made the lyrics that outlined what was wrong and what needed to be done to fix it for everyone...

YouTube - Joni Mitchell - Big yellow taxi (live)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0-kuRWzDM8