Some folks are embarrassed because they were once ‘Beautiful People’

So, I’m certainly not a conspiracy theorist. I’m more of the belief that we’re sort of random elements in a random universe and we’re just hurtling through space and that’s the end of it. But, as I’ve gotten older, and perhaps because I’ve watched too many movies, I’ve really been wondering about what went down in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s….I mean there were a string of assassinations and deaths that I believe totally and fundamentally altered the path the planet was moving along and has moved along since.

In the 1960’s, we saw John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy and Malcolm X all murdered and all were possible huge agents of significant change in our world. Then, after that carnage had ended and just at the beginning of the 1970’s, we saw Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison all tragically die. And these three were among the biggest symbols of the ‘60’s counter culture – not the only ones, but certainly among the most visible. And now that I look back on it – and after likely seeing too many Hollywood movies – it seems fairly weird to me that all these folks died in such a short period of time. Cue the Twilight Zone theme.

I obviously have no real idea how things might have turned out if even some of these people had lived longer lives. But I think things would have been radically different. The world seemed to be heading in one direction, mainly fuelled by the planet’s young people, then, pretty darned quickly, it started heading in another entirely different direction which has landed us where we are today….which is a mean, greedy, avaricious, hateful and grotesque sort of place where many, many, many people are living with constant pain and suffering while a precious few reap the fruits of these other folks’ labours.

Certainly, something changed in our world in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s that altered the trajectory of our societies and our world. The age of the hippie came to a sort of abrupt end and today is regarded as a curious time when young people were mostly drug-using, irresponsible creatures who needed to grow up. Phil Oches, whose music I listen to from time to time, thought the age of the hippie ended with the Kent State shootings which were 50 years ago this year. Oches said that at Kent State, middle class white kids suddenly realized something we called “the Establishment” would actually kill them to maintain what had been the status quo…..they quit protesting, got jobs, got married, had kids and went on about their lives. They stopped being hippies and some were even embarrassed to have to admit they once were hippies. And that is sad.

And, these days, watching how governments around the world conduct business – and especially being aware of how certain branches of the American government conduct business – absolutely nothing surprises me anymore….and it would no longer surprise me to find out that the many significant murders and deaths in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s were somehow tied or connected together. Something like this just might be able to happen when you had nefarious characters like J. Edgar Hoover running the show. It’s really hard to know who to trust in the world of today and I imagine it was just as tough back in the olden days.

The catchwords of hippie culture were peace, love, harmony, cooperation, compromise….and these are not words to be embarrassed by….they are words that we should be fiercely proud to use and to live by….if you’re embarrassed that you were once a hippie and you smoked some dope and maybe dropped some acid….it’s because society and history have twisted and perverted what it meant to be a hippie…what it meant to hold all life precious…..and to make some feeble attempt to live in peace and harmony.

The age of the hippie was remarkably short…..in fact, I read somewhere that by the summer of love in 1967, most of the for real hippies had already moved on and out of the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco…..but a whole generation of young people almost caught the spirit…. It sort of almost worked….almost, I think, changed the world….politicos are saying we are currently living in the most dangerous times since the second great war…..but it didn’t have to be this way…..not at all….and that’s for sure…..