[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Date Index][Thread Index][Author Index]

RE: the 60's



Well Todd I couldn't disagree more. You seem, incredibly, to be pro war on the basis that you neighbours partook in it.
Nevertheless, to quote Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
 
It's a testimony to this group that no-one, despite the broad range of opinions expressed here, has been attacked for their views - now THAT'S free speech!
 
Peace, love and enlightenment
 
Gareth 
 
> Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 22:54:28 -0800
> From: looppool@cruzio.com
> To: ransacker@earthlink.net
> CC: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
> Subject: Re: Re: Re: the 60's
>
> On 7/22/64 11:59 AM, Todd Howell wrote:
> > Rick,
> >
> > I respect your take on things and all of your experiences. They must've been magic at the time. Wonder years indeed.
> Thanks for saying it, Todd!
> > I remember very little of the era. I got a lot of memories second hand. I lived in fly-over country on a farm at the a** end of nowhere as a child. I remember watching my grandmother watching the casualty reports from Vietnam and fretting. Two neighbors on either side of us were there. One came back in a bag and the other minus three out of four limbs. There were fourteen names on my own high schools Vietnam Memorial.
> >
> > As with all cultural movements, there were I am sure the true believers and the opportunist free love and drug bunch along for the ride. I don't see the sixties as anything else other than another failed moment in the cultural eons. I had friends who I met through music, including one brilliant solo, Piedmont Bluesman, who also served in Vietnam. He told me stories of hippy girls spitting on him and calling him baby-killer. There were alot of those stories from my veteran friends. Sorry if I can't get on board with a bunch of rich, free love college kids who were fortunate enough to have parents who could buy them deferments while the poor white under-class and minorities got the dirty end of the cultural and economic stick and got p*ssed on for it. The zeitgeist was lovely. The execution terrible.
> Oh, I completely agree with you. It wasn't perfect. In fact the
> amount of naivete and self entitlement
> (and you pegged it: much of it upper middle class) was really
> dysfunctional and annoying......like the young
> hippy chick who walked into Union Grove Music today at closing and was
> put out that she couldn't just come
> in and jam on a guitar that she had no intention of ever buy.......ouch!!!).
>
> It was a very complex time (as all times are for all people) so I was
> just reminiscing about some of the
> sweet things about that time. I certainly don't have rose colored
> spectacles on when thinking about it.
> It was an enormously painful time, emotionally, for me in my life at
> the time to be really honest.
> > As a child of the SST and Sub-Pop eighties punk movements, I became formed into the cynical mold that I am now. I trust no one. Not Fox News. Not MSNBC. Neither left nor right. Neither Wall Street or the Hippy after birth of an era. I admit to being an equal opportunity paranoid who believes that the twenty four hour cable news cycle is essentially the Special Olympics of bull-sh*t with a gigantic black hole of truth and fact at its' center.
> >
> > I admire and somehow envy your golden time and wish that I was a true believer in that way. I appreciate you sharing that and apologize to the list for a rant from a lurker.
>
> No man, what I love about this list is that everyone pipes in (or is at
> least encouraged to do so).
> Your perspective is no more or less valid than mine or anyone's on this
> list.
>
> To me, the key word in all you wrote was 'respectful'. I think if we
> all appreciate diversity
> and not expect other human beings to share our experiences or our
> conclusions and if we honestly
> hold respect in our hearts that the world has a chance of improving.
>
> Glad you un-lurked and look forward to more of your thoughts in the future.
>
> rick
> > Lost But Respectful,
> >
> > Ransacker
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Rick Walker<looppool@cruzio.com>
> >> Sent: Dec 22, 2010 4:12 PM
> >> To: richard sales<richard@glasswing.com>
> >> Cc: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
> >> Subject: Re: Re: the 60's
> >>
> >> On 7/22/64 11:59 AM, richard sales wrote:
> >>> Well... the hippies also used hard core civil disobedience to express
> >>> our anger! It was a thrilling time.
> >>> The free love and drugs was just a bonus for some of us. For some it
> >>> was the core of the experience. They're the ones who went on to Wall
> >>> Street and commerce. Truth is, they missed the most glorious boat of
> >>> the time.
> >> LOL, There is a common joke that goes, "If you remember the 60's, then
> >> you weren't there."
> >> Sadly, sometimes I think that if you weren't there you just don't get it.
> >>
> >> It's like Dickens said, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of
> >> times".
> >>
> >> American children were probably the most dysfunctional in our National
> >> history. Many (and NOT the majority)
> >> were angry but they also wanted to buy out of the materialistic culture
> >> that had emerged from all the wealth
> >> and conformity that characterized our culture at the end of World War 2.
> >>
> >> I always think it is dangerous to put too much emphasis on a time in
> >> one's life when one is first learning about the world and trying to come
> >> to terms with it's inequities (and it's delights) but there was some kind
> >> of magic in that time, at least for me.
> >>
> >> The one thing that I do miss about it was the , of course,
> >> intrinsically naive, notion that we could
> >> somehow change the world........we could eschew the dominant
> >> paradigm..........we could make a culture
> >> that was less racist, less sexist, less ageist, less sizeist, etc., etc.
> >>
> >> there was a feeling, artistically, that anything was possible and that,
> >> I believe is what led to the explosion
> >> in creativity in music and fashion (as tacky as tie dye shirts are to me
> >> personally.....lol).
> >>
> >> that part of it was wonderful where I lived (and at my tender age (I was
> >> 14 in '67 but had a sister 4 years older
> >> who was taking me to concerts and parties and be-ins all the time----she
> >> took my brother and I to
> >> the Monterey Pop Festival and to the Filmore Auditorium on my 16th
> >> birthday and turned me on, bless her heart)
> >>
> >> Youth seem far more cynical these days (and I teach them a lot so I have
> >> some experience saying this).
> >> I suppose we can't blame them after they had to watch George Bush stay
> >> in office for eight years and all it represents, psychically and
> >> politically.
> >>
> >> I always wish I could give them a little tiny bit of that naive idealism
> >> we had at that time........
> >> .....that sense that anything is possible.
> >>
> >> It was a good think even though some of my memory about that time is dim
> >> (lol).
> >>
> >> rick walker
> >>
>