Would the cultural revolution have happened without hallucinogens?

[Robin Hood]

I have been thinking about this lately. What would the world have been like the last forty years had the hippie revolution not existed. I believe that the only thing that awoke the hot house cul desac american youth were the hallucinogenic drugs experimented with during the sixties and 70's.

I wonder if the cultural revolution would have happened regardless of the LSD that was being downed at the time. I believe that without the consciousness enlightening nature of hallucinogens, perhaps to this day, African Americans may still be riding in the backs of buses. The Vietnam war might still be raging on, if it had not been for the conscious awakening of America's youth.


I am making these observations, because as i look at today's youth and their conservative tendencies, I have been wondering why they are different than the last couple of generations before them. All that I can conclude is that the war on drugs and the negative stigma against drug us has taken it's toll on the consciousness of America.

The further that we have gotten away from those days of experimentation the more entrenched conservatism has become. Every day, and in every aspect of American life, radical conservative diatribe has become the norm, rather than the extreme.

PLease do not flame me,if you have nothing intelligent or positive to say, than save it for someone who cares.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

1. No. You are totally correct.

No. You are totally correct. Coincidentally what is one of the most PC subjects that no politician dare challenge? The War on Drugs. Although the vast majority of Americans realize it is a total crock. The corporate oligarchy is desperately afraid of another burst of freedom like we had in the 60's.

[SuffragetteSal]

2. in a way..

The Vietnam war is STILL raging on, it is now in Iraq...blood still dripping off our eyebrows...it is staggering. The consciousness of compassion stale and cold on the shelf of suburban households.

[Maple]

3. The civil rights movement

happened long before the drugs. So did the early stages of the anti-war protests.

From the outside, it all fell apart once the self-indulgent drug culture evolved.

[edward]

10. Is anyone who takes drugs(eg,LSD) self-indulgent?

your comments (below, about "your culture")are cryptic. Care to expound a bit?

[Maple]

23. If you're not taking drugs

for medical purposes, then yes taking drugs for 'recreational' purposes is self-indulgent.

'Recreational' drug taking is for amusement, pleasure, escape from reality...all self-indulgent.

[edward]

26. So you could not bear to sit at a dinner table if someone has a glass of w

As long as you are consistent. No coffee, soda, beer, wine. All self-indulgent.

[Robin Hood]

36. don't forget cigarettes

Or how about the golden calf of acquiring wealth? How many families are being neglected because of the drive toward materialism. Kids are taught that love comes when mom and dad buys them a Nintendo, not when mom and dad show them affection or spend quality time with them.

[Maple]

39. Yes, so how is it a cultural revolution?

Hippies were supposedly anti-materialistic

[Robin Hood]

27. Do you consider spirituality to be self indulgent and recreational?

If that is what you are implying than I guess that I am self indulgent and recreational. I do not make any apologies for the choices i make to further my spirituality.

[Maple]

35. Well since food is a necessity

and not a drug in spite of all your efforts at sophomore sophistry, and since drugs do nothing whatever for your 'spirituality', it's still plain old self-indulgence.

Saving one child from poverty would do more for your country and your spirituality than all the drugs available.

But rationalizing it is rampant I see.

[edward]

41. who said food is a drug?

what are you arguing against?

[Maple]

48. You are trying to rationalize drug use

by citing wine, coffee, cigarettes and the like.

Using one of those things, does not mean using another is acceptable or wise.

And self-indulgence has always been with us.

I said that the civll rights and anti-war movement degenerated into mere self-indulgence. The self-indulgence ended it, it did not produce any kind of revolution.

[edward]

52. Rationalizing?

You were referring to wine as food? Huh?

[Maple]

58. Now you're just

spinning your wheels.

Re-read the thread from the beginning if you have to.

[edward]

62. Insults. No thanks.

I simply asked you if you considered puffing a marijuana joint the same as having a glass of wine with dinner. Or having a beer.
You were not clear. And if you want to give a snippy reply, well....

[Maple]

65. No one is insulting you

And if you prefer to have a joint with dinner rather than a coffee or glass of wine, that is your choice.

But it is hardly any 'revolution'

[edward]

70. Right. And that is not what the person who started this thread was talking

about. Not "getting wasted."
I don't believe he was saying that taking LSD caused cultural revolution, but that it was part of it.

[Maple]

76. The premise was that

a cultural revolution actually occurred... it didn't.

And that it was caused by hallucinatory drugs....which is absurd.

Apparently you think the idea of 'peace on earth' would never have occurred to anyone unless they were stoned.

[edward]

79. You're just putting words in my mouth.

nt

[Maple]

82. Well perhaps you make

more sense that way.

[Name removed]

90. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Maple]

92. I have made no insults

but you have.

I also have no animosity.

I am addressing the topic.

You are rationalizing a personal habit.

[Robin Hood]

42. Prove to me that drugs can not be used for spirituality.

The burden of proof is on you. And I'm not sure what food has to do with this discussion, as well as your irrational tangent in regards to child poverty.

[Maple]

50. Prove to me that drugs CAN be used for spirituality.

People have taken drugs since day one of the world. They are not getting noticibly more spiritual.

Hallucinations do not make you spiritual.

They are just hallucinations.

[Robin Hood]

57. I did not take hallucinogens for the damn hallucinations.

if that's what you think psychedellics are about, than i suspect that you have never done the,. Furthermore, you are the one making the allegations, and therefore the burden of proof is on you.

[Maple]

64. Then if you didn't take them for medical purposes

it was purely self-indulgent.

Seeing as your posts are hardly spiritual ones.

Getting drunk to be drunk isn't spiritual either...but people do it.

PS...arguing against the original premise of a thread is not makinga allegations.

[Robin Hood]

66. Than you would conclude that religion and spirituality are self indugent?

It is amazing to me how people feel comfortable in judging other peoples spiritual path. Who are you, God?

[Maple]

73. LOL I said drugs were self-indulgent

and didn't lead to any 'spirituality'

And that you were rationalizing it into something it never was.

Don't drag the kitchen sink into this.

And if you want to do drugs, that's your choice.

However, it produced no revolution in the US or elsewhere, nor did it change anything.

Nor was it spiritual

Just drugs.

[Robin Hood]

75. Let's be clear here, You are the one that started labeling people

as self indulgent. And I just pointed out to you that the greed for aquiring wealth, or religion its self is self indulgent. But now that your rational is failing, you want to change the subject matter. You are all over the map.

[Maple]

80. Yes, lets be clear

I said that no cultural revolution occurred.

I said the civil rights movement, and the anti-war movement degenerated into everybody being stoned on drugs, and that was simply self-indulgence.

The same self-indulgence that leads to 3 TV sets, 300 items of clothes and lavish car.

I'm not the one all over the map....I'm saying the same thing I said in my first post.

[ForrestGump]

59. Real spirituality, or hallucinated delusions of spirituality?

There's a difference.

[Robin Hood]

61. Once again,

Those that think that psychedelics are about the pretty colors, most likely have never done them and therefore do not know what they are talking about.

[Maple]

67. We also know

that no 'spiritual' revolution has taken place either, so pretty colors is all it amounts to.

[Robin Hood]

71. Spoken like someone who has no experience with it.

A spiritual revolution may not be on a broad scale, often it is a very personal thing.

[Maple]

74. Well good, now that YOU are saved

You might want to do something useful for your society.

[Robin Hood]

78. Why do you assume that i don't?

You sure make a lot of assumptions. Furthermore, I resent how you are talking down to me as if I am some worhtless drug addict. it is insulting and you are about to be ignored.

[Maple]

83. Perhaps you do personally

but no revolution has overtaken your society.

Which is what this thread is about.

PS I did not call you a 'worthless drug addict', but your immediate assumption of that shows how you see yourSELF.

[Robin Hood]

87. Give me abreak. Now you have implied it twice.

"You might want to do something useful for your society."

"but your immediate assumption of that shows how you see yourSELF"

I said in my post above that if you have nothing intelligent or nice to say than say it to someone that cares. It is obvious that you are losing your argument by your slinging. I will be ignoring you now.


Thanks for playing, but I'm tired of your flaming.

[Maple]

91. I have implied nothing

What I say, I say right up front.

Your assumption of insults speaks for itself.

And if you call addressing the topic, 'flaming' then you've never been in a flame war.

[edward]

93. Word up Liberal Guerilla.

this person just wants to insult people.

[Robin Hood]

94. Word.

[Maple]

100. Actually I haven't insulted anyone

I'm discussing the topic, you two are playing games.

[JVS]

4. The cultural revolution happened in China, not in America

and it wasn't driven by drugs either.

[Robin Hood]

5. Are you saying

That there was no American cultural revolution? I do believe that it was the civil rights movement and the anti establishment thinking of those days.

[Maple]

8. Your culture

is the same as it's always been.

[Robin Hood]

15. My culture?

What culture would that be?

[Maple]

20. You're the one

talking about an 'American cultural revolution'

There wasn't one.

[Robin Hood]

24. Fighting for civil rights

and standing up to the establishment, was a cultural revolution.

[JVS]

32. Those struggles were evolutionary in nature not revolutionary

[Maple]

37. I believe you did that already

in 1776

[sendero]

114. you...

... are in major denial if you would not characterize the 60s as a cultural revolution.

[JVS]

14. I see no evidence that America experienced any revolution

Maybe some unrest, but a revolution changes a lot of things, some would say everything.

China had a period known as the "cultural revolution" google it for details. It included such things as killing and eating landlords and destroying institutions deemed unhelpful to the construction of a new China.

What happened here in the late 60's just isn't on the same magnitude. One could argue that it was just a manifestation of the largest demographic group in the US reaching adulthood. As they aged what seemed like new ways were discarded.

On edit: late 60's

[edward]

18. Why keep referring to China?

His point is that from the 50's into the 60's the "culture" of America changed. Not permanently, just changed.
This is fuel for current crop of neo-fascists who still think of Clinton as a dope smoking sex fiend...that is the revolution we are talking about.

[JVS]

29. Because the thread is about the cultural revolution

And because in it seems that in America we toss the word revolution around very lightly. Revolution has even become a popular theme in advertisement.

[ForrestGump]

63. How many such 'revolutions' do we need, though?

I mean, the changes in US society post-WWI were also pretty sweeping. I see the '60s as a progression of what was begun during the 1950s, that was itself another postwar social shift. The '60s did not happen in isolation. Nor were the degrees of change that occurred during that decade unprecedented in US history.

[edward]

77. Agree. They began in the 40's.

For example, the Beats of the 50's were not a mass phenomenon.
As for it being unprecedented, historians can argue.
Here is something to argue over: just read an article saying that "freedom" is the most frequently occuring word in one of Bush's major speech. Now not saying that the 60's invented this word, but "freedom is just another word for nothing else to lose"...get my drift? The idea that I get to do want I want with no (government) interference was a very popular 60's sentiment.

[Maple]

85. That's been a popular sentiment

since the world began.

Usually starting when people are 2.

[Robin Hood]

99. Your under the belief that a revolution has to be permanent.

It does not. revolutions come and go. That one ended after the Vietnam war.

[Maple]

103. If it 'ended'

it wasn't one.

[SuffragetteSal]

12. yes sir and no sir

Yes, there was a Chinese cultural revolution, but there was also a cultural revolution here in the USA of the 60's...also referred to as a movement of cultural liberation.

[Maple]

33. Really?

I don't see peace and love breaking out anywhere.

Given that the 60's were nearly half a century ago, there are the same minor changes that occur in any country in that time...but no revolution.

There is still interference in other sovereign countries, unnecessary wars, people going armed to the grocery stores, racism, sexism etc.

The US has pulled out of Kyoto, and the environment takes daily hits.

Men have short hair and wear business suits, women wear skirts and have to worry about their figures and make-up to get anywhere.

There is still no chance of a woman or a black becoming even vice-president, much less president. Matter of fact, even an outspoken first lady gets called things like 'Hitlery' for no particular reason other than that she's female.

Ghettos are a fact of life, drive-by shootings are routine.

Women now HAVE to go out to work to keep a family the way one husband used to be able to, and the majority of them work at menial jobs.

Blacks are still the majority in prisons.

People go 'postal' and shoot up workplaces and schools.

Other than the fact you now have a personal computer, can now say 'fuck' in public, and have a major drug crisis damaging your population...I see no evidence of any cultural change.

[edward]

38. That cultural revolution(the 60's) ended in 1980.

You seem to believe if a cultural revolution is not permanent it did not happen.

[Maple]

40. A 'revolution' that produces no change

by definition, never happened.

[edward]

46. Are you willfully ignoring all the evidence?

Are you just trying to be contentious?

[Maple]

51. There is no evidence

of change.

Just the opposite in fact.

[G_j]

84. are sure we live in the same country?

I live in the US, btw.

:shrug: :think:

[Maple]

88. No we don't

I live in Canada, and we had the same hippie thing here, as well as seeing yours on TV every night.

It wasn't a revolution in either place, just another boomer fad.

[Robin Hood]

49. I agree with some of what you say.

Since the "revolution had little staying power and most of the hippies ended up becoming like their parents. But something did happen, you can't deny that.

[Maple]

53. Yes, a bunch of baby-boomers

had another passing fad.

[edward]

55. He(she?) is denying it.

with no argument. "automatic gainsaying" as Monty Python would say.

[Maple]

86. Denying a revolution took place?

Yes.

[SuffragetteSal]

44. Isn't it so nice you can be so darn critical

of a country that you don't claim as your own - easy to throw stones isn't it. That is why we are here...to work on ways to come together to find the answers and make the world a better place. I prefer to think of us as 'one world' not divided by boundaries. I have always tried to live my life with compassion and an open-heart and have raised my children to adulthood in that fashion also.

[Maple]

56. I said there was no

cultural revolution. American culture didn't change.

And people have thought of the planet as one world for centuries, and many people live with compassion and open hearts.

That has, however, nothing to do with the original premise on this thread.

[edward]

68. If you think American culture did not change in the 60's you were not

in America.
The students who were killed at Kent State were going to class. That is what was going on.

[SuffragetteSal]

69. Obviously, you never had to sit at the back of the bus

...that my friend only happened because of the liberation efforts during civil rights days, and so there has been change, you only see what you want to see...

and me living my life with compassion and love (I don't need to give you examples because frankly I don't know you that well), is evidence that something good did come out of the 60's - 80's cultural revolution.

Yes, we still have a long ways to go and once again, that is why we are here...

[Maple]

97. I said at the beginning

that the civil rights and anti-war movement, which were not drug-induced, later degenerated into a drug binge.

It did some good early on, and then disappeared.

However, you managed to free slaves, and give the vote to women without any drugs at all.

[plurality]

6. Agree, but there are plenty of radical youth today

Just not as loud or covered as much. In addition there is still plenty of psychedelics out there that kids are experimenting with. Ecstacy and the rave culture are very similar to LSD and Kesey's 'acid tests'. Unfortunately criminalization of MDMA led to a flood of lookalikes that had similar physical feelings to MDMA (ecstacy) but none of the mental enlightening effects. This has led to the death of a truly revolutionary movement.

[edward]

7. Finally a topic I care deeply about!

Very provocative thought. Wish you would write more here about it.
Quickly-there does seem to be a war on the imagination today.

[HootieMcBoob]

9. I always thought

that every politician should be required to trip out at lest one time in his/her life. It'd be a different world. Wouldn't you love to dose the water cooler at freerepublic.com?
This is of course a joke that I'm making here. I would never condone such a horrible and illegal act. :hippie:

[plurality]

11. reminds me of a tale I'd heard in Hunter S. Thompson book

Lead singer of Jefferson Airplane (can't recall her name) was planning on dosing Nixon with LSD. The opportunity was presented because she went to college with Nixon's daughter and he had a renunion for her class at the White House. She was planning on slipping it in his drink, but when she showed up the SS told her she was on a list of people who couldn't be near the president. Too bad, could have been interesting.

[Mari333]

17. Gracie Slick.

.

[2cents]

28. it reminds me of the movie "Wild in the Streets"

and the thought spooks me out a little, because I'm waaay over thirty.

[Caution]

13. There is no evidence anywhere

that the war on drugs has reduced consumption or demand for drugs. The whole problem with the war on drugs (other thn the fact that it is an intrusion upon a person's choice as to what they put into their own body) is that it attackes the supply side with very little attack on the demand side. Simple economics will tell you that where there is a demand there will be a supply no matter how many drug-dealers you put in jail.

Heck there are actually more types of drugs available now than there were in the 60's. I think one of the biggest reasons for the rise in the counter culture was due to the draft. I also believe that the media was less rpone to the influence of the powers that be as opposed to now when you have mega-corporations in control of nearly all media and dictating the propaganda that we see. Additionally there appears to be a conscious effort to place those who would dissent into a situation where education is less available to them, thus not teaching them that their voice matters, and also not providing an opportunity to organize effectively. On top of all this those most likely to dissent, the down-trodden and poor are now imprisoned in a calculated and escalting fashion. 1 in 143 americans are in prison. In The other major industrialized nations, Britain, France, Japan, Canada that number is closer to 1 in 1000.

So while I feel the war on drugs has had an effect I don't think it is in the way in which you see it. People are still doing drugs (demand and consumption per capita has actually risen since the 60's), however rather than turning to the political arena and making their voice heard, the government stops this quickly by throwing people in prison, disenfranchising them, cutting off their ability to recieve and education and using the media to demonize them and take away any credibility they may have with mainstream america. Once again Hippie is a dirty word in america.

[Robin Hood]

19. Some points you made i agree with.

The media is radically different now. And there is still a great supply of drugs out there. but the drugs are different. It appears to be much easier to aquire crack and coke than it is to aquire mind expanding drugs like mushrooms or LSD.

Furthermore, the piss tests that are required these days for even the most lame jobs are there to filter out drugs that expand the mind. Speed burns through your system in a matter of hours and is undetectable on an UA. but pot can stay in your system for a month or more.

You can have been drunk as a skunk eight hours ago and fly a plane. Or snorted spped a couple of hours ago and test clean.

[G_j]

47. Timothy Leary

once observed that both "Rambo" and the flood of cocaine happened during the Reagan years, referring to coke as the Rambo of drugs, selfish and agressive.

The particular war on "mind expanding" drugs and suspicious availability of "mind contracting" drugs was no accident.
And don't forget, the government knows a whole lot about LSD.
It didn't pan out as a mind control
tool, just the opposite.

[Caution]

117. you are fogetting Ecstacy

MDMA is basically an LSD knock-off chemically and is a pretty powerful hallucinogen and is of course the current drug of choice. To the point where they recently categorized MDMA in the same way as crack cocaine in terms of sentencing. Having never done MDMA I can't really speak to its effects but I'm told they are pretty similar to LSD, with less of the visual aspect while enhacing the auditory and tactile aspects.

[Mari333]

16. You had to live through the 50's

to know why the 60s HAD to happen.

[JVS]

21. Would you mind elaborating on that?

Most of the people who talk so much about the sixties anymore were very young during the 50's and can't explain what had happened. What people under 30 tend to be told about is the sixties but no background information. I'd love to hear the story of the fifties at a level higher than "Happy days"

[Robin Hood]

22. I feel that we are living through the 50's now.

And the mjority of today's youth seem to be quite content to go that prescribed direction.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

25. There will be a backlash. History repeats itself, thing go in cycles,

There will be a backlash. History repeats itself, thing go in cycles, insert your favorite relevant truism here.

[edward]

30. Maybe. But I wonder if this country was ever as right wing as it is today.

Bush used fraud to take this office and no Democrat fought back.(they pretended to). Hard to see if or when the backlash takes place; started 23 years ago.

[Robin Hood]

105. I wonder if this country was ever as right wing as it is today

I wonder the same thing. They stole the election from this generation. And back then they killed JFK to steal it from that generation. And it was all for continuing the war machine as I am under the impression that JFK wanted out of Vietnam.

When Johnson took his place, He was overwhelmed by the hawks in the pentagon and government. I fear that we don't have enough oversight on the pentagon.

[edward]

107. Good point about pentagon.

It's like a police department out of control.
By the way, before we lose the LSD thread, I think your point is valid.
The revolution would take place without it, but not in the complete way it did. I've always thought that marijuana was outlawed because it can stimulate the imagination the way alcohol does not, grave political consequences for the establishment.
The idea that I can enjoy my own bodily experiences is a threat to people like this current regime who want to enslave the population.

[Robin Hood]

109. Nixon started the war on drugs

because he was incensed with the protesting hippies. he couldn't stand that people could be so against him. He was an arrogant fucker, you can hear that in the Nixon tapes.

Reagan revived the war on drugs into full throttle when Nancy Reagan was getting all that crap for spending a ton of tax payer dollars on pearls and clothing. In the middle of those accusations, the "just say no" campaign came out. It has been a dismal failure since it's inception.

[edward]

112. Nixon thought that the hippies had been infiltrated by communists.

He thought foreign agents were fomenting rebellion. All his intelligence agencies told him, no. Nixon hated the fact that American citizens(youth) were opposed to him on their own.
"Just say no," a virtual motto of the National Socialists. Willhelm Reich wrote a great book on Nazis describing how they were moral obsessives. Talking about hygene and self-denial.
(amazing republicans actually found someone stupider than Reagan)

[Robin Hood]

31. Will there be a backlash.

Sometimes I look down the road and see the upcoming retirement of the baby boomers and their eventual passing. And cold chills run down my spine when I think of the generations that will take their place. Is this conservative revolution here to stay?

[Maple]

43. I DID live through

the 50's.

The 60's were a passing youth fad with no lasting effects.

[kcwayne]

34. As one who lived through it:

I grew up in the Midwest in the 60s, graduating from high school in 1972. Although there was a great deal of pot smoking, the use of LSD, Mescaline, Peyote, or other hallucinogenics was very rare amongst the people I knew. I think the core reason for dissent against the establishment was rooted in the blatent hypocracy of the culture.

The idea that we could be forced into the military and die in Viet Nam, when we could not vote or even buy a beer was outrageous. A major topic of conversation at parties back then centered around techniques for beating the draft board's medical exam and getting classified 4F. I felt great hatred for those in government who could demand that I make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of American ideology. I could see that minorities were not free in this country, and the execution of the war in Viet Name looked to be nothing more than violence against a third world country to protect and generate fortunes for the upper class.

Today's youth are not forced to sacrifice their lives for hollow and provably false ideological reasons. As such, they are complacent and supportive of governmental authority. I think experimenting with hallucenogenics would have no impact on this generation's desire to change the social order, because they are happy with it as it is. However, if their lives were at risk due to governmental policies such as forced conscription and assignment to the horrors going on in Iraq, I think you would find the same push back that my generation gave.

[Maple]

45. Being anti-draft

is being anti-one government policy.

It is not a revolution.

[roughsatori]

72. I agree with you on most of what you say in this thread

I believe that to invent a revolution where there was none is counter-revolutionary. The 60s are another brand name in America, it's nostalgia. And to successfully sell nostalgia one must embellish the truth of an era.

However when it comes to using drugs as a means of spirituality. I do think that history shows it has been done in the confines of cultural parameters. The cultures had rules for the use of the substances within that society that are usually strictly adhered to in that culture. Exploration with chemicals for spirituality in cultures that have no place for it tends to lead to "spiritual joy-riding" and addiction.

That said, I still think it possible that an individual raised in a western culture might find some enhancement to their spirituality from drugs. But then again, I am for the legalization of all drugs. So, would allow them to try.

[edward]

89. Confused about your post.

Who are you referring to as "successfully sell nostalgia?" If someone is "embellish the truth" on this thread, name it and debate them. If not, why raise the accusation needlessly?

[roughsatori]

98. I was talking about advertising co-opting the culture

I meant that in a consumer culture even things called "revolution" are co-opted. That was meant as a general criticism of how "Eras" are sold to us.

Did I unintentionally hit a nerve? Are you afraid that you are being nostalgic? Is that what compels you to command me to debate something I never said?

[edward]

102. Relax.

I was just wondering why you introduced advertising in the first place. It seemed pretty clear that the original post was volunteering first hand experience, not waxing nostalgic about something he saw on TV.

[roughsatori]

106. Now you tell me to "relax"

In an earlier post you write about the government not telling people what to do. I guess you will do that for them. :P

Look and you will see that my response was to Maple as an aside; it was not a response to the original topic. Advertising and selling are primary, dehumanizing, and ruthless modes in a capitalist society. And since we are all discussing a, arguable. "revolution" in a capitalist society--advertising would be an appropriate topic.

[edward]

108. Yes, I am a fascist.

Anything else?

[roughsatori]

111. Did you post a reply to me by mistake?

I did not call you any name. I just mentioned your own words.

I see you called someone a "jerk," earlier in the thread after accusing that poster of the same. That might make you a hypocrite, but hardly a fascist.

[edward]

115. You know what I meant.

Like I said before, this thread started as a question about the role of hallucinogens in the 60's cultural revolution.
If you want to talk about advertising, that is fine; I have nothing to say about that.

[Robin Hood]

54. Great post KCWAYNE.

I was suspect that it did have to do with the Vietnam war. and after the war ended, the hippies turned into their parents. And that's how Reagan/Bush got elected for twelve damn years.

Rememebr that during the Reagan revolution that happy Days and Mash were the hit shows on TV.

[FreeperSlayer]

60. yes

eom

[Snellius]

81. It wasn't the getting high as much as the trip

It wasn't the drugs. It's the state of mind in which they were taken.

I'm sure there's a lot more drugs done now than then. And I know they were a lot less powerful. But now drugs are used more like alcohol. A means of entertainment or distraction. A way to forget. To get fucked up. Then we had all these expectations of finding nirvana and seeing paradise and doors of perception and crystal ships and tuning in and dropping out.

Drugs were a vehicle of self-exploration not recreation. We didn't take drugs to get high as much as for the trip.

[Deja Q]

95. Didn't the African American movement start in the 1950s?

I find it more interesting that the hippies seemingly have turned into the conservatives they hated, assuming they were the majority of the youth at the time. Even Grace Slick (singer, "Jefferson Airplane" - a group in the middle of the sexual revolution) tought she was naive at the time.

As it stands, I doubt America will be able to turn around and progress from the mire it's put itself into.

[edward]

101. The hippies were not really a majority.

Many young people at the time were following fashion the way most young people do. The "hippies" were popular but also in the way fashion is popular.
The idea of cultural revolution is in some way that fashion, the popular expression.

[spooked]

96. It was the BEATLES!

Seriously, the R-E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N came with the music...
The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, the Doors, Pink Floyd...
Why do you think parents didn't want their kids listening to rock 'n roll?

[Maple]

104. For the same reason

parents don't like their kids listening to current music.

It wasn't part of THEIR youth, and just sounds like noise to them.

A generation raised on the 'big band' sound of Glen Miller and the like would hardly find the Rolling Stones attractive.

[roughsatori]

110. The Revolution of the Beatles made them rich

I love the Beatles' music, but did they actually co-opt a moment into a saleable commodity and fashion sense, as opposed to spearheading any kind of real revolution? John Lennon earned over 21 million last year, ranking him as the number one dead rock star money maker.

[Terwilliger]

116. They helped to make the same revolution everyone else went through

its just that some people learned the lessons of the 60's, whereas some just had a groovin time and went back to their clean-cut American, 9 to 5 world.

[Terwilliger]

113. Hmmm

I've never done any hallucinogencis, so I'm not sure*

*(that's not entirely true)