Are we still fighting the Hippies versus Rednecks war of the 60's?

[franksumatra]

I started out as a young redneck, drifted into hippyism, and I remember all the shout outs on the streets. Rednecks yelling 'my country, right or wrong', 'if you don't love it, leave it', etc.

Hippys yelling 'stop the war', make love not war', 'give peace a chance'. Only Nixon is now Bush, hippies are all old and tired mostly, rednecks are in ascendance, and redneck chic is coming on strong.

William Bennett used to date Janis Joplin, now he's the fattest redneck scumbag in the world and on the Bush's payroll, spewing false virtues, and piling up gambling debts.

The hippys had to get drafted and go and fight while the redneck politicians son's got deferments, Dick Cheney, and a whole row of draft dodging war pig chickenhawks.

Farout man, it's like real heavy karma and deja vu.

Get a haircut hippy, these colors don't run.

[lastknowngood]

1. OH YEA! or as I call it Thinkers against Non-Thinkers

n/t

[Iris]

15. I agree. And, just like with anything the right doesn't like, you get

a label if you appear to think too much. "Hippy" is one of those labels.

[mandyky]

2. Bill Clinton said something about the 60's

that seems to ring true.

If you liked the 60's young peoples' culture you are probably a Democrat, if you don't you are probably a Republican.

I think today it's not so much rednecks and hippies, as much as Americans have gotten "fat and lazy". People don't have a social conscience like in the 60's. The 60's was not just about the vietnam
war, it was about civil rights, too. Our citizens don't seem to care about the poor or our children. People have money as their god and goal as opposed to helping others. We've had 20+ years of people like Rush Limbaugh telling people it's good to be selfish and arrogant. We have politicians who are bought and paid for by big corporations, and we are truly in danger of becoming a fascist state.

[rjbny62]

22. right, no social conscience, materialism rules

[babsbunny]

3. That's it!

I guess I am a Hippie, and my Son must be a redneck!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. still hippies around here

including members of Viet Nam Vets Against War. They are also environmentalists, and during protests against outsiders coming in and taking all the timber, they were harrassed, beaten, and threatened by the local rednecks-and, you guessed it, the outsiders came and took all the timber, never hiring one local to help. The locals felt it more important to fight the "hippie environmentalists" than to listen to what we said (which was let local loggers harvest the trees responsibly), and they are the ones who lost out financially, as mills closed and local loggers had to shut down. This was a classic example of how rednecks listen to corporate spin that reinforces prejudices so that people act against their own interests. Been done since before the Civil War, when poor whites were pitted against blacks.

[highlonesome]

5. Marxists vs Objectivists

Now it's morphed into a battle between what could be characterized as the objectivists agains the Marxists.

Objectivism became a somewhat dominant part of conservative thought during the Reagan era.

Liberals today embrace a Marxist paradigm almost ubiquitously -- so much so that it's nearly become invisible.

I'm not saying Marxism as pure Marxism, but more a intellectual Marxism: all social issues are framed in a perspective of class struggle and class oppressin, men and women as separate social classes, white and non-white as separate social classes,etc.

Both use their ideology as affirmations to plunder.

[K-W]

21. Marxism?

Id like to know what you mean by that, because Liberalism has little to do with Marxism.

[highlonesome]

30. intellectual marxism

I'm not talking about pure economic marxism. What I mean is a sort of analagous form.

It takes the class oppression paradigm of Marxism and its relationship of class system -- burgeouis controls the means to production and thereby controls the proletariat -- and imposes it on all systems of hierarchy and status.

So for example, feminism (and I only choose feminism because it's the easiest to illustrate) today could be viewed as a system whereby men as a class oppress women as a class through control of the cultural system they call patriarchy. Patriarchy is analogous to the system of capitalism and acting as head of the family by men analogous to control of the means of production or, very literally, a woman's womb.

The thing that makes it Marxist in essence is the fact that one must first accept that men and women -- even husbands and wives sharing their lives -- are separate social classes.

Following from that, most liberal approaches to the mitigation of problems of inequality and social injustice are by working from class systems through government influence or control. Things like affirmative action or myriad other laws are created from this perspective.

But it also requires a disconnection on the part of its adherents of the convergence of economic and social liberty. Since most of us somehow convert our time into income, this can be equated literally to "what you're doing with your life" or in effect your social liberty. Government then taxes that income to finance the social program. In the end the effect CAN be (not necessarily) the destruction of social liberty since through taxation everyone MUST support social change whether they agree with it or not.

Ultimately the danger of the shift is from one of individual inalienable rights and limited government, to contractual rights defined among classes of people -- classes now ultimately defined by the government.

This is why we see such an erosion of civil rights and devaluation of the vote -- both sides now stand to gain politically from the erosion and simply take turns each election cycle targeting which category of civil rights to erode.

[papau]

26. Interesting take - but isn't Objectivism a cover for class war fare? n/t

:-)

[izzie]

6. Yes we still are.

Heck the South still does not say they lost the Civil war. People do not like to say they did not win or were wrong.

[txaslftist]

31. That's two different things.

Southerners know damn well they lost the civil war. It's not so plain that they were "wrong". Were they wrong to pick a fight with an up an coming economic powerhouse? Probably. Were they wrong to believe they had a right to secede from the Union?

That's a thornier issue.

[Christian dem]

7. Can you define redneck?

That term really bothers me.

[franksumatra]

8. redneck is chic now, so to take offense to it is silly

I said that I myself used to be one, and many of my friends are proud rednecks. If it bothers you, say so, but to me, you're being silly. Are you a redneck? Be yourself. Hippies had to endure insults too, grow some skin.

[Christian dem]

10. The problem is

that people, when they hear "redneck" picture a southerner with bad teeth, bad grammar, and big belt buckle - and only a southerner. They tend to label the entire region as a bunch of "dumb rednecks." Since I live in the South and have many southern friends, that label does bother me. Sorry, that's my opinion.

[franksumatra]

11. sorry I stepped on your toes

I've had my toes stomped on many times, you get used to it, or you need medicine to counter it.

[AG78]

9. We're still fighting

the same battles that we've always fought. From the start of civilization we've been fighting those same battles. The only thing that seems to change is clothing and language. Beyond those two aspects, nothing ever changes.

[Bridget Burke]

12. Where's Willie?

Willie Nelson, that is. He helped Texas hippies & rednecks get together before. He could do it again.

[franksumatra]

13. Willie is my kind of redneck

I like Ray Charles, and I like Willie Nelson, and they both recorded together. I can accept Ray or Willie in my little world.

[HawkerHurricane]

14. I agree, except...

My mother was a Alabama Redneck Farmer's Daughter... but by the original definition of Redneck: a man who owned his farm, but had to work it himself, the 'Red' on his neck was a working man's sunburn. As a Redneck, my grandfather encouraged his 3 sons to serve, two went to Vietnam, one to Germany with the U.S. Army... and one of the 3 made a career out of the military. Rednecks were Southern lower middle class, very much the salt of the earth... once. The term has been adopted to cover not only the originals, but also the white trash and in some ways the upper class Southerners, both groups originally disdained by the Rednecks as being either too lazy (trash) or afraid to get their own hands dirty (upper class). The middle class southerners (honest farmers and others) have been destroyed by the upper class who claim to support their 'sensibilities' while robbing them blind.

I'd add more, but I've got to go to work.

[franksumatra]

16. All of my relatives are rednecks

I am white trash and proud of it. I am not setting out to insult rednecks. As I said, I used to be one. And I see good and bad rednecks, just as I see good and bad black folks.

[HEAVYHEART]

17. I understand what you're saying

I personally consider myself a hippie redneck! hehee..

[franksumatra]

18. I consider myself a Hipster Hick

Many rednecks are actually cool, and many are jerks. I've got a drawl, and I like Tex Williams as much as I like Louie Jordan.

Go figger.

[txaslftist]

32. Yep... put me down as a hippy redneck, too.

Willie Nelson is my hero.

[HawkerHurricane]

33. Funny thing is...

(and I'm going to use un-p.c. terms here, so please believe me when I say I don't agree with this stuff) Nobody 'back home' in Alabama would proudly call themselves white trash. White Trash were the folks who 'lived like niggers'. (and yes, I'm quoting someone). White Trash were the ones living in mobile homes, ate pork rinds constantly, loved RC Cola and moon pies, and believed that 'we may be poor, but at least we ain't niggers' (another quote). Sometime between the 1970's (when I learned about such things) and now, the white trash and the Southern Oligarchy adopted the term 'Redneck', much to the annoyance of the true Rednecks. It didn't help that the Oligarchy shifted from the Democratic party in order to keep racism alive so the lower classes would vote for them.

In the Navy, I have met too many people who were proud of thier racism calling themselves Redneck. The Rednecks like my Grandfather were never actively racsist... passively so, yes, with assumptions about race that would be horrible now... but they weren't the people wearing hoods nor voting for Sherrif Clark.

Ok, I'm not consistant about this. But my Grandfather and my uncles were Rednecks... and it meant something beyond being from the South, liking country music and stock cars, and eating pork rinds.

[Dob Bole]

19. hi-tech redneck here.....

Don't you think that this is a huge problem for us, that you have to have a degree to understand our political philosophy? Don't you think we can articulate it a little better, without calling everyone stupid? (that really gets their attention....)

[franksumatra]

20. I'm not sure where I insulted rednecks

except by using the term 'redneck', which is about equally offensive as 'hippy'.

[Dob Bole]

24. I wasn't referring to you, specifically...

but there is a whole level of snobbery on DU that makes me sick sometimes. As far as what you said, you were just comparing the 60s to today and it wasn't offensive at all.

[franksumatra]

27. DU has many colors and opinions

Which is wonderful. Free Republic is 99% white radical assholes.
I prefer the folks here, even though some snobs hang out here.

I ain't perfect, never will be, but I will strive to be a better American every day, and getting people together is what I want.

We're on the same team, and fighting the same enemy.

[franksumatra]

23. Dictionary: 'Redneck'....'Hippy'

Function: noun
1 sometimes disparaging : a white member of the Southern rural laboring class
2 often disparaging : a person whose behavior and opinions are similar to those attributed to rednecks

Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural hippies
Etymology: 4hip + -ie
: a usually young person who rejects the mores of established society (as by dressing unconventionally or favoring communal living) and advocates a nonviolent ethic; broadly : a long-haired unconventionally dressed young person

.......both of these words are in the dictionary, and neither term is considered an insult necessarily.

[blindpig]

25. they certainly are

There's a lot of festering resentment from those days that repub agiprop has skillfully exploited. They're still pissed off that we had more fun.

[franksumatra]

28. Bush constantly trashed the 'if it feels good do it' mentallity

but he sure as hell did it if it felt good, like snorting tons of coke and drinking rivers of whiskey. Also, he likes to kill people cause it feels good.

[shadowknows69]

29. power to the people man

:hippie:

would've loved to have been 17 in '69 but then again that means I'd be a lot older now so it's all groovy