You keep hearing about "old hippies" today...

[DemSinceBirth]

Or you could say baby boomers of which we are many. Is this a logic behind the next Rovian attack on our values?

[Kutjara]

1. Nothing wrong with old hippies...

...except maybe the neocon kids some of them unfortunately produced like an immune response. Hopefully, their kids will react similarly against them and grandparents and grandkids can sweep the bad seeds from the face of history.

Maybe I'm a dreamer...

[teriyaki jones]

2. I for one am proud to be an old hippie! n/t

[mike_c]

3. I'm a boomer who is quite happy with the values associated with being...

...an "old hippie." Although I'm more accurately an "aging hippie." Let your freak flag fly, my brothers and sisters!

[all.of.me]

97. I am a 'gracefully aging hippie' n/t

[mmonk]

4. Someone call?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Old hippie and damn proud of it.

[devilgrrl]

6. When I think of "Old Hippie" I think Right-wing Asshat David Horowitz

Or stoner surfer boy Dana Rohrabacher

How's that for "Old Hippies"?????

[Ptah]

7. Old guy here

I know she told you,
Honey I know she told you that she loved you
Much more than I did,
But all I know is that she left you,
And you swear that you just don’t know why,
But you know, honey I’ll always,
I’ll always be around if you ever want me
Come on and cry, cry baby, cry baby, cry baby,
Oh honey, welcome back home.

[TheCowsCameHome]

8. Keep the faith, baby - ya dig me, man?

[bobbolink]

13. Power To The People!

:hippie:

[TheCowsCameHome]

18. Right on. Peace in our time, brother.

[Whit]

9. Somebody call??? NT

[DemSinceBirth]

49. Welcome to DU, Whit!

Wow, I thought it would be forever before I sould say that!

[chknltl]

61. Welcome to DU DemSinceBirth and btw:

There are some here with low count numbers who have been members of the Democratic Underground since...well...since Lincoln was president. Whit has an an unusually low number for someone who has been here since '04... I suspect Whit has gotten a chuckle over your welcome and if Whit were half the wise-acre most of the rest of us are, Whit would have pointed this out....then again perhaps this chknltl has fallen for one of your traps..in which case you have my admiration.
In either case my :toast: to you DemSinceBirth and welcome here indeed.

[DemSinceBirth]

79. Gee Wiz!

Thanks for your input! I think I know where you're coming from... PM me with enlightenment?

[SammyWinstonJack]

85. ..

:evilgrin:

[xxqqqzme]

10. well, I'm not yet '64'

but I am proud to be an aging hippie. Nothing wrong w/ anything I discovered in the mid 60s and onward.

[Digit]

11. You rang?

Who has seen the "mature baby boomer" carrying the protest sign saying something like:
"I can't believe we are having to do this again?"

[Pastiche423]

37. I have seen the sign

and held the same thought as I marched (wheeled) through DT Portland on March 15, 2003.

Although I haven't reached the "mature" part yet.

[Digit]

40. Re: "mature"

I was just being kind.
Myself...I am just a big kid.

[Pastiche423]

45. The word "mature" hit me once when I read a t-shirt

that said something to the effect... I may be grown up, but I'll never be mature.

Damn, I wish I could remember it correctly. (Senior moment)

[Le Taz Hot]

98. OMG!

Perfect!!! I was just about to post a "need a slogan for my sign" tomorrow and you just gave it to me.

Thank you and . . .(inhale) . . . 'here

LTH :hippie:

On edit: Speeling

[Digit]

117. I would love to see a picture of the sign!

Have a great time!

[CoffeeCat]

12. This is one of their talking points...

Gads, these fascist scum-sucking amoebas sure have their attacks coordinated, don't they?

Rush Limbaugh keeps bringing up the term "hippies" in denigrating and pejorative ways.

These thugs are up to their old tricks. They write out the lies on note cards, then call
each other to make sure that everyone's "on the same page"--spewing the same, shrill tripe.

"Geez guys! If we say anything enough times, the lemmings will surely believe it!!!".

[annabanana]

14. Anyone got a pic of limpballs from, oh, 66 - 70?. . . n/t

[TheCowsCameHome]

16. He probably looked like a fat nerd with a pocker protector and Ross Perot haircut

[Manifestor_of_Light]

118. Didn't he used to be Jeff Christie????

[janx]

104. Rush is just jealous because he didn't get to hang out with

friends and smoke dope in the wilderness. ;-)

[silverweb]

15. Count me in!

[devilgrrl]

17. Now that I think of it, I don't recall anyone discussing "Old Hippies" recently.

Where are you hearing this from?

[DemSinceBirth]

50. Rush, Hannity and other sorts

talking about how all protesters are nothing more than old hippies.

[XOKCowboy]

69. That just validates our generation and "old hippie" values

to have Rush and Hannity diss us!

[janx]

19. You may be right.The term "Baby Boomers" comprises a lot of years.

The baby boom generation lasted until 1957 or even later, officially, and those later people are not old hippies. (They might be approaching 50, but they're not really hippies.)

When I think of the age of old hippies now (I was born at the end of 1957), I'd estimate the age to be around 60 years old...but most of them certainly don't look it.

[Odin2005]

91. The Boomer generation goes from either 1943-1960 or 1946-1964...

depending on whether you are using a sociological or demographic definition.

[bdamomma]

92. how about if we call ourselves progressive hippies!

I am proud to be one!!!

[hwmnbn]

20. Screw them neo-con mofo's......

We "hippies" were proven correct about the war back then, we're being proved correct today. :hippie:

The repugs have always been jealous because we enjoyed the sexual revolution, they feared it and didn't get laid, hence their uptight political attitudes. Simple as that. :smoke:

[bdamomma]

94. very true comment.

[DURHAM D]

21. The point is to remind the older generation

and the younger generation that the "old hippies" lost the last big war -Vietnam. We continue to be a disgrace and should hang our heads in shame. Why in the world would we think that we are deserving of the middle class entitlements that the prior generation received - you know, like medicare and social security benefits.

Us boomers have been paying for the WWII (the so called greatest generation (puke)) era citizens. They paid little toward these programs but have been drawing and continue to draw because, after all, they won the big war. These entitlement programs for that generation have got to be the longest "thank you" in the history of the world. My Dad has been drawing social security for 28 years - he calculates that he paid in enough to cover only the first 23 months. My Mother has been drawing for 21 years - she only contributed enough to cover the first 11 months. Pretty good deal for them.

But, we lost our war so we need to have a reality check about those social programs that we have been paying in to - we should just keep working and never collect them because it will be so hard on the next generation. The hippie generation does simply not deserve them.

And the younger generation thinks we should not get them because we are draining their paychecks. They don't realize we have been paying for our parents and they sure don't want to pay for their parents. There is a reason they are called the "me" generation. We are stuck in the middle between generations that think they are special - they have repeatedly been told they are special. The boomers are greedy losers.

[teriyaki jones]

26. Ummm . . . I beg your pardon . . .

How exactly did the boomers lose the Vietnam war--unless you're disparaging the soldiers, and I'd say the bulk of THEM were pre-boomers. Sounds like you're buying the Rovian line to me.

[DURHAM D]

35. Oh please - I am not saying the boomers or the hippies

lost that war. More importantly they did not start the damn thing - they just got used as fodder - 68,000 dead and 1 million wounded and still the old farts that started it thought we were losers.

I am explaining why the Rovian lie works - it fits into pre-existing notions and fears of the bookend generations.

How old are you?

[teriyaki jones]

36. I'm 53--a solid boomer

and, as stated early in this thread, proud to be an old hippie. Guess who's going to make up at least 75% of the anti-war protesters in DC this weekend--all of us old hippies!

[Breeze54]

44. Some people just don't 'get' -- 'tongue-in-cheek'...

:eyes:

[MzNov]

48. Was that tongue in cheek? I totally get tongue in cheek.

if that was the case, I missed it and would offer humble apologies.

[MzNov]

32. Huh??? that's not the point AT ALL.

[DURHAM D]

38. Not the point of what? I was responding to the OP question

of what the Rovian attack on our values is all about. It is designed to promote a wedge issue - specifically, cutting social security benefits and medicare for the boomers and pre-boomers.

Read it again.

[MzNov]

46. You said that the point is to remind the older generation and the

younger generation that that the "old hippies" lost the last big war -Vietnam

What is that supposed to mean?

[Breeze54]

43. I totally get what you're saying!

You speak many truths!!

And :wtf: is up with Obamas' slam on the baby boomers? Did I hear him right? :mad:

Snip-->

In his feeble bestseller, The Audacity of Hope, Barack, though 45 and technically
a boomer himself, unleashed this divisive barrage against the Baby Boomers:

“The politics of today suffers from a case of arrested development.
In the back and forth between Clinton and Gingrich, and in the elections
of 2000 and 2004, I felt sometimes as if I were watching the psychodrama
of the baby boom generation – a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge
plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago – and played out
on the national stage.” <--snip

http://www.radicalleft.net/blog/_archives/2007/1/19/2662329.html

[DURHAM D]

52. Well that is interesting - I just lost some respect for Obama.

"Old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses..." Wow - marchers in the streets, political battle lines drawn in granite and 68,000 dead is easily dismissed as a revenge plot. During that period we only had two kinds of citizens - the ones for the war and the ones against the war. To this day when I meet a new person between 55-65 I automatically try to figure out where they were politically back then. I have tried to break the habit but I can not.

Obama needs some schoolin'.

[Breeze54]

57. You should read this too! - "Shushing the Baby Boomers"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/weekinreview/21broder.html

Shushing the Baby Boomers

THE time has come, Senator Barack Obama says, for the baby boomers to get over themselves.

In taking the first steps toward a presidential candidacy last week, Mr. Obama, who was born in 1961 and considers himself a member of the post-boomer generation, said Americans hungered for “a different kind of politics,” one that moved beyond the tired ideological battles of the 1960s.

To make his point, Mr. Obama, a Democrat from Illinois in his first term in the Senate, announced the formation of his presidential exploratory committee in a video streamed on his Web site. He is tieless and relaxed and oh so cool.

Mr. Obama calculates that Americans of all ages are sick of the feuding boomers and ready to turn to the generation that came of age after Vietnam, after the campus culture wars between freaks and straights, and after young people had given up on what überboomer Hillary Rodham Clinton (who made her own announcement on the Web yesterday) called in a 1969 commencement address a search for “a more immediate, ecstatic and penetrating mode of living.”

In his second book, “The Audacity of Hope,” Mr. Obama is critical of the style and the politics of the 60s, when the psyches of most of his potential rivals for the White House were formed. He writes that the politics of that era were highly personal, burrowing into every interaction between youth and authority and among peers. The battles moved to Washington in the 1990s and endure today, he says.

More at link.....

I've lost ALL respect for him.

[DURHAM D]

60. Oh my God - he is really working to split the generations.

Another divider - great.

His analysis is sophomoric. You gotta wonder if the fact he didn't grow up on the mainland and was raised by his grandparents has brought him to this view.

That settles it for me.

[BlackVelvet04]

63. I'm an aging hippy

and proud of it. Obama can kiss my little hippy butt.

[SammyWinstonJack]

86. How 'bout he GET OVER himself?

:grr:

[Odin2005]

93. Oh great the Boomers and Gen-Xers are going to come to blows!

:popcorn:

[DemSinceBirth]

55. Well, I'd have to let you know that my father a WWII vet still runs a business

and pays into SS in hid late 70's.

It's the Social progams that keep this country alive.

But, then again, I have Socialist leanings.

[DURHAM D]

56. Good for your Dad.

My parents are lucky - they do not spend any of their social security. Instead, they have always deposited it into an account for their children - me and my siblings. They have always thought of it as money that belongs to the next generation because they know it came from us.

The bumper stickers often seen on the back of a $80,000 Winnebago that says "I Am Spending My Children's Inheritance" makes them see red.

[Imagevision]

66. To me Boomers don't seem to get old...they just age.

[ima_sinnic]

78. what an ignorant pantload!

hey, punk, get over yourself.
you don't have a clue, and your parents sound--well, to put it bluntly, dumb--in order to collect SS, one must PAY IN for at least 40 quarters of work, i.e., 10 years though it doesn't have to be consecutive. They obviously don't have a clue about it, and about the fact that their own contributions paid for the generation before them, and yours are paying for theirs, but your children's will pay for yours.

who are YOU to say the "hippie generation" "does not deserve"--what? the social security they paid into for 40 years? what a crappy, ignorant, dumb@$$ thing to say.

and what's with the "puke" after "greatest generation"?
someone obviously did NOT teach you basic values of compassion, caring, empathy, and most importantly, respect. I suspect that if you had been confronted by the evil they came together and SACRIFICED to fight you would piss your spoiled little pants, turn tail and run.

I suppose, as a member of DU, I must tolerate the occasional punk but I'm starting to like the idea of trying out the new "ignore" feature.

Now get off the computer and get down to the mall where you can hang out with your garish-looking tattooed and pierced friends and look like a dumb@$$ fool with your pants down around your knees and the crack of your @$$ showing above your dirty underwear. Get together with your lazy little friends and show us what "your" know-it-all generation can do besides sit around watching American Idol, play video games, make runs to Taco Bell, go to raves, and talk like a jerk.

[MuseRider]

22. Mature Freak here and proud of it.

Those were fun times but also sad times, kinda like all times.

We were right and we are still right and here we go again. Ob La Di Ob La Da Life goes on.

[OnionPatch]

23. I just missed being a hippy

I was kid during the hippy years. But if I WERE a hippy, I'd be damn proud of it and I, for one, am thankful for the enlightenment and freedoms they brought to our culture.

:hippie: Long Live the Hippies! :patriot:

[bobbolink]

25. Thank you! ~~taking deep bow~~

While I'm disappointed that what we envisioned has gone so astray, I can look back and see the magnitude of what we put in play. It really is amazing, in the perspective of history.

BTW, since you were a "kid", did you know that there were actually two distinct groups--the "hippies" and the "politicos"? There was some convergence, but it was truly separate.

I, of course, was a politico.

I'm sure that comes as a surprise. :rofl:

[janx]

39. I didn't know that.

Please explain!

[bobbolink]

42. Well, I'll try.... "Hippies".... the "summer of love" people

Usually thought of in connection with drugs and rock 'n roll.

The politicos.... the "Free Speech" people. The People's Park people. Those who were rallying and protesting the war, racism, sexism, etc. (Yes, often there weren't hippies there... they were "dropped out")

Does that help?

[Hardrada]

74. I concur. I was okay with being called a radical or a rad, Red or

anarchist since I was part of the political counterculture. I did not like to be referred as a "hippie" since I wasn't one and even in 1968 we in SDS were using the term as an insult directed at druggies who were were incapable of being any use in opposing the war or racism or corporate capitalism.

[bobbolink]

115. "Radical", if used correctly, fits some of us, and is a compliment!

"Radical" comes from the word radix, which means root. Radicals get to the root of issues, and clearly, if one wants to actually FIX a problem, one must get to the root.

I knew a few "hippies" and had no problem with them, so didn't take it as an insult. It just wasn't correct.

Actually, even though we started off in such different places, we pretty much converged later. Except those who got so involved with drugs that they weren't functional.

[Hardrada]

116. Actually we could get some of the "hippies" out for rallies

if we could stir them up somehow. We had to sometimes pull the plug on the jukeboxes and record players to get their attention away from Iron Butterfly etc.

[janx]

103. Yes, it does.

Thank you. :hi:

[stubtoe]

108. Hey youngster - Hippie is a state of mind.

You Qualify. Now go forth and enjoy your rightful Hippiedom.

:hippie:

[OnionPatch]

114. I am honored!

Thank you. :hippie:

[WinkyDink]

24. Old, not dead.

[The Straight Story]

27. I've mentioned it twice myself today

I like em :)

[Blue_In_AK]

28. Old hippie and proud! n/t

[MzNov]

29. we old hippies were correct then, and we're correct now!

plus, we have the vote now and lots more money... :-)

It's such a rush to be going back to the streets! finally the 60's and 70's have returned !

[omega minimo]

54. Yeah but where've they been between THEN and NOW?

:shrug:



(pssssstttt-- there's no way this is the return of the 60's and 70's)

[Le Taz Hot]

101. Volunteering our time

and donating our monies to progressive causes. We haven't gone anywhere. Most of us are doing the same type of work we did 30 and 40 years ago and haven't stopped. Just because the media has been absent all that time doesn't mean the work stopped. Open your eyes and quit being such a media slave.

That it all.

[omega minimo]

106. .

[bicentennial_baby]

107. You crack me up...

Pssst, the Lounge is not a boogeyman...Repeat, the Lounge is not a boogeyman...

:rofl:

[saged52]

30. old hippie here and damned proud of it -

still flying my freak flag - actually it's a 4' x 8' peace flag on the front porch for all to see.
'what if they gave a war and nobody came?'

[Homer Wells]

31. Let's hear it for us Ol' Hippies"

HooooRah

:hippie: :hippie: :hippie: :hippie: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :applause: :applause: :toast:

[MzNov]

33. Far Out man.

:woohoo:

[Swamp Rat]

34. Since I don't watch FUX Nooz or listen to Clear Channel, I never hear "old hippies"

used as a (Rovian) slur.

[DemSinceBirth]

58. Looking at your artwork I can only assume your one and just don't

know it! :)

[Swamp Rat]

72. I am sure I am...

though, I am young. :)

[HeeBGBz]

41. So there ya'll are

I thought there were only a few left.

[Raksha]

76. I think old hippies tend to gravitate to DU

where the values of our youth are still honored. If you're "still crazy after all these years," you want to be around like-minded folks!

[Booster]

47. Old hippie here and proud to be one. Old hippies had guts.

[omega minimo]

51. Repukes should be grateful to "old hippies" who let them take over & bankrupt the nation

:boring:

[Wiley50]

119. We Stopped Any More Of Them From Dying In Nam

So they could be Repukes and take over & bankrupt the nation

Oh Boy!

51 now but got in on the end

Member of Carnival Cafe Collective Restaurant, Boulder Colorado

Met Tim Leary and Wavy Gravy in the '70's

Was married by Stephen Gaskin

And had a son birthed by his midwife wife Ina May Gaskin.

[The Wizard]

53. The pejorative use of hippie

comes from those who were around back then but couldn't get laid in the era of free love because of either being gender confused or flat out ugly or had parents who emigrated from Germany to South America after WW II.

[chknltl]

59. Still have my hair, sandals are a bit newer though.

It is strange that I see in the eyes of some, that same look of disgust I used to see so many decades ago because I choose to have long hair. I keep it in a pony tail and I swear it gets washed often, so what is up with all those nasty looks? Maybe I should ask them who they voted for in the last election... Curse you Eric Cartman, curse you!

[saged52]

62. Yeah, my husband gets those strange stares, too -

his ponytail is halfway down his back. And he is the most righteous dude I have ever known. Just smile and give the proverbial peace sign. It further confuses them into oblivion.

[chknltl]

65. Yep, good advice! Time to dust off the old peace sign again.

I have not used that since....well..., it was before that Reagan guy was Presedent. I think a T-shirt with a great big hand flipping the peace sign is in order too!
:hippie:
(note to self: make time soon to visit fave silk screening shop) c

[The_Casual_Observer]

64. They are trying to sell products. Health, beauty, investmests.

"Baby boomer" or "Hippie" is always followed with a pitch to sell something

[Nevernose]

67. Kids today idolize hippies

I know, because not only were my parents hippies (like, REAL hippies, back in the 60s and everything), I ended up a hippy for a while, too. And while Neither me nor my parents are still commune-loving, VW-driving weirdos, the intrinsic values are still there. For instance, I think pot's usually a bad idea, but sharing seems pretty cool.

Most of the students I teach literally IDOLIZE hippies. I made a hippy joke the other day, because it was funny, and was damned near crucified. And this was largely Hispanic kids. The white kids are downright scary in their reverence for their hippy ancestry. It's a little creepy, really. If they can get past the sex and drug thing (though I can't blame them if they can't get past sex and drugs :evilgrin:) and actually get some of what life's all about, then the future's in good shape.

[laylah]

84. Hey!

I happen to adore my 1984 VW Westphalia camper, tyvm!

Jenn (a.k.a. VW-drivin g weirdo)

[Imagevision]

68. George Burns once said to me; "kid, there's nothing wrong with ageing - but

getting OLD? that decision is entirely your's.

[Warren DeMontague]

70. I'm not that old, but I'm sure as shit a hippie.

Now excuse me, I need to go check etree for any new May '77 Grateful Dead.

[Raksha]

71. There's something wrong with old hippies?

Personally, I'm proud to be an old hippie!

[orleans]

73. lets see...how old do you have to be before you become an "old" hippie?

(i'm still wondering if i can fly under the radar here)

[Hardrada]

75. I am a Good Old Radical and that's just what I am.

For the "hippie" counterculture,
We rarely gave a damn.
We hated Richard Nixon
And all his wretched crew
Our flags were of the red we took
From the old Red, White and Blue.

[DemSinceBirth]

77. It is so great, the response to this topic.

It's mot at all what I expected. You people rock!

[T_i_B]

80. I've been reading a good book on this very subject

Indeed I've started a thread about it in the non-fiction forum!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=209x4976

In the UK and Canada it's called The Rebel Sell but in the US it's known as Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture

In the book it's hippies who take most of the flack, because it's hippies who were at the forefront of the countercultural revolution of the 1960's, which the likes of the punks, ravers etc have all taken their lead from in turn. And countercultural ideology has in turn infected the left as a result.

Be warned though, even though the book is written by a pair of progressives, it will make you lot mad as it takes the left to task for ignoring it's older, more worthy values.

[DemSinceBirth]

81. I haven't read the book, but...

I'm really dissapointed at how our message got so screwed up.

[maine_raptor]

82. You Rang?

[laylah]

83. I am NOT

old! :hippie: I am a 23 year old woman in a 55 year old body, so there! :silly:

Jenn

[fla nocount]

87. Gotcha beat

I'm an 18 year old BOY in a 55 year old body......still read Ginsberg too. I had a couple of friends who tried the growing up gig and they ended up dead so I gave up on that misguided notion.

[laylah]

100. Good on you

fla nocount. My daughters, soon to be 26 and 23, are carrying on the "family tradition", I am glad to say.

Jenn

[Le Taz Hot]

105. Great line:

"I had a couple of friends who tried the growing up gig and they ended up dead so I gave up on that misguided notion." :rofl:

You owe me a new keyboard!

I'm a 51-year-old woman in a 51-year-old body and I will continue to visit California's nude beaches at will. Fuck it! :evilgrin:

[deutsey]

88. I think we need to talk more about all the "old fascists" running things today

:evilfrown:

[Buzz Clik]

89. Another old hippie checking in.

Fuck 'em. Calling me a hippie is not an insult.

[Odin2005]

90. I thought all you Boomers turned into Yuppies.

:dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce: :dunce:

[bmbmd]

95. I heard David Crosby on VH1 Classic last night.

"We were right that love is better than hate. We were right that peace is better than war. We were wrong about the drugs." Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Alamom]

96. Happy to be one and happier to be married to one,

MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR.



PEACE

[devilgrrl]

99. Hey OP! Was your questioned answered????

Huh? Freeper?

:hi:

[Adelante]

102. Old and hippy now

But back then? Oooh, baby! :D

[LiberalEsto]

109. Rove's probably a wannabee hippie

He was probably one of those doofuses who nobody invited to parties.

[Beausoleil]

110. Almost cut my hair

Happened just the other day.

[AngryAmish]

111. "We kicked your dad's ass in 68, and we'll kick yours, too"

T Shirt by Chicago cops before the 96 convention.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

112. Here's what this old hippie has to say to Rove....

[Madspirit]

113. Happy to be Hippie

Happy ol' Austin Hippie here! Wouldn't be anything else.
Madspirit