Two Cheers For The Hippies. Part Four/
Many people didn't Like the hippies. Yet business people saw money to be made in this new group. Businessmen produced and sold bright psychedelic posters. Music companies produced rock music by the Doors, Janis Joplin, and Big Brother And The Holding Company. Drug paraphernalia was soon being sold. Meanwhile millions of men and women grew their hair long, practiced what mainstream society called 'free love',and for a time scorned marriage and lived openly with a man or a woman. The changing lifestyles were in some ways a peaceful revolution.
Then in October 1973 the Oil Producing Exporting Countries threw the Western world a curve ball. In the wake of the Israeli-Arab 1973 OPEC countries raised the price of oil 400 per cent .This price hike set off a worldwide wave of inflation . "In France," wrote economist Robert Heilbroner, "prices rose by 75 per cent in the five years after the OPEC oil shock." In Italy, Heilbroner pointed out, prices rose by 125 per cent, while in Britain prices soared up by 185 per cent.
"Around the capitalist world production began to fall and unemployment began to rise. In the U.S. the G.N.P. fell 9 per cent and joblessness rose by 85 per cent." The same trends hit Canada too. The affluence of the 1960's which did exist side by side with large pockets of poverty, seemed to vanish. Now the live and let live ethic of the hippies gave way to a far harsher competitive ethic.
Fifty years after Jack Newfield wrote his article on the hippies in the 'Village Voice' much has changed. Newfield died many years ago. So has Jerry Rubin. 'The Village Voice' has closed up shop along with many other countercultural papers, Across the world tyrants and tough rulers like U.S. president Donald Trump. China's Xi Xinping. Russia's Vladimir Putin and other heads of state rule the roost. Yet despite all this, the hippies have left their footprints on the sands of time.
Casual sex, casual dress, and casual drug use that the hippies pioneered, has been embraced by many people. Marijuana, the drug that hippies openly smoked , is now legal in Canada, Uruguay and many American states. Thousands of young unmarried couples, live together just as hippies did. The hippies that so many people scorned and sometimes even attacked did help make parts of the world better places to live in.
"Give flowers to the rebels that failed," said some early 20th century progressives. The hippies also pushed for what they called "Flower Power." They may have failed but they also in part succeeded.
They should be remembered.
Wednesday 19 December 2018
Monday 17 December 2018
Ends and Odds: The Ravings Of An Old Man by Dave Jaffe: Two Cheers For The Hiippies - Part Three by Dave Jaffe
Two Cheers For The Hippies by Dave Jaffe: Part Three
" Peace and Love' may have been the motto of many hippies. Yet there were dangerous moments in the hippie world too. Bikers often visited the hippie world and bullied these young people. Some of the young people were strung out on amphetamines or crashed after bad acid trips. Free clinics staffed by volunteers sprung up to help the injured and sick people.
Meanwhile the great rebellions of the late 1960's provoked a reaction from conservatives. Police and National Guard people shot and killed more than 160 people in the riots that erupted after Martin Luther King Junior was killed in 1968. Police attacked demonstrators and others who came to Chicago in 1968 to protest outside the Democratic Convention. Then police raided the headquarters of Black Panthers across America in 1969 and shot and killed Fred Hampton in Chicago.
In Berkeley California students and street people clashed with police forces in the summer of 1969 as the young people tried to defend "People's Park' from the local government. The National Guard killed four student demonstrators at Kent State University in the spring of 1970 and three students at Jackson State University. These students and tens of thousands of others were protesting the American invasion of Cambodia.
"Just watch me," Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau told t.v. reporter Tim Ralfe in the fall of 1970 when Ralfe asked the p.m. how far he would go to suppress the terrorism of the Front de Liberation de Quebec or the F.L.Q. In the wake of two F.L.Q. kidnappings and one murder, Trudeau announced a War Measures Act in October1970 that embraced the whole of Canada. Hundreds of people had their homes searched and many ended up in prison for a few weeks undergoing interrogation by police.
The cadres of the F.L.Q. like many other hard core left wingers scorned the hippies. Francois Simard a former F.L.Q.'er wrote a book on his political journey into and out of terrorism. In his memoir Simard trashed the hippies. Another man but this time from the richest one per cent swung to the right in the wake of the rebellions of the 1960's.
Nelson Rockefeller, the ultra-rich governor of New York State or"Rocky" as Rockefeller was known, had at one time supported single payer medicare and a woman's right to an abortion. .He had also voted to build a state wide system of hospitals and a number of universities. In Albany which was the state's capital, massive buildings went up that helped grow support for Rockefeller among the unionized members of the building trade unions. Now prisoners in the state prison at Attica rebelled in 1971 and seized guards as hostages.
The prisoners invited journalists and political activists onto prison grounds. "You're doing a great job buddy," Rockefeller told journalist Tom Wicker who phoned the governor and pleaded with him to come to Attica to defuse the rebellion. Instead Rockefeller sent armed forces and police to Attica. The police and others shot and killed three guards and dozens of prisoners. The Attica uprising was the last rebellion of the 1960's and 1970's and it was crushed.
Then a few years later Rockefeller brought in a sweeping anti-drug law that sent thousands of
young mostly African-American men to prison. This law was a precursor of President Bill Clinton's 'Three Strikes And You're Out' law that swelled the ranks of prisoners across America in the 1990's and beyond. In any case the era of liberalism that helped fuel the number of hippies and an era of liberalism in the U.S.A. was coming to an end.
" Peace and Love' may have been the motto of many hippies. Yet there were dangerous moments in the hippie world too. Bikers often visited the hippie world and bullied these young people. Some of the young people were strung out on amphetamines or crashed after bad acid trips. Free clinics staffed by volunteers sprung up to help the injured and sick people.
Meanwhile the great rebellions of the late 1960's provoked a reaction from conservatives. Police and National Guard people shot and killed more than 160 people in the riots that erupted after Martin Luther King Junior was killed in 1968. Police attacked demonstrators and others who came to Chicago in 1968 to protest outside the Democratic Convention. Then police raided the headquarters of Black Panthers across America in 1969 and shot and killed Fred Hampton in Chicago.
In Berkeley California students and street people clashed with police forces in the summer of 1969 as the young people tried to defend "People's Park' from the local government. The National Guard killed four student demonstrators at Kent State University in the spring of 1970 and three students at Jackson State University. These students and tens of thousands of others were protesting the American invasion of Cambodia.
"Just watch me," Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau told t.v. reporter Tim Ralfe in the fall of 1970 when Ralfe asked the p.m. how far he would go to suppress the terrorism of the Front de Liberation de Quebec or the F.L.Q. In the wake of two F.L.Q. kidnappings and one murder, Trudeau announced a War Measures Act in October1970 that embraced the whole of Canada. Hundreds of people had their homes searched and many ended up in prison for a few weeks undergoing interrogation by police.
The cadres of the F.L.Q. like many other hard core left wingers scorned the hippies. Francois Simard a former F.L.Q.'er wrote a book on his political journey into and out of terrorism. In his memoir Simard trashed the hippies. Another man but this time from the richest one per cent swung to the right in the wake of the rebellions of the 1960's.
Nelson Rockefeller, the ultra-rich governor of New York State or"Rocky" as Rockefeller was known, had at one time supported single payer medicare and a woman's right to an abortion. .He had also voted to build a state wide system of hospitals and a number of universities. In Albany which was the state's capital, massive buildings went up that helped grow support for Rockefeller among the unionized members of the building trade unions. Now prisoners in the state prison at Attica rebelled in 1971 and seized guards as hostages.
The prisoners invited journalists and political activists onto prison grounds. "You're doing a great job buddy," Rockefeller told journalist Tom Wicker who phoned the governor and pleaded with him to come to Attica to defuse the rebellion. Instead Rockefeller sent armed forces and police to Attica. The police and others shot and killed three guards and dozens of prisoners. The Attica uprising was the last rebellion of the 1960's and 1970's and it was crushed.
Then a few years later Rockefeller brought in a sweeping anti-drug law that sent thousands of
young mostly African-American men to prison. This law was a precursor of President Bill Clinton's 'Three Strikes And You're Out' law that swelled the ranks of prisoners across America in the 1990's and beyond. In any case the era of liberalism that helped fuel the number of hippies and an era of liberalism in the U.S.A. was coming to an end.
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