The hippies were wrong!

I have found this thread terribly amusing, although I don't have the time to read it all... But I am rather startled that nobody has tried to talk about the (deep) connections between hippies and track & field back in the late Sixties/early Seventies. I've working on a book about it entitled JOCK: a memoir of the counterculture, which is about my time running at Stanford from 1968 to 1972 and for a few years after that...

My own story aside, the number of "hippie" athletes (that was a term I didn't like even at the time) was legion. Start (for the letsrun.com crowd) with Steve Prefontaine, who WAS a stoner... I know his sister has said if it wasn't for running he would have fallen in with the doper crowd in Coos Bay, but the stories I heard was that he did smoke a j on occasion, and his longhair and anti-authoritarianism fit the bill, too. In actuality the list of countercultural t&f athletes from the years this guy cites goes on and on and on, among distance runners in particular. And I'm talking elite distance runners, world-class distance runners... Guys smokin' dope every so often, living communally, politically radical... all the attributes this initial poster feels are somehow rilly rilly bad...

Anybody want to comment on this?

say it aint so!

The hippie persona was a highly conformist affectation that thought itself non-conformist. Hipsters of today are quite similar in this sense, and both hippies and hipsters are really just the progeny of eighteenth century bohemians: middle-class kids rebelling against their staid suburban upbringing. Flaubert's Sentimental Education is a perfect critique of this lifestyle.

You don't know too much about hippies when you group them all into one. There were many different groups of hippies who stood for different things. Some were very violent. Some were very peaceful. There was so much more going on than you realize. Drugs didn't stop. Every surviving hippy I know is still on drugs. You must really know what you're talking about very well before you say too much.

Perhaps a better counter argument to the shirt would be the hippies were left.

Alive and well in the persona of Gabe Jennings.

"The hippie persona was a highly conformist affectation that thought itself non-conformist. Hipsters of today are quite similar in this sense, and both hippies and hipsters are really just the progeny of eighteenth century bohemians: middle-class kids rebelling against their staid suburban upbringing. Flaubert's Sentimental Education is a perfect critique of this lifestyle."

How ignorant and condescending at the same time.

Well, NONE of the hippies I used to know are still hippies. I guess that the hippies were not monolithic, and not a "conformnist affectation" as some numbskull just claimed.

I know former hippies who worked for the Bush administration...even in the justice department.

Geez, it's fascinating to those of us who were there on the cusp of it all to read all the intellectualizing on the cultural impact/influence of the sixties - who'd have thunk! - and it's easy to see from the posts who was there - and who wasn't! You know, I shouldn't even touch the topic - I feel old and politically brain-dead at this point; but I was definitely involved in more than one way at the time.

Just a few points: Rubin and Hoffman pushed the Youth International Party - the Yippies - which was a media-savvy group of radically-thinking politicos who worked to exploit the "Hippie" cultural shift and gave it its political overtones. They took the previous workings of the FSM, the SDS, and even the Weather Underground, and turned them into a media carnival. They were actually pretty clever. Plain old vanilla hippies weren't that political - yes, they made a cultural statement by their music and dress, and pulled youth from all levels of society, but the Yippies gave the "movement" (which what it was referred to as) its political "bite" - these are the guys who made long-haired hippie freaks reprehensible to mainstream America and a threat to the boys on the Hill. Hanging out in S.F. and New York and getting loaded in front of the local news is one thing, while joining hands and trying to elevate the Pentagon is totally another. Yes, Chicago '68 was a work of art for the YIP, totally orchestrated months beforehand.

Personally, I'd never go back. I try not to think about it - and my grown children have only an inkling of their old man's dealings (political and otherwise). The running lifestyle and mind-set literally save me from that quagmire. I've trashed everything I ever wrote about back then, and sold all my volumes from that era. Yeah, it's one man's experience. It wasn't good for me.

It always fascinates me when I see the resurgence of some of the sixties' styles, speech, and such. It's interesting. I guess every generation needs a cause.

Get real Uncle Bitch wrote:

UncleB wrote:

7. You don't think that hippies exercised, although they were, on average, far skinnier than the average right wing american is today I assume you would copncede.

Democrats are fatter than Republicans. Look it up.

I did look it up and the skinniest state are blue states and the fattest ones red.

Fattest states in 2010: Missippi, Alabama, Tennesse, W Virginia, Lousiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, S Carolina, and N Carolina.

Leanest states in 2010: Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Washington DC.

You may wish to check your facts before suggesting someone look into a claim you are making. But then facts are not very important to the Right Wing, it's all about feelings with you b&tches

cultural semiotician wrote:

The hippie persona was a highly conformist affectation that thought itself non-conformist. Hipsters of today are quite similar in this sense, and both hippies and hipsters are really just the progeny of eighteenth century bohemians: middle-class kids rebelling against their staid suburban upbringing. Flaubert's Sentimental Education is a perfect critique of this lifestyle.

Fairly brilliant post, and very well stated.

First of all, when comparing weight among the states, you have to factor out things like meth addiction, which even though it has spread, started in blue states and is still headquartered there. At one time Granite Falls, WA (a true blue state) was said to be the meth capitol of the U.S.

Secondly I would note that obesity and liberalism have gone hand in hand.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/healthcare/a/tallbutfat.htm

The CDC says that the avg U.S. adult female weighed 140 in 1960, 164 lbs in 2002. Well in 1960, the 'liberal' candidate was JFK. Kennedy was a) a staunch anti-commie (ally of Joe McCarthy as U.S. Senator); b) supply sider who sharply cut the income tax; c) a gun nut and NRA life member.

It's fairly obvious that as liberalism has crept forward, so has obesity.

BTW, it is a myth that the hippies were all skinny. Even back in the day I recall hearing this:

Ginormous hippie walks into a barbershop...250 lbs of lard topped by hair and beard flowing every which way.

"Buzz cut 'n shave," is the hippie's request. Barber states back in wonderment. "Oh, cut it all off," the hippie wails. "Doc says I gotta lose 20 lbs."

10/10

2 thumbs up

five stars

magnificent trolling

Abortion Rights wrote:

Women have the right in America to decide what to do with their bodies. Their is no argument over that. So buzz off, you Nazi !

I'm pro-abortion (aside from public radio, Planned Parenthood is the organization I've supported the longest,) but let's not pretend that it's anything other than the killing of a future person. Please, give the topic deeper thought than "a woman has a right to do with her body whatever she wants;" as stated earlier, it's not her body she's eliminating. I believe it's a tragedy to bring an unwanted child into the world - that's why I make my stand for abortion rights. The woman's right-to-choose is secondary in the matter.

It's fine to have an opinion and to voice it. But your opinion is your's alone and pertains only to yourself. Girls 14, or 16, or 18 and over, depending on the state, have 100% jurisdiction over their own bodies without interference. That's the law of the land.

Fine wrote:

It's fine to have an opinion and to voice it. But your opinion is your's alone and pertains only to yourself. Girls 14, or 16, or 18 and over, depending on the state, have 100% jurisdiction over their own bodies without interference. That's the law of the land.

The discussion falls outside the confines of the law. And did you not understand my post? I'm FOR abortion rights. But I'm not naive. This isn't a toenail we're talking about that will only ever be a toenail. It's a fetus that, left to nature, will become a person. To try to reduce it to an argument about a woman's right to choose is to take a staggeringly simplistic (albeit more palatable) approach to the subject. That's the problem I have with the "pro-choice" moniker. Let's be honest about what's going on here - the woman doesn't want the baby, so we've decided (the "Law of the Land") that the fetus, because it is attached to the body, is a body part - a toeneail, and therefore is expendable. It's an ugly mess no matter how you dress it up in legalese. But I've made the decision to support that ugly mess, because I know several adoptees who hate their lives, and I think a woman who begrudges her child makes a poor mother. And the pro-life movement isn't doing shit to help resolve the problem, so f*** them (lest you think I'm one of them in disguise.) That's the point I was trying to get across.

BTW, the fact that there are age restrictions at all, and that those ages vary from state to state, shows that at some level, there are limits on what a woman may do with her body. Also, at this point, only WA and OR permit physician-assisted suicide, so that just about takes care of your "100% jurisdiction over their bodies" statement.

The only open issue I know of is being addressed by Congress which will enact new laws making it illegal to obstruct doctors, girls and women from a reproductive procedures.

The abortion debate is over. It's like beating a dead horse. Let it go. Women have their rights and you can't interfere.