If you're younger but the child of former hippies... what are your parents doing now ?Where are the Hippies of the 1960's and who do they vote for now ?Jenny,
the hippies are still hanging out here: http://www.lovehaight.org/ Additionally, I can recall going to school during the height of the Viet Nam War and I had to pass %26quot;hippy houses%26quot; from that time period it is the colors that to this day still stand out.
Last time I was in San Francisco I took a trip to Haight/Ashbury....%26quot;they%26quot; are still there; however, very much older and very gray. Happy it was never my life style ~ I sort of look at them as people who are %26quot;entertaining%26quot; to watch; though I have always been a fan of the Grateful Dead. LOL!
Have a great evening.
Gerry D.Where are the Hippies of the 1960's and who do they vote for now ?In the inner circle of this administration and CongressWhere are the Hippies of the 1960's and who do they vote for now ?I am here. Not Changed. Democratthe Hippies never were leftist...they were hedonistic anarchists. indeed, not all of them were, but many weren't.
the leftist hippies I'd imagine are today's artists, commune owners, and green job developers. those are the ones who had those kinds of dreams.
yet to me, hippies are ironic, as you can only be one were you rich enough to afford to be one.My dad is a biomedical engineer and is still as liberal as ever. My mom turned into Suzie home maker and doesn't even want to discuss politics...or anything about the 1960s.Still here, still fighting the good fight.I wasn't a hippie but I lived in their era. I was in Vietnam, not protesting with the rest of America.
We all change. I used to be the most conservative there was and the president was NEVER wrong, including Nixon and LBJ. Well, now I am a pragmatist and I am sure liberal on most things. Conservative on others like the 2nd Amendment.They work for Wall St. nowI missed the hippie parents boat. I was born in 1969, the perfect year to be the child of hippies, but my parents were in their 40s...they were born just before the Depression. I know that my mother (who died when I was very young) was an intellectual who, while she thought hippies could do with a haircut and a wash, believed in the idea of a community based largely in compassion and altruism. Just the idea, mind, she was wise enough to know that we are, in large measure, greedy.
The hippies of yesterday became many things. Some stayed leftist, some dropped out altogether, some, like the great PJ O'Rourke, became staunch conservatives (REAL conservatives). Some became neo-cons.
Hippiedom was as much Zeitgeist as it was a lasting value.There really never was a clear definition of what a %26quot;hippie%26quot; is, but in some ways I may have qualified. As for who to vote for then, it was a %26quot;lose, lose%26quot; situation. The Republicans of the time were hard-nosed and opposed to social changes, but the Democrats were pro-war and in many ways just as hard-nosed as the Republicans. Of course that's one of the reasons there was a %26quot;hippie movement%26quot; in the first place. Neither the Democrats or Republicans of the time had much to offer.
Now I suppose Ron Paul is the best choice for people who believe in personal freedoms and less government control of peoples' lives. In most ways most Republicans and the Democrats are still a %26quot;lose, lose%26quot; decision.I was never a Hippie but I believed in most of what they did. I was on the side lines like most everyone, if you put everyone who says they were at woodstock it would more than a million people there. I have voted only once for a Republican President and I will not again, as for others I listen to what they says and voting record. Great music even when you're not high.Hippies were Dems, but disillusioned with the war in Vietnam. Most embraced activist platforms and volunteered en masse for the Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy presidential campaigns following the LBJ administration. Many volunteered for social changes in civil rights and human rights, marched in demonstrations for peace, free love, and legalization of marijuana. It also marked the rise of the women's lib movement as a political force. This was the age of Woodstock, the Grateful Dead, LSD, psychodelic styled clothing, the British invasion of the Beatles, Stones, the Who, and the rest of them. Even our politicians grew long sideburns (even Nixon).
Now, the older hippies are mostly pragmatic. They vote on pocketbook issues and are more concerned with higher taxes and making ends meet at home before retirement age. They no longer drive VW vans and are more interested in buying Nissans or Toyotas that are more practical and economical on gas. Generally, they vote mixed tickets. Their idealism has been tempered with the deaths of Martin Luther King, the Kennedys, Reagan, and John Lennon. I would gather to say that more vote conservative than liberal and they also drink more beer than smoke bongs.
My parents are deceased, having died at young ages. My Mom was a farmer's daughter, an activist in school politics and PTA and had a book dedicated to her memory in a public library. She was also a Sunday school teacher, spoke 3 languages, played the clarinet, and was a great parent. She died at age 34 and really didn't have a chance to live life to its fullest. My Dad was a blue-collar worker, a union member of the United Auto Workers of America. He worked 16-hour days, served as a Marine in WWII in the south Pacific and Guadalcanal. He was a hard hat kind of a man who didn't like nonsense in politics. He was a southern Democrat, a precient chaiman during the JFK and LBJ administrations. He had on occasion smoked weed in his 40's and was a heavy drinker especially following union hall meetings. Slowly, he was turning more conservative before his young death at 61.They're all dead, because they thought it was cool to smoke pot.They're today's democratic activists and they also ensuring that there will be a next generation of hippies,I was considered a %26quot;latent flower child%26quot; (now aged 65), partly because I was too intimidated by my military (strict) dad to slip into being an actual %26quot;hippy%26quot; (a movement which evolved from the more Bohemian, art-affiliated %26quot;beatnik%26quot; that was more to my liking). I worked at an International House of Pancakes during the Newport (R.I.) Jazz Festival back in the day...Janet Joplin was one of the performers back then...and people (mostly hippies) came from all over the U.S. and other countries to participate. Around that time, the drug culture had not taken over the movement, so the hippy movement was likened to %26quot;free spirits%26quot; and %26quot;anti-establishment%26quot; but %26quot;peace and love%26quot; young people (without hostility), deemed harmless by the older folks. When I attended a %26quot;Rainbow Gathering%26quot; to track down my daughter (she'd %26quot;borrowed%26quot; my Jeep to go to one back in the late 1990s), most of the people there, she discovered, were my age---hippies who take leave of their jobs once a year to attend this gathering of like-minded %26quot;free spirits%26quot; usually in a national park. My young daughter happened to latch onto the one %26quot;preppie%26quot; in attendance (lol), who complained about most everything including the communal one-item dinner cooked by codename %26quot;Warrior%26quot;, an irascible Vietnam War veteran. When I first arrived and found my Jeep tire flat and the rim slightly bent, several of the War-era %26quot;hippy%26quot; types banded together to help me fix the problem, while I went looking for my granddaughter (then around 2) and my daughter, who informed me when she was located that her baby was %26quot;with Corporal Stupid%26quot;---not, I suggested, the most comforting words for a grandmother to hear...lol. Corporal Stupid, turns out, had been a medic in Vietnam and was caring for a burn on my granddaughter's foot (not a serious one), and this was one big COMMUNITY where everyone lovingly helped everyone else. As I was waiting for my tire and rim repair, I sat in the sandy path and began sculpting the moist sand. Soon a young couple dressed in tie-dye clothes joined me and we began building a sand castle and discussing Persig's book, %26quot;Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance%26quot; with great vigor. My daughter, meanwhile, was stuck with the ever-griping preppie...lol. Soon I saw a group sitting in a circle in a field around sunset, so I joined them. They were chanting. A guy code-named Wolfman (who had translated the Bible into three different languages we learned) taught the chant: %26quot;We are Love, We Come From Love, We Are Made of Love, We Cannot Cease To Love%26quot; but said as he was teaching the words, %26quot;Oh wait, I got that backwards...%26quot; to which I replied, %26quot;There is no backwards to these words if they are true...they mean the same no matter which order they come.%26quot; We sat chanting these words in a glorious sunset, and I then offered something we'd sung in choir practice, %26quot;Love Love Love Love, the Gospel in One Word Is Love, Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself...Love, Love, Love%26quot; which we all sang together...then we stood holding hands to %26quot;ohm%26quot; until the cosmos %26quot;told%26quot; us when to stop (someone sneezed, so we accepted this as the appropriate place to end...lol). Then I joined my daughter sitting on a rock next to the %26quot;kitchen%26quot; area eating the mostaccioli her buddy had fussed about---she didn't know how to yield to the %26quot;hippy%26quot; self within her...lol. Early next morning around 5:00 a.m., I woke to find Warrior had made coffee on the campfire stove and several people my age were sitting about on tree stumps or makeshift seats chit-chatting---my favorite thing to do. When the topic turned to '60s music, Warrior told us he %26quot;mellows out%26quot; (he being known to be perpetually grumpy) if he hears Patsy Cline...so someone came up with a Patsy Cline tape and we older up-early hippies sat around a campfire sipping coffee and singing %26quot;I Fall To Pieces%26quot; and %26quot;Me and Bobby McGee%26quot;...what a movie moment! That was my last known contact with my fellow hippies. Thanks for the opportunity to reminisce.I was a little too young in the 60’s, but I was a “hippy” in the 70’s and some still think I am. (51.75 years old and still burn a fatty now %26amp; then)
I’m truly an Independent – I cherish the 2nd. Amendment %26amp; the “right” to choose. I will not play the “partisan game” the far ‘right’ wishes to play because I see that as a divisive tool to diminish our nation’s security and civilization.In Eastern European communes smoking dope and crying about capitalism.My parents were normal people back then. My dad was a Marine and my mom was doing whatever it is she does.If you were a 60's radical blowing up the pentagon or something you probably now have a job in the Obama administration as czar or something. It helps if you cheated on your taxes too.Most of them are dead. Many died from AIDS and other STD's. Some overdosed on lethal cocktails. Lung cancer and liver failure has also taken it's toll on the hippy population.Most are dead by now,plus we now have moved on to better times.
