I've been reading The Alternative Society, by Kenneth Rexroth (1970). In it he asks the question "What would have happened had there been no Vietnam War?" So what do you think would have happened? Would the youth have found another reason to revolt, would they have found something else to protest about? Or was the war too central to the whole issue? Rexroth suggests that the same thing would have happened,"but at a slower tempo. Vietnam, like Voltaire's God, has been so convenient that, had it not have existed, it would have had to be invented." Also, in the same light, could you suggest that the Beat movement would have never occured had there been no WW2?? So what do you think all you old hippies?
After Vietnam there was nothing left to focus on and a lot of hippies turned into druggies.Love and peace was no longer the cry.Partying was the goal.Not saying that everyone gave up the goals of the 60's,but the general atmosphere changed.Vietnam was the unifying force that brought many together.The college riots,Kent State,the Chicago7.Civil rights played a large part also,especially among those they effected,the minorities.Wounded knee,the black panthers,the brown beret,but they weren't hippies.Civil rights alone was not enough to start the movement.It was the war.
Every fifteen to twenty years the United States has to stick its nose in some other countrys business for a number of reasons. Most of them have to do with corporate profit at the expense of soldiers lives. It appears the United States is even willing make up excuses to go to war in the name of corporate profits. I guess this is how some Presidents who place little value on soldiers lives reward there campain contributers.
The war was only PART of it! Nobody wanted people to die over politics! And that's all that was about. The other things, were Segregation, (Prison Camps?) The socialist regime that was running the country back then, People were arrested simply for protesting? People simply got SICK of the way things were. The revolt was going to happen if that war did or not.
The predominatly white hippie in the sixties and early 70's weren't all that concerned about the plight of the other races.Many were inherantly racist themselves.They simply didn't want to kill or be killed.Though there were many factors affecting the times,Vietnam was the catalast that fueled the fire.War breeds hippies.
gate68, excuse me, but i really must disagree with this. it makes me wonder how old you are or where you lived and how you spent your time in the sixties. this comment - how do you come up with this??? i lived all over in the sixties and early seventies (and later but that's not relevant) and met "hippies" everywhere. after all, those were tense times in many ways and we looked out for each other and took folks in who were travelin' or were taken in when on the road. rarely, did i meet a racist hippie. and even rarer was a "white hippie" who wasn't "all that concerned about the plight of the other races." lots of "hippies" or "flower children" came from civil rights movements or radical politics. many suffered burnout and just needed to find another way to live. so many hippies i met were truly into spiritual enlightenment or self-discovery or lettin' it all flow and so, had a found a focus that reflected who they were becoming at that time. it was a time of great experimentation. livin' in the village, moving to The Farm, or Cali, or up in the mountains and into a tipi. not everyone was called to fight for civil rights or to stay at it forever. a lot of us found that we could care about other races and exercise that in myriad ways. okay? didn't have to be out on the front lines all the time. i think you've got to look at who chose to live the hippie lifestyle, too. it was open to anyone. races not excluded. haven't you ever wondered why it is that some movements or cultural events or activities seem to always appeal to one race more than any other? you can't blame it on the hippies if the sixties counter culture appealed more to white folks than others or was comprised of more whites than other races.
If there was no war my buddie that was over ther wouldn't of been able to sent me all that good Nam weed
ImaPeach, a couple of things, In '64, LBJ was elected as the peace candidate; the man most likely to keep us out of the Vietnam War. LBJ came into office with an idealistic program called The Great Society. The Great Society was going to mobilize 20th century America to finally put an end to all poverty and all inequality in America. That may sound naive in today's Yuppy America, but in the early '60s it seemed more than possible; it seemed the natural next step in American progress. Well the hawks forced LBJ to war, and The Great Society had to be pared down to almost nothing to pay for the War. That's the first 'what if?' The second is this: Without the divisiveness of the Vietnam War, we could have continued to travel innocently down the inevitable path of social progress. But losing the War turned our Gothic Puritan America bitter and resentful. And like defeated Gothic Germany after the First World War, our Gothic Colony America began to turn hyper-conservative in a reactionary fury. Hense the rise of conservative Christianity; our desperate attempt to worship the myths of our Manifest Destiny. Seeking ways to sooth our wounded pride, we, like the Germans, turned to a bitter hyper-patriotism. Hense the rise of dye your hair black for the cameras Regan. Hense the glorious reinvigorating viagra invation of big bad Grenada. And, like the resentful Gothic Nazis, we began the bitter turn towards the Social Darwinism of Narcissistic Materialism. And so it goes to this very day. Today we're living the psycho-drama of Gothic Puritan America's losing the Vietnam War; right here, right now! Enjoy the ride.
