A Question for The Ol' 'Uns and The Young 'Uns

What is the difference between the 60s and today?

Why were people so willing to fight for freedom and why were they so passionate about important issues in the 60s when they are now so careless and unmotivated to do anything about important current events?

The world is going crazy!

My question to the ol' hippies:

How exactly did the movement come about? I mean, I know historically how different events shaped different activist groups, etc... but really, we have a crapload of activist groups today.. but no huge gatherings of supporters. Protests in North America rarely make it over a few thousand people. How were so many people in the world motivated to fight for what they believed in? How were they convinced that it was something they had to become involved in?

My question to the young hippies:

Why is it so hard to become involved? Why aren't more of youth involved? Why is it so hard to convince another person to stand up for what is right (or wrong)? Why do you think people no longer have the initiative or incentive to join with huge masses to demand attention to their cause? Why are people so insensitive to the craziness that is going on in the world? Where did our optimism and sense of duty go?

 

To answer your question I would say why are you not out there doing it rather than being on this site? Actions are much louder. I'm not saying this to put you down at...just to prove that many people want to, but they have things holding them back. I would say that Hippies sacrificed a lot more than us suburban kids are willing to give. What would we do without our cell phones and iPods?

 

Lets make it happen!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm ready to drive anywhere within reason to get together for a purpose.

The 60's didn't have the "lock yourself in your house and play video games" mentality. Thats the difference. People just plain ole don't care, as long as they can play a halo tournament. The "gaming" crowd extends into folks who should now have families, but waste away in front of a TV...

Goals today are NOT what they were 50 years ago... 18 doesn't mean move out of the house, it means go to college, so you can move back home while your useless degree puts you in a dead end job. How many thousands/millions are out there getting "entry level" jobs with a "business" degree??? Financially its so much more expensive just to LIVE now, we can't all hop in a VW Bus and parade across the nation, gas costs too much...

The hippie movement popped and fizzled, after that the mentality of "why bother" "the world sucks you can't change it" "its all downhill from here" "FIGHT for peace" "world peace is impossible" was beaten into the american population... who ate it up while being entirely distracted by new gadgets.

I'm ready to get things rollin.... but it seems my mentality is viewed as a "waste".

People are distracted, we need to get their attention

 

I dont fit into old hippie nor young hippie category n really dont like the label of myself as a hippie.. but
We have allowed our selves to turn into sheeple!
For whatever reasons, we have allowed everyone to slowly but surely to take responsibility for and make decisions in our lives, except ourselves . Once this completes we will all be the victims....

 

It was trendy, part of a popular new subculture and way of thinking (for the youth) to protest and spread peace and love like that. So, that's probably why more people were into it. But I think it isn't really that there were so many people more involved, it's just that the people who were involved and the things they did got more attention. Did the majority of the protests in the sixties really had a lot more people then nowadays? I for one, hear and see a lot about all kinds of activist groups in my country. It's kind of like the 'good music' issue: it's not gone, it's just not always in the picture like it used to be because it's not hip or mainstream anymore. They surely are there. I even have the feeling sometimes it gains more media attention here in the Netherlands. There's a broadcasting company for example that has all kinds of informing tv programs about the enviroment, people rights and so on. Didn't all those people and activists they show in those programs exist before? Yes, they did. I just didn't hear or see about them. Here's a link by the way if you're interested: http://www.llink.nl/English-page.1525.0.html

 

I'd put more money on a hacker-nerd-shut in getting some subversive action done than I would in a sign waving protester.

The biggest difference is that this isnt the 60's and hippies that are stuck in the hippie box need to start thinking outside of it. (Web presence is apart of this - Marc Emery with his CC site, pot tv and magazine can manage to get protests to happen, noticed and on the news, even if they're small - multimedia is his tool )

We live in the aughts. Time to use the tools we got.

You also need to remember, in a European country, you can feasibly get a country's worth of protesters with moderate notice to show up - you're small enough and have good transport. If I wanted to join a big protest in say, Toronto or Ottawa I'd have to fork out a pile of cash and take at least a week off work. Idealism is fine but surviving wins out in that case.

Sadly yes. But here's a thought - go to college to learn how to wag the dog. Learn what you need to infiltrate the system. Take Poli-Sci, take some law (a large problem with activists groups is that they demand change without fully understanding the system or true impact) then form your activist groups or lobby groups and make things happen. Take a journalism - fight the media become the media.

Also remember that a degree doesn't equal entitlement. It's up to you to strive for whatever you want not just stroll out of uni and go 'where's my job'.

 

Thats when the last bit of "hippie" dies in most people... then politics dont matter, gotta work and party... then family is important, no time for politics... we'll see what happens when the old folks are the ones who are complacent now... big brother just can't wait for that time... slidin bills through like they are on a waterslide of money - while at some point everyone realized WTF is going on, and it'll be too late...

What really scares me is what would happen if a "real" war broke out. Not the war for profit.. a "real" war. A war that if fought with today's weapons would cause MAJOR devastation... somone very well COULD launch a nuke at every major city in the US, and Canada??? If that happens all of our freedoms will go straight out the door so the (insert govt department here) can do a "better job"... and they'll probably call it the Wonderful Bunny Actj - not the King Presidente el North American Union Act that it will be.