We were correct

Every tenet and idea we exponded and marched for has come to be the right thing for mankind and the earth.
From Reagan on they have turned the wrong way and brought everything on earth to a presapess. We are about to step off the cliff and we will be here to watch. My grand daughter can see the mess we are in but why can't but not the generations between. The pretenders we thought were comrades were traiters and only took the icing and betrayed us.

 

We, they got scared by the inconvenience of principle and numbed by material success.

Many fell and fall for the idea that you need to be part of the system to change the system. But systems, have within them, no mechanism to accommodate change, systems only work to perpetuate themselves. Any variation to the system is considered a threat to integrity and immediately stimulates the system's immune response as the idealist is surrounded by the right or white corpuscle. It festers around them to spit them out or overwhelms their intent, so that they forget why they came to begin with.

 

Come now. I don't believe any one group can be have all the answers, especially one who blames a whole generation for the mess we're in. So gen X is totally evil and has absolutely no good guys at all?

 

I remember “Thatcher’s Children” and those that followed the way of living.
They followed the philosophy of Looking out only for themselves, trampling over anyone who stood in their way of reaching their goal “Greed is Good” not only a famous movie phrase – but a descriptive way of life.
The Hippie; and those of similar ilk, were chastised, mocked and driven down at every opportunity.
Then came the years of realization, and that spending now, paying later was flawed.
As time passed, and those of conviction finally were able to convince some, (though sadly not all) that the environment was of grave concern, it seemed that all was lost – though never underestimate those with faith and heart, and Tomorrow is always ‘another day’
eace:

 

Of course not, but I do think there are more similiarities between my generation, generation Y I believe we are called, and the baby boomers that later formed the "hippie" generation, than there are between Gen X and the baby boomers.

Much like children coming of age in the 60s began to wake up and see the cracks in the idyllic American life of the 1940s and 1950s, my generation is seeing the cracks in the golden age of the american economy that began in the 80s with Raeganomics and eventually led to this current economic mess.

From my experience, Gen Xers tend to be less tolerant, more materialistic, and more focused on their direct surroundings rather than social issues outside of their immediate perimeter.

I don't mean this to be a broad statement; there are certainly Gen Xers with a social conscious. I think ultimately, however, this is how history will define Generation X.

 

The me generation are our children. How could this happen? Hope has tuned to despair, action has turned to fear, empathy has become "they are getting what they deserve. Lord, move us back to hope, faith, love. How can so many see but be blind.
Our only hope is generation y - and I fear they have not received the gifts of love an compassion that so many of us felt in 1969.
Rise up Love and conquer greed and hate.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last - Dylan

 

Ive actually experienced more 'we' from rave culture which was a product of Gen X then hippie culture. I think the original hippie cultures message has been seriously distorted throughout time or perhaps it was never all that deep to begin with, possibly it was just a culmination of social factors that made the movement appear more meaningful and altruistic than it was.

Part of our contributions in technology, media, entertainment of our current generation (Generation Y) has allowed for so many choices that it makes us passive. The powers that be have gotten extremely efficient at marketing or altering rebellious attitudes and ideas now that its difficult for us to stand for anything serious as it gets twisted in such a way that basically makes us embrace majority culture.

 

Yes, exactly right Dope , the rebellious kids grew up , and morphed into their parents . The very parents whose lifestyle they despised . It's hard to hold fast to counter culture principals once money and material possessions come into play . So the excuse became I'll fight the system from within the system . Wrong they became assimilated , part of the system . Another brick in the wall . To fight the system they should have remained outside the system . Yet that would have entailed more hardships then most were willing to endure.

in reality the whole movement itself was doomed . Peace and love goes against the human nature of man . It was only a matter of time until it completely fell apart .
There were to many coat tail riders along for the ride and party . And not enough of true believers in the real principals of the movement . And the beautiful message contained within .

The generation motivated and mobilized , themselves into a grass roots counter culture movement , which no generation before or since has been able to do . In that regards this period is unique and wonderful . It just a shame they can't do it today !

Yet even though this generations dream didn't last . They changed the world , by being the first to challenge and question established authority . They opened doors , minds and pushed boundaries to new limits .

I'm not saying it was all good , nor all bad . But it was for sure unique .

I think the gen xers became to self absorbed through technology . Computers , video games , dvds , cell phones , 200 Chanel cable tv subscriptions . These things began to make people isolate to much .

 

This argument makes alot of serious assumptions. The first being that everyone of that generation was a Hippie. Honestly there weren't alot and I blame the medias over romanticized depiction of the era for that. It's like believing that New York and California is the entire United States.

On top of that there is the assumption that the Hippies invented and defined the counterculture forever. The Hippies were just an evolution of the Beatnicks, who were just an evolution of the Trancendentalists etc. It continued to evolve and it will continue to evolve.

Then there is the assumption that everybody in the counterculture had the same ideals because they wore the Uniform and went to the right parties. After the balloon popped (Altamont et. al.) alot of "Hippies" cut their hair put on suits and joined the establishment. There is just no glory in being a broke revolutionary. So Revolution turned to Practicality, and Practicality turned to Greed. It started simply enough. "I want my kids to have a better life than I did." That mentality led to getting the good paying job, the nice car, the house in the suburbs giving the kids all the toys they wanted and taking out loans to pay for it all. It's just a natural part of evolutionary consiousness that kids are egocentric and hopefully grow out of it and develop some sort of empathy. It doesn't always work out like that.

As for the kids. One of the great things about rebellion is that it makes you not want to be your parents. After being brought up by 2 greedhead parents working themselves into the ground over status symbols in the fucking suburbs there is a tendency for the kids to want to break away from the complacency that their surroundings. Just like their parents did.

So their revolution looks different. I'm about 35 right now. I see what happened and how it happened. I realize that the kids today aren't doing things the way the their parents did. It is a world where Facebook aided peaceful revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. If the technology can be harnessed for that there it can be harnessed for similar things here. The problem lies in how humans are conditioned. The generation that is the most likely to go to Facebook and Twitter and do inane egocentric activities not try and change anything. That is just where they are in their personal development.

Stay Brown,
Rev J

 

Generation X inherited the world they are coming into control of.

I say yins did a bang up job, however right (some of you) were

 

You are optimistic?

 

The creator of facebook is 26 which Rev JC mentioned helped aided in peaceful revolutions recently. You have to learn to grant Gen X and the current Generation its due otherwise it will be a repetitive cycle where we will not want to be just be like you, like how you felt about your elders. Last time I checked an ipad is about a $1000 piece of equipment, sounds pretty materialistic to me...

 

[Rev J] I hope Gen Y can do it. I realized long ago the only way I could change society was to change the way I interact with it. To share what I know to be true and my philosophies and lifestyle in hopes that it spreads like a virus. It may not seem like enough to you but it's all I got.

I only used my name so much in this to counter the points you've made.

Stay Brown,
Rev J

 

And of course then you have the kids who aren't rebelling but instead learning from the values that their parents learned in the 60s. My mom was a teenager in the 60s and in her early twenties in the early 70s, so she was ripe for getting caught in the tide of the counterculture, but it didn't happen for her. However, she did pick up the values that the counterculture put down. She didn't march in Washington, she didn't participate in any sit ins for civil rights, she never went to san francisco with flowers in her hair or dropped acid or expanded her mind in any way, but she did see screaming children running from napalm on television, she saw images of monks setting themselves on fire, she attended several funerals of friends she lost in the war. She learned that the world had become alot smaller than ever before and that a few people with a passionate idea can make a difference. She learned compassion for people that were not quite like her. She passed her values and ideals onto me, her daughter, a member of generation Y.

I'm so proud to come from a mother that, although never a hippie, was certainly a child of the 60s.

At first glance Gen Y probably seems very materialistic, buried under technology, unconcerned with the world, content with the status quo. But I assure all you old hippies, this generation is starting to see the cracks. We are becoming disillusioned, a subtle counterculture is brewing and the more our world collapses around us, the more steam we gather.

College graduates who can't find employment and are stuck waiting tables have a lot of time on their hands to think about the cracks.

 

I find it sad that seemingly,most of todays youth are walking around with their heads down, paying so much attention to the little machines of industry --for--what?--see you soon-what are you doing? so and so's a skank--lets got to the mall--blah blah blah.