BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 06:23 PM

Yo GUEST,

Guess you weren't in Richmond, Va. in the 60's... Beyond the sex, drugs and r & r, we oganized lots of cool stuff, including a food coop, the Fan Free Clinic which still operates today... We hooked up with hippies out in Hanover and Hendrico counties who had small farms and had a hippie veg-wagen... We did draft counseling... We orgainized the Free University, of which I was the promotion manager, and provided free cousres in all kinds of stuff that had nuthin' to do with s,d or r&r...

Plus, we had our own underground neswpaper, The Richmond Chronicle which provided lots of counter culural activities and resources...

We were allied with the Quicksilver Times in D.C. and there were folks in D.C. doing the same things...

Now I appeciate yer posts for the most part, GUEST, but I think because we didn't win all the marbles doesn't mean we didn't have a lasting impact on society... And still at it, fir that matter...

I'm one of the organizers of the local farmers market in Leesburg and spent many a Sunday aftetrnoon this past season either performing or leading music jams...

We do what we can...

Peace

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Peace
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 08:26 PM

"I believe the 60s flower children types are the people who grew up to become the middle class nice people who are tyrannizing our society today"

The above is from the initial post on this thread.

I never was a hippie--that is, I never called myself that or thought of myself as that.

Over the years I suppose I have acted locally. I have responded to approximately eight hundred accident/fire/rescue scenes over the years, and while I do very much enjoy that kind of work, I enjoy more the fact that it helps others. It has always been volunteer for me, and I don't mind that over 500 of those calls have taken place between the hours of 5:00 PM and 6:00 AM or on weekends. I have had many meals interrupted--some Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year's meals; birthdays and anniversaries--by the pager going off.

And at this point I considered not posting what I wrote. Why? Because the person who started this thread has no qualifications he/she cares to share about him/herself. I see in the words s/he wrote that posting here is a waste of my time. GUEST: You don't know me at all. We likely never will meet. Maybe that's a good thing, because I have trouble seeing how you can be so hate-filled and angry with people you know nothing about.

BM

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Once Famous
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 08:51 PM

I WAS a hippie. I had long hair, tye dye shirts,bell bottom pants, hung around Bizarre Bazaar in Old Town.

I was outside the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago demonstrating.

I sang and performed on my college campus on the moratorium day in 1970.

I smoked a lot of dope. I saw Hendrix in concert. Saw The Who for the first time in 1969. I played in a country rock band and got high for every show.

Got past that and grew up. Why can't you? You can't bring those days back. If you feel like a hippie because you hang around a farmer's market, that is just fucking amazing.

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 08:54 PM

Never too late to be called a danged hippie, brucie...

Yeah, there were lots of folks who for various reasons didn't make the party on time but have lived their lives serving others before self and to all those folks I can say, "Danged hippies".

And so to you, brucie, my friend, ya might wanta sit down fir this 'cause it's hard the first time but get easier but...

Danged hippie!!!!

Jus' funnin wid ya pal but, hey, you do the crime (we v. me) you gonna do the time...

Welcome...

Sorry, but the free love gals just left but there may be a little smoke left on the table and feel free to crank up the stereo... but can ya ' wwear the headphones?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Peace
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 09:05 PM

If being a hippie means you care about others, then I'm a hippie. I would feel as if I was in good company. I have yet to judge people based on the length of their hair--or their lack of it. People are really about hearts and minds.

In the 1960s, at various times, I had loooooong hair. At other times in life I have shaved my head. I wore a beard for a few years--mostly because I didn't like to shave--and now my face is clean-shaven (minimun every 24 hours--fire department regs and good common sense, because you can't get an airseal with hair on yer face, and positive pressure ventilation for H2S response be danged, it means ya don't want even the tiniest amount of that stuff getting into yer lungs because it stops the 'automatic' breathing response that humans have--and that means you get to lay somewhere experiencing the last few minutes of your life without being able to inhale).

I guess I object to the tone of the GUEST who started this thread. We were damned to begin with, and I don't see it improving.

When I quit teaching and fire fighting, I'd be happy to blow a splif with you. Gotta have Sara Lee cake though.

BM

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 09:17 PM

Hey, brucie... When I get together with my ol' hippie friends hair, or lack there of, is always a fond topic of conversation...

...but it wasn't about hair, or pot, or sex. Music? Ahhhh, yeah it was about music in addition to the stuff it was really about...

Sara Lee Cake works fir me just fine though recently a handfull of raisins works just as well and has the good carbs...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Peace
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 09:42 PM

OK, Bobert. You eat the raisins and I'll eat the Orange Sara Lee Cake. Or Banana. Or Chocolate. Or . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 10:40 PM

Actually Bobert, I come from a part of the US that has historically been one of the hot spots for cooperatives, dating back a whole lot further than the "New Wave" cooperative movement resurgence of the 1960s, that rose alongside the New Left. I'm still a member of one of the original 60s food coops here in St. Paul, but I've also been a member of quite a few failed coops as well.

The New Wave movement had it's roots in the 30s Farmer Laborer party/movement in MN, the socialist movements of North Dakota, and the other worker organized cooperatives popular around the country for decades prior to the 60s, including African American farmers organizing into food coops in the Reconstruction era.

Around here, we had the Coopers of the 1880s, along with the Knights of Labor, the Workingmen's Union, and then by the 20s and 30s, many working folks around here sort of opted out of the AFL movement, stuck with the Wobblies, the miners, and did our own more socialist leaning sorts of cooperative organizing. It was the Minneapolis Coopers though, who formed the first food coop in Minnesota--the Minneapolis Cooperative Mercantile Company, based upon the Rochdale model. In addition to food and groceries, it also sold dry goods. They also founded a coop building and loan, to help finance the mortgages of coopers who worked in the neighborhood where the barrel factories were, founded coop laundries, coop neighborhood improvement associations to provid library books, loaner tools, etc. Eventually they branched out into other neighborhoods and cooperatives--a shoe store, tobacconist shop, and of course, the accident insurance coop.

They were damn serious about it all too. Unlike their capitalist cooper counterparts, they banned alcohol and smoking from the shop floor, their meetings, etc. These were serious lifestyle pioneers as well, insisting upon discipline among the ranks in order to survive and create a new model for living and working. In the time it takes to crack an Ole and Lena joke, cooperatives were formed by city workers, cigarmakers, musicians, painters, shirtmakers, and printers. In fact, some of my 60s hippie friends were involved in the New Wave printing coop movement locally. Then the Knights came in and formed even more coops.

Then they came up with the idea of forming a large, central wholesale coop "depot" for farmers to bring their goods to urban laborers, and vice versa. For while, the coopers were beating back the boss shops, but eventually they wereall driven into the powerful Knights union local to survive increased mechanization and the millers switching from using barrels for the flour to bags, which spelled the end of the independent cooperator coopers movement, even though they kept making barrels locally up until the 1930s.

There were the dairy cooperatives started up in Wisconsin and Minnesota after the turn of the century too. And as a matter of fact, my own grandpa was one of the leaders of the Minnesota county creameries associations before they all got gobbled up by Land O Lakes. In fact, he was one of the leaders who did the price bargaining for the Minnesota farmers in the Chicago market, and due to the big mess created by a dairy war around these parts over fair milk prices, wars between farmers and the railroad, etc. he became a leader of the movement that formed the Midwestern Dairymen's Company in the 1920s. He lobbied locally, regionally, and nationally for passage of the Cooperative Marketing Act of 1926 on behalf of Minnesota & Wisconsin dairy farmers too.

So you can see, with a fine long tradition of cooperative movement history here in my corner of the empire, it would be a tad arrogant to claim us hippies started it all in the 60s, don't you think?

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 11:14 PM

Well, yes and no, GUEST...If Richmond, Va. were in Minnesota, yeah. But in the South, no... In the South coops were considered communism. When we organized something that you and your grand daddy knew as well as their own back hands we were fighting thru a lot of Southern Man prejudices and the thought that anything that made sense had to be communistic...

Give us a little break in that we were doing something that, while common place in yer part of the world, was very new and scarey to the Old South...

Bobert...

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 11:42 PM

Now c'mon Bobert, fess up. Y'all had the Readjustors 3rd party movement for awhile all the way back in the Reconstruction days, wasn't it? I'm sure there were other historic precendents in the southern states besides that one that comes to mind, when I should truly be in bed.

And Bobert, don't forget--my ancestors here were fighting the robber barons of the railroad, timber, and grain industries. So hey--give credit where it is due. It was no more of a picnic organizing cooperatives here than it was in Virginia.

Or have you forgotten the biggest government execution in US history happened here, when they hung 38 Mdewakanton Dakota on December 26, 1862 at Mankato (an event still mourned by the local Mdewakanton community each year?

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 11:54 PM

Shoot, GUEST, I musta been stoned during Reconstruction 'cause I don't remember much about it....

All I know is that when we fired up the Veg-Van, we had a bunch of "toothless wonders" all threatenin' to kill us 'cause it was communism...

The punched holes in the tires. They beat up the drivers. They stole out stuff and threw it in the street...

Welcome the the Capitol of the Confederacy...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 12:04 AM

You guys had a revolution about vegetables?   




(Tom Joad might approve. . . . I guess.)

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: dianavan
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 12:25 AM

Guest -

I got called a hippie once but my boyfriend pushed him to the wall and said, "She ain't no hippie and I ain't no peace freak." Then he dropped the guy. That was in 1968.

Now do you get it?

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Peace
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 12:39 AM

I don't think anyone is trying to detract from the IWW or labour unions. However, they have usually been a 'closed shop' and as such, outside the experience of many folks. (I have been union for most of my life.)

So, no, hippies didn't start the 'movement' such as it was. But then I don't think anyone's claiming they did.

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Peace
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 12:44 AM

And GUEST of a few posts above: You got a white beard by any chance? Only a few people I know have that kind of history at their fingertips.

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 08:35 AM

Don't need history at my fingertips brucie, I live among the people who's ancestors made it.

And while we are talking commie head busting, we can talk about the Teamster trucker strike in Minneapolis in 1934 too. We actually HAD communist union leaders who had been thrown out of the AFL for their political views. Police opened fire on the pickets, martial law was declared, 4,000 National Guard were called out as strikebreakers. My brother is currently a member of that same union local.

In the 20s, we had lynchings of blacks in Duluth.

I mean, just cuz we're a blue state don't mean we're all nice and safe here.

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 08:38 AM

To be a Communist is not a crime...unless you live in a place that is a de facto dictatorship.

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 08:52 AM

And brucie, the whole problem I have with the hippie worshippers is the fact they think they invented all this progressive stuff.

Now, Bobert why don't you know the progressive history of your own people and place? It might not have been your family doing the progressive stuff (my grandpa for instance, ended up becoming a dairy creamery owner and business man and didn't support the Teamsters in 1934, despite his earlier involvement with the county creameries associations, etc) A man who don't know his history Bobert, is doomed to repeat it, as they say.

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 08:54 AM

And BTW, how is it that me knowing the history of my people and my place is such a bizarre idea to a group of people--folk music enthusiasts--purportedly interested in the past and in tradition.

What, so long as it doesn't come with any history attached to it? Is that the deal?

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 09:15 AM

Wow.....

Heavy, man!

Fa-a-a-r...out.

Got smokes?


(It's probably still a lot like that in Blind River...)

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Peace
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 10:28 AM

GUEST:

I don't know who you're pissed at, but I might be fairly accurate if I were to posit that you don't know very much history of the UFA Coop in Alberta--or the MP who was in Parliament in 1948--the only avowed Communist to sit in the Canadian House. Or the Red River Rebellion and the part Sir John A played getting Riel out of Canada. I don't think you're uninterested or uneducated because you likely don't know this stuff. It's relatively obscure. So is much labour history to most people. Don't wanna argue; just wanna say. You are painting with a pretty big brush. Might be nice if you'd be careful where you splatter the paint.

BM

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: riverblue
Date: 08 Mar 05 - 09:01 PM

You're not alone.....Do you remember Charlotte's Web?
Have you talked to Karen and Bill Howard's daughter (my sister) Lani,
have you seen your name on our listed archives from Charlotte's Web?
http://snapshotmusic.com
How neat it is to see you're name. I know that you may
not remember us little ones running around, but I feel like I've run
into an old friend! I'm glad that you are well. And we are missing some amazing folk singers/musicians, I can name about 4 off the top of my head.
Take care
Jennifer
http://www.snapshotmusic.com

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Mar 05 - 09:31 PM

I've considered myself a hippie since I was about 15 (1971). To me, it was never about clothes, drugs, music, sex, or any of the cultural attributes people try to use to define the term. To me, being a hippie always meant, and still means valuing people more than things. I know that philosophy didn't start when the term "hippie" first came into use. But I like to think that anyone who had this philosophy prior to the time of the hippies was a hippie and just didn't know it.

;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Mar 05 - 09:56 PM

". . . dancing to the Dead, fucking your brains out, and living off other people so you didn't have to get a real [job]."

I was at the awkward age. I was too young to be a beatnik and too old to be a hippie. I was pretty--what they used to call--"straight arrow." Still am.

I was right in the middle of the folk scene during the Sixties, and I only knew a handful of people who even came close to fitting the description quoted above. That's the kind of sterotypical picture that the media tried to paint back then. Not that there weren't some, but the noise made about them far exceeded their numbers.

Most of the people I knew who even aspired to be "hippies" were high school kids who had bought the stereotype (from the media) and took to hanging around a few of the coffeehouses, making general pains in the ass of themselves by trying to be "cool." Most of them couldn't keep up with the conversation.

The screwing, dope-smoking bunch (and granted, there were some) were emphasized all out of proportion in an attempt to discredit those folks who were into peace and civil rights.

I was there. And you know what? I remember!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 12:13 AM

Most people who were there remember. The only ones who don't, in fact, are those who are dead. The only thing I've forgotten is...what idiot started this thread?

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 08:34 PM

Don't put it on me, L-Hawk. I din't start it. Might of fact I don't want to talk about hippies no more... Most people don't even have a clue what hippies are/were anyway so if ya' can't even come up with a working definition then heck wid it...

Though I gotta agree wid what CarolC said, 'cept fir me it was like '68...

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Teresa
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 09:02 PM

Ah well ... I love tie-dye, any kind of food, including veggie as long as it's hearty ... I can be pot-friendly although I don't smoke it because I get panic attacks if I do. I don't wear makeup or perfume, and don't do a lot of the glamor stuff that magazines and ads try to foist on a woman. So if that makes me a 'hippie', so be it. I'm too young for the ones in the 60s, but, though the 60s were a particular time period in which certain things happened, I believe counter-culture has been, is, and will be a constant part of society. sometimes it's just more prominent than other times.

Teresa

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: Amos
Date: 29 Aug 05 - 07:18 PM

RELIGION

Religion is a defense against having a religious experience.

             Joseph Campbell quoting Carl Jung
                        The Power of Myth

Subject: RE: BS: Is 60s Hippie Worshipping a Religion?
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 Aug 05 - 07:39 PM

s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-n-n-n-n-n-nAPPPPP!!!!!!!!!