Dissent writer Danny Goldberg offers a criticism of “professional progressives,” while defending the “spiritual side” of politics. The article is a couple of months old, but I’m catching up.
An excerpt:
In a post for the Daily Beast Michelle Goldberg lamented, “Drum circles and clusters of earnest incense-burning meditators ensure that stereotypes about the hippie left remain alive.” At Esquire, Charles Pierce worried that few could “see past all the dreadlocks and hear…over the drum circles.” Michael Smerconish asked on the MSNBC show Hardball if middle Americans “in their Barcalounger” could relate to drum circles. The New Republic’s Alex Klein chimed in, “In the course of my Friday afternoon occupation, I saw two drum circles, four dogs, two saxophones, three babies….Wall Street survived.” And the host of MSNBC’s Up, Chris Hayes (editor at large of the Nation), recently reassured his guests Naomi Klein and Van Jones that although he supported the political agenda of the protest he wasn’t going to “beat the drum” or “give you a free hug,” to knowing laughter.
Yet it is precisely the mystical utopian energy that most professional progressives so smugly dismiss that has aroused a salient, mass political consciousness on economic issues—something that had eluded even the most lucid progressives in the Obama era.
Since the mythology of the 1960s hangs over so much of the analysis of the Wall Street protests, it’s worth reviewing what actually happened then. Media legend lumps sixties radicals and hippies together, but from the very beginning most leaders on the left looked at the hippie culture as, at best, a distraction and, at worst, a saboteur of pragmatic progressive politics. Hippies saw most radicals as delusional and often dangerously angry control freaks. Bad vibes.
Not that there is anything magic about the word “hippie…..”
The arguments aren’t anything new, but they are directed to a younger generation urban-based old left milieu who missed the “Old Left/New Left” debates of the 60s and 70s for whom, believe it or not, the subject matter is fresh. It provides a great intro to a post I’m working on about the New York democratic socialist old left intellectualism which I’ll post sometime within the next week or so.
A minor point to the article, but so very annoying, is the perpetuation of the myth that Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee” was written in earnest. People! It was a joke! It was satire! Irony! Remember my 50 liberal country songs? Why do you think I included it? There was actually quite the discussion on it in the thread.
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December 12, 2011 at 1:15 pm
jr
Can you reprint that list of songs, or provide a link to it? Also, readers might find interesting a book by Jentri Andrers entitled Beyond Counterculture (Wash State Univ Press, 1990).
December 12, 2011 at 1:29 pm
Eric Kirk
jr – when the letters are blue, they constitute a link. Just move the cursor over them.
December 12, 2011 at 1:38 pm
jr
Thank you. I didn’t notice the faint blue line the first time. Also, do you know if Jentri Andrews is still living in Southern Humboldt?
December 12, 2011 at 2:22 pm
Ernie's Place
“Okie from Muskogee – Merle Haggard – Few people on either side of the political spectrum seem to realize this was satire.”
Agreed, then why do folks take Rush Limbaugh so seriously?
December 12, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Ernie's Place
Jentri didn’t exactly view SoHum through rose colored glasses. I had more to say, but I decided to leave it at that…
December 12, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Anonymous
The polar divide some people carry is that the “hippies” are somehow ignorant because they don’t use same the jargon blog heads and news hounds do about the same issues. The “hippy” perspective, however, cuts to the chase and calls right from wrong from a much more down to earth place within everybody’s conscience. The tower of babel (sp) is as mythological as anything, but the point is as universal as any myth…”the media” is a bunch of people talking endless loops over and around eachother, beating a dead horse beyond death.
December 12, 2011 at 5:03 pm
Not A Native
Eric, I disagree with your criticism of the seriousness of ‘Okie..’.
The question of whether the “true” meaning of art is the intent of the creator or the reaction of the observer(or something else entirely) has no correct answer.
During the time it was on the hit charts, people widely took ‘Okie…’ very seriously, regardless of what the intention of the artist may have been. Haggard has said the song was only ‘somewhat’ of a satire. It was a massive hit, way beyond the attention given to satires and is still played. It won the 1969 best single of the year award and had multiple re-releases. that was only 3 years after ‘Ballad of the Green Berets’ was a smash hit.
As I recall the parody ‘Hippie from Olema’, received some acclaim as a serious counter, not merely a parody orf the original. Course, my impresssion was influenced by living in S.F. at the time…..
December 12, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Ernie's Place
Probably it was a joke in San Francisco, but I remember “Okie” was a big hit with the Garberville rednecks. You wouldn’t have gotten very far with your satire theory back then.
December 12, 2011 at 6:26 pm
suzy blah blah
big hit with the rednecks
-LOL!!! -which makes it double the fun. I love it, not only did he satirize them, he put them on in a way that they went along with it. Exposing by not exposing. Too funny. A great song. Definitely a classic of some sort.
December 12, 2011 at 7:40 pm
Ernie's Place
Yeah Suzy, laugh. But if you listen to my point, you will see that you are actually the joke. You laugh that the rednecks didn’t get it, but you don’t get that they didn’t care, and Rush Limbaugh, is laughing behind his hand every time some liberal gets upset at his commentary. Hilarious!
December 12, 2011 at 7:46 pm
Not A Native
OK Susie, but the joke might just be on you. Some see blossoms in Georgia O’Keefes work, others see vulvas. Who’s laughing at whom???
December 12, 2011 at 8:05 pm
suzy blah blah
-Nan, anyone who doesn’t see both blossoms and vulvae is an idiot. But suzy agrees with you that theres no “correct” answer.
-Ernie, (sigh).
December 12, 2011 at 8:26 pm
Anonymous
It was a Joke ? And how do we know this fact? Did you interview the songwriter? Or maybe Merle?
December 12, 2011 at 9:23 pm
Eric Kirk
It was a Joke ? And how do we know this fact? Did you interview the songwriter? Or maybe Merle?
The song writer WAS Merle, and no I didn’t interview him, but others did. You would know that if you bothered to hit the link and read.
December 12, 2011 at 9:30 pm
Eric Kirk
The question of whether the “true” meaning of art is the intent of the creator or the reaction of the observer(or something else entirely) has no correct answer.
During the time it was on the hit charts, people widely took ‘Okie…’ very seriously, regardless of what the intention of the artist may have been. Haggard has said the song was only ‘somewhat’ of a satire.
I’m not aware of that quote. According to music critics Kurt Wolf and Rob Patterson, well, again, through the link. I get tired of typing the same stuff over and over.
Merle Haggard has written a song criticizing the media coverage of the Iraq war and defended the Dixie Chicks, calling the campaign against them a “witch hunt.” So either he has become more liberal in his old age, or the original song was parody. Assuming of course that Wolf and Patterson got it wrong.
December 12, 2011 at 11:34 pm
suzy blah blah
-interesting interview with Merl. He starts talkin about the Muskogee song and how he smoked pot with Hilary Clinton at 3:10.
- for my man Ernie
December 12, 2011 at 11:36 pm
Tom Sebourn
Rush, why I got into radio. I wanted to program a talk station without him and make money doing it.
Funny how Rush and Art Bell saved AM radio through syndication and Rush has left the AM band in Eureka. I don’t know what that means in the long run but I may be running the only AM progressive talk station in the nation without Rush on an opposing AM station.
December 13, 2011 at 6:49 am
Bolithio
I saw this documentary on Pearl Jam, a band from the 1990′s your all way too old to know about… Anyways, an interesting point was made about how when your fans begin to like and want something from you that isnt necessarily ever what you intended on doing as an artist, and how difficult it is to reconcile that. What does the song really mean?
December 13, 2011 at 7:20 am
Mitch
I guess my question (nothing to do with songs) is, are today’s hippies anchored in the same values as those from thirty or forty years ago? I know I’ve been surprised by some of the attitudes behind the fashions.
December 13, 2011 at 8:34 am
Anonymous
” I know I’ve been surprised by some of the attitudes behind the fashions.”
Has nothing whatsoever to do with fashion nowadays.
December 13, 2011 at 8:44 am
Eric Kirk
Mitch – even the hippies back then were a diverse group in terms of politics, for those who actually articulated a coherent political philosophy. But as the Dissent article points out, there has always been tension between New Left activism and the counter-culture. With so many hippies signing up with HumCPR a couple of years ago, I raised the question on my radio show as to whether hippies are essentially left wing. Basically, the political activists who called in said “no” and the hippies didn’t understand the question and talked about their values, which revealed a profound language divide.
That is not to say there isn’t plenty of overlap. Some of the back-to-the-landers were SDS and or SNCC activists. But others will articulate a left wing philosophy blended with a crunchy variant of libertarianism and they see no contradiction, and in fact regard what I would call the more “pure” left philosophies as “urban valued” progressivism. I think it’s playing out in the current Sohum/Arcata divide over the General Plan Update. For the “urban” environmentalists/controlled growth crowd, “property rights” is a euphemism for “I will do what I want with my property and it’s none of your business” regardless of the public impact. I’ve actually spoken to pro-HumCPR folk who wished they had been there when the group was named so they could push for a different name.
Anyway, while the Dissent crowd would probably lean more Plan A in the GPU debate, they also appreciate the ironies and would agree that while there are differences between counterculture and new left, the overlap, similarities, and commonality of broader values ought to overwhelm the differences and allow for intelligent discussion at minimum.
December 13, 2011 at 8:46 am
Eric Kirk
Tom – Rush is leaving??? Say it ain’t so! Who am I going to listen to when Tom Hartman gets boring? I guess there’s the other right wing station with the Fox News hosts.
December 13, 2011 at 9:04 am
Mitch
8:34,
If fashion is not involved, how does anyone identify hippies? Non-fashion is a fashion, and sometimes it requires even stricter conformance to the rules than “casual Friday” attire.
Eric,
Why do I keep getting more confused as I get older? I’d thought it was supposed to be the other way around.
December 13, 2011 at 9:05 am
Mitch
BTW, one of the funniest things Adbusters has ever done is come up with black dot sneakers. I don’t know if they’re parodying themselves or not.
December 13, 2011 at 9:36 am
Eric Kirk
Mitch – I think it’s pretty consistent actually. Maybe the two movements have drifted apart some, but really, that all started back in the beginning.
December 13, 2011 at 10:02 am
Mitch
I know a decent number of ex-hippies, Eric, though not Humboldt-style ex-hippies. Very few of the ones I know fell into libertarian patterns. Mostly they have integrated into the economy, maintained a strong concern for social justice, and recognize that the system they have integrated into is broken. Most of them recognize the importance of society extending help to the vulnerable. Maybe my hippies were a tad less materialistic than the Humboldt kind?
December 13, 2011 at 10:58 am
Anonymous
Holy Cow Eric, just because something is on a “link” doesn’t mean it’s true !
Get real. Not everyone hates the USA or is a closet commie.
December 13, 2011 at 11:38 am
Anonymous
Mitch, both my parents were true to form hippies, as were those of most of my friends. We don’t look like flower children at all, in fact I can’t afford to look anything “hippyish” at work. Who better to say what’s happening(ed) to the hippies than their own children? There is no one ‘hippy’ but a steretoype, naturally. As people, baby boomers have been assimilated just as Generation X has. >>THE ONES WE HEAR AND KNOW ABOUT<< People who walk or fall off the map in this country are treated like vermin or ignored altogether. Lots of intelligent voices among people who don't have cellphones or work 9-5 or have a car or any concern about the internet. Lots of homeless hippies…lots of homeless veterans…not so many homeless people who kiss ass doing something they hate all day every day to maintain some superficial semblence of normality. Why didn't anybody who's posting in this thread just give up their stuff and "normal" life and hit the road during the "hippy years"? Anybody attempting to expand their conscience enough that it occupies your thoughts daily? I see true "hippiness" as one of the only remaining vestiges of real grass roots intellectual movements in this country. People who frequent blogs are generally landlocked technophiles, unaware of how cognitively detatched they are from their own human/animal relationship with the earth.
Bolithio…how do you think Eddie Vedder (you might have heard something about the guy, "bro") feels about logger lobbyists spamming the internet? How many clearcutting "projects" have you been involved in recently?
December 13, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Bolithio
Fashion is huge, are you kidding? The hippies of the 1960s could claim that they were breaking out of a restrictive culture, where individuality was previously not expressed through clothes and music… but if your born after that, you had complete freedom of expression growing up (obviously some households were stricter, but nothing like 1950s in general, right?). On top of those freedoms, you had ultimate convenience and the highest standard of living yet witnessed. So the “hippie”, while it might be a stepping stone to some philosophical or political lifestyle, is nothing like it was then.
December 13, 2011 at 2:37 pm
tra
Mitch,
I hope you didn’t mean to suggest that most Humboldt hippies don’t “recognize the importance of society extending help to the vulnerable.” In my experience, that’s not true at all.
December 13, 2011 at 3:06 pm
Anonymous
“So the “hippie”, while it might be a stepping stone to some philosophical or political lifestyle, is nothing like it was then.”
That all depends who you choose to call a hippy.
December 13, 2011 at 5:41 pm
Mitch
No, tra. I know nothing at all about Humboldt’s hippies. I’m just surprised to hear an analysis that they are more libertarian than “left.” Maybe I’m misunderstanding other’s comments.
December 13, 2011 at 5:46 pm
Not A Native
Eric, my reference to Haggard saying ‘Okie..’ is “somewhat of a satire” came from Wiki which references Kurt Wolff’s ‘Country Music’, a reliable source.
I think you’rte just making shit up in trying to deduce Haggard’s musical intent through other things he’s done and identifying his political views based on an unrelated position.
The Dixie Chicks incident was about freedom of expression, something musicians would support, regardless of their partisan political views. Does the kind evidence-free conclusions you make here reflect the arguments you also make to courts? If so, I sure know who not to hire if I have a legal problem.
December 13, 2011 at 5:46 pm
tra
The words “hippy” and “hipster” came from “hip,” which was slang for “aware” or “conscious” or “in the know.” In context, this generally meant that the person being described was “hip” to the importance of things like ecology, civil rights and human rights, the sexual revolution, women’s liberation, the peace movement, and so on.
As often happens, particular types of clothing styles, musical styles and so on came to be adopted by many of those involved in the counterculture, and for a (relatively brief) period of time, this “hippy style” became quite popular. To complicate matters, at some point the word “hip” also took on the meaning “fashionable” or “trendy” or “stylish,” so you could say that for a couple of years in the late 60′s / early 70′s it was “hip” to look like a “hippy” (and within a certain subculture, much more prevalent in Humboldt than most parts of the country, I guess it still is). But the word “hip” continued to mean fashionable/trendy/stylish long after the original “hippy style” had become decidedly unfashionable in the eyes of most people.
Meanwhile, many of the countercultural values of the hippies began to be accepted (or at least more widely tolerated) by the mainstream culture, leaving hippies as perhaps more of a subculture than a counterculture. As a portion of the mainstream culture became more “hip,” and some hippies became more mainstream, the original meaning of “hip” (having to do with awareness / consciousness) fell into disuse. And so somewhere along the way, the meaning of the word “hippy” has become a bit fuzzy, with some folks adopting the clothing styles and musical taste but not really being “hip” to the hippy values, some who embrace both a hippy-like aesthetic and a hippy-like philosophy, and others who are “hippies at heart,” though they don’t make any particular effort to dress the part (I’d put myself in that category). Humbolt has plenty of folks that fit in each of those categories.
December 13, 2011 at 5:57 pm
longwind
Just when I think I’m having a nice day, I read something from NAN.
Mitch, a lot of people like to gloat that hippies went redneck (libertarian, property rights) when they became landowners–as if hippies didn’t believe in personal freedom until they were tied to the land. But you do see evolution toward hipnecks, or at least hipneckery, not only due to interbreeding.
December 13, 2011 at 6:32 pm
tra
Mitch,
Within the hippy subculture there has always been strong current of anti-authoritarianism and a (in my opinion very healthy) mistrust of centralized government power — which should not be surprising, given the concurrent development of the modern anti-war movement and the hippy counterculture. In some cases this anti-authoritarianism has manifested as a kind of individualist-anarchist type philosophy (the more “libertarian” variety) and in other cases as more of a collectivist-anarchist type philosophy (with a sort of “voluntary cooperativist” approach).
That doesn’t mean these folks are “right-wing” in the sense that they embrace authoritarianism, corporate power, social darwinism, and the like, it just means that they recognize that too much concentration of power within powerful government institutions and entrenched bureaucracies can be just as much of a threat to liberty as too much concentration of power in private / corporate hands. (An insight that, based on reading your comments over the years, I believe you share.)
Basically, it seems to me that what has happened in Humboldt is that some “on the left” had basically gotten used to taking the county’s hippy vote for granted, because (with the notable exception of the enforcement of cannabis prohibition during the height of the county’s cooperation with CAMP and the feds) local government wasn’t really infringing on their liberty very much, while on other issues most hippies were more or less in alignment with many of the goals and efforts pursued by those “on the left.”
But when the County’s gun-totin’ Code Enforcers started sticking their guns in the faces of “hippy” moms (and infants and toddlers) for the “crime” of living in a converted schoolbus, and wiellding assult rifles as they forcibly evicted folks from their homes, while at the very same time the Healthy Humboldt clique began trying to equate homesteaders with “greedy developers,” the latent anti-authoritarianism and the healthy mistrust of abusive, overreaching, overcentralized, overbureacratized government power came surging to the surface. The only thing that surprised me about any of this was that anyone was surprised by it.
December 13, 2011 at 6:35 pm
Anonymous
“But you do see evolution….”
And those who aren’t given airtime are out of sight and out of mind, often spoken of as a drain on society, whereas they actually tread much more lightly than recognized demographics.
December 13, 2011 at 7:01 pm
Bolithio
Dont you guys feel hippy too is a word that redefined it self through media? My perception from watching some of the 60s shows was that the word hippy was often used in a derogatory way in the media back then. Just a bunch of hippies. Just a bunch of punks. I can relate to punks, which probably are my generations hippies. Its just there is also culture of hippies (young people not from the 60s), who from my experience, are generally linked through music, clothing style, and drug use. Not the profound movements the hippies of the 60s were involved in.
December 13, 2011 at 8:59 pm
tra
Certainly true of some, but it’s also true that many young hippies ae just as “hip” to what’s going on in the world today as their forbears were in the 60′s and 70′s, and just as ready to take action.
When I was a little kid, I thought hippies seemed kind of silly, but over the years, I couldn’t help but notice that despite the ridicule heaped on them in the media and in the mainstream culture, those “damn hippies” consistently turned out to be on the right side of history on just about every important issue they were engaged in. Whether we’re talking about the anti-Vietnam war movement, the environmental movement, the women’s movement, the anti-nuclear movement, the opposition to Reagan’s wars in Central America, the anti-apartheid movement, the opposition to the war in Iraq, time and time again, it turned out that “them hippies was right” after all.
Which is why I think it’s pretty funny when I hear the right wingers criticizing the Occupy Wall Street movement as “a bunch of them stupid hippies.” I mean when you get right down to it, “them hippies” have a pretty darned good track record.
Or as Those Darn Accordians put it:
December 13, 2011 at 9:19 pm
Eric Kirk
Holy Cow Eric, just because something is on a “link” doesn’t mean it’s true !
Get real. Not everyone hates the USA or is a closet commie.
Uh, okay. Did I say that everyone hates the USA or is a closet commie?
Did I say it’s true because it’s on a link? Or did I simply ask you to hit the link and read?
December 13, 2011 at 9:33 pm
Eric Kirk
Eric, my reference to Haggard saying ‘Okie..’ is “somewhat of a satire” came from Wiki which references Kurt Wolff’s ‘Country Music’, a reliable source.
I think you’rte just making shit up in trying to deduce Haggard’s musical intent through other things he’s done and identifying his political views based on an unrelated position.
The Dixie Chicks incident was about freedom of expression, something musicians would support, regardless of their partisan political views. Does the kind evidence-free conclusions you make here reflect the arguments you also make to courts? If so, I sure know who not to hire if I have a legal problem.
Well, I just went to Wikipedia, and they reference Wolf thusly (and consistently with my prior reading elsewhere):
Critic Kurt Wolff wrote that Haggard always considered what became a redneck anthem to be a spoof
But it also references an interview with something called “The Boot” in which Haggard said something different, so I don’t know which is true, and perhaps he had conflicting thoughts about it. I don’t know.
Secondly, other than pointing out that his more recent exploits reveal a liberalism (and most country musicians did NOT support the Dixie Chicks despite your silly assertion that all musicians are big supporters of freedom of expression – certainly Toby Keith did not), whether it characterized him at the time he wrote the song.
Apparently you are angry that I have deconstructed a popular mythology which provides some comfort to your world view. It’s really nothing to be angry about. I discussed the particular issue at great length in my old posts, and since you aren’t even capable of comprehending my more brief points in this thread, I’m not going to bother to try to repeat the points I raised in the previous conversation. You may be an intelligent person in your own right, but subtleties and irony easily escape you.
December 13, 2011 at 9:38 pm
Eric Kirk
But when the County’s gun-totin’ Code Enforcers started sticking their guns in the faces of “hippy” moms (and infants and toddlers) for the “crime” of living in a converted schoolbus, and wiellding assult rifles as they forcibly evicted folks from their homes, while at the very same time the Healthy Humboldt clique began trying to equate homesteaders with “greedy developers,” the latent anti-authoritarianism and the healthy mistrust of abusive, overreaching, overcentralized, overbureacratized government power came surging to the surface. The only thing that surprised me about any of this was that anyone was surprised by it.
There has always been a strong civil libertarian streak in the left, for which the Code Enforcement methods generated a unified response. Nobody in Healthy Humboldt supported those actions, and it was precisely the conflation of the Code Enforcement issue with the TPZ moratorium and General Plan Update by others which drew the lines between the homesteaders and what they like to refer to as the “Arcata Clique.”
Ironically, it wasn’t centralized power which led to the Code Enforcement abuses. It was actually the lack of a centralized coordination and chain of accountability. A more bureaucratic set-up might actually have prevented the abuses, even if it generated other problems.
December 13, 2011 at 9:40 pm
Eric Kirk
Mitch, a lot of people like to gloat that hippies went redneck (libertarian, property rights) when they became landowners–as if hippies didn’t believe in personal freedom until they were tied to the land. But you do see evolution toward hipnecks, or at least hipneckery, not only due to interbreeding.
Longwind – it actually does play into the Marxist themes of the downside of alliances between the proletariat and the petit-bourgeoisie.
December 13, 2011 at 10:03 pm
suzy blah blah
-how about this one? it must have something to do with somehting … long haired country boy alone
December 13, 2011 at 10:35 pm
suzy blah blah
@Bolitho -”sort of a satire”. Thats whats so great about the song. Its not a black and white deal. Like Georgia O’Keefe … He did satirize but it wasnt pure satire, only “sort of”. He said, i read on one of erics links, that it represented his dads view. He also talked about being at the end of one era at and the beginning of another at the time, on the interview i llinked, Basically im agreeing with you. He showed a lot of respect for the people he “sort of” did a satire about. Thats whats the genious of it. Its not a formula, its a spotaineous thing he came up with it, the link says, when they were driving the tour bus past the Muskoggee exit. Maybe tokin something? with his musician friends
or not, he wrote it. but, Anyway i really like the way it “sort of ” coagulates the two views (in my view thats what he does). Nixon and Wallice and Ernies friends adopted it as a theme song, sort of, Wallace even wanted to use it in his campaign. And Erics ilk …(the progressives or hippys and what not) like it for its satirical content. Its both. thats why suzy thinks its pretty exceptional, sort of.
December 13, 2011 at 11:03 pm
Eric Kirk
Actually, I think it wasn’t so much a satire of the “Okie” per se, but a satire of the “Okie” perception of a hippie. Because that’s really what the song is about. And that’s why he had to be “dared” to play it live.
It’s the more recent interview in which he says it was about respect for the troops, and I suspect that he might be partially influenced by the fact that so many took it as an anthem and didn’t want to dis them at this point, or appear to do so. As I learned the last time around, there are plenty of people very emotionally invested in the song as an anthem. His initial admissions may have generated something of a backlash.
December 14, 2011 at 1:24 am
tra
Eric,
You say “conflated,” I say “related.”
December 14, 2011 at 6:33 am
Anonymous
Eric you haven’t deconstructed anything. I was just wondering? Have you been to a Merle Haggard concert? Ever?
I also wonder what you opinion is on the the AG’s involvement in the “Fast and Furious” issue? Did you see his testimony before Congressional committee?? Just curious
December 14, 2011 at 8:29 am
Mitch
tra,
I kinda-sorta agree with you about the hippies having been right about most things that matter. As always with me, there’s a big but (and a growing butt, but that’s another matter).
It’s easy to be right about what’s wrong. It’s much, much, MUCH harder to live those values, let alone find and implement a solution that others will accept. And while it’s often possible for an unmarried twenty-something to get by in the world without compromise, it becomes harder and harder as you get older and find yourself less able to hold to your ideals in all matters and at all times.
A lot of the ex-hippies I know are “ex-”hippies only because of that difficulty — they’ve held to their values better than most people I know, but they like the idea that they have money to support their kids and to fall back on.
I also have known quite a few people in corporate America who hold the values that you say the hippies have been correct about — they work hard to implement their values inside the (inherently unsupportive) systems we have created and live with.
When someone inside a corporation makes, for example, lessening environmental damage a major goal of theirs, and risks sacrificing promotions by being a squeaky wheel inside the corporation, they are living their values. When a hippy refuses to acknowledge the destructiveness of a diesel leak on grounds like “it’s just a tiny leak, not like what the corporations do,” they are not living theirs. It’s really easy to fool oneself; for some of us it gets harder to fool ourselves as we get older and accumulate more experience. We end up forced to admit, at least to ourselves, the little hypocrisies we see ourselves living.
I’m not sure that tagging someone “hippy” or “corporate” turns out to be very useful. It’s even less useful when the only thing you have to go by are their fashions, employment history, and associates.
December 14, 2011 at 8:32 am
Eric Kirk
You say “conflated,” I say “related.”
How so?
December 14, 2011 at 8:36 am
Eric Kirk
Eric you haven’t deconstructed anything. I was just wondering? Have you been to a Merle Haggard concert? Ever?
No I haven’t. Nor have I been to a Tobey Keith concert. Nor a Joan Baez concert for that matter. But I have a pretty good idea about their politics, based on what they say and do.
I also wonder what you opinion is on the the AG’s involvement in the “Fast and Furious” issue? Did you see his testimony before Congressional committee?? Just curious
I don’t watch television, so all I’ve seen was on a youtube clip where he and some young Republican congressman raised their voices slightly, but I don’t even remember what they were arguing about. Haven’t followed the story.
December 14, 2011 at 9:10 am
longwind
Me too, tra.
I cannot forbear a further response. The two subjects were one in the mouth of Ralph Faust, on the dark day when he reamed the Board of Supervisors, in more than six minutes of public comment, (I don’t know why he wasn’t arrested and removed) for not respecting and defending the fine work of Code Enforcement that had then just begun. Ralph at that time was an interim County Counsel, so it was widely presumed he had provided what brains were behind the whole nightmare, beginning by recruiting a well known angry psychopath to be the second gun-toter in charge of enforcement. Ralph was amazed and angry that his great ideas didn’t get broad support when they were exposed.
And of course the comprehensive Board cover-up of those responsible for the scandal made correcting the problem impossible. Just transfer the psycho and put the guns a phone call away, eliminate the Oversight Committee so no one’s even supposed to be responsible anymore, and stare blankly when attacked for doing nothing real about the problem.
But to be fair, Mark Lovelace, who is the elected Healthy Humboldt representative, wasn’t so fickle. He promptly appointed ragin’ Ralph to the Planning Commission, where Ralph still distinguishes himself with observations like “a house in the country is urbanization.”
Yes, he said that twice, in just one meeting. The very idea of rural living is illegitimate in his eyes, and he wants to solve the problem.So the community of interest that includes everyone living in the country, dreaming of living in the country, or earning a living in the country, united to defend themselves. And our long-time allies looked at us blankly when we tried to get them to stop destroying our alliance.
As for hippies, I think you introduced me to the phrase “Punching the hippie,” Eric; which is what pols call their public gestures of contempt for hippie values–sharing, justice, freedom, peace and love, all that crap. The Republicans do it all day, the Democrats especially in election years. It’s quite strange to realize that our new, aggro enviros in charge sat up one day and Punched the Hippie right here in Humboldt County. It didn’t work. Surprise!
December 14, 2011 at 9:19 am
longwind
It’s great to see the Occupy movements making hippie values so forceful again that they can’t be very effectively punched. Next thing you know, evangelical Christians may start quoting Jesus!
December 14, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Eric Kirk
As for hippies, I think you introduced me to the phrase “Punching the hippie,” Eric; which is what pols call their public gestures of contempt for hippie values–sharing, justice, freedom, peace and love, all that crap. The Republicans do it all day, the Democrats especially in election years. It’s quite strange to realize that our new, aggro enviros in charge sat up one day and Punched the Hippie right here in Humboldt County. It didn’t work. Surprise!
That’s kind of a silly accusation, since the majority of “aggro enviros” of whom you speak are in fact hippies by any definition.
December 14, 2011 at 1:05 pm
suzy blah blah
-the song that Tra posted is the most selfrighteous musical statement suzys heard in a long time -totally obnoxious.
December 14, 2011 at 1:42 pm
longwind
I call stigmatizing (and then some) the lifestyles of our iconic time-warpers punching them, following your explanation of what it means.
I don’t call people like uber-lawyer Ralph Faust hippies, nor the people who empower them. Would Mark Lovelace call himself a hippie? Would Clif call himself a hippie? They’re the most ‘aggro enviros’ out there now, except for that otherwise anonymous ‘Arcata clique’ you mentioned, which Mark and Clif front for. Find the hippie!
Anyway, this is a very trivial response to my answer to your question. Maybe I’ll just go punch Jesus.
December 14, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Not A Native
longwind, if my posting disturbed your day thats one good thing I’ve done. FDR comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable. You’re in sore need of some afflicting, FDR style.
Eric, you want to deflect and digress with the Dixie Chicks, ignoring my point that Haggard support for their for civil rights is as possible as for some assumed partisanship. Fact is, you actually know nothing for certain of Haggards politics but make wild speculations based on some irrelevant expressions by him in other contexts. And stop with the “I already posted on that” nonsense. At least real lawyers give proper citations. I can’t count the number of times you’ve writen that you’re ‘working ‘on some posting or other that never happens. I think your recollection of your posts and the facts of them are widely divergent. But just claim “authority” and make all your inconsistencies and nonsupported conclusions go poof. Its OK for a blog, not so OK in court.
And BTW, you’re trying to use my framing with the ‘worldview’ references, but you use it incorrectly, sorry about that. And you’ve ‘deconstructed’ nothing here, just extrapolated way beyond what any facts support.
December 14, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Eric Kirk
NAN – Whatever. That doesn’t even make sense.
Longwind – Mark – yes. Clif – no. Most of the people commenting in favor of various elements of Plan A at the hearings I’ve attended – yes.
December 14, 2011 at 3:42 pm
longwind
Eric, I have known Mark, and I have known hippies, and Mark is no hippie.
NAN, as for you and FDR–never mind. Your comparison makes my day, I guess I take it all back.
December 15, 2011 at 9:51 am
longwind
Eric, above you said the evolution of hipneckery “actually does play into the Marxist themes of the downside of alliances between the proletariat and the petit-bourgeoisie.”
This intrigued me and I forgot to say so. I’m a little soft on my Marxist theologising after a lifetime awallow in neocapitalist programming, but this seems to suggest that our prole-necks and petty hippies have corrupted each other’s values, right? Whereas I think the truth is, money corrupts us all. Viva quantitative easing! What do you think?
December 15, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Eric Kirk
Well, for Marx the theory was that the proletariat was the vanguard class because it has nothing to sell or own but its own labor, and therefor is not limited in possibilities as those with some vested interest in the system. So he proposed alliances with students (who have a little more than mere labor, and some investment in the system), farmers and small property owners (who have vested interests, but who are in more danger of loss of interest to the capitalist class than the socialist prospect because communism would only end private ownership of the means of industrial production and not necessarily small land holdings. But he cautioned against the limitations of such alliances, precisely because these other classes had vested interests in the status quo.
Marx didn’t really speak in terms of values except as they reflected the existing means of production and the movement from one system to another.
I first read the Communist Manifesto in high school and thought it was brilliant. By the time I got to college I thought it was trite. But the last time I read it, probably five or six years ago, I noticed that the first five pages (in my copy) contain nothing but compliments for capitalism as a progressive force (in relationship to the feudal systems) which created all sorts of potentials and opportunities. In fact, if you quote them to some of the more militant Marxists without naming the source, they think it’s pro-capitalist propaganda – which is sort of was, as in 1848 some of the old feudal relationships were still in existence even as they were coming to an end. It’s actually a fascinating read if you approach it with a mind critical of both the adherent perspective as well as anti-communist.
So I’m kind of curious as to how Marx might analyze Humboldt politics as if he were alive. Granted, the small owners are not the “proletariat,” but then neither are the “Arcata clique” environmentalists, whether they rent or own. And where would he side on the Eureka development proposals? Richard Marks might very well be the closest office holder to Marx in the classic sense. My communist grandfather used to tell my New Left father that “ecology is a bourgeois science.”
Now watch and I receive a phone call or email from someone angry that I’m trying to marginalize Richard as a commie.
December 15, 2011 at 12:13 pm
Mitch
That’s funny, Eric — the flip side of all the people who call the Bill of Rights communist when it’s reframed in modern legal language.
December 15, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Eric Kirk
And the Declaration of Independence in the original language, yes, I know.
December 16, 2011 at 3:41 pm
Not A Native
Among other things, Richard Marks is a landlord. He’s as much a proletariat as Rex Bohn. Did Marx anticipate a society where bourgeoise would choose to cloak themselves as proletariat for political or social advancement?
December 16, 2011 at 4:15 pm
Eric Kirk
Well, Friedrich Engels owned two factories. I remember a cartoon in a non-Marxist periodical which published a cartoon in which the workers approach him for a three cent raise and he responds: “I’m sorry my workers, but your misery must increase. You see, it’s historically inevitable!”