Thoughts On Where We Are, and Where We're Going

[David Horn]

(09-13-2018, 07:07 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I am not seeing the immediate triumph of my political values.  In that I seem to be different from many who post here.  Progress, maybe, but progress that can be blocked by autocratic dictators controlling a people with autocratic ideas.  There are limits to what can be achieved, and it might well be good to recognize them.

I do find the military progress more easily influences values than non military.  What could have helped or hurt the Consciousness Revolution?  Some say the Manson killings hurt the hippie movement, but they occurred well after the Summer of Love.  Some note the legend of Woodstock in promoting the best of Hippie values, but that the next rock concert featured Hells Angels as security, and pulled rock festivals away from the hippie ideal.  Was that inevitable?  Was sustaining the Woodstock ideal impossible?

The Consciousness Revolution was not a Liberal-Conservative axis movement.  It was much more Authoritarian-Libertarian, and extremely libertarian at that.  It was all about telling the man to take a hike, living the way you want to live, be it Buddhist commune dweller or rebel biker.  Most of that energy went to the right, as the hyper-liberty nonsense began in earnest, and still resides there.  The remnant on the communitarian side is small in comparison.  

On the other hand, the liberty-lovers are not ideal allies of the Christian Right either, though they have made a pact to oppose the PTB.  Both see coastal liberals as adversaries or even enemies.  It's an uneasy alliance, and can be broken if the right ideas are presented by the right people in the right way: a lot of 'rights' there.  This alliance of convenience is the result of 45 years of conservative effort to circle every wagon they can find.