ACTUALLY THERE WERE TWO COUNTERCULTURES back in the 60s: The political, those who engaged in the politics of “democracy”; then there was the cultural radicals, above all, the Rock-N-Roll bands and their fornicating audience, as one writer states, “for whom the erotic revolution was a political movement.” Nevertheless, both overlapped and there was heated hostility between them.
The “New Left” was well underway to MAKE REVOLUTION!! The early part of the 60s got underway with the SDS at the lead. Tom Hayden (who later married the movie actress Jane Fonda) was then the editor of the Michigan Daily and was organizing college newspaper editors for the Civil Rights Movement.
It was Hayden who wrote the SDS’s political manifesto and also wrote for the Civil Rights Movement. His writings became a tribune for the movement for university reform and were also a catalyst in the Student Peace Movement. Some consider Hayden’s writings and speeches the leading theme of the ideology of the 60s. His writings resounded “with the rhetoric of economic and social justice”. “Participatory democracy”, as it was called, meant fighting for the people to have control over their own lives, not the government; this became useful to demobilize existing political power.
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LOOKING BACK now after all the smoke has cleared, did the New Left accomplish its goals? We still have “Big Brother” (even BIGGER NOW!), watching over us; we have countless dreams and utopias crashed; bitter disillusionments and capitalism/materialism is literally suffocating us...the very nemesis that the 60s radicals tried to rid themselves of.
In the 2000s, we have a new breed of radicals that have found new reverberations to “grove on”.
The 60s radicals, if still alive, are aging. Many have switched sides, some still chasing the pipe-and-flower dream—all view the 60s with both a sense of loss and accomplishment.
As one Sub-Genius stated, “...we had a whole new breed of long haired people in the ‘70s, a white-washed promiscuous breed that reduced the boiling point of the 60s down to simmer...”; also, “...the conspiracy...had those soon-to-be disco beatniks under control...it isn’t the pressure of NOCO that’s responsible, it’s our own post negligence: it’s because those PINKS buried their heads in the narco-sand of the 70s and procrastinated coping with a hostile environment that won’t slow down and stop changing...” (The Stark Fist of Removal, 1982).
Now we have the 2000s with no hair!, multi-colored hair, tattoos, piercings on almost all parts of the body (forgive me, they are even in and on their private parts too!!)...grooving on capitalism/materialism, AIDS and mental sickness to boot. Some consider the 60s as the LOST DECADE! I consider the 2000s worse by far—STARK RAVING LUNACY! Even the average Jane or Joe is some sort of a morbid weirdo, but this is my personal opinion.
—General James Green