One week after fomenting a violent insurrection, based on a completely false narrative, Donald J. Trump became the first US President ever to be impeached a second time. To those who opposed his four-year, vindictive assault on our democracy and its institutio…
One week after fomenting a violent insurrection, based on a completely false narrative, Donald J. Trump became the first US President ever to be impeached a second time. To those who opposed his four-year, vindictive assault on our democracy and its institutions, it could be viewed as a victory over tyranny, a cause for celebration. But it's not.
No, the final chapter(?) of the Trump presidency is a sad reminder of what we've become over the past two generations. The predicament which we find ourselves in today was birthed in the arrogance of the 1980's, when hippies morphed into Yuppies, when "Make love, not war" became "Make money, more money!", epitomized by Gordon Gecko's phrase, "Greed is good!"
It is said that the social and economic cycles are much longer than we imagine, from forty to eighty years long, a long wave rather than a seismic shift. The past four years have not seemed that way. the ground under our feet seemd to be moving. So when last night, when Joe Biden announced, "Come Wednesday, we begin a new chapter.", it soothed and reassured us.
But will it be only that, just a chapter? Or will it be an inflection point? Will it be the pendulum reversing it's motion and moving in a new direction. We yearn for it to be that. We are tired, of the virus, of the violence, and of the assault on our American values. When as a people will we feel joy again?
Three successive Wednesdays: Insurrection Wednesday, Impeachment Wednesday, and next week, Inauguration Wednesday. All three begin with "I", but Wednesday begins with "We". After forty years of the greedy "I", let's return to collective "We", as in "We the People".
My reaction to Biden's speech, however, was mixed. "Come together" is a noble sentiment, and a necessary alternative to the fierce, open fascist white nationalism of the last four years. But before reconciliation, there has to be truth. And the truth is: over 70 million Americans are fine if Liberal Republican Democracy were to be replaced by an autocracy that caters to their economic interests and deep psychological need for being better than "those" people. We won't get there by singing "Kumbaya." We need to persuade the persuadable, but recognize that many will resist persuasion with the fury of a tiger. They want Civil War. If they keep it up, they will get it. Ask any Syrian if that's an endurable state.
Hippies didn't morph into yuppies. People don't fit into such neat categories, and what happened was that some people became social activists, environmentalists, went into helping professions, became doctors, nurses, farmers. Sometimes people played at whatever was "in" at the moment, and then grew up and went on to become architects, create new businesses, invented things, became aides to politicians, became researchers and made discoveries that we are now relying on. Some others, misfits, became creators. Some other misfits lost their way and sometimes their lives.
Yes, social and economic cycles vary in kind and intensity. Sometimes based on natural cycles, but mostly, in our system, based on an inflexibility that is built into our assumptions about both people and economics. I think we need to make a close examination of those assumptions and question them.
I think we have begun that process again, as Heather pointed out.
Herb, I am tired of the virus, too. But I accept that what we are doing is necessary. I do what I can to help my community and my neighbors get through. And they are doing the same.
Yesterday I walked through my village to get to the PO. In recent years, we have been hit hard by one thing after another: a massive destructive flood, reconstruction that disrupted two years of commerce and jobs, alternate rains and drought that farmers struggled to contend with. We watched some businesses close or go into debt. At the same time, we worked together to help shops hang on, and shopped locally. Most of the shops are still here (with a little shuffling to new quarters), and some new ones moved in. The construction finally finished, and people could drive through town without impediment. Some buildings we thought were lost were reclaimed after all.
As I walked, finally I saw how the entire community had made things come together. The "raw" look we had for so long is gone. We have a new community-owned bookstore. Old historic buildings with new paint and trim. Flower boxes ready to be planted come spring. My neighbors wearing masks and carefully distancing but still waving and saying hello. Instead of lonely, I remembered I am part of this community. And I felt joy.
It won't be five days. It will take a lot longer, and the lost souls will not stop being what they are. It will be up to us to recreate our vision of our society and to help each other make it happen. And to find joy in the process.
You are right about "we". Your last paragraph is beautiful, and whether you realize it or not, filled with hope.
As a "Hippie", I don't think you can be a former hippie once you have experienced the things I did in the late 60's. Psychedelics changed my life and world view, in a profound way that animates it still today. I regret none of it, it still echoes through out our culture to this day. As an example the sensitivity to the balance of our planet didn't start with us, we learned it from the Native Americans who lived in harmony with it, and also used psychedelics to center themselves in their world. As a culture we have made a great many mistakes in the last 400 years, It's my fervent hope and prayer that we are starting to wake up to that fact and that we will be able to find the balance we do desperately need. May god bless out incoming president and all who are helping him with his herculean task.
I watched a Marianne Williamson presentation and she pointed out that we all witnessed the killings of Dr King, Bobby Kennedy and all the other horrors of civil unrest during that time. Then the Kent State Shootings. She believes that many of us received a message that we better back off, go along, play by the rules. We may not have even been aware at the time that we had internalized this message. Certainly made a lot of sense to me. One thing I thank The Naked Emperor for is waking me the hell up
Herb, I am often dismayed that the simplistic generalities of both the left and the right obscure cogent responses. The "Gordon Gekko", "Yuppie," "Hippie" generalizations only feed a sensibility launched by the right against meaningful protest and change. Historically, any group that augurs for meaningful change is branded by those who prefer to keep things in their favor. That we buy these generalizations is a problem of both the right and the left. But I agree, when we begin "a new chapter", we need to do it in solidarity.
Unfortunately it's rare to find people who enjoy talking about the guts of these issues (or more pertinently, enjoy reading articles and watching videos about them) because marginal tax rates and market externalities are pretty dry topics. That they're crucial subjects for addressing everything from crime rates to the environment does not make them sell papers or draw clicks.
I prefer to think that the hippie culture went under cover, stealth operation. It certainly did not disappear. Environmental movement. Recycling pickup for every house. You get the drift.
Having grown up in the 60s, I see two different groups- the early baby boomers and the late ones. Many of the early boomers pursued service careers like teaching and nursing. The late boomers who grew upon the mid/late 70s were more likely to be yuppies in pursuit of high paying jobs.
This is the problem with trying to divide people up into discrete "generations" with specific characteristics. It's an artificial way of looking at things, and a lot of it is due to shallow "journalism" looking for easy labels to explain things instead of actually doing news. The very definition of "baby boomers" has changed several times in order to accommodate this kind of lazy thinking. People vary in perpective not based on which decade they were born in, but a whole raft of factors, most of which we are clueless about. Everything I am involved in includes people of various ages and backgrounds, belief systems, experiences. The thing that binds us together is our common believe that we can help, in some small way, make our world better. If you were to divide my high school class up, you would find a wide range of people, very few of which would meet your narrow definition of who you think we are.
I have often said similar things to Herb's statement on hippies. For me it is a disappointment that my generation started out with such high hopes and gave up so quickly. I started college in 1971 and at the time anyone on campus who was Republican or right leaning was absurdly out of place. I don't know what happened to us. Of course I blame the Republican Party, Reagan and a multitude of others, but am still so sad we let them roll over us.
I started college in 1964. My experience with the counterculture blossomed around 1961 (lifer in nyc). We DID NOT "let them roll over us". We were surpressed and demonized. This continuing demonization continues to this day, thus my reply to Herb. Yes, we did have such high hopes, but DID NOT "give up so quickly". I continue to work for peace.
No offense. I never gave up either. I was speaking more of the larger group of baby boomers who shifted from left to right. There are plenty of baby boomers who are actively liberal. Including all of my closest family and all of my friends. But these big blocks of right voting boomers I believe were largely liberal in their youth.
Count me guilty of something I was taught to avoid making: "hasty generalizations". I was a member of both. But the obsession with wealth, and the finger pointing toward government set us upon a path that led us to where we are today.
Wednesday was not a day for jubilation.
Wednesday was not a day for celebration.
One week after fomenting a violent insurrection, based on a completely false narrative, Donald J. Trump became the first US President ever to be impeached a second time. To those who opposed his four-year, vindictive assault on our democracy and its institutions, it could be viewed as a victory over tyranny, a cause for celebration. But it's not.
No, the final chapter(?) of the Trump presidency is a sad reminder of what we've become over the past two generations. The predicament which we find ourselves in today was birthed in the arrogance of the 1980's, when hippies morphed into Yuppies, when "Make love, not war" became "Make money, more money!", epitomized by Gordon Gecko's phrase, "Greed is good!"
It is said that the social and economic cycles are much longer than we imagine, from forty to eighty years long, a long wave rather than a seismic shift. The past four years have not seemed that way. the ground under our feet seemd to be moving. So when last night, when Joe Biden announced, "Come Wednesday, we begin a new chapter.", it soothed and reassured us.
But will it be only that, just a chapter? Or will it be an inflection point? Will it be the pendulum reversing it's motion and moving in a new direction. We yearn for it to be that. We are tired, of the virus, of the violence, and of the assault on our American values. When as a people will we feel joy again?
Three successive Wednesdays: Insurrection Wednesday, Impeachment Wednesday, and next week, Inauguration Wednesday. All three begin with "I", but Wednesday begins with "We". After forty years of the greedy "I", let's return to collective "We", as in "We the People".
Five days....
OMG!! I love this last paragraph!!
Agreed! Great summary of the past weeks, boiled down to the essence of our democracy 🇺🇸
Thank You!
Beautifully put. Thank you for that post.
My reaction to Biden's speech, however, was mixed. "Come together" is a noble sentiment, and a necessary alternative to the fierce, open fascist white nationalism of the last four years. But before reconciliation, there has to be truth. And the truth is: over 70 million Americans are fine if Liberal Republican Democracy were to be replaced by an autocracy that caters to their economic interests and deep psychological need for being better than "those" people. We won't get there by singing "Kumbaya." We need to persuade the persuadable, but recognize that many will resist persuasion with the fury of a tiger. They want Civil War. If they keep it up, they will get it. Ask any Syrian if that's an endurable state.
Hippies didn't morph into yuppies. People don't fit into such neat categories, and what happened was that some people became social activists, environmentalists, went into helping professions, became doctors, nurses, farmers. Sometimes people played at whatever was "in" at the moment, and then grew up and went on to become architects, create new businesses, invented things, became aides to politicians, became researchers and made discoveries that we are now relying on. Some others, misfits, became creators. Some other misfits lost their way and sometimes their lives.
Yes, social and economic cycles vary in kind and intensity. Sometimes based on natural cycles, but mostly, in our system, based on an inflexibility that is built into our assumptions about both people and economics. I think we need to make a close examination of those assumptions and question them.
I think we have begun that process again, as Heather pointed out.
Herb, I am tired of the virus, too. But I accept that what we are doing is necessary. I do what I can to help my community and my neighbors get through. And they are doing the same.
Yesterday I walked through my village to get to the PO. In recent years, we have been hit hard by one thing after another: a massive destructive flood, reconstruction that disrupted two years of commerce and jobs, alternate rains and drought that farmers struggled to contend with. We watched some businesses close or go into debt. At the same time, we worked together to help shops hang on, and shopped locally. Most of the shops are still here (with a little shuffling to new quarters), and some new ones moved in. The construction finally finished, and people could drive through town without impediment. Some buildings we thought were lost were reclaimed after all.
As I walked, finally I saw how the entire community had made things come together. The "raw" look we had for so long is gone. We have a new community-owned bookstore. Old historic buildings with new paint and trim. Flower boxes ready to be planted come spring. My neighbors wearing masks and carefully distancing but still waving and saying hello. Instead of lonely, I remembered I am part of this community. And I felt joy.
It won't be five days. It will take a lot longer, and the lost souls will not stop being what they are. It will be up to us to recreate our vision of our society and to help each other make it happen. And to find joy in the process.
You are right about "we". Your last paragraph is beautiful, and whether you realize it or not, filled with hope.
As a "Hippie", I don't think you can be a former hippie once you have experienced the things I did in the late 60's. Psychedelics changed my life and world view, in a profound way that animates it still today. I regret none of it, it still echoes through out our culture to this day. As an example the sensitivity to the balance of our planet didn't start with us, we learned it from the Native Americans who lived in harmony with it, and also used psychedelics to center themselves in their world. As a culture we have made a great many mistakes in the last 400 years, It's my fervent hope and prayer that we are starting to wake up to that fact and that we will be able to find the balance we do desperately need. May god bless out incoming president and all who are helping him with his herculean task.
I watched a Marianne Williamson presentation and she pointed out that we all witnessed the killings of Dr King, Bobby Kennedy and all the other horrors of civil unrest during that time. Then the Kent State Shootings. She believes that many of us received a message that we better back off, go along, play by the rules. We may not have even been aware at the time that we had internalized this message. Certainly made a lot of sense to me. One thing I thank The Naked Emperor for is waking me the hell up
Herb, I am often dismayed that the simplistic generalities of both the left and the right obscure cogent responses. The "Gordon Gekko", "Yuppie," "Hippie" generalizations only feed a sensibility launched by the right against meaningful protest and change. Historically, any group that augurs for meaningful change is branded by those who prefer to keep things in their favor. That we buy these generalizations is a problem of both the right and the left. But I agree, when we begin "a new chapter", we need to do it in solidarity.
Unfortunately it's rare to find people who enjoy talking about the guts of these issues (or more pertinently, enjoy reading articles and watching videos about them) because marginal tax rates and market externalities are pretty dry topics. That they're crucial subjects for addressing everything from crime rates to the environment does not make them sell papers or draw clicks.
Why the need to punch the Hippies???
"when hippies morphed into Yuppies, when "Make love, not war" became "Make money, more money!", epitomized by Gordon Gecko's phrase, "Greed is good!'"
Try being "We" together, without a scapegoat.
Hippies are older (and wise) than Yuppies. We didn't morph, we got Reaganed and Trumped.
I know. Hippies wanted to make people aware of the injustices in this country. I don’t think they were part of the problem.
I prefer to think that the hippie culture went under cover, stealth operation. It certainly did not disappear. Environmental movement. Recycling pickup for every house. You get the drift.
Having grown up in the 60s, I see two different groups- the early baby boomers and the late ones. Many of the early boomers pursued service careers like teaching and nursing. The late boomers who grew upon the mid/late 70s were more likely to be yuppies in pursuit of high paying jobs.
I was/am a hippie and those were the most exciting and the very best years of my life!
This is the problem with trying to divide people up into discrete "generations" with specific characteristics. It's an artificial way of looking at things, and a lot of it is due to shallow "journalism" looking for easy labels to explain things instead of actually doing news. The very definition of "baby boomers" has changed several times in order to accommodate this kind of lazy thinking. People vary in perpective not based on which decade they were born in, but a whole raft of factors, most of which we are clueless about. Everything I am involved in includes people of various ages and backgrounds, belief systems, experiences. The thing that binds us together is our common believe that we can help, in some small way, make our world better. If you were to divide my high school class up, you would find a wide range of people, very few of which would meet your narrow definition of who you think we are.
Thank you!
I have often said similar things to Herb's statement on hippies. For me it is a disappointment that my generation started out with such high hopes and gave up so quickly. I started college in 1971 and at the time anyone on campus who was Republican or right leaning was absurdly out of place. I don't know what happened to us. Of course I blame the Republican Party, Reagan and a multitude of others, but am still so sad we let them roll over us.
I started college in 1964. My experience with the counterculture blossomed around 1961 (lifer in nyc). We DID NOT "let them roll over us". We were surpressed and demonized. This continuing demonization continues to this day, thus my reply to Herb. Yes, we did have such high hopes, but DID NOT "give up so quickly". I continue to work for peace.
No offense. I never gave up either. I was speaking more of the larger group of baby boomers who shifted from left to right. There are plenty of baby boomers who are actively liberal. Including all of my closest family and all of my friends. But these big blocks of right voting boomers I believe were largely liberal in their youth.
Yes. This has been the biggest disappointment to me. We had vision of better lives but, as a group, rejected it.
Perhaps the next generation will embrace it.
Count me guilty of something I was taught to avoid making: "hasty generalizations". I was a member of both. But the obsession with wealth, and the finger pointing toward government set us upon a path that led us to where we are today.
Respectfully disagree. I don’t think the two are connected.
Hey, Herb. Some of us want to change it to "We the People - All of us this time" inspired by Jeff Cartwright, on this post today.
Herb Klinker I too love your last paragraph. Cathy thank you for emphasizing it
Well said!
Thanks Herb. Well said as usual. To We the People add Jeff Cartwright’s phrase: ALL of us this time. See his post at beginning of thread
Brilliant points. And the last paragraph is historically poignant as a descriptor for these three incredible weeks. Thank you!
WOW. May I repost your last paragraph with your name?