Hippies

The term counter culture insinuates a subculture that rejects the basic core values of the primary culture. The issue with using counter culture as a term to define the 60s is that all of the groups that protested the war during the 60s and 70s still adhered to the core values of the primary culture. The core values of America are individualism to a hyper extent, and a basis of capitalism. All the hippie movements from height-ashbury and the black panthers still use the core values. Even in group marriage convents, people had been raised to follow certain rules, and when they attempted not to, things fell apart. They were enculturated to follow monogamy, and utilize their individualism to the fullest extent. A culture isn't about espousing ideals, but living them. Thus perhaps the only counter culture we have had since our countries founding were the native Americans and perhaps the Amish. The reason people use counter culture as the term for the hippie and antiwar movements was due to the great rejection of the status quo by these people. It was a social movement, a great one, but not its own culture. This change of words between social movement and a counter culture creates a bit of a red herring about culture, race, and social stigma. If we let this continue uncontrolled it has the possibility of setting us back 100 years in talk about culture. That's an issue that needs to be addressed by people before its too late, culture is culture, and hippies share ours.

Perspective

Perspective is what makes us who we are, its how we analyze today, its how we look at history. I wanted to look at Vietnam from a different perspective, specifically the Vietnamese pro-communist. In their mind the French, then Americans, each were attempting at a colonial land grab. The US urges them to suspend elections due to the support of the communists within the country, and when the president of South Vietnam agrees to talk with Ho Chi Minh, the US stages a coup against him. To imagine what a common Vietnamese man, or woman must have felt at this. We waged a revolution over taxes, yet when their very government is usurped by the US, they must not be upset? Between 500,000 and 3 million Vietnamese lost their lives, compared to 58,000 U.S. Soldiers. Both sides numbers are upsetting, but the Vietnamese not only lost soldiers, but children and Women, who were shot with suspicion of being the enemy. The carnage felt on both sides is astounding. When we left and the North crushed the South, it was not because they had a great superior force, they held the keys of popular belief and opinion. Those same keys that the french and US abused in order to play their hand against the Soviets.

This is my point, we speak only of our loss, of our missions, of our victories. If we were to gain some perspective on situations we may not fall into this mess again, and again, and again.  

on Malcolm X

The civil rights leaders of the 1960s all met violent deaths.  Dr. King and Malcolm X were assassinated, others gunned down outside their homes.  What about the social change caused such an uproar that people would rather kill them instead of let them preach?  The social movement that had and still does change the minds and hearts of people throughout the country was still raging in the streets.  Malcolm X had left the NOI in favor of a more moderate approach to Islam, even accepting whites.  This ended in his death, as members of the NOI gunned him down in 1965.  MLK did not live much longer, as he was killed in 1968.  The doctor said that at 39 years old, he had a heart that looked 60, perhaps from the stress of his life.  Both these men have conspiracy theories around their deaths, and both of them had begun to change their views to a more global scale.  One could wonder what the world would be like if these men had lived.