It's true, and you know it...
The 60s sucked for so very many reasons, today's rant is really about the exploitation of all those trust fund kids by their own kind...other crypto-socialist hippies who could mythologize about a centralized market but wouldn't know one if it kicked them in their sorry asses. These fucking ingrates berated their parents who had fought a World War to keep facism at bay, built one of the strongest economies in the history of the world, and then did their damnedest to give their spoiled, lazy fucking progeny a better life and education. By and large the parents' reward was to see their money pissed away, the degrees wasted, and their children devolve into the longest, loudest cultural temper-tantrum in America's history (some of which was deserved, some of which was purely manufactured angst).
This is what happened to hippies who, after blowing through their facist parents' money forty years ago, had to make a living with their dual degree in American Studies and Ancient Textiles.
What is lost, however, is that to be a hippie was a damned expensive venture on occasion. And one demanding considerable capital. Not surprising since this era of the proletarian revolt was often a disgusting smorgasbord of pure capitalist greed. Think about it: It was one damned great big era of ponzi schemes, false prophets, fakirs (and fakers), gurus, cult leaders, cult of personality leaders and faux Marxists, all peddling something. Be it advice, enlightenment or bric-a-brac, that shit wasn't free. Yet these douchebags lounging in bars, empathizing with the plight of the worker in the 3rd World, never really saw that. All they did was just try to blend in with everyone else, fuck the same like-minded people, listen to the same shitty albums, get the same shitty sociology and women's studies degrees, go to the same sit-ins/concert hopping, and similarly rant about whatever the injustice
du jour was.
But all the time, like good little consumer trolls, they obeyed the market.
You are a beautiful and unique sheep.
And, of course, one thing the hippies did not stint on was drugs...a
shitload of drugs. Don't get me wrong, back in the day I gleefully and wantonly ingested every substance (illicit and otherwise) know to man: liked some, loved others, with yet others I just plain wanted to die (or almost did). However, I never had an acid trip, 'shroom ride, or button tea that made me think that crass consumerism was somehow an individual display of my free spirit and/or empathy with the under-menschen.
And, I
never thought that
this was a good idea....
Der Schatten wants to know how in the hell this display of consumerism promoted internal grooviness, man.
Published by the Neo-American Church in Millbrook, NY, this little ditty was expensive back in its day, topping out at $2.00
...in 1967...for a coloring book. According to
Westegg's nifty program that calculates inflation, this 24-page coloring book for dirty hippies would have cost you
$12.29. So, what you have is just an infintesimally small instance of the bilking that went on
by hippies, against hippies.
Want more? Sure. According to "Mod Girls" all of those groovy bell bottoms in 1969 came with a price tag somewhat surprising for alleged DIYers, with the avg cost being about $16.88 in 1969 dollars. That translates to $94.47 in today's sheckles. Okay. So they bought them second-hand. Fine, used ones went for $10.99, or $55.93. What about those peasant blouses? Again, they were about $3.50-$5.00, or $19-$38 bucks. So, say what you want to about the 60s and hippies, but don't call it an age of independence or austerity, or rejection of consumerism. Call it what it was --a fad that masqueraded as a social movement, and spent a lot of fucking money.
And, you want to know they punchline? These Boomers are still being bilked, still being sold whatever's cool, still paying exorbitant prices for shit, and -in all respects- still haven't learned....
Again, you know it's true.
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