Hippie Dreams…

I probably sound naive.  I was born in ’79, and I have an idealism about the hippie movement.

I’ve often said, “I wish I’d been born 20 years earlier so I could have participated in the hippie movement, the peace rallies, the protests, the tail-end of the Civil Rights Movement…”

But that “wish” undercuts what’s happening today.  And moreover, we know the plot-line of what happens with the hippie movement.  My parents were hippies-turned-”Jesus-People”-turned-suburban-Republicans.  The movement got derailed.  Fascism became the language of the day.  The bumper sticker reads, “Endless War,” and it’s right: our economy demanded it.  So why would I want to be born at the onset of a derailed movement?

There’s more work to do.  I believe we’re living at the onset of another wave of ‘movement.’  Of protest.  Of Civil Rights.  A new wave of feminism (fourth wave?).  A revitalized LGBTQ movement.  A second round of hippie movement (hopefully, without the venereal disease).   We protest corporate plutocracy.  We reject greed and fear-based politics.  We deny manifest-destiny.  We advocate for peace.  We advocate for equality – sexual equality, gender equality, racial equality… “THIS is the dawning of the age of Aquarius…”

The great thing about TODAY is that we don’t know how tomorrow ends.  We know how yesterday ends.  Tomorrow may end better.  And in that uncertainty, I’m more prone to march for something better.  Are you?