"The Hippies Were Right!"

Damn straight. From Mark Morford:

It was, always and forever, about connectedness. It was about how we are all in this together. It was about resisting the status quo and fighting tyrannical corporate/political power and it was about opening your consciousness and seeing new possibilities of how we can all live with something resembling actual respect for the planet, for alternative cultures, for each other. You know, all that typical hippie crap no one believes in anymore. Right?

The piece is about how things have been moving in the right direction, though not nearly fast enough for this man’s lifetime. In ancient days (’68 – ’71), I was a very inexperienced, mostly useless junior college English instructor in godforsaken Wharton, Texas, trying to stay alive and find my way. it wasn’t easy, lemme tell ya. But from the moment the Ohio National Guardsmen killed those kids at Kent State back in May, 1970, I knew the dominant culture was not my tribe. For all the incredible adventures, twists & turns, ups & downs, and evolution aided by grace that I have been blessed to experience since then, that one distinct perception has never changed and never will.

The price of freedom is often marginalization. The Inquisition first drove (some) Spanish Jews to the royal colony of Mexico. When the inquisitors crossed the ocean and set up shop in Mexico City, the exiles fled to the farthest outreaches of the empire, i.e. el Norte, present-day northern New Mexico. To this very day, you meet guys here who look like they came straight from the Wailing Wall — a touchy, mostly taboo subject in these parts, as most families converted to Catholicism centuries ago. But there are old tales of secret rituals, remnants of Passover ceremonies in some places, and a few old tombstones with both the cross and the star of David still visible. Certain surnames go right back to 15th century Spain and obvious Sephardic roots. The evidence is everywhere, if you know what to look for.

The point is, when I moved from Maryland in ’99, I really DID know what I was doing. Not consciously, I can’t claim credit for that. But something pulled me to the frontier, as far away from the seat of empire as one can get without a passport. I’d rather live somewhere without a name or government (to get a sense of what the Earth is really all about), but for now Taos County will have to do. It hardly has a government anyway, so ultimately, all the brain-dead, do-gooder, turn-Taos-into-Bloomington pendejos haven’t got a chance. This doesn’t always sit so well with my lovely wife, who likes sidewalks and occasional actual law enforcement, but I find it loosens the iron bands around my chest. You can even find a hippie or two, huzzah.

(I know a couple of ladies in their 70′s who do a much better job of it now than I ever did, I’ll tell you that.)

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