Positive and Negative Impacts of the Sixties Counterculture Essay

Hippies represent the ideological, naive nature that children possess. They feel that with a little love and c one(a)ctedness, peace and equality pass on abound. It is with this assumption that so many another(prenominal) activists and reformers, inspired by the transformation that hippys cultivated, discombobulate entrap the will to persist in revolutionizing complaisant and political policy. Their alternative lifestyles and idea beleifs were the shocking blow that American culture segregation, McCarthyism, un unspoilt wars, censorship compulsory to prove that nearly Americans still had the common sense to c are for one another. The young mickle of the sixties counterculture reason were successful at waking up awareness on many causes that are being fought in forward-looking American discourse. If not for the Revolution that the hippies began, political or social reform and the Peoples voice would be decades behind.While the hippie movement has subsided, as it became too cool and entrenched in mainstream society, the pump of the Hippies lives on, as their work was only the framework for decades of reform to come. civil RightsThe work that hippies did, hand in hand with African-Americans, was in truth decent in striking the discourse on racial equality in the US. Demonstrations reached their inspirational peak in 1964 when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched with 250,000 people in support of civil rights and racial equality. They were successful politically with the passage of the urbane Rights Act. The fight for equal rights has not been won, however, as most of the hippies battles continue to be fought by the veterans and new recruits of the movement.Racism and inequality imitate today as the discrimination, prejudice, and hate crimes occur at an alarmingly normal rate. Rita Sehti, in The State of Asian America, explains that media sensationalism, political expedience, intellectual laziness, and legal constraints raise to narrow the scope of c ognizable racism (Sethi). But it is still a problem of extreme magnitudein America, being fought more oftentimes in courtrooms than campus balks. Groups like ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunities Council), and ARA (Anti-Racist Action League) have come into force thanks to the social reform of the sixties counterculture. Organizations such as these continue to foster great changes in civil rights and equality.womens liberation movementThe sexual revolution of the sixties was truly a womans revolution. Women were given the choice of getting pregnant for the first time in history. The value of this freedom was a great deal more signifcant than controlling pregnancy, however. It represented egg-producing(prenominal) empowerment and gave women a long needed boost toward the fight for gender equality. Hippies, hand in hand with conformist women, protested and battled for equal wages, abortion rights, faculty member equality, discrimination, fam ily and abused women aid, and much more. The progress the activists made for womens rights in the mid-sixties is unparalleled and monumental.It is now 2004. For the first time in history, the 1972 Supreme tribunal ruling on Roe v. Wade is being challenged by American g all everyplacenment. This court decision gave women the right to choose to end a pregnancy. The pubic hair administrations Christian fundamental values are infringing on the Constitutional values of America. On April 25, 2004 there is to be a bailiwick protest march on Washington DC for womens rights. This is to be the largest womens rights protest in world history. Its organizers, participants, and sponsors hope that the demonstration will speak to the American people, legislators, and media the way the feminist movement of the sixties has.EnvironmentalismAs people began to recognize their relationship to each other and their surround in a new way, a heightened Earth Consciousness was born. Concern for the enviro nment grew because hippies saw the Earth as wat it isaloving buzz off Nature that provided for and nourished their very lives. They pioneered the ongoing and tough battle to keep back the earth with the founding of Earth Day, Rachel Carsons Silent Spring, and crowds like Greenpeace. Environmentalists legion one of Americas largest political lobbies. Groups such as Greenpeace protest with millions of members worldwide on issues ranging from destruction of rainforests, oil companies, nuclear wastes, Greenhouse effect, and biodiversity.political Awareness and Student RebellionRecently Ralph Nader spoke to an enthusiastic and certificatory audience at Columbia College. Nader spoke about the very identical issues he lectured about in 1968corporate rule, environmental protections, military-industrial complex and unjust wars, equality and access to education, womens rights. It was an increased awareness that overtook the young people of the sixties counterculture movement. This awaren ess led to a social outcry against injustices in politics.The hippies, hand in hand with college students, helped stop an unjust, costly, and deathly war in Vietnam. The hippies had the courage to speak out for the 67% of Americans that were opposed to the war. An anti-war movement not unlike the Vietnam protests has progressed over the past two years against the state of war in Iraq. March 20, 2003 was a national day of protest with over 25 million protesting the worldwide-disapproved occupation of Iraq. Seven-hundred were arrested in bread as the protesters marched on Lake Shore Drive. NION (Not in Our Name) is a prominent organization formedpost-9/11 that organizes, educates, and demonstrates through direct action against the unjustified Iraq war.The hippie movement was comprised nearly entirely of youth (the 18 to 30 year- old demographic). In an unusual and organized fashion, these young people united to make positive changes in the world. Youth have a powerful voice in me trical composition as parents, schools, and governing institutions wish not to have too much fuss in their daily lives. After the disasters atAltamont and Kent State University, some of the strength of the movement faded. But not for long. Today college students play a huge role in legislation reform. Groups such as SSDP (Students for valid Drug Policy) and YIRP (Youth in Revolutionizing Politics) have been succesful in gaining media and political support in increasing awareness of American political issues which affect the world.M negativity MHippies grew up. Therein lies one major problem with the movement. The members of the counterculture were optimistic, wondrous kids. Many of them impressionable teens with a desire to conform to some group of peers. But after the fatal blows to the unity of the hippie tribesKent State jackpotacre, mass arrests and assasinations of revered leaders and activists, government censorship, rock n roll overdoses, an inflow of shady, greedy charac ters into the hippie community, legislation (building codes prohibiting hippie communes and open houses anti-vagrancy laws) and so onmany of these kids matured as adults and adopted totally contradicting lifestyles.Karen Thomas, longtime Chicago hippie activist and drug law reformer, tells of a time when she was works as an accountant at the Board of Trade. Many of her colleagues and stock dealer suit- types told of the jolly times at Woodstock and smoking grass and the GroovyLoooveDayz. This utter and embarassing clxxx of lifestyles showed the Conservative world that hippies were indeed a bunch of proud kiddies who would one day grow up. They are now working for the very companies they protested against for violations of human, environmental, womens and animal rights. The irony of the grown-up hippies is damaging today, as it discredits futurity youth, counterculture, social, politial, and rebellious movements.There are some obvious flaws in the countercultures start to sparkin g a political revolution. In some ways the philosophies of the movement were far-off too broad to provoke any sort of lasting change. integrity must pick their battles wisely if they are to make any by the bye progress in legislation reform. Reallove, rising of the consciousness, and paradise are great for some. But it takes a bit more than a peaceful nature and groovy hair to convince those legislators in D.C. that what they are doing is wrong. Hippies never provided any long-term alternatives to the evil system they were fighting, just colorful short-term ones.It is not far off to imagine that many hippies felt drawn to the idea of protesting for cause of impure motives. by chance they were drawn to the excitement, the glory of speaking before an enthusiastic crowd, and the prestige of information in the scene. Allen Ginsberg once lamented that too many of the protesters in the sixties seemed to be doing it because it was a good excuse to be spiteful. Many hippies had anarc hical anger and emotion that interfered with the clarity of their message. Long-time organizer Saul Alinsky, in his take Rules for Radicals, asks if you are willing to cut your hair to make yourself more effective. That is a pretty good indication of an activists level of give and dedication.The hippie movement both amused and scared parents, educators, police, and government officials. They unsympathetic in on the hippie movement once and for all with the Draconian drug war launched by Richard Nixon in 1969. His administration arranged for an strange amount of federal budget to be applied to cracking sight on marijuana arrests. The drug war was used as a crutch to stop the hippie movement dead in its tracks. And it has done a pretty good job, with over five million marijuana arrests over the past decade (Sidenote Ninety percent of these arrests were for nonviolent, simple posession charges).