Flower children

Sure, we could all have just let peace, love, and flower power take care of everything.

Then we wouldn't be having this discussion because the guys that brought us the PC would have been out smoking those flowers instead of working in a garage.

If someone elsewhere had invented the PC, we still wouldn't be having this conversation.

For those who have forgotten, islamic terrorists have been killing westerners for a very long time. If we ignore the formation of the PLO, 1964, and the 1960 murder of Jordan's prime minister by blowing up a public building, we still have to start the modern era of islamic terrorism in 1965.

Yes, 1965. That was the year islamic terrorists tossed a grenade into the middle of a bunch of Brit children in the Aden airport. Our response to terrorism was weak as it was, emboldening them. If we had been in flower power mode, 9/11 might have been 1981, not 2001.

We wouldn't be having this conversation because we'd be living under islamic law and fourth century AD conditions.

There are only two conditions under which peace, love, and all that crap can work:

1) Everybody everywhere lives the same way. Ain't going to happen, not in man's nature.

2) Someone covers the lame behinds of the peace and love types. For that, I thank all who went before and those who continue after my time in service.

This is a time of life when al of us are taking stock and saying: What if?"

While I was a small girl during the whole movement, I watched my brother go off to war, and my big sis get married at 18 with her husband going off to war.

My other sister who is 4 years older than I could be classified as a somewhat hippie-type. In the eighties, she decided to pick up and move to Colorado. No job prospects for her husband but it was supposed to be healthier.

Now, she fed no less than 10 vitamins a day to those kids, no sweets, and kept them busy instead of allowing them playtime with friends that they might have had.

My nephew is homeless and on drugs now where he was really brilliant and could have gone to college.

My niece is in college but gets shoved daily bouts of liberalism so much so that she has no independent thoughts of her own.

Does this seem like utopia to you or, perhaps a flashback of that time? Utopia is what it is- a fantasy. All need to take a look at what is really going around them and stop being SHEEP. I wonder what we could accomplish by independent thinking...........................

Fromz. thanks for getting into discussion.

Apparently you were not a flower child. Like I stated neither was I.

I do not think Gates or Jobs were in the military so I don't understand how that would have changed there intelligence to discover their products.

I 'll admit right here and now I am not as well read as you or others on this site about war and terrorism but I will feel free to start a discussion without worrying how the warlords are going to react.

I sometimes get stuck in the past, hence , my curiosity about those lovely beings.

I feel good about the music, not necessarily the clothes, bell bottoms not my favorite style. The thought of frolicking in the grass being with the free spirited has always appealed to me.

I am in and have been in some veterans groups for about 15 years and most of the guys are angry and upset. I bet their lives and mine would be different had we frolicked in the grass and not in the jungle.

I have a son who followed the Grateful Dead across the country and I am glad he had the opportunity to do so. He is an easy going, loving and fun young man. Now he is settled down has a beautiful wife and 2 gorgeous daughters and he is a hard worker, starting and maintaining his own business.

That is why I am wondering about the free spirits of our time. What became of them?

Imoose, I am not sure I understand where your coming from. I am not thinking of that era as being utopia. Just less stressful and more free.

I missed being a boomer by a year . I was 5 in 1970, the music of my high school was spandex metal (gag) . I've always been enamored by the 60's counterculture movement. My perspective is like the Renfair attendee's view on the dark ages .

You ask if we should've retained those values, er...kinda . I've met a few flavors of modern hippy and I need reality too much, sorry .

Who was it that noted Vietnam politicized what should have been a cultural renaissance ? I love the music, the art, the idealism but the truth is we can't all just get along .

I know it's hard to believe but I did spend some time in flower land. At least as it existed in the environs of the University of Cincinnati in the late 60s and early 70s.

Jobs and Wozniak, essentially the fathers of the PC for the public (Alternate discussion here going back to John Blankenbaker and the Kenbak-1 in 1971), even Blankenbaker, likely would have been doing other things if we had all adopted the flower power revolution.

Your life, mine, everybody's lives would change greatly if the country had adopted the frolic in the grass attitude. SEA would be communist/socialist, probably Chinese satellite states much as Russia had their satellites.

I won't pretend to have the background to write an alternate history with that premise. I do recognize the change in relations with that part of the world, the source of a lot of things over the last 30 or so years, would have made a major economic difference - both in the sale of goods to them and the import of cheap manufactured goods.

I suspect the guys in your groups are angry not so much because some froliced while they slogged and prayed as about the reception they got on returning home. I hope we can do better by our men and women in uniform today despite the bitter divisiveness. If we can't, I hope those of us who served will lay out anyone we encounter insulting returning vets as Vietnam Vets were insulted.

I'm glad your son got to follow the Dead. I see he abandoned frolic at some point, as most of us did.

Thanks again, if nothing else I may be learning something from your posts. Truth is I can only read a few, then my head hurts.

Peace out!