Nobody really gives a damn about the Sixties and for good reason. Those of us who experienced that time, whether we directly participated or watched from the curb, are now around 65, scary math. Whatever doors may have been opened, long ago creaked shut. Wearing tie dye t-shirts doesn’t count. Looking back from here, I can’t imagine it ever happened. It was a time of optimism and possibility.
The Sixties were about change and empowerment. The streets were the stage for this modern, multi-themed opera. The musical score harmonized and galvanized millions, whether they were singing We Shall Overcome or All You Need Is Love.
Back then, so much was masked behind the secrets people could keep and get away with. Today, the scrutiny is every moment and secrets are harder to keep. I have never cared for the argument that nothing is really any different, we are just better informed. The game may be the same, but the stakes are so much higher. All of us have been subjected to criminal manipulation by the those with the most to lose. We have become our own reality show, much to the enjoyment of the audience, those who can afford sky boxes to watch from a distance.
It is now painfully obvious that we don’t even get to choose our President. The primacy process is a sham to give the appearance that you and I actually get to select the nominee from each of the two parties. While we are on the subject of two parties, who the hell said those guys get to have all the fun? Their sole function is to satiate their lust for power, crushing dissension and ensuring their total authority over the political system. While Donald Trump has handily won the vast majority of the Republican primary votes, the delegates from each State can do whatever the hell they want. Right now, they are feverishly working on how to dump their “winner”. Bernie Sanders was frozen out of the game by the power brokers in the Democratic Party the moment he announced his candidacy. Super delegates are selected and not elected, serving the Party and not the people.
The reason why I care about any of this is because I watched the Sixties happen around me. I graduated from Queens College in June ’66 and that summer, I got high for the first time. I avoided the draft by scouring NYC for a Reserve unit to join. My focus was on getting a job and starting a career. I was married and living in a high rise on Manhattan’s upper east side when Woodstock happened. Today, I wear an earring, looking like a one time hippie and happy for the connection. It was a wonderful time to be young in America.
My generation and the one that followed got absorbed and somewhat homogenized by the game being played on us. The world got corporatized and many of us naively did the best we could to make it happen because we loved that check and the toys that came with it. We were sold a bill of goods on freedom, a very intoxicating concept, one that got twisted into giving more power to the powerful, scripted brilliantly by corporate media.
I think the odds have always been lousy for any serious extraterrestrial visitation because the trend of our behavior over the millennia has made for a very unattractive, vacation destination. Our selfish actions and our disregard for the planet are insane. We have recently gotten much better at it, thanks to a burst of technological brilliance, going by the name of computer and all its offspring.
In a nod to Einstein and Hawkings, our use of technology has increased the speed of time and events, much of it incredibly destructive. The availability of information has exploded exponentially as well. Knowledge is the great equalizer and our survival depends on it. It is ironic that the cause and cure come from the same source. Twenty years ago, the internet began to spread a kind of freedom only imagined in science fiction stories. Now, we get to look behind the curtain and see how we are being manipulated by half truths, perpetrated by the those who live for having power over others.
In the absence of prescient e.t.’s, we are going to have to settle for those people who are no older than around 35. You were born with computers and pretty much take technology shit for granted. I come from the era of the rotary phone and postage stamp as the tools of communication. We need your fresh eyes because the majority of us are suffering from a myopia, which maintains and feeds the status quo.
You need to look around and ask yourself if this is the world you want to inherit? The first thing you gotta know is the world is changing color. So much of our tragic circumstance is a result of the white man’s Alamo, dangerously holding out against overwhelming odds. The extraordinary gap between the very rich and everyone else is absolute lunacy. It is a world without scruples, governed by the gods of greed and expedience. Violence perpetrated by nation against nation, religion against religion and rich against poor is taking us into a very dark cave with no exit. The environment is being sold right out from under you and when you get to be my age, in the absence of a global healing effort, you can kiss all you have ever known goodbye.
I don’t know if we will overcome and we will need more than love to do it. The streets are empty, waiting for you. You have the knowledge, now you need to find the passion and then the power is yours.