Attacked from the left on FB..."No hippie ever made a difference"

[LaydeeBug]

The thread is pretty long, but here is something a gay friend posted on my wall :

No protester with a sign created the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act or ended an unjust War. That's just a myopic view of history. People who became lawmakers, policy makers and legislators were the ones who created and implemented those things. And the Vietnam war was not ended by a sit in. Lack of understanding and ignorance about the system and how it really works is why we're in this situation. My point about hippies is that it takes more than sentiment to change the world. You need action. You need organization, you need leadership, clearly stated goals and you need to be talking to the people in charge, not treating them like they're the devil. Change is very, very slow. Clearly. Which is why I had to go to Canada to get married in 21st Century America. And please explain to me how a few thousand protesters in a nation of some 3 billion people isn't a fringe movement? It may grow, but let's not be delusional.
(end quote)


He says the Wall Street protestors need to wear khakis and oxfords and try to affect change from within.

ARGH!!!!!

[LaydeeBug]

1. I told him to google "winter soldier" smh.

[Lucian]

2. Your friend sounds like an idiot.

[Segami]

7. +1 n/t

[rfranklin]

3. They can become lobbyists!

That's where the real change is.

[LaydeeBug]

8. that's exactly what he says.

I am not kidding. I told him for what it was worth, he had to conceded that the Gay movement was EVEN LESS effective since you can currently marry your cousin in more states than you can marry your partner, and that's when he wrote what i quoted

[jwirr]

26. Lobbyists cost money - the causes without money have only volunteer

lobbyists.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. I've read those posts here too!

[G_j]

5. talk about delusional!

I wouldn't know where to start, everything this person says is dead wrong.

[LaydeeBug]

10. Please start, I don't want to alienate him with my tendency to scream FUCK OFF

so anything would help.

[G_j]

16. it is very difficult to argue with someone like this

For example, were they around during the Vietnam war? Why would they listen to a hippie like me?
I registered as a conscientious objector and demonstrated many times against that war, and attempted to educate as many people as I could to the situation. That was 'action'. These were important pieces to ending the war. However, they don't sound like they want to hear that. Sadly, this person has their mind made up.

[xchrom]

6. Another idiot who didn't pay attention in history class.

Ignore him.

[supernova]

9. We have 300 million +/-

Not 3 billion people. China has ~1.3 billion, and India 1.2 billion. Clearly they have us beat.

[HappyMe]

11. lol! Of course hippies made a difference.

If ows makes a difference remains to be seen.

[LeftinOH]

12. "A nation of 3 billion people"...We're far short of that total; the US does not comprise half

the world's population. Mistaking "300 million" for "3 billion" is not a typographical error, it's a big ol' FAIL.

[supernova]

13. Social pressure - your friend doezn't haz it

The ingredient your friend is missing is that in western style democracies, our "leaders" don't really lead. They are elected to respond to the public's moods and awarenesses. That's really the meaning behind "responding to the voters." Sometimes it's way off the mark (Tea party), sometimes its right on (OWS), but they always respond, otherwise we wouldn't elect them.

[Historic NY]

14. send him this........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKEZoY-TMG4

[Arctic Dave]

15. Yeah, because lawmakers and lobbyist just walked and changed things

out of the kindness of their hearts. It takes a movement to change things. Period.

[Bluenorthwest]

17. He's terribly uninformed about the history of his own community

Among other things, Harvey Milk called himself a hippie. A gay, Jewish, hippie. That's because he was one. Your friend is very confused and poorly informed about the past.

[SOS]

18. The people in this 1970 photo

helped move forward the environmental laws of the era.
The khaki crowd in DC have been doing their best to destroy these regulations ever since.



PS: the US has 300 million people, not 3 billion.

[MADem]

23. Jesus---they're all wearing suits, slacks and jackets, and office clothing!

1970....?

Where are the jeans, tie-dyes and love beads? That kind of looks like Attack of the Nerds (in a good way, mind).

[vanlassie]

19. Tell him to read up on Steve Jobs

(Wikipedia) "Jobs then traveled to India to visit the Neem Karoli Baba<37> at his Kainchi Ashram with a Reed College friend (and, later, the first Apple employee), Daniel Kottke, in search of spiritual enlightenment. He came back a Buddhist with his head shaved and wearing traditional Indian clothing.<38><39> During this time, Jobs experimented with psychedelics, calling his LSD experiences "one of the two or three most important things done in life".<40> He later said that people around him who did not share his countercultural roots could not fully relate to his thinking."

[ieoeja]

20. While it was the ACLU at the Supreme Court that overturned laws making it illegal to be gay...

... it was in response to a protest (turned riot). Had that one woman not fought the police, had a large portion of the community not joined her, there would have been no court case for the USSC to hear.

And your friend would have to have remained in Canada or be subject to incarceration for the crime of existing.

[matmar]

21. Jesus was a "hippie" before it was cool

Guess he never made an impact

[Sal Minella]

27. Would have made more impact if his name hadn't been co-opted

by a bunch of self-interested, self-righteous, hypocrites who care nothing about what the man actually said.

The most Christ-like people I know never bother to set foot inside a church.

The label "Christian" is now like "organic" or "environmentally friendly" -- frequently a false label used to sell something inimical to healthy living for people and other life forms.

[matmar]

31. I agree whole heartedly

Well said

[Contrary1]

33. "The most Christ-like people I know never bother to set foot inside a church."

I agree. And they don't go around bragging to everyone about all the good works they do either.

Thanks for your post.

[Sal Minella]

34. The "Why Do You Hate Christians" crowd must be somewhere

else today??? . . . :)

Most offensive to me are the money-changers who believe that God has blessed them with great wealth because they deserve it, and the poor have been made poor by God as some sort of punishment, and giving them a helping hand would contravene God's will. This attitude is enough to make me wish I could believe in a hell, yanno?

[kestrel91316]

22. Hippies INFLUENCED a generation. Your FB "friend" needs to be unfriended.

[jwirr]

24. Oh, change from within! I remember that was what we were going to

do after the protests in the 70s ended. How did that work out for us? We ended up with grandpa ronny raygun which led us directly to where we are today.

This guy sounds like he is young and one of those rethug gays. You had to be there to understand why the government caved to the protesters.

And once again he is one of the bunch that does not understand why they are demonstrating which means he does not see that the point is very clear. Reform of the corrupt system on wall street that ends in them owning our politicians.

[ljm2002]

25. Yes, it takes more than sentiment to change the world...

...however, without the sentiment, change never gets instigated in the first place.

It's the age-old argument about intellect vs. emotion. Well here's a clue: we need both. Without activists, important issues get swept under the rug by those who would rule solely by the book. Data and facts can be used to serve any purpose; when we leave things up to the elites, they always employ data and facts to serve themselves. It's just the way things work. But when the masses are pressed, when their lives become untenable, when they see the top amassing obscene piles of wealth while the rest of us see our livelihoods eroding, and the very bottom are plunged into grinding poverty, well then their sentiments rise up and whack the elites in their fat asses and make change happen. That, too, is just the way things work.

[L. Coyote]

28. There are no hippies as defined in the uber-mind of M$M propaganda, but there are hippies who did

make a huge difference. John Kerry was a leader of war protests and would have been called a hippie then by the M$M!

This idiot is trying to say one thing, buy instead seems to profess "Noone who ever made a difference ever had long hair or carried a protest sign."

Someone needs to take their television to a recycler, or at least change channels! :rofl:

[Warren DeMontague]

29. Steve Jobs was a hippie.

Bullshit. The Hippies changed EVERYTHING, and GLBT rights was one eventual outgrowth of, among other things, the increased awareness engendered by the 60s.

Your friend is a twit.

[bengalherder]

30. So the people at stonewall were a bunch of

useless hippies who were protesting in vain. I never knew.

[HighContext]

32. Stupidity is it's own punishment, cut your friend lose and move on.

Also, Facebook?
Hahahahahaha.

Jesus. That's so:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wuSQpiWtdU