A friend of mine bad-mouthed the sixties not so long ago...

[fpb]

...now what follows may annoy other people even more, but this is what the sixties were about for most of those who experienced them:

Every image in this video shows that Cliff is still living in that world, though others have forgotten or perverted it. The hippies were wrong, but those who followed have been wronger still, and produced much less beauty.

Comments

[avus.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but since I've no sound on my computer, I couldn't enjoy your You-Tubing. Mostly dropped by, taking a break before going to bed at the end of a long week, to say, "hello", and to wish you beauty & love in your life.

I recall more than a bit of the 1960's -- it's when I went to college. The clearest images I have are generally the saddest & the most violent. It was a time, from my living, of incredible violence, and the usual intensity & understandable, but tragic clashes of people screaming past each other, with more hate than love. (It taught me to mistrust hate, especially any of my own, though not to mistrust deep convictions -- relativism, bad thinking, brutal & inhumanely or at least thoughtlessly used power and general mushiness wasn't much good, either.)

But then, too, we here in the States made several steps forward. We gave healthcare to our elderly & to our most poor, especially poor children, though not always the best. Fewer poor went hungry, again especially poor children. And much overt racism was ended, or more truthfully was sent underground. (With a lot of covert racism, particularly in the North, left largely and very sadly unchallenged.) But at least more Blacks had the vote, could drink at waterfountains. Black women, Black elderly could sit on busses, and more Blacks had a better shot at a better education. That's something, especially in better caring for the poor, the elderly and children, and the most powerless, in our country anyway. Not saying that it's all done well or fairly. But we certainly did need to start doing it better. I'm old enough to recall Bull Connors' responses with fire-hoses & police dogs in Birminham, Alabama. I even recall lynchings, and much more widespread hunger in the US. (When & how can we address hunger & hate in our larger & smaller world, I don't begin to know. Other than we do need to address it.) For a while, even, the US ceased having the Death penalty, another, though not a permanent step.

In looking back at those islands where hate was met with Love, at a distance of some 40 years or more, I find myself unsurprised that, in many if not most cases, the sustained Love against hate generally flowed from sources well-grounded in, for lack of a better term, thoroughly tested Christianity in many forms. While careful biography has shown that many of my heroes were flawed, in a way, I take a kind of comfort that even flawed sources -- and I'm deeply aware of my own flaws, weaknesses, insufficiencies, stupidities & limitations -- can sometimes lead a small step or two toward a greater good, even with a fair bit of stumbling.

And I freely confess great ignorance about what happened on your side of the Pond.

Again, wishing you, my very dear fpb, and all that you hold dear, love & beauty in their many forms & possibilities.