Somebody Please Make it Stop

I tried LSD only once in my life, back in the early 70s when I was 15.  It - my "acid trip" - wasn't even entirely my fault, exactly.  I remember being at a party, listening to some Led Zeppelin music (I believe the song was "Battle of Evermore"), when somebody gave me a coke.  All of a sudden, thousands of ants started crawling under the doors.  Then they were all over the walls.  Then they were EVERYWHERE.  A raging battle ensued.

"Oh war is the common cry, Pick up your swords and fight.
The sky is filled with good and bad that mortals never know.
Oh, the night is long; the beads of time pass slow,
Tired eyes on the sunrise, waiting for the eastern glow.
The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath"

I'm not sure how long my "trip" lasted, but I remember waking up inside of a closet, hanging on to a vacuum cleaner. The ants were gone.

Damn, when did I start having flashbacks?

For some reason, I've been thinking a lot about those days as of late.  Maybe it's that whiff of patchouli I sometimes smell at the organic food store.  Or hearing an old Janis Joplin song.  Or seeing some guy with long hair.  It brings back memories of a former life; a life of Birkenstocks, and candlelight vigils, and colorful gauzy India-shirts with bell bottom jeans, and campus protests and crash pads, and hitchhiking everywhere.  

Of course everything that is the same now, is also different in a twisted sort of way  - it's either better, worse, or it has a different name or face attached to it.  For me, instead of the ants, it's an army of termites, invading the Library of Congress and munching away on the Constitution, bit-by-bit.  Giant packs of rats have invaded the halls of the government in Washington, and are spreading filth and disease and bribery money, to any government official they can buy.  "Tricky Dick" Nixon has risen from the dead and has now returned to the White House.  Henry (the Doctor of Death) Kissinger is back - as Secretary of Defense.   Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were both part of Nixon's administration...how did they get back in?

The government is spying again, the Pentagon is lying again, and another poor hapless country is being shown the meaning of democracy with America's special type of "armed enlightenment".  Israel is attacking (-the PLO-) Hezbollah in Lebanon again and  of course there's that ever present threat of (-communists-) terrorists wanting to take away our freedoms.   It's a real strong feeling of déjà vu - we've been here before.

Maybe we deserve this - are the Founding Fathers punishing us?  

I believe it was George Washington who said to be "eternally vigilant" with the fragile new democracy, lest it fall into despotism.  Many of the other Founding Fathers also gave us dire warnings about what would happen if we let the government get out of our control.  We failed them.  We let our guard down, and stopped paying attention.  There were those "more important", more personal things to do, like finishing off college and getting a "normal" 9-to-5 job, a house, a 501K plan and becoming the "respectable" person that our Ozzie & Harriet parents would be proud of.   I myself went off and joined the Army, and became a lot more moderate and complacent in my political views.  The draft was ended. The Cold War was over.  I even remember not voting in several elections, back in the 80s.  No need to worry about what was going on in Washington.  America became obsessed with the O.J Simpson trial and mystery of  JonBenét Ramsey and tragedy of Susan Smith.  The biggest heroes in America became the Movie Stars and the Athletes. Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Michael Jordan. The biggest concern - Who will become the next American Idol?  

Somewhere along the way, the press became a new form Entertainment Weekly and stopped informing us about the real world.  Also along the way, the Congress was bought up by Big Business, and the government started having secret foreign "adventures" and doing things that most Americans don't know anything about.  Like how many Americans know about the US involvement in Chile and Nicaragua and Panama,  Grenada ,  and the shooting down of an unarmed civilian airplane and supporting certain terrorists and certain other leaders , that we later decided we didn't like after all?  How many Americans can even find Iraq on a map?  

So enter George W. Bush and the Neocons.  The humiliation - every time the man speaks.  It's like having to go out in public with a giant wart in the middle of your face.   I personally have to leave the room whenever I hear him speak - it's so embarrassing.  Sometimes I wonder if the Founding Fathers,  sent George to us on purpose - as a terrible slap in the face. They've probably been watching us over the past few decades, as ghosts or apparitions of some sort, thoroughly disgusted with what we've done to their country.   It's almost as if I can hear their voices: "You've become such a selfish, self-indulgent, materialistic, and brainless nation - here is your leader - King of the Fools. You deserve him".  

O Joyous Youthful Anarchy, WHERE ARE YOU?   Will you save us?

The country is seething right now.  We all can feel it.  How many "I'm Disgusted/Outraged/Shocked/ Furious/Humiliated" diaries do we see every day?  The frustration with the government is palpable, and continues to grow, while the politicians in Washington sit on their hands, give themselves pay raises, give their and their corporate "friends" more taxpayer money, and pretend that all is ok in the wonderful land of ignorance.  It's going to happen -  one day, things are gonna blow... like they did back in the 60s.

How it started in the 60s

I was still very young at the time, but I believe it all began sometime around 1963, when a feeling of agitation and restlessness came over the land.  It wasn't because of the war, at least not in the beginning.  The college kids started it, rejecting the nine-to-five "Father Knows Best" idea of the American Dream; pointing out that many people were excluded from that Dream - Blacks, "Chicanos", Native Americans and women.  Then the Vietnam War began to escalate in 1965-67, and so did the draft.  Small protests began on a few college campuses, and then began to grow larger and spread.

It wasn't the normal rebellion-against-authority that most people experience in their teenage years.  This was BIG.  It was a rejection of the Establishment; a revulsion against the hypocrisy and materialism and government paranoia of the time. And of course, there was the War. Pictures of children being burned with napalm.  Thousands of US soldiers returning in bodybags.   Illegal bombings of Laos and Cambodia.  Hundreds, and later thousands of America's youth flooded onto the streets and highways, as if called by something.  It was anarchy, and it was also democracy, at its best.

Where is this generation's youth rebellion?

I have to admit, I'm confused by the lack of action in today's youth.  Perhaps it's because they don't have to worry about being drafted into the war (that's one lesson the Republicans learned from Vietnam).  Or maybe they've been brainwashed by watching TV spin all the time.  Or maybe it's all just too overwhelming, and they don't think they can do anything about it.   Global Warming is coming for them, and Peak Oil, and the Deficit, and all the environmental damage we've left behind. It's so sad - for so many generations, children in America could look forward to having better lives than their parents; now it looks like the standard of living will be getting progressively worse, for our children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.....