John Sinclair: That hippie sacrament

from the Detroit Metro Times:




That hippie sacrament
On believing in personal freedom and living outside the social mainstream

By John Sinclair
Published: May 11, 2011


Larry Gabriel's Higher Ground column last week painted a frightening picture of the atrocities perpetrated by the Oakland County law enforcement community in its last-ditch attempt to preserve and extend the scope of their prosecution of the War On Drugs by persecuting medical marijuana patients and licensed caregivers whose activities are protected by state law.

The legalization of medical marijuana by means of a ballot initiative approved by 62 percent of Michigan voters in the 2008 election signaled the end of the drug war that's raged unchecked for almost a half-century without appreciable positive effect. Any fool can see that the use of recreational drugs by our citizens has not been diminished or in any way abated by the efforts of the legions of police, prosecutors, judges and jailers sworn to stop us from getting high.

In my last column I surmised that perhaps the War on Drugs wasn't really about drug use per se but was launched as an attack on certain sectors of our citizenry whose commitment to social change was seen as presenting a threat to the dominant order and the political, economic and cultural imperatives established as the foundation of corporate consumer society.

During the decade from 1965 to 1975, hippies turned their backs en masse on mainstream America and its perverse value system, refused to fight its wars, and attempted to create an alternative way of life based in sharing, tolerance and self-realization through collective effort and creative production. Their withdrawal from the reigning social contract presented a real challenge to the consumerist system and its operators: Until defecting to the hippie ideal, these young Americans had been expected to inherit and manipulate the machinery of exploitation and control devised by generations of rich white people to maintain their privileged existence at the top of the social order. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://metrotimes.com/mmj/that-hippie-sacrament-1.1144760

Thanks for the thread, marmar.:thumbsup:

"Any fool can see that the use of recreational drugs by our citizens has not been diminished or in any way abated by the efforts of the legions of police, prosecutors, judges and jailers sworn to stop us from getting high."

Has there ever been such an egregious waste of resources in the history of humanity? Drug abuse has never been worse than it is now in Ohio where I live. Trying an alternative approach would have to be an improvement.

use the substances they confiscate. I remember when I was younger, partying with cops, lawyers, jailers, etc...

The cops always had the best weed....

In my youth, I had a bag confiscated and was told to "go on my way."

Look behind the curtain, put your sunglasses on if necessary.

else if it weren't for the war on drugs? i mean, cocaine addicts have a better chance at outliving their jones than meth heads. how many of them would have just smoked dope and been happy? the law of unintended consequences has no better example than the war on drugs.

It ain't fair, John Sinclair
In the stir for breathing air
Won't you care for John Sinclair?
In the stir for breathing air
Let him be, set him free
Let him be like you and me

They gave him ten for two
What else can the judges do?
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta set him free


If he'd been a soldier man
Shooting gooks in Vietnam
If he was the CIA
Selling dope and making hay
He'd be free, they'd let him be
Breathing air, like you and me


They gave him ten for two
What else can the judges do?
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta set him free


They gave him ten for two
They got Ali Otis too.
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta set him free


Was he jailed for what he done?
Or representing everyone
Free John now, if we can
From the clutches of the man
Let him be, lift the lid
Bring him to his wife and kids


They gave him ten for two
What else can the bastards do?
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta set him free

peaceful ideals, natural creative living and anti-establishment were under attack from the start from that powerful establishment. You probably would think 'hippy' if you saw me, but that does not matter. I am a responsible person and have worked very hard in my life, and now this establishment wants to deny me my SS, medicare and my herbal medicine.

But I knew it all along, that is why I was against these cold blooded f*ckers in the first place. They lie when they say they are broke and can't pay benefits to us, and they have always lied about the drug war. This is a very old struggle, between those who sell out to the system and those who stay true to themselves, each other and the planet.

People live their lives based on their values--and demonizing the most peaceful people is what an Empire does. They prey upon them. Our country will be healed from the bottom up, we cannot expect powerful people to spontaneously change what they do or who they are.

Thank you marmar for another great post:)

And by the way,if you saw me, you probably wouldn't think"hippie" but I like to think of myself as while not being "stuck" in those days, I'm absolutely grounded in them and have little patience for people who were there, but now pretend to have not learned the lessons anyone paying attention had to have learned. Luckily, just among the people I know , very few have been sellouts or turned their backs on the ideals we tried to live by and demonstrate to America as a better way. :fistbump:

Organic food - thank the hippies
Back to the land - thank the hippies
Recycling - thank the hippies
Co-ops - thank the hippies
Antiwar protests - thank the hippies
Green products - thank the hippies
Popular music as art - thank the hippies

All these things existed before hippies, but all of them have hippies to thank for moving them as far into the mainstream as they have come.

Nick Lowe wasn't a hippie by any stretch of the imagination, but what IS so funny about peace, love, and understanding?

He's a really outrageous guy with one of the best voices I've ever heard. Check out his wiki for more on his life:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sinclair_(poet)

"kick out the jams, motherfuckers!" - MC5