“Manson: the Spiritual Voice of Reason at Altamont” copyright 2016 00individual TLL
Experience Rock and Counter-Culture History!
SETTING HISTORY STRAIGHT:
Manson and Altamont WERE NOT the End of the ’60’s Love Generation!
The Easy Excuse
The highly erroneous “fact” that is generally felt is that Manson and Altamont were the historic causes of the end of the ‘60s, the end of Peace, Love and the Counter-Culture’s reign, the end of a dream. While this may be symbolically true, it is just a lazy connect the dots for superficial news and inaccurate and slanted ulterior-motive mainstream-lined reporting of history.
Charles Manson “the Love and Terror Cult Leader” (sheesh) was, from his troubled youth, a prison-indoctrinated socio- pathic criminal, and the Hells Angels were a Biker gang – neither represented, nor had anything to do with the Counter-Culture’s Vibe. Yet it is so easy to write-off the end of an era based on two sensationalized incidents than to delve into the real reasons for the end of the ’60s. Those two incidents were easy wish-fulfillment for the masses by the media’s exploitation of the “we knew it all along, Rock ‘n’ Roll concerts were evil, and underneath, all Hippies were drug-crazed blood-thirsty sex-fiend savages”.
Freedom, Peace, Love, Equality, Individuality, Power to the People, Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll was what the Counter-Culture was about – not a violent drunken biker gang, nor a twisted mind. The truth was far from those sensationalized incidents, yet they were used as weapons by the media and controlling powers against the Counter-Culture.
Every peace-loving, Marijuana-smoking, acid-tripping, anti-war, independent-thinking Hippie and Counter-Culture individual felt the end coming, and unfortunately it began long before Manson and Altamont ever happened.
The Painful Truth
Back in the ’60s hitch-hiking was not only an acceptable form of transportation, but mostly a pleasurable way to meet, talk, and get high with Brothers and Sisters. Likewise, the Counter-Culture opened their homes to others as a place to crash for the night. This was a reciprocal unspoken Brotherly gesture of friendliness and trust. Usually, the next day your new friend would roll a joint, share a smoke, and bid you adieu and continue on – in some cases that new friend may have been you.
However, on the day that a Brother opened his home to another Brother to crash for the night only to find out the next morning that he’d been ripped off began the domino effect of distrust – THAT was the moment and cause of the Fall and eventual End of the ’60s.
Sad, but in retrospect it was inevitable that some soulless bad apples would eventually break the universal bond of trust and take advantage and ruin a beautiful thing. Manson, the “poster boy” for Hippies was 180 degrees from the truth, yet it seemed like America was relieved to have this single “bad apple” represent a whole culture – and there was absolutely nothing that could be done about it – a negative and ugly tide had turned.
The combined escalated negativity toward the Counter-Culture and the Counter-Culture’s growing distrust of their own unfortunately created a new justified paranoia that extended from the establishment to the guy on your couch. And along with the Vietnam War and assassinations, it was signaling the overall beginning of the end of free-form fun as was known, and gave way to a far more serious atmosphere.
But 00individual didn’t let two incidents, a war, further persecution by society, injustice, propaganda, justified paranoia, and being prime meat for the Draft keep from stopping him, oh no, there was still a ton o’ fun to be had, and the Pinnacle of Rock to experience!
And yes, it was all about fun, it was unavoidable, this was the ’60s. Heads knew how to rise above the fray, as from here on into the ’70s it would be a hard-core, fun, psychedelic, drug-fueled, white-knuckle ride. Groovy!
. . . and then there’s the open-minded Rabbit Hole . . . JUMP IN!
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Actually the ’60s and ’70s Counter-Culture ended on February 20, 2005,
that’s the day that Hunter S. Thompson,
the last of the Wild Bunch, ended it.
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00INDIVIDUAL 