Were you of the Hippie era and did you participate as such?

I was 13 years old in 1968, still living in Europe. I was quite intrigued by the movement in the USA. I was starting to develop an interest in politics and was definitely a pacifist.
At the time, I wore what we called an "American jacket". We would get it at the american army surplus stores. I drew a big peace sign on the back of it and little flowers on the end of the sleeves. I wore the bell bottom jeans. My friends and I would listen to American music as well as British. My mother would translate the lyrics for me!
I had a hard time watching documentaries on the Vietnam war.
So many young people lost their lives. It was very disturbing to me.
At 15 years old, my friends and I hitchinked to Amsterdam. There were a lot of hippies there. They had cafeterias where we could eat for cheap and "Sleeping" where we could sleep for cheap (kind of youth hostels). We met a lot of interesting people there.
I did not do drugs or alcohol.
 

DebraMae said:
My "hippiedom" was pretty much like yours. I didn't demonstrate but did carry around a petition for the 18 year old vote. I figured if we were old enough to die for our country we were darn sure old enough to vote. I have never seen that movie either but will have to see if it is streaming anywhere. To this day I cannot watch Vietnam documentaries without tears.
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There's an obvious reason to allow 18-21 year olds in the military to have the right to vote.
Police and firemen could be included too. But IMO the average 18 year old --especially in contemporary times-- is not mature enough or knowledgeable enough to formulate a considered vote.

The 26th amendment was a mistake brought about by the whining of the enormous population of spoiled Baby Boomers, It would be tough to rescind it now, but it should be done.
 

ChiroDoc said:
The 26th amendment was a mistake brought about by the whining of the enormous population of spoiled Baby Boomers, It would be tough to rescind it now, but it should be done.
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There is something about this sentiment that feels odd to me. Though the current generation has a much different world view than in 1971, they have many laws that treat them as adults. Therefore whatever the more mature voters are capable of when it comes to competence, the teen makes up for in freshness, newness, change, and hope...because for the next 60 years they have to live with their decisions. :)
 
ChiroDoc said:
There's an obvious reason to allow 18-21 year olds in the military to have the right to vote.
Police and firemen could be included too. But IMO the average 18 year old --especially in contemporary times-- is not mature enough or knowledgeable enough to formulate a considered vote.

The 26th amendment was a mistake brought about by the whining of the enormous population of spoiled Baby Boomers, It would be tough to rescind it now, but it should be done.
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True that, but there are 21-90 year olds that don't have the adequate knowledge they need to vote!
 
ChiroDoc said:
There's an obvious reason to allow 18-21 year olds in the military to have the right to vote.
Police and firemen could be included too. But IMO the average 18 year old --especially in contemporary times-- is not mature enough or knowledgeable enough to formulate a considered vote.

The 26th amendment was a mistake brought about by the whining of the enormous population of spoiled Baby Boomers, It would be tough to rescind it now, but it should be done.
Click to expand...
If you're old enough to die for your country you should be old enough to vote.
 
In the summer of 1971, while traveling around the country, I went into the El Paso, Texas bus depot. This was about 7 years after the Civil Rights bill was passed. Being naive at the time, I thought everything would change immediately. Well, as I entered the bus depot, I saw all of the white folks sitting in the white section on the right, and all of the black folks sitting on the black section on the left.

There I was standing there with waist length hair, tied dye tee shirt, and jeans. The white people were staring at me with hate and contempt in their eyes. The black people were looking at me like I was some kind of novelty. I asked myself, "Where do I sit? The whites don't want me and I'm not black. Oh what the hell, I'll sit with the blacks!" And that's what I did. I felt more comfortable and accepted sitting with them.

I bought a ticket on a bus (Trailways or Greyhound) for Tucson, Arizona. When we lined up for our bus, I turned around and saw only white people in line, all of the black passengers had to wait in a little group until all of us white folks, boarded the bus. When I boarded a bus in Albany, New York, we all got on together. Man, talk about culture shock! There may have been 7 or 8 black passengers. Some of the white people wouldn't allow and black passengers sit in the adjoining seat.

I was sitting in the aisle seat, but then moved over to the window seat. A young black woman around 20 or so asked me, "Is this seat taken sir?"
She addressed me as "Sir". She showed more respect for me than people of my own race. I told her, "Of course not. Sit down!"

At least 3 black passengers were not allowed to sit down. The driver seemed to ignore it as if he didn't know what was going on. It takes between 4-5 hours to get from El Paso to Tucson. Those poor people had to stand the entire bus trip. I'm glad I let the young woman sit down. I was so disgusted with El Paso and Texas, I wanted to get the hell out of both the city and state.
 
ChiroDoc said:
There's an obvious reason to allow 18-21 year olds in the military to have the right to vote.
Police and firemen could be included too. But IMO the average 18 year old --especially in contemporary times-- is not mature enough or knowledgeable enough to formulate a considered vote.

The 26th amendment was a mistake brought about by the whining of the enormous population of spoiled Baby Boomers, It would be tough to rescind it now, but it should be done.
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I could not agree with you less on that. In fact I'd be OK with lowering the voting age to 16. Young people have a lot more at stake in the future than us old coots who aren't all that long for this world.
 
Trade said:
I could not agree with you less on that. In fact I'd be OK with lowering the voting age to 16. Young people have a lot more at stake in the future than us old coots who aren't all that long for this world.
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Awhile after the voting age was lowered, my father said it shouldn't be any higher than 16 at the most.. he said if people don't know what they believe, stand for, etc., by the time they're 16 they probably never will.
He seemed to have a lot of faith in my generation.

In contrast, years earlier, the first few months my brother was stationed in Vietnam he didn't have the right to vote because he wasn't yet 21.. that was just plain awful.
 
Sunkist said:
Awhile after the voting age was lowered, my father said it shouldn't be any higher than 16 at the most.. he said if people don't know what they believe, stand for, etc., by the time they're 16 they probably never will.
He seemed to have a lot of faith in my generation.

In contrast, years earlier, the first few months my brother was stationed in Vietnam he didn't have the right to vote because he wasn't yet 21.. that was just plain awful.
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I've always had a problem with the fact that our country can send someone off to fight a war when they can't vote or buy themselves a beer.
 
One thing that happened in my rural region during that era was that we "counterculture" types (if that term applies) formed friendship groups who dove into helping out with each other's practical projects, ones of a scale where help was needed. In my early years in my valley we had work parties on Saturday involving a dozen or so adults and their children. These rotated regularly around the circle before and after the snowy months.

Personality differences didn't interfere. Everyone brought food for meals, one or two women looked after the kids, the rest of us worked at ditch digging, firewood cutting, construction tasks, forming crop terraces, or whatever was entailed in the host household's project. Then with, say, seven hours of group work accomplished, there was time for socializing, eating a shared dinner, and maybe some music.
 
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