Forty years on, summer of love still lingers

US Features

By Andy Goldberg May 25, 2007, 2:33 GMT

San Francisco - When local San Francisco TV reporter Hank Plante went down to the city's storied Haight Street this week to report on the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love, he got more than he bargained for. His camera caught a drunken fist fight right in the middle of the crowded, narrow street, which four decades earlier had been the focal point for thousands of hippies to express their ideals of peace, love and understanding. For Plante the scuffle symbolized the decline and fall of the ideals of that era, with Haight now plagued by street urchins and drug addicts. Even worse in the eyes of some is that the street's quirky old shops are being replaced by chain stores. The Summer of Love, symbolized in the song San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) actually began with a January 'Human Be-In' at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. With 35,000 free-living hippies gathering in the park, the movement that built on the beat subculture with electric guitars, LSD, free love, ecological consciousness and anti-Vietnam War politics, reached critical mass and gained national media attention. With the shock of the Watts Riots in Los Angeles and the assassination of president John F Kennedy still fresh in people's memories, it was a time that was ripe for change. By Memorial Day Weekend at the end of May 1967, San Francisco was overflowing with scruffy long-haired kids from across the United States, eager to leave behind a world dominated by an older generation and sterile conformity. 'People were walking down the street six deep,' says Peter Berg of the Diggers, a group which had taken a central role in organizing the events. 'Kids were coming in from all over the United States wearing rainbow-coloured clothes and psychedelic scarves around their neck.' But as with so many underground cultures, its exposure to the heat of the masses left the Hippie movement warped and changed forever. The nature of the drugs changed from the illuminations of acid to the mania of speed while the colourful and utopian characters who populated Haight Street only a year earlier were replaced by filthy long-haired runaways with no political or social ideals, and no idea of how to fend for themselves. By October 1967 Haight Street, which had been the birthplace of such seminal hippie legends as the Grateful Dead and the free Haight Street Medical Clinic, became the site of a sad funeral procession for 'The Death of the Hippie' mourned by the neighbourhood veterans who saw their dreams disappear under layers of drugs and grunge. But the wave of social change symbolized by the heady ideals that inspired the summer of love is far from dead. 'The Summer of Love resonates in strip mall yoga classes, pop music, visual art, fashion, attitudes toward drugs, the personal computer revolution, and the current mad dash toward the greening of America,' noted author Joel Slevin in the San Francisco Chronicle. Actor Peter Coyote, another former Digger, admits that it was a long term political failure. 'We didn't end capitalism. We didn't end imperialism. We didn't end racism. Yeah, the (Vietnam) war ended. But if you look at the cultural agendas, they all worked,' he said. But Abbie Hoffman, who along with LSD pioneer Timothy Leary was the high priest of the movement, was more sympathetic. 'We didn't end racism but we ended legal segregation,' he said on the 30th anniversary of the event. 'We ended the idea that you could send half-a-million soldiers around the world to fight a war that people do not support. We ended the idea that women are second-class citizens. We made the environment an issue that couldn't be avoided. The big battles that we won cannot be reversed.' he said. 'We were young, self-righteous, reckless, hypocritical, brave, silly, headstrong and scared half to death. And we were right.' © 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

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TobinMay 25th, 2007 - 06:18:14

'We ended the idea that you could send half-a-million soldiers around the world to fight a war that people do not support.'

Is this sarcasm?

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NoharnessMay 25th, 2007 - 10:57:34

RE:''We were young, self-righteous, reckless, hypocritical, brave, silly, headstrong and scared half to death. And we were right.''

Mostly you were in a drug-induced stupor. I remember because I stayed sober.

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huhMay 25th, 2007 - 14:33:19

while the colorful and utopian characters who populated Haight Street only a year earlier were replaced by filthy long-haired runaways with no political or social ideals, and no idea of how to fend for themselves.

And why do you think that was the case???
These are the same well-meaning liberal leaning folks that would let Islam do whatever it wanted....and anyone who wanted to come across our boarders because they have this imaginary utopian picture in their heads were nothing bad can happen and everyone loves everyone.
It would be great if that was true ....but it’s not!

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SP4: They built a religionMay 25th, 2007 - 17:35:55

This is the lie, the Eden of the divine liberal. It all started there! They fronted peace and love, but really were more interested in drugs and sex. All they wanted was a place with no barriers or limits, to go play. No one had to ask about right and wrong. Happy shiny drug addicts holding hands. The only flower the children were interested in was on the top of a hemp plant or the poppy. If they couldn't smoke, inject, snort or eat it, they didn't want to know about it. They prattled on about free love, as if true love had no value, or costs associated with it.

They looked ridiculous trying to parrot eastern philosophy, as if they ever had a doo-dah clue about any of that. Timothy Leary, their Pope, talked about expanded consciousness through LSD, as if a drug would provide such a thing.
Idealism? What an insult. Want idealism? Study 'Mother Teresa', and get back with us.

Plus, they dressed badly and looked goofy as hell.

They took this with them. This is now their religion. The church of the divine liberal. Timothy Leary is the pope. Academia is their church. The tenured professors, who bought into this lie, their clergy. No right, no wrong, unless they say so. Any sin by their brethren is not a sin. Any action contrary to their relativism is a sin. How's it working so far?

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tonny from belgiumMay 25th, 2007 - 19:56:52

You('e right as usual SP4,things were soooo much better in redneck country,instead of drugs there was plenty of booze available ,which we all know to be the less dangerous evil .It does not intowicate,does not destroy brain cells,does not lead to addiction,does not induce violent behaviour .Rednecks were notorious for never getting into a brawl,never kicking out each other's teeth .
By the way I fancy the criticism of sex?Is it true people stll have problems with sex ?What can be wrong with sex,I ask him.I thought it was one of the nicest things about being a human .Hmmmm I certainly wont trade it in for one of SP4 moral lectures.

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SP4: Trouble? Naw!May 25th, 2007 - 20:12:19

I guess, coming from a nation that shows porn to eighth graders, it would be hard to have a conversation about sex with you, given your frame of reference.

We were here in 67, Tonny. We know what we saw.

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MiltMay 25th, 2007 - 20:22:24

Yeah, peace love dope, man. We all wanted to get laid, but most of us never bought into that 'Age of Aquarius' B.S.

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SP4: Yes, Tobin, and it's working too!May 25th, 2007 - 20:23:43

After all, we just passed another war spending bill! How's that 'hell no, we won't go' working now????

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Duane39May 25th, 2007 - 20:37:54

I would have to agree with SP, as I was there as well. Why is it that people will accept one hypocrisy while rejecting another one? I guess the story of the golden calf applies. Who doesn't want fun?

Free love? Now there is a mirage, and everyone ran toward it. Perhaps Tonny could have that conversation with SP if he can acknowledge a difference between love and sex.

Drugs? Does anyone actually want to support the 'expanded consciousness' concept? I didn't think so.

Yes, I'm afraid it was all a mirage. It was well meaning people who went off the tracks of clarity.

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Thumbs up, thumbs downMay 27th, 2007 - 03:28:39

Well said Duane39...

Tonny, you are a moron.

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