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Mrs. ASDFgjd
English III
11/11/95
Ship of fools
The human race
was dying out
No one left to
scream and shout
People walking on
the moon
Smog will get you
pretty soon
Ev'ryone was
hangin' out
Hangin' up and
hangin' down
Hangin' in and
holdin' fast
hope our little
world will last
Along came Mister
Goodtrips
Looking for a new
ship
Come on people,
climb on board
Come on baby, now
we're going home
Ship of fools
Ship of fools
The human race
was dying out
No one left to
scream and shout
People walking on
the moon
Smog gonna get
you pretty soon
Ship of fools
Ship of fools
Ship of fools
Ship of fools
Ship of fools
Ship of fools
Ship of fools
Yeah, climb on
board
Ship's gonna
leave y'all behind
Climb on board
Ship of fools
Ship of fools
--Jim Morrison,
The Doors (Sugerman 136)
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Mrs. ASDFgjd
English III
11/11/95
How the 60's
changed our lives
When the soldiers returned from WWII, they
returned to a country that was flourishing again. The Great Depression had
finally come to an end, and the economy was back where it should be.
"Leave it to Beaver" may have been somewhat stereotypical, but it
still remains a fairly accurate portrayal of the average life in the post-war
decade. Plenty of jobs for the men, and plenty of housework for the women. Life
was easy, so people did what they did best, they reproduced. Because of the
medical and technological breakthroughs, the infant mortality rate was greatly
reduced, thus creating a "boom" of babies, aptly called the
"baby boom." This generation had one of the largest populations of
any generation, ever. And, in the 1960s, This generation reached adolescence,
and began adulthood, becoming the "Hippie" generation, one of the
most historical, and the most influential of any generation on society.
In the slang of the time, hip meant wise, or
"tuned in," a hippie was someone who saw the truth, and knew what was
really going on. The people of the hippie generation despised phoniness,
dishonesty, and hypocrisy. Rather, they
appealed to openness, love, honesty, freedom, and the innocence and
purity of their childhood values. To themselves, they were the dawn of a new
society in America. A psychedelic society, almost utopian, in which love would
be everywhere and people would help each other. (O'Neill 127)
Drugs were very quickly associated with the
hippies. You could often see people smoking marijuana on sidewalks, in parked
cars, in doughnut shops, or relaxing on the grass of a public park, anywhere
(O'Neill 125). LSD was also very prevalent. Both were to make the user more
aware of reality, and to expand their minds. In an interview, Joyce Francisco
said "Whenever I find myself becoming confused, I drop out and take a dose
of acid. It's a shortcut to reality; it throws you right into it. Everyone
should take it, even children. Why shouldn't they be enlightened early, instead
of waiting until they're old (O'Neill 134).
Sex, or rather the promiscuity of sex, was
quickly associated with Hippies as well. Nude parties, where people painted
each other, were easily found. "Free Love","Make Love, Not
War", and "If it feels good, it must be good" (Zappa 98) were
some of the mottoes of their generation, which changed many of society's rules
governing our clothing, speech, and taboos about sex, into the more relaxed
ones of today.
Because of the drugs, and the sex, and the
immense population that was doing them, crime was reduced greatly. Even the
most conservative members of a neighborhood would admit that the streets were
safer than they had been for years. No one would rather worry about hoodlums
carrying switchblades, when now they only had to step over an occasional
giggling freak on the sidewalk(O'Neill 131).
During this decade, the Vietnam war began, and
many people joined groups dedicated to stopping the war. The Business
Executives Movement, Chicago Area Draft REsistors, Central Committee for
Conscientious Objectors, Committee for Non Violent Action, Campaign to Stop
Funding the War, national MOBilization to End war in vietnam, National
Coordination Committee to End War in Vietnam, National Peace Action Coalition,
The Resistance, Student Mobilization Committee, Student Nonviolent Coordination
committee, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, War Resistors
League, and Women Strike for Peace, to name just a few (DeBenedetti XV-XVI).
Demonstrations on November 5-8, 1966 in New
York, played a large part in linking the hippies with the anti-vietnam
movement. About 3,000 hippies gathered in downtown New York and marched to the
city's rally of 10,000. They were dressed in old clothes, largely military, had
"outrageous hairstyles" and were carrying an enormous stage prop
Yellow Submarine. The hippies made the madness of the crowd into an occasion
for joy and humor. There, Jerry Rubin remarked that he was all for the Marxist
tradition "the revolutionary tradition of Groucho, Chico, Harpo, &
Karl (DeBenedetti 161-2)"
Abbie Hoffman, and Jerry Rubin both were very
influential in the anti-vietnam movement. Organizing marches, and leading their
own fiascoes. One of these included surrounding the Pentagon with members of
WSP, CADRE, NCNP, SDS, CORE, Vietnam Summer, and The Resistance. There he
promised to levitate the building(DeBenedetti 188). He also poured a garbage
bag of $1 bills off of the observation platform of the New York Stock Exchange,
where the people below were trading, and handling millions of dollars. The
traders started fighting over the bills, and the NYSE had to be completely shut
down that day. Another of his protests was to take the flags of America and
Vietnam, and make shirts from them. Then he and Jerry Rubin wore them walking
down the street of New York. He was brutally arrested for wearing the American
flag, while Jerry was hardly even noticed for wearing the flag of the
"enemy" (Zappa 143).
On October 16, the Resistance sponsored a
nationwide Draft Card turn in, in an attempt to stop the war. Over 1,100
drafted men destroyed or turned in their cards. 4,000 people attended a service
at Arlington Street Church, where William Sloane Coffin spoke. There, 87 men
burned their cards over an altar, and 200 others turned theirs in. Other
similar demonstrations happened in Cincinnati, and Philadelphia's Independence
Hall. John Chancellor of NBC-TV remarked "If men like this are beginning
to say things like this, I guess we had all better start paying
attention.(DeBenedetti 195-6)"
In a much larger protest, fifty thousand people
walked from Arlington Memorial Bridge to the Pentagon's north parking lot. Most
sat down, but the SDS members in the group decided to try to rush the building.
They were met by military police. People sang, shrieked, and fell limp when the
officers tried to arrest them. The protesters were tear gassed, and After midnight,
when most had disbanded, the govt. tried to regain the parking lot, yard by
yard, beating the resistors into submission. The next day, only about 250 were
left. 647 had been arrested, and 47 had been hospitalized. Protesters were
confused when they realized that they were something their government needed
protection from (DeBenedetti 197-8).
Some people felt so strongly as to not only
burn their cards, but themselves as well. Norman Morrison was the first. On
Nov. 2, with his 18 month old daughter, walked to the river entrance of the
pentagon, only about 50 yards from the Defense Secretary's office. There he
poured kerosene on himself and lit a match. Pentagon workers got the child
before it was harmed, but Morrison was pronounced DOA. Another event happened
shortly after. At a draft card burning ceremony in NY city, New Yorkers chanted
"Give us joy, bomb hanoi." and "Burn yourselves, not your
cards!" This hatred confused Roger LaPorte. On the morning of November
9th, he sat in the UN's Hammarskjold Plaza, poured 2 gallons of gasoline on
himself, and lit it, burning over 95% of his body. He died thirty hours
afterward. The attending priest called it "the most devout act of
contrition I have ever seen.(Debenedetti 129-130)"
These protests have greatly changed the way our
society views war. It used to be an
honor and a privilege to die for your country, but these protests, by such
enormous groups of people woke everyone up. The draft has been revoked, and
increasing amounts of people today are becoming pacifists, and seeing wars as
senseless acts of murder.
Works Cited
Sugerman, Danny.
The Doors, the Complete and Illustrated Lyrics. New York: Hyperion, 1991
DeBenedetti,
Charles. An American Ordeal. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1990
O'Neill, William.
American Society Since 1945. New York: New York Times Co., 1969
Zappa, Frank. The
Real Frank Zappa Book. New York: Poseidon Press, 1989
Brautigan,
Richard. Trout Fishing in America. New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1967
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