Alright, let’s stare at a light bulb for 8 hours: Counter Culture, Free Love, and the kidnapping of Patty “goddamn I look good in a black beret" Hearst PART ONE

 

OK  how much do you know about “Tanya”?  Shit I meant Patty-baby.  "Tanya" was her ‘urban guerilla’ persona. 

To understand Hearst’s journey from being a lowly member of California’s privileged class, to someone who robbed a bank , you’ve got to go a bit deeper. 

Let’s start here:

No, it's not Hearst in a gaudy print dress, and yeah, that's a poor kid really staring at that f&$@ing light for 8+ hours.  LSD anyone!???!!!

Can we really infer the idiocy of a younger generation of Americans from the picture of a single girl staring at a bare lit bulb, or the kidnapping of one poor dumb rich kid?

No.  Of course not.

'Not even,' in the words of Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin, you philistines!).

Turn on, Tune in, and Drop Out -- Timothy Leary

I know, we're all aware of that gem.  Well, how about these?

“You're only as young as the last time you changed your mind.” 

(maybe not so bad, eh? Well, that is, if you like living in a constant state of innocence)

“Civilization is unbearable, but it less unbearable at the top.” 

“I've left specific instructions that I do not want to be brought back during a Republican administration.”

Alright Timmy...enough.

When I was a kid, there was this strange-oid singer? entertainer? named Tiny Tim.

Whenever I think of the late sixties, early seventies, I cannot help but think about this guy tip toeing through his wee little tulips.

Alright, alright.  I'll come clean, Dear Reader:  my conservatism is showing. I know it.  

You know, I absolutely shouldn't be a conservative.  By all the rights of inheritance and blood debt, I should be the liberal daughter, of good, solid democrats.  Sh*t, my grandparents were Roosevelt Democrats.  My mom and Dad were against the atomic bomb in the 1950s, and flirted (for a minute) with the Beatnik movement.  But, when the 1960s rolled around, Mom and Dad were in their thirties, and intent on raising a family.  In other words, my parents were appalled by Vietnam and supportive of the Civil Rights Movement, but were inexorably trapped in suburbia.  Well now, I don't know.  Trapped? Hmmm.  Is fulfilling one's commitments in a responsible manner being trapped? Did such people need to be freed from such circumstances?

Well, Timothy Leary certainly thought so.

Fun Fact:

"Harvard pop psychology guru Timothy Leary has transcended his body one last time. The cremated remains of the LSD aficionado, along with those of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and 22 other people, were blasted into orbit earlier today from the Canary Islands along with a Spanish scientific satellite.

Each person's cremains, as they are called, are socked in a lipstick-sized capsule expected to circle Earth for at least 18 months. The maiden flight cost $4800 per ashtronaut. The price is "comparable to most conventional funeral services," according to Celeste Inc., the Houston-based firm that contracted to have the ashes sent spaceward ho. But wait, there's more: Celeste says that purchasers of the Earthview Spaceflight Service will also receive a commemorative bronze keepsake urn emblazoned with Ad Astra, or to the stars."

https://www.science.org/content/article/timothy-learys-last-trip

'Ashtronaut.'  Sometimes life is so improbable it needs no embellishment.

In that moment, in this country, we were undergoing a sea change in political spheres—from old school republicans a la Nixon, to a modern Democratic Party, was filled to the brim with people who had participated in the anti-war movement.  There was also some connection between this group and the cause of Civil Rights.

But the goals of these causes didn’t yield results fast enough, and there a kind of lunatic fringe, that advocated something more than protesting.  In the end, many activists resorted to violence or

As for my family, no brother or sister of mine was old enough to participate in the so-called 'counter cultural' movement.  Not one member of my family participated in the summer of love.  Instead, my parents were far more concerned with the horrors of Vietnam, and the growing chaos at the heart of the American government in 1968. when Richard Nixon won (by far means and foul) the presidency of the United States.

Throughout the tumultuous decade of the sixties, dramatic change was afoot in this country, largely borne on the back of the largest group of young adults (under 25) the U.S. had seen in nearly a century. The country's youths were heavily involved in the Civil Rights Movement, and protesting the draft which had recently ramped up its' bitter harvest for the jungles of Vietnam.  We all know how this 'police action' went, how useless it was, and how bitterly misunderstood our returning servicemen and women were.  

This last point always pissed me off the most, how so many veterans were targeted for derision and mistreatment by hippies of the counter cultural movement.  Another thing that always pissed me off, is the drug culture that grew up around the hippie.  One of my 'favorite' (gag) expressions (hack) from this era is "mind altering," or "consciousness expanding" substances.  

The youth of this country were searching for something;  for some one perhaps.  Would this generation have found it in Camelot with Jack and Jackie? Or, would they have followed the fiery and charismatic rhetoric of Malcolm X? Would Martin's pacifism have permanently inspired them, had he lived? Would they have elected Bobby to the White House? And, when these devotions were not realized, were these young people left rudderless in a sea of psychedelic mushrooms?

In speaking with fellow academics who were in their twenties during the 1960s, those years are as a time of aggressive ideals and healthy (cough) experimentation....  Yet, it was also a time where  other young people didn't survive the 60s at all--who fell into drug addiction and death.  

To be fair, I think that every period has its' problems with addiction:  after all, what was dumber than the abuse of opium in the late nineteenth century?  Alcohol in the early 20th? Perhaps it's encoded in our DNA, I don't know.

What continues to trouble me, are descriptions of how desperate and dangerous were many youths of our country at this time.  What I think the most perilous, was their jejeune hedonism that underscored so-many of their actions, coupled (of course) with self-destruction.

Enough said.  So, who were these kids? Were they innocents who concocted 'new' ways of thinking by combining Eastern philosophy with Rock and Roll?

Out of this mish-mash of tie-dyes, Buddhism, and peyote emerged a life style so all-encompassing, it continues to haunt many who lived through it.  Check out this interesting gentleman:

If you lived near coastal California, or NYC in the late sixties (and early seventies) you could rarely avoid the commune;  the "be-in;"  or fringed leather boots.  Co-existing uneasily with these, uh, dudes were student activists who had talked themselves beyond pacifism, into violence.  Through a stunted application of political dogma like Marxism or Maoism, some groups (i.e. Black Panthers, the Weather Underground) went down a nastier road, which is my generalized pathway towards the formation of the Sibionese Liberation Army.

The whaaaa? Don't laugh folks, because ridiculous as the name was, its' members were in deadly earnest to overthrow of what they called "The Establishment"--basically anyone wearing a 'grey flannel suit.'. 

Yeah, that's the original milkman, Pat Boone.

Some establishment figures were canny, like Richard Nixon, and tried to highjack hippie symbols--.  quite successfully too, I might add:

Alright, Nixon might also be forming a victory sign a la Winston Churchill, but I'm of the opinion it might've been a bit of both.

Perhaps the conservative Victorians had it coming:  after all, they'd reached their zenith in the late years of the 19th century, but these antiquated mores overshadowed much of the twentieth (and beyond).  We can see their zealous influence still, in the most conservative members of the American political establishment. 

And,so we return to the militant. SLA, and Patty Hearst. However, since this entry has already been so long, I might be trying your patience Dear Reader, so I’ll end now. Stay tuned. Same bat time, same bat channel!