http://www.letfreedomgrow.com/

I love history! I didn't get to study it much in college, I think if I went again I would major in history. I think being a child of the 70's has a lot to do with my life philosophy. I remember being enthralled with the Bicentennial celebration in 1976 - it was a cornerstone event in my childhood. I vividly remember sitting on the front steps of my house, talking with my father about the value of freedom & what America stood for in the world.

There was a lot of talk about freedom, and we had a big parade every year on July 4th in my town that all us kids looked forward to. And at that time, America led the world in progressive reform! We led the world in drug law reform (hard to believe now), in women's rights reform, environmental reform. Europe looked to us for leadership on those issues. how quickly things can change!

I'm hopeful for the "Carter effect" in 2008 also - I think Nixon caused the pendulum to swing extra far to the right, so it had to swing back to the left after he was gone. Much has changed since then though, I don't know if it's possible for us to be a progressive country any more.

GW - what do we do? I don't have any answers. I think apathy is the number one reason why MJ is still illegal. So how do we defeat apathy? Part of the problem is that people are so blinded by materialism, they've got their nose to the grindstone to make enough money. Usually, economic change is the catalyst for social change. In the 60's and 70's, unemployment was higher, and it was very cheap to live in the city. I think those were conditions that fostered activism. When people are out of work, maybe they'll pay more attention to what the government has done, and get involved.

it has alluded the best 'minds

it can be easily seen

in the hand that is gentle

the hand that is open

the hand that can bring this world

peace and understanding

Bring you into harmony

with every living breathing

soul in this world

I 'Reject

This world system

I have vomited as much poison

From my flesh and soul

yet

my lonely soul

has grasped that Light

This election had the lowest voter turnout for a presidential election since 1948, with only 55 percent of the electorate voting.

That makes 'me feel so much better

in that infinite night sky

that thing called an romantic night

that is also known as LOVE

those dirt hippies

are you and me

casting our votes

before there were any stars

My Master, has no name

in that 'meantime,

'we those people,

are rotting in dank prisons,

I Am Sure that the many readers here at cn also feel the same.

I know this is an impossible question, 'how can 'we change this problem?

If the 'government is actively looking for dissenters,

And people who are trying to change the laws,

Do 'we those people,

Need a 'New Underground?

The vast majority of the country voted for Nixon in 1972! So it's not like "flower power" had taken over and was ruling the country.

***

I know the times back then were very trying. Robert Kennedy being shot and killed and the Vietnam War. We still were hurt by John Kennedy's death. Back in those days it was common not to vote a person out but let them do 2 terms. After that it would usually go back to the other party which balanced things. Nixon did not win by much and most people were discusted and didn't vote.

I'm also curious about something. You can emulsify a fat into a liquid, but can your body absorb it efficiently without additional fat?

BTW - I make a lot of my own ginger treatments from ginger root. I make an extract that I use as a tea or mixed with seltzer to make a ginger beer. Making the extract also makes candied ginger slices. Very easy to do.

Do you think Tom & Rollie would've been killed in Michigan if they were a couple of pot-smoking accountants, living in a cookie-cutter subdivision? Everyone reading this site immediately saw that situation for what it was, a murder of two political activists, but I guarantee you that most people in the US subconsciously said "oh, it's OK, just a couple of.....dirty hippies". People don't even realize they're saying this. But I guarantee if you took 80 or 90% of the population and showed them a picture of the cops beating 2 men in suits and measured their reaction, and then did the same thing with a picture of 2 hippie-looking people, the reaction would be totally different. I bet the outrage and shock at the first image would be 10 times that of the second.

We all have sub-conscious attitudes and stereotypes built in, it's human nature. The government needs to exploit this to get away with policies that would otherwise be socially unacceptable.

As we've moved out of the 60s and 70s, the sad thing is that blacks and Latinos have taken the place of hippie culture as the scapegoated groups. Do you think New York would still have the Rockefeller drug laws if 90% of the people locked up were white instead of brown?

Just look at what the media does. Everytime a white woman is murdered, it becomes an international media story. I remember reading an article about the Laci Petereson murder. It was saying that 2 black women had been brutally murdered by their husbands the same week and it never rose above the level of a small blurb in the back of the local newspapers.

We still have a caste system and it's going strong. It's politically incorrect to talk about it, but believe me it's here. People automatically think that poor minorities are worth less than white people. The police throw them in jail because they can.

I lived in a very conservative part of Pennsylvania. You went to Church or a Synagogue once a week. We went to Catholic schools most of my friends. I was always on the outside looking in. I was looking for something to believe in.

That's not uncommon when you are in your late teens. I never even tried any pot until I was about 25 or 26. I wanted a good life full of love, peace and happiness. I saw the reach that Hippies seem to attain and I admired that in them. I had my first husband drafted and I found out after we were only married 3 months that I was going to have a baby.

I feared raising my son alone if he had to go to Vietnam. The anti-war movement gave me hope that other young people wouldn't have to worry about war and death and separation. As far as the substance marijuana it seemed way more acceptable to me then alcohol because I was raised in a house with lots of alcohol and I didn't like it. Somewhere in the time frame when I re-married and moved to Ohio Jimmy Carter came into focus. I remember him saying marijuana should be de-criminalized. I thought good now maybe it will happen.

Then somewhere and somehow cocaine entered into the picture and I felt like my idealistic dream world was coming to an end. I didn't want to go that way so we went on with our life basically and that was that.

What Did the Hippies Want?

The vast majority of the country voted for Nixon in 1972! So it's not like "flower power" had taken over and was ruling the country. Most of the country was eager to vote for Nixon and thought he was a great guy, as opposed to Bush who just slid in by a whisker (probably aided by voting fraud).

The difference was that back then the media was truly liberal, and they were able to take Nixon down. Let's face it, Bush has done 3 or 4 documentable things that were worse than the Watergate break-in, and the media hardly cares.

Another difference today is that the size and power of the government has mushroomed dramatically. Federal and state governments were tiny in the 60's compared to today - I'll bet that in 1965 the national budget was 10% of what it is now. In 1965, arresting 750,000 MJ users would have simply been impossible. There weren't enough cops and jails. Things were loose and free compared to our modern-day American police state. If this sounds extreme, remember than LEO and prison industry gets everything they want today - they control policy and laws, not voters. So I call that a police state.

Put about two tablespoons of honey into a mug. Place one drip of Ginger essential oil (preferably CO2 extract) in the honey. Stir well. Add a little hot water and stir until honey/oil is dissolved. Add more hot water to fill mug and stir.

Maybe, hippies were just a way for Americans at that time to express how they felt about how the world was then. It was a symptom brought about by a diseased nation that had been shaped by events and people from much earlier times.

Not sure how far I have to look back to see when this corruption occurred. Even before Rome was nailing people to crosses, the haves jealously denied the have nots from scarce food and water, this may have been the underlying biological force which shaped the psychological mind of people.

Yet has not mankind prevailed, has not technology found new ways to grow food, to filter water, to grow sustainable methods of energy creation to warm our homes, to literately move mountains?

It is sad to see those that are at the last stages of Life, not only denied some comfort but to be thrown into a prison, for the crime of staying alive, to see another new morn, to remember how it could be.

Believe me, I have seen brutal action by police on innocent young people just because they look a little bohemian and it disgusts me. Be prejudiced against people because they look like the "hippie" stereotype has got to be one of most absurd and misguided forms of persecution ever!

My feelings on this matter couldn't be expressed more clearly than Bunny Wailer's song Bald Head Jesus:

I have never seen the image of a bald head Jesus yet.

I have never seen the image of a bald head Jesus yet.

He's a humble and dreadlock Nazarene man.

Look in yourselves and try to understand

why you've never seen the image of a bald head Jesus yet.

Every apostle of Christ was a dreadlock bearded man.

Every apostle of Christ was a dreadlock Ethiopian.

This is a message to all church and denomination.

Respect is due to the dreadlock Rasta man.