Patient Zero and the death of Counterculture

After a brief period in the hospital it made me think about all the intelligent members of 60s counterculture that are dead or soon passing. Seriously think about it. Here is a list of some people who woke us up, before many of us were even born.

Abbie Hoffman 

"I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars."

George Carlin 

"Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit."

Robert Anton Wilson

"On a planet that resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break."

Frank Zappa

"Art is making something out of nothing and then selling it."

There are many more I'm missing here that aren't coming to mind at the moment but you get the idea. If you have listened to any of them speak you have an understanding of the profound impact that they had on our modern times.

In a day and age where nobody peels themselves from their screens to share anything without the push of a button is it any wonder why many of the ones who fought through the 60s can feel a true sense of loss? These great minds took us to places that just weren't possible without the revolutionary ambition that each of these men possessed.

It was as if the 60s broke free of the plastic cocoon of 50s consumerism into a reality based on idealism and a return to the individual. Many of them supported causes varying from the environment to civil rights and the undercurrent of post-war tension and the cold war were clearly indicating that the political, religious and cultural institutions of the time were self serving and did nothing to contribute to the people.

The peaceful pussyfied image of the hippie is a boldfaced LIE. People were strung out on drugs in the streets of Haight-Ashbury, people were dying in the Vietnam war and protests, we killed JFK RFK and MLK, and we just raged on. These people stood up to governments, corporations, racism, they fought for everything. This was the last generation of people we had fighting for us. If you asked most people from the 60s what their greatest accomplishment was, they will usually remark "We survived."

The times we live in are locked down into a surveillance grid so tight that we can't even see it. There was once a day and age where everything came with a clock in it. There is a reason for that. Time kept you in check. "No time for this." and "No time for that." Now there is a camera in everything.  "Someone is always watching." You may as well be toilet trained at gunpoint because you have no idea what kind of future is in store for you when you come from that day and age. I fear for the children growing up in this world now because they have no future. It will always be 1984 and in hindsight the 1960s tried to save us from that.