So Bass, Captain ZAP, PsBeaty,

How do you think this grass roots coalition needs to get started?

How do we end what pretty much boils down to selfishness?

Sure there are small protests, and even a couple concerts. There has been these protests for along time for a long time. Will we here about these 10, 20, even 30 years from now? What will it take to get together on this?

Pretty much glutony and greed preside, will it ever change?

Maybe this is the commercial point of view but this is kindof the way I envision it being.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... =woodstock

Sigh...

You show what was... We wanted to preserve that field:

http://vernville.org/thewoodstockspirit/index.html


Here is what has happened:

http://www.bethelwoods.us/

Okemah has the spirit!

you know, worse things could have happened

you know it seems to me woodstock wasn't a protest, if anything other than just a huge happening, it was more of a statement

Of course it flooded my world in OKC pretty heavily through the movie and recordings in 1970. The fold out cover replaced the poster from the White Album on the bedroom wall for crying out loud and when I got that youth of America attitude on I would crank the Fish Cheer and when i wanted to opera i'd play the who, and when i wanted to roll i'd play sly stone and when i wanted to rock i would play the sea of madness. For a folkie moment I liked Arlo but my brother was always playing that blue eyes song.

I think people maybe missing the point I am trying to make. This was a gathering which the message has reached people who didn't even attend. Ask 10 people about it, maybe they, like me, do not understand all the dynamics, but at least people can see it.


Its not that there is not other things going out there. I think, from what I read, that Okemah is very much intune... Surrounding yourself with people that share the same ideas is natural, but changing peoples ideas...that is another thing.

I didn't go to Woodstock myself, but I have a friend who was born on the same exact day as my broother who i mentioned earlier (graduating HS1969 and the bong and such) and he says he went to Woodstock. He is a second generation Irish descent New Hampsherite who would have turned 18 that weekend. Now, when you ask him about it he says he can't recall much detail about the music and he was generally F'ed up the time he was there and the reason he went was because of all the bands. it was just a big happening. He is far more conservative (he claims to be a democrat but his social agenda is a bit to the right for more) than i am today and his number one pet peave with me is my support of gun control and my insistance that if people want to own guns that acquiring and saling them should have more stringent reponsibilities related to it (he falls more to the NRA side).

The point is it has become iconic as the woodstock generation thing but there is no such thing as a Woodstock generation as much as many of us would like to think there is (or was). The difference then, (again in my opinion) was that any justification or rationalization for that war totally broke down by 1967 let alone 1969 and people saw no since at all for any of that death destruction and cost. People still want to fight a war against terrorism today even though they are uncertain about what that is they want to support that idea generally (I certainly do, I can't see an end (or maybe i see the ultimate end) without an end to religion as we know it but that is another story))) The one thing is that people are beginning to confirm there suspicions that the leadership during this trying time has been incompetant and created more instability than if they had just sat around doing nothing for the last 5 6 years.

I have said enough i am sure

now stop saying that!

i mean...you know what i mean

Here is a link 'bout gun control

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... oking+weed

http://faculty.buffalostate.edu/fishlm/ ... nsongs.htm

check this out

Ain't no bugs on me

Yeah, Woodstock wasn't planned to be a cultural phenomenon, it just happened. I mean, look! They tried to repeat it twice (albeit as a big commercial thingy) but both of those failed miserably with people trashing pretty much everything there and setting fire to stuff, etc. "The times, they are a changin'!" Not for the better, it seems.

Waaaay back in 1970, my cousin Joe (who was visiting his sister when I stopped by to say "hey") saw me for the first time with long hair and a beard. With little more than a "Hello," from me, Joe, bein' of a right leanin' way of thinking back then, freaked and started yelling at me for being a disgusting dirty, hippie, commie, pinko, weirdo. "You people think you're gonna change the world with all of that peace crap...." he said, or something to that effect. "Nope," I said. "It's gonna have to be people like you who change the world when you start accepting folks for who they are and not what they look like. And when you start thinking that peace is better than war. Stuff like that's gonna change the world." (Well, those ain't exact quotes, but that was the general direction of the exchange of ideas.) He gave me the ol' "The heck with you" wave of the hand and went inside cousin Edna's house.

A little while later he comes back out and says, "Ya know, you're right!", shook my hand and we had a fine time fillin' out the forms and playin' with the pencils.....oh, wait...that's another story.

What's my point? As usual, I dunno. I guess it's that if you're gonna get people to change, it has to come from within them. You know, the ol' "You can lead a horse to water" deal. I don't know what to do. Set an example, maybe? Sing songs? Put a bumper sticker on your car? Vote? Protest? All little things but they can add up and help, I guess.

Woodstock (the original) happened at the right place and the right time. Nobody thought that it was going to be a cultural & historic phenomenon when it happened. The ones that try to be usually fail to be. People, at least young people as a collective group, had a different mindset back then. Most who attended and liked the music back then were what my fellow Neo-Pagans call "like-minded". That ain't happenin' these days. At least not around these parts.

So, what are you saying, Tom? Have another Woodstock? Hmmmm. Don't know. Lots of angry people and angry music at the last two attempts.

How about a Peace-fest? Tough to find a farm big enough these days willing to get turned into a big mud pit! How about a bunch of little ones? And don't charge a kazillion bucks to get in! Heck, what was a ticket for Woodstock, $20 for all three days? I don't know, but it wasn't much at all by today's standards. Even the songsters from back in the day have gotten greedy! Eighty, one hundred dollars or more for a ticket to one concert! What a shame! Ramblin' am I now, aren't I?

One thing about today vs the 60's was that back then they sent newsreels to the tv networks & it took a few days for them to get there. So by the time you got the news it was a few days old. Now news is instantaneous & you get get it live right now. I used to watch Huntley & Brinkley back then...

commercially Woodstock (the original) should have been proposed to the backers as a long term investment given the financial disaster and issues it created for the promoters (it wasn't the brown acid that was bad it was worry about paying for the mess!)

Many people were against the war by 1967-69 but certainly not all of them. I remember significant counter-demonstrations at some of the anti-war rallies I attended. Notably, construction workers or "Hard-Hats" were well known as hostile to the "long-hairs" and people often ended up in the hospital as a result. The 1960's were highly polarized years, not unlike the present decade.

Though I did not attend Woodstock, it was a well documented free-for-all that could have resulted in death and disaster, if not for the restraint of the authorities. If they had sent in the National Guard, as the Governor was advised to do, there would likely have been riots and many deaths.

For a number of years before 1969 the Woodstock Artists' Guild had been pesenting the Woodstock Music & Arts Fair. They were offered some money to allow Chip Monck and the organizers to turn it into a Rock and Roll event. I don't know if the Guild ever got paid, but as a result of the extensive gate-crashing the organizers lost big bucks and had to sell the movie, music and title rights to Warner Bros. Also as a result the Guild could never hold another Woodstock Music & Arts Fair.




So how is that different from the first one? As I recall, the place was totally trashed, or did I see a different movie than anyone else?

Really, the culturally significant thing about woodstock was the movie. It was the first time that we saw people that looked like us in the major media. Until then hippies and beatniks were the butt of jokes and derision. Now, suddenly we were validated and glorified. It was a nice piece of propaganda for our side. I can almost forgive Warner's for the exploitation.

Love & Peace,
Petie

I know there was still strong support for the Vietnam war way past 1969 (somewhere i post about the ressurection of the the value of that war and we won that war militarily and all that westy crap). The hard hat movement fueled by Merle (and not unlike today a number of other country artists) and the silent majority. I mean while the anti war / peace movement fizzled with the end of the Vietnam conflict the hawks as it were vowed to never loose the public relation war again and they have been extremely effective and with the considerable threat of religious madmen (I mean even the supporters of the vietnam war in 69 and 70 realized the insignificance of Communist Vietnam and were more concerned with imagine and spin (those hard hats don't like to be percieved as losers) than the end of South Vietnam and the tragic consequences that befell Southeast Asia throughout the 70's.

i was in a bar in Nashville recently on Broadway and they had all these old album covers up dating to the 50's.

the had Arlo and the mass a cree

They had one exquisitely designed cover that featured a bunch a men in hard hats leaving the job headed for a bar (i must assume) to live out the lives of the people in country songs and it was titled To The Silent Majority With Love, Harlin Howard Featuring the new song Sunday Morning Christian (NRLP-105 Stereo Nugget Records Inc.It was right next to another titled The Legendary Stanley Brothers and they were wearing pstchedelic cowboy hats (Rebel SLP 1495) It was recorded live and it was Electronically Enhanced to Simulate Stereo, It was next to a Stars of the Grand Old Opry with Sam and Kirk Mcgee (Star Label no number visible) next to a Roger Miller cover from the late 60's, it was dark and he was obviously in a Nashville Alley and I would say he was well on his way to leaving some sheets in the wind (I always liked Roger Miller...England Swings...Remember the movie he was in with the Lovin' Spoonfull and they were in London, that was '66 or '67. Now which side were all these people on??????

I got a pretty cool recording of Sam Mcgee and Byron Berline playing Buck Dancer's Choice, or i used to it was on cassette, gotta find that!

Petie & Zap,
That is some good stuff. Bottom line is what rules the world now. Even concerts that are free and for a so called "good" cause are corupt in the sense that if a lot of the artists did not get recognition, do you think they would be there?

It's not that I am against anybody making a buck, but at any cost?

Back to concert, I think you are right on with "...it was a happening..." It just seemed so much pure in the past. Also it seemed like 9 out 10 people there were on the same page. Today, who knows. My point being that it maybe was more than a happening, maybe it was a subconscience thing? You are probably right that it will not be reproduced again. I do believe it awakend a lot of people to some new ideas just because of the exposure.