Glen Beck is a Hippie?!?!?

[chris_gerrib]

Or so claims this interesting article, which highlights a lot of parallels between the current American conservative movement and the "tune out, drop out" late '60s and early '70s. Basically, the author claims that the Right's mixture of anti-system radicalism, Luddism, street theater and dropping out (AKA, "going Galt") have obvious parallels to and the same root causes as the hippie movement.

On the one hand, I remember waaayyy back to 2004 and the "permanent majority," so I try to keep ideas like this in perspective. On the other hand, if the John "Eisenhower was a Commie!" Birch Society is back in the good graces of the conservative movement, maybe not.

Vaguely related to the above, I read that a former GITMO detainee is working for the US in Afghanistan. The obvious implication, stated by the now-English-speaking ex-detainee, is that a lot of folks got sold down the river to GITMO for reasons other than being Taliban. Two other tidbits:

1) In the article, a soldier is quoted as saying "no farmer speaks three languages" (the detainee also learned Spanish). What the soldier fails to grasp is that sometimes a person's situation in life has nothing to do with their innate abilities and everything to do with factors outside their control, like place and time of birth.

2) One of the first comments to the article, signed "Wake Up America!" asks why we are working with an obvious security risk. Perhaps "Wake Up America" should just go Galt?

Comments

[daveon.livejournal.com]

It's fairly common outside of the US and UK for "farmers", taxi drivers and lots of other people in various dull occupations to speak more than 1 language. I've been in a bar in Germany and a conversation in English with a guy next to me who worked on a building site. The prevalence of English in culture is part of it. But also in regions where there are many localised dialects, English is a convenient lingua franca.

[bdunbar.livejournal.com]

... Luddism ...

Ah man - you reminded me that I missed the weekly 'loom smashing' run the fellows had last week. Shucks.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

I think the Luddism charge was aimed at the "no global warming" crowd.

[bdunbar.livejournal.com]

From the article

Nowadays anti-science, anti-technology Luddites are more likely to be found on the right, among opponents of stem-cell research and evolutionary biology.

It's funny how supposed anti-technology guys are comfortable with laptops, cell phones, cars, all kinds of labor saving devices. Not to mention a lack of loom-smashing.

Luddite is a fun charge to toss around - but I don't think it means what the author thinks it does.

[jetfx.livejournal.com]

Rather off topic, but today I learned that in Canada, to "go John Galt" means to found Guelph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guelph#History), Ontario. Unfortunately, he was a terrible capitalist, and ended up in debtors prison.