Pompo

TOO BAD THE HIPPIE GENERATION HAS TURNED INTO A BUNCH OF HYPOCRITES

8-8-07|NORML| by John Martin, The Providence

British Columbia
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Last week, I had the good fortune to take in John Fogerty's concert at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria. The former front man for Creedence Clearwater Revival, now 62, is in superb shape and has never sounded better.

It was mainly a boomer crowd. But enough young people were in attendance to suggest Fogerty is still relevant.

After the show, I ended up in one of Victoria's celebrated brewpubs, sitting at the bar beside a young fellow who also had just come from the concert. A self-professed metalhead, he was thoroughly enjoying the show. Then things turned ugly.

It seems partway through the concert, he lit up a joint, only to be told by a 50-plus fellow sitting beside him: "You can't smoke in here, put it out."

He ignored the protestation, only to be on the receiving end of a half-full, plastic beer cup thrown from a few rows behind, landing square on the back of his neck.

"Put that thing out," another boomer yelled.

Regardless of one's opinion on marijuana or smoking in public, this is all quite bizarre.

The boomers invented the ritual of smoking pot at arena rock concerts, and now they beat up on this young guy who's maintaining the tradition.

A John Fogerty concert is one of the last places this could be expected to happen. Fogerty was part of the '60s San Francisco music scene and played Woodstock. His music hasn't changed much over the years. But the same can hardly be said for his audience.

This type of incident is further evidence of a disturbing trend whereby the radicals and protesters who changed society 40 years ago are now insistent on obedient compliance.

Young intellectuals staged sit-ins and demonstrated against rules and structure during the '60s. Now firmly in positions of power, they have established human-rights tribunals and other kangaroo courts to stifle free speech and punish nonconformists.

The generation that challenged and toppled the rigid status quo at universities now prohibits dissenting views on campus, and blatantly uses the education system for purposes of indoctrination.

Those who once proudly questioned authority demand absolute acquiescence to radical feminism, affirmative action, climate-change paranoia, anti-Americanism and other tenets of political correctness.

On top of it, this generation of supposed anti-materialists has accumulated more wealth than any previous generation and made it virtually impossible for anyone under 30 to even dream of owning their own home.

Somehow, the spectacle of a 50-something boomer pelting a young guy with a cup of six-dollar Budweiser for lighting a joint at a rock concert headlined by a '60s rock 'n' roll icon is too surreal to dissect.

So much for the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love.