The Hippy Movement Fail? or Triumph?

Some say that the hippies (Flower Children) that came together in the 60's failed their movement in 1970.
Well, Let's see.
starting with the definition of a hippy:
here are the dictionary definitions:

hip•pie also hip•py (hĭp'ē) Pronunciation Key
n. pl. hip•pies
A person who opposes and rejects many of the conventional standards and customs of society, especially one who advocates extreme liberalism in sociopolitical attitudes and lifestyles.

hip•pie /ˈhɪpi/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[hip-ee] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
a person, esp. of the late 1960s, who rejected established institutions and values and sought spontaneity, direct personal relations expressing love, and expanded consciousness, often expressed externally in the wearing of casual, folksy clothing and of beads, headbands, used garments, etc.

Now that we have the basic understanding, i think I'll run a deep further into these fields of flowers for a closer understanding.

So, there were the "Hardcore Hippies" and the "Plastic Hippies"
The plastic hippies were people like me, that agreed to and loved everything about this 1960's youth movement. who would have their lives that lived their days separate from protests and such, they would go to some on occasion and attend as many festivals and concerts that they could outside of their working lives outside of the movement. Though deep down they truly cared, cared about anti war, peace ,love harmony

The Youth International Party known as the "Yippies" was formed in 1966 by Abbie Hoffman, Anita Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Nancy Kurshan, and Paul Krassner.
they were a part of the American Civil Rights Movement and decided they should join them and the hippies together and see what they could do.
They decided to create a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. They thought they if they had caused the uproar and people all around the world would see on the news how they were all being beaten that they would feel sorrow for them and would join in to stand against the government with them. Although it turned around ON THEM. The people that saw the way the Yippies were creating such a riot running around allowing themselves to get beaten with their dirty clothes and long unclean hair, that all they wanted was a stable life style with order from the government.


Now before all that happened,
There was the movie "The trip" created by Roger Corman inspired by LCD.
Then there was "HAIR" The Broadway musical by James Rado and Gerome Ragni, and music by Galt MacDermot.
then "Easy Rider' a film by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Terry Southern.
All these were created to show the youth movement to everyone else to gather other people who became inspired. To reveal what and who hippies really were, and what they were about.

Hippies and the music they created and listened to was all the rage. It was more than just music.. it was MUUUUuuUSSSsSsSiIIiiiiIiccCcCcCcCCcc.. it was amazing and full of expression. it revealed the power of expressions that they all desired and felt. The hippie music sold more than any music ever sold to date! and i believe along with many others... EVER will! It was and still is just THAT powerful.

Then came "WOODSTOCK"! Where over 500,000 people stayed a weekend August 15 to August 18, 1969, on 600 acres of land in Bethel, New York.
32 of THE BEST known musicians of that time period played. Even while it was raining and pouring. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest concerts in music history and was listed on Rolling Stone's 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll.
There were 3 deaths at this festival. One from a drug overdose; another caused by an occupied sleeping bag accidentally being run over by a tractor in a nearby hayfield; and a third when a festival participant fell off a scaffold. There were also three miscarriages and two births recorded at the event. Wow.
Everyone says that Woodstock was a free concert.
Well, yes it was free, but it did not start off free.
Here it was Wikipedia says about that:
It became obvious that the concert was drawing hundreds of thousands more people than the organizers had prepared for, and that the fence had been torn down by eager, un-ticketed arrivals. Tickets for the event cost US$18 in advance (approximately US$100 today adjusted for inflation) and $24 at the gate for all three days. Ticket sales were limited to record stores in the greater New York City area, or by mail via a Post Office Box at the Radio City Station Post Office located in Midtown Manhattan.

There was one incident that i must mention that i tend to hear a lot about,
Someone got up on the stage and said that if you received blue acid- it was bad acid.
Practically everyone was taking acid so no one was really paying that much attention to what color it was, so a lot people began freaking out thinking that they were getting or were going to get sick from having the bad acid.
wowowoowww....
Woodstock Festival was so full of fun and love with peace and harmony that even the state troopers were in there hanging out having fun with them!
on the first day of Woodstock it was noted that over 500,000 hot dogs were sold and every store around was saying that they had sold out of EVERYTHING!
Many people said that they had to wait in a 12 hour line just to get close to the festival.
Some and most were saying that it was showing what the world COULD be without government.
"peace and harmony".
Many others say this was the beginning of the end of the Flower Child Movement.
Especially since, this was around the time when Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Brian Jones all died. They were all very large influences in youth hippie movement.

Brian Jones died on July 3, 1969. Jones was discovered motionless at the bottom of his swimming pool at his home in Hartfield, Sussex, England. His girlfriend, Anna Wohlin, is convinced he was alive when they took him out; insisting he still had a pulse. However, when the doctors arrived, it was too late and he was pronounced dead. The coroner's report stated "Death by misadventure", and noted his liver and heart were heavily enlarged by drug and alcohol abuse.[1]Some felt it was suicide, however, blaming Jagger and Richards for his state of mental depression.

Jimi Hendrix died on September 18, 1970 at his girlfriends place. No one really knows why but thy say it is likely he died in bed after drinking wine and taking nine Vesperax sleeping pills, then suffocated on his own vomit.

Janis Joplin died on October 4, 1970.
She overdosed on heroin at the age of 27 while drunk on cocktails she had finished approximately an hour earlier at Barney's Beanery in West Hollywood.

Jim Morrison died July 3, 1971 at age 27, and, in one account of his death, was found in the rue Beautreillis apartment bathtub by Courson. Pursuant to French law, no autopsy was performed because the medical examiner claimed to have found no evidence of foul play. The absence of an official autopsy has left many questions regarding Morrison's cause of death.
In Wonderland Avenue, Danny Sugerman discussed his encounter with Courson after she returned to the United States. According to his account, Courson stated that Morrison had died of a heroin overdose. Courson said that Morrison inhaled the substance because he thought it was cocaine. Sugerman added that Courson had given numerous contradictory versions of Morrison's death, at times saying that she had killed Jim, or that his death was her fault. The majority of fans seem to have accepted the mistaken heroin overdose account. Courson herself died of a heroin overdose three years later. Like Morrison, she was 27 years old at the time of her death.

WOW.
intense.
.........

so back to the hippie world!

President Gerald Ford gave a televised speech on April 23, declaring an end to the Vietnam War and all U.S. aid, On April 30, 1975, the capital of South Vietnam, Saigon fell to the communist forces of North Vietnam, effectively ending the Vietnam War.

Troops went home and others decided they should start going home too....

McCartney publicly announced the break-up of The Beatles on 10 April 1970.
While standing on the motel's 2nd floor balcony, King was shot at 6:01 p.m. April 4, 1968.

That was when people began believing the flower children generation was over.

BUT THEN on April 22nd 1970, over 20 million people participated and Earth Day is now observed each year on April 22 by more than 500 million people and national governments in 175 countries...
Good going flower children of the hippie era!

If you think about it, most of what we all use today is inspired and created by hippies.

For example:
Steve Jobs, he is the co-founder and CEO of Apple and was the CEO of Pixar until its acquisition by Disney. He is currently the largest Disney shareholder and a member of Disney's Board of Directors. He is considered a leading figure in both the computer and entertainment industries. now, Steve Jobs was a huge hippie! As in he was reeaaalllyy involved with the flower power youth movement.

Stuart Brand, is an author, editor, and creator of The Whole Earth Catalog and CoEvolution Quarterly. His intent with the Whole Earth Catalog was to enable people to find virtually any sort of information useful to themselves, in the belief that humans would then develop a new, positive and sustainable culture and technology for themselves. Hence, Brand later co-founded the online community The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (The WELL) with Larry Brilliant. Brand is noted as an editor who published writings by many of the now-acknowledged innovative thinkers of today, early in their careers. He is one of the co-founders of the Global Business Network. Brand was also one of a group of "futurists" consulted in the planning stage of the feature film Minority Report.
Now if you don't know what the global business network is, YOU'RE ON IT! think about the internet.. yepp he helped create a lot of the things that we do on the internet today.

So really, hippies were all about music,drugs,communion of nature, love, peace...and...giving our world something greater and more harmonious to live with!

Hippies opened the door to what we have today for the pursuit of happiness!

We need to accept we all have a little bit oh hippy in us, therefore the hippies DID triumph!