It was supposed to last a few days, but instead lasted an entire week. That’s not cool. That isn’t “peaceful” or “cool”. It was illegal occupation of private property. Not to mention the rampant drug abuse and sexual assaults that were occurring. “Hippies” were not cool. They are just a continuation of the same enemy we have been fighting for over 100 years.
That's a one-dimensional interpretation of a complicated musical gesture. I hear a highly ambivalent mixture of emotions--anger and grief, yes, but Hendrix served in 26th Airborne, and though he was a fuck-up, he was not dishonorably discharged, as many believe, but discharged on the grounds of "unsuitability — under honorable conditions" (in 1962). He never lost a certain affection for the military, if only for his fellow soldiers, many of whom would go on to die in a war I and eventually more than 1/2 of Americans disapproved of--to say the least. I hear anguish at an America gone wrong with a misguided policy that killed almost 60,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese--and accomplished less than nothing.
(SOME HELPFUL BACKGROUND: I love my country, and I say fuck you to anyone who says I don't just because I believe we made a tragic mistake getting involved in a civil war in a minor third-world country based on a policy-wonk theory. Did the dominoes fall, did the Chinese take over Vietnam? No, war broke out between the two countries in 1979, and the war involved three Communist nations (add Cambodia). Our leaders fought the war in total ignorance of the historical geopolitics of the region--a history of constant rivalries between and among China and the small nations of Indochina. These rivalries long predated the Vietnam War, played a part in it, and also figured in the intra-Communist war that followed. McNamara was a shallow technocrat who coldly used the draft to send thousands of hapless 18-year-olds to their deaths in what he KNEW was an unwinnable war (so did Johnson).
Tens of thousands of Vets came home maimed and traumatized and stuck with sub-par VA medical care; spat on by fellow Americans for fighting for America, many of them because they were forced to; ending up homeless on the streets in droves (maybe some of them are out there to this day); and some of them so embittered that they joined the anti-war movement. McNamara was a soulless bastard who deserved to be pushed into the river by an enraged Vet. Compared with Johnson and this spreadsheet bureaucrat, Bush and Cheney's reckless interventionism in the Middle East looks pretty mild. To anyone who accuses me of America-bashing, I say America's greatness consists partly in its sense of fair play and its willingness to recognize and correct its shortcomings--e.g., the Civil War and "a new birth of freedom." (Sadly, going from Vietnam quagmire to Middle East sand-trap doesn't suggest any lessons were learned.)
Hendrix was beyond dispute a genius who was a fucked-up individual and anything but a role model in his personal life, yes; but his musical theme (besides drugs and sex and extra-terrestrials) was Love. He was a typical Hippie in that sense. "Peace and Love" are facile sentimental slogans, certainly, but as far as you can get from today's Leftist hate-mongering.
Most Hippies were self-indulgent, drugged-out, affluent pseudo-anarchists, but only a few poisonous individuals like Bill Ayers and his Weather Underground advocated and practiced violence. Sadly, that's what the Hippie movement evolved into--today's Alinsky-ized Far Left Chicago-style machine politicians destroying every city they control, cynical exploitation of racial grievance, blatant anti-Americanism, crypto-Communism culminating in a traitor named Obama.
Hendrix was no fan of Communism, and in his last years the Black Panthers were already criticizing him for not being (as we now say) "woke" and on board with anti-white identity politics. Unlike them and their modern-day descendants, he was not a hater.
With all this in mind, that Anthem performance makes a lot of sense in its surreal way. I'll quote this Quora comment: "Hendrix evoked the majesty of America while also summoning the howling undercurrents of dissonance and violence echoing the Vietnam war and the nation's racial struggles.” At the right historical moment at a now-historic event Hendrix turned in a performance that was also a dramatic piece of performance art, iconoclastic and yet, to this day, an icon standing for that entire period, creative and destructive, peace-and-love on the one hand, massively violent on the other. But in retrospect, tragic at the time and tragic in its consequences.
One hallmark of the Left is being offended by complexity. Ideology-driven people are allergic to truth, and the truth is rarely simple. That goes for Hendrix, his version of the Anthem and his attitude to America. If anyone's offended by the fact that I don't see this issue in "black and white," I don't give a fuck. I'm voting for the same man you are.
And frankly it sucked. I love Hendrix's music but I've always thought his version of the anthem was just some dumbass bullshit. Nothing interesting or talented about it.
I heard a story from a musician who was there as a kid. The group of blankets he was sitting on got hungry. He was the only one with any money so he offered to go get them all food. He said it took something like 2 hours to just get to the hotdog stand and then like 3 to get the dogs and get back. As soon as he got back his "friends" mobbed his ass and quickly gobbled up every last bite and left him with not even a crumb. He realized at that moment that the whole peace and love movement was complete bullshit.
Maybe the entire meme is directed at liberals. Draw them in and then punch them in the head. Bait and switch. You will never convince lefties that these things aren't cool so why not exploit that?
Also, because he wanted to be the final act (as any true showman would), by the time Hendrix played his immortal instrumental version of the anthem as the morning sun rose on the third day, there were fewer than 25,000 people left, not 500,000.
The 60s are a sad time in world history. We're trying to pull ourselves out of the shit that their social revolution caused while fighting those who want to take it to its conclusion.
For the record, actual Boomers are like 80 today, and most of the people LARPing a love for the dissidence of the '60s were teenagers at the time, at best joining the violent riots of the '70s. The vast majority of them did not and were just happily going about their lives in cloistered suburbs, not even meeting a black person until the Great Migration a few years later. They really wanted into the free love of the '60s, but if we're being honest they were busy masturbating to Sears catalogues at the time.
Yet all the 60-something libs I know love to talk like they personally marched with MLK Jr. and attended Woodstock themselves.
Admitting to being 13 and not really giving a shit about civil rights but really wanting the free love side makes them sound like selfish shitty people, so here we are: pretending that the hippies are still alive and politically active and not being killed by Cuomo in NY nursing homes.
Dude plenty of us GenXer's at one point thought the 60's were cool as fuck. They weren't but it's not just Boomers who ever thought that. I smoked a ton of dope back in the 80's and did a high school history presentation on the Hippie movement. I was stupid and thought they were cool as fuck.
the coolest event that ever happened? and the coolest guy that ever lived? lol GTFO of here with that BS.
strike those lines in that meme and it would be 10x better.
It was supposed to last a few days, but instead lasted an entire week. That’s not cool. That isn’t “peaceful” or “cool”. It was illegal occupation of private property. Not to mention the rampant drug abuse and sexual assaults that were occurring. “Hippies” were not cool. They are just a continuation of the same enemy we have been fighting for over 100 years.
That's a one-dimensional interpretation of a complicated musical gesture. I hear a highly ambivalent mixture of emotions--anger and grief, yes, but Hendrix served in 26th Airborne, and though he was a fuck-up, he was not dishonorably discharged, as many believe, but discharged on the grounds of "unsuitability — under honorable conditions" (in 1962). He never lost a certain affection for the military, if only for his fellow soldiers, many of whom would go on to die in a war I and eventually more than 1/2 of Americans disapproved of--to say the least. I hear anguish at an America gone wrong with a misguided policy that killed almost 60,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese--and accomplished less than nothing.
(SOME HELPFUL BACKGROUND: I love my country, and I say fuck you to anyone who says I don't just because I believe we made a tragic mistake getting involved in a civil war in a minor third-world country based on a policy-wonk theory. Did the dominoes fall, did the Chinese take over Vietnam? No, war broke out between the two countries in 1979, and the war involved three Communist nations (add Cambodia). Our leaders fought the war in total ignorance of the historical geopolitics of the region--a history of constant rivalries between and among China and the small nations of Indochina. These rivalries long predated the Vietnam War, played a part in it, and also figured in the intra-Communist war that followed. McNamara was a shallow technocrat who coldly used the draft to send thousands of hapless 18-year-olds to their deaths in what he KNEW was an unwinnable war (so did Johnson).
Tens of thousands of Vets came home maimed and traumatized and stuck with sub-par VA medical care; spat on by fellow Americans for fighting for America, many of them because they were forced to; ending up homeless on the streets in droves (maybe some of them are out there to this day); and some of them so embittered that they joined the anti-war movement. McNamara was a soulless bastard who deserved to be pushed into the river by an enraged Vet. Compared with Johnson and this spreadsheet bureaucrat, Bush and Cheney's reckless interventionism in the Middle East looks pretty mild. To anyone who accuses me of America-bashing, I say America's greatness consists partly in its sense of fair play and its willingness to recognize and correct its shortcomings--e.g., the Civil War and "a new birth of freedom." (Sadly, going from Vietnam quagmire to Middle East sand-trap doesn't suggest any lessons were learned.)
Hendrix was beyond dispute a genius who was a fucked-up individual and anything but a role model in his personal life, yes; but his musical theme (besides drugs and sex and extra-terrestrials) was Love. He was a typical Hippie in that sense. "Peace and Love" are facile sentimental slogans, certainly, but as far as you can get from today's Leftist hate-mongering.
Most Hippies were self-indulgent, drugged-out, affluent pseudo-anarchists, but only a few poisonous individuals like Bill Ayers and his Weather Underground advocated and practiced violence. Sadly, that's what the Hippie movement evolved into--today's Alinsky-ized Far Left Chicago-style machine politicians destroying every city they control, cynical exploitation of racial grievance, blatant anti-Americanism, crypto-Communism culminating in a traitor named Obama.
Hendrix was no fan of Communism, and in his last years the Black Panthers were already criticizing him for not being (as we now say) "woke" and on board with anti-white identity politics. Unlike them and their modern-day descendants, he was not a hater.
With all this in mind, that Anthem performance makes a lot of sense in its surreal way. I'll quote this Quora comment: "Hendrix evoked the majesty of America while also summoning the howling undercurrents of dissonance and violence echoing the Vietnam war and the nation's racial struggles.” At the right historical moment at a now-historic event Hendrix turned in a performance that was also a dramatic piece of performance art, iconoclastic and yet, to this day, an icon standing for that entire period, creative and destructive, peace-and-love on the one hand, massively violent on the other. But in retrospect, tragic at the time and tragic in its consequences.
One hallmark of the Left is being offended by complexity. Ideology-driven people are allergic to truth, and the truth is rarely simple. That goes for Hendrix, his version of the Anthem and his attitude to America. If anyone's offended by the fact that I don't see this issue in "black and white," I don't give a fuck. I'm voting for the same man you are.
This guy guitars..
If you ever watch the Woodstock footage, Albert Lee smoked him.
If anyone says this shit's too long, buddy, it ain't long at all.
I've read short stories longer then what this guy just wrote.
That's the best post I have ever read here. Thank you.
Yeah the bomb dropping dives piss me off. Always have.
Get that stick out of your ass buddy. It’s fuckin rock and roll.
more than actual bombs being dropped for no reason with your tax dollars? Weird.
I was going to say this and add most were stoned out of their minds.
Hendrix to his credit was a honorably discharged veteran.
‘Veteran’ my ball sack.
They discharged him because he was an unmotivated garbage soldier who was better off anywhere but the army.
It doesn't affect me that way because I'm a patriot. I don't give a fuck about his motivations and honestly you don't know either.
And frankly it sucked. I love Hendrix's music but I've always thought his version of the anthem was just some dumbass bullshit. Nothing interesting or talented about it.
It was a tribute, with "taps" coming in with a cameo, done much better than his "combined british and us national anthems" stunt.
It was much better than some antifa queer burning the US flag!
I heard a story from a musician who was there as a kid. The group of blankets he was sitting on got hungry. He was the only one with any money so he offered to go get them all food. He said it took something like 2 hours to just get to the hotdog stand and then like 3 to get the dogs and get back. As soon as he got back his "friends" mobbed his ass and quickly gobbled up every last bite and left him with not even a crumb. He realized at that moment that the whole peace and love movement was complete bullshit.
Respect the flag
Maybe the entire meme is directed at liberals. Draw them in and then punch them in the head. Bait and switch. You will never convince lefties that these things aren't cool so why not exploit that?
Also, because he wanted to be the final act (as any true showman would), by the time Hendrix played his immortal instrumental version of the anthem as the morning sun rose on the third day, there were fewer than 25,000 people left, not 500,000.
The 60s are a sad time in world history. We're trying to pull ourselves out of the shit that their social revolution caused while fighting those who want to take it to its conclusion.
For the record, actual Boomers are like 80 today, and most of the people LARPing a love for the dissidence of the '60s were teenagers at the time, at best joining the violent riots of the '70s. The vast majority of them did not and were just happily going about their lives in cloistered suburbs, not even meeting a black person until the Great Migration a few years later. They really wanted into the free love of the '60s, but if we're being honest they were busy masturbating to Sears catalogues at the time.
Yet all the 60-something libs I know love to talk like they personally marched with MLK Jr. and attended Woodstock themselves.
Admitting to being 13 and not really giving a shit about civil rights but really wanting the free love side makes them sound like selfish shitty people, so here we are: pretending that the hippies are still alive and politically active and not being killed by Cuomo in NY nursing homes.
Dude plenty of us GenXer's at one point thought the 60's were cool as fuck. They weren't but it's not just Boomers who ever thought that. I smoked a ton of dope back in the 80's and did a high school history presentation on the Hippie movement. I was stupid and thought they were cool as fuck.
GEOTUS is a boomer, for some alternate perspective.