THE COUNTER CULTURE IN CRISIS

THE COUNTER CULTURE IN CRISISAuthor(s): JOHN GORMANSource: Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Winter 1972), pp. 390-407Published by: Penn State University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41177860 .

Accessed: 28/06/2014 10:19

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Penn State University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Soundings:An Interdisciplinary Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.238.114.144 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 10:19:46 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=psup

http://www.jstor.org/stable/41177860?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


THE COUNTER CULTURE IN CRISIS*

JOHN GORMAN

past ten years have seen the rapid and widespread growth in the U.S.A. and elsewhere of a new life-style and a new

consciousness which can rightly be described as a counter culture. Ever since its beginnings, this cultural revolution has been beset with many grave problems, and its doom has been prophesied over and over again. Yet, despite these gloomy predictions, it has survived and grown, its progress marked by great victories like the Battle of Chicago in 1968 and the Woodstock Festival in 1969, which manifested the political and social content of the culture in ways which left the Establishment bewildered and essentially powerless. But this union of culture and politics has been only temporarily and sporadically attainable, and the failure to main-

Mr. Gorman has been teaching German language and literature at the University of Miami in Coral Gables since 1967. His dissertation, The Reception of Federico Garcia Lorca in Germany will be published by a German publisher in early 1973.

*In regard to the sources of my data for this essay, it is difficult to be specific in the usual academic sense with footnotes and references. In general, my sources have been Underground publications and other works I have read, persons I have known, and experiences I have had. At the University of Miami, I am Faculty Advisor for the campus chapter of Revolutionary Youth Movement. In this role I have become well-known to the campus radicals and other counter culture people, and, through them, to their friends in Miami and elsewhere. I am a frequent visitor at rock festivals, concerts, and similar gatherings- e.g., I served on the security force at the Love Valley Festival in 1970. For me, "Woodstock Nation," while certainly not paradise, has become, more or less, my only spiritual home. My contacts with such persons and their confidence in me have undoubtedly helped me greatly in acquiring information not readily acces- sible to the general public.

390



391

tain that union has now exposed the counter culture to some of the most serious and most dangerous threats it has ever confronted.

The events of May, 1970, when 13 students at Kent State University in Ohio were shot down by the National Guard during a demonstration against the invasion of Cambodia, and the resulting radicalization of so many students and young people, seemed to bring that long-sought union much nearer. The situation during the summer of 1970 was very tense. All over the country, universities had been closed down by outraged students. R.O.T.C. buildings and other military installations had been burned to the ground. Those students now fanned out over the land, going from one university to another, and as these closed for the summer they continued their work of politicizing and radicalizing young people, mingling with them at Rock Festivals in Atlanta, Georgia, Love Valley, North Carolina, Powder Ridge, Connecticut, Goose Lake, Michigan, and wherever the youth of the counter culture had gathered. For the first time, many of these young outcasts became aware of the political significance of their own culture.

A sense of urgency and impending crisis was apparent everywhere. There were many who believed that some sort of ultimate confrontation was not far off, and that the counter culture would soon be threatened with extermination in the form of a mass re-enactment of Easy Rider, Joe, and Z. Political and cultural radicals of many persuasions forgot their differences and began to work together to accomplish at least a few of their common goals in the short time still remaining, and to prepare a common defense of the ground already won for the counter culture against the expected violent frontal assault of the dying but still powerful Establishment. Now that its moral bankruptcy had been exposed, radicals expected that the old society would resort to steadily increasing amounts of violence and force to silence its critics and roll back the tide of change.

Now, a little more than two years later, the picture has changed in ways that virtually no one in the Movement foresaw during the hectic summer. The expected bloodbath has not materialized. Yet what has occurred has surpassed even the most gloomy forecasts. The change is most apparent in those sectors of the large cities which had served as centers of the counter culture. Visible political activity, while not completely absent, has greatly diminished. The Movement appears divided into literally hundreds



392 SOUNDINGS

of subgroups which are virtually unaware, or even contemptuous, of one another's existence. Far more disturbing than this apparent inactivity is the change in the atmosphere of such areas, from Greenwich Village in New York to Berkeley in California. Almost overnight, a feeling of struggle and progress has been replaced by one of malaise and despair. Much of the trust and openness that prevailed in these places has been supplanted by a fear that often borders on paranoia and sheer terror. What has happened? A large part of the answer can be summed up in one word: heroin.

The exact course of events leading up to this development is not yet clear, but a few facts are certain. About two years ago, President Nixon announced his 'Operation Intercept," a plan to cut off the flow of marijuana into the United States from Mexico. Millions of dollars were spent to hire additional customs agents, strengthen the border patrols, pay informers, and persuade the Mexican government to cooperate. The flow of marijuana, while not entirely cut off, was somewhat reduced, and in some cities a "grass famine" resulted.

From a scientific and medical point of view this anti-marijuana hysteria must appear almost laughable. The use or possession of a mild drug made from a common plant, which most research has found to be less harmful than alcohol, is treated as a heinous crime meriting draconic punishments, frequently exceeding those meted out for armed robbery or even attempted murder. Anyone expecting to find a reasonable relationship between crime and punishment is left bewildered if not outraged. Indeed, many eminent scientists and scholars have joined the anthropologist Margaret Mead in demanding the legalization of the drug under the same sort of laws which now regulate the sale and consumption of alcohol. American society, however, has reacted for the most part with rage to any such suggestions, and those who have made them are often subjected to abuse, or even, as in the case of Professor Leslie Fiedler in Buffalo, made the victims of rigged arrests and show trials designed to embarrass and humiliate them into silence.

This blind anger remains puzzling until we realize that, for America at least, the legalization of marijuana involves not merely the status of a drug but also the legalization of a whole life style. It is the nature of any Establishment to believe itself the only valid expression of human needs. To recognize the legitimacy of an alternative society and culture would be to confess its own inadequacy and failure- an admission which Establishments of any



THE COUNTER CULTURE-IN CRISIS 393

sort have always found virtually impossible to make. The counter culture has also recognized the political

significance of marijuana. As early as the mid-Sixties, pioneers like Timothy Leary had already made clear the role played by various drugs as manifestations of the political and social content of different cultures. The device of the Cannabis plant appears on the flag of the Youth International Party as well as in the insignia of the Rainbow People's Party. Decais and stickers of every sort show the marijuana plant or the "joint" coupled with anti-Establishment slogans and pictures. Newscasters and políticos who have been particularly bitter in their attacks on the counter culture are often deluged with anonymously sent "joints" arriving in the morning mail.

Ever since the "Sergeant Sunshine" episode in San Francisco, when a police sergeant in full uniform stood on the steps of the City Hall and lit a marijuana cigarette to the joy of scores of Flower Children gathered for the occasion, the public use of marijuana at rock festivals and other gatherings of young people has become a prime means of embarrassing and challenging the Establishment. Attempts to make marijuana arrests at such assemblies have frequently resulted in riots with numerous personal injuries and widespread property damage.

The enormous economic significance of marijuana also becomes apparent when we observe that this trade now runs into millions of dollars each year and enables thousands of persons to make their living outside the control of the Establishment by performing a task which the counter culture endorses as a public service. Despite the imprisonment of nearly a quarter of a million persons for marijuana offenses, the trade flourishes throughout the U.S. and the demand increases daily. From the very beginning, marijuana has provided the counter culture with a financial base that lay beyond the reach of the Establishment, and even beyond the reach of organized crime, which showed little interest in an enterprise where profits were so small and control so difficult.

Taking these facts into consideration, it becomes apparent that the government's attempt to halt the influx of marijuana was not merely the effort to deal with a "dangerous" drug but also an indirect attach upon the counter culture itself, its politics, and its economics. Although "Operation Intercept" was hardly an un- qualified success, it did bring in its wake a terrifying development which neither its most enthusiastic supporters nor its most vehe-



394 SOUNDINGS

ment critics had apparently foreseen: a staggering increase in heroin addiction among young people.

Heroin, up to this time, had been largely confined to the black ghettos of the inner city, where it had devastated the community since the late Twenties. Beatniks, hippies, and their successors had shown little interest in the drug, and many leaders of the counter culture had denounced heroin and warned repeatedly against its use. In general there had been little market for the drug, and those who provided or used it had found no acceptance in the counter culture.

About the time of the government-induced "grass famine," however, heroin began to become comparatively cheap and plenti- ful in several of the urban centers of the counter culture. Some have seen this development as an attempt on the part of organized crime to capitalize on the market newly opened by the marijuana shortage. Others have hinted darkly at a government conspiracy, reaching from the opium fields of Southeast Asia, through high officials of the Saigon regime and the machinations of the CIA, to the cities of the U.S. where so many rebellious young people have come together to manifest their disenchantment with the old society and give form to the new. In this view, the government is now attempting to use heroin against restless white youths in much the same way it had been used against the ghetto blacks, hoping to silence the resentment of these young persons and to direct their rage and desperation against one another, thus preventing their feelings from taking the form of a coherent and effective social protest.

Regardless of the validity of such a radical analysis, it is certain that the use of heroin among members of the counter culture is soaring, and the horrifying results are everywhere in evidence. In urban areas all over the country, wherever young people have congregated, this drug is threatening to destroy whatever sense of community has been built up so painfully over the last decade.

Unlike marijuana or hashish, heroin is a true narcotic, and its regular use leads to a physical dependence on the drug and a steadily increasing craving for it. For a heroin addict the only really important thing in his life is his "fix." Without it he will become desperately ill. Depending on the status of his "habit," he may have to spend as much as $100 a day or more on the drug. Anyone in such a position can afford neither scruples nor friends. For the addict the world soon becomes a constant oscillation be-




tween heaven and hell, depending on the availability of the narcotic. For those on whom he must prey to get the money he needs, life becomes a purgatory of fear and dread. There is nothing that will not be stolen and no one who is safe from assault. People who had believed that their poverty protected them from crime have been robbed over and over again of what little they possess. The sheer volume of drug-related crime leaves many big-city police departments helpless to do much more than chronicle the depreda- tions.

The corrosive effect of such conditions on many neighborhood communities has been swift and deadly. Apartments have begun to look like fortresses or jails as tenants buy more and more locks, chains, bars, and bolts for the doors and windows in the vain attempt to keep out prowlers and burglars. After dark many elder- ly persons will not leave their homes for any reason whatever. Storekeepers have bought guns or even hired armed guards to discourage shoplifting and prevent holdups. Many proprietors of inner-city businesses refuse to open their doors to customers they do not know or who seem in any way suspicious. Classes in judo, karate, and other forms of self-defense are packed, and tear-gas pens, sprays, and other such devices sell briskly. Nonetheless, the tide of crime rises daily, and the list of victims continues to grow.

But from the viewpoint of the counter culture the most important casualty of this war has been that sense of trust among people that makes a community possible. In the larger cities the catas- trophe is virtually complete. In the smaller ones it seems only a matter of months away. The counter culture is fighting for its life on territory that had seemed secure for years.

Various explanations have been offered for this dismal picture. In general, the Establishment maintains that the drug trade is subject to a sort of reverse economics in which the supply creates the demand, rather than the conventional opposite, and that all would be well if only there were no drugs. Acting on this view, law enforcement agencies the world over engage in a merciless pursuit and prosecution of users and sellers. Nonetheless, the problem continues to grow.

On a more sophisticated level there is much discussion of the "junkie personality," i.e., one with a psychic predisposition towards addiction to one thing or another. While this hypothesis has been extremely helpful in the treatment of individual addicts on a small scale in tightly controlled programs of rehabilitation like



396 SOUNDINGS

Synanon, it does not bring us any nearer to an understanding of the massive increase in heroin addiction, unless we accept the notion that "junkie personalities" can multiply themselves by leaps and bounds, literally overnight.

In the Underground of the counter culture, there are many who feel that this problem can best be dealt with by supplying young people with adequate information about heroin and its dangers. Many of the young people in the counter culture have only just broken through the web of lies spun around marijuana, and it may well be that some of them believe that the Establishment has also lied about heroin. Unfortunately, nearly all the horror stories they have heard about heroin are true.

While there is no doubt that efforts to treat individual addicts and inform people of the danger are useful, it is also apparent that none of these methods has been effective in turning back the wave of heroin addiction threatening to engulf the counter culture. On the other hand, it is necessary to keep in mind that the use of heroin is not a cause in itself but rather a symptom, and in the case of the counter culture it probably points to a malaise that is only now coming to the surface.

Viewed from a psychological and medical aspect, heroin, as Timothy Leary observed, is a classic drug of despair, the favored drug of a culture whose highest values are those of escape and oblivion. In black ghettos where a sense of helplessness and hope- lessness had prevailed for decades, heroin offered a refuge to those who had no hope and to whom the future promised nothing but misery and degradation. Under such circumstances heroin usage is essentially a form of temporary suicide, a death without dying, ready-made for those not yet willing to take that ultimate depar- ture.

The idea that the spread of heroin among the adherents of the counter culture indicates that the same sense of futility and desperation has now become current among the white middle class youth who make up most of the constituency of the new life style appears absurd, if we think only in material terms. In the case of these young people, however, it is obviously not economic immiseration or physical poverty but rather a sense of spiritual defeat and psychic immiseration that makes their desperation plausible.

To speak of despair and defeat at a time when the counter culture can look back on several years of steady advance may appear strange. Yet if we examine the matter more closely it be-




comes apparent that the very events that brought an unprece- dented solidarity to the counter culture have also raised the struggle with the Establishment to a level on which most of the counter culture cannot yet operate effectively. On the campus of Kent State the government of the "Silent Majority" showed that it had not only the power but also the will to use ultimate force against white dissenters.

This distinction of color is very important. Up to the day when the guns were fired at Kent and white students were struck down, white radicals and dissenters had enjoyed what their black counterparts scornfully referred to as "white skin privilege." Up to that day the repression visited upon white dropouts who chose to grow their hair long, smoke marijuana, and oppose the Vietnam War had been only a small sample of the brutalities meted out to blacks for more than a century.

After the shootings at Kent State and the national reaction to these events had made it obvious that the days of tolerance were over and American society was now willing to countenance and even to endorse the use of deadly force against white dissenters, many white radicals found themselves facing the same dilemma that black militants had been confronting for nearly a decade. It was now clear that any significant direct challenge to the Estab- lishment involved risking not only freedom but even life itself. Playtime was over; to be more accurate, the stakes of the game had suddenly been raised. While there have been some, like the Weatherfolk, who have accepted the new rules and continued to play, many white radicals have found the stakes too high and have withdrawn, temporarily at least, to safer ground.

Other developments in the U.S. and elsewhere also seem to lend credence to a politics of acquiescence and non-struggle. The Viet- nam War drags on and on, and it seems that the American military is able to invade countries at will and through its technology neu- tralize, if not defeat, even the bravest opposition. Even as the troops are withdrawn from Vietnam, the American war machine continues to maim and to kill without any noticeable interruption. Indeed, a somewhat modified form of this war technology is be- coming steadily more prominent in America itself, largely as a means of terrorizing and manipulating people. Enormous sums have been spent by various police departments to purchase armored vehicles similar to those used in Vietnam, manufactured and equipped by the same companies that supply the military.



398 SOUNDINGS

Huge stocks of Mace, tear gas, pepper gas, nausea gas, and the like have been laid in to cope with anticipated mass disorders. On a more subtle level, scarcely a week goes by that the government does not announce the development or deployment of some new device to supervise, control, and, if need be, destroy any who would question its authority.

The effect of such developments on the young people of the counter culture is often devastating. Most of them understand no more of technology and its workings than the Indians did of the white man's railroad and telegraph. They look on, mystified and fearful, as the movie cameras are installed in the school corridors and classrooms and the television cameras that can see through the darkest night are set up to watch the streets where they live. They talk constantly of tapped telephones, bugged rooms, computerized secret files, and undercover agents, frequently recruited from the most vindictive and morally bankrupt elements of society, who spy upon them in attempts to enforce the drug laws or to identify and gather evidence against those who are politically active or conspicuous.

Confidence in the future, notwithstanding the optimism of Charles Reich and others, has largely been replaced by frustration and despair, and the "greening of America" seems farther away than ever. Feelings of self-hatred and inferiority similar to those found in ghetto blacks have become common, and the suicide rate among teenagers in America has doubled in the last decade. Con- fronted by an Establishment which, as Jerry Rubin put it, tells them to "obey or die," some of the more sophisticated white young people have followed the lead of their black counterparts in attempting to expose and deal directly with their fears. Many others, however, have sought in death or in heroin an escape from a situation that has become intolerable.

From another direction comes another attack on the counter culture which, while not so dramatic in its effects as heroin, poses in many ways as great a danger to that culture's integrity and survival. Wherever the counter culture has concentrated, there has arisen a horde of exploiters, often described in the Establishment media with a certain patronizing approval as "hip capitalists," or in the politically oriented Underground publications with condem- nation as "psychedelic merchants."

What we are observing here, however, is not merely the com- mercial exploitation of a culture but rather an indirect attack on




the culture itself. "Psychedelic merchant" is not a fair descrip- tion for one who simply sells artifacts connected with or produced by the counter culture. Used accurately the term designates those entrepreneurs who pretend to be able to sell, not just things, but the culture itself to anyone who has enough money to pay the price. As they see it, the culture is a passive experience or an item for consumption which can be packaged and sold at a boutique, or a head shop, or a rock festival, rather than something created out of the life of a people and belonging to them in a fundamental way that the marketplace cannot even begin to comprehend.

The psychedelic merchant pretends, as the name implies, to sell "mind expansion." To earn his living and acquire his wealth he must convince people that the counter culture can be purchased in his store. His profits depend on preventing his customers from realizing that the acquisition of the counter culture depends, not on making the proper "chic" purchases, but upon achieving a basic internal change in their way of thinking, followed by a real alteration in their behavior towards other human beings and the world in general. As long as his customers can be persuaded that their feelings of alienation and inadequacy can be overcome by attending one more rock concert, or buying the latest record, or purchas- ing one more poster, the psychedelic merchant will grow richer and richer, and his victims' despair deeper and deeper.

It is also in the interest of the psychedelic merchant to prevent any union of culture and politics in the minds of his potential patrons. They must not be allowed to perceive the contradiction between the culture he claims to sell and his expliotative mentality and operation. Thus, with few exceptions, the promoters of rock festivals, the proprietors of head shops and boutiques, and even the editors of so-called Underground newspapers have resisted fiercely any attempt to politicize their enterprises and integrate them politically into the community. Indeed, many of these entrepreneurs have been the most vocal in demanding that militants and other "disturbers of the (profitable) peace" be silenced and re- moved from the neighborhood. Nothing must be allowed to dis- turb their benighted customers and endanger their profits.

Like the heroin pusher, who also seeks out and caters to an alienated and bewildered clientele, the psychedelic merchant has also enjoyed a phenomenal success. There seems to be virtually no aspect of the counter culture which has remained immune from his attack. In films like Getting Straight and The Strawberry State-



400 SOUNDINGS

ment, student radicals saw their deepest convictions parodied and sold to a sensation-seeking public. Indians and their supporters could watch their cause being reduced to the inane situation comedy of Soldier Blue. The cultural triumph of Woodstock was rapidly converted into a series of squalid spectacles which, despite the myths of lost fortunes, brought their promoters enormous profits. The new sexual freedom has often been degraded into a new pornography in which women remain sexual objects without personality or humanity. Only the costumes are different.

The roster of crimes and the list of victims is endless. At times it seems as though these psychedelic merchants have succeeded in converting the entire counter culture into a gaudy circus from which even the young have sought escape in reactionary films like Love Story. The very least that can be said is that the popularity of the counter culture has attracted a horde of parasites who have done their best to convert that culture itself into an artifact with no psychic significance to be sold to anyone willing to buy, and to prevent, if at all possible, any effective union of the counter culture and its politics.

The counter culture has fought back against all of these attacks, often in surprising, if not ingenious ways. The tragic and almost symbolic drug-related deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin alarmed and horrified the counter culture and mobilized many of its elements in the struggle against heroin addiction. Some groups, as was mentioned previously, have seen their roles primarily in terms of providing accurate information about the hazards of heroin and, where possible, medical assistance to the victims of addiction. Other organizations, following the lead of the Rainbow People's Party and other politically oriented elements of the counter culture, have been able to integrate this problem into a coherent social perspective and act accordingly.

From this point of view it becomes important not merely to condemn heroin and warn against addiction but also to establish firmly, in the counter culture at least, the distinction between "life drugs" like marijuana and "death drugs" like heroin and methadrine. "Life drugs" are endorsed as providing a harmless enjoyment as well as the opportunity for expanding consciousness and increasing political awareness. "Death drugs," on the other hand, are despised for lowering if not destroying awareness and leaving the user dependent and socially helpless, at the mercy of a culture of exploitation and death.




Within the limits of this perspective it is possible to deal with the "drug problem" in ways that are quite different from the methods of the Establishment. For the Establishment drug addiction or dependency is the result of a personal moral weakness. The victim is told, essentially, that there is nothing wrong with the world or which society. It is he alone who, out of personal de- pravity or "lack of character," has been unable to cope with the "real" world and has turned to drugs. He must now be "rehabili- tated," i.e., "saved" from his vice. Needless to say, this approach serves primarily to strengthen the victim's sense of worthlessness and incompetence. When he is finally "cured" and "straightened out," it is usually only a short time before he succumbs once again to the lure of an easy escape from a world for which he has already been made to feel inadequate and useless. His return to drug dependency then further reinforces his image of himself as hopelessly weak and unfit, and thus becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

From the political perspective of the counter culture, however, drug dependency is not merely the manifestation of a personal weakness of problem but also a clear demonstration of the pres- ence of a pervasive social sickness. Treating victims on a purely individual basis is like curing people of a plague without making any attempt to find and eradicate the source of the infection. Unlike the Establishment, the Underground does not believe that the cause of the "drug problem" is the availability of drugs, but rather holds that this disaster is the result of social conditions which furnish an inducement, if not an incitement, to drug abuse.

This situation must therefore be dealt with primarily on a social level by exposing and combatting the political assumptions that characterize the Establishment's attitudes towards drug users. On an individual level, the victims of drug abuse must be supplied, whenever possible, not only with medical assistance and personal guidance but also with a political consciousness that will enable them to retain their integrity and function in the midst of a society they recognize as sick. The Establishment, of course, has not welcomed such politicized treatments, even on a small scale, and has attempted to close down such operations by one means or another. Despite these difficulties the work has continued. It is much too early to judge the results, but the effort is real and persistent.

On a different but related level, Underground organizations



402 SOUNDINGS

have sometimes taken direct action against heroin pushers whom the authorities were unable or unwilling to prosecute. In general, however, such action is viewed as a last resort and is undertaken only in cases in which the pusher has not only supplied existing addicts but has actively solicited new customers as well, and has not been amenable to any less drastic measures.

This action against heroin pushers is based not merely on self- preservation or moral indignation but also on the politics of the counter culture as well. From this perspective the pusher, who makes his living by convincing his customers that "the only hope is dope" (which he sells) and that any real social improvement in their condition is impossible, can be seen as just one more reactionary force, helping to keep the disinherited quiet and helpless in their misery and preventing them from turning their revulsion and dis- gust at an inhuman and degrading environment into a justified anger that might lead them away from drugs and into significant political activity. Thus the Underground continues to expose and act against the pusher wherever possible.

Religious elements in the counter culture have also moved to attack the drug menace, albeit in a somewhat oblique and clumsy way. The "Jesus Freaks," although apparently apolitical, share the general opinion of the Underground that the Establishment and its institutions, even if not consciously malevolent, are hopelessly cor- rupt and useless. Thus in their preaching they feel under no obliga- tion to justify any aspect of the existing social order to the alienated youth of the counter culture whom they are trying to save and bring to Jesus. For the "Jesus Freaks" Christ is the first Hip- pie, the eternal rebel who has promised them a spiritual revolution which they must now bring about. Their aggressive zeal to save "sinners" often sends the "Jesus Freaks" into the most obscure gathering places of the counter culture. Just how effective they have been in combatting drug dependency is difficult to say. But to judge from the testimonials they publish they have indeed rescued many who either became addicted or were rapidly had sliding into drug dependency.

The "Hare Krishna" movement, which has the Hindu Krishna as its spiritual center rather than the Christian Jesus, employs methods essentially similar to those of the "Jesus Freaks": constant appearances in every place where the counter culture is found, courageous preaching of their doctrines, friendly offers of food and shelter, and the like. Once again, their success is difficult




to measure in statistical terms, although they do seem to have effected a number of spectacular redemptions.

Many serious and sophisticated critics of these movements have not only pointed out the religious distortions and potential for bigotry which they involve, but also have advanced the thesis that their success with addicts proves only that they have managed to substitute one drug for another- that Jesus or Krishna has indeed driven out heroin, but the inclination towards addiction or dependency still remains and only its object has been changed. The frequent use in the rhetoric of these movements of phrases like "stoned on Jesus" and "high on the Lord Krishna" lends credence to this view. Other critics also believe that the blind attack of these movements on all drugs serves primarily to confirm the Establishment's anti-marijuana prejudices and hinder any essential reform of the drug laws.

In any event, although it is obvious that these movements offer their adherents little help towards political or social maturity, they do at least offer the "saved" addict an opportunity to regain his physical health and escape from his addiction. Without this freedom, any other progress is simply impossible.

The Underground has also moved to combat the demoralization brought on by the Establishment's display of its technology. This opposition has basically taken two forms: the dissemination of useful technological information throughout the Underground and, with increasing frequency, direct assaults upon the Establish- ment's technology by persons who understand enough of that technology to enable them to strike dramatically and effectively at its weak points. These actions have not only helped to deprive many of the Establishment's machines of their air of magic and expose their vulnerability but have also led some technologically gifted members of the Underground to think in terms of a "people's technology," devoted primarily to the design and production of devices capable of directly attacking and neutralizing the anti-personnel weapons of the Establishment.

On a more immediate level, confrontations between politically oriented members of the counter culture and the forces of "law and order" have been marked by a steadily rising level of discipline and effectiveness. For the more seriously committed, street fighting and "trashing" have ceased to be spontaneous reactions and have become planned exercises in revolutionary struggle with clearly understood strategy and tactics. Under these conditions



404 SOUNDINGS

even the most reactionary members of the Establishment have begun to grasp the painful lesson that outrages against people will be answered by heavy assaults upon property.

Groups like the Weatherpeople, despite several false starts, have begun to display a high level of competence, not only in carrying out bombings, jailbreaks, and other revolutionary acts, but also in remaining at large, despite the noisy efforts of the FBI and count- less state and local police agencies to capture them. Bold actions like the freeing of Timothy Leary from his prison farm in Cali- fornia and the bombing of the Capitol Building and the Pentagon have caught the imagination and raised the morale of many members of the counter culture and done much to destroy the myth of an all-knowing and all-powerful government.

On the other hand, such acts have probably led many to believe that only such drastic actions are of any real value, and that those who are not yet ready to take such risks can have no other role than to sit on the sidelines of the struggle and cheer on the revolutionary team. The political segment of the Underground press has not been slow to point out the dangerous passivity inherent in this attitude and to emphasize the effectiveness of many non-violent and relatively risk-free operations like food cooperatives and legal collectives, which can both furnish desperately needed services to communities already more or less abandoned by the Establishment and provide a potential base for the construction of a new so iety and life style as the collapse of the old becomes ever more aj par- ent and acute.

The first large-scale project of this kind was the Miami-based "Operation Snowplow," set up in anticipation of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, which were expected to bring huge numbers of young dissidents to the area. Snowp low's aim was not to control or direct any demonstrations that might take place but simply to provide food, shelter, legal, medical, and other assistance to those in need of it, regardless of their political persua- sion or activities. Widespread support from the local counter culture and from the community at large was enlisted, and the existence of this project, despite its ultimate collapse in late May, had great influence on the planning for the Conventions.

In addition to the many service-oriented operations of various groups, there has been a great deal of activity devoted to consciousness-raising among various elements of the counter culture. What is involved here is not merely quasi-public self-criticism be-




fore a small peer group, but also a deliberate attempt to reach a higher consciousness of personal and group contradictions and to deal with those contradictions from that standpoint. This effort is a strenuous one and has often required a temporary withdrawal from the visible political scene. On the other hand, it has confer- red upon those who made it a solidarity and trust for one another that were highly effective in whatever external actions they have taken. In addition, such groups have proved extremely difficult to infiltrate, since participation is not just a matter of attending an occasional meeting or shouting a few slogans but involves a basic alteration in personal consciousness and relationships, that it is very difficult for an undercover agent or informer to fake. Many such infiltrators have already been exposed and expelled from these groups without imitating the paranoia and authoritarianism of Establishment organizations.

Psychedelic merchants have also not gone unchallenged. Under- ground publications have repeatedly exposed the profiteering involved in the production of records and the staging of rock festivals, and have proclaimed that "Culture is free- by any means necessary." This outlook has legitimatized many direct and indirect assaults on such enterprises, including everything from sneak- ing into rock concerts to shoplifting. Likewise, many of the businesses formerly run by psychedelic merchants have been taken over by their employees and collectivized. Underground newspapers and stores have been particularly vulnerable to this trat- egy, and many would-be profiteers have found themselves locked out of their headquarters and placed in the impossible position of having to call the police to protect themselves and their profits from the community they had claimed to be serving.

Confronted in this way, psychedelic merchants have been forced to choose between their profits and their pretensions. Those who chose profit have had to contend with the angry reaction of an outraged community, which has often compelled them to leave and set up shop in some safer place where the level of political consciousness is not yet so high. Those who chose to give reality to their pretensions have accepted the collectivization of their enterprises and have integrated themselves into the collective, as well as into the anti-capitalistic Underground community in general.

Even in the area of rock festivals and concerts, the picture, while dim, is not hopeless. While most of these gatherings have been



406 SOUNDINGS

little more than exploitative circuses, there have been some notable exceptions, such as the festival staged at Love Valley, North Carolina in July, 1970. Here, thanks largely to the efforts of the mayor of the town, Andy Barker, who organized the festival, exploitative elements were kept away or at least held in check. The admission price was only $5 for the three days of music, and thousands of members of the counter culture, as well as the local citizenry, took part in what rapidly became a real "people's festival." Among rock concerts there was the famous "Concert for Bangla Desh," held in New York City and featuring many of the most notable musicians of the counter culture, in an effort to raise funds for the assistance of the thousands of Bengalis who had fled from their country to escape massacre at the hands of the Pakis- tani army. A huge sum was raised and the counter culture manifested a new level of international awareness and concern which bodes well for the future.

On the national level the solidarity of the counter culture received an enormous boost with the concert held on December 10, 1971 in Ann Arbor, Michigan on behalf of John Sinclair, leader of the Rainbow People's Party, who had received a ten-year prison sentence for the possession of two "joints" of marijuana. Sinclair had appealed this verdict, but had not been allowed to post an appeal bond. He had already spent nearly two years in the penitentiary when this concert was organized to raise funds and call public attention to his plight. Despite the cold, nearly 15 Э00 persons appeared to hear John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and many other counter culture musicians. Jerry Rubin, Rennie Davis, and several other political figures of the Underground were also present in order to make the political significance of the concert clear. The fund-raising effort was highly successful, and Sinclair's situation became a public scandal. Three days later the State Appeals Court reversed its earlier decision and allowed Sinclair to post an appeal bond and leave prison pending the conclusion of his appeal.

On the other hand, there have been many disheartening failures on this front as on others. In many areas of the U.S. the political consciousness of the counter culture is still so low that psychedelic merchants of one sort or other can not only exploit the Movement but even pose as its leaders, doing everything possible to keep culture and politics separate long enough to fill their hungry cash registers. In this area alone an enormous amount of political edu- cation will be needed before the contradictions between the out-




look of the psychedelic merchant and the culture he pretends to sell will be seen clearly and dealt with effectively by the people he exploits.

Needless to say, these are not the only dangers that threaten the counter culture. It is, however, disturbing to find that, at the very moment when so many of its more obvious enemies had been defeated, or at least checked, the counter culture should find itself so strongly menaced from within, on territory that had long been regarded as secure.

The outlook for the future of the counter culture, at least in the cities, is uncertain at best. Indeed, it may well be that many of the problems of the counter culture are only a part of the general urban collapse taking place in America. In this connection it is important, therefore, to note how many adherents of the counter culture are now living in rural communes and collectives. Ten years ago there were scarcely more than a hundred such operations. Now more than 1500 are in existence. The inhabitants, for the most part, are former city dwellers who have fled their homes and brought their culture with them in the hope of finding peace and contentment under what often turn out to be very difficult conditions. Many have not been able to cope with these problems and have been driven back to the cities. Others, however, by making intelligent use of the sophisticated small-scale technology offered in the Whole Earth Catalog and other publications, have survived and even prospered, and often view their efforts as providing the only real hope for the future.

Nonetheless, despite the optimism of the communes, it seems entirely possible that, if means cannot be found to check the spread of heroin addiction, deal with increased repression through technology, and ward off rapacious psychedelic merchants, the counter culture may well be turned into a combination sideshow and pandemonium which, rather than offering a real alternative life style, will only provide one more cruel disillusionment for those whose sensitivity and alienation have already made life in the Establishment intolerable.



Date post:	30-Jan-2017
Category:	Documents
Upload:	john-gorman
View:	222 times
Download:	6 times

THE COUNTER CULTURE IN CRISIS

Documents