# Old "Hippies take over the world" story **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [April 18, 2024, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-hippies-take-over-the-world-story/1000473 "2024-04-18T20:33:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2024, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-hippies-take-over-the-world-story/1000473/1 "2024-04-18T20:33:04Z")
“Generation Gaps” by Clancy O’Brien. It’s completely dated of course; people whose greatest ambition in life is to remain continually high don’t change the world, and the burnout of high drug use was starting to become obvious even then. But I recently realized something when rereading it: This is why, beginning with the Nixon administration in the early 1970s, “The Establishment” as it was then called began its merciless persecution of drugs and drug users. Because some people at the time really were afraid that society was decaying into a generation of lotus eaters, and that as the great enabler of the Counter-Culture drugs had to be put down, hard. IOW, the “War On Drugs” was really a War On Druggies. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2024, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-hippies-take-over-the-world-story/1000473/2 "2024-04-18T21:16:37Z")
The Establishment always wants the workers to be working. Now they fear UBI or basement dwelling gamer lamers. Of _course_ it was about people, not stuff. Unproductive people have always been the Establishment’s greatest fear. Exceeded only by fear of _organized_ unproductive people. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2024, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-hippies-take-over-the-world-story/1000473/3 "2024-04-18T21:24:12Z")
Straight from the mouth of H. R. Haldeman, it was a vulnerable spot in both the Anti-war and Black Power movements. [“ we could disrupt those communities”](https://www.vera.org/reimagining-prison-webumentary/the-past-is-never-dead/drug-war-confessional) ---
**Author:** ![Midtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@Midtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Midtown)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2024, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-hippies-take-over-the-world-story/1000473/4 "2024-04-18T23:14:30Z")
Animal Farm ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2024, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-hippies-take-over-the-world-story/1000473/5 "2024-04-18T23:57:17Z")
> [@Midtown](#): > > Animal Farm. Vis-à-vis what? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2024, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-hippies-take-over-the-world-story/1000473/6 "2024-04-19T03:42:51Z")
Reading the title of this thread reminded me of a movie where a hippie leader took over the United States. I cannot recall the name, but I remember two bits from the movie. First was the leader managed to get all people over a certain age placed in facilities where they were drugged into obliviousness and the second bit was a short interaction between the leader and his very young son: Son: How are old are you, Daddy? Leader: Thirty-five. Son: Wow. That’s old! I wish I could remember the name of the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2024, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-hippies-take-over-the-world-story/1000473/7 "2024-04-19T04:06:30Z")
That would be _Wild in the Streets_, @Monty : > **[Wild in the Streets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_in_the_Streets)** > > Wild in the Streets is a 1968 American dystopian comedy-drama film directed by Barry Shear and starring Christopher Jones, Hal Holbrook, and Shelley Winters. Based on the short story "The Day It All Happened, Baby!" by Robert Thom, it was distributed by American International Pictures. The film, described as both "ludicrous" and "cautionary", was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Film Editing and became a cult classic of the 1960s counterculture. > Popular rock singer and aspiring revolution... ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2024, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-hippies-take-over-the-world-story/1000473/8 "2024-04-19T04:07:34Z")
@Spoons Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2024, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-hippies-take-over-the-world-story/1000473/9 "2024-04-19T05:31:21Z")
My friends and I loved that theme song, though, and it holds up:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbzpCCN-1T4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbzpCCN-1T4) ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2024, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-hippies-take-over-the-world-story/1000473/10 "2024-04-19T19:07:32Z")
Firesign Theatre’s “[Le Trente-Huit Cunegonde](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBJB1VtMkNU)” on their _Waiting for the Electrician_ album is their comedic take on life after the Revolution where the hippies take over. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2024, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-hippies-take-over-the-world-story/1000473/11 "2024-04-19T19:08:33Z")
I hadn’t heard that song in decades, but I recalled it as soon as I saw the title. I agree, it holds up pretty well! ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2024, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-hippies-take-over-the-world-story/1000473/12 "2024-04-19T23:52:41Z")
Previous discussion on the board > [@Identify this Heinlein(?) story](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-heinlein-story/691289): > > Someone posted this on another board I frequent: Any ideas what story this is? If it is Heinlein, I’d suspect “I Will Fear No Evil”, although that’s not a short story. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2024, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-hippies-take-over-the-world-story/1000473/13 "2024-04-21T16:13:49Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Unproductive people have always been the Establishment’s greatest fear. Exceeded only by fear of _organized_ unproductive people. They are not that keen on organized _productive_ ones either, unless they are the ones doing the organizing. But yeah, anything that does not lead to the population dutifully and obediently staying in their God-given place and saying “yes sir” when told to take their spot in the crop field/assembly line/mineshaft/platoon/back of the bus all the while being thankful and respectful to their betters, is something to worry about… ---
**Author:** ![TJEckleburg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ebca7d/32.png) [@TJEckleburg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJEckleburg)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2024, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-hippies-take-over-the-world-story/1000473/14 "2024-04-26T18:53:46Z")
There was a live-action TV show in the 1990s called _Sliders_ about a group of people who slide from one parallel universe to another. In one of the first few episodes they reach a parallel universe called Summer of Love where it’s 1995 but the hippie movement in San Francisco never ended so now the hippies run the world. > **[Summer of Love](https://sliders.fandom.com/wiki/Summer_of_Love)** > > "Summer of Love" is the second episode (although it aired fifth) of the science fiction television show Sliders. It originally aired on April 19, 1995 and was later rerun on August 13, 1995. In the episode, the sliders land in a San Francisco... ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2024, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-hippies-take-over-the-world-story/1000473/15 "2024-04-26T19:07:10Z")
Horrible stereo mix though, and even worse on the album (yes, some people actually bought the debut album of Max Frost and the Troopers).