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Essay about The Beatles and the concept of Free Love

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Long Road To Peace When someone hears the word “hippie” they are most likely to think of the scene in Forrest Gump or even the groupies that followed The Beatles on hand and foot. Hippie culture is much more than that. Some aspects of this sub-rebellious culture are the concept of free love- you know, that bumper sticker that reads “make love not war”? That would be a relic of the 1960-1970’s. The hippie lifestyle was uncanny to older generations- this created the phenomenon of the “generation gap” (Feinstein). Younger people, early to mid 20’s, started to pursue the “counterculture” of using marijuana and LSD to free their minds and be closer to nature. Typically, the tradition hippie attire was ripped up blue, bell bottom jeans, with …show more content…

The corporate connections of The Board of Trustees of Stanford University stated that the turning point for these riots was on May 4 1970. Four peaceful student demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio were murdered by Ohio National Guardsmen during a campus anti-war rally which started a long train of disturbing, violent, riots in the United States. Some college campuses became virtual war zones, with arson and bombings as well as low-level vandalism and window-breaking says author James K. Sayre who then states that the protests became political blockades.
The anti-war movement was started by “leftist” members of the SDS, Students for a Democratic Society, started to organize groups to teach college students about the opposition to the war (history.com). As the movement grew, so did its following. Some of whom were the members of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, many of whom were in wheelchairs and on crutches. In 1969, President Nixon claimed that the anti-war protestants were made up of a “small-albeit-vocal-minority” that allegedly “drowned” out the voices of the majority American views. This speech drove the nation to tear even more and then came the final leap into brutal riots- the draft lottery (history.com). The hippie culture went mobile and took protests to capital cities like Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and then ending in colossal gathering in Washington D.C.

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