Not Drugs The Anatomy of Melville's Melancholy (Thoreau:

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Remember watching this with my mom on Cronkite or Huntley/Brinkley.  It was kind of shocking, though it was clearly a "good" thing for "our" side, because it showed that the soldiers didn't want to be there any more than we wanted them to be there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_5RJNo_oF8

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Otto <ottosell at googlemail.com>

>To put it plain and simple: were drugs the 'inherent vice' of all the
>hippie-story, the reason behind its failure? Because drugs were part
>of "the System" long before the whole thing started? As Doug says in
>his post about Vietnam. Vietnam was the first fully televised war, we
>had it in our living-rooms every evening before the weatherman. We
>knew that many soldiers were stoned, could only cope with the
>situation by taking drugs and that on the other hand young Americans
>were in riot against that war taking the same drugs as those soldiers.
>
>Dope and LSD doesn't make sure that you don't become a killer like
>your boozing neighbour? We knew that from the Manson-story.
>
>To claim "Love & Peace" is surely a good thing, but what if the term
>"Love" is overused (p. 5), abused by people to manipulate others, in
>combination with drug-use, as Manson did.
>
>Dope and doper's greed make you vulnerable in a system like ours, you
>can be blackmailed to snitch on your people, if you don't want "Them"
>to destroy your live.
>
>The hippies had no insurance against that, it was something that
>couldn't be avoided (p. 351).