Where have all the hippies gone?

“So, where is the outrage? I mean, why aren’t people taking to the streets over this stuff?” I know exactly how he feels. My new acquaintance and I sit on the veranda of a fine southern Bed & Breakfast in Asheville, NC looking down the hillside and over the fall colors. But even this cool, tranquil setting isn’t sufficient to help us shake what is bothering us.

Here’s a short list of what is on our minds as we sip red wine and talk into the night: NSA warrantless spying; a war for which the justification was “weapons of mass destruction,” which turned out to be untrue; North Korea actually having weapons of mass destruction but American not having any political capital left to spend; the Global War on Terror; torture; abandoning the Geneva Convention; the Military Commissions Act of 2006; arbitrarily declaring people to be Enemy Combatants; etc. We both agree that we can’t let someone else’s rights be taken away without destroying our own rights.

My friend and I sit here wondering where the protests are. This man, who is a couple of years older than me declares, “If this would have happened in the ‘60’s or early ‘70’s, the hippies would be in the streets with protest signs. Where are the protesters now?” I look at him, and I look at myself, a couple of reasonably successful corporate dudes, wondering when someone else was going to take to the streets. But what about us? Here we are, in the lap of luxury at a beautiful B&B, and wondering where the hippies have gone. Maybe they’ve gone to where we are, getting comfortable in our mid-life.

OK, I write my little blog, I volunteer for a couple of non-profits, but it hardly seems like enough. I want to run through the streets and pump my fist in the air and tell the world that I’m pissed off…really pissed off. I want to bring the presidential elections forward to today. I want to vote democrat or independent or ABRA (anyone but Republicans again).

I want to carry a protest sign that is clever enough to make the 6 PM news, and to be syndicated to other news channels and to be incorporated into the commercials for the 6 PM news. I want to tell the world that I am NOT for them…the war-mongering neo-cons. I am, in fact, squarely against them. That doesn’t make me pro-terrorism. That makes me a patriot.

So, I’ll keep giving to Amnesty International, the ACLU and progressive candidates who believe in human rights and civil liberties. And I’ll keep manning phone banks and knocking on doors and sending emails. And yes, I’ll keep writing this blog. Sometimes, I feel like the voice in the wilderness. But sometimes, when I know you are reading and giving and calling and knocking…sometimes I don’t’ feel so all alone. Sometimes, when you are with me, I feel like, well, a hippie.