As an old Berkeley radical who grew up in the 60's, I think still we had the right ideas. We talked about "going back to the land", we aspired to "live in communes", we had "free boxes", we tried to live simply and with less, we talked (and I think this is especially important now) about buying local and small businesses, we wanted hand crafts, we were recycling our bags at the Food Co-op in 1970, we bought food in bulk, the "Diggers" (and later Food Not Bombs) picked up unwanted food from stores to distribute, we talked about 'zero population growth" and some of us got tubal ligations............ and so on. Some of those ideas or groups still last, but a lot of it has been dismissed, forgotten, or trivialized. But really, in retrospect, they are still the ideas that we need urgently now. Use less, share more.
Or at the Cafe Med! I feel very fortunate to have been a young person in Berkeley in those days. It became the template of my life. In some ways, Berkeley will always be home.
As an old Berkeley radical who grew up in the 60's, I think still we had the right ideas. We talked about "going back to the land", we aspired to "live in communes", we had "free boxes", we tried to live simply and with less, we talked (and I think this is especially important now) about buying local and small businesses, we wanted hand crafts, we were recycling our bags at the Food Co-op in 1970, we bought food in bulk, the "Diggers" (and later Food Not Bombs) picked up unwanted food from stores to distribute, we talked about 'zero population growth" and some of us got tubal ligations............ and so on. Some of those ideas or groups still last, but a lot of it has been dismissed, forgotten, or trivialized. But really, in retrospect, they are still the ideas that we need urgently now. Use less, share more.
A few weeks ago I wrote about WHY they destroyed the hippies and then sold a trivialized and commodified version of our message. It's the capitalism!
BTW--we probably passed each other on Telegraph Ave in the 1970s.
Or at the Cafe Med! I feel very fortunate to have been a young person in Berkeley in those days. It became the template of my life. In some ways, Berkeley will always be home.