[NYTr] In 1969 We Already Knew What 2007 Would Look Like

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Counterpunch - Sep 17, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/liddell09172007.html


In 1969 We Already Knew What 2007 Would Look Like

By EVA LIDDELL

By 1969 in the Haight in San Francisco when people referred to
themselves as freaks rather than hippies a rumor started that the
government was building concentration camps in the south of Texas and
Arizona to throw us freaks into. The idea seemed credible — the police
had started to come down pretty hard on a lot of us particularly the
Panthers over in Oakland. People said things like, "this place is going
to blow," or "the shit is comin' down man."  The Haight was getting
violent — already a lot of former "peace" people had guns. My husband
and I found a mean semi-automatic in an old piano. A nasty gun that
when fired had a kickback like it would jump right out of your hands.

Altamont had been a dreary bust. Sitting near the front row in the
thick of the mayhem hadn't been a wise decision. Getting out of there
before the thing erupted into total chaos was the challenge. There was
a nice couple sitting next to us. I think they were semi-hippies or
something. They were scared and wanted out of there. We wanted out of
there too. They told us they had a car parked nearby but didn't know
how to get through the people who were getting more out of control by
the second. It surprised us, their parking so close to the concert. We
had walked miles to get there having being left off by a bus — one of
hundreds that had taken people to about five miles within the farm.

There was only one way to through all those people. I had been watching
how the Hells' Angels maneuvered their way through the crowd — had even
been one of their victims. They would stomp on top of people with all
their might and kept on stomping on them 'til they got to where they
wanted to go.

That was the way the four of us got out. I started out first and
stomped on people. I could hear their sounds of dismay and hurt but I
kept on moving. I pulled the girl behind me grasping her hand real
tight. Her husband was behind her holding her other hand and my husband
had the rear as he pushed the girl's husband forward. I remember the
girl was saying things like, "excuse me," to people as we walked on top
of their heads. They had a nice car — once we got to it. We kept
thanking them for saving us we rode back to the city. They kept
thanking us for saving them.

In the 60's and early 70's there was no computers and rarely a
telephone. Nobody had a television. Once we got out of the city we
lived for years in the woods. No plumbing, electricity or running
water. Meager amounts of dough. We had a reel-to-reel tape player
hooked up to a car battery. The thing ran forever.  We never listened
to the radio for any "news". We knew what it would say anyway. We stuck
to our tapes of old blues musicians or be-bop. Vets out of 'Nam came
around. We'd stay awake until the sun came up listening to their
stories. Once those boys started talking about that war they couldn't
seem to stop.

The big revolution which we assumed would result in many of us being
carted off to camps did not materialize. Still, there was a prescience
to the idea itself. Sooner or later the government did build them. Only
they're for Middle-Eastern people, Hispanics, African-Americans.

You can't live off the grid forever no matter how determined you were
to "get out of the system." Living without any dough was making people
bitter and hard. People came "back in." Started watching the "news"
again. The repetitious sequels of the demise of the great old republic
which we knew was dead in '69.

Nothing is really inevitable until it happens. Yet looking back at
those years it feels inevitable — that we would be rightwhere we are
now. That our grand old republic has finally reached what is its real,
true level. It feels inevitable too that soon it won't even need to
pretend that it was once something else.

Eva Liddell lives in the Pacific Northwest.