Roosting Chickens?

They’ve been called a “mob.” They’ve been called “passionate Americans exercising free speech.” One TV journalist even called them “veterans of World War 2 and the Great Depression.”

If you stood in a bread line in 1933, then you were probably born in the 1910s or before. If you landed on Omaha Beach in 1944, then you were most likely born in the early 1920s or before. You’re pushing 90 or 100 today. You’ve already escaped the Grim Repaper so many times and seen so many government bureaucrats bungling things, that an Obama healthcare “Death Panel” is probably not high on your list of worries. Sure, you may show up at a town-hall meeting to discuss health care, but you’re more likely to have better things to do with your time.

On the other hand, if you’re somewhere between 60 to 70 years old, you probably have great interest in health care.

Sixty-somethings are Baby Boomers, born in the late 1940s to 1950s. Their older brothers and sisters rocked to Elvis, slicked back their hair and copped an attitude like James Dean. But they, on the other hand, were hippies . . . part of the long hair, free love, burn your draft card, oppose the war insanity that swept America in the 1960s.

Anyone could become a hippie; entrance was free. The only thing required was disdain: Disdain for the official version of events, disdain for drug laws, disdain for middle-class morality . . . and often, a disdain for bathing.

Of course, it helped tremendously if you attended “be-ins” like the Woodstock Music Festival in August, 1969. Every hippie worth his tie-died bell bottoms was at Woodstock.

IMPORTANT NOTE TO READERS: All ex-hippies like to claim that they were at Woodstock. Beware of impostors! You can always tell the real attendees from the fake ones. Those who truly attended were too high to later remember most of what they experienced.

Of course, not being lucky or brave enough to go to Woodstock did not automatically disqualify one from being a hippie.

Stanley Ann Dunham was born in 1942. She would have been 27 had she gone to Woodstock. She didn’t. She was in Indonesia married to her second husband, Lolo Soetoro, and planning to dump her son from her first marriage (and future president of the United States) on to her parents in Hawaii.

Hanoi Jane Fonda was born in 1937. She would have been 32 during Woodstock, but she didn’t attend either. She was too busy supporting a Native-American takeover of Alcatraz Island and too busy supporting the Black Panthers.

Abbie Hoffman, another popular 60s radical, was 33 and he was at Woodstock. He tried to grab the microphone and deliver a political rant during The Who’s performance. Guitarist Pete Towsend hit him with his guitar and shoved him off the stage. The bipolar Hoffman would no doubt be at town halls today since he clearly understood the importance of health care. Unfortunately, he died in a cramped apartment (converted from a turkey coop) after over-dosing on Phenobarbital.

Charley Manson was 35 in 1969, but he didn’t go to Woodstock either. He was too busy motivating his Family of young hippies to kill innocent people in Los Angeles that August.

Ever notice how a movement that didn’t trust anyone over 30 was led by people over 30? Baby Boomers learned hypocrisy early.

Someone else who didn’t make it to Woodstock either was Bernadine Dhorn. In July 1969, the 27-year old was busy leading the newly-formed “Weathemen” faction of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society). She was also busy planning her upcoming trips to communist North Vietnam and Cuba.

"Dig it! First they killed those pigs and then they put a fork in pig Tate's belly. Wild!"

Bill Ayers would have been 25 but he also didn’t make it to Woodstock. The leader of a faction within the SDS called the Jesse James Gang, Ayers would soon join Dhorn in co-leading the break-away Weathermen. In the summer of 1969, Ayers was too busy planning a series of bombings to attend a concert.

Both Dhorn and Ayers would later become friends and political supporters of Stanley Ann’s son when he ran for president.

A politician who would one day fight for nationalized health care, Senator Ted Kennedy was ancient by hippie standards in 1969. Teddy was 37. Still, with all the acid being dropped, it’s doubtful anyone would have noticed the chubby senator rocking out to The Kozmic Blues Band. Unfortunately for Ted, he was too busy in August, 1969 to go to Woodstock.

About a month before the concert, Kennedy drove off the Dike Bridge just outside Chappaquiddick Island. His Oldsmobile flipped over and sank into the dark muck. Teddy got away. His passenger, the beautiful Mary Jo Kopechne, did not. Teddy (who was likely going to run for president in 1972) avoided a charge of manslaughter. Instead, he pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of the accident and got two months in jail. Sentence suspended.

The moral, social and political turmoil we experience today is a direct result of the upheaval caused by the hippies. Whether a leader or a follower, every hippie, or pseudo-hippie, bears responsibility for today’s America.

Someone once observed that the children of the Great Depression and World War 2 (The Greatest Generation) begat what can rightly be called The Worst Generation.

Ironically, the Worst Generation begat the ruthless young bureaucrats who will now manage their healthcare.

Obviously, not everyone showing up at today’s healthcare town halls was a radical or a hippie in the 1960s. But quite a few were . . . and it leaves me shaking my head at the irony of the thing.

If you're interesting in generational phenomena, you'll want to read The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny.

There's a C-Span interview with the the authors, from 1997, the same year the book was published.

The authors maintain that there are four generational themes that repeat themselves over and over throughout history, in this sequence:

A Prophet generation is born during a High.
A Nomad generation is born during an Awakening.
A Hero generation is born during an Unraveling.
An Artist generation is born during a Crisis.

20th Century examples:

The G.I. generation (born 1901-1924) was a Hero generation, that saw us through the Crisis of the Great Depression and WWII.
The Silent generation (1925-1942) was an Artist generation, born during the Crisis.
The Boomer generation (1943-1960) was a Prophet generation, that was born during the post-Crisis High and came of age in the Summer of Love.
The 13th generation (1961-1981, Generation X) was a Nomad generation, raised with little adult supervision.
According to this calendar the Millennials (1982-Y2K) are the next Hero generation, and will be sorely tested -- by the evolving crisis.

Going backwards, the authors claim that the same four-generation sequence was played out leading up to WWII, the CIvil War, the Revolutionary War, and several times earlier in Anglo-American history. They believe that each major crisis establishes the preconditions leading through the generations to the next crisis.

I recommend both the video and the book. The authors are real historians, and the results identify attractors (their repeating eras and generations) that come right out of chaos theory. Their 1997 predictions have eerily begun to play out. If they're right, we're in for some rough sailing.

The fourth turning -- the Crisis -- is the great societal entropy collapse, where the crap created in the previous cycles is reduced to a manageable level. This crap takes many forms: physical, social, governmental, financial, even psychological. This time we have the Social Security and Medicare overcommitments, foreign debt, domestic debt, overbuilt physical infrastructure, a healthcare bubble, and an education bubble to name a few.

Last time it took the Great Depression and WWII to clear the decks. God only knows what it will take this time around.

Yeah that is interesting and I’ll put it on the list. I will make this observation, however . . . as a trader who uses technical analysis to evaluate opportunities . . . I know how easy it is to find patterns in hindsight that may or may not actually be there.

I realize that sounds contradictory but it’s simply a reality.

You never know if the pattern you “see” will be predictive in the future. We will never know if the authors are correct until long, long after we’re gone.

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