WOODSTOCK IS FINALLY OVER

John Guthmiller

[John Lenin]

WOODSTOCK IS FINALLY OVER
THE TIMES, THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'

By: John Guthmiller

Pundits are wallowing in the unexpected largesse of last Tuesday's history-making midterm election. Seldom do the chattering classes get so much meat to chew on. Conservatives - the handful who get air time - are reveling like the Osbournes at a wrap party, while Democrats are alternately wailing like they should have at Paul Wellstone's funeral or putting on a game face and pretending their unprecedented losses don't matter. In the end, Republicans made political gains in the House of Representatives, and retook the Senate. These are stories to warm the cockles of hearts on the Right, and give a generation of Leftists tales with which to frighten their children

But significant though the national election was, there is an equal, perhaps more telling, tale told on the state and local levels. For example, Republican Bob Ehrlich defeated Kathleen Townsend Kennedy for the Maryland governorship. Now, Maryland is not a particularly influential state, nor an incubator for political trends. But Maryland hasn't had a Republican governor since Spiro T. Agnew in 1964. It has been a bellwether state for the socialist march, ratcheting ever leftward for decades. Furthermore, its liberal candidate was [genuflecting] . a KENNEDY! You know, of the House of Kennedy? Yet in a left-leaning state, a scion of that anointed liberal clan was defeated by a relative newcomer in a midterm election where conservatives held the White House. This isn't just notable; it sends tremors through the whole left-wing power structure. And it's just one of many.

The GOP banner hangs in the Georgia governor's mansion for the first time since the 1870's. And defections from the Has-Been Party have now turned that state's senate Republican as well. This in the heart of Dixie, where the phrase "yellow-dog Democrat" was born.

All along the liberal Northeast - Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island - the sinister erosion was halted. Hawaii elected its first Republican governor in 40 years. Florida remained solidly in Republican hands, despite a siege by Clintonites and the focused efforts of the Do Nothing Committee (the DNC).

And liberal lighthouses blinked out all over the referendum reef. In Nevada, the citizens defeated a proposal to legalize marijuana, and banned same-sex marriage. Similar pot proposals failed in Arizona, South Dakota, Ohio, and the District of Columbia. Massachusetts voters discarded the state's bilingual education provisions, demanding that public school classes be taught in English only. Jury nullification was struck down in South Dakota. All around the country, sales and income tax increases were soundly defeated, along with bond issues for questionable "public works" projects.

The country is in a Republican mood.

This election should show, more than anything, that the frivolous days of the Clintons' eight-year Mazola party are over. America has serious business to transact, and the time is not right for childish indulgence. Perhaps when our borders are safe once again and we can stroll our parks and parking lots without fear of being murdered by religious fanatics, perhaps when we've reasserted control of our far-flung economic interests and re-invigorated our own marketplace, perhaps when we once again know the pride of being American, we can lower our sights to such trivia as homosexual unions, animal rights, and whale-saving. Sometimes it takes a crisis to point out the sheer paucity of the liberal platform, its embarrassing paltriness, and the Left's patent inability to handle anything more demanding than protecting pregnant pigs. But right now, we've got bigger enemies to contend with, and we're not in the mood for pranks.

It's becoming axiomatic that when times get difficult, the GOP is the party to turn to. Democrats throw a heck of a kegger, but you wouldn't want one driving your pregnant wife to the labor room. In a predictable political irony, the Left, which once masked its socialist agenda behind such rhetoric as "Down with the Establishment," BECAME the Establishment, and has been in Bunker Mode for the last 25 years. The butterfly chasers from the Summer of Love have infiltrated the power structure and still think they can solve the world's problems by sticking daisies in gun barrels. The party that shunned the status quo has built bulwarks of its own intransigence. Daschle's Democrats have redefined the word "reactionary," proposing nothing of their own but obstructing virtually every measure the administration has endorsed.

On Tuesday, in villages and boroughs from Teaneck to Tucumcari, voters demanded that the roadblocks come down. While the Democrats were busy circling the wagons, the rest of the country moved on.

Tuesday demonstrated the fragility - and obsolescence -- of dynasties like those of Kathleen Townsend Kennedy and Walter Mondale. It heralded a new day for moral responsibility and self-discipline. And it tolled the death knell for a philosophy that was born in the turmoil of Viet Nam and never grew up. As the most famous balladeer of that age sang, "The times, they are a-changin'." Woodstock is finally over.

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

Osbournes at a wrap party

A typo surely? :-)

[IronJack]

A "wrap party" is the gala celebration held by the cast and crew of a movie or television show when shooting finishes. It is also the all-out bash held by the roadies and band when a concert tour winds up. Wrap parties are notorious for their ... indulgences.

I think the author addresses much of the "gloating" concern with this reference. He sees the Republicans as celebrating a bit prematurely, but he sees the change as a natural evolution, a maturing that is long overdue.

[IronJack]

Is that you, IJ?

Naw. I've got glasses.

[Billthedrill]

Nice find, and yes, that was exactly what I was talking about. Easy Rider is a painfully funny movie to watch these days - self-aggrandizing Noble Youth meet the Deranged Rednecks. That little cliche is bedrock belief for many on the left to this day.

It is the same sort of self-absorption that led Janet Joplin to gurgle "freedom's just another word for nuthin' left to lose." She hadn't lost hers yet when she sang that, or she would have known better.

[rocknotsand]

I think the Woodstock event has a lot to do with the homeless and vagrant boom too. Did dropping out from society become less shameful and almost cool in a way?

At WS, most of the attendees showed up with no intent of buying in or paying their way --it was a big gate crash. Very big. Somewhere on the web there must be a webpage telling the story from the Woodstock Anniversary show where the young MBA entrepenuers who organised WS could hardly pay the acts because the gate was trashed. The acts demanded cash when they saw the gates and fences overun. But that still left the PA people and others with no payment. The WS Co declared bankruptcy. The two guys worked for years and gradually paid back at great personal sacrifice the 250ooo (1970's dollars) debt of their company. Honorable effort, and it shows up their true colors. Meanwhile, the lestist idea of exploiting others and free-for-all anarchy has no finer real-life demonstration.

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

Thank you for enlightening me.

[Cultural Jihad]

** yawn **

[IronJack]

Thank you for enlightening me.

Didn't mean to be patronizing. Sorry if it came off that way.

[freedomtrail]

More like say,26 years.

[Scott from the Left Coast]

ROFL!

And with your "handle" you could go into [what's left of] that group under-cover. But now it doesn't matter.

Alas, time takes care of everything.

[John Lenin]

I always choose handles to rub it in on the pinkos. lol

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

I really wasn’t being flippant in my reply. I was just saying thank you for pointing out what a “wrap party” was. At first I though maybe he meant Rap and then I was thinking maybe it’s insider term for a toga party.

Regards,
Flashy

[John Lenin]

dirtbag hippies bump

[oyez]

A lot of people forgot that Wyatt and Billy wern't exactly altar boys as they sold out with the dope deal at the begining of the movie. If they had made their little fortune legitimate their point might be more relative. The two passed over their chance at redemtion with tribe in the desert, thus they "blew it".

[gabby hayes]

Don't lose sight of the fact that the media and universities remain powerful bastions of support for the Woodstock mindset. Talk radio and the internet might diminish the impact of television and the print media, but the leftist monopoly on America's campuses is quite another matter. I can't think of one campus in California where former high school students don't speak of hesitancy and, yea verily, even fear in expressing a conservative viewpoint. On this topic, David Horowitz is absolutely on target

[John Lenin]

Can't stop youth rebellion. I laugh at the adults who still think it's the 60's. They are the true idiots.

[bonesmccoy]

sorry for my generational response, but my impression of Woodstock is that the attendees created or participated in a "cultural revolution" which jeopardized our nation's ability to innovate, create, and build.

If I'm wrong, are the producers and editors of the many Woodstock / 60's era documentaries wrong?

[Riverman94610]

I miss parts of it,I guess.That freedom to hit the road and sense of wonder and adventure that life seemed to be back then.I sure liked the music alot better than the tripe out there today.
Much of the old hippie movement was ponderous and very exclusive.They rightly rebelled against the norms of middle class conformity but only created another type of myopic thinking and cultural mores.I have some wonderful memories of those days but even then I knew it was rife with hypocrisy and mindless self indulgence.
BTW,I was not at Woodstock but I WAS at Monterey Pop in 1967.Now THAT was a festival for ya!
Riverman

[Riverman94610]

I grew up then and it was not some Leave It to Beaver world of sweetness and benevolence.Very little intellectual stimulation.Lots of cruel teachers and mean spirited bullies.Most whites thought nothing of calling blacks"niggers".Almost everyone drank or smoked with little regard for their health.School did teach us the basic skills but did not teach us a love for learning.
Yes,we had some wonderful times too.Most families were intact and I recall never feeling like life was hopeless or I didn't have a future.Never thought about child molesters or carjackers and our summer vacations at Lake Tahoe made the grueling routine of the school year worth it all.
Riverman

[wingnuts'nbolts]

Thank God! It is time for everybody to get the he$$ off the bus and stay off!