WHO WERE THE BEAT GENERATION?

This is a must-see docu on the Beat Generation, the precursor of the anti-war peace-and-love movement of the sixties.

Watch it.  

You'll see how the system commodified what it feared: the power of youth to change the world.

I learned that "Beatnik" was coined by the media; it had connotations of disparagement.

In Manila, the beatniks didn't exert any influence on Filipino culture, because deep, hard U.S. culture never reached us.  The civil rights movement, MLK, Malcolm X did not break through the mainstream media filters.  Elvis did.  The Beatles. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iwxf3Crrcw

             SO THE VIBE WENT FROM CAFE GATHERINGS

                    AND THE  GREENWICH VILLAGE SCENE                                

                              TO  THE  COMMODIFICATION

   

Not visible in screenshot is the first line:

I'M   BORED.

I   THINK   I'LL

           FACT:  The Beat Generation birthed the                                                Counterculture.

            Really interesting how central music (jazz and folk) was to the Beat Generation, just as it was to the hippie movement (rock), because the hippies were the children of the beat generation.  

       The BG was more intellectual, more about poetry and literature.  Though the 1960's youth rebellion (BG and the Counterculture) were both about: 

                      (1)  Rejection of materialism

                      (2)  Rejection of conformity

And the intellectual vein of the beat generation morphed into the anti-war movement that ended the Vietnam war.

The CIA had both movements in its crosshairs.  It had created LSD, MKUltra mind control, mass surveillance, rock bands who sprang out of nowhere (well, their parents were military) and curiously were never drafted (check out videos about the bands of Laurel Canyon).

The hippies were shooting ducks.  The Beat Generation relied on a few individuals and once they had succumbed to alcohol or suicide, that was that.

Paris 1968 turned into urban guerrillas, which the system was very good at liquidating as well.

In all the countries, esp. Latin America.  The jackals and military dictatorships took care of reformist political leaders.

It's really so interesting to look back on it all.  Distance gives clarity.  The net offers docus.