held in 1967 in San Francisco just after the famous Be-In in Golden Gate Park. Panelists were the philosopher Alan Watts, artist Gary Snyder, poet Allen Ginsberg and psychologist Timothy Leary. The focus of the discussion was Leary's "Turn on, tune in and drop out" recommendation for the world, especially the "drop out" part.

It was extraordinary to read what these folks thought was coming in the future. Snyder, whose relative was a S.F. longshoreman, was familiar with the terms negotiated by the powerful Longshoreman's Union to protect members whose jobs were lost to automation. Some got early retirement with full benefits. Others received a five-year "vacation" with full pay. Snyder extrapolated from this that automation would sooner than later take most jobs (he didn't even know about "offshoring" yet!), and that a rational society would be forced to implement a reverse income tax, i.e. a guaranteed income. Remember that Nixon advisor Pat Moynihan actually proposed a negative income tax in Nixon's first term and that McGovern ran on the $1,000 per month guaranteed income in 1972.

These fellows riffed on that for a while, noting that many of these longshoreman sat around and drank beer for two weeks until they got bored. Then they bought a powerboat and tooled around San Francisco Bay. That got tedious after a while, so they traded in the stinkpotter for a sailboat and learned to sail. Finally, they decided to build their own sailboat. Leary was ecstatic about the idea of people being paid to "drop out" so that they could "find their tribe" and quit "playing the game."

Snyder was right that automation would take away jobs. Just look at the "10 Things that Will Disappear" essay posted today on this website. But he and these people who were among the trendsetters during both the Beat and Psychedelic generations were dead wrong about society's reaction. In their worst bummer, their worst drug-fueled terror, they could not imagine a society that would take away people's jobs and tell them to get re-trained or re-tooled or re-imagined or whatever it is they're telling obsolete human beings today. Nor could they hallucinate the neoliberal system that really says to more and more people, "You're unneeded. Die quickly."

It was a very good year.

but without reading it before I wrote mine. Note also that my comment refers to 1967. The reading I'm doing these days would lead me to believe that Kesey, Leary, Ginsberg, the Merry Pranksters and all the rest of the "heads" would say this was evidence that we were "synched."

Seeing your comment made me LOL at 2:45 AM, and I'm straight as an arrow.

If you do it right, the clutch and transmission will outlast the rest of the car...
It's a lot better than giving the transmission shop $2500 every 150-200,000 miles...

I perfected my use of a manual transmission on a 1955 Mack Truck, there were 2 options for shifting...
Use the clutch and double clutch with a fine art of revving the engine just right on the double clutch...
Or...
Use the clutch only to start, or stop rolling, and shift without the clutch, matching the engine speed to the vehicle speed perfectly...

I used the latter...

Frank Sinatra had a very good year, Janis Ian, not so much.

Old Blue Eyes:
When I was seventeen, it was a very good year
It was a very good year for small town girls
And soft summer nights
We'd hide from the lights
On the village green
When I was seventeen.

Janis Ian:
I learned the truth at seventeen
That love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear skinned smiles
Who married young and then retired
The valentines I never knew
The Friday night charades of youth
Were spent on one more beautiful
At seventeen I learned the truth
And those of us with ravaged faces
Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say - come dance with me
And murmured vague obscenities
It isn't all it seems at seventeen.

Come to think of it, 17 wasn't that great. Thanks a lot, riverlover.

stole the Democratic Party without changing the name, too. They stole one Party without changing the name and stole the other Party with changing the name. Imagine: it took only two people to make all politics in the country right wing. Well, them and lots of corporations and billionaires and mass brainwashing for a few decades.

My damned President Madame President