I didn't care for the 'documentary.' I agree with Stan http://ohboyitneverends.blo... that it purposely left out anything that rocked their tiny little cart. I also agree that overlooking The Fifth Dimension and overlooking any African-Americans today said a lot about the people who made it. So did ignoring Sonny & Cher, Jackie DeShannon, Joni Mitchell and other voices. It was bad 'history' from the son of a famous man.

The Byrds was favorite rock band during that period, I particularly liked their renditions of the Dylan songs, "Chimes of Freedom", and "My Back Pages". I remember when the The Byrds performed on the Ed Sullivan show. When he asked them if they considered their music "Folk Rock", David Crosby replied "labels are boxes, man." I can still listen to and enjoy their music, but yes, it was an interlude book ended by assassinations, and the collapse of the post-World War Two boom.

"Weird scenes Inside the Canyon," by the late David McGowan, is a must read (also interviews available on Youtube), for anyone who wishes to look at this musical phenomenon from a different perspective, that this "flower power," was a CIA "cultural vehicle," used to crush the powerful, growing anti Vietnam war movement, by advocating the use of drugs and "dropping out," of society at large. Sounds unbelievable, too crazy? We have a mafia don for president!
Save your "conspiracy theorist," epithets, read the book, or view the videos, then comment. If you don't look at all evidence, especially that which that contradicts your current beliefs, you have no credibility, in my book.

I love this site. Thanks for the book recommendation (David McGowan).

His work is all conjecture and circumstantial. He has no evidence for his claims. Just a hustler trying to make a buck. Or was.

Some of what McGowan says seems facetious and irrelevant (e.g. his fixation on dates that are supposedly significant in the "occult" calendar) but it is interesting to note various coincidences e.g. how many of the later West Coast hippie rockers were connected to the military. Conjecture perhaps - but I find it at least to be food for thought.

The WSWS carried an article by David McGowan (1960 - 2015) in March 2000 entitled Abuse in the California prison system. https://www.wsws.org/en/art...

The book you refer to, Dennis, Weird scenes Inside the Canyon appears to be available free and online at McGowan's posthumous website. The article is entitled "The Strange But Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation." (Sections I - XXII) Perhaps, owning the book, you can determine if this the same material.
https://centerforaninformed...

I agree with you that those who dismiss McGowan because of his "conspiracy theories" are guilty of a double standard. These same people are quick to discern conspiracies among the ruling elties of ancient Rome and Czarist Russia, but rarely among the capitalist leadership and their agents in the United States.

By the way, McGowan's analysis and graphics in September 11, 2001 Revisited are fascinating, and free online.

It is, indeed, the same material from the book.

Your comment hits the nail on the head. Subsequent research that I've done has shown too many CIA connections to this scene for it too be coincidental. Especially the way the Manson case was handled by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office. All other reasonable explanations for the Tate Labianca murders were rejected in favor of Bugliosi's bizarre theory. Another case of the mighty Wurlitzer playing on (and on....).

I've always suspected LSD was introduced into the anti-war movement to misdirect and tame it as the only source of high-purity LSD at the time was the CIA (since they were busy testing it in MKULTRA).

I see no reason to doubt your assertions, though I haven’t read the book. Young people getting high, “dropping out” and pursuing hedonism or individual “spirituality” certainly are preferable in the ruling class’s eyes to pissed off, organized, protesting workers. It also dovetails btw with the flooding of heroin into communities of color.

On the other hand, as a last gasp of the postwar good times (for some, not all of course), many of that generation (including myself) were seduced into that mindset, though to varying degrees. I still had to get a job now and then, for example.

There was (still is) a lot of hype about “the ‘60s” that many of us found attractive that I now see as so-o-o wrongheaded. Personally, under those influences, I wasted most of my time; that took years to “undo.” That colors and dampens my response to the era’s music, some of which may have seemed magical back then (of course being loaded helped that perception), but nowadays I prefer lots of other genres and rarely listen to it. Nowadays, If I’m going to get nostalgic, I’d rather listen to ‘50s r&b or postwar jump bands.

I still believe the moon landings took place, however. :)

As to the "moon landings", we know that it was achieved in the 18th Century, revealed in the 1962 documentary The Fabulous Baron Munchausen by Czech film director Karel Zeman
https://www.youtube.com/wat...

No ones perfect, my friend, one controversial subject at a time, though.

I lived through all of this. I was a flower child. I lived in a commune. I took lots of acid. Now I am a Marxist at age 71. Don't be a hater.

This song exemplifies the feeling.

https://youtu.be/1xa7NWRJjPQ