Woodstock Nation Remembered

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One week and forty years ago, I bought a ticket to a musical event which was supposed to be kinda special. The guy who sold me the ticket said hed expected more than thirty five thousand people there. I though out loud, Where are they gonna find thirty five thousand freaks?. He said: Youll be surprised.

Well, Ive never been known for small mistakes. One week later, not only was I surprised, but so was the world, as four hundred thousand people made it to that small farm in update New York for three days of Peace, Love and Music, with another hundred thousand stuck on the New York State Throughway, which had, that day, become the largest parking lot in the world.

There were far more of us in the movement than I thought. In fact, we were a nation, as Abbie Hoffman called it, The Woodstock Nation. On that day, forty years ago tomorrow, as we shared what little food and water there was, in this impromptu city, the size of the population of San Francisco, the revolution was born.

We could change the world, we thought.

Flash forward forty years, there are still endless wars, massive poverty, and a corporate domination of politics and our lives which rivaled anything in our nightmares. Yet, you can hear Crosby, Still, Nash and Young oozing from the loudpeakers in the chain pharmacies and Jimmy Hendrix is frequently played in office elevators and now, for the first time, we have our first multi-racial President. Whether weve changed the world in form, or essence, only time will tell, for like Dylan said: the wheels still in spin.

How ever it goes, happy anniversary to the Woodstock Nation. May your freak flag always fly.

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News & Politics

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• Woodstock
• Woodstock Nation
• Woodstock Music Festival
• Woodstock '69