I was recently listening to this podcast, Hermitix, and they talked about the 60s, and the darker aspects of it, but at the same time, made an interesting statement - that the 60s were the last time there was ever a real leftist movement.

Since then i’ve been pretty fascinated with hippies and counterculture, and I’m pretty conflicted on how to feel. On the one hand, they got literally nothing done. Every idea they had got recuperated - in fact, the 60s pretty much birthed the modern woke neoliberal idpol ideology - during the 60s, idpol was radical, anticapitalist, and revolutionary, stuff like the Black Panthers - after the 60s, it got turned into wanting female cops. The most radical ideas of the counterculture - “extreme” sexual freedom, anti-capitalism, anti-colonialism, never caught on in the mainstream, while the more recuperable ideas got turned into wedge issues and woke capitalism. On top of this, the hippies weren’t really Marxists. They didn’t really talk about materialism, they were way too keen on almost ecofascist ideals, like the idea that humans have to give up possesions and live in poverty to save Earth, and they were NOT working class. Still, most of their ideas, like communal living and such were well-intentioned and overall good.

But at the same time, some of the stuff they did was badass. They were funny, edgy, smart, and I feel like the left, unironically prior to the “dirtbag” podcast explosion, was largely the same way. Unfortunately, even with this, in many ways, the left still is seen as “lame” to kids. I think the best aspects of the counterculture were their pranks and snarkiness. I feel that really attracts young people, and winning gen z and millennials is key to winning the future. The left is already doing this, but not nearly enough, hence the prevelance of fascists in Gen Z. The Yippies pranks and edgy humor, like when Abbie Hoffmann jokingly threatned to “spike the water supply with LSD,” or when he wrote Steal This Book, are, frankly, cool, and I feel that no political ideology, but particularly the left, does pranks and such anymore. As weird as it may sound, I do think pods like our beloved Chapos, TrueAnon, and co. do really help the left seem cool, but maybe what the left needs to do is start pulling pranks on the mainstream again. I mean, 4chan did that in 2017 - maybe we should as well?

Idk, what do you think of the 60s counterculture chapochat? Were they useless idiots who just joked all the time? Or were they the last real leftist movement?