In the late 1960’s the hippies gloried in the mud, drugs and sex of a thousand Woodstocks while also protesting against the Vietnam War and “The Man”, and loudly proclaiming the dawning of the Age of Aquarius in overcoming Capitalism via lovely little communes. Admittedly there were plenty of young Baby Boomers who might not have been hippies but cosplayed at being one via hair, clothes and drugs, but the hippie remained the iconic symbol of it all.

Phil Goff, 1970

One of the reasons for the emergence of Punk Music in the late 1970’s was the observation that the hippies had sold out on pretty much all their principles and become born-again capitalists, among other things, and were using this power to continue to push a lot of shitty music that didn’t rebel against anything, let alone the economic and other problems of that time.

By the 1980’s they had turned into yuppies (Young Urban Professionals) and started voting for Reagan. In New Zealand the crowning glory for these long-haired gits was to become Labour MP’s, tear down much of the First Labour Government’s institutions and impose a whole lot of capitalism in its place. To be fair they did give the finger to Reagan and the US in general on matters military and began the process of social liberalisation, but those were cheap and easy wins.

Money remained their god, as it is to this day.

Which brings me to the news about Joe Rogan. If you haven’t heard of him or listened to him it’s probably because you’re still watching One News and reading the NZ Herald or listening to Radio NZ instead of listening to his podcasts on the Spotify music streaming service, where his listener/viewers run to some 11 million per podcast – compared to CNN’s 500,000.

Rogan is definitely not a hippie. He’s Gen X, with all that that implies about treating much of the information about our world with cynical, skeptical, humour. As such he’s recently run into a bit of a storm about his interviews with people like Doctor Robert Malone and other critics of various aspects of the world’s Covid-19 responses. His personal stance is also “problematic” for his critics, as he’s openly discussed catching the disease (Delta in his case) plus using forbidden treatments like Ivermectin, Vitamin D supplements and so forth – and not getting the c-19 vaccinations.

This has made him a target, especially of the dying CNN, with demands he be booted from Spotify for all his “misinformation”. As those demands have failed the accusations have shifted from that to racism (his past use of the word “nigger” in quoting others – just like Joe Biden, Cenk Uygur and Anna Kasparian) and with that also failing he’s now being accused of January 6-type “insurrectionist” thinking.

One of the most prominent examples of the pressure applied came several weeks ago when aging 60’s rocker Neil Young made a big public splash about pulling his music from Spotify if they didn’t boot Rogan. Young was quickly followed by another hippie icon, Joni Mitchell.

All this got the MSM very excited. Spotify followed their requests – and pulled their music in late January, while keeping Rogan.

Gen-X cynics like me noted the deep irony of Young’s demands. We also noted the fact that aging “rebels” really, really don’t like fading away and being ignored, and that Young in particular had a history of pulling PR stunts like this – followed by tours.

And so we come to this…

… just this morning [Feb 14], I was able to pull up both these dedicated champions of the Man’s approved COVID-19 narrative on Spotify.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

BTW – here’s those Young Turks of the modern Democrat Party, Cenk Uygur and Anna Kasparian, having the same discussions as Rogan did.