I was a budding hippie in Knott County Kentucky in August of 1969 when Woodstock took place. But I did not go to Woodstock and I have wished for fifty years that I had. I also did not go to the Summer of Love in San Francisco and for fifty years I have also regretted that. But I did not have any desire to attend Woodstock 50 if it had ever happened in any of the potential sites which were considered for it. Times have changed since Woodstock. America has changed. The world has changed and it has not changed for the better. Woodstock was a wonderful photo of what America could have become and should have become. Half a million people spent three days and nights in a muddy field and no one got hurt. Three people died out of that half million. There have always been unconfirmed rumors that one baby was born there. No one fought. No one was robbed. No one was raped. There were no murders in a place where that many people in an average American city, even of that time in 1969, would have had one or two murders. But Woodstock set the stage for hope of ending an unjust war in Viet Nam, for hope of world peace, for hope that the human race could interact reasonably, peacefully, and sensibly. Woodstock was truly a cultural phenomenon.
In recent weeks, promoters attempted unsuccessfully to stage a Woodstock 50 commemoration of that greatest music festival ever held. They failed miserably, and after numerous potential sites and performers withdrew, they threw their hands up in defeat. Woodstock 50 did not happen and I fear greatly that it would have been a frail imitation of the original if it had occurred. The music of today is barely music and most of the performers who are popular today would have pointed out exactly how much American music and performers have fallen short of performers and their music such as Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young; Jimmie Hendrix; Joe Cocker; and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Woodstock 50 obviously would have fallen far short of the half million attendees at the original if it had happened anywhere in America. I suspect it would have fallen far short of that attendance even if it had been held in a major urban area with free tickets.
Now let's talk about the symbolism of that failure. Woodstock 50 and its failure is a symbol of the failures in America which have resulted in not one, but two, mass murders in the past 24 hours with 19 dead in El Paso and 9 dead in Dayton. Over the last fifty years, with Woodstock 50 standing as an apt symbol, we have deteriorated into a country where an illegal and TREASONOUS occupant of the White House is allowed to force innocent children to live and die in chain link cages. We have deteriorated into a country where no crime is horrible enough in our alleged leaders to cause us to feel shock and disgust as a nation, just as Germany did in the 1930's and 1940's. The United States of America has become the laughingstock of the world because we have not only allowed a TRAITOR to occupy the White House but have also lost the morals sufficient to remove that TRAITOR and hold him responsible for his crimes. We have seen the sixth largest coal company in America shut down and write bad checks to hundreds of men and women all over the Appalachian coalfields and we have not seen any great public outrage. We have tolerated more than one mass murder a day in 2019 without doing a damn thing to stop it by passing rational gun control legislation to stop it.
Woodstock 50 and its failure to get off the ground is an apt symbol for many of the ongoing failures in and of America today. Please don't let it become the last or lasting symbol of this great country. Help me fight to bring America back to sanity. Stand Up, Speak Up, and Speak Out!
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