TOO BAD THE HIPPIE GENERATION HAS TURNED INTO A BUNCH OF HYPOCRITES

Last week, I had the good fortune to take in John Fogerty's concert
at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria. The former front
man for Creedence Clearwater Revival, now 62, is in superb shape and
has never sounded better.

It was mainly a boomer crowd. But enough young people were in
attendance to suggest Fogerty is still relevant.

After the show, I ended up in one of Victoria's celebrated brewpubs,
sitting at the bar beside a young fellow who also had just come from
the concert. A self-professed metalhead, he was thoroughly enjoying
the show. Then things turned ugly.

It seems partway through the concert, he lit up a joint, only to be
told by a 50-plus fellow sitting beside him: "You can't smoke in
here, put it out."

He ignored the protestation, only to be on the receiving end of a
half-full, plastic beer cup thrown from a few rows behind, landing
square on the back of his neck.

"Put that thing out," another boomer yelled.

Regardless of one's opinion on marijuana or smoking in public, this
is all quite bizarre.

The boomers invented the ritual of smoking pot at arena rock
concerts, and now they beat up on this young guy who's maintaining
the tradition.

A John Fogerty concert is one of the last places this could be
expected to happen. Fogerty was part of the '60s San Francisco music
scene and played Woodstock. His music hasn't changed much over the
years. But the same can hardly be said for his audience.

This type of incident is further evidence of a disturbing trend
whereby the radicals and protesters who changed society 40 years ago
are now insistent on obedient compliance.

Young intellectuals staged sit-ins and demonstrated against rules and
structure during the '60s. Now firmly in positions of power, they
have established human-rights tribunals and other kangaroo courts to
stifle free speech and punish nonconformists.

The generation that challenged and toppled the rigid status quo at
universities now prohibits dissenting views on campus, and blatantly
uses the education system for purposes of indoctrination.

Those who once proudly questioned authority demand absolute
acquiescence to radical feminism, affirmative action, climate-change
paranoia, anti-Americanism and other tenets of political correctness.

On top of it, this generation of supposed anti-materialists has
accumulated more wealth than any previous generation and made it
virtually impossible for anyone under 30 to even dream of owning
their own home.

Somehow, the spectacle of a 50-something boomer pelting a young guy
with a cup of six-dollar Budweiser for lighting a joint at a rock
concert headlined by a '60s rock 'n' roll icon is too surreal to dissect.

So much for the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love.