I was a hippie during the early seventies.
Well, somewhat. I didn\u2019t live in a commune. I didn\u2019t take acid every day. Only once\u00a0in a while. But I was a member of the Vietnam War resistance. We made signs and\u00a0chanted, \u201cHell no, we won\u2019t go.\u201d And \u201cMake Love, Not War.\u201d<\/p>\n
In this current political climate\u00a0of 2025, at first people did nothing. They had no regard for the larger\u00a0picture. They had their heads in their phones, they isolated in rooms, texted\u00a0friends and ignored the fact that something was off. Very off. That changed. It\u00a0took a hell of a lot to get millions of people to get their butts off the sofa\u00a0and into the streets, calling out for justice, but it happened. The question\u00a0is, why did so many more people protest the Vietnam War than the number of\u00a0people on \u201cNo King\u2019s Day.\u201d The way I see it, the answer is \u201cThe draft.\u201d Our\u00a0signs said, \u201cDraft Beer, Not Students.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the 1960s and seventies, American\u00a0men between the ages of 18 to 26 were entered into a lottery and the unlucky\u00a0ones were forced to defend their country in a war they didn\u2019t believe in. If\u00a0they refused to go, they ended up in jail, so they came up with wildly creative\u00a0ways to fail the physical exam and avoid being deployed:<\/p>\n
Pretending to be gay.<\/p>\n
Pretending to be injured.<\/p>\n
Pretending to be mentally ill by talking
nonsense.<\/p>\n
Being a conscientious objector due
to religious beliefs.<\/p>\n
Burning draft cards.<\/p>\n
I know a man who wrapped his feet\u00a0in saran wrap for a week to create out of control athlete\u2019s foot. I know\u00a0another man who moved to an island off Canada. They weren\u2019t shirkers. They just\u00a0didn\u2019t want to die. We didn\u2019t want them to die. We all had personal stakes in
that war. We didn\u2019t want to lose our husbands, sons, brothers, cousins, uncles\u00a0and friends.<\/p>\n
Now, some fifty six years after the\u00a0punishing protests against the Vietnam War, I turned on the TV and it looked\u00a0familiar. People holding signs and chanting catch phrases. Cops wearing\u00a0shields, using tear gas and pushing people around because they were exercising\u00a0their right to be an American. It felt like Vietnam all over again.<\/p>\n
I am passionate about what\u2019s\u00a0happening right now but I didn\u2019t go out in the streets this time. I did my part\u00a0in a different way. I worked behind the scenes to encourage people to stay\u00a0centered and avoid slipping down the negative spiral. I reminded them and\u00a0myself that the light exists behind the clouds and the more of us who reach for
it, the more it expands and becomes accessible. At times, I feel like a\u00a0hypocrite when I fall into the dark hole myself, but I turn to friends who give\u00a0me the same encouragement I offer other people.<\/p>\n
Michelle Obama entreated us to do\u00a0something but that doesn\u2019t always look how we picture it. When Buddhist monks\u00a0meditate for long periods of time in a cave, it appears that they are doing
nothing, but they are cultivating qualities like compassion and mindfulness and\u00a0sending them out into a world gone mad. They are encouraging a societal shift\u00a0toward greater empathy and compassion. Sitting in silence for long periods of\u00a0time is deeply challenging as they dedicate their time to send healing wishes\u00a0to all sentient beings. I\u2019m not suggesting you sit in a cave. We live in a
different reality than that. I\u2019m just reminding everyone that there are many\u00a0ways to do our part.<\/p>\n
I was raised to \u201ctake care of\u00a0Number One\u201d so that was what I did. Until I woke up. I\u2019m ashamed to tell the\u00a0following story but it\u2019s true and spilling it makes me feel better. In the\u00a01980s, a friend of mine owned a spa in Desert Hot Springs. There was a group of\u00a0us who stayed there most weekends and we all had dinners together. I don\u2019t cook\u00a0so I wasn\u2019t sure what to do. I set the table and did the dishes but it didn\u2019t\u00a0occur to me to buy a dessert or give someone some money. It wasn\u2019t a case of\u00a0entitlement. I was programmed to avoid paying whenever it was possible and no\u00a0one called me out on it.<\/p>\n
After a few months, I suddenly\u00a0realized what I was doing, or should I say, what I wasn\u2019t doing. I wasn\u2019t doing\u00a0my part. I was mortified, I apologized, and I changed my behavior. I decided\u00a0not to beat myself up in an already difficult situation. We hurt ourselves more\u00a0than anything else can. But after that, I paid more than my share to make up\u00a0for it. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Life is messy right now, to say the\u00a0least. There is deliberate chaos everywhere and not getting entangled in it is\u00a0an act of courage. But we can do our best to go a different way. We are all in\u00a0this together, we are fellow travelers and we can help each other avoid sitting\u00a0on the living room floor and having a meltdown If you can protest in a crowd,\u00a0do it. If you can\u2019t protest in a crowd, instead of feeling guilty, think a\u00a0little deeper and find another way. Don\u2019t add guilt on top of pain. The most\u00a0difficult times are the ones we give ourselves. Just see where you can give and\u00a0do it. And do it again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was a hippie during the early seventies.Well, somewhat. I didn\u2019t live in a commune. I didn\u2019t take acid every day. Only once\u00a0in a while. But I was a member of the Vietnam War resistance. We made signs and\u00a0chanted, \u201cHell no, we won\u2019t go.\u201d And \u201cMake Love, Not War.\u201d In this current political climate\u00a0of 2025, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2691,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690\/revisions\/2691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}