gunnut, pari,
the main reason why the hippie movement was influential was not because of drugs or that the "west lost control", it was the vietnam war.
knowing that your vote could stop you from getting drafted into an unpopular war was a huge catalyst for political involvement of all sorts.
to be honest, i think americans put too much stock in the influence of the hippies. the hippie movement actually did not change american politics all that much in the 60s. think about it- the 1930s had a Democratic government which passed the New Deal, while the 1960s had a Democratic goevrnment which did the whole War on Poverty thing.
both programs were far more socialistic than ANYTHING the democrats advocate today. in 1964, before the hippies came out in full force in the summer of '69, dems had a crushing hold on the legislative branch (2/3 democratic senators!), the judicial branch, AND the presidency.
in the end the hippies could not end the vietnam war under a democratic president, and the resulting conservative backlash in the 1980s resulted in a new type of republicanism that was fiercer than its 1950s equivalent (compare eisenhower republicans with reagan republicans).
ironically, the hippie movement directly led to a democratic president- bill clinton- whom supported free trade, military interventionism abroad, and a major demolishing of the welfare state. but hey, i guess he personally supported free love so i reckon that even things out.
