# Off-Topic Discussion > Extended Discussion >  >  The Laurel Canyon Conspiracy: Did the CIA Create the Counterculture?

## Universal Mind

This is some of the most insane conspiracy stuff I have ever come across, and there really are some strange facts involved in the scenario. The video series is incomplete, but the point it is getting to is that the U.S. government created the hippy scene in the late 60's to turn images of Vietnam War protests into bums on drugs instead of educated people wearing nice clothes, which is what the protests involved at first. That killed the credibility of the protests and allowed the vastly escalated war to continue. A huge chunk of the late 60's and early 70's rock icons were the sons of very high ranking people in the military. Jim Morrison, John Phillips, Stephen Stills, David Crosby, Frank Zappa, the members of America, and Jackson Browne all fit that description. All of these people and many more famous rock musicians lived in the same little part of L.A., right near a major military base. They might have been working for the CIA. (?) 

Jim Morrison's dad was the Navy admiral who was in charge at the scene of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which paved the way for the government to move from 25,000 soldiers to 200,000 and start indiscriminately bombing North Vietnam in 1965. Jim told the public and people he knew that his parents were dead. Jim played a hippy type character in the show business world, but he was actually a conservative who didn't like hippies.

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## Universal Mind



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## Original Poster

I don't buy this one, I think the roots of the hippie movement are a reaction to people seeing their parents turn into robots, also known as the glorified 50s, and it goes farther than simply protesting the Vietnam war.

The CIA definitely had some involvement, but they're usually the ones turning peaceful protests into riots, not musicians. And while Jim Morrison and Frank Zappa had military families, they were not exactly the founding fathers of the Hippies. Honestly, the whole conspiracy takes a nose-dive when you consider that The Grateful Dead had like five times the influence on the Hippie Movement that Jim Morrison did. And that's only taking into account music, what about the literature or other influential hippies/beatniks like the Chicago Seven or Jack Kerouac? There were a vast amount of people glorifying the bum lifestyle and they're still around today, both in music and literature. But you can hardly call Johnny Hobo or Ramshackle Glory CIA operatives.

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## Universal Mind

It is true that the musicians I mentioned weren't the most influential, but it is really odd that so many extremely high ranking military people's kids lived in Laurel Canyon and were famous counterculture musicians. Jackson Browne and America weren't pro-acid, but stoners loved their music. It could be that the kind of mentality and prowess it takes to become a rock star parallels the mentality and skills it takes to become a high ranking military officer. Talent alone doesn't get anybody famous in entertainment. It take a massive amount of drive, social skills, and persistence. Having high officer genes and upbringing can help tremendously with that. Still, it's a really bizarre scenario.

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## Original Poster

I would call it the Bishop's Daughter effect. No one is a bigger slut than a Bishop's Daughter, and likewise it makes sense that military families would breed hippies. That's my thoughts on Frank Zappa, at least. If it were truly a CIA operation, why were they so profoundly good at spreading a belief system counter productive to Capitalism? The CIA was founded to protect Capitalist Interests, after all. And the Hippie Movement goes beyond peace activists alone. It's imbues the understanding that more stuff does not make you happier, one of the cornerstones of American Capitalism.

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## Universal Mind

I can understand why they would be hippies. That's not really a mystery. What's strange is that they were legendary musicians. But like I said, it could be a matter of having really good genes and really strong upbringing. Something that makes the conspiracy theory even harder to fully accept is that the counterculture produced what I consider to be the greatest music ever recorded. You can't just take random children of powerful people and turn them into supermusicians. They already had something. 

As for the capitalism argument, the idea isn't that the government was trying to turn the entire country into a bunch of hippies. The idea is that they wanted to make hippies the forerunners of the anti-war movement to tarnish its image and really hurt its effectiveness. I think that worked, whether it was intentional or not. The media was able to show people by the thousands with really long hair and wild looking clothes going, "Stop the war! Do acid!" If the media had to focus on Ivy League students, the anti-war movement would have been much more powerful. But that isn't enough evidence to prove a conspiracy.

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## Original Poster

Honestly I still think the hippies emerged independently, and while obviously they'd be against the vietnam war, the CIA doesn't need to train super-musicians to do accomplish this, the media already paints every protest in the worst light possible. Did the CIA also start the Hells Angels in order to delegitimize the blue collar side of the anti-war movement? I think you're giving them too much credit. As far as the fact that so many famous musicians came from Laurel Canyon, art often works like this. If there's a few very talented people around then the other aspiring talent has a greater obstacle to overcome in order to get recognized.

To relate them to what their fathers were doing, you may as well take the coincidence between Holmes and Lanza seriously, as well. Both these infamous shooters' fathers were set to testify in a FICO hearing that could have led to the prosecution of some of the wealthiest crooks in the country, and coincidentally they both ended up going ballistic and shooting people.

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## Universal Mind

That shooter connection is weird city too. It raises an eyebrow. You know I don't suck up conspiracy theories very easily, but I have to say that there are bizarre connections that are real in these situations. 

In the Laurel Canyon situation, the strangest thing in all of it is that the Navy admiral (George Stephen Morrison) in charge of the situation that opened the door to major escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam is the father of one of the counterculture's leading icons (Jim Morrison), and they kept it a secret for the duration of the war. No matter what the truth is about conspiracy or no conspiracy, that fact is about the strangest one I have ever learned.

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## Original Poster

Yeah it's definitely strange. I don't think the entire counter culture can be traced back to Laurel Canyon though, nor do I think that Jim Morrison or the others derailed the hippie movement or ruined their media image any worse than they did themselves (or the media did by itself). I don't necessarily think its CIA operatives that dress up in costumes during protests to make liberals look like goofballs. A couple people do, cause they like to, and the media focuses on them. The hippie movement got a bad media portrayal, but it was going to get one either way.

That being said, it's a weird coincidence. I'm just not sure if it means what the theorists think it means. And yeah, the shooter connection is crazy strange. Brainwashing is not difficult, all you need is a whiff of scopolamine and someone will do whatever you want them to do. But I don't like to draw hasty conclusions. Jim Morrison has a pretty extensively documented history as an artist, including books of poetry from before he got famous. Frank Zappa was one of the brilliantly intelligent hippies and hardly made them look bad. So while the connection may be meaningful, I don't think it's like an operation counterculture. I don't think the hippies made the war protestors look bad anyways. The media did. If there were only 5 hippies in the US that'd be the only people interviewed by the media.

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## Universal Mind

That's probably right. Jim Morrison was very much a real artist. He is possibly my favorite poet, and he was a Hell of a good singer. That's why I don't think he was just some admiral's son the CIA decided to make a rock star out of. I'm not much of a Zappa fan, but he has a lot of major fans. People who have the ability to become phenomenal musicians are extremely rare. You can't just go, "Hey, you're an admiral, and you have a son. Let's turn him into a world class musician and get him to help our war effort."  

I should mention that I don't think the hippies made the anti-war movement look truly bad, just bad in the eyes of conservatives. They were the wrong image for convincing the Ward and June Cleaver masses that the anti-war cause was the right one. Hippies of course were not the only people protesting the war, but they definitely stood out as the poster children.

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## Mindstamina

You do know that the result of the hippie movement combined with the rock and roll consciousness awareness era lead to more laws being implemented, including the "War on Drug" policy, right? This policy has lead into becoming the biggest prison industry growth ever created in such a short amount of time. The "War on Drug" policy has lead to more Government intrusion upon the rights of US citizens than it has ever before, along with no knock raids and a prison population growth that has evolved slavery into a new standard of control over American citizens. The profit made from privatized prison industry which is correlated with the War on Drug policy, along with the CIA making an enormous amount of profit by trafficking drugs into urban neighborhoods, has been enormous. 

Keep in mind too that the US went into two BS wars after the 9-11 attacks and they wanted to make sure that Americans would not be against these wars as many were when the Vietnam War happened. By this time around many Americans would be too afraid to openly take drugs like LSD without being targeted by the DEA.

Let me break it down like this.

Musician makes great music. His music causes conscious awareness.

This makes taking acid and other drugs cool because it helps wake you up.

Fans of musician taking drugs protest against Vietnam War.

These protestors are made to look like drug addicted bums and the whole message behind the movement is scrutinized by the media tainted exposure.

Musician of these fans become too deep and has gain too much popularity so they "end up" dying.

Government steps in and now implements "War on Drugs" to help stop this evil epidemic of people becoming disobedient bums because of drugs.

Now Government can wire tap your calls and violate your privacy if they feel you are buying or dealing drugs (even today with emails and cell phone texts).

Now Government can enter your house with out knocking (no knock raids) if they feel you are buying or dealing drugs.

At the same time, the CIA can bring drugs into the country from their sources, sell to dealers in the streets and make their money, all while they turn around and arrest leaders of billion dollar drug cartels all while "confiscating" their billions of dollars, as well as take the billions (possibly trillions) of dollars from from their off shore bank accounts.

Latin American countries which would be rich with their economy due to cocaine and marijuana being their huge resource are now kept in check.

Meanwhile back in the United States, drugs shipped into poor areas by the CIA results in those living under poverty conditions now making lots of money dealing these drugs. And where ever you have drugs, you have violence due to those fighting for control. So with this comes guns, which leads to the military industry generatings a large cash flow thru armed sales. How did Russian arms end up in the ghettos of Los Angeles after  crack cocaine started spreading there?. 

This results in more arrests made on these citizens with the prison population growing at a tremendous rate as never seen before.

This leads to corporations now investing in prisons, which in turn leads to more profit made from many getting imprisoned because of drug charges.

Then the September 11 attacks happens, and two wars result from the attacks before it is proven that these two wars resulted in even more profits being made for the Government due to resources being taken from Afghanistan and Iraq while the US dollars remains the standard currency for oil trade.

But unlike the Vietnam War, you do not have people protesting against these Wars as much because the many new laws added since the early 1970s has created control over such situations from happening. 

Instead what this has lead to is people now spreading awareness thru the internet, which is why the Government is trying hard to censor the internet and take control over what we see and post online.

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## Universal Mind

I don't know how much of that was planned way ahead of time, but most of it did happen. I am not sure about the CIA selling drugs. I agree that the hippy protestor movement had a great deal to do with support for the war on drugs, and I think it is what has kept marijuana and psychedelics illegal in the United States to this day. Those drugs are not lethal or addictive, so their illegality is extremely bizarre. It has no rational connection to public safety. The first thing marijuana and psychedelic prohibition supporters tend to think of in regard to the legalization issue is an image of "bum" looking hippies in the streets acting hateful and obnoxious while dogging the U.S. military. The stigma that was created was strong, and it will continue to be for a long time.

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## Universal Mind

I just read this thread again, and there is something I need to revise from two years ago. Marijuana is addictive for some people. It is the least harmful of all of the popular recreational drugs and far less addictive than the vast majority of them, but it is not harmless. It can be at least habit forming. The word "addictive" is ambiguous, and that is why I said what I said in 2016. People don't get the shakes or go into convulsions over marijuana withdrawal. It is not that kind of drug. A marijuana habit is more like a gambling habit, but not as severe. Pretty much nobody would ever rob a house or mug somebody to get money to buy marijuana, as people do for crack, meth, heroin, and other drugs. I have never heard of anything close to an addiction to mushrooms, mescaline, DMT, etc., though I do know of one case of a person who did LSD every day for two months. I wouldn't call it an addiction, though. It was an eccentric adventure of a bipolar person who was in an extreme manic phase. I don't ordinarily resurrect old threads, but I felt like I needed to make this amendment.

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## snoop

I highly doubt that they even would have had to. I think the idea driving this conspiracy theory is that the counterculture, without a doubt, was a useful means of distraction and the easy dismissal of antiwar sentiment by means of misportraying dissenters in general as all being hippies and druggies. Similarly, there is no doubt in my mind that the government would have capitalized on this tactic to an extent that went to lengths of manipulating the media by making deals with corporate leaders that politicians had connections to within their network. This isn't the same thing as _creating_ or even kickstarting the counterculture, though. There were simply easy benefits to be reaped from it. They certainly probably had a major impact on public opinions as a result, but this isn't the type of mysterious conspiracy we normally think of conspiracies as. This kind of thing happens all the time; it's human nature.

Likewise, the actual origins/impetus for the creation of the counterculture is human nature. This was the first time television was readily accessible and capable of showing images of the war and its effects. This was the dawn of our current age of constant and near instantaneous high-speed communication. Survival and life in general had also become stable enough in first world countries that the major tendency for the development of depression, anxiety, and boredom/ennui towards existing (as well as life and reality feeling like they've lost all meaning or become pointless/becoming more existentially nihilistic) we see becoming more and more pervasive. 

These emotional and behavioral conditions/illnesses in tandem with tending towards an existentially nihilistic world outlook seem to be a significantly common set of traits possessed by political activists. There is a lack of identity and purpose felt resulting from the nihilism and a deep desire to belong to part of a group and find a calling, as well as a strong belief that there is something terribly wrong with our world.  Not everybody that feels this way becomes a political activist, but it seems to be a common reason for finding the motivation to go out spending one's time and effort doing that. Combine that with a natural cognitive bias to believe that one's own morals are superior to others', and that others should be required to adopt your morality, and you get Hippies, and, in the modern day, SJWs.  

Considering all that, I'm extremely confident that there wasn't ever a _need_ for the CIA to create the counterculture (even if they or other parts of the government/politicians took advantage of it). Honestly, its emergence was inevitable.

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