the_dunk_tank

The way I see it, he was an archetypal radlib of the hippy era. He was very outspoken against the Vietnam war which is undeniably good, but it also served his popularity and image as a hippy counter-culture icon. Considering how much that ended up being the source of his wealth, it makes it hard to gauge how authentic it really was. No matter how anti-war he may have been, he was also vocally anti-communist and critical, even hostile and dismissive, of anything genuinely revolutionary. And I say "vocally" because he made it apparent not just in interviews and such but also in some of his most well known songs. He was one of those staunch "non-violent" "leftists" of the same type that today would be as loud about criticizing Hamas as he would be Israel for the former's use of violence instead of just doing peaceful marches and sit-ins in he face of the latter's genocide. Maybe that last part's unfair, as I'd like to think such an obvious genocide would have shaken him of the stereotypical hippy-dippy "make love not war! like just be peaceful, man!" dogmatism, but consider that "Just Give Peace a Chance" is now a catchphrase because it's a song he wrote. Also, his big anti-war action with respect to Vietnam was literally to hang out in bed in a hotel for his honeymoon while actual working people tended to his needs.