As the story is usually told, the 1960s countercultural movement posed a rather serious threat to the status quo. But if that were truly the case, then why was it the “pillars of the establishment,” to use Unterberger’s words, that launched the movement to begin with? Why was it ‘the man’ that signed and recorded these artists? And that heavily promoted them on the radio, on television, and in print? And that set them up with their very own radio station and their very own publication? And insured that new clubs sprung up like mushrooms along Sunset Boulevard so that all the new bands would have venues to play?
There are some readers, no doubt, who will say that this was simply a case of corporate America doing what it does so well: making a profit, off of anything and everything. Blinded by greed, the naysayers will claim, the corporate titans inadvertently created a monster. “Move along now folks, there’s nothing more to see here …”
The question that is begged by that explanation, however, is why, after it had become abundantly clear that a monster had allegedly been created, was nothing done to stop the growth of that monster? Why did the state not utilize its law enforcement and criminal justice powers to silence some of the most prominent countercultural voices? And why did the draft board – in every known case, without exception – allow those same voices to skip out on their military service?
It’s not as if the state would have had to resort to heavy-handed measures to silence these allegedly troublesome voices. Being that the vast majority of them were draft-age males who were openly using and/or advocating the use of illegal substances, they were practically begging for the powers-that-be to take action. And yet that never happened.