But then the counterculture became the culture and the left became Officer Obie.

◼ President Obie - Sultan Knish

In 1967, folk singer Arlo Guthrie played a song on a left-wing New York City radio station that was supposed to sum up the cultural difference between the culture and the counterculture.

On one side of the moral equation in Alice’s Restaurant you had Office Obie and the nameless army officers who were rulebound fascists and on the other side you had the easygoing hippies who believed in community, hanging out and letting things slide. Culture would drag you into court for littering with twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs as evidence while counterculture would shrug and invite you to dinner.

Culture was bureaucratically and violently absurd. Counterculture was humanely lovingly absurd.

That's still the image that the left likes to wear like an old pair of jeans. It's still just a bunch of easygoing fellows out to build community and take on Officer Obie’s senseless repressive rules. But then the counterculture became the culture and the left became Officer Obie.... read the rest.