[pagan-magik] UP! 250// THE HIPPIES WERE RIGHT!!// 09 05 07
fraser at parallel-youniversity.com
fraser at parallel-youniversity.com
Thu May 10 21:43:35 BST 2007
Subject: UP! 250// THE HIPPIES WERE RIGHT!!// 09 05 07
Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 21:27:01 +0100
From: fraser at parallel-youniversity.com <fraser at parallel-youniversity.com>
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TURN ON COMPUTER // TUNE IN TO FUNLEASHED SPIRIT OF INTERNET // TAKE OVER! *
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*/"Fraser, what is so great about the UP! is the balance of types of
information,
which clearly comes from your own balance."// /Jackie, London.// *
*UP! *
* *
*_VOTE FOR SHERA!_*
Dearest Megatrippers & UPpies,
This is SHERA speaking raver from the grave.
I need you Peeps to *_VOTE FOR ME_** *for the *BBC's _OLYMPIC GAMES 2012
Anthem._*
Although I wrote my song /"/*/_CELEBRATE THE FLAME_"/* well b4 the
competition
and Major *Ken Livingstone*'s idea to rally the peeps, I entered it
anyway,
and now *_Dame Kelly Holmes_* has helped select me as one of the last 5
_finalists_ in the *_Sing London Campaign_*.
I am presently running _last_ as I recorded an open double track of
vocals, but Kelly said it gave her shivers down the spine. So there you
go.
Fraser's behind me... it's a Classic Anthem inspired by the Torch being
lit from a *_Parabolic Reflector_*
and not the 'orrid petroleum wot's giving us all this greed and wars.
_PLEASE VOTE MY SONG TO THE TOP! :D_
Loads of Luv and Light
Sheila Maclurkin.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/london
*/[Click '2012 Olympics' on left. Then click '2012Features'
'VOTE FOR YOUR 2012 ANTHEM'
C'mon, let's make this happen! (only if you like it best of course :)/]*
UP!
* \\))))/
*
*_______,,,,_{ô¿ô}_,,,,__fraser____ *
tony blair leaves the stage, having achieved very little in ten years.
yes, a decade after thatcher we no longer believe There Is No
Alternative. now we know there HAS to be an Alternative! but tony was
only PRETENDING to be that.
i spose his tragedy is this: if judged by the PAST, he looks very good
indeed. but viewed from the FUTURE, from where we're going, he ends up
as a late dino politician who only /pretended/ to be otherwise.
there's a lot of it around.
UP!
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*
*The Hippies Were Right! *
*by Mark Morford/The San Francisco Chronicle/Sat, 05 May 2007 *
*Green homes? Organic food? Nature is good? *
*Time To Give The Ol' Tie-Dyers Some Respect! *
*Go ahead, name your movement. Name something good, positive,
pro-environment and eco-friendly that's happening right now in the newly
"greening" West.
I'm talking about, say, energy-efficient light bulbs. I'm looking at
organic foods going mainstream. I mean chemical-free cleaning products
widely available at supermarkets, and I'm talking saving the whales and
protecting the dolphins, and I mean yoga studios flourishing in every
small town, giant boxes of organic cereal at Costco and non-phthalates
dildos at Good Vibes. You know, _good_ things.
Look around: we have entire industries devoted to recycled paper, a new
generation of cheap solar-power technology, an Oscar for /"An
Inconvenient Truth"/ and even the soulless corporate monsters over at
famously heartless joints like Wal-Mart are now claiming that they
really, really care about saving the environment because, well, /"it's
the right thing to do"/ (read: It's purely economic and all about their
bottom line because if they don't start caring they'll soon be totally
screwed on manufacturing and shipping costs at/from all their brutal
Chinese sweatshops).
There is but one conclusion you can draw from the astonishing (albeit
fitful, bittersweet) pro-environment sea change now happening in the
culture and (reluctantly, nervously) in the halls of power in D.C., one
thing we must all acknowledge in our wary, jaded, globally warmed
universe: _The hippies had it right all along. Oh yes they did._
You know it's true. All this hot enthusiasm for healing the planet and
eating whole foods and avoiding chemicals and working with nature and
developing the self? Came from the hippies. Alternative health?
Hippies. Green cotton? Hippies. Reclaimed wood? Recycling? Humane
treatment of animals? Medical pot? Alternative energy? Natural
childbirth? Non-GMA seeds? It came from the granola types (who, of
course, absorbed much of it from ancient cultures), from the alternative
worldviews, from the underground and the sidelines and from far off the
goddamn grid and it's about time the media, the politicians, the culture
as a whole sent out a big, wet, hemp-covered apology.
> > UN pensions would be perfectly acceptable :) we're not GREEDY - geddit?
Here's a suggestion from one of my more astute ex-hippie readers:
Instead of issuing carbon credits so industrial polluters can clear
their collective corporate conscience, maybe, to help offset all the
savage damage they've done to the soul of the planet all these years,
these commercial cretins should instead buy some 'karma credits' from
the former hippies themselves. You know from those who've been _working
for the health of the planet, quite thanklessly, for the past 50 years_
and who have, as a result, built up quite a storehouse of good karma.
You think?
You might easily claim that much of the nation's reluctant turn toward
environmental health has little to do with the hippies per se, that it's
taking the threat of global meltdown combined with the notion of really,
really expensive ski tickets to slap the West's incredibly obese ass
into gear and force consumers to begin to wake up to the savage gluttony
and wastefulness of modern culture as everyone starts wondering, oh my
God, what's going to happen to swimming pools and free shipping from
Amazon? Of course, without the '60s groundwork, without all the radical
ideas and seeds of change planted nearly five decades ago, what we'd be
turning /to/ in our time of need would be a great deal more hopeless
indeed.
> > i've said it before and i'll say it again: when i became a hippy in
the '60s it was a decision to opt out of what i saw as an insane,
unhealthy materialist nightmare that threatened everyone and the
planet. if everyone had been as _insightful_ or as _brave_ (u didn't
need to be THAT insightful!) we'd now be living on a garden planet.
But if you're /really/ bitter and short-sighted, you could say the
entire hippie movement was just incredibly overrated, gets far too much
cultural credit for far too little actual impact, was pretty much a
giant excuse to slack off and enjoy dirty lazy responsibility-free sex
romps and do a ton of drugs and avoid Vietnam and not bathe for a month
and name your child Sunflower or Shiva Moon or Chakra Lennon Sapphire
Bumblebee. This is what's called _the reactionary simpleton's view._
It blithely ignores history, perspective, and the evolution of culture
as a whole. You know, just like America.
The proofs are easy enough to trace. The core values and environmental
groundwork laid by the '60s counterculture are still so intact and
potent even that the stiffest neocon Republican has to acknowledge their
extant power. It's all right there: Treehugger.com is the new '60s
underground hippy zine. Ecstasy is the new LSD. Visible tattoos are
the new longhairs. And bands as diverse as Pearl Jam to Bright Eyes to
NIN to the Dixie Chicks are writing savage anti-Bush, anti-war songs for
a new, ultra-jaded generation.
And oh yes, speaking of good ol' MDMA, even drug culture is getting some
new respect. Staid old /Time /mag just ran a rather snide little story
about the new studies being conducted by Harvard and the /National
Institute of Mental Health/ into the astonishing psycho-spiritual
benefits of goodly entheogens such as LSD, psilocybin and MDMA.
Unfortunately, the piece basically backhands Timothy Leary and the
entire "excessive," "naive" drug culture of yore in favour of much more
"sane" and "careful" scientific analysis happening now, as if the only
valid methods for attaining knowledge and an understanding of spirit
were through control groups and clinical, mysticism-free examination.
Please.
> > in fact, as we covered in UP! 249, the great thing about these tools
is that they can help kick-off a natural healing process that doesn't
even NEED therapists and experts - except perhaps those who have been
there before.
Still, the fact that serious scientific research into entheogens is
being conducted even in the face of the most anti-science,
pro-pharmaceutical, ultra-conservative presidential regime in recent
history is proof enough that all the hoary old hippie mantras about
expanding the mind and touching God through drugs
> > and on the dancefloor
were onto something after all (yes, duh). Tim Leary is probably smiling
wildly right now - though that might be due to all the mushrooms he's
been sharing with Kerouac and Einstein and Mary Magdalene. Mmm, heaven.
> > u r more right than u or present scientists believe :)
Of course, true hippie values mean you're not really supposed to care
about or attach to any of this, you don't give a damn for the hollow ego
stroke of being right all along, for slapping the culture upside the
head and saying, See? Do you see? It was never about the long hair and
the folk music and Woodstock.
It was, always and forever, about _connectedness_. It was about how we
are _all in this together_. It was about resisting the status quo and
fighting tyrannical corporate/political power, and it was about opening
your consciousness and seeing new possibilities of how we can all live
with something resembling actual respect for the planet, for alternative
cultures, for each other. You know, all that typical hippie crap no one
believes in any more. Right?
> > did U think it wasn't fashionable? then you've been brainwashed.
[Ah... that felt good. Of course, while we're at it, we should probably
also mention that the Beatniks were right about a lot of that stuff
first. Unless the Bohemians were right first. But it's really the same
thing, and that's as far back as I go... -psl]
> > it goes back to when the northern warrior tribes invaded and co-opted
our peace loving, mushy goddess worshipping societies around 5000BC.
UP!
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*Get UP! /Stand Up For Your Rights! //(and everybody else's too of
course! :)/*
*///u can't understand the world without innerstanding yourself/*
*//UP! 250 09 05 07*
*/LA- LA- LA- LAP-TOPPLING DA SYSTEM!/*
*///u cant innerstand yourself without understanding the world///*
*// Get UP! /And Don't Give Up The Fight! //(only we don't mean
violence, ok? :)/ *
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*FEATURING /exclusive re-writes & re-mixes of da freshest deepest hacks
ancient & modern ,and/ *
*/SAMPLES// from media & mentalities all over, & all bubbling //up!
// from da public DNA Herself!/ *
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*
*Steps In The Fall Of The Dinosaur Era *
*In 1950, Earth was embroiled in the Cold War after having suffered
through two world wars in a single generation. Yet, surprisingly, 0%
thought we needed to drastically change our way of life. *
*
It wasn't until the stress-torn year of 1968 that 1% finally started
imagining a different type of world. By 1970, that number increased to 5%.
It took another 20 years before it got as high as 10% in 1990, right
before the first Gulf War. 10 years later, as George W. Bush was
elected US President, that number rose to 14%.
By 2004, the willingness to change in order to save the planet rose to
25%. One year later, it quickly rose to 30%. It only took another year
to reach 40%. And at the beginning of 2007 it finally hit _50%_.
By April 1st, it was at 53% and it's 55% today. Throughout the rest of
this year we should see an unprecedented increase in the dissatisfaction
of human beings in the way man has mismanaged the Earth, its resources
and our human relationships. _This rate of increase has never before
been experienced in the history of the planet._
Bryan James.
UP!
*
*Iraq Radicalised British Muslims, Says Church *
*by Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Sunday Telegraph *
*British Muslims have been radicalised by the Government's disastrous
policies in the Middle East, claims the Church of England.
In a scathing critique of foreign policy under Tony Blair, the church
condemns the /"litany of errors"/ made in Iraq, adding that Britain's
image abroad has been tarnished and it stands isolated in Europe because
of its subservience to the US administration. It hopes that a change of
leadership will be followed by a change in approach.
Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has endorsed the report,
which says that the country is being turned into a hotbed of terrorist
recruitment because of the occupation of Iraq and the Government's
pursuit of /"unfair"/ and /"unjust"/ policies in the region.
Rather than help to fight fanaticism, Britain's participation in the
/"war on terror"/ has provided al-Qaeda with propaganda to attract
Muslims opposed to the idea of Western hegemony being foisted upon the
Middle East.
UP!
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*_contents_... *
*p.06 /?//_WOT'VE THEY DUN NOW -_//_ TO_//_ THE BLEEDIN' BEES_//?!/
p.09 Jesustians For Jesus! /- //Why a Hindu Accepts Christ and Rejects
Churchianity/
p.10 Reagan Feared Armageddon Was Near
p.10 Can Science Validate the Psychedelic Experience?
p.13 Cops Planted Pot on 92-Year Old Woman They'd Killed in Botched
Drug Raid
p.15 _The Money Masters_ Chavez Withdraws Venezuela From IMF & World
Bank - /"Sooner or later, those institutions will fall due to their own
weight."/
UP!
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*TEXT JOCKEY // TJ PHRASER (Fraser Clark) & THE MEDIA EVOLUTION *
*MIXING THE TRACTS LIVE ON THE KEYBOARD*
*@ A MEDIA-MEME RATE OF 160 IPP * * Ideas Per Paragraph*
*_TO SUBSCRIBE SOMEONE_, WRITE I wanna get UP! TO
fraser at parallel-youniversity.com*
*TO UNSUBSCRIBE, HIT REPLY WITH REMOVE IN THE SUBJECT BOX *
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*\)))))(/ *
*________,,,,_{ô¿ô}_,,,,___fraser______ *
*flow of propaganda? *
*am i the only one who receives - DAILY - anti-muslim 'news bites' from
one or more jewish friend/ contact/ unknown informing me about some
local terrible thing that's happened to someone in a muslim country? i
really ask because i know absolutely that, if i was WELL paid to do it,
i could EASILY come up with a daily negative story about the west, the
Xtian west if u like. i'd probably start with irish sheep shaggers,
move onto council estate crackheads, child gun shootings & stabbings,
and then broaden out from there (teen pregnancies could keep me going
for a YEAR!).
so i ask because i suspect that this is an organised effort to demonise
the muslim faith - and almost certainly funded [by whom?!] tho sometimes
obsession is enuff.
but, much more than THAT even, to excite HATRED & (eventually) VIOLENCE
against them. a further question is this. are the jewish friends of
mine who are participating in this 'flow of propaganda' doing it from
fear of the muslims, from guilt over what israel's done to them and
hence fear of inevitable revenge, or from aggression? certainly, when i
look at the middle east with historic perspective, i see israel looming
larger & larger, NOT shrinking in size and attitude.
i probly won't answer or publish any arguments about anti-semitism and
all that nonsense. (we've covered that in the past and certainly will
again). but i would genuinely like to get an idea of how broadly this
(if it is) 'campaign' spreads.
fraser.
*UP! *
*
*/!?//_WOT'VE THEY DUN NOW_/ *
*/_ - TO_//_ THE BLEEDIN' BEES_// NEXT?!/ *
*
*
*Honeybee Die-Off Threatens Food Supply *
*Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that
is wiping out many of the honeybees could have a devastating effect on
our dinner plate, perhaps even reducing us to a glorified
bread-and-water diet. Honeybees don't just make honey; they pollinate
more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have. Among them:
apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash
and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too,
including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries,
cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.
In fact, about one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated
plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80% of that pollination,
according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Even cattle, which
feed on alfalfa, depend on bees.
So if the collapse worsens, we could end up being /"stuck with grains
and water,"/ said Kevin Hackett, the national program leader for USDA's
bee and pollination program. /"This is the biggest general threat to
our food supply," /Hackett said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070502/ap_on_sc/honeybee_die_off
up!
*
*GM Maize MON 863 Toxic *
*French scientists find signs of toxicity to liver and kidney *
*in Monsanto's study on its controversial GM maize. *
*Controversial GM maize approved by European Commission *
*
In 2003, Monsanto submitted a request to market the GM maize MON 863
with resistance to corn rootworm to the regulatory authority in Germany.
Monsanto was seeking approval for importing the maize into the Europe
for processing and use as feed, but not as food or for cultivation.
The German authority concluded that there was no scientific evidence of
risk for human health or the environment.
> > people gotta start dropping first! and that's not enuff, you gotta
PROVE a connection!
But other Member States raised and maintained objections over molecular
characterisation, potential allergic reactions, toxicity and other
aspects. Most controversially, the feeding study submitted by Monsanto
turned up many adverse effects that were dismissed by Monsanto as /"not
biologically meaningful."/
Monsanto, supported by European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), kept the
study from public scrutiny under a false claim of confidential business
information until a German court order a year later forced Monsanto to
release the full report.
Preliminary analysis by Giles-Eric Séralini and colleagues of Criigen
(/Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic
Engineering, France/) found serious flaws in the study _at every stage_,
from experimental design, to data collection, analysis, and reporting.
The GM maize fed group was compared, not just to the group fed the
non-GM isogenic line as it should have been, but also to 5 more
'control' groups fed other non-GM varieties. This had the effect of
increasing the range of variation and making the treatment group of
animals too small, thus considerably reducing the sensitivity of the test.
Further, the results were analysed with the wrong statistical tests, and
despite having compared many variables, the correct standard statistical
tools (multivariate and principal component analyses) were not used.
Instead, in comparing one variable at a time, the researchers failed to
note significant trends in body weight differences between experimental
and control animals. Statistically significant differences that
nevertheless turned up were then all dismissed as biologically
insignificant.
The EFSA, when consulted, agreed with Monsanto, and gave MON 863 maize a
'positive opinion'. In August 2005, the European Commission gave
approval to maize MON 863, despite a persistent failure to reach an
agreement by all regulatory authorities.
/"GM food/feed looks like joining asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls
(PCBs), BSE, tobacco and many others as yet another example of the
government relying on bad scientific advice and ignoring the
precautionary principle, with devastating consequences."/ Prof. Peter
Saunders.
# Female rats fed Roundup Ready soybeans gave birth to many severely
stunted pups, with over half of the litter dead by 3 weeks, and the
surviving pups were sterile; Roundup Ready soya has been approved
worldwide for food and feed since 1996
# Farmers and workers exposed to Bt cotton and Bt maize have suffered
serious allergy-like symptoms
# Livestock feeding on Bt crops and crop residues became ill and died in
large numbers. /(From a/ /devastating report by the //Institute of
Science in Society which has been submitted to the European Food
Standards Agency, the World Health Organisation/ Food and Agriculture
Organisation Expert Consultation on GM Food Animals, and the UK Food
Standards Agency, and has been accepted for publication in a
peer-reviewed scientific journal.)/
up!
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*Women Harvesting Honey *
*People and bees have a long and mutually beneficial history. Ancient
cave paintings in Spain depict a woman harvesting honey. The Egyptians
moved bees on barges up and down the Nile. Originating near current-day
Afghanistan, one species of honey bee, Apis mellifera, now lives all
over the world, with the exception of the Antarctic and far Arctic
regions. In every community and country, bees are kept for the honey
and wax that they produce, and for the crops that they pollinate.
More than 30 years ago, we at the University of Montana (UM) began
sending out bees to explore and sample environments of interest, as a
way of collecting and mapping data over large areas within a
two-to-four-km radius of the hive. A honey bee's body has branched
hairs that develop a static electricity charge, making them an extremely
effective collector of chemical and biological particles, including
pollutants, biological warfare agents and explosives.
They also inhale large quantities of air and bring back water for
evaporative cooling of the hive. As such, bees sample all media (air,
soil, water and vegetation) and all chemical forms (gaseous, liquid and
particulate).
> > and genetically modified shit that humans have imposed on their
environment.
http://maic.jmu.edu/journal/7.3/focus/bromenshenk/bromenshenk.htm
up!
/"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -- it's the
illusion of knowledge.' /Daniel J Boorstin.
UP!
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* the UP! is a global edutainment round-up, broadcast weekly to =[14,034]=*
*Alternative// Activist// Zippy// Trance// New Age// Peace folks*
*recommended to the Parallel YOUniversity// Megatripolis Dance Dept as*
* /"showing signs of life"./ Since recipients forward it widely to
their own lists & sites*
*we conservatively estimate _50,000+_ direct recipients.*
*A further 40,000 read it on the YOUniversity's site.*
*And, because of its 'mix' of 'specialist' & 'general' content,*
* it's increasingly being posted on a variety of sites worldwide,*
*making an estimated total weekly readership of _=[275,000]=_ *
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* **Jesustians For Jesus! *
*Why a Hindu Accepts Christ and Rejects Churchianity *
*by Swami Abhedananda *
* A Hindu distinguishes the religion of the churches from the religion
of Jesus Christ. Speaking from the Hindu standpoint, the religion that
the churches uphold and preach today, that has been built around the
personality of Jesus the Christ, and which is popularly known as
Christianity, should be called 'Churchianity', in contradistinction to
that pure religion of the heart that was taught by Jesus the Christ and
practised by his disciples. The religion of Christ or true Christianity
had no dogma, no creed, no system, and no theology. It was a religion
of the heart, a religion without any ceremonies, without ritual, without
priest-craft. It was not based upon any book, but upon the feelings of
the heart, upon direct communion of the individual soul with the
heavenly Father. On the contrary, the religion of the church is based
upon a book, believes in dogmas, professes a creed, has an organized
system for preaching it, is backed up by theologies, performs rituals,
practises ceremonials, and obeys the commands of a host of priests.
The religion of Christ was a religion of love, renunciation and
self-control; it was a religion of God-consciousness. As these are the
highest ideals among the Hindus, they accept Christ and His true
religion in so far as it is one with their ideals; but when they see
that Churchianity does not preach renunciation, and that its advocates
do not practise love for all, nor show self-control, when they see that
Christian governments encourage vice by opium trade, liquor trade, and
introduce intoxicating things among innocent and temperate people for
the sake of gain, they reject a religion which allows such things. They
believe in Jesus the Christ as the Son of God, and know that he did not
teach such things.
The duty of true religion is to broaden the human mind, to open the
spiritual eyes, to lead humanity to the realisation of oneness with the
supreme Father in Heaven, and to repress all quarrels over dogmas and
creeds. As long as we are not spiritual, we fight and quarrel, but when
we realise that God dwells within us, that we are all children of God,
irrespective of nationality, creed or denomination, when we rise above
all dogmas, above beliefs, theories, and sectarianism, then, and then
alone, we are the true followers of the Christ. Then, and then alone,
are we able to say with Jesus, /"I and my Father are one"/. The Hindus
leave aside the disputed personality that dwells in each individual soul
and believes that each soul is a latent Christ. They believe that the
voice of God tells this truth within each soul, but we do not listen to
it, through our ignorance and selfishness. Krishna** says.:**/"Giving
up all the formalities of religion, come unto Me, take refuge in Me, I
shall make thee free from sins, sorrows and sufferings"/
Jesus says: /"Come unto Me all ye that are weary and heavy-laden and I
will give you rest"/. Let us listen to that voice, for it is one and
the same, and let us follow it. Let us realise the spirit of true
Christianity that was exhibited in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Let
us live as he lived, and be living Christs on earth. The Hindu is not
satisfied merely to accept Christ in theory, but he strives hard to live
the life, which Jesus lived, to lead a life of renunciation, of
self-control and of love to all. Thus he seeks to fulfil the mandates
of that eternal Religion which is taught by Christ-Krishna,
Christ-Buddha, and Christ-Jesus.
up!
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*Reagan Feared Armageddon Was Near *
*Ronald Reagan saved his most private and dramatic thoughts for a diary
in which he recalled his running frustration with the Israeli invasion
of Lebanon, his fear that Armageddon was near and coughing up blood on
the day he was shot.
He also reveals that he wore a bullet-proof vest during a speech at the
National Press Club during which he asked the Soviet Union to join the
United States in eliminating medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe.
These excerpts have been released by /Vanity Fair/ magazine.
*
*/'I Believe Armageddon Is Near'/ *
*/"Funny -- I was talking peace but wearing a bullet-proof vest. It
seems Qaddafi put a contract on me & some person named Jack was going to
try for me at the speech,"/ Reagan wrote. /"Security was very tight."/
Events in the Middle East concerned him so much that he wrote on May 15,
1981, /"Sometimes I wonder if we are destined to witness Armageddon."/
Then on June 7: /"Got word of Israel bombing of Iraq -- nuclear reactor.
I swear I believe Armageddon is near."/
up!
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*Can Science Validate *
*the Psychedelic Experience? *
*by Charles Hayes *
*A portal to heaven opened up last summer when a study by a psychiatric
team at pre-eminent /Johns Hopkins School of Medicine/ revealed that
psilocybin, the all-natural ingredient that packs the magic in magic
mushrooms, can /"occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial
and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance."/
Published in /Psychopharmacology/, the results of the double-blind study
led by psychopharmacologist Roland Griffiths were _blindingly persuasive
and unambiguous_. A whopping 79% of the 30 mentally healthy,
well-educated, hallucinogen-naïve, religiously or spiritually active
adult volunteers, reported that their psilocybin sessions were one of
the five most important events of their lives, right up there with the
birth of their first child. 30% said it was _the single most
significant event /ever/_. What's more, after two months, most reported
lasting positive effects on their sense of well-being and life
outlook---confirmed by significant others.
While some reported experiencing strong anxiety and a few would decline
to repeat the experiment, the potent breadth of the psychedelic's
positive effect on the majority constitutes a home run on almost
anyone's scorecard. In a society that fancies itself foremost as
faithful, an encounter with divinity would seem to have optimal value.
We're not talking about a nice buzz or an amelioration of the jitters;
we're talking godhead, unitive ecstasis.
One might well ask, "/Since when is science equipped to quantify
spirituality, anyway?/" Doesn't more flow out of an entheogen-induced
mystic union with God than can possibly be caught in the clinical
chalice? To tend The Garden and ingest its ennobling fruit, do we
really need to wait idly for an approving nod from secular authority, be
it Big Brother Science or his more imposing sibling, Government?
The Hopkins results highlight the struggle between our culture's twin
idolatries, science and spirituality, both of which render themselves
incomplete and exclusionary by their certitude. /"Science without
religion is lame,"/ Einstein observed, and /"religion without science is
blind."/ But there's good news: the science applied by the new
psychedelic researchers at Hopkins and elsewhere is both more rigorous
and more humane -- even capable, in fact, of working in league with
religion. The mystical models that arise will deliver unprecedented
insight into the subjective phenomena of the religious experience.
/"It was as good a job as science can do today,"/ says William Richards,
the Hopkins study's chief monitor and a veteran of LSD research for
treating the terminally ill at Spring Grove Hospital. /"It almost makes
me believe more in science than I did before." /The very first session,
decades after his last work in the field, was profoundly mystical for
him. /"Just to be able to do it.... I felt awe and privilege myself."
/Richards believes we're finally in the /"early dawn of psychology's
recognition and understanding of the spiritual experience."///
> > but of course nobody has to wait till they ploddingly arrive.
The prime mover behind all this progressive science is Robert Jesse, a
former vice president of Oracle for whom life-changing entheogenic
events inspired him to found the /Council for Spiritual Practices/
(www.csp.org <http://www.csp.org/>) in 1994 to develop /"approaches to
primary religious experience." / Working stealthily under the media
radar, Jesse navigated the bureaucracy and moved the study to fruition,
a strategy that kept it from being blackballed. Jesse once told me his
aim isn't to legalise psychedelics but to demonstrate their value.
Mission accomplished at Johns Hopkins.
Bolstering the new science with the requisite judiciary buttress for the
pursuit of spirituality through chemistry is yet another ray of light
that pierces our Drug War benightedness. Early last year the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled unanimously against the Bush administration's
attempt to block the ingestion of the hallucinogenic Amazonian brew
ayahuasca by a branch of /União do Vegetal (UDV)/, a Brazilian religious
order that insists the hoasca tea brings members closer to God. In the
opinion written by new Chief Justice John Roberts, the court affirmed
that the 1993 /Religious Freedom Restoration Act/ protects the church's
taste in tea. Sounding a distinct note for reason, he observed that
federal law already allows peyote use by Native Americans, and that
Congress ought to be "striking sensible balances between religious
liberty and competing prior governmental interests." And there's an
ecclesiastical catch: The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the
National Association of Evangelicals defended the UDV's case for
religious freedom, prompting psychedelic researcher and UCLA professor
Charles Grob, an expert witness at the hearing, to notice that
/_"religious rights can apparently trump the Drug War."_/
There's a real movement afoot. The field of psychedelic research is
opening up, blossoming worldwide. The landmark study of MDMA-assisted
psychotherapy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder victims
unresponsive to other treatment, launched at the /University of South
Carolina/ in 2004, has been showing /"tremendous results,"/ according to
Rick Doblin, president of the /Multidisciplinary Association for
Psychedelic Studies/ (www.maps.org <http://www.maps.org/>), its sponsor.
Privy to the extant data, Doblin noted that a telltale sign that
subjects in the double-blind study had received MDMA rather than the
placebo was their query of the monitor /"And how are you doing?"/ once
the drug kicked in.
A similar MAPS-funded study will begin soon in Israel. The Israeli
Ministry of Health had been waiting for U.S. federal approval for the
South Carolina study before launching its own MDMA work, to treat
casualties of war and terrorism, under the direction of former IDF chief
psychiatrist Moshe Kotler. Comparable MAPS-sponsored MDMA studies in
Switzerland and Spain await approval.
MAPS is also hoping to start research at Harvard into LSD and psilocybin
as treatments for cluster headaches, a horrifically painful affliction
thus far resistant to lasting relief. A Neurology article by
prospective monitors Andrew Sewell and John Halpern reports strong
anecdotal evidence that unauthorised use of either of the two drugs -
even in sub-psychoactive doses - has _halted both shorter episodes and
months-long cycles of these headaches._
Arising from the supplications of an underground population of
law-breaking self-medicators, this research proposal demonstrates the
moral authority of grassroots, people-driven science and how an
overlooked, even factious interest group (www.clusterbusters.org
<http://www.clusterbusters.org/>) can force action and keep science honest.
/"The psychedelic renaissance will have really begun in earnest and
completely when we have LSD underway for both physiological and
psychotherapeutic studies, particularly the latter,"/ says Doblin, who
expects imminent approval for a MAPS-funded Swiss study of the
psychotherapeutic use of LSD to ease anxiety in cancer patients. Still
other psychedelic studies are in the pipeline, at different stages of
the bureaucratic maze, including psilocybin research at NYU, and a not
yet publicised LSD study to investigate brain function.
Psychedelic therapy has shown enormous potential to decouple minds from
various kinds of captivity. Ketamine has been used successfully In St.
Petersburg, Russia, to separate heroin addicts from their abusive
habits. At the /Iboga Therapy House/ (www.ibogatherapyhouse.net
<http://www.ibogatherapyhouse.net/>) in Vancouver, Canada, MAPS will
conduct an investigation of ibogaine, a trance-inducing African tree
bark, as a treatment for opiate dependence. Acute relief of
obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms, after treatment with psilocybin,
is described in a /Journal of Clinical Psychiatry/ report on a
University of Arizona study.
Getting religion has its health benefits. As William James once
observed, /"Religiomania is the best cure for dipsomania [alcoholism]."/
It was one such breakthrough in a legal LSD session in the 1950s that
inspired /Alcoholics Anonymous/ founder William Wilson to propose
(unsuccessfully) to AA's board that it use psychedelic therapy to help
alcoholics break their bondage to the bottle.
_Ponder for a moment the awesome power behind a force so strong that it
can tear asunder a drug addict from his slave master, an obsessive
compulsive from her involuntary rituals and ideation, and the searing
vice of pain from a cluster headache sufferer. _
Yet psychedelics may also play a gentler role, in family or marital
counselling.
While not as rending as addiction busting, such religious communions are
hardly trivial. Says Grob, who did biomedical psychiatric research into
community ayahuasca ceremonies in the Amazon, /"The intensive moral
inventory of a night on ayahuasca is like the longest Yom Kippur you
could ever imagine."/ Grob places the family in a central supportive
role in psychedelic therapy. His current study, using psilocybin to
treat the anxiety of terminally ill cancer patients (beginning each
session with a Native American-inflected ritual calling on the spirits
of the four cardinal directions) has yielded highly positive results.
He recalls how one sobbing subject underwent a bout of profound empathy
for her husband, soon to lose her. The reunion of the two at the end of
the session brought tears to all present. Having treated seven of the
twelve in the study design, Grob still needs five more volunteers
(www.canceranxietystudy.org <http://www.canceranxietystudy.org/>).
The new science of neurotheology invites us to ponder the biochemistry
of religion and its evolutionary role as a source of meaning and
structure in the face of impending death. According to the /Time/ cover
story "/The God Gene,"/ scientists have pinpointed a variation on a
single gene that produces the monoamines that regulate mood, the
presence of which determined how well volunteers scored on a
self-transcendence test. Neither the variation nor the gene is the sine
qua non for a spiritual life, of course, but the finding demonstrates
both the value of science in detecting spirit-specific loci in the human
biosphere - and the slippery slope of materialist/determinist
interpretations of such findings.
So then, how do we construct a science devoted to human need and
potential? Science is naturally driven by political culture. It's only
right that the tools of science are regulated by our (duly) elected
officials. But what happens when the government censors its own
scientists, and political or industrial cronyism overrules sound medical
policy? Witness the FDA's vacuous, contra-scientific pronouncement last
year that cannabis has no medical value whatsoever. /"Zilch, zero,
nada,"/ sneered opioid gobbler Rush Limbaugh, impossibly rubbing it in.
Functionally speaking, science is only as good as its institutions and
what makes it into print. When the science is rigorous, as Griffiths'
was, it helps build the case for sound medicine and public health
policy, which can, if necessary, be hauled out and resurrected after its
eclipse by unfavourable political leadership. No, we don't need doctors
or Congressmen to tell us that good can come of cannabis or psilocybin
ingestion. _But a reformed legal framework for the judicious use of
psychedelics, as well as extensive scientific inquiry into how they work
on the human psyche, would be welcome evolutionary tune-ups for our
civilisation._
The efflorescence of new psychedelic research is an emerging pattern of
stars in the night sky of indiscriminate proscription. Once the dots
are connected and reinforced by ongoing inquiry, we'll be well on our
way toward a wholesome science marked by
up!
*
*Cops Planted Pot on 92-Year Old Woman *
*They'd Killed in Botched Drug Raid *
*by Rhonda Cook, Atlanta Journal-Constitution. *
*According to US federal documents released this week, these are the
events that led to Kathryn Johnston's death and the steps the officers
took to cover their tracks.
Three narcotics agents were trolling the streets near the Bluffs in
northwest Atlanta, a known market for drugs, midday on the Tuesday
before Thanksgiving.
Eventually they set their sights on some apartments on Lanier Street,
usually fertile when narcotics agents are looking for arrests and seizures.
Gregg Junnier and another narcotics officer went inside the apartments
around 2 p.m. while Jason Smith checked the woods. Smith found dozens
of bags of marijuana -- in baggies packaged to sell. With no one
connected to the pot, Smith stashed the bags in the trunk of the patrol
car.
A use was found for Smith's stash 90 minutes later: a phone tip led the
three officers to a man in a /"gold-collared jacket"/ who might be
dealing. The man, identified as X in the documents but known as Fabian
Sheats, spotted the cops and put something in his mouth. They found no
drugs on Sheats, but came up with a use for the pot they found earlier.
They wanted information or they would arrest Sheats for dealing.
While Junnier called for a drug-sniffing dog, Smith planted some bags
under a rock, which the K-9 unit found.
But if Sheats gave them 'something', he could walk.
Sheats pointed out 933 Neal St., the home of 92-year-old Kathryn
Johnston where, he claimed, he had spotted a kilo of cocaine when he was
there to buy crack from a man named /"Sam."/
They needed someone to go inside, but Sheats would not do for their
purposes because he was not a certified confidential informant.
So about 5:05 p.m. they reached out by telephone to Alex White to make
an undercover buy for them. They had experience with White and he had
proved to be a reliable snitch. But White had no transportation and
could not help.
Still, Smith, Junnier and the other officer, Arthur Tesler, according to
the state's case, ran with the information. They fabricated all the
right answers to persuade a magistrate to give them _a no-knock search
warrant_.
By 6 p.m., they had the legal document they needed to break into Kathryn
Johnston's house, and within 40 minutes they were prying off the burglar
bars and using a ram to burst through the elderly woman's front door.
It took about 2 minutes to get inside, which gave Johnston time to
retrieve her rusty .38 revolver.
Tesler was at the back door when Junnier, Smith and the other narcotics
officers crashed through the front.
Johnston got off one shot, the bullet missing her target and hitting a
porch roof. The three narcotics officers answered with 39 bullets.
5 or 6 bullets hit the terrified woman. Authorities never figured out
who fired the fatal bullet, the one that hit Johnston in the chest.
Some pieces of the other bullets hit Junnier and two other cops -
friendly fire.
The officers handcuffed the mortally wounded woman and searched the house.
There was no Sam.
There were no drugs.
There were no cameras that the officers had claimed was the reason for
the no-knock warrant. Just Johnston, handcuffed and bleeding on her
living room floor.
That is when the officers took it to another level. 3 baggies of
marijuana were retrieved from the trunk of the car and planted in
Johnston's basement. The rest of the pot from the trunk was dropped
down a sewage drain and disappeared.
The three began getting their stories straight.
The next day, one of them, allegedly Tesler, completed the required
incident report in which he wrote that the officers went to the house
because their informant had bought crack at the Neal Street address.
And Smith turned in two bags of crack to support that claim.
They plotted how they would cover up the lie.
They tried to line up one of their regular informants, Alex White, the
reliable snitch with the unreliable transportation.
The officers' story would be that they met with White at an abandoned
carwash Nov. 21 and gave him $50 to make the buy from Neal Street.
To add credibility to their story, they actually paid White his usual
$30 fee for information and explained to him how he was to say the
scenario played out if asked. An unidentified store owner kicked in
another $100 to entice White to go along with the play.
The 3 cops spoke several times, assuring each other of the story they
would tell.
Junnier was the first to break. On Dec. 11, three weeks after the
shooting, http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/51151/
*UP! *
_The Money Masters_
*
*Chavez Withdraws Venezuela *
*From IMF & World Bank *
*by Andrew Buncombe in Washington *
*/"Sooner or later, those institutions will fall / *
*/due to their own weight."/ *
*Venezuela's leader Hugo Chavez has underlined his intention to develop
_an alternative economic vision for Latin America_ by pulling his
country from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund -
organisations that have long had a controversial role in the region.
Though Venezuela has paid off its loans to the two international lending
organisations, Mr Chavez's announcement that he intends to quit the
organisations is powerfully symbolic. It is likely to lead other
smaller nations to question their membership and demand a greater say in
the organisations' policies.
> > a helluva lot more than symbolic! chavez has probly now signed his
own death warrant.
/"We will no longer have to go to Washington, nor to the IMF, nor to the
World Bank, not to anyone,"/ said Mr Chavez/. "I want to formalise our
exit from the World Bank and the IMF."/
Despite Venezuela's close trading relationship with the US over oil - it
is the fourth largest supplier of crude in the United States - Mr Chavez
has long derided the IMF and the World Bank for being controlled by US
and Western interests and has said their policies of tight budget
controls, privatisation and open markets have benefited foreign
companies while leaving much of Latin America in grinding poverty.
> > see The Money Masters in UP! 248.
Venezuela recently repaid its remaining debts to the World Bank five
years ahead of schedule and paid off its debts to the IMF shortly after
Mr Chavez first took office in 1999. He has steadily worked to provide
alternative forms of credit and financial support for countries in the
region, backed up by Venezuela's oil wealth. He has referred to such a
project as the /"Bank of the South"./ He has also invested millions of
dollars on social programmes inside Venezuela that have reduced poverty
and increased access to education and healthcare.
Mr Chavez made his announcement on Monday, a day after criticising the
lending organisations during a meeting with leaders from Bolivia,
Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti. He predicted that /"_sooner or later, those
institutions will fall due to their own weight_"./
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2502081.ece
*UP!**
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