Open Thread - 07-26-24 - Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Submitted by JtC on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 7:07am

I started high school in 1968, a tumultuous year of change, both for the country and myself. For the first time I was exposed to long hair freaky people, mostly from the upper grades. I was also exposed to different alternative political viewpoints and alternative life styles than those from grade school and junior high. It didn't take long, by my sophomore year I had tuned in and turned on.

I can freely admit that my friends and I experimented with drugs, mostly pot and LSD (acid). Acid was hit or miss where I lived, you never really knew what you were getting until you tried it. We very rarely got the good stuff like owsley, what we got was usually in pill form which meant it was cut with substances like speed. That made the trip very unpredictable. It could be very enjoyable or a really bad trip with everything in between. I never had a bad trip but I witnessed them. I saw friends have breaks with reality and one that never came back. I did, though, have a couple of trips where all I could do was sit in a chair and hold onto the arms as firm as I could until I came down. It was that intense.

I see the current political situation much like that. Hold on tight.

psychedelica.jpg
Attribution: Pxhere
Ohh, a storm is threatening.

Like swirling patterns on the wall and melting faces, things keep getting weirder and weirder. Don't get me wrong, the sixties were plenty strange, but this trip we're on right now is a surrealistic reality that would make even Timothy Leary guffaw.

Democracy is standing on its head and all the loose change is falling out into the coffers of back room deals and power brokerage. Knives have been unsheathed and a king has fallen. Sociopathic ambition has replaced the will of the people.

We the People have lost agency as we whistle past the graveyard of electoral disfranchisement.

2:36
My very life today.

The media lies and lies until the lies become facts. That's different than the media of the sixties when there was at least a modicum of truth. Facts have become as fluid as a chameleon's coloration, they change with the winds of political expediency.

Politicians lie, gas light and obfuscate, that's no great revelation. The truth has become irrelevant to the disciples of sycophancy, it's but a means to an end for power and control.

It's become a fresh hell we must endure to obtain the leadership of mediocrity we don't deserve. Or should I say idiocracy?

4:28
If I don't get some shelter.

The plot thickens like cement overshoes.

Like this from the Associated Press (AP). Yeah, I know, the AP, but if the AP is saying it you know there's something up:

Democrats promise an ‘orderly process’ to replace Biden. Harris is favored, but questions remain

July 22, 2024

Shortly after President Joe Biden announced that he would drop his reelection campaign, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison had a message: There would be no automatic coronation for his replacement.

Snip...

But Democratic rules state only that delegates “in all good conscience” vote for the candidate they were elected to represent, with no mechanism for defectors. And some in the party have endorsed an open nominating process.

There’s been active debate about how to proceed among lawmakers, major donors and former high-ranking officials of the Biden, Obama and Clinton administrations, said a Democrat with deep ties to the Biden administration.

The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations, argued that Harris would benefit from a competitive mini-primary ahead of the Democratic convention, because it would help solidify her as a strong candidate and diminish criticism that she’s been undemocratically anointed. That’s a charge the Trump campaign has already sought to use against her, and could loom large in the battle for undecided voters in battleground states.

Such a scenario might leave Democrats heading into their convention without a clear nominee, though, and perhaps choosing one via a series of potentially messy floor votes. That could mean top Democratic candidates looking to replace Biden resorting to visiting individual state delegations to lobby — a process unseen since 1960, when Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy jockeyed for support during their party’s convention in Los Angeles.

If that happened, in addition to Harris, many other leading Democrats could vie for the nomination, including the likes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and California Rep. Ro Khanna — though many say they’re endorsing Harris.

Source

Fredo Corleone comes to mind.

Ooh yeah I'm gonna fade away.

I've never had a flashback, thank the stars. But like an archetypal nightmare, We the People, will most likely pass that way again. We can't seem to help ourselves.

What a trip.

5:59

Tags: 
Open Thread
my humble opinion
The 60s
Psychedelica
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
Gimme Shelter
electoral politics
Easy Rider
Share
up
14 users have voted.

Comments

Submitted by JtC on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 7:09am

Thanks for taking a trip with me back to the sixties.

up
10 users have voted.
Submitted by on the cusp on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 7:18am

will he stay put until January?

up
7 users have voted.
—

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by JtC on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 7:45am

@on the cusp
that's most likely how Joe feels given the palace intrigue he's been subjected to.

It's a good thing he's a superhero or he would have buckled under long ago, just ask any devout Democrat. [eyeroll]

Betting sites believe Joe Biden has a one-in-three chance of quitting the US presidency before his first term is up.

They're usually pretty accurate about their odds.

up
7 users have voted.
Submitted by Lookout on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 8:20am
Lookout's picture

Indeed, what a long strange trip it is. The Greek play you began a few months ago continues with all the drama of a Hollywood production. Heard a fellow say - the US manipulates elections all over the world, you think they don't in their own country? So the kabuki continues. May as well enjoy the show.

Thanks for the OT. I'm hoping to touch up the road after a 1.5" rain in less than an hour earlier this week. Always something...

up
9 users have voted.
—

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by JtC on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 9:03am

@Lookout
back and forth from Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Euripides' Medea that best defines our current zeitgeist.

1.5 inches in less than an hour, that's a gully washer. It's rained here in southeast Texas every day for the last week, sometimes really heavy. One more rainy day tomorrow then it's suppose to clear. Next weekend we're headed to Illinois for a 9 day vacation, the yard will look like a savanna when we get back. Yikes!

up
8 users have voted.
Submitted by usefewersyllables on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 10:11am
usefewersyllables's picture

@JtC

Heinlein’s “If This Goes On-“ to be the best fit, with Sen. Tom Cotton as the current best candidate to become Nehemiah Scudder. But “Oedipus Rex” definitely fits nicely as well…

As the old chinese curse says- we live in interesting times…

up
8 users have voted.
—

Twice bitten, permanently shy.

Submitted by JtC on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 10:20am

@usefewersyllables
have proven to be an incestuous vocation with the players antagonistic during the day as they show contempt for one another and protagonistic during the evening as they enjoy beers together. Also evidence by the nepotism of the last two administrations.

Good call as Tom Cotton as Nehemiah Scudder.

I long for the days of uninteresting times.

up
7 users have voted.
Submitted by enhydra lutris on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 10:38am
enhydra lutris's picture

What are these rules of which they speak?

But Democratic rules state only that delegates “in all good conscience” vote for the candidate they were elected to represent, with no mechanism for defectors. And some in the party have endorsed an open nominating process.

Has nobody but me seen The Balcony, or even read it?

A US Court of Law upheld the Democratic Party's assertion that they are a private corporation and can select their candidates in any fashion they damn well please. The "rules" are vapor, a malodorous fiction. Rules which cannot be enforced have no substance, no reality and certainly no bearing on any putative "election" in this day and age.

I have seen reports, images and snippets of Kamala asserting in public that she already has enough "Delegates" to be the candidate? How the hell did she acquire them, then? Via the primary system? Bwahahahaha. She has not been a candidate in any primary and yet has a preponderance of the delegates?

The truth, as we once thought we knew it, has long ago ceased to exist. It died when we entered the evidence free reality. The word of the century is "whatever", so hop on the bus and hang on.

be well and have a good one

up
11 users have voted.
—

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Submitted by JtC on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 10:54am

@enhydra lutris
of negativism blather on unabated.

The DNC is like the spoiled child that changes the rules of the game to fit their fancy.

You're right about the Kamala's unearned delegates, much like her unearned meteoric rise to the pinnacle of political ambitions. Then again, some say she did earn that distinction in an unconventional way, if you catch my drift.

The truth is DOA, toe tag it.

up
9 users have voted.
Submitted by usefewersyllables on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 11:05am
usefewersyllables's picture

@enhydra lutris

to watch them all making mouth-noises to the effect of “Where have all the voters gone?” in the aftermath of the general, won’t it?

I have a meme of the world’s tiniest violin around here, somewhere…

IMG_6318.jpeg

up
9 users have voted.
—

Twice bitten, permanently shy.

Submitted by JtC on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 10:58am

@usefewersyllables
the writing's on the wall. She's the sacrificial lamb, if she makes it that far.

up
8 users have voted.
Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 5:29pm
Pluto's Republic's picture

@enhydra lutris

Political Parties have operated as private clubs since the very beginning of the nation.

All US Political Party events fall under the general category of "Kabuki." — (Story telling, lies, passionate patriotism, circus acts, magic tricks, film-flam political barkers, the coordinated PR and brainwashing delivered by the media monopolies, and targeted beatings of audience members (the public) by the police, just to give the election the thrilling sensation of 'reality.')

All this has been a known-known for as long as I have been alive. I have never actually lived in a national Democracy, but I hjave been a life-long fan of the Gang of Three — Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle — who went to great pains to explain that democracy is a catastrophic failure in the hands of the homo Sapiens of Western Civilization. That lesson was learned and Democracy was largely avoided for the next 2,000 years. Tribes, communities, communal living, and casual socialism allowed people to survive.

Until.... the modern era, when Democracy was ushered into mix by the needs of the Industrial Revolution. The capitalists and Plutocrats found rigged Democracy to be the perfect device to bamboozle the masses — by giving them a vote and telling them they were 'free.'

'Democracy' worked pretty well during Western civilization's transit through the four industrial revolutions. Using a kabuki form of Democracy, the plutocrats could harness the labor of humans, tax it, and exploit this wage theft to pay for the massive expenses of the violent Plutocratic Empire. The staggering sums of money they borrowed on top of tax revenues is also piled on the people's heads. Now, as we enter the End Game, the People will soon discover that they can continue to purchase food and shelter and human rights ONLY IF THEY PAY the interest on the Plutocratic Debt. (At the moment, the debt is being paid through much higher prices on everything the People buy (inflation) and through the price-doubling of property ownership and rents. The People are suffering personal bankruptcy, repossession, foreclosure, and evictions — quietly — as personal property ownership is slowly being transferred to the Plutocrats and their corporations.

Here's how that works:

The American constitutional order assumes a populace of property owners, a middle class whose virtues provide the necessary ballast to support our republic. Our founders imagined strong communities, strong families, and independent citizens capable of self-government. They knew if the people degenerated into an insolent plutocracy on the one hand and a disgruntled, insecure, proletarianized mass on the other, the American experiment in self-government would become increasingly fragile and eventually collapse. (As per the Gang of Three.)

This unraveling is now happening before our eyes. A plutocracy – that is, rule by the wealthy and their surrogates – is emerging as large public and private entities exercise increasing power through both the law and the market. This is characterized by an incestuous union of Big Government and Big Business, neither of which has the interests of the citizen-consumer in mind.

In recent years, the government has expanded its reach to compel citizens to submit to an array of mandates including reactionary educational curricula and pervasive surveillance, all ostensibly justified by our fears. At the same time, corporations wield their power by aggressively promoting a radical foreign policy. In the process, consumers are deprived of such basic goods as privacy or free speech. Employees toe the line and retreat into fearful silence or lose their jobs. As the wealth gap grows, insecure citizens clamor for economic security, via government programs, subsidies, and guarantees.

Political and economic insecurity provides the opportunity for the plutocrats to entrench their power by means of handouts that only temporarily mask the underlying problems. Trillions in deficit spending assuage present demands at the expense of future freedom. Indeed, we are exchanging the freedom of our descendants for the illusion of security today. They will be justified in destroying the statues we erect to honor ourselves.

— Plutocratic Socialism and the Corruption of Democracy

.

Elections are just a harmless diversion. Joe, Kamala, Donald Trump — it doesn't matter who gets to play President. People have always been told what to expect. This is not hidden information. The people are in denial. They do not listen and do not learn. If they were thinking critically, they would not be participating in their own demise. They go to church and read the Ten Commandments on every government wall where they are posted. God is explicitly named on the US dollar. Surely God won't let them end up living on a corporate-owned Plantation.

I like the gambling websites. They are more realistic in their predictions.

up
10 users have voted.
—
Populations don’t like wars. They have to be lied into it.
That means we can be “truthed” into peace. — Julian Assange
Submitted by soryang on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 11:15am
soryang's picture

...a culture of resistance or revolution. That Gimme Shelter video strikes a chord for me.

I had missed this in the news last week in South Korea. Kevin Gray brought up this old resistance song Morning Dew written and sung by Kim Min-ki in South Korea. It was then banned during the Park Chung-he military dictatorship. I think I posted it here within the last year because I recall hearing it sung at Candlelight demonstration in Seoul not too long ago. It's a classic demo song. I had listened to the song many times on a CD in the truck while driving cross country OTR over the years.

Kim Min-ki, singer songwriter, producer, artist, director, teacher died July 21. He left a great cultural legacy. His memorial service was held on July 24 in the small theater arts building where he established his school for the arts where 700 artists, singers, and actors some famous now studied under him. He is the cultural equivalent of our Pete Seeger perhaps. When his song Morning Dew was banned he was designated a thought criminal by the dictatorship in South Korea arrested and tortured. Believe it or not he later wrote another resistance song Pine Tree which became famous during the resistance to the Chun Du-hwan dictatorship in the 80s.

This is from Namu Wiki on the song Morning Dew. Looks like an automated translation.

Morning Dew

This song was designated as a healthy song by the government in 1973 , but was banned in 1975. At the time, about 2,000 songs were banned for absurd reasons such as violating social norms and deteriorating work culture, but Morning Dew was the only song that was banned without any such grounds! The reason why Morning Dew was banned was later revealed to the public as being because the lyrics, " The sun rises red over the cemetery ," were impure . Why, of all people, did it rise ominously over the cemetery ? That's why it was banned. According to music critic Kang Heon's testimony, this line was written one day when Kim Min-ki was drinking and singing in a cemetery .[3] It is said that the lyrics were simply a reflection of the experience of waking up in the morning to sunlight after sleeping nearby .

Depending on the interpretation, ' the graveyard represents those who died in the democratic struggle at the time, and the sun rising above it represents the image of sunrise, that is, a new morning, a new era, and new hope', or, more radically, 'the great people's leader (sun) rises over the corpses (graveyard) of the revolutionary people and establishes a communist paradise (red)'.[4] It is possible to forcefully weave words, but this is no different from a forced argument steeped in the red complex unique to the military dictatorship era. Then, the sun does not burn red, but does a backflip.

https://en.namu.wiki/w/%EC%95%84%EC%B9%A8%20%EC%9D%B4%EC%8A%AC

The legend goes that the singer song writer Kim Min-ki wasn't satisfied with the song and tore it up, but the singer above saved it and made it famous.

Staying up all night long
To every green leaf clinging, more lovely than pearls, the morning dew-
when sadness, drop by drop clings to my heart, to mornings east hill
I climb- bringing a slight smile...
The red sun climbs over the graves...
In the midday blazing heat, my ordeal, go forward!
Now, I go! Toward rough wilderness.
Let go all your sorrow. Now, I go!

When sadness, drop by drop clings to my heart
To morning's east hill I climb, bringing a slight smile
The red sun climbs over the graves
In the midday blazing heat, my ordeal, go forward!
Now, I go! Toward rough wilderness.
Let go all your sorrow. Now, we go!

That's my interpretation of the song, it's history and the news on Kim Min-ki's death this week. I'm sure there are smoother ones out there. I am responsible for any mistakes.

up
8 users have voted.
—

語必忠信 行必正直

Submitted by JtC on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 11:07am

@soryang
the songs, soryang. It's eye opening to witness the struggle that spans different cultures and in the end, we humans suffer from the same hardships befallen upon us by other so called humans.

up
9 users have voted.
Submitted by snoopydawg on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 11:15am
snoopydawg's picture

.

I was using 'cringe' to describe the Kam before I saw others using it. It’s so spot on.

Either she writes her own speeches or her staff hates her and writes them to make her look stupid. Over 91% of her original staff have quit.

OTC, it has your favorite 'time' quote. And notice that there is no talk about Mayo Pete. They don’t want to sacrifice his chances next time during this farce. And it is a farce. Biden was saying that he had no intention of dropping out…until he just did.

IMG_6458.jpeg
up
8 users have voted.
—

“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

Submitted by JtC on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 11:26am

@snoopydawg
just gave me the heebie jeebies, walking pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu.

In politico talk, when they unequivocally claim they wont do something, you can count on it being just the opposite.

The DNC would be better off running Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho:

"Word Salad" Kamala has nothing on him.

up
8 users have voted.
Submitted by snoopydawg on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 11:48am
snoopydawg's picture

@JtC

If people could eat word salads we could end world hunger. Alas tho….we will just have to protect our ears and brains.

And since nothing will change with her in charge I hope she does become president. 4 more years of laughing at the president.

And nothing would change if Trump won. We will still support Israel and we will still have wars. Ukraine might end, but China and Iran will be just as bad.

Did y’all catch Biden saying that America is not at war anywhere? Guess Yemen will be happy to hear that.

up
8 users have voted.
—

“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

Submitted by JtC on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 12:16pm

@snoopydawg
not to mention the air in her head and his inflated ego.

Yes, I saw Biden's speech. I'm still trying to delineate the lies.

up
8 users have voted.
Submitted by soryang on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 12:32pm
soryang's picture

@snoopydawg

(Sep 2023)

정신( 精神 ) 없다 jeongshin eobda The lights are on but nobody's home. Spacey. We all may have moments like this, the question is how many and how often? Then there is a lack of self awareness or insight at another level.

One of her most conspicuous photo ops was visiting the spot where John McCain was shot down in Vietnam. The Vietnamese have demonstrated a forgiving spirit over the years from the reports I've heard.

2021:

Guess she's qualified in foreign policy now. "Been there, got the belt buckle," as they say.

"On Oct 26, 1967, at Truc Bach Lake, the military and people of Hanoi arrested Major John Sidney McCain, a pilot of the American Navy's air force," it says on the sculpture, which depicts an airman with his hands above his head in front of a broken plane wing.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-mccain-vietnam-idUSKCN1LB055/

The monument was updated in 2015 to correct the spelling of McCain's name and rank and remove the Vietnamese word "TÊN," which was originally included in reference to McCain on the monument, according to the website of Ted Osius, a former U.S. ambassador to Vietnam.

"TÊN is a classifier for despicable individuals such as enemies, thieves, robbers, cheaters and rapists,” Osius wrote. “The Vietnamese language has a group of classifiers that have built-in positive or negative connotations, which can be added or dropped to express the speaker’s attitude toward the subject modified by the classifier. After TÊN was dropped, the text was no longer marred by the speaker’s bias against the subject.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/07/25/harris-laid-flo...

Kamala Harris meets Vietnam's top leaders, slams China again

up
7 users have voted.
—

語必忠信 行必正直

Submitted by wokkamile on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 11:32am

Hades that Ds don't nominate KH. Too much drama and chaos for weeks about Biden stepping aside, then the KH strong rollout of her campaign reassured Nervous Nellie Ds. They are on board. United party. The big $$$ is rolling in. KH is about even now w DJT in the national polls, and swing states are tightening.

And Rs currently have a JD Vance problem.

She might be pulling away some RFK Jr supporters.

She actually could win this.

I'd venture a guess that unless there is a major D screwup in the next 3 months, KH and whoever she picks for her VP will win in Nov. Donald Trump will never see the inside of the WH again.

up
8 users have voted.
Submitted by JtC on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 11:40am

@wokkamile
if she reads from a teleprompter from now until the election, if she makes it that far. If she is allowed to ad lib she's toast, in my humble opinion.

Either way, Kamala Harris, if she becomes the candidate, or Trump, the real winners will be the MIC and wall street.

up
9 users have voted.
Submitted by wokkamile on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 12:46pm

@JtC she needs to be kept as scripted as possible, definitely no long unscripted pressers. Nixon 1968 campaign is the early exemplar. KH will need to get her Roger Ailes.

I don't think it will matter if she's so shielded -- campaigns today are so packaged with fillers and preservatives and most voters are now used to the artificial flavoring of the whole show.

up
9 users have voted.
Submitted by QMS on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 11:38am
QMS's picture

.
.
window pane
printed blotter
chocolate mesc
orange sunshine
microdot
reds, whites and blues

probably forgot a couple along the way
but having a stubborn mind
nothing seemed to have the desired effect

thanks for the OD!

up
6 users have voted.
Submitted by JtC on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 11:44am

@QMS
a fellow wayfaring son. What glued me to the seat was orange barrel based with STP.

I had my run, long ago. Does it show? LOL

up
7 users have voted.
Submitted by enhydra lutris on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 1:19pm
enhydra lutris's picture

@QMS

be well and have a good one

up
6 users have voted.
—

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Submitted by snoopydawg on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 12:26pm
snoopydawg's picture

.

I remember her and lots of democrats supporting the BLM riots and not one said that violence had no place in protests. Clown world indeed and more taking Netanyahu's side.

Dr. John Carpenter:

Dunno, but someone might want to remind her flag burning is protected free speech (for now, anyway.) Personally, I find supporting genocide a much greater desecration of our highest ideals and promises of American than burning a piece of cloth, but guess that’s just me.

He speaks for me.

up
9 users have voted.
—

“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

Submitted by JtC on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 12:20pm

@snoopydawg
the gas that she lit earlier.

up
7 users have voted.
Submitted by QMS on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 1:02pm
QMS's picture

.
.

up
4 users have voted.
Submitted by JtC on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 2:44pm

@QMS
a little bit of that:

up
4 users have voted.
Submitted by dystopian on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 6:03pm
dystopian's picture

Hey JtC!

Hope its all good all over folks!

Finally a subject I thoroughly studied, drugs... Wink

All I know about this stuff is what I heard from a friend of a friend, etc. ad. infinitum, long ago and far away, in another galaxy, but apparently in a parallel universe where the names have not changed.

Jonathan Winters and Steve Allen were on Sandoz prescription acid. Lucky bastards.

Caitlin Johnstone had some fictional character quotes in a piece maybe last week or so. One was a female who said something like, 'psychedelics are good not just for the hallucinations they bring, but for the ones they get rid of.'

This is exactly what it was for me. It removed my frame of reference (brain-washing) instantly. As in 'Just give me one night... (the acid queen). I have seen everything differently forever since. Almost magically it seemed, I saw through the facades and charades.

I can't imagine speed with L. It is like putting tobacco in fine herb but worse. Seems like speed has been in all the coke since the 90's. At least that people showed me. Wouldn't get near it with a 10 foot straw.

Not just acid though, certainly shrooms and peyote belong in there with it. They can get the job done too. Yep, didn't take their word for it and checked myself. Love a good research project.

Country Joe

It was another life, a long time ago, but it was fanfntastic!

Don't mind talking about it? I don't mind bragging about it! Wink We did the best shit, following the advice of a dude that seemed to know his stuff about it, named Keith Richard. Only do the best shit.

Yeah man, sophomore in high school. That's when it hits. 1970 I turned 15, in Huntington Bch. CA. There was hardly a better place to be we thought. We smoked more Afghan thin patty Primo (shish) than pot. Last half of 70's I was in Redondo Bch. up in LA Co., and got in with some real high end specialists. It was shall we say a heady time.

I could not afford to go to college, so had to get my own, uh, higher education. Made it all the way to under-assistant west coast promo man. Oh the stories I could tell...

Thanks for the OT and great memories JtC!

I gotta get back to work...

happy trails all!

up
9 users have voted.
—

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 9:08pm
Pluto's Republic's picture

@dystopian

...for those of like mind and experiences to share a riverboat cruise. I'm forever amazed at how often I was in the right place at the right time to journey with people who would become esoteric legends and talented voyagers through the times-they-are-a-changing. There were miracles of proximity and propinquity that we thought would never end. There was a alternative kind of college education then, where you're kicking back with Timothy Leary in the Hollywood Hills or contemplating altered states with John Lilly on Russian Hill. I suspect thousands of unrecorded historic moments and bright points of potential connection will blink out of existence when the kind of people who gather here are reabsorbed by the creative force that weaves the collective mind of this universe. Time is moving so fast now. People on this planet came very close to realizing that their coordinated conscious thoughts can create the future — but then they missed it utterly and completely — and the significant moment passed. How surprised I will be if I post this.

up
9 users have voted.
—
Populations don’t like wars. They have to be lied into it.
That means we can be “truthed” into peace. — Julian Assange
Submitted by QMS on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 8:57pm
QMS's picture

@Pluto's Republic
.
.
the sum total of coincidental encounters have permeated the web of mind
to an extent (that we now perceive as reality)
to the point it can not be erased
perhaps absorbed into another form by the mind masters
does not stop the process

up
5 users have voted.
Submitted by janis b on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 9:07pm
janis b's picture

@Pluto's Republic

up
7 users have voted.
Submitted by dystopian on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 9:58pm
dystopian's picture

@Pluto's Republic Yeah man! Amen brother! The cosmic kismet of time and our travels never ceases to amaze me. At 15 I was listening to Elliot Mintz interviews on KPPC Pasadena with Lennon, Eldridge Cleaver, and yes you said it, Timothy Leary, amongst many. I was soooo lucky to hear them, right then. I bet the gang here could have some awesome allnighters... Wink

A quick one on the cosmic kismet of our journeys... got on a Greyhound bus in downtown LA for a 6 hour ride to Big Pine in eastern Sierras. Guy gets on it an airforce uniform. I am at the back row of the bus because I was a back row sort of dude... There's the front row people and the back row people, and the ones in the middle are to keep them apart. Anyway, despite the uniform he was heading my way so I gave him the signal to sit here next to me. Asked where he was goin', he said Edwards AFB. I told him I had spent Armed Forces Day every year from about 60 to 70, at Edwards. Usually seeing the first public flight of whatever just came out. He replied, do you want a hit of blotter? I got 6 hour bus ride I'm looking at, only stop is in Lancaster where once the wind stopped and everyone fell over... and he wants to know if I want a hit of blotter!?!?!?!? Talk about cosmic meetings!

Thanks for posting it PR!

happy trails!

edit to fix typeo

up
8 users have voted.
—

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

Submitted by janis b on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 9:06pm
janis b's picture

@dystopian

Caitlin Johnstone had some fictional character quotes in a piece maybe last week or so. One was a female who said something like, 'psychedelics are good not just for the hallucinations they bring, but for the ones they get rid of.'

This is exactly what it was for me. It removed my frame of reference (brain-washing) instantly. As in 'Just give me one night... (the acid queen). I have seen everything differently forever since.

Nothing like finding broader perspectives on life.

up
7 users have voted.
Submitted by dystopian on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 9:44pm
dystopian's picture

@janis b Hi Janis,

Wasn't it twain that said nothing cures bigotry like travel? I'd add, or acid. Smile

Yeah I got a higher education then most do. Got a couple degrees from Euphoric State.

be well!

up
8 users have voted.
—

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

Submitted by janis b on Fri, 07/26/2024 - 9:56pm
janis b's picture

@dystopian

Euphoric State would accept me? I need some higher education ; ).

up
6 users have voted.