Thursday, March 04, 2021
Four demonstrators arrested after blocking access to Vancouver port for 24 hours
VANCOUVER — Indigenous youth calling themselves Braided Warriors temporarily blocked and forced the shutdown of a major Vancouver intersection to protest a 90-day jail sentence handed to an anti-pipeline protester
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© Provided by The Canadian Press
The protest ended Wednesday night, roughly 24 hours after it started.
About 20 people set up a blockade at Hastings Street and Clark Drive late Tuesday, a key entrance to the Port of Vancouver, with the number of demonstrators peaking at 75 before police intervened.
Social media posts by the Braided Warriors say members intended to shut down the port to show solidarity with an elder sentenced for his role in protests against the Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion project.
Vancouver police Sgt. Steve Addison says four people were arrested after repeated requests to clear the roadway.
Traffic in and out of the port was temporarily blocked due to the protest.
"(Vancouver police) strongly supports peoples’ fundamental freedom to peacefully gather, demonstrate, and express their views, and this group was given a full day to do that," Addison said in a statement.
"When it became clear some protesters had no intention of leaving, officers were forced to arrest them to reopen the intersection for all road users."
The Braided Warriors said in a social media post that the elder they had been supporting was released on bail.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 3, 2021.
The Canadian Press
The protest ended Wednesday night, roughly 24 hours after it started.
About 20 people set up a blockade at Hastings Street and Clark Drive late Tuesday, a key entrance to the Port of Vancouver, with the number of demonstrators peaking at 75 before police intervened.
Social media posts by the Braided Warriors say members intended to shut down the port to show solidarity with an elder sentenced for his role in protests against the Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion project.
Vancouver police Sgt. Steve Addison says four people were arrested after repeated requests to clear the roadway.
Traffic in and out of the port was temporarily blocked due to the protest.
"(Vancouver police) strongly supports peoples’ fundamental freedom to peacefully gather, demonstrate, and express their views, and this group was given a full day to do that," Addison said in a statement.
"When it became clear some protesters had no intention of leaving, officers were forced to arrest them to reopen the intersection for all road users."
The Braided Warriors said in a social media post that the elder they had been supporting was released on bail.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 3, 2021.
The Canadian Press
State passes bill banning transgender student-athletes from female sports teams
SEXIST, HOMOPHOBIC, AND WHAT ABOUT TRANSBOYS
Mississippi legislators have passed a bill that would ban transgender athletes from competing on female sports teams in schools and universities -- one of over two dozen similar measures proposed by state lawmakers nationwide this year.
The state House voted 81-28 Wednesday to pass the so-called Mississippi Fairness Act. It passed the state Senate last month, 34-9. The bill now heads to Gov. Tate Reeves for approval.
A growing number of states have proposed legislation that would restrict transgender student-athletes from participating in school sports. As of Feb. 26, the ACLU has tracked 25 states considering such bills this year, compared to 18 last year. This week, Wisconsin also introduced a similar bill.
Idaho became the first state to pass a law banning transgender women from competing in women's sports last year. A federal district court suspended the law and it has yet to be enacted.
Mississippi legislators have passed a bill that would ban transgender athletes from competing on female sports teams in schools and universities -- one of over two dozen similar measures proposed by state lawmakers nationwide this year.
By the Numbers: More Americans identify as LGBT than ever before
The state House voted 81-28 Wednesday to pass the so-called Mississippi Fairness Act. It passed the state Senate last month, 34-9. The bill now heads to Gov. Tate Reeves for approval.
A growing number of states have proposed legislation that would restrict transgender student-athletes from participating in school sports. As of Feb. 26, the ACLU has tracked 25 states considering such bills this year, compared to 18 last year. This week, Wisconsin also introduced a similar bill.
Idaho became the first state to pass a law banning transgender women from competing in women's sports last year. A federal district court suspended the law and it has yet to be enacted.
Young women play basketball in this stock photo.
Mississippi's act is the first of its ilk to successfully pass through both chambers this year. Some have failed in committee, including in South Dakota on Wednesday and in Utah last month.
A similar bill also died in committee in Mississippi last year. Republican state Sen. Angela Hill, who sponsored that bill and the one that passed the House Wednesday, told ABC News she was inspired to introduce the legislation after learning about two girls' championship-winning transgender high school runners in Connecticut, where state policy allows high school athletes to compete as the gender with which they identify. Mississippi does not have a policy regarding transgender high school athletes
Mississippi's act is the first of its ilk to successfully pass through both chambers this year. Some have failed in committee, including in South Dakota on Wednesday and in Utah last month.
A similar bill also died in committee in Mississippi last year. Republican state Sen. Angela Hill, who sponsored that bill and the one that passed the House Wednesday, told ABC News she was inspired to introduce the legislation after learning about two girls' championship-winning transgender high school runners in Connecticut, where state policy allows high school athletes to compete as the gender with which they identify. Mississippi does not have a policy regarding transgender high school athletes
© Rory Doyle/AFP via Getty Images, FILE
"If we do not move to protect female sports from biological males who have an unfair physiological advantage, we will eventually no longer have female sports," she said.
Hill could not point to any instance of transgender girls competing on girls' sports teams in her state's high schools, but said she has heard concerns from coaches about Mississippi's lack of guidelines.
"This issue is imminent in Mississippi," she said. "We have to make a statement that women matter, female sports matter."MORE: Texas, Mississippi to end mask mandates, allow businesses to reopen at full capacity
Following the House passage, Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David said Mississippi was "on the wrong side of history."
"There is simply no justification for banning transgender girls and women from participating in athletics other than discrimination," David said in a statement. "Like all girls, transgender girls just want to play and be part of a team with their friends. History will not look kindly on this moment in Mississippi.
"If we do not move to protect female sports from biological males who have an unfair physiological advantage, we will eventually no longer have female sports," she said.
Hill could not point to any instance of transgender girls competing on girls' sports teams in her state's high schools, but said she has heard concerns from coaches about Mississippi's lack of guidelines.
"This issue is imminent in Mississippi," she said. "We have to make a statement that women matter, female sports matter."MORE: Texas, Mississippi to end mask mandates, allow businesses to reopen at full capacity
Following the House passage, Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David said Mississippi was "on the wrong side of history."
"There is simply no justification for banning transgender girls and women from participating in athletics other than discrimination," David said in a statement. "Like all girls, transgender girls just want to play and be part of a team with their friends. History will not look kindly on this moment in Mississippi.
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© Rogelio V. Solis/AP Sens. Albert Butler, left, and Angela Hill, right, following a meeting of the Senate Accountability, Efficiency, Transparency Committee at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., March 2, 2021.
LGBTQ advocates warn that such bills send a damaging message to transgender youth.
"These dangerous bills are designed to make the lives of transgender kids more difficult while they try to navigate their adolescence," David said.
The Mississippi bill would require any public school and university that is a member of the Mississippi High School Activities Association and NCAA, among other associations, to designate their athletic teams as male, female or co-ed and restrict athletes assigned male at birth from joining female teams. It would not prevent cis women from participating on a male team.MORE: 'I'm still here': Transgender troops begin new era of open military service
Hill expects the bill to come across Reeves' desk in the coming week or so. The Republican governor has been critical of policies allowing transgender athletes to play women's sports.
He said he was "disappointed" by President Joe Biden's executive order combatting discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, which stated, "Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports."
LGBTQ advocates warn that such bills send a damaging message to transgender youth.
"These dangerous bills are designed to make the lives of transgender kids more difficult while they try to navigate their adolescence," David said.
The Mississippi bill would require any public school and university that is a member of the Mississippi High School Activities Association and NCAA, among other associations, to designate their athletic teams as male, female or co-ed and restrict athletes assigned male at birth from joining female teams. It would not prevent cis women from participating on a male team.MORE: 'I'm still here': Transgender troops begin new era of open military service
Hill expects the bill to come across Reeves' desk in the coming week or so. The Republican governor has been critical of policies allowing transgender athletes to play women's sports.
He said he was "disappointed" by President Joe Biden's executive order combatting discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, which stated, "Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports."
After Trump Made Transphobic Comments, Candace Owens Praised Him For Being “Feminist”
LAST UPDATED MARCH 1, 2021
PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK.
PHOTO: ELIJAH NOUVELAGE/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES.
Following former president Donald Trump's CPAC speech, in which he continued to falsely claim the election was stolen, allege voter fraud, and tease a 2024 presidential run, conservative commentator Candace Owens entered the chat. Specifically, Owens praised Trump as a "feminist" on Twitter after he touted some wildly transphobic views about trans women being included in women's sports.
On Sunday, Trump gave a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he criticized Biden's decision to allow trans kids to participate in sports according to their gender identity. Trump claimed, falsely, that transgender women in sports were breaking records, and referred to them as "biological males." In response, Owens essentially called him a feminist hero (sure, Jan). “If you guys are wondering what actual feminism is, it’s Donald Trump having the courage to stand up on stage and call out the insanity of biological men dominating women’s sports,” Owens wrote. “He never kowtows to the Left. #CPAC2021 #CPAC.”
Owens was immediately the subject of serious backlash on Twitter, with users calling her a TERF well into Monday, when her name started trending. "I'd say your fear of trans people is much greater than your intellect, but we all know it's easy to find a bigger number than zero," one user wrote. "At almost every level of government over the past few weeks we have heard about the 'threat' of trans kids in sports. Let's talk about this because there is no threat and yet, we are about to see a massive expansion of privacy intrusions into and surveillance of kids' bodies," Chase Strangio, a lawyer for the ACLU, wrote.
Trump’s speech and Owens’ subsequent comments are responses to the recently passed Biden administration executive order titled “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation.” On January 20, Biden’s first day in office, he signed the order declaring that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity were unconstitutional. The order notably states that “Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports.”
The order — though praised among many for being an inclusive step forward — has become an easy excuse for conservatives to spew hate. And, this isn’t the first time Owens has been openly transphobic and tried to mask it as standing up for women's rights. In February, she tweeted that transgender rights policies in the U.S. were “trampling over” the rights of women. In the past, she's also stood her ground on the false claim that only women can give birth, spoken out against trans soldiers serving in the U.S. Army, and called the work of trans activists the work of Satan and “confusing” to children. Most notably, Owens rebuked Harry Styles' Vogue cover, where he was photographed wearing a dress, saying, "bring back our manly men."
In reality, there’s no evidence of transgender children harming the upbringing of cisgender children, including in school sports. With nearly 2% of kids identifying as trans as of 2019, the conversation surrounding gender identity and children is becoming a more common one, thanks to the help of organizations like the Human Rights Campaign and PFLAG.
But given that ignorance is rampant in the Republican party, it's no surprise Trump would latch onto this Biden order — and even less of a surprise that a noted TERF like Candace Owens would praise him for it.
GM extends production cuts due to chip shortage, Stellantis warns of lingering pain
© Reuters/CHRIS HELGREN FILE PHOTO: Chevrolet Equinox SUVs are parked awaiting shipment near the General Motors Co (GM) CAMI assembly plant in Ingersoll
DETROIT/LONDON (Reuters) - The global semiconductor chip shortage led General Motors Co on Wednesday to extend production cuts at three North American plants and add a fourth to the list of factories hit, and Stellantis to warn the pain could linger far into the year.
The extended cuts do not change GM's forecast last month that the shortage could shave up to $2 billion from this year's earnings. GM Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson subsequently said chip supplies should return to normal rates by the second half of the year and he was confident the profit hit would not worsen.
However, Stellantis on Wednesday did not give an estimate for the financial hit it expects this year from the shortage and said the issue could last into the second half of 2021.
The chip shortage, which has hit automakers globally, stems from a confluence of factors as carmakers, which shut plants for two months during the COVID-19 pandemic last year, compete against the sprawling consumer electronics industry for chip supplies.
Consumers have stocked up on laptops, gaming consoles and other electronic products during the pandemic, leading to tight chip supplies. They also bought more cars than industry officials expected last spring, further straining supplies.
GM did not disclose the impact on volumes or say which supplier or parts were affected by the chip shortage, but the U.S. automaker said it intends to recover as much of the lost output as possible.
"GM continues to leverage every available semiconductor to build and ship our most popular and in-demand products, including full-size trucks and SUVs," GM spokesman David Barnas said. "We contemplated this downtime when we discussed our outlook for 2021."
GM said it would extend downtime at plants in Fairfax, Kansas, and Ingersoll, Ontario, to at least mid-April, and in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, through the end of March. In addition, it will idle its Gravatai plant in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in April and May.
The Detroit automaker had previously extended production cuts at three North American plants into mid-March and said vehicles at two other plants would only be partially built. Following Wednesday's cuts, forecasting firm AutoForecast Solutions estimated GM could lose more than 216,000 units globally due to the shortage.
While reporting quarterly results on Wednesday, Stellantis said the chip shortage could weigh on 2021 earnings and Chief Financial Officer Richard Palmer told analysts on a conference call the financial impact was a "big unknown."
Stellantis Chief Executive Carlos Tavares said the automaker was working hard to find alternative chip supplies, but he was "not so sure" the issue would be resolved by the second half of 2021.
Ford Motor Co said last month the lack of chips could cut company production by up to 20% in the first quarter and hurt profits by as much as $2.5 billion. It had previously cut production of its top-selling F-150 pickup truck.
Some automakers, including Toyota Motor Corp and Hyundai Motor Co, avoided deeper cuts by stockpiling chips ahead of the shortage.
Industry officials and politicians have pushed U.S. President Joe Biden's administration to take a more active role in dealing with the chip shortage.
Last week, Biden said he would seek $37 billion in funding to supercharge chip manufacturing in the United States. An executive order also launched a review of supply chains for such critical products as semiconductor chips, electric vehicle batteries and rare earth minerals.
Complicating matters was a severe winter storm in Texas last month that killed at least 21 people and led to the shutdown of several chip plants. Semiconductor industry officials said customers would face knock-on effects in several months.
(Reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit and Nick Carey in London, editing by Jonathan Oatis and Chizu Nomiyama)
DETROIT/LONDON (Reuters) - The global semiconductor chip shortage led General Motors Co on Wednesday to extend production cuts at three North American plants and add a fourth to the list of factories hit, and Stellantis to warn the pain could linger far into the year.
The extended cuts do not change GM's forecast last month that the shortage could shave up to $2 billion from this year's earnings. GM Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson subsequently said chip supplies should return to normal rates by the second half of the year and he was confident the profit hit would not worsen.
However, Stellantis on Wednesday did not give an estimate for the financial hit it expects this year from the shortage and said the issue could last into the second half of 2021.
The chip shortage, which has hit automakers globally, stems from a confluence of factors as carmakers, which shut plants for two months during the COVID-19 pandemic last year, compete against the sprawling consumer electronics industry for chip supplies.
Consumers have stocked up on laptops, gaming consoles and other electronic products during the pandemic, leading to tight chip supplies. They also bought more cars than industry officials expected last spring, further straining supplies.
GM did not disclose the impact on volumes or say which supplier or parts were affected by the chip shortage, but the U.S. automaker said it intends to recover as much of the lost output as possible.
"GM continues to leverage every available semiconductor to build and ship our most popular and in-demand products, including full-size trucks and SUVs," GM spokesman David Barnas said. "We contemplated this downtime when we discussed our outlook for 2021."
GM said it would extend downtime at plants in Fairfax, Kansas, and Ingersoll, Ontario, to at least mid-April, and in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, through the end of March. In addition, it will idle its Gravatai plant in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in April and May.
The Detroit automaker had previously extended production cuts at three North American plants into mid-March and said vehicles at two other plants would only be partially built. Following Wednesday's cuts, forecasting firm AutoForecast Solutions estimated GM could lose more than 216,000 units globally due to the shortage.
While reporting quarterly results on Wednesday, Stellantis said the chip shortage could weigh on 2021 earnings and Chief Financial Officer Richard Palmer told analysts on a conference call the financial impact was a "big unknown."
Stellantis Chief Executive Carlos Tavares said the automaker was working hard to find alternative chip supplies, but he was "not so sure" the issue would be resolved by the second half of 2021.
Ford Motor Co said last month the lack of chips could cut company production by up to 20% in the first quarter and hurt profits by as much as $2.5 billion. It had previously cut production of its top-selling F-150 pickup truck.
Some automakers, including Toyota Motor Corp and Hyundai Motor Co, avoided deeper cuts by stockpiling chips ahead of the shortage.
Industry officials and politicians have pushed U.S. President Joe Biden's administration to take a more active role in dealing with the chip shortage.
Last week, Biden said he would seek $37 billion in funding to supercharge chip manufacturing in the United States. An executive order also launched a review of supply chains for such critical products as semiconductor chips, electric vehicle batteries and rare earth minerals.
Complicating matters was a severe winter storm in Texas last month that killed at least 21 people and led to the shutdown of several chip plants. Semiconductor industry officials said customers would face knock-on effects in several months.
(Reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit and Nick Carey in London, editing by Jonathan Oatis and Chizu Nomiyama)
Facebook removes Thai military-linked information influencing accounts
By Patpicha Tanakasempipat REUTERS
© Reuters/Dado Ruvic FILE PHOTO:
The Twitter and Facebook logo along with binary cyber codes are seen in this illustration
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Facebook Inc has taken down 185 accounts and groups engaged in an information-influencing operation in Thailand run by the military, the company said on Wednesday, the first time it has removed Thai accounts with ties to the government.
The Thailand-based network removed in the latest sweep of "coordinated inauthentic behaviour" on the platform included 77 accounts, 72 pages and 18 groups on Facebook and 18 accounts on Instagram, Facebook said.
The company said the accounts were linked to the Thai military and targeted audiences in the southern provinces of Thailand, where conflict has flared on and off for decades as insurgent groups continue a guerrilla war to demand independence.
Thailand's army spokesman declined to comment when contacted by Reuters, citing a matter of policy not to make comments outside of official news conferences.
Some 7,000 people have been killed during the past 15 years as a result of the insurgency in the Malay-speaking, largely Muslim southern region of predominantly Buddhist Thailand.
"This is the first time that we've attributed one of our takedowns to links to the Thai military," Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's head of Cybersecurity Policy, told Reuters in a briefing.
"We found clear links between this operation and the Thai military's Internal Security Operations Command. We can see that all of these accounts and groups are tied together as part of this operation."
The network, mainly active in 2020, used both fake accounts and authentic ones to manage groups and pages, including overt military pages and those that did not disclose their affiliations with the military, Gleicher said.
POSED AS INDIVIDUALS
Some of the fake accounts posed as individuals from Thailand's southern provinces, Gleicher said, adding that the network had spent about $350 on Facebook and Instagram advertisements.
Some 700,000 accounts followed one or more of the pages and about 100,000 accounts joined at least one of the groups, he added.
Gleicher said Facebook took action on the network based on deceptive behaviour and not the content posted, which included support for the military and the monarchy, and allegations of violence and criticism of insurgent groups in southern Thailand.
The move was Facebook's second takedown of information-influencing operations in Thailand, after one in 2019 involving 12 accounts and 10 pages that used "fictitious personas".
In October, Twitter Inc also took down 926 accounts it said were linked to the Thai army that promoted pro-army and pro-government content. The army denied it was behind the accounts.
Twitter in November also suspended a Thai pro-royalist account linked to the palace that a Reuters analysis found was connected to thousands of others that spread content in favour of Thailand's monarchy.
Facebook on Wednesday said it has taken down four other networks from Iran, Russia and Morocco engaged in such coordinated inauthentic behaviour.
The company said it has removed more than 100 networks engaged in inauthentic behaviour globally in recent years.
(Reporting by Patpicha Tanakasempipat in Bangkok; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Matthew Lewis)
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Facebook Inc has taken down 185 accounts and groups engaged in an information-influencing operation in Thailand run by the military, the company said on Wednesday, the first time it has removed Thai accounts with ties to the government.
The Thailand-based network removed in the latest sweep of "coordinated inauthentic behaviour" on the platform included 77 accounts, 72 pages and 18 groups on Facebook and 18 accounts on Instagram, Facebook said.
The company said the accounts were linked to the Thai military and targeted audiences in the southern provinces of Thailand, where conflict has flared on and off for decades as insurgent groups continue a guerrilla war to demand independence.
Thailand's army spokesman declined to comment when contacted by Reuters, citing a matter of policy not to make comments outside of official news conferences.
Some 7,000 people have been killed during the past 15 years as a result of the insurgency in the Malay-speaking, largely Muslim southern region of predominantly Buddhist Thailand.
"This is the first time that we've attributed one of our takedowns to links to the Thai military," Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's head of Cybersecurity Policy, told Reuters in a briefing.
"We found clear links between this operation and the Thai military's Internal Security Operations Command. We can see that all of these accounts and groups are tied together as part of this operation."
The network, mainly active in 2020, used both fake accounts and authentic ones to manage groups and pages, including overt military pages and those that did not disclose their affiliations with the military, Gleicher said.
POSED AS INDIVIDUALS
Some of the fake accounts posed as individuals from Thailand's southern provinces, Gleicher said, adding that the network had spent about $350 on Facebook and Instagram advertisements.
Some 700,000 accounts followed one or more of the pages and about 100,000 accounts joined at least one of the groups, he added.
Gleicher said Facebook took action on the network based on deceptive behaviour and not the content posted, which included support for the military and the monarchy, and allegations of violence and criticism of insurgent groups in southern Thailand.
The move was Facebook's second takedown of information-influencing operations in Thailand, after one in 2019 involving 12 accounts and 10 pages that used "fictitious personas".
In October, Twitter Inc also took down 926 accounts it said were linked to the Thai army that promoted pro-army and pro-government content. The army denied it was behind the accounts.
Twitter in November also suspended a Thai pro-royalist account linked to the palace that a Reuters analysis found was connected to thousands of others that spread content in favour of Thailand's monarchy.
Facebook on Wednesday said it has taken down four other networks from Iran, Russia and Morocco engaged in such coordinated inauthentic behaviour.
The company said it has removed more than 100 networks engaged in inauthentic behaviour globally in recent years.
(Reporting by Patpicha Tanakasempipat in Bangkok; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Matthew Lewis)
More signals of a Roaring '20s rebound for Canadian economy when pandemic ends
Don Pittis CBC
© Thomas Peter/Reuters Time to party like it’s 1920? Revellers in Potsdam, Germany, outside Berlin, celebrate in 2009 in the fashion of the Roaring Twenties. New data out this week suggests that, just like following the 1918 flu pandemic, the Canadian economy is…
Gloomy headlines about the collapse of the Canadian economy, which faced its worst retreat since records began, may have obscured some startling new evidence for a strong rebound.
As we reported on Tuesday, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic put Canada's economy into a tailspin, making 2020 the worst year on record, with gross domestic product declining by 5.4 per cent.
But other data out this week, including some buried amidst those latest bleak GDP numbers, tells a different story. It shows that high levels of savings and government income support have bolstered the economic well-being of households — notably among the youngest groups and those with lower incomes.
At the same time, one fresh measure of consumer confidence shows Canadians more willing to go out and spend than at any time since 2018.
It all adds a little more evidence to the widely touted theory that, just like following the 1918 flu pandemic, the Canadian economy is heading for something like the Roaring Twenties — a period of economic, social and artistic innovation as people break out of cabin-fever mode.
Relentless joie de vivre
"What typically happens is people get less religious. They will relentlessly seek out social interactions in nightclubs and restaurants and sporting events and political rallies," Yale University medical sociologist and physician Dr. Nicholas Christakis said on the CBC Radio program White Coat Black Art earlier this year.
"There'll be some sexual licentiousness. People will start spending their money after having saved it. There'll be joie de vivre and a kind of risk-taking, a kind of efflorescence of the arts, I think," Christakis told host Dr. Brian Goldman.
Like many others, Christakis in January foresaw the impact of the coronavirus lingering late into 2021, as the World Health Organization suggested herd immunity remained far away. But despite fears of more insidious variants, with a new flood of vaccines and signs of a sharp decline in cases south of the border, others have expressed greater optimism.
"By the time we get to the summer, we're going to be in a different place," Dr. Bonnie Henry, British Columbia's provincial health officer, said last week. "In the coming months, we're going to be able to do all those things that we have been missing for the last year."
Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem has also weighed in on the side of a rebound beginning this year. Tuesday's GDP figures showed the economy already starting to recover in the last three months of 2020, but that was before the most recent lockdown.
Video: Pandemic blamed for Canada's biggest GDP drop (Global News)
Despite beginning the year "in a deeper hole," Macklem has forecast a strong revival in 2021 that would continue into next year, bolstered by the COVID-19 vaccine and low interest rates.
Not just for the rich
One criticism of the Roaring Twenties idea was that poorer households whose jobs have been most affected by the pandemic would be left out. But a report from Statistics Canada released on Monday dispelled some of those fears, demonstrating that the gap between the richest and poorest actually declined in the first nine months of last year.
"Although the everyday experiences of particular households may have differed, on average, the gap in household disposable income between the lowest- and highest-income earners declined," the Statistics Canada report said
Gloomy headlines about the collapse of the Canadian economy, which faced its worst retreat since records began, may have obscured some startling new evidence for a strong rebound.
As we reported on Tuesday, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic put Canada's economy into a tailspin, making 2020 the worst year on record, with gross domestic product declining by 5.4 per cent.
But other data out this week, including some buried amidst those latest bleak GDP numbers, tells a different story. It shows that high levels of savings and government income support have bolstered the economic well-being of households — notably among the youngest groups and those with lower incomes.
At the same time, one fresh measure of consumer confidence shows Canadians more willing to go out and spend than at any time since 2018.
It all adds a little more evidence to the widely touted theory that, just like following the 1918 flu pandemic, the Canadian economy is heading for something like the Roaring Twenties — a period of economic, social and artistic innovation as people break out of cabin-fever mode.
Relentless joie de vivre
"What typically happens is people get less religious. They will relentlessly seek out social interactions in nightclubs and restaurants and sporting events and political rallies," Yale University medical sociologist and physician Dr. Nicholas Christakis said on the CBC Radio program White Coat Black Art earlier this year.
"There'll be some sexual licentiousness. People will start spending their money after having saved it. There'll be joie de vivre and a kind of risk-taking, a kind of efflorescence of the arts, I think," Christakis told host Dr. Brian Goldman.
Like many others, Christakis in January foresaw the impact of the coronavirus lingering late into 2021, as the World Health Organization suggested herd immunity remained far away. But despite fears of more insidious variants, with a new flood of vaccines and signs of a sharp decline in cases south of the border, others have expressed greater optimism.
"By the time we get to the summer, we're going to be in a different place," Dr. Bonnie Henry, British Columbia's provincial health officer, said last week. "In the coming months, we're going to be able to do all those things that we have been missing for the last year."
Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem has also weighed in on the side of a rebound beginning this year. Tuesday's GDP figures showed the economy already starting to recover in the last three months of 2020, but that was before the most recent lockdown.
Video: Pandemic blamed for Canada's biggest GDP drop (Global News)
Despite beginning the year "in a deeper hole," Macklem has forecast a strong revival in 2021 that would continue into next year, bolstered by the COVID-19 vaccine and low interest rates.
Not just for the rich
One criticism of the Roaring Twenties idea was that poorer households whose jobs have been most affected by the pandemic would be left out. But a report from Statistics Canada released on Monday dispelled some of those fears, demonstrating that the gap between the richest and poorest actually declined in the first nine months of last year.
"Although the everyday experiences of particular households may have differed, on average, the gap in household disposable income between the lowest- and highest-income earners declined," the Statistics Canada report said
.
© Library of Congress/Handout via Reuters In March 1929, the well-heeled strut their stuff at President Herbert Hoover’s inaugural ball, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. Before the year was over, the Roaring Twenties would come to an end and the Great Depression would begin.
In fact, the data showed that "disposable income for the lowest-income households increased 36.8 per cent, more than for any other households." Canada's youngest households saw their net worth rise by 10 per cent. That may be a good sign for the economy once restrictions are reduced because unlike the rich or old, poorer and younger households are in a phase of life that requires them to spend more and save less, recirculating their money into the economy.
Besides government income-support programs, another reason for the increase in well-being is that families across Canada who already owned real estate have seen their wealth increase, even if the amount they owe has stayed the same.
Some studies have shown that "the wealth effect" — in other words, the feeling of being richer — can encourage people to spend more, but if people just sit on their savings, worried about the future, it won't help the consumer-driven economy.
That's why other sets of data out this week showing an increased willingness to spend adds a little more impetus to the Roaring Twenties argument.
Consumer-confidence measures use different methodologies to derive their results. The Conference Board of Canada — while seeing a rise in its index for February — still sees a ways to go before reaching pre-pandemic levels.
But a weekly index issued by Bloomberg and Nanos Research seems to show that consumers are ready to go shopping as confidence hits levels not seen since 2018.
In fact, the data showed that "disposable income for the lowest-income households increased 36.8 per cent, more than for any other households." Canada's youngest households saw their net worth rise by 10 per cent. That may be a good sign for the economy once restrictions are reduced because unlike the rich or old, poorer and younger households are in a phase of life that requires them to spend more and save less, recirculating their money into the economy.
Besides government income-support programs, another reason for the increase in well-being is that families across Canada who already owned real estate have seen their wealth increase, even if the amount they owe has stayed the same.
Some studies have shown that "the wealth effect" — in other words, the feeling of being richer — can encourage people to spend more, but if people just sit on their savings, worried about the future, it won't help the consumer-driven economy.
That's why other sets of data out this week showing an increased willingness to spend adds a little more impetus to the Roaring Twenties argument.
Consumer-confidence measures use different methodologies to derive their results. The Conference Board of Canada — while seeing a rise in its index for February — still sees a ways to go before reaching pre-pandemic levels.
But a weekly index issued by Bloomberg and Nanos Research seems to show that consumers are ready to go shopping as confidence hits levels not seen since 2018.
© Shannon Stapleton/Reuters If young people feel well-off once the pandemic ends, they'll want to get out and kick up their heels, spreading money out into the wider community. Data from Statistics Canada shows that during the first nine months of 2020, the youngest households saw their net worth rise by 10 per cent.
"Anticipation of a vaccination rollout, even if not perfect, may be having a halo effect on the mood of consumers," company boss Nik Nanos said in a release of his latest data on Monday. "Consumer confidence, as measured by the Bloomberg Nanos Canadian Confidence Index, continues on a positive trajectory and has hit a three-year high."
Even if Canadians remain more restrained than in the 1920s post-pandemic revival, a new urge to go out and spend will spread the wealth, helping the economy to get back in gear.
Follow Don Pittis CBC on Twitter: @don_pittis
"Anticipation of a vaccination rollout, even if not perfect, may be having a halo effect on the mood of consumers," company boss Nik Nanos said in a release of his latest data on Monday. "Consumer confidence, as measured by the Bloomberg Nanos Canadian Confidence Index, continues on a positive trajectory and has hit a three-year high."
Even if Canadians remain more restrained than in the 1920s post-pandemic revival, a new urge to go out and spend will spread the wealth, helping the economy to get back in gear.
Follow Don Pittis CBC on Twitter: @don_pittis
Wednesday, March 03, 2021
Preface to Psychedelic Tricksters:
A True Secret History of LSD
by David Black
JUNE 3, 2020
Preface to Psychedelic Tricksters:
Preface
Like atomic power and artificial intelligence, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was discovered in the closing years of World War Two. Since then, atomic bombs and computers have been the constant source of fears that combined they might bring about the destruction of humanity. LSD has aroused similar fears. Albert Hoffman, the Swiss chemist who discovered its effects in 1943, likened the LSD trip to an ‘inner bomb’. He warned that, if improperly used and distributed, LSD might bring about more destruction than an atomic detonation. But it has also been argued that, if properly used and distributed, LSD use might actually change people’s consciousness for the better and help to prevent nuclear war. Professor David Nutt, who sat on the British Labour government’s Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs until he was sacked in 2009, argues that the study of psychedelics is essential for understanding the nature of consciousness itself:
‘This is core neuroscience. This is about humanity at its deepest level. It is fundamental to understanding ourselves. And the only way to study consciousness is to change it. Psychedelics change consciousness in a way that is unique, powerful, and perpetual – of course we have to study them’.
As is well known, in the 1950s and early ‘60s the US Central Intelligence Agency used LSD, in secret and illegal experiments, on unwitting subjects. The CIA did so according to Cold War logic: if the Russians could work out how to use LSD in bio-chemical warfare — or in ‘brain-washing’, as a ‘truth drug’, or even as a ‘Manchurian Candidate’ — then the USA needed to work it out first.
In 1953, the CIA launched a top-secret ‘mind-control’ project, code-named MK-Ultra. The CIA’s assets in the US medical profession ‘officially’ labelled LSD as ‘psychosis-inducing drug’, only of use in psychiatric analysis and research. Many CIA officers, contractors and assets however, became enthusiastic trippers themselves, in full knowledge that LSD could produce atrocious as well as enchanting hallucinations. Knowing the secrets of LSD, they thought of themselves as a kind of anti-communist spiritual elite who, unlike the US citizenry at large, were ‘in the know’.
But by the end of the 1950s, with no sign of the Russians contaminating the water supply with LSD, there were plenty of signs in the United States that the psychedelic experience was escaping its captors. Some of the researchers in American hospitals – who had little awareness that their work was being secretly sponsored by the CIA — realised that LSD had ‘spiritual’ implications, i.e. for developing an ‘integrative’ enlightened consciousness, conducive to visionary creativity. These researchers stressed the importance of ‘set and setting’ in properly supervised LSD sessions. The English scholar, Aldous Huxley, who took his first LSD trip in 1955, related in his essay Heaven and Hell the hallucinogenic experience to the visionary works of William Blake:
‘Visionary experience is not the same as mystical experience. Mystical experience is beyond the realm of opposites. Visionary experience is still within that realm. Heaven entails hell, and “going to heaven” is no more liberation than is the descent into horror. Heaven is merely a vantage point, from which the divine Ground can be more clearly seen than on the level of ordinary individualized existence’.
Huxley, though an advocate for psychedelic drugs, wanted them strictly controlled. In contrast, Timothy Leary, who first took LSD in December 1961, became the ‘guru’ of psychedelia as LSD ‘escaped’ into the counter-culture of the 1960s. The ‘escape’ has been the subject of conspiracy theories which have been weaponised in today’s so-called Culture Wars. According to one widely-held view, the entire psychedelic counter-culture of the 1960s was engineered by the CIA as part of a plot by some secret global elite bent on mass mind-control. For elements of the Right, the psychedelic counter-culture undermined ‘traditional values’ such as patriarchy, nationalism and subservience to authority. On the Left, some see the 1960s hedonism of ‘Sex, Drugs and Rock’n’Roll’ as having been a distraction from politics. The theory, as it has spread, has thrown in extra villains for good measure: satanists, MI6, the psychiatrists of the Tavistock Institute, the Grateful Dead, and Theodor Adorno of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, etc, etc.
In truth, the extent of the CIA’s involvement in the psychedelic counter-culture of the 1960s has always been difficult to determine; not least because Sidney Gottlieb, head of MK-Ultra, illegally destroyed the project’s operational files in 1973. Nonetheless, some leading figures of the counter-culture, such as Timothy Leary, can hardly be discussed without reference to the CIA – not least because Leary himself had so much to say about it. In the present work, whilst I pay only scant attention to conspiracy theories, I make no apologies for investigating, where necessary, real conspiracies.
The underground networks of acid producers and distributors on both sides of the Atlantic were described after their downfall in the nineteen-seventies in such terms as ‘Hippie Mafia’ or ‘Microdot Gang’: so out of their heads that they didn’t know any better; or were ‘only in it for the money’; or were tools of organised crime and/or state agencies. In an earlier ebook I noted that nearly everyone involved – the psychedelic revolutionaries, the financiers, intelligence and anti-drugs agencies, CIA-sponsored scientists and researchers – operated to a greater or lesser extent outside of accepted standards of ‘legality’, or didn’t even recognise them; hence the title: Acid Outlaws: LSD, Counter-Culture and Counter-Revolution. But although the term ‘outlaw’ certainly fits many of people in this study, it doesn’t fit all of them by any means. Stephen Bentley, ex-undercover police officer and author of Undercover: Operation Julie – The Inside Story, takes exception to my use of the term ‘questionable legality’ regarding of some of the surveillance methods he and his colleagues used:
‘Questionable by who? Illegal – mostly not… Yes, I smoked a lot of hash… and did some cocaine. Technically, that was illegal. Tell me what I was supposed to do given I was undercover. I wasn’t Steve Bentley. I was ‘Steve Jackson’ – wild, carefree, giving all the impression I was a dealer. I’m now 72 years’ old. I don’t care for the historical revisionism applied to Operation Julie recently. It was a highly successful and unique police investigation carried out professionally under difficult circumstances’.
On my reference to the ‘ham-acting of drunken undercover officers’, Bentley retorts:
‘Maybe you should try living a lie for the best part of a year; doing things alien to you; becoming a different person. Those who know will scoff at the thought of it being an act. It’s not. You become someone else – believe me’.
The point is, I concede that although Stephen Bentley mixed with ‘acid outlaws’ and behaved like one when he was infiltrating them in north Wales in the 1970s, he certainly wasn’t one himself. Steve Abrams – who inspired me twenty years ago to write about this subject in the first place – wasn’t an outlaw either. He is described in an obituary in Psychedelic Press – quite accurately — as a ‘psychedelic trickster’. Many of the leading players who feature in this tale were certainly outlaws at various times but primarily they were tricksters. In Carl Gustav Jung’s definition of archetypes, the ‘Trickster’ surfaces in many stories in mythology, folklore and religion. More generally, anthropologists studying indigenous cultures in various parts of the world identify the trickster with cunning crazy-acting animals such as the fox or coyote, shape-shifting gods such as Loki in Norse mythology and rustic pranksters in human form. In the literature of Greek antiquity, Prometheus, the son of a Titan, tricks the gods with his buffoonery and steals fire from heaven for the benefit of human kind, for which he is severely punished by Zeus. As the historian of religion, Klaus-Peter Koepping, puts it:
‘In European consciousness Prometheus becomes the symbol for man’s never-ceasing, unremitting, and relentless struggle against fate, against the gods, unrepentingly defying the laws of the Olympians, though (and this again shows the continuing absurdity) never being successful in this endeavor, which, however, is necessary for the origin of civilized life (the ultimate paradox of rule breaking as a rule)’.
Like fire, psychedelic drugs can be dangerous as well as beneficial. In various ways the tricksters who feature in this book tended to believe that their antics were beneficial to humanity as well as themselves; and in most cases had to suffer the consequences of their actions. CIA MK-Ultra chief, Sidney Gottlieb, believed that that his immoral and dishonest actions were outweighed by his patriotism and dedication to science, but his reputation has been posthumously trashed (a biography by Stephen Kinzer calls him as ‘the CIA’s Poisoner-in-Chief’). On the ‘other’ side, the reputation of Timothy Leary, who likewise believed he was acting as a patriot and saviour of civilisation, has shape-shifted from brilliant scientist to mystical guru, wanted criminal, wild-eyed revolutionary, renegade informer and finally self-aggrandising ‘showboater’.
I sent a copy of the previous book to Tim Scully, a most significant actor in the events unfolded in this story. Scully is a meticulous researcher (he is compiling a history of LSD production in the US) and, as it turns out, a very reliable witness. Scully, born 1944, was in 1966 taken on as apprentice to the famous LSD chemist Owsley Stanley (AKA Bear Stanley). After Owsley withdrew from LSD production following a bust of his tableting facility in December 1967, Scully was determined to continue. After making LSD in successive laboratories in Denver, Scully began to work with fellow psychedelic chemist, Nick Sand (another trickster). Their collaboration led to the establishment in November 1968 of a lab in Windsor, California, which ultimately produced well over a kilo (more than four million 300 μg doses) of very pure LSD that became known as Orange Sunshine. Scully, in writing to me, pointed to a number of errors in my writings regarding events in the USA. Generously, he provided me with a lot of very useful information: firstly, on how underground LSD production was organised in the United States in the 1960s; secondly, on the relations between the American LSD producers in the United States, their collaborators in Great Britain, and the ‘Brotherhood of Eternal Love’; and thirdly on the alleged CIA asset, Ronald Stark, who Scully knew and did business with. With further research and fact-checking I realised that none of the previous books on the subject (including mine) have accurately covered these three issues. I hope – whilst making no claim to have written anything like a comprehensive or definitive history of the LSD underground – that this one does.
Contents
1 – MK-Ultra: The CIA’s ‘Mind Control’ Project
Sorcery
Midnight Climax
Heartbreak Hotel: the Death of Frank Olson
Human Ecology: an MK-Ultra Front
Personality Assessment
2 – How the CIA Failed the Acid Test
Magic Mushrooms
Harvard Trips
Timothy Leary and Mary Pinchot
‘Captain Trips’: Alfred Hubbard
Coasts of Utopias
3 – London Underground
Centre of the World
Psychedelic Situationists
The 1967 ‘Summer of Love’
4 – David Solomon and the Art of Psychedelic Subversion
Psychedelic Jazz
Acid Revolution
5 – Steve Abrams: E.S.P., C.I.A., T.H.C.
Parapsychology
Potboilers
SOMA, Solomon and Stark
6 – The New Prohibition versus the Acid Underground
Psychedelic Alchemy
Owsley and the Grateful Dead
Heat
The Brotherhood of Eternal Love
Money Matters
Orange Sunshine
7 – The Atlantic Acid Alliance
Richard Kemp – Liverpool’s LSD Chemist
Tripping with RD Laing
8 – The British Microdot Gang and the Veritable Split
9 – The Downfall of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love
Ronald Stark and the Brotherhood
Takeover
Operation BEL
The Scully-Sand Conspiracy Trial
10 – Timothy Leary’s Reality Tunnels: One Escape After Another
Political Intoxication
Weather Underground: Stalinism on Acid
Armed Love
Hotel Abyss
Leary ‘Co-operates’
11 – Operation Julie: the Hunters and the Hunted
S.T.U.F.F.
The Chase
Showtrial
12 – The Many Faces of Ronald Hadley Stark
Busted in Bologna
Italy’s ‘Years of Lead’
The Red Brigades
Lebanon
Prison Wager
13 – Tricksters
14 – Acid 2.0: Redux or Recuperation?
A True Secret History of LSD
by David Black
JUNE 3, 2020
Preface to Psychedelic Tricksters:
A True Secret History of LSD by David Black
BPC Publications. London 2020
BPC Publications. London 2020
Preface
Like atomic power and artificial intelligence, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was discovered in the closing years of World War Two. Since then, atomic bombs and computers have been the constant source of fears that combined they might bring about the destruction of humanity. LSD has aroused similar fears. Albert Hoffman, the Swiss chemist who discovered its effects in 1943, likened the LSD trip to an ‘inner bomb’. He warned that, if improperly used and distributed, LSD might bring about more destruction than an atomic detonation. But it has also been argued that, if properly used and distributed, LSD use might actually change people’s consciousness for the better and help to prevent nuclear war. Professor David Nutt, who sat on the British Labour government’s Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs until he was sacked in 2009, argues that the study of psychedelics is essential for understanding the nature of consciousness itself:
‘This is core neuroscience. This is about humanity at its deepest level. It is fundamental to understanding ourselves. And the only way to study consciousness is to change it. Psychedelics change consciousness in a way that is unique, powerful, and perpetual – of course we have to study them’.
As is well known, in the 1950s and early ‘60s the US Central Intelligence Agency used LSD, in secret and illegal experiments, on unwitting subjects. The CIA did so according to Cold War logic: if the Russians could work out how to use LSD in bio-chemical warfare — or in ‘brain-washing’, as a ‘truth drug’, or even as a ‘Manchurian Candidate’ — then the USA needed to work it out first.
In 1953, the CIA launched a top-secret ‘mind-control’ project, code-named MK-Ultra. The CIA’s assets in the US medical profession ‘officially’ labelled LSD as ‘psychosis-inducing drug’, only of use in psychiatric analysis and research. Many CIA officers, contractors and assets however, became enthusiastic trippers themselves, in full knowledge that LSD could produce atrocious as well as enchanting hallucinations. Knowing the secrets of LSD, they thought of themselves as a kind of anti-communist spiritual elite who, unlike the US citizenry at large, were ‘in the know’.
But by the end of the 1950s, with no sign of the Russians contaminating the water supply with LSD, there were plenty of signs in the United States that the psychedelic experience was escaping its captors. Some of the researchers in American hospitals – who had little awareness that their work was being secretly sponsored by the CIA — realised that LSD had ‘spiritual’ implications, i.e. for developing an ‘integrative’ enlightened consciousness, conducive to visionary creativity. These researchers stressed the importance of ‘set and setting’ in properly supervised LSD sessions. The English scholar, Aldous Huxley, who took his first LSD trip in 1955, related in his essay Heaven and Hell the hallucinogenic experience to the visionary works of William Blake:
‘Visionary experience is not the same as mystical experience. Mystical experience is beyond the realm of opposites. Visionary experience is still within that realm. Heaven entails hell, and “going to heaven” is no more liberation than is the descent into horror. Heaven is merely a vantage point, from which the divine Ground can be more clearly seen than on the level of ordinary individualized existence’.
Huxley, though an advocate for psychedelic drugs, wanted them strictly controlled. In contrast, Timothy Leary, who first took LSD in December 1961, became the ‘guru’ of psychedelia as LSD ‘escaped’ into the counter-culture of the 1960s. The ‘escape’ has been the subject of conspiracy theories which have been weaponised in today’s so-called Culture Wars. According to one widely-held view, the entire psychedelic counter-culture of the 1960s was engineered by the CIA as part of a plot by some secret global elite bent on mass mind-control. For elements of the Right, the psychedelic counter-culture undermined ‘traditional values’ such as patriarchy, nationalism and subservience to authority. On the Left, some see the 1960s hedonism of ‘Sex, Drugs and Rock’n’Roll’ as having been a distraction from politics. The theory, as it has spread, has thrown in extra villains for good measure: satanists, MI6, the psychiatrists of the Tavistock Institute, the Grateful Dead, and Theodor Adorno of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, etc, etc.
In truth, the extent of the CIA’s involvement in the psychedelic counter-culture of the 1960s has always been difficult to determine; not least because Sidney Gottlieb, head of MK-Ultra, illegally destroyed the project’s operational files in 1973. Nonetheless, some leading figures of the counter-culture, such as Timothy Leary, can hardly be discussed without reference to the CIA – not least because Leary himself had so much to say about it. In the present work, whilst I pay only scant attention to conspiracy theories, I make no apologies for investigating, where necessary, real conspiracies.
The underground networks of acid producers and distributors on both sides of the Atlantic were described after their downfall in the nineteen-seventies in such terms as ‘Hippie Mafia’ or ‘Microdot Gang’: so out of their heads that they didn’t know any better; or were ‘only in it for the money’; or were tools of organised crime and/or state agencies. In an earlier ebook I noted that nearly everyone involved – the psychedelic revolutionaries, the financiers, intelligence and anti-drugs agencies, CIA-sponsored scientists and researchers – operated to a greater or lesser extent outside of accepted standards of ‘legality’, or didn’t even recognise them; hence the title: Acid Outlaws: LSD, Counter-Culture and Counter-Revolution. But although the term ‘outlaw’ certainly fits many of people in this study, it doesn’t fit all of them by any means. Stephen Bentley, ex-undercover police officer and author of Undercover: Operation Julie – The Inside Story, takes exception to my use of the term ‘questionable legality’ regarding of some of the surveillance methods he and his colleagues used:
‘Questionable by who? Illegal – mostly not… Yes, I smoked a lot of hash… and did some cocaine. Technically, that was illegal. Tell me what I was supposed to do given I was undercover. I wasn’t Steve Bentley. I was ‘Steve Jackson’ – wild, carefree, giving all the impression I was a dealer. I’m now 72 years’ old. I don’t care for the historical revisionism applied to Operation Julie recently. It was a highly successful and unique police investigation carried out professionally under difficult circumstances’.
On my reference to the ‘ham-acting of drunken undercover officers’, Bentley retorts:
‘Maybe you should try living a lie for the best part of a year; doing things alien to you; becoming a different person. Those who know will scoff at the thought of it being an act. It’s not. You become someone else – believe me’.
The point is, I concede that although Stephen Bentley mixed with ‘acid outlaws’ and behaved like one when he was infiltrating them in north Wales in the 1970s, he certainly wasn’t one himself. Steve Abrams – who inspired me twenty years ago to write about this subject in the first place – wasn’t an outlaw either. He is described in an obituary in Psychedelic Press – quite accurately — as a ‘psychedelic trickster’. Many of the leading players who feature in this tale were certainly outlaws at various times but primarily they were tricksters. In Carl Gustav Jung’s definition of archetypes, the ‘Trickster’ surfaces in many stories in mythology, folklore and religion. More generally, anthropologists studying indigenous cultures in various parts of the world identify the trickster with cunning crazy-acting animals such as the fox or coyote, shape-shifting gods such as Loki in Norse mythology and rustic pranksters in human form. In the literature of Greek antiquity, Prometheus, the son of a Titan, tricks the gods with his buffoonery and steals fire from heaven for the benefit of human kind, for which he is severely punished by Zeus. As the historian of religion, Klaus-Peter Koepping, puts it:
‘In European consciousness Prometheus becomes the symbol for man’s never-ceasing, unremitting, and relentless struggle against fate, against the gods, unrepentingly defying the laws of the Olympians, though (and this again shows the continuing absurdity) never being successful in this endeavor, which, however, is necessary for the origin of civilized life (the ultimate paradox of rule breaking as a rule)’.
Like fire, psychedelic drugs can be dangerous as well as beneficial. In various ways the tricksters who feature in this book tended to believe that their antics were beneficial to humanity as well as themselves; and in most cases had to suffer the consequences of their actions. CIA MK-Ultra chief, Sidney Gottlieb, believed that that his immoral and dishonest actions were outweighed by his patriotism and dedication to science, but his reputation has been posthumously trashed (a biography by Stephen Kinzer calls him as ‘the CIA’s Poisoner-in-Chief’). On the ‘other’ side, the reputation of Timothy Leary, who likewise believed he was acting as a patriot and saviour of civilisation, has shape-shifted from brilliant scientist to mystical guru, wanted criminal, wild-eyed revolutionary, renegade informer and finally self-aggrandising ‘showboater’.
I sent a copy of the previous book to Tim Scully, a most significant actor in the events unfolded in this story. Scully is a meticulous researcher (he is compiling a history of LSD production in the US) and, as it turns out, a very reliable witness. Scully, born 1944, was in 1966 taken on as apprentice to the famous LSD chemist Owsley Stanley (AKA Bear Stanley). After Owsley withdrew from LSD production following a bust of his tableting facility in December 1967, Scully was determined to continue. After making LSD in successive laboratories in Denver, Scully began to work with fellow psychedelic chemist, Nick Sand (another trickster). Their collaboration led to the establishment in November 1968 of a lab in Windsor, California, which ultimately produced well over a kilo (more than four million 300 μg doses) of very pure LSD that became known as Orange Sunshine. Scully, in writing to me, pointed to a number of errors in my writings regarding events in the USA. Generously, he provided me with a lot of very useful information: firstly, on how underground LSD production was organised in the United States in the 1960s; secondly, on the relations between the American LSD producers in the United States, their collaborators in Great Britain, and the ‘Brotherhood of Eternal Love’; and thirdly on the alleged CIA asset, Ronald Stark, who Scully knew and did business with. With further research and fact-checking I realised that none of the previous books on the subject (including mine) have accurately covered these three issues. I hope – whilst making no claim to have written anything like a comprehensive or definitive history of the LSD underground – that this one does.
Contents
1 – MK-Ultra: The CIA’s ‘Mind Control’ Project
Sorcery
Midnight Climax
Heartbreak Hotel: the Death of Frank Olson
Human Ecology: an MK-Ultra Front
Personality Assessment
2 – How the CIA Failed the Acid Test
Magic Mushrooms
Harvard Trips
Timothy Leary and Mary Pinchot
‘Captain Trips’: Alfred Hubbard
Coasts of Utopias
3 – London Underground
Centre of the World
Psychedelic Situationists
The 1967 ‘Summer of Love’
4 – David Solomon and the Art of Psychedelic Subversion
Psychedelic Jazz
Acid Revolution
5 – Steve Abrams: E.S.P., C.I.A., T.H.C.
Parapsychology
Potboilers
SOMA, Solomon and Stark
6 – The New Prohibition versus the Acid Underground
Psychedelic Alchemy
Owsley and the Grateful Dead
Heat
The Brotherhood of Eternal Love
Money Matters
Orange Sunshine
7 – The Atlantic Acid Alliance
Richard Kemp – Liverpool’s LSD Chemist
Tripping with RD Laing
8 – The British Microdot Gang and the Veritable Split
9 – The Downfall of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love
Ronald Stark and the Brotherhood
Takeover
Operation BEL
The Scully-Sand Conspiracy Trial
10 – Timothy Leary’s Reality Tunnels: One Escape After Another
Political Intoxication
Weather Underground: Stalinism on Acid
Armed Love
Hotel Abyss
Leary ‘Co-operates’
11 – Operation Julie: the Hunters and the Hunted
S.T.U.F.F.
The Chase
Showtrial
12 – The Many Faces of Ronald Hadley Stark
Busted in Bologna
Italy’s ‘Years of Lead’
The Red Brigades
Lebanon
Prison Wager
13 – Tricksters
14 – Acid 2.0: Redux or Recuperation?
The Barbarism of Pure Culture
Psychedelic Culture, Situationist Poetics and Films, Radical Politics, Working-Class History
http://thebarbarismofpureculture.co.uk/wp/preface-to-psychedelic-tricksters-a-new-secret-history-of-lsd-by-david-black/
Psychedelic Culture, Situationist Poetics and Films, Radical Politics, Working-Class History
http://thebarbarismofpureculture.co.uk/wp/preface-to-psychedelic-tricksters-a-new-secret-history-of-lsd-by-david-black/
SEE
[Video] Raya Dunayevskaya’s Intersectional Marxism
Get to know Raya Dunayevskaya’s brand of intersectional Marxism at this book launch event sponsored by the IMHO. Recorded on February 17, 2021. Speakers: Paul Mason, Alessandra Spano, Karel Ludenhoff, David Black, and Kieran Durkin — Editors.
Raya Dunayevskaya is one of the twentieth century’s great but underappreciated Marxist, feminist, and anti-racist thinkers. Her unique philosophy and practice of Marxist-Humanism—as well as her grasp of Hegelian dialectics and the deep humanism that informs Marx’s thought—has much to teach us today.
Join us for a launching session of Raya Dunayevskaya’s Intersectional Marxism: Race, Class, Gender, and the Dialectics of Liberation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). Kieran Durkin, one of the editors of the book, will introduce the meeting. Then we will hear four presentations from Alessandra Spano, Paul Mason, Karel Ludenhoff, and David Black, each of whom have contributed chapters to the book, in which they discuss how different aspects of Dunayevskaya’s works can inspire us today.
Paul Mason is an award-winning journalist, writer, filmmaker and public speaker. He has written a number of books, including Postcapitalism, Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere and Clear Bright Future: A Radical Defence of the Human Being. Current work in development includes a short book about Karl Marx, a drama-documentary about the Spanish Civil War, and the play Feel My Pulse.
Alessandra Spano is a Ph.D candidate in Political Philosophy at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of Catania. She received an M.A. in Philosophy at the University of Bologna with a thesis focused on the political thought of Raya Dunayevskaya. This research was the inspiration for her focus on Marxist-Feminism and critical theory, the concentration for her doctoral investigation, particularly looking at the United States as a political space that is simultaneously imperialist, ‘colonized’, and global. Her interests include: Marxism, feminist theory, African-American studies, German idealism, psychoanalysis, and radicalism in the United States.
Karel Ludenhoff is an Amsterdam-based labor activist and a writer on Marx’s critique of political economy whose essays have appeared in Logos and other journals.
David Black born 1950 in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, now resident in London, works as a journalist, author, musician and video-maker. His published books include, (co-authored with Chris Ford) 1839: The Chartist Insurrection; The Philosophical Roots of Anti-Capitalism: Essays on History, Culture, and Dialectical Thought; (as editor) Red Republican: the Complete Annotated Works of Helen Macfarlane; and Psychedelic Tricksters: A True Secret History of LSD.
Kieran Durkin is Marie SkÅ‚odowska-Curie Global Fellow at the University of York, and former Visiting Scholar at University of California Santa Barbara, where he has been studying the Marxist Humanist tradition. He is author of The Radical Humanism of Erich Fromm and (co-edited with Joan Braune) Erich Fromm’s Critical Theory: Hope, Humanism, and the Future.
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