While cleaning and arranging my hard drive today I came across this interview with Timothy Leary. Don't know where it came from but I have had it for a while now. So I listened to it to see whether to keep it or store it in vaporland. I kept it and have processed it to a lower quality for size considerations. It serves its purpose.
Listen and Learn about Life In Learyland - leary.wma
As I listened to it I was reminded of images of protest that I ran across as I searched for a leftist flag desecration pic for my Flag Day Post. Answer International is a good site for such imagery. I realized that what Leary was saying is practically the same thing the anti-globalist and their kind are saying today. I also doubt many of them have a contemporary experience of him. So if you don't know who he is google his name or LSD and you'll get a hit or two.
It would be a mere hop of the imagination to state that Timothy Leary could be considered a founding father of modern liberalism. One among many but part of the thrust of the social evolution of that strain of worldview coming out of the sixities. The Kumbaya Battalions.
I came of age during this time. The relative timeframe for me is 1965-1975 when I was old enough to understand or care about the things I read in the paper or heard on the news. In my life everything changed after November 22, 1963. On this day we lost what civility we had. I was in third grade but the day is etched into my memory.
Then came the riots, the war protest, the peace movement, more assassinations, Johnson's 'Great Society' to perpetuate roosevelt's 'New Deal'. For more years than I can recall there was the nightly death toll from Vietnam that would go something like "today 34 Marines were killed and 940 NVA regulars in heavy combat. It became background noise.
This was a time that the saying 'Question Authority' became manifest.
Mistrust of government was the rage of the day with such fodder to work with as the Warren Commission report, the trial of the Chicago Seven, the Daniel Ellsburg affair and the resignation of Nixon.
From this common world experience comes the modern liberal. I guess what I see at these anti-Bush rallies are a bunch of middle-aged activist giving it one last go. "We ended the war in Vietnam we can end the war in Iraq". It is all they know and built mostly on illusions/delusions of cause and effect and driven not for concern for the country or its citizens but for raw party politics.
All their effort did bring about the world of peace and harmony we find today... except in the countries fomerly know as South Vietnam and Kampuchia. Funny how the triumphant activist want to talk about ending( surrender by mass acclamation ) the Vietnam war but don't mention the plight of the 'boat people' or the victims of Pol Pot. Kumbaya my lord... kumbaya....
Tune in, turn on and drop out.
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