http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/probes-of-bush-administration/dem-senators-to-obama-justice-department-will-you-release-torture-report/

We’re not in disagreement; you’re absolutely right. My apologies for making a somewhat limited rule of thumb sound more general than intended.

Parsing out the language used in this area of discussion, and the intended audiences, can get incredibly clumsy however you may find a few of the added dimensions interesting. (N.B. I’m not sure I’ve ever tried to put this in writing before)

For example, when I wrote what I did, my intended audience was those who are conscious of the subject matter being discussed on a similar level to myself. But consider what I refer to as the ‘plastic person;’ i.e. someone who lies to himself. Consider further two different varieties of plastic people; the one that lies to himself consciously and the one who doesn’t know they’ve been lying to themselves and/or been lied to.

Per the first plastic person, i.e. the one who Consciously lies to him/herself everyday — strip that person of the ability for self deception via chemistry, and presto — bad trip.

But then consider the second plastic person; those who don’t know they’ve been lying to themselves, and/or have been lied to, and then strip them of the ability for self deception. Sure you have a bad trip, but you also have a completely different moral dilemma.

The first plastic person may or may not have had it comin’. They could grow morally or not based on their reaction to the experience. But what of the second plastic person? Can we even refer to the second person as being truly ‘plastic?’ I really didn’t intend to segue to this but, what do we say of the second plastic person if they simply were woken from their
Matrix-induced slumber? Should everyone be compelled to wake up? Shall we deem them victims, or reluctant heroes perhaps?

So, what I’m sayin’ Buddha, is that you’re right.

Buddha: “Not all personalities are suited for the experience. Interactions may vary as the packages sometimes say. I have a couple of friends who should NEVER [take the red pill] – their tenuous grip may come loose and for one college friend, it did.”

QED

(and that should not read BIL since I don’t know what BIL means)

SIYOM,

Bob

Buddha,
Takes one, to know one and somehow I knew you’d been there.

Mike

I have to take slight issue. Not all personalities are suited for the experience. Interactions may vary as the packages sometimes say. I have a couple of friends who should NEVER try a psychedelic – their tenuous grip may come loose and for one college friend, it did. He’s barely fit for human companionship now. He did do a ridiculous amount though, but I digress. My experience mirrors yours, but there was that one time when circumstances beyond my control made the suckiness factor shoot to the high 90th percentile. It wasn’t crippling or dangerous to me, but it did give me a window to understand “bad” in that context. I think your first time should DEFINITELY be supervised.

I’ll share the story, I kid you not, of Jack and Diane. Friends of mine in college. They knew I had done it, wanted to try it, but wanted me to act as safety. They provided for my entertainment, but I did not partake as safety was my job. It’s a good thing too. They eventually wanted to go outside. It was night, breezy and nice, not a big shock from the controlled environment of their house. Very pleasant actually. But from the park they could see an all night grocery store. Full of people and bright lights and crazy colors and textures. They wanted to go in. I advised against it. They were insistent. I relented on the one condition, “I say leave, we leave, no argument, no questions.” They agreed.

We’ll just say it was a short, jarring visit that shaped their opinion of the experience. But they left when I said time to go and thus we avoided the need to discuss with the police why Diane decided climbing up on a table display of fruit was a good idea (don’t get any more ideas PETA) or Jack’s desire to rearrange the cereal aisle by color and box size.

Just food for thought.

Personally, I found it most instructive and useful over all. It helped me realize the truth that there is no spoon long before The Matrix was a gleam in the Wachowski’s eyes. But it also cooked my boy B’s brain. I’m not saying it’s all bad (far from it), just that it’s risky – like any drug, and safety is never a bad idea. This is one substance that should it be legal should require some sort of medical screening/supervision.

“The UK and the US have “actively undermined” international law in the way they fight terrorism, a report by judges and lawyers has said.

The independent International Commission of Jurists carried out a three-year global study.

It concluded that many measures introduced to fight terrorism were illegal and counter-productive.

It called for justice systems to be strengthened and warned that temporary measures should not become permanent.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) is a non-governmental organisation which promotes the observance of the rule of law and the legal protection of human rights.

After a painstaking study carried out over three years in several countries, the panel of eminent lawyers and judges concluded that the framework of international law that existed before the 9/11 attacks on the US was robust and effective.

Lack of safeguards

But now, it said, it was being actively undermined by many states and liberal democracies like the US and the UK.

The report remarks upon the extent to which undemocratic regimes with poor human rights records have referred to counter-terror practices of countries like the US to justify their own abusive policies.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7892387.stm

And there it is; the touch stone of all bad trips:

“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov)

As long as you’re not lying to yourself, you don’t need a landing crew or psychedelic ATC to help you down. You just walk away and ‘become part of another movie;’ either yours alone or somebody else’s.

“What in hell does SIYOM mean and for that matter as I’ve seen in other comments, BIL? Googling doesn’t help me find their meaning.”

I don’t know what BIL is; it may be the acronym SIYOM skewed by a text reader.

SIYOM is “Stay In Your Own Movie” which is merely a phrase like “Beam me up Scotty” that I borrowed &/or created from Tom Wolfe’s “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”

You can pretty much pick up all the inflections of meaning for the phrase from there; be the hero of your own life; don’t let others control your perceptions since perception is reality… etc.

SIYOM,

Bob

My bad trip came because I experienced it with a bunch of people who I didn’t fully trust and that affected perceptions. My first bad trip (only two bad ones of many taken) happened in the 60′s and I was with people who later moved to Hawaii and became a cult.I would have been more correct in saying an environment that one considers benign, with some loved ones perhaps.

Part of the reason I gave up psychotherapy was because I found many practitioners, social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists had not done the needed work on themselves and thus used their patients for their own catharsis. Hence the problem with controlled studies.

Thompson had Leary correct, as he did so much else. I liked Kesey, even still have copies of his magazine “Spit in the Ocean.” He actually led a pretty exemplary life. The problem came with “The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test” and Tom Wolfe’s
hipper than thou cum breathless writing style. It turned it in the public’s eye into the same minstrel show laden with hyperbole that Leary was pushing. Kesey wasn’t really that kind of guy and was more sincere in outlook than Leary who envisioned himself the Pied Piper of Psychedelia. Wolfe actually got some of that right when he wrote of the NY meeting between the Pranksters and Leary.

Almost all those I knew went through those psychedelic years with no burnout or flashbacks. They later had good lives and raised good children. The Nixon backlash, facilitated by the inability/lack of desire to communicate to the non-Psychedelic public what was going on, allowed the beginning phases of the War on Drugs, that was hatched under Nixon and codified under Reagan. It became a great Republican selling point.

In truth one can only look at this via levity since that is what the experience lent itself to. The only problem I have with your comment is that you forgot that you’re dealing with a 60+ retired guy who doesn’t text, blackberry or IM. What in hell does SIYOM mean and for that matter as I’ve seen in other comments, BIL? Googling doesn’t help me find their meaning. I know I am the old fart at this site, but all of you please take pity.

Mike

Mike,

In reviewing my last post I felt constrained to add that I hope you don’t find my glibness as deminimizing in any way of your horrific experience circa 1980 or your remark that the subject be taken seriously; e.g. as seriously as the Canadians took it while experimenting with treatments for alcoholics.

I simply thought the notion to be implicit thus necessitating levity.

‘Thus necessitating levity?’ Jesus H. Christ, I’d delete that but it sounds like a German comic…

‘You will have fun in sie following order…’

Anyway, I hope you know what I mean; if not about the German comic that is.

SIYOM,

Bob

Per Kesey’s pranksters, I thank them for helping ‘open the eyes’ of the Grateful Dead. Per Timothy Leary, I side with Hunter S. Thompson in deeming him a complete fraud. For ‘empirical’ reasons that need not be stated here, I never bought into the argument for needing a ‘controlled environment.’ I can say that ‘better living through chemistry’ can offer one a whole new perspective on Kant’s Critique; enabling one to extrapolate a ‘Matrix-like’ view of the world circa 1987 based on a book written two centuries prior. It can also make one realize that you can only be young once, but you can be Jungian forever. And finally, it can also lead one to the epiphany that Mel Brooks’ 2,000 Year Old Man was right when he said:

“Eat nectarines; half a peach, half a plum, it’s a hell of a fruit.”

lol

SIYOM,

Bob

P.S.

I’m pretty sure I posted this link to the Albert Hoffman story:

http://thedreamatists.wordpress.com/2007/08/06/aldous-huxley-takes-lsd-on-deathbed/

This is a loss, because under highly controlled conditions, it can be of benefit to some and add further to our knowledge of the cosmos and consciousness. My long past experiences are what keeps me in the Deist, rather than agnostic/atheist camps. Experiencing the fragility of what we call reality led me to see that there are many other possibilities of reality in this universe.

However, using it and the other stronger psychedelics for recreation is a chancy proposition, since environment and mood strongly influence the experience. During my last trip in 1980 I experienced an almost psychotic break and was literally saved from death by a quick thinking friend and my training as a psychotherapist. I understand that some serious experiments are beginning again, if so, I hope the recreational excesses of people like me are not repeated.

Mike

BTW, did you catch my comments on the blog entry about Albert Hoffman’s passing?

Mike,

I assure you I have no deep understanding of Thrasymachus outside of Plato’s inclusion of him in certain dialogues; most notably The Republic. Accordingly, when I reference Thrasymachus it’s merely shorthand method of alluding to the idea that “justice is the interest of the stronger.”

And not for nothing, but compared to Plato I find reading Ayn Rand as easy, agreeable and enjoyable as sucking mud through a straw.

N.B. Sucking mud through a straw ‘makes my head ache.’

SIYOM,

Bob

Leahy isn’t important as his methodology is flawed, but his vocal intent is important. He gets that something needs to be done and is willing to risk political capitol to say so. That in itself is a good sign even if he doesn’t know what to do. No, there is more than one way to skin this cat (don’t start with me PETA people, I have a 24# purring ragdoll in my lap right now and I’d be more likely to skin you than him). A recent USA Today poll showed the majority of Americans want a criminal investigation, although they differ on methods. Leahy is off base. All he can think about is political theater because that’s all he knows. An independent prosecutor on the other hand, say one that was originally appointed by the Bush administration who has a record of upholding the rule of law despite politics, one who has been a vocal critic of Bush illegalities . . . do you think it was an accident that Patrick Fitzgerald is staying on under Obama?

I suggest watching what happens in the DOJ scandal. I’ve said all along that this is analogous to Watergate. It’s not the crime that’s going to get them, it’s the cover up. But people do want something done. And DOJ is the cover up.

I received Senator Leahy’s email request to sign his online petition. Luckily, the wisdom of Prof. Turley has kept me from supporting Leahy’s Truth Commission but it worries me that, if the Senator is unable to collect a significant number of signatures, is it going to look like Americans aren’t interested in pursuing investigations?

Worse, is this a ploy to derail the accountability movement? Call me cynical…

But this is as far as I’m going to rehash this.

It’s been gone over in here time and again. I should caution you that if your desire is to DEFEND them, now would be a good time to just walk away. They have no defense. Every attempt here has failed. Feel free to try if you just want an evening of frustration though. You can’t defend a terrorist theocratic repressive retrograde fascist police state who provided the money and manpower for 9/11. Evil is as evil does.

Why do you think Saudi Arabia attacked us? What was their motive?

Bob,
When I wrote that comment I had no idea who Thrasymachus was.
I was forced by your post to see whether this guy was Greek to me.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/callicles-thrasymachus/
http://www.iep.utm.edu/t/thrasymachus.htm

From reading the two links above I now understand your comment and the aptness of your making it. Although more reading and research is called for because the links scratch the surface and so my understanding of him and Plato is as yet superficial. Whether I do it or not is problematic since I’ve always been a “Gordian Knot cutting” kind of guy and philosophy makes my head ache.

Also in the mid 70′s I attended an elegant party for the faculty and student’s of Columbia’s School of Philosophy. As I wandered the party stoned on mescaline (it was the 70′s after all)I eavesdropped on the knots of philosophical discussion and after a bit I started a quiet chuckling that continued for the rest of the party. I had noticed that the discussions at base were really ritualistic mating calls of people trying to get laid.

Damn Bob, I admire the breadth of your knowledge and that of the others here. You have shown it over and again in your comments. That’s why my learning at this site far exceeds my educating. However, you have to realize that at times it’s hard for an old hippie geezer like me to keep up.

Mike

That’s a real good reason to jetison the idea of the “war” on terror and get right into treating terrorism as a crime. We can’t solve the increased risk of terrorism left us by the previous administration in a few weeks or months but we can turn on a dime in how we deal with terrorism.

Our last attack took us down a very bad road. Congress and the nation as a whole ceeded way too much power to the executive because, “we were at war”. It was dangerous to criticize bush for a long, long time. People who did were called traitors. Paul Krugman wrote about the real fear that crippled critical evaluation of Bush’s actions. We gave over innocent Muslims to be picked up and interrogated, gave up our civil liberties, Congress authorized the “patri-idiotic act” and AUMF with little debate and less information. We accepted the unacceptable in so many ways. We must never let that happen again.

With the refresher, I now get the Homer reference.

Two things.

First, in the words of Phil Hartman as Charlton Heston: “Solyent Green is still people.”

Second, if you didn’t get the Simpsons reference, you need to see the episode entitled “Deep Space Homer”

SIYOM (Stay In Your Own Movie),

Bob

Next time they remake “Planet of the Apes”, I’m sending them your name as a potential screenwriter. You and seamus, who seems to display an alarming amount of knowledge about Soylent Green. Could there be a renaissance of Chuck Heston remakes in the offering?

About that Ayn Rand v. Thrasymachus riff …

Heavy.

Buddha Is Laughing: “Bob, I think it comes down to war against a state of mind, specifically ego worship and sociopathy. But don’t get me wrong. I’m all for a war on those pesky gerunds. DAMN YOU STRUNK & WHITE! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!”

Bob: “Wait a minute… Statue of Liberty… that was OUR Planet! You maniacs … you declared war on a tactic!”

“Tactics is the art of using troops in battle; strategy is the art of using battles to win the war.” — von Clausewitz

Oh yeah. It’s marked. To me, that’s the day the batters can really tell if they might to have to charge the mound.

I can only speak for myself and not as a formally trained scientist like yourself, but I always try to practice sterile lab protocols. But by the same token, there is that whole Alexander Fleming thing . . .
—–
Indeed. Fleming counseled early on against creating antibiotic resistance as a result of prescribing too little, too much,
and/or unnecessarily. It’s preferable to know what your dealing with first – before reaching for the big gun broad-spectrums…

p.s. I trust you have Feb 18 marked on your calendar as the day
the Obama WH is expected to clarify its position on the Bush era retroactive immunity claims.

That was funny and the idea is great!

Indeed what mespo said. I was thinking your slip was showing too.

“President Obama will be hoe in Chicago this weekend.”

*************

Love the Freudian!

5046 South Greenwood Ave,
Chicago, IL 60615

Gong forward this might be a way to keep the constructive pressure up on the executive branch.

Wow.

For my part, apology accepted. You must have taken two of the red pills. Also, for my part, I’m sorry I had to put on my war face. I’d rather talk this way, it’s more productive and less incendiary. I keep my demon on a leash for a reason and I really don’t enjoy using him. That’s why I chose Buddha Is Laughing instead of Shiva Is Angry. Good show, man. A sincere apology is a sign of character. There’s hope for you yet.

thank you for taking time to educate me. I actually do see your points and I understand. And I agree that human nature is a very difficult force to control. I think your point about need driven ego is very good and I think I understand it to a point.
Namely that they are externally motivated, they need the big car, fancy house, cute girlfriend, big wads of cash and control of others lives is the ultimate motivation. I am sure it is more complex than that.

I have to say that I wish I would have come in here a little differently, the issues analysis is very interesting and the perspective is certainly different to what I am used to.

Please accept my sincere apologies for my bad and boorish behaviour.

I can only speak for myself and not as a formally trained scientist like yourself, but I always try to practice sterile lab protocols. But by the same token, there is that whole Alexander Fleming thing . . .

“I’m not certain what’s going on here.”
——

Breakthrough!!! Whew…

Civics 101: Separation of Powers

The legislative branch makes the laws
The executive branch enforces the laws
The judicial branch interprets the laws

Rule of Law: No one is above the law.

Probably the most accessible part of the equation is the legislative branch which is why I keep advocating for constituents in their respective states to contact their Senators and Representatives in Congress.

My credibility remains intact. Nice try, though.

I don’t need to have my news cut n’ pasted from other blogs only to have it folded, spindled, mutilated and regurgitated on my shoes.

Original thoughts and factual information, on the other hand,
are welcome.

Turlees should strive to maintain sterility – prior to inserting
foot in mouth.