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cybersafari//UPGRADEmag//
dec 10, 2001
AFGHANISTANH H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H The UPGRADEmag (the Upgrade Emag, or just the "UP") is a global edutainment news round-up, ‘broadcast’ weekly to =[10,608]= Trance// New Age// Alternative// Activist// Zippy folks who have been recommended to the Parallel YOUniversity//Megatripolis Dance Dept as "showing signs of life". Since many recipients choose to forward it to their own lists, we estimate 27,000+ recipients. Further, because of its less 'specialist' content, it's increasingly being posted on a variety of sites worldwide, making a total weekly ‘readership’ of 275,000+ H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H MAKE THE UPGRADE FIT YOUR SCREEN BY CLOSING ANY BOX ON LEFT IN THE DUST STORM OF THE LAST DESERT UPGRADEmag, IT’S POSSIBLE SOME UPGRADERS DIDN’T RECEIVE THEIR COPY. EXPRESS CAMELS WILL DELIVER IT IF YOU LET US KNOW! :-) * * * * * * * * * * * * * astro energy snapshot for dec 12-18 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * this week opens the door for major change. what is your vision for your life? what is your vision for your community? what is your vision for the nation? for the world? firm it up, because now we step into the world that we out picture. for your daily success guide, see www.daykeeperjournal.com * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * A SHATTERED AND RUINED COUNTRY WITH THOUSANDS DEAD, TENS OF THOUSANDS DAMAGED, AND MILLIONS TURNED INTO REFUGEES AND STARVING. HOW MANY MORE SHATTERED CULTURES TO PAY FOR ONE TRADE CENTRE? "If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear." George Orwell. # my daughter wants a copy of your mag - brilliant reading, thanks!!!! Lindz carolina usa # MOROCCO the parable of mohamed and the three cats the following became one of the traveler’s “tales” i’d tell to new ‘friends’ along the way. i mean, on top of my osama baba story which is still my best and raises most interest and empathy for the traveler. it was based on an incident in fes on my last afternoon there. i’d taken refuge in one of the endless curio/souvenir shops by allowing myself to be seduced inside to take a cup of tea “no buy, just look, why are you afraid to just look?” (cos after haffanhour you’re fookin gonna pull some number when i try to leave without buying that’s why! but no point in saying it :) well, after a quarter of an hour of sweet mint tea sipping (me solo, it being ramadan which i was always forgetting), i was gaining the clear impression that the proprietor was a skilled, even wise or at least wily trader who’d learned his trade from his father and his father before him, when suddenly that strange, unmistakable noise began to erupt that sounds like some great sloth struggling up from within the very depths of itself, at first just a deep cosmic wheeze before the muezzin’s Call to Prayer burst forth in full flow across the city. quickly followed by all the other more distant mosques with slightly differently set clocks. now, the Call to the Faithful coming five times a day without fail, nobody so far had ever dropped what they were doing, nor even seemed to give it much attention, but this time the local mosque was clearly very near, and the wailing actually made us break off our conversation. and, as we sat silently listening to the voice of the muezzin, lo, several other seemingly female voices joined in! but it wasn’t female humans it was three cats! who accompanied the muezzin for the full ten minutes of his psalm! at which point they then continued the refrain on their own for another five minutes before all stopping together! “can a cat be a muslim?” i demanded half jokingly of the proprietor, and of other people over the next few days till my ‘tale’ took its final shape. “can a cat be a muslim?” i say now. ”i ask this question because of a strange event i witnessed in fes...” at which point i tell a shortened version of the above. “and people say NO, of course not” i continue. “right? an animal can’t be a muslim, obviously! except that i’ve given it some serious thought since then and here’s my own conclusion: if the cat sings along with the muezzin but the man does not, then, in my opinion, the cat is MORE muslim than the man!” ok, it’s a fairly corny parable, with a moral that, though clear, is hardly original. but, on top of claiming to be osama baba lying low in morocco, it serves to create an impression (i think!) of my being a “spiritual,” even a wise person - in a land and an era where often, say, as the bus is taking you over the high atlas mountains in the depths of icy arabian nights, the driver will play a cassette of ‘hymns’ to allah over the loud speakers and the country people do sing along! they’re not looking for novelty, they’re into respecting the Originality that’s already been put in. oh yes, and the proprietor, who was always probably much more interested in selling me something than in any aspects of allah i would ever raise, suddenly said: “i think i have just the coat for you, and it’s only £2.” “wow” replied the scotsman, whom our berber salesman had psychoanalysed well, even as his father had taught him and his father b4. “it’s got a bit of a tear but...” the boy produced a short jelaba (which hangs in my wardrobe in london now as i type). only the next morning did it first dawn on me that it was a second hand piece of clothing, in need of a good laundering. definitely bad social form in berber society but, after ahmed’s warning words in tangers about disguising myself during ramadan, it was a bargain for me! so i get something really cheap that serves my western investigative purposes and mustafa gets his sale. everybody happy. # "Powell, like the Bushes and Cheney, is bloodline and that's why he is to be the new Secretary of State. Given that line-up and their mentality and agenda, don't be at all surprised if the United States finds itself in another manipulated war during this administration. You will see "monsters" being created in the public mind to justify such action." David Icke, JAN 20, 2001. Full Article “BUSH TAKES THE OATH: ANOTHER SHAPESHIFTER IN THE WHITE HOUSE” on: http://www.davidicke.com/icke/index1c.html # RAMPAGING COLLOSSUS? NUTTERS ACROSS THE SEA?! Over the past few days, I've been ordered on to a strict diet of my words. A stream of emails arrived from American readers with plenty of advice (get laid, get pregnant, shut your fat legs, shut up) and prognostications for my future (you'll be fired). One told me I made them feel sick: "untouched by our tragedy, you feel the right to criticise our country's actions". One asked if "you have a molecule of shame or humility within your entire being?" and promised to pray for me. Another asked: "how stupid do you feel now? this is one of the best wars ever fought" and another asked: "as the US war on terror becomes increasingly successful, could the world say 'thank you'?” Thank God for the volume of seawater which puts these kind of nutters on another continent. It's not so much the fine line in misogynistic abuse from US patriots, but the intolerance of debate and diversity of opinion which is really frightening. i’ve also been convinced for years now, ever since we did the Zippy Pronoia Tour, that many retired intelligence service types get paid a small stipend for generally fooking things up and spreading fear and paranoia among the general populace. u know it makes sense and would be cheapo. But the truth is that this kind of emotional intensity has also seeped into the war on this side of the Atlantic - entrenched camps for and against are waging a bitter war of words over the heads of a majority who are worried and confused, but see no alternative to war. Fear drives this kind of emotional intensity. It is a pitifully short time, only two months, since we learned of a ruthlessness born of fanaticism which we had not thought possible; our perception of human nature is having to painfully readjust to the revelation of a capacity for calmly premeditated brutality. I'm sure that fear has influenced my continuing conviction that waging war on Afghanistan is long-term unlikely to defeat that kind of ruthless Islamic terrorism, and is very likely to have disastrous consequences for the poor benighted country itself. It must have been so comforting to have been swept up in the emotional euphoria of Kabul Liberation Day. It was the ultimate Disney ending after a month of nation-builders' storytelling. If only it were that simple. But even on Kabul Liberation Day, the excited reporters and commentators surrounded by a telegenic rabble of boys curious at television cameras found no echo among anxious Afghan women, most of whom remained behind their burkas. Nor did the Kabul Liberation Day story last long, quickly replaced by the tension of warlords struggling to position themselves; in Jalalabad, young men jostled around the cameras, their eyes, cartridge belts and guns all gleaming, poised for what they know best - waging war. And yet, it's not even those Jalalabad warriors that have made the last week’s events so troubling, but the growing appreciation of just how ruthless and ambitious the US is likely to become in its war against terrorism. What the events of the past few days have starkly revealed is that the US had only one interest in this war, capturing Bin Laden and destroying al-Qaida; this imperative outstripped all considerations of Afghanistan's future. So the timing of the attack was decided by US military preparedness rather than any coherent political strategy for the region, and the US war aim determined the crucial switch in tactics around November 4 when the US decided to throw its weight behind the unsavoury Northern Alliance by bombing the Taliban frontlines. For the US, the whole country of Afghanistan is collateral damage. Or, to put it another way, a little hors d'oeuvre before they move on to the next course - Somalia, Yemen or, most worryingly of all, Iraq? The latter is already being openly touted in Washington as a possibility for the "second stage" and tension is growing in the whole Gulf region. Meanwhile, as far as the US is concerned, the UK with its nation-building agenda, the UN and everyone else is welcome to spend their soldiers' lives on the onerous task of clearing up the mess the US bombing has left behind, freeing it to concentrate on the next trashing. All this strengthens the view that what we have to fear from September 11 is not just Islamic fanaticism, but the US response to it. Indeed, the latter could well prove a far greater threat to the stability of many countries, further stoking the Islamic fanaticism it seeks to extinguish. The template has been developed in Afghanistan: lavish bribery of neighbours, unchecked deployment of vicious military hardware, keep US soldiers out of it and use others to do the fighting. It is a foreign policy of brute force which draws legitimacy within the US from a lethal combination of three factors: a profound sense of righteous anger, the reality of unchallenged economic and military power, and a pervasive ignorance of/ indifference to the rest of the world. To increase the danger, the US actions are unchecked by fear of another superpower and, at present, unchecked by its usually vibrant civil society where debate about the purposes or methods of the war against terrorism has been cowed into virtual silence in the mainstream. The result is that an ugly ruthlessness is creeping into US political culture. For example, "physical interrogation" or torture is proposed in the columns of Newsweek while President Bush signs an order allowing military tribunals of suspected terrorists in private and without a jury, for the first time since the second world war. In time we may come to see the disastrous timing of a rightwing presidency intent on asserting US unilateralism assuming power shortly before September 11: that tragic catastrophe has provided the moral mandate at home and the freedom for manoeuvre from allies for such a unilateralist policy. For all the US has needed western support for its war, we seem to have been singularly unsuccessful in extracting in return any compromises on US unilateralism. Putin's protestations on NMD are brushed off, and barely a murmur is raised in criticism of the US's failure to deliver its climate change plan while the world went ahead in Marrakech last week. From the start, this administration has been unabashed, denying any sense of responsibility to anyone other than its own citizens. Now, everyone has the almighty headache of how to placate this raging colossus. Blair, white with exhaustion, has opted for the role of chief cheerleader, and while it may incense some that Britain, like every other country, is reduced to such impotence, the harsh reality is that it was AOS - all options stink. Blair will be used and discarded by Bush, and is likely to be one among many casualties. The governing UK Labour Party has traditionally been deeply split over the conduct of US foreign policy. Vietnam, Central and Latin America and the Iran-contra affair all provoked intense controversy. That was bad enough, but Britain not involved in playing the supporting role. At the risk of further incensing my American correspondents, the manipulation of the CIA in Central America could come to seem like child's play compared with what we are likely to glimpse over the next decade. m.bunting@guardian.co.uk
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marrakech, moroccoWOT SHALL I GET MY PEACE’NFREEDOM LOVIN’ GIRLFRIEND? Flag frenzy getting you down? Vonshango! wants you to Hurl Hammers in the Wheels of the War Machine! Truth-now.com offers funky/alternative/revolutionary designs for US Flags, Xmas Cards, Stickers, T-shirts, Mouse-pads, Mugs, and other media to carry the message of your choice! Come get a printable Free-Funky-Flag download to print and proudly display. You can even order product with YOUR OWN CAPTION on it: http://www.truth-now.com/art/images_captions.htm Don't hesitate! The war is rolling. Spread "New Glory" far and wide. A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A ADVERTISING G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G TUES NOV 29, 2001
now here’s the really big news from morocco!
everyone would laff at this, my desert joke, but all accepted it as inevitable that america would show up if such a discovery was ever made. they think america’s the leading terrorist on the planet and dunno why, cos it already has most of everything! “pray to allah the yanks don’t discover how to run automobiles on sand or you guys are in big trouble!” ihsanne confirmed to me in the Marrakech cyber caff the day i sent out the last UP!GRADE that, yes, as i’d half-jokingly suggested to him as a possibility to explain why nobody seemed to be particularly interested in Afghanistan, Moroccan people REALLY HAVE BEEN BEING POLITE TO ME BY “NOT MENTIONING THE WAR”!!! they really are being good hosts trying not to discomfit the guest! (especially in a country which depends totally on tourism). in reality, ihsanne informed me when finally convinced the guest really did wish to discuss such material, Moroccans are VERY VERY VERY UPSET! but I’ll come back to this in the next UP because i am soon to meet a man, and a group, who really open my eyes to how the vast majority of 3rd worlders actually perceive ‘america’ and the ‘wars’. (Israel and now afghanistan as they see it) # london ACCESS ALL AREAS RE-OPENS AT NEW LOCATION Access All Areas has now opened again, just a 5-minute walk up the same road where they were previously located, closer to Kentish Town and not far from the Stables Market in Camden. The space is large enough to include a record shop, aninteractive cafe area with flyers, party information and internetaccess. They’re open Tuesdays-Sundays 12-7 (closed on Mondays). Access All Areas, 117 Kentish Town Road, London NW1 8PBB. 020 7267 8320 contact@accessallareas.org http://www.accessallareas.org # THE KEN KESEY MEMORIAL GATHERING I've just come from a seat in a theatre where I sat-and-sang in the warmth of hundreds who loved him, while held in the minds of thousands who loved him, held in return - I'm certain of it - by a man who knew how to love millions at once. The memorial for Ken Kesey gave me much food for hope and thought. From Dave Frohnmayer's opening remarks, to the last Grateful Dead refrain of "We Bid You Goodnight", fattened up in the middly by a rousing chorus of "Shall We Gather at the River", led by Preacher Kesey himself via Zane's wonderful video collage during which we all, every last god-phearing one of us, sang our hearts out as we rode together on one last good trip. In his inimitable style, Kesey took all of us with him. Whether we knew him or not - whether we knew *it* or not - we were On The Bus. What touched me most was Ken Babbs' wonderful retelling of A Life lived So Large there Ain't Enough Capital Letters For It All. I could have listened to him for hours talk about how he and Ken "Had to study things straight." He did the Short List - the quotes: "It's not the destination, it's the journey. Keep your eye on the ball and enjoy the journey." "True currency is the Spirit - the currentcy of Spirit - let everybody have richness of Spirit." "Our job is nothing less than to save the world" the Short List: ...*It* was, in part, the flow from the convergence of that infamous writer's class, that small band of merry meet men who lived for the perfection and excellence of achievement in their brothers, truecomrades-in-arms, that shaped so much of the road to come, tumbling into the 1964 bus trip that was done at first to *make* a movie, and not for control over what would come because *of* the movie, but just because the movie would bring on the Next Cool Thing; ...skip, skip and it's into the origin of the acid tests in the denouement of an impossible movie-editing job wherein all the players discovered that living the trip is much more interesting than re-living the trip, but too many dirty dishes in the morning makes for evolution onto greener pastures, and so the astronauts of Inner Space suited up and slipped into another Universe; ...and all the while Ken's writing, writing notes to the last - in the hospital bed, writing notes that are the raw material of the next story that waits to be told, and Babbs' hand stops waist high as tells how many inches of unpublished writing are poised in the wings, ready to fly out to all of us, and I'm thrilled at the thought of getting to see more of Kesey in his un-righted, un-edited, un-perfected-but-perfect word streams, streams that I spent less time in than I know now I would have enjoyed; ...where there's promise of "Spit In The Ocean #7" and "Bend In the River Reality", and "Atlantis Rising", and "Where's Merlin" and "Sunshine Daydream" and thousands of other poetic spoor that waft across my ears and my minds' eye; ...with Babbs imparting to us the social action message - the action of a society, the acts needed by a society, a fellowship, of persons - the "take-Home" lesson that we should all - all of us - insist, by contacting the producers of any of these magnificent film footages shot so blithely, so intently, so long ago by these intrepid funsters, insist and urge and make a compelling case for the presentation of these movies as movies, and honest-to-cod-celluloid films, and not just the-rush-to-video - and he implored us to act on behalf of these films, and that this would have been something Kesey would have very much appreciated; ...the prophecy and the vision - "the Internet is the Campfire" - even right now it's burning at http://www.intrepidtrips.com. what a big, fat, dream. Ken knew the digital bridge was built and he knew it would bring us together in new and unexpected ways, and I sat inside the McDonald theatre that Kit Kesey and another intrepid troupe have just finished restoring into a magnificent Venue - a capital V Venue - and I'm here because I got the message on the Internet, and the word got around, and we all hooked up in real-time and real-face - and I knew that he, also, is right, and that I'm so very glad he is; ...and as Babbs talked, and kept promising to end his speech, and didn't - probably because he didn't want to turn loose of our laughter and our shared remembering him back into Being, and I didn't want him to let the moment go either, so I was secretly saying "one more story, Babbs...just one more story, and then I'll go to bed." - because I knew how he felt - how the talking keeps it all moving, and words can sometimes, sometimes, change things; ...As long as the words flow, they can be with us - with the stories comes the presence, the current-cy; the current see-ing of Spirit - and I could have listened to Babbs all night, and I told him that, in my mind, that he could always find me and tell me a story and I'd have fresh ears to help dance the life back into them again; ...but the most useful, most practical moment that was probably so clearly in the spirit of the small slice of the Ken that I know - the guy wants something that's great, and American and novel (truly, one of the finest authors of the Great American Novel(ty)!) - was that moment when Babbs reminded all of us about the definition of a True Prank which: a) doesn't hurt. b) must illuminate. c) must be funny... ...a samurai to the end. cynthia beal, eugene, oregon http://www.skymind.org
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londonWED DEC 12 Come learn the truth about ibogaine, the much-vaunted vision ally and controversial addiction treatment. SPEAKERS: Dr Deborah Mash Phd., head of Healing Visions Institute for Addiction Recovery, professor of neurology and molecular and cellular pharmacology at the Miami School of Medicine, and author of numerous clinical and non-clinical scientific studies on the use of ibogaine for treating addiction; Dana Beal, activist and co-author of The Ibogaine Story; Dr Karl Naeher, private doctor who’s been treating addicts with ibogaine for four years; Brian Mariano, who offers ibogaine treatment in Prague; Patrick Kroupa, former heroin addict turned internet guru who claims ibogaine changed his life; and Nick Sandberg, author of An Introduction to Ibogaine, Bwiti initiate, and owner of www.ibogaine.co.uk. @ The London Voluntary Sector Resource Centre, 356 Holloway Rd, N7. 9am - 5.30pm. £40. INFO: Nick Sandberg 020 7278 4656 info@ibogaine.co.uk, or Hattie Wells 07949 262949. epoptica@freeuk.com,
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querquezate, morocccoTHURS NOV 30, 2001 waiting for the bus in the main station (thinking about kesey’s death) i spot a poster for L’Intelligent magazine its banner is in french “For the Youth Generation of Africa”. on the cover is a full-on front shot of bin Laden which i’ve seen before; he faces the camera, holding his hand up like some kinda greeting. “The face and the hand reveal everything!” shouts the poster. “The character of the man cannot be hidden. We have called in the experts to read both, and inside we reveal their findings on the true character and drives of this famous man.” it turns out to be last week’s mag, however, and is sold out. i never do find the original. good magazine work though! hats off to the editor! :) # CONNFESSIONS OF “FREEDOM FIGHTER” TERRORIST I joined a terrorist organization when I was 15. Of course, we didn’t call ourselves that, the British government of Palestine did. In our eyes, we were freedom fighters. One of my insights from my few years underground is that an underground organization can and, indeed, should be quite small, but that in order to operate effectively it needs the support of the public. Terrorists act when they believe their actions will be popular, or they keep quiet and wait. Therefore, the first question to ask about the Sept. 11 outrage is: why now? Why not last year or the next? The answer is, obviously: because Osama bin Laden believes the Arab and other Muslim masses will welcome it. During the past several years, the hatred against America has been building all over the Arab world. Since the beginning of the present intifada, this has assumed frightening proportions. Al-Jazeera TV (mostly run by ex-BBC types) has brought the daily images into millions of Arab and other Muslim homes: Israeli soldiers shooting, beating, humiliating Palestinians, demolishing their homes, uprooting their olive trees. Every Arab knows that Israel enjoys unreserved American support, that the rockets shot into Palestinian offices and homes come from American-made helicopters and fighter planes. Fury and hatred built up slowly and quietly, like water in a dammed-up river. And, like water, it breaks the dam when a critical mass has accumulated. Uri Avnery, Boston Globe. Nov 20 # TINKERING WITH POVERTY? The WTO will not deliver for poor countries. We need to revive Keynes's original plan. http://www.guardian.co.uk/globalisation/story/0,7369,602244,00.html # THEY THINK IT’S ALL OVER! According to Adrienne Leicester Smith at Oxfam, one of the largest NGOs working to bring humanitarian relief to Afghanistan, the latest figures show that at least 3 million people face starvation in the North of the country alone. "The security situation remains the largest obstacle to getting food out to the remote villages, as traveling on roads is very dangerous now that there is no government whatsoever". Aid organizations are having to renegotiate food distribution on a town by town basis because in most cases local Taliban leaders, with whom agreements on food distribution had been previously made, have been removed from power. According to the latest UN World Food Program briefings: "Volatile security has prevented the United Nations from positioning international staff at Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan." This staff deficiency has led to the distribution of food to only 15,000 of the estimated 250,000 people in Mazar who require assistance. No aid at all has been able to reach Kandahar, which has been the site of continued fighting. According to WFP, an estimated 238,000 people are in danger of starvation there, and Oxfam reports that another 150,000 refugees are stranded on the road from Kandahar to Quetta, Pakistan without any food or shelter. Hundreds of thousands more are in need throughout the country, particularly in the Central Highlands, where deteriorating weather and security concerns have rendered important roads impassable to aid convoys. Oxfam and other aid organizations have been calling for the immediate deployment of a UN force for almost two weeks. Britain has set aside at least 6,000 troops for this purpose, but they’ve been on standby for almost three weeks. France has also pledged thousands of troops for a UN-organized security force, and it’s thought that Muslim nations like Turkey and Indonesia would participate as well. The transitional Afghan leadership that formed out of talks in Bonn, Germany this week has also called for peacekeeping forces, but only in limited numbers. Perhaps the largest stumbling block has been the United States, which is concerned that the presence of such forces in Afghanistan could interfere with its protracted hunt for Osama bin Laden that may take years. http://www.9-11peace.org/un.php3 # BRITAIN’S ANTI-WAR DEMO THE BIGGEST SINCE VIETNAM! Our American friends should never forget that there is a gigantic and ever-growing movement against the Perpetual War scenario being forced down their throats by just about all official media. The rest of the world is NOT feeling that way. Indeed, outside Britain alone perhaps, not a single nation has a majority of its population in favour of the US atrocities, while probably near 100% of virtually all nations on the planet are against. They thought it was all over. After civilisation's victory in Afghanistan, where the lion now lies down with the lamb, all the newspapers agreed there was almost nothing left to discuss, except to remind those who had questioned the war just how profoundly wrong they were, and they’d slip back under the stones from which they’d crept. The battle against corporate power has resumed. George Monbiot, The Guardian, Nov 20. # man, i'm bushed! that was so good! bigger than last time definitely. & really good speeches in the square. charxxx london # hell yes! that was amazing - and my first demo (a bit ashamed to say that - should have got off my ass earlier) have been online checking out websites I got handed fliers about - thepartyparty.org and partyforpeace.org - can see where they're coming from! was uplifting to see so many like-minded people on the streets (and so many like-minded people on the streets (and so many different ages/backgrounds!) feel inspired ;-) clare # inspiring - definitely. there's a lot more of us out there than we're being led to believe, and together we can have a major affect on this world, forget what they tell u. funny, several people said it was their first time - maybe tony benn was right when he said this was the beginning of a new peace movement. let's hope so! the ‘Enemy,’ the old Dinosaur Culture is now clear for all to see. the Final Struggle for the Planet has now begun :) # the numbers thing is out of control - how can the police say 15,000 and the organisers 100,000?! that's a factor of 7! it worked in the past when the crowds were smaller and they 'estimated' on the hi/lo side, but this is ridiculous! one might think they had to say there were less than last time for propaganda purposes, but i'm certain there were at least double. in only a month, with colder weather, and supposedly after the 'war' was over. ha! # the *only* way we can really know for sure is by looking at the aerial photos - there were gigs of them from the last one, but they must be 'classified' or something cos they were never released. shameful - let's demand they release them for this one, i mean 15 or 100? surely we have a right to know! (opinions on the //YOU GroupMind Debate site) # los angeles SAT OCT 20 WE THE PEOPLE FREEDOM FESTIVAL BOMBS DANCE OF INDIFFERENCE, OR DANCE OF DEFIANCE? "If the Times had shown up, the headline would have been 'Promoters Prove Drug Free Rave an Oxymoron'" The WE THE PEOPLE FESTIVAL should have launched the RAVE CULTURE CRACKDOWN FIGHTBACK with 20,000 ravers showing their passion and commitment to struggling for their rights. Instead 2000 people showed up. Francis DellaVecchia worked for the promoters. Here is his report. The We The People Freedom Festival could have been, should have been, a 20,000 person strong festival of protest, a dance of delight and purpose. All the elements were in place and proceeds were to benefit the Electronic Music Defense and Education Fund (EM:DEF). A secure location had been found, with 7 stages of various genres of electronic music, live acts, a film festival, fire performers, and more, spanning 15 hours of entertainment, including a drum jam, and a John F. Kennedy video montage talking about a generation standing up for their rights. And the promoters had created a ferocious underground promotional campaign. Everything was done in a top-notch manner - great graphics, good intentions, engaging website, and varied lineup. Vibe watchers were even provided - people given free passes to make sure the crowd was having a good time, that the mantra Peace Love Unity Respect would be as much a reality as possible. Patrons were asked to be drug free to show that the electronic music scene was about the music and gathering together in ecstatic dance much more than it was about drugs. But 20,000 didn't show up. Barely 2,000 did. WHY? Was it because it was drug free? Was it because it was during the day? Was it because it ended by 2am? Was it because it was too far from L.A.? Was it because it was in a venue with a reputation for nasty security (which it lived up to)? Or did the crack house law become less of a threat when CNN was talking of downed flights and Anthrax? Yes, none and all of the above. But what's very real is that the collective ‘we’ who’ve been looking for another way failed in our main goal of raising money for EM:DEF. What do we do now? We the promoters, we the audience, we the activists, we the people? Just say we tried, and leave it at that? NO! For now we hear rumblings that maybe the laws will affect the outside underground community, that crack house laws may be applied in the desert. Disco Donnie was heard saying we waited too long, the scene’s already in decline. I personally kept saying before the event: "This isn't just about paying the legal fees of wealthy promoters. It’s about an attack on civil liberties based on the tastes of a certain segment of the population - their hair, clothes, music, and yes their choice of drug. But make no mistake, every segment of American society has drug use attached - be it caffeine, nicotine, alcohol. The Crack house Law in particular, and the Drug War in general, have become excuses to attack whatever segment of society is branded undesirable by those in power." Some folks didn't agree. Some didn't care, as long as they could dance and get their drugs somewhere that weekend. Some cared, but not enough to make the trip, or spend the money. So the chant of 20,000 evaporated into the whisper of 2000. Down to hundreds by the end, to be herded out by an over-zealous security force. Out the door with a whimper, freedom left floating like so many red white and blue flyers in the breeze. NARCO TERRORIST CRACK HOUSE? In the ensuing dawn, people are glimpsing behind the curtain. Now a War on Terrorism has been added to the War on Drugs to erase the civil liberties of a few more of us. Undesirables will be rounded up. Is it a stretch to think that this administration would extend the military tribunals to those accused in the War on Drugs? It's as easy as word play, just call them Narco-Terrorists. Narco Terrorist Crackhouse has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Saying "I'm just a musician, I’m not political" is no longer an option. We were all baptized political anew on September 11. Our rights are eroding on a daily basis, even as bombs continue to fall in our name, landing mostly on people who have far fewer rights and privileges than we do. Living is now political, and all acts are falling under increasing national scrutiny. No one else is going to stand up for your freedom. Do it now, or lose it! Guess what - most of America doesn't care about your right to dance. They don't get it. You may not care about someone else's right to attend the Church of their choice, or someone's right to parade down the street. But you no longer have the luxury to just go to parties and compete to be the most "cracked out" on Monday morning. Because you will soon lose that opportunity! See what local anti rave laws are being cooked up in your neighborhood. Pick your time to stand up and be counted. Only a relative handful of us stood up in San Bernardino on October 20. Luckily, I suppose, it wasn't widely reported. Don't ever let the headlines make fun of ravers’ resolve, of the next generation’s resolve, of what we intend to grow out of the smoldering remnants of this dinosaur culture. I want to look back someday on October 20, 2001 and say proudly that I helped make it happen in some small way. I want it to be the kind of event millions will eventually claim to have attended. Because it was a seminal turning point. A stand was taken, and, if temporarily beaten down, it/we will rise again, only stronger. We're young. We have some time. But don't take forever. Francis DellaVecchia / Los Angeles # "With fear as the reptilians' greatest weapon, the plan is to engineer events, real and staged, that will create enormous fear in the countdown years to 2012. This includes a plan to start a third world war either by stimulating the Muslim world into a 'holy war' against the West or by using the Chinese to cause global conflict. Maybe both." David Icke ‘The Biggest Secret’ 1998 # london LONDON COUNCIL TO INTRODUCE ECSTASY TESTING IN CLUBS? Targeted and harassed drug taliban fun-damentalists in america take heart! Yours is the last country in the world to continue with the Dinosaur War on Drugs. Camden Council leader Jane Roberts called for ecstasy to be decriminalised this week, and confirmed that the North London authority would “consider very carefully” allowing ecstasy testing in clubs. “The targeting of intervention should be on heroin and crack cocaine,” said Councillor Roberts (speaking on Radio 1).“We’ve got numbers of clubs where ecstasy is taken and used. It doesn’t cause mass community disorder, certainly not.” Councillor Roberts is the latest mainstream character to embrace ecstasy decriminalisation and followed a similar call from the Independent newspaper to distance ecstasy from other class A drugs. “In the case of ecstasy, now classified as a class A drug along with heroin and LSD, all the statistics suggest that it is much less damaging than heroin,” the newspaper said. “There is little evidence of craving, withdrawal or other addictive behaviour associated with this particular drug; it is, according to authoritative studies, several thousand times less dangerous than heroin; and it is, frankly, significantly less dangerous than alcohol, the biggest killer in the country. Ecstasy should rapidly be transferred to class B.” [info from skrufff@younguknet.co.uk] # zagora, morocco THURS DEC 1 am staying at the Prends Ton Temps and am doing exactly that taking my time! leave for the “permanent camp” in the desert tomorrow! i love it here among the berbers. at last the real morocco, not one prepared for the tourists nor yet had its culture trashed by them. the weather’s finally turned sunny too! spent much of the afternoon being hurried around zagora town by Ibrahim, my ‘contact’ for the desert tours. everywhere there’s human life going on, much of it out on the street, the “arab street”! looked at from the bus, these mostly mud & concrete block towns seem devoid of interest or ‘life’ compared to western cities. and yet it’s the opposite! after my few hours of running around it, i realise this is a real town, a real community, full of raw life, action and variety and every crack and ruined building becomes a landmark to someone’s house or shop or that intense argument with Ibrahim. on the contrary, after you’ve seen the shopping streets and lights of most western cities, you can’t find any community! am amazed (and ashamed) how easily and shallowly my eyes had registered similar towns i’d flown through. i was acting like an F16 bommer doing his job over mazaresharif! have pretty much concluded the last UPGRADEmag never actually went out. what a nightmare all that was! have laid back on writing notes as i can’t see me getting one together next tuesday. and besides, je prends mon temps :) # You know, it’s always something with you people. I have been receiving this newsletter for over a year. Prior to Sept.11, I very much enjoyed the spread and insight of MUSIC culture. May I suggest you stick to what you know. You talk about an open forum, but I have observed nothing of the kind. Anyone who offers opinion that differs from the common rettoric is trashed in this "open" forum. This newsletter has become as closeminded as the faction it is trying to fight; the "conservative right". "CRITICISM WITHOUT SOLUTION" should be the new title of this forum. That about sums up what I have been reading the last two and half months. Its easy to jump on the bandwagon of critisism but try offering REALISTIC solutions to this mess called the world. To anyone reading this I dare you to turn all this negative energy into something positive. SOLUTION. GET INVOLVED. Michael Adler / colorado hmm. trash that, huh? well, first of all, there ain’t no bandwagon here, michael, only wish there was but i c 100 official media statements to every alternative one. secondly, criticising war and bullying is hardly negative criticism, izzit? thirdly, and you must admit this, we were very critical of western culture BEFORE sept 11. fourthly, we ARE offering very serious (and funloving) solutions to the old dinosaur war headspace you seem to be defending. and fifthly, we ARE INVOLVED! what are YOU suggesting?! get INVOLVED by joining the army!!!??? # Hi Fraser, See you have a good time in Morocco. About Islam being a peaceful religion, of course this is true. But did you hear about the WAHIBI sect. They are not Muslims but an extreme splintergroup, I heard about it on TV. It's an old sect, who originated in Saudi Arabia some 100 years ago, and they are very extreme. This is the religion the Taliban use! I heard there's a mosque in the U.K. where they promote this Wahibi sect religion! It’s believed the 20th hijacker who was not on the plane because he was arrested for something else was a visitor there. About this sect I cannot find much. But maybe you can! Also one of the GOOD & BADs in a previous UPGRADE is very difficult. I mean the Taliban is, because of their believes, like Fascists. On the other hand the purpose of the U.S. is not to help the people of Afghanistan but for their own profit, which is an Oil pipeline and a general ‘presence’ there. So actually they are BOTH bad! and the GOOD are the people of Afghanistan who are suffering in the WAR! Thanx for your time and keep on doin' what your doin' Jiggi / Boston being BOTH bad & good on BOTH sides was pretty much the point of the article, of course. # I've built a poetry site called the Swirl. I was wondering if you could advertise it on the UPGRADEmag? tx hakan http://www.theotherworld.fsworld.co.uk # Dear Fraser, A few days ago I saw a recently filmed documentary about one of the most important and charismatic leaders from the Northern Alliance. This very intelligent, competent and friendly person had had complete villages restructured on his own, had done a lot for his people etc. etc. Yet now, when I watch the news on the new government in Afghanistan, helped by the UN, I don’t see amongst these faces any of such positive social characters. Is this newly formed government again a misleading FAKE to gain control over the country in such a way that deals with the US and UN are possible (deals about oil etc, deals that were impossible with the Taliban, and probably would be unlikely with more ethical and intelligent opposition leaders). Please help me out. Gerald Van Waes / Belgium don’t sound like you need help here, gerald! i’d say you pretty mush summed it up correctly. for the first month of the war the choice was getting a billion or getting bommed. now it’s a billion or getting bummed out. the documentary i’ve been wondering about was the egyptian writer going home to egypt? some government type started talking about how all the poor country people who came to the cities were offered the choice of being sent home or going to afghanistan. what does that mean?! were all these ‘wild eyed arabs’ actually some kind of government-sponsored immigrants after all?! can anybody help out on that one? # chaos science and the desert you simultaneously feel insignificant in the desert while the 360 degree horizon becomes a stage with you strutting our time at the centre of it, meaning that the desert returns you the luxury of the consciousness of your own life. just you and the camel (more on camels later) i can easily imagine having long loud conversations and yells alone in the desert, a ‘tiny’ COSMIC HERO unchained! the ‘permanent camp’ consists of twenty carpet/blanket tents between where the pebbled shale, which has been drifting and dissolving towards sand form for the past 500 miles and 500 years, finally begins to seriously give way to the pure yellow sands of the desert ‘proper’. i recall the first night at the Prends Ton Temps back in zagora when my berber tent was filled with berbers making an ocean of spontaneous flowing music and i wondered if this was a desert people’s way of giving themselves the “liquid experience,” an ocean of waves crissing crossing interpenetrating and tossing! all these patterns, with never a human face or recognisable shape and yet all reverberating on the very edges of one’s ‘recognition’. (is this why islam teaches against recognisable shapes? would the desert ‘djinns’ and ‘genies’ have driven men mad if they’d loosened their imaginations?!) could a computer simulate these ‘intelligent’ fractals which shapeshift on the ‘horizon’ of ‘proving’ and ‘demonstrating’ the existence of rational patterned thought underlying all things? do the dark bits form a pattern - one gazes and unfocuses to try to ‘penetrate’ to the truth just below the surface? do the light bits? then suddenly the eyes opt to ‘flip’/ reverse themselves so the light bits form the foreground. hold this new angle, or relax the eyes again so you see there’s more! there’s the shadings, for not all the dark or light shapes are even when you look more closely. and the gradations, too, from dark into light. mathematics, yes, i can envisage the arab, seated for days on camel with endless time to contemplate these forms, these figures, these outlines until he discovers geometry. no square, no triangle, no tetrahedron is ever discovered anywhere in this world and yet all things seem to collapse towards these underlying ideal shapes. chaos science. time to think on your camel. choosing to walk home the first day (after hours of a’camelled plodding to the nearest shade) i suddenly ‘see’ ahmed and myself (on the ‘stage’), two ancient arabs walking slowly and (inevitably) philosophically behind their beasts of burden (which ahmed tells me will always, unless tied, plod ‘homewards’) oh, the luxury of the wasteland! the time! the space, to make the time to take your time to take your place and fill your space! “what a great invention, the camel!” i exclaim (having just puffed a dooby and feeling healthy like i haven’t in, oh, generations!) for those three days in the desert i never saw an electric light nor my own face nor thought about it though i pondered many things! and on the last night, plodding home on brock, my ‘lead’ camel, my body wrapped in patterned berber blanket against the incoming cold of the winter desert night, an amazing scene of an amazing movie that begins with a solitary blanketed and hooded Osama Baba, being led on foot by a single devoted mujahadin away from the valley where my latest Attempt To Right The Wrongs has failed and i have narrowly escaped and now, now, plod alone, unrecognised and unrecognisable, anonymous as a grain of the sand we traverse, onwards towards the next valley of adventure. osama baba moving on. # Promotion of any religion by force stinks. If a religion uses terrorism for promotion it ain't a religion it is a scam... Because there are so many religions it’s obvious that they’re man made for selfish purposes. there is little basis other than having heard of one but not of the other that causes the accumulation of members. the terrorists have the same mentality as the gang drive-by shooters who want to extend or deny turf to others. Get off the goody goody thing that the sewer rats who did the terror should not be punished ... nobody’s saying they shouldn’t be punished. the argument is more about whether america was being and should be punished, and about whether, by its unbelievable terrorist brutality towards an innocent nation, it is subconsciously (or just plain ignorantly) ASKING for much, much more punishment. If they are allowed to get away with it there will be escalation. if you trash, maim and murder even MORE muslims and poor people, escalation is surely inevitable, no? and even noble on their part, no? It will be against any group real or imagined that might see the light in a way different than them. It is still the have and have not world which all religions accommodate only as they see fit. If there were no pressures unfairly applied between groups in the far reaches there would be no need for war or political involvement by the US, but you know that will never happen. gasp! do you, CAN anyone really believe that?! america going around helping the world?! 90% of the planet CANNOT be wrong :) Hitler is alive and well in dozens of places. he’s a type not an individual. in your own way you too are one because you try to sway the masses for your beliefs which, if you could accomplish them, would probably evoke terrorism on a grander scale than the world presently knows. think about it . your message is another have and have not scheme. The pickpockets of the world which can't change, because they survive on immorality, would eat up any group that claims that not defending yourself is a safe way of life... oh, i’m certainly NOT saying that, john. i KNOW you have to defend yourself. and i KNOW that people who’ve been seriously abused and repressed by the present System will need generations before we can ‘trust’ them. but just explain again how bomming thousands of innocent people in a country on the other side of the world and angering even more their already bitterly maltreated fellow muslims who make up one fifth of the planet’s population defends new york, just run that by me again would u? but i DO believe people can change. even the pickpockets. if i didn’t believe that people could change i would NOT be doing this that’s for damn sure! Keep up your work. i think your views are humorous and as long as you don't adopt killing as a way of promotion, it will be like chicken soup, it won't hurt anything... Any program that gets people to think is good. independent of the reason. there’s a real loving, sensitive human being in there, john, and i respect that true essence of you. the rest of what you say below is the result of the terrible terrible treatment you have received all your life in a System that simply treats you as consumer fodder while telling you you’re “free”. free to choose coke or pepsi! If right doesn't win out in these conflicts the next conflict will be more carefully directed to fix it. However, the key point is that few if not no people are capable of putting together a program that uses a herd that doesn't promote a problem worse than the one which was intended to cure... look at the misdirected killing in the abortion argument. The stupids want to stop abortion. that’s trying to fix the things without going to the cause... that’s generally the way of the misdirected herd.... Love, John / Idaho. "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." |