textfiles/magazines/FJOURNAL/fjour2_1.txt

The Free Journal/ASCII Edition
Volume II, Issue 1
Copyright 1992 The Free Journal (Individual articles copyright by author)
Executive Editor: Sameer Parekh
Senior Editor: Aron J. Silverton
(fj@infopls.chi.il.us)

	This is the Free Journal.  Submissions are welcome.  Some
characters have the high bit set.  Distribute at will; cite authors.
(Or editors if no author is given.)
_______________________________________________________________________________
Disclaimer

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect
the opinions or attitudes of Libertyville High School, the editorial
staff, or any other person or institution.

Psychedelics

	These are some excerpts from the introduction to PIHKAL
(Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved): A Chemical Love Story by Dr.
Alexander T. Shulgin as reprinted in the Fall 1991 issue of Whole
Earth Review (No. 72) (PIHKAL is available from the Transform Press,
Box 13675, Berkeley, CA 94701--$22.95 postpaid)
	I am a pharmacologist and a chemist.  I have spent most of my
adult life investigating the action of drugs: how they are discovered,
what they are, what they do, how they can be helpful--or harmful.  But
my interests lie somewhat outside the mainstream of pharmacology.  The
area I have found most fascinating and rewarding is that of the
psychedelic drugs (psychedelics might best be defined as physically
non-addictive compounds which temporarily alter the state of one's
consciousness).
	The prevailing opinion in this country is that there are drugs
that have legal status and are either relatively safe or at least have
acceptable risks, and there are other drugs that are illegal and have
no legitimate place in our society.  Although this opinion is widely
held and vigorously promoted, I sincerely believe that it is wrong.
It is an effort to paint things either black or white, when, in this
area, as in most of real life, truth is grey.
	Let me give some reasons for my belief.
	Every drug, legal or illegal, provides some reward.  Every
drug presents some risk.  And every drug can be abused...it is up to
each of us to measure the reward against the risk and decide which
outweighs the other...
	...My philosophy can be distilled into four words: be
informed, then choose.
	I personally have chosen some drugs to be worth the risks;
others, I deem not to be of sufficient value...
	Each such decision is my own, based on what I know of the drug
and what I know about myself.
	...I have chosen not to use marijuana, [the effect] does not
adequately compensate for an uncomfortable feeling that I am wasting
time.
	I have tried heroin...there is a loss of motivation...
	I have also tried cocaine...the inescapable knowledge,
underneath, that it is not true power, that I am not really on top of
the world...
	With the psychedelic drugs, I believe that, for me, the modest
risks...are more than balanced by the potential for learning...
	...It is a potential, not a certainty.  I can learn, but I'm
not forced to do so; I can gain insight into possible ways of
improving the quality of my life, but only my own efforts will bring
about the desired changes.
	...there is a wealth of information built into us...tucked
away in the genetic material in every one of our cells...without some
means of access, there is no way even to being to guess at the extent
and quality of what is there.  The psychedelic drugs allow exploration
of this interior world, and insights into its nature.
	Our generation is the first ever to have made the search for
self-awareness a crime, if it is done with the use of plants or
chemical compunds as the means of opening the psychic doors.  But the
urge to become aware is always present, and it increases in intensity
as one grows older.  [...]
	This is the search that has been a part of human life from the
very first moments of consciousness.  The knowledge of his own
mortality--knowledge which places him apart from his fellow
animals--is what gives Man the right, the license, to explore the
nature of his own soul and spirit, to discover what he can about the
components of the human psyche.  [...]
	How is it then, that the leaders of our society have seen fit
to try to eliminate this one very important means of learning and
self-discovery, this means which has been used, respected, and honored
for thousands of years, in every human culture of which we have a
record?  Why has peyote, for instance, which has served for centuries
as a means by which a person may open his soul to an experience of
God, been classified by our government as a Schedule I material, along
with cocain, heroin, and PCP?...Part of the answer may lie in an
increasing trend in our culture towards both paternalism [authorities
supply need and thus are able to dictate conduct] and provincialism [a
narrowness of outlook, a single code of ethics].  [...]
	...The government and the Church decided that psychedelic
drugs were dangerous to society and with the help of the press, it was
made clear that this was the way to social chaos and spiritual
disaster.
	What was unstated, of course, was the oldest rule of all:
RThou shalt not oppose nor embarrass those in power without being
punished.S [...]
	I deem myself blessed in that I have experienced, however
briefly, the existence of God.  I have felt a sacred oneness with
creation and its Creator, and--most precious of all--I have touched
the core of my own soul.
	It is for these reasons that I have dedicated my life to this
area of inquiry.  Someday I may understand how these simple catalysts
do what they do.  In the meantime, I am forever in their debt.  And I
will forever be their champion.

City Beautification

	This year is the 500th anniversary of ColumbusUs
RdiscoveryS of the Americas.  The Dominican Republic is
advertising for many tourists to come vist their country. They are
making many plans in their country, including the
RbeautificationS of their cities.
	What exactly does this RbeautificationS entail?  For one
thing, it includes the eviction of 50,000 families, or 120,000
individuals, from their homes in Santiago, the capitol, with as little
as $50 in compensation for their homes.
	For the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, more than 800,000
inhabitants of Seoul were forcibly removed from their homes.  For the
1991 Asian Games in Beijing, entire neighborhoods were demolished.
For the fortieth anniversary of TibetUs Rpeaceful
liberation,S Chinese authorities bulldozed the ancient Tibetan
capitol of Lhasa, and now only two percent of the population resides
in traditional Tibetan housing.  When Manila hosted the Miss Universe
pageant, thousands of homes were bulldozed.
	SOURCE: Leckie, Scott. RWhen Push Comes to Shove:
Eviction's No Fiction.S Whole Earth Review Fall 1991: 88-89.

Six Lessons of School

The 6 lessons of school--as taught by John Taylor Gatto, New York
State teacher of the year, 1991. (Whole Earth Review #72 Fall U91)

1)	RStay in the class where you belong.S I donUt know
who decides that my kids belong there but thatUs not my business.
The children are numbered so that if any get away they can be returned
to the right class.  Over the years the variety of ways children are
numbered has increased dramatically, until it is hard to see the human
being under the burden of numbers he carries, though what business
this is designed to accomplish is elusive...my job is to make the kids
like it--being locked in together, I mean--or at the minimum, endure
it.  If things go well, the students canUt imagine themselves
anywhere else; they envy and fear the better classes and have contempt
for the dumber classes...ThatUs the real lesson of any rigged
competition like school, you come to know your place.

2)	RTurn on and off like a light switchS...Nothing
important is ever finished in my class, nor in any other class I know
of.
	The lesson of bells is that no work is worth finishing, so why
care too deeply about anything?  Bells are the secret logic of
schooltime; their argument is inexorable; bells destroy the past and
future, converting every interval into a sameness, as an abstract map
makes every living mountain and river the same even though they are
no.  Bells inoculate each undertaking with indifference.

3)	RSurrender your will to a predestined chain of command.
S...Individuality is a curse to all systems of classification, a
contradiction of class theory.
	Here are some common ways it shows up: children sneak away for
a private moment in the toilet on the pretext of moving their bowels;
they trick me out of a private instant in the hallway on the grounds
that they need water.  Sometimes free will appears right in front of
me in children angry, depressed or exhilarated by things outside my
ken.  Rights in such things cannot exist for schoolteachers; only
privileges, which can be withdrawn, exist.

4)	ROnly I determine what curriculum you will studyS...Of
the millions of things of value to learn, I decide what few we have
time for.  The choices are mine.  Curiosity has no important place in
my work, only conformity.
	Bad kids fight against this, of course, trying openly or
covertly to make decisions for themselves about what they will
learn....Fortunately there are procedures to break the will of those
who resist.
[...] 

5)	RYour self-respect should depend on an observerUs
measure of your worth.S...A monthly report, impressive in its
precision, is sent into studentsU homes to spread approval or mark
exactly--down to a single percentage point--how dissatisfied with
their children parents should be.
	Self-evaluation--the staple of every major philosophical
system that ever appeared on this planet--is never a factor in these
things.  The lesson of report cards, grades, and tests is that
children should not trust themselves or their parents, but must rely
on the evaluation of certified officials.  People need to be told what
they are worth.  

6)	RYou are being watched.S...There are no private spaces
for children; there is no private time.  Class change lasts 300
seconds to cut down on promiscuous fraternization at low levels.
Students are encouranged to tattle on each other, even to tattle on
their parents....
	I assign RhomeworkS so that this surveillance extends
into the household, where students might otherwise use the time to
learn something unauthorized, perhaps from a father or mother, or my
apprenticing to some wiser person in the neighborhood.
	...children must be closely watched if you want to keep a
society under central control.
  	...only a very few lifetimes ago things wereJdifferent in
the United States:...We were something, all by ourselves, as
individuals.
[...]
	...This is training for permanent underclasses, people who are
deprived forever of finding the center of their own special genius....
  
Amendment No. 7

Amendment VII
	In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall
exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved,
and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any
Court of the United States, than according to the rules of common law.

	If people do not ask for a jury specifically, it constitutes a
waiver of that right.  Thus, if someone is not as informed as you are
now, the right to a jury trial is basically forfeit.  In addition, a
judge can ignore the verdict of a jury if he doesn't like the jury's
verdict.  The Supreme Court has declared this Constitutional if he
declares a mistrial and tries it again.

THINK!

	In the past few months in which I have been distributing The
Free Journal, I have asked people to respond if they have an opposing
view.  To this date, I have received no article expressing an opposite
opinion than mine.
	This can mean one of two things.  Either (A) everyone agrees
with me, or (B) noone who disagrees with me is willing to spend the
time to think about the issue enough to write up an opposing opinion.
I do not think that (A) is true.
	Why does noone wish to think?  Why must everyone be so
simpleminded and accept whatever authority dishes out to them?  I
refuse to acknowledge that anyone is incapable of free thought (Other
than people with brain-damage).  It is only that in most people, the
capability has been driven out by school and society.
	Some may say that adolescense exists so that people may
socialize and have fun.  There is nothing wrong with socialization and
having fun, but there is more to life than that.  Adolescense is a
place to socialize, have fun, and learn. Learning does not mean
working hard at school--school is not a place of learning; school is a
place where one tries to show others that onew capable of learning by
doing things contrary to the process of learning.
	Try and think for yourself.  Raise yourself from the mundane
realm. RQuestion Authority/Think AlternativesS -- ItUs not
just a motto; itUs a way of life.  Individualism is what made this
country great, and the lack of individualism is what will make this
country fail if we donUt do something about it.
						--Sameer Parekh

Things You Should Know

	The LD50 (required dosage for an overdose) for alcohol is
roughly 4-10 times the dosage necessary for intoxication.  The LD50
for marijuana is roughly 40,000 times the dosage necessary for
intoxication.  Is it any wonder that no one has died of a marijuana
overdose, and more than five thousand people a year die of alcohol
overdosages?
	The Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA) tries to scare
people with images of images of stoned heart surgeons.  The PDFA is
funded largely by tobacco and alcohol companies.  (E. g.
Phillip-Morris) Most people would be scared of drunk heart surgeons
too, but ads about that are not made.