Blue Season – Answers From an Astronaut
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Transcript of Blue Season – Answers From an Astronaut
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Blue Season
answers from anastronaut
By Wendell W Solomons
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History had seen waves of
demonstrations contribute to
ending the Vietnam War.How
would you, if need be, keep
demonstrations off the street
in cities such as New York,
London and Paris?
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In later years, young people -
seemingly on their own - were to
hang out and then drop out of
street protests. The West hasntseen waves of demonstrations
since the 1960s.
Curious?
Lysergic acid, a hallucinogenic, had
been extracted in Sandoz Labs in
Switzerland in 1938 through
experimenting with a fungus affecting
rye. Sandoz went into the production
of LSD in Switzerland in 1947 soonafter World War 2.
When large-batch production began,
far away in the USA an intelligence
service received high-level directions
to begin research into the effects of
LSD on people. The program, code-
named MKULTRA, was
disclosed two decades later in a
report to Congress.
Yet, the effects were long known to
experimenters. A quantity as small as
the weight of 1/10 of a grain of SAND
induced hallucination.
The US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) put LSD on a list
of restricted drugs. At the same time
influential think-tank men such as
Aldous Huxley were advocating the
use of LSD and these voicesprevailed.
Troopers of the ATF (Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives) had famously been
signed in to tackle the Branch
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Davidians by President Bill Clintons
Attorney General and classmate
Janet Reno.
The ATF troopers cast incendiary gascanisters into the wooden building of
the Branch Davidians. The little-
known group is thought to have been
broken away by US intelligence from
the Assemblies of God (the group
was one of several used as pilotcommune for behaviouralist studies
by the agency.) Janet Renos
incendiary gas triggered an inferno
and besides sealing the lips of David
Khoresh all adults and children in the
Texas building perished too. Othersuch control groups where all
subjects died were the Peoples
Temple and Heavens Gate (Paul
Wilshire and more sources on the Net
suggest David Khoresh was among
the decoys whom the intelligence
agency used for branching off thegroup)
Now, if you look at the Net you will noticethat a mysterious other kept troopers of
the US Food and Drug Administration
away from rock concerts for young
people when contract men were
distributing packets of LSD (the
Woodstock Festival came in August
1969). This included distribution at
concerts of the Beatles.
A promoter who found the future Beatles,
the independent Brian Epstein (he ran a
record shop) was converted into a paid
manager of EMI (or Electrical and
Mechanical Instruments, an axial UK
defence contractor). The musicians then
received their name Beatles, a
commercial pun replacing their original
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audiences upwards from 3-chord
music.
The rebellious Irishman in John
Lennon wasnt placated with the fame
and fortune that arrived (at a
command performance for the Queen
he asked those with jewels to rattle
them.) A sense of fair play caused
him to glance from the West towardsAsia.
EMI manager Epstein was withdrawn
through his death in his London flat at
age 32 and the Beatles were broken
up. Lennon went on to crucifixion.Bullet holes entered his left side
according to the autopsy report now
on the Net and were thus fired from a
service door (alleged plot-scripter
Robert Rosen and the New York
Times had claimed in 1980 that
labourers name of Quarrymen.
The play-by-ear performers had
been reproducing Rock n Rollmusic imported from USA (where
it had evolved from black
Americas Boogie-Woogie). For
the performers, poets then
shadow-wrote songs such as
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
(LSD). Musicologist drew on
classical music (for instance,
Tchaikovsky and Borodin) and
EMI contributed with bankrolling
the issue of Parlaphone-labeldisks and promoting the new
compositions with radio broadcast
hours. This combination suddenly
pushed This combination suddenly
pushed UK and US national
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In the aftermath of the artificial, drop-out
subculture, two issues arose:
(1) The global South remained thick
with dissent. Developing nationssuspected that Northern elites were
keeping off manufacturing industry in the
South with an argument that small
industry would employ more people. At
the same time, India, China and the East
Asian Tiger economies were seendeveloping modern manufacturing. So
the anti-industrialisation fable began to
falter. Conscientious academe - in both
global South and North - had seen
through the scheme of Small is
Beautiful (Western protectionists
such as E F Schumacher and
Dudley Seers.)
(2) After the zenith of protest
rallies of the 1960s, the newlyinduced drug culture saw young
people not only drop out of rallies
and take to hippy lifestyle. Some
chose to become yuppies (young
upwardly mobile young people.)
They took it that the office shouldafford them a BMW if they were
singing along. So in both fashions,
yuppie and hippy, true commitment
to social and corporate institutions
began to fade. Anglo-American
innovation tapered off. Yet, how doyou still control the world?
A new fable was required so as to
keep the levers of control with the
dynastial Bold and Beautiful versus
assailant Chapman fired while on
Lennons right.)
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the world.
The new substance administered
was Free to Choose. The fable
was injected into media by Nobellaureate Milton Friedman from
1976.
Its consequence, a cult of Limitless
I, was tossed into countries
distant from the West like Sri
Lanka. Western news agencies(e.g. Reuter) and TV (e.g. CNN)
would out-muscle local journalists
and TV news presenters. Later, the
IMF / World Bank anchored this
Limitless I by using reforms that
dismantled or made dormantCentral Bank and other controls.
Ranging from Sri Lanka to the US,
Limitless I was to transform
logically into Limitless Obligation
for millions of ordinary households. Now - over to the astronaut
Behind the allure adapted from
advertising industry (Your Right to
Choose), it was Milton Friedmans task
to ensure that fat-cat financiers came
out winners. He had compiled part ofthis agenda in 1964, for Barry
Goldwater, Las Vegas casino mob
asset, to step into the shoes of slain
President Kennedy.
After President Reagan entered theWhite House with Milton Friedman
gaining the position at last in 1976 as
economics advisor to counter
Kennedys advisor J K Galbraith.
Private financiers got their free lunches;
you and me - Limitless Obligations.Next, the Anglo-American banks - that
the fat cats controlled - hid away the
private winnings, the banks knowing
that they could assuredly ask the
taxpayer for missing capital.
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Astronaut Leonov converses in Sri Lanka. Yuri Gagarinand Mark Twain stayed in same year-1857 hotel.
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Astronaut Leonov was on the list
of five people overseas whom
Arthur C Clarke named when Sri
Lanka decided to celebrate
Clarkes 90th birthday.
Undiscovered by the Nobel
committee, Clarke created the
concepts of the earth-orbiting
artificial satellite and the Internet
that help the world everyday.
Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry had selected
me, your narrator, to serve as Astronaut
Leonov's translator. The three days that I
served helped me benefit from the
experience of the person who now headsRussia's Space Academy. Our
relationship chanced to lead him to speak
openly, confiding much in me. When I was
seeing him off at the airport he left me with
the words,"I must now leave or else our
conversation will never end."
Leonov turned out to be a fancier of spicy
food. The hotel with verandah looking out
on the ocean also has lobster and crab in
abundance.
One day - as in the picture taken at table -
I put this question to him, "What is the
most important quality in a man?"
ALEXEI LEONOV FROM JET PILOT TO ASTRONAUT
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Leonov thought briefly and said, "The
ability to fight with oneself."
I understood him. Suppressing the selfhas been taught by sages including
those of the subcontinent where
Leonov was speaking. He was the first
man to walk outside a spaceship ever
and tragedy looked the mission in the
face because his spacesuit wasswelling to double-size in the vacuum
and wouldt enter the entry hatch. TV in
Moscow was playing classical music for
austerity and Leonov now struggled to
save both himself and the mission. His
body might succumb to pressure-equalisation for vaccum but he used
the release nipple of his suit to down-
size it.
Let me introduce counterpoint.
I was seated on the self-same sea-
front verandah with a second Clarke
guest. This was a PhD scientist
working for NASA. I asked him toowhat the most important quality in a
man was.
The scientist replied, Self-respect.
He meant well but the old norm was
undone towards Obsession withoneself for the Me Generation of
the 1970s.
Self-respect must be heard in the
context of the outlook of the era that
extends from Reagans comrade-at-arms Margaret Thatcher too. She
had announced, Theres no such
thing as society - there are only
individuals and families.
A popular song declares with no
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An iPhone with Me applied for icons
apparent sarcasm, I believe that the world should
revolve around me!Did swindlers like Bernard
Madoff need more prompting?
Earlier, SONY had got no
further than use BetaMax
and Walkman for names
when launching new
products. The latercommercial pandering to
self-adulation evoked
MyYahoo, WindowsMe,
iMac, iPod and iPhone. A
UK jewelry store calls itself
Me Me Me. With everyonedrifted into doing his own
thing I must get suspicious
of my neighbours agenda.
This follows naturally when
my neighbour claims fame
and gives everyone else theblame for ills in the street. I
GETTA DA FAME - U
GETTA DA BLAME.
Our possibility to share
useful information breaks
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down. To overcome dullness of
mind I turn to TV. There a machine-
wash recycles my mind.
An emptying loneliness? Videos
supply me with air-brushed andgilded starlets with whom to mingle
Ego.
Neighbourhood chat? My iPhone
takes me up, up and away to
MySpace on the Internet where Ican overcome the loneliness of life
in neighbourhood and office where
a post-US-USSR Arms Race
dividend has arrived. The dividend
arrived in the form of a new Cold
War of Each-against-the-Other.Regarding the war of Each-against-
the-Other, it was proposed by
pamphleteer Thomas Hobbes. He
suggested that a population could
be managed easiest by the
sovereign if society was atomised
to the individual.
Hobbes method was found
dangerous and was rejected byBritish statesmen in the 17th
Century. These statesmen were
correct; its introduction in the 20th
Century has triggered the
atomisation of society. In the UK,
consequently, innovation hastapered off and the country has
grown an external debt that is
larger per citizen than US debt.
issue. Jean M. Twenge and W.
Keith Campbell put their researchinto a book entitled, Me! Me! Me!
American's Narcissism Epidemic.
A brief excerpt follows below.
People strive to create a "personal
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brand" (also called "self-branding"),
packaging themselves like a product to
be sold. Ads for financial services
proclaim that retirement helps you
return to childhood and pursue yourdreams. High school students pummel
classmates and then seek attention for
their violence by posting YouTube
videos of the beatings.
Although these seem like a random
collection of current trends, all are
rooted in a single underlying shift in
the American psychology: the relentless
rise of narcissism in our culture. Not
only are there more narcissists than
ever, but non-narcissistic people are
seduced by the increasing emphasis on
material wealth, physical appearance,
celebrity worship, and attention
seeking. Standards have shifted,
sucking otherwise humble people into
the vortex of granite countertops,
tricked-out MySpace pages, and plastic
surgery. A popular dance track repeats
the words "money, success, fame,
glamour" over and over, declaring thatall other values have "either been
discredited or destroyed.
The United States is currently suffering
from an epidemic of narcissism In
data from 37,000 college students,narcissistic personality traits rose just
as fast as obesity from the 1980s to the
present, with the shift especially
pronounced for women.
The rise in narcissism is accelerating,with scores rising faster in the 2000s
than in previous decades. By 2006, 1
out of 4 college students agreed with
the majority of the items on a standard
measure of narcissistic traits
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"Celebrity narcissism: A bad
reflection for kids" is a report filed in
USA TODAY newspaper by Sharon
Jayson.
She interviews behavior expert and
physician Drew Pinsky and S. Mark
Young, a social scientist, on their
book "The Mirror Effect: How
Celebrity Narcissism Is SeducingAmerica."
She quotes: "It may be especially
dangerous for young people, who
view celebrities as role models."
Q: Let's begin with the title. What do
you mean by the "mirror effect," and
why do you say it's a problem?
A: I've been working with celebrities
many, many years. I've treated
many for chemical dependency and
the like. They have profound
childhood trauma. It's not
something to do with their job or
the life they lead. They just happento be people driven
people driven to seek celebrity as a
way to make themselves feel
better... We're taking someone who
needs to be a god and making them
a god.
Now to move onwards from the
US observations -- the godling
effect comes as corollary to
Limitless Choice. To have bitten
into this apple makes the victim
try to say No to obligation. In
the family, children subject to
programming by TV often say
No to guidance by an elder
(Madonnas handlers supplied
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the video Daddy Dont Preach!)
Besides the office, this bequeaths
aggression, cold war and
emptiness to the home too.
I was at a state-owned bank that
serves the public in Sri Lanka.
I was speaking with a worker with
around 20 years experience.
I asked him of two tall women bank
clerks, one a Hindu wearing a sari and
the other wearing a trouser suit and
Muslims head-scarf, Which of the two
women is smarter?
He said, Theres not much difference.
You see, young people are just
cunning and wont be responsible.
I had to call at the Post Office.
This also being a government
institution, I decided to query the
grey-haired postmaster. His
response was instantaneous, The
young are irresponsible.
What a sea change between the
two generations!
Later, on the midnight of Xmas eve2009 I chanced to hear a televised
transmission of mass from a
Catholic cathedral in north Colombo.
A teenager recited a prayer in Tamil
and followed up to perfection inSinhala. A short Sinhala sermon
was then delivered by a senior priest
and this was followed by a sermon
in Tamil because the neighbourhood
has a large Tamil l
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economy. That includes the
development of a port complex in
southern Sri Lanka and pipelines
overland for oil and natural gas from
Central Asia to China. Today the worldwaits on China that retained the
tradition of keeping one's Ego under
control, the principle that astronaut
Leonov mentioned.
* * *
An English friend asked me some
days ago , What do we do?
In benumbing times we shall need to
hold on in some sort of a fortress.
I responded, Old wine, old shoes and
old friends.
population. Yet, prayer and response
arose soon in Sinhala. Then came
singing in Tamil. Now this is the nation
that schemers tripped into warfare five
years after the use of Limitless Choice asa principle for the nation.
Looking at the world, the principle of
Limitless Choice led US foreign trade into
a huge dependence on imports. To foot
the bill for financing these imports, the USchose to depend on Chinas and other
savings arriving in the US for purchase of
Treasury bonds and commercial paper.
With the US in recession, the transfers of
these funds are being switched
elsewhere.
China is turning its foreign currency
earnings towards improving infrastructural
access for China's