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Magus, a friend of Signs of the Times and former 60s activist in the United States, looks back finds some answers to questions that have been haunting him for three decades.

Greetings from the Swamps of Eugnosia, Forum Friends and Passengers,The old Magus, being of a more formal time than this era we now traverse, simply cannot countenance warping the standards of his tastes so as to pronounce upon the Good Lady's journal such an unkind name as is "blog" (which resonates upon the tongue as though 'twere describing some misbegotten amphibious creature born in a bog on a log); to describe the Signs writ large and the one who writes them there, when both be filled with Graces and Fair indeed for the readers' eyes to behold, indulge me as I quote her sage advice. Taken from Maestra Laura's Missive, "How To Spot COINTELPRO Agents":
"How To Spot a Spy"

One way to neutralize a potential activist is to get them to be in a group that does all the wrong things. Why?

1) The message doesn't get out.

2) A lot of time is wasted

3) The activist is frustrated and discouraged

4) Nothing good is accomplished. FBI and Police Informers and Infiltrators will infest any group and they have phony activist organizations established.
And So, Gentle Reader Friends and Forumites, Look you back but a few Forum pages, and there will you espy the Magus did address himself a letter to another, the Good Lady Cindy of Sheehan, she who fights the BushLiars in her slain cub's name and does Noble Battle to save the cubs of all the other Mama Bears whose soldiering kinder do yet live. 'Twas in that epistle to Cindy Sheehan that the Magus described to you, and told you truly True, of the most likely theft, misdirection and futility of participation by all the millions of poor, humble, honest American citizen-prisoners in the phoniest of phony groups of a false opposition, those many well known dotted and undotted orgs.

Poor, hoodwinked and desperate to be heard and seen, to have effect one at all as yet, they've invested everything they had, as yet, into what could only be a False front collection of "opposition" and "progressive" groups. If the valuing of its sum total be rightfully placed upon the Proof of its Works, then this movement is most useful for GWB and his PTB Masters. They are benefiting enormously from the utter lack of any real and effective, organized opposition, a worldwide deficit, not just domestic.Said covert, more than highly likely COINTELPRO operations were most timely established, in the years immediately pre-junta, by the notorious, but, so we are told to believe, oh so very repentant Mr. George of Soros, Bilderberg mogul extraordinaire.Now, read again, what is quoted above, reposted at last for these perilous times. 'Tis from a document, a True Work, that I'd thought was long lost forever, and now, good but most painful to see, it has been returned to warn all Humanity. 'Twas written first by those of us, way back then, way back when, way back there while and after we'd first learned the hard Truths that it tells.

No, we never "quit" or "sold out" as they've sworn in all these years since. A covert, domestic COINTELPRO war took us out. At terrible costs for all of us, we fought with all we had back then. Helplessly we watched as, one by one, like pins in the bowling alley, our compañeros y compañeras began to fall. And never was there anyone or anything visible to whom we could assign even suspicion, let alone any blame.In every community, in every human rights, civil rights, democracy advocacy, labor rights, voting rights, womens rights, gay rights and anti-war group or organization, no matter how small, peripheral or fringe, all of our Leaders, our Doers, our Thinkers, our Organizers, our Musicians and Artists and Poets, all of our greatest Lovers of Humanity, and our Trying-To-Be-Liberators of all started getting killed in random murders, suicides and fatal accidents, along about 1968 and onward.

It was as though some plague were sweeping through our ranks, despite that we were young, strong and filled with determination and the highest of ideals and goals.They began arresting us by the thousands, from 1968 onward, and especially after the launching of the "War on Drugs" against us in 1972. Any counterculture figure, from any walk of life, no matter how noble and saintly, no matter how unknown or insignificant in the overall, nationwide picture, every local "star" that shown began being suddenly arrested, charged with offenses beyond the scope of his or her imagining let alone commission, then summarily convicted for crimes done when and where they hadn't even been there. No amounts of exculpatory evidence or eyewitnesses, no airtight alibis well documented proved an obstacle to convictions and harsh sentences.Right after the Manson and Einhorn cases had turned judges and juries against us all, from mid 1970 onward, the minimum sentence for a radical anywhere in this country seemed to have suddenly become 10 years, in maximum security, for spitting on the sidewalk, and the cops carried the vials of "spit" in their own pockets to provide all the necessary "evidence."

That's what Jeff St. Clair got, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, 10 years hard time for having two joints in his shirt pocket in late 1970, a charge that should have been a misdemeanor, and would have been, just a couple of short years before. The rest of the local "stars" and the less visible but oh so key people with real dedication and the ablility to produce, by way of hard, long hours of work and more work, those who got results moving anyone or anything in a pro-human rights direction of any kind, or pro-equality, pro-organization, or anti-war, began simply, suddenly vanishing. The most common way was by "moving," to another city or another country, just leaving in the middle of the night, or over a weekend, or going home to visit the folks and never coming back. They were suddenly gone, to places far away that had never been mentioned before, for the flimsiest excuses, leaving no forwarding addresses for friends and movement associates who'd been like family for several years.

Many of them left all of their worldly belongings behind to be "forwarded." But, the three compañeros I lost that way never did contact anyone to send them their stuff. The Magus, being ever faithful, still has quite a few treasured things he'd love to give back to his long gone, lost best friends of 1970.Many others were found dead or with their fine brains permanently burned out by overdoses of drugs they'd never been near to at all, or else by suddenly lethal potencies of drugs that they'd taken safely, off and on, or recreationally, for years before without either hard addiction or other ill effects. Janis Joplin and Jimmi Hendricks are the two best known examples, but such happened in every community of activists, especially to the "local stars" and hardest workers. By the time the final SLA group was slaughtered, burned to cinders down to the last woman and child in 1977, in the crawlspace beneath their Philadelphia safe house, the movement was gone.

Those of us left alive had been stricken by a mysterious malady of our minds. Thanks to the Good Lady Laura, to whom he is forever indebted for finally making it all make sense, the Magus now understands that we were bombarded with brain wave manipulations galore, our thoughts disrupted frequently by mind control technologies and EM bursts. Those of us who have made it back to full clarity and intellect have paid an enormous cost in damages to our bodies and health. No one I know who was in the movement then is truly healthy even now, and many are, despite their outer appearances of normality and full function of intellect, incapable of focusing their attention on topics more threatening or disturbing than whether the dog needs to go for a walk, not to this day. There is something precious and deep that has literally been burned out of them. While they still oppose the totalitarians, they cannot organize the actions of their own lives well enough to do anything concrete, like blogging or writing to politicians, and, for some reason, they are forever meaning to do these things then failing to follow through. The only term that fits them is the walking shattered. The new diagnosis that has been created, mostly just to describe them, is "Adult Onset Attention Deficit Disorder".

But, gentle reader friends, they had no such deficits when they worked tirelessly to free us all, way back then, way back when, when we fought tyranny as one tribe of young lions together.To this day, the Magus has yet to have encountered other former 60s-70s activists who can, and do, clearly, sequentially and with full integration, remember precisely when and why did the action, the movement stop, as to their own active participation in it. To nearly all of us, memories of the years 1972 to 1975 through 1977 to 1980 are patchy, disjointed, "foggy." Everything is sharp before that and after that, but those 5 years are "blurry." Funny thing, even for the next 10 years after that, taking any active step to organize, speak out, campaign and oppose anything just did not, would not could not come to mind and stay there long enough to actually do anything. Not even for himself, the Magus is sad to say, was any active Work, such as resuming his lifelong esoteric studies, possible until sometime around 1990 or so.It was as though it was simply impossible to focus on anything farther from one's self than the immediate family and a job.

That was ALL we could do. Notice that even Joan Baez has just now been able to make it out of her seclusion and get semi-active again, despite her having tried to do so with the Farm Aid concerts, twice, at their very start, in the 80s, she just couldn't; she managed to do one concert and that was it, until the past couple of years. And FOR JUST HOW MANY OTHERS IS THIS TRUE? Write the list yourselves of the many musicians, artists and poets who've gone into long obscurity and decline to barely begin to now arise again.Consider, oh please do, younger reader friends: People who were so active, so dedicated, focused and sincere as we do NOT just fade into the woodwork, from a certain year onward, never to go out and Work again. Yet, for the most part, that is exactly what has happened to all the 60s activists. When historical documentaries are on, even Woodstock, I cannot watch them. It literally plays hell with my brain to do so. It hurts like the worst kind of migraine but deeper, broader than that. Another big piece of the puzzle is that, from 1972 onward, the MSM and press coverage of ALL activism came in only 1 format: NO MENTION AT ALL unless negative.

And, not coincidentally, between 1972 and 1975, first cocaine and then its evil sister, Disco, arrived. Mass mind control? Oh yeah, brain, mind, body and heart rot supreme to a relentless beat.Then, from 1977 to 1980, the AIDS epidemic struck and was ignored completely. It was deliberately left to ravish the last remnants of the intellectual brilliance, organizational skills, drive and creative talents of a generation that had launched a powerful, nearly successful rebellion against tyranny in any form, building gratefully upon the works and with the help of the Depression era populists, the union folks and the civil rights workers who marched and worked in solidarity with us. By 1990, almost no one was left from the radical 60s who might have been able to step up into any leadership role, or to guide and encourage the youth of the next generation. Robbed of older peers by all of this, and being told the Lies that the "irresponsible and selfish Baby Boomers all just sold out," they sadly became and called themselves "Generation X".

They still do not know the Truth of what had really happened to those "Boomers" who should have been there to mentor and nurture and welcome and work with them. Anyone who might once have filled that role was gone, at least in mind, or in jail, or mental institutions, or graves. The Lies proclaiming "the Boomers sold out" have reigned for 35 years. But Woodstock is not all that we were and did, nor does it tell the tale truly, my friends, nor fairly, nor do ought than painting the lot of us clowns. But, we were Truth's fighters, and they took us down. The Magus tells Truly because he was there, and right to this minute, old wounds bring him tears. Yet, obviously, he never quit: He IS here. A Posteritous Admonition"How To Spot A Spy" you must learn truly for yourselves.

I bid you do, please, now, my Friends, Mark these Facts I tell.

Police accounts and "histories" may have recorded else,

But we were naive victims of fell Liars and foul Stealth. Be wiser. Be forewarned, then Be less gullible than we.

Be smarter and Be bolder, and then, most of all, Be Free.

Be all that you can Be, and you'll Become all that you must,

And do not put your trust in those the easiest to trust.Bidding You Fondest Delighting in Truths and Things Real,

Magus