ghostgotcha Loc: The Florida swamps

One can only assume that unless you lived through the gross stupidity of the sixties -- "anti-everything good" -- generation you would never suspect they tried to lift the pentagon and shake out all the bad people..... Well sorta, but consider the actors while you read forward.


It was 1967, and sentiment against the Vietnam War was in the air nationwide. The counterculture was flourishing on the heels of the Summer of Love. Organizers from Mobe — the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam — initially called for a massive march on Washington. When activists Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman got involved, a plan was hatched to exorcise and levitate the Pentagon (which would, of course, have the secondary effect of ending the war). When the day came, about 100,000 protesters gathered at the Lincoln Memorial as part of what seemed like a typical Washington, D.C., rally. After the speeches from David Dellinger and Benjamin Spock, and after the Peter, Paul and Mary performance wrapped up, about half the crowd marched over the Memorial Bridge to the Pentagon.

This is when things got interesting. Several hundred people — led by Abbie Hoffman, Allen Ginsberg, the Fugs and others — started chanting and singing, since, as Time magazine dutifully explained:

Hoping by chanting ancient Aramaic exorcism rites while standing in a circle around the building, the idiots actually thought they could get it to rise into the air, turn orange and vibrate until all evil emissions had fled.

Beforehand, research had been conducted on the proper components of an exorcism ceremony, including purification, calling upon the elements, surrounding the Pentagon with cornmeal, singing and shrieking.

Meanwhile, on another side of the building, several thousand federal troops — soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division — and a couple hundred U.S. marshals tried to protect the Pentagon steps using tear gas, rifle butts and arrests to stay on top of the chaos. Norman Mailer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “nonfiction novel” The Armies of the Night recounts the scene there, including the author’s arrest and subsequent overnight imprisonment while hoping to make it back to New York in time for a cocktail party.

Today; No one claims that the Pentagon actually moved. Maybe there was a mistake in the incantation. But this fabulous spectacle, an absurdist response to the absurdist reality, served as a predecessor to many creative actions over the past 45 years

"And continue today!"

http://cine.gorkareta.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/la-sixieme-face-du-pentagone.gif

Docadhoc Loc: Elsewhere

Ahh, the 60s. It's amazing how a not uncommon forest mushroom can cloud one's thinking processes.