The Konformist
K2K1 April 2001
Home Page Related Links Classified Ads What's Hot!!! Regular Issues Special Issues Beast Of The Month Robalini The Vault Klearinghouse	Russ Kick editor, Disinformation Books pub-editor, alterNewswire <<www.alternewswire.com> contributor, Village Voice, Gauntlet, Disinformation  ******************************  Disinformation Publishes First Book For Immediate Release: You Are Being Lied To  PDF Sampler New York, NY - March 12, 2001 - The Disinformation Company (http://www.disinfo.com) releases its first guide book today, entitled, You Are Being Lied To: The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths." The book marks The Disinformation Company's entry into the world of publishing. The Disinformation Company is already well-known among alternative thinkers for its award-winning counterculture web site Disinformation (http://www.disinfo.com) and proven success in media crossover with the hit TV series Disinfo Nation in its second season on Britain's Channel 4. You Are Being Lied To is the first publication by Disinformation Books. The editor, Russ Kick, is the author of two widely-praised guides to alternative thought and culture - Outposts and Psychotropedia, as well as a regular contributor to The Village Voice. It includes articles by over 60 well-known authors, including Noam Chomsky, Howard Bloom, Riane Eisler, Douglas Rushkoff, Howard Zinn, R.U. Sirius, and Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter Sydney Schanberg. Each essay taps into the deep distrust and discontent in the US, and proves this distrust is well founded. Wild speculation is not found in this title, only hard facts. This book acts as a battering ram against the distortions, myths, and outright lies that the public has been force-fed by the government, the media, corporations, organized religion, the scientific community and others. Among the revelations in the book are Noam Chomsky's assessment of news as propaganda and media as big business, Sydney Schanberg on John McCain's efforts to conceal information on POW/MIAs, and Michael Parenti on the so-called atrocities in Kosovo. The Disinformation Company President, Gary Baddeley, commented on the book, "This is a really exciting new venture for us - from the time we started the company we had some offers from large publishers, but the deals were so horrible that we couldn't bring ourselves to do it. Now that we are part of Razorfish Studios we have the resources to produce, market, and distribute books of the highest quality." Regarding the financials of the book, he added, "I'm even more excited now that I've seen how pre-sales are going - the entire print run is going to sell out before it even hits retail." You Are Being Lied To will hit retail bookshelves the first week of April and the 400 page collection will sell for a mere $19.95. It is also available for download in e-book form at The Disinformation Store (http://store.disinfo.com).   About The Disinformation Company The Disinformation Company is a subsidiary of Razorfish Studios, Inc. Razorfish Studios (www.razorfishstudios.com) is a privately held entertainment company with offices in New York and Los Angeles. The company owns Self-Timer Films, producers of American Movie and Being John Malkovich, The Disinformation Company (www.disinfo.com), BUST magazine (www.bust.com), and Razorfish Subnetwork (www.rsub.com). Razorfish Studios was formed in 1997 by Razorfish (NASDAQ: RAZF) co-founders, Jeff Dachis and Craig Kanarick.   Contact To schedule an interview with the editor, to obtain a review copy of the book, or for more information, contact Jeff Canzona at jcanzona@rsub.net or 212.798.6439. ****************************** Alex Burns (alex@disinfo.com)   You Are Being Lied To The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths edited by Russ Kick   published by Disinformation Books ISBN 096641007-6 * $19.95   Everybody once believed the Earth was flat. Do you believe any of the following?   Alcoholics Anonymous is effective The Big Bang is scentific fact Most terrorists are Middle Eastern Thousands of species have become extinct because of deforestation   Guess what? You Are Being Lied To! Uncover the truth with Disinformation's new book: You Are Being Lied To, a 400+ page volume that acts as a battering ram against the distortions, myths and outright lies that have been shoved down our throats by the government, the media, corporations, organized religion, the scientific establishment and others who want to keep the truth from us. Editor Russ Kick (Psychotropedia, Outposts) has assembled the greatest minds of our times, from Noam Chomsky and Michael Parenti, to Howard Bloom and Riane Eisler. You Are Being Lied To dispenses with speculation and theorizing, cutting right to the bone, with fact after substantiated fact. Among the book's many revelations:   Noam Chomsky explains what makes mainstream media mainstream Douglas Rushkoff surveys the New Information War David McGowan exposes president George W. Bush's darkest secret Dan Russell rediscovers roots of America's War Against Drugs Howard Bloom on why music PR became the media's puppet David Loye discovers why Charles Darwin didn't advocate Selfish Genes Judith Rich Harris argues why you can't blame your parents Gary Webb rewrites the corporate media's rules for the new millennium Michael Parenti makes public the media-created atrocities in Kosovo Howard Zinn re-appraises the historical truth about Columbus Peter Russell describes the New Cosmology Riane Eisler tells how you can be truly human Jim Marrs uncovers what the Official Version is missing Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon disclose the MLK we never knew Sam Smith considers why the media love to hate Oliver Stone Michael A. Cremo unearths our evolutionary anomalies Mark Pesce launches the Church of the Motherfucker R.U. Sirius suggests why media fabricated reports that Timothy Leary was a counterculture 'snitch'   You Are Being Lied To also features writers from the award-winning Web site Disinformation, the critically acclaimed Disinfo Nation television series (first screened on UK's Channel 4) and Disinfo.con, the huge counterculture conference, first held in New York City in February 2000. Helmed by founders Richard Metzger and Gary Baddeley, The Disinformation Company Ltd synthesizes the strangest, freakiest, and most disturbing news and phenomena in order to balance the homogenized, sanitized and policed fare that is found in the traditional media. As a special offer to our disinfo.net users, pre-order your copy of You Are Being Lied To from http://store.disinfo.com and not only will you save 20% off the $19.95 cover price, but you will be able to immediately download a FREE e-book copy. You know you want it. Submit to temptation.   The complete contents of You Are Being Lied To:   About Disinformation® 5 Introduction 6   K E Y N O T E A D D R E S S Reality Is a Shared Hallucination | Howard Bloom 12   THE NEWS MEDIA AND OTHER MANIPULATOR S What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream | Noam Chomsky 20 Journalists Doing Somersaults | Norman Solomon 25 The Puppets of Pandemonium | Howard Bloom 29 New Rules for the New Millennium | Gary Webb 38 The Covert News Network | Greg Bishop 40 Why Does the Associated Press Change Its Articles? | Russ Kick 44 We Distort, You Abide | Kenn Thomas 47 The Media and Their Atrocities | Michael Parenti 51 Making Molehills Out of Mountains | Marni Sullivan 56 Why They Hate Oliver Stone | Sam Smith 60 The Martin Luther King You Don't See on TV | Jeff Cohen & Norman Solomon 63 Sometimes Lying Means Only Telling a Small Part of the Truth | R.U. Sirius, with Michael Horowitz & Friends of Timothy Leary 64 Upon Hearing of the Electronic Bogeyman | George Smith 66 School Textbooks | Earl Lee 73 The Information Arms Race | Douglas Rushkoff 82   P O L I T R I C K S The War Secrets Senator John McCain Hides | Sydney Schanberg 88 Jimmy Carter and Human Rights | Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon 95 All the President's Men | David McGowan 97 Oil Before Ozone | Russ Kick 101 God Save the President! | Robin Ramsay 107 Colony Kosovo | Christian Parenti 111 The Truth About Terrorism | Ali Abunimah 114 You Can't Win | James Ridgeway 117   OFFICIAL V E R S I O N S Anatomy of a School Shooting | David McGowan 124 How the People Seldom Catch Intelligence | Preston Peet 128 Reassessing OKC | Cletus Nelson 139 Votescam | Jonathan Vankin 143 The Rabin Murder Cover-up | Barry Chamish 147 What's Missing from This Picture? | Jim Marrs 152   THE SOCIAL F A B R I C A T I O N Don't Blame Your Parents | interview with Judith Rich Harris 164 The Female Hard-on | Tristan Taormino 170 Art and the Eroticism of Puberty | David Steinberg 172 "A World That Hates Gays" | Philip Jenkins 176 Apt Pupils | Robert Sterling 187 A Panic of Biblical Proportions over Media Violence | Paul McMasters 194 The Man in the Bushes | interview with Philip Jenkins 196   THE BIG PICTURE Will the Real Human Being Please Stand Up? | Riane Eisler 328 You Are Being Lied To: A Disinformation Books Roundtable | Alex Burns 335 I Have Met God and He Lives in Brooklyn | Richard Metzger 347 Church of the Motherfucker | Mark Pesce 354 A Sentient Universe | Peter Russell 356 A Lost Theory? | David Loye 359   TRIPPING Drug War Mythology | Paul Armentano 234 Toad-Licking Blues | Thomas Lyttle 241 Poppycock | Jim Hogshire 245 AA Lies | Charles Bufe 254 The Unconscious Roots of the Drug War | Dan Russell 261   BLINDED BY SCIENCE Environmentalism for the Twenty-First Century | Patrick Moore 296 Humans Have Already Been Cloned | Russ Kick 304 NutraFear & NutraLoathing in Augusta, Georgia | Alex Constantine 307 Forbidden Archaeology | Michael A. Cremo 311 There Is So Much That We Don't Know | William R. Corliss 316   CONDEMNED TO REPEAT IT Amnesia in America | James Loewen 202 Columbus and Western Civilization | Howard Zinn 205 Go Out and Kill People Because This Article Tells You To | Nick Mamatas 214 Saving Private Power | Michael Zezima 219 What I Didn't Know About the Communist Conspiracy | Jim Martin 227   H O L Y R O L L I N G The Truth About Jesus | M.M. Mangasarian 272 The Bible Code | David Thomas 278 Mystics and Messiahs | interview with Philip Jenkins 286 Who's Who in Hell | interview with Warren Allen Smith 290   Appendix A: More Lies, Myths, and Manipulations | Russ Kick 364 Appendix B: More Reading | Russ Kick 375 Contributors and Interviewees 392 Article Histories 399   You Are Being Lied To will be released on March 15, 2001, and will be available from all good book-stores and Web sites. ****************************** You Are Being Lied To The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths edited by Russ Kick published by Disinformation Books (a division of RSUB) 400 pp * $19.95 * 0966410076 http://store.disinfo.com/cgi-bin/disinfo/goto.html?mv_arg=dsyablt00001bk Table of Contents (annotated)     About Disinformation Introduction/A Note to Readers     KEYNOTE ADDRESS   Reality Is a Shared Hallucination Howard Bloom: author of The Lucifer Principle and Global Brain; founder of the International Paleopsychology Project "Individual perception untainted by others' influence does not exist."     THE NEWS MEDIA AND OTHER MANIPULATORS   What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream Noam Chomsky: preeminent linguist and political dissident commentator; author of over 35 books "The real mass media are basically trying to divert people."   Journalists Doing Somersaults Norman Solomon: media watchdog; syndicated columnist ("Media Beat"); author of over 10 books "Today, just six corporations have a forceful grip on America's mass media."   The Puppets of Pandemonium Howard Bloom "So I am angry at the press. I am angry at its dishonesty. I am infuriated by its moral corruption. I am disgusted with its laziness and lack of intellectual independence."   New Rules for the New Millennium Gary Webb: Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter; author of the explosive "Dark Alliance" series and book "The rules are being changed, and they are being changed in such a way as to ensure that our government and our major corporations won't be bothered by nettlesome investigative journalists in the new millennium."   The Covert News Network Greg Bishop: publisher The Excluded Middle; editor of Wake Up Down There! "As one can imagine, the history of the US intelligence community's relationship to the news media is a long and sordid one."   Why Does the Associated Press Change Its Articles? Russ Kick: editor of You Are Being Lied To; author of Outposts and Psychotropedia; regular contributor to the Village Voice "What I desperately want to know is: Who called the AP in the intervening hour and got them to yank those fourteen words? Who really calls the shots at the AP? Who gets the most prominent print-news organization to change its stories to protect the President, the Congress, the World Bank/IMF, and other powerful parties?"   We Distort, You Abide Kenn Thomas: publisher of Steamshovel Press magazine; author of nine books "The writer Arthur Koestler coined the phrase 'bisociation' as the process by which new insights are gained through correlations between disparate sources.... At a time when shifting bisociative contexts should abound, the World Wide Web resembles more the outmoded newsstand, with every magazine reporting the same news from the same angle, or the uniform coverage of the three TV networks in the days before cable."   The Media and Their Atrocities Michael Parenti: leading progressive thinker and radical historian; author of ten books, including Against Empire "For the better part of a decade the US public has been bombarded with a media campaign to demonize the Serbian people and their elected leaders."   Making Molehills Out of Mountains: How the US Media Downplay and Distort the Conflict in Northern Ireland Marni Sullivan: freelance writer who has appeared in Skin Art, LA Reader, LA Weekly, and numerous alternative music magazines "Most people, especially Americans, seem to believe that a great deal of the trouble comes from religious intolerance. Much of this stereotype results from a lack of understanding of the issues, which in turn results from a lack of information."   Why They Hate Oliver Stone Sam Smith: editor of Progressive Review; author of four books, including the upcoming Why Bother?: Getting a Life in a Locked Down Land "No, Stone's crime was not that his movie presents a myth, but that he had the audacity and power to challenge the myths of his critics."   The Martin Luther King You Don't See On TV Jeff Cohen: media watchdog; syndicated columnist; author of four books; founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) Norman Solomon "King didn't take a sabbatical near the end of his life. In fact, he was speaking and organizing as diligently as ever. Almost all of those speeches were filmed or taped. But they're not shown today on TV."   Sometimes Lying Means Only Telling a Small Part of the Truth R.U. Sirius: founder and original editor of Mondo 2000; freelance writer; 2000 Presidential candidate for the Revolution Party "Back in late June 1999, brief items appeared in papers and newsweeklies across the country telling us that anti-authoritarian counterculturalist Timothy Leary was 'an FBI informant.'"   Upon Hearing of the Electronic Bogeyman George Smith: editor of the Crypt newsletter; author of The Virus Creation Labs "The mainstream and very public line regarding the threat to the nation's well-being presented by hackers, electronic terrorists, and unseen cyber-warriors from "rogue states" has been quite clear-cut.... But a shocking amount of the rhetoric is based purely on the equivalent of modern-day ghost stories, exacerbated by the mainstream media's lack of understanding of computer technology and its love for exaggerated sensationalism."   School Textbooks: Unpopular History vs. Cherished Mythology? Earl Lee: radical librarian; freelance writer; author of two books "One of the most pervasive and yet poorly understood influences on American society is the high school textbook. Thanks to the virtual monopoly of public education, textbook publishers have a wide-ranging power to shape the ideas of young people. In reality, however, textbooks do more to misinform and mislead than almost any other print media."   The Information Arms Race Douglas Rushkoff: syndicated columnist; NPR commentator; author of several books, including Coercion, Media Virus, and Ecstasy Club "Unless we can have just as much of an effect on the director, writer, producer, or journalist as he has on us, we are not involved in a communication. We are merely the recipients of programming. Even the so-called 'interactive' media, like computer games and most Websites, simply allow for the user to experience a simulation of free choice."     POLITRICKS   The War Secrets Senator John McCain Hides: Former POW Fights Public Access to POW/MIA Files Sydney Schanberg: Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter; subject of the Academy Award-winning film The Killing Fields; author The Death and Life of Dith Pran; head of the investigative team at APBnews.com "Over the years in Washington, McCain, at times almost single-handedly, has pushed through Pentagon-desired legislation to make it impossible or much harder for the public to acquire POW/MIA information and much easier for the defense bureaucracy to keep it hidden.... Literally thousands of documents that would otherwise have been declassified long ago have been legislated into secrecy."   Jimmy Carter and Human Rights: Behind the Media Myth Jeff Cohen Norman Solomon "During his presidency, Carter proclaimed human rights to be 'the soul of our foreign policy.' Although many journalists promoted that image, the reality was quite different."   All the President's Men: Nazis, the Attempted Assassin, and the Serial Killer David McGowan: freelance writer; author of Derailing Democracy: The America the Media Don't Want You to See "The truth is that the Bush family closet is so jammed with skeletons that it is a wonder that they can still get the door closed. I'm betting that come election day there will be at least three troubling stories that will remain safely locked away there. Any one of these could have posed serious problems for the Bush candidacy; a wide airing of all three would undoubtedly permanently end Little George's political career."   Oil Before Ozone: And Other Huge Problems with Al Gore Russ Kick "Whether you approve or disapprove of Gore's handling of the environment, abortion, Israel, and other issues is going to depend on your politics. We can also debate the importance of his personality and upbringing. But his hypocrisy, exaggerations, outright lies, unethical activities, unsavory associates (including communist spies), and lovey-dovey relationship with big-money interests should upset everyone, regardless of political views."   God Save the President!: How Britain Became the US's Lackey Robin Ramsay: editor and publisher of Lobster magazine; author of two books "Britain has been treated rather more like the socalled banana republics of Central America and the Caribbean than its rulers would have us realize."   Colony Kosovo Christian Parenti: freelance writer; author of Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis "Rather than a multiethnic democracy, Kosovo is shaping up to be a violent, corrupt, free-market colony erected on the foundation of a massive lie."   The Truth about Terrorism Ali Abunimah: peace activist; media analyst "The State Department's report, Patterns of Global Terrorism, 1999, published on May 1, 2000, flatly contradicts the government's statements about terrorism, as well as the general public's perception of the phenomenon."   You Can't Win James Ridgeway: Washington correspondent of the Village Voice; author of sixteen books, including Blood in the Face; producer and director of documentaries, including Feed "Beginning in the early 1980s in Bill Clinton's Arkansas, the American blood supply was poisoned." "The feds claimed no real harm resulted from the huge, purposely-set Cerro Grande wildfire, which burned approximately 8000 acres and nearly overran a plutonium stockpile." "The US Secret Service was laying the groundwork until quite recently for a photo database of ordinary citizens collected from state motor vehicles departments."     OFFICIAL VERSIONS   Anatomy of a School Shooting David McGowan "On May 15, 2000, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office released the official report on the shooting deaths of fifteen people at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado..... Yet strangely enough, the press representatives closest to the scene, both socially and geographically, have reported facts about the case that don't appear to fit into the official scenario."   How the People Seldom Catch Intelligence: Or, How to Be a Successful Drug Dealer Preston Peet: contributing editor at Disinformation; regular contributor to High Times magazine and Website "One would have to intentionally not look in order to miss the copious amounts of evidence of CIA-sanctioned and -protected drug-trafficking, even in LA, that exist today in the public record; the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence succeeds admirably, disregarding sworn testimony and government reports, and ignoring what agents on the ground at the scene have to say."   Reassessing OKC: The Truck-Bomb Hoax Cletus Nelson: freelance writer; contributing editor at Disinformation "From day one, a surfeit of scientific anomalies and inexplicable events have surrounded the allegedly airtight case against the two men. Indeed, despite widespread public belief that the crime has been solved, a number of looming questions remain unanswered."   Votescam Jonathan Vankin: freelance writer; author of several books, including Conspiracies, Cover-Ups and Crimes and 70 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time "On election night, when the three major television networks announce the next president, the winner they announce is not chosen by the voters of the United States. He is the selection of the three networks themselves, through a company they own jointly with Associated Press and United Press International. That company is called News Election Service (NES).... The US government does not tabulate a single vote. The government has granted NES a legal monopoly, exempt from antitrust laws, to count the votes privately."   The Rabin Murder Coverup Barry Chamish: author of six books, including Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin and The Last Days of Israel "Yigal Amir was not just a religious kid who got mad one night and shot a prime minister. He had an intelligence background."   What Missing from This Picture? Jim Marrs: author of numerous scripts, columns, and books, including the JFK classic Crossfire and the UFO classic Alien Agenda "Missing evidence has become a hallmark of American politics. Apparently the idea is that, circumstances notwithstanding, if there's no proof then there can be no guilt."     THE SOCIAL FABRICATION   Don't Blame You Parents interview with Judith Rich Harris: Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of The Nurture Assumption "The evidence I've put together in my book indicates that parents have little or no long-term effect on their children's personality, intelligence, or mental health."   The Female Hard-on Tristan Taormino: Village Voice columnist; editor of radical lesbian magazine On Our Backs; editor of the Best Lesbian Erotica series; author of The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women "The truth is that 40 percent of American women experience some form of sexual dysfunction. It's actually a bigger problem than it is for men (30 percent suffer from some form of dysfunction), and yet all the money and research has focused on the boys."   Art and the Eroticism of Puberty David Steinberg: columnist and freelance writer of sexual culture/politics; editor of Erotic by Nature and The Erotic Impulse "In general, the designated pervert of any given era will be whoever most threatens to overturn the prevailing myth of asexual innocence."   "A World That Hates Gays": Is There Really a Gay Teen Suicide Epidemic? Philip Jenkins: Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies; author of fourteen books, including Using Murder and Moral Panic "Through the 1990s, it was common to claim that gay victims represented perhaps a third of the teen suicide 'epidemic,' and this figure became simply a social fact, something that 'everybody knows'.... In fact, estimates for the level of gay teen suicide are quite misleading and wildly inflated."   Apt Pupils Robert Sterling: editor and publisher of the Konformist Website; freelance writer "The true purpose behind the Western schooling system was to transform the young into killers.... Could such a phenomenon such as social persecution develop independently across nearly every high school in the country without it being a byproduct of some design?"   A Panic of Biblical Proportions over Media Violence Paul McMasters: First Amendment Ombudsman at the Freedom Forum; executive director of the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center "It would be impossible to produce a list of 1,000 studies that state an unequivocally causal link between media and 'aggressive behavior' in children, let alone violent acts by children. Yet this 'fact' has been tossed about so often by politicians and activists that even professionals and scholars feel safe in using it."   The Man in the Bushes: Mythkiller Philip Jenkins Deconstructs Serial Killers, Child Molesters, and Other Scary People interview with Philip Jenkins "The best breakdown of known American serial-killer cases is by Eric Hickey, who finds substantial numbers of women and minorities as serial killers." "The idea of child abuse is so deeply ingrained in our society that it seems absolutely obvious that all sensible people, everywhere, will think likewise unless they are deeply sick. To the contrary, even this absolute orthodoxy is in fact very new in historic terms."     CONDEMNED TO REPEAT IT   Amnesia in America: Or, The Sociology of Forgetting James Loewen: University of Vermont professor; author of several books, including Lies My Teacher Told Me and Lies Across America "The ideology of progress lets historians sequester repugnant people and events, from racists to robber barons, in the distant past, so we don't have to worry about them now."   Columbus and Western Civilization Howard Zinn: Boston University professor emeritus; author of several books, including the classic A People's History of the United States "In Columbus' journal, an entry of September 1498 reads: 'From here one might send, in the name of the Holy Trinity, as many slaves as could be sold...'" "The argument about children 'not being ready to hear the truth' does not account for the fact that in American society, when the children grow up, they still are not told the truth."   Go Out and Kill People Because This Article Told You To: The Political History of the First Amendment Nick Mamatas: freelance writer/columnist; editor of Soft Skull Press; coauthor of Kwangju Diary "It seems that nearly everyone, from pornographers and bomb-throwers, to holy rollers and goose-steppers, are just sure that the secret cabal of wealthy landowners who founded this country would be so eager to read their tracts and pamphlets."   Saving Private Power: The Hidden History of "The Good War" Michael Zezima: freelance writer; author of Saving Private Power "American lives weren't sacrificed in a holy war to avenge Pearl Harbor nor to end the Nazi Holocaust, just as the Civil War wasn't fought to end slavery. WWII was about territory, power, control, money, and imperialism. Sure, the Allies won and ultimately, that's a very good thingbut it doesn't mean they did it fair and square."   What I Didn't Know About the Communist Conspiracy Jim Martin: editor and publisher of Flatland magazine; proprietor of Flatland Books; author of Wilhelm Reich and the Cold War "These messages revealed an extensive Soviet espionage apparatus operating in Washington, New York, and San Francisco throughout the war years. The FBI, working in cooperation with cryptoanalysts at the National Security Agency, had identified many US government officials at a wide range of federal agencies."     TRIPPING   Drug War Mythology Paul Armentano: Senior Policy Analyst for the NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) Foundation in Washington, DC "In 1998, police arrested 682,885 Americans for marijuana offenses, more than the total number of arrestees for all violent crimes combined, including murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault."   Toad Licking Blues Thomas Lyttle: freelance writer; publisher and editor of Psychedelic Monographs and Essays; editor of several books "It is important to note that bufoteninea minor constituent of all Bufo toad venomsis not hallucinogenic."   Poppycock: Truth and Lies about Poppies, Opium, and Painkilling Drugs Jim Hogshire: freelance writer; author of several books, including Sell Yourself to Science and Opium for the Masses "Prosecutions for crimes involving opium or opium poppies are rare. But that has less to do with the frequency of poppy crimes and everything to do with suppressing information about the opium poppy."   AA Lies Charles Bufe: freelance writer; publisher of See Sharp Press; author of numerous books, including Alcoholics Anonymous: CultÝ or Cure? "There are probably more myths and misconceptions about Alcoholics Anonymous, America's most sacrosanct institution, than there are about any other mass organization in our country.... AA is not only far from the only way to deal with an alcohol problem, but the best available scientific evidence indicates that it is ineffective."   The Unconscious Roots of the Drug War Dan Russell: proprietor of Frontier Herbs, the largest herb and health food distributor in the US; author of two books, including Drug War: Covert Money, Power & Policy "The Drug War can't be separated from the cultural compulsion of our conquistador history."     HOLY ROLLING   The Truth about Jesus: Is He A Myth? M.M. Mangasarian (1859-1943): prolific freethought writer and lecturer; author of six books "We have in the story of the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus, an ancient and nearly universal Sun-myth, instead of verifiable historical events."   The Bible Code: Scientific, Statistical Proof of God? Or Just Another Lie? David Thomas: physicist; president of New Mexicans for Science and Reason; Skeptical Inquirer consulting editor "The promoters of hidden-message claims say, 'How could such amazing coincidences be the product of random chance?' I think the real question should be, 'How could such coincidences not be the inevitable product of a huge sequence of trials on a large, essentially random database?'"   Mystics and Messiahs: Mythkiller Philip Jenkins Unravels the Gospel about "Cults" interview with Philip Jenkins "One criterion that people try to use to differentiate cults from churches is that cults have no roots in a given society, that they are new outbreaks of alien ideas. By those standards, there are no cults. The example I use is that America had Rosicrucians and alchemists before it had Methodists, so the occult is nothing new - we have groups organized by the 1690s."   Who's Who in Hell: His Secular Holiness, Warren Allen Smith, Reveals the Hidden Legacy of Non-Belief interview with Warren Allen Smith: freethought activist and writer; author of Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists "Playwright Arthur Miller, for example, when asked what kind of humanist he is, replied that it depends on the day.... Thomas Mann granted me the right to label him whatever I wished. "Humanism is the most precious result of rational meditation upon our existence and that of the world," wrote Albert Schweitzer, avoiding my question. Robert Frost simply told me his mother was a Swedenborgian."     BLINDED BY SCIENCE   Environmentalism for the Twenty-First Century Patrick Moore: founding member of Greenpeace; former Director of Greenpeace International; founder of Greenspirit "Let me give you some specific examples that highlight the [environmental] movement's tendency to abandon science and logic and to get the priorities completely mixed up through the use of sensationalism, misinformation and downright lies."   Humans Have Already Been Cloned Russ Kick "It's now routine to see news stories about various mammals being cloned. Almost always, these reports mention that this 'brings us one step closer to cloning humans,' 'human clones are right around the corner,' and other cliches. What every last one of these insightful stories fails to mention is this: Humans have already been cloned."   NutraFear & NutraLoathing in Augusta, Georgia Alex Constantine: freelance writer; author of several books, including Virtual Government and The Covert War Against Rock "The FDA has received more complaints of aspartame poisoning than all other food additives combined, about 75 percent."   Forbidden Archaeology Michael Cremo: lecturer; author of Forbidden Archeology "Over the past 150 years archaeologists have found abundant evidence showing that human beings like ourselves have existed for hundreds of millions of years. This evidence, practically unknown to both scientists and members of the public, radically contradicts the picture of human origins that is presented to us by Darwin's modern followers, who say that we evolved fairly recentlywithin the past 100,000 years or sofrom some more apelike ancestors."   There Is So Much That We Don't Know: Selections from the Science Frontiers Book and Newsletter William R. Corliss: freelance writer; science consultant; publisher of Sourcebooks; author of over 55 books "My view is that anomaly research, while not science per se, has the potential to destabilize paradigms and accelerate scientific change. Anomalies reveal nature as it really is: complex, chaotic, possibly even unplumbable."     THE BIG PICTURE   Will the Real Human Being Please Stand Up? Riane Eisler: president of Center for Partnership Studies; author of several books, including the classic The Chalice and the Blade "This kind of approach to the study of human evolution makes it possible for people to refocus from selfishness and violence as the main themes in our evolution to caring and creativity as equally, and in some ways more important, themes. It also makes it possible for us to see that these qualities are part of the nature of both women and men."   "You Are Being Lied To": A Disinformation Books Roundtable Alex Burns: editor of the Disinformation Website; freelance writer Over 30 social activists, media analysts, cutting-edge scientists and philosophers, avant-garde artists, counterculture icons, and conspiracy theorists give a short answer to the question "Are we being lied to, why, and by whom?" Participants include Charles Tart, Stewart Brand, Clifford Pickover, Jodi Dean, John Shirley, and Jeffrey Mishlove.   I Have Met God and He Lives in Brooklyn Richard Metzger: cofounder of Disinformation; producer and host of Disinfo Nation television series "[Howard] Bloom wants us to understand hatred, racism, and genocide, to understand our evolutionary developmentourselves, who we are down to the microbial levelso we can outwit the script that an apparently insane programmer, God himself, wrote into our genetic code."   Church of the Motherfucker Mark Pesce: creator of VRML (virtual reality for the Web); author of four books, including the classic Browsing and Building Cyberspace "You are your own High Priest. This is the greatest of all the mysteries, the greatest of heresies, that which must not be True if the Centertheir centeris to hold."   A Sentient Universe Peter Russell: author of several books, including The Brain Book and The Global Brain Awakens; producer of videos; lecturer; consultant "Whether we are considering a human brain with its tens of billions of cells, or a nematode worm with a hundred or so neurons, the problem is the same: How can any purely material process ever give rise to consciousness?"   A Lost Theory?: Introduction to Darwin's Lost Theory of Love David Loye: former Princeton professor; author of numerous books; cofounder of the General Evolution Research Group "I discovered there were actually two halves to Darwin's theory. There is the first half, or foundation, of a biological base for his theory, with which we are somewhat familiar. But then Darwin went on to complete his theory with the superstructure of a psychological, systems scientific, humanistic, and morally-grounded 'higher' halfof which today we know almost nothing."     APPENDIXES   Appendix A: More Lies, Myths, and Manipulations Russ Kick Short takes on over two dozen more subjects rife with distortion: electroshock, fertility, guns, population, Prozac, sanctions against Iraq, TWA 800, the global economy, world hunger, and more.   Appendix B: More Reading Russ Kick Short reviews of and quotes from two dozen books exposing misinformation about race, maps, George W. Bush, male-on-male rape, cousin marriage, animal homosexuality, the younger generation, Pearl Harbor, marijuana, the Catholic Church, alternative medicine, psi phenomena, and more.

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Kirby The Konspiracy Boy Says, "I NEED 2 KONFORM!!!"