The “Leary” column
by Timothy Leary
CHICAGO, ILL. (I.N.S.) In recent months the cold war between
the socialist states of East America and Western America has stepped up from
cultural competition to a full-scale Hot-Air War. Ever since World War II the
monolithic propaganda bureaucracies of the eastern Zone have heaped ridicule on
the western free slates—with California selected for special scorn. The grim,
socialist spokesmen of the Atlantic states consistently deride the Pacific
Society for its emphasis on individual freedom, its change ability, rootless
mobility and intolerable cheerfulness.
At the same time East Zone moralists denounce innovation and
hedonism, they are reluctantly forced to follow western innovations in technology,
dress, music and entertainment. While California is attacked for being culture-less
its culture is being co-opted by Old World commercial enterprises.
East American states consistently discourage their citizens
from visiting California with lurid tales of earthquakes, Manson-cults, smog
and moral degeneracy. “She hates California, it’s cold and it’s damp” goes one
popular eastern folksong.
At the same time the migration westward has continued
unabated. In spite of the national press and highly censored book monopolies,
the word-of-mouth flows back to the Atlantic states. The west is free.
A new phase of anti-western propaganda emerged recently when
a Chicago columnist Mihail Ryko suggested that a wall be built around
California to prevent the subversive culture from spreading to the settled
East. The barrier would presumably run along the Arizona border to the Oregon
State line. The construction of the wall and the nature of its policing was not
specified by the Mid-western writer.
The erection of such a culture barrier is, of course, the
traditional technique of eastern bureaucrats to prevent their citizens from
migrating to the free-west. There has never in history been a case of
westerners voluntarily migrating east. All the great xenophobic walls are
designed to keep collectivized easterners from exposure to the free-swinging
west.
The reaction of Pacificans to the Ryko proposal has been
wildly enthusiastic. Talk of secession was heard openly from the cloak-rooms of
Sacramento to the barrios of L.A. A bipartisan committee of state legislators
immediately announced hearings for separatism statutes. Pointing to the
increasing tendency on the part of western Canadian states to sever relations
with the bumpy, backward-looking, European-leaning Ottawa government, the
Pacific Coast is buzzing with independence talk.
One state senator proposed that a special visa be required
for Snow Belters wishing to visit California. Laws banning further migration to
the free Pacific states by easterners were also being studied.
On the other side of the great cultural divide, committees
of officials from Boston, Washington and New York were planning to visit Berlin
to confer with East German officials who have been dealing with the same
problem for the last three decades.
First of an occasional
column from the controversial and original mind of Dr. Timothy Leary. An in-depth
profile of Leary, by Michael Cregar, will appear in an upcoming issue of the
Messenger.
