Today in labor History January 17, 1961: The CIA orchestrated a coup that tortured, murdered, and overthrew Congo’s first democratically elected president, Patrice Lumumba. This was after a previous failed coup against him by Mobutu Sese Seku, who would later become dictator from 1971 until 1997.

Congo won independence from Belgium in 1960, after years of brutal colonial rule which slaughtered up to 10 million people, or half its entire population. However, imperial powers continued to exploit the people of Congo, even after independence. President Eisenhower authorized the assassination of Lumumba because of his ties with the Soviet Union. The U.S., and its European allies, wanted control over Congo’s resources, particularly its rich uranium deposits, both to fuel their civilian and military nuclear programs, and, in particular, to keep them out of the hands of the Soviet Union, which was allied with Lumumba.

The wonderful 2024 documentary “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” does a really great job of uncovering the concealed history of the 1961 assassination of Lumumba and the coup d’etat in Congo. But it’s really about so much more: Cold War machinations, propaganda, and covert operations; the superpowers’ jockeying for control of puppet regimes and spheres of influence in the global south; the Pan-African movement; racism in the U.S., the Civil Rights movement, and the repression against it; and, of course, jazz music, including tons of interviews and live footage of Lumumba, Ghanian president and revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah, activist and writer Andree Madeleine Blouin, Malcolm X, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Miriam Makeba, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, surrealist artist Rene Magritte. There’s even a “slumber party” with Fidel Castro at Malcolm X’s home, in New York, after the U.S. authorities convince all the hotels in New York to refuse Castro a place to sleep during a UN conference.

One of the people the CIA used in its early attempts to assassinate Lumumba was chemist Sidney Gottlieb, who ran the agency’s secret MKULTRA mind control program. Gottlieb tried, but failed, to kill Lumumba with poisoned toothpaste. He also tried, and failed, to assassinate Fidel Castro with an exploding cigar and with radioactively poisoned shoes. MKULTRA was a continuation of Nazi mind-control experiments, which utilized mescaline against Jews and Soviet prisoners, hoping it could be exploited as a “truth” serum. The program gave hallucinogenic drugs, like LSD and Mescaline, to 7,000 unwitting U.S. war veterans, as well as many Canadian and U.S. civilians.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #congo #belgium #lumumba #coup #cia #malcomx #fidelcastro #communism #socialism #soviet #russia #ussr #imperialism #nuclear #atomic #coldwar #jazz #mkultra #hallucinogens #colonialism #coldwar #lsd #BlackMastadon

What Hallucinogens Will Make You See

https://nautil.us/what-hallucinogens-will-make-you-see-308247/

#HackerNews #Hallucinogens #Psychedelics #Perception #Neuroscience #MindExpansion

Lucid Cheese

https://videovortex.tv/w/66pD5mdmPgsSi2BXi54Txo

Today in Labor History September 14, 1960: Mobutu led a coup in Congo, against president Patrice Lumumba, just months after winning independence from Belgium. Lumumba was later executed. During years of brutal colonial rule, the Belgians slaughtered up to 10 million people, or half Congo’s entire population. However, millions more died under the Mobutu dictatorship, which lasted from 1971 until 1997.

President Eisenhower authorized the assassination of Lumumba because of his ties with the Soviet Union. The U.S., and its European allies, wanted control over Congo’s resources, particularly its rich uranium deposits, both to fuel their civilian and military nuclear programs, and, in particular, to keep them out of the hands of the Soviet Union, which was allied with Lumumba. The wonderful 2024 documentary “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” does a really great job of uncovering the concealed history of the assassination of Lumumba and the coup d’etat in Congo. But it’s really about so much more: Cold War machinations, propaganda, and covert operations; the superpowers’ jockeying for control of puppet regimes and spheres of influence in the global south; the Pan-African movement; racism in the U.S., the Civil Rights movement, and the repression against it; and, of course, jazz music, including tons of interviews and live footage of Lumumba, Ghanian president and revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah, activist and writer Andree Madeleine Blouin, Malcolm X, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Miriam Makeba, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, surrealist artist Rene Magritte. There’s even a “slumber party” with Fidel Castro at Malcolm X’s home, in New York, after the U.S. authorities convince all the hotels in New York to refuse Castro a place to sleep during a UN conference, and he attempts to camp out on the sidewalk with his contingent.

One of the people the CIA used in its early attempts to assassinate Lumumba was chemist Sidney Gottlieb, who ran the agency’s secret MKULTRA mind control program. Gottlieb tried, but failed, to kill Lumumba with poisoned toothpaste. He also tried, and failed, to assassinate Fidel Castro with an exploding cigar and with radioactively poisoned shoes. MKULTRA was a continuation of Nazi mind-control experiments, which utilized mescaline against Jews and Soviet prisoners, hoping it could be exploited as a “truth” serum. The program gave hallucinogenic drugs, like LSD and Mescaline, to 7,000 unwitting U.S. war veterans, as well as many Canadian and U.S. civilians.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #congo #belgium #lumumba #coup #cia #malcomx #fidelcastro #communism #socialism #soviet #russia #ussr #imperialism #nuclear #atomic #coldwar #jazz #mkultra #hallucinogens

Today in Labor History June 30, 1960: Congo won independence from Belgium after years of brutal colonial rule which slaughtered up to 10 million people, or half its entire population. However, imperial powers continued to exploit the people of Congo, even after independence. In 1961, the CIA orchestrated a coup that tortured, murdered, and overthrew its first democratically elected president, Patrice Lumumba, after a failed coup against him by Mobutu Sese Seku, who would later become dictator from 1971 until 1997.

President Eisenhower authorized the assassination because of Lumumba’s ties with the Soviet Union. The U.S., and its European allies, wanted control over Congo’s resources, particularly its rich uranium deposits, both to fuel their civilian and military nuclear programs, and, in particular, to keep them out of the hands of the Soviet Union, which was allied with Lumumba. The wonderful 2024 documentary “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” does a really great job of uncovering the concealed history of the 1961 assassination of Lumumba and the coup d’etat in Congo. But it’s really about so much more: Cold War machinations, propaganda, and covert operations; the superpowers’ jockeying for control of puppet regimes and spheres of influence in the global south; the Pan-African movement; racism in the U.S., the Civil Rights movement, and the repression against it; and, of course, jazz music, including tons of interviews and live footage of Lumumba, Ghanian president and revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah, activist and writer Andree Madeleine Blouin, Malcolm X, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Miriam Makeba, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, surrealist artist Rene Magritte. There’s even a “slumber party” with Fidel Castro at Malcolm X’s home, in New York, after the U.S. authorities convince all the hotels in New York to refuse Castro a place to sleep during a UN conference, and he attempts to camp out on the sidewalk with his contingent.

One of the people the CIA used in its early attempts to assassinate Lumumba was chemist Sidney Gottlieb, who ran the agencies secret MKULTRA mind control program. Gottlieb tried, but failed, to kill Lumumba with poisoned toothpaste. He also tried, and failed, to assassinate Fidel Castro with an exploding cigar and with radioactively poisoned shoes. MKULTRA was a continuation of Nazi mind-control experiments, which utilized mescaline against Jews and Soviet prisoners, hoping it could be exploited as a “truth” serum. The program gave hallucinogenic drugs, like LSD and Mescaline, to 7,000 unwitting U.S. war veterans, as well as many Canadian and U.S. civilians.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #congo #belgium #lumumba #coup #cia #malcomx #fidelcastro #communism #socialism #soviet #russia #ussr #imperialism #nuclear #atomic #coldwar #jazz #mkultra #hallucinogens

OPINION >>> MAUREEN DOWD: #TechBro Had to Go

#ElonMusk came to Washington with a #ChainSaw and left with a #BlackEye

Shrinking government is hard, particularly when you do it callously and carelessly — and apparently on #Hallucinogens

As with President #DonaldTrump’s tariffs, #DOGE has created more volatility than value

A guy who went bankrupt six times doesn’t really care about spending

#Trump certainly didn’t want to see the headline, “Trump Cuts #SocialSecurity"

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/opinion/elon-musk-doge-trump.html

Today in Labor History Today in Labor History April 19, 1943: Albert Hoffman, inventor of LSD, tested his first dose and went for a bike ride. This day is now celebrated as Bicycle Day. “... Little by little I could begin to enjoy the unprecedented colors and plays of shapes that persisted behind my closed eyes. Kaleidoscopic, fantastic images surged in on me, alternating, variegated, opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in colored fountains, rearranging and hybridizing themselves in constant flux ...” And from that date forward, working class people could finally afford to go on a trip. Hoffman later went on to isolate psilicyben, the active hallucinogenic ingredient in mushrooms, which he also enjoyed experimenting with.

Sandoz originally marketed the drug as Delysid and sold it in 100 microgram doses. From the late 1940s, through the early 1960s, the drug was legal and numerous psychologists and researchers began experimenting with it as a form of therapy. Many were willing participants in the CIA’s UKUltra mind control experiments, in which LSD was given to people, most of whom without their consent or knowledge. Cary Grant was a frequent and enthusiastic user. As early as the late 1940s, anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson became enthusiastic about its potential to unleash a new era of peace and expanded consciousness. The founder of Alcoholic Anonymous was also an early user and said that it was far more effective at treating alcoholism than any other treatment he knew of. Researcher John Lily, along with Gregory Bateson, began dosing dolphins in the early 1960s, in experiments connected with the U.S. military, in an attempt to learn to communicate with the animals and deploy them as weapons in the cold war. You can read more about Mead and Bateson’s role in promoting hallucinogens and in collaborating with the military and intelligence communities in Benjamin Breen’s book, Tripping on Utopia.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #alberthoffman #lsd #drugs #hallucinogens #psychedelics #bicycleday #cia #MKUltra #mindcontrol #brainwashing #consent #torture

New season of #BlackMirror dropped recently and I just finished watching it.

Episode 4, PlayThings blew me away! I immediately watched it again.

Wow is it good - the best #scifi short I've seen in yeeears!

#dystopia #hallucinogens #wetware