Was 60's Counterculture a Government Plot?

[Aciddison]

that looks like an awesome book.
Mkultra actually did give hundreds if not thousands of random people acid. All the files are gone now so we have no idea the extent of mkultra,
I believe its still being continued maybe they moved on to other drugs?. Or maybe alien abductions are actually people being kidnapped by mkultra?

 

[blue1995]

theory is garbage, they would get everyone hooked on opioids if they wanted to do that, not lsd.

lol

Mkultra actually did give hundreds if not thousands of random people acid. All the files are gone now so we have no idea the extent of mkultra

The files aren't gone, they were recently declassified. Wiki.

 

[Solipsis]

Moved PD >> DC

 

[electrodevo]

What if the 60's counterculture and every subculture than grew from it was/is a conspiracy to make people take too many drugs and do stupid things etc. in order to cause a breakdown of the family and community?
What if, by breaking down the family and community, the elites are making people far more easily controlled by the government who could then usher in a "new world order" carefully designed by and for the elites?

Difficulty in your theory: Psychedelics are not by used by a very large portion of the population at all.

There *is* a link between MkUltra and the counter-culture movement. It was through MkUltra where Ken Kesey discovered LSD, after all, and a fair bit of the counter-culture origins is connected to him. I imagine MkUltra influenced others.

Like seiko suggests, many of the things the CIA did back in the day (probably now, as well) were both counter-productive and idiotic. This is not a conspiracy. This is an example of government fucking up. Irony, in other words. The CIA *did* wish for, in LSD, a drug that could give them mind control powers. Life doesn't work that way, and they ended up helping to create a "counter culture" that they ultimately hated. Hah!

LSD has nothing to do with the breakdown of the family or community, or anything to do with "elites". (The discussion of what drives these sort of things, if any, would get into boring ol' politics, which probably doesn't belong here.)

 

[SirTophamHat]

The US government originally wanted to use LSD as a psychological weapon. After the failure of MKULTRA they abandoned that, of course.

I don't think the government wanted the public to have access to LSD; to them it was a potentially effective tool, but they weren't able to get what they desired out of it.

 

[infectious]

I don't know...I've read a lot on both sides of this theory. I can definitely see incentive for the CIA. Before introduction of LSD in the mainstream in the 60s, there was a great deal of political unrest. The number of dissenters was becoming very large, and change was imminent. By dosing the masses with LSD, you could completely discredit one's beliefs. How many times have any of you post an insightful political opinion, only to find the same comment time and again: "Someone's drinking too much kool-aid"? Unfortunately, to the general public, if you admit to consuming hallucinogens, you are considered "mentally ill" or "fried", and nothing you say, despite however ground-breaking it may be, is worth a shit. Your just a hippie.

MK-ULTRA, once giving up on their ideas of LSD as a truth serum or mind control drug, had developed several contingencies on how to use it to discredit foreign dignitaries. So they were at least aware of this fact. I can not say if they have evrcarried out such missions.

One thing that has always bothered me is Kesey's theft of all that Army-owned LSD and novel tryptamines, and his subsequent adventures with the Pranksters. Just seems like he got off too easy. I sometimes wonder if he was working for the CIA at the time.

But, I don't know. I wasn't there, and I do not like to give in to conspiratorial thinking.

 

[drug_mentor]

^ I don't know a damn thing about it but assuming you are correct in saying some dude stole a bunch of LSD and other psychoactive drugs that the CIA was using for their evil agenda of drugging unknowing victims in an attempt to perfect fucking mind control, distributed it to people seeking a good time and/or a different perspective and got off light I say congratulations and good on the man! Why should he be punished for that!? Fuck the CIA and MKULTRA, how can they drug a bunch of people who don't want it so they can try accomplish something evil and that is fine but if you take the instruments they are using for that goal off of them and distribute it for a positive reason that is bad? Makes no sense dude.

 

[NeighborhoodThreat]

MKULTRA and related programs tested hundreds of different drugs with thousands of subjects over decades of research. LSD is just one of the more often-cited examples.

 

[electrodevo]

I don't know...I've read a lot on both sides of this theory. I can definitely see incentive for the CIA. Before introduction of LSD in the mainstream in the 60s, there was a great deal of political unrest. The number of dissenters was becoming very large, and change was imminent. By dosing the masses with LSD, you could completely discredit one's beliefs. How many times have any of you post an insightful political opinion, only to find the same comment time and again: "Someone's drinking too much kool-aid"? Unfortunately, to the general public, if you admit to consuming hallucinogens, you are considered "mentally ill" or "fried", and nothing you say, despite however ground-breaking it may be, is worth a shit. Your just a hippie.

Yes, Steve Jobs, who admitted to taking LSD, was just a hippie not worth a shit, to give one example.

(I find it deliciously ironic that the computer revolution was half built out of hippies in California garages...)

Anyone that dismisses an argument simply because one uses or has used hallucinogens is committing an ad hominem attack, period. They have probably bought some delicious propaganda in the past, and it is much easier to attack the character of the person than answer an argument. I'd probably tell said attacker to shut up unless they have half an idea what a 5HT2A receptor is.

Many of the people who over-advocated their experiences on LSD had no real connection to the government at all to be honest (example: Timothy Leary). Yes, I don't think the over-advocacy of LSD and the quasi-religion some people put on the compound (not to mention the true basket cases like Charles Manson) helped matters. The politics in America was tumultuous enough though. Hell, the real shit was happening over Vietnam / Cambodia and civil rights.

Unfortunately, I *do* believe the gigantic political split in the 1960s (still unbelievably quite present in American politics today, in spite of the split's increasing irrelevance) *did* help craft the insanity behind America's drug laws (translation: we didn't learned nuthin' from alcohol Prohibition). People would rather assign a stereotype to compounds then figure out what they are doing...