The idea that the entire country was on the razors edge of a “race ware” in which the “coloreds” were going to topple American society was very much a product of the media in the 1960s
I mean. Sure, they were addled because the CIA was dumping LSD all over the country and it just totally coincidentally served the narrative that kept money going into the military industrial complex.
That aside it was a narrative that was pushed by the media into every home in the United States.
They were doing weird ass experiments, sure, but they weren’t just dumping it everywhere, they were trying to do targeted experiments (didn’t work lol)
It was people first in the medical community sharing it with friends, then, people like Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters who brought it to the general public.
Then from that you had the Grateful Dead, and a few people who followed them (including one guy responsible for like 80% of the LSD on the planet at the time before his arrest).
Timothy Leary wasn’t distributing it, to my knowledge, but he certainly popularized it.
The CIA may have thought, initially, that they’d want to dump it all over the country, but they realized very quickly that was a very bad idea and they pivoted to trying to prevent that.
That was a product of their LSD-addled brains.
I mean. Sure, they were addled because the CIA was dumping LSD all over the country and it just totally coincidentally served the narrative that kept money going into the military industrial complex.
That aside it was a narrative that was pushed by the media into every home in the United States.
No they weren’t.
They were doing weird ass experiments, sure, but they weren’t just dumping it everywhere, they were trying to do targeted experiments (didn’t work lol)
It was people first in the medical community sharing it with friends, then, people like Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters who brought it to the general public.
Then from that you had the Grateful Dead, and a few people who followed them (including one guy responsible for like 80% of the LSD on the planet at the time before his arrest).
Timothy Leary wasn’t distributing it, to my knowledge, but he certainly popularized it.
The CIA may have thought, initially, that they’d want to dump it all over the country, but they realized very quickly that was a very bad idea and they pivoted to trying to prevent that.