Communication #2

Hello All,
In the times forthcoming, this shall be the official expression of the Golden Apple Purple Panther Party Movent, and shall report earnestly all things we deem relevent.
PURPLE MERCY will be playing at the Submission Art Gallery on Friday November 26th with Jealous Again, Sabertooth Zombie, Grace Alley, and Tiger Uppercut. This is also a benefit show for 924 Gilman st., so come help out.
HEAVY HILLS will be playing at Amnesia in San Francisco on Thursday December 3rd with Glitter Wizard, Sequin Trails, and Outlaw.
We will also be playing on January 16th at the Guayaki Yerba Mate bar in Sebastopol CA with That Ghost, Outlaw, and more tba.
Stay tuned for more happenings..
In the mean time, a bit of cosmic libertarian philosophy from the mystic rocket scientist John Whiteside Parsons; an essay entitled 'Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword'

It has been said, with justification, that the Constitution means what the Supreme Court says it means. A document so fundamental as a Bill of Rights cannot be jeopardized by arbitrary interpretations. It should need no interpretations. It must apply equally to the national state, the federated states, counties, municipalities, official agencies and the private citizen within their province. It must apply in such a way that the individual or minority needs no recourse to elaborate, lengthy and costly proceedings in order to protect these rights. It is the duty of the state to provide this recourse to all alike.

Freedom cannot be subject to arbitrary interpretation and misinterpretation. It must plainly include freedom from persecution on moral, political, economic, racial, social or religious grounds. No man, no group and no nation has the right to any man's individual freedom. No matter how pure the motive, how great the emergency, how high the principle, such action is tyranny and is never justified.

The question is, are we able to face the consequences of democracy? It is not sufficient that freedom be assured by purely negative means. Freedom is meaningless where its expression is controlled by powerful groups such as the press, the radio, the motion picture industry, churches, politicians and capitalists. Freedom must be insured.

It can only be insured by the allegiance to the principle that man has certain inalienable rights; among which are the rights:

To live his private life, insofar as it concerns only himself, as he sees fit.


To eat and drink, to dress, live and travel as, where and he will.


To express himself; to speak, write, print, experiment and otherwise create as he desires.


To work as he chooses, when he chooses and where he chooses at a reasonable and commensurate wage.


To purchase his food, shelter, deical and social needs and all other services and commodities necessary to his existence and self expression at a reasonable and commensurate price.


To have a decent environment and upbringing during his childhood until he reaches a responsible majority.


To love as he desires, where, how and with whom he chooses, in accordance only with the desires of himself and of his partner.


To the positive opportunity to enjoy these rights as he sees fit, without obstruction on the one hand or compulsion on the other.


Finally, in order to protect his person, his property and his rights, he should have the right to kill an aggressor if necessary. This is the purpose of the right to keep and bear arms.
These rights must be counterbalanced by certain responsibilities. The liberal accepting them must guarantee these rights to all others at all times, regardless of his personal feelings or interests. He must work to establish and protect them, live in a manner commensurate with them and be prepared to defend them with his life. He must refuse allegiance to any state or organization which denies these rights and he should aid and encourage all who, without qualification or equivocation, endorse them. He must refuse to compromise these principles on any issue or for any reason. Nothing short of such a commitment will assure the survival of liberty, or democracy of society itself. Liberalism is not only a code for individuals and their state, it is the only possible basis for a future international civilization. However, these principles will be only rhetoric unless they are revered and protected by those to whom they apply. They must be interpreted and applied with understanding and sympathy, with humor and tolerance. Pretentiousness, sentimentality or hysterics are not needed in their application or their defense. Insufferable demagogues of "high principle" are sufficiently numerous as it is.

It must also be understood that we cannot force man's rights upon him. Man has a right to be a slave if he so desires. If he does not assert and defend his rights he deserves slavery. The person who is tyrannized by his family, his peers, by public opinion or slave morality, providing he is free to leave their influence or to challenge it, is worthy of his condition. His protestations are those of the hypocrite.

Freedom, like charity, begins at home. No man is worthy to fight in the cause of freedom unless he has conquered his internal drives. He must learn to control and discipline the disastrous passions that would lead him to folly and ruin. He must conquer inordinate vanity and anger, self deception, fear and inhibition. These are the crude ores of his being.

He must smelt these ores in the fire of life; forge his own sword, temper it and sharpen it against the hard abrasive of experience. Only then is he fit to bear arms in the larger battle. There is no substitute for courage and the victory is to the high hearted. He will have nothing to do with asceticism or the excesses of weakness. Self expression will be his watchword, a self expression tempered keen and strong. First he must know how to rule himself. Only then can he cope with the economic pressures which are employed by institutions and corporations or the political pressures employed by demagogues.

He may then find himself in a difficult predicament. If he calls himself a liberal, he discovers that he is supposedly committed to a policy of accommodation with the Russian Government. If he opposes a pro-Soviet policy he is welcome to the camp of the Catholic Church and the Manufacturer's Association. If he eschews both camps, he is condemned for lack of principle. If he should support the rights of the workingman or minority and racial groups, he is a Red. If at the same time he believes in Constitutional Government and individual rights, he is also a Fascist.

Many liberals are familiar with this situation but few seem to have deduced the conclusion. The difficulty lies in the confusion of the rights of the individual in relation to the responsibilities of the state. It is a sad comment on our mentality that the social reformer subscribes to total regimentation while the alleged individualist propagandizes for total irresponsibility. The rights of the individual can be clearly defined. His responsibilities vis-a-vis the responsibilities of the state can be clearly defined. The individual's rights end where the next man's begin. It is the function of the state to ensure equal rights to all. But, in the absence of a social devotion to the true principles of liberalism, positivists have usurped its name and even its phrases in order to propagandize for their various totalitarianisms. This process has been aided by that faction of pseudo-liberalism which believes that all opinion contrary to its own must be suppressed.

As I write, allegedly liberal groups are agitating for the denial of public forums to those they call fascist. Americanism societies are striving for the suppression of communist or "red" literature and speech. Religious groups, backed by a publicity conscious press, are constantly campaigning for the prohibition of art and literature which, as if by divine prerogative, they term "indecent", immoral or dangerous.

It would seem that all these organizations are devoted to one common purpose, the suppression of freedom. Their sincerity is no excuse. History is a bloody testament that sincerity can achieve atrocities which cynicism could hardly conceive of. Each of these groups is engaged in a frantic struggle to sell out, betray or destroy the freedom which was their birthright and which alone assured their present existence.

Freedom is a two-edged sword. He who believes that the absolute rightness of his belief is an authority to suppress the rights and opinions of his fellows cannot be a liberal. Liberalism cannot exist where it violates its own principles. It cannot exist where the emergency monger or the utopia salesman can obtain a suspension of rights, whether temporary or permanent. Liberty cannot be suppressed in order to defend liberalism.

If we are to achieve a democracy, the rights of individuals and the responsibilities of states must be openly defined and ardently defended. It is inconceivable that men who fought and died in a war against totalitarianism did not know what they fought for. It seems a fantastic joke that the institutions they believed in and defended have turned, like a nightmare, into home-grown tyrannies. A generation went down in blood and agony to make the world "safe" but the evil that makes the world "unsafe" still goes undefeated, plotting new sacrifices of misery and blood. The guilt lies not entirely with the warmongers, plutocrats and demagogues. If a people permit exploitation and regimentation in any name, they deserve their slavery. A tyrant does not make his tyranny. It is made possible by his people and not otherwise.

Much of our modern thought is characterized by pretenses and evasions, by appeals to ultimate authorities which are non- liberal, superstitious and reactionary. Often we are not aware of these thought processes. We accept ideas, authorities, catch- phrases and conditions without troubling to think or investigate and yet these things may conceal terrible traps. We accept them as right because they have a surface-level agreement with the things in which we believe. We welcome the man who is for liberalism, against communism, without troubling to inquire what else he is for or against. In our blindness we leave ourselves open to exploitation, regimentation and war.

Tumultuous developments in science and society demand a new clarity of thought, a reexamination and a restatement of principles. It is not sufficient that a principle is sacred because it is time-worn. It must be examined, tried and tested in the crucible of our present needs.

In our law, in our social and international relations, we are guilty of a myriad of barbarisms and superstitions. These injustices continue and proliferate because we have become used to them. We have lost our freedom through tolerance and inertia.

The principle we have developed herein is simple: the liberty of the individual is the foundation of civilization. No true civilization is possible without this liberty and no state, national or international, is stable in its absence. The proper relation between individual liberty on the one hand and social responsibility on the other is the balance which will assure a stable society. The only other road to social equilibrium demands the total annihilation of individuality. There is not further evasion of nature's immemorial ultimatum: change or perish but the choice of change is ours.

for more, http://www.greylodge.org/occultreview/glor_001/freedomsword.htm

peace love and freedom to all,
Sebastian of the GAPPPM