Jim Fouratt (Michael Gross) - (Tape 5):
FOURATT: ...really the Zippies. You know, the Zippies had formed, the Yippies sort of was over... The Zippies had formed, and Dana Beal... Abbie sort of supported the Zippies... Although he had been so critical of them, he still supported them in their mobilization for the Democratic Convention. I'm pretty sure it was the Democratic Convention; it was in Miami Beach.
MG: Correct.
FOURATT: I'll never forget going to an evening Zippie event outdoors in that park in Miami. That's when Miami had all those old Jewish people, South Beach, who were wonderful. They all had fixed incomes, and they really...you know, they were the '30s people grown old. So they were really sympathetic. And I watched what I would consider a mind(?)-washing experiment going on, led by Dana Beal, giving acid to all these young people, and then taking them through classic brainwashing steps. To me, it was fascism. I'd seen the Hippie counterculture now devolve into a Fascist political movement. It was very chilling to me.
MG: I never found it... To me, Dana Beal and the Zippies were desperate, irrelevant, hold on to the past, and that was the Convention where Abbie was sort of stumbling around lost, too, because he was a leader, but there was no movement any more.
FOURATT: Right. That's why he left to join forces with Dana for that period of time. It was a rite of passage for me, because that was not my vision. That was not what I saw in that park. Being there actually for the Convention was correct, but taking young people and using drugs was no different from what the government did.
MG: When you're saying "brainwashing," you mean...
FOURATT: You can brainwash people with drugs. You take them through certain steps. Those steps were being used...
MG: What point were they trying to get across? Trying to make them into anti-government zombies?
FOURATT: Yes. Well, I don't want to use those words, but...
MG: Use your own.
FOURATT: They wanted to politicize these kids, who already were political because they were there, but for their own agenda, which was disruptive and nihilistic, as far as I'm concerned.
[PAUSE]
MG: Something happens to you in Miami. you realize...
And here is a letter to the NYC newspaper called the VILLAGER re Dana Beal:
"To The Editor:
And here is a letter to the NYC newspaper called the VILLAGER re Dana Beal:
"To The Editor:
Re “Yippie thinks he’s solved .... (news article, Oct. 14):
In a front-page story in last week’s Villager, the writer describes Dana Beal as a Yippie. Mr. Beal was never active in the Yippies when they were in existence in the late ’60’s and early ’70’s. He, in fact, was the founder of the Zippies, which rose in opposition to the Yippies.
The Zippies were best known as the group that held a mass deprogramming public ritual during the Democratic Convention in 1972 in Miami.
I did observe the distribution of LSD to a large group of mostly young people in Flamingo Park and than the almost ritualistic “deprogramming” lesson taught from the stage by a Zippie leader. To my eye it was not dissimilar to the U.S. Army’s experimental use of LSD in the late ’50’s and early ’60’s.
Dana Beal has publicly identified himself as a Yippie for a number of years. I have spoken to him about his misappropriation of Yippie history for his own use. Mr. Beal, who was a close ally of Tom Forcade, the founder of High Times and a well-known pot dealer in the ’70’s until his suicide, is best know as a marijuana activist and has in recent years championed the medical use of marijuana. He also has championed the use of an African root to cure heroin addiction.
Pease identify Mr. Beal properly. The Yippie legacy is rich, as is the Zippie legacy. Don’t confuse them.
Jim Fouratt
Fouratt is a co-founder of the Yippies
Jim Fouratt
Fouratt is a co-founder of the Yippies
No comments:
Post a Comment