Harlan Ellison in about 1971

In 1971, in college, I heard Harlan Ellison was going to teach a class on how to write science fiction stories. I enrolled, and it turned out the class was to be held once a week at Harlan’s home, “Ellison Wonderland.”

I was told to write a short story and bring it. I did, handed it in and noticed Harlan inspecting it with great satisfaction, as though thinking, “this will do.” I was ecstatic. He liked my story. I felt smug, he held it up to the class and screeched, “This is garbage! This piece of shit isn’t fit to line the bottom of a birdcage! If you ever … EVER turn something like this is again I will beat the fucking shit out of you right here on this living room floor…”

I learned that night if you want to be a writer, you don’t try to impress you relatives or friends.  You try to impress editors. And your competition is not the other students in your class, it’s people like Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Alfred Bester (the big sci fi writers of the time).

Harlan turned out to be a great guy. He took me under his pinion, made me feel like an insider, like I could belong. I decided to quit writing, though, until I had something to write about. Which took ten years.

I ran into Harlan again, years later, at a World-Con. I introduced myself and asked if he remembered our class. He groaned, “Oh, Gawd…,” or something, and we agreed that it was a long time ago and time flies. But I was an outsider, again, which was another important lesson in writing.

If you’re gone from the game for too long, you don’t matter anymore.

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Tom Hayden

During 1971 to 1972, I attended a liberal arts college inHollywood,CAwhere one of my most interesting classes was called “The Pentagon Papers” and was taught byChicago7 radical, Tom Hayden.

Hayden, famous at that time for creating the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) and for organizing the 1968 demonstrations at the DNC in Chicago, was guest teaching at my small school about the real reasons behind the Viet Nam war.

The year before Daniel Ellsberg released a top secret Pentagon study ofU.S.government decision-making regarding the war and it had been published by the New York Times. It proved the politicians knew the war would lead to many more casualties that theU.S.admitted publicly and could never be won. As a New York Times editor wrote, “The Johnson administration had systematically lied … about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance.”

Imagine a politician intentionally lying to the American public!

Tom Hayden was a cool guy to hang out with. A group of we students would hang with him in the cafeteria and argue for pacifism. We didn’t realize how he’d been there and done that. Yet he never talked down to us, always respected us, and encouraged us to learn more. He also never tried to ram his points of view into our young brains.

I was disappointed he went into politics. I liked him best as a voice against the Establishment. I suspect he is disappointed in the political system by now, as well.

My copy of The Pentagon Papers from Tom Hayden's Class

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Mapping Freedom by Chas Holloway is a twelve volume eBook series that explains the nature of society and freedom is scientific terms. If you would like to continue reading Book 1 of the series, it will soon be available for all popular eBook devices (such as Kindle, iPad, Nook, etc)

Book One is titled Freedom In Crisis and will sell for $4.99. Books 2 through 12 will be published shortly thereafter.

By Chas Holloway

About Mapping Freedom

This is the first in a series of twelve eBooks on a subject called the Science of Freedom.  No society can achieve sustained prosperity or attain freedom or end war until the nature of freedom and society are scientifically understood.

America is a great example of a society failing because its leaders have no scientific understanding of how to manage it.  It’s a country that’s now completely confused.  The politicians in charge – regardless of party affiliation – have no idea how to fix the fundamental problems causing the collapse of the nation because they have no organized insight into how societies function.  It’s not their lack of will or good intentions, they simply don’t know that freedom isn’t a political revolution, at all.  It’s a scientific revolution.

Read more →

By Chas Holloway

Rising Technology

Wikipedia claims that 37,000 people were killed during the American Revolutionary war.  DuringAmerica’s Civil War, 650,000 were killed.  World War One killed 8.5 million.  World War Two killed over 70 million.  These numbers are rough estimates but they illustrate the correlation between the rise of technology and the destruction that the political State can inflict upon each other.

Read more →

By Chas Holloway

The Forest for the Trees Problem

Why can’t we answer this question?  Why can’t we answer many questions we have about society?  For example, inAmerica, which is where I live, here are common questions to which no one seems to have an answer:

Read more →

By Chas Holloway

LAGASH

Let’s begin our investigation into the nature of freedom by going back in time.

Look at this excerpt from the book, History Begins atSumerby Samuel Kramer.  It tells of a civilization four-and-a-half thousand years ago in an ancient Mesopotamian city-state called Lagash.

Read more →

 About the Archives

The Freedom Chamber News has a seven to ten day news cycle. At the end of each cycle the links to news stories that have been built up are archived here.

The date indicated in the list below is the date the news cycle ended. Therefore, if you’re looking for a story that appeared on January 4th, you should click on the date just after January 4th.

Not all news organizations keep their stories posted forever so please expect some that some of the links, after time, will no longer work.

February 21, 2012

February 14, 2012: Valentine’s Edition

February 13, 2012

February 7, 2012

January 31, 2012

January 23, 2012

January 16, 2012

January 10, 2012

January 2, 2012

December 24, 2011

(This is an email I received that makes some good points)

As much as I really like Google, I’m considering dropping my Gmail account and not using Google for searches anymore.   Their new policy that links things together is already showing up.  As I write this, there is a note in the corner of the page that says:  “Consider including friend@cox.net”…..   That’s really irritating.

If I visit some off-color sites for entertainment, Google will now interpret future searches on where I’ve been.  What if someone in my family uses this computer?  They may see the messages.

Tying email to everything else means that searches are linked to an identity.  Google may think they own that information but the government can force it out of them.  Maybe they already have.

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It occurs to me that some of the ISP’s are likely watching your download and upload patterns.  Think about Time Warner cable and Comcast.  They both own major media production businesses.  They do not want pirates taking their stuff.  They probably know which customers of their visited Megaupload or other hosts.  They may be inclined to “assist” police in finding people who download.

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They’ve been running a news story on the radio in L.A. the last couple of days.  I’ve not seen any mention other than on AM radio so far.  They say that the military will be running “practice and training exercises” near downtown L.A. and other parts of the city.  Apparently the military needs to get experience flying near tall buildings, etc.  They say not to worry about this that it is “routine” (Far from it).  They said that it will also give local law enforcement experience communicating the military which could be useful in the case of a “national emergency”.

Uh, do you think they are practicing for quelling riots, martial law?  This is amazing and no one is reporting it or getting worked up about it.

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Obama said something in his Slave of the Union Address that, so far, I’ve not heard anyone criticize.  He said that now that the troops are coming home, we can “take that money and use half of it to pay down the debt and the other have to rebuild our infrastructure and make jobs.”   Half of what money?  The money being spent on war IS DEBT!  How do you pay down the debt with more debt?  Not one commentator that I’ve seen has mentioned this gaping hole in logic.  Apparently they all think we will have more money to SPEND if we stop spending on war….

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Even without SOPA and PIPA, the federal government has seized the MegaUpLoads website.  If you try to go there, this is the banner you will see:

I could complain it’s outrageous, that we live in a police state, that freedom is like water — you don’t think about it until it’s gone … but Katie B. sums it up best on her Facebook page with this post:

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