[FRIAM] Freedom Phone

[uǝlƃ ☤>$]

We have our own local source in Jon. See his post from december of last year:

On 12/29/20 10:24 AM, jon zingale wrote:
> Falun Gong is an interesting case. Across from the University of Texas at
> Austin was one of my all-time favorite vegetarian restaurants, Veggie
> Heaven. The owners of VH were Falun Dafa practitioners from China. Images
> about the restaurant portrayed meditators floating above lotuses with auras
> of light. The last page of the menu included a heartfelt letter speaking
> about the plight of practitioners in China, complete with images of beaten,
> imprisoned and tortured practitioners. The prices at the restaurant were
> very inexpensive (one could get a veggie bowl for $5) and yet they would
> participate in a daily humanitarian effort. Homebums and traveler kids would
> find their way to the door of VH, hold up a finger or two, and shortly a man
> would step out of the door and bring them food. This would happen dozens of
> times a day. One day, even I tried it and low-and-behold, hot food was given
> to me.
> 
> Shortly after this introduction, I started looking into the qigong practices
> and history of Falun Dafa. No doubt it appeared to be a questionably
> bureaucratic organization, not unlike the Christian churches here in the
> west. That said, the qigong practices seemed to do something for my base
> stress level.
> 
> Through my continued interest, and access to the wonderfully extensive UT
> library stacks, I came across the book "Breathing Spaces: qigong,
> psychiatry, and healing in China" (a book which I believe I have mentioned
> on Friam before). To my surprise, the book does not so much cover the health
> benefits of qigong but rather chronicles mental health issues involving
> qigong practices, persecution of qigong practitioners in Chinese psychiatric
> hospitals, and the rise of belief in "superhuman abilities" via qigong in
> China shortly after the Tiananmen Square incident.
> 
> The big take-home for me, and a possible connection to organizations like
> qAnon, is that in times of hardship it is well documented that communities
> have been observed incorporating "supernatural belief and abilities" into a
> kind of warrior's narrative. For instance, historians like John Hope
> Franklin [1] and anthropologist Wade Davis [2] have noted this tendency in
> the transformation of Yoruba into Voudun by Africans brought as slaves to
> the new world.
> 
> Once while playing go with my buddy Joe at St. Johns, I asked him about the
> perception of Falun Gong in China (he is from Hefei). Joe's take was that it
> was a largely fraudulent and criminal organization and that the Chinese
> government was very much right to go after it. I didn't press him very hard,
> in part so as to not strain our relationship (a potential weakness on my
> part). Still, when I search the web even now, I am surprised by the amount
> of literature that exists pointing to the potential mental health risks of
> such a meditative practice. In the conclusion of Qigong-induced mental
> disorders: a review[3], the authors state:
> 
> "Despite the widespread use of Qigong, there is a conspicuous lack of
> controlled data regarding its effects on mental health. Qigong, when
> practiced inappropriately, may induce abnormal psychosomatic responses and
> even mental disorders."
> 
> Which, when I read it I cannot help but feel that this "peer-reviewed paper"
> is somehow propaganda.
> 
> I am not always so sure what it could mean to "trust" nations or peer-review
> in this post-enlightenment period. Yesterday, the United States
> president-elect gave an address where he reports that "Many of the agencies
> that are critical to our security have incurred enormous damage. Many of
> them have been hollowed out"[4]. If he is speaking truthfully, then I am
> unsure what a network of trust can be. If he is not, then the same. My
> takeaway here is that it is more than reasonable to have a lack of faith in
> one another and in our institutions. I speculate, that without good cause to
> restore trust, we ought to expect organizations like qAnon to become more
> mainstream.
> 
> Meanwhile in the US: 300k dead from Covid, rampant unemployment, a K-shaped
> economy, closings of small businesses, and a stock market decoupled from the
> economy. Bipartisan politics has: given rise to climate change as a
> political button, prevented many in need from receiving assistance, and a
> political system decoupled from reasoning about issues. Those of us in the
> upper part of the K-shape hold onto our stocks and jobs and hope that it
> gets better. Those of us in the lower part prepare for what?
> 
> [1] From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (at least I
> think it was here?)
> [2] The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist's Astonishing Journey
> into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombies, and Magic
> [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10336217/
> [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mkRWc9yKIQ&ab_channel=GuardianNews

On 7/19/21 9:35 AM, cody dooderson wrote:
> I recently visited a tiny town in the western slope of Colorado. The small town does not have it's own newspaper, so from what I could tell the people read something called the Epoch Times. It appears to me to be blatant right wing propaganda. 
> It turns out that the Epoch times is at least partially funded by the persecuted Chinese religious movement called the Falun Gong. I don't know much about them other than that they appear to have a serious and  justified problem with China. It suddenly makes more sense why the republicans in my circle are now so anti China. How did this chinese religious movement end up allying with the far right media machine? 

-- 
☤>$ uǝlƃ