The Aristocrats
It's always the same, the name of the game
Is who do you know higher up? - Bob Dylan
Familiar with the joke, and the movie of the joke? It's allegedly the comedian's "secret handshake": a family of vaudevillians visits a talent agent, who's reluctant to take them on because family acts are "too cute." But the act is a litany of scatological and sexual obscenity, often with horrific violence, and the more imaginative the comedian's depiction of the young children's abuse the more successful is regarded its telling. "It's the perfect joke," says Dana Gould. "Just hearing out loud descriptions of giddy shit-covered incest." (Like Otto Peterson's: "then my daughter comes on stage. She's a real sexy 9-year-old. I hit her with an ax handle....") When the family has finished, the agent says "That's a hell of an act. What do you call it?" And the father always replies: "The Aristocrats!"
Get it? The joke's pay-off is the supposed disparity between depravity and nobility. What could be more absurd than a family of torture artists engaging in polymorphous abuse identifying themselves by a term denoting high social station?
Here's another variation of the joke, as told by Crown Prince Vittorio Emanuele Alberto Carlo Teodoro Umberto Bonifacio Amadeo Damiano Bernardino Gennaro Maria of Savoy:
Italy is in shock after the son of its last king was arrested as part of an investigation into prostitution and corruption. One of the country's best-known figures, Prince Victor Emmanuel was detained in the north but taken to a jail in Potenza in the south where the probe is based.
His family strongly denies the allegations against the 69-year-old who went into exile with the rest of the country's royals when Italians rejected the monarchy in favour of a republic, in 1946. But the magistrate who signed the arrest warrant for the prince and 12 other men told reporters about what he called "extremely alarming evidence."
"I believe I have made a rigorous assessment without taking into account the rank of the person concerned," said Alberto Iannuzzi.
Others detained include Salvatore Sottile, a top aide to the foreign minister in former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government.
According to media reports, investigators believe Prince Victor Emmanuel had contacts with Mafia clans and was involved in procuring prostitutes for clients of a casino in Campione d'Italia, an Italian enclave on Lake Lugano near the Swiss border.
Implicated in Victor Emmanuel's corruption charges is also his cousin, Bulgaria's former child King Simeon II, Simeon Saxe-Coburg.
[And on edit, updating with a story from May 29 posted in the comment field:]
Police bust suspected child trafficking gang
A Bulgarian gang of suspected child traffickers has been broken up by police in simultaneous operations in Italy, Austria, Germany and Bulgaria. Police in Italy say dozens of people were arrested in the raids.
Most of the children moved by the gang were from Bulgaria and were between the ages of eight and 13-years-old. They appear to have been sold to the gang by their poverty stricken parents.
Police said some of the children appeared to have been sexually exploited, they had been kept in slave like conditions and they had been used to move drugs and commit crimes. Operation Elvis Bulgaria - coordinated by the Italian Carabinieri - involved police forces in Austria, Germany and Bulgaria.
[It's not a great stretch to see the potential of a link between this action of Italian police and the unspecified "extremely alarming evidence" against Victor Emmanuel, which also appears to have a Bulgarian connection.]
Some other knee-slappers of the Italian Prince have included shooting a tourist to death in 1978 (and subsequently acquited of unintentional homicide), dealing arms for the likes of the Shah of Iran (his son bears the name Reza in honour of Reza Pahlavi), defending Mussolini's anti-semetic legislation under his father, the last King of Italy, as "not that terrible," and having been a member in good, secret standing of P2, Licio Gelli's criminal fascist Masonoic lodge. As was, let's never forget, Berlusconi.
In April 1981, Milan magistrates broke into Gelli's villa and discovered his lodge's membership lists, which read, says Daniele Ganser in NATO's Secret Armies, like a "'Who is Who in Italy' and included not only the most conservative but also some of the most powerful members of Italian society." Fifty high-ranking officers of the army, for instance, and ten bank presidents. In the subsequent parliamentary commission, Communist member Antonio Bellocchio lamented that "we have come to the definite conclusion that Italy is a country of limited sovereignty because of the interference of the American secret service and international freemasonry." He regretted most commissioners had not followed their analysis to its logical end, but understood why they could not, because then "they would have had to admit they are puppets of the United States of America, and they don't intend to admit that ever."
Even without a joke, even just as a punchline, there remains something anachronistically comic about the aristocrats. They appear about as serious as actors in a heritage fort or pioneer village, recreating the rituals of a long-dead era. Their form is absurd, because their function appears to carry no consequential gravity. Yet they remain apart from us in a privileged world, linked by blood. And not only by the blood in their veins.
Early in Grant Morrison's The Invisibles - comic art, and as funny as the End of the World - we read a phone conversation between Whitehall and an occultic assassin. Scion of the ruling class Sir Miles Delacourt, who's favourite recreation is the most dangerous game, cuts the conversation short: "Look, I have a Cabinet ritual to attend, and if it's anything like the last one we'll be up to our knees in blood and spunk for at least the next twelve hours." It could almost be a joke.
A network of fascist Princes and Kings, laundering money, shooting tourists, running guns and elite prostitution rings, is a hell of an act. What do you call it?
posted by Jeff Wells at 6/19/2006 04:08:00 PM
61 Comments:
just a heads up for those whom still watch tv:
The Dark Side
"We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will. We've got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world." ~Cheney
Somebody should torrent this...
Western culture?
GRRRR SORRY, THAT SHOULD HAVE LINKED TO..PBS FRONTLINE: THE DARK SIDE
Aristocracy has always been nothing but a pristine veneer to cover the most rank and vile debauchery. The aristocrats of society always wielded the apex of worldly power, so it naturally follows that their corruption would be similarly evolved. I personally think the joke 'the Aristocrats' is funny because it's the truth; those whom would presume to rule over us aren't even fit to run their own depraved lives.
royal link to "Operation Elvis Bulgaria"?
Monday, May 29, 2006. 10:11pm
Police bust suspected child trafficking gang
A Bulgarian gang of suspected child traffickers has been broken up by police in simultaneous operations in Italy, Austria, Germany and Bulgaria.
Police in Italy say dozens of people were arrested in the raids.
Most of the children moved by the gang were from Bulgaria and were between the ages of eight and 13-years-old.
They appear to have been sold to the gang by their poverty stricken parents.
Police said some of the children appeared to have been sexually exploited, they had been kept in slave like conditions and they had been used to move drugs and commit crimes.
Operation Elvis Bulgaria - coordinated by the Italian Carabinieri - involved police forces in Austria, Germany and Bulgaria.
They were working closely with anti-Mafia prosecutors in the town of Trieste, on the Italian Slovenian border.
- BBC
link
To paraphrase from the great dipository of wisdom, the Book of the Subgenius "If you think this all just a big joke, then you'll never get the punchline."
Unfortunately I call it busines as usual.
But I will say up front, I feel there is absolutely nothnig wrong with prostituion provided both parties are consenting adults.
Anonymous above, thanks for mentioning "Operation Elvis Bulgaria". As Jeff mentioned, the former child king of Bulgaria, Victor Emmanual's cousin Simeon, is also implicated in the prostitution ring... and Italian mafia is involved in both cases. I'll be damned if there isn't a connection here.
Just who is the Aristocracy these days? I am genuinely curious. How do we determine who is, and who isn't the Aristocracy? Is one of the criterion the sophistication of the debaucherous rituals they engage in?
Let's take America, for example. The Vanderbilts were certainly Aristocracy at one time, but are they still? Would you consider Anderson Cooper an Aristocrat? If so, do you believe he potentially partakes, or has partaken in EWS type rituals?
Mephistopheles was an aristocrat. Wonder what would have happened if Faust had stayed with Gretchen instead of becoming part of the filth himself.
http://www.123helpme.com/assets/4847.html
Thanks, anonymous 11:43, for the Elvis Bulgaria story. I've edited the post accordingly.
Regarding the anachronistic absurdity of present day European aristocracy: a large portion of this cross-bred class who "work" do so as investment bankers, and many of them in the City of London. They are also found on the boards of global conglomerates. Facts such as those seem to me to be at odds with their cover story as effete dilletants.
http://tinyurl.com/rj9td
Anonymous said...
Mephistopheles was an aristocrat. Wonder what would have happened if Faust had stayed with Gretchen instead of becoming part of the filth himself.
http://www.123helpme.com/assets/4847.html
1:48 PM
How about Kissinger?
Nah, just as a bear uses a hare as a loofah, so to the Aristocracy has used Kissinger to clean the Dingleberries from their putrid asses.
Normal appetites and desires only become jaded, decadent, or perverted when it becomes possible to simply wallow in them at one's leisure and providing, of course, that one also has the power to expand their leisure to whatever lengths it takes to accommodate that.
The common man can only fantasize about any thoroughly self-indulgent situations like those for he has barely the time or resources to satisfy even his most normal and basic requirements let alone dream about ever over-indulging in any of them...hmmm?
So very few besides the inordinately wealthy and powerfull, (which would also include certain criminal elements), have the freedom from normal constraints and the wherewithall to explore such avenues of excess.
I should point out that the kind of excesses we're talking about don't necessarily have to be sexual to have that kind of connotation or appeal for those particular individuals. They can apply to literally anything that happens to "turn them on", so to speak.
Their actual "deviancy" whatever form it takes, has to do with power and control over others and a firm belief in their own entitlement to use that power in any way that simply amuses them.
The fact that there are always people who will sell virtually any favour or "service" if the price or circumstances are right is also part of an arrangement which has always connected certain elements of the highest strata of society with some it's very lowest in a kind of symbiotic relationship.
In short, they re-inforce each other's somewhat shallow and shabby perspectives of both themselves and their society as a whole. Users and abusers on both sides of that equation who callowly, and callously dote on each others proclivities for their own personal amusement and gain.
***
Now some may see the idea of "American aristocrats" as something of a contradiction in terms but that is merely the distorted perspective they have acquired regarding their own history and origins that they generally tended to disregard.
Idealism is always preferable to the material reality, particularly when it's only been used as an excuse to create it.
Now none of the signatories to the Bill of Rights either signed or would deign to sign the subsequent Constitution. A small anecdote in history but a major parting of the way and the "classes" nonetheless.
It was really at that point that the new "aristocracy" in waiting siezed upon the means to replace the privileged colonial elites and Royal appointees and construct a form of endlessly deadlocked government that would allow them to maintain their own private grip on the only kind of power that really counts, and to do so in perpetuity.
Governance by the "common man" was actually the last thing that was wanted at the initial Constitutional Convention. In the end the wealthy simply bought out the process and co-opted their opponents.
The final objective was simply to give the illusion of goverment for, by, and of the people, while neglecting to mention that the new elites would still hold and control all the real power that is vested in wealth, property and ownership just as the previous ones had.
There is another small matter of historical record that gets nary a mention in the US.
At the time of the Revolution the colonial population in what is now the US was less than 200,000. Fully a third were so widely dispersed that they didn't even know it had taken place untill several years after it was all over.
Of those that were directly involved, the "split" over the use of violence against the King or his colonial forces that had also provided safety and law and order for the colonists was almost 50-50.
In the end all those who opposed using violence but nevertheless agreed upon the need for independence didn't fight for or assist either side. Had they actually thrown in with the British the revolution would have failed in no uncertain terms.
Their reward for that pacifist neutrality, however, was to have their properties confiscated and to be hounded and harassed out of the new people's republic.
More than 65,000 were driven from their homes and over the border into Canada in the displacement that ensued.
The Canadians know them simply as the "United Empire Loyalists" but they were to become the leading edge of Canada's own development and it's own quite peacefully acquired independence less than eighty years later.
They also formed the core of the civilian forces that would sucessfully repell repeated American efforts to extend their border northwrds.
That's fascinating, could I ask for any reference (book and/or URL) on that aspect of North American history? Would like to read more specifics on that. Thanks in advance.
As Lord Acton said (I suppose he should know): Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The high and the mighty are all the more likely to be the most corrupt and depraved among us because they attempt to hold themselves above the law and the accountability of their fellow humans.
Sixteen and on the run from home
Found a job in Times Square
Working Live S&M shows
Twenty-five bucks (a fuck)
And John's a happy man
She wipes the filth away
And it's back on the streets again
Spreading the disease
Everybody needs
But no one wants to see
Father William saved her from the streets
She drank the lifeblood from the saviour's feet
She's Sister Mary now, eyes as cold as ice
He takes her once a week
On the alter like a sacrifice
Spreading the disease
Everybody needs
But no one wants to see
Religion and sex are powerplays
Manipulate the people for the money they pay
Selling skin, selling God
The numbers look the same on their credit cards
Politicians say no to drugs
While we pay for wars in South America
Fighting fire with empty words
While the banks get fat
And the poor stay poor
And the rich get rich
And the cops get paid
To look away
As the one percent rules America
Spreading the disease
Everybody needs
But no one wants to see
The way society
Keeps spreading the disease
Y'know, Mr. Wells tales of Satanic pedophiles always left me feeling a bit sceptical. I was under the mistaken impression that child fuckers were an abberration, a statistical freak that wouldn't exist in enough quantity to make these claims possible.
I no longer court such naivete.
Why is unimportant, but I've also always felt that sex, no matter how much I enjoy it, is little more than biological tricks played on us by the dna to get us to reproduce as mathematically predictable as spores in a petrie dish.
Well, we can consign that one to the dust heap too.
The only thing I do know after reading these depraved odes to flesh & semen & shit-stained children is the absolute paucity of my imagination.
i spend my free time listening to Be-Bop & watching my kids annoy each other & I imagine that if you could plug into my head the most that you'd hear would be the hiss of white noise & I spend my work life looking at deformed retarded people without any semblance of a life & I think Gee, if there is a God, He's one sadistic son-of-a-bitch.
How do these people sleep at night?
Massive amounts of Ambien or maybe something stronger something mainlined right to the source?
Fuck.
I can see why the immortalists always find funding for their dreams of downloaded identity...
...these shit stains really really really don't want to die, do they?
Sixteen and on the run from home
Found a job in Times Square
Working Live S&M shows
Twenty-five bucks (a fuck)
And John's a happy man
She wipes the filth away
And it's back on the streets again
Spreading the disease
Everybody needs
But no one wants to see
Father William saved her from the streets
She drank the lifeblood from the saviour's feet
She's Sister Mary now, eyes as cold as ice
He takes her once a week
On the alter like a sacrifice
Spreading the disease
Everybody needs
But no one wants to see
Religion and sex are powerplays
Manipulate the people for the money they pay
Selling skin, selling God
The numbers look the same on their credit cards
Politicians say no to drugs
While we pay for wars in South America
Fighting fire with empty words
While the banks get fat
And the poor stay poor
And the rich get rich
And the cops get paid
To look away
As the one percent rules America
Spreading the disease
Everybody needs
But no one wants to see
The way society
Keeps spreading the disease
Y'know, Mr. Wells tales of Satanic pedophiles always left me feeling a bit sceptical. I was under the mistaken impression that child fuckers were an abberration, a statistical freak that wouldn't exist in enough quantity to make these claims possible.
I no longer court such naivete.
Why is unimportant, but I've also always felt that sex, no matter how much I enjoy it, is little more than biological tricks played on us by the dna to get us to reproduce as mathematically predictable as spores in a petrie dish.
Well, we can consign that one to the dust heap too.
The only thing I do know after reading these depraved odes to flesh & semen & shit-stained children is the absolute paucity of my imagination.
i spend my free time listening to Be-Bop & watching my kids annoy each other & I imagine that if you could plug into my head the most that you'd hear would be the hiss of white noise & I spend my work life looking at deformed retarded people without any semblance of a life & I think Gee, if there is a God, He's one sadistic son-of-a-bitch.
How do these people sleep at night?
Massive amounts of Ambien or maybe something stronger something mainlined right to the source?
Fuck.
I can see why the immortalists always find funding for their dreams of downloaded identity...
...these shit stains really really really don't want to die, do they?
silverfox wrote
"....Now none of the signatories to the Bill of Rights either signed or would deign to sign the subsequent Constitution..."
I always thought the Bill of Rights came after the Declaration of Independence and Adoption of the Constitution.
That's correct. It was some of the signers of the Constitution who had problems with Thos. Jefferson's Bill of Rights.
You spin a good yarn Silvereynard, but methinks your source of info is a bit corrupted. It sounds very much like the point of view of Albert Pike, his antecedants and successors.
Here's something super creepy: A series of photos of girls with letters written on their forehead.
I think part of the point of Faust was that had he stayed with Gretchen, they would have become Baucus and Philemon from Faust II. It's the eternal tension between wanderlust and the desire for contentedness.
The lavish and repellent hunts staged by German nobility were and are well documented (see for instance Hagen Schulze's "A New History of Germany"). In one variation, they would set up spears and such at the bottom of a cliff and drive as many wild boar and deer as they could over the cliff just to satisfy their perverse bloodlust. In another, they would create a pond in a depression, drive the wild creatures into the pond, then set up bandstands on the periphery, where they would spend the day drinking and feasting while taking potshots at the deer. If this was their public side, one can only imagine what they did (and continue to do, as the Hohenzollern are still alive and well) in private.
Richard, I wish you would source the lyrics you sometimes quote, as some of us might want to check these songs out!
To quanah:
Sorry
Lyrics this time were from Queensryche's Operation Mindcrime CD, the song is Spreading the Disease.
No wonder Michael Jackson takes his King of Pop title so seriously.
The poor are no more friends of mine than are the Aristocracy, and they get no more of a free pass for their role. The poor run around beating, raping and killing each other, whilst the Aristocracy sits back and laughs. And then, when the Aristocracy gets a hard-on, they pick a few young sheep from the herd to do with what they will. Sometimes, the parents in the herd willingly hand over their young, for a price, as another poster has lamented.
Man, we're are fucked up. Ahh....the bliss of higher cognitive functioning.
The Rule:
10:80:10
Can that ratio be broken before we annihilate ourselves? The fatalist in me says not a chance.
"Shrubageddon said...
The poor are no more friends of mine than are the Aristocracy, and they get no more of a free pass for their role."
It seems to me that you need to gp and make some "poor" freinds in order to reach correct equilibrium in your thinking.
Oh, gee, Okay. Where should I start? Wal-Mart? I can make friends with both the customers and the employees, cuz they're both poor, right?
Oh please. Why are the poor so worse in their sloveness? A lower-class alcoholic is more pathetic than a middle-class alcoholic... but so what? if the middle-class one can maintain some semblance of a worthwhile life, he's still no better person.
The poor waste their time on bad TV and beat their children at Walmart. The middle class and rich do the same... you just don't see it at Walmart.
Save your contempt for where it belongs.
Jeff, are you aware of the inquiry into child abuse in so-called industrial schools in Ireland, especially in the 1950s? It's emerged that the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children had a "Cruelty Man" who could recommend that children as young as two be removed from families and placed in industrial schools until they were sixteen, and "inmates" suffered years of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of the priests that ran the schools. Many families lived in fear of these Cruelty Men as they had absolute arbritary authority in their recommendations, overruling the wishes of the parents. I'll post some links to news articles later.
Lysander said...
Oh please. Why are the poor so worse in their sloveness? A lower-class alcoholic is more pathetic than a middle-class alcoholic... but so what? if the middle-class one can maintain some semblance of a worthwhile life, he's still no better person.
The poor waste their time on bad TV and beat their children at Walmart. The middle class and rich do the same... you just don't see it at Walmart.
Save your contempt for where it belongs.
Who said anything about the Middle Class? I didn't. I can't stand the Middle Class either, but the conversation seemed to be centered around a more general, two class dichotomy; Aristocratic, or Poor.
However, you have shown your cards, sir, or is it Madame? The Lefties need the poor to remain poor every bit as much as the Righties. Perhaps for different reasons, but theys gottsta have dare po folk, else they can't feel good abouts demselves.
The poor, like the Illegal Immigrants, are but pawns on a chess board. We are here to be used, and used we are. So long as we refuse to recognize that, and continue to allow ourselves to be pawns, then we are worthy of contempt.
I'm not saving any contempt. I hate all of it......it's a crock of shit, and your vain attempts to hold the "Old Ways" in place are equally worthy of contempt.
I must admit I haven't read all the above posts, but a couple more things in this article.
To wit;
"In one conversation, the prince tells an associate to “give a good slapping” to a woman..."
Charming.
And, re. the possible Bulgarian connection,
He was also allegedly involved in procuring Eastern European prostitutes for a northern Italian casino.
Just a coincidence, I'm sure.
great post jeff. when I saw this story on the internet, I immediately though of kubrick's "eyes wide shut" and your research. nice tie-in to the aristocrats flick....
jesus, does this "crown prince" have enough parts to his name??
Shrubageddon --
I was addressing your comment about going to make friends with the people at Walmart (full of ironic sarcasm such as it was) because it rang to me same as when someone disparages SUVs (but still personally drives around contributing to the car culture) or like someone in the northeast who calls the south racist but doesn't notice how their own culture is totally segregated.
Maybe you are well off making a friend that works or shops at Walmart. Many of them are noble souls. There may be trailer-trash there too, but trash is trash no matter where you look... so why be uppity just because you don't like Walmart?
A small correction, Jeff; the Mussolini collaborator was the current Crown Prince's grandfather. The dad was king for about a month in 1946.
**
BTW This Sottile guy, from Berlusconi's govt, is an out&out neofascist (Alleanza Nazionale faction).
Also arrested was the mayor of this mysterious enclave, depraved elite playpen, tax haven, etc.
Vittorio's creepy cuz Simeon of Bulgaria was also Prime Minister 2001-2005(hence well-involved in Iraq alongside his inbred Brit kinfolk), I guess that's the 'New Europe' for you.
Vittorio's mafia links have been mentioned, could this have anything to do with today's high-profile Cosa Nostra busts in Italy ? Or perhaps a mere distraction ?
LASTLY, this article has one or two updates, but check out the picture. Does he not look a tad malevolent ? Yech, here too.
Shrubnik:
Let's see, you've now told us you have contempt for the poor, contempt for the rich, and contempt for the middle class.
Who is left for whom you do not have contempt?
Misanthropy, much??
Lysander said...
Shrubageddon --
I was addressing your comment about going to make friends with the people at Walmart (full of ironic sarcasm such as it was) because it rang to me same as when someone disparages SUVs (but still personally drives around contributing to the car culture) or like someone in the northeast who calls the south racist but doesn't notice how their own culture is totally segregated.
Maybe you are well off making a friend that works or shops at Walmart. Many of them are noble souls. There may be trailer-trash there too, but trash is trash no matter where you look... so why be uppity just because you don't like Walmart?
I don't think we're too far apart on this, so it's not worth arguing over. I have my misanthropic days, and today is one of those days. Today, I have contempt for most, if not all people. I always have contempt for Wal-Mart and SUVs.
I've been to Wal-Mart many a time before I started boycotting them several years prior. I did a paper on them as part of my undergraduate degree, and I have kept abreast of their progree/regress ever since.
I can assure you that I am not "uppity." Satirically flippant, yes, but never "uppity."
The irony of my Wal-Mart comment, and it was intended, is that Wal-Mart isn't just patronized by the poor. I know many cheap-ass Middel Class folks, and some Rich Folks who will sacrifice the future welfare of their children for another dollar off.
Anonymous said...
Shrubnik:
Who is left for whom you do not have contempt?
12:56 PM
You, and my dog. Both of you have always been, and will always be my favorites.
What's your favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie?
Richard apparantly Queensryche have just put out a follow up to operation mindcrime.
Quanah your despcription of the German Aristocratic hunting parties reminds me of the sort of hunting cheney does.
"Jeff, are you aware of the inquiry into child abuse in so-called industrial schools in Ireland, especially in the 1950s? It's emerged that the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children had a "Cruelty Man" who could recommend that children as young as two be removed from families and placed in industrial schools until they were sixteen, and "inmates" suffered years of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of the priests that ran the schools. Many families lived in fear of these Cruelty Men as they had absolute arbritary authority in their recommendations, overruling the wishes of the parents."
Souns likee the "stolen generation" something very similar happened to aboriginal communities throughout most of Australia's history. There were also similar problems faced by boat loads of British orphans who were sent to Australia in the 10 years following WW2.
There was also a ... is also a Politician in NSW, I think in the Upper House (senate), her Name is Franka Arena.
She was making claims about a state and nationwide paedophile ring made up of and protected by politicians, judges, coppers and other prominent people. I haven't heard much about her for a few years. She seems to have quietened down. It is interesting that there are always trials going on in NSW for the murder of various people. (Possibly only one or two specific trials, but they drag out, get referred to etc.)
Usually the story seems to be young male (under 35) with various "issues" murders older male accused of abusing him sexually as a child.
The former mayor of Woolongong springs to mind. They dodn't all involve murdered deviants tho.
There is another trial going on at the moment, or just passed, involving (I think) the first openly gay professional Rugby league player in NSW. He is a witness, and also claims he was abused. Just want to make the point that I am not suggesting that cos he's gay, he's into abusing kids BTW. He was giving evidence at the trial to support the victims of the man on trial.
BTW I want to apologise for the facetious Western Culture remark. As much damage as our culture has done and is doing, it certainly has no monopoly on evil deeds.
And abuse seems as prevalent in poor communities as comfortable ones. BTW
But then just cos I'm poor doesn't mean I am into it. I can live with your hate too shrub, I'll just add it to the list.
One final point, is that Victor Emmanuel that owes the 900000.
Maybe someone got sick of him owing them money.
jules-- you're a grail seeker and know about fostered-out aboriginal australians. i think we are highly sympatico and look forward to further discussion. Although I don't have lots of time to post from home. later,
sr
Regarding Mr Wells' earlier post a few days ago:
from the New York Times Review of Books:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/books/20kaku.html?_r=2&pagewanted=2&oref=slogin
This book augments the portrait of Mr. Bush as an incurious and curiously uninformed executive that Mr. Suskind earlier set out in "The Price of Loyalty" and in a series of magazine articles on the president and key aides. In "The One Percent Doctrine," he writes that Mr. Cheney's nickname inside the C.I.A. was Edgar (as in Edgar Bergen), casting Mr. Bush in the puppet role of Charlie McCarthy, and cites one instance after another in which the president was not fully briefed (or had failed to read the basic paperwork) about a crucial situation.
During a November 2001 session with the president, Mr. Suskind recounts, a C.I.A. briefer realized that the Pentagon had not told Mr. Bush of the C.I.A.'s urgent concern that Osama bin Laden might escape from the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan (as he indeed later did) if United States reinforcements were not promptly sent in. And several months later, he says, attendees at a meeting between Mr. Bush and the Saudis discovered after the fact that an important packet laying out the Saudis' views about the Israeli-Palestinian situation had been diverted to the vice president's office and never reached the president.
Keeping information away from the president, Mr. Suskind argues, was a calculated White House strategy that gave Mr. Bush "plausible deniability" from Mr. Cheney's point of view, and that perfectly meshed with the commander in chief's own impatience with policy details. Suggesting that Mr. Bush deliberately did not read the full National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was delivered to the White House in the fall of 2002, Mr. Suskind writes: "Keeping certain knowledge from Bush — much of it shrouded, as well, by classification — meant that the president, whose each word circles the globe, could advance various strategies by saying whatever was needed. He could essentially be 'deniable' about his own statements."
******************************************************
The president needs to be "'deniable' about his own statements?"
Can't muddle up one of GW's rousing & resolve filled babbles with any facts, now can we?
Talk about the 'boy in the plastic bubble.'
Sheesh! No wonder the guy can smirk all the time. As the saying goes, "Ignorance is bliss."
WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE
YAAAAAAY
Per the poor, middle class, and rich comments; are we talking on a global scale, or just in the U.S.?
The truly poor starve to death or die of disease in the third world countries before they reach adult-hood. Their chances are slim.
The poor in this country have to contend with predators of all kinds; likewise the middle class, just to stay afloat. The upper middle class have to become mind-controlled zombies.
As for the rich, I imagine they think this is all necessary to maintain "control" for the good of the human species or some shite.
Anyway, quit your back-biting.
Jeff, I'm surprised you didn't mention the Invisibles reference to the Marquis de Sade's Castle of the Silling scene in Vol. 1 of the trade paper-back, where the four authority figures defile the tweens.
Of course, it's nothing compared to the real thing. Hunter S. Thompson also references rakes and their barbaric practices, as well as a book about them. They were aristocratic hooligans who would go on rape, murder, mutiliation sprees in merry old England circa the 17th and 18th centuries.
I was sort of suspicious as to Morrison's seemingly sympathetic revisionist portrayal of the Marquis, but since I'm no expert on the subject, I reserve judgment, although I've read that the Marquis mutilated prostitutes etc.
I guess that's what's called poetic license. In the Invisibles, the Marquis claims that his works had a noble intent, to point out hypocrisies in the Enlightenment; but the preceding rulers were hardly better.
Personally, I'd pick the scientists over the church because they and their magick are easier to predict, but what do I know from anything.
Also, per the driving wild animals off a cliff into spikes; that's suppposedly as old as the cavemen.
Jeff, I have often wondered how you (or anyone!) would begin "Rigorous Intuition: the Book" since it is such a twisted tale, without a particular plot except power and corruption, with many cross levels of themes.
Once I finished reading this post, I finally think I know how I would start it at least.
I think this story and the Aristocrats joke would be a fine preface. It ties in both the long term family issues, the pedophilia potential connections (to be teased out elsewhere), secret socities, ancient connections (this murderer potential pedophile is still known as officially the "King of Jerusalem" by the way!--according to the Wikipedia post), corruption, religious pretentions, inherited idiocy without any merit in a political suspended animation that is European society that has come to dominate the whole planet.
"The Aristocrats" is a meme that NO ONE wants to research (even the "justice authorities"), etc. Because it ain't a joke. It's real.
Everthing Vic Emmanuel seems to be doing is everything that 'Bertie' (King Edward of Eng, early 1900s) was doing 10x more...except that Bertie was attempting to get WWI off the ground as well.
In our supposedly "modern era" of (they tell us so--so many times!) democracy and universal rights, these inbred parasites still are the core parapolitial story going on.
@Anon at 12:52 AM
With regards to the Marquis de Sade
Perhaps, you could consider reading Dark Eros: The Imagination of Sadism by Thomas Moore
Moore wrote in Dark Eros: The Imagination of Sadism , that in any culture that does not acknowledge it's skeletons, --it's sins, if you will-- will have that imagination played out in real life.
The ways of Sade are not limited to bedroom and scenes of bondage or porno theaters or forbidden books. Any aspect of culture, from the great to the small, insofar as it is engaged in issues of power has therefore Sadean qualities. Furthermore, since life is never perfect, every aspect of culture will know the split of power into torture and suffering, dominance and submission, or sentimentality and cruelty.
Addendum:
From the forward:
Thomas Moore makes it possible to fully appreciate the Marquis de Sade as a teacher of our dark eros, of our darkly frightening demonic side. To use a standard phrase, Moore's book should be a "must" read for everybody even only vaguely interested in psychology, in the soul,..." and I agree; he(Moore)later writes, "If we approach Sade's writings as we would Greek Mythology, we might understand better the bare skeletons of his scenarios and avoid personalistc interpretations of his ugly characters."
Finally, one of my many favorite quotes from it is as follows, "We need a Sade as we need a Hesiod, who describes among other things the castration of a father by a son, to remind us of the place of certain strains in nature that afront decency...", "...To imagine ugliness is not the same as perpetrating it."
Moore's work in this book was very healing for me as I too (as others on this board) have suffered the family issues of incest, sexual abuse, and as M. Scott peck talks of in his book the road less traveled*, "undisciplined discipline" of growing up in a dysfunctional culture and family.
*Though, I am not a big fan of M.Scott Peck I take the truth where I find it.
"How do these people sleep at night?"
There is a Micheal Leunig cartoon with a brutal answer to that question.
Something along the lines of: "In my Mansion. In a super king size 4 poster bed, on a mattress made of down between silken sheets with a companion whose beauty would make you weep with desire."
Speaking of brutality, I don't think eyes wide shut really qualifies to be the movie of the joke.
Although I have never seen it (and frankly don't want to) there is a film called Salo.
I would say check it out, but I dunno if its something people should see.
I have seen eyes wide shut, in that it was on the television and I was in the room, so I kind of took it in, but I didn't watch it.
If you know what I mean.
Might have given the impression that I haven't seen it at all on the board.
My impression of that film in the context of the post Jeff has made is simple.
Kubrick is posing a question to the viewer.
And Kubrick's death adds just a little edge to that question.
Shrubagedon,
With the 10:80:10 rule things are even worse than you say. The top ten that may exhibit higher cognitive functioning find their bliss to be a nightmare as they also live with the cognitive dissonance created by an inadequate meta-narrative. Likely, less than 1% of that ‘gifted’ 10% have the mental fortitude to recognize the proper response to the fraud that is being foisted upon all of us.
The most intelligent person I ever met is a long time substance abuser. His intelligence still could not provide a system that would properly order his inputs.
Our missing element has to do with the functional process by which the pre-manifest becomes manifest. Not much dealt with within the dualistic model.
This is a link to coverage of the industrial schools inquiry I commented on earlier. What's of specific relevence here is that a children's charity were instrumental in procuring children for paedophile priests. http://dynamic.rte.ie/av/228-2150793.smil
A man walks into a talent agent's office, and says, "We're a political music act, and we'd like you to represent us."
The talent agent says, "Sorry, I don't represent political music acts. They're a little too bland."
The man says, "But, this is really special." The agent says, "Okay, well what's the act?"
"We let old ladies die in their wheelchairs and just bask in the mid-day sun after a disastrous flood, and little kids who are flood refugees go without food in a stifling, shit-filled stadium for days, without even realizing they are there. But we still have time to pick up a guitar in front of the cameras!
We let our First Lady tell jokes in public about the President masturbating a stallion!
We've got this cute bald manwhore who is eight and a half inches cut, and we let him pretend to be a journalist and go in and out (get it?) of the White House zillions of times!
We pile up naked Iraqi prisoners in a pyramid, and take cool pictures of them! We make them masturbate each other in front of us, and then we let the dogs go really wild near their genitals!
The man looks at the agent and says, "Well, that's the act. What do you think?"
The talent agent just sits in silence for a long time. Finally, he manages to say, "That's a hell of an act. What do you call yourselves?"
"The Compassionates!"
White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten plays bass guitar with his band "The Compassionates" at the White House Congressional Picnic on the South Lawn of the White House, June 15, 2006.
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=884602006
Not to be too simplistic or obvious but I would call it evil.
I happen to be a fan of mythology. Myth deals in archetypes, essentially derived from either good or evil.
This story of the Italian aristocrats debauching themselves and others above the law reminds me of the Bush-Ladens or the Clintons or the Kennedys in that they are all archetypes of evil.
We live in their age of protection from Satan and it's up to the people who see to expose the truth.
Ferry Fey--
I just wanted you to know that was awesome...
Sometimes it takes a joke to look back on all the sick happenings of the past few years and just realize how insane it truly is.
Time to watch SALO once more. Pasolini got it down before he was murdered.
RE: Aristocrats: When 19th century shrinks were examining what they called "hysterical women" in Paris, they had a choice: either accept that there was widespread depravity and abuse in high social places, or back away from their original thesis that patients should be listened to and treated on that basis. History shows us the path chosen: it took another 150 years for a women's movement to emerge. (see "Trauma and Recovery" by Judith Herman)
To wit: I'd pay money to chat for a while with the Bush twins or Chelsea Clinton.
RE: Aristocrats: When 19th century shrinks were examining what they called "hysterical women" in Paris, they had a choice: either accept that there was widespread depravity and abuse in high social places, or back away from their original thesis that patients should be listened to and treated on that basis. History shows us the path chosen: it took another 150 years for a women's movement to emerge. (see "Trauma and Recovery" by Judith Herman)
To wit: I'd pay money to chat for a while with the Bush twins or Chelsea Clinton.
the planet must be purged of aristocrats...about 6000, and perhaps a means of divesting their functionaries of political and financial influence, i reckon. better 6000 than 6000000 (or 6000000000) i say. these terrible leaders must be stopped. ps the world is controlled by college boys, beware.
The home of the infamous european toxic clan, psycho urban fraggers that pawn the virtual return to castle wolfenstein enemy territory battlefields.
Just Pub, a dumb return to castle wolfenstein enemy territory comic strip by feuersturm.
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