Friday, February 23, 2007

The Shock of Awe (Part Two)



It's bright in the heavens and the wheels are flying - Bob Dylan

When Oppenheimer said "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds," I wonder whether he could have imagined how right and how wrong he was, and that he was speaking for more than himself and his bomb, because no force in the world today - and arguably any day - is a more efficient instrument of Will to Death than the United States of America.

The Jackass War

Pat Dollard might agree, and say "Fuck yeah." The former Hollywood agent is now lionized by Fox and Republican revanchists for his midlife makeover to "War on Terror" propagandist. His time self-embedded in Iraq has become Young Americans, the trailer of which plays like Jackass goes to War, and includes footage of a Marine raising a severed Iraqi head to the camera to a thrashing soundtrack of "If you don't like it you can suck my dick!"

Dollard is profiled in the March Vanity Fair - the longest profile in the magazine's history - and when asked about the footage he laughs: "The true savagery in this war is being committed by the American left on the minds of the young men and women serving over there by repeatedly telling them that their cause is lost. My goal is to de-sensitize young people to violence." He calls liberals "nihilistic."

Tony Snow describes Dollard as a "true believer," while a 17-year old high school student writes that "the clips I've seen of Young Americans are an inspiration and its time someone tells the truth. Thanks for putting your life on the line for the better of the country."

But there's much more to Dollard. He's also a meth addict, an alcoholic and serial user and abuser of weaker hearts and minds. He screens for Vanity Fair's Evan Wright a documentary he'd just finished called Three Days, starring himself; a young Latino named Josiah Dollard whom he met in rehab and took in (initially, supposedly, to help remain sober and later to help score drugs), who is variously described as his "lieutenant," "houseboy" and "bitch"; and the love of Josiah's life, a former girlfriend whom Wright identifies only as "Sunshine" who unfortunately chanced to visit their house. The film's scenes of degradation, humiliation and boundary defiance make it sound like a madman's Salo. Or perhaps Paul Bernardo brought up short.

The face of a girl with long black hair fills the screen. Sunshine. Though she is of legal age, she speaks in a child's voice, plaintive and quavering, as Dollard, still offscreen, barks at her, "What's your job on the team?" She giggles. "To sexually satisfy you and clean the house."

Dollard enters the frame, totally nude, a decrepit satyr. A montage ensues of him performing various sex acts with her, intercut with close-ups of the girl smoking a glass pipe. There is unintended comedy: while Dollard is having sex with her on the couch, it catches fire, and the two fail to notice until flames engulf their feet. There is intended comedy: Dollard performs anal sex with her while simultaneously talking on the phone with an agent at William Morris.


In the film, Josiah, who serves as cameraman, does not have sex with Sunshine.... His most significant on-screen presence is to lean close to her and offer encouragements: "What's his name? Say Pat. You're fucking a rich man with accomplishments, not a fucking loser."

...

The film fades to black. Jim Morrison comes across the loudspeakers singing "The End." Dollard narrates in the background about immortality, death, and the horrors he witnessed in Iraq. It cuts to Dollard readying to make his money shot on Sunshine."

...

He turns to Josiah, speaking excitedly. "You love this girl, Josiah. But you know what? You wandered off into a room by yourself to fucking jerk off to a tape of her fucking somebody else. That's who we are. That's who people are! They're scumbags!"

"This is so fucked up," Josiah shouts, "but I like it."

"Exactly, dude!" Dollard claps his hands, like a teacher whose pupil is about to achieve satori. "That's what I told you! That's the whole point to everything around here, with this whole thing, all of it, beyond! It's what everything in my life is about. It's about finding all those truths and those fucking experiences that other people just don't get."

Josiah seems paralyzed, staring at the screen, his huge eyes unblinking. "This is so fucked up," he repeats.

"That's what we do here," Dollard says, pounding the editing table. "We take everything to its furthest limits. We go out. We get in cars. We fucking kill people."

And as awful as it is, Dollard is right. As right as Pasolini was when he had one of Salo's torturers say "We Fascists are the only true anarchists. Once we've become masters of the state, true anarchy is that of power." Transgressive brutality is a path of transformation, at least to a sociopath, and fascism is an ideology of sociopaths. Dollard is embraced by America's fascist elite because behind their paper house of flittering justifications for catastrophe, he's the exultant "Fuck Yeah!" the architects of mayhem still don't dare exclaim in public.

George Bush is not the architect of his wars, but rather another cowboy advocate, and like Dollard he can still delight in them even as he fulfills his job on the team by lying them into being. A couple of weeks ago Washington Life Magazine's Soroush Shehabi, a grandson of a Pahlavi-era minister of Iran, used a presidential reception to warn, Bush, as though he didn't already know, that "one US bomb on Iran and the regime will remain in power for another 20 or 30 years and 70 million Iranians will become radicalized." Bush answered, "I know," to which Soroush responded, "But does Vice President Cheney know?" Bush walked away, chuckling.

Of course, everyone wants to know what Cheney knows, and that's Cheney's delight. For one example some may find ridiculous, but which exists as an example nonetheless, when asked on April 11, 2001 about whether he'd ever been briefed on UFOs Cheney replied "Well, if I had been briefed on it, I'm sure it was probably classified and I couldn't talk about it." He then added, "I have not come across the subject since I've been back in government, on like since January 20th." In other words, he would only say that he hadn't met on the subject in 10 weeks, and any more must remain classified. He could have said much less, but he made instead a near-tacit admission and so strung along "Disclosure" junkies that he may be one of the keepers of the keys. Whether he is or not is a matter of speculation, but why he might like to subtly foster that impression ought to be self-evident.

The "Time of Jacob's Trouble"

One other thing: Dick Cheney also presents a problem for the broad, alternative consensus that America has been warring in Israel's service. There is a kind of truth there, but one which only accounts for the appearance of things rather than their depths, and can't account at all for Cheney's intent. As Joseph Cannon recently wrote, "Does anyone really think that Cheney gives a damn about Zionism or Jews or the return of Jesus or Islamofascism or any of the other religious motivations one hears about?" Radicalizing seventy million Iranians and baiting the entire Muslim world towards acts of retaliation doesn't seem like a sensible strategy for Israeli security, just as we have no problem admitting it isn't one to make America safe, either. So perhaps we should stop thinking that that's really what's going on here.

A couple of years ago I suggested that neoconservatives are the "Lone Gunmen of Iraq. They're the patsies who'll eventually take the fall for its failure, which will actually mean success to the real players who've allowed them the liberty to play their hand." Similarly and in turn, Israel will be sacrificed for the choices of its own patsy-elite who, as I wrote, are not themselves innocent, but neither should perfect blame be laid at their feet. The Dispensationalists' playbook - which is still in play for general consumption, even if few in power actually believe its prophetic narrative - calls for "the Time of Jacob's Trouble," which is the utter ruin of Israel.

"A careful examination of the prophetic Scriptures," writes evangelical author Ben Israel, "indicates calamities for Israel that are yet future":

I have the unwelcome task of giving an overview of what the Scriptures call, "The time of Jacob’s Trouble." It is a painful survey of the devastation and suffering, yet future, for Israel and the Jewish people.... Yes, there have been judgments, desolation, and expulsion in the past; this has been the characteristic pattern of God’s judgments on Israel’s sin, but this Scripture refers to a future and concluding judgment, because it ends with both Israel and the nations round about knowing that God is the Lord. No previous desolation or ruin has ever eventuated in this knowledge....

Part of my controversy with other prophetic spokesmen, who claim that the time of Jacob’s Trouble [Nazi Holocaust] is past, is answered by the fact that the time of Jacob’s Trouble does not have its inception in Europe, but in Israel itself, in the Land. And it indicates, therefore, something that has not yet taken place. But the stage is being set for that eruption and expulsion by the present Jewish presence in the Land that necessarily precedes it.

It's the Christian Armageddon, not the Islamic, which prescribes the annihilation of Israel. If America's Fuck Yeah! cowboy believes he is the Apocalypse President - or, perhaps, if some calved-away, compartmentalized aspect of himself is encouraged to believe such - then it's not for Israel's benefit America is carrying the fight.

For whom, then, should remain a valid question.

65 Comments:

Blogger hoi polloi said...

Pat DULLARD makes me sick. Just sick. And the worst part of it is there is no end in sight.

Back when I was in college, I wondered when the crudity of American pop-culture was going to give way to a more moral, ethical and inclusive one, as culture trends seem to move in cycles. Now, almost a decade later, we have gone even further down the sewer!

I guarantee you they will find a way to serve this kind of behavior up to the public, and the public will eat it up and find justifications for this barbarity. Jackass and Borat ebing perfect examples. Its mind boggling. I am thoroughly convinced now that I come from another planet, or maybe I am the only true HUMAN BEING left on this one as I just do NOT understand what passes for humor and culture these days.





In disgust,
A real human being

2/23/2007 06:04:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

There is a prereq on this blog and that is to comment on the graphic. I think it's your best work.

What happens to men like Dollard, Bush and Cheney when they lay their head upon the pillow? Do they need drugs to let them fall off to sleep? Bush is an early riser. Most of his press conferences must start at 5 in the morning for rehearsal and makeup.

Cheney, on the other hand, disappears for months on end. Never seen at a morning press conference.

My point here is that the state of "sleep" is the only thing humanity has in common with the "deciders" and I don't think there is even much in common even in that particular state.

The money shot gets my attention. It is easier to console than cajole that savage beast. The victimless crime of gratuitous pornography. Herein lies the disconnect. I am reminded of the rape and murder of a Chinese girl, Mindy Tran, in Kelowna, B.C. several years ago. I am reminded of a "Pert" shampoo commercial of a young Chinese girl exposed for purposes of prurient "soap selling" that was being played at that same time. The money shot and the disconnect. The commercial didn't play on the newscast.

2/23/2007 06:32:00 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Catherine Austin Fitts told me once that I should thank the Octopus folks because they have the power to kill me anytime they want but allow me to live (for some reason I'm not sure of). She also said that they are so technologically advanced compared to the rest of us that it's "as if they are aliens."

And then there's this one:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0209/S00126.htm

Gee, thanks guys!

Emanuel

2/23/2007 06:38:00 PM  
Blogger Mark said...

Interesting quote I came across.

It is worth keeping in mind to understand such high elite sponsorship (Vanity Fair magazine of all places?) for popularizing such a "useful idiot" as Dollard. The quote:

"With our great influence in publishing and publicity we are able to selectively popularize theorists whose views are incidentally beneficial, compatible, or at least not in conflict with our own goals. This way we obtain sincere, energetic activists to propagate our desires without having to reveal our motives even existence....[T]he brilliant researchers and experimenters [or useful idiots] who make most of the breakthroughs earnestly believe that their techniques are destined strictly for the betterment of mankind." --Anomymous, Transcripts of the Global Elite

I wonder if Dollard ever read the "transcripts of the global elite." Where would he fit into it? Though sociopaths and psychopaths I have come to conjecture don't really care one way or another if they are manipulated--as long as they can accomplish their short term goals.

This makes Dollard (or the neocons for that matter) the best material for manipulation: you can intentionally set up sociopaths and psychopaths to watch them destroy themselves--on someone else's schedule--and they don't care if they are being puppets as Jeff's post "The Lone Conmen" implies (linked above).

So some will say it's the forced non-choice of Britney or Dollard is it? Same with neocon Democrats or neocon Republicans, is it? However, it seems people refuse to buy it, though they keep selling only that.

Even the actual supermajority in the widely supposed clueless wasteland U.S. would ditch the entire elite fiasco of environmental and mental degradation policies at one go, given an opening.

I've read that getting news from the corporate networks is way, way down, so they seem to be getting a bit desperate to sell Dollard so hard. On the other hand, for the people who do get their information from Fox News for instance, they are some of the most gatekept minds in the world: some polls indicate some Fox watchers still didn't get the word that "weapons of mass destruction" weren't found in Iraq.

Though I suppose my point is don't worry. The majority isn't behind such things, and never has been. On the other hand it's hardly an issue of public opinion obviously that is arranging things here. You can invert the famous Margaret Mead quote to a sinister view if you really think about it: sometimes it really is really "just a few people who change the world"--i.e., against and disregarding public opinion to get there.

So, one the one hand, you get to take your (actually, "their") pick in the guided walls of an elitist mass electronic consumption or in the print media--or I suggest avoid fretting over it and reject this as simply a form of blinders.

They keep attempting to sell hate and degradation harder because no one really is buying "Dollard's World" Same with cloned beef.

Bernays as a Proto-Fascist

The "global elite" quote from whatever creative person wrote it reminds me of a snider 'in your face' Dollard version of Edward Bernays.

However, Bernays' secret 11 herbs and spices he put in his propaganda was always served far colder.

Since the political implications of Bernays is something I have rarely seen people remark on, I will here because it is the political model that seems to be desperately sold in "Dollard's World" above.

Bernays was very vocal for what kind of politics he was attempting to accomplish with his advertising campaigns, so it's a mistake particularly with his Nazi funding clientèles to see him as merely as a clueless professional publicist for hire--selling anything under the sun.

However, Bernays was selling a political model, instead of simply toothpaste or fluoridated water.

On the politics of a Bernays dystopia he worked so hard for all his life, let's hear him from 1928. This was before color movies, before television, before 'official' fascism except in Italy then already. Hardly a fan of debate, democracy, or even fascism--was he? (Fascism may have been "too populist" for someone like Bernays, though he would have had little difficulty with box seats for the show, at the 1936 Olympics).

Instead of fascism, Bernays seems to support a form of synarchy: rule by secret leaders, intentional lies, and a hatred of modern democracy.

This is quite in line with the Straussian views of the neocons.

Back in 1928, Bernays seems to have had a crack at at a first draft at "The Transcripts of the Global Elite", and its sentiments are similarly sociopathic.

Edward Bernays' Propaganda (1928) reads more like Mein Kampf:


CHAPTER I
ORGANIZING CHAOS

THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result [sic] of the way in which our democratic society is organized.

Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. [I can almost hear the "Heil!"]

Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the
inner cabinet."


And sometimes Bernays was quite vocal about how he saw his job as bringing about totalitarian societies:

"In theory, everybody buys the best and cheapest commodities offered him on the market. In practice, if every one went around pricing, and chemically testing before purchasing, the dozens of soaps or fabrics or brands of bread which are for sale, economic life would become hopelessly jammed [because commodities would be far more healthy with consumers getting more information! He's no fan of the market fundamentalist fascists either is he?].

"To avoid such confusion [sic], society consents [sic] to have its choice narrowed to ideas and objects brought to its attention through propaganda of all kinds. There is consequently a vast and continuous effort going on to capture our minds in the interest of some policy or commodity or idea. It might be better to have, instead of propaganda and special pleading, committees of wise men who would choose our rulers, dictate our conduct, private and public, and decide upon the best types of clothes for us to wear and the best kinds of food for us to eat. But [you can almost see him shake his head in disdainful disgust], we have chosen the opposite method,..."


Bernays proto-fascist world of the 1920s sounds exactly like the Bush/Cheney/Dollard world political implications right now. Bernays would have fit with Straussians as well. I'll say once more: he wasn't selling toothpaste, he was selling a form of politics. Moreover, psychopaths and sociopaths don't really care if they are set up. Like Crowley, the neocon Straussians will "rip and rend" to their heart's content on cue from others as long as their endless short term cravings are satisfied.

Some might say Bernays failed to see the repercussions of his vision of near complete secretive domination through the mass media. Or you may be less charitable and take him on his word: he quite aware he was encouraging totalitarianism. Given his client list, surely they knew that as well:

Bernays' clients included President Calvin Coolidge, Procter & Gamble, CBS, the United Fruit Company, the American Tobacco Company, General Electric, Dodge Motors, and the fluoridationists of the Public Health Service.

Since the flouridationists were actually not medical doctors and just posing as such working undercover for the U.S. Department of Atomic Energy interested in mass human experimentation right up there with the Nazis, it's hardly to consider that Bernays hands were clean here. (This story ATTEMPTED to come out over 10 years ago, and it was still repressed by the Christian Science Monitor. Still, few have heard about the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission conducting flouridation experiments on the U.S. citizens, and Bernays appears here to sell it as 'health care.' (Another motivation may have been to help out the Mellon family, owners of the aluminum monopoly of Alcoa, and simultaneously "unremovable" U.S. Treasury Secretary for many 1920s U.S. Presidents (March 4, 1921 until February 12, 1932) who wanted to get rid of lots of his family's flouride mining and refining wastes as well.)

So, what tipped the case was that fluoridation seems to be an ongoing experiment on the whole population of the U.S., "courtesy" of secret Atomic Energy Commission desires:

Their military affiliations were kept secret: Hodge was described as a pharmacologist, Barnett as a pediatrician. Placed in charge of the Newburgh project [for generating both disinformation and secret flouride toxicity levels in mass human experimentation] was David B. Ast, chief dental officer of the State Health Department. Ast had participated in a key secret wartime conference on fluoride held by the Manhattan Project, and later worked with Dr. Hodge on the Project's investigation of human injury in the New Jersey incident, according to once-secret memos. The committee recommended that Newburgh be fluoridated [to continue the human experiment]. It also selected the types of medical studies to be done, and "provided expert guidance" for the duration of the experiment. The key question to be answered was: "Are there any cumulative effects -- beneficial or otherwise, on tissues and organs other than the teeth -- of long-continued ingestion of such small concentrations...?" According to the declassified documents, this was also key information sought by the bomb program, which would require long-continued [experimental] exposure of workers and communities to fluoride throughout the Cold War.

"I'm shocked -- beyond words," said present-day Newburgh Mayor Audrey Carey, commenting on these reporters' findings. "It reminds me of the Tuskegee experiment that was done on syphilis patients down in Alabama."



...

In his autobiography, titled Biography of an Idea, Bernays recalls a dinner at his home in 1933 where

...Karl von Weigand, foreign correspondent of the Hearst newspapers, an old hand at interpreting Europe and just returned from Germany, was telling us about Goebbels and his propaganda plans to consolidate Nazi power. Goebbels had shown Weigand his propaganda library, the best Weigand had ever seen. Goebbels, said Weigand, was using my book Crystallizing Public Opinion as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany.


Bernays then relates he was "shocked, shocked" that his techniques were used for totalitarian sentiment, though he neglects to mention that Nazi support and hatred of democracy would have been right up his alley, according to his own words only five years before in 1928.

After all, Bernays was born in 19th century Austria, with all that implies in social politics of Germany the early 20th century.

And despite being "shocked, shocked" in his autobiography, many of Bernays clients were very close to the military intelligence proto-fascist wings of the U.S.A., particularly United Fruit (CIA and the Dulles on the Board), and CBS (founded off the networks of WWII military intelligence. Walter Conkrite was a military intelligence officer in WWII, I believe.)

"Bernays' celebration of propaganda helped define public relations, but it did not win the industry many friends. In a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter described Bernays and Ivy Lee as "professional poisoners of the public mind, exploiters of foolishness, fanaticism and self-interest."

Or is that only because Bernays was working for the fascist side in the 1930s, really? FDR equally was master at 'crystallizing public opinion' with his little "Fireside Chats". These did a long way toward disguising the fact that he was grandson of drug dealers working for Russell and Company in Canton--the international heroin ring--which ties right back into Skull and Bones of course.

However, I think that more people are aware and immune to the effects of this kind of elite propaganda more and more, from whatever wrapping the totalitarian side dreams up.

As for this Bernays quote, it's like his cribbing from Blavatsky:

"Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.

I can just see Bernays sitting around with Blavatsky, attempting to contact Great White Brotherhood--with the Himalayas in the background as little Nazi flag tanks are coming over a ridge closer and closer...perhaps an image for you to work on, Jeff.

The sooner you are shocked that they have been doing this solidly for almost 100 years is the sooner you become more immune and skeptical--and start working toward your own capacities of dissolving the crystals of supposed public opinion.

2/23/2007 08:36:00 PM  
Blogger Jeff Wells said...

"There is a prereq on this blog and that is to comment on the graphic. I think it's your best work."

Thanks eric. Sometimes I regret starting with the graphics, because they can inhibit my posting in a timely fashion. Other times I feel like the graphic is all I want to say.

Here's something from Cheney today:

Cheney hints at Iran strike

US Vice-President Dick Cheney has raised the possibility of military action to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

He has endorsed Republican senator John McCain's proposition that the only thing worse than a military confrontation with Iran would be a nuclear-armed Iran.

In an exclusive interview with The Weekend Australian, Mr Cheney said: "I would guess that John McCain and I are pretty close to agreement."

The visiting Vice-President said that he had no doubt Iran was striving to enrich uranium to the point where they could make nuclear weapons.

He accused Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of espousing an "apocalyptic philosophy" and making "threatening noises about Israel and the US and others".

He also said Iran was a sponsor of terrorism, especially through Hezbollah. However, the US did not believe Iran possessed any nuclear weapons as yet.

"You get various estimates of where the point of no return is," Mr Cheney said, identifying nuclear terrorism as the greatest threat to the world.

...

"In the long term when we look back on this period of time that will be a remarkable achievement. We're not there yet. We've still got a lot to do."

2/23/2007 09:06:00 PM  
Blogger The Way It Can Be said...

what if Moses never existed
and Jesus never existed.. that they're
amalgams of other people and hopes and eras

people use whatever is at hand to fuel their desires and their metamorphosis

I think the ideologies are just as tenuous

this whole weimaresque regime and its vaunting nilihism is unsustainable

we have to try to block their supremacism and support their foes and be ready to pick up the pieces in such a way as to cripple their power for generations

2/23/2007 09:39:00 PM  
Blogger puddintame said...

Dullard and Bush. So much like Slim Pickens and his big yahoo! Waving the old cowboy hat and riding the bomb on down to our oblivion.
I am Death!???? Too elegant and thoughtful a line to ever come from Bush or Dullard, although you never really implied it would. There's would be a much more crass line. Something that not just a bull in a china shop would say, but I'm not sure the term for a Bull in a room full of test tubes that held the germs that might destroy it all.

I worked for a while for some of the very wealthy, well-connected men on the planet in an administrative assistant role. One gentleman I worked for used to say, "We don't care much for consequences. We move to increase our power because those with power can always defer the consequences to those without power." And he was right for the most part. It's what gave me collitis by the time I left those guy's employment. They totally bet on the complacency and stupidity of the sleeping masses, and they would win every time despite all my wishes that humanity was smarter than that. It sent me into a panic that I somehow had to get more power than I had and stay out of their way and not face the consequences of power either.

2/23/2007 10:17:00 PM  
Blogger muddy elephant said...

Hey Jeff, thanks for all of your work here.

I must say that considering the topics you write about you've somehow managed to not get stuck in the bullshit assertions and the dire proselytizing that many otherwise intelligent and resourceful investigators do. Maybe it's that most people are just oblivious to their own egotistical will to power. Anyways… it is duly appreciated.

What really strikes me is how much sex and death are implicated in all of the conspiratorial, metaphysical, psycho-religious madness. And of course they are. We are only human after all.

Ironically, it seems in our desires to control these forces, that we are in turn, all the more controlled by them.

I am speaking in generalities here but if you want specific examples just fucking look around. It is self-evident that all of our actions are resulting from sex and death. Sex and death are the prison bars of our existence. Like a 'chinese finger trap' the more we struggle the tighter our bondage or at least the more entangled and enmeshed we are with these forces:

"'This is so fucked up,' Josiah shouts, 'but I like it.'

'Exactly, dude!' Dollard claps his hands, like a teacher whose pupil is about to achieve satori. 'That's what I told you! That's the whole point to everything around here, with this whole thing, all of it, beyond! It's what everything in my life is about. It's about finding all those truths and those fucking experiences that other people just don't get.
'"

It seems we suffer from a spiritual and intellectual laziness. Sex and Death just happen to be the first two easily recognizable 'energies' we are 'presented' with in our post-pubescent lives. So, for the most part we just don't look for anything else…

If we dismiss this simple observation we have the dangerous situation of being a paradoxical society of passive sociopaths. Most of us kind of just go along with the flow. Yet what is this flow? I think Jeff, as usual, is onto something here:

"Transgressive brutality is a path of transformation, at least to a sociopath, and fascism is an ideology of sociopaths."

This would of course be the mindset(conscious or not) of the leaders of such a paradoxical society. I totally agree with Jeff on suggesting that the power-mongers of this world are motivated by some other-ness that is kept secret.

My current guess is the notion that there is a 'dark' force that is 'using' each and every one of us due to our own spiritual and intellectual laziness. I'll end here with the admission of having taken a complete and perhaps irrational fascination with the possibility of the Fortean notion: "We are property."

2/23/2007 10:17:00 PM  
Blogger Tsoldrin said...

A marriage of convenience. That's how I see the relationship between Cheney and the Israeli hard liners. One side seemingly promoting the interests of the multinational mega corps of Big Oil and the Military Industrial Security Complex. One side seemingly attempting to annilihate or forcibly pacify everyone who might be a 'threat' to them, real or perceived, notably Arabs, preferably by proxy and the manipulation of other nations.

Strange bedfellows indeed. Operating under the premise of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' they both undoubtedly think they have the upper hand and are bending the other to their will and just as undoubtedly they both are manipulating eachother and in turn being manipulated by the other. Stranger still is the fact that both sides seem to be working counter productively to the interests of their own nations and thus themselves, in the long view at least.

The third spur of this triumverate of Awful would be the multinational conglomeration of the security services, both national and corporate. Unscrutable and aloof as always they are surely facilitating much of the manipulation and machinations as well as adding their own and possibly some from above.

It seems all too likely, at least to me, that this Neocon-Corporate-Zionist cabal is a splinter group infused with the youth of each faction for common cause by those overlords who are nameless, faceless, with a much longer and vastly more patient view. What scares me there is that it's difficult to tell if this spliner group is still operating according to the plan or have they become autonomous and uncontrollable, steering without even the (debatable) wisdom of the nameless overlords, setting course for Armageddon and taking us all along with them.

Whoops, got lost in a little stream of consciousness there... I guess my main point is that I don't want to give anyone a 'pass'. In the same way I don't buy that BushCo simply capitalized on 9/11 but had a hand in it, I don't buy that Israel is simply capitalizing on the current crisis in the middle east but definitely had a hand in creating it and both factions are culpable for their individual and shared crimes.

2/23/2007 11:38:00 PM  
Blogger Mark said...

"Transgressive brutality is a path of transformation, at least to a sociopath, and fascism is an ideology of sociopaths."

And public relations is fascist ideology of transformation made a profession, at least in Bernays's view.

More on the theme of Bernays as really a proto-fascist in sentiment, as well as how Goebbels just read Bernays explicit recommendations in Propoganda despite how Bernays in later life in his whitewash autobiography says he was "shocked" it was used in this way.

Why shocked? I guess sociopaths are always shocked I guess when found out. Let's read some more Bernays.

Bernays does have perceptive things to say about the operation of mass psychology in large scale societies (and the facts of historical morphing and counter-drawing of techniques across entertainment, politics, medicine shows, the circus, and business), though his proto-fascist sentiments keep showing (a bit high up) on his sleeve.

Regardless of his idle talk inserted here and there about benefits of propaganda to the people 'in general' in a democracy (i.e., propogandists 'helping to make the links' for people thus providing a 'public service'), all his throwaway lines when he's really on a roll line up on the side of a leadership who doesn't give a damn for people and takes them only as raw material to manipulate--toward a 'correct' dictatorship--who ignores such things. Bernays:

"The political apathy of the average voter, of which we hear so much, is undoubtedly due to the fact that the politician does not know how to meet the conditions of the public mind. He cannot dramatize himself and his platform in terms which have real meaning to the public. Acting on the fallacy that the leader must slavishly follow, he deprives his campaign of all dramatic interest. An automaton cannot arouse the public interest. A leader, a fighter, a dictator, can. But, given our present political conditions under which every office seeker must cater to the vote of the masses, the only means by which the born leader can lead is the expert use of propaganda."

...

If a politician is a real leader he will be able, by the skillful use of propaganda, to lead the people, instead of following the people by means of the clumsy instrument
of trial and error."


Like a sentiment mentioned above in 'puddintame''s experience, elite manipulators never make mistakes Bernays says. Or get the learning experience of them at least, since they escape through crony politics to damage something else another day, with the obvious lesson only learned with that kind of lack of punishment is "we didn't do it large enough last time". Sociopaths and psychopaths are leaders who don't make mistakes--avoiding "following the people" as well as avoiding "means of the clumsy instrument of trial and error."

'Only the little people make trial and error based decisions.' What a no-looking-back, blank check he writes himself and any public manipulator in some less guarded moments in the book. Leaders never make mistakes. Manipulative leaders are providing a social required function, ergo, leaders can't make mistakes. And if you don't make mistakes, you effectively have removed yourself from all senses of any moral code, as well as in your mind, made anything you want to do possible and doable. (Did I mention Bernays mentions Nietzsche in there somewhere as well?)

Bernays fit so well with the Nazi-string pullers because he has such tendencies clearly himself. Propaganda has the same self-worship of the transformative actions and operations of a self-elected leadership, akin to Hitler's Mein Kampf.

And the clencher I had to relate:

Bernays should have hardly been "shocked, shocked" (in his backpedaling lying autobiography) that he seems to indicate that Goebbels unfairly employed his ideas to set up a Nazi "Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda" formally in the government and ride roughshod over people--because that is exactly what Bernays recommends, to the letter and self-justification in Propaganda (1928):

"The function of the propagandist is much broader in scope than that of a mere dispenser of information to the press. The United States Government should create a Secretary of Public Relations as member of the President's Cabinet. The function of this official should be correctly to interpret America's aims and ideals throughout the world, and to keep the citizens of this country in touch with governmental activities and the reasons which prompt them. He would, in short, interpret the people to the government and the government to the people. Such an official would be neither a propagandist nor a press agent, in the ordinary understanding of those terms. He would be, rather, a trained technician who would be helpful in analyzing public thought and public trends, in order to keep the government informed about the public, and the people informed about the government. America's relations with South America and with Europe would be greatly improved under such circumstances. Ours must be a leadership democracy administered by the intelligent minority who know how to regiment and guide the masses.

Is this government by propaganda? Call it, if you prefer, government by education. [Goebbels "Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda"]. But education, in the academic sense of the word, is not sufficient. It must be enlightened expert propaganda through the creation of circumstances, through the high-spotting of significant events, and the dramatization of important issues. The statesman of the future will thus be enabled to focus the public mind on crucial points of policy, and regiment a vast, heterogeneous mass of voters to clear understanding and intelligent action."


These sentiments of "important noble lies that elites know are lies to organize the people" could be Leo Strauss. Perhaps Leo Strauss read Bernays--like Goebbels did as well. That's probably the actual link: a Bernays-Strauss link.

Bernays recommendations echo what happened in Nazi Germany exactly:

When Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933, Goebbels was initially given no office: the coalition cabinet which Hitler headed contained only a minority of Nazis as part of the deal he had negotiated with President Paul von Hindenburg and the conservative parties. But as the propaganda head of the ruling party, a party which had no great respect for the law, he immediately began to behave as though he was in power. He commandeered the state radio to produce a live broadcast of the torchlight parade which celebrated Hitler’s assumption of office. On 13 March, Goebbels had his reward for his part in bringing the Nazis to power by being appointed Reich Minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda (Volksaufklärung und Propaganda), with a seat in the Cabinet.

Goebbels works by the book, indeed. Bernays' book.

And back to Dollard. Here's Bernays on American cinema:

"The American motion picture is the greatest unconscious carrier of propaganda in the world to-day. It is a great distributor for ideas and opinions. The motion picture can standardize the ideas and habits of a nation."

To be fair to Bernays, he does suddenly switch tracks, back to Dr. Jeckyll from Mr. Hyde on most occassions, and always adds in a boilerplate sophism that all he is really recommending is that movies, leaders, etc. "respond to the market" (though he admits the market can be led intentionally?), which is trotted out in places throughout the book--alongside of course repeated sentiments that the markets no longer matter because "the will to power" is all that matters: since supply-side pressures can create their own demand services and outreach to form the mass mind; or on the contrary, if elites ever really did respond to the market, Bernays seems to consider an informed public dangerous and "hopelessly jammed" (his phrase) to the capacities of informal strategies of elite will to power politics.

"In practice, if every one went around pricing, and chemically testing before purchasing, the dozens of soaps or fabrics or brands of bread which are for sale, economic life would become hopelessly jammed. To avoid such confusion, society consents [sic]to have its choice narrowed to ideas and objects brought to its attention through propaganda..."

Or is that hopefully jammed, i.e., the stopping of sociopaths from manipulating and leading mass societies?

So Bernays sort of invents the meme that elite sociopaths provide a public service so get out of their way; and that the public can be damned without a self-righteous sociopathic leader ignoring what they want and organizing them in large groups who should be led. In other words, Bernays keeps taking the Fifth Amendment of any Propagandist, non-self incrimination--and he uses it over and over: "the public made me do it". No, they didn't. It's visa versa.

An interesting subtheme to the book, which may hardly be strange, is the rather high number of exclusively parapolitical names Bernays plants throughout the book as his chosen examples. Nearly everyone that he quotes or uses as examples in the book Propaganda is seemingly selectively drawn from figures prominent in the Anglo-American empire globalism of the 1880s-1920s.

George Bernard Shaw ('dated' Mrs. Astor); H. G. Wells; Mrs. Astor; Prince of Wales. English royalty. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.; Chauncey DePew (Bonesman); Mellon Institute of Industrial Research; J. P. Morgan; Judge Gary (of Morgan's near monopoly of the U.S. Steel Corporation); Mr. O. H. Cheney, Vice-President of the American Exchange and Irving Trust Company
of New York (from family Cheney owners of the world's largest silk manufactory, in New England). and Cheney once more.

Yes. Bernays quotes several pages from a Cheney CEO speech by the way (using Cheney Brothers twice actually!).

The Cheney family's silk textiles branch was probably the largest firm in the world in silk by the early 1900s, in New England.

Cheney Brothers was (is still?) a silk manufacturer. It was indirectly that branch of the Cheney family that get into Skull and Bones and high federal politics.

Though some of the silk business Cheneys becoming Bonesmen first in the 1890s, they were already politically powerful before that--as silk textile manufacturers and war profiteers in the Civil War on the Northern side.

(See the book Silk and Guns: silk manufactory Cheneys quickly set up an armament factory from an untested gun without any experience and even though they failed to deliver on it mostly, their friends in government kept the contract open and payments flowing, and a lack of prosecution from being handed down on them).

Cheney Brothers were war profiteers in World War I as well (huge supplier of silk parachutes for the U.S.)

I'm unsure if Cheney Brothers war profiteering continued into WWII contracts.

Silk and Guns. What a perceptive title--because isn't the common story of sociopathic elites always a variation of "silk and guns?"

2/24/2007 12:02:00 AM  
Blogger Sam Hill said...

Really stellar graphic! Only one question: Why Vishnu as Krishna?

Seems to me Shiva would have been more appropriate.

2/24/2007 12:40:00 AM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

I'm experiencing some kind of dissonant feedback loop here. First off, I'd never heard of this Dollard person. Second, I don't believe that Bush's base, certainly not the Dispensationalists, would cheer on the kind of skull-fucking and proud of it mentality that Dollard (apparently) revels in. This can't be correct.

I understand, I think, how that stolid 1/3rd which never questions even the most barbaric, short-sighted, hypocritical, etc, etc, acts committed by the US in the name of Exceptionalism & Destiny deals with its compliance with the war criminals, which is to say its abrogation of morality. Ericswan asked how the "leaders" sleep at night--those that actively support them are not far from their culpability, and I think in both cases the answer is that they somehow believe they're in the right. By what moral compass is, of course, the big question.

In the link provided by Emanuel to The $64 Question: What's Up With the Black Budget?, by Catherine Austin Fitts, (whom I'm not quite certain I trust), there's the same question in the context of the Black Ops budget, the reason for the existence of the National Security State and all the freaky, whispered rumors about aliens among us, the connections between the Military/Industrial Complex and 9/11 and The War On Terror, etc, and the monstrosity of the murderous deception involved runs into the same question that ericswan posed. Fitts asks, rhetorically, I suppose:

Why would sane and even decent people think it was the best option for the good of the whole?

While one could question whether those involved with the shadow government give the proverbial rat's ass about the "good of the whole," or, for that matter, why she considers them "sane and even decent people" in the first place (which I think is most absurd--I mean, c'mon--forget their rationalizations, actions speak far louder than the self-serving justifications of these elites, a word which Fitts does not employ for those "in the circles in which [she] travels".)

Seemingly puzzled by the acquiescence of these sane and even decent people, Fitts then makes the astonishing remark:

My experience in Washington and Wall Street would indicate that there is a reasonable chance that all these various people and many in the food chain Are Not Bad Or Irrational People. That is, we have a better chance of finding the truth if for purposes of our explorations we assume that the people involved in all these roles were people like you and me --- just with a different map of certain parts of the world and dealing with a variety of stress and pressures trying to build cooperation or achieve goals that we do not understand.

"Assume that the people involved in all these roles were people like you and me"?! Is she out of her mind? In what respect are these people, or this jackal Dollard for that matter, in any way like you and me? In that we belong to similar species? (See last thread.) The most shocking thing to me in Fitts' strange article, or in Jeff's assertion that Dollard is well-loved by the Fox Nation is the idea these folks are all just fine and dandy and it's we who simply lack an understanding of their (presumably) higher purposes. Fitts concludes:

"...the system is working and is learning. It is our construct that is wrong. We do not understand the system and the goals of the system."

In other words, the only problem here is that we don't have the last pieces of the puzzle. Since we're not privy to those state secrets which would explain and even justify the amoral actions of "the system" (that Icke was right and the Reptilians just love the taste of fresh human and we have to keep them mollified?!), we'll just have to operate on the assumption that there is some such justification and, further, calmly accept the fact that we're just not qualified to worry our pretty little heads about all that icky grown-up business.

There was one other anomaly in the $64 Question, when Fitts tells us:

"There is a reason that power and money are centralizing and the rich are getting richer. I want to know what it is."

It's not even remotely possible that this is the end in itself, the secret info to which we're not privy? Something smells funny. Funnier than usual, even.

2/24/2007 01:32:00 AM  
Blogger barracuda said...

Ok, the extreme right has the half hour news hour, the left has Jon Stewart? Right, Dollard. Left - Team America? Marinetti vs. Arteaud, or Cocteau, or whatever toe. Oh yeah, Georges Bataille. Trangressive psychosexual behavior has been a radical polemic forever. When it is destructive it is fascist, Lilith. When it affirms life it magically takes the path of the Tanist king and rises from destruction.
I tend to curse Bush, in his madness, he clearly thinks what he is doing is for the greater good. So did the parents and cops at McMartin preschool. Plenty of people thought "rods" was a real thing and look how they fetishized something as dumb as that. The war is hot and pornographic (Big Time's endowment and all), and so must the peace be eroticized again. Yeah, gimme the destroyer and the creator, Vishnu in fusion with Siva as Aiyanar - "the creative power of preservation and dissolution of the eternal cycle of the universe." Yeah, the future is ahead of us being born into existence every moment! It is a violent and destructive birthing, but worry not! The soap is marked down on special on aisle 666.

Oh, yeah - I always dig your pictures, Mr. Wells.

2/24/2007 01:57:00 AM  
Blogger Sam Hill said...

Cut wrote:

The most shocking thing to me in Fitts' strange article, or in Jeff's assertion that Dollard is well-loved by the Fox Nation [Cut, I guess you haven't seen 24?] is the idea these folks are all just fine and dandy and it's we who simply lack an understanding of their (presumably) higher purposes. Fitts concludes:

"...the system is working and is learning. It is our construct that is wrong. We do not understand the system and the goals of the system."


Precisely. Cut and Fitts (hey, is that a pun or what?) do not understand the metaphysics of the powers that be.

I found this a couple of threads ago, posted by an "Anonymous":

from JFC Fuller’s [the British Major General, war historian, tank warfare strategist, psychedelic/occult painter, and Crowleyite] Secret Wisdom of the Qabalah, Chapter II, Free Will, p. 44-5:

"Satan, as we call this power, is in fact the Tree of Life of our world, that free will which for its very existence depends on the clash of the positive and negative forces which in the moral sphere we call good and evil. Satan is therefore the Shekinah [for those who don't know, the Shekinah is the 'spirit of God' that resides in the Holy of Holies, the Tabernacle on the Temple Mount] of Assiah, the World of Action, the perpetual activity of the Divine Essence, the Light which was created on the first day and which in the form of consciousness and intelligence can produce an overpowering brilliance equal to the intensest darkness. Satan is also the Flaming Sword which brought light from heaven."

"The understanding of this power, whether in the physical, moral, or intellectual planes, is called science, and the misunderstanding of it is frequently called magic."

Qabalah, Chapter IV, The Fall of Tetragrammaton, p. 51:

"In the account of the creation in Genesis the Androgenic Man appears on the sixth day, that is at the end of the creation, because he symbolizes its totality and completion and six is the number of the Great Work; 666 being also its number in the vital, intellectual, and spiritual planes, the Vau extended from Malkuth to Kether."

Qabalah, Chapter IV, The Fall of Tetragrammaton, p. 54:

"In order to understand this we will repeat it again: good is a means of balancing out evil, and evil a means of balancing out good. Neither is desirable in itself except in the Material World, which cannot exist without them; equally, the Spiritual World cannot be entered as long as they exist; consequently their adverseness is purely relative to the Spiritual World. Further on in this book we will show that the power of using either is drawn from the same source - Shin, Shekinah, Astral Light, Ether, Electricity, whatever name it may be called by - and to understand the use of this force, yet never to be obsessed by it, is to trample on the head of the Serpent and so re-establish the Shin in the body of Tetragrammaton and formulate the Messiah, the Incarnate Word which when disincarnated caused the Assiatic World to be."

"In brief, this is the central doctrine of the Qabalistic Redemption; yet so dangerous did this doctrine appear, should it be divulged to the uninitiated, that to safeguard it it was locked away in a jumble of symbols, names, figures, and cryptograms which are frequently contradictory. The danger was that this philosophy not only harmonized good and evil, but maintained that all goodness proceeds from evil. Mystically this means a return of man to God, but by the ignorant it might easily be interpreted as meaning the doing of evil for the sake of spiritual gain.


He said it. Fuller, that is.

To me this seems pretty freakin' crystal clear. And it seems to explain why our (sic) politicians can smile and utter platitudes, all the while causing death and chaos throughout the world. They actually believe they are doing “God’s” work.

In that sense they are not hypocrites, just psychopathically deranged inhabitants of an enclosed delusional system. Unless you happen to believe yourself that this doctrine accurately describes reality. In that case it's not delusional, just plain folks.

Now I know there's beaucoup skepticism on this score to go around, but let's just use good ol' Wm. of Ockham's razor for a moment: If this doctrine doesn't explain why the PTB are reveling in death and chaos the world over, and still smiling their Betty Crocker and Uncle Ben's smiles every night on the tube, then what, pray tell, does?

A candy bar and a bottle of pop to the first person who can provide a more simple, straightforward explanation that covers the known facts.

Ignorance, or incompetence will not be accepted as an answer.

That is way too facile. I got over that one a few years ago. Had me fooled for decades.

The world as we know it is not as we know it.

2/24/2007 03:38:00 AM  
Blogger Sounder said...

Mark said;

"The sooner you are shocked that they have been doing this solidly for almost 100 years is the sooner you become more immune and skeptical--and start working toward your own capacities of dissolving the crystals of supposed public opinion."

Much more than 100 years.

I can't help it, but I go back in my imagination, to the counting house of Pope Boniface VII. A time when elite families contested for top spots from which to fleece the flock. Imagine their delight at the notion that as long as they could define the so-called proper expression of being for the common man, they could remain in their castles doing whatever the fuck they wanted. This is history; you reacting to the prescriptions of clever actors.

We become human to the degree that we replace reacting with conscious actions derived from an ethical base.

2/24/2007 09:41:00 AM  
Blogger ericswan said...

Sam Hill what the? I think you've got it and now I'm going to have to steal it and post it to my blog. hehe

If I could add anything to your Fuller insight it would be that good and evil are absolutes and must find equilibrium by expressions on all planes spiritual and physical or is that material? When evil finally destroys the planet with MADD, Jesus will return and walk on water. In the meantime, there are many things prophesied that need doing.

2/24/2007 10:26:00 AM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

Sam,

You're right--I've never seen "24" or much of anything else, I guess. I know I'm completely out of touch with the televised reality (no, I don't much read newspapers, either), but it's not out of some kind of snobbery; I just never got adjusted to that sort of thing. When I was a kid, we didn't have a TV, and then even after my dad finally did break down and buy one, we weren't really allowed to watch it much.

It's more a question of habits, I guess, for me. I learned to read before I ever went to school and so that always felt kind of false, too. (I didn't actually stay in school very long, either.) So, yeah, I don't know what's going on, if what's going on is contained in what's being broadcast and printed in disposable rag form. But, and in defense of my ignorance, does it really matter?

I know that we're supposed to know the enemy and all that; I just can't bring myself to look at that crap. It gives me an instant headache (and I played for many years in very loud bands, so it's not the light & sounds that bother me, exactly.) It just gives me a sort of unease bordering on vertigo to plug in like so many folks do, and what's the point, anyway?

In all the explanations I've seen for what's happening, both here and elsewhere, there seems to be a choice between the non-magical continuation of the age-old dominion of the powerful over the unfortunate and some weird new vampyric helter-skelterism. Using that razor you provided, it seems to me that the latter alternative can be pretty easily chopped off as a bunch of self-serving, scary propaganda. Bullshit, in a word.

The difference between me and Fitts is that she gives these thieving, murdering feudal lords the benefit of a mighty huge doubt--that there must be some perfectly good explanation for why they are killing the world, while I do not. I don't believe there can be an explanation or justification for what is happening. To me, it's simply an acceleration of a very old process; instead of sliding toward the cliff, we're rushing headlong into the abyss, shouting encouraging/misleading nonsense all the way down.

As far as the Kabbalist "philosophy" goes, the only version of it which was even mildly intriguing or worth reading for me was Jane Jensen's Dante's Equation (sample chapters available), the review of which at SF Site went, in part, like this:

Dante's Equation (Dante is never mentioned in the book, but the context makes the reference obvious) has more the feel of a thriller than science fiction, complicated scientific theories and the characters' journeys to alien worlds notwithstanding. All the thriller ingredients are there: the scientist with the dangerous discovery, the scary government operative, the greedy powers that be, the desperate race to find/steal/contain the threat. But not many thrillers feature pompous Jewish rabbis as viewpoint characters, or so inventively mix science with mysticism. I'm not knowledgeable enough to judge the plausibility of Jill's energy pool theory or her one-minus-one universal wave; but the integration of Kabbalistic lore with these ideas is entirely convincing, producing a vision of a multiverse where the notion of good and evil isn't merely a philosophical or spiritual concept, but a reflection of the actual physical nature of existence. Jane Jensen is careful to make clear that "good" and "evil", with all their moral baggage, are subjective concepts, while the universal forces these ideas reflect are simply physical laws, devoid of moral weight. Also, for all the lavish employment of religious imagery, she is wise enough to leave relative the question of God. While Aharon finds in his experience a new and restored faith, to Jill it's all about science.

And so, even the Kabbalistic interpretation can be viewed through the karmic lens--everything becomes a matter of perception (and deception).

2/24/2007 11:10:00 AM  
Blogger Christopher said...

I can't help commenting on Irridescent's post. As someone who has observed the powerful from occasional close-up experiences I can tell you they are people who believe they are doing the right thing--but that's not their chief motivation, rather it is the story they tell themselves (Americans have a compulsion to appear virtuous to themselves) that enables them to participate in the wondrous marketplace of getting anything they want (anything?--yes, anything!). Yes, they lie to themselves and usually forget that they have done so. Sometimes they go off-kilter and become nuisances like Ms. Fitts and they rapidly become marginalized--there are a thousand people who want to be on the inside and have the quals for every opening so who cares?

"Getting what you want" is the great secret doctrine hidden in plain site that is a the center of our current civilization. Hubris is the virtue most loved in popular culture. Dullard (what a name!) is the face of the New Man and his attributes are precisely the reason so many young men love gangsta-rap. Yes, it's always been about potency and force, these reason so let's get real. Of course it is not all about potency and force and it behooves all of us to look at the other side--by that I mean compassion and the cultivation of awareness (the universe is very, very, very, very deep and to "combat" the worship of the trivial and shallow pleasures that Amercans embrace means diving deep, deep into our paradoxical nature. That is the only "weapon" we have to confront the visage of the increasingly revealed Power that is emerging. No reformers are going to come, no amount of disrobing power will make the slightest bit of difference. The ugly face of the new God is forming as we sit here.

2/24/2007 11:25:00 AM  
Blogger The Minstrel Boy said...

in my cadillac,
good car to drive,
after a war


bob dylan

2/24/2007 12:10:00 PM  
Blogger Sam Hill said...

Cut: Looks like we got ourselves a reader here.........

For a reader's take on 24, check out this New Yorker article from last week:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070219fa_fact_mayer

The article is complete with a very interesting visit by the Dean of West Point, to the producer's of 24, asking them to tone down the torture scenes, because they are giving the U.S. a bad name overseas, and making it hard to restrain torture-hungry West Point cadets eager to whip out the cattle prods at the drop of a hood, er, hat.

And here's the New Yorker's own brief video, narrated by the author, to go with it.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070219fa_fact_mayer

It's a painless, reader's entree into mainstream popular culture.

Check it out. You might find it shocking, not awesome.

2/24/2007 12:26:00 PM  
Blogger Sam Hill said...

Christopher, I think you pretty well nailed it.

And Cut, I don't think you said anything I disagree with. And I think it jibes completely with what Christopher said.

The way Fuller limns out Qabalah seems to me to be more than anything an early form of post-modernism: that's to say a newer, darker form of Dispensationalism.

Or put it another way, the latest, and also the oldest form of rationalization for doing whatever the fuck you want to do.

Only under the ages old and newly re-minted doctrine that is the new boss, same as the old boss, this Qabalah makes doing whatever the fuck you want to maintain and increase your power a New Age act of profound mysticism bringing you that much closer to God(hood).

I know that's a little stream-of-conscious-y, but I'm still at least one cup of coffee shy of my daily maximum and I need to top off my 'feine level before I can think straight.

No less write clearly.

Check out the New Yorker article, at least, you readuh, you.

2/24/2007 12:37:00 PM  
Blogger muddy elephant said...

Great thread everyone. Here is a response to (what in the) Sam Hill's proposition:

" A candy bar and a bottle of pop to the first person who can provide a more simple, straightforward explanation that covers the known facts. "

--btw please feel free to shoot this blatantly oversimplied explanation full of holes.

First of all, what are the known facts?

A) That we as a species have a basic imperative to survive.

B) From this we have groups/individuals within the species who think they know how best to survive.

C) Inevitably a group or an individual is willing to kill or forcibly control other groups/individuals over fundamental disagreements on how best to survive.

D) The resulting trauma from the actualisation of point C creates not just fundamental but intractable disagreement between groups/individuals.

E) It seems that as long as there is disagreement on how best to survive groups/individuals become trapped in a circular pattern from B to C to D.

These are the known facts.

Therefore we are all trapped. Mostly by point C.

There is nothing morally wrong with point C. Killing and controlling are necessary survival tools up to a point.

I'd like to think we've reached that point. But we haven't. We are probably not anywhere remotely close to reaching it.

So, like it or not (and I fucking hate it) we are just going to have to be patient and suffer fools gladly. We can most likely expect many many lifetimes and more of abject suffering and cruelty of the type we see today. It may even get worse.

Until point C actually stops being useful to groups/individuals we are still trapped. Unfortunately, point C remains quite useful for the simple fact that it is being used.

F) Inevitably, groups/individuals will see that point C is actually the negation of point A.

And this is where we all stand it seems. On the brink of the negation of point A.

So the solution is the intuitive assertion point F. There is no forcing or ethical persuasion or doctrines of faith or revelation of truth or anything at all that is necessary to bring this about. People will either see this point for themselves or they won't.

2/24/2007 01:24:00 PM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

Sam, Sam, Sam,

I did attempt to say something a little deeper about my preferences (reading & playing over viewing & glueing) when I said it was really a matter of habit. Had I been exposed earlier to this crapstream, I would probably have become used to it, and vice-versa for those who are “tuned in.” So, please, if I’m guilty of being a readuh, it’s not in the sense of those holier-than-thou-connotations that so easily go with that label.

So, I read that first link to the New Yorker, and I have to confess to being neither shocked nor awed—it was pretty much as I imagined it. Bullshit.

Bob Cochran, who created the show with Surnow, admitted, “Most terrorism experts will tell you that the ‘ticking time bomb’ situation never occurs in real life, or very rarely. But on our show it happens every week.”

They admit up front that they’re perpetrating a swindle, but it doesn’t matter. Truth is what the Ministry tells you it is. That’s why there’s no outcry when they tell us they’re “strengthening the Clean Air Act” by emasculating it. That’s why we support the War On Terror when we know it’s a War On Us. Ditto all the other Wars On. The only “irony” is that these jackals have the cojones to tell us what they’re doing, so confident are they of their power and our fear & compliance.

“America wants the war on terror fought by Jack Bauer. He’s a patriot.”

Despite the fact that we created the terrorists in the first place, that we continue to write the script (much the same as these Faux Americans do on their “show,” which, since I’m currently reading Rucker’s life of Bruegel, reminds me a lot of the conventions of the morality plays of that era) and that the whole thing is a self-perpetuating, shallow ruse. (The logical refutation that won't ever see the light of day is called Friday Review: The Antiwar Position Revisited and is concisely, ruthlessly surgical.) The smug bastards even call it “perpetual war,” rubbing its business end right in the faces of readers who know their Orwell.

…as David Danzig, a project director at Human Rights First, noted, “the torturers have changed. It used to be almost exclusively the villains who tortured. Today, torture is often perpetrated by the heroes.”

By far the most telling tidbit from that article, Sam, was this:

In one episode, a fictional President commands a member of his Secret Service to torture a suspected traitor: his national-security adviser. The victim is jolted with defibrillator paddles while his feet are submerged in a tub filled with water. As the voltage is turned up, the President, who is depicted as a scrupulous leader, watches the suspect suffer on a video feed. The viewer, who knows that the adviser is guilty and harbors secrets, becomes complicit in hoping that the torture works. A few minutes before the suspect gives in, the President utters the show’s credo, “Everyone breaks eventually.”

With some folks, it isn’t much of a struggle.

Christopher lays out the parameters of the real struggle very, very succinctly:

Of course it is not all about potency and force and it behooves all of us to look at the other side--by that I mean compassion and the cultivation of awareness (the universe is very, very, very, very deep and to "combat" the worship of the trivial and shallow pleasures that Amercans embrace means diving deep, deep into our paradoxical nature. That is the only "weapon" we have to confront the visage of the increasingly revealed Power that is emerging. No reformers are going to come, no amount of disrobing power will make the slightest bit of difference. The ugly face of the new God is forming as we sit here.

Except that the daisies find in our descent into the workshop of creation might flower in ways that are neither expected nor appreciated by the buffoons who participate in the new circus when we plant in the rifle barrels of the honor guard.

2/24/2007 01:52:00 PM  
Blogger Mark said...

sounder said: "Much more than 100 years."

Oh yes! I was just limiting it there to a particular coterie: the Anglo-American eugenico-military consolidation drive, teaming up from 1890s. (And hardly that coterie is the only group contending here as well...)

On the contrary, though I would agree with IC--you've got to tunnel out as much as tunnel in. This is why I agree with much in his "how to tunnel out" posts here. This parallels why I wrote my book. IC wrote:

"I know that we're supposed to know the enemy and all that; I just can't bring myself to look at that crap. It gives me an instant headache (and I played for many years in very loud bands, so it's not the light & sounds that bother me, exactly.) It just gives me a sort of unease bordering on vertigo to plug in like so many folks do, and what's the point, anyway?"

Agreed. Though, I think we should get used to doing both. To use a staple phrase here, "what you don't know can't hurt them." And I think it's getting to the point where it can hurt you directly to remain ignorant some of the hideous things that are going on, particularly the cornerstone or spider in the web of all their projects--this hugely ramped up Anglo, German, USSR, and Vatican* teamwork on MKULTRA project of theirs.

(*not that all Catholics have anything to do with it same as any huge collective banner group mentioned above--only a high level elite intelligence group sharing of information about trauma based mind control techniques--for their different polity goals aligning or opposing each other in different ways. That is what the Mark Phillips part of the talk at the link gets into--which is NOT in TranceFormation of America by the way).

And on that note, do watch this long Cathy O'Brien and Mark Phillips video, an update to their MKULTRA exposures. The update is further inside information and confirmation, collated in the past years of their crusade starting from 1995, if you can handle it. I don't know when this talk was done though.

Cathy O'Brien and Mark Phillips on MK Ultra Mind Control
All time views: 32,697
Mark Phillips and Cathy O'Brien
1 hr 57 min 14 sec

"It's happening all around the world...., happening as the result of a coordinated effort of the intelligence communities from around the world."

--and its turning into an educational philosophy that is being implemented right now in public schools in the United States. Particularly regarding styles of education as a public institutional adjunct project to mind control/information control, it is going to matter very quickly.

2/24/2007 03:02:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

There is a huge wave headed our way. Always has been and always will.

http://heidi-lore.tripod.com/id27.html

2/24/2007 03:45:00 PM  
Blogger waffle waitress said...

I'm not sure, but I think I may have been offended by something Mr. Hill said.

2/24/2007 04:10:00 PM  
Blogger Sam Hill said...

Hey Big Muddy,

I am not sure the explanation you offered really explains anything. If I read you correctly it sounds like you are saying that “they kill to control and survive because killing and control ensures their survival.” At most that seems pretty darn tautological.

Now, I may be even dumber than I’ve been led to believe, but it seems to me that there is good cause to believe that killing and control is not necessary to survival, especially not for the elites. That ethic is probably more pertinent in the inner city ghetto, or in certain parts of the third world. And, the scale that the wanton global destruction is currently being conducted on may actually lead to economic disadvantage and the real risk of self-destruction for much of the elite and their preferred habitat, not to mention general chaos for everyone.

The elite could maintain their positions of wealth and power, and even enjoy the fealty of much of the gullible masses if they were simply even marginally more just and equitable in the conduct of business between and within nations. Certain benevolent despots in eras gone by used to conduct themselves this way, and civilization actually seems to have advanced at those times as a result.

But that m.o. doesn’t suit the current crop at the tippy top. They seem hell-bent on spreading destruction all over the planet. Just look at the predations in Iraq. Just look at the shit that passes for info-tainment or entertainment on the tube. It’s a shit swamp in flames, and these guys are all carrying flame throwers. I mean, what the fuck?

No, it’s not so simple as you say. Their minds are tainted, infected, corrupted beyond recognition by average mortals such as we. Even Genghis Khan and his heirs did more to promote the sustenance and development of the human race in the wake of their massive destruction and predation than the current crew. These guys are traveling down a different hole, a very dark passageway that others have traveled before them, like Caligula or Hitler, only worse.

Look at the way the Western nations and the UN sat on their thumbs while Lebanon burned last summer for two months, as just one small example. It’s not even the first time that has happened. No, there’s more to the story than simple lust for power. Blood lust itself as become an end as much as a means to these guys.

So, sorry, no pop and candy this time.

And Cut, Cut, Cut: WTF? You are usually so lucid. You completely lost me in a sea of gobbledygook this time. I can’t make head nor tail of what you are saying. Maybe I should give you my last and very much-needed late afternoon cup of coffee to guzzle. Increases cerebral circulation, you know.

On your riposte about the TV show 24, were you saying the article itself was bullshit, or just what the producers were saying? I thought the article did a pretty good job of showing the utter hypocrisy and venality of the producers. But I also thought it was beyond ridiculous to suggest that 24 was giving the US a bad name, or that 24 was responsible for the torture at Abu Ghraib. I mean, really.

But that flower in the gun barrels thing you are suggesting just never works. Last time I saw that was when the National Guard shot four students at Kent State University. And the guy who stood in front of the tanks at Tien an Men square didn’t fare too well in the aftermath, either. He went to the slammer.

Like I said awhile back, cosmic consciousness is all well and good. I’ve indulged in it more than once myself. Even consider it a bit of an avocation. A passion, even.

But it doesn’t pay the bills, except maybe karmic ones. But you can’t take it to the bank unless it is a faux cosmic consciousness. and one adopts the path of snake oil salesman and charlatan, like Deepak Chopra. And c.c. sure as hell won’t keep the wolves at bay, no less the tanks and cruise missiles. Well, cosmic consciousness might keep the wolves at bay. After all, they are intelligent animals who may have the ability to sense benevolence and not react with unnecessary violence, unlike the followers of some esoteric doctrine that says evil is the cause of good, or that evil is the intelligent spirit of light and science and mankind.

I mean, what the fuck?

Where’s that coffee?

2/24/2007 05:51:00 PM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

Hey ericswan!

I was just following your Galactic Tsunami link, first to Heidi’s blog and then to Godlike Productions, where they are discussing the threat level of this threat and the history they have of spreading such rumors. As of now, I have no firm opinion on this thing, but there were two items in all that which caught my eye.

The first was a post at GP by someone called 20-40 who is something of a regular over there. He seemed quite irate that his buddies were peddling this tale and even went so far as to link the origin of the back story, a novel called (naturally) Galactic Tsunami, by David L. Souers. This doesn't mean anything in itself, since we all know how prophetic SF writers can be, but then the tale gets even murkier & quirkier.

20-40's condemnation in turn angered some of the other godlike persons who then introduced the anonymous German intelligence asset (the same one Jeff discussed a while back?) who didn’t actually verify the claim but instead wrote, in German, for purposes either of plausibility or obfuscation (kind of hard to tell) the following, from a snatch of dialogue between two "German operatives":

In diesem Forum gibt es viele geistig Verwirrte. Ihr erkennt sie vor allem an ihrem Fanatismus, mit dem sie ihre Weltverschwörungs- und -untergangshypothesen zu verteidigen versuchen. Und alle dem liegt immer eine persönliche Entwicklungsstörung des jeweiligen Individuums zugrunde, die eben diese Person anfällig macht für derartige Gerüchte und Fantasmen, weil sie für einen Moment den grauen Alltag beseite schieben und etwas Farbe in ihr tristes Leben bringen.
Quoting: Anonymous Coward 198750

(Translation, roughly: In this forum there are many spiritually/intellectually damaged persons. You recognize them by the fanaticism with which they attempt to defend their end of the world scenarios. And behind all these people lies an impairment in their personal development which is responsible for the rumors and fantasies with which they try to bring some color into their otherwise empty everyday existence.)

Then the other alleged BND guy says:

So sagen Sie. Ich vermute aber, dass Ihrer Interesse in diesem Thema nicht zum Gunsten die Teilnehmer zuneigt. Arbeiten Sie in Pullach oder in Berlin?

(So you say. I’d guess, however, that your interest in this topic is not based on the well-being of the forum’s participants. Do you work out of Pullach or Berlin?)

All in all, it sounds like the typical Spy v. Spy shtick, but who knows?


Sam,

No, I agree that the article dissected the bullshit pretty well. (Sorry to lose you in my verbiage again! I'll try to up the dosage...I think I was just writing too fast, feeble excuse that it is.)

2/24/2007 06:31:00 PM  
Blogger Sam Hill said...

No problema, Cut. You take it black, or with cream or sugar?

Forgive me for posting the following cut and paste. I really do hate to be a sucker for psy-op, even a Hollywood-scripted one with high production values. But the title alone of this ditty seemed to be worth the price of admission:

February 23, 2007 6:55

Jesus: Tales from the Crypt

Posted by Tim McGirk |

Brace yourself. James Cameron, the man who brought you 'The Titanic' is back with another blockbuster. This time, the ship he's sinking is Christianity.

In a new documentary, Producer Cameron and his director, Simcha Jacobovici, make the starting claim that Jesus wasn't resurrected --the cornerstone of Christian faith-- and that his burial cave was discovered near Jerusalem. And, get this, Jesus sired a son with Mary Magdelene.

No, it's not a re-make of "The Da Vinci Codes'. It's supposed to be true.

Let's go back 27 years, when Israeli construction workers were gouging out the foundations for a new building in the industrial park in the Talpiyot, a Jerusalem suburb. of Jerusalem.
[Did somebody say "a Jerusalem suburb of Jerusalem"? Oh, a wise guy. That's what I thought you said.] The earth gave way, revealing a 2,000 year old cave with 10 stone caskets. Archologists were summoned, and the stone caskets carted away for examination. It took 20 years for experts to decipher the names on the ten tombs. They were: Jesua, son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Mathew, Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua.

Israel's prominent archeologist Professor Amos Kloner didn't associate the crypt with the New Testament Jesus. His father, after all, was a humble carpenter who couldn't afford a luxury crypt for his family. And all were common Jewish names.

There was also this little inconvenience that a few miles away, in the old city of Jerusalem, Christians for centuries had been worshipping the empty tomb of Christ at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Christ's resurrection, after all, is the main foundation of the faith, proof that a boy born to a carpenter's wife in a manger is the Son of God.

But film-makers Cameron and Jacobovici claim to have amassed evidence through DNA tests, archeological evidence and Biblical studies, that the 10 coffins belong to Jesus and his family.

Ever the showman, (Why does this remind me of the impresario in another movie,"King Kong", whose hubris blinds him to the dangers of an angry and very large ape?) Cameron is holding a New York press conference on Monday at which he will reveal three coffins, supposedly those of Jesus of Nazareth, his mother Mary and Mary Magdalene. News about the film, which will be shown soon on Discovery Channel, Britain's Channel 4, Canada's Vision, and Israel's Channel 8, has been a hot blog topic in the Middle East (check out a personal favorite: Israelity Bites) Here in the Holy Land, Biblical Archeology is a dangerous profession. This 90-minute documentary is bound to outrage Christians and stir up a titanic debate between believers and skeptics. Stay tuned.


Emphasis on the last statement. Because isn't that what 'they' want most? To keep folks slavering in front of the blue tube?

Kudos to you, Cut, for not falling in that line.

2/24/2007 07:09:00 PM  
Blogger yathrib said...

The good ol' family values crowd. Manson Family values.

2/24/2007 07:18:00 PM  
Blogger surrender said...

Thanks Jeff

2/24/2007 08:42:00 PM  
Blogger surrender said...

It isn't that Mankind cannot save

itself or even that it will not be

saved: but true sanity is the

realization that you cannot count

on it.

2/24/2007 08:52:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

February 25, 2007 - 2:09PM

The plane of US Vice-President Dick Cheney has reportedly been diverted to Singapore because of mechanical problems.

Mr Cheney flew out of Sydney en route to the United States on board Air Force 2, a Boeing 757, about 9am today after a four-day visit marred by violent protests, arrests and traffic chaos.

The US Consulate in Sydney said the vice-president's plane had been scheduled to make a fuel stop in Singapore and a spokeswoman could not confirm if the plane was experiencing mechanical problems.

She said any information on the flight would come directly from the White House, but it is unknown if a statement will be released confirming or denying the reports.

Mr Cheney's plane was due to depart on schedule from Singapore, she said.

Prime Minister John Howard told reporters in Sydney that he had heard reports the plane was being diverted, but had few details.

"I have had a report to that effect,'' Mr Howard told reporters at a NSW Liberal Party campaign event.

"I'm not aware of the full circumstances.

"I have not been told except that it has been diverted.

"As to the precise circumstances, I am not as advised.''

Sky News said Air Force Two was being diverted to Singapore.

The near perfect weather during the visit turned to rain today as the 20-vehicle vice presidential entourage travelled to Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport and entered Gate 12A near the domestic terminal.

Airforce 2, a Boeing 757, and a much larger US Air Force KC-10 transport, were loaded by US support staff prior to Mr Cheney's arrival on the tarmac.

No Australian politicians were present at the airport, but US Ambassador Robert McCallum, and his wife Mimi, farewelled the vice-president.

Under a heavy guard of NSW police, US Secret Service and other security personnel, Mr Cheney boarded the flight.

2/24/2007 10:45:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

February 25, 2007 - 2:09PM

The plane of US Vice-President Dick Cheney has reportedly been diverted to Singapore because of mechanical problems.

Mr Cheney flew out of Sydney en route to the United States on board Air Force 2, a Boeing 757, about 9am today after a four-day visit marred by violent protests, arrests and traffic chaos.

The US Consulate in Sydney said the vice-president's plane had been scheduled to make a fuel stop in Singapore and a spokeswoman could not confirm if the plane was experiencing mechanical problems.

She said any information on the flight would come directly from the White House, but it is unknown if a statement will be released confirming or denying the reports.

Mr Cheney's plane was due to depart on schedule from Singapore, she said.

Prime Minister John Howard told reporters in Sydney that he had heard reports the plane was being diverted, but had few details.

"I have had a report to that effect,'' Mr Howard told reporters at a NSW Liberal Party campaign event.

"I'm not aware of the full circumstances.

"I have not been told except that it has been diverted.

"As to the precise circumstances, I am not as advised.''

Sky News said Air Force Two was being diverted to Singapore.

The near perfect weather during the visit turned to rain today as the 20-vehicle vice presidential entourage travelled to Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport and entered Gate 12A near the domestic terminal.

Airforce 2, a Boeing 757, and a much larger US Air Force KC-10 transport, were loaded by US support staff prior to Mr Cheney's arrival on the tarmac.

No Australian politicians were present at the airport, but US Ambassador Robert McCallum, and his wife Mimi, farewelled the vice-president.

Under a heavy guard of NSW police, US Secret Service and other security personnel, Mr Cheney boarded the flight.

2/24/2007 10:46:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

IC..I posted that link for 2 reasons. The first was for the synchronicity I have noticed concerning some of the pre wave effects and second for the german content. Thanx for clearing that part up. As for the synchronicity of certain individuals gone missing in the southern hemisphere, well, the above is posted in the NSW Herald.

2/24/2007 11:02:00 PM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

Glad to be of service, ericswan. This synchronicity thing is really very odd. I was just cruising around the same sorts of places you mentioned when I checked back here and saw your message. (After walking around for awhile in the freak storm brewing in my neck of the woods, which eerily reminded me of the great wave stuff I had earlier found just a little suspicious.) One of the places I visited, Calleman’s Breakthrough Celebration: A Global Process leading into the Quetzalcoatl / Christ energy of the Fifth DAY, had this RI-sounding meme:

If there is anything we may learn from the Mayan calendar then it is that it is a strict time plan for the evolution of consciousness and that this plan very much includes ourselves at the present time. The process of evolution of consciousness is now primarily transforming the human beings, and through human beings, our external reality.

In other words; we are the ones we have been waiting for!

We are the ones whose consciousness is undergoing transformation. The Mayan calendar only helps the patterns of this transformation become visible and understandable. As the consciousness of humanity is transformed so is the external world that we are to a large extent creating through our perception of it.

Lest any of you others doubt my eternal skepticism, I haven’t yet pledged my firstborn son to the Mayan Cause—I know there’s a lot of hucksterism & muddle-headedness bouncing around in that little world, too. That, however, doesn’t mean that there aren't also some interesting notions to be found along with the tripe, as you can see in this Jacob-person’s comment here:
§ Re: Open letter to Carl Johan Calleman

2/25/2007 12:51:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

http://chasevectors.blogspot.com/

2/25/2007 02:53:00 AM  
Blogger waffle waitress said...

A tsunami from outer space?

Is that, like, from the water on Mars?

2/25/2007 04:43:00 AM  
Blogger Sounder said...

Disparity in psychical depth of expressions is maintained by enforcing the ‘code’, that is all expressions of understanding (to be promoted by the CTB), will place being before consciousness. (Resulting in the situation where folk are not encouraged to truly think for themselves.) Knowing the contrary to be true, the CTB gain leverage over society. Unfortunately for them and us, because so many lives become dedicated to the suppression of sub-consciousness recognition’s, these things manifest as unconscious shadow projections.

I for one, intend to turn misfortune into fortune.

I want a cookie now- no pop, -- wait, wait nevermind; come to think of it- I could really use some waffles.

2/25/2007 07:50:00 AM  
Blogger ericswan said...

IC and other avid readers and or collectors. Here is a link to a "used book store" that might be of some use. I recently made a purchase here...

http://manmythandmagic.com/

I picked up the following...

K4. Epstein, P, The Private Life of Malcolm Lowry- Under the Volcano and the Cabbala, 1st ed. Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1969, 8vo, black cloth, 9 + 243pp inc. index. A study of the Cabbalistic influence on Lowry's masterpiece, brought to him via the teachings of Blavatsky and W.B Yeats. Fine in near fine d/w £12

Hasn't arrived just yet but the book list is ever changing and may be interesting to some.

2/25/2007 10:56:00 AM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

Thanks, ericswan, for the hot tip. I made myself stop entering book- and record-shops long ago, as I recognized my terminal weakness in the face of such glorious addictions, but I'll check that out anyway. (Thank God for libraries and this device through which we speak!)

In return, I've got a few tourist destinations for you, too:


Water on Mars (Dec. 6, 2006)

How to make waffles on Mars.

And when you're done exploring those frontiers, come back down and look at the following.

How to live on Mars (and Earth).

Here's something that's really worth looking at: Erol Hofman's Ring of Peace. I just found it and haven't had time to digest much of it, but this unassuming little Dutchman is one cosmic cookie, to continue the Martian Waffle metaphor.

In the section called Striving for a Peaceful Century, Erol summarizes the 1967 Space Treaty which not only outlaws weapons & aggression in space but even goes so far as to formalize cooperative behavior between nations. Amazing read. Most amazing is that the Treaty is still in effect, although the most rogue nation has almost certainly already violated many of its provisions.

This could be an interesting legal fulcrum, on the other hand--if we can't convict BushCo (and the Empire for which it stands) of war crimes & crimes against humanity using terrestrial institutions, maybe we could send the machinery of death into extraterrestrial exile using the provisions of the Space Treaty. I know we've been talking about transcending our differences & uniting our polarities, etc, etc, and that The Other is deep within us, but wouldn't it at least have some cathartic value to flush one last load of human waste into space? Imagine the cheering crowds, the smiling happy faces! None of the vulgar frenzy of the mob leering at leaders on meathooks, this would have dignity, purpose--a proper send-off. A grand wiping of the hands and a cheery "Good-bye to bad rubbish!"

2/25/2007 12:34:00 PM  
Blogger Roberta Kelly said...

Little Mary Phagan went to town one day,
And went to the pencil factory to see the big parade.
She left home at eleven,
And kissed her mother goodbye,
Not one time did the poor child think that she was going to die.

Leo Frank met her, with a brutal heart we know,
He smiled and said,
"Little Mary, Now you will go home no more."
He sneaked along behind her,
Till she reached the metal room,
He laughed and said,
"Little Mary, you have met your fatal doom."

She fell upon her knees, and to Leo Frank she pled,
He took this stick from the trash pile
And hit her across the head.
The tears rolled down her rosy cheeks,
While the blood flowed down her back,
But still she remembered telling her mother
What time she would be back.

He killed little Mary Phagan--
--it was on a holiday--
And he called on Jim Conley to take her body away.
He took her to the basement,
She was bound hand and feet,
And down in the basement little Mary lay asleep.

Newt Lee was the watchman-- when he went to wind his key,
Down in the basement, little Mary could he see.
He called for the officers-- their names I do not know.
They came to the pencil factory
Says, "Newt Lee, you must go."

They took him to the jailhouse,
They locked him in a cell,
But the poor innocent Negro
Knew nothing for to tell.

I have a notion in my head that when Frank comes to die,
And stands the examination in the courthouse in the skies,
He will be astonished at the questions
The angels are going to say
Of how he killed little Mary on one holiday.

Come all you good people wherever you may be,
And supposing little Mary belonged to you or me.

Here mother sat a weeping--she weeps and mourns all day--
She prays to meet her darling in a better world some day.
Little Mary is in Heaven, while Leo Frank is in jail,
Waiting for the day to come when he can tell his tale.

Judge Rosan passed the sentence
And you bet he passed it well;
Solicitor Hugh M. Dorsey sent Leo Frank to hell.

Now, God Bless her mother.

The ADL's dirty secret
http://www.nationalvanguard.org/
story.php?id=2414
and
http://www.stormfront.org/solargeneral/
library/www.fpp.co.uk/docs/ADL/Leo_Frank/index.html

2/25/2007 04:29:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

IC Followed your links. The space above my head needs protecting to. I am offended by chemtrails that lay claim to my bit of sunshine, the black helicopters stealing my privacy, satellites spewing hate, and carnage everywhere and EMP ELF ULF
AIDS H5N1. I'm not sure how far into the earth my property lines go but I feel the space over my head needs protecting more now than ever.

2/25/2007 06:38:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

more on air space....

Israel seeks all clear for Iran air strike
By Con Coughlin in Tel Aviv
Last Updated: 12:30am GMT 25/02/2007



Cheney step the rhetoric against Iran
American armada prepares to take on Iran
Con Coughlin: Ready for war
Vicki Woods: Iraq inquiry could stop Iran war
In pictures: On board the USS Eisenhower
Audio: Damien McElroy on the deck of the US flagship
Israel is negotiating with the United States for permission to fly over Iraq as part of a plan to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

To conduct surgical air strikes against Iran's nuclear programme, Israeli war planes would need to fly across Iraq. But to do so the Israeli military authorities in Tel Aviv need permission from the Pentagon.

advertisementA senior Israeli defence official said negotiations were now underway between the two countries for the US-led coalition in Iraq to provide an "air corridor" in the event of the Israeli government deciding on unilateral military action to prevent Teheran developing nuclear weapons.

"We are planning for every eventuality, and sorting out issues such as these are crucially important," said the official, who asked not to be named.

"The only way to do this is to fly through US-controlled air space. If we don't sort these issues out now we could have a situation where American and Israeli war planes start shooting at each other."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/997406be-c29c-11db-9e1c-000b5df10621%2C_i_rssPage%3D8672feb4-504a-11da-bbd7-0000779e2340.html

2/25/2007 07:46:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

This link has been discussed in the past and has been updated since then. This writer posted here in the past and has direct experience with the workings of mkultra and it's link to aliens and pedophilia. Well worth the read.

http://www.reflectionsinthenight.com/index.html

2/26/2007 10:02:00 AM  
Blogger Sam Hill said...

Sorry, SDN, but not only do you not get candy or pop, you get a buzzer and the hook.

See below these quotes for furthr commentary.

The Doctrine of Fascism

"Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism -- born of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it." —Mussolini

The writings of the late Leo Strauss, University of Chicago professor, originator of neoconservatism, and personal academic mentor to most of the current crop neocons is replete with repetitions of the above doctrine, which is among Strauss' first principles.

The docrtine of Perpetual War is the fascist/Neocon sine qua non

"The Corporate State and its Organization"

"The corporate State considers that private enterprise in the sphere of production is the most effective and useful instrument in the interest of the nation. In view of the fact that private organisation of production is a function of national concern, the organiser of the enterprise is responsible to the State for the direction given to production."

"State intervention in economic production arises only when private initiative is lacking or insufficient, or when the political interests of the State are involved. This intervention may take the form of control, assistance or direct management."


—Benito Mussolini, 1935, Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions, Rome: 'Ardita' Publishers, pp. 135-6.

The only difference between 21st century Fascism and early 20th century fascism is that the corporate state has been replaced by trans-national corporate statism. Monetarism was and is at the black heart of both.

2/26/2007 10:35:00 AM  
Blogger alzafar2012 said...

jeff (or anyone who knows)--can i get the story linking dollard to meth abuse? in the middle of another discussion and google's failing me... many thanks

2/26/2007 02:13:00 PM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

SozialDemokratischNetzer,

Weird comment, dude. Fascism is an over-used term among...? Snarling lefties like us? Polemicists like us? People without your deep knowledge of how the world works? Many puzzling elements in your brief, bizarre comment. On the one hand, you say that things have evolved since the days when...and then you fall back on some totally old-school Nazi propaganda when you say...real fascism existed as a response to the very real threat of an international communist revolution. (Been listening to some of the G-Man's old speeches, or just hangin' with the socio-homophobic homies at Rense?)

The only notion that made any sense at all in your pithy broadside was that things evolve in politics. Did anyone imagine that Mr. Bush was growing a funny moustache (or that if he did, then we'd by golly have us some real fascism?) But let's back up just a bit. Has it occurred to you that those old-time Nazis needed those communists they battled in the streets? Who would they get to burn the Reichsstag if not those dirty Reds?

Now let's talk about some parallels (which, I'm pretty sure is the sense in which most of us snarlers toss around the f-word that bothers you so much.) In case you haven't heard, there are some very interesting ties between those Islamo-fascist terrorists we keep hearing so much about and the very patriotic Americans who have pledged our lives to this heroic struggle. Shocking, huh? Read all about it.

Next, what about that evolution thing you mentioned? Doesn't that imply a sort of connection to the past through various mutations and adaptations? Say, you don't suppose that Gladio might represent one such missing link, do you? Try Gladio: The Sequel, and once you're there, you'll find links to previous adventures of the far, far (and yet so close to home) Right. Stuff like Operation Gladio: Template for the War on Terror and Cut-outs, moles, patsies and provocateurs.

After you read all those links, please come back and tell us how to play Spot the Fascist (Version 2.0) And don't worry; we won't
polemicize all over your facts. You can even tell us a good thing or two about the Führer. I've got some great Jewish jokes, if you're interested.)

Btw, I also don't quite get your antipathy to the prevailing winds here, given what I just read at your blog. Did you really imagine that we call WWII the Good War, or that we're guilty of any of the other examples of political correctness that you cite in your rather childish ode to truth (and Holocaust revisionism)? Isn't it just possible that Norman Finkelstein has it just about right when he says the Holocaust did happen, but an entirely opportunistic industry has grown up in its shadow? Do you really have to rehabiliate Hitler's image in order to "balance" your refined view of history? Reading that litany of the sins of modern day PC was hilarious--it goes just as far over board as those who actually toe that line. Beware of making a caricature of yourself, mate, but truth on, by all means.

2/26/2007 03:47:00 PM  
Blogger et in Arcadia ego Eve said...

James Cameron supports Dollards way of life:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17349123/

it means there's no Heaven or Hell, so just eat, drink, be merry and kill people...especially innocent.

2/26/2007 07:46:00 PM  
Blogger Tsoldrin said...

Sorry, it's the 'believers' who are doing all the killing. The rest of us are just waiting for evolution to take its course and all of you destructive types to finish eachother off.

2/26/2007 09:13:00 PM  
Blogger et in Arcadia ego Eve said...

True 'believers'(and there aren't very many)do not kill...but are themselves killed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyr

Evolution is aligned with the apostacy responsible for this false war.

2/26/2007 11:23:00 PM  
Blogger Sam Hill said...

Bloodlines of the Innumi-Nutty

NEW YORK — The Rev. Al Sharpton said he wants a DNA test to determine whether he is related to former segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond through his great-grandfather, a slave owned by an ancestor of the late senator.

"I can't find out anything more shocking than I've already learned," Sharpton told the Daily News, which reported the link Sunday based on genealogists' findings.

Sharpton's spokeswoman, Rachel Noerdlinger, confirmed Monday for The Associated Press that Sharpton, who learned about the connection last week, plans to pursue DNA testing. Noerdlinger had no further details.

Professional genealogists, who work for Ancestry.com, found that Sharpton's great-grandfather Coleman Sharpton was a slave owned by Julia Thurmond, whose grandfather was Strom Thurmond's great-great-grandfather. Coleman Sharpton was later freed.



The company's chief family genealogist, Megan Smolenyak, said Sharpton would need to match his DNA with a present-day descendant to see if they are biologically related.

"I think the odds are slim he would match," Smolenyak told the News.

The revelations surfaced after Ancestry.com contacted a Daily News reporter who agreed to have his own family tree done. The intrigued reporter then asked Sharpton if he wanted to participate. Sharpton, who ran for president in 2004 calling for racial equality, said he told the paper, "Go for it."

The genealogists, who were not paid by the newspaper, uncovered the ancestral ties using a variety of documents that included census, marriage and death records.

Thurmond, of South Carolina, was once considered an icon of racial segregation. During his 1948 bid for president he promised to preserve segregation, and in 1957 he filibustered for more than 24 hours against a civil rights bill.

Thurmond was seen as softening his stance later in his long life. He died in 2003, at 100. One of the longest-serving senators in history, he was originally a Democrat but became a Republican in 1964.

His children have confirmed that he fathered a biracial daughter. Essie Mae Washington-Williams' mother was a housekeeper in the home of Thurmond's parents.

Washington-Williams' daughter, Wanda Terry, said her mother was not available for comment Monday. She said she and Washington-Williams were shocked when they learned of the Sharpton link.

"I said, 'Boy, the Thurmond family _ this thing _ the legs keep growing,'" Terry said.

Sharpton said he met Thurmond only once, when he visited Washington with the late James Brown, who knew Thurmond. Sharpton said the 1991 meeting was awkward.

"I was not happy to meet him because what he had done all his life," Sharpton said.

Terry said Sharpton should try to make peace with the matter.

"We made our peace with ours," she said. "My mother addressed that. She has a relationship with her family members and she's moved on. There's no animosity and there's no point in having all this resentment because it's not healthy and it's not doing anyone any good."

Thurmond's niece, Ellen Senter, said she would speak with Sharpton if he were interested.

"I doubt you can find many native South Carolinians today whose family, if you traced them back far enough, didn't own slaves," Senter, of Columbia, S.C., told the Daily News.

She added: "And it is wonderful that (Sharpton) was able to become what he is in spite of what his forefather was."



Which is what and what, exactly?

2/27/2007 01:49:00 AM  
Blogger Sam Hill said...

BBC Reported Building 7 Had Collapsed 20 Minutes Before It Fell

A revealing video uncovered today shows a BBC reporter talking about the collapse of WTC 7 while WTC 7 can clearly be seen still standing behind her in the background,

Google removed the clip within hours.

Monday, February 26, 2007 (UPDATED 7:58PM CST)

An amazing video uncovered from the BBC archives today shows the BBC reporting on the collapse of WTC Building 7 over twenty minutes before it fell at 5:20pm on the afternoon of 9/11.

The incredible footage shows BBC reporter Jane Standley talking about the collapse of the Salomon Brothers Building while it remains standing in the live shot behind her head. She even moves aside at one point and looks back so you can see the entire building, upright and erect, quite clearly, still smoldering.

Minutes before the actual collapse of the building is due, the feed to the reporter mysteriously dies, and the anchor, who has obviously been informed of the error, just kind of shrugs and moves on.

Here's a link to the video on Utube.

This amazing clip was on Google Video, but was removed within hours of the story breaking. A You Tube upload (still processing) is embedded above. My personal favorite part is where the solemn studio anchor in London states that WTC 7 "was apparently weakened by the fire", and then goes on to ask whether there have been "calls in America for revenge....yet."

Political theatre, anyone?

Here's a link to the full article about it, with more video clip links.

It really begs the demolition question once again, to put it mildly to see that the BBC reported on the collapse of Building 7 over twenty minutes in advance of its implosion. This obviously provokes a myriad of questions as to how they knew it was about to come down when the official story says its collapse happened accidentally as a result of fire damage and debris weakening the building's structure.

Cut! Print it.

2/27/2007 02:55:00 AM  
Blogger ericswan said...

TPB really need to work on their program. The future that H.G. Wells put out for the Morlocks is not that far off the mark. The IQ seems to fit their agenda. It reminds of the Milwaukee cannibal's runaway that was returned to the apartment because his story was too strange to take seriously.

2/27/2007 07:31:00 AM  
Blogger ericswan said...

Sam Hill said...
BBC Reported Building 7 Had Collapsed 20 Minutes Before It Fell

There must have been a problem with the looting that was going down in the basement.

2/27/2007 07:57:00 AM  
Blogger just_another_dick said...

After viewing all of Dollard's video clips, I think Mr. Wells has hit the nail on the head...a jackass war for a nation of jackasses.

Mr. Dollard's Fox New's "interview" talked about how the Vanity Fair article was a "hit piece" generated because the liberals are "afraid" of what he has to say.
I suppose a sane viewing populace would point out that everything Fox airs involving the liberal viewpoint is, in essence ,a "hit piece" so they must be really really really effing afraid of liberals.

We're also served up a plethora of in country Marines talking about how great their cause is & how they're just there to help the Iraqis who are "human beings too."
(BTW, thanks Mr. Unnamed Marine, for pointing that out. Here I am thinking we blew the living shit out of a country of tree stumps & fenceposts. Learn something new everyday.)

The marines also graciously point out to we ignorant dumbfucks here in America that if the US leaves, the insurgents will fight amongst themselves until the strongest group wins, then they'll run the country.

It's quite artful how no one mentions that the whole insurgency popped out of Pandora's Iraq only after we pried the lid off by i-l-l-e-g-a-l-l-y
invading the country.

I suppose it's also futile to point out that the noble & illustrious US of A has absolutely no problem whatsoever with murderous shitheels running countries as long as the US of A gets to install the murderous shitheel.

After having spent the weekend working with a tatooed dipshit who insisted on peeling off his shoes & socks to show me the anti-Muslim tattoes on his feet,(turbaned pigsheads shouting Birka Birka as daggers are driven into their heads), I fear that the American propaganda machine has finally found the pulse of their intended target audience.

"The Jackass War" indeed.

The only thing I found out of place in Mr. Well's post was the Oppenheimer quote.

If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Oppenheimer was having a burst of conscience when he uttered his famous quote.
But, here in America, having a conscience is as out of place as a bicycle riding fish. I have a huge problem picturing any one of the architects of this disaster having a burst of conscience about anything.


The Senate Iran hearing that will never happen:

“U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates: I think there’s some serial numbers, there may be some markings on some of the projectile fragments that we found” that point to Iran."

Senator William Hicks: So Mr. Gates, how could you possibly know the serial numbers of Iranian weapons?

Gates: Well Senator.....ummmm.....ahem.....we....ummmmm....
we....ahem.....we....ah......we checked the sales receipt.

2/27/2007 01:25:00 PM  
Blogger just_another_dick said...

One other thing, this reminds me of an Alan Moore Dracula comic. Mr. Moore has the Harker character pursue Drac into an American leather bar where he proceeds to describe how this creature of pure evil has sought refuge in their establishment.
The entire crowd of people turns to Mr. Harker & says, "So what?"

2/27/2007 01:42:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

It looks like Ontario will be rationing fuel within 7 days if a new supply does not make it to the largest of the two provinces in Canada. Mr. Bradley of the Ontario Truckers Assoc. says that supplies are so tight that load will have to be prioritized by next week if the supply crunch cannot be fixed. The problem started when Esso a subsidieary of Exxon lost a refinery to damages a couple of weeks ago. What Mr. Bradley isn't saying is that any "extra" fuel is being diverted to the strategic gas reserve in the States based on the recent state of the union address which required a "doubling" of the reserve. Hard to keep a lid on that diversion when whole economies in Ontario and Quebec can't get fuel for their trucks. The trucking indusdry moves 95% of products and 75% of exports to the U.S. in trucks. Other provinces have not come to the rescue due to tight supplies of diesel. Canada has no strategic reserves or plans or even a contingency for a fuel emergency. Should be an interesting test of wills. ESSO says the refinery won't be back to it's usual 99.8% capacity til April.

2/27/2007 02:59:00 PM  
Blogger Lance Winslow said...

Nice photocollage Jeffrey!

I would, however, zoom in more (even at pixel, or sub pixel level) on the top of the hat and use the blur tool in order to anti-alias a bit more of the edges. There appear to still be some compression artifacts occurring at the top there.

Additonally, I would work a bit more on matching the different ´plates´ of your collage. For example, I would experiment a bit with the addition of some ´noise´ on the hat and the twin towers in order to give the illusion that the different source materials appear in the same ´granular´ space. This is especially important when using analog photographic sources. Finally, I would work a bit more on matching colorspaces via trial and error, in order to arrive at a greater synthesis in terms of photorealism. Unless, of course, you wish to arrive at a bit more of a stylized, painterly approach to your final compostion.

2/27/2007 07:48:00 PM  
Blogger Dr. Bombay said...

I just checked out both the BBC
and CNN clips where two anchors
report that WTC 7 has collapsed
while the building remains
standing in the background of
the LIVE feed. This is like a
reporter doing a live feed from
Dealy Plaza saying Kennedy has
been shot as JFK drives by in his
limo waving to the crowd...

2/28/2007 01:27:00 PM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

Well, boys & girls, the spiral's getting tighter, and that's for sure--good thing there's no obvious parallel to those other bad times we went through (oh, wait, we're still going through them, aren't we?)

Here's some shocking shit for those who're still wondering what all the fuss is about: Operation FALCON and the Looming Police State, by Mike Whitney, which I found over at Atlantic Free Press.

Thing is, people, a very clear majority of humans on the planet are not egging on Armageddon or looking back to the Führer for clues. It used to be that 1/3rd was sane, 1/3rd not so sane, and 1/3rd was completely clueless. Now, thanks to the death spiral launched by the lunatic 1/3rd, the clueless have largely woken up and most of them have come to our side (not to mention a few surprise defections from the hell-bound.)

So, fear not--that's what they want you to do. Remember what the outnumbered, inexplicably French knights said in stout defiance of the Britons? Sure you do.

2/28/2007 02:39:00 PM  
Blogger Sam Hill said...

Doctor Bombay:

That is without a doubt the most astute comment I have heard on the entire BBC / CNN "whoops we goofed and showed our poker hand" fiasco, yet.

Tip of the hat to ye for putting it so plainly.

And funny too.

2/28/2007 11:45:00 PM  
Blogger Tyrone Ferrara said...

In my opinion, UFOs in the Bible are angles and are referred to as a cloud, fire, star, etc.

3/23/2007 02:28:00 PM  
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Just Pub, a dumb return to castle wolfenstein enemy territory comic strip by feuersturm.

7/20/2010 06:42:00 AM  

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