An Open Letter to the Center of Theological Inquiry
By Charles Upton
<Edited by Robert D. Morningstar>
January 11, 2022 – 1/11/22
Here is the email I recently sent to Fr. Andrew Davidson, the Catholic priest at Cambridge who headed the consortium of 24 theologians, working under the joint sponsorship of NASA and the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton, to craft a theological response to the possible discovery of extraterrestrial life.
Charles Upton
Dear Fr. Davidson:
Greetings of peace. I am an American Sufi Muslim who has recently published a book entitled The Alien Disclosure Deception: The Metaphysics of Social Engineering, consequently I am interested in learning more about the consortium of 24 scholars associated with the Center of Theological Inquiry who have come together, under your direction, to consider the theological implications of the possible future discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial life.
I was unable, for some reason, to find a list of these theologians on the internet, nonetheless I eagerly look forward to evaluating their conclusions. I hope they will be confident enough in these conclusions to attach their names to them at some time in the future, since the alternative would be to present themselves as a kind of secret tribunal that somehow possesses the authority to pronounce on these matters.
Given that the names of the scholars involved do not appear to be available, I have directed the following three questions directly to you:
1) Are all these scholars Christians, or do they include “observers” from other faiths?
2) If not, do you have plans to dialogue on these matters with non-Christian theologians at any time in the future?
3) After talking with the NASA media office I find that the 24 scholars at CTI have already completed their report on the theological implications of a discovery of extraterrestrial life. Is this report available to the public? And if not, what is the thinking behind the decision to keep it under wraps?
In our time we are confronted with two conceptions and two bodies of data related to extraterrestrial life that are diametrically opposed, and have not yet fully confronted each other.
Aliens Are Jinn – A Film Trailer
“Mainstream” scientists who are attempting to find evidence of extraterrestrial life, either intelligent or simply biological, have reached no firm conclusions (thus the “Fermi paradox”), while those scientists, military figures and members of the intelligence community who have been tracking the UFO phenomenon are on the edge of declaring that intelligent extraterrestrial beings actually exist, and, in fact, have always been in contact with humanity.
In light of this massive contradiction, I believe that the decision by NASA to bring together theologians to consider the implications of the discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial life, a decision which was made in the context of the official Pentagon “disclosure” that UFO are “real” in 2021, has one ominous implication—namely, that the idea of the possible discovery of extraterrestrial civilizations will inevitably act, either de facto or by design, to identify today’s UFO phenomenon with such conjectural civilizations, whether or not that identification is rationally justified.
This would effectively hide the fact that the UFO manifestation, according to the traditional understandings of Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Islam, is substantially in line with the phenomenology of the demonic, with the powers of the Jinn.
Therefore I believe that scholars who deal with the theological implications of any future discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial life should do their best to inform themselves regarding three bodies of data:
1} The evidence supporting the thesis that today’s UFO “aliens” are more likely to be preternatural beings than extraterrestrial astronauts;
2} The evidence for the ongoing negative physical and psychological effects of human interactions with these “aliens”;
3} The evidence that the prevailing mythology of UFOs and alien visitation is often couched in overtly anti-religious terms, as when the claim is made that the human race was not created by God so that they might know, love and serve Him, but by the Aliens through genetic engineering, and that the traditional religions will become a thing of the past as soon as this is realized, leaving the Aliens themselves as our only spiritual guides and protectors.
I maintain that any theological approach to the question of intelligent extraterrestrial life that ignores these three bodies of data will be compromised from the outset. I would very much appreciate your response to these concerns, and hope that you will answer a final question:
Has your consortium of theologians in any way confronted the question of the reality, and true nature, of the UFO phenomenon?
Judyth Vary Baker knew David Ferrie as a man of many faces: legal advisor for New Orleans Mafia Don, Carlos Marcello, aircraft pilot for several Mafia families, CIA asset, defrocked priest, anti-Castro adventurer, seducer of men and teenage boys, participant in an anti-Castro bioweapon plot, and a key to the JFK assassination.
“The Coup d’ Etat in 1963 took control of an inconvenient two-party system to run its self-protecting corporate agenda, with the CIA, FBI, banking interests and the military-industrial complex cooperating,” says Baker. “And when the Supreme Court recently ruled that corporations could, in essence, buy any and all political candidates through ‘donation,’ with no limit on what could be spent to influence votes, the American government became a prostitute whose services were purchased by the highest bidders.”
(DAVID FERRIE: Mafia Pilot, participant in anti-Castro Bioweapon Plot, Friend of Lee Harvey Oswald and the Key to the JFK Assassination, Judyth Vary Baker, TrineDay LLC, P.O. Box 577, Walterville, Oregon 97489, 1-800-556-2012, publisher@TrineDay.net, www.trineday.com, 2014, 521 pages, $24.95.)
David Ferrie’s connections to the Military-Industrial-Complex began in early 1962 when he became involved in the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol. There, Ferrie began instructing cadets, often in summer encampments at the air force bases.
Ferrie became a CAP commander in 1953. Lee Harvey Oswald enrolled as a CAP cadet on July 27, 1955 (serial No. 084965).
Oswald attended meetings at Moisant CAP Squadron, Lakefront and Abita Spring, Louisiana.
Eddie Voebel, a friend of Oswald, said that Oswald “had been a cadet in Ferrie’s CAP squadron in 1955 and that he recalled Oswald attended a party at Ferrie’s then-home at 209 Vinet Street.”
Researcher Lee Farley mentioned that David Ferrie was instrumental in “grooming” Oswald and his consequential enlistment in the United States Marines. Ferrie told the local Marine Corps that Oswald would be good in the CIA because “he could keep his mouth shut.” (p. 73.)
THE HEATH CONNECTION
In 1953, David Ferrie developed an interest in philosophy and took a course at Tulane. Doctor Bob Heath had 120 psychiatric patients that used subcortical electrode stimulation at his clinic. Heath conducted experiments at East Louisiana State Hospital at Jackson, along with associates from Tulane University. One of the fascinating persons who would drop by to visit was David Ferrie. In 1954, Ferrie began studying for a doctorate in psychology from the University of Phoenix (a university of “low esteem,” says Baker).
Ferrie spoke of the bringing “patients” to Heath’s office and, also, flying “sensitive” psychiatric data between Tulane’s psychology department and other hospitals and departments. CIA agents approached Heath to conduct human and animal tests of bulbocapnine. The 1957 Inspector General Report said that “the knowledge that the agency is engaging in unethical and illicit activities would have serious repercussions in political and diplomatic circles.” The U.S Army funded a Tulane Electrical Brain stimulation program conducted by Dr. Robert Heath, and (according to Australian psychiatrist, Dr. Harry Bailey) used blacks because “they were everywhere and cheap experimental animals.”
In June-July, 1967, Ferrie wrote a thesis for his PhD in psychology about hypnotherapy and received his PhD in psychology.
FERRIE AND VOODOOISM
Baker says that Ferrie definitely was involved in a matrix of activities including his Civil Air Patrol activities, his job as a pilot at Eastern Airlines, pilot for Mobster Carlos Marcello’s lawyers (and flying to Guatemala for Marcello), and, according to Victor Marchetti, “had in fact been employed by the CIA.” (Marchetti was Deputy Assistant to the CIA Director Richard Helms, p. 82.)
Ferrie was additionally connected into the CIA’s MKULTRA (mind control) program through Doctor Bob Heath, but, additionally Dr. Alton Ochsner (one-time friend of Office of Strategic Services [OSS] Chief “Wild Bill” Donovan), and Dr. Mary Sherman (researcher into cancer). Ferrie met Dr. Oschsner through Dr. Sherman, both cleared for work on a “Sensitive Position.” (p. 97.) Baker later learns that it is referred to as “The Project”: A cancer experiment, spear-headed by Oschsner, to develop a cancer serum as a bioweapon to be used against Fidel Castro.
In order to convince Baker of the reality of the Project, as government sponsored, she is introduced to a gruff detective and FBI/CIA asset, Guy Banister, who speaks at length of his clandestine contacts:
“Ferrie’s project was legitimate. Even the CIA was backing it, along with the city’s crime boss, Carlos Marcello,” says Baker. “Banister was quite serious.”
Banister’s Agency was involved, not only with Mary Sherman’s bioweapon project, but also the CIA, crime boss Carlos Marcello (because of the Intelligence alliances), and a spy ring against Castro and Communist activities (Banister was a former FBI agent [briefly, at his height in the Chicago FBI]). Banister continued to gather evidence against the corrupt New Orleans Police Department.
“When Dr. Sherman shows me a powerful new cancer developed over the past year, I am stunned by its vigor,” says Baker about 1963. “I agree to do what I can to stabilize the cancer and help transform it from a mouse cancer to one that will attack human tissues, only later will I realize that the cancer could be stolen and used to silence political enemies ‘forever.’”
(Judyth Baker’s early career into cancer research and her connection with Dr. Alton Ochsner was amply illustrated in her book Me & Lee: How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald, TrineDay Publishers, 2010.)
New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison summarized an understanding about the “anti-Castro” Radical right situation, stated in Garrison’s November 22, 1963 Playboy Magazine interview: members of the paramilitary right, anti-Castro exiles, were extremely worried about Jack Kennedy’s policy of détente succeeding.
The CIA was involved in much of this intrigue in a “mixed bag” of Minutemen, Cuban exiles, other anti-Castro “adventurers” training for a “foray” into Cuba. Along with an assassination attempt on Fidel Castro—there was also the bioweapon Project of Mary Sherman. “David Ferrie, who operated on the ‘command’ level of the ultra-rightists, was deeply involved in this effort,” says Baker. (p. 224.)
BUGGING DEVICES
One of the earlier choices by Banister for someone to be Ferrie’s laboratory assistant was Michael Riconosciuto, “a young genius in electronics, biochemistry, chemistry and computers…” (For further information about Riconosciuto’s place in the espionage web, see The Octopus from Hell, Parts I and II, http://ufodigest.com/article/octopus-hell-0704).
Riconosciuto may have aided Banister in various “bugging” operations, such as placing devices in Clay Shaw’s house in the summer of 1963; Riconosciuto was adept at installing “bugging devices” and electronic surveillance equipment.
Baker lists witnesses that saw Banister and Ferrie, such as Vernon Gerdes, Dr. Michael Kurtz, George Higgenbotham, Rick Bauer, William Gaudet, and Sergio Arcacha Smith (pp. 240-242). “And, of course, Lee Harvey Oswald,” adds Baker.
Baker was concerned for the rapid expansion of the Ochsner-Sherman project. About August 1, 1963, Baker says: “…deep-freezing this new backup material suggests that we aren’t developing this biological weapon just for Castro. We are about to make this cancer truly immortal…the city is a hot bed of Cold War operations of all kinds. The Project has required massive funding. Only one entity could afford everything happening here in New Orleans.” (pp. 245-246.)
TRAINING FILM
One of the bits of evidence of Oswald’s participation into the CIA’s various escapades was the “training film” of anti-Castro infantry near Bedico Creek near Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana in early September 1963. The film was seen by several people such as Robert K. “Bob” Tanenbaum of the House Select Committee on Assassination (HSCA), researchers Larry Hancock and Dick Russell, and Banister associate Delphine Roberts. Baker tells Erdmann, she also saw the film. The film showed, according to Tanenbaum, Antonio Veciana of Alpha 66, Guy Banister, David Atlee Phillips, Lee Oswald and David Ferrie (pp. 253, 264).
Baker spreads a trail of incidents and witnesses showing that Oswald, Ferrie, the CIA, FBI, and the Mob were intricately connected; we can only highlight a few points, but the reader is welcome to search out the further connections in the book.
An FBI informant, Joe Hauser, in his assisting FBI wiretaps of Mobster Marcello’s phone (161 reels of tape), told Author John H. Davis that agent Hauser “personally knew Oswald.” (p. 265.) Another witness was FBI agent Warren DeBrueys (pp. 266-267). Orest Pena also said he saw Oswald with local chief Warren DeBrueys in August, 1963 (p. 269).
ZOMBIE COLONIES
Baker speaks about prisoners from the Angola prison who were often used for “secret research” in a special Tulane University Research Unit at the East Louisiana State Hospital in Jackson. “These experiments were supported by a grant from the Commonwealth Fund,” says Baker, “later identified as a CIA front.” (Comparative Effects of the Administration of Taraxein, d-LSD, Mescaline, and Psilocybin to Human Volunteers [Heath, Silva].) If the patients survived, they are sent directly to the “zombie colonies” at Jackson State Hospital where “they wait to die and are buried in the Jackson graveyard so that security can be maintained and the truth about what was done to them completely covered.” William Livesay, a prisoner at Angola, told Baker about his experiences with these experiments (p. 275).
According to Baker, Lee Oswald was selected to make a trip to Mexico City to transport the biologically engineered materials that would eventually kill Castro of “natural causes,” which would actually be “lung cancer.” Prior to this venture, Oswald and Baker would continue to do blood tests at Jackson State Hospital.
INTERMEZZO
(The dark in the cellar)
INCIDENTS SURROUNDING JFK’S MURDER
The following are multiple tidbits that tend (in the opinion of Judyth Baker and others) to support Baker’s Ferrie/Oswald scenario:
___Texas Theater Manager Butch Burroughs said that he sold Lee Oswald popcorn in the Texas Theater at the time officer Tippet was shot.
___David Ferrie carried with him a file, which Author Joan Mellon said Ferrie referred to as “the Bomb,” along with a diagram in a “file,1963” portraying an automobile in an aerial view of Dealey Plaza…” (HSCA report of January 11, 1978). (p. 321.)
___An “Abort Team” was mentioned by Lee Oswald and William “Tosh” Plumlee (CIA contract pilot), and mentioned to author Jim Marrs.
___The infamous November 21, 1963 “party” at the oil baron Clint Murchison mansion in Dallas, Texas consisting of Richard Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, H.L. Hunt, John Curington, George Brown of Brown + Root, former Texas Republican Congressman Bruce Alger, and John J. McCloy (McCloy would be placed on the Warren Commission within the week): Researchers Edgar Tatro and Harrison E. Livingstone confirmed Madeline Brown’s story (LBJ”s mistress), and wrote on September 3, 2014: “The party happened.” (pp. 330, 331, 334.)
___The famous “Altgens photo” showed that when the first shot was heard, secret service agents did not look up at the 6th floor of the Book Depository but, rather, they looked ahead, or at the Dal-Tex building. “It is important that the photograph shows no agent looking up,” Baker says to Erdmann.
___James T. Tague was standing near the triple underpass and hit on the cheek by a piece of street curb struck by one of the assassin’s bullets, possibly from the Dal-Tex building, not the Book Depository.
___The photos of Lee Oswald showing raised handcuffed wrists were his gesture to show newsmen that, to answer their questions, he was indeed handcuffed: It was not a “Communist salute.”
___Attorney Dean Andrews confessed that Oswald was just “a patsy,” adding: “I like to live. If they can get the President, they can crush me like a bug” (December 29, 1963). (p. 373.)
ADDITIONAL MYSTERY STRAINS
___Near the end of March, 1964, Betty Rubio, while working at the Lakefront Airport, saw Ferrie get out of a plane__talk to Rubio__and then go back to the plane and meet Clay Shaw. They talked for a while and then separated.
___Guy Banister is found naked and dead on June 6, 1964 from an alleged “heart attack.” His wife, Delphine Roberts, said that it was murder, but “it was made to look like a natural death.” “Anna Lewis said in a 2000 videotape: “He had a bullet in him, but they said it was a heart attack.”
___On or near July 11, 1965, David Ferrie was associated in flying individuals to Freemason Island. Matt Milligan of Trans-Gulf Seaplane Service identified photos of Andrew Blackmon and Clay Shaw.
JACK RUBY, MKULTRA VICTIM
According to Earl Ruby in HSCA testimony, and writer Greg Parker, Jack Ruby’s “cancer” was possibly “artificially induced.” Dr. Louis Jolyon “Jolly” West: Baker outlines that Dr. Louis Jolyon West had been cleared at Top Secret for his work on MKULTRA. “CIA documents show that grants were given to Dr. West for studies,” says Baker, “entitled, ‘Psychophysiological Studies of Hypnosis and Suggestibility’ and ‘Studies of Dissociative States.’’’ West had examined Jack Ruby in his jail cell (p. 387).
(Also see, Colin Ross MD: “One such example that Ross writes about is Dr. Louis Jolyon West. While Dr. West’s curriculum vitae doesn’t mention that he received Top Secret clearance from the CIA as the contractor on MKULTRA Subproject 43, CIA documents show that grants were given to Dr. West for studies entitled, Psychophysiological Studies of Hypnosis and Suggestibility and Studies of Dissociative States.”
David Ferrie had worked as a pilot for Al Crouch’s Saturn Aviation and flight school in November, 1966. Ferrie was fired on February 7, 1967, and would have been the pilot for a cross-country flight, but Crouch asked another pilot, “Bob,” instead.
Bob’s wife, J.G, spoke coincidentally to Baker sometime in 2013 about the crash of the 7th of 1967 in Slidell. According to J.G, Ferrie was fired “because Crouch was scared to death.” Crouch needed a pilot right away and J.G’s husband was selected. The crash was blamed on pilot error for not properly fueling the plane, but “Bob” had a receipt that proved he had refueled.
“From his unique perspective, Bob, trapped as he was in the plane,” says Baker, “could see that the fuel tank had been punctured.” (pp. 393-394.)
David Ferrie, at times, says Baker, suffered mentally for his guilt over his bisexuality (and the fact that it prevented him from becoming a priest); sometimes Ferrie would torture and whip himself (pp. 255-260). The image that came to mind to this writer, was the semblance to the fictional Opus Dei character (the albino) Silas or Simon, in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, who would whip himself mercilessly.
Ferrie began his last days by hiding out in the Airport’s pilots’ lounge and rest-overnight area, from about February 8 to 16, 1967.
Student Bruce Nolan said of Ferrie: “One day in early 1967, I arrived for a lesson and found Ferries limped over a desk, crippled by a blazing headache. He could not fly. He could barely open one eye. I shoveled him into my car. He asked to be taken to his home on Louisiana Avenue Parkway. I got him to the porch and watched him scuffle inside.” (Nolan never saw him again).
The news media, at that time, was busy covering Jim Garrison’s investigation along with an occasional story written about Ferrie. In an interview with Garrison investigators on February 18, 1967, Ferrie voiced great skepticism of the single-bullet theory.
The famed group photo of Lee Oswald with his CAP squadron in 1967 was “no longer on display on the living room wall, along with other CAP group photos.” Other evidence of Lee Oswald knowing David Ferrie had disappeared.
Ferrie’s interview given to Garrison investigators while he stayed at the Fontainebleau Motor Hotel eventually vanished. Ferrie vanished from the hotel on February 19, 1967.
Ferrie called Raymond Broshears, former roommate, to report his fear of being killed: “No matter what happens to me, I won’t commit suicide.” (February 20, 1967.)
“A secret report generated by the FBI on May 22, 1968,” says Baker, “confirms that Garrison planned to arrest Ochsner, a Reily coffee executive, and others associated with the New Orleans Project.” (p. 415.)
DOCTOR MINYARD’S REPORT
The body of Ferrie was found deceased about 11:50 a.m. on February 22, 1967 by Jimmy Johnson. The coroner’s staff arrived at 12:30 p.m. Three suspicious “suicide notes” were eventually found. Frank Minyard theorized it was a murder because of contusions to the mouth. “Dr. Minyard says David Ferrie was murdered.” (p. 435.)
On February 23, 1967, Eladio Ceferino del Valle, ex-Cuban congressman, associate of David Ferrie (Baker says there is some evidence of association), and an anti-Castro activist was found dead in his automobile in Miami: beaten, tortured, and shot in the chest. Eladio Valle and Ferrie flew “anti-Castro sorties” in the past, as well as had involvement with Mobster Santos Trafficante.
“Numerous deaths, however, are still classified as ‘natural’ along with a plethora of suicides, murders and ‘accidental deaths’ that can no longer be ignored,” says Baker.
MISSING LOG BOOKS
JG, while working for Al Crouch, began to get harassing phone calls about Ferrie’s pilot log books. JG later disclosed that said log books were confiscated by the felonious “spy” investigator for Jim Garrison, William Gurvich, a turncoat. “He was going behind Garrison’s back,” said JG.
“That dirty word ‘conspiracy,’ which actually accounts for most evil-doing on the planet,” says Baker, “are avoided most by those who perpetuate it.”
Similar sentiments were voiced by Robert Tannenbaum, HSCA Deputy Counsel, said after Tannenbaum originally discounted Garrison’s suspicions and investigation: “And then I read all this material that came out of (CIA Director Richard) Helms’s office, that in fact what Garrison had said was true. They (CIA agents) were harassing his witnesses, they were intimidating his witnesses.” (Bob Tannenbaum, Probe, July-August 1996 [Vol. 3, No. 5].) (pp. 431, 435.)
The reader will have to make further analysis of Baker’s book (which has elaborate appendences concerning testimonies, autopsies, and further never-before-disclosed information on David Ferrie’s life).
BRIEF BACKGROUND: THE CRITICS
Baker has accumulated a number of critics that relentlessly follow her and try to poke holes in her story about her New Orleans experiences with, what she says, are members of the conspiratorial underworld in the Kennedy murder. The critics feel they have a strong complaint as it is based on the many seeming contradictions in the story and testimony of Baker. But as Baker pointed out to Erdmann, this happened often when debunkers are dedicated to finding such missteps and colloquial comments in daily conversation (imagine someone following behind you and perpetually examining your every word or move).
It would not be difficult to blacken one’s name if the critics’ research was not based on the totality of facts and information. Some critics have even opened websites and blogs dressed in nothing but what appears to be jealous vindictiveness, and according to Baker, the wish to get some type of revenge. Baker covers some of the attacks (Note, in the following, some identifying details are Xed over to afford protection to all mentioned parties):
“(Speaking of Xxxxxxx’s comments on Baker’s contradictions) … so-called ‘contradictions’ come from lifting comments from various parts of my manuscript and making it seemed that I reversed things, as well as form emails. The man altered. Xxxxxxx corresponded with me and pretended to be my friend. Then he demanded that I hand over my book to (another debunking group), or he would publish what you are citing. He even claimed I said Lee was not circumcised, as if I would talk about such a thing to him, when all we talked about was how to help his sharpei dogs’ skin condition, before I began sharing emails with him. These emails he cites are using statements taken out of context or deliberately altered! I would make a statement and by adding one word or a question mark, he changed the meanings. Note that Xxxxxxx has NEVER published anything significant after he began attacking me and Jim Garrison, unless you think his ‘Pxxxxxxxx Sxxxxxxxx’ site that he told me was paid for by Xxxxxxx (he denies this now), or his JXX online (another Xxxxxxx site) are to be considered worthy of citing…His JFK 100 list against Stone’s JFK is so unfair, getting on Olive Stone’s case because Stone made the movie that opened up the ARRB and all those files got released. Xxxxxxx treated the movie, which took some liberties for dramatic effect, as a DOCUMENTARY. From that false position he made up his 100 objections to the movie. He also claimed Dave Ferrie never confessed to Lou Ivon and Moo Moo Sciambra. This is not true…
“(If Erdmann would write questions to Baker) … I would be happy to reply. But since you are relying on my enemies to bring up questions for you, and want me to write what would be extensive essays in response, for I would have to prove much more than they, and then they would just bring up new objections, as they are not there to learn, but only to destroy. I am just shaking my head. What problems do you have with the book? What questions would you ask? Xxxxxxx’s ‘contradictions’ were previously answered in my own essays online. Of course he won’t tell you where the essays can be found (hint: at judythbaker, blogspot, com, etc.). What kind of reputation does Xxxxxxx have? Has he ever spoken at a conference? No. Has he written a book (only for his article on Clinton and Jackson)? No. Has he anyone who respects him except the Xxxxxxx contingent?” (July 28, 2015, 10:13 pm.)
Baker brings up a few “why ifs” that are interesting (but far beyond the scope of this article to include them here in their entirety). “Second, you should go to my Facebook page and see what I am going through right now. Ask yourself why they are trying to break my password and get into judythbaker.com, after judythbaker.org was taken over and is being used to ruin me.” (July 28, 2015, 9:42 a.m.)
Baker emphasizes that those who have questions about her claims should contact her personally for answers, either through her publishers or contact points on the Internet or Facebook.
What isn’t covered is “why” are some of the rabid and voracious attacks on the veracity of Baker’s claims. “Howard” (howpl) gave some insight in his April 8, 2004 comments:
“I have known Judyth Baker for 5 years. (I also ‘know’ [Wim] Dankbaar from a Usenet newsgroup, though we have never met.) I am writing this note in the hopes that this is a group of educators (as opposed to Prof. Xxxxxxx, the immoderate ‘moderator’ of that newsgroup) whose ‘article’ on Ms. Baker, is a pile of trash. Pardon the immoderate language, but this nominal academic has been particularly destructive. Anyone who has spent the number of hours it takes to see Judyth’s evidence and hear her story knows that she is the genuine article. Xxxxxxx never even met her, though her door was wide open and her telephone number widely circulated.
“I co-wrote a book with Judyth, and also spent 14 months going back and forth with 60M on their intention, stated quite emphatically on the last go-round, to do a segment favorable to her. As Don Hewitt later said on C-SPAN, ‘the door was slammed in our face.’ Now what do you think he meant by that. The forces arrayed against Don Hewitt – the godfather of investigative journalism (on TV at least) were that powerful. Both he and Wallace believe her story, but as the diligent Nigel Turner segment proved, you really do have to hear the WHOLE story and see the evidence in context. It was nice, and I am thankful for the courage he showed, but viewers should not have had to rely on the talking head alone.
“Unfortunately, so-called ‘researchers’ in the JFK community, who spent little time interrogating her and viewing her evidence, have — to protect their own books — fought hard and fought dirty to sabotage both the book and the 60M show. They tried hard to stop Turner, too. This may surprise you, but the only thing that surprised me was the intensity of it. Who knew there were conspiracy theorists willing to go this far. Case in point: At the annual Lancer conference, held in Dallas, panelists have been informed that they may not discuss Ms. Baker’s story. For this and other atrocities, the head of Lancer has disgraced the research community. I am sure that Dankbaar has joined this forum in the hopes of finding a true academic sanctuary where open discussion is treasured, not banned.
“As for me, I am not sure that I can respond in a detailed manner to questions that come up here. It has been a wild, tiring, and discouraging five-year ride. But I do want it on record somewhere that I believe Judyth Baker knew the real Lee Harvey Oswald. I believe it without a single doubt. As she told me at the outset, the truth is complicated, but it is logical. But nobody has time for complicated in today’s world. It takes too much work.”
John Simkin perhaps gave the most concise summary of the events (March 13, 2004, 8:59 am, April 26, 2004, 7:53 am): “Researchers are divided on Baker’s story: a number of researchers have seen most or all her original evidence files and defend her (such as Jim Marrs, Martin Shackelford, Wim Dankbaar, Howard Platzman) while other researchers attack her story… Baker points out that almost all the researchers who have attacked her story have never met her or viewed her original evidence files. Far too many people involved in this case are quick to make abusive comments about the people they disagree with. I don’t see why we cannot disagree politely with each other. The main objective is to reach the truth. I believe the best way we can achieve this is by having an open, rational debate.”
One might add to that: that there are bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence that incessantly materializes to bolster her claims, such as Dr. Ochsner knowing Lee Oswald:
“Many people may think there are no documented ties of Ochsner to Oswald, but there are: Here is one:
(Impression by Dr. Alton Ochsner, world famed surgeon and President of both the Alton Ochsner Medical Foundation and the Information Council of the Americas [INCA], who perhaps was the only listener who knew of Oswald’s defection before the debate.)
“It’s a record from the kitchen of INCA, the right wing CIA sponsored organization founded by Ochsner, reiterating the guilt of Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone assassin, with personal comments of Alton Ochsner himself (see middle photo on the back cover).” (Wim Dankbaar, March 29, 2004, 10:00 am.)
PART II: The World of the Unseen-
Out of the Cryptex
Reading about and describing some of the multiple attacks and confrontations that Judyth Vary Baker has encountered resembles some of the scarier tactics that intelligence operations have created from their literal and figurative dungeons of torture.
THE PROBLEM THAT GOES BEYOND
One can speculate that from most outward appearances, the researchers that lean towards conspiracy in the murder of John F. Kennedy, and those elements associated in highlighting a conspiracy, are often confronted by critics that speak from prior dispositions that run together in dark circles, wolf packs, and often in vile malevolence. Such vice (seen so repetitiously) could be associated with various mental states such as xenophobia (fear of the unknown), mythophobia (fear of myths), rhabdophobia (fear of criticism), or heresyphobia (fear of challenges), and can also be aligned with a greater inner sanctum motivator: megalomania and authoritarian personality disorder; particularly in the arena of intelligence and governmental control.
Journalist Cameron Reilly introduced one of the government’s sub rosa intelligence projects this way:
“Mockingbird isn’t some conspiracy theory – like MKULTRA and the 638 attempts at assassinating Fidel Castro, it’s a genuine part of CIA history. Mockingbird has been written about in detail since the late 70’s, but it’s one of those pieces of U.S. history that isn’t talked about much in the mainstream media. Why? I assume because they would prefer people don’t know about it as it would make them ask too many questions, such as “how do we know the CIA isn’t controlling the media today as well?
“It’s also one of those events in history that should help us all realize that we’ve been manipulated and lied to by the government and the media in the past so it’s entirely rationale to believe they might be manipulating and lying to us still today.”
Reilly went on to describe Operation Mockingbird as a sophisticated ruse by the CIA and the U.S corporate media to spread intentional lies to the American people and international readers.
(http://cameronre – Steven Jacobson and Steve Kangas spoke in a piece entitled Media and Mind Control in America:
“Journalism is a perfect cover for CIA agents. People talk freely to journalists, and few think suspiciously of a journalist aggressively searching for information. Journalists also have power, influence and clout. Not surprisingly, the CIA began a mission in the late 1940s to recruit American journalists on a wide scale…The agency wanted these journalists not only to relay any sensitive information they discovered (and write about and replay information when requested…SE).”
Early progenitors of the project, said Jacobson-Kangas, were Frank Wisner, Allan Dulles, Richard Helms and Philip Graham (Graham was the husband of Katherine Graham, today’s publisher of the Washington Post). The sub rosa project included 25 media organizations and 400 journalists (or more), according to 1975 findings of the Church Committee, and read like a Who’s Who of journalism:
Philip and Katharine Graham (Publishers, Washington Post) William Paley (President, CBS) Henry Luce (Publisher, Time and Life magazine) Arthur Hays Sulzberger (Publisher, N.Y. Times) Jerry O’Leary (Washington Star) Hal Hendrix (Pulitzer Prize winner, Miami News) Barry Bingham Sr., (Louisville Courier-Journal) James Copley (Copley News Services) Joseph Harrison (Editor, Christian Science Monitor) C.D. Jackson (Fortune) Walter Pincus (Reporter, Washington Post) ABC NBC Associated Press United Press International Reuters Hearst Newspapers Scripps-Howard Newsweek magazine Mutual Broadcasting System Miami Herald Old Saturday Evening Post New York Herald-Tribune, the New York Herald-Tribune, the Saturday Evening Post, Scripps-Howard Newspapers, Hearst Newspapers, the Associated Press, United Press International, the Mutual Broadcasting System, Reuters and the Miami Herald and many others.
(It is believed that Steve Kangas was working on a book about CIA covert activities when on 8th February, 1999, he was found dead in the bathroom of the offices of Richard Mellon Scaife, the owner of the Pittsburgh Tribune [Scaife was a person that Kangas believed was a CIA operative]. He had been shot in the head. Popular status quo was told that he had committed suicide; other people believe he was murdered. In an article in Salon Magazine [19th March, 1999], Andrew Leonard asked: “Why did the police report say the gun wound was to the left of his head, while the autopsy reported a wound on the roof of his mouth? Why had the hard drive on his computer been erased shortly after his death? Why had Scaife assigned his No. 1 private detective, Rex Armistead, to look into Kangas’ past?”)
INTERMEZZO
(The Darkest Part of the Cellar)
EXPANSIVE MEDIA MACHINE
Greg Burnham, who quoted extensively from Operation Mockingbird: How Democracy was manipulated through the mainstream Media (Staffan H. Westerberg and Pete Engwall), disclosed additional facets of the intelligence scam.
“In the early 1950’s, CIA launched a propaganda program put together utilizing the expansive media machine within the United States…probably the most important vehicle ever for the power that is behind the CIA to control and manipulate the public…perhaps the most devastating Intel project ever inflicted on the American people and democracy in the United States. Today most people have never heard of it, and the majority of JFK researchers rarely bring the truth of Mockingbird into their research equation.
“ # Reporters on the CIA payroll forcing witnesses to change their story.
# Special assets within the media who affect others to act and report incorrect conclusions, opinions and perceptions.
# CIA directing assets within the media.
# Editors who can review texts and change facts to suit.
# Reporters and other assets in the field become watchdogs for developing news.
# Editors that step in to defend and shift focus.
# Assets that control debates and create diversions.
# News organizations and chief editors who avoid critique and project the official line.
# Media organizations that project false images and scenarios.
# Media Management that work with policies and establish in-house views – which leads to a hidden culture.
# Agency infiltrating social media.
# Photo editors that manipulate images.
# Falsification of historical events and interactions and influence with private researchers.
Website http://100777.com/brainwashing compiled a comprehensive list of recognized intelligence controls, listed here for the readers’ viewing pleasure, in their entirety:
MUTLIPLE SECRET OPERATIONS in society, document created 25/09/2014 – 10:59, updated 29/09/2014 – 10:43 by cybe: originally from: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/se111/61_years_after_the_failed_bay_of_pigs_invasion/) (These are offered with the admonition, by cybe, that those who discover conspiracies are not crazy, but those who deny same are ignorant. The reader is welcomed to research the topics in depth [we cannot do that here]. You will find even more such projects not herein mentioned: Artichoke, Peter Pan, and Husky…):
“Operation Northwoods? A series of proposals which called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or other operatives, to commit acts of terrorism in US cities and elsewhere”
“The Informant named “Curveball” who lied about WMDs in Iraq? An Iraqi citizen who defected from Iraq in 1999, claiming that he had worked as a chemical engineer at a plant that manufactured mobile biological weapon laboratories as part of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program. His allegations were subsequently shown to be false”
“Testimony of Nayirah? The Nayirah testimony was a fake testimony given before the non-governmental Congressional Human Rights Caucus on October 10, 1990 by a woman who provided only her first name, Nayirah.”
“Operation Black Eagle – Operation Black Eagle became a network of 5000 people who made possible the export of arms in the direction of Central America, and the import of drugs from the same direction. “
“Operation Mockingbird – a secret campaign by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to influence media. “
“The Special Collection Service – A highly classified joint U.S. Central Intelligence Agency-National Security Agency program charged with inserting eavesdropping equipment in difficult-to-reach places, such as foreign embassies, communications centers, and foreign government installations.”
“Project MKULTRA – A U.S. government human research operation experimenting in the behavioral engineering of humans…..MKUltra used numerous methodologies to manipulate people’s mental states and alter brain functions, including the surreptitious administration of drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as various forms of torture.”
“Operation Paperclip – was the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) program in which over 1,500 German scientists, technicians, and engineers from Nazi Germany and other foreign countries were brought to the United States for employment in the aftermath of World War II. “
“Downing Street Memo – Sometimes described by critics of the Iraq War as the ‘smoking gun memo,’ is the note of a secret 23 July 2002 meeting of senior British Labor government, defense and intelligence figures discussing the build-up to the war, which included direct reference to classified United States policy of the time.”
A TELECOMMUNICATION INTERCEPTION FACILITY
“Room 641A is a telecommunication interception facility operated by AT&T for the U.S. National Security Agency that commenced operations in 2003 and was exposed in 2006.”
“Gulf of Tonkin Incident – also known as the USS Maddox Incident, is the name given to two separate confrontations involving North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin.”
“COINTELPRO – (an acronym for COunter INTELligence PROgram) was a series of covert, and at times illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveying, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.”
“Project MKDELTA – MKDELTA, and its associated program MKULTRA, were mind control and interrogation operations run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Both MKULTRA and MKDELTA involved the surreptitious use of LSD and other biochemical in clandestine operations…”
“Rex 84 Plan A classified ‘scenario and drill’ developed by the United States federal government to suspend the United States Constitution, declare martial law, place military commanders in charge of state and local governments, and detain large numbers of American citizens who are deemed to be ‘national security threats’, in the event that the President declares a ‘State of National Emergency.’”
“Project Artichoke A CIA project that researched interrogation methods and arose from a Project BLUEBIRD. The project studied hypnosis, forced morphine addiction (and subsequent forced withdrawal), and the use of other chemicals, among other methods, to produce amnesia and other vulnerable states in subjects.”
“Project MKOFTEN A covert Department of Defense program developed in conjunction with the CIA. A partner program to MKSEARCH, the goal of MKOFTEN was to ‘test the behavioral and toxicological effects of certain drugs on animals and humans’”.
“Operation Dormouse The idea was that by exposing the MKULTRA program by essentially offering it to the press, any investigative attempts into the Project Artichoke would be diverted.”
“Operation Ajax The overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953, orchestrated by the United Kingdom (under the name ‘Operation Boot’) and the United States (under the name TPAJAX Project”
THE BUSINESS PLOT
“The Plot to kill FDR…by BANKERS The Business Plot was an alleged political conspiracy in 1933. Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler claimed that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans’ organization and use it in a coup d’état to overthrow President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Butler as leader of that organization.”
“CIA Front Companies An airline listed as Foreign Corporation in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is alleged to be a front company for the Central Intelligence Agency.”
“Stuxnet A computer worm that was discovered in June 2010, and was designed to attack industrial Programmable Logic Controllers or PLCs.”
“Project Merrimac A domestic espionage operation coordinated under the Office of Security of the CIA. It involved information gathering procedures via infiltration and surveillance on Washington-based anti-war groups that might pose potential threats to the CIA.”
“Project Resistence A domestic espionage operation coordinated under the Domestic Operations Division (DOD) of the CIA. Its purpose was to collect background information on groups around the U.S. that might pose threats to CIA facilities and personnel.”
“The Rendon Group that exports PR and Propaganda is a public relations and propaganda firm headed by John Rendon which specializes in providing communications services both nationally and internationally. The Rendon Group website states, “For nearly three decades, The Rendon Group has been providing innovative global strategic communications solutions from our headquarters in Washington, DC. TRG utilizes state-of-the-art technology as well as traditional public relations tools, assisting leading commercial, government and military organizations.”
“In-Q-Tel…the CIA’s front company Venture Capital arm…that is heavily invested in Google a not-for-profit venture capital firm that invests in high-tech companies for the sole purpose of keeping the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies, equipped with the latest in information technology in support of United States intelligence capability.”
“Operation Chaos was the code name for a domestic espionage project conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency.”
“Project SHAMROCK Considered to be the sister project for Project MINARET, was an espionage exercise, started in August 1945[1] that involved the accumulation of all telegraphic data entering into or exiting from the United States. The Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA)[2] and its successor NSA were given direct access to daily microfilm copies of all incoming, outgoing, and transiting telegrams via the Western Union and its associates RCA and ITT.”
SECRET COURT
“The FISA Court (secret) A U.S. federal court established and authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to oversee requests for surveillance warrants against suspected foreign intelligence agents inside the United States by federal law enforcement agencies.”
“Russell Welch who tried to expose drug ops at Mena, AK…also poisoned with Anthrax Welch sounded the alarm for decades about an alleged CIA smuggling operation of cocaine into the United States via Mena in Arkansas, and claimed that Barry Seal was trafficking more than cocaine, and that there were more places like Mena in Oklahoma….Welch claimed he was exposed to military grade anthrax, a poison only available at that time through the U.S. government…”
“Gerry Droller was a CIA officer involved in the covert 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état and the recruitment of Cuban exiles in the preparation of the Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961.”
“The School of the Americas is a United States Department of Defense Institute located at Fort Benning near Columbus, Georgia, that provides military training to government personnel of Latin American countries.”
“Journalist/Report Gary Webb was an American investigative reporter best known for his 1996 Dark Alliance series of articles written for the San Jose Mercury News and later published as a book. In the three-part series, Webb investigated Nicaraguans linked to the CIA-backed Contras who had smuggled cocaine into the U.S. Their smuggled cocaine was distributed as crack cocaine in Los Angeles, with the profits funneled back to the Contras. Webb also alleged that this influx of Nicaraguan-supplied cocaine sparked, and significantly fueled, the widespread crack cocaine epidemic that swept through many U.S. cities during the 1980s.”
“Operation Charly was allegedly the code-name given to a program undertaken by the military establishment in Argentina with the objective of providing military and counterinsurgency assistance to Central America to combat left-wing subversion.”
“Operation 40 was a Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored undercover operation in the early 1960s, which was active in the United States and the Caribbean (including Cuba), Central America, and Mexico. The group was formed to seize political control of Cuba after the Bay of Pigs Invasion.”
“Operation Midnight Climax The project consisted of a web of CIA-run safehouses in San Francisco, Marin, and New York. It was established in order to study the effects of LSD on unconsenting individuals. Prostitutes on the CIA payroll were instructed to lure clients back to the safehouses, where they were surreptitiously plied with a wide range of substances, including LSD, and monitored behind one-way glass. Several significant operational techniques were developed in this theater, including extensive research into sexual blackmail, surveillance technology, and the possible use of mind-altering drugs in field operations.”
“Operation Washtub was a CIA-organized covert operation to plant a phony Soviet arms cache in Nicaragua to demonstrate Guatemalan ties to Moscow. It was part of the effort to overthrow the President of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in 1954.”
SPY CATS
“Acoustic Kitty A CIA project launched by the Directorate of Science & Technology in the 1960s attempting to use cats in spy missions, intended to spy on the Kremlin and Soviet embassies.”
“Amalgam Virgo was the codename of an Italian Air Force C-47 Dakota aircraft, registration MM61832, used by the Italian Secret Service and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in covert operations. Officially, those operations were limited to electronic surveillance over the Adriatic Sea and interference with the Yugoslavian radar network.”
“Project FUBELT is the code name for the secret Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operations that were to prevent Salvador Allende rise to power before his confirmation, and promote a military coup in Chile.”
“Stargate Project was the code name for a project established by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency to investigate claims of psychic phenomena with potential military and domestic application, such as remote viewing, which is the purported ability to psychically ‘see’ events, sites, or information from a great distance.”
“Tepper Aviation is based at the Bob Sikes Airport in Crestview, Florida. The company has a long association with the CIA. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was widely reported to be flying weapons into Angola to arm the UNITA rebels. More recently, it has been linked with the practice of extraordinary rendition.”
“The Church Committee was the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities.”
“Family Jewels is the informal name used to refer to a set of reports that detail activities conducted by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Considered illegal or inappropriate, these actions were conducted over the span of decades, from the 1950s to the mid-1970s.”
“The Pentagon Papers a United States Department of Defense history of the United States’ political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967…..The papers revealed that the U.S. had secretly enlarged the scale of the Vietnam War with the bombings of nearby Cambodia and Laos, coastal raids on North Vietnam, and Marine Corps attacks, none of which were reported in the mainstream media.”
“Operation Gladio a NATO stay-behind anti-communist organization.”
DENUEMENT
(No Free Press)
SERVE THE MEDIA OWNERS
Writer Mary Louise explained that CIA assignments ranged from intelligence-gathering to serving as go-betweens at hundreds of businesses and universities, often using Ivy League graduates (such as Yale figures George Herbert Walker Bush and the Skull and Crossbones Society).
“Many Americans still insist or persist in believing that we have a free press, while getting most of their news from state-controlled television, under the misconception that reporters are meant to serve the public,” said Louise. “Reporters are paid employees and serve the media owners, who usually cower when challenged by advertisers or major government figures.” (Mary Louise, Mockingbird: CIA Media Manipulation [2003].)
ROBERT PARRY AND EDWARD SNOWDEN
Louise highlighted newsman Robert Parry who wrote about news-breaking affairs in the Iran-Contra episode for the Associated Press: Parry found that his stories were often ignored by the press and congress; he further witnessed the actual retraction of a true story when working for Newsweek for political reasons.
In “Fooling America: A Talk by Robert Parry” Parry said, “The people who succeeded and did well were those who didn’t stand up, who didn’t write the big stories, who looked the other way when history was happening in front of them, and went along either consciously or just by cowardice with the deception of the American people.”
Recent history included the famous whistleblower Edward Snowden who exposed the National Security Agency breech and use of private communication of the citizenry, and according to researcher Kristan Harris, “are attempting to manipulate and control online behavior even going to the extreme of setting people up using what the GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters [UK]) calls ‘Honey Traps.’ They then go on to force you into behavior you may not have been in and use the information to discredit American patriots who oppose the current establishment.”
Glenn Greenwald, a journalist who leaked the information, had stated:
“Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about ‘dirty trick’ tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group).
The files showed how shill agents infiltrated the internet to manipulate stage and attempt to corrupt reputations, said Harris, and Harris strongly questioned the use of espionage against its own citizens. “Are these extreme tactics of deception by our government honorable?” Harris asked. “These documents show how the GCHQ trains and engage in ‘false flag operations’ to purposely deceive and set individuals up (online).”
Perhaps the American public will need to hunker-down, in some respects, to an on-coming flood of evil, as herewith forewarned in the feelings and words of the late Jim Garrison (Russell, On the Trail of the JFK Assassins, page 100 [Baker, p. 432]):
‘“We’re investigating a conspiracy which appeared to have occurred in New Orleans…if they (the government, SE) want to help me, I’ll welcome their help. But I’m not reporting to anybody.’ Those were strong words…before long,” says Baker, “the most powerful machinery of the government had been uncorked against Garrison…the full story of how Garrison was ham-strung would fill a volume.”
(See also)https://www.facebook.com/v2.3/plugins/post.php?app_id=249643311490&channel=https%3A%2F%2Fstaticxx.facebook.com%2Fx%2Fconnect%2Fxd_arbiter%2F%3Fversion%3D46%23cb%3Df2a20edcb7a0b94%26domain%3Dwordpresscom507.wordpress.com%26is_canvas%3Dfalse%26origin%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwordpresscom507.wordpress.com%252Ff15968f67b81144%26relation%3Dparent.parent&container_width=552&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2F1650218505198628%2Fphotos%2Fpb.1650218505198628.-2207520000.1438708904.%2F1653536621533483%2F%3Ftype%3D1%26theater&locale=en_US&sdk=joey&width=552
Surgeon Dr. Alton Ochsner
Eminent heart and lung surgeon, and former President of the American Cancer Society
I have been studying both the administration and assassination of the 35th President, John F. Kennedy, for a great deal of my adult life. The tragedy inflicted by the assassination of JFK–as President of the United States, as an individual, as a husband, and as a devoted father of two–is far outweighed by the impact this seminal event inflicted upon the Executive Branch of the Federal Government itself.
Dr Robert Heath was Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at Tulane University in New Orleans from 1949 to 1980. He performed many controversial experiments involving electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB). In one procedure, Dr Heath wired up the pleasure centres of a gay man. During a three-hour session, the subject, code-named B-19, electrically self-stimulated his reward circuitry some 1,500 times.
“During these sessions, B-19 stimulated himself to a point that he was experiencing an almost overwhelming euphoria and elation, and had to be disconnected, despite his vigorous protests.” [Moan, C.E., & Heath, R.G. Septal stimulation for the initiation of heterosexual activity in a homosexual male. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 3, 23-30, 1972.]
Staffan H Westerberg: Is a 53 year old journalist from Stockholm, Sweden, who used to live in the States in the 80s – lived in LA and have a lot of relatives in the Chicago area since the 1930s. He has been an investigative journalist since the mid-90s and did mostly crime investigations/reportage. Pete Engwall is another kind of creature. He is actually an inventor, from a long line of inventors. He is related to Jonas Engwall, one of John Erikssons apprentices, (J Engwall actually invented the propeller). Pete is also related to Wilhelm von Scheele, who discovered 7 basic elements, among them Oxygen.
Steven Robert Esh (he later changed him name to Steve Kangas) was born on 11th May, 1961. His parents were conservative Christians and he attended private religious academies in South Carolina.
After graduating from high school in 1979, Kangas joined the US Army. He was later transferred to military intelligence and spent a year in Monterey (Defense Language Institute) learning Russian. He also spent time at Goodfellow Air Force Base in Texas before being sent to do secret work in Central America.
In 1984 Kangas moved to Germany where he was involved in electronic eavesdropping on Soviet military units in Eastern Europe, analyzing the transcripts and reporting back to NATO. It was at this time he began to question his conservative political beliefs.
It is believed that Kangas was working on a book about CIA covert activities when on 8th February, 1999, he was found dead in the bathroom of the offices of Richard Mellon Scaife, the owner of the Pittsburgh Tribune (and a person Kangas believed to be a CIA front). He had been shot in the head. Officially he had committed suicide but some people believe he was murdered.
By MIKAEL THALEN | INFOWARS.COM | SEPTEMBER 26, 2014
“New documents released by the CIA show how the agency worked with some of the country’s largest newspapers to destroy San Jose Mercury News’ Gary Webb, a journalist who famously exposed the CIA’s connection to the cocaine trade in the “Dark Alliance” investigation.
Tactics used to destroy Webb, who was found dead in his apartment in 2004 with two .38-caliber bullets in the head, included a massive smear campaign by journalists working with newspapers such as the L.A. Times. A report by The Intercept’s Ryan Devereaux reveals the paper used as many as 17 journalists to discredit Webb and his exposé…..”
The junior DRDE scientist who was allegedly attacked by two senior scientists.
GWALIOR: Two scientists of the Defence Research and Development Establishment, or the DRDE, in Gwalior have been accused of trying to use one of their juniors as a human sacrifice. According to the report, one of the two senior scientists called his junior to his house and then tried to attack him with a sharp weapon, but the man managed to escape.
DRDE director has ordered an official probe into the matter.
David Ferrie’s Civil Air Patrol experience was what made him important to Jim Garrison’s investigation of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Lee Harvey Oswald joined Ferrie’s squadron at Moisant Airport in 1955. (Eastern Airlines archive)
On July 21, 1964, Dr. Mary Stults Sherman was brutally murdered in her apartment building on 3101 St. Charles Avenue, in New Orleans. She was a prominent orthopedic surgeon and expert in cancer research. The assassination remains unsolved, although there are some investigators who think they came close to a solution. And the assassination of John F. Kennedy has, according to them, everything to do with this tragedy.
I host an alternative talk radio show and news zine called The Rundown Live out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The show is syndicated on Denver 90.7 FM Truth Frequency Radio. Our information is powered by citizen journalists and has been covered by MSNBC, RAWstory, Drudge Report, Infowars and many more. Our information has reached as many as 1.4 million people in a week. Just less than 30% of our visitors return and that percentage grow every day. We are 100% listener supported and are unaffiliated with any political party.
We are going on our 3rd year of programming and looking to monetize/syndicate the program. Our show is best described as Morning talk radio show at night like “Wayne’s World” with a twist of “Coast to Coast” madness.
Small quotes are permitted by reviewers with all credits to this article
Barker, as lover’s would, was aware that Oswald had penetrated the “heart of the groups in New Orleans who were serious about killing Kennedy…(as well as) an elite circle of even more powerful men, mostly from Texas, composed of politicians, whose fanatical patriotism was mixed with monetary ambitions and a lust for power.” (p. 419)
Oswald was deliberately enmeshed in two operative teams: one to shoot Kennedy, and one to “abort” the event. The complexity of such an operation boggles the imagination (p. 519).
CALLED FOR A PERSONAL STUDY
“Lee,” I said, “I know you’re used to leading three lives, or thirty, but I’d rather tell the truth.” “Ah,” he said, “You’re still not use to it, like I am…false trails, false records, fake names.” (Judyth Baker and Lee Oswald, July 19, 1963, as they spoke about events [page 402].)
Only after a serious study of the book with its plush, intimate facts and comments–in their entirety–taken in detail and systematically–will readers come to appreciate and understand the complex threads of conspiracy.
Barker could possibly–the same as Oswald–have been selected for the destiny they entered at an early age, and perhaps it was more than coincidence that they met in New Orleans (“I was useful because I was almost untraceable, since I wasn’t a doctor yet…,” p. 182).
David Ferrie had spoken of such projects that involved human control:
“…he had more to tell us about mind control and the experiments on people, frequently without their knowledge,” said Baker. “Yes, American citizens were being used as guinea pigs by their own government.”
“These things never die,” said David Ferrie. “It’s an iron-clad law that it takes more energy to stop a government program than to start one. This is self-perpetuating.” (p. 217)
The prospect that the inner-workings of men and society have become victim to hidden and minute control from sinister forces should have frightened us all.
JUDYTH ANSWERED CRITICS
Judyth Baker discovered numerous scandalous and false accusations against her on the Internet and in the media; she has attempted to answer and correct as much of the criticisms and attacks as she could over the years. The extensive coverage of those rebuttals was beyond the scope of this article, but some websites (out of a multitude) were available:
Jeffrey Holmes, 2010: “Far be it for someone to actually read the book before writing a review. Do the research, as I have, and you will begin to see the whole picture here.
“I am a New Orleans researcher and own a tour company, after doing extensive legwork for a number of years it becomes quite clear as to what was happening in New Orleans in the early 60’s.
“When it comes to facts, Me & Lee and Dr. Mary’s Monkey are both historical documents that help fill out the truth behind the assassination of JFK. Do yourself a favor and be a true investigative journalist, although you may not like what you find.”
Judyth Vary Baker said: “I was told to keep my mouth shut if I wanted to stay alive, and I did so for decades; but I finally realized that if I did not speak out during my lifetime, I would have no way of defending the book. I had decided to go to the grave, originally, with what I knew, and to simply let my son publish the book posthumously. Then I would not have to battle the forces that could (and did) ruin my life.
“However, two factors came into play to change my mind about going to the grave before this vital information about Oswald was released to the public: 1) my son was unaware of the milieu in New Orleans, and in the nation, in 1963, and, worse, knew almost nothing about the lies and falsehoods circulating about Oswald. He would be unable to defend the book. 2) I realized that he would not understand the value of the materials I had saved from the past, and how they helped me achieve the feat of remembering the conversations. A streetcar ticket dated April 28, for example, would have little meaning for my son, whereas for me, it evoked a host of sharp, strong memories, including key conversations.”
Trine Day publisher, Kris Millegan, said: “The saddest thing is that we have no Fourth Estate today, simply propaganda founts trumpeting books such as Case Closed and most recently Vincent Bugliosi’s Reclaiming History that uphold the highly discredited official story… (his book completely ignores) astounding verifiable historical revelations…the forces and men who killed President Kennedy are still getting away with it.”
A sampling-catalog of a few synchronistic highlights from Judyth Baker’s memoir typified the extent and mystery of the Kennedy fiasco:
# There were actually “six” tramps arrested in Dallas on November 22, 1963. One of the tramps was a suspected Chauncey Holt, a mafia asset. He was one of three arrested but then released without charges. Holt was photographed in front of the Trade Mart on August 16, 1963 with Lee Oswald. Holt was a disguise artist who made Oswald’s fake IDs. He worked on CIA projects such as Operation Mongoose (p. 462).
# George de Mohrenschildt, geologist, and handler of Oswald, had dated Jackie Kennedy’s mother. “Jackie Bouvier Kennedy called him ‘Uncle George’ when she was young; George also knew Ruth Paine’s father.” (p. 393)
# “The Texas Theater was owned by (billionaire) Howard Hughes, who had strong ties with the CIA.” (Judyth Baker) Connected with Oswald’s arrest, a witness reported seeing an “Oswald double” leave through the back door of the theater and entering a police car on November 22, 1963. (p. 537)
# Oswald attended and talked at a Russian seminar on July 27, 1963. Jesuit “spies” concerned about the Sadinistan insurrection Latin America infiltrated the seminar. Bobby Kennedy also sent an inquiring Jesuit priest. The CIA and Mafia asked Oswald to discourage the insurrection. Oswald said the spies worked for Aristotle Socrates Onassis, a Greek shipping magnate who later became the husband of Jackie Kennedy, John Kennedy’s widow (pp. 416, 421).
# Over the years a number of researchers had suggested that David Atlee Phillips (CIA psyops expert in Operation Sherwood and PBSUCCESS), alias Maurice Bishop, was involved in planning the JFK assassination. CIA agent E. Howard Hunt named Phillips as a participant in the assassination (p. 521).
# “Wild Bill” Donovan, a leading American Cancer Society official was also the Founding Father of the CIA. Donovan was also a friend of Alton Oschner (p. 459).
# Oswald’s uncle, Charles (Dutz) Murret, died in 1964, a bad year for witness-deaths.
# Oswald showed Judyth a pistol that was ‘not’ a semi-automatic pistol. Authorities claimed that that a semi-automatic weapon shot Officer J.D. Tippet.
# Robert Gene Baker, a powerful Washington insider, Billie Sol Estes, a powerful Texas businessperson, and Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, were instrumental in the Assassination. Hit man Malcom Wallace was involved in eight murders connected to Lyndon Johnson. Wallace’s fingerprint “was found on a box of books stacked in the so-called ‘sniper’s nest’ in the Texas School Book Depository…” “…later in life, after LBJ’s death, Estes admitted to secretly funneling millions of dollars to LBJ, and that it was LBJ who ordered the murder of President John F. Kennedy…” (pp. 522-523)
BLOOD-THIRSTY GAME
“The pursuit of power is a blood-thirsty game that knows few rules,” said fellow assassination researcher Edward Haslam, “It kills to silence. It punishes those who get in the way. It threatens those who might speak up. Lee was a casualty of this ugly game. His death preserved their secrets.” (Forward, Me & Lee, November 2009)
“…if Oswald was not the shooter, then it is questionable if the plotting in the New Orleans actually resulted in the assassination,” summarized investigative journalist Jim Marrs. “The New Orleans plot was real enough, but the true assassins remain masked behind the smoke from the Grassy Knoll…events in New Orleans in the summer of 1963 reveal the murderous interconnections of the major players in the assassination.” (p. 566)
A WILDERNESS OF CHICANERY
“Contrary to published accounts, Lee Harvey Oswald was a patriot who loved his country,” said publisher Kris Millegan in the dedication to Me & Lee. “He submersed himself in an officially-sanctioned covert arena where one’s inventive ‘legend’ becomes entry into a netherworld of intrigue, compartmentalization, secret operations and contrived situations…whichever guise is called up by a taskmaster giving the high sign through the shadows of plausible deniability: A wilderness of chicanery, deceit and double/triple crosses.”
Footnotes on JFK, Lincoln, J.P Morgan and personal synchronistic events: an extraordinary component
THE HARDCORE DEFINITION
The late psychoanalyst Carl Jung examined the magic and elegant world of what he called “synchronistic events” and “meaningful coincidence”: “temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events,” “connecting (togetherness) principle,” and “acausal parallelism.” Jung introduced the concept as early as the 1920s, but gave a full statement of it only in 1951 in an Eranos lecture, and in 1952, published a paper, Synchronizität als ein Prinzip akausaler Zusammenhänge (Synchronicity – An Acausal Connecting Principle), in a volume with a related study by the physicist (and Nobel laureate) Wolfgang Pauli.
THE UNDERLYING PRINCIPLE
It was a principle that Jung felt gave conclusive evidence for his concepts of archetypes (universal symbolic representations and imagery) and the collective unconscious(a consciousness shared by all mankind, similar to the akashic records [in Indian religion, a supposedall-pervading field in the ether in which a record of pastevents is imprinted]). It was descriptive of a governing dynamic that underlies the whole of human experience and history–social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual. These are concurrent events that first appear to be coincidental but later turn out to be causally related (seem to take on real and intimate, personal meaning) and are termed incoincident.
Jung believed that many experiences perceived as coincidence were not merely due to chance but, instead, suggested the manifestation of parallel (real) events or deliberate circumstances reflecting this “governing dynamic” (the akashic all-pervading consciousness).
One of Jung’s favorite quotes on synchronicity was from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, in which the White Queen says to Alice:
“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.”
“A simple example of synchronicity is when you suddenly think about someone you haven’t seen for a few years and just after you have the thought, that person calls you. At the other end of the scale are visions or dreams where the person sees an event that either occurred but which they did not witness, or one that occurs after they ‘see’ it.”
Coincidental events, which are later found to be causally related (but concrete events), were termed “Incoincident” because “a grouping of events connected by meaning need not have an explanation in terms of a concrete sense of cause and effect.”
It maintained that just as events may be connected by a causal line, they may also be connected by meaning. “Therefore it cannot be a question of cause and effect, but of a falling together in time, a kind of simultaneity,” said Jung.
Jung believed that many experiences that are coincidences due to “chance” in terms of causality, but suggested the manifestation of parallel events or circumstances (seeming unrelated happenings that suddenly mean something and have a personal connection somehow) in terms of meaning, reflecting this governing dynamic.
The JFK assassination was rife with such coincidence:
The John Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln assassinations, for instance; below was a short sampling, out of many Lincoln/Kennedy coincidences:
Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846. John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.
The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contained seven letters.
Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both opposed the International Bankers: Kennedy gave Executive Order 11110 on June 4, 1963, which would have wiped out the Federal Reserve. Lincoln fought Rothschild’s attempts to finance the Civil War; warned people about the National Banking Act (later, through the efforts of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and Thomas W. House [agent for the Rothschild’s], Lincoln’s efforts were nullified).
Both of their wives lost their children while living in the White House.
Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Lincoln was shot in the Ford Theater. Kennedy was shot in a car made by the Ford Motor Company (a Lincoln, no less)
Both successors were named Johnson.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808. Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.
Their first names both contained six letters.
A week before Lincoln was shot, he was with friends in Monroe, Maryland. A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with his friend Marilyn Monroe.
Lincoln’s last child, Tad, had his funeral held on July 16, 1871. Later he was exhumed and moved to a different gravesite. Kennedy’s son JFK Jr. was lost at sea on July 16, 1999. Later he was found, brought up, and then re-buried at sea.
Apparently, Lincoln had a dream several days before the assassination that he had been killed. He told his wife that he had seen himself in a casket.
In addition, Lincoln’s son Tad had a pet turkey named Jack. Tad asked his father not to kill the turkey for Thanksgiving. Although Harry S Truman started the official tradition, Lincoln was the first to “pardon” a Thanksgiving turkey.
RMS TITANIC
Jung’s “meaningful coincidences” led into broader connections, as can be seen below:
There were “four” fiction books written on the sinking of liners similar to the ill-fated and famous RMS Titanic. All of the books were written before hand:
The SinkingofaModernLiner by W.T. Stead in 1886 (Stead died on the “actual” Titanic in 1912).
Futility: TheWreckoftheTitan by Morgan Robertson in 1898.
TheShipsRun by M. McDonnell Bodkin in 1908 (named The Titanic).
TheWhiteGhostofDisaster (called the Admiral) which described the sinking of the Titanic-like Admiral; the book was being distributed ‘before’ the real Titanic was set out to sail in 1912.
All of these fiction stories displayed actual resemblances to the real Titanic.
J.P MORGAN OWNED THE TITANIC
The coincidences went even further.
Three elite and wealthy businesspersons that opposed the Federal Reserve Bank, Benjamin Guggenheim (mining and machinery), Isa Strauss (co-owner of Macy Stores), and Colonel Jacob Astor (owner of the Waldorf Astoria) were all deceased on the Titanic voyage in 1912.
Mogul J.P. Morgan owned the Titanic and the Silver Star Ship Lines.
Morgan was very much in favor of the Federal Reserve Bank.
On April 14, 1912, the Titanic struck an iceberg and all opposition to the Federal Reserve was eliminated. Lincoln was also dedicatedly opposed to the International Bankers. His opposition to the scheming financiers also ended on April 14 (the same day of the week in history as the Titanic sinking and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln).
(In December of 1913, the Federal Reserve System came into being in the United States. Eight months later, the First World War began. John Kennedy’s murder ended his opposition to the Federal Reserve; following his death, escalation of the Vietnam War began.)
Jacob Astor, a Titanic victim, funded and befriended electronics genius Nikola Tesla, but when Morgan discovered that Tesla was going to give his inventions to the public, outside of Morgan’s monopolies, Morgan began to blackball Tesla and ruin Tesla’s career (Tesla’s history, in itself, contained some extraordinary events; of which is beyond the scope this article).
(“The Captain of the Titanic was Edward Smith. He was a Jesuit and worked for J.P. Morgan. Anyone could be a Jesuit and their identity not be known. Smith “was a ‘Jesuit Tempore co-adjustor…a priest of the short robe…J.P Morgan was also a priest and put Smith in charge of captaining the Titanic…” [From NationalGeographic ‘The Secrets of the Titanic,’ {1986}]:
“When the ship departed southern England, on board was Francis Browne. He was the most powerful Jesuit in all of Ireland and the ‘Jesuit Master of Edward Smith.” Here is Jesuit treachery at its finest. The provincial Father Francis Browne boards the Titanic, photographs the victims, most assuredly briefs the Captain concerning his oath as a Jesuit, and the following morning bids him farewell…’ [Eric J. Phelps, VaticanAssassins Halcon Unified Services, p. 247].
“Captain Smith believed this high-ranking ‘Jesuit General’ was God. Browne instructed him on what to do in the North Atlantic waters. ‘Edward Smith was given orders to sink the Titanic and that’s exactly what he did.’ According to Jesuit secret philosophy, the innocent can be massacred for the greater good; the end justifies the means.”)
The above examples portrayed the intricate and on-going phenomena called “meaningful coincidence” that seemed limitless and unending; a few more examples brought the topic closer to home: real-life coincidences of Steve Erdmann in the JFK scenario:
# Judyth Baker, at the age of eight, had a pet lapdog named “Sparky.” At the approximate age of nine, I also adopted a mongrel pet dog that I named “Sparky.” Mobster Jack Ruby, Jacob Rubenstein, was also nicknamed “Sparky.”
# Judyth was 15 months older than Steve Erdmann. On November 22, 1963, she was 20 years, 7 months years-of-age. I was 19 years, 4 months.
# My dog “Sparky” lived until about late 1963, near the time of Kennedy’s death. About that time, “unseen” teenage “thugs” attacked and disabled Sparky and he had to be put to death. These ‘criminals’ (I had suspects…SE) apparently were very “jealous” of my dating a girl who later became my first wife, and when confronted by a property-protective Sparky, decided to “kick and beat” my dog.
# “Sparky” Rubenstein had a history of violence and having been involved in dramatic confrontations (not to mention the shooting of Lee Oswald). “…in his youth, his old buddies from Chicago called him ‘Sparky’ because of his short temper.” (p. 553.)
# My first-purchased home was on Louisiana Avenue in St. Louis in the early 1970s. David Ferrie’s apartment was on Louisiana Parkway in New Orleans in 1963. There was also a Louisiana bus line in New Orleans (p. 426), as well as a Louisiana Avenue (p. 207).
# My father, Steve Erdmann, Sr., passed away 10 months after my birthdate, two months short of a twelve-month period. Lee Oswald’s father died “two months” before Oswald’s birthdate.
# Grandfather Steve Erdmann died on April 29, my father died on April 21: Judyth met Lee Oswald on April 26.
# When Steve Erdmann was about six-years-of-age, Steve Erdmann’s mother, Clara Erdmann, placed Steve into a Manchester, Missouri Lutheran orphanage (next to the St. Paul Lutheran church). It was a temporary provision; she wanted to relocate and “get back on her feet” (“…Lee explained that his father had died a few months before he was born… [His] mother struggled with financial problems so severe…,” p. 135). Steve stayed at the orphanage for about a three-year period. Lee Oswald was placed in the Lutheran Bethlehem orphanage in New Orleans at the age of three.
# Judyth Baker was working at Pencham Laboratory on November 22, 1963, where one man expressed the “hope that somebody in Dallas would shoot him (Kennedy).” When the Last Rites were given to the President, cheers went up from the laboratory workers; Judyth’s employer exclaimed “Good!” He later berated Judyth for being a “Goddamned Communist!” (pp. 526-527) Steve Erdmann was working at a customer-counter in St. Louis where employees discussed the murder as it came out. One of the customers exclaimed: “It’s about time somebody shot that son-of-a-bitch!”
# Lee Oswald and Steve Erdmann both shared a somewhat tumultuous early life and marriage consisting of abuse, instability, and some deceit: “I am used to harpies in my life,” Lee commented, “my mother and my wife are both experts in the department.” (p. 152)
Life seemed to be a sea of mystery and quantum connection that forever lingered beyond our finite grasp. Manuscript space prohibited further inquiries into the strange world of coincidence, personal lives and world events. That waited upon the readers’ next step into that private void.
“Caution” was named as the Commodore of your sailing.
COMMENTS AND ESSAYS FROM THE Facebook Dissenter/Disinter Group as Achieve Material
SE – Once again, we try to explain (as we have done in the past several times) our general approach to news, the media, politics. Here is a reproduction of private comments in a reply to one of my critics:
“We like some of your ideas, facts, and thoughts, and we welcome them – if presented within reason and decor. This is what we don’t like and try to avoid: Stephen Erdmann: We promote very few human endeavors in an absolute sense, Russian or otherwise, as all fail and all fall within the scope of the loop of human evil and frailty. We look for those foes that all humankind seems to be battling from ‘any’ corner they are hunkered in.
“This Group is not a ‘platform’ for one single person’s private opinions or ‘sermons.’ It is a ‘forum’ whereby ‘all’ have an opportunity to add to the ongoing investigation. Hopefully, most will participate and not just become ‘observers.’ Likewise, this Group will not become monopolized by the thinking and propaganda of just one individual – this was not its purpose.
“We are not affiliated with the KKK or any other political faction said that many times, over and over, as well as has explained why we present all sides of news and media questions, without censorship, if possible. We are against the Military/Industrial/Corporate/Complex/Matrix (MICCM) and all its ‘isms,’ “cants,” ‘crats,’ ‘cans,’ and ‘doms.’ All it takes to see this and prove it, is to use your mouse or enter scroll and have a strong browser and investigate back to 2011. We refuse to become any one person’s private, personal pulpit (that is why you have your own Timeline). We allow most to speak their minds continually here — even to the point of opulently and often stuporous ferociousness — over and over — but apparently that is not good enough for a few. It takes a strong mind and will to live under the 1st Amendment and really abide by it.
“When I say ‘we,’ I usually mean ‘me’ – though I am speaking editorially on behalf of all those members who follow and agree with the Preamble religiously — they get the idea and message — and are giving me their full support.
“All the twisting, stretching and manipulating of my stated words and intended feelings will not help these matters and being completely uncompromising, unreasonable and deliberately uncouth certainly won’t help either.
“Please, read my text and postings in their full context and their entirety, if possible, to adjust to the real story and picture I present. Don’t settle for ‘half-baked’ interpretations or careless understanding.
“When any one person begins to use these spaces as solely his or her private podium to demonized (and shout down or otherwise badger) all other voices, he will be informed and given a mandate to cease and desist. This is a ‘forum’ Group and that connotes some fairness and inspection and equipoise of one’s behavior: we hope that each member will reflect on their behavior and not allow it to become effluvium.”
(This does not mean we will allow boring, tiring, inaccurate propaganda about the alleged Israel-cabal of so-called Zionism, which in many cases is far too short-sighted when it concerns the worldwide Military-Industrial-Corporate-Complex-Matrix (MICCM). Well documented pieces on ‘how’ Zionism is part and parcel of the “overall” MICCM, might be tolerated; but, singling out propaganda trying to prove Hitler was virtuous and the killing of the Jewish population as justified, will not be tolerated.
We do not automatically share anti-Semitic views and do not state everyone should or does. In fact, those that appear to be promoted from a Hate standpoint usually won’t coexist on this Group. This Group does not endorse, knowingly, anti-Semitic propaganda per se and any Hate Speech that is the basis for it.)
There is a big difference between a source that publishes outright invented news, and a source—or sources—that you just “don’t like,” or says things that are philosophically different than your views or opinions. Things said on the Left spectrum and the Right Spectrum may annoy us, but they have the Constitutional Right to speak and be heard by willing listeners (you can always turn a deaf ear to the opinion). Myself, I think both sides of the “aisle” are filled with evil intentions and hogwash, but that shouldn’t prevent me printing interesting ‘tidbits,’ unless I decide one day to go completely “off the grid.”
Political terms, names and meanings have evolved, changed, and transformed over the years as many other concepts that have also transmogrified. Some “liberal” concepts once seemed to uphold “freedom,” ‘free speech’ and protected ‘human rights’: now have turned into a ‘power-based’ ‘force’ to change society, even if by ‘radical’ or ‘militant’ means. Some blatantly attack those idealistic overtures the Founding Fathers eluded to (some hiding behind those precepts but being actually treacherous to them). Conservatives tried to parade themselves as preserving the principals that were expounded underlying the Founding Fathers up to and through the Bill of Rights, have much, in the same way, become the lair of the wealthy and ultra-rich which want to control the masses, preserve their power and wealth, and hide behind a disguise of being the protectors of the Rights of Mankind, when they are only another power-based ‘force’ for control and greed using the slavery to the masses. They have far surpassed the British overlords the colonialists fought. All of these have become Monsters.
(I know from experience that security guards are nothing but Whipping Boys, a ‘buffer’ between the Security Guard company, the police and the Landowner (they have three (3) bosses). They are the ‘Fall guys,’ if anything goes wrong, it is their job to take the heat, to not make the Landlords or the company to look bad (nor the police, who often treat them as low, second-class citizens and nothing more). They are given a whole list of phony ‘rules’ to make them robots to ‘slice the heat’ and put on a good ‘public face’ (often at low or very moderate wages), sometimes in very dangerous and life-threatening situations. It is Crony Capitalism at its worst; most guards will not admit this for fear of losing their jobs. They could really tell you some stories: but it would expose the ‘system.’ They are allowed to do what they have to to ‘protect’ this ‘status quo and system.’ I am quite sure this goes beyond the Security Guard profession, and the same mentality exists in most businesses and professions, one way or the other.)
We are here to promote ‘news’ from all different angles and sources, it is not my or anyone else’s purpose to knowingly or even unknowingly ‘prejudge’ the news, unless it becomes so apparent it is false there is no other alternative. But getting to that point can be a rocky and wearisome struggle. We have no prejudice about exposing ‘multiple’ viewpoints, because we realize that reality is multi-sided, often multidimensional, complicated and not always easily discernible: so we present many sides of that struggle. If you read my editorial comments, you should see that I have no particular stake in the sordid political fights and feel such political ‘gamesmanship’ is illusory and almost impossible. Some people feel that such deception is beyond their party, club or faction. You may feel yours is Holy, as well. I doubt that sanctimoniousness. Only the strong-minded need to tread here. That closed-mindedness of “my viewpoint only” needs to be “taken down.”
There is a big difference between a source that publishes outright invented news, and a source—or sources—that you just “don’t like,” or says things that are philosophically different than your views or opinions. Things said on the Left spectrum and the Right Spectrum may annoy us, but they have the Constitutional Right to speak and be heard by willing listeners (you can always turn a deaf ear to the opinion). Myself, I think both sides of the “aisle” are filled with evil intentions and hogwash, but that shouldn’t prevent me printing interesting ‘tidbits,’ unless I decide one day to go completely “off the grid.”
Political terms, names and meanings have evolved, changed, and transformed over the years as many other concepts that have also transmogrified. Some “liberal” concepts once seemed to uphold “freedom,” ‘free speech’ and protected ‘human rights’: now have turned into a ‘power-based’ ‘force’ to change society, even if by ‘radical’ or ‘militant’ means. Some blatantly attack those idealistic overtures the Founding Fathers eluded to (some hiding behind those precepts but being actually treacherous to them). Conservatives tried to parade themselves as preserving the principals that were expounded underlying the Founding Fathers up to and through the Bill of Rights, have much, in the same way, become the lair of the wealthy and ultra-rich which want to control the masses, preserve their power and wealth, and hide behind a disguise of being the protectors of the Rights of Mankind, when they are only another power-based ‘force’ for control and greed using the slavery to the masses. They have far surpassed the British overlords the colonialists fought. All of these have become Monsters.
(I know from experience that security guards are nothing but Whipping Boys, a ‘buffer’ between the Security Guard company, the police and the Landowner (they have three (3) bosses). They are the ‘Fall guys,’ if anything goes wrong, it is their job to take the heat, to not make the Landlords or the company to look bad (nor the police, who often treat them as low, second-class citizens and nothing more). They are given a whole list of phony ‘rules’ to make them robots to ‘slice the heat’ and put on a good ‘public face’ (often at low or very moderate wages), sometimes in very dangerous and life-threatening situations. It is Crony Capitalism at its worst; most guards will not admit this for fear of losing their jobs. They could really tell you some stories: but it would expose the ‘system.’ They are allowed to do what they have to in order to ‘protect’ this ‘status quo and system.’ I am quite sure this goes beyond the Security Guard profession, and the same mentality exists in most businesses and professions, one way or the other.)
Yes, we have covered this phenomena every now and then since 2011. I’ve been through the Divorce Racket (and other rackets) over the years and have tried to speak out in various formats and scenarios; it all follows a common thread. It makes one wonder why we are fighting each other, rather than the ‘common enemy.’ That enemy is hard to see and I’ve done what I can to expose it and make it visible. These pages are open to fellow dissidents and ‘explorers’ and ‘exposers.’ You’re welcome to tell your stories here and add to the exposition. It is all part of a megalith monster I call the Military-Industrial-Corporate-Complex- Matrix (MICCM).
Concerning a separate and special Rights For Women Manifesto: Don’t know why it has to be signatured by “women” as these are basic Human Rights for all mankind, male or female, which, unfortunately many women, in their symbiotic and parasitic alliance with the Legal Industry Cabal, causes them to tarnish and violate those basic Rights for both Men and Women. See how far these Rights go without falling into the trap (as they have already been) of being used or overtaken by the MICCM and other Legal Industry Masterminds which only serve their own Power, Profit and Prestige.
“Outspoken” should pertain to those who are proven to be true heroes opposing physical and psychological dangers, as opposed to brats and punks, calling themselves adults, trashing and destroying others for very vain and greedy purposes.
It is equally infuriating to be unnecessarily misquoted and misunderstood, when an opponent or debater is just flouting his ingrained and innate propaganda brainwashed into him from birth and is making no attempt to truly analyze and comprehend what you are telling them. Sometimes, their minds are so closed, they just ignore anything you say or do. Instead of approaching the arguments from “in your shoes,” they continue to be the little robots our society has invented and further spiel the usual venom and grade-school invectiveness in which they have ‘not’ tried to unlearn.
I am at a point in my life that I want to undo the evils that I forgot or refused to fight against in my life, and give others a choice to do the same, before it is too late, utilizing my 1st Amendment Rights and no longer turning a blind eye to the fates of the world. To teach others to ‘think’ and discover and use their mind, not to become simple sheep and blind slaves to those who control their reality:. Take off their masks, those little deceiving priests!
People get stuck in very old ideologies, concepts and “isms” and refuse to move out of those ‘boxes.’ We always like to think that we are the ones that are wearing the ‘white hats,’ and are the ‘only’ ones that know how to wear them and, even, the only ones that know where to ‘buy’ them: when, in reality, they are just grey, smudged, soiled and fraying old hats that have been passed around for generations through many, many secret hands.
“Some kind” of compromise and “understanding” is always needed when these debates appear, and try to look at “root” problems and not bring up too many private situations; and even then, always be willing to compromise and see each other’s point-of-view. Other than that, as I have said many times previously, the terms “fascist, liberal, left, right” are thrown around too loosely and with no historical meaning, always being projected from each person’s “private boxes.”
We shouldn’t condemn ‘socialism’ any more than ‘conservatism’: both are aimless, meaningless terms that don’t reflect the hidden agendas they are used for: fascist control and imperial elitism, the real enemy. At least ‘socialism’ had a true and genuine use in history well before America came into being and the bastardization of political terms. Most “political sensations” are nothing but masks to hide our inner evils and to gang together and destroy each other rather than help each other. A lot of national patriotism is the same baby-gook. We tend to fall for false histories, rather than the real histories: take off your masks little priests! Stop living in a world of ancient slogans and worn-out propaganda created by deceptive brain controllers and illusory political ideals.
Putting your full faith behind any one political party or personage is like trying to find virtue in a whorehouse: there are no such animals. Tyrannical and fascistic thinking are par for the course in any arena of life: it is the way humanoids operate. Ideologies are things only on ‘paper’: the real world should circumnavigate those illusory dreams and get down to the true facts; take off your masks, little priests.
I am the real oddball: and I have been sick and tired of the masking and erroneous parading of the so-called “Political Parties” for some time; watching the circus of flying monkeys never changes, even when one monkey is somewhat likable and seems to be alien to all the rest, it never changes. Still, we forge ahead and root and rant like the Romans at the Coliseum.
‘Pure’ Capitalism has never existed, nothing politically and socially has ever existed as ‘pure.’ It is easy to write something on paper and claim it is pristine and infallible, but quite another to see it operate in cold, stark reality. So-called Americanism as Capitalism was corrupted right out of the gate (i.e., see past postings and comments elsewhere). It is nice to write idealistic doctrine, but quite another thing to see it corrupted, inadequate, and having no fail-safe due to the monstrosity of the human condition. I know all about the dictionary definition but applying it to real human accomplishments is a pipedream, daydream, fable that has never really existed in all practically. I ‘sure as hell’ see proof of that every day.
So-called “Capitalism” has had its problems too, part of which redesigning what is a theory on ‘paper’ and inventing it according to our own evil images, in the form of Crony Capitalism, Fascism, etc., etc. Like so much in life, there never has been “pure” Capitalism (like there have never been ‘pure’ heroes, or ‘pure’ religion, or ‘pure’ politics) because any such “ism” is run by nefarious and weak and inhumane “humans.” We have a classical bent to destroy, pervert and warp the things about us. It is just one of many fairy tales and play-toys that humans like to toss around and manipulate. Looking for this Holy Grail (like looking for the Golden Fleece) is ‘fun’ and can be used to bolster our usual Id Monsters (to take a metaphor from the movie FORBIDDEN PLANET), but it is in no way ‘reality.’
Capitalism is a cheap term used on paper only, a fairy-tale used by mega-Monsters to wave in the face of others and hide behind their own magnanimous quests to control and prosper—it is a concept on paper, an ideology, that does not truly represent what is actually being done in reality. Crude Crony Mercantilism as a guise to hide under a fictitious Capitalism might be another way to describe it, but no matter what term you use, it has never really existed, any more than “pure” Communism, “pure” Christianity, or other “pure” ‘isms’ which we use to mask the real person or the real institution as it should be nakedly exposed for what it “is” and for what is really being done in all their corrupt and inglorious actions. Being a Monster in any fashion, no matter, how wealthy or powerful, does not justify its existence, Might does not Make Right, as history blatantly shows, and the defense of such corruption and any extension or characteristic of it only shows the evil it is and continues to become. Thank you Dorian Gray.
Fighting each other instead of the common enemy: what a waste! Some members are correct when they say America has strong fascist elements, but America is “not” the ‘only’ place that this evil does and can take root. We are overemphasizing the wrong places, time and things! Why is it that vampires can’t see themselves in the mirror?
It would appear that “enslavement” — or slavery — is a universal, ingrained mechanism of human nature — a very cruel and often contradictory facet of humans: which we can see today as it is incorporated, mechanized and used in our Modern World; and it is aimed at and applied “to all humans” (except for those who try to rule and use enslavement).
The vile vindictiveness that the public is confronted with by many judges in the legal system goes beyond the words “fair and equal justice,” where the lives of citizens become mere playthings in the Westworld-type of robotic recreation on the floors of the courthouse. The worldwide multi-billion-dollar Legal Industry has permeated every fiber of our lives and directed our realities to the dictates of this despotic Puppet-Master. Ask any divorce man or domestic court victim, they will attest that a man has only five (5) foes when he enters the system: his lawyer, her lawyer, the judge, her innate sexuality and the status quo.
Many live in their little “isms” they were raised in from birth and do not look beyond or question who are the core sponsors (do you have a mirror; can you look in a mirror?). They do not realize how intricately they are crafted and brainwashed. They are robotized goose-stepping zombies, and there is no changing. The MICCM has trained them well.
No concept or leaf is left alone by the MICCM: it is part of evil human nature, even so-called national pride or patriotism. Look down through history and see how often humans have used these for evil and destructive purposes.
The human being is love-challenged and intelligence-challenged and has proved themselves as such down through history. The humans believe that owning tons of money makes them superior to their fellow creatures and creating millions of enslaved and blindly devoted employees makes themselves even better rulers and elitists. It has always been that way, on the micro and macro levels; they also abhor psychological mirrors and will even kill to the death if their empires are challenged, taking millions of fellow humans to their death. They “group” in mutual ‘clubs’ as a way to protect and even ‘mask’ their true natures.
Reality is shifting beneath your very own feet: what we have been taught about the righteousness of the Left or Right, Democrats or Republicans, this ‘wing,’ or that ‘wing,’ and we do not reflect the innate and basic social realities that are taking place before our own eyes. In my years since July 27, 1944, based on my experience and the questions I have asked, and my eyes have seen, we have been deluded over and over, from the day we were born. See my past comments. When confronting attorneys in private and putting hard questions to them, often in confidence, many have said there is no real freedom, anywhere, in any party — that they are in control and they hold allegiance to no one but their Bar Association cabal. Right out of Orwell’s 1984, but only worse and complete. This: because all “isms” are under the evil rule of the “Humans.” Humans that glorify every evil act they do as good and pure: it won’t change, and we won’t challenge it unless we see the real “enemy.” We will continue to form “clubs” (social and physical) — and expound those clubs — with power and greed and evil to be used as ‘clubs’ against each other — until this final Truth becomes too evident to deny.
These lawyers have opened a Pandora’s box. In my meetings with attorneys, they have shown hardened, darkened commitment to fascistic, despotic rule by corporate giants and big business, in stark, no-uncertain-terms—those terms are evident in the elements of its manufacture, such as Fire-At-Will laws and the disrespect of Human Rights.
Note the synchronistic similarities between corporate “government,” popular “government,” social “government,” corporations as “people,” corporate “government” bribing and sleeping with “popular government,” all mixed together in what I call the Military/Industrial/Corporate/Complex/Matrix (MICCM) “Government.”
We don’t understand “government.” We think it is a separate entity, alone and separate from us. Government is the darkest, evilest, macabre parts of our own psyche, and when those elements ‘group’ in the various forms and combinations (such as the MICCM) and materialize, we see the Monster ‘we’ have become. In the science-fiction thriller THE FORBIDDEN PLANET, it was called monsters of the ‘id.’ Until we see the true ‘enemy’—us—we will never, ever come to terms or defeat it.
Part of the problem is our throwing terms around for loose and lop-sided reasons without any real background or roots. These are very powerful people in the IMF and the United Nations, they are not a bunch of poor people trying to grub-up a livable wage for themselves. All this talk about entitlements: some of these ‘official’ people are born-and-breed aristocracy; they don’t know what it is like to live in the slums of India, Africa or the lowest of the low. It is a matter of the wealthy controlling the masses and it is usually the wealthy that profit and the masses that suffer. They spend billions of media-propaganda-dollars guaranteeing that ‘that’ brainwashing is successful so the masses don’t attack them and “keep the lowly in their place.” That is the way it has always been! What is so sad, is when some of these executives, in a “little-bit-than-better-CEO-middle-class-salary,” actually have convinced themselves they are on the “winning side” —yes, they are actually safely on the side of the “elite”—that is ‘their’ team—and yet they don’t realize or are not aware that this is all self-delusion and they are only a few steps away — in actuality — from their very own destruction as outsiders also. It is all part of the programming by the MICCM.
It is very difficult and painful to suddenly realize that lullabies and fairy stories are things that are used to placate us and even control us, stories put down on paper, while they make us feel good and justified, are usually used by ourselves against ourselves as weapons hurting or obscuring ourselves. But we keep trudging on, programmed to believe that our ‘pipe dreams’ will come true and the scribbling we have made—or were programmed to make–mean something and will fly off the paper into reality. We can always pretend and hope.
(An aside: We have a ban on personal and unreasonable attacks on each other, or any other excuse one would try to come up with. If some are allowed to attack private family and friends, then any one is allowed to.
Attacks on one’s personal parents, children, or relatives are not allowed for whatever reason one can imagine. No posting or site or Group justifies hitting below the belt: if your arguments are good, they will not sink this low. That is not just espousing another opinion, that is vicious attack.
We welcome all civil comments. We are running into, now and then, more and more, the questionable muck that is so often displayed across the Internet that ‘free’ speech’ is confused with slander, personal attacks and just being downright nasty and unkind for no other reason. We are happy to see you are not one of them.)
(I am not so sure the Reich disappeared but was transformed into the Fourth Reich, and the transformation and partnerships went further and further: the constant transmogrifications and transformations with partners sleeping in same bed. All the “isms” have blended into sub-Rosa deals: you are dealing with one huge Industrial/Military/Corporate/Complex/Matrix [MICCM]. The Party system is a mask, as are so many other masks. “Take off your mask, little priest,” says murderer Errol Childress to detective Rustin Spence in TRUE DETECTIVE, a mask we all wear and deny. ######################################## “He’s saying to take off the mask of his persona. They both know that the whole concept of being a ‘person’ is an illusion, and that everything just repeats over and over again, that good and evil will always exist, and yet Rust continues to fight the ‘good’ fight, because that’s simply his role. He is aware that it is futile, and yet continues this masquerade, nonetheless. Errol is telling him to take off his mask and reveal his ‘true’ self; that the darkness is really within him. That this is all just a play, created by himself. A dream that he had within a locked room. And the only way to reveal this truth is in death.” ################### https://www.quora.com/True-Detective-Season-1-Episode-8-Why… ##### Lindsey Krumhar.) ######### https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIdB8LX4pGs.)
It is sad if we still have to use the terms Liberal and Right as human qualifiers, as if it is a baseball sport, instead of just looking at the people as humans and just look at the facts: without all the banner- “my side versus your side” – waving. Slogans are masks to hide the evil, take off your masks little priests.
How in the world do the readers/members equate “non-coercion” with capitalism, when capitalistic countries have far more than a share of human torment and inhumanity? The fact is: there are no ‘pure’ systems of human relations that are devoid of evil and human mistreatment, be that capitalism or other. A lot of corruption happens in this system, and others, that can’t be gainsaid or explained away with fluffy, pie-in-the-sky make-believe. We need to take off our masks!
I think there is far more fear of the wealthy right-wing tyranny taking over America than the poor, underprivileged underclass swarming the Elite-ruling class. This fear of the “reds” coming to get our money was instilled in the 30-50’s to fight Communism by Intelligence operations in America. You are stuck in an era that was not all-together true. I don’t think presenting you with other evidence will do much good, if you are not willing to move out from behind that propaganda.
Having no great love for the current Parties, or any “ism,” does not mean I cannot pick out those bits and pieces and statements of logic that seem – seem – to point to good directions. It doesn’t mean I am giving “WHOLEHEARTED” endorsement of any Party or organization: just respecting some things that they occasionally say that are reasonable. History – true history – exists as bits and pieces in a large jigsaw puzzle; it is up to us to locate and assemble those pieces in honest efforts.
This should be an independent look at facts and issues, not “wings”: this is not a Kentucky-Fried restaurant. And this so-called “Right wing”—that must be a spicy part of the bird—or are they just Muppets dressed in white robes and gold halos floating around with their all-powerful wands and gimmicks?
This Group is not a hodgepodge of confused (nor a melting pot of all kinds of), aimless political quips and slander: do not come here to just “get something off your chest” – speak with purpose, clarity, and humanity and reason: childish tantrums belong in the alley. We need some new, innovative, investigation and reasoning: not the same old, worn-out, repetitive ageless tantrums about Left versus Right. If we cannot change – we are lost.
Members are always welcome to state their detailed reasons for disagreement, but usually none are forthcoming. We encourage members to post their own analysis and other areas of news, no matter how disconcerting; but, apparently, most just rather be by-standing critics that have little to say of value.
If you want further specifics other than what is said here: you need to help locate those persons and names and pin down their actual substance and actions: nothing is being handed on a silver-platter, and we ask all to add further names and specific items; you are welcome to do that. Readers are welcome to speak up and demonstrate their findings, rather than vaguely complain. Sometimes, specific and detailed questions bring forth specific and detailed answers; bad questions, bad answers.
I don’t necessarily believe Putin or “anybody”: I try to present a lot of interesting comments and facts with not so much an unduly “prejudgment” so as to get opinions from all sides, rather than censor from some hidden or inner sanctum crap-pot of judgmental facts; and then I sometimes let the chips fall where they may.
(Please read and follow the Preamble, it is there for a reason. While we abhor censorship, but we do have rules: this is not a “let it all hang out” assembly with wild and ravishing comments. Use reason and purpose and humanity.
For all those out there who occasionally complain about the choice of content [and I am fighting the heavy-hand of the 1st Amendment and no censorship as well]: please submit – submit content that you would like to see, be active to this extent, and not just bystanders and curbside spectators.)
We welcome all the stories of tragedy in the lives of people who have encountered the Power Cabal. Most people are unaware of the day-to-day destruction of the family and other ‘taboo’ topics because the Powers-That-Be are not predicated upon its disclosure and they rather hide the cold, stark and naked facts: it would expose their true, evil intentions. Your stories can be told here.
Concerning child custody and domestic problems: We are interested in presenting ‘both’ sides, not just one side, but ‘all’ the facts as we realize there is important information in each argument. The real enemy is the Monster of a legal profession that is only interested in their Power, their Profitand their Prestige (PPP); a part of the Military-Industrial-Corporate-Matrix (MICCM). To be too exclusive and depositing the argument into one small example is not fair to the whole picture. There are always areas of gray; it is never black and white. ###### I would love to have my children ‘cry’ to see me; I would come running post haste! I am afraid that Parental Alien Syndrome (PAS) has weighed heavy against me. Have you visited Hope Henderson’s Timeline? She has some examples were ‘females,’ as well, have been denied custody and are victims of PAS. ###### I recently went through — and still am — with a case where lawyers have more or less given a doctor a clean bill of health despite cogent and important complaints because the Laws, as written, allow much foolishness to slide through. The medical profession is not immune from the MICCM, but is a part of it. Might always Makes Right. Washington University Physicians are one such Power Structure in which they do not allow ‘real’ dissent and your life is totally in their hands.
We dance around some of the “core” problems and dress our dance in all kinds of (getting to be) “worn out” slogans, chants, and aimless threats, some very inaccurate, often, pretending to be on the “right side” of history — as the ground is shifting beneath our feet and the very reality of things is and has changed drastically in the matrix before our very eyes. More to come.
Some Groups are quite paranoid and hyperventilated, suspecting all people and persons to some curious agenda they ‘have’ or suspect others of having. The JFK groups are mostly like that, being a landscape of suspicion, unreasonable debate, slander, attack and wild accusations. Doesn’t say much for fair and sane investigation, tending to be grade-schoolish and parochially petty. I tend to shy away from such radical and wild climates, not doing science or any one any good: Mostly private “in” Groups, if you are friends of friends of friends, or know same or even if you associate with the wrong people they dislike (not the basis for good journalistic enquiry). Good luck.
But I repeat myself.
(We go back to 2011,for genuine researchers and not just spectators, so use a powerful browser and go searching. Good luck.)
. ################# . PRIVACY Warning: Steve Erdmann: . Due to the fact that Facebook has chosen to involve software that will allow the theft of my personal information, I do declare the following: on this day, September 28, 2016, in response to the new Facebook guidelines and under articles L.111, 112 and 113 of the code of intellectual property, I declare that my rights are attached to all my personal data, drawings, paintings, photos, texts etc… published on my profile. For commercial use of the foregoing my written consent is required at all times.
Those reading this text can copy it and paste it on their Facebook wall. This will allow them to place themselves under the protection of copyright. By this release, I tell Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, broadcast, or to take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The actions mentioned above apply equally to employees, students, agents and/or other staff under the direction of Facebook.
The contents of my profile include private information. The violation of my privacy is punished by the law (UCC 1 1-308 – 308 1 -103 and the Rome Statute). Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are invited to post a notice of this kind, or if you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you have not published this statement at least once, you will tacitly allow the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile update. https://www.facebook.com/groups/171577496293504/## https://www.facebook.com/stephen.erdmann1.
NOTE; Many members and readers say this is worthless and of no legal value. I borrowed it from another Group. Worth a try. SE.
*******
Barry Smith I cannot stand this woman. She is a tin pot dictator. God help the persons in her court room.
Stephen Erdmann Money and power does that to a person: there are hundreds more like her, regardless of Party or “ism.” They ae a brood in the MICCM.
Verna Safran I like and respect Judge Judy. This looks like a man/woman thing. Men don’t like being judged by a female. But she’s invariably right and has a great sense of humor. she’s against unmarried couples liv The only bone I have to pick with her is that she’s against unmarried couples living together and buying property together. She calls it “playing house.” But it is true that the law does not allow unmarried partners to inherit, and if there’s a split — they’re on their own. As for “shrew:” and “dictator” — imagine how we feel having nothing but male judges for so many years living together and buying property together
Stephen Erdmann Male, female, it makes no difference when it comes to the MICCM and the courts: it is just another opportunity to expand and control. Her arrogance is so typical, and “tin pot dictator” about covers it all for her and so many others.
Stephen Erdmann Sense of humor? Has about as much humor as an alligator chewing down.
Verna Safran Then how come it’s just you boys who find her so offensive? Judges are expected to pass judgment. She does her job and does it brilliantly.
Emil Donofrio Oh please she doesn’t get 45 million because she a great judge, it’s all about ratings and sponsors.
Stephen Erdmann Men do face a bigger burden when in the courts than women. On the others, I guess Hitler and Stalin did their jobs and did it brilliantly too? For a Progressive Liberal, Verna, you show a major contradiction here: I think that is, in part, by not seeing the true enemy.
Verna Safran If the true enemy for you is women in power and women who have a lot of money, I feel sorry for you because you must be a very unhappy person.
Verna Safran P.S. Always a sign of a losing argument when people drag in Hitler and Stalin for no reason.
Verna Safran Since when did you join the “old boys club, Leo?” Men who put down women in power or try to are the condescending ones. Judge Judy has had her program for over 20 years and it’s one of the most popular ones on TV. Nobody’s forcing you to watch it, but give credit where credit is due. I’m done with this conversation, since prejudice is pretty hard to combat, especially when fellows like you don’t know they have it.
Stephen Erdmann I never said that, read closely, Verna, and also remember what has already been said (but of the biggest faults of Facebook: no content indexing). Every reason to drag in Hitler and Stalin as they demonstrate these human tendencies at their worst. There are millions of Hitlers and Stalin’s out there with those same qualities, they just need to look in the mirror. Seeing the worst of their ID is the beginning of seeing the real problem. Misquoting me – certainly won’t help. Blanketing it over with a lot of hero-worship won’t do it either. Having a hodgepodge Political construct only harms us all. Any man that has entered domestic court will testify to a stacked deck. We all suffer from the tyranny of the MICCM.
Verna Safran Well, I won’t leave yet until I respond to your latest spilling of invective. I didn’t quote you exactly, but there are certain key words in the above posts that I find VERY offensive: “Dictator” “power mad” “corrupt” — and a comparison of a worthymember of the American legal system to fascists. Do you feel the same way about male judges? Or do your libertarian sentiments prevent you from any sense of order in society and respect for those whose job it is to prevent chaos?
Stephen Erdmann I think the meme has more to do with power and tyrannical regimes, than women’s rights. You have woman’s rights on the brain, but this isn’t presented specifically for a woman’s rights argument. You are forcing it out of context. Read what has been said. ############## So you ‘like’ her, that’s your problem. I think she symbolizes all that is bad with the media, society, power grabs, greed, and on and on. That ‘that’ is popular does not say much for those fans, that is all I can say. Hey, each has their own opinions; I just think yours is misguided and wrong.
Verna Safran I think your opinions are based on your hating your mommy. Bye now.
Stephen Erdmann Again, the posting was more aimed at general power-issues, misuse of the media, greed, and other related points: you are in error to turn it into a woman’s rights issue (as you often do). It was meant to point out a common foe: the all-powerful MICCM (and yes, I have a big gripe with judges in general).
Stephen Erdmann Now, that was an intelligence-less and very unprofessional comment, Verna, enough said. As you commented yourself somewhat: “Always a sign of a losing argument when people drag in (your mother and your father) for no (good) reason.” Please read and abide by the Preamble or leave the Group. Vindictiveness is not owned just by men, not by a long shot.
Verna Safran: Very good reason if you bother to think about it.
Verna Safran: And don’t you think that throwing your weight around as someone who can kick people off of Facebook is an illustration of your own theory about abuse of power? As Burke said, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” If you want to throw me off of here for disagreeing with you, so be it. I’m finding a lot of the comments puerile and discussions with bigoted people a waste of time.
Stephen Erdmann: It was not disagreeing that was the issue. It was attacking someone’s family and being outside the rules. If she felt that was fine: go fight in a alley somewhere, not here.
Stephen Erdmann: We have a ban on personal and unreasonable attacks on each other, senility (or, what appears to be) should be no excuse, or any other excuse you are trying to come up with. If you are allowed to, then any one is allowed to. The decision is yours: It ends here.
Stephen Erdmann: Verna Safran: has left the building. Attacks on one’s personal parents, children, or relatives not allowed for whatever reason one can imagine. No posting or site or Group justifies hitting below the belt: if your arguments are good, they will not sink this low. That is not just espousing another opinion, that is vicious attack.
Richard Callahan Waiariki: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Which is a problem if you are powerless. I feel for you Verna!
Stephen Erdmann: Do you subscribe to personal attacks, Richard, then have it at: only do it on your Timeline, not here, this is not the place for wild, dirty and victimizing personal attacks? Facebook doesn’t even approve of that. Alley fights and gang mentality lives somewhere, just not here, I hope.
Stephen Erdmann: We do know the different between civil debates and attacking one’s personal family and friends, do we not? I am wondering.
Stephen Erdmann: It was not “disagreeing” that was the issue. It was attacking someone’s family and being outside the rules. If she felt that was fine: go fight in an alley somewhere, not here.
Stephen Erdmann: One other thought, along similar lines: If you accept someone’s Friendship, it should be done in a certain vain, and both parties should make efforts to be just that: Friends. That means doing your utmost to be friends and associate in a loving (to a degree) and fine way. This is not Texas Wrestling or a bar fight. Verna has her own Timeline to do cruel and mean things and she can show her personal disrespect to anyone anywhere else. Why do you want it here?
Emil Donofrio: Oh, please she doesn’t get 45 million because she a great judge, it’s all about ratings and sponsors..
Stephen Erdmann:Thanks Leo, I just don’t understand from where she gets all those so-called ‘fans,’ unless they are birds of a feather flocking together.
Emil Donofrio:Republicans live to see people passing judgment on other people. Besides it’s all about ratings and sponsors they could care less about how good of a judge she is.
Stephen Erdmann:True, it is a circus for money. Power. The same old story. Verna hopscotched around too much between ‘women’s rights’ and ‘left – right’ motivations and other junk: very hard to get a handle on. The issue here, to me, was the age-old scenario of power and control. Verna, by the way, was not Republican, I believe she leaned to the left.
To Jimmy Garst: September 3, 2015: Stephen Erdmann: You mention D and D propagandists that are against unions: why don’t you name who you are talking about? I am not against unions, if I am the one you are referring to, so you are inaccurate. Instead of painting everyone with your inaccurate brush time and again, document your accusations. I know for a fact, not all members are against unions. I also know that not all members fit your constant descriptions that you wildly parade. I don’t mind you speaking your mind, just when you hand out BS, which you do from time to time. Setting yourself against everyone and everything in a blind rage won’t work here, because I hope there are more Group members working “together” for the Preamble “goals” than stirring up dung for the hell of it.
Verna Safran has been blocked from the Dissenter/Disinter Group for attacking family members, yet she persists in contacting me with harassment, please investigate her:
I’m the one who said that about the battle of wits, dfarlin’. You’re sure not good at giving credit where credit is due. Maybe the “I” being the source of your typing (and other?) problems is trying to tell you something.
44 minutes ago
You sarcasm is tolerable to a point: but when you put your vindicativeness to the extreme of
attacking one’s family, you go outside everyones’ boundaries. If you can’t apologize, don’t present your usual hatred and spite here or you will be reported.
Verna Safran:
Oh, do you have a family? If so, I don’t remember insulting it. I just wondered why you hated old people so much, enough to lambast them in a nasty fashion. I guessed it started with your mom. You can correct me if I’m wrong. Meanwhile, keep your vicious cracks to yourself or I’ll report you!
Steve Erdmann:
You have no intention of being reasonable or fair: I owe your attacks nothing. Stop contacting me with your smartass remarks, or I will report you. This is why you are censored, you are into this kind of stuff. You do it without a second thought or empathy. What does that say? Cease and desist. Stop. Now.
Verna Safran:
I’ve counted over a hundred “likes” to my remarks on Facebook. For some reason I seem to get under your skin, so just don’t read what I write. Simple solution for a simple mind.
Steve Erdmann:
I said what I said: If you have no consideration for the feelings of others, that is your problem – don’t contact me.”
Verna Safran: What would you say about a person who calls an elder citizen “senile” and accuses her of “talking smack” when she posts something that disagrees with your opinion?
Verna Safran: Evidently Steve’s plea for politeness and analysis of aggression applies to everyone but himself. He was incredibly rude to me in his posts, called me names and ridiculed me, exhibiting a disrespect for older people. I asked him why he hated older people, and asked the question therapists would ask (half joking because it’s a Freudian cliche) Did he hate his mother? At this point he totally lost it, freaked out, said I was attacking his family (not so, I never met his family) and he’s been nurturing his imaginary wounds ever since. I don’t wish to continue this discussion because Steve obviously has issues preventing him from courtesy to women and to older folks. I do enjoy communicating with others on Facebook, and most of them “get” my sense of humor. Lordy, I hope the political debates, once we get to see them on television, don’t descend to the level of name-calling and nastiness that Steve has displayed.
Verna Safran: Calling people senile when they are alert and active seniors is a form of slander and goes against the principles that Steve Erdmann set out in his preamble. What hypocrisy!
Verna Safran: Some folks, when they get older, acquire wisdom. Do you think Bernie Sanders is “senile”? Was Eleanor Roosevelt “senile”? I can only hope it happens for Stephen Erdmann, and maybe it will, when he comes home from his power trip.
Verna Safran John G. — What were you doing awake at 2:55 a.m.? Do you elderly folks have a hard time falling asleep? Or have you mentally reverted to an earlier time in your life and are having nightmares? Don’t worry, the boogeyman won’t get you. And Verna has put away her broom. :>) Just kidding.
Jimmy Garst: Robert Prudente, Is that neo-con Reagan glorification another example of what you call the socialist take over and their propaganda mind manipulation? Robert thinks trickle down is where those socialist not the elite piss all over the Working Man?Reagan was a Commie hater just like you. I’m surprised you would criticize your hero! Bobby, You are so UnAmerican! You starting to sound like that Commie you hate so much. Hypocrite boy!!
Jimmy Garst: Robert Prudente, Given your self professed hatred of Evil Commie’s, I’m surprised that you would dare to criticize Fearless Leader, the all time champion in the fight against the Evil Commie Empire, the fight against those Godless socialists, Ronny the the Bush puppet. Boy, You are such a hypocrite! You better be careful or true fascists live Steve the Mworm will attack you for being an UnAmerican Commie lover. You should really stop with the hate mongering and self loathing, and come out of the closet and admit it is okay to be a Christian Socialist. You might actually become a true Christian, not just another poser.
Jim Tarr: Ronnie wasn”t even president,he was just reading his prompts,Sr Bushy tail was running the show
Stephen Erdmann: Please stop attacking fellow members with name-calling. Professionally attack the issues rather than people – analyze the facts and comment on those facts only.
Stephen Erdmann: If Communists are symbols of love and compassion, there is not much here! I am quite sure there are some loving Communists that are true compassionate individuals: just not this one: you can’t prove love and compassion by being a wild hate-spitting Monster. Avoid and desist in name-calling and personal attacks, professionally examine the issues, not attack the person.
September 5, 2015: Stephen ErdmannWell, your time is limited: can you quote exactly where this was said? I don’t recall seeing anyone calling that you are a “Godless socialist hate monger,” do you make this stuff up as you go along? That ‘would’ be mongering.
Stephen Erdmann:Again, face the issues and refrain from personal attacks: they are not allowed here.
Steve Maiworm:Boy these videos really show the truth
Barry SmithSteve, if you still believe the “official conspiracy theory”, you are intellectually lazy. I suggest you you look into groups such as Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Fire Fighters for 9/11 Truth. If you possess even a rudimentary understanding of Newtonian physics then you would have known instantly that we have all been lied to.
Jimmy Garst: Barry Smith, This site commonly has memes on 9/11. However, Steve Maiworm has the intellectual capacity of a worm. He is willfully ignorant, and a brain washed fascist toad. Trying to have an intelligent conversation with an narrow minded myopic hater is almost impossible.
Steve Maiworm:Voltaire was a left wing progressive nut and socialistic fascist like you Jimmy garst.
Steve Maiworm : Jimmy your posts are so ridiculous they actually amuse me
Jimmy Garst: Steve Maiworm, You are absolutely one of the most stupid, most ignorant and biggest waste of oxygen I have ever encountered. You are a poor excuse for a human. Your hate mongering is OTT and not amusing. The fact that you God Bless Nazi, and you the world of fascism puts you at high-question.
Jimmy Garst: Barry Smith and Stephen Erdmann, one final note on Steve the Worm Steve Maiworm. He claims he is not a paid propagandist in the CIA legion of flying monkeys. Interestingly, when I went to his FB page to block the ugly fascist pig, low and behold, the man acts very much like a spy.
Steve Maiworm: Actually that hot dog is you James Jimmy comrade general secretary garst
Jimmy Garst: I’m disgusted that my tax dollars are wasted on the salary of ugly, fascist, scum bag, piles of pig poo, propagandist monkeys, like Steve the Worm. He is a parisite sucking on the fascist tit of his Uncle Sam. A brain washed troll hate monger of DHS. hate mongering idiot who believes in and promotes propaganda nonsense is a waste of time. Truth is irrelevant to Steve. He is easily one of the biggest tools and fools I have ever encountered. I kick myself for wasting my oxygen on this ignorant fascist pile of pig poo. He is a evil, horrible, war monger, hate monger, waste of skin. The world would be a better place without fascist pigs like the Worm. Honestly,to make a comment about proof of 9/11 conspiracy on this site, suggest steve is a paid propagandist in the CIA legion of flying monkeys. It is really hard to believe that anyone could be as stupid as Steve. But then, “Patriotism is the last refuge for a scoundrel and coward”.” Voltaire.
Stephen Erdmann: Okay, I’ve asked gentlemanly and clearly, not to indulge in character assassination and name-calling: it is against the Preamble. I’ve asked you to deal with the issues in a professional way. Spewing aimless diatribes do nothing to help the situation.
Jimmy Garst: Barry Smith, this comment by the Worm, Steve Maiworm, is a good example of the OTT stupidity of this moron. He claims, “America is weak.” HAHAHAHA! STUPID!!!! FYI Stevie Stupid, America has the largest most powerful military in the world. The US spends more on militarism than the next 20 countries combined, and half of them are our Allies. Steve has obviously been listening to Trump’s propaganda. Steve does not live in a world of reality. His brain is totally polluted with propaganda nonsense. Steve the fascist lives in a fantasy world I call fascist pigland. America has been bankrupt both morally and financially by patriotic Americans like Steve. With citizens like Steve, who needs Commies for enemies. These morons are doing a fine job of destroying America all on their own.
Jimmy Garst: Barry Smith, You must laugh at OTT stupid likeSteve Maiworm. He thinks socialist are unAmerican and evil, but Steve is okay with patriotic Nazi Americans who kill our President, bomb the WTC and murder millions of innocent civilians in the name of freedom, liberty and Democracy. With patriotic fascist hate mongers like Steve and Bobby P, America does not need to worry about the minorities, the Commies and the Muslims, These fascist pigs are totally capable of destroying not only the USA but the World, all on their own. God Bless America, the land of the fascist and the stupid.https://www.facebook.com/MintpressNewsMPN/photos/a.427073724002835.96035.277613075615568/876154342428102/?type=1&theater
Jimmy Garst: Barry SmithandStephen Erdmann, one final note on Steve the WormSteve Maiworm. He claims he is not a paid propagandist in the CIA legion of flying monkeys. Interestingly, when I went to his FB page to block the ugly fascist pig, low and behold, this scum bag hate monger works for DHS. This pig ridicules me while he and his fellow thugs in the fascist police state steal my social security to fund their unholy failed wars of the perpetual war machine and this fascist arse’s salary. . FICA / SOCIAL Security is the largest source of income for the US government at $1.2 trillion annually. The alphabet soup of DoD, CIA, FBI, NSA, DHS (Steve), WAR costs America $1.2 trillion annually. I think Steve’s employment at DHS make it obvious he is no dissenter, but a boot licking Nazi widget. This scum bag is not only a waste of oxygen, but a waste of my tax dollars. You are such a loser, Get a real job Steve. Stop sucking on Uncle Sam’s Tit, you parasite. Get a real job, cos hate mongering, advancing hegemony and WWIII is unproductive, and down right evil. DHS is a waste of my tax dollars, I wish I could make it go away as easily as blocking a fascist pig like Steve on FB. Steve, Please do the world and American tax payers a favor and die soon!https://www.facebook.com/pandaunite/photos/a.486974971319177.98235464.214899805193363/1006928499323819/?type=1&theater
Jimmy Garst: I’m disgusted that my tax dollars are wasted on the salary of ugly, fascist, scum bag, piles of pig poo, propagandist monkeys, like Steve the Worm. He is a parisite sucking on the fascist tit of his Uncle Sam. A brain washed troll hate monger of DHS! Not to be confused with CIA!. The opinion of hate mongers like Steve are irrelevant to the truth . He and his opinion are unimportant. I sincerely wish for your speedy death.
Jimmy Garst, You recently had a pretty free run on your comments last few days in the Dissenter/Disinter Group. I need to get answer to just one question and then leave with one comment: I notice that I cannot comment to topics in your Timeline: are you going to allow me the same ability and freedom to make comments on your Timeline as you have been allowed to do on Dissenter? #### Lastly, I ask as a personal favor that you refrain from the rather harsh treatment on other members, as requested. I am making the same request of Steve Maiworm and Robert Prudente and all other members.
CIA employee as of at least 1963. Was alleged to have been seen with Jack Ruby at Ruby’s Carousel Club. According to researcher Paris Flammonde, he was friends with Dave Ferrie (Ferrie, as well as being up to where his eyebrows would have been in the Kennedy assassination, was a practitioner of hypnosis and black magic) and knew Lee Harvey Oswald. He was an employee of the Double-Chek Corporation and the Evergreen Advertising Agency (both CIA fronts).
“In his youth, Gordon Novel belonged to a neo-Nazi group and was arrested and charged with bombing a Metarie, Louisiana, theater that admitted blacks. Later, he sold spy devices in New Orleans. Gordon Novel claimed he worked with the Cuban Revolutionary Front during the Bay of Pigs, as a Director of the CIA proprietary, the Evergreen Advertising Agency, and had created cryptographic messages for the CIA.”
In 1967, the CIA reported that they never utilized either Novel or the Evergreen Advertising Agency.
During New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s investigation of the Kennedy assassination, Novel was recommended to him by one of Garrison’s political supporters, automobile dealer Willard Robertson. Novel was then an anti-eavesdropping expert, and Garrison was reportedly worried about FBI surveillance. Novel told Garrison about Dave Ferrie’s arms pickup in Louisiana to arm anti-Castro Cuban exiles.
When information regarding Garrison’s investigation was leaked to NBC reporters, Garrison suspected Novel, and Novel was subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury. Novel instead fled to Ohio, where he was arrested on burglary charges Garrison had filed accusing Novel of participating with Ferrie in the arms pickup.
“After some initial reluctance, Ohio Governor James Rhodes finally agreed to extradite Novel to Louisiana if Garrison would complete the papers within sixty days,” which Garrison reportedly never bothered to do. Later, Garrison would claim that people in high places, up to and including President Lyndon Johnson, were preventing him from obtaining his witnesses.
During this time, Novel became an informant for the FBI regarding the Garrison investigation.
Chris Patorov: both sides are pawns in the agenda that is hidden from the citizens both do a small amount of “good deeds” to appease the masses but to be honest both have done too little too late …in this group out of respect this will be the last time i have a political commentary it is the system itself it is flawed and corrupt and only complete disintegration and over haul will fix this money has no business in politics no man ( not to be sexist or woman) born into wealth can ever really comprehend the needs and fears and wants of a general public nor its toils and trials they can never truly make legislation that covers the myriad of difficulties the average person goes through in a lifetime as they themselves cannot comprehend the complexities of struggle only political leaders who have risen from nothing can help our people bottom line money needs to be excluded from politics for it to run efficiently.
Abraham Bolden: In this video, Files said that 5 months before Dallas, plans were made to hit JFK in Chicago. This would have been around late March, 1963. Files is right. Before Kennedy’s plane landed at O’Hare Field, in Chicago, a call came into the SS office from some person calling himself “Lee”. This person said that there was a plan to assassinate Kennedy along the I94 Expressway. The SS, because of staffing problems and short notice, assigned Lt. Bob Linski to try and trace the call. An extra detail of Chicago Policemen were placed atop every underpass along I94. IN THE MEANTIME, THE MOTORCADE WAS cancelled and JFK was helicoptered into Meigs Field. To my knowledge, it was never confirmed that the caller was Oswald but Judyth Baker may be able to shed some light on that. When ASAIC Martineau was questioned about this before the AARB, his answer was a curt, “I don’t remember.” How Files could have known about this incident without being an inside participant is impossible to explain. Also, the biting of the shell casing and placing it on top of a board behind the Grassy Knoll, how could he have known about that and how the mark was indeed found on a casing with a mark on it like the one he describes?
Robert Prudente: This is a special coincidence…Without going into detail, I am on FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) for a PTSD event brought on by my employer…I have now been diagnosed by 2 psychiatrists that I am suffering from anxiety disorder brought on by a specific event perpetrated by my employer…I further expect the employer to reject my claim as a work related injury.
Robert PrudenteI recently filed a workers compensation against my employer…I spoke with the adjustor this morning…My injury is PTSD and a diagnosis of anxiety disorder..I do have a serious case of anxiety…This is a work place injury perpetrated by my employer…These types of claims are next to impossible to attain however, my circumstances are well above the norm…I was threatened with termination of employment for insubordination however, I refused citing safety concerns that are addressed in 49 CFR, the Code of Federal Regulations….The bottom line is…”Did the employer have a legitimate threat of termination”…Now, we play the waiting game.
Robert PrudenteRight now, we do have a bit left of protection for the working class in the form of organized labor (unions) and the department of labor…however, both are under attack…Corporatism declared war on labor many moons ago and are not letting up.
The attempt to control those who disagree with you is called: Neophobia, Cainophobia, Cainotophobia, Cenophobia, Centophobia, Kainolophobia, Kainophobia – An abnormal and persistent fear of anything new including new things, ideas or situations, of novelty.
*******
Dissenter/Disinter Magazine goes back to 1967 when I gave birth to a little fanzine that seemed to be my contribution to the media flavor of that time: the Viet Nam war, the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, the late Jim Moseley’s Saucer News, Ray Palmer’s provoking Search Magazine and Hidden World series, as well as a line of “controversy” radio programs such as Long John Nebel, Suspense, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, with television shows such as Science Fiction Theater and Twilight Zone. In St. Louis in the 60s there was WIL “Steve Clark” controversy radio. There was a section of the media that was some kind of renaissance to the investigating of the more curious and often sinister elements at that time, and it gave birth to myself and others that have continued in that vein to this day (many will include Coast to Coast radio and Alex Jones and others to this list). We still try to contribute to the emblem of “controversy and protest” as a way of getting to the truth.
Subsequently, in the years following, my life embodied further “discovery” of these “realities” of the mysterious Powers-that-Be (which were quite depressing and decorated with flight-or-fight syndromes), and my waking hours were consumed with survival and making “ends meet” (as with so many of the population, I did not have the luxury of always devoting myself to media publishing or even schooling). That story may or may not be left to my memoirs (and my Timeline), if at all.
We try not to “conform” to predisposed or status quo “images” that people have in their heads, or were born with. We approach all topics from different viewpoints and suggestions, because we realize solutions are never black and white (I hail back to H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, George Orwell, Charles Fort (http://www.experienceproject.com/…/Protest-The-Use-…/2923915), Info Journal, and a host of New Age and Protest scientists [study my Timeline]). We offer a forum for discussion, within reason. Questions are always open. I, personally, am ‘independent’ politically, neither bowing to the Left or Right, and neither do I encourage others to bow to them either (or any “ism”). It is a matter of finding out who the tyrants are and how much you relinquish to being a slave. Others may participate from their own level of evaluation, that is their right; but I cannot “endorse” everyone’s politics or religion. We offer a platform to search these things out (in a civil and humane fashion: see Preamble) through questioning and debate. How do you see applying censorship in Groups and Timelines? Use it every time something grinds against your personal opinion? And what about the next person? And the next person? Seems that our Founding Fathers grappled with these questions as well. It is amazing with all the common threads of agreement that ‘can’ be found in fighting tyrannical government and evil conspiracies, we are tearing each other apart, for some reason, over petty feuds and personality squabbles that detract from common core efforts (those little nuggets of gold that make us all as one in protest). We (we are speaking editorially) hope we are able to stand in a “common core” against Tyranny and the evils that are associated with it.
In the end, we are all brothers and sisters.
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TO: Julien Landau: April 3, 2018: Facebook:
Stephen Erdmann: Sounds like you are looking for a “robot-god,” not a human being, humans aren’t Holy, Pure and without blemish, none of them; that’s why they wear ‘masks’ and go to Church on Sunday and beg forgiveness, and the prance about afterwards singing praises and hoyden while they continue their usual crimes and schemes, all the while under their sanctimonious masks You are looking for the supreme male-god that always wears the White Hat, but are blind to the fact that even the wealthy and rich male-icon hides the greatest blemishes and scars that most people refuse to see, and often, are disguised demons; the humblest of us are usually the kindest and most pure of all, as Christ taught. We live under many myths and propaganda, and it seems you have fallen for some of them.
Facebook, April 23, 2018. There is good and bad in all situations, and any group or ‘ism’ can be misused and fall into the same error-filled stance, especially once it reaches a point of power. We use what clubs we can to obtain our goals, but they all ultimately fail in some way. Look at the Dems and Repubs. Yes, I have belonged to unions, even a Teamster Union, and it kissed the company’s ass over and over, and only appeared to be a useless mediator between you and the company: a lackey branch. But how would you like to put your ‘life’ on the line, as when being a security guard posited in some dire and scary situations, yet to be a bottom fall-guy when things fall apart: you have to take the heat for your four (4) bosses above you: Your security company, the police department, the contractor, and the state EEOC which gives them a lackey thumbs-up and sells their party-line? Now, what would you call that situation?
August 18, 2018, to Tony Elliott: The more basic and even accurate cause of human slavery and suppression goes far beyond any “ism” or philosophy, it is despotism and tyrannical thinking and that is global. Trying to put human evil and the human ID Monster in nice, neat little ‘boxes’ only shows our failure to recognize the real culprit and the basic evil involved. All ‘leaders’ have shared this evil trend since history recorded. There is no political “safe haven,” and what is written on ‘paper’ is nothing but masks that hide this innate manipulation.
August 19, 2018, Ron Schmidt: Stephen Erdmann I am well aware of the battles, debates and distortions going on with this corporate giant, as anyone else who researches the Internet, apparently much more so than you in making pompous, vain and illogical comments just to gain points. Do you just puke this stuff to just feel the hot air stream out of your mouth, or what? There are many more interested in going further into the Human Rights issues and how corporates are abusing that. Yes, I realize Facebook censors conservative viewpoints and I have also stated the futility and hopelessness of participating in partisan politics. Do you really read my comments, or just vainly pound your chest and whistle Dixie? Getting lopsidedly on a site and starting to spell misquoted and unrelated comments in some weird disjointed way are certainly of no help. I pay attention to “what is going on” apparently far more closely and tightly than you do. It might be considered “the wrong battle” to those who are connecting to the broader issue of Human Rights (which you apparently can’t connect), but it is a battle many are joining in and making the overall connection. If you can’t take it elsewhere, we don’t need it here, and if you really want to see ‘censorship’ keep it up.
(Same) Stephen Erdmann We’ve been over the proper definition of spam many, many posts ago, and, no, I’m not going to drag it up just for your distorted interest, go dig for yourself. You won’t find it with the legalese blinders you wear or by sticking your head up corporate butts as you do. Name-calling is no substitute. I’ve done my research and it does ‘not’ kowtow to ‘official’ or ‘blind’ definitions and corporate ass-kissing. Heard it from you over and over like a busted recording that can’t get out into the fresh air and look at real problems, if the bossman says no, with a swelled head and chest and nothing else. And, sadly, ‘that’ private definition you refer to is not the real definition of spam. (Besides. take it somewhere else, this is my Timeline, not yours.) Furthermore, the usual definition of spam is not what many Facebook users and Internet users are complaining about, they are reporting arbitrary, senseless removals and deletions that sometimes border on Facebook, or anyone’s, insanity; in a much broader sense, corporatism is not guided by any good morality and public sense or duty, other than profits and that gross manipulation of same (strangely, we somehow find ‘laws’ abound against these ‘private’ companies). And, yes, if they could get away with ‘murder’—and actually have—they would.
Facebook; September 14, 2018: There is no doubt that the assassination was a well-planned, military and psyops conspiracy, involving many faces, many secret operatives, partially to make it virtually impossible to trace or trail-back to the many shots involved. It is my theory that some shooters were unbeknownst to each other, making the trail even more difficult to outline. Dallas that day was a virtual “Spook City” with all kinds of intelligence and clandestine operatives walking the streets, many with their own parts and agendas to play, which also would obfuscate and confuse any investigation (this also suggests that our society has become nothing but a virtual deep state and psyops living- nightmare everywhere). Much evidence would be needed to prove that Jackie had a part to play or did the things alleged, but in this society, such is the makings of our diabolical world.
Photo above of Stephen Erdmann, Independent Investigative Journalist
A Review of Reviews of the Great Gatsby
By: Steve Erdmann
The classic story by the late Scott Fitzgerald (Fitzgerald, Scott. The Great Gatsby. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) has fallen on bad times in the hands of merciless and savage idiot-reviewers of the latest rendering and movie by Director Baz Luhrmann. Demonstrating a total lack of empathy of a classic and well-venerated story, or lack of general literary sense, the purpose and honor of said reviewers can only be questioned and their insensivity heralded as further proof of modern-day barbarism. Poor Brandi Stephens finds herself mystified that a well-liked masterpiece holds ingredients that are asthma and cold to her: complication and characters; Subtract these two literary tools, and you will have the perfect novel. “I am still reading the book, so maybe it will get better.” Martha Conneilly queries that it has “words” in the story – and a lot of them: I can imagine that dinnertime, or even a romance (?) in her family can be a very silent and boring event. And she has the ‘best support’ for her viewpoint – her Book Club – and that is saying a lot: When your book club gives a ‘thumbs down’ on an alleged Classic, you know it has to be saying something about the quality of the author! “It was too ‘wordy’. Members of the Book Club that I am involved in did not give it a good review. What makes it a ‘classic’?” “A Costumer” reviewer/reader, who obviously has dredged the depths of human action and is the epitome of a pensive and analytic connoisseur of art, grasps Fitzgerald’s insight into human nature; some added advice: it helps immensely to have the correct story in mind, in any analysis. “I was disgusted with it. The characters in the story were worthless wastes of human flesh.” Iaiam,A Kid’s Review, and Suzanne C solidly place their feet into the author’s shoes, they seem well-prepared to see the story through the author’s eyes. No misunderstanding possible here. Surely, if the novel had any relevance to our modern age, these two readers would have surely been able to have seen it. They have a handle on plenty other ‘insights’ to this literary world of the Roaring Twenties: they clearly demonstrate that the book was not written for their specific audience. Clearly, Bay Area User has more of a depth and acumen; he or she is able to fit into the author’s shoes – except for the bulging bunions on his or her feet. ‘Old’ literature; probably, they would say, the same goes for the Bible or Shakespeare. Luhrmann stated that he planned it to be timelier due to its theme of criticizing the often-irresponsible lifestyles of wealthy people. While Scott Fitzgerald couldn’t see 2008 and the modern financial crisis, his vision undoubtedly expanded beyond the 1920s to live again in the bosom of modern-day catastrophe. “In reality, the American Dream is based on nothing but immoral wealth and materialistic desires for the pleasures in life. However, once at the top, there is nowhere to go but down. And, for those who took the easy road of immorality to reach the American Dream, the ride down is nothing short of a ride from Hell.” This reviewer seems to have grasped part of Fitzgerald’s “vision,” unlike our earlier reviewers. Surely, the reviewers can share in this revelation that wealth in the story was no guarantee of happiness; that in the long search for sanctity, Jay Gatsby lost sight of where his dream was going. And don’t you feel sadness that his quest was so near and yet when he had it in hand, it suddenly disintegrated before his eyes because of an innate flaw in his plan? Has that ever happened to our reviewers? And have not our reviewers ever found themselves in love – only to find that ‘love’ evaporate due to some miscalculation, some bit of misappropriated tweaking that just could not pull it through, like a thread slipping from a needle-eye? Says another insightful reviewer: “Gatsby becomes fabulously wealthy, but he doesn’t care about money in itself. He lives in a beautiful mansion and dresses beautifully, but everything he does is for love. He invents a hero called Jay Gatsby and then inhabits this creation, just as we hope to reinvent ourselves, someday, any day now, almost certainly starting tomorrow.” Has the reviewer ever had dreams – and those dreams become so paramount that no one – no man, women or child – would interfere with that tempest in a human heart? And have they not seen that tempest, that battle, in many a Classic novel or tale? The book opens in the words of Nick Carraway: reserve judgment long enough as to learn something you might miss, there are worlds where other readers have been, other authors have been, that can tell you much about the world, new horizons and reality: “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.”
“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “Just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” “Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth.” Reserving judgment, parceling out hope, reaching the ‘unreachable star’ of human love and understanding (The Man La Mancha) are things, as Scott Fitzgerald may have seen, we too can grasp if we really strive to. Answers to Eric Lundgren’s Questionnaire: Question No. 1: Ans.: I try to be unique yet universal, capture the genre and the mood and tone of various authors into my own work, yet leaving my definite ‘stamp’. Since I derive inspiration from multiple sources, my writing can reflect different styles. Question No. 2: Ans.: A lot of good and bad happened to me in my childhood that has shaped my worldview. I am primarily a slice of ‘time’ from World War II through the Space Age. One of the big events in my early life while in an orphanage was watching the atomic bomb tests on TV out in Nevada. Question No. 3: Ans.: Certainly, science-fiction/fiction is often prophetic. Reality can often be stranger than fiction, or visa versa. I do believe that there is a psychic/paranormal side to humanity and that quantum physics is beginning to scientifically prove that. Question No. 4: Ans.: Michael John Moorcock, James Dickey, Philip K. Dick, H.G. Wells; Richard S. Shaver and Ray Palmer of AMAZING STORIES fame, and his inauguration of FATE Magazine. There are so many. Steve Charles Erdmann 05/16/2013 Share this: Twitter
I remember Jim Keith writing this book. At the time, he was also working on an article for the coming issue of Steam shovel Press. Jim contributed regularly to the magazine and stayed in phone contact for research help and to chat conspiracy. He mentioned that he was trying to summarize all of his current thinking in a single themed manuscript.
The original Saucers of the Illuminati, in fact, may have been Jim Keith’s last contribution to the zine world. The original book had an 8×10 format, spiral bound and resembled more a magazine than a book. Then, many people who knew Keith at all knew him primarily through his small circulation “fan” magazines (although it is hard to conceive of a conspiracy/UFO cover up “fan”), Dharma Combat being the most well-known but certainly not the only example.
(Keith)
My purpose for authorizing this informal edition was to get into print certain interesting connections that I had made between occult philosophy, the lore of UFOs, and the totalitarian New World Order – ideas that I had discussed at length with other researchers and that were already twinkling into being in a firmament of articles by some of those worthies. I was a little… paranoid is not the word I seek… concerned that by the time a proper paperback edition of Saucers was ushered into being, that I might be accused of plagiarizing myself.
As it turned out, my worry was largely unfounded, and little of what I wrote about in ’93 has been grappled with, understood, or even mentioned in the conspiracy or UFO press, much less by the New York Times. I take this to be positive proof that I was on the right track.
Actually, my sense is that the ideas in Saucers tend to jump disciplines from political conspiracy, to UFOs, to the occult, to synthesize the information in each. The researchers in those varied disciplines almost never have any truck with and so are confounded by their adjoining truck stops in arcane research. The Left-Hand Path doesn’t know what the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy is doing, you might say. But these topics are, at the deepest levels, intertwined and clarify the notions of the others.
Another matter: the ideas in Saucers of the Illuminati are dangerous, not to mention extremely weird, and stray very close to Things You Are Not Supposed to Think. In fact, in current polite-read mind controlled – society you are not even supposed to think that there are things that you are not supposed to think… Do you follow?
Since the lightning appearance and disappearance of the researcher’s edition of Saucers in 1993 copies have been completely unavailable, aside from a pirate edition that was rumored to have been put into print. That unavailability created a few misunderstandings about the book. Some speculated in print and on the Internet that the book was too incendiary, too Politically Incorrect, and that it went so quickly out of print because it was suppressed by the CIA or the Men in Black or some such.
Those things have been known to happen in the annals of conspiracy research, of course, but not in this case. Simply, when I might have been expanding the text of Saucers to a length more appropriate for a paperback, I was doing lots of other things: writing nine other books, chasing the wolf of velvet fortune, things like that.
But I finally got around to the revision in 1998. Now here is the bells and whistles version of Saucers, with a lot of material not included in the book’s original incarnation. Since the first appearance of the book, a great deal in the text has been clarified, and the revised work reflects new theories, new understandings obtained, and an arsenal of new smoking guns. Also included in this edition is the text of “UFOs at the Edge of Reality,” a lecture delivered in Atlanta, Georgia in 1995.
I admit it. Saucers of the Illuminati is my strangest and most controversial work. That fact has been underlined by the largely uncomprehending and sometimes hostile reviews given to the first edition. The book may also be the most true that I have written.
Hold on to your brains. Maybe the world is ready for this stuff now.
Rock, Nevada, north of Reno, his hometown, and broke his knee. He went to the Washoe Medical hospital there and died during surgery on September 7 at 8:10 PM, when a blood clot released and entered his lung. In addition to co-authoring The Octopus with Kenn Thomas, Keith wrote many other popular books on conspiracy topics, including Mind Control/World Control, Black Helicopters I and II, OKC Bomb, Saucers of the Illuminati, Casebook on Alternative 3, Casebook on the Men In Black and many others. He was well-known and well-loved among the readers of conspiracy literature, and Thomas is receiving a great outpouring of grief and condolences from Keith’s many fans around the world.
One of the underlying themes of Keith’s works is that the UFO phenomenon is, in fact, of entirely earthly origin and has its roots within a parallel program of technological development. Keith maintained a steadfast commitment to the earthly-origin theory, and he believed that there was a concerted effort to put forth the extraterrestrial hypothesis into the public consciousness.”
Thank you for the kind words about Jim. He was a dear friend of mine and an important person to the world. The loss is immeasurable. He was not just the co-author of “The Octopus,” but a dharma combatant who demonstrated time and again that the world is far more multi-dimensional, far more interesting, than the pablum that usually passes for news, information and normal discourse. Unfortunately, it is also far more dangerous.
What is PayPal? This a PayPal account at independenterdmann@gmail.comand how to get started.
What is PayPal? This a PayPal account at independenterdmann@gmail.comand how to get started. Select Category Alien abduction Alien Hybrid Angelic Hybrid ARCHAEOLOGY Bad Karma BL4 Lab Biological Weapons Center for Disease China A Virus Commerce Conspiracy Corona Corporate Control Crime David Icke Finance Flu Vaccination Forced Vaccination History HIV Human Nature Investigative Reporting Kafkaesque Mind Control Nazism New Science Pandemic Paranormal Pedophila Phantasmagoria Quarantine Sadism Sars Science-fiction Slavery Surrealism Ufology UFOs Uncategorized Whistleblowing Wuhan
One alleged site of production of the Nazi UFOs is a series of tunnels buried under the Jonas Valley in Thuringia, central Germany. Here, under the command of SS General Hans Kammler, legions of slave labourers worked to bring the Fuhrer’s fantasies into existence.
The respected German science magazine has reported how “advanced” the programme was as scientists toiled in secret factories to produce the “wonder weapon” to win the war. The magazine quotes eyewitnesses who saw a flying saucer marked with the German Iron Cross flying low over the Thames in 1944. “America also treated the existence of the weapons seriously,” it said.
Research done in Third Reich archives points to a secret factory in the Jonas Valley complex. Now officially sealed off, authorities play a cat-and-mouse game with UFO hunters. Why else would the Americans take away everything they found and place the results under a 100-year secrecy order?
The US believed Germany could use it to drop weapons on New York — a target the Fuhrer obsessed on as the war progressed. At the time the New York Times reported on a “mysterious flying disc” with photos of the device seen travelling at extremely high speeds over the city’s high-rise buildings.
“Apparently that machine was capable on its maiden flight of travelling 2,000km,” added the PM report. “The Germans had destroyed much of the paperwork of their activities but there are numerous hints that it did indeed exist.”
The Nazi UFO project was driven by engineers Rudolf Schriever and Otto Habermohl and was based in Prague between 1941 and 1943. Initially a Luftwaffe project, it eventually fell under the control of armaments minister Albert Speer before being taken over once again in 1944 by Hans Kammler. Eyewitnesses captured by Allies after the war claimed to have seen the saucer fly on several occasions. Joseph Andreas Epp, an engineer who served as a consultant to the Schriever-Habermohl project, claimed 15 prototypes were built. He described how a central cockpit surrounded by rotating adjustable wing-vanes formed a circle. The vanes were held together by a band at the outer edge and were set in rotation by small rockets placed around the rim. Once rotational speed was sufficient and lift-off was achieved, horizontal jets or rockets were ignited.
A German official recorded that at the Prague-Gbell aerodrome in September 1943, he saw inside a hangar “a disk 5-6 metres in diameter. Its body is relatively large at the centre. “Underneath it has four tall, thin legs. Colour: aluminum. Height: almost as tall as a man. Thickness: some 30 to 40cm. Along with my friends, I saw the device emerge from the hangar. “It was then we heard the roar of the engines, we saw the external side of the disk begin to rotate and the vehicle began moving slowly and in a straight line toward the southern end of the field. “It then rose almost one metre into the air. After moving around some 300 metres at that altitude, it stopped again. Its landing was rather rough. Later, the ‘thing’ took off again, managing to reach the end of the aerodrome this time.”
German engineer Georg Klein claimed that two types of flying disks had been created by the Nazi scientists. Georg Klein, who went on to have a distinguished postwar career as an aeronautical engineer, said : “I don’t consider myself a crackpot, or eccentric, or fantasy prone person. This is what I saw with my own eyes — a Nazi UFO.”
In his “The Hunt for Zero Point“ Nick Cook describes the discovery of “the greatest mystery since the invention of the atomic bomb”. The author, an aviation specialist in the leading military magazine Jane’s Defense Weekly, reveals that American researchers are not only working on revolutionary antigravation techniques, but have already deciphered the secret of the gravity. Only the sensational discovery, which fundamentally changed both transport and weapon technology, had been kept secret for years.
Cook, too, first learns of it through mysterious circumstances. One day he stumbles over a quotation from armor expert George S. Trimble, vice president of the “G project” at Martin Aircrafts. Trimble claimed as early as 1956 that the taming of gravity could be achieved “about the same time as was necessary to build the atomic bomb.” What was he playing with?
There would be, for example, those Nazi scholars who, in the service of the SS, explored the possibility of antigravity and time travel. What became of the head of these armament projects, SS Obergruppenführer Hans Kammler?
Many clues suggest that SS Obergruppenführer Hans Kammler escaped to the United States with his findings and made them available to the US military.
It is quite conceivable that in the late fifties, somewhere in the expanse of the American prairie, a secret research laboratory was set up, which, like the Manhattan project, aimed at mastering the power of the atomic bomb.
Had this effort been successful? Is the anti-gravity technology perhaps already in use? In his researches in the laboratories of the armaments industry, in the corridors of the Pentagon, and in the tunnels of former Nazi research centers, this suspicion is confirmed by Cook. Although he is unable to provide any firm proof, the journalist discovers something else in his research: the feeling of a great mystery, “a black heart”. Cook can properly “feel the fear that clings to it”.
And yet the shielding is not complete. Even the attentive observer of scientific literature could not escape the fact that our schoolbook knowledge stands before a revolution.
Astronomers have been observing for a number of years that the universe is expanding much faster than previously thought – a finding many people explain by the action of a kind of cosmic antigravity that drives the galaxies apart. The astronomers emphasize again and again that this force has no influence on earthly masses and only becomes effective at great cosmological distances. But who knows?
The so-called zero-point energy of the vacuum also stimulates wild speculation. According to quantum mechanics, nothingness is not empty, but full potential. Just wonder how big this zero point energy (ZPE) is. “Some say that there is enough energy in a shoe box to allow the whole world to explode,” says Cook’s book, “others think that you can not even boil an egg with the whole ZPE of the world.”
Do Podkletnov know more? In 1992, the Russian emigrant reported that he had discovered a method for shielding gravity at the Tampere Technical University in Finland. For this purpose, Podkletnov had a disk of a special superconducting material rotated over a strong magnetic field. At over 5000 revolutions per second, measurements with a super fine scale, lost samples suspended above the disc up to one percent of their weight!
Although the professional world is still skeptical about these results, the American physicist Ning Li soon waited for a theoretical explanation: the rotating superconductor had a “gravito-magnetic” effect, a phenomenon which Einstein had already predicted. Similar to a moving electric charge, a magnetic field is generated, according to the theory of relativity, rotating matter must also influence the gravitational field. Although the effect according to Einsteinstheorie should be so small that it would be detectable only in the universe. Ning Li could not convince Nasa to repeat Podkletnov’s groundbreaking experiments.
The fact that these attempts failed for many years and Ning Li does not want to comment on the whole subject any more, can only be explained by the power of the “black heart” that Nick Cook could guess in his research.
Yevgeny Podkletnov also felt his strength. The anti-gravity pioneer lost his job at the Tampere Technical University and has to pursue his research on his own. He recently revealed to a reporter of the New Scientist that he had now developed a “pulse generator”, which could throw down an upright book at a distance of one kilometer. Unfortunately, a visit to the facility is not possible because it is located in a security zone of the Moscow University. In addition, he is obliged to “silence” for “patent reasons”.
But the progress can not be stopped. This is also known by the Nasa researchers, who work in the “Breakthrough in Drive Technology” department. In the meantime, they have realized that Podkletnov’s experiment apparently only works when the rotating superconducting disk has a very specific chemical composition – and the Russian physicist has so far kept this mixture secret. But for a generous check, he has now betrayed his special recipe to an American company, who had an exact copy of his antigravation apparatus made for Nasa for 600,000 dollars. These days, the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is about to begin the experiments, and it is only a matter of months before the official confirmation of Podkletnov’s breakthrough discovery is made.
Only the scientific community still struggles against the impending paradigm shift. The physicist and book author Hans Christian von Baeyer, who teaches in the USA, considers the antigravitation to be as likely as “the possibility that your office is exploding today”. Even Lawrence M. Krauss, who analyzed the physics of Star Trek and is a science fiction expert, considers NASA’s work as an “nonsense”. As chairman of a corresponding NASA advisory board, he would at any rate do his utmost to “end this stupid project”.
Is there only the arrogance of the mainstream physics establishment behind such statements? Or are they merely distraction maneuvers to conceal the truth of that “dark mystery” that Nick Cook has tracked?
The photocopied pages had obviously come from some long-forgotten schlock popular science journal. I had stepped away from my desk only for a few moments and somehow in the interim the article had appeared. The headline ran :The G-Engines Are Coming.
I glanced around the office, wondering who had put it there and if this was someone’s idea of a joke. The copier had cut off the top of the first page and the title of the publication with it, but it was the drawing above the headline that was the giveaway. It depicted an aircraft, if you could call it that, hovering a few feet above a dry lake bed, a ladder extending from the fuselage and a crew member making his way down the steps dressed in a U.S.-style flight suit and flying helmet—standard garb for that era. The aircraft had no wings and no visible means of propulsion.
I gave the office another quick scan. The magazine’s operations were set on the first floor. The whole building was open-plan. To my left, the business editor was head-down over a proof-page checking copy. To her right was the naval editor, a guy who was good for a windup, but who was currently deep into a phone conversation and looked like he had been for hours.
I was reminded of a technology piece I’d penned a couple of years earlier about the search for scientific breakthroughs in U.S. aerospace and defense research. In a journal not noted for its exploration of the fringes of paranormality, nor for its humor, I’d inserted a tongue-in-cheek reference to gravity—or rather to antigravity, a subject beloved of science-fiction writers.
“For some U.S. aerospace engineers,” I’d said, “an antigravity propulsion system remains the ultimate quantum leap in aircraft design.” The implication was that antigravity was the aerospace equivalent of the holy grail: something longed for, dreamed about, but beyond reach—and likely always to remain so.
Somehow the reference had escaped the sub-editors and, as a result, amongst my peers, other aerospace and defense writers on the circuit, I’d taken some flak for it. For Jane’s, the publishing empire founded on one man’s obsession with the detailed specifications of ships and aircraft almost a century earlier, technology wasn’t something you joked about.
The magazine I wrote—and still write—for, Jane’s Defence Weekly, documented the day-to-day dealings of the multibillion-dollar defense business. JDW, as we called it, is but one of a portfolio of products detailing the ins and outs of the global aerospace and defense industry. If you want to know about the thrust-to-weight ratio of a Chinese combat aircraft engine or the pulse repetition frequency of a particular radar system, somewhere in the Jane’s portfolio of products there is a publication that has the answers. In short, Jane’s was, and always has been, about facts. Its motto is: Authoritative, Accurate, Impartial.
It was a huge commercial intelligence-gathering operation; and provided they had the money, anyone could buy into its vast knowledge base.
I cast a glance at the bank of sub-editors’ work-stations over in the far corner of the office, but nobody appeared remotely interested in what was happening at my desk. If the subs had nothing to do with it, and usually they were the first to know about a piece of piss-taking that was going down in the office, I figured whoever had put it there was from one of the dozens of other departments in the building and on a different floor. Perhaps my anonymous benefactor had felt embarrassed about passing it on to me?
I studied the piece again.
The strapline below the headline proclaimed: “By far the most potent source of energy is gravity. Using it as power, future aircraft will attain the speed of light.” It was written by one Michael Gladych and began: “Nuclear-powered aircraft are yet to be built, but there are research projects already under way that will make the super-planes obsolete before they are test-flown. For in the United States and Canada, research centers, scientists, designers and engineers are perfecting a way to control gravity—a force infinitely more powerful than the mighty atom. The result of their labors will be antigravity engines working without fuel—weightless airliners and space ships able to travel at 170,000 miles per second.”
On any other day, that would have been the moment I’d have consigned it for recycling. But something in the following paragraph caught my eye.
The gravity research, it said, had been supported by the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Company, Bell Aircraft, Lear “and several other American aircraft manufacturers who would not spend millions of dollars on science fiction.” It quoted Lawrence D. Bell, the founder of the plane-maker that was first to beat the sound barrier. “We’re already working on nuclear fuels and equipment to cancel out gravity.” George S. Trimble, head of Advanced Programs and “Vice President in charge of the G-Project at Martin Aircraft,” added that the conquest of gravity “could be done in about the time it took to build the first atom bomb.”
A little further on, it quoted “William P. Lear, the chairman of Lear Inc., makers of autopilots and other electronic controls.” It would be another decade before Bill Lear went on to design and build the first of the sleek business jets that still carry his name. But in 1956, according to Gladych, Lear had his mind on other things.
“All matter within the ship would be influenced by the ship’s gravitation only,” Lear apparently said of the wondrous G-craft. “This way, no matter how fast you accelerated or changed course, your body would not feel it any more than it now feels the tremendous speed and acceleration of the earth.” The G-ship, Gladych explained, could take off like a cannon shell, come to a stop with equal abruptness and the passengers wouldn’t even need seat belts. This ability to accelerate rapidly, the author continued, would make it ideal as a space vehicle capable of acceleration to a speed approaching that of light.
There were some oblique references to Einstein, some highly dubious “facts” about the nature of subatomic physics and some speculation about how various kinds of “antigravity engines” might work.
But the one thing I kept returning to were those quotes. Had Gladych made them up or had Lawrence Bell, George S. Trimble and William “Bill” Lear really said what he had quoted them as saying?
Outside, the rain beat against the double-glazed windows, drowning the sound of the traffic that crawled along the London to Brighton road and the unrelenting hum of the air conditioning that regulated the temperature inside.
The office was located in the last suburb of the Greater London metropolis; next stop the congested joys of the M25 ring road and the M23 to Gatwick Airport. The building was a vast redbrick two-story bunker amid between-the-wars gray brickwork and pebbledash. The rain acted like a muslin filter, washing out what little ambient color Coulsdon possessed. In the rain, it was easy to imagine that nothing much had changed here for decades.
As aviation editor of JDW, my beat was global and it was pretty much unstructured. If I needed to cover the latest air-to-surface weapons developments in the U.S.A., I could do it, with relatively few questions asked. My editor, an old pro, with a history as long as your arm in publishing, gave each of us, the so-called “specialists” (the aviation, naval and land systems editors), plenty of rope. His only proviso was that we filed our expenses within two of weeks of travel and that we gave him good, exclusive stories. If I wanted to cover an aerospace and defense exhibition in Moscow, Singapore or Dubai, the funds to do so were almost always there.
As for the job itself, it was a mixture of hard-edged reporting and basic provision of information. We reported on the defense industry, but we were part of it, too—the vast majority of the company’s revenue coming from the same people we wrote about. Kowtowing was a no-no, but so was kicking down doors. If you knew the rules and played by them you could access almost any part of the global defense-industrial complex. In the course of a decade, I’d visited secret Russian defense facilities and ultrasensitive U.S. government labs. If you liked technology, a bit of skulduggery and people, it was a career made in heaven. At least 60 percent of the time I was on the road. The bit I liked least was office downtime.
Again, I looked around for signs that I was being set up. Then, satisfied that I wasn’t, but feeling self-conscious nonetheless, I tucked the Gladych article into a drawer and got on with the business of the day. Another aerospace and defense company had fallen prey to post-Cold War economics. It was 24 hours before the paper closed for press and the news editor was yelling for copy.
Two days later, in a much quieter moment, I visited the Jane’s library. It was empty but for the librarian, a nice man way past retirement age who used to listen to the BBC’s radio lunchtime news while gazing out over the building’s bleak rear lot.
In the days before the Internet revolution, the library was an invaluable resource. Fred T. Jane published his first yearbook, Jane’s Fighting Ships, in 1898; and in 1909 the second, Jane’s All The World’s Aircraft, quickly built on the reputation of the former as a reference work par excellence for any and all information on aeronautical developments. Nigh on a century later, the library held just about every book and magazine ever put out by the company and a pile of other reference works besides.
I scanned the shelves till I found what I was looking for.
The Jane’s All The World’s Aircraft yearbook for 1956 carried no mention of antigravity experiments, nor did successive volumes, but that came as no great surprise. The yearbooks are the aerospace equivalent of Burke’s Peerage or the Guinness Book of Records: every word pored over, analyzed and double-checked for accuracy. They’d have given antigravity a very wide berth.
For a story like this, what I was looking for was a news publication.
I looked along the shelves again. Jane’s had gotten into the magazine publishing business relatively recently and the company’s copies of Flight International and Aviation Week ran back only a few years. But it did have bound volumes of Interavia Aerospace Review from before the Second World War. And it was on page 373 in the May 1956 edition of this well-respected publication, in amongst advertisements for Constellation airliners, chunky-looking bits of radar equipment and (curiously for an aviation journal) huge “portable” Olivetti typewriters, that I found a feature bylined: Mr. “Intel”, Washington, D.C., with the headline: “Towards Flight without Stress or Strain…or Weight” Beneath it ran the strapline: The following article is by an American journalist who has long taken a keen interest in questions of theoretical physics and has been recommended to the Editors as having close connections with scientific circles in the United States. The subject is one of immediate interest and Interavia Aerospace Review would welcome further comment from initiated sources. — Editors.
The article referred to something called “electro-gravitics” research, whose aim was to “seek the source of gravity and its control.” This research, “Intel” stated, had “reached a stage where profound implications for the entire human race are beginning to emerge.”
I read on, amused by the tone and wondering how on earth the article had come to be accepted in a mainstream aerospace journal.
“In the still short life of the turbojet airplane [by then, 1956, little more than a decade], man has had to increase power in the form of brute thrust some twenty times in order to achieve just twice the speed. The cost in money in reaching this point has been prodigious. The cost in highly specialized man-hours is even greater. By his present methods man actually fights in direct combat the forces that resist his efforts. In conquering gravity he would be putting one of his most competent adversaries to work for him. Antigravitics is the method of the picklock rather than the sledgehammer.”
Not only that, the article stated, but antigravity could be put to work in other fields beyond aerospace. “In road cars, trains and boats the headaches of transmission of power from the engine to wheels or propellers would simply cease to exist. Construction of bridges and big buildings would be greatly simplified by temporary induced weightlessness etc. Other facets of work now under way indicate the possi- bility of close controls over the growth of plant life; new therapeutic techniques, permanent fuelless heating units for homes and industrial establishments; new sources of industrial power; new manufacturing techniques; a whole field of new chemistry. The list is endless …and growing.”
It was also sheer fantasy.
Yet, for the second time in a week I had found an article—this time certainly in a publication with a solid reputation—that stated that U.S. aerospace companies were engaged in the study of this “science.” It cited the same firms mentioned by Gladych and some new ones as well: Sperry-Rand and General Electric among them. Within these institutions, we were supposed to believe, people were working on theories that could not only make materials weightless, but could actually give them “negative weight”—a repulsive force that would allow them to loft away “contra-gravitationally.” The article went further. It claimed that in experimentation conducted by a certain “Townsend T. Brown” weights of some materials had already been cut by as much as 30 percent by “energizing” them and that model “disc airfoils” utilizing this technology had been run in a wind tunnel under a charge of a hundred and fifty kilovolts “with results so impressive as to be highly classified.”
I gazed out over the slate rooftops. For Interavia to have written about antigravity, there had to have been something in it. The trouble was, it was history. My bread-and-butter beat was the aerospace industry of the 1990s, not this distant cozy world of the fifties with its heady whiff of jet-engine spirit and the developing Cold War.
I replaced the volume and returned to my desk. It should have been easy to let go, but it wasn’t. If people of the caliber quoted by Gladych and Interavia had started talking about antigravity anytime in the past ten years I would have reported it—however skeptical I might be on a personal level. Why had these people said the things they had with such conviction? One of them, George S. Trimble, had gone so far as to predict that a breakthrough would occur in around the same time it took to develop the atomic bomb—roughly five years. Yet, it had never happened. And even if the results of “Townsend T. Brown’s” experiments had been “so impressive as to be highly classified,” they had clearly come to naught; otherwise, by the 60s or 70s the industry would have been overtaken by fuel-less propulsion technology.
I rang a public relations contact at Lockheed Martin, the U.S. aerospace and defense giant, to see if I could get anything on the individuals Gladych had quoted. I knew that Lawrence Bell and Bill Lear were both dead. But what about George S. Trimble? If Trimble was alive—and it was a long shot, since he would have to be in his 80s—he would undoubtedly confirm what I felt I knew to be true; that he had been heavily misquoted or that antigravity had been the industry’s silly-season story of 1956.
A simple phone call would do the trick.
Daniella “Dani” Abelman was an old media contact within Lockheed Martin’s public affairs organization. Solid, reliable and likable, she’d grown up in the industry alongside me, only on the other side of the divide. Our relationship with the information managers of the aerospace and defense world was as double-edged as the PR/reporter interface in any other industry. Our job was to get the lowdown on the inside track and, more often than not, it was bad news that sold. But unlike our national newspaper counterparts, trade press hacks have to work within the industry, not outside it. This always added an extra twist to our quest for information. The industry comprised hundreds of thousands of people, but despite its size, it was surprisingly intimate and incestuous enough for everyone to know everyone else. If you pissed off a PR manager in one company, even if it was on the other side of the globe, you wouldn’t last long, because word would quickly get around and the flow of information would dry up.
But with Abelman, it was easy. I liked her. We got on. I told her I needed some background on an individual in one of Lockheed Martin’s “heritage” companies, a euphemism for a firm it had long since swallowed whole.
The Glenn L. Martin Company became the Martin Company in 1957. In 1961, it merged with the American-Marietta Company, becoming Martin-Marietta, a huge force in the Cold War U.S. defense electronics industry. In 1994, Martin-Marietta merged again, this time with Lockheed to form Lockheed Martin. The first of the global mega-merged defense behemoths, it built everything from stealth fighters and their guided weapons to space launchers and satellites.
Abelman was naturally suspicious when I told her I needed to trace an ex-company employee, but relaxed when I said that the person I was interested in had been doing his thing more than 40 years ago and was quite likely dead by now.
I was circumspect about the reasons for the approach, knowing full well if I told her the real story, she’d think I’d taken leave of my senses.
But I had a bona fide reason for calling her—and one that legitimately, if at a stretch, involved Trimble: I was preparing a piece on the emergence of the U.S. aerospace industry’s “special projects” facilities in the aftermath of the Cold War.
Most large aerospace and defense companies had a special projects unit; a clandestine adjunct to their main business lines where classified activities could take place. The shining example was the Lockheed Martin “Skunk Works,” a near-legendary aircraft-manufacturing facility on the edge of the California high desert.
For 50 years, the Skunk Works had sifted Lockheed for its most highly skilled engineers, putting them to work on top secret aircraft projects.
Using this approach it had delivered some of the biggest military breakthroughs of the 20th century, among them the world’s first Mach 3 spyplane and stealth, the art of making aircraft “invisible” to radar and other enemy sensor systems.
But now the Skunk Works was coming out of the shadows and, in the process, giving something back to its parent organization. Special projects units were renowned for bringing in complex, high-risk defense programs on time and to cost, a skill that had become highly sought after by the main body of the company in the austere budget environment of the 1990s.
Trimble, I suggested, might be able to provide me with historical context and “color” in an otherwise dry business story. “Advanced Programs,” the outfit he was supposed to have worked for, sounded a lot like Martin’s version of the Skunk Works.
Abelman said she’d see what she could do, but I wasn’t to expect any short-order miracles. She wasn’t the company historian, she said dryly, but she’d make a few inquiries and get back to me.
I was surprised when she phoned me a few hours later. Company records, to her surprise—and mine—said that Trimble was alive and enjoying retirement in Arizona. “Sounds hard as nails, but an amazing guy by all accounts,” she breezed. “He’s kinda mystified why you want to talk to him after all this time, but seems okay with it. Like you said, it’s historical, right?”
“Right,” I said.
I asked Abelman, while she was at it, for all the background she had on the man. History or not, I said, trying to keep it light, I liked to be thorough. She was professional enough to sound less than convinced by my newfound interest in the past, but promised she’d do her best. I thanked her, then hung up, feeling happy that I’d done something about it. A few weeks, a month at the outside, the mystery would be resolved and I could go back to my regular beat, case closed.
Outside, another bank of gray storm clouds was rolling in above rooftops that were still slick from the last passing shower.
I picked up my coat and headed for the train station, knowing that somewhere between the office and my flat in central London I was going to get soaked right through.
The initial information came a week later from a search through some old files that I’d buried in a collection of boxes in my basement: a company history of Martin Marietta I’d barely remembered I’d acquired. It told me that in 1955 Trimble had become involved in something called the Research Institute for Advanced Studies, RIAS, a Martin spin-off organization whose brief was to “observe the phenomena of nature…to discover fundamental laws…and to evolve new technical concepts for the improvement and welfare of mankind.”
Aside from the philanthropic tone, a couple of things struck me as fishy about the RIAS. First off, its name was as bland as the carefully chosen “Advanced Development Projects”—the official title of the Skunk Works. Second, was the nature and caliber of its recruits. These, according to the company history, were “world-class contributors in mathematics, physics, biology and materials science.”
Soon afterward, I received a package of requested information from Lockheed Martin in the mail. RIAS no longer existed, having been subsumed by other parts of the Lockheed Martin empire. But through an old RIAS history, a brochure published in 1980 to celebrate the organization’s “first 25 years,” I was able to glean a little more about Trimble and the outfit he’d inspired. It described him as “one of the most creative and imaginative people that ever worked for the Company.”
I read on.
From a nucleus of people that in 1955 met in a conference room at the Martin Company’s Middle River plant in Maryland, RIAS soon developed a need for its own space. In 1957, with a staff of about 25 people, it moved to Baltimore City. The initial research program, the brochure said, was focused on NASA and the agency’s stated goal of putting a man on the moon. But that wasn’t until 1961.
One obvious question was, what had RIAS been doing in the interim? Mainly math, by the look of it. Its principal academic was described as an expert in “topology and nonlinear differential equations.”
I hadn’t the least idea what that meant.
In 1957, the outfit moved again, this time to a large mansion on the edge of Baltimore, a place chosen for its “campus-like” atmosphere. Offices were quickly carved from bedrooms and workshops from garages.
It reminded me of accounts I’d read of the shirtsleeves atmosphere of the early days of the Manhattan Project when Oppenheimer and his team of atom scientists had crunched through the physics of the bomb.
And that was the very same analogy Trimble had used. The conquest of gravity, he’d said, would come in the time it took to build the bomb.
I called a few contacts on the science and engineering side of Lockheed Martin, asking them, in a roundabout kind of way, whether there was, or ever had been, any part of the corporation involved in gravity or “counter-gravitational” research. After some initial questions on their part as to why I should be interested, which I just about managed to palm off, the answer that came back was a uniform “no.” Well, almost. There was a guy, Boyd Bushman, one contact told me, a scientist who worked in the combat aircraft division in Fort Worth who would talk eloquently about the mysteries of Nature and the universe to anyone who would listen. He’d also levitate paper clips on his desk. Great character, but a bit of a maverick. “Paper clips?” I’d asked. “A maverick scientist levitating paper clips on his desk? At Lockheed Martin? Come on.” My source laughed. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have said I was working up a story on antigravity. A 1999 FBI memo established that Boyd Bushman was indeed employed at Lockheed Martin (LM). The man’s claims of holding Top Secret clearance while working as a Senior Specialist were also verified. Please note, however, LM expressed concerns to the FBI of what “may be an ongoing attempt to elicit LM proprietary or classified information” surrounding Bushman:
I made my excuses and signed off. It was crazy, possibly dangerous stuff, but it continued to have me intrigued.
I called an old friend who’d gained a degree in applied mathematics. Tentatively, I asked whether topology and non-differential linear equations had any application to the study of gravity.
Of course, he replied. Topology—the study of shape in physics—and nonlinear equations were the standard methods for calculating gravitational attraction.
I sat back and pieced together what I had. It didn’t amount to much, but did it amount to something?
In 1957, George S. Trimble, one of the leading aerospace engineers in the U.S. at that time, a man, it could safely be said, with a background in highly advanced concepts and classified activity, had put together what looked like a special projects team; one with a curious task.
This, just a year after he started talking about the Golden Age of Antigravity that would sweep through the industry starting in the 1960s.
So, what went wrong?
In its current literature, the stuff pumped out in press releases all the time, the U.S. Air Force constantly talked up the “vision”: where it was going to be in 25 years, how it was going to wage and win future wars and how technology was key.
In 1956, it would have been as curious as I was about the notion of a fuel-less propulsion source, one that could deliver phenomenal performance gains over a jet; perhaps including the ability to accelerate rapidly, to pull hairpin turns without crushing the pilot and to achieve speeds that defied the imagination. In short, it would have given them something that resembled a UFO.
I rubbed my eyes. The dim pool of light that had illuminated the Lockheed-supplied material on Trimble and RIAS had brought on a nagging pain in the back of my head.
The evidence was suggesting that in the mid-50s there had been some kind of breakthrough in the antigravity field and for a small window in time people had talked about it freely and openly, believing they were witnessing the dawn of a new era, one that would benefit the whole of mankind. Then, in 1957, everyone had stopped talking about it. Had the military woken up to what was happening, bringing the clamps down?
Those in the know, outfits like Trimble’s that had been at the forefront of the breakthrough, would probably have continued their research, assembling their development teams behind closed doors, ready for the day they could build real hardware.
But of course, it never happened.
It never happened because soon after Trimble, Bell and Lear made their statements, sanity prevailed. By 1960, it was like the whole episode never took place. Aerospace development continued along its structured, ordered pathway and antigravity became one of those taboo subjects that people like me never, ever talked about.
Satisified that everything was back in its place and as it should be, I went to bed.
Somewhere in my head I was still tracking the shrill, faraway sounds of the city when the phone rang. I could tell instantly it was Abelman. Separated by an ocean and five time zones, I heard the catch in her breathing.
” It’s Trimble,” she said. “The guy just got off the phone to me. Remember how he was fine to do the interview? Well, something’s happened. I don’t know who this old man is or what he once was, but he told me in no uncertain terms to get off his case. He doesn’t want to speak to me and he doesn’t want to speak to you, not now, not ever. I don’t mind telling you that he sounded scared and I don’t like to hear old men scared. It makes me scared. I don’t know what you were really working on when you came to me with this, Nick, but let me give you some advice. Stick to what you know about; stick to the damned present. It’s better that way for all of us.”
Towards Flight without Stress or Strain… or Weight
by Mr. “Intel”, Washington D.C.
The following article is by an American journalist who has long taken a keen interest in questions of theoretical physics and has been recommended to the Editors as having close connections with scientific circles in the United States. The subject is one of immediate interest and Interavia Aerospace Review would welcome further comment from initiated sources. — Editors.
Washington D.C., March 23, 1956
Electrogravitics research, seeking the source of gravity and its control, has reached a stage where profound implications for the entire human race begin to emerge. Perhaps the most startling and immediate implications of all involve aircraft, guided missiles — atmospheric and free space flight of all kinds.
If only one of several lines of research achieve their goal — and it now seems certain that this must occur — gravitational acceleration as a structural, aerodynamic and medical problem will simply cease to exist. So will the task of providing combustible fuels in massive volume in order to escape the earth’s gravitic pull — now probably the biggest headache facing today’s would-be “space men”.
And towards the long-term progress of mankind and man’s civilization, a whole new concept of electrophysics is being levered out into the light of human knowledge.
There are gravity research projects in every major country of the world. A few are over 30 years old. Most are much newer. Some are purely theoretical and seek the answer in Quantum, Relativity and Unified Field Theory mathematics — Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey; University of Indiana’s School of Advanced Mathematical Studies; Purdue University Research Foundation; Goettingen and Hamburg Universities in France, Italy, Japan and elsewhere. The list, in fact, runs into the hundreds.
Some projects are mostly empirical, studying gravitic isotopes, electrical phenomena and the statistics of mass. Others combine both approaches in the study of matter in its super-cooled, super-conductive state, of jet electron streams, peculiar magnetic effects or the electrical mechanics of the atom’s shell. Some of the companies involved in this phase include Lear Inc., Gluhareff Helicopter and Airplane Corp., The Glenn L. Martin Co., Sperry-Rand Corp., Bell Aircraft, Clarke Electronics Laboratories, the U.S. General Electric Company.
The concept of weightlessness in conventional materials which are normally heavy, like steel, aluminium, barium, etc., is difficult enough, but some theories, so far borne out empirically in the laboratory, postulate that not only can they be made weightless, but they can in fact be given a negative weight. That is: the force of gravity will be repulsive to them and they will — new sciences breed new words and meanings for old ones — loft away contra-gravitationally.
In this particular line of research, the weights of some materials have already been cut as much as 30% by “energizing” them. Security prevents disclosure of what precisely is meant by “energizing” or in which country this work is under way.
The American scientist Townsend T. Brown has been working on the problems of electrogravitics for more than thirty years. He is seen here demonstrating one of his laboratory instruments, a disc-shaped variant of the two-plate condenser. A localized gravitic field used as a ponderamotive force has been created in the laboratory. Disc airfoils two feet in diameter and incorporating a variation of the simple two-plate electrical condenser charged with fifty kilovolts and a total continuous energy input of fifty watts have achieved a speed of seventeen feet per second in a circular air course twenty feet in diameter. More lately these discs have been increased in diameter to three feet and run in a fifty-foot diameter air course under a charge of a hundred and fifty kilovolts with results so impressive as to be highly classified. Variations of this work done under a vacuum have produced much greater efficiencies that can only described as startling. Work is now under way developing a flame-jet generator to supply power up to fifteen million volts.
Such a force raised exponentially to levels capable of pushing man-carrying vehicles through the air — or outer space — at ultrahigh speeds is now the object of concerted effort in several countries. Once achieved it will eliminate most of the structural difficulties now encountered in the construction of high-speed aircraft. Importantly the gravitic field that provides the basic propulsive force simultaneously reacts on all matter within that field’s influence. The force is not a physical one acting initially at a specific point in the vehicle that needs then to be translated to all the other parts. It is an electrogravitic field acting on all parts simultaneously.
Subject only to the so-far immutable laws of momentum, the vehicle would be able to change direction, accelerate to thousands of miles per hour, or stop. Changes in direction and speed of flight would be effected by merely altering the intensity, polarity and direction of the charge.
Man now uses the sledge-hammer approach to high-altitude high-speed flight. In the still-short life-span of the turbo-jet airplane he has had to increase power in the form of brute thrust some twenty times in order to achieve just a little more than twice the speed of the original jet plane. The cost in money in reaching this point has been prodigious. The cost in highly-specialized man-hours is even greater. By his present methods man actually fights in direct combat the forces that resist his efforts. in conquering gravity he would be putting one of his most competent adversaries to work for him. Anti-gravitics is the method of the picklock rather than the sledge-hammer.
The communications possibilities of electrogravitics, as the new science is called, confound the imagination. There are apparently in the ether an entirely new unsuspected family of electrical waves similar to electromagnetic radio waves in basic concept.
Electrogravitic waves have been created and transmitted through concentric layers of the most efficient kinds of electromagnetic and electrostatic shielding without any apparent loss of power in any way. There is evidence, but not yet proof, that these waves are not limited by the speed of light. Thus the new science seems to strike at the very foundations of Einsteinian Relativity Theory.
But rather than invalidating current basic concepts such as Relativity, the new knowledge of gravity will probably expand their scope, ramification and general usefulness. It is this expansion of knowledge into the unknown that more emphasizes how little we do know; how vast is the area still awaiting research and discovery.
The most successful line of the electrogravitics research so far reported is that carried on by Townsend. T. Brown, an American who has been researching gravity for over thirty years. He is now conducting research projects in the U.S. and on the Continent. He postulates that there is between electricity and gravity a relationship parallel and/or similar to that which exists between electricity and magnetism. And as the coil is the usable link in the case of electromagnetics, so is the condenser that link in the case of electrogravitics. Years of successful empirical work have lent a great deal of credence to this hypothesis.
Dear Robert,
If Nazis had antigravity saucers, which is very possible, due to simplicity of old physics involved, what crashed in Roswell was an American replica.
Check out Annie Jacobsen. Interestingly, she claims that what crashed in Roswell, was a Russian antigravity saucer, and the small bodies were NOT Aliens :
Mass killings under communist regimes occurred throughout the 20th century. Death estimates vary widely, depending on the definitions of the deaths that are included in them and the political perspectives of those performing such tallies. Estimates account for executions, deaths from man-made and intentional famines, as well as deaths that have occurred during forced labor, deportations, or imprisonment.
Several different terms are used to describe the intentional killing of large numbers of noncombatants.[1][a][b][c][d][e] According to Anton Weiss-Wendt, the field of comparative genocide studies has very “little consensus on defining principles such as definition of genocide, typology, application of a comparative method, and timeframe.”[2][f] According to Professor of Economics Attiat Ott, mass killing has emerged as a “more straightforward” term.[g]
The following terminology has been used by individual authors to describe mass killings of unarmed civilians by communist governments, individually or as a whole:
Classicide – Professor Michael Mann has proposed classicide to mean the “intended mass killing of entire social classes.”[3][h]Classicide is considered “premeditated mass killing” narrower than genocide in that it targets a part of a population defined by its social status, but broader than politicide in that the group is targeted without regard to their political activity.[4]
Crime against humanity – Professor Klas-Göran Karlsson uses crimes against humanity, which includes “the direct mass killings of politically undesirable elements, as well as forced deportations and forced labour.” Karlsson acknowledges that the term may be misleading in the sense that the regimes targeted groups of their own citizens, but he considers it useful as a broad legal term which emphasizes attacks on civilian populations and because the offenses demean humanity as a whole.[5] Historian Jacques Sémelin and Professor Michael Mann[6] believe that crime against humanity is more appropriate than genocide or politicide when speaking of violence by communist regimes.[7]See also: Crimes against humanity under communist regimes.
Democide – Professor Rudolph Rummel defined democide as “the intentional killing of an unarmed or disarmed person by government agents acting in their authoritative capacity and pursuant to government policy or high command.”[8] His definition covers a wide range of deaths, including forced labor and concentration camp victims; killings by “unofficial” private groups; extrajudicial summary killings; and mass deaths due to the governmental acts of criminal omission and neglect, such as in deliberate famines as well as killings by de facto governments, such as warlords or rebels in a civil war.[9][i] This definition covers any murder of any number of persons by any government,[10] and it has been applied to killings that were perpetrated by communist regimes.[11][12]
Genocide – Under the Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide generally applies to the mass murder of ethnic rather than political or social groups. The clause which granted protection to political groups was eliminated from the United Nations resolution after a second vote because many states, including the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin,[13][j] feared that it could be used to impose unneeded limitations on their right to suppress internal disturbances.[14][15] Scholarly studies of genocide usually acknowledge the UN’s omission of economic and political groups and use mass political killing datasets of democide and genocide and politicide or geno-politicide.[16] The killings that were committed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia has been labeled a genocide or an auto-genocide; and the deaths that occurred under Leninism and Stalinism in the Soviet Union, as well as those that occurred under Maoism in China, have been controversially investigated as possible cases. In particular, the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 and the Great Chinese Famine, which occurred during the Great Leap Forward, have both been “depicted as instances of mass killing underpinned by genocidal intent.”[k]
Holocaust – communist holocaust has been used by some state officials and non-governmental organizations.[17][18][19] The similar term red Holocaust—coined by the Munich Institut für Zeitgeschichte[l][20]—has been used by Professor Steven Rosefielde for communist “peacetime state killings,” while stating that it “could be defined to include all murders (judicially sanctioned terror-executions), criminal manslaughter (lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing), and felonious negligent homicide (terror-starvation) incurred from insurrectionary actions and civil wars prior to state seizure, and all subsequent felonious state killings.”[m] According to Jörg Hackmann, this term is not popular among scholars in Germany or internationally.[l]Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine writes that usage of this term “allows the reality it describes to immediately attain, in the Western mind, a status equal to that of the extermination of the Jews by the Nazi regime.”[n][21]Michael Shafir writes that the use of the term supports the “competitive martyrdom component of Double Genocide“, a theory whose worst version is Holocaust obfuscation.[22] George Voicu states that Leon Volovici has “rightfully condemned the abusive use of this concept as an attempt to ‘usurp’ and undermine a symbol specific to the history of European Jews.”[o]
Mass killing – Professor Ervin Staub defined mass killing as “killing members of a group without the intention to eliminate the whole group or killing large numbers of people without a precise definition of group membership. In a mass killing the number of people killed is usually smaller than in genocide.”[23][p] Referencing earlier definitions,[q] Professors Joan Esteban, Massimo Morelli, and Dominic Rohner have defined mass killings as “the killings of substantial numbers of human beings, when not in the course of military action against the military forces of an avowed enemy, under the conditions of the essential defenselessness and helplessness of the victims.”[24] The term has been defined by Professor Benjamin Valentino as “the intentional killing of a massive number of noncombatants”, where a “massive number” is defined as at least 50,000 intentional deaths over the course of five years or less.[25] This is the most accepted quantitative minimum threshold for the term.[24] He applied this definition to the cases of Stalin’s Soviet Union, China under Mao Zedong and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge while admitting that “mass killings on a smaller scale” also appear to have been carried out by regimes in North Korea, Vietnam, Eastern Europe and various nations in Africa.[26] Alongside Valentino, Jay Ulfelder has used a threshold of 1,000 killed.[r] Alex Bellamy states that 14 of the 38 instances of “mass killing since 1945 perpetrated by non-democratic states outside the context of war” were by communist governments.[s] Professors Frank Wayman and Atsushi Tago used mass killing from Valentino and concluded that even with a lower threshold (10,000 killed per year, 1,000 killed per year, or even 1 killed per year) “autocratic regimes, especially communist, are prone to mass killing generically, but not so strongly inclined (i.e. not statistically significantly inclined) toward geno-politicide.”[t] According to Attiat F. Ott and Sang Hoo Bae, there is a general consensus that mass killing constitutes the act of intentionally killing a number of non-combatants, but that number can range from as few as four to more than 50,000 people.[27] Yang Su used a definition of mass killing from Valentino but allows as a “significant number” more than 10 killed in one day in one town.[u] He used collective killing for analysis of mass killing in areas smaller than a whole country that may not meet Valentino’s threshold.[v]
Politicide – the term is used to describe the killing of groups that would not otherwise be covered by the Genocide Convention.[28][j] Professor Barbara Harff studies genocide and politicide—sometimes shortened as geno-politicide—in order to include the killing of political, economic, ethnic and cultural groups.[w] Professor Manus I. Midlarsky uses politicide to describe an arc of large-scale killing from the western parts of the Soviet Union to China and Cambodia.[x] In his book The Killing Trap: Genocide in the Twentieth Century, Midlarsky raises similarities between the killings of Stalin and Pol Pot.[29]
Repression – Professor Stephen Wheatcroft comments that in the case of the Soviet Union terms such as the terror, the purges, and repression are used to refer to the same events. He believes the most neutral terms are repression and mass killings, although in Russian the broad concept of repression is commonly held to include mass killings and it is sometimes assumed to be synonymous with it, which is not the case in other languages.[30]
Estimates
According to professor of history Klas-Göran Karlsson, discussion of the number of victims of communist regimes has been “extremely extensive and ideologically biased.”[31] Political scientist Rudolph Rummel and historian Mark Bradley have written that, while the exact numbers have been in dispute, the order of magnitude is not.[y][z] Rummel and other genocide scholars are focused primarily on establishing patterns and testing various theoretical explanations of genocides and mass killings. In their work, as they are dealing with large data sets that describe mass mortality events globally, they have to rely on selective data provided by country experts, so precise estimates are neither a required nor expected result of their work.[32]
Any attempt to estimate a total number of killings under communist regimes depends greatly on definitions, and the idea to group together different countries such as Afghanistan and Hungary has no adequate explanation.[33] During the Cold War era, some authors (Todd Culberston), dissidents (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn), and anti-communists in general have attempted to make both country-specific and global estimates, although they were mostly unreliable and inflated, as shown by the 1990s and beyond. Scholars of communism have mainly focused on individual countries, and genocide scholars have attempted to provide a more global perspective, while maintaining that their goal is not reliability but establishing patterns.[32] Scholars of communism have debated on estimates for the Soviet Union, not for all communist regimes, an attempt which was popularized by the introduction to The Black Book of Communism and was controversial.[33] Among them, Soviet specialists Michael Ellman and J. Arch Getty have criticized the estimates for relying on émigre sources, hearsay, and rumor as evidence,[34] and cautioned that historians should instead utilize archive material.[35] Such scholars distinguish between historians who base their research on archive materials, and those whose estimates are based on witnesses evidence and other data that is unreliable.[36] Soviet specialist Stephen G. Wheatcroft says that historians relied on Solzhenitsyn to support their higher estimates but research in the state archives vindicated the lower estimates, while adding that the popular press has continued to include serious errors that should not be cited, or relied on, in academia.[37] Rummel was also another widely used and cited source[aa] but not reliable about estimates.[32]
Notable estimate attempts include the following:[aa]
In 1978, journalist Todd Culbertson wrote an article in The Richmond News Leader, republished in Human Events, in which he stated that “[a]vailable evidence indicates that perhaps 100 million persons have been destroyed by the Communists; the imperviousness of the Iron and Bamboo curtains prevents a more definitive figure.”[ab][aa]
In 1985, John Lenczowski, director of European and Soviet Affairs at the United States National Security Council, wrote an article in The Christian Science Monitor in which he stated that the “number of people murdered by communist regimes is estimated at between 60 million and 150 million, with the higher figure probably more accurate in light of recent scholarship.”[ac]
In 1994, Rummel’s book Death by Government included about 110 million people, foreign and domestic, killed by communist democide from 1900 to 1987.[39] This total did not include deaths from the Great Chinese Famine of 1958–1961 due to Rummel’s then belief that “although Mao’s policies were responsible for the famine, he was mislead about it, and finally when he found out, he stopped it and changed his policies.”[40][41] In 2004, historian Tomislav Dulić criticized Rummel’s estimate of the number killed in Tito’s Yugoslavia as an overestimation based on the inclusion of low-quality sources, and stated that Rummel’s other estimates may suffer from the same problem if he used similar sources for them.[42] Rummel responded with a critique of Dulić’s analysis[43] but was not convincing.[44] In 2005, a retired Rummel revised upward his total for communist democide between 1900 and 1999 from 110 million to about 148 million due to additional information about Mao’s culpability in the Great Chinese Famine from Mao: The Unknown Story, including Jon Halliday and Jung Chang‘s estimated 38 million famine deaths.[40][41] Karlsson describes Rummel’s estimates as being on the fringe, stating that “they are hardly an example of a serious and empirically-based writing of history”, and mainly discusses them “on the basis of the interest in him in the blogosphere.”[45]
In 1997, historian Stéphane Courtois‘s introduction to The Black Book of Communism, an impactful yet controversial[33] work written about the history of communism in the 20th century,[46] gave a “rough approximation, based on unofficial estimates” approaching 100 million killed. The subtotals listed by Courtois added up to 94.36 million killed.[ae]Nicolas Werth and Jean-Louis Margolin, contributing authors to the book, criticized Courtois as obsessed with reaching a 100 million overall total.[47] In his foreword to the 1999 English edition, Martin Malia wrote that “a grand total of victims variously estimated by contributors to the volume at between 85 million and 100 million.”[af] Courtois’ attempt to equate Nazism and communist regimes was controversial, and remains on the fringes, on both scientific and moral grounds.[48][ag]
In 2005, associate professor Benjamin Valentino stated that the number of non-combatants killed by communist regimes in the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia alone ranged from a low of 21 million to a high of 70 million.[ah][ai] Citing Rummel and others,[aa] Valentino wrote that the “highest end of the plausible range of deaths attributed to communist regimes” was up to 110 million.”[ah]
In 2010, professor of economics Steven Rosefielde wrote in Red Holocaust that the internal contradictions of communist regimes caused the killing of approximately 60 million people and perhaps tens of millions more.[49]
In 2011, self-described atrocitiologist Matthew White published his rough total of 70 million “people who died under communist regimes from execution, labor camps, famine, ethnic cleansing, and desperate flight in leaky boats”, not counting those killed in wars.[aj]
In 2012, academic Alex J. Bellamy wrote that a “conservative estimate puts the total number of civilians deliberately killed by communists after the Second World War between 6.7 million and 15.5 million people, with the true figure probably much higher.”[ak]
In 2014, professor of Chinese politics Julia Strauss wrote that while there was the beginning of a scholarly consensus on figures of around 20 million killed in the Soviet Union and 2–3 million in Cambodia, there was no such consensus on numbers for China.[al]
In 2016, the Dissident blog of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation made an effort to compile ranges of estimates using sources from 1976 to 2010, and wrote that the overall range “spans from 42,870,000 to 161,990,000” killed, with 100 million the most commonly cited figure.[am]
In 2017, historian Stephen Kotkin wrote in The Wall Street Journal that communist regimes killed at least 65 million people between 1917 and 2017, commenting: “Though communism has killed huge numbers of people intentionally, even more of its victims have died from starvation as a result of its cruel projects of social engineering.”[50][an]
Criticism is mostly focused on three aspects, namely that the estimates are based on sparse and incomplete data when significant errors are inevitable,[51][52][53] the figures are skewed to higher possible values,[51][54][ao] and victims of civil wars, Holodomor, and other famines, and wars involving communist governments should not be counted.[51][55][56] Criticism of the high-end estimates such as Rummel’s have focused on two aspects, namely his choice of data sources and his statistical approach. Historical sources Rummel based his estimates upon can rarely serve as sources of reliable figures.[57] The statistical approach Rummel used to analyze big sets of diverse estimates may lead to dilution of useful data with noisy ones.[57][58]
Another common criticism, as articulated by anthropologist and former European communist regimes specialist Kristen Ghodsee and other scholars, is that the body-counting reflects an anti-communist point of view and is mainly approached by anti-communist scholars, and is part of the popular “victims of communism” narrative,[59][60] with 100 million being the most common, popularly used estimate,[61][ap] which is used not only to discredit the communist movement but the whole political left.[62][aq] Anti-communist organizations seek to institutionalize the “victims of communism” narrative as a double genocide theory, or the moral equivalence between the Nazi Holocaust (race murder) and those killed by communist regimes (class murder).[59][63] Alongside philosopher Scott Sehon, Ghodsee wrote that “quibbling about numbers is unseemly. What matters is that many, many people were killed by communist regimes.”[63] The same body-counting can be easily applied to other ideologies or systems, such as capitalism.[61][ar][63][as]
Klas-Göran Karlsson writes: “Ideologies are systems of ideas, which cannot commit crimes independently. However, individuals, collectives and states that have defined themselves as communist have committed crimes in the name of communist ideology, or without naming communism as the direct source of motivation for their crimes.”[64] Academics such as Daniel Goldhagen,[65]Richard Pipes,[66] and John Gray[67] have written books about communist regimes for a popular audience, and scholars such as Rudolph Rummel consider the ideology of communism to be a significant causative factor in mass killings.[51][68] In the introduction to The Black Book of Communism, Stéphane Courtois claims an association between communism and criminality, stating that “Communist regimes … turned mass crime into a full-blown system of government”,[69] while adding that this criminality lies at the level of ideology rather than state practice.[70]The last issue, printed in red ink, of Karl Marx’s journal Neue Rheinische Zeitung from 19 May 1849
Professor Mark Bradley writes that communist theory and practice has often been in tension with human rights and most communist states followed the lead of Karl Marx in rejecting “Enlightenment-era inalienable individual political and civil rights” in favor of “collective economic and social rights.”[z] Christopher J. Finlay posits that Marxism legitimates violence without any clear limiting principle because it rejects moral and ethical norms as constructs of the dominant class, and states that “it would be conceivable for revolutionaries to commit atrocious crimes in bringing about a socialist system, with the belief that their crimes will be retroactively absolved by the new system of ethics put in place by the proletariat.”[at]Rustam Singh states that Marx had alluded to the possibility of peaceful revolution; after the failed Revolutions of 1848, Singh states that Marx emphasized the need for violent revolution and revolutionary terror.[au]
Literary historian George Watson cited an 1849 article written by Friedrich Engels called “The Hungarian Struggle” and published in Marx’s journal Neue Rheinische Zeitung, stating that the writings of Engels and others show that “the Marxist theory of history required and demanded genocide for reasons implicit in its claim that feudalism, which in advanced nations was already giving place to capitalism, must in its turn be superseded by socialism. Entire nations would be left behind after a workers’ revolution, feudal remnants in a socialist age, and since they could not advance two steps at a time, they would have to be killed. They were racial trash, as Engels called them, and fit only for the dung-heap of history.”[71][av] Watson’s claims have been criticized for dubious evidence by Robert Grant, who commented that “what Marx and Engels are calling for is … at the very least a kind of cultural genocide; but it is not obvious, at least from Watson’s citations, that actual mass killing, rather than (to use their phraseology) mere ‘absorption’ or ‘assimilation’, is in question.”[72] Talking about Engels’ 1849 article, historian Andrzej Walicki states: “It is difficult to deny that this was an outright call for genocide.”[73]Jean-François Revel writes that Joseph Stalin recommended study of the 1849 Engels article in his 1924 book On Lenin and Leninism.[aw]
According to Rummel, the killings committed by communist regimes can best be explained as the result of the marriage between absolute power and the absolutist ideology of Marxism.[74] Rummel states that “communism was like a fanatical religion. It had its revealed text and its chief interpreters. It had its priests and their ritualistic prose with all the answers. It had a heaven, and the proper behavior to reach it. It had its appeal to faith. And it had its crusades against nonbelievers. What made this secular religion so utterly lethal was its seizure of all the state’s instruments of force and coercion and their immediate use to destroy or control all independent sources of power, such as the church, the professions, private businesses, schools, and the family.”[75] Rummels writes that Marxist communists saw the construction of their utopia as “though a war on poverty, exploitation, imperialism and inequality. And for the greater good, as in a real war, people are killed. And, thus, this war for the communist utopia had its necessary enemy casualties, the clergy, bourgeoisie, capitalists, wreckers, counterrevolutionaries, rightists, tyrants, rich, landlords, and noncombatants that unfortunately got caught in the battle. In a war millions may die, but the cause may be well justified, as in the defeat of Hitler and an utterly racist Nazism. And to many communists, the cause of a communist utopia was such as to justify all the deaths.”[74]
Benjamin Valentino writes that “apparently high levels of political support for murderous regimes and leaders should not automatically be equated with support for mass killing itself. Individuals are capable of supporting violent regimes or leaders while remaining indifferent or even opposed to specific policies that these regimes and carried out.” Valentino quotes Vladimir Brovkin as saying that “a vote for the Bolsheviks in 1917 was not a vote for Red Terror or even a vote for a dictatorship of the proletariat.”[76] According to Valentino, such strategies were so violent because they economically dispossess large numbers of people,[ax][s] commenting: “Social transformations of this speed and magnitude have been associated with mass killing for two primary reasons. First, the massive social dislocations produced by such changes have often led to economic collapse, epidemics, and, most important, widespread famines. … The second reason that communist regimes bent on the radical transformation of society have been linked to mass killing is that the revolutionary changes they have pursued have clashed inexorably with the fundamental interests of large segments of their populations. Few people have proved willing to accept such far-reaching sacrifices without intense levels of coercion.”[77] According to Jacques Sémelin, “communist systems emerging in the twentieth century ended up destroying their own populations, not because they planned to annihilate them as such, but because they aimed to restructure the ‘social body’ from top to bottom, even if that meant purging it and recarving it to suit their new Promethean political imaginaire.“[ay]
Daniel Chirot and Clark McCauley write that, especially in Joseph Stalin‘s Soviet Union, Mao Zedong‘s China, and Pol Pot‘s Cambodia, a fanatical certainty that socialism could be made to work motivated communist leaders in “the ruthless dehumanization of their enemies, who could be suppressed because they were ‘objectively’ and ‘historically’ wrong. Furthermore, if events did not work out as they were supposed to, then that was because class enemies, foreign spies and saboteurs, or worst of all, internal traitors were wrecking the plan. Under no circumstances could it be admitted that the vision itself might be unworkable, because that meant capitulation to the forces of reaction.”[az] Michael Mann writes that communist party members were “ideologically driven, believing that in order to create a new socialist society, they must lead in socialist zeal. Killings were often popular, the rank-and-file as keen to exceed killing quotas as production quotas.”[ba] According to Vladimir Tismăneanu, “the Communist project, in such countries as the USSR, China, Cuba, Romania, or Albania, was based precisely on the conviction that certain social groups were irretrievably alien and deservedly murdered.”[bb] Alex Bellamy writes that “communism’s ideology of selective extermination” of target groups was first developed and applied by Joseph Stalin but that “each of the communist regimes that massacred large numbers of civilians during the Cold War developed their own distinctive account”,[bc] while Steven T. Katz states that distinctions based on class and nationality, stigmatized and stereotyped in various ways, created an “otherness” for victims of communist rule that was important for legitimating oppression and death.[bd]Martin Shaw writes that “nationalist ideas were at the heart of many mass killings by Communist states”, beginning with Stalin’s “new nationalist doctrine of ‘socialism in one country'”, and killing by revolutionary movements in the Third World was done in the name of national liberation.[be]
Anne Applebaum writes that “without exception, the Leninist belief in the one-party state was and is characteristic of every communist regime” and “the Bolshevik use of violence was repeated in every communist revolution.” Phrases said by Vladimir Lenin and Cheka founder Felix Dzerzhinsky were deployed all over the world. Applebaum states that as late as 1976, Mengistu Haile Mariam unleashed a Red Terror in Ethiopia.[78] To his colleagues in the Bolshevik government, Lenin was quoted as saying: “If we are not ready to shoot a saboteur and White Guardist, what sort of revolution is that?”[79]
Robert Conquest stressed that Stalin’s purges were not contrary to the principles of Leninism but rather a natural consequence of the system established by Lenin, who personally ordered the killing of local groups of class enemy hostages.[80]Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev, architect of perestroika and glasnost and later head of the Presidential Commission for the Victims of Political Repression, elaborates on this point, stating: “The truth is that in punitive operations Stalin did not think up anything that was not there under Lenin: executions, hostage taking, concentration camps, and all the rest.”[81] Historian Robert Gellately concurs, commenting: “To put it another way, Stalin initiated very little that Lenin had not already introduced or previewed.”[82]
Stephen Hicks of Rockford College ascribes the violence characteristic of 20th-century socialist rule to these collectivist regimes’ abandonment of protections of civil rights and rejection of the values of civil society. Hicks writes that whereas “in practice every liberal capitalist country has a solid record for being humane, for by and large respecting rights and freedoms, and for making it possible for people to put together fruitful and meaningful lives”, in socialism “practice has time and again proved itself more brutal than the worst dictatorships prior to the twentieth century. Each socialist regime has collapsed into dictatorship and begun killing people on a huge scale.”[83][undue weight? – discuss]
Eric D. Weitz says that the mass killing in communist states is a natural consequence of the failure of the rule of law, seen commonly during periods of social upheaval in the 20th century. For both communist and non-communist mass killings, “genocides occurred at moments of extreme social crisis, often generated by the very policies of the regimes”,[84] and are not inevitable but are political decisions.[84]Steven Rosefielde writes that communist rulers had to choose between changing course and “terror-command” and more often than not chose the latter.[bf] Michael Mann posits that a lack of institutionalized authority structures meant that a chaotic mix of both centralized control and party factionalism were factors in the killing.[ba]
Leaders
Professor Matthew Krain states that many scholars have pointed to revolutions and civil wars as providing the opportunity for radical leaders and ideologies to gain power and the preconditions for mass killing by the state.[bg] Professor Nam Kyu Kim writes that exclusionary ideologies are critical to explaining mass killing, but the organizational capabilities and individual characteristics of revolutionary leaders, including their attitudes towards risk and violence, are also important. Besides opening up political opportunities for new leaders to eliminate their political opponents, revolutions bring to power leaders who are more apt to commit large-scale acts of violence against civilians in order to legitimize and strengthen their own power.[85] Genocide scholar Adam Jones states that the Russian Civil War was very influential on the emergence of leaders like Stalin and it also accustomed people to “harshness, cruelty, terror.”[bh]Martin Malia called the “brutal conditioning” of the two World Wars important to understanding communist violence, although not its source.[86]
Historian Helen Rappaport describes Nikolay Yezhov, the bureaucrat who was in charge of the NKVD during the Great Purge, as a physically diminutive figure of “limited intelligence” and “narrow political understanding. … Like other instigators of mass murder throughout history, [he] compensated for his lack of physical stature with a pathological cruelty and the use of brute terror.”[87]Russian and world history scholar John M. Thompson places personal responsibility directly on Joseph Stalin. According to him, “much of what occurred only makes sense if it stemmed in part from the disturbed mentality, pathological cruelty, and extreme paranoia of Stalin himself. Insecure, despite having established a dictatorship over the party and country, hostile and defensive when confronted with criticism of the excesses of collectivization and the sacrifices required by high-tempo industrialization, and deeply suspicious that past, present, and even yet unknown future opponents were plotting against him, Stalin began to act as a person beleaguered. He soon struck back at enemies, real or imaginary.”[88] Professors Pablo Montagnes and Stephane Wolton posit that the purges in the Soviet Union and China can be attributed to the personalist leadership of Stalin and Mao, who were incentivized by having both control of the security apparatus used to carry out the purges and control of the appointment of replacements for those purged.[bi] Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek attributes Mao allegedly viewing human life as disposable to his “cosmic perspective” on humanity.[bj]
Adam Jones writes that “there is very little in the record of human experience to match the violence which was unleashed between 1917, when the Bolsheviks took power, and 1953, when Joseph Stalin died and the Soviet Union moved to adopt a more restrained and largely non-murderous domestic policy.” Jones states that the exceptions to this were the Khmer Rouge (in relative terms) and Mao’s rule in China (in absolute terms).[89]
Stephen G. Wheatcroft says that prior to the opening of the Soviet archives for historical research, “our understanding of the scale and the nature of Soviet repression has been extremely poor” and that some scholars who wish to maintain pre-1991 high estimates are “finding it difficult to adapt to the new circumstances when the archives are open and when there are plenty of irrefutable data”, and instead “hang on to their old Sovietological methods with round-about calculations based on odd statements from emigres and other informants who are supposed to have superior knowledge”, although he acknowledged that even the figures estimated from the additional documents are not “final or definitive.”[90][91] In the 2007 revision of his book The Great Terror,Robert Conquest estimates that while exact numbers will never be certain, the communist leaders of the Soviet Union were responsible for no fewer than 15 million deaths.[bk]
According to Nicolas Werth, the policy of decossackization amounted to an attempt by Soviet leaders to “eliminate, exterminate, and deport the population of a whole territory.”[104] In the early months of 1919, perhaps 10,000 to 12,000 Cossacks were executed[105][106] and many more deported after their villages were razed to the ground.[107] Historian Michael Kort wrote: “During 1919 and 1920, out of a population of approximately 1.5 million Don Cossacks, the Bolshevik regime killed or deported an estimated 300,000 to 500,000.”[108]
Estimates of the number of deaths which were brought about by Stalin’s rule are hotly debated by scholars in the fields of Soviet and Communist studies.[109][110] Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the archival revelations which followed it, some historians estimated that the number of people who were killed by Stalin’s regime was 20 million or higher.[92][111][112]Michael Parenti writes that estimates on the Stalinist death toll vary widely in part because such estimates are based on anecdotes in absence of reliable evidence and “speculations by writers who never reveal how they arrive at such figures.”[113]
After the Soviet Union dissolved, evidence from the Soviet archives became available, containing official records of the execution of approximately 800,000 prisoners under Stalin for either political or criminal offenses, around 1.7 million deaths in the Gulags and some 390,000 deaths which occurred during kulakforced settlements in the Soviet Union, for a total of about 3 million officially recorded victims in these categories.[bm] According to Golfo Alexopoulos, Anne Applebaum, Oleg Khlevniuk, and Michael Ellman, official Soviet documentation of Gulag deaths is widely considered inadequate, as they write that the government frequently released prisoners on the edge of death in order to avoid officially counting them.[114][115] A 1993 study of archival data by J. Arch Gettyet al. showed that a total of 1,053,829 people died in the Gulag from 1934 to 1953.[116] In 2010, Steven Rosefielde posited that this number has to be augmented by 19.4 percent in light of more complete archival evidence to 1,258,537, with the best estimate of Gulag deaths being 1.6 million from 1929 to 1953 when excess mortality is taken into account.[117] Alexopolous estimates a much higher total of at least 6 million dying in the Gulag or shortly after release.[118] Dan Healey has called her work a “challenge to the emergent scholarly consensus”,[bn] while Jeffrey Hardy has criticized Alexopoulos for basing her assertions primarily on indirect and misinterpreted evidence.[119]
According to historian Stephen G. Wheatcroft, Stalin’s regime can be charged with causing the purposive deaths of about a million people.[120] Wheatcroft excludes all famine deaths as purposive deaths and posits that those which qualify fit more closely the category of execution rather than murder.[120] Others posit that some of the actions of Stalin’s regime, not only those during the Holodomor but also dekulakization and targeted campaigns against particular ethnic groups, such as the Polish operation of the NKVD, can be considered as genocide[121][122] at least in its loose definition.[123] Modern data for the whole of Stalin’s rule was summarized by Timothy Snyder, who stated that under the Stalinist regime there were six million direct deaths and nine million in total, including the deaths from deportation, hunger, and Gulag deaths.[bo] Ellman attributes roughly 3 million deaths to the Stalinist regime, excluding excess mortality from famine, disease, and war.[124] Several popular press authors, among them Stalin biographer Simon Sebag Montefiore, Soviet/Russian historian Dmitri Volkogonov, and the director of Yale‘s “Annals of Communism” series Jonathan Brent, still put the death toll from Stalin at about 20 million.[bp][bq][br][bs][bt]
The Soviet government during Stalin’s rule conducted a series of deportations on an enormous scale that significantly affected the ethnic map of the Soviet Union. Deportations took place under extremely harsh conditions, often in cattle carriages, with hundreds of thousands of deportees dying en route.[125] Some experts estimate that the proportion of deaths from the deportations could be as high as one in three in certain cases.[bu][126]Raphael Lemkin, a lawyer of Polish-Jewish descent who initiated the Genocide Convention in 1948 and coined genocide, assumed that genocide was perpetrated in the context of the mass deportation of the Chechens, Ingush people, Volga Germans, Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, and Karachays.[127]
Regarding the fate of the Crimean Tatars, Amir Weiner of Stanford University writes that the policy could be classified as ethnic cleansing. In the book Century of Genocide, Lyman H. Legters writes: “We cannot properly speak of a completed genocide, only of a process that was genocidal in its potentiality.”[128] In contrast to this view, Jon K. Chang posits that the deportations had been in fact based on genocides based on ethnicity and that “social historians” in the West have failed to champion the rights of marginalized ethnicities in the Soviet Union.[129] This view is supported by several countries. On 12 December 2015, the Ukrainian Parliament issued a resolution recognizing the 1944 deportation of Crimean Tatars (the Sürgünlik) as genocide and established the 18th of May as the Day of Remembrance for the victims of the Crimean Tatar Genocide.[130] The Parliament of Latvia recognized the event as an act of genocide on 9 May 2019.[131][132] The Parliament of Lithuania did the same on 6 June 2019.[133] The Parliament of Canada passed a motion on 10 June 2019, recognizing the Crimean Tatar deportation as a genocide perpetrated by Soviet dictator Stalin, designating the 18th of May to be a day of remembrance.[134] The deportation of Chechens and Ingush was acknowledged by the European Parliament as an act of genocide in 2004, stating:[135] “Believes that the deportation of the entire Chechen people to Central Asia on 23 February 1944 on the orders of Stalin constitutes an act of genocide within the meaning of the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907 and the Convention for the Prevention and Repression of the Crime of Genocide adopted by the UN General Assembly on 9 December 1948.”[136]
Within the Soviet Union, forced changes in agricultural policies (collectivization), confiscations of grain and droughts caused the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 in the Ukrainian SSR (Holodomor), North Caucasus Krai, Volga region, and Kazakh SSR.[137][138][139] The famine was most severe in Ukrainian, where it is often referenced as the Holodomor. A significant portion of the famine victims (3.3 to 7.5 million) were Ukrainians.[140][141][142] Another part of the famine was that in Kazakhstan, also known as the Kazakh catastrophe, when more than 1.3 million ethnic Kazakhs (about 38% of the population) died.[143][144]
While there is still a debate among scholars on whether the Holodomor was a genocide, some scholars say the Stalinist policies that caused the famine may have been designed as an attack on the rise of Ukrainian nationalism[145] and may fall under the legal definition of genocide by the United Nations‘s Genocide Convention.[137][146][147][148] The famine was officially recognized as genocide by the Ukraine and other governments.[149][bv] In a draft resolution, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe declared that the famine was caused by the “cruel and deliberate actions and policies of the Soviet regime” and was responsible for the deaths of “millions of innocent people” in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Russia. Relative to its population, Kazakhstan is believed to have been the most adversely affected.[150] Regarding the Kazakh famine, Michael Ellman states that it “seems to be an example of ‘negligent genocide’ which falls outside the scope of the UN Convention of genocide.”[151]
Stalin’s attempts to solidify his position as leader of the Soviet Union led to an escalation of detentions and executions, climaxing in 1937–1938, a period sometimes referred to as the Yezhovshchina’ after Cheka official Nikolay Yezhov, or Yezhov era, and continuing until Stalin’s death in 1953. Around 700,000 of these were executed by a gunshot to the back of the head.[153] Others perished from beatings and torture while in “investigative custody”[154] and in the Gulag due to starvation, disease, exposure, and overwork.[bw]
Arrests were typically made citing Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code) about counter-revolutionary laws, which included failure to report treasonous actions and in an amendment added in 1937 failing to fulfill one’s appointed duties. In the cases investigated by the State Security Department of the NKVD from October 1936 to November 1938, at least 1,710,000 people were arrested and 724,000 people executed.[155] Modern historical studies estimate a total number of repression deaths during 1937–1938 as 950,000–1,200,000. These figures take into account the incompleteness of official archival data and include both execution deaths and Gulag deaths during that period.[bw] Former kulaks and their families made up the majority of victims, with 669,929 people arrested and 376,202 executed.[156]
The NKVD conducted a series of national operations which targeted some ethnic groups.[157] A total of 350,000 were arrested and 247,157 were executed.[158] Of these, the Polish operation of the NKVD, which targeted the members of Polska Organizacja Wojskowa, appears to have been the largest, with 140,000 arrests and 111,000 executions.[157] Although these operations might well constitute genocide as defined by the United Nations convention,[157] or “a mini-genocide” according to Simon Sebag Montefiore,[158] there is as yet no authoritative ruling on the legal characterization of these events.[123] Citing church documents, Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev has estimated that over 100,000 priests, monks, and nuns were executed during this time.[159][160] Regarding the persecution of clergy, Michael Ellman has stated that “the 1937–38 terror against the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church and of other religions (Binner & Junge 2004) might also qualify as genocide.”[161] In the summer and autumn of 1937, Stalin sent NKVD agents to the Mongolian People’s Republic and engineered a Mongolian Great Terror[162] in which some 22,000[163] or 35,000[164] people were executed. Around 18,000 victims were Buddhist lamas.[163] In Belarus, mass graves for several thousand civilians killed by the NKVD between 1937 and 1941 were discovered in 1988 at Kurapaty.[165]
Following the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, NKVD task forces started removing “Soviet-hostile elements” from the conquered territories.[166] The NKVD systematically practiced torture which often resulted in death.[167][168] According to the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, 150,000 Polish citizens perished due to Soviet repression during the war.[169][170] The most notorious killings occurred in the spring of 1940, when the NKVD executed some 21,857 Polish POWs and intellectual leaders in what has become known as the Katyn massacre.[171][172][173] Executions were also carried out after the annexation of the Baltic states.[174] During the initial phases of Operation Barbarossa, the NKVD and attached units of the Red Army massacred prisoners and political opponents by the tens of thousands before fleeing from the advancing Axis powers forces.[175] Memorial complexes have been built at NKVD execution sites at Katyn and Mednoye in Russia, as well as a “third killing field” at Piatykhatky, Ukraine.[176]
The Chinese Communist Party came to power in China in 1949 after a long and bloody civil war between communists and the nationalist Kuomintang. There is a general consensus among historians that after Mao Zedong seized power, his policies and political purges directly or indirectly caused the deaths of tens of millions of people.[177][178][179] Based on the Soviets’ experience, Mao considered violence to be necessary in order to achieve an ideal society that would be derived from Marxism and as a result he planned and executed violence on a grand scale.[180][181]
The first large-scale killings under Mao took place during his land reform and the campaign to suppress counter-revolutionaries. According to Daniel Goldhagen, official study materials published in 1948 show that Mao envisaged that “one-tenth of the peasants”, or about 50,000,000, “would have to be destroyed” to facilitate agrarian reform.[182] The exact number of people who were killed during Mao’s land reform is believed to have been lower; according to Rudolph Rummel and Philip Short, at least one million people were killed.[180][183] The suppression of counter-revolutionaries targeted mainly former Kuomintang officials and intellectuals who were suspected of disloyalty.[184] According to Yang Kuisong, at least 712,000 people were executed and 1,290,000 were imprisoned in labor camps known as Laogai.[185]
Benjamin Valentino posits that the Great Leap Forward was a cause of the Great Chinese Famine and the worst effects of the famine were steered towards the regime’s enemies.[186] Those who were labeled “black elements” (religious leaders, rightists, and rich peasants) in earlier campaigns died in the greatest numbers because they were given the lowest priority in the allocation of food.[186] In Mao’s Great Famine, historian Frank Dikötter writes that “coercion, terror, and systematic violence were the very foundation of the Great Leap Forward” and it “motivated one of the most deadly mass killings of human history.”[187] Dikötter estimates that at least 2.5 million people were summarily killed or tortured to death during this period.[188] His research in local and provincial Chinese archives indicates the death toll was at least 45 million: “In most cases the party knew very well that it was starving its own people to death.”[189] In a secret meeting at Shanghai in 1959, Mao issued the order to procure one third of all grain from the countryside, saying: “When there is not enough to eat people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.”[189] In light of additional evidence of Mao’s culpability, Rummel added those killed by the Great Famine to his total for Mao’s democide for a total of 77 million killed.[41][bx]
According to Jean-Louis Margolin in The Black Book of Communism, the Chinese communists carried out a cultural genocide against the Tibetans. Margolin states that the killings were proportionally larger in Tibet than they were in China proper and “one can legitimately speak of genocidal massacres because of the numbers that were involved.”[190] According to the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration, “Tibetans were not only shot, but they were also beaten to death, crucified, burned alive, drowned, mutilated, starved, strangled, hanged, boiled alive, buried alive, drawn and quartered, and beheaded.”[190]Adam Jones, a scholar who specializes in genocide, states that after the 1959 Tibetan uprising, the Chinese authorized struggle sessions against reactionaries, during which “communist cadres denounced, tortured, and frequently executed enemies of the people.” These sessions resulted in 92,000 deaths out of a total population of about 6 million. These deaths, Jones stressed, may not only be seen as a genocide, but they may also be seen as an eliticide, meaning “targeting the better educated and leadership oriented elements among the Tibetan population.”[191]Patrick French, the former director of the Free Tibet Campaign in London, writes that the Free Tibet Campaign and other groups have claimed that a total of 1.2 million Tibetans were killed by the Chinese since 1950 but after examining archives in Dharamsala, he found “no evidence to support that figure.”[192] French states that a reliable alternative number is unlikely to be known but estimates that as many as half a million Tibetans died “as a ‘direct result’ of the policies of the People’s Republic of China”, using historian Warren Smith’s estimate of 200,000 people who are missing from population statistics in the Tibet Autonomous Region and extending that rate to the borderland regions.[193]
Sinologists Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals estimate that between 750,000 and 1.5 million people were killed in the violence of the Cultural Revolution in rural China alone.[194] Mao’s Red Guards were given carte blanche to abuse and kill people who were perceived to be enemies of the revolution.[195] Sociologist Yang Su has written that these mass killing were an outcome of “the paradox of state sponsorship and state failure”; according to Yang, mass killings were concentrated in rural areas in the months after the establishment of county revolutionary committees, with mass killing being more likely in communities with more local party members. Repression by the local organizations may have been in response to the rhetoric of violence promoted by the provincial capitals as a result of mass factionalism in those capitals, and the “peaks of mass killings coincided with two announcements from the party center in July 1968 banning factional armed battles and disbanding mass organizations”;[by] Yang writes that Mao’s government designated class enemies using an artificial and arbitrary standard to accomplish two political tasks: “mobilizing mass compliance and resolving elite conflict”, while the elastic nature of the category allowed it to “take on a genocidal dimension under extraordinary circumstances.”[bz] Political scientists Evgeny Finkel and Scott Straus write that Su estimates up to three million people were “murdered by their neighbors in collective killings and struggle rallies. This happened even though the central government had not issued any mass killing orders or policies.”[196]
In August 1966, over 100 teachers were murdered by their students in western Beijing.[197]
Jean-Louis Margolin states that under Deng Xiaoping, at least 1,000 people were killed in Beijing and hundreds of people were also executed in the countryside after his government crushed demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989.[198] According to Louisa Lim in 2014, a group of victims’ relatives in China called the “Tiananmen Mothers” has confirmed the identities of more than 200 of those who were killed.[199] Alex Bellamy writes that this “tragedy marks the last time in which an episode of mass killing in East Asia was terminated by the perpetrators themselves, judging that they had succeeded.”[200]
The Killing Fields are a number of sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and their bodies were buried by the Khmer Rouge regime during its rule of the country, which lasted from 1975 to 1979, after the end of the Cambodian Civil War. Sociologist Martin Shaw described the Cambodian genocide as “the purest genocide of the Cold War era.”[201] The results of a demographic study of the Cambodian genocide concluded that the nationwide death toll from 1975 to 1979 amounted to 1,671,000 to 1,871,000, or 21 to 24 percent of the total Cambodian population as it was estimated to number before the Khmer Rouge took power.[202] According to Ben Kiernan, the number of deaths which were specifically caused by execution is still unknown because many victims died from starvation, disease and overwork.[202] Researcher Craig Etcheson of the Documentation Center of Cambodia suggests that the death toll was between 2 and 2.5 million, with a “most likely” figure of 2.2 million. After spending five years researching about 20,000 grave sites, he posited that “these mass graves contain the remains of 1,112,829 victims of execution.”[203] A study by French demographer Marek Sliwinski calculated slightly fewer than 2 million unnatural deaths under the Khmer Rouge out of a 1975 Cambodian population of 7.8 million, with 33.5% of Cambodian men dying under the Khmer Rouge compared to 15.7% of Cambodian women.[204] The number of suspected victims of execution who were found in 23,745 mass graves is estimated to be 1.3 million according to a 2009 academic source. Execution is believed to account for roughly 60% of the total death toll during the genocide, with other victims succumbing to starvation or disease.[205]
Helen Fein, a genocide scholar, states that the xenophobic ideology of the Khmer Rouge regime bears a stronger resemblance to “an almost forgotten phenomenon of national socialism”, or fascism, rather than communism.[206] Responding to Ben Kiernan‘s “argument that Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea regime was more racist and generically totalitarian than Marxist or specifically Communist”, Steve Heder states that the example of such racialist thought as it is applied in relation to the minority Cham people echoed “Marx’s definition of a historyless people doomed to extinction in the name of progress” and it was therefore a part of general concepts of class and class struggle.[207] Craig Etcheson writes that data on the distribution and origin of the mass graves as well as internal Khmer Rouge security documents, leads to the conclusion that “most of the violence was carried out pursuant to orders from the highest political authorities of the Communist Party of Kampuchea”, rather than being the result of the “spontaneous excesses of a vengeful, undisciplined peasant army”,[ca] while French historian Henri Locard writes that the fascist label was applied to the Khmer Rouge by the Communist Party of Vietnam as a form of revisionism, but the repression which existed under the rule of the Khmer Rouge was “similar (if significantly more lethal) to the repression in all communist regimes.”[204] Daniel Goldhagen states that the Khmer Rouge were xenophobic because they believed that the Khmer people were “the one authentic people capable of building true communism.”[208]Steven Rosefielde writes that Democratic Kampuchea was the deadliest of all communist regimes on a per capita basis, primarily because it “lacked a viable productive core” and it “failed to set boundaries on mass murder.”[209]
Killing Field mass graves at the Choeung Ek Cambodian Genocide centre
Chankiri Tree (Killing Tree) at Choeung Ek, where infants were fatally smashed during the genocide
Other states
Barbara Harff and Ted Gurr write: “Most Marxist–Leninist regimes which came to power through protracted armed struggle in the postwar period perpetrated one or more politicides, though of vastly different magnitudes.”[cb] According to Benjamin Valentino, most regimes that described themselves as communist did not commit mass killings, but in communist states such as Bulgaria, Romania, and East Germany, mass killings were committed on a scale which was smaller than his standard of 50,000 people who were killed within a period of five years, although the lack of documentation prevents a definitive judgement about the scale of these events and the motives of their perpetrators.[210] Atsushi Tago and Frank Wayman write that because democide is broader than mass killing or genocide, most communist regimes can be said to have engaged in it, including the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, North Vietnam, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, North Korea, Cuba, Laos, Albania, and Yugoslavia.[211]
People’s Republic of Bulgaria
According to Valentino, between 50,000 and 100,000 people may have been killed in Bulgaria beginning in 1944 as part of a campaign of agricultural collectivization and political repression, although there is insufficient documentation to make a definitive judgement.[212] In his book History of Communism in Bulgaria, Dinyu Sharlanov accounts for about 31,000 people who were killed by the regime between 1944 and 1989.[213][214]
According to Valentino, between 80,000 and 100,000 people may have been killed in East Germany beginning in 1945 as part of the Soviet denazification campaign; other scholars posit that these estimates are inflated.[212][215][216]A memorial to dead prisoners at an NKVD special camp in Germany
Immediately after World War II, denazification commenced in Allied-occupied Germany and regions the Nazis had annexed. In the Soviet occupation zone of Germany, the NKVD established prison camps, usually in abandoned Nazi concentration camps, and they used them to intern alleged Nazis and Nazi German officials, along with some landlords and Prussian Junkers. According to files and data released by the Soviet Ministry for the Interior in 1990, 123,000 Germans and 35,000 citizens of other nations were detained. Of these prisoners, a total of 786 people were shot and 43,035 people died of various causes. Most of the deaths were not direct killings but were caused by outbreaks of dysentery and tuberculosis. Deaths from starvation also occurred on a large scale, particularly from late 1946 to early 1947, but these deaths do not appear to have been deliberate killings because food shortages were widespread in the Soviet occupation zone. The prisoners in the “silence camps”, as the NKVD special camps were called, did not have access to the black market and were only able to get food that was handed to them by the authorities. Some prisoners were executed and others may have been tortured to death. In this context, it is difficult to determine if the prisoner deaths in the silence camps can be categorized as mass killings. It is also difficult to determine how many of the dead were Germans, East Germans, or members of other nationalities.[217][218]
East Germany’s government erected the Berlin Wall following the Berlin Crisis of 1961. Even though crossing between East Germany and West Germany was possible for motivated and approved travelers, thousands of East Germans tried to defect by illegally crossing the wall. Of these, between 136 and 227 people were killed by the Berlin Wall’s guards during the years of the wall’s existence (1961-1989).[219][220]
According to Valentino, between 60,000 and 300,000 people may have been killed in Romania beginning in 1945 as part of agricultural collectivization and political repression.[212]
Dominic McGoldrick writes that as the head of a “highly centralised and oppressive” dictatorship, Tito wielded tremendous power in Yugoslavia, with his dictatorial rule administered through an elaborate bureaucracy which routinely suppressed human rights.[224] Eliott Behar states that “Tito’s Yugoslavia was a tightly controlled police state”,[225] and outside the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia had more political prisoners than all of the rest of Eastern Europe combined, according to David Mates.[226] Tito’s secret police was modelled on the Soviet KGB. Its members were ever-present and they often acted extrajudicially,[227] with victims including middle-class intellectuals, liberals, and democrats.[228] Yugoslavia was a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights but scant regard was paid to some of its provisions.[229]
The famine, which claimed as many as one million lives, has been described as the result of the economic policies pursued by the North Korean government[235] and deliberate “terror-starvation”;[236] in 2010, Steven Rosefielde stated that the Red Holocaust “still persists in North Korea”, as Kim Jong Il “refuses to abandon mass killing.”[237]Adam Jones cites journalist Jasper Becker‘s claim that the famine was a form of mass killing or genocide due to political manipulations of food.[238] Estimates based on a North Korean 2008 census suggest 240,000 to 420,000 excess deaths as a result of the 1990s North Korean famine and a demographic impact of 600,000 to 850,000 fewer people in North Korea in 2008 as a result of poor living conditions after the famine.[239]
Valentino attributes 80,000–200,000 deaths to “communist mass killings” in North and South Vietnam.[240]
According to scholarship based on Vietnamese and Hungarian archival evidence, as many as 15,000 suspected landlords were executed during North Vietnam’s land reform from 1953 to 1956.[cd][241][242] The North Vietnamese leadership planned in advance to execute 0.1% of North Vietnam’s population (estimated at 13.5 million in 1955) as “reactionary or evil landlords”, although this ratio could vary in practice.[243][244] Dramatic errors were committed in the course of the land reform campaign.[245] Vu Tuong states that the number of executions during North Vietnam’s land reform was proportionally comparable to executions during Chinese land reform from 1949 to 1952.[243]
According to Jay Ulfelder and Benjamin Valentino, the Fidel Castro government of Cuba killed between 5,000 and 8,335 noncombatants as a part of the campaign of political repression between 1959 and 1970.[246]
After the invasion in 1979, the Soviets installed the puppet government of Babrak Karmal. By 1987, about 80% of the country’s territory was permanently controlled by neither the pro-communist government and supporting Soviet troops nor by the armed opposition. To tip the balance, the Soviet Union used a tactic that was a combination of scorched earth policy and migratory genocide. By systematically burning the crops and destroying villages in rebel provinces as well as by reprisal bombing entire villages suspected of harboring or supporting the resistance, the Soviets tried to force the local population to move to Soviet controlled territory, thereby depriving the armed opposition of support.[251] Valentino attributes between 950,000 and 1,280,000 civilian deaths to the Soviet invasion and occupation of the country between 1978 and 1989, primarily as counter-guerrilla mass killing.[252] By the early 1990s, approximately one-third of Afghanistan’s population had fled the country.[ce] M. Hassan Kakar said that “the Afghans are among the latest victims of genocide by a superpower.”[253]
Amnesty International estimates that half a million people were killed during the Ethiopian Red Terror of 1977 and 1978.[254][255][256] During the terror, groups of people were herded into churches that were then burned down and women were subjected to systematic rape by soldiers.[257] The Save the Children Fund reported that victims of the Red Terror included not only adults, but 1,000 or more children, mostly aged between eleven and thirteen, whose corpses were left in the streets of Addis Ababa.[254] Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam himself is alleged to have killed political opponents with his bare hands.[258]
According to historian J. Arch Getty, over half of the 100 million deaths which are attributed to communism were due to famines.[259]Stéphane Courtois posits that many communist regimes caused famines in their efforts to forcibly collectivize agriculture and systematically used it as a weapon by controlling the food supply and distributing food on a political basis. Courtois states that “in the period after 1918, only Communist countries experienced such famines, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and in some cases millions, of people. And again in the 1980s, two African countries that claimed to be Marxist–Leninist, Ethiopia and Mozambique, were the only such countries to suffer these deadly famines.”[cf]
Scholars Stephen G. Wheatcroft, R. W. Davies, and Mark Tauger reject the idea that the Ukrainian famine was an act of genocide that was intentionally inflicted by the Soviet government.[260][261] Getty posits that the “overwhelming weight of opinion among scholars working in the new archives is that the terrible famine of the 1930s was the result of Stalinist bungling and rigidity rather than some genocidal plan.”[259] Novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn opined in a 2 April 2008 article in Izvestia that the 1930s famine in the Ukraine was no different from the Russian famine of 1921–1922, as both were caused by the ruthless robbery of peasants by Bolshevik grain procurements.[262]
Pankaj Mishra questions Mao’s direct responsibility for famine, stating: “A great many premature deaths also occurred in newly independent nations not ruled by erratic tyrants.” Mishra cites Nobel laureate Amartya Sen‘s research demonstrating that democratic India suffered more excess mortality from starvation and disease in the second half of the 20th century than China did. Sen wrote: “India seems to manage to fill its cupboard with more skeletons every eight years than China put there in its years of shame.”[263][264]
Benjamin Valentino writes: “Although not all the deaths due to famine in these cases were intentional, communist leaders directed the worst effects of famine against their suspected enemies and used hunger as a weapon to force millions of people to conform to the directives of the state.”[77]Daniel Goldhagen says that in some cases deaths from famine should not be distinguished from mass murder, commenting: “Whenever governments have not alleviated famine conditions, political leaders decided not to say no to mass death – in other words, they said yes.” Goldhagen says that instances of this occurred in the Mau Mau Rebellion, the Great Leap Forward, the Nigerian Civil War, the Eritrean War of Independence, and the War in Darfur.[265]Martin Shaw posits that if a leader knew the ultimate result of their policies would be mass death by famine, and they continue to enact them anyway these death can be understood as intentional.[266][cg]
Historian and journalists, such as Seumas Milne and Jon Wiener, have criticized the emphasis on communism when assigning blame for famines. In a 2002 article for The Guardian, Milne mentions “the moral blindness displayed towards the record of colonialism“, and he writes: “If Lenin and Stalin are regarded as having killed those who died of hunger in the famines of the 1920s and 1930s, then Churchill is certainly responsible for the 4 million deaths in the avoidable Bengal famine of 1943.” Milne laments that while “there is a much-lauded Black Book of Communism, [there exists] no such comprehensive indictment of the colonial record.”[267] Weiner makes a similar assertion while comparing the Holodomor and the Bengal famine of 1943, stating that Winston Churchill‘s role in the Bengal famine “seems similar to Stalin’s role in the Ukrainian famine.”[268] Historian Mike Davis, author of Late Victorian Holocausts, draws comparisons between the Great Chinese Famine and the Indian famines of the late 19th century, arguing that in both instances the governments which oversaw the response to the famines deliberately chose not to alleviate conditions and as such bear responsibility for the scale of deaths in said famines.[269]
Historian Michael Ellman is critical of the fixation on a “uniquely Stalinist evil” when it comes to excess deaths from famines. Ellman posits that mass deaths from famines are not a “uniquely Stalinist evil”, commenting that throughout Russian history, famines, and droughts have been a common occurrence, including the Russian famine of 1921–1922, which occurred before Stalin came to power. He also states that famines were widespread throughout the world in the 19th and 20th centuries in countries such as India, Ireland, Russia and China. According to Ellman, the G8 “are guilty of mass manslaughter or mass deaths from criminal negligence because of their not taking obvious measures to reduce mass deaths” and Stalin’s “behaviour was no worse than that of many rulers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”[124]
According to a 1992 constitutional amendment in the Czech Republic, a person who publicly denies, puts in doubt, approves, or tries to justify Nazi or communist genocide or other crimes of Nazis or communists will be punished with a prison term of 6 months to 3 years.[270] In 1992, Barbara Harff wrote that no communist country or governing body has ever been convicted of genocide.[271] In his 1999 foreword to The Black Book of Communism, Martin Malia wrote: “Throughout the former Communist world, moreover, virtually none of its responsible officials has been put on trial or punished. Indeed, everywhere Communist parties, though usually under new names, compete in politics.”[272]Mengistu Haile Mariam, the former communist leader of Ethiopia
In 1997, the Cambodian government asked the United Nations for assistance in setting up the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.[277][278][279] The prosecution presented the names of five possible suspects to the investigating judges on 18 July 2007.[277] On 26 July 2010, Kang Kek Iew (Comrade Duch), director of the S-21 prison camp in Democratic Kampuchea where more than 14,000 people were tortured and then murdered (mostly at nearby Choeung Ek), was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 35 years. His sentence was reduced to 19 years in part because he had been behind bars for 11 years.[280]Nuon Chea, second in command of the Khmer Rouge and its most senior surviving member, was charged of war crimes and crimes against humanity but not of genocide. On 7 August 2014, he was convicted of crimes against humanity by the Khmer Rouge Tribunal and received a life sentence.[281][282]Khieu Samphan, the Khmer Rouge head of state, was also convicted of crimes against humanity. In 2018, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were convicted of genocide for “the attempted extermination of the Cham and Vietnamese minorities.”[283]
After restoration of their independence in 1991, the Baltic states started investigating crimes against humanity committed during the Soviet occupation, with most criminal cases focusing on deportation of civilians and extrajudicial killing of forest brethren. In 2013 Rain Liivoja estimated that Estonia had convicted eleven, Latvia nine, and Lithuania about dozen persons. Some former Soviet officials like Alfons Noviks [lv], the former People’s Commissar of the Interior of the Latvian SSR, were explicitly convicted for genocide.[284]
On 26 November 2010, the Russian State Duma issued a declaration acknowledging Stalin’s responsibility for the Katyn massacre, the execution of over 21,000 Polish POW’s and intellectual leaders by Stalin’s NKVD. The declaration stated that archival material “not only unveils the scale of his horrific tragedy but also provides evidence that the Katyn crime was committed on direct orders from Stalin and other Soviet leaders.”[285][ch]
Monuments to the victims of communism exist in almost all the capitals of Eastern Europe and there are also several museums which document the crimes which occurred during communist rule such as the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights in Lithuania, the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia in Riga and the House of Terror in Budapest, all three of these museums also document the crimes which occurred during Nazi rule.[286][259] Several scholars, among them Kristen Ghodsee and Laure Neumayer, posit that these efforts seek to institutionalize the “victims of communism” narrative as a double genocide theory, or the moral equivalence between the Nazi Holocaust (race murder) and those killed by communist states (class murder),[59] and that works such as The Black Book of Communism played a major role in the criminalization of communism in the European political space in the post Cold War-era.[60] Zoltan Dujisin writes that “the Europeanization of an antitotalitarian ‘collective memory’ of communism reveals the emergence of a field of anticommunism” and the narrative is proposed by “anticommunist memory entrepreneurs.”[287]
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The concept of mass killing as a phenomenon unique to communist governments, or ideologically inherent within them, is heavily disputed.[61][63]
Many commentators on the political right state that the mass killings under communist regimes are an indictment of communism.[298][61][299] Opponents of this hypothesis state that these killings were aberrations caused by specific authoritarian regimes, and not caused by communism itself, and point to mass deaths in wars that they claim were caused by capitalism and anti-communism as a counterpoint to those killings.[ci][61][300][63]
^Krain 1997, pp. 331–332: “1. The literatures on state-sponsored mass murder and state terrorism have been plagued by definitional problems. Terms such as state-sponsored mass murder and state terrorism can be (and often are) easily confused and therefore need elaboration. The main difference between state-sponsored mass murder and state terrorism, for instance, is one of intentionality. The purpose behind policies of state-sponsored mass murder such as genocide or politicide is to eliminate an entire group (Gurr 1986, 67). The purpose behind policies of state terrorism is to ‘induce sharp fear and through that agency to effect a desired outcome in a conflict situation’ (Gurr 1986, 46). The former requires mass killings to accomplish its goal. The latter’s success is dependent on the persuasiveness of the fear tactics used. Mass killings may not be necessary to accomplish the particular goal. … 2. Genocides are mass killings in which the victim group is defined by association with a particular communal group. Politicides are mass killings in which ‘victim groups are defined primarily in terms of their hierarchical position or political opposition to the regime and dominant groups’ (Harff and Gurr 1988, 360). Interestingly, many of the instances coded by Harff and Gurr as ‘politicide’ are considered by much of the literature to be instances of state terrorism (e.g., Argentina, Chile, El Salvador) (Lopez 1984, 63). Evidently there is some overlap between state terrorism and some kinds of state-sponsored mass murder.”
^Valentino 2005, p. 9: “Mass killing and Genocide. No generally accepted terminology exists to describe the intentional killing of large numbers of noncombatants.”
^Karlsson & Schoenhals 2008, p. 6: “‘Crimes against humanity’ is a linguistically and logically cumbersome term when the aim is to analyse physical violence perpetrated by individual groups, institutions and states against specific victim groups in their own country, which is essentially the case in the context of communist regimes’ crimes against humanity. In addition, it is not in keeping with the terms that have long been used by the academic community. Naturally, the work of creating an inventory includes examining the terms used in practice by researchers in their analyses, and it is reasonable to assume that every time, every society and every paradigm has its own terms to refer to the crimes of communist regimes. Nonetheless, it is possible to establish at this early stage that researchers have long used the word terror to describe the crimes of the Soviet communist regime, regardless of the framework of interpretation to which they adhere. Although the extent to which the mass operations and forced deportations of specific ethnic groups ordered by Stalin before and during the Second World War can be defined as genocide is debated, there is agreement among researchers that the term ‘terror’ is the best reflection of the development of violence in Bolshevik Russia and in the communist Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin. As a result, terror will be the term most frequently used here in analysing the Soviet communist criminal history. On the other hand, the term terror is seldom used to describe the mass killings in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, which may be because it is less clear that the actual intention and stated motive of the Khmer Rouge was to terrorise people into submission. The term genocide, however, is relatively widely accepted and established in describing the systematic and selective crimes of the communist regime in Cambodia, although the use of this term is not entirely uncontroversial. Therefore, in analysing the criminal history of Cambodia, this term will be used in precise contexts dealing with the killing of a category of people, whereas more neutral terms such as mass killing and massacre are used to refer to the general use of violence. The terminology used in the Chinese criminal history is dealt with in detail as part of the section on China. … In the Soviet case, as Klas-Göran Karlsson so rightly notes, there is an ‘established term’ for the crimes of the regime, namely ‘terror’ – and this is used almost regardless of the general frameworks of interpretation employed by individual researchers. In the same way, he notes that ‘the term genocide is established and accepted as a description of the crimes of the Khmer Rouge’. In the case of the People’s Republic of China, however, there are no equivalent terms that are accepted or generally established in the academic community and that can be made use of in a research inventory. Bibliographies and search engines all speak their own clear language: those who carried out research on Maoism in its day made very limited use of words such as terror and genocide, and neither do these terms appear among the key terms that carry implicit clear explanations and are therefore regularly used by current foreign and Chinese historians.”
^Semelin 2009, p. 318: “‘Classicide’, in counterpoint to genocide, has a certain appeal, but it doesn’t convey the fact that communist regimes, beyond their intention of destroying ‘classes’ – a difficult notion to grasp in itself (what exactly is a ‘kulak’?) – end up making political suspicion a rule of government: even within the Party (and perhaps even mainly within the Party). The notion of ‘fratricide’ is probably more appropriate in this regard. That of ‘politicide’, which Ted Gurr and Barbara Harff suggest, remains the most intelligent, although it implies by contrast that ‘genocide’ is not ‘political’, which is debatable. These authors in effect explain that the aim of politicide is to impose total political domination over a group or a government. Its victims are defined by their position in the social hierarchy or their political opposition to the regime or this dominant group. Such an approach applies well to the political violence of communist powers and more particularly to Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea. The French historian Henri Locard in fact emphasises this, identifying with Gurr and Harff’s approach in his work on Cambodia. However, the term ‘politicide’ has little currency among some researchers because it has no legal validity in international law. That is one reason why Jean-Louis Margolin tends to recognise what happened in Cambodia as ‘genocide’ because, as he points out, to speak of ‘politicide’ amounts to considering Pol Pot’s crimes as less grave than those of Hitler. Again, the weight of justice interferes in the debate about concepts that, once again, argue strongly in favour of using the word genocide. But those so concerned about the issue of legal sanctions should also take into account another legal concept that is just as powerful, and better established: that of crime against humanity. In fact, legal scholars such as Antoine Garapon and David Boyle believe that the violence perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge is much more appropriately categorised under the heading of crime against humanity, even if genocidal tendencies can be identified, particularly against the Muslim minority. This accusation is just as serious as that of genocide (the latter moreover being sometimes considered as a subcategory of the former) and should thus be subject to equally severe sentences. I quite agree with these legal scholars, believing that the notion of ‘crime against humanity’ is generally better suited to the violence perpetrated by communist regimes, a viewpoint shared by Michael Mann.”
^Su 2011, pp. 7–8: “Killing civilians in large numbers is an age-old phenomenon. Since World War II, its conceptualization has been shaped by the enormity of the Holocaust, in which Hitler and the Nazi regime killed more than six million Jews. In 1948, the United Nations (UN) passed the ‘Convention of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.’ Lemkin and other framers clearly had the Holocaust in mind when they defined genocide as an act of a nation-state to eliminate an ethnic or national group. Other conceptions of genocide are also preoccupied by central state politics, state-led exterminations, and institutionalized state killers. Later scholars expanded the concept to include cases in which victims are defined other than by ethnic, national, or religious characteristics. Valentino uses the term mass killing instead, and defines it as ‘the intentional killing of a massive number of noncombatants.’ Other concepts such as politicide, democide, and classicide were developed to address killings in communist countries.”
^Weiss-Wendt 2008, p. 42: “The field of comparative genocide studies has grown beyond recognition over the past two decades, though more quantitatively than qualitatively. On the surface, everything looks good: the number of books on genocide has tripled within less than a decade; the field of comparative genocide studies has its own professional association and journals; more and more colleges and universities offer courses on genocide; several research institutions dedicated to the study of genocide have been established. If we are talking numbers, comparative genocide studies are indeed a success. Upon closer examination, however, genocide scholarship is ridden with contradictions. There is barely any other field of study that enjoys so little consensus on defining principles such as definition of genocide, typology, application of a comparative method, and timeframe. Considering that scholars have always put stress on prevention of genocide, comparative genocide studies have been a failure. Paradoxically, nobody has attempted so far to assess the field of comparative genocide studies as a whole. This is one of the reasons why those who define themselves as genocide scholars have not been able to detect the situation of crisis.”
^Ott 2011, p. 53: “As is customary in the literature on mass killing of civilians there is a need to restate here what mass killing is about. Although many definitions have been used — ‘genocide’, ‘politicide’ and ‘democide’ — there has emerged a sort of consensus that the term ‘mass killing’ is much more straightforward than either genocide or politicide. Harff (2003) makes a clear distinction from genocide, often used interchangeably with mass killing, by emphasizing the intention of the perpetrator. He [sic] posits: ‘genocide as an authority group’s sustained purposeful implementation or facilitation of policies designed to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group’ (Harff, 2003, p. 58). Although this definition encompasses the ethnic population, the emphasis here is on the objective function of the authority, which is the destruction in whole or part of the intended group. The second definition, politicide, limits the annihilation to a specific group. Politicide pertains when the victimized group is identified by its political opposition to the dominant party, rather than other communal characteristics (Harff, 2003, p. 58). Rummel (1995) advanced the democide label. It is defined as the ‘murder of any person or people by a government including genocide, politicide and mass murder’ (p. 3).”
^Semelin 2009, p. 37: “Mann thus establishes a sort of parallel between racial enemies and class enemies, thereby contributing to the debates on comparisons between Nazism and communism. This theory has also been developed by some French historians such as Stéphane Courtois and Jean-Louis Margolin in The Black Book of Communism: they view class genocide as the equivalent to racial genocide. Mann however refuses to use the term ‘genocide’ to describe the crimes committed under communism. He prefers the terms ‘fratricide’ and ‘classicide’, a word he coined to refer to intentional mass killings of entire social classes.”
^Rummel 1993: “First, however, I should clarify the term democide. It means for governments what murder means for an individual under municipal law. It is the premeditated killing of a person in cold blood, or causing the death of a person through reckless and wanton disregard for their life. Thus, a government incarcerating people in a prison under such deadly conditions that they die in a few years is murder by the state–democide–as would parents letting a child die from malnutrition and exposure be murder. So would government forced labor that kills a person within months or a couple of years be murder. So would government created famines that then are ignored or knowingly aggravated by government action be murder of those who starve to death. And obviously, extrajudicial executions, death by torture, government massacres, and all genocidal killing be murder. However, judicial executions for crimes that internationally would be considered capital offenses, such as for murder or treason (as long as it is clear that these are not fabricated for the purpose of executing the accused, as in communist show trials), are not democide. Nor is democide the killing of enemy soldiers in combat or of armed rebels, nor of noncombatants as a result of military action against military targets.”
^ Jump up to:abHarff 2003, p. 58: “First, the Convention does not include groups of victims defined by their political position or actions. Raphael Lemkin (1944) coined the term genocide and later sought the support of as many states as possible for a legal document that would outlaw mass killings and prescribe sanctions against potential perpetrators. Because the first draft of the Convention, which included political groups, was rejected by the USSR and its allies, the final draft omitted any reference to political mass murder (Le Blanc 1988). The concept of politicide is used here to encompass cases with politically defined victims, consistent with Fein’s (1993b, 12) line of reasoning that ‘mass killings of political groups show similarities in their causes, organization and motives.'”
^Williams 2008, p. 190: “A vital element of the evolution of genocide studies is the increased attention devoted to the mass killing of groups not primarily defined by ethnic or religious identities. Most vulnerable minorities around the world had been so defined when Lemkin was crafting his genocide framework, and when UN member states were drafting the Genocide Convention. Such groups continued to be targeted in the post-Second World War period, as in East Pakistan/ Bangladesh in 1971, or Guatemala between 1978 and 1984. But it became increasingly apparent that political groups were on the receiving end of some of the worst campaigns of mass killing, such as the devastating assault on the Indonesian Communist Party in 1965—1966 (with half a million to one million killed), and the brutal campaigns by Latin American and Asian military regimes against perceived dissidents in the 1970s and 1980s. One result of this re-evaluation was that the mass killing by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia between 1975 and 1978, previously ruled out as genocide or designated an ‘auto-genocide’ because most victims belonged to the same ethnic-Khmer group as their killers, came to be accepted as a classic instance of twentieth-century genocide. Detailed investigations were also launched into the hecatombs of casualties inflicted under Leninism and Stalinism in the post-revolutionary Soviet Union, and by Mao Zedong’s communists in China. In both of these cases—and to some degree in Cambodia as well—the majority of deaths resulted not from direct execution, but from the infliction of ‘conditions of life calculated to bring about [the] physical destruction’ of a group, in the language of Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention. In particular, the devastating famines that struck the Ukraine and other minority regions of the USSR in the early 1930s, and the even greater death-toll—numbering tens of millions—caused by famine during Mao’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ (1958—1962), were increasingly, though not uncontroversially, depicted as instances of mass killing underpinned by genocidal intent.”
^ Jump up to:abHackmann 2009: “A coining of communism as ‘red Holocaust,’ as had been suggested by the Munich Institut fur Zeitgeschichte, did not find much ground, neither in Germany nor elsewhere in international discussions.”
^Rosefielde 2010, p. 3: “The Red Holocaust could be defined to include all murders (judicially sanctioned terror-executions), criminal manslaughter (lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing) and felonious negligent homicide (terror-starvation) incurred from insurrectionary actions and civil wars prior to state seizure, and all subsequent felonious state killings. This treatise, however, limits the Red Holocaust death toll to peacetime state killings, even if communists were responsible for political assassinations, insurrections and civil wars before achieving power, in order to highlight the causal significance of communist economic systems. It also excludes deaths attributable to wartime hostilities after states were founded. As a matter of accounting, the convention excludes Soviet killings before 1929, during World War II (1940-45) and in Germany, occupied Europe, North Korea, Manchuria and the Kuril Islands (1946-53). Killings in China before October 1949 are similarly excluded, as are those in Indochina before 1954. Soviet slaughter of nobles, kulaks, capitalist and the bourgeoisie during War Communism are part of the excluded wartime group, but killings of similar social categories in China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia after their civil wars in the process of Communist consolidation are included. The summary casualty statistics reported in Table 11.1 conform with this definition and in principle only reflect excess deaths, excluding natural mortality. It provides a comprehensive picture of discretionary communist killings unobscured by wartime exigencies. Others desiring a broader body count to assess the fullest extent of communist carnage can easily supplement the estimates provided here from standard sources.”
^Shafir 2016, p. 64: “Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine, who was among the first Western authors to analyze this postcommunist trend in Romania, was noting back in 1999 that ‘The pathos, indeed the intentionally provocative tone of the militant parallelism [between Nazism and communism]’ makes use of the term ‘Red Holocaust’ primarily in order to utilize a notion (Holocaust) that ‘allows the reality it describes to immediately attain, in the Western mind, a status equal to that of the extermination of the Jews by the Nazi regime.’ Furthermore, ‘the spirit of the wording is one of a claim of victimization careful to legitimize itself in a sort of mimetic rivalry with Jewish memory.’ That is the competitive martyrdom component of Double Genocide. But Laignel-Lavastine’s intuitive article also alludes to an ideological basis at the foundations of such efforts. In her opinion, postcommunist Romanian historiography had been captured by (both inter-war and national-communist) ideology.”
^Voicu 2018, p. 46: “Beginning in the 1990s the notion of a ‘red Holocaust’ (or a ‘communist Holocaust’) was forged in order to establish–including at the level of terminology–the similarity of the two tragedies. The concept of Holocaust, specific to the history of European Jews (and Roma people and other social categories), was thus extracted from its customary register and used to define a different historical experience with its own specific traits. Leon Volovici rightfully condemned the abusive use of this concept as an attempt to ‘usurp’ and undermine a symbol specific to the history of European Jews. As many of those who use the term ‘red Holocaust’ (and other terms along the same lines, such as ‘the Holocaust of Romanian culture’ and ‘the Holocaust of Romanian people’) do so with antisemitic rancor, claiming that the authors of this ‘Holocaust’ are none other than the Jews, the reason for the hijacking of the term becomes clear: to place the blame on Jews and to manufacture an alternate history. It should be noted that the intelligentsia at the top of Romanian culture does not use the expression ‘red Holocaust’ systematically, but rather accidentally. Gabriela Adameșteanu and Rodica Palade, for instance, once considered this syntagma an innocent ‘metaphor’ that could be used legitimately and fruitfully in the debate about the crimes of the communist regime. However, the two journalists–who at the time they supported this syntagma were at the helm of Revista 22–did not use the expression in later publications. From time to time, the syntagma was used by other intellectuals, too, but most of them have recognized its traps and intentions. Yet, while it is no longer part of their usual vocabulary, something of its spirit is still present in the positions they adopt.”
^Staub 2011, p. 100: “In contrast to genocide, I see mass killing as ‘killing (or in other ways destroying) members of a group without the intention to eliminate the whole group, or killing large numbers of people’ without a focus on group membership.”
^Charny 1999: In the Encyclopedia of Genocide (1999), Israel Charny defined generic genocide as “the mass killing of substantial numbers of human beings, when not in the course of military action against the military forces of an avowed enemy, under conditions of the essential defenselessness and helplessness of the victims.”; Easterly, Gatti & Kurlat 2006, pp. 129–156: In the 2006 article “Development, Democracy, and Mass Killings”, William Easterly, Roberta Gatti, and Sergio Kurlat adopted Charny’s definition of generic genocide for their use of mass killing and massacre to avoid the politics of the term genocide altogether.
^Ulfelder & Valentino 2008, p. 2: “The research described here sprang from an interest in observing and assessing the risk of extreme human-rights violations in the form of large-scale violence perpetrated by states against noncombatant civilians. Researchers working in this area usually use the terms ‘genocide’ or ‘mass killing’ to label their subject of interest, but the definitions of those terms remain a source of heated debate among scholars, international lawyers, and policy-makers. Cognizant of these debates, we considered numerous strategies for defining and observing our phenomenon of interest. Unfortunately, none captured the range of events that we wished to explore as completely and objectively as does a simple numerical threshold of civilian fatalities. For purposes of this research, then, we defined a mass killing as any event in which the actions of state agents result in the intentional death of at least 1,000 noncombatants from a discrete group in a period of sustained violence.”
^ Jump up to:abBellamy 2010, p. 102: “If we look at mass killing since 1945 perpetrated by non-democratic states outside the context of war, we find two basic types of case. The first involved revolutionary communist governments implementing their plans for radical transformation. Over one-third of all the relevant cases (14 of the 38 episodes) were perpetrated by communist governments. According to Benjamin Valentino, communist governments were so exceptionally violent because the social transformations they attempted to engineer required the material dispossession of vast numbers of people. The most radical of these regimes, in China, Cambodia, and North Korea, attempted to completely reorient society, eradicating traditional patterns of life and forcibly imposing a new and alien way of life. Communist objectives, Valentino points out, could only be achieved with violence and the scale of the transformation dictated a massive amount of violence. Of course, communist revolutions also elicited resistance, prompting the state into massive and bloody crackdowns and generating a culture of paranoia which led many regimes to periodically purge their own ranks (China’s ‘cultural revolution’ being a good example). In communist ideology, the good of the party was associated with the national interest, individuals were divested of rights and subordinated to the will of the party leadership, and entire groups (e.g. kulaks in the Soviet Union, merchants and intellectuals in Cambodia) were deemed ‘class enemies’ that could be eradicated en masse to protect the revolution.”
^Wayman & Tago 2010, pp. 4, 11, 12–13: “Our term, ‘mass killing’, is used by Valentino (2004: 10), who aptly defines it as ‘the intentional killing of a massive number of noncombatants’. The word ‘noncombatants’ distinguishes mass killing from battle-deaths in war, which occur as combatants fight against each other. The ‘massive number’ he selects as the threshold to mass killing is ‘at least fifty thousand intentional deaths over the course of five or fewer years’ (Valentino, 2004: 11-12), which of course averages to at least 10,000 killed per year. … One reason for selecting these thresholds of 10,000 and 1,000 deaths per year is that we find that in the Harff data on geno-politicide, which are one of our key datasets, there are many cases of over 10,000 killed per year, but also some in which between 1,000 and 10,000 are killed per year. Therefore, analyzing at a 1,000-death threshold (as well as the 10,000 threshold) insures the inclusion of all the Harff cases. Valentino chooses 50,000 over five years as ‘to some extent arbitrary’, but a ‘relatively high threshold’ to create high confidence that mass killing did occur and was deliberate, ‘given the generally poor quality of the data available on civilian fatalities’ (Valentino, 2004: 12). We believe that our similar results, when we lower the threshold to 1,000 killed per year, are an indication that the data in Harff and in Rummel remain reliable down even one power of ten below Valentino’s ‘relatively high’ selected threshold, and we hope that, in that sense, our results can be seen as a friendly amendment to his work, and that they basically lend confidence, based on empirical statistical backing, for the conceptual direction which he elected to take. … Within that constant research design, we then showed that the differences were not due to threshold either (over 10,000 killed per year; over 1,000; or over 1). The only remaining difference is the measure of mass killing itself — democide vs. geno-politicide. We have further shown that (although the onset years vary from Harff to Rummel), when one looks at which sovereign states were involved (and the approximate onset year), the geno politicide data is basically a proper subset of the democide data (as one would expect by the addition of the need to show specific intent in geno-politicide). It would therefore appear (assuming for the moment that there are not any big measurement biases) that autocratic regimes, especially communist, are prone to mass killing generically, but not so strongly inclined (i.e. not statistically significantly inclined) toward geno-politicide.”
^Su 2003, p. 4: “Following Valentino (1998), I define mass killing in this paper as ‘the intentional killing of a significant number of the members of any group (as group and its membership are defined by the perpetrator) of non-combatants’ (1998:4). A few elements of this definition are worth further discussion. First, identification of the victim is based on ‘membership,’ as opposed to one that is based on immediate threat. In the case of Cultural Revolution, the membership is based on political standards as opposed to ascriptive traces such as race and ethnicity.4 Second, the intent to kill is imputable in the perpetrator. This separates mass killing from other causes of deaths in the Cultural Revolution such as death resulting from on-stage beating or off-stage beating. In on-stage beating the intention was not to kill but to convey a symbolic message and to humiliate the victims, and the main purpose of off-stage torture for confession was clearly to force a confession. Mass killing also differs from casualties of armed battles, a widespread phenomenon occurring in the earlier stage of the Cultural Revolution. Finally, the criterion of ‘a significant number’ indicates some concentration in terms of time and space of the killing. To use a hypothetical example, we should not judge that mass killings occur if 180 villages of a county kill one person in each village, but we should do so if one of the villages kills more than ten people within one day.”
^Su 2011, p. 13: “In another conceptual departure from standard scholarship, I use the term collective killing as opposed to genocide or mass killing. This concept shares three basic premises with genocide or mass killing. First, the criteria for becoming a victim are not about deeds but rather with membership in a group. Second, the killing must be intentional, which is distinct from acts of endangerment that carry no goal of killing in the first place. Using torture to elicit confessions, for example, may cause significant numbers of deaths. Third, the number of victims must reach a certain level. This aspect is very much related to the first premise regarding membership: Individuals are rounded up because they are members of a particular group, which by definition results in a collective of victims. I replace the word mass with collective for analysis of units smaller than a country as a whole, for example, county. Collective killings may occur in smaller areas without meeting the criteria suggested by Valentino of ‘at least fifty thousand intentional deaths over the course of five or fewer years.’ With this more fine-grained conceptual approach, it is also possible to compare collective killings across counties, townships, and villages.”
^Wayman & Tago 2010, p. 4: “The two important scholars who have created datasets related to this are Rummel (1995) and Harff (2003). Harff (sometimes with Gurr) has studied what she terms ‘genocide and politicide’, defined to be genocide by killing as understood by the Genocide Convention plus the killing of a political or economic group (Harff & Gurr, 1988); the combined list of genocides is sometimes labeled ‘geno-politicide’ for short. Rummel (1994, 1995) has a very similar concept, ‘democide’, which includes such genocide and geno-politicide done by the government forces, plus other killing by government forces, such as random killing not targeted at a particular group. As Rummel (1995: 3-4) says, ‘Cold-blooded government killing … extends beyond genocide’; For example, ‘shooting political opponents; or murdering by quota’. Hence, ‘to cover all such murder as well as genocide and politicide, I use the concept democide. This is the intentional killing of people by government’ (Rummel, 1995: 4). So Rummel has a broader concept than geno-politicide, but one that seems to include geno-politicide as a proper subset.”
^Midlarsky 2005, pp. 22, 309, 310: “I distinguish between genocide as the systematic mass murder of people based on ethnoreligious identity, and politicide as the large-scale killing of designated enemies of the state based on socioeconomic or political criteria. Although genocide can be understood to be a species of politicide (but not the converse), in practice, genocidal (i.e., ethnoreligious) killings tap into much deeper historical roots of the human condition. In this distinction, I follow Harff and Gurr 1988, 360. … Turning to Cambodia, the mass killings in that country during Pol Pot’s murderous regime are often characterized with other seemingly identical circumstances. Cambodia and Rwanda, for example, are typically treated as genocides that differ little from each other in essential characteristics. However, the victimization rates for the two countries are similar only when treated as proportions of the total country population systematically murdered. Although the mass murders in Cambodia are frequently characterized as genocide, I argue that in fact genocidal activity was only a small proportion of the killing and that the vast majority of Cambodians died in a politicide, substantially different in origin from the genocides we have been examining. The matter of etiology lies at the root of my distinction here, not definitional semantics. If we lump the Cambodian case other instances of systematized mass murder, then the sources of all of them become hopelessly muddled. … Essentially, I argue that genocides stem from a primitive identification of the ‘collective enemy’ in Carl Schmitt’s sense, whereas politicides, at least of the Cambodian variety, are attributable to more detailed ideological considerations. Further, the Cambodian case falls under the rubric of state killings, having a particular affinity with earlier practices in the Soviet Union and China. Indeed, an arc of Communist politicide can be traced from the western portions of the Soviet Union to China and on to Cambodia. Not all Communist states participated in extensive politicide, but the particular circumstances of Cambodia in 1975 lent themselves to the commission of systematic mass murder. Because an element of Cambodian state insecurity existed in this period, especially vis-à-vis Vietnam, a genocidal element is found in the killing of non-Khmer peoples such as the Vietnamese, who comprised a small proportion of the total.”
^Rummel 1993: “Even were we to have total access to all communist archives we still would not be able to calculate precisely how many the communists murdered. Consider that even in spite of the archival statistics and detailed reports of survivors, the best experts still disagree by over 40 percent on the total number of Jews killed by the Nazis. We cannot expect near this accuracy for the victims of communism. We can, however, get a probable order of magnitude and a relative approximation of these deaths within a most likely range.”
^ Jump up to:abBradley 2017, pp. 151–153: “The relationship between human rights and communism in both theory and practice has often been in tension. In the ideational realm, Karl Marx famously dismissed the rights of man as a bourgeois fantasy that masked the systemic inequality of the capitalist system. ‘None of the supposed rights of man,’ Marx wrote, ‘go beyond the egoistic man, man as he is, as a member of civil society … withdrawn into himself, wholly preoccupied with his private interest and acting in accordance with his private caprice.’ Rights and liberties in bourgeois society, he argued, provided only an illusory unity behind which social conflict and inequalities deepened. Rhetorically, the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China and most of the rest of the communist world followed Marx’s lead. As the Chinese argued in 1961, ‘the ‘human rights’ referred to by bourgeois international law and the ‘human rights’ it intends to protect are the rights of the bourgeoisie to enslave and to oppress the labouring people … [and] provide pretexts for imperialist opposition to socialist and nationalist countries. They are reactionary from head to toe.’ Rejecting Enlightenment-era inalienable individual political and civil rights, communist states instead championed collective economic and social rights. The Soviets grew fond of annually celebrating International Human Rights Day, to mark the anniversary of the 1948 adoption of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by offering lectures to its citizens that contrasted the promotion of socialist rights in the Soviet Union with their violations in the capitalist world. And yet state-orchestrated mass killings and what have come to be called gross violations of human rights were at times almost commonplace in communist-led states. Between 1933 and 1945, more than a million people died in the Soviet Gulag system and likely at least 6 million more in politically induced Soviet famines, Stalin’s mass executions in the great terror and in what Timothy Snyder has termed the ‘bloodlands’ of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, Belarus and the western edges of Russia. In Mao’s China, as many as 45 million Chinese died of famine during the Great Leap Forward, while some 2.5 million were killed or tortured to death. During the Cultural Revolution, between 750,000 and 1.5 million were killed. In Pol Pot’s Cambodia, 200,000 were executed and between 1.4 million and 2.2 million of the country’s 7 million people died of disease and starvation. If the precise numbers have always been, and continue to be, in dispute, their order of magnitude is not. In fact the entanglements between human rights and communism in the twentieth century were more ambiguous than the chasm between ideology and these staggering numbers would suggest. The meanings of human rights themselves remained unstable over much of the second half of the century, as did the actors in the communist world who engaged with them. What promises of global human rights like those contained in the Universal Declaration might portend and the very claims about what constituted human rights were not fixed. Nor was the significance of human rights for the making of international politics or local lives as they were lived on the ground at all clear. The relationship between human rights and international communism after 1945 became fluid. In the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union played an active role in the creation of a global human rights order in the drafting of the Universal Declaration and the Genocide Convention and participating in the Nuremberg Trials. With the coming of decolonization, the Soviets and the Chinese would also help to open out the meanings of international human rights toward the rights of postcolonial self-determination and development. But human rights in the communist world largely became a polemical state posture within the broader Cold War ideological struggle. Indeed, the international project of human rights itself became a muted practice by the 1950s.”
^ Jump up to:abcdeValentino 2005, p. 275: “Rudolph J. Rummel, Death by Government (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994), p. 15. A team of six French historians coordinated by Stéphane Courtois estimates that communist regimes are responsible for between 85 and 100 million deaths. See Martin Malia, ‘Foreword: The Uses of Atrocity,’ in Stéphane Courtois et.al., The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. x. Zbigniew Brzezinski estimates that ‘the failed effort to build communism’ cost the lives of almost sixty million people. See Zbigniew Brzezinski, Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the Twenty-First Century (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993), p. 16. Matthew White estimates eighty-one million deaths from communist ‘genocide and tyranny’ and ‘man-made famine.’ See Matthew White, ‘Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century,’ http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat8.htm [June 2002]. Todd Culbertson estimates that communist regimes killed ‘perhaps 100 million’ people. See Todd Culbertson, ‘The Human Cost of World Communism,’ Human Events, August 19, 1978, pp. 10-11. These estimates should be considered at the highest end of the plausible range of deaths attributable to communist regimes.”
^Culbertson 1978, pp. 10–11: “Available evidence indicates that perhaps 100 million persons have been destroyed by the Communists; the imperviousness of the Iron and Bamboo curtains prevents a more definitive figure. The Communist system of forced starvation, concentration camps, and slave labor is remarkably similar to that of the Nazis, whose policies claimed approximately six million Jewish victims. … This is an incomplete accounting of Communist genocide. Since the Russian Revolution 61 years ago communism has been responsible for the death of 100 million innocent persons – not including the terrorism inspired by Communists in free countries. The total cost of human suffering and grief is beyond comprehension.”
^Lenczowski 1985: “The human cost of communism exceeds most Americans’ expectations. The number of people murdered by communist regimes is estimated at between 60 million and 150 million, with the higher figure probably more accurate in light of recent scholarship. The greatest tide of refugees in world history flows from communist states to noncommunist ones: Today it comes from Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Indochina, East Europe, and Nicaragua. (During the entire Vietnam war there was nary a refugee fleeing from Indochina. It was not until communism triumphed that life became so unbearable that people who could withstand decades of war fled to the seas.) Communism invented the concentration camp. Millions have been imprisoned and executed, have worked and starved to death, in these camps. Communist regimes will not permit enterprising Western reporters near these camps, so you don’t hear about them on the news. Communist regimes recognize no restraint on their absolute power. From this they establish ideological falsehoods as the standards of right and wrong and the standards by which deviationism is measured; from this stems the systematic denial of all individual human rights. The quality of life always deteriorates under communism: the militarization of society; the destruction of the consumer economy; the rationing of food; the deterioration of housing and insufficient new construction to meet population growth; the destruction of medical care through lack of medicine and medical supplies; the destruction of religion; the destruction and political control of education and culture; the rewriting of history and destruction of monuments to the national heritage; and the assault on family life and parental jurisdiction over children.”
^Brzezinski 2010, pp. 12–16: “Because of Lenin – through mass executions during and after civil war, through massive deaths in the Gulag initiated under Lenin’s direction (and powerfully documented in Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago), and through mass famines induced by ruthless indifference (with Lenin callously dismissing as unimportant the deaths of ‘the half-savage, stupid, difficult people of the Russian villages’) – it can be estimated that between 6-8,000,000 people perished. That number subsequently was more or less tripled by Stalin, who caused, it has been conservatively estimated, the deaths of no less than 20,000,000 people, and perhaps even upward of 25,000,000. … Though the precise figures for Stalin’s toll will never be available, it is unlikely that the range of 20-25,000,000 victims is an exaggeration. Census statistics also indicate that additionally the biological depletion of the Soviet population during Stalin’s reign was even higher. The estimated number of killings cited above, in any case, accounts for Stalin’s direct genocide. Demographic depletion – because of reduced birthrates, loss of offspring because of higher infant mortality, births that did not take place because of imprisonment of a would-be parent, etc. – certainly had to be in excess of even the enormous toll directly attributable to Stalin personally. … Accounting for the human losses in China during the most violent phases of the communist experiment is an even more difficult task. Unlike the exposure of Stalin’s crimes in the Soviet Union (and the much delayed and the still somewhat reticent exposure of Lenin’s crimes), the Chinese regime persists in regarding the Maoist phase as relatively sacrosanct, with its killings justified but with their scale kept secret. The only exception is the cultural revolution of the late 1960s and early 1970s, from which the current Chinese rulers suffered directly. For this phase of internal violence some estimates have surfaced, and they suggest deaths on the scale of 1-2,000,000. For the earlier phases, notably the 1950s, there have been broad estimates of as many as several million executed as ‘enemies of the people’ – mostly landlords and richer bourgeoisie as well as former Kuomintang officials and officers. In addition, the figure of up to 27,000,000 peasants who perished as a consequence of the forcible collectivization has often been cited. Given the size of the Chinese population, and the indifference to human life of the current regime, the estimate of about 29,000,000 as the human cost of the communist era is in all probability on the low side, especially as it does not take into account the net loss to China’s population because of the demographic impact of such mass killings. This ghastly ledger would not be complete without some accounting of the price in human lives paid for the attempts to construct communist utopias in Eastern Europe, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Cuba. It is a safe estimate that these consumed at least 3,000,000 victims, with Cambodia under Pol Pot alone accounting for one-third. Thus the total might actually be higher. In brief, the failed effort to build communism in the twentieth century consumed the lives of almost 60,000,000 human beings, making communism the most costly human failure in all of history.”
^Courtois 1999, p. 4: “Thus we have delimited crimes against civilians as the essence of the phenomenon of terror. These crimes tend to fit a recognizable pattern even if the practices vary to some extent by regime. The pattern includes execution by various means, such as firing squads, hanging, drowning, battering, and, in certain cases, gassing, poisoning, or ‘car accidents’; destruction of the population by starvation, through man-made famine, the withholding of food, or both; deportation, through which death can occur in transit (either through physical exhaustion or through confinement in an enclosed space), at one’s place of residence, or through forced labor (exhaustion, illness, hunger, cold). Periods described as times of ‘civil war’ are more complex – it is not always easy to distinguish between events caused by fighting between rulers and rebels and events that can be properly described only as a massacre of the civilian population. Nonetheless, we have to start somewhere. The following rough approximation, based on unofficial estimates, gives some sense of the scale and gravity of these crimes:USSR: 20 million deathsChina: 65 million deathsVietnam: 1 million deathsNorth Korea: 2 million deathsCambodia: 2 million deathsEastern Europe: 1 million deathsLatin America: 150,000 deathsAfrica: 1.7 million deathsAfghanistan: 1.5 million deathsthe international Communist movement and Communist parties not in power: about 10,000 deaths.”
^Malia 1999, p. x: “The Black Book offers us the first attempt to determine, overall, the actual magnitude of what occurred, by systematically detailing Leninism’s ‘crimes, terror, and repression’ from Russia in 1917 to Afghanistan in 1989. This factual approach puts Communism in what is, after all, its basic human perspective. For it was in truth a ‘tragedy of planetary dimensions’ (in the French publisher’s characterization), with a grand total of victims variously estimated by contributors to the volume at between 85 million and 100 million. Either way, the Communist record offers the most colossal case of political carnage in history. And when this fact began to sink in with the French public, an apparently dry academic work became a publishing sensation, the focus of impassioned political and intellectual debate. The shocking dimensions of the Communist tragedy, however, are hardly news to any serious student of twentieth-century history, at least when the different Leninist regimes are taken individually. The real news is that at this late date the truth should come as such a shock to the public at large.”
^Karlsson & Schoenhals 2008, pp. 53–54: “Bearing in mind the charged nature of the subject, it is polemically effective to make such comparisons, but it does not seem particularly fruitful, neither morally nor scientifically, to judge the regimes on the basis of their ‘dangerousness’ or to assess the relationship between communism and Nazism on the basis of what the international academic community calls their ‘atrocities toll’ or ‘body count’. In that case, should the crimes of all communist regimes, in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia and other countries where communism is or has been the dominant party, be compared to the Nazi regime’s massacre of six million Jews? Should the Nazi death toll also include the tens of millions of people who the German Nazi armies and their supporting troops killed during the Second World War? Not even Courtois’ analytical qualification, that ranking the two regimes the same is based on the idea that the ‘weapon of hunger’ was used systematically by both the Nazi regime and a number of communist regimes, makes this more reasonable, since this ‘weapon’ on the whole played a very limited role in the Nazi genocide in relation to other types of methods of mass destruction, and in relation to how it was used by communist regimes.”
^ Jump up to:abValentino 2005, p. 91: “Communist regimes have been responsible for this century’s most deadly episodes of mass killing. Estimates of the total number of people killed by communist regimes range as high as 110 million. In this chapter I focus primarily on mass killings in the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia — history’s most murderous communist states. Communist violence in these three states alone may account for between 21 million and 70 million deaths. Mass killings on a smaller scale also appear to have been carried out by communist regimes in North Korea, Vietnam, Eastern Europe, and Africa.”
^Valentino 2005, p. 75: Table 2: Communist Mass Killings in the Twentieth CenturySoviet Union (1917-23) … 250,000-2,500,000Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (1927-45) … 10,000,000-20,000,000China (including Tibet) (1949-72) … 10,000,000-46,000,000Cambodia (1975-79) … 1,000,000-2,000,000Possible cases:Bulgaria (1944-?) … 50,000-100,000East Germany (1945-?) … 80,000-100,000Romania (1945-?) … 60,000-300,000North Korea (1945-?) … 400,000-1,500,000North and South Vietnam (1953-?) … 80,000-200,000″Note: All figures in this and subsequent tables are author’s estimates based on numerous sources. Episodes are listed under the heading ‘possible cases’ in this and subsequent tables when the available evidence suggests a mass killing may have occurred, but documentation is insufficient to make a definitive judgement regarding the number of people killed, the intentionality of the killing, or the motives of the perpetrators.”
^White 2011, pp. 455–456: “For those who prefer totals broken down by country, here are reasonable estimates for the number of people who died under Communist regimes from execution, labor camps, famine, ethnic cleansing, and desperate flight in leaky boats:
China: 40,000,000
Soviet Union: 20,000,000
North Korea: 3,000,000
Ethiopia: 2,000,000
Cambodia: 1,700,000
Vietnam: 365,000 (after 1975)
Yugoslavia: 175,000
East Germany: 100,000
Romania: 100,000
North Vietnam: 50,000 (internally, 1954-75)
Cuba: 50,000
Mongolia: 35,000
Poland: 30,000
Bulgaria: 20,000
Czechoslovakia: 11,000
Albania: 5,000
Hungary: 5,000
Rough Total: 70 million
(This rough total doesn’t include the 20 million killed in the civil wars that brought Communists into power, or the 11 million who died in the proxy wars of the Cold War. Both sides probably share the blame for these to a certain extent. These two categories overlap somewhat, so once the duplicates are weeded out, it seems that some 26 million people died in Communist-inspired wars.)”
^Bellamy 2012, p. 949: “Between 1945 and 1989, communist regimes massacred literally millions of civilians. A conservative estimate puts the total number of civilians deliberately killed by communists after the Second World War between 6.7 million and 15.5 million people, with the true figure probably much higher. Communist governments in China and Cambodia embarked on programs of radical social transformation and killed, tortured or allowed to starve whole groups that were thought hostile to change or simply unworthy of life. In the Soviet Union, Albania, North Korea, East Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Yugoslavia and China, communist governments used sometimes massive levels of indiscriminate violence against civilians to deter and defeat actual and imagined opponents and/or exact revenge for the Second World War. Where communist governments were violently challenged, they exhibited little concern for civilian immunity, as evidenced by the Soviet assaults on Hungary and Afghanistan and North Korea’s conduct in the Korean War. Finally, communism spawned violent non-state actors, such as the Red Brigades and Bader-Meinhoffer gang in Europe, Shining Path in Peru, and FARC in Colombia, all of which deliberately targeted non-combatants.”
^Strauss 2014, pp. 360–361: “For some areas, there is now a beginning of scholarly convergence on raw numbers. Most are now willing to accept a rough number of around 20 million including famine victims for the Soviet Union, and provisionally somewhere between 2 and 3 million for Cambodia, of whom roughly half were executed outright. In other environments such as China, there is still little consensus on numbers of total victims of Maoist revolutionary policies; for the Great Leap Forward alone, estimates of excess deaths range from 15 to 40 million.”
^Dissident 2016: “A brief survey returns the following high and low estimates for the number of people who died at the hand of communist regimes:China: 29,000,000 (Brzezinski) to 78,860,000 (Li)USSR: 7,000,000 (Tolz) to 69,500,000 (Panin)North Korea: 1,600,000 (Rummel, Lethal Politics; figure for killings) to 3,500,000 (Hwang Jang-Yop, cited in AFP; figure for famine)Cambodia: 740,000 (Vickery) to 3,300,000 (Math Ly, cited in AP)Africa: 1,700,000 (Black Book) to 2,000,000 (Fitzgerald; Ethiopia only)Afghanistan: 670,000 (Zucchino) to 2,000,000 (Katz)Eastern Europe: 1,000,000Vietnam: 1,000,000 (Black Book) to 1,670,000 (Rummel, Death by Government)Latin America: 150,000International Movements not in power: 10,000The combined range based on the estimates considered, which derive from scholarly works, works of journalism, memoirs, and government-provided figures, spans from 42,870,000 to 161,990,000. While reasonable people will disagree in good faith on where the true number happens to lie, any number within this range ought to provoke horror and condemnation. And as previously mentioned, these figures estimate only the number of people who perished, not those who were merely tortured, maimed, imprisoned, relocated, expropriated, impoverished, or bereaved. These many millions are victims of communism too. The commonly cited figure of the deaths caused by communist regimes, 100 million, falls midway through this range of estimates. As scholars continue to research the history of the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, and other communist regimes, and as they gain access to previously inaccessible records, the scale of communist crimes will gradually come into even sharper focus.Works ConsultedBrzezinski, Zbigniew. Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21st Century. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010.Courtois, Stéphane, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartošek, and Jean-Louis Marolin. The Black Book of Communism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.’Cambodians Recall Massacres.’ AP, May 22, 1987.Fitzgerald, Mary Anne. ‘Tyrant for the taking.’ The Times (London), April 20, 1991.Katz, Lee Michael. ‘Afghanistan’s President is Ousted.’ USA Today, April 17, 1992.Li, Cheng-Chung. ‘The Question of Human Rights on China Mainland. Republic of China: World Anti-Communist League’, 1979.Panin, Dimitri. Translated by John Moore. The Notebooks of Sologdin. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976.Rummel, R. J. Death by Government. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994.Rummel, R. J. Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1990.Tolz, Vera. ‘Ministry of Security Official Gives New Figures for Stalin’s Victims.’ Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Report. May 1, 1992. (The figure of seven million direct executions under Stalin, given by a member of the security services heading a commission for rehabilitation, may be taken as an absolute baseline figure to which should be added the many deaths suffered by labor camp inmates and the deaths preceding and following the Stalin period.)’Top defector says famine has killed over three million Koreans.’ Agence France Presse, March 13, 1999.Vickery, Michael. Cambodia 1975 – 1982. Boston: South End Press, 1984.Zucchino, David. ‘The Americans … They Just Drop Their Bombs and Leave.’ Los Angeles Times, June 2, 2002.Matthew White’s website Necrometrics provides a useful compilation of scholarly estimates of the death toll of major historical events.”
^Kotkin 2017: “But a century of communism in power—with holdouts even now in Cuba, North Korea and China—has made clear the human cost of a political program bent on overthrowing capitalism. Again and again, the effort to eliminate markets and private property has brought about the deaths of an astounding number of people. Since 1917—in the Soviet Union, China, Mongolia, Eastern Europe, Indochina, Africa, Afghanistan and parts of Latin America—communism has claimed at least 65 million lives, according to the painstaking research of demographers. Communism’s tools of destruction have included mass deportations, forced labor camps and police-state terror—a model established by Lenin and especially by his successor Joseph Stalin. It has been widely imitated. Though communism has killed huge numbers of people intentionally, even more of its victims have died from starvation as a result of its cruel projects of social engineering.”
^Aronson 2003, pp. 222‒245: “But most of these problems pale in significance compared with the book’s opening and closing chapters, which caused enormous controversy and even occasioned a break among The Black Book’s authors. … Courtois’s figures for the Soviet Union, Vietnam, and Latin America go far beyond the estimates of the authors themselves, as does Courtois’s final body count. … But two other theses created considerable consternation and have come to be associated with The Black Book: the figure of 100 million deaths and the parallel with Nazism. They became central in the debate that followed. … In articles and interviews Werth and Margolin pointed out how, in the service of this goal, Courtois distorted and exaggerated: Werth’s total, including the Civil War and the famine of 1932–1933 had been five million less than Courtois’s ‘mythical number,’ while Margolin denied having spoken of the Vietnamese Communists being responsible for one million deaths. Interviewed in Le Monde, Margolin likened Courtois’s effort to ‘militant political activity, indeed, that of a prosecutor amassing charges in the service of a cause, that of a global condemnation of the Communist phenomenon as an essentially criminal phenomenon.’ Both rejected the comparison between Communism and Nazism: … .”
^Engel-Di Mauro 2021: “A petulant upsurge in anti-communism is permeating the United States (US) and Canada, as well as countries in the European Union (EU). Its main truncheon is the simultaneously fictitious and slanderous claim that communism caused 100 million victims, a catchy slogan sensationalised through a 1997 propaganda volume titled The Black Book of Communism (henceforth BBC). It suits a more recent China-bashing campaign, where the Communist Party of China is purposefully conflated with communism.”
^Courtois 1999, p. xiv: “On the one side, commentators in the liberal Le Monde argue that it is illegitimate to speak of a single Communist movement from Phnom Penh to Paris. Rather, the rampage of the Khmer Rouge is like the ethnic massacres of third-world Rwanda, or the ‘rural’ Communism of Asia is radically different from the ‘urban’ Communism of Europe; or Asian Communism is really only anticolonial nationalism. … [C]onflating sociologically diverse movements is merely a stratgem to obtain a higher body count against Communism, and thus against all the left.”
^Engel-Di Mauro 2021: “In this discussion I want to draw attention to the fact that, since the time of the Russian Revolution, capitalist institutions as a whole have caused close to 158 million deaths by waging war alone, with liberal democratic varieties of capitalism contributing at least 56 million of those fatalities. This monstrous impact, unprecedented in the history of humanity, doubtless reaches hundreds of millions more deaths when the centuries of genocides and slavery systems are considered and when murders in the home, at work, in prisons, and in the streets (including by police) are counted as well. Because studies on the level of morbidity associated with capitalist relations are scarce and limited, war-related deaths provide an arguably less assailable set of figures to oppose anti-communist libels.”
^Ghodsee & Sehon 2018: “But the problem for the anti-communists is that their general premise can be used as the basis for an equally good argument against capitalism, an argument that the so-called losers of economic transition in eastern Europe would be quick to affirm. The US, a country based on a free-market capitalist ideology, has done many horrible things: the enslavement of millions of Africans, the genocidal eradication of the Native Americans, the brutal military actions taken to support pro-Western dictatorships, just to name a few. The British Empire likewise had a great deal of blood on its hands: we might merely mention the internment camps during the second Boer War and the Bengal famine. This is not mere ‘whataboutism’, because the same intermediate premise necessary to make their anti-communist argument now works against capitalism: … .”
^Jahanbegloo 2014, pp. 117–118: “Most interesting, however, is Finlay’s argument that Marxist thought, beyond justifying and excusing the use of violence, also legitimates it. Finlay (ibid. p. 378) argues that this is done by ‘undermining existing moral norms and suggesting that new ones will be created to suit a new proletarian order.’ Marx argues that norms and ethics are determined by the dominating class of the time, as can be illustrated in Lenin’s statement that ‘Honesty is a bourgeoisie virtue’, meaning that honesty is crucial to the existence of bourgeoisie, as other virtues such as loyalty and obedience were necessary virtues during the reign of the feudal aristocracy. This impacts the concept of justice in war dramatically. As there is the assumption that a new social order is to be created, along with a new set of moral and ethical codes, then the current ones may be discarded. Therefore, Finley (ibid.) states that it would be conceivable for revolutionaries to commit atrocious crimes in bringing about a socialist system, with the belief that their crimes will be retroactively absolved by the new system of ethics put in place by the proletariat. Finley also addresses an alternative opinion, that of Shlomo Avineri, who believes that this may be a non-issue when one takes into account the universality of the proletariat. This universality means that it has no active class-based or sectarian interest, or, rather, that its interests represent those of all society. Its major interest is simply to ‘eliminate all other special interests on the basis of which it suffers oppression’ and is an entirely negative entirely (ibid., p. 379). Therefore, our conception of ethics and morality – the product of a capitalist society – is inaccurate. Being based on the interest of the bourgeoisie rather than a true and authentic reflection of the ethics of a universal class, its contravention is not something to be lamented. Finley understands Avineri as drawing two conclusions. First, that:whatever the bourgeoisie with its individualistic and legalistic conception of political ethics and legality has to say about the morality of violence is likely to be invalid since it reflects the particular class interests and therefore the perverted humanism of its proponents. (Ibid., p. 370)and, moreover, that only ethical claims of the proletariat are valid, insofar as they are the true reflections of ‘the perspective of the last social class, at its final revolutionary stage of oppression’ (ibid.). It is only then that morals and ethics can be created authentically, and all other systems ought to be considered as arbitrary. However, this creates a major difficulty for Finlay and, as Marx has inspired many other theorists (Žižek, Fanon, Sorel, etc.) this is a difficulty which he identifies in each of their works as well. Understanding that revolutionary violence is carried out in the hope of future absolution based on a hypothetical social order able to craft a universal system of ethics, Finlay sees this as carte blanche for revolutionists to carry out any action, however atrocious, so long as it helps bring about this imminent revolution. Finlay’s ‘permissive doctrine’ is a ‘philosophical framework within which the possibility of using violence is validated but without setting any clear limits to how much violence can be used and against whom’. Finlay also argue that there is a tendency for excess, as Fanon, Sorel and Žižek all see the use of violence as beneficial, since it may act as a spark for the revolution. Finlay sees the total legitimation of violence in revolution, with no principle of restriction, to be both dangerous and unethical.”
^Jahanbegloo 2014, pp. 120–121: “Singh makes a principled argument: that Marx saw the use of violence, even when it is avoidable, as required insofar as that it has a purging quality, believing that only by using violence can all elements of the previous regime be eradicated. Moreover, Singh (ibid., p. 14) considers Marx’s references to the use of bourgeoisie democratic institutions to bring about social change only as ‘hinting to the possibility of the working class coming into power, in England, through universal suffrage’. Furthermore, he quotes Engels in a letter addressed to the Communist Committee in Brussels in October 1846. In this letter, Engels states that there cannot be any means of carrying out the communist agenda ‘other than a democratic revolution by force’ (ibid. p. 10). Singh, however, does acknowledge the desire in Marx to avoid a bloody revolution. Singh (ibid. p. 11) notes that most Marxist writing that alluded to the possibility of this transition being carried out peacefully took place before the events of 1844-48, which ‘showed that a peaceful change was not even remotely possible’. After 1848, Singh notes a return to advocating a violent revolution due to what Singh identifies as the ‘practical considerations’ of being unable to overcome the existing obstacles to a peaceful transition. Singh (ibid. p. 13) writes that, in 1848, Marx published an article titled The Victory of Counter-Revolution in Vienna, where he states ‘there is only one means by which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated – and that is by revolutionary terror’.”
^The Magyar Struggle: “Among all the large and small nations of Austria, only three standard-bearers of progress took an active part in history, and still retain their vitality — the Germans, the Poles and the Magyars. Hence they are now revolutionary. All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish before long in the revolutionary world storm. For that reason they are now counter-revolutionary. … There is no country in Europe which does not have in some corner or other one or several ruined fragments of peoples, the remnant of a former population that was suppressed and held in bondage by the nation which later became the main vehicle of historical development. These relics of a nation mercilessly trampled under foot in the course of history, as Hegel says, these residual fragments of peoples always become fanatical standard-bearers of counter-revolution and remain so until their complete extirpation or loss of their national character, just as their whole existence in general is itself a protest against a great historical revolution. Such, in Scotland, are the Gaels, the supporters of the Stuarts from 1640 to 1745. Such, in France, are the Bretons, the supporters of the Bourbons from 1792 to 1800. Such, in Spain, are the Basques, the supporters of Don Carlos. Such, in Austria, are the pan-Slavist Southern Slavs, who are nothing but the residual fragment of peoples, resulting from an extremely confused thousand years of development. … The Magyars are not yet defeated. But if they fall, they will fall gloriously, as the last heroes of the 1848 revolution, and only for a short time. Then for a time the Slav counter-revolution will sweep down on the Austrian monarchy with all its barbarity, and the camarilla will see what sort of allies it has. But at the first victorious uprising of the French proletariat, which Louis Napoleon is striving with all his might to conjure up, the Austrian Germans and Magyars will be set free and wreak a bloody revenge on the Slav barbarians. The general war which will then break out will smash this Slav Sonderbund and wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names. The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.”
^Revel 2009, pp. 94–95: “Already among the most authentic sources of socialist thought, among the earliest doctrinarians, are found justifications for ethnic cleansing and genocide, along with the totalitarian state, all of which were held up as legitimate and even necessary weapons for the success and preservation of the revolution. Socialism’s canonical principles were not at all violated by Stalin or Mao when they implemented their murderous policies; on the contrary, Stalin and Mao were scrupulous in applying these principles with perfect fidelity to the letter and the spirit of the doctrine – as has been rigorously established by the Cambridge scholar George Watson in his treatise on The Lost Literature of Socialism. In the modern historiography of socialism, an essential part of the theory has been quite effectively suppressed. The true believers, while claiming socialism’s founding fathers as their mentors, very early on dispensed with any thorough study of them, even of Marx himself. And today, the key texts seem to enjoy the rare privilege of being understood by everyone, without having been read in their entirety by anyone – not even by socialism’s adversaries, who for fear of reprisal are likely to quell their own curiosity. (History for the most part is a selective rearrangement of the facts, and the history of ideas does not escape this general law.) Study of the unexpurgated texts, writes Watson, shows us that “Genocide was an idea unique to socialism.” Friedrich Engels, in an article penned in 1849 for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, a periodical edited by his friend Karl Marx, called for the extermination of the Hungarians, who had risen up against Austria. He had a low opinion also of Serbs and other Slavic peoples, and of the Basques, the Bretons and the Scottish Highlanders – all problems that needed to be eliminated. Three-quarters of a century later, in his On Lenin and Leninism (1924), Stalin would recommend study of Engels’ influential piece. Marx himself, in “Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany,” published in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in 1852, asked how “those moribund peoples, the Bohemians, the Carinthians, the Dalmatians etc.,” might be disposed of.”
^Valentino 2005, pp. 91, 93: “Communism has a bloody record, but most regimes that have described themselves as communist or have been described as such by others have not engaged in mass killing. In addition to shedding light on why some communist states have been among the most violent regimes in history, therefore, I also seek to explain why other communist countries have avoided this level of violence. … I argue that radical communist regimes have proven such prodigious killers primarily because the social change they sought to bring about have resulted in the sudden and nearly complete material and political dispossession of millions of people. These regimes practiced social engineering of the highest order. It is the revolutionary desire to bring about the rapid and radical transformation of society that distinguishes radical communist regimes from all other forms of government, including less violent communist regimes and noncommunist, authoritarian governments.”
^Semelin 2009, p. 331: “Dynamics of destruction/subjugation were also developed systematically by twentieth-century communist regimes, but against a very different domestic political background. The destruction of the very foundations of the former society (and consequently the men and women who embodied it) reveals the determination of the ruling elites to build a new one at all costs. The ideological conviction of leaders promoting such a political scheme is thus decisive. Nevertheless, it would be far too simplistic an interpretation to assume that the sole purpose of inflicting these various forms of violence on civilians could only aim at instilling a climate of terror in this ‘new society’. In fact, they are part of a broader whole, i.e. the spectrum of social engineering techniques implememted in order to transform a society completely. There can be no doubt that it is this utopia of a classless society which drives that kind of revolutionary project. The plan for political and social reshaping will thus logically claim victims in all strata of society. And through this process, communist systems emerging in the twentieth century ended up destroying their own populations, not because they planned to annihilate them as such, but because they aimed to restructure the ‘social body’ from top to bottom, even if that meant purging it and recarving it to suit their new Promethean political imaginaire.”
^Chirot & McCauley 2010, p. 42: “The modern search for a perfect, utopian society, whether racially or ideologically pure is very similar to the much older striving for a religiously pure society free of all polluting elements, and these are, in turn, similar to that other modern utopian notion – class purity. Dread of political and economic pollution by the survival of antagonistic classes has been for the most extreme communist leaders what fear of racial pollution was for Hitler. There, also, material explanations fail to address the extent of the killings, gruesome tortures, fantastic trails, and attempts to wipe out whole categories of people that occurred in Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China, and Pol Pot’s Cambodia. The revolutionary thinkers who formed and led communist regimes were not just ordinary intellectuals. They had to be fanatics in the true sense of that word. They were so certain of their ideas that no evidence to the contrary could change their minds. Those who came to doubt the rightness of their ways were eliminated, or never achieved power. The element of religious certitude found in prophetic movements was as important as their Marxist science in sustaining the notion that their vision of socialism could be made to work. This justified the ruthless dehumanization of their enemies, who could be suppressed because they were ‘objectively’ and ‘historically’ wrong. Furthermore, if events did not work out as they were supposed to, then that was because class enemies, foreign spies and saboteurs, or worst of all, internal traitors were wrecking the plan. Under no circumstances could it be admitted that the vision itself might be unworkable, because that meant capitulation to the forces of reaction. The logic of the situation in times of crisis then demanded that these ‘bad elements’ (as they were called in Maoist China) be killed, deported, or relegated to a permanently inferior status. That is very close to saying that the community of God, or the racially pure volksgemeinschaft could only be guaranteed if the corrupting elements within it were eliminated (Courtois et al. 1999).”
^ Jump up to:abMann 2005, pp. 318, 321: “All accounts of 20th-century mass murder include the Communist regimes. Some call their deeds genocide, though I shall not. I discuss the three that caused the most terrible human losses: Stalin’s USSR, Mao’s China, and Pol Pot’s Cambodia. These saw themselves as belonging to a single socialist family, and all referred to a Marxist tradition of development theory. They murderously cleansed in similar ways, though to different degrees. Later regimes consciously adapted their practices to the perceived successes and failures of earlier ones. The Khmer Rouge used China and the Soviet Union (and Vietnam and North Korea) as reference societies, while China used the Soviet Union. All addressed the same basic problem – how to apply a revolutionary vision of a future industrial society to a present agrarian one. These two dimensions, of time and agrarian backwardness, help account for many of the differences. … Ordinary party members were also ideologically driven, believing that in order to create a new socialist society, they must lead in socialist zeal. Killings were often popular, the rank-and-file as keen to exceed killing quotas as production quotas. The pervasive role of the party inside the state also meant that authority structures were not fully institutionalized but factionalized, even chaotic, as revisionists studying the Soviet Union have argued. Both centralized control and mass party factionalism were involved in the killings.”
^Tismăneanu 2012, p. 14: “However, a nuance emphasized by Snyder offers a caveat to the comparison between these two extremisms. In fact, Stalinism did not transform mass murder into political history, as happened in Nazi Germany. For Stalin, ‘mass murder could never be anything more than a successful defense of socialism, or an element in a story of progress toward socialism.’ But, to take Snyder’s point further, Communism, like Fascism, undoubtedly founded its alternative, illiberal modernity upon extermination. The Communist project, in such countries as the USSR, China, Cuba, Romania, or Albania, was based precisely on the conviction that certain social groups were irretrievably alien and deservedly murdered.”
^Bellamy 2012, p. 950: “But it is not simply the number of victims that distinguishes communist from non-communist mass killing in the Cold War—though that in itself is important to acknowledge. The most important difference for our purposes lies in the fact that amongst the perpetrators and their supporters there was very little recognition that the deliberate extermination of large numbers of civilians might be morally problematic, let alone prohibited. Where there was criticism of this litany of mass murder, it almost always came from outside the communist world. The principal reason for the failure of civilian immunity to moderate the behavior of communist governments during the Cold War was the persistence and spread of communism’s ideology of selective extermination, and its general acceptance within the communist world as a legitimator of mass killing. As I argued earlier, this ‘anti-civilian ideology’ identifies whole groups as being outside the protection of noncombatant immunity and therefore liable for legitimate extermination. The basic communist variant of this ideology was first developed and applied by Stalin and held that certain socioeconomic or national groups or political attitudes were anti-communist and that group members were ‘enemies of the people’ who could be legitimately destroyed. Although each of the communist regimes that massacred large numbers of civilians during the Cold War developed their own distinctive account of selective extermination, they all shared the basic idea that their targets—identified as whole groups—had by their identity, actions, or thoughts, placed themselves outside legal or moral protection.85 Thus, in contrast to most Western or anti-communist perpetrators of mass atrocities during the Cold War, communist perpetrators tended to argue that their victims were ‘criminals’ or ‘enemies of the people’ and therefore beyond the protection of civilian immunity.”
^Katz 2013, p. 267: “Mass Death under Communist Rule and the Limits of ‘Otherness’ Steven T. Katz Boston University Mass death is not a new reality. Over the centuries this tragic phenomenon has manifest itself in many times and places. An integral feature of this history of large-scale violence is what I call, ‘otherness.’ That is, the victimizer stigmatizes and stereotypes the victim in various ways in order to legitimate the violence that is then unleashed. What is worthy of note is that this distancing process takes many forms. The historical record reveals cases where the ‘Other’ is created on the grounds of class, sex, color, race, religion, ethnicity, and nationality. So, for example, the majority of Stalin’s victims were identified as ‘class enemies.’ The most notorious example of such class war was directed at the Kulaks, though his entire massive campaign against the peasantry as represented by his forced drive to collectivize agriculture, was based on the notion of class (and his desire for national modernization). Likewise, the extraordinary event that was Kampuchea was defined by the application of a radical communist ideology in which class was everything. Nationalism — connected usually to other factors such as religion, ethnicity, race, or color — has also played its part in justifying oppression and death — as a decisive ingredient in Stalin’s exile of the minority nationalities during World War II and in his assault on the Ukraine in the early 1930s.”
^Shaw 2015a, p. 115: “In these contexts, democratic impulses were snuffed out, and foundations were made for the centralization of power in the hands of Stalin, who in turn proclaimed the new nationalist doctrine of ‘socialism in one country’. Thereafter, nationalist ideas were at the heart of many mass killings by Communist states, both in genocide and in war. As Stalinist parties seized power in Asia and the Balkans after 1945, they each proclaimed their own national ideology. Each ‘great leader’ claimed to represent his fatherland, and many were prepared to kill extensively in the leader’s name. After this, nationalist militarism became the model for revolutionary movements across the Third World. Whatever other ideological elements and alliances the insurgent forces claimed, their killing was invariably in the name of national liberation. The ‘killing fields’ of Cambodia (episode VII) represented the nadir of this kind of nationalist Communism. In the former Soviet and Yugoslav areas after 1989, many former Communist elites reinvented themselves as ethnic nationalists. In some cases, they launched genocidal wars in the name of their new creed, to renew the foundations of their power. Nationalism made democratization a sick joke in war zones – the incentive to manufacture ethnically homogenous electorates became one of the driving forces of expulsion and slaughter (episode VIII).”
^Rosefielde 2010, p. xvi: “The story that emerges from the exercise is edifying. It reveals that the conditions for the Red Holocaust were rooted in Stalin’s, Kim’s, Mao’s, Ho’s and Pol Pot’s siege-mobilized terror-command economic systems, not in Marx’s utopian vision or other pragmatic communist transition mechanisms. Terror-command was chosen among other reasons because of legitimate fears about the long-term viability of terror-free command, and the ideological risks of market communism. The internal contradictions of communism confronted leaders with a predicament that could only have been efficiently resolved by acknowledging communism’s inferiority and changing course. Denial offered two unhappy options: one bloody, the other dreary, and history records that more often than not, communist rulers chose the worst option. Tens of millions were killed in vain; a testament to the triumph of ruthless hope over dispassionate reason that proved more durable than Hitler’s and Hirohito’s racism. These findings are likely to withstand the test of time, but are only a beginning, opening up a vast new field for scientific inquiry as scholars gradually gain access to archives in North Korea, China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.”
^Krain 1997, p. 334: “In addition, many studies have documented the effects of wars and civil wars on general preconditions for genocides and politicides. For example, Melson (1992) argues that revolutions create the conditions that allow genocidal movements and permit their leaders to come to power in the first place and impose their radical ideology, thereby legitimizing mass murder in the eyes of the populace by making it state sponsored. Following the work done by Laswell (1962) on the ‘garrison state,’ Gurr (1988) documents the establishment and expansion of the secret police and other institutions of the ‘coercive state’ as a direct result of wars and civil wars. Eisenstadt (1978) argues that hostile international pressures lead to greater isolation of the elites, which in turn leads to an increased probability that these elites will use repression. Some preliminary quantitative work has verified this hypothesis.”
^Jones 2010, p. 126: “This civil war, one of the most destructive of the twentieth century, lasted until 1921 and claimed an estimated nine million lives on all sides. Its ‘influence . . . on the whole course of subsequent history, and on Stalinism, cannot possibly be overestimated. It was in the civil war that Stalin and men like Stalin emerged as leaders, while others became accustomed to harshness, cruelty, terror.’ Red forces imposed “War Communism,’ an economic policy that repealed peasants’ land seizures, forcibly stripped the countryside of grain to feed city dwellers, and suppressed private commerce. All who opposed these policies were ‘enemies of the people.’ ‘This is the hour of truth,’ Lenin wrote in a letter to a comrade in mid-1918. ‘It is of supreme importance that we encourage and make use of the energy of mass terror directed against the counterrevolutionaries.’ The Cheka, the first incarnation of the Soviet secret police (later the NKVD and finally the KGB), responded with gusto. Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders may have viewed mass terror as a short-term measure but its widespread use belies claims that it was Stalin’s invention.”
^Montagnes & Wolton 2019, p. 27: “Mass purges further seem to have occurred during, arguably, the most personalist phase, to borrow Geddes’s (2003) terminology, of the communist regimes in the USSR and China. We see two possible complementary reasons for this. According to Geddes (2003), personalist leaders control appointments, potentially raising the congruence of new agents, and the security apparatus, potentially reducing the cost of carrying out the purge. Purges may then have almost disappeared in China and the USSR following the deaths of Stalin and Mao because of the subsequent return to a form of collective leadership to avoid a repeat of past excesses (Levytsky, 1972; Teiwes, 2017). Obviously, much more needs to be learned about why autocrats decide to start a mass purge. However, our framework can be seen as a possible starting point for a more general theory of coercive instruments in autocracy.”
^Žižek 2006: “This ‘cosmic perspective’ is for Mao not just an irrelevant philosophical caveat; it has precise ethico-political consequences. When Mao high-handedly dismisses the threat of the atomic bomb, he is not down-playing the scope of the danger — he is fully aware that nuclear war may led to the extinction of humanity as such, so, to justify his defiance, he has to adopt the ‘cosmic perspective’ from which the end of life on Earth ‘would hardly mean anything to the universe as a whole’:The United States cannot annihilate the Chinese nation with its small stack of atom bombs. Even if the U.S. atom bombs were so powerful that, when dropped on China, they would make a hole right through the earth, or even blow it up, that would hardly mean anything to the universe as a whole, though it might be a major event for the solar system.This ‘cosmic perspective’ also grounds Mao’s dismissive attitude towards the human costs of economic and political endeavors. If one is to believe Mao’s latest biography, he caused the greatest famine in history by exporting food to Russia to buy nuclear and arms industries: 38 million people were starved and slave-driven to death in 1958-61. Mao knew exactly what was happening, saying: ‘half of China may well have to die.’ This is instrumental attitude at its most radical: killing as part of a ruthless attempt to realize goal, reducing people to disposable means – and what one should bear in mind is that the Nazi holocaust was NOT the same: the killing of the Jews not part of a rational strategy, but a self-goal, a meticulously planned ‘irrational’ excess (recall the deportation of the last Jews from Greek islands in 1944, just before the German retreat, or the massive use of trains for transporting Jews instead of war materials in 1944). This is why Heidegger is wrong when he reduces holocaust to the industrial production of corpses: it was NOT that, Stalinist Communism was that.”
^Conquest 2007, p. xvi: “Exact numbers may never be known with complete certainty, but the total of deaths caused by the whole range of Soviet regime’s terrors can hardly be lower than some fifteen million.”
^Yakovlev 2002, p. 234: “My own many years and experience in the rehabilitation of victims of political terror allow me to assert that the number of people in the USSR who were killed for political motives or who died in prisons and camps during the entire period of Soviet power totaled 20 to 25 million. And unquestionably one must add those who died of famine—more than 5.5 million during the civil war and more than 5 million during the 1930s.”
^Wheatcroft 1999, pp. 315‒345: “During 1921–53, the number of sentences was (political convictions): sentences, 4,060,306; death penalties, 799,473; camps and prisons, 2,634,397; exile, 413,512; other, 215,942. In addition, during 1937‒52 there were 14,269,753 non-political sentences, among them 34,228 death penalties, 2,066,637 sentences for 0–1 year, 4,362,973 for 2–5 years, 1,611,293 for 6–10 years, and 286,795 for more than 10 years. Other sentences were non-custodial.”
^Healey 2018, p. 1049: “New studies using declassified Gulag archives have provisionally established a consensus on mortality and ‘inhumanity.’ The tentative consensus says that once secret records of the Gulag administration in Moscow show a lower death toll than expected from memoir sources, generally between 1.5 and 1.7 million (out of 18 million who passed through) for the years from 1930 to 1953. Moreover, as Alexopoulos summarizes, we have found no ‘plan of destruction’ of prisoners (7), no statement of official intent to kill them in these records. Instead, historians have found that prisoner releases significantly predominated over deaths in the Gulag, with Alexopoulos’s own earlier work on amnesty a leading statement of this view. Yet her encounter with the Gulag medical-sanitary service’s Moscow archive ‘surprised’ Alexopoulos (1), and she now attempts to challenge the emergent scholarly consensus, with uneven success.”
^Snyder 2011: “All in all, the Germans deliberately killed about 11 million noncombatants, a figure that rises to more than 12 million if foreseeable deaths from deportation, hunger, and sentences in concentration camps are included. For the Soviets during the Stalin period, the analogous figures are approximately six million and nine million.”
^Montefiore 2005, p. 649: “Perhaps 20 million had been killed; 28 million deported, of whom 18 million had slaved in the Gulags.”
^Volkogonov 1999, p. 139: “Between 1929 and 1953 the state created by Lenin and set in motion by Stalin deprived 21.5 million Soviet citizens of their lives.”
^Gellately 2007, p. 584: “More recent estimations of the Soviet-on-Soviet killing have been more ‘modest’ and range between ten and twenty million.”
^Brent 2008: “Estimations on the number of Stalin’s victims over his twenty-five year reign, from 1928 to 1953, vary widely, but 20 million is now considered the minimum.”
^Rosefielde 2010, p. 17: “We now know as well beyond a reasonable doubt that there were more than 13 million Red Holocaust victims 1929–53, and this figure could rise above 20 million.”
^Kleveman 2003: In one estimate, based on a report by Lavrenti Beria to Stalin, 150,000 of 478,479 deported Ingush and Chechen people (or 31.3 percent) died within the first four years of the resettlement.; Naimark 2001: Another scholar puts the number of deaths at 22.7 percent: Extrapolating from NKVD records, 113,000 Ingush and Chechens died (3,000 before deportation, 10,000 during deportation, and 100,000 after resettlement) in the first three years of the resettlement out of 496,460 total deportees.; Mawdsley 2003: A third source says a quarter of the 650,000 deported Chechens, Ingush, Karachais and Kalmyks died within four years of resettlement.; Fischer & Leggett 2006: However, estimates of the number of deportees sometimes varies widely. Two scholars estimated the number of Chechen and Ingush deportees at 700,000, which would halve the percentage estimates of deaths.
^BBC 2008b: “Латвія стала 19-ю країною світу, яка визнала Голодомор ґеноцидом українського народу. Литва й Естонія ухвалили такі декларації раніше.” (translation: ‘Latvia became the 19th country in the world that recognized the Holodomor as the genocide of the Ukrainian people. Lithuania and Estonia have adopted such declarations earlier.’); Korrespondent 2008a: “Латвия присоеденилась к еще 15 странам, уже признавшим Голодомор в Украине геноцидом украинского народа. Декларация подготовлена в ответ на призыв Украины к международному сообществу признать и осудить Голодомор – голод на Украине 1930-х годов прошлого века. Как сообщалось, в феврале Мексика и Парагвай признали Голодомор 1932-1933 годов актом геноцида украинского народа.” (translation: ‘Latvia has joined 15 more countries that have already recognized the Holodomor in Ukraine as the genocide of the Ukrainian people. The declaration was prepared in response to Ukraine’s appeal to the international community to recognize and condemn the Holodomor — the famine in Ukraine of the 1930s of the last century. As reported, in February, Mexico and Paraguay recognized the Holodomor of 1932–1933 as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people.’); Korrespondent 2008b: “Сусідні з Латвією Литва та Естонія визнали Голодомор в Україні геноцидом проти українського народу ще на початку 1990-х років. Загалом, Голодомор 1932-33 рр. геноцидом українців визнали понад 10 держав світу. Серед них США, Канада, Естонія, Аргентина, Австралія, Італія, Угорщина, Литва, Грузія, Польща, Еквадор і відтепер Латвія.” (translation: ‘Neighboring Latvia Lithuania and Estonia recognized the Holodomor in Ukraine as a genocide against the Ukrainian people in the early 1990s. In general, the Holodomor of 1932-33 has been identified by more than 10 states of the world as a genocide of Ukrainians. Among them are the USA, Canada, Estonia, Argentina, Australia, Italy, Hungary, Lithuania, Georgia, Poland, Ecuador and now Latvia.’).”
^ Jump up to:abEllman 2002, pp. 1151–1172: “The best estimate that can currently be made of the number of repression deaths in 1937–38 is the range 950,000–1.2 million, i.e., about a million. This estimate should be used by historians, teachers, and journalists concerned with twentieth century Russian—and world—history.”
^Fenby 2008, p. 351: “Mao’s responsibility for the extinction of anywhere from 40 to 70 million lives brands him as a mass killer greater than Hitler or Stalin, his indifference to the suffering and the loss of humans breathtaking.”
^Su 2003, pp. 25–26: “In this study I have documented the patterns of mass killings in three Chinese provinces in the demobilization period of the Cultural Revolution. I also have also sought explanations for this historical tragedy by examining the role of the state. I have presented the findings from a few different angles. Now it is time to take a look at these findings together to formulate my central argument: The mass killings were rooted in the paradox of state sponsorship and state failure. … Mass killings occurred in the three provinces; in two provinces they were a widespread phenomenon. That this finding is from a published source sanctioned by the Chinese government unequivocally supports similar claims made by previous case studies. By examining the mass killings across more than 180 counties, with information from the previous case studies, I am able to uncover the following patterns. First, the mass killings varied greatly across three provinces, while within one province, there appears to be a great degree of uniformity. This pattern indicates that the occurrence of mass killings was more germane to province-specific political conditions rather than national politics as a whole. I tentatively attribute the provincial difference to the different patterns of mass factional alignment vis-à-vis the governmental authorities in the province. In Hubei, the Rebel Faction, having had prevailed in the previous conflict, was incorporated into the new government. In contrast, in Guangxi and Guangdong, the Rebel Factions continued to be the outsider, and the two provinces were more prone to use violence as a weapon against the Rebel Factions. An alternative explanation for the difference is that Hubei was geographically, and by inference, politically closer to Beijing, hence the province tended to have more restraint against violence. Second, the mass killings concentrate in the months after most counties established revolutionary committees, but in the time when the provincial capitals were still entangled in mass factionalism. The peaks of mass killings coincided with two announcements from the party center in July 1968 banning factional armed battles and disbanding mass organizations. The finding that historical timing was crucial factor helps us understand the nature and source of mass killings. The fact that most of them occurred after the new governments were put in place indicates that mass killings were the result of the repression by the local state rather than the result of conflicts between independent mass groups. The fact that they coincided with the crackdown of the oppositional mass organizations in the provincial capital indicates that the provincial authorities promoted the rhetoric of violence, although extreme violence in local communes and villages may not be what they intended. Third, mass killings were primarily a rural phenomenon. In other words, they occurred not in provincial capitals or county seats, but in communes and villages. This is in stark contrast to earlier mass movements of the Cultural Revolution such as campaigns against intellectuals and government officials and the factional street battles which mostly occurred in urban settings. The imagery of top-down diffusion does not apply to the mass killings. This suggests that the class struggle rhetoric disseminated from urban centers found an expression in extreme violence in rural townships and villages, possibly due to the failure of the state to hold the action of the lowest bureaucrats accountable. This explanation is supported by another piece of evidence—the poorer and remoter counties were more likely to have mass killings. Fourth, the perpetrators were the local leaders and their mass followers (e.g., militia members). The more party members in the local community, the more likely there were mass killings, likely because the local government in these communities enjoyed a stronger organizational base to mobilize the extreme violence. Fifth, other things being equal (i.e., controlling for distance, county revenue, and party membership) counties with a significant presence of ethnic minority were not more likely to have mass killings. Similarly, population density, prior armed battle conflict, and the compositions of the county leadership have no association to the likelihood of mass killings. These findings to some extent eliminate alternative explanations to the argument fashioned here that stresses the role of the state.”
^Su 2011, pp. 98–100: “The so-called class enemy as a category of the rural population had been in place for about two decades after 1949, but not until the Cultural Revolution did it become a victim group for eliminationist killing. This development cannot be explained by the communist doctrine of a classless society because the doctrine as previously practiced in China, for the most part, was not to create this society by physical elimination. Neither can it be explained by the notion that previously propertied classes posed an objective threat, hence that their elimination was imperative. This review of the origin of class enemy demonstrates that its creation, maintenance, and treatment all served the politics of the time. Mass-killing scholars who draw on political violence in communist societies for comparison, however, often take a realist view of the concept of class enemy (or ‘people’s enemy’ in the case of the Soviet Union). That is, they write as though the opposition to the new communist system was real, with class enemy identifying a broad category of individuals who represent plausible or incipient opposition or resistance to the state. … After the Land Reform movement, China was transformed into a classless society, if defined only in terms of property. From this classless society, the state created an artificial divide between ‘the people’ and the ‘class enemy.’ The toothless enemy class was never designed to be eliminated, either by murder or other means. In the first place, the numbers of class enemies were inflated. Quotas were established and sanctions were applied to local leadership if localities did not have a certain percentage of landlords and rich peasants; the numbers were always greater than their initial landed status would warrant. To underscore the artificiality and arbitrariness of this designation, a few years after Mao’s death, class enemies were eliminated as a political class – not by murder but rather by declaration – once the new leadership decided that the categories and campaigns had become counterproductive. Therefore, the class divides were imposed and maintained by the state and perpetuated through state-sponsored mass campaigns. What purpose, then, did the existence of a constructed enemy class serve? The answer links this artificial class divide to two main political tasks: mobilizing mass compliance and resolving elite conflict. These linkages are the key to understanding why the system deepened the politically constructed divide in times of political crisis. Its elastic nature, then, is the key to understanding why the class categorization could take on a genocidal dimension under extraordinary circumstances.”
^Etcheson 2005, p. 78: “Were the Cambodian people somehow Pol Pot’s ‘willing executioners,’ with the violence of the Khmer Rouge regime reflecting an underlying trait of the Cambodian people, historically unique to the time and place it occurred? Or did the violence of the Khmer Rouge regime emanate from some more broadly distributed ideological origin, therefore rendering it amenable to comparison? Perhaps the Khmer Rouge mass killing arose from the same tenets of communism that brought about the mass killing of Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China but that was, by absolute numbers, much less evil. Or perhaps the killing in Cambodia can be understood as a response to the perceived threat from Vietnam, as the Khmer Rouge themselves have argued at some length. These same themes and issues lay at the heart of the Historikerstreit, and they are also part and parcel of genocide studies. In the scholarly literature on the Khmer Rouge regime of Democratic Kampuchea, there have been two principal schools of thought regarding the nature of the violence that took so many lives in such a short period of time. One school of thought holds that the primary locus of the violence was local and that it was largely the result of the spontaneous excesses of a vengeful, undisciplined peasant army. A prominent proponent of this school of thought is Michael Vickery. A second school of thought holds that the locus of the violence was centralized and that it was largely the result of a carefully planned and centrally controlled security apparatus. Several observers have proposed this explanation of the violence in the Democratic Kampuchea regime, including, for example, the recently retired U.S. ambassador to Cambodia, Kenneth Quinn. It can be argued, however, that until recently there was an inadequate amount of data to make an unambiguous determination of the question. A wide range of new evidence uncovered by the Documentation Center of Cambodia over the course of the last ten years has done much to resolve this controversy. In particular, data on the frequency, distribution, and origin of mass graves, combined with data gleaned from newly discovered Khmer Rouge internal security documents, have given us new insight into the question of the economy of violence within Democratic Kampuchea. The data lead inexorably to the conclusion that most of the violence was carried out pursuant to orders from the highest political authorities of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. In this chapter, I briefly review some of the new evidence that so strongly suggests this new and well-documented conclusion.”
^Harff & Gurr 1988, p. 369: “Revolutionary mass murder: the most common type of politicide (following repressive politicide), with ten examples in our data set. In all these instances new regimes have come to power committed to bringing about fundamental social, economic, and political change. Their enemies usually are defined by variants of Marxist-Leninist ideology: initially their victims include the officials and most prominent supporters of the old regime and landowners and wealthy peasants. Later they may include-as they did in Kampuchea and in China during the Cultural Revolution-cadres who lack revolutionary zeal. In Laos and Ethiopia they have included ordinary peasants in regions which actively or passively resisted revolutionary policies. Most Marxist-Leninist regimes which came to power through protracted armed struggle in the postwar period perpetrated one or more politicides, though of vastly different magnitudes. The worst offender was the Pol Pot regime in Kampuchea; the second worst, the Chinese Communist regime.”
^Jambrek 2008, p. 156: “Most of the mass killings were carried out from May to July 1945; among the victims were mostly the ‘returned’ (or ‘home-captured’) Home guards and prisoners from other Yugoslav provinces. In the following months, up to January 1946 when the Constitution of the Federative People’s Republic of Yugoslavia was passed and OZNA had to hand the camps over to the organs of the Ministry of the Interior, those killings were followed by mass killing of Germans, Italians and Slovenes suspected of collaborationism and anti-communism. Individual secret killings were carried out at later dates as well. The decision to ‘annihilate’ opponents must had been adopted in the closest circles of Yugoslav state leadership, and the order was certainly issued by the Supreme Commander of the Yugoslav Army Josip Broz — Tito, although it is not known when or in what form.”
^Vu 2010a, p. 103: “Clearly Vietnamese socialism followed a moderate path relative to China. … Yet the Vietnamese ‘land reform’ campaign … testified that Vietnamese communists could be as radical and murderous as their comrades elsewhere. In May 1953, on the eve of the campaign, the VWP Politburo chaired by Ho authorized the execution of landlords by a ratio of one person for every thousand people, or 0.1 percent of the population.5 … 5. ‘Chi thi cua Bo Chinh Tri’ (Politburo’s Decree), May 4, 1953 (Dang Cong San Viet Nam, hereafter DCSVN, 2001, 14: 201). Based on other sources, Edwin Moise (2001, 7-9) accepts an estimate close to 15,000 executions. This was about 0.1 percent of the total population of 13.5 million in North Vietnam in 1955.”
^Valentino 2005, p. 223: “The pattern of Soviet military operations strongly suggests that population relocation was a significant part of Soviet counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. Although direct evidence of Soviet intentions is limited, most analysts and observers of the war have concluded that the Soviets adopted an intentional policy of attacking villages in areas of high guerrilla activity in the effort to force the population into flight. Free-fire zones were established in depopulated areas, permitting Soviet troops to shoot anything that moved. In addition to killing tens of thousands in attacks on villages, this policy eventually produced one of the most massive refugee movements in modern history. Approximately 5 million people out of a total prewar population of between 15.5 and 17 million had fled the country by the early 1990s, the great majority across the border to Pakistan. Two million more were displaced within Afghanistan. Many refugees died during the difficult journey over mountain passes to Pakistan.”
^Courtois 1999, p. 9: “As for the great famine in Ukraine in 1932-33, which resulted from the rural population’s resistance to forced collectivization, 6 million died in a period of several months. Here, the genocide of a ‘class’ may well be tantamount to the genocide of a ‘race’ — the deliberate starvation of a child of a Ukrainian kulak as a result of the famine causes by Stalin’s regime ‘is equal to’ the starvation of a Jewish child in the Warsaw ghetto as a result of the famine caused by the Nazi regime. Such arguments in no way detract from the unique nature of Auschwitz — the mobilization of leading-edge technological resources and their use in an ‘industrial process’ involving the construction of an ‘extermination factory,’ the use of gas, and cremation. However, this argument highlights one particular feature of many Communist regimes — their systematic use of famine as a weapon. The regime aimed to control the total available food supply and, with immense ingenuity, to distribute food purely on the basis of ‘merits’ and ‘demerits’ earned by individuals. This policy was a recipe for creating famine on a massive scale. Remember that in the period after 1918, only Communist countries experienced such famines, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and in some cases millions, of people. And again in the 1980s, two African countries that claimed to be Marxist-Leninist, Ethiopia and Mozambique, were the only such countries to suffer these deadly famines.”
^Shaw 2015b, Structural contexts and unintended consequences: “Many famines, for example, are originally the product of natural conditions (e.g. in nineteenth-century colonial India) or of anti-peasant policies not originally intended to cause mass death (Stalin’s ‘terror-famine’ and Mao’s ‘Great Leap Forward’). However, if regimes, whether colonial or Stalinist, fail to take action to alleviate or end starvation, then that outcome may come to be, in part, intended. The understanding of this issue in the laws of war is enlightening: ‘If the destruction [of civilian populations] is avoidable … through better weapon selection, tactics, etc., then the commander could still be held liable under Article 2 of the 1907 Hague Conventions,’ even if he did not intend to kill civilians. If leaders, in the knowledge of hunger, actively pursue policies that exacerbate it, as Stalin and Mao did by selling grain overseas and using violence to prevent peasants from accessing it, then their intention is clear.”
^ The resolution stated: “In the early 1990s, our country took important steps towards establishing the truth in the Katyn tragedy. It was recognized that the mass extermination of Polish citizens on the territory of the USSR during World War II was an act of arbitrariness by the totalitarian state, which also repressed hundreds of thousands of Soviet people for their political and religious beliefs, on social and other grounds. The published materials, kept in secret archives for many years, not only reveal the scale of this terrible tragedy, but also testify that the Katyn crime was committed on the direct orders of Stalin and other Soviet leaders.”
^Bevins 2020, p. 240:”… we do not live in a world directly constructed by Stalin’s purges or mass starvation under Pol Pot. Those states are gone. Even Mao’s Great Leap Forward was quickly abandoned and rejected by the Chinese Communist Party, though the party is still very much around. We do, however, live in a world built partly by US-backed Cold War violence … Washington’s anticommunist crusade, with Indonesia as the apex of its murderous violence against civilians, deeply shaped the world we live in now …”
^Wheatcroft 1999, p. 341: “For decades, many historians counted Stalin’ s victims in ‘tens of millions’, which was a figure supported by Solzhenitsyn. Since the collapse of the USSR, the lower estimates of the scale of the camps have been vindicated. The arguments about excess mortality are far more complex than normally believed. R. Conquest, The Great Terror: A Re-assessment (London, 1992) does not really get to grips with the new data and continues to present an exaggerated picture of the repression. The view of the ‘revisionists’ has been largely substantiated (J. Arch Getty & R. T. Manning (eds), Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives (Cambridge, 1993)). The popular press, even TLS and The Independent, have contained erroneous journalistic articles that should not be cited in respectable academic articles.”
^Goldhagen 2009, p. 608. It is based on a quote from the 1958 Wuchang conference, where Mao was quoted as saying: “In this kind of situation, I think if we do [all these things simultaneously] half of China’s population unquestionably will die; and if it’s not a half, it’ll be a third or ten percent, a death toll of 50 million people. … If with a death toll of 50 million, you didn’t lose your jobs, I at least should lose mine; [whether I would lose my] head would be open to question. Anhui wants to do so many things, it’s quite all right to do a lot, but make it a principle to have no deaths.”
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Steve Erdmann’s Dissenter/Disinter Group Editorial Comments
“Warning” to those who join the Dissenter/Disinter Group: Facebook’s new algorithm automatically ‘subtracts’ members rather than add them correctly! It was not like this a few months ago. This has been reported to Facebook numerous times, without result! An accounting has been started today of all members added to the Dissenter/Disinter Group to document their miscreant functioning. I ask ‘you’ computer programming and mathematician experts out there: what kind of accounting is Facebook using and how would you address this problem? Please help me investigate this and make complaints. A Facebook Help Desk comment on Google says they are “scrubbing-out” non-active Group members: Who and why are they making those indiscriminate decisions (they don’t do that with Friends on Timelines): sounds more like censorship, that would actually be a private matter between Administrators and the members, and not done arbitrarily and against their will (why even try to get members if they’re going to be knifed in the back (or, solicit new members to a Group)?
******* SE – Once again, we try to explain (as we have done in the past several times) our general approach to news, the media, politics. Here is a reproduction of private comments in a reply to one of my critics:
“We like some of your ideas, facts, and thoughts, and we welcome them – if presented within reason and decor. This is what we don’t like and try to avoid: Stephen Erdmann: We promote very few human endeavors in an absolute sense, Russian or otherwise, as all fail and all fall within the scope of the loop of human evil and frailty. We look for those foes that all humankind seems to be battling from ‘any’ corner they are hunkered in.
“This Group is not a ‘platform’ for one single person’s private opinions or ‘sermons.’ It is a ‘forum’ whereby ‘all’ have an opportunity to add to the ongoing investigation. Hopefully, most will participate and not just become ‘observers.’ Likewise, this Group will not become monopolized by the thinking and propaganda of just one individual – this was not its purpose.
“We are not affiliated with the KKK or any other political faction said that many times, over and over, as well as has explained why we present all sides of news and media questions, without censorship, if possible. We are against the Military/Industrial/Corporate/Complex/Matrix (MICCM) and all its ‘isms,’ ‘cants,’ ‘crats,’ ‘cans,’ and ‘doms.’ All it takes to see this and prove it, is to use your mouse or enter scroll and have a strong browser and investigate back to 2011. We refuse to become any one person’s private, personal pulpit (that is why you have your own Timeline). We allow most to speak their minds continually here — even to the point of opulently and often stuporous ferociousness — over and over — but apparently that is not good enough for a few. It takes a strong mind and will to live under the 1st Amendment and really abide by it.
“When I say ‘we,’ I usually mean ‘me’ – though I am speaking editorially on behalf of all those members who follow and agree with the Preamble religiously — they get the idea and message — and are giving me their full support.
“All the twisting, stretching, and manipulating of my stated words and intended feelings will not help these matters, and being completely uncompromising, unreasonable and deliberately uncouth certainly won’t help either.
“Please, read my text and postings in their full context and their entirety, if possible, to adjust to the real story and picture I present. Don’t settle for ‘half-baked’ interpretations or careless understanding.
“When any one person begins to use these spaces as solely his or her private podium to demonized (and shout down or otherwise badger) all other voices, he will be informed and given a mandate to cease and desist. This is a ‘forum’ Group and that connotes some fairness and inspection and equipoise of one’s behavior: we hope that each member will reflect on their behavior and not allow it to become effluvium.”
(This does not mean we will allow boring, tiring, inaccurate propaganda about the alleged Israel-cabal of so-called Zionism, which in many cases is far too short-sighted when it concerns the worldwide Military-Industrial-Corporate-Complex-Matrix (MICCM). Well documented pieces on ‘how’ Zionism is part and parcel of the “overall” MICCM, might be tolerated; but, singling out propaganda trying to prove Hitler was virtuous and the killing of the Jewish population as justified, will not be tolerated.
We do not automatically share anti-Semitic views and do not state everyone should or does. In fact, those that appear to be promoted from a Hate standpoint usually won’t coexist on this Group. This Group does not endorse, knowingly, anti-Semitic propaganda per se and any Hate Speech that is the basis for it.)
We are here to promote ‘news’ from all different angles and sources, it is not my or anyone else’s purpose to knowingly or even unknowingly ‘prejudge’ the news, unless it becomes so apparent it is false there is no other alternative. But getting to that point can be a rocky and wearisome struggle. We have no prejudice about exposing ‘multiple’ viewpoints, because we realize that reality is multi-sided, often multidimensional, complicated and not always easily discernible: so we present many sides of that struggle. If you read my editorial comments, you should see that I have no particular stake in the sordid political fights and feel such political ‘gamesmanship’ is illusory and almost impossible. Some people feel that such deception is beyond their party, club or faction. You may feel yours is Holy, as well. I doubt that sanctimoniousness. Only the strong-minded need to tread here. That closed-mindedness of “my viewpoint only” needs to be “taken down.”
It won’t help to distance yourself from exercising your 1st Amendment Rights or having a scientifically critical viewpoint of the way life really is. Being Cheshire Cats or Mad Hatters, neither, or the way humans use delusion to cover the crimes of fellow humans down through the centuries. They now call Hollywood La-La Land for a reason. We all want to be ‘happy,” or try to be, and relish the moments that can be described as such—who wouldn’t?— but the age-old conflicts that are weighing down on so many in society, like maimed soldiers with PTSD — can’t foolishly ignore the conflicts.
A lot of people don’t want to fall into the greedy hands and the vicious, heartbreaking, devastating grip of the Legal Cabal and lawyers who eagerly waiting your downfall and falter into the henchmen hands and courtroom manipulations of distorting reality and controlling your life in as much pain and anguish and loss as possible. You have to example the alternatives, but when confronted, especially with prior knowledge, it might be best to look to each other rather than the Powerbrokers and the Big Brothers. Unfortunately, many are just babes in the woods and don’t know yet what is about to befall them.
It’s all about the money and how the Legal Cabal can control the situation; children are used as hostages for ransom, the court room their playground to reconstruct reality: Orwell’s ‘1984’ further realized, and you will, like Winston, if they have their way, “come to love Big Brother.”
It’s all part of a political ‘game’ that they develop in the courtroom to recreate a ‘reality’ that is used against you (much like the political world in George Orwell’s ‘1984’), been saying that for some time now; and the bigger “gunslinger” and ‘stick-carrier’ more or less wins. Not much different then olden medieval jousts or Roman gladiator fights.
There is a big difference between a source that publishes outright invented news, and a source—or sources—that you just “don’t like,” or says things that are philosophically different than your views or opinions. Things said on the Left spectrum and the Right Spectrum may annoy us, but they have the Constitutional Right to speak and be heard by willing listeners (you can always turn a deaf ear to the opinion). Myself, I think both sides of the “aisle” are filled with evil intentions and hogwash, but that shouldn’t prevent me printing interesting ‘tidbits,’ unless I decide one day to go completely “off the grid.”
Political terms, names and meanings have evolved, changed, and transformed over the years as many other concepts that have also transmogrified. Some “liberal” concepts once seemed to uphold “freedom,” ‘free speech’ and protected ‘human rights’: now have turned into a ‘power-based’ ‘force’ to change society, even if by ‘radical’ or ‘militant’ means. Some blatantly attack those idealistic overtures the Founding Fathers alluded to (some hiding behind those precepts but being actually treacherous to them). Conservatives tried to parade themselves as preserving the principals that were expounded underlying the Founding Fathers up to and through the Bill of Rights, have much, in the same way, become the lair of the wealthy and ultra-rich which want to control the masses, preserve their power and wealth, and hide behind a disguise of being the protectors of the Rights of Mankind, when they are only another power-based ‘force’ for control and greed using the slavery to the masses. They have far surpassed the British overlords the colonialists fought. All of these have become Monsters.
(I know from experience that security guards are nothing but Whipping Boys, a ‘buffer’ between the Security Guard company, the police and the Landowner (they have three (3) bosses). They are the ‘Fall guys,’ if anything goes wrong, it is their job to take the heat, to not make the Landlords or the company to look bad (nor the police, who often treat them as low, second-class citizens and nothing more). They are given a whole list of phony ‘rules’ to make them robots to ‘slice the heat’ and put on a good ‘public face’ (often at low or very moderate wages), sometimes in very dangerous and life-threatening situations. It is Crony Capitalism at its worst; most guards will not admit this for fear of losing their jobs. They could really tell you some stories: but it would expose the ‘system.’ They are allowed to do what they have to do in order to ‘protect’ this ‘status quo and system.’ I am quite sure this goes beyond the Security Guard profession, and the same mentality exists in most businesses and professions, one way or the other.)
Yes, we have covered this phenomena every now and then since 2011. I’ve been through the Divorce Racket (and other rackets) over the years and have tried to speak out in various formats and scenarios; it all follows a common thread. It makes one wonder why we are fighting each other, rather than the ‘common enemy.’ That enemy is hard to see and I’ve done what I can to expose it and make it visible. These pages are open to fellow dissidents and ‘explorers’ and ‘exposers.’ You’re welcome to tell your stories here and add to the exposition. It is all part of a megalith monster I call the Military-Industrial-Corporate-Complex- Matrix (MICCM).
Those that have been through an unwanted divorce, and even a wanted one, to some degree, are aware of the trauma, nervous fatigue, and other psychological damage done—along with other life incidents—resulting in a form of PTSD. I would be the last one to tell someone how to live, as there are too many factors. Avoid elitist nay-sayers who are usually the cause of the problem that you are in, as they are usually narcissists. There is an ‘upside’ to these battles, and it is usually found within you somehow and can be reinforced by fellow victims, possibly.
Concerning a separate and special Right for Women Manifesto: Don’t know why it has to be signature by “women” as these are basic Human Rights for all mankind, male or female, which, unfortunately many women, in their symbiotic and parasitic alliance with the Legal Industry Cabal, causes them to tarnish and violate those basic Rights for both Men and Women. See how far these Rights go without falling into the trap (as they have already been) of being used or overtaken by the MICCM and other Legal Industry Masterminds which only serve their own Power, Profit and Prestige.
You are seeing the dark crevices of the Legal Cabal and its influence over humans. It is not a female/male thing, necessarily, but an allowance of human perversity personified by the workings of the Legal Industry. You are experiencing the gun-ho workings of the system on individuals, as many men have experienced, but the system forces on everyone for profit and power. It is as old as “slavery.”
“Outspoken” should pertain to those who are proven to be true heroes opposing physical and psychological dangers, as opposed to brats and punks, calling themselves adults, trashing, and destroying others for very vain and greedy purposes.
It is equally infuriating to be unnecessarily misquoted and misunderstood, when an opponent or debater is just flouting his ingrained and innate propaganda brainwashed into him from birth and is making no attempt to truly analyze and comprehend what you are telling them. Sometimes, their minds are so closed, they just ignore anything you say or do. Instead of approaching the arguments from “in your shoes,” they continue to be the little robots our society has invented and further spiel the usual venom and grade-school invectiveness in which they have ‘not’ tried to unlearn.
I am at a point in my life that I want to undo the evils that I forgot or refused to fight against in my life, and give others a choice to do the same, before it is too late, utilizing my 1st Amendment Rights and no longer turning a blind eye to the fates of the world. To teach others to ‘think’ and discover and use their mind, not to become simple sheep and blind slaves to those who control their reality: Take off their masks, those little deceiving priests!
People get stuck in very old ideologies, concepts and “isms” and refuse to move out of those ‘boxes.’ We always like to think that we are the ones that are wearing the ‘white hats,’ and are the ‘only’ ones that know how to wear them and, even, the only ones that know where to ‘buy’ them: when they are just grey, smudged, soiled and fraying old hats that have been passed around for generations through many, many secret hands.
“Some kind” of compromise and “understanding” is always needed when these debates appear and try to look at “root” problems and not bring up too many private situations; and even then, always be willing to compromise and see each other’s point-of-view. Other than that, as I have said many times previously, the terms “fascist, liberal, left, right” are thrown around too loosely and with no historical meaning, always being projected from each person’s “private boxes.”
We shouldn’t condemn ‘socialism’ any more than ‘conservatism’: both are aimless, meaningless terms that don’t reflect the hidden agendas they are used for: fascist control and imperial elitism, the real enemy. At least ‘socialism’ had a true and genuine use in history well before America came into being and the bastardization of political terms. Most “political sensations” are nothing but masks to hide our inner evils and to gang together and destroy each other rather than help each other. A lot of national patriotism is the same baby-gook. We tend to fall for false histories, rather than the real histories: take off your masks little priests! Stop living in a world of ancient slogans and worn-out propaganda created by deceptive brain controllers and illusory political ideals.
Putting your full faith behind any one political party or personage is like trying to find virtue in a whorehouse: there are no such animals. Tyrannical and fascistic thinking are par for the course in any arena of life: it is the way humanoids operate. Ideologies are things only on ‘paper’: the real world should circumnavigate those illusory dreams and get down to the true facts; take off your masks, little priests.
I am the real oddball: and I have been sick and tired of the masking and erroneous parading of the so-called “Political Parties” for some time; watching the circus of flying monkeys never changes, even when one monkey is somewhat likable and seems to be alien to all the rest, it never changes. Still, we forge ahead and root and rant like the Romans at the Coliseum.
‘Pure’ Capitalism has never existed, nothing politically and socially has ever existed as ‘pure.’ It is easy to write something on paper and claim it is pristine and infallible, but quite another to see it operate in cold, stark reality. So-called Americanism as Capitalism was corrupted right out of the gate (i.e., see past postings and comments elsewhere). It is nice to write idealistic doctrine, but quite another thing to see it corrupted, inadequate, and having no fail-safe due to the monstrosity of the human condition. I know all about the dictionary definition but applying it to real human accomplishments is a pipedream, daydream, fable that has never really existed in all practically. I ‘sure as hell’ see proof of that every day.
So-called “Capitalism” has had its problems too, part of which redesigning what is a theory on ‘paper’ and inventing it according to our own evil images, in the form of Crony Capitalism, Fascism, etc., etc. Like so much in life, there never has been “pure” Capitalism (like there have never been ‘pure’ heroes, or ‘pure’ religion, or ‘pure’ politics) because any such “ism” is run by nefarious and weak and inhumane “humans.” We have a classical bent to destroy, pervert and warp the things about us. It is just one of many fairy tales and play-toys that humans like to toss around and manipulate. Looking for this Holy Grail (like looking for the Golden Fleece) is ‘fun’ and can be used to bolster our usual Id Monsters (to take a metaphor from the movie FORBIDDEN PLANET), but it is in no way ‘reality.’
Capitalism is a cheap term used on paper only, a fairy-tale used by mega-Monsters to wave in the face of others and hide behind their own magnanimous quests to control and prosper—it is a concept on paper, an ideology, that does not truly represent what is actually being done in reality. Crude Crony Mercantilism as a guise to hide under a fictitious Capitalism might be another way to describe it, but no matter what term you use, it has never really existed, any more than “pure” Communism, “pure” Christianity, or other “pure” ‘isms’ which we use to mask the real person or the real institution as it should be nakedly exposed for what it “is” and for what is really being done in all their corrupt and inglorious actions. Being a Monster in any fashion, no matter, how wealthy or powerful, does not justify its existence, Might does not Make Right, as history blatantly shows, and the defense of such corruption and any extension or characteristic of it only shows the evil it is and continues to become. Thank you Dorian Gray.
Fighting each other instead of the common enemy: what a waste! Some members are correct when they say America has strong fascist elements, but America is “not” the ‘only’ place that this evil does and can take root. We are overemphasizing the wrong places, time and things! Why is it that vampires can’t see themselves in the mirror?
It would appear that “enslavement” — or slavery — is a universal, ingrained mechanism of human nature — a very cruel and often contradictory facet of humans: which we can see today as it is incorporated, mechanized and used in our Modern World; and it is aimed at and applied “to all humans” (except for those who try to rule and use enslavement).
The vile vindictiveness that the public is confronted with by many judges in the legal system goes beyond the words “fair and equal justice,” where the lives of citizens become mere playthings in the Westworld-type of robotic recreation on the floors of the courthouse. The worldwide multi-billion-dollar Legal Industry has permeated every fiber of our lives and directed our realities to the dictates of this despotic Puppet-Master. Ask any divorce man or domestic court victim, they will attest that a man has only five (5) foes when he enters the system: his lawyer, her lawyer, the judge, her innate sexuality and the status quo.
Many live in their little “isms” they were raised in from birth and do not look beyond or question who are the core sponsors (do you have a mirror; can you look in a mirror?). They do not realize how intricately they are crafted and brainwashed. They are robotized goose-stepping zombies, and there is no changing. The MICCM has trained them well.
No concept or leaf is left alone by the MICCM: it is part of evil human nature, even so-called national pride or patriotism. Look down through history and see how often humans have used these for evil and destructive purposes.
The human being is love-challenged and intelligence-challenged and has proved themselves as such down through history. The humans believe that owning tons of money makes them superior to their fellow creatures and creating millions of enslaved and blindly devoted employees makes themselves even better rulers and elitists. It has always been that way, on the micro and macro levels; they also abhor psychological mirrors and will even kill to the death if their empires are challenged, taking millions of fellow humans to their death. They “group” in mutual ‘clubs’ as a way to protect and even ‘mask’ their true natures.
Reality is shifting beneath your very own feet: what we have been taught about the righteousness of the Left or Right, Democrats or Republicans, this ‘wing,’ or that ‘wing,’ and we do not reflect the innate and basic social realities that are taking place before our own eyes. In my years since July 27, 1944, based on my experience and the questions I have asked, and my eyes have seen, we have been deluded over and over, from the day we were born. See my past comments. When confronting attorneys in private and putting hard questions to them, often in confidence, many have said there is no real freedom, anywhere, in any party — that they are in control and they hold allegiance to no one but their Bar Association cabal. Right out of Orwell’s 1984, but only worse and complete. This: because all “isms” are under the evil rule of the “Humans.” Humans that glorify every evil act they do as good and pure: it won’t change, and we won’t challenge it unless we see the real “enemy.” We will continue to form “clubs” (social and physical) — and expound those clubs — with power and greed and evil to be used as ‘clubs’ against each other — until this final Truth becomes too evident to deny.
These lawyers have opened a Pandora’s box. In my meetings with attorneys, they have shown hardened, darkened commitment to fascistic, despotic rule by corporate giants and big business, in stark, no-uncertain-terms—those terms are evident in the elements of its manufacture, such as Fire-At-Will laws and the disrespect of Human Rights.
An editor from the Wall Street Journal hit the nail right on the head: it is all about money. You pay enough so your lawyer can split a little off for the other lawyer and the judge, and after paying a small fortune, you get some of what you want. It is all a recreated reality done in the court room to the tune of the dollar bill. It is sad, that is true, but this is the way humans operate. Sometimes, however, one lawyer just does not want to look bad to the other lawyer, or the judge, and will sell you out just to keep in tight with the Club. The Legal Cabal is very much a part of the MICCM and controls our reality, it’s a “‘Big Club,’ and you are not in it!” (Carlin). I mentioned one time to an editor of the Wall Street Journal that perhaps a RICO suit should be brought against the Bar Association, and he asked how I would get the money to do that, and that, here again, it is a lawyer suing fellow lawyers; it ain’t going to happen. How can we get over this insurmountable wall? I’ll join in a Foundation to fight lawyers, if others will come with me. Let me know.
Note the synchronistic similarities between corporate “government,” popular “government,” social “government,” corporations as “people,” corporate “government” bribing and sleeping with “popular government,” all mixed in what I call the Military/Industrial/Corporate/Complex/Matrix (MICCM) “Government.”
We don’t understand “government.” We think it is a separate entity, alone and separate from us. Government is the darkest, evilest, macabre parts of our own psyche, and when those elements ‘group’ in the various forms and combinations (such as the MICCM) and materialize, we see the Monster ‘we’ have become. In the science-fiction thriller THE FORBIDDEN PLANET, it was called monsters of the ‘id.’ Until we see the true ‘enemy’—us—we will never, ever come to terms or defeat it.
Part of the problem is our throwing terms around for loose and lop-sided reasons without any real background or roots. These are enormously powerful people in the IMF and the United Nations, they are not a bunch of poor people trying to grub-up a livable wage for themselves. All this talk about entitlements: some of these ‘official’ people are born-and-breed aristocracy; they don’t know what it is like to live in the slums of India, Africa or the lowest of the low. It is a matter of the wealthy controlling the masses, and it is usually the wealthy that profit and the masses that suffer. They spend billions of media-propaganda-dollars guaranteeing that ‘that’ brainwashing is successful so the masses don’t attack them and “keep the lowly in their place.” That is the way it has always been! What is so sad, is when some of these executives, in a “little-bit-than-better-CEO-middle-class-salary,” actually have convinced themselves they are on the “winning side”—yes, they are actually safely on the side of the “elite”—that is ‘their’ team—and yet they don’t realize or are not aware that this is all self-delusion and they are only a few steps away—in actuality—from their very own destruction as outsiders also. It is all part of the programming by the MICCM.
It is exceedingly difficult and painful to suddenly realize that lullabies and fairy stories are things that are used to placate us and even control us, stories put down on paper, while they make us feel good and justified, are usually used by ourselves against ourselves as weapons hurting or obscuring ourselves. But we keep trudging on, programmed to believe that our ‘pipe dreams’ will come true and the scribbling we have made—or were programmed to make–mean something and will fly off the paper into reality. We can always pretend and hope.
(An aside: We have a ban on personal and unreasonable attacks on each other, or any other excuse one would try to come up with. If some are allowed to attack private family and friends, then any one is allowed to.
Attacks on one’s personal parents, children, or relatives are not allowed for whatever reason one can imagine. No posting or site or Group justifies hitting below the belt: if your arguments are good, they will not sink this low. That is not just espousing another opinion: instead, that is vicious attack.
We welcome all civil comments. We are running into, now and then, more and more, the questionable muck that is so often displayed across the Internet that ‘free speech’ is confused with slander, personal attacks and just being downright nasty and unkind for no other reason. We are happy to see you are not one of them.)
(I am not so sure the Reich disappeared but was transformed into the Fourth Reich, and the transformation and partnerships went further and further: the constant transmogrifications and transformations with partners sleeping in same bed. All the “isms” have blended into sub-Rosa deals: you are dealing with one huge Industrial/Military/Corporate/Complex/Matrix [MICCM]. The Party system is a mask, as are so many other masks. “Take off your mask, little priest,” says murderer Errol Childress to detective Rustin Spence in TRUE DETECTIVE, a mask we all wear and deny. ######################################## “He’s saying to take off the mask of his persona. They both know that the whole concept of being a ‘person’ is an illusion, and that everything just repeats over and over again, that good and evil will always exist, and yet Rust continues to fight the ‘good’ fight, because that’s simply his role. He is aware that it is futile, and yet continues this masquerade nonetheless. Errol is telling him to take off his mask and reveal his ‘true’ self; that the darkness is really within him. That this is all just a play, created by himself. A dream that he had within a locked room. And the only way to reveal this truth is in death.” ################### https://www.quora.com/True-Detective-Season-1-Episode-8-Why…
It is sad if we still have to use the terms Liberal and Right as human qualifiers, as if it is a baseball sport, instead of just looking at the people as humans and just look at the facts: without all the banner- “my side versus your side” – waving. Slogans are masks to hide the evil, take off your masks little priests.
How in the world do the readers/members equate “non-coercion” with capitalism, when capitalistic countries have far more than a share of human torment and inhumanity? The fact is: there are no ‘pure’ systems of human relations that are devoid of evil and human mistreatment, be that capitalism or other. A lot of corruption happens in this system, and others, that can’t be gainsaid or explained away with fluffy, pie-in-the-sky make-believe. We need to take off our masks!
I think there is far more fear of the wealthy right-wing tyranny taking over America than the poor, underprivileged underclass swarming the Elite-ruling class. This fear of the “reds” coming to get our money was instilled in the 30-50’s to fight Communism by Intelligence operations in America. You are stuck in an era that was not all-together true. I don’t think presenting you with other evidence will do much good, if you are not willing to move out from behind that propaganda.
Having no great love for the current Parties, or any “ism,” does not mean I cannot pick out those bits and pieces and statements of logic that seem – seem – to point to good directions. It doesn’t mean I am giving “WHOLEHEARTED” endorsement of any Party or organization: just respecting some things that they occasionally say that are reasonable. History – true history – exists as bits and pieces in a large jigsaw puzzle; it is up to us to locate and assemble those pieces in honest efforts.
This should be an independent look at facts and issues, not “wings”: this is not a Kentucky-Fried restaurant. And this so-called “Right wing”—that must be a spicy part of the bird—or are they just Muppets dressed in white robes and gold halos floating around with their all-powerful wands and gimmicks?
This Group is not a hodgepodge of confused (nor a melting pot of all kinds of), aimless political quips and slander: do not come here to just “get something off your chest” – speak with purpose, clarity, and humanity and reason: childish tantrums belong in the alley. We need some new, innovative, investigation and reasoning: not the same old, worn-out, repetitive, ageless tantrums about Left versus Right. If we cannot change – we are lost.
Members are always welcome to state their detailed reasons for disagreement, but usually none are forthcoming. We encourage members to post their own analysis and other areas of news, no matter how disconcerting; but, apparently, most just rather be by-standing critics that have little to say of value.
If you want further specifics other than what is said here: you need to help locate those persons and names and pin down their actual substance and actions: nothing is being handed on a silver-platter, and we ask all to add further names and specific items; you are welcome to do that. Readers are welcome to speak up and demonstrate their findings, rather than vaguely complain. Sometimes, specific and detailed questions bring forth specific and detailed answers, bad questions, bad answers.
I don’t necessarily believe Putin or “anybody”: I try to present a lot of interesting comments and facts with not so much an unduly “prejudgment” so as to get opinions from all sides, rather than censor from some hidden or inner sanctum crap-pot of judgmental facts; and then I sometimes let the chips fall where they may.
(Please read and follow the Preamble, it is there for a reason. While we abhor censorship, but we do have rules: this is not a “let it all hang out” assembly with wild and ravishing comments. Use reason and purpose and humanity.
For all those out there who occasionally complain about the choice of content [and I am fighting the heavy-hand of the 1st Amendment and no censorship as well]: please submit – submit content that you would like to see, be active to this extent, and not just bystanders and curbside spectators.)
We welcome all the stories of tragedy in the lives of people who have encountered the Power Cabal. Most people are unaware of the day-to-day destruction of the family and other ‘taboo’ topics because the Powers-That-Be are not predicated upon its disclosure and they rather hide the cold, stark and naked facts: it would expose their true, evil intentions. Your stories can be told here.
Sadly, corporate enterprises, such as FACEBOOK, are trending to follow in the insanity of despotic corporatism, viewing their use of robots and censorship and Kangaroo Courts: It doesn’t make it right, known as Might Makes It Right syndrome. People have always fought back against this type of tyranny—and always will—unless they are Brain Washed or become corporate lackeys or henchmen. Here is one better: ultimately, your reality is controlled by lawyers and the Bar Associations in a Grand Cabal—what do you do, just give up the spirit and allow them total, complete control? As time goes on, and the technological tools advance and the wealth of the elites also grow, so do the means and tactics of the Power Elites, advancing in tow — step by step, to your demise.
That’s foolish! Obviously, Facebook doesn’t say: “you must agree to pointless censorship and reckless use of rules and unreasonable and dark, unanswerable human treatment and censorship”; they allege to act in a fair and reasonable manner and answerable to common decency and humanity. It is the least that American society expects. True, no one is reasonable and especially those in power, and only corporate lackeys and those of dark, like-minded mentally would agree with it anyway. Some of us have been mistaken, but it is not the first time, and, in our goodwill and generosity, we make false assumptions all the time—–it still does not make it right, but only to the like-minded.
We dance around some of the “core” problems and dress our dance in all kinds of (getting to be) “worn out” slogans, chants, and aimless threats, some very inaccurate, often, pretending to be on the “right side” of history — as the ground is shifting beneath our feet and the very reality of things is and has changed drastically in the matrix before our very eyes. More to come.
Good that you aren’t “complying,” that is not like you Ron Schmidt, because it seems to be Facebook’s “official” policy to allow this junk to happen often; religion, corporatism, and a whole host of tyrannical and power-derived ‘isms’ — even ‘capitalism’ — operate basically the same: fear, control, subjugation, etc. It is the way humans work and have been operating for eons. But Ron doesn’t really believe this “system” of humans can be evil and maybe, just maybe, we signed on to their Terms of Service (TOS) when we bought into this mass deception, and since we “bought in” to this grand Status Quo, we should have no complaint (Sovereign Immunity, “Don’t Question the King,” Boss, Dictator, President, etc., etc.), complaining won’t get you to the Top (investigating the system, the boss, etc.), only compliance will so sell your soul to the TOS, you hoe. Besides, it doesn’t really matter said an EEOC lawyer: they can make the rules, break the rules, apply them incoherent any way they like (and from the looks of the dirty politics going on nationally and internationally, that is obvious)! You just have to live with it!
Robert Glenn: True, men and affairs are like peas in the pod, on down the line. They carry that pistol and then are told not to use it. But here is the irony of those situations, unless they are gay: they are doing it with “females.” It takes two to have sex, unless you are into riding the pony by yourself. But sadly, we are also told these “females” are forever innocent, victims, forced into sex by evil-overbearing-seductive males. I’ve met many females when I was single: not at all innocent, dumb, uncreative, brainless sex partners. In fact, I recall being seduced five or six times. Some, I even turned down (to my chagrin and even threats). But that was all my fault too for not allowing seduction. A guy just can’t ‘win,’ and to emphasize the point the Legal Cabal Pimps will see that you get the point and learn that lesson in the back-alley called the court system. Have a nice day?
You corporate lackey! We know all about the propaganda of corporatism! We’ve heard the slogans and the doctrines and the weird terms of corporations as ‘people,’ and how they have so much Power and can get away with murder and inventing and corralling laws and the making and breaking of laws. And you are right ‘in’ there! We see it— and so do many others — quite differently — crony capitalism — phony capitalism — whatever term you feel happy and comfortable about. Nobody in their right mind willingly sells their soul to the devil (except you!). We’ve been over this — with you — and other numbskulls — and we know from where and how you are coming. You probably feel just fine and dandy with the bullshit Facebook has been promoting, and some more that kind, or the other antics that corporate social media is using. You have all the answers but not the soul of America, and its ugly, dark, corporate underbelly. You are right at home (but not here) and probably could care less.
Stephen ErdmannRon Schmidt (April 9, 2018) Hey Ron, corporations are different than citizen houses and families. There is a dichotomy and a hierarchy involved that is apparently over your head, but it can involve crimes, and if any ‘person’ commits a crime (and corporations are ‘persons’ now) he pays penalties and infractions, and from the looks of things, corporations are not devoid of that and even further looking shows they have many legal suits and case files against them. If they can do no wrong, why is this all taking place? Apparently, what corporations want, and what ‘reality’ is doing and seeing are two different things. There are many other fine distinctions happening, but they are well over any corporate lackey’s head as most of those have their heads stuck so far up the respective corporate butts, they can’t see the light of day! It has been called by many different names, white collar crime, and monopolization, money laundering, on and on and on.
Trump has a specific personality his own, entirely, how can it be any different; do you want him to ‘pretend’ to be a person that he really isn’t, and what might that be? Listen, this Group, site, and profile, as well as many others on Facebook and the Internet say they are for originality, free-thought, free speech, free actions, and then when a President of the U.S. says he is his own person and unique, you slam him. It is okay for ‘you’ to be that way and not a President? If he does something dastardly, it will be exposed, but this wild and constant minute-to-minute character assassination (in the land of the Free, innocent until proven guilty) that appears nothing but a propaganda machine; and dirty politics isn’t any good either, at all. And who might and has been accusing us freethinkers on Facebook of being “unbalanced” as it goes with the territory.
Male and female have that innate animal urge to destroy their neighbors. Animals do it out of necessity to survive. Humans do it out of that unidentifiable element in the deep part of their spirit that must be evil, to be satiated, and quenched, for no other purpose than to gain control, Power, and conquest for pleasure. Both men and women have this ID Monster element; though females have evolved to perform an ‘added’ psychological mechanism and gimmick that males have not evolved into, giving them an added ‘edge’ of attack and destruction. My MiiMii and Dexter, even my outdoor Blackie, do not do these things, because they are civilized animals, not monstrous humans. It is interesting to note, one instance when I was a Security Guard at a bank, I could listen in on the conversations of the female bank tellers, and they had gotten into an unrehearsed, completely free conversation amongst themselves about females and how destructive they were in their actions and the games they play. True history and life, unveiled and unprompted, can be a powerful life-lesson.
Stephen Erdmann: June 12, 2018: Sadly, trying to find honest and reputable “politicians” is like trying to find a sinless prostitute in a whorehouse, or trying to find the best apple in a barrel of really rotten apples, or….it just is not possible. My Timeline, and the Dissenter/Disinter Group, and my Editorial Comments there, make it very clear: Partisan Politics (in fact, all ‘isms’ and ‘ologies’) is a zero-sum game which reveals only the masquerade that humans operate behind and mask themselves (only paper-tigers, bound up with phony White Hats, pretty ribbons, and decorative paper) — in short, these games of political ‘tag’ are worthless, history is always written by the winners and also distorted by the participants to cover all and subvert all the full facts. Of course, not everyone agrees with me, and most blindly march forward waving the banner of their ‘club,’ ‘group,’ ‘religion,’ etc., etc., blind to the obvious fact that humans do more historical damage to fact-finding than constructive help because of the continuous ‘masquerades.’ One reason we need the 1st Amendment and more impartial fact-finding historians (if such can even possibly exist). Until then, misplaced hero-worship and self-aggrandized ‘ologies’ will forever continue to distort the picture, perhaps without hope.
Some Groups are quite paranoid and hyperventilated, suspecting all people and persons to some curious agenda they ‘have’ or suspect others of having. The JFK groups are mostly like that, being a landscape of suspicion, unreasonable debate, slander, attack and wild accusations. That doesn’t say much for fair and sane investigation, tending to be grade-schoolers and parochially petty. I tend to shy away from such radical and wild climates, not doing science or any one any good: Mostly private “in” Groups, if you are friends of friends of friends, or know same or even if you associate with the wrong people they dislike (not the basis for good journalistic enquiry). Good luck.
But I repeat myself.
(We go back to 2011, for genuine researchers and not just spectators, so use a powerful browser and go searching. Good luck.)
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Dissenter/Disinter Magazine goes back to 1967 when I gave birth to a little fanzine that seemed to be my contribution to the media flavor of that time: the Viet Nam war, the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, the late Jim Moseley’s Saucer News, Ray Palmer’s provoking Search Magazine and Hidden World series, as well as a line of “controversy” radio programs such as Long John Nebel, Suspense, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, with television shows such as Science Fiction Theater and Twilight Zone. In St. Louis in the 60s there was WIL “Steve Clark” controversy radio. There was a section of the media that was renaissance to the investigating of the more curious and often sinister elements at that time, and it gave birth to me and others that have continued in that vein to this day (many will include Coast to Coast radio and Alex Jones and others to this list). We still try to contribute to the emblem of “controversy and protest” as a way of getting to the truth.
Subsequently, in the years following, my life embodied further “discovery” of these “realities” of the mysterious Powers-that-Be (which were quite depressing and decorated with flight-or-fight syndromes), and my waking hours were consumed with survival and making “ends meet” (as with so many of the population, I did not have the luxury of always devoting myself to media publishing or even schooling). That story may or may not be left to my memoirs (and my Timeline), if at all.
We try not to “conform” to predispose or status quo “images” that people have in their heads or were born with. We approach all topics from different viewpoints and suggestions, because we realize solutions are never black and white (I hail back to H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, George Orwell, Charles Fort (http://www.experienceproject.com/
…/Protest-The-Use-…/2923915), Info Journal, and a host of New Age and Protest scientists [study my Timeline]). We offer a forum for discussion, within reason. Questions are always open. I, personally, am ‘independent’ politically, neither bowing to the Left or Right, and neither do I encourage others to bow to them either (or any “ism”). It is a matter of finding out who the tyrants are and how much you relinquish to being a slave. Others may participate from their own level of evaluation, that is their right; but I cannot “endorse” everyone’s politics or religion. We offer a platform to search these things out (in a civil and humane fashion: see Preamble) through questioning and debate. How do you see applying censorship in Groups and Timelines? Use it every time something grinds against your personal opinion? And what about the next person? And the next person? Seems that our Founding Fathers grappled with these questions as well. It is amazing with all the common threads of agreement that ‘can’ be found in fighting tyrannical government and evil conspiracies, we are tearing each other apart, for some reason, over petty feuds and personality squabbles that detract from common core efforts (those little nuggets of gold that make us all as one in protest). We (we are speaking editorially) hope we are able to stand in a “common core” against Tyranny and the evils that are associated with it.
In the end, we are all brothers and sisters.
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And, yes, I tend to be an activist: A political activist is someone who is involved in the political process for the sake of promoting, impeding or raising awareness of a certain issue or set of issues. Political activism typically involves engagement beyond just voting, whether it be through protest, demonstration or lecture.
******* . PRIVACY Warning: Steve Erdmann: . Due to the fact that Facebook has chosen to involve software that will allow the theft of my personal information, I do declare the following: on this day, September 28, 2016, in response to the new Facebook guidelines and under articles L.111, 112 and 113 of the code of intellectual property, I declare that my rights are attached to all my personal data, drawings, paintings, photos, texts etc… published on my profile. For commercial use of the foregoing my written consent is required at all times. Those reading this text can copy it and paste it on their Facebook wall. This will allow them to place themselves under the protection of copyright. By this release, I tell Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, broadcast, or to take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The actions mentioned above apply equally to employees, students, agents and/or other staff under the direction of Facebook. The contents of my profile include private information. The violation of my privacy is punished by the law (UCC 1 1-308 – 308 1 -103 and the Rome Statute). Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are invited to post a notice of this kind, or if you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you have not published this statement at least once, you will tacitly allow the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile update.https://www.facebook.com/groups/171577496293504/ ##https://www.facebook.com/stephen.erdmann1.
NOTE: Many members and readers say this is worthless and of no legal value. I borrowed it from another Group. Worth a try. SE.
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May 21, 2018. About 3:50 p.m. Greg Ross I’ve shot better than you. Your fat ass easy target
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May 23, 2018: Comment on Travis Smith: Stephen Erdmann – Nationalism is a fiction created by ‘insiders,’ and like the doctrines of religions, despite their pompous-sounding slogans and professed emblems, usually has gone astray, and even covered evils of the professors that use them. The Founding fathers professed noble causes and principles, but they also had a ‘dark side,’ some of them, and many say they ‘really’ did not break away from the British Commonwealth and Throne. In the name of “goodness,” in the name of “Nationalism,” most countries wage war and so-called ‘defense’ against other countries. Some horrendous crimes are hidden under those banners. What if it is all a joke, a hoax, a deception, and ‘this’ is the way that the human “being,” animal, operates, suffocated by and paying homage to their inner ID Monsters?
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