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.
AND ALSO, AN INDEPTH TREK INTO THE WORLD OF SKEPTOID CULTISM
THIS IS AN UPDATED VERSION OF A LETTER SENT TO DAVE SCHROTH DATED SEPTEMBER 26, 2008; used on a few other sites and quoted in other articles from 2008 through 2018.
Many (wide and radical?) revisions and changes will come about over the next months and years. Some identities will be disguised to protect people. This does not mean it is an untrue account, just a disguised account much like the retired intelligence officer and spy, “Mr. X,” was a composite person of many sources in the intelligence community in Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, or many characters areintroduced as semi-fictional to carry multiple layers of truth. Alice I Have Been by MelanieBenjamin is somewhat like that (Delacorte Press, 2009);”A finely wrought portrait of Alice [in Wonderland] that seamlessly blends fact with fiction,” said Publishers Weekly of Alice. There is only one other character like that in this manuscript, but he is also portrayed as his real name in several instances and not his fictitious name/literary device. In only one other character is thename changedas buffer on his and his family’s identity to mute totalembarrassment as to his real-life amazing claims he makes about himself and his family. Somehow, a lot of respect was held for this man and family, despite incongruous actualities and real-life events; also to protect against law suits. Sadly, our Fanatic-Skeptical-Religious-Cultist will protest under some phony composite of ‘perfectionism,’ ‘anti-modernism,’ ‘historical retrogression,’ or allusion to his private quest to distort reality according to constant subjective perversion about what he feels is ‘scandal.’ Parts of this manuscript may be copied and pasted as separate manuscripts. It may change to widely different formats: things will be knocked around, cut, swapped, and jostled, in Henry Miller, John Steinbeck, Stephen King and Raymond Chandler fashion.
Stephen Charles Erdmann.
PART I
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…….” A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens, 1859, Chapman and Hall, London, England…
(This silique was begun as a reply to David Schroth’s protesting a visit to Red Robin restaurant as well as a visit to my orphanage on a particular day and the behavior of some of the accompanying Church members; Schroth wrote a letter detailing societal behaviors aimed at him and how they failed, from what it appears would be, a military ‘muster.’ It begins here with a rather simple visit with friends, but I go into deep detail and analysis of Schroth [followed by an even deeper, on-going and lengthy analysis of connected issues including his views on UFOs, science, religion, movie, perfectionism, and many others] because he is veryatypical in characteristics and not readily envisioned, demanding an extended and deeper assessment.)
Got your “analysis” dated September 20, 2008. I doubtI can put all my thoughts on paper in one single stroke, so I will probably “ramble” over several days and years.
My first impression was: who declared “war” on David Schroth; especially on September 13? Did someone challenge you by calling you “not cool”? I don’t believe one person there cared an iota about you “personally” – – – or even gave any weighty consideration to your philosophical background. I believe they were just what they appeared to be: average aging citizens out to socialize in a comfortable fashion. Do you feel they were putting on a special demonstration just for your personal edict?
Did anyone get up in the restaurant and begin to Rock N’ Roll? Especially, not that group! Now, John Moeller and I (and probably some of the others) have grown up in the Rock N’ Roll era, and, moreover, participatedinit (Teen Towns, church dances, house parties. I remember John, myself, Craig, Kenny, Nancy, Margie, Jackie and other eighth graders dancing and trying to Rock N’ Roll at a house party, preferring to slow-dance to Sixteen Candles). If that means nothing to your antithetical-separatist philosophy (what you termed at one time as your misanthropy), or perhaps rouses rancor, it probably means nothing to us and our childhood memories. I wouldn’t give up one moment of memory of those sweet, heavenly kisses and hugs from Sharon xxxxxx and Mxxxxx for even “tons” of Dave Schroth’s hard, cold world of Luddite-social contumacious antipodes.
(And you did also participate: a cassette tape on which you placed an interview with me back in the 1970s had – on the reverse side – your recording of Some Day we’ll be together with Diana Ross and the Supremes. That was a song circa 1967-1969: The “rock era.” Just couldn’t keep “spotless” in your doctrine? Have you thought of why “oldsters’’ would be inspired to dance to memories of their “younger” years, even though the ages have ravished their bodies with disease and cell deterioration? What is “nostalgia”? What is “longing”? What are “memories”? And what is “love”? But what is “hate”? Dave, I hope you are going to write a book on how you are an exemplary illustration of “perfected living.” Not that it probably would look silly to see older people dance in many cases {or see a wino singing on a street curb}. But that you seemingly can’t empathize, at times, in many cases with your fellow human-beings – – – you’ve been sheltered in some elitist “finishing-school” – – – much like a “rich kid” aristocrat out of some Charles Dickens novel. But even they have “points of view.”
Adolf Hitler did. He wrote his MEIN KAMPF {written back in those “good ole’ days,” that you magnify, of 1925-1927} while in jail. And then he expanded out into more personal theories and philosophies like concentration camps. We could expand on topics like urination, breakfast, and sneezing, bus-riding, exercise – – – learn the completely proper way to do these things. And I presume you’d be ready to take on the critics {funny, they are always out there} who will undoubtedly take on your cynicism and misanthropy which underlies your persona. I agree there is a lot to hate (you have no need to convince me of human cruelty – I’ve experienced it too often and have also been a progenitor of it myself [and to my shame, at times]: but everybody and everything all the time?).
(Dr. Clay Routledge of the North Dakota State University said of nostalgia: “Nostalgia is a way for us to tap into the past experiences that we have that are quite meaningful – to remind us that our lives are worthwhile, that we are people of value, that we have good relationships, that we are happy and that life has some sense of purpose or meaning.” Dr. Tim Wildschut of the University of South Hampton said that nostalgia is a “fundamentally humane emotion”. Linda Kennedy, author of Crumbs from theTable of Joy, said “we all romanticize about certain periods in our lives.” Even Benjamin Kyle, who suffered from retro- grade or dis-associative amnesia, had said this: “Where we came from always carries more emotional weight than where we are at now.”)
CONFESSIONS FOR THE SOUL
In looking back to that day, it would be unfair to you and, even, I, to deny things could have been conducted more properly. Life is like that. I just don’t know if I had the expertise socially. I just don’t have that much aristocratic training; I just rely on the good faith and trust of people to over-look my shortcomings. In so many ways, despite basic differences, you are still a “hero” of sorts to me. That may be hard to understand – perhaps I can explain it someday to you.
I don’t believe that crowd expected anything exceptional or phenomenal (I’ve talked to some of them and asked if they felt anything ‘bad’ happened and no one that I’ve talked to felt that way. Of course, they could be lying. I do feel the debate between John Moeller and myself, though not in genuine animosity, was foolish and somewhat in poor taste. John has been a big debater from ‘way back when’ and like Herb [“Herb? Who is Herb?” you asked me one day on an outing] tells me, “When John and his buddy from work get together to discuss politics: oh boy!” It probably was not that well-planned and executed – but I’m not a professional Wedding Planner either [or Funeral Director] – I tend to be spontaneous, somewhat incongruous and exorbitantly informal. Sometimes I can be an extrovert). It really wasn’t a suit and tie affair. But I should, somehow,someway have taken your feelings into account in the matter; I’m just not sure how that could have been done so intricately and in a short notice. In hindsight, I regret it affected you so personally. I am asking for your forgiveness.
Anna Nadir had a good perspective; “Past are meant to be in the past. If you dwell with it too much, you’ll never be able to move on. If I had kept tight to all the small lil misunderstandings I had with all my friends, I’ll never be good friends with anyone right now. You forgive and forget, but at the same time, learn from it and escape from repeating the same mistake again….Running away from viewing the bad/ugly side of our self is not that healthy either….None of us are perfect, so if you can know you have weaknesses, work on improving it, not ‘run away’ from it, that is ‘never’ a solution….” http://www.siraplimau.blogspot.com.
I recall that in my ‘single’ years, later when struggling to adapt to and survive in being “alone” after 12 years of marriage, I did my share of socializing at “dance clubs”; and I did my share of visiting “pubs” trying to acclimate to what might be a typical modern life style (never could achieve the money part, though I was a reader of Playboy – – – I suspect, like so many divorced or single men, my main concern was being lonely, afraid, disenfranchised, and somehow fending the “wolves” that were then snarling at the “target” on my back). Those years, however, seemed a combination of good and bad experiences. And, much like my childhood, I tried to “invent” adventure – – – be out and about “people”, places, and things (like Barbra Streisand says her song People: “people who need people….”) – – – to negate the harsh realities that pounced upon me. Some of my childhood experiences I’ve told you about. Some of the more-darker experiences, I just couldn’t speak of (as Uncle Tonoose [Hans Conried] use to say on the Danny Thomas Show – Make RoomFor Daddy – “Never allow the camel to stick his nose under the tent, before too long, you will have the whole camel inside the tent”). Those experiences have probably, much like you, entrenched the conflicting-feelings that have grown within me.
But would I give up the “good” memories just because they don’t fit in or satisfy some Luddite-separatist philosophy? It is not clear what you are asking; and, again, I am not sure anyone should care. Why would you ask that I become a self-abolitionist of everything in my past just to suit you?
NO CONSPIRACY
The Red Robin restaurant was a first-time event for most of the people on that trip. It was my first time. Did you feel there was a conspiracy to dragging you in there? None that I know of. I know for a fact that church members have gone to some very nice restaurants in the past. It just happened that this was a very poor choice for you personally ( I think it was just an impulsive decision: do you remember the swimming pool scene in the movie It’s A WonderfulLife with James Stewart and Donna Reed [one of your “Oldie but Goodie” movies] where George Bailey and Alice Hatch fall into the pool at the high school graduation dance [while dancing the Charleston to a Swing-Band {OH MYGOSH!}, along with all the other Jitterbugging students?).
What did you expect them to do: stand up in societal revolt – – – some kind of frenzy of polyphobia – – – – acoustic phobia, deipnophobia, panphobia – – – – walk out? I thought that group handled it very well, not knowing about your personal anthropophagic misanthropy; your black-on-white world view and recusantism. Besides, it’s not the first noisy restaurant we’ve been in: why did it really bother you to such a raw degree? My wife and I recently went to a new Golden Corral restaurant as a first-time event. The price seemed reasonable, the food fairly good. But it is a buffet and was a circusof all kindsof people and family chatter. My wife met some friends she had not seen for a while, and that made her happy. She was hungry and she really enjoyed the food. What did I expect? Not as quiet as some places, to be sure.
Did I feel the need to hand out pamphlets on how it may have offended my subjective sensitivities? Or go to the manager and start a harangue? No, and considering many other social and political problems (like the enormous economic fiasco America is under; or my personal health), it wouldn’t be on my top-ten list of personal challenges; that is, unless I had a phobia about noise and people! More than likely I’d line-up my preferences of restaurants and make a selection next time from my private list, depending on my mood and other factors (we have to get our priorities straight sometimes, especially in this ‘survival’ climate [I prioritize my concern over my diabetes, kidney failure {July 1}, hip and back arthritis, etc., first and then I add on and go down my list of my other eccentricities that I have like my painting my toenails green and walking barefoot down Grand Avenue, or gathering up stones from the roadside and carrying them on my head, or wearing shoes just one time and then discarding them: these, while interesting, are not high priority things to do right now – – – – It is ‘that’ simple].)
Maybe you just wanted to vent your usual cynicism (your misanthropic anti-social, antithetical feelings) now. And that is fine. I just don’t know why you aimed your diatribe of society at that group of people? I don’t believe they haveany great love for Red Robin restaurantsor were even practitioners of RedRobin (I suspect that if you would have attacked the issues in a different way [not make it a specific attack on those people] you would not have appeared so unkind).
Poor Fred was trying to help make the day enjoyable with his occasional ventures into weak humor [the Balsams are financially comfortable and own a farm and know a lot about crops, seeds, weather and things like that; not necessarily being a “suave” interpreter of restaurant styles]. They all were trying to socialize the best they could (if they had only slid their cars a few doors east, they would have selected The Bread Company restaurant – now, you and I had beenthere before on Watson Boulevard): Kenny Herman’s widow paid our way into the Butterfly House. I honestly don’t believe they were involved in a secret world of some esoteric fantasy world of elitist debunking. They wouldn’t even know what the heck that means.
Maybe, John would (and I could be wrong, but I don’t believe John is a full-fledged Communist even though he is a Democrat. I just think he got fed-up with politics as usual and the Bush administration [as have so many people; Obama was – again – a poor choice]). The invite to see the remake film of The Day the Earth Stood Still wasno ploy to upset you, though it somehow did. I forgot all about wishing you to go upon reading your letter. It was only meant as a friendly gesture anyway (yes, I didn’t like the movie as much as the original: but that was no condemnation to any good qualities it genuinely may have had). It was that nostalgia thing.
Years ago when, I worked at Pisa Group on Watson Road, I had the choice of going down the street to a number of nearby restaurants (including White Castle, Jack in the Box, and MacDonald’s). But I chose Happy Joe’s Pizza because [1} it was close, {2} it had a good selection on their salad bar, {3} and was cheap. Now, Happy Joe’s is known for catering to families that make arrangements (appointments) to celebrate their child’s birthday and it gets quite loud with singing, laughter, etc. Have you ever had your birthday celebrated when you were little, Dave? If so, shame on you! Did they sing and celebrate? Well, shame on you! At any rate, I still drop in on Happy Joe – – – just for their salad bar (they did away with the pepperoni) – – – – and do you know what? It gets “quiet” at times at the restaurant: no noise! DO I GET A FEW EXTRA STARS?
Which leads me to some other thoughts on this matter: hymns and singing in church – – – – – maybe they should just hum or meditate for fear of being uncivilized and not Schrothian? Which brings up some more other thoughts – but at another time: like Steve Allen’s ‘‘liberal” politics, slap-stick comedy, and his promotion of negro entertainment on his show. Hmmmmmm………………….
(At a later time)
STEVE ALLEN AS OUR HERO
We often cite Steve Allen as a leader, a bulwark, against uncritical thinking (Debunker? Or was he a rationalist of sorts: but couldn’t have been a diehard debunker, based on his actions and politics, etc.). Dave Schroth has praised him for his seeming stance on ‘decency.’ But Steve Allen was a “Liberal” for that period and time. He was at one time a practicing Roman Catholic and so was religious (in Vulgarians at the Gate, he alluded to his belief in God: “…If there is a God – which I assume to be the case….” But David Schroth stands against religion as a waste of time and mythological). He promoted many Negro acts on his television show, breaking down race barriers. Allen said in his book, Vulgarians At The Gate, that movies such as The Mask (which was toned down to receive the Dover Seal), Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan and The God-fatherTrilogy (pages 357-358) seemed acceptable to people 12-years on up…..aahhhh……….
(This only shows how your imagined and so-called “creeping” degeneracy became even acceptable toSteve Allen: I saw those movies and, to a puritan-train-of-thought, they contained some of the most horrid scenes imaginable: parents and grownups werevery skeptical of those movies and the Godfather Trilogy.)…….
Allen was the creator to some of the silliest, zany, cock-eyed, slap-stick comedy on his television show; comedy that would appear far from the aristocratic snobbishness of the upper-class “au courant.” He featured radical guests such as Lenny Bruce. He featured a MAD Magazine caricaturist and parody artist on his March 16, 1958, show (demonstrating his affinity to this style of comedy – – – – many parents were in askance over MAD Magazine {we couldn’t get enough: brought it to school all the time}). If there was one thing that seemed to typify Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen: It was “contradiction,” much like Schroth is creepily becoming the King of Incongruity!
Steve Allen was a supporter of One World Government (he was a member of the World Federalist Association [David Icke would have undoubtedly added Allen to his list of Reptilian Merovingian’s]). He considered himself a Secular Humanist yet also considered himself an “involved Presbyterian.” He was accused of being a Communist (by aka Harry Goren). Steve Allen was a longtime activist who championed migrant worker rights. He idolized and hailed fellow comedians Sid Caesar, Mickey Rooney, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Phil Silver, Jimmy Durante, Buster Keaton, Jonathan Winters, Edie Adams, Dick Shawn, Peter Falk, Dorothy Provine, Arnold Stang, Jack Benny, Carl Reiner, Jerry Lewis, Don Knotts, Andy Devine, Terry-Thomas, and Eddie “Rochester” Anderson: All these appeared in the Stanley Kramer 1962 movie production of It’s a Mad, Mad World, a production that typified the slap-stick, zany 50s-60s style of comedy that was close to Allen’s heart.
Now I know all kinds of alibis and rationalizations have been made about Allen’s professed “PURITY OF THINKING” academic statements and the seeming contradictory teenage and juvenile “silliness” his alter-ego presented. His explanations seemed equally bizarre: Allen said: “we laugh at our tragedies to prevent our suffering…if we think about the tragedies on our planet; we could spend all day in bed crying, so we laugh to survive, to continue our lives.” Allen also said: “Humor is a social lubricant that helps us get over some of the bad spots ….why do we do it? Because we’re crazy.” When pressed further, Allen said (mimicking the cartoon character Popeye): “All I can say is what Popeye says: ’I am what I am…….’”
I don’t think thatAllen was all that “uptight” about things as people say he was. At least, he did not go to the black-on-white schizoid extremes that you and I go to (you “took off” at Fred’s attempt at poor humor at the Butterfly House as he jokingly referred to swans by a pond as butterflies: I KNOW – come on Fred! But trying to be humorous is far better than your sardonic swipes at his juvenility). Richard Zogline says of Allen: “Though a lifelong liberal…in recent years he embarked on a vocal crusade to restore ‘family values’ in television. This was a little uncomfortable for those of us who remember Allen as the irreverent kid who like to turn the studio upside down.” The PlayboyMagazine article written back in 1988, I believe, on the evangelist Jimmy Swaggart scandal, warned about (what playboy Magazine terms as the puritanical pitfalls as well as…..) the darker and inevitable reaction to human sexual repression. Similarly, it is the “extremes” that we appear to go to; the doctrinaire, the ideological, demagoguery we pathologically speak from. Allen always added his humor: his serious side was only an after-thought.
“So much of life is an interpretation”, says Liz Murray, author of Breaking Night. It has to be this way for Allen, because if he was so whacked-out (fanatical) on such things as Rock N’ Roll (his sarcastic rendition of Elvis Presley singing Hound Dog on his television show in a tuxedo [he also lampooned I Left My Heart In San Francisco as I Left My Nose In San Francisco: does that mean he hated that song too?])…..why did he play the part of Benny Goodman in the movie The Benny Goodman Story? As is with so many things that Allen espoused: there is a direct contradiction (and error {he wasn’t infallible}). Surely he was aware that Goodman’s style was a growth of a very lively and radical “background” which included Rock N’ Roll.. …….
……..(Readers, here we are branching out into deeper territory as to Schroth’s vexations and temperaments on ‘sound,’ ‘noise,’ ‘manners,’ and ‘other’ Schroth prohibitions indicative of his Communist-conspirator fantasy, as compared to the ‘real’ world in which we grew-up [not some cloistered hidden den of books, libraries and Skeptic propaganda cherry-picked in a makeshift private ideology of Skeptic Cultism] in and related to the community about us back then)…………..
THE PARTNERSHIP IN RYHTHMS
Benny Goodman was a direct child of jazz and swing! Many parents were very suspicious of the new “jazz movement”. It was the younger generation that carried it through (and many oldsters joined in later. Arthur Murray Dance Studios billed itself as The King of Swing and taught the Charleston and the Lindy Hop). And like so many ‘movements’, the youngsters carried the wave. It has been a vibrant force (the Nazis censored the Swing Kids for fear of revolt- – – – -Russia did the same thing at one time: “…listening to smuggled jazz records was tantamount to political rebellion.…artistic freedom was strictly underground, considered by the authorities to be either dangerous subversives or misguided fools…”, ‘Guitars Of The Cold War’, Jan. and May 2002, Vintage Guitar Magazine). Larry Schweikart in his Seven Events That Made America, America saysthat Rock N’ Roll, as a musical device of the 20th Century, helped bring the Berlin Wall down. It was so American; so jazz- and- Country. Its very structure speaks to freedom: The individualism of the 1960s. The same phenomena happened with the Beatles: young people all over the world used this music as their Marching Orders and their inspiration to challenge tyranny and bad government. (www.patriothistoryusa.com.).
WE BEGIN TO ‘DIG IT’
Len Weinstock says jazz originated somewhere about 1895-1917 by Creole musicians that had trained in conservatories in Europe; European music that was blended with Blues, Ragtime, Brass Band Music, hymns, spirituals, minstrel music, and Work Songs, blended with African polyrhythm and European dance rhythms. Kansas City’s jazz roots began in the 1900s when marching band music, Ragtime music, and Blues music started to merge. Piero Scaruffi tells us that when jazz moved to Chicago, jazz musicians were often employed by gangsters. Their first audiences were the “mob”. New York’s jazz pianists began blending Blues and Ragtime. The Stride Piano appeared on the scene. In Atlantic City jazz was supported in the red-light district and in many cities Rent Parties were thrown where predominantly white tourists paid to listen to black bands and the money was used to “pay the rent”. There was Eubie Black from Baltimore (1906), Lucky Roberts from Philadelphia, Willie ’the lion’ Smith and James Johnson (1914) from New York. In the 1920s, Harlem was home to Blues music and white tourists visited The Savoy and the Harlem Cotton Club. Charles “lucky” Roberts reworked Ripples of the Nile (1912)into the classic Moonlight Cocktail (1942) for the Glenn Miller band. He also wrote Miniature Syncopated rhapsody. The Big Band sound was gaining momentum. Fletcher Henderson (1920) and Benny Carter were two progenitors. Keep A Song In Your Soul (1930). Jean Schwartz: Chinatown My Chinatown (1930). And then, guess who?, Benny Goodman – – – – New York, 1928. Benny employed Fletcher Henderson to arrange Jelly Roll Martin’s King Porter’s Stomp.
A cavalcade of music: Moon Glow, Juke Box Saturday Night, Satin Doll, TuxedoJunction, In the Mood, Mood Indigo, Woodchopper’s Ball, Cherokee, Take the ‘a’ Train, Don’t Sit under the Apple Tree, and many, many more.
www.nfo.net/Jazz in “jazz” says: “The 1920s are still called the ‘jazz-age’. Ladies shortened their tresses and bobbed their hair; they hiked up their skirts, rolled down their stockings, and rouged their lips.”
Welcome! Louie Jordan and his hipster slang and saucy double entendre (Caldonia, Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby?), Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, Raymond Scott (Harry Warnow)…Kansas City Jazz, Boogie Woogie, The Shouters, and the Crooners. “During the 1940s“, says Scaruffi, “The Big Swing Band had become the voice of America abroad.” Benny Goodman played at the Palomar Ballroom in August 1935. There was Fletcher Henderson and an audience of young white dancers are moving to “hot” rhythms” and daring “hot swing” arrangements. Soldiers and sailors in the 1940s: It becomes our patriotic syncopation. We all remember Glenn Miller’s rendition of ST. Louis Blues March. Dance styles ran the gamut: the Short George, Hip Cat, the Jitter Bug, Cats, Brook Position Jitter Bug, The Boogie-Woogie, Hit That Jive, The Black Bottom Rag (The Benny Goodman movie also highlighted the Lindy Hop, Baboa, West Coast Swing and musicals such as Let’s Dance, California Here I Come, You Turned The Talles On Me, Sing-Sing-Sing, Bugle Call, Tiger Rag, Roll‘em, Hot House, Gotta Be This Or That, featuring Dizzy Gillespie, Gene Krupa, Harry James).
“Tain’t no sin to step out of your skin and dance in your bones.” The Big Band Era: “Swing was ‘the’ thing, and ‘jump-jivin’ ‘kats’ and ‘kitchens’ were Lindy hopping in every ballroom and dancehall in the land……” (Big Bands Database, http://www.nfo.net.)
If Steve Allen couldn’t “Rock’’, he certainly could “Roll” into swing. And why didhe write the 1963 Grammy award -winning jazz piece, The Gravy Waltz?
JAZZ UNTO ROCK
Rock music was born out of a hybrid of Rhythm and Blues music and Country music, originated in the Appalachian-mountains, part Irish fiddle, part German derived dulcimer, and African American banjo. Anglo-Celtic ballads and dance tunes, immigrants brought to America were come to be known as “old time” music that ranged from 1900 to the 1930s: A mixture of vaudeville music, African American minstrel show tunes, the 1930s brought Hank Williams and Brother Groups like the Delmones, the Stanley’s, and the Louvain’s. Jimmy Rogers. There was Okie Boogie, Cowboy Boogie And Honky Tonk. There was Eddy Arnold. There was the introduction of Swing, horns, electricity, and Bluegrass. Songs like Blue Moon Of Kentucky (Carl Perkins recalls his early battered acoustic guitar lessons with fellow field worker John Westbrook, “Uncle John”. who told him; “Get downclose to it! You can feel it travel down the strings, come through your head and down to your soul where you live. You can feel it. Let it vib-a-rate!” In 1955, Perkins made the original version of Blue Suede Shoes. The old traditional music of the mountains gave way to the beginnings of modern commercial country, or, as Syd Masters (The Swing Riders) would say, “Vintage western cowboy swing.”
About the time that Ethel Waters and Trixie Smith were singing tunes like My Man Rocks me, Bill Haley was listening to jimmy Preston and Haley would travel to the Marcus Hook Theater to see his idol, Gene Autry. It was the “Hillbilly” era. Ralph Peer (1926) typified the Antebellum Folk Songs of string bands and Appalachian fiddles; Marion-Troy-Slaughter. There were “okehs”; Henry Whittler Emmett Miller. There was the group called the Georgia Crackers (which included bandleadersTommy and Jimmy Dorsey on trombone and saxophone). Ralph Peers discovered Jimmy Rodgers in 1927. John Clifton says: “Like Roy Rodgers and other hayseed Hollywood harmoniums, Autry dipped liberally into jazz and swing, giving his music a nice little bounce.” This became the hallmark of legendary figures such as Bob Wells and Roy Acuff, as well as Roy Rodgers and Gene Autry, through the 1930s – 1950s. Country Pop typified by Lloyd Perryman and The Gold Star Rangers (1937) was also seen in movies such as Outlaws Of The Prairie and Spoilers Of the Range. It became to be known as the “Swinging Hollywood- Hillbilly-Cowboys”.
Bill Haley tried to imitate his idol Gene Autry and could be found “singing like Autry” at the Booth’s Corner Auction Mart (1946). Haley went on to join groups as Shorty Cook’s Down Homers and The Range Drifters. But…“G.I’s returning from World War II were looking for something different, something more upbeat and exhilarating,” says Jim Dawson and Ian Whitcomb, “and they were finding it in California’s hillbilly boogie, Texas’s Western Swing, New Orleans’ Rumba.” It was flavored by piano R and B, Chicago’s electrified Mississippi guitar blues and St. Louis’s Swing Jazz. (For Steve Erdmann this all came together at Mary’s Confectionary on South Broadway in St. Louis where he and the “gang” listened to the best of all worlds on Mary’s juke box). Haley found employment at WPWA radio where many young whites continually requested rhythm and blues records. The Jimmy Preston radio program as heralded by the noisy theme song Rock the Joint. It was a time of Pee Wee King’s Golden West Cowboys (“The Tennessee Waltz”), James “Slim” Allsman, and the premier of the electric Gibson: all made popular with the help of the Philadelphia crime syndicate and their mafia-owned juke boxes. Rock was a money-maker and the mob knew money: Roulette Records was mob owned and had Rock singer Tommy James in their palm (Me, The Mob and the Music, Simon & Schuster, 2010).
ROCKABILLY
Rockabilly partly came out of Haley with his “cowboy yodeling”. But there was also Jimmy Rodgers who fused Hillbilly Cowboy, gospel, jazz, blues, Pop, and Folk. “And then, out of nowhere, came Bill Haley…..Crazy Man Crazy…..an exuberant, pulsating blend of guitar, sax, and piano, riding the best of a slap-back bass and a whip-crack snare,” says Michael Satchell, “It was utterly different from any music we ever heard….now, we had music we could dance to. It was exciting. It was cool. It was ours…… (he was) a cowboy poet.” Haley had tired of country yodeling – western swing: he changed his band’s name from the Saddle men to The Comets (based on the tales of Mark Twain and Hailey’s Comet): became one of the most successful of the early “blue-eyed” Rockers. Later, Ray Charles expanded on the tradition of Country Swing with songs like Hit The Road Jack, I Got A Woman, Georgia, Born To Lose. (“I was born with music inside of me…music was one of my parts, like blood. It was a force already with me when I arrived on the scene”, said Charles.) Billie Barnette. Mama Thornton (HoundDog). Fats Domino (made the Top Ten with Aint That A Shame, 1955). Jackie Deshannon. Buddy Holly – The Big Bopper – Richie Valens (“We sang dirges in the dark the day the music died…..”, Don Mclean’s American Pie.). There was Chuck Berry (which I saw often passing through Lambert Airport). Jerry Lee Lewis. Ricky Nelson (I’m walkin, Stood Up, It’s Late, Lonesome Town, Poor Little Fool, Hello Marylou: “His artistry in using his ‘smooth’ monotone tenor to subtly and feelingly convey a wide range of teen angst emotions”) {Wikipedia}. Eric Hilliard Nelson (Ricky) preferred Rockabilly and up-tempo Rock songs like believe What You Say and I Got A Feeling. Little “Ricky” was a prophet: he use to say on The Adventures Of Ozzie and Harriet television program: “I don’t mess around, boy!”
(His father, Ozzie Nelson, had the number one hit And Then Some in 1934 and his rendition of Ain’t That AShame made the top ten in 1955; Nelson made the 1957 Rutgers University “Doctor of Humane Letters,” and ranked number 21 in the TV Guide’s list of the 50 greatest TV dads of all time. (What a shock this must Be to David Schroth, who twinges at radio programs while driving in a car, or cringes at necklaces and doodads hanging from an auto mirror or is puritanically selective of music or programs played on TV or radio, and so much other.)
About this time, media producer Dick Clark came upon the television scene with groups like Danny and the juniors and their Rock And Roll Will Never Die and At The Hop.
CHARLES HARDIN HOLLY
Charles Holly’s, better known as Buddy Holly, success lasted only a year and a half, but, as critic Bruce Elder said, Holly was “the single most influential creative force in early rock n’ roll…” His early version of his hit song That’ll BeThe Day took its title from a line that John Wayne’s character says repeatedly in the 1956 film The Searchers. That song topped the U.S ‘Best Sellers’ chart in stores September 1957. By coincidence, Sputnik took off that year as well. On October 21, 1958, Holly recorded a ballad for his wife, True Love Ways. On February 3, 1959, due to a tight tour schedule, during very inclement weather, Holly traded a bus seat with artist Waylon Jennings for a seat aboard a small, chartered airplane – along with recording artists Richie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson —- which crashed ending the lives of all three artists. Holly and singer Waylon Jennings had jokingly traded friendly bards before the flight; Holly said to Jennings, “I hope your ol’ bus freezes up!” Jennings replied: “Well, I hope your ol’ plane crashes!” It was a statement that would haunt Jennings for years to come. This incident made its way into Don Mclean’s American Pie…..”…..the day the music died…..”
MISSISSIPPI RIVER DIXIE AND RAG
Ronnie Smith and I would venture about Carondelet, St. Louis and often travel to the Vulcan Street bridge in the “patch,” and there listen to the Dixie and Rag rhythms that came floating through the summertime breeze as we faced the Showboats catering to tourists traveling on the Mississippi River; In the air was that special primal and primitive smell of mud and waste from the river,
www.hoover.archives.gov says: “The Mississippi River has been host to a musical heritage ranging from Native American drumbeats to Anglo-Celtic ballads, French folksongs to African-field-hollers. Emerging in the late 1800s, an original American sound drifted up from the southern cotton fields, choir lofts, juke joints, and river barges….Distinctive songs of suffering were sung by the poorest, mostly illiterate blacks, a reaction to the demeaning existence lived by sharecroppers in the Mississippi Delta. Accompanied by acoustic guitar or harmonica, these earthy songs were primitive and gritty….The Delta blues became the cornerstone of modern music. It became the basis for Gospel, Jazz, Dixieland. Ragtime, Bluegrass, Country, Rock and Roll, Rhythm And Blues, Soul Music….A gumbo mix of blues, ragtime, Spirituals, and Caribbean Music erupted….Musicians worked the riverboats and spread their hypnotic rhythms and brassy tones up the Mississippi, and by the 1920s and 1930s, Dixieland brass ensembles were all the rage.” I am reminded of Paul Robeson’s rendition of Ole’ Man River (he sang it in the “oldie but goodie” movie Show Boat) and Lawrence Brown’s Songs of Free Men. In the 1890s, a group of musicians, including Scott Joplin, were living in and around Sedalia, Mo., writing rags. Louis Armstrong became one of the greatest riverboat celebrities of the 20th century with his “hot” jazz tempos; said Armstrong: “What we play is life!”
CREATIVITY OR DESTRUCTIVITY?
(Otherwise known as ’Smock! Smock!’)
Steve Allen would be the last to stifle creativity (he personally used it in the creation of his brash and upbeat theme song This Could Be the Start of Something Big). He often extolled creativity. In the 1995 No. 61 General Semantics Bulletin , Allen said of himself: “I’m just a musical illiterate…I cannot read music….I’m just versatile….some little, tiny little thing is where that talent comes from….that’s way in the Twilight Zone….(but) so is the whole universe…..you cannot make scientific statements so ephemeral as humor….eye of the beholder….there being no further testimony in this case, the jury will now retire to render a verdict….”
Steve Allen would outline the lives of people like automotive tycoon Charles Kettering as a gifted child who worked his way out of extreme poverty and used those gifts to obtain grand success. But I also agree that those people could have easily been overlooked if they did not get help and support along the way. Sometimes talent and support don’t always mesh in life.
Or as Steve Allen would tell his television audience from time to time: “Smock! Smock!”
SOFT AND CLASSICAL MUSIC
We have nothing against what has been called soft music, crooning, classical or light sounds: not at all: These are all interesting and sometimes entertaining. We have no special fight here other than some music and songs we like much better than others. We have no special agenda other than popular criticisms or opinions. I like Bobby Darin ballads (Somewhere Beyond The Sea – 1959 – also sung by Gisele Mackenzie and played by Benny Goodman – 1948 – and also Annuncio Paolo Mantovany) and Frank Sinatra ballads (Laura, Young At Heart, Without A Song), Nat King Cole (Ramblin Rose, Mona Lisa), and especially Perry Como (Shadows Follow Me and his 1955 hit It’s Impossible), Jo Stafford (YouBelong To Me) – – – – and pass over the usual ironies and conflicts in their backgrounds. Enoch Light And The Light Brigade renditions of 30’s and 40’s: Marie, April In Paris, I Can’t Get Started With You (but his jazz renditions as well: Sing, Sing, Sing and Tuxedo Junction). Eddie Fisher recently passed away in September 2010: you may remember his ever popular tune Oh My Papa.
THE FIRST ROCK STAR?
I even like Ludwig Von Beethoven, and his Choral Symphony No. 9 really “Rocks” — – – – it picks you up and shakes you down to core of your being! And again, there are his symphonies No. 5, 3 and 7! Wikianswers says: “Beethoven bridged the classical and romantic periods of music. The latter period involved less emphasis on strict rules and more on pure emotion. Beethoven’s style, particularly later in his life, reflects this period well. His works involve strong emotion and broke several of the musical rules that existed in the Brogue and Classical periods…late classical and early romantic styles….” His music searched out vibrations that where so dynamic that some people believed he must have an African heritage. Ira F. Brilliant says: “He was the first composer to invigorate European Classical music with prodigious use of this decidedly inherent African rhythmic trait….one of the first composers to deviate from the musical template of eighteenth-century rules and regulations……” Max Chandler says that many musicians and writers today were heavily influenced by Beethoven: Bud Powell, Dave Brubeck, Charlie “bird” Parker, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingue, Ornette Coleman and others (and writer Anthony Burgess and movie producer Stanley Kubrick on their respective works on A Clockwork Orange depicting a futurist society chuck-full of Beethoven). Wagner says of him that Beethoven faced the world with a defiant temperament and kept an almost “savage” independence. He rejected sham, humbug, conventionality, and above all things: Beethoven may have been our First Rock Star!
In part, the problem is that we don’t live in a black-on-white reality and we are wanderers with eccentric philosophies trying to force ourselves into round holes when we are square pegs. Schizotypal personalities, such as us, often have difficulty. We tend to relinquish to our obsessive-compulsive square pegs and see our views as the best of everyday, real-world “holes.” We are playing “Connect – The – Dots”- – – -drawing lines between dots all over the page of life (dots that are topics or subjects that strictly support our deep prejudices, biases, idiosyncrasies) and then we pull a magic little strong at the bottom of the page that draws all those ideas and topics into a stiff, straight line of “dots” and we call these eccentricities: The real factual world. We all do it – some worse than others. Even so-called professionals: they are not getting it right. Like Tim Zell use to quote someone (Carl Sagan?): “the universes are a lot bigger than our head.”
NOT KOOL
No one was deliberately performing for you personally so that they could be gauged by your private obsessive-compulsive and pensive review of their every action. This reminds me of the Jack Nicholson’s performance of Marvin Udall in the movie As Good As It Gets. Marvin was surrounded by everyday people doing everyday things on a regular outing and being their everyday selves. Udall, in the movie, as a misanthrope and masochist, hated everything and everybody (I hate that when it happens to me). I don’t believe we were worried about matching up to someone’s esoteric-philosophical library in someone’s head that day of the outing. Myself, my diabetes was acting up (I’ve gone from pills to insulin: in July my kidney stopped functioning for a few days) and I was feeling “out of sorts” — and I had my broken toe and joint arthritis to contend with; my hips are painful, even when I walk a short distance). As Carol Connelly said to Marvin in the movie (Udall was both a brilliant writer and a literaryartist): “Do you have any control over how creepy you allow yourself to get?” (Udall had allowed everything to be viewed through the prism of his sickness.)
On a “picnic” (do you remember the movie Picnic?SteveAllen wrote some of the music for that movie) people don’t usually approach it as if were involved in a political dissertation. They just want to be “cool” and relax and let their hair down: But it still is a matter of give and take. Without some leeway, it could turn out to be a “political desecration.”
But beware – – – – beware of the world of contradiction – – – – (and more on that next time) – – – – our recusant separatist has such a tight noose around his neck, that even when “he” claims his pristine black-on-white world as the only correct world, out of his library world of books and paper, through the corner of his eye, he sees other people somewhere watching, causing him to think there just might be much more to life out there, and the noose is not really a halo of glory.
PART II
DECEMBER 22, 2008
(THERE WILL NOT BE A LOT RESEMBLING THE ORIGINAL LETTER IN THIS DOCUMENT AS THERE HAS BEEN HEAVY REVISIONS THROUGHOUT)
The preceding was held off from mailing and probably would have been regulated to the waste basket or some far distant revision, for fear of not being “purist” enough to match Dave Schroth’s atelopoboa, tropophobia. allodoxaphobia, polyphobia, or whatever combination of social phobia or philosophical derivatives he evolved from. Claiming a personal philosophical psyche is his inherent personal right. It is mine too. I enjoy many of the things in my life, and I do not feel that I need to be a “pure scientist” (there is no such thing!), or, stand “aloof” from “humans” because I want to match what various “ideologues” say in books and papers that assuage my psychological world: I much prefer “real life.”
Says Humanistic Theories Of Psychology: “Alfred Adler….in applying holistic principals to psychology, Adler argued that if we want to understand humans, we need to view them as whole (or individuals) rather than bits and pieces (i.e., Freud’s ‘id’, ‘ego’ and ‘super ego’). Holism also emphasizes the need to take human’s physical and social environments into account when trying to understand them, therefor the concept of ‘gemeinschaftsgefuhl’ (Boeree, 1997).”
While I did not have debunkers like Phil Klass as a personal mentor, I did have what could be called mentors of sorts (Keyhoe, Ruppelt [the early version], Palmer, Jules Verne, others; but also Space Patrol, Space Cadets, Sky King, Howdy Doody, Mr. Wizard, Jules Verne’s From The Earth To The Moon, Walt Disney, Sputnik, Wernher von Braun, Herb Philbrick: I led Three Lives, AlfredHitchcock, Dave Garroway, Science-fiction Theatre, The Twilight Zone, The LorettaYoung Show, and so on), none of those could compete with my fulltime occupation of staying alive physically, psychiatrically and psychologically, and fitting in and creating my own Wonderland of Adventure amid the harsh reality of my life in the 50s and 60s (most of which only a few people around me could have been aware of).
THE HIDDEN FACTORS DON’T ALWAYS MATCH THE PRETEND SCHROTH WORLD
(There is always the incongruous side to Mr. Schroth)
It was a Dark verses a Happy Sunshine world I lived in. And I had hoped that the Sunshine adventures I got into would cast over the Dark Side- – – -that was before Star Wars movies– – – – but like Luke Skywalker, I hoped my happy-go-lucky Huckleberry Finn/Tom Sawyer adventures would save me from going “over to the Dark Side”. My life in Carondelet was a symphony of tragedy, happiness, adventure and mysticism, stark, raw life and naked brutality, the life or a boy and, soon, teenager in the 50s – 60s with all the panorama of A Rebel without a Cause and other traits of that era. My life was several movie and television scripts come to life. My mom would often compare me to Timmy in the television program Lassie or Ricky from Ozzie And Harriet. Said of “little” Nelson: “…he was ’an odd little kid’….likeable, shy, introspective, mysterious and inscrutable……” Later, I guess, I could be compared to teenage movie parts that the late actor Vic Morrow played. Parts like Artie West in The Blackboard Jungle, Richard Brooks’ 1955 drama: “A scary and unfamiliar fringe of the youth movement.”
When did you graduate from that upper-class, high style “finishing school”? Was there one in Carondelet? And how did you get “protected” from being a real-life scene out of The Black Board Jungle movie? I did attend that school! I didn’t get a chance to attend the Finishing School. Not many people were envisioning great and wonderful things for me: other than myself. But I lost track or got “sucked under” (as one might say) by the muck of blue-collar workaday fiasco and drama of lower middle-class lifestyle and teenage depression and psycho angst. Let’s see: you lived on Pennsylvania Avenue which was not far from where I lived on Michigan Avenue and that was not too much distance from where John Moeller lived on Field Avenue. Are you saying those “books” you were reading at 16-17 years of age “thrust” you into that more elite and magnanimous lifestyle? And when did you receive a degree or post-graduate degree? That always makes you a better human and good-hearted-person, doesn’t it? If not that, at least “superior”!
However, I did have the opportunity to hypocritically refer to myself as a somewhat of a journalist (“maybe”). But it would be a journalist that has no firm, innate, rigid, convictions. I don’t think I claim to be one of those armchair pseudo-scientists of some fundamentalist “Rationalist” Cult (you’ll soon notice that I stopped using “skeptic” as a title description in as much as skeptics are not “debunkers” at all: in fact the term has been greatly misused…..
Says Celeste Adams: “Dr. (Raymond) Moody explains that the so-called ‘skeptics’ are not skeptics at all: ‘the skeptic tradition goes back to ancient Greece, and it’s a spiritual tradition about not drawing conclusions. So, when someone says, ‘I’m a skeptic…I think it’s just (this or that),’ they have contradicted themselves. They have said, ‘I am a person that doesn’t draw conclusions,’ then they draw a conclusion….to be a genuine investigator….belief or disbelief is irrelevant. We only need to ask ‘What’ is the ‘Nature’ of what we’re dealing with?’” Scientist Dr. Bill Bankston concurred: “The ego needs to get out of the way. Not a lot to do with trying. Let nature take its course. Be a Lightening rod. Let it happen…..inside and outside the box. Thinking in a different box, but we ignore the anomalies to keep the box we are in: it’s the way we frame the world….a good scientist is a skeptic: cautious but in a fluid state. A Believer already says he knows the answer, he is not “open.” It is scary both ways; to be open, fluid, and willing to be wrong”…..).
I am not a scientist (obviously) and I don’t believe I have pawned myself off as one. Maybe I am a true Skeptic: The average “Joe Citizen” kind as a work-a-day-world-kind-of-a-Skeptic. I see you as more of a religious quest on behalf of the Debunkers Over All Church, much like John SXXXXXXXX is spreading the UFO Spaceship Religion. It’s all religion; just at the opposite ends of a scale. Could be that this is caused by the pontifical ideology of the various political and Cultist religions? There is a world of scientists out there interested in UFOs and psychic phenomena, such as Robert Bigelow and Jacques Vallee, thousands of others. There is The Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, Society for Scientific Exploration. There are, As well, many others, consisting of legitimate scientists: I’m not about to call them idiots, as you will. You’d call Einstein an idiot, if it served your Religion. And you might include Brian Greene, Michio Kakui, Charles Seife, Martin Rees, Marcelo Gleiser, Ralph Alpher, John Wheeler, David Bohm, M. Talbot and a whole host of others like them. Might as well, they are pushing the Outer Limits of science. I’m just not prepared to castigate them. You do that. Neither am I able to adjudicate and ostensibly expatriate the fate of Carl Jung or many other scientists. Maybe after I get to attend that Finishing School you attended. However, maybe I can hope and see Magic still going on in the universe. Maybe………….
WHAT IS A SHAVERIAN-DERO-HOBBIT?
I recall you going about social and public circles back through years 1967 (circa 60s to the near present), smirking, like some little Shaverian-Dero-hobbit, cackling, “idiots!”, “you’re a liar!”, “trash!”, “crazy!”, “junk!”, and other symptoms of seeming schizoid tourettes-like coprolalia (normal acid drollery or stereotypic movement disorder? You said you didn’t remember going about making such remarks). Michael Guillen, PH.D., Senior Science editor for ABC-TV had a much more refreshing use of the language (1998): “my goal is to report accurately and open-mindedly any interesting and credible goings-on within science, be they orthodox or iconoclastic….apply the scientific method…only through rigorous studies…can we get beyond the endless and largely emotional- philosophical arguments between ’skeptics’ and ’believers’….they’re open as evidenced by the continuing disagreement among intelligent, well-educated people….many of today’s research results….are routinely contradicted by some subsequent study….it’s not the nature of science ever to know anything with absolute certainty. Which is why Mr. Park’s remarkable ability to know exactly what is and isn’t possible, to distinguish between ‘good’ and your ’bad’ science with such complete confidence strike me, well, as just so much voodoo….”
I recall you were castigating people for their opinions way back in 1967. I was a “liar” when I published Thomas Fairbanks’ letters as MR. X in Dissenter/Disinter Magazine (which claimed he knew David Ferrie in New Orleans and some of the other people who were interconnected in the Kennedy assassination). I was not supporting his comments at that time; just reporting them without any absolute judgment. Subsequently, apparently, Fairbanks’ comments had some merit. I didn’t deserve your attack: Fairbanks ran into some of those characters while living in New Orleans. But you shouldn’t have been “wrong” — you are not permitted that in what could be called the schizoid “PERFECT WORLD” – – – – – was that the world taught to people in that Secret-Carondelet-Finishing-School?[1]
JUST WHAT DO YOU ‘MEAN’ : SHAVERIAN HOBBIT!?
(A little “sidebar” on the Richard Shaver Mystery and why it is such a continued motif of legendary significance to me; I guess like Mickey Spillane and Mike Hammer and other mystery noir that are inspirational to detective and mystery fans, the time was “right” for many science-fiction and prophetic stories of controversial reputation. For Morgan Robertson in 1898 it was writing his novel Futility—-The Wreck Of The Titan which seemed to foreshadow [14 years ahead of time] the real sinking of the Titanic. Jules Verne prophetic fiction that heralded nuclear submarines, trips to the moon, and H.G. Wells spoke of time travel and a future World Pax where science reigned supreme. Richard S. Shaver, along with writers William Beebee, Dr. John Coleman, The Reverend Jim Slaw, Dr. Anthony Sutton, George A. Lehew, Jerry La-Prione, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and many other mystery noir writers spoke of our world being scrutinized by evil beings that have controlled us from time immemorial. A.J. Streichert said in 1958: “…most dangerous because its nonsense seems to make sense.” John thine added more insight: “Shaver’s delusions are the dark and cloudy glass that which we see myths at the end of history; his obsessions mirror the concerns of us all, and as we look into his private abyss our fears and hopes as a species emerges out of the emptiness. Shaver’s work is not fact, it is not even true; it is real, in a way only the right myth at the right moment can be real…. ”)
(In Shaver’s particular mythos, noble and genetically pure Supermen — The Elder Race — lived out in the dark reaches of space away from the detrimental effects of the sun’s radiation…..
“……………..Princess Vanic……..sunless Nor…….Nortans…..dark space is filled of Titans, Atlantis and Nor-tans..….it’s high time we ran away from the Black Death. I’ve worried and waited for it to strike me long enough. The Elder station on the cold planets is the best natured men you can find in space: Haven’t been near a sun in centuries, and don’t know the meaning of the word ‘evil’.” (I Remember Lemuria, 1948)………
“……..you will go at once far beyond any influence from Mother Mu’s rodite, under another space- group of planets, and there we will learn how to live where such things as the black death does not exist…….”
…..to escape war and the “black death” of de-te-rio-ra-tion (Mantong: an incredibly ancient language: a type of cipher translating English letters into symbolic meanings) the Elder Race came to earth and placed a canopy of protective vapor around the planet: which eventually proved inadequate against the sun. The canopy collapsed and many raced into the interior of the earth were the Super Technology backfired and their machinery actually began to poison them — yet force them to stay alive for a span of time. They were “abandondero,” and they consisted of two camps, those who were progressively “evil” [Dero} and those who somehow had avoided the poison – Tero. The vast majority escaped into the far reaches of outer space…..
……”Our sun has begun to throw out great
Masses of these poisonous particles. They
Fall upon Mu in a continual flood, enter-
ing into living tissue, and infecting it with
The radioactive disease we call age……”
The Teacher, I Remember Lemuria, 1948…..)
(A large range of writers had an effect on Shaver and Shaver had a wide range effect on a lot of writers; H.P. Lovecraft, A. Merritt, James Churchword, Guy de Maupassant’s The Horla, others. Shaver said the Dero caused all kinds of havoc, terror and destruction on the “surface world”- – – – -and while most people slough off his story as the outcome of his stay in a Ypsilanti state hospital [Jim Pobst said it was only two weeks and only for disorderly conduct. His former wife Sophie said Shaver had gone on a binge and she asked that he be held on July 27, 1934 {July 27 is also Steve Erdmann’s birth date} for observation]- – – – -Shaver’s “discoveries” were far more ebullient. Publisher Ray Palmer said: “On December 27, 1949, Albert Einstein came out with a new theory of gravitation and electromagnetic fields,” taunted Palmer, “months before that, Mr. Shaver (minus the mathematical formula) told me the same thing! For the record I want to say that if any credit for a new and revolutionary theory of gravity goes to anybody it should go to Richard S. Shaver on the basis of prior publication.” Palmer went on to expound: “Shaver described the Flying Saucers and predicted their appearance. And all this he said came from the information he got from the caves. So whether or not [the story] came from his own mental process of some kind, the information was correct and the information he’s given us has been correct so many times it’s impossible to discard it as fiction.” Website http://www.anti-state.com said: “Shaver claimed he owed all this astounding information to technologically advanced beings that, like it or not, communicated with him.”)
HIS OWN MENTAL PROCESS
(Later in 1971 in his Hidden World series, Palmer admitted that Shaver’s conduit to his Caves [though highly debated and resisted by Shaver] were by way of an Altered state of consciousness similar to a hypnotic trance or what might have occurred when in psychic states such as that of John Ballou Newbrough (1828-1891), when he did inspired writing of the Oahspe Bible.
Even “debunkers” such as Michael Shermer (who at one time denied that hypnotism existed), in reviewing Robin Waterfield’s Hidden Depths: The Story Of Hypnosis, had to admit the reality of altered-states: “…an altered state of consciousness explains little for a simple reason: we don’t know what consciousness is, making it difficult to explain what an altered state of it means…in that borderland between reality and fantasy where the power and mystery of hypnosis lies…it is with hypnosis in particular that I depart ways from many of my skeptical colleagues who argue that it is nothing more than fantasy role-playing, or worse, pure fakery.” [Shermer was hypnotized successfully on his own television show]).
SHAVER AS JUNGIAN RUMOR AND METAPHOR
(Some of this debate almost seems immaterial with topics such as Ted Phillips’ search for Tony Horak’s Marley Woods, Slovakia cave which housed an ancient artifact, perhaps millions of years old [Project Moon Shaft]; not to even mention reports of our own government shoveling out huge underground facilities; there are said to be an estimated 100 secret exits in the Archuleta Mesa on a Dulce, New Mexico complex, as testified by John Anderson and Paul Bennewitz. The Madigan Military Hospital complex near Fort Lewis in Washington state; the Jicarilla Apache Reservation; the complex under the New Denver International Airport, east of Denver, Colorado; China Lake Naval Weapons Centre in the California desert; the town of Ridgecrest near Death Valley; Page, Arizona; Taos, Carlsbad and Patil, New Mexico; as well as Springs, Creede, and Castello, Colorado. Chris Tinkler speaks of existing tunnels and nuclear Safe havens below Canbeira near the Australian location of Melbourne and Townsville [not to mention historical reports such as the 1700s “hatch” reported by Dr. Plot at a Staffordshire. England entrance consisting of a large oval and ring {A History Of Staffordshire}. There is the Bell Witch Cave found by William Mitchell Mott in the 1800s in Robertson County, Tennessee, or the Moon Pool found by Abraham Mott in 1919, or Norman Kinley’s find 90 miles southeast of Marthon, Texas at the foot of the Del Norte Mountains, or the cave with a smooth stone wall and staircase found by Tal and Mary Levesque in Hell Canyon 62 miles north of Branton, California, or the talk about a huge network of underground caverns beneath the Caribbean island of Bonaire.])
But perhaps no better tribute can be made than that which Richard Toronto gave: “(my) one and only mentor as writer and artist was Richard S. Shaver, who had a good heart no matter what history says about him.” Science-fiction/fiction has away of forecasting reality (and we’ve seen this historically time and time again).
Maybe Shaver was just seeing human nature for all its scope and grandeur— itsbreath and even horror; Shaver said: “The unseen world beneath our feet, malignant and horrible, is complete in its mastery of earth. And most horrible of all, it’s a world of Madmen.”
(As an even further aside topic [“big” sidebar], in Michael Greenberg’s telling of his daughters slide into insanity, the story reveals how little we know about mental illness in the more hardened cases [far more complex than I can go into here: Or even the panoramic descriptions of various states of consciousness]. In describing a moment of his daughter’s dementia: “…a wavelet of energy swelled through the center of being. She could see the hidden life in things, their detailed brilliance, the funneled genius that went into making them what they are. Sharpest of all was the misery on the faces of the people she passed. She tried to explain her vision to them but they just kept rushing by…Spinoza spoke of vitality as the purest virtue, the only virtue. The drive to persist, to flourish, she said, is the absolute quality shared by all living beings…Spinoza’s virtue is inverted, and instead of flourishing, one is driven to eat oneself alive…” (Hurry Down Sunshine)
Comparatively, David Darling, Ph.D., (English Astronomer and Science Writer) speaks of these states in his Soul Search: “There will always be a gap between what science can measure and what human beings feel. Yet everything we know about the way the two brain hemispheres work, everything psychology has taught us about the constructed nature of the world, and everything that those who have had mystical experiences told us, point to the same direction….Hindus call it Samadhi, Buddhists…Nirvana…Rinzai school of Zen…Satori….Zen Masters and others are powerless to relate how it feels. Words and descriptions do not encompass it.” (Ken Wilber summed it up this way: “I believe that logic has its limits and needs to be transcended in order to gain deep knowledge and wisdom…”)
GOOD OLD DAYS AS MYTH
(There must be an interjection here on another Schrothian puritan concept, that of “the good ole’ days” [along with ‘good ole pure manners’ sometime from 1970 back to the 1900’s, possibly including the ‘Gilded Age.’ {Schroth always had these handy-dandy concepts he would magically be pull-out from his Schizoid-Cultist-Skeptic-Religion handbook at opportune times}].)
Shaver’s World View certainly punched holes in your “good ole’ days” peruse, that view might be said to be just as much a “myth” as was your feelings on UFOs and psychic phenomena as myths: Otto Bettmann said so in his The Good Old Days – They Were Terrible! Bettmann concentrated on the 1820s to 1890s period, and while it might be said to be not so bad for the very affluent in society, it was terrible for the average person. There was manure piled up high on sidewalks! There were no 40-hour work weeks but just unrelenting sweatshops. No osha. Constant disease and fly infestation. On and on, so forth. This book explains why the “good old days” were only good for a preferred few and why they were unrelentingly harsh for most and very sobering.
LIFE ON THE SURFACE
Writer Jack London (1876-1916), a Capitalist (all his life….[read Wolf – The Lives Of Jack London, James L. Haley]), joined the Socialist Movement upon seeing and experiencing personally the harsh realities of man’s inhumanity to man…..
(London was born a working-class, fatherless Californian in 1876. In his youth he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast…playing the role of hobo, sailor, prospector, and oyster pirate)….
He wrote about the lower-class often: “In his research, Jack discovered that these people who lived in the slums did so not by choice and not through laziness, but because of old age, disease, or accidents that had reduced their labor value.” (The People Of The Abyss, Macmillan, 1903).Speaking of the ghetto, London said: “a new race has sprung up, a street people. They pass their lives at walls and in the streets. They have dens and stairs into which to crawl for sleeping purposes, and that is all.”
Alfred Lord Tennyson saw this too:
It is well within the range of science, glorying in the time; city children soak and blacken soul and sense in the city slime. There among the gloomy alleys progress halts on palsied feet; crime and hunger cast out maidens by the thousands on the street…”
Robert E. Haggard speaks of it in The Persistence Of Victorian Liberalism “….by definition dreary, squalid and filthy…fetid…poisonous…gangs of burglars, garrotters, and pickpockets operate almost without check…”
THE FIVE POINTS
In America, similarly, horrid conditions were found in the Five Points district of New York circa 1842-1863. Says Gregory Christiano: “The name Five Points evokes images of poverty, rampant crime, decadence and despair, which are true. The Five Points was a lurid geographical cancer filled with dilapidated and unbelievable tenement houses, gang extortion, corrupt politicians, houses of ill-repute and drunkenness and gambling. This was a place where all manner of crime flourished, the residents terrorized and squalor prevailed…Among the places the most crowded in proportion to their actual size, the worst ventilated and whose mortality is the greatest at all times….the term ‘cellar’ are not conveying a proper idea of the place when used as a residence….these dens, or artificial caves of the earth….often send bands of murderers, who live by thieving alone…”
Charles Dickens was likewise astounded at what he saw in 1842: “This is the place – Five Points —- these narrow ways, diverging to the right and left. Such lives as are led here bear the same fruits here as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at doors have counterpart at home, and all the wide world over. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays. Many of the pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright in lieu of going on all fours? And they talk instead of grunting…? All that is loathsome, drooping, and decayed is here.”
Martin Scorsese fashioned his film The Gangs Of NewYork on such a reality: “It was chaos, tribal chaos….claustrophobic, where everyone was crushed together…70,000 men and women…rampaged through the streets of New York, setting houses afire, battling police and lynching African-Americans. Federal troops had to be brought in to quell the disturbances….confronted one another in the streets of New York. Here competing groups vied for living space and economic survival in a cramped district near the tip of Manhattan…” Police records indicate that nearly every building did house a brothel. There were gangs so vicious that they posted signs warning police to stay out of their neighborhoods. Saloon halls, gambling dens, and winding alleys; destitution and shocking violence – a turbulent era – rogues gallery of prostitutes, pimps, poisoners, pickpockets, murderers and thieves. Carol D. Bos., J.B said: “Tammany Hall…degenerated into a power-hungry greed machine, its members looked to local gangs as ‘enforcers’…”
Names denoted the reality: Slobbery Jim, Sow Madden, Piggy Noles, Eat’ em Up Jack, McManus Hell-Cat Maggie, Bowery Boys, Dead Rabbits, Plug Uglies, Short Tails, Slaughter House, Swamp Ants, Billy The Butcher. Says historian Tyler Anbinder: “In ‘Five Points’ tenements, families and other groups lived crammed into one or two dark rooms. The outhouses were too few and often overflowing. Sewage and pigs ran in the streets….the whole neighborhood just stank….some holding camphor-soaked kerchiefs to their noses to ward off the stench…middle-class tourists would go ‘slumming’ in Five Points __ escorted by the police…Some of the hard-to-believe stereotypes are true.”
A Methodist reformer, of that period, said: “Five Points, the synonym for ignorance the most entire, for misery the most abject, for crime of the darkest dye, for degradation so deep that human nature cannot sink below it.”
THE WILD WEST
What could be said of Five Points could be said of many an untamed town stranded out in the western frontier: Dodge City, Deadwood, Tombstone…but there was also Las Vegas, New Mexico. So said Howard Bryan in Wildest of The Wild West…
‘“Without exception there was no town which harbored a moredisreputablegang ofdesperadoes andoutlaws thatdid Las Vegas,” said historian Ralph Emerson Twitchell, “beforelong,outlaws, bunko artists, murderers and thieves werebecoming so common that theeastern partof the settlement had become utterly lawless…”
There was Handsome Harry, the Dance Hall Rustler, the Dodge City Gang, J.J. Webb, Mysterious Dave Mather, Joe Canary, Dirty Dave Rudelbaugh, Hoodoo Brown, Doc Holliday, Mike Gordon, Big Nose Kattie, Jesse James, Billy The Kid, Bob Ford, Web-fingered Billy, Rattlesnake Sam, Cock-eyed Frank, Hook-nosed Jim, Wyatt Earp, StutteringTom, Durango Kid, and Vicente Silva and his gang called the White Caps and the Forty Bandits.
Said the vigilantes of the town:
“Theflow of blood must and shall be stopped in this community, and the good citizens of both the old and newtowns have determined to stop it, if they have to hang bythe strong arm of force everyviolator of the law in this County.”
REALISTIC DEPICTIONS
Recent movie depictions granted more human character and portrayal of the real west such as the early years of Billy The Kid portrayed by Michael J. Pollard in Stan Dragoti’s 1972 movie Dirty Little Billy on the early years ofWilliam Bonney (aka William McCarty). The movie also depicted early western towns as they probably really were: barebones and often ram-shackled.
Coffeyville, Kansas, which was depicted in the movie, as told by Frank W. Blackman and William G. Cutler and http://www.legendofkansas.com: “…much disorder prevailed in the small settlement, so much so that the main thoroughfare took the name ‘Red Hot Street’, and crime and murder were a common occurrence…1872…New Town site…earned Coffeyville the status of yet another lawless Kansas Cow Town…the town was wild with excitement and society was a chaos. The reckless cowboy knew no restraint, gamblers plied their avocation openly, and saloons were quick to ply their customers with liquor…the streets resounded with the rattle of beer glasses and the clicking of the Keno and billiard rooms; quarrels were frequent, and the reports of the pistol, announcing that some unfortunate man had fallen victim to the well- aimed instrument, were common…dance halls with lewd women lined the streets…
…… (The Mayor) instructed the police officers
To invade and arrest the offenders….before
The judge…..wassurprisedto find before him,
The majority of theCity Council…”
OLD CRIME IN AN OLD CITY
But much of the 19th century crime was of course big city crime; as indeed it was in Chicago: the curious case of Dr. Herman mudgett, alias Henry H. Holmes (1896). After graduating from the University Of Michigan medical school, he embarked upon a life of swindling, torture and murder. The second floor of the lodge building he built at 63rd and Wallace was designed expressly for the purpose of murder, being equipped with gas chambers, of incinerators and other horrible devices, chutes and a variety of inventions to dispose the bodies he killed. He Had about thirty known victims and was suspected of murdering hundreds of others using poison and gas.
In Erik Larson’s book Devil in the White City (VintagePress, 2004), the events are described as taking place at Holmes’ World’s Fair Hotel west of the 1893 World’s Columbia Exposition. There they found a dissection table and a 3,000-degree crematorium. In the book, the smoke, romance, and mystery of the Gilded Age comes alive as never before, forging questions as to the relationship between opulence and grandeur of the Fair and the poverty and the degradation that surrounded it. Larson Said: “The juxtaposition of pride and unfathomable evil struck me as offering powerful insights into the nature of men and their ambitions.” (p. 393)
“Chicago in the 1890s was a time of great strikes, fierce nationalism, social activism and protest, an unpopular foreign invasion and building – of street car lines, factories, meat packing plants, businesses, libraries, and civic and art institutions,” says www.florencekelley.northwestern.edu, “The city’s political and legal culture was characterized by energy, corruption and ambition. During the Pullman strike more than n 5,000 federal troops were encamped along the lake, and the legacies of Haymarket were palpable. The Vice District, the Levee, was as famous as the city’s skyscrapers and elevators…”
“A nineteenth-century Chicagoan looking for a prostitute could easily find one in any of the city’s wide-open vice districts,” says www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org, “Like gambling houses until they were dispersed by raids in 1894, brothels and street walkers clustered in those areas partly because they were convenient for customers, but mainly because of selective law enforcement. Public officials and many private citizens viewed prostitution as a necessary evil that should be segregated into a few poor neighborhoods to protect the rest of Chicago.” Prostitution thrived along the southern edge of the “Loop”, Near West Side and Near North Side. The brothels paid bribes to police, politicians, and politically connected crime bosses.
“The Levee”, on the Southside, was one of the nation’s largest vice districts, controlled by imaginable late-century crime bosses and racketeers: There was alderman “Bathhouse John” Coughlin and Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna. “The residential slums began about a mile west and south of the loop. The poor, many of them immigrants, lived in old wooden houses standing cheek by jowl with factories and bars or in once elegant apartments and mansions converted into rooming houses and mansions converted into rooming houses and then tenements,” says Alice Sinkevich in AIA Guide To Chicago, “Some lots were filled front to back with ram shackled frame houses; others became refuse pits in front of houses that had not been elevated when the street grade was raised. Many of the tiny units had no bathroom or kitchen. While other neighbors were adopting electricity and steam heat, the slums had yet to see gas lighting or coal stoves in every room.”
The working conditions for the thousands employed at the Union Stock yards were terrible. Laborers on the killing – floors had to work amidst the stench and piercing shrieks of animals being slaughtered while standing on blood-soaked floors. They worked long hours – usually ten to twelve a day – in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees in the summertime. Employees could beg wages low and withhold benefits due to the ready supply immigrant workers desperate to earn a living. The situation is adequately described in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Carl Sandburg chose the word “brawling” to describe Chicago of this period.
These are just conditions of the 19th century as existed in America and England; to get into similar or worse conditions in othercountries (the disease, crime, poverty) are beyond the limits of my time. Nor have we really gotten into the mountain of facts about the matters of disease, plague, poverty, and destruction in 19TH century America: Such as the Civil War (61,800 dead with direct costs of 3.3 billion dollars to the confederacy).
Others: World War 1 (20 million injured and dead with direct and indirect costs of 337 billion dollars); World War 2 (over 60 million injured and dead and total costs of 2,091.3 billion dollars); the influenza pandemic of 1918 (20 to 40 million dead): “The most devastating epidemic in recorded history”. So on.
And then we come to another topic that Schroth feels is “too esoteric,” too “off the rails” to be included in his ‘perfect’ worldview of science, religion, and humanity: that of the continuing and even growing number of UFO reports, or UAO (Unidentified AERIAL) objects.
THE UFO QUESTION
UFOS: TO BE OR NOT TO BE?
The argument as to whether UFOs exist as “spaceships” from outside the earth or from Nazi strongholds — or exist as myths or delusion or outright “lies,” is somewhat immaterial to me. I tend to approach this subject as I do other subjects; as a writer who tries to write an interesting story. That can mean I can write or might write from a certain “point of view” and that can depend on multiple factors. I recall attending a speech or rally at a north St. Louis church in which Dick Gregory and fellow members spoke of the black man’s plight in society. I wrote a short piece from the speaker’s point – of – view as best I could. Does that mean I agree 100% with everything they said? Not necessarily. And that is the way I usually write; I keep a little part of me to myself and my own private feelings — that doesn’t always come out in my format. And, then again, it does at times; depending on what I write about, how I feel, and to whom I am targeting. Private “feelings” are still allowable in America: even yours. Many writers love to “brain storm” or even listen to gossip: such is life.
And what ”if”you had been born black in the 19th century?[2]
PART III
WE WANT YOU, MR. X
AN INDEPTH ANALYSIS OF MY PERSONAL UFO SIGHTING AND THE SUBJECT IN GENERAL
Since you have directly involved me by referring to my private UFO sighting as a “Mr. X,” it behooves me to make a reply, although I don’t intend to get into a real lengthy debate. UFO debates are and can be a bottomless pit!
The sighting, which may have happened in either the summer of 1959 or 1960 – depending on which date and which showing of the Steve Reeves movie at the Fox Theatre in up-town St. Louis (Hercules Unchained [I believe]) was happening. And the object which I saw was significantly different and bizarre as to its nature as to classify it as a UFO. You refer to the “moon,” “flares,” “floating hoax balloons.” Without getting into a lot of “action-packed” descriptions (which you probably expect of me), allow me to quickly go through your references:
I have noted, this last August, (2018) in fact, that when the moon arises from the horizon, the altitude in the sky starts from zero at the horizon at a certain time at night and can almost reach “high noon” (so-to-speak) azimuth and altitude. Now, the time at which I had my “sighting” (delusion, misconception, and lie) was somewhere about 1200 a.m. or later – – – after midnight. The moon would be at a certain summertime azimuth andaltitude at that time. Comparing the position at which the moon would be in the sky about 12:30 a.m. (give or take some minutes) and comparing how it really was being seen between the branches of a tree (at first) and where that would place it in the sky: It would have to have been in an approximate 9:00 p.m. or 9:30 p.m. position – – – approximately, an estimated, 30-degrees or so in its arc across the sky, as opposed to its almost 80 to 90-degree position it would have been after midnight. No, there could be no doubt it was near or after midnight — but since Schroth feels we are all deluded liars — anything is possible.
THAT OLD DEVIL MOON
(“…it’s that old devil moon, that you stole from the skies…,” Old Devil Moon, Frank Sinatra)
The length of the gangway is short, just the length of the house; and the tree was at the very end of the gangway, it would be assumed that the object had to be not above the tree at a “high noon” position, but about 30 to 50-degrees above the horizon azimuth and altitude along the transit of the meridian, allowing it to be seen through the tree limbs and branches from a gangway position. When viewed in the “clear” portion of the sky —- which appeared to be on the other side of the tree —– it was as if I were viewing it directly north and somewhat ‘above.’ Since that was a “clear patch” of sky directly over my neighbors’ yards and my own, there were no good reference points to measure its size or distance. Even when it disappeared, it did so still in those clear patches of sky, arcing upward – to about the middle of my yard — and then moving away and up until it faded beyond my range of vision at about an 80-degree angle. These are all estimates.
Fifty-years ago are a long period to bring back crystal-clear memories, but I still believe I have one of two striking impressions. At the moment I first saw the object through the branches of the tree there may have been a slight “bounce” to it as if a ping-pong ball was gently placed on fluid water, but since I was not completely focused on it yet, I cannot be sure.
INSTITUTIONALIZED FLARES
You refer to this UFO as a “flare” in a “heavily industrialized” area. Well, first, it just didn’t actlike a flare — even fancy fireworks: and, boy, I’ve seen my share of fireworks. But, yes, it is possible that somebody worked up a sophisticated “fireworks” that were designed to portray a mysterious event: I suppose that is possible. I mean, I just didn’t have my million-dollar instrumentation with me at the moment to catch this thing on film and graph! And who might “they” be that did this time-consuming prank? You once mentioned a hologram: I’ve seen holograms and they look pretty real: I just don’t know how that would work in this instance, if the technology was possible in 1959-1960 to be contemporary with what I saw. And how would they hide the equipment? I sat stunned on my back porch for a long time and did not hear a sound, not even dogs barking, if I recall correctly. But the incompetent boobs that we are, anything………
Schroth questions: A heavily-industrialized-area? Yes, there are businesses in the area (there are businesses all over St. Louis and Carondelet: there was a lumberyard one block away near Tesson street: but that is south of my northward sighting!), but the major ones are southeast of my sighting: the grain silos on the river directly in line with the east view on Primm Street is about a mile or so away; the Titanium Smelting Facility, and the ship fabrication yards which are directly across the railroad tracks from the Titanium facility. That’s about as industrialized as you’ll get in that neighborhood. Those are all at the foot of Davis Street which is southeast of the slightly northeast view I was having. The object did head over to that area but went suddenly straight up into a clear patch of sky until it went out of my range-of-vision — ascending upward at a great rate of speed.
There are barges moving up and down the river, but in the many years of living in Carondelet, I’ve never seen flares being shot off barges in that fashion (unless it was the 4th of July Famous and Barr display: which is quite a distance away and very different). The cardboard factory is west of my sighting, across Michigan Avenue. You don’t think those guys were playing with matches that night, do you? In the slightly northwest area at which I saw this UFO, it was a clear patch of sky. There are some Illinois facilities that are across the Mississippi river, such as the factories in Saguet….but that is up-river across from mid-town St. Louis (there was the Monsanto plant [which produced polychlorinated biphenyl’s into the Dead Creek: you don’t think it came ‘a flaming’ over to Primm Avenue, do ya?]; and there was the W.G. Krummich Plant, the Clayton Chemical property). You don’t think the guys over at those factories were sending flares over to Primm and Minnesota Avenues, do ya? Maybe railroad employees sending off a flare? But why would the flare be an “in-coming” object from the north over Primm and Minnesota Avenues and the railroad tracks are south of Primm by one block at Tesson? Anything is possible, I guess, especially with us lying boobs looking on…
When I first saw this object (or, what seemed to me to be an object) it appeared seemingly motionless beyond the tree at the foot of my gangway to the house. No real motion was noticed until I turned back to take a hard look at it: at that point, as I approached my back steps and I stood to take a strong look, that it appeared to “quicken” into action – – – it now reminds me of the video technique used in some movies were they are showing a “still” frame of a photo (or scene) and then “suddenly” spring it “into action” as supposed real people walking or moving. In that split moment I saw it “hanging” in that clear patch of sky, I was electrified. I had a feeling of tremendum mysterium! It was as if in a moment of time I had come face to face with some unexpected miraculum – keuthonymos! Of course, that is quite personal and quite subjectively psychological, but, hay, you were not there!
“Plastic balloons with candles in them?” The summer of 1960 some pranksters were sitting up these balloons and were caught. If my UFO were in fact these balloons: boys, you are master pranksters! I would say “no”, but how can an incompetent boob be sure? And that poses some other questions: Why 1960? Might it have been 1959? No mention of prank balloons then. But debunkers are so stringent in their rear-view mirror hindsight coaching, they have no leeway for “error”: They cannot be wrong: they “must” be absolutely correct! They have no excuses! They demand absolute perfection of their subjects and themselves.
(And the debunker ‘The Amazing Randi’ confessed to being a homosexual?! And the correct name for Peter Kor is ‘TomComella’. [True-skeptics, on the other-hand, do have excuses!]).
And, why July for my sighting; whynot August, June, or September?
(The question has been asked me: Why have I been so sloppy in my investigation? You are talking about a 15-year-old boy from a lower middle-class family: One family which was hell-bent on destroying itself amidst my personal teenage angst and tragedy (of which you only have been told asmall portion). I was more interested in “surviving” (we are dealing with real, physical danger; not a very protected and loving environment from which you operated); and I had several “personal-mechanisms” to do that. There was no UFO Study Group of Greater St. Louis then. I was much more l interested in girls and roaming the Carondelet neighborhoods with Ronnie Smith or John Moeller orthe SouthBroadway “gang.” I believe at some point I became interested in Space Exploration and, later, model rocketry; but that may have been after age 15. From where should I have gotten this sudden“sophistication”?)
THE SOPHISTICATED INVESTIGATGOR
Why didn’t I go to the newspapers the next day – – – or, in fact, go down to the papers that night? Or call the police?! Or go banging on the neighbors’ doors?! I mean, if I was sincere and not one of the lying boobs? You obviously are not aware, or had missed out, in part, of what are some of the daily activities, and the living, perilous times of a 1960s teenager! You ask: Why did I not mention it to someone immediately! Well, I did: my mother, the very next day. But the problem child that I was, I don’t think my mention carried a lot of weight. I did write it up in my diary — some loose pages tucked away in my desk. But my mother discovered them in one of her snooping ventures and destroyed the pages because it carried descriptions of family fights and horrors. In fact, sometime around 1967 (possibly), once my ‘space’ interest kicked off into a ‘UFO’ interest, I wrote a short piece for a UFO magazine which is now in the garage storage; so unsophisticated, ill-timed, ill-planned, and not according to script.
PART IV
STRUGGLE; NOT SOPHISTICATION
“Life” is not according to script. Not all teenagers in the 1960s were interested or capable of protesting the educational system or taking trips to England to visit Summer Hill College. However, I do believe there is a “NEXUS” here, because – – – – like so many children in the 1960s — – – – you and I (like others) were into the “protest” movement. It was the age of the JFK assassination, the Vietnam War, controlling, and oft-times “destructive” parents (at least, in my case; of course, my family had good times, how else could I have survived?). I know you were involved in personal, private struggles of your own (and still are), and though not identical to mine, we both seemed to carry burdens that were in some way very similar, though not strictly replicate. It led to varying degrees of “fear-flight syndrome” and schizoid behavior. Somewhat of a elongated “post-traumatic stress syndrome” (events compiled over and over in a life-time, in what could be said to be, in retrospect [divorce, controlling power or government structures, menacing and frequently unquestioned and often corrupt “professionals”, etc.]), unrelenting and leading into chronic conditions. I am reminding of the battle-in-life the Nick Nolte character, Wade Whitehouse, had in Paul Schrader’s 1997 film (based on the Russell Bank’s book) Affliction. [I understand you’ve said you don’t believe there is such a thing as mental-illness.]. Persons with a lot of support groups and psychological and physical backing “snap out of it”; wealthy families or families or friends with great resources of love and various kinds of support (what I understand from your reports and photos, you had, relatively speaking, fairly loving and stable parents). Even wealthy-motion-picture-Stars can “come back.” I believe ‘our’ UFO movement came out of this syndrome and era: at least, the UFO movement as we know it: UFO researchers against evil governmental authority: that was attractive to many people. That may have been where we came in; as well as your interest in astronomy and mine in space exploration.)
What did I see? I don’t know! I have some favorite theories; but I would not give them to you to “feed off.” I will say, UFOs were not consciously on my mind at the moment, other than we had just seen a movie about an hour or more earlier on Greek legend. And, of course, 15-years-of-age is a typical age of teenage angst when poltergeist activity has been reported. And as far as UFO sightings go: Mine just isn’t that interesting —- not in a newsheadlines sense —- I’ve read far more interesting UFO cases. Butmine was personal!
(John Wheeler, professor emeritus, Princeton University, has said: “May the universe in some strange sense be ‘brought into being’ by the participation of those who participate?” [G. Zukav, The Dancing Wu LiMasters, pg. 54]. John Allero, M. Ed., MAPP, might add more insight, this way: “When we are not intentional in our thinking, life brings us things from our dark subconscious, whether we consciously want it or not. Jonathan Hardt would say that the elephant overtakes the rider, life brings its own stretch goals…).
That I did not “parade” my UFO sighting at the time and since: this somewhat contradicts the theory that all UFO witnesses run amuck to get publicity. It would seem that you can’t have it both ways – – – unless you are fair-minded and objectively explorative.
UFOs: THE SUBJECT IN GENERAL
UFOS GALORE
In your critique of the UFO situation, you mention and debunk past UFO Greats and their erroneous UFO sightings: Walt Andrus, Leo Wicklinski, and others. I wish you could have confronted them while were living: these people are all dead and have no way to confront you or defend themselves..
I hope you didn’t think I was sending you UFO and other materials to “pick a fight.” It just was my way of sharing and trying to inspire. As far as the UFO Mystery itself: I am just a simple observer that is just as ‘completely’ lost as anyone else. It makes no difference to me whether they are spaceships from mars, another dimension, multi-universes, government projects, etc. In fact, I suspect the Mystery is “multifarious.” There is no “one” explanation; and one aspect is as interesting as another . . . especially to a journalist. Some people have turned it into a religious battle: the Space Ship Doctrine versus the Pure Bunk Debunkers.
I’m afraid it is far too complex to show this kind of if arrogance. And if Bigelow and Vallee want to use their time and money to investigate- – – – it’s their time and money and no government, yet, can stop them! If sociologists like Leon Festinger want to study them as myth, that is real science – – – they should go for it!
Michel Monnerie (What If UFOs Don’t Exist?), Bertrand Meheust (Science-fiction And Flying Saucers) and Carl Gustav Jung all spoke of UFOs as psychological-psychosocial phenomena using pre-existing motifs and memetic selection (though Jung saw more “meat” to UFOs, as an intelligent phenomenon, having synchronisms other than rumor). A description of The Society for Scientific Exploration describes their Ufological interest as varying from fringe proponent David Icke to respected mainstream scientists like Peter A. Sturrock, Jacques Vallee, James E. McDonald, J. Allen Hynek or Auguste Meesen, some of whom argue that UFO reports are as worthy of study as any topic, and deserve case by case analysis using the scientific method: and not all ufologists–scientists believe that UFOs are necessarily extraterrestrial spacecraft, or even that they are objective physical phenomena. Even those UFO cases that are exposed as hoaxes or found to be delusions or misidentification may still be worthy of serious study from a psychosocial point of view.
(It may be out of this “soup” that some of our 20th century “marvels” and scientific inventions have appeared: Certainly, our Space-Program. Recently it was announced that our Army had obtained a 4 million dollar ___ Carnegie-Mellon-“electroencephalography”-program ___ at the United States University of California-Irving to invent “thought helmets” for jet pilots to communicate by brainwave [sounds a lot like Richard Shaver-type material such as the Telog, Ray Machines, Elder-Mech, Stim Rays, and {guess what?} “Thought-machines”]).
Similarly, Winston Wu, Graduate from California State University, had this to say on Carl Sagan’s approach: “Carl Sagan, though an amazing thinker, was wrong here. Extraordinary claims merely require evidence. Good evidence has to exist before we can draw conclusions, to be sure, but certainly not extraordinary evidence….legitimate science is conducted by examining all evidence, not by myopic rushes to judgment.”
Diana Palmer Hoyt describes it this way: “The UFO seems to bear a closer resemblance to problems in meteorology than in physics. The phenomena are observed occur episodically, are not reproducible, and in large part, are identified by statistical gathering of data for possible organization into patterns. They are not experiments that can bereplicated at will at thelaboratory bench under controlled conditions.”
What is wrong with a multifaceted study? Life is multifaceted: why pull that string on the bottom of life’s page and try to force all those dots into a straight line? We won’t see that “STRAIGHT LINE” for millions of years, if ever. It is not the “scientific method” or the scientific community that should be faulted (right or wrong, they’lldo what they have to do), but individual maniacs with a deprived sense of value that parade as “pure scientists.”
Micah Hanks spoke on this in a fairly well-rounded book UFOs: Reframing the Debate (www.whitecrowbooks,com; info@ whitecrowbooks.com – 2017): “Modern skepticism can, I think, be summarized in many instances, as an ideology, around which a social movement has been built – one that today also runs tangent with atheism – and as a paradoxically evangelical attitude about the supremacy of science above all other form of knowledge.” (p. 74.)
Also, in UFOs; Reframing the Debate, Joshua Cutchin expanded on this same topic: “Science is nothing more than a set of questions and tools to evaluate reality honestly and objectively, whereas materialism is an assumption based on the notion that only things replicable in a labeling as ‘real’ … confirming the objective reality of telepathy, remote viewing, clairvoyance, or any other psi effect would devastate our understanding of natural laws, which would in turn cripple the surety with which the scientific method operates It would shatter materialism.” (pp. 57- 58.)
M.J Banias also added the following observation on so-called ‘science’ in the same book UFOs: Reframing the Debate: “We have given ‘science’ a sort of anthropomorphic consciousness, but science is not a literal ‘thing,’ rather it is a collection of socially accepted ideological constructs, methods and mechanisms, financially controlled by economics and political forces.” (p. 137.)
Speaking of antiqued, pretentious, and unrealistic views of what ‘science’ actually ‘is,’ you’re not going to claim, as some do, that Hitler was always on a quest for “pure science”- – – his “pure race” ideas: the Reich’s talk about “pure-science”, “pure-books”? Hitler was ill! History says he was suffering from Huntington’s disease and there apparently was a linage of mental illness.
(Hitler’s Reich has its origins in Guido von List and Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels “theozoology”; Madame Blavatsky’s “The Order of The New Templars”. Many of his SS and military were steeped in esoteric, occult practices, such as the Thule Society. It was called the Black Order, and The Vril Society: spoke of the “vril force”. Heinrich Himmler and Herman Goering considered Hitler as the ‘King of Fear’. The Edelweiss Society spoke of the Nordic Master Race, the Aryans, The Thule Society, and Rudolf Glaver, Dietrich Eckardt. Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels spoke of “castration” of subordinates and victims).
Some other miscellaneous comments: yes, animal mutilations exist, cats, dogs, rabbits, cattle – – – – no way around it —— cow hearts cut out and put in a bucket, mutilated cows left with scalpels, on and on. What you would like to see, and perhaps are doing, is trying to frame the mystery as “Mutilations As An ‘unknown’” versus The Grand Debunker Gang (in regard to and as much as they are against ‘space ships’, ‘ghosts’, etc.): and that, I, or other people won’t do. That is giving into your jaded psychological Doctrines (just like John Sxxxxxxxx has his perverted Doctrines on the other end of the scale).
Yes, there are and were real stealth craft made by terrestrial governments: And on some craft, there are even patents in the government patent offices.
You comment that in the James Fox production on UFOs called Out OfThe Blue, that the name of Major Hector Quintanilla was ‘misspelled’. If we are going to hold the UFO community guilty of such High Crimes then we will have to do the same to Dave Schroth and one of his Debunking Mentors: Phillip Klass: In The Skeptics UFO Newsletter, September1,1998 ,Klass “misspells” presumably as “…..presum –ably (sic).”
PART V
THE LEE POPE SAGA AND ‘OTHER’ CONTINUED
WATCH OUT, I SEE A STEVE CONTRADICTION
However, I can greatly sympathize with Dave Schroth’s positions on some matters, or I would be contradicting myself. The paranormal or Fortean field of study is rift with deceptions, absurdities, unfounded religious belief (thebelievers) and fraud. No doubt about it. And I agree with Schroth that after so much exposure, one can only become loathsome of the topic and its pranksters. When this becomes obvious to me: I get quite upset. It is a department of study of its own dimensions. If a UFO organization presents itself – more or less – as a fact-finding, scientific organization but continually is side-tracked into obvious sessions of story-telling and even science-fiction and invention: they obviously are not fulfilling their charter to the public ———- only to the their perverted or questionable egos. They can be basically nice, sometimes eccentric, people or they can be stinkers in disguise. But aren’t we all that way?
Several incidents arose in my meetings with the Study Group that, as Dave Schroth, would agree, would cast doubt on their sincerity. Pope, on a visit to his home, introduced me to a neighbor who, at one point, almost as if prompted, began to speak about his personal UFO sighting of a “boomerang” UFO. I noticed that both had smirks and grins on their faces at the telling.There had been several incidents that seemed suspiciously insincere. One “field investigation” to a family who reported several Fortean incidents in mass (a one-day incident), including a Bigfoot sighting, here in St. Louis County, almost seemed “staged” and even rehearsed. And, yes, I recall the barely subdued grins once again!
The UFO field certainly seems dull or even bleak without fresh, dramatic UFO and Fortean cases coming in every day, and the stench of overlaid lies and fabrication amidst large clumps of “play acting”, makes the subject very difficult and risky (VoodooHistories, David Aronovitch – 2009: recommended with reservations). Most people have turned their backs on the topic because of this. There are the “Repeater” Phenomena, where persons continually have Fortean events, causing great suspicion. John Sxxxxxxxx may be one of those as his life is a long string of weird paranormal events, nonstop, almost always lacking in hard evidence. Most of them are not very believable (not that I can’t sympathize with that plight having been a ‘victim’ of a UFO sighting myself).
One example: several years ago the Rev. Sxxxxxxxx had a Parapsychological Subcommittee of the Ufosgogs that would meet at his home; at that time on Miami Avenue. At this particular time, Schroeder was conducting sessions of the supposed hypnotic regression of a member in an alleged “ET” contact. I invited Tim Zell, a professional psychologist and a trained hypnotist to witness the affair. It was not very long into the session before Tim Zell exposed the fallacious hoax that it was – – – – – Sxxxxxxxx and ‘company’ were at a loss for words that their ploy fell through. The ‘minutes’ of the meeting weakly mentions having better “controls” of any experiments in the future. Good suggestion: but I have never seen it practiced or hoax prevented in the Ufosgogs. Recently, Reverend Sxxxxxxxx had visions that the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek was a “Reptilian” monster in disguise (I wonder how professional paleontologists would handle the factson the reality of Reptilian bodiesnever being foundin the last 100,000 years?); Sxxxxxxxx oftensays he gets his information from god! The “scientific controls” need to be greased and shined-up and brought back out of storage!
That UFO Cults are heavily weighted in various forms of psychobabble and esoteric mannerisms is true, as Leon Festinger and co-workers will testify (When ProphecyFails, University of Minnesota Press) in their 1956 expose’ of a UFO cult. These “groups” are rift with what I suspect would be ample medical histories in various psychiatric files: Histrionic or Schizotypal personality disorder, Paranoid-narcissistic personalities, superiority personality syndromes, antisocial personalities, fantasy-prone minds, confabulation, fantastical-myth-mania, capgras delusion, fregoli delusion, delusional disorder (yes, yes, I’m in there somewhere), so on and so on: but most are just average street people with varying degrees of neurosis and stress (count me in that bunch!).
There is a list of psychiatric syndromes that could very well come into play in the topic of Fortean events; and never make mention outside of the doctor’s office. There was a study dated 2001 called Fantasy Proneness And Other PsychologicalCorrelates Of UFO Experiences byGow, Laurie, Popper, Powell and Basterfield (almost sounds like the name of a law firm that I know: Buoy, Wee, Cheetham and Howe, LLP), Which suggests that those individuals with a high threshold for fantasy (like fiction writers and science-fiction writers) are more apt to have UFO experiences (and that does not necessarily denote fabrication!): opens a whole dimension for study (not myopic censorship, debunking or avoidance).
But Dave Schroth has stated in pass letters and correspondence that ‘mental illness’ and a lot of psychiatry is another one of those ‘myths’ and ‘lies’ that his private doctrine attacks and disagrees with (and the scam of psychiatry has been noted by others), which usually leaves Schroth in a bit of a quandary and more incongruity.
CRITICS AND DEBUNKERS ARE CRAZY TOO
(At LEAST, They have the same identical illnesses and faults)
That paranormal participants (and, yes, even debunkers: Phyllis Glade noted in her “I See By The Papers” column in Fate Magazine that a chemical was medically discovered in the bodies of ‘debunkers’ that might be a clue as to their cynicism) will admit to these shortcomings (that undoubtedly affect their viewpoints) is doubtful. As one person, having schizoid personality disorder, confessed: “I went from being arecluse who didn’t give a fuck about others to a genial, appreciated successful guy who still doesn’t give a fuck about others, but pretends he does – and peoplefall for it…I basically have two personalities inside me…a selfish, narcissistic prick who doesn’t give a shit about others…then…my Coping Personality…tofunction on the outside world….was able to infiltrate the texture of society….” www.reddit.com/schizoid.
Hilary Freeman wrote in Psycho Bosses on The Loose, “Not all psychopaths areviolent criminals and fewer still have a desire to eat you for dinner. Many are highly successful businessmen and women, lawyers, academics, politicians, doctors and teachers. Psychopaths wear suits too; in fact, there could be one in your office”. Robert Hare, professor of psychology at the University of Vancouver, says: “These individuals are every bit as egocentric, callous and manipulative as the average criminal psychopath.” John Clarke, psychologist at the University of Sydney, refers to “serial bullying” rather than “serial killing.” (One could also add “serial hoaxing,” “serial hating,” “serial lying,” and so forth).
And the ‘media’ misrepresentation can go hand-in-hand with the above as well as I witnessed in Elsberry, Missouri in the 70s as the ‘hysteria’ by UFO enthusiasts and some public concerning cattle mutilations and UFOs.
(Might as well include my TIA [“mini-stroke”] episode from back in 1973-1974 at this point, wherein I described a daytime sleep [though I was not asleep] paralysis and “tunnel” travel [in a room with bustling kids, a house-cleaning wife, and streaming sunlight through uncovered windows]: that was a weird medical state! I described that episode in detail to Doctor Eric J. Lenze, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Washington School of Medicine, St. Louis, and he said it was ”not” a TIA [maybe some other kind of crazies; but not a TIA]: Just another “speed bump” on the roadbefore “armchair paranormal debunking”!)
Says the RRR Group in www.ufocon.blogspot.com: “Displaying everything UFO-related won’t ever get to the heart of the UFO mystery. The panoply of flying saucer detritus merely showcases how discombobulated the UFO community is, with an obvious lacuna in serious research.”
Dave Schroth has said in a past bibliography that he had considered past members and some late members of the Ufosgogs as his friends (written in 2008), and that Isuppose that is true enough (and it is true enough for me as well for I recall some affection and affinity with them) – – – – but, apparently, they were not friendly enough to prevent him from questioning their integrity as far and in regards to their respective UFO sightings or Fortean beliefs: these he has later questioned and even attacked repeatedly.; strange friendships.
THE LEE POPE SAGA
His friendship with “Lee Pope” may have been built on more than a UFO connection: and these all seem very conflicting and contradictory: Pope was a strict right-wing Roman Catholic (Schroth does not believe in any religion at all or even God); likewise Christian had a personal UFO sighting, along with his son Terry, the whole family – including son Terry — were alleged to have been involved in several Fortean, even Satanic, events (Schroth disowns any belief in any Forteanisms). The only possible true kinship may have been Christian’s vehement and virago “anti-Semitism” (Christian may have been making allusions to Super-rich Jewish descendants and families, I am not sure). One time, I recall Pope marching into the Study Group engaging Leo Wicklinski in a conversation in which he announced that the “Jews” were behind the Flying Saucers! I spoke to Christian several times by which he announced the same topic and other things about the Jewish “takeover” and the theory that the Jewish Holocaust did not happen (but Ikeep reading something about, like, 9 million were murdered). Now, these are beliefs that Schroth may “not” have been so tightly against!
But Schroth shouldn’t have liked his “friends” to hoax, spawn weak theories, or be incompetent (for Schroth has said he is against all these things). Schroth speaks in sardonic tones when he speaks against UFOs as spaceships (he implicates, as well, there should be “no” serious study). Yet when the late Leo Wicklinski, his good friend, spoke about the July 27, 1978 Clora Evelyn WinscherUFO case (in which an, alleged, pursuing UFO hit her car and left several dents in the rear of her automobile), at a room-filled Sunday Ufosgogs meeting circa 1978, Leo announced this case asevidence of extraterrestrial spaceships thousands of years in advance of terrestrial technology (to the hysterical applause of enthusiastic on-lookers): was thisnot in direct confrontation and contradiction with Schroth’s core belief?
Ufosgogs members Rosetta and Dick Holmes, also declared as friends, were practitioners of the extraterrestrial theory and had intimately sponsored the late Betty Hill (of the famous September 19, 1961, UFO abduction case) lecture of which she was speaker at the Forest Park Community college in the 1970s.
Dave Schroth has said in a past bibliography that he had considered past members and some late members of the Ufosgogs as his friends (written in 2008), and that I suppose that is true enough(and it is true enough for me as well for I recall some affection and affinity with them) – – – – but, apparently, they were not friendly enough to prevent him from questioning their integrity as far and in regards to their respective UFO sightings or Fortean beliefs: these he has later questioned and even attacked repeatedly; Strange friendships.
His friendship with Lee Pope (not his real name; Pope was a Study Group member who was vital in the groups incorporation, I disguise him and his family to protect against law suits and to abate shame to them) may have been built on more than a UFO connection: and these all seem very conflicting and contradictory: Pope was a strict right-wing Roman Catholic (Schroth does not believe in any religion at all or, apparently, as even having a belief in God [in the 60s he was labeling himself as an atheist]); likewise Pope had a personal UFO sighting, along with his son Larry (not his real name), the whole family – including son Larry — were alleged to have been involved in several Fortean, even Satanic, events (Schroth disowns any belief in any Forteanisms; at least his dark diatribes of anything related to the topic gives that impression: he even told me at one time he was an Atheist). The only possible true kinship Wild had with Pope then or since may have been with pope’s vehement and virago “anti-Semitism” (Pope may have been making allusions to Super-rich Jewish descendants and families only and not average Jews, I am not sure; some of the literature he was reading and had shown me struck me as somewhat Hitlerian: he demonstrated a strong kinship with Hitler’s hatred of Jews and the cold strength and power that he brought to Germany as he took control). One time, I recall Pope marching into the Study Group engaging Leo Wicklinski in a conversation in which Pope announced that the “Jews” were behind the Flying Saucers! I spoke to Pope several times at which moments he announced the same topic and other things about the Jewish “takeover” and the theory that the Jewish Holocaust did not happen (but I keep reading something about, like, 9 million Jews were murdered). Now, these are beliefs that Schroth may “not” have been so tightly against!
Schroth summarized that Lee Pope, as far as he can remember, shied away from the ET hypothesis as a weak theory: in actuality, in many conversations I had with Lee Pope, “ran the gamut” of all kinds of theories and possibilities, including Jewish-Zionist-Cabal-inventions, and secret government inventions, as well as other realm dimensions, and all kinds of possibilities. He had a theory for everything, including his own son having been demon-possessed.
What could have been behind Schroth’s quizzical pattern that allowed his incongruousness in associating with an avidly traditionalist Roman Catholic who believed in the customary miracles, God, doctrines of which Schroth vehemently rebuked on the one hand.[3] What Schroth also failed to utilize or even recognize was that Steve Erdmann had multiple visits and episodes with Lee Pope over the years, going into as much as interviewing Pope, visiting and having many general associations with him as did Wild, maybe even more so; so much so that the Lee Pope story does not end just yet on the above mentioned few curiosities mentioned Schroth describes as a staunch and upright example of the century’s emblem of the best “good citizen” does not quite hold-up. This “pretense” is ‘not’ entirely true, and is not identical to the Lee Pope I knew.
But the ‘Lee Pope’ mentioned several paragraphs earlier, was still highlighted even further by additional oddities. Schroth, as a purported strict atheist, seemed in the manufacture for incongruous and strange ‘bed fellows’ for Schroth (who emphatically denounces the ultimate reality of anything at all of the spiritual, supernatural or religious nature) and those he esteems as associates, for Schroth is constantly on a mission, every moment of the day, enduring, unrelenting, to discover those enemies that are ‘improper,’ “nonfactual,” “imperfect,” and have been “contaminated” by the Fabien conspiracy (and other societal contaminations, at least, as he sees them from his arm-chair diagnostics) and at almost any cost.[4]
It is nice and perhaps wonderful that Schroth had become friends to Lee Pope, as Schroth’s discourses praise Pope highly, and that he deliberately marks Pope’s military career with esteem, and that the Popes treated Schroth so kindly and fondly, but this ultimately says nothing at all about the underlying stark reality of the baser side of the family and the discordant and conflicting practices they held that are so in variance with the ending and final Doctrine of Schroth’s Cultist and private peaching. It is nice that Pope’s wife, Marian (not the real name), baked cookies and served meals to him in friendship (they did the same to me as well), but this should not, in the framework of Schroth’s stringent, unyielding, crass, Doctrine of “perfectionism” allow one iota of leeway of divergence from the stark reality that he has enshrined himself in.
Likewise, I too had many friendly conversations with members of the Ufosgogs, and if compatibility were any criteria for putting these people as one-off, icons of virtue, merely because of their friendliness, then most of those—as well as many in the so-called UFO community— should receive the same stamp of approval and almost deification.
And that Lee Pope had served in the military and was a veteran, should in no way, abate or delineate from the millions of other men who served in and perhaps gave their lives in the service of their countries; again, not one iota. This includes both my brother and half-brother and my cousin George Banjak—and myriad others. My grandfather, John Bork, served in the submarine division in the German Navy, while he was no UFO organization-organizer; I feel his military service is likewise honorable and praiseworthy.
Spirituality and a host of other religious sentiments: Schroth was fervidly opposed to these. What could have been the kinship between these elements that appeared to be so incongruous? The answer is: shared Cultist-beliefs[5], almost in concert and replica, if not identical, but certainly in large part. Both Schroth and Pope were sterling attackers of the “Fabian-sponsored” Communist conspiracy to over-throw America (which I am also a dissentient, but in modified degrees and severity outside of any Skeptic or radical Debunking-of-Society cult), as well as the conspiracy of Jewish-aristocrats (which some presently are labeling Zionists) to help destruct authentic American culture.
In many discussions with Pope, Erdmann discovered that Pope had a wide-interest in a large range of topics that were very “‘speculative,” “‘visionary,” “‘on-going,” and “intrigued,” and, what be termed by some, as “wide-eyed”— “Mysteries.” They usually reflected major paranormal topics floating around at the time. At one interval, as example, when the book and movie THE EXORCIST was popular, Pope divulged, under strict secrecy, story in this matter. I told him I was going to write on that topic for BEYOND that his son ‘Larry’ (an alias to protect him) had “also” become possessed by demons and he had a personal REALITY Magazine and asked if I could interview him; yes, I could, but he and his family could not be identified (and they weren’t in the article at all). Unfortunately, for Schroth (and Pope), the whole interview was “taped” on cassette tape of which I still have and was not destroyed in a later storage debacle.
But Schroth shouldn’t have liked his “friends” to hoax, spawn weak theories, or be incompetent (for Schroth has said he is against all these things). Schroth speaks in sardonic tones when he speaks against UFOs as spaceships (he implicates, as well, there should be “no” serious study).[6] Yet when the late Leo Wicklinski, his good friend, spoke about the July 27, 1978 Clora Evelyn Winscher UFO case (in which an, alleged, pursuing UFO hit her car and left several dents in the rear of her automobile), at a room-filled Sunday Ufosgogs meeting circa 1978, Leo announced this case as evidence of extraterrestrial spaceships thousands of years in advance of terrestrial technology (to the hysterical applause of enthusiastic on-lookers): was this not in direct confrontation and contradiction with Schroth’s core belief?
The crime here, if that might be used as a descriptive term, is not that Schroth ‘liked’ or spoke of these people in ‘friendly’ terms, it is the incongruousness and contradictory nature of those relationships that cause one to take pause: 1) Schroth has a deep hatred of those who hold these beliefs (and there can be no doubt that he has spoken so vividly and disparagingly about this), 2) he abhors supernaturalism, religion and such supposed ‘myths’ with a deep passion, 3) yet, he associates with these ‘infidels’ and ‘enemies’ as if they were somehow comrades or, in fact, were indirectly or secretly upholding his Luddites’ Radical- Skeptical-Cultist Religion.
It is a shame that Schroth has built a wall of complete alienation between society at large and his tortured, private beliefs, as society does not actually operate in this way in every instance.
Which all goes to prove that friendships can be stronger than politics or beliefs (and it can also go to show how we can have strange bed-fellows; which is a goodthing)!
THE KING OF INCONGRUITY
(Thomas A, Fairbanks, Jacques Vallee, and Masking)
In Schroth’s campaign for his private concept of “perfectionism” he overlooks or does little accounting on citizens’ Right to research, use their personal thinking brains, create a vast historical library of written material, and read and collect data, in his shrouding it all, somehow, under a death mask of worthlessness and Fabian-Communist deception and ‘savage’ uselessness; this he again did in one specific instance when I wrote about letters I had received from a Thomas A. Fairbanks who claimed in the 1960s to have known and associated with some of the John Kennedy conspirators (responding to an article in my Dissenter/Disinter Magazine back then), inflamed in his vitriolic abuse, calling me, once again, a liar.
I have in my possession about three hand-written letters from a Thomas A. Fairbanks who was quoted from those letters to tell of his episodes with those that are connected in the Kennedy Assassination case back in the 1960s, telling of a Church that held several homosexuals and worked behind the scenes to aid people that were involved. Thomas Fair banks was eventually mentioned by Joan Mellen in her biographical book on Jim Garrison in a chapter number 18 titled “Upheaval,” about 26 paragraphs into that chapter (A FAREWELL TO JUSTICE; Jim Garrison, JFK’s Assassination, And The Case That Should Have Changed The World, Potomac Books, 2007).
In later 2018 comments, Schroth expanded his Cultism into several other attacks and inaccuracies, one aimed directly at the noted researcher Jacques Vallee as unscientific and apparently ‘loose’ for using the Willamette Pass Oregon UFO photo as a possible indication of a UFO ‘dematerializing’ as published in a 1974 issue of PSYCHIC Magazine. Fortunately, nineteen years later the case was exposed by Vallee in the Society for Scientific Exploration (of which Vallee is a council member) in the 1993 Vol. 7- No. 2 issue of the Journal of Scientific Exploration. Twenty-five years later, in 2018, Schroth is still mistakenly using an already exposed case in 1993 to further attack Vallee, at which point Schroth should have long before recognized the SFSE’s discovery.
As a ‘perfectionist,’ Schroth has no excuse for such mistakes,[8] especially since his whole existence and extraordinaire Cultist-Skeptic-Religion is deeply fastened to it.[9]
Apparently, Schroth has no qualms in overlooking the several UFO cases that Vallee has exposed and debunked himself in his investigations. Neither is Schroth knowledgeable of the time, expense and number of UFO cases that Vallee has readily investigated, far outpacing anything that Schroth has accomplished or even comes close to.
To make matters worse, Schroth speaks on behalf and uses the so-called “mainstream science” concept as a ‘tool’ or ‘club’ to erroneously bash those whom he disagrees with. He is inaccurate on several counts: 1) the nature of scientific inquiry is expanding daily in an ever-growing and widening hemisphere of newly accomplished facts and theories by multiple scientists in the science and academic fields, and 2) quite a few of those ‘scientists’ are legally interested in the subject of UFOs in a multiple line of disciplines and study.
Schroth’s use of some mysterious ‘mainstream’ (used as a weapon only when he needs to cover his tracks or pretenses) seems often frivolous at times, in as much as these authors, many of the ones he acknowledges, are, in fact, considered ‘outside the main stream’ and not really accepted by major cabals or Think Tanks. Authors such W. Cleon Skousen, Gary Allen, John A. Stormer, and others, while frequently quoted are not necessarily held in esteem by the majority of Schroth’s supposed “solid, strong, main stream.”
Perhaps, which all goes to prove, that friendships can be stronger than politics or beliefs (and it can also go to show how we can have strange bed-fellows, which is a good thing)!
Iranian soccer players matched against American teams, and despite intense competition, they had developed intimate and deep friendships that went beyond the sport; as one of the Iranian players said later: “you don’t let politics get in the way of good friendship.” (Among friends, you tend to loosen your behavior and act more spontaneously because of the bond that may have developed; this can be a “trap” depending on how deceptive your ‘partner’ really is: and why trust in marriage or other partnerships are so vital and so exhausting)
(on the doctrinal or political horizons, I suppose I am an Agnostic; politically, I like to call myself an “Independent” with leanings towards the Conservative side – sometimes toward the Right, but not very far. In fact, and usually depending on individual case-histories, I can sympathize with people on the left – the ‘common’ person – I am and have been there – I have no reason to not empathize in their plight: I am not a relic of past elite aristocracy. You, as compared, seem a staunch Conservative Right-wing Aristocrat (and religious Skeptic Cultist) that deems the masses incapable of uplifting themselves to higher levels (except by nature of their given hard-work and destiny), and they must drown in their putrid ignobility as a lesson to all. And who can argue with this absolute correctness? All of this can be said to be subjective malarkey; this is why “friendships” can’t be based on such polarized and inflamed, diametrically opposed positions – and true friendship, comradeship and love must exceed such limits.) As John F. Kennedy said:
“If now we cannot end our differences, at least we can make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal….Best we shall also do our part to build a world of peace, where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success.”
PART IV
THE GOOD OLE’ DAYS VERSUS MODERNISM
(More Schrothian concepts, doctrines and biases)
Schroth has sent out letters and opinions on movies and television and different societal mannerisms and functions of modern-day society and how it has degenerated, especially since the 1960s — but, then again, generally somewhere from the late 1880s through the 1920s and on into the 1960s. I recall one day we were at the Record Exchange (a record, CD, disc and DVD shop) on Hampton Avenue in St. Louis, and I was trying to help him select a movie, unfortunately from a very current date, and he shrieked like a wounded animal “but I am child of the 60s!”Dave had and still has some very stringent and psychologically deep philosophies that have been developed over the years as his personal belief-system – – – a form of anthropophobia, however, makeshift to his personal liking based on books and articles he is reading at the time. This is somewhat different from my glossophobia: which is very real at times and is not a product of any “psychological play-acting” on my part (and play-acting may be part of the problem in this topic). Some of his complaints I agree with, but not in the depth and dark psychology (extreme?) he has developed. I have watched Dave on occasion “struggle” with a decision to exchange a DVD he was returning for the supernatural-themed movie the MOTHMAN PROPHECIES, but apparently deciding not to exchange it because it collided with his deep beliefs. As inmost religious belief, everything has to be carefully andsoulfully weighed. I have watched Dave with the same struggle after winning a raffle at a Citizens’ Council picnic and he torturously wrangled mentally to decide (as to whether) to take a copy of one of David Icke’s paranormal books on ‘reptilians’ offered at the gift table.
Certainly, I am exaggerating the drama of these incidents; any person will do expressions such as the above at any given time. But we pause to highlight this activity in this case because Dave Schroth would also micro-analyze the behavior of others this way. But this seems to change at times, as well.
His complaint that modern movies are not only bad but almost evil is both true and not so true. His approach is almost Christian Fundamentalist (almost puritan) — but Schroth disavows religion. (Side-bar: The Pilgrim Thanksgiving celebration of 1621 was described as a big three-day party, breaking racial barriers, “…all slumbering discontents they smothered with common rejoicings.”, W. Deloss Love, Jr.) And I definitely will agree that some movies seem so much better than others: that is for a variety of reasons and personal tastes. The one complaint seems to be the use of a lot of modern technology in movies rather than “pure acting” – – – like in the “oldie but goodies” movies (there is that allusion to “pure” again). And this also seems tied in to one’s personal preference, guided howbeit from our subjective psychological mayhem. But, hey!, we are also children of our present milieu: and I don’t think Schroth has been able to escape that entirely, no matter how much his “play-acting” or phobias comes into action.
Another area that seems to be heavy on his mind is that of public etiquette and “manners” —- over and above what might be termed “common street behavior”: perhaps from that Carondelet Finishing School or perhaps from some Victorian Age of which he may be reincarnated (but not in a religious sense, no). I am afraid I did not have that opportunity.
My role models were scattered and somewhat distant. My one brother was a typical teen-ager who was employed as a bus driver right before the time he died – – – it now reminds me of the HONEYMOONERS in the 60s television program with Jackie Gleason.[10] He often talked about Ahmad Jamal as one of his jazz musician favorites, and I often remember his listening to jazz on the radio (i.e., Poinciana, 1963). He liked to draw and paint. Other than that, he was a typical, affable and likeable, 1950s teenager: with “buddies” and girlfriends and a pompadour hairstyle and even those dark teenage moods.
It was a time when the ‘Beatnik Era’ had appeared as a curiosity (….a new trend analogous to the influential Lost Generation….[there was the] Dobie Gillis television show….The beat philosophy was generally counter cultural and ant-materialistic and it stressed the importance of bettering one’s inner self over and above material possessions….antipathy towards capitalism….much of the beat culture represented a negative stance rather than a positive one: It was animated more by a vague feeling of cultural and emotional displacement, dissatisfaction and yearning….”) en.wikipedia.org. And, I must say: many of the kids, and me, were influenced by this idea in the 50s and 60s [ I recall Ronnie Smith and I had our little ‘club’ room in his basement where we played a jazz radio station and drew ‘art].
[I miss my brother something terrible at times!] My other half-brother (much like a real brother) was a strong role-model and ended up with a great amount of success as a Manager at Caterpillar Tractor in Illinois. [He is a proudand good brother!] Next door neighbors Ronald and Phyllis Smith were fairly good models: Ronnie Smith now owns and operates a successful printing firm with over 200 employees (or so I amtold; I believe I located Ronnie’s business: R. L. Smith Printing Company, Inc., 4030 Simon Road, Youngstown, Ohio. 44512-1320 [10 employees: 1 million dollars in business a year]) and Phyllis Smith is now on the cast of the famous and successful television program – THE OFFICE. The flip side to this card (outside of a teenage girlfriend which I adored and may have been my salvation), is twisted, sometimes sordid, a somewhat darker side. No one told me of or led me to the door of the Carondelet South Side Finishing School.
MEMORIES: THE WAY WE WERE
Barbara Streisand highlighted these longings (as did Morris Albert in his song Feelings). Streisand sang them in her rendition of The Way We Were (..…Memories, may be beautiful and yet….what what’s too painful to remember we simply choose to forget…..so it’s the laughter, we will remember, whenever we remember, the way we were….) She even sang it more poignantly in Memory (..…..Memory – all alone in the moonlight. I can dream of the old days….Life was beautiful then…..I remember the time I knew what happiness was…Let the memory live again….”)
I sometimes long for the memories of my childhood — the good portion — “this” nostalgia is all that I have; and aside from that, “it is still me” (My mother trying to teach me to polka in our kitchen on Michigan Avenue while she was busy fixing our usual – full-bloomed – Sunday dinner [a booming voice on the radio with a heavy German brogue announcing records on the German Hour radio program]. The summertime, back-yard barbeques with various laughing and friendly aunts and uncles and relatives arriving — roll out the barrel! — [when my mother danced the polka {and I’ve seen her in action} it was what she called “authentic German Polka”: flipping her heels and giving a “yip! Yip! Yip!” hollers….and so much more……..).
When we talk about the nostalgia of earlier days, that haunting and mysterious feeling about past lives and homesteads, we are also talking about their “spiritual” dimensions – a feeling of “saudades” – we are also speaking of those people whose lives are composite of all their beliefs, faiths, loves, longings, mishaps in life. When we travelled about Carondelet looking at relics of times past, the styles of their lives: this is not just a cold, aloof, dissecting “chopped liver” approach to the past, but one that sees the totality of those lives, even in intimate detail; their “longings”; their hopes; their aspirations; their religions. Yes, many of them had religious beliefs that they strongly upheld and it is often embedded in to the architecture of their homes. It could be said that these ingredients go into cases of “hauntings.”
This takes a certain amount of human empathy. It is an embodiment of what they were and may still be and how they synchronize with the extent of history as a whole.
IF WALLS COULD TALK
Andrew Carnegie could be an interesting example in a microcosmic sense. Here is a man of multiple layers of wealth and great accomplishment. In his youth he lived in a typical weaver’s cottage with only one main room consisting of half the ground floor which they shared with the neighboring weaver’s family: the main room served as a living room, dining room and bedroom. At the time of his death, Carnegie had a 64-room mansion with a private Otis elevator: many years of wealth in between. But those years also included his philosophic and religious struggles – he spoke about the irresponsibility and ostentatious living of the wealthy, was vehemently against war, helped form the League of Nations, turned from an atheist to a Positivist and then to a person who believed in “an infinite and eternal Energy from which all things proceed”; an “infinite intelligence”. When we look at the artifacts of Carnegie’s life, we are seeing much more than steel, wood and cloth (or even the music he loved to listen to): We are seeing and feeling the very essence of the psychic qualities imprinted upon them.
“Today’s brain imagery techniques lend support to the theory that thoughts and beliefs not only affect one’s psychological state, but also cause the body to undergo measurable biological changes,” says Doctor Jeffrey D. Palmer, “What is known, beyond doubt is that we can create healing energies with our minds alone….what we know and understand about the nature and mechanism of thought and thought energy pales in comparison to the vast amount of information that we do not have….expectation, beliefs and thought energy related physiological and biological changes….thoughts are real….a real influence on people, places and objects which is not bound by time or space.”
Researcher Stephen Wagner says it might be possible for events to be imprinted on the environment in some holographic psychic way that we do not understand yet. “Oft-repeated events remain recorded in the environment in which they originally occurred,” he says.
IF I ONLY HAD A BRANE
(“The anarchic principle follows from quantum mechanics, which tells us that all particle interactions that can happen will happen. In quantum field theory, everything that is not forbidden will occur”, Lisa Randall, Ph.D., Warped Passages,, HarperCollins, 2005: Randall is a theoretical particle physicist and is a student of warped geometry, sink holes, and branes. She received the 2006 Klopsted award from the American Physics Teachers (AAPT), and the 2007 Julius Lilienfeld prize from the American Physical Society).
.
We often see and find “coincidence” in this respect – but some coincidences are, as Peter A. Jordan says, “Almost too purposeful, too orderly” – and boarder on what Leibnitz calls “monad” – pre-established harmonies – or, as Schopenhauer called it – “interrelated and mutually attuned”. It is what Braina Lolgram, Carl Jung, and neuroscientist (Stanford University) Karl Pribram labeled “patterns inherent in the human psyche and shared by all mankind – – – -primordial images.” Jung also spoke of synchronistic phenomena of strange coincidence too striking to be mundane, in case after case. Meg Lundstrom says in A Wink From the Cosmos, “participants in a sensitive flowing web of information. Physicists have shown, for example, that two protons are separated, no matter by how far: a change in one creates a simultaneous change in the other”.
Shirley MacLaine, a life-long mystical practitioner, artist and motion-picture actress, had this to say: “Jung defined synchronicity as ‘any apparent coincidence that inspires a sense of wonder and personal meaning or particular significance in the observer…it is a perceived conviction between two or more objects or events or persons without any recognizable cause’…..I don’t think it can be called coincidence. I don’t think it can be called accident….we are beginning to realize that we’re connecting with the very essence of primordial life itself, and maybe to the roots of what I call time-less consciousness….point towards an organizational principle of the universe and suggest that our connection with a higher order of consciousness is never far from the surface of ordinary awareness….The right person, the right place, the right time enters our life as a strategic moment, which seems blindingly without logical motivation.”
(Closely aligned to the Cosmic-Consciousness idea is that of the Gaiahypothesis or principle that the planet earth is an interacting system, a homeorhesis, on an earth feedback loop as a single organism. A number of scientists support this idea, including William Golding, James Lovelock, Microbiologist Lynn Margulous and others. Carl Sagan, speaking of (1959) space probes, said planetary observations appeared to say that planets have the “character of a planet preparing to go to seed…..”)
(St. Trinity recently announced that the church will have to close down in a few years because of their expenses and lax membership. When that congregation passes away, so will the embodiment of hundreds of memories and sentiments that gave those person’s lives meaning in their minds, those days will live on. To me: it will be a haunting by memories of Christmas celebrations, school episodes, love affairs —- cold winter days — and hot summer nights — the kisses of Margie —- John Moeller/Steve Erdmann ‘Army-Navy Club’ —– the invigorating smell of church banquet dinners…….. )
(Surprisingly, due to the efforts of a new Pastor, David Lewis and some parishioners, events through 2009-2018 have revived the church and it has made a phenomenal come-back.)
Carl Sagan and Albert Einstein were not oblivious to this side of human nature; they spoke of it often: (Carl Sagan) “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known…science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality..…imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.” (Albert Einstein) “There are two ways you can look at the world: one as if nothing were a miracle, the other as if everything was a miracle”.
“Quantum physics will in the near future be an inevitable, indispensable and useful part of everyday life,” says Johan Hansson, “It is coming, and is impossible to stop. In fact, we are already there, but have yet only scratched the surface of an enormous iceberg, the majority of which is hidden and unused…..” (www.enzinearticles.com)
(Speaking of coincidence: we once talked about travelling to the old north St. Louis area were the Sportsman’s Park use to be to take photos, and decided it would be too dangerous, I had worked as security guard on the weekends at the Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club on Dodier Avenue at that precise spot alongside of the old Carter Carburetor site; and I’m more accustomed to that area now: still want to take photos? Come along!)
BUT SCHROTH IS CORRECT?
(Unbelievable, but not really true!)
But Dave Schroth has been a supposedly admirably dedicated, innovative and self-determined “researcher”: but that is only a ‘surface’ appearance, a ‘mask’ to cover his inner demons of fanatical and religious ‘extremes.’ I’ve seen some of his exploratory research into crime (particularly in the Black communities where the “gangsta” mentality has been glorified), the tracing of liberal philosophies into the Communistic Movements of the 30s and 40s. How the term “liberal” had been shanghaied into the Communist Movement (he once showed me a flowchart of the many branching Communistic movements flowing through the Fabian vein and into such organization as the American Civil Liberties Union); and that the word “Liberal” (as in the Liberal political movement) is nothing but a “front” for the values of Karl Marx and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and their motto to bring America to its heels. His research ranks similar to that of John Earl Haynes (American Communism And Anticommunism: a Historian’s Bibliography And Guide To The Literature, February 18, 2009. www.johnearlhaynes.org). Schroth indicated that the black community is and has been a “wedge” caused by decadent socialism in America.
What we’re lacking in our/his purview were the tell-tale signs of Schrothian-Moriarty Wild schizoid fanaticism tailor-made to his own private world of cynicism with all its twists and turns and perverted doctrinaire visions of Ted Kaczynski type “purity” and “uncontaminated” madness of taking any seeming ‘normal’ situation and contorting it to fit in to his schizoid and suspect cultist worldview. His inner demons, his hidden motivations, tarnish his alleged printed words, unfortunately, and they can’t always been seen for what he pretends they are, now that ‘that’ is discovered.
W.E.B Dubois was an independent socialist since 1904, who travelled extensively in the Soviet Union in 1926, 1936, and 1949. Through the 1940s he believed that the black liberation movement in America had to incorporate a socialist perspective and be in the forefront in promoting peaceful co-existence with the Soviet bloc. But the Communist party had its roots in black culture as early as 1919 when Cyril Biggs, African Blood Brotherhood leader, spoke of Marx and how African Americans could find their home and be taken seriously within the Communist Credo. “here was a party that seemed to have the goal of the lower-class citizen in mind and was out in public being vocal and defiant to white power,” says Denman, Scullin, and Goracy in Black And Red: a journey ThroughCommunism In The Black Community (www.tcns.edu), “They realized that the black social status was not much different from that of Americans as a whole….they decided to focus their energy on the lower class.”
Similar views were espoused by Claude Lightfoot in his Black Power AndLiberation: A Communist View: “The present moment can be characterized as one charged with economic, political and social turbulence….the people are striking back. Sometimes they strike according to plan. Sometimes they erupt spontaneously….these are all struggles by the people against a system…..must go forward today in new forms…..yesterday’s approach is too mild to meet the problems of this storm period.”
In Jim Marrs’ The Trillion-Dollar Conspiracy (HarperCollins Publishers, 2010), he speaks of “creeping socialism”: “A few older citizens may recall the words of Norman Mattoon Thomas, a pacifist who ran for president six times between 1928and 1948 under the Socialist Party of America banner. ‘The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism…But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.’….In a 1948 interview, Thomas said he was retiring from American politics because both the Democratic and Republican parties had adopted every plank of the Socialist’ platform and there was no longer a need for the alternative Socialist Party.”
In a meeting with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, 1959, former Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson quoted Khrushchev as saying a reasonable facsimile (there is a debate over when and where): “You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright. But we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won’t have to fight you; we’ll so weaken your economy until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands.” Khrushchev made a similar, earlier remark on November 18, 1956: “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side: We willbury you…….”
True politics
(This is a play on words comparing to the TV series true detective.)
AMERICA: TO ITS KNEES!
Says Gary Allen in None Dare Call It Conspiracy: “If one understands that socialism is not a share-the-wealth program but is in reality a method to consolidate and control the wealth, the seeming paradox of superrich men promoting socialism becomes no paradox at all. Instead, it becomes the logical, even the perfect tool of power-seeking-megalomaniacs. Communism, or more accurately, socialism, is not a movement of the downtrodden masses, but of the economic elite..…If you wanted to control the nation’s manufacturing, commerce, finance, transportation and natural resources, you would need only to control the apex, the power pinnacle, of an all-powerful socialist government. Then you would have a monopoly and could squeeze out all your competitors. If you want – a worldwide monopoly, you must control a world socialist government. That is what the game is all about….Communism is an arm of a bigger conspiracy to control the world by power-mad billionaires (and) brilliant but ruthless academicians who have shown them how to use their power….” (Concord Press, 1971)
Allen describes these “robber barons” that are willing to fix prices, rig markets, establish monopolies, buy politicians, exploit employees and fire them the day before they are eligible for pensions, but are also planning to rule the world and even use Communism “as the striking edge of their conspiracy”. That “striking edge” became Jack the Ripper in America on Wall Street in 20081
“Incentives to make good investments had deteriorated as the free-market-food-back-loop was being distorted: bad investments and irresponsible behavior was being rewarded on a massive scale, encouraging even more misallocation of capital and sloppy habits,” says Gabe, September 30, 2008, Did Minority LendingDrive Crisis?, www.marginalrevolution.com, “the frugal and ‘old fashioned’ were being made losers by a system backed by a Greenspan Put and bailout ideology, thus encouraging even fewer to be frugal or cautious. The habits and values most important to free-markets were being destroyed – – – the 5th plank of the Communist Manifesto was doing its work and slowly destroying our economy….”
W. Cleon Skousen in his The Naked Capitalist (Buccaneer Books, 1970) outlines 45 “declared goals” by communists to overtake America. Some of them stick out like a sore thumb in the growth of the 2008 Crash. Joseph M. Schwartz, professor of Political Science at Temple University, blames a 30-year “joint” project of Republican monetarios and Democrat neo-liberals going back to Jimmy Carter’s deregulation, Reagan’s “gutting” of regulation, and Clinton’s abolition of the Glass-Steagal Act. This all worked hand-in-glove with a liberal move such as a ”drive” by Bill Clinton to increase home ownership primarily to the lower-income and despite racial questions or warnings of repercussions……
(Fannie and Freddie popularized low-income securitization. The government pushed for greater mortgage securitization in an effort to increase CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) lending: A study put out by the Treasury Department in 2000 found that the CRA encouraged the mortgage services to provide loans to low-income borrowers; further, these lax lending standards spread to the rise of the market. Says John Carney about Clinton: “His administration went to ridiculous lengths to increase the national homeownership rate..….paper-thin down-payments….shaky financing and income..…opened floodgates to minority lending.”, Business Insider…...
…….Communist rule no.32: support any socialist movement to give centralized control over to any part of the counterculture…..Communist rule no. 15; capture one or both of thepolitical parties in the United States……Communist rule no. 40: discredit the family as an institution…….)
“Liar Loans” were given carte blanche and triple-A ratings and packaged in speculative investment banking and sold as derivatives around the world. Said former U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairperson Brooksley Born: “The market was virtually unregulated and many, many times as big as the trading on the futures exchanges. The commission had kept some nominal authority over the market, but there was no mechanism for enforcing the rules. For example, anti-fraud rules were retained, but no reporting was required. The Market was completely opaque. Neither the commission nor any other federal regulator knew what was going on in that market!”…..
……[Communist rule no. 37: infiltrate andgain control of big business……
“Meanwhile, economists were screaming from the rooftops that Democrats were forcing mortgage lenders to issue loans that would fail the moment the housing market slowed and dead-beat borrowers couldn’t get out of their loans by selling their houses”, says Charlotte Iserbyt, “A decade later, the housing bubble burst and, as predicted food-stamp-backed mortgages collapsed, Democrats set an affirmative action time-bomb and now it has gone off.”
“Although it’s well known that the economic mess began with the banks, mortgage lenders, and real estate companies,” says Jim Marrs, “the current housing and mortgage mess actually was the result of maneuvering by both Democrat and Republican politicians, a fact that adds considerable weight to the argument that both major parties are controlled by the same globalists seeking to install a worldwide socialist system.” (The Trillion-Dollar Conspiracy)
Says Joseph E. Stiglitz in Freefall: “….(banks) engage(d) in excessive-risk-taking and to lend to those who can’t repay, There have been repeated instances of such lending giving rise to housing bubbles. It’s one of the reasons for regulations.., …Yet, in the deregulatory frenzy of the 1980s, 1990s, and the early years of this decade, even attempts to restrict the worst lending practices ___ such as the predatory lending in the subprime market ___ were beaten back.”
Rhodes Scholar (a graduate of the – gold and diamond magnate – Cecil Rhodes’ Round Table organization for a “new world order”) William Jefferson Clinton was also an attendee to the Bilderberg Group in 1991 (Germany) and 1999 (Portugal) (an equally secret group, consisting of very wealthy and powerful people, started in 1954 at the Bilderberg Hotel in the Netherlands; Hillary Clinton, our present Secretary of State and president Clinton’s wife, recently attended a Bilderberg meeting in 1997). (The William J. Clinton Foundation has aworth of over 300 million dollars to date)
Our current President Barrack H. Obama was said to possibly have attended a Bilderberg meeting in 2008.
“There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the Radical Right believes the communists act. In fact, this network which we identify as The Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups, and frequently does so.” (Tragedy and Hope: A History of The World In Our Time, Carroll Quigley, 1966, Macmillan Publishers)
Barrack Obama began his left-wing leanings as a teenager listening to his “Uncle Frank” (Frank Marshall Davis), who was a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). John Edgar Tidwell says that Davis had ties with several communist-front organizations. Later Obama aligned with far-left community forces such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in his days as community organizer in Chicago. There were associations with former Weatherman terrorist William Ayers, European socialist groups, Socialists International (SI), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Carl Davidson, and in 1996, Obama gave his endorsement of the Chicago branch of the DSA. Obama eulogized for Saul Mendelson, a long-time socialist in the Chicago Democratic Left.
Speaking of the present Barrack Obama Washington administration, created in the heat of the 2008 Wall Street “meltdown”, Micelle Malkin (Culture OfCorruption, Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2009), says: “Obama’s team – the ‘best of the Washington insiders’, as David Brooks called them – is a dysfunctional and dangerous conglomerate of business-as-usual cronies….they are every bit as disreputable and demanding as their 1940s counterparts….ethically challenged bailout-burglary money men (such as) Larry Summers and Tim Geithner at Treasury, crime-coddling corporate lawyer Eric Holder at DOJ….Executive Ron Sims at the Department of Housing And Urban Development, fined for suppressing public records from taxpayers……”
As the build-up of the housing and mortgage fiasco was progressively put in place prior to 2008, Obama had his own 1.7-million-dollar Chicago manse financed with a discount mortgage from Northern Trust, associated with convicted felon/donor/developer tony rezko. One of the “boiler pot” companies in the Meltdown, Countrywide, gave Obama minion Jim Johnson more than 7 million dollars in below-market-rate loans from Countrywide. The left-wing Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was deeply involved in the housing contribution to the sub-prime housing bubble (over-shadowed by the CRA), worked hand-in-hand with the rubber-stamp leftist SEIU (Service Employee International Union). “These foreclosure con artists are just the top of ACORN’s fraudulent enterprises….voter fraud, corporate shakedowns, partisan bullying, and pro-illegal immigration lobbying,” says Malkin, “This is the bread and butter work that ACORN does. President Obama knows it, and he appreciates it.”
The Obamas worked on the boards of the left-wing Woods Fund – along with Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers – and the Joyce Foundation: both which poured money into ACORN. But there was a Republican/Democrat agenda! “In October 2008 under the Bush administration, HUD announced more than 44 million dollars in new housing counseling grants to over 400 state and local efforts. The Bush Whitehouse increased funding for housing counseling by 150 percent since 2001.”
“The mortgage crisis, for example, arose out of a long-standing erosion of the property rights concept – first on the part of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but also on that of the Federal Reserve” says Bloomberg columnist Amity Shlaes, “Broadening FDR’s entitlement theories, Congress taught the country that home ownership was a ‘right’ This fostered a misunderstanding of what property is. The owners didn’t realize ownership entailed – that is, they didn’t grasp that they were obligated to deliver on the terms of the contract of their mortgage. In the bipartisan enthusiasm for everyone an owner, our government debased the concept of home ownership.”
“….trying to assign blame to either Democrats or Republicans is pointless,” said Kathleen Parker of The Washington Post, “Everyone is culpable. From the early 1980s when Ronald Reagan deregulated banks, through the two Bushes, Bill Clinton and now Barack Obama, each administration has endorsed – and each Congress has helped tweak —- laws and rules that made systemic abuses and the meltdown not only possible but, looking back, inevitable….many investment bankers knew the mortgage loans they were packaging and selling were junk. They knew because their own analysts told them so. Tens of thousands of loans failed to meet basic underwriting standards, according to recent testimony before the Financial Crisis inquiry Commission, a bipartisan group created to examine the causes of the meltdown. Not only that, (but) Wall Street insiders were betting against their own customers and institutions.”
In 2008, America entered into a multi-trillion-dollar debacle when its economycollapsed, rankling and kidnapping the security of foreign countries, and bringing America to its knees!
That debt still stands in America of about, more or less, at $21,854,296,172, 540 (trillion), causing a personal debt of about $66,976 (dollars0 in 2018.
There is no disputed doubt that the ”Capitalism” utilized in the 2008 financial fiasco was just plain old “greed” that existed continually in a so-called Constitutional Republic.
And as Kathleen Parker pointed out above, the fiasco was not actually a traditional Communist conspiracy, ultimately, there are no real differences between the ideologies; they are intimately caused by aristocratic overlords and Rulers down through the ages; even Karl Marx was guided by Secret overlords and aristocratic societies and gave him the inspiration to form his movement.[11]
The problem lies in the ‘extremes’ that the human ID can go to; recent scandal and bizarre political events in Congress in 2018 only prove that in abundance, and none of it is limited to one political party or another. Humans, no matter what religion, politics, cult, or “ism” they belong to, ‘Mask’ their inner most agendas and evil motivations from the world at large. This is universal and is not protected by any professed belief, be it Skeptical or Perfectionist. It was personified by culprit Errol Childress to Detective Rust Cohle in the TV series TRUE DETECTIVE: “Take off your mask, little priest!”
(The events involved in the financial debauchery are far more complex than this short rendition, and all areas would need to be aired and investigated [and even challenged by opposing viewpoints for clarity and revision]).
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FAMILY
“The decline of the American family has reached critical and truly dangerous proportions….The breakdown of the family now touches virtually every American. It is not only the major source of social instability in the government..….the erosion of marriage, out-of-wedlock births, divorce, and fatherless children are now mainstream problems that threaten the general society.” (Taken Into Custody, Stephen Baskerville, Cumberland House, 2007)
”As we will see,” says Baskerville, “the astonishing but incontrovertible fact is that with the exception of convicted criminals, no group in our society today has fewer rights than fathers….parents summoned to these courts have entered a nightmare world where children are abducted and exploited and even abused by government order, where parents are forced to stay away from their children, prevented by the police from protecting them, incarcerated without charge or trial, and driven into bankruptcy and poverty, and where the Bill Of Rights may as well not exist.”
He continues: “Far from merely exploiting family breakdown after the fact then, domestic relations law has turned the American family into a game of ‘prisoners’ dilemma….willingly or not, all parents are now prisoners in this game….In short, state officials now possess the power to break up families by imposing divorce on happily married parents….Harsh as it may sound, it cannot be denied that these officials are united by one overriding interest; having children separated from their parents. Without the power to remove children from their parent – and most often the father – this industry cannot thrive, and these officials will have no business….put simply, the first principle of the divorce industry, the basic premise without which it has no reason to exist, is the removal of the fathers from the family. Once this is accomplished, the state is free to assume control over mothers and children as well.”
Baskerville quotes Rabbi Lapin in The American Enterprise in Lapin’s quoting of Adolf Hitler: Hitler says: “The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasury of the people. As long as government is perceived as working for the benefit of children, the peopled will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty.”
Comparing Child Support enforcement to institutionalized Marxist principles (“from each according to his ability, to each according to her need….”), Baskerville says child support has nothing to do with “justice” but is interwoven in a long panoply of unusual punishments and punitive measures in a regime were the father is forced “to finance the filching of his own children”, becoming the subject of a national demonology as officially designated villains whose “guilt is assumed unquestionably by politicians, press, and public alike….Not since the collapse of the Weimar republic have the top leaders of a major western democracy used their public office to verbally attack millions of their own citizens.” As an example of ‘Soviet Logic’, Ronald Henry, says that coerced child support is not predicated on uniting children with Fathers but keeping them apart: “despite the touchy-feely language about family and stability and relationship, such decisions have nothing to do ‘with enforcing anything other than financial obligations’”.
Walter Olson writes in The Litigation Explosion: “Lawyers have more power to ruin your life in America than they do in any other advanced country…..power without responsibility.” “The legal system is increasingly run for the enrichment of lawyers and not the public,” writes columnist Robert Samuelson. “The idea that American courtrooms strive toward justice is no long taken seriously…the courts are greatly feared for their ability to ruin…” says the Wall StreetJournal.
Family law today is the largest and fastest-growing sector of the civil judiciary, accounting for at least 35 percent of all litigation. It is estimated that, as a percentage of the state cases filed between 1984 and 1995, family cases grew by 70 percent. Much of this growth is self-generating. “Child-support enforcement is now a $4 billion national industry in terms of the money expended,” says Baskerville, “in terms of the money it aims to collect, it is a multibillion-dollar enterprise with targets upward of $100 billion.”
Some 24 million American children or about 34 per cent live in households without their fathers. For African American children that figure is 66 percent. Nearly 2.5 million children join the ranks of the fatherless each year. Since automatic wage garnishing has been mandatory for all new child-support orders since 1992, the question arises as to how so many fathers allegedly avoid their payments? The principal method is by being unemployed. Sherri Heller, OCSE Director, says that about two-thirds of the debt and about two-thirds of the people who owe it earned less than $10,000 last year. It appears that most of thedebt is owed by extremely poor debtors.
WE TOO ARE HUMAN
Poor people (including Socialists and persons on the Left), however, are not all the evil, heartless, deprived people I seem to depict in the above remarks on Socialists (certainly, most do not knowingly consider themselves as Communists). Neither are lower–income and poor people included as knowingly evil. Most are warm, caring, kind people who see the more elitist and aristocratic areas and people of society as the truly evil elements. The real witches cackling about the caldron may be closer to home and even more deeply implanted. Concerning the “common poor person” (and I am one of them, by the way): I had the opportunity to live with the poor in my trips to Jamaica, West Indies. They, as john F. Kennedy said, breathe the same air, have blood in their bodies as well as the next human, a beating heart, and the pains and hopes that all other humans do. They have feelings of love, passion, fear, and hunger as other life-forms that we call “human beings”.
A father of a very wealthy family took his son to visit a “poor” country family for one day as a lesson (the kind of bravado that only rich people can provide: sort of, “if you can hold your head up with magnanimity after being kicked in the nuts by a Clydesdale, then you can call yourself a man” mentality) about how ‘good of a life’ their rich lifestyle entailed. After a day of visiting, the father smugly asked the son: “What did you think of being poor for a day?” The son smiled and began: “Well, we have one dog – but they had four! We have a pool that runs to the middle of our garden: but they had a creek that never ends! We havea patiothat runs to the middle of our front yard – they have a front yard that runs to the horizon!”
Barron’s Book notes at www.pinkmonkey.com spoke of the empathy that novelist John Steinbeck had for the poor and downtrodden (my mother, Clara Moser, had left my father’s collection of Steinbeck’s books to me upon her death): “Closely related to the Common Man theme is Steinbeck’s creation of a naturalist or realistic atmosphere. Steinbeck is not a romantic who makes a big deal about people or natural wonders. Like a scientist, he observes things as they are and sees people as just a small part of the overall natural world.”
www.cyberessays.com says: “throughout history, less fortunate people have been set apart or shunned from the general public. In The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, this statement holds true. Through-out the book, all of the less fortunate people are treated like they aren’t human. This is not much different than how our society is now….in The Grapes of Wrath, and in the present time, the general public has set the less fortunate apart from themselves without even realizing it….”
Latoya Peterson, commenting on Insight Center for Community and EconomicDevelopment, “As the report explains the key to financial stability is wealth (for example, assets, savings, stock holdings, business income) which can be passed from generation to generation to ease the path for those struggling in their youth. However, for more than 46 percent of single-parent black households that have zero or negative wealth, there is literally nothing to pass on….” Says Megan Cottrell: “…… (We) lift as we climb, but we’re also bogged with baggage – positive or negative – the baggage our parents left us.”
The number of people in poverty rose to a record level in 2009, 14.3 percent, a national rate which is the highest since 1994 and, among the work-age poor, the highest level since 1960s in the U.S. population, grown by more than 130 million in that time. Recently, a shocking 37 million Americans live in poverty or 12.7 percent of the population – the highest percentage in the developed world. Photographer Glenn H. Austin says 32.9 million. Each year since 2001 their numbers have grown.
In 2017, 39.7 percent of Americans lived in poverty.
During George Bush’s Administration an extra 5.4 million have slipped below the poverty line: yet they are not examples of the destitute or even the unemployed; some work and have two jobs. Films such as Once Upon A Time In America show the poor in searinghonesty.
The United States had 269 billionaires in 2008, and in 2018 there were 2,200: the highest number in the world.
Photographer Glenn Austin went about State Street visiting the homeless (www.inside-voices.com) and had this to say: “They are not cardboard cutout poor people; they are real, living, breathing, human beings. They have problems and feelings…..they are the discards of our society: the poor, the veterans, the homeless, the drug addicts, the alcoholic, the runaways, the abused, the unemployable that nobody wants. They deserve something better than the lives they lead now, but these photos are not about how bad their lives are. These pictures are mostly how good their lives are….stop and talk to these folks that you have previously been ignoring. You will discover that they are just people. Contrary to popular myth, poor people do not enjoy being poor, and they do not enjoy panhandling. They panhandle because they are poor….jails and prisons are filled with poor people. There are very few rich people in prison; I guess theydon’t commit any crime? They give each other social and physical support, acceptance and human touch. ‘We are family; the State Street family,’ one person said. Disabled people on crutches, quite a few who are mentally ill, can come to State Street and find unconditional acceptance, not as freaks, but as human beings”. One is reminded of scenes in the movie Down And Out In Beverly Hills.
“We are complex beings. I believe that there is a great deal more to us than the ubiquitous battleground of good versus bad,” says Charles S. Weinblatt, “most of us are not one or the other, but both. We are beautiful and ugly, soothing and terrifying, brutal and caring: we love and we depose…I believe that people find it easy to hate because tolerance requires effort. Haters live with haters in a community of malevolence…..” (www.enotalone.com)
There “is” some seemingly familiar thins thatDave Schroth speaks about that s fleetingly correct —– and a lot he is not (ifonly on a personal, private level). It is hoped that this lengthy treatise, if only scratching the surface of the debates and problems inherent herein, can shed some light. I thank him for the opportunity to speak my mind on these matters. I hope that, even we as Marvin Udalls, will (at least) agree that differences of opinions are allowed.
PART V
Arlene and I, as well as some of the members at St. Trinity, were quite concerned with you when you spoke of an illness – possibly cancer. There was talk about getting you free or reduced medical help. I personally tried to find some patient care for you. Also, the pastor and I discussed having the parish nurse visit you, or other avenues of help. I hope that it was nothing as serious as that. From what I last heard; your pains were related to pinched nerves. Now, I know how that canbe after dealing with a herniated disc and surgery of my back. You were talking about the expenses involved (I believe you were out of work at the moment, and we were trying to map out the possible avenues you might take as suggestions). There appeared to be some miscommunication; It is hard to interpret everything that is going on about you, especially when a number of people are involved and there is unplanned and hidden information involved. This is why good communication and information is always necessary.
(And to mention again, in September 2010, after several meetings, the laity voted to ‘close down’ the church as soon as possible due to lax membership and rising expenses. The Church did continue and even grow under the leadership of a new past, David Lewis and staff.)
In so many ways, I understand your alarm at and disgust with “the human situation.” I’ve about given up on pleasing people – “costumer service.” Thosehumans can be hard to handle and even “devastating.” I find myself caring formany of them some-times: strangest doggone thing.[12] People can be pretty rough and raw (“Society isfull of hypocrites, arrogance, self-righteousness, thoughtlessness ignorance, envy, etc. These are things evidentand rampantin our society,” says ME, Atheist in www.amplicate.com, “and these weren’t mentioned just because of the SevenDeadly Sins and that religion thing”.): I have seen and even have been victim of immense cruelty of humans-by-humans time and time again (if only I could tell you). To that extent: your point is well taken. Why should we forgive anyone? Because we are human also, and we make mistakes – sometimes, great mistake! “We think that when we forgive, we need to reconcile….for those whose lives have been tragically altered by the mindlessness of others, this process can take a long time because the wound could be very deep,” says Rosanna C. Rogacion, “Forgiveness is a process and it is one that must not be rushed. The important thing is to take the first step: make the decision to forgive…” We are going to be here in this life only a short time. And when you get a certain age, you are so tired of the struggle: you don’t care who wins the “boxing match” and you just want to turn the television off. Does that make me a “humanist,” a “sophist,” a “Communist” or just “pissed”? But, still, one wishes for some “hope” – and you dream. As a humane person, I wish you no harm nor ask harm from you in return…
“To my mind, there is no better demonstration of the folly of human concepts than this distant image of our tiny world. To me it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and perceive and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known…For small creatures such as us the universe is bearable only through love.”’ (Carl Sagan)
Steve Erdmann:
Recent Update: Several through the years till December 11, 2018.
Significant and meaningful updates have been made since the last updates in 2008.
http://www.skepticalaboutskeptics.org/examining-skeptics/ (A good and detailed resource on the fallacies of Skepticism as ‘scientism’ rather than ‘science.’)https://wordpresscom507.wordpress.com/2017/08/28/i-dr-j-allen-hynek-ufos-concern-things-in-physics-right-around-us-phenomena-which-is-beyond-our-understanding-yet-will-eventually-be-natural-november-24-1/embed/#?secret=a0Oo8DIWFu
HTTPS:// SOLIDARITY-US.ORG/ ATC/ 195/ MARX-LAUSE/ (On the Aristocrat and secret society origins of Marxism.)https://www.kerrybolton.com/communism-fermented-in-secret-societies/embed/#?secret=9FejyFwVXc
[1] I have in my possession about three hand-written letters from a Thomas A. Fairbanks who was quoted from those letters to tell of his episodes with those that are connected in the Kennedy Assassination case back in the 1960s, telling of a Church that held several homosexuals and worked behind the scenes to aid people that were involved. Thomas Fair banks was eventually mentioned by Joan Mellen in her biographical book on Jim Garrison in a chapter number 18 titled “Upheaval,” about 26 paragraphs into that chapter (A FAREWELL TO JUSTICE; Jim Garrison, JFK’s Assassination, And The Case That Should Have Changed The World, Potomac Books, 2007).
[2] David Schroth has often mentioned, as part of his composite theories, his struggle with and stance against “multi-culturalism” and the population of mixed cultures—particularly blacks, Hispanics, and Asian—in America as related to America’s coming destruction and downfall. This is truly a mixed bag of worms, and controversy, in as much as a large portion of worldwide societies are non-European at the present time presenting harsh realities to Schroth. I will discuss this further in depth at another point, but somehow Schroth again aligns cultural-mixing as against his ‘perfectionist-puritan’ viewpoint. Which raises questions about me, as my wife is Pilipino.
[4] In one of Schroth’s many praises of Pope, he mentions that Pope was seen watching his television (one Schrothian strike) and was seeing movie starlet Vera Miles in a movie scene: now, was see acting in one of Alfred Hitchcock’s horror thrillers which Schroth probably would rank as ‘poor taste modernism’ (another Schrothian strike)? Another Schrothian ‘icon,’ TV calibrate, Charlotte Peter’s interviewed Hitchcock as a Master of Art, the same Hitchcock that produced wild horror films PSYCHO and the BIRDS (Schroth is against modern movies too, designating some magical era in the 1950s to 1920s or there about as some ‘purer’ phase of entertainment). Peters likewise paraded ‘zany’ comedians on her TV show, and some very controversial talent, such as Steve Allen.
[5] In Schroth’s criticism of Ufologist David Marler using the term “skeptical believer,” Wild likewise fits a bizarre and incongruous term I would apply to Wild as a “religious cultist/atheist.” It was ‘not’ Marler that coined the term, but someone at U&M. The Religious Skeptic Cultist also uses all sorts of ‘handy-dandy’ titles and slogans, as well, to attack others.
[6] Schroth Doctrine seems to also have gone to the extreme of discarding or attacking, “Mystery” (stated in a 2018 letter) as a component of his Religion, spreading a wide net over what, in essence, has been, as still is, the motivating factor in ‘all’ science through the ages, books and novels, human inspiration for all kinds of 100% of existence and talents, including Schroth’s own interests and motivations, taking his Religion to ludicrous and bizarre extremes, even slapping his own endeavors in the face, sort of a “rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time,” or, “shaking one’s hand and slapping him with the other.”
[7] Both Pope and Schroth herald “Pure” European culture and the preferred culture outstanding above all other cultures, ignoring the vast realm of billions of people that are outside of the traditional European culture (cited by Schroth and Skeptic Cultists-Cohorts as “anti-multi-culturalism). Sadly, this would exclude my family and wife which is Filipino on my wife’s side.
[9]Nor any excuse for his contradictions in lifestyle, Schroth has criticized ‘socialism,’ as part of the alleged creeping Fabian Communist conspiracy enveloping the globe, and, in this respect, has spoken out against Social Security as having elements in this movement. Well, sometime circa 2017 or so, David Schroth has applied for and has gotten his personal Social Security benefits started, even early; we always ‘hide’ our ID Monsters behind our ‘Masks,’ and as culprit Errol Childress told Detective Rust Cohle in the TRUE DETECTIVE TV series: “Take off your mask, little priest!”
[10] Another “hero” of Dave Schroth fails into Schroth’s incongruity, paraded by Schroth as a symbol of his ‘golden age’ of ‘goodness’ (part of that 1800s – 1960s or so magical paradigm) Entertainer Jackie Gleason, like Steve Allen and other Schroth fictions, was supposed “good clean comedy” (not everyone saw it that way) and “clean living”; but Gleason had a vast and large UFO library indicating his personal interest in defiance of Shrothianism, considered himself religious, also in defiance, and was said to visit preserved aliens along with pal Richard Nixon, certainly in defiance of Schroth’s cherry-picking.
[12] Steve Erdmann is not a diehard and unrelenting nemesis of mankind as Schroth is, no matter how discouraged I become. Neither was Mark Twain, despite his pessimisms.
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.
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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.
*******
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
The Alien Disclosure Deception The Metaphysics of Social Engineering
by Charles Upton *******
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Announcing the Publication of aManifesto against UFO-Worship:
In the year 2021, in the United States, amid the shock of Covid-19, a new religion was “officially” announced by powerful elements of the ruling elite, including the military, the intelligence community, influential politicians and corporate CEOs: the religion of UFO Worship.
According to the central dogma of this faith, the human race was not created by God through His eternal Self-disclosure, but by the UFO Aliens through genetic engineering; consequently it is the Aliens—not the Almighty, His Prophets and His Angels— who are our rightful spiritual guides, protectors, and guardians.
In this religion, or rather pseudo-religion, two of the central elements of what René Guénon called “Anti-Tradition”—firstly, the regime of Scientism, and secondly, the confusion of psyche with Spirit resulting in the usurpation of the spiritual by the psychic—have come together to produce a full-fledged “church” of the Counter-Tradition, in the form of a religion of Jinn-worship in which magic and technology have become virtually indistinguishable, seeing that the UFO Aliens are none other than those beings the Muslims call the Jinn. And the hierophants of the UFO religion have taken few pains to conceal their virulent hatred of the Traditional faiths.
Forty years ago, in a short book entitled UFOs, or the Great Parody, French Guénoniste Jean Robin predicted precisely this development, as did British Christian C.S. Lewis in That Hideous Strength.
The Alien Disclosure Deception: The Metaphysics of Social Engineering includes all of Charles Upton’s writings on the subject of UFOs since 2001, plus three chapters dealing with contemporary events, especially the “Great Disclosure” of 2021.
It presents a view of the phenomenon based largely on the UFOlogy of Jacques Vallee as seen through the lens of the metaphysics of René Guénon, also drawing upon Traditionalist authors like Frithjof Schuon, Whitall Perry, Leo Schaya and James Cutsinger, and Christian writers such as C.S. Lewis and Father Seraphim Rose.
As for the use of UFO mythology for the purpose of social engineering, the author’s thesis is that the military and intelligence communities, finding that they could neither explain nor control the phenomenon, decided that the next best thing would be to use it to further their agenda of transforming the basic belief-system of western civilization from Democracy and Christianity to Transhumanism and Luciferian Technocracy.
They did this by publicly debunking UFOs while secretly leaking information supporting their reality, information onto which they had artificially grafted the beliefs they intended to inject into society through the subculture of UFO believers, as well as through the genre of science fiction cinema.
And the clearest evidence of this agenda, which was probably first posited by Jacques Vallee in Messengers of Deception in 1979, appears in the innumerable absurd, contradictory, and frankly impossible claims made by various UFO “whistleblowers,” some of which The Alien Disclosure Deception examines in minute detail. It also presents an analysis of some of the specific mind-control techniques used by the social engineers, which—at least in certain cases—the author believes are based on a conscious inversion of true metaphysical principles.
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.
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Persistence is one word that best describes the previous books by UFO investigators Thomas J. Carey and Donald R. Schmitt, authors of WITNESS TO ROSWELL and INSIDE THE REAL AREA 51. Persistence is also a watchword in their book THE CHILDREN OF ROSWELL.
“We now know that the American government stooped to the lowest level of humanity by going so far as to issue death threats to child witnesses. This should inform the reader of two things; there was a big secret to be kept…and the secret keepers were willing to go to any lengths to keep it.”
Ben Hensey, Sci-Fi Factor Fakes, Paranormal Files, foreword.
America was besieged by reports of strange crescent-shaped objects, particularly in the West, and especially around the 509th Atomic Bomb Wing of Roswell, Mexico in the summer of 1947. A head of Counter Intelligence Corps was sent (and later denied what he found). The Army base closed-down for one week under high security, and any visitors refused. A major sense of hidden panic prevailed Roswell overall.
(THE CHILDREN OF ROSWELL: A Seven-Decade Legacy of Fear, Intimation, and Cover-ups, Thomas J, Carey and Donald R. Schmitt, The Career Press, Inc., 12 Parish Drive, Wayne, New Jersey 07470, www.careerpress.com, 2016, 255 pages, $16.99)
Conventionally downed balloons were discovered and often recovered on Mack Brazel’s tour on the ranch he worked, such as the Mogul balloon train found on June 14, 1947, described as “rubber strips, tin foil, a rather tough paper and sticks.” What foreman W.W Mack Brazel discovered on J.B. Foster’s ranch on July 3, 1947 was “quite different.”
The military arrived in short-order and discovered remains of a crashed vehicle that also had dispersed debris for almost a mile from a mid-air explosion into a “fan-shaped” pattern.
Intelligence officer, Jesse Marcel, did a hasty “stop-off” at his home to show his wife and son the strange parts of debris. Following, also came a discovered object 40-miles to the North: the remains of a small ship with additional bodies.
All areas were cordoned off, road-blocks, and a severe security-blanket began to cover the Roswell area, all farms, all media, the Air Base was shut down for all purposes for one week, and a drastic and penetrating search for any and all artifacts of the crash that citizens may have taken.
The crash 40-miles north of Roswell needed more equipment, such as a flatbed, and it was declared a matter of clandestinely deep National Security. It included engineers and ambulance trucks. It was a strategic project.
Mechanical engineers examined some of the wreckage back at Hanger P-3, even pounded the material with a 16-pound sledge hammer with no effect.
A scapegoat event was created at Fort Worth were, along with “neoprene rubber, wooden sticks, blank masking tape, string, and one-sided reflective foil,” while the real material was sent to Ohio. “The FBI’s Dallas office confirmed that.” (p. 37) All tell-tale equipment had been ‘cleared out’ by dawn and the “weather balloon” headline had raced across the media.
The White House had become a war room connected with the Departments of the Army Air Force chief, the Secretary of War, the head of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, the Chair of the Joint Chiefs, as well as the President.
Mack Brazel began “retractions” of the incident on July 9th. The military was the easiest to censor as it was a dictatorship, but non-military citizens had Constitutional Rights. Fool-proof evidence as “hardware” had to also be “dealt with and no time to loose”: intimation of public citizens also began as the military conducted cover-up operations and collect the “near-indestructible, paper thin material that has perfect memory.”
THE DEBUNKING PROGRAM
The Army’s new policy was to dismiss all flying disk sightings or UFOs: a full-scale ‘scourged-earth policy’ ensued.
On September 23, 1947, Lieutenant General Nathan F. Twining signed a secret memorandum through the Pentagon to Brigadier General George Schulgen of the Air Intelligence requiring the Division to consider “the phenomenon was real.”
Their investigative “web” (later called the Military-Industrial-Complex) included many sources such as Air Force T-2, Bureau of Standards, General Electric, Rand Corporation, Hughes Air Craft and the Battelle National Laboratories.
Since 1947, agents of governments were often monsters that hid in closets to guard truisms that they wanted to control.
Witnesses Mac Brazel and Timothy “Dee” Proctor were also threatened that if they told what they saw that Dee Proctor would never see his family again. Personnel of radio station KGFL, Walt Whitmore, Jr., Jud Roberts, Frank Joyce likewise received threats that would eventually generate their silence.
Joseph Montoya, Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico, was called to Hanger P-3, and incidentally saw the “little bodies with big heads.” In a panic, Pete and Ruben Anaya came and got Montoya. Because he could speak Spanish, Sheriff Wilcox delivered the “death threat” to Montoya. Wilcox never ran for the office of Sheriff again (p. 64).
Author Antony Bragalia interviewed the daughter of Hunter G. Penn who had taken “a deadly serious assignment back in the summer of 1947” to “help manage civilian-military affairs after the crash…(an) information black-out.” Penn told his foster daughter, Michelle Penn, that he was authorized to use physical force and weapons to obtain their silence. “He tried to ‘heart-attack’ people,” Michelle said.
Barbara Duggar, George and Inez Wilcox, Phyllis McGuire, all had been threatened for their direct observations or some knowledge of the 1947 crash.
Frankie Dwyer Rowe was a 12-year-old daughter of a crew chief of the Roswell Fire Department and had witnessed Robert Scrogging unveiling a mysterious piece of foil that couldn’t be destroyed and “flowed like water.” When the military learned what she had witnessed they came to visit her with such people as Arthur Philbin of the 390th Air Service Squadron (ASS) threatening her: “If you say anything, not only will you be killed, but we will come back for your family. There’s big desert out there, no one will ever find you.”
Roswell Fire Station crewmen, Dan Dwyer and Lee Reeves, arrived earlier at a crash site to observe “an egg-shaped vessel of some sort,” small bodies and one still living.
The full-weight and consequence of the ‘family’ of UFO witnesses, both Dan Dwyer and Ken Letcher, had married into Roswell paranoia, especially when “telephone wire-tapping” was discovered in 1997 (pp. 91-95).
Captain Oliver W. “Pappy” Henderson and Dr. John Kromschroeder had knowledge of the transport of the fragments and bodies. Not surprisingly, “someone from Washington” came to retrieve the material “Pappy” had and reminded him of his security oath.
Guarding his involvement with the crash and Hanger P-3, Provost Marshal at RAAF Major Edwin Easley kept his promise to President Truman in 1947 that he would was “never to speak about the incident again.”
CRATES TO FORT WORTH
Major Edgar R. Skelly ordered a special crew a road a Silverplate B-29 Bomber Straight Flush to fly a crate containing alien bodies to Forth Worth on July 9, 1947. He headed a nine-man crew to escort a heavily-guarded crate loaded at Bomb Pit Number 1. They were told “to keep their mouths shut throughout their assignment.” This Skelly did, despite researcher prodding, until his death in 2002.
Both, Jesse Marcel, Sr., his son Jesse Marcel, Jr., who witnessed the original crashed parts, were harassed by mysterious phone calls and threats until the day of their deaths. Senior Jesse Marcel believed he was under a death threat and had a meeting with a mysterious “Dick D’Amato” which certainly didn’t lesson that belief. D’Amato said the truth was buried deep under Black budgets and witnesses that were heavily watched.
The RAAF base hospital administrative executive secretary was a Miriam ‘Andrea’ Bush who allegedly had observed alien bodies on July 9, 1947. It was an event that deeply haunted her until her bizarre death in December 1989 in a Fremont, California motel.
One of the biggest threats to the military was the plights of “souvenir collectors” of the crash. Other nearly lost accounts of witnesses were in fear of coming forward. Sydney “Jack” Wright, Dan Richards, Trinidad Chavez, Ralph A. Multer, Charles Austin Wood, Frank Vega, James Wood, Sally Tadolini, Randy Lovelace, June Crain, Walter Haut, Tom Brookshier, were among these.
“To a journalist, it’s always about what happened and why,” said broadcast journalist Cheryll Jones. “This book underscores the bigger issue that the UFO/ET phenomenon is truly a significant part of a bigger picture of lies, deception, and deceit prevalent in our world today. People brave enough to challenge that are a vital part of the journalist’s quest for answers in trying to figure that out. This takes us a big step further in that direction.” (p. 21)
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Edited by Steve Erdmannhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/1w2dMekIJLw?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent
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From the unbelievable to the undeniable: Epistemological pluralism, or how conspiracy theorists legitimate their extraordinary truth claims
Despite their stigma, conspiracy theories are hugely popular today and have pervaded mainstream culture. Increasingly, such theories expanded into large master schemes of deceit where ‘everything is connected’. Moving beyond discussions of their truthfulness, we study in this article how such ‘super conspiracy theories’ are made plausible. We strategically selected the case study of David Icke – a true celebrity in conspiracy circles and main proponent of such all-encompassing narratives – to analyze his discursive strategies of legitimation: How does he support and validate his extraordinary claims? It is our argument that Icke succeeds by exploiting multiple sources of epistemic authority; he draws eclectically on ‘experience’, ‘tradition’, ‘futuristic imageries’, ‘science’ and ‘social theory’ to convince his audience. In a Western culture without any full monopoly on truth, and for a people wary of mainstream authorities, it proves opportune to draw on a wide variety of epistemic sources when claiming knowledge.Keywords Conspiracy theories, David Icke, epistemic authority, epistemological pluralism, New Age, postmodernism
Introduction
Conspiracy theories about the ‘real truth’ behind the attacks of 9/11, the deaths of JFK or Bin Laden, or those about the ‘true reasons’ behind vaccination campaigns, are widespread in contemporary Western culture and feature in films like The Matrix, bestsellers like The Da Vinci Code or TV series like The X-Files, 24 or Homeland. While assessments of their current popularity are hard to substantiate, especially from a historical perspective, it is clear that conspiracy theories do not operate at the margins of society; they are a mainstream and hugely popular cultural phenomenon and receive much public attention today (Knight, 2000; Melley, 2000).
In academia, however, conspiracy theories are often refuted as ungrounded and irrational speculation (Aupers, 2012; Harambam, 2017). According to critical scholars, conspiracy theorists make ‘the characteristic paranoid leap into fantasy’ – particularly because they connect many unrelated facts and events (Hofstadter, 1996 [1966]: 11). They may base their theories on (some) factual claims but go ‘wrong by locating causal relationships where none exist’ (Pipes, 1997: 31) and hence ‘inhabit a different epistemic universe, where the usual rules for determining truth and falsity do not apply’ (Barkun, 2006: 187). Conspiracy theorists, then, construct explanatory narratives that our mainstream epistemic institutions and advocates (most notably science and scientists) regard as unwarranted (Byford, 2011; Harambam and Aupers, 2015; Keeley, 1999). Today, this ‘unlawful’ connecting of seemingly unrelated dots in a meta-narrative is a phenomenon writ large. Barkun (2006) speaks in this respect of the increasing popularity of ‘super conspiracies’ or ‘conspiratorial constructs in which multiple conspiracies are believed to be linked together hierarchically’ (p. 6). Knight (2000) identifies a similar development: ‘over the last decades conspiracy theories have shown signs of increasing complexity and inclusiveness, as once separate suspicions are welded into Grand Unified Theories of Everything’ (p. 204).
Moving beyond discussions of their truthfulness, we study from a cultural sociological perspective how these all-encompassing super conspiracy theories are made plausible. Drawing everything together is easy, making people believe what you say is more difficult. And yet millions of people around the world – and many in the Dutch conspiracy milieu – are attracted by them. One of the main and most popular propagators of such all-encompassing narratives of deceit is David Icke (Barkun, 2006: 103). He is most famous – or notorious – for his ‘reptilian thesis’: the idea that ‘reptilian human-alien hybrids are in covert control of the planet’ (Robertson, 2013: 28). But he is also known for his ‘synthesis’ of seemingly different or ‘antithetical’ thought: he brings together New Age teachings with apocalyptic conspiracy theories about a coming totalitarian New World Order (cf. Barkun, 2006; Ward and Voas, 2011). As Lewis and Kahn (2005) rightfully note, ‘Icke’s greatest strength is his totalizing ambition to weave numerous sub-theories into an extraordinary narrative that is both all-inclusive and all-accounting’ (p. 8). More specifically, Robertson (2016) argues that this is the result of ‘an epistemology that acknowledges [different] sources of access to knowledge’ (p. 9). Alongside the common appeals to ‘science’ and ‘tradition’, Robertson (2016) argues, conspiracy theorists like David Icke draw on other less acknowledged ‘epistemic strategies’ as well: ‘appeals to experiential, channeled and synthetic knowledge’ (p. 10).
Robertson (2016) points here to an important aspect of the epistemic authority of conspiracy theorists: they can draw on ‘the full range of epistemic strategies’ (p. 25), while today’s dominant epistemic institutions only allow appeals to ‘science’ (Gieryn, 1999). Robertson (2016) provides a sophisticated and thorough analysis of the lives and works of several ‘millennial conspiracists’ (such as David Icke) and shows that they (strategically) draw on various epistemic strategies in order to gain authority in this cultural milieu. Basing ourselves on Icke’s 2011 ‘performance’ in Amsterdam, we take this lead further and systematically analyze in full empirical detail how David Icke actually draws on such a multitude of epistemic sources. We focus on his discursive strategies of legitimation and pose open research questions: How does he support and validate his extraordinary claims in order to achieve epistemic authority in the conspiracy milieu? What are the main epistemic strategies he deploys? And what proofs, tropes and metaphors underpin each of these analytically distinct epistemic strategies?
Claiming epistemic authority
Many different scholars – from Hofstadter (1996 [1966]: 29) to Knight (2000: 204) and Barkun (2006: 3) – claim that the adage ‘everything is connected’ is ‘one of the guiding principles in virtually every conspiracy theory’. While Knight (2000) makes a plea for the rationality of this adage in a world of global relations (pp. 204–241), the majority of scholars hold this ‘unifying quality’ of contemporary conspiracy theories to be their major epistemological flaw (e.g. Barkun, 2006; Byford, 2011; Hofstadter, 1996 [1966]; Keeley, 1999; Popper, 2013 [1945]). They argue that conspiracies may be ‘typical social phenomena’ (Popper, 2013 [1945]) 307), but ‘these need to be recognized as multiple, and in most instances unrelated events which cannot be reduced to a single, common denominator’ (Byford, 2011: 33, original emphasis). To ‘regard a “vast” or “gigantic” conspiracy as the motive force in historical events’ (Hofstadter, 1996 [1966]: 29) is therefore simply ludicrous: social life is inextricably more complex (Barkun, 2006: 7).
Yet such ‘grand unified theories of everything’ are immensely popular today. They are present in the ideas of people consuming conspiracy theories, they are visualized in colorful diagrams that are circulated on conspiracy websites and they form the thought of major conspiracy theorists, like David Icke. Connecting the dots between loose ends may, for such scholars, involve the notorious ‘big leap from the undeniable to the unbelievable’ (Hofstadter, 1996 [1966]: 38), but for many people in the conspiracy milieu, these connections are very plausible and real. What critical scholars of conspiracy theories seem to gloss over in their dedication to debunk conspiracy theories, then is the fact that these overarching theories need to be made plausible if such conspiracy theorists are to have any serious attention. People are not passive or gullible believers; they need to be actively convinced. Underlying conspiracy theorists’ efforts to connect the seemingly unrelated is a need for epistemic validation: they want their claims on truth to be believed, after all. But such ‘grand unified theories of everything’ are not your everyday news: the world as we know it is often turned upside down and inside out, connecting the most outlandish ideas to the very ordinary experiences of people. Indeed, it often is the ‘unbelievable’ that is sold here. The question is therefore how do conspiracy theorists convincingly do so?
To approach this issue, we need to move beyond the positivistic reflex to debunk conspiracy theories as unfounded and irrational (Barkun, 2006; Byford, 2011; Hofstadter, 1996 [1966]; Keeley, 1999; Popper, 2013 [1945]) and adopt a cultural sociological approach. From this perspective, there are multiple ways to support truth claims. Max Weber (2013 [1922]) already pointed out that one can claim authority through charisma, tradition or, in modern societies, particularly through rationalized procedures like science or law. In our Western world, referencing to ‘science’ – its institutions, experts, epistemologies and methods – is perhaps the most prevalent and powerful way to lend credibility to the claims one is making (Brown, 2009). ‘If “science” says so, we are more often than not inclined to believe it or act on it – and prefer it over claims lacking this epistemic seal of approval’ (Gieryn, 1999: 1). The tremendous epistemic authority ‘science’ enjoys today is, however, not uncontested: trust in ‘science’, particularly its institutions and experts, gradually declined over the last decades in most Western countries (cf. Beck, 1992; Inglehart, 1997) and other forms of knowledge are on the rise. Examples are alternative and complementary medicine, all kinds of non-science-based nutritional regimes and New Age philosophies of life (cf. Campbell, 2007; Hammer, 2004; Heelas, 1996). Conspiracy culture is part of this cultural trend turning away from mainstream epistemic authorities. Not only do conspiracy theorists openly challenge the epistemic authority of science (Harambam and Aupers, 2015), but like David Icke himself, they often advance other ways of knowing as more authentic and authoritative (e.g. Robertson, 2016). Icke is therefore not just the archetype of the contemporary ‘super conspiracy theorist’ (cf. Barkun, 2006: 8; Knight, 2000: 204), but a typical exponent of the broader cultural movement discontented with mainstream epistemic institutions and their scientific-materialist worldview (e.g. Campbell, 2007; Heelas, 1996; Roszak, 1995). Now, how does Icke draw on multiple epistemic strategies to make his rather extravagant ideas seem plausible?
Method, data and analysis
The empirical material used for this analysis was collected on the day Icke held his show – ‘Human Race, Get Off Your Knees. The Lion Sleeps No More’ – in Amsterdam on 10 December 2011. This event was one of the many places the first author included in his ‘multi-sited ethnography’ (Falzon, 2009) of the Dutch ‘conspiracy milieu’ (Harambam, 2017). For a period of 20 months, between October 2011 and June 2013, extensive visits were made to their social gatherings – shows, political manifestations, conferences and movie screenings – and to their private homes. Besides the traditional ethnographic methods of participant observation and interviewing, the first author undertook content analyses of the media (videos, texts, cartoons, etc.) circulated at these places and on the Internet (their own websites, blogs, Facebook pages, etc.).
In this article, however, we will mostly draw on that particular performance of David Icke. Given the fact that Icke is exemplary of this new stream of conspiracy culture (Barkun, 2006; Knight, 2000; Robertson, 2013), the analysis of his performance is a strategic case study (cf. Flyvbjerg, 2006) to research in empirical detail how the extraordinary claims of super conspiracy theories are made plausible. The first author participated as one of the many attendees of Icke’s show and observed not only his performance but also his audience with whom he spoke during that day and invited for further conversation elsewhere. He made field notes of Icke’s performance – its textual contents and his manifestations as an artist – and of the (reactions of the) public. Although these field notes were – as ‘thick descriptions’ (Geertz, 1973) – valuable for the research at large, they lacked the precision needed to adequately substantiate our claims in this article. We hence complemented the field notes with an analysis of professional video recordings of the same show at two different places, respectively, in London’s Wembley Arena show on 27 October 2012 and London’s Brixton Academy in May 2010. The videos are for sale on his website, but also feature on YouTube for free. We have therefore chosen to use these video recordings as the source for the precise quotations used in this article. The first author has re-examined this show a few times with a theoretical focus on the rhetorical and epistemological strategies used by Icke to legitimate his truth claims. The analysis is therefore more textual than ethnographic. Each successive time different themes were fine-tuned to inductively arrive at a typology (cf. Glaser and Strauss, 1967). All excerpts are from the YouTube film1 and are easily accessed. We have consistently marked each quote by its time location on the video.
‘The Day That Will Change Your Life’: David Icke in Amsterdam
David Icke is a true conspiracy celebrity; he holds performances in large venues all over the world, attracting crowds of thousands.2 He is also a writer of more than 20 books, which are read in 12 different languages, and he owns a popular website with many videos and interviews, and a rather active discussion platform (more than 100,000 registered users).3 David Icke manages to bring together a diverse range of people (Barkun, 2006; Ward and Voas, 2011). As Lewis and Kahn (2005) argue, ‘Icke appeals equally to bohemian hipsters and right-wing reactionary fanatics [who] are just as likely to be sitting next to a 60-something UFO buff, a Nuwaubian, a Posadist, a Raëlian, or New Age earth goddess’ (p. 3). His fan base is quite diverse: from new religious movements to political anarchists and from alternative healers to anti-government militants on the extreme right. All of them, however, share a discontent with our current societal order, and more precisely with the way our epistemic institutions (i.e. science, politics, religion, media, etc.) work.
This counts for his 2011 Amsterdam performance in the auditorium of the RAI convention center as well. David Icke has attracted a 1500 plus crowd who have paid for a €69 ticket to see him speak today. It is a full day’s program: from 10:00 in the morning until 7:00 in the evening, David Icke will ‘put all the puzzles pieces together’ (13.30). The show opens when we see on the huge video screen on stage a chain of connected iron links passing while we hear a gloomy and grim music increasing in intensity. The links are chained around the earth and have texts on them: ‘New World Order’, ‘Rothschild Zionism’, ‘Child Abuse’, ‘Babylonian Brotherhood’, ‘Bilderbergers’, ‘Aspartame’, ‘Religion’, ‘Club of Rome’, ‘Chemtrails’, ‘Fluoride’, ‘HAARP’, ‘Satanism’, ‘Trilateral Commission’, ‘Mainstream Media’, ‘Fabian Society’, ‘Intelligence agencies’, ‘IMF’, ‘World Army’, ‘Police State’, ‘Global Politics’, ‘Big Pharma’, ‘War on Terror’, ‘Vaccines’, ‘Tavistock’, ‘Military/Industrial Complex’, ‘War on Drugs’, ‘Mind Control’. They make up one large interconnecting chain. And as the music turns more and more ominous, we see a lion – with the image of the earth projected on its skin – bound in chains. The music reaches its dramatic climax as the lion breaks out of his bondage and while he growls loudly, we see the links flying over the screen. The message is clear: the lion sleeps no more, the world liberates itself. And the audience is ready to receive David Icke with an overwhelming applause: the conspiracy rock star is finally here.
In the next 9 hours, David Icke elaborates passionately about ‘the multi-levelled conspiracy to enslave humanity in a global concentration camp’ (15:30). In general, Icke distinguishes between ‘the five-sense level of this conspiracy’ and those levels that transcend the here and now. The former is mostly about the corruption and dogmatism of our modern institutions – media, science, politics, religion and so on – and how they manipulate us and ‘program our minds’ into acquiescence (19:00–25:00). Icke integrates all these institutions in one pyramid. At the top of this pyramid, we find a network of secret societies and powerful families, sometimes captured under the header of the ‘Illuminati bloodlines’ and at other times called ‘Rothschild Zionists’. But, as Icke explains, ‘there is this other-dimensional, non-human, level to look at’ (1:41:00). We now get to the ‘reptilian thesis’ through which Icke gained his fame and notoriety (Barkun, 2006: 105). Icke explains that his super conspiracy theory ‘involves non-human entities that take a reptilian form [which] manipulate this reality through interbreeding bloodlines’ (1:44:00). These are the Illuminati-hybrid family networks that rule the world. However normal they may look to us – Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Queen Elizabeth – they are in fact ‘shapeshifting’ reptilians ‘hiding behind human form’ (2:07:00). Icke sketches a pristine image of a forgotten past when people still lived in harmony with the natural world and were connected to higher levels of consciousness, but argues that ‘the road to tyranny began when these reptilians arrived here’ (2:23:00). Part of ‘this reptilian intervention’ was to change our DNA so that we can no longer access the world beyond our five senses: ‘they want to lock humanity in that prison’ (3:27:30).
And that, Icke concludes, is ‘the bottom line of this conspiracy: controlling our perception of what is real’ (3:18:00). Our institutions – media, science, politics, religion – play an important part in making these ‘prisons for our minds’ (19:00–25:00), but Icke points to another method of mind control: ‘the moon-matrix’. He argues that the moon is actually a hollowed-out planetoid brought here by these reptilian entities that emits a frequency that distorts our interpretation of reality (2:30:00–3:08:00). However, change is coming, Icke ends optimistically: ‘a new epoch of enlightenment and expansion, of love, harmony and respect is moving into human experience’ (5:12:00). But ‘to go down this road of freedom, we first need to free our minds from the programming of a lifetime’ (22:00); we need ‘to remove the barriers of belief and perception that keep us from enlightenment’ (5:27:00). ‘Enough!’, Icke shouts loudly while he ends the show, ‘it is time to fly! It is time to fly . . .’ (6:42:00). And given the massive applause Icke receives, his audience seems ready for it.
David Icke brings together different conspiracy theories into one dazzling, yet cohesive narrative which captures his audience for hours. In the following section, we will show on which sources of epistemic authority he draws to make his conspiracy theory of everything plausible.
‘Just Following the Clues’: appealing to experience
One of the ways Icke lends legitimacy to his super conspiracy is by reference to his own personal experience, or life course. Virtually, the first thing he does when opening his show is giving a snapshot of ‘the chain of events that had led to now’ (6:30). He explains,
when I look back, I can see very clearly in my life, what happens to all of us, you go through a series of experiences and they seem to be random, they don’t seem to be connected. But when you look back, you see it’s a journey of connected synchronistic experiences that are leading us in a certain direction. (06:00)
Like the opening scene of the chained lion, David Icke makes it clear that ‘everything is connected’ on a personal level as well. He tells us how he was a professional soccer player having to deal with rheumatoid arthritis, how he went into television: ‘what that did was show me the inside of media: shite’, and that he got into (green party) politics: ‘and I saw politics from the inside: how it’s just a game’ (08:00). When he claims that the global elites are actually shapeshifting reptilians, he supports that with his own experience of meeting former UK Prime Minister Ted Heath in television studio years ago. And ‘as I looked into his eyes it was like looking into two black holes, it was like looking through him into this other dimension where he is really controlled from’ (2:06:30). Icke supports his personal experiences with those of others, friends, family or just people he has met: ‘so I met this lady in Canada some years ago, a very power-dressing business women, [who] had this experience and she was shaking when she told me the story’ (3:05:00). Basically, she told Icke how she had a boyfriend who one night while having sex turned ‘totally reptilian and then morphed back to human. And these bizarre stories, have been told by people from all over the world, people from all walks of life’ (3:07:00).
But there is another, more supernatural, type of experience on which Icke draws. He explains how his life changed dramatically after seeing a psychic to have hands on healing for his arthritis. She channels him visions of how he ‘was going out on a world stage to reveal great secrets, that there was a shadow over the world to be lifted, there was a story that had to be told’ (09:30). And although ‘this sounded like complete bloody craziness’ to Icke, his ‘life started to change’ after going to a mountain in Peru where he had ‘extraordinary experiences’ (10:00). This changed everything:
suddenly concepts, information, perceptions, were pouring into my mind. I was seeing the world in a different way, and I was asking the big questions: who are we? where are we? and why is the world as it is? And from that time the puzzle pieces started to be handed to me in amazingly synchronistic ways. (12.00)
Like a true prophet, Icke receives the wisdom he wrote down in his books from the gods above or from a metaphysical master plan: ‘the path is already mapped out, you only have to follow the clues’ (12:30). And that is what Icke has done: ‘all the information was coming to me in incredible synchronicity, of meeting people, seeing documents, coming across information, having experiences. [. . .] just following the clues, I came across this reptilian connection to the families that are running our reality’ (17:00). This Jungian concept of synchronicity or ‘meaningful coincidences’ is prevalent in Icke’s explanations of how he has gained his spiritual wisdom during his life course. By actively ‘putting the puzzle pieces together’ (13.30) or ‘connecting the dots’ (15:00) between seemingly unrelated experiences, he accumulated knowledge about the real reality underneath the surface of everyday life.
Such ‘revelatory experiences in which spokespersons claim to have gained privileged insight into those spiritual truths they present in their texts’ (Hammer, 2004: 369) have been an important source of epistemic authority in various historical religious traditions, but are also used by contemporary ‘prophets’ in today’s market of New Age spiritualities (Heelas, 1996). Icke blends mundane and supernatural experiences together and actively synthesizes that into a larger narrative which obtains a deeper meaning. Whereas Robertson (2016) differentiates ‘channeling’ from the epistemic strategy of ‘experience’, we argue, as we have shown here, that they are intimately connected (pp. 49–53). Icke’s appeal to the epistemic authority of ‘experience’, then, resonates with a broader cultural trend in which the ‘inner’ self and personal experience is the most trustworthy source of knowledge (e.g. Aupers and Houtman, 2006; Heelas, 1996; Van Zoonen, 2012).
‘All Across the Ancient World’: appealing to tradition
Another important part of David Icke’s argumentation is based on the (allegedly) perennial wisdom of ancient cultures. Icke supports his claims throughout his show by referring to the myths of African tribes, the sagas of Asian emperors, the dreams of Native-American shamans and the more familiar Abrahamic narratives. The best example is Icke’s reptilian thesis. He starts by showing an excerpt from the Old Testament (Genesis, 6:4) but argues that ‘that’s just the biblical version, all across the ancient world you see similar stories and accounts of this interbreeding’ (1:48:30). The most prominent symbolization of this reptilian interbreeding is visible, Icke argues, in the worship of ‘the serpent gods’ which happens all across the world, in all cultures, and in all religions. He starts off by saying that ‘the oldest form of religious worship in the world has been taken back 70.000 years, to an area of the Kalahari desert in South Africa and it is the worship of the serpent or worship of the snake’ (2:07:30). He gives many more examples: ‘Chinese emperors used to claim the right to be emperor because of their genetic connection to the serpent gods. And this is a theme all across the world between the serpent gods and royalty’ (1:58:00). He continues with myths of the old Mesopotamia, the Egyptians (‘who have their pharaohs represented as an cobra’), in Japan and Asia (‘the dragon is the most dominant symbol of that world’), in central and south America (‘the Mayan “Kukulkan” and “Quetzalcoatl” of the Aztecs’), the old druids, ‘folklore is full of serpents, and the Zulu Chitauri’ – their mythical ‘children of the serpent’ (2:07:00–2:10:00). But symbols of the serpent gods are also prominent in contemporary life, Icke tells us: in our myths, fairytales, the emblems of the aristocracy, the logos of car companies: ‘it’s amazing how many times you see the symbols of reptiles and humans, or part human, part reptile, overseeing the palaces, castles and churches of this elite’ (2:17:00). His conclusion is clear: ‘all worship the serpent gods’ (2:10:00).
However, ‘something else goes parallel with the reptilian story’, Icke tells us:
Again not just in the bible with the Garden of Eden, but all across the ancient accounts is the reptilian connection and the Fall of Men. And this is universal. The ancient accounts all talk about a time when humans were so unbelievably different to how we are today. (1:48:30)
He starts off by saying that ‘the energetic schism’ was
of course symbolized by Noah and the great flood. And Noah is simply a biblical version of much older stories that tell exactly the same story of how the earth turned over, how there were great geological catastrophes and how humans lost their power of the connection they had to higher levels of consciousness. (2:24:30)
In his legitimation of the Fall of Men through reptilians, Icke jumps from religious books, to popular myth, to fiction. As to the latter, he quotes large pieces of the book of Carlos Castaneda – a famous, but fictitious anthropological study – which supports virtually his whole thesis of how ‘predators from the depths of the cosmos took over the rule of our lives’ (3:10:00).
Throughout his show, then, Icke appeals to the knowledge and wisdom of the ‘ancient world’ to support and validate his own theories: if ‘they’ have been saying it for thousands of years, it must be true. In a (counter)culture wary of modern institutions and the knowledge they produce, this makes good sense: these old traditions represent after all a more authentic and pure base of wisdom than the cold rationality of modern science (Heelas, 1996; Roszak, 1995). Icke’s appeal to the ancient cultures is what Hammer (2004) identifies as the epistemological strategy of ‘tradition’: basing one’s truth claims in the source of non-European (spiritual) lore. Such appeals are by no means references to ‘actual’ practices, customs and beliefs of ‘ancient cultures’, but construct a radically ‘modern’ reinterpretation of non-European tales and traditions (Hammer, 2004: 23). Icke similarly takes such (fictional) legends then as (containing) factual truths. Whether these are ‘really’ true or not may be less relevant for him and his audience: such ancient cultures simply ‘possessed a vast wisdom, a spirituality lost to us’ (Hammer, 2004: 136). David Icke conveniently draws on this more widely felt sentiment of modern cultural discontent and his appeal to ‘tradition’ falls on fertile ground in the conspiracy milieu.
‘Living in the Cosmic Internet’: appealing to futuristic imageries
In contrast to supporting one’s claims by appealing the wisdom of our ‘ancient cultures’, Icke also looks to the ‘future’ as a source of authority when he invokes the imageries brought to life by science fiction and digital technologies. To begin with the latter, Icke speaks, for example, about our bodies as computers: ‘our DNA is like a universal software code’, ‘just like computers, we have a phenomenal anti-virus system we call the human immune system’, and ‘what we call cultures are different sub-softwares of the human software’ (1:10:00–1:12:30). These analogies should all add plausibility to Icke’s argument that our bodies decode a universal energy field (the metaphysical universe) and herewith bring the reality we experience every day into being. Icke: ‘it is just like the wireless internet, where you get a computer and pull the whole world wide web, a whole collection of reality, out of the unseen, to appear on a screen, anywhere in the world’ (36:30). And there are more of such references to digital technologies that should support his ideas. For example, when Icke explains why our reality feels and appears ‘real’, it is ‘because we are living in a virtual reality universe. A fantastically advanced version of a gigantic computer game’ (32:30). Or he points to the new digital technologies that have made moving three-dimensional (3D) holographs possible, like news readers in a television show or Michael Jackson appearing on stage long after his death: ‘some of these digital holograms look so solid’, Icke explains, that ‘people are afraid to walk through them. And that’s what this is, digital holograms is the reality we’re experiencing’ (1:24:30). These examples of the ‘realness’ of virtual realities are deployed by Icke to convince us of his understanding that ‘we live in a very advanced equivalent of the holographic internet, we live in the cosmic internet’ (40:30).
The futuristic imageries developed in science fiction provide another source for Icke to tap into when supporting his super conspiracy theory. He particularly refers to The Matrix throughout his show (e.g. 42:00/47:00/2:59:00). The main idea put forward in that movie – that we all live, without really knowing it, in an artificial non-existent simulated world – resonates quite well with Icke’s worldview. It is a powerful metaphor to convince his audience. When he speaks about how reality is an illusion created inside our heads, he brings us to ‘this scene from The Matrix – which is absolutely right – where the Neo character says, “but this isn’t real!” And Morpheus says ‘well, what is real? How do you define real? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, taste and see, then “real” is simply electronic signals interpreted by your brain’. That’s all it is’, Icke affirms. But the appeal to science fiction goes further than The Matrix. Icke supports, for example, his claim that the moon is an alien instrument of mind control by referencing to Star Wars – ‘in a galaxy far far away. . . I don’t think so. This is much closer at home’ (2:48:00) – and John Carpenter’s They Live – ‘I thought it was symbolically accurate when I first saw it, but now I know it’s unbelievably accurate’ (3:02:00). Whereas the former movie features the Death Star ‘in the same bloody way as I am talking about the moon’ (2:49:00), the latter boasts a TV tower transmitting a frequency – like the moon-matrix – ‘which is preventing the population from seeing what they would normally see [the truth]’ (3:05:00). Both movies confirm what Icke is saying all along.
What was science fiction yesterday is often science faction today. And vice versa, newly introduced technologies feed the social imagination about its ‘magical possibilities’. The introduction of the telegraph in the 19th century, for instance, motivated the public discourse on ‘spirit communication’ and supported the plausibility and popularity of Spiritism (Stolov, 2008). In his performance, Icke plays with this social imagination about digital technologies to convince the audience. He argues, ‘so much of science fiction ain’t fiction at all, they’re getting it from facts’ (2:51:00) and, consequentially, that much more ‘unbelievable’ stuff has potential reality. Barkun (2006) states that this ‘fact-fiction reversal’ is common: ‘conspiracy literature is replete with instances in which fictional products are asserted to be accurate factual representations of reality’ (p. 29). In a society where people are exposed to technologically real, yet virtual ‘miracles’ on a daily basis – from games to virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) – Icke’s outlandish notion of the cosmic Internet gains in plausibility.
‘What Scientists Are Saying’: appealing to science
In a time and place dominated by the scientific worldview like ours, anyone trying to legitimize their claims on reality would do well to base it in ‘science’ (cf. Gieryn, 1999). It is therefore no surprise that David Icke does abundantly so. The first time Icke alludes to ‘science’ is by using it as ‘building blocks’ of his own theories. When he is arguing, for example, that the moon is actually a hollowed-out planetoid from outer space, he quotes many different scientists to support his claim. He begins with scientists who question the common understandings of the moon as our earth’s satellite: ‘Isaac Asimov, a Russian professor of Biochemistry’ and ‘Irwin Shapiro from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics’ both argue that given its size and position, the moon cannot be there (2:36:00). He continues with scientists from NASA who concluded after seismic experiments that ‘the moon is more like a hollow than a homogenous sphere’ (2:36:30) – findings that were supported by ‘Dr. Frank Press and Dr. Sean Solomon from MIT’ (2:37:00). To argue that the moon is a construct from outer space, Icke extensively quotes ‘two scientists from the Russian Academy of Science’ – Michael Vahsin and Alexander Shcherbakov – who ‘wrote an article in Sputnik Magazine titled: “Is the moon the creation of alien intelligence?”’ (2:38:00). After presenting their findings, Icke advances their marvelous conclusion:
they say it’s a hollowed out planetoid! ‘What we have here is a very ancient spaceship, the interior of which was filled with [. . .] everything necessary to enable this caravel of the universe to serve as Noah’s ark of intelligence’. (2:40:00)
Icke’s efforts here should give his audience the impression that his theory of the moon as a hollowed-out planetoid is not just something he is imagining, it is actually supported by real scientists.
But David Icke also alludes to ‘science’ as ‘stepping stones’ to reach his own more extravagant ideas. He starts in such cases from a position of scientific quandary and then advances his own rather extraordinary thoughts where science leaves matters unexplained. For example, when Icke explains that our ‘body-computer’ can no longer reach higher levels of consciousness, he turns to unresolved matters in astronomy and goes from there:
the range of frequencies our body-computer can decode is extraordinarily tiny. We are virtually blind, in terms of [seeing] what exist. The vast majority of this universe is what scientists call dark energy or dark matter and they call it dark not because it’s pitch black, but because we cannot decode it. Therefore it’s not within our realm of experience. We have to work it out by its impact on things we can see. (59:00)
In such cases, ‘science’ is the base camp from which Icke ventures into the unexplored territories ‘science’ dares not to enter. They may point in the right direction, Icke says, but because ‘they’re focusing on their own discipline, their own individual dots, and they don’t connect the dots, they can’t see the picture!’ (1:26:00).
Icke finally draws on ‘science’ for its rich repertoire of cultural imageries to make his thoughts clear and intelligible. So when he is talking about how ‘ethereal reptilian entities’ are actually controlling people like Obama and Queen Elisabeth, Icke turns to the image of the sterile laboratory:
and this is a good analogy, you know, when these scientists in a laboratory are working with something they can’t touch because it’s too dangerous. What they are working with will be in a tank, and they’ll put gloves on, which allows them to be outside the tank, but to manipulate inside the tank. Well, that is a very good symbol of what I am talking about, these illuminati bloodlines, these hybrid bloodlines operate like with those gloves, operating inside this reality. (1:56:00)
Or somewhat later in his show when Icke is talking about how the ‘control system’ has trained us into acquiescence and obedience, he puts forward the image of a classical conditioning experiment:
it is a mind game. More and more fine details of our life are being dictated. It is to turn us into a version of this [we see picture of a mouse in the middle of a maze]. When you put shock equipment down different channels [the mouse learns where not to go]. And what they are doing is [the same]: giving us punishments for doing this, punishments for doing that, so we become subservient to the system, never challenge it. (5:00:00)
‘Science’, to conclude, is an important part of our cultural imaginary, and Icke draws effortlessly from it to make his ideas intelligible.
Despite the critique on the institution of science, appeals to its epistemic authority remain highly effective to lend credibility to knowledge (e.g. Gieryn, 1999). Even ‘spokespersons for religious outlooks’ need to position themselves in one way or another to the dominant scientific worldview (Hammer, 2004: 202). Icke taps extensively on ‘science’ to legitimize his claims. On one hand, it functions as his positive Other when he argues that ‘scientists are saying the same’. But ‘science’ also functions in Icke’s thought as its negative Other – when it is the signpost of limitation (as in its inability to provide answers to the mysteries of black holes, dark matter and junk DNA), ‘look, I dare to go further’. Just like religious spokespersons in the esoteric tradition (Hammer, 2004: 201–206; Robertson, 2016: 48–49), Icke uses the authority of ‘science’ pragmatically in the legitimization of his ideas.
‘The Incessant Centralization of Power’: appealing to (critical) social theory
When Icke comes back from exploring the multidimensional level of his super conspiracy to explain ‘how it all plays out in this five sense reality’ (3:27:00); he mostly draws on notions developed in the social sciences. His main question ‘how do a few control the many?’ is unequivocally answered in sociological terms: by ‘the way they have structured society’ (3:27:30).
This allusion to social theory is particularly clear when Icke explains that ‘when you are the few and you have to control the many, you have to centralize decision-making’ (3:36:00). He sketches a pyramidal view of society with the centralization of power/knowledge as its organizing principle:
the idea is to hold advanced knowledge in the upper levels of this structure, where a few at the top are the only ones who know how it all fits together, and they keep the general population in ignorance of what they know, therefore they have the power to manipulate the masses. (3:28:00)
Knowledge is power, Icke explains after Foucault. Very much akin to sociological understandings of modern societies, Icke’s ‘pyramid of manipulation’ is also hierarchically structured along ‘the major institutions that affect our daily life’: religion, finance, military, education, politics and so on (see Figure 1). Through this pyramidal view of society, he underscores the rationality of functionally differentiating society in order to most efficiently control it – thoughts reminiscent of Weber’s (2013 [1922]) bureaucratization theories. Especially, by emphasizing how such systems operate through hierarchical structures, where lower level ‘officials’ just ‘do their job’ and ‘follow the rules’ (cf. Arendt, 2006 [1963]), Icke argues how society can be manipulated with the cooperation of those being manipulated:
they [just] go to work, earn money, go on holiday, they don’t try to manipulate anybody, they don’t try to create a Fascist Orwellian totalitarian. But they don’t know how their apparently innocent contribution individually connects with other apparently innocent contributions around the system. And that’s how they keep what’s going on in the hands of the few. (3:30:00)
Figure 1. David Icke’s pyramid of manipulation.
There is a clear legacy of Marxian thought here that is apparent when compared to ‘The Pyramid of the Capitalist System’ (Figure 2) – a satiric cartoon image published in a 1911 edition of Industrial Worker. Although the dominant institutions may have somewhat changed, the message is similar:
humans have been put in this circular lifestyle, just a repeating cycle of work, eat, sleep and work, eat, sleep . . . so that we spend so much time surviving and not lift our head up to see what’s going on. (3:35:30)
Figure 2. Pyramid of capitalist system.
Meanwhile, the ruling classes enjoy their privileges, while the major institutions guarantee order and stability. Even the operating logic is similar: just ‘follow the money’ and you will get to the cabal. The affinity with Marxian thought, however, goes further. Icke speaks about how these institutions ‘program us with a certain perception of reality which we carry through our lives so we will be good little slaves’ (22:30). Not a far cry from how the ‘superstructure of society’ maintains and legitimizes the dominant ‘relations of production’ by advancing them as normal, just and legitimate (Marx and Engels, 1965 [1865]). Ultimately, Icke reiterates Gramscian notions of how these institutions – and especially the education system – socialize people to obediently serve in their designated (labor)roles in society: ‘which is why the education system is not about educating, it’s about programming’ (3:28:00). These acquired ‘hegemonic beliefs’, Gramsci argues, thwart critical thought and ultimately obstruct ‘revolution’ (e.g. 2011). For the same reasons, Icke urges us to ‘free our minds’ because the ‘control system has been set up in endless ways to divert us, to confuse us and to keep us from the understanding that would set us free’ (14:00). But there is a way out, Icke tells us in rather Marxist terms, ‘the choice is to become conscious!’ (25:00). Class conscious?
When Icke speaks about the centralization of power, he also provides a form of historical sociology. He explains how we
started with tribal situations as part of this centralization process. The tribes came together in what we call nations, nations under unions, like the European Union. And the next stage of that, which they are already preparing for, is to take us into a world government. (3:37:00)
This notion of a coming totalitarian world government, or New World Order, is central to many conspiracy theories (e.g. Barkun, 2006; Byford, 2011). What is crucial here, however, is that Icke gives a socio-historical explanation of how we got into the ‘centralized dictatorship the EU is now’ (3:43:00). So when Icke refers to ‘globalization’ as part of the strategy of the cabal, his explanation mimics those sociological theories standing in the tradition of Wallerstein’s ‘World-Systems Analysis’:
globalization is the constant centralization of power, more and more power in the hands of a few, more and more, the globalized economy is making every country dependent on every other country, therefore has no power of individual action and decision making [. . .] and the reason they want to do this is because dependency equals control. (3:45:30)
In contrast to the appeals to ‘science’ where Icke literally quotes natural scientists, the reference to social scientific knowledge is less explicit. But the way Icke explains our current situation and how we got there shows an elective affinity with sociological analysis, especially of the critical or (neo)Marxist signature. In doing so, Icke unmistakably draws authority from explanations that originate in the social sciences, but are now widespread. His talk testifies to the trickling down of (social) scientific notions in wider society (Giddens, 1984). Critical social theory has become a popular idiom for conspiracy theorists to express their discontent with our current societal order.
Conclusion
David Icke brings the heavens and the earths together in one master narrative of institutional mind control, multidimensional universes and shapeshifting reptilian races. This is his objective because ‘when you connect the dots, suddenly the light goes on and the picture forms’ (15:00). We have shown in this article how Icke draws on a multitude of sources of epistemic authority to convince his audience that the ‘unbelievable’ is indeed ‘undeniable’. His claims to truth are a hodgepodge of epistemological strategies: he draws on personal experience, perennial narratives in ancient cultures, technological imageries, science and critical social theory to support his super conspiracy theory. (Academic) criticasters of conspiracy theorists may find this eclecticism problematic: they deplore how such ‘charlatans’ unsettle the boundaries between fact and fiction and warn for the societal ramifications of such relativism (e.g. Barkun, 2006; Pipes, 1997; Sunstein and Vermeule, 2009). But debunking these conspiracy theories as irrational and problematic does not help us in understanding its massive appeal and plausibility from a cultural perspective. Based on our analysis, we argue in line with Robertson (2016) that Icke’s epistemological pluralism adds plausibility to his super conspiracy theory. Moving beyond a strict religious studies perspective, however, our analysis identified two more distinct epistemic strategies: ‘futuristic imageries’ and ‘(critical) social theory’. Alluding to technological advances and science fiction helps people imagine the ‘unbelievable’, while referring to the societal critiques of academics gives credence to their societal discontents. These are important contemporary additions to Hammer’s (2004) tri-partite schema of drawing on ‘tradition’, ‘science’ and ‘experience’ when claiming knowledge outside the orthodox mainstream. In short, Icke is able to convince his audience of his super conspiracy theory and acquire epistemic authority in the conspiracy milieu precisely because he is able to deploy a very diverse range of epistemic strategies, from the spiritual to the (social) scientific and from the visceral to the cerebral. We will develop two sociological explanations as to why this is the case – hypotheses about the cultural reception of super conspiracy theories that suggest new routes for further research. First of all, in contemporary Western culture, no belief system has a full monopoly on truth – particularly since the erosion of Christian tradition, doctrine and beliefs are not necessarily and fully replaced by the epistemic authority of modern science (Beck, 1992; Brown, 2009; Inglehart, 1997). For people wary of mainstream institutions and their truth claims, it proves opportune to draw on a wide variety of epistemic sources when claiming knowledge. Motivated by a generalized distrust, they assemble different perspectives on truth and ‘pick-and-mix’ from both established and ‘stigmatized knowledge’ (cf. Barkun, 2006: 26; Campbell, 2007; Lyon, 2000; Possamai, 2005). However, Icke’s eclecticism may not only serve the epistemological omnivores, his super conspiracy theory may also appeal to distinctly different social groups, coming from different subcultures and lifestyles. Scholars have pointed to the fact that he manages to bring together a diverse range of people, from leftist spiritual seekers to right-wing reactionaries (Barkun, 2006; Lewis and Kahn, 2005; Ward and Voas, 2011), and our own observations and interviews in the field corroborate that (Harambam and Aupers, 2017). Our second suggestion, then, is that Icke’s reliance on multiple epistemic sources of authority attracts distinctly different audiences: both those attracted to New Age spiritualities, and amateur-scientists, social activists, hackers and fans of the science fiction genre. His text is highly ‘polysemic’: each follower can ‘decode’ Icke’s super conspiracy theory differently and in conformity with one’s own social identity and political interests.
Whether Icke’s theories address the epistemological omnivores – individuals combining experience, (social)science and ancient myth to ‘find the truth’ – or different social groups with distinct epistemological preferences (or both) need to be further researched. In addition, a venue for further research is the communal dimension of conspiracy culture (Ibid.). Icke’s show, after all, is a form of counter-cultural entertainment, and there are many facets of collective effervescence at work during his performances (Durkheim, 1965 [1912]). For now we conclude that Icke’s fusion of science and religion, fact and value, folklore and futurism is reminiscent of what many scholars identify as postmodern culture (cf. Best and Kellner, 1997; Jameson, 1991). The dissolution of stable categories of knowledge, the ‘bricolage’ and ‘pastiche’ of many different cultural forms and the individualistic possibilities for interpretation are features that have found their way from the arts and intelligentsia to everyday life of ordinary citizens, like those attending Icke’s show. Postmodernism may be dead in academia; it is alive and kicking in the outside world.
Authors’ note Jaron Harambam is now affiliated with KU Leuven, Belgium.
Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This article is based on research funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and is part of the project ‘Conspiracy Culture in the Netherlands: Modernity and Its discontents’, file number 404-10-438.
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Biographical note
Jaron Harambam is an interdisciplinary trained sociologist working on news, disinformation and conspiracy theories in today’s agorithmically structured media ecosystem. He received his PhD in Sociology (highest distinction) from Erasmus University Rotterdam, held postdoctoral research positions at the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam, and is now a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship holder at the Institute for media Studies at Leuven University.
Stef Aupers is cultural sociologist and works as a professor media culture at the Institute for Media Studies at Leuven University. He published widely on the mediatization of religion, spirituality and conspiracy theories and, particularly, computer game culture.
Association football careerPosition(s)GoalkeeperYouth career1967–1971Coventry CitySenior career*YearsTeamApps(Gls)1971–1973Hereford United[2]37(0)* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only
In 1990, he visited a psychic who told him he was on Earth for a purpose and would receive messages from the spirit world.[10] This led him to state in 1991 he was a “Son of the Godhead”[6] and that the world would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes, predictions he repeated on the BBC show Wogan.[11][12] His appearance led to public ridicule.[13] Books Icke wrote over the next 11 years developed his world view of New Age conspiracism.[14] His endorsement of an antisemitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, in The Robots’ Rebellion (1994) and And the Truth Shall Set You Free (1995) led his publisher to stop handling his books, which were then self-published.[9]
Icke believes the universe to consist of “vibrational” energy and infinite dimensions sharing the same space.[15][16][17] He claims an inter-dimensional race of reptilian beings, the Archons or Anunnaki, have hijacked the Earth and a genetically modified human–Archon hybrid race of shape-shifting reptilians – the Babylonian Brotherhood, Illuminati or “elite” – manipulate events to keep humans in fear, so that the Archons can feed off the resulting “negative energy”.[15][18][19][20] He claims many public figures belong to the Babylonian Brotherhood and propel humanity towards a global fascist state or New World Order, a post-truth era ending freedom of speech.[14][15][21][22] He sees the only way to defeat such “Archontic” influence is for people to wake up to the truth and fill their hearts with love.[15] Critics have accused Icke of being antisemitic and a Holocaust denier with his theories of reptilians serving as a deliberate “code”.[23][24][25] Icke denies these claims.[26]
The middle son of three boys born seven years apart, Icke was born in Leicester General Hospital to Beric Vaughan Icke and Barbara J. Icke, née Cooke, who were married in Leicester in 1951. Beric Icke served in the Royal Air Force as a medical orderly during World War II,[27] and after the war became a clerk in the Gents clock factory. The family lived in a terraced house on Lead Street in the centre of Leicester,[28] an area that was demolished in the mid-1950s as part of the city’s slum clearance.[29] When David Icke was three, around 1955, they moved to the Goodwood estate, one of the council estates the post-war Labour government built. “To say we were skint,” he wrote in 1993, “is like saying it is a little chilly at the North Pole.”[28] He recalls having to hide under a window or chair when the councilman came for the rent; after knocking, the rent man would walk around the house peering through windows. His mother never explained that it was about the rent; she just told Icke to hide. He wrote in 2003 that he still gets a fright when someone knocks on the door.[30]
Icke attended Whitehall Infant School, and then Whitehall Junior School.[31][30]
Football
Icke has said he made no effort at school, but when he was nine he was chosen for the junior school’s third-year football team. He writes that this was the first time he had succeeded at anything, and he came to see football as his way out of poverty. He played in goal, which he wrote suited the loner in him and gave him a sense of living on the edge between hero and villain.[32]
After failing his 11-plus exam in 1963, he was sent to the city’s Crown Hills Secondary Modern (rather than the local grammar school), where he was given a trial for the Leicester Boys Under-14 team.[33] He left school at 15 after being talent-spotted by Coventry City, who signed him up in 1967 as their youth team’s goalkeeper. In 1968 he played in the Coventry City youth team that were runners up to Burnley in the F.A. Youth Cup. He also played for Oxford United‘s reserve team and Northampton Town, on loan from Coventry.[34]
Rheumatoid arthritis in his left knee, which spread to the right knee, ankles, elbows, wrists and hands, stopped him from making a career out of football. Despite stating that he was often in agony during training, Icke managed to play part-time for Hereford United, including in the first team when they were in the fourth, and later in the third, division of the English Football League.[35] But in 1973, at the age of 21, the pain in his joints became so severe that he was forced to retire.[36]
First marriage
Icke met his first wife, Linda Atherton, in May 1971 at a dance at the Chesford Grange Hotel near Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. Shortly after they met, Icke left home following one of a number of frequent arguments he had started having with his father. His father was upset that Icke’s arthritis was interfering with his football career. Icke moved into a bedsit and worked in a travel agency, travelling to Hereford twice a week in the evenings to play football.[37]
Icke and Atherton married on 30 September 1971, four months after they met.[38] Their daughter was born in March 1975, followed by one son in December 1981, and another in November 1992.[39] The couple divorced in 2001 but remained friends, and Atherton continued to work as Icke’s business manager.[40]
Journalism, sports broadcasting
The loss of Icke’s position with Hereford meant that he and his wife had to sell their home, and for several weeks they lived apart, each moving in with their parents. In 1973 Icke found a job as a reporter with the weekly Leicester Advertiser, through a contact who was a sports editor at the Daily Mail.[41] He moved on to the Leicester News Agency, did some work for BBC Radio Leicester as its football reporter,[42] then worked his way up through the Loughborough Monitor, the Leicester Mercury and BRMB Radio in Birmingham.[43]
In 1976, Icke worked for two months in Saudi Arabia, helping with the national football team. His position at the team was planned to be a longer term position, but Icke decided to stay in the UK after his first holiday back.[44] After his return to the UK, BRMB decided to give him his job back, after which he successfully applied to Midlands Today at the BBC’s Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham, a job that included on-air appearances.[45] One of the earliest stories he covered there was the murder of Carl Bridgewater, the paperboy shot during a robbery in 1978.[46]
In 1981, Icke became a sports presenter for the BBC’s national programme Newsnight, which had begun the previous year. Two years later, on 17 January 1983, he appeared on the first edition of the BBC’s Breakfast Time, British television’s first national breakfast show, and presented the sports news there until 1985. In 1983 he co-hosted Grandstand, at the time the BBC’s flagship national sports programme.[47] He also published his first book that year, It’s a Tough Game, Son!, about how to break into football.[48]
Icke and his family moved in 1982 to Ryde on the Isle of Wight.[49] His relationship with Grandstand was short-lived. He wrote that a new editor arrived in 1983 who appeared not to like him, but he continued working for BBC Sport until 1990, often on bowls and snooker programmes, and at the 1988 Summer Olympics.[50] Icke was by then a household name, but has said that a career in television began to lose its appeal to him; he found television workers insecure, shallow and sometimes vicious.[51]
In August 1990, his contract with the BBC was terminated when he initially refused to pay the Community Charge (also known as the “poll tax”), a local tax Margaret Thatcher‘s government introduced that year. He ultimately paid it, but his announcement that he was willing to go to prison rather than pay prompted the BBC, by charter an impartial public-service broadcaster, to distance itself from him.[52][53]
Icke began to flirt with alternative medicine and New Age philosophies in the 1980s in an effort to relieve his arthritis, and this encouraged his interest in Green politics. He joined the Green Party and became a national spokesperson within six months.[54] His second book, It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This, an outline of his views on the environment, was published in 1989.
Icke wrote that 1989 was a time of considerable personal despair, and it was during this period that he said he began to feel a presence around him.[55] He often describes how he felt it while alone in a hotel room in March 1990, and finally asked, “If there is anybody here, will you please contact me because you are driving me up the wall!” Days later, in a newsagent’s shop in Ryde, he felt a force pull his feet to the ground and heard a voice guide him toward some books. One of them was Mind to Mind (1989) by Betty Shine, a psychic healer in Brighton. He read the book, then wrote to her requesting a consultation about his arthritis.[56][57][54][58]
Icke visited Shine four times. During the third meeting, on 29 March 1990, Icke claims to have felt something like a spider’s web on his face, and Shine told him she had a message from Wang Ye Lee of the spirit world.[59][60] Icke had been sent to heal the earth, she said, and would become famous but would face opposition. The spirit world was going to pass ideas to him, which he would speak about to others. He would write five books in three years; in 20 years a new flying machine would allow us to go wherever we wanted and time would have no meaning; and there would be earthquakes in unusual places, because the inner earth was being destabilised by having oil taken from under the seabed.[57][61][56]
In February 1991, Icke visited a pre-IncaSillustani burial ground near Puno, Peru, where he felt drawn to a particular circle of waist-high stones. As he stood in the circle he had two thoughts: that people would be talking about this in 100 years, and that it would be over when it rained. His body shook as though plugged into an electrical socket, he wrote, and new ideas poured into him. Then it started raining and the experience ended. He described it as the kundalini (a term from Hindu yoga) activating his chakras, or energy centres, triggering a higher level of consciousness.[62][14]
Turquoise period
Icke’s turquoise period followed an experience by a burial site in Sillustani, Peru, in 1991.
There followed what Icke called his “turquoise period”. He had been channelling for some time, he wrote, and had received a message through automatic writing that he was a “Son of the Godhead”, interpreting “Godhead” as the “Infinite Mind”.[63] He began to wear only turquoise, often a turquoise shell suit, a colour he saw as a conduit for positive energy.[64][65] He also started working on his third book, and the first of his New-Age period, The Truth Vibrations.
In August 1990, before his visit to Peru, Icke met Deborah Shaw, an English psychic based in Calgary in Alberta, Canada. When he returned from Peru they began a relationship, with the apparent blessing of Icke’s wife. In March 1991 Shaw began living with the couple, a short-lived arrangement that the press called the “turquoise triangle”. Shaw changed her name to Mari Shawsun, while Icke’s wife became Michaela, which she said was an aspect of the ArchangelMichael.[66][67]
The relationship with Shaw led to the birth of a daughter in December 1991, although she and Icke had stopped seeing each other by then. Icke wrote in 1993 that he decided not to visit his daughter and had seen her only once, at Shaw’s request. Icke’s wife gave birth to the couple’s second son in November 1992.[68][69]
Green Party resignation and press conference
In March 1991, Icke resigned from the Green Party during a party conference, telling them he was about to be at the centre of “tremendous and increasing controversy”, and winning a standing ovation from delegates after the announcement.[53] A week later, shortly after his father died, Icke and his wife, Linda Atherton, along with their daughter and Deborah Shaw, held a press conference to announce that Icke was a son of the Godhead.[70][71] He told reporters the world was going to end in 1997. It would be preceded by a hurricane around the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans, eruptions in Cuba, disruption in China, a hurricane in Derry, and an earthquake on the Isle of Arran. The information was being given to them by voices and automatic writing, he said. Los Angeles would become an island, New Zealand would disappear, and the cliffs of Kent would be underwater by Christmas.[72]
Wogan introduced the 1991 segment with “The world as we know it is about to end”. Amid laughter from the audience, Icke demurred when asked if he was the son of God, replying that Jesus would have been laughed at too, and repeated that Britain would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes. Without these, “the Earth will cease to exist”. When Icke said laughter was the best way to remove negativity, Wogan replied of the audience: “But they’re laughing at you. They’re not laughing with you.”[73][74][75] The BBC was criticised for allowing it to go ahead; Des Christy of The Guardian called it a “media crucifixion”.[76][77]
The interview led to a difficult period for Icke. In May 1991, police were called to the couple’s home after a crowd of over 100 youths gathered outside, chanting “We want the Messiah” and “Give us a sign, David”.[78] Icke told Jon Ronson in 2001:
One of my very greatest fears as a child was being ridiculed in public. And there it was coming true. As a television presenter, I’d been respected. People come up to you in the street and shake your hand and talk to you in a respectful way. And suddenly, overnight, this was transformed into “Icke’s a nutter.” I couldn’t walk down any street in Britain without being laughed at. It was a nightmare. My children were devastated because their dad was a figure of ridicule.[65][79]
In 2006, Wogan interviewed Icke again for a special Wogan Now & Then series. Wogan was apologetic for his conduct in the 1991 interview.[80] However, in his autobiography, Mustn’t Grumble, Wogan described Icke as being a “ranting demagogue convinced we were all manipulated sheep”.[81]
Writing and lecturing
Early books
The Wogan interview separated Icke from his previous life, he wrote in 2003, although he considered it the making of him in the end, giving him the courage to develop his ideas without caring what anyone thought.[82] His book The Truth Vibrations, inspired by his experience in Peru, was published in 1991.
Between 1992 and 1994, he wrote five books, all published by mainstream publishers, four in 1993. Love Changes Everything (1992), influenced by the “channelling” work of Deborah Shaw, is a theosophical work about the origin of the planet, in which Icke writes with admiration about Jesus. Days of Decision (1993) is an 86-page summary of his interviews after the 1991 press conference; it questions the historicity of Jesus but accepts the existence of the Christ spirit. Icke’s autobiography, In the Light of Experience, was published the same year,[83] followed by Heal the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Personal and Planetary Transformation (1993).
The Robots’ Rebellion
In his 2001 documentary about Icke, Jon Ronson cited this cartoon, “Rothschild” (1898), by Charles Léandre, arguing that Jews have long been depicted as lizard-like creatures who are out to control the world.[84]
Icke’s The Robots’ Rebellion (1994), a book published by Gateway, attracted allegations that his work was antisemitic. According to historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, the book contains “all the familiar beliefs and paranoid clichés” of the US conspiracists and militia.[85] It claims that a plan for world domination by a shadowy cabal, perhaps extraterrestrial, was laid out in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (c. 1897).
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an anti-Semitic literary forgery,[86] probably written under the direction of the Russian secret police in Paris, purporting to reveal a conspiracy by the Jewish people to achieve global domination. It was exposed as a forgery in 1920 by Lucien Wolf and the following year by Philip Graves in The Times.[87] Once exposed, it disappeared from mainstream discourse until interest in it was renewed by the American far right in the 1950s.[87] Interest in it was further spread by conspiracy groups on the Internet.[88] According to Michael Barkun, Icke’s reliance on the Protocols in The Robots’ Rebellion is “the first of a number of instances in which Icke moves into the dangerous terrain of antisemitism”.[89][90]
Icke took both the extraterrestrial angle and the focus on the Protocols from Behold a Pale Horse (1991) by Milton William Cooper, who was associated with the American militia movement; chapter 15 of Cooper’s book reproduces the Protocols in full.[91][92][93]The Robots’ Rebellion refers repeatedly to the Protocols, calling them the Illuminati protocols, and defining Illuminati as the “Brotherhood elite at the top of the pyramid of secret societies world-wide”. Icke adds that the Protocols were not the work of the Jewish people, but of Zionists.[94][95]
The Robots’ Rebellion was greeted with dismay by the Green Party’s executive. Despite the controversy over the press conference and the Wogan interview, they had allowed Icke to address the party’s annual conference in 1992 – a decision that led one of its principal speakers, Sara Parkin, to resign – but after the publication of The Robot’s Rebellion they moved to ban him.[91][96][97][98][99] Icke wrote to The Guardian in September 1994 denying that The Robots’ Rebellion was anti-Semitic, and rejecting racism, sexism and prejudice of any kind, while insisting that whoever had written the Protocols “knew the game plan” for the twentieth century.[100][101]
Self-publishing
Why do we play a part in suppressing alternative information to the official line of the Second World War? How is it right that while this fierce suppression goes on, free copies of the Spielberg film, Schindler’s List, are given to schools to indoctrinate children with the unchallenged version of events. And why do we, who say we oppose tyranny and demand freedom of speech, allow people to go to prison and be vilified, and magazines to be closed down on the spot, for suggesting another version of history.— And the Truth Shall Set You Free (1995)[9]
Icke’s next manuscript, And the Truth Shall Set You Free (1995), contained a chapter questioning aspects of the Holocaust, which caused a rift with his publisher, Gateway.[95][102][23] In the book Icke suggested that Jews funded the Holocaust by quoting and seconding Gary Allen‘s claim that “The Warburgs, part of the Rothschild empire, helped finance Adolf Hitler”. In his view, schools “indoctrinate children with the unchallenged version of events” with the mainstream account of the Holocaust thanks to their use of free copies of the film Schindler’s List (1993).[103][24] After borrowing £15,000 from a friend, Icke established Bridge of Love Publications, later called David Icke Books. He self-published And the Truth Shall Set You Free and all his subsequent books.
According to Lewis and Kahn, Icke aimed to consolidate all conspiracy theories into one project with unlimited explanatory power. His books sold 140,000 copies between 1998 and 2011, at a value of over £2 million.[104] Thirty thousand copies of The Biggest Secret (1999) were in print months after publication, according to Icke,[105] and it was reprinted six times between 1999 and 2006. His 2002 book Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster became a long-standing top-five bestseller in South Africa.[7] By 2006, his website was gaining 600,000 hits a week, and by 2011 his books had been translated into 11 languages.[104]
Lecturing
Icke speaking in June 2013
Icke has held public lectures around the world, and by 2006 had spoken in at least 25 countries.[7] He spoke for seven hours to 2,500 people at the Brixton Academy, London, in 2008,[16] and the same year addressed the University of Oxford‘s debating society, the Oxford Union.[106][107][108] His book tour for Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More (2010) included a sold-out talk to 2,100 in New York City and £83,000 worth of ticket sales in Melbourne. In October 2012, he spoke for 11-hours to 6,000 people at London’s Wembley Arena.[109]
Second marriage, politics, television
In 1997 Icke met his second wife, Pamela Leigh Richards, in Jamaica. He and Linda Atherton divorced in 2001,[110] and he and Richards were married the same year.[citation needed] They separated in 2008 and divorced in 2011.[80]
Icke stood for parliament in the 2008 by-election for Haltemprice and Howden (a constituency in the East Riding of Yorkshire), on the issue of “Big Brother – The Big Picture”. He came 12th out of 26 candidates, with 110 votes (0.46%), resulting in a lost deposit.[111][112] He explained that he was standing because “if we don’t face this now we are going to have some serious explaining to do when we are asked by our children and grandchildren what we were doing when the global fascist state was installed. ‘I was watching EastEnders, dear’ will not be good enough.”[113][114]
In November 2013, Icke launched an Internet television station, The People’s Voice, broadcast from London. He founded the station after crowdsourcing over £300,000 and worked for it as a volunteer until March 2014. Later that year the station stopped broadcasting.[115][116]
In The Biggest Secret (1999), he introduced the idea that many prominent figures derive from the Anunnaki, a reptilian race from the Draco constellation.[119] In Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More (2012), he identified the Moon (and later Saturn) as the source of holographic experiences, broadcast by the reptiles, that humanity interprets as reality.[120][15]
Icke is a critic of the scientific method, describing it as “bollocks” in 2013. When asked by The Sunday Times to explain the existence of television, he said “It’s not that all science is bollocks,” but rather “[t]he basis of the way science judges reality is bollocks.”[121] He also thinks climate change is a hoax.[122]
Infinite dimensions
Icke believes that the universe is made up of “vibrational” energy, and consists of an infinite number of dimensions that share the same space, just like television and radio frequencies, and that some people can tune their consciousness to other wavelengths.[17][15] He stated in an interview with The Guardian that:
Our five senses can access only a tiny frequency range, like a radio tuned to one station. In the space you are occupying now are all the radio and television stations broadcasting to your area. You can’t see them and they can’t see each other because they are on different wavelengths. But move your radio dial and suddenly there they are, one after the other. It is the same with the reality we experience here as “life”. What we call the “world” and the “universe” is only one frequency range in an infinite number sharing the same space.[16]
Icke believes that time is an illusion; there is no past, or future, and only the “infinite now” is real, and that humans are an aspect of consciousness, or infinite awareness, which he describes as “all that there is, has been, and ever can be”.[15]
Icke believes that an inter-dimensional race of reptilian beings called the Archons have hijacked the earth and are stopping humanity from realising its true potential.[15][20] He claims they are the same beings as the Anunnaki, deities from the Babylonian creation myth the Enûma Eliš, and the fallen angels, or Watchers, who mated with human women in the Biblical apocrypha.[19]
He believes that a genetically modified human/Archon hybrid race of shape-shifting reptilians, known as the “Babylonian Brotherhood” or the Illuminati, manipulate global events to keep humans in constant fear, so the Archons can feed off the “negative energy” this creates.[15][124] In The Biggest Secret, Icke identified the Brotherhood as descendants of reptilians from the constellation Draco, and said they live in caverns inside the earth.[125]
Icke said in an interview:
When you get back into the ancient world, you find this recurring theme of a union between a non-human race and humans – creating a hybrid race. From 1998, I started coming across people who told me they had seen people change into a non-human form. It’s an age-old phenomenon known as shape-shifting. The basic form is like a scaly humanoid, with reptilian rather than humanoid eyes.[126]
Icke claims the first reptilian-human breeding programmes took place 200,000–300,000 years ago (perhaps creating Adam),[127] and the third (and latest) 7,000 years ago. He claims the hybrids of the third programme, which are more Anunnaki than human, currently control the world. He writes in The Biggest Secret, “The Brotherhood which controls the world today is the modern expression of the Babylonian Brotherhood of reptile-Aryan priests and ‘royalty’”. Icke states that they came together in Sumer after “the flood“, but originated in the Caucasus.[128] He explains that when he uses the term “Aryan” he means “the white race.”[129]
Icke has stated that the reptilians come from not only another planet but another dimension, the lower level of the fourth dimension (the “lower astral dimension“), the one nearest the physical world.[17] From this dimension they control the planet, although just as fourth-dimensional reptilians control us, they in turn are controlled by a fifth dimension.[17]Michael Barkun argues that Icke’s introduction of different dimensions allowed him to skip awkward questions about how the reptilians got here.[105]
Icke believes that the only way this “Archontic” influence can be defeated is if people wake up to “the truth” and fill their hearts with love.[15]
Icke briefly introduced his ideas about ancient astronauts in The Robot’s Rebellion (1994), citing Milton William Cooper‘s Behold a Pale Horse (1991), and expanded it in And the Truth Shall Set You Free (1995), citing Barbara Marciniak’s Bringers of the Dawn (1992).[91][92]
Religious studies lecturer David G. Robertson writes that Icke’s reptilian idea is adapted from Zecharia Sitchin‘s The 12th Planet (1976), combined with material from Credo Mutwa, a Zulu healer.[130] Sitchin suggested that the Anunnaki came to Earth for its precious metals. Icke has said that they came for what he refers to as “mono-atomic gold”, which he claims can increase the capacity of the nervous system ten-thousandfold, and that after ingesting it the Anunnaki can process vast amounts of information, speed up trans-dimensional travel, and shapeshift from reptilian to human.[131][132] Lewis and Kahn argue that Icke is using allegory to depict the alien, and alienating, nature of global capitalism.[18] Icke has said he is not using allegory.[133]
As of 2003, Icke claims the reptilian bloodline includes all (then 43) American presidents, three British and two Canadian prime ministers, several Sumerian kings and Egyptian pharaohs, and a smattering of celebrities. Key bloodlines are said to include the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, various European aristocratic families, the establishment families of the Eastern United States, and the British House of Windsor.[89] Icke has claimed that he saw former British Prime Minister Ted Heath‘s eyes turn entirely “jet black” while the two men waited for a Sky News interview in 1989.[134][16] He confirmed to Andrew Neil in May 2016 that he believes the British royal family are shape-shifting lizards.[21] In 2001, Icke said the Queen Mother was “seriously reptilian”.[89] The Rothschilds, in Icke’s opinion, are also blood-drinking Satan-worshipers, which Daniel Allington and David Toube argued in 2018 was part of a revival of medieval anti-Semitic attitudes towards Jews.[135]
Icke sometimes calls the reptilian plot the “unseen”. After a 2018 talk by Icke in Southport, UK, Michael Marshall reported:
The appearance of the ‘unseen’ in the Middle East 6,000 years ago seems to be no coincidence, and it’s little wonder that Icke’s work is so often accused of anti-Semitism. However, if we were to accept that Icke himself does not hold such views, and that his work is merely co-opted by groups who undeniably are anti-Semitic, we also have to acknowledge that Icke often does his case no favours.[136]
Critics view Icke’s “reptilians” and other theories as anti-Semitic,[25][137][138] and accuse him of Holocaust denial.[25] Critics have claimed that Icke’s reptilians are symbolic representations of Jews, which Icke called “total friggin’ nonsense”, adding, “this is not a plot on the world by Jewish people”.[139] Icke has rejected the assertion he is a Holocaust denier.[26]
Brotherhood aims and institutions
Icke states that at the apex of the Babylonian Brotherhood stand the Global Elite, and at the top of the Global Elite are what Icke has referred to as the “Prison Wardens”. Icke claims the brotherhood’s goal, or their “Great Work of Ages”, is a microchipped population, a world government, and a global Orwellianfascist state or New World Order, which he claims will be a post-truth era where freedom of speech is ended.[140][15][21][22][92]
Icke believes that the brotherhood uses human anxiety as energy and that the Archons keep humanity trapped in a “five sense reality” so they can feed off the negative energy created by fear and hate.[15][18] In 1999 he wrote, “Thus we have the encouragement of wars, human genocide, the mass slaughter of animals, sexual perversions which create highly charged negative energy, and black magic ritual and sacrifice which takes place on a scale that will stagger those who have not studied the subject.”[127] Icke proposes that human sacrifice “to the gods” in the ancient world was for the reptilians’ benefit, especially sacrifice of children, because “at the moment of death by sacrifice a form of adrenaline surges through the body, accumulating at the base of the brain, and is apparently more potent in children”, claiming “this is what the reptilians and their crossbreeds want”. He suggests that these sacrifices continue to this day.[127] He also claims the reptilians and their hybrid bloodlines engage in paedophilia and cannibalism.[141]
Icke uses the phrase “problem–reaction–solution” to explain how he believes the Illuminati agenda advances. According to Icke, the Illuminati guide us in the direction they desire by creating false problems, which allows them to give their desired solution to the problem they created.[147] He also refers to this process as “order out of chaos”.[148] In 2018 researchers looking at the psychological effects of Icke’s belief system argued that “problem–reaction–solution” resembles the misinterpretation of the Hegelianthesis, antithesis, synthesis triad popularized by Chalybäus.[149]
One of the methods Icke claims they use is creating fake opposites, or what he calls “opposames”, such as the Axis and Allied powers of World War II, which he believes were used to provoke the creation of the European Union and the state of Israel.[147] Icke argues that to ensure the outcome they want they have to control both sides.[22] He believes that US presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump are part of a false political divide. Despite the presidency belonging to the Republican Party then the Democratic Party, then going back to the Republicans, Icke claims they are all pushing the same agenda of regime change in the Middle East, a goal set out in the early 2000s in a document called The Project for the New American Century.[22] Icke claims that this dialectic allows the Illuminati to gradually move societies toward totalitarianism without challenge, a process he calls the “totalitarian tiptoe”.[147]
In Tales From The Time Loop (2003), Icke argues that the Illuminati create religious, racial, ethnic and sexual division to divide and rule humanity but believes that the many can only be controlled by the few if they allow themselves to be and that the power the Illuminati have is the power the people give them.[154][155] “Divide and rule is the bottom line of all dictatorships… Arab is turned against Jew, black against white, Right against Left. Unplugging from the Matrix means refusing to recognise these illusory fault lines. We are all One. I refuse to see a Jew as different from an Arab and vice versa. They are both expressions of the One and need to be observed and treated the same, none more or less important than the other. I refuse to see black people in terms that I would not see white, nor to see the ‘Left’ as I would not see the ‘Right’. How could it be any different, except when we believe the illusion of division is real? If we do that, the Matrix has us.”[155]
Icke’s solution is peaceful non-compliance, which he believes will disempower “the elite”.[154]
Saturn–Moon Matrix
The Moon Matrix is introduced in Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More (2010), in which Icke suggests that the Earth and the collective human mind are manipulated from the Moon, a spacecraft and inter-dimensional portal the reptilians control. The Moon Matrix is a broadcast from that spacecraft to the human body–computer, specifically to the left hemisphere of the brain, which gives us our sense of reality: “We are living in a dreamworld within a dreamworld – a Matrix within the virtual-reality universe – and it is being broadcast from the Moon. Unless people force themselves to become fully conscious, their minds are the Moon’s mind.”[156][157]Will Storr, writing for The Sunday Times in 2013, ponders if Icke’s ideas suddenly “pop” into his head. On page 299 of Human Race Get Off Your Knees, Icke writes about working at his computer on the book and having “the overwhelming feeling out of ‘nowhere’ that the moon was not ‘real’. By ‘real’ I mean not a ‘heavenly body’, but an artificial construct (or hollowed-out planetoid) that has been put there to control life on Earth — which it does. I have pondered this possibility a few times over the years, but this time I just ‘knew’. It was like an enormous penny had suddenly dropped”.[121]
This idea is further explored in Icke’s Remember Who You Are: Remember ‘Where’ You Are and Where You ‘Come’ From (2012), where he introduces the concept of the “Saturn–Moon Matrix”. In this more recent conceptualization, the rings of Saturn (which Icke believes were artificially created by reptilian spacecraft) are the ultimate source of the signal, while the Moon functions as an amplifier.[120][page needed][154] He claims that frequencies broadcast from the hexagonal storm on Saturn are amplified through the hollow structure of our artificial moon keeping humanity trapped in a holographic projection.[15]
David Icke has been identified by the Center for Countering Digital Hate as a leading producer of misinformation about COVID-19 as well as anti-Semitic content.[158] In April 2020, Icke claimed in a YouTube video on Brian Rose‘s London Real channel that there was a link between the COVID-19 pandemic and 5G mobile phone networks. The video was removed from the platform, and YouTube tightened its rules to prevent its website being used to spread conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic.[159] It was later also deleted from Facebook.[160] Multiple mobile phone masts were subject to arson attacks at this time, as well as telecom engineers being abused.[161]Nick Cohen in The Observer thought Icke was ambiguous as to whether the phone masts should be left alone. Icke said in the London Real interview: “If 5G continues and reaches where they want to take it, human life as we know it is over… so people have to make a decision.”[159][162][163]
London Live screened a similar interview with Icke about coronavirus on 8 April 2020.[164] He made an unsupported claim that Israel was using the crisis “to test its technology” and suggested any attempt to require people to be vaccinated against COVID-19 amounted to “fascism”.[165]
After Ofcom‘s formal investigation, the UK media regulator decided the 80-minute interview broke the terms of the broadcasting code as it “expressed views which had the potential to cause significant harm to viewers in London during the pandemic” which “were made without the support of any scientific or other evidence.”[166]
Icke’s main page on Facebook was deleted on 1 May 2020, while other pages on the site promoting Icke with a smaller readership remained on the platform.[167] Facebook said it had removed Icke’s page for its “health misinformation that could cause physical harm”.[168] His YouTube channel was deleted a day later. A spokeswoman for YouTube told BBC News: “YouTube has clear policies prohibiting any content that disputes the existence and transmission of COVID-19 as described by the WHO and the NHS. Due to continued violation of these policies, we have terminated David Icke’s YouTube channel.” Icke’s appearances in videos uploaded by other users were only to be removed if their content breached the same rules.[169]
On 29 August 2020, Icke was a speaker at an anti-lockdown protest in Trafalgar Square, London, organised under the Unite for Freedom banner. During his speech he stated, “Anyone with a half a brain cell on active duty can see coronavirus is nonsense”[170] and, “We have a virus so intelligent that it only infects those taking part in protests the government wants to stop”.[171] He also stated, “This world is controlled by a tiny few people” who “impose their agenda on billions of people”. He told the police who were present at the rally that they were “enforcing fascism that your own children will have to live with” and urged them to “join us and stop serving the psychopaths”.[171]
In early November 2020, Twitter permanently suspended Icke’s account on the platform for having violated its rules regarding COVID-19 misinformation.[172][173]
There is a strong strain of anti-Semitic conspiracy theorizing that makes ufological connections, including especially the work of Milton William Cooper (1991) and David Icke (e.g., 1997). Both are controversial but still well known in both right-wing conspiracist and ufological subcultures.— Christopher F. Roth, Ufology as Anthropology: Race, Extraterrestrials, and the Occult[179]
Jonathan A. Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League told The New York Times in December 2018: “There is no fair reading of Icke’s work that could be seen as not anti-Semitic”.[180] However, Icke has repeatedly denied the accusation that he is an antisemite. In 2001, when he was questioned by Jon Ronson, Icke declared that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is evidence not of a Jewish plot but of a reptilian plot. He also said, “the families in positions of great financial power obsessively interbreed with each other. But I’m not talking about one earth race, Jewish or non-Jewish. I’m talking about a genetic network that operates through all races, this bloodline being a fusion of human and reptilian genes… let me make myself clear: this does not in any way relate to an earth race.”[181] In an article in The Algemeiner, the writer commented: “Yet when he goes through a list of people in power who he considers to be ‘Rothschild Zionists,’ they all happen to be Jews (with many of them never claiming to be Zionists at all.)”[182] According to Mark Gardner of the Community Security Trust, Icke believes a “‘Rothschild Zionist’ conspiracy controls the world, driving global conflict through NATO and seeking World War Three, which will begin between Zionists and Muslims.” Such claims about the Rothschilds have a long history as an antisemitic theme.[138]
Icke states in And the Truth Shall Set you Free (1996):
Why do we play a part in suppressing alternative information to the official line of the Second World War? How is it right that while this fierce suppression goes on, free copies of the Spielberg film, Schindler’s List, are given to schools to indoctrinate children with the unchallenged version of events. And why do we, who say we oppose tyranny and demand freedom of speech, allow people to go to prison and be vilified, and magazines to be closed down on the spot, for suggesting another version of history.[9]
I strongly believe that a small Jewish clique which has contempt for the mass of Jewish people worked with non-Jews to create the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the Second World War… They then dominated the Versailles Peace Conference and created the circumstances which made the Second World War inevitable. They financed Hitler to power in 1933 and made the funds available for his rearmament.[9][183]
In the book, Yair Rosenberg reports, Icke uses the words “Jewish” on 241 occasions, and “Rothschild” on 374 occasions.[24] Icke claims that Jews themselves are to blame for antisemitism (a classic Nazi claim that can be traced to Adolf Hitler):
Thought patterns in the collective Jewish mind have repeatedly created that physical reality of oppression, prejudice and racism which matches the pattern – the expectation – programmed into their collective psyche. They expect it; they create it.[184]
In The Trigger: The Lie That Changed the World – Who Really Did It and Why (2019), Icke writes that the official explanation for the September 11 attacks is false and is intended to cover up the “massive and central involvement in 9/11 by the Israeli government, [Israeli] military and [Israeli] intelligence operatives.”[185]
In his book UFOs, Conspiracy Theories and the New Age, David G. Robertson disputes that Icke is antisemitic, saying that it is just easier for some people to accept that when Icke says reptilians he really means Jews than that he literally means extraterrestrial reptilians control world politics. Robertson also says that to believe the accusations of antisemitism you must ignore numerous things, such as the many high-profile people Icke names as reptilian who are not Jewish (a point also made by Jon Ronson in his 2001 documentary The Secret Rulers of the World, Part 2: “David Icke, The Lizards and The Jews”), Icke’s frequent statements that he is speaking literally and not metaphorically, and that Icke identifies the supposedly reptilian ruling elite as “Aryan” in several places. Robertson also writes that Icke denounces racism, having called it “the ultimate idiocy”.[133] In 2018, in response to allegations of antisemitism, Icke stated to Vox that: “My philosophy and view of life is that we are all points of attention within the same state of Infinite Awareness and the labels we are given and give ourselves are merely temporary experiences and not who we are… Thus to me all racism is ridiculous and completely missing the point of who we are and where we are.”[103]
Following complaints from the Canadian Jewish Congress in 2000, Icke was briefly detained by immigration officials in Canada, where he was booked for a speaking tour,[65] and his books were removed from Indigo Books, a Canadian chain. Several stops on the tour were cancelled by their venues, as was a lecture in London.[186][187] Two venues in Berlin cancelled live events scheduled to be hosted by Icke in 2017 following accusations of antisemitism. The Maritim hotel did not give a reason for the cancellation, but the Carl Benz Arena wrote on its Facebook page that it was due to the “contentious nature and the contradictory statements, which for us as a politically neutral event venue do not give a clear picture.”[25] An event to be held at Manchester United‘s Old Trafford was also cancelled in 2017, with the venue saying it was due to Icke’s “objectionable views.”[188] After Icke’s talk in Vancouver on 2 September 2017, the Canadian Jewish News called him “a controversial conspiracy theorist, antisemite and Holocaust denier”. Micheal Vonn, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association’s policy director, told the newspaper: “You are free to be a racist in Canada, you are free to say so and tell others that they should be, too.”[189]
In February 2019, the Australian Government cancelled Icke’s visa ahead of a planned speaking tour[190] on the grounds of his character.[191] Immigration Minister David Coleman upheld the complaint made by Dvir Abramovich, the chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission.[192] This decision was applauded by both major political parties. Labor’s immigration spokesman, Shayne Neumann, said, “Labor welcomes the fact that the Government did what we called on them to do and refused David Icke’s visa application.”[191] Icke issued a statement in which he described himself as “the victim of a smear campaign from politicians who have been listening to special interest groups”.[193]
Other responses
Political Research Associates has described Icke’s politics as “a mishmash of most of the dominant themes of contemporary neofascism, mixed in with a smattering of topics culled from the U.S. militia movement.” He opposes gun control, and claims that many mass shootings were orchestrated to increase public opposition to guns. He believes the U.S. government carried out the Oklahoma City bombing.[9] He endorses or recommends antisemitic and far-right publications such as Spotlight and On Target, the magazine of the white supremacist group the “British League of Rights“, and has been closely associated with antisemitic “New Age” periodicals such as Nexus and Rainbow Ark, a “New Age” magazine which is financed by far-right activists and affiliated with the neo-NaziNational Front.[184][194] The neo-Nazi terrorist group Combat 18 promoted Icke’s public speaking events in its internal journal Putsch; of one such event, the journal wrote approvingly:
[Icke] spoke of “the sheep” and how the Zionist-operated government, sorry, “Illuminati“, uses them for its own ends. He began to talk about the big conspiracy by a group of bankers, media moguls, etc. – always being clever enough not to mention what all these had in common.[9]
Michael Barkun has described Icke’s position as New Age conspiracism, writing that Icke is the most fluent of the genre,[195] describing his work as “improvisational millennialism“, with an end-of-history scenario involving a final battle between good and evil. Barkun defines improvisational millennialism as an “act of bricolage“: because everything is connected in the conspiracist world view, every source can be mined for links.[196] Barkun argues that Icke has actively tried to cultivate the radical right: “There is no fuller explication of [their] beliefs about ruling elites than Icke’s.” He also notes that Icke regards Christian patriots as the only Americans who understand the “New World Order“.[197] In 1996 Icke spoke to a conference in Reno, Nevada, alongside opponents of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, including Kirk Lyons, a lawyer who has represented the Ku Klux Klan.[105] Icke has never been a member of any right-wing group, and he has criticised them.[133]
Relying on Douglas Kellner‘s distinction between clinical paranoia and a “critical paranoia” that confronts power, Richard Kahn and Tyson Lewis argue that Icke displays elements of both and that his reptilian hypothesis and his “postmodern metanarrative” may be allegorical, a Swiftian satire which is used to give ordinary people a narrative with which to question what they see around them and alert them to the alleged emergence of a global fascist state.[198][199][200]
People influenced by Icke have asked public figures if they are lizards. An Official Information Act request was filed in New Zealand in 2008 to ask John Key, then prime minister, whether he was a lizard. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was asked the same during a Q&A in 2016. Both men said they were not lizards.[201] In a 2013 survey in the United States by Public Policy Polling, 4% believed that “‘lizard people’ control our societies”.[202][203][204]
Selected works
Books
(1983) It’s a Tough Game, Son!, London: Piccolo Books. ISBN0-330-28047-3
(1989) It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This: Green Politics Explained, London: Green Print. ISBN1-85425-033-7
^ Robertson, David G. (7 September 2013). “David Icke’s Reptilian Thesis and the Development of New Age Theodicy”. International Journal for the Study of New Religions. 4 (1): 27–47. doi:10.1558/ijsnr.v4i1.27.
^“Biography 2”. davidickebooks.co.uk. David Icke. Archived from the original on 14 July 201. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
^ Icke, David. Tales from the Time Loop. pp. 12–13, 16.
^ Juliane Wetzel, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion on the internet: How radical political groups are networked via anti-Semitic conspiracy theories,” in Esther Webman (ed.), The Global Impact of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion: A Century-Old Myth, New York: Routledge, 2012 (147–160), p. 148.
^ Also see Norman Simms, “Anti-Semitism: A Psychopathological Disease,” in Jerry S. Piven, Chris Boyd, Henry W. Lawton (eds.), Judaism and Genocide: Psychological Undercurrents of History, Volume IV, Lincoln, NE: Writers Club Press, 2002, 30ff.
^ Quote on page two from Drinkwater, Kenneth; Dagnall, Neil; Denovan, Andrew; Parker, Andrew; Clough, Peter (January–March 2018). “Predictors and Associates of Problem-Reaction-Solution: Statistical Bias, Emotion-Based Reasoning, and Belief in the Paranormal”. SAGE Open. 8 (1): 11. doi:10.1177/2158244018762999.: “Although, the precise lineage of PRS [problem–reaction–solution] is unknown, researchers often ascribe the origin of PRS to various ancient figures or events (i.e., Roman Emperor Diocletian) and philosophical doctrines (Hegel, 1812; see Fichte, 1794, in Neuhouser, 1990). In this historical context, PRS comprises three stages equivalent to those subsumed within PRS: thesis (intellectual proposition, problem), antithesis (negation of the proposition, response to thesis), and synthesis (resolution of tension between proposition and reaction, resolution). These steps derive from Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus misinterpretation (Carlson, 2007) of Hegel’s dialectic (Mills, 2005; Stewart, 1996). The exact source and academic status of PRS is unclear and beyond the remit of this article, which generally views PRS as a form of faulty inferential thinking. More precisely, as the tendency to validate proffered suboptimal solutions based on limited evaluation of objective evidence.”
^ Icke, Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More.
^ For 9/11, Icke, Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster.
^ For global warming and Agenda 21, Icke, Phantom Self, 303.
^ Tyson Lewis, Richard Kahn, “The Reptoid Hypothesis: Utopian and Dystopian Representational Motifs in David Icke’s Alien Conspiracy Theory,” Utopian Studies, 16(1), Spring 2005 (45–74), 52, 55–56. JSTOR20718709
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