Author: Mark Tokarski

Just a man who likes to read, argue, and occasionally be surprised.

Iconoclasts: Immanuel Velikovsky

BofV

Immanuel Velikovsky (1895-1979) was born in Belarus and died in the United States. In 1950 he published Worlds in Collision, a book that draws on astrophysics, mythology, paleontology, evolution, anthropology, climatology and geology, and falls squarely in the realm of “catastrophism.” His opening quote, “quota pars operis tanti nobis committitur?*,” (from Seneca) is hard to understand in context, but putting it in a search engine leads to a wealth of Velikovsky sites.

The original work drew skepticism and ridicule. Says Wikipedia, his theories “…have been ignored or vigorously rejected by the academic community.” Carl Sagan, no slouch in terms of hubris, simply offered up disdain. He did draw some support from one important source, Albert Einstein.

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The mucked up interview, and off on a glamping journey

Iguaza

I am off on another journey with my wife, this time to Patagonia and Torres del Paine, to hike the “W.” We’ll be “glamping,” or glamour camping, each night having a bed and a meal awaiting. We just are not that tough – those sleeping-on-the-ground carrying a backpack days are behind us.

TorresFrom there we go to Buenes Aires and further up north to view Iguazu Falls, which I like to think of as Niagara Falls times seven. Of course we’ll have Internet in various places, but I don’t like using the blog as a travelogue, so will not be writing about where we are that day or what we had for lunch.

I have two things to cover in this post:

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Fake, fake, fako

I spent a couple of hours yesterday in a discussion with Faye, a woman who lives in Switzerland, about the topic of Waco – it was done on February 28th, the 25th anniversary of the initiation of the event. Faye reminded me that two days earlier, February 26th, is the 25th anniversary of the first bombing of the World trade Center, and event which she and I and others now think to have initiated the evacuation and stripping of the buildings in preparation for their destruction on September 11, 2001.

Anyway, I had a fun time, I hope she did too. Faye speaks four languages, and her English is clear and easily understood, this even though she never formally studied it and only picked it up by immersion, apparently.

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Black Op Radio

Crosshairs

It has only been a few years since I bought into this stuff, so I understand how people get sucked in. The JFK assassination was one of the most intensely rabbit-holed events of my lifetime, and the industry still thrives. There is one site in particular that seems to be charged with keeping the story alive, called Black Op Radio*. It has been going on going on 18 years now, and runs hours and hours of programming.

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Law enforcement in our climate of fear

Schifferns
Schifferns

This is an event that happened during the week of March 19th near Red Lodge, Montana. This is a small community at the base of the Beartooth Mountains, and is about fifty miles from Billings, where I was born and raised, and from which I escaped in 2001.

 

According to news reports, Thomas Joseph Schifferns occasionally lived with James McGregor and his common law wife, Shiloh Moncada. McGregor’s body was found near a trailhead in the mountainous area west of Red Lodge. He had been shot and his body dragged, but was easily discovered by police. McGregor’s truck was stuck at the trail head, and Moncada claims his safe was open and empty.

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Guest writer: The Battle of the Atlantic

Kerry has promised more writing on this and other topics surrounding World War II. I look forward to the discussion that naturally follows, as our readers are well-versed on this topic as well.

The Battle of the Atlantic (By Kerry Anderson

After the fall of France, The Kriegsmarine now had access to the French ports. This was advantageous for a number of reasons.

  1. Safer access without having to run the gauntlet of the English Channel.
  2. Convenience to the Atlantic shipping lanes.
  3. Easier to repair and supply their naval vessels.

However, the policy of raiding and submarine warfare was a controversial one. Erich Raeder, a veteran of the First World War, was a detractor, believing it to be a flawed strategy, which of course it was. In 1939 he approved a change in the German shipbuilding schedule, abandoning capital ships for submarines. In conflict with his earlier beliefs. The problems with such a strategy were as follows.

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The Waco Massacre: Wanton destruction of a movie set

The Waco Massacre was the closing act of a 51-day siege took place from February 28th to April 19th, 1993. It has all the hallmarks of a psyop. I doubt anyone died, and in fact doubt that there were any people placed in the building during the 51 days except for photo ops. It was just a movie set. So I suggest there were but a few hired actors to play “survivors,” some fake jail sentences, but in reality no “Branch Davidians.” Just an empty building surrounded by frenetic activity.

Eleven

Planning for an event of this nature had to have gone back years, so that I speculate that when Vernon Wayne Howell (who later changed his name to David Koresh) moved his “Branch Davidians” to the Mt. Carmel complex in 1989, it was done knowing that it would be the center of a psyop and a movie. Further, I expect that the date April 19th would be chosen knowing that two years hence another fake mass killing, the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, would take place on the same date.

As to the significance of the date 4/19, it was the 109th day of the year, and 109 is the 29th prime number, and that yields 11, and that is a long way to go to make a point and feels like a reach. But I’ll be damned if 11 does not pop up again and again.

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John Brown: agent provocateur (updated)

Kevin Starr came across some very interesting material regarding John Brown, and since I did not wanted it buried along with the post, have brought the entire article forward.

“I was doing some of the tedious genealogical cross-referencing … when I started noticing link after link between John Brown and the Hollywood actress Jean Arthur (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.)  Since Arthur’s real name was Gladys Greene, I decided to check John Brown’s wiki for that name.  Voila!
By the morning of October 18 the engine house, later known as John Brown’s Fort, was surrounded by a company of U.S. Marines under the command of First Lieutenant Israel Greene, USMC, with Colonel Robert E. Lee of the United States Army in overall command.[47] Army First Lieutenant J.E.B. Stuart approached under a white flag and told the raiders that their lives would be spared if they surrendered. Brown refused, saying, “No, I prefer to die here.” Stuart then gave a signal. The Marines used sledge hammers and a makeshift battering-ram to break down the engine room door. Lieutenant Israel Greene cornered Brown and struck him several times, wounding his head. In three minutes Brown and the survivors were captives.

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Note to readers

It was plain to see yesterday that the fake school shootings in Broward County had captured everyone’s attention, so I delayed the Waco piece I put up yesterday until later next week.

22727CB7-A5BD-40BF-86BC-EACD620AB604Again we are faced with the spectacle of tearless anguish. I mentioned on Facebook how odd it is that these two are not generating real tears, and was told that they are just cried out. You’d think the people behind these tragedies would invest in a bottle of Visine.

Anyway, I put too much sweat equity into the Waco piece to watch it slip away in quietude. Will try again after this tragedy has become ancient history, maybe Wednesday.

The three amigos

Note: Kerry promises three more installments to follow in a piece I thought would be a great jumping-off point for commenters.

By Kerry Anderson

As historian buffets go, There is probably no other table quite like the Second World War. Involving over 50 countries and uncountable tribes, ethnic groups, and organized gangs.

It was certainly a World War by most definitions. Casualties, which seem to take up a large chunk of the research space, are a bit hard to pin down. Depending on when one wishes to place the starting line, It could be counted as 5 years, or even longer if one chooses the invasion of Manchuria. Many factors combine to make any calculation of casualties more speculative than hard fact. The lack of accurate population totals both before and after is a big one. Determining the ultimate fate of many people is also a problem, many displaced, missing in action, or simply dropping out to continue their lives, could account for many.

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