We are traveling today. We leave New Zealand at 6:30 PM Monday and arrive in Denver at 9:00 PM, Monday. It will take about 21 hours in total. We’ve gotten good at it over time, making sure devices are loaded with podcasts and having on hand books and sleeping pills. We play a lot of Scrabble when awake, and are both on an equal competitive level with one another so that winning is never easy. Such are the things that make a happy marriage.

The above video reminds me how much Noam Chomsky has aged since I first encountered him. He’d be 63 64 or 65 here in 1993, combative, assertive and confrontational. I remember listening to him in 1988, a speech at American University broadcast on CSPAN where he talked like this. As a right-wing Christian conservative reflecting my upbringing and education, everything he said flew in my face. It was outrageous. Nobody talked like that. Nobody.

And it would not have even registered with me, just as it will not register with those who watch but two or three minutes here and turn away. But I was gripped at that time with a burning question – who the fuck killed JFK? – that was causing me to look at things I’d never looked at before, opening a few doors, allowing curiosity to overcome the thought control system.

Chomsky, of course, pooh-poohs any curiosity about Dallas or 9/11, but I hold out that such events, if one lets go of the indoctrination system and looks at them in a questioning manner, are portals that will lead to sea changes in outlook. They disrobe the world before our youthful eyes, and begin the path towards intellectual maturity.

“Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day…. A series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period and pursued unalterably through a change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate and systematic plan for reducing us to slavery. (Thomas Jefferson)

“The US mainstream hypnotic media, along with everything else in the US, has been weaponized.” (Comment by jfl, Feb 4, 2015 7:45:22 PM, Moon of Alabama)

Tribal cultures even today simply cannot comprehend the concept of the individual or of the separate and independent citizen. Oral cultures act and react simultaneously, whereas the capacity to act without reacting, without involvement, is a special gift of “detached” literate man.” (Marshall McLuhan, The playboy Interview, March, 1969)

“But what if your own eyes and your innate (though suppressed) ability to think critically and independently tell you that what all the institutions of the State insist is true is actually a lie? What do you do then? Do you trust in your own cognitive abilities, or do you blindly follow authority and pretend as though everything can be explained away? If your worldview will not allow you to believe what you can see with your own eyes, then the problem, it would appear, is with your worldview. So do you change that worldview, or do you live in denial?” (Dave McGowan, Wagging the Mooddoggie)

I live in a bizarro kind of world, shared by a few others who know exactly what I am talking about. My world is built on not just evidence, but rather easily uncovered and understood evidence.

Those things I know to be true are not things I happen to “believe,” as if such knowledge is subjective. Rather, I objectively see a plethora of evidence demonstrating that the major events of our times, be it Dallas, Watergate, 9/11, Boston or the supposed killing of Osama bin Laden, as explained to the public, are a gigantic, bold and easily untangled web of lies.

These lies have been untangled, uncovered, exposed, and in such a way that it is not merely the opinions of a few freaks and geeks. Rather it is a preponderance of unassailable facts discovered and uncovered by scholars and researchers of high integrity, and done with great care. There is no doubt in my mind that these men and women are closer to truth than any other Americans.

The events in question are not nuanced for the public, handled so as to keep certain important and sensitive information secret. They are simply big lies.

• The murder of President Kennedy was a giant domestic covert operation followed by an even larger coverup.
• Watergate has roots going all the way back to JFK and Dallas and involving the same people. Like Dallas it was a large conspiracy to undo the results of an election, to keep wars going.
• 9/11 was mostly a television show, complete with CGI, but the basic evidence is even stranger than supposed planes flying unhindered through steel buildings.
• The Boston Marsthon “bombing” is so easily seen to be a hoax that readers who believe in the lost limbs and miracle recoveries ought to be embarrassed to be so gullible.
• And supposedly killing a guy, tossing his body in the ocean, not showing photographs … please. People. You insult your own intelligence, much less mine. You should be embarrassed.

What’s up with you? What the hell is wrong with you?

I was impressed by the words “hypnotic media” in one of the quotes above. Hypnosis appears to be a large part of our problem, although groupthink and social pressure have a lot to do with it too. Critical thinking skills are like great books. Everyone talks about them, but few actually experience them. Teachers all claim to teach critical thinking skills. Few actually do, or even know how for themselves.

I was traveling across a couple of states with a young relative a few years back, and having read a book about roads and highways, was struck by the author’s statement that the vast majority of youth today believe that the lines on our roads are two to three feet apart. So I asked my companion what he thought the distance was. “Two feet” was his answer. When I told him the truth – 22 feet of between Interstate highway lines, I was in for an even larger surprise. He did not believe me. He still doesn’t.

It is right there in front of him, easily discovered. Yet he clings … to what? A myth? An impression? They have to put the lines far apart to create the sensation that we are moving slower than we really are when we travel on highways. Otherwise we would not be able to drive for hours on end without becoming mesmerized, disoriented, even nauseous. He is clinging to an optical illusion.

But why does the illusion rule? I have never thought such nonsense as he does. I have never for a second had any notion that highway lines are two feet apart. I trust my whole generation is like me. Most of us have walked on or beside highways and see the evidence. What is up?

In a similar manner most people suffer from easily shattered illusions regarding the events I name above, and many others. Our leaders regard those illusions as “necessary,” as in the words of Reinhold Neibuhr. Chomsky called it “thought control in democratic societies,” referencing Niebuhr in a series of lectures in Canada. These illusions are the glue holding us together. But we need to come apart, as this glue, this togetherness, is not wholesome. It is hard on the rest of the world, including those countries we are currently attacking and others we plan to.

If you’ve read this and are feeling safe that I am in a twilight zone while you are comfortably ensconced in hard reality, think again. I am the sane one here. Not you. It is your feet that need to touch terra firma, where mine have been firmly planted now for decades. I and others are evidence and reality-based thinkers, while you are steeped in lies, illusions, and CGI.

We are socked in for a day here and decided not to spend twelve hours hiking in the rain. I stand by that decision. Consequently, we are hanging out, reading and walking up and down a country road. How awful.

I was thinking of a bumper sticker we once sported on our vehicles that used to inspire rage. It was merely three words, “Keep it Wild.” We often came down from hikes to find epitaphs written in the road dirt on our vehicles suggesting impossible sexual acts. I once got a ticket for trespassing that I suspect had to do with the three words. Little known fact, the Department of Fish and Game rides fenceline for large landowners, identifies with them, feels for them. Those are the real employers.

“Keep it Wild” was the motto of Montana Wilderness association, now a collaborative group. I am told that the organization was well down that path even when I was active, but my own perceptions were newly formed and years away from clarity. But I have suggested a new motto for them, a bumper stcker sure not to offend anyone:

KEEP IT MILD

Bob Decker, then the executive director of MWA, suggested to me something hard to grasp at the time, now easily seen to be “framing.” He tried to explain to me that in order to sit and discuss issues with then-Senator Max Baucus, you had to get in the room. And the room was heavily guarded. The only way in was to check testicles at the door.

Current MWA elite are proud of their collaboration with Senator Jon Tester, not aware that they are merely working with the replacement Senator from the Timber Lobby. They were excited to be part of the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, to be asked to sit in the room! The resulting bill, once thought to be the Conrad Burns agenda, is now dressed up as something new. MWA members are proud of their friendship with Tester and proud they are in the room. As I mentioned to MWA executive Gabriel Furshong in a friendly little tweet, it sort of makes me want to puke.

But it’s more than just being in the room. The whole organization has had to go through a mind shift, from combative to collaborative, and not be ashamed about it. To accomplish this they have demonized the fighters, the strong men and women who gave us the lands that are preserved to date. They are “rock throwers,” we are told. They just don’t play well with powerful people.

Well, you decide. For me, rock throwing beats moral cowardice every time, hands down.

But how, you ask, can anything ever be accomplished without compromise and effort at common ground?

That is the wrong question. Those things have a place, but compromise comes after, and not instead of battling. The politicians are bought and put in place to work for the monied interests. Jon Tester has no interest in compromise or collaboration. He receives guests on bended knee. If you are allowed in his office, you have already lost. You can only be held in undignified posture, your saving grace the imagined respect you think you’ve earned by acts of capitulation.

The political system crushes moral mousiness. There is only one way to deal with the Testers of this world, and that is to inflict pain as punishment for misdeeds. That is the only language that bought politicians understand. How often have we all heard Democrats (and that is all MWA is now, Democrats in action) say “Well, I don’t support so and so on this or that, but I will still vote for him.” Thank you sir, I’ll have another.

Effective punishment of politicians requires ground-level organization, and that is why MWA was founded. Money found a way, and replaced all of the fighters with collaborators, so that now Keep it Wild is Keep it Mild.

It would help, however, if in addition to yielding the agenda, MWA would also give itself a new name. No longer Montana Wilderness Association, they should be called Montana Wimps Amalgamated. Associated with the Timber Lobby, they’ve become a key driving force in the art of losing while feigning dignity.

Milford is actually a fjord, and not a sound, but Milford Sound sounds bletter than Milford Fjord. It is an especially beautiful body of water on the western side of the south island of New Zealand. To get to it we opted to hike with a group of similarly minded people over a 33.5 mile track over three days. There was but one mountain pass, easily managed. The hike was mostly flat and not straining except that we endured five inches of rainfall over the last two days.

But we were not cold, and after the rain penetrates boots and ponchos and everything is wet, there’s no worry left. Things cannot get wetter. At the end of each day was a hut and a private room with a shower. There is also a communal drying room where we put our clothing, packs and boots so that for the first half hour of the following day we would be dry.

Our group covered the globe, North America, Holland, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Korea and Japan. It was not a tight-knit group as we have experienced before, but nice people nonetheless. Our three guides were perky and attentive, as they are paid to be. We were group #91 of this tracking season. Most groups are 40-50 people, but ours was only 21. I do not know why.

The highlight of the trip was the scenery. The mountains here are fierce and steep, jutting abruply out of Middle Earth with vertical rises as steep as Eiger. The entire landscape is glaciated, and the amount of water running over and through these mountains is of Noah proportions. With the two-day deluvium the steep mountain sides were overrun by countless waterfalls. The entire countryside as we hiked was a wall of water. We crossed 286 bridges, many but a couple of feet wide, and many more streams that were unbridged. “Don’t try to go around the puddles,” we were told as the rains set in. There was no point. We were going to get wet. At times the water was up to our thighs.

It all ended today with a boat ride down the fjord, excuse me, sound. The sun was out, waterfalls tamed, as this countryside is used to disposing of large amounts of rain in short order. There was on the sound a massive luxury yacht we were told belonged to a Russian oligarch on the ‘outs’ with the current government. I cannot load photos from my camera to here just now, but the yacht was huge and splendid, reminding me in its shape of the Starship Enterprise. I imagine it takes thirty people to move it about, and that the owner is named or is related to someone named “Boris.”

Tomorrow we are on a bus and off to do part of the Routeburn Track, a higher mountain climb. This time we’ll be day hiking, no groups or huts – this will be the way for the rest of our trip.

An “anachronism” is a chronological inconsistency, something that does not fit in a sequence of events or is out-of-place in a timeline. For instance, if we are watching a movie about the old west and see a man on horseback who also happens to be wearing a wristwatch, an astute observer might wonder if he is really just watching fiction.

Thus do we read the following in Le Figaro, 11 October 2001:

Dubai, one of the seven emirates of the Federation of the United Arab Emirates, North-East of Abi-Dhabi. This city, population 350,000, was the backdrop of a secret meeting between Osama bin Laden and the local CIA agent in July [2001]. A partner of the administration of the American Hospital in Dubai claims that public enemy number one stayed at this hospital between the 4th and 14th of July.

Having taken off from the Quetta airport in Pakistan, bin Laden was transferred to the hospital upon his arrival at Dubai airport. He was accompanied by his personal physician and faithful lieutenant, who could be Ayman al-Zawahari–but on this sources are not entirely certain–, four bodyguards, as well as a male Algerian nurse, and admitted to the American Hospital, a glass and marble building situated between the Al-Garhoud and Al-Maktoum bridges.

To the casual observer, this makes no sense, and so is shelved. But some of us know not to disregard anachronisms when events of a suspicious nature like 9/11 (or Boston, Charlie Hebdo, or the public execution of a president) occur. Seen in the proper framework, the CIA agent meeting with Osama bin Laden as he receives care for his very serious kidney condition makes perfect sense if …

… Osama bin Laden was a patsy. We know he had been in the service of CIA for many decades going back to the covert war in Afghanistan in the 1980’s. In July of 2001, a big event was on the horizon, scheduled for September, and the patsy had to be available to take the fall. So in the intervening months he had to be babysat. That’s part of a routine service provided by CIA, a full-service spook agency. They were tending to his health. He could not die before the event. (Evidence suggests he did die shortly after.)

How do I know this? I have spent countless hours trying to understand the events of that day, hundreds of hours listening to talks, watching videos, and even reading books. But we all know the truth is hard to come by. Those lectures, videos and books could be full of lies. So I deal in volume, and wait, patiently, for some order to emerge from chaos. And the babysitting of Osama bin Laden is part of that order that emerged over time.

The use of patsies is commonplace throughout recorded history. Famous patsies include Guy Fawkes, Gavrilo Princip, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan and James Earl Ray. Also common is the construction of a false narratives designed to obfuscate, obscure, confuse and distract curious people from real events. Often the videos, lectures and books on the subject are part of the obfuscation effort. One has to be wary at all times.

Given all of the false leads and deliberate obfuscation that goes on, how do I know that the CIA meeting with Osama at a hospital in Dubai really happened? It could be that the Le Figaro article of October, 2011, is also a planted story, a “golden apple,” or false evidence meant to be found.

Nothing is 100% reliable. If we learn that CIA is just messing with us by planting the Le Figaro article, then it is back to the drawing board. The search for truth has no end and many detours.

I guess it would be easier just to turn off my brain and buy into the official story with all its inconsistencies, impossibilities, and anachronisms. That would sure make this vigilant citizenry business more manageable. However, for any who do not swallow whole on the official story, I can help by eliminating some unnecessary distractions. Those people who are telling us that the buildings were brought down by controlled demolition, nano-thermites, or by use of “mini-nukes” are part of the obfuscation crew, put out there to mislead. Part of the task in understanding events is to decide who is telling lies, who is not. There are a few rules, but no guarantees. One rule is that when a plane is close to its target, it tends to draw more flak.

With that in mind, I urge anyone ready for some unsettling, disturbing and mind-altering drugs to read Where Did the Towers Go?, a 500 page exposition of evidence without firm conclusion, written by a professor of mechanical engineering who specialized in experimental stress analysis, structural mechanics, deformation analysis, materials characterization and materials engineering science. She does not claim to know who, or even how, and instead focuses on what happened that day. It is startling.

It appears to me that for all my hundreds of hours trying to understand 9/11, Dr. Judy Wood draws the most flak. She might be a golden apple, but might also be the real deal. My guess at this point in time is that she is closer to truth than any others.

But then of course, that could be wrong too. CIA and other spook agencies around the world, who know no national loyalty, are masters at the construction of riddles.

The following video, sent to me by a relative, made me sad. People actually fall for this stuff.

That reminds, me, listening to sports programs on the radio yesterday, the deflated balls story is consuming lots of bandwidth. It’s not a real story, and will go away next week when the real Superbowl hype kicks in. This appears to be a planted story to keep the game in the news and on people’s minds.

People imagine such things happen naturally. These would be the same people who are now checking their mobile phone flashlights to see if the Russians or Chinese have invaded.

Richard K. Moore retired from Silicon Valley in 1994 and moved to Ireland, and since then has been trying to understand “how the world works.” That’s quite a task, not unlike trying to understand plate tectonics while standing in a corn field in Iowa. There is only so much the human mind can grasp. By definition all of our understandings of the complicated human affairs around us are reductionist. Still, we must try.

Moore’s piece from late last year, Mind Control: Orwell, Huxley, and Today’s Reality, has sat in my basket for quite a while, Post-It flags sticking out of it like quills on a porcupine. Here are a few insightful passages:

One of the first large-scale deployments of cult technology, informed by this [mind control, aka MKULTRA] research, was the creation of the Jihad movement by the CIA. The immediate purpose was to destabilize the Soviet regime, by tying it down in a quagmire in Afghanistan. This operation was quite successful. Since then, the Jihad cult movement – aka Taliban, Al Qaeda, Kosovo Liberation Army, ISIS, etc. – has proven to be an extremely useful tool for the purpose of destabilizing regimes, in pursuit of US geopolitical objectives. These destabilization operations in turn provide an excuse for direct US intervention, as we’ve seen recently in Libya and Iraq, and as we may soon see in Syria.

It is perhaps best not to hit you, dear reader, which such a far-reaching idea so early on. It would help to read the whole article, a mere 4,000 words or so. But indeed, the CIA after after World War II did embark on mind control experimentation, leading to psychiatric abuses rivaling anything credited to the Nazis, and experimentation with drugs, including introduction of LSD into the mainstream consciousness during the 1960’s.

That is more or less where I left off, and Moore now fills the picture for me. I knew that Jonestown was a cult experiment followed by a mass murder (not suicide). To what end I could not fathom. To begin to broaden my picture, and see the Jihad movements, color revolutions, and now ISIS, as the result of decades of research and experimentation by our spooks … is not comforting. But it does speak to the nature of people, the need to follow, trusting that someone has better and deeper knowledge. We are tribal beasts.

We see this same multi-cult dynamic operating in the US, in the divisiveness between liberals and conservatives. Liberals are kept in the fold by stories of conservative folly, and conservatives are kept in the fold by stories of liberal folly. In a propaganda-only system of control, there would be one party line for everyone. In this multi-cult system, there are two party lines, which we might characterize as CNN vs. FOX.

While the two party lines have many differences, in order to keep the two cults separated, they in fact share basic essentials in common. They both sustain the myth that state policy is a response to public sentiment, and they blame the other cult for providing support for the ‘bad’ policies. In fact US policy is made outside of government, by financial elites, and the state aims to control public sentiment, not respond to it. In this way we can see CNN and FOX as collaborators, sharing the common goal of hiding this fundamental truth from the people. The Democratic and Republican parties collaborate toward this same goal, using Congress as a stage, where they carry on a theater of divisiveness, providing the appearance of a democratic decision-making process.

This part I get. I used to watch the Daily Show religiously every evening, taking delight in the crisp, smart humor. But then I thought … who listens to this stuff but the choir? FOX followers, the object of much of the humor, don’t watch the Daily Show. They are busy talking about liberals, making fun of them in the same manner, though FOX people are not very funny. Still, it is inner-directed group reinforcing behavior, nothing more, solidifying group identification and that of the enemy.

The Barack Obama phenomenon provides an excellent example of cult tactics in action. Obama himself is obviously a natural cult leader, articulate and charismatic. He came onto the scene offering an inspiring core belief in deep reform, “The ground of politics has changed; Yes we Can!”. The dramatic effect was intense, as if we were witnessing the Second Coming. Campaign volunteers became the core of the budding Obama cult, and they were given lots of work to do, binding their identity to Obama and his professed mission. … The success of this mind-control operation was truly amazing. Obama in fact proceeded to carry on and expand everything Bush had been doing; the ground of politics hadn’t changed at all. But the cult binding was so strong that his support continued, by the very people who had hated Bush because of the same policies. Packaged arguments were put forward, to keep people in the cult, blaming Obama’s performance on Republican opposition – the standard divisiveness tactic. Even today there remain legions of Obama loyalists. Once bound to a cult, leaving becomes psychologically difficult.

Well, I have no doubt lost all readers by this point, so I’ll write the rest of this to myself. No worries about offending anyone.

Mormons are a cult. Any religion is, but Mormons are the best example because they openly practice what others do only subtly, indoctrinating their youth, expelling any bad-thinkers, and making sure that the authority of the Elders is never, ever questioned. We all know about that. The thing that strikes me about the Mormons that I know is that they are so goddamned happy. They don’t have to think.

There’s another word that Moore uses that struck me as useful: Immunization. I know about this, having been brought up Catholic. Not only was I indoctrinated, I was immunized. Anyone who spoke against Catholics was doing the work of the devil, and I knew to avoid them.

There is another form of immunization going on in our society, and it is aimed at the likes of me and Moore and any others who have freed their minds, escaped, so to speak. It is the “conspiracy theory meme.” Moore writes quite a few paragraphs about it. Here is his close:

Thus for the majority of the population we have a tightly controlled, two-tier, mind-control regime. The thoughtcrime dynamic governs what the media says, and the conspiracy-theory dynamic immunizes people against other views. For the majority, the party line (either CNN or FOX) is ‘truth’, as in Orwell’s world, but without the need for Big Brother’s extreme methods.

Thus do I marvel at the mountains of important writing and research done by smart people with inquiring minds and scholarly habits, and how people who imagine themselves smart instantly reject and avoid it as a “conspiracy theory.” Thus is our most important information hidden in broad daylight. That is an amazing thought control accomplishment.

It is sheer genius. There’s no winning in our greater Latter Day Saint world. We’re mostly Mormons in the spirit. Consequently, I don’t worry about convincing people, converting people, or doing anything to advance the cause of free thought.

You either get it, or you don’t. If you do, then you understand what I am about to say: Life is beautiful, interesting, and intriguing. It is fun. And we cannot be fixed.

Life is interesting. I don’t know how to get that across to people who are living down below, down in that place where truth is handed you on a platter, where nothing is understood until explained by a two-dimensional talking head possessed of a one-dimensional brain. I wonder what it was like before television.

We reflect our environment. Americans have no reason to wonder why they revere certain facial structures, such as Lincoln or Washington, and abhor others, such as Hitler or Osama bin Laden. They don’t realize that it is merely stimuli used to control their thoughts.

Perhaps two thousand years ago, certain leaders realized the state of the average human, and sought to bring order to chaos by introducing fables and symbols. No one understood the nature of the sun, the giver of life, so it became a god, the big deity alongside other minor ones like the moon (Meres, or Mary), the five wandering planets. Each year in the northern hemisphere, where most of us live, the sun would each day move further away on the horizon, and it got cold and plants withered and died. It kept moving away, but then stopped, and appeared by optical illusion to rest in place for three days. And then journey back. The son rose again.

Without that return journey, humans were doomed. The solstice was a celebration of the son’s return. People imagined it had faces and personality and powers, and that it even cared about us.

Roman leaders realized that if they could place human faces on those symbols that people would bow to people instead of planets, and could thereby be controlled. Thus did the Roman empire adopt Christianity as the one true religion, destroying all the remnants of any other it could find, along with the people who believed otherwise.

It’s a practice that repeats in other parts of life. Concepts that are too large for the average mind to grasp, like security in resources, elimination of underclasses, encirclement of potential enemies, and power for its own sake – no leader will appear on the TV screen and admit these to be the true objectives of wars and conquests. Instead, human faces have to be put on the concepts, making them into deities of a sort. In recent times, the desire to control resources became Osama bin Laden, the need to eliminate lesser beings the hooded “terrorist,” and the encirclement of potential enemies is now called “Putin.” These symbols become our reality, sublimely suggested to us day in and out on our electronic screens. Thus are our minds under control of the state.

We’ve had a bit of a blog kerfuffle these past few days over the attacks in France, whatever substance lie beneath. It’s mere imagery, the use of the “terrorist”, the mindless robot who kills without reason and out of sheer hatred and who therefore must be himself killed. It’s timeliness is undisputed, as it comes at a time when the President of France and those around him were deviating from control, making nice with Russia. That the actors were available, the script written in advance, and that it is all understood from one capital to another – befuddles people. Surely they cannot manufacture events of this magnitude on a dime! Surely it is a random event, unplanned, and unpurposed.

Step back, jump on a cloud, get above it all. Of course they can and do. The leading classes and their armies of technicians, and planners, and hired thugs can put on plays of this type almost at will, as their resources, experience and technical skills are almost unbounded. The politicians whom we imagine to be our elected leaders are just actors, themselves scared of the power that manifests around them. They play along to survive.

It’s a complicated world, but an interesting one too. Think of it this way: If they can make you believe, really believe in virgin births and men who rise from the dead and reside in your brain and need to be conversed with daily, can they not make you believe anything? They do have power over your perceptions, and they do have control of the TV screen. They do own your reality.

Alex Carey, the Australian writer/psychologist, wrote that the greatest achievement of American propaganda is that is has convinced Americans that there is no American propaganda.

That may be. It’s a good insight. But as I look around me and the horrors that American foreign policy has visited on the world in my lifetime, I offer up a second-place candidate:

American propaganda has convinced Americans that Americans are the victims of terrorism, rather than the major perpetrators.