The paper caper, footnote

This is written just to complete the circle from a prior post on the fake whistle blower, Daniel Ellsberg.

Follow this link to Wikipedia, and then down to the section titled “Repeal.” Wiki is heavily censored but often has information hidden in broad daylight. This is such an entry. It is about the Gulf of Tonkin affair, and the resolution that was the legal justification for the Vietnam War.

Maybe you did, but I did not know until recently that Congress repealed that resolution in January of 1971. It was perhaps the last gasp of breath by Congress before the institution was taken down by CIA. Congress these days is a fake lawmaking body, rubber stamping laws written by corporate and other power centers, and quivering in its boots before the executive. It is of no use or purpose.

Note then that Daniel Ellsberg appeared on the scene with the Pentagon Papers in February of 1971. It was a distraction. The paper caper would dominate the news for months to come, only to be supplanted by Watergate. News that Tonkin was repealed, that the Vietnam War was illegal from 1971 forward, would be buried in the clutter.

That explains the paper caper, and at least in part Watergate.

Two things to note: One, if we have an event that dominates the news, like OJ or Monica or the Michael Jackson trial or Donald Trump, it is a cue to be alert for what else is going on. These events serve to cloud the landscape and distract us. Just as we do not have a real Congress, we do not have real news. It manipulates us, but does not inform.

And two, the purposes of reading are many – to enlighten, entertain, inspire, relax and to keep our minds sharp as we age. If, from reading, we are able to connect dots and gain some understanding of this crazy world, then it is worth doing for that reason alone. It is not done so that we can make lists of books we have read or have impressive book shelves.

A ghost among us

Have you ever experienced a “Duh!” Moment where you slap your forehead upon seeing something painfully obvious? I had such a moment last evening.

Go back to the year 2000, and the presidential election. Normally, the parties just take turns. The person holding the office is a ribbon cutter, not much more. Some, like Clinton and Obama, are very good at it, having good memories and stage presence being very good at making speeches. They seem presidential, and that is the only real job requirement.

Those two were groomed for the office. The fact that each changed their names at a young age is a hint that they were being prepared for big things ahead. (Oddly, Gerald Ford changed his name at a young age too.) They were on the calendar, so to speak, scheduled to burst on the scene, as if spontaneous.

George Herbert Walker Bush is a powerful man, and apparently a talented man as well. He must be a very efficient administrator, a “gets the job done” kind of guy. He served as president unofficially for eight years, and officially for four. He was then moved aside by Ross Perot to make way for Clinton. But he never lost touch, never really left the realm of power, or so it appears.

His son, George W. Bush was a clown, a man who lacked gravitas, abhorred study and had to be puffed up by PR staff to be electable. In a real world if these men, the candidates, were more than images in a TV screen, he could not have been elected constable of Podunk county. But he was chosen, and more than chosen, was forced on us. When it became apparent that Al Gore was going to win in 2000, the Supreme Court stepped in and just outright handed the office to Bush. It mattered a whole lot to some very powerful people that Bush, and not Gore, hold that fake office.

Why? Here is my “duh!” moment. It was not about electing W, but rather returning HW to power. 9/11 was on the calendar, and they wanted a man with a proven track record to manage the Oval Office end of it. The government was only a small part of the events of that day, but it required someone with brains and administrative skill to make sure that end of the operation held together. No screw ups!

George Herbert Walker Bush may be one if the most important men ever to crawl about in the alleys of power in this country. He was there for the Bay of Pigs, for JFK’s departure, for Watergate, Iran Contra,  Reagan’s departure, the Afghanistan War, the Iraq attacks. He ran the CIA while Ford was president. He was de facto president from ’80 to 88, and then for real for four years after that. And now I realize that he was there for 9/11 too.

He’s an old man now, soon to depart, and I won’t shed a tear. But I am in awe of his accomplishments. He’s been like a ghostly presence in all of the important [public] events in this country for the last fifty years or more.

Zika is currently on the back burner, but will rise again

Despite the enormous amount of electronic stimulation we have all about us, we know virtually nothing of the world. It is simply too big to grasp. So the electronic sources step in and provide a glimpse.

But the images we see could be real or fake. Imagine the power that television has, to supply images. Those images stand between us and the real world, supplying our reality.

Continue reading “Zika is currently on the back burner, but will rise again” →

The paper caper

EllsbergTo have been young, in my twenties, during the time of Watergate, was fortunate. Of course I did not understand it – very few did then, and possibly fewer now. The obvious object was removal of a president, replacement by a cardboard cutout. But the psychological aspects are far more intriguing than the outcome. For a period of two years we were hit with a barrage of false news, false hearings, liars telling liars about other liars, and the news media positioning itself as an investigative body.

It takes years to understand such mechanizations, and of course it is ever ongoing. That is why I say I was fortunate to be young.

Prior to  that time we had a distraction within a distraction, the strange episode called the “Pentagon Papers.” Has anyone read them? Of course not. Did anyone read them then? Of course not. And to do so then or now would be a waste of time. Their content was not the issue. They were lies meant to cover even bigger lies. Their existence was the issue, however. It was a wild game played by a few low-level operatives designed to distract us** from some of the more seedy goings on in Vietnam, but also to enhance the notion that we have a news media that seeks truth.

There are indeed secrets, but those secrets are kept. They are never released, even by accident. But some broomstick cowboys got to play spies. Some newspapers got to play pretend journalism. The most important man, appointed for the role, was Daniel Ellsberg. He’s a fake, top to bottom, beginning to end. He was hired as an actor to pay the part he played, and does so to this day. (His support of Edward Snowden is, in poker terms, a “tell,” alerting us that Snowden too is fake.)

How do I know this? Again, he enjoys prominence, and has paid no price for his “crime,”

Daniel_Ellsberg_psychiatrist_filing_cabinetObserve the scene, August, 1971, when five CIA operatives broke in to the office of Lewis Fielding, Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. Set aside for the moment the strange notion of a man of such high intellect and position needing a shrink. That was probably an invention. The important thing was the break-in. It was sloppy, meant to be discovered, and its discovery got Ellsberg off the hook. As was intended from the beginning. Like a TV sitcom, it was the last-minute wrap-up that resolved all the problems.*

Of course, one question leads to another, one spook to another, and from here we discover that other men were playing the spy game at the same time, running around to motels, using primitive photocopy technology of the day, trying against time to get these very important papers released. Did Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn believe in their cause? Were they duped? Were they, like Ellsberg, low-level operatives?

Good question.

Daniel Ellsberg, false leader.
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*For those unfamiliar with the history of that era, Ellsberg was on trial and facing life imprisonment for his “crime,” and the break-in resulted in his case being tossed out of court and his being set free.

**In January of 1971, Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, removing the legal underpinnings for the Vietnam War. From that day forward, Nixon would claim the war was being fought by legitimate presidential authority alone, negating any balance of power. Since so few people know about the repeal, it might be a safe bet to suggest that the purpose of the paper caper, which commenced in February of 1971,  was to distract from the illegality of the war, which would go in for four more years.

Trivial by association

False leaders need to be believable, and so usually say things that are true – in fact, it does not matter if 90% of their words hit on the truth, as the 10% that is withheld is usually critical. Jane Fonda was often spot-on in her fake opposition to the Vietnam War.

If the real purpose of a false leader is to lead people down a dead-end street, the truth will serve as well as lies in getting us there. Thus do false leaders often speak the truth in service of lies and liars.

To repeat: False leaders are usually easy to spot. They 1) do not suffer consequences for their actions, and 2) receive wide mainstream publicity.

As a negative example, take Bradley Manning (now Chelsea, we are told, but who really knows? That whole transgender routine seems ginned up in order to discredit the man*). He was imprisoned, deprived of the basics of life, tortured, tried, found guilty and is still in prison. (So we are told, but have no way of knowing. Habeas corpus is a dead letter.)  He serves as an example to others. The government does not tolerate true whistle blowers.

So Bradley Manning paid a price, and did not profit in any way for his actions, in fact, has suffered immensely.

Bradley Manning: The real deal.
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JennyThat is all just to lay groundwork for the next false leader I want to expose, Jenny McCarthy.

Our overlords are clever and wise, and do not reason with us. Rather, they undermine us in every way possible. The pharmaceutical industry is among the most corrupt institutions that has ever existed in human history, completely at odds with its own stated purpose. It needs to make people sick and keep them that way to ensure sale of their monopolized and overpriced products. They have invented diseases, all of which share a common characteristic: They cannot be cured. They can only be managed. And management requires daily ingestion of a pill. As I view the landscape,  PhRMA will not let loose a pill for less than $10 per unit.

In addition to the psychotropic drug phenomenon we are witnessing, where between ten and twenty percent of the the population is on antidepressants and millions of normal bright kids are taking a drug to treat a disorder that does not even exist – ADD …

… it is never enough for PhRMA. They are also attacking us via the vaccine route. They are now pushing hundreds of them world wide, and as with ADD, school children are the most lucrative market segment, because using kids as a shield can induce taxpayers to foot the bill.

In so doing, they need legal protection, and so demanded and got from Congress (yes, “demand” is the proper word in our system) protection from liability should the vaccines not serve their purpose or have untoward side effects. It is a crime against humanity, and for that … they need protection on the upside from government, which they have, but also on the downside from false leaders.

Jenny McCarthy fills that role.

Jenny is compromised from the start, as she was a Playboy Bunny, and has spent more time in front of cameras naked than clothed. Who takes such a person seriously? But thrust in the role of leader of the anti-vaccination movement, she serves to discredit all behind her. Once people have it firmly in mind that Jenny McCarthy, Playboy Bunny, is leading the charge, they easily dismiss the vaccination problem as trivial.

And who takes vaccine poisoning seriously? Explore this for yourself. Ask random acquaintances about the vaccine problems like autism, brain damage, and gauge the response. It will run from clueless to “Oh, yeah, that’s that thing with the Playboy Bunny – I don’t pay much attention.”

It is no accident.

And what has become of Jenny since she took on this courageous challenge? Was she imprisoned? Tortured? Marginalized? Did her career hit the toilet? No. Not hardly. Her career has gotten important inhancements at critical points, from doing a long gig on the sitcom Two and a Half Men, having her own syndicated talk show, and now occupying a slot on The View. She has thrived.

Jenny McCarthy: False leader.
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*Think about it – are his captors going to finance such bizarre elective surgery? They might indeed cut off his penis, but would only do so for sake of recreational mutilation. Perhaps more likely, Manning has been mind-f******, and is a barely functioning human now.

Another false leader to consider

oliver_stoneI am going to continue on the path of false leaders, as it seems a rich vein to mine, offering a broad view of the degree of thought control that exists in our society. Our masters do not let the dog wander freely. We are always on the end of a leash even if we do not know it.

I emphasize that it is not an isolated phenomenon. It is pervasive, and affects every aspect of our lives from music and entertainment to art, politics, education and philosophy. We are in the grips of tyranny, and exhibit Stockholm Syndrome in historic proportion, even rivaling the people of North Korea (if our information about that country is remotely true).

We are told that people of the Soviet Union lived under tyranny, yet look at what is apparent! They were able to change their governments and improve their lives without bloodshed. As Ricky so often said … “Lucy, ‘splain.” Because there ain’t no way that could happen here.

The vehicle of false leadership offers a portal to the other side. Today I am going to mention just one:

  • Oliver Stone: The 1991 movie JFK came out of Hollywood at a time when CIA/military control of the movie industry had long been in place. Every now and then some minor picture will leak through, like Wag the Dog, or one that subliminally hints at hidden reality, like The Matrix. But Stone’s JFK was a big budget slap in the face to power, complete with high production values and big-name actors. How did that movie get made? Why did Stone’s career not end? That sort of thing does not happen by accident.

I asked myself that question when the movie came out, but was too deep in the matrix to begin to see the answer. Here is Miles Mathis on the subject:

It has long been clear to almost all intelligent people who study the evidence that the Warren Commission was a cover-up. Something like 80% of those polled admit they don’t believe the Warren Commission report and we must assume that the other 20% are very gullible. Some have also studied the so-called conspiracy theories — the alternate theories, that is. But it should be equally clear that then alternate theories are, in most ways, just as full of holes and just as poorly constructed as the standard theory. Like the Warren Commission report, the alternate theories also read like propaganda. …

Let me suggest to you that both sets of stories were created mainly as misdirection and disinformation. This is not to say that all alternate theorists are controlled by the government or by anyone else. It is only to suggest that alternate theories — in all forms but one – seem to be encouraged by the government and the powers that be. We have always assumed that alternate theories would be frowned upon or discouraged, and yet we have never seen much real effort at suppression. In fact, in most cases, the dissemination of alternate theories would seem to be abetted by the mainstream, not suppressed. … For the powers that be, it may not matter whether you believe there was one shooter or many, or even whether you believe that the CIA or FBI was involved. The only thing that is critical is that you believe Kennedy was assassinated that day …

The words in bold in that quote – I added the emphasis because it explains why Oliver Stone was allowed to make that movie, funded, given access to Hollywood’s best actors, and then enjoyed wide distribution. His movie, more than any other propaganda source, is responsible for the cottage industry of JFK-related books, YouTubes and lectures. He has constructed a false narrative, rewritten history, and entrapped us in the matrix.

Does Oliver Stone know his role? I believe so. He’s no fool. He’s gone on to make other movies, and did a long historical series on Showtime that glossed right over the most important fake event of our own times, 9/11. For Stone, it is a two-fer. His role in re-framing American history is writ large.

I have listened to Stone in interviews with JFK researchers. He seems short and intemperate, always needing to move on. And now I know why. He’s living a lie, like all false leaders do. It affects them all differently – some lie with ease, as did Jane Fonda, some become recluses, like Neil Armstrong, some affect idiosyncrasies, like Max Baucus’s stuttering in public.

For Stone, it is just short-tempered flirtation with honest but misguided people. He is not comfortable doing it.

Oliver Stone: False Leader.

How to spot false leaders

[This is a rework of an earlier post, with a little more justification behind my contention that most of our leaders are false leaders, as real leaders are a pain in the ass.]
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Two recurring themes on this blog are the nature of power, and false leadership, or “controlled opposition.” If one wants to understand the landscape around us, a firm grasp of both are critical.

Power is the ability to cause another person to submit to your will. When a majority is governed by a minority, as we are, issues of power become critical, as the masses have to be persuaded that the minority interests are actually the “national interest.”

There are many means available, among them logical persuasion, subversion, bribery and brute force. The least effective means of bending others to our will are persuasion and brute force. For this reason, we are constantly bombarded with clever lies, manipulative advertising and staged events, all designed to influence and undermine our thinking.

Among the most effective devices in controlling our thoughts and actions is the false leader. Most often, this is a person of low character who has been bribed to behave and speak in a certain manner. False leaders are easy to spot. They usually receive large publicity, and pay no price for anti-authoritarian behavior.

I will give but a few examples, and then get on with my day:

  • Jane Fonda. This woman came to symbolize the burgeoning antiwar movement of the late sixties. Her mission was to discredit it. Cameras followed her everywhere, including a trip to North Vietnam where she was photographed in a gun turret pretend-firing at American bombers. It was iconic. Mission accomplished. Were she a true dissident she would have paid a hefty price for her activity, consorting with the enemy, but she went on to a lucrative movie career, among other activities.
  • John Kerry. This man stood before cameras and tossed his war medals over a fence in front of the U.S. Capitol. It was a staged event – remember, cameras were there, meaning they had advance notice. Later, he would be asked to testify before congress, be elected senator, marry an heiress, run for president, and become Secretary of State. That sort of good fortune does not happen to a real leaders. True dissidents are hounded, terrorized, jailed, beaten, tortured, but never asked to run for high office, and almost never marry into the oligarchy.
  • Julian Assange. Supposedly holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Assange generated the “leaks” that stoked the flames of color revolutions, starting in Tunisia. The revolutions, the so-called “Arab Spring,” while not staged, were fomented by agents provocateur, and done to cause regime change in targeted countries. Assange, a towhead, merely needs darken his hair to wander freely about, which he surely does, only occasionally appearing at the embassy for a photo op. All of the highly publicized stories of his troubles in Sweden have been invented to enhance his image as a dissident.

This is fun, an easy subject for writing with a wide array of candidates, including Bernie Sanders, Fidel Castro, and the most prominent of all, Barack Obama. They arise for various reasons to achieve various ends – to mislead and undermine popular movements, to ensure that popular dissent is contained, or just to distract us while real business goes on in secret. It is all part of “full spectrum dominance,” where no matter where we turn for effective leadership, we come face-to-face with the enemy.

I’ll offer some more over time, maybe in the coming days, and hope that readers can contribute as well.

John Galt exited, and the world shrugged

This is an embarrassing incident that happened in 2006: My wife and I went to see the remastered version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail at a local theater, I want it say in Bozeman, but the memory feels more like Billings, Montana. There were five people in the theater that night. We sat in the back, and several rows in front of us were three who, as the movie went along, were able to recite every line.

The embarrassment is that we went to see a movie whose time had long passed, the importance and humor of which was exaggerated in my mind.

I imagine that others had a similar experience as the movie Atlas Shrugged played to immense empty houses in 2011.

Which reminds me: A certain man I know, let’s call him Bob Bilby, made a profound life choice in 2007. Bob is an engineer, and helped design and build bridges and tunnels. Fed up with what he called “leeches and bums” feeding off of his enormous wealth output, Bob decided to “go Galt,” and retire to a cabin in the mountains at an undisclosed location.

He began to notice something from his cabin retreat – bridges and tunnels were still being built and widely used. And … no one was looking for him.

In 2009, Bob Bilby quietly rejoined society, and now authors a blog.

I make fun of Rand and Randians. A post from years ago, “Was Ayn Rand a Sociopath?,” still draws readers and comments. But I am familiar with a certain element within our ranks – people who live off of the output of others. They are called “children,” “disabled,” “students,” and to a smaller degree, trust babies and lazy bums.

Our output is enormous, large enough to support all of them, so we do not have a problem with stretched resources. Distribution of those resources is a problem, as by luck and happenstance a large percentage of our wealth ends up in a few hands.

Those who enjoy good fortune and are able to amass a fortune often imagine that luck and happenstance had nothing to do with it. They imagine themselves not just more talented, but immensely so, and not lucky, but rather entitled.

Sometimes they go Bob Bilby on us. I imagine once retired to their cabin in the woods, they begin to grow in depth and humanity, and become the anti-Rand versions of themselves, humbler, more welcoming and accepting of people as we are. They begin to realize that we’re all part of one being, all in various stages of development, many in need of a reboot.

Then they start their own blogs.

Beauty queens and quarterbacks

Figure Skating In Harlem's 2010 Skating With The Stars Benefit Gala

We got an ice storm late yesterday and I was curious about road conditions. I turned on the TV – here in Denver there are usually three or four local news shows going at once.  What caught my eye was the sight of a beautiful young woman standing in a green screen shot of I70 up by Vail, a sheet of ice. She referred to herself as a “meteorologist.”

I had to laugh. I did not know that the University of Phoenix even offered that degree.

I used to watch a TV show called “House” because I thought the lead character, a complete Asperger’s manifesto named Dr. Gregory House, was interesting. But I had to quit the show because it insulted my intelligence. Every “doctor” was gorgeous and had near genius IQ. Just like the old TV show ER, where one of the lead characters was played by the gorgeous gay actor George Clooney … it was the realm of fantasy.

It does not work that way. Go to your local clinic or any hospital and check out the people. They are like people everywhere, mostly ordinary, aging, fighting bulges and losing hair. Only occasionally is there one of exceptional good looks, usually occupying a low-demand slot like receptionist. And chewing gum.

There is a reason for that. Most good looking people find they do not have to work as hard as regular people to succeed, and so don’t. They do not gravitate to professions like doctor and nurse, scientist or engineer because those fields require extreme effort and intelligence for success. High school cheerleaders and star quarterbacks already know at a young age that doors will open for them without much effort.

So it is no surprise that good looking people end up in acting, or as pharmaceutical sales reps, real estate agents, or as news readers and “meteorologists” on TV. Or, they marry successful people, become arm candy and social managers. It goes both ways, but predominately (and throughout recorded history) it is the beautiful woman who is married to the successful man of ordinary appearance. (Right, Melania?)

So remember, if you are one who uses television news to define your reality, that the people who read that news to you got there not because they are smart or insightful, but rather because they are good looking. They will read anything they are told to read, and are even dumb enough to believe what they read.

Are you?

A follow-up on “mental illness”

In a discussion of “mental illness” below, I neglected to highlight the work of a woman (linked to the right here) with first-hand experience in the field, a former beauty queen and pharmaceutical rep (and the two are not coincidentally related), Gwen Olsen. I highly recommend her book, Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher, as a primer. It opens the door to the seedy world of PhRMA, ineffective and overpriced drugs, and a corrupt culture taken over by rent seekers whose only objective is to create dependency on pills to make cash flow.

They actually spend their time creating diseases to justify the pills, and schmoozing and bribing the psychiatric professionals (who seem unable to resist) to prescribe them. It is utterly corrupt. As Olsen says,

image

The most frightening aspects of our pill culture are the unknown interactions of various drugs when taken at once, or even taken serially, as their half-lives allow them to linger in our systems as the shrinks jump from one prescription to another looking for one that might actually work.

Ms. Olsen is doing her best. Heed her warning:

                                            WARNING/DISCLAIMER:
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO WITHDRAW FROM ANY PSYCHIATRIC MEDICATION ABRUPTLY, AS THIS COULD EXACERBATE SEVERE AND LIFE-THREATENING SYMPTOMS!

It may require a period of weeks or months to successfully discontinue your medication. I am not a licensed practitioner and cannot make diagnoses and/or medical treatment recommendations as such. Please consult a qualified doctor before adjusting or discontinuing any medication regimens.

This link at her website has an (unfortunately) limited list of resources to assist people who are hooked on benzodiazepines, antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs.