Wild wings

I was looking for the origins of the phrase “wild men in the wings.”

I was pondering the significance of an event ranked way down low on the list of atrocities committed by the United States in the postwar era, the deliberate bombing of a trauma hospital in Kunduz in northern Afghanistan.

The phrase sounds Shakespearean, but the Google can only point me at sports teams and chicken recipes and bars …  oh, one other item, a 1967 essay by Noam Chomsky called “The Responsibility of Intellectuals.”  It was published in the New York Review of Books prior to his being banned from that haven for liberal intellectuals … this taxes my sense of irony. I must stop!

Deep in the essay Chomsky quotes McGeorge Bundy, a liberal intellectual and Camelot guy who was an important mover behind the US invasion of Vietnam. That is where the words “wild men in the wings” appears. (If the phrase has another origin, please let me know in the comment section.)

The Responsibility of Intellectuals is one of the most important essays ever written by Chomsky. I strongly urge that readers capable of prolonged concentration give a look. Chomsky addresses the question asked throughout human history – why do intellectuals align themselves with power and against ideals like simple justice and humanity? His prose is accessible and easily understood, though the essay is long.

The Eastern seaboard and California coast and every major city in the United States are bursting with liberal and right-wing intellectuals justifying the fascist course this country has taken since 1945. No atrocity is so significant that it cannot be trivialized. Motives are never questioned. Barbarity, slaughters, genocides are pedestrian affairs ascribed to high ideals.

“Wild men in the wings” refers to military men who run with a policy and turn it into slaughter and mayhem. But they could not succeed without backing from the intellectual class. Who, then, are more dangerous?
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PS: For the benefit of those who do not read the essay, which is deed a homework assignment, I will slip you the answer: “IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.” If you know of any American intellectuals who are actually doing that, please alert your local authorities.

A word about Bernie

Just to set the record straight, a word or two about Bernie Sanders:

He was a weekly guest on the Thom Hartmann show on radio for years, and I listened to him every time I got a chance. I believed then that he was the real deal, a genuine progressive. I ascribed his ascent to Senate as a peculiarity of his home state, Vermont, thinking it could only happen there.

Later I learned he was Jewish and never criticized Israel. But then, no one elected to high office in our country ever voices criticism of Israel, as the punishment is immediate and severe. So that is forgivable.

Later I would learn that Jews tend to be Democrats, and for good reason – during the early postwar period, they were not allowed in the country clubs and skyscraper dining rooms of the Northeast, nor the Republican Party. They were not welcomed as screen writers, authors or any other position of prominence either, and only slowly gained a foothold. (William Gaines and Harvey Kurtzman, who founded Mad Magazine, were Jews who could not make their way into the ad agencies, magazines or TV networks. So they made their own magazine, one that I loved as a kid.)

So don’t ever say that I have any disrespect for Sanders as a Jew. His cultural tradition is rich and glorious, full of humor and suffering. The Jewish culture is a great addition to the American scene. I will never forget that it was young Jews from the Northeast who headed south in the fifties and sixties to help out the fledgling civil rights movement. They were the first whites to take a stand. Silly me – plenty of whites have been involved in civil rights – it was fundamentalist Christians who spurred on abolition in the last century.

When Bernie set out to run for president, I scoffed. When he began to gain traction, I looked for a reason, as the establishment, while having no problem with Jews, hates progressives.

He might knowingly be diddling progressives as a stalking horse. But I find it so difficult to believe that the man who mouthed all those platitudes and was so well versed on the Hartmann show all those years is a phony.

He could be, however. Leadership of the opposition is critical in American politics, with some of our most prominent liberals and progressives actually masked Republicans. Think … Jerry Brown, Jon Tester, John Hickenlooper, Steve Bullock, John Kerry, Barack Obama…

Bernie Sanders? I do not know. I don’t know the man’s heart. I refuse, however, to go all in.

General Reinhard Gehlen

Henry Ford, a Nazi supporter, said that history is bunk, and indeed it is. But a trip down the aisles of Barnes and Noble shows that most works of history are written to reinforce the official stories of our wars and other mechanizations.

Allen Dulles
Allen Dulles

Two well-known names are Allen and John Foster Dulles. They worked for Sullivan Cromwell, highly influential Wall Street law firm, and were drafted into public service by Dwight Eisenhower in his first term. John Foster headed State, and Allen CIA.

They are not the names I am highlighting, but Allen Dulles was instrumental in the rescue of one highly placed Nazi, enlisting him as an American intelligence asset. It was part of a much larger operations called “Paperclip” wherein thousands of ex-Nazis were brought in to help with rocket science, mind control experiments, and intelligence. His name ought to be a household word, but is not. He is General Reinhard Gehlen.

Don-Knotts-1024x892Reinhard GehlenA picture of Gehlan reminds me of Deputy Barney Fife without the humanity. He was a scrawny man, 130 pounds, who possessed a large amount of arrogance and a nasty temper. Gehlen was given control of $200 million to spy on the Soviets. He ran about 4,000 agents in Europe on behalf of the US, as our own intelligence operations were fledgling. When he retired in 1968, Allen Dulles gave him a Swiss chalet, reinforcing my belief that old Nazis never die, but rather retire in luxury. The US shepherded many of them to exile in South American, Argentina a prime destination.

Carl Oglesby wrote about Gehlen in his book The Yankee and Cowboy War: Conspiracies from Dallas to Watergate. He claimed that Gehlen’s role was primarily to protect Odessa, and relocate tens of thousands of ex Nazis throughout Europe, and South and North America. He did this at the expense of US taxpayers.

Gehlen died in 1979. His legacy lives on in CIA, State, throughout Latin American and Europe, but he is never mentioned. How many people of curious mind, once they learned of this man, would go on to read and wonder about the origins of the CIA, the JFK execution, and all that has followed.

Ergo, there’s no mention of Gehlen in our history books.

There is great comfort in lies

I’ve been listening to a podcast off and on from the School Sucks Project about conspiracy theories. Parts of it do not set well with me. For instance, one speaker claims that those of us who have an alternative (and more realistic) view of the world, but are unable to communicate it with others, ought to give it up and merely join the “real” world.

After all, what is the point of knowing things but being unable to communicate them? Cassandra had the ability to foresee the future, but was cursed by Apollo so that no one would ever believe her. My group has the ability to see the past clearly, but we are unable to communicate it to the general public.

I find joining the “real” world untenable because the fault does not lie with me. We live in a highly effective totalitarian society under strict thought control. The ability to break free of thought control  is a rare trait, and a remarkable achievement. To simply set that achievement aside and succumb is as desolate and depressing as the end of Orwell’s 1984. Truth is worthy in its own right. I cannot help those who cannot or will not look for it.

Another part of the podcast is a thought experiment. Assume you were handed a suitcase, and with it an ironclad guarantee that inside were documents that spelled out the truth of JFK, moon landings, 9/11, Boston and untold other events that were contrived.

What would you do?

I would open it up and dive in. I love that sort of thing. But the speakers in the podcast assert that most people would not only not open the suitcase, but would destroy it. There is great comfort in lies.

School Sucks Project, Conspira-thon (The Prequel) Conclusion – No Planes?

Fall book review

We are in Portland for a wedding, my son and his girlfriend of several years. It’s a happy event, they are both so worthy of each other. We have time on our hands, and not wanting to drown in the events around a wedding, have had time to just hang out. Yesterday we were in a coffee shop with book shelves, and so reviewed books for the grandchildren. Thus do I present my first annual review of that genre. These are the best we found in the age 1-2 category.

imageBoo! has a surprise ending, and I will not spoil it for the reader. Children love to be frightened, safely. They need to know it is all pretend, but that still OK to be scared. Author Jonathon Litton knows the mind of a child well, and so as we pass from one suspect to another to learn who it was not, we finally learn in the end who it is. Imagine squeals of delight as the child finds out that facing one’s fears need not be a frightening experience!

imageDaDa, purportedly by Jimmy Fallon, but most likely ghost written, has publicity agency written all over it. The book has been heavily promoted in the Tonight Show, and Fallon tells us that he came up with the concept. More likely he was approached by an ambitious publisher to promote a project, and seeing image enhancement potential, jumped on board. As a dad, I know that even as moms do most of the heavy lifting, a child’s first words are usually “dada,” as the d-sound is easier to make than the m-sound. It’s part of the injustice visited on moms by life. Fallon, a new dad, will soon enough see his nannied child go through the same ritual. In the meantime, avoid this book. It is highly stylized but devoid of real meaning or purpose.

imageChug Chug Tractor claims to be the best tractor book ever. Indeed it might be. Author Dawn Sirett delights the reader with both visual and auditory stimulation. Open the book, flip open a cover on the first page, and a tractor starts up! We hear the engine. On other pages we hear a horse winnie, a teddy bear honk a horn to scare rabbits, and a duck quack. A word of warning: The last page, a hooting owl indicating that it is night time now and time for bed, does not work! The child, stimulated by this fascinating read, does not want bed. More likely you will hear “Let’s read it again!” Also, the batteries tend to wear out right away and are not easy to replace. Still, this book is a top shelf purchase for any parent or grandparent wanting to spend some qt with a youngster. It does grab them.

imageKilling Lincoln – this latest book in the new series by children’s author Bill O’Reilly does not disappoint. Bill and “co” author Martin Degard  know the mind of a child as well as Sirett or any other in the genre, and so delight us with fanciful tales. Follow them in this episode as they solve a murder that has perplexed serious researchers for over a century. Read aloud to a child, this book has the cadence of a children’s mystery.  Bill and company take us to burned out barns, old buildings full of carefully preserved documents. From there they spin a mighty tale of intrigue designed for the American child. Unlike Chug Chug Tractor, the book is indeed an effective sedative, and children are fast asleep within minutes. Few will ever finish this wonderful work of childhood fantasy fiction, but a movie will soon follow.

imageLadybug Girl Says Good Night, by Jackie Davis is highly attuned to the fantasies of a young girl. She’s wearing a fly away costume as she prepares for bed, and so has to take a bubble bath, brush her teeth, but then when those rituals are performed, she re-enters her real life. Back in her Lady Bug clothing, she lays down with all her other animal friends, hoping that as she sleeps she will really, really fly. The book is a delight, guaranteed slumber fare for a young child, making her want to sleep to be able to travel in her dreams.

Most children’s book are written to delight, intrigue, and capture the imagination of youth. This one has but one purpose, to help a child drift into slumber.

The Harper Bone Fragment

The piece is about 2.5: by 2″

The Harper Bone Fragment (Source: HSCA). This bone fragment, measuring 2-1/2” by 2” was found at the rear and to the left of the location of the [JFK] presidential limousine when the fatal head shot occurred. It was found by medical student Billy Harper the day after the assassination. He took it to his uncle, Dr. A.B. Cairns, who was the chief pathologist at Methodist Hospital in Dallas. Dr. Cairns examined it, along with another pathologist, and they both stated that it came from the occipital* region of the skull. The fragment was photographed in the Methodist Hospital photographic lab. The bone fragment was then sent to Dr. George Burkley, the White House physician. From that time on, no one knows what happened to the Harper fragment. It has vanished completely and has not been seen since. The Harper fragment is strong evidence of a shot from the front, perhaps explaining its strange disappearance. If it were available today, it could be analyzed and scientifically identified as to its location in the skull. (Noel Twyman, Bloody Treason, page 222)

What are the implications here? One, the Harper evidence is the strongest evidence available that President Kennedy was shot from the front.

Two, it is very strong evidence that the x-rays of the president’s skull on file in the National Archives are forgeries. The region of his skull from which the fragment came is intact in those.

Implications, anyone?
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*Take your hand and place it across the back of your head, above your neck but below the top, where you would rest it if you were learning back on a pillow. That is the “occipital” region.

I highly recommend that you vote, cheer on your favorite sporting team, and attend church regularly. All are equally effective.

Since I have entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in commerce and manufacture are afraid of somebody, afraid of something. They know there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when the speak in condemnation of it. (Woodrow Wilson, circa 1912)

I have grown more detached and distant from partisan politics since I began to understand it better – a mere distraction. This is not to say that the offices held by various officials are not important, but rather that our selections usually guarantee that no true outsider ever makes his or her way in. Further, office holders are usually corrupt – in fact, corruption is a qualification for office, as it makes a person easier to control.

So I imagine that even relatively decent people who make their way of high office, if not compromised beforehand, are after. Washington is a world of eavesdropping, easy sex and bribes, and two-way mirrors. And if no controversy exists, one can be manufactured.

So I don’t think voting matters. Any way we look at it, we lose.

The office of president is not cast to the wind, however – it is too powerful, too important, to be left in the hands of amateurs. The people who happen to grace that office can be highly astute or very dumb, from Rhodes Scholars and professors to mere caretaker generals to very dumb men like George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. The dumb ones don’t actually take part in policy discussions – in fact, Reagan was shunted to the side and ignored after his attempted assassination right after taking office. We really had twelve years of George H.W. Bush.

It’s all interesting, however, and I’ve stumbled across this before … that Theodore Roosevelt, trust buster, was actually a JP Morgan man, and was persuaded to run as an independent in 1912 to weaken Howard Taft and clear the way for Wall Street’s preferred candidate, Woodrow Wilson.

It makes me reflect on my own ill-considered support for Ralph Nader in 2000, whose only impact was to weaken Al Gore. I don’t care about Gore, just another phony, but I wonder about Nader’s genuineness creds, and of course feel abused and ashamed at being played so easily.

We’ve had a string of interesting men in office, however, and Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are not fools – I imagine each is (was) actively involved in formulating and carrying out mischievous US policy, always subject to oversight, of course,

Which leads me to something that just floors me, it is so intriguing. I don’t know what it means. I believe in coincidence – it has deeply affected my own life. But this is so strange …

Hale Boggs, father of NPR correspondent Cokie Roberts, was a member of the Warren Commission, but a disgruntled one. He only signed on to the final report reluctantly and under pressure. He later became an open critic of the report, wanting a new and better investigation of the JFK murder …

…except, he died in a plane crash in Alaska, his body never recovered. That’s very fishy, and sounds like murder, but without a body, there is no crime to investigate. That event is not uncommon in American politics where small planes are deadly for dissidents of all stripes. The Kennedy family alone has lost three members to small planes, almost a fourth.

Here’s what is so intriguing: Boggs was driven to the airport that morning, October 16, 1972, by a young man whose name we all recognize … William Jefferson Clinton.

The community organizer does not fit the profile

In attempting to understand American politics, it is wise to ignore received information – the stuff we are given by mainstream media. We tend to internalize it without question. It could be just fluff, or cover.

The
The “Community Organizer”

One aspect of the career of Barack Obama that simply does not fit with his beliefs and personality is a stint he did in Chicago in the 1980’s as a “community organizer.” It is plain to see from his record in the White House that he is neither a leftist nor an idealist. He is cagey, smart and secretive. What then was he up to?

There is so much mystery around this man that it is hard to know, but safe to assume, that he was doing something other than what we were told. During this time he formed relationships with Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Dohrn
Dohrn
Ayers
Ayers

Ayers and Dohrn bear the hallmarks of agents provocateur:

  • Their activities in the 1960’s were widely publicized. Like another agent provocateur of that time, John Kerry, they were moved to the front of the line in media coverage of dissent.
  • They became magnets for true radicals of the era.
  • They led them it acts of violence, which discredited their movements.
  • They faced minimal consequences for their behaviors, having charges dropped and jail sentences minimized.
  • Most importantly, unlike so many other radicals of the era, they are still alive. Neither has been run over by a car.
Wright
Wright

The Rev. Wright seems a genuine man of great influence in the black community. Obama struck up a friendship with him that he described as almost familial.

From this sketchy beginning, I would venture forward on the theory that Obama was not a “community organizer,” per se, but rather a mole, or infiltrator. In this role he would follow in his mother’s footsteps, as she apparently did similar work in Indonesia in the 1960’s prior to the violent purges in that country that left hundreds of thousands dead.*

The US Government has long had an active interest in ground-level organizing in the black community. If there is ever to be an uprising in this land, it is there. So it is no coincidence that black leaders are routinely spied on, compromised, framed, jailed and murdered, and befriended by moles and infiltrators.

It’s all cursory at this time, of course. But all of the above, taken together with the intense secrecy surrounding Obama’s background, place of birth and education, his “community organizer” stint in Chicago smells bad. There is much to learn, much hidden from view. I operate now on one premise only, something I know to be true: Prior to our presidents being elected, they are selected.
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*Indonesia was a bloody massacre during the time that the one in Indochina occupied center stage. Perhaps due to restraints of troop commitments in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, the US relied on internal forces to murder 500,000 or more people there, and reform the country more to western liking. The CIA provided the lists, the Indonesian military, in Phoenix style, went about killing the people on that list.

Of worthy and unworthy

I have often written here that if a person seriously undertakes and examination of the research done around the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, that he or she will gain a better and deeper understanding of our country and how it is run. It is largely a criminal enterprise with department store windows masking the corruption.

We may never know who did shot poor old John, just as we do not know to this day the machinations and agents that brought about such events as the Reichstag fire, the blowing up of the Maine, the attack on the USS Liberty by Israel, Jonestown, the murders of Sadat, Benazir Bhutto, Milošević, David Kelly, Bruce Ivins … on and on.
Continue reading “Of worthy and unworthy”

The rule of fours

In airline talk, there is what I call the “rule of four,” meaning take any delay they announce multiply by four. So a ten-minute delay will actually be forty. Yesterday we flew from Milan to Frankfurt, and had one hour to get from an A gate to a Z gate in the massive Frankfurt terminal, not knowing where the Z gates were. While waiting in Milan, they announced a ten minute delay in boarding. Oh oh, I thought, forty minutes. We’re cooked.

Happy ending, we are running through the Dufry (duty-free) in the massive Frankfurt air terminal when a Lufthansa employee appears in the distance and yells out out “Denver?” and we shouted “Yes!” and he waved for us to follow and ran ahead of us, handing us off to another person who also ran and took us to the gate where a smiling flight attended said “you can relax now.”

Thank you Lufthansa for taking special care of two people of the 520 or so who were on that flight. (And yes, the delay was not ten minutes. It was forty.)