PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR APRIL 19

On this day in 1961, the clandestine invasion of Cuba ends in spectacular failure when JFK refuses to lend air support to the unapproved covert military action kicked off by CIA-trained Cuban ex-pats who land at the rocky cliffs at Cuba's Bay of Pigs.

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On this day in 1971, cult leader Charles Manson is sentenced to die for his role in the Tate/LaBianca murders, which serve as an unofficial demarcation zone for the 1960's.

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On this day in 1985, the FBI surrounds the compound of the radical Christian identity group known as The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, in Arkansas. The siege ends quickly, without bloodshed, as negotiators succeed in convincing the groups leaders to lay down their arms and come out peacefully. Eight years later, after studying the strategies engaged in during the CSAL standoff, the FBI chose this date to put an end the standoff in Waco. This time, as detailed in the next entry, things don’t go exactly as planned...

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On this day in 1993, the FBI puts their plan to end the standoff at David Koresh's Branch Davidian Compound into action. At 5:59 in the morning, via megaphone, Koresh and his followers are told that they are under arrest, and to come out peacefully. They are also once again warned to stay out of a central tower where the insertion of tear gas is slated to begin. The previous night's reaction to these warnings was to hold children up to the windows, as well as signs that read: "Flames Await." At 6:02, two FBI combat engineering vehicles begin inserting gas into the compound. At 6:04, the Davidians start shooting. At 7:30, a CEV breaches the front side of the building on the first floor, injecting more gas. At 9:30, another CEV begins enlarging the opening in the front of the building, and a third CEV breaches the rear of the building, creating openings from which the FBI hoped cult-members would escape. At seven minutes past noon, the Davidians are seen starting fires throughout the compound. At 12:12, negotiators get on the phone and ask Koresh to lead the Davidians out to safety. Nine Davidians flee the compound, and are arrested without incident. Ten minutes later, the sound of gunfire can be heard coming from the compound. At 12:41, fire-trucks begin pumping water on the now rapidly-burning buildings. By mid-afternoon, it was confirmed… 86 corpses, including over a dozen children, lay dead under the rubble of the compound. After 20 years of studying this tragedy, during which time your humble correspondent has read and watched documentation from every conceivable viewpoint - including but not limited to the documentaries The Rules of Engagement and A New Revelation - I have come to believe the following: After 51 days of begging for it, those members of the Branch Davidian Cult remaining in the compound finally managed to succeed in their bid for collective "suicide by cop", making themselves martyrs and heroes to right-wingers and religious fundamentalists in the process. Which brings us to our next entry...

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In the early morning of 1995, enraged by the conflagration at Waco two years earlier, Timothy McVeigh drives a rented Ryder truck up to the north side of the A.P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. At 9:02, a huge fuel-bomb in the back of the truck detonates, collapsing the north face of the building, and snuffing out the lives of 168 unsuspecting souls, including many children who had just been dropped off at the building's daycare center. Once again, a huge volume of "alternative journalism" has risen around this event, some of it good, but much of it not. Regardless, serious and substantial questions do remain about what really happened in the days and weeks before, during and after this Satanic conflagration. Most of the popular conspiracy theories center on the federal government's foreknowledge of and even participation in the bombing. Ironically, your humble correspondent finds the more persuasive arguments to be on the other side of the fence, by which I mean probably a lot more Christian identity extremists were involved than we have been led to believe and the clown concurs.

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On this day in 2011, after 45 years in charge, Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist Party of Cuba's central committee.

VIDEO DISCUSSION: PROBLEMS WITH THE CONSPIRACIST WORLDVIEW

From ZapOracle comes an online video that is well worth watching, no matter what side of the paracultural divide you currently find yourself living in. He explains...

The conspiratist world view—the belief that a unified cabal of elitists is manipulating world events, mind controlling the population,that the main stream media is nothing but lies and that we already live in a police state and a New World Order, etc. has become ubiquitous in global culture. It is the premise of so many Facebook posts, viral memes, websites, radio shows and movies. It transcends red and blue and is as likely to be heard amongst the far right and the far left. It is a perspective widely held in Europe, Central and South America, the Arab world, Australia, New Zealand and almost any place you can think of. Typically, the purveyors of this point of view think they are daring revolutionaries waking up the sheeple, etc. and don’t seem to notice that they are actually just one more of a vast and growing multitude who hold this perspective. Many of these people are close friends of mine. My challenge to them is to listen to this talk and consider whether this worldview actually represents an awakening rather than a distorted perspective riddled with problematic assumptions and reality testing issues.

Here's the video. I urge you to watch the whole thing and really try to engage with the concepts brought up therein.

THE ONE JFK 50TH ANNIVERSARY ARTICLE YOU SHOULD READ

The 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK has resulted in a lot of published words, very few of them worth your time. If you should choose to read only one article from the torrent that is still washing over the info-sphere, I believe you should make it this one. Written by Robert Kennedy Jr., this article stands as a clear-headed and definitive knock-out blow to all the shoddy historical revisionism being peddled in the mainstream press, where we've seen doctrinaire conservatives try everything from belittling the man's legacy and achievements to trying to claim him as one of their own. The article also serves as a big, angry FUCK YOU middle finger right in the face to the sanctimonious, holier-than-thou likes of Noam Chomsky, who attack JFK from the left, claiming there couldn't be a "conspiracy" behind his murder because there was no significant difference between him and Richard Fucking Nixon. Chomsky and his ilk often come across as even more bitter, dismissive and inexplicably hostile than the bloviating jerkwads of the Right... not an easy thing to do! Anyway, read this article and make sure the people in your life who should be reading it are sent a copy of the link, as well. This needs to be read by one and all.

CONSPIRACY BELIEVERS FOUND TO BE "SANER" THAN SKEPTICS

That is the thrust of a recent Pak Alert Press story, which highlights a number of "recent studies by psychologists and social scientists in the US and UK" that suggest that, contrary to mainstream media stereotypes, "those labeled conspiracy theorists appear to be saner than those who accept the official versions of contested events." The article continues:

The most recent study was published on July 8th by psychologists Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas of the University of Kent. Entitled “What about Building 7? A social psychological study of online discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories,” the study compared “conspiracist” (pro-conspiracy theory) and “conventionalist” (anti-conspiracy) comments at news websites. The authors were surprised to discover that it is now more conventional to leave so-called conspiracist comments than conventionalist ones: “Of the 2174 comments collected, 1459 were coded as conspiracist and 715 as conventionalist.” In other words, among people who comment on news articles, those who disbelieve government accounts of such events as 9/11 and the JFK assassination outnumber believers by more than two to one. That means it is the pro-conspiracy commenters who are expressing what is now the conventional wisdom, while the anti-conspiracy commenters are becoming a small, beleaguered minority.

Read the rest of this intriguing article at Pak Alert Press...

REJECTING SKEPTICISM AS A WORLDVIEW

Game reviewer Stephen Splatz has written a wonderful extended essay on the topic of skepticism in which he methodically dissects it as an all-encompassing worldview. Titled "Why I Am No Longer a Skeptic", the essay places modern skepticism in its proper context of intellectual history, correctly identifies it as reactionary philosophical positivism, and highlights a number of problems that have lately come to a head, both in the skeptic community in general, and among some of the movement's premiere spokespersons. 

It begins...

This is not a tale of how I found Jesus, of how acupuncture cured my hemorrhoids, or of how my alien abductors revealed the ultimate truth about 9/11. I still have no faith in anything supernatural, mystical, psychical or spiritual. I still regard the scientific method as the best way to model reality, and reason as the best way to uncover truth. I'm no longer a skeptic, but not one of my core beliefs has changed.

What has changed is that I have come to reject skepticism as an identity. Shared identities like skepticism are problematic at the best of times, for numerous reasons, but I can accept them as a means of giving power and a voice to the disenfranchised. And indeed, this is how skeptics like to portray themselves: an embattled minority standing up for science, the lone redoubt of reason in an irrational world, the vanguard against the old order of ignorance and superstition. As a skeptic, I was happy to accept this narrative and believe I was shoring up the barricades.

However, it's a narrative that corresponds poorly with reality. In the modern world, science, technology and reason are central and vital, and this is widely recognised, including at the highest level. On any major political decision, the technocrat speaks louder than the bishop, or anyone else, for that matter. Sure, Bush and Blair were noted god-botherers, but if you seriously think that, say, Gulf War 2 was their decision alone, or that that "God wills it" would have convinced anyone they had to convince, then you're subscribing to a cartoon view of history.  

Good stuff, right? And it only gets better from there.

I strongly urge anyone who regularly peruses this blog to read Splatz's essay in full, and to let it serve as an example of the kind of honest, deep introspection and intellectual honesty that all of us who are doing writing or researching on topics in the parapolitical and paracultural milieu should always be striving for.

PROPHETIC CONTINGENCY... WHY JIM DOUGLASS' JFK BOOK MATTERS

From the Nov/Dec 2010 issue of Tikkun Magazine: 

This November marks the fiftieth anniversary of John F. Kennedy's election. The best way to honor his legacy is to muster the courage to walk again through the "dark history" associated with his short but consequential presidency, in order to learn its lessons and discover its hope. Jim Douglass's JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters, which Touchstone is reissuing this month as a trade paperback, is a reliable guide for that demanding task.

Find out why at the link.

ON MAY 7 IN PARAPOLITICAL HISTORY

On this day in 1794, French Revolutionary Robespierre proposes that the new state religion of the French First Republic be the Illuminati-inspired "Cult of the Supreme Being". It fails to catch on. 

On this day in the year 1824, composer Ludwig von Beethoven's magnificent 9th (and final) Symphony - one of the only world-historic pieces of music - is performed for first time in front of an audience. The vocal section uses Freidrich Schiller's poem Ode To Joy, which is jam-packed with esoteric allusions that are ripe for exploitation as an expression of the beauties and charms of collectivism, which makes its eventual use as the "national anthem" of the European Union both amusing and somewhat troubling. Stanley Kubrick proved that he understood the essential duality of this piece of music - as well as the double-edged nature of genius in general - by highlighting it in an incredibly ironic way in his satirical sf masterpiece Clockwork Orange. 

On this day in 1896, one of the first and most prolific and inventive serial killers of all time is put to death for only a handful of the crimes he committed over a lifetime of almost unbelievable wickedness. His name was Herman Webster Mudgett, alias Doctor Henry Howard Holmes, and he built his own private "Murder Castle" in Chicago during the 1893 World Columbian Exposition - itself an event rife with parapolitical and paracultural over-and-undertones.

On this day in 1952, the concept of the integrated circuit, also known as the "monolithic integrated circuit" and the "microchip" - the basis for all modern computing technology - is first presented to the public by Geoffrey W.A. Dummer. Culturally, economically and historically, it's a game-changer on pretty much every imaginable level.

On this day in 1999, the British Antarctic Survey reports that the sky fell by no less than five miles over the preceding forty year period, as the upper limit of the ionosphere - beyond which lies the vacuum of space - collapsed from 190 to 185 miles altitude. Researchers at the time pointed to this startling phenomenon as "an important environmental warning sign," but yer old pal Jerky hasn't heard any more about it since the report was released. What gives?!

On this day in 2004, in one of the most heinous of many heinous landmarks that we collectively had to endure in the 'naughties, the sadistic and brutal beheading of American businessman Nick Berg is recorded on videotape and released on the Internet for all the world to see. I present to you an editorial that I wrote on the subject of the Berg conspiracy theories, reprinted now at my Useless Eater blog for archival purposes. Also reprinted is one of my best editorials (if I do say so myself), titled The Paradox of Polar Bears. It also touches on Berg's murder, but for much different reasons. I'd suggest you "enjoy", but somehow that just doesn't seem right in this case.

THE NET - THE UNABOMBER, LSD AND THE INTERNET

In 2003, German filmmaker Lutz Dammbeck released an independently produced documentary film entitled Das Netz, the English title being The Net: The Unabomber, LSD and The Internet. Since its debut, it has slowly been acquiring a reputation as a must-watch production among serious students of conspiracy, secret histories and parapolitics in general. 

In my opinion, this is a film that deserves much more attention than it has been given, and it needs to be seen by a lot more people, for a long list of reasons that will become obvious once you've watched it, which you can either do here, using the embedded video provided below, or on Youtube.com, where the subtitles will probably be a lot easier to read.

Unfortunately, the film's official website is a German language only. Unless you're one of those lucky Fritzes and Friedas who speak it, that's too bad, because the site seems to have a pretty active forum section.

I am bringing this film to your attention now because I have nearly completed a lengthy "study guide" for it, which I intend to post here sometime during the next 24 hours. In it, I flesh out some of the concepts Dammbeck touches on only briefly, tease out some potential implications and offer my own, alternate explanations to some of the information presented in the film. I also offer suggestions for further avenues of research to compliment and broaden your understanding of the rich bounty of information presented in this remarkable film.

And so, in closing, I urge you to watch this film, and keep watching this space for my upcoming study guide!

Cheers!

YOPJ

EVIDENCE OF REVISION, PART SIX OF SIX

HOLY CRAP-DOODLE! A NEW RIGOROUS INTUITION POST!!!

Run, run, run to our old pal Jeff Wells' formerly essential Rigorous Intuition Blog to read his latest post in... what... a year and a half? I got so excited when I surfed on over there and saw an update that I immediately raced back to my own pathetic blog to announce it. I haven't even read the damn thing yet, but that's what I'm gonna do now. So, if you'll excuse me...

KONSPIRACY KLASSICS KORNER - THE YANKEE AND COWBOY WAR - PART ONE: THE CLANDESTINE ELITES

KONSPIRACY KLASSICS CORNER!

THE YANKEE AND COWBOY WAR

The Astonishing Link between the JFK Assassination and the deposing of Nixon 

Conspiracies from Dallas to Watergate and Beyond

by Carl Oglesby

A few years back, a friend loaned me his copy of Carl Oglesby's The Yankee and Cowboy War, and after reading it I was stunned that I had previously neither read it nor even heard about it. I found it both moving and profoundly impressive. In his masterful dissection of the mid-70's American political milieu, Oglesby gives us nothing less than an absolutely convincing operating model of the forces clashing behind the scenes in post-World War II America, as well as a detailed diagnosis of exactly where and why things went terribly wrong. He presents valuable ideas that have found their way into the works of later authors, most notably Sidney Blumenthal, whose 1986 best-seller The Rise of the Counter-Establishment reads almost like a sequel.

I believe The Yankee Cowboy War is essential reading for anyone searching for honest answers about the origins of our current condition. Unfortunately, the book is long out of print. I also understand that most of you reading this are busy people who don't have time to read every worthy book that there is to read. Therefore, I have decided to use this space to publish my "reading notes", taken during my second reading, so that interested parties can get the gist of the book's main theses, the numerous topics it covers, as well as the individuals and events discussed in it.

I will be posting these reading notes periodically over the next few days. Obviously, this is a poor substitute for reading the book, itself, but it's a decent primer, and for the researcher in a hurry, it should do in a pinch. Watch for further installments, coming soon!

PART ONE: THE CLANDESTINE ELITES

· Watergate and the JFK assassination were not isolated incidents, but linked parts of a secret war between two American Elites: the Yankees (Eastern Establishment) and the Cowboys (Sunbelt, New Money, Counter-Establishment).

· A hidden drama of coup and counter-coup, intrinsically linked conspiracies, inner oligarchic power sphere, invisible gov’t, above the law, beyond moral rule… a clandestine American state, embryonic police state.