Archives for category: psychology

Beware the Perception

A cautionary tale of the developmental psychology or first 70 years of the USA and resultant contemporary social psychology of the Americans; for my friends in Russia (Western reader short attention span warning, 7,000 words)

In my observations of Russia, I’ve noticed a consistent misapprehension of reality concerning the West. The West, particularly the USA, is a social phenomenon that largely defies self-understanding, let alone understanding from without, even by the titan observer Solzhenitsyn, who lived a number of years in Vermont.

To begin this analysis, we’ll note the USA’s ‘enlightenment’ founders were Deists, and James Madison’s animus to Christianity was not an animus towards a deity per se, but an animus towards political Christianity and the history of the several incarnations of western church meddling in the affairs of men and nations, pointing to a particular arrogance:

“Experience witnesses that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and virtue of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution” -James Madison

This thinking among our brighter founding minds is perhaps best personified in the philosopher of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine:

The Deist needs none of those tricks and shows called miracles to confirm his faith, for what can be a greater miracle than the creation itself, and his own existence? There is a happiness in Deism, when rightly understood, that is not to be found in any other system of religion. All other systems have something in them that either shock our reason, or are repugnant to it, and man, if he thinks at all, must stifle his reason in order to force himself to believe them. But in Deism our reason and our belief become happily united. The wonderful structure of the universe, and everything we behold in the system of the creation, prove to us, far better than books can do, the existence of a God, and at the same time proclaim His attributes. It is by the exercise of our reason that we are enabled to contemplate God in His works, and imitate Him in His ways. When we see His care and goodness extended over all His creatures, it teaches us our duty toward each other, while it calls forth our gratitude to Him.”

Other than Madison, the author of our constitution, and Paine, another great American ‘enlightenment’ Deist was Benjamin Franklin, considered the greatest scientist of the age in Europe during his own lifetime; and notable in his uppermost thoughts concerning the founding of America’s so-called ‘liberal democracy’ at the time of our Constitutional Convention, were his doubts… when the crowd shouted to him when emerging from the final meeting of the states delegates: “Mr Franklin, Mr Franklin, what form of government have you given us?” Franklin replied “A republic, if you can keep it.” We couldn’t.

To equate secularism with atheism, per the intentions of those American ‘enlightenment’ founders (not all of our founders were enlightenment inspired thinkers, notably John Adams), is a patent mistake; moreover our ‘enlightened’ founders were of an educated class that seriously doubted whether the social experiment would work. And it did not work, largely because of foreseen dangers, whether a lack of social maturity or, alternatively stated, the lower human nature.

When I see the term ‘Cultural Marxism’ trained on the USA’s subsequent-resultant social circumstance in wake of the failed American revolution’s founding ideas and charter, it puts the hair up on this dogs back; as it too often appears a simplistic jingoism little different to liberals assigning a broad neo-nazi paintbrush to the term ‘Alt-Right.’ This is not necessarily a matter of ‘the truth is somewhere in between’, but more a matter of intertwined mosaic of social allergies where several antigens are not stimulating a proper immune response, almost certainly because from this republic’s inception, there was papered over a multiple fracture rather than a coalescence. There is blame aplenty can be assigned to multiple parties in the ensuing history.

I will wander afield here for a moment, for the benefit of my Russian friends, and by way of suggestion; consider the wide gulf of experiential difference between your own experience, that of a more or less consistent or singular Christian experience, that is Orthodoxy, and that of the USA; an un-amalgamated 1,500 or so Christian faith groups that can be sorted by meta-group, wing, denomination, theology, and/or family. Your experience of emancipation from feudalism versus our experience of rapidly subjugating a continent for as many motives as there had been multiple actors; whether Calvinists so intolerant Europe would not tolerate them, too many mercantilists desiring a Baron’s station and privilege to count, tens upon tens of thousands of Europe’s undesirables, whether petty criminals & the mildly retarded or insane, reflected in Europe’s vacated prisons, the inevitable Catholic proselytizing, White slavery euphemistically called ‘indentured servitude’, and finally, Black slavery. This is not a comprehensive list.

As a social psychologist, with an understanding that biographical history underlies socialization, I would not presume an intimate understanding of the Russian mind reflected in that great nation’s national psychology; nor would I expect a Russian should presume an intimate understanding of the many social tensions integral to the multiple personalities of the USA.

Back on topic of the USA and the underpinning of how we became a dissolute, aggressive and sociopathic national POLITIC (not as a people in some comprehensive sense), firstly we must toss out the idea the USA is a ‘liberal democracy’ in the sense of a “godless anti-Christian “humanism”” on account of its Enlightenment founders. Rather the negative American qualities stemming from the lower nature of man markedly & substantially come from the Christian community as much as or more so than anywhere else in American society. At this point I’ll ask my more open-minded conservative friends to swallow hard and keep reading. My liberal friends would not necessarily like what will be coming either.

Recalling Thomas Paine’s “It is by the exercise of our reason that we are enabled to contemplate God in His works, and imitate Him in His ways. When we see His care and goodness extended over all His creatures, it teaches us our duty toward each other, while it calls forth our gratitude to Him” we should understand a close similarity to Solzhenitsyn’s A return to God, voluntary self-restraint and self-restriction of humankind, emphasizing duties instead of ever-expanding “rights”, prioritizing inner freedom, and rejecting the sacrifice of national life not only to totalitarian utopia but also to the orgy of freedom.” What is that similarity, one might ask?

To begin, the USA’s secular demand mandated in our founding charter was never about shunting God aside in our national life but was a practical recognition of the impossibility of reconciling the numerous competing beliefs in what amounted to a multicultural society with a deep antipathy to central authority; based in political persecutions that cannot be separated from a history of church-state relations in Europe. By the time of the USA’s founding, it was recognized if John Calvin, Marten Luther or The Pope’s adherents were to gain an upper hand in governance of these United States, the presumed result would be antithetical to the long term social maturity and stability of the newly founded nation.

Rather the expectation would be the unique and new secularism of the United States should see sectarianism set aside towards pursuit of the greater good for the whole. It is in this demand we see an implicit but clear parallel to Solzhenitsyn’s “voluntary self-restraint and self-restriction of humankind” that never demanded God be set aside but sectarian self-centeredness set aside instead. This would require a self restraint that was an intended goal but proved an impossible demand; as ‘freedom’ became a practical ‘taking liberties’ or ‘god helps those who help themselves’ in a sense of gross opportunism. Let us not forget where this had evolved to in several short decades with “a sucker is born every minute” ostensibly attributed to circus magnate PT Barnum, but no matter falsely, this had become an indelible folk wisdom equating the by now established legal principle of Caveat Emptor or ‘let the buyer beware.’ Christian principles, that is if Christian principles are embodied in larger concepts or notions like ‘charity’, had been easily cast aside in these largely ‘Christian’ United States, and any principled stance of self restraint stepped on. It is the lower instinct, greed particularly, flourished.

Backing up a bit, it must be noted the United States founding charter had been fatally flawed from inception; where the charter’s underlying ‘bedrock’ or Declaration of Independence stating “All men are created equal” had been discarded in reality when wealthy ‘special interests’ demanded this maxim did not pertain to negroes. Already the pirate culture of America’s eastern seaboard demonstrated a superior model were one to be honest; where Blacks had a vote electing a captain and share in the spoils of those ships taken by crews made up of White and Black escaped slaves. In our charter, White slavery was abolished but Black slavery was not.

This slavery was justified by ‘Christians’ employing biblical references per these examples: Noah’s “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren”, “By this decisive, explicit, irrefragable authority of the written work of God, it is evident that servants… are commanded under the Mosaic law to be bought; and that when so bought of alien sojourners, that they and their issue become inheritable property”, and “Like patriarchs of old, at the head of their children and grandchildren, their flocks and their herds, their bondmen and bond maids [are] to be an inheritance for their children after them to be their bond men forever” [pdf]

If one were to wonder where an individual’s ‘Christian’ conscience might play in the preceding, there needed be none; as Scots Presbyterians, English Baptists and Dutch ‘Reform’ Protestants had introduced what became a peculiar ‘Christian’ sociopathy that became widespread, that is John Calvin’s “predestination” where it is held the individual is born on this Earth preordained to either Heaven or Hell. It followed, whether one owned slaves was of no consequence in any sense of morality or personal ethics. This practical sociopathy, via inter-generational socialization, adequately explains how ‘devout’ American Christians of the 21st Century can feel no compunction whatsoever in relation to the destruction of entire societies; and were one to use the example of inter-generational violence, it should come as no surprise even ‘devout American Christians’ who are Black now can be seen in this mold, example given, fervent Evangelical Christian Condoleezza Rice. This phenomenon is not precisely new, it can be noted, American Black slaves repatriated to Africa set themselves up as ‘masters’ of their now culturally distant cousins in Liberia, and it could also be noted certain Jewish State actors, allied to today’s sociopathic Christianity of the West, somewhat resemble the perpetrators of kristallnacht, only now in relation to their own expansionist ambitions.

But I digress. Once again back to our founding era, there was a certain schizophrenia papered over at our nation’s constitutional convention, reflected in the so-called Federalists and anti-Federalists, shortly described as those American founders who favored a strong central authority, or mercantilist financiers like Alexander Hamilton and his ilk, and those opposed to the same, represented in Thomas Jefferson. The federalists insisted the purpose of the convention was to produce a governing document, maintaining there was no authority in the convention’s mandate to create a bill of rights, whereas the anti-federalists would not sign off on a constitution without this check on central authority over the common citizenry. The compromise reached was the federalists agreed a separate “Bill of Rights” would be drawn up and submitted to the several States for adoption, following the USA’s founding charter coming into force. However upon the ‘first ten amendments’ or ‘Bill of Rights’ having been adopted, future federalist jurists appointed to the United States Supreme Court had, in ensuing decades, set out to undermine the same. These rank political animals ‘interpreting’ our charters first ten amendments decided, despite plain language indicating otherwise, these amendments did not apply except as the court would tightly control via a contrived theory they called ‘incorporation doctrine’ or that is to say a judiciary constituting political appointments would take it upon themselves to tightly control or to decide when, how, and even whether, any of these ‘enumerated’ (spelled out) rights of the citizens should be applied. Nowhere is this more clear than example of roughly 225 years old language of the Seventh Amendment never having been “incorporated” or become binding on the several states…

“In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law”

…despite the Constitutions Article Six or ‘supremacy clause’ language:

“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding”

This has left the door open to judiciary tampering with jury awards of compensation & damages or, in other words, shielding the wealth of the criminal & corrupt, example given a judge deciding a jury award had been ‘excessive.’

Anticipating this subversion of the American foundational law was the early case in legal controversy where a contractor from South Carolina was owed a war debt by the State of Georgia, which didn’t wish to pay up. The Supreme Court had ruled there was no such thing as State sovereign immunity from suit, in the case of Chisholm v Georgia. Nearly all of the states balked at the prospect of having to pay their war debts and the 11th Amendment to our founding charter was passed, stating:

“The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State”

And just like that, certain remarkable things happened; with the passing of the 11th Amendment by the several states legislators, all of the lawsuits pending in federal court per state war debts had been erased with citizens forced into the jurisprudence of states that did not wish to pay, and half the language of Article One, Section Nine, of the Constitution had been tossed into the ash bin: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.” Thomas Jefferson indicated this language had been meant to cover both criminal and civil circumstance of law, and the constitutional language supports this assertion by Jefferson; ‘Bill of Attainder’ should refer to criminal, and ‘ex post facto’ should refer to civil liabilities. In other words, the USA should not have been allowed to make law, criminalizing or creating liability, or excusing crime or liability, after the fact, to get the outcome it wants. The 11th Amendment neither mentions nor lifts this other constitutional provision. But now, civil ex post facto law happens frequently, such as a 21st Century Congress ‘forgiving’ the telecom companies illegally spying on Americans, erasing liability and robbing citizens of their day in court.

Although the 11th Amendment is specific and narrow, and doesn’t so much as mention Sovereign Immunity, the legendary English Common Law expert William Blackstone’s Sovereign Immunity doctrine had been reinstated in the former colonies:

“The King moreover is not only incapable of doing wrong, but even of thinking wrong; he can never mean to do an improper thing: in him is no folly or weakness.”

Only now, suddenly it is no longer the ‘King’ can act with impunity, but the institutions of government in the United States per a case as late as 1991, Blatchford v. Native Village of Noatak, where the Supreme Court wrote:

“we have understood the Eleventh Amendment to stand not so much for what it says, but for the presupposition of our constitutional structure which it confirms: that the States entered the federal system with their sovereignty intact, that the judicial authority in Article III is limited by this sovereignty, and that a State will therefore not be subject to suit in federal court unless it has consented to suit, either expressly or in the “plan of the convention”

And there you have it, from the early days of the Supreme Court saying Sovereign Immunity from suit is a non existent thing in immediate post colonial USA law, to the several states’ legislatures passing the 11th Amendment, amending the federal charter, an amendment which doesn’t so much as mention Sovereign Immunity, to escape war debt, to the modern Supreme Court stating the language of our constitution’s 11th Amendment doesn’t mean what it actually says, but instead means what they want it to say, essentially stating ‘we’ll extend ‘the King’s prerogative‘ as far as we please, and we’ll use the 11th Amendment to absurdly assert what amounts to a claim the King’s Sovereign Immunity (impunity) was never a point of the American Revolution.’

Subsequently, the United States federal government adopted sovereign immunity as its own, usurping ‘the people are sovereign’, and has used this doctrine to cancel out the core of the first ten amendments:

The fourth amendment’s “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized

The fifth amendments Amendment’s “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation

And the 6th Amendment’s “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence”

These preceding rights have been nullified by the United States claiming sovereign immunity relevant to ‘state secrets’ when citizens have attempted to petition for redress of grievances due to central authority over-reach under the pretext of ‘terror’, as well as the central authority having established a secret court where the accused has no access nor advocate. This ‘coup de grâce’ over the rule of law in the USA had been finally made complete by “National Security Act of 1947” creating the lawless Central Intelligence Agency, and is law which opened the door to FISA secret court. This act enabled the rule of law to be converted to “color of law” or simple pretense of constitutional integrity at the pinnacle of the USA’s institutions of government. But I am getting ahead of myself, let us back up once more.

It does well to recall each of the preceding steps of imperative dishonesty described, in a process of the rule of law’s erosion, had been initiated and largely sustained by so-called ‘Christians.’ If Deism were ostensibly protected in this system, little differently to Islam, Judaism or sundry flavors of heathen belief, these were of little consequence where the overwhelming numbers of the USA’s populace were Christian of the Western stripe. Darwin had not yet arrived with his hypothesis, atheism had yet to discover its ‘manhood’ & elope with science, and it would two hundred and more years in the making before the Western conservative Christianity would finally co-opt Deism’s ‘intelligent design’ and pervert it with an inculcated ignorance resulting in a 21st Century Vice President of the United States’ belief Man had walked the Earth together with dinosaurs. I expect the term ‘believer’, closely examined on both parties part, might be one of vastly different connotation between Western Christianity and the Orthodoxy of Russia.

If, in the Western canon, the most lied about intentions of any individual were the grossly misrepresented thoughts of Jesus, in particular due to the perversion of Christianity by John Calvin, the most lied about intentions of any group of men would be the American founders. When the contemporary American religious fascist claims the USA had been founded as a Christian, not secular, nation, they must ignore history and the USA’s first treaty with Libya…

“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims]; and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Islamic] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries”

…noting the preceding language had been drafted by the American republic’s executive and unanimously ratified by the Senate in the early years of our foundational law. When the subsequent American conservative Christian subversion of our charter had been reinforced by religious propaganda via imagined fantasies surrounding America’s founders, those fantasies had been consequently encapsulated by a honest historian with the cynical epithet “Liars for Jesus.” By contrast it should be explained our present national schizophrenia’s ‘liberal’ element had done no better. At last, we shall move forward from the era of our founding.

Recalling the Western liberal poet Oscar Wilde’s “Truth is seldom pure and never simple”, we now shortly examine the fact of the United States tearing itself apart a scant seventy years since its founding. Pertinent to this violence, American sociopathy introduced by Calvinism did not confine itself to the conservative religious community in much the same sense of earlier example, where repatriated American Black slaves became ‘master’ over their African subjects. Restated in a perfect cynicism of American shallowness of character: ‘if one can do so, so can two, never-mind do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks” would be perhaps the best description of today’s liberal ‘humanitarian violence’ rooted in a co-opted Calvinist sociopathy; where one could scarcely find a difference between the justifications of a Hillary Clinton’s rape of Libya or a Nikki Haley’s rape of Syria. These indistinguishable political lies are ‘protected free speech’ of necessity; for if the American sociopath is without empathy, conscience or soul, these pretenders to humanity are not altogether without fear of facing accountability. They are similar to the children who’ve become compulsive liars when caught in proximity to result of a miscreant behavior, perhaps they will be able to lie their way out of punishment as opposed to the idea if they are do not conceal their complicity in certain delinquencies, they must face consequences

It follows, the American ‘free press’ promised to the people as a means to unmask corrupted power has become conflated with ‘free speech’ and turned on its head; where media has become almost wholly owned by a 3rd party that is neither the People nor the State but greed personified in the non-living legal entity of the corporation. It is this press which no longer unmasks the corrupt rather via the corporate veil buys and protects the corrupted politician and a ‘free press’ is become purveyor of political lies construed to be ‘free speech.’ We see this process already well underway in the decades preceding America’s civil war, with the self-justifying (Paine’s aptly described ‘mental lying’) press giving cover to politicians who could never come clean and admit what became the “Manifest Destiny” of the United States via conquest of the western territories was little more than a series of violent robberies. In the process of this virulently criminal expansion, the folk wisdom ‘treaties were made to be broken’ entered into the American lexicon, approximating the actuality; where early example had been the ‘civilized tribes’ sued the United States over the Executive branch of the Federal government’s Indian tribes removal policy and won, whereupon President Andrew Jackson stated “[Chief Justice] John Marshall has stated what the law is, now let him enforce it” and the tribes were pushed out of their ancestral lands across the Mississippi River into an alien wilderness regardless of the rule of law. Or, in the case of stealing the lands of Mexico, what amounted to the prototype ‘color revolution’ was staged by a group of Americans in California. Inasmuch as bringing ‘Christianity’ and ‘civilization’ to the heathen natives was the stated rationale, this could not hold up in the case of the noted ‘civilized tribes’, in actuality it was a violation of Moses ‘thou shall not covet.’ In the case of taking half or more of Mexico, it mattered not one bit Mexico was a Christian nation, only a differing method of lie or sleight of hand recalling color revolution needed applied. Relevant to this immediate preceding, it should be noted although existing populations in the conquered territories were not Black, neither was the majority populace ‘White’, recalling certain justifications for slavery but in this case ‘God’s will’ providing cover via the American press for a class of political suborner’s lies justifying theft of properties belonging those considered lesser to themselves. In this light, it should be known today’s “American Exceptionalism” had come into the lexicon as a synonym to “Manifest Destiny.”

However in the northeast of the United States there were some disgruntled noises made over the barbaric treatment afforded the Native tribes, in what were growing ‘liberal’ circles, from the relative safety of ‘civilized’ New England, this should not be construed to be some societal conviction of conscience; as New England states have been happy to deny its own Native tribes surviving tracts of wilderness, as recently as the late 20th Century, due to treaty violations by the USA having been, in the words of the court, ‘crushed by the burden of history.’ It should be noted the preceding indicates any sincerity of the Northern abolitionist societies agitating for an end to slavery, per the USA’s civil war, might well have been pecuniary as relates to social jealousy. In America, if there is an abundance of anything, it would be hypocrisy.

What became known as “Manifest Destiny” was the core cause which led to civil war, as competing visions of a future for those territories being conquered had raised the ghosts of the USA’s federalist versus anti-federalist divisions, however disingenuously. The North was pointed to an industrial, centralized future, the south was clinging to, and guarding, an agrarian, pastoral lifestyle and resented the north’s coveting the resources of the south. Black slavery was the undoing of the south, not because a majority of the north were unwilling to tolerate this, but because it provided cover for the industrialists (one could these days say oligarchs) of the north to bend the south to its will. With the inevitable loss to the industrialized north, it is noteworthy that great field marshal, Robert E. Lee, had made at least one cynical political maneuver, when he encouraged Christian ‘revivalism’ in the southern armies; as a means of boosting troop morale in the face of what he had to have known were overwhelming odds. ‘God’ were never so abused as in the American tradition; pointing towards a certain faux patriotism of the present day.

Finally, it was the south self-justifying its stance, particularly noting slavery, on the ninth and tenth Amendments or the final two clauses of the so-called ‘Bill of Rights’, handed long term political victory to the Federalists, those longtime sublime liars who’d never contemplated Thomas Paine’s American revolutionary concept of “Common Sense” should be fulfilled, their hypocritical condemnation of slavery not withstanding, for all men should become slaves to mercantilism run amok and the following constitutional language ultimately bowed to central authority:

Ninth Amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”, the laws of individual states notwithstanding”

Tenth Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”

In the Calvinist South, Blacks, of course, weren’t ‘people’ but were property. But let us note this attitude was not geographically limited in some black & white sense (or more cynically, there was no geographic limitation of this attitude in a very Black & White sense!) for it had been a mere seventy years previous, the North had allowed for Black slavery to become integrated to the United States at their formation; where our charter determined enslaved Blacks were to be counted in the federal census as “three fifths of a man.” It required no ‘stretch of the imagination’ to claim the ‘States Sovereignty’ referred to could presume a self-determined future that was decidedly anti-mercantilist, and in its stead a pastoral one, but this could not stand up to the North’s faux morality exploiting the slavery issue, slavery which had been stupendously-stupidly clung to by the South as a ‘State’s Right.’ Here it should be noted not only had one of Abraham Lincoln’s political mentors burned a political treatise authored by Lincoln, defending Thomas Paine’s Deism, to spare Lincoln’s political career from the wrath of the North’s own intolerant ‘Christian’ mob, as well there is likely no political corruption in today’s Russia can come close to matching Abraham Lincoln’s first nomination to run for president of the United States, at Chicago, in 1860.

Concluding this immediate preceding section, it must be noted the mercantilist ‘liberal’ North’s politicians, including Lincoln, were perfectly willing to abide a continuation of slavery where it was already established in the South, were the South to surrender any claim to take its own political vision forward in the conquered western territories. This willingness to ‘compromise’ the freedom of Blacks in America only died with the North’s achieving some military victories, relevant to Abraham Lincoln stated political position:

“If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union…. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free”

Lincoln’s burned apologetic of Paine’s Deism notwithstanding, in this context we see a man perfectly recalling Paine’s maxim…

“It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime”

…which cannot come as any surprise where Lincoln had achieved his presidency via as corrupt a process as had ever been witnessed in this leading Western and henceforth ‘liberal’ democracy.

If these ostensibly ‘Christian’ political lies (Calvin’s sociopathy) were not great enough on both parties part, we must further note a liberal-left promotion of a revisionist history undermining what had remained of our core civil liberties, with a smear attacking the conservative historical revisionism with its own historical revisionism. Today’s liberal urban legend claims the anti-federalist philosophy is rooted in setting out to protect slavery by weakening the provisions for an American central government. This argument on the liberal-left is as distorted as the American conservative political revisionism it attacks; the patently false idea The United States was founded as a Christian Nation per se.

Because of confusion of ‘state’ as a larger nation with ‘state’ as a state, in these United States, in the American English dialect, ‘nation’ had come to replace ‘state’ in a sense of federal or national. However this was not yet the case at the time of our founding law being written; and the founding context of the language of the USA charter’s Second Amendment is a singular ‘people’ and refers to a ‘state’ in the sense of the United States as a nation, people of all the states inclusive. Any attempt to conflate the greater ‘state’ in the Second Amendment with the individual ‘states’ comprising our nation is patently dishonest:

Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”

None of our first through eighth amendments protection of the rights of individual citizens had anything to do with Blacks of the founding era, as they were not enfranchised citizens as a class, and the facts are at odds with liberal-left’s popular myth (urban legend) that somehow the anti-federalists got their way with undermining a federalist inspired central government in order to protect slavery.

Simple common sense demands the anti-federalist authored fourth amendment concerning privacy in one’s papers cannot have anything to do with propping up slavery, a given example of motivation in the anti-federalists’ actual intentions. Or other rights, for instance prohibition of a bill of attainder. Or the right to confront your accuser. To name but a few provisions of the first through eighth amendments authored by the anti-federalists.

If our “Bill of Rights” had been insisted upon by anti-federalists, and it most certainly was, the entire world, it would be implied by this specious and twisted revisionism coming from the liberal left, is indebted to American slaveholders for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights inspired by the American Bill of Rights and certain of its provisions.

Anti-federalism was by no means an exclusive southern phenomena related to a minority of slave owners but was a general angst of the new republic’s citizenry from Georgia to New Hampshire. This angst primarily concerned historic abuses of power by central governments traced in the American tradition to the Magna Charta particularly and the European powers’ abuses of citizenry generally. The right of the ‘people’ (all inclusive) to bear arms was deemed necessary as a check of last resort on a central government. This anti-federalist authored ‘Bill of Rights” specifies core civil liberties of citizens our anti-federalist founders meant to secure us from the tyranny of a police state.

This liberal dishonesty plays into the following circumstance, a practical extending of superior privilege to our returning soldiers, consolidating the central authorities’ gains; when building a symbiotic relationship between the USA’s military and the USA’s police forces where the altogether wrong sort of meme involved with creating a collective mentality, germinated in the American military, is being infused into the American ‘civilian’ police.

When ‘veterans preference’ law creates a privileged class, in violation of our Constitution’s 14th Amendment or “Equal Protection” clause, is imposed on police hiring as a matter of law, and a society such as ours is one recently put through some considerable stresses, economic and social, resulting in both heightened paranoia and less opportunities at well paying jobs, the civilian police forces have become packed with ‘war on terror’ military veterans. These combined phenomena will translate into many veterans who’ve developed an ‘us versus the enemy’ mentality integrated into America’s police forces in relation to community, and this is particularly dangerous when ‘community’ is demographically dissimilar to one’s own, and we see this mindset manifest when Black communities are policed by White officers. The result is Blacks being shot down by White officers with impunity.

Now, we stir into the mix some more unpleasant facts; in today’s America, conservatism has become altogether poisoned by an extreme religious movement, Christian Domionism, asserting ‘God’s Law’ (their own interpretations of scripture) supersedes civil law. A volunteer military is historically attractive to conservative mentality, more so than other outlooks, and this is what will be fed into the police hiring rosters in by far out of proportion (to larger society) numbers. The American religious right is primarily White and we have seen has undeniable racist roots in a large segment or subculture. But there is more than a significant, underlying elements of racism, at issue here.

The soldiers advocate-civil rights group Military Religious Freedom Foundation, has determined that one third (1/3) of the United States military is presently “Christian Dominionist” or that is to say very much on the far right of the conservative right, one could say ‘Christian Taliban.’ These people do not respect the original intention of our secular democracy, they do not respect people holding different viewpoint or opinion, and they most certainly do not respect a civil rights movement traditionally rooted in the left of the political spectrum.

A simple rule of social psychology would be, with an extreme ‘strict father’ model of conservatism’s upbringing, extreme even by traditional conservative standards, the religious extremist desiring to exercise ‘authority’ is the prototype personality that will gravitate to police employ via ‘veterans preference’ … strengthening the hand of those corrupt fascist forces rapidly gaining practical control over every facet of American society as a whole. Christian Dominion sympathetic personalities have already gained control over Congress and the Pentagon and by extension, NATO, and now these patently reactionary, militant forces are taking practical control of America’s streets, the Posse Comitatus Act prohibition of America’s military policing our citizenry notwithstanding.

As a matter of consequence, our rapidly militarizing police have integrated, and continue to integrate, those personalities most inclined to view the public they were intended to serve as an opposing or threatening force .. as ‘the enemy’ .. with all of the attending impunity they experienced in a hyper-religious military environment; whether attitude a woman’s rape ‘must’ve been God’s will’ with little motivation to pursue and solve cases or punish perpetrators (except in case of a Black on White rape, that must be prosecuted in any White supremacist ruled society.) Society is now policed by men whose military background had been poisoned by theological interpretations on the far right of the right; by officers who shoved religious motivation down soldiers throats (officers who believe Muslims are ‘the children of Satan’ as taught by the Assemblies of God, example given.) These soldiers are now moved on to bashing in the heads of civil dissidents because any American refusing to conform to their corrupt religious fascism must be liberal, left, and deviant. This transitions to White officers policing Black neighborhoods seeing themselves in circumstance little different to occupying a hostile neighborhood in a war zone; where everyone, including children, are not only a threat, but are in no uncertain terms viewed as ‘the enemy.’

At the end of the day, ’veterans preference’, favoring tens of thousands of “Christian Dominion” personalities whose primary motive is towards an America to be ruled by those ‘chosen by God’ (their own kind, exclusively, who just happen to be mostly White), in patent violation of our constitution, with attending attitude of our citizens civil rights be damned, is one more large step on the road to societal disintegration; ultimately inviting a severity of control along the lines of Franco’s Spain or Pinochet’s Chile or even so extreme as Nazi Germany. In this latter case, let us not forget the USA’s anti-communist religious fascists had rescued and rehabilitated many of Nazi Germany’s worst war criminals, particularly those intimates of the Nazi intelligence structure experienced in matters of the WWII Eastern front and Soviet affairs, epitomized in Reinhard Gehlen.

A postscript would be, the USA’s constitutional prohibition of any prerequisite ‘religious test’ to serve in government, would appear to have been turned on its head in present circumstance; whereas any applicant for police work in any American force, includes nearly all police in the USA, includes federal police, the several states police, even the police of local communities, could not be questioned or evaluated per an extreme fascist religious belief devoted to the undermining and ultimate overthrow of the secular democratic principle, opening a most unpleasant panorama.

Conclusion

Today’s shameless self indulgences attributed to “Cultural Marxism” in the West are a misapprehension of the reality. Whether a conservative self indulgence of ‘prosperity gospel’ where it matters not what suffering had been inflicted on others in attaining one’s fortune, you are rich because ‘God is blessing you’, or a liberal self indulgence of imposing ‘humanitarian violence’ on other societies to make those societies into a narcissistic image of self because ‘we know better what is good for you’, or an atheist self-indulgence in the idea ‘science cannot prove there exists a god’, or the hedonist self indulgence in sole self-gratification without care or cultivation of that self in sense of possessing a soul and sincere care for another, what we are seeing is the sociopathy of John Calvin; whether that sociopathy had perverted the religious vehicle or had abandoned religion altogether. If the intentions of Jesus had struggled mightily enough trying to survive the neo-Platonic church at Rome, these ideas could never survive John Calvin.

What Johannes Gutenberg had enabled became the spread of ideas that are not necessarily healthy. John Calvin’s ‘predestination’, and resultant spread of a religion sourced sociopathy across the West, freeing Western capitalism from a sense of personal accountability, should be held up as example prima facie of how irresponsible man might confer irreparable damage on mankind. It follows, today’s ‘free press’ of the liberal democracies are little more than purveyor of shameless political lies rooted in the sociopathy of Calvinism. This meme now racing at light speed via fiber optic in the age of internet reminds one of the race of chemotherapy; where the modern medicine can kill the patient more quickly than it kills the cancer. It does seem true there is something missing in the West; a missing culture of natural antibodies in the maintenance of humanity’s spiritual health, things like practical morality and principled ethics, increasingly are becoming memories of a distant past. Recalling Jesus had said “you cannot serve god and money” and today looking only to find “In God We Trust” embossed on every denomination of American currency, I think we know who America’s practical ‘god’ is.

But to make the accusation ‘secular’ democracy in the USA is somehow tied to intention of rejecting God is to miss the mark; the point of the secular demand of the USA’s founding charter had been to provide opportunity to rise above sectarianism. In the end, man proved incapable to achieve this; the lower instincts pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth proved too great.

Lastly, I had read every work of Solzhenitsyn’s I could lay my hands on, Ivan Denisovich, Candle in the Wind, The First Circle, The Cancer Ward, Gulag Archipelago, and finally, some years later, August 1914. There is no question in my mind the man is one of the great observers of our age but I would offer a caveat to Solzhenitsyn’s Russian adherents; do not make the mistake of misapprehension or a belief Solzhenitsyn’s tremendous capacity for understanding Russia and Russians can be somehow translated to a deep understanding of the West or related to American conservatism. It can’t. There is no authentic comparison. The several conservative denominations of Calvinism imported to America birthed the sociopathy we see across the spectrum of American politics and produced conservative and liberal psychopath alike. America’s degeneracy is not a state of ‘Cultural Marxism.’ It is John Calvin. It is not a rational State, rather it is a nuclear armed, collective psychopath’s criminality that has burned its bridges behind, come what may.

This piece is a rebuttal to ‘Alexander Solzhenitsyn – A Russian Prophet’ by Egor Kholmogorov with introduction by Fluctuarius Argenteus & Anatoly Karlin @ http://www.unz.com/akarlin/prophet-solzhenitsyn/

Updated 22 May 2018

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A former Special Forces Sergeant of Operations and Intelligence, Ronald Thomas West is a retired paralegal/investigator (living in exile) whose work focus had been anti-corruption and human rights. Ronald is published in International Law as a layman (The Mueller-Wilson Report, co-authored with Dr Mark D Cole) and has been adjunct professor of American Constitutional Law at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany (for English credit, summer semester 2008.) Ronald’s educational background is primarily developmental & social psychology. His therapeutic device is satire –

At Ft Russ, there is an erudite Russian gentleman writes level, common sense. Far from the overweening personality typical of the western pundit, Mr Eduard Popov is level, honest, one could even say humble, when presenting carefully considered insights well worth taking in.

This (yours truly) polymorph, for most part inclined to multiple manifestations in form of cynic, satirist, on rare occasion the playful jester, but often persona of crude assassin/social critic via lampoon, should tread carefully when correcting one so worthy as Mr Popov.

I would hope it might be said of today’s result “Ronald does, time to time, show his better side.” I suppose I could have simply said ‘I hope I can accomplish this with respect.’

In Mr Popov’s otherwise excellent article “If the U.S. Wants War in Syria, It Will Get War in Ukraine”, where clear case is laid out NATO in Europe would be rolled over as he says ‘like a knife through butter’ there is the one small paragraph or conclusion this analyst takes exception to:

“The main point is that Russia has been and remains the only state capable of destroying the United States if things ever reach the point of a nuclear conflict. It is unlikely that the American establishment would take such a suicidal step no matter how great the temptation might be to commit to a nuclear strike on Russia”

Concerning this presumption of rationality on the American leadership’s part, Friday the 13th seems an auspicious date to point out rationality is not this western liberal democracy’s strong suite. Follows, is the not-so-small matter in which I am compelled to correct Mr Popov, relating to the present state of NATO in its pursuit of demonizing Russia; in what amounts to a western media demagoguery or rousing speech to incite ignorant crowd to lynch innocents.

Prior to laying out the gist of the USA’s psychology in this regard, let me be clear this not so small misapprehension of reality by Eduard Popov is perfectly understandable; as it does seem in the USA itself there is large inability, among otherwise intelligent Americans, to grasp a peculiar darkness where a foremost world authority on a radical religious cult overtaken the American security structures, that is the founder and director of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, can as matter of fact answer the question posed by Cenk Uygur:

“You’re telling me 28 to 34 percent of our military want 7 billion people to die” [believe in literal Armageddon]

“The simple answer is affirmative”

This simple but startling fact is made only worse because the overall percentage doesn’t reflect the percentage actually appears to be higher, very much higher, in the USA military officer corps, and a bit less in the rank and file.

Backing up, to reconstruct or condense a bit of national biography, what our friends in Russia cannot have experienced, and consequently cannot know, is effect of history where the jails & lunatic asylums of Western Europe had been emptied into what was to become the USA, all to become hybridized with Europe’s banished religious extremists of the USA’s pre-founding era; never-mind my nation’s founders were giants of enlightenment thinking, because it is the excesses of Calvinism, only worse, a criminally insane, socially inverted ‘morality’, that has come to rule us. This is the simple reality.

What we have today is ‘prosperity gospel’ overtaken the western corporate boards of the USA’s military-industrial complex where, no matter certain outcome of egregious death were delivered to entire societies, if these outcomes make you personally mega-wealthy, ‘it is because God is blessing you.’ Erstwhile Chevron board director, Bush National Security Advisor & one time Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice is example par excellence.

From this necrotic phenomenon come the lateral relationships between corporate boards’ most powerful personalities, evinced in manifestation of ‘deep state’ minions; where marionette personalities like Rice, and more recently, Tillerson, point to a relationship of oil stocks, example given, to American corporate neocolonialism in what amounts to a planet-wide Manifest Destiny 2.0. The original Manifest Destiny, that is the conquest and rule over America’s indigenous nations, it should be remembered, was attended with rationale of evangelism; that is bringing ‘Christian’ civilization to the heathen. But today’s adversary, Russia, you might argue in the present context, is a Christian nation. Well, the argument of these fantastic hypocrites would be ‘Orthodoxy’ is ‘not Christian enough’ or is ‘the wrong kind of Christian.’ The underlying argument with Russia continues to be a theological one; from the past argument with ‘godless’ Marx, to the present argument with ‘deceived’ Orthodoxy. If your Christianity is not one of violent greed, en route to literal apocalypse (with a required alignment along the way to the western corporate evangelism), it counts for nothing with these people.

Is the preceding statement too strong? Here is the evidence I would offer: Eduard Popov has, without a doubt, read Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn. The Americans I am speaking of have little interest in this quality of literature, in fact our great writer, Washington Irving, other than some surviving in print trite tales of colonial Dutch ghosts, is a forgotten literary figure and was no giant of ethics, rather a honest and entertaining chronicler of American life. No, truth be known, they’d not read this man nor would they be fans of Mark Twain, for if the Americans could produce a great writer, he’d be a satirist of our culture and Twain was exactly that. Beyond this, I doubt so much as 1% of the right-wing evangelicals are so much as aware of the existence of Howard Zinn’s ‘A People’s History of The United States’ where the public schools had been castrated and deprived of right to teach controversial material, whether left, right or center. What do these extreme American neocolonialists of the present day read? A multiple New York Times best selling list extreme Christian fantasy series:

The formula combines Tom Clancy-like suspense with touches of romance, high-tech flash and Biblical references.” […] “an exciting, stay-up-late-into-the-night, page turner story” […]  “the most successful Christian Fiction series ever” […] “…blend of B-movie science fantasy and horror

An Orthodox view of the preceding?

“David Carlson, a Professor of Religious Studies and a member of the Greek Orthodox Church, wrote that the theology underpinning the Left Behind series promotes a “skewed view of the Christian faith that welcomes war and disaster, while dismissing peace efforts in the Middle East and elsewhere–all in the name of Christ“” [bold mine RTW]

Yes sir, Mr Popov, this is the mindset of the Pentagon, Vice President of the United States of America Mike Pence, CIA Director & Secretary of State hopeful Mike Pompeo, American National Security Advisor John Bolton, American Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and not least, Melania Trump. To name a few of the many American self-anointed or ‘chosen.’ Whether Donald Trump is a ‘true believer’ is unknown. But the influences surrounding him should be realistically noted.

Lastly, in regards to the preceding, it should not be missed the USA’s flamboyant overthrow of the rule of International Law is a follow-on to the cavalier discarding of its own Constitutional order; where the self-justifying-self-excusing comes down to a narcissistic interpretation where ‘God’s Law’ is held superior to any institution of man’s law. In this criminal act of usurping all institutions of national and international order, raising the stakes rather than facing accountability, is the preferred model of criminals who’ve burnt their bridges behind them; no matter consequence for the rest of us. When it comes to choice of facing a noose for the individual’s crimes or marching armies towards initiating Armageddon for us all, their instinct will be to Armageddon. That Russian military would slice NATO to pieces in Europe means nothing to these people, they would disingenuously cite the 300 Spartans of Thermopylae and wash their hands of responsibility.

If the preceding is in the model of a cloistered, insulated community of thought springing from a George Orwell inspired science fiction religious fantasy morphing into reality, what of the Americans who should have been putting the brakes on this necrotic turn of events for the world? They’re preoccupied in a Huxley-esque ‘it’s all about me’ dissolute embrace of propagandized consumerism. They’re so caught up in the ‘Hillary was cheated’ (related to feminism) propaganda lie, where the women are competing not to be equal to the men, as much as to be like the men, in a social rule of artificial political correctness to point of grotesque, they don’t even have a spiritual wherewithal or dimension to question what has actually happened. This other side of the American schizophrenic order couldn’t even begin to comprehend they are every bit as susceptible to the economic collapse that would come with an American arms production & sales cessation. Pain that comes with self-sacrifice are altogether alien concept to these ‘other’ Americans who couldn’t understand they also are living far beyond their means, via corporate neocolonialism’s exploitation of this small planet at point of arms, if they actually tried.

Closing, I will quote an ethnic Russian of expatriate family from Soviet times, a man who has attempted to study and understand both sides, today’s rising Russia and, its dissolute but dangerous adversary:

“The Russian view is simple: the West is ruled by a gang of thugs supported by an infinitely lying and hypocritical media while the general public in the West has been hopelessly zombified” — The Saker

I hate to say it, but he’s almost right. The missing element to make the entirety of the perception whole would be ‘irrational’ added thrice.

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A former Special Forces Sergeant of Operations and Intelligence, Ronald Thomas West is a retired paralegal/investigator (living in exile) whose work focus had been anti-corruption and human rights. Ronald is published in International Law as a layman (The Mueller-Wilson Report, co-authored with Dr Mark D Cole) and has been adjunct professor of American Constitutional Law at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany (for English credit, summer semester 2008.) Ronald’s formal educational background is primarily in social psychology.

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Bageera

^ the author’s pre-exile summer life

My essay ‘Modern Indian Society‘ from the book ‘Penucquem Speaks’ (published 2006) has received considerable attention over recent months; and judging by the associated search terms, this has to do with the indigenous concept of shadow or, more precisely, ‘lost shadow.’ Consequently, I decided to expand on the concept that had been only briefly mentioned in the book. This is the result.

The ancient native concept translated as ‘shadow’ is the ‘dynamic’ portal from which you are observed by the world of ‘spirit’ (nature), perhaps best represented in English with this definition…

dynamic |dīˈnamik|
adjective
1 Linguistics (of a verb) expressing a process

…in a case where self-recognition is not ego-based but environmentally substantiated within a context of nature; where all surroundings are social. How you could experience this from this side (in non-egoic sense as part of process), example given, where there is a wild plum tree in full blossom alive with honey bees; you don’t see or differentiate the bees or parts of the tree (blossoms) separately but rather first instinct understands the tree as alive with the sound of the bees, all as integrated single organism. This is information delivered via the ‘portal.’

You also instinctively know this is a shifting phenomenon of process that is constantly in motion and your’s is in a place of moving process. In other words, your shadow is a shifting or mutating awareness attending oneself or one’s presence, constantly feeding one information. How you would know you are seen from the ‘other side’ (in same non-egoic sense or as integrated to process), example given, let’s say you are hunting and as a hunter you understand it is what will be offered to you is what you are allowed to take; also it is spring and you shouldn’t take the doe carrying a young one. The Mule Deer herd senses your presence and begins to move away but a large doe stands still and offers herself. You take her because you understand she has offered herself; and discover she is barren. This is knowing both; how to read and how to write. It is a form of literacy, sans pen & paper. The doe knew the herd’s best outcome was giving herself up, you read that, and taking her, you wrote the best outcome for all concerned; your people are fed and the mule deer community kept it’s future in a higher state than if you’d taken any of the other deer.

Or, as I had previously written:

Let’s say because you are of the old indigenous mental construction and you know *how* to pray *through* the trees, while traveling, you come to a Y in the road. To now, you only know there is a way through the forest you are traversing, but you have no map and no detailed instruction. Because you know *how* to pray *through* the trees, the environment (which is sentient, intelligent, and social) recognizes, respects, and even *anticipates* your thought when you send it out – “which way” – and a large bird of prey drops out of a tree and flies down right fork in the road, your questions are responsibly answered along this and other lines, with 100% accuracy, throughout the trip … because this indigenous mentality can repeat this *read* of the environment with fluency and confidence, whether it is a bird calls in the precise moment, or noticing a feature resembling a face in a rock outcropping (psychosis to the Platonic mentality), even a puff of breeze moving leaves on an otherwise still day and more.

How is it this ‘portal’ of understanding translates as your shadow?

This interactive understanding is an awareness that moves with you, coordinated with your thought process in *receptive* mode, except in case where you’ve been knocked out of alignment with your ‘portal’, in which case it can be said you’ve ‘lost your shadow’, a serious and even life threatening circumstance; with your loss of ability to ‘read’ surrounding environment. This ‘portal’ that follows (or precedes or surrounds) oneself is a critical component of essence or being in context of survival.

If you cannot ‘read’, you cannot take what is offered, as you cannot take what you cannot see and you’ve become out-of-sync. As well, because your surrounding environment is sentient and aware, you may easily become the environment’s ‘offering’ for lack of this ability to read; this loss of yourself is recognized by the greater social awareness (your natural surroundings.) In this case, you could easily become the surprised kill. This last is akin to the wolf identifying and taking the weak of the herd. They ‘know’ because they have ‘shadow’ or portal of understanding as well. When the environment, which is sentient, aware and social, knows you are out-of-sync, it’s only a matter of time and you will be taken.

How this system of awareness came to be related to early ‘frontier’ photography and the concept of ‘shadow stealing’ is actually quite simple; this was era entire native nations had been knocked out of alignment with their natural social environment (interactive nature.) With the Whites came a severe damage to this world of perception, with severe disease related losses, ecological damage and the disappearing of wildlife, together with attending psychological impact, almost nothing worked as it had.

The static ‘capture’ of image (photography) easily fit the concept of lost shadow, as it must have looked as one would imagine nature were to perceive the self, where previous to western culture, one might only behold in reflective water. However reflection in the water did not threaten; because it did not seize and keep the image. In a world without concept of coincidence, it could not be construed as anything other than, with the Whites’ arrival, and the near simultaneous loss of the interactive ‘literacy’ of living integrated to nature, portrait photography came to represent the ultimate theft of this unique awareness.

Badger_River

^ The author’s ‘shadow’ classroom

30+ years life in Indian country

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A former Sergeant of Operations and Intelligence for Special Forces, Ronald Thomas West is a retired investigator (living in exile) whose work focus had been anti-corruption. Ronald had lived over thirty years in close association with Blackfeet Indians (those who still speak their language), and is published in international law as a layman: The Right of Self- Determination of Peoples and It’s Application to Indigenous People in The USA or The Mueller-Wilson Report, co-authored with Dr Mark D Cole. Ronald has been adjunct professor of American Constitutional Law at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany (for English credit, summer semester 2008.) Ronald’s formal educational background (no degree) is social psychology. His therapeutic device is satire.

Contact: penucquemspeaks@googlemail.com

“Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with the good” -Mahatma Ghandi

All original work and art © copyright by Ronald Thomas West; for profit and mass paper media redistribution prohibited

NATO’s April Fool Award

Serbia vs Kosovo:

Squatters crossed Serbia’s property line, threw out the caretakers and claimed the farm for their own. When Serbia had reasserted title over what had been rightly their farm, bandits roused others, jealous of Serbia, beat the rightful owner up and kicked him off the land.

This was a robbery.

Spain vs Catalonia:

One family of Romans became two families with a divided farm. The brother, Madrid, has always treated the sister, Barcelona, with arrogant, forceful contempt, and continues insisting on dictating her affairs.

This is a habit of domestic violence.

If Madrid, a fraternal brother of NATO, does not presently wish to be associated with responsibility for this (hint: it’s not the ethnic Serbs in black uniforms) …

…almost certainly the real reason is because it closely resembles this…

…in circumstance where Madrid is exploiting Serbia having been robbed, to justify Madrid’s habit of domestic violence in Catalonia.

There are two victims in these circumstance, Belgrade & Barcelona, and one of those victims might easily become a public relations fool, as European Union institutions will be slowly turning on Madrid; because the present manifestation of Spanish fascism relating to Catalonia is too crude, by far, to be sustained and maintain a public relations illusion of democracy. The end result could easily be, Serbia embracing Spain’s friendship in the matter of Kosovo, will become a wide public perception Serbia had embraced what amounts to the legacy of Francisco Franco.

Meanwhile, going to ‘friendship’, has Madrid compensated Serbia, together with issuing a formal, public, apology for this next?

“F/A-18 Hornets of the Spanish Air Force were the first NATO planes to bomb Belgrade”

No? I didn’t think so. Friend of geopolitical convenience? Certainly.

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There is, I believe, no more brutal humor on Earth, than bonafide Native American humor, and although this humor’s frequent darkness may be related to recent history (past few centuries), there’s really something else about the universal (across the tribes) trickster god (with a small g) that is fundamentally opposed to the western or modern (to the Americas) mentality. One might consider the ‘taciturn’ Indian maybe doesn’t talk to the Whites (or their close kin, the ‘Black-Whiteman’) in the terms you see here (or talk much in the presence of Whites at all), it’s either because 1) they’re too polite to say what they actually think and/or 2) They know, more likely than not, in any case it’d be a wasted effort. In this 2nd case, I have to apologize to Mr Barking Dog (see below) for violating Native etiquette and pointing out ‘stupid is as stupid does’ is the most apropos folk proverb to describe this phenomenal problem of cross-cultural non-communication; no, wait. It’s not stupid is as stupid does, it’s the dilemma of trying to explain a few simple things to ‘people too stupid to understand they’re stupid.’ Consequently, I fear for my legacy; having tried to do just that. But I might be saved by the Native rule of paradox, because someone with a little bit of humility, having actually read through this following essay’s insults, might actually get the fundamentally sound lesson in the Native humor… it’s not that I mean to give anyone a lifetime’s mental complex, but in our (Native) world there are no excuses, you have to work out, you cannot conceal, your bulls**t.

Barking Dog: “Want to understand ! Can’t get there from here. Stuck in Caucasian thought, way of doing things. Can you direct me to an area of studies starting at square one so I can understand. Or would it be a useless effort like a dog chasing his tail. Thanks for your work and sharing the earth people’s way”

So, I got this preceding message from Barking Dog over at James LaFond’s site where he [James] is kind enough to run my books (chapter by chapter.) Well, I’ve tried, again and again [1], [2], [3], [4] [5] to bring the understanding across over a period of more than 30 years, without much success. So, here’s trying again:

The Time I Fondled a Dog’s Nuts

These (pre-Cartesian-Platonic) indigenous people were patient in a sense nearly unknown today. My own understanding of, and sight in that world, derives from freak circumstance (or destiny determined by the gods) I wouldn’t wish on anyone, the death of the western idea-forms ‘didn’t happen easily’ (perhaps the greatest understatement of my life, to now.) But here is trying one more time, to bring the working philosophy across.

The first thing to look at is, is the contrast between one of the great (and perhaps only universal) ‘gods’ of the Native world(s), that is ‘the trickster’, and the construct of the mentality according to western psychology. These are mutually exclusive approach to life; the western way is all about process shaping the ego as an adaptive tool engaging one’s surroundings, the Native way had been to pre-empt the emergence of ego in any form, and this had been the role of the trickster, who could quite accurately be described as the ego destroyer; in cultures where ego had been diagnosed and treated as an anti-social mental disorder.

Culturally speaking, at the meta-level, never the twain shall meet. Here is example at the most base level; The western ‘inventiveness’ allows for ego-based individual pursuits independent of influence by surroundings, for instance a corporation is formed by an individual who applies for permits and begins dynamiting rock for cyanide heap leech mining operations. Because the Native mentality cannot perceive itself as detached from (or independent of) consciousness concerning the surrounding environment, this event would be perceived as criminally anti-social in a context the western science has only a small awareness or intellectual (not practical) grasp of:

“The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment” -Bernard d’Espagnat, Theoretical Physicist

Here it is demonstrated ‘Plato was wrong’ but in no way will that error halt Plato’s scientific or ‘objectivity’ based ‘progress’, because western science cannot grasp the profound perceptual mistake made in the very [ego] self d’Espagnat is pointing to. In other words, the idea the human ‘self’, ego and associated, conscious self-awareness, is in any sense independent of our organic surroundings is just not true and this cannot be practically grasped or understood at the meta-level because it is a threat to the ego-self of the very culture. For that fact, it is beyond their comprehension.

This preceding versus

“The knowledge and use of any or all the powers of the objects on Earth around us is as liable to lead a man wrong as to lead him right. It is merely power, with no way of knowing how to use it correctly … unless Spirit is with a man’s spirit for the light” -Red Tomahawk, Sioux

What is Red Tomahawk’s spirit? It is the collective consciousness of our surroundings, including the awareness embodied in the rock being blown up for cyanide heap leach gold extraction. Each of those dynamite explosions is exploding part of a process of sentient, aware intelligence. Red Tomahawk has an ages old, functional grasp of something western science is beginning to glimpse but dare not know the implications.

It follows, the indigenous perception would be, with killing off of our surrounding intelligence, the Earth is, accordingly, becoming severely dumbed down. The analogy would be, with the increasing loss of intelligent expression, our planet is becoming, in a practical sense, a brain damaged spastic. It can’t even coordinate its weather anymore. And there is no escaping consequence, we all are a part of all of it.

Then, western perception is, the exploitation, or as Red Tomahawk put it “the knowledge and use of any or all the powers of the objects on Earth around us”, to a point of destroying our life-giving environment (surroundings) is ‘progress’ because building civilization in the process enables ‘intelligent’ demonstrations of what ultimately amounts to grandiose acts of ego: “We put men in space.”

Well, you can proceed to destroy the planet by building civilization to a point you can send a shipload of colonists to Mars (to certainly die there) and no doubt this will titillate the collective ego of that very civilization, but how intelligent is it to sacrifice the underlying support mechanism, that is life sustaining nature, in the process? How is it western mentality (and the civilization it rules) cannot grasp this single, simple equation in an applied, practical sense? Ego is, quite literally, a destructive thing.

To begin to grasp Native mentality, westerner’s would have to take a mortal hit to ego, that’s the first step, and accept at the core of one’s being, you are a member of a class that are the most aggressive, dumbest fuckers to grace this planet with bipedalism since T Rex went extinct 66 or so million years ago, only less intelligent. T Rex didn’t deliberately blow his world up, only western civilization would do that.

Insofar as IQ, what you are actually measuring is the western projection of ego, not true intelligence which more closely resembles common sense, bringing us to this next:

If you can wrap your head around the idea Plato has insured your culture has created a socialization machine that mass produces people who are worse than total idiots and that includes yourself, and accept this as fact and as the beginning premise of your new intelligence (resolve to climb out of Plato’s pit of ego-driven stupidity), there’s hope for you but not much more than that, because now you have start unfucking everything concerning yourself that’s fucked up in this life and it’s a lot of work. This work begins with breaking habits in your thinking.

Rule one: “I don’t know anything” because from the point of view of the new system you aspire to learn about, you really don’t know s**t. Like a friend had recently stated to me, “I expect we grasp the nature of reality about as well as my dog understands how my Mastercard works.” Bingo. Good start.

From this immediate preceding premise, we are all equal; because in the system you are learning, you cannot *know* the nature of reality. It is what it is, you’ll never know its source or origins, you cannot, that’s the point of its name: The Great Mystery. The difference here, between your old perception, and the new perception you aspire to learn is, you have no right to jack the expression of this mystery around, like so many scientists jacking-off with their experiments in the lab do, because this all has consequence and you have no right to bring consequence down on anyone except yourself. There IS a right to behave stupidly, but only in relation to yourself, not in relation to me, not in relation to your mom, and certainly not in relation to your neighbor or larger environment. This is for the fact your environment is part and parcel of our social world; when you fuck it up for yourself, you fuck it up for everyone. This is NOT allowed. Consequently, for the socially retarded newcomer to this system, we have to inform you in absolutely retarded terms, you possess no more right to exist than the stuff you’re used to chopping down, blowing up, or whatever it is you do to enjoy a life out of proportion to your personal importance, which is, by the way, nil, except that you are recognized as valuable by the expression of the mystery, in effect our sentient environment, inclusive of trees and stones. Certainly we are not talking about recognition in any sense of Alfred Nobel.

Yeah, trees and stones. Now here’s something to think about. Let’s say because you are of the old indigenous mental construction and you know *how* to pray *through* the trees, while traveling, you come to a Y in the road. To now, you only know there is a way through the forest you are traversing, but you have no map and no detailed instruction. Because you know *how* to pray *through* the trees, the environment (which is sentient, intelligent, and social) recognizes, respects, and even *anticipates* your thought when you send it out – “which way” – and a large bird of prey drops out of a tree and flies down right fork in the road, your questions are responsibly answered along this and other lines, with 100% accuracy, throughout the trip … because this indigenous mentality can repeat this *read* of the environment with fluency and confidence, whether it is a bird calls in the precise moment, or noticing a feature resembling a face in a rock outcropping (psychosis to the Platonic mentality), even a puff of breeze moving leaves on an otherwise still day and more. When you make a reprise of this journey (now knowing the road) but the forest has been slaughtered by logging for pulp mills to make paper, it is then a Native understands what is murderous stupidity.

It is this murderous stupidity that must be weeded from your thinking. The ideas you had taken for granted, must become ideas that you viscerally hate. In every possible small way, you must learn to learn it all over again, and in every small way you must learn to resist the insanity:

“Everyone knows the Whiteman is crazy” -Blackfoot proverb

With all of the preceding said, I’d tried teaching this system to both men and women of the White world, over a period of 30 years. The result? One male, and only one, was able to grasp a working knowledge of this system, and it took five years before it began to ‘click’ for him. On the other hand, several women were able to see and begin to grasp (demonstrate a functional understanding) in as little as one afternoon’s walk together in the forest. More typically, these women were a more unique and respectful lesbian mentality without the male sense of ego found in feminist western women in a western culture where women’s emancipation has determined women adopt the aggressive postures of the western male. This 2nd were example of women who couldn’t make the phenomenon happen. Amazon intelligence they are not.

The time I fondled a dog’s nuts goes to shocking the western ego as a matter of demonstration. A younger Native male, my relative, was a hot-shot fire crewman, the elite of the USA’s wild lands firefighters. His White colleague had heard my dog was actually a wolf and wanted to see this creature. This ‘dog’ could take off the arm of anyone that ‘smelled’ wrong and wanting to see it for simple ego sake was not the brightest thing.

In any case, here was this White guy, all young and tough, walking up to see my dog and could be in easily be in danger, depending on how the dog perceived him. Not wishing to introduce fear into the exchange of energy, and not wishing to be rude and say ‘stay away from the dog’, I defused the situation by asking the question “Do you know how to determine if your dog trusts you?” The young guys looked at me, I gave the proper cue, and my dog lay down on his back for me and I then held the dogs balls and rolled them together gently, like large dice, and looking up with straight face said “When your dog will let you do this” as my dog’s tongue was spilled out the side of his mouth to maximum length and the dog’s expression was nothing short of heavenly joy.

Saying nothing (the White kid was speechless, the Indian kid knowing how to keep a straight face), the young men walked away but later, my relative (I won’t give up his identity) told me, speaking of his colleague, “Man, it JARRED him when he saw that.” But you know what? Those times that young man will want to brag he’d seen, and been up close and personal with, a wolf, he’ll be confronted with memory of the wolf rolling on its back to have his nuts fondled and his White culture’s gynophobic male identity or suppressed narcissistic homosexuality (experienced as homophobia) and it’s associated macho ego will take a hit. And that’s pretty funny, especially considering he’d never come close to knowing why I’d done what I’d done, Native humor saving his life as it were.

Y’all had to fuck everything up

Incompetent Espionage & Wikileaks (V)

The wheel is indeed empty, or certainly devoid of truth. Marcy Wheeler at ’emptywheel’ blog believes “the Russians did it”, but there are so many holes in the ‘DNC hack’ story, a government embraced CIA generated conspiracy theory (one that’s going to backfire), Niagara Falls couldn’t keep that sieve filled; no matter intelligence agencies across the spectrum [2] [3] [4] of the liberal democracies are trying to pull the American intelligence agency’s chestnuts out of the fire, Russian hackers here, Russian Hackers there, evil Russian hackers everywhere!

To begin, we only need dissect one short article where Wheeler asserts ‘the Russians did it’ in her:

Why Is Russia Finally Letting (Dubious) Details of Its Involvement in DNC Hack Out?

December 12, 2017 by emptywheel

In recent days there have been a number of stories in Russia implicating the FSB (note, not GRU) in issues related to the DNC hack. First, there was this article from The Bell, claiming that the four Russian treason defendants (two of whom were FSB officers) are being prosecuted because they provided inside information to the US about GRU’s involvement in the DNC hack.

“But it is impossible to identify which specific cyber group or groups were responsible for last year’s Democratic National Committee hack based on technical traces alone, four cyber experts polled by The Bell confirmed. To prove specifically that the GRU was involved, U.S. investigators would have needed inside sources — preferably with access to confidential state matters, one source explained. Mikhailov had that access.

“Relations between intelligence agencies working on the cyber front were strained, one of Mikhailov’s acquaintances said. The FSB and GRU compete for funding and Mikhailov felt the FSB carried out cyber tasks more professionally than the GRU, according to one of his acquaintances.

“He used to say that “the GRU breaks into servers in a brazen, clumsy, and brutish manner and it interfered with his own work”, the acquaintance said. Moreover “the GRU’s hackers didn’t even try to cover their tracks””

The report said that Sergei Mikhailov — who was named (but not charged) the Yahoo hack case — shared information on Russian hackers who wouldn’t work with the FSB with western law enforcement agencies though a cut-out named Kimberly Zenz.

“Mikhailov had been working closely with Western intelligence agencies since 2010. Report written for Vrublevsky said that Mikhailov had leaked sensitive information “on Russian cyber-criminals, who had refused to cooperate with him, to a U.S. citizen”. More specifically, Mikhailov reportedly handed the U.S. citizen — a woman — information on Russian state-sponsored hacker attacks against Estonia and Georgia in 2007 and 2008.

“Burykh says he found that Mikhailov gave the information to Stoyanov, who then passed it on to Kimberly Zenz of the U.S. company iDefense Intelligence. From there, it went to the U.S. Department of Defense”

This 1st (immediate preceding) portion of Wheeler’s article is ok to set up her premise but is mostly notable for one omitted fact; her source, The Bell, is politically aligned with Russia’s most fringe anti-Putin liberal elements, led by the former nationalist turned liberal (western media darling & color revolution hopeful) Alexi Navalny.

Then there’s this story, reporting that a hacker tied to the Lurk group, Konstantin Kozlovsky, hacked the DNC on behalf of the FSB.

Following on this (immediate, preceding) linked story, which is mostly notable for its brevity and rehashing The Bell reporting but referencing another Russian liberal fringe (Navalny aligned) anti-Putin media outlet, Dozhd TV, introduces the name Konstantin Kozlovsky and it’s then we come to the real cheat in Wheeler’s reporting and where in her article things get really interesting:

Then there’s this, from Novaya Gazeta, laying out the news.

This immediate, preceding linked article is, again, the Russian liberal fringe or, Navalny aligned anti-Putin media but perhaps the most credible of the fringe liberal media. The article is in Russian language. It is long, complex, and it certainly does NOT lay out any news, despite Wheeler’s word play on the expression ‘lay out the facts.’ It is most notable for numerous points Wheeler omits to mention. The article’s author, Irek Murtazin, is very careful to emphasize, throughout, nearly everything he is writing is speculation. He mentions there is more than one version of his story. He begins his article with a disclaimer, pointing out almost nothing is known with any certainty, concerning the evidence or any facts surrounding the charges concerning those arrested. He proposes the American version of events is possible but doesn’t give this much credence. He uses many self-referring terms concerning his article’s content that can be translated variously as ‘my impression’, ‘a possibility’, ‘my opinion’ and more. This is a context most westerners will have no ability to discover for themselves and Wheeler construes this for her readers to be “laying out the news

Notably, Murtazin admits the (keep reading) Konstantin Kozlovsky Facebook profile and posting could be a creation of “foreign security service” (implying CIA or  other western intelligence) but he prefers to believe it is a Russian security service creation intended for manipulation and/or damage control. Murtazin’s article clearly indicates this is his opinion only and he has no hard facts to back these presumptions up. He even has his unnamed security services sources specifying ‘possibly’ or ‘it could be.’

NG [Novaya Gazeta, but actually Irek Murtazin’s opinion piece, Wheeler fails to make this distinction] questions — as I do — why this is all coming out now. Of particular interest, it notes that Kozlovsky’s claims were posted in August, but for some reason the hashtags that would have alerted people to the posted claim were not triggering, meaning the information only got noticed (at least in Russia) now.

This (immediate, preceding) omits Murtazin having pointed out Konstantin Kozlovsky had been held in a facility so secure ‘a mouse’ could not leave or arrive unregistered. This is important to note for the fact these may in fact not be (almost certainly are not) Kozlovsky’s claims at all. The impression Wheeler would leave with the inattentive is, the idea there is actual substance to Kozlovsky’s ‘Facebook claims’ when in fact there likely is no substantive element. Wheeler then quotes Murtazin:

“Interestingly, the first materials on this page were posted back in August of this year. And despite the fact that sensational publications were accompanied by tags # CIB, # FSB, # Dokoutchaev, # Mikhailov # Stoyanov, # hackers, # Kaspersky, the existence of a personal page Kozlovsky in Facebook for some reason became known only in early December”

Reinforcing her misleading the reader, Wheeler doesn’t openly or clearly state, or accurately interpret material posited in Murtazin’s article, pointing to the most likely possible of facts; the sound idea Kozlovsky, the imprisoned person, never had anything to do with setting up his own Facebook page. Then:

Here’s the timeline we’re currently being presented with (I’ve made some additions):

“April 28, 2015: FSB accesses Lurk servers with Kaspersky’s help.

“May 18, 2016: Kozlovsky arrest.

“May 19-25, 2016: DNC emails shared with WikiLeaks likely exfiltrated.

“November 1, 2016: Date of Kozlovsky confession.

“December 5, 2016: Arrest, for treason, of FSB officers.

“August 14, 2017: Kozlovsky posts November 1 confession of hacking DNC on Facebook.

“November 28, 2017: Karim Baratov (co-defendant of FSB handlers) plea agreement.

“December 2, 2017: Kozlovsky’s claims posted on his Facebook page.

Note Wheeler does not specify which “additions” are hers, in the preceding, although (at her site) Wheeler attributes the timeline to Murtazin with a blockquote. She previously only uses blockquotes for portions of articles she cites (I’ve added quotation marks where Wheeler is quoting with blockquote at her article, as her entire article is reproduced here in blockquote for purpose of this discussion.) Nowhere in Murtazin’s article does a timeline appear in form Wheeler presents as a quote:

fake block quote - 1

Then Wheeler speculates:

Of particular note, the emails exfiltrated from the DNC and shared with WikiLeaks were probably not exfiltrated until the days immediately after Kozlovsky’s arrest.

Where on earth did Wheeler come up with this? Now, she would have us believe the DNC mails hack was accomplished following Kozlovsky’s arrest, in which case the ‘confession’ posted at Facebook cannot possibly be passed off as accurate, the context and language of the proposed confession precludes this. Is Wheeler insinuating Kozlovsky hacked the DNC from maximum security prison, with a gun to his head, and attempting to attribute this to Murtazin? Finally, Wheeler concludes…

As NG [Murtazin’s opinion piece, actually] notes, this all may well be true (though I wonder why Russia is now letting claims it was involved in the DNC hack go public, after claiming it was uninvolved for so long). But the reason it is coming out now is at least as interesting that it is coming out.

…and her “may well be true” consistently ignores Murtazin has emphasized, not only throughout his article, but particularly in its conclusion, this is entirely speculation absent hard facts (noting none of the prosecution files are public), and his admission of this cannot take into account Wheeler’s twisting of his theory (Murtazin presents his piece as nothing more than a theory), her additions and most notably, omissions. Then, Wheeler can wonder for all of eternity (for her readers’ suggestion susceptible minds) “I wonder why Russia is now letting claims it was involved in the DNC hack go public” when in fact it has not been demonstrated Russia has done any such thing. This is Murtazin speculating, nothing more, coming from a disgruntled former mainstream Russian journalist with the integrity of 10,000 Marcy Wheelers with his admission amounting to ‘I made this all up, maybe it will prove true’ (but it certainly won’t, see section two of this post.) In fact, there is greater chance (even if very slim) the arrests of the Kapersky lab figure and the Russian secret services officers are coincidental and unrelated to the arrest of Kozlovsky, than there is chance (practically none) Kozlovsky hacked the DNC servers. For all we know, the FSB officers arrests & treason charges could relate to corruption concerning the billions of rubles the LURK hacking group had stolen from Russia. Anyone can speculate anything at a point where no one really knows what the evidence is concerning those charged. In the end, the most notable omission of Wheeler is, Murtazin’s theory does not implicate Putin, but proposes a possibility that would point to far down the chain of command, to a mid-level, American spy service directed, traitor embedded in Russia’s FSB; ordering the DNC hack to [apparently] frame the Russians. How’d Wheeler miss that? She couldn’t have. The damning piece of Wheeler’s article is as simple as its’ title; “Why Is Russia Finally Letting (Dubious) Details of Its Involvement in DNC Hack Out?” The plain answer is, Russia hasn’t. Novaya Gazeta, publishing this far-fetched speculation, is certainly not acting on behalf of the Russian state.

Marcy Wheeler is one of the slickest, most underhanded so-called ‘journalists’ this investigator has ever encountered. She comes off as a master propagandist, fully engaged in running a professional ‘limited hangout’ or information operation promoting the USA’s intelligence services line. Her target audience is what I’d call the ‘marginally mainstream alienated’ seeking to know what is actually happening. Those people are both; too often convinced and horribly misinformed.

Note on my methodology: I did not rely on google translate (never a good idea, although I do use this tool to become familiar with the overall gist of a story in foreign language.) In order to actually understand the Russian article by Murtazin, I arranged on three occasions to sit with one of my (several) Russian literate associates, to get at accuracy and the nuance of what Murtazin was trying to say. Once before this composition and twice again following this composition.

Incidental to this, I’m informed the Kozlovsky ‘confession’ (reproduced in the Novaya Gazeta opinion piece by Murtazin) reads in the original Russian like a hybrid geek spy novel/Russian suspense thriller movie trailer, with all of the elements of a criminal-turned-unlucky-super-hero plot; where the protagonist turned world savior Kozlovsky had been served with a task list of saving us all from the liberal democracies most extreme paranoid cyber-fantasies. The remark was made “they should give this to Spielberg” and this Russian literate friend is not a Putin fan. It follows, Central Intelligence Agency can never provide proper screen credit to its writers, for reason of plausible deniability as it were.

Also, it is noticed Murtazin’s bias is palpable; when Murtazin refers to Russia’s Federal Security Bureau (FSB) as ‘The Lubyanka‘ (a historic Moscow jail and museum where FSB has an office) to associate today’s FSB with Stalin’s political crimes (the comparison is not close.) This is not how you win friends and influence people (or change the system.)

Wrapping up this section on the emptywheel (which reads like an intelligence agency contracted) hit job, we come to question of Marcy Wheeler’s motive, in her ability to take advantage of her readers vulnerability where examples given…

cz
outside comfort zone- V -outside comfort zone
WaPo = CIA media ^                   ^ DNC mails leaked

…’cz’ is the ‘comfort zone’ and the V in the center represents ‘psychological sight.’ As a metaphor, we can say, the eyes are at the point (bottom) of the V and people who depend on certain media and consequent shaped, narrow perception, have their field of vision contained or restricted within the V or comfort zone. The point of working through media to shape perception is to keep the large majority of people inside the ‘comfort zone’, insuring trust in (no matter if undeserved), and support for, geopolitical policy (no matter how insane.) In the event Wheeler, with her habit of sourcing Operation Mockingbird 2.0‘s WaPo & NYT, were herself manipulated (narcissists are brilliant material for this), I’ll be following up on that with a forthcoming satire. Meanwhile, anyone desiring an unbiased take on what’s actually happening, politically, inside Russia by an author who is not socially engineering his material, is not in love with Putin but understands Putin’s method’s better than most, I recommend a read of analyst Gordon Hahn’s assessment HERE.

 

Section Two: Incompetent Espionage and Wikileaks

 

This section is substantially unchanged since it had been posted as “Incompetent Espionage & Wikileaks (III).” It still holds up:

20 February 2018 update: Kim Dotcom weighs in:

16 September 2017 update: Antiwar.com reports:

“Under this deal, which was reported by the Wall Street Journal, Assange would provide conclusive proof that Russia was not the source of hacked emails WikiLeaks published. In return, he would be offered a pardon, or some other assurance that he wouldn’t be prosecuted by the US for involvement in WikiLeaks.

“Rohrabacher brought this deal to the White House Wednesday [13 September 2017], but Chief of Staff John Kelly not only apparently didn’t like the offer, but didn’t tell President Trump that the offer had been made, instead telling Rohrabacher to take the proposal to the intelligence community.

“The intelligence community almost certainly wouldn’t be in a position to offer any sort of amnesty for Assange, which likely means the end of the proposal. Rohrabacher offered to set up a meeting between Assange and a Trump representative, but that too appears to have been dismissed by Kelly”

So, the generals keep Trump sequestered like the Vatican keeps a rampant pedophile priest under wraps; away from any real work and responsibilities (in this case, kept from knowledge of what’s actually going on in the world.) But now, with the Wall Street Journal blowing the whistle, Ivanka should soon be whispering in her daddy’s ear; and what will tell you everything is, what happens next. Suppose Trump keeps his mouth shut and says nothing? This will indicate the absolute completion of the Pence aligned generals capture of the Oval Office.

But the real news here is, Assange provides evidence of his belief that he is personally more important than any unconditional release of information which should stop the Pentagon and NATO’s pursuit of a war footing directed at Russia in its tracks.

Narcissism? Is there a stronger word? Julian Assange, who fancies himself ‘Jesus of the Digital Age’ would appear to be tired of bearing his cross. The Roman’s puppet, King Herod, hasn’t been authorized to provide the pardon and Pontius Pilate’s (read Mike Pompeo’s) people will deliver Jesus of the Digital Age to crucifixtion on behalf of the ‘duopoly’ mob, to satisfy their blood lust. Good luck with the world’s biggest ‘deal-maker’ (read loser) Wikileaks, because you blew it by waiting too long.

The entire sand-castle (a product of Obama CIA Director John Brennan’s imagination facilitated by the ‘Never Trump’ Bush partisans at CIA’s dirty tricks division) the “Russians hacked the election” is finally washing away with an incoming tide. How this plays out is anyone’s guess.

The open question is, how the new information will be leveraged, if it were to actually break into the open widely, with the bad boy Trump essentially captured by the surreal evil that surrounds him. Other than pure evil (e.g. Pence), only a narcissist or a fool would ever desire to be president of this particular republic. In ‘The Donald’, we have both.

1 August 2017 an audio tape is leaked in which Seymour Hersh states the FBI knows it was Seth Rich leaked the DNC mails:

“What the [FBI] report says is that some time in late Spring… he makes contact with WikiLeaks, that’s in his computer. Anyway, they found what he had done is that he had submitted a series of documents — of emails, of juicy emails, from the DNC” -Seymour Hersh

On 9 August 2017 The Nation magazine publishes a column on a group of independent experts…

“Forensic investigators, intelligence analysts, system designers, program architects, and computer scientists of long experience and strongly credentialed are now producing evidence disproving the official version of key events last year”

…demonstrating the DNC mails were leaked, not hacked.

On 18 August 2017 Antiwar.com reports Congressman Dana  Rohrabacher has met with Assange concerning the DNC mails and [the article] further credibly suggests Assange is holding the DNC leak evidence hostage as a bargaining chip to possibly acquire a pardon for himself and leverage wikileaks into legitimacy with a President of the United States who at this point is owned by the USA’s intelligence agencies, a hare-brained scheme destined to fail. Assange & company waited too long.

But this would fit Julian Assange’s self-centered, persecuted-savior complex which never ceases to amaze, this guy (as well, Craig Murray) has allowed the idiots surrounding Trump to push us towards the brink with Russia, for months. All because Assange is tired of his embassy confinement in London, a circumstance that is entirely his own fault for the fact he didn’t have the self-discipline to keep his dick in his pants (whether Assange’s admitted intercourse was a case of rape or not.)

What’s more is, this blog pointed to strong circumstantial evidence it was Seth Rich leaked the DNC mails this past January, and recalling this, it still stretches the imagination a former UK ambassador would make an amateur espionage move worthy of a cub scout playing spy. But that’s what Craig Murray had done in the case of the DNC emails leaked to WikiLeaks.

Seymour Hersh states Seth Rich is the source of the DNC mails. Craig Murray states he had met with the source of the DNC mails. A + B = C:

Craig Murray met with Seth Rich

That Murray would be a high value target for American counter-intelligence to monitor for the reason of his high profile association with WikiLeaks is beyond obvious. For Murray then to state

murray_wikileaks-1

“I know who leaked them. I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things”

…goes to the practically bizarre when coming from a former United Kingdom ambassador to Uzbekistan. The UK is little different to the USA in the case of embassies providing cover for spies; in which case Murray should at least have some rudimentary espionage understanding such as YOU DO NOT MEET YOUR SOURCE DIRECTLY WHEN YOU ARE A HIGH PROFILE TARGET OF YOUR ADVERSARY’S COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE HUNTING YOUR (in this case, WikiLeaks) SOURCE(S)

Then, we had WikiLeak’s Assange giving what amounts to a ‘Glomar’ ‘I will neither confirm or deny’ response concerning the murder (assassination) of Seth Rich after appearing to suggest Rich was the source of the DNC emails leak:

Beyond this, WikiLeaks offering a $20,000 reward for the solving of the Seth Rich murder is laughable, that’s what an American west coast upscale community would offer for the arrest of a serial killer of the neighborhood’s cats. Two million dollars might get two seconds’ attention of a corruptible counter-intelligence agent with knowledge of a professional hit on Seth Rich, twenty million might even net an inside the agency sucker willing to take the exceedingly high risk to one’s life (almost certain death) that would attend selling out an agency hit man for substantial lucre. In truth, the WikiLeaks reward offer amounted to little more than a tabloid publicity stunt.

Narcissism is a blinding thing; and a self-righteous narcissism is no exception. Ambassador Murray could have every good intention but on the face of it, he had seriously screwed up. Murray and WikiLeaks should have immediately come clean, there was little to lose. Seth Rich was the source, Murray had met with him, and much could have been gained by stating so; there would be nothing given up any intelligence agency involved did not already know. It have been the right thing to do.

Craig Murray stating ‘I had a serious lapse of professional judgement and this resulted in the death of Seth Rich’ would be the most responsible and newsworthy move WikiLeaks could have taken; to counter the CIA’s ‘the Russians hacked the DNC’ propaganda lie, in which there is much invested by the agency; and the consequent damage to relations with Russia, and growing threat to what little world peace yet exists, is immense. WikiLeaks should have done the right thing a long time ago and they have not. Why not? Because Assange and WikiLeaks believes Assange’s comfort is more important than world peace. What fucks. This is beyond inexcusable, it’s criminal. But for Murray, there’s more at stake here than just a hit to ego & image.

Murray’s likely role in the DNC leaks case? A personal meeting with Rich to confirm for WikiLeaks Seth Rich was a bona fide insider with authentic material prior to a WikiLeaks cash payment to Rich and arrangements completed for the mails transfer.

Now, it is a question of ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’ release the evidence because WikiLeaks waited too long, and let the criminals surrounding Trump consolidate their power while investing deeply in the myth of the Russians hacked the election; a criminal cabal that will up the ante on the world stage to any level necessary to avoid accountability. WikiLeaks Idiots. WikiLeaks Morons.

Meanwhile, Murray subsequently barred from the United States (except that he applies for a visa, typically unnecessary for a British citizen) appears to have been, in a  manner of speaking, a deep state message to Murray: ‘thank you very much for the lapse of judgement, we have taken full advantage with the assassination of Seth Rich and we won’t be requiring your services after this’ (he’d be smart to stay away.)

The really sticky problem for WikiLeaks in this scenario is, Seymour Hersh asserts in the  recorded call WikiLeaks had paid Rich for the leaked documents, damaging or reducing to element of pretense WikiLeaks claims of journalism & providing rationale for deep state prosecutors & judges to find this had been straightforward espionage. But they won’t do it if the Rich-Murray meeting stays buried, a LOT is invested in ‘the Russians did it’ for the public consumption. If it DOES break open, Murray’s ‘goose is cooked.’ It’s now not only WikiLeaks problem in a larger sense, but Murray’s, whether he does or doesn’t admit the assassinated Seth Rich had been the DNC mails source.

Murray’s reputation? C’est la mort.

*

A prime candidate for assassin of Seth Rich HERE

Related articles at: On Wikileaks

 

To begin, it’s like owning gold but the gold isn’t in your actual possession, so, when the proverbial ‘shit hits the fan’ or e.g. a solar (or nuclear) generated magnetic pulse fries your iphone, and takes down the internet along with the grid, fuel can’t even be pumped out of the underground storage to fill your car, let alone run the trucks that fill your local grocery shelves, just what the f**k do you expect you can do with your gold or Bitcoin? At this point it is merely an appendage of your memory and survival depends solely on your skills and whatever you might happen to have in your basement or garage. So, already Bitcoin doesn’t exist.

These Bitcoin essays, from an anonymous soul, posted up at Automatic Earth website, are more than an enlightening explanation of finance put forward in a commonsense language; but are a brilliant set of essays constituting an invaluable social critique. Well written, HIGHLY recommended reading:

“So money at its most austere is simply a promise. But a promise to whom for what? And that’s the problem. No matter what good you use, people place differing values on it, different time-preferences, and most especially ways to cheat, game the system, and renege. This is bad among businesses, banks – who are after all only men – especially bad among governments, but worst of all among government and banks combined. Because, should the banks lie, renege, default, abuse their privilege, who then would hold them to task?”

Bitcoin Doesn’t Exist – 1

“Where has our present system gone wrong? The criticisms of the existing monetary system are short but glaring. First, everyone is disturbed by the constant increase in quantity. And this is more than an offhand accusation. In 2007 the Fed had $750B in assets. In 2017 they have $4.7 Trillion, a 7-fold increase. Where did that money come from? Nowhere. They printed it up, digitally”

Bitcoin Doesn’t Exist – 2

“Even being a fellow insider is no insurance, as the NY banks cut off Lehman from funds they were owed, driving it into bankruptcy to buy the pieces in receivership. Unpopular Billionaires are treated likewise. This is a system with no justice, no order, no rules, and no predictability. Anyone within it is at grave and total risk”

Bitcoin Doesn’t Exist – 3

“Without Internet, our just-in-time inventory halts, food and parts stop moving, banking and commerce fail. You’re talking Mad Max. TEOTWAWKI. That’s a grave problem, but not unique to Bitcoin”

Bitcoin Doesn’t Exist – 4

“I can’t solve the next generation’s problems. We’ll be lucky to survive our own. But I can warn you that even now this generation will never accept a digital mark without which you cannot buy or sell, not voluntarily and not by force. It’s too far to reach and social trust is too compromised. But could they get us halfway there and just make it official later, when everything’s fixed again? I think absolutely.

“Once that’s in, you can finish all the plans written in the bank and government white papers: perfect, inescapable taxation. Perfect, indelible records of everyone you talked to, everything you said, everything you bought, everywhere you were, everyone you know. Not today, but in the future. And that is the purgatory or paradise they seek today. The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance. The system we have wasn’t always bad: a small cadre of bad men worked tirelessly while complacent citizens shirked their duty. So when we move to a new system softly, without real purge, real morality, real reform, what makes you think the same thing won’t happen to your new system? Only far, far more dangerous”

Bitcoin Doesn’t Exist — 5

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I was perusing the news and came across an article at Zero Hedge pointing to the proposed idea White men actually work more while on the job. Now, this raised some red flags in my satirical instinct, recalling those several occasions I’d witnessed White males with hard hats, standing around with hands in pockets; at federal highway construction projects, watching Blacks labor like slaves. This recalled Mel Brooks:

Now, maybe the social scientists at The Economist believe their statistics, and I have no problem with numbers per se, it’s how numbers are interpreted is what puts the hair up on this satirist animal’s back. It’s the small matter of cultural narcissism, also known as ethnocentric bias. It follows, applying what JRR Tolkien called ‘The Vulgar Tongue’ to simple social principles, we can  come up with alternative sight to what is actually going on.

  1. White men put more into the job during actual work hours because they are stakeholders in ‘the system’ or legacy of colonialism that is culturally White from historical perspective; in effect, they are better slaves because they ‘believe.’ Slaves!? some might ask? Sure, America was built on White indentured servitude, not only Black slavery, and the ‘belief’ was looking forward to that day of emancipation never offered to Blacks in a legal, contractual basis. Consequently, these days, White men are, by and large, the bigger suckers in a system that could give a rats ass about the color of your skin, so long as you are stupid enough to ‘buy in’ to a machine that will grind you throughout life and spit you out, not only more than tired, but broke and struggling to survive on social security. So, yes, the Whites are still the more hardworking slaves, despite their ’emancipation’ is demonstrated to be a lie.
  2. This immediate preceding brings up another cultural self-deceit, of Whites possessing the higher IQ. Again, it’s a matter of social interpretation of the numbers. The more you’re ‘bought in’ as a stake-holder, the higher your score is likely to be; due to socialization instilling work ethic, so, rather than ‘playing hookey’, that is, cutting school to do things that will make you HAPPY, you’re already slaving at the homework which will have the effect of raising your IQ score. In short, the sooner you surrender to the system, the earlier the age, and coming from the White heritage instilling the ‘work ethic’ (‘achievers’ most often come from families of ‘achievers’), the higher that’s going to jack up your IQ where IQ testing is designed measure your abilities as a slave in service to the system which owns you.
  3. This immediate preceding ‘work ethic’ is derived from a social phenomenon having little to do with happiness, as noted in H.L. Mencken’s maximum that Puritans (who brought the ‘work ethic’ to North America) must preoccupy themselves with the horrifying thought “Someone, somewhere, might be happy.” Not very intelligent that, irrespective of measurable IQ.
  4. Consequently, you have a society that is miserable in divers ways; and in the course of making other people’s lives miserable, they live out their own miserable lives.
  5. So these ‘hard working’ people learned to follow Jesus command to ‘love’ by ‘loving’ to hate. Because of the ‘love’ factor in ‘loving’ to hate themselves, their kids and their fellow man, making ‘love’ is more often a rape than not, ‘loving’ their brothers and sisters is ‘loving’ to tell other people how to live their lives, and ‘loving’ security is to create an insecure society so they can ‘love’ the idea of a police state. None of this is about the arguably higher intelligence of experiencing ‘happiness’, intelligence White men apparently can’t know how to measure.

The good news is, ‘White’ is a cultural phenomenon (state of mind) and no one need behave like these privileged White striped skunks:

Of this world’s 1,645 billionaires, 12 of them are Black, and of those twelve, the majority are Nigerian. Well, that should be no surprise, the biggest scam on the planet is a system where the eight top billionaires own as much as the world’s poorest half of the globe combined:

The world’s eight richest billionaires control the same wealth between them as the poorest half of the globe’s population, according to a charity warning of an ever-increasing and dangerous concentration of wealth

Just a step down in this story is where you find America’s Black billionaires, Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan, close to the 1% top:

“The richest 1% now has as much wealth as the rest of the world combined”

The total three American Black billionaires (Robert Smith is the 3rd) included in the world’s 12 Black billionaires of the world’s collective 1,645 billionaires, ‘own’ a significant chunk of the happiness of billions of colonized people and they’re not ‘sharing the sweatshop equity’ (read ‘sharing the sweatshop equity’ any way you like.)

Colonized? one might ask. That’s right, the wealth figures preceding were accomplished through the neo-corporate colonialism which had replaced colonialism, which never really went away but was ‘bait and switched’ … as in when a Belgian mercenary pilot assassinated (shot down) UN General Secretary Dag Hammerskold who was on his way to meet with Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected leader of ‘de-colonized’ Congo, who in turn was assassinated by MI6 (with body handed directly to CIA for disposal) and six or so million ‘blood diamond’ deaths later, we all know how that worked out for corporate stocks:

^ Doesn’t come across as White (at all)

The bad news is, you can be Black and culturally White, that is to say possess a European cultural mentality, behaving little differently to our neo-colonial masters. The White man Obama (handed off to his White grandparents for upbringing, by a single, White, CIA officer ‘mother’ who couldn’t handle raising a kid), giving a ‘Medal of Freedom’ to billionaire Michael Jordan, would seem little different if King Leopold of Belgium had conferred an award, making a certain Congolese colonial subject a countess, for her history of cooperative behavior, all the while setting a ‘proper’ example in the colonial system:

Human_Zoo

^ Human Zoo, Brussels, 1958

Civilization as we know it in the 21st Century is the economic legacy born of feudal Europe; or better said, the rest of us are all niggers, no matter the color of our skin, in the service of the White man’s top 1%. You believe you are free? If you were to stop working for the ‘man’ tomorrow, even if you supposedly ‘owned’ your house, you owe property tax. There is no better example par excellence of what is actually feudalism.

Now, going to the intelligence of ‘happiness’, which one makes more sense, a community that can set its own environmental standards and fence the nastiness out (that is NOT what happened with Keystone in South Dakota) or shoving unwanted environmental problems down people’s throats to a point they will hate you? (that IS what is happening with Keystone in South Dakota.) Take the same idea, and expand it to American corporate world domination (with Pentagon the enforcer), where “the pursuit of happiness” is not only denied across the planet, this denial causes a profound, visceral hatred, and associated problems, up to and including international ‘terror’ as a case of ‘chickens come home to roost.’ Now, tell me the White man is more intelligent and I’ll tell you, you can keep your White man’s IQ and you can shove it too:

As people became more agricultural and settled, the rich became richer as the ancient farmers who could afford oxen, cattle and other large animals increased their crop production. This provided significant opportunities for amassing and transmitting wealth, and the degree of household wealth-based inequality became much higher in Old World Eurasian contexts [versus the ‘uncivilized’ New World], as measured by house size.

“High degrees of inequality did not contribute to long-term stability in ancient societies. That is something that should concern us given the extraordinary high degree of inequality in our own society”

If anyone were to interpret this small essay as some rank apologetic for socialism, they couldn’t be more mistaken. If you were to take all of the world’s wealth and divide it equitably, you still haven’t yet escaped the White man’s IQ that treats natural resources, via euphemisms of ‘science’ coupled with ‘human progress’, as an exploitable bank account with infinite, unaccountable, overdraft potential. Mass extinction in the ‘anthropocene’ (here) would be the same effective result of redistribution of wealth, as opposed to SURRENDERING wealth, finally pointing  towards identical environmental outcome to capitalism.

Recalling the failed dialectic of Marxism, juxtaposed to today’s runaway corporate train, an IQ of happiness would begin with the idea civilization doesn’t need reformed, civilization needs dismantled. It might seem paradox to the ‘bought in’, but to begin down the path to happiness, via initiating dismantling of civilization with radical decentralization, is certainly not a rocket science requiring a White man’s IQ. Most of the environmentally damaged communities today are dirty because of hierarchy from the outside forcibly shitting on them; this is irrespective of whether it had been Marxist model or present corporate hierarchy, when in fact most ‘ordinary folk’ would prefer keeping a clean community.

So, relating to our dysfunction, which one got it right, Orwell or Huxley?

Conservative Sympathetic Failure

Orwell saw the future from a perspective describing a collective, but sequestered, sort of fundamentalism & hierarchy with strictured mentality you would find along the lines of his experience embedded in a colonial authority. A conservative church is in the Orwell model.

Liberal Sympathetic Failure

Huxley saw things along the lines of a dissolute, future ‘it’s all about me’ MTV generation or social orgy subjected to mass media manipulation and control. Social media, particularly Twitter, is in the Huxley model.

One being right did not make the other wrong. Sane people are caught-trapped somewhere on periphery of either or both models of hierarchy.

Despite some overlap, the very nature/extremism of both phenomena’ participants altogether kills any sort of sincere dialogue towards a way out of the mess, and that leaves everyone screwed, because it is precisely how the 1% keep their reign of corporate/colonizing military industrial insanity marching forward. Oops. None of it seems so bright.

“Fat, greedy, well-fed White people, have invented a language for us if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?” –George Carlin

He ain’t White ^

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Re-posted from Cryptome as a public service

The Gentleperson’s Guide to Forum Spies

COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum..

There are several techniques for the control and manipulation of a internet forum no matter what, or who is on it. We will go over each technique and demonstrate that only a minimal number of operatives can be used to eventually and effectively gain a control of a ‘uncontrolled forum.’

Technique #1 – ‘FORUM SLIDING’

If a very sensitive posting of a critical nature has been posted on a forum – it can be quickly removed from public view by ‘forum sliding.’ In this technique a number of unrelated posts are quietly prepositioned on the forum and allowed to ‘age.’ Each of these misdirectional forum postings can then be called upon at will to trigger a ‘forum slide.’ The second requirement is that several fake accounts exist, which can be called upon, to ensure that this technique is not exposed to the public. To trigger a ‘forum slide’ and ‘flush’ the critical post out of public view it is simply a matter of logging into each account both real and fake and then ‘replying’ to prepositined postings with a simple 1 or 2 line comment. This brings the unrelated postings to the top of the forum list, and the critical posting ‘slides’ down the front page, and quickly out of public view. Although it is difficult or impossible to censor the posting it is now lost in a sea of unrelated and unuseful postings. By this means it becomes effective to keep the readers of the forum reading unrelated and non-issue items.

Technique #2 – ‘CONSENSUS CRACKING’

A second highly effective technique (which you can see in operation all the time at http://www.abovetopsecret.com) is ‘consensus cracking.’ To develop a consensus crack, the following technique is used. Under the guise of a fake account a posting is made which looks legitimate and is towards the truth is made – but the critical point is that it has a VERY WEAK PREMISE without substantive proof to back the posting. Once this is done then under alternative fake accounts a very strong position in your favour is slowly introduced over the life of the posting. It is IMPERATIVE that both sides are initially presented, so the uninformed reader cannot determine which side is the truth. As postings and replies are made the stronger ‘evidence’ or disinformation in your favour is slowly ‘seeded in.’ Thus the uninformed reader will most like develop the same position as you, and if their position is against you their opposition to your posting will be most likely dropped. However in some cases where the forum members are highly educated and can counter your disinformation with real facts and linked postings, you can then ‘abort’ the consensus cracking by initiating a ‘forum slide.’

Technique #3 – ‘TOPIC DILUTION’

Topic dilution is not only effective in forum sliding it is also very useful in keeping the forum readers on unrelated and non-productive issues. This is a critical and useful technique to cause a ‘RESOURCE BURN.’ By implementing continual and non-related postings that distract and disrupt (trolling ) the forum readers they are more effectively stopped from anything of any real productivity. If the intensity of gradual dilution is intense enough, the readers will effectively stop researching and simply slip into a ‘gossip mode.’ In this state they can be more easily misdirected away from facts towards uninformed conjecture and opinion. The less informed they are the more effective and easy it becomes to control the entire group in the direction that you would desire the group to go in. It must be stressed that a proper assessment of the psychological capabilities and levels of education is first determined of the group to determine at what level to ‘drive in the wedge.’ By being too far off topic too quickly it may trigger censorship by a forum moderator.

Technique #4 – ‘INFORMATION COLLECTION’

Information collection is also a very effective method to determine the psychological level of the forum members, and to gather intelligence that can be used against them. In this technique in a light and positive environment a ‘show you mine so me yours’ posting is initiated. From the number of replies and the answers that are provided much statistical information can be gathered. An example is to post your ‘favourite weapon’ and then encourage other members of the forum to showcase what they have. In this matter it can be determined by reverse proration what percentage of the forum community owns a firearm, and or a illegal weapon. This same method can be used by posing as one of the form members and posting your favourite ‘technique of operation.’ From the replies various methods that the group utilizes can be studied and effective methods developed to stop them from their activities.

Technique #5 – ‘ANGER TROLLING’

Statistically, there is always a percentage of the forum posters who are more inclined to violence. In order to determine who these individuals are, it is a requirement to present a image to the forum to deliberately incite a strong psychological reaction. From this the most violent in the group can be effectively singled out for reverse IP location and possibly local enforcement tracking. To accomplish this only requires posting a link to a video depicting a local police officer massively abusing his power against a very innocent individual. Statistically of the million or so police officers in America there is always one or two being caught abusing there powers and the taping of the activity can be then used for intelligence gathering purposes – without the requirement to ‘stage’ a fake abuse video. This method is extremely effective, and the more so the more abusive the video can be made to look. Sometimes it is useful to ‘lead’ the forum by replying to your own posting with your own statement of violent intent, and that you ‘do not care what the authorities think!!’ inflammation. By doing this and showing no fear it may be more effective in getting the more silent and self-disciplined violent intent members of the forum to slip and post their real intentions. This can be used later in a court of law during prosecution.

Technique #6 – ‘GAINING FULL CONTROL’

It is important to also be harvesting and continually maneuvering for a forum moderator position. Once this position is obtained, the forum can then be effectively and quietly controlled by deleting unfavourable postings – and one can eventually steer the forum into complete failure and lack of interest by the general public. This is the ‘ultimate victory’ as the forum is no longer participated with by the general public and no longer useful in maintaining their freedoms. Depending on the level of control you can obtain, you can deliberately steer a forum into defeat by censoring postings, deleting memberships, flooding, and or accidentally taking the forum offline. By this method the forum can be quickly killed. However it is not always in the interest to kill a forum as it can be converted into a ‘honey pot’ gathering center to collect and misdirect newcomers and from this point be completely used for your control for your agenda purposes.

CONCLUSION

Remember these techniques are only effective if the forum participants DO NOT KNOW ABOUT THEM. Once they are aware of these techniques the operation can completely fail, and the forum can become uncontrolled. At this point other avenues must be considered such as initiating a false legal precidence to simply have the forum shut down and taken offline. This is not desirable as it then leaves the enforcement agencies unable to track the percentage of those in the population who always resist attempts for control against them. Many other techniques can be utilized and developed by the individual and as you develop further techniques of infiltration and control it is imperative to share then with HQ.

Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation

Note: The first rule and last five (or six, depending on situation) rules are generally not directly within the ability of the traditional disinfo artist to apply. These rules are generally used more directly by those at the leadership, key players, or planning level of the criminal conspiracy or conspiracy to cover up.

1. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Regardless of what you know, don’t discuss it — especially if you are a public figure, news anchor, etc. If it’s not reported, it didn’t happen, and you never have to deal with the issues.

2. Become incredulous and indignant. Avoid discussing key issues and instead focus on side issues which can be used show the topic as being critical of some otherwise sacrosanct group or theme. This is also known as the ‘How dare you!’ gambit.

3. Create rumor mongers. Avoid discussing issues by describing all charges, regardless of venue or evidence, as mere rumors and wild accusations. Other derogatory terms mutually exclusive of truth may work as well. This method which works especially well with a silent press, because the only way the public can learn of the facts are through such ‘arguable rumors’. If you can associate the material with the Internet, use this fact to certify it a ‘wild rumor’ from a ‘bunch of kids on the Internet’ which can have no basis in fact.

4. Use a straw man. Find or create a seeming element of your opponent’s argument which you can easily knock down to make yourself look good and the opponent to look bad. Either make up an issue you may safely imply exists based on your interpretation of the opponent/opponent arguments/situation, or select the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Amplify their significance and destroy them in a way which appears to debunk all the charges, real and fabricated alike, while actually avoiding discussion of the real issues.

5. Sidetrack opponents with name calling and ridicule. This is also known as the primary ‘attack the messenger’ ploy, though other methods qualify as variants of that approach. Associate opponents with unpopular titles such as ‘kooks’, ‘right-wing’, ‘liberal’, ‘left-wing’, ‘terrorists’, ‘conspiracy buffs’, ‘radicals’, ‘militia’, ‘racists’, ‘religious fanatics’, ‘sexual deviates’, and so forth. This makes others shrink from support out of fear of gaining the same label, and you avoid dealing with issues.

6. Hit and Run. In any public forum, make a brief attack of your opponent or the opponent position and then scamper off before an answer can be fielded, or simply ignore any answer. This works extremely well in Internet and letters-to-the-editor environments where a steady stream of new identities can be called upon without having to explain criticism, reasoning — simply make an accusation or other attack, never discussing issues, and never answering any subsequent response, for that would dignify the opponent’s viewpoint.

7. Question motives. Twist or amplify any fact which could be taken to imply that the opponent operates out of a hidden personal agenda or other bias. This avoids discussing issues and forces the accuser on the defensive.

8. Invoke authority. Claim for yourself or associate yourself with authority and present your argument with enough ‘jargon’ and ‘minutia’ to illustrate you are ‘one who knows’, and simply say it isn’t so without discussing issues or demonstrating concretely why or citing sources.

9. Play Dumb. No matter what evidence or logical argument is offered, avoid discussing issues except with denials they have any credibility, make any sense, provide any proof, contain or make a point, have logic, or support a conclusion. Mix well for maximum effect.

10. Associate opponent charges with old news. A derivative of the straw man — usually, in any large-scale matter of high visibility, someone will make charges early on which can be or were already easily dealt with – a kind of investment for the future should the matter not be so easily contained.) Where it can be foreseen, have your own side raise a straw man issue and have it dealt with early on as part of the initial contingency plans. Subsequent charges, regardless of validity or new ground uncovered, can usually then be associated with the original charge and dismissed as simply being a rehash without need to address current issues — so much the better where the opponent is or was involved with the original source.

11. Establish and rely upon fall-back positions. Using a minor matter or element of the facts, take the ‘high road’ and ‘confess’ with candor that some innocent mistake, in hindsight, was made — but that opponents have seized on the opportunity to blow it all out of proportion and imply greater criminalities which, ‘just isn’t so.’ Others can reinforce this on your behalf, later, and even publicly ‘call for an end to the nonsense’ because you have already ‘done the right thing.’ Done properly, this can garner sympathy and respect for ‘coming clean’ and ‘owning up’ to your mistakes without addressing more serious issues.

12. Enigmas have no solution. Drawing upon the overall umbrella of events surrounding the crime and the multitude of players and events, paint the entire affair as too complex to solve. This causes those otherwise following the matter to begin to lose interest more quickly without having to address the actual issues.

13. Alice in Wonderland Logic. Avoid discussion of the issues by reasoning backwards or with an apparent deductive logic which forbears any actual material fact.

14. Demand complete solutions. Avoid the issues by requiring opponents to solve the crime at hand completely, a ploy which works best with issues qualifying for rule 10.

15. Fit the facts to alternate conclusions. This requires creative thinking unless the crime was planned with contingency conclusions in place.

16. Vanish evidence and witnesses. If it does not exist, it is not fact, and you won’t have to address the issue.

17. Change the subject. Usually in connection with one of the other ploys listed here, find a way to side-track the discussion with abrasive or controversial comments in hopes of turning attention to a new, more manageable topic. This works especially well with companions who can ‘argue’ with you over the new topic and polarize the discussion arena in order to avoid discussing more key issues.

18. Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad Opponents. If you can’t do anything else, chide and taunt your opponents and draw them into emotional responses which will tend to make them look foolish and overly motivated, and generally render their material somewhat less coherent. Not only will you avoid discussing the issues in the first instance, but even if their emotional response addresses the issue, you can further avoid the issues by then focusing on how ‘sensitive they are to criticism.’

19. Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the ‘play dumb’ rule. Regardless of what material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed or withheld, such as a murder weapon.) In order to completely avoid discussing issues, it may be required that you to categorically deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made by government or other authorities have any meaning or relevance.

20. False evidence. Whenever possible, introduce new facts or clues designed and manufactured to conflict with opponent presentations — as useful tools to neutralize sensitive issues or impede resolution. This works best when the crime was designed with contingencies for the purpose, and the facts cannot be easily separated from the fabrications.

21. Call a Grand Jury, Special Prosecutor, or other empowered investigative body. Subvert the (process) to your benefit and effectively neutralize all sensitive issues without open discussion. Once convened, the evidence and testimony are required to be secret when properly handled. For instance, if you own the prosecuting attorney, it can insure a Grand Jury hears no useful evidence and that the evidence is sealed and unavailable to subsequent investigators. Once a favorable verdict is achieved, the matter can be considered officially closed. Usually, this technique is applied to find the guilty innocent, but it can also be used to obtain charges when seeking to frame a victim.

22. Manufacture a new truth. Create your own expert(s), group(s), author(s), leader(s) or influence existing ones willing to forge new ground via scientific, investigative, or social research or testimony which concludes favorably. In this way, if you must actually address issues, you can do so authoritatively.

23. Create bigger distractions. If the above does not seem to be working to distract from sensitive issues, or to prevent unwanted media coverage of unstoppable events such as trials, create bigger news stories (or treat them as such) to distract the multitudes.

24. Silence critics. If the above methods do not prevail, consider removing opponents from circulation by some definitive solution so that the need to address issues is removed entirely. This can be by their death, arrest and detention, blackmail or destruction of their character by release of blackmail information, or merely by destroying them financially, emotionally, or severely damaging their health.

25. Vanish. If you are a key holder of secrets or otherwise overly illuminated and you think the heat is getting too hot, to avoid the issues, vacate the kitchen.

Eight Traits of the Disinformationalist

1) Avoidance. They never actually discuss issues head-on or provide constructive input, generally avoiding citation of references or credentials. Rather, they merely imply this, that, and the other. Virtually everything about their presentation implies their authority and expert knowledge in the matter without any further justification for credibility.

2) Selectivity. They tend to pick and choose opponents carefully, either applying the hit-and-run approach against mere commentators supportive of opponents, or focusing heavier attacks on key opponents who are known to directly address issues. Should a commentator become argumentative with any success, the focus will shift to include the commentator as well.

3) Coincidental. They tend to surface suddenly and somewhat coincidentally with a new controversial topic with no clear prior record of participation in general discussions in the particular public arena involved. They likewise tend to vanish once the topic is no longer of general concern. They were likely directed or elected to be there for a reason, and vanish with the reason.

4) Teamwork. They tend to operate in self-congratulatory and complementary packs or teams. Of course, this can happen naturally in any public forum, but there will likely be an ongoing pattern of frequent exchanges of this sort where professionals are involved. Sometimes one of the players will infiltrate the opponent camp to become a source for straw man or other tactics designed to dilute opponent presentation strength.

5) Anti-conspiratorial. They almost always have disdain for ‘conspiracy theorists’ and, usually, for those who in any way believe JFK was not killed by LHO. Ask yourself why, if they hold such disdain for conspiracy theorists, do they focus on defending a single topic discussed in a NG focusing on conspiracies? One might think they would either be trying to make fools of everyone on every topic, or simply ignore the group they hold in such disdain.Or, one might more rightly conclude they have an ulterior motive for their actions in going out of their way to focus as they do.

6) Artificial Emotions. An odd kind of ‘artificial’ emotionalism and an unusually thick skin — an ability to persevere and persist even in the face of overwhelming criticism and unacceptance. This likely stems from intelligence community training that, no matter how condemning the evidence, deny everything, and never become emotionally involved or reactive. The net result for a disinfo artist is that emotions can seem artificial.

Most people, if responding in anger, for instance, will express their animosity throughout their rebuttal. But disinfo types usually have trouble maintaining the ‘image’ and are hot and cold with respect to pretended emotions and their usually more calm or unemotional communications style. It’s just a job, and they often seem unable to ‘act their role in character’ as well in a communications medium as they might be able in a real face-to-face conversation/confrontation. You might have outright rage and indignation one moment, ho-hum the next, and more anger later — an emotional yo-yo.

With respect to being thick-skinned, no amount of criticism will deter them from doing their job, and they will generally continue their old disinfo patterns without any adjustments to criticisms of how obvious it is that they play that game — where a more rational individual who truly cares what others think might seek to improve their communications style, substance, and so forth, or simply give up.

7) Inconsistent. There is also a tendency to make mistakes which betray their true self/motives. This may stem from not really knowing their topic, or it may be somewhat ‘freudian’, so to speak, in that perhaps they really root for the side of truth deep within.

I have noted that often, they will simply cite contradictory information which neutralizes itself and the author. For instance, one such player claimed to be a Navy pilot, but blamed his poor communicating skills (spelling, grammar, incoherent style) on having only a grade-school education. I’m not aware of too many Navy pilots who don’t have a college degree. Another claimed no knowledge of a particular topic/situation but later claimed first-hand knowledge of it.

8) Time Constant. Recently discovered, with respect to News Groups, is the response time factor. There are three ways this can be seen to work, especially when the government or other empowered player is involved in a cover up operation:

a) ANY NG posting by a targeted proponent for truth can result in an IMMEDIATE response. The government and other empowered players can afford to pay people to sit there and watch for an opportunity to do some damage. SINCE DISINFO IN A NG ONLY WORKS IF THE READER SEES IT – FAST RESPONSE IS CALLED FOR, or the visitor may be swayed towards truth.

b) When dealing in more direct ways with a disinformationalist, such as email, DELAY IS CALLED FOR – there will usually be a minimum of a 48-72 hour delay. This allows a sit-down team discussion on response strategy for best effect, and even enough time to ‘get permission’ or instruction from a formal chain of command.

c) In the NG example 1) above, it will often ALSO be seen that bigger guns are drawn and fired after the same 48-72 hours delay – the team approach in play. This is especially true when the targeted truth seeker or their comments are considered more important with respect to potential to reveal truth. Thus, a serious truth sayer will be attacked twice for the same sin.

How to Spot a Spy (Cointelpro Agent)

One way to neutralize a potential activist is to get them to be in a group that does all the wrong things. Why?

1) The message doesn’t get out.

2) A lot of time is wasted

3) The activist is frustrated and discouraged

4) Nothing good is accomplished.

FBI and Police Informers and Infiltrators will infest any group and they have phoney activist organizations established.

Their purpose is to prevent any real movement for justice or eco-peace from developing in this country.

Agents come in small, medium or large. They can be of any ethnic background. They can be male or female.

The actual size of the group or movement being infiltrated is irrelevant. It is the potential the movement has for becoming large which brings on the spies and saboteurs.

This booklet lists tactics agents use to slow things down, foul things up, destroy the movement and keep tabs on activists.

It is the agent’s job to keep the activist from quitting such a group, thus keeping him/her under control.

In some situations, to get control, the agent will tell the activist:

“You’re dividing the movement.”

[Here, I have added the psychological reasons as to WHY this maneuver works to control people]

This invites guilty feelings. Many people can be controlled by guilt. The agents begin relationships with activists behind a well-developed mask of “dedication to the cause.” Because of their often declared dedication, (and actions designed to prove this), when they criticize the activist, he or she – being truly dedicated to the movement – becomes convinced that somehow, any issues are THEIR fault. This is because a truly dedicated person tends to believe that everyone has a conscience and that nobody would dissimulate and lie like that “on purpose.” It’s amazing how far agents can go in manipulating an activist because the activist will constantly make excuses for the agent who regularly declares their dedication to the cause. Even if they do, occasionally, suspect the agent, they will pull the wool over their own eyes by rationalizing: “they did that unconsciously… they didn’t really mean it… I can help them by being forgiving and accepting ” and so on and so forth.

The agent will tell the activist:

“You’re a leader!”

This is designed to enhance the activist’s self-esteem. His or her narcissistic admiration of his/her own activist/altruistic intentions increase as he or she identifies with and consciously admires the altruistic declarations of the agent which are deliberately set up to mirror those of the activist.

This is “malignant pseudoidentification.” It is the process by which the agent consciously imitates or simulates a certain behavior to foster the activist’s identification with him/her, thus increasing the activist’s vulnerability to exploitation. The agent will simulate the more subtle self-concepts of the activist.

Activists and those who have altruistic self-concepts are most vulnerable to malignant pseudoidentification especially during work with the agent when the interaction includes matter relating to their competency, autonomy, or knowledge.

The goal of the agent is to increase the activist’s general empathy for the agent through pseudo-identification with the activist’s self-concepts.

The most common example of this is the agent who will compliment the activist for his competency or knowledge or value to the movement. On a more subtle level, the agent will simulate affects and mannerisms of the activist which promotes identification via mirroring and feelings of “twinship”. It is not unheard of for activists, enamored by the perceived helpfulness and competence of a good agent, to find themselves considering ethical violations and perhaps, even illegal behavior, in the service of their agent/handler.

The activist’s “felt quality of perfection” [self-concept] is enhanced, and a strong empathic bond is developed with the agent through his/her imitation and simulation of the victim’s own narcissistic investments. [self-concepts] That is, if the activist knows, deep inside, their own dedication to the cause, they will project that onto the agent who is “mirroring” them.

The activist will be deluded into thinking that the agent shares this feeling of identification and bonding. In an activist/social movement setting, the adversarial roles that activists naturally play vis a vis the establishment/government, fosters ongoing processes of intrapsychic splitting so that “twinship alliances” between activist and agent may render whole sectors or reality testing unavailable to the activist. They literally “lose touch with reality.”

Activists who deny their own narcissistic investments [do not have a good idea of their own self-concepts and that they ARE concepts] and consciously perceive themselves (accurately, as it were) to be “helpers” endowed with a special amount of altruism are exceedingly vulnerable to the affective (emotional) simulation of the accomplished agent.

Empathy is fostered in the activist through the expression of quite visible affects. The presentation of tearfulness, sadness, longing, fear, remorse, and guilt, may induce in the helper-oriented activist a strong sense of compassion, while unconsciously enhancing the activist’s narcissistic investment in self as the embodiment of goodness.

The agent’s expresssion of such simulated affects may be quite compelling to the observer and difficult to distinguish from deep emotion.

It can usually be identified by two events, however:

First, the activist who has analyzed his/her own narcissistic roots and is aware of his/her own potential for being “emotionally hooked,” will be able to remain cool and unaffected by such emotional outpourings by the agent.

As a result of this unaffected, cool, attitude, the Second event will occur: The agent will recompensate much too quickly following such an affective expression leaving the activist with the impression that “the play has ended, the curtain has fallen,” and the imposture, for the moment, has finished. The agent will then move quickly to another activist/victim.

The fact is, the movement doesn’t need leaders, it needs MOVERS. “Follow the leader” is a waste of time.

A good agent will want to meet as often as possible. He or she will talk a lot and say little. One can expect an onslaught of long, unresolved discussions.

Some agents take on a pushy, arrogant, or defensive manner:

1) To disrupt the agenda

2) To side-track the discussion

3) To interrupt repeatedly

4) To feign ignorance

5) To make an unfounded accusation against a person.

Calling someone a racist, for example. This tactic is used to discredit a person in the eyes of all other group members.

Saboteurs

Some saboteurs pretend to be activists. She or he will ….

1) Write encyclopedic flyers (in the present day, websites)

2) Print flyers in English only.

3) Have demonstrations in places where no one cares.

4) Solicit funding from rich people instead of grass roots support

5) Display banners with too many words that are confusing.

6) Confuse issues.

7) Make the wrong demands.

Cool Compromise the goal.

9) Have endless discussions that waste everyone’s time. The agent may accompany the endless discussions with drinking, pot smoking or other amusement to slow down the activist’s work.

Provocateurs

1) Want to establish “leaders” to set them up for a fall in order to stop the movement.

2) Suggest doing foolish, illegal things to get the activists in trouble.

3) Encourage militancy.

4) Want to taunt the authorities.

5) Attempt to make the activist compromise their values.

6) Attempt to instigate violence. Activisim ought to always be non-violent.

7) Attempt to provoke revolt among people who are ill-prepared to deal with the reaction of the authorities to such violence.

Informants

1) Want everyone to sign up and sing in and sign everything.

2) Ask a lot of questions (gathering data).

3) Want to know what events the activist is planning to attend.

4) Attempt to make the activist defend him or herself to identify his or her beliefs, goals, and level of commitment.

Recruiting

Legitimate activists do not subject people to hours of persuasive dialog. Their actions, beliefs, and goals speak for themselves.

Groups that DO recruit are missionaries, military, and fake political parties or movements set up by agents.

Surveillance

ALWAYS assume that you are under surveillance.

At this point, if you are NOT under surveillance, you are not a very good activist!

Scare Tactics

They use them.

Such tactics include slander, defamation, threats, getting close to disaffected or minimally committed fellow activists to persuade them (via psychological tactics described above) to turn against the movement and give false testimony against their former compatriots. They will plant illegal substances on the activist and set up an arrest; they will plant false information and set up “exposure,” they will send incriminating letters [emails] in the name of the activist; and more; they will do whatever society will allow.

This booklet in no way covers all the ways agents use to sabotage the lives of sincere an dedicated activists.

If an agent is “exposed,” he or she will be transferred or replaced.

COINTELPRO is still in operation today under a different code name. It is no longer placed on paper where it can be discovered through the freedom of information act.

The FBI counterintelligence program’s stated purpose: To expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and otherwise neutralize individuals who the FBI categorize as opposed to the National Interests. “National Security” means the FBI’s security from the people ever finding out the vicious things it does in violation of people’s civil liberties.

Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Strong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government. When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be employed. The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, compliant press and a mere token opposition party.

1. Dummy up. If it’s not reported, if it’s not news, it didn’t happen.

2. Wax indignant. This is also known as the “How dare you?” gambit.

3. Characterize the charges as “rumors” or, better yet, “wild rumors.” If, in spite of the news blackout, the public is still able to learn about the suspicious facts, it can only be through “rumors.” (If they tend to believe the “rumors” it must be because they are simply “paranoid” or “hysterical.”)

4. Knock down straw men. Deal only with the weakest aspects of the weakest charges. Even better, create your own straw men. Make up wild rumors (or plant false stories) and give them lead play when you appear to debunk all the charges, real and fanciful alike.

5. Call the skeptics names like “conspiracy theorist,” “nutcase,” “ranter,” “kook,” “crackpot,” and, of course, “rumor monger.” Be sure, too, to use heavily loaded verbs and adjectives when characterizing their charges and defending the “more reasonable” government and its defenders. You must then carefully avoid fair and open debate with any of the people you have thus maligned. For insurance, set up your own “skeptics” to shoot down.

6. Impugn motives. Attempt to marginalize the critics by suggesting strongly that they are not really interested in the truth but are simply pursuing a partisan political agenda or are out to make money (compared to over-compensated adherents to the government line who, presumably, are not).

7. Invoke authority. Here the controlled press and the sham opposition can be very useful.

8. Dismiss the charges as “old news.”

9. Come half-clean. This is also known as “confession and avoidance” or “taking the limited hangout route.” This way, you create the impression of candor and honesty while you admit only to relatively harmless, less-than-criminal “mistakes.” This stratagem often requires the embrace of a fall-back position quite different from the one originally taken. With effective damage control, the fall-back position need only be peddled by stooge skeptics to carefully limited markets.

10. Characterize the crimes as impossibly complex and the truth as ultimately unknowable.

11. Reason backward, using the deductive method with a vengeance. With thoroughly rigorous deduction, troublesome evidence is irrelevant. E.g. We have a completely free press. If evidence exists that the Vince Foster “suicide” note was forged, they would have reported it. They haven’t reported it so there is no such evidence. Another variation on this theme involves the likelihood of a conspiracy leaker and a press who would report the leak.

12. Require the skeptics to solve the crime completely. E.g. If Foster was murdered, who did it and why?

13. Change the subject. This technique includes creating and/or publicizing distractions.

14. Lightly report incriminating facts, and then make nothing of them. This is sometimes referred to as “bump and run” reporting.

15. Baldly and brazenly lie. A favorite way of doing this is to attribute the “facts” furnished the public to a plausible-sounding, but anonymous, source.

16. Expanding further on numbers 4 and 5, have your own stooges “expose” scandals and champion popular causes. Their job is to pre-empt real opponents and to play 99-yard football. A variation is to pay rich people for the job who will pretend to spend their own money.

17. Flood the Internet with agents. This is the answer to the question, “What could possibly motivate a person to spend hour upon hour on Internet news groups defending the government and/or the press and harassing genuine critics?” Don t the authorities have defenders enough in all the newspapers, magazines, radio, and television? One would think refusing to print critical letters and screening out serious callers or dumping them from radio talk shows would be control enough, but, obviously, it is not.

*

Time to time I delve into the impossible subject of the psychology of ‘god’ in the western incarnation; here is my Sisyphus endeavor again, whence an (authentic) friend drew my attention to this Facebook post:

APPROACHING SAMADHI WITHOUT PLANT MEDICINE

The post’s author begins:

“I really resonate with this article and the timing of its showing up in my life is interesting given what happened yesterday.

“On Thursday, June 8, 2017 (a date I will record in my diary) I had a profound encounter with the numinous and entered an altered state analogous to what I experience with psilocybin mushrooms or edible cannabis, without the assistance of such plants. This is something I’d hoped for, eventually, but was surprised that happened the first time I sat down for a serious long meditation session in a long while.

“The teacher plants appear to have opened up some kind of portal or neural pathway for me to the universal awareness that exists silently behind all things, which functions like the operating system of a computer — entraining all experience embedded in the software of this dimension. Like training wheels, the plants taught me how it “feels” to ride the bike. Yesterday I rode on my own for the first time…”

Referencing this article which includes:

“The integral SELF [emphasis on SELF is original to the article] is therefore a yoking of the ego (our time bound self) with the soul (our eternal self). The point is that there is no good reason to assume that just because forms are temporary that they are not holy. The higher-self within us often hates to be confined or defined into forms, and the material self within us often hates to be taken outside of its familiar home or trappings into the boundless freedom of the higher self.

“Freedom, true freedom, is perhaps ultimately found in acceptance and balance”

This preceding is actually narcissism underlined and emphasized; where all is focused on the ‘self’ returning to ‘god’ (my deliberate lower case g) whereas in the ancient native community (the article’s author seems to think this had influenced his upbringing) the ‘self’ is at the bottom of the ‘totem pole’ (forgive, if not overlook my irreverence.) EVERYONE was expected to integrate to surrounding reality in sense of community sans ‘self’ interest and that’s where all dwelled, except that community elevated one via path of community observation (all eyes are on you) for purpose of sharing exceptional sight. Exceptional sight in this sense had precisely zero to do with any individual path.

It was considered ‘cheating’ to do psychedelics in the tradition where I spent decades. There is no substitute for hard work on shaping the interior to opening to awareness requiring (for westerners) narcissism die or the total death of the ego-self.

Actually ‘ego’, as experienced by the westerners’ sense of self, had been in indigenous cultures, diagnosed and treated as a mental disorder.

The object sought in our tradition is a background state of awareness in which there is no entry or exit, no coming and going, an ever present state where both; you deal with mundane task or life complexity equally and persistently in a state of ‘the spirit puts into the mind of a man to know what to do.’ No high or low, all experience is to be found in a steady state of ‘level.’

As MJ Zimmerman notes in her Being in Nature’s Mind:

“Carl Jung once warned that Western people who take up Eastern spiritual practices run the danger, first, of doing those practices inauthentically, since they are not beginning with an Eastern psychic structure, and secondly, of using those practices to avoid the real psychological work they, as people with Western psyches, need to do to ever become ready for higher spiritual practice

“I believe that the same warning applies to modern urban people who take up Native American practices. I am glad that there is growing interest in Native American thought because I believe it is a deep and subtle source of wisdom which the planet needs; however, it will serve no one to have Westerners appropriate Native ceremonies or practices and act them out while staying completely within Western ontological assumptions and Western psychological experiences. A more radical deconstruction of the Western mind is required in order for Europeans to finally begin to see into another way of being and other ways of knowing” (Zimmerman’s free pdf on the web)

I had, on previous occasion, attempted to explain the ancient native perception in these precise terms:

“Our existence is Macro-Gaia (in the big picture) or all is [inter] related, from sub-atomic particle to planetary structures, with an element of Vitalism (the ‘great mystery’), taken together presenting as quasi or mimic intelligent design. The intelligent design would be ‘quasi’ because the native take on this aspect would be better described as intelligent expression, ‘design’ implies an egoic projection or attribution, whereas ‘expression’ should not. This thought goes to the native persona of humility: There are some things one simply cannot know”

This why (in our native view) we cannot know ‘god’ except as a projection where man has created god in man’s image. The mystery of our existence cannot be individuated except in a sense of arrogant projection of self, or the ultimate false perception.

Our creation is named a “mystery” for the very fact of its’ indecipherable nature; and when we accept this, as a community in its entirety, the mystery opens at several levels but always with a caveat: none of us can know absolutes; as ‘reality’ is an elastic thing with frequently shifting parameters and any related ‘truths’ are often of fleeting relevance.

This is why, example given, Indo-European ‘civilization’ has a habit of rising and falling; wherein this western civilized perception ‘truths’ can become absolute, leading to a brittle construction when the elasticity of reality shifts away from any particular society’s foundation in the Indo-European family of nations. Brittle constructions imply impending collapse as the given society’s parameter of ‘perceived reality’ which is actually a state of inter-generational perception in stasis, becomes farther and farther removed from shifting reality in actuality.

I somehow doubt the major Indo-European enlightened figures, whether in the historical order of Krishna, Buddha, (or the adopted) Jesus and Mohammed, made any pretense to embody the entirety of the Great Mystery of our existence but it didn’t matter, lesser men were certain to falsely confer this upon them; insuring lesser ideas became fixtures of those respective cultures. These are example of the Indo-European stasis or inter-generational inflexibility of thought pointing to collapse, of which there is likely no greater coming probability than that of Europe and Plato.

*

Notes on the preceding: I’m not aware of whether any motive for the (South America) Native Americans providing Ayahuasca to European and North American Whites is a great source of amusement as might be expected in more northerly Native communities (how many crucified Jesus joke did I hear over the decades? Countless.) But no doubt it has been a source of revenue to the Native communities that is much appreciated. Do the Natives have a real grasp of how the European mentality is constructed and the fact any Ayahuasca experience provided in a ‘spiritual’ context to these people is almost certainly worthless from the indigenous perspective? Probably not. Little different to Brant Secunda‘s self-deceits the Huichol way is appropriate to the numerous Americans and Europeans he has ex-filtrated that peoples’ ceremony to. I use the especially harsh term ‘ex-filtrate’ on account of the multiple deceits involved in superimposing a Native ceremony on non-Native community without multiple disclaimers concerning absence of contextual validity. The native thinking and world view just isn’t there.

What approaches criminal in the preceding, is the dearth of understanding of the indigenous mentality from which numerous co-opted practices derive. It should be the responsibility of the teachers to explore (deeply) how it is those practices might mean entirely different things to the separate communities, indigenous & western, and challenge the western (particularly) to understand if these practices are to become anything resembling a healthy, valid practice, it will require (noting the previously mentioned work of MJ Zimmerman) a radical deconstruction of the western mentality; in effect, doing what westerner’s simply do not do – take responsibility for the damage western culture is inflicting not only on the other cultures, but on life itself. This should require, at minimum, a radical departure from pursuit of wealth in a context of success per the western modality. How many would do it? Certainly Brant hasn’t. You probably couldn’t count the number on one hand, of westerners practicing the co-opted ceremonies that have (zero.)

Altogether separately, anyone inclined to believe the Peyote experience of the Native American Church is somehow an ancient cultural phenomenon could not be more self-deceived. Today’s Native American Church is a Native American version of evangelical Christianity created from an amalgam of the ancient Ghost Dance as reinterpreted by the Paiute, Wovoka, incorporating Evangelical Christianity and a southern Native Peyote ceremony. It is not yet 150 years old.