By the time of this trip, I was a mere eight years into my Native American education. Now, I say ‘mere’ on account of in the old ways of that world, a typical education is ten years in ‘novice’ stage, beginning with puberty, followed by twenty years of ‘journeyman’ and by the time you were forty years of age, the advanced levels of knowledge were made available. By now I understood from that world, certain dreams were considered to be time travel. And I’d had a dream, but more on that later.
My first week in India was spent in New Delhi, being a more typical western tourist, getting to know the strange lot the sisters has assembled. We visited the ‘Red Fort’ where some locals treated us to an impromptu show:
Walking the rampart, overlooking the large lawn, we heard shouting .. “Magic show, magic show!” .. and looking down, I stopped and watched. There were three men, one with a drum pounding a beat, another the master of ceremony shouting out to us and a third guy doing some levitation act; he was wearing a huge tarpaulin like a poncho, only his head visible in the center. The entire assemblage of human integrated canvass rose into the air like some strange kite getting off the ground; a large, circular wing of horizontally spread cloth, with head protruding from the center, rising in a slow spin to a height of what looked like five meters. It really was quite impressive and someone wondered aloud ‘should we give them something’ and I stated I’d not bought a ticket to come and watch this, and we moved on as though the show were meant to be free.
Some of the characters we met in India, not all, are fair game in this essay, but for the westerners along on this trip, I will provide alias. This is on account of personal history; not everyone would need or want public association with a persona such as myself.
Aside from the sisters, I will deal with them in a separate chapter, our crew consisted of these westerners:
One Canadian, a Christian minister shaky in his faith; one hard-core but very cool dyke from Basin, Montana; one pot smoking astrologer from New York; one very rich, manic widow of a former president of a major capitalist corporation, personally acquainted with Imelda Marcos; her sensible grown daughter; and myself.
And (other than the sisters) we had these people along, we met in India:
One opium addicted, privileged Englishman who’d run away from his ‘proper’ mother (who was on familiar terms with Indira Gandhi) & had spent the preceding twenty years living in India as a sadhu; one Bihari musician who’d been subverted to a certain degree by long time acquaintance with the sisters; one Tibetan exile from the north of India; one Muslim bus driver for part of the trip & his associate, a Hindu cook.
After the Red Fort, I tagged along with the astrologer and the minister, to have a look around the neighborhood in the vicinity of Hotel Imperial. Sikh palm readers nabbed them. I said ‘forget it, I’m not in on this’ as they were hustled into an ally to have their fortunes read. As I waited for them, out on the main street, there was this man wanted to sell me a sort of small crochet tool, I had no need for at all. He had them packaged in discarded plastic tampon sleeves. I was this persistent entrepreneur’s prisoner because I was not willing to abandon the astrologist & minister to their fate; as a Sikh would time to time would emerge from the alley to wave at me, insisting my friends wanted me to join them. I refused, figuring they’d get out alive, at least, if I, the living witness, was not foolish enough to take the bait. Both of them were fleeced.
This was the event that caused an early executive decision on my part; I would go native, to avoid the incessant pestering westerners typically endure, from the wandering street vendors and fortune tellers, not to mention likely pick-pockets and robbers. As a younger man, I had turned black in Vietnam’s tropical sun, my Roma blood, no doubt. With the purchase of native clothing, I knew I could do this.
‘Bummer John’, the sobriquet I will give to the pot-smoking astrologer, was our trips first casualty. After the fortune tellers had practically robbed him, Jasper (his real name), the opium addicted Englishman, took Bummer John to a local New Delhi opium den where Bummer perused the menu and ate too large a dose of hashish laced with opium. Fleeced twice, now having taken on Jasper’s opium habit upkeep, and horrified at the Indian lower class poverty he witnessed over several days of ongoing high from the drug he’d ingested, this sheltered western mentality went into depression he never came out of, throughout our trip. At least he didn’t kill himself.
Our trip’s second casualty was the Canadian minister. He almost immediately contracted malaria and had to go home. God must have loved him.
I know these crazy sisters. Their parents were 1950s Bohemian artists in Southern California. So, already you know a few things to expect; with adolescence in the middle 1960s, the girls immersed in ‘flower power’ .. and several stereotype this background would imply. Traveling to Mexico looking for enlightenment with Huichol Indians & hallucinogens, among other adventures, and finally following George Harrison and the Beatles inspirations to India. And they stayed on there for quite some time.
I was living at Starr School on the Blackfeet Indian reservation, when I received an invitation from one of the sisters; would I like to travel to India, to be taken around on a personal, guided tour? ‘Well, why not’ was my thought. And so it was I stepped on a plane at Helena, Montana, it was September .. in the Year of Our Lord (George Orwell’s) 1984.
I had a one day layover in New York City, and had let an acquaintance know I’d be in town. Tommy took me down to the lower west side (Meatpacking District) to show me (in those days) the character of one of the more interesting areas of the city. We ate at his family’s diner, a many decades establishment, located there. As we walked the neighborhood after eating, I noticed the some ‘brothers’ had a campfire going in the parking lot of an abandoned building and the thought crossed my mind ‘this is a city I could survive in.’ An interesting interlude on a journey from Blackfeet Indian country to the Indians of India.
Tommy picked me up in the morning, my flight was late afternoon, throwing my small luggage into his VW beetle, we went to Greenwich Village. After walking around for awhile, not really investigating our surroundings so much as talking about the summer of 1981 when Tommy had been a chef at Glacier National Park’s east side and I’d shown him Blackfoot country. We somehow landed at McSorley’s Tavern and I managed to get perfectly hammered on Irish black beer. We took off from McSorley’s in Tommy’s beetle, driving to Newark airport … I had the window down and was slapping my hand on the outside of the passenger side door to time of a pow-wow drum, while belting out some popular Native American war-dance tune of that era, as we passed under the Hudson River via Lincoln Tunnel. Arriving at Newark, I was seriously worried I was too drunk to be allowed onto my Air India flight, non-stop to New Delhi.
I bid Tommy goodbye and Tommy bid myself good luck; then with a Herculean effort of will, I managed to seem sober enough to acquire my boarding pass, check myself through security and get on-board my flight.
The Air India 747 wasn’t half full, and no sooner than we had taken off, I saw people begin bringing out their pillows and some were making beds on the floor! What a blessing!! I found a row in center section with empty seats, pushed up the arm-rests and lay down to pass out … and woke up over Iran with a severe hangover. Stepping out of the air terminal at New Delhi, the humidity-heat-smog cocktail, with a sort or reddish orange glow filtering through, the tropical trees and traffic, briefly flashed me back fourteen years, to Saigon, 1970, and my adventures in that city. But only briefly, this was a very different city and embarking on entirely new adventure. I caught a taxi to the old Hotel Imperial and rendezvous with the odd lot who’d be my traveling companions. A date with a bed in colonial era ambiance and hospitality is perfect for overcoming jet-lag with a hangover, I’ll be a happy sahib for a few days .. before moving on, in native dress.
Call this one ‘the Iranian (Pierre Omidyar) who owns a Jew (Glenn Greenwald) that pimps a Polack (Marcin Mamoń)’ in a case that is, prima facie, an information operation. With focus having come to the fact of Pierre Omidyar, The Intercept’s bankroller, has funded elements in Ukraine leading to the overthrow of the Yanukovich regime, a de facto support contributing to the present civil war, clearly Omidyar has been supporting the side of those now constituting the regime in Kiev. How will The Intercept spin it’s bending over to take billionaire ‘Shah-man’ Omidyar’s shaft from behind?
The Intercept previously hosting Askold Krushelnycky (see ‘The Intercept Takes A Dive‘) struck me as similar to The Nation hosting Bob Drefuss or the Washington Post providing a platform to David Ignatius; a professional liar does not add a ‘fair and balanced’ perspective (recalls FOX NEWS) but merely tosses a monkey wrench into the gears of truth.
Now we have some famous Polish journalist (famous in Poland, in any case), Marcin Mamoń, has been taken on by The Intercept, and he somehow manages to screw Greenwald while in the same moment giving Omidyar a blow-job:
This newest one reads as though it’d been scripted by the brighter minds of western intelligence; following initial references to “Russian backed [ethnic Russian] separatists” suddenly the language changes:
“When Kolomoisky saw that the Russians might capture Dnipropetrovsk”
And
“When the Russians stopped approximately 120 miles short of Dnipropetrovsk, Kolomoisky suddenly lost interest and stopped paying the volunteer battalions”
And
“There are suspicions that his location was betrayed to the Russians”
And
“They came to a small village called Chernukhino, where they stumbled upon Russian soldiers. There was shooting, and the Chechens killed a few Russians — the rest of the Russians withdrew. The Russians, however, managed to give the village’s coordinates to their artillery, and soon all hell broke loose”
So, it goes like this: Russians, Russians, Russians, Russian soldiers, Russians, Russians, Russians.
Proof? Or is everyone on the side opposed to Kiev “Russian” for the sake of Mamoń’s journalism? The bias (at the least) is palpable; the forceful point in subliminal psychology being driven home is ‘these are Russian soldiers.’ The CIA psy-ops people have to be high-fiving over at Langley. The Intercept just morphed Ukrainians who happen to be ethnic Russian separatists: into Putin’s army in the Donbass region of Ukraine.
Notable neglect in the coverage is; even if his volunteer troops are not expecting to be paid, how does the Chechen commander feed, transport and keep his 500 man battalion provided with ammunition, if his benefactor had dumped his force months previous to this? War is an incredibly expensive business. Villagers handing out cabbage and sausages just won’t get the job done. There has to have been serious alternative financing, and that is skirted with a vague reference to ‘help’ from the ‘Ukrainian people.’
Insofar as the point of the Kiev aligned volunteer battalions, Mamoń’s thesis is, these are a case of ‘the chickens come home to roost’ for Putin. Their ties to Islamic State coupled to the Ukrainian authorities at Kiev not only tolerate them, but somehow must be logistically supporting them, doesn’t really enter the picture. His article imparts a sort of strange rehabilitation worthy of those western Ukrainian fascists who worship Stephan Bandera. A kind of ‘they were justified’ rationale overlooking these are rank criminals and committed terrorists.
At the end of the day, I don’t give a rat’s ass if Marcin Mamoń is on easy terms with Chechen militants & big-shot Islamic State personalities, and neither should Glenn Greenwald be impressed; this Mamoń guy smells BAD and his ‘Eau de Omidyar’ is distinct in the air; if everyone on the Donbass region’s separatist side is Russian, we can just as easily make the case (more accurately) many, many fighters on the Kiev side are Nazi, that is with the exception of certain Chechen fighters, hosted by Kiev, and at least some apparently provided courtesy of the Islamic State.
And with that short mail concerning the (above linked) article at The Intercept, you will discover a short, shallow piece that parrots a Ukrainian (Kiev) narrative claiming Ukrainian forces have downed a Russian surveillance drone. What’s wrong with this picture? As a former qualified operator of an American surface to air missile system (Improved HAWK) I can tell you right off this is a surface to air missile systems test drone and not a surveillance model. It is as simple as the color. A surveillance drone will be painted to blend with the sky. The Russians are not going to beg Kiev’s forces to shoot down one of their surveillance drones by sending it overhead painted bright orange.
Now, to the article’s author; Askold Krushelnycky. Firstly, in his own words, he was clearly in the camp of the so-called ‘Orange Revolution’ (a CIA instigated ‘color revolution‘ or part of the ‘democracy’ investment Victoria Nuland had reported the USA spent $5 billion on) putting him squarely in political opposition to the Russian ethnic majority of the Donbass region of Ukraine. So much for impartiality.
Secondly, Krushelnycky is first generation British of Ukrainian “refugee” descent, opening the question of whether Krushelnycky is of Stephen Bandera aligned stock. Most of the Ukrainian nationals who were allowed into the USA, Canada and Britain after WW II were radical right wing who’d supported Hitler in Ukraine, including an ethnic Ukrainian division of Waffen SS rescued in the thousands. Did The Intercept do a background check on Krushelnycky? I doubt it.
Thirdly, Krushelnycky is reporting from Mariupol, the Kiev held area where Right Sector (Ukrainian Nazis) has its own independent ‘Azov’ battalion. If he were inclined to report factually (particularly in relation to Azov battalion provocations), he’d have immediate problems with these people. Not to mention Kiev has pushed so many outrageous lies, Kiev propaganda compares well to Roger Rabbit; insofar as reality.
Fourthly, and here it gets very sticky for The Intercept, Pierre Omidyar, The Intercept’s bankroller, has funded elements in Ukraine leading to the overthrow of the Yanukovich regime, a de facto support contributing to the present civil war. Clearly Omidyar has been supporting the side of those now constituting the regime in Kiev, which also so happens align with the politics of Intercept reporter Krushelnycky. Glenn Greenwald has claimed Omidyar’s support for the parties ruling in Kiev will make no difference in the reporting coming out of The Intercept; but actions here speak louder than words … I had actually been wondering why reporting on Ukraine had been conspicuously absent at The Intercept and now we have a shallow, rank propaganda piece worthy of those very whores of journalism Greenwald & friends have so eloquently bashed elsewhere.
The Intercept hosting Askold Krushelnycky is like The Nation hosting Bob Drefuss or the Washington Post providing a platform to David Ignatius; a professional liar does not add a ‘fair and balanced’ perspective (recalls FOX NEWS) but merely tosses a monkey wrench into the gears of truth-
Critical reading to understand nearly all of mainstream media and a good portion of ‘alternative’ media. Arguably, Edward Bernays has done as much to destroy the human spirit in society, in just a few short generations, as the church at Rome had accomplished in two millennia.
Original paper* provided by a contact at Georgetown University, in Washington, DC. Author’s name withheld by request-
Although often taken with a sinister connotation in modern usage, the original meaning of the word propaganda is better described today by the swath of professions encompassing the field of Public Relations. Lobbyists, marketing professionals, media consultants, political pundits, and public affairs liaisons, are just a few examples of the modern professions that have become critical to the success of any organization that must navigate the unsure waters of public opinion.
As the profession of public relations has grown and diversified, the language it uses to describe itself has diversified as well; what would have been called propaganda a century ago is now message management, product marketing, promotional advertising, press releases, off the record, official statements, and most recently; spin. What unites these terms is a focused attempt at capturing the public interest towards some broader goal; sales of a particular product, support for a political candidate, advancement of a religious ideology, or the systematic violation of basic human rights.
Public Relations as a profession and field of study rose to prominence in the U.S. following the success of the Committee on Public Information (“CPI”), commonly known as the Creel Commission, an agency of the federal government established and then later dismantled by President Woodrow Wilson to build public support and enthusiasm for U.S. participation in World War 1. Widely seen as extremely successful, the efforts of the CPI caught the attention of business and political leaders who began to turn to the newly developed concept of a Public Relations Counsel for assistance in manipulating public interest.
As a member of the Creel Commission, Edward Bernays developed the skills he would later use to launch the field of public relations as a professional discipline. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter called Edward Bernays and his contemporary and competitor, Ivy Lee, “professional poisoners of the public mind, exploiters of foolishness, fanaticism and self interest.” Edward Bernays in particular deserves credit for much of the intellectual roots of modern public relations as his academic writings still encompass much of the theory in use today.
As a founding and vocal member of the public relations profession, Bernays lays out ethical guidance for the professional that is fraught with subjectivity and dangerously broad:
“The profession of public relations counsel is developing for itself an ethical code which compares favorably with that governing the legal and medical professions. In part, this code is forced upon the public relations counsel by the very conditions of his work. While recognizing, just as the lawyer does, that everyone has the right to present his case in its best light, he nevertheless refuses a client whom he believes to be dishonest, a product which he believes to be fraudulent, or a cause which he believes to be antisocial. One reason for this is that, even though a special pleader, he is not dissociated from the client in the public’s mind. Another reason is that while he is pleading before the court—the court of public opinion—he is at the same time trying to affect that court’s judgments and actions. In law, the judge and jury hold the deciding balance of power. In public opinion, the public relations counsel is judge and jury, because through his pleading of a case the public may accede to his opinion and judgment.”
The ethical basis that under-girds the profession of public relations as put forth by Bernays contains no reference to any known or accepted ethical theory beyond a tepid comparison with the medical and legal professions. When taken collectively Bernays arguments for the ethical basis of the field of public relations represents at best a loosely utilitarian ethic; grounded only in self-interest and the maintenance and furthering of a career in public relations.
A comparison of the ethical foundation of the legal profession with that of public relations is dubious at best. As he notes himself, Edward Bernays argument glosses over perhaps the most critical difference; that in a court of law, or any legal proceeding for that matter, there is some impartial third party ensuring that the “spin” being put on the facts maintains some subjective basis in reality. The framework offered by Bernays contains no impartial third party keeping the PR man honest beyond the ability of his conscience to weigh his own self-interest and those of his clients against the greater public good.
His comparison does not compare favorably with the Hippocratic oath of “first do no harm” that under-girds the ethical framework of the medical establishment; instead the only criteria for adherence to this code are that the PR professional have some level of belief in the product/service/initiative being promoted, and that he or she avoid tainting their public good name by association with fraudulent products or antisocial purposes.
The parallels Bernays draws between the ethical codes of the legal and medical communities with public relations is without merit because these professions are subject to strict codes of conduct that often carry legal and professional consequences if not strictly adhered to; this is not the case with public relations. The profession of public relations has no such governing body that determines the ethical grounding of a PR initiative beyond public acceptance of the position being offered. Instead of a strictly codified set of rules his ethical framework simply calls upon the PR professional to use his or her own subjective judgment in determining whether or not a particular course of action is ethical.
Bernays argued that effective mass communication is of critical importance to the proper functioning of a democratic society:
“Whatever of social importance is done to-day, whether in politics, finance, manufacture, agriculture, charity, education, or other fields, must be done with the help of propaganda. Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.”
According to Bernays, the right to petition others to adopt a favorable viewpoint is central to the function of a free and open society and accordingly the effective use of public relations is the grease that allows the wheels of democracy to turn; where persuasion and guile has usurped raw authority as the prime impetus for social action of any kind, whether it be corporate, government, or private interests at stake.
The “engineering of consent” according to Bernays is required in a free society to direct and form the public support required to accomplish any goal; this is, he argues, because the average citizen is individually and collectively mentally ill equipped to grasp let alone make intelligent choices regarding the intricate issues that face leaders of any kind within a modern society.
That an enlightened educated and well informed public is critical to the success of a democratic and free people was highlighted by Thomas Jefferson as a prerequisite for this form of government:
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.”
In making his case for the necessity of public relations Bernays explicitly questions one of the important arguments used in furthering democratic forms of government and one explicitly labeled as critical to those ends by many of the founding fathers of the United States. The constitutional protections afforded a free press and the rights to free speech were not envisaged as a freedom to spin and manipulate by the founding fathers. But rather as protection against interference with the unfettered ability of the public to disseminate the facts surrounding government policy and government action; that given access to these facts citizens could decide for themselves the just or unjust nature of government.
The behavior of US Citizens, who enjoyed particularly high literacy rates relative to the rest of the world at the time he wrote Propaganda, brought Bernays to an entirely different conclusion:
“Universal literacy was supposed to educate the common man to control his environment. Once he could read and write he would have a mind fit to rule. So ran the democratic doctrine. But instead of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of history, but quite innocent of original thought. Each man’s rubber stamps are the duplicates of millions of others, so that when those millions are exposed to the same stimuli, all receive identical imprints.”
For Bernays the idea of an enlightened and informed citizenry capable of making intelligent and informed decisions constitutes is little more than a pretty sentiment.
Access to these “rubber stamps” is required when initiating action of any kind in need of a broad base of public support and according to Bernays the public intellect is the last place in which access to them will be found. Bernays argues that propaganda is most effective when directed by scientific (e.g. empirically proven mainly psychological) methodologies aimed at manipulating the emotions, prejudices, preconceptions, social relationships, and unconscious habits of the target audience to bring about a change in or the adoption of a particular viewpoint or call to action.
Bernays then asserts that information is power and that those who can manipulate the modern machinery of communication, which is primarily a conduit for the flow of information, can manipulate society as a whole. That financial means gives access to outsized influence over a free and democratic society is a basic premise put forth by Bernays in making the case for public relations as a profession. The confluence of financial means with power over information constitutes what Bernays calls an “invisible government” that arises informally around those with influence over and access to information either through means of keen intellect, prominent position, or sheer financial muscle. He argues that this unseen influence, enabled largely through the skillful exploitation and manipulation of information, is what provides a free society with a stable ruling class absent the strict hierarchical authority structure in other less free forms of human governance.
It is the job of this informal and amorphous “invisible government” comprised of overlapping spheres of influence, intellect, and financial clout to make important decisions on matters pertaining to the public good. Once these decisions have been made it is the job of the PR professional to go about scientifically and methodically deconstructing if public support can be obtained for the measure under consideration. Focus groups, market research, surveys, and public opinion polling are modern examples of this scientific deconstruction at work.
If the plan under consideration is deemed sellable, a process of what amounts to a professional and very thorough scientific manipulation of the target population is undertaken in an effort to win public support for an idea, program, goal, election candidate, or genocide. This process features at its center an appeal to the irrational meant to move a target audience in a chosen direction through indirect, i.e. manipulative, means; via an appeal to the intellect and understanding of the audience. Consequently the ultimate measure of success in public relations is achieving movement in the desired direction without the subject even being consciously aware of his or her shift in perception.
When viewed collectively Bernays’ argument for the necessity and place of public relations within a democracy results in at best a form of enlightened despotism; where those in key positions of influence decide on matters of import and turn to the public relations profession to win public support through manipulation and guile rather than an informed conversation with an involved citizenry.
When consent is engineered through these methods the end result is artificial; something that did not previously exist or come about organically and is not natively integrated with the host population has been unleashed via overt manipulation. The end result of is often catastrophic and unpredictable for the subjects of these machinations. This is at the heart of what makes Bernays vision of public relations ethically dubious and antithetical to the function of a democratic and free people; he denies the average citizen true franchise and attributes to a lack of intellect the universal human response to strong visual, emotional, and psychological stimuli.
Extreme examples of evil such as Goebbels use of Bernays writings in Nazi Germany to build support for the persecution and eventual extermination of the Jews or the demonizing of Bosnian Croats and Muslims by the Milosevic regime are rare examples of accountability. The events perpetrated by these individuals and their accomplices within media and government illustrate exactly how dangerous it can be to engage in the mass manipulation of society through the use of Bernays style public relations tactics.
Lesser transgressions in spin are generally overlooked or labeled as “reasonable people can disagree”; the rampant and overt consent engineering directed at the American public by the Bush Administration in the lead up to the Iraq war is a good example of this slippery dynamic. Bernays emphasizes the use of facts as central to the effective use of public relations tactics; he held that facts when coupled with the proper packaging and directed at the emotional/psychological aspect of man was the most effective means of procuring public support for any endeavor.
The selective use of facts by the Bush administration in Iraq represents a textbook employment of Bernays public relations methods . The invocation of a “mushroom cloud” as the smoking gun that would attend the failure to contain the regime of Saddam Hussein resonated with a US population steeped in Cold War imagery of an atomic holocaust and primed for action following the traumatic events of September 11th 2001. As Bernays advocated; an appeal to emotion, fear, the irrational and subconscious enabled by the selective use of facts paired with an interpretation geared towards a specific outcome was an effective means of gaining public support for preemptive war.
The coupling of overtly manipulative tactics aimed at what Bernays cousin and mentor Sigmund Freud called the “irrational nature of man” with an outlook that views collective humanity with a degree of intellectual contempt has set the tone for a century of public relations practices. This unfortunate precedent permeates modern public relations and it is my belief that it is contributing at a fundamental level to the increase in public distrust and disillusionment with large powerful organizations of any kind, be they government, private, commercial, non-profit, religious, or secular.
The pervasive use of public relations tactics as embodied by Edward Bernays becomes particularly problematic when in unholy trifecta with the National Defense and National Intelligence communities. The overtly manipulative practices advocated by Bernays can, and in a free society should, only be contradicted by complete access to the facts used to formulate the position being put forth for public consumption. This crossroads of secrecy and a culture pervaded by public relations and the temptation to and acceptance of “spin” as a viable way out of difficult decisions leaves the average citizen not only in the dark about the behavior of the US defense and intelligence establishments but government as a whole.
Given that the defense and intelligence communities under current laws retain the right to classify information for decades if not indefinitely this leaves the average US Citizen in a position of enforced ignorance with regards to the actions of his or her government in contemporary matters of national defense and intelligence collection. Without access to the facts surrounding a given issue the citizen is completely at the mercy of the consent engineer; whose job it is to steer them in a chosen direction through manipulation and guile on behalf of those who purportedly know and are better equipped to understand the issues at hand.
When the source of engineered consent is the government of the United States which wields more financial muscle and informational might than any other single entity in existence little can be done to forestall these tactics when the facts that would illuminate falsehood, artificiality, and bias are closely guarded secrets. Bernays argument for the necessity of public relations within a democracy is shockingly undemocratic because it undercuts the very heart of what constitutes a free and open society and does so through the use of covert and overt manipulation. His argument for the place of public relations within a modern society would reduce the average citizen to an emotional punching bag subject to the constant manipulation of public relations personnel; whose job it is to stimulate in the herd the proper and needed response.
The pervasive nature of public relations in modern society is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy where constant appeals to base instinct and emotion from every conceivable direction are creating a fishbowl of lies in which the American people swim; robbed of the intellectual capacity to make intelligent choices as informed citizens because they are not at the most basic level being allowed to participate.
Examples of this dynamic are found in the deposing of legitimately elected leaders in foreign countries on behalf of US economic interests in places like Guatemala, where United Fruit’s banana monopoly was under threat; or in Iran where the duly elected president Mohammed Mossadeq promised to nationalize the oil industry which was perceived as a threat to US and European economic interests.
In both of these examples public relations tactics were used to spin US actions in these countries as primarily geared toward undercutting the communist threat posed by an expansive Soviet Union during the cold war. This artificiality was spun from the cloth of Edward Bernays public relations playbook and left the public in large part ignorant of the full scope of US interests in deposing legitimately elected foreign leaders. US actions in foreign coups were justified nearly completely on the basis of covert action against Soviet expansion during the cold war. After the fact examination of these incidents has revealed the artificiality of the justifications at issue, but this is far too late to effect policy decisions that have been the source of substantial blow-back for the US in both Latin America and the Middle East.
Unless coupled with full and contemporaneous access to the facts under-girding the policy position being pursued, the use of manipulative public relations tactics that play to the base instincts of a population is unethical to a truly free democratic society. These tactics when used by the government of that society to engineer outcomes outside of full public view is when the practice become not only unethical but abhorrent and smacks uncomfortably of paternalistic despotism.
The relative frequency with which the US public is bombarded with cryptic warnings and carefully packaged statements supporting activities from raw intelligence collection, to unmanned drone strikes, and even outright invasions serves to indicate that these tactics are thriving even today. With the death of Osama Bin Laden the national defense establishment has been busily constructing a strong justification for massive investments in “cyber warfare” technologies as the next profit maker as the war on terror cooled down (but since reheated with policies resulting in the rise of IS.) This effort is showing many of the same signs of consent engineering that are evident after the fact when examining the Bush Administration effort to sell the public and world at large on preemptive war in Iraq.
Perhaps in addition to being known as the father of public relations Edward Bernays also deserves some substantial credit for popularizing the “sheeple” or people as sheep argument; that as a collective humans are no more capable of processing complex ideas than a herd of domesticated animals. Subtle variations on this argument are often used to defend the status quo in our national policies where only those with access to restricted information are allowed, at a functional level, to make critical decisions in these areas. This in and of itself would not be a problem if decoupled from an approach to public relations that relies on fear and manipulation rather than an appeal to the intellect and an attempt to expand the understanding of the American people with regards to the issue under consideration. The widespread use of manipulative public relations tactics on behalf of the US Government when directed towards its own people will continue to be a blatantly unethical violation of the spirit of, if not the letter of, the intent our founding fathers had in drafting the documents that form the basis of our political tradition.
When viewed in this light the modern field of public relations as it is currently practiced is ethically fraught through the use of dubious tactics of manipulation and guile even when the public has access to the facts at hand. Without full and contemporaneous access to the factual basis undergirding a government sponsored consent engineering, effort the modern practice of public relations represents a real and persistent threat to free and democratic forms of governance that place the accountability of the rulers in the hands of the ruled.
This is because without access to the complete informational picture used to formulate particular government policy the citizen is denied franchise through an inability to discern spin and fear mongering from fact and legitimate existential threat. This enforced ignorance ensures that a propagation of the status quo will necessarily result in a population ill prepared to make tough decisions in a complex world, as they have been shut out of the real conversation.
Jefferson amongst other founding fathers of the United States held that an enlightened and informed citizenry is the only safekeeping afforded the liberties, freedoms, and property of a democratic society.
Edward Bernays turns this argument on its head and gives shockingly little credit to the ability of the average citizen to decide for themselves the best course of action in a given situation, and in so doing sows the seeds of demagoguery and despotism achieved through power, financial means, and the skillful manipulation of information directed at herding the public in a desired direction.
From the standpoint of utilitarian ethics, in a true democracy, only the people are allowed to decide what is in their own best interest; and this is a premise Bernays explicitly rejects; it would seem many of Bernays’ contemporary intellectual heirs see it his way too.
10:05 European Central Time. I’ve finished a mug of very strong instant decaf with too much real milk, the Europeans have converted me, and put on my jeans and walk to Aldi for some decent food. Not European food. They know how to do coffee and that’s it. Geräuchert in the German, fumé in the French, hickory smoked bacon in my language. In the Dutch it’s gerookt, that’s just weird. There are no generic eggs on the shelf this morning, so I spend extra, supporting free ranging ‘happy chicken’ ovaries. Harry’s ‘American Sandwich’ bread, check. Two streets over, up and on the right, into the ‘bio’ shop for some decent English cheddar. Nostalgia for home is a home cooked ‘truck stop’ breakfast. Cheddar cheese omelette with overdone bacon, decent hash browns made from last night’s undercooked potatoes, with generously buttered toast. Real butter.
Sunday mornings are a time of ritual, with roots in the American West, more particularly, the Rocky Mountains. But it’s Saturday morning. This endeavor has been a project-projection into the future, if only 20 something hours away. The Germans are anal about rules and the rules are, no shops are to be open on Sunday mornings. And my Saturday afternoon, perhaps well into evening, is ‘booked.’ Germany today, France a few months ago, in the interim, a stay of a brief few weeks in a town adjacent to The Hague. Spain, for a year, before France.
Sunday noon. Chair pushed back from the table, somewhat slouched, with full belly and legs stretched out, many might say ‘life is good.’ That’s a completely different proposition to knowing to be grateful to be alive, that is, from one day to the next. My TV hero is Jim Rockford. Opening my laptop, I go to ‘hidemyass.com’ and via web proxy, watch this self-deprecating American law enforcement loser try to avoid taking it in the chops, because he didn’t dare bring his Colt revolver to the job. Myself, I prefer the Smith & Wesson Airweight, an easily concealed five shot .38 caliber, but Colt must sound more romantic to the American TV audience. Like Rockford, I never bothered to apply for a permit. These days, it’s a moot point; for an American with immigration violations in the European Union. I see no point in keeping a pistol here, I might be inclined to use it.
Rockford just escaped a compromising circumstance with ingenuous agility. Realizing he’s about to be trapped in a public men’s room, sans Colt revolver, he opens the liquid soap dispenser and drools a goodly amount of the slippery stuff across the floor. Then, his aspiring nemesis bursts into the room and unexpectedly finds himself practically ice skating across the room with unstoppable momentum, out go his feet and he cracks his head on the floor, lights out. Rockford walks out with his typical look of ‘huh, lucky me.’ I must be meaner … my thought when glancing across the room at where I keep the large, high quality plastic squeeze bottle full of 28% solution hydrochloric acid. Anyone breaking my door down is going to be begging this would be prey for a fire hose volume of water in the face.
Rockford was a fake, but then so am I. If Rockford’s military experience was part Sergeant Bilco and part Sad Sack, what was mine? A pause for reflection. Rockford was infantry in Korea, I was infantry in Vietnam. But not really. I was aviation assigned to an infantry brigade. Drinking, actually sucking alcohol down like a fish, nights, and days sitting on the floor in the rear compartment of a small, OH-6 observation helicopter, feet out the door with an M-60 machine gun in my lap, was not everyone’s cup of tea. Especially the time I’d flipped up my flight helmet’s face mask and barfed into the rotor wash, puke doesn’t always cooperatively go out of a chopper flying with no doors. Suddenly I found myself with a new job… driving a jeep. That had worked out well enough.
Two hours nap following daydreaming ancient history, and back in the now. I thought about the cops I’d known, the so-called ‘real McCoy.’ How would any of them have handled my present circumstance? Short answer? They wouldn’t. None of them, was my best guess. I mean they wouldn’t be free, a ‘relative’ condition, probably they’d not even be alive. Or maybe alive but framed for corruption and sitting in prison. Did I say that already? I didn’t steal my storyline from Rockford, this is real. Except Rockford was pardoned and there’s precisely zero chance of that in my case, if I were to slip up and create opportunity for my adversaries.
Truth be known, I’m too old to be playing games of intrigue, James Garner retired playing Rockford at age 52, too beat up to keep it going. If Garner was beat up at 52, my scary Jewish-Orthodox hybrid Greek girlfriend tells me, then at 63 years old, I’m a “full-blown case of run over.” I asked where she gets her obscure American idiom and she tells me TV. Old shows. Growing up with serial reruns of 70s stuff like Hawaii Five-0, Colombo and Cannon. More recently, Ally McBeal, whom she admires for her neurosis. ‘How on Earth’… I begin to ask, she anticipates the question too easily: “I grew up on the border with Tito’s Yugoslavia” she states as a matter-of-fact, “and we saw it all, airwaves don’t know borders.”
She’s how I was educated in the matter of Tito’s space program and many more ‘alternative’ histories. It seems Tito’s Yugoslavia was a paradoxical mix of American entertainment industry and stuff the American establishment media wouldn’t touch with the proverbial ten foot pole.
A Jewish-Orthodox hybrid, Greek girlfriend, is a truly scary creature. Particularly in a case of a Jewish father’s abandoned wild oats, or technically a ‘goy.’ Somehow the ‘goy’ part did not erase genetic memory of centuries of Christian pogroms pursued by Orthodoxy. Nor did a further technical abandonment, a theological one, not having been born to a Jewish mother, endear her to any modern establishment in Jerusalem. As well, the Orthodox memory of the Catholic sack of Greek city of Constantinople, makes for no friendly feelings for the establishment at Rome. She consists of something like four angry parts pulling in five directions, when you throw in the Yugoslav socialist influence. Fluent in Greek, Macedonian, Russian, German and English, not only language but culture as well, she’d be an intelligence agency’s dream assassin. She informs me all her previous boyfriends had slept with pistol or knife under the pillow, but I don’t. She appreciates my trust but perhaps misapprehends the fact. There’s no point. You’d be dead before your weapon could be brought out, if that’s what she wanted, is my impression.
It’s Monday morning in Charlottenberg, a Russian mafia controlled district of Berlin. Jews for Jesus are out in force. Jews for Jesus are not really Jewish people per se. The fine print under “Jews for Jesus” reads: “and others.” You talk to them and discover one grandparent is/was a Jew, they are married to a non-practicing Jew, or most likely are just a ‘born again’ convert by the organization, with no other Jewish connection. But that Star of David on their shirts is better than a diplomatic passport in Germany. Germans not only don’t want to talk to them, they don’t want to see them. Pretend they don’t exist. A clear case of ‘don’t remind us.’ Jews for Jesus operates as freely on the streets of Berlin as though they were conferred with invisibility. I never saw any German accept a tract from Jews for Jesus.
The MOSSAD pussies are gearing up for another attempt, it’s plain as day. A sort of ‘roll your eyes’ moment at the amateur effort but you never let on. Jews for Jesus proselytizing Christians are flown in from the American bible-belt and are set like bothersome flies on the irritated Germans, who perceive the Star of David on their tee-shirts as though someone had placed a plastic dog shit on the breakfast table, as a conversation piece. Meanwhile, over the past week, you’ve noticed your haunts have been staked out and routines studied. The anomalies are glaring. Duped American mid-west Bible-thumpers are the cover story.
When Americans flown in from the Midwest Bible Belt have been replaced by Israelis whose general demeanor, facial expression and body language is top to bottom different from the duped evangelicals (who should not, after-all, be surprised that actual Jews would be involved with their organization), it is not going to be missed by someone with my level of training. I notice a couple of Israelis studying my routines, while it was Americans covered the larger public area I frequented, for a few days, and then it was Israelis had staked out my most often used U-Bahn entrance.
So, apparently I’m not supposed to notice some West Bank settler, a veteran of IDF special operations forces, with hair style similar to a Rastafarian, dirty hippyish dress, oozing violence in the very fiber of his being, has the entrance staked out, a cultivated vessel of Israeli ‘artistic’ muscle suddenly (it must’ve been last night) converted to Jews for Jesus and made respectable with a Star of David on his clean, only because it is brand new, tee-shirt. From West Bank settlement to IDF special forces to MOSSAD assignment of Israeli artist in Berlin to Jew for Jesus for a day. And I’m not supposed to notice anything like that.
I enter U-Bahn at my normal entry point, Kurfürstendamm at Adenauer Platz, but instead of going down a 2nd level and taking the train, I walk out another entrance, as though I were using the U-Bahn station as a method to cross an intersection without having to deal with above ground traffic lights and ‘walk’ signals, while watching for any tail I might pick up and sure enough .. a tall Israeli in tight shorts (no ‘Jews for Jesus’ shirt) reverses direction and emerges behind me but I’m ready for this. I’ve positioned myself with back to wall at an outdoor café table, sandwiched between people also facing him with backs to wall. He cannot hit me with a poison needle without giving himself away. Totally the wrong crowded scene, it is my advantage, not his. He stupidly studies my circumstance for a minute, hesitating, starts to leave, stops to study again, wonders what to do while obviously out of sorts, gives up and leaves as I’d been looking steadily and directly at him.
MOSSAD moron, is my single thought, as I watch him go away.
What’s actually frightening in all this is, my girlfriend. MOSSAD had trained her in airport security, her previous employment, and God knows what else. She allows herself anti-Semitic moments but I have to walk on eggs in the presence of her-highness-of-the-Jewish-feral-oats that sometimes spends the night at my flat. Her sense of humor can be pretty good. When she asked how, the previous night, I had managed to keep from ejaculating despite her best effort to force me to go first, I answered “fear.” She blew coffee through her nose onto her laptop.
Consistent with Western culture’s habit of projecting responsibility for its own sins, the media coverage of the Charlie Hebdo massacre has got it all wrong. Say what!? you might ask? The French cartoonists reeked of everything that is irresponsible in relation to empire. Huh? It is a simple as this: If it hadn’t been for colonialism, there would have been no Charlie Hebdo massacre. The culture lampooning Islam with gross stereotype in fact created the militant Islam we know in the present day. A mark of a bully and coward is to use one’s superior or ‘brute’ strength to humiliate one lesser in strength. When this simply goes on and on, it will, quite naturally, breed a deep and abiding resentment, eventually becoming a deeply rooted, pathological anger and related hate. Charlie Hebdo’s mistake was to fail recognizing they were playing the artistic hand of the bully. Catholic France has a long and storied history of beating the Muslim world into the dirt, from Algeria to Djibouti to Lebanon to Syria and quite notably, Yemen. In the present necrotic geopolitic, where ‘terror’ has evolved from the Western democracies present military and corporate colonialism demanding the Islamic world’s resources at gunpoint, Charlie Hebdo behaved as the bully’s cohort; the child aligned with a Christian gang of bullies who spit in the face of the Muslim kid, after he’d been pounded into the dirt. Now, a really interesting double standard in all of this is, the Western democracies, and France is no exception, behave as ‘Christian’ nations when it comes to behaviors and declarations of morality, and then shriek loudly over violations of ‘secular’ principles when those Christian behaviors cause ‘blow-back.’
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for secular principles and technically should defend Charlie Hebdo. But I can’t get past Charlie’s alignment with the Christian bullies beating up the Muslim kid. Excluding stupid people, the world were never really back & white, eh? So, my advice to Charlie Hebdo in future is; leave it to the Islamic culture to produce its own critics and instead, pick on your own Catholic culture’s necrotic behaviors:
tip: clicking on the several vulgar Latin phrases in this satire’s text, will reveal much information…
In what amounts to little better than ‘Pig Latin’, Opus Dei creavit monitor lacertae translates God created a need to monitor lizards. Or we could say Deus est ex improuiso ad monitor lacertae, that is, ‘God is theone least expectedto monitorlizards’ as a kind of a pun:
As in, who was minding the serpent in the garden? Clearly, there was an absent baby-sitter for the innocents. Or was there? The serpent had said ‘if you eat, your eyes will be opened.’ And we are told Eve did eat and her eyes were opened. Then, after Adam had joined her in understanding, omnipresent God came strolling along calling out ‘Hey Adam, Eve, where are you?’ Waving at God from behind a fig tree, Adam and Eve called out to the omnipresent one ‘We’re over here!’ At this point, it would appear to have been revealed ‘omnipresent’ God, who couldn’t see through the foliage, would be the one needed a fig leaf and it pissed him off. Or perhaps the Christian God had always been a violent jerk. And ever after, the serpent, who’d uttered nothing less than a truth, has been pinned for being evil. Here, in this new satire, we won’t concern ourselves much with serpent of mortal fable, and other than slightly touching on the Jesuits & Pius X, primarily we will mind the business of ‘who is baby-sitting the monitor lizards of Opus Dei’ ?
Our initial sources for this intelligence determination are gay celebrity gossip magazine contributors Klaus Wowereit and Pontificate Emeritus Joseph Rattefinger, in relation to breaking down information on the mysterious cult of ‘Scheißkerl’ and associated, closet drag queen, dominatrix intelligence agency personalities. In addition, we have taken this opportunity to frame our nefarious enemy, the intelligence genius Ronald Thomas West, accomplished with covertly leaking our unfortunate assessment, by hacking and posting the result at his blog. But our most wonderful coup was recording Wowereit’s confessional with Rattefinger!
In the vulgar dialect: Gonadius buggerum semenis seminarium toiletterium (totalitarium) Those who use the secret decoder ring for this (immediate preceding, unlinked) pseudo-Latin vulgarity, will have followed a dead end, but therein lies a clue nevertheless:
Resembling ‘meaty, beaty, big and bouncy’ (of the child pornography fans of The Who’s Pete Townshend.) A ‘tampered with’ phrase. Using this clue led to the ‘satryicon’ discovery embedded in seminary…
…and the trail of the Scheißkerl cult in Latin America:
I am forwarding a newsletter (below) of the 7 time Nobel nominated Military Religious Freedom Foundation, to draw your attention to the embedded video on a perception of ‘Crusaders.’ The overwhelming preponderance of the evidence assembled by myself as follows, indicates an international criminal religious cult embedded in the several NATO nations is indeed engaged in a Christian supremacist crusade undermining democracy throughout – noting, as an investigator with a military special operations intelligence background, I have been providing your institution intelligence on this matter for period now exceeding two full years:
Recalling (again) the covered up Gladio murders (includes Munich)…
…implicating Christian extremists at the highest levers of power in the NATO nations:
Because these criminals were never brought to justice, the international false flag terror movement comprising Gladio has expanded into what has been named by the FBI as Gladio B:
It is also established beyond a doubt these international criminal cells (originally embedded in intelligence agencies) have now expanded to the very top tier of politics have Nazi origins:
…would explain how it is Germany is in ongoing, patent violation of its responsibility to pursue extraditions and prosecutions under the principle of Völkerstrafgesetzbuch:
The criminally complicit refusal of Germany’s federal prosecutor to demand extraditions for purpose of prosecution of international crimes directly implicating NATO intelligence agencies is reinforced by my own direct experience (also pasted in, at the bottom of this mail)
It is further requested this complete communication be preserved together with the evidence I’ve previously provided to the International Criminal Court per ICC reference (omitted)
“The history of the great events of this world are scarcely more than a history of crime” -Voltaire
Begin forwarded message:
Date: January 1, 2015 at 12:43:32 AM GMT+1
From: Military Religious Freedom Foundation <info@militaryreligiousfreedom.org>
Reply-To: info@militaryreligiousfreedom.org
To: s*************s@gmail.com
Subject: If You Watch Only ONE Video This Year, Make it THIS One!
MilitaryReligiousFreedom.org
Fighting for our servicemembers’ rights, so they can fight for ours.
December 31, 2014
LAST DAY OF THE YEAR END APPEAL – Make your fully tax-deductible donation TODAY before the 2014 tax deadline EXPIRES!
TED TALK INSPIRED BY MRFF
A Radical Experiment in Empathy
by Dr. Samuel M. Richards,
Penn State University Senior Lecturer in Sociology
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation was integral in the development of my TED talk, A Radical Experiment in Empathy, in which I invite listeners to step into the shoes of average Arab Muslims living in Iraq and reflect on two decades of U.S. military involvement in their country.
I initially had the idea for the talk while walking across campus on my way to my 300 student Introduction to Sociology class. In this course I used to spend five weeks discussing many different issues related to the sociology of war but on this day I had nothing planned. I was running late and remember feeling unhinged because I was not prepared. But on my way out of my office I grabbed a letter that I had just received from the American Friends Service Committee because I saw that it contained what looked to be some interesting information about the Iraq war. So during a five minute walk that would get me to class precisely on time I read excerpts from this letter.
What jumped out from that AFSC letters was information they included from MRFF about soldiers carrying Bibles that were imprinted with a US Army logo on the covers and a story about Christian prayer groups on U.S. military bases in Iraq and deployed soldiers who were feeling pressured by their commanding officers to pray allegiance to Jesus Christ.
I remember walking into class and reading this to my students, some of whom were vets. I asked them to reflect on what they thought about it given our previous conversations. I don’t remember how people responded but I distinctly remember saying, “Here, let me help you make some sense of this,” and on the spot I created the radical experiment that I would later title Christian Invadersby starting with, “Imagine you’re an average Iraqi…”
I remember walking back to my office feeling stunned by how interesting that class turned out to be and thinking that I needed to remember to do it again the following semester.
As it turned out, I delivered this lecture four or five times in the next couple of years and eventually had it down tight with videos and photos. But each time I gave the lecture I also left with the feeling that I was making too much of this issue. However, throughout the many intervening months between semesters MRFF kept coming out with more information (e.g., rifle scopes with Bible verses on them, quotes from lectures by high ranking U.S. military officers espousing their dominionist Christian beliefs, discriminatory treatment of American Muslim soldiers). And so not only did I remain empowered to keep doing the lecture, but I also kept packing more and more provocative information into the talk.
And then I decided to give the lecture in my 750 student race relations course and frame it around empathy and cross-cultural relations. I talked up the class for a few weeks ahead of time so that the room would be packed and I would feel the pressure to deliver what I was then calling, tongue-in-cheek, the “best class of the semester.” I borrowed three video cameras and hired an editor and it was game on.
And I delivered. In fact, to this day I call that the most powerful class from my nearly thirty years of college teaching–and we captured it on film. The room was packed as the parents of some students came from out of town to see the talk, as did students and staff who were not enrolled in the class. The trailer from the lecture gave me goosebumps the first time I watched it.
About a month after the FULL video of the lecture was edited the filmmaker and I gathered eight respected friends and colleagues together late one night and screened both videos. Then we discussed what I should do with the video and someone mentioned TED. As it happened a few months later I received an invitation to give a TED talk. I sent them the trailer and I was accepted as a speaker at the event.
While I was preparing the TED version of the talk MRFF kept releasing powerful revelations related to religious freedom and U.S. military personnel. While I didn’t subscribe to the MRFF newsletter or ever visit the organization’s web site, I was connected to many other organizations that did and so I remained up-to-date on all that was happening. And again it was invaluable because now I would not be speaking to students at Penn State but, rather, to strangers who did not know or trust me. As such, I needed to feel like there were larger global issues in play and that this was a serious and valuable topic to speak about to the world.
Without a doubt Christian Invaders and A Radical Experiment in Empathywould not have happened without the hard work of MRFF. Not only would I likely not have had that initial “Wow, that’s amazing!” insight while walking to my classroom that November afternoon, but I would definitely not have continued to feel the rush of importance in helping Americans see a tiny slice of life from the eyes of people from another culture in a way in which they would generally not be inclined to do.
Samuel M. Richards, Ph.D. Senior Lecturer in Sociology Director of Development, World in Conversation Center for Public Diplomacy
Click here to watch Dr. Samuel M. Richards’
19 Minute and 15 Second TED Talk
Nightline logo
MRFF’s Inbox
Our Prayer To Curse Christ’s Enemy Weinstein
Our Spirit-Filled Church prays to Christ Jesus thru Psalm 109 for His Hand to curse Judas Weinstein (Matthew 27: 3-5) down as per Scripture in 2015 for sins against His Church and His armed forces and His America:
We Pray Thee Lord Jesus To Lay Thy Avenging Hands (Revelation 19:11-16) on unbaptized (Mark 16:16) Michael Weinstein his evil wife and evil children (john 8:44) and all of the evil doers who work at MFRR (Revelation 21:8);
6 Appoint someone evil to oppose my enemy; let an accuser stand at his right hand. 7 When he is tried, let him be found guilty, and may his prayers condemn him. 8 May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership. 9 May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. 10 May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes. 11 May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor. 12 May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children. 13 May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation. 14May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD; may the sin of his mother never be blotted out. 15 May their sins always remain before the LORD, that he may blot out their name from the earth.
(Spirit-Filled U.S.A.F. families in Jesus Christ who Live in the WordJohn 3:36and the only Savior who speaks the Word) (name withheld)
Click here to see response from MRFF volunteers
LAST DAY OF THE YEAR END APPEAL – Make your fully tax-deductible donation TODAY before the 2014 tax deadline EXPIRES!
DONATE NOW CLICK HERE DONATE NOW CLICK HERE
Help Build the Wall : Donate a “Brick”!
The media outlet referenced in the link above has no affiliation with the
Military Religious Freedom Foundation, nor has expressed endorsement thereof.
While we make every effort to ensure that news articles pertaining to our Foundation remain available for you to access,
we are unable to guarantee that the link above will remain online and unchanged indefinitely.
Forward email
This email was sent to s*************s@gmail.com by info@militaryreligiousfreedom.org |
Update Profile/Email Address | Rapid removal with SafeUnsubscribe™ | Privacy Policy.
Military Religious Freedom Foundation | 13170-B Central Avenue, SE | Suite 255 | Albuquerque | NM | 87123
**
A story of how defending Native American sacred lands had morphed, over a period of 20+ years, into a game of international intrigue & surviving assassination; with conclusions
Chronology of Events in the Case of Ronald Thomas West
(abridged summary)
1
In 1987 I was asked by Floyd Heavyrunner, traditional war chief of the Blackfoot Indians of Montana, to monitor interest by United States Department of Agriculture (Forest Service) in development of oil and natural gas in the Blackfeet tribe’s treaty lands known as the ‘Badger-Two-Medicine’ also known as the ‘Ceded Strip’, subject to tribal rights under the so-called ‘Grinnell Agreement’ also known as the ‘Treaty of 1895.’
In 1988, Floyd retained Mark Mueller of Austin, Texas (licensed in Montana) as attorney of record for the Blackfoot ‘Brave Dogs Society’ also known as the ‘Crazy Dogs’, in Floyd’s capacity as traditional cultural leader of that ancient tribal organization.
By 1991, as lead investigator on behalf of the Brave Dogs Society, in association with Mark Mueller, I had developed copious documentary evidence of a criminal ring working inside the United States Department of Agriculture, on behalf of CHEVRON Corporation, detailing a concerted effort to counterfeit compliance to laws that otherwise should have protected the area on behalf of the Brave Dogs Society, to include officials of the United States pursuing the following illegal acts, including felonies:
Lying to the Brave Dogs and counsel
Lying to the public
Lying to Congress about following specific applicable laws (National Historic Preservation Act ‘traditional cultural properties)
Concealing Forest Service knowledge of those applicable laws from the Brave Dogs, counsel and the public
Concealing Forest Service officials training in those same applicable laws
Deliberately cheating those same laws, to the benefit of CHEVRON
These incriminating documents, taken together, indicate a pervasive and organized criminal network represented in government officials, working on behalf of CHEVRON for the purpose of deliberately counterfeiting compliance to law, going to the highest levels of the United States at Washington DC. This particular criminal event was organized and run out of the Northern Region One Headquarters of the United States Forest Service at Missoula, Montana, and implemented via the Great Falls, Montana, offices of the Lewis and Clark National Forest.
These documents were incorporated into administrative appeal when the CHEVRON (and FINA) permits to drill were approved in what amounted to a ‘rubber stamp’ process at the Northern Region One Headquarters at Missoula. This appeal stopped the project in its tracks. The quandary of coving up the criminal network was accomplished by bureaucratic fiat, when the FBI declined to become involved (I personally briefed an agent who reviewed the documentation and acknowledged their substance but claimed he had no authorization to act and referred to the United States Attorney (United States Department of Justice) office at Billings, Montana, whom he stated were very well aware of the issues), after the United States Department of Agriculture Inspector General declined to investigate, the USDA Inspector General’s office saying they would not become involved on the pretext of the issue had already been raised in the administrative appeals process. Because the government (and Chevron) did not dare to allow the documents into the federal court record, where they would be put in front of a judge (or judges, on appeals in court litigation), a political deal involving lease swaps was engineered by United States Senator Max Baucus with CHEVRON and CHEVRON backed out. When I personally managed to place the incriminating documents into the hands of (recently new) Forest Service Chief Floyd Thomas, he attempted to close down the Northern Region One Headquarters and move those operations to Denver, where they ‘would fall under closer supervision.’ It took the efforts of two United States Senators, Max Baucus and Conrad Burns, to reverse this.
Note 1) REDACTED
Note 2) Two attorneys briefing the government side (Forest Service) on Native legal issues during this period, John Yoo & Jay Bybee, would later become infamous as Bush ‘torture lawyers’ in association with Condoleezza Rice. Condoleezza Rice, in turn, has had (previous and post Bush regime) close association with CHEVRON.
Note 3) the Montana ‘Northern Region One’ headquarters has a long association with CIA, dating to the 1950s and still an active relationship into the 1970s and probably through 1980s and beyond, relating to air services, surplus property, and laundering aircraft used in agency gun running & rogue elements (black budget) international narcotics trafficking.
Note 4) Immediately following my investigative result in 1991, revealing the criminal ring inside government working for CHEVRON, the Veterans Administration suddenly, spuriously, diagnosed me as suffering “Psychosis.” I managed to undo this by independently having myself evaluated by the same medical center used by the VA to to study schizophrenia and came up clean.
Note 5) Following this, my VA records were reviewed by a ‘specialist’ from Washington, DC, and certain documents vanished, making it appear as though I had defrauded the VA. A hearing was scheduled, where I produced a copy of a missing critical document, necessary to my defense, and the hearing was cancelled on the spot and charges dismissed.
Note 6) In 1998 I resigned from employ with Mueller Law office on account of health issues.
2
In 2001, I relocated, from West Glacier, Montana, to Sandia Park, New Mexico. After, I had enrolled my youngest son in the East Mountain High School (a charter school), an accelerated learning institution, in the late Summer of 2005. This school happened to have significant ties to powerful personalities in the Albuquerque corporate military-industrial complex.
By late Fall, intense pressure had been initiated, in form of undue harassment, it would appear intended to make us quit the school.
I initiated a ‘pro se’ investigation, to uncover the core reason(s.) In the process of this, what had been uncovered by myself were:
Felonies tied to the school’s pattern and pervasive civil rights violations of minority students particularly, and other students, by undue influence of ultra right-wing, racist, ‘Christian Dominion’ personalities.
What appears on its face to be an American charter school (EMHS) with embedded intelligence agents employed as instructors.
The possible use of school sponsored ‘field trips abroad’ as cover for covert operations in Latin America and Europe.
Meanwhile I had caused a parallel investigation (late 2006 into Spring 2007) into the school’s illegal activities, by a member of the school’s governing council, Jim Healy, in regards to harassment of my son and myself. In the course of this second (parallel) investigation by governing council member Jim Healy, I was approached by another governing council member, David Walter, who informed me I was stepping on toes of members of “The Council on Foreign Relations” and warned me (a threat) “Do not dare involve attorneys.” Walter further stated any action to hold the school accountable “Had no chance” under any circumstance. In less than a year, a teacher (intelligence embed, almost certainly CIA) from the school, Vince Langan, was part of a team that attempted to ambush myself in Berlin.
With the East Mountain High School case unresolved, recently divorced, my home sold and my youngest off to college, I had left the USA, in July 2007, to attend a conference at Johannes Guttenberg University, at Mainz, Germany. I had no intention of returning to the USA in short term, realizing I’d made powerful, corrupt enemies, without adequate resources necessary to pursue closure of the charter school case. However in the meanwhile I’d indicated to persons associated with the school’s administration I had no intention of letting the case go. This produced following result:
On 3 October, 2007, I routinely scouted the geld automat (ATM or automatic teller machine) I typically used at the Johannes Thaler Chaucee mall, in the Berlin suburb of Britz. In the course of my (professional security training) assessment of whether there were any threat, I managed to trigger to action a team waiting in ambush at the ATM location. Because I was on to them before they realized they’d been compromised, I was further able to get a point blank visual identity of Vince Langan of East Mountain High School, one of the triggermen, in circumstance that both, allowed myself to escape and caused Langan to realized he’d been identified. Two weeks later, I had a second close encounter with attempted assassination, with persons unknown, on the number 7 underground.
I immediately (following morning) left Berlin for Lindau (Bodensee.)
Note 7) Tracking myself to an ATM location abroad required access to my banking information, which can be had with a so-called ‘National Security Letter.’ This points to corrupted FBI involvement.
3
Having left Berlin for Lindau in mid-October, I shortly arranged via third party (REDACTED) an invitation for German authorities to monitor my situation (“follow me and watch”) This was a deliberate ploy to trap what I believed (at that time) was attempted murder to silence a whistle-blower (myself) in relation to felonies committed by wealthy, corrupt personalities associated with East Mountain High School.
Two weeks later, when I was walking one early Sunday morning, 4 November, 2007, when few people were out and about, a silenced bullet fired by a rifle at long distance, narrowly missed and punched a hole in a parked car I was walking past.
Subsequently, on a Tuesday, 4 December, 2007, I understood I had picked up the German surveillance I had requested, when traveling to give a presentation to a class at (REDACTED), and German police swept the train I had taken, searching one passenger in my car, and asking for identity cards of everyone and interrogating everyone except myself.
Note 8) The high velocity projectile had hit the parked car I was walking past, with such force, it was clear from the sound, the projectile had punched through the metal of the vehicle body, ricocheted off of a retaining wall the car was in front of, and spun to a stop beneath the car. I returned to the location after some days, assessed the possibilities and it became clear the shot had been fired from long distance, from a natural rise (hillside) with good cover, at a distance of perhaps 500 meters.
4
I had moved to Limburg in the early Spring of 2008 and then to Wiesbaden (June), accepting the invitation of the University at Mainz, to teach a course (in English) on American Constitutional law (Summer semester.) This Summer of 2008 was an intense game of cat and mouse for myself, in relation to my would be assassins/stalkers. Of my several Wiesbaden encounters, the most notable events are:
My Motorola (Razer) cellphone with its’ t-mobile USA chip suddenly quit behaving normally, it no longer showed the ’t-mobile D’ (Germany) reception logo, no longer required international code to access my voice-mail in the USA, and in fact the screen appeared (and phone behaved) as though I actually were in the USA. It had been somehow patched around or through the German reception network and appears to have been used by American intelligence (NSA) to GPS my location in real time. I converted my phone to a German t-mobile pre-paid chip.
About the time I’d noticed this phone modification had happened, a glass pellet had been shot at myself while walking a crowded sidewalk on the North side (my area of residence) in Wiesbaden. I heard what sounded like a powerful spring mechanism release behind me, and turned to look, to see a man keenly observing myself as he walked out of the crowd (brown Stetson style hard felt hat, caring an attache case) and into the street, to cross the street and get away. He kept looking at me as though expecting something to happen. When I had returned to my apartment, sat at my desk and removed my knit hat, a very small glass pellet, appearing to be filled with an opaque liquid, had fallen out of my hat, onto my computer keyboard. This pellet had been captured intact by my knit hat, where it was rolled up at the back of my head. I carefully collected (without touching) the glass pellet into a small prescription medicine bottle with my name on it, and packed it with tissue paper as a safety precaution and sent it to analysis via (REDACTED)
Following this preceding incident, I noticed it appeared as though I were being scouted for purpose of establishing my routine habits (the GPS component apparently having been lost due to my phone conversion.)
One person etched into my memory, although I did not know who she was in the Summer of 2008, was then active CIA officer Sabrina De Sousa. She jumped out on account of her smirking at myself when passing on the street. She was clad partially in the casual clothing of South Asia, and gave me a knowing smile and expression that can only be considered remarkable, when encountered in a total stranger. This marked De Sousa in my memory.
Of the several attempts during this period, one attempt clearly resembled the technique employed in the ‘Imam rapito affair’, also known as the Abu Omar case, in which De Sousa was involved. I was returning from teaching class at Mainz, when I noticed an aberration (due to my training) in what otherwise would seem a normal and unremarkable event. A group of men dressed in the typical blue German workingman clothing, taking a break.
The circumstance jumped out at me as I approached for the following reasons; there was no conversation at all, they looked ‘posed’ (stiff, as if unfamiliar with acting), had American body language and what I would call ‘Delta Force’ physiques (the sort of body build you will typically encounter in hyper-physically trained special operations soldiers.) Other than clothing, they did not resemble German laborers at all. My route on the sidewalk would have taken me between what amounted to a close, half-circle of three of these ‘workers’, and the half-circle closed to the street by the open, sliding side door, to a white, windowless van with at least one occupant.
There was a fourth ‘worker’ sitting in the passenger seat (with door open) of a car pulled up closely behind the van, concealing the van’s identity plate from behind. He appeared to be a ‘backstop’ positioned in case I’d evaded or somehow came through the initial three poised to shove myself into the van. Clearly, it was expected I would walk between the half-circle and the van. I approached as if unconcerned, to get as close as possible for visual assessment and at the last moment, instead of continuing on the sidewalk into what certainly was a ‘snatch’ and ‘rendition’ trap (I could have been popped into the van and subdued in a matter of a few seconds, less than five seconds, certainly), I walked out into street and into possible oncoming traffic (and was lucky not to be run down by a car.) Evasion was simple.
The last attempt at Wiesbaden, was when the apartment I had been renting was to be advertised for new tenants. There was an immediate response from a couple living on the United States military base there. This German couple could not take the apartment over from me too soon, they were anxious to move in as soon as possible. He was from the former GDR, was a huge George Bush fan and worked for the American military in some undisclosed capacity (evasive), and she ran a florist business on base.
She shortly called me and stated she would like to bring some packages to leave at the apartment, the evening before I vacated (on a Friday), which raised an additional red flag. I simply said to call me on the preceding Tuesday and ask then, as I could not yet know if I would be home on the evening she wished to come over with the packages. I knew (and did not say) the landlord wished to make some renovations. I left the week preceding my vacancy date, and by the time she called, the apartment had been thoroughly gone through by the landlord and I been out of Wiesbaden for a week. When she asked if the packages could be brought over on Thursday, I replied “I am in Berlin, you will have to ask the landlord.” Her reaction was to shout “He’s in Berlin!” to her husband (co-conspirator) and then her husband launched into a tirade in German… with the German authorities having an open invitation to monitor all of my phone calls, I expect they discovered two Germans working for American intelligence.
Note 9) Without going into detail, I had set up a test during this period, following shutting down the GPS of my phone, by confiding to a close confidant via Skype, technique I expected might work to take me down and succeed in assassination of myself. This was the next technique tried but I was ready for it, saw the circumstance developing and foiled the attempt.
Note 10) I will mention here, I had nearly one full year on the job training (1974-1975) in military special operations intelligence (19th Special Forces Group) with some of the most experienced of that era, and furthermore, I am highly trained in asymmetrical counter-intelligence, concerning technique I am not at liberty to discuss. However oblique reference may be made to this second instance, with referring the reader to this study: ‘Unconventional Human Intelligence Support’ by Commander L. R. Bremseth, United States Navy, 28 April 2001, Marine Corps War College.
Note 11) REDACTED
Note 12) I lost specific timeline notations from this period and going forward, due to a future failure of my laptop and resultant data loss. After the data loss event, I did not resume the habit of keeping notes on much of my experiences but am able to reconstruct some important events timeline with other records.
Note 13) By late 2008, I had realized this was no simple attempted murder case to cover up a school’s corruption, but was something by far bigger. My resolve was to take it as far as I could, in the hope of my being surveilled by German police to now, particularly, would lead to breaking the larger picture of clandestine effort in attempted assassination of myself, into the light of day. At this point I did not actually expect to survive, but was determined to do as much damage as possible to the criminal element, through exposure via the clandestine arrangement of monitoring of myself.
5
After several weeks stay in Berlin, in December 2008 I relocated to Catalonia, Spain, renting an apartment in the town of San Feliu de Guixols.
My stay in Spain was intense, but I will limit my notations to a few extraordinary events.
The Spanish domestic intelligence communicated with me directly, to let me know they had picked up monitoring my circumstance. How this was communicated (including direct ‘thank you’, among other events, on several occasions) is perhaps best described using this early example: I had a remarkable encounter with a woman in a grocery store adjacent to my apartment. It was like a Woody Allen scene in a movie. Only a few days later, this precise scene was caused to be reenacted with myself by another woman who had accosted me in different store. Clearly, she had studied security video of the earlier encounter and this second encounter closely mimicked the first encounter, to let me know I was monitored.
It was while I was in Spain in 2009, CIA officer Sabrina De Sousa sued the USA for diplomatic immunity over her role in the ‘Imam rapito affair’ or the ‘Abu Omar case’, this broke into the news with her photo in online media (New York Times) and I immediately recognized De Sousa as the smirking woman I’d encountered in Wiesbaden the previous Summer. While monitoring the AP Wire (RSS feed) I also picked up a statement attributed to Italian defendant, General Nicolò Pollari, to the effect ‘Condoleezza Rice had been personally overseeing the renditions team in this case.’ He wished to subpoena Rice in his defense.
This is when the larger picture of my own circumstance first began to make real sense. If Condoleezza Rice had been ‘personally overseeing’ a renditions team that included Sabrina De Sousa, this indicated my case was not only about East Mountain High School but had ties going back to the Badger-Two Medicine case of the Blackfeet Brave Dogs Society, CHEVRON, and the Bush Sr administration. Rice’s career path has been from CHEVRON board director to Bush Jr National Security Adviser to Secretary of State (The United States Department of State is Siamese twin to the CIA) and back to CHEVRON, post Bush era. Coincidental to this, two attorneys preparing legal memos on Native American rights cited by the Forest Service in the Badger-Two Medicine case, John Yoo and Jay Bybee, had since become infamous as renditions related Bush ‘torture lawyers.’
In June of 2009, related to these new developments, I had made a brief trip to Berlin to secure the defunct NGO ‘Association for the Support of the North American Indians’ file on the Blackfeet Brave Dogs, which I knew would include incriminating, related documentation. I personally went through the file to ascertain there was a complete record of documentation on the CHEVRON criminal ring previously encountered in the Bush Sr administration (it was all there) and arranged the entire file to be sent on to (REDACTED), which was done.
Date unknown (data loss) a second silenced bullet narrowly missed, fired from a high rise in S’garo, as I walked from the suburb of S’garo, across the rise into San Feliu de Guixols. This event occurred as I passed a construction site where a stone strewn bank caused the the missed high velocity projectile to ricochet. The pedestrian in front of myself jerked his head in the direction of the bullet striking the stone, it could not be ignored.
24 October 2009, I avoided being deliberately run over by a new, red, rental car, by two dark complected males whose arms were covered in gang tattoos.
20 Feb 2010, I surprised former CIA ‘Cowboy’ Gary Berntsen (now in private contracting) at the Hotel Barcarola reception desk in S’garo, it was between 7 & 8AM, as he was checking his hit team into the hotel. We were caught on security camera together.
Gary’s initially had a stunned blank look, which became an expression as though he’d been busted with his hand in the cookie jar and wished he could crawl under a rock as I stood inches from him, literally rubbing elbows, his bodyguard just stood there staring at me with a stunned, stupid look in circumstance that completely blew their cover, I couldn’t help myself, I had to laugh at them on my way out the door. I gave them about six hours head start before posting the fact of that morning’s encounter online, where Spanish domestic intelligence looked for updates on my encounters. Berntsen & Associates were smart to flee.
On the 5th of July 2010 I spent about half an hour visiting with two very polite regional policemen [Mossos] at my door. What the policemen said, was interesting. The police copied my passport information, questioned me about details that would confirm my identity, reported in with their radio my name, my information and had me sign a statement to the effect I had lived in my present apartment “for more or less one year, to be provided to the judge” who wanted to confirm the identity of the person lived in my apartment. I made no secret of the fact I was unregistered in Spain, and I made it clear I had no intention of registering with immigration or applying for residency. The police assured me my staying in Spain was not a problem and they had no interest in anything other than confirming my identity for the judge.
It was about this time I am fairly certain I had been poisoned. I had one day, after eating out, suddenly suffered a copious sweat without fever and after, my health took a downward spiral. That and the fact Judge Baltasar Garzon had been recently been removed from the bench in Spain under immense pressure from the USA in a corrupt and politicized process (I had followed Judge Garzon’s case closely), together with the Popular Party taking power, I felt made my stay in Spain untenable. I returned to Berlin in August.
Note 14) Summer period of 2009 had since vanished from all my online email records, beginning shortly after I had this published this following letter of 18 February 2009 online, posted on 3 June 2009. Most of June, all of July and August went missing, and much more to early 2010, 4 accounts, 3 google and 1 yahoo. This coupled with my previously having been tracked via my Wells Fargo Debit Card (ATM use) and by T-Mobile USA cell employing GPS .. all point to accessing my various accounts, inclusive of phone, banking, and email accounts, via National Security Letter and law enforcement complicit in tracking me for purpose of attempted assassination in exile. The letter I had made public on 3 June:
18 February 2009
From: Ronald West
To: Federal Bureau of Investigation
Greetings FBI
I am asking a copy of this mail be placed in my file, also that a true and complete copy be forwarded to Glen Fine at the Office of the Inspector General for the United States Department of Justice-
Based on my experiences of the past 3-1/2 or so years, I request the following:
An investigation into/and comprehensive review of any related investigations which granted any agency of the United States, to include your own, access (via National Security Letter or ANY means, e.g. Executive Order or legal memorandum bypassing the ‘FISA’ court, etcetera) to my personal information (particularly to my whereabouts via ATM banking records and (GPS) cell phone, email and conversations on ‘skype’) which may have led to my several experience including but not means limited to:
In Berlin, Germany of being stalked at Johannesthalerchaucee Mall (area of Britz Sud) in very close and tense circumstance by Vince Langan (or what appeared to be his identical twin) of East Mountain High School (Sandia Park, NM) together with accomplice on 3 October 2007-
How that may relate to a few weeks later a silenced bullet narrowly missed me and punched a hole in a vehicle I was walking past at Lindau, Germany-
Under what circumstance further stalkings and what appear to be assassination attempt relating to my t-mobile phone being patched directly through to the t-mobile usa network while I was in the greater Frankfurt region, Limburg and Weisbaden, particularly in late March-early April 2008, bypassing ‘t-mobile-D’, screen showing and phone behaving just as though I were in the USA, and any relationship of that to the preceding-
And related to all of the above, review the activities of (REDACTED) as to whether or not she is or has been an asset of yours or any agency of the USA or has been in a quid pro quo relationship with yours or any agency of the USA or in any capacity or related investigations or actions going to the preceeding paragraphs, cooperated in any investigation or related action concerning me directly or indirectly, with her befriending myself for the purpose at any point in any investigation, of soliciting enough information to implicate but in fact negligently and mistakenly implicate me, short of soliciting enough information to clear me, relating to any actions and/or existing referals of yours or of any USA agency, or any person relating to any such investigations, actions or agencies- impacting my Social Security Benefits in such a way as to effectively use official capacity to bring me into the jurisdiction of the USA or otherwise tamper with my freedom of movement or any other impact on my civil liberties in a ‘R.I.C.O.’ like criminal enterprize, or under any other circumstance related to the preceeding paragraphs, cause undue review of my social security file constituting harassment and hardship in my or my family members lives-
And request the Inspector General for the United States Department of Justice independently inquire of the appropriate authorities in the Federal Republic of Germany as to any known facts of any investigations which may have been or are ongoing relating to any/all of the preceding.
I am BCC copying this communication to two attorneys, one in the USA and one in Germany. These are NOT my attorneys of record. I am copying them because they are discreet men I trust as possessing the highest possible ethical standards and I want a record of this mail in the hands of trusted 3rd parties- which includes any lawful authority, attorney or other person they may, in their discretion, additionally decide it is appropriate to place copies with.
Sincerely
Ronald Thomas West
This letter (above) was not rejected by the FBI mail server, sent to albuquerque@fbi.gov but it was not long after, I began receiving this following response to mails copied to the FBI at Albuquerque (I had, up to then, copied the FBI on my activities)
—– The following addresses had permanent fatal errors —–
<albuquerque@fbi.gov>
(reason: 550 #5.1.0 Address rejected sylvia.maruffi@ic.fbi.gov)
—– Transcript of session follows —–
… while talking to ic.fbi.gov.:
RCPT To:<sylvia.maruffi@ic.fbi.gov>
<<< 550 #5.1.0 Address rejected sylvia.maruffi@ic.fbi.gov
550 5.1.1 <albuquerque@fbi.gov>… User unknown
This (preceding) indicates my mails had been previously routed through to a ‘Sylvia Maruffi’ who appears to have been removed and her address at the Albuquerque office cancelled or changed.
In an unrelated Albuquerque Federal Court pleading that had been posted online by a litigant in May of 2009, I found the following statement:
“.. the situation being reviewed by Sylvia MARUFFI an FBI Investigative Analyst”
This clearly points to FBI Agent Sylvia Maruffi assigned to investigating myself up to the time of the letter sent to the FBI Albuquerque office on 18 February 2009 and Maruffi clearly being a ‘person of interest’ in relation to persistent attempted murders (of myself.) Incidental to this, the FBI has never acknowledged my (emailed) letter of 18 February 2009, although they were clearly in receipt of this communication.
6
I lived in Berlin from September 2010 through July of 2012. Of several incidents over this period, this one stands out:
While living in Charlottenberg (Berlin) during July 2011, I had my 1st experience with intelligence agencies using proselytizing evangelicals as cover for an assassin team. I’ve puzzled a bit over whether “Jews for Jesus” were a MOSSAD or joint MOSSAD/CIA venture but by now I’ve settled on MOSSAD. It was a Wayne Madsen article had pointed out the CIA had used missionaries in the past, in Latin America particularly, but Jews for Jesus are an altogether different animal. In Berlin, no one is going to poke their nose into the business of any Jew, it is a perfect (the MOSSAD must think) cover. This appeared to be another case of ‘quid pro quo’ (previous ‘quid pro quo’ by MOSSAD in the attempt made on the U7 line in Berlin, 14 October, 2007) or one nation’s agency intelligence acting on behalf of another nation’s intelligence agency, this is not at all unusual.
It is a double blind deniability built into operations, evangelical Christians posing as Jews. Four out of five or perhaps nine out of ten of these so-called “Jews for Jesus” are deceived and unsuspecting evangelicals simply trying to convince people to be ‘saved.’ They are flown in from around the world in shifts volunteering time as missionaries and are conveniently on hand to locate to any area where a hit operation is meant to take place.
The target is supposed to get used to seeing them in his/her area and this is supposed to produce a complacency surrounding the missionaries while your habits are studied, which U-Bahn (underground) you take and most regular times. By the time any target is used to and ignoring “Jews for Jesus”, with routines established, the unsuspecting proselytizing members are replaced with kill teams from MOSSAD wearing ‘Jews for Jesus” shirts and the target (the theory must go) will not notice he/she has been marked going into the subway where a most ‘unchristian’ poison needle is a heart-attack inducing prick in the crowd that cannot be easily picked out of security video and so it is one more joins the people who drop dead of natural causes everyday, it’s that simple. Except when it is not that simple, as when the target is onto what is going on, because the intelligence agency is stupid.
When Americans flown in from the Midwest Bible Belt have been replaced by Israelis whose general demeanor, facial expression and body language is top to bottom different from the duped evangelicals (who should not, after-all, be surprised that actual Jews would be involved with their organization), it is not going to be missed by someone with my level of training. It was in Charlottenberg, I noticed it a couple of Israelis studying my habits, while it was Americans covered the larger public area I frequented, for a few days, and then it was Israelis had staked out my U-Bahn entry. I entered, but instead of going down a 2nd level and taking the train, I walked out another entrance, as though I was using the U-Bahn station as a method to cross an intersection without having to deal with above ground traffic lights and ‘walk’ signals, while watching for any tail I might pick up and sure enough… a tall Israeli in civilian clothes (no ‘Jews for Jesus’ shirt) reversed direction and emerged behind me but I was ready for this, and had positioned myself with back to wall at an outdoor café table, sandwiched between people also facing him with backs to wall and he could not hit me with his needle without giving himself away. Totally the wrong crowded scene, it was my advantage, not his. He stupidly studied my circumstance for a minute, hesitating, starting to leave, stopping to study again, wondering what to do while obviously completely out of sorts, gave up and left as I’d been looking steadily and directly at him and him at myself.
In August 2012, I moved to a small village in in the south of Germany.
Note 15) It was August, 2011, (REDACTED), who’d mostly gone out of contact with myself after I’d hand delivered the glass pellet captured by my hat in Wiesbaden, to be delivered for analysis, and followed on with delivering the incriminating Badger-Two Medicine file to him, came into contact just long enough to make excuse to terminate our close association (he accused me of writing “Hate” in reference to my satire compositions) of nearly twenty years. My impression is (REDACTED) had lost his nerve.
7
In November 2012, I visited Berlin and had a close encounter with a would be assassin on the U7 underground (3rd U7 attempt over 5 years), and this incident was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
By now, with 5+ years of German domestic authorities aware of and/or following my odyssey, with no action taken to pursue justice, no arrests, and no prosecutions, I came to realize there likely would be no action whatsoever taken, so long as a USA sycophant, conservative government ruled in Germany. After some period of reflection, I resolved to push back at the German government. I devised a legal strategy to bring a heat against Germany in the International Criminal Court for aiding and abetting the USA in crimes that the USA could not be prosecuted directly for, as the USA does not belong to the Rome Statute creating the court. I also resolved to push information on Christian extremism at the Pentagon, material I’d gained in informal cooperation with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (since June, 2008), on German parliamentarians, together with the copious anti-Semitic hate mail directed against the foundation, provided to myself by Mikey Weinstein, MRFF president. These efforts began from my hideout in Southern Germany, in 2013.
Note 16) According to a Washington Post investigative report in 2011, “some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States. An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.”
This is bolstered by a bloomberg.com article: “Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said. These programs, whose participants are known as trusted partners, extend far beyond what was revealed by Edward Snowden, a computer technician who did work for the National Security Agency”
Additionally, the US Congressional watchdog GAO [Government Accounting Office] reports as a result of faulty data, US intelligence agencies: “are not well-positioned to assess the potential effects of relying on contractor personnel”
And then, a US Army Intelligence Officer stated to Buzzfeed: “I think if we had the chance, we would end it very quickly.” [USA intelligence would like to find Snowden] “Just casually walking on the streets of Moscow, coming back from buying his groceries. Going back to his flat and he is casually poked by a passerby. He thinks nothing of it at the time starts to feel a little woozy and thinks it’s a parasite from the local water. He goes home very innocently and next thing you know he dies in the shower.”
In fact most of the unlisted events (in this chronology) experienced by myself had to do with evading stalkers whose behaviors profiled for action as described in the paragraph preceding.
This points to the utter corruption of American intelligence, where a corrupt Pentagon, that has thrown the rule of law under the bus, and associated corrupt corporate personalities (e.g. Christian extremists Condoleezza Rice and former NATO Supreme Commander & Obama National Security Adviser General James Jones, in association with CHEVRON) can access top secret material via the Pentagon’s NSA (National Security Agency) for essentially any purpose they please, up to and inclusive of assassination.
8
2013 was mostly uneventful, relating to attempts on my life, working from my South German safe house. I managed to file the complaint with the International Criminal Court against Germany (presently on hold while the court waits for me to provide further information), and initiated a campaign to educate the German parliamentarians on the Pentagon led Christian extremism infecting NATO. In September 2013, I relocated to Leipzig. In December 2013, I left Germany to live with my girlfriend in (REDACTED.) We registered as living together and three weeks after, I was presented with an Ministry of Interior order expelling myself from the country. The order is in force throughout the European Union and consequently I am under daily threat of deportation to the USA. It is utterly immoral to force myself to seek political asylum in this circumstance but in fact that is precisely what may be required, in this ongoing travesty of justice where institutions of law have refused to move against the criminals I have exposed to the authorities.
9
The result of what I have named ‘alpha’ investigation is clear.
Corporate organized crime in the military-industrial complex fused with institutions in NATO and rogue elements in intelligence agencies (with the beyond Orwellian twist of ‘Christian Dominionism’ thrown in), together form an international ‘deep state’ dedicated to the subversion and eventual overthrow and/or control of western democratic institutions. The German government and law enforcement is now fully aware of ‘alpha’ elements that have operated exterior to the parameters of law in Germany. Incidental to this, alpha’s operational command and control centered in the USA has had the German political establishment intimidated at the highest levels.
With the German government well aware of all the necessary facts concerning ‘alpha’, from police at the local level to the top politicians in Germany, there is really little more to accomplish. The ‘alpha’ investigative result cannot stay swept under the rug indefinitely, too many people now know what is happening, and ultimately, I have little control over when it breaks into the open or how it will develop subsequently. This will have to do with any remaining institutions concerning the rule of law which have not yet been co-opted by the criminal enterprise behind ‘alpha.’ It is the undeniable responsibility of these institutions to take the information developed surrounding ‘alpha’ forward; towards restoration of an authentic constitutional order.
Note 17) In Germany, where there is no hesitation to arrest and prosecute Islamic terror cells bent on conspiracy to murder, four successive German Interior ministers have failed to act against the same behaviors when conducted by, or on behalf of, Christian extremists in American intelligence and associated corrupt personalities pursuing crimes on German soil. Those German Interior ministers, in order of tenure, are:
Wolfgang Schäuble, 22 November 2005 to 28 October 2009
Thomas de Maizière, 28 October 2009 to 3 March 2011
Hans-Peter Friedrich, 3 March 2011 to 17 December 2013
Thomas de Maizière, 17 December 2013 to present (2nd term)
The multiple cheats insuring common Americans are owned by corporations but allowed to believe they participate in democracy:
Of 240 million people eligible to vote (voting age population or VAP), 70 million are not registered. This produces a voting pool of 170 million. When 70 million people do not so much as bother to register, let alone vote, it points to a problem. Of those 70 million unregistered voters, the majority of make up a disadvantaged class of Blacks and Hispanics. Is it because, as the pundits would have it, these are less educated people and this is an underlying reason? Or is it the cynicism is more honest in this group as a whole?
In this 2014 ‘mid-term’ election cycle, the entire House of Representatives was up for election , as is the case every two years. Keep this in the back of your thoughts when considering this next:
There was a (rounded up to) 37% of the voting age population (or all eligible voters, registered or not) participated, or less than 89 million of 240 million eligible voters decided the make-up of the House of Representatives. If we are generous to the Republicans and give them an across the board average 55% of those who cast ballots, or a bit more than half of the 37% who voted, about (rounded down) 20% of eligible voters determined much of what will be the next two years future of USA policy and related new laws.
Now, lets look at that 20% reality, regarding USA electoral history:
Deep State insurance policy number one: George H.W. Bush (Bush Senior) CIA Director, Robert Gates, sat on the board of directors of a firm dedicated to developing voting machine ‘cryptography solutions.’ Following this, Diebold Corporation provided voting machines that were hacked and turned elections to the Republicans:
Coincidence? Not likely when you consider Gates 27 years career with the Air Force, CIA and National Security Council and these institutions alignment with the interests of companies in the business of developing electronic voting; which had not only been Diebold, but Northrop-Grumman, Lockheed-Martin, Electronic Data Systems (EDS) and Accenture, all major Department of Defense contractors. Do we need recall Robert Gates was George W Bush (Bush Junior) Secretary of Defense? (a position Obama inexplicably kept Gates in.) BTW, let’s not forget the Department of Defense is fundamentalist Christian central.
Welcome to the 2014 mid-term elections result. Due to Obama’s utterly failed (and sabotaged) neo-liberal leadership, it was the neo-con chance to have it any way they liked without suspicion and they took it. Oh, and about Gates sitting on the board of ‘VoteHere‘
“Gates was on the board of directors of VoteHere, a strange little company that was the biggest elections industry lobbyist for the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). VoteHere spent more money than ES&S, Diebold, and Sequoia combined to help ram HAVA through. And HAVA, of course, was a bill sponsored by convicted Abramoff pal Bob Ney and K-street lobbyist buddy Steny Hoyer. HAVA put electronic voting on steroids”
‘Help America Vote’ & ‘Vote Here’ .. the unholy alliance of law and corporations that put America’s vote tabulation into hacked computers .. for sociopath personalities without morals, ethics or shame.
Deep State insurance policy number two: Citizens United:
“A flood of outside spending, much of it undisclosed “dark money,” helped Republicans make significant gains in yesterday’s elections. The Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision helped trigger the campaign spending avalanche, and so it come as no surprise that Citizens United’s leader David Bossie took a victory lap today in a press conference of conservative activists reacting to the election results”
About that ‘undisclosed dark money’ .. it’s no real surprise that in several cases where the Democrats out-funded the Republicans…
“Even where Democrats had raised more in pivotal Senate races … they still were mostly beaten”
…the Republicans still won (see insurance policy number one.)
If our corrupt ruling class were a nesting colony of oftentimes cannibalizing predatory birds that is made up of individuals that are territorial, most the birds are too busy protecting their individual ‘nest eggs’ to notice what is going down in other areas of the colony.
There are, within the species, a lot of competing forces that cooperate at the macro-cosmic level; underlying this superficial and fairly consistent driving force motivating the colony (greed) there are unique drivers of anti-social behaviors. While most of the birds are preoccupied with defending their nests (example given, The Council on Foreign Relations), there are other birds carry a sort of suicidal intra-species virus (our generals at the Pentagon.)
I expect the possibilities for outcomes is little different after all is said and done; whether death by a thousand cuts via environmental collapse (the typical greed personified at the Council on Foreign Relations) or literal Armageddon (the religious troglodyte take-over of the Pentagon.)
For those who tend to believe Democrats and Republicans are alike, the reality is, neo-liberals and neo-cons actually hate each other, its not merely an act. They’re like a dysfunctional marriage where the couple stays together for purely pecuniary purposes and screw each other out of habit; with the singular difference the neo-cons fantasize, and will someday act on, opportunity to knock off their neo-liberal spouse and collect the life insurance…
Back (briefly) to that 20% of America’s conservative voters who just put the Republicans in control of Congress .. they believe in prayer and God has answered. God’s name and address? Write to:
General Martin E. Dempsey
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
9999 Joint Staff Pentagon
Washington, DC 20318-9999