Hitler, the Nazis, the Holocaust, have become, sadly, and oddly, a form of pop culture, and not just any pop culture, but a hyper-real form of culture perpetuated by the omnipotent and fate-sealing power of the “algorithm”.Quinton Mitchell
I call it Nazi Pop.
I understand that history should be taught and preserved. I also understand that having different content creators helps analyze topics form different perspectives. However, I think there should at least be more disclaimers relating to Nazi content or at least some sort more intensive vetting process including but not limited to peer-review for YouTube videos on the subject. Also, creators of such content should have to disclose their public identity rather than hide behind avatars.
A large chuck of the profit percentage should go to charities such as those dedicated to Holocaust education or hate-group watchdog groups.
It seems many content creators have learned that making videos about Nazis is an easy way to get paid, yet many people don’t care about the money but rather they are potential Nazi sympathizers who have adapted to not seeming radical but instead brand themselves as “amateur historians”. For example, the YouTube pages such as the Zoomer Historian and History-at-War.
Sure, not everyone talking about Nazis are bad and the intent is often educational. Yet, even with these good faith actors the need to make money off Nazi content still stands. For example, let us look at lovable and iconic YouTube creator, Simon Whistler.
When I type in Simon Whistler Nazi on YouTube I see the following videos. Why Did So Many Nazis Choose Argentina to Flee to After WWII? (on Today I Found Out); Why Did So Many Nazis Choose Argentina to Flee to After WWII? (on Into The Shadows); Adolf Hitler – The Rise of a Fanatical Fuhrer (on Biographics); The “Nice” Nazis (on Sideprojects); War and Drugs – WWII Soldiers Go Mad on Meth (on Brain Blaze); Inside the Meeting that Engineered the Holocaust (on Into the Shadows); The Rise and Fall of the Nazi War Machine (on Warographics); The 1936 Olympic Games: Nazi Germany’s Gambit (on Into the Shadows); The “XX System”: How MI5 Made Fools of the Nazis (on Into the Shadows)…and honestly, there is at least 20 plus more.
I must stress that I think Simon Whistler is a legitimate content creator interested in sharing snippets of lost history.
Him aside, we have to be real there are likely Attomwaffen SS sympathizers etc. secretly making ambiguous pro-Nazi videos.
This is what I am saying. Is it education or entertainment? Sure, I have hope that humanity has learned its lessons but…we do live in a world that does seem to be dangerously flirting with a nostalgia for strong-men fascism, largely as a means of curbing the externalities of global capitalism (mass migration, free trade, etc.), which ironically is controlled by those who often fund…fascism.
In other words, the elite capital class are responsible for most of the world’s social ills but while they make profit, they also fund isolationist, nationalist, and often racist regimes because these fascist regimes often side with capitalism, especially as a means of opposing egalitarian ideas such as communism.
Elon Musk is the avatar for everything negative I am stating or insinuating in this post. An alleged “autistic savant”, Sorrow of Young Werner, edge lord, “Sit on my face” (Grandma’s Boy film reference), billionaire capitalist who panders to right wing grifters because they are more so aligned with the economic ideology that enables him to exploit, loot, scam, borrow, fake it till he makes it, and profit, etc.
I call this tendency to make Nazi videos for money on YouTube as being Nazi Pop. Nazi Pop Culture.
There seems to be something going on. There are a lot of “historical analysis” videos dedicated to “studying” (cough – worshipping) the Nazis, especially with a target audience comprised of Millennials, Zoomers, and this odd new “Newsweek”-coined generation called “Generation Alpha”. It is as if there is a bot farm spewing out these Nazi historical analysis videos as a means of subconsciously brainwashing a new crop of unwitting racists, “race realists”, etc., notably in the wake of a world that is unfairly – in my opinion – rallying against “wokeness”, where said “wokeness” is often, but not always, code-word in conservative circles for anything that is not white, straight, male, capitalist, selfish and likely Christian.
“Whiteness” has cleverly positioned itself as an “oppressed” status group, however, the political left often can’t help but to not use “whiteness” as the target to most of its own philosophical juxtapositions. Adding to this, because of the burdens of globalism, climate change, poverty, and wars, many refugees have fled into the Global North, thus causing race realist nationalism to rise.
The political left – though not wrong in its political and economic analysis of contemporary issues, at least from a pure analysis standpoint, as opposed to real life political experiments – often uses whiteness as the focal and starting point for many of its analytical arguments, and this, therefore, helps create a situation that actual white supremacist can exploit by providing a “safe space” for the often lost, frustrated, guilty, etc. White people who are tasked with analyzing their privilege but then rejecting the guilt associated with it when they feel they are being unfairly singled out, and at worst, disarmed from self-defense from the basic truths of human nature beyond race or color.
In other words, many white people feel they can’t defend themselves while also being blamed for the ills of society, and many people reject these feelings and are often recruited by bad faith actors who want to inculcate them into race realism, racism, Nazism, etc. Yet, the left or liberals can often be dismissive of this sentiment, but being dismissive doesn’t mean it goes away. However, this does not mean we need to coddle or excuse the truths of toxic masculinity, entitlement, the hypocrisies of patriarchy and the male gaze onto the female form, racism, etc.
I am not saying that whiteness, colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, etc., as is, as they are linked in our contemporary society, are not topics worth studying, however, the folly of let’s say…Marxists analysis…is that it reduces everything to base “non metaphysical” material that is in need of study, analysis, etc. Yet, my argument is that human nature is sure able to be understood, yet most humans are not thinking too deep about social issues besides simply trying to survive in peace. Also, my rebuttal to a full acceptance of applying Marxist analysis is that life is inherently…nonsensical and absurd. The Marxist tries to reduce everything to realist, evolutionary struggle in a sort of godless universe where no objective truths actually exist besides the truths we can analyze based on our evolution as a species, here and only here on Earth, based on understanding the crux of class throughout space and time. Sounds somewhat reasonable.
But why do we make art? Why do we do anything? What’s the point? The point is there is no point but there is a point. Life has purpose and in theory doesn’t. Life is a walking contradiction but because it is, we naturally apply some level of metaphysical justification to our actions. Sure, we can debate about the scope and scale about how we apply metaphysical explanation or justification to sustain our existences, yet, still humans often operate indifferent to being “analytical nerds” where everything is seen as a mindless construction of petty human efforts.
The tin-foil hat in me thinks that our current racial situation is in part manufactured. A sort of dialectical warfare situation where those at the top, typically the capital owners, use race as a means of disguising the institutional power that ironically helps maintain the one percent. The left thinks it is immune to this, but I suspect this is not the case because those at the top, are smarter than given credit for, considering that the left spends so much time in analyzing them. The one percent needs a racially divided proletariat in order to maintain the systems that maintains their power, yet, oddly, when someone says that “things are rigged” notably in matters of race, I notice the political-left itself is often dismissive of this allegation (which I can understand because such as allegation can be used lazily as a means of not deeply analyzing systemic power, however, it is naïve for the left to not admit that pitting the races against each other has always been a key strategy in debasing proletarian and labor-centric power). However, those on the Left don’t want to be dismissive of marginalized groups voices by prioritizing class consciousness over intersectionality, so if anything, it’s on said marginalized groups to accept that such divisive strategies are possible, but it may ironically not be good strategy for historically oppressed groups to acknowledge this considering the status quo can use this as a means of furthering silencing specific causes. Just one of the many seemingly, damned if you, demand if you don’t Catch 22’s we live under.
With the toxic revolt and reaction against diversity and inclusion, I, as black man who grew up largely in predominately white environments (which, I admit were often positive experiences, but yes I have experienced blatant racism), I notice on YouTube that many “content creators” are uploading videos dedicated to studying Nazism.
And, sure, there’s a lot of unpackage there, but I often suspect more sinister intentions. The phenomena are similar to the notion or trop of the “edge lord”. Instead of seeing what the Nazis did as bad, rather the Nazis are “pornified”. From their Hugo Boss uniforms, their innovations (rockets, synthetic oils, jet engines, the interstate systems, intercontinental ballistic missiles, propaganda, etc.), their national unity, etc., there is something that many people seem to deeply want to emulate. That is the sad thing about these YouTube videos for example. Many but not all seem to be about nostalgia rather than analysis of evil.
We must remember than since 2012 for example, which was the era that kicked off the police brutality riots – often against black people – than many college age people were children. Many have adopted the tenants of social justice to varying degrees, but others see social justice as establishment. This therefore opens the opportunity for actual Neo Nazis, who have innovated into doing video essays online, owning video game Reddit communities, etc., the ability to recruit a new crop of followers or apologists.
At first, the book White Noise by Don DeLillo creeps up in my mind. In that book, the main character, Jack Gladney, is the professor of Nazi Studies at some Midwest college, yet the character of Gladney was used by DeLillo as a means of detailing how even a monster such as Adolph Hitler became a sort of pop culture commodity in a postmodern and post-capitalist world. Even Family Guy by Seth MacFarlane pointed fun at this with his Hitler talk-show in his cartoon.
Even atrocities of wars gone by and the lessons thereof which should humble us as a species, instead become commodities or a means of gaining an income.
DeLillo’s prophetic words in his 1985 National Book Award winning novel (which were not done with justice in the 2023 movie adaptation in my opinion) sort of became reality. Hitler, the Nazis, the Holocaust, have become, sadly, and oddly, a form of pop culture, and not just any pop culture, but a hyper-real form of culture perpetuated by the omnipotent and fate-sealing power of the “algorithm”.
(1) Many Christian conservatives often fall into conspiracy theories, yet, isn’t obsessing over conspiracy theories a sign of not having faith? If their faith is so strong and God is in control, then it seems that Christians don’t really believe God…is…in…control. Once could go further and say that Christians who engage in conspiracy theory are actually engaging in blasphemy despite their conspiracies being against what they consider to be Christian blasphemies.
(2) It’s funny how people say the Second Amendment is about protecting us against a tyrannical government, yet, if that’s the case then why did so many white people not pick up arms to liberate black people from Jim Crow? Or, at a minimum be supportive of black people taking up arms to liberating themselves? Maybe it’s because what is “tyrannical” is subjective, i.e., just because you don’t like something you call it tyrannical, but what’s tyrannical to one is not to another. A lot of people seems Ok when a segment of the population was being oppressed.
(3) It’s interesting how conservatives said that COVID was a hoax, yet, the only way how Trump kept out migrants and refugees was through acknowledging that COVID existed with his use of Title 42 laws (the ability to keep people out of the USA because of public health concerns). So either COVID is real and was a real threat, or the Trump Administration used a hoax per conservative logic to keep out migrants, and in theory, per the law, violate the ability for people to seek asylum.
(4) Republicans say they want to bring money home, such as when talking about the Ukraine Russian War, etc., yet, this is the same party…. that wants to cut public education, raise social security (thus, increasing the chance of not getting it since you’re closer to dying, etc.).
(5) Conservatives are trying to argue that religion should not be separate from state, yet this just leads to xenophobia because society therefore becomes a battle of which religion has more power over the other because people don’t want to be rulee by a religion they don’t align with. Christian Nationalist also wanting secular power also negates their faith because in theory God is control and has a plan, yet it seems Christian Nationalist want to control the plan because deeply they don’t have faith and/or their faith is “bad faith”, i.e., for selfish, racist, sexist, etc., reasons. Which church would even rule? There are thousands of Protestant churches. Will we be…Church of God, Southern Baptist, Missionary Baptists, Anglican, Episcopalian, Methodist, African Methodist Episcopalian, Seventh Day Adventist, Unitarian, Roman Catholic, Coptic Christian, Orthodox, Quaker, Mennonite, Amish, etc.?
(6) Conservatives say the dislike government, despite hailing police agencies which are government institutions. Not saying that is good or bad, but just admit that conservatives do like elements of government.
(7) Conservatives want to ban adult content yet state they value free speech between consenting adults, where adults are legally allowed to enter into contracts, including contracts that includes the use of their bodies. By banning legal pornography all you do is create the market for illegal pornography which empowers criminals and ironically may help increase human trafficking. It’s also insane how Conservatives try to merge legal desire between adults with crime as a low IQ and strawman strategy to guilt people away from not being sexually empowered, educated, fulfilled, etc.
(8) Conservatives were saying All Lives Matters or say “I don’t see Color” but then freak out when a person of color is cast in movie in a role that was traditionally played by a white person.
Referencing the film Fight Club is quasi-cringey because it represents every angry, in your twenties, posters on the wall without a frame, cliff-note Bukowski, jaded, wannabe Nietzschean “edge lord” that most of us, especially men, have dealt with.
But almost in my forties, over most things, and arguably…content mostly, etc., I do admit I daydream about how Edward Norton saw the banking buildings at the end of the film go down in rubble, but instead of banks, I envision social media companies. Seeing all the symbols come crashing down to Earth. The blue bird of Twitter, well – now the way too bright X shinning down in San Franscisco as drug addicts hiss in piss filled streets being bought up by hedge funds like BlackRock or Vanguard. The F of Facebook. The almost Hello Kitty looking camera symbol of Instagram. This, that, whatever. Yet, before I get flagged, I just want to say I’m not really serious – at least about any violence or destruction, though a world without social media, at least as it is now, would be much better, healthier, etc.
But I don’t hate Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, etc., though, yes, Elon is lame, but when I think of a person like Mark or Jack, I see optimists who had a dream they couldn’t’ control and still can’t control but can’t admit they don’t have control because they’re in charge of capitalist enterprises bent on profits. In other words, Mark, etc., signed out and could care less if the world burns. This adds on more to the irony. Analogous to demi-gods they created a universe but are letting it crumble because they didn’t comprehend the sheer power.
Books aren’t dead but they very well may be dead. To read means to sign out, and to feel catharsis must now be shared instead of silently appreciated by oneself. Basic cable, though organized and safe, doesn’t stimulate us as much as streaming where we can customize our experiences. Social media reigns supreme but still it’s…inhuman. Maybe it’s too convenient? With such an easy way of getting information, maybe it’s making us dumber, yet living in a world that requires us to keep track of the ever-growing interconnectivity of things, that is why people are…depressed? Stupidity mixed with complexity creates a dialectical tension that leads to hopelessness as one realizes they become masters-of-none, just repositories of trivial information.
At least, you get off with porn, though sure, many will say that too is bad, yet at least you get a spike of some naturally occurring chemicals in your body.
With basic social media…what is it even really for? To feel bad? To flex wealth? To juxtapose our romantic relationships against that of others to remind us that we should be happy where we are rather than being “single” or with someone else? To pretend to be a wise sage even though deep down instead you’re just speaking to yourself but through others without the fear of having to actually deal with…people? Are we just projecting our fears out onto the electric ether just like how a child who sees a scary movie will tell his or her friends about it, so they too are afraid but in that collective fear comes comfort, solace?
I think a healthy New Years resolution would be to spend less time on social media. And I get that is hard because in many ways we have “social media friends”, i.e., people we’ve met online who we’ve vetted who are people we consider to be on friendly terms with though you may not have ever physically have met the person. People who know you exist and are a person with a life in a world that may not see that. There are also legitimate close ties with people in your actual personal lives (friends, family, co-workers, business connections, etc.). Yet, the good parts aside, the truth is social media has destroyed the planet.
As with most tools, humans get utility out of it, but most tools become corrupted because of our innate nature as self-serving, self-preserving, aggressive yet passive-aggressive creatures. Instead of saying hello, we spy and snoop. Instead of trying to find common ground, we instead agitate an already agitated public. Instead of pursing our dreams in the real world, we scroll.
We don’t even need to fear Artificial Intelligence because we as humans have a good enough job at driving ourselves crazy, making alternative universes, pushing a culture of solipsistic post-truths, etc.
It will take us as a society to teach the social media companies a lesson by not spending so much on time so they can’t mine our data, etc.
Social media is a postmodern cesspool of racial tension against all groups, conspiracy theories (spanning the Great Replacement Theory, the New World Order, Blood Libel by Jews, a belief we are being turned gay, etc.), racial conspiracy theories, antisemitism, misogyny, sovereign citizens, Qanon, Manosphere & Men’s Rights shaming videos that feed the insatiable appetites of Incels across the blob of angry men who LARP (live action role play) in video games about killing people or dying honorably in battle. Men who struggle with women and publicly commit to “no fapping” (masturbating) as a means of tapping into their inner Marcus Aurelius but taking out their sexual repression on women by providing “fatherly words of wisdom” to women who they think have no minds of their own. How many Pakistanis, Saudis, or other horny Middle Eastern men using VPNs to access Western porn/women are the ones actually crying about their alleged addictions?
Let’s not forget the Instagram “thirst trap” models of large squat sculpted buttocks, sultry MILFs, what have you, but also…bot accounts, covert government operations both foreign and domestic, etc. Or wait, the annoying street interviewers attempting to make people seem stupid or lost for whatever agenda they are really about, such as “drinking liberal snowflake tears.”
You never know if its Iranian intelligence firms with bot armies infiltrating black “woke” Marxist liberation sites to stoke anti-whitey sentiments because Iran knows they have a backdoor plug into the Black American community via Muslim adjacent hate groups such as the Nation of Islam with figures such as Rizza Islam.
You never know if Israel Unit 8200 bot accounts ran by drafted Israeli teens are stoking racial division to keep the eyes away from Israel and that it’s not Jews behind the scenes but rather hordes of Muslim refugees flooding Europe who will topple the West.
You never know if Russian bot accounts are stoking unrest by infiltrating American Conservative politics as a means of depicting the West as a “corrupt, amoral, Sodom and Gomorrah” so more and more paranoid white Americans and Europeans see Putin as “big daddy savior” of Christendom.
You never know if what you’re seeing is being ran by a legitimate cult who are pushing every New Age conspiracy theory that intends to unravel our linear view of history apart. You never know if hate groups like the Aryan Brotherhood, or any other aspiring group are behind many accounts. You never know if it’s the CIA, FBI, DEA, ATF, local police, MI5/6, Mossad, etc.
We are literally living in a William Gibson Neuromancer nightmare, and we all know it, but we don’t know how to express it because outside of social media, in perfect American fashion for example, we’ve all been trained to be self-serving individuals. Despite out own quiet desperations and ennui, if we see such melancholy elsewhere, we are now trained to simple walk over the dying bodies of others, because we are too busy “manifesting” our own happy little worlds. Any whiff of negativity could lead to the dreaded…unfollow.
It is everything that Philip K Dick lost his mind over.
Social Media is arguably MK Ultra 2.0. A brainwashing tool for various parties, some in unison, and some in opposition, who fart out toxicity to scramble the general public’s brain.
I’ve literally been seeing people get murdered on social media. Seeing the N word is just commonplace now and even if reported, sites like Instagram do nothing. Nudity is even acceptable.
The thing is…it’s all insanity. It’s to the point where I make it a hobby to block accounts. I’ll literally try to block 50 a day because many are just replica accounts, often pushing Right Wing social conditioning that mixes a denunciation of progressive politics with a worship of capitalist greed, misogyny, Abrahamic religion, doomsday Revelation fears, etc. It’s as if the Koch Brother Foundation along with the John Birch Society wrote a blank check and gave it to a bunch of Young Republican college kids and shills like Charley Kirk to fart out as many bot accounts as they can as a means of pulling the youth to the far right, just because rich people or aspiring rich people want a tax break.
Social media is a joke
Deconstructed to an animal impulse the only thing on social media that makes me somewhat happy is a combination of food porn, glamour shots of retro porn actresses from the 90s to 80s, history stuff, and models in yoga pants.
Sex, food, daydreams
The only way to really fix social media is to (1) Dox everyone, i.e., make it some everyone’s real first name, age, and country of origin is on their profile because this will expose the armies of chaos agents stoking tension. Imagine if that Right Wing Anti-SJW account is owned by Boris in some oblast in Russia or Ahmed as the IT guy working with the Iranian Revolutionary guard or a Jewish kid with braces doing a high school project funded by the IDF. (2) Limit the number of accounts a person can have/hunt down replica accounts and limiting how many times a specific video can be uploaded or using digital forensics of some sort to post the date that photos or videos were taken in order to add context to conversations. For example, a racist account intent of shaming black people will upload frequent videos of black crime or racial tension when certain videos may be very old, but pretending they are new helps to feed the current narrative that black people are these “ungrateful criminals” intent on “killing the white man”. (3) More culturally sensitive content moderators because an Indian person in a cubical may not get certain American nuances or vice versa. (4) An active campaign to fight conspiracy theories by having users list sources. (5) Partnerships with sites such as Ground News to help show the political biases of articles (6) continued parental controls
Social media is too cerebral.
It reveals everything ugly about us without any way of making us better. Even most self-help just serve to reduce one into a consumerist bot.
But I saw some good food and yes, some great feminine, squat-sculpted powerful buttocks in an array of multi-colored synthetic material leggings. At least I am honest.
Using violence is what a child does when it doesn’t get its way. White Supremacy actually let White people down. Supremacy is a construct, like a drug, so when that drug is taken away, there’s negative reactions.
Showing positive examples, new stories, etc., of racial harmony which exists already in the natural world
Celebrating European nationalities over Pan-Whiteness, for example Italian American, Irish American, etc. For example, back in the eighteen-hundreds to early-to-mid nineteen hundreds, whiteness was not the concept we see today. Rather, European groups delineated themselves based on nationalistic cultures, such as Irish, Polish, Italian, English, Scottish, etc., yet as time went on there was a merging of all the groups into a Pan White sentiment, largely since the United States was based on racial segregation, so white groups despite having different customs saw themselves as the same. This merging into Pan-Whiteness occurred after WW2 with the establishment of government segregated suburbs, where upward mobility in a capitalist system took precedent over once hard ethnic lines. Hence, whenever there is a black liberation movement, there is mass reaction from Pan Whiteness regardless of the white person’s ethnic heritage. The way how America was designed was to make it that when black people call for liberation it is seen as an attack on whiteness, i.e., whites feel they are being unfairly treated or “punished” for any sort of reconciliation process.
Showing white ethnic participation within progressive or Leftist movements from history but also how certain European communities were attacked by the pre-existing Anglo Saxon Protestant establishment. For example, Irish Catholics were oppressed by the English. Italian Americans were hanged in New Orleans. Teach black people about these as well, so black Civil Rights action groups can build alliances with white people who are willing to help without white people feeling they are overstepping boundaries.
Educating people of all races about white contributions to Abolitionism, the Underground Railroad, participating in Freedom Marches and Anti-Apartheid movements. This helps educate all people regardless of race the important contributions of white people in helping achieve equality, rather than the current sentiment which seems to assume that white people are inherently problematic. White people feel rejected or scorned, so they regress or find opportunists who are willing to turn them into racists, etc., and this was most prominent in the modern United States with the election and reaction to President Barack Obama and the election of Donald Trump.
Including white leftist movements within the USA within the iconography of the contemporary Progressive Movement such as labor strike movements, Midwest socialist movements of the early twentieth centuries, the Catholic communitarian tradition, etc.
Separating European political philosophy from American political philosophy, since America, despite its many flaws, helped to create the diversity and inclusion we see today. Many within the Alt Right have been radicalized by European philosophers such as Julius Evola, Aleksandr Dugin, etc., and this is a violation of the American progressive tradition that has basis in Anglo Saxon Protestantism typically from Northern American transcendental thought of the Abolitionists. American notions of individualism and Enlightenment thought created the basis for abolitionism and equality, so being American is being anti-racists though it took us a long time to fulfill that dream. Hence, whenever we display imagery of the American Revolutionary, we must remember that within that sentiment was the sentiment of racial equality, even though conservative politics typically appropriates patriotic regalia.
Dealing with what I call the YouTube Nazi Pop problem and creating more diverse content in subjects that males gravitate towards including militarism, history, etc. Individual history podcasts or content creators are not bad, but when you take the aggregate sum of videos relating to WW2 such analysis of Nazism, Indo European studies, ancient European tribalism (many Viking symbols are used by the Far Right, despite not all people into European history are racists), and the separate Far Right videos, YouTube becomes of sort of grooming tool in awakening White Power. YouTube is predominately male dominated and watched, so when you have young white men, who play videos games, watch Anime (which as elements of Aryan ideals within it), are not confident around women, and the fact that men are interested in things of “utility” and history, they become recruits to the “Red Pill movement”. I do blame the cultural Left for this in part because they have not typically created a way for cisgender masculinity to express itself and feel empowered under Progressive principles.
Force BLM and other movements to show solidarity with white people killed by police so BLM does not look like a racist organization, even though it is not, but as a movement people of various opinions have ascribed the BLM movement with an array of values. For example, the Reverend Al Sharpton spoke at the eulogy for a white teenager killed in Arkansas by police. This is a great example of solidarity, and that police reform is not anti-white.
Operations against white supremacy including doxing, arrests, etc.
Understanding masculinity and how it can lead to fascism. Masculinity, particularly white masculinity as a construct, has been on the chopping board for most of our understanding of progressive liberation. Yet, white supremacy and entitlement and ego-grooming do and did exists. Think of the concept of the 1980s Action Star. Male power fantasies produced during a time of capitalistic avarice where capitalism itself was built on exploitation while covering up the exploitation to expand markets and profits. Or think about sports. Think about Connor vs Floyd in a boxing batch. Connor represented in part the “victim” Cinderella Man in one hand while also being a symbol for “white boys got it to”, yet Floyd was depicted as the “bully, black, mouthy” boxer. For example, as a black male when I grew up all my heroes on TV were largely white because that is all there were, but I never thought about it, yet, when black men started to take more leadership roles such as the Football QB, many suffered backlash. Is this insecurity? If was OK for me to be inspired by William Wallace in Braveheart, then why do some white people have issues seeing honor within non-whites? If non-whites have accepted white heroes, then why do many in white America have a problem with it the other way around. Granted, I am talking in generalities, but the general sense is just that. White America is constantly seeking avatars of superiority but with a mythos of honor, humility, natural prowl, etc. “The Good Ole Boy”. Yet, the rise of right-wing is largely sexual, i.e., psychosexual. The fast-paced progress of sexual liberation amongst females and economic empowerment of women has left younger generations of males without a traditional sense of purpose, yet, this is not the fault of females, but a reality to change. Many Instagram models have used this for money, for example, you will see Pro-Trump models with hyper sexuality making money off men who feel their pride has been hurt and women have options. Change is harsh and people get left behind, or do they? White men aren’t suffering anymore than anyone else but their egos were elevated through social conditioning where challenges to their aesthetic value can create an extreme drop. For example, many supremacists who have not created anything often say that non-whites didn’t create anything, so certain white people are appropriating the achievements of individuals who so happened to have been white and their achievements weren’t produced because they wanted them to be “white inventions”. The need to feel superior is at times a signs of being inferior.
Notes from the author: THIS PAPER IS FOR ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. Do me a favor and hit the subscribe button. Also, any sort of shout-out if you use this as a reference would be very much appreciated. I have a full-time job but read in my free time, so I figure share my thoughts and ideas. As I am finishing writing this, the song The Big Country or Heaven by The Talking Heads comes to mind. I remember hearing it in a documentary about them on The South Bank Show and the song was mashed against images of idyllic Americana, yet, later in the documentary, the band performs the song Air and Life During Wartime which peels way the outer surface, exposing America’s hyperactive soul. To be honest this entire documentary was in the back of my mind as I read the book and wrote this. Sure, the Talking Heads are a little strange to most people, yet, from most of my readings into subjects such as postmodernism (which is something important and enduring, yet I am past the point of seeing it as profound), they are an iconic “soundtrack” that helps consolidate a lot of thoughts I have. Also, I have been meaning to read this book for a while in that I am a DeLillo fan, and this book coincided with historical research I do as a hobby relating to the “weird things” about WWII, government, technocracy, Nazi collaboration, etc. As a disclaimer, this paper does reference the Nazis, but DeLillo has used this faction twice in his novels not as a celebration but an exploration about the darkness of the human condition. Running Dog by DeLillo relates to separate book I am currently reading called The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact with Hitler by Ben Urwand released by The Harvard Press. The goal of this paper is to be more than a book-review but more so a visual guide as I imagine it on the silver screen.
1. Notable Book Quotes
“Fascinating, yes. An interesting word. From the Latin fascinus. An amulet shaped like a phallus. A word progressing from the same root as the word “fascism” (page 151)
“The whole Nazi era. People can’t get enough. If it’s Nazis, it’s automatically erotic. The violence, the rituals, the leather, the jackboots. The whole thing for uniforms and paraphernalia. He whipped his niece, did you know that?” “Hitler” (page 52).
“The logical extension of business is murder” (page 76)
“Choice is a subtle form of disease” (page 192)
“Those Nazis had a thing for movies. They put everything on film. Executions, even, at his personal request. Film was essential to the Nazi era. Myth, dreams, memory. He liked lewd movies too, according to some. Even Hollywood stuff, girls with legs” (page 52).
“History is so comforting” “Isn’t this why people collect? To own a fragment of the tangible past. Life is fleeting, and we seek consolation in durable things” (page 104).
“Sure, a thing isn’t fully erotic unless it has the capacity to move. A woman crossing her legs drives men mad. She moves, understand. Motion, activity, change of position. You need this today for eroticism to be total.” (Page 15)
“Weapons have become godless since then. Weapons have lost their religion” (page 4).
“Before pop art, there was such a thing as bad taste. Now there’s kitsch, schlock, camp, and porn” (page 148)
“Terror isn’t the erotic commodity it used to be. We know too much. We have seen. We’ve taken up organic gardening”. Page 168
“I’ve always felt the best view is the objective one, and sometimes this is made sharper and keener by distance” page 167
“The rougher the testing, the more certain you can be they’re preparing you to die” page 183.
“All conspiracies begin with individual self-repression” page 183.
“All men are criminals. All women are mafia wives” page 131
“You have to name your weapon before you can use it to kill” page 209
“Vietnam, in more ways than one, was a war based on hybrid gibberish” page 208.
“I’m saying espionage is a language, an art, with sexual sources and coordinates” page 111.
2. Visualizations, Aesthetics, Pop Cultural References, Themes, Locations, Objects, etc.
Genre: A nineteen-seventies post-Watergate Washington DC insider mystery foreshadowing the upcoming “postmodern paradigm” of technology, meta-data, surveillance, online pornography, etc.
Questions asked: Is Pornography art? As mediums evolved from woodcuts, pottery, paintings, nickelodeons, film, magazine, and the internet, pornography takes on a collector element to it. What was once considered filth then becomes arts since the previous medium gains a value in its own right.
Subconscious Film Visual References: The documentary Pornocracy relating to controversy around porn company Mindgeek meets The West Wing, Netflix’s House of Cards, and HBO’s The Deuce with elements of Apocalypse Now, American Made, The Great Santini, and Lethal Weapon meets Times Square in Taxi Driver meets the humor (subtly) of Airplane, Fritz the Cat, etc. The atmosphere of a Cohen Brother’s film. Since this film is based in the late-nineteen-seventies, certain political thrillers from my memory comes to attention such as The Missing (1981) with Jack Lemmon, The Falcon and The Snowman (1985) by John Schlesinger, Blow Out by Brian De Palma (1981). Yet, I must state, despite controversy surrounding the man, Woody Allen, with his films, particularly those based in nineteen-seventies to early-to-mid eighties New York City offer too much of a strong source of iconic New York visuals, i.e., Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, etc.
Directors and/or Writers who could do a film translation: Tom Perrotta who wrote the story behind the film, Election (1998), but also wrote the novel for the HBO drama series, The Leftovers. Perrotta has a nice grasp of dark humor but also drama.
Production Ideas: A film adaption of Running Dog could save on production costs by tapping to resources used for The Deuce, such as costumes, make up artists, possible easier permits for locations, etc. Some possible production companies could be A24, Muse Productions (who helped make films such as Buffalo ’66, The Virgin Suicides, American Psycho, etc.). Annapurna Pictures (produced films such as American Hustle. Pinewood Studios in Georgia is a known set for productions and Georgia has low costs. The only Don DeLillo film based on his books thus far was Cosmopolis (2012) starring Robert Patterson and Paul Giamatti, and was produced by Film Canal+, etc. Using Montreal for certain locations to suffice for NYC, could also cut costs, etc. Rabbit Bandini Productions owned by James Franco of The Deuce could be a great way of leveraging Franco’s expertise and ties regarding The Deuce’s film production. If not a film, then I do think a mini-series could be done on HBO, Showtime, etc. Whichever would be more cost effective considering streaming and subscription based content is more of the future. https://a24films.com/https://annapurna.pictures/
Themes: Murder mystery, human sexuality, geopolitical and political intrigue, satire, hyper-realism, technocrats, World War II, intelligence, The Cold War, post-Counterculture 1970s such as conspiracy theories (“KGB linked with ESP”, page 184; “- Russian parapsychologists, at the prodding of the KGB, were close to perfecting a system of assassination by mental telepathy” on page 133 [this was also mentioned in White Noise on page 143]; a reference to the Human Potential Movement on page 39, and a fetish book called “Extraterrestrial Sex Positions”), but also the Patty Hearst “Stockholm Syndrome” story relating to left-wing Radial group the Symbionese Liberation Army, The Phoenix Program, pornography (Deep Throat, Debbie Does Dallas), kink (fascist leather play), casual sex, fetishism (Nazi exploitation such as Ilsa: She wolf of the SS, Stalag fiction, Joy Divisions), the philosophy of material fetishism, Americana. Mistrust of government after the JFK Assassination and Watergate. Like many Baby-Boomer or Great Generation authors, who seem to a penchant for the attempting “the great American novel”, the JKF Assassination to Watergate scandals are often central premises at one point or another of their literary careers such as Stephen King’s book, 11/22/63.
Documentary on Debbie Does Dallas. For ADULTS ONLY 18+
Patty Hurst with the SLA. Allegedly brainwashed
Locations: New York City, NY., Metro Washington D.C., Dallas, TX., San Antonio, TX., and the Rio Grande border region. Barren Dells near the Westside Highway (where Selvy has sex with Nadine Rademacher on pg. 128). Georgetown, Falls Church, VA., and Centreville, VA. Fairfax, Virginia (location for Radial Matrix’s headquarters). U.S. 67 (page 151 – road that Selvy is driving on in the Radial Matrix section of the book). Executive Towers Motor Inn, off Arlington Road (page 136). Fifty-seventh street between Sixth and Seventh avenues (page 98 – where Christophe Luedecke’s widow arranges a meeting with Lighthouse for the sex tape). 116 East, 61st Street, New York, NY, 10021 (page 85 – one of the locations of Running Dogs offices). H Street (page 83 – a storeroom of Running Dog archives used by Moll Robbins). Bronxville Station and Palmer Road (page 42 – where Selvy gets off to meet at Lighthouse’s erotic gallery). Aachen, Germany (page 43 – where Christoph Luedecke is from). Marathon Mines: A fictional training site for clandestine operations like the real-life Camp X and The School of the Americas, that is located near Stillman, Texas and US 385 (page 209, et al.). Houston Street in NY (page 23 – where Moll Robbins hails a cab from to go her apartment). West Seventies apartments (page 23 – where Moll Robbins lives at). San Antonio River Walk (page 207 – where Mudger eats at a Vietnamese restaurant called Lien’s). Kelly Air Force base (page 207 – where Mudger’s friend, George Barber, leads Air Force Security Services). The Barclay Hotel, i.e., presently the InterContinental Barclay Hotel (page 213 – where Grace Delaney meets Lomax for a sexual encounter). Ross Avenue and The General Center Building in Dallas (page 195 – near Richie Armbrister’s warehouse). The New Jersey Turnpike (page 173 – Mudger drives on this going to NYC). Ozona, Texas (page 163 & 164 – mentioned in the book at least twice in that Van and Cao are driving near it, searching for Selvy). Executive Towers, Motor Inn in Arlington, VA (page 136 – Lomax and Mudger meet here for food to discuss things and this a scene where Mudger witnesses a man with a chimpanzee as a pet which triggers Mudger). Times Square (page 116). Irish Bar on Eight Avenue (page 115 – a bar Selvy finds snaking his way through Times Square).
Reminds me of the type of place that Cosmic Erotics gallery might be.
Films referenced: Zabriskie Point (page 40). From Here to Eternity featuring Montgomery “Monte” Cliff (page 42). The Dictator with Charlies Chaplin.
Objects: Nikon F2 camera (page 20 – camera used by Moll Robbins she carries in her purse). Olivetti Typewriter (used my Moll Robbins). Hughes 200 Helicopter used by Van and Cao on their mission to hunt Glen Selvy at Marathon Mines in the Texas desert (page 208). Sam Browne Belt (page 233 – a belt used by Selvy while at Marathon Mines as prepares for a final showdown between Van and Cao).
Historical Figures: Hitler. Fulgencio Batista (page 48), who was a US backed Cuban dictator before the Castro Communist Revolution. King Farouk of Egypt and Sudan having lived from 11 February 1920 – 18 March 1965. Raphael Trujillo, a dictator of the Dominican Republic. Charlie Chaplin.
Buildings: Union Station, Washington D.C. (page 156 – located near the building where Selvy worked at while with PAC/ORD, i.e., Radial Matrix). Howard Johnson Hotel (page 152 – a hotel where Nadine was standing near before being picked up by Selvy). Grand Central Station in New York (page 103 – Where Lighthouse uses a phone to discuss Christophe Ludecke’s Nazi sex tape held by his widow). Fifty-seventh street between Sixth and Seventh avenues (page 98 – where Christophe Luedecke’s widow arranges a meeting with Lighthouse for the sex tape). Dirksen Building (page 46).
3. Characters
Harold Glen Selvy, is one of many protagonists but he leads the action of the story. He was a military brat to a successful Army officer and a mother who drifted into “lassitude, amnesia, silence” (page 245). He isan operative caught up in a confusing web of intrigue. A man of routine who can use violence, but overall, not an evil character and sympathetic to normal citizens on the streets. He is fed information from Lomax who is a shadowy DC insider. Selvy is hired at PAC/ORD as an “assistant’s assistant” as a cover by Senator Lloyd Percival who is separately investigating PAC/ORD’s spin-off Radial Matrix (an IT firm), which is managed by a rogue Deep State agent and ex-Air Force Officer named Edgar Mudger, in order to help he find a mysterious erotic film reel, yet, it seems Selvy is also working for Lomax who might possibly want dirt on Senator Percival in order to influence policy. Selvy is probably in his mid-thirties, with a crooked mouth and frozen gray eyes (page 134).
He was trained at a place called Marathon Mines, where he learned electronics, code-breaking, currencies, weapons, survival (p. 183). “All the paramilitary sessions. The small doses of geopolitics. The psychology of terrorism. The essential of counter-insurgency” (p. 183). “Selvy traveled in North America, then throughout Europe and parts of Asia. He gathered information on Radial Matrix clients. He paid secret commissions to agents of foreign governments. He arranged the disappearance of a trade commissioner on holiday in Greece. He financed the terrorist bombings of a machine-tool plant. Legitimate business expenditures” (page 156). “Selvy went on salary in a PAC/ORD division called Containment Services, Guidance, and Support” (page 151), but before Selvy was spun-off as a Radial Matrix operative, it was stated, “Back in Washington, he realized something was different. A man named Lomax came to his hotel. There was no mention of PAC/ORD or Containment Services. People he’d worked with didn’t return his calls. He no longer seemed to be on salary” (page 155).
While at Marathon Mines Training Ground, “A great deal of time was spent studying and discussing the paramilitary structure of rebel groups elsewhere in the world. They analyze the setup the Vietcong had used. The part time village guerilla. The self-contained three-man cell. And tieu to dac cong, the special duty unit considered the most dangerous single element of the VC system. Suicide Squads. Special acts of sabotage in ARVN-controlled areas. High-risk grenade assault. Assassination teams. They studied Algerian mousseblines, or death commandos, groups undertaking extremely hazardous operations independent of local army control”, etc. (page 153).
“Selvy thought it curious that intelligence officers of a huge industrial power were ready to adopt the techniques of ill-equipped revolutionaries whose actions, directly or indirectly, were contrary to U.S. interests. The enemy” (page 153).
Later we learn that Lomax is pumping information to Edgar Mudger himself and uses his connections to dig up tax records on Running Dog’s owner, Grace Delaney, whose employee, Moll Robbins is digging up dirt on Radial Matrix after meeting Selvy at an Erotica Exhibition. Selvy has a sex-habit he uses to gauge how well he is maintaining his routine in espionage. He carries a .41 Magnum and .38 Cobra, and has a liking of Jim Bean Whisky, and often wears a three-piece suit. He has grey eyes and crooked mouth. Selvy started working for PAC/ORD but was sent to Marathon Mines (a School of the Americas type of clandestine training center), but his job at PAC/ORD suddenly ceased, and then Lomax approaches him stating he has been absorbed in Radial Matrix, and from here Selvy starts his life as agent doing dirty work for Radial Matrix but is later re-assigned by Lomax as his handler observing Senator Percival.
Grace Delaney is the owner of Running Dog magazine; a counterculture MAD Magazine meets Vice meets Playboy meets Democracy Now! publication. She is a fine dresser with some girly tendencies that she is aware of. She is cautious of Moll Robbins on her quest to dig dealer into Senator Percival and the Radial Matrix links. She drinks vodka and even uses a little cocaine. Grace Delaney is depicted as, very well dressed, and jokingly bailed out “well hung” Black Panthers in the 1960s). Lomax and Earl Mudger refer to her as “FCB”, i.e., “flat chested bitch”. Grace also admits to being a former mob wife. It is later revealed in the last section of the book that she and Lomax are sexually involved though the sexual relationship is a manipulative on Lomax’s part in that he holds Grace’s IRS information over her head. Grace also attacks Lomax when he reveals to her what FCB means (page 220). She has the aura of part ‘sultry mob” wife by night, but then a counterculture fashionista by day. “She sat before the mirror in her bra, panties, stockings, and garter belt” (page 214).
Edgar Mudger: An ex-Air Force officer who was in various engagements from Korea to the Vietnam War, with a specialty of training guerrilla forces for the Air Force and CIA. Former commander of a bomber squadron and long-term contract employee (Saigon desk, Air America). During the Korean War he led airstrikes on Korea from Japan with F-84Es against targets. later runs the PAC/ORD spin off contractor called Radial Matrix, which was considered a rouge contractor, and this leads Senator Percival to start a close-door investigation, yet Mudger and Percival are both searching for a mysterious sex tape of a Nazi orgy in Berlin during Hitler’s last days. His character is genuinely like Colonel Kurtz played by Martin Brando but also Colonel Kilgore played by Robert Duvall, yet he leans more to Kilgore in his demeanor in that he has a sort of good-ole-boy foul mouth tanned white man with California demeanor (likely descended from Southern culturally oriented Okies depicted in books such as The Grapes of Wrath).
Yet, Mudger also comes off as General Peter McAllister, played by Mitchell Ryan, in the Shane Black written 1987 film, Lethal Weapon, where General McAllister leads Shadow Company, which is a drug-smuggling operation ran by US Special Forces. This Lethal Weapon allusion can be read on page 91, “In Vietnam you were involved in drug trafficking, no?” “We did some of that. We were a link”. Mudger comically, as an allegory to Captain Kurtz living in the Jungle and hailed a God, owned a zoo with exotic animals from Southeast Asia. “It was while Mudger was on loan to Special Forces for unknown duties that he became something of a legend in Vietnam. Apparently, he established a feudal barony complete with loyal ARVN soldiers” (page 84). He has a hobby of metal works such as making custom knives and has a Vietnamese wife whom he met in the war who was an underage Saigon bargirl. He lives in the rural areas north of the Washington DC Beltway.
It seems that Edgar Mudger has a deep grasp of technology and where technology by the nineteen seventies was evolving to, i.e., the global world wide web of surveillance, pornography, etc. “I’ve been studying pornography for a long time now. Hell of an interesting field. Dynamics involved. The psychology. Interesting elements. Strange arrays of people. Pacts and alliances and accommodations. That intrigues me. Systems is all formulation. Essentially sterile concepts. I miss human interest. The war was full of human interest” (page 139).
Mudger even sees the future monetary potential of internet pornography before it was a thing, such as him saying, “Multimillions. Close to a billion, including the soft stuff.” (Page 139). Mudger also seems to understand how online porn can be used for incrimination but also the concepts of “deep fakes” are predicted in this book, such as on page 92, when talking to Moll Robbins, Mudger insinuates he doctor audio to make it appear that people were having sex, e.g., “It doesn’t necessarily have to happen. All we need is your voice and his, which we have. The rest is purely technical”.
Moll Robbins is the main female lead and one of many protagonists who drive the plot. having auburn hair, an-ex hippie and adventurer turned guerilla journalist for the Running Dog, who is the daughter of a wealthy advertising man who worked on campaigns such as Maytag. Molls seems to have adopted a left wing politic out of spite for her father’s work in Madison Avenue-like advertising. Yet, her apartment is furnished with collectible consumerist product). She has a sexual relationship with Glen Selvy. A little bit naïve but aware of it, Moll goes on the quest to find the truth of the mysterious Nazi sex tape, going so far as to meet Senator Percival himself. It seems Senator Percival wants Moll to write about her expose in erotica because he knows the publication that she writes for is not very respected, thus her story would come off as a conspiracy theory able to be disregarded. Yet, she comes under the radar of Lomax and Mudger, who are familiar with her boss Grace Delaney. Mudger tries to entrap her into a sexual relationship (page. 213).
Actress Alia Shawkat reminds me of Moll Robbins and could be a good fit
Arthur “Lomax” a pudgy insider and operative, around 42 years old (“If I were a dog, I’d only be six years old”, i.e., 7 years is 1 dog year), presumably the handler of Selvy, an associate of Mudger and of Senator Percival. He has a mod hair cut with sideburns. He also wears Clark’s Wallabees which Grace mocks him for (page 214). In the Radial Matrix section of the book on page 157, we seem him on Richie Armbrister’s plane, within the sauna section, somehow. Lomax also keeps tabs on Grace Delaney, i.e., Moll Robbin’s boss at the Running Dog, and has the connections to use the IRS to dig into Grace’s past as a Black Panther associate (page. 137). His is depicted as wearing polyester knit trousers and white belt and shows (page 102). He gets annoyed with black street children in that he as a classist mentality who live in Selvy’s neighborhood, going so far as pointing a gun at them (page 102). We later learn that Lomas and Grace Delaney are having a sexual affair, e.g., “she sat before the mirror, wearing a bra, panties, stockings and garter belt. A bobby pin in her mouth…” (page 214), and it is revealed that not only is Edgar Mudger and Senator Percival looking for the Hitler Orgy film, but also is the mob (whom Lomax alleges Mudger is a middle-man for, hence why Mudger and Lomax were able set up the botched mob hit on Selvy and Moll at the Tropicana Bar), and it was earlier revealed in the novel that Grace was an ex-mob wife when she reveals this info to Moll Robbins. Arthur Lomax is the central “antagonist” to the novel in that he is the manipulator, like Murray in Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1985). Arthur is partners with Mudger and gives Mudger IRS information on Grace, though Grace does not know this, and she believes that Arthur can help her with her tax issues she acquired during the radical 1960s working as a bagwoman for the Black Panthers. Arthur uses this for sexual access to Grace, even though he is the one secretly bringing light to her tax issues.
Senator Lloyd Percival (a Republican or Blue Dog Democrat who has a private erotica collection, who leading an investigation on Radial Matrix. Known for having a buzzcut haircut, using powered makeup giving him an orange appearance, has a wife who reads the Warren Report religiously)
Lightbourne. A 66-year-old erotica dealer, part charlatan with a penchant of selling knock-off items, who owns the gallery called Cosmic Erotics, which is in a cast-iron building on the fourth floor that uses a self-service elevator. He lives near West Broadway and the SoHo Gallery district back in the 1970s. He wears his hair in a ponytail, uses a walking stick, and wears penny loafers (that he must keep together with glue).
Richie Armbrister a self-ascribed boy genius of smut, based out of Dallas, he runs a complex web of front companies for the pornography business, which some having links to organized crime. He lives and works out his Dallas warehouse. He is a link to Lighthouse who use each other for researching hard to find erotica. HE wears a digital watch and has a DC-9 Boeing Plane. This plane is comically equipped with a sauna and disco dance floor, and pilots who fly the plane are hidden behind funky beaded curtains (page 157). Squeaky voice. He was mentioned as wearing heavy khaki trousers, scuffed cordovans, and a crewneck sweater with a reindeer design which was unravels at both cuffs. He is twenty-two years old in the book with a “nervous disability of a teenager” (p. 143). He has a high forehead, prominent cheekbones, and large teeth. Lighthouse is uncertain if he has the look of a genius or a half-wit (p. 143). Richie uses various shell companies to hide his pornography empire and has an aliases name called “Kidder”, “Sherman Kantrowitz”, and “Sherman Kaye”. These shell companies include B&G Realty, Sherman Kendall Catering, Tall Men’s Fashion, but Preview Distributions is the main shell company (page 176-177). Later, Richie under the alias Sherman Kantrowitz, if that was really Richie himself, was shot by Lomax (page 210-211)
Actor Chris Owens known for roles in films such as American Pie fit’s Richie’s profile perfectly
Odell Armbrister is Richie’s cousin who works with him and the only person Richie trusts.
Christoph Ludecke (a German man living in the United States who was in Germany during WW2, who is closeted cross-dresser, but by day a Systems Engineer for Radial Matrix, who ends up dead, but he had information on a mysterious sex tape from Hitler’s bunker)
The Talerico Brothers (Deep State associates who are members of the NY Mafia Families with links to Edgar Mudger of Radial Matrix who hires a hitman to kill Selvy. Paul Talerico lives in New York and runs a pornography business where Nadine Rademacher works at – see name below – but is described as an unimpressive man. Vincent Talerico, i.e., ‘Vinny the Eye”, lives in Upstate New York or Canada, and does acquisitions, i.e., he uses violence to win pornographic content so he and his brother can copy and distribute). Vincent has facial nerve paralysis (p. 175).
Michael Imperioli with makeup to make his face look like Vinny The Eye’s drooping face could be a great choice.
[[Interesting Note: In real life, there was Michael “Handsome Mike” Talerico: Talerico is related to Anglo LaPietra and was a small-time bookie. He was also once married to former Chicago Outfit hitman Frank Schweihs’s daughter]]
Annette Talerico. Vinny Talerico’s wife, likely of French-Canadian descent or at least understands French (“she was watching a Richard Conte film in French on Channel 25”, page 177). Annette is more of a domestic, slight disgruntled yet seemingly loving wife, who has a brother named Ralphie (who seems to have issues in life like being thrown out of college) who she complains to Vinnie about. She and Vinnie casually argue about watering ivy, which has a level of the “domestic side” of Tony Soprano with his wife in the TV show Sopranos, i.e., Vinnie is violent, but then he’s a “regular husband” who gets into trivial scuffles with his wife, whom he loves.
Augie the Mouse: A hitman from Buffalo New York procured by the Talerico Brothers who does a botched assassination on Selvy, and by proxy Moll Robbins. He later confronts Odell Armbrister and Lightborne after watching the Nazi film-reel, coming as a collector. He has a comical yet disturbed aura about him. Later in the novel he depicting as wearing a long rabbinical like trench coat and carries a sawed-off gun.
Vincent Gallo reminds meof Augie the Mouse but since he his older, I can see Pete Davidson in the role which would be a turn of character but also in line because Augie is a bit comical through dangerous
Tran Lee Edgar Mudger’s pregnant Vietnamese wife and she is related to Van and Cao. Mudger stated, she was a “Saigon bar girl at fourteen, leaning against a parked jeep, eating an Almond Joy” when they first met. (Page 120)
Van and Cao Lee Edgar’s Vietnamese brothers-in-laws, former ARVN members, through Tran Lee who dress like Cowboys and do missions for Edgar, such as posing as Part Rangers when hunting down Selvy, but Van gets his jaw broken by Selvy’s gun butt.
Levi Blackwater: a sort of sage Buddha-like figure, i.e., a Gringo mystic (page 232), who is an ex-soldier of the Vietnam War who was a POW after having been captured on a recon mission but tortured constantly. Two of his fingers were cut off while as a POW. He learned to like and find transcendence in that torture. This experience has turned him into a sort of Buddha like figure and he worked as a technical adviser to ARVN soldiers at Marathon Mines, which is where he met Selvy. His main lesson to Selvy was to not be afraid of death and to die with honor. Levi lives at the Marathon Mines which details how trauma of the Vietnam War affected so many veterans, i.e., he became his environment in the jungle and feels more at home in spares landscapes living on the fringe than he ever would in society.
Klara Ludecke (Christophe’s wife who reveals the history of the film reel from Hitler’s bunker. Also, so was aware and supportive of Christoph’s cross-dressing, stating he was known as the “Red Queen” by the men of the city district he went to)
Heinz Ludecke Christoph’s father, who as a Nazi officer commanding a tank unit defending the city of Berlin in 1945 who ended up with the possession of the Hitler footage. He remained a die-hard Nazi his whole life
Heinz Ludecke’s cousin (first name is not known but he was stenographer in the Fuhrerbunker who gave the film to Heinz who then gave it to Christoph
Del Bravo and Gannett. Two plain clothes police officers working Canal Street known for sex workers, truckers, etc. Del Bravo and Gannett spot a beautiful woman (later revealed to be a man), but then discover that she (he) to be murdered in an abandoned building.
Lomax’sLimousine Drive (a square jawed man)
Black street-kids who live in Selvy’s neighborhood often playfully giving him grief but also harass Lomax.
Nadine Rademacher (an aspiring actress from Arkansas, noted for having a “healthy reddish face, oval in share, and large brown eyes” (p. 120), who found work reading erotic stories to men, such as Selvy when it goes into her establishment to avoid detection. Sounds cliché, but she reminds me of Jodi Foster in Taxi Driver, though Nadine is probably in her early twenties barely but overage.
Jack Rademacher. Nadine’s father. He has a raw look (noted as being, “all brick and sand”, p. 179), who wears a tie-dyed blue bandana around his neck. He was a former prizefighter in boxing. He shows Glen a photo of himself and two fishing buddies who are called Jack Brady, Vernon, and Buck Floyd (p.182)
Angelo/Stony (the same man with one of the names being a nickname, where this man is the doorman for the erotic club that Nadine works at. Stony, however, could also be the name of a food delivery boy who delivers food to Nadine’s establishment who she knows as a friend/acquaintance)
The Sex Worker, Nadine’s Co-Worker (a woman who dresses up as a Nazi for her clients, seen casually smoking as Selvy and Nadine leaves her work to go get food).
Bess Harris Grace Delaney’s secretary at the Running Dog who drinks with Grace.
Daryl Shimmer: Richie Armbrister’s bodyguard (page 193). He is depicted as a “rangy Negro” (showing DeLillo’s antiquated viewpoint, or racial stereotypes of the time, i.e., black people associated with “jive”, etc.), who was skittering over the dance floor (of Richie’s airplane disco floor), with all ripples and blind staggers (page 157).
Mrs. Steinmetz a lady that Lomax linked Selvy up with who educated Selvy in art history and erotica for his assignment working with Senator Percival.
Lomax’s driver: Squared-jawed, dark suit and cap. (page 86).
Jerry Burke: One of Moll Robbin’s DC insider friends who located Selvy after she met Selvy at one of Lighthouse’s erotic art exhibitions (page 24)
Wetzel: one of the men who bids on Lightborne’s artwork (page 48), who calls Lightborne’s artwork into question as far as authenticity.
George Barber: Mudger’s Vietnam buddy who commands US Air Force Security Forces and loans Mudger a Hughes 200 helicopter so Van and Cao can hunt Selvy (page 207).
Dayton “De De” Baker: A 20-year-old specimen trainee at the Medical Museum of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, in Washington DC. Senator Percival marries her hours after his divorce to his wife becomes final (page 221).
Freeman Reed Baker: a well-known dealer, who ran Forbidden Rooms, of Persian and Middle Eastern art who later disappeared after being caught up in a scandal about missing erotic artwork (page 221).
Random Promoter: A random character talking to Selvy while he’s in Time Square who promotes events at Old Madison Square who stated he tried to get a sumo wrestler, Shunko Hakoda (page 116)
The “Jewish” Pimp: a random character shown in Times Square driving a Cadillac, having a wispy beard, a trifle Hassidic in his mink hat and understated black velvet suit. He moved in a little scat steps, half a dancer, etc. (page 117).
4. Story Plot:
The novel starts off with two plain clothes police officers working the scummy areas of New York City, where one comes upon what appears to be a beautiful woman. This beautiful woman is later found dead at a construction site.
We later learn that this woman is a German American man, Christoph Ludecke, from Aachen, in Germany, who is a closeted transvestite, who works by day as a systems engineer for Radial Matrix, located in Fairfax County, VA, which is a spinoff of the fictitious federal agency called PAC/ORD (Personnel Advisory Committee, Office of Records and Disbursements). Think of Radial Matrix being like how in real-life RAND Corporation spun off from the United States Air Force or how the BCCI Bank was used by the CIA during the Iran-Contra Affair, i.e., private entities spinning off complex government joint-ventures, et cetera, et cetera.
“PAC/ORD had been set up, on the surface, as the principal unit of budgetary operations for the whole U.S. intelligence community” (p.73). Further, “Radial Matrix was in fact a centralized funding mechanism for covert operations directed against foreign governments, against elements within foreign governments, and against political parties trying to gain power contrary to the interests of U.S. corporations aboard. It was responsible for channeling and laundering funds for unlisted station personnel, indigenous agents, terrorist operations, defector recruitment, political contributions, penetration of foreign communication networks and postal agencies” (p. 74).
The fact that DeLillo was familiar with the real-world web of contractors in the Metro DC area, notably in places like Ashburn and Chantilly, VA, involved in similar work such as ‘systems engineering” or IT work, illuminates how DeLillo does research when writing his novels. This is also like how Thomas Pynchon wrote books such as Gravity’s Rainbow, using his real-world knowledge of the Military Industrial Complex having worked for Boeing as a Technical Writer.
Christoph Ludecke is a key figure in that he appears to have possessed or know who possess a mysterious original film reel of a sex orgy that occurred in Berlin 1945, i.e., in the bunkers where Hitler and some of his followers were waiting while the Soviets approached from the East and the Allies from the West. This film reel is of interests to a US Senator named Lloyd Percival (a secret collector erotica despite being a conservative politician, who met Ludecke at a party) and is of interests to Radial Matrix’s CEO, Earl Mudger (who has seemed to have gone rogue, making vast sums of money, thus causing Senator Percival to set up a “closed door investigation into Radial Matrix’s activities).
Deep State Contractors, e.g., Booz Allen, RAND Corporation: Radial Matrix is noted as being “a breakaway apparatus of the U.S. intelligence community” (p. 75). Mudger was a “former commander of a flight-bomber squadron (Korea) and long-term contract employee (Saigon desk, Air America) of the CIA. He’d had civilian experience, briefly, in the late fifties, with a firm specializing in production flow systems and automation” (p. 75). When thinking about the character of Earl Mudger, to me he seems the agglomeration of real-life figures such as Major General John K. Singlaub who was a WW2 veteran, who was an early founder of the CIA and US Special Forces, monitor to the Chinese Maoist Guerillas during the Chinese Civil War, manager of Nixon’s and Henry Kissinger’s Secret War in Laos and Cambodia, trainer of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, and later founder of the private intelligence network known as the West Goals Foundation, which was incriminated in the Iran Contra Affair). Also due to his airline past, Mudger reminds of Medellin cocaine smuggler and pilot Barry Seale (photographed in real life with CIA Chief Porter Goss, Cuban American hitman Felix Rodriguez, to name a few), but also any another real-life officer and veteran who goes into government contracting or “consulting”.
Further, DeLillo employs a use of hysterical realism when describing the background of Mudger. By hysterical realism I mean DeLillo uses real-world things but then combines or elaborates on them to hysterical/hyperbolic heights for comedic effect, often delivered bluntly or in dead-pan fashion thus maximizing the effect. It also seems that in the following description of Mudger that DeLillo was not only using real-world resumes of military Cold War operatives and real-world missions (which are expanded on in military history books I recommend you read such as the French Secret Services by Douglas Porch of the US War College) but also movies such as Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now such as the character, Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando.
Ludecke found himself in a triangle for having information on this “precious” commodity (Hitler Bunker sex tape).
Senator Percival however employs a man, called Harold Glen Selvy, a Don Draper from Mad Men like character, or I would even say Ben Affleck playing CIA operative Tony Mendez in the film Argo (2012), working for PAC/ORD as an “assistant’s assistant” (as his cover), who is really a member of the fictitious, US Strike Force, Internal Projects, Special Investigative Unit (p. 44). Selvy has done work including a “counterinsurgency stint at the Marathon Mines in southwest Texas” [this is meant to be funny and poke fun at the CIA’s sometimes odd missions, i.e., DeLillo in my opinion employs what I called “a wavering sense of hysterical realism”] – which links him to Earl Mudger (thus insinuating Selvy has double affiliation to both Selvy and Mudger). He wears a three-piece suit (p. 26), drinks Jim Bean (p. 33) and he is defined as having “quality of relentlessness” who is ‘hard edged” “a dark force” and with a “single mindedness”, i.e., a man with a mission and militaristic routine. Yet, despite this “about business” mentality, Selvy has the demeanor of any rough and rumble CIA man used to drinking and womanizing across the globe, particularly in Latin American countries, and his favorite bar is a Latin and Jazz club called Frankie’s Tropical Bar where he seems to fit into the rough and tumble environment, and lives in African-American section of the city (either for anonymity purposes or a slight love for the rawness of the area).
We learn later in the novel that Selvy was a military brat to an Army officer father and a disillusioned and medicated mother. This reminds me of the film The Great Santini, where Selvy appears more as the son character to Robert Duvall played by Michael O’Keefe. In The Great Santini there’s a struggle between the overbearing military father and his son.
Selvy also has a habit for detached sexual fantasy as means of helping him “contain his militaristic routine” and a penchant for “sex with married women only” (p.81). He carries a Colt Cobra .38 in a break-front holster and a Smith and Wesson .41 magnum, which is loaded with expandable bullets (p. 82), employs a bug detector when needed, and has a skill of knowing exactly what type of guns is being used if shot, for example knowing a would-be assassin used an AR-18 but was unable to use it properly, e.g., stating “he was letting the muzzle climb while firing. The weapon is designed to prevent that.” (p.66). He is methodical in his actions with a sort of personal moral code ranging from a shaving routine, constant breakdown and cleaning of his gun, and a rule of not sleeping with “non married women” which in the case of the latter he broke sleeping with Moll Robbins, e.g., Selvy is so dedicated to his job and deadly/sleuth skills that something out of place or out of habit can create a slight sense of existential self-examination (that he takes slight pleasure in), yet, he also doesn’t concern himself much with the motives of others such as the would-be assassin who tried to kill him. He is all about his mission. A loner, living in Spartan conditions, obsessive about routine, yet, when a deviation to his routine avails itself, he takes a slight joy in pondering the chaos of existence, his role in the world, etc.
Selvy’s job is to locate this mysterious tape for the Senator, yet Selvy appears to have a shadowy handler named Lomax (described as having a mod haircut with sideburns, always wearing sports gear such as tennis clothes, with an aura of being two-faced, always appearing in a limousine, and having Saint Bernards). Lomax is a type of “policy analyst” or Washington insider figure. Selvy and Lomax seem to have an agenda with Percival who is investigating Radial Matrix, i.e., owned by Percival’s competitor in his quest for this sex tape, yet Lomax is later revealed to be close to Edgar Mudger after taking Moll to his Virginia ranch. Selvy has been working with a somewhat “fake”, “unscrupulous”, or “novelty intellectual” erotica dealer named Lighthouse (like the character to Murray in White Noise in opinion), who owns a New York gallery called Cosmic Erotic’s. The fact that DeLillo inserted this erotic plotline into his novel to me illuminates the sexual culture of the 1970s in which Manhattan or Connecticut elites would talk about the Kama Sutra at swinging parties, or the how the pornographic film Deep Throat was a box office success. The 1970s had a libertine sexuality about it, especially amongst the bourgeoisie class.
Back to the story, most of what Lighthouse has to offer Selvy does not seem to impress Selvy’s employer, Senator Percival. At one of Lighthouse’s showings, an ex-hippie turned guerrilla journalist named Moll Robbins (think Karly Sciortino, the host of Slutever, from real-world Vice Media), writing for the fictitious and presumably left-wing magazine Running Dog, known as the “one time organ of discontent” (p. 21), whose catch-phrase is “Capitalist lackey and running dogs” (p. 30), and occasionally runs airbrushed female nude photos (p. 32), attends the same showing where Selvy is in attendance (not quite knowing his full name at this time), yet snoops her way into the realization that a US Senator is on the hunt for vintage erotica. With Moll knowing the what is going on (kind of) she uses a point-of-contact named Jerry Burke to hunt down Selvy and both she and Selvy on their own separate but related missions start a sexual relationship.
As you can see, there is a web of plotlines unfolding. Selvy, a US secret agent, is a fake employee of PAC/ORD working for Senator Percival who is investigating PAC/ORD’s spin off Radial Matrix, owned by Edgar Mudger, where both Mudger and Percival are supposedly hunting for the same prized tape of a Nazi orgy, brought to light by a murdered Radial Matrix employee Christoph Ludecke; yet, Selvy has a separate handler named Lomax who seems to want dirt on Percival (considering he knows Earl Mudger – though Mudger states Lomax works for everyone as part of the “game”), and there’s Moll Robins (Selvy’s love interests and really the quasi protagonist of the novel, similar to Oedipa Mass in Pynchon’s Crying Lot of 49) who is covering this story for her career and the adventure (having been giving the go by her Devil Wears Prada -esque boss, Grace Delaney).
Despite Moll wanting to write a story about Senator Percival, he wants her to publish the story considering the paper she works for is not much respected meaning publication would call the real-world story of his pursuit into question, thus giving him top cover. Lastly, an erotica dealer named Lighthouse is a source for Selvy, and Lighthouse himself has ties to the porn business through a man named Archie Armbrister, known as a “boy wonder of smut, a twenty-two-year older master of distribution and marketing who lived and worked in a barricaded warehouse in downtown Dallas” (p. 49) with a squeaky voice. Lighthouse is stated having, “…got in the business (erotic art dealing) in 1946 when was down and out in Cairo and managed to come into possession of a ring depicting the Egyptian god of fertility, highly aroused. He sold it to an ex-Nazi for a pretty sum of eventually learned that it ended up on the finger of King Farouk” (p.16).
King Farouk, the real-world past King of Egypt and Sudan is important to this text and a device for DeLillo considering Farouk was rumored to have the world’s largest pornography collection. DeLillo novels take place in “our’, i.e., the reader’s world but in fictional settings. It is also interesting to note that in real life, similarly to how Nazis were acquired by the USA, some Nazi nuclear scientists went to Egypt to help build a nuclear program, yet early Mossad Israeli operatives hired Nazis such as Otto Skorzeny to kill them.
Moll eventually meets Edgar Mudger, the owner of Radial Matrix. He informs her that he was bugging the Senator’s house including the conversation between Moll and Senator Percival during her interview in which she discovered his hidden erotica collection after the Senator fell asleep after heavy drinking. Mudger insinuates he can take the recording and edit them enough to make it seem like Moll and Percival were having sex.
When Moll is out the picture, he and Lomax reveal that they planned the assassination of Selvy by way of one of their contacts living in Canada named Tericio who hired a man from Buffalo named Augie the Mouse. Tericio is Vincent “Vinny the Eye” Tericio, one of two brothers, who deal in pornography but are mobsters. Vinny’s other brother, Paul, manages sex shops that a character Nadine Rademacher works at, and she becomes a part love interests to Selvy as he is avoiding detection in Times Square from Edgar Mudger’s goon brothers-in-law, Van and Cao (ex-AVRN soldiers who like wearing cowboy hats).
The Talerico Brothers also become privy to the existence of the Nazi sex tape, thus making four parties interested in its existence (The Senator, Mudger, Moll/Selvy/Lightborne, and the Mob). Lightbourne on the quest for the tape taps into his underground network of erotica dealers but also porn-kingpin Richie Armbrister. Since Richie is in the underground world of porn, the mob is also away of Richie as well. We later find out that Lomax has been keeping tabs on Richie (going as far as sneaking on his party plane), and later Richie meets Vinny the Eye and Lomax in Dallas to negotiate locating the sex tape. This encounter makes Richie even more paranoid. Lomax later kills Richie Armbrister, after Richie tried to take him out. Lomax is a central figure in that he connects Mudger to Senator Percival and has mob ties. He is a puppet master. We later learn that Lomax is having a sexual affair with Grace Delaney by holding information about her tax issues over her head, and Lomax used Grace Delaney to keep Moll in line and discourage her from writing a story on Senator Percival.
As the story commences, Lightborne eventually meets with Christoph Ludecke’s widow to discuss an exchange of the film. By this point in the book, Selvy is not much of player in the search for the sex tape, but instead is one a one-man vendetta campaign against his former trainer, Edgar Mudger, who trained him a remote Texas proving ground called Marathon Mines.
Mudger’s two goons have been hunting Selvy and as a result Nadine too, since Selvy took her with him on his journey back to Marathon Mines. Selvy had earlier beat up Van and Cao near a state park when they were posing as Part Rangers searching for him, so both men take killing Selvy personal. Selvy knows too much about Radial Matrix, PAC/ORD, the quest for the Nazi Sex Tape (which is at the cross juncture between a US Senator and the mafia).
Towards the end of the novel, Lightborne and Moll watch the Nazi sex tape but realize that it is not a sex tape but rather a reel of Hitler acting like Charlie Chaplin for children before they commit mass suicide. Being obsessed with a mystery and a search is a theme here. When the results of a journey do not live up to expectations people react in different ways, such as Lightborne not being happy that it was not a sex tape. The importance of the sex tape (reel) being of Hitler posing as Charlie Chaplin for children, helps to reduce Hitler to a person rather than a larger-than-life character, but it also goes to show how powerful cinema is across political, racial, national, etc., divides. For example, Chaplin was Jewish, so by DeLillo having Hitler imitate a Jew it throws the larger-than-life persona that Hitler was given, especially through pop culture, which is a theme explored in White Noise (1985), into question. The fact that he had emotions meant that was capable of fear for example, and people result to escapism when confronted with fear.
After the final revelation that the film is not a sex tape, Lightborne and Odell Armbrister (Richie’s cousin who help set up the film equipment for the viewing for Moll and Lightborne) are approached by Augie the Mouse. Augie the Mouse is a disturbed man, a hit man for hire for the mob. He came to collect the Nazi film reel. Fate of all parties is quite ambiguous.
Meanwhile, Selvy and Nadine have parted ways and Selvy is back at Marathon Mines. Van and Cao have been loaned a helicopter to search for Selvy via one of Edgar Mudger’s Vietnam war buddies who is still in the US Air Force leading Security Services. Selvy at Marathon Mines is surrealist survivalism. Like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now before he kills Colonel Kurtz is a way to describe the upcoming showdown between Selvy, Van and Cao. Levi Blackwater is former employee of Marathon Mines who is a former POW. Being a survivor of torture, Levi has become one with survival, thus he lives as sort of desert sage. Selvy was trained in part by Levi, so when Selvy returns the two catch up, and Levi reminds him of what he taught Selvy, which was not being afraid of death. With a knife and a utility belt, Selvy sees Van and Cao’s helicopter.
Selvy ends up killing one of the brothers but is ambushed by the other and dies. Selvy’s head is removed as a trophy for Edgar Mudger. Levi watches from abroad witnessing the events, and then mourns Selvy with a sort of Buddhist ceremony, i.e., death is not the end and Selvy died with honor. Mudger is important to all these events relating to Selvy. It is a game of hunting to Mudger who just like other Vietnam veterans cannot turn it off. There’s something very Cohen Brother’s No Country For Old Men about this showdown in that the fight between the main protagonists and antagonists is almost a godlike struggle dealing with the fates.
5. Thoughts about the Book, its themes, similarities to other pop culture visuals:
Running Dog by Don DeLillo, published in 1978, was the first time I experienced the crime and mystery side of the writer. Running Dog involves an elaborate post-Watergate-like plot with multiple characters caught in interwoven subplots all relating to the same subject, that being, a US Senator with a hidden secret who is investigating the intelligence community.
It must be noted that this book for me visually inspires a Woody Allen 1970s New York (cliché at this point – I know – yet, still iconic visuals despite Woody Allen unfortunately being himself), but more importantly, it harkens back to the decades real sense of dilemma being that the nineteen-seventies was a decade defined by Richard Nixon’s Watergate impeachment, CIA intrigues relating to the Cold War, the OPEC Energy Crisis, a general sense of austerity (New York City did go bankrupt during the time this novel was released), stagflation, price controls, the social ills of the post-Vietnam War (rising crime rates, heroin addiction), the fall out of Counter (FBI infiltrated) Culture movement (e.g., burnouts, hippies, tabloid conspiracy theories, real life cults, missing children), the Trans-Atlantic Jet Set Crowd, the birth of the Divorced household (swinger parties with keys in fish bowls included – think the movie, The Ice Storm by Ang Lee), and an emergent urban art and musical scene ranging from disco at Studio 54 to iconic post punk acts at CBGBs calling into question the subtle horrors of a decaying American dream with quirky postmodern irony (think the song Heaven by The Talking Heads) and/or a cold industrial gloominess to the pulsars of synthesizer machines (Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures).
Yet, despite all the socio-economic and cultural happenings of this decade, with the Cold War still in full swing, the United States in real life still maintained its place as the world superpower, and three-piece suit bureaucrat of the DC Beltway was with plenty to do.
The Cold War was still largely dictated by the Ivy League Brains of the Eastern Elite establishment, so there was always a cross-juncture (or, labyrinth) between intelligence and titans of big business be they West Texas crude oil barons planning future Middle East exploits or industrialists who made everything from toxic chemicals, napalm, gizmos for NASA, secret still-classified weapons systems for Israel and Christmas ornaments.
This novel by DeLillo, channels all of this, yet also deals with the shadowy links of the US Establishment with the Nazis before and after World War II relating to Nazis, and this trope is similar – loosely speaking – to how DeLillo in White Noise (1985) used the pop culture’s fascination to appropriate the object of Hitler as a real-world monster into something akin to a commercial commodity, i.e., for example how the History Channel has documentaries about “Hitler’s Mega Weapons”, “Dark Secrets of the SS”, “Eva Braun’s Lingerie Collection” [commercial break for annuities and car insurance, included], etc.
DeLillo as a postmodern writer was calling into question how objects take on different or subjective meanings due to external forces such as capitalist consumerism, i.e., a monster like Hitler becomes a TV celebrity and the actual horrors he did become diluted over time and his value as a monster finds a sense of acceptability within mainstream consciousness. It is a side note, but to finish this point, one could say that “Pop Nazism” has helped to continue the legacy of right-wing ideas, but the capitalist market is so indifferent to ethics that as long as it pushes product, advertising, etc., then “no harm, no foul”.
DeLillo uses Nazi artifacts (which in and of itself generates a wealth of moral questioning within the reader about the human condition) only as a background device to drive the plot of Running Dog, but the main central questions he analyzes in this novel is erotica and material fetishism, but also the paranoia of large bureaucratic conspiracies. This motif employed in this book seems like it influenced White Noise, where similarly, Nazis play a background role (for reasons stated previously above), but the central premise of White Noise is the fear of death and the nausea or neurosis caused by mass consumerism and being near the zenith of technological innovation where authenticity is subjective (the postmodern condition, i.e., the incongruity of narratives and meanings, etc.).
6. Foreshadowing Technology
“When technology reaches a certain level, people being to feel like criminals,” he said. “Someone is after you, the computers maybe, the machine-police. You can’t escape investigation. The facts about you and your whole existence have been collected or are being collected. Banks, insurance companies, credit organizations, tax examiners, passport offices, reporting services, police agencies, intelligence gatherers. It’s a little like what I was saying before. Devices make us pliant. If they issue a print-out saying we’re guilty, then we’re guilty. But it goes even deeper, doesn’t it? It’s the presence alone, the very fact, the superabundance of technology, that makes us feel we’re committing crimes. Just the fact that these things exist at the widespread level. The processing machines, the scanners, the sorters. That’s enough to make us feel like criminals. What enormous weight. What complex programs. And there’s no one to explain it to us” (page 93).
The fear of technology getting of out control in ways that are beyond human comprehension (what we are living in now, circa 2021-2022) is a theme in many DeLillo books such as Cosmopolis and White Noise. This is a common theme amongst postmodernist writers. For example, “Technology with a human face” (page 211). “We are the sum total of our data” (page 202). The greater the scientific advance, the more primitive the fear” (page 161). “Technology is lust removed from nature.”
Don DeLillo for the nineteen-seventies was hyper-aware about the growing computer industry and its relationship to the government, i.e., considering in real life most of our technology are creations of the military, e.g., ARPAnet via DARPA which would go to build the internet, or one could even state more innocuous innovations such as Barcode technology consulted by McKinsey.
I would not be surprised if DeLillo read Zbigniew Brzezinski’s (1976) boo, Between two ages.
“The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities. ” (Brzezinski, 1976)
“In the technotronic society the trend would seem to be towards the aggregation of the individual support of millions of uncoordinated citizens, easily within the reach of magnetic and attractive personalities exploiting the latest communications techniques to manipulate emotions and control reason.” (Brzezinski, 1976)
Technology getting out of control is a motif within postmodern fiction be it science fiction such as Blade Runner (based on the work of Philip K. Dick) or high literature such as DeLillo’s works himself such as White Noise, considering the hyper-pace of technology can have a nauseating or alienating effect on people, especially for those within late-stage (postmodern) capitalist societies. Within such societies where such societies are defined by the “incongruity of metanarratives” (inability to trust grand narratives or objective truths), simulation and simulacrum, the dilemma of discerning the authentic versus the inauthentic (such as the central premise found Philip K. Dick’s postmodern sci-fi classic, The Man in the High Castle), and the relativity of aesthetics (low art as high art or low art mixed with high art, for example the works of Andy Warhol).
In such societies people inhabit systems where corporate mass scale consumerism and capitalist symbols dictates culture and social habits (as in the case of the field of semiotics, e.g., the McDonalds arches having as much semblance as the Christian Cross, or, morality largely comes from television), and Western philosophical thought appears to have reached its zenith (from the pre-Socratics to the postmodernists), i.e., we have run out of things to do at the apex.
Postmodern thought can be defined as a reactionary movement to Enlightenment thought and postmodernists rejected or mistrusted objective truth claims (since tangents of “Modernism”, i.e., scientism, resulted in mass danger to the species, e.g., the eugenics of the Nazis or the advent of the Atom Bomb). Thus, people are simultaneously living in systems created from such Enlightenment thinking while living in a rejection of such thinking, thus we fall subject to existential nihilism, novelty intellectualism, pseudo-science, or conspiracy theory posing as being legitimate and/or used as a tool of purposeful misinformation campaigns, but also anachronisms (recycling previous tropes or styles from other areas since there is no more advancement).
However, before I go on, I must state that postmodern thought is not necessarily problematic (it can be depending on the practitioner of it), but is more of a field of study, analytic, or framework, that simply accepts where we are within contemporary society (based on the things I wrote above), yet this field acknowledges the complexity or nuances of things rather than setting on hard definitions of things. If anything, postmodernism is great because it challenges power. It is a scanning device sort of philosophy able to scan structures to see latent defects with notions of foundational thought. There is postmodernism as a framework or worldview, i.e., a lens of skepticism in the face of objective truth claims, which were created out of noble intentions as a rejection to the atrocities of the predecessor Modernist movements and its precursors, but separately there is the “postmodern condition” which is more of a mood or social phenomena of people living in a civilization which has seemingly pushed its logic to the point where things seem illogical, and might fall victim into becoming what I call the “debased consumerist proletariat”. In summary, there is the postmodern condition but also the field of postmodernism.
The modern world is defined by an odd marriage of what I consider to be the “Analytic” with the “Continental”. In other words we live in world of high technology, empirical sciences, data, the scientific method, etc., yet it exists and merges with the existential, i.e., reality is what you make it.
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“Haunting us, these different meanings and spectral beings.” House of Leaves by Circa Survive
“If you allow, something so unnecessary to get you down, there’s no one else to blame.” Drug Dealer by Circa Survive
“If you could only offer love, you’d be like a drug to us, like a drug dealer” Drug Dealer by Circa Survive
Introduction: It was a few years ago, maybe around 2015, when I was at the Tabernacle in Atlanta, Georgia, seeing Circa Survive. I had seen them four times before in concert, and each time was an amazing experience, but on this night, hearing the heavy bass on their song Descensus at minute 2:41 (reminiscent of something one would find in the band Tool), where the bass was interwoven with spacey guitar work invoking the sounds of an Indian sitar, I was taken away. The bass was synced to oscillating white lights in a dark space. All the heads were bobbing in unison, feeling a part of something transcendental. It was a reminder as to why Circa Survive is one of the most important Progressive rock acts of two-thousands, arguably the progressive band for the older millennial generation. The first time I became aware of Circa Survive was in my teen years in the early two-thousands, walking around a mall and going into either a FYE music-store or Hot Topic and seeing the gothic artwork of Esao Andrews on the Juturna album in early 2005. “That looks cool” I said to my girlfriend, and she responded, “Then buy it then”.
I did not buy it though since I was a broke teenager, with enough money from allowance and fast-food job to take my girlfriend to the movies where we would mess around in the back aisles away from any parental supervision (those awkward days). Fast forward to the college days around 2008, and I downloaded Circa’s song, The Great Golden Baby, to my cellphone, which looking back looked like a brick compared to the lean devices we have today. I listened to it on repeat flying home to Georgia in the winter months from Washington State where I attended college, admiring the storytelling. “I’m going on home by own way, going home by my own”. Fast-forward again, I was already immersed in their albums by 2009, but by the twenty-teens while I served in the Air Force, living a lonely hermetic lifestyle after duty (to avoid getting into trouble), I would drink, draw, save all my money for my eventual escape towards freedom (Honorable Discharge), expand my mind, and Circa was always playing. In other words, I am sharing all these stories to convey that I grew up with Circa Survive. So many bands fizzle out and fail to adapt due to being constrained to a particular genre which are embedded within phases of peoples’ lives, etc. Further rock and roll music fell victim to its own balkanization and corporate interests intensified each genre, thus linking a genre to a certain point in time, but time goes on. Where many bands get caught up in making a specific sound thus breeding genre, if there is no intellectual depth engendering multiple interpretations from the listener, then a song won’t stick. The power of Circa Survive is they grow with their audience and their lyrics help guide the listeners, and the lyrics or hooks are brutally stunning/catchy, to the point where average listeners do not simply listen to the lyrics, they internalize the lyrics. Another kudos to Circa Survive being a progressive experimental act is that progressive music defines the norms of genre. It is bending, thus it becomes more egalitarian, whereas many rock bands I grew up with (being African American) there was a sense that rock-and-roll hand sectioned off its own market by appealing to white listeners only. This paper is not about race, but what I am saying is that experimental music sources inspiration from various traditions thus it has a likelihood of touching diverse listeners. I always say that Circa Survive is blues music despite the high-pitched enchanting voice that defines the traditional norms regarding masculinity while definitely being masculine at the same time.
Correlations and Narrative Building through Lyrics: One can easily stitch together the array of lyrics they have and notice a scene appearing such what I did below:
“Make your move, obvious humor – Always on, dressed to impress. I’ll be the last one to find out why.” The Great Golden Baby. “I’ve fixed myself up nice, but you never came.” Kicking Your Crosses Down. “That’s why you never mention my name to them?” Wish Resign. “What brought you back to this place? I knew you never learned, I you never.” Wish Resign. “Can we last through the winter? The weather is starting to freeze.” In Fear and Faith. “If I last through the winter, I swear to you know I won’t call” In Fear and Faith. “Congratulations. Go home now”, from In Fear and Faith. “Don’t go back on your words. You always said you tell me first.” We’re all Thieves. “I’ve been erased. I’ve been erased from the picture” We’re All Thieves. “Time takes its toll on us. It changes everything” The Great Golden Baby. “I already forget I how used to be without you” Meet Me in Montauk. “If you could try and get your timing right. I’ll let you stay.” Descensus. “You mean so much more to me” Meet Me in Montauk. “I won’t let it tear us apart” The Lottery. “I don’t want to feel like this. Ever, ever, ever, again” Nesting Dolls.
Aesthetic Breakdown: Off the top of my head, I consider Circa Survive to be “prog-psych-ambient-gothic (romantically dark)-hippie folk- post emo-blues rock”, where rock falls under philosophical modernism, thus being a medium that plays with boundaries while also psychoanalyzing the human condition, with a range that can be heavy, avant-garde, Lynchian (David Lynch, e.g., the film Blue Velvet or Lost Highway, i.e., surreal), mystical, romantic, jazzy, sad, and empowering. They have accomplished to make themselves the Doors of post-hardcore music but have shown paced longevity to sustain their career for their personal wellbeing but also for the satisfaction of their fanbase. Instead of creating an image and fitting into it, they disregard image, instead focusing on appearing as they are, yet treat music as an art collective for analyzing a range of subjects influenced by personal revelations within their own lives. Relating to The Doors, the cryptic lyrics of Jim Morrison, as if he were a dark harbinger of American vagabond folk soul, flowing through keyboarding of Ray Manzarek, drums of John Densmore, and guitar work of Robby Krieger, seem as if they inspired Circa Survive strongly. However, I also would sprinkle in some Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mack with her witchy folk 70s prog rock aesthetic. If Circa Survive were around during the Woodstock Area, coming from the burbs of conservative America, rocking out in garage cover bands, they would make the journey to Woodstock or out West to San Francisco, to try to showcase their music. Sprinkle in some of the Stooges, MC5, Janis Joplin, Sun Ra, and especially the blues of Otis Redding, Bill Withers, Motown, etc. In such an alternate universe, by the nineteen seventies they would have been influenced by the Anti-War and Civil Rights movements, where once can easily see them playing benefit concerts in Washington Square Park with activists and random listeners clapping and singing in unison.
Scene from David Lynch’s film, Blue Velvet, which samples the imagery of the brooding blues singer with conflict. Lynch films often deal with the inability to grasp a clear reality similarly to themes found in early Circa Survive
Relief from Grief: Circa Survive’s music is for those who wish to deal and overcome burden. By staring at the truth of oneself and pouring oneself out without shame or criticism, it is a healthy way to real self-actualization. Circa is a safe camp. Brutally and poetically emotive but constrained, focused, and arranged thus showing a sense of self-awareness, hence having the capability to have personal strength to pull oneself up. The lyrical makeup seems almost bard-like or troubadour. Some people, and some genres of music, do not teach this. They may give you the aggression and anger, but they do not show you a way out. There is no finish line. Rather, Circa Survive provides the emotive introspection but also offers the possibility of relief and acceptance. There is no issue with trying to find beauty in painful memories. For example, for me instead of saying “I was hurt”, as I came to grow, I would rather say, “I put myself in a position to be hurt, but I learned from it and retained my sense of having a moral center or compass”. “I fell a part in your arms for the last time, and I felt free because of the things of you told me” (lyric from I Felt Free on Blue Sky Noise).
Aesthetic Breakdown Continued: The band hails from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a suburb on the northern side of Philadelphia, and is consisted of Anthony Green who previously was in bands such as Saosin but has had collaborations with other bands such as The Sound of Animals Fighting and Zolof the Rock and Roll Destroyer; Brendan Ekstrom on the guitar who was a member of This Day Forward with fellow bandmate Colin Frangicetto also on the guitar; Nick Beard on the Bass Guitar and Steve Clifford on the Drums. The county has produced many local bands but was notable for being more so catered to sports, such as Central Bucks West, i.e., CB West Football, being a notable national powerhouse, particularly up to the early two-thousands. The suburbs are also near a city with a rich history of skateboarding such as Alien Workshop, Kerry Getz, and the shenanigans of Bam Margera.
Yet, back to Circa Survive, they explicitly fall under the post-hardcore genre, which as a genre leans towards progressive Do-it-Yourself humanist politics with such as that laid down by progenitors such as Black Flag, Minor Threat, Gorilla Biscuits, The Cro-mags, Fugazi, etc. For me poetics plays such a role in this sort of genre be it that of Luis Borges with The Garden of Forking Paths, which one could sense in At the Drive-In’s evolution into the Mars Volta, but there’s also inspiration I sense from poets/writers such as Frank O’Hara and Jim Carroll (East Coast), Sherwood Anderson (Midwest), Flannery O’Connor (Southeast), Raymond Carver (Northwest), Cormac McCarthy (Southwest), etc. For example, Thursday’s Geoff Rickly employs similar themes to that of Circa Survive and could be considered one of the godfathers of the modern two-thousands post-hardcore scene with his beautiful lyrics. Thursday songs such as “Where the Circle Ends” is a spoken word poem calling into question the blights of modern life and its hypocrisies such as claiming to want a better world without participating in its approval, or how urban schools go underfunded. Thursday’s song, “For the Workforce, Drowning”, Geoff makes analogies between nooses and neck ties one would wear in a stale corporate landscape, while also making baptismal allegories about washing away sins each day after coming home from a long commute, yet wails “Just keep making copies of copies, of copies, where will it end?”. Also, Rickly with Thursday released songs such as “This Song Brought to You by a Falling Bomb” that relates the warfare of the American machine going on at the time (Iraq and Afghanistan Wars) juxtaposed against memories of lost youth under the skylines of New York. Further, Rickly employs similar trends that are found in later Circa Survive with his emphasis on lapses in memory in relation to trauma or covering up sins, which can be seen in Thursday’s songs, Tomorrow I Will be You, Cross Out the Eyes, etc. Post-hardcore music offers an outlet for male aggression but with progressive introspection, and calls into question the ills of an individualistic, one could argue fascists, capitalist system, where people deal with poverty, drug addiction, dissociation, alienation, etc.
Catholicism: Circa’s sounds to me is a confluence of factors ranging from something akin to a Jack Kerouac Catholic angelic-like inspiration in their lyrics such as “He has risen, hold me under” in the song, Stop The F-ing Car (an allusion to the film Boondock Saints, if I remember right – a film strongly influenced by Northern city Irish culture, which is a culture that is a part of the history of the Philadelphia area, and this culture is musical like other Celtic cultures), but that this particular lyrics seems to play on the act of purging in baptism, yet, the inverted statement of “hold me under” insinuates more sin to purge. Relating to Catholicism, their song, Rites to Investiture, deals with the Catholic procedure involving the order of Mass such as that after the act of homily. Lapsed faith, the conflict between dogmatic belief and personal discovery, will always be an important concept within introspective music, so the Kerouac angelic inspiration I speak of regarding Circa can also be found in Thursday songs such as “Asleep in the Chapel” on War All The Time, but also the cover art of their album, A Common Existence. Catholicism with its concepts of miracles and Saints, and its foundations from pagan Rome, gives Catholicism a mystical property involving elements such as the purification properties of water, the traces of essences, and possibility of apparitions. Since we are on the notion of religion, in which religion is often inspiration for artists, at least when pondering the philosophical puzzles of it, or pondering one’s upbringing in it, Anthony Green has something akin of a power to heal with his lyrics and live performances. It is as if he is at the head of a flock, at a sermon, where instead of Joseph’s Colorful Robe from the Bible, instead there is an electric lightshow.
Aesthetics Continued: Then there’s notions of lost memory, amnesia, with the lyric “Didn’t I Know You?” (a lyric from the song, Oh. Hello) which relates to the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind. Further, fading memory is also incorporated into the song Meet Me in Montauk, which is an obvious homage to Eternal Sunshine. One can add “I already forget I how used to be without you” from Meet Me in Montauk, or in Descensus with the lyric, “If we forget, I’ll do it all again”. You will hear some slight homages to the band Tool as far as the music (however, the cerebral nature to Circa’s work could be considered Jungian as well, i.e., playing with notions of subconsciousness, dreams, fables as allegories into a deeper human connection, etc.), maybe even a little Deftones inspiration with them as pioneers in shoegaze metal such as with their album White Pony, Radiohead, and of course Bjork (“You were in my dreams, half human, half machine” from In the Morning and Amazing, which invokes imagery to that of Bjork’s “All is Full of Love”).
The term of Post-emo I came up with (maybe it already exists? I do not know) is important here. First, by emo I do mean the branch of emotive hardcore music that derived from hardcore punk music, which arose in the late eighties before being solidified into various regional scenes (East Coast, Midwest Great Lakes, Texas) and was hovered above by the transition to introspective rock music such as that of Radiohead, Nirvana and Sunny Real Estate, but by the late nineteen nineties its influence had grown to become commercially viable as opposed to purely independent. This was emo music before the caricature that came to be by the end of the early two-thousands (my high school years). The vein of emotive and experimental hardcore music that Circa falls under is more in alignment with At the Drive In, Thursday, Glassjaw, Juliana Theory, etc. I would consider early post-emo albums to be Further Seems Forever’s underrated album, How to Start a Fire, which amplifies the blues in emo, almost relinking the blues elements in emo back to rock’s early beginnings as R&B (rhythm and blues) and soul music, but also Armor for Sleep’sWhat do you when are dead, which is a concept album dealing with a full storyline anchored by a main protagonist. The album by Armor for Sleep involves the five stages of grief model (or the Kübler-Ross model) created by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross which breaks down the stages of grief as being the five emotions of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Yet, Circa is also a product of the other vein of early 2000s emo and screamo bands which were immensely popular under labels such as Victory Records, Eyeball Records, Tooth and Nail, etc. Yet, Circa was different than the Hot Topic crowd (not better, but different) even though early Circa Survive had no other place to be sold but at a Hot Topic (which isn’t an insult to Hot Topic at all), hence, I can understand how people might have overlooked the band as just another band rather than a mature art collective of musicians. I suspect being affiliated with such a specific genre caused the members of Circa Survive like some other bands to branch away from the “emo scene” or screamo/metalcore scene and transcend into the “post-“, i.e., similar aesthetics to their roots of the emo/screamo scene, but away enough to distinguish itself as different, deeper, etc. They have never been a “teenie-bopper” band and I would say the same thing for many of the bands I listed above such as the poignant lyricism of Geoff Rickly of Thursday (who collaborated with Circa Survive in their song The Lottery) whose poetics speaks to that of Frank O’Hara and Jim Carroll (author of The Basketball Diaries). Put it this way, how you can trace metal bands to either Black Sabbath (death metal, black metal, etc.), or Led Zeppelin (hair metal, arena rock), etc., in the emotive scene by the end of the nineties you either went the At the Drive-In Relationship to Command way (grimy, dark, adult) or you went the “system boy band” method.
Analysis of the Cover Art in Relation to the Music: Four of all Circa’s main releases have included a female figure on their cover art. The first two albums Juturna and On Letting Go, the fourth album, Violent Waves, and their 2018 release of The Amulet, feature a female figure, yet I could consider the first three albums (Juturna, On Letting Go, Blue Sky Noise) to linearly be a continuous concept album, with Violent Waves and The Amulet being continuation of this female character’s story-line (and her male companion’s – presumably the narrator, i.e., Green is speaking most from his experiences). Concept albums are a concept notable in progressive music, e.g., Pink Floyd’s The Wall, King Crimson, Jesus Christ Superstar by Andrew Llyod Webber, etc.
Juturna and Mythology: On the cover of their first album, Juturna, we see a faceless woman being sucked up into the air, floating towards something unknown, gravitating off the ground in which the picture includes a decrepit stone building with rusted iron fence, and some sort of dead plant or weed too. Leaving a dead garden. Juturna in Roman mythology is the goddess of wells, springs, and fountains, and the mother of Fontus (a god too of wells and springs), and husband to Janus. Water is indicative of a life source and cleansing force. Janus is where the name of modern month of January comes from, where January is the opening or beginning of the new year. These roman deities were involved in the Mithraism mystery (gnostic) religions of Rome (a onetime competitor to early Christianity), in with the Cult of Mithra was inspired by Zoroastrian thought, in which Zoroastrian thought from Persia – having influenced Greco-Roman thought- involved the sacredness of magi, i.e., magicians, i.e., the foundation of Western magic and later Neoplatonism such as Christian Kabbalistic practice. Mysticism of the Greco-Roman world was a melting pot influences having inspiration in the sacredness of Egypt, proximity of the Levant and Anatolia (Hittites, Phoenicians, Canaanites, Jews), The Middle East such as Babylon, Persia, but also nomadic traditions of the Steppes. Neoplatonism of the Roman Era was a framework created by Plotinus who built upon the esoteric teachings of Plato, and his framework was based on the idea that there are different levels of reality, in which all reality permeates from a source called The One, yet, is controlled by the Demiurge (the creator), and our reality as humans are on the border between the higher spiritual realm and the lower material realm. By engaging in ceremonial practices such as what would later come around such as the practice of Hermeticism, one can tap into higher levels of being or consciousness. Yet, since there is no agreed upon framework as far as ceremony, Neoplatonism has often been seen as occultist or Gnostic in nature, with many frameworks going as far as not believing in the trinity of God within Christian dogma. I am not saying that Circa Survive is by any means a Gnostic band, yet there is something magical or incantation-like about their work.
Juturna Cover Art Return: The woman in Esao’s cover art (https://esao.net) is feminine with wavy black hair, a beautiful yet subtle dress, but there is something sickly too about her. Who is she? She seems as if she could have been the quiet introspective daughter from a well-to-family, the type who looks down in photographs, always picking at her skin, despite having a natural beauty indicating “good stock”. She is floating from a once lush Victorian garden now turned into a barren waste indicating this place was once happy but is no more, and her floating seems to indicate a break from reality or being drawn which is translated as being from a supernatural force out of her control but in which her actions caused. She is our Alice, but this is no Wonderland. This is gothic. Beautiful and dark. The goddess Juturna and her relation to Janus seems to mean that the album is about entering a new door or gateway of cleansing and renewal, i.e., the girl we see on Circa Survive’s album art is on a surrealist and magical journey towards possible sobriety and finding her center (ground, footing, bearing) again.
The Female Figure on the cover art to On Letting Go and Violent Waves: The same female figure of Juturna appears on Circa Survive’s second album, On Letting Go, yet her head has been replaced by a hot air balloon. It is not that she is an “air head” but seems to indicate that on her journey she is now having to confront the thoughts in her head, the thing which inflates (burns) our minds to begin with. Memories. She is letting go of her past.
On Circa’s fourth album, Violent Waves, we see the same female possibly, having “landed” in some sort of MC Escher room which is being flooded, yet also being stalked by some sort of surreal jackal-like animal. What does this mean? We know where she came from, but now it seems she is landed back to a place where her memories were crafted (her trauma) and the water she brings or emanates is cleansing the structure (her life, her past), yet this jackal-like figure seems to be something lurking (a corrupting like character). The female character is also glowing, illuminating with sort of ectoplasmic (ghostly) aura, denoting to me that she may have found a sense of power of some sort, i.e., the courage to confront. The color palette of the jackal by Esao is similar to that of other shapes that appear such as those on the hot-air balloon of On Letting Go, which to me means the jackal is part of the same surreal fabric of the universe in the which the journey is undergoing, and is a representation of something or someone bad that “haunts the halls” of the female protagonist mind, yet it’s being cleansed by the mystical force of water.
The Art Work of Esao Andrew: The artwork of Esao Andrews could almost be defined as “punk gothic”, respectfully speaking (this is me attempting to find the most relatable term for the reader) with Victorian and Edwardian influences likely mixed with his modern influences of Southwest skater and street culture, and it is more subtle than something you find in a Tim Burton film, but invokes the same gothic appeal that mixes morbidity with romanticism. He masterfully uses oil paints on panel or wood. In an interview with Fireside Tattoo Network (2019), Esao stated he partially inspired by Egon Schiele, like another artists I enjoy in Peter Chung, cover-work from the band The Pixies, but also comic book artist, Al Columbia. The differences between dreams and nightmares are what you make of them and how you interpret them. The song, The Glorious Nosebleed, was inspired by a cartoon book by Edward Gorey who was an artist specializing is surrealist dark childhood fiction. I am not sure if Circa Survive such as Anthony Green were aware of Gorey before meeting Esao or if Esao’s influences were shared with Circa, yet both the band and Esao seem to have gravitated towards each other with a mutual interest of things that are surreally gothic and romantically macabre.
Gothic inspirations: Gothic, outside of art, as a literary genre was a reactionary movement to the cherry romanticism of the Victorian Era, thus it dealt with death, decay, loss, angst about the soon to be gone “spiritual world” to that of the modern industrial, etc. One could say that Gothic fiction was about reminding us of our metaphysical possibilities in the face of the growing materialism. The genre was particularly popular in both American and English fiction, but as far as America it was firmly implanted during and after the Civil War, which subsequently coincided and birth of the American spiritualist movements. The Civil War was the conflict which saw countless deaths in a struggle that called the nation’s very soul into question. All that death challenged perceptions, but also created movements where people sought a belief in otherworldly things, and this gave rise to ghost stories, beliefs in specters, seances, etc. When we think about the Civil War, the self-created historical revisionism of the Confederacy takes more a visual space, yet, the Northern Union is where interesting things we happening, such as the abolitionist movement, the transcendental movement with thinkers like Henry David Thoreau or Ralph Waldo Emerson, etc.
Interestingly, Circa Survive, being from Pennsylvania, is where the Battle of Gettysburg happened, and the war itself, remember – influencing American Gothic -, inspired writers such Ambrose Bierce, the author of surrealist short stories such as An Occurrence at Owl Creek (later turned into a classic episode of the Twilight Zone), where a many, supposedly a deserter, is about to hanged from a railroad bridge, yet, seemingly escapes and finds himself almost into the loving embrace of his family, yet, right as he approaches his family, his body is dropped and hanged. This story deals with memories, romance, death, etc. And of course, before Ambrose Bierce, there was the one and only Edgar Allen Poe (one could even say Washington Irving before him with tales such as the Legend of Sleepy Hollow or Rip Van Winkle), whose life coincided with the quick foundational growth of America as a soon to be economic juggernaut. The time of Poe’s life was in a transitional moment of American culture, where America was a mix of both Eastern seaboard elitism descended from our once English overlords as wealthy families of Boston Brahmin or Dutch Knickerbocker stock made fortunes off still Indian owned resources (“Cause it’s all built upon a burial ground,” lyric from Frozen Creek by Circa), but also the harshness of the frontier. The era as America’s colonial (iconic) tradition transferred towards something mimicking “modern” started during the Era of Good Feelings, which lasted from 1817-1825. The Era of Good Feelings involved a reinvigorated sense of American pride after the War of 1812, the foundation of Manifest Destiny, conflicts with Indian tribes of the plains, treaties with the British and others over land and borders, but culturally speaking the foundation of American culture diverging from English culture. Yet, there was always a dark and gothic sentiment to the architecture, the fashion, etc. It easy to envision Anthony Green as a fresh-off-the-boat Irish immigrant or second-generation American singing around a Union Camp fire as he ponders the truths of the human condition.
Poe’s life basically aligned with creation of the American Way of life, where the American perception is both inspiring, with its vast expanses of untamed land, but also a harsh place such as what one could have easily found on the frontier but also in disease ridden port cities of the coast such as his home of Baltimore, Maryland (interesting fact, Baltimore’s Salad Days Studios is where Juturna was recorded under the direction of Brian McTernan, with the name Salad Days coming from hardcore pioneer band, Minor Threat). To link Ambrose Bierce, Poe, and gothic romanticism further to Circa, to me, Circa’s roots in the coldness of the East Coast is a foundational element to their music. Circa’s music is influenced by the seasonal changes of New England, with its deciduous forests, leaves, etc.
Minor Threat before Ian MacKaye branched off to create Fugazi, an instrumental band in post hardcore and emotive hardcore
Listen to the opening effects of Holding Someone’s Hair Back, and once can easily relate the spacey effects to that of crystalline white snow falling on a field near an old New England colonial farmhouse, a house in which poetry is about to the read. Snow, just like Gothicism, is both beautiful and harsh in that it represents the death of the seasons but also the renewal of life, e.g., the lyric from In The Morning And Amazing, “From winter brings the spring again”. One can easily image fall time on the Eastern seaboard where leaves are being burned, such as “Smoke’s filled the air and I’m struggling to breathe” from the song, We’re All Thieves.
This gothic element within music such as Circa Survive can also be found in other experimental music projects such Have a Nice Life, where in the song Bloodhail, the singer refers to arrowheads, which to me invokes imagery of the once rich Native culture such as that of the Algonquin, Mohican, etc., of New England before their demise, and one could even say their legacy still has a haunting effect. Another act from New England, from Pennsylvania like Circa Survive, is Planning for Burial, in which one-man show Thom Wasluck mixes post-punk, black metal, shoegaze, and others to weave a mood that paints tales of emotion, pain, and love in New England landscapes. His albums such as Matawan – Collected works from 2018 inspires the strong Native American roots of New England, his 2017 album Below the House seems to relate to romantic tensions living in a dreary landscape, and his 2020 release When Summer Turns to Fall has no words but it is a classically inspired minimalist song that inspires a sense of Walden by Thoreau.
Cover Art of Blue-Sky Noise: The only male figure as far as artwork is depicted on Blue Sky Noise. We see a young man who is wearing a tunic thus indicating some Roman about him, thus relating his depiction to the Greco-Roman mystical (Mithraic) inspirations I spoke about earlier. If the other albums mentioned above are about a female character, this male character on Blue Sky Noise could possibly be an iteration of her significant other, who too is dealing with issues of trauma, e.g., drug abuse.
Around the male figures head is both a halo, indicating sanctity, but the same shame also is part of a monstrous creature’s mouth which is filled with sharp teeth. This creature has the body of some sort of ram or sheep, or an equine of some sort, but the imagery to me relates to the lower half the satyr creature from mythology. This creature as a nature spirit in Greek mythology known for their Dionysian behavior of drinking and womanizing, indicating this monstrous animal on the cover art for Circa Survive, who also holds a music horn, is the allure of a fast lifestyle. The creatures wing I honestly cannot make much of but can only relate it to the mystical like elements of this creature, i.e., mystical things typically have wings so why think too much into it, yet the wings could represent being “high” or “speed”. In addition, a prism of light is coming out of this creature’s flesh which I translate as meaning the illumination that drugs can bring physically, i.e., tripping. In other words, this once saint boy or young man is surrounded by a fast lifestyle in which the creature (addiction) has the capability of luring one in while also destroying someone.
Status of Peter Pan
The male figure in the art also has a right arm which is deformed in some way, which to me insinuates drug abuse by injection, i.e., opioids. This art is a surrealist interpretation of a good person who has fallen victim to the allure of a lifestyle in which hardcore drug use has suspended him in an otherworldly state where monsters surround him.
On Love: The common theme is Circa’s earlier albums was a bond between a man and woman both dealing with some sort of trauma, yet Anthony Green’s brilliance is he does not shy away from this darkness, but by confronting it, he is able to write beautiful lyrics towards a path to light. That is the appeal. He is not messing around. He is not lying. He is staring things in the face. He is taking accountability for his actions and grew from those actions.
Peter Pan, Wendy, and Other Visual Relations: A visual that inspires this male and female in a dire situation of addiction is the short film/music video, Sigur Rós: Fjögur piano released in 2012 which featured Shia LeBeouf and Denna Thomsen. The music video by Alma Har’el, depicts two lovers turned drug addicts who are in a conflicted relationship yet still have a sense of love and memories of better times, but both have an antagonist with a surrealist drug dealer. These visuals seem very in alignment with Circa Survive, yet the albums I am most referring to (Juturna, On Letting Go, and Blue Sky Noise) were all released before the Sigur Ros video. I am unsure if Alma Har’el was inspired by Circa, yet, both the Sigur Ros video and Circa’s content remind me of the story of Wendy and Peter Pan in the Pan Universe by author J.M. Barrie, whom interestingly was born in the Victorian Era, and was in the literally circles of other gothic writers such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes, i.e., the creator of the modern mystery crime genre).
https://vimeo.com/44767537. Stills are from Sigur Ros (c). All Rights are reserved to the original artists and sharing this is for educational purposes.
The time that J.M. Barrie was living was the zenith of the British Empire so there were many cosmopolitan influences making their way back to Britain such as those of India, thus the British elite were mixing English Romantic imagery such as those of John William Waterhouse (his emphasis on Arthurian-like imagery) with that of the ancient mysticism of Hindu India or China and even Africa, so these foreign mystical influences inspired Gothic romanticism (yet, also did drugs, such as that of opium which was legal at the time and pure Absinthe made from wormwood, i.e., the urban legend of the “Green Fairy”). This sort of cosmopolitan influence also influenced French art such as what would become Art Nouveau.
The characters in Circa Survive’s albums to me are Peter and Wendy who forgot Neverland due to coming to the real world or are real people within the real world trying to find Neverland. For example, there are two cover arts associated with Violent Waves. The first was spoken about above in which the female character is in a house somewhere that seems to be a manifestation of her memories, yet another cover has a ship floating atop a planet or orb or some sense, where this orb has a similar color palette to that of other Circa Esao works. The ship is important because it relates to the Jolly Roger of Captain Hook from the Pan universe.
Art Work for the 2015 film Pan by directed by Joe Wright
I prefer for this paper to entertain the concept idea of Peter and Wendy lost in the modern world and who are suffering from amnesia about Neverland. I imagine them living in a dingy apartment, scrapping by, yet both are recovering addicts, and they lost a sense of light, but are on a mission to re-obtain it. Yet, there are evil characters such as a Captain Hook-like person who is analogous to a drug dealer. Lost Boys could represent “street kids”, who are not bad at all, but trying to survive in a harsh environment, this analogy I’m making about Lost Boys relates to the lyric from the British band, Bloc Party, where in their song, The Good News, states, “Throwing down with all the lost boys at the very edge of town”.
Tinker Bell could represent something mixed in that she is not bad, yet she wants to “keep the party alive”, i.e., keep Peter in particular young. A nymph like creature for mythology, who can promise eternal life, but nothing is without a cost. Peter as the male character for this Circa Survive analogy is a person who has a hard time growing up, i.e., avoids responsibility, whereas Wendy grew up too fast, so there is an opposite attraction to each other, where Peter’s innocence (despite his issues) is a light, whereas Wendy’s maturity and strength is a power. Yet, Wendy is very central to the story, even going so far as having to process the trauma of losing a child, such as in the lyrics of Frozen Creek, but also having dealt with assault, i.e., “She’s got the photos but no reflection, He’s got the motive but no transportation”.
This dynamics between my “Circa Survive Peter and Wendy” story-line is that it would create a powerful story line in that both male and female protagonists are both strong and central, who show levels of courage and vulnerability.
Author: This is is me. Circa Fan. Blogger as a hobby. BA from Saint Martin’s University. MS from Embry Riddle Aeronautics. Always thinking outside the box. A fan of East Coast falls.
Why are all of these pundits coming from Canada? Seriously…. They’re all Canadian. It’s always the ones you least expect… Jordan Peterson, Steven Crowder, Gavin McInnes, Stefan Molyneux, Nina Kouprianova, Ezra Levant, Laurent Southern, and the movie poster to Canadian Bacon (1995) by Michael Moore
Is the film Canadian Bacon by Michael Moore prophetic? Was it on to something without even realizing it? South Park by Matt Stone and Trey Parker even has its comedic take on Canadians. But, in reality…why are all these Right-Wing pundits…Canadian? Seriously? Have we become so cynical that people who want to do harm to the United States simply have to partake in our cynicism and disbelief? Laugh with us? There was the curious case of Anna Chapman along with nine others back in 2010 who were caught as being Russian spies and were given back to Russia in a spy exchange at an Austrian Airport (Sources: Russia spies plead guilty in US amid swap rumors by the BBC, 8 July 2010; The secrets of Anna Chapman by the BBC, 28 March 2011). We all should know the odd case of Maria Butina in the GOP NRA scandal. The agenda that is most prevalent to me right now, at least a piece of it, is how Right-Wing Canadian pundits that have gained influence in American politics but these people are simply the proxies of an international Zionist cabal spanning MAGA in the USA, the British Right Wing, Israel, and Russia. Trust me… I know that last sentence sounds silly. It will be called that. But I assure you, if you have not heard of people like Lauren Southern, Gavin McInnes, or Stefan Molyneux and their effects on American populism, you are the one who is out of touch. The global phenomenon of the Right Wing revolution isn’t organic but is actually a constructed movement unbeknownst to those who participate (you’re average Trump rally attendee), to build up mobilization for the defense of Israel and to link a newly rebranded traditionalist Russia with the West and USA on conservatism (whiteness).
The film Canadian Bacon I saw as a kid in the mid-nineties, and it did not leave much of an impact. Yet, I am watching it right as I write this. Be warned the film is full of 90s cheese (which is rather enjoyable in the dark times of late 2020) with some grunge music playing by people who are way too old to be listening to it (trying to capture the 90s Fugazi college crowd?), and a black character even drops the 90s phrase, “Can we all just get along”. Yet, brilliantly in satire fashion, akin to that of Don DeLillo’s 1985 book White Noise, Moore uses absurdity and hyperrealism to capture the time immediately after the Fall of the Soviet Union (I was a child) in which the USA was figuring out where to go considering there was no major enemies and the USA throughout the nineties enjoyed relative peace despite defense contractors trying to figure out how to create new revenue streams (sometimes going as far as fraud). It features a ragtag bunch of local cops (John Candy, Rhea Pearlman, Bill Nunn, etc.) who help foil a plot to start a new arms race. The film begins with the closure of a factory owned by a major defense contractor named Hacker Industries in a blue-collar community near Niagara Falls.
The film deals with the conflict of employment in the time of peace considering many US jobs are based within the Military Industrial Complex. The president of Hacker Industries working with a Washington insider, the President’s National Security Advisor Stuart Smiley (played by Kevin Pollack), tries to stir contempt to help boost the arms industry, even though the President (played by Alan Alda) wants peace. However, the President later meets with the Russian President, named Vladimir of course, to reignite Cold War tensions to help boost his popularity and employment numbers. The Russian President jokingly states that Russia is now concerned with state-of-the-art plumbing equipment and America should not be sore winners. The Cold War was costly to Russia. Later on after their plan to reignite war with Russia falls through, General Dick Panzer (played by Rip Torn) while conducting a briefing in the war-room (alluding to the Dr. Strangelove war room) goes through a list of enemies spanning Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Min, and even floats the ideas of an alien invasion. The President floats the idea of international terrorism (an ominous reference considering the Council of National Policy in real life was prepping for the Global War on Terrorism, and other Hollywood films, like True Lies, foreshadowed the emphasis on the Middle East) but Rip Thorn states that terrorist are just a bunch of people blowing themselves up in rental cars. The President then floats the idea of Canada.
The President’s National Security Advisor later consults a veteran CIA agent named Gus (who is still salty about the Cuban Missile Crisis and Korean War) who argues that Canada is the enemy. While strolling a hallway to talk in private, a hallway adorned with photos such as that of Henry Kissinger, Gus and Stuart have a conversation: “You remember the big New York blackout?” “Yea” “Caused by a Canadian hydroelectric plant, Niagara Falls. The Canucks claims it was a faulty transmitter, we have reason to suspect otherwise…” “Why is that?” “These Canadians suffer from a serious inferiority complex. That’s why they built this (whipping out a photo of the Canadian National Tower). World’s tallest free-standing tower. Our scientist cannot figure out what it is for. Canadians are always dreaming up a lot of ways to ruin our lives. The metric system, Celsius, Neil Young…Jesus. We admired them… Clean streets, no crime, no minorities” “How’d they pull that?” “No slavery…. Their entire government is run by socialist” “But it’s not the real stuff”, Stuart responds, before Gus continues, “No no no…that is where you are wrong…they’ve always had these tendencies”. Stuart reads a newspaper cutout, “Capitalism must be destroyed in all its forms? What is this??”, before Gus interjects, “We think they are a little weird with the socialism stuff… They provide free healthcare, education…. free condoms!”. Later, back at the war council room, the President and his staff float the idea of labeling Canada an enemy. One advisor, an African American man, states, “Hell, they’re whiter than we are!”. Yet, the President agrees to manufacture consent against the Canadians, later slipping the story to the media who starts their campaign of muckraking, Charlie Rose-like panel discussions, CSPAN knockoff updates, etc.
Gus later appears with a CIA team posing as Canadians to blow up a power-plant, but the power station is of course being guarded by John Candy and his crew. The event goes viral and causes the American public to believe the elaborate rouse even more.
A funny line so far is when a character, Kabral Jabar, played by Bill Nunn, while attending an auction of surplus military gear of a recently closed plant owned by Hacker Dynamics (maybe a ploy on General Dynamics, though the logo does reflect Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, etc.), says, “Listen, can we get out of here? All these guns and white people have me feeling nervous”, but John Candy playing Sheriff Bud Boomer, says, “Can you knock it off with the white stuff. You got me looking at em funny”. The fact Michael Moore gave Candy’s character the surname of Boomer obviously alludes to the Baby Boomers but considering this was the nineteen-nineties the term Boomer wasn’t used then as it is now, e.g., a term meant to prove the Baby Boomer’s general sense of selfishness and ambivalence to everything while simultaneously having the need for authority such as surface level politics, cops, simplistic dynamics of good guys versus bad buys, religion, etc.
But the plot of Canadian Bacon aside… There is something sinister coming from Canada in our reality.
The next stuff is serious. I am not…joking.
Canada used to send us quirky comedians. People who came from a higher latitude of the English speaking realm that we assumed had a natural predilection for left-wing, center-left, or moderate politics – granted they do have an important rural heritage as well – considering their single-payer healthcare system, the general perception of cleanliness, a general acceptance of cosmopolitanism, bilingualism, the fact that most of their population centers around urban areas doting the various provinces, and unlike Americans, the Canadians kept closer to their British roots which in itself is seen as more well-read, artistic, capable of understanding the “abstract”, and parliamentarian in nature. The Canadians or Canadiens are our slightly smarter younger sibling who stayed closer to our “parents” as we rebelled to be free but ended up like David Hasselhoff eating a cheeseburger off the floor in a drunken stupor or a film like Robocop makes so much sense it deserves a statue in Detroit.
Americas always saw Canada as the better place to the North with its own unique quirks. Nasally accents and using words like gee, or an over usage oh, or phases like don’t ya know. Something innocent about it. Yet, in recent times, especially in the times that led up to Trump America, I must admit that things have changed about Canada’s export of entertainers. They are all Right-Wingers and often extreme Right-Wingers. This isn’t the era of Jim Carey, John Candy, Mike Myers, Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, etc., but rather we got a ragtag incendiary bunch comprising Steven Crowder, Lauren Southern, Gavin McInnes, Jordan B. Peterson, Nina Kouprianova (Richard B. Spencer’s allegedly – I believe her – abused ex-wife), Stefan Molyneux, and Ezra Levant (a Jewish-Canadian Right Wing Zionist) with his “Breitbart of Canada” media outlet in Rebel Media (an outlet that has hosted controversial figures such as Alex Jones and was linked to helping organize the United the Right Rally in Charlottesville, VA). I am sorry but Ezra Levant looks a lot like the main character from the Cohen Brother’s A Serious Man. Just saying. Is the United States being invaded by Canada? It sounds funny, it sounds like a movie-plot straight out of South Park or Canadian Bacon, but I am not joking even though it is amusing but…not. It is quite easy to do. We in the United States scrutinize people from South of the Border but is the same treatment given to those North of the border, and if not, gee I wonder why?
How clever of an idea when you think about it. Culturally similar nations with a predominately white population which can at times be reactionary to change, in right-wing politics at least, especially that which challenges the notions of conscious and subconscious supremacy (immigration, gender equality, people of color in lead roles, etc.). If the United States were to be invaded, sure, it could come from South of the Border with Mexico, or be from some shadowy terrorist cell, but we often don’t see Canada in the same light, even though the chances of espionage or infiltration is much higher with our Canadian sibling. It is not the Canadian government that is the issue, but rather non-state actors who are betrothed to a well-funded religious-political agenda that spans the United States, U.K. and Commonwealth, Israel, and Russia. More to come on this later.
Gavin McInnes, formerly of Canadian media outlet Vice Media (which interestingly has links to the Manhattan Institute founded by former CIA head, William Casey, via Vice’s former correspondent, Raihan Salam and this institute also has ties to PayPal founder, Peter Thiel – an ardent Trump supporter and owner of the infamous IT firm, Palantir), represents the Oi! Oi! Right Wing takeover of the British late-seventies punk scene and he uses the prevalence of political correctness, “wokeness”, and the elevation of marginalized groups to turn conservatism into “punk” against the mainstream. McInnes created the Proud Boys harkening back to the right-wing street thugs of the National Front in Margaret Thatcher’s right-wing 1980s England. The Proud Boys, supposedly started as a joke by McInnes, despite being known in the public sphere for years were elevated even further in Trump’s debate against Biden in which Trump stated, “Stand back and stand by” when asked about if Trump would denounce white supremacy, specifically when asked about the Proud Boys. The Proud Boys employ a strategy of surface level silliness to divert attention away from their chauvinistic West is the Best ideology. The Proud Boys require a beat-down initiation in which a man must read off as many as ten breakfast cereals while getting beat up. It seems childish and borderline like suppressed homoeroticism (considering McInnes has made-out with Milo Yiannopoulos) or MGTOW behavior (Men Gone Their Own Way) especially with the prevalence of nude male Greek statues representing logos within the Alt-right sphere of thought. The Proud Boys are a sausage fest of angry males who need identity. This playful silliness is not just common to the Proud Boys who have documented cases of using violence, but also Boogaloo, who took that name from a nineteen-eighties pop cultural reference, who gained notoriety when US Air Force Sergeant Steven Carrillo was indicted for the murder of two deputies in North California in 2020 using the Black Lives Matter protests as cover and a means of inciting a race war.
Lauren Southern and Nina Kouprianova with their “fraulein” looks aer the anti-feminists who represents femininity’s subservience to masculinity yet are outspoken in favor for militaristic masculinity protecting the “race” – a notion notable in the Right Wing [Note: Nina Kouprianova has been interviewed by vlogger, Jay Dyer, who converted to Orthodox Christianity, i.e., the main religion of Russia, and most of his work are directed at the United States and not at the current events happening in Russia. Dyer to me seems to have an affinity with “people groups”, i.e., differences as being ordain in his words by God). Lauren Southern not only went to South Africa to show a biased view of the racial situation in South Africa such as proliferating the white farmer murders (something Trump has tweeted about) but she has also flown to Russia to interview Alt-Right Anti-American intellectual Aleksandr Dugin.
Jordan B. Peterson and Stefan Molyneux represent an intellectual basis for Darwinism with concepts like “fitness”, “Bell Curves”, the strongest survives, etc., which are notable tropes of the Right Wing even though it hides in high-brow discussions of capitalism, intelligence, systems theories, i.e., alluding to the natural tendency to form social hierarchies which in and of itself insinuates a rejection of egalitarianism, etc. Steven Crowder represents the “bro” of the bunch. A frat boy beer drinking mentality which tries to out masculine you and harkens back to the days where the white male viewpoint of reality, including criticisms of others, dominated the landscape.
The fact that many are comedians helps deliver their messages into the public because they can simply state, “I’m just telling a joke”, so there is a level of solipsism and postmodernism in their tactics, where postmodernism comes into the mix because of the prevalence of memes, vlogs, and conspiracy theories/”true history” videos spanning or touching upon Indo-European studies (a gateway into Aryan studies such as the videos created by British Alt-Right vlogger, Survive the Jive), rejection of peer-reviewed and intensive studies such as the Out of Africa Theory in exchange for fringe theories such as Hyperborea, aliens (where aliens only seem to help people of color and not Europeans), etc., in the digital landscape. Postmodernism simply put (if it can be) is when the world has no reference of what the truth actually is, so truth is utterly subjective and an existential process, and the notion of objective truths or grand-narratives are false. Postmodernism was first a reaction to the atrocities of the right-wing after World War II, but now it seems like it’s being cleverly used by conservatives to deconstruct the new accepted truths of modern human rights, diversity, gender equality, etc. These types of individuals in the right-wing sphere in which I am speaking of broaden their base by being elevated on even more popular outlets such as the Joe Rogan Experience. Yet, whenever this side is called out, they can default to victim status by making it appear those who are fed up with traditionalism, patriarchy, racism, etc., are in effect nothing more than “commies”, “fascists”, “Marxist radicals” or “Social Justice Warriors” who are simply shaming white boys and women who love them. To stir this atmosphere of them being the oppressed or muzzled victims, any time a person is de-platformed they cry fascism, even though their very own ideology is the basis of fascism. They are playing games is where I am getting at. Using amorphisms and ambiguity to Trojan Horse their regressive ideology into the mainstream.
I’ve said this before but we truly live in the era of the Postmodern Conservative who uses deception tactics to de-evolve the modern liberal state back into a conservative homogenous state, but it claims to detest postmodernism in the vein of people like Pat Buchanan who popularized “Cultural Marxism”, despite utilizing postmodernism (asymmetric, shapeshifting, “what is truth?” – tactics, etc.) as a tool for its own agenda. Ironically, Donald Trump himself could be compared to Max Headroom, a Canadian character of a former Canadian TV show, where Max Headroom is a digital avatar and Trump in effect is the same with his use of the online arena to bypass the political process and stir up conspiracy theories to protect himself. The right-wing conspiracy culture that led up to Trump was the clay which gave us a Golem like Trump. Interestingly, certain portions of the Alt-Right, those more in line with the quasi-Nazi Occult elements, have even stated that they are using “magic” or magick when they troll online, i.e., they are willing their wants into existence using meme warfare.
In relation to the Russian elements regarding my “Canadian Cabal” theory, 541,810 people in 2016 claimed Ukrainian descent, there were 622,445 people in 2016 who claim Russian or partial Russian descent in Canada, and in 2016 about 20,710 people claimed Belarusian descent in Canada. In 2016, Canada had a population over 35 million (compared to the United States with is around 300+ million). The number of people of Eastern European descent might not stand out as being significant, but for a much smaller nation than the USA, the amount of cultural influence cannot be calculated. As far as cultural influence all it takes is one person or a few to gain a large audience to disseminate and proliferate messages. Further, it’s much easier to “fit in” with their American counterparts, especially those in the Right-Wing, which is an arena spanning household “normal” center-Right politics all the way to fringe Nazism, the John Birch Society, the Tea Party Movement, Christian Extremists, Traditionalist Mormons who practice polygamy, Qanon, the Rise Above Movement, Boogaloo (which resulted in the murders of two law officers where the assailant wrote Boogaloo in blood at a crime scene – yet, our media unfairly characterizes the Black Lives Matter movement as terrorists), the Right Wing occult (Order of Nine Angels, Atomwaffen SS, etc.), race realists, etc.
I am not saying espionage is happening from the Canadian government necessarily since they are US allies, but rather individual actors have the ability to infiltrate and change the culture of the United States by appealing to a sense of sameness. The United States could clamp down on these individual actors if they wanted to such as scrutinizing their visa status, look to see if they’re paying taxes, etc., but considering it is Trump America and he needs these people, it seems the Department of Justice is more concerned with a Hoover like condemnation of the left than it is protecting the USA from actual domestic and international agents who just so happen to be “good ole white boys”.
Most of the people I named are conservative and they speak on American politics more than they do Canadian politics. Is this not strange? Do American conservatives even call them out on this? No. Why? Because the white conservative base of America is so lost in fear than they will take anyone that looks like them and tells them exactly what they want to hear. This fear has created not only a business opportunity for entertainers but also a world-shifting opportunity for influencers who are attached to the agendas of larger and shadowy organizations, which I feel links to the controversies surrounding Trump. Most of these pundits are Trump supporters, even if they cannot vote in American elections. These pundits to me are in the web that spans Russia-gate (Israeli-Russian Gate), Trump, the Alt Right, and the US-UK & Israeli Zionist connection.
So, let me explain my beliefs based on that last statement I made. Russia was not alone in influencing the 2016 election, but rather Israel had the technological means and cultural connections within the United States to help sway the election in favor for Trump. For example, the Republican Jewish Coalition with people like Eliot Brody brought up in the Mueller investigation. Israel was displeased with the Obama Administration for abstaining on a United Nation’s vote over Israeli settlements on disputed Palestinian lands. This abstain vote by Obama resulted in a toxic backlash against his administration especially in the Israeli press and thinking that Hillary would follow suit with the Obama Administration’s policy (and that of previous American administrations who preferred to broker peace between Israel and Palestine), the Israeli lobby backed Trump, despite saving face and managing relations on both side of the political spectrum, particularly by denouncing antisemitism even though many people on the right are Jewish. So, in order to get the majority of the USA, which is white, to back Trump, the US Zionist and Israeli lobby spanning politics, media, alternative media (podcasting such as Ben Shapiro, Alex Jones, even Joe Rogan during his phase of platforming Alt-Right guests), Wall Street, and Washington insiders, effectively created and elevated the Alt-Right. This strategy has in part helped to metastasize into movements such as Qanon, which might still seem harmless to the average American, but people running for Congressional seats are openly pushing Qanon, Islamophobia, Pizzagate, and “Holly-Weird” theories. It could be argued that Qanon is a cult but a cult for the internet age and it preys on the vulnerabilities of those in conservative politics. Qanon has a Zionist undertone to it, which therefore not only feeds into a support of Israel but also Western conservatism. It sounds strange by Qanon could be what helps turn the United States into something akin to the Handmaid’s Tale. A radical religious reactionary state where the courts are run by Noahide worshiping judges. Noahide is a form of Jewish proselytizing to non-Jews in which non-Jews are encouraged to worship the Jews as the Chosen people and to follow the Noahide Laws issued by Jewish clerics.
This reactionary Right Wing (predominately white) movement is filled with the fringe of conservatism (as we saw at Charlottesville) and is protecting Israel even if many of the people in this arena are not cognizant of it. I say this because many people in this arena have antisemitic beliefs but even antisemitic beliefs can be used by Zionist to increase their power. For example, appealing to a Christian Crusader “Dues Vult” mentality in defense of the Holy Land is essentially getting WASP Christians with Punisher skull tattoos, subscriptions to Soldier of Fortune, and a habit of dropping N-bombs while playing Call of Duty, to defend Israel, but these people must be convinced that they still are the majority, in supremacy, or are in jeopardy of being replaced. Basically, certain factions of the Zionist lobby are willing to fund Nazis as a diversion to what they’re doing but also to build a “street team” for Trump, but really Trump is an ally of Israel who will do what they want which can be seen in Trump naming Jerusalem the capital of Israel, landmarks being named after Donald Trump, the annexation of the Golan Heights in the wake of the Syrian War, leaving the United Nations Human Rights Commission, and leaving ambiguity around the contested Dome on the Rock between Jews and Muslims (which is where the Kusher relationship with the Saudis comes into play since the Saudis are the landlords or trustees of the property).
All these Right-Wing Canadians will shame minorities, the LGBTQ community, welfare, etc., but you notice they never talk about Jews. It is not that I want them to, but rather, they are all Zionists or tied to some sort of Zionist organization. They are the cover for the Zionist lobby simply put there to mobilize the majority that leans right into doing that lobby’s bidding. The marriage between White Supremacy and Jewish Zionism is not new and can trace roots in part back to the United Kingdom in the nineteenth century where there were British movements such as British Israelism where white Britons felt they were the chosen people in order to justify the British Empire. This grand origin story mythology is common among most empires or aspiring empires such as the Nazis trying to trace roots to Central Asia or India largely because they simply wanted that land, or even to the United States with notions like Manifest Destiny. Religions such as Mormonism were created during Manifest Destiny and used Zionist undertones to demonize Native Americans so they could take their land and bolster their own credibility (I do not hate modern, every day, and normal Mormons by the way).
The British elite establishment and the Jews who became prominent in the United Kingdom created a symbiotic relationship, and many prominent imperial administrators were Jewish such as Benjamin Disraeli, and, yes, the Rothchild Dynasty (responsible for helping acquire the Suez Canal, raising capital against Napoleon, treasurers of the Bank of England, etc.).
This symbiotic relationship or marriage of “mafias” resulted in the basis for the establishment of Israel in which the British helped the Jews acquire Palestine after World War I when King George defeated his cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm’s, allies in the Ottoman Turks who owned the area. Further, even though it is debatable, King George and the British Establishment with the help of American financiers, may have supported the Bolsheviks in order to overthrow the Czar of Russia in order to obtain the lucrative oil fields of the Caucuses. This symbiotic relationship surrounding being “Chosen”, i.e., supremacy, bled into the United States and Commonwealth nations thus influencing the treatment of the indigenous First Peoples and people of color in these regions (such as African-Americans with slavery which was argued with a misinterpretation of the Bible such as the Mark of Cain, Aborigines, Indians of the Asian Subcontinent, Africans in colonial Africa, etc.). The Rothchild’s did fund Cecil Rhodes’ DeBeer Diamonds in Africa and it is well known Rhodes was a Mason and racist, where Masonry in itself, at least that of the English realm has Judeo-Christian undertones.
Manifest Destiny in the United States was simply White Zionism similarly to how the British Empire was White Zionism, but the Zionism aspect is what links them to the Jews, even though these factions at times are in conflict (Waspy elitism of the Anglo-American establishment or the condescending tones that some Jews have of gentiles), but their working relationship as far as global control outweighs the negatives. In effect, these two groups of white Gentiles and white Jews can effectively merge with each other and have time and time again throughout history, even within some old European noble families such as Sophie von Hohenlohe (who spied for the Nazis) or Prince Rupert Lowenstein (the Rolling Stones former manager). Even though the common average white person or Jewish person might not mix as much, when you get to the upper echelons of power, then what’s ethnicity when all that matter is money?
It is my personal belief that all the weird events that happened from 2016 to 2020 in the present were simply this cabal coming to light for the first time to most Americans. The curtains had fallen and the system went into clean-up trying to get ahead of stories by pretending they were actually covering the stories in full, even though they were simply doing what a street hustler does when they play a “shell game”, i.e., moving around cups with a ball underneath it and making people wage money on where the ball actually is (sometimes the ball being taken away with a contraption so no one wins). For example, the Bronfman Clan of NXVIUM with their ties to the United Nations (via Sara Bronfman’s husband Basit Igtet who negotiated a peace deal in Libya after Hillary’s Benghazi situation), Edgar Senior’s ties to the World Jewish Coalition (where he advocated for improved Russian and Israeli relations) and Edgar Junior’s ties to the music industry; Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s ties to the British Royal Family and even the Iranian Contra era with characters spanning William Barr as a CIA operative around Reagan’s White House, John Kerry as a blue-blood old money Senator, Robert Mueller (classmate of Kerry) as a young investigator who worked on Iran Contra, Judge Robert Morgenthau (a relative to the Bronfman Clan), Adnan Khashoggi (uncle to killed journalist Jamal Khashoggi and Princess Diana’s lover, Dodi Fayed), the Clintons and the Trumps. This is deep stuff.
The Israeli lobby, at least that led by Benjamin Netanyahu (he does face opposition in Israel) and his allies in the USA and English speaking Commonwealth (various non-profits, social clubs, etc.), understand that hiding behind hyper-Republicanism of the majority in the United States is the best way to keep the light off of them and since Right-Wing politics are often Christian or Judeo-Christian in nature, this religious crux is a helpful variable that increases the power of this strategy. They can appeal to sense of Revelations, Armageddon, Holy War against Muslims, etc.
Ok, so keep all that in mind, but what about Russia? The truth is that Russia and Israel are closer than what most Americans realize. In the Cold War, the United States utilized Christianity and Zionism as a means of psychological warfare to differentiate ourselves from the godless Soviets. The truth is many Israelis and American/Canadian Jews, or Jews of the Commonwealth are of Eastern European “Pale Settlement” or Russian Jewish descent. Prominent Canadian billionaire, Edgar Bronfman Sr., of the Seagram’s Dynasty, is the father of Claire and Sara Bronfman (incriminated in the NXVIUM scandal), younger brother to Phyllis Lambert (who bailed Ira Einhorn, the Unicorn Killer, out of jail before he pulled a Roman Polanski and fled the USA), and father to Edgar Junior (music mogul with links to Jeffrey Epstein), was the president of the World Jewish Coalition (WJC) and promoted Russian emigration to Israel. Edgar Bronfman, Sr., who was a racist (disapproving his son’s marriage to an African American woman, foreshadowing to me the racist rant of LA Clipper’s owner Donald Sterling), advocated for increasing Israeli and Russian ties. Israel is the crux between the USA/West and the East typified in Russia, and Israel can leverage those multi-national bonds to its favor if the policy of one deviate away from Israel’s own ambitions (consolidating its borders to that of the Kingdom of David and bring forth their messiah, the Mashiach). As an analogy, Israel has positioned itself to the be the woman that two powerful suitors are courting and play them off each other, even though the future of this strategy is for all to…share Israel or Israel to control both, as the Russians and the Americans by way of the Republicans (the party you would least expect) try to join forces. A White Zionist alliance where the Israelis are the heart of the operation.
So, in 2016, Russia did have a major reason to favor the election of Donald Trump considering the sanctions they faced due to their invasion of Crimea and their tendency to generally annoy the United States by them conducting a “parallel policy” to the USA, e.g., if the USA has issue with Venezuela or Syria, then Russia steps in to show they are friends to these nations in the face of “American Imperialism”. Trump had done business in Russia, ex-Soviets turned businessmen had conducted business out Trump’s properties, Trump has links to many ex-Soviets in one way or another (Tevfik Arif, Tamir Sapir, Lev Leviev, etc.), many people in his cabinet had ties to Russia such as Rexx Tillerson for Exxon Mobil, Michael Flynn was called into suspicion, Rand Paul delivered correspondence to Moscow for Trump, and Mitch McConnell and other prominent Republicans have ties to Leonard Blvatnik etc.
The fact that Melania Trump is of Slovenian descent and Trump’s first wife, Ivana Trump, is of Czech descent, both former Soviet nations (which in and of itself is not a problem, i.e., they shouldn’t be shamed for this), I could imagine Donald Trump has a large following in former Soviet States as far as the media, tabloids, and news. Nations such as Hungary, Austria, Germany even (especially in the former Soviet Eastern part of the country which is under-developed in relation to the Western part of the nation), etc., has seen a rise in Right-Wing populist politics emulating the success of Donald Trump, and Russia sees this Right-Wing Revolution as good since they have ditched the Soviet style and in exchange are marketing themselves as Orthodox traditionalists against the depravity of liberal democracies, modernity, secularism, human rights, etc. This Right-Wing revolution in Eastern Europe which benefits Russia in its “rebranding campaign” can weaken the primacy of the United States by threatening NATO and calling into question the usefulness of the United Nations (the United Nations has always been a target of Right-Wing organizations such as the John Birch Society which helped coin concepts such as a one-world government. Interesting fact is that the Neo-Nazis in America trace roots back to an internal conflict within the John Birch Society in which a Revilo P. Oliver left the organization because he claimed the JBS was becoming too Jewish, which, even though I reject Nazism and white supremacy, he may have had a point considering post-war Neo-conservatism had many notable Jews such as Henry Kissinger, Barry Goldwater, Milton Friedman, etc.).
In conclusion, Canada is awesome. It is still seen as an example of a modern and developed nation that fosters diversity, education, public investments, and a rational well-balanced foreign policy. Yet, all of that aside, many Right-Wing pundits are coming from Canada. This to me is no coincidence but rather proof of a larger cabal using these low-level actors, podcasters, and vloggers, to infiltrate the United States political arena by appealing to a sense of sameness and being the “online street team” for Trump. The question is will American conservatives start to call it out, or are they so enthralled with the insanity of Trumpism, that they will take support from any source no matter how nefarious it truly is?
What is the difference between the many cop deaths shown on TV and a snuff film?
This paper is for Elijah McClain, George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Daunte Wright, Kurt Reinhold, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, Tyre Nichols, Alton Sterling, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Jacob Blake, Michael Brown, Kristiana Coignard (White), Terence Crutcher, Philando Castile, Botham Jean, Amadou Diallo, Rayshard Brooks, Sean Monterrosa (Latinx), Walter Scott, Samuel DuBose, Manuel Ellis, Zachary Hammond (White), Ricardo Hayes, Aiyana Stanley Jones, Michael Lee Marshall, Marc Ramos, Kathryn Johnston, Rayshard Brooks, Atatiana Jefferson, Isiah Murrietta-Golding, Sureshbhai Patel (Asian – Indian Subcontinent) etc. These names include black, white, AAPI, and Hispanic but there are too many names to mention.
Who would have thought that the lyrics of the band Tool would be a great way to analyze racial injustice?
Or, who would have thought that the sheer terror presented in Pulp Fiction’s pawn shop scene would be a microcosm of the terror that underlies our very feet within the real world – both past and present?
Tool released their album, Undertow in 1993. I remember being a kid during the ,glorious” days of the 1990s watching MTV, maybe it was on Beavis and Butthead, and seeing Tool’s music video for Prison Sex. It did not terrify me surprisingly, but it did leave a lasting mark as far as Tool’s ability to take things into realms that are dreamlike or nightmarish, or later what I would learn would be called the Jungian. Music at this point was taking on more of a darker sensibility post-Nirvana with bands like the Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, etc. Tool was my first introduction to Industrial-type metal, which was later reinforced by my discovery of Nine Inch Nails, especially with their music video Closer around 1996. The next year after Tool’s Undertow was released, I remember being a kid and overhearing Entertainment Tonight and they were talking about Spike Lee having issue with Quentin Tarantino’s new film, called Pulp Fiction, largely for the liberal use of n-word. I was aware of Spike Lee of course since my parents were film fans and I was alive in the late-80s to early 90s Black Revival of the arts (It’s a Different World, Roc, Do the Right Thing, the works of Robert Townsend, etc.), i.e., we had plenty of Jet magazines stashed around the house.
I did not know much about Tarantino and never really considered him a big director in the early to mid-nineties, because this was at a point where a director was simply a director, i.e., I didn’t see things as art yet since I was just a child. The only film that reminded me of Tarantino up to that point (I may have seen snippets of True Romance at my grandmother’s house in Miami), was the film Swingers by Jon Favreau, in which Tarantino is only referenced. The film by Favreau depicts a crew of young white horny males in Los Angeles searching for action, work, love, etc. They all party and live in apartments, but there is a poster of Reservoir Dogs within one of them, and one of the main characters who gets into a parking lot altercation draws a gun to the rebuke of his friends played by Favreau and Vince Vaughn. Essentially, early Tarantino represented film for angry white boys. A type of power fantasy for white males to envision themselves as hustlers, heist man, crooks, not taking junk. Fantasy about liberally dropping n-bombs and making dirty jokes in midnight diners about the color of this or that waitresses’ pubic hair. We have to remember that Tarantino did come on the scene as gangster rap had already won popularity, so with black males of rough backgrounds now seen as in vogue, and it’s almost as if Tarantino knew he had a market in the alternative. Masculinity wasn’t simply The Marlboro Man or Arnold Schwarzenegger but men like Tupac where Tupac in our racist past would be called a “mouthy n-word” or Denzel Washington would’ve been called an “uppity n-word” or a black dandy for simply breaking boundaries. Hell, even up to this day we see students busted For blackface, NBA owners caught dropping n-bombs, etc. Yet, in the film Swingers by Favreau, one of the men who attempt to fight Patrick Van Horn’s character (named Sue) is depicted as a white hip hop poser, insinuating that white adoption of black culture was prominent which it was, but to many it was seen as odd or out of place.
However, in recent times, well, the early 2000s, Tarantino has actively tried to eradicate his older perception as the “angry white boy director” with his Revenge Trilogy such as Kill Bill featuring a female lead, Django Unchained featuring an African American lead, and Inglorious Bastards featuring Jewish men in roles of strength and strong, developed, non-sexualized female characters. Including Jackie Brown with Pam Grier and even Randy Brooks as Holdaway in Reservoir Dogs, one can see an admiration that Tarantino has for black actors within American cinema, despite the truth that most black actors up until recent times were often caricature or side-pieces. It was not that Tarantino was racist per se, but rather he was recycling tropes of American cinema which were regressive (a nice word), yet, his defenses to his earlier works did display a lack in his understanding of why people reacted which is arguably a sign of…privilege. But, to get that out of the way, in this piece in no way am I considering Tarantino to be racist at all and he is not the central focus. He simply had growing to do, which we all do.
I didn’t see Pulp Fiction which was released in 1994 until way later in high school around 2003, and only because a girl I sat next to in chemistry class, stated she saw it on TV and it was crazy. Curious, I saw it, and it was crazy. This was before I would later fall into a fascination with postmodernism be it Don DeLillo, the works of Cronenberg, etc. After seeing Pulp Fiction, I saw the infamous scene of the rape in the pawn shop by Zed on Marsellus Wallace. But, now in 2020, seeing George Floyd call for his mother, while this smaller white male sits on his neck, instantly recalled Tool’s song Prison Sex. “Shit, blood and cum on my hands”, “Do unto others what has been done to me. Do unto others what has been done to you”, “I’ve got my hands bound. My head down, my eyes closed”, “You look so precious”, “Released in this sodomy”, “You’re breathing so I guess you’re still alive”. A white male cop taking pleasure in exerting his power over a black male while the black male calls for his mother. Effectively, the cops took the notion of calling a black man “boy” to the next level and all for the public to see.
Scene from Prison Sex by Tool
Even in George’s death, the sadness that people felt when they saw the scene but also heard those words, effectively stripped George of his honor, his masculinity, and forever left the image of him as a helpless victim with no means of fighting back legally, which makes something already tragic into something even more sinister. For example, when it comes Nazis, the terrifying thing is not simply how they came to be and all the atrocities they did, but rather how in a sense…they got away with it. Even in death, their power lingered as people tried to cope with their humanity. White supremacy in all its forms sees the world though a clinical, materialist, Darwinist struggle to survive, and it realizes that time is the greatest alibi, so the more damage or assault it can do, the more legacy it can leave. They do not want to just kill; they want to haunt. That is where their power comes from. The ability to make “sexy” their cruelty by turning it into legend which therefore time and time again will be analyzed in literature, film, TV, etc. This concept was explored by Don DeLillo in his 1986 National Book Award winner, White Noise, in which the protagonist, Jack Gladney, is a professor of Hitler Studies at a small liberal arts school in a pop culture department, which was done by DeLillo to explore how we assign objects (people, events, etc.), different meanings over time. DeLillo was right. Think about it. All one must do is turn on History Channel or History Channel 2 and find a documentary on Hitler such as Hitler’s Mega Weapons, Nazis and the Occult, or Hitler’s Sex Life. Essentially, we have turned a monster into an immortal pop culture celebrity, thus, it should not surprise you that decade after decade, a few people take his atrocities not as atrocities but rather as achievements. As a black man, I have heard at parties, “Hitler was a bad guy but…he had some good ideas”.
There are many similarities between the Pawn Shop scene in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2020. First off, George Floyd and Ving Rhames, obviously are two large muscular black males, thus they can create a sense of fear in others, which is unfair, but unfortunately how the iconography of the black male has been presented within American, Western, and even Asian societies. Secondly, both men suffered assaults with one obviously in reality and the other on film, yet, both men’s assailants were white males with Derek Michael Chauvin as a real life police officer whereas Zed in Pulp Fiction played by Peter Greene is a security guard. They instantly have positions of power, with Chauvin having real power and protection based on the law, whereas Zed has power in an almost pathetic way, yet, his “mall cop status” is still symbolic of the quest to dominate. Zed represents the angry white male, typically blue collar or low-income who fear what they perceive as competition. If Zed were a real person, he would vote for Donald Trump.
Both men, one real and one fictional, both represent power, with Derek Chauvin representing power through the notion of law and order, whereas Zed’s sense of power comes from sex and domination. But is there a difference? A white male cop dominating what he might perceive as his sexual threat. Cops are people. They watch CNN, Tucker Carlson on Fox News, were conditioned to vote Republican or Democrat, surf sub-Reddits, leave comments we might regret on social media, show up to work drunk, watch pornography (gauging penis sizes since masculinity has been reduced to nothing more than this in our postmodernist world or getting angry if they stumble on the “interracial” section), scroll through Instagram, etc.
It is my personal belief that the failures of our society are largely because we simply do not call out the reasons for the actions underlying the atrocities. Simple: fear, sex, power, needing attention, etc. That would be too easy to simply call it like it is. What am I about to say next is in no way meant to shame female sexuality, agency, and/or power. Rather, I am simply pointing to how sex and fascism are correlated and how it hides in our midst. For example, if you are familiar with Instagram it is not hard to find the hundreds of thousands if not millions (as it seems) models which post daily. Hyper-sexual, out of reach, depictions stimulating sexual desires for the droves of bored males equally as lost regarding purpose in our postmodern landscape which has now been defined by gender dynamics, intersectionality, the pressures of globalism, wealth disparity in a society fueled by conspicuous consumption, etc. However, within this category there is what I call the Freulein industry, i.e., sexually provocative women who are conservative and simply seem to be there to promote sexual stimulation for the support of supremacy. The reality is that the USA is of Germanic origins with German’s accounting for many of the white population, but Anglo-Saxon culture (English) is a branch of Germanic culture, thus, it seems safe to say that our white culture has many roots within the Germanic frame of thought, its aesthetics, etc. Something that would be interesting to explore another time. Regardless, these models use a mix of conservatism, country music, militarism, guns, Pro-Trump rhetoric, doses of cultural appropriation (sexually charged hip hop music), but all of this, to them at least, is justified by simply leaving a Biblical quote underneath their OnlyFans link. This sort of sexual stimulation is meant to embolden the “white knight mentality”, i.e., to breed for and defend the Western “white” race, and women simply are there to serve men by offering a type of reward for good and noble service. It is also an attempt at winning the race for being the most desired, because the most desired in theory becomes the most protected. This mythology making linked to sexuality is nothing new, and arguably has been deployed by groups such as the Nazis, who in turn were appropriating dark age and medieval notions of masculinity and femininity as they revolted against the modern age (while ironically using modernist practices to assault people). Yet, it is 2020, which just goes to prove that human nature has changed but hasn’t, and despite these people operating in code through the concept of sexually stimulating content, they are in fact aware of their intended audiences and overall “agenda”.
I am no Freudian scholar but based on “pop cultural and academic osmosis”, I feel it is safe to say that Freud simply reduced our activity to sexual behavior, or, rather sex was central to his analysis. From what I know of the time in which Freud existed, the Austrian intellectual scene in which he inhabited, gave us many pre-modernist or modernist thinkers who foresaw the sexual undertones and tension soon to come within the unfolding complex landscape of early democratic experiments, the consequences of industrialization, the liberation of females, and the permeation of the Scientific Method into all facets of life. I mean, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose last name the term Masochism comes from was active during the times of Freud, Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing and Isidor Isaak Sadger (with the later compounding the terms of sadism and masochism utilized by Krafft into the term S&M). Masoch interestingly wrote Venus in Furs (1870), which interestingly inspired the song by the Velvet Underground & Nico (Fact: Nico was a racist), whom were under the tutelage of Andy Warhol, who in turn popularized “pop art”, which is a trope within postmodernism, where postmodernism – despite what a neoconservative will argue – is a consequence of capitalism as it bled into its post-capitalist phase. Masosch was alive during the time of Freud, Jung, etc., but this Austrian Renaissance also produced later thinkers such as Otto Weininger who wrote Sex and Character (1903) which speaks about the Madonna-Whore complex (adding in some self-hating Anti-Semitism and plenty of misogyny), Franz Kafka, Stefan Zweig, etc. As far the S is S&M it comes from the infamous Marquis de Sade, who was a libertine writer before the French Revolution. As a noble of the French nobility he was able to use his position of power to engage in sexual debauchery including reported kidnapping, rape, molestation, drugging, etc. Ironically, de Sade despite being imprison at the Bastille was later a member of France’s National Convention as a delegate, and some could say Sade’s writings were existentialism before existentialism and taken to its sexual extremes, and themes such as this were explored by modern horror and LGBT author, Clive Barker, in his novel, The Hellbound Heart (1986), later adapted into the film Hellraiser (1987).
Back to Pulp Fiction and the George Floyd death, both Derek’s and Zed’s power overlap with Zed simply being the hyperreal avatar of the white supremacist police state of a waning capitalist society where the underlying anima of such a state is a harsh hierarchical order built upon ideologies that promote domination and submission (patriarchy, racial segregation, worker exploitation, militarism for the benefit of economic elites, etc.). Regardless of politics or sex, the underlying notion is power and this Darwinist viewpoint is exemplified in the notion of policing in the United States which itself was built upon a racial caste system, or, what I like to call a psycho-sexual-racial caste system. I insert the “psycho-sexual” into the term because fear of the black male in a white male dominated society, often dealt with sexuality such fear of the black male “violating” white purity, fear of miscegenation or racial mixing, etc.
Basically, it is all about competition and monopolizing resources to make survival easier under this racial Darwinist viewpoint, but the underlying reason is arguably insecurity and fear, which ironically is not superior at all.
Pulp Fiction is a key example of postmodern fiction. It employs an irregular plot structure, distorts our notions of time, blurs high art with low art such as infusing dialogue and world-building with pop culture references (almost to the point where it could be argued all the characters are simply inhabiting a comic book, i.e., pulp is a genre of comic), distorts the viewers notion of stability by mixing seemingly safe environments with very dangerous criminal underbellies creating a feeling where the characters are mere mortals under the cruel games of “the gods” (something I notice when watching Cohen Brothers’ films, e.g., Fargo or Burn After Reading, or a similar concept such as that of H.P. Lovecraft’s notion of cosmic horror, e.g., humans are insignificant players in a larger cosmic game), and plays with psychoanalysis relating to power dynamics in a relativistic or nihilistic universe typically through depictions of sexual fetishism, e.g., in the novel, White Noise (1987), where the main character, Jack Gladney, has a fetish for his wife’s leggings which makes him fantasize about masculinity in antiquity, or, the protagonist in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) – an example work of the cracking of modernity into postmodernity – who has an obsession with prepubescent females, or, the infamous scene of coprophagia in Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (just one of the many types of fetishes depicted in the novel, e.g., sex slaves, orgies, etc.).
Postmodernism is basically what it sounds like, i.e., “after modernity”, which, in other words, is a study of when humanity reaches its apex after the successes of modernity (and its failures). Society finds itself at the end of its logical conclusion, thus becoming consumed by a reality which ceases taking on an objective truth(s) and takes on a subjective, multi-dimensional, relativistic sentiment. There is no truth. This is not an original point I am making, but the show Seinfeld in a lite sense is a nihilist show, i.e., it is a show about nothing filled with characters, in an advanced civilization, lost in some comedic tragedy getting into random adventures. Postmodernity is when a machine becomes so efficient and reaches an apex that it starts to make copies of itself and people can’t distinguish between what is real or what is not, or what is original or what is a knock-off, which is a theme explored in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle (1962), or even the film, TheMatrix by the Wachowski Sisters, which in itself was influenced by real-life French thinker Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation (1981).
Other common notions, tropes, or pastiches of postmodernism is a sense of transgression, a tendency to merge things such as in “postmodernist era science fiction” with the notion of cyborgs or mutants (Robocop by Paul Verohoeven – released 1987), punk (anarchy, dystopia), cynicism, pseudo-science posing as hard sciences since what is science? (aliens, mind reading, tabloids, conspiracy theories), cyberpunk which is a punk sentiment in a technologically advanced world dominated by corporations (Neuromancer by William Gibson – published 1984), informational overload, things that are nuclear (we’re so advanced we created weapons that can destroy us ten times over), and the deification of symbols largely from capitalist systems (Mickey Mouse is arguably as revered as Jesus on the Cross as far as recognizability), etc. Symbols and semiotics are an important part of the postmodernist condition and could be argued as the key signifier of a society entering or being within a postmodern epoch. For example, the concept of memes, can only be understood in theory if one has a reference of what is being shown, thus a meme requires a deep level of understanding and juxtaposition against other objects, but there’s so many worldviews that the symbol can take on multiple meanings, or, if someone were to unearth a meme somehow in the far future they wouldn’t be able to properly understand it without reference to something else. A meme is not simply a picture, but really an agglomeration of multiple reference points, often only understood or with significance at a given moment in time.
Since postmodernism rejects objective truth claims thus making it relativistic and/or nihilistic in nature, postmodernism arguably falls under existential philosophy of the Continental School (Descartes, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, etc.). Existential philosophy itself doubts an objective view of reality, such as Sartre’s statement that existence precedes essence, and this existential umbrella of thought might deal with simplistic notions of doubt or angst, whereas extreme versions bleed into solipsism. People inhabiting postmodern societies are effectively bots reduced to Darwinist power dynamics inhabiting a reality of simulations, so because we’re so far removed from our natures, despite our advancements, we end up transgressing simply to reattach to nature, hence the propensity of “hardcore” content within our current landscape albeit pornography, blood sport, empirical managerial sciences which are simply fancy ways of saying the strongest survives, etc. Further, since there is no soul, humans instead are reliant alone upon their cognition, i.e., their egos, but since reality has no truth, the general sense of the zeitgeist ceases being solid but rather takes on something neurotic, jittery, or schizophrenic. In a postmodernist world, we are nothing more than base material without free will languishing under illusions, who can be evolved or forged into new objects, and are reduced to simply fulfilling our base desires of keeping our material in existence, but lacking any real explanation of why we exists since any truth is beyond our cognitive capabilities.
My whole breakdown of postmodernism, at least to the degree I can understand it (a true postmodernist would reject any claim of definition), is important to the Pawn Shop scene in Pulp Fiction. A Pawn Shop is a heap of collected artifacts (nostalgia) but also currently valuable things (technology, equipment, etc.) so it contains an anachronistic element, i.e., it has objects from different decades and eras, and the value of such goods are relative to whomever wishes to buy them, or even the seller of said objects who can create value in an ad hoc fashion by simply gouging the price to create the perception of a higher intrinsic value. Objects are disregarded, dreams are sold away, and value is created on whim. Pawn Shops are also predatory in nature in that people give up their items for loans, but many people are already suffering from economic hardship. So, when one is entering into a Pawn Shop, they are really entering into a capitalist space with postmodern potential. It is like how in the Man in the High Castle (1962) by Philip K. Dick, the character Robert Childan has an antique shop full of American regalia but some of his items are forgeries, but to the buyer they can’t differentiate.
The Pawn Shop is the orphanage or burial ground of capitalism. Capitalism creates the simulation by glossing its existence over with empirical data, but underneath the surface is nothing more than Precambrian desire to survive or dominate. It reduces humanity into material chasing material to make more material, and since material is separate from the concepts of the spiritual, capitalism, similarly to Marxism both reduce humanity to concepts such as power, dynamics, intersections, etc. We are mere material within the flux of time and space without any real understanding of why we are here, but capitalism romantically dolls up Darwinism to promote the individual, whereas Marxism romantically dolls up Darwinism to promote the collective.
The Pawn Shop in Pulp Fiction is a microcosm of the USA which produces capitalist junk, but the owner and Zed represent the white supremacist underbelly of this ideology, hence, it is not a surprise that Zed picks Marsellus to be assaulted. Zed himself craves power but the power he was able to obtain as a security guard is basically a knock-off of real power, so not having power, he’s wired to dominate to compensate, and his identity being central, which is his race, gender, position, and etc., attempts to dominate any antithesis to his identity whenever it presents itself. To me the fact that Zed picked Marsellus first to be raped means that race of course plays a larger role in his insecurity relating to power, but since one gets physical gratification from sex, Zed also represents a desire for what it is he is not. It is no different than a tribal chieftain wanting the head of a worthy enemy or how a cannibal wants to consume a person to obtain their symbolic power or essence. Interestingly, Bruce Willis’ character was not actually sparred from assault, but rather he simply got away, but despite Zed’s meaningless game of “einy meeny miny moe”, Bruce was spared most likely because of his privilege, but only temporarily. Butch (Bruce Willis) easily could’ve left the Pawn Shop after killing the Gimp, by reducing Marsellus’ fate to the strongest survives, but instead finds honor in himself and a common humanity with Marsellus to save him. Butch thus was not a bystander but an active participant in fighting against the injustices of Zed and Maynard (white supremacy in a capitalist wasteland obsessed with power, domination, and race). Butch did his part by challenging this “system” which gave Marsellus enough time to avenge himself.
So, let us relate this to our world with police and the general population. Marcellus and Butch are both under threat by Zed and Maynard, similarly to how both the white and black populations are subject to police abuse, yet, the disproportionate level of abuse that Marsellus experienced over Butch, to me is similar to the disproportionate levels of violence against black Americans when dealing with police. Zed representing police and Maynard represents the white supremacy that enables Zed (the Confederate Flag in the shop), and the place of the assaults – the Pawn Shop – is symbolic of a capitalist wasteland which seems to be the fate of the USA as disparity and tensions rise. Maynard’s sexual gratification by watching Zed assault Marsellus is symbolic of how people watch police murders on TV. Many people support the police under the concept of law and order, or in Zed terms… BDSM. For example, during the Ferguson Riots, I vividly remember the police flaunting their power, wearing eerie paramilitary uniforms – faces covered – as they posed for closeups and rolled MRAPs (tanks) down streets. It was like the postmodern equivalent of putting down a “slave revolt” as millions of white eyes watched in fear from suburbia as their “boys in blue” kept them, their property, their money, etc., safe. What is the difference between the many cop deaths shown on TV and a snuff film? Further, white supremacy often displays hyper-masculinity, often most of the time as being homophobic, yet, Zed and Maynard’s closeted homosexuality is expunged through their violence. Their very acts seems to mean that besides being hypocrites (and rapists), that supremacy poses as one thing, denying certain elements, but deeply desires what is rejects on the surface.
Butch and Marsellus are in the same dilemma but Marsellus suffers because of his identity, and instead Butch chooses not to save himself, in which the opportunity to save himself was afforded by his privilege. This is like white protestors or activists assisting African Americans, Hispanics, etc., in standing up against the embedded underlying domination of the USA. For our world, white supremacy sustains itself because of pure selfishness. The “silent majority”, code word for the white majority, sees racial dynamics simply as such. They see it as teams acquiring points of injustice to justify acquiring power or equity. However, they claim this is what minorities are obsessed with, but minorities did not make this game. While the right-wing lambast the left or progressives or liberal democrats for playing what they perceive to be “identity politics” or the “victim Olympics”, ironically, they are the main purveyors of these concepts – they just have a different strategy for playing it.
Scene from Django UnchainedMaynard watching the assault
If Butch left the Pawn Shop leaving Marsellus he would have been no different than Zed. Butch’s actions would have been no different than the “silent majority’s” safe cozy nostalgia-ridden middle class existence, which might not associate with the KKK or Neo Nazis but their indifference to these groups enables these groups by reducing the severity of their actions, or even if acknowledging them, they are quick to normalize things thereafter without any systemic fixes. The reason this happens is because this “white proletariat and bourgeoisie class” subconsciously do fear losing the economic benefits and the iconography of supremacy.
In conclusion, the pawn shop scene of Pulp Fiction is analogous to the USA (nostalgia, capitalism, etc.) in which Maynard represents white supremacy (adorning his shop with a Confederate Flag) holding onto the dying dream of capitalism, and both he and Zed, represent white supremacy’s attempt to hold onto that power by exerting the most humiliating of acts onto a person of color (e.g., Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd as he called for his mother, is similar to Zed’s rape of Marsellus), yet, Butch (Bruce Willis) whom was spared temporarily because of his privilege as a white man, used his privilege to save Marsellus in the end instead of walking away, i.e., refusing to be indifferent like the “silent majority” or gimps of our actual reality. The pawn shop in Pulp Fiction is where capitalism, white supremacy, fascism, Darwinism, and power all collide to create a horror analogous to that which underlies our surface in the real world. By killing the Gimp, which is symbolic of those who comply with the authority of supremacy, and later killing Maynard who sees himself as a level above the Gimp but subservient to Zed, Butch is similar to non-black BLM protestors in our reality who disregarded their privilege to save the humanity of others despite their external differences. The fact that Maynard and Zed are hyper-real representations of white supremacy holding onto their fading sense of power, thus overcompensating with their depravity, makes me reflect on the quote by DeLillo (1987) which states:
“Nostalgia is a product of dissatisfaction and rage. It´s a settling of grievances between the present and the past. The more powerful the nostalgia, the closer you come to violence.”
It all sound so absurd. As if it’s a plot from The Adventures of Johnny Quest, or even more absurd, an episode of The Venture Brothers, James Bond plot, or The Simpson’s episode Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in “The Curse of the Flying Hellfish”. Yet this isn’t fantasy.
This isn’t a joke. We’re talking about Neo Nazi Mercenary groups under the watchful eye of the Central Intelligence Agency who were war-criminals responsible not only for the 6 million deaths of Jewish people, and millions of others, but we’re also talking about how Wall Street, German, British and American Industrialists, and Nazis helped to create an underground network spanning drug trafficking, assasinations, and the movements which would inspire domestic terrorists.
It’s more like Schindler’s List meets Lethal Weapon, American Gangster, Blow, Buffalo Soldiers, The Pirates of Silicon Valley, Mad Men, and with cut scenes to Apollo 13. But, a lot of the people in this paper were very bad people with ties to the Einsatzgruppen (death squads), SS (elite paramilitary and officers), SD (Sicherheitsdienst – SS foreign intelligence service), Grossdeutschland Guard Battalion (diplomat and high ranking officer protection), Strumbannarzt (Storm Trooper Doctor), the Jagerbande (Hunting Group), the Gestaop, and Abwehr. The disheartening part is America’s role in coddling post-war Nazis and their ideology merged with American conservatism all on the auspicies of beating Communism, despite the fact that Russia was our ally in WW2, and the Russians demanded justify for Nazi war crimes. It is a sour part on the history of the US intelligence community which has been used by foreign counter-intelligence in launching anti-American propagapnda. This isn’t just another Catcher in the Rye analysis, not is it another reminder of the fact that we know Nazis contributed to Operation Paperclip. I’m not getting lost in “mind control” conspiracy theories. This paper is about correlations between post-war Nazis, the Military Complex, and the growth of right-wing groups in politics but also…clandestine operations. This isn’t an indictment to anyone such as the people of SoCal (Southern California), Orange County, etc. These are beautiful places with unique culture, a great economy, families, etc. This paper is more about history and to serve as an exercise in perspective building. This paper will go into history, business, stocks, archived news articles, etc. I’m all about peace, unity, prosperity, God Bless America, peace to America’s allies, yet, we really have to look at our past and understand it. I stand against racism in any form.
NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR
PURPOSE
FORWARD
WHY WOULD THE CIA USE NAZIS?
WHERE DOES J.D. SALINGER’S CATCHER IN THE RYE COME INTO PLAY?
QUOTES FROM ALSEN’S (2018) BOOK, J.D. SALINGER AND THE NAZIS (UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS. ISBN 978-0-299-31570)
BARBIE, SKORZENY, GEHLEN, CIA, SILICON VALLEY TECH, DRUG MARKETS, AND…THE PELOSI AND NEWMAN FAMILIES?
UNDERSTANDING TCI (TRANS-INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER INVESTMENT CORPORATION’S) TIES TO NAZIS, THE CIA, AND MANY STILL EXISTING COMPANIES IN INDUSTRIAL, CHEMICALS, AND THE AEROSPACE DEFENSE INDUSTRY.
ANALYSIS OF BUSINESS, CORPORATION AND BANKING TIES. WHERE ARE THE COMPANIES NOW?
OPERATION PAPERCLIP IN COLLEGE
OPERATION PAPERCLIP NAZIS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA:
RIGHT-WING SO-CAL FROM SURF NAZIS, IRAN CONTRA, J.B.S CONSPIRACY BELIEVERS, DEEP STATE TECHNOLOGY.
HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO OTHER RESEARCH I’VE WRITTEN?
Standard picture of Werner Von Braun from his collaboration with Disney for Man in Space
1. (NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR) This paper is dedicated to the memory of those, such as the Jews, European civilians, etc., who perished in WW2, but also to those currently living who are scarred my movements which trace roots to parties of hatred. Despite, my beliefs on the current unfolding agenda which involves the Zionists pertaining to Russia, the exportation of US technology, Noahide Laws, Israel’s relations to the Russian-Chinese Belt and Road Project, and a general sense of supremacy advocated by religious Zionist radicals, I however still feel for the Jewish people, and plan on donating to the Simon Wiesenthal Center. We live in complicated times now. Antisemitism is supposedly on the rise, which is believable, yet, then again it seems like the antisemitism narrative has seen as an opportunity by Zionists and in many cases, Zionists have been complicit with growing hatred. As a Black American, particularly when doing research or listening to others, I’m between a rock in a hard place, because from my view there seems to be a White Supremacy conspiracy as well as a Zionist one, but both camps point the finger at each other, despite their being a type of symbiotic relationship between the two. Also, this paper isn’t to indict anyone on any racial or ethnic grounds such as people of German heritage. I lived in Germany as a child in Mannheim (even visiting the infamous Eagle’s Nest to understand history and Black Forest), I’m a fan of its history (particularly medieval history) and feel a special attachment to the nation. Simply because there’s issues to be worked out doesn’t mean we need to advocate for hate.
My father and I at the the Eagle’s Nest in Germany. My father served over 23 years in the United States Army and we lived in Germany in Mannheim but were able to travel throughout county mostly to Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg. We actually stayed at the hotel that used to house Hitler’s officers at Berchtesgaden, and all the American kids, of all races, played video games and I remember watching Married With Children.
I’m a veteran of the United States Air Force who received a degree in Business Administration, with a concentration of Economics; an additional Associates of Applied Science in Contracts Management, and a Master of Science degree in Operations Management. I currently work in the defense industry and I’m interested in the “kookier history” of the Military Complex. In a different life I would’ve been a hippie drafted into the Vietnam War, still patriotic, but also suspicious of the government and supremacy.
Me as a child and then grown up at Basic Training Graduation in 2011.
This paper, relating to technology, links to my other pieces such as (1) Is Joe Rogan a Neoplatonist? (2) Williams S. Burroughs could’ve been a Steven Jobs and (3) Existentialism in the Complex. An image in the Dark Spiral. Technology, R&D, Epstein, and our Smart Future and (4), importantly, The Curious Case of Katie Hill: The Mysterious Tattoo. A case for Katie. However, my series on the ACSZ Network also ties to the history of Iran-Contra, Zionism, CIA, drug markets, and more current intrigues such as that around the MAGA Administration, Russia, etc. I’m excavating the overlap between defense, technology participation between the DOD and corporations, and deep state clandestine missions involving Right-Wing drug trafficking and its possible effects on creating Neo Nazi movements, etc.
2. (PURPOSE) (1) To explain that JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye wasn’t about ‘mind control’ but rather Salinger knowing the truth that his Army CIC Unit with the OSS was letting Nazis off the hook, and (2) arguing that the CIA likely helped to create the Neo Nazi movement in the United States by analyzing Operation Paperclip scientists in areas associated with the Aerospace Industry such as LA and Orange County, CA (Huntington Beach called the Neo Nazi capital of the USA), Brevard County in Florida (home to NASA), etc. Neo Nazis seems to be an offshoot of the USA’s stance against Communism in the Cold War and Neo Nazis grew out of the John Birch Society (Revilo P. Oliver went to help the National Youth Alliance of William Luther Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries – which inspired The Oklahoma City Bombings) and World Anti-Communist League rhetoric. Yet, the CIA was using Nazi drug-rings and private contractors to help set up “black markets” to create slush funds to fund revolutions and clandestine operations. The close association of Department of Defense technology research and Cold War drug financing seems to have played a key role in generating the Neo Nazi Movement and its links to biker gangs. Neo Nazis with CIA backing and/or FBI handling where able to move guns and drugs particularly up the 1-5 and 1-95 corridors next to Latin America, and places like the I-5 corridor, Texas, and Florida’s Space Coast are high-technology centers.
3. (FORWARD) It’s my opinion that Catcher in the Rye wasn’t a “mind control book” which is how it’s argued in pop-culture or counterculture, but rather it was book that was an analogy for JD Salinger’s time in the US Army Counter Intelligence Command and the possibility that Salinger’s CIC work led him to stumble upon the most blatant treason…the fact that the United States government, CIA (Office of Strategic Services & Strategic Services Unit), US Joint Intelligence Agency, and the US Army CIC were letting Nazi war-criminals off the hook. Some of these Nazis were Reinhard Gehlen (Hitler’s Intelligence head), Klaus Barbie (the Butcher of Lyon), Otto Skorzeny (Hitler’s Special Forces Commando), and Otto Von Bolschwing (one of the architects of the Final Solution).
Gehlen would go to establish the West German Intelligence Agency, the BND, but the Gehlen Organization has ties to Klaus Barbie who helped set up early cocaine operations in Bolivia, and Otto Von Bolshcwing would go California to work in technology in Sacramento (close to the Reagan Administration via his Secretary Helene Von Damm) and in an early Silicon Valley. Otto was close to William Newsom, the father of Gavin Newsom (the Governor of California), and the Newsom Family where in-laws to the Pelosi family of Nancy Pelosi – all within the Silicon Valley area. Otto Skorzeny also did contract bodyguard work for Juan Peron in Argentina in a time where the United States government was starting to utilize Latin American nations to counter Communism, and later in this text, the corporation, ITT, via Otto Von Bolschwing’s friend, Emanuel Fthenakis (associated with Fairchild Corporation and ITT), would play a role helping to destabilize the democratically elected, Salvador Allende’s regine, during the time when Augusto Pinochet rose to power (Pinochet and other dictators helped hide Nazis). Nazis, intelligence assets, drug cartels, banks, hitman for hire, the CIA, etc.
4. WHY WOULD THE CIA USE NAZIS?
It’s my opinion that it was all about leverage. Using Nazi War Criminals kept the Nazis on the hook because they knew they could be outed and handed over to the Israeli Nazi Hunters. This gave the CIA and US leverage over intel networks and black markets with a loyal web of international movers, pushers, arms dealers, hitmen, spies, military trainers for guerilla forces, etc. Ironically, MOSSAD of Israel had ties to this Nazi guns-for-hire, such as hiring Otto Skorzeny for the assassination of German’s helping Egypt obtain nuclear weapons, and Skorzeny was given clemency by the USA and Israel and lived a long-life supporting Neo Nazi groups in Spain. His funeral in Spain (the fascist regime of Franco let him live there) was adorned with Nazi salutes.
Also, there were Nazi sympathizers with the United States elite class (Industrialists spanning Koch Industries, Coca Cola, IBM, ITT, Ford, etc.) and intel agencies which were often staffed at first by Ivy League graduates, bankers associated with Chase Bank, etc. It’s my belief and that of others such as Anthony Sutton, that World War 2 was largely a scripted at first to start war (such as Jewish Nazi spy, Stephanie Von Hohenloe’s association with the British Cliveden Sect and Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler’s invasions) and was heavily funded by Western Banks in the USA, UK, and Continental Europe (with leverage over Germany’s WWI debts), to help get Hitler into power (as was the plausible case with the Bolsheviks and Stalin overthrowing King George’s competitor and cousin, Czar Nicholas, considering Stalin was associated with the oil refineries of the Nobel Family, Royal Dutch Shell, and the French Rothschilds in Baku, Azerbaijan), but then later betray Hitler (despite being sentimental to Nazism), so the USA and Soviets could slip Europe in half, and resettle the Jew to Israel (acquired by the British after beating King George’s other cousin, Kaiser’s Wilhelm’s Ottoman allies in WWI thus obtaining Palestine). The Cold War which was in part was a scheme to control energy and oil prices via cabals such as the Seven Sisters (with Israel, Iran, and Saudi Arabia being strategic), manage the globe via two spheres of influence, and also compete to foster technological innovation which would later roll out in the wake of the Soviet Union with global world-wide-web connected corporate technocracy, trade blocs, etc. Therefore, I use the terms ACZS Network for Anglo-American Continental Zionist Saudi Network.
6. WHERE DOES JD SALINGER’S CATCHER IN THE RYE COME INTO PLAY?
The reason Catcher in the Rye was so powerful is simply because no one had seen a book like it before and this created a sociological phenomenon akin to the alleged copycat behavior of suicides due to Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werner. The book was Salinger’s way of calling out the “phonies” in the top brass of the US Army with their OSS supervisors. Holden Caulfield’s relation with his psychiatrist also seems to be a confession of child-abuse since his psychiatrist makes a move on Holden. The character of Holden Caulfield is Salinger and the “phonies” are adults, with the adults serving as an analogy for the Intelligence community.
Eberhard Alsen’s (2018) book, JD Salinger and the Nazis, details without much speculation (utilizing the National Archives in DC, the BND Archives, etc.), to explain how Salinger had a nervous breakdown while in Germany while serving with the CIC as his unit served in the Battle of the Bulge in counter-intelligence campaigns against the Germans, such as those of Otto Skorzeny who pioneered the idea of having Germans pretend to be American soldiers. Salinger’s existential crisis, which I assume was an identity crisis – considering his Jewish heritage (he felt more “American” or “Western” but had to reconcile with his Jewish identity) – was caused by the fact that the Americans were helping Nazis get off the hook. This extreme nihilism of not seeing a point to reality or order is typified by Holden Caulfield’s character, but the fact that Holden was a teenager and Salinger’s nihilism was expressed through teenage angst is why Catcher in the Rye like Rebel Without a Cause had such an impact. The reason Catcher in the Rye was associated with violence such as shootings/assassinations in my opinion is more incidental considering the people who were going to do these were already likely prone to violence, but they found a “friend” in the character of Holden Caulfield who expressed a type of “antisocial” existentialism who understood the real supposed truth…there is no truth. The conspiracy of Catcher in the Rye being a mind-control book seems like a “guilt by association” generated by the natural consequence of the real, actual, but unrelated MK Ultra Programs of the 1960s up until their revelation in the Church Committee.
7. COORELATIONS OF QUOTES FROM EBERHARD ALSEN’S (2018) BOOK, J.D. SALINGER AND THE NAZIS (UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS. ISBN 978-0-299-31570)& THE BEAST AWAKENS BY MARTIN A. LEE (1997)(LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY. ISBN 0-316-51959-6
“What work Salinger’s CIC detachment actually did can be learned from the After-Action Reports of the Twelfth Regiment and Periodic Reports (i.e., daily reports) of Salinger’s CIC Detachment. These records are kept at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. The National Archives are also a treasure trove of various CIC publications, amount them the thirty-volume History of the Counterintelligence Corps.” (p. 55).
“The History of mission of the Counterintelligence Corps in World War II explains what the duties of CIC detachments were. According to that 1946 Army publication, it was the task of the CIC “to combat espionage, sabotage, and subversion; to prevent leakage of information to the enemy; and to delivery security lecturers to the troops.” More specifically, the document states, “Counterintelligence Corps detachments were to perform tactical Counterintelligence Corps functions, such as search of enemy command posts and questioning of civilians, informers, and agents in occupied territory. The Army detachment was to conduct rear echelon missions including safeguarding military information, security against the activities of enemy agents and rear echelon counterintelligence functions in general” (p.56-57)
“CIC agents did not war rank insignia because they always had to deal with noncoms and officers who outranked them” (p. 57)
“The most important fact I discovered about Salinger’s work as a CIC agent is that no one in his CIC detachment ever participated in combat?” (p. 59)
“But according to the daily reports of his CIC detachment, Salinger and the other field agents of his detachment occasionally also arrested German spies, members of the SS, and Nazi Party officials” (p. 60)
“The Battle of Luxembourg cost Salinger’s Twelfth Infantry Regiment almost as many casualties as the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest. The Regiment was especially hit hard during the action around the town of Echternach. The town is located on the Sauer River, twenty-one miles northeast of Luxembourg City. During the Echternach battle – which raged from December 16 to 24, 1944- the Twelfth Regiment lost a whole company that was taken prisoner by the Germans. But the regiment held the town and prevented the Wehrmacht from advancing toward the city of Luxembourg. The Battle of Echternach was part of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundsted’s preparation for the Ardennes Offensive, also known as the Battle of Bulge”. (p. 76)
“The CIC motor patrols were not unimportant busy work, because during the Battle of the Bulge German Counterintelligence, the Abwehr, made a concerted effort to disrupt American defenses. This is explained in a book published by the Army Intelligence and Security Command titled In the Shadow of the Sphinx: A History of Army Counterintelligence: “Dressed in US uniforms and equipped with captured weapons and jeeps, enemy soldiers of the Einheit Stielau were to perform intelligence collection, commit acts of sabotage, and sow confusion. To give the plan a chance of success, German leaders selected English-speaking soldiers for participation and provided them an intense orientation to American culture to include watching of newsreels and movies, learning current slang words, and practicing American mannerisms, such as the handling of cigarettes.” (p. 77)
“The CIC caught on quickly after they arrested three German soldiers posing as Americans: “Failing to give correct password, three members of a [Stielau] team were apprehended wearing US uniforms and possessing a jeep and sabotage devices.” Thereafter, the CIC intensified it motor patrols and set up additional roadblocks. This seems to have worked because the commander of the Einheit Steilau, Lieutenant Colonel Otto Skorzeny, admitted during the Dachau war crimes trial is that only two of his teams survived and only one of them brought back worthwhile information. Twenty-three of his men were caught and executed by the CIC (one of them was the best friend of my uncle Dietrich Kukla”. However, Salinger’s CIC detachment did not intercept any Germans in American uniforms and was not involved in any executions.” (p. 77).
“The astonishing thing about Salinger’s visit to the Kaufering concentration camp is that it did not result n a change of his non-judgemental attitude toward the Nazis or in a change of his negative attitude toward the war and the US Army. What he saw and smelled at the Kaufering Lager IV triggered a nervous breakdown. Apparently, he was unable to push not a dark corner of his mind the sights and smells of so much death. Perhaps it also traumatized him that most of the dead prisoners were Jewish because he all along tried to ignore the Holocaust” (p. 88)
To add the complicated nature of Salinger, Alsen (2018) describes how Salinger checked into “a General Hospital in Nuremberg”, and he links it to a hospital with the only psychiatric clinic after 1945, and investigates if the hospital Salinger checked himself into was operated by Nazi in hiding, Dr. Ulrich Fleck, known for his advocacy of Hitler’s euthanasia program.
The book by Alsen (2018) despite Salinger as a naïve dreamer with a slight ego who dreamed of being a military officer and but also writer, but his officer dream was shot down and he fell into the CIC doing remedial work, though his unit did catch some Nazi spies. Yet, Salinger while in Europe was spared of war mostly, yet he did suffer traumatic war training accidents such as when his unit was prepping for Normandy, but the first wave of trainees was killed by British friendly fire due to accidentally using live ammunition. Salinger’s nervous breakdown was likely caused by a mix of feeling like a failure, stress, his identity crisis of being a Jew when he felt more European and American, the rampant antisemitism of the Americans (such as General Patton), and the possibility of him being privy to what other CIC units were involved in such as working with top-brass at OSS direction to vet and eventually release many Nazis that Salinger was charged with hunting down.
“After the end of the war, the nature of Salinger’s work for the CIC changed. He no longer had to deal with Nazi spies and saboteurs. His job was now to round up former members of the SS, Nazi officials, and other members of the Nazi Party who had gone into hiding in order to escape their responsibility for crimes they had committed on behalf of the Party. After Salinger was discharged from the US Army, he signed up for a sixth month stint as a special investigator for the CIC, and he continued doing essentially the same job he had been doing while still in the army – namely tracking down and arresting Nazis.” (p. 110)
“By November 1945, when Salinger began his work as a special investigator, the chief responsibility of the CIC had become the denazification program.”, and, “These organizations ranged all the way from the Physicians’ League and the Teacher’s Union down to the Confederation of German Mothers and the Hitler Youth”. (p. 111)
Yet, this next quote is where things start to get a little sloppy and is where the US Army, likely with the OSS under Frank Wisner (the OSS’s Chief of Policy who wanted to use some Nazis to spy cells against the Soviets), started to let Nazis off the hook.
“Originally OMGUS (the Office of the Military Government, United States) tried to accomplish the task of denazification through special courts staffed by the divisional civilian affairs detachments of the US Army. But these courts could no keep up with the staggering number of former Nazis” (p. 112)
“OMGUS resolved the dilemma by turning the denazification program over the Germans” (p. 112)
“There are two letters in which Salinger pokes fun at his work as a Nazi hunter” (p. 113)
“What must have also irked Salinger about his job as a Nazi hunter was the double standard that the higher-ups in the army used when dealing with former Nazis. That double standard became evident when the US Army’s Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency set in motion Operation Paperclip. To implement that project, the CIC was given orders to round up as many German scientists and engineers as possible – no matter if they were Nazis or not – so they could be moved to the United States before the Russians got hold of them. The most famous of those was Werner von Braun. The United states military government of Germany had submitted a CIC report on Braun to the agency responsible for Operation Paperclip. That report stated that “Braun was considered an ardent Nazi and a security threat to the United States. His records indicated that he had been a major in the SS – having joined the SS at the personal behest of the SS chief Heinrich Himmler in 1940 – and a Nazi Party member since 1937” (p. 117-118)
“”While Gehlen busily enlisted unrepentant Nazis, some U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps agents were still trying to bust as many Hitlerites as they could get their hands on. Under the auspicies of Operation Nursery, the CIC inflitrated an array of subversive groups that clung to the National Socialist cree. The schizoid quality of the U.S. occupation policy became evident to Nikolaus J. Ryschkowsky, a Nazi Hunger from CIC Unit 7970, when he tried to apprehend a circle of black marketeers in Munich, only to learn they had immunity. “I wasn’t able to arrest them because they were working for Herr Gehlen,” Ryschkowsky recounted. “It was hard to feel good about this.”” (Lee, p. 35-36, para 4).
“President Truman had approved Project Paperclip under the condition that no German scientist or engineer be brought to the United States who had “been a member of the Nazi Party and more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Nazism or militarism”” (p. 118)
“The United States Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency falsified the political and employment records of Braun and his team of engineers so they could continue their world on ballistic missiles of r the United States” (p. 118)
It’s also very important to note, that Henry Kissinger (Jewish), was a Counter Intelligence Officer and became the powerful Secretary of State, meaning he had knowledge of Nazis within the USA and also likely the CIA’s use of Nazi contractors throughout the world including Latin America due to his support of Latin America’s Operation Condor. This sheds light on the pragmatic relationship between Jews and Nazis in a sort of symbiotic relationship at the upper echelons of power.
8. BARBIE, SKORZENY, GEHLEN, CIA, SILICON VALLEY TECH, DRUG MARKETS, AND…THE PELOSI AND NEWMAN FAMILES?
Der Spiegel (2011) stated, “In 1965, Barbie was recruited by the West German foreign intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), under the codename “Adler” (Eagle) and the registration number V-43118. His initial monthly salary of 500 Deutsche Mark was transferred in May 1966 to an account of the Chartered Bank of London in San Francisco. During his time with the BND, Barbie made at least 35 reports to the BND headquarters in Pullach”. Further, Klaus Barbie according to Wolfe (2001) stated that in 1947, Barbie was recruited as an agent for the 66th Detachment of the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) and the CIC asserted that Barbie knew too much about the network of German spies the CIC had planted in various European communist organizations, and were suspicious of communist influence within the French government, but their protection of Barbie may have been as much to avoid the embarrassment of having recruited him in the first place (end quote).
So, Barbie was recruited the BND which is the Gehlen Organization of Reinhard Gehlen and Barbie (helping set up what would grow into the Cocaine Industry of 1980s) had a bank account in Chartered Bank of London in San Francisco, which was were Otto Von Bolschwing had his technology offices (friends to the Newsom Family who were related to the Pelosi Family), and, we know Otto Von Bolschwing had offices in Sacramento where Ronald Reagan was the Governor and Reagan’s secretary, and future Ambassador to Austria, was Helene von Damme (an investor in Bolschwing’s TCI corporation) supposedly did translation work for Otto.
This isn’t a conspiracy, but Reagan and Nixon, of the Neoconservative Movement, were Bohemian Grove members which has offices in San Francisco. Like Truman and Eisenhower before him, Nixon supported Right-Wing regimes in Latin America and Reagan was implicated in Iran Contra, which, despite it’s confusing operations, can be summarized as being a drug dealing operation to create slush funds via international banks such as the BCCI Bank and others in London, Luxembourg (the House of Luxembourg has ties to the Knights of Malta, insinuating a link to the Vatican but also American Knight of Malta, J. Peter Grace close to the Reagan administration) and Switzerland to buy arms via the Saudi’s (Adnan Khashoggi, the uncle to murdered Jamal Khashoggi during the Trump Era and Dodi Fayed, Princess Diana’s boyfriend, i.e., links to Prince Andrew, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell) which could be sold to the Iranians for American hostages. The drugs made in Latin America were sold to the US public (drug users fighting Communism be it the CIA’s acquisition of Indochina Golden Triangle Heroin, Turkish and Afghan Heroin, and Latin American’s cocaine which is cooked into crack making a higher profit). Gangs were used an elaborate web spanning cartels, black gangs such as the Nation of Islam with its ties gangs like Black P Stone Nation and the Gangster Disciples, Right Wing Neo Nazi groups, etc., but ironically to appear like the government was clamping down on drug use revved up the War on Drugs and the mass incarceration of millions (most minorities), thus linking this to the eventual privatization of prisons and Bill Clinton’s later criminal justice crackdowns. Gang membership within the US military and corrupt officers with ties to intelligence also helped move product during this era and still, likely, to this day.
Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas, such as the previous Governor, Winthrop Rockefeller, and Bill could be seen as a type of “Deep State Viceroy” overseeing the clandestine drug trafficking operations via rural airports, and the Rockefeller’s played a big role in setting up NAFTA but also elevating the Walton Family’s Wal Mart to prominence which interlinked China to the USA for global supply chains.
Iran Contra with characters like Oliver North had links to OSS officer and US Army General, John K. Singluab’s Western Goal’s Foundation which was associated with the World Anti-Communist League, which in turn had Nazis in its ranks, such as Otto Skorzeny. It’s all connected. Singlaub was relieved from duty after making comments about President Jimmy Carter over how the Iran Embassy situation was unfolding and went into private intelligence with links to Reagan’s “Kitchen Cabinet”. The Iran-Contra Case and Era is where current political characters such as William Barr, John Kerry, and Robert Mueller got some action as far as the legal investigation. Lastly, the judge who overseeing the BCCI Bank link was Judge Robert Morgenthau of the Morgenthau Family which is related to the Lehman Family (Lehman Brothers) and Bronfman Family, i.e., Clara and Sara Bronfman of the NXVIUM Sex Cult. It is my opinion that 2016-2020 was almost an “Iran Contra Graduation Class Reunion”, since BCCI Bank had ties to Lybia via Qaddafi who in turn had links to the Nation of Islam and black gangs such as the Gangster Disciples. But, Sara Bronfman, related to the Judge who oversaw the BCCI Bank case, married a man, Basit Igtet, who was negotiating the truce between rebels in Libya…a nation which was overthrown in part via the CIA’s operations as the Benghazi Annex during the storm of the US back Arab Spring Revolutions. The Bronfman sister’s also had ties to Tibet. It’s as if they were grooming a harem of damaged women to be sex objects for the Deep State. So, we can see black gangs, Neo Nazi gangs as oblivious foot soldiers for the Deep State who sell drugs to help make black money slush funds, but there’s also a vast sex ring network for favors, bribes, etc.
A scene from Lethal Weapon (1987) which actually paints a good picture of post-Vietnam deep-state drug running in the Cold War to create slush funds to fund revolutions, but at the expense of making addicts in the United States. The California location of the film helps serve as a visual for my paper relating to Southern California
UNDERSTANDING TCI (TRANS-INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER INVESTMENT CORPORATION’S) TIES TO NAZIS, THE CIA, AND MANY STILL EXISTING COMPANIES IN INDUSTRIALS, CHEMICALS, AND THE AEROSPACE DEFENSE INDUSTRY.
TCI Corporation is one of the earliest companies to be involved in the military transfer of technology to private business via relationships such as joint ventures which helped to lay the foundation for Silicon Valley. TCI corporation essentially was involved with GPS (Geo-spatial Positioning Systems) and the internet, but associated companies viaOtto Von Bolschwing’s business ties, spanned specialties such as aerial cameras, lunar and outer-orbit cameras such as those made by Fairchild Corporation, ITT’s vast conglomerate ties, Pfizer pharmaceuticals, Cabot Corporations carbon materials, but also these corporate ties link what was going on in Silicon Valley to NASA, Jack Parson’s Jet Propulsion Lab, Howard Hughes’ vast array of companies, and even Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. This is the “grid”. The satellites, cameras, internet, research centers, silicon chip manufacturers, etc. It’s also important to note that Venrock Capital (Venture Rockefeller) via Laurence Rockefeller (who was obsessed wtih UFOs and donated to Princeton’s Paranormal Engineering Anamolies Research Lab) donated the seed money to Apple and Intel. It sounds fantastical but it’s true.
Silicon Valley’s close relationship with Stanford University is important because the Stanford Research Institute was involved in all sorts of real-world kooky programs such as Operation Stargate, The Invisible College of the Palo Alto School of Communications, but also the school’s strong psychology department had alumni such as Michael Murphy and Dick Price who were associated with counter-culture retreats such as the Esalen Institute which associated with futurists, psychologist, military personnel, science fiction authors, psychedelic drug advocates, etc. This Silicon Valley area was the stomping grounds of science-fiction author, Philip K. Dick, who might have been privy or hyper-aware to the overlap between the State, Corporations, Universities, and counterculture movements such as Synanon and the Esalen Institute.
According to OpenCorporates.com (n.d.) the Trans-International Computer Investment Corporation, was founded in 15 May 1969 (Company Number: 713126) and was registered in Delaware. Delaware is important because it was a Delaware Corporation which is a type of tax-loophole where businesses register in Delaware but can do business anywhere in the United States but not pay taxes. Instead, they pay a franchise tax to the state of Delaware. Many Delaware Corporations are nothing more than PO Mailboxes, but the businesses set up their incorporation, trademarks, etc., with these boxes, but the real business making money elsewhere is considered subservient to the “mailbox”. It’s very confusing but it works.
The next quotes are from Pete Carey (1981) of the San Jose Mercury News, (1) “In December 1953, von Bolschwing applied to immigrate to the United States, and on February 2, 1954, he arrived in this country. After obtaining several menial jobs, he became a citizen in 1959 and his career took a sudden upward turn”, (2) “He became an assistant to the director of international marketing at Warner Lambert Pharmaceuticals Co., developing close ties to the company’s president, the late Elmer Bobst, and its honorary board chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Alfred Driscoll, according to a close associate.”, (3) “By the mid 1960’s, von Bolschwing had become an executive with Cabot Manufacturing. As chief financial officer for its German subsidiary, he developed a $50 million carbon black for Cabot in Germany, (4) “The deal was financed through Thomas Franzioli, senior vice president for the First National Bank of Boston, Franzioli recalls that von Bolschwing then branched out on his own”, (5) In March 1969 von Bolschwing got a job in high technology. He was retained as an international business consultant by TCI, the Sacramento firm. The company planned to commercialize on technology development in the Silicon Valley and used a few years earlier to monitor troop movements in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war according to the firm’s founder, Oswlad S. Williams. TCI’s subsidiaries in Palo Alto and Mountain View, Advanced Information Systems and International Imaging Systems, were developing a high-volume computer network for business and a navigation system for oil tankers using satellite communications, Williams said.”, (6) “His contacts include officials of the German branch of Chase Manhattan Bank and an owner of the Berliner Handels Gesellschaft in Frankfurt, one of Europe’s largest banks, the memo said.”, (7) “TCI’s high powered directors – one was J. Paul Getty Jr. son of the oil billionaire – thought enough of von Bolschwing to make him the firm’s president in 1970.”, (8) ““He seems like a very polite and cultured person,” said Walter F. Leverton, former vice president for satellite systems of the Aero-space Corp. Leverton sat on the board of TCI.”, (9) “Justice Newsom, who traveled as a TCI attorney with von Bolschwing in Europe in 1969–70, and said von Bolschwing alluded to wartime work for the Americans.”, (10) “Emanuel Fthenakis (Fairchild Corp. senior vice president.), who had resigned an International Telephone and Telegraph vice-presidency to sign with TCI, also traveled with von Bolschwing in Europe, meeting his banking and industry contacts.”, (11) “Records and interviews with TCI officials indicate that Helene von Damm, President Regan’s Austrian born, deputy assistant, translated some German contracts for TCI and invested $1,000 in it while she was than Gov. Regan’s secretary in Sacramento.”, (12) “In 1970 TCI ran into trouble with the Department of Corporations, Several major stockholders were syndicating its stock, selling it to small investors in Sacramento. The Department of Corporations suspended trading in TCI stock, and in 1972 the Sacramento District Attorney’s office prosecuted several stockholders, calling it “possibly the biggest stock fraud in California history.””
9. ANALYSIS OF BUSINESS, CORPORATION AND BANKING TIES. WHERE ARE THE COMPANIES NOW?
Warner–Lambert, associated with Otto Von Bolschwing (now Pfizer, stock symbol PFE) was an American pharmaceutical company. Formerly two separate entities, the first company was started in 1856, when William R. Warner founded a drug store in Philadelphia. Warner went on to invent a tablet coating process gaining him a place in the Smithsonian Institution. The second half of the name came from Jordan Wheat Lambert, founder of the Lambert Pharmacal Company of St. Louis, famous for Listerine. The two companies merged in 1955, to form Warner–Lambert. In February 2000, Pfizer bought Warner Lambert along with all of its subsidiary companies.
Cabot Manufacturing associated with Otto Von Bolschwing (now Cabot Corporation. NYSE symbol CBT) is a chemical company specializing in carbon black, ink jet colorants, aqueous inkjet colorants (which it created), and aerogels, etc., and it was founded by Godfrey Lowell Cabot, whose grand-dad was Samuel Cabot Jr. (1784–1863) who was an American businessman in the early-nineteenth-century China Trade, a member of the wealthy and prominent Cabot family. It’s important to note that China Trade was the Opium Trade, and families associated with this were the Forbes Family (Presidential candidate and Secretary of State, John Forbes Kerry is of this family), but also the Russell Family where William Huntingdon Russell founded Skull & Bones at Yale, and the Russell Trust is managed by Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. Website. Cabot specialized in Carbon black which is mainly used as a reinforcing filler in tires and other rubber products. In plastics, paints, and inks, carbon black is used as a color pigment. It is a material produced by the incomplete combustion of heavy petroleum (Oil..who owned oil? Rockefellers, Getty’s, 7 Sisters, etc., i.e., oil is needed for most products and these creates the industrial cabals) products such as FCC tar, coal tar, or ethylene cracking tar.
A scene from the film, The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman, where a family friends tells him to invest in a new things called….Plastic. Plastics are made from the residuals of petroleum. The oil cartels run the world but largest industrial conglomerates are created from petroleum left-over. According to Dustin Hoffman, the character in the book version of the film was blonde haired, blue eyed, and a typical late 50s early 60s California kid and I threw this in there for a random fact to paint a picture of Right Wing SoCal
The Aerospace Corporation(nonprofit), i.e., The Ramo-Woodbridge Corporation (TRW) associated with Otto Von Bolschwing is an American California nonprofit corporation that operates a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) headquartered in El Segundo, California. This company was involved in the ICBM Atlas Project, NASA Project Mercury on getting astronauts into space before Russia but also the Gemini Program coming before the famous Apollo Mission, the Titan Program with Martin Marietta (later Lockheed Martin, stock symbol LM, with the material based department, Martin Marietta Materials, symbol MLM, being spun off as its own company). The corporation provides technical guidance and advice on all aspects of space missions to military, civil, and commercial customers. As the FFRDC for national-security space, Aerospace works closely with organizations such as the United States Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to provide “objective technical analyses and assessments for space programs that serve the national interest”. Although SMC and NRO are the primary customers, Aerospace also performs work for civil agencies as well as international organizations and governments in the national interest. The Aerospace Corporation traces roots to the Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation (went by TRW) and this company was founded in 1901 and it lasted for more than a century until being acquired by Northrop Grumman in 2002. TRW worked with Hughes Aircraft linking this to Howard Hughes. Overton (2013), stated, “Bill Gates, who got his first big break—while only 15—debugging grid control software for TRW.”(Microsoft, stock symbol) It spawned a variety of corporations, including Pacific Semiconductors, The Aerospace Corporation, Bunker-Ramo and Experian (London Stock Exchange, EXPN). Its automotive businesses were sold off by Northrop Grumman as TRW Automotive, which is now part of ZF Friedrichshafen. TRW veterans were instrumental in the founding of corporations like SpaceX. In summary this company, not to be confused with the still existing Aerospace Corporation, still lives as TRW Automotive owned by ZF Friedrichshafen (owned by the Zepplin Foundation), Northrop Grumman (NYSE symbol NOC), and Goodrich Corporation (sold to United Technologies Corporation, and the tire division sold to Michelin, stock symbols, UTX and SCA on Euronext Paris)
Berliner Handels Gesellschaft associated with Otto Von Bolschwing was a German industrial bank associated with the Nazis and the Reichmark which after WW2 merged Frankfurt Bank to create the still existing private bank of BHF-Bank, known as Oddo BHF Aktiengesellschaft in Frankfurt.
Chase Manhattan Bankis now owned by JP Morgan as JP Morgan Chase (NSYE symbol JPM)
First National Bank of Boston was acquired by Bank of America
Getty Oil (private company) associated with Otto Von Bolschwingwith roots back to John Paul Getty who became rich by opening Saudi and Kuwaiti oil to the world. It still around today but it was sold in a historical court battle between Texaco and Pennzoil with Pennzoil coming out on top and Pennzoil is a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE symbol RDS.A and RDS.B). Now it operates mainly as gas stations in the Northeast of the USA. A subsidiary, Getty Petroleum Marketing was sold to Lukoil in 2000, the second largest gas company but this was sold to investment house, Cambridge Securities LLC., but the name of Getty Oil was at one point more recently owned an Australian firm, Westerhoudt AG, run by Olaf Westerhoudt.
Fairchild Corporationassociated with Otto Von Bolschwing was as an aerospace company which was Fairchild-Hiller Corporation which became Fairchild Industries before Fairchild Corporation. The company invented the aerial camera such as the Fairchild F-1 Aerial Camera. Also, the Fairchild Lunar Mapping Camera (also known as the Metric Camera) for NASA.[12] The camera was carried on Apollo 15, 16, and 17 and took photos from lunar orbit throughout the missions. Over 7,000 individual frames were captured by the Lunar Mapping Cameras, which resulted in the coverage of approximately 20% of the lunar surface. Fairchild Aircraft built the A-10 Thunderbolt and today the company exists as Israeli-based, Elbit Systems (NASDAQ Symbol: ESLT). Sherman Fairchild founded the company and his Fairchild Camera & Instrument Corporation; Semiconductor Division company played a defining role in the development of Silicon Valley. He held over 30 patents for products ranging from the silicon semiconductor to the 8-mm home sound motion-picture camera. Fairchild is also responsible for inventing the first synchronized camera shutter and flash as well as developing new technologies for aerial cameras that were later used on the Apollo Missions. Fairchild Camera & Instrument Corporation; Semiconductor Division is now ON Semiconductor (NASDAQ: ON)
International Telephone and Telegraph (NYSE symbol ITT)associated with Otto Von Bolschwing is a conglomerate spanning multiple industries from telecommunication, night vision googles, etc. It’s brand Exelis was bought by Harris Corporation which is now LGHarris (NYSE stock symbol is LHX) which is the 6th largest defense contractor specializing in provider that produces C6ISR systems and products, wireless equipment, tactical radios, avionics and electronic systems, night vision equipment, and both terrestrial and spaceborne antennas for use in the government, defense, and commercial sectors. They specialize in surveillance solutions, microwave weaponry, and electronic warfare. ITT’s spin off Xylem Inc. (NYSE symbol is XYL) is a large American water technology provider, enabling customers worldwide to transport, treat, test and efficiently use water in public utility, residential, commercial, agricultural and industrial settings. Essentially it creates the technology and tools used a sewage treatment plants such as submersible pumps which includes sewage treatment plants, seawater handling, firefighting (since it is flame retardant cable), water well and deep well drilling, offshore drilling rigs, artificial lifts, mine dewatering, and irrigation systems.
ITT was associated with Otto VonBolschwing via Emanuel Fthenakis (Fairchild Corp. senior vice president.), who had resigned an International Telephone and Telegraph vice-presidency to sign with TCI. ITT had ties to Nazis and Right-Wing regimes. As for the Nazis, On August 3, 1933, Hitler received in one of the first meetings with US businessmen Sosthenes Behn, then the CEO of ITT, and his German representative, Henry Mann. According to Sampson (1973), “ITT, through its subsidiary C. Lorenz AG, owned 25% of Focke-Wulf, the German aircraft manufacturer, builder of some of the most successful Luftwaffe fighter aircraft. In the 1960s, ITT Corporation won $27 million in compensation for damage inflicted on its share of the Focke-Wulf plant by Allied bombing during World War II.” 1970, ITT owned 70% of CTC (the Chilean Telephone Company, now Movistar Chile). Movistar is owned by Telefonica S.A. (NYSE symbol TEF). Democracy Now (2013) in a conversation stated the following, “ITT owned the telephone companies in Chile, owned the Sheraton Hotel. They were a very aggressive company in Latin America. And they decided they should have their own foreign policy, and they started pushing for meetings with the—with the CIA. It helped that they had on their board of directors a former CIA director, John McCone. And he was able to gain access to the CIA rather easily. There was more than 40 meetings between CIA officials and ITT officials.”.
Demerjian (2007) stated, “In 2007, ITT was awarded a $207 million initial contract by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to lead a team to develop and deploy the Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B) system. ADS-B is a key component of the FAA’s NextGen air traffic control modernization program intended to increase safety and efficiency to meet the growing needs of air transportation. ITT is responsible for overall system integration and engineering and under contract options will operate and maintain the system after deployment through September 2025. The ITT team includes its partners AT&T (stock symbol, T), Thales North America, WSI, SAIC, PricewaterhouseCoopers (private – one the Big 4 accounting firms), Aerospace Engineering, Sunhillo, Comsearch, MCS of Tampa, Pragmatics, Washington Consulting Group, Aviation Communications and Surveillance Systems (ACSS), Sandia Aerospace and NCR Corporation (stock symbol NCR).”
Powerful companies that exists today that absorbed Howard Hughes’ companies/divisions are Raytheon (Hughes Aircraft which helped build the Galileo telescope, air-to-air missiles, NASA Lunar equipment, H-4 Hercules, stinger missiles), AT&T and DirectTV (Hughes Electronics), Delta (Hughes Airwest), L3 Harris (Hughes Microwave Tube Division), Boeing (Hughes Helicopter), ACDelco (parts of Hughes Electronics after GM bought them), Baker Hughes (Hughes Tool Company), Palomar Technologies (Howard Aircraft Technology Products Division creating Automated Wire and Die Bonder equipment), Nextstar Media Group (acquired Hughes’ radio station, KLAS-TV, a CBS affiliate station), Venetian and Sands Casinos (the former Hughes properties were in part acquired by Sheldon Adelson, i.e., Trump’s megadonor), and Howard Hughes Corporation (a real-estate firm that builds master planned communities).
10. OPERATION PAPERCLIP IN COLLEGE:
Adolf Busemann, University of Colorado, Ceramic Tiles on the NASA shuttle
Ernest R.G. Eckert, University of Minnesota in Mechanical Engineering and coined the Eckert Number in Fluid Dynamics
Konrad Johannes Karl Buttner, University of Washington, Meteorology and Physiology
Friedwardt Winterberg, University of Nevada-Reno, Theoretical Physics
Kurt Lehovec, University Southern California, pioneer of integrated circuits
11. OPERATION PAPERCLIP NAZIS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA:
Krafft Arnold Ehricke, La Jolla, California, worked for Convair and Bell Helicopter, with these companies living on as Textron, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin.
Herbert Alois Wagner, Newport Beach, California
Richard Vogt, worked at Boeing, Santa Barbara, California
RIGHT-WING SO-CAL FROM SURF NAZIS, IRAN CONTRA, JBS CONSPIRARCY BELIEVERS AND TO DEEP STATE TECHNOLOGY.
Allan Grant, The LIFE Pictures Collection, via Getty Images (C)
GovernmentContractsWon.com (updated through 2018), offers the following figures on defense spending in the Southern California area. Orange County CA, 3,768 (number of contractors), 164,095 (number of awards), $72,409,688,504 (dollar amount of contracts). San Diego County CA, 5,901 (number of contractors), 180,974 (number of awards), $138,642,305,337. Los Angeles County CA, 6,269 (number of contractors), 350,741 (number of awards), $178,447,223,360 (dollar amount of contracts). The entire state of California through 2018 was awarded $636,759,084,856. Per this previous source, California has 58 counties and a total of 31,471 contractors, meaning that’s an average of 542 per county. It looks like California is a Military Complex State, and this isn’t accounting for Hollywood, Silicon Valley, etc. The State of California has a population of 39,500,000 people as an estimate in 2018, meaning, if we divide the total defense contracts per person, that means for every 1 person in California there’s a $16,120.48 contract. Granted, however, that this is money federal tax money meaning it’s pooled from the entire nation via the Congressional appropriated money. Regardless, the $16,120.48 contract cost per citizen could subsidize an apartment for a year to help with California’s housing crisis, offer first time homebuyer credits, eradicate youth hunger, or help pay for community college.
It’s easy to think that these Operation Paperclip scientists simply settled in California because they were told to in order to assist the American aerospace industry, but, with their Nazi affiliations they would’ve found Southern California actually conducive to their racial ideology. This is considering the fact that segregation was still a part of life and there had already been a pre-existing Pro-White heritage in California history spanning American annexation of Hispanic and Indigenous Lands, the entry of Confederates after the Civil War, white migration due to the Dust Bowl from states with Jim Crow Laws, Anti-Chinese and Black policies, but also the fact that the German Bund association in the era of Hitler has chapters in Los Angeles building off already existing German meeting halls. This history would merge with Cold War ideology such as that of the John Birch Movement, often with financial backing of wealthy white Republican elites, particularly as the Civil Rights Era arose to protest systemic white supremacy (laws, policing, redlining, heckling, violence, harsher penalties, hiring discrimination, segregation, etc.). The Trump Administration is to Alex Jones conspiracy theories as The Nixon and Reagan era are to the John Birch Society. The current Alt Right is the new wave of Skinheads of old.
California State University – Northridge (CSUN) has a digital library dedicated to studying the German American Bunds which was an organization which attempted to Nazify the German American community, which is actually one of the predominate ethnic groups in the USA despite the belief of Irish or English being predominate.
The Bund divided the country into three geographic districts, or “Gaus,” with Los Angeles as the headquarters of the Western Gau. From the Deutsches Haus near downtown Los Angeles, Gauleiter Hermann Schwinn supervised the district’s activities. (CSUN, 2019).
Schwinn and other Bundists visited German steamships docked in Los Angeles Harbor to exchange reports on their activities for packages or orders and propaganda materials. Though vehemently denied by all, unofficial ties existed between Bund officials and German consulate staff. (CSUN, 2019).
In Los Angeles, Bundists probably numbered no more than 500 active meetings, rallies and parties at Deutsches Haus and Hindenburg Park in La Crescenta. The Bund’s highly publicized activities attracted the curious as well as the sympathetic. (CSUN, 2019).
Relating to Hinderberg Part, in recent times, the Tricentennial Foundation, a German American heritage foundation (I’m not accusing them of racism since it’s not a crime to be a German descent), did pay to erect a sign a week after the Charlottesville Riots at the park to commemorate the area’s German heritage. Yet, Dreier (2019) states that that area had originally been named for Paul von Hindenburg, Germany’s president from 1925 to 1934, and the man who appointed Adolf Hitler as German chancellor in 1933. Further, Dreier (2019) stated that property was initially about by the German American League in 1925, and Life Magazine in 1937 coined the group as the Nazi organization in the USA but was previously known as the Friends of New Germany. Yet, the Tricentennial Foundation seems to be a very “wish-washy” about the Nazi connotations, because Dreier (2019) stated that Hans Eberhard, the group’s 85-year old chairman who came to the United States from Germany in 1949 as a 17 year old, stated, “I think it is unfortunate that the original sign was removed for no good reason,”.
It’s pretty much urban legend canon that Walt Disney harbored racial and antisemitic views, and to add to my other research, we know that Disney Research and Disney’s studios are at the crux of technology, defense, and entertainment. An interesting fact is that Glendale, CA, the home of Disney Imagineering since the 1960s, was according to Dreir (2017), the West Coast headquarters of the American Nazi Party. In 1962, when the KKK experienced a revival in response to the burgeoning civil rights movement, the Klan paraded down Glendale’s main thoroughfare, Brand Boulevard, with a horse brigade, marching band and burning cross.
Disneyland, regardless of what it inspires in the minds of children or the nostalgia it engenders in the old, being in Anaheim represents the boundary between LA and Right Wing Southern California but the entire area is deeply rooted in the Military Industrial Complex – a complex which links to what’s being talked about in this paper, such as Operation Paperclip. The Paleoconservative politics, mixed with aerospace and defense industry, rich Republicans buffered by the Republican working white class, a legacy of John Birch Republicanism, beach segregation, eminent domain, deep state clandestine operations, etc., on top of California’s Pro-White policies seems the reasons Neo Nazis, Right Wing Libertarians, or other associated groups hover in his area.
Similarly, to Anaheim serving as a buffer zone between the realities of life in Los Angeles versus the Real (Fascist) Housewives of Orange (Military Industrial Complex) County and post-John Birch Republicanism, we must also mention that John Wayne Airport is in Orange County. The actor was famous as one of Hollywood’s staunchest conservatives: a onetime member of the reactionary anti-Communist John Birch Society, a producer for and actor in a film about the ignominious House Un-American Activities Committee and a vocal supporter of the Vietnam War after much of the public had turned against it (Rosenburg, 2019). Further, Rosenburg (2019) analyzing John Wayne’s 1971 Playboy interview pointed out Wayne’s beliefs with his following quote, ““I believe in white supremacy,” he said, and spoke harshly about African-Americans, saying, “We can’t all of a sudden get down on our knees and turn everything over to the leadership of the blacks.””
President Reagan and Nancy Reagan on the campaign trail with Gov. George Deukmejian (right) and Sen. Pete Wilson at Mile Square Regional Park in Fountain Valley in 1984. White House photo via Wikimedia Commons
Orange County, CA, despite today being more multi-cultural and racial, was at a time, similarly to Los Angeles (the entire state of California, really) has a had a history of racism and Nazi apologetics. Throughout much of the 20th century, Orange County attracted white middle-class and upper-middle-class residents who were either fleeing an increasingly diverse and liberal Los Angeles or were relocating from the Midwest and the South and bringing conservative regional values with them (Wisckol, 2016). “Proposition 187, co-authored in 1994 by Huntington Beach anti-illegal immigration activist Barbara Coe, called for an end to all public benefits for those living here illegally, including education. It passed with a whopping 59 percent of the state’s vote. It subsequently was ruled unconstitutional and has become an albatross for California Republicans,” (Wiskcol, 2016). Deborah Pauly, an Orange County GOP Central Committee member, was analyzed by Wisckol (2016) whom stated, “Pauly is part of a lineage of ultraconservatives extending at least back to the 1961 anti-communism camp, which attracted a reported 7,000 schoolchildren. The weeklong Anaheim event got funding from Knott’s Berry Farm founder Walter Knott, who also supported the thriving county chapter of the John Birch Society.” Wilson (2019), stated, “By the 1960s, Orange county had become a popular recruiting ground for the JBS, whose founder, Robert Welch, infamously identified former president Dwight Eisenhower as an agent of Communist Russia, and was eventually excluded from mainstream conservative circles. Some of the most prominent far-right organizers in the 80s and 90s, including Tom Metzger, the founder of the White Aryan Resistance, had been JBS members or had contact with the group, Beirich noted.””
Relating to Iran-Contra and other themes throughout this paper, we must bring light to the Tuttle Family (and, no, not Tuttle’s associated with True Detective Season One). What will come next will mimic the current Trump Administration. Relating to Robert H. Tuttle, Trump’s Ambassador the Kingdom, Johnston (1988) states, “Mr. Tuttle is the son of Holmes Tuttle, the Los Angeles retail automobile magnate, who is one of the original members of Mr. Reagan’s California ”Kitchen Cabinet.” The younger Mr. Tuttle worked in the family auto business for 20 years before joining the Reagan Administration in 1982 as special assistant to the President. He took over as White House personnel director in February 1985, replacing John S. Herrington, who left to become Secretary of Energy.” Holmes Tuttle was one of a few powerful California businessmen who told Ronald Regan to run for President. Relating to the Kitchen Cabinet during the Iran-Contra Years, it was a confusing web of characters, but Richard L. Berke (1987),
“Two former White House officials who went to work for Carl R. Channell, the fund-raiser who pleaded guilty today to illegal use of money he raised for the Nicaraguan rebels, used their connections to win support from high Administration officials, including President Reagan.” The article talks about how a fundraiser led by conservative operatives misappropriate funds and the organized created by Mr. Channell had Oliver North as his co-sponsor, but two operatives for Channell tried to get in with Joseph Coors, vice chairman of Adolph Coors Company and a member of the Reagan Kitchen Cabinet. Confidential documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with officials show that David C. Fischer, a former special assistant to the President, was intimately involved with a range of Administration officials on behalf of Mr. Channell (Berke, 1987).
Daniel Duane (2018) explored the cross-over of surfer culture with Nazism, which to me is important considering that parts of the punk movement would later merge with this. What appeared to be a type of punk attempt at post-WW2 irony of the youth of the white working class aligned with a deep routed racism with Southern California’s culture. Duane (2018) stated, “According to the book “All for a Few Perfect Waves: The Audacious Life and Legend of Rebel Surfer Miki Dora,” by David Rensin, Dora often used racial slurs and advised acquaintances to put all their money in gold before Mexicans and blacks poured over the borders and ruined the economy. While serving prison time, Dora (who had been convicted of both check and credit-card fraud) wrote to a friend that he loved American Nazis. Dora eventually relocated to apartheid-era South Africa.”.
Then there was Miki Dora, king of Malibu and still the greatest culture hero in all of California surfing — our very own Elvis, the last word in coastal cool. Handsome and criminally dishonest, Dora built his reputation in the 1950s and ’60s on genuine athletic brilliance, expensive cars and clothes, and vicious elitism. When the movie “Gidget” came out, also in 1959, telling the story of a cute girl taking up surfing at Malibu, hordes of beginners descended on Dora’s favorite break. Dora, who was known for spray-painting swastikas on his surfboards, pioneered the concept of localism — the idea that waves belong to surfers who grow up near them and that interlopers deserve violence (Duane, 2018).
Further, Duane (2018) stated, “as for Dora and the Malibu crew, according to Matt Warshaw, they eventually figured out that Kathy Kohner, the real-life inspiration for the character Gidget, was Jewish. Her father, Frederick Kohner, fled Nazi Germany for California and, when his daughter took up surfing, wrote the novel that became the film. A member of the Malibu crew responded to the news about the Kohners’ ethnicity by spray-painting a swastika on their driveway.”
“During the Civil War, California was so lousy with Confederate sympathizers that the Union Army garrisoned troops in Los Angeles to guard against insurrection. In the early 20th century, when immigration from eastern and southern Europe stoked Anglo-American anxiety over racial purity, California became a leader in the so-called eugenics movement aimed at preserving white identity through forced sterilization of social undesirables. Thirty-two states enacted compulsory sterilization laws, but California enforced its own with such enthusiasm that it ultimately sterilized approximately 20,000 people, one- third of the national total.” (Duane, 2018).
“In the mid-1980s, Huntington Beach gained a reputation for drawing both local and out-of-town white supremacists. The pier and downtown area became gathering spots for young people with shaved heads, swastika tattoos and steel-toed boots. In 1994, 19-year-old Jonathan Russell Kennedy fatally shot 44-year-old African American Vernon Windell Flournoyoutside a McDonald’s restaurant. A week after his arrest, Kennedy was charged with the attempted murder of two Latino men in a shooting that occurred just weeks prior. The gunman pleaded guilty to both the murder and attempted murder charges with hate crime enhancements. A 17-year-old was also charged with Flournoy’s murder and tried as an adult. In 1996, Erik R. Anderson, 22, of Huntington Beach stabbed a 20-year-old Native American, George Mondragon, 27 times at the beach. Anderson was convicted of attempted murder and given a life sentence.” (Duane, 2018).
Vega and Sclafani (2018) stated, “In the mid-1980s, Huntington Beach gained a reputation for drawing both local and out-of-town white supremacists. The pier and downtown area became gathering spots for young people with shaved heads, swastika tattoos and steel-toed boots. In 1994, 19-year-old Jonathan Russell Kennedy fatally shot 44-year-old African American Vernon Windell Flournoy outside a McDonald’s restaurant. A week after his arrest, Kennedy was charged with the attempted murder of two Latino men in a shooting that occurred just weeks prior. The gunman pleaded guilty to both the murder and attempted murder charges with hate crime enhancements. A 17-year-old was also charged with Flournoy’s murder and tried as an adult. In 1996, Erik R. Anderson, 22, of Huntington Beach stabbed a 20-year-old Native American, George Mondragon, 27 times at the beach. Anderson was convicted of attempted murder and given a life sentence.
Relating to Neo-Nazis, the Aryan Brotherhood is believed to have been founded in 1964 at San Quentin State Prison near San Francisco. Prisons were starting to desegregate so racial division became the norm, so white convicts formed the Aryan Brotherhood to hedge gangs like the Black Guerilla Family, which had ties to the Symbionese Liberation Army (associated with San Francisco area Vacaville Penetenary and Soledad State Prison) and Weather Underground. The Weather Underground relating to this paper bombed an ITT Corporation office (Montgomery, 1973) for their ties to the CIA’s overthrow of Salvador Allende, and we should know that the Symbionese Liberation Army was involved in the Patty Hurst “Stockholm Syndrome” kidnapping case. Black Guerilla Family are allies to the Gangster Disciples who in turn are “rivals” to the Almighty Black P Stone Nation, who in turn had ties to the Nation of Islam. Nation of Islam had ties to the Iran-Contra scandal of the Reagan Administration via their ties to Gaddafi and his funds via the BCCI Bank, registered in Luxembourg. So, before we get too lost, just think about that. I simply started off with San Francisco. Sanders (1971) alleged that the Manson Family attempted to join forces with the Aryan Brotherhood.
In my opinion, Neo Nazism has a vortex of roots merging together: (1) “counter-culture” offshoot of Far Right politics in Cold War America, typically finding followers in white working class youths (hence, the appropriation of surfing and punk culture — surprisingly finding an intersection in gothic culture which at times mixes Disney related themes) due to the propaganda of the John Birch Society in areas such as Orange County and the JBS’ branch groups such as those associated with Revilo P. Oliver(associated with Pomona College, one of the Claremont Colleges, and University of Illinois. He did his thesis on Sanskrit and studied Max Muller, a key progenitor of Aryanism) and William Luther Pierce (B.A. Physics from Rice University; worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory; attended CalTech before transferring to and graduating from University of Colorado – Boulder; assistant professor at Oregon State University; senior researcher with the Advanced Materials Research and Development Lab for Pratt & Whitney, a subsidiary of United Technology Corporation – his sons would become a computer scientist and aerospace engineer), but this counterculture built off a pre-existing antisemitism in the USA such as that of German Heritage associations, and the fact that German is the predominate European ancestry. Many WW2 GIs had racist and antisemitic views and many would go to settle California and work in the growing defense industry, and their children via youth culture would adopt these beliefs (2) organized crime gangs arising during the counter-culture movement in 1960s California embedding it with drug culture particularly as the government assisted in black market drug dealing for clandestine operations, esoteric thought, biker gangs, etc. (3) The Civil Rights Era as white-flight and localism took root in the white community such as that of LA County versus Orange County (4) The United States’ usage of Nazis in the Cold War from clandestine operations involving drug trafficking to research for the Military Industrial Complex in areas such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, but also Texas and Florida. The pathology for Neo Nazism was always there but it found a coded-language acceptance via Right Wing politics but seem most active in areas associated with drugs and the Aerospace Defense & Technology Industries, i.e., West Coast, Mountain West, etc.
Neo-Nazis, thus, are a criminal and/or counter-culture movement with ties to Right Wing politics and are proxies of the Right-Wing elite class whom are often associated with defense, technology, and aerospace.
A character from Robert Crumb’s Fritz The Cat. Crumb is a curious fellow
Interesting characters in this area around 1964 to 1970 were Philp K. Dick who resided in the Berkeley area and his postmodern alternative-history book, The Man in the High Castle, is set predominately in San Francisco almost as if PKD as aware about the burgeoning Nazi movement in the 60s-early70s and Nazi ties to Silicon Valley; Robert Crumb, the famous underground comix (with an x), artists set up shop in San Francisco and his comic, Fritz The Cat, interestingly – for a pop culture plug – has the infamous Blue Bunny Nazi (a heroin addicted Neo Nazi character) insinuating he probably knew of the growing Nazi movement and its links to bikers and heroin; Otto Von Bolschwing in March 1969 per the San Joes Mercury News (1981) transitioned into high technology by setting up TCI in Sacramento but had offices in the Silicon Valley. Between this period, J. Paul Getty, Jr., elected Bolschwing to President of TCI and Bolschwing went on a tour of Europe with William Newsom; Anton LeVay (born Howard Stanton Levey)) was active in the area with the Church of Satan; Fritz Perls because his residency at the Esalen Institute to offer seminars of Gestalt therapy and Esalen co-founder, Michael Murphy, used Gestalt therapy to mix with Eastern philosophy such as that of Alan Watts to create a framework of shamanism (NOTE; Indic religions as far as right-wing usage align with Aryan belief systems and many early Nazi forerunners were practitioners of yoga. It’s important to note that India in the Hindu system is a caste system and is arguable racial in nature such as the Untouchables typically being the darkest skinned. Alan Watts interests in Eastern philosophy seems to align to his friend’s, Aldous Huxley’s, Alphas thru Epsilon caste system within a Brave New World. Indo-European studies often associated with white-identity politics, ethno-nationalism, the Alt-Right, etc.); Operation Midnight Climax in San Francisco had already been conducted by drugging “johns” via prostitutes with LSD in the nineteen-fifties, but in 1964, MKSEARCH (Projects MKOFTEN/CHIICKWIT) began as a continuation of the early MKULTRA umbrella experiments to test biological agents. Lastly, the Zodiac Killings between 1968-1969 (confirmed) though others linked to him persisted.
12. HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO OTHER RESEARCH I’VE WRITTEN?
Ultimately, this paper helps to shine light on the intensity of technocracy and the Military Industrial Complex and how this technological and militaristic culture bleeds into the cultural sphere either directly such as the John Birch Society being tied to the Republican Party, or, indirectly, such as subcultures or countercultures that can arise in tech-defense areas particularly if there’s a pre-existing racist regime in power. Further, this paper speaks about Nazi War Criminals such as Otto von Bolschwing’s links to early Silicon Valley but also his business ties which spans a vast web of corporate entities still in existence today who dominate the defense and aerospace industry. Additionally, as far as psychological operations and plausible culture-creation agendas by US intelligence agencies via entertainment at the behest of the Defense Complex, links to my papers such as Is Joe Rogan a Neoplatonist or William Burroughs could’ve been a Steve Jobs. Culture is essential in prepping the people for the demands of the advancing technocracy (a partnership between government and defense). Additionally, relation to my paper, Is Joe Rogan a Neoplatonist, I reviewed Joe Rogan’s 3rd Way or syncretic ideology that merges right-wing libertarian and left-wing Marxism (corporatism in all honesty, which is a variant of fascism), which spans both militarism and counterculture, with the later tracing roots as far as back as Italian Renaissance esoteric thought and Masonic democracy (Libertas). Without even knowing it, the 3rd Way political ideology of Joe Rogan is like that of Robert Heinlein, the author of Starship Troopers – a book and film filled with fascist rhetoric or imagery, but Heinlein was associated with Laurel Canyon, credited with inspiring hippies and libertarians, was radically pro-military, and associated with Occultist such as Jack Parson’s who in turn followed Crowley’s Thelema. Occult, Nazism, Sex Magick, neopaganism, etc., are under the “counterculture” umbrella with roots back to the real SS of Himmler, and being counterculture it also hovers around ancient civilization conspiracies, root rates in Theosophy, and an affinity for hard sciences with a Darwinist approach. This smashing of counter-culture, military, the occult, drugs, alien conspiracies, etc., can be seen in odd cases such as Colonel Michael Aquino, and the film Starship Troopers, as odd as it sounds, seems to be a model for our future (minus, aliens, and much more subtle like IKEA design). Further, counter-culture itself was state-subsidized by the CIA and US Army via their relation to the MK Ultra Program indicating that Entertainment, counterculture, technology, political movements be they right-wing or left-wing, and the military are one in the same in the United States of America. An efficient system which utilizes illusions, fantasy, and even esoteric thought to create what can call “the system”.
Sources:
Alsen, Eberhard (2018) J.D. Salinger and the Nazis. University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, WI). ISBN 978-0-299-31570-2
Duane, Daniel (28 September 2018). The Long, Strange Tale of California’s Surf Nazis: When I set out to become a surfer, I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into. The New York Times. Retrieved February 10, 2020, from, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/28/opinion/sunday/surf-racism.html
Ed Sanders, The Family, 1971, 1560253967. P. 255
Elon Musk’s Space Dream Almost Killed Tesla, Ashley Vance, Bloomberg, 2015-05-14.
(Introduction) I think that my research and take into this matter is unique in comparison to that of other researchers in that I have tied in research to the film and book, Starship Troopers, and how it relates to how the world is unfolding. For example, I was one of the first (the first to my knowledge) to compare the Trump Administration’s relationship with Vladimir Putin to the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance written about by Robert Heinlein. Further, I was one of the first to compare Russia’s and China’s relations regarding the Belt and Road Project to the fiction of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon.
Yet…Is Joe Rogan a Neoplatonist or into Hermetic Occultism? He may not be aware and probably doesn’t know what these are, but little does he know (presuming he doesn’t) is that his interests where inspired by 60s counter-culture but the roots of these ideas though trace roots back to the days of alchemy, the occult, esoteric thought, etc.
In a funny way, this Neoplatonist term when associated with Joe seems quite accurate and his interests in things which are arguably esoteric.
With his syncretic libertine philosophy, I get the image of Joe in the Renaissance as a court jester or actor as a cover for a spy who associates with Christian, Jewish, and Islamic esoteric, occultic, Kabbalist, and hermetic thinkers in the courts of nobles in places like Florence, Padua, Verona, or Modena, etc. Talking over intoxicants about the Divine Rights of Man, The Decameron, magic, early ideas about science such as those of Leonardo Da Vinci, and scheming what would later become a democratic revolution of the later libertarians and Marxists.
Yet Joe as time goes on becomes more right wing which in many ways too falls under escoteric ideology. And I get an uncomfortable feeling as if his ideology subconsciously spreads a sort of SS Nazi Strongest survives mentality of strong men politics, Anti LGBTQ talking points, and capitalist Ayn Rand greed.
Essentially all the kookery is about “red pilling” watchers while having an amorphous surface to appear “progressive” but really he’s a proponent of a classical and esoteric liberal tradition where this tradition ultimately promotes flux, evolution, dialectics, and eternal struggle (similar to Neitzsche’s theory of eternal recurrence). It believes in bleeding out weakness in order to achieve a utopian state of ubermensch.
Roman goddess, Libertas, arguably the inspiration of the Lady Liberty of the USA, the pre-Uncle Sam figure of Columbia in the USA but also the French Marianne. This indicates a esoteric tie with liberty which arose out of the Renaissance thanks to the people like Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola, who studied ancient Greek texts and Neoplatonism (the foundation for magic, the occult, masonry, Kabbalah, Christian Qabbalah, etc.). Greek thought going by the Monist School, Ionians, Pythagoras, and pre-Socratic thinkers often argued for the oneness of reality and the evolution of things such as the Monad or the One talked about by the later Plotinus. Yet, dialectics comes from this belief system and associated with the concept of liberty we can see the dialectics of liberty via what we consider Marxism and Libertarians. These two movements would be based on Enlightenment thought through the Era of Hegel and were associated with early Masonry, i.e., the guilds and banks, who wanted freedom from the church and religious state. Marxists and Libertarians/Free Market advocates are related or identical cousins seeing things differently but wanting the same outcome with a utopia, yet, they have a different means to an ends. However, true power of those in actual authority merge these positions into 3rd postilions and this is what runs our world currently, i.e., corporatism is a mix of Marxism with Free Market Libertarian free-trade ideology. A statute of Marianne with the Masonic symbol in association with the Grande Orient de France, showing a correlation of democracy with Masonry with the Masonry having roots in Renaissance. According to Shayne (2019), “Bartholdi was a freemason himself, and according to an article by Belgian author and lecturer Robert Bauval, “The ‘torch’ analogy is very interesting. The original statue of Bartholdi destined first for Port Said at the mouth of the Suez Canal, was also to bear a torch intended to symbolize ‘the Orient showing the way.’ The ‘Grand Orient’ is the name of the French Masonic mother lodge, to which Bartholdi belonged. There is another similar ‘torch’ that played a strange role in the French Revolution… It still is to be seen in the skyline of Paris today.””Renaissance rendition of the Fool Tarot card. When I think of Joe Rogan, I think comedian but he’s also an advocate for esoteric ideas and Neoplatonism which rebirthed in the Italian Middle Ages and helped lay the foundation for more modern counterculture, Masonry, the occult, etc.
(Notes from the Author). Pictures to argue my point will be put throughout this post but also will be consolidated in a section below. I do not dislike Joe Rogan but there’s something else to the podcast and Joe has no control over the beliefs of his guests. However, if you were to merge the general ideas of many of this guests, it oddly paints a picture. From the right-wing to left-wing but mixed with technocracy, militarism, Deep State assets, corporate agendas, etc. If you merge Elon Musk, Jordan B. Peterson, Sam Harris, the kookier guests talking about the paranormal or ghosts, and then look to history such as the evolution of esoteric thought from the Renaissance to now and the US or Soviet government’s experiments during the MK Ultra Ultra of the CIA’s Office of Scientific
What is a Neoplatonist or Neoplatonism?
Neoplatonism is a philosophical system, originated in the 3rd century a.d. by Plotinus, founded chiefly on Platonic doctrine and Eastern mysticism, with later influences from Christianity. It holds that all existence consists of emanations from the One with whom the soul may be reunited (Dictionary.com, n.d.). The origins of Neoplatonism can be traced back to the era of Hellenistic syncretism which spawned such movements and schools of thought such as Gnosticism and the Hermetic tradition (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, n.d.). Calonne (2017) in his book, The Spiritual Imagination of the Beats, in a section about counter-culture poet Allen Ginsberg, states, “Plotinus emphasized an “unknowable” one that can only be experienced through mystical experience, and his Neoplatonic successor Porphyry (232-305 CE) and his disciple Iamblichus (ca. 245-325 CE), author of the On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, elaborated on Plotinus’ system. Iamblichus introduced the concept of theurgy (ancient Greek theos = God; ergon = work) – magical rituals intended to invoke the gods’ help to free the soul from the body – while Proclus influenced the Pseudo-Dioynsius the Aeropagite” (p.95).
Wildberg (2016) states, “the Neoplatonists shared with the majority of intellectuals of the ancient world, including most pre-Socratic thinkers as well as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and their followers, is that mindful consciousness (nous, often translated as thought, intelligence, or intellect) is in an important sense ontologically prior to the physical realm typically taken for ultimate reality (Mind over Matter).” Further, Wildberg (2016) states, “the Neoplatonists assumed as axiomatic that nothing could come to be here below that is not prefigured paradigmatically in the intelligible realm.” Sarti (2004), “Italian scholars played a key role in the rise of Neoplatonism as they became familiar with and translated into Latin previously unknown writings of Plato, brought to Italy in the early 15th century by Greek scholar from Byzantium. Marsilio Ficino translated the entire available body of Plato’s writings and founded the informal group known as the Platonic Academy, which met in Florence under Medici auspices from the 1460s to the early 1490s and was revived briefly in the 16th century. Interests in Plato’s thought existed largely outside the universities. Thus, Neoplatonism was associated with a kind of counterculture and intellectualism that challenged established authority” (p. 439).
For the sake of this paper, the term Neoplatonism will be defined as a philosophical framework regarding metaphysical exploration based around an attempt to unite or merge systems, beings, ideology, forms, etc., into a unitary structure, and where physical sciences aren’t distinguished from metaphysical practices.
Yet, when I write about Neoplatonism I’m trying to paint for the reader a framework that many believe in which is essentially magic and metaphysics as a means of discerning the mysteries of reality, as opposed to physical sciences based on real-world observations, the Scientific Methods, etc. Essentially, many Neoplatonist in hard sciences or social sciences see technology, economic ideology, gender, sexuality, drug experimentation, computer coding, Artificial Intelligence, etc., as a form of magic or magick. For example, a Neoplatonic scientist in today’s time isn’t merely performing an operation or procedure but a ritual, or a modern pharmaceutical formula or computer code isn’t merely that, but its possibly a spell or incantation, or possibly an algorithm in finding the name of God, for example the film, Pi, by Darren Aronfsky . Or, a meme artist online engaged in cyber warfare, e.g., the concept of Chaos Magick, i.e., spreading disinformation is performing a sacred ritual with sigils and symbols in order to change the minds of others or to “will things” into existence. Or, in a darker sense, performing rituals that stands as an antithetical to social norms might be a way to Enlightenment. To them there’s no difference between the physical and metaphysical since all reality permeates from a singular source. Imagine, merging the idea of alchemy with what we consider to be hard physical sciences.
Robert Anton Wilson’s “chaos magick” approach which is defined as Discordian, punk, postmodern, etc., is very Joe Rogan, who in turn is very Hunter S. Thompson, and Thompson and Wilson were both associated with the Esalen Institute, which is a place Joe Rogan gets his talking points, but this place hosted people who were associated with the arena where the military, universities, culture creators, scientists (both American and Russian), psychologist, etc., intersected. Chaos Magick was an alternative to Thelema and Wicca and was founded by Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956) and has been utilized by people such as Aleksandr Dugin but also William S. Burroughs (heir the Burroughs Corporation’s early computer fortune which exists today as Unisys)
This might sound very odd, but just look to the Joe Rogan podcast, or look to real-life government or state-funded research into metaphysics and esoteric phenomena such as the PEAR (Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research) Lab at Princeton; Project Stargate between the CIA/DIA and Stanford Research Institute sounding the study of Remote-Viewing, Extra Sensory Perception, etc.; the Oxford Phasmatological Society associated with Balliol College, etc.
Arguably, despite the continuation or influence of Neoplatonism into the modern day, the most notable ideology that is associated with Neoplatonism is Kabbalah (some would debate this), which tends to be associated with counterculture, Los Angeles lifestyle, celebrity culture, etc. Harold Bloom (not to be confused with Howard Bloom on Joe Rogan Episode #1119) in the past commented on what he considered to be the contamination of the Kabbalah by the outsiders or counter-culture elements, and the next quote by Bloom (1975) that I will share has much in common with themes that will appear throughout this paper.
Bloom (1975) stated, “Popular handbooks of Kabbalah are not always very exact in their learning, and tend to be dangerously eager to mix Kabbalah up with nearly everything else in current religious enthusiasms, from Sufism to Hinduism. But this too by now is a Western tradition, for Christian popularizations of Kabbalah starting with the Renaissance compounded Kabbalah with a variety of non-Jewish notions, ranging from Tarot cards to the Trinity. A singular prestige has attended Kabbalah throughout its history, and such prestige again is worth contemporary consideration. Accompanying this prestige, which is the prestige of supposedly ultimate origins, is an extraordinary eclecticism that contaminated Kabbalah with nearly every major occult or theosophical strain in the Renaissance and later in Enlightened Europe.”
Further, Bloom (1975) stated, “There are no competing titles on Gnosticism today, or on understanding Neoplatonism, and it is important that the continued popularity of Kabbalah be considered in any estimate of the phenomenon of the current survival and even revival of ancient esotericisms.” This previous statement by Bloom (1975) concerning competing modes of Gnosticism still in existence (at that time in which we wrote) seems to have been an assumption considering the lasting impact and resurgence of ideas which can trace roots back to Neoplatonist ideas, and in even though he acknowledges a contamination of the pure Kabbalah, that is not proof that Kabbalah hasn’t been used for applications outside of those in which it was originally intended, i.e., political strategy, lifestyle cults, or science, etc.
Joe Rogan is basically a synthesis between Hunter S. Thompson, the Esalen Institute and the politics of Robert Heinlein’s syncretic “3rd Way” political philosophy. Whether Joe realizes it or not is heavily influenced by Neoplatonist thinkers either directly or by proxy. Terrance McKenna for instance, whom Joe Rogan has reference regarding the Stoned Age Theory, and according to Calonne (2017), “Terrance McKenna believed the Neoplatonists were “psychedelic philosophers”. Their idea of an ascending hierarchy of increasing more rarified states is a sophisticated presentation of shamanic cosmology that one experientially discovers when
Part 1a – Getting Starship Trooper’s comparison out of the way: Background and ties to Disney.
“Are you a psychic? Maybe you are?” is a scene from Starship Troopers the flim. This seems to poke really life fun at the actual federal and military research into the paranormal and ESP such as that done by the CIA, DIA, Stanford Research, the IDF, and the United States Marines under Operation Stardrive. The 3rd eye symbol is found in the occult and counterculture and this links to Joe Rogan but also Alaister CrowleyJoe Rogan and him with Anton LeVay’s son. Further Michael Aquino and Anton LeVay with Sammy Davis Jr., who was Jewish and the basis of the Church of Satan maybe trace to Kabbalistic or Neoplatonic thought. The Church of Satan just like Hippies or other movements all popped up in the counter culture 60s right as the US government was conducting the real MK Ultra between universtiies, big pharma, intel agencies, etc. Effectively creating movements to beta test and study sociological behavior. The fall out of the 60s which could be said as having ended with the Sharon Tate Murder and the lyrics of Jim Morrison’s “Riders on the Storm” and “The End” would bleed over into the austerity era of the 1970s which was a time of drug addiction, inflation, the fall out of the Free Love movement, the rise of cults, etc.
Before I get to Joe Rogan, I want to compare the film Starship Troopers to themes that are relevant to our unfolding real world but also themes that appear on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Heinlein’s syncretic political ideology mixed Left Wing Marxism and Fabian Society ideas, Libertarianism, Fascism, technocracy, transhumanism (mech suits appear in the novel, similar to the US Army’s current real development of the Powered Exoskeleton), and Darwinist militarism which is best described in the book and film, Starship Troopers.
The film was released in 1997 with joint production by Tri-Star and Touchstone Pictures. Tri-Star falls under Sony, but Touchstone Pictures falls under The Walt Disney Company, and international distribution of the film was done by Disney’s Buena Vista International. Relating to other topics in this paper, notably Joe Rogan, ideas of transhumanism, etc., it is well known that EPCOT by Disney stands for Experimental Community of Tomorrow, yet, Disney has a real-world research division, Disney Research with labs in Zurich, Switzerland and California, that studies Artificial Intelligence, automation, wireless communications, human-computer interaction, displays, data mining, machine learning, and behavioral sciences. Further, Joe Rogan got his acting start with a developmental deal with Disney, but recently, on Joe Rogan’s podcast he interviewed Robert Downey Jr., i.e., Tony Stark/Iron Man, and this character in the Avenger’s franchise falls under Marvel which therefore is owned by Disney. Robert Downey Jr., before his appearance on the podcast, was spotted on YouTube (which is owned by Google) advertising, The Age of AI. I don’t think Robert Downey’s appearance on Joe’s podcast right as this transhumanist documentary came out was coincidence. [Note: https://web.archive.org/web/20130806011435/http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/technology/disney-research-pittsburgh-scientists-are-aiming-for-human-like-robots-689388/]
Roberth Downey Jr., as Tony Stark. Tony Stark’s dad played by John Slattery (who also plays Roger Sterling in the TV Show, Mad Men, which is infused with easter-eggs relating the post WW2 world, and even includes a homage to the Esalen Institute). A photo of Tony Stark in Fox’s 1990s Saturday morning cartoon show. A photo of Jack Parson’s whom with Howard Hughes seems to serve as a basis for Tony Stark. Jack Parsons was a follower of Crowley’s Thelema movement and practiced Sex Magick in the 30s and 40s in the LA area. He was consulted Tsailskovsky (the famous Russian Cosmist) and Werner Von Braun. Parson’s also had associations with Robert Heinlein (also in a libertine sex life) and L. Ron Hubbard of the Church of Scientology. The LA Sex Scene in the 30s-50s involved people like Parsons, Heinlein, Crowley, and Hubbard, but also involved many in Hollywood. This sex scene would go too far during the Black Dahlia Murder of Elizabeth Short, who was murdered (or, sacrifed) in a manner similar to the art-piece, the Minotaur, by surrealist Jewish American artist, Man Ray.
Man Ray, George Hodel (the likely suspect in the murder who had a medical training and Hollywood contacts likely when performing abortions — This was alluded to in American Horror Story), and actor John Huston were all friends. Hodel was inspired by S&M and surrealist art, akin to the surrealism of Salvador Dali. Dali was a pervert who attended the Rothschild’s famous Surreal Ball, was a supporter of Hitler, and his surreal art when depicting women can actually be seen as a form of surreal misogyny. Hodel fled the United States after being accused of the murder and in Hawaii, worked for the United Nations in post-WW2 China, and lived in the Phillipines (which is where Major General Eduard Landsdale, alma mater UCLA, who pioneered Psychological Operations when fighting the communist Huk movement, was stationed). A good visual for the underground S&M Kink Scene in Southern California can be best visualized in the film “LA Confidential”. After the Black Dahlia Murder, the 1950s saw a rush of rabid anti-communists via the Neoconservative Movement and Hollywood participated with this such as the Red Witch-hunts within the Screen Actors Guild Union, led by future Bohemian Grove member, Ronald Reagan, who was a member of Bohemian Grove with Richard Nixon. The military think tank, RAND Corporation, set up shop in Santa Monica, California with the likes of Albert Wohlstetter (caricatured in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove) who was recruited by RAND’s Director of Social Sciences, Hans Speier, but Wohlstetter (proving he point that Necons are Trotyskites) was a member in college of the Leauge for a Revolutionary Worker Group at CCUNY). Y
Yet, by the 1960s a new Hippie Movement arose, with inspirations from Robert Heinlein’s libertine philsophy near Laurel Canyon, California, and supposedly with help from the Lookout Mountain Air Force Station via the work of Dave McGowan’s “Weird Scenes Inside The Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & The Dark Heart Of The Hippie Dream”. The rise of Hippies in Neoconservative Cold War America helped to create dialectics for the government, but the Hippie movement also helped the government to 1. Sell Drugs in black markets where funds were being used to fight communism abroad 2. Advance the American public for the future corporate and globoalist internet world which was to come 3. Create movements to serve as fronts for spying on Americans and 4. experiment on the public with the MK Ultra Program which was a vast web of experiements spanning the training of miltary recruits, studying the effects of drugs on inmates, attempting to find truth serums and testing if minds could be rebuilt, etc. I’m sure most of our pharmacuetrical drugs and antidepressants were first experiemented with and perfected via this era. Relating ot the Hippie Movement, two main people were Jim Morrison, whose faher was the Admiral at the Gulf Tonkin incident which got the USA into the War in Indochina after the French had failed, thus giving the USA access to the heroin of the Golden Triangle which was needed to fund deep state operations. Also, Charles Manson, who was a heavy LSD user, was asscoiated with bands such as The Beach Boys, who in turn were associated with the Mamas and the Papas via Michelle Phillips, with Phillips being a friend of Tamar Hodel, George Hodel’s daughter. John Huston’s daugher, Angelika Huston, would be questioned by policy during Roman Polanski’s underage sex trial. Roman’s wife, Sharon Tate was killed by Manson and many say this was the end of the 60s, and the lyrics of The Door’s “The End” and “Riders on the Storm” indicates this is an ominous tone. Roman Polanski’s films often dealt with the Occult. The LA area was a vortex of Sex, the Deep State, and Entertainment. “This project was partially funded by the International Center for Advanced Communication Technologies at Carnegie Mellon University and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. Findings were presented at an international conference in Karlsruhe, Germany, in early May, and the project essay was nominated for the Best Cognitive Robotics Paper Award, Mr. Yamane said.”
The society presented in Starship Troopers, the film, is shown as technologically advanced. In our real world as we continue to evolve within technocracy with concepts such as facial-recognition technology, AI assistants, electric and self-driving cars, digital money, genetic criminal forensic databases, augmented reality entertainment, drone warfare and logistics, hyperloop travel, e-commerce, enterprise resource planning tools, smart cities and houses, it makes you think as to whom in this society is running the technology. The society is a 3rd way syncretic society that mixes free-market capitalism of Civilians with the government subsidy of the Federation. This model is basically what the United States has been since World War II, i.e., corporatism and fascism, with the fascism element hiding under propaganda such as American Exceptionalism, patriotic imagery, and its annoying habit of marginalizing Marxism, when it fact Marxism via government allocation is a central tenant in how the US apparatus functions.
Tech companies are the ones who are leading the charge of integrating technocracy since their corporate structures are the apex of government investment and free market economics. However, these tech firms are currently working with Israel. US firms set up shop in Israel via bilateral cooperation with firms such as Microsoft, Facebook, cyber security etc. This is in part consensual but also the result of Israeli espionage with its vast apparatus of assets within the United States, his hacking capabilities, and its exchange programs such as the Talpiot Program which takes elite Israeli Defense Force alumni and then sends them to the United States to work for high tech companies or consulting firms such as Boston Consulting which is the alma mater of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is an institution that would later involve Jeffrey Epstein – the sex trafficker and high profile networker who had ties to Victoria Secrets, the French modeling industry, the British Royal Family, the Clintons and Trump administration, but also the Israeli’s via his Jewish heritage but also his via his girlfriend/fixer, Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell was a disgraced media mogul who had ties to Israel’s Mossad, Britain’s MI5, but was accused of also working with the Soviet KGB. Ghislaine Maxwell herself also was a character in the days of Iran-Contra via her ties to Adnan Khashoggi, the uncle of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi and Dodi Fayed, the boyfriend of the late Princess Diana, i.e., a family member to Epstein’s friend, Prince Andrew. Epstein had ties to Bitcoin, MIT, Bill Gates, and the list goes on.
The technology in Starship Troopers, the film, are being developed by Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Peter Theil, Bill Gates, etc., but as stated, these firms have ties to Israel. Israel is effectively the center of the Earth with political ties in most major nations which it achieves via the powerful Chabad Lubavitch community. The Chabad Lubavitch community has a proselytizing agenda known as the Noahide Laws, which is a subversion of Christianity that fosters Christians to worship Israel and follow the Noahide Laws. This strategy has been effectively in the developing world but also within the United States by linking White Anglo-Saxon Evangelical Christianity explicitly with the Zionist cause. Regardless,
Further, before I move on to get to the central premises of this paper, I want to say that Tony Stark is Howard Hughes, and Howard Hughes was essentially a Deep State playboy industrialists with companies spanning defense, telecommunications, travel, entertainment, energy, and real estate. In other words understanding Howard Hughes actually helps support this paper because he effectively was a lynchpin between different industries (defense, tech, culture, etc.), and this process still goes on in our day, however, it seems to be through an array of tech moguls such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, etc.
For example, Amazon and Microsoft fighting over Pentagon contracts for cloud-based solutions, yet both firms have ties in entertainment, the military, logistics, etc.
Powerful companies that exist today that absorbed Howard Hughes’ companies/divisions are Raytheon (Hughes Aircraft which helped build the Galileo telescope, air-to-air missiles, NASA Lunar equipment, H-4 Hercules, stinger missiles), AT&T and DirectTV (Hughes Electronics), Delta (Hughes Airwest), L3 Harris (Hughes Microwave Tube Division), Boeing (Hughes Helicopter), ACDelco (parts of Hughes Electronics after GM bought them), Baker Hughes (Hughes Tool Company), Palomar Technologies (Howard Aircraft Technology Products Division creating Automated Wire and Die Bonder equipment), Nextstar Media Group (acquired Hughes’ radio station, KLAS-TV, a CBS affiliate station), Venetian and Sands Casinos (the former Hughes properties were in part acquired by Sheldon Adelson, i.e., Trump’s megadonor), and Howard Hughes Corporation (a real-estate firm that builds master planned communities).
I wrote this before I saw this episode. Garrett Reisman, an astronaut who works with Elon Musk mentioned that he accidentally associated Musk with Howard Hughes
Speaking of Howard Hughes, Joe Rogan Experience Episode 1425 with astronaut Garrett Reisman supports what I’m talking about throughout this paper. Reisman admitted to accidentally comparing Elon Musk to Howard Hughes since Hughes was an eccentric.
Yet, in this podcast, Joe Rogan and Reisman profess their love for the show Batttlestar Galactica, which is interesting because the show has religious elements to it which are based on the Old Testament, the Torah, as far as the concepts of the 13 Tribes of Israel. Why is this important? It is my opinion that Israel with its current relation with the United States regarding bi-national tech transfers (and, theft), cyber security, surveillance, etc., has for a long time played a role in the intersectionality between things which are esoteric (centering around Kabbalistic thought in this case) and hard sciences. Based on research done by Know More News with Adam Green and his discoveries about the Noahide Agenda, it seems that our technocratic 3rd way future (which seems like a loose version of Starship Troopers – minus the aliens), would have a world religion based around Judeo-Christianity, i.e., Noahide Laws. There’s a high level of Jewish ownership in technology such as the CEOs of Facebook, Google, 23 and Me, etc. We also know with Jeffrey Epstein that he was involved in funding scientific research, studying Bitcoin with accused rapist Brock Pierce, and being involved with the Massachusetts Intitute of Technology.
The Neoconservative movement (which overlapped the MK Ultra Era and the growth technology) was also highly Jewish (Milton Friedman, Barry Goldwater, Henry Kissinger, etc.), which seems odd considering the levels of real antisemitism within far-right politics, yet, this makes sense because antisemitism helps the Jews solidify power, and as we can see in American Right-Wing politics, it’s really an infusion of Anglo-Saxon identity politics mixed with Evangelical Zionist Christianity. In other words, these two groups supplement each other despite the perception of issues in mainstream life. Another odd link between this podcast with Joe Rogan and Garrett Reisman regarding Battlestar Galactica (which is infused with religion) is that supposedly US Army Psy Ops Officer, Michael Aquino, helped consult the production of the original series, and Aquino was associated with the Church of Satan of Anthoy LeVay (who was Jewish most likely, i.e., his ideology may be inspired by Kabbalist thinking similar to that Crowley he was friend of Sammy Davis Jr., who was Jewish). When people hear Satanism they instantly think some conspiracy but it is a real organization, similar to the Chaos Magick organization of the Illuminates of Thanateros.
This book was analyzed by Adam Green of Know More News. Green analyzes the Noahide Movement which is a form of Jewish missionary work which gets Christians to submit to a worshp of Isarel via the Noahide Laws. This type of religion can form the basis of a global Abrahamic religion with Israel at the center of the Earth between East and West. Israel has relations with the Angl-American Contiental Bloc but also the Sino-Russian Block and Israel has positioned itself as the center of the world due the unfolding Belt and Road Project, the outsourcing of American technology and cyber security to Israel (Silicon Wadi), and the fact that Israel somehow has been able to influence the domestic policies of developed and developing nations.
Relating to Michael Aquino (a US Army Psy Op Officer), who will appear later in this paper, according J. Andy Ilias (2016), “In 1972 he joined the 306th PSYOP Battalion (Strategic), USAR at Fort MacArthur, California, and for the next seven years served as Research & Analysis (FA) Team Leader, Operations Officer, and finally Executive Officer. In the 306th – whose members ranged from eccentric Hollywood personalities to dour L.A.P.D. officers – he oversaw highly-classified Basic PSYOP Studies for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, PSYOP support for the training of units such as the 12th Special Forces, and use of the 306th’s atmospheric World War II-era bunkers for space combat scenes in the original Battlestar Galactica television series.” However, regarding Aquino, I’m not sure what to make out. It’s treason to wear a military uniform (false valor) if not in the military and claim commemorations, so he must be real. A part of me wants to believe that his eccentricity is part of a psy-op, i.e., no one would believe in any agenda because it seems so out there, but that makes him more influential and powerful in affecting real life events, movements, policy, etc.
Part 1b – Getting Starship Trooper’s comparison out of the way: Similarities in the film to that of the 2016- political situation, demographic changes, the rise of technocracy, etc.
The film adaption by Paul Verohoeven, as odd as it sounds, is a possibility of our future. A synthesis of Plato’s The Republic or Huxley’s Brave New World society, as if designed with Orange County Disney precision and Rand Corporation consulting, that merges Left Wing ideologies such as multiculturalism and globalism [something I call C.I.M, for Corporate Intersectional Marxism] made possible by the power of multi-national corporations and free trade that develops a global monoculture (the Terran Federation), feminism (Dizzy Flores played by Dina Meyer and Sky Marshal Tehat Maru played by Denise Dowse. Tehat Maru seems to draw a parallel to Kamala Harris, with the Maru last name seeming Indian in nature, and Kamala is of half-Indian heritage), gender equality (the co-ed shower scene; women and men are allowed to hit each other), and Marxism (Citizens) but with Right Wing Ideologies such hierarchy, fascism, libertarianism, i.e., Civilians – at least in the American form since the US libertarian movement was often associated with movements like the John Birch Society, militarism, etc. Let’s not forget the film has Nazi inspired Hugo Boss uniforms. There’s a funny (dark humor) scene in Starship Troopers the film where it is stated that Mormon extremists set up a colony in an Arachnid Zone at Port (or, Fort) Joseph Smith, but the colonists were brutally killed by the aliens. This scene relates to Joe Rogan in his talk with Geoffrey Miller in Episode #1173 where Miller pokes fun at Social Justice Warriors and talks about the Amazon series, The Expanse. Miller goes to state that in the series the first human space colony was developed by Mormons because they’re forward thinking and pronatalist. So, now only does this talk between Joe and Geoffrey relate to the scene in Starship Troopers but the condensing tone towards Social Justice Warriors, i.e., the political left, alludes to the acceptance of right-wing skepticism when dealing with the left. [Visual Notes: https://youtu.be/x1Ic6iSiOuM; https://youtu.be/J206CKoG1R0]
Diz versus Zim in Starship Troopers. A world where violence between men and women is considered a form of equalityDiz is the quarterback for her school’s team. The school isn’t named in the fiim but there’s a scene which states Buenos Aires Educational Complex. The word Complex doesn’t sound very organic and seems to denote the mechanistic nature to public education. As a fun fact, a student tells johnny Rico if he’s ready for the game against “Tesla”, so in this world Tesla is considered a genius and in real life Tesla was into things esoteric. NFL Coach Kate Sowers of the 49ers played football. This is great. I’m not stating that females in football is bad at all but I do find it interesting how our world is evolving and it seems very much like Starship TroopersCoed shower scene in Starship Troopers. Gender in this world is equal. There’s no depiction of LGBTQ however such as that which can be read in the science fiction book, The Forever War by Joe Halderman. In our reality with traditional gender being redefined this scene and the overall sexuality (considered “cisgender) seems to denote where we’re going considering there is no longer taboo around the human body and gender is no considered a construct with not biological basis. However, this is debatable but the fact that people have lost their jobs for saying a person can’t change their gender sheds light on what the government, corporations, and NGOs want for the future of humanity. Probably meant to be a joke at reverse sexual harassment, this scene in the film shows that there’s no real taboo between male and female sexuality and nudity. The film essentially takes gender equality on a cisgender trajectory to its most extreme logical conclusion where there’s no distinction between male and female sexuality and violence.
1b.1. Latin American Intersectionality with the Right Wing, 3rd Position Politics and how the racial dichotomy of the film emulates America’s demographic changes: It is also important to note that the main characters are white Argentinians from Buenos Aires, despite the book version of Juan “Johnny” Rico being of Filipino heritage. First off, Paul Verhoeven purposely typecast white Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place looking actors in order to poke fun at whitewashing in film, but also to show reach of Western standards upon the rest of the world. Secondly, it is my personal belief that Robert Heinlein chose to write Juan Rico as a Filipino because during his era of the early-to-mid twentieth century, the United States had an imperial and colonial relations with The Philippines and you can read my previous paper, Tears on the Western Horizon: How the Las Vegas Shooter’s Filipino Connection Unveiled the Philippines’ fight for the future and its shadowy past by Quinton Mitchell, which can found in a link below.
Regarding the fact that the characters of the film adaption are white Argentines, this relates to our reality particularly in the United States as the “native” White population slows in growth and Hispanic often Mexican population grows. Yet, despite these two groups seeming at odds, it’s only natural that over time in many ways they will merge to a varying degree and whiteness in the United States will be like the concept of whiteness within South America. This transfusion and admixture were made possible by corporate free trade globalism, particularly with free trade agreements such as NAFTA, CAFTA, etc. Despite tensions and xenophobia, there already exists within Latin American culture an embedded conservatism which will soon find commonality with white Republicanism regardless of class. For example, many Hispanics and working-class white people are in construction, both cultures are patriarchal, Hispanics due the nature of their earlier hard-labor jobs are dispersed across the nation such as the agricultural areas of the American Midwest and American South, and like most immigrants in US history the new immigrants and their citizen children will emulate the behaviors of the establishment in order to fit in and prove themselves.
The uniforms of the Chilean militaryA propaganda piece from the film Starship Troopers (1997)
Relating to conservatism, this influx and eventual assimilation means a possible resurgence in religion since Catholicism is cultural for many Hispanics; militarism since many immigrants and their children see the military as a way of to climb the economic ladder, etc. Many Hispanics already identity as white prior to coming to America and even too many racist white Americans, despite the perception, Hispanics are often included and there’s been evidence of many in the Alt Right as being Hispanic. To paint a visual picture, think to Jeb Bush and his wife who is from Mexico and their children who are engaged in the political arena. Or, think to the relationship of South Florida Cuban communities to the Republican Party dating back to the Cold War. This is unrelated but based on demographic changes going more Hispanic in nature, despite white backlash (since, white people might benefit from this immigration), the USA and Mexico are heavily reliant on each other and this reliance has generated a multi-billion-dollar international drug market. I see a future where the old Italian La Costra Nostra is replaced by the major Cartels of Mexico (Gulf, Juarez, Sinaloa, and Tijuana) setting up shop regionally in the United States. The same organizational corruption that persisted throughout the twentieth century will be here in the future, as drug cartels their money to bankroll state politicians, mayors, Senators, Attorney Generals, military commissioned officers, etc., to create a system where they effectively rule.
The appearance of Carl Jenkin’s character played by Neil Patrick Harris who has an English last name to me indicates that this world was made possible largely because of the idea of Americanization via the multi-national corporation. Of course, the people speak English because the film is for an American audience. The fact that 3 of 4 of the main movie characters are of white Argentine heritage has historical relevance because Latin America, as most of us know, was a safe haven for fugitive Nazis (even Pablo Escobar employed Carols Ledher – a Columbian with German heritage, who was a Neo Nazi) , but Latin America prior to WW2 was home of many Italian and German immigrants.
A picture of conservative neoliberal Jeb Bush with his family. I support immigrants and Hispanic culture but there is a high chance that in the future parts of the Hispanic community will gravitate towards conservative politics since this already exists within the Latino political sphere, such as that of the Miami Dade Cuban community, the history of right wing politics in Latin America – such as that of the more “white” upper classes of the post-colonial post-Hacienda system. Cole (2015) states, “When it emerged Barbie might face prosecution for his horrific war crimes, including responsibility for the deaths of 14,000 people, the CIA enlisted the help of the Vatican to change his name to Klaus Altmann, and he fled to Bolivia in 1951.” “During the Second World War, he was notorious as the Butcher of Lyon, but unlike his Nazi partners in crime, Klaus Barbie never faced instant arrest and justice when the fighting ended. Despite sending whole families to death camps, the US recruited him as a CIA spy and smuggled him into Bolivia where he helped spearhead a brutal narco-state.” https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3318675/The-astonishing-story-notorious-Nazi-helped-kill-Che-Guevara-worked-cocaine-boss-Pablo-Escobar.htmlReinhard Gehlen, was Hitler’s Intelligence head, and he was let off by the CIA and US Army and set up the Gehlen Organization which would be predate the German BND Intel Service of West Germany. Gehlen, like Klaus Barbie and Otto Skorzeny had ties to the CIA and via Barbie this links the CIA to what would become the cocaine cartels of the Medellin Cartel, but these Nazis for hire (many hiding in Latin America, Spain, and in broad daylight in Western Germany) also had ties to the French Connection Heroin industry, likely helping the Americans muscle out the Corsican Mob’s French Indo China control of heron as the United States prepped to control the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia. Further, a member of Gehlen’s Network was Otto Von Bolshwing, who was an architect of the Final Solution but let off the hook and settled in the United States in California in early Silicon Valley. Such relationships makes sense because the United States elite had many Nazis but the Anti-Communist Movement supported Nazism because it was anti-Communist, and these relationships with organizations such as the World Anti-Communist League (full of Nazis) linked with the Neocons, John Birch Society, Council of National Policy, and John K. Singluab’s Western Goals Foundation. The Council for National Policy via the Grace Family has links to the Catholic Knights of Malta, which is an organization filled with Euroepan nobillity such as those of the House of Luxembourg, i.e., Luxembourg is a bank haven.
It is my belief that the Neo Nazis were created in part by the CIA (similar other criminal organizations such as the Nation of Islam via black gangs like the Gangster Disciples via the N.O.I’s links to the CIA BCCI Bank involved in Iran Contra). The CIA’s and Neo-con’s stance on Anti-Communism, despite being involved in drug trafficking, helped to create the Neo Nazis prevalent in places such as Orange County, CA, which is interesting because this area is home to many Defense Industry related businesses. Orange County is also home to the Ronald Reagan Airport but Anaheim is home to Disneyland, and we know that Walt Disney had antisemitic beliefs and consulted Nazis such as Werner Von Bruan. Lastly, it seems ironic that Nazis in the West would flourish after the war considering many in the Neocon movement were Jewish. Yes, it is weird, but it just shows the power pragmatic politics that links Jews to the American Far Right in a type of symbiotic relationship with both helping each other. This sounds odd, but look at the below photo.
Later in the Cold War, with the USA fighting Communism by staging bloody revolution to overthrow democratically elected leaders, many of the Right Wing Generals were of Germanic heritage or had close bonds with fugitive Nazis and these Nazis were often known to the CIA because the Nazis were seen as allies against Communism. This Nazi CIA connection dates to the immediate times after the Allied Victory in which certain German Nazis were given clemency in return for their intelligence services which would go to form the modern German intelligence service, the BND. These Latin American leaders included Juan Peron with his wife Evita, but Juan and Evita’s bodyguard for a time was Otto Skorzeny, Hitler’s Commando and later creator of the Nazi Alumni association, Die Spinne, and founder of right wing military contractor based in fascist Spain, The Paladin Group, which had ties to political assassinations). Other fascist leaders with relations or links to the Italian-German communities of Latin American included Augusto Pinochet of Chile, Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay, and Italian and German Brazilian Junta leaders with Emilio Garrastazu Medici, Ernesto Geisel, and Augusto Rademaker Grunewald.
Augusto Pinochet, Alfredo Stroessner, Emilio Medici, and Juan Peron. Hispanic beer is actually from Germany and Austria. Also, a picture of the flag of the Federation in Starship Troopers which as stated is set in Latin America in a globalist, technocratic, 3rd way future.
1b.2. Occult, Paranormal, and Masonic relations to Technocracy There’s also technocratic elements triggering comparisons to Elon Musk with SpaceX and his Hyperloop Project (the scene where Johnny Rico played by Casper Van Dien says goodbye to Carmen Ibanez played by Denise Richards), but there’s also esoteric transhumanist elements to the film (relating the Counter-Culture movement, Esalen, Joe Rogan, The Burning Man EDM culture, etc.), such as ESP – Extra Sensory Perception – as seen in the character Carl Jenkins played by Neil Patrick Harris. This paranormal element in the film seems to harken back to the real-life theosophy inspired Occultism of the Nazis such as the Far Eastern archeological works supported by Heinrich Himmler’s SS (Schutzstaffel) think tank called the Abnenrbe. The Russians, whom also had an impact on technological research within the West via the Russian Cosmist thinkers, also were interested in paranormal pseudo-science.
Young (2012) states, “Much has been written about occult researchers and activities during the Third Reich in Germany, but the Soviets, apparently, also developed their own equivalent to the Nazi Ahnenerbe, the search for ancestral Aryan roots and ancient occult artifacts. The Russian equivalent was centered on the mysterious “Red Merlin,” Alexander Barchenko, a medical school dropout, writers of occult adventure stories, and follower of the French esotericism Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, a popularizer of the legend of Agatha, a subterranean paradise hidden in a network of caves somewhere in Central Asia. Barchenko persuaded the OGPU secret police section head, Gleb Boky, to sponsor paranormal research in government laboratories and to undertake a mission to Central Asia in search of the magical kingdom of Shambala, where powerful secret knowledge was hidden that could win the war for the Bolshevik cause.” (p. 190-191).
Masonry, Martinism, and other Esoteric Organization’s ties to Syncretic Political Ideologies, Russian Cosmism, and how it fits into the Starship Trooper’s arugment: Since, I’m talking about 3rd Way politics, 3rd positions politics, the 3rd Wave of Alvin Tofler, etc., in relation to the syncretic society shown in the film Starship Troopers, that which was written about by Robert Heinlein in the book version of Starship Troopers, but also the political ideology of Joe Rogan (whom I consider a Neoplatonist via his psychonaut advocacy & Discordian approach to reality), I want to bring light to quote in the previous paragraph above from Young (2012), which states the Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre. I found online his name associated with the Synarchism movement (a type of 3rd Way model) but also something called Martinism and the first thing I noticed was the Star of David.
Looking up Martinism, Britannica (n.d.) states, “After the suppression of Weishaupt’s order, the title illuminati was given to the French Martinists, founded in 1754 by Martinez Pasqualis and propagated by Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin“, and, “By 1790 Martinism had been spread to Russia by Johann Georg Schwarz and Nikolay Novikov. Both strains of “illuminated” Martinism included elements of Kabbalism and Christian mysticism, imbibing ideas from Jakob Böhme and Emanuel Swedenborg.”. According to Churton (2106), “In a nutshell, the Martinism as we know it today consists of the theurgic tradition of Martinez de Pasqually (Martinezism), the Masonic Templarism of Jean-Baptiste Willermoz (Willermozism) and the Christian Theosophy of Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin.”
One of the orders within Martinism is Elus-Cohens where Cohen is Hebrew for priest, but this seems to denote not a Jewish control of the group but rather Christians using Hebrew. It seems that after the Bavarian Illuminati of Adam Weishaupt fell from grace, the Illuminate quest fell upon the French Martinists, but they were in a landscape of many Masonic Lodges and Rosiscrusian orders. Martiniism in my estimation is a form of Christian Mysticism which like Masonry, Hermeticism, etc., relates back to Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola in the Renaissance who helped to merge Christianity with Neoplatonist thought in something akin to a Christian variant or alternative of Jewish Kabbalah (with the Jews thinking they’re chosen and await the Moshiach whereas Christians believing in Jesus Christ and await Revelations and Jewish conversion). Mirandola’s works and that of others helped shape Hermeticism, ceremonial magic practices, frameworks of medications and levels or degrees, etc., and would go to influence Masons (highly involved in Revolutionary thought of the 1700s), Rosicrucian, Martinisits, but also more “dark ark” frameworks (which seem to get mixed in with the “Light forms of Masonry”) such as later Crowley Thelema, Chaos Magick, The Order of the Golden Dawn, Theosophy, and even the Church of Satan. Masonry can be confusing because it seems that in the Enlightenment Period onward, there were constant disputes between sects, reconciliation, and schism within sections. Yet, they all had a common Enlightenment brotherhood and the more I read into Neoplatonism, the more Masonic degrees makes sense because degrees are the levels in Neoplatonism and are steps to The Monad (the One, or true God), divine shapes, divine forms, etc.
Regarding conflicts, for example, the Grande Orient de France (Continental Masonry) broke from the United Grand Lodge of England between 1870-1890, largely because the Grand Orient wanted to admit atheists which defied Masonry’s requirement to believe in God, i.e., The Grand Architect. It’s complicated because the mission statement of masonry seems quite harmless in that it’s a social club based around a belief in a higher power and trying to build the perfect man. Yet, the conspiracy comes into play because Masonry did play a role in political revolutions and members are individuals with their own actions such as criminality. Masonry due to its secretive nature is arguably a good source of intelligence gather and information sharing, and this seems to be the case for Masonry throughout the British Empire, but also the rogue Masonic lodge in Italy, Propaganda Due, which was involved in the Vatican banking scandal of the Bank de Ambrosia, and its affiliations with CIA Stay Behind Units (terrorist groups) during the Cold War’s Year of Lead in Italy.
Regardless, factions within the Grand Orient de France brought back a belief in God and Scottish Rite practices and reconciled with the English and formed the Grande Loge Nationale Française. However, as already stated, there were the Martinists within the Bavarian Illuminati tradition with its sects and they were frowned upon by the Grand Orient Lodge. So, it’s easy to get confused by Masonry because you national lodges, smaller regional lodges, rites, orders, Deist branches, atheist friendly branches, etc.
Yet, relating to their esoteric beliefs and practices and their relationship with Enlightenment Democracy (Democritus) and Liberty (Libertas), it can be seen in the French revolution that the Jacobin Movements – partically that of Robspierre’s Montagards – with their radical ideals on secular (atheist) democracy (the Cult of Reason, Reign of Terror) and emphasis on class (then of the Ancien Regime) would later merge or adopt the ideals of Marx and Engels’ post-Hegelian ideology of Marxism pertaining to dialectical materialism, i.e., class struggle of the proletariat, bourgeoisie, and petty bourgeoisie, which can be seen in the later text by Marx, The Paris Commune.
However, the Americans would adopt the Girondin branch of the Jacobin’s movement ideas which were more moderate, based on property rights, and would lead to the adoption of federalism, Adam Smith’s capitalism, the Protestant Work Ethic with roots in Calvinism (popular in Scotland where Adam Smith is from), etc. The masonic brotherhood against monarchy is why France supported the Americans and Americans went to France and both are related nations but implemented democracy differently. This next sentence as mental notes for myself to summarize and create correlation: (Grand Orient de France > Jacobins > Montagnards > Marxism > Social Democracy and Continental Philosophy such as Critical Theory, Existentialism, Deconstruction) (United Lodge of England and American Lodges > Jacobins > Girondins > Capitalism > Analytical Philosophy & Pragmatism)
So, with all of this being said about Masonry, Martinism, etc., we to stay on track about the basis of this paper which relates to Joe Rogan’s syncretic political ideology which merges left-wing and right-wing and how it emulates the society seen and written about in Starship Troopers. In Starship Troopers we have the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance, but based on the data previously presented about Martinism, it is known that Martinism entered Russia in the 1790s. So, if Masonry and related movements have played a role in shaping US Democracy and that of other nations, and the policy of the United States is based on a 3rd Way position, i.e., free-market global capitalism on the auspices of spreading democracy, then the current Russian entry into American life as seen by the Trump Administration, to me emulates that of the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance. Similar to how counter-culture is based from Neoplatonic ideas, the USA and Russia both have their renditions of Zionism, which has historically references in the Christian Kabbalah of Masonry and Martinism. Essentially, via this Masonic viewpoint, Israel is a sacred nation, though Christians and Jews see it from differently angles, but it’s a mutual arrangement with Jews needing Israel to be reunited and the Fourth Temple built, but Christians needs this for Revelations. The Jews don’t believe in Jesus or Christian revelations whereas the Christians believe Jesus is the Messiah and will come back during Revelations. Both the United States and Russia have ties to Israel as well, so keep that in mind throughout this paper.
Relating to Martinism within the text by Young (2012) relating to the Russian Cosmists, which thus relates to futurism, technocracy, cybernetics, the occult, and influences on American science (i.e., Jack Parsons, Jet Propulsion Lab, etc.)/counterculture – as visualized in Starship Troopers – it was stated in Chapter 10 of text, titled: Promethean Theurgy, “George L. Kline has termed “Promethean theurgy.” The ideas, that philosophy should be a form of action, not simply reflection, from Marx, and from Nietzsche, that with the death of God, humanity must create its own destiny” (p. 177). Further, within this same chapter but in section dedicated to Occultism, Young (2012) quotes Maria Carlson, a writer on the Silver Age Russia, whom states, “Occultism, in a bewildering variety of forms, was a popular intellectual fashion of the period. Most educated readers had at least a nodding acquaintance with spiritualism and Theosophy, but there was also Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, Martinism, Hermeticism, as well as manifestation of “common” or “boulevard” mysticism, such as somanbulism, chiromancy, Tarot, phrenology, mesmerism, astrology, fortune-telling, and dream interpretation.” (p. 187).
The CIA’s and DOD’s Experiments into…ESP. Yes, ESP, Remote Viewing, etc. ESP and Remote Viewing in the film, Starship Troopers, relates to the real-world government funding into paranormal research. The CIA recruited people who claimed to have possessed paranormal abilities, such as ex-Israeli Defense Force, Uri Geller. Pruitt (2018) states, “The roots of Project Star Gate go back to 1972, when a classified report made waves within the U.S. military and intelligence communities by claiming that the Soviet Union was pouring money into research involving ESP and psychokinesis—the ability to move objects with the mind—for espionage purposes. In response, the CIA began funding its own top-secret research, headquartered at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, California.” Further Pruitt (2018) details how the CIA shutdown the project but it was transferred to the Defense Information Agency at its location in Maryland at Fort Meade. I find this interesting because Fort Meade is also the home to the Defense Information School (alma mater of Jonathan Young of Ancient Aliens, and potentially a source of some resources utilized by Alex Jones and Joe Rogan). Fort Meade isn’t far from decommissioned base, Fort Detrick, which was home to the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories (USBWL), one of the main agencies involved in the MK Ultra projects with the CIA’s Office of Scientific Information (now known as the Directorate of Science & Technology).
Further, Pruit (2018) stated, “The shutdown of the program that year did not mark the end of the government’s interest in psychic phenomena. In 2014, Jacobsen writes, the Office of Naval Research launched a four-year program (costing some $3.85 million) to explore the use of premonition or intuition—what is popularly known as a “sixth sense” or even a “Spidey sense,” in honor of the web-throwing superhero—among sailors and Marines. And Dr. Edwin May, the former Star Gate research head, has continued to argue on behalf of ESP as a legitimate tool for military and domestic intelligence long after the program was shut down. In 2015, May told Newsweek that his most recent ESP study, funded by the non-profit Bial Foundation, “is probably the best experiment in the history of the field.”
Aliens are a prominent trope on the Joe Rogan Podcast, but aliens are often associated with the counter-culture conspiracy movement. It’s my personal belief the aesthetic design of the most common alien image, the grey, is just a symbol which represents – like an icon such as the Mickey Mouse shape with Disney – the Deep State experimental psychological and technological research conducted after World War 2. The imagery of the aliens, such as those found at Roswell are meant to trigger an instant associate with the Holocaust which was known for this violation of medical ethics, but the alien also offers a biological explanation for the possible origins of humanity away from divinity thus making the general public more conducive the upcoming technological age. Alien culture aligned to the psychedelic “Far Out” culture of the 1960s and 1970s and is a multi-dimensional or purpose symbol that represents a lot of concepts. Robert Heinlein was accused of racism because the Aliens were euphemism of other human cultures such as the Chinese, or, as a comparison to our modern political arena regarding Muslims. Since aliens (think the term “illegal aliens”) can be analogous to “alien cultures”, i.e., the bugs in the film are often in desert landscapes, equivalent to the Clash of Civilizations since the Global War on Terrorism between Israel and the West versus Islam.
Joe Rogan’s podcast, especially in its earlier years, often talked about conspiracy theories (arguably a tool of the Cold War intelligence community for disinformation purposes) spanning Extra Sensory Perception, Theosophy, and Aliens while also advocating for psychoactive drugs such as mushrooms and LSD (which relates Joe to Esalen but also the older MK Ultra experiments of the Cold War such as those conducted by Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA’s chief chemist and a military liaison consultant to Lockheed; and, David Ewan Cameron, a President of the American Psychological Association who was accused in child sex abuse, which instantly draws a mental comparison to the child abuse in Chile under the Pinochet regime occurring at Colonia Dignidad created by pedophile, Paul Schafer. This facility was also used by Pinochet for torture and internment of political dissidents). Relating back to theosophy, Joe Rogan hosted Robert Schoch on Episode #1124 who admitted to his grandmother being a Theosophist, meaning she was likely a follower in the days of Madame Blavatsky.
There’s a historic overlap between technocracy and the Occult, as explained in George Young’s (2012), The Russian Cosmists, but also the fact that scientists such as Jack Parsons – a Crowley Thelema follower – of the Jet Propulsion Lab consulted Russian cosmist, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, and I will quickly loop this reality into the previous statement in the previous paragraph regarding Robert Schoch’s reference to Madame Blavatsky (founder of Theosophy) on Joe Rogan’s podcast in order to show the technocratic and esoteric underpinnings to the podcast itself.
“Civilization cannon evolve further until “the occult” is taken for granted on the same level as atomic energy” (Wilson, 1973, as quoted in Young, 2012, p. 187). “Occultism, in a bewildering variety of forms, was a popular intellectual fashion of the period. Most educated readers had at least a nodding acquaintance with spiritualism and Theosophy, but there was also Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, Martinism, Hermeticism, as well as manifestations of “common” or “boulevard” mysticism, such as somnambulism, chiromancy, Tarot, phrenology, mesmerism, astrology, fortune-telling, and dream interpretation.” (Carlson, 1993, as quoted in Young, 2012, p. 187). “In the wider society, all branches of the socialist movement shared the First Object of Theosophy, viewing themselves as a vanguard of universal human brotherhood.” (Young, 2012, p. 188]
Part 2a. Analyzing 3rd Way syncretic political ideology between Rogan and Starship Troopers, the book by Heinlein (1959) and the film adaption, (1997)
Joe’s interests such as that in transhumanism, the unity of mankind, perennial philosophy such as all religions being euphemisms of a common metaphysical belief, space, technology, his syncretic political ideology that merges libertarian and Marxist, his affinity for out of body experiences akin to a practitioner of medieval hermeticism against staunch Catholic dogma, Jungian psychology, and his interests in paranormal and gnostic (hidden) knowledge might make Joe a Neoplatonist Philosopher without knowing it. In a funny way, this seems quite accurate and with Joe being Italian and his interests in things which are arguably esoteric, plus his syncretic libertine philosophy, I get the image of Joe in the medieval Renaissance as a court or street jester as a cover for a spy who was former Italian city state military conscript who associates with Christian, Jewish, and Islamic esoteric, occultic, Kabbalist, Averronist, and hermetic thinkers in the courts of nobles in places like Florence, Sicily, Padua, Verona, or Modena, etc.
The movements Joe has adapted to his unique personality span from atheism, skepticism, scientific progress away from theism, Satanism one could argue with his “Do What Thy Whilst” mentality, and comedy which in many ways is a form of philosophical analysis of questioning reality. Joe often talks about aliens, paranormal, transhumanism, psychoactive drugs, science, but also hosts guests associated with the Far-Right but also the political Left. Joe’s ambiguous syncretic politics merges both Marxist and Libertarian thought which are opposing but related dialectical positions (dyads) from a common (Monad) theory of democracy. When you merge those opposing forces you get the true source of political power from the standpoint of democracy which his 3rd Way, which interestingly is the way the United States runs, with it being both free market capitalist but also government subsidized, and this mixture creates the 3rd way Neoliberal Corporatism we live under.
Third Way politics is the socially acceptable brand of Centrism which was applied to most Western liberal democracies after WW2 but gained prominence as a term to my knowledge under the tenure of Bill Clinton. It’s effectively corporatism that mixes right-wing capitalism with left wing Marxism to effectively create a society dominated by government subsidized corporations able to spread power globally via the reach of multi-national corporations, who in turn help the government’s military extend defensive lines across the globe as trade lanes expand. Further, it helps to bolster the exchange of US Dollars in global transactions keeping the United States dollar (based on credit and productivity not hard assets) as the prime reserve currency, i.e., more dollars used and people equate with a higher value, means people will protect their dollars and ensure their investments in dollars are ruined (think of it as dollar addiction or dependency). However, Third Way might be the socially acceptable manta of modern liberal democracies, it has a dark-cousin, twin, or doppelganger in Third Positions politics, and this dark-cousin might be the precursor to our clinically clean managerial systems.
“Called the Third Position, it seeks to overthrow existing governments and replace them with monocultural nation states built around the idea of supremacist racial nationalism and/or supremacist religious nationalism. Third Position neofascists have organized in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East, and they maintain some kind of loose network, at least for the purposes of discussing their shared ideas and agenda, but in some cases involving meetings and even funding.” (Berlet, 2016).
It’s highly possible that Third Way politics is simply a socially acceptable form of Third Position politics, considering Third Way developed in the USA during the World War 2 as Franklin Delano Roosevelt amplified Keynesian economics (demand side economics, i.e., the government creating credit to stimulate economies and manage inflation) to justify the government subsidizing big business (the Defense Industry, i.e., Military Industrial Complex), but after WW2, intelligence communities with support from both Democratic and Republican leadership, recruited Nazi scientists, pre-existing American Behavior scientists such as those inspired by the works of BF Skinner, Russian defectors known as White Russians, French Critical Theorists, Frankfurt School theorists, and academics in sociology and psychology – many Jews who fled Germany and Italy – such as those located at the New School’s University in Exile. By taking the social theories that helped created Nazism and Communism, the Americans were able to synthesize these and apply them to the liberal capitalist democratic model to create a powerful syncretic 3rd Way form of management, i.e., global corporatism. These studies essentially distilled Nazi and Communist thinking into fields such as managerial studies, process and system design, organizational and operations management, communication studies, etc.
However, Robert Heinlein through the medium of science-fiction was able to create a type of simulation for what a 3rd Way society taken to its extremes would look like. A Platonic state merging right and left to establish a global system based on classical ideas such as the right to vote within a Constitutional Republic, i.e., the sovereign franchise. “Historic examples ranged from absolute monarch to utter anarch; mankind has tried thousands of ways and many more have been proposed, some weird in the extreme such as antlike communism urged by Plato under the misleading title The Republic. But the intent has always been moralistic: to provide stable and benevolent government.” (Heinlein, p.181). “All systems seek to achieve this by limiting franchise to those who are believed to have the wisdom to use it justly. I repeat ‘all systems’; even the so-called ‘unlimited democracies’ excluded from franchise not less than one quarter of their populations by age, birth, poll tax, criminal record, or other.” (Heinlein, p. 181). “The sovereign franchise has been bestowed by all sorts of rules – place of birth, family of birth, race, sex, property, education, age, religion, et cetera. All these systems worked and none of them well. All were regarded as tyrannical by many, all eventually collapsed or were overthrown” (Heinlein, p. 181). Major Reid when discussing the purpose of the system the people in Starship Troopers (the book) live, Johnny Rico states that the difference between their system and others that have failed is their system focuses on responsibility (p.183, para. 3), i.e., service, civic duty, the ability to die for the nation, as a requirement to gain access to the sovereign franchise (the right to vote).
Yet, despite this 3rd Way Neoliberal Corporate State being effective, as far as concentration of political power goes for the managerial, bourgeoisie, technocratic class, it is still quite infantile, and is on a continuous evolutionary path of emboldening the dialectical positions which creates it, while simultaneously creating new versions of the system that merges both positions that constitutes it. Since WW2, the USA could be divided into generational decades with each having a type of agenda for prepping the current for the new. In other words, the drastic shift of culture from WW2 through the early 80s, was prepping people for Globalism, corporatism, the speed or insanity of fast-paced often disorienting informational dissemination, and, now as we’re playing with the next level of global-integrated-technocracy. The same way how the chaos of WWI created the League of Nations or WWII gave us the Bretton Woods System, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and United States, I would assume that in order to fully integrate and organize the new world, or, the Fourth World (Reich), there will have to be less sovereign states and larger economic blocks. However, this may not happen if pre-existing international bodies such as United States reforms its antiquated bodies such as by including more nations in the United Nations Security Council with permanent voting power, e.g., India, Brazil, Germany, etc.
These phases or eras are the equivalents of evolutionary adaptations within the 3rd Way model as the 3rd Way model itself continues to grow and be the de facto for of political organization. This viewpoint seems related to Francis Fukuyama’s theory presented in his book The End of History¸ which posits that the liberal democracy is the penultimate form of political organization, especially with Communism meeting its demise in the late nineteen-eighties. The current system and where it’s going seems to be an organizational model inspired and plausibly still dictated by esoteric ideas even though these ideas are shrouded with modern philosophy such as Analytics, psychology, sociology, pragmatism, evolutionary biology, system design, process design, organizational and operations management studies, etc. It sounds silly but take the term Black or Dark Magic for example, drop the magic, and input Technology to create Dark Technology. Many scientists of the Age of Reason and beyond were influenced by Neoplatonists or esoteric ideas.
A Marxist might disagree with this, as will a libertarian, since they’re unable to see how the game is rigged against them, such as the Democratic party being Liberal socially but Statist economically, or Republicans and Libertarians often being conservative socially and liberal economically, i.e., rigged on purpose, but little do they know, they’re simply actors in a managed dialectical stage equivalent to that of the Myth of Sisyphus or the concept of eternal recurrence in the Nietzschean sense (with Nietzsche relating to the concept of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution), where the action of each by itself or onto to the other continues to push the 3rd Way model into full, New World Order, existence. Nothing ever really kills the other but as they fight, they exchange information or habits or systems by default. Both can’t exist without each other, despite the claim they can, and the victory of one over the other isn’t a replacement, but a hedge and temporary stewardship over the direction of the inevitable merging of opposing forces. The light needs dark, and dark needs light. That New World Order existence that will come, emulates the vision’s provided in Starship Troopers, which has already stated, relates to the talking points and style of Joe Rogan, whether he realizes it or not.
The term New World Order is so overused in conspiracy that to hear it would draw the criticism of most. Yet, it is a term that has been used by mainstream politician when advocating their vision of a better world. Regardless, based on the idea of evolution but also mixed in with esoteric ideas, the way our world is unfolding is arguably the grand creation of the Grand architect based on a zealous devotion of democracy not matter its form that will create a united global humanity centered around technology. In a way, we already live in it.
2b. The Classical, Italian Renaissance, and early Democratic ideology underlying Joe Rogan’s syncretic worldview. Understanding Joe’s esoteric inspired worldview. Is Joe Rogan a Neoplatonist and Hermetic Occultist?
As Liberal Marxist and Conservative Right Wing libertarians war with each other in the echo chambers of cyber space, both sides forget that these two dialectical forces, interestingly, have common roots as far back as the Italian Renaissance as people rediscovered Classical Era thoughts such as Neoplatonism, which is a school of philosophy developed by Plotinus who built off of Plato’s ideas (author of The Republic). Plotinus developed an ideology pertaining to a belief in the Monad or the One in which all existence emanates from a singular source and there’s a Demiurge (lesser god) and lower essences between the One and humanity. According to Wildberg (2016), “During the Renaissance, ancient Greek learning, and Neoplatonism in particular, experienced a dramatic revival in the West in the wake of the work of Gemistus Plethon (1355–1452), Bessarion (1403–1472) and, above all, Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), whose translation and interpretation of Plato and Plotinus in the second half of the 15th century influenced not only the philosophy, but also the art and literature of the period. It may even be true to say that even more than the writings of Plato and Aristotle themselves Neoplatonic ideas have continued to influence Western thinkers of the idealist persuasion, such as the Cambridge Platonists (who were really Neoplatonists), Leibniz, Hegel, Schelling, Fichte, Bergson and Teilhard de Chardin, to name but a few.”
Basically, the demiurge is a “demi-God”, albeit powerful and the creator, but this god is subservient to the One, and since all levels of reality and emanations of forms within these levels descend from the One, each subsequent step is less perfect, such as our material world being less pure than the spiritual world; hence, hermetic practices or ceremonial magic such as alchemy or ritual – which vary in theory and application – can “help” humanity achieve a higher level thus be closer to the Monad (the One).
Before, Plotinus, we had the eras of ancient philosophy such as that of Socrates, Plato, & Aristotle, but the lesser-spoken-about but equally important, pre-Socratic philosophers and Seven Sages, played an important role. Pre-Socratic schools such as the Monist School of Milesa or the Ionian School comprising philosophers such as Heraclitus, Anaximander, Anaximenes, etc. This is also the era of the legendary Pythagoras, who is arguably the father of cryptography with his emphasis on numerology, developed the concept of metempsychosis (reincarnation – a modern scientific analogy would be transhumanist ideas or cloning), but this overall period in Greek history was at the crossroads of other empires such as Persia, those of the Levant such as Phoenicians, Canaanites, and Hebrews, Egyptian, etc.
Other thinkers such as the Post-Socratic, Epicurus of the Cynic School, would have a major effect on Enlightenment Era Thinkers with his ideas around free will and the pursuit of happiness. Epicurus could be the godfather of hippies and communal living alongside Pythagoras. Ideas such as those from Persia had rubbed off on the Greeks such as the concepts of magi, which is the forerunner to magic, and possibly the concept of astrology. It could be argued that esoteric thought was an agglomeration of exchanged spiritual theories from the civilizations on the fence of East, West, and Egypt. These areas had always had historical ties such as migration or conquests, such as the Jews being in Babylon and Persia, the Hittites, the Phoenicians of the Levant being dominant before the Greeks, etc.
One Pre-Socratic philosopher, Anaximander, for example believed in Material Monism or the idea that all physical reality was built upon an underlying singular fundamental element or force (arche – water, fire, air, earth, ether, etc.). So, to summarize, if we were to mix the notions of dialectics, Monism, evolution, perennial philosophy, and Neoplatonism, one can see an emphasis on merging dialectics back to a singular “divine” “pure” source. Wilderberg (2016) states, “Although one might think that the phenomenon of evolution militates against Neoplatonic theory, it is actually compatible with it; to some degree, it is precisely what we should expect as the empirical upshot of such metaphysical assumptions. Moreover, in distinction to the Forms posited in the old Academy of Plato and his immediate successors, the Forms of the Neoplatonists, far from being mere schemata, definitions, or ghostly blueprints of the natural world, are rather noetic entities teeming with conscious life. They actively and dynamically interrelate in such a way as to constitute a living noetic cosmos;”. Thus, this merging of dialectics to achieve a higher-level can be seen in 3rd Way politics, economic blocs over opposing nations, transhumanism (man meets machine), and, even transgenderism, with the latter having classical roots in figures such as the Greek entity of Hermaphroditus. These trends today are looking like where our world is headed.
Neoplatonism played a role in inspiring democracy, science, and enlightenment ideas with advocates such Giordano Bruno, a Catholic priest that practice Hermetic occultism who was burned at the stake for his ideas such stars having their own planets and possibly life (Joe Rogan, aliens, get my drift). Another thinker is the aristocrat turned thinker, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who wrote the Oration on the Dignity of Man in 1486. Mirandola was a Christian Kabbalist with interests in magic and helped reestablish esoteric practices in the West by building his own or building upon other’s ideas, which would later evolve to some degree – since esoteric thought isn’t linear – into the Occult, Rosicrucian, and Masonic ideals.
Democracy was inspired by these esoteric ideas but arose simultaneously as early capitalism in the Italian city states arose, and this capitalism would have a profound influence on early banks but also guilds and Masonic Lodges. Anyone is this era during the time of Kings who wanted democracy were liberal and there wasn’t much distinction because democratic and liberal ideas were still developing, particularly that of economic theory. Classical Liberals and early egalitarians (later Marxists) were one but splintered on Masonic Lodge lines during the times before and after the American and French Revolution. Both of these revolutions were democratic revolutions away from nobility, but the differences of opinion on Masonic and/or Enlightenment thought, caused the English and American Lodges to tilt towards capitalism, merchants, and federalism (smaller government), but the French Lodges in Jacobin France seemed to have leaned towards egalitarian, collective, proletariat driven, centralized models, and this would thus evolve elsewhere after the time of Hegel’s idealist philosophy into the concept of Marxism with Karl Marx and Fredrich Engel’s, both New Hegelians, providing analyses on dialectical materialism, i.e., class struggle.
Esoteric ties to the Frankish Noble Bloodlines of Italy, England, Germany, etc.: This section might seem out of place, but it’s really to show the relationship of esoteric through to political power. Understanding esoteric throught in relation to history and political power can help shed light on why it still exist today. An interesting side note is that Giovanni Mirandola’s family (the Pico) were related to other notable powerful Italian and/or Frankish, German, and Italian families such as the Este via Giovanni’s brother, Galeotto I’s marriage into the Este Family. This is interesting because the Este are a the junior branch of the Young House of Welf, and the Welf Dynasty, following the descendants of Welf I (or, IV in the Elder House of Welf genealogy which died out), would go to inherit Duchy of Brunswick Luneburg, which would later evolve into the House of Hanover, i.e., the Kings of the England during the Georgian period. Welf I was the son of Albert Azzo II, Margrave of Milan. Alberto Azzo II’s great-grandfather was Adalberto the Margrave, i.e., Aldabert III, of the Obertenghi Family, whose family was granted large swaths of land during the time of Benegar II of the Italy, a descendant of Charlemagne, through his mother Gisela, the daughter of Louis the Pious. The Orbertenghi Family fell under the House of Boniface founded by Boniface the I who was appointed governor of Italy by Charlemagne himself after Charlemange’s son, Pepin of Italy died, and his grandson, Bernard of Italy, rebelled again Charlmange’s son, Louis the Poius. Boniface also was the Count of Lucca.
Albert Azzo II, Margrave of Milan and Kunigunde of Altdorf. Kunigunde’s mother was Imiza of Luxembourg, the daughter, Frederick of Luxembourg, the son of House of Luxembourg scion and member of the house of Andennes-Luxembourg, Siegfried (born. 922), whom lastly was the son of Frankish duke, Wigeric of Lotharingia (areas in modern day Belgium, Luxembourg, parts of Northern France, Southern Netherlands, and the Lorraine borders of Germany and France).
Wigeric’s second wife was Cunigunda, granddaughter of Charlemagne’s direct descendant, Louis the Stammerer, i.e., Louis II of the West Francia. Relating back to the Giovanni connection to all of this, as stated the Mirandola House married into the Este (Italian Welf) House. Welf IV (I of the Younger House) inherited his mother’s uncle’s (also named Welf) rights to Bavaria, i.e., elevating him to Welf the I of the Younger House. He had a younger brother, Fulco, who retained power in the family’s Italian seat via their father in the areas he owned in Veneto, around Mantua, Padua, Treviso and Verona. When Fulco and Welf’s dad died, Fulco kept Este and his brother kept Welf. Galeotto I, Signore of Mirandola, brother to Giovannai Mirandola, married the daughter of a descendant of Niccole III d’Este.
Later down the line, Alfonso d’Este (21 July 1476 – 31 October 1534), Duke of Ferrara, married into the Papal Family via his marriage to Lucrezia Borgia, the daughter of Pope Alexander VI. Pope Alexander VI was one of the most notorious Popes known for his infamous, Joust of the Whores. “When we think of the popes who have presided over Catholicism in recent decades, it’s difficult to imagine them inviting 50 dancers to slowly strip while they ate dinner. It’s even harder to picture one of them throwing chestnuts on the floor for these dancers to snatch up, before handing out prizes for the guy who could have sex with the most women in one sitting. But Alexander VI was a Borgia before he was a pope, so his turn in the cassock was always going to be debauched.” (Cubis, 2017).
Lucrezia Borgia married into the Este Family, i.e., the Dukes of Milan, and the Este Family is related to the Hose of Welf whom would later become the Dukes of Brunswick, i.e., the House of Hanover, thus British Kings. The Welf Dynasty had Carolingian blood via the House of Luxembourg and from many other marriages with Carolingian descendants ranging from France, Aquitane, England, etc. The Borgias married into the Este but so did the Mirandola Family where Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the founder of Western escoteric throught, is from. The hermeticism he helped inspire seems to have made it to England and Queen Elizabeth’s strategist, John Dee, was a practioner of Hermetic Occultism and he coinded the term “British Empire” which would later be infused with Masonic Lodges such as those of Cecil Rhodes, Rupert Kipling, etc.
Welf I’s son Welf II had married the powerful Matilda of Tuscany and the Mirandola (Pico) family nearby had been vassals of Matilda, insinuating this possibly where the Mirandola line became associated more so with the Welf Este line. Welf I’s descendent, the famous Henry the Lion, settled the disputes between the Bavarian Welfs and the Italian Estes, giving up claims to his familial Italian possessions, yet, these Italian and Germany blood ties would be crucial during the Guelph (Italian for Welf) versus Ghibellines (those loyal to the Holy Roman Emperor) during Italy’s struggle to retain autonomy away from the Germanic, House Hohenstaufen (interrelated with the Welf’s, e.g. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and Henry the Lion were cousins). The Guelph factions, siding with the Papacy, in Italy fought those loyal to the Emperor, and the conflict started during the Investiture Controversy as the Pope and Emperor battled over who had more power. Essentially, the Guleph factions commanded in part by Este Nobles, used the tensions between their cousin German Welf family, to help fight the Hohenstaufen imperial overlords (Frederick Barbarossa, i.e., the Frederick the I, and Frederick the II).
Henry the Lion, Duke of Bavaria and Saxony (of the Welf Clan related his Este cousins in Italy) married Matilda of England the daughter of Richard II, thus interlinking the Welf-Este Clan to England when they finally ascended the throne of England as the Hanoverian kings. Yet, during the times of Hohenstaufen rule of the Holy Roman Empire, the Welfs and Hohenstaufens fought viciously over rulership, and Henry the Lion had been stripped of his Saxon lands and Bavarian lands, but later after reconciliation obtain some lands back such as those around Brunswick. Henry the Lion’s son, Otto IV, would become the Holy Roman Emperor but was excommunicated by Pope Innocent III. Otto IV died without issue, so his brother, living in England due their mom’s English royal ties, named William of Winchester, took over, but his son, Otto the Child officially came to the rule Brunswick Luneburg.
To rewind a bit, an interesting fact is that Henry the Lion went on crusade in 1172 and met with the Knight Templars and Knights Hospitallers. Another interesting fact is that as already stated the British nobility has Hanoverian blood (Welf-Este) but the during the Victoria area a nearby German family in Saxony based in Gotha married into the British family, meaning the British family is highly German, but with a vast diversity spanning Italy (arguably back to the fall of the Rome during the Gothic invasions), Viking French (Norman Conquests), Scandinavian, etc. Think about this if you were to pull out the themes: royal blood lines, the Franks, Knight Templars, Occult practicing relatives, etc.
The house of Este still exists today in Prince Lorenz of Belgium, Archduke of Austria-Este and the house of Welf exists today in Prince Ernst August of Hanover, meaning these people are distant relatives to the current British royal family. The British nobility during the times of Queen Elizabeth had John Dee as an advisor to Elizabeth and he was into Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism, etc. So, the heritage of the occult and esoteric thought goes back much further.
GALEOTTO I, Signore della Mirandola e Conte di Concordia 8.11.1467, *Mirandola 1442, +by malaria Mirandola 7.4.1499, bur San Francesco, Mirandola; m.Ferrara 1468 Bianca Maria, natural and legitimate daughter of Niccole III d’Este, Lord of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio by Caterina de Taddeo (*18.12.1440, +Mirandola 12.1.1506) [Source: http://genealogy.euweb.cz/italy/pico1.html]
Margherita, +1461; m.1442 Taddeo d’Este, Lord of Este, Venetian General Governor of Friuli (+near Brescia 21.6.1448 [Source: http://genealogy.euweb.cz/italy/pico1.html]
3. How Joe’s esoteric syncretic worldview aligns to politics, counterculture, defense and intelligence (the Deep State or Military Complex) and entertainment.
Joe Rogan’s talking points have been linked to the Esalen Institute, which is known for its counter-culture roots but granted it did host many notable thinkers in the fields of psychology and psychiatry. This place hosted or was associated with people such as (1) Aldous Huxley, the author of a Brave New world. Esalen co-founder, Dick Price, while attending Stanford was inspired by Aldous Huxley’s talks on Human Penitential, and Price’s co-founder, Michael Murphy, would go to establish the Human Potential Movement, which is something Joe advocates for with his fitness beliefs. Also, Joe does have a habit of using Darwinist-terms such as Alphas and Betas when describing people, and though it seems like coincidence, if you apply this to Huxley’s book, Brave New World, it aligns with the social orders of the novel. As a side note, slightly related, the NXVIUM cult by Keith Raniere, styled itself as a “human potential company” (International Cultic Studies Institute, n.d.), and Roger Stone was on NXVIUM’s payroll (Edevane, 2018), and has close ties to Alex Jones who in turn is close to Joe Rogan. (2) Julius Huxley is noted for coining the world transhumanist and this relates to the Human Potential Movement, but transhumanism was expanded upon by Iranian-American and New School NY professor, MS-2030, real name, Fereidoun M. Esfandiary. MS-2030 would consult companies such as Lockheed Martin.
(3) Joseph Campbell, a mythologist who studied archetypes in myths, and who was inspired by Carl Jung. Before I go on about Jung, relating to Transhumanism out of the New School, the New School was also home to the University in Exile, who were refugee professors who studied the sociology of the Nazis and Communists, but they were brought to America on the assistance of the Rockefeller Family. Do your own reading into the Rockefeller Dynasty. Leo Strauss, the noted developer of Neoconservatism ideology in the USA, which was later associated with Rockefeller’s University of Chicago, was in this cast of characters. One main member relating to Joe via Joe’s Esalen inspired talking points was Max Wertheimer, whom helped develop the concept of Gestalt psychology which later developed by Fritz Perls et al., as Gestlat therapy and Perls was a notable associate of Esalen. [Visual Note: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y5tuJ3Sojc. Full video of Fritz Perls’ session with Gloria from the film “Three Approaches to Psychotherapy” (1965), posted on YouTube on 9/12/13]
Jung’s psychoanalysis which centered on dream interpretation and archetypes, was inspired in part by the Tibetan Book of the Dead and Plato’s idea of eidos. Joseph Campbell would inspire George Lucas when writing Star Wars. Star Wars is now owned by Disney and Disney gave Joe is first major acting jobs. Lucas also employed cult members from the Synanon cult for his senior film thesis, THX 1138, and Synanon was referenced by author Philip K. Dick, notably as an allusion in A Scanner Darkly (which interestingly in the film adaption has Alex Jones). Further, the Joseph Campbell archives are curated by Jonathan Young, an alumni of the Defense Information School and contributor to History Channel’s, Ancient Aliens, (4) Terrance McKenna, the noted advocate for the “Stoned Ape” Theory and for use of psychoactive drugs, (5) Alan Watts, known from introducing Eastern ideas into the West, (6) Ray Bradbury, the creator of Star Trek (6) Deepak Chopra, the founded of Quantum Healing, which has been derided as pseudo-science, (7) Fritz Pearls, the originator of the Gestalt Therapy method, which is an existential/experiential form of psychotherapy, (8) Hunter S. Thompson, the gonzo journalist who inspired Joe Rogan and his friend, Josh Ronson, (9) Lt. Col. Jim Channon, who was involved with the Human Potential Movement for the US Army and established the concept of the New Earth Army – a program that would study to see if soldiers could use paranormal abilities, etc.
The Esalen Institute is a counterculture retreat not far from San Francisco and developed in the times of the Cold War where defense, intelligence, CIA and FBI before the Church Commission exposed their secret operations (including MK Ultra, and the Cultural Revolution were developing. Joe has stated that as a child he lived in San Francisco.
4. Joe in San Francisco and Los Angeles: An objective quick view of the importance links to San Francisco and LA to this paper relating to Starship Troopers, Joe Rogan’s worldview, and the overlap of Counterculture, Defense, Esoteric Thought, and Entertainment.
In the book of Starship Troopers, Juan “Johnny” Rico leans about the origins of the Terran Federation. The Russo-Anglo-American alliance fought a war with China. This eerily emulates the real-life scenarios of Trump’s yearning for improved Russian relations but also the United Kingdom’s brand of MAGA with Boris Johnson when relating to Brexit. Further, the far-right President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro (of Italian and German descent), has a power style like the Caesarism of Putin, Johnson, and Trump, looks like Johnny Rico played by Casper Van Dien. Another interesting note is that in the novel by Heinlein, it is stated that San Joaquin Valley and San Francisco were destroyed, and this area interestingly is part of Silicon Valley, which is interesting because Americans view the center of power as being in Washington DC, yet, with the power of tech companies (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.), the real power (minus the power of law and treaty) is in San Francisco. “Major Reid, our instructor, was a blind man with a disconcerting habit of looking straight at you and calling you by name. We were reviewing events after the war between the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance and the Chinese Hegemony, 1987 and following. But this was the day that we heard the news of the destruction of San Francisco and the San Joaquin Valley; I thought he would give us a pep talk.” (Heinlein, p. 177, 1959).
A young Jair Bolsanaro who was an officer in the fascist Junta of Brazil. He’s been called the Trump of the Tropics and like Putin, Boris Johnson, Netanyahu, and Trump, he is emulating the idea of political “Caesarism”. All men have ties to the Chabad Lubavitch community as well which is important because they have a model for a global Judeo Christian religion known as Noahide and this community has ties to Kabbalah centers which have influenced left-wing and right wing social movements, life style cults, etc. Also, a photo of Kamala Harris of African American and Indian heritage which alludes to the Sky Marshal Tahat Meru where the name Meru has an Indian vibe to it. On a side note, India played an important aspect in counter-culture
The San Francisco area in this Counter Culture era gave rise or was involved in the following: (1) MK Ultra projects such as Operation Climax, (2) Bohemian Grove with Cold War neocons members such as Reagan – who was into the paranormal – and Richard Nixon, (3) birth place of groups such as the Symbionese Liberation Army [famously involved in the “Stockholm Syndrome” kidnapping of Patty Hurst), the Black Panthers, and Aryan Brotherhood, but all with links at San Quentin Penitentiary, (4) The Church of Satan of Anton LeVay (5) the speculative fiction of Philip K. Dick who used psychoactive drugs, stated he was harassed by the FBI, but also saw the rise of early Silicon Valley which possibly inspired his fiction such as that regarding transhumanism, e.g., Blade Runner, Ubik, etc., but also, the likely fact that Nazis, such as in his book The Man in the High Castle – also based in San Francisco, “did win the war” since many former Nazi intel agents, i.e., the Gehlen Organization of Reinhard Gehlen, and Operation Paperclip scientists were let off the hook and worked for the US government such as a notable Otto Von Bolschwing who settled in San Francisco area working for an early Silicon Valley tech start up.
(6) Stanford University with its ties to Silicon Valley via the Stanford Research Institute with locations in the Bay Area but also Menlo Park in Southern California Military Industrial Complex, but also Stanford is renowned for its school of Psychology [including the Palo Alto School, i.e., the Invisible School. Stanford’s psychology progress is where Esalen Institute founder, Michael Murphy, was an alumni before being an Army psychologist but also co-founder, Dick Price, (7) the kink community [note: sites such as Kink.com, have been called the Abu Ghraib Prison Camp of sex for its intense pornography by female directors such as Lady Donna, harkening to the idea of pornography as a psychological weapon to debase or deconstruct the subconsciousness so it can be rebuilt, similar to the concept of pornography within David Cronenberg’s postmodern horror masterpiece, Videodrome], (7) LGBTQ community, (8) site of Jeremy Mishlove, the only person to obtain a Doctorate in Para-Psychology from US Berkley, and he hosts the current show, New Thinking Allowed, a show spanning tops from remote-viewing, ESP, paranormal activity, Indo-European studies, Vedic and Hindu Shamanism (something which was of interests to the intellectuals of the Nazi movements such as) and has hosted Alt-Right Iranian scholar, Jordan Reza Jorjani.
(9) The location of notable serial killers in the San Francisco area proper but also in nearby Santa Cruz, such as the Zodiac Killer and Golden State Killer. A plausible suspect in the Zodiac Killings was a man named George Hodel, and he is the likeliest suspect in Southern California’s Black Dahlia’s Murder – a murder mimicking the art of Man Ray’s piece, Minotaur. Man Ray (a surrealist, like that of Salvador Dali, who liked Hitler and was a pervert and misogynist), John Huston, and Hodel were friends that bonded over womanizing in the local Hollywood scene. Hodel was associated with Hollywood (likely as an abortion doctor with his medical training), hosted parties for celebrities and actors such as John Huston.
Interestingly, Huston played an incestuous tycoon in Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, but in real life, George Hodel was accused of incest with his daughter. Further, Roman Polanski’s wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by Charlie Manson’s followers, but John Huston’s daughter, Anjelica Huston was questioned by police during Polanski’s underage sex arrest before he fled the United States.
Hodel hosted orgies, relating to the Sex Magick Occult scene of the 40s and 50s, like that of Crowley Thelema follower and famed rocket scientists, Jack Parson. Parsons was an associate of Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard via the La Manana Literary Society. Southern California was where the Rand Corporation (manned by Neoconservatives, i.e., Trotskyites turned Republicans such as Albert Wohlstetter), Defense and Aerospace Industry (Jet Propulsion Lab, Howard Hughes, Vandenberg AFB, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, etc.), Disney and Hollywood, Intelligence, hippies, Orange County John Birch republicans, Neo Nazis such as in Anaheim, Lancaster, and Huntingdon Beach, and, yes, the Occult aligned].
Robert Heinlein had a major impact on both hippies associated with the left but also libertarians often associated in American political history with the right-wing. His book, Stranger in a Strange Land, has concepts such as a world religion based around neo-paganism and polyamory, i.e., free love and communal living. His book The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, inspired libertarians. Heinlein in his youth was an advocate for the Social Credit of the Socialist author, Upton Sinclair, which is Universal Basic Income, a concept spoke about on Rogan’s podcast by Andrew Yang and Elon Musk. During the Cold War, due to Heinlein’s navy experience, he shifted more right-wing and advocate from a world government. His syncretic society formulated in Starship Troopers, threading upon Plato’s The Republic (similar to Huxley’s Brave New World), has Civilians are the equivalent to libertarians (who can’t vote) and Citizens which are the equivalent to Marxists or statists who can vote because they served in the military.
Joe’s Military Support and Connections: Joe often styles himself as a supporter of the military while having the hippie anti-war mentality. Many of his guests are veterans, intelligence assets such as Mike Baker, and Joe is often wearing shits with the American Flag often in imagery one could mistake as a Blue Lives Matter rendition of the flag, Black Rifle Coffee, etc. I’m not judging him on this at all but it’s obvious that Joe of course supports the military (as do I and I’m a veteran). Since his podcast is so popular, I like to think of Joe Rogan as a “MK Ultra 2.0, military recruiter that’s cool for the kids, who plays video games, talks about “chicks”, gets high, and is in the liking of the New Earth Army with ties to the Hollywood-Military and Tech elite”.
The New Earth Army, as seen in the film, The Men Who Stare at Goats. The Men Who Stare at Goats was written by Jon Ronson, who is a friend of Joe’s friend, Alex Jones, going so far as producing Alex Jones’ conspiracy movies. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Alex Jones obviously was an asset (either by choice or by incrimination) to support Trump with his right-wing synthesis of White Supremacy and Right Wing Zionism leading up to 2016 by tapping into Jones’ base of often angry, white male, Christian Right conspiracy theorists that grew under the tenure of Barack Obama.
A scene from The Men Who Stare At Goats which was written by Jon Ronson, a friend of Alex Jones and Joe Rogan. The scene depicts the training of the New Earth Battaltion which was the Army’s attempt at creating psyhic warriors in the Cold War. Colonel Channon who led the training had been at the Esalen Institute and later became a Corporate GuruPhpto of real soldiers in the Army’s experiements to perform remote viewing. https://rviewer.com/the-real-men-behind-the-men-who-stare-at-goats/Major General Albert Stubblebine was in charge of the Army’s Psy Warrior Battaltion. A West Point graduate with duty in Vietnam and other conflicts. Jim ChannonMel Riley participated in the Remote Viewing experiements conducted by the military and Stanford Research Institute. On special request from a senior intelligence officer, Mel was assigned in 1976 to Fort George G. Meade to work on a special security vulnerability assessment team. Within a year he was assisting Lt. Fred “Skip” Atwater in the early stages of setting up the Army’s first remote viewing unit. By late 1978 and early 1979 Mel was working full time as one of the first military remote viewers in what was by then called the “Grill Flame” Program. https://rviewer.com/Remote_Viewing_Blog/biography-page/melvin-c-mel-riley/
This relationship to Jones who is in the MAGA Camp (also, associated with Trump associates Jim Corsi and Roger Stone) seems to be a big reason Joe Rogan throughout the Obama Era and after Trump’s victory was platforming the Intellectual Dark Web with a crew spanning Sam Harris and Stefan Molyneux (advocates of Racial IQ theory), Harvey and Eric Weinstein, Gavin McInnes (an icon in the hipster Alt Right and founder of the Proud Boys), but also, Jordan B. Peterson known for his Jungian approach to self-help but whom became an icon of certain members of the Alt Right with his opportunistic rejection of feminism, redefining gender, etc.
Relating back to Esalen and Lt. Col. Jim Channon, Channon was a member of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. US Army Airborne relates to US Army Special Forces (Green Berets) out of Fort Bragg, NC., which engages in unconventional warfare, such as the 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne) and US Army Airborne, Special Forces, also mans the US Army’s Psychological Warfare Operations. The entire US Army Special Forces, as well as that of other branches, falls under United States Special Operations, based out of MacDill, AFB, Tampa. The Special Operations Command has a unit the falls under it called the 193d Special Operations Wing based out of Harrisburg Air National Guard Base. Their mission is as follows, “Flying the EC-130J Commando Solo, a specially-modified four-engine Hercules transport, the 193d Special Operations Squadron conducts information operations, psychological operations and civil affairs broadcasts in AM, FM, HF, TV and military communications bands. A typical mission consists of a single-ship orbit offset from the desired target audience – either military or civilian personnel. The Air Force Special Operations Command’s 193d Special Operations Wing, Middletown, Pa., has total responsibility for the Commando Solo missions.” Further, “The 193d SOW’s primary wartime and contingency operations mission is to broadcast radio and television signals to target populations from an airborne transmitter, jamming existing television and radio signals where necessary. Messages are not developed within the wing itself, but are provided by staff of the United States Army‘s 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne), based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina”
Think about all that… Ancient Aliens with links to the Defense Information School; the US Army Special Forces had ties to Esalen, albeit probably minimal, yet, still US Army Airborne and Special Forces units utilizing Lockheed C-130s to fly mission to broadcast radio and television signals, or, the fact that Joe Rogan has associates with people in US special forces and the intelligence community, or, the fact that Alex Jones has had military personnel on Info Wars. This all seems like a clever ruse on the general public by using conspiracy culture and popularity to build large bases but then to slip in messages, manufacture consent, or covertly reinforce themes to groom or steer the public in general directions, or, to even exacerbate political tensions. There’s an odd connection or correlation with these and they all merge with concepts such as psychological operations, counter-culture, asymmetric communication mediums such as direct-to-audience podcasts, the defense industry, entertainment in Hollywood spanning Disney to the video game industry, universities doing research into sociology and psychology, etc.
Then comes the curious case of Army Officer and Temple of Set (a Satanic organization) of Michael Aquino. Not sure what to make of this guy. Part of me doesn’t want to acknowledge him in anything I read or write about because that would accuse me of conspiracy, but it seems that’s the exact reason of why Aquino exist. To dissuade people with an, “Oh, it’s just an eye roll conspiracy”, but he was real. From my viewpoint, he built off the work of Air Force General Edward Lansdale’s pioneering psychological warfare of the 50s, simultaneously as a Dr. William S. Kroger of UCLA, a doctor who developed hypnosis techniques with the gynecology field, got hypnosis approved by the American Psychological Association, but William S. Kroger would later go to consult the FBI on actual crime cases. Other mental notes to keep in mind is that Lansdale conducted his Psy Warfare in the Philippines, the original Juan Rico character from Heinlein’s book was Filipino, and the Philippines was home to MK-Ultra sites, and as far as the later fact, I’ve discussed this is my paper, Tears on the Western Horizon: How the Las Vegas Shooter’s Filipino Connection Unveiled the Philippines’ fight for the future and its shadowy past by Quinton Mitchell. (link: https://mitchellrg.com/2019/11/21/tears-on-the-western-horizon-how-the-las-vegas-shooters-filipino-connection-unveiled-the-philippines-fight-for-the-future-and-its-shadowy-past-by-quinton-mitchell/)
Michael Aquino helped develop the lexicon during the Pentagon’s Era of studying counter culture to win the Cold War, such as the work of Lt. Col. Jim Channon, depicted in the film, The Men Who Share at Goats (produced by Joe Rogan’s friend, Josh Ronson), for current postmodern psy-op techniques aka “Info War”. Aquino has been on Alex Jones “Tip of The Spear” aka the symbol of US SOCOM, Info Wars.
Alex Jones seems to have has been coopted, but not as bad as Joe and Alex’s blackmail likely involves prostitution and drugs considering he associates with drug users in the Rogan Crew but also the Sex Swinging of his friend Roger Stone. Alex Jones’ powerful asymmetric direct-to-audience podcast (a psychological operation) seems to be in support of the US SOCOM (Special Operations Command), Roger Stone, Zionist, Chabad Lubavitch, Jim Corsi, Trump, etc. In other words, the Zionist Kosher Nazi Right Wing sect of the Intel and politics community, dating back to the Reagan, Nixon, the Neoconservatives associated with the University of Chicago, CIA Director William Casey, John K. Singlaub’s Western Foundation during the Iran-Contra Affair, The World Anti-Communist League (which had ties to Nazi sympathizers after WW2), and the John Birch Society days, with its web of paid Alt-Right YouTubers like Styxenhammer666 (an Occultist whose stated that memes area form of magic), Rebel Media with a cast spanning ethno-nationalist Lauren Southern (who interviewed Aleksandr Dugin), Mike Cernovich, The Drudge Report, Sargon of Akaad (who did a video on Starship Troopers but shifted highly right-wing for his own propaganda), Project Veritas, Jay Dyer (possibly, considering his Anti-Western rhetoric, adoption of Orthodoxy, and interview of Aleksandr Dugin), etc.
Alex Jones, arguably Alt Right, has threatened “revolution” with “Patriots” if Trump is removed by stating the US has Operation Gladio-esque Stay Behind Units. This sounds far-fetched but the US does have State Defense Forces (inferior to the Active Duty and National Guard) which under the support of Ronald Reagan grew. Investigations reported they were full of out of shape or Neo Nazi elements, like the European SBUs involved in Cold War atrocities in Germany, Italy (Year of Lead), and Turkey (Abdullah Catli – assassin linked to the assassination attempt on John Paul). Jared Kushner has ties to the production company which made The Purge full of Alt Right imagery, paramilitary, etc., but he also had ties to Josh Raffel, whom according to Rodriguez (1997), “A Hollywood publicist who cut his teeth promoting low-budget horror hits like Get Out and The Purge films is now selling the achievements of Jared Kushner’s new role in the White House. US president Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor has reportedly hired Josh Raffel to lead communications for the White House Office of American Innovation, according to the Hollywood Reporter.”
4th Psy Ops Group Army Ft. Bragg7th Psy Op Battalion in Vietnam193d Special Op Wing PAIs this the “Tip of the Spear” that Alex Jones cryptically speaks about? This was brought up by other investigators into this matter. In 1966 the 1352 Photographic Group based at Lookout Mountain Air Force Station took on a new role, documenting the expanding Vietnam War. On 8 February 1966, Det. 5, 1352 Photographic Group at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, South Vietnam became the 600th Photo Squadron charged with the increased responsibility of all USAF photographic services in Southeast Asia except reconnaissance photography. This responsibility grew over the years to include combat documentation, automatic gun-camera and high-speed pod and blister photography of ordnance deliveries, still photography, and photographic support of the Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF). Cameramen in Vietnam”. Air & Space Magazine. July 2017. Retrieved 9 August 2017.Phoenix Program between the US military and CIA. These units were used to terrorize the public by training soldiers to feel nothing, stalk, hunt, etc. This conditioning might have been the miltiary’s version of MK Ultra and might have result in the blowback of domestic violence in the USA such as the serial killer phenomena which correlated with the underworld of the US government such as drug trafficking. Essentially, trained killers with psychological issues let loose in the USA during a time of growing pains as people adjusted to the realities of counterculture. Some of these men had lethal skills which put them in the mix of drug running to fund the Cold War and this area involves kidnappings, ransoms, rapes, and getting rid of people.
International Cultic Studies Association. (n.d.). NXIVM 14-year-old federal lawsuit against Rick Ross dismissed. Retrieved February 3, 2020, from https://www.icsahome.com/groups/nxivm
Young. G (2012). The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Federov and his followers: Oxford University Press. [Young quotes. 1) Wilson, C. (1978). The Occult: A History. New York: Random House.]
Other sources not quoted but for general interests:
Mitchell Research Group 