Just another brick in the wall...

“All this was inspired by the principle--which is quite true within itself--that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.”
—Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X

I have come to the conclusion that the prison of the American mind may just be impregnable.  If you have eyes to see, the evidence of our own government’s complicity in this supposed terrorist act is plastered all over the internet.  While I am of the opinion that there were bombs and people were injured, the famous double amputee “Jeff Bauman” is not who they clam him to be.  That famous photo was planned and executed.  The problem is that no one can believe that to be the case.  It is so outrageous, that the average American mind cannot grasp it as a possible reality.  However, there are photos circulating on the internet of these drama queens setting up their little stage play.  Medical professionals are at a loss for how these supposed injuries couldn’t have killed “Bauman” without immediate medical attention and massive blood loss.  These photos document that neither took place.

It was fake.  “Jeff Bauman” is actually a veteran named Nick Vogt who lost his legs in battle.  He was hired by these people to stage this photo and sear the severity of this “terrorist attack” into the American psyche.  And, even with the proof of this floating around…it worked.  These people understand neuroscience, psychology and illusions better than Hitler.  They have had 70 odd years since then to perfect their tricks and they are now so good that even when presented with photographic evidence, the average American will recoil in horror at the “ghouls who would exploit the tragedy of this man”, never realizing that it is not those with the photos who are lying.  It is not their own eyes that deceive them.  It is the mind-control cabal of your National Security agencies and their puppets, the corporate-owned media.

Anderson Cooper is an agent of the CIA.  CNN has dutifully lied for every president since Bush 41.  Fox News is worse.  NBC News is a turd that fell out of the Rockefeller family’s ass decades ago.  Its smell has not improved with time.  CBS, ABC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times – It’s all the same.  All “reporting” is done through Reuters and the AP, and those stories are vetted by their standards and practices secret police.  Anything that deviates from the official narrative is buried, lost, obfuscated or outright lied about.  The eyewitnesses interviewed on television are often paid actors reading a script.  This is big business and the product is your opinion.  They dream it up, throw it in a couple different packages and allow you to choose the package with the logo you like.  But it’s all the same goddamn lie.

However, it has been this way for so long, no one can tell.  The audacity, the sheer depth and breadth of this fakery is too much to fathom.  We were born and raised to believe in the inherent good of others.  We were told that good people don’t lie and most people are good.  What we have failed to realize is that most people do as they are told, and as long as they do a good job at what they have been told to do, they can be satisfied with themselves, especially if they have been lead to believe it is for a greater good.  In other words, it’s not a lie if it is in the national interest.  These people truly believe that, at least the ones who rise to prominence in journalism do.  The worst thing a journalist can do for their career is ask questions.  Try to wrap your head around that one.

It is all lies.  All of it, all day, all night.  24 hours a day on God knows how many channels.  Lies.  Lies with a conservative bent, lies with a liberal bent – it doesn’t matter.  They are all lies originating from the same source positioning itself behind the curtain of Oz as it keeps you locked in the reality it has created.  I don’t claim to know exactly who those people are, though I have my suspicions.  I do not claim to know their agenda, though it can be guessed to resemble the UN’s Agenda 21 in some detail.  This isn’t really about the “who” or “why” in relation to Boston, though.  This is about the “what”.  If we can’t use our senses and truly perceive the “what” of things, the other questions are the least of our problems.

So, this is “what” happened.  Individuals within our National Security apparatus in conjunction with individuals in our national media have conspired to pull the wool over the American people’s eyes.  They have frightened us.  They have traumatized us. They have framed two young men who may or may not have had anything to do with it.  They closed down a major US city and marched 9,000 militarily armed troops through the streets in a door-to-door sweep.  In effect, they conducted the largest military operation on American soil since the Civil War.  And we said nothing.

All of this would be horrible even if it was the first time it had ever been done.  But, that pales when one thinks about how many times this type of routine has been pulled and how many times it has worked.  It works because the prison of the American mind has been carefully constructed over the course of its life.  Authority uses the trauma of fear and the resultant solidarity of groupthink to its advantage, over and over and over again.  This has been done on a small scale in school and continues through to the everyday life of the adult, interspersed with the truly earth-shattering trauma of the national events.

In the end, we arrive at middle-age, the supposed dawn of wisdom, a battered wife afraid of its own shadow.  We refuse to blame our abusive husband.  It’s not his fault, we tell ourselves.  He is a good man.  I shouldn’t mind when my rights are taken away.  He’s only trying to protect me.  I need him.  I love him.  God Bless America.  They would never hurt me.  Never.

But they will, so long as it continues to work.  And it will continue to work as long as we are afraid of the truth.

“ If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.”
— George Orwell, 1984

On Illusions and Realities

“I'm sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth”

-          John Lennon

I don’t believe anything anymore.  There—I said it.  I don’t believe John F. Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald.  I don’t believe that Sirhah Sirhan acted alone in the assassination of his brother.  I don’t believe Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death occurred without influence from federal agents.  I don’t believe Mark David Chapman acted of his own free will when he gunned down John Lennon.  I don’t believe John Hinckley fell into obsession over Taxi Driver on his own prior to shooting Ronald Reagan.  I don’t believe CNN’s (The Most Trusted Name in News) award-winning coverage of the Gulf War was totally true.  I don’t believe 9/11 went down the way it was reported and I certainly don’t believe that Al Qaeda was solely responsible for the attacks.  I don’t believe James Holmes acted alone in shooting up that movie theater last summer.  And, here’s the kicker, I don’t believe the tragedy in Sandy Hook even took place at all.

Believe me, I don’t reach these conclusions lightly.  It is not something I relish.  I do not want to be considered crazy.  I don’t want to put undue stress on my wife and loved ones by refusing to conform to the paradigm of normal decency.  I am keenly aware that by making these outrageous claims that I am swimming against the current of popular opinion and, in so doing, leave myself open to the anger and ridicule that entails.  It would be far easier to shut my mouth, bow my head and move in step with the crowd.  It would also be far more comforting to believe in a national structure of law and order that protects democracy and condemns violence and chicanery.  However, I do not feel that is the truth, and I cannot in good conscience go along with the lie.

Mind control exists.  I have read enough and seen enough to feel confident in stating this as fact.  Mind control exists, and has existed at least as far back as ancient Egypt.  What has been called magic or demonic possession or a million other terms over thousands of years is a combination of techniques involving drugs, hypnosis and traumatic ritual abuse that results in dissociative identity disorder in the victim, otherwise known as multiple personality disorder.  Dissociative identity disorder is not something that “just happens” to someone.  It is a defense mechanism of the psyche to hide itself from trauma too horrific to process.  Once the primary identity disappears ‘over the rainbow’ as it is termed, the resulting alter personalities are subject to a great amount of manipulation by the perpetrator.  This is where the hypnosis techniques come into play.  With proper skill, it is possible to create a mind-controlled slave encoded with triggers to switch their general function and personality according to the perpetrator’s desires, with the primary identity left completely unaware.

I know what you’re thinking.  This is the stuff of science fiction.  This is not real.  That is what I thought, as well.  However, the mountain of evidence is overwhelming once you have the clarity of mind to look for it.  You see, the reason this concept is impossible for us to consider, is that we are victims of a grand society-wide mind control endeavor all its own, above and beyond the age-old dissociative identity disorder variety.  In the 20^th century, these codified mind-control techniques found their way from ancient Egypt into the secret writings of one Aleister Crowley.  This evil con man created a secret society of power built on the horrors of ritual abuse, and he didn’t do it alone.  These techniques, collectively known as Monarch programming after the transformative butterfly of the same name, found their way into the hands of another group around the same time Crowley’s Ordo Templi Orientis was gaining traction in England.  Adolph Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and the inner circle of the SS known as the Knights of the Black Sun began to use Monarch to build the Third Reich, and it worked wonders.  Crowley was in fact using his influence throughout England to bring the British Empire under the thumb of the Nazi regime.  Had he succeeded, our entire world would be different today.

I take solace in knowing that he failed.  The Ordo Templi Orientis was smashed in England.  Crowley’s books were burned.  Berlin fell.  Hitler and the Third Reich, despite their evil machinations are now relegated to the history books.  Monarch didn’t manage to dominate the world.  However, it didn’t disappear either.  Agents of the Knights of the Black Sun had penetrated both the Soviets and the US in the meantime.  Footholds in both empires allowed Monarch to sink its claws deep into the infrastructure of each in the name of ‘national security’.  Here in the US, this was known as Operation: Paperclip and many of the worst in Nazi mind control experts were smuggled into our country under new identities or to work on our space program.  Werner Von Braun is a famous ex-Nazi who helped to make the US venture into space a possibility.  However, beneath the surface of Von Braun and his fellow rocket scientists lurked a seedy underbelly of Monarch mind control. 

Over in America, the Ordo Templi Orientis continued to thrive despite Crowley’s eventual demise.  Dr. Jack Parsons, one of the men responsible for the formation of Jet Propulsion Labs and instrumental in bringing ex-Nazis over in Paperclip, just happened to be the leader of the Los Angeles chapter of the OTO.  It is quite interesting to note here, that L. Ron Hubbard (claiming later that he did so under orders by Navy intelligence) joined the LA chapter of the OTO at this time and became Jack Parsons’ prized apprentice.  It is more than a little coincidental that L. Ron later used techniques blatantly similar to Monarch to build his Scientology Empire.

Time marched on.  Jack Parsons blew up in his lab under strange circumstances.  The OTO lost influence.  But Monarch kept on.  The CIA incorporated its techniques into their MK Ultra experiments, seeking ways to create perfect spies and Manchurian Candidates.  While the declassified documents revealed in the 70s referencing MK Ultra describe it as a failure, I say Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, James Earl Ray, Mark David Chapman and John Hinckly point to its success.  But, through the proper manipulation of academia and pop culture, the CIA covered its tracks by making us believe that mind control was a scientific impossibility.  Even as we watched Neil Armstrong step on the moon and congratulated ourselves at the innovation of human scientific prowess, we failed to see the significance of a stage magician like David Copperfield tricking thousands with mere manual dexterity.  What might a true hypnotist be able to do with the entire apparatus of a space program behind him?

I will tell you: they perfected the antiquated Monarch techniques that produced Oswald.  He was too shoddy and too coherent when captured.  This necessitated a messy silencing murder by Jack Ruby.  Now we get the likes of James Holmes, so traumatized and programmed he will never again be himself, let alone reveal what happened to him.  But spending years on each individual victim takes too long and is not a very good allocation of resources.  Why not apply Monarch on a grand scale and use the mass media of today to traumatize an entire population at once?  Welcome to the chaotic trauma-based everyday life of the New World Order.  Every time the control apparatus wants something from the people, all it needs to do is push the right triggers through a set of traumatic events.  If you can steal trillions while doing it like on 9/11, even better.  However, in Holmes’ case, it’s just a little bit of gun control they want.  And gun control they will get, believe you me.

But even that they seem to think is taking too long.  What’s better than programming a patsy to cover an act of public traumatization you’ve orchestrated yourself?  Why, how about not even having to have a real event take place.  Enter Sandy Hook.  Look into it.  Dig just below the surface and you will find actors, contradictory stories and the fact that a Homeland Security organized drill was taking place that day that somehow became a “real” event.  It wasn’t real.  I don’t believe it.

So, I’m nuts.  That’s the only sane conclusion, right?  You know, it’s weird when you feel you’d rather be crazy than right.  All of this would involve the complicity of thousands if not millions of Americans, all convinced they are doing it for the greater good.  News organizations everywhere would have to be not only censoring themselves, but deliberately piping in the control rhetoric.  They would never do that.  I’m gonna go watch some of that Most Trusted Name in News award-winning Gulf War coverage just to remind myself of the good old days.

My Pink Underbelly

Okay, time to get a little personal and admit my own vulnerability.  I have gotten a little nuts lately.  Okay, maybe a lot nuts.  I’ve been on a revolving door of various anti-depressants for four years and lately I’m starting to wonder what’s real and unreal, what do I truly think and feel, and what is merely imagined or a by-product of the medication I’ve chosen to take in order to silence my inner critic.  Over the last few months, I seem to have developed unhealthy obsessions with alternative news sources, strange opinions and theories borne of little more than fear of the unknown.  While there may be merit in considering alternate explanations for events in the world, losing sight of the all-important nature of the universe while doing so is the very definition of madness.

Within this crisis of faith, however, is the kernel of truth that I feel is the purpose of this journey of mine.  You see, I have long subscribed to the idea that we as a collective species are one.  In fact, I believe that the entire universe is one.  There is a difference between stating that as a theory, though, and truly waking up to the realization.  There are many troubles in the world, and there is suffering nearly everywhere.  Now, when you have the luxury of seeing the world as an “other”, you have the option of driving past this car accident of grief and sorrow, rubbernecking a tad and then moving on with your day.  When you become one with the universe, when you feel it in your bones and in your cells and in your consciousness, this doesn’t work.  You’re no longer looking at the accident from a distance.  You’re in the accident itself.  It becomes difficult not to see the dire emergency of the situation and not feel the compulsion to turn to your fellow passengers in the car and scream at them, “We are going to die!!!!!”

But this is useless.  And it is false, for it is only our perspective that has dreamed up the accident.  Instead of seeing the oncoming storm and the calamity it brings, why not choose to make the sky clear, the sun bright?  For our perspective is ours, and it is within us, every one of us to see what we will.  Instead of a car accident, we can be in a garden of warm grass listening to the songs of the birds and the blowing of the breeze.  It is our fear alone that prevents this.

This is not to say that calamity will not strike.  As much as we are one with the universe, the yin and yang of creation and chaos is not going to pause just because we are near.  Change will occur, and the upheaval it brings will sometimes move the ground beneath our feet.  But you cannot stop the earthquake by screaming at the ground.

I’m going to fall back on a comic book analogy here, because at 35, I’ve finally allowed myself to embrace my inner nerd instead of ridiculing it.  I spent my youth subconsciously building a morality rooted in the mythos of Marvel comics.  And, you know, as far as worldviews go, I don’t think it’s that bad.  That said, I never cared for the Silver Surfer.  While I love Jack Kirby, his creator, I always thought the character was way too goofy for words.  I mean, come on, cosmic being drifting through the universe righting cosmic wrongs and he does so on an Earth-based surfboard even though he’s not from Earth?  Ridiculous.

But I was missing the point.  I was criticizing the tree and failing to see the forest.  There was a reason Kirby put him on a surfboard, and it had nothing to do with marketing to the Beach Boy generation (well, maybe it had a little to do with that).  It’s because, from a cosmic perspective, that’s all we can do.  The waves are going to come, the waves are going to go.  Some will be strong, some will be weak.  Some days you’ll hang ten, some days you aren’t going to do much at all.  Some days the Perfect Storm will rise up out of the water and crash you, Marky-Mark and George Clooney right to the bottom of the ocean.  But you can’t yell at the sea.  You can’t shake your fist and wonder why the water is so unforgiving and cruel. 

All you can do is get up on your board and ride the wave.

“Ride the spiral to the end

You may just go where no one’s been

Spiral out, keep going…”

-          Tool, Lateralis, 2001

This Means Something

“They still don't want to admit to the world that this isn't the best and the fairest and most equal justice system. And that they are guilty of railroading people into jail. They don't want to, or never will, admit these things.”

-          Leonard Peltier, 1994

Let me begin with an understatement: what we have done as a nation to the Native Americans is appalling.  I know it was another era and the politics and attitudes of the day, like slavery, allowed good people to be complicit in evil deeds.  I am not going to bother to wrestle with the morality of manifest destiny or the atrocities perpetrated on either side of this bloody battle of our past.  It happened.  There is nothing we can do about that.  However, it is 2012 and there is absolutely no reason nowadays to allow further oppression.  It makes no sense.

In August of this year, the white Reynolds family that had owned and controlled sacred lands of the Lakota Sioux people since 1876, put 1,942.66 acres of this land up for auction to the highest bidder.  Despite being an underdog, the Lakota actually won the auction for a sum of $9 million.  However, that was just a bid.  The Lakota, an extremely impoverished people, do not actually have the money and are frantically trying to raise it in order to secure the land before the deadline expires.  They have until November 30^th, just a few days after the Thanksgiving holiday our nation loves to dress up in the feathers of the people we slaughtered.

Call me crazy, but it doesn’t seem like this should be an issue in 2012.  Just give them the land back.  You see, this parcel of land that no one is using just happens to be known as Pe' Sla, an area in the Black Hills of South Dakota (just west of Rapid City) that is considered by the Lakota people to be the Center and heart of everything that is. It is part of their creation story. It is a sacred place. They perform ceremonies at Pe' Sla which they believe sustain the Lakota way of life and keep the universe in harmony.  To deny them ownership is to deny them who they are.

Now the Lakota had managed to work out arrangements with the Reynolds family over the years in order to continue their use of the land.  But if the land is turned out to the next highest bidder, the likelihood that land would be developed for either mining or road construction is quite high.  In fact, the Dallas-based Hyperion Refining has been mentioned as the next likeliest bidder.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say Hyperion wouldn’t bother working out any sort of arrangement for Pe’ Sla to continue as the Lakota’s beliefs demand.

Of course, this is nothing new.  This tale has been told and retold so many times on this continent, it’s pathetic.  For those of you who have never seen the movie Thunderheart or heard the tale of Leonard Peltier, let me state a quick lesson.  Peltier was born of a Lakota Sioux mother in 1944 and grew up in Grand Forks, North Dakota.  In 1965, caught up in the sweep of civil rights movements throughout the US, Peltier joined the American Indian Movement.  He became involved in the 71-day siege of the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1971 known as the Wounded Knee Incident.  After his escape from the area, he was listed as a fugitive.  Despite that, he returned to Pine Ridge in 1975 on a quest to calm the divisive factions of the reservation that had sprung up in the wake of the Wounded Knee Incident.  Over 50 of his people had been murdered between when the incident occurred and when Peltier returned.

Shortly after he came back to Pine Ridge, FBI agents entered into a shootout with members of the reservation.  Peltier was arrested and charged with the murders of two of the FBI members.  Peltier and numerous witnesses claim he was awakened by shots as he slept in a tent nearby and that he never picked up a weapon.  Regardless, he’s been in the federal penitentiary ever since.

I know in this day and age that if it hasn’t happened in the last two weeks, its ancient history.  But this isn’t history, its present.  Peltier is still in jail and the case against him is thoroughly flawed and politically motivated.  It’s wrong and it is indicative of a continuing racist act of aggression on the Native American people.

I made peace long ago with the fact that no amount of protest, or letter writing, or movies starring Val Kilmer, or gripping music videos by Rage Against the Machine will ever result in Peltier’s release.  But, somehow the irony of Bill Clinton parading around with Nelson Mandela back in the early 90s when Peltier’s case for clemency was before him seems to have escaped everyone.  Fine.  He’s never getting out because I’m sure a 68-year-old man is a real danger to us all.

But, for the sake of our own humanity, I hope the Lakota are allowed ownership of Pe ‘Sla.  Seems the least we can do.  

The Dweller on the Threshold

"My people believe that the White Lodge is a place where the spirits that rule man and nature reside. There is also a legend of a place called the Black Lodge. The shadow self of the White Lodge. Legend says that every spirit must pass through there on the way to perfection. There, you will meet your own shadow self. My people call it The Dweller on the Threshold.”

-          Deputy Tommy 'Hawk' Hill, Twin Peaks, 1990

The Dweller on the Threshold, otherwise known as the Guardian of the Threshold is an integral part of the classic Hero’s Journey as defined by Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell.  This reoccurring myth has permeated all cultures as far back as we have surviving stories.  In this tried and true meme, our intrepid hero as he ascends from the mortal plane on his way to destiny must confront the Guardian not once, but twice.  The first time, this is known as the lesser Guardian and it is a shadow of lies and deceit that mimics the worst part of the hero’s own soul.  The hero fails in this confrontation and is left weakened and shamed.  This fuels his courage to become stronger.  The second time he meets the greater Guardian in a final confrontation as the evil being musters the very energy of all that is the antithesis of the hero’s beliefs.  Invariably, the Guardian manages to destroy the hero utterly.  Yet, somehow, our hero is reborn and this rebirth ends the Guardian and opens the door to the future deliverance of mankind.

This tale is rooted in the myths of antiquity, but it’s still playing out at your local multiplex.  Luke Skywalker confronts the lesser Guardian in Darth Vader, losing his hand and shattering his worldview.  He confronts the greater Guardian in the Emperor and is pushed to the brink of certain doom before awakening the rebirth of his father and the Jedi order.  Frodo meets the Witch-King and is stabbed, leaving a wound that despite Elrond’s healing will never leave him.  Shelob as the representation of Sauron’s scheming wrath undoes Frodo, only to have Sam lead him into rebirth.  In the fires of Mount Doom he overcomes the power of Sauron, Golem and the One Ring itself, saving Middle Earth in the process.  In the Matrix…well you get the point.

I don’t need to list every single popular version of the Hero’s Journey here.  What I want to discuss is the Guardian of the Threshold.  While that is the term that Joseph Campbell uses, I actually prefer the Dweller.  It speaks to the fact that this entity is not all-powerful.  It is limited in its reach and in its abilities.  It can exist only where there is a threshold to cross.  If the hero does not take up the sword to bring light into darkness, the Dweller cannot appear.  So, the answer to the age old question, “are monsters real? “ is in fact, yes, but only if you go looking for them.  The ignorant and innocent are blessed by their own perceptions to not see the shadows in the world.

However, if we want to grow as people, we cannot stay in blissful comfort forever.  As we live, we inevitably will confront this Dweller many times, and it does not always go as the myth dictates.  There are many times when the Dweller will win.  It is powerful and it causes fear with impunity.  It shape shifts and it lies with ease.  It will as often wear the disguise of benevolence as it will bare its fangs.  It is our job on our journey to recognize the difference.  And, there is no guarantee that it won’t sink its evil into your flesh and leave you broken and torn.  The Dweller does not want to let you through, and it just loves to turn you into an obstacle on someone else’s path.

But, the Dweller is weak.  In the end, all it has is fear, and fear cannot conquer love.  So, as Nancy turns her back on Freddy Krueger and he ceases to exist, and Sara does the same to good old David Bowie in Labyrinth, so can we.  By choosing love over hate, by refusing to give the Dweller its toll, we can walk right on past him. 

This applies to everything.  You have a boss that’s making your life hell?  If you can stop fearing their retaliation and start pitying the small nature of their soul and how it has compelled them to live, then they have lost their power.  If you turn on the television and the current war campaign beats its drum of fear, if you can look past the snarling image they present, and see the desperate, fearful person that is behind the curtain of the war machine’s Oz, then it has lost its power over you.

I’m not saying this easy.  In fact, it is much harder than getting mad.  It is easier to scream for revolution than it is to achieve peace.  But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. 

To Catch a Predator

"Where were the parties?...down in Washington, DC...and that was for sex...There was sex between adult men and other adult men but most of it had to do with young boys and young girls with the older folks...specifically for sex with minors...Also in Washington, DC, there were parties after a party...there were a lot of parties where there would be senators and congressmen who had nothing to do with the sexual stuff. But there were some senators and congressmen who stayed for the [pedophile sex] parties afterwards...on a lot of the trips he took us on he had us, I mean, I met some people that I don't feel comfortable telling their name because I don't want to --- ...Q: Are you scared?...Yes..."

-          [U.S. District Court testimony, 2-5-1999 pp.105, 124-126]

In 1999, U.S. District Court Judge Warren Urbom awarded Paul Bonacci $1 million in damages for the physical and emotional trauma he incurred at the hands of then-jailed Lawrence E. King Jr., former manager and treasurer of the failed Franklin Community Federal Credit Union in Omaha, Nebraska.  Bonacci testified that he was abducted at the age of six and was sold into a sex-slavery operation run by King.  Judge Urbom found credence in this testimony and did what he could for Bonacci.   However, Lawrence King wasn’t jailed for these offenses.  No, he served five years of a prison sentence for his involvement in the financial collapse of the Franklin Credit Union including embezzlement, conspiracy and making false financial record entries. But, there was never a criminal trial involving his alleged sex crimes with Bonacci and others.  

In fact, it was Bonacci who was imprisoned in 1990 for perjury when he first leveled the accusations.  Bonacci served five years in jail for this “perjury”, often while being served food to which he was knowingly allergic. He was refused simple comforts such as a blanket to sleep with and was placed in cell blocks with individuals tied to King; individuals who would repeatedly beat Bonacci.  Thankfully, a former Nebraska state senator named John DeCamp took interest in Bonacci’s case and helped pave the way to the poor man’s freedom and his somewhat laughable financial restitution.  DeCamp got him a trial finally, even if it was only a civil case.  Even if a million dollars could never make up for what Bonacci went through, at least it was something.  More importantly, it put Bonacci’s testimony into the public domain.  Let me forewarn you, what I am about to quote from that trial is beyond disgusting.  But it is perhaps some of the most important testimony in recent times.

"They put guns up to my head. Had guns put in my mouth...Larry King sent out boys, men, to jump me...he had them pretty well beat the tar out of me from the waist down so nobody would see the marks...I had my fingers broken...I can remember them burning me with hot instruments...placing stuff inside me...almost what I call a cattle prod...But it would be put inside then they'd shock me inside my -- ...Judge Urbom: Anus?...Yes... And they would -- ...Judge: You mean electrically heated?...They would put it in and then push a button and it would shock me...Judge Urbom:..done by Larry King at his direction?...At his direction..."

"I threatened to go to the police in California, thought maybe they would listen whereas in Omaha they were in his pocketbook...he had me hung out of an airplane with a rope by my ankles...If they wanted to get something passed through the legislature, he would put some people that were against it in a compromising position. By using us boys and girls...Judge Urbom: Was this by your being the sexual partner of that person?...Yes...Judge Urbom: ...Any estimates of how often you participated as the sexual partner of one of these persons that he wanted to get some kind of control over?...There were times when it would be four or five in a night...on probably a couple thousand times...sometimes dozens of times with the same person..." [U.S. District Court testimony, 2-5-1999, pp. 146-151]

Wow.  Just wow. Now, most of these senators and congressmen made sure to keep themselves out of harm’s way on this story, and over time, it just went away, like all scandals in Washington eventually do.  But, Bonacci is on record naming Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) as having participated in these sex parties where his underage services were offered by King for money.  He told the judge he had "relationships with him" in Washington, DC and was flown to Massachusetts for sex in the basement of Frank's Boston home. Bonacci further testified that in 1988, the Secret Service allowed him access to the White House for one of these little soirees.  Frank continues to win election after election, barely tarnished by this scandal or the one involving another male prostitute, Steve Gobie, who lived in his home.  No, Frank still enjoys a position of Congressional power as he has for 30 years.  Bonacci lives under an assumed name and is likely glancing over his shoulder right now, looking for the assassin who will no doubt one day come.

This, folks, is the so-called Franklin Cover-Up, and we need to remember it.  I know it’s unpleasant.  I know the thought of powerful men abducting children and ushering them into this sick and twisted world is not something a decent person wants to consider.  But, read that testimony.  If you want to know how the game of thrones is really played, it’s played by dangling broken kids out of airplanes by their ankles in the name of power.  And, even after it all comes crashing down around their evil heads, these men walk away virtually scot free, their deeds swept under the rug as we all turn our attention to the next thing. 

When this story first broke, it sure was fortuitous for the politicians linked to it that Judge Clarence Thomas once had an interesting conversation about a can of Coke.  They were sure lucky that OJ went nuts.  It worked out for them that LA broke into riots over the Rodney King verdict.  We all forgot about some sick guy in Nebraska and what he might have or might not have gotten some kids to do with some powerful people.  If anything, we heard the news that the accusers went to jail for perjury.  We assumed it must have been some sort of an extortion thing. Then we got on with our lives.  We forgot.

I assure you Paul Bonacci didn’t forget as he shivered in jail and nursed his wounds.  And, after everything he’d been through, despite his terror, he stood up to these men and told the truth, at least as far as he could. As exceedingly brave as this man proved to be, one wonders what names he was afraid to speak.  So, as President Obama takes the stage tonight and accepts his party’s nomination to the cheers of all those in attendance, I just want you to make sure you temper your enthusiasm with the knowledge that this is politics.  Nothing is what it seems to be on the surface, and the darkness of some of these souls knows no bounds.  Happy voting.

Selling the Drama

“The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded.”

-          Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, 1977

We have all experienced the art of the persuasive salesperson at some time in our lives.  It does not matter that you walked into the store on a whim with the intent merely to browse.  What is important is that you are a human being with a generally benevolent nature and the desire to please.  When confronted by the proper techniques, an average shopper is easily swayed by the effusive, well-trained hawker of wares.  It doesn’t matter if you need the item.  It doesn’t matter if you want the item.  It doesn’t even matter if you can reasonably afford the item.  An expert in sales will lead you into the conclusion that it was your desire all along to purchase the item.

Now, I have stated this as a fact, and I am certain that there are those of you who are balking at this assertion.  You will think back upon the multitude of occasions when you have rebuked the advances of a salesperson and gone about your day.  These experiences stand out in our minds and serve to validate our perception of our own internal creation of intent.  However, I contend that these moments were not proof of your strong will, but the evidence of an employee lacking in the true art of salesmanship.  The times when the seller has succeeded in selling to you are perceived in your mind as your own decision.  But that’s the trick.  If you didn’t believe it was your decision, it wouldn’t work.

Thankfully, most individuals who are placed in a position of sales these days are about as adept at the art as your average television preacher.  They are obvious.  They are insincere.  They may even be downright resentful of their job and their relation to you as a customer.  This is good, because if every time we walked into a store we encountered a true salesman, we’d be broke almost immediately.  But, just because most people out there are bungling their sales, don’t think for a moment that you are immune.

Since humanity first dreamed up the concept of trade with one another, those who could sell the best have risen to the top of the economic pyramid.  This is not an Illuminati-type conspiracy we are living in; it is the inevitable result of a free-market system.  Those who master the techniques of coercion and control will rule the world, pure and simple.  And, in a society where wealth begets wealth and inheritance ensures such wealth remains in a bloodline, a ruling class is formed over the years.  Given a long enough time to perfect techniques, accumulate wealth, exercise influence, shape public policy and establish authoritative institutions, this ruling class becomes immovable; the extension of its fingers into virtually every aspect of your life inexorable.  This ruling class in essence is then free to tell you what you need and then sell it to you, and you utilize your illusion of choice to buy it up.  You quibble about the brand and the taste and the look and the label, but if you go far enough up the chain of each decision you make, you see the end result go into the pocket of the same families.

You see, this ultimate set of salesmen have sold you the greatest item of all: life as you know it.  You are raised to buy in, to not question, to not look for change.  What benefits you and your family, your loved ones, your community is so rarely in alignment with what benefits the ruling class, you buy the concept that this is just how it is.  This is how it has to be.  If we want roads and utilities and police officers and firemen and streetlights and everything that comes from a nice little municipality, we just have to pay the piper his due.  We need to take out insurmountable loans for a college education, for a vehicle, for a home.  We need to work hard and often for a paycheck that seems to be a study in diminishing returns.  We need to shrug our shoulders and go back to our television sets when we are shown that the laws under which we live do not apply to those on high.  And we need to wave our flags and say thank you for this privilege. 

This structure is not unlike a casino.  We are born and bred with the gambling bug and we learn how the games are played.  We choose our favorite, and find a seat at the table.  And there we stay, for thirty to forty years, slowly doing the best we can to win enough chips to cash out.  But the house always wins their due.  They always get their take.  That’s a given, but don’t raise your voice about it.  Don’t make a scene.  The security here is the best, and they scare me just a tad.

Well, to hell with it.  I say it’s an illusion, a parlor trick of a stage hypnotist.  It has weight and a sense of reality because we collectively give it one.  We buy what they are selling.  But, you don’t need it, not really.  What you need is each other, and we are all free.  At least if we truly believe we are.  So, stop listening to the sales pitch.  We don’t need war in foreign lands.  We don’t need holy places from bygone eras.  We don’t need the oil and gas the energy barons say we do.  We need to embrace each other and work on the problems our disharmony with nature has caused.

I know how foolish that sounds.  I know how naïve and insipid.  But it only sounds that way because I’m no salesman.  Not like them.  They’d hire a multi-national branding company to do a market analysis and come up with a 36-page report on what the logo should be.  They’d bring in a marketing firm to do even more analysis, breakdown the demography of the target audience and dissect the correct approaches and media-driven campaigns to employ.  They’d set meetings with retailers, media moguls, lobbyists, politicians, and oh so many lawyers.  And they’d sell it to you, whether you liked it or not.

 I’m asking you to not buy.  Just try it.  Let’s see what happens.