"Crazy Fingers"
Words by Robert Hunter; music by Jerry Garcia
Copyright Ice Nine Publishing
Your rain falls like crazy fingers
Peals of fragile thunder keeping time
Recall the days that still are to come
Some sing blue
Hang your heart on laughing willow
Stray down to the water
Deep Sea of Love
Beneath the sweet calm face of the sea
Swift undertow
Life may be sweeter for this, I don't know
See how it feels in the end
May Lady Lullaby sing plainly for you
Soft, strong, sweet and true
Cloud hands reaching from a rainbow
Tapping at the window touch your hair
So swift and bright
Strange figures of light
Float in air
Who can stop what must arrive now?
Something new is waiting to be born
Dark as the night
You're still by my side
Shining side
Gone are the days we stopped to decide
Where we should go
We just ride
Gone are the broken eyes we saw through in dreams
Gone - both dream and lie
Life may be sweeter for this I don't know
Feels like it might be alright
While Lady Lullaby sings plainly for you
Love still rings true
Midnight on a carousel ride
Reaching for the gold ring down inside
Never could reach
It just slips away but I try
Thursday, January 29, 2009
X Games mark the spot
http://www.denverpost.com/broncos/ci_11533146
X Games mark the spot
Once renegade events, action sports are deserving of Olympic status
Story by Scott Willoughby
The Denver Post
01/23/2009
ASPEN — It seems strange to think about the Winter X Games in terms of tradition. The event, after all, is founded on progression, innovation and invention. But that foundation turns 13 this week on the now-renowned slopes of Buttermilk Mountain. That's three Olympic cycles' worth of cutting-edge snowboarding and skiing, with Vancouver 2010 looming only 13 months away.
That may not quite qualify as a full-blown institution, but it's certainly time to establish a trend or two. Case in point: the tradition of X Games events moving from the action sports arena to the international stage that is the Winter Olympic Games.
Few imagined during the early "knuckle-dragging" era of snowboard halfpipe that was the Winter X Games at Big Bear, Calif., in 1997 that the evolution would not only land snowboarding in the Olympics but create international stars the likes of Shaun White and Gretchen Bleiler.
The 1998 addition of snowboarding competition to the Olympic schedule eventually grew to include snowboardcross racing — another X Games staple — at Turin 2006. In Vancouver, skicross takes its turn on the stage.
"The International Olympic Committee is looking for sports that are relevant. They want exciting television and a young demographic," said Bill Marolt, president and CEO of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA), the domestic liaison to the Olympics for skiing and snowboarding. "Any of these sports, all you have to do is be creative, figure out formats and create things people are excited about."
For several years, the logical progression of snowboard and ski events transcending the X Games to the Olympics has pointed to skiing superpipe as the encore to the snowboard event. And for several years, the burgeoning sport has been denied. To date, the closest it has come is a current attempt to finance a demonstration event at the Vancouver Games while holding out hope for a shot at Sochi 2014.
Meanwhile, there are the X Games.
"This is definitely like the Olympics for us at this point. It's the biggest event of the year and definitely the most influential event," said Jess Cumming, 25, a Copper Mountain team rider from Edwards competing in her fourth Winter X skipipe. "The push is for 2014. I think the momentum is catching on, but in order for it to get to the Olympics, it has to go through every country's national ski organization.
"That's where we've been kind of lacking in the support. And that's where more support needs to come through to get it into the Olympics."
Cumming and the other seven women competing in the superpipe at Winter X tonight may have found a new friend in Marolt, who appears to be offering just the support they seek.
Looking for new heroes
In an effort to increase American medal tallies at the Winter Olympics, Marolt has become a vocal advocate for the addition of many of the so-called "new school" sports the X Games are known for.
"Skipipe, slopestyle snowboarding — those things are on the table," Marolt said. "My personal thought is when you evaluate a sport, you have to look at critical mass. How many people do you really have involved in it? That will determine the talent level. That will determine the marketing potential. In my mind, skipipe is definitely high on that list.
"Every resort has a pipe. Tons of kids are twin-tipping and riding in the pipe. The heroes are already created. That seems to me the most likely place to go."
Small payoffs
USSA and its international governing body at the International Skiing Federation (FIS) have established a World Cup circuit for superpipe skiing, a necessary step toward Olympic inclusion, with the first World Cup competition in the United States taking place next week in Deer Valley, Utah.
With minimal purses and a scarcity of media attention, World Cup competition has been slow to catch on among the sport's heaviest hitters. While the Winter X Games have created careers for athletes like Tanner Hall and Simon Dumont since pipe skiing was introduced in 2002, there has been little incentive to compete in World Cup competition without the Olympic payoff.
Others are willing to put in their time in hopes of reaping benefits down the road.
"I do all the World Cups and have for years," said two-time defending women's skipipe gold medalist Sarah Burke of Whistler, British Columbia. "The (World Cup) field is there for the women. It's 100 percent X Games athletes. The guys a little less, but five of the guys who are always at all the World Cups qualified for the men's finals."
Among them is Xavier Bertoni of France, who upset the men's superpipe skiing field to win his first Winter X Games gold medal over Hall (second) and Dumont (third) Thursday night. The win marked the first time since Candide Thovex's 2003 victory that anyone other than Hall or Dumont has won the event. Thovex and Bertoni both come from La Clusaz, France.
"It's crazy. I can't believe it," said Bertoni, who used back-to-back 900s and a 1260 with amplitude pushing above 20 feet for the top score of 93.66. "I'm really stoked."
The reintroduction of an international champ to Winter X could enhance the image of World Cup competition by bringing some X Games clout to the field in the future.
And that could translate to a continued tradition.
"Here there are the best skiers in the world, so I prefer to win the X Games than a World Cup," Bertoni said. "I want to do a World Cup with Simon, with Tanner. It will be really good for the sport, because we are not yet in the Olympic Games, but with the level going up in the World Cup, I think that will help the sport to go to the Olympic Games. That's also a dream for me."
Scott Willoughby: 303-954-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com
X Games mark the spot
Once renegade events, action sports are deserving of Olympic status
Story by Scott Willoughby
The Denver Post
01/23/2009
ASPEN — It seems strange to think about the Winter X Games in terms of tradition. The event, after all, is founded on progression, innovation and invention. But that foundation turns 13 this week on the now-renowned slopes of Buttermilk Mountain. That's three Olympic cycles' worth of cutting-edge snowboarding and skiing, with Vancouver 2010 looming only 13 months away.
That may not quite qualify as a full-blown institution, but it's certainly time to establish a trend or two. Case in point: the tradition of X Games events moving from the action sports arena to the international stage that is the Winter Olympic Games.
Few imagined during the early "knuckle-dragging" era of snowboard halfpipe that was the Winter X Games at Big Bear, Calif., in 1997 that the evolution would not only land snowboarding in the Olympics but create international stars the likes of Shaun White and Gretchen Bleiler.
The 1998 addition of snowboarding competition to the Olympic schedule eventually grew to include snowboardcross racing — another X Games staple — at Turin 2006. In Vancouver, skicross takes its turn on the stage.
"The International Olympic Committee is looking for sports that are relevant. They want exciting television and a young demographic," said Bill Marolt, president and CEO of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA), the domestic liaison to the Olympics for skiing and snowboarding. "Any of these sports, all you have to do is be creative, figure out formats and create things people are excited about."
For several years, the logical progression of snowboard and ski events transcending the X Games to the Olympics has pointed to skiing superpipe as the encore to the snowboard event. And for several years, the burgeoning sport has been denied. To date, the closest it has come is a current attempt to finance a demonstration event at the Vancouver Games while holding out hope for a shot at Sochi 2014.
Meanwhile, there are the X Games.
"This is definitely like the Olympics for us at this point. It's the biggest event of the year and definitely the most influential event," said Jess Cumming, 25, a Copper Mountain team rider from Edwards competing in her fourth Winter X skipipe. "The push is for 2014. I think the momentum is catching on, but in order for it to get to the Olympics, it has to go through every country's national ski organization.
"That's where we've been kind of lacking in the support. And that's where more support needs to come through to get it into the Olympics."
Cumming and the other seven women competing in the superpipe at Winter X tonight may have found a new friend in Marolt, who appears to be offering just the support they seek.
Looking for new heroes
In an effort to increase American medal tallies at the Winter Olympics, Marolt has become a vocal advocate for the addition of many of the so-called "new school" sports the X Games are known for.
"Skipipe, slopestyle snowboarding — those things are on the table," Marolt said. "My personal thought is when you evaluate a sport, you have to look at critical mass. How many people do you really have involved in it? That will determine the talent level. That will determine the marketing potential. In my mind, skipipe is definitely high on that list.
"Every resort has a pipe. Tons of kids are twin-tipping and riding in the pipe. The heroes are already created. That seems to me the most likely place to go."
Small payoffs
USSA and its international governing body at the International Skiing Federation (FIS) have established a World Cup circuit for superpipe skiing, a necessary step toward Olympic inclusion, with the first World Cup competition in the United States taking place next week in Deer Valley, Utah.
With minimal purses and a scarcity of media attention, World Cup competition has been slow to catch on among the sport's heaviest hitters. While the Winter X Games have created careers for athletes like Tanner Hall and Simon Dumont since pipe skiing was introduced in 2002, there has been little incentive to compete in World Cup competition without the Olympic payoff.
Others are willing to put in their time in hopes of reaping benefits down the road.
"I do all the World Cups and have for years," said two-time defending women's skipipe gold medalist Sarah Burke of Whistler, British Columbia. "The (World Cup) field is there for the women. It's 100 percent X Games athletes. The guys a little less, but five of the guys who are always at all the World Cups qualified for the men's finals."
Among them is Xavier Bertoni of France, who upset the men's superpipe skiing field to win his first Winter X Games gold medal over Hall (second) and Dumont (third) Thursday night. The win marked the first time since Candide Thovex's 2003 victory that anyone other than Hall or Dumont has won the event. Thovex and Bertoni both come from La Clusaz, France.
"It's crazy. I can't believe it," said Bertoni, who used back-to-back 900s and a 1260 with amplitude pushing above 20 feet for the top score of 93.66. "I'm really stoked."
The reintroduction of an international champ to Winter X could enhance the image of World Cup competition by bringing some X Games clout to the field in the future.
And that could translate to a continued tradition.
"Here there are the best skiers in the world, so I prefer to win the X Games than a World Cup," Bertoni said. "I want to do a World Cup with Simon, with Tanner. It will be really good for the sport, because we are not yet in the Olympic Games, but with the level going up in the World Cup, I think that will help the sport to go to the Olympic Games. That's also a dream for me."
Scott Willoughby: 303-954-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com
When Gaza and Sports Collide
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jan/23/gaza-sport-football-protests
Politics on the pitch: When Gaza and Sports Collide
By Dave Zirin
In January 2008, Egyptian soccer star Mohamed Aboutreika followed a goal by raising his shirt to reveal the slogan "Sympathise with Gaza". His actions were meant to put a spotlight onto the economic embargo that Israel had imposed on Palestinians in Gaza after the election of the Hamas government.
Days before the ceasefire halted the carnage in Gaza city this month, history repeated as Sevilla (Spain) striker Fredi Kanoute raised his shirt after scoring a goal to reveal a shirt that said "Palestine" in multiple languages. Kanoute is not an obscure player. In 2007, he was named African player of the year, even though he was born in France (his family is from Mali).
After earning a £3,000 fine for his political gesture, famed Barcelona coach, Jose Guardiola stood up for him, saying: "The fine is absolutely excessive. If they always banned these type of things, then journalists would not be able to write columns. ... Every war is absurd, and too many innocent people have died for us to be fining people for things like this."
Welcome to 2009, when Israel's offensive on Gaza, ceasefire or no, is finding expression in the sports world. It's a development that should give supporters of Israel's actions in Gaza a great deal of pause.
Kanoute's actions come on the heels of an event in Ankara, Turkey when the Israeli basketball team, Bnei Hasharon, had to flee the court from what the Associated Press described as "hundreds of fist-pumping, chanting Turkish fans".
Before the game could begin, angry chants of "Israeli killers!" came down from the crowd, as Palestinian flags appeared in their hands. Then, in a scene that would look familiar to George Bush, off came the shoes, and footwear rained down from the stands (the shoes didn't hit any players).
A melee then began between 1,500 police officers and Turkish fans, as the fans advanced toward the court. Both Hasharon and the Turkish team Turk Telecom were hurried to the locker rooms where they remained for two hours.
Hasharon forfeited the contest. It says something that Israel found reckoning on the basketball court long before any kind of International Criminal Court.
According to sports historians, a sporting event hasn't been actually stopped in such a manner - with fans turning the stands into a site of protest - since 25 July 1981, when South Africa's Springbok rugby team had to cancel a game in New Zealand when fans occupied the field of play to protest apartheid.
Israel has historically been adamant that any comparisons between the Israeli state and South Africa are absolutely false and even antisemitic. Jimmy Carter provoked their outrage of course when he published his book, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.
But this parallel, when related to sports, should not be taken lightly. One of the most effective tools against apartheid South Africa was the South African Non-Racialised Olympic Committee, which attempted to use sports as a way to highlight and broadcast the inequities of the South African government. Sports can bring a political spotlight and unwanted attention onto a society like few other forces in the international community, galvanising, attention, passion and, as we saw in Turkey, anger.
Israel hasn't helped itself in this regard by making sports a target in the war. On 9 January, the IDF bombed Gaza's Palestine National Stadium. The stadium was also the head of the Palestinian Football Association. The structure was built in 2005 partially with funds from Fifa. The facility will now need to be rebuilt again (in 2006 it was also bombed). It was meant to be a symbol of a Palestinian state, something that united the West Bank and Gaza as an expression of unity. Now it is rubble.
In addition, perhaps fearing a repeat of Ankara, the Israel Football Federation is preventing any club matches from being played in Palestinian towns. As Jimmy Johnson, who works in Jerusalem for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions told me: "These are not Palestinian clubs from the West Bank, East Jerusalem or Gaza, but for Palestinian citizens of Israel, sometimes called Arab Israelis, who are almost 20% of the population, vote in Israeli elections, etc."
This has gotten little press in the US, but in the soccer-mad Middle East, it is altogether insult on top of injury.
Sports, which we are told repeatedly represent a sacredly apolitical space, a place to flee the headaches of the real world, has now been thrust into the heart of a conflict raw with politics in a way we haven't seen in quite some time. Protests against Israeli actions in Gaza are sure to continue in sporting events outside the US. But the ramifications could very easily be felt inside our borders, as political leaders come to the White House and tell the new administration tales of sports fans gone wild.
Dave Zirin is the author of the book: A People's History of Sports in the United States. You can receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by going to dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com
Politics on the pitch: When Gaza and Sports Collide
By Dave Zirin
In January 2008, Egyptian soccer star Mohamed Aboutreika followed a goal by raising his shirt to reveal the slogan "Sympathise with Gaza". His actions were meant to put a spotlight onto the economic embargo that Israel had imposed on Palestinians in Gaza after the election of the Hamas government.
Days before the ceasefire halted the carnage in Gaza city this month, history repeated as Sevilla (Spain) striker Fredi Kanoute raised his shirt after scoring a goal to reveal a shirt that said "Palestine" in multiple languages. Kanoute is not an obscure player. In 2007, he was named African player of the year, even though he was born in France (his family is from Mali).
After earning a £3,000 fine for his political gesture, famed Barcelona coach, Jose Guardiola stood up for him, saying: "The fine is absolutely excessive. If they always banned these type of things, then journalists would not be able to write columns. ... Every war is absurd, and too many innocent people have died for us to be fining people for things like this."
Welcome to 2009, when Israel's offensive on Gaza, ceasefire or no, is finding expression in the sports world. It's a development that should give supporters of Israel's actions in Gaza a great deal of pause.
Kanoute's actions come on the heels of an event in Ankara, Turkey when the Israeli basketball team, Bnei Hasharon, had to flee the court from what the Associated Press described as "hundreds of fist-pumping, chanting Turkish fans".
Before the game could begin, angry chants of "Israeli killers!" came down from the crowd, as Palestinian flags appeared in their hands. Then, in a scene that would look familiar to George Bush, off came the shoes, and footwear rained down from the stands (the shoes didn't hit any players).
A melee then began between 1,500 police officers and Turkish fans, as the fans advanced toward the court. Both Hasharon and the Turkish team Turk Telecom were hurried to the locker rooms where they remained for two hours.
Hasharon forfeited the contest. It says something that Israel found reckoning on the basketball court long before any kind of International Criminal Court.
According to sports historians, a sporting event hasn't been actually stopped in such a manner - with fans turning the stands into a site of protest - since 25 July 1981, when South Africa's Springbok rugby team had to cancel a game in New Zealand when fans occupied the field of play to protest apartheid.
Israel has historically been adamant that any comparisons between the Israeli state and South Africa are absolutely false and even antisemitic. Jimmy Carter provoked their outrage of course when he published his book, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.
But this parallel, when related to sports, should not be taken lightly. One of the most effective tools against apartheid South Africa was the South African Non-Racialised Olympic Committee, which attempted to use sports as a way to highlight and broadcast the inequities of the South African government. Sports can bring a political spotlight and unwanted attention onto a society like few other forces in the international community, galvanising, attention, passion and, as we saw in Turkey, anger.
Israel hasn't helped itself in this regard by making sports a target in the war. On 9 January, the IDF bombed Gaza's Palestine National Stadium. The stadium was also the head of the Palestinian Football Association. The structure was built in 2005 partially with funds from Fifa. The facility will now need to be rebuilt again (in 2006 it was also bombed). It was meant to be a symbol of a Palestinian state, something that united the West Bank and Gaza as an expression of unity. Now it is rubble.
In addition, perhaps fearing a repeat of Ankara, the Israel Football Federation is preventing any club matches from being played in Palestinian towns. As Jimmy Johnson, who works in Jerusalem for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions told me: "These are not Palestinian clubs from the West Bank, East Jerusalem or Gaza, but for Palestinian citizens of Israel, sometimes called Arab Israelis, who are almost 20% of the population, vote in Israeli elections, etc."
This has gotten little press in the US, but in the soccer-mad Middle East, it is altogether insult on top of injury.
Sports, which we are told repeatedly represent a sacredly apolitical space, a place to flee the headaches of the real world, has now been thrust into the heart of a conflict raw with politics in a way we haven't seen in quite some time. Protests against Israeli actions in Gaza are sure to continue in sporting events outside the US. But the ramifications could very easily be felt inside our borders, as political leaders come to the White House and tell the new administration tales of sports fans gone wild.
Dave Zirin is the author of the book: A People's History of Sports in the United States. You can receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by going to dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com
Magic C Howard sets NBA All-Star voting record
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/2009-01-22-3539912260_x.htm
Magic C Howard sets NBA All-Star voting record
By Tim Reynolds, AP Sports Writer
1-22-9
ORLANDO, Florida — Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard -- leading the NBA in rebounds, blocked shots and double-doubles -- became the first player to receive 3 million votes from fans to lead this season's All-Star team.
He got 3,150,181 votes when the count was released on Thursday, easily topping the previous record of 2,558,278 votes collected by Houston's Yao Ming four years ago.
The Feb. 15 game in Phoenix will mark the third All-Star trip for Howard, who'll be starting for the second time.
"Wow, what a blessing," said Howard, the 6-foot-11 (2.11-meter) center who dressed in full Superman regalia, cape and all, on the way to winning last year's slam dunk competition. "That is what I took it as, a blessing from God and then the fans. It's just a great honor and I was surprised, but like always I thank the fans for everything they have done for us."
The final results of fan balloting didn't exactly bring any major surprises.
Miami's Dwyane Wade (2,741,413) and Detroit's Allen Iverson (1,804,649) will be in the Eastern Conference backcourt, alongside reigning All-Star MVP LeBron James of Cleveland (2,940,823) and Boston's Kevin Garnett (2,066,833), who beat New Jersey's Yi Jianlian for the starting nod by 253,004 votes.
Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers (2,805,397) was the Western Conference's top vote-getter, and will be joined at guard by New Orleans' Chris Paul (2,134,798). At center, Yao (2,532,958) will start for the sixth time, along with forwards Tim Duncan of San Antonio (2,578,168) and Amare Stoudemire of Phoenix (1,460,429).
"When I first heard I was leading in votes, I was shocked, to be honest with you," Howard said. "I really didn't expect anything considering you have guys like Kobe, LeBron and Dwyane."
Howard entered Thursday averaging 20.2 points, 14.1 rebounds and 3.2 blocks for the Magic.
For Garnett, it's his 12th All-Star selection -- second-most among active players behind Shaquille O'Neal's 14 trips. O'Neal could see that total increase by one; he could easily be announced as a reserve when coaches' balloting to fill out the seven remaining spots on each roster are announced next week.
Much like the East, the West voting was a bit predictable.
Stoudemire's spot turned out to be the most vulnerable; he nipped San Antonio's Bruce Bowen -- who wasn't even starting for the Spurs right now -- in the starters' balloting by 68,031 votes.
In all, five players (Howard, James, Bryant, Wade and Duncan) all topped Yao's previous record vote mark.
"It's always an unbelievable honor, because there's so many great players in this league and so many young guys coming in, when you get named a starter from the fans," Wade said.
Magic C Howard sets NBA All-Star voting record
By Tim Reynolds, AP Sports Writer
1-22-9
ORLANDO, Florida — Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard -- leading the NBA in rebounds, blocked shots and double-doubles -- became the first player to receive 3 million votes from fans to lead this season's All-Star team.
He got 3,150,181 votes when the count was released on Thursday, easily topping the previous record of 2,558,278 votes collected by Houston's Yao Ming four years ago.
The Feb. 15 game in Phoenix will mark the third All-Star trip for Howard, who'll be starting for the second time.
"Wow, what a blessing," said Howard, the 6-foot-11 (2.11-meter) center who dressed in full Superman regalia, cape and all, on the way to winning last year's slam dunk competition. "That is what I took it as, a blessing from God and then the fans. It's just a great honor and I was surprised, but like always I thank the fans for everything they have done for us."
The final results of fan balloting didn't exactly bring any major surprises.
Miami's Dwyane Wade (2,741,413) and Detroit's Allen Iverson (1,804,649) will be in the Eastern Conference backcourt, alongside reigning All-Star MVP LeBron James of Cleveland (2,940,823) and Boston's Kevin Garnett (2,066,833), who beat New Jersey's Yi Jianlian for the starting nod by 253,004 votes.
Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers (2,805,397) was the Western Conference's top vote-getter, and will be joined at guard by New Orleans' Chris Paul (2,134,798). At center, Yao (2,532,958) will start for the sixth time, along with forwards Tim Duncan of San Antonio (2,578,168) and Amare Stoudemire of Phoenix (1,460,429).
"When I first heard I was leading in votes, I was shocked, to be honest with you," Howard said. "I really didn't expect anything considering you have guys like Kobe, LeBron and Dwyane."
Howard entered Thursday averaging 20.2 points, 14.1 rebounds and 3.2 blocks for the Magic.
For Garnett, it's his 12th All-Star selection -- second-most among active players behind Shaquille O'Neal's 14 trips. O'Neal could see that total increase by one; he could easily be announced as a reserve when coaches' balloting to fill out the seven remaining spots on each roster are announced next week.
Much like the East, the West voting was a bit predictable.
Stoudemire's spot turned out to be the most vulnerable; he nipped San Antonio's Bruce Bowen -- who wasn't even starting for the Spurs right now -- in the starters' balloting by 68,031 votes.
In all, five players (Howard, James, Bryant, Wade and Duncan) all topped Yao's previous record vote mark.
"It's always an unbelievable honor, because there's so many great players in this league and so many young guys coming in, when you get named a starter from the fans," Wade said.
The Strange Case of Barack Obama's Oath
http://revisionistreview.blogspot.com/2009/01/strange-case-of-barack-obamas-oath-of.htmlFriday, January 23, 2009
The Strange Case of Barack Obama's Oath of Office
"At Mr. Obama’s second swearing-in on Wednesday...(t)he photo released by the White House had been taken by its own photographer." (NY Times, Jan. 23, p. A16).
A Cryptogram from the Cryptocracy?
Michael Hoffman investigates
RevisionistHistory.org
"For a couple of smooth-talking constitutional experts, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and President-elect Barack Obama sure had a hard time getting through the constitutional oath of office...The chief justice seemed to say 'to' rather than 'of,' but that was not the main problem. The main problem was that the word 'faithfully' had floated upstream...Mr. Obama seemed to realize this, pausing quizzically after saying 'that I will execute –'
"The chief justice gave it another go, getting closer but still not quite right: “faithfully the office of president of the United States.” This time, he omitted the word 'execute.' Mr. Obama now repeated the chief justice’s initial error of putting 'faithfully' at the end of the phrase. Starting where he had abruptly paused, he said: 'the office of the president of the United States faithfully.” ("I Do Solemnly Swear…(Line, Please?," NY Times, Jan. 20, 2009)
Yes, indeed these two "smooth-talking constitutional experts" couldn't manage to recite the brief oath as it was written. This was largely Chief Justice Roberts' fault. We can believe that this flub was due to human fallibility and that may very well be the case, or we can also wonder whether the very intelligent Chief Justice deliberately mishandled the oath so that it would be administered a second time, under very different circumstances.
Here's how the media reported the second rite: ...After a day’s worth of chatter over whether the president had been properly sworn into office...(i)n 25 seconds, President Obama became president again. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. re-administered the oath to Mr. Obama on Wednesday evening, one day after the two men stumbled over each other’s words during the inauguration ceremony at the Capitol. For their do-over, the two men convened in the White House Map Room at 7:35 p.m. for a brief proceeding that was not announced until it was completed successfully...Only hours after aides told reporters there was no reason to administer the oath again, they concluded it was easier to do it on the first day, rather than have someone challenge the legitimacy of his presidency...Mr. Obama raised his right hand and did not use a Bible....only nine people witnessed the do-over. There were four aides, four reporters and a White House photographer..." (NY Times, Jan. 22, 2009).
This second-time-around doppelganger oath was the real oath, since the flawed first one, done in the sight of millions and upon the Bible of assassinated President Abraham Lincoln was a "challenge (to) the legitimacy of his presidency..."
There was no Bible the second time and with Obama having been compared to John F. Kennedy during the campaign, and with all of the macabre parallels between Kennedy and Lincoln (Lincoln was killed in Ford's theatre, Kennedy was killed in a Ford automobile; Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy, Kennedy's secretary was named Lincoln; Lincoln and Kennedy were both succeeded by vice-presidents named Johnson, etc.), I'm not sure that if I were Barack Obama I would have wanted to step into the middle of such a highly charged symbol palimpsest -- unless of course the first inaugural oath-taking was little more more than shadow-play.
What appears to be the authentic inauguration took place in a basement, and was an elite rather than a populist rite, with just nine witnesses. It occurred in former President Franklin Roosevelt's secretive, war-era "map room." Before FDR, under presidents from Chester Arthur through Wilson and Coolidge, it was reputedly used to play the game of billiards.
The omission of the Bible is not invalidating since the father of our country did not use one at his inauguration and Lyndon Johnson, on the plane to Washington after's Kennedy's killing, used a Roman Catholic mass book ("missal"), rather than a Bible. Hence, the absence of a Bible per se does not invalidate the oath, but the peek-a-boo nature of the inaugural Bible may be deliberate, in that its momentous presence at the botched inauguration is all the more glaring in its inexplicable absence at the real inauguration.
If symbolism is a language, what is being signaled by this apparently deliberate omission?
Another equally striking aspect of the second oath are the photographs of the ceremony, which feature the looming presence of a vintage portrait above the mantle on the wall behind the president and the chief justice.
The oath is a ritual and this ritual has an icon hovering over it, as if by way of spiritual benediction and patronage. As of this writing, in all the prominent photos of the second oath which this writer has seen, no caption has been provided by the establishment media that identifies the enigmatic man in the portrait. Yet, symbolically, he is the "genius loci," the presiding spirit of the authentic inaugural ceremony of Barack Obama as President. Like the omission of the Bible after so much was made of its presence at the first oath-taking, the omission of any identification of the figure in the painting at the second oath-taking would seem to be significant.
Let us recall that the second oath was performed in secret: "...the two men convened in the White House Map Room at 7:35 p.m. for a brief proceeding that was not announced until it was completed..."
In Freemasonry the god of the secret societies is covertly substituted for the One True God. This false god is identified in the masonic lodges as "the Great Architect."
The mysterious man in the portrait who silently presides over the authentic inauguration of Barack Obama as Commander and Chief, is Benjamin Latrobe, the great architect of the U.S. Capitol.
Copyright 2009 • All Rights Reserved
Michael Hoffman's latest book is Judaism Discovered, now in its second printing; available from http://www.revisionisthistory.org/
***
Labels: Barack Obama, billiard games, Chief Justice John Roberts, cryptocracy, Freemasonry, Inauguration, Latrobe, Map Room, masonic symbolism, occult, shadow plays
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
You're So Naive, Part 2
Dear Friend,Well I reckon that many (if not most) of you are probably thinking that I’m way out of line about the election of Obama. You could walk with me (eventually) in what I had said about the evils of Bush regime; but Obama? Surely I’ve gone over the top this time — lost the plot — lost my marbles even? Don’t think I don’t ask myself those questions every day? I wrestle with all this night and day. I check and double-check everything that I write for I have no desire to quench genuine hope or report anything which is untruthful. But sometimes one has to stick one’s neck out despite the unpopularity it may bring.
This isn’t the first time that I’ve had to go out on a limb on these issues. Some of you may be old enough to remember that when Tony Blair was elected as Prime Minister of the UK on 2nd May 1997, I wrote a piece to my e-mail list the following day, entitled “Dawn of Darkness”. Here are some extracts of what I wrote on that fateful day nearly twelve years ago:
Amidst all the talk of "A New Day Has Dawned", I awoke today feeling it was instead a dawn of darkness. A blinkered and presumably bewildered electorate voted for the new breed of "democratic" socialism which has now become a leading trend in the political life of the developed countries. They call it “The New Labour Party”.
Tony Blair, Jack Straw and their cabinet colleagues are deceivers who have twisted and turned until they have cultivated a face which will fool the British people into thinking that they are conservatives with a human face. Within the next few years we are going to witness the complete dismantling of the political, moral and spiritual fabric of this land - not to mention its sovereignty. The New Labour Party is not like the Soviet-style socialism of Harold Wilson's era in 1964. Instead it has acquired an almost New Age messianic quality with Tony Blair as the saviour who will mend all ills.
Actually, in many ways, it matters not a jot which political party comes to power in any of the countries of the Western world. The real power lies with other, secret, groupings which most people know nothing at all about. Neither Tony Blair nor John Major could ever be anything other than puppets who must dance to a tune played by those who have nothing whatsoever to do with the democratic political process in the U.K.
Have you not received the impression that we have been watching a poorly scripted movie acted out before our eyes? Why should the Conservative Party suddenly have behaved so suicidally in the last couple of years while New Labour started to be lauded in the media in the most effusive manner? The whole thing has been a set-up. The people of this land have also played their part by walking into the trap in this election. Even the Presidential-style welcome for Blair at Downing Street today was a carefully stage managed event (in which the press fulsomely colluded), with party workers and their children being bussed in by party hacks to wave Union Jacks.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
That was nearly twelve years ago! Does that ring any bells for today? How quickly we forget these “New Days which keep Dawning” but which go straight to dusk without any daylight! Déjà vu. Déjà vu. We need to develop a heightened sense of déjà vu. And now we seem to be here once again. We seem to stagger from one manufactured “New Day Dawning” to another every few years, according to the political time-clock. It is this ability to be so easily manipulated by external events which turn out to have no substance which prompts me to write as I do. It is not that I want to pour cold water on everything that happens. Far from it! My only desire is to expose psychological manipulation and corruption; but it isn’t always immediately obvious to ‘mostpeople’ when that is happening. Thus, when I see it I cannot remain silent.
People are most easily manipulated and most open to suggestion a) when they have previously been driven to desperation (which is why cults and brainwashers like to break their subjects down) and b) when they are infused with a feel-good factor (which is why everyone in adverts smiles inanely all the time). If people have been driven to the edge of desperation and are in need of a feel-good factor in their lives then they can be coerced into believing, saying or doing anything. This is how really effective Public Relations (PR) works, whether in product advertising or political spin. And nowhere does PR come more into its own than when an election looms.
Thus, there are two ‘cycles’ used by the secret powers behind the scenes. I’m not talking here about the President and his immediate associates but about the real, unelected Powers That Be in the intelligence/military/corporate scene who not only manipulate the election of the President and his immediate associates but who also ‘run’ them after they have been elected. In the first cycle they have a rightist style of government which willingly enacts on their behalf a great deal of restrictive, oppressive, anti-freedom legislation (such as the Patriot Acts of the Bush regime) and prosecutes wars and coup d’états all over the world. At first, they manage to manipulate the people through clever PR to support them in all these things. But after some years, there is a general dissatisfaction of the people with that government and, because the PTB have to work within the limitations and pretence of “democracy” for the time being, there has to be a change in the visible aspect of government to keep the people from becoming too seditious and troublesome while at the same time giving them the cosy impression that they have power to change things. Then there is the second cycle, which ensures that the right guy is elected as President at the head of a more leftist style of government. The PTB may then possibly (though not necessarily) — for a few years — have to put up with somewhat less opportunity for restrictive, oppressive and anti-freedom legislation, although wars and coups d’etats can still continue to be prosecuted unabated after convincing the people through spin that they are in the public interest. (The Vietnam war, for example, flourished well under a President of the Democratic Party). Bear in mind that the PTB can generate any situation they wish if they want to bring down the government or create a big change in it at any time (viz. the assassination of JFK or Nixon’s Watergate).
So these two cycles interchange with each other and, over the course of time, regardless of which type of government has been in power, the goals of the PTB will still be achieved. This is not unrelated to the “Bad-Cop, Good-Cop” technique of interrogation. First the really nasty cop lays into you very roughly — maybe even beats you up. Then a nice cop comes into the room, tells the other cop to lay off, apologises to you for such awful behaviour on the part of his colleague, then gets alongside you and — guess what? — you sing like a canary! They’ve got you eating out of the palm of their hand; believing, saying and doing anything they want.
Well that’s how the PTB operate when it comes to controlling the way you think and behave during their political machinations. They put some guy in office through whom they are able to enact all their evil without any restraint; then, when you’ve had all you can take they put some other, seemingly nicer, guy in office to relieve your desperation, provide you with some false hope and a give you a dose of the feel-good factor. At that time, you are wide-open to believe anything he or she says and do anything to support him. The fact is that you will even support him in starting a genocidal war. Just think of all the lefties who supported Tony Blair joining forces with George W. Bush to invade Iraq on a killing spree of a million and more. (Actually, they didn’t even really object that much when Bush and Co. started the genocidal war on Iraq — but that was mainly because of the successful nature of the post-9/11 spin and the lies about WMDs in 2002/2003, which, incidentally, I exposed as lies at the time but was excoriated even by the left in the US who had predictably morphed into patriotic mode!). That’s why the PTB doesn’t mind putting a more leftist government in office. There is very rarely any hassle from the peace movement when a leftist government starts a war. Sad but true. (Consider this very carefully during the coming US administration). As my song, “You’re so Naïve”, states concerning the election of Barack Obama:
“Such a clever move it is; it makes you all relax
Takes the wind out of the sails of protest movements' acts”
I’m reading an extraordinary book at the moment which sums up this overarching PR process in its title: “Toxic Sludge is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry” (Common Courage Press, 2002). It’s about how PR works. The aim of really effective PR is to make you believe that even Toxic Sludge is good for you. If you can feel good about Toxic Sludge then the PR has succeeded. You won’t even realise that the Toxic Sludge is toxic. It won’t even occur to you. In fact, you’ll think that Toxic Sludge is the very elixir of life! You’ll even do the purveyors of the Toxic Sludge’s job for them by sharply rebuking anyone who dares to call the sludge “toxic”! This is the zenith of successful PR.Now substitute the word “Obama” for the words “Toxic Sludge”. “Obama is good for you!” “Obama is good for you!” “Obama is good for you!” Thus, when the PTB, through cleverly-presented spin, present you with this guy for President — even though you really know nothing about him whatsoever — who seems to press all the right buttons and ring all the right bells, you will not only weep buckets when you hear him speaking but you will fulfil their wishes and elect him to office, regardless of what people like me may say. You will even castigate me as being filled with negativity and gracelessness. Then, instead of experiencing déjà vu, as we should, we will lose ourselves in the hype. But, if I may say so, that is a kind of emotional Hara-Kiri. Hmm… I wrote a song about that many years ago, entitled “The Fool Falls on His Sword”:
I have been there before...
Feeling I'm on a mountaintop and riding high
Though all my instincts tell me that it's all a lie
This is the one I dreamed about my whole life through
Thought I could breathe at last although it's all untrue
Clinging to straws and roses makes it seem so fine
Yet I committed Hara-Kiri every time.
I thought I'd seen the light...
Flashing and swirling round me like a storm at sea
Warning me not to go there cos of where I'd be
Showing me how I'd fall into the poisoned tide
Tearing myself to pieces with that knife inside
But I was like an insect round a candleshine
And I committed Hara-Kiri every time.
I wrote that in relation to a romantic love-relationship but it is surely just as applicable to the situation we have today with Barack Obama. Looking at people’s faces in the crowds at Obama rallies I see people who are in love. No exaggeration. Blind love. So desperate are people that they will hurl their affections at someone who presses the right buttons by saying the right things about freedom, democracy and the future. (This guy has been chosen very carefully and cleverly for this task). But just as we often don’t learn from mistakes we made in relationships year after year, so we don’t seem to learn from our mistaken political affections year after year.
If you doubt what I say, here’s a little exercise: Try and cast your minds back to the time when Bill Clinton was inaugurated in 1993. Again, people had been made desperate and were longing for change during the George Bush Senior years and when Clinton came on the scene — good-looking, charismatic, suave and saxophone-playing, the whole world went for it. Think about it. Remember the euphoria you felt. The New Day Dawning. It was worldwide. This is how the PTB operate. They drive you to desperation with years of evil (which most people only identify as evil by the time the office of the ruler is coming to a close!). Then they feed you some hope which you clutch onto as if it was all there is (which it probably is!).
Here is a YouTube video of Clinton’s inauguration speech. As you listen to it, does it remind you of anything? All that talk of change and renewal and making America great once more. It could be Obama’s speech yesterday. Whoever writes these speeches needs an Oscar for Best Screenplay! The Presidents don’t half do a great job presenting it either. These people are the finest actors! Very polished. They must have been performing weeks of rehearsal in front of a mirror and their wives. They are words which people want to hear so much and they can be said with a great deal of conviction and feeling. But it is all hot air. So just remind yourself of how ecstatic everyone was in that inaugural moment of Bill Clinton’s. Please watch this now:
Bill Clinton inauguration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6VZAuVezuk
Did you cringe? Especially when you remembered how his presidency panned out! The balls held in the evening after that were ecstatic. Aretha Franklin sang “I Dreamed a Dream” [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl5ZM02s7yA ] . An over-the-moon Warren Beatty introduced Barbara Streisand [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgxLyrQ8G08 ]. A whole galaxy of stars said that a new day had dawned, the earth had moved and the world had changed. They all performed well and hagiography had its night. But, at the end of the day, it all issued in another presidency of broken promises and impeachment, during which the usual spate of international US evil took place.
The same euphoria — maybe even more so than with Obama — greeted the election and inauguration of Tony Blair in May 1997. In fact, the razzmatazz had been deliberately designed on the basis of Clinton’s inaugurations in 1993 and 1997 by the savvy PR moguls in Blair’s New Labour party. The Brits don’t normally go in for coronation-style inaugurations. But when Tony Blair came to power after years of increasingly unpopular Conservative rule all the elements were there: people desperate for change and longing for a feel-good factor in their lives. Again, watch this YouTube video of Tony and Cherie Blair entering Downing Street. Unbelievable! Scenes like this have normally only been reserved for Royal coronations. Please watch this:
Tony Blair enters Downing Street, May 1997:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui_YVew5rNU
Déjà vu. Déjà vu. Oh Tony. Oh Bill. What did you do which changed the world? You both presided over illegal genocidal wars. Oh you get your little reward in being able to spend the rest of your lives giving after-lunch speeches for $100,000 a throw. But all that inaugural razzmatazz. All those euphoric enraptured people taken for ride. It’s criminal.
And so it is again on the present ride in Washington. Lot’s of PR work. Lots of Messianic posters depicting Obama as some kind of new guru. Lots of gravitas in the speeches. Lots of euphoria in the balls (which cost a few hundred million dollars to stage!). Another fairground ride for us to be on. This isn’t about cynicism; it’s about realism. It’s time for us to get real and stop behaving like little children whose world is governed by fairy-tale fantasies about Santa Klaus and handsome princes and I’m going to be an engine-driver, an astronaut or Luke Skywalker when I grow up. We have allowed ourselves to become infantilised and dumbed-down to such an extent (could it be all those unreality shows on TV! :o) that we cannot even see what is plainly going on all around us anymore — never mind what’s behind the scenes. We have become fodder for the fraudulent forays of devious politicians who could never make their moves without our sponsorship, which they engineer. Engineered consent. That’s the name of the game. That’s what democracy is all about.
However, just as you wouldn’t give your heart away in a love relationship to a total stranger who used cheap pick-up techniques on the sidewalk, please don’t allow yourself to be so easily taken in by any politician, no matter how great they may seem; but especially by those who use hypnotic techniques with empty platitudes to woo you.
These are times of massive deception. As a friend wrote to me today: “Evil has never looked so good”. Either we get it or we don’t.
If you want to communicate, I’d love to hear from you.
Watch this space. It’s a running story.
Cordially yours,
Alan Morrison
admin@youre-so-naive.com
http://www.youre-so-naive.com/
http://www.forsomeoneschild.com/
http://www.sinceritymusic.com/
You're so Naïve!
http://www.youre-so-naive.com/"The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim"
(Gustave Le Bon)
"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind"
(George Orwell)
You're so Naïve!
So now you have a leader who is "young and black and real""Change we can believe in" is the mantra that you feel
But how come I am standing here with heaviness of heart?
It's a tragedy in Grecian style and we all have a part
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
He tapped into the hopes and dreams of desperate girls and boys
Fed-up with war being waged by folks who use bombs just like toys
They thought he was a Kennedy but therein lay their fall
'Cause just like JFK they'll kill him if he won't play ball
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
He never could've made it there unless he had a stash
Of filthy lucre laundered well just like all the white trash
Don't believe the hype which says he's just a guy self-made
Gotta have "connections" or you cannot make the grade
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
Make-believing every day we're going to be free
Hoping that some other guy will offer us the key
When we put a cross upon a sheet (our duty done?)
Imagining he'll pave the way for evil to be gone
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
Such a clever move it is; it makes you all relax
Takes the wind out of the sails of protest movements' acts
Now that your "Messiah" is here you think the world is safe
The only 'safety' you will find is in an ice-cold grave
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
"The saviour of the world has come!" (we've heard it all before)
The papers said "The earth has moved!" (it's déjà vu encore)
First we had the Tony Show and then the one from Bill
Playing the Strat and saxophone to give us all a thrill
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
They lead us by the nose to vote the way they want us to
And then we think democracy's the greatest thing to do
The PR guys have got a phrase (it's "engineered consent")
To help us see the media's role in electoral events
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
It doesn't matter who's the Prez, the same guys run the show
Behind the scenes they just ensure he won't disturb the flow
Of all the evil plans they've made for wars and coup d'etats
Business will be as usual I can guarantee you that
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
In case your sensibilities by my words are upset
I have to tell you frankly that "you ain't seen nothin' yet"!
The subtle machinations of this "obama-ising" time
Are rehearsals for a far worse scene that's further down the line
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
© Copyright, Sincerity Music, 2009.***
YOU'RE SO NAÏVE:
COMPOSER'S COMMENTARY
Verse 1:
So now you have a leader who is “young and black and real”
“Change we can believe in“ is the mantra that you feel
But how come I am standing here with heaviness of heart?
It's a tragedy in Grecian style and we all have a part
An interesting thing about Greek Tragedy was that the theatrical productions used certain revealing mechanical devices. One of them was known as an ekkyklema — literally, “a wheeled-out thing”, a cart on wheels which was rolled out onto the stage and on which there was displayed a tableau which represented some vital action which had taken place out of sight of the audience but which was now being revealed to them.
This is why I refer to the election campaign and subsequent election of Barack Obama as “a tragedy in Grecian style”. There is all this action taking place on the face of it; but there is something else going on behind the scenes of which the audience is completely unaware — so unaware (and so utterly desperate to remain unaware) that if anyone dares to reveal it (i.e. by wheeling out the cart!) the audience will jeer him and demand he be thrown out of the theatre! The tragedy in the election of Obama is not so much in the story as in the refusal of the majority of the audience to look at the ekkyklema and absorb its implications after it has been wheeled out. This commentary is wheeling it out. Please don't look away.
“Change we can believe in”. Just what does that mean? So many catchphrases. “Now is the time”. “Yes we can ”. Meaningless strings of soundbite words over which an audience will become hysterically enraptured. The choice which the public was offered in that election was between a George Bush clone and a catchphrase drone. Because they'd had enough of the former they plumbed for the latter. They thought they had a choice but there was none.
My use of the term “mantra” is no exaggeration. For Obama can be shown to have used identifiable hypnotic techniques with which to woo his audience and have them eating out of the palm of his hand. In fact, a very interesting 67-page analysis of Obama's speeches has been carried out by an expert in hypnotism who believes that they have deliberately used hypnotic techniques in order to enrapture the audiences [1]. This is well worth reading. This analysis is supported by many other experts in hypnosis — especially in Neuro-Linguistic Programming. A certified master hypnotist and trainer of hypnotherapy decided to analyze speeches from each of the candidates. He wrote:
“We've all heard rumors that governmental figures are using “mass hypnosis” to influence and sway the people of our great nations. Most of the time, this sounds like some silly conspiracy theory. But after all the recent news about the elections, I think it's time to find out if there's any truth to the rumors”[2];
What he then discovered proves that Obama deliberately used hypnotic techniques to inveigle his audiences. He examined speeches by McCain, Hilary Clinton and Obama, comparing them for controls to speeches by Bill Gates (low use of hypnotic language) and Adolf Hitler (high use of hypnotic language). He then graded each of them in terms of a percentage of hypnotic language. The results? Gates, 12% hypnotic language; McCain, 18% hypnotic language; Hilary Clinton, 32% hypnotic language; Adolf Hitler, 45% hypnotic language; Barack Obama, 58% hypnotic language[3]. This isn't sensationalism; these are the cold, hard facts. Obama and his speechwriter plainly understand hypnotic techniques and used them to great effect on their naïve audiences.
Mantras. All very carefully controlled. Is it any wonder that some of us are standing here with heaviness of heart? Like the boy in “The Emperor's New Clothes”, we are speaking the unspeakable to those who think they see clothes. When someone comes clothed in cool and carries away the masses like a political Pied Piper of Hamelin, we have every right to say what really lies underneath the attire.
Refrain:
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
“The ‘Powers that Be’ are laughing up their sleeve”. Indeed. This song is predicated on the fact that there are those who secretly hold the reins of power — people who have not been elected to hold that power but who hold it nevertheless — people who can control the media (and thus control what you think and how you behave) — people who can start and end wars at will (and who use the media to ensure that you will get the right ‘spin’ about it so you will support it) — people who can gain your approval for all the wars they start by staging false-flag operations which will make you fearful enough to give it to them[4] — people who control the financial institutions and who can thus generate crises which will make you fearful for your wallet and thus give them even more control.
There are a few ways that rulers can intimidate the people and thus manipulate them more easily. In fact, they usually use a three-pronged method of intimidation. The first way is through making the people fearful for their lives, which can be done through permitting, or even actually organizing (e.g. through false-flag operations), widespread terror attacks which make people give their governments vast powers of authority. The second way is to create a general feeling of malaise, via perceived chaos and disorder, which makes people become so traumatized that they are easily manipulated mentally and emotionally by the ‘Powers that Be’. (Just watching The News these days is enough to give you Post Traumatic Shock Syndrome!). The third way is to make people feel so financially insecure and anxious that they will agree to any fiscal package which is proposed by their governments. When all three of these influences are brought to bear on a population, it is easy for a totalitarian (or incipiently totalitarian) government to take the reins of power dictatorially.
The power structure of this world is not at all what it appears to be to the unsuspecting. It operates on a number of different levels. Externally, one has governments (propped up by international bankers and corporations) manipulating and pulling the strings, with the media ensuring that the right spin is always fed to the people who must be kept in a continual state of ignorance. But at the next level down, below the level of visibility, there are the sordid intelligence agencies and organised crime cartels such as the CIA, NSA, KGB/FSB, MI5/MI6, Mossad and the Mafia, etc. (and which all cooperate with each other to maintain the status quo). Then, at the next level down, way below the level of visibility, there are the power-cabals and secret societies such as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers, the Freemasons (especially the higher degrees), the Knights of Malta, the Skull & Bones, etc. At the back of all that, there are the elite dynasties (e.g. the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Warburgs and Harrimans, etc.) — aristocratic family lines of the world who clandestinely control the direction of world affairs through the banking system and major corporations (of which especially those involved in defence components/contracts, energy production, pharmaceuticals, law firms), etc.
It is these who are the real ‘Powers that Be’ which make all decisions relating to your future and who will do all that they can to ensure that only the few truly curious and dogged (who can always be publicly derided as “kooks” and conspiracy theorists) will ever know much about them.
Please tell me how one little man can stand up to that vast network of corruption? Anyone who has dared to take it on has been liquidated. Although the existence of the network really goes back much further in antiquity, its first real blatant (i.e. public) intrusion into recent national politics was in the killing of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (about which more below).
The ‘Powers that Be’ feed on the ignorance and naïveté of the population. They stage an election campaign every few years just to give you the illusion that you have chosen your leader. This is the grand illusion. For they are simply getting you to endorse someone who they have earmarked for the job — someone who will do their bidding — someone who has already sold their soul to them for a position of power. When we play their game at election time, we feed their power-games.
“You're so naïve; the PTB are laughing up their sleeve ”.
However, is it really a mere naïveté with which we are dealing? I believe that many become so inveigled by these political smooth operators much more because of wilful ignorance than naïveté. There are three kinds of ignorance in this life: happy ignorance, simple ignorance and wilful ignorance.
a) Happy ignorance. This is an ignorance which is profitable for us. There are unspeakable things in this world which it is better for us never to know anything about. The agonized screams of a raped child. The chaotic debacle of mortal combat in battle. It is better that we remain happily ignorant of them. I'm not speaking about escapism or hiding our heads in the sand; for that is something different. I simply mean not being exposed to that which sensitive souls have no need to experience.
b) Simple ignorance. When we don't really understand what binds particles together, that is a simple ignorance. It doesn't affect me whether I know it or not. I can choose, though, to try and understand it. Simple ignorance is a desirable condition if the one afflicted by it is willing to learn! Simple ignorance is a great opportunity for us to do so. An empty vessel is no bad thing because it can always be filled and, indeed, should be.
c) Wilful ignorance. This is when a person is so opposed to expanded knowledge and truth that he or she is actually prepared to resist it. As soon as they hear views different from their own, they do not investigate them to see if they may be correct but begin to slander those who hold those views and then set out to destroy them.
Wilful ignorance is always inexcusable and it is what lies at the heart of so much stupidity in the world today. You can tell the difference between wilful and natural ignorance. Natural ignorance rejoices when it hears things explained more adequately. Whereas the one who is wilfully ignorant becomes puffed up with pride, refuses to accept instruction and even wrongly accuses those with whom he disagrees.
It is said that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” - but it is much more paved with wilful ignorance! Wilful ignorance entails the deliberate eschewing of necessary knowledge - a contrived naïveté, if I may put it like that. Such contrivedly naïve people are exactly what the ‘Powers that Be’ feed upon. We sell our souls to them when we contrive to be so naïve. They need such people to form the majority of the population. Then their job is easy; their power-games are nourished and their dark goals will be accomplished.
Verse 2:
He tapped into the hopes and dreams of desperate girls and boys
Fed-up with war being waged by folks who use bombs just like toys
They thought he was a Kennedy but therein lay their fall
'Cause just like JFK they'll kill him if he won't play ball
The image of the President of the USA which is so often presented in Hollywood films (e.g. Pearl Harbor, Independence Day, etc.) , depicting him as a powerful, dependable leader — a safe pair of hands — to whom everyone defers on every issue, is just so wide of the mark as to be laughable. The President of the USA is merely a rotating GUI (Graphical User Interface) to woo the gullible public while the tenebrous characters who really hold the reins of power remain unchanged. (Think of George W. Bush in the Oval Office and you will not have much difficulty absorbing this concept).
Once one realises that the President of the USA does not run the country but that the country is really run by powerful unelected people who run the President then one also sees that there is a cleverly-devised scheme in place which ensures that they always get their way, no matter who is in office. It is in this respect that the two-party adversarial system is so helpful to their objectives. It appears to the unsuspecting public as though there is a choice but Republican and Democrat are merely two sides of the same bent coin.
Although democracy doesn't really exist anywhere in the Western world, the ‘Powers that Be’ want to maintain the pretence of it until such time as even all appearances of it will be ready to be dissolved by them. In the meantime, they work with the system as it is, milking it for all it's worth.
Most of the requirements of the ‘Powers that Be’ can best be fulfilled during a conservative presidency, when there is more or less a mandate from the voting public to go to war on the pretext of some connived threat and then cause as much destruction and powermongering mayhem in the world as possible. But the ‘Powers that Be’ realise that there has to be some relief from all the darkness, bloodshed and destruction every so often. So their scheme caters for changes of presidency to what looks like a less conservative one so that people can continue to imagine that they have the power to change the direction of their country and also undergo a degree of catharsis after years of the openly ruinous policies of the previous years of dummy presidency.
The way that the scheme works can be illustrated by the changes of President over the past couple of decades. First, there was George H.W. Bush from 1989 to 1993. Then William J. Clinton from 1993 to 2001. Then George W. Bush from 2001 to the present day. Now there is Barack Obama. After George H.W. Bush, people were crying out for change, so they got Bill Clinton. Just as they are doing now with Obama, they crowed with delight, believing that a new day had dawned for freedom, democracy and world peace. In short, Clinton was greeted as a saviour.
However, after eight years of that, the utopian expectations had not materialised, so change was cried out for yet again. But Bill had only been a cunning sideshow. Now the work of the ‘Powers that Be’ could begin in earnest once again as George W. Bush was elected for a further eight years of destruction and war-criminality, beginning with the events on September 11th 2001 which created a convenient pretext for invasion and taking us through wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, killing more than one million people in the process[5]. But now the people were crying out once again for change. They'd had enough. Too many were beginning to see through the parody of power and dummy democracy which created eight years of destruction and incipiently totalitarian legislation. So the ‘Powers that Be’ throw them a bone. “You want a saviour — a Messiah even? Well here he comes. The answer to your hopes and dreams”. A cool-looking dude who is young and black. What better way to make you think that you are on the brink of utopia in a “post-racial” universe? Suddenly, all the damage done in the previous eight years is dissolved in their minds as they whoop with joy at the false hope paraded before them.
The ‘Powers that Be’ played (preyed) upon the hopes and dreams of desperate girls and boys. They have no intention whatsoever of giving up their positions of power. Not at all. But even though you are permitted the illusion of changing the President for one who appears more humane and liberal, the real work behind the scenes does not change at all. And if Obama doesn't play ball with them, he'll be removed from office and from this life just like John Fitzgerald Kennedy. JFK went way too far in ringing in his changes. He had to go.
A president's only role, as far as the ‘Powers that Be’ are concerned, is to maintain the status quo. The status quo is about keeping the corporations swimming in money, keeping the military making perpetual war (which also keeps the corporations swimming in money) and keeping the people in ignorance and darkness (which also keeps the corporations swimming in money). Anyone who tries to step beyond those demarcation lines will be “JFKed”.
It is interesting that some are describing Obama as another JFK. John Fitzgerald Kennedy — although he had his faults and foibles — was a president who sought to go beyond the status quo and to interfere with the 'toys for the boys' and he paid for it with his life. He had already removed Allen Dulles from his role as head of the CIA (especially because of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, not to mention the fact that the CIA was found to be enlisting Mafia hitmen as assassins) and JFK was even threatening to dismantle the CIA altogether. It was said that he was going to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds” [“CIA: Marker of Policy or Tool?”, New York Times. April 25, 1966]. You don't last long in high office when you make threats like that. The heart of the dirty tricks, black ops and grubby business in the USA is the CIA/Military/Mafia enclave. Tinker with that sort of power and you'll be brought down big-time. JFK must have been spinning in his grave to see Allen Dulles on the 8-member Warren Commission after he begged LBJ to be a part of it![6] Lee Harvey Oswald a lone gunman? Not when you see it from the refreshing realism standpoint of The Parallax View .
Thus, if Obama is really just a hapless guy in a cool suit who doesn't know the field and who imagines that he can reverse the murder and destruction of previous years (which is actually very unlikely), he will be taken down before you can say the words “Dallas 1963”.
Verse 3:
He never could've made it there unless he had a stash
Of filthy lucre laundered well just like all the white trash
Don't believe the hype which says he's just a guy self-made
Gotta have “connections” or you cannot make the grade
First golden rule in US politics: Only a multi-millionaire can make it. You have to be sitting on a pile of filthy lucre just to stand for office. First golden rule in Chicago politics: “He who has the gold rules”. The connections between the political world and The Mob are a historical tradition in Chicago, the city of Al Capone and his original gang, “The Chicago Outfit”. We know from the December 2008 revelations about the Governor of Illinois, Rod R. Blagojevich, being arrested for conspiring to sell Obama's vacant Senate seat that this is the way that things are still done in Chicago. It is essentially a cesspit of corruption.
Blagojevich isn't the first. Not by a long chalk! Otto Kerner was Governor from 1961 to 1968 and he received a three year prison sentence in 1973 for bribery, conspiracy and perjury. Daniel Walker was Governor from 1973 to 1977 and received a seven year prison sentence on charges of bank fraud and perjury. Governor William Stratton ran Illinois from 1953 to 1961 and was later indicted but acquitted for tax evasion. Governor George Ryan, who was Governor Blagojevich's immediate predecessor, is still inside jail, doing a six-and-a-half-year sentence on wire fraud and bribery.
Illinois in general and Chicago in particular is surely the most corrupt region in the USA. [7] Please can you tell me how it is possible for a guy to rise from nothing to the President of the USA via a Chicago-based Senatorship without being in some way in the pocket of The Chicago Mob or having good connections to them?
As it happens, Obama was listed as no.8 in Judicial Watch's “List of Washington's Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians for 2007” (sandwiched in between I. Lewis Scooter Libby and Nancy Pelosi). [8] Furthermore, “as news of the Blagojevich's arrest broke, a Judicial Watch press release declared: 'This is a burgeoning crisis for Obama that should shake his presidency to its core. The criminal complaint filed today indicates that Obama and his team knew about Blagojevich's efforts to sell Obama's Senate seat. ('Tony' Rezko, Obama friend, fundraiser and real estate partner, is once again implicated in the corrupt activities exposed today)”. [9]
Obama has had close dealings with corrupt businessmen which became an embarrassment when his presidential campaign took off. In a June 2007 report in the New York Times, entitled “An Obama Patron and Friend Until an Indictment”, Obama's close relationship with Tony Rezko was scrutinised. In Autumn 2006, Rezko had been indicted on federal charges of business fraud and influence peddling involving the administration of Governor of Illinois, Rod R. Blagojevich. The paper stated: “Now, as Mr. Obama runs for president, the once-beneficial relationship with his old friend and patron has become problematic”.[10] So, essentially, Obama distanced himself and played everything down.
Reports in this investigative vein could be filed in 2007 and before, but as Obama's campaign gathered steam and the media were under pressure to get behind him so that any nefarious dealings would be obfuscated, as the November 2008 election day loomed any serious whiff of a stain on Obama's clothes would be airbrushed out long before it hit the newsstands. One exception found its way into a corner of the Chicago Tribune. Writing in October 2008, John Kass said:
“Obama's gauzy references to Chicago involve baseball and where he met Michelle and those blissful hours he spent as a community organizer. What he doesn't want discussed is his evolution from independent Democrat to potential White House enabler of the corrupt Chicago Democratic machine”. [11]
This is precisely my original point: Please can you tell me how it is possible for a guy to rise from nothing to the President of the USA via a Chicago-based Senatorship without being in some way in the pocket of The Chicago Mob or having good connections to them? Kass continues:
“Any child in Illinois knows the Chicago Way leads through the most politically corrupt city in America, in a politically corrupt state, where muscle trumps reason, where Democratic warlords brazenly promote their offspring into public office, where even souls are offered up for sale.
The national media have never wanted to understand, much less expose, political corruption here, or examine how Obama prospered under the Daley machine's guidance. A trip down the Chicago Way would force them to re-examine their ridiculous narrative that sets Obama as a political reformer riding a white horse, or is that a winged unicorn?” [12]
So how has Obama managed to keep his nose clean and project himself to his adulating supporters as being a corruption-free zone? Kass's Chicago Tribune piece claims that “the national urgency to view Obama as a political life-form several evolutionary rungs above Chicago's common political hacks is not only a mistake, it's disingenuous”.[13] He then cites a number of Obama's nefarious connections and concludes:
“Is Obama corrupt, the way the caricature of Chicago-style corruption is often drawn, with some beefeater alderman reeking of gin, stuffing an envelope into his breast pocket? No, though he came close with Rezko in that smelly deal for the purchase of Obama's home. But Obama looked the other way in order to prosper and assiduously avoided conflict with the machine to the point of embrace. In this, he offered Americans a glimpse at the real man inside that nice suit, the Chicago Way”. [14]
He “looked the other way in order to prosper and assiduously avoided conflict with the machine to the point of embrace”.[15] That is the key to how Obama has managed to rise to the surface of the scum-machine in Chicago. It is not so much that he regularly dirtied his own hands indelibly like so many other Chicago politicians. Rather that when they dirtied theirs, he looked the other way as he rode his white horse to the White House, thus tacitly approving it all. No wonder they tolerated him. He is the 'squeaky-clean' looking Chicago apparatchik who would be able to smooth their path from the highest office in the land. In the office which he is soon to take up, he will be useful to their world, as he evolves “from independent Democrat to potential White House enabler of the corrupt Chicago Democratic machine”.[16]
One of Obama's main selling-points in the minds of the idealistic young and liberal left is that he is in no one's pocket; that he is an independent with no lobbyists hanging on his shirt-tails — that he's in hock to no one. Is this true? Unfortunately not. In an August 2008 Boston Globe article, headlined “PACs and lobbyists aided Obama's rise. Data contrast with his theme”, Scott Hellman writes:
“Using campaign appearances, e-mails to supporters, and Iowa TV ads, Illinois Senator Barack Obama has repeatedly reminded voters that his presidential campaign does not accept contributions from lobbyists or political action committees, casting his decision as a noble departure from the ways of Washington... But behind Obama's campaign rhetoric about taking on special interests lies a more complicated truth. A Globe review of Obama's campaign finance records shows that he collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from lobbyists and PACs as a state legislator in Illinois, a US senator, and a presidential aspirant”. [17]
In a London Evening Standard article headed “£500m election fund ‘bought Obama victory’”, Paul Thompson writes:
“Barack Obama is likely to face calls that he ‘bought’ his election victory after the final sums for his astonishing fund raising campaign are revealed. Figures being presented to the Federal Election Commission are likely to show he raised £500 million ($750 million). The massive amount not only allowed Mr Obama to outspend John McCain, who raised £333 million ($480 million), in TV advertisements but changed the face of US politics”. [18]
So much was Obama's desire not to be stuck with a ceiling on his spending for the campaign that he “declined public financing and the spending limits that came with it, making him the first major-party candidate since the system was created to reject taxpayers' money for the general election”. [19]
We need to get some due diligence and discernment together here. Nobody, but nobody, rises to be a Senator in Chicago without “connections”. I'm talking about money connections. Big money connections. Chicago corruption-style money connections. Whatever one may think of arch-villain Karl Rove, one is forced to agree with him when he said: “Rather than showing the success of a new style of post-partisan politics, Mr Obama's victory may show the enduring truth of the old Chicago Golden Rule: he who has the gold rules”. Money doesn't merely talk in Chicago; it simply shrieks! One day, it may have a lot to say about a certain former President of the USA. Such exposés are generally reserved for the time when the ‘Powers that Be’ want a President removed from office and the media spin-machine is allowed to move into top gear.
Verse 4:
Make-believing every day we're going to be free
Hoping that some other guy will offer us the key
When we put a cross upon a sheet (our duty done?)
Imagining he'll pave the way for evil to be gone
This is the great failure of “democracy”. It is also one of the coups de grace of the ‘Powers that Be’ in their deception of the population. They get us to go out once every four years or so to put a cross on a piece of paper and then tell us that we have partaken in a wonderful thing called Democracy which is worth killing for. They tell us that many people already gave their lives in order to achieve the vote for us so we must feel super-guilty if we don't vote ourselves.
But, as we show in this commentary — and as can be seen in the election of Barack Obama — public opinion is easier to manipulate than a broomstick in a tub of molten lard! To put a cross on a piece of paper every four years and think that we've somehow participated meaningfully in the making of a leader and the political process is so woefully inadequate in terms of true democracy as to be laughable.
We imagine we can attain freedom and rid the world of evil by giving high office to some guy who simply had the best PR machine. Freedom can never be attained by absolving ourselves of responsibility for the world by handing power over to a clever PR manipulator. But the ‘Powers that Be’ want us to believe that this is possible. Even though we've been let down over and over again we still continue to believe it, like the punch-drunk boxer who keeps staggering across the ring into the path of his opponent's glove!
Verse 5:
Such a clever move it is; it makes you all relax
Takes the wind out of the sails of protest movements' acts
Now that your “Messiah” is here you think the world is safe
The only 'safety' you will find is in an ice-cold grave
Deflation of the opposition is a key element in getting a guy like Obama into office. This is a major part of the strategy of the ‘Powers that Be’. For as soon as a left-leaning/liberal politician is in what people perceive to be the driving seat of the country, one doesn't hear a whimper out of the peace movement or any other radical protest groups in society. Even though policy will remain fundamentally unchanged from the previous order, the left/liberals can be guaranteed to keep their mouths shut because of their doctrinaire mentality which dictates that there should be no dissent in any event while their golden boy is in office.
Let me give an example. Not long after the US military “Shock & Awe” bombing campaign in Baghdad, in which countless children and innocent adults had been killed, I went on a residential songwriting course. At one stage in the course I wanted to share a new song I had written about that episode in history, entitled “Anthem for Someone's Child” [hear the song and read the lyrics at www.forsomeoneschild.com ]. I might as well have proposed a song about gang rape! The response was one of ostrich head-burying as an embarrassed disquiet was expressed about such a song by those to whom I proposed it. The war criminal and Bush lapdog, Tony Blair, was in power with his Labour Party and when a Labour Party is in power the lefties and liberals (which describes virtually all those on the course) get very upset if you dare to criticise anything that they do. Their reasoning is that it is far better to have a Left government in power — no matter how badly they behave, even if they wage illegal wars or commit genocide — so long as they keep the Right out of power. The ‘Powers that Be’ understand this mentality only too well. In fact, it suits their purpose because when a Left government is in power it means that any opposition to the PTB's endless wars and coup d'etats simply dissolves to less than a whimper. Thus, their work goes unhindered no matter whether a right or left-leaning President is in office.
Any protest group which tries to lobby Obama about a war will be told by party hacks: “Don't worry, the President will deal with it. Just give him time. It isn't easy”. Just as the Democrats said after they were given a majority in both seats of government in 2006 “It takes time. We can't undo everything overnight”. Many outside observers wanted the Democratic party to move to impeachment of the Bush regime's war criminals. They might as well have wished for a peaceful war in Iraq!
Another interesting aspect of all this is that throughout the election campaign, it was almost as if Obama was being presented as a Messiah — the saviour who can make all things right for you and for the world. In fact, a website was set up to depict this aspect of the campaign[20]. It started off as tongue-in-cheek but grew into an extraordinary repository of the kind of obeisance which was being paid to Obama. If you visit this site, I promise that you will be astonished by the factual reports you find there. It is a measure of the ignorant desperation in the USA that so many are so willing to ascribe virtual divinity to a man about whom they know nothing and whose only relationship with them is the groovy repetition of a few empty phrases. Raised on soundbite TV, they easily come to worship a soundbite President.
Verse 6:
“The saviour of the world has come!” (we've heard it all before)
The papers said “The earth has moved!” (it's déjà vu encore)
First we had the Tony Show and then the one from Bill
Playing the Strat and saxophone to give us all a thrill
“The Earth has Moved”, said one front-page headline after the election of Obama. (Isn't that what a woman says after she's had an extraordinary sexual experience?). “It's a New World”, said another. “The World Changes”, said another. But nothing in the world had changed except that the PR machine of the ‘Powers that Be’ had managed to inveigle the American people into voting a certain way. Such headlines were repeated across the world. It was utterly verboten to print anything which would detract from the universal adulation in the media. (The media, being fawning courtiers to the ‘Powers that Be’ rather than investigative journalists who want to be free, know very well how to behave under these circumstances). The same thing happened when Tony Blair and Bill Clinton were elected. We've seen and heard it all before. It's déjà vu encore.
This universal hagiographic approach was echoed by the readers of all those rags too. Here is a transcript of a conversation (conflated from those I have both had personally and seen elsewhere) with starry-eyed Obama devotees (often referred to as ‘O-bots’) who were elated with Obama's election:
SHE: Isn't it wonderful that Barack Obama got in! I'm over the moon.
ME: Er... no.
SHE (shrilly): What? How could you say no?
ME (coolly): Because I have history as my precedent.
SHE: But Bush has gone.
ME: Bush as the desired figurehead may be gone but those who pulled his strings haven't gone anywhere.
SHE: Are you a Bush supporter?
ME: Er... no.
SHE: So how could you not be pleased that Obama is in power?
ME: I told you. I have history as my precedent.
SHE: Meaning?
ME: Meaning that we've been here before. It's déjà vu encore. Weren't you “over the moon” when Bill Clinton was elected as President, just the same as you are now?
Weren't you over the moon when Tony Blair was elected as Prime Minister, just the same as you are now? It was just the same then. All the liberals and lefties thinking that their saviour had arrived. But they were just two more chimeras pulled out of the hat by the real ‘Powers that Be’ to keep you quiet and happy for a while. King Tony. Bill the Saviour.
We've been there before. Don't you remember how elated you were when they got in but how deflated and disillusioned you were after a few years of their tenure of office?
SHE: Well, yes, there is that, but this is completely different.
ME: No, it isn't at all different. That's the point. It is you being taken for a ride for the third time in a few short years while the people who really control your world are laughing up their sleeve at how easily manipulated you are.
SHE: Oh don't give me all that conspiracy theory nonsense! We've got to have hope. Other people may have messed up but that's no reason to lose hope.
ME: In political terms, hope is one of the most empty emotions in the universe. It is always based on wishful thinking and delusion. It is just another way of leading you by the nose. These people who raise your hopes are just a graphical user interface put there by the ‘Powers that Be’ in order to make you think you're getting some really cool guys to fulfil your dreams. But they're always just as much of a criminal and shyster as the rightist leaders you despise so much.
King Tony regularly played his Fender Stratocaster so he'd look really kool and youthful. (In fact, the war criminal, Blair, was given 24 guitars — including 12 Strats — while he was in office by individuals and organisations such as Fender Musical Instruments, Bryan Adams, Bono, and the Governments of Romania, Mexico, Portugal, China and France!).
While he was on the campaign trail, Bill Clinton played the sax in a pair of shades at the Arsenio Hall Show — an act which turned his campaign around as all the jazz folks said he would be “the first black president”! Boy, do these guys know how to get into the hearts of idealistic young people desperate for someone else to change the world for the better!
All the ‘stars’ were “over the moon” when Bill came to power in 1993 (see, for example, this embarrassing footage of Judy Collins telling how Bill being elected to President was one of the biggest high-spots of her life http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGrJX6qfPCY ). You'd think folks would be overcome with déjà vu now that Obama is in town. But no. The phoney dream must be kept alive and the ‘Powers that Be’ must maintain the status quo. So long as those patsy presidents and prime ministers play those Strats and saxophones and look really trendy they can convince the young, naive and gullible that they're cool and that it is possible to put human beings into power who will make the world into the utopia they so crave. Such leaders provide a necessary intermezzo to mitigate the blatantly oppressive episodes which bring about the continuing subjugation of the American people to the secret powers which control their country.
Verse 7:
They lead us by the nose to vote the way they want us to
And then we think democracy's the greatest thing to do
The PR guys have got a phrase (it's “engineered consent”)
To help us see the media's role in electoral events
The election campaign of Obama was a triumph for Public Relations (PR). It is PR which determines the outcome of presidential elections rather than any innate statesmanlike ability on the part of the candidates. Barack Obama spent £500 million ($750 million) on his election campaign. John McCain spent £333 million ($480 million) on his. Money talks — especially in the world of PR and spin via the media.
One of the “founding fathers” of Public Relations as we know it today was the Viennese-born Edward L. Bernays (1891-1995) who emigrated to the USA with his parents in 1892. Bernays was the nephew of the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. His mother, Anna, was Freud's sister.
Bernays described his uncle as his mentor whose theories of the “unconscious” influenced his ideas concerning the manipulation of the thinking of the masses. It is widely recognised today that Bernays laid the ground for all the spin-doctoring of today. In late 1991, Life Magazine named him as one of the most influential men in the history of the USA, yet most people have never even heard of him. He was a prolific writer on PR techniques and served as personal PR advisor (spin-doctor) to many of the famous and influential — including US Presidents and other leaders, from Eleanor Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower to Golda Meir (Prime Minister of Israel, 1969-1974).
It was more than ironic that Bernays (who was Jewish) should have been one of the key influences (especially via his book “Crystallizing Public Opinion”) on the life and thought of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda! Bernays' books lived on Goebbels' library shelves and shaped the thinking of this Nazi social engineer in his selling of Hitler and his policies to the gullible public. Any portentous bells ringing here?
Bernays' many books have shaped the manipulative policies of the governments of the Western world throughout the past eighty years. One of these was entitled “Propaganda”, written in 1927. Here are a couple of quotes:
“If we understand the mechanisms and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it”[21].
And again:
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of”[22].
Bear in mind that Bernays was not at all disapproving of these manipulations but encouraging. Note especially how the phrase “democratic society” has been used here. To read the works of Bernays is to discover the Big Lie which lurks behind all government propaganda—especially concerning their alleged fostering of democracy. All democracy is a form of incipient totalitarianism in disguise. For the people who are elected by the people are not the rulers of their country. As Bernays says, there is “an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country”.
In 1955, Bernays edited a book about how democracy should work, entitled “The Engineering of Consent”, a phrase which he actually used as a definition of public relations. Think about that phrase carefully: The engineering of consent. Is that not what so-called democracy today is really all about? The manipulation of the people into making a choice which they think of as their own but which has been dictated for them is the engineering of consent. Is it any wonder that Bernays' techniques have been so much in use by allegedly “democratic” politicians?
Truly, the legacy of Bernays in political and governmental circles has been massive. Yet most people in the world have never even heard of this man who has shaped their world.
There is a major connection here between this Bernays legacy and the rise of Tony Blair in the UK with his magically-generated “New Labour Party”, which was one of the greatest PR manipulations and spin-doctor successes in the entire history of Britain. In the press release advertising two BBC TV programmes screened in March 2002, entitled “The Rise of the All-Consuming Self and the Influence of the Freud Dynasty — from Sigmund to Matthew”, it is stated:
“The Freud dynasty is at the heart of this compelling social history, from Sigmund to Matthew: Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis; Edward Bernays [Freud's nephew], who invented public relations; Anna Freud, Sigmund's devoted daughter; and present-day PR guru and Sigmund's great grandson, Matthew Freud, who became part of the new marketing culture that took over politics in Britain when New Labour swept to power in the 1990s”[23].
Marketing culture? What does that have to do with government, you may ask? Everything. Matthew Freud — whose wife is Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of media magnate, Rupert Murdoch — is a close friend of Peter Mandelson, one of the heartbeats of the Labour Party in the UK. He has also been unofficial PR advisor to Tony Blair for years and organised the watershed 1998 Labour Party Conference which turned the party's fortunes by concealing all blemishes from the public. These people know how to make darkness seem like light; evil seem like good; black things seem like white; and truth come out of falsehood. PR is the twenty-first century's own brand of sorcery.
Government propaganda based on PR models of manipulation now moulds and controls people's minds in ways never before imagined.[24] This was especially so with the UK election of Tony Blair at the helm of the “New Labour” Party, which was merely 'Stalinism Lite' disguised as democratic socialism. The election campaign and subsequent victory of Obama has also been a triumph of PR and marketing, mingled with naïve people's desperation for a true statesman. As one observer of public relations states:
“A single public relations professional with access to media, a basic understanding of mass psychology, and a fistful of dollars can unleash in society forces that make permanent winners out of otherwise-evident losers — whether they be products, politicians, corporations or ideas”[25].
Exactly. Point made.
Today, we have the fulfilment of the manipulated election of a man who looks like a cool rapper in a smart suit — someone to whom the young can relate and who can help the old to be unburdened from their guilt about historic racism in the USA. Appearing from nowhere like a cross between Melchizedek, a reincarnated JFK and the Lost Messiah of America, Obama has hypnotized the people into regarding him as their Saviour. This has been a very clever move on the part of the PR moguls behind his election campaign. Looking every bit the opposite of his predecessor (i.e. he appears to be intelligent and articulate), he is greeted with open arms as a clean pair of hands who can change the world. But as an obedient advocate of Zionism[26] and a front for the bankers and corporations who will run him,[27] he is perfectly placed not only to ensure that the status quo remains the same but that the global government agenda of the New World Order will steam ahead as planned. In short, he is a patsy – chosen by the powerbrokers to front their agenda.
Verse 8:
It doesn't matter who's the Prez, the same guys run the show
Behind the scenes they just ensure he won't disturb the flow
Of all the evil plans they've made for wars and coups d'etats
Business will be as usual, I can guarantee you that
This is the kernel of all that we are saying here. As already stated above “The President is just a rotating GUI (Graphical User Interface) to woo the gullible public while the tenebrous characters who really hold the reins (reigns?) of power remain unchanged”. All he has to do is go along with the status quo and make smooth the pathway for the plans of the ‘Powers that Be’.
Let's face it, Presidents have come and gone over the years but no matter who has been in that role the USA has continued to carry out its programme of subversion by stealth of all those countries which can be useful to their cause or which have proved an irritant to it. All the wars and coups d'etats have continued unabated no matter who has been in power. The Democratic party is just as corrupt as the Republican. So it won't be any different when Obama is in the role. In fact, all the pointers are that business will be as usual. So far, Obama has either maintained the same personnel as the Bush administration (e.g. Robert Gates as Defense Secretary) or appointed Chicago cronies and insiders from the Clinton administration. There's no change we can believe in there. None whatsoever. But then all this is only to be expected. When the Democratic Party obtained a majority in Congress and the House of Representatives in 2006 all the liberals and lefties assumed that the peccadilloes of the Bush administration's six years in office would begin to be overturned. Another wasted dream. Nothing changed. In fact, the debacle only deepened and more anti-freedom legislation was passed with barely a whimper from the 'opposition'. As the old song says: “When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?”
When Obama takes office, there will be no sending of all the serial liars and war criminals from the previous administration to The Hague for prosecution. There will be no criminal proceedings for those who advocated and practised torture in the previous administration. When ABC host, George Stephanopoulos, asked future Vice-President, Joe Biden, whether Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other high-level Bush administration officials should be prosecuted for prisoner and child abuse, torture and murder in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, he said: “President-elect Obama and I are not sitting thinking about the past. We're focusing on the future... I'm not ruling it in and not ruling it out. I just think we should look forward. I think we should be looking forward, not backwards”[28]. Classic fudge. Stonewalling. Biden is the gatekeeper to ptotect the Obama administration from any rogue questions in the media. He's an old hand. He knows how to play the game.
Most people fail to realise that the liberal corporate types, such as Barack Obama, can often be even more Stalinist and corrupt than conservative rightists (witness Tony Blair and his New Labour Party in the UK). There will be no prosecutions of anyone in the previous administration (unless some easy target fall guy of little consequence is singled out to take the rap). There will be no abolishing of the treacherous Patriot Acts passed by the Bush regime. There will be no real undoing of any of the great evil that was done by the previous administration. Obama has too many evil people backing him for that to happen.[29]
At this point, you may say: “But what about Guantanamo Bay? He's already said that he's going to close it. So doesn't that prove you wrong?” To which I reply: Not at all. It is quite likely that he will move towards closing Guantanamo Bay. But that will just be a bit of window-dressing to mislead the easily inveigled minds of today. This is a classic manoeuvre of the corrupt. There are many secret Guantanamo Bays around the world, set up by the CIA as part of their “Extraordinary Rendition” program.[30] So they close down the publicly-known Guantanamo Bay to make you think that such atrocities have been stopped. However, the remainder of the torture chambers which they have set up in secret in countries where such activity is the norm will continue unhindered — and mostpeople will continue to imagine that Obama is their knight in shining armour.
So there will be no real undoing of any of the great evil that was done by the previous administration. On the contrary, the CIA will carry on its policy of subversion and terrorism across the world. The military will carry on waging the illegal wars that the power cabals and corporations want them to wage. Wall Street will continue to embezzle and the media will continue to muzzle.
Business will be as usual; I can guarantee you that.
Verse 9:
In case your sensibilities by my words are upset
I have to tell you frankly that “you ain't seen nothin' yet!”
The subtle machinations of this “obama-ising” time
Are rehearsals for a far worse scene that's further down the line
No doubt many people will be irate to read what has been written in this song and commentary. Some will be incensed beyond belief. But not only will I retract not a word (unless it can be shown to be false) but I will go further than I have already gone by saying that the whole Obamarama roadshow is a mere rehearsal for the events of the future. The ‘Powers that Be’ love to experiment with our psyches to see how far they can go with their audacious mind-control projects. At one time such experiments would be conducted on a comparatively small, unknown and (from their point of view) 'expendable' element of the population (prison or mental hospital inmates and Californian hippies).[31] Today they brazenly toy with the mass of people's minds in Psyops-based election campaigns.[32] Understanding this process is a vital part of our self-education.
The world is moving towards a scenario which will make Orwell's masterpiece, “1984” (essential reading for all self-educators), seem like a boy scout's garden party. All the elements are falling into place. We need to awaken from our slumber and see the 2008 US election for what it was: The stealing of people's minds and the swaying of their hearts to accept a Trojan Horse into their lives. “It's a tragedy in Grecian style and we all have a part”..
© Copyright, Sincerity Music, 2009.
[1]See http://www.scribd.com/doc/7470439/Obamas-hypnosis-Speeches
[2]See, e.g. http://www.transformdestiny.com/blog/?p=48'.
[3]Ibid.
[4]A false-flag operation is when governments or organisations themselves stage an atrocity (which they blame on others) or create a bogus enemy in order to capitalise on the wave of fear and indignation which it generates.
[5]If we weigh up the real evidence, we must surely conclude that 9/11 was a classic false-flag operation. It was either enacted by forces directed by the ‘Powers that Be’ or, at the very least, was permitted to happen (i.e. not prevented from happening) by a PTB which saw the advantage of capitalising on such a dreadful event.
[6]Most of the starry-eyed young folks who voted for Obama probably haven't even heard of the Warren Commission, let alone worked out that Kennedy was assassinated by his own people!
[7] http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2008/12/is_illinois_the_most_corrupt_s.html
[8] http://www.judicialwatch.org/judicial-watch-announces-list-washington-s-ten-most-wanted-corrupt-politicians-2007
[9] http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2008/12/judicial-watch-to-testify-in-blagojevich-hearings.html
[10] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/us/politics/14rezko.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print
[11] http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/oct/05/opinion/chi-kass-0510
[12]Ibid.
[13]Ibid.
[14]Ibid.
[15]Ibid.
[16]Ibid.
[17] http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/08/09/_obamas_rise/
[18] http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23597624-details/500m+election+fund+%27bought+Obama+victory%27/article.do
[19]Op. cit. Scott Hellman article in Boston Globe.
[20] See http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/
[21] “Propaganda”, Edward L. Bernays, p.71.
[22] Ibid., p.9.
[23] See the revealing link at the press office of the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/stories/02/0202/28/centuryoftheself.shtml
[24] See “What Orwell Didn't Know: Propaganda & the New Face of American Politics”, by Andras Szanto, Public Affairs, 2007
[25] “Toxic Sludge is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public Relations Industry”, John C. Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, Common Courage Press, 1995.
[26] Many Zionists put him into office from the beginning. See http://www.chicagojewishnews.com/story.htm?sid=212226&id=252218
[27] http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=240 & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MouUJNG8f2k & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-KJCMWcoms
[28] http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2008/12/biden-not-rulin.html
[29] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MouUJNG8f2k & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-KJCMWcoms
[30] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition
[31] See Martin A. Lee, Bruce Shlain, “Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond” (Grove Press, 1986). Further details about the book are also in the review article “LSD and the CIA”, which can be found at http://www.historyhouse.com/in_history/lsd/. See also George Andrews, “MKULTRA: The CIA's Top Secret Program in Human Experimentation and Behavior Modification”, Healthnet Press, 2001. For further copious details about the CIA's secret programmes involving mind-control see Andrew Smith's article “Mind Control, LSD, the CIA and the American People: What the Government Does Not Want You to Know”, at http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/lsd-mc-cia.htm . See also Jim Huck's website at http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/jphuck/ and click on the article entitled “The Secret Government”. For an article on the vast use of psychiatrists enlisted for research on MK-Ultra see “CIA Shrinks & LSD” by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, at http://www.counterpunch.org/ciashrinks.html . See also the entire transcript of the U.S. Senate Committee on Intelligence proceedings on August 3rd 1977, which was set up to look into the abuses of the CIA's MK-Ultra mind-control experiments which was entitled “Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification”.The index link for this can be found here: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/e1950/mkultra/index.htm
[32] Psyops is short for Psychological Operations, in which techniques are used to alter people's behaviour through forms of mind-control and manipulation.
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