Richard Jewel and random memories of the 90's. It's 11 o'clock, do you know where your kooks are?

In many ways, for me at least, much of the 90’s seem to be a slow blur. Moments pop out at me when I look back, many good and many bad. An entire inner-connected series of memories have come back to me over the last two days with the passing of Richard Jewel. Jewel, you may remember, was the security guard at the Atlanta Olympic games whom the FBI attempted to scapegoat after the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.

In the summer of ’96 I was living out in the country but still a short drive into Atlanta. I watched those Olympic games and how they affected Atlanta, from afar. On the night of the bombing I was watching TV and followed the news reports closely, switching between the four local news stations and ESPN’s coverage. In the days after the bombing, when Jewel was rightly identified as a hero, I was happy to see what appeared to be a regular Georgia “country boy” making good in the city. That feel good moment was dashed only days later when the feds leaked the information to the news organizations that Jewel was the prime suspect.

One thing you develop as you get older is a prime eye for telling what is real and what is not real when it comes to people. In the case of Jewel, it was obvious the feds were lying. Their MO sounded credible until you looked at the man and how he was holding up to the insane media pressure. I wasn’t the only one who felt he was being railroaded. My co-workers, all of them “country smart” could see that something wasn’t right and that he was innocent. Jewel was eventually cleared and the investigation appeared to have reached a brick wall.

When I first moved to Atlanta we seemed to be the center of a lunatic bomber’s attention. The Olympic Park bombing, the Otherside Lounge bombing, the Sandy Springs abortion clinic bombing were making all of us more than a little uncomfortable with what was happening and where they would strike next. I remember several long lunchtime and water cooler conversations we had about who the killer could be. My pet theory was that we had a crazy redneck that was driving into town to kill Atlantans, but I was certain it was a Georgian.

When the Birmingham bombing killed a police officer and horribly injured a nurse in early ’98 all of the people I knew raised their eyebrows with attention. It was pretty obvious that the nut that was setting off bombs here in town was at work in Birmingham. The only question most of us had was whether or not the bomber lived in west Georgia or east Alabama.

When Eric Rudolph was announced as the prime suspect, all seemed to fall in place. Rudolph could be a poster child of the things that were wrong about us as a people in the 90’s and he was one of the precursor warnings of the type of lunatic fringe American that we would all see post-9/11. In a decade that gave us the Oklahoma City bombing and Eric Rudolph, we had more than enough signs of what we have become. The lunatics who weren’t satisfied with simply firebombing abortion clinics so they moved on to bombing them and killing abortion Doctors are the type of person who maintains the systems of control and power in America today.

I live in a large American city, with an international airport and high visibility facilities such as the CDC and the Federal Reserve. I am not at all worried about Islamic terrorists blowing my ass up. It’s possible but I think I am far more likely to be struck by lightning or win the lottery than to be killed by a terrorist in the city I live. I am, however, still worried about right wing extremists in America. I am, in effect, afraid of my own people. I admit this one day after posting an angrily worded entry regarding fear in America, so I do understand how this can be considered a hypocritical statement.

These extremists have always been here in this country. The south has always been the stereotypical home ground for such lunatics but don’t let that assumption steer you in the wrong direction. At the height of the popularity of the Ku Klux Klan, the largest population of members was not found in the south; Indiana was the state that boasted the highest concentration of Klansmen. Those extremists are not only down here; they are in your town too.

In the 90’s we had the rare opportunity to see these people up close and personal. We saw the militia movements and were able to hear the ideas of extreme nationalism that permeate throughout their communities. We saw the radical Christian identity movement followers who rationalize death and murder by killing abortion providers, homosexuals and non-Christians. We saw the far right anti-government radicals such as Randy Weaver and Eric Rudolph. But we also saw a more open and less afraid government who was willing to go to equally extreme ends with citizens who frightened it.

In the 90’s we had the chance to see our government up close and personal as well. The massacre at Waco, the Ruby Ridge calamity and strangeness surrounding the Oklahoma City bombing all added to a certain mistrust of the government. We instantly forgot all about those events, those radicals and those capabilities when the 9/11 attacks occurred. The faux-patriotism and “pride” in America swept through this nation in a way that was not purely spontaneous. The only genuine responses that we had to the attacks were gone within days of the attacks. Was anyone really acting “changed” when October 11 came around?

The death of Richard Jewel should be our reminder to us of what the government will do to an innocent person and Eric Rudolph should be a reminder that we have lunatics among us that compare unequivocally with the most extreme Middle East elements and are the product of America itself. Greed, hate, mistrust, fear, the lust for power and a narrow worldview are the food of American terrorists.

Commentary - The 2nd Ammendment Conspiracy Theories

(CT Blogger's note - I wrote this over the weekend and was planning on posting on the 19th. In light of today's tragic events, it seems more appropriate to post today, unedited and unproofed.)


There are three tragic events which have anniversaries over the next few days that have deep CT roots. The 19th marks the 14th anniversary of the Branch Davidian tragedy in Waco and the 12th anniversary of the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City. The 20th marks the 8th anniversary of the Columbine massacre. The first two events, Waco and Oklahoma City, are directly linked. Columbine is not, at least it appears to not be linked if you only look at the surface. There is a conspiracy theory that runs underneath all three events and this theory has played a major part in a major sea change within the CT world.

There are two separate conspiracy theories that have swirled around the Waco event. The first is mainly adhered to by right wing conspiracy theorists who believe the Waco siege and deaths were part of a conspiracy to undermine the Second Amendment. The second theory postulates that federal agents using specialized weapons started the fire that destroyed the Davidian compound.

This incident is what Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh, claimed as the event that caused him to plan and commit his attack on the federal building. McVeigh believed that the Federal government was at fault for the Waco deaths and stated that his attack was retribution for that event. McVeigh was one of the right wing extremists who also believed that the Waco siege was a part of a larger conspiracy to take away guns from the American public.

While these two events have no direct link to the Columbine massacre the underlying CT which connects all three, is the theory that there is a conspiracy against the 2nd Amendment. Following the event in Columbine there was once again a call to ban or restrict gun ownership. The followers of this CT all share a common political identity, right wing conservatism. This extremist faction of followers, such as McVeigh, stand on an anti-government belief system. There is also an extremist left wing faction that mirrors this movement.

Since the 911 attacks the extreme right wing conspiracy theory faction that follows the 2nd Amendment CT, has evolved. The policies of the neo-conservative movement have initiated many ideals that the right wing extremists extol but they have also embraced ideals that the extremists loathe. The neocon embrace of extremist Israeli policies, “Big Brother” surveillance and the expansion of big government has caused the extreme right wing to evolve into Illuminati believers.

Because of this evolution there has been a major increase of interest in the Illuminati, NWO and Bilderberg Group fields of study. Ten years ago there were a small handful of theorists who specialized in Globalist theories. A quick survey of Internet forums today will return a large number of people discussing the Illuminati subjects and it’s my opinion that Illuminati based theories are by far the most discussed online.

Millennial mass hysteria set the stage for the current state of CT affairs. 1999 was a year that saw Y2K fears, uncertainty of what the 2000 elections would bring in America, an out of control division of politics due to Clinton backlash and the emergence of a new electronic economy that was unstable due to the dotcom bubble. This set the stage for the right wing extremist evolution as the Bush war machine was set in motion.

I believe that there is a side benefit to this evolution in that we may see a CT researcher, or group of researchers, attempt to weave an all-encompassing Unified Theory of Conspiracy and the Illuminati studies brings the researcher close to the possibility of a Unified Theory. There are a large number of CT enthusiasts who post to forums who draw upon segments of what could be merged into such a theory but for reasons known only to them, they do not combine this information into something larger.

David Icke may be the most well known of the current CT personalities who does weave a Unifying Theory. What Icke does is present the various facets of such a theory as singular, independent subjects that happen to be connected to a larger, whole theory. This presentation philosophy has what I believe is a serious flaw. If you go to his website there is no cohesive narrative to guide the visitor through his ideas and if you are well versed in his theories you will know that the narrative he provides is loose and each facet seems to lead you to yet one more book he has written that he wants you to buy.

I believe that Icke’s work in CT is invaluable simply from the standpoint that he is a lightning rod to CT studies. In England his name is well known but for the rest of the world those who know of his ideas mostly learn them in snippets. His work is geared more toward the spiritual, which is somewhat unsettling to me as it has a definite overtone of cultism that cannot be shaken regardless if this was unintentional and incidental. To weave together his CT narratives leads the researcher at every point to a spiritual center. The danger in such an approach, as you can guess is that people searching for a spiritual answer to the world’s problems are susceptible to cult programming. Icke has not helped this problem as he once claimed that he is God.

Which leads me back to the dates in question. These dates can be looked at as examples that the CT enthusiast can use for identifying common threads between various theories. There is a strange order that can be found once you begin looking at coincidental connections between events. Identifying patterns is crucial in solving mysteries and linking clues. While the coincidence of these events may be purely accidental, the underlying CT can be found if you look closely at the aftermaths of each event.

The aftermaths of Waco, Oklahoma City and Columbine have only one common thread, the 2nd Amendment theory. Right wing extremists cite the 2nd Amendment theory. Right wing extremists have evolved into Illuminati theorists. The current state of conspiracism revolves around Illuminati theories.