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.

Hey kids, rock and roll. Nobody tells you where to go, baby.

I’m a fatality on the side of the fashion highway and I’m too damn old to want to dress like a twenty-something. The baggy pants culture has mystified me since it began, especially when baseball players began wearing their pants as though they were track pants but, to each his/her own. Now the kids have attracted the faceless bureaucrats and power mad creatures that lurk in the halls of government.

Atlanta City Councilman C.T. Martin has sponsored an amendment to the city’s indecency laws that will target clothing styles in which the wearer’s undergarments are exposed. Under fire would be baggy pants worn by young men and boys as well as styles favored by some young women and girls where their bra strap or the strap of their thong is exposed. Of course this amendment will get shot down for it’s extremist idea but the seed is planted. The tree expected to bear fruit is one of control over you and I and powerlessness to defend ourselves against an oppressive state.

I hate to say this but we have evil fucking rednecks all over the place that detest the baggy pants hip-hop culture styles that have found their way out to suburbia. It’s not because they don’t like the style or because they are too old to “get it” the anger and hatred is much more simple to understand. The stereotypical young, urban, and black thug epitomize this style. Don’t think for one second that we in the south have a monopoly on ignorant rednecks. Some of the biggest rednecks I ever met lived in Connecticut. Ignorance and hate know no geographical boundaries.

The point is this amendment will get support from the super radicalized extremists of both the left and the right. This leaves the other 60% to 80% of us asking ourselves what in God’s name does the city government have to do with policing the clothing we chose to wear or express ourselves with? The ultimate resting place for this amendment is in our minds. It is a reinforcement we have to subconsciously process. The government, ultimately, controls everything about you and your life and if it chooses to, it controls what you can and cannot wear.

A few years ago the City Council passed amendments to chase homeless people off the streets. They criminalized panhandling and began rounding up and shipping violators all over the metro area. Why did they do this? Complaints from the forces of downtown gentrification who were offended by the homeless asking for help. Some went as far as to say the homeless would “get pushy” sometimes. The idiocies of statements like that don’t even need to be addressed, they are self-evident.

Homeless rights advocates fought back but the groundswell was too much for them to overcome. Now, you are a criminal in Atlanta if you have no home and try to ask for money or help from folks on the street. The Atlanta Police Department will take you to jail for it. Now, a City Councilman doesn’t like the way young people dress, so he wants to amend the laws to absorb his fashion sense. What is next? If I wear a t-shirt down near the capitol that mocks our Governor’s “Sonny Do” list, will I spend nights in lockup at the Fulton County jail? If I put a bumper sticker on my car stating that Police Chief Pennington needs to go back to New Orleans, will my car be impounded and will I suddenly find myself in the backseat of a patrol car, at the mercy of the cop who is offended by my exercise of free speech?

Time and time again we have seen the rights of decent, regular Americans stomped on because they had something negative to say about their leaders. The current masters of government have turned it into an art form. To be honest, I wonder if I will ever get a visit at my front door for what I write here in this blog. We all know that all of our email, web traffic and phone calls are being monitored by the agents of our government. We are at their mercy because we allowed them to take control of our lives.

First they will tell us what we cannot do. They will tell us we cannot question authority, we cannot dress a certain way, we cannot say certain things. Once we are beaten down far enough, and live in constant fear and dread for the government targeting us for seemingly innocent “violations” of their codes, we are then ready for them to begin the real "control" phase. The final phase of control is not to tell us what we cannot do; it is the phase where our behavior is guided based on the mandates of government. Government sanctioned clothing, government-sanctioned entertainment and government sanctioned lives for its citizens.

High Weirdness Drifter

Its been a while since I last gave a roundup of stuff found on the web, so here is a short list:

It seems the private investigator industry has taken a page from the FBI’s COINTELPRO folder. An Atlanta minister is suing Progressive insurance and a private investigator service for infiltrating and secretly taping weekly group support meetings that were held at the minister’s home. The minister was suing Progressive following a 2004 auto accident and the investigators hired by Progressive to get the insurance giant off the hook decided to follow the yellow brick road of what could be argued as highly unethical behavior. It’s always nice when a private firm uses the federal government as an example, isn’t it?

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2007/08/21/invasion_0822.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab

Hurricane Dean, the 3rd most powerful hurricane ever recorded to have struck land, is aiming for Mexico’s one and only nuclear reactor and has been tearing across the Bay of Campeche, home to Mexico’s most productive oil producing zone, the Cantarell oil field. Go figure the odds of that 7-10 split. Sales of Viagra to energy traders have plummeted to pre-Enron levels.

Blogger was down this morning for what I can only assume was an indeterminate amount of time. Being the good little conspiracy buff that I am, I spent all of 30 seconds to 2 minutes evaluating the possibility that the shit was about to hit the fan. Remember folks, the revolution will not be televised. First signs that something is about to happen won’t be a “Breaking News” title card on TV, it’ll be a major communications outage, most obviously noticed will be a failure of online communication sites such as Blogger, WordPress and message boards. We are, for the moment, safe; I think.

If you think I am insane, I can assure you that even I have nothing on the lunatics who are part of the Center for Security Policy. Those fucking loons make even me seem un-paranoid. Several left leaning blogs have recently exposed some of this groups more wacky members. Included is a wildly disturbing essay by Philip Atkinson where the author promotes not only a Bush, President for life strategy but also claims our Fuhrer in Chief should…I’m sorry…Commander in Chief should just “slaughter Iraqis until they comply with his demands” as this would be the “wisest course.” Never call me a crazy mother fucker…there are plenty of morons like Atkinson who on their most sane days are still a million times crazier than I, or the proverbial shithouse rat, could ever be. Check out some of these goofy ideas.

Commentary - The political conspiracy of the Evangelical movement in America

Under the radar and away from the collective consciousness of Americans, there has been an open plot by the extreme evangelical movement to undermine and take control of American government. With Presidential elections a year away, the political commentators and pundits on both sides of the aisle talk about the Republican candidates and whether or not they can appeal to the Republican “base”. The “base” they are describing is not the traditional group of fiscal conservatives, the Republican party has morphed and the Goldwater conservatives are long gone as the demographic being catered to. Even the Reaganites who were created a generation ago have lost their luster and place within that party. The course of the Republican party is steering from a chart plotted by the evangelical movement.

This movement has not shirked away from their stated goals, to assume control of the American government, overthrow judicial rulings that do not conform to their theocratic ideals and to force all Americans to live under their vision of America and God. The conspiracy of this movement has never kept its goals a secret and the conspirators willfully and openly admit what they want to achieve. With the recent death of Jerry Falwell, the subjects being discussed among the Republican Presidential hopefuls and the scandal of the fired US Attorneys this is a good opportunity to look at a few aspects of this movement.

I have to admit to a certain amount of underestimating on my part about this movement. In the 1980’s when Pat Robertson’s cache grew within the political right and ministers such as he, Falwell and others openly discussed a future where evangelicals ruled the courts, I dismissed and scoffed at the claims. My sentiment at the time was that the evangelicals attempting to gain political control of the nation were sadly gullible. Time and time again they had attempted to make in-roads of gaining political clout, only to be disappointed by the actions of the leaders they had backed, Reagan included, when they were cast aside. I misjudged how sly these leaders could be.

Instead of putting all their eggs into the overt basket of one political leader, the leadership of the evangelical right-wing bet the farm on a covert, yet fully in the open plan of education and changing policy from within the structure of government. Universities such as Regent began churning out lawyers and a grass roots movement of evangelical lawyers began to grow. Their goals were clear and concise – turn the nation into a theocracy through an aggressive legal campaign. With a changing political landscape in the mid-90’s, one which they had a major hand in shaping and one in which fear and loathing became the modus operendi, the evangelical movement created and nurtured the political alliances that would allow them to inject their legal commandos for God into the upper tiers of the American judicial and legislative branches. With the election of George W. Bush to President, the third branch of power was the missing piece and full sympathy to their goals was found.

The most worrisome aspect of this conspiracy is that the stated goals of this movement are to literally turn America into a theocracy and they have been active in actually making this happen. They do not want to simply have freedom of religion, where all people are allowed to worship as they desire with no fear of retribution, they wish to change the fundamental way in which Americans are allowed to live.

Civil rights would vanish as even the most centrist of these leaders are violently opposed to gay rights, abortion and free speech. Abortion would not only be outlawed under their vision for America, sexuality would be criminalized outside the marriage between man and woman. Free speech would suffer as criticism of religion and religious leaders would be tantamount to blasphemy and the overall tone of adult discourse would be watered down as literature, film and music would be affected by classifying words and ideas that they consider obscene.

The hidden agenda of these leaders is far more dark and frightening than what they extol on the surface. Time and time again we can see that what most Americans would consider to be extremist beliefs are widely shared by these evangelical leaders and their followers. When confronted with their statements after they have been made, insincere apologies are made, but the cat has been let out of the bag. The comments made by Falwell after the 9/11 attacks are an example, but there are far more examples of this type of belief.

If the mainstream media ever decide to fully report this movement and report their beliefs, goals and actions in a serious, compelling tone then perhaps the public at large will recognize the danger that these sociopaths present to the nation as a whole. I fully support and wish that every person can worship and live their lives the way they feel is best. I do not condone silencing the extremists of the evangelical movement. I do however believe that when dangerous fools show their true nature, it is the responsibility of others to expose these frauds and hypocrites. The cultish quality of the modern evangelical movement and the hatred they display are dangerous, labeling their actions as religious freedom is an affront to Christians, Jews, Muslims, Agnostics and Atheists -- in other words, all people, all children of God.

News - Fascist America in 10 easy steps

From The Guardian newspaper website:

"From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that
any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues
Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all... "

More can be found here.

A few points to make.

1) Conspiracy Theorists and fringe figures have been arguing that America has been turning into a fascist state for decades. It's nothing new to those of us who are CT enthusiasts. Have we been right in this theory, all along?

2) It is interesting that a mainstream media publication such as the Guardian would take so long to finally just come out and state what so many of us have been saying and thinking, for years. They've hinted around the fact without spelling it out but this is actually an interesting development from The Guardian.

3) If a major US publication published a story like this, the right wing spin machine would have a total meltdown complete with "terrorist sympathizer" and "treason" rants being thrown. Of course the Pot can call the Kettle black all it wants in cases like this because it's always two sides of the same coin.

I'm not saying that the left is a group of angels when it comes to screwing us but the right wing extremists are so much more entertaining when they get their panties bunched.

Used book stores

It's the spring of 1986 and I am in a used book store in Pensacola, Florida; looking through the piles of paperbacks for reading material. I'm a young 19 year old sailor approaching his 20th birthday and the Navy has not removed my love of the absurd and bizarre. If anything the nearly two years of military service has enhanced those senses and given me a wicked and cutting eye for dark humor as a bonus.

I have a large paper shopping bag to hold the goodies I am finding in the musty stacks and I am about to find a small treasure trove. I strike a pocket of books which once belonged to a radical. Someone who held a deep-seated devotion to their belief system. Someone who supported the most celebrated minds of their movement with purchases of their written works. Someone who explored the farthest range of ideas that this system's dogma could be prescibed to. I found the personal library of a red blooded extreme right winger with highly developed tastes.

Among the books were low-level introductory tracts by Goldwater and Schlaffley. There was a larger volume of more advanced manuals that focused outrage at Communist conspiracies and the evils of popular culture. The goldmine was a selection of the most extreme beliefs; books and pamphlets published by the John Birch Society. Even though I did not have a clue as to the precise nature of what these books meant I could still estimate that I had found something unique in nature from reading the back covers. My instincts told me that this sort of find is rare. Experience has proven to me that my assessment was correct.

Looking back on that adventure I realize just how dangerous it was to jump headlong into muddy waters. Had I been a confused and angry young man I would have had a life changing experience that would have led me down a dark road. Had I been filled with hatred, mistrust and discomfort for people unlike myself I would have become a convert. I didn't verbalize these ideas as I read those books but I suddenly began making connections in my mind that the act of brainwashing is a lot easier than any of us suspect. Just as quickly I understood that if this literature had promoted far-left radical ideas the danger would have been equally great. And the same thoughts applied to odd religious beliefs, citizens movements of shaggy birthright and loose definitions of the nature of morality.

I read only a handful of the books from my score over the next few weeks; the ideas were too overwhelming to soak in all at once, especially for a virginal mind to such wild political and social ideas. But that handful whetted my appetite for the time being. They introduced me to a wider world where there was no line to blur and the horizon stretched farther than I could see. I still have these books in my personal library and I have their companions from the other side of the coin to keep the two sides at bay.

In a few years I would learn about slack and Bob. I would find others who also got strange kicks from the act of exposing themselves to the true outsiders of society, the outsiders with whom there was a distinct possibility that they might draw you into their world and close the door behind the both of you. But for now I only knew that there was an unseen, unspoken and rarely exposed undercurrent that ran through all I could see. I didn't yet know how to look for the signs of hidden currents, but my eyes were now being trained.

CT dates: Pick a number from 1 to infinity

Even though Numerology is independent from Conspiracy Theory, it has deep connections and influence in the CT field. The Mayan Calendar, 666, deciphering the 9/11 attacks are a few prime examples. We have three upcoming dates in the month of April which have strong ties to the CT world. April 11th, 19th and 20th.

Here is a quick overview of notable events for each of these dates:

11th

al-Qaeda has shown a fondness for attacks on the 11th.
411 is the American telephone code for Information.
1866 - Carla Ford, future wife of Henry Ford is born.
1814 - 1st abdication of France by Napoleon.
1970 - The ill-fated Apollo 13 mission is launched.
1981 - Ronald Reagan is released from the hospital after John Hinkley's assassination attempt.

19th

1775 - The American Revolution begins at Lexington Common as the famous "Shot heard round the world" is fired.
1896 - Herzl's "The Jewish State" is published.
1909 - Joan of Arc, declared a saint.
1933 - President Franklin Roosevelt announces the United States will leave the gold standard.
1936 - Anti-Jewish riots break out in Palestine.
1947 - The French ship S.S. Grandcamp explodes in Texas City harbor, killing nearly 600 people.
1989 - The center gun of 16" gun turret #2 explodes on U.S.S Iowa, killing 47 sailors.
1993 - Branch Davidian siege ends on the 51st day as their compound burns to the ground. 79 people lose their lives, including 21 children.
1995 - Truck bomb outside Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, kills 168 & injures 800.

20th

121 - Marcus Aurelius is born.
1889 - Adolf Hitler is born.
1912 - Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, dies.
1799 - Napoleon issues a decree calling for establishing Jerusalem for Jews.
1871 - 3rd Enforcement Act is signed, the President can suspend writ of habeas corpus.
1884 - Pope Leo XIII's encyclical "On Freemasonry" is published.
1980 - Cubans begin to arrive in US from Mariel boatlift.
1999 - Deadliest school shooting in US history at Columbine High School, Littleton CO, 13 killed, 24 wounded.

Update (4/11) - News reports are just coming in that al-Qaeda is claiming responsibility for today's bombings in Algeirs. This would add to the list of attacks they have commited on the 11th day of a month.