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Tuesday, August 30

Gevernment threat to those speaking Truth

HI all.
The absolute greatest fear of those currently in power is that Truth is found out by the general public. Not surprising really, in that, if the great majority of the populace did find out about all the horrific crimes this group has orchestrated and facilitated, they would need to hastily depart for regions other-where to avoid being 'rendered' themselves by the people they have perpetrated these actions upon.


This just in from today's Signs of the Times alternative news page:

On the Heels Of Death Threats Coming Out Of Washington, WTC Janitor Has Jersey City Apartment Burglarized
By Greg Szymanski
August 27, 2005

Journalist Wayne Madsen has left Washington over death threats and William Rodriguez, 9/11 truth-seeker, had his apartment burglarized. Both fit the description of the person supposedly targeted by the government.

Coming on the heels of reports today that government operatives are trying to assassinate someone highly critical of the Bush administration, William Rodriguez, the WTC janitor who has been speaking out across the nation about a 9/11 government conspiracy, came home to find his Jersey City apartment burglarized Saturday.

Rodriguez, who has damaging eye-witness testimony that bombs exploded in the WTC basement prior to the airplanes striking, said today his apartment was burglarized between 12:30pm and 7:50pm after retuning home and noticing his second-floor apartment door wide-open.

Rodriguez immediately filed a police report with Jersey City police, but there are no leads or suspects in the case, as neighbors also reported seeing nothing while Rodriguez was out.

"I came home to find my door open," said Rodriguez in a telephone conversation Saturday night from his apartment just after police left the crime scene. "They didn't destroy the place, but took my lap top with all my vital information, as well as one of my video cameras and all of my girl friend's jewelry, including an expensive engagement ring."

Rodriguez expressed concern over the burglary since earlier in the day he received a "warning email" from contacts close to Washington investigative journalist Wayne Madsen, who received credible information his life may be in danger.

Rodriguez was notified because he also fits the description of the potential government target, as the inside intelligence source that leaked the information to Madsen said the target was not specifically mentioned by name, but fits the description of both Madsen and Rodriguez.

"I just received this email this morning, warning that someone who fits my description is going to be targeted," said Rodriguez, concerning the communication highly sensitve communication he received from John Caylor, a friend of Madsen who is spreading the word to others potentially in danger.

"Now, the robbery in my apartment is highly suspicious, considering the timing of the email. I wonder just who is being targeted? I notified police about it and everybody needs to be careful."

Madsen, highly critical of the Bush administration, left Washington for several days and is taking the warning seriously while keeping his whereabouts secret.

"I am laying low for a few days," said Madsen in an email Saturday from an undisclosed location. "The threat, although not directly to me personally, was credible enough to leave D.C. for awhile."

Madsen, a former National Security Agency employee turned reporter, has been a thorn in the side of the Bush administration for his inside reports, revealing financial corruption linking the Bush administration to major foreign and domestic scandals, including 9/11.

Rodriguez has also been highly critical of the Bush administration lately, spreading his message across the country in numerous public speeches about his story about the 9/11 cover-up has been withheld from the American people by a systematic censoring of his words by the government and the media.

The long-time WTC head maintenance man holds key information literally destroying the government's officials story and theory about how jet fuel was solely responsible for bringing own the WTC.

What makes his eye-witness testimony even more damaging to the government is that it can be corroborated by numerous eye-witnesses who have also been censored by the government and media.

Although Rodriguez's story has been told freely without censorship overseas in a number of foreign markets, the American media as well as the 9/11 Commission has seen fit to suppress his story, a story that very well could lead to pinning the Bush administration with high-crimes related to the 9/11 cover-up.

The recent assassination threat coming from inside Washington has also been taken seriously by Rodriguez, who in the past has on numerous occasions turned down government bribes to keep him quiet.

Since 9/11, Rodriguez has remained steadfast in his determination to tell the truth despite the enormous odds, saying he owes it to all those who lost lives at the WTC, including more than 200 personal friends and acquaintances who perished on 9/11.

Rodriguez, the last survivor out of the North Tower before it collapsed, was declared a National Hero for his valiant efforts the morning of 9/11, saving hundreds of lives as he possessed one of the few master keys for the North Tower stairwell, using it to save many lives just before the tower collapsed.

But after being courted at the White House, Rodriguez quickly became a government target once officials realized he could not be bribed or bought-off.

The intelligence report received by Madsen and forwarded to Rodriguez this morning as a warning was sent to the Arctic Beacon.

Although the target wasn't mentioned by name, the profile fit both Madsen and Rodriguez as well as others who have been recently very critical of the Bush administration.

The warning sent to Madsen, causing him to flee Washington and perhaps linked to the Rodriguez burglary, reads as follows:

We have reason to think that a "project" will be undertaken against "someone" considered problematic now...not next week but NOW. That person is not specified but is in the US, in an apartment setting and lives alone. It is a "he" and he works via www. This information is specific to an intent but not specific to a person. The source is impeccable and you know my track record which have parallel sourcing.

The "project" will be assigned to "parallel contractors" who will make any action appear random and witnesses would suggest Middle Eastern in source. Actions would be carried out in or near the home. We do not hear things like this often (almost never) and so far every warning of this type has been within 24 hours of action and these warnings have proven 100% accurate in the past. We do not know of any direct reason for someone to use this source to provide wrong or misleading information or for use by those who are "contracting" this action. Your recent work and profile make us tell you this directly.

Please respond with a note that all is normal there. Please consider the warning we received as it can be applied to many including your self. It is possible that someone considers "us" linked in some way and that this warning may be a "deterrent" to work that some may not want completed. We have no reason to think this but I want to consider every possible angle and application to this warning.

Please consider what can be done while taking any measures you think necessary to avoid this "project". We consider this warning as coming with the highest level "authenticity" and purity of motive, but the subject and message subject and its specifications were too unusual to be sure of intent.

Madsen, Rodriguez and Caylor also wanted the report circulated in public since others who fit Madsen's similar profile may also be in danger.

Comment: Indeed, Wayne is wise to leave DC and "lay low" for awhile. A better idea might be to leave the U.S. After all, too many who have stood for the truth are already dead. If this continues, there will be no one left to speak out.

Immediately after 9-11, Laura wrote an article in which she asked the question: Who Benefits? The answer was obvious: Israel and the U.S. Neocons. Laura knew she was treading on a minefield and she was right. The campaign of defamation and lies was launched and has continued, unremitting, since that time. Few individuals in the alternative news field have experienced anything to equal it.

Laura responded to these attacks by writing Adventures With Cassiopaea. This research led to some horrifying conclusions about the Neocon agenda which have since become more generally known and discussed. She also published the now very popular studies in Psychopathy.

Following the Adventures Series, in the Spring of 2002, Laura began Signs of The Times and the smear campaign (the signature of the Neocons) ramped up. The reader might wish to review the Signs archives during those early years to get a good idea of why.

In late September of 2002, Laura decided that it was time to take off the gloves. Shortly thereafter, QFG published the work on Organic Portals. Laura was, apparently, getting way too close to the truth.

Laura's name and address was published on a Zionist website with a request for anyone who lived in her area to "take care of the problem." Death threats were received via email. Laura and Ark neither responded to these threats nor did they publish them. Signs of the Times continued on track.

In October of 2002, a death threat was received via snail mail. The letter itself and a discussion can be found HERE.

Over the next few weeks, a dead cat was found below Ark and Laura's bedroom window, and their dog was poisoned. Many agents provocateur and saboteurs joined QFG. Susceptible members were co-opted, false accusations were made to law enforcement authorities, and Ark and Laura were generally besieged on all sides.

Since Ark and Laura have a family with young children, the decision was made to leave the U.S. so as to be able to both protect the family AND continue to publish Signs of the Times as well as continue basic research.

Knowing that there was clear and present danger, Ark and Laura knew it was necessary to make their plans and their move under conditions of secrecy and with many false clues circulated as protection.

Upon arriving in France, Laura wrote and published MOSSAD and Moving Companies which immediately was translated into many languages and went around the world in less than a week.

The smear and defamation campaign ramped up to unprecedented levels. The same dynamic can be observed in the way the Neocons are handling the "Cindy Sheehan Problem." It was at this point that Ark and Laura were told by a source at the very highest levels of European government that they had "enemies in very high places."

Up to this point in time, Ark and Laura were unsure as to whether or not their attackers were just sick people taking advantage of a predatory opportunity or truly some sort of government COINTELPRO whose job it is to cast a light of lunacy on alternative research so that no legitimate researcher would dare to venture into such fields. At this point, it became clear that it was deliberate, institutional (i.e. government sponsored) COINTELPRO. This has since been affirmed, again, from sources at the highest levels of government.

In the past year and a half, especially after the Pentagon Strike was published, reaching over 500 million people (and still counting), it seems that the smear campaign has become more urgent and, consequently, more vicious and disgusting. Lies, half-truths, twists and distortions are all grist for the defamation mill.

Ark and Laura's struggle to survive and continue to work, to publish, to inform, has been repeatedly subjected to tricks and traps that have been set up by numerous agents provocateur and saboteurs. There have been covert threats and a "botched" attempt on Laura's life. Certainly, we are aware that we are not dealing with amateurs and that these events are more in the way of intimidation, that the last thing "they" want is to make a martyr.

Recently, again Ark and Laura's home address has been discovered and published with encouragement to fanatics to write hate mail with the hidden subtext that someone ought to "take care" of them. The only good thing about the current situation is that, at least in a European country, a person cannot be arrested in the dark of the night, disappeared into a black hole of legal non-existence such as Guantanamo or "rendered" to be tortured. Certainly, "foreign agents" can still do their dirty work on European soil if they can manage to get away with it, but it is less easy here, and there IS a network of protection.

In conclusion, we cannot make any specific suggestions as to how individuals such as Wayne Madsen ought to protect themselves. Each individual's situation is different. We can only say that there ARE forces in high places in European government that do support the propagation of truth. They are being pressured, no doubt - but thus far, they have managed to survive and God willing, they will prevail in the end. We also urge all of those who are laboring in the field to read and study our material on psychopaths, COINTELPRO, and related articles. Knowledge Protects.

Friday, August 19

Trashing Cindy Sheehan

Her questions for Bush are really simple - "What exactly is the 'Noble Cause' our sons and daughters are dying for?" A mother's pain and grief for having lost her son for what has been PROVEN to be nothing but LIES and PROPAGANDA to get us into Iraq is putting Bush and his entire administration onto the hot-seat and the fear they are showing is quite evident.

Anyone with merely an ounce of perception can clearly see that all the attacks on Cindy and her supporters by association with her continue to be smeared and denigrated by those who wish to continue these horrible actions and maintain control of the US masses. It is also evident that many people are now waking up to these facts. If I can see this, so too can the Bush Gang and their supporters and behind-the-scenes bosses.

What is really very worrisome about all this is that if they seem to be losing their grip on the populace they may resort to even more violent acts and 'terrorism' of the public to attempt to frighten the populace into continuing to believe they need to be 'protected' from these events by the very same 'leaders' who are propagating these things.

Here is an article from Signs of the Times which is an example of the outright opinion-creation which is being used against Cindy any anyone else who stands up for truth and attempts in any way to expose the lies and propaganda of this administration:

Hitchens Slimes Cindy Sheehan

Sheehan is Not the One Uttering Piffley Bunk
By ELISA SALASIN
Counterpunch
08/16/05

I learned a new word today! Piffle!

I suppose it is not completely new, as I've probably come across it at various points in my life. However, today I read it in Christopher Hitchens' rather nonsensical gabbling as he added to the right-wing attempt to slander Cindy Sheehan (he referred to her work as "sinister piffle"), and was actually driven to seek a definition. Here's what I found:

Noun 1. piffle - trivial nonsense, balderdash, fiddle-faddle, hokum, meaninglessness, nonsense, nonsensicality, bunk - a message that seems to convey no meaning

Verb 1. piffle - speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly blabber, palaver, prate, prattle, tattle, tittle-tattle, twaddle, gabble, gibber, blab, clack, maunder, chatter, mouth, speak, talk, verbalise, verbalize, utter - express in speech; "She talks a lot of nonsense"; "This depressed patient does not verbalize," blather, blether, blither, smatter, babble - to talk foolishly; "The two women babbled and crooned at the baby"

My first reaction was that I don't think that I have ever before come across such truly excellent synonyms for a word.

So, Hitchens is saying that Cindy Sheehan's effort and message is balderdash and hokem. That holding Bush, our government, and ourselves accountable for the deaths of nearly 2000 Americans, and tens of thousands of Iraqis is prattle, blither, smatter and babble.

This, I would say, is the fiddle-faddle of those among us who have somehow been brainwashed by the blathering and blethering of our so-called mission to spread freedom and democracy throughout the world. Too bad that Hitchens is not able to recognize that piffle becomes sinister when people die horrible and needless deaths as a result of our imperialistic endeavors, not when Cindy Sheehan acts from a place of moral clarity. Anything outside of that place, be it twaddling or action, is just bunk. Extremely sinister bunk.

Elisa Salasin lives in Berkeley, California, and can be contacted at elisasalasin@gmail.com.

Many of her writings can be found on her blog, Two Feet In.

Comment: Hitchens does indeed completely miss the point of Cindy Sheehan's protest. It is not a question of who has "moral authority". If anyone is severely lacking in moral authority while at the same time stating - and probably believing - that god is directing his actions, it is George W. Bush. Apparently, there are those who would rather belittle what Sheehan is doing in speaking out against the lies of the Bush administration by attempting to steer the debate away from the facts and into the realm of "morality". Americans and Iraqis are dying. Iraq is less secure today and no more closer to "freedom and democracy" than before the US invasion. And Saddam's WMD's? Well, they never existed in the first place. The facts speak for themselves.

Tuesday, August 2

Media Lapdogs and what it really means for all of us

This is a lengthy but very important article to digest from Today's Signs of the Times. Some people today can see some amount of what is actually happening, but it is likely they have no real idea why. There is much explanation of the 'why' in this following article:

A Summer of Double Super Secrecy: Fingerprints of Power
By JACK Z. BRATICH
July 31, 2005

Earlier this month, the sixth season of CBS' Big Brother premiered with the subtitle "Summer of Secrets." The reality show, premised on the hypervisibility of a tightly controlled domestic space, must've realized that voyeuristic pleasure in total surveillance was no longer satisfying. Consequently, they distributed a variety of "zones of imperceptibility" into their game: hidden rooms, clandestine pacts, and covert operations/rules. Little did the producers of the show know just how prescient they were in capturing the zeitgeist of Summer 2005.

Take, for instance, the "Secret Group of Al-Qaeda in Europe" (the "organization" that originally claimed responsibility for the London bombings). The name speaks volumes. Why call it the "secret" group - is it opposed to the "public" group? If it were more in tune with the times, it whould be called the Super-Secret Group. The moniker sounds like an unintended effect of Western cultural imperialism; namely, too many comic book-inspired movies. What next, "The Fantastic 4 Allah"? It all sounds like a continuation of 2003's Legion of Doom-named Iraqi villains, "Chemical Ali" and "Dr. Germ". It makes one wonder if Stan Lee is now working for the Rendon Group!

Downing the Rabbit Hole

One of the biggest mysteries of the early summer was eventually lost amid the shuffle of other major stories. The Downing Street Memo (DSM) was remarkable not for its content but for the fact that so little attention was paid to it by mainstream media. Pundits spent more time dismissing the memo than following up on it. Christopher Hitchens, that neo-centrist perception manager, added to his portfolio on dissent-bashing with a piece on the DSM as "conspiracy theory."

It should come as no surprise that mainstream journalism didn't set the agenda with the DSM. Looking back on the past year of state/press relations, how could corporate journalism do anything but? Oh, Bush Administration, you want to consistently lie to us humble journalists in order to start a war? Well we just might have to write an indignant all-too-late op-ed piece and then come back for some more abuse! Tightly control press conferences with pre-selected questions? Well, we appreciate any access, so I guess that's the best we can get right now. Manipulate our reporters with anonymous leaks and dirty tricks? Ok, we forgive you, but you watch out next time, ya big lug! Plant a fake journalist among our ranks? Naughty, naughty, but thanks for giving us a diversionary homoerotic titillation!

How many more mea culpas can we tolerate from these lapdogs? When our own friends end up repeating self-destructive behaviors (going in and out of addictive drug-hazes, returning to a toxic and abusive partner) we will draw a line. Why do we allow these guests, who are supposed to be working in our name, to get away with more? We've been extremely patient during their bouts of recovery. It's about time we recognize the decades-long exodus of journalistic consumers not as "apathy" but as the self-affirming popular decision to stop sticking around a user. No need here for a collective intervention: professional journalism should be shown some tough love and the door.

Embedded journalism, from this bitter-medicine perspective, was corporate journalism's last gasp to purify itself. This may seem counterintuitive at first, but I'm just updating Jean Baudrillard's insights on Disney: embedded journalism exists to make us think that the rest of mainstream journalism is not embedded. So let's not look to these dependent dinosaurs for our hope or moral edification. We should begin with the assumption that all mainstream journalism is embedded journalism until it can prove otherwise. Without this symbolic dependency, we can begin candidly assessing journalism's relationship with secrecy.

The Plame Game

Calls for Karl Rove's firing for leaking Valerie Plame's name have been met with Republican Party line retorts that no "clear evidence" can be found. After much evasion and prevarication by press secretary Scott McLellan, Bush finally announced that the threshold of Rove tolerance would be juridical: Rove would have to have committed a crime in order to be axed. Drawing a distinction between legal and ethical standards seemed not to matter.

More than Rove's actual legal status, we can begin asking questions about the nature of evidence in the court of public opinion. What is the status of evidence in a context of epistemological uncertainty? What can count as proof, and what effects does proof have? The Downing Street Memo shows that proof is itself contestable - what is evidence of evidence?

Crime and evidence have taken on new cultural functions. The US is rife with anti-lawyer sentiments, from the rise in lawyer jokes to the smearing of John Edwards' vice-presidential campaign with charges that he was an "ambulance chaser." Interestingly, these sentiments are primarily targeted at criminal defense attorneys or civil prosecutors, while overzealous criminal prosecutors rarely get scapegoated. The notable recent exception here is Michael Jackson's legion of supporters, who themselves became the target of derision and insult.

More than humor, rightwing pundits now have taken on Defense Attorney status with the Bush administration in the court of public opinion. The party line on Rove was delivered with univocality, making the old Soviet Politburo seem like a teeming marketplace of ideas. As virtual defense lawyers, the rightwing apparatchiks may know their client's guilt, but will act as apologists at all costs. Any criticism of their client, then, must be founded on prosecutorial evidential standards.

At the same time, other much looser standards are applied to make the case against official Terror/War enemies. Much ink has been spilled on the flimsy, fixed, and fabricated evidence of the need to invade Iraq. Insinuations, when strongly worded, repeatedly uttered, and widely distributed stand in as evidence of a "vague connection" or "some kind of link". Take the scandalous story of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the newly elected Iranian president. Ahmadinejad was accused of being one of the hostage takers during the 1979 siege of the US embassy in Iran. Four days after his election, a handful of the former hostages (seemingly spontaneously, but actually with prompting from the oppositional "news" organization Iran Focus) reported that he looked exactly like one of their captors. Even while other former detainees and forensic experts denied the link, the power of suggestion was visually anchored through the side-by-side juxtaposition of two photos for over 24 hours. Ultimately disproven, the truth mattered little as the flood coverage secured an image-link. The effects are yet to be seen but we can speculate that defining Iran as a terrorist state in need of regime change just got easier.

An even looser evidential standard comes via the metaphorical use of the classic incontrovertible identifying trace of a criminal: the fingerprint.

Immediately after the 7/7 London bombing, we were told that terror experts were looking for a "signature" or fingerprints to identify the perpetrators. Perhaps on a post-binge high after watching a CSI marathon, these Global Security forensic artists came up with some doozies. The flimsiest of details became proof: the targeting of "transportation" was seen as an Al-Qaeda fingerprint. Never mind that Europe has known mass transit to be a target at least since the 1980 bombing of the Bologna railway station (purportedly by the Red Brigades, but subsequently shown to have murkier origins).

Simultaneous bombings? "Must be Al-Qaeda!" sayeth the security sleuths. It's such an ingenious method that not only could no one else have invented it, no one else could even mimic it
! Instead of being glued to forensic drama television, these "trace" theorists would be wise to review virtually every action thriller film from the 1960s onwards, paying particular attention to the phrase "Let's synchronize our watches."

Perhaps the silliest, yet potentially sinister, bit of proof is occurring around the desperate search for Al-Qaeda links between 7/7 and the "failed copycat" bombings of 7/21. Plainclothes information officers came up with this Eureka: the suspects used the same brand of bookbag! Consumerist ideology now influences terrorism investigations, with their shared assumption that an individual's uniqueness is expressed through consumer purchases. Are you a budding bomber but tired of generic rucksacks that easily tear, exposing your telltale wires? Want to stand out in the "transit-terror" crowd (but blend in at the same time)? No fear, Land's End is here! And if you happen to own one of these for, say, school or travelling, never mind the "random" searches likely to come your way. Think of it as a value-added service (quasi-celebrity attention) associated with wearing the right label.

Public rhetorical tactics like these (loud insinuation, forensic metaphors, "expert" dependence) are effective because they are publicly irrefutable-they disguise themselves as evidence. What's worse, the fingerprint metaphor rarely transfers to domestic skullduggery. False stories, disinformation campaigns, and hoaxes are perpetrated in US media (e.g. the Dan Rather memo, Jeff Gannon plant, Iranian president/hostage taker link). Rarely will anyone in corporate journalism utter the word "fingerprints" regarding Rove or any other psy operative. When the praetorian media guard proclaim "there are no smoking guns here," they command top billing. Ultimately, it's not about producing more evidence, but being able to determine the situations in which particular standards of evidence can be applied.

Karl, Kevlar Konsultant

Perhaps the problem is with the overreliance on evidence itself. Facts on their own have no necessary effects on an audience. For instance, what does evidence do for a people lacking will and memory? The same facts, which in one context are testimony to wrongdoing, can become evidence of invincibility. Without the proper circumstances of popular will and/or organizational channels, power absorbs these attacks as confirmation of its own unassailability. Rove's mischief in the Plame Game, rather than being a telltale sign of perfidy, becomes proof of his ingenious craft of plausible deniability. Newsweek reporter Dana Milbank exclaimed on MSNBC that Rove was "too big to fail" (7/11). Other pundits noted that, good or bad, Rove was 'Bush's Brain', insinuating that it would be an impossible extrication. To counter this impossibility, may we kindly recommend Anthony Hopkins' surgical/culinary treat for Ray Liotta in the closing scenes of Hannibal.

The scandals that surrounded the Clinton White House (often coded through naturalizing terms like "cloud," "climate," or "fog") were in large part due to incessant media attention. Not only is this natural haze not enveloping the Bush White House, thanks to "liberal media" it has morphed into armor. If Ronald Reagan was the Teflon President, Rove is the Kevlar Konsultant. Actually, Kevlar doesn't quite capture the process. In a world of techno-organic fusion, we might better look to a sci-fi image: an armor that absorbs and reintegrates artillery directed at it, leaving a bio-synthetic "scar" that hardens the material.

Rove's fate is a watershed symptom, not the least for what it says about totalitarianism's immune system. If he stays on, his power grows stronger after a failed attack. Like the staged assassination attempts of ancient regimes, it will further numb popular will, at least when it comes to electoral politics. If Rove is fired, he would likely stick around, withdrawing even further into "double supersecret background" where he could secrete influence from the protective cover of shadows.

Reliance on evidence in the court of public opinion is important, but excessive faith in it may also limit our strategies. It narrows our understanding of the current era to events in the public sphere. Guy Debord, that premiere analyst of the spectacle and secrecy, recommended that people "make use of what is hidden" from them. If we don't expand our analysis to what might be called the "secret sphere," we will continue to grope in the dark while believing everything is illuminated.

Jack Z. Bratich is assistant professor at Rutgers University. He is currently writing a book on conspiracy panics, as well as doing research on public secrecy and popular occulture. His fingerprints are all over this essay. He can be reached at: jbratich@rci.rutgers.edu

Comment: Here we come to the crux of the matter: while no one wants to be accused of being a "conspiracy theorist", those in power possess and expand their power because of conspiracy - and therefore secrecy - itself. As Laura Knight-Jadczyk wrote in her article The Mossad Happy Dance:

On this website, we have published literally reams of material documenting our research into so-called "conspiracy" theories. The Wave and Adventures With Cassiopaea, while containing extracts of our scientific channeling experiment - superluminal communication - and discussions of some pretty far-out things, also contain extensive extracts of what could be called vertical and horizontal evidence of both hard facts and multiple witness testimony.

The bottom line of all this collecting of evidence - vertical and lateral - and assembling it together in one place, is that it's pretty clear that conspiracies rule our world.

In considering the subject of a "group" that is behind the machinations of history, we must consider the term "fifth column." "A clandestine subversive organization working within a given country to further an invading enemy's military and political aims" (American Heritage Dictionary, 1976).

Nearly all experts of "esoterica," after years and years of searching and studying, eventually come to the idea that there is some sort of major conspiracy that has been running the show on planet earth for a very long time. The problem is, there are any number of conclusions as to "who is on first" in this trans-millennial, multi-national, global ballgame. The thing that raises red flags, however, is that just about ANY of the many conclusions can be supported by REAMS of "evidence."

When I first began my own research in a serious and dedicated way, I was quite distressed by this factor. The only thing that I did different from most researchers was to take this confusion as a "given" fact that was INTENDED. In other words, I decided to also look at the things from a "meta-platform."

There were two things that had been burned into my mind very early on and I found both of them to be very useful when applied to the present problem. The first was the remark attributed to FDR: "Nothing in politics happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned." The other idea was a remark made to me by a friend who had been trained in Army Intelligence. He said that the first rule of Intelligence is to just observe what IS and understand that it is very likely the way it is for a reason; someone has engineered it. Once you have settled that firmly in your mind, you can then begin to form hypotheses about who might benefit the most from a given situation, and once such hypotheses are formed, you can then begin to test them. You may have to discard any number of ideas when you find the flaw, but unless you begin with this process, you will be duped over and over again.

In considering the problem before us, we can see that there are "tracks" throughout history of some pretty mysterious goings on that do, indeed, suggest a "conspiracy." If we take that as an observation of what IS, we immediately face the second big question: is it a conspiracy of "good guys" or "bad guys?" It is at this point that all the various conspiracy experts begin to diverge into their assorted rants about Zionists or Masons, Great White Brotherhoods, Benevolent aliens and all the many variations thereof.

But what if, instead of asking that question and beginning to argue, we just settle back and observe what is and try to find the answer based on observation?

Richard Dolan has written about "conspiracy" in the following way:

[Conspiracy Theory.] The very label serves as an automatic dismissal, as though no one ever acts in secret. Let us bring some perspective and common sense to this issue.

The United States comprises large organizations - corporations, bureaucracies, "interest groups," and the like - which are conspiratorial by nature. That is, they are hierarchical, their important decisions are made in secret by a few key decision-makers, and they are not above lying about their activities. Such is the nature of organizational behavior. "Conspiracy," in this key sense, is a way of life around the globe.

Within the world's military and intelligence apparatuses, this tendency is magnified to the greatest extreme. During the 1940s, [...] the military and its scientists developed the world's most awesome weapons in complete secrecy... [...]

Anyone who has lived in a repressive society knows that official manipulation of the truth occurs daily. But societies have their many and their few. In all times and all places, it is the few who rule, and the few who exert dominant influence over what we may call official culture. All elites take care to manipulate public information to maintain existing structures of power. It's an old game.

America is nominally a republic and free society, but in reality an empire and oligarchy, vaguely aware of its own oppression, within and without. I have used the term "national security state" to describe its structures of power. It is a convenient way to express the military and intelligence communities, as well as the worlds that feed upon them, such as defense contractors and other underground, nebulous entities. Its fundamental traits are secrecy, wealth, independence, power, and duplicity.

Nearly everything of significance undertaken by America's military and intelligence community in the past half-century has occured in secrecy. The undertaking to build an atomic weapon, better known as the Manhattan Project, remains the great model for all subsequent activities. For more than two years, not a single member of Congress even knew about it although its final cost exceeded two billion dollars.

Think about that. One of the greatest American "achievements" was kept secret for over two years despite the expenditure of more than two billion dollars on the project - and yet many people find it hard to believe that elements of the US government and intelligence organizations couldn't have had a hand in 9/11 because they wouldn't have been able to keep it a secret?! Keep in mind that the Manhattan Project occurred over 50 years ago, so "they" have had decades to perfect their secrecy techniques...

During and after the Second World War, other important projects, such as the development of biological weapons, the importation of Nazi scientists, terminal mind-control experiments, nationwide interception of mail and cable transmissions of an unwitting populace, infiltration of the media and universities, secret coups, secret wars, and assassinations all took place far removed not only from the American public, but from most members of Congress and a few presidents. Indeed, several of the most powerful intelligence agencies were themselves established in secrecy, unknown by the public or Congress for many years.

Since the 1940s, the US Defense and Intelligence establishment has had more money at its disposal than most nations. In addition to official dollars, much of the money is undocumented. From its beginning, the CIA was engaged in a variety of off-the-record "business" activities that generated large sums of cash. The connections of the CIA with global organized crime (and thus de facto with the international narcotics trade) has been well established and documented for many years. - Much of the original money to run the American intelligence community came from very wealthy and established American families, who have long maintained an interest in funding national security operations important to their interests.

In theory, civilian oversight exists over the US national security establishment. The president is the military commander-in-chief. Congress has official oversight over the CIA. The FBI must answer to the Justice Department. In practice, little of this applies. One reason has to do with secrecy. [...]

A chilling example of such independence occurred during the 1950s, when President Eisenhower effectively lost control of the US nuclear arsenal. The situation deteriorated so much that during his final two years in office, Eisenhower asked repeatedly for an audience with the head of Strategic Air Command to learn what America's nuclear retaliatory plan was. What he finally learned in 1960, his final year in office, horrified him: half of the Northern Hemisphere would be obliterated.

If a revered military hero such as Eisenhower could not control America's nuclear arsenal, nor get a straight answer from the Pentagon, how on earth could Presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, or Nixon regarding comparable matters?

It seems that some US presidents had access to more secrets than others. While most US leaders seem to have been aware to varying degrees of the secret activities of various agencies, those agencies would certainly not give up all their secrets. To do so would be to relinquish their power, authority, and control. As such, it is highly likely that Bush is just another puppet. Nevertheless, we often point out Bush's lies since he is still responsible for his words and actions even if they are directed by someone else. The same applies to the people who believe Bush's lies and go along with the "war on terror".

Secrecy, wealth and independence add up to power. Through the years, the national security state has gained access to the world's most sophisticated technology, sealed off millions of acres of land from public access or scrutiny, acquired unlimited snooping ability within US borders and beyond, conducted overt or clandestine actions against other nations, and prosecuted wars without serious media scrutiny. Domestically, it maintains influence over elected officials and communities hoping for some of the billions of defense dollars. [including scientists, universities, etc.]

Deception is the key element of warfare, and when winning is all that matters, the conventional morality held by ordinary people becomes an impediment. When taken together, the examples of official duplicity form a nearly single totality. They include such choice morsels as the phony war crisis of 1948, the fabricated missile gap claimed by the air force during the 1950s, the carefully managed events leading to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution... [...]

The secrecy stems from a pervasive and fundamental element of life in our world, that those who are at the top of the heap will always take whatever steps are necessary to maintain the status quo.

[S]keptics often ask, "Do you really think the government could hide [anything] for so long?"

The question itself reflects ignorance of the reality that secrecy is a way of life in the National Security State. Actually though, the answer is yes, and no.

Yes, in that cover-ups are standard operating procedure, frequently unknown to the public for decades, becoming public knowledge by a mere roll of the dice. But also no, in that ... information has leaked out from the very beginning. It is impossible to shut the lid completely. The key lies in neutralizing and discrediting unwelcomed information, sometimes through official denial, other times through proxies in the media.

Indeed, information about the truth of 9/11 has also leaked out since the very beginning. It is this leaked information along with a whole lot of digging and careful analysis that has led to our work on this site. As for the neutralization of unwelcome information, we note the response to our Pentagon Strike flash was a series of articles in the likes of the Washington Post and Popular Science, coupled with a new direction in the "9/11 Truth Movement" that attempts to steer people away from the idea that the Pentagon strike is the "weak point" in the official version of events.

[E]vidence [of conspiracy] derived from a grass roots level is unlikely to survive its inevitable conflict with official culture. And acknowledgement about the reality of [conspiracies] will only occur when the official culture deems it worthwhile or necessary to make it. Don't hold your breath.

This is a widespread phenomenon affecting many people, generating high levels of interest, taking place in near-complete secrecy, for purposes unknown, by agencies unknown, with access to incredible resources and technology. A sobering thought and cause for reflection. [Richard Dolan, UFOs and The National Security State]

What does it mean that "evidence of conspiracy ... is unlikely to survive its inevitable conflict with official culture?"

We have documented on our Timeline pages facts, data, observations, testimony, all of which - taken together - provide the evidence that we do, indeed, live in a controlled and manipulated reality. This evidence is not hidden, as Dolan points out, but it is neutralized and discredited both through official denial AND through a long term Counter Intelligence Program - COINTELPRO. We have discussed this at some length here on the site, most particularly in the Adventures Series.

What does COINTELPRO accomplish? Well, quite simply, it is institutionalized DENIAL.

Denial is a complex "unconscious defence mechanism for coping with guilt, anxiety and other disturbing emotions aroused by reality." Denial can be both deliberate and intentional, as well as completely subconscious. An individual who is deliberately and intentionally denying something is acting from an individual level of lying, concealment and deception.

Denial that is subconscious is generally organized and "institutional." This implies propaganda, misinformation, whitewash, manipulation, spin, disinformation, etc.

Believing anything that comes down the pike is not the opposite of denial. "Acknowledgement" of the probability of a high level of Truth about a given matter is what should happen when people are actively aroused by certain information. This information can be 1) factual or forensic truth; that is to say, legal or scientific information which is factual, accurate and objective; it is obtained by impartial procedures; 2) personal and narrative truth including "witness testimonies."

I should add here that skepticism and solipsistic arguments - including epistemological relativism - about the existence of objective truth, are generally a social construction and might be considered in the terms of the hypnotized man who has been programmed to think that there "is no truth."

Denial occurs for a variety of reasons. There are truths that are "clearly known," but for many reasons - personal or political, justifiable or unjustifiable - are concealed, or it is agreed that they will not be acknowledged "out loud." There are "unpleasant truths" and there are truths that make us tired because if we acknowledge them - if we do more than give them a tacit nod - we may find it necessary to make changes in our lives.

All counter-claims about the denied reality are themselves only maneuvers in endless truth-games. And truth, as we know, is inseparable from power. Denial of truth is, effectively, giving away your power.

Now, think about the word "conspiracy" one more time and allow me to emphasize the key point: From a historical point of view, the ONLY reality is that of conspiracy. Secrecy, wealth and independence add up to power. ...Deception is the key element of warfare, (the tool of power elites), and when winning is all that matters, the conventional morality held by ordinary people becomes an impediment. Secrecy stems from a pervasive and fundamental element of life in our world, that those who are at the top of the heap will always take whatever steps are necessary to maintain the status quo.

It seems that the search for truth requires a reexamination of literally everything - ourselves, our world, and even the so-called "experts" on whom we rely for information on this or that topic. The easiest way to discredit someone in this reality is to declare that they are a conspiracy theorist. The truth seems to be that the entire reality in which find ourselves is, by its very nature, a conspiracy. Consider our governments, the so-called War on Terror, social and military structures, and so on - all these elements of our world involve some degree of hierarchy. But hierarchy implies control. Everyone has a boss; everyone has to answer to some other person or higher power.

Hierarchy implies control, and control implies secrecy. If everyone possessed all knowledge, it would be impossible for a government to lie to its citizens. Perhaps there would not even be a need for rulers. If we observe that conspiracy is defined as, "a secret agreement between two or more people to perform an unlawful act", then it becomes apparent that hierarchy, control, and secrecy necessarily involve conspiracy. One might argue that a government needs to keep secrets from the people to keep those people safe from the "bad guys". While this may sound good, it doesn't make much sense.

We can observe that those groups that restrict the dispersal of knowledge to others must certainly have something to hide. It would be useless for the powers that be to expend copious amounts of energy to hide knowledge in general, as well as the reasons for their actions, unless the puppet masters themselves have a dark secret or two. Obviously, if the powers that run this world have something to hide, it is most likely not something that would make the average person too happy. It does not take a huge leap to suspect that our leaders are committing "unlawful acts" in our name. The suspicion is confirmed by the available facts regarding the actions of Bush, Blair, and their administrations.

And maintaining the "status quo" in science HAS to be one of the main objectives of the Power Elite since science is, quite literally, the source of their power in the modern day.

And how do they do that? By "official culture." And official culture, understood this way, from the perspective of elite groups wishing to maintain the status quo of their power, means only one thing: COINTELPRO.

The single biggest argument against historical conspiracy is the relatively short lifespan of human beings, combined with the observable psychological make-up of man. A corollary objection is the fact that, very often, the domino effect of events that "change history" are of such a nature that it would be impossible for ordinary human beings to engineer them. In other words, Time and Space are barriers to the idea of human beings being engaged in a global conspiracy.

Well, of course the diligent researcher has by now tried every other way to make the puzzle pieces fit ending in repeated failures to account for everything, including the numerous views that oppose and contradict one another. So, when we stop for a moment to think about this initial, observable fact of the barrier of Time and Space, we then think of an idea: what if the conspirators are NOT constrained by Time or Space? Our initial reaction to this thought is to dismiss it out of hand. But as we pursue our researches, as we come across repeated "anomalies" and "glitches" and "tracks" throughout space and time - what we call "history" - we begin to get the uneasy feeling that we ought to take another look at this idea.

[Ark's note: A.T. Fomenko, Russian mathematician, member of the Russian Academy of Science, author of a dozen of monographs on differential geometry, applied the methods of exact sciences to the available historical data to conlude: history has been falsified. Of course Fomenko's own proposed version of the "corrected history" needs further work and discussion with other independent researchers, but Fomenko's analysis of the "anomalies" and "glitches" constitutes a good and solid piece of work.]

As it happens, once the possibility of manipulation of space and time has been added to our hypothesis, things finally begin to "fall into place." Once we begin to look at history from this trans-millennial, trans-spatial perspective, the character of the "conspiracy" begins to emerge, and only the most gullible - or negative intentioned - individual could hold onto, or continue to promote, any idea that this conspiracy is benevolent. In fact, it becomes abundantly clear that many, if not most, religions and systems of philosophy, have been created and introduced by the conspirators in order to conceal the conspiracy itself. And when you are considering beings with mastery over space and time, thousands of years needed to develop any given aspect of the overall plan is negligible. And so, in consideration of such beings, we come again to the idea of hyperdimensional space. This seems to be one of the main objectives of COINTELPRO - to keep the lid on this one.

[Ark' note: In my own papers, and in the monograph written in collaboration with my French colleague, we were using the term "multidimensional universe" rather than "hyperdimensional reality. Of course the "existence" and even "reality" of other dimensions does not imply by itself that some hyperdimensional intelligence is operating. Such a hypothesis, however, should also be taken into account if there are no facts and data that would contradict it and much evidence that would tend to support it.]

Those of you who have read the Adventures Series and The Secret History of the World know how we have documented the evidence that all points to a concerted effort to distract attention away from the very idea of the reality of hyperdimensional space and its possible denizens by the creation of myths and disinformation - COINTELPRO. And here we do not mean the specific FBI program, but the concept of the program, and the likelihood that this has been the mode of controlling human beings for possibly millennia. In fact, I like to call it "Cosmic COINTELPRO" to suggest that it is almost a mechanical system that operates based on the psychological nature of human beings, most of whom LIKE to live in denial. After all, "if ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." [...]

For more information, don't miss Laura's book The Secret History of the World - And How to Get Out Alive. Secret History delves into this very topic much more deeply and presents a huge amount of startling evidence to back it all up.