MacGauley said something very troubling when she brushed off the possibility that she was, y'know, wrong, by saying in effect "everybody in prison proclaims their innocence."
Nothwithstanding that this trite statement too is a red herring, or the fact that there are now known/thought to be a very large number of people incarcerated "in error," it belies the troubling frame of mind that has beset miiddle class, educated white Amerikkka since roughly the 1980s.
This feeling of ease of evasion of any personal responsibility for anything whatsoever. Its all "their" fault and any non-sequitor at all will do in order to rationalize the most reprehensible acts, in this case the railroading of innocent people thru flawed law enforcement techniques promulgated by simplistic, hysterical reaction to events that are poorly understood and complex. The sexual abuse could have come from anywhere by anyone.
I don't recall but I believe there is police evidence that at least some of the kids were sexually abused?Members of the Catholic Church appear to have been actively abusing kids throughout the time period. Could SRA have been a hysterical response in part to the unspeakable, the Priest as pedophilic sexual predator, which was not yet known to be a worldwide phenomenon?
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I have my own blog! Pass the void. Hey thats a good name for a blog too. "Void" is Germanic-Brooklynese for "word."
Get it?
I intend to publish my literary masterpieces there from now on, but if you piss me off and keep making gratuitous references to me in dairies that dont pertain to me, I may just pull a Garbo on you.
Was Garbo hot?
http://donkeytaledairies.blogspot.com/
Just kidding, actually I need all the free publicity I can get. I may have to go out and market myslef throut the whiteysphere.....unless I can get Huck Finn to whitewash the picket fence for me.
Say, how would you like a nice piece of chocolate cake, dude?
[:o)
Could SRA have been a hysterical response in part to the unspeakable, the Priest as pedophilic sexual predator...?"
Yes - I'm convinced that this has been an important factor in the development & propagation of Satanic Panic. You've hit a nail on the head squarely, here.
It is easy to picture Traditionalist Catholics in particular experiencing a mental meltdown when first confronted by undeniable evidence of pervasive child abuse/sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and lay order members. Their theological conceptions of reality, of "how the universe is ordered", wouldn't be able to accomodate that information...like a sci-fi robot repeating "does not compute!" over & over until their head explodes.
For such persons, there would have to be some "other power" at work behind these clergy abuse cases - and that "other power" would naturally be Satan hisself. But not Satan as a metaphor for human fallibility, rather Satan as a literal being of pure evil directing legions of satanic cult minions ala "The Exorcist".
Catholic clergy could not possibly be the worst child abusers in society, Traditionalists would likely rationalize. If Priests were guilty of abusing dozens of children, then there must be satanic cults abusing thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of children. If Priests were guilty of physically abusing children, then there must be satanic cults torturing, mutilating, murdering & eating children. There MUST be "a greater evil" out there, even if it had to be invented out of elements from the Inquisition, mythology and popular horror fiction.
Lawrence Pazder, the Canadian psychiatrist who authored "Michelle Remembers", was a devout conservative Catholic.
John DeCamp is conservative Catholic, as was Kathleen Sorenson - the Nebraska foster parent whose suggestive "questioning" of children in her care ultimately developed into the Franklin case. You can find one of Sorenson's credulous rants on the pages of Fatima Crusader:
http://www.fatima.org/crusader/cr44/cr44pg42.asp
Bob--
I wasnt aware of those connections...thanks. You seem to be onto this topic.
But I remember the time quite well....living in LA and had a colleague at work who was very close---friends since childhood--with one of the McMartin teachers and he was saying the whole thing was a complete load of crap when the story first exploded in LA.
I remember the sensationalism, Geraldo-esque, this tabloid style was in its infancy but looking back from today's cable media and of course, blogs, seems rather quaint....well, except for the people who were railroaded.
I see the media connection here quite vividly as well. All headline sleaze, and I admit I was captivatred at first, until my friend made me stop and think, and then some articles began to appear.
Today, with all the media white noise, we get the sleaze but the investigative work which followed Mcmartin and helped set the record straight seems to have gotten lost....
Hi Bob, nice to see you around again. The offer still stands, if you want to be added to the blogger roll. You can sign up to my "weather mitigation" forum with your email address, then I'll send you the invite and delete you from that forum. Anyone else who wants in is encouraged to go that route also. I want to open this thing up to more and better progressives, like Dave would have wanted it. It'd be nice to have a correspondent out of Canada. When the Neocons set up those FEMA camps [/sarcasm], I might need a place to hide out for a while. Thanks in advance or total information awareness.
So anyone interested, you can sign up to the Aircraft Wings forum found in my blogger profile. Then send me a private message, doesn't have to be long. Then all I do is send an invite for those people to start adding blog entries to DFQ2. It's basic html code. Videos and images can be added. Blogger/google also doesn't seem to ever delete these things, even if they're abandoned. So one needn't fear any eventual white walling taking place.
Thanks for that info, Bob. This may seem like an esoteric topic to newbies, but it really isn't. Nearly everyone has at least an inkling of it.
The problem with the Church is two fold. For one, there is something absurd about priests and nuns swearing off sexual activities. Sexual repression would seem to be the main reason why pedophilia has been rampant.
Compounding that is the Church belief that they can save souls through the confessional booth which replaces the need for justice system intervention. However, the Church should have to abide to the same reporter laws academics and whatnot have to submit to. That's common sense.
I tend to agree with you guys. The Church wasn't going to allow priests to have normal sex lives. Child abuse was widespread in the Church. A boogeyman was needed. Who else was there to nominate as villian but Alfred E. Satan?
A couple days ago I watched another classic. It was titled In This Our Life starring Davis and De Havilland. It was pure genius. It provided dignity to African-Americans. After Davis killed a child while drunk driving, she set up a black man as the patsy. This movie was so ahead of its time, that certain scenes were cut from showings in the South, so as to not upset Mr. and Mrs. White Bread.
(continued)
Maybe that's similar to this situation. It's apparent that a good chunk of people are ready to buy any kind of lame explanation. Just look at what Shrub's popularity rating was after 9/11, and how so few (e.g. Teddy Kennedy) were against going to war in Iraq. People at fault need to direct attention away from themselves (No, I'm not saying 9/11 was an inside job. I don't know). So they go with the lowest common denominator for an out. The same thing happened in Boston with the Charles Stuart case. He murdered his wife. He came up with some bogus crap about an African-American being responsible. I see similarities to all of these things. Though I admit to having difficulty putting such thoughts into words.
Congrats on your new blog, donkeytale. That's a good idea. If you really want to advertise it, your best bet is to make posts once in a while with your blogger name. People click on it, and that leads them to your place. You could also make posts with your blogger name at other blogspots. Field-negro comes to mind as one example you could try.
Funny coincidence you spelled word as void. I looked into Ed Wood Jr. a bit. I thought the Johnny Depp-Tim Burton movie was schlock. I decided to go to the actual source. I wasn't too impressed with Wood's movies. Though I can only seem to find a few of them. One I did like was Glen or Glenda. One of the stars was Bela Lugosi. He had some great lines. Bevare. Bevare. And of course nothing in cinematic history will ever come close to pure genius as him declaring, "Pull the string!"
That movie was definitely underrated and ahead of its time. It showed compassion for crossdressers and hermaphrodites.
I think if the Church simply allowed its employess to have sex lives, all this apparently institutionalised child abuse would diminish to the same percentage it occurs in regular society.
Was Greta Garbo hot? I had to go to google images to check her out. I think she was pretty in a plain way. Colbert would be more of an ooh-la-la kind of lady to me. I think it was pretty cool how the actresses back then didn't have to be so glamorous looking to get the parts. I'm gonna have to check out Garbo. I don't know anything about her or her movies. I'm fascinated that she dropped out of the spotlight. Maybe you can fill us in on why she lived the last years of her life in seclusion.
The young Bette Davis was hot in a salty sailor kind of way. I think she was victimised by age. The older she got, the less cute. But she made up for it with her astounding acting skills. I think the same thing happened to Joan Fontaine. Very hot in her 20's and 30's but then age caught up to her.
And I'm not saying that women diminish in beauty as they get older. Joan Collins looked pretty hot as she aged. Who else. Hmmm. I bet Bailey from WKRP in Cincinatti is still looking good. People should check out Barbara Billingsley. Quite a handsome woman even after she passed middle age.
Yur seeing churchly conspiracies and I'm not totally discounting that possibility but like most CT, something that widespread would never remain bottled up in secrecy. What I'm talking about is something at once fascinating, more mundane and everyday-like, which makes it more plausible and chilling.....mass hysteria, dude, aided and abetted by the sensationalized media who of course never checks into the story first, they just present whatever dirtbag and claim its this guys story. If he's lying its not my responsibility. This is now virtually the norm in MSM journalism, where once only the sleaze merchants didnt investigate the story from multpiple sources.
We're all Geraldo now. In a way it was nice of Fox to give him a gig since he invented the genre.
Oftentimes, when you reflexively reach for the CT explanation you are missing the sociological implications of what is more likely a media fed mass mania that hits people below their psychological belts and sets them off into things like "Satanic Panic" or 9/11 CT, etc.
Not really an organized conspiracy as much as a meme that catches fire....
As for the church critique, OK, yes, sure....but here I'm more interested in the public's mass hysterical reaction much moreso than the foibles of the church, in this specific instance and how the media induces and fans the flames thru irresponsible sensationalistic reporting.
If you see it on TV it must be true. If you read it on a blog which shares your ideology, it must be true, and so on.
I get your point and agree that this has had more to do with social-psychology than any conspiratorial directed chain of events. It's my bad that I'm inarticulate at times.
I remember when the Boston Church scandal first emerged. It was exposed by our weekly fake lefty rag The Boston Phoenix. It would be two years or so before The Boston Globe came out with its own "spotlight" series.
My intention was merely to show that the nature of the Church can help explain a lot of what happened. I pointed out the repressive nature of their doctrine in regards to Eros. I also mentioned how the confessional system simply cannot be allowed in a fair society.
I apologise if my thoughts kind of hijacked the thread.
It is remarkable how mass hysteria works. Orson Welles' War of the Worlds is the classic example. There are other factors as well, as you point out. The media tends to be after money rather than producing quality news.
The conspiracy theory part concerning McMartin has to do with certain elements on the internet. That is what brought me to trying to figure it out. That's why I was posting my schtick on Andy Stephenson, Jeff Wells, and then Gunderson and the mkultra babes Hartwell and Brice. Of course you are correct that this story ultimately has little to do with conspiracy theory.
Yes, Bob's obviously an expert on the aspects of it you are more interested in. I will disagree with your comment that the record getting set straight got lost. I think it hasn't, otherwise I would have spent more time debunking the believers on sra-mkultra.
I do agree with you that people are more apt to believe something on tv or in a newspaper than anything put on the internet. I think the number of folks on the net is not as big as many believe. I think most folks on the net use it for email, checking stocks, sports, mundane stuff. This is why I think the Fairlefts of the world are deluded in thinking anyone actually cares about what he or anyone else blogs or that it has that much if any of an impact. Even a guy like Greenwald is limited to what kind of influence he has on social reality and politics.
But for sociological purposes, for getting at the human condition, such schtuff can be useful, and you are very adept at utilising such things to come up with oftentimes profound insights.
I think there was a time when the internet had a chance at becoming a player. But then the jason Leopold and other fake lefty nonsense came out, and the air was sucked out of the blogosphere balloon. My ct suggests that might have been a deliberate undercutting of the blogosphere's potential, in a Rove-Atwater type way. If it weren't for Larry Johnson's influence, I'd be less apt to think this and that people like Alexandrovna, Friedman, and Leopold were more likely grifter hacks.
In a way you are correct that the McMartin true record has fallen off the charts. It's like the Amanda Knox story. There's nothing ever coming out on that one anymore as she continues to rot in an Italian prison.
For the record, Jackie's last name is spelled McGauley. I had trouble with that one too.
Well, dont take offense now, I'm not disagreeing with yur take on the church vis a vis repressed sexuality and perverse monsignors, carnal cardinals, etc. Its just that eleemnt of the story is so obvious it doesnt really require a notation, does it?
I see a hint of failreftist (AKA Adolescent) utopianism in yur calls for reforming the church and fixing what ails the country thru socialist peacenikkkism. OK. Anyone can state that much. Now, tell me, whats yur plan to abolish the MIC, give everybody who wants a job one with a decent minimum wage?
A good place to start would be letting the Bush tax cuts expire in 2011. I believe it will take a law to re-up them, meaning the Demotards will be in position to force the expiration, since it seems likely that they will have at least 41 Senators and of course, Obomber will still wield the veto pen.
The obvious argument here will be "dont raise taxes in a recession" but thats balderdash. Yur not raising taxes, yur eliminating temporary tax breaks which werent necessary in the first place, and which have helped create a gaping budget deficit which must be closed. Lets face it, the consrvatives want to spend money on war and the liberals on social programs. OK> lets get real and start FUNDING this stuff. Eliminating Bush tax cuts means letting the law work as it was originally written, and the tax cuts as we know disproportionately affected the wealthy, a lot of it PASSIVE income. Yes, Virginia, the working poor will have to chip in too, since they also saved a few pennies thanks to Jorge W.
My guess is that with the country moving rightward the chances are better for more tax cuts in 2011 after the election.
Remember, Clinton increased taxes, balanced the budget and the economy still recovered from recession.
Someone has to say these obvious things, I guess. Yes, priests should be allowed to get married.
[:o)
OK, I dont know why you cant embed links in the comments, what up with that? But Media Matters touched on this very point 4/18/10. The R's are saying the expiration of the tax cuts are in effect a "tax increase" but as I stated above, thats just semantics. Typikkkal BS.
"Karl Rove misleadingly suggested that President Obama is planning to implement a "tax increase" by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire. In fact, the Bush tax cuts are set to expire on the schedule enacted by former President Bush and a Republican-controlled Congress, and Obama has proposed extending the cuts except those for upper-income earners."
In fact, Obomber is proposing rescinding the tax cuts only on those earning more than $250,000 per yr, who were the very same ones gathering the most benefit when the cuts were passed ----using reconciliation------back in 2001.
The Demotards need to buck up and alllow the Bush tax cuts to expire, regardless of the 2010 election. I see they are already weakening on immigration after the heinous Arizona "law" was passed. If that law doesnt curdle yur consititutional and progressive milk, what will?
Racism pure and simple.
Sexual repression does need a notation. It's at the heart of the scandal. The cries abvout satanic ritual abuse are completely different. Those are more to do with the mass psychology of delusions.
I think sra was a sublimated response to historic and widespread child abuse, the kind Alice Miller has worked on. That has a spectrum to it, from those who spank and otherwise emotionally cripple their children to the worst of the worst.
The McMartin scandal was set off by one nutjob, Judy Johnson. Look at the concept of snuff films. It was invented or whatnot by a writer. Bob even mentioned one of the script writers for it. Nothing occurs out of nowhere.
My self and the poster fairleft have nothing in common. He is not a left winger. How many times do we have to raise his ideas on various topics to thus assume he is some weird hybrid of left and right. He lacks any formal training in writing beyond high school. He's some blowhard who probably took a lot of drugs. His only readers are other brain damaged fools who don't know much such as supersoling, Laura, and Beach. I think you suffered some form of stockholm syndrome with that crew. Everyone is an individual. Of course I'm an idealist. And I'm definitely no cardboard cutout like the absolutely hideous people who post at pffugee and FSZ. I am not as quick as you to forget who they are and what they represent. Bob's feeling that towards the people in the McMartin scandal. I've read ex-Mormon boards letting those asswipes know that they are the ultimate dirtbag sinners. Sometimes one needs to chuck a boulder at some people, metaphorically of course.
I think it's alright to judge, as long as someone gets their facts straight.
Of course the M.I.C. should be drastically reduced and everyone able to work should have that opportunity. You sound just like DKos and other blah, blah, blah, tax cuts, Obama doing what he can, la di da.....
True intellectuals don't worry about this kind of tit for tat. If you can't see that the Military is the proverbial tits on a bull.
Here's my tax plan. Anyone earning 40,000 or less, no taxes. They're paying sales tax and all the other stuff as it is. The rich can afford to pay taxes. America has had perhaps the most unfair tax system of all the Western industrialised nations. I'm no econonomist, so I'm not sure. But it seems to be the case. There's no trickle down anything. There's only greed and fat pigs.
It's ok to say obvious things. Tell me something I don't know. [/confused projection alert]
The last two days here have been gross. Too hot and sticky. These are the dog days for bloggers.
The Republicans are flat out liars, and I hope your and others' analysis is spot on, that they are headed for a downslide. Letting Bush tax cuts expire is not the same as a tax increase. I hope people can see through the lies. Those Reagan Democratics and Soccer Mom Republicans need to realise that getting a few hundred extra bucks in one refund check doesn't offset the utter damge done to both our society and economy, not to mention how we are viewed as pigs in the world. Go take a trip to anywhere you want and see how you're treated loke assholes just for being from America. That should give anyone pause to wonder why we are hated so much.
Even when links get cut off, somehow people can copy and paste it and what's missing to the url is captured. Your best bet to add links to blogger is to use the html code. [a href="link"]description[/a] Just replace the brackets with the other thingies. It's about 80 degrees in my house right now. Yuck.
In a bizarre bit of irony or something, your last spam caption username was Gretan. Well, knock off the en, and guess who I now know about? Yes, the lovely and talented Greta -Van Susteren- Garbo. People are clever at youtube. They'll use abbreviations for titles and then their movies don't get deleted. That's how you find the great ones. You have to cybersleuth your way through youtube's database. I don't feel any guilt at all watching these things. Should I? It's just art on display. It's not the best quality. The Grateful Dead didn't care about bootlegs. Sure, it's bad if people get ripped off. Are movie fans in the wrong for watching copyright movies that fat pigs don't want to be seen? They are almost advertisements to get people to buy the dvd's. I don't see what the problem is.
I watched Camille. Garbo was brilliant. Apparently this was her best movie. I also watched a documentary on her narrated by Glen or Glenda Close. It wasn't that Garbo needed to be alone. She wanted to be left alone. Big difference to the fock faces who wouldn't let her be.
She was simply one of the first to say fu to fame. Good for her. She was another child star. She was doing movies by age 15. When the flicks went from silent to talkies, she was made fun of. Her voice especially. She obviously worked very hard to learn English. She could definitely act. Swanson was great in Sunset Blvd., but I'm not sure if she or most of the other silent film stars could make the transition. I think silent movies are stupid. Sorry. It's like watching human cartoons, imho.
Garbo was pretty. She kind of had a horse face, but what a beautiful horse face it was.
I'm glad you mentioned her. She was a missing piece. I think age had everything to do with how she ended up quitting the movies. She was too good for the society. You know all those things said about Clift and other method actors, how they could emote inner conflict and whatnot, well, Garbo could do that too. She was like a Hall of Fame athlete for acting. She could have ruled any era. That's how skilled she was, imho.
Irene Dunne, otoh, is starting to piss me off. I used to think the cinematic world of her. She had a similar horse face to Greta. But now I'm seeing Dunne had body image issues. She also was one one-trick pony. She had that giggle and quirky smile. She never seemed to play a different character. It was always Irene Dunne in every flick. The anti-Bette Davis if you get my drift.
I also heard she was a right winger. Yikes.
I'm starting to think Barbara Stanwyck was also a hack. Garbo was awesome, dude! I thank you for this.
Oops. Let's not forget about Lauren Bacall. Though I can then start to see Holland's beef about the whitey nature of the film industry and its history. That dude should check out In This Our Life. I'd like to get his opinion on that. The buggers are spinning Francis as a racist. Of course, the pffloggers will never admit how they and their DKos roots are as racist as they come. Krishnamurti knew what was up. Identifying oneself with any kind of dogma is unnatural. This world we were born into is so shallow, donkeydude. Where's the nuance? Where's the logical consistency. Sure, a duderino like me needs to be more pragmatic at times. I think a dude like you wouldn't be doing such a bad thing by putting a flower in your hair once in a while. PULL THE STRING!
You are very kind, Socrates, but I don't consider myself an expert on any subject...other than my own ignorance :)
I have some knowledge & insights about this topic because I happened to be involved in a cluster of intellectual pursuits and social networks that were impacted by the Satanic Panic as it went down in the 80's & 90's.
I was a student in the early 80's, studying Child Development, and I was a volunteer with the local Rape Crisis Centre (later called Sexual Assault Centres). That made me aware of the very real tragedy of sexual violence in our society, particularly as perpetrated against women and children of either gender.
I was also studying Comparative Religion (really, the history and practices of all the major faiths), and as a hobby I studied and researched tiny & obscure religious/spiritual/metaphysical movements & groups that have arisen (and largely, died out) over the last 500 years. This gave me insights into the realities - contrasted to hysterical fantasies - about "occult" teachings & practices, "satanism", "witchcraft", "neopaganism" & "wicca", as well as obscure offshoots from Catholicism, Mormonism and evangelical fundamentalism.
My community had problems with organized bigotry in the 80's, including serious criminal activity by neo-nazi skinhead gangs affiliated with Aryan Nations Church. I was involved in organizing protests against and anti-racist community response to these bigots, as well as anti-defamation activism on behalf of smaller subcultures such as Women's Spirituality groups. These networkings gave me access to reports of threats, vandalism & violence against a wide range of social minorities - reports that mainstream media often declined to cover.
I was a big fan of Zine culture (remember "Factsheet Five"?). Before the internet, Zines were "the everyman's media" and throughout the 80's I ordered and collected reams of self-published and small press materials including evangelical tracts from a variety of faith communities. This gave me insight into what these evangelicals were telling their followers about other groups in our society and what they were saying to each other within their own communities that they might not be saying in their public radio/tv broadcasts.
(continued)
There are a couple of good academic books that recount & analyze what happened and theories/reasons why it happened, during this Satanic Panic. My perspective is not an academic analysis - it is simply an account of what I personally perceived, experienced and learned.
First there were the evangelical testamonialists - con-artists who made their living as speakers or author/speakers travelling the evangelical/charismatic/fundamentalist church circuit - giving a false "testimony" of their supposed involvement in "the occult", "satanism", "witchcraft" and/or "the illuminati", and 'warning' their audiences that secretive "reverse-christianity" satanic cults were real, powerful and active in their communities. Some began their crusades in the 70's. ALL of these people were liars & frauds. Two of the most influential were Mike Warnke and John Todd.
There were other anti-occult authors & speakers in the evangelical circuit, but these fraudulent testimonialists were important because their claims to having "come out from" supposed satanic groups made them "whistleblowers" - termed "renegades" in Hofstadter's brilliant "The Paranoid Style In American Politics". Hofstadter said: "In some part, the special authority accorded the renegade derives from the obsession with secrecy so characteristics of such movements: the renegade is the man or woman who has been in the Arcanum, and brings forth with him or her the final verification of suspicions which might otherwise have been doubted by a skeptical world".
From my own studies & research I was aware that organized "reverse-christianity" satanism has never existed in the real world. This is the "satanism" most frequently described by supposed SRA survivors. Reverse-christianity satanists supposedly believe that they serve satan by being and doing "evil". They are supposedly obsessed with "defiling" anything or anyone that a Christian would perceive to be holy, righteous or "pure" - especially symbols of the Christian faith, children and infants. (A reverse-christianity satanist would supposedly, for example, derive particular delight from raping an infant with a crucifix). All of their rites & rituals would supposedly somehow mock or "reverse" those of Christian (specifically Catholic/High Anglican) traditions. Reverse-christianity satanists supposedly perceive and measure their own actions with the same moral compass as a righteous Christian would. They would engage in "perverted" sexual acts - judging those acts with Jerry Falwell's moral yardstick and thus perceiving them to be "perverted", simply BECAUSE they are "perverted" acts and satan would supposedly be pleased by this contempt for and rebellion against "godliness".
Reverse-christianity satanism has only ever manifested in occaisional deranged individuals or tiny, short-lived groups of mutually-supporting sociopaths. There has never been a long-term, large-scale or complex organization of reverse-christianity satanists. It would be impossible for such an organization to remain functional over even small periods of time, as many critically important organizational processes would be inherently sabotaged by the member's adherence to their own professed belief system.
No real-life religious/spiritual movement or organization accused or suspected of harboring "reverse-christianity" beliefs, motivations or practices, is actually "guilty" of doing so. The Process did not, LeVay and the Church of Satan do not, Aquino and the Temple of Set do not, Crowleyan Thelemites do not (and Aliester Crowley most definitely DID NOT), Wiccans do not, Gerald Gardner did not, etc, etc, etc.
(part 3)
Protestant Fundamentalists have a history of not trusting in or accepting the legitimacy of secular governments and public institutions, exemplified by the Plymouth Brethren Deacon who habitually exercised his democratic franchise by spoiling his ballot, writing "I VOTE FOR KING JESUS" across it. In America, stung by humiliating losses in public clashes with forces of modernism in the early 1900s, many swore off involving themselves in "the public sphere" entirely.
But by the 70's, especially encouraged by an Evangelical in the White House, there were movements encouraging fundamentalists to re-engage in all areas of public life - such as Falwell's Moral Majority. I saw this myself, in the form of a wave of aggressively evangelical young people in my child welfare related classes. There have always been evangelicals in child welfare, what was new about these classmates was their determination to work within and have an impact on purely secular (rather than specifically religious) child welfare institutions and agencies.
These young people were, coincidentally, part of the generation of evangelical youths targeted by and exposed to fraudulent Satanic hysteria spreaders like Mike Warnke. I first heard of him through one of these people, and learned that he and other "let's all fear the alleged satanic cults in our backyards" speakers drew great crowds at the massive new Pentacostal cathedral several times a year. This was probably happening in your community too, in the early 80's, anywhere around North America.
At the same time, there was explosive growth in some alternative spirituality movements - Women's Spirituality groups, neopaganism, wicca, traditional native-pagan revivalists, some New Age groups. Before long, my evangelical classmates began to tell me about new speakers at their church who were "a former wicca high priest" or "a former member of Transendental Meditation high council", and wouldn't you know it...these new testimonialists were claiming that Wicca and TM were really satanic cults also, involved in drug trafficking, kidnappings, murders, etc. I was beginning to understood the formula - anytime a movement not approved of by fundamentalists gains popularity & press, a fraudulent ex-member of the movement pops up to warn Christians the movement is really a satanic cult plot.
There was also a big push going for a national daycare plan, with new (secular), publicly funded daycare centres to open in communities across the country. Fundamentalist commentators were furious about this, calling the plan a plot to destroy "the family". I wondered, prophetically as it turned out, in 1983, when I would hear about an ex-satanic cult daycare operator doing the evangelical circuit.
(part 4)...almost done.
The anti-cult movement and "cult awareness" groups the developed in the 70's seemed to spiral into overdrive after the terrible tragedy of Jonestown. The focus seemed to shift from "deprogramming" adult children involved in known groups to searching out unknown groups that might be likely candidates to be the next tragedy, "before it happens again". Some began hunting for the alleged satanic cults they had heard about from Warnke or John Todd, or later on from Bill Schnoebelen, Tom Sanguinet, Doc Marquis and others. Betraying their total ignorance of the subject, some apparently believed the word "occult" was related to the word "cult" and used them interchangeably; "the kids are involved in an occult". These were the proto satan-hunters.
Meanwhile, young heavy metal and punk fans were driving some civic officials and uninformed cops into paranoid fits by spray-painting band related "satanic" graffiti all over their towns. Young heavy metal fans, in juvenile detention centres, psychiatric facilities, foster homes and other child welfare facilities were similarly driving their caregivers into paranoia with tales of the "satanism" that they & their friends were practising and which the adults around them were too uninformed to understand was almost entirely their own inventions. It is understandable that some persons who grew up with the fraudulent tales of satanic cults that never existed, from the likes of Warnke, would conclude that these teen "satanists" in their communities must be involved in the same (imaginary) satanic conspiracies, and start searching for likely ringleaders (who never existed).
I believe it was such self-appointed Satan Hunters who were responsible for the death threats against New Age booksellers, the vandalism of venues where Women's Spirituality and neopagan groups held their meetings, the anonymous "tips" to public pagan's employers that they were really "a babykilling satanist", that were reported through the anti-defamation networks I was involved with - rare, yet troubling reports in the early 80's escalating to alarming frequency by the decade's end. There was some kind of, likely spontaneous, witchhunting going on - which meant that there was probably a social panic underway in some segments of the population.
And then the sleazy tabloidesque tv "exposes" on "satanic crime" began, along with mass arrests of alleged child abuse cultists in several communities, with preposterous "reverse-christianity" satanic cult allegations, and the existence of a full-fledged social panic was confirmed.
(last part)
While still in college I opened a small "world religions" bookstore that catered to academics with interests similar to mine and practitioners of smaller faith groups. In the later 80's, I was approached by members of the local law enforcement "intelligence gathering" unit, through the store. Like many, many other communities across North America, our police and child protection agencies were getting reports of alleged criminal activities involving "occult" or "satanic" groups. These police officers were essentially clueless about such topics (like 99% of the population) and were looking for
1)genuine source documents i.e., how occult practitioners themselves described their beliefs & practices - materials which I carried.
2)someone to translate such documents into terminology/concepts they were more familiar with, and to interpret "occult"/spiritual/religious paraphenalia or symbolism found at alleged crime scenes
3)a contact who could extend invitations to practitioners of obscure religious/spiritual groups, who might be interested in meeting with law enforcement for the purpose of explaining or demonstrating their own beliefs and practices.
In return, these police officers provided me with "occult crime" "training manuals" and other "resource materials" that were being used as the basis of "satanic/occult crime" information & training seminars for law enforcement agencies, child protection agencies and other justice system or social welfare practitioners across North America at that time.
I was horrified by these "occult crime investigator" manuals. The idea that they were being used to train persons with real power over other people's lives was terrifying. Because, they were filled with little more than IGNORANCE, FANTASIES and SUPERSTITION.
In some cases, they referenced fraudulent con-artists like Mike Warnke as "experts" with "first-hand knowledge of criminal satanic cults today". Warnke was incapable of giving "first-hand, expert knowledge" about satanic cults because HE WAS NEVER A MEMBER OF ONE. He was only an expert on his own fantasies of what satanic cults "must" be like.
Many of these manuals revealed their author's ignorance of the subjects they were supposedly experts on, through chapters on "occult signs & symbols you might encounter at a crime scene", wherein the interpretations given to the symbols they showed were NOT their traditional meanings and were totally unrelated to the Kabbalistic systems from which the symbols were originally derived. This turned out to be not surprising, when I later learned that many of these interpretations were given to the authors by the self-styled teen satanists they had interviewed. They were some kid's personal interpretation concocted from their own imagination, not derived from scholarly sources.
Most of these manuals showed a total ignorance of the fact that historic occult rituals were derived from judeo-christian mystical traditions. They were created by god-fearing Jews and Christians, who believed they would assist them to DO GOD'S WILL by vanquishing supernatural evils in HIS name. In fact, the power that most of them call upon is the Judeo-Christian God, using mystical titles for Him. They have nothing whatsoever to do with worshipping Satan or "doing evil".
One of these "resource materials", created by a fundamentalist police officer, warned that only Christian investigators should possess books on satanism/occult themes or keep such materials in their homes, because true Christians would be protected from the demonic possession such materials could supposedly cause, but others would not be!
This reflects very revealing attitudes and assumptions underlying the involvement of evangelical testimonialists and Ministries in secular law enforcement & child welfare investigations into satanic crime allegations. From the viewpoint of some evangelical ministries, they have been more engaged in "battling the devil" in our society than the rest of us, which ought to defacto make them the only real experts on Satan & satanists (when, objectively, they only possess expertise in their own fantasies about satanists that don't actually exist). There is an ironic truth here, however. Many satanic crime allegations were derived directly from the falsehoods told by fraudulent evangelical testimonialists, and they naturally possess the greatest "expertise" on their own fantasies. People like Warnke probably expected that they could get away with their false testimony, forever. Most of the population has been completely uninterested in subjects like satanism and the occult and are therefore totally uninformed on those topics, unable to confront false statements that con-artists might make on those subjects. And since the satanic cults these frauds claim to be ex-members of don't actually exist, since "reverse-christianity" satanism doesn't actually exist, no one can prove that what they have to say about it is false.
How did satanic cult fantasies become insinuated into the statements of children making allegations of sexual abuse? They came from the Satan Hunters lurking in child welfare agencies and institutions, in church ministries and foster homes, members of religious communities that have never trusted secular governments or institutions even if they work for them, informal groupings of "concerned parents & community members" who KNOW the satanic cults are out there and are determined to turn them out through their own "investigations". Read Bruce Perry's "Satanic Panic" essay for a sickening account of how this was done in Gilmer, Texas, and you will understand how similar processes played out in other communities.
I have an interest in the history of the evangelical movement since the early 1970s. I see it is as the beginning of the counter reformation following the social uoheavel of the 60s and am in the middle of exploring the milieu in my own autobiographical musings. I appreciate your perspective in these comments. And hope you will continue to provide it. I am greatful for any links that you can provide. Are you aware of Frederick Clarkson, the author and DKOS poster who specializes in religious right as a CT? The dominionist movement?
Garbo was a cultural phenomenon, the film version of Salinger into the 60s and 70s. I would argue her influence is probably greater than Salinger. Androgyny was an explosive image in the 1930s even as it is commonplace today. Garbo's look is thoroughly modern, doubtless because she has influenced stylists forever...
Bob, I would encourage you to cut and paste your excellent series of comments here into a front page piece as Socrates has offered. You clearly have a great deal to offer on a most interesting and timely element of the disinfo campaign at the heart of these topics, which touch an astonishing number of day to day lives thru "mainstream religion."
I would enjoy to keep reading what you write.
Soc-- yes, it is difficult to underplay the cultural ohenomenon of Garbo. Her look transcended the 30s and still appears modern today. No doubt because her look has inspired designers stylists and artists for decades. In the 60s and 70s Garbo was a cult figure (pardon the flip use of the term in relation to Bob's more serious commentary regarding religious "cults." Garbo was spawned by the German Expressionist movement if I recall correctly (and I may not) that has stood the test of time after being ground under the Nazi boot heel of the latter 1930s. Her look was androgynous, which seems rather commonplace today but she was a pioneer in very dangerous times.A worthy subject for the Socratian
Bob, you'd be perfect for this place. Donkeytale's pretty good with politics. I'm not sure what I am, hopefully not too strange. What myself and donkeytale are probably good for is we get the human condition. It's not all about politics or some formula blogosphere. It's about making points that transcend ourselves as individuals. Or just shooting the shit. You could fill us in on Canada.
I want this place to get beyond my paw prints. You'd make a third blogger. Maybe some others would be interested. I think Digby is a blogspot, so it's not like these things can't make it.
I didn't get much sleep last night, so I don't really have the strength to respond to your eloquent and informative posts.
But make no mistake about it. Your points and the ones you made on other threads withstand the academic test. We nailed this satanic panic thing. We brought in major examples along with a few current ones. We covered it from the standpoint of the goofy internet to the more important influence it's had on social reality, the stuff you guys are getting into.
Links are really easy to add. Here's the formula, just replace [ ] with < >:
[a HREF="http://...."]link description[/a]
Yourself and anyone else interested in blogging here, just go to the forum in my blogger profile. Sign up and send me a private message with the email address you use for your blogger id. The other thing about it, is then you will be added to the list to receive notification of any new comments left in archived blog entries. It's kind of amazing what gets added on way after the original dates.
I think donkeytale nailed this topic in a big picture kind of way. I would like to take it a step further. I think the satanic panic is a sublimated response to child abuse in general. I get your point Bob that a lot of these cults that have been into satanism and other things have been small and isolated. There is no conspiracy there, as there are no snuff films. Urban legends do get created.
Now take away Ted Gunderson and Michael Aquino, and I'd never have thought there might be some kind of psychological operation aspect to it. Aquino worked in psyops. That's fact. Gunderson ran the FBI in LA or something during the cointelpro era, sorry I can't remember the exact position he had and the dates. Then all of a sudden they started ending up on Oprah and Geraldo. Jackie says a LaRouchian visited her place when she was with Ted. Some dude asssociated with Ted, we now see is also associated with Alex Jones. These things get me eyebrows moving. I confess to having fought conspiracy theory with conspiracy theory, as donkeytale describes it. But some of my schtick has been proven. So I can deal with it. Plus, I do see the merit of youse guys going after this stuff beyond my schtick. In fact, I think it's just as important maybe more so.
(contd.)
I think we need to cognitively infiltrate the state of Utah. I hate the Mormon religion. I admit it. I think it's the biggest cult of them all and much more of a threat than scientology. They own a whole state.
As for Garbo, I want to mention I found Sunset Boulevard last night on youtube. People are clever there and putting the titles in abbreviations to avoid being deleted. Garbo did the right thing by dropping out of Hollywood. She had nothing left to prove after learning English and putting up some good acting roles after the silent film era ended.
She didn't want to be alone. She wanted to be left alone. Big difference. She was a child star, just like Gloria Swanson was during that silent film era. Talk about child abuse. The child stars have always been vulnerable. Garbo did what she had to do to hold onto her soul. Elvis should have gotten out before he lost his. Geez, just look at how the Beatles quit touring, because no one was listening to their music anymore. They were screaming at their idols. Everyone wanted a piece of them. Everyone wanted a piece of Greta Garbo.
Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics, like Greta Garbo, also refused to give autographs. From SI's Frank Deford:
...Russell believes he can share more by not giving autographs, because instead of an impersonal scribbled signature, a civil two-way conversation may ensue. Gently: "I'm sorry, I don't give autographs."
"You won't?"
"No, won't is personal. I don't. But thank you for asking." And then, if he senses a polite reaction, he might say, "Would you like to shake hands with me?" And maybe chat.
Utterly dogmatic, Russell wouldn't bend even to give his Celtics teammates autographs. One time this precipitated an ugly quarrel with Sanders, who wanted a simple keepsake: the signature of every Celtic he'd played with. "You, Satch, of all people, know how I feel," Russell snapped.
"Dammit, I'm your teammate, Russ."
Nevertheless, when the shouting was over, Russell still wouldn't sign. Thompson, who was Russell's backup on the Celtics for two years, is sure that Russell never took pleasure from these sorts of incidents. "No, it bothered him," Thompson says. "But doing it his way, on his own terms, was more important to him. And that's Bill. Even if it hurt him, he was going to remain consistent."
Russell speaks, often, in aphorisms that reflect his attitudes. "It is better to understand than to be understood," he told his daughter. "A groove can become a rut," he advised his teammates. And perhaps the one that goes most to his own heart: "You should live a life with as few negatives as possible—without acquiescing."
Garbo transcended movies the way the Beatles transecended music. Something much larger at work, reflecting the society more than the artist, whose work was very good, maybe even great, but hardly equal to the acclaim.
Garbo pre-sages the celebrity culture which took root during the 60s and which teh Beatles helped also create. As you note, they too wanted to be left alone. They also were not that tight as a band, as the few recordings of their live performances illustrate.
There is something timeless about Garbo, that ability to be desired but untouchable, like Jesus to the true believers, you could go on and on.
I guess what I'm saying is that she's more interesting to me in that context, not so much as an "actress."
Course, I dont really listen to the Beatles much anymore either, and when I do I get depressed. "Beatlemania" was all that about this?
RIOTOUS! Of course, it was the timing, post JFK assassination, the traumatic stress over which this country never recovered, the collarless jackets, the pudding basin haircuts, the pointy toe boots with the cuban heels, as much or moreso than the music, which was infectious, but hardly earth shattering, except when combined with the hype.
Same w Garbo, although she was more original in her way. She represented the foreign, exotic, forbidden aspects that were awash in the years between WWI and WWII as the US was forced to confront the rest of the world from an unwanted position of leadership.
We've managed to thoroughly bungle the job in the ensuing century havent we?
As for everybody wantinga piece of Garbo, I wouldnt mind one myslef.
I recall a picture of her in dirty white deck shoes, her long, angular body seeming more like the female body ideal of today rather than the stouter archetype of the 19th early 20th centuries.
I dont know why I rememeber those dirty white deck shoes but I do...
"To try and explain my real feelings for Greta would be impossible since I really do not understand myself. I do know that I have built up in my emotions a person that does not exist. My mind sees the real person �a Swedish servant girl with a face touched by God�only interested in money, her health, sex, food and sleep. And yet her face tricks my mind and my spirit builds her up into something that fights with my brain. I do love her but I only love the person that I have created, and not the person who is real."
Letter from Mercedes de Acosta to Marlene Dietrich
I don't watch silent movies. I refuse to. There's not much out there for her last pictures. Good people should check this movie out before it probably vanishes. It's proof that she could act.
She definitely had a sweet body and was comfortable in it, or maybe she had repressions from her native land which didn't translate into English.
I watched a documentary first. I hadn't known anything about her. They made fun of both her body and voice. I totally get how you get my anology to the Beatles. They were all good, even great, but perhaps due to their each being good artists, they had a sense that the cult of personalities would not allow them to continue the way it was going.
I fell in love with her in that movie Camille. That's the only one I need to ever have seen. It felt like Monroe doing The Misfits. A bit close to home for their real lives.
It's tough to put into words. Why oh why are there no more Greta's and all we get are these truly hideous horse faces like Sarah Jessica Parker?
Her true love in that movie was played by some dude named Robert Taylor. He done good. Now we get Tom Cruise.
They surely don't make movies like they used to. Since getting into my new fad, I now realise that isn't a mere cliche.
Camille was as good as anything ever pumped out for a movie showcasing how to face death. Terms of Endearment can now be seen as the pile of dirt it was. It asked great questions. Can there be true love? Can people change? Can anyone ever care about someone other than themself in an altruistic way? Can there be worldly redemption? I saw shades of Flutter Wings in Camille. Not fooling.
If we ever could go back to all our past relationships, lovers and friends, and tell them sincerely how we feel, that we're sorry, that we loved them, blah blahg you know, that would be a remarkable thing. But that's usually the stuff of Fantasy Island and The Love Boat. This is why Camille will never be dated, while schlock like Terms of Endearment always will be.
Schlock's a good word. I predict it will someday take off as schtick did.
So in Sunset Boulevard, Joe Gillis could have had the girl. Instead he decided to not rob the cradle and showed her exactly who Norma Desmond was and how he'd been living with her.
Damn, I know this is a strange feeling, but I'd love to have known what Garbo felt about that movie. I'd love to hang out with Bill Russell and watch the Celtics' playoffs. I wish Garbo had just let it known to the cool fans who were into her art know even a smidgen about her reality. I don't think people are into Garbo, because she invented some reclusive loner persona. She was very sophisticated. She probably saved her life by bailing out. It's none of our business!
(contd.)
I'm sure she did just fine for herself those last decades outside of the spotlight.
The Misfits showed us that Marilyn Monroe was truly messed up in the noggin. It was a sadistic script written by a bitter focker meant to haunt her.
Camille showed that Garbo did have a sweet smile and laugh, but that it couldn't be bought with money or any shallow technique. You could tell she was a thoughtful person in real life.
There's a scene in Sunset Blvd. where Joe is up late reading a book. The theme of staving off cynicism is consistent with both movies. How does one be happy in a society which rewards cults of personality? Can we overcome it?
Holden and Garbo were going after the same question. How does one not become bitter? In both flicks, a member of the opposite sex shows each of them a healthier way to view humanity. In each movie, the conflicted main characters sacrifice their own acceptance of their love, because they don't want to taint that which is innocent.
But the truth is love does indeed conquer all. It's a shame Norma Desmond just so happened to have picked up that revolver. Even worse luck, for some fruity dame, she somehow was a sharpshooter. Maybe DeMille or Max Von Stronheim had taken her target shooting during her stolen youth.
Garbo got out while the going was good.
The book Joe Gillis was reading? It was The Young Lions, which was made into a fantastic movie starring Brando, Clift, and even Dean Martin. That was also a movie for the ages.
Some will probably be turned off by the victim telling the story in Sunset Boulevard. Not me. The story went beyond the Joe Gillis character. Sure, he mattered. Ultimately he had compassion for his murderer. Sunset Blvd. was the ultimate metaphor for exposing the ugliness of the cult of personality.
Some of the more interesting scenes revolved around the idea that actors are a rare breed. It may look easy, but it most certainly isn't when one is talking method acting. Ed Wood movies? Sure, anyone off the street could have acted in those.I liked when Betty and Joe playfully acted as if they were in a movie themselves. In short, Sunset Blvd. was vasically a big shit dumped on Hollywood. It was like beating conspiracy theory with conspiracy theoryif done well. p:>
The opening of that one has Holden asking for the audience's attention so the real story of Norma Desmond can be told, before it's perverted by the media, the arts industry, et al. He tried to help Norma, but she was as gone as Brando was in Appocalypse Now. He was kind of Christ-like. A he without sin, may they cast the first stone kind of thingie. He had every reason to hate Norma but didn't. Garbo gave Taylor's character every reason to hate her in Camille but simply couldn't. I guess we can feel indignation for the actions of others while forgiving them for their human frailties and personal corruption. Hollywood wasn't going to change. Garbo knew that. She gotout for her own good. For our own good, she didn't let us into her real life. She shared her soul with us through the film. She was like Barry Sanders. That guy was one of the greatest running backs of all time. No one could stop him. No one could understand why he just upped and quit football. Now I do. There's more to life than fifteen minutes or years of fame.
*** [/whispering] For those who don't know about Norma Desmond, go here to check out what all the fuss was about. Like Camille, it may only be available for so long.
Leave it to Socrates to juxtapose Greta Garbo with Barry Sanders.
RIOTOUS!
You are true greatness dude.
Barry is something of a Dallas sports talk fixture and a very easy going, hang looose real guy. Not sure if he lives in DFW fulltime, but Ok State is nearby and Dallas fans have always loved him, even when the lowly Lions were bedeviling the mighty Boys back in the day.
Recently, he was asked who was the best running back, he or Emmitt and he answered, "Emmitt. But Jim Brown was greater by far than either one of us."
Total class act.
I enjoyed immensely the Holden narration from the grave. That was one of the best schticks in the movie, IMHO. A dead guy with a sardonic, cynical attitude is pretty hard to beat.
I may watch the movie tomorrow nite holed up in a lonely hotel room if its still there. Last time I saw it was twenty five years ago (time flies) in a Hollywood movie palace. Nothing beats watching B&W classics in an art deco Hollywood Movie Palace.
Nuthin, I tell ya...
The Cyber MacGruffs won't come down on me for piracy will they? What, unless I download it?
Ah well, I clicked and its already been removed....guess it'll be NBA action tmrw nite....I love the 2nd round of the NBA playoffs the best.
For some reason I also enjoy the second round of the NFL plaayoffs the best too. I guess because so many teams are still in it, the possibilities are still fascinating.
By the time they get to the finals and all my favourite 'dogs have been vanquished, I'm not usually still watching....I did enjoy seeing the Saints throttle the Colts in the SB this year.
I predicted that upset....
Have to say I spent a coupla daze in Salt Lake City a few years back and enjoyed it. The weather was superb. Played some golf on a lovely mountainside course in Bountiful, attended a cocktail party with some pleasant people, at least some of whom I'm sure were Mormons, but didnt ask.
The ball carried well in the altitude and I remember playing really well that day.
The first nite in went barhopping downtown. Talk about searching for a needle in a haystack. Plus, there was a $5 cover at every single bar in town. That sucked.
Believe it or not, we ended the nite in a strip club.
RIOTOUS!
The girls were cute enuff but no fake titties, no table dances and they wore pasties.....very tame stuff for boyz from the wilder side of Texas....which is to strip clubs what Italy is to ruins.
The best ad ever had to be Dennis Hopper sniffing Barry Sanders' shoes. Strange but realistic in a surreal kind of way.
I just watched another Garbo documentary. Finally saw what you meant by the androgyny. There's nothing like a chick who initiates the kissing.
She was really cool and definitely normal. This was no Howard Hughes or Norma Desmon hermit society member. Her family and friends said she had a wonderful sense of humour. One dude said she was a regular guy, well not that specific phrase, but I figure you know what I mean.
She almost made a comeback in 1949, but the movie people bailed out on the idea. She was too good for us Yanks. Once the war started, she had lost her audience. I guess there's grist for the mill of your theory that America leans conservative. She wasn't one to stay in her place like patriarchal Midwestern America wanted her to.
So there's Camille to be watched. There's also Ninotchka I'm going to look at probably tonight. In the documentary, it was said that's the closest a movie came to showing her true colours.
Sorry youtube already yanked Sunset Blvd. That was quick. I hope it wasn't my fault. I don't think we're doing anything wrong by watching movies at youtube. How are we to know which shouldn't be there and which are public domain or whatever. Maybe the key is to not save it to your computer or to probably more likely start sharing them with others that way.
It had been about 20 years for me too since seeing it. Man, rent it out sometime. It stands the test of time. You end up understanding things even better. You totally got Holden's schtick. If he was a whiteysphere blogger, he'd be one of us. A hack with some skills fighting off bitterness, trying to warn the bubbly how they'll eventually end up like us in the end.
I was ready to give up on the Celtics. Did you see what Rasheed Wallace did? We fickle Boston fans now want to sniff his shoes.
Just when we think it's going to be a lame Laker-Cavalier final, there's hope! Maybe the winner of Phoenix-San Antonio will make the finals.
Maybe I should lay off of the Mormons. I just can't help but think they are some evil form of Ned Flanderism.
Hey, here's an idea for a movie. We'll combine Sunset Blvd. with Psycho. Norma gets out of the asylum prison 20 years later, cured by some shrink. But Betty is suspicious. She found out Joe did love her and was just trying to shoo her for her own good. If you recall, when she visited the mansion and Joe started to explain, she said she didn't want to hear about it, she didn't care, and she just wanted to leave with him.
Anyway, Norma opens up the Desmond Motel. I'm kind of stuck at that point. Maybe there's a drive in movie theatre behing the motel. Maybe George Steinbrenner makes a cameo. Maybe if I sleep on it, some more ideas will pop up.
another Greta flick
Ned Flanders: the evil of banality.
I like the mashup of Psycho and Sunset Blvd. You could take the two scripts and apply the Burroughs "cut-up" technique. Holden is ready for his close-up in the shower, Ms. De Ville.
A gay porn classic.
I've re-read Bob's comment about 4 times now and I grow more impressed with his intelligence and style with each re-reading.
And he's modest!
WTF the matter w Canadiens? They sure have a knack for making us look like ego protruded brainless buffoons.
They are finally realizing that Dirk is the problem in Dallas. Before Garnett went to Boston I was a proponent of a KG-Dirk swap. In basketball its very easy to build a good team, but more difficult to build a champion. The hard decisions have been excused by 10 strait 50 win seasons. But only one of those teams reached a final--and lost to Wade/Shaq Miami team.
Socrates,
I'm not ready to contribute in the manner you've described, just yet, but you are welcome to use anything I post to this comment thread in a composition of your own, if you think there is anything of real interest amongst my ramblings. I respect your compositional skills and frankly don't feel that mine are at the same level.
sweashi,
I am very much aware of the Dominionists - unfortunately. What a horrifying concept; turning North America into a Christian fundamentalist theocracy?
There is a symbiotic relationship between the Patriot/Christian Militia new world order-illuminati paranoids and the ritual abuse-mind control survivor/therapist cultists. (there are actually many direct connections between the two communities, demonstrated by the relationships between Gunderson, John DeCamp, Bo Gritz, Ken Adachi, Tim White, Brice Taylor, Ellen Lacter, Kathleen Sullivan, Paul Bonnaci,etc.)
The ritual abuse/mind control survivors derive their imaginary life histories from the mythologies of the NWO-Illuminati conspiracy theories of the Militias.
The ritual abuse/mind control survivors then function as "whistleblowers" - Hofstadter's "renegades" - for the NWO-Illuminati paranoid politics of the Militias. They function as "the living evidence", "proof", that the NWO-Illuminati conspiracy is reality and therefore that western society is hopelessly corrupted by secret societies composed of morally deranged satanic pedophile billionaires.
If that were really true, you see, it would mean that the only hope of escaping enslavement by invisible tyrranies would come from "morally righteous" people who understand "the truth" seizing control of our governments and public institutions. Or, the population could voluntarily turn over control to...the Dominionists! - with the Patriot Militias functioning as Inquisitor/religious police, rounding up all the secretly morally corrupt elements of our societies. Oh yea.
Anyone who thinks that the Patriots have been plastering the internet with ritual abuse-mind control survivor stories because they are "concerned about child abuse" is completely deluded! They do that as a propaganda & recruitment program. They hope these "survivor" stories will convince the naive average person that our institutions are hopelessly corrupted, and terrify them into joining (or at least becoming supportive of) local groups of heavily armed paranoids "for their own protection". And guess what? IT WORKS. It even works on some Progressives, apparently.
Some people who publicly trumpet being concerned about child abuse are actually exploiting that tragic issue to advance another agenda. This happens on both the Right and the Left, and it makes me furious.
For example, an alleged Progressive named Sander Hicks has been promoting his friend Nick Bryant's book "The Franklin Scandal". Bryant claims that the book is an expose of child trafficking, of rich and powerful men sexually exploiting vulnerable teens and then using their power and influence to corrupt the justice system into covering-up what they'd done.
Hicks claims to be promoting Bryant's book out of concern for abused children. I know that cannot be his real motivation, however, because Hicks has gone out of his way to promote "the cause" of not one but two CONVICTED PEDOPHILES and cast them as heroic whistleblowers!
I'm talking about Delmart Vreeland and Richard Taus. You can get their stories by googling them if you want.
The hypocrisy of someone who claims to be concerned about abused children casting pedophiles as heroes is just UNBELIEVABLE! Why would Hicks do this? Because both these persons claim to be government/intelligence agency whistleblowers exposing secret criminal conspiracies involving political leaders and intelligence agencies.
THAT is Sander Hicks real agenda - to find & promote some kind of dirt that could "discredit" our governments and public institutions in the eyes of the public. Hicks agenda, is to "discredit" governments and public institutions. That is what most of his writing and activism has been concerned with. NOT child welfare.
And that is why Sander Hicks is promoting Nick Bryant's book. NOT because Hicks is concerned about abused children - he wouldn't promote the cause of convicted pedophiles if he really was concerned about child abuse - but because The Franklin Case involves wealthy powerful men, law enforcement and government agencies being accused of corruption and pedophilic activity. Hicks promotes Bryant's book because it represents "dirt" that could "discredit" political leaders and public institutions.
If he was open & honest about his real motivation, I'd say - great, go for it! Exposing verifiable criminal misdeeds by politicians and government agencies is undeniably a good thing for society. But don't claim to be an advocate for abused children when you've promoted pedophiles as heroes.
Socrates asked for a Canadian perspective on something, so here goes:
I've talked about the satanic cult survivor mythology, but not the mind-control experiment survivor mythology. After the FBI's Ken Lanning revealed that the FBI could find no evidence of multigenerational child-abusing satanic cults, SRA as a cause of multiple personality disorder was discredited.
Colin Ross was making a killing promoting and treating MPD and weren't going to give up their golden goose, so he and his staff (such as Corrydon Hammond) attempted to come to the rescue with a new "root cause" for MPD - CIA mind-control experimentation.
There's a grain of truth in that idea. The CIA really did finance mind-control experimentation in a variety of forms. They really did experiment with the possibility of creating agents who would have a second "personality" with no knowledge of their own status as a CIA operative. If they were captured while the secondary persona was activated, they couldn't betray themselves or the agency, was the idea. These experiments involved hypnosis as the means of generating a secondary persona, they had nothing to do with creating full-blown MPD via torturing little children.
The reality of these CIA funded experiments provided a plausible alternate explanation for the origin of MPD in Ross' patients. The fact that the CIA destroyed most of the records about these programs was extremely convenient, allowing an alleged victim to plausibly claim that there was no documentation of their victimization because the CIA had destroyed all the records.
But, that isn't really true. There ARE CIA funded mind-control experimentation survivors who have extensive documentation of their victimization. There are 77 Canadians who were victims of Ewan Cameron's CIA funded experimentation. Their identities are known, and their victimization so well documented that they were awarded compensation payments.
There is, however, NO evidence that any of these people;
- were raised in multigenerational satanist families with ties to the CIA
- had multiple personalities intentionally induced in them
- were used for prostitution, pornography, sex slavery or drug-running.
The reality of the Canadian mind-control experimentation survivors does not support the fantasies of the Brice Taylors, the Kathleen Sullivans or the Paul Bonnacis of the Extreme Abuse Survivor cult.
Thanks for the kind words, Bob, but a lot of my stuff is about packaging- screenshots, a video or two, throw in some links. Your posts have been just as good. Just because myself and donkeytale try to be entertaining, that doesn't mean your stuff is boring or irrelevant. Au contraire.
If you were on the mailing list, you'd be able to moderate the archived threads related to this topic. People are still showing up on those old threads. Plus, donkeytale's correct. Those posts you've made above could pass for a stand alone entry. I think that would be repetitious, but nonetheless, you do have fine writing skills. academic integrity, relevant experiences, research, and the aptitude to articulate your finds.
There's always going to be a learning curve. For example, I didn't know until recently one bit about McMartin, mostly just the name, similar to that sweetie named Greta Garbo. Now in a week, I am an expert on her! I can't get her out of me head, laddie.
This other stuff I can. It gets very goofy. It makes me angry, if I see too much of it. It's not that I want to be alone. I want to be let alone, same as Greta.
Not that I'm the Greta Garbo of blogging or chemtrails. But there has been a time when I used to draw a crowd. Until it got turned into a circus.
The conspiracy theorists are always turning things upside down. If they just weren't all conspiracy theory all the time, people might actually give them a listen.
When I first heard of Alex Jones, I didn't know he was such an utter goofball. Think of Norma Desmond at the beginning of Sunset Boulevard. Sure, she was a bit fruity, but she seemed completely harmless. There's a razor's edge between making good points and falling into hysterical states.
It's that damn learning curve getting in the way. It's the same reason why anyone could audit Social Science 101 classes and learn something, while other courses contain such prerequisites.
Just think of the name drops you just made. For me, it was like yup, yeah, ok, true, gotcha.... Donkeytale was probably like what's a Corydon Hammond? He probably doesn't have a clue about Jeff Wells, Andy Stephenson, and others being connected to Delmart Vreeland. Most people probably do recognise conspiracy porn when they see it. But I doubt many have put together the names and various ideas. (contd.)
I used to say tinfoil by association a lot. That was my bread and butter phrase. Other words stand out for me. Co-optation. Right woos left. Mob mentality. Circumscribing.
It's really not the goofiest of the goofy which I worry about. It's the tier of hacks who capitalise on common truths of inequality and illegal wars in naked attempts to gain a market share in the zeitgeist. I'm thinking of Network with William Holden. There was the Angry Man character. That's what the internet zeitgeist has become; a fantasy caricature of positive, social movement.
So there is an obvious percentage of crackpots, the militias and others you mention. Then there is another level above them, which acts with a veneer of leadership potential over what donkeytale refers to as the whiteysphere.
This leads us to the concept of non-conformist conformity. In short, we are talking about controlled opposition, whether for psyops or grifting. It is common intellectual truth that when fascism rises, it is the true progressives and thinkers who are relegated to the fringes. We are talking smoke and mirrors. Blind alleys.
Some like Zinn, Fromm, and Adorno tried to smash that process. In our humble ways, myself and donkeytale attempted to do the same to the ex-KosKop blog maids.
That was a good job by you to mention the Franklin Hoax, Colin Ross, Hammond, Hicks, Vreeland, MK Ultra, et al. Those are fantastic examples of how controlled and feeble opposition works.
The basic conspiracy theories survive. Closed-minded debunkers are ignored and with good reason. Sincere skeptics are unfairly smeared with the closed-minded debunker label. The kookier stuff is said to have been planted in order to cover up for the so-called widespread, government sponsored, satanic pedophile rings. Jeff Wells becomes a satirist rather than the bold-faced liar and hack and/or deluded person he truly is. There's your plausible deniabilty.
Look at what happened to Dave Weintraub. He uncovered a massive vigilante ring working over Daily Kos. He showed that it had the full authorisation to do its dirty deeds by the top rung of the Kos Empire. But then the story became about Dave being obsessed despite having come up with the goods.
It happens to anyone who confronts the zeitgeist.
At this point, I can see I have entered into rambling mode. My sincere apologies.
On basketball, the only other sport that comes close to the difficulty of forming a champion is hockey. Yet, with hoops, there are only 12 players. In hockey there are three lines plus the goalie.
The goalie is of course the most important. The Bruins would have won a number of titles if not for Montreal always having some out of this world goaltender to stymie us. You could dominate a game with 50 shots on net, but if only two go in, it's all for naught.
Look at LeBron. He is obviously the best player by far as Kobe starts to regress. But one player cannot do it all. Wilt Chamberlain couldn't.
I think you're lucky to have Mark Cuban as an owner. Ten straight or whatever seasons of over 50 wins is remarkable. Unfortunately for yourselves, Dallas is looked at like those Stockton-Malone teams. Very good, but no cigar.
Throw in the salary cap and injuries, and it becomes very difficult for a team to win it all. You need at least two superstars and a fine supporting cast. The players also don't have the longevity in career that is seen in say hockey or baseball. Dirk is good, perhaps has even been a great player. But I don't think he ever had enough help to get it done. I wouldn't blame Dirk. And if you had swapped Dirk for KG, that would have been just as disasterous. The reason why the Celtics won in 2008 was because they had three Hall of Famers in their prime. They were hungry. The team also had that great supporting cast in Rondo, Perkins, Posey, PJ Brown, and a few others.
Scottie Pippen wqas underrated, in my honest opinion. No Pippen and then Rodman, and Jordan doesn't win all those rings. Plus, there is also the Bill Russell factor. If the top player or two can't bring out the best in his teammates, there will be no title.
Shaq is too old to help LeBron get out of his championship glut. Wade had Shaq, when Shaq was still at his peak. Orlando seems to be missing the players to go with Howard. Orlando is probably hoping for Cleveland over Boston for their next opponent. The Celtics are able to keep Dwight Howard mortal through Perkins. Yet, the Celtics are old and vulnerable to running out of steam. This years' playoffs is starting to get very interesting. I think the title will go to whoever comes out of the East. But then again, Orlando, Boston, and Cleveland could end up wearing each other out. Then if one of the teams from the West hits a groove, they could be the one to steal the title. I don't think that competitor will be the Lakers. It could be.
I should start scouting the San Antonio-Phoenix series. Both those teams along with Atlanta gave the Celtics some problems this year. The first round went as expected. Now I think as KG would say. "Anything's possible!"
For pure basketball fans, it doesn't get any better than this. Of course, the refs are atrocious. They and the Commissioner are a dark cloud hanging over the league.
The market suffered a huge meltdown today, apparently thru a trading error. Or did some dude just decide to add a few zeros in the number field before he hit "enter?"A few stocks went through unheard of price swings. Way down then way back up in a matter of minutes. One going from like $40 per share down to a penny in a matter of a few minutes. WTF? Blame it on the infoboobtubez. In so many ways we are in a brave new world that garishly exaggerates our human frailties and sets us in front of a perpetual funhouse mirror.
NASDAQ is basically invalidating trades where prices swung so widely so quickly. This is one that can and should be investigated for its weirdness. People could get wiped out financially over such mishap.
The NBA: doesn't seem to have a dominant team this year. They all have glaring weak spots. Orlando seems to have some good players, though. They had 4 guys go for 20+ tonite in a route of ATL. Still, the Celts have a good chance. I hate to say it but the Lakers still look tough to beat tho not unbeatable.Its a strange year in so many ways. The oil spill is just awful. Ongoing wars, famine and oestilence, economic meltdowns. Repent sinners!
:o)
Bob, the right seems to have completely dissolved into a paranoid fantasy world. Its frightening because these are the bedrock middle class white folks who for better or worse determine the zeitgeist. They seem to want to abdicate any thoughtful address of problems and refuse to be responsible for the pathway to hell their philosophy hath wrought. In response to the warning signs they retreat further into delusional fantasy, like Hitler melting down in his bunker as the astern front collapses.There are no more divisions mein fuerher.Drill baby drill!
Sorry to bump you from the top slot, donkeytale, but you were right about Bob's posts. They deserved their own dairy product.
Plus, Bob's take is a lot easier to digest by Mr. and Mrs. I Don't Need No Stinking Conspiracy Theories To Debunk Conspiracy Theories.
Of course, the right wing gets exposed for the numbnuts they are. I had a Prof from what now seems like the 1800's who warned us about the Evangelicals. He saw them rising to power, while us smarty pants know-it-alls figured he was out in left field.
I threw in a couple links for Bob's schtick. You're getting all the basics from it. Michelle Remembers was indeed the book that set it off. That movie Sybil didn't help either. I've read that multiple personality disorder might not even be real or is more rare than suggested.
False memories of course exist. The problem was there seems to have been some pervert named Underwear or Underwager who was at the top of the food chain for the False Memory Something.
I agree with you that something fishy is going on with the stock market. Dude, I blogged on that story you were wondering why I hadn't, Goldman Sachs. I actually sounded like I knew my shit in regards to economics. It was a masterful bluff. It was a Doyle Brunson 2-9 off-suit.
That guy used to play basketball. But he had a bad injury. He says he got into poker to stay in sports. The card games are on ESPN, so it must be the truth.
Orlando's looking good. I saw a few minutes of that, when Orlando had gone from losing badly to pounding the Hawks. We'll see what the Magic are made of against a good team. It won't be this round.
LeBron's really hurting. If so, the best series to watch might be an Orlando-Boston ECF, if the C's can knock off the Cavs.
San Antonio is hurting. But they have their home games to try to get back into it. The Lakers probably won't face a real challenge from Utah. I could also see the Lakers making the finals. A Celtics-Lakers one would be epic.
I don't fear Orlando that much. A bit of course. I kind of fear Phoenix. That kind of team does well against the Celtics' vaunted defense. We'll know more soon. Win or go home.
No probs with the bumping. Mine was a cut n paste comment into a dairy and then Bob came along and added some real writing in the threads. Weird how that works....my only oroblem was when you immediately bumoed my (ahem) real writing for some quickie cut n paste youtube schtick....the market will be worth watching today. Everyone knows the game is rigged and computers once again emerge as crime tools. The latest theory is that short sellers sold unblievably large amts of Proctor and Gamble and Accenture, setting off computuerized stop loss sell orders in a frenzy as the market for these stocks collapsed. The circuit breakers weren't kicked in fast enuff and no, uhm, human intervention called halt either. Accenture fell frm like $40 to a penny in minutes. If you don't know, short selling is betting on a stock to decline and the farther it falls the more money you make. Of course, if the stock price rises you lose and lose more if the stock keeps rising.
Its been suggested that someone sold huge amounts of a few stocks yesterday, triggering the already negative market sentiment into a computerized route which allowed a short seller to then make huge profits buying the stocks back at lower prices in a matter of a few minutes.
Exploiting the regulatory loopholes and human lazy ignorance with the blietzkrieg speed of the infoboobtubez.
A few made easy millions by trickfucking trading programs into triggering automated sell orders.
This another opportunity for Obama to step up calls for reform. The short term bubblish trading needs to be outlawed or heavily taxed to discourage its practice.
People who were on the sidelines owning these stocks with typical "stop loss" protection, meaning a standing order to sell if the stock drops below a certain point lost huge yestreday to someone playing games, is what it appears.
So we're supposed to believe that market scare was the result of a computer glitch? That's the ticket?
I was looking over a Garbo silent movie last night called The Joyless Street. It was about poverty and greed in Vienna after WW1. Greta's father takes his pension and puts it into an on the rise mining company. However, the pigs then spread a rumour that there was going to be a strike. The prices dropped, and Greta's Papi lost everything.
I thought to myself, what a stupid movie. You know, a nice attempt but too shallow. But then I went to imdb.com to check out reviews. It turns out the censors chopped off about 115 minutes! You'd have to go to some Musuem in Berlin to watch the real thing. And even then, I think you'd need to learn German.
I have changed my mind a bit about silent movies. I bet some of them were pretty good. But that anything good was butchered. The Frankfurt School was right about the Culture Industry. Orwell knew what he was talking about when he penned 1984. A lot of people like to talk up America as being the greatest. We're not. We stink, donkeytale. Our shit stinks worse than that from most other countries.
Greta was sweet. She must have been about 22 back then. Her teeth weren't capped yet. I liked her better that way.
I don't blame her for hiding from the world. She was a regular guy who by chance became a movie star. As she said in one flick, "Put that in your pipe and smoke it!"
I find myself retreating to my original thoughts of Hollywood having always been full of shit. It's probably for the best. It was a nice ride watching these old flicks. Yet ultimately, it's a waste of time. There have been only so many great pictures and apparently a whole lot of censorship.
"Satanic Ritual Abuse" and Global 'Metal' Satanic Cult Accusations in 'Evangelist christian' Circles
This is a long read but.... Is a neccisary one to debunk the BS the Evangelists have been spreading...
One night in 2006ish I started watching a 'documentery' on satanism on TV. First of all my reason to do this was to be curious if they started mentioning the age-old stereotype that all Metalheads are Satanists. Well at first they mentioned the so-called "satanic ritual abuse" cases and all that. Later on they brought in Ted Gunderson and Former Preacher and FBI Agent. He 'investigated' a Killing where some guy (Forgot his name) killed his Parents. Gunderson uncovered 'proof' that this killer killed for satan. The Proof? A homemade poster based of the logo of a Swedish Death Metal Band's first Cd. The cd? Penetralia by Hypocrisy. It seems the show was trying to push this stereotype.
I then soon read about the West Memphis 3 and was horrified that they would be in death row with little evidence, as supporters of them were...
So I started watching documentaries on youtube about Satanism made by Evangelist preachers and similar people. In most of them they mentioned a Ludicrous theory that Satanists are in control of the World's governments, or the US one, at least, are trying to bring on world peace so the 'Antichrist' will rise, and were secretly molesting children.
That part was wacky but expected. The next part pissed me off to the extreme. One of the documentaries (forget it's name) which said those things I mentioned in the last paragraph started showing lyrics to Songs that were Metal songs that were 'Satanic' In nature, including ones that really weren't like Hells Bells by ACDC,
and then showed cannibal corpse (I believe) and claimed they were Satanic. Then it showed Fans at the show showing of the 'Satanic' Horns sign, which really isn't 'Satanic' At all! Then they claimed every single fan and band were part of their 'global satanic cult' who were 'Molesting Children'. So basically they were calling me (A Metalhead) and the rest of the fan base Child Molesters.
So I became a little curious how many people believed this crap like it was true. I still don't know for sure, but if at least 5 of the people who were on the 'West Memphis 3' Murders Jury were people who believed this.... It could explain why the three boys were sent to death row..
More on this at my blog at
waragainstfreedom.blogspot.com
Of course just because someone is into heavy metal doesn't mean one is a satanist. Recently I posted a Pat Boone version of an Ozzy Osbourne tune. Boone's best known for being an apple pie crooner from the fifties or whenever. He basically explained he decided to look beyond stereotypes and check out the genre. What he found was there were a lot of great songs. Our differences are what makes the world go around. As long as we don't hurt anyone else is my motto. It'd be pretty lame if we all liked the same things, acted the same way, etc.. I guess I'm just saying the obvious. There are a lot of other articles I came up with on this blog you might like. Perhaps the best one I did was on Susan Polk. Recently I found about the West Memphis 3 case. What total rubbish of a conviction. A similar one to that is the Amanda Knox injustice out of Italy. You should check that story out, if you haven't already. The prosecutor was big into superstition surrounding satanic cults. Amanda's only crime was she acted kind of goofy at times and at first pinned the crime on someone else. There was no real evidence against her.
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