Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Candles in the Dark of the Night

When you feel so alone while the world is going mad around you, a candle in the dark is a god-send. We hold these blogs and websites up as candles, hoping they gather together to shine the truth into the darkness. Please be one of them. Join in the resistance. Hold agains the darkness of madmen like Cheney, Rove, GWB and the minions that do their bidding too willingly. Truth is the only power that will bring them down. Spread it loud and far.

Blue Ibis

Bridge Over Troubled Waters

Smoking Mirrors: And Down Will Come Baby, Cradle and All.

Reading the above linked blog nearly made me cry. Why? Well, because I have heard the same frustration and despair expressed by other sincere activists for World Peace in the past couple of weeks. The despair of the front line is setting in. Yes, it looks like COINTELPRO is winning. The depression is spreading among those who have been keeping up the good fight for so long; we are succumbing to the disease. But is that really true?
Perhaps with understanding we can find a remedy, a Bridge Over Troubled Wateer.
When you're weary, feeling small, when tears are in your eyes, I’ll dry them all. I'm on your side, oh, when times get rough and friends just can't be found, like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down. Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.

When you're down and out, when you're on the street, when evening falls so hard, I’ll comfort you. I'll take your part, oh, when darkness comes and pain is all around, like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down. Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.

Sail on silver girl, sail on by. Your time has come to shine, All your dreams are on their way. See how they shine, oh and when you need a friend, I'm sailing right behind Like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind. Like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind. [© 1969 Paul Simon]
First of all, I think that Lobaczewski has produced about the most valuable document for our times (or any times) that I have ever encountered. Every activist needs to read this material and read it carefully. You can't go into battle without studying the opposition, knowing their strengths, weaknesses, strategies, and so on. Lobaczewski and those other activists and resistance fighters have already been through this. They studied it and mapped it. And the fact is, if you don't study what you are up against, you will make stupid mistakes, you will think you are winning when you are losing, and conversely, you will think you are losing when the opponent is just bluffing.

This information is crucial. A good activist can NOT ignore it. He or she does so only at his or her own peril. Yeah, sure, it seems like a huge burden to have to deal with accusations and counter-accusations in the COINTELPRO world, but if we don't, we are toast. As Lobaczewski tells us:
"If physicians behaved like ethicists, i.e. left in the shadow of their personal experience of relatively un-esthetic disease phenomena because they were primarily interested in studying questions of physical and mental hygiene, there would be no such thing as modern medicine. Even the roots of this health-maintenance science would be hidden in similar shadows. In spite of the fact that the theory of hygiene has been linked to medicine since its ancient beginnings, physicians were correct in their emphasis upon studying disease above all. They risked their own health and suffered sacrifices in order to discover the causes and biological properties of illnesses and, afterwards, to understand the patho-dynamics of the courses of these illnesses. A comprehension of the nature of a disease, and the course it runs, after all, enables the proper curative means to be elaborated. "[Political Ponerology]
Just now, activists are the physicians of society. We can't do a thing if we don't know the nature of the disease and that is what Lobaczewski lays out for us in all its horrible detail. We don't want to give up in despair thinking we have incurable cancer when it is just the measles or something that must run its course and can lead to full recovery if proper nursing is applied.

The questions about COINTELPRO backed groups and individuals MUST be asked, but it must be asked in the proper context. The question is: Are such groups and individuals just "victims" of the social disease, or are they a vectors? Are they innocently manipulated by the special psychological knowledge of those with serious psychological pathologies, or are they carriers?

Either way, COINTELPRO is deliberate and planned at some level, whether the individual or group is privy to that planning or merely it's dupe. The REAL "enemies" are those individuals pulling his strings. The bottom line is, if the individual cannot be cured, if their egos are so big they cannot admit that they have been or are being manipulated, then those who seek "health" need to contain them like Typhoid Mary.

Modern COINTELPRO has been developed to an all new level of complexity and sophistication even if they still use many of the old tried and true methods of defamation and slander. After all, they have had access to some excellent talent to figure out how the human mind works and to know how to get to people and even to "trigger" them at a distance. I'm not talking about mysterious "mind control" experiments here, but simple psychological knowledge, though I won't discount the direct experimentation. After all, if you have some control over what kind of psychological "diet" is being fed to a society, you can pretty well set them up to do what you want right there in front of God and everybody. Education, religion, television, video games, control of the media for "ideological vectoring," etc. It's a pretty formidable array.

But again, most of it is "terror tactics." We need to study it and find the curative means and employ them.

For example, John Kaminski and Kurt Nimmo have come under COINTELPRO fire quite a bit lately. They are accused of being on the CIA payroll, of being "ex-Navy intell" and so on. How do you tell the difference? If they say they are not, that's what everybody expects them to say if they ARE. It's also what they would say if they aren't. People tend to forget that. It's like Bush pointing the finger at Iraq saying "You have WMD and because you say you don't, you are obviously lying." Then, of course, the truth came out that Iraq was telling the truth. But for a considerable period of time, lots of people bought into the "plausible lie" argument. You might want to reread all the COINTELPRO posts here, especially the one about the above mentioned "Plausible lies," and try to remember that when two people are each saying something completely opposite, it is NOT usually a case of the truth being somewhere in the middle: one of them may very well be lying and the other telling the truth and nothing but the truth. I wrote there:
The truth - when twisted by good liars, can always make an innocent person look bad - especially if he is honest and admits that he has faults. If someone is telling the simple truth, and the other side is lying through their teeth, the basic assumption that the truth lies between the testimony of the two sides always shifts the advantage to the lying side and away from the side telling the truth. Under most circumstances, this shift put together with the fact that the truth is going to also be twisted in such a way as to bring detriment to the innocent person, results in the advantage always resting in the hands of liars.
Also, when you read the post about Plausible lies, you will read something else: how to evaluate the two sides:

Proof is a familiar concept to those used to conventional logical thinking. However what passes for proof in cultural, social, and even legal terms often bears only a superficial resemblance to what would be considered proof by those who really use their minds to think.

For example: in formal mathematics, proof rules are established - postulates are set out and a structure is built based on the postulates and the theorem. Mathematical proof is pretty much inarguable: once a proof is accepted as true it is added to the pool of known truths.

In legal proof there is a set of rules and a theory which the prosecution presents, and attempts to prove the theory by clever argumentation rather than facts. Truth is not the objective. Getting other people to believe the theory IS the objective. However, the prosecution's theory is whatever the prosecutor believes that he can get away with based on what is known about the case, or what he can PREVENT from being known. What legal 'proof' does is serve as a structure for convincing a group of people of the guilt of a person, about whom they know nothing.

There is another significant difference: Mathematical proofs are judged by experts in the particular case who are free to study any and all information about the case. Legal 'proof' is judged by people who are guaranteed to be ignorant of the case, who are only allowed to study the information presented during the formal trial, and who are not even allowed to consult the texts for what the rules say.

Our culture is so permeated with this “legal argument” system that it extends into our daily experience: the one who is the slickest at using the structure for convincing a group of people of something, is the one who is believed. Very few people take the time to obtain hard facts by carefully studying any and all information about a situation.


How do I know John Kaminski and Kurt Nimmo are NOT disinformation artists or in the pay of the CIA or Navy intelligence? I have done due diligence. Not only do they use their real names, they also have a real history of their public life and deeds that is written in an open book for anyone who cares to read it. I also know from personal information that if the CIA has them on their payroll, they haven't ever sent any checks and both of them struggle to survive every day just like the rest of us. They need help and they aren't getting it.

Speaking of which: We (Ark and I and our research group) are portrayed as either beneficiaries of funds from George Soros, French Intell, CIA, or we are thieves who take people in, fleece them by scaring them to death, and then cast them aside like used kleenex. Here is one of the latest posted to a public BB:

Anonymous Coward User ID: 67366 1/28/2006 6:01 AMRe: Ok, enough about Nancy and the Zetas. What do you all know about Laura and the Cassiopaeans?

Is LKJ the same as Il_Bagattel on STA?

'ill bagman' is not laura

he is a retired used car salesman and health food drink peddler from newport beach CA, in his early sixties he means well but is a total C dupe, fanatical, obsessed

he sold his property in CA for over half a mil and followed the cult to france he read some C crapola about CA falling into the ocean, and he was genuinely afraid! laura reinforced the conviction and invited him intor her spider's web

he moved in to the castleopia dungeons but was within days, due to his rather cloying used car salesman personality, made unwelcome by the cult - some of the cultists said he was making unwelcome sexual advances and remarks to younger female C dupes he was banished to a local village nearby, where he still remains the village idiot

what happened to his money?

LOL, take a guess

but even though he was ostracised he still is so mind controlled that he suffers from stockholm syndrome and thus constantly writes (at STA mainly) about apoclayptic and other paranoid crapola but always referencing the larks and Cs and always in a good 'light'

he is a very sad man and he has no idea how his life has been ruined by these archons - no idea

that story can be repeated in many other cases, and i hesitate to guess quite how many, and quite how much money and property has been stolen by these 2 hucksterfrauds, not to mention minds and lives and shattered relationships and marriages

i wonder if the larks understand the concept of karma?

roll on interpol please DO YOUR JOB

webmaster@maar.us

How to deal with nonsense like that? And believe me, this is a mild example. You ain't been COINTELPROd professionally until there are websites set up for the express purpose of destroying your reputation and thusly your ability to do anything positive for others in this battle against Fascism we face today! I reckon we are about the most attacked people on the net, and we were being attacked when it wasn't fashionable. Maybe we're onto something?

Now, you want the truth? Can't you handle the earth-shaking revelation?

First of all, the individual referred to above is not a "used car salesman" or "health food drink peddler" except in the mind of the writer who denigrates him, and seeks to dirty everything he touches, especially us. The man's father was a Car dealer in the American Midwest. The individual in question owned several nightclubs in large cities there; he also was a musician and played drums in a couple of well-known 60s and 70s rock bands. Later, he joined a large vitamin manufacturer as marketing director. Normal life story. But somehow his life was cheapened and vulgarized in a few, short, sentences constructed by a psychopath.

This individual has been a long time reader of our website, a discussion group member, an activist, (he led a movement to stop the building of an airport in CA that would have destroyed an ecologically sensitive environment), and supporter. When he reached retirement age, he saw what was coming in the US - POLITICALLY and economically - and decided he wanted to retire to Europe. Yes, he was scared - nobody in their right mind wouldn't be - , and yes, he thought earthquakes in California were likely at some point in the future (as do many experts), but that isn't what was driving him: his main fear was Bush and the Neocons. Rightly so.

So, he wanted to get out. Since we were the only people he knew in Europe, and since we could sponsor him to come here, it was only natural that we do so. Yes, he sold his house before moving; that's natural. Yes, he stayed with us for 6 months while looking for his "ideal house," and then moved in there. I have no idea how much money he has or how much he made on the sale of his house. He helped out with groceries while he was here, made a loan to us when we needed additional funds to try to get a mortgage to buy a house (that fell through - loans get repaid) but that was it. We helped him, he helped us and that is pretty simple and ordinary stuff in anyone's life. But see what has been made of it? See the filthy allusions and insinuations? See how it has been twisted to contribute "proof" to the claim that we are just con-artists and run a doomsday cult?

Well, obviously, anyone who reads the work on our website knows better. That is why we take note of the sites that do and do not link to us. That is why it was so interesting to observe the reactions to the Pentagon Strike video which I have written about earlier. After the Washington Post made the mistake of publishing a link to our website, all of the damage control machine went to work and the ONE thing they wanted to avoid at ALL costs was publishing a link to our website.

We must scare them to death.

And I should note that the writer of the above nastiness is very likely Vincent Bridges, best buddy and co-author with Jay Weidner, who is best buddy of Jeff Rense. You know, you can follow these links around and with a little digging, figure out who is who... (hint)

Meanwhile, of course, Jeff Rense got listed on a government website as a major source of disinformation. As Robin Ramsay, Editor of Lobster, writes in February's issue of Fortean Times:

Recently, the US State Department has begun trying to rebut some of the current conspiracy theories about America. Their first targets were a couple of websites - www.rense.com and Conspiracy Planet - and the late Joe Vialls, an Australian. What a boost for the named sites! Attacked by the State Department![...]

[Y]ou don't have to be a PR genius to see that what you simply mustn't do is launch official attacks: all they do is amplify and legitimise the theories by announcing that they are deemed to be worth attacking. [Fortean Times 206, February 2006, p. 19]


Even though, as I noted in an earlier post here, Carol Morello of the Washington Post asserted that our Pentagon Strike video was single-handedly responsible for re-awakening the public interest in the "No-Boeing at the Pentagon" theory first put forward by Thierry Meyssan, never, EVER, have we been frontally attacked by any government agency. Nor will we be. As Ramsay notes above: "[Y]ou don't have to be a PR genius to see that what you simply mustn't do is launch official attacks: all they do is amplify and legitimise the theories by announcing that they are deemed to be worth attacking."

So certainly, we would expect real COINTELPRO operations to be attacked "officially" in order to legitimize them, (and that's what they did for Jeff Rense), but those who have figured out the real answers will not be martyred - at least not by the official government. It's way too dangerous. Rather, they will be crucified by "Third Party Agents" of COINTELPRO such as Vincent Bridges and his gang of cyber-psychos. And certainly, it is effective.

The problem is, because so few people really think, and most people are really programmed by the "Cult of the Plausible Lie," when folks like Vinnie and his buddy Storm Bear repeat this nonsense over and over again (and it started back in 2001), the average person tends to think "where there's smoke, there's fire." They don't know that it's ALL smoke and somebody else is blowing it!

The word "cult" has been deliberately made so pejorative that people actually cringe when they hear it. It was used with effective results in relation to the Jonestown people, the Branch Davidians at Waco, the Solar Temple, Heaven's Gate, etc. I certainly thought that those situations were as they were presented by the media myself at the time they happened. It was only later when WE were painted with the same brush that I started to wonder if there wasn't some psy-ops going on there: a deliberate manipulation of people's minds. I started looking into it and it sure looks that way. Do your own research, don't take my word for it.

What matters now is that 90 % or more of the US population still believe the lies about those people. (And I'm not defending their beliefs, whatever they might have been, just their right to have them and live peacefully which they were NOT permitted to do. They were hounded and flamed and infiltrated and lied about until they became so paranoid that they began to act erratically which then led to their destruction. Pure psychological manipulation.) I should mention here that the chief ranter of "cult, cult, cult!" in the case of the Waco tragedy, was Rick Ross, good buddy of Vinnie Bridges and Jay Weidner and probably, by extension, though it is hidden, Jeff Rense. (It is known that Rense has some decided Zionist connections so it strikes me that he could be a tar baby to collect all the anti-Zionist folks together, get info on them, and then subject them to later attacks by seemingly disconnected sources. There are also Zionist connections to Weidner and Bridges, by the way, and most definitely to Rick Ross.) By the way, has anybody but me noticed Jeff's ostensible "Christian Cult" bias?

Are we a cult? Hell no. If anything, we are anti-religion and anti-belief in anything. We prefer to collect data and assign probabilities based on scientific analysis. The REAL cults are protected by the so-called "anti-cult" people. They pretend to be "anti-cult" all the while they are subtly promoting a quite different agenda. Take a look at the maar.us website, the ostensible source of the libelous post I quoted above. This is supposed to stand for "Malevolent Alien Abduction Research." Now, get this: Colleen Johnston is saying that aliens are malevolent. WE are saying that, if aliens really exist as a great deal of evidence suggests they do, then they are malevolent because that is what the evidence points to. So what's Colleen's problem? Why does she have a beef with me?

Easy. And I'll tell you how I know. There are two people on her private discussion group who got curious about me because she wrote so vicious an article about me. (I don't think she wrote it, I think that Vinnie Bridges wrote it in her name - part of the COINTELPRO Greek Chorus strategy). So, these people came to our site to examine the evidence by reading the material we publish. Apparently, they were so disgusted with Colleen's obvious agenda, that they decided to forward to me all the exchanges she has with her group, her "teachings," so to say. It's quite a collection.

Reading this material was truly saddening:the blind leading the blind, but more than that, it was worrisome. You see, Colleen Johnston tells her followers that faith in Jesus is what is going to save them from Malevolent aliens.

Yup. Not a joke. And if they keep getting raped and abused (and how they glory in their descriptions of the "disgusting" sexual encounters with their reptoid tormenters!), then it is obviously because they haven't gotten the exact shade of feeling of faith to ward them off. Either that or it's "god's will" that they suffer.

Now, how can you be angry at something that ignorant and pathetic? (And by the way, if you want to listen in on a real exorcism where I never ONCE mention the name "Jesus," and do the job quite effectively anyway, go to our podcasts and listen to the one on "Channeling and Exorcism")

In any event, the "anti-cult" ranters have done a pretty effective job of making people afraid of the word to the point that it's like the Kitty Genovese case... a person can be being murdered - psychically, psychologically, and even literally - by these thugs and nobody will help because they are afraid of getting tarred with the same brush.

And THAT is the point. That's what COINTELPRO is set up to do. To divide and conquer the TRUE patriots and activists by slime propagated by the Third Party Attack Protocol.

Those who are really working for truth and peace will be attacked and marginalized. And then, if somebody starts to notice anything strange about this, they will set up "fake" attacks on each other to allay suspicion. No sooner had I made a public comment about the fact that Jeff Rense seemed to be curiously untouched by all of this than, lo and behold, within a few days he started publishing articles about how nasty letters were written to him from Zionists and his guests were being "threatened." However, he has never published an article about how *I*, as his guest, was certainly flamed and threatened by his pals Jay Weidner and Vincent Bridges and HE published it himself.

And then along comes Daryl Bradford Smith with his "diet coke COINTELRPO" attack on Rense - you know, the flame with just one calorie?

The other day I saw another piece on Rense.com about how the nasty Zionists were making anonymous phone calls to one of his guests and how upset that guest was. Well, gee whiz, I wish I ONLY got nasty anonymous phone calls! After many, MANY death threats, our names and address were published on the internet with invitations for some right thinking Neocon Zionists in our area to "take care" of us. Not long after, two of my children were nearly killed, (the car was totaled when an anonymous vehicle attacker deliberately ran my daughter off the road and if it hadn't been a Volvo, she would have been killed), our dog was poisoned, and we had enough. And then, of course, the "Greek Chorus" starts chanting: "oh, they are pretending to be activists but they really ran away because they are a cult and fleece people."

Yeah, right.

The problem is, the other side has no limits on what they can and WILL do. Every unethical option is open to them. It is NOT open to those who seek truth. For them, the end justifies the means. For us, the end IS the means: truth, as much as we can figure out, shouted as loudly as we can shout it. (Within safe limits, of course.)

But that doesn't mean that we can't take pages from their playbook.

We notice that their main weapon is something like a combination of a Greek Chorus and "clappers" planted in the audience, while the spellbinding actor weaves his illusion "onstage." It is a kind of psychological "herding" and "corraling."

I don't see anything wrong at all with utilizing a similar tactic.

But to do something like that, you have to have a network and that has to be created very carefully in order to weed out the "agents." That's where studying the phenomenon and doing due diligence comes in.

IF such a thing could be done, if such a group would come out in force whenever they see the stalker attacking a "Kitty Genovese", (i.e. any one of the members of said network), the network would come out in force and make it clear that they are NOT going to tolerate attacks on people who have proved themselves by their bona fides, and by their work.

The problem with forming such a unified network is Ego. So many people are invested in their beliefs and they have to hang on to them and if somebody over there doesn't believe the same way they do, they don't feel that they ought to support them. What we have to understand from the start is that most of these beliefs are PART OF THE PROGRAM. One has to be completely ruthless in examining the self and what one believes in order to get free of this stuff. Effectively that means that anyone who is attached to a "savior" scenarios is probably part of the program whether he or she is conscious of it or not. There aren't any saviors! No Jesus, no Avatar, no Aliens are gonna help haul our buns out of the fire. It's all up to us! That's it. And we can only do it with knowledge and awareness! But the kind of knowledge and awareness we need cannot be gotten alone!

Our Quantum Future Group has made a huge difference. Yeah, Vinnie and gang like to rant "cult" about the fact that we have a private, members-only group, and it's hard as hell to get in, but I can guaran-damn-tee that this is only because the PTB are afraid of people actually learning how to work together without egos. It's all about relationships and networking to do real research with all biases removed.

QFG is a blessing to me for a lot of reasons and one of these is that it is the members of this group that keep me fighting. Because many of them are there, in the U.S., even though I am here in France and COULD just relax and retire and let the world go to hell or let somebody else do the work,. Heck, I'm 54 this year, I don't have a lot of years left so why am I wearing myself out? I could shuck the whole nonsense, free myself of the grief that I suffer when I am unjustly attacked, the suffering my family has gone through because of those psychopaths, quit working 16 hour days, and just read and watch movies and prune roses. But I can't do that. There are too many people that I love. I will fight for them until I am cut down and I believe that they will do the same for me. I could be wrong, but I don't think so - they are very special people, every one of them!

Yes, there has been a period of "weeding out" COINTELPRO - that's a necessary stage for any group that hopes to remain cohesive and work toward a common goal. Those who have the seeds of selfishness have fallen away under various trials. In this sense, people like Vinnie and Jay are useful. Those who have the instinct for truth can see through them and their lies, and those who prefer lies because it makes things simple and keeps people from being mad at them for bucking the PTB, get taken in. Lobaczewski calls it "transpersonification." It's really that simple. We interact with people daily, monthly, year after year, and because of this they know us on a consistent, personal basis. Most of our group members have been to visit us and have visited each other. This group works together, researches together, and that means that each of them give of themselves daily just like in a family.

When you get to know people personally in such an exchange, you begin to care about them in a deep way. Our group is our real family and families help each other. The neighbors would not have ignored Kitty Genovese's cries for help if they had known her and interacted with her daily, or if they had been family, even "extended" family.

That's what is missing in the Anti-war and 9-11 truth movement. People working together, knowing each other well and personally, leaving their egos and prejudices at the door, doing good research with protocols, sharing and supporting each other for the sake of the goal and not personal fame and glory. The network needs to grow.

The members of the Quantum Future Group are our "Bridge Over Troubled Water." They work tirelessly alongside us on the "frontline," even if we do try to shield them from the flak and take the direct hits from the COINTELPRO gangs ourselves. We are able to stand up and do that because they are behind us, passing the ammunition, food and water, necessary intell, providing distractions and cover fire, and all kinds of things that can be expressed in battle metaphors. The cavalry may make the charge and attract the fire, but it cannot be successful without a kitchen, without an infirmary, without covering artillery fire, and without reconnaissance and foot soldiers.

So, the bottom line is, as long as the Quantum Future Group exists, as long as children who need a future exist, I'm not ready to give up yet. There is way too much at stake. Maybe I am clinging to hope because I am a mother and I want a future for my children and my extended family and their children. Maybe that hope is self-deception, just as a mother might cling to hope that her child will survive some terminal illness. I'll admit that up front. But even so, if my "child" dies, it won't be because I didn't do everything I could, right up to the last instant. And believe me, a desperate mother can be pretty creative when her child's life is at stake. There are all kinds of stories about mothers who did NOT take the diagnosis as the last word, who did their own research, who found new remedies, and who, in the end, healed their children by virtue of stubbornness, refusal to give up, and just plain cussedness. They can call me crazy, they can laugh at me, accuse me of whatever slime their filthy brains can come up with, gossip about me, flame and abuse me; it has nothing to do with me, and I ain't quittin'. I'll be your Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

AboveTopSecret - Psychopathic Strategists

Didn't I promise there'd be more ATS? Find out below how the well-meaning many are manipulated by the cynical few, to ends the many are unaware of. As always, knowledge protects. Thanks to Laura Knight-Jadczyk for bringing this analysis to the table.

Blue Ibis

Abovetopsecret: Ethics and Google Bombs

I know I said "nuff said" about abovetopsecret.com, but so many people have been writing to me to ask for more information that I will try to answer some of the questions by way of publishing a post I received recently. I have changed the text slightly to remove any identifiers of the individual who wrote it.

Hi Laura,

I have gathered a bunch of information for analysis and have archived it. For now, I'll just give a general report of my observations about AboveTopSecret.com

First of all, from what I can see these ATS guys think a lot of themselves. They are trying to twist the Flying Fish article into a legal and ethical issue, claiming that the main purpose of the article is for commercial use to promote the 911 book on SOTT and that this is not ETHICAL. Additionally, they accuse SOTT of using the article, using blogs or whatever, to "google bomb."

So, let's get into it. First of all, a careful review of the site indicates that the entire abovetopsecret.com operation is a marketing campaign. The question is: what are they really marketing? I'll come to that.

The fact is, abovetopsecret.com is one of the most revolting sites I have ever seen for advertising and commercialism and annoyances. It seems they have one set of rules for themselves, and an entirely different set of rules for everyone else. Better yet, they think that THEY get to make up the rules! They can be as commercial as they want; they can build articles and compilations out of the authentic work of other people, and then they claim ownership rights! In many cases, when they do this, their use of other people's material really adds no new or original content. The cherry on this cake is that they then demand that no one can use the material they have aggregated by the labor of others if the site is commercial like them, or uses advertising like them; you get the picture.

As I said, their big push in the last couple of weeks is to brainwash their members and Netizens that this is all about ETHICS. It would be hilarious if I just heard the story as a joke, but it is for real and seeing the behavior and what passes for logical thinking over there is like studying a disease.

And FYI, there is no AboveTopSecret.com, LLP. It is bogus, Simon Gray says so in a post on ATS. All money goes to Simon or SkepticOverlord.

Simon Gray posted on 19-6-2004 at 08:59 PM

I am the owner of this site. It is not part of a company, limited, incorporated or otherwise. I am a sole practitioner with colleagues throughout the world who help operate AboveTopSecret.com. All monetary payments which maintain the continued service of our server are made to myself or SkepticOverlord. This is through funding created by advertising campaigns. You could carry out a business search but it would prove pointless. Myself and SkepticOverlord own the numerous domain names among the ATS universe. It is not a necessity to become a limited company to operate such a community as ours....
So much for “ethics” and legality. Wonder if the tax authorities where these guys live know that they think they can run an operation this size without having a legally incorporated or registered business? That's one ethics issue. Another is that THEY can use everybody else’s work to make money but demand that nothing from their site can be used on any site that has any commercial or even non-profit commercial interests! Sounds about ethical to me. Not! More interesting than that, however, is the fact that their license insists that anyone quoting anything from their site must credit a misleading, fictitious company name and second, that crediting must be done to non-legal entities such as internet monikers!!

Another observation: In the past couple of weeks, the 3 Amigos have been in high gear, dumping threads, changing threads, getting pissed at their members for not joining the "Pentagon - Fine Focus" thread and generally employing all kinds of obvious psychological manipulation tactics. They are propagandizing hard and heavy to their members about Ethics, even doing podcasts on Ethics! Go figure!

Now, a few items about this so-called “ethical issue” - what they consider “copyright infringement.”

A couple years ago the licensing displayed on the sit was Copyright. Then they joined up with Creative Commons: Attribution, No Commercial, No Derivative.

What they have changed since the publication of the Flying Fish article is that now you don't have to point to the exact Post ID in the URI link, you only have to point to the first page of the thread. They still demand that you give thread name, member name, say ATS are owners, blah, blah..

The way abovetopsecret.com is attempting to use Creative Commons seems to be a clear abuse of the intent or spirit of the licensing. It looks to me as if it is all part of one single devious plan: to swamp Google and other search engines with as many ATS pages and as many ATS links as possible.

For example, what they demand of anyone who quotes anything from their site to do is that for every single post you have to mention Above Top Secret twice, you have to give the named title of the thread, the name of the person posting and then the URL. This means that if I wanted to quote just one page of a discussion with say 15 posters on it, I would have to say Above Top Secret 30 times, and provide 30 linkable URL's . That is 15 links and 30 mentions of their name for the search engines to hit. It is free advertising. It is designed to force anyone who wants to quote threads or discussions to do advertising for AboveTopSecret.

There are some interesting corollary questions. One of these is: how the Commercial for-profit, mega-billion dollar search engine Google can be allowed to display their information in search results without displaying any CC information or licensing? One might think that abovetopsecret.com’s – and every other website, for that matter - content certainly helps Google earn money. Are search engines implicitly exempt? In any event, studying this Creative Commons issue has raised this question: search engines get the use of everyone's material scot-free.

Getting back to ATS: My overview indicates that everything abovetopsecret.com - including their "ethical" use of Creative Commons - does is designed explicitly to spam the search engines. They rant on and on about fair use, but – and this is the thing that smells bad about this Creative Commons thing - if copyright laws work, and copyright contains fair use clauses already, then Creative Commons is just making things a mess. As Creative Commons is worded, the owner can list their 'requirements' for attribution. Who determines what is fair and reasonable in what an owner is allowed to require? Bottom line is, none of it is legal. It is simply a tool for intimidation.

Another very disturbing thing about abovetopsecret.com’s Creative Commons “requirements” is the Non-Commercial clause.

ATS says: "Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. This includes display on any website that contains advertising, accepts member donations, or any other form of monetary compensation."

That is almost like saying that only THEY have the right to sell anything and collect any money! A site that has adsense for charitable donations is also excluded, though I am sure they wouldn't try to intimidate such a site if that site posted something that they agreed with. Bottom line is, they assert that no one – except them - can do anything commercial at all. You can’t advertise your grandmother's potholders; you cannot accept member donations; if a charity has member donations link, NIX.

But that is not even the best part. The best part is the last part "or any other form of monetary compensation". What in the heck is that? How broad and how vague is that? Contributing your time to a charitable organization can in some cases be considered as a charitable tax deduction under certain guidelines and in those cases it is considered a form of monetary compensation (because you get a tax benefit). This is a form of monetary compensation. They could use that last phrase to attempt to intimidate just about anyone they wanted, most especially if that other individual or site published something they didn’t agree with.

So on the one side, abovetopsecret.com uses their CC “requirements” to require the spreading of their name and links throughout the Internet and on the other side, they leave the Non-commercial clause so ambiguous that they could try to use it to intimidate anyone, anytime, for any reason they wanted. And obviously, they are arrogant enough to think they can get away with this stuff.

My impression is that the abovetopsecret.com gang is downright psychotic. I am flabbergasted at what they say officially on the site and what they are actually doing with the site that can be uncovered by anyone with a modicum of technical skills and a little time. They talk out both sides of their mouths at once and it is plainly visible to anyone with, as Laura says, two neurons firing. But they also have a group of Renfield types (see Dracula) who strut around like “Cool Cats”, swallowing whole almost everything the owners and admins feed them.

Now, as I said, abovetopsecret.com has been its own “google bomb” from its inception. What is even more curious, based on a bit of data collecting and analysis is that google seems to actually HELP them. Things that ATS does, if other sites did them, they would be penalized by the search engines if not entirely erased. That is an interesting observation all by itself and will require more data collection over a period of time.

But for the moment, let me try to explain what I mean: It seems that the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) rules don't apply to AboveTopSecret. Not only do they have adverts posted to Google groups but also all over the Internet in bookmark resources, business directories, you name it. Their very own Forum Tagging system should act against them, but instead, for abovetopsecret.com, it only seems to help put more searchable hits into google! They have changed servers 4 times in three years which is a big negative according to search engine criteria. They have content cached under IPS and domain names. There are plausible explanations for many of these things (website owners change servers, websites have mirrors, etc.), but the enormity of it all put together with the obvious favors that google bestows upon them is significant.

Every action the owners take for what Simon calls "User Experience" is actually designed for one reason and one reason only, and that is to fill Google and search engines with pages and pages and pages.

By utilizing the psychological dependency that they have induced in their members, (it's almost cult like!) they get free labor to accomplish any marketing strategies that they come up with. They go on and on about poor ATS and how well-meaning and benevolent they are and have been and want to be, so now everyone must come out and show the world all the great work they do by putting the greatest threads in this new thread. Then, like robots, everyone comes obeys. In fact, that is what their whole COINTELPRO thread is about: it is designed to shove SOTT out of the search results, lure people to their site, and then present them with this great advertising page where they can slurp up more money.

What is sick is observing that the owners clearly know what they are doing. They know how they can manipulate the members to do whatever they want to accomplish as a business and marketing strategy. They know what they are doing in a fully conscious and evil way, from how they create and manage threads, to how they manipulate and use the forum members as tools to create more pages which are indexed in google, which in turn, by “thread targeting”, they seek to attract more users to control, who they manipulate to create more indexed pages, to get more people, to make more money, and around it goes.

Their thread management as stated by Simon Gray, is designed for the same purpose as everything else - pages. Pages and pages and more pages.

It's also obvious that they don't really care what is in the pages. Content is not the issue as it is to SOTT. The ATS directive is - PAGES. If a thread is not going anywhere - kill it. Get people to look at something else. If a thread is steaming along and gets too long, find a way to split it up into additional threads (many people get pissed off) so as to make more PAGES; add features to the site touting them as 'User Experience", when it is really just for pages for the search engines and that is all it is. It is obviously a full time job. No wonder the Amigos hide behind Monikers. If anybody found out where they really live and checked on them in their own towns, it might be very interesting.

Not all the members appear to be fooled, but most of them are so into it psychologically that they could never see it if it was put right before them. As I mentioned, it is more like a cult than an internet discussion. Only thing is, the members don't even realize that. There is no "teaching" nothing to really "believe in," but most definitely, Simon Gray is being subtly promoted as some kind of cultic object of adulation.

For example: To build prestige in self and allegiance to Simon, for abovetopsecret.com, the point system has been created. The Point System is used for reward and Punishment. They have contests to earn points and reinforce their self worth within the forum community. If Simon or the other owners approve, they get points. If they don't approve, they lose points. Can you imagine it? An internet discussion where people are lining up like little children in nursery school to get gold star stickers?

Recently, in early January, ATS turned on a new feature they call member tags. Member tags immediately added 37,000 pages to Google.

Coincidentally, this was right after the publication of Joe Quinn's article on SOTT, Dec. 31st.

What we notice about these 37,000 pages is that they are worthless as far as I can tell. No content. All the tag pages are basically just another form of indexing and advertising thread names. So they added 37,000 pages to Google with thousands of words, all pointing just to a set of intermediate pages listing thread names in categorizations (whether meaningful or not).

It looks as if they may have hundreds of thousands of pages in Google that all they are different presentations of index pages whose endpoint are all the same threads and posts. They self-reference voluminously. They may have ten pages or more all pointing to the same thread link, each one just sorted a different way. And the members think it is all real cool, but they haven't got a clue (most of them anyway). The owners currently are rewarding points for creating new member tags all the time.

They have a another new feature recently that lists last threads posted in by user. Click on a member name now and you get another type of index page all pointing to the same end points again! These things do not have to be indexed by Google and other search engines - it's basically search engine spam. The webmaster could be ETHICAL and use robots.txt to prevent all the garbage from getting into Google, but it appears to be all a part of the ATS marketing strategy. And Google does not seem to penalize them one bit for having 10 or 20 or 30 or more self-referencing pages all with the same internal endpoints! Figure that one out!

Just one user on their forum that does a moderate amount of posting can generate dozens of pages in Google just by their presence because of all the auto-generating self-referencing indexes created by their system. Some may even call this clever. I am sure many of their members would think so. It just builds pride in those members who are being manipulated (reminds me of the Nazis and their “pride building” programs) and if the owners arrogance could possibly go any higher, I am sure they would be proud of all their cleverness that they think no one can see, especially their utilization of the free labor. Bottom line is, it is not ETHICAL. No part of it.

Abovetopsecret.com is quite simply using its members as a free labor force to do work for them: Get more pages in Google which will draw more people to the site which will increase the labor force which will create more pages to get more people, to make more money.

Despite its claims about ETHICS, the bottom line is that Abovetopsecret.com is its own Google Bomb. ATS is an example of everything self-serving in our current reality - it is a microcosm of the Free market system, of corrupt government, democracy, business, almost everything that is wrong with this reality; all this is expressed in how abovetopsecret.com operates.

If the site is not directly handled by COINTELPRO, if the Abovetopsecret.com "Amigos" are not conscious COINTELPRO agents, then they are by default; it serves the same purpose because the infection of pathological elements reigns supreme there.

The 3 Amigos (Owners) manipulate everything about this site. They have figured out a way to manipulate google (that is why they put a thread link called "CoIntelPro" in the banner of every thread page, to push any search results for cointelpro and abovetopsecret deep into the google search pages behind them).

They do much behind closed doors but they show their arrogance freely throughout the site. They push their rules right and left, but they, as owners and moderators break them freely and regularly, seemingly as they please.

In short, it is all one giant marketing manipulation and the owners do not give a flip about the members or what is actually produced as a public consumable, so as long as it serves what is obviously their targeted purpose : To suck in more members to post which creates more indexed pages, to attract more readers, to vector their thinking and make money, and around and around it goes. It is rather amazing how the entire thing is designed and how most posters there haven't got a clue.

Monday, January 23, 2006

Matriotism - Cindy Sheehan's Call to Sanity

Women Everywhere! Today was a day we won part of our freedom to protect ouselves: Roe vs. Wade passed. Now let us move to protect those we love and chose,our children. Matriotism: the governance of mothers and wise women who will not send their children or others children to useless slaughter. Thanks to Signs of the Times for bringing this to the public.

Blue Ibis


Matriotism
by Cindy Sheehan

Much as I wish I could take credit for the word "matriotism," another woman wrote to me and gave me the concept. I was so intrigued by the word that I have been meditating on the possible ideology behind it, and a new paradigm for true and lasting peace in the world.

Before I dive into the concept of Matriotism, let's explore the word "patriotism." Dictionary.com defines it as: love of country and willingness to sacrifice for it. When we all know that patriotism in the US means: exploiting others' love for country by sending them and their children off to sacrifice for my bank balance!

There have been volumes written about patriotism, defining it, supporting it, challenging the notion of it, etc. I believe the notion of patriotism has been expediently and nefariously exploited, and used to lead our nation into scores of disastrous and needless wars. The idea of patriotism has virtually wiped out entire generations of our precious young people and has allowed our nation's leaders to commit mass murder on an unprecedented scale. The vile sputum of "if you aren't with us, then you are against us" is basically the epitome of patriotism gone wild. After the tragedy of 9/11 we were on our way to becoming a fledgling Matriotic society until our leaders jumped on the bandwagon of inappropriate and misguided vengeance to send our young people to die and kill in two countries that were no threat to the USA or to our way of life. The neocons exploited patriotism to fulfill their goals of imperialism and plunder.

This sort of patriotism begins when we enter kindergarten and learn the nationalist "Pledge of Allegiance." It transcends all sense when we are taught the "Star Spangled Banner," a hymn to war. In our history classes the genocide of the Native American peoples is glossed over as we learn about the spread of American Imperialism over our continent, though it wasn't named until the 1840's, when the doctrine of Manifest Destiny was expounded to justify the USA's conquest of and "civilizing" of Mexican territories and Native American populations. Manifest Destiny sought to spread the "the boundaries of freedom" to the American Continent, with the notion that we have a special mission from God. Sound familiar?

All though school, we are brainwashed into believing that some how our leaders are always right and certainly have our best interests at heart when they wave the flag and convince us to hate fellow human beings who stand in the way of making immense profits from war. As Samuel Johnson said, patriotism is the "last refuge of a scoundrel."

Matriotism is the opposite of patriotism…not to destroy it, but to be a yin to its yang, and balance out the militarism of patriotism.

Not everyone is a mother, but there is one universal truth that no one can dispute no matter how hard they try (and believe me, some will try): Everyone has a mother! Mothers give life, and if the child is lucky, mothers nurture life. And if a man has had a nurturing mother he will already have a base of Matriotism.

A Matriot loves his/her country but does not buy into the exploitive phrase of "My country right or wrong." (As Chesterton said, that's like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober.") A Matriot knows that her country can do a lot of things right, especially when the government is not involved. For example, I know of no other citizens of any country who are more personally generous than those of America. However, a Matriot also knows that when her country is wrong, it can be responsible for murdering thouands upon thousands of innocent and unsuspecting humans. A true Matriot would never drop an atomic bomb or bombs filled with white phosphorous, carpet bomb cities and villages, or control drones from thousands of miles away to kill innocent men, women and children.

There is one most important thing that matriots would never do, however, and this is the key to stopping killing to solve problems: a matriot would never send her child or another mother's child to fight nonsense wars…and would march into a war herself that she considered just to protect her child from harm. Aha! Matriots would fight their own battles, but take a dim view of having to do so, and would seldom resort to violence to solve conflict! Patriots cowardly hide behind the flag and eagerly send young people to die to fill their own pocketbooks.

Women flocked to Camp Casey in August to run the huge enterprise and work for peace, and women from all over the US and the world have invited me to visit and speak and advocate for true and lasting peace. Men, who are in touch with the matriot inside of them, have also been important to the cause of eradicating war.

Whether you are a male or female Matriot, Code Pink Alert, endorsed by Gold Star Families for Peace, is calling for an International Day of Peace on March 8 th…called for, organized by, and supported by women. Women and men with matriotic tendencies can get more info and endorse the call for peace at: www.womensaynotowar.org It is past time for we Matriots to get together to stridently call for an end to the immoral bloodshed in Iraq.

I know one thing from the bottom of my heart. My son, Casey, who was an Eagle Scout and a true American patriot, was not served well by his idea of patriotism. I will never forgive myself for not trying to counteract more the false patriotism he was raised on, with a true sense of Matriotism.

I also know that the women of the world who don't have a voice, such as the mothers of Iraq who are struggling just to survive in their needlessly destroyed country, are counting on us women who do have voices to use them to end George Bush's manifestly idiotic doctrine of preemptive wars of aggression based on the justification that "I think that country might be dangerous to me and my pals."

War will end forever when we matriots stand up and say: "No, I am not giving my child to the fake patriotism of the war machine which chews up my flesh and blood to spit out obscene profits."

"It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens." ~ Baha'u'llah

Matriotism above all is a commitment to truth and to celebrate the dignity of all life.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Alito Would Turn Back the Clock. Will YOU Let Him?

It takes a woman to find the real heart of an issue. This issue goes to the heart of a woman's autonomy. If you are a woman, or if you love a woman, don't let the creeping neocon takeover of the U.S. Supreme Court proceed. Air your views and lobby your representative to defeat Alito!

Blue Ibis

From the Signs of the Times news service:

Abortion Politics and Alito

By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
Jan. 13, 2006

The Alito hearing couldn't have come out better for the Republicans if the Supreme Court nominee himself had chaired the committee. Even though it was a Republican senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who brought Alito's wife to tears by asking her husband if he was "a closet bigot," the Democrats got blamed for hectoring the nominee with questions he wasn't going to answer.

The shock of the rhetorical ploy briefly drove Martha-Ann Alito from the hearing room and gave Graham the stage to defend the judge's character and bemoan the "guilt by association" tactics employed by Democrats. It turns out that Graham had a hand in helping prep Alito for the hearings, which raises the issue of whether the line was scripted.

[Jeez, ya think? And check out Dependable Renagade's take on it! Scroll down about 1/2 way.]

At issue was Alito's membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP), which he listed on a job application for the Reagan administration. The group opposed the admission of women and minorities at the expense of the children of alumni, known as legacies. Alito claimed he didn't remember being part of CAP, and early documents of the group don't reveal him as an active member. Yet Democrats kept hammering away until Graham exploded their line of questioning with his mock prosecutorial interrogation: "Are you really a closet bigot?"

Through most of the four days of hearings, Alito sat impassively while Democrats fell into the worst caricature of bloviating senators. There is no danger whatsoever when it comes to the nominee’s confirmation. He'll get more Democrats voting against him than Roberts, who had half the 44-member Democratic caucus voting for him, including the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary committee, Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. One Hill vote-counter predicted the number of no votes on the Democratic side would be in the high 30s, no nail-biter but a sign of stormy weather ahead for the Republicans if Alito becomes the deciding vote against Roe v. Wade.

A pro-choice Republican who spoke with NEWSWEEK but didn't want her name used said she is more worried about Alito after hearing him testify, and wishes the Democrats would spend their time finding a candidate to beat Hillary Clinton in the primaries "or we're going to get four more years of judges like this." She thinks that to win the White House the Democrats need a more centrist candidate than Clinton. "The math is against her." (That debate is raging within Democratic circles, but no candidate has yet surfaced who could plausibly overtake Clinton, given her rock-star hold on party activists and the esteem in which she and her husband are held by African-American voters, a core Democratic constituency.)

It's pretty clear where Alito is headed on abortion rights. He refused to say whether he agreed with the characterization of the 1973 Roe ruling as "settled law," that couldn’t be re-examined. Now that the GOP is within striking distance of overturning Roe, they're having second thoughts. The public is not ready to abandon the landmark case legalizing abortion, and neither is the Republican Party. They used abortion as a wedge issue because the politics worked; they really didn't think abortion would ever be banned. "Any activist will tell you they'd rather have the issue out there than to have it resolved," says this pro-choice Republican, who has worked on the Hill and for various Republican interest groups. "If Roe were overturned, we'd be electing Democrats as far as the eye can see."

According to this source, even committed right-to-life activists don't want Roe struck from the books before society is ready. "They think if given the time, they can change the culture. I think they're deluded, but they know it's going to take time."

So what is the most likely scenario? The fight over Roe is not imminent. The more immediate challenge will be whether underage pregnant women will have to notify their parents of abortion plans, and extending the right of privacy to minors. "Would we have had Sandra Day O'Connor with us on that?" says the pro-choice Republican. "I'm not sure." She expects Alito to vote to erode Roe, and then the argument will be, sometime in the not too distant future, that the ruling is a shell, and it will be overturned.
Then the battle moves back to state legislatures, and some places — like Utah, Louisiana, Missouri, Alabama, Oklahoma and South Dakota — would outlaw abortions while other states, like New York and California, would be decried by the Right as "abortion mills." Politically, the end of Roe would crack open the Republican coalition in the country and on Capitol Hill. The party is full of secret pro-choicers, Republicans who signed on to a package that included the pro-life position with the belief that it would never happen.

[This is how a PATHOCRACY works.]

They've kept their mouth shut all these years, but they'll be mad as hell and not willing to take it any more. "Even if there's no right to privacy in the Constitution, there ought to be," says this pro-choice Republican. "It's an American virtue."

© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.

Please sign petitions to STOP ALITO!!

http://political.moveon.org/protectourrights/

http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2006/1/8/134922/4200
http://prochoiceaction.org/campaign/sen_alito_ban_progress
http://www.oneamericacommittee.com/
http://ga3.org/campaign/opposealito

Monday, January 16, 2006

AboveTopSecret - Newest COINTEL Soap Opera!

If you love your conspiracy theories, this is better than Desperate Housewives! Now current and former members of the AboveTopSecret Forum weigh in with their experiences. Laura Knight Jadczyk sends us the latest installment. Stay Tuned and remember: Knowledge Protects. Extra credit will be given for independent research. Try the searches recommended.

Blue Ibis

AboveTopSecret.com COINTELPRO Update 2

Good thing I didn't bet. (See last words of previous post.) I got up this morning to a whole slew of emails from readers of this little blog, as well as readers/members of abovetopsecret.com. There were also a couple of emails from SkepticOverlord to my husband, Ark. It's all quite interesting considering how the situation could have developed in a completely different way. I'll get to that in a moment, first I want to share a few of the emails we have received along with the abovetopsecret.com "official response."

There have been a number of emails that basically say "Keep up the posts, they offer an enthralling and educational read!" [exact quote from one of them] so there's no point in repeating that over and over again. A couple were a bit more revealing:

Anonymous wrote :

Hi, im writing in response to your article analyzing Catherder's so called debunking of the Pentagon attack.

You guys have stirred up quite a hornet´s nest over there. [at abovetopsecret.com]

Well let´s not dance around the bushes.

A while back ATS had a poster arrive on their site a certain "Whispers in the Dark" I believe his handle was. Now this poster seemed to be in the know so to speak and apparently predicted the Bali Bombings about 48 hrs before they happened. What was different about this guy is the way he posted. He seemed to post in a way that was designed to confuse any Echelon monitoring; you know what Echelon is right?

Now a very well liked and respected member of the forum, a guy who went by the handle "Dragon Rider" believed that Whispers was a genuine insider who had valuable info to impart, for the record I was of the same opinion.
At the time of the postings Dragon Rider was a mod over at ATS and tried his best to nurture Whispers as a source of info. The higher ups at ATS went crazy saying that Whispers was a hoax and that he had hacked into the forum data base to alter the time of the Bali post to make it appear as if he had made the post before the event.

Now opinion at the time was that something was very off about how the whole affair was handled, Dragon Rider was hounded by the Mods at ATS and eventually lost his Mod status and eventually banned outright.
Most of this went on in the private Mod forum but of course with something this big it was hard to keep it from the forum members.

If you can find the Whispers posts on ATS and the saga with Dragon Rider you will see for your self that something just wasn´t right. That is of course if the postings haven´t been erased. ...

Where Dragon Rider went after this I don´t know for sure but if you can find him he may have some useful info for you regarding the suspicion that ATS is a Government run Intel operation, I believe he moved on to another site similar to ATS, it had the word black in the title other than that I can help you no further.

I would ask you keep my [email address] confidential.

Very interesting goings on over there on Abovetopsecret.com, eh? A possible "real gov intel insider"? Well, I don't know about that. But it is certainly curious for the Abovetopsecret folks to claim that the individual hacked into their system to change a date. I wonder if that is possible? Since I'm not a tech type, I can't say, but I reckon anything is possible, even things that are highly unlikely. Anyway, here's an excerpt from another interesting item:

Thought you might also want to note this curious discrepancy.

The thread that was created on ATS that linked to your SOTT article was entitled "Pentagon 911: ATS analysis under critical scrutiny." The curious thing is that SkepticOverlord edited the title himself to change the word "ATS" to "CatHearder's" (note the spelling error, it should be CatHerder's). The reason I bring this up, is because in the emails sent to YOU by any ATS administrators, as published on Laura's blog, they were constantly referring to "our material" and "our work", but when the acronym "ATS" was used in the title of a thread on their website, they got upset and said the article by CatHerder has nothing to do with ATS in any way, that it was purely a work of just a member on ATS, so it should not in any way be associated with ATS.

Fine, but if it IS just one member's opinion with no association to ATS, why did they put it on the front page of ATS and keep it there as the only thing on the front page that has not changed for over a year? And as SkepticOverlord constantly repeats in his posts that he wants a "balanced" view on ATS, yet never ever has he put a link on the ATS front page to ANOTHER article that may give a different view from CatHerder's analysis - is that balanced?

Further, why is he screaming "our material" in his posts and in his emails to you if he does not wish to be associated with the material?

My conclusion is that when it suits them, they disassociate themselves from the material and point the finger at just "some member's personal opinion". But then, at their whim at other times, they claim it as their own. This is a curious inconsistency.

Actually, it is not so curious when you consider the nature of the psychopath. As Robert Hare notes:

In my book, Without Conscience, I argued that we live in a "camouflage society," a society in which some psychopathic traits- egocentricity, lack of concern for others, superficiality, style over substance, being "cool," manipulativeness, and so forth- increasingly are tolerated and even valued. ...

psychopaths have little difficulty infiltrating the domains of business, politics, law enforcement, government, academia and other social structures (Babiak). It is the egocentric, cold-blooded and remorseless psychopaths who blend into all aspects of society and have such devastating impacts on people around them who send chills down the spines of law enforcement officers. [Hare, Robert D., Ph.D., Psychopathy and Antisocial Personality Disorder: A Case of Diagnostic Confusion,
Psychiatric Times, February 1996: Vol. XIII Issue 2]

Inconsistency, changing the rules at your whim or convenience, is part of the camouflage. Lobaczewski goes into a bit more clinical detail about what is "wrong" with the psychopath:

Analysis of the different experiential manner demonstrated by these individuals caused us to conclude that their instinctive substratum is also defective, containing certain gaps and lacking the natural syntonic responses commonly evidenced by members of the species Homo sapiens. […]

Our natural world of concepts then strikes such persons as a nearly incomprehensible convention with no justification in their own psychological experience. They think that normal human customs and principles of decency are a foreign convention invented and imposed by someone else (“probably by priests”) silly, onerous, sometimes even ridiculous. At the same time, however, they easily perceive the deficiencies and weaknesses of our natural language of psychological and moral concepts in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the attitude of a contemporary psychologist - except in caricature. [...]

In spite of their deficiencies as regards normal psychological and moral knowledge, they develop and then have at their disposal a knowledge of their own, something lacked by people with a natural worldview.
They learn to recognize each other in a crowd as early as childhood, and they develop an awareness of the existence of other individuals similar to them.

They also become conscious of being different from the world of those other people surrounding them. They view us from a certain distance, take a paraspecific variety.

Natural human reactions - which often fail to elicit interest because they are considered self-evident - strike psychopaths as strange and therefore interesting, even comical. They therefore observe us, deriving conclusions, forming their different world of concepts.

They become experts in our weaknesses and sometimes effect heartless experiments upon us. … Neither a normal person nor our natural worldview can perceive or properly evaluate the existence of this world of different concepts. [Andrew Lobaczewski,
Political Ponerology: The Science of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes, Red Pill Press, 2006

As I said, we received an "official response" to our email answering the Abovetopsecret.com forum request for collaboration which I published here in the previous blogpost. As I noted at the time, this email came quite a bit AFTER the link to the blog had been posted on ATS. We had the idea that this was a rather decent approach, and our thought was to "test" the waters with our response. If the owners of ATS were sincere and honest, they would have posted our email (even if they edited the remark about Simon Gray, which we expected), and we would have reciprocated by publishing a retraction of our suggestion that ATS was COINTELPRO. Note that this has always been only a suggestion supported by circumstantial evidence, not a proven fact. You know the saying: if it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, there is a high probability that it is a duck even without DNA testing!

Well, the entire day went by and our response was never published. This morning, the following arrived (it was posted late yesterday, we only read it this a.m. Keep in mind we live in the +1 time zone):

To: Arkadiusz Jadczyk Subject: Re: 9/11 research and collaboration... please read From: "SkepticOverlord" Date sent: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 19:25:11 -0600

Sorry for the late response, just checking my email now.

I'm sorry, but because of the improper information about Simon in this message, I will not share it with our membership.

I'm sorry you choose not to participate... and indeed, you hold an incorrect opinion of our site,and an associate of yours is publishing improper assumptions and outrageous fabrications.

All you need to do is examine broader slice for the complete picture:

2004 Top Threads http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/2004_the_year_in_threads.html

2005 Top Threads
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/2005_the_year_in_threads.html

Other wildly popular threads:

I just got back from a FEMA Detainment Camp http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread167902/pg1

Video Shows Beheading of American Civilian Nick Berg http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread48907/pg1

WTC Challenge
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread149925/pg1

Bombs in the Building: World Trade Center 'Conspiracy Theory' is a Conspiracy Fact
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread9247/pg1

Physics Prof Says Explosives, Not Fires Brought Down WTC Towers http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread182861/pg1

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread50025/pg1 Analysis of the Al Qaeda Beheading Video of Nick Berg

Also, please consider this an official request to have your associate remove the inappropriate comments about our site, and site owners from their blog.

Good day.

Now, we hardly think that SkepticOverlord was unaware of the contents of this blog when he wrote the initial email asking for "cooperation." Therefore, the only conclusion to be drawn from their sudden "shift in course" was our refusal to participate on their forum. That suggests that they had specific "plans" in mind regarding said participation/cooperation.

The invitation to examine their threads for a "broader slice for the complete picture" is quite meaningless. As has been historically demonstrated, that is what COINTELPRO does. There is enormous interest among the public in "conspiracy theories," and ATS is pandering to those interests in true COINTELPRO style: agreeing with a lot of "conspiracy facts," all the while keeping people busy talking and not DOing, and also vectoring attention from crucial facts, or twisting the context. They are, as I have written before, "Tar Babies." Robin Ramsay, Editor of Lobster, writes in this month's issue of Fortean Times:

[After 1996 was when] the Internet began to take hold of our intellectual lives and conspiracy theories transferred from TV and magazines onto the Net, where - ever since - they appear to have been something of a worry to our masters in Washington.

The existence of the Internet means that it is no longer as easy to control public perception as it was during the good old days of the Cold War, when mass media were fewer and more manageable, newspaper and TV editors could be recruited or bought by the authorities and stories planted with ease in the press.

Recently, the US State Department has begun trying to rebut some of the current conspiracy theories about America. Their first targets were a couple of websites - www.rense.com and Conspiracy Planet - and the late Joe Vialls, an Australian. What a boost for the named sites! Attacked by the State Department![...]

[Y]ou don't have to be a PR genius to see that what you simply mustn't do is launch official attacks: all they do is amplify and legitimise the theories by announcing that they are deemed to be worth attacking. [Fortean Times 206, February 2006, p. 19]

As we have noted several times, the COINTELPRO attacks on us began early in 2001 and consisted of ad hominem attacks rather than dealing with the issues at hand. It was that experience that taught us so much about COINTELPRO. The fact always remains that when people can't find fault with an argument, they will, instead, attack the person by substituting false or irrelevant assertions about the person's character, life, or whatever. Such argumentation is designed to appeal to emotions or prejudices, and people who are ruled by their emotions and prejudices are easy prey. This is part of the "special knowledge" of the psychopath that Lobaczewski refers to above.

Even though, as I noted in an earlier post here, Carol Morello of the Washington Post asserted that our Pentagon Strike video was single-handedly responsible for re-awakening the public interest in the "No-Boeing at the Pentagon" theory first put forward by Thierry Meyssan, never, EVER, have we been frontally attacked by any government agency. Nor will we be. As Ramsay notes above: "[Y]ou don't have to be a PR genius to see that what you simply mustn't do is launch official attacks: all they do is amplify and legitimise the theories by announcing that they are deemed to be worth attacking."

So certainly, we would expect real COINTELPRO operations to be attacked "officially" in order to legitimize them, but those who have figured out the real answers will not be martyred. It's way too dangerous. Keep in mind that we aren't dealing with stupid people here; they have "motivation masters" working 24/7 to manipulate the public. One of their ideas was the now well-known COINTELPRO "Third Party Attack Protocol." This includes setting up bogus groups and operations - sometimes at HUGE expense - in order to not only be a "Tar Baby" but also, when needed, to launch attacks against bona fide groups and or individuals with no one ever suspecting that it is a State Supported attack. The usual method is, of course, ad hominem attacks, spreading lies and rumors, sending letters and emails purporting to be from the attacked group or individual which seem to confirm the lies and rumors, or otherwise painting the attacked individual in a bad light. An example of that is HERE. When it comes to real COINTELPRO, believe me, we have experienced ALL of it.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

AboveTopSecret Makes Nice & a COINTEL Primer

Sharpen your pencils boys and girls, there will be a quiz at the end of the class. Today's assignment: spot the twists and traps of a proffered olive branch which is actually a poisonous snake meant to destroy all the good that has been accomplished. This is an open book test, feel free to take guidance cited below from students already enrolled in the course. Many thanks to Laura Knight-Jadczyk and Dr. Arkadius Jadczyk for their hard work.

The mind you save may be your own!

Blue Ibis

Abovetopsecret.com COINTELPRO Update

More interesting developments in the abovetopsecret.com forum saga!

As you know, we left the story at the point where I had come to the idea that the creator of abovetopsecret.com - and other forums - might very well be none other than Christian Bailey, the guy who was awarded the $100 million Pentagon disinformation contract. As I noted, I can't PROVE it, but the timeline was sure interesting.

It seems that someone posted a link to my blog on the abovetopsecret.com forum itself... (I simply don't have time to cruise forums, the individual who did this wrote to us afterward, told us what he had done, and apologized for interfering.) At this point, we had fulfilled our agreement to remove any mention of my book from the article and notified the ATS people that we had done so.

Not very long after this, we received a courteous response from the ATC people... it came about sometime after the link to my blog was posted to the ATC board...

To: Arkadiusz Jadczyk Subject: 9/11 research and collaboration... please read. From: "SkepticOverlord" Date sent: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 07:30:09 -0600 Please consider an invitation to participate...

Now that we're hopefully on track to resolve the usage details of our member's content, please have a look at this post, and the follow-up responses: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread189339/pg4#pid1926400

We're attempting to fine-tune the 9/11 Pentagon discussions into a short- list of the most critical singular aspects, then tightly manage keeping the discussion in distinct threads on those important aspects. As you've no doubt observed in the initial 2500+ reply thread, the topics wander wildly so that important items get lost in the mass of material.

We'd like to invite you and/or Joe Quinn (or any others from your group), to participate in this special event fine-focus on these issues. The more we can assemble a balanced team of experienced contributors, the more change we have to obtain a mutually agreed degree of truth.

Also, we have a long history of inviting and supporting external collaboration. Had you approached us sooner with your piece, we would have found ways to feature your article through our site (as has been discussed earlier in the thread linked above).

In the interest of collaborative discovery, we hope you choose to participate.

"SkepticOverlord" Community Director and Partner in AboveTopSecret.com

Well, that was friendly enough. However, there are certain problems with such proposals. We submitted it to our panel and the following "estimates of the situation" were the result:

In other words, we would like to vacuum you into our maw and get a serious handle on the damage you are doing to our disinfo operation which was going on quite nicely before you turned up. And hey, perhaps we can dirty your reputation while we are at it. "Mutually agreed degree of truth"? "fine tune"? Plan C more like. It seems the pious air of disgust has worn off pretty darn quick.

"External collaboration" don't you just love those euphemisms? Extraordinary to see the flipside in action again.

And this one:

This - "a mutually agreed degree of truth." is a giveway IMO.

Another:

Yep, it will most likely use the Delphi Technique where the group is steered to a pre-determined outcome that appears to have come from consensus. Moderators will steer the "exchange of ideas" in the way they see fit.

The technique was developed by RAND in the 70's from memory. And the RAND/CIA relationship goes back a long way.
http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/1998/nov98/focus.html

Another:

I like the "tightly managed" threads of "short-listed", "critical singular aspects". Just shunt each troublesome fact/bone into separate compartments to be chewed on, according to the taste of the chewer. No chance of seeing the overall picture by assembling all the different POV.

Another:

From that little pamphlet "How To Spot a Spy" (gosh, it is such a small book but rather powerful in the simple way it outlines the some of the most common COINTELPRO approaches):

"One way to neutralize a potential activist is to get them to be in a group that does all the wrong things."

Do we seriously think the hypothesis that ATS is COINTELPRO? Because if we do, we need to stay the hell away from them IMO. Also, we would be giving them implicit endorsement in some ways by participating in anything with them. Recently, Laura suggested prophylactic therapy to deal with the pathologically inclined.


Another:

Yes, how nice! They want to fragment everything into tiny pieces and debate each piece ad infinitum. Just what everyone needs: "a mutually agreed 'degree' of truth"!

Another:

This invitation reeks of a trap designed to drain huge amounts of energy. In my personal life, I never accept an invitation from the 'Darkside', because saying 'yes' in the twisted logic of evil means saying 'yes' to EVERYTHING they plan to do.

Another:

The fact they suddenly showed the civil face tells me they are on the verge ofbeing burnt and neutralized and thus losing their value for the gov and it is a very clever strategic movement. I think they have too much too lose and to look civil they HAVE TO co-operate, although I am nearly sure they have a nasty plan.

Another:

It seems really apparent to me that these people are cointelpro. The points that Joe brought up directly in the Flying Fish article shows that they had orders from upon high when they proxied the CATHERDER article. ...
How can we possibly engage anyone who shows that they are completely biased and they are the controllers of the discussion forum. They already have their following believing every piece of distorted psychologically manipulating brain training they choose to espouse. And look at Mr. SkepticOverlord.'s psychopathy in the email he wrote to Ark -

** Had you approached us sooner with your piece, we would have found ways to feature your article through our site (as has been discussed earlier in the thread linked above).

** B.S. - This is the very person whose reference to Us/QFG/PentaFlash - Absolute BUNK. B.S. B.S. B.S.!! Now, are these moderators, owners of AboveTopSecret, that dimwitted, that they themselves believe the CATHERDER article was a "a proof of point well beyond logic". Can they really not discern what is logic? Are they really that dense, that because a piece of debris has green primer that means it was a B757, no other aircraft makers may use green primer, no military manufacturer may use a green primer. The points, one after another are so silly and yet these moderators claiming such great skills in logic and critical analysis seem dumber than mud. I cannot see it as even incidental. I see the whole thing as directly a part of the psyops.

Re SkepticOverlord:

"Had you approached us sooner with your piece, we would have found ways to feature your article through our site (as has been discussed earlier in the thread linked above)."

** Did they afford us this opportunity? No. They proxied the CATHERDER article. Then they promoted it and belittled the Group (QFG) who produced it. They knew who produced the PentagonStrike Flash animation and there was no invite for "external collaboration" "In the interest of collaborative discovery".

This is a fine example of pschopathy or the practice of psychopathic techniques. ATS brokered this analysis, then SkepticOverlord and Springer promoted it coercively, all the time belittling the PentagonStrike Flash. Where was their invite? They proxied CATHERDER's article on 12-9-2004. Well over a year ago.

Their words are nonsense. Let our research stand on its/their own merit. If information comes to light that changes the examination of any of the areas of research, we will gladly update/modify our findings.


Another:

Joe's article sets out the cass position clearly and addresses each of the points in the ATS post. The forum members are aware of the article and, as was mentioned, it is up to them whether they walk through the door [to truth]. Signs of the Times is now a lot more "mainstream" from the public pov than ATS, so it might be a step backward to invest any significant energy in what's been proposed.

We declined the offer, but we wanted to do so in a nice way so that IF, by some chance, it was sincere, we might leave the door open to positive relations. And so, we sent the following email to the abovetopsecret.com people:

Hi,

Thank you for your courtesy invitation to join in your planned discussion of the 911 Pentagon issues.

You write: > We're attempting to fine-tune the 9/11 Pentagon discussions into a > short-list of the most critical singular aspects, then tightly manage > keeping the discussion in distinct threads on those important aspects. However, it is unclear exactly what you hope to accomplish by this fine tuning of the discussion.

We think "fine-tuning" is a misleading and a dangerous concept. Remember that "agents" specialize in "fine-tuning" the discussions on bulletin boards, and in the media. They are also "tightly managed", keeping the discussion in distinct threads - so that it is easy for them to keep all under control.

From our point of view "fine-tuning" and "tightly managing" approaches have never been helpful in scientific discovery processes. Just the converse. Fine tuning and tightly managing are known methods of preventing progress.

Clearly no final resolution will ever be possible with the issues, given that much of the needed information for such a conclusion is not, and probably never will be, available. That is an issue that requires action on the part of those who seek truth, not debate.

The purpose of Joe Quinn's article was not to try and make the definitive statement on the matter since no such definitive statement is possible under the current conditions.

Rather, the purpose of the article was to point out to people how to spot disinformation and to start questioning more openly exactly why there is an agenda to spread disinformation.

Again, that is an issue that requires action on the part of those who seek truth, not debate.

you write: > As you've no doubt observed in > the initial 2500+ reply thread, the topics wander wildly so that important > items get lost in the mass of material.

This is not a surprise, as Simon Gray was recruiting the disscutants for ATS on such forums as newsgroup alt.magick.sex etc.
> We'd like to invite you and/or Joe Quinn (or any others from your group), > to participate in this special event fine-focus on these issues. The more > we can assemble a balanced team of experienced contributors, the more > change we have to obtain a mutually agreed degree of truth.
The term "experienced contributor" is misleading and meaningless. Experienced contributors from alt.magick.sex or CIA will certainly help to find a "mutually agreed degree of truth", but we are searching for The Truth, even if it is not "mutually agreable."

Further, we feel spending energy on any fine-tuned discussion on issues that can never be resolved without more facts, (the issue that requires action, not debate) is playing into the hands of those that wish to divert energy and attention away from focusing on the source of the problem. The question should be why do we need to have such fine-tuned discussions? Why isn't everything out in the open, and who is preventing it from being out in the open?

Certainly, part of what prevents information from being out in the open is the energy spent on debate rather than action. As noted in the book "How to Spot a Spy" that Laura has quoted in her discussion of COINTELPRO:
One way to neutralize a potential activist is to get them to be in a group that does all the wrong things. Why?

1) The message doesn't get out. 2) A lot of time is wasted 3) The activist is frustrated and discouraged 4) Nothing good is accomplished.

FBI and Police Informers and Infiltrators will infest any group and they have phoney activist organizations established.

Their purpose is to prevent any real movement for justice or eco-peace from developing in this country.

Agents come in small, medium or large. They can be of any ethnic background. They can be male or female.

The actual size of the group or movement being infiltrated is irrelevant. It is the potential the movement has for becoming large which brings on the spies and saboteurs.

It is the agent's job to keep the activist from quitting such a group, thus keeping him/her under control.

In some situations, to get control, the agent will tell the activist:
"You're dividing the movement."

This invites guilty feelings. Many people can be controlled by guilt. The agents begin relationships with activists behind a well-developed mask of "dedication to the cause." Because of their often declared dedication, (and actions designed to prove this), when they criticize the activist, he or she - being truly dedicated to the movement - becomes convinced that somehow, any issues are THEIR fault. This is because a truly dedicated person tends to believe that everyone has a conscience and that nobody would dissimulate and lie like that "on purpose." ....

The agent will tell the activist:

"You're a leader!"

This is designed to enhance the activist's self-esteem. His or her narcissistic admiration of his/her own activist/altruistic intentions increase as he or she identifies with and consciously admires the altruistic declarations of the agent which are deliberately set up to mirror those of the activist. ....

The fact is, the movement doesn't need leaders, it needs MOVERS. "Follow the leader" is a waste of time.

A good agent will want to meet as often as possible. He or she will talk a lot and say little. One can expect an onslaught of long, unresolved discussions. ....

Some saboteurs pretend to be activists. She or he will ....

1) Write encyclopedic flyers (in the present day, websites) 2) Print flyers in English only. 3) Have demonstrations in places where no one cares. 4) Solicit funding from rich people instead of grass roots support 5) Display banners with too many words that are confusing. 6) Confuse issues. 7) Make the wrong demands. 8) Compromise the goal. 9) Have endless discussions that waste everyone's time. The agent may accompany the endless discussions with drinking, pot smoking or other amusement to slow down the activist's work.

http://laura-knight-jadczyk.blogspot.com/2006/01/how-to-spot-cointelpro-agents.html

Quantum Future Group, Inc has hundreds of researchers who dig for facts, analyze them, and then present them in articles on our website. Our researchers include scientists, engineers, linguists, forensic psychologists, historians, and ordinary people with a nose for the truth who spend their time digging up information. If we had time to engage in debates, we would have created a discussion board ourselves years ago instead of concentrating on what we do best: research and presentation of that research to the public.

That is our mission and it is a full time job. Most of us put in 16 hour days.

Therefore, we respectfully decline your invitation to participate in your discussion. Joe's article clearly states our position in the matter and further debate or discussion from our side is not required. We research, write and publish.

As for those who do have the time to engage in discussion, we encourage the asking of the real questions of concern and formulating plans for taking action based on those issues.

We encourage you to turn your considerable influence towards discussions that might actually help the common good: WHY are the facts being withheld? why is there so much disinformation and endless discussion while the necessary facts are being withheld? and what to do about it.

There are many articles on our website that are good starting points for research (note that we do not suggest debate - it is a waste of time.) Any results that any of your members compile into article format can be submitted to us at any time for review by our panel of experts and possible publication. You do what you do best, we do what we do best. In this way, a true collaboration could result.

We were, of course, naturally curious if they would share this with their group. Our prediction is that if they are sincere and "on the level," they will, and future collaboration will result to the benefit of all. If they are not what they present themselves to be, they will not post the email nor will they encourage their members to become true activists. We futher predict that, if they are truly COINTELPRO, that the next tactic will be to start attacking us in all the many ways we know so well: paramoralisms, self-righteous indignation, and so on.

I'm not going to bet on this one because I always have hope.