A Problem of Nihilism: Essay 1

About a decade ago, I had a job that required a commute of just over an hour to get to work. That gave me some time to think about things. I eventually recognized that certain areas of research and rumination led to serious doubts about meaning and value in life. I finally had an idea to combine the various topics in a writing exercise for 500-word essays. But I reached an impasse when I realized I had not wanted to write an overly long and complicated analysis of entire historical periods. (I also became extremely busy with the cartoon series “Scum On Top.”) So, these essays end where I left off, but they now serve as a foundation for most of what I’m addressing in "Scum (Back) On Top."

According to my notes, although I wrote the essays much earlier, I had settled on a preliminary title as dated “4-19-21:  Republicans, the Radical Right, and the Final Victory of Nihilism: A Primer.”

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"A Problem of Nihilism: Essay 1"

 

For the past few years, I have thought that anyone who wanted to test their religious faith might consider three areas to examine. (This would also apply to test one's belief in a "purpose to the world."

 

 Serial killers. In themselves, the extent of the crimes and the relative impunity with which the killers operate are disturbing enough. The number of them in the 1970s alone is startling. And while the atrocities of Dean Corlii are horrifying, someone like Gary Ridgway and his casual disposal of scores of victims is baffling. A meaningful order in things might seem a bit in doubt when a man can get away with killing a human being every other week or so for a long time.

Organized crime. Corruption is routine. Anyone can be "leaned on," bought off, or otherwise used. Any offender can be "rubbed out," which is at most a necessary evil. Tribal loyalty is the basis of ethics, though that is still tenuous, as "honor" can be a pretense for obedience. And as epitomized in the climax of the film "The Godfather," there can be quite a gulf between formal observance of religious ritual and "how things are in the real world." (Which is implicitly atheistic, with no God recognized as a barrier to any evil.)

Genocide. The mass murder of entire peoples. From the most ancient times, in tribal warfare, wherein people of a vanquished foe are utterly wiped out. Then with the rise of great empires that crush all dissent. Later, expanded wealth and technical knowledge led to naval voyages that resulted in "discoveries" of "New Worlds" and the spread of colonial empires. Native peoples are conquered and corralled and nearly eradicated, their victims to a great extent unnumbered, unnamed and unknown.

That anonymity and offhand disposal of the victims seem to be distinctive features of all of the above. A further instance would be that of the peoples of Africa, who were notably subject to slavery. Bought and sold as if they were a kind of livestock, barely named or known except as one would one's farm animals. And even long after emancipation, they could still be dispensed with in a lynching or an isolated unsolved murder here and there.

In Nazi Germany, of course, the victims were numbered and known, like inventory items. The process reached a level of efficiency that seems to have set a standard. In that odd case, the enemies were not so much "real" (in the way Carthaginians might be) as they were scapegoats, seen as specters of pure evil. (A delusion that came from decades of being exposed to notions about racial "health" and "purity." The threat came from anyone who did not "belong," from those deemed "unfit" or "unworthy of life." Or who otherwise seemed a "danger," likened to invasions of vermin or an "infection" in the "body.")

Toiling In Obscurity, Part Two

Recently, it’s occurred to me that there’s an aphoristic quality to cartoons in that an artist might compress a great deal of background material into a very small sample. I’ve also considered that explaining things in "Toiling In Obscurity" may have helped any possibly interested parties to see some of the thinking behind "Thus Spake Steve Bannon." So, I thought I'd publish some essays I began about a decade ago that now serve as backing information and inspiration for what I’m doing with the "Scum (Back) On Top" series. But first, I’ll elaborate on some of the themes and references in my most recent cartoon.

 

Panel 1:  The current president is represented only as 1) a mostly featureless orange head with a black oval for the mouth, a vertical black line in the middle top, a right ear with a 2" x 2" white bandage (as worn in public appearances after the assassination attempt), wearing the black Bearskin hat with MAGA in red letters given to him by Russian ruler Vladimir Putin in the first Trumprussian regime; and 2) an unattached right arm raised with fist clenched in the gesture he made after said attempt. (Along with his exclamation, "Fight! Fight!" this made some see him as a “champion.”)

He is lying in bed as his (now iconic) raised right arm unintentionally suggests that he is stretching while yawning. A recurring dream begins with him giving a great (of course) speech at a packed (of course) rally, with good people on both sides. (Alluding to his statement trying to condemn violence in the aftermath of the torch-lit rally of Brownshirts in Charlottesville, Virginia on 11-12 August 2017. He seems to have understood he was supposed to condemn violence as such but constantly gave away the impression that he mostly wanted to lay the blame on “the other side” -- i.e., the counter-protestors who were NOT Nazis and Klansmen.)

Panel 2: POTUS has bothered me for a long time; it's too reminiscent of Caesar (which was a standard, informal "title" for any Roman Emperor -- viz., "Render unto Caesar....") and is also an example of the "telescoping" of words (as identified by George Orwell) in twentieth century political language, of police states in particular -- viz., Gestapo, USSR, USA, etc.

The specific satire on "home schooling" involves it (along with "private schools") as symptomatic of conservative reaction against public schools in the United States, and mainly the racial integration thereof (under the guise of better school standards and "moral [religious] instruction"). So, such teaching might ensure proper spelling for specialized "Biblical" terms but not be so strong on civics. And of course, there’s an allusion to what the current president said during an "Access Hollywood" interview.

Panels 2-3: In September of 2009, President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of the US Congress to propose a national healthcare plan (which became the Affordable Care Act). Feeling provoked by the darkness he observed in the vicinity of the president, and further emboldened by Koch funding, a Republican Representative from South Carolina named Joe Wilson upset the decorum and respect traditionally given to the US chief of state by standing up and shouting, "You lie!" I've been highly amused at the idea of something similar (but perhaps ambiguous) occurring to the current president.

Scum [Back] On Top: Resurrection

 It's definitely not the resurrection we need, and I regret to inform you that recent events sort of necessitate returning to something I hoped would stay in the past.

"Scum [Back] On Top"

Twitter Moments Revisited

At least now I know what happened to the Twitter "Moments" feature. First, they put it in the "Creator Studio" (along with "Analytics"), then removed it altogether on 7 December 2022.

Not all moments last. As of today we're removing the option to create Moments for most users as we focus on improving other experiences.

Don’t worry, you can still see past Moments and follow Live events on Twitter. 

Most replies to the above notice seem to be complaints from those who liked to organize items for easy reference, things they were working on (particularly artists). That's understandable because the feature helped you put a bunch of tweets (and their links) under one topic heading. But there is a more critical issue. The "Moments" feature wasn't just something to promote your work; it could amplify messages throughout the Twitterverse. You can still see past Moments -- if you have the time and patience to scroll through entire timelines to find them. So those you created are not only not easy for you to see again; they are not realistically available to anyone who looks at your profile. That is another aspect of the general thrust of #NewTwitter since Elon Musk and Co. bought it.

In my case, the relevance of the issue is here.

So You Lost Some Twitter Followers..............

So you lost some Twitter followers, and now mean people are talking shit at you. At least you're not having bombs falling from the sky in your neighborhood. And you're not in prison for criticizing dictators. And you're not little more than a baby, getting shot to death in your elementary school.

Assuming (for the sake of the argument) that 44 billion US dollars is an awful lot of money no matter how rich one might be, how would it be worth buying Twitter if the goal were not to somehow make money off it? That is, in the short term, one could cope with losses in anticipation of long-term financial benefit, but if the thing goes under completely, how can a purchase of $44 BILLION be justified?

As someone pointed out, Twitter has brought lots of people together in many ways on a global scale. And whatever one can say about that in a critique (for instance, Western affluence affords greater access than that experienced by most of the people of Africa), it's simply true that I've been able to follow events in the Philippines and other places by following accounts from there, and even in less open countries by following human rights and journalistic and political opposition accounts. (And it's not all happy discoveries, either. Some of our friends in Hong Kong were very open to right-wing ideas – evidently, due to the PRC carrying the label "Communist" and their taking its ideological verities seriously.)

But while it would be a shame to lose opportunities to draw attention to Russia's War on Ukraine, how much impact have various Twitter campaigns had on the political situations inside certain countries? If one is inclined to say "very little," Turlough's point may strike at the heart of the matter. The ruling powers in Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Turkey, and so on, could be extremely uneasy at the continued prospect of a global network of humans no longer limited to having to "Think Globally, Act Locally." Why would various agencies try to disrupt such platforms (and their inhabitants) if they feared nothing from that direction? And as they've had their intelligence services attack and infiltrate those platforms to disrupt them in many ways, it would obviously benefit them to have a useful idiot to serve the same goal, especially if one says he's going to do things for positive reasons (like "liberating free speech").

But that's only for public consumption, yes? We can now see that the "positive reasons" are limited to a specific ideological stance (called "libertarian" – seemingly, more individualistic, but fringe right-wing in the US) with no objections to white supremacy and other ideas held dear in Far Right circles. And that's also in keeping with what various governments would like to see, whether only in shit-stirring, or in encouraging extensive social conflict, or in installations of friendly regimes like the one in the United States from 2017 to 2021. To some of us, all this doesn't seem so complicated. Turning Twitter into an updated, normalized version of 4chan or The Daily Stormer would serve both to "get the [Far Right] word out" as well as eventually destroy the "threat" that the platform represented all along.

"Thus Spake Steve Bannon"

An ALL-NEW, ALL-DIFFERENT comic strip from the House of Some Ideas! It may make you laugh! It may make you cry! It may make you Question the Values of your Peers! It's........

"THUS SPAKE STEVE BANNON"

 

In his rôle as a public intellectual, disguised as a mild-mannered pod-caster, he sets forth his dogma and stratagems in a never-ending battle for wrong, fabrications, and Far Right world dominion......

Kingmaker.    Chaos Bringer.    Übermensch.    Cyborg Bibliomancer.

He is.............STEVE BANNON!!!

Twitter Moments

Something else I worked on the past few years, under the illusion it might matter or even help, was to practice what the kids today call "Resistance" in the form of organizing social media posts on meaningful themes. Below are "Moments" I devoted some time and effort to in cataloguing postings about racism, Fascism, and our Total Trump Adventure.

The Illegitimate Presidency & the Pro-Putin Republican Party

 

The Last Gasp of the Confederacy? White Supremacy & its friend Donald

 

On Fascism

Some Thoughts On The Donald Sterling Case

The Donald Sterling case is one of those things that disturbs people because it makes them think more than they're usually required. Over the past year, United States Supreme Court rulings have helped to clarify that plutocracy really is the best form of government after all, and that racial discrimination is a thing of the past.

Corruption of unions by employers is okay.

Corruption in political elections is okay.

State governments which were formerly under some suspicion are now okay.

Federal action to ameliorate institutionalized discrimination is not okay.

An important precedent had been set in late January 2010, when the Court had ruled that since corporations are "persons" -- and spending money is a form of "speech" -- any limitation on corporate spending in elections constitutes a limitation on freedom of speech. (A corporation is also a "gathering of citizens," you see.)

CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION

The Supreme Court overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and portions of McConnell v. FEC. (In the prior cases, the Court had held that political speech may be banned based on the speaker's corporate identity.) By a 5-to-4 vote along ideological lines, the majority held that under the First Amendment corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justices Antonin G. Scalia, Samuel A. Alito, and Clarence Thomas. Justice John Paul Stevens dissented, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, and Sonia Sotamayor. The majority maintained that political speech is indispensable to a democracy, which is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation. The majority also held that the BCRA's disclosure requirements as applied to The Movie were constitutional, reasoning that disclosure is justified by a "governmental interest" in providing the "electorate with information" about election-related spending resources. The Court also upheld the disclosure requirements for political advertising sponsors and it upheld the ban on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions.

In a separate concurring opinion, Chief Justice Roberts, joined by Justice Alito, emphasized the care with which the Court handles constitutional issues and its attempts to avoid constitutional issues when at all possible. Here, the Court had no narrower grounds upon which to rule, except to handle the First Amendment issues embodied within the case. Justice Scalia also wrote a separate concurring opinion, joined by Justices Alito and Thomas in part, criticizing Justice Stevens' understanding of the Framer's view towards corporations. Justice Stevens argued that corporations are not members of society and that there are compelling governmental interests to curb corporations' ability to spend money during local and national elections.

Hmmmm, "attempts to avoid constitutional issues when at all possible"? I guess that would give them more free time for golf and knitting, but it does raise the question as to just what the hell they understand their job to be.

Anyway, what's the point here, right? Well, one point is that stuff like the information above doesn't catch too many people's attention, despite the fact that it represents the abandonment of the concept of the need for government to serve the best interests of all the people -- providing some protection and a theoretical guarantee of civil rights for minority populations against the institutional dominance and inherent discrimination of a majority population; and providing some protection and a theoretical guarantee of civil rights for individual citizens against the potential abuses of those who hold real power in society. In other words, the idea that the weak should be protected from the strong.

Another point is that one reason such information doesn't catch many people's attention may be because they are not adequately informed by a free press. Which makes complete sense, because corporate media by definition cannot include a free press: you only hear what you're allowed to hear -- that which is permissible from the perspective of those who own the press.

In that context, it's easy enough for some old turd like Cliven Bundy to be found to be an idiot, and for some middle-aged idiot like Sean Hannity to wind up with egg on his face for his forthright support of Bundy. After all, Bundy got a nice photo op riding a horse while carrying the American flag despite proclaiming that he doesn't recognize the existence of the national government which that flag sorta represents; who would've guessed that Bundy's ideas and opinions would be those shared by members of Far Right militia groups, armed "patriots" dedicated to white supremacy and such??????

But Donald Sterling came as more of a shock: owner of a sports franchise in a league literally full of African-American athletes. Who would have guessed that his private attitudes were merely a more modern version of those of the master of a plantation? And that is the fundamental reason why his private comments were so disturbing when revealed publicly: suddenly people had to think.

To think about the fact that the majority of the people on the basketball court who are playing the game are black, whereas the majority of the people in the stands watching the game are white (as well as referees, management and owners -- those in positions of "authority"). Now those who have worked for Sterling can't rationally continue to do so -- it would tend to confirm the idea that they are his property, and were bought to please the crowd.

To think about why there was no great outrage previously when Sterling was required to pay a record settlement for having discriminated against black and Hispanic applicants to rent at his properties. Those were merely lower-class human beings being affected, and a man has a right to do what he likes with his property; that sort of thing is far less important than the bigoted private opinions he held, despite the fact that the latter would seem likely to have influenced his real-world discrimination.

To think about how awesome it might look if the student body of American institutions of higher learning becomes whiter and whiter (a consequence of the preferential acceptance of the privileged children of alumni), while their athletic departments continue to provide full scholarships to non-whites whose only apparent value to the school -- and, implicitly, in society -- is their athletic ability.


In listening to the full conversation it's obvious that Ms. Stiviano is far from a saint. Their conversation is carried over from an immediately prior conversation, which she repeatedly urges him to continue now that she's recording it. She acts the part of a pleasant nurse, "sweetie," as she gets some juice for an old man. She had allegedly eventually professed an intention to "get even," suggesting that her recording of this particular private conversation was done at the time to have a weapon to use against him. My interpretation may come as a quite a shock if you're inclined to believe her love was ever real; after all, beautiful young women the world over have always been dying to have sex with wrinkled-up old men.

It should also be noted that despite the extraordinary stream of stupid ideas expressed by Sterling, not once does he use the most common racial slur in describing black people. Good for him; that's some progress right there (unless he's only one of those upper-class gentlemen who won't stoop to the gutter-language of thugs on the street). I guess these considerations regarding a rich white man and his mistress are one of the reasons these issues are typically referred to as tragic.

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Another interesting thing that comes out of the conversation is Sterling's contentious attitude about his bigotry being compared to antisemitic bigotry -- as exemplified in the Holocaust, for instance. I don't think this is just a simple case of hypocrisy. When a Jewish American is unable to see or unwilling to acknowledge the connection between the Holocaust and racism per se, it doesn't necessarily mean that he is just another stupid white person. It probably also means that the Holocaust is regarded as a unique defining event exclusive to Jewish identity and to no one else; in other words, a case of idolatry.

That goes a long way towards explaining the problem of dealing with the nation of Israel on a rational basis: anything done in its name is justified because of the Holocaust.

This is why the real meaning of "not taking the name of the Lord in vain" doesn't have a goddamn thing to do with cussing or exclaiming, "Jesus Christ!" It means not seeking to justify our actions by claiming that "God is on our side."

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When I attended college in the early 1980s, my Major adviser in International Studies was a Muslim professor originally from Madras, India. I occasionally pursued questions with him that I couldn't figure out answers for. For instance, I once asked why the US government did not regard its relationship with Turkey as much more important to our interests than it did to our relationship with Israel. (Answer: the Israel Lobby.) Another time I brought up a question about Soviet influence in Africa; it's still funny that he hesitated and looked at me with a bemused expression as he cautiously offered this white Hoosier (with Kentucky only a river away) the opinion that Russians are white and regarded as such in the non-white world. (In other words, more of the same, from their perspective.)

That certainly helped put an alleged ideological battle in perspective, and ordinarily it would only be an interesting anecdote and a nice memory for me. But today in eastern Europe, young whites are listening to rap music and their own derivations of it, and apparently think it's cool to greet groups of friends by saying "Wazzup Niggas?" That might somehow be considered progress, if it weren't occurring among white people still capable of harboring prejudice against other white people, like Gypsies and Jews; it's frightening to think what their honest attitudes toward non-white people could possibly be, however much they might like amusing one another with the modern equivalence of minstrel shows and Amos n' Andy routines.

Mullach Abú

Prior to 2001, my exposure to and interest in "conspiracy theory issues" was not significant. In late 2001, I bought a videotape of the movie "JFK," which I'd recalled having seen a few minutes of when it was on cable years before. Some years after this, I bought a first edition of the Warren Report I found at a local shop. In the Summer of 2005, after I got a computer the previous Christmas, I read through ajweberman's online version of Coup D'Etat in America until my head was spinning with names of Cubans and could go no further. (I regrettably donated $25 without knowing what an anti-Muslim bigot weberman would be, and wrote him a message of thanks, mentioning that I'd written a book; he responded in very large typeface, all caps and no punctuation, "WHATS YOUR BOOK ABOUT" )
　
In early 2006, I read an article by John Hunt on Robert F. Kennedy's head wounds and joined the JFK Lancer Forum at that time. Shortly afterward, I read Pat Speer's online presentation (then under construction) and we briefly corresponded by email. When I mentioned I had more of a history than "conspiracy" background, and that Lancer was constrictive in being overwhelmingly all-JFK, he suggested I check out The Education Forum as there was more variety and discussions went on with authors and participants in historical events. I found The Education Forum particularly attractive as it had a great many subject areas (outside of conspiracy issues) where I felt more at home.
　
About this same time (early in 2006), Larry Hancock posted at the Lancer Forum asking for help in research he was doing on Robert Kennedy's assassination. I transcribed and emailed him some brief excerpts from 2 books I owned (Curt Gentry's biography of J. Edgar Hoover and Jeff Shesol's Mutual Contempt, a study of Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy's relationship). These were fairly insignificant (Hoover broke the news to RFK of President Kennedy's assassination with his first words being, "I have news for you"), but at the time it seemed like I may have been the only one to respond. The next thing I knew, I was heavily involved in researching the case, having access to the local library's copies of William Klaber and Phil Melanson's Shadow Play and Dan Moldea's The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy.
　
I visited the FBI's website and downloaded what was purported to be the FBI "Summary" report on the case. In describing it to Larry in an email, he wrote back asking if I had found what he called the long-lost Kranz Report. Since I had no idea what "the Kranz Report" was, much less that it was "long-lost," I was able to confirm that it was indeed an official report from the mid-1970s made by Thomas F. Kranz, serving as Special Counsel to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, and that apparently the FBI thought it suitable enough to be represented as "their" report on the case. Larry then sent me rough drafts of 6 chapters he'd written, which he later proposed to be intended as a monograph, and which eventually wound up as the 6 essays of "Incomplete Justice" posted at the Mary Ferrell website. My main contribution to these were the Kranz Report excerpts of what was then Chapter 4 (and became the Part 5 essay, "Mind Games") and some editing/proofreading/rewriting of that chapter and particularly Chapter 1.

One of Larry's original theses was to investigate and develop information posed in Carl Wernerhoff's article on the identity of "the girl in the polka dot dress." Wernerhoff proposed that the woman was Kathy Ainsworth, an Alabama schoolteacher by day whose real passion lay in her role as member of Sam Bowers' White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi, a clandestine militantly violent organization formed in 1964. Ainsworth had died in a July 1968 shootout with police en route to a bombing mission with her partner, Thomas Tarrants III, who survived though seriously wounded himself. While disagreeing with Wernerhoff's arguments that this was part of a conspiracy involving the Anti-Defamation League, Larry considered it a possibility that Ainsworth could have been the girl in the polka dot dress because she fit the physical description of an attractive petite woman with a nice figure, and particularly because Tarrants himself had gone to California in early 1968 to meet with (and possibly obtain weaponry from) the Far Right group led by the Rev. Dr. Wesley Swift.
　
Larry eventually said he found information indicating that Ainsworth was not in California at the time of Robert Kennedy's murder, but in the meantime my interest had been piqued by the lack of information available on Wesley Swift. In looking at books at the local library, I found a few that mentioned him in the indexes, but in each case the references had the same basic minimal information. I found more in internet searches, and wound up spending a great deal of time reading and listening to Swift's sermons at a website dedicated to making his brand of inspiration available to the general public. In poring through these, I found an interesting coincidence in the chronology of his sermons, something which could theoretically be incriminating (depending on the development of more information), potentially pointing to a larger plan involving the elimination of Martin Luther King, Jr. as well as Robert Kennedy.
　
As a result, I became even more involved in researching the Far Right, and Larry evidently became more and more focused on investigating the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. At his suggestion, I read Jack Nelson's Terror in the Night, learning more of the background to what he'd been talking about regarding Tarrants and Ainsworth. I also read William Pepper's tome on Dr. King's murder and we agreed that there were any number of problems with it. Sometime after this, Larry suggested to Stuart Wexler, Pat Speer and me that although Gerald Posner's book on President Kennedy's assassination was terrible, Posner's book on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s murder should be considered required reading. (It followed, for instance, a chronological order in contrast to William Pepper's book.) So I read the incurious Posner's book and even began taking notes on it.
　
At this time I was unemployed and soon came to the realization that I was devoting far too much time to "conspiracy research" when I should be finding a job. So I advised Larry that I'd decided to drop out of further research and assistance. This decision was made easier by a couple of "internal matters" that had come up. After devoting so much time and energy investigating Robert Kennedy's murder, I was not thrilled about having to learn a whole new case even though what I'd found and even argued led naturally toward investigating the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. I was just in no mood or position to learn a whole new cast of characters and details about a different case.
　
More importantly, I had become increasingly concerned by what seemed to me equivocal and puzzling responses in email discussions I was having with Larry. He had always been somewhat absent-minded and more or less a complete stranger to the spell-check phenomenon, which was certainly harmless and kind of quaint (routinely spelling Kranz as Krantz, for instance). But taking what was at that time the most significant example, I had transcribed some information on Ku Klux Klan activities in North Carolina from Michael and Judy Ann Newton's The Klan: An Encyclopedia and sent it to him, noting that (according to Jack Nelson) Tom Tarrants had stayed at a safehouse in Franklin, North Carolina when he went underground.

 

Larry responded by saying first that "we" had contacted Tarrants, and Tarrants would no longer talk about the life he had prior to his being saved by Jesus ("we" presumably being himself and Stuart Wexler, with whom I've never communicated). Larry then mused about how Tarrants, "from Florida and having moved to Mississippi would make contacts in NC or be 'introduced' to NC." In order to reply, it was necessary to quote his entire email with my comments and corrections in brackets; after "from Florida" I wrote, "[Tarrants was a native of Mobile, Alabama and probably got his young start in that milieu, through connections to those responsible for the 63 church bombing in Birmingham, many of whom were connected to Mobile]."
　
I concluded this reply with two typically windy paragraphs setting out my perspective on things, with some frustration apparent. Since Larry had closed by also musing about Sam Bowers and potential connections to North Carolina being "mysterious," and had commented that Bowers seemed to be such a loner with his White Knights organization being in competition with older Klan organizations, I began by saying that I felt the Newtons' Klan Encyclopedia was essential for further research. "Having been exposed to much of this for awhile now, I see far more connections than questionable or mysterious disconnects." I said that Bowers was no loner except possibly in the sense of his private life, but rather a committed racist leader

 

"in touch with other more prominent or noticeable such leaders.... And if you see how many 'splits' and factions and name-changes, etc, etc, etc there were among these various groups, you might be kind of skeptical about the 'competition' among them. They all had identical ultimate and even immediate goals, and one way to throw inquiring minds off the trail was to give the appearance of competition and splits. Keith Gilbert was with Richard G. Butler at the Aryan Nations compound in Idaho, but they had a split, so Gilbert set up his own group A FEW MILES DOWN THE ROAD.... It’s far more likely (to me, anyway) that Bowers' White Knights was and was understood as an effective clandestine real-action force that 'got things done' while the more public Klan served as a helpful smokescreen (the Klan as an agglomeration of redneck bigots who were not to be taken seriously). 

 

"As far as North Carolina is concerned, as suggested in the Klan encyclopedia entries I sent you..., there were all kinds of Klan groups and Klan fronts ('civic' associations, sportsmans clubs, etc, etc) all over North Carolina -- far too many to try and list every one of them separately. North Carolina would seem to have been the perfect place to go if you wanted to hide out. See the attached map for some idea of where there might have been a good spot to look, if you were using the entries I sent...as some guide.... So if there was a sustained 2-year bombing campaign centered in Salisbury from 65 to early 67 and broken up by the Feds, followed later that year by a big bombing campaign in Mississippi, that alongside the indications of financial backing from 'prominent Lenoir County businessmen' and the overt support of a prominent businessman like Woodrow Lynch hardly makes any of it all that mysterious at all. Unless, of course, we assume that the geographical distances (between North Carolina and Mississippi, for instance) make connections implausible. But I don’t know why anyone would do that.........."

　
In retrospect I recognize that I might have made more out of this type of thing than was warranted, and it's entirely possible that I was being humored at that point, in a kind sort of way, as I was still trying to be involved with Top Researchers who had the means and experience to do things like file FOIA requests, interview people, and so on, none of which I was ever in any financial position to do. But in any event I did at that time drop out of further active research assistance.
　
A few months later, Larry contacted me to advise that his RFK essays were being published online at the Mary Ferrell website and thought I might be interested in taking part in discussions on the case at the Lancer Forum. I did so, and we found that we were largely talking to each other (with the exception of a couple of people who were interested in the subject) and I mentioned we might as well have been continuing the private email discussions we'd been having for a couple of years. I was also disappointed to find that apart from sourcing of footnotes, Larry had done hardly any "polishing" of the essays as they were generally verbatim to the original drafts he had sent me, complete with misspellings, typos, awkward phrasing, and so on. And I recalled that the late Tim Carroll had expressed criticism of the first editions of Larry's Someone Would Have Talked over the same matters. I guess different people have different attitudes on this sort of thing, but I would think if someone wanted to put information presumed to be important "out in public" to be read and taken seriously, they might take more care in the actual writing of the thing.
　
About the only positive thing to come of all this was that I got to meet and fall in love with the one person who's brought some happiness into my life. But that was yet another thing that apparently was not meant to be. In the course of our relationship I traveled to her homeland to be with her and to walk and walk and walk and walk all over its capital city. (This was more to do with getting to the buses to go visit her in her part of town and to find things like a hammer and a toilet plunger than with any love of walking on my part.) In the course of this, at one point I got the opportunity to (as I thought) finally liberate myself from involvement in the Conspiracy Research Community when I found myself sitting in an internet cafe in Kavaklıdere and wrote a post in The Education Forum advising a well-known turd of a fellow that I intended to shit on his face if I ever saw it in real life.
　
That was in the Spring of 2010, but about a year before this I had been contacted by Larry Hancock who informed me that his and Stuart Wexler's book on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. was in the process of being published, at that time titled "Seeking Armageddon" (to the best of my recollection, maybe it was "Chasing Armageddon"). It was either then or maybe sometime in 2011 that Larry asked for the website address for the Wesley Swift sermons (for the book's sourcing). But in any event, it was in that Winter 2009 email that Larry informed me that he and "Stu" had developed information about a violent clandestine Far Right organization that appeared to be highly important in their investigation of the case. I had to start my email reply with, "I assume we're still talking about the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan?"
　
For two years I was pretty much completely free from involvement and even interest in what was going on in the Conspiracy Research Community. Then in the late Winter of 2012, Larry wrote me an email expressing the hope that I was still using that email address and advising me that his and Stuart Wexler's book on Martin Luther King, Jr. had been published and wondered if I was interested in taking part in forum discussions on the case. So I ventured back to The Education Forum, feeling fairly embarrassed about my last post in it. I found little seemed to have changed other than the fact that the writings of Larry Hancock as well as Bill Kelly now seemed much less beset by typos and spelling errors than previously, and that unfortunately Stephen Turner had dropped completely out of sight shortly after he'd had to edit out the vulgar bits of my last post.
　
As I began to enter into the Martin Luther King, Jr. discussions, an old friend dropped by, the same turd of a fellow who now had a new interest in a topic area he'd previously been completely absent from (despite years of ample opportunity). At some point I mentioned to him possible connections of the Far Right in Canada to James Earl Ray's activities, and before I got a chance to reply to his typical request for "proof," Larry Hancock replied to my post -- helpfully advising me of some sources where I might "start" if I were interested in learning about this Far Right business.
　
After a few months of being utterly discouraged and wondering what the hell I'd wasted so much of my time and life for, only to ultimately find that someone I'd had innumerable email exchanges with somehow didn't even recognize me although he himself had invited me to take part in the damned discussions, I came to a decision about what to do to try to make something out of what appeared to be not just nothing but an absurdity of nothing. I had edited and rewritten my study of John the Baptist and hoped at some point to have this published as a second edition, but in the Summer of 2012 I decided to give up on this and just put the damn thing on a blog. This seemed the best thing to do since, having written something, one's main hope is to have it read. And I would be turning 50 in another year and didn't seem to be getting younger, so I had started to think about what was "important" in terms of a "legacy" and being of some use to my fellow human beings. So once I'd made the decision about putting the book on a blog it also occurred to me that I could make all my research files publicly available as well.
　
The Education Forum seemed the best place to do this, for a number of reasons. The main one was that I had always admired what Andy Walker and John Simkin had done in making an educational and research resource available online. This seemed to me to be "what it's all about" in terms of what I had understood genuine Socialism to be; if the world and its people are ever going to make any progress away from the idolatry of grasping after money and the "collateral" exploitation of other humans in doing it, then there need to be concrete examples of how that might work. So my idea was to stop "hoarding" information in hopes of one day "profiting" from it and instead make it completely and transparently available to others, now and in the future. In certain formulations this is also "the Christian thing to do," as in "give without expecting anything in return."
　
Before I could get underway with this, I started a new job in the first week of August that required an hour's drive to get to work, and I stayed away from forum involvements as I concentrated on getting settled in to the job. When I returned a few months later, I found that there must have been some controversy as Greg Parker had removed his photo avatar and (seemingly) deleted all his posts at The Education Forum. Curious about this, I did some forum searching going back through a good many threads and posts made during my 2-year absence and found that it involved some serious disagreements some members had with David Lifton, author of Best Evidence, and particularly the alleged protection (from criticism) of Lifton on the part of certain (to me unknown) Education Forum moderators. In this search I also read Richard Sprague's article on Lifton that one of the members had provided a link for, after reading which I agreed that there were legitimate, serious questions to be considered regarding Lifton as any kind of reliable source for anything.
　
In any event, for the next few months I posted my research files at The Education Forum, beginning with those I had on John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. as these were in the small folders. I had finished with this and was trying to organize what order the Robert Kennedy files should be presented when I once again had to drop out briefly as I moved to a new place in April (in order to cut my drive-time to work in half). So I had no internet for about a month and a half; when I returned to The Education Forum this time, I found that now Lee Farley had removed his avatar photo and also seemingly removed his posts, and I also witnessed something I'd never before seen in the previous 7 years or even thought possible: Robert Charles-Dunne in an angry mood. A fellow named Paul Trejo was in the process of being sliced and diced and roasted over an open fire, having apparently made one too many of the typically thoughtless assertions that he thought helped make for sound argument. I wanted to tell him that while I could admire the bravery of the thing, I couldn't help but think that taking on Robert Charles-Dunne was almost certainly another example of poor judgment.
　
I believe the foregoing is sufficient background for my experience(s) in the Conspiracy Research Community without going into any rehash of what happened at The Education Forum about a month ago. Some of us decided to do what we believed was the right thing to do, and some of us paid a price for it. If others can in good conscience go on with business as usual, that's on them. I'm only going to resume what I'd been trying to do for the past year (somewhat out of order now and with the occasional diversion of music or whatever else I feel like presenting), and let others make their own decisions about things.