I’m afraid I really have to stop for a while again.

Analyzing the manipulation on the net gets painful.

I’m not talking about the manipulation of the mainstream media, which a lot of people follow nowadays. I’m talking about the manipulation of the record on the net, a more dangerous manipulation, because while people know the MSM lies, they don’t know as well that the gate-keepers on the net lie too.

I’ve been diving down that rabbit-hole and it’s frightening.

There are the obvious things –  Google, Alexa, Digg, Reddit, Facebook, all of which are known to be manipulated and under the thumb of the elites. Then there are the other things…..

The notion of a golden Internet revolution is quickly becoming a lie. There’s a dark Internet counter-revolution too. It aims to co-opt and reframe the revelations of the net itself into the narrative structure of the power-elites, which is always thesis-synthesis:   Zionist world order vs. anti-Zionist world order.

Each of these has its appointed spokesmen.

Those bloggers who try to think their way out of this binary and stay independent are either digitally erased from the record, “framed,” by others, pushed back into obscurity and made irrelevant, distorted and defamed. Perhaps a few have even been eliminated.

This isn’t hyperbole, but careful observation, after research.

Time for me to find a guardian angel who can help me with my work (any takers can post anonymously with a request not to publish)…

And since angels aren’t likely to be forthcoming any time soon….  au revoir.

I’m taking a break from this seamy underworld of the net and tending to my garden, literally and figuratively.

A warm salute and wishes for the holiday season (Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Jain, atheist, agnostic, pantheist, pandeist, Wiccan etc. etc) to all my virtual friends.

Svabhinava.org: (comment by Dr. Sameer Abbas)

“Also, pl. note that there is a ‘conspiracy of silence’ in much of Sumerology with regards to ethnicity. The reason is not far to seek: the presence of Negroid Ubaidians and Aryan Gutians (Lila – Goths/Jats)  has essentially minimised the role of Semites. The Semitists used to claim that ALL of Middle Eastern civilization was Semitic, and that this Semitic civilization was the mother of all the world’s civilizations, and that these languages were all closely related to Hebrew, and hence the Old Testament and the Bible was right after all when they said that Hebrews were the world’s civilizers, etc. etc..

Of course, recent work by Dravidianists and Aryanists has undermined the Semitists’ claims. Unfortunately, Semitists hold most academic postings in the West re. Sumeria, often taking to Assyriology/Sumerology after a degree in Hebrew. Hence one always reads that the Sumerians were of “unknown race”, and “unknown language”. The Sumerians, it has been decided, must be called “an unknown race” speaking an “unknown language” as they were so clearly non-Semitic goyim.

The role of non-Semites in the Middle East is to be minimised at all costs, even if it means destroying the museums. The recent destruction of the Iraqi museum was a well-calculated consipracy to 1) steal the Sumerian and Assyrian artifacts and profit by their illicit sale on the black market, and 2) destroy the history of the goyim:—http://www.globalfire.tv/nj/03en/politics/crimesvsculture.htm

Much of the evidence on a Sumero-Dravidian presence in Sumeria has disappeared for ever now.

The looting of artifacts by hired goons from the international antique dealers (cunningly blamed on the goyim Iraqis by CNN) was part of a well-concerted conspiracy.

These fanatics dogmatically refuse to accept the Sumero-Dravidian contributions to the world’s first civilization, clinging to their belief that it was “Semitic” and hence close to Hebrew. Dravidianists and Africanists must be aware of this fact.”

Comment:

See also the attempt to rewrite Tamil culture as a product of Christian missionary work

(Note: Originally I’m part-Tamil and Christian, proud of the ancient history of both Indian Christianity and of the Tamils, but I’m not an anti-Hindu or anti-Muslim bigot. So, like many in Asia, I resent attempts by the Western elites to fracture good-will between Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Jews, in countries that have had a long history of peaceful co-existence among those groups, despite all attempts by the Western elites to subvert that coexistence).

“Welcome to the Disco,” Clive Smith, The Guardian, June 18, 2008, describes the CIA technique of torturing with music:

“Mohamed, the British resident who is still held in Guantánamo Bay, knows a bit about such torture. The CIA rendered him to Morocco, where his torturers repeatedly took a razor blade to his penis throughout an 18-month ordeal.

When I later sat across from him in the cell, he described how psyops methods were worse than this. He could anticipate physical pain, he said, and know that it would eventually end. But the experience of slipping into madness as a result of torture by music was something quite different.”

The article isn’t referring to the physical stress on the hearing of extremely loud music played continuously, although that’s torturous too.  It’s referring to the psychological stress.

Trivializing mental torture or even emotional injuries (of a serious kind)  by flippant remarks about “sticks and stones” is easy to do….because it is unthinking.

Psychological coercion is not about a few hurtful words, although critics might use that as a straw-man. Psychological/verbal/emotional violence, sustained over a period of years, months, and even days, can cause disability much greater than that caused by physical violence. Bodies and faces can be repaired with surgery.  It is often not possible to put back a broken spirit.

In any case, why is flippancy not directed at the notion of physical violence as well? After all, it’s just a few scratches, a few bruises. It’s just a broken bone.

What makes even the most trivial bodily injury or the slightest damage to property such a tremendous violation of rights,  but even the worst and most systematic verbal, emotional, and psychic injury non-existent?

Update 2 :

Gene  Callahan’s book on Oakeshott makes the following point about his relevance to American constitutionalism:

“Finally, as Callahan points out, since rationalism is a mistaken description of human knowledge and its relation to human activity, it is also an impossible way of acting, politically or in any other sphere. Human action, including political action, is inherently an engagement of practical reason working within a particular tradition or and attempting to follow through on some of the inchoate suggestions that the vagueness of the practice offers. The opposite of rationalism for Oakeshott is not irrationalism but authentic practical reasonableness. Thus, and contrary to many of his reading-impaired critics, his critique of rationalism is not a critique of reason but a defense of it against a false modern conception of it.”

Practical reason rather than theory? Well, that’s the thesis both of “Mobs, Messiahs and Markets” and of several pieces from a while back –

1) Minding the Crowd, LRC 2006)

2) Mr. Paul goes to Washington (LRC 2007)

The insightful English political philosopher Michael Oakeshott described the difference between the two approaches as the difference between the rules of a civil association (such as a nation) and that of an enterprise association (such as a business).

“The constitution is the governing law of the civil association called America.

On the other hand, the new laws this administration is replacing the Constitution with are different creatures. They are the regulations of the business called US Govt. Inc. US Govt. Inc. is not a nation at all, but a vast holding company with unlimited liability for its innumerable tiny shareholders and none at all for the handful of directors at the top. And with many of its most valuable assets hidden off-shore through international trade agreements.

The dangers of a change from association to enterprise are self-evident: If we already know before-hand where we want to get to, we may be tempted to hijack the laws — and logic itself — to that end.”

Leslie Marsh, who founded the Oakeshott Association in the UK,  commented several times at this blog and promoted “Mobs” on his site. I read that Callahan is also a founding member.

3) “Fiat Laws, Fiat Currencies,” (DV 2007)

Update 1: Nov. 16

I see that Gene Callahan has written a piece about Oakeshott (Feb 5, 2012), published in Politics, Philosophy, Economics, Feb 2013

I recall blogging about Oakeshott as a better model for libertarians  back in 2007 (see below).  

ORIGINAL POST

Paul Gottfried reviews a philosopher whom I much admire, Michael Oakeshott (2013):

“Almost all these writings reveal Oakeshott’s characteristic device of combining labyrinthine phrases and multitudinous modifiers with forcefully made points that jump out from otherwise staid Victorian syntax. In reading Oakeshott one becomes aware that his style is essential to his argument. A lifelong opponent of all political enthusiasm, he writes in a way that obligates the reader to study his texts dispassionately. Indeed he has made it impossible to read his work without a certain deliberateness. Whereas he treats the state as a purely civic association without transcendent purpose, he locates the truly elevating side of human association in social and cultural arrangements. Oakeshott’s is a classical liberalism that owes little if anything to nineteenth-century economics. His own liberalism is in fact Hegelian as well as Hobbesian, though drawn not from the Hegel who spoke incautiously about political authority but from the one who described civil society as the necessary foundation of our humanity. It is surprising how much of Hegel’s discussion of consciousness and the mediatory role of civil society is woven into the frame of Oakeshott’s theoretical discussions.

It is also gratifying to see how early (in a speech to American conservatives in 1973) Oakeshott criticizes the appeals of anti-Communism and “American democracy” as the basis for a conservative movement. In fact Oakeshott despised movements of any kind, understood as an organized attempt to arouse political passions on the basis of an absolute enemy and of an at least implicit promise to reconstruct humanity.”

That was precisely my attraction to Oakeshott, whom I consider a conservative yet liberal thinker with an intriguing style.  In contrast, I find the style of much Rothbardian libertarianism unattractive, even when I agree with most of its substance.

Here are some of my previous posts about Oakeshott:

1. Some grammar rules from Michael Oakeshott:

“Oakeshott differentiated between enterprise associations – which have a specific goal as their end, say, making’ x’ number of cars, and civil associations governed by procedural rules – among which, he placed the state. He would, I think, have been equally opposed to a theocracy and to a state which left no room for the religious – in any real sense.

“Oakeshott also saw the the necessity of a minimalist state for the existence of true diversity, not the diversity of enforced outcomes. In that sense, many of the problems we face now become moot once we return the state to its proper limits.”

[Lila: and that is why it doesn’t follow that the Christian acceptance of government as a necessary evil entails an embrace of the government as enforcer of a theocracy.

2. Oakeshott revisited

3  Mr. Paul goes to Washington (LRC, 2007):

QUOTE:

“The dangers of a change from association to enterprise are self-evident: If we already know before-hand where we want to get to, we may be tempted to hijack the laws — and logic itself — to that end.

But what could be wrong with that, some might ask? Aren’t freedom, democracy, and human rights “social goods” for which our laws should strive? And in countries beyond the reach of our laws, shouldn’t we impose them through our military?

But language, like logic, is slippery unless it is rooted in something deeper than either words or minds. As one commentator on Oakeshott writes:

“Words such as ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’ and ‘rights’ have long histories and their meanings have shifted over time. Further, when unscrupulous operators use them to rally supporters in some great cause, such words become hazy promises of better things to come. The warm glow of anticipation may be as deceptive as the witches’ promises to Macbeth…”

Our words and our minds reach deep into our bodies in a way we don’t fully understand, except that they operate together. It is not just that the way we think affects the way we act, but the converse: The way we act affects the way we think.

If we violate our consciences, we will tend to alter our consciences after the fact. And then alter our language and our logic, as well.

To be truly rational, we need to go beyond disembodied words and logic to a reason that is rooted in our bodies, our intuitions, and our consciences — as they are inviolate in us, as individuals.”

END QUOTE

That line I wrote about “hijacking logic” is my biggest gripe with some of the more ideological writing at LRC.  Too much “enthusiasm,” as my old teacher, Dr. Pocock, used to say.

Last point:

Since I’ve been so critical about Rothbardianism in this and other pieces, I should add that I do like many of the contributors to LRC.

However, since I started getting my odd feeling about Rothbard, last year sometime, I’m less interested in accepting everything said by LRC-ers uncritically….hence the barbs.

Juri Lina in “Under the sign of Scorpio” (via anti Matrix):

“Only in 1992 was it first revealed in Russia that, according to the discoveries of the doctors, one hemisphere of Lenin’s brain had been non-functional since his birth. The other hemisphere was covered with such thick calcium deposits that it was perfectly impossible to understand how Lenin had survived his last years, and the question arose: why had he not died as a child?

Yuri Annenkov claimed in 1966 in his book “The Diary of My Meetings” (New York), that he managed to get a glimpse of Lenin’s brain – the left hemisphere was very wrinkly, disfigured and shrunken.

The doctors reached a consensus that it was impossible for a human being to live with such a brain. (Igor Bunich, “The Party’s Gold”, St. Petersburg, 1992, p. 75.) But was Lenin really a normal human being?

In conclusion, it may be said that Lenin’s brain was seriously ill from his birth, but that there occurred, almost miraculously, a certain compensation for the damage. However, this allowed very little margin for surviving a progressing syphilitic attack on the brain. A gruesome idea appears, namely that a certain disease of the brain might destroy such higher spiritual functions as make us human, but leave intact the kind of robotic intelligence which is necessary for an instrument in the service of evil powers.

To make matters worse, Lenin’s diet consisted almost exclusively of white bread. This means that he suffered from a severe deficiency of the minerals and vitamins needed for his body and mind to function properly.

He knew nothing about nourishment. (Ogonyok, No. 39, October, 1997.)

Even Lenin’s younger brother, Dmitri Ulyanov suffered from a brain disease. He became an infamous mass-murderer in the Crimea in his struggle for Soviet power during 1917-21. He finally went insane and became totally paralysed. He died on the 17th of July 1943 in Gorky at 68 years of age.

The architect Alexei Shchusev (1873-1949), who designed Lenin’s mausoleum, used the central altar from the Satanist temple in Pergamon as a prototype. The German national socialists had transferred the original to Berlin in 1944, from where it was transported to Moscow one year later.

(Alexei Shchusev’s article “Den oforglomliga kvallen” / “The Unforgettable Evening”, Svenska Dagbladet, January 27, 1948.) This, too, was a state secret. The newspaper SN wrote on May 14, 1981, that the Satanists’ central altar was in Lenin’s mausoleum.

Finally, the secrets which have lain under the shadow of Pluto, have begun to come to light. Those who were afraid society would fall apart altogether if the truth became known, were right. Those who claimed that evil Communism could not be reformed were also right. This is another reason why Lenin hated neutral and honest historians.

When Maxim Gorky begged him to spare the life of Prince Nikolai Mikhailovich, who was an historian, Lenin answered: “The revolution needs no historians.” (Igor Bunich, “The Party’s Gold”, St. Petersburg, 1992, p. 47.)

In 1990, the demolition of the Lenin monuments in Poland, Hungary, Georgia, the Baltic states and other European countries began. The first and last president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, intervened. On the 14th of October 1990, he issued a decree prohibiting the removal or destruction of Lenin statues and other monuments to communism.

Gorbachev described overthrowing Lenin monuments as acts “incompatible with… respect for the history of the fatherland and generally acceptable morals”. Gorbachev’s decree to protect the Lenin monuments was to no avail. The destruction continued. When the Lenin monument in Lvov (the Ukraine) was removed, the cheers ceased abruptly when it was discovered that Lenin had stood upon Ukrainian, Jewish and Polish graves. Quite symbolic, was it not? (Dagens Nyheter, 17th October 1990.)

The last Lenin monuments in Estonia were demolished on the 21st of December 1993 in Narva, which had been colonised by Bolshevik-sympathising Russians. They kept it as a guardian angel for their unjust plans against independent Estonia.

Still Lenin remains here and there in Russia and Cuba and in Asia, especially in China, but also in Calcutta. The Communists have been in power in this Indian city for 22 years. They still believe Marxism-Leninism to be the only answer to the economic and political problems of the poor. (Dagens Nyheter, January 26, 1993.)

On the 1st of April 1991, I saw how someone had scrawled a nearly symbolic text on a wall in Sevilla in Spain: “Without Marxism-Leninism, there would be no Communism in the world today!”

The super-centralised system, which Lenin founded, has now fallen to pieces. Lenin brought nothing good to Russia. History has already passed judgement on Vladimir Ulyanov, a grand master in the service of darkness and falsehood. When will people understand and accept this judgement?”

Comment:

Lina’s books focus on the role of members of secret societies in the communist revolutions in Russia and Eastern Europe.  But the reader should be wary. Lina also endorses anti-usury activism, which battles not just usury (excessive interest rates), but interest, as such.

To me, this seems anti-economic.

Lina also endorses local currencies and one notable proponent of them,  Margrit Kennedy…

See here for a critiqueof LETS  by George Selgin.

I also notice from Lina’s biography at wikipedia, that he was “banned from journalistic work” and has had a running battle with the government there for his anti-communist writing.

This may be so, but it’s also the case that the powers-that-be have a vested interest in co-opting any anger against the central banking cartel and the Rothschild-related financial groups and turning it in a direction that suits them.

Of course, both the pro-gold and the pro-paper money sides of the debate form a spurious binary. The issue is much more complicated than that.

With that caveat, and the further objection that his singular focus on the ethnic and religious identities (Jewish and Freemasonic) of the communist apparatchiks and revolutionaries  can give undue importance to some facts at the expense of others, Lina brings to light the fundamentally religious ideology of the Russian Revolution.

He is explicit in calling communism a variant of Judaism and of Christianity first, that he calls Illuminism.

[Correction: On second thoughts, he criticizes the Catholic church more than Christianity per se. And his criticism of Christianity focuses on the Old Testament more than the New Testament. But I think he is fundamentally opposed to theocracies, as such. He seems to endorse Buddhism,  because it has a smaller record of violence.]

Ultimately, he see Illuminism as a perversion of tendencies already inherent in both religions…..

The book is not academic, but written in a popular pamphleteering style. In the few passages I researched, it seemed accurate.

The media constantly focuses on the issue of women abused in marriage, whereas statistics show that men are abused nearly as often:

Despite many findings that show almost equal amounts of abuse perpetrated against men and women, the media and government focus the most attention on the female victims of domestic violence. Men are largely silent on the issue because of the perception that men are physically stronger and should be able to subdue a female attacker easily. Those men who do report physical violence are more likely to be ridiculed–both by law enforcement and by the public–than women are. More money is spent on women’s programs, and more crusades are launched on behalf of women who are victims of domestic violence despite the fact that men are almost equally or in some cases more likely to be victims of both physical and psychological abuse.

Although there has been an increase in the number of fatal domestic violence incidents against women, men are more likely to be victims of attacks with a deadly weapon. According to one study, 63% of males as opposed to 15% of females had a deadly weapon used against them in a fight with an intimate partner.

What is worse than the statistics, however, is the fact that there has been little research in the area of domestic abuse against men because neither the Justice Department nor any other agencies will fund such research. Because they refuse to do the research, people are able to perpetuate such myths as women are only violent when defending themselves, or that men could more easily leave a violent relationship.

Because of lack of funding, there are also few shelters that cater to men. Most shelters available will only take women and children, and some even have an age limit on the boys that they will take in (13 years old).

There is some help for male victims of domestic violence. MenWeb (www.batteredmen.com) offers resources for men, as well as a place for them to tell their story. There is also a Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men and Women (1-888-7HELPLINE) operated by a nonprofit in Harmony Maine. Clark University and Bridgewater State University are currently conducting a study on male victims of domestic abuse.

Men who suffer domestic violence can only receive help if they break the silence. Not reporting domestic violence because of the stigma attached is the main reason that men currently receive few services, and one of the reasons that studies on the issue are so few.

Sources:

Figure taken from MenWeb: CDC/DOJ Survey Men more often victims of intimate partner violence. http://www.batteredmen.com/NISVS.htm

Philip Cook,”The Truth About Domestic Violence”. From the book Everything You Know is Wrong (Russ Kick, 2002). Published by The Disinformation Company.

Domestic Abuse Hotline for Men and Women. http://dahmw.org/

Comment:

Of course, that’s the whole problem of government-funded research. It gets steered in the direction of whichever academic trend is reigning….and that in turn is determined by the foundations and trusts of private individuals/families/ and business  (all usually tracing back to the interlocking cartel that I call the Globalists or the New World Order).

Letting things be privatized might not work for that very reason: The private companies that take over from the government end up being cronies who work the regulations to  create a sinecure for themselves once more. That’s what happened in the liberalization of Russia in the 1990s.

De-funding the government is the only viable option.

Or, at least, moving the funding for things like research down to the states and municipalities. That’s not to say that local governments cannot be as autocratic as the feds. but, at least, there is a better chance of their constituents’ voices being heard.

Better yet, just let a lot of research programs drop. Leave it to volunteers, private individuals, voluntary groups, churches, and companies to fund research, as it’s needed.

Chris Rossini:

“As the gambler walks out of the casino “in a panic”, JP Morgan (in 1907) and Ben Bernanke (in 2008) stuff the gambler’s pockets with loads of money. They even stuff money into the gambler’s mouth, just for good measure.

Morgan and Bernanke provide a “bailout” to save the gambler’s “system,” and they send him right back into the casino. The media declare Morgan and Bernanke to be hero’s; at least until enough time passes, and the gambler inevitably comes out again with empty pockets and “in a panic”.

Here’s one more way to think of bailouts. Ten years ago, Blockbuster Video had 9,000 locations. In the marketplace, it doesn’t matter how many locations you have. If you can no longer operate profitably, you’re toast. Resources are removed from your hands are transferred to those who are succeeding at satisfying the most urgent desires of consumers.

By early 2014, the last of the 9,000 Blockbuster stores will be closed. No “panics”. No “systemic crisis”. In fact, most people won’t even be aware of it. It’s just the market doing its thing, as usual, without much fanfare.

How crazy would it be for the taxpaying public to keep those 9,000 stores open? Americans would (I think) rise up in hysterics if someone (like Krugman) came up with an idea for a Blockbuster TARP.

Blockbuster also does not have a rent-seeking cartel, like the banks do. If they did, who knows…perhaps Blockbuster would be able to keep its “video rental system” going at everyone else’s expense.

We have just defined the prime reason for existence of The Federal Reserve…to make sure that the major banks never go under. The Fed is there to create as many paper dollars and electronic digits as possible (and at the expense of every individual in the world) to make sure that these “elite” individuals never have to close up shop.

Bernanke, during his “all-star conference” sings a different tune about the problems that face us. Both in 1907 and 2008, there weren’t enough “regulations” on the system:

“Also interesting is that the 1907 panic involved institutions–the trust companies–that faced relatively less regulation, which probably contributed to their rapid growth in the years leading up to the panic. In analogous fashion, in the recent crisis, much of the panic occurred outside the perimeter of traditional bank regulation, in the so-called shadow banking sector.”

Nonsense.

The Mercatus Center reports: “According to the Code of Federal Regulation, more than 47,000 regulations apply to the financial sector…”

Apparently, according to Bernanke, 47 thousand regulations weren’t enough. Perhaps 48,000 would do the trick? In essence, Bernanke is saying ‘get off our back’ and tries to deflect the issue. The easiest go-to excuse that every bureaucrat falls back on is “we need more regulations.”

Here’s the bottom line on the Panics of 1907 and 2008. It’s something that was not said at the “all-star conference” and will never be said in any conference in Washington DC.

The Panic of 1907 was the excuse, or the catalyst, that was used to push for the establishment of the Federal Reserve. The bankers would not risk having to rely on one man, like JP Morgan, to bail them out the next time around. The American public would provide the bailouts going forward (whether they like it or not). That can only be done with a central bank in complete control of the money supply.

Before pulling something so drastic over the American public, a huge propaganda campaign would be necessary. As EPJ readers know: Ideas rule the world.

In 1908, J.R. Duffield, Sec. of the Bankers Publishing Co. said: “It is recognized generally that before legislation can be had there must be an educational campaign carried on, first among the bankers, and later among commercial organizations, and finally among the people as a whole.”

In other words, new ideas would have to permeate society before something so extravagant could ever be pulled off. It’s also important to not that everyone wouldn’t have to adopt the new ideas, only a critical mass, only enough.

Here’s yet another key takeaway from the Panic of 1907. During financial panics, people are more open to new ideas. It’s a time that they actually search for answers. A mere 6 years after the Panic of 1907, the banker’s dream became a reality. They won that battle of ideas.

Here we are in 2013, and everyone knows (even the bankers themselves) that another crisis, or even multiple crises, are just around the corner. Fortunately, the American public that has been ripped off for 100 years have tools at their disposal that never existed before: instant communication with just about anyone in the world, and a universe of knowledge.

Millions around the world have also heard the idea of End of The Fed.”

Comment:

I heartily agree with this piece….. just so long as people remember that ideas rule in the long-term.

In the short term,  slogans rule.

In fact, that is the only way certain parts of the population ever get exposure to ideas.

But once you accept the need for slogans as an inevitability of mass communication, you have accepted that people are fundamentally too stupid to be told the truth.

They have to be “massaged” and “led.”

But when you accept that, then you get into the territory of lying to people for their own good…

which takes you into the territory of war-time propaganda and peace-time advertising….

and you are back to the managerial state…

A half-truth is a full lie, as some one said.

A study finding IQ today lower than it was a generation ago is getting a bad reception in the Human Behavioral Diversity community and Bruce Charlton thinks he knows why:

What I think this incident reveals is some implicit but covert assumptions in the HBD community; and that these assumptions are very important to the participants – such that a challenge to them provokes the same kind of aggressive defence as would be expected from a challenge to someone’s existential basis – such as a ‘religion’ (bearing in mind that almost all the HBD community are agnostic/ atheist and those few [just a handful, it seems] who are not atheist/agnostics, are very reticent about their religious beliefs).

I have not got to the bottom of this matter as yet, but I think there are a couple of things I can say:

1. High IQ as a virtue

High intelligence is regarded as a virtue in the HBD community – therefore to suggest     that intelligence is declining is equivalent to saying that people are getting morally worse.

2. Salvation through technology

The HBD community seeks salvation through technological breakthroughs, and declining intelligence suggests that this salvation will not come.

(This belief is most obvious among explicit transhumanists; but cryto-transhumansism is very common among scientists, and pretty much the background religion of atheist modernity: the major alternative to traditional religion.)

3. Belief in progress

Belief in progress is so powerful in this group, that it seems not so much false as an outrage for modern people to be forced to acknowledge that earlier generations were (on the whole) considerably superior in some attribute which modern people deeply value – such as intelligence.

JFK Facts:

“In a brilliant blog post for Esquire, Josh Ozersky documents how Adam Gopnik’s recent New Yorker essay about JFK repeats key memes from a secret 1967 CIA cable about how the agency officials worldwide should enlist “friendly elite contacts” to counter critics of the Warren Commission.

The problem with calling people “conspiracy theorists,” Ozersky points out, is that you may just be repeating decades-old talking points generated by an intelligence agency with a lot to hide.

Ozersky, a food writer, shows how the influence of the cable, “Countering Critics of the Warren Report,” otherwise known as Memo 1035-960, endures in the American imagination.

The original 1967 CIA cable, “Countering Critics of the Warren Commission,” was sent by CIA director Richard Helms to agency stations worldwide on April 1, 1967.

Helms and his colleague, counterintelligence chief James Angleton, felt threatened by critics of the first official investigation of JFK’s death because their aides had learned about the travels, politics and contacts of Lee Harvey Oswald in October 1963 and raised no concerns.

Indeed aides to Helms and Angleton assured colleagues in Mexico City that Oswald was “maturing.” Forty two days later JFK was shot dead, apparently by Oswald. (See “Four CIA officers who made a lethal mistake about Lee Harvey Oswald,” JFK Facts, Sept. 30, 2013.)

Rather than disclose the CIA’s failure to protect the president, Helms ordered a campaign against those who questioned the lone gunman conclusions of the Warren Commission.

Ozersky quotes from the CIA talking points and then finds the echoes in Gopnik’s piece.

Memo 1035-960: “Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States.”

Gopnik: “No matter how improbable it may seem that all the hard evidence could have been planted, faked, or coerced—and that hundreds of the distinct acts of concealment and coercion necessary would have been left unconfessed for more than half a century.”

Memo 1035-960: “Critics have often been enticed by a form of intellectual pride: they light on some theory and fall in love with it.”

Gopnik: “It is, in other words, possible to construct an intricate scenario that is both cautiously inferential, richly detailed, on its own terms complete, and yet utterly delusional.”

Memo 1035-960:“The Warren Commission made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible.”

Gopnik: “The first truth is that the evidence that the American security services gathered, within the first hours and weeks and months, to persuade the world of the sole guilt of Lee Harvey Oswald remains formidable: ballistics evidence, eyewitness evidence, ear-witness evidence, fingerprint evidence, firearms evidence, circumstantial evidence, fibre evidence.”

Ozerky’s point is not that the New Yorker consciously follows the CIA line. His point is more damning. Gopnik’s argument is habitual, not original or even cynical.

“Gopnik doesn’t need a memo to parrot this line,” Ozersky says. “He picked it up along the way as a consensus pundit.”

—–

LRC blog reports the insane story of a father who called the police when his son took off in his truck. The cops followed the boy into a university campus and killed him.

“James Comstock refused to buy a pack of cigarettes for his 19-year-old son, Tyler, and now he’s planning his son’s funeral.

“He took off with my truck. I call the police, and they kill him,” James Comstock told The Des Moines Register on Tuesday. “It was over a damn pack of cigarettes. I wouldn’t buy him none.

“And I lose my son for that.”

Comstock said he’s outraged police shot and killed his son Monday morning on Iowa State University’s campus.”

They fired six rounds into his body in full view of bystanders:

“And why, Shepley asked, did an officer fire six rounds on a campus with innocent bystanders around, simply because Tyler Comstock refused orders to turn off the engine?

“So he didn’t shut the damn truck off, so let’s fire six rounds at him? We’re confused, and we don’t understand,” Shepley said.”

Comment:

As I’ve said before, the militarization of the police was a deliberate program introduced into the US to blur the boundaries between peace-time “policing” and war-time “military action.”

The idea is to normalize war.

The on-off screaming of sirens, helicopters, police cars racing madly through traffic, the raw display of power. (Just as staged leaks about surveillance are a display of the surveilling power of the state).

Campuses were never the safest places in America, what with the booze parties,  rape (real and alleged), military recruitment, dope, traffic cops, muggings, and 24/7 propaganda.

To this you can now add homicide by cops.

Drop out…or drop dead.