CA stands tall with Boston
“The Third Bullet” (Simon & Schuster New York © 2013) by Stephen Hunter is a fictional account of an investigation by a former U. S. Marine Corps sniper named Bob Lee Swagger into the murder of President John F. Kennedy. Since this is the year of all gun chat all the time on talk radio and since this year will be the fiftieth anniversary of the tragedy in Dallas Texas on November 22, we were pleasantly surprised to learn of the existence of this new installment in a series of mystery-adventure novels about a fellow who is loosely based on the legendary Marine sniper Carlos Hathcock because it seemed that none of the trolls who dominate the national discussion on guns has mentioned this new book. We have read several of the preceding installments in the series and were aware that the book would contain some very detailed technical information about guns and bullets. Suffice it to say that this new book blends accurate details of known American history with some speculation in a manor that is both entertaining and thought provoking.
Joseph Conrad’s “The Secret Agent,” which describes the anarchy caused by bomb throwing Bolsheviks and was published in 1907, is based on a true life incident that occurred in London in 1894 but it still has that “ripped from today’s headlines” aura of relevancy to it. We wonder if teachers will urge their students to read this example of American Literature. Conrad’s novel “Under Western Eyes,” is an almost century old look at the world of political fanatics in Russia. What’s old is new and these two old books may start selling again.
“Twilight at the World of Tomorrow,” (Ballantine Books New York © 2010) by James Mauro tells the story of the use of a bomb by terrorists at the Great Britain Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair on July 4, 1940. There had been other bomb incidents at that time in the New York City which were caused by a union dispute. This bit of New York City terrorism remains an unsolved mystery.
“Live Fast, Die Young (The Wild Ride of Making ‘Rebel without a Cause’)” by Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel (Touchstone © 2005) just happened to be the next book on our recreational “in” pile as pundits around the world faced the task of doing a weekend wrap-up for the week that included the Boston Marathon Bombing. In that book, we learned (on page 79) that on the G. E. Theater episode titled “The Dark, Dark Hour,” James Dean worked with Ronald Reagan.
In a world where folks can see hundreds of cops standing around (on OT?) doing nothing, while the air traffic controllers are taught the pragmatic reasoning behind the move that destroyed their union, some cynics think that it may just be the latest installment in the long history of the anarchy caused by bomb throwers.
Did the folks on all Gun Chat radio all the time notice that while the police searched for the bombers, Sen. Harry Reid was saying “gun control legislation is dead for this year.”
Will the capitalist business owners in Boston charge employees who missed work on the day of the lockdown with a vacation day or will they cry “sequester cuts!” and declare that it was a one day sequester event and they need not pay for it? How many will be magnanimous and pay regular salary for the missed work day?
Boston dominated the news but KPFA reported that something bad may have happened at Guantanamo the Saturday before Patriots’ Day. Naturally the mainstream media ignored that and other important stories.
A fellow who was arrested for sending poison to politicians was released and can resume his career as the most famous Elvis impersonator alive.
If the Butthead and Bevis duo used cell phone technology to detonate the backpacks, did they also learn how to do that from material they found on the Internets? If not who mentored them? If the two brothers were enrolled in Terrorism 101, will President Obama pull a Dubya and invade the campus and destroy the school? If the American military is spread too thin, then does it not follow that the investigation must conclude that the older brother, Lee Harvey Tsarnaev duped his younger brother into being part of the gang of two and that they acted alone?
Now that the story is out that Syria has used poison gas after President Obama warned them not to do that, he seems to be caught in a classic binary choice familiar to barroom brawlers: “Throw a punch or shut up and go away.” Will President Obama and the Syrian leader now do a political version of the “chickie run” sequence in “Rebel without a Cause”?
If Obama sends American troops to get involved in that country’s Civil War, will Kim Jung Un get bolder thinking that Obama has run out of troops to send abroad?
Will Obama back up former President Bush’s threat to deal severely with any country that provided a training ground for any terrorists who would subsequently attack the USA or will he find out that the military is stretch too thin to back up that old warning with the promised action?
After seeing the spectacle of Boston being brought to a complete halt for a day by two young bomb throwers, cynics are asking: “Will their quick apprehension serve as an effective deterrent or will it act as a catalyst inspiring copycats to make many more well publicized political statements with bombs?” Will historians say that the boys from Chechnya opened the flood gates for a hoard of Mongol copy cats?
Has one other news item, the slipped past most of the mainstream media? According to the Los Angeles Times, more charges have been filed against the County Assessor.
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/23/local/la-me-assessor-20130424
Since Dubya was notorious for not putting anything on paper we have always wondered what will be displayed at the Bush Presidential Library. Apparently all the e-mails from fans will be one of the major attractions.
In the recently published book, “Ayn Rand Explained,” (Open Court Chicago © 3013) readers are informed (on page 17): “Ideas, values, and behavior which we would reasonably think were wrong because they lead to the destruction of life are considered as acceptable as any others.” What will conservatives do if it turns out that Tamerlin Tsarnaev was an avid Ayn Rand fan? Could it be that he wore a WWJGD (What Would John Gault Do?) bracelet?
The guy, A. J. Clemente, who dropped the “F-bomb” on his debut as a news anchor in Bismarck, North Dakota, got invited onto the Letterman and Today TV shows, but our attempts to just find the name of his co-host, who remained composed and continued doing her job, were inconclusive. Did A. J. read “Atlas Shrugged”? Have American kids learned yet that “Incompetence Rules!” and that the old philosophy “Nothing is true, everything is permitted” would make a better motto for use on the money use by the USA.
Did the debate over “Miranda Rights” precipitate a situation where the prosecution’s case in the trial of the Boston Bomber is compromised before the opening statements are made?
Is an online pundit, who lives in Berkeley CA, being facetious and critical of the Democrat in the White House when he sports a 1940 Wendell Wilkie political button that proclaims: “No Third Term”?
[Note from the photo editor: While covering Occupy Oakland, we noticed an odd bit of graphics, from something called Soxstickers.com, which combined the outline of the state of California with the logo for Boston’s major league baseball team but we didn’t think it was relevant back then, but now that all the USA is expressing a desire to stand tall with Boston, we thought this photo might be an appropriate visual way to say that CA stands with Boston.]
Speaking of the New Deal, we are working on getting more details about an effort to establish a New Deal Museum. With our luck the assignment editor for the features desk at the New York Times will read this column, scoop us, and save us a bunch of work.
According to “Live Fast, Die Young,” in early 1955, after being inured in a car wreck, actress Natalie Wood summoned movie director Nicolas Ray to her hospital room. A Hollywood legend was born (page 40) when she (allegedly) whispered in his ear: “They called me a goddamn juvenile delinquent. Now do I get the part?”
Now the disk jockey will play the new Boston anthem, Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” a memorial playing of Ritchie Havens’ “Freedom,” and a memorial playing of George Jones’ “He stopped loving her today.” We have to go find a good Walpurgis Night Party to crash. Have a “Why do we do this, Buzz” type week.
And vice-versa. The primary thing in politics is to maintain your skepticism and pragmatism. The current version of the Republican Party have abandoned both, when they are being fed what they want to hear, and cling to ideas both woefully archaic and provably tattered with failure. Presently, they seem to believe that if they build a high enough pile of manure, a pony will magically appear. That kind of thinking inevitably leads to defeat and extinction. Ironically, many Republicans who call hemselves Christians eagerly embrace the philosophy of Ayn Rand, an avowed atheist. Of course, the GOP Elite are not Christians, they are well-heeled grifters picking the pockets of the sheep and hewing to Randian ‘principled selfishness’ as a self-serving convenience to make themselves wealthier.
Got Reality Gaps?
Dueling perceptions often compete for supremacy in the realm of conspiracy theories. Is this a photo of a turtle’s shell or a manhole cover?
“Conspiracy Theory in America” (University of Texas Press, Austin TX, © 2013) by Lance de Haven-Smith came to the attention of this columnist when it was spotted in the window of the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco and seemed worth the trouble of being granted an exception to the rule: “We don’t buy books to review them” because we have been worried by the idea that if we don’t soon find a comprehensive encyclopedia of conspiracy theories, we will have to fill the gap in the Amalgamated Conspiracy Theory Factory reference library by writing such a book and that would be a lot of work to undertake.
It turned out that the book wasn’t aimed at readers hoping to reap new and sensational disclosures for the “round up the usual suspects” list of conspiracy theories. The “Conspiracy Theory” (AKA CT) label has become the equivalent of a chess game that involves the “Fool’s Pawn” strategy, in which a beginner plays a game that involves only three move. The victim makes one unwise move and the game is over.
Lance deHaven-Smith bolsters his claim that the CIA used the “conspiracy theory” label to attack critics of the Warren Commission Report by providing a transcript of dispatch #1035-960.
For debaters, the “Conspiracy Theory” label is the verbal equivalent of a come from behind walk-off grand slam in baseball. Can’t you just imagine the voice of Mel Allen doing a play-by-play account of the debate? “The Theorist asserts that one bullet can not possibly deliver that amount of damage to two victims and remain in (virtually) pristine condition. . . . the opposing debater steps to the plate. Three on two out and the score is six to three against the ‘Official Version of the Truth’ team. The pitch. It’s a long drive to right. The ‘Conspiracy Theory Lunatic’ charge is invoked! It’s outta here. Home run! End of debate! The crowd goes wild as the batter (debater) trots around the bases.”
The defendants at Nuremberg were tried not for specific murders or incidents of torture, but (page 71) for “‘participating in the formulation or execution of a Common Plan or Conspiracy’ to wage aggressive war.”
The book discusses the “conspiracy theory of the Fourteenth Amendment” which was promoted by Charles Beard and his wife Mary in 1927. The “Corporations are people” move started long before the current members of the United States Supreme Court were sworn-in.
On page 107, readers are informed: MWAVE is the name of the CIA station in Miami. Wasn’t it actually JMWAVE (J M as in Jose Martine?).
In the back of the book, in Table 5.1, we learn on an unnumbered page that in 1968 “With RFK out of the way . . . Nixon is reelected.” WTF?
On page 106 a sentence that spills over to the next page states that the Warren Commission findings are unchallenged. Apparently the author is unaware of the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/) or chose to completely ignore that Inquiry.
Recently we found a used copy of “True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society” (John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Hoboken N. J. © 2008) by Farhad Majoo and it asserts that the Swift Boater attack on 2004 Democratic Party Presidential Candidate John Kerry’s record in Vietnam was a “conspiracy theory” that aimed to turn the record of an undisputed war hero into the belief in a story of a dishonorable soldier who didn’t deserve the medals awarded to him.
Could these two books taken together convince an unbiased reader that in an era when no official explanation of baffling events can stand up to scholastic investigation that the government misleads voters with lies or are there valid gaps in reality that are due to occasional anomalies such as things not conforming to the scientific (them again!) laws of physics that get a temporary suspension during intensive moments of history that carry a tremendous emotional impact (“Back and to the left!”)?
The two books present an odd paradox. In one instance in the deHaven-Smith book, the concept of “conspiracy theory” is used to dispel the effect facts might have on a debate, while Manjoo examines the fact that the Swift Boat vets didn’t supply any valid facts to change voters’ opinions about Kerry’s conduct in combat. (“But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. . . . He loved Big Brother.”)
“True Enough” is an entertaining and informative book length elaboration that concurs with the psychological investigation done by Simon and Garfunkel that was summed up thusly: “ . . . a man hears what he wants to hear and all the rest is lies and jest . . . .”
We have also acquired a bargain used copy of Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States.” Disciples of St. Ayn Rand believe that capitalists were and continue to be benevolent philanthropists whose generous attitudes towards employees make the need for unions and strikes irrelevant, immaterial, and obsolete. Unfortunately the (Leftist?) folks who read about the Ludlow massacre, the Pullman strike, the Republic Steel strike (“Autopsies showed that the bullets had hit the workers in the back as they were running away; . . . .” Op cit, page 392), and the Ford Motor Company strike, seem vulnerable to a more cynical attitude regarding duplicity and deception from captains of industry than the loyal fans of Ayn Rand do.
Zinn’s book makes a reader wonder: If what you learn in history class was subjected to exaggeration, spin control, and rewriting, is it reasonable to expect the government to flat out lie about some events?
A copy of “It’s a Conspiracy!” written by “The National Insecurity Council” published by Earth Works Books of Berkeley CA in 1992 was acquired used for a bargain basement price. It is a well done book but since there have been one or two more instances since 1992 where skeptics charge that the United States Government deliberately committed prevarications, a revised and update version of this work might be a good idea. Whew! Looks like we don’t have to write an encyclopedic overview of the topic of conspiracy theories after all!
Will the questions being asked about the details surrounding the recent death of a suspect in Florida spawn a new conspiracy theory about a cover-up?
Recent news reports indicate that top secret American Military plans and designs have been acquired by hackers. That news makes us wonder why the military didn’t use the services of the companies that designed and provided the unhackable electronic voting machines. Was there a conspiracy to exclude them and use the inept people who let this scandalous electronic invasion occur?
Some skeptics who think that the “low ball the bid and be caught off guard by cost overruns that will provide the missing margin of profit” trend may, in the future, be invoked by the a low bid winner of a facet of California’s coveted “bullet train” project (that voters don’t want to subsidize) out in the dessert. Cost overruns can always be explained away by the old “blindsided by reality” (i.e. “no one could possibly have foreseen . . .”) ploy.
Can allegations of unexpected “cost overruns” be classified as a subcategory of “conspiracy theory” and thereby be exempted from embarrassing witch hunt style investigations?
There is supposed to be a march from Oakland to Stockton, to publicize allegations of “police brutality” in the bankrupt city, starting at noon on Friday May 31, 2013. The march is scheduled to start shortly after this column is posted. Will critics contend that police brutality in that city is being covered up? We’ll have to include an update on that topic in our column next Friday.
If we score a press pass, we’ll go to the Conspiracy Convention (http://www.conspiracycon.com/ ) this weekend in Milpitas and write up our perception of it for next week’s column.
[Note from the Photo Editor: Dueling perceptions is the crucial element for conspiracy theories, so it seems that a photo that shows what some people may see as a turtle and others may just call a manhole cover with chalk graffiti markings qualifies for being the photo to run with this column. Is it an image of a turtle or does it show a manhole cover?]
Legend has it that Aimee Semple McPherson’s response to reporters who were skeptical of her explanation of her kidnapping was the famous line: “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”
Now, the disk jockey will play (from the Twenties) “I Know that you know,” Peter and Gordon’s “Wrong from the start,” and Conway Twitty’s “It’s only make believe.” We have to go put on our Gonzo Journalist disguise. Have a “Just keep walkin’” type week.