When people in the 9/11 Truth movement accuse each other of being government agents, an all too common type of “evidence” is guilt by association. A has some connection to B, who in turn has some connection to C, who in turn has some connection to the CIA or some other spy agency, or perhaps a connection to an elite fraternity such as the Skull and Bones. Therefore, A must be an agent, or at least we should all worry that A might be an agent.
Similar “connections” to the Communist Party were a staple of the McCarthy-era witchhunts back in the 1950’s.
The problem with this kind of “reasoning” is that there are also huge numbers of innocent non-agents who, knowingly or unknowingly, are likely to have indirect connections either to spy agencies or to elite fraternities.
For example, almost anyone employed in any technical field is likely to have an indirect connection to the military and/or to spy agencies, simply because the military-industrial complex is such a vast part of the U.S. economy. But does this mean that all or most nerds are spies? No, that would be impossible. The spy agencies’ budgets are huge, but not that huge.
Similarly, almost any successful religious denomination, mainstream or nonmainstream, is likely to have at least a few wealthy backers. And, in almost any clique of rich people, if you look hard enough, you’ll probably find someone with a relative or two in Skull and Bones, or some similar fraternity. So, if you attend church, you probably have an indirect link to Skull and Bones, whether you know it or not. Does that mean that you’re a spy, or perhaps just a purveyor of some baleful Skull and Bones influence? Probably not. Nor does it likely mean you’ve been turned into a Manchurian candicate, or whatever.
A person’s associations can be important clues, if you otherwise have good reason to suspect something wrong. But they are not, in themselves, evidence that a person is doing anything wong. Nor does a person’s associations combined with mere disagreement with your own opinions, even sharp disagreement, constitute evidence of wrongdoing either.
According to the article Personal Attacks Against Jim Hoffman, various no-planers have claimed that Jim Hoffman was an “NSA spook” on various flimsy alleged grounds, such his employment at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute. As the above article states, “MSRI was and is supported by a variety of public and private donors, including numerous corporations, private individuals, and government agencies, all of which is irrelevant to Hoffman’s employment because his salary and overhead were paid entirely by a grant for pure mathematical research.” Apparently certain no-planers just couldn’t stand to have their pet theories challenged, and their response was to shoot the messenger.
On the other hand, an opponent of the no-planes theories has made similarly flimsy accusations, albeit more by insinuation than explicitly, in 911truth.org, Byron Belitsos, and Urantia – research notes by Brian Salter. This page says, for example: “Alex Constantine, a widely respected researcher and author on mind control, cults, and related topcs, writes: ‘The Urantia Brotherhood is a Skull & Bones spin-off.'”
On what grounds does the “widely respected researcher” Alex Constantine allege that the Urantia Brotherhood is “a Skull & Bones spin-off”? Salter quotes Constantine as saying that the Urantia Brotherhood’s holy text was “supposedly channelled by a member of the Kellogg family, which had four members enrolled in Skull & Bones fraternity at the time to book was produced.” In other words, if someone is a member of Skull and Bones, then anything that any relative of that person says or does must be at the behest of Skull and Bones. It’s a little like saying that if any cousin of mine starts a new organization of any kind whatsoever, then the new group is a spinoff of New York 9/11 Truth, because I happen to be a member of New York 9/11 Truth, even if the new group has nothing to do with 9/11.
We’re not told what the other members of the Kellogg family thought of Wilfred Kellogg’s channeling. But that’s, apparently, not important. In some people’s eyes, apparently, the mere involvement of a Kellogg in the founding of Urantia, any Kellogg, is sufficient to brand Urantia an insidious evil, tainting everything it touches.
I personally am no fan of channeling, whether Wilfred Kellogg’s or anyone else’s. However, in my opinion, it’s neither more nor less crazy than the idea that the Bible is the infallibly inspired Word of God. I don’t agree with the latter idea either. But a person’s religion is one’s own business, unless the person tries to push it down other people’s throats. I have no issue with any 9/11 Truth movement leader’s religion or spirituality, as long as (1) it doesn’t inherently interfere with the person’s ability to think rationally about what happened on 9/11 (e.g. by requiring belief in channeled messages claiming that the towers were hit by alien spacecraft), and (2) it doesn’t require the person to try to convert or expel people of other religions in the 9/11 Truth movement.
I staunchly oppose bigotry against nonmainstream religions. As I mentioned in previous posts, I’ve run into a shocking amount of religious bigotry among some people in the 9/11 Truth movement. (See my posts The 9/11 Truth movement needs a more visible, better organized left wing! and The recent growth of anti-Illuminism: Dreadful ideology about the dreaded Illuminati.) And Brian Salter’s demonization of Urantia, in particular, caught my eye, because, here in New York, one of the reasons for the split between New York 9/11 Truth and We Are Change was that some folks in We Are Change raised a ruckus about Les Jamieson’s involvement in the Urantia religion.
I’m sure that there are plenty of actual Skull and Bones members, not just relatives of same, who are members of mainstream Protestant denominations. For example, George W. Bush is a member of the Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas, according to a Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly article Spirituality of President Bush, January 19, 2001. Does this mean that the United Methodist Church is totally under the thumb of Skull and Bones? I don’t think so.
Back to Brian Salter’s article on why we should all be scared of Byron Belitsos:
Some within the Urantia Brotherhood have presented their own research into infiltrations by covert agents and mind control ops. The following site offers very detailed info from such a perspective:
The above site appears to be dead. But the above would seem to suggest merely that Urantia has the same problems with infiltrators as a lot of other groups and movements, including the 9/11 Truth movement. So it doesn’t seem to me like a good reason to fear Urantia in particular.
Salter then quotes an article by “some Urantia followers who have their own doubts about Belitsos.” Their doubts are, essentially, that he’s a heretic who doesn’t believe absolutely everything in the Urantia book, but who also keeps his heretical thoughts to himself and doesn’t talk about them. Salter spins this as yet another reason for the rest of us to be worried about Belitsos too, although this isn’t very logical. If the alleged problem with the Urantia religion in the first place is that it’s under the control of Skull and Bones, then wouldn’t a heretical Urantian would be less controlled by Skull and Bones than an orthodox Urantian? And, if Belitsos chooses to keep his heresies to himself rather than get into arguments with more orthodox Urantians, then this, to me, would suggest that he is less likely, rather than more likely, to push his religious beliefs on the rest of us too.
Anyhow, it turns out that Salter’s main beef with both Belitsos himself and the Urantia religion is their advocacy of a world government. A large section of Salter’s page about Belitsos and Urantia is taken up with quotes showing that “The Urantia Book preaches explicity [sic] in favor of establishing a World Government / World Federalism.” Salter says this is “an important topic.”
Is this political, ideological disagreement between Salter And Belitsos the actual main motive for all the ad hominem insinuations I discussed earlier? It would be far better if Salter could respond with rational arguments against world federalism, if that viewpoint bothers him so much. On his page about Belitsos, Salter does not even attempt to do the latter. Salter seems to have the attitude that if someone has voiced belief in world federalism, that in itself should just be considered incriminating, period.
Alas, there are a lot of people, on both the left and the right, who have trouble understanding that anyone could disagree with them honestly. They seem to believe that anyone who disagrees with them must be either a brainwashed ignoramus or a paid shill. When they run into someone with a contrary viewpoint, they feel that there’s no point in rational discussion or debate. Instead, they prefer just to point to some scary alleged source of brainwashing and/or payment.
In fact, knowledgeable people can have honest disagreements about many things. Paid shills and brainwashing do exist too, but productive dialogue is easier if one gives people the benefit of the doubt.
The Urantia religion advocates a federated world government as the only viable way to have world peace. The proposed world government would be democratic, with a “World Parliament” and separation of powers, and would be built multi-laterally, not imposed via one government’s imperialism. Most leftists and many pacifists would probably agree with world federalism as a long-range goal, with the caveat that it would be very tricky to ensure that the proposed world government is indeed genuinely democratic, with adequate checks and balances, and not a tyrannical oligarchy; hence the goal of a world state should not be approached in a hurry.
On the other hand, right wing populists, who typically are staunch nationalists, utterly oppose any kind of world government. Many of today’s Christian religious right wingers equate world federalism with the reign of the Antichrist.
But the left-wingers and most of the right-wingers in the 9/11 Truth movement can agree that we don’t approve of U.S. imperialism. The right-wingers among us tend to be paleoconservatives, who, in general, do indeed tend to oppose war and imperialism, unlike the neoconservatives who are dominant among mass media “conservatives.” (See Are you a paleoconservative? Find out!.) So, the vast the majority of us can agree on important short-term goals, even though we may disagree vehemently on long-term goals.
Though relatively rare, there are also a few neocons in the 9/11 Truth movement. Brian Salter complains about their presence too, e.g. on his page A look at the 9/11 Truth Statement signers. And another of Salter’s complaints about about Belitsos is that “Belitsos collaborated with Jim Garrison in presenting the 911 Convergence.” This was bad, according to Salter, because Garrison has associated with elite neocons such as George Shultz.
Anyhow, it appears that Salter’s main worry about Belitsos is that Belitsos might promote world federalist ideology within the 9/11 Truth movement.
However, within the 9/11 Truth movement, I’ve seen a lot more promotion of right-wing ideologies than of left-wing ideologies, thanks to the influence of Alex Jones and other right-wing alternative media figures. Examples of right-wing ideologies that have been widely promoted in the 9/11 Truth movement include nationalism (of an isolationist rather than imperialialist variety), anti-Illuminism, and opposition to income tax. So, if someone in the 9/11 Truth movement were to start promoting left-wing ideology for a change, that would merely be a counterbalance. (See The 9/11 Truth movement needs a more visible, better organized left wing! and 9/11 Truth movement conservatives, please stand up now.)
I myself do have one concern of my own about Urantia, which is that some of the channeling sects apparently preach anti-Illuminism. (See The recent growth of anti-Illuminism: Dreadful ideology about the dreaded Illuminati.)
But the Urantia Book itself, apparently, does not preach anti-Illuminism. Searching a website featuring an online copy of the Urantia Book, I found only one page containing the word “Illuminati”. Here, the word “Illuminati” seems to be used in a positive sense, as a synonym for Boddhisatva, not in reference to an alleged still-existing secret society of that name. The Urantia Book website also contains only three instances of the term “new world order” (here, here, and here), all of which are favorable too. Of course, as should be evident to anyone but an anti-Illuminist, what the Urantia folks mean by “new world order” is very different from what Bush Sr. meant by that term, let alone the dreaded “New World Order” of anti-Illuminist propaganda.
P.S., 10/30/2007: I just now came across A Urantia, 9/11Truth.org & CIA Mind Control Technology Development Timeline by Alex Constantine. Here, Constantine does NOT claim that Urantia is a “Skull and Bones spinoff,” nor does he cast any other aspersions on the founders of Urantia. Instead this page talks about possible infiltration of the Urantia movement by the NSA and CIA, long after its founding. On this page, Constantine comes across as reasonably cautious, although he nevertheless gives credence to some hard-to-believe claims such as “It is believed that secret technology also presently allows for direct wireless access to an unwitting subject’s visual cortex both for inputting and downloading of realtime awake and dreaming field of vision data.”
I should learn more about the CIA’s mind control experiments. It is known, at least, that the CIA did conduct such experiments, although some of the claims that have been made about them have been rather wacky. (See the thread Judy Wood and the False Memory Syndrome Foundation in the Truth Action forum.)
Anyhow, so far I’ve seen nothing to indicate that Urantia is an especially “cultish” (in the sense of especially authoritarian and/or brainwashing) religious movement. That being the case, if indeed Urantia has been infiltrated by the CIA or NSA, then, as I said earlier, it merely has the same problems in that regard as a lot of other groups, both religious and political. So I still see no good reason to be especially wary of Urantia people in the 9/11 Truth movement merely on account of their religion.
P.S., 2/5/2008: I recently responded to a flood of Urantia-bashing in the Truth Action forum by posting an inquiry in a Urantia forum and then posting my findings in the Truth Action forum. No one responded. Hopefully that means I’ve laid this issue to rest.
New York City activist 
My uninformed detractor writes: “On what grounds does the ‘widely respected researcher’ Alex Constantine allege that the Urantia Brotherhood is ‘a Skull & Bones spin-off?’ Salter quotes Constantine as saying that the Urantia Brotherhood’s holy text was ‘supposedly channelled by a member of the Kellogg family, which had four members enrolled in Skull & Bones fraternity at the time to book was produced.’ In other words, if someone is a member of Skull and Bones, then anything that any relative of that person says or does must be at the behest of Skull and Bones.”
https://activistnyc.wordpress.com/2007/10/27/agent-baiting-guilt-by-association-and-religious-bigotry-2/
Skull & Bones, Urantia and “Race Science”
The Urantia Book is a “treatise” on racial eugenics, a political and academic document that reflects the beliefs and serves the political purposes of the social class that makes up S&B:
Prescott Bush’s “trading with enemy” (Nazis) was “unknown publicly and had no bearing when he ran for Senator in 1950, but last minute revelations of his “contacts with birth controllers” … “cost him the election … ” (Yale and many of the Skull & Bones’ family have been at the forefront of the ‘race-science movement’ – a whole story in itself. Yale economist Irving Fisher, S&B 1888, was the founder of the American Eugenics Society.)”
http://www.ctrl.org/boodleboys/boodleboys1.html
Dr. Kellogg himself was a great believer in race science, and so was his psychiatric coeval in the founding of Urantia, William Sadler. Salter notes: “Sadler got his start working for Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, Adventist surgeon,” and writes of “the intimate connections” to Skull & Bones.
Four of the nuclear Kellogg family were S&B, exposed to these eugenical beliefs. Sadler was employed by an S&B family. Further, there is Sadler’s marriage to Leona Kellogg. Sadler was an S&B family member, too; that’s two members of the family founding the Urantia sect, not one, as assumed above.
But that doesn’t matter – it’s still a spin-off.
Secret societies and cults are constantly spinning off new lodges. The OTO, for instance, has spun off numerous Crowleyite sub-organizations because individual members walked away and formed their own lodges.
Michael Aquino left the Church of Satan and founded the Temple of Set. It is accurately described as a spin-off.
It only takes one S&B member to conceive Urantia, and that’s properly referred to as a “spin-off,” despite my critic’s protests. Take it from a “widely respected researcher and author on mind control, cults, and related topics.” (For numerous examples, see Maury Terry’s The Ultimate Evil.)
Many of the cult’s early members had positions in government and poltical bodies like the UN – similar to the career paths of Bonesmen. Where do you suppose Unrantia’s founders got the idea of recruiting from and infiltrating government bureaucracies?
But take a closer look at the cult’s “channelled” bible. The Urantia Book is highly political: “Dr. Sadler whose Urantia book preaches World Government under a World Executive – much like the Rockefeller drive for global government. … ”
http://questionsquestions.net/docs04/belitsos-urantia.html
The Urantia book is a reflection of S&B doctrines. See, for example, “Bush Family, Skull and Bones and Nazi Eugenics,” November 10, 2007 post –
http://wwwthesixthestate.blogspot.com/2007/11/bush-family-skull-and-bones-and-nazi.html
The Kelloggs were prominent in the secret society.
The Urantia book is a mind control tool that serves the upper-class comprising Bones. It is larded with the same eugenics that have been a hallmark of S&B for the past century:
from The Urantia Book — Part III. The History Of Urantia PAPER 111: Section 4.The Inner Life
“unrestrained multiplication of inferiors, with decreasing reproduction of superiors, is unfailingly suicidal of cultural civilization”
The Urantia Book — Part III. The History Of Urantia
PAPER 79: Section 2. The Andite Conquest Of India
“The indigo [Black] race was moving south in Africa, there to begin its slow but long-continued racial deterioration.”
THE URANTIA BOOK PART III – THE HISTORY OF URANTIA
PAPER 78 – THE VIOLET RACE AFTER THE DAYS OF ADAM Page 871
“Notwithstanding this obstacle, it seems that you ought to be able to agree upon the biologic disfellowshiping of your more markedly unfit, defective, degenerate, and antisocial stocks.” (P.585)
“Having failed to achieve race harmonization by the Adamic technique, you must now work out your planetary problem of race improvement by other and largely human methods of adaptation and control.” (P.586)
I called Urantia a spin-off of the well-heeled Yale fraternity – my critic quibbled. But further along in his critique of me, he dismisses with a snort my postings on mind control technology. Well, I’ve written about the technology for 20 years, and each article was documented. The technology exists, but some flatly refuse to believe the hundreds of documents and articles on the topic that I can and have produced. If someone simply refuses to believe it, and abuses me due to ignorance, I can only shrug and ponder the complexity of his psychology, but I’ve already responded in those articles on the technology and have no desire to repeat myself.
My critic writes: “10/30/2007: I just now came across A Urantia, 9/11Truth.org & CIA Mind Control Technology Development Timeline by Alex Constantine. Here, Constantine … talks about possible infiltration of the Urantia movement by the NSA and CIA, long after its founding.” I don’t even recall writing a timeline, but … not “possible infiltration,” but without a doubt. The Bones society is also known to be on close terms with the CIA, but the Urantia sect had long been a front for agents of government and the Complex before the CIA came along. “On this page, Constantine comes across as reasonably cautious,” good to know that I can do that, thanks for the vote of confidence, “although he nevertheless gives credence to some hard-to-believe claims such as ‘It is believed that secret technology also presently allows for direct wireless access to an unwitting subject’s visual cortex both for inputting and downloading of realtime awake and dreaming field of vision data.'”
After dismissing me, however, my critic admits his ignorance: “I should learn more about the CIA’s mind control experiments.”
Now, WHERE will he read about those experiments? In my books, perhaps, after dragging me through the slime. “It is known, at least, that the CIA did conduct such experiments … ” Yes, I and others have exposed that … I’m derided here, but spent years researching and writing about mind control experimentation – so the anonymous poster could cite my own work as he carves me up. ” …. although some of the claims that have been made about them have been rather wacky. (See the thread Judy Wood and the False Memory Syndrome Foundation in the Truth Action forum.)”
First of all, I’m not sure that I wrote the sentence ascribed to me – I edited that piece, if it’s even mine, and I don’t recall it (I’m a busy little researcher). But the tech can do much more than that and I say so elsewhere. But there is no doubt that it exists.
My critic’s lack of knowledge puts him in a position to judge someone who spent years researching the subject?
The important thing is that these devices are used to torture innocent civilians. Everyone who dismisses the technology as non-existent is leaving torture victims to twist in the wind. My critic, rather than act as an accomplice to torture, should go read the articles and books (mine included), and as he acknowledges, learn about mind control before addressing the topic and bad-mouthing me – then he won’t seem (so long as we are talking about appearances and impressions – without bothering to lift a finger to correct them) such a misguided, trivial ass.
But let’s sum up these criticisms of myself. I am guilty, the headline says, of:
“Agent-baiting, guilt by association, and religious bigotry.”
I don’t mind the first two accusations because they are pointless, but I’m a “religious bigot” … because I frown on organized mind control/intelligence fronts … that preach the decimation of inferior races … and derationalize the guinea pigs …
What gets into me?
Whoever wrote this, I say it’s a good thing the backward creature didn’t include a by-line … .
Imagine if I had actually written something false and defamatory – you know, followed my detractor’s example. He’d be angry THEN, I’m sure. I’m not irate, though. I am too sorry for every programmed prole who thinks this way. Fascism has got them, and they don’t have the cognitive skills necessary to open up the universe a little and see that for themselves. Instead, they are prone to acting out on anti-fascists because they don’t understand what’s going on around them, and reports on fascist conspiracies “seem” incredible. The result is always flaming brainwash juvenalia vomitted my way. Unfortunately, it comes spuming up with rage and insults directed at myself as the prole passes through the denial stage, similar to the child’s throes of profanity in The Exorcist. I never liked that part of the job so much …
(Learn something about the topics you write about before ignorantly attacking people. Why do you do this – to make a fool of yourself?)
Comment by alexx1984 — November 24, 2007 @ 6:34 pm |
alexx1984 wrote:
Indeed you’ve cited some passages advocating “racial eugenics.” It is interesting to me that that issue was not brought up in the previous anti-Urantia tirades I’ve looked at. This suggests to me that the topic of “racial eugenics” may not be a sufficiently all-pervading them within the Urantia Book for it to qualify as a full-fledged “treatise” on that topic in particular.
I’ll admit that I have not read the Urantia Book. However, I am a staunch believer in the principle of “innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof is on those who make accusations, not on those who question them. And the evidence presented in the anti-Urantia tirades I’ve seen so far has been far from adequate to justify the claims made.
If you choose to continue this conversation, I’ll try to find a Urantia forum and see if some people there are interested in defending their own religion.
Or it may simply reflect 1920’s fashion. “Racial eugenics” was respectable back then. Lots of people believed in it. It ceased to be respectable only much later, after World War II.
Anyhow, it’s worth asking what role, if any, “racial eugenics” beliefs still play in the Urantia religion today. Religions do evolve. For example, the Bible contains passages advocating genocide (e.g. the many passages where the Israelites are commanded to kill all the Canaanites, the Amalekites, etc.). But most Jews and Christians today do not advocate genocide.
“Birth control” and “racial eugenics” are distinct issues. By conflating them, and by implying that “birth control” is a horrendous thing, you display a religious right wing bias. Do you champion the official Catholic stance of denying people the right to any form of birth control other than the rhythm method?
I just now read this article. If the author, RA Kris Millegan, wants to be taken seriously at all, it would sure be nice if Millegan could use better citations when quoting people. For example, if you’re quoting from a book, tell us the title, the author, the edition, and the page. You know, like what you were taught in high school when writing term papers. Any decent scholar does this.
and so were a gazillion other people back then. If there happen to have been any biology or social science professors in your family back then, they probably advocated “race science” too. This wouldn’t, in itself, make you a bad person, though. Things do change.
Perhaps my analogy was unfair. But calling Urantia a “Skull and Bones spinoff” still comes across to me as an attempt to insinuate guilt-by-association, which is a logical fallacy.
Depends exactly what you mean by “spinoff,” but it doesn’t seem productive to pursue that semantic argument further.
I wouldn’t dispute the more general – and obvious – point that new groups are always emerging out of old ones. But, if you’re going to bother to cite a source on that obvious point, can’t you cite a better source than Maury Terry?
I started reading Terry’s book many years ago. Unfortunately I can’t find my copy at the moment, but what I remember is that I stopped reading when I got to a page about alleged “Satanic holidays.” Supposedly, if I recall correctly ritual murders took place on or around these alleged “holidays,” and supposedly a murder’s proximity to one of these “holidays” should be taken as evidence that it’s a ritual murder. One problem with this was that there were so many “holidays” that almost every day on the calendar was near one of them. Another problem, if I recall correctly, was that he didn’t give any decent sources for his alleged “holidays.”
For a reasonably decent (though outdated) book on Satanism, I would suggest Satan Wants You by Arthur Lyons.
By “the cult,” you apparently mean Urantia? What exactly do you mean by referring to Urantia as a “cult”? What is your definition of that hotly-disputed word “cult”?
And similar to a lot of highly-educated wealthy people in general.
Just a part of their upper class family culture, I would guess, probably not limited to those members of the family who were Skull and Bones members.
I’ll reply to other parts of your comment later. Gotta run now.
Comment by Diane — November 24, 2007 @ 9:56 pm |
To continue my response to Alex Constantine, a.k.a. alexx1984:
I’m a “she,” not a “he.” Of course, you can’t be faulted for not knowing that. I’ve modified the “About” page to begin with the sentence “Hi, I’m Diane.”
I know enough about electromagnetic theory to know that the above claim is exceedingly unlikely. Something like it might be possible, maybe, if there’s also an implant involved. Even so, some very precise surgery would be needed for the latter purpose, which makes it unlikely that the subject would be totally “unwitting,” unless it were done under the guise of legitimate brain surgery.
Even so, the development of interfaces between the human nervous system and electronic devices is still in its infancy, at least in the public biotech realm, where it’s a research area only recently beginning to bear fruit. Here are some news articles I found just now about the current state of the art in the public realm:
– Snap, Crackle, Walk: Listening to the brain to understand hand-eye coordination by Kristin Elise Phillips, Science News, November 16th, 2007.
– Brain implants could restore speech by Mark Henderson, Times Online, UK, Nov 14, 2007.
– Thinking Makes It So: Science Extends Reach Of Prosthetic Arms, Science Daily, Nov. 12, 2007.
– New Brain Machine Interfaces: A monkey controls a robotic arm with better precision than ever before by Emily Singer, Technology Review, Thursday, November 08, 2007.
– Robot arm controlled by thought interface, European Design Engineer Magazine, UK, Nov 21, 2007.
“Secret technology” on such matters might be a little bit ahead of open, public technology, but I seriously doubt that it is very far ahead. In scientific work, secrecy is actually a huge handicap, because it means less peer review. Probably for that reason, even “secret technology” is often developed at least partly in public. For example, according to a math professor I know who teaches cryptography, many public developments in mathematical research have been funded as part of otherwise-secret developments in cryptography.
My conclusions: If someone claims to have been tortured by the CIA using the kind of technology Alex Constantine is talking about here, I might find this believable (depending on other aspects of the story) if (a) the alleged torture happened within the past several years, or at least the past decade, and (b) it involved implants. On the other hand, if it is alleged to have happened 30 or 40 ago, or if did not involve implants, then I would find it much harder to believe.
Anyhow, alexx1984 goes on to say:
See above.
Also, I’m not inclined to trust the research of anyone who considers a sensationalistic piece of trash like Maury Terry’s The Ultimate Evil to be an even remotely reliable reference on Satanism. Whenever I do start researching the subject of CIA mind control, Alex Constantine will not be at the top of my reading list.
That’s an important consideration. But it’s not a reason to accept all claims of torture uncritically, because there’s also the opposite danger that sensationalistic false alarms about exotic tortures may divert attention from the real victims of real torture.
Still, you do have a valid point here. One should not dismiss claims of torture without even looking at them. And, certainly, we in the 9/11 Truth movement should all care about opposing torture, because 9/11 has been used to justify torture. We ourselves are in danger of being tortured, if current trends continue.
Actually, my post wasn’t primarily about you. It’s primarily a criticism of Brian Salter, who in turn quoted you.
The latter issue was not brought up in Brian Salter’s article, or in the article of yours that I looked at when I wrote my blog post. Apparently, Brian Salter is worried a lot more about “World Federalism” than about racism.
The question of Urantia racism is something I should look into, but keeping in mind the possibility that Urantia may have found a way to outgrow it, in much the same way that Mormonism seems to have found a way to grow past the racism in its scriptures.
Nothing I wrote could legally qualify as “false and defamatory.” I was merely commenting on something you wrote.
Hello? I don’t uncritically reject belief in any and all “fascist conspiracies.” For example, I’m inclined to believe that 9/11 was an inside job.
Anyhow, I am a staunch opponent of raligion-based bigotry. Whenever I come across what looks to me like an instance of someone being bashed unfairly because of the person’s religion, I will challenge it. And I won’t feel an obligation to research all the ins and outs before speaking up. In my opinion, the burden of proof is on those who make accusations against another person because of that person’s religion.
In New York 9/11 Truth, shortly before I joined, there was a schism over, among other things, Les Jamieson’s adherence to the Urantia religion. However, in my opinion, Les Jamieson and New York 9/11 Truth are doing far more to advance the cause of 9/11 truth and justice than the other group is. In my opinion, we don’t need “hecklivism,” but we do need a New York City ballot initiative for a new and truly independent investigation.
Comment by Diane — November 25, 2007 @ 7:18 pm |