Skull / Bones

That Evangelical Leader hosts a forum and asks questions for McCain and Obama.  He asks Obama which Supreme Court Justices he would not have nominated.  Obama lists two Justices from the “Conservative Bloc” of the Court.  When he as at bat, McCain is asked who he would not have nominated.  McCain lists the four members of the “Liberal Bloc”.

This dramatic illustration of the obvious illuminates us… how?

There’s this International Hostel located in Northeast.  It has a giant blue-background sign up for Barack Obama — Obama’s name written in large white block letters.  Someone has, in stages, been writing in the letters such things as “Tri-Lateral Commission”, “Council of Foreign Relations”, “9/11 Was an Inside Job”, “Infowars.com”, and “NO CHANGE!!!”

The sort of Insurgent 9/11 Truth plastering continues as stickers have been posted inviting the passer-by to some 9/11 Conspiracy websites — the same that are chalked about the town sidewalks.  It is an interesting change from things that go on in the pastm, and go on right now, where supporters of the other candidate would scribble anti-Obama and pro-McCain messages.  I assume that if there were a McCain sign of similar vintage somewhere in this city it would be vandalized in the same manner — CFR/Tri-Lateral/9-11 Inside Job — somehow they all blur into one.

I sort of want to catch the vandalizers in the act, because I want an answer as to what they think they are doing.  Is someone going to happen by this sign and think “Wow.  I never thought of that.”  Will this direct them to Alex Jones’s website or the various blogs — where they will be introduced to that neat oragami trick with the dollar bill to show the toppling towers if you fold the money just right?

In front of the public library, a giant “9/11 Inside Job blahdeblah911truth.blogspot.com” has been chalked, as often is the case.  Also as often is the case a man was hawking, while standing on this message, copies of “Street Roots”.  This seems an incongruent message, even if it is not mutually exclusive that 9/11 Truthers would be concerned with the plight of the Homeless or that a homeless man might think that 9/11 Was an inside job.  It’s dual purpose space, I suppose.

I am starting to think of referring to all manner of situations as “Inside Job”.  My apples have gotten rotten, for instance.  It was an Inside Job.  I accidentally died my underwear pink in the Laundary.  It was… an inside job.  Run with it, I say.

I wonder.:

The Blog Pulse on Olympic Swimmer Michael Phelps.

The blog pulse on Anti-Gay Activist Fred Phelps. 

Unfortunately, unlike the “Mark Foley”/”Tom Foley” situation of 2006, which saw a sudden blogging infusion of Tom Foley entirely tied to people mistakingly writing Tom Foley for Mark Foley — and thus identical graphs until a slight shift as October came when Tom Foley’s name came into reference due to some interest in the 5th Congressional race in Washington State, a deeper dig into these graphs shows no corallary between Michael Phelps and Fred Phelps — the graph spikes come due to interest in Fred Phelps being not allowed into Canada and in some various sundry controversies.  Michael Phelps’s spike comes from his new role as Greatest Olympian of all time — which I think is ahistorical and I point to such Olympic luminaries from the past as the Norse Gods Zeus and Thor.  But simply put, nobody is confusing Fred Phelps for Michael Phelps.  I am disappointed.

Nonetheless, Fred Phelps should start planning on capitalizing on Phelps-Mania and plan to stage his family/church “protests” at Michael Phelps appearances when he comes back to the States in Triumph.  There is no “gay” connection, you say?  Well, there’s not much “Gay” connection in much of Phelps’s protestations, but he can think of something.  Surely Michael Phelps’s Speedo-wearing has given him a following in the Homosexual Community?

 A man recently fired from a Target store barged into the Arkansas Democratic headquarters Wednesday and fatally shot the state party chairman before speeding off in his pickup. Police later shot and killed the suspect after a 30-mile chase.Police identified the suspect as 50-year-old Timothy Dale Johnson of Searcy, a town about 50 miles northeast of Little Rock. They said that moments after the shooting, Johnson pointed a handgun at a worker at the nearby Arkansas Baptist headquarters. An official there said he told the worker, “I lost my job.”

It occurs to me that this killing of Bill Gwatney, head of the Democratic Party of Arkansas, counts as an Assassination.  This is a little odd, because we tend to think of assassinations as being aimed at heads of state — it’s Lincoln - Garfield - McKinley - Kennedy and the misfire at Ford (of all presidents) and Reagan.  And that Archduke whose assassination started World War One, but when you think of it if the assassination of that archduke was enough to set off a world war, the world’s political situation was fragile enough for a “if not one thing than another” situation.

Nonetheless, this distraught individual — reportedly a quiet man who kept to himself a lot and was something of a loner — sought out the head of the Arkansas Democratic Party, and … Assassinated him.  For what grandiose political reason, I do not know — probably shaky reasoning, at best — actually almost certainly shaky reasoning at best.  The reasoning is “undetermined”.  I understand that Gwatney was a relatively well known political figure — former state Senator, as these state party heads tend to be — but who assassinates a party functionary?

It brings me to mind the recent shooting of the Unitarian Church, where a distraught unemployed truck driver at the end of his welfare benefits, and a massive fan of various talk radio programs — and here I note specifically Michael Savage — hated the Liberals and Homosexuals and took it out on that church.  That is an act of Terrorism, and two makes for a disturbing sign.

I point out Michael Savage because it’s impossible for me now  not to listen to his vitrol and allusions to what must be done to “Liberals” without thinking about that Unitarian Church shooting.  Yes, I know Michael Reagan waxed poetic on his desire to kill a particular 9/11 Truther and wants to summarily kill Palestinian babies, but Savage gets the honor of being the heir apparent to the legacy of Father Coughlin.

Anyway, the local paper recently published some letters from Unitarians which I knew would garner a response such as this:

  With the recent church shooting by a “conservative,” I have noticed a surge of angry liberals attempting to blame conservatives for all that is wrong in the world. The truth is, there are good and bad people of all stripes. I read plenty opinion articles in The Oregonian written by liberals that I would consider angry and prejudiced. And some of the most hate-filled radio can be heard on Air America.      
        As a former Democrat, I would ask that these people look at their own sins before they start casting stones at others.
        MARK TURNER

 All very interesting.  Pox on both their houses, ye say?  Actually I think Liberal Elitism falls more in the lines of a sad forlorn pity and a thumping of some sense of Superiority.

Anyway, two times — unless you want to put a certain conspiracy tinge on the Anthrax threats of 2001, and a conspiracy tinge is warranted in that case, just perhaps not that conspiracy tinge, in which case it would be three times, and that makes for a hefty lunge time besides– does that make a trend?

“How long do you give Obama?”

“Oh, about as long as Kennedy.”

And so goes a conversation, which runs on to me arguring that Bobby Kennedy in 1968 (same conspiracy that caught his brother, and I was referring to John in referencing with my slightly glib statement, which I don’t necessarily subscribe to — Lord Willing he serves out two fantastic terms in office and Saves the World and everything) wasn’t going to be nominated.  But what is curious is to reflect on something from the McCain camp, which is an urging that it’s important for him because, you know…

… So, you see, Obama = John Kennedy Assassination and McCain = um, William Henry Harrison — then our oldest president and susceptible to pnuemonia.

It should make for a Battle of Youtube “not connected to the campaign” commercials, hinting wildly at these possibilities.  I am not sure how to make it work for McCain, though — the possibility with Obama is to press Obama up against some Kennedy shots which include his assassination.  The most obvious paralel with McCain is a now obscure president from the goddamned Whig Party.  Perhaps Reagan’s late term dementia could be emphasized, but that would only help him amongst Reagan-yearning Republicans.  Hm.  It’s a thought.

It seemed about time someone made that PUMA - Larouche connection.  Except it appears Larouche loses, as this coverage float-over is one removed, over to Webster Tarpley.  (Or does that mean Tarpley loses, as he cannot be mentioned without mention of his Larouche connection as a necessary explication?)  But the vibe remains, and to quote someone from The Atlantic:

“Don’t know if you guys saw this. It kinda made my day. More on the nuts that comprise PUMA here. It gets ill. I’m talking Lyndon Larouche/”Exterminate Jew Power” ill. Hmm, my guess is that these guys aren’t team players on the lam–but nuts filing into the asylum.”

Rubbish, Rubbish, Rubbish.  I mean, I do not believe Gary Genazzio was Jewish.

[Pause.]

So, in review, being for the benefit of the wikipedia-checking David Weigel for a bit more: Webster Tarpley renounced his association with Larouche (as seen here), referred to his organization as a “Maoist Cult”, but has carried on a parallel path of disseminating the exact same conspiratorial blather as Larouche (sans the omnipresent mention of the name), only with access to more arenas in the kook-o-sphere than can be afforded to Larouche — widely known now as, um, leading what is essentially a Maoist Cult.  (Larouche does sneak into the People’s Daily in China on occasion.) I do not know if this makes Tarpley an affiliate, successful spin-off, or if Jeff Steinberg and Webster Tarpley are involved in some mushroom-induced grand conspiracy of their own.

And now he jumps from his perch at “9/11 Truth” over to that odd Hillary Clinton Personality Cult that is PUMA, where he can propagate past some imagined and un-examined grievances over the Democratic Party nominating process and on to the key-pin of George Soros and Zbigniew Brzezinski.  And perhaps sell some copies of his on-some-best-sellers-list anti-Obama “Post Modernist Coup” book?  (Incidentally, thumb through the Brzenski-Russia-hating thesis and do the work yourself of parsing out Obama, Clinton, and McCain’s tact right now visa-vie Russia/Georgia.)

In other news of… this variety, Dennis King, after a fairly lengthly absence, some new material for his “newest postings” update.  Quote:

Lyndon LaRouche tells us how to conquer the world in one easy lesson. The text of this 1978 article–the most extreme version of the Fantasy Hitler’s “Great Design”–is accompanied by comments (in brackets) that expose, paragraph by paragraph, his appalling ignorance of history, his attempts to block all independent thinking by his followers, his obsession with plots by Jewish bankers, his use of code language, and the malignant narcissism that underlies his eagerness for a war of world conquest to be commanded by himself as President/Philosopher King of the Neoplatonic Humanist Republic of America.

I have to admit my reaction to this hyperbolic description was: “All very much true, but… So?”  It’s a little easy to get jaded on failed potential president/philosopher kings of neoplatonic humanist republic of americas.

I am tempted to link to, say, a transcript of a debate with a “PUMA” blogger from NPR, but I see no real reason to bother.

A moment of absurdity with Joseph Lieberman.  As Lieberman and Graham are being flown out to Georgia on behalf of McCain for no real reason, Lieberman chips in with a campaign statement of praise.  Everyone is focusing on the sentence about how McCain is the one candidate who “always puts America first” , but flip forward a ways to the relatively straight-forward:

And watch the response of this man, John McCain, to that crisis: right, strong, clear, principled.

I’ll get back to him when I can figure out why I’m supposed to be impressed by Actions in a context where by definition neither candidate is in a position to do much acting.  But maybe the body politik will respond favorably?