On the Far Side of the Psychosphere Part III

"If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward then, brother, that person is a piece of shit."

--Rustin Cohle

Welcome to the third installment in my examination of the HBO original series True Detective. During the first part I briefly considered the curious backgrounds of the first season's two stars, Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, as well as the significance of the numbers seventeen and five, which appear throughout the season. With the second installment I began to focus in on the plot line, beginning with the ritualistic murder of Dora Lange and the symbolism behind many of the articles left with her body.

Dora Lange

With this installment I would like to consider the world in which detectives Martin Hart (Harrelson) and Rustin Cohle (McConaughey) find themselves knee deep in. With the discovery that Dora Lange was a prostitute Hart and Cohle venture into the underbelly of the feel-good 90s (as personified by Hart's suburban life) and experience a world defined by rampant misogyny, racism, class oppression, corruption and religious zealotry. Women born into poverty find themselves as easy targets for predators, more than a few of whom turn out to be police officers, who use their social status to force these women into prostitution and drug trafficking.

Many of the men who inhabit this world on the lower levels seem to have ties to the white supremacist underground: Charlie Lange (Brad Carter), Dora's ex-husband, is a member of the Aryan Brotherhood; a picture of what is possibly a young Dora Lange in her mother's house shows her surrounded by five men on horses who appear to be outfitted like Klansmen (a variation on this image appears throughout the first season, as will be discussed in a future installment); members of the Iron Crusaders, a biker gang linked to Lange's murder, are heavily outfitted with white supremacist and neo-Nazi symbols on their patches and tattoos; Reggie Ledoux (Charles Halford), one of Dora Lange's murderers and a meth cook for the Iron Crusaders, is shown with two swastika tattooed on his chest, among other things. African-Americans, who are shown in even more severe poverty than the lower class whites, are frequently described as subhuman if addressed at all in this subculture.

besides the two swastikas (one in the form of an octopus), Reggie Ledoux also has "SWP" (which stands for "Supreme White Power"), "AB" (an abbreviation for the Aryan Brotherhood) and what appears to be a German eagle tattooed on his torso as well 

At the heart of it all is the rampant Christian fundamentalism that had become a major political and cultural force by the 1990s. The personification of this in True Detective is the Reverend Billy Lee Tuttle (Jay O. Sanders), a wealthy and powerful evangelist whose cousin is Louisiana's governor at the time of Dora Lange's murder. The devastating effect the movement has had on Louisiana is displayed most prominently via Tuttle's involvement with the state's school system. Education is of course a long standing obsession of the Christian right.

"The 'pro-family' issues are derived from an ongoing ideological struggle over which sector the U.S. public will draw the official American portrait, both in the history books and in legislation. To a large extent, the Christian Right is engaged in a drive to reinvigorate fading symbols representing marital relations, parental authority and the sanctity and purity of the neighborhood movie theatre and public school. The right to determine how and by whom the minds of children are molded is the most valued prize in the tug of war between the Christian Right and secular society.

"Nowhere has the struggle for the minds of children been so great as in the Christian Right's battle against 'secular humanist' education. The term 'secular humanism' is a catch-all phrase for a human-centered rather than God-centered philosophy. Secular humanist, according to their Christian detractors, believe that human being shape their own destiny and solve their own problems through concrete physical means rather than through reliance on the supernatural."

(Spiritual Warfare, Sara Diamond, pgs. 84-85) 

It is hinted at that the Wellspring program Tuttle's ministry supported led to countless children from impoverished families being shipped off to under-funded Christian schools in which they received a Bible-based education. This type of thing certainly happens in the real world and whether it is a boon to the families that receive this type of education is rather debatable.

"Students in Christian schools are being inculcated with intolerant, heavy-handed political doctrine on display at the rally. The Accelerated Christian Education curriculum, one of the country's three major publishers of Christian textbooks, defines 'liberal' in its schoolbooks as 'referring to philosophy not supported by Scripture' and 'conservative' as 'dedicated to preserving of Scriptural principles.' And 'Conservative Christian schools,' identified by their affiliation with one of four national school organizations that define themselves as evangelical and Christian, are the fastest-growing segment within the private school system. Such schools now represent 15.4 percent of all private school enrollment. The National Center for Education Statistics shows a 41 percent growth in the total enrollment at conservative Christian schools between 1992 and 2002...

"In texts published by A Beka, one of the big fundamentalist publishing houses, African religious beliefs are described as 'false.' Hinduism is 'pagan' and 'evil.' The lack of Christian conversion among Africans is blamed on 'Satan's stronghold on these people,' according to Bob Jones University press history textbook for seventh graders. A Beka's high school world history textbook blames the poverty and political chaos in most of Africa on a lack of faith. It skips over the repressive colonial European regimes that exploited the continent and decimated the population in countries such as the Congo, explaining:

"For over a thousand years, there was no clear Christian witness in the vast heartland of Africa; the fear, idolatry, superstition, and witchcraft associated with animism (the belief that natural objects and forces are inhabited by mostly malignant spirits) prevented most Africans from learning how to use nature for man's benefit and thus develop high culture like that of other African empires. 

"Another A Beka textbook argues that 'witchcraft and spirit worship' caused most postcolonial self-governments in Africa to descend in the dictatorships. Hinduism is described as 'devastating to India's history.' Hindus are 'incapable of writing history because all that happens is dissipated in their minds into confused dreams. What we call historical truth and veracity – intelligent comprehension events, and fidelity in representing them – nothing of the sort can be looked for among the Hindus.'

"The Muslim prophet Muhammad is portrayed as deceiving followers about his 'supposed encounters with angels,' and Buddha is criticized because he desired to 'leave his wife and newborn son' in search of enlightenment. The deaths of Muhammad and Buddha, set against the risen Christ, are taken as proof that Islam and Buddhism are false religions. And while the movement works alongside right-wing Catholic groups, within its own circle it spits venom at the Catholic faith. The A Beka textbook calls Catholicism 'distorted' and explains that in Catholic country such as Ireland children 'grow up believing the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church without knowing of God's free salvation.' The Catholic empires of France and Spain failed to colonize the United States, students are told, because God wanted to make America a Christian nation. 

"The college protesters of the 1960s were largely the instruments communists 'seeking to exploit youthful rebellion in order to advance their own goals.' Riots occurred in black neighborhoods because 'power-hungry individual stirred up the people.' Those dependent on welfare programs of the 1960s 'became more susceptible to politicians that preyed on economic insecurity.... In this way politicians literally bought the votes of millions of Americans. And Joseph McCarthy becomes a patriot, with a textbook stating, 'McCarthy's conclusions, although technically unprovable, were drawn from the accumulation of undisputed facts.'"

(American Fascists, Chris Hedges, pgs. 153-154)

I daresay the curriculum of Tuttle schools probably bore some similarities to that described above. In 2002, when Cohle confronts Tuttle after he has begun investigating Lange's murder again, the holy roller boasts that the Wellspring program will be used as a model for charter schools in Louisiana. Tuttle notes that: "The whole idea was to provide an alternative to the kind of secular, globalized education that our public schools were promoting. When we get the school voucher program instituted, we'll reintroduce the idea. People should have a choice in education, like anything else."

Show creator, runner and sole writer Nic Pizzolatto, a native Louisianan, no doubt meant his incorporation of Tuttle's chartered school scheme as a jab at the voucher program initiated in New Orleans shortly after Katrina.

"... The administration of George W. Bush backed up their plans with tens of millions of dollars to convert New Orleans schools into 'charter schools,' publicly funded institutions run by private entities according to their own rules. Charter schools are deeply polarizing in the United States, nowhere more than in New Orleans, where they are seen by many African-American parents as a way of reversing the gains of the civil rights movement, which guaranteed all children the same standard of education...

"In sharp contrast to the glacial pace with which the levees were repaired and the electricity grid was brought back online, the auctioning off of New Orleans' school system took place with military speed and precision. Within nineteen months, with most of the city's poor residents still in exile, New Orleans' public school system had been almost completely replaced by privately run charter schools. Before Hurricane Katrina, the school board had run 123 public school; now it ran 4. Before that storm, there had been 7 charter schools in the city; now there were 31. New Orleans teachers used to be represented by strong union; now the unions contracted been shredded, and its forty-seven hundred members had all been fired. Some of the younger teachers were rehired by the charters, at reduced salaries; most were not."

(The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein, pg. 5)

Throughout True Detective the exploitation of Louisiana by corporate interest is ever present via the constant appearance of oil rigs and refineries. These interests ensure the comfortable lifestyles police officers like Marty Hart enjoy in exchange for their suppression of the masses. This occurs in different ways, such as the prostitution ring supported by a county sheriff near Spanish Lake; or the numerous cover ups officers at all levels of local and state law enforcement engage into to protect the wealthy and powerful. The great unwashed masses, who find their children to be easy prey for police-protected pimps and drug dealers, are fed Christian fundamentalism to soothe their discontent. This is about par the course in the real world.

"The movement has sanctified a ruthless unfettered capitalism. In an essay in Harper's magazine titled 'The Spirit of Disobedience: An Invitation to Resistance,' Curtis White argued that 'it is capitalism that now most defines our national character, not Christianity or the Enlightenment.' Although the values of capitalism are antithetical to Christ's vision and the Enlightenment ethic of Kant, the gospel of prosperity – which preaches that Jesus wants us all to be rich and powerful and the government to get out of the way – has formulated a belief system that delights corporate America. Corporations such as Tyson Foods – which has placed 128 part-time chaplains, nearly all evangelicals or fundamentalist, in 78 plants across the country – along with Purdue, Walmart, and Sam's Wholesale, to name a few, are huge financial backers of the movement."

(American Fascists, Chris Hedges, pgs. 22-23)

an "prosperity theology"... 

Most disturbing of all, however, is the fact that the world depicted in True Detective has a clear historical basis. During the aftermath of the JFK assassination one of the most enigmatic figures to appear in it, prostitute and some time drug mule Rose Cherami, alleged that a ring engaged in drug and arms trafficking as well as prostitution existed throughout the Gulf States and was protected by powerful figures.

"... On 20 November 1963, Rose Cheramie was found on a Louisiana Road, dazed and bruised. She was taken to a private hospital where she told the doctor the JFK was going to be killed during his forthcoming visit to Dallas. Later that day, Cheramie was released in the custody of Louisiana state policeman Francis Fruge, and while Fruge was taking her to the state hospital Cheramie said she'd been traveling from Florida to Dallas with two men who 'were Italian or resembled Italians.' She didn't know their names, but they'd stopped at a lounge for drinks. An argument ensued, Cheramie was evicted and, as she stood outside the lounge, she was struck a glancing blow by a car. She also repeated to Fruge her claim that President Kennedy was going to be killed. But because she was a prostitute and a drug addict, neither Fruge nor the doctor believed her – at least, not until the afternoon of 22 November. 

"On 27 November, Fruge interviewed Cheramie again, and she expounded on her story. She said the Italians were taking her to Dallas to obtain $8000, so they could buy eight kilograms of heroin from a seaman. The seaman was to meet them in Houston after disembarking in Galveston. Cheramie gave Fruge the name of the seaman and the ship. As they were on the way to Houston to check out her story, Cheramie told Fruge that she was a stripper at Jack Ruby's nightclub in Dallas, and that she had seen Ruby and Oswald together. She said she was part of a Mafia operation in which call girls were rotated between cities, and that Ruby had sent her to Miami on 18 November. 

"When contacted by Fruge, the Customs agents in charge of Galveston verified that the seaman was being investigated for drug smuggling. The Coast Guard likewise confirmed that it was interested in the ship named by Cheramie regarding its role in drug smuggling operations. But the state narcotics bureaus in Texas and Oklahoma found Cheramie's information 'erroneous is in all respects,' and when the HSCA asked Customs to produce the agents she had name, and their reports, Customs officials said that neither the agents nor reports could be found. 

"The HSCA let this promising lead drop without attempting to talk to Customs agents like William Hughes, who vividly recalls 'Nutty Nate' Durham as the feckless agent in charge of Galveston in 1963. Nate may have been alive in 1978, but the CIA did not allow Customs to identify him or provide his reports to Congress. The reason for this subterfuge comes as no surprise: some of Nutty Nate's colleagues on the Galveston case were CIA officers operating under Customs cover, as part of the special unit organized in Houston by David Ellis. Members of this unit facilitated the activities of anti-Castro drug smuggling terrorist groups in the US, which is why the FBI also 'decided to pursue the case no further.

"Neither Customs, nor the Coast Guard, nor the FBI, nor any state narcotics bureau revealed the existence of the Galveston drug ring to the FBN. But Fruge did tell congressional investigators that the Cuban Revolutionary Council's delegate in New Orleans, Sergio Arcacha Smith, may have been one of the men who had accompanied and abused Rose Cheramie. Smith's CRC office was located in the same building as Oswald's notional Fair Play for Cuba office at 544 Camp Street in New Orleans, and Guy Banister, a former FBI agent in Chicago, had gotten Smith his office space. Smith and one of Banister's employees, David Ferrie, 'were also believed to have ties with organized crime figure Carlos Marcello.'"

(The Strength of the Wolf, Douglas Valentine, pgs. 312-313)

a young Rose Cherami during better days

Much more information of this Gulf Coast-based crime ring, which allegedly involved the prostitution and trafficking of underage girls, and its ties to the Kennedy assassination can be found here.

While we're on this topic, its also interesting to note the use of the Texas town of Beaumont in a key episode of season one. Beaumont was said to be a key base of operations for a cult known as the "Hand of Death" by serial killer Henry Lee Lucas. It was alleged by another convicted serial killer, David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz, to be a location used by members of a cult he claimed to have been involved with, sometimes referred to as "the Children". Beaumont is also one of the only areas in Texas to possess the ever mysterious Indian mounds, which have attracted so much high weirdness throughout this nation's history. The Native American tribe who built them there seem to have been cannibals to boot.

"... Another mound site, of possibly less importance, lies in Beaumont, Texas – a site that shows up in both the Son of Sam case, as well as in the Henry Lee Lucas case. According to Lucas, the 'Hand of Death' cult that he insisted existed in Texas, and was responsible for murders throughout the United States, was based in or around Beaumont at one point, and was responsible for the murder of a lawyer there. Beaumont, a suburb of Houston, and is where Sam cultist John Carr's ex-wife lived with her daughter. Berkowitz visited Beaumont when he obtained the famous .44 Charter Arms Bulldog revolver that was used in the Sam killings. Houston has been identified in the same literature is a cult center for the group rivaling Los Angeles; Minot, North Dakota; and New York City.

"According to Beaumont: A Guide to the City and Its Environs 'compiled and written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Texas' and published circa 1939, the area had been home to a tribe of Native Americans known as the Attacapas. This name, we are informed, comes from the Choctaw words hatak (man) and apa (each). In other words, they were cannibals. On page 25, the anonymous but federally-funded writers go on to state,

"'They told of a deluge that once destroyed the world except for those people who live on high land. The women of the tribe, using the shoulder blades of buffalo for spades, were made to build great earthen [sic] mounds with their hands, and atop these mounds the big chiefs had their lodges.'

"Some of these mounds still exist in the Beaumont area, or did at the time the book was compiled. 

"Thus, we have cannibals and mound-builders in the same breath. We are told that the Attacapas (like the ancient Sumerians) believe their origin was in the sea, so they tended to stay near the water as much as possible, building their mounds on the banks of the Neches River that winds through Beaumont like gentle persuasion. In fact, the Attacapas mounds are the only evidence of a mount-building culture in the entire State of Texas, aside from a set of mounds on a farm near Nagodoches." 

(Sinister Forces Book III, Peter Levenda, pgs. 421-422)

More information on the mysteries of Indian Mounds can be found here while I touched briefly on Berkowitz's alleged "Son of Sam" cult before here.

Needless to say, it would seem that Nic Pizzolatto has more than a passing knowledge of some of this nation's strange history. But beyond the use of the Louisiana Gulf and Beaumont as locations, there's also the fact that, as noted in the second installment, the cult behind the ritualistic murders is dominated by the Tuttle family. Indeed, its hinted at that at the heart of Tuttle's ministry is some type of occult underground. Consider, for instance, the tale former Tuttle minister Joel Theriot (Shea Whigham) tales Rust Cohle concerning the fictious grimoire called The Letters of Telios de Lorca he discovered in the library of minister close to Tuttle that also contained photos of nude children.

For years the conspiratorial right and Christian fundamentalists have been obsessed with the notion of an occult underground spanning across the United States and dealing in drug and sex trafficking, especially children. During the late 1980s and early 1990s this notion reached a fever pitch and spawned a "Satanic cult hysteria" that ruined more than a few lives and careers during that era. True Detective mocks this frenzy via the task force the Tuttles have created to investigate alleged Satanic crime in Louisiana. These crimes include things such as dead cats nailed to church doors and "Satanic graffiti" and it is here a major push is made for the Dora Lange investigation to be turned over too.

the West Memphis Three are one of the more notorious examples of the Satanic cult hysteria

While this researcher has found very little evidence for the conventional claims made by the conspiratorial right in this regard, there is some evidence of an underground network involved in the trafficking of minors with ties to the national security apparatus. As noted above, the outline of such a network can be discerned in the Kennedy assassination and one of the players in this network seems to have been the American Orthodox Catholic Church, as noted before here.

This is of course hardly the only instance of a Christian institute turning up in such bizarre circumstances. Consider, for instance, Colonia Dignidad --the "Colony of Dignity" or "Dignity Colony." Based out of Chile, this compound was founded in the early 1960s by a German immigrants led by Paul Schafer, a man who seems to have had some type of tie to the Nazi regime. For decades there were rumblings that a host of strange things were happening at the Colony: torture of Chile's political prisoners involving a host of strange methods that bore more than a few passing resemblances to "techniques" being explored by the CIA's Artichoke and MK-Ultra programs during the same era; inhabitants whose behavior was described as "robotic" by more than a few visitors to the Colony; allegations of bizarre occult-centric ceremonies and rituals; and claims of child abuse and abduction.

the Colony

Many of these claims were later proven in Chile's criminal justice system, most notably that Herr Schafer was an arch pedophile. It is important to note, however, that rather than posing as some type of New Age commune the Colony in fact presented itself to the world as a community dedicated to pure Christian living along the lines of the Mennonites. Day to day life at the Colony was based around the wearing of traditional German attire, fourteen hour work days, a rigid separation of the sexes during the night time and regular church services. The weird stuff was kept very, very far from the eyes of the public. More information on the Colony can be found here.

And of course this is only scratching the surface. There is the celebrated Franklin incident (which may have been slyly referenced by Pizzolatto via the use of Franklin, LA as the site of Joel Theriot's Friends of Christ Church Tent Revival) which deeply involved the legendary Catholic orphanage Boy's Town. And then there's the Unification Church, an only somewhat superficially Christian sect with ties to the US intelligence community and indoctrination methods also bearing a resemblance to CIA behavior modification techniques. While there is no damning evidence of sexual abuse with the Unification Church, there have also been rumblings there for some time. More information on the Moonies (including the possibility that they funded rather obscene amounts of the Christian fundamentalist movement with drug money) can be found here.

Sun Myung Moon, the highly controversial founder of the Unification Church

What I'm getting at here is that there is compelling evidence of some type of pedophilic ring within elements of the Christian right and aligned forces. Of course few would dispute that such a thing would exist within the Vatican in this day and age, but "traditional" Catholic (as my article of the American Orthodox Catholic Church noted) and Protestant sects have also been implicated. Some of the more extreme Protestant sects such as the highly politically connected and oh-so cultic Dominionists only stoop to mere "Biblically-based" child abuse.

Needless to say, some very strange things have been happening to children within Christian fundamentalist sects of all stripes for quite some ties and the inevitable military and intelligence figures are frequently lurking nearby. And these were of course the same people behind the "Satanic cult panic" and the myopic gaze it cast upon the New Age movement.

And as True Detective seems to present just such a scenario throughout its first season, I don't feel much hesitation in suggesting that Pizzolatto is also aware of this peculiar history. And with that I shall wrap things up for now. In the next installment I'll address Marty's increasingly bizarre home life and the rites of the Tuttle clan. Stay tuned.

February Burning

In tracking the events unfolding across the world this February I have paid close attention to their correlation to historic events in the same month. Occultic dates have continued to play a large role in the timing of current revolutions unfolding across the globe. The protests in Libya kicked off on February 15th, which was the third and final day of the Roman festival of Lupercalia. Naturally, Lupercalia was a festival of purification.

"The Lupercalia, by the time of its celebration, may seem to be a feast of purification, for it is solemnised on the dies nefasti, or non-court days, of the month February, which name signifies purification, and the very day of the feast was anciently called Februata; but its name is equivalent to the Greek Lycaea; and it seems thus to be of great antiquity, and brought in by the Arcadians who came with Evander. Yet this is but dubious, for it may come as well from the wolf that nursed Romulus; and we see the Luperci, the priests, begin their course from the place where they say Romulus was exposed. But the ceremonies performed in it render the origin of the thing more difficult to be guessed at; for there are goats killed, then, two young noblemen's sons being brought, some are to stain their foreheads with the bloody knife, others presently to wipe it off with wool dipped in milk; then the young boys must laugh after their foreheads are wiped; that done, having cut the goats' skins into thongs, they run about naked, only with something about their middle, lashing all they meet; and the young wives do not avoid their strokes, fancying they will help conception and childbirth. Another thing peculiar to this feast is for the Luperci to sacrifice a dog... If the sacrifice be by way of purification, a dog might very well be sacrificed, for the Greeks, in their illustrations, carry out young dogs, and frequently use this ceremony of periscylacismus, as they call it. Or if again it is a sacrifice of gratitude to the wolf that nourished and preserved Romulus, there is good reason in killing a dog, as being an enemy to wolves.
(Lives, Plutarch, pg. 42)

The Lupercalia may have had an even more bizarre origin if it originated from Greece. The Greeks had traditions of the Kallikantzari, werewolf like creatures that were said to be at licence during the 12 day period between December 25th and January 6th.

"...the Lupercalia in Rome, a winter (February) festival in which the priests of Pan behaved not unlike the Kallikantzari, plaguing women throughout the city by whipping them, a frequent substitute for what was at one time a human sacrifice, to make them fertile, and making general nuisances of themselves. Lupus is the Latin for 'wolf,' and the festival occurs later than the astronomical solstice, much as did the Anthesteria in Greece, to accommodate the advent of spring, as it is a fertility celebration."
(The Apples of Apollo, Ruck, Staples, and Heinrich, pg. 38)

In addition to dressing up in wolf skins, the Greek priests likely consumed some type of entheogen to complete the transformation into the Kallikantzari before heading out in search of young maidens. I've written more on this ritual here. 

Its also possible that the Celtic festival of Imbolc, normally celebrated on February 1st or 2nd, was originally recognized on February 12th. The Eastern Orthodox Church still celebrates the Christianizing, Candlemas, on the 12th. Imbolc and Candlemas alike are both purification celebrations dedicated to fertility goddesses, the Virgin Mary in the Christian version, Brigid in the Celtic. I've already discussed the significance of fertility goddesses to the uprisings now unfolding here.

In general February seems a favorable month for revolutionary pushes and political upheaval as well. For instance, February 11th marked not just the end Mubarak's regime in Egypt, but also the fall of the Shah in Iran, paving the way for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Roman Empire also witnessed its fair share of intrigue on this date as well. In 55 AD Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus, heir to the Roman Emperorship, died under the mysterious circumstances. His death paved the way for this rise Nero. An actual Roman Emperor, Gordian III, was assassinated by his own troops while campaigning in Zaitha on February the 11th as well.

February also marked the beginning of the great wave of revolutions that swept across Europe in 1848. It was also a big month for communism and fascism. In the former Soviet Union February 23rd marked Red Army Day, now Defender of the Fatherland Day, in honor of the Red Army's first victory over German forces in 1918. The year before, the first demonstrations of the February Revolution kicked off on the 23rd in Saint Petersburg. It was the first of two revolutions that would lead to the rise of communism in Russia and beyond. In 1920 the Nazi Party would be founded on February 24th.

Some have already drawn links between the uprisings in the Arab world this February and the revolutions of 1848. One of the best was done by Loren Coleman in another series of fantastic blogs he's done on the Egyptian uprising. I also sense a link with the events of 1848, but while 1848 was the beginning of a series of events that would unfold over the rest of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the recent events feel more like the latest links in an already unfolding chain.

One of the strangest things I find about 1848 is its bizarre connection to the number 72. The number 72 is of course hugely important in the kabbalah. Beginning in the 18th century a 72 year cycles becomes clear in which a series of political upheavals unfold. The first occurred in 1776, the second in 1848, the third in 1920, and the most recent in 1992. I am obviously not the first person to recognize this chain, but I can not remember from what source I was originally made aware of this theory, so apologies to whatever source I'm neglecting.

Anyway, the key events of 1776 were the Masonic led American Revolution and the founding of the Bavarian Illuminati. Both Masonry and  Illuminism would have a profound effect on the revolutionary bent of the following century. The later statement is of course highly controversial, especially given how loosely the term 'Illuminati' is thrown around these days. In this case I am referring to the clear influence of Weishaupt's Bavarian order and its links to the French Revolution and the other 'populist' movements of the early 19th century. Masonry, frequently with overlap from Illuminism (especially in Europe) was also highly influencial in these movements. Rhodes scholar and the former head of the Library of Congress, James Billington, notes:

"Masonry imparted to the revolutionary tradition at birth the essential metaphor that revolutionaries used to understand their own mission down to the mid-nineteenth century; that an architect building a new and better structure for human society. Masons believed they were recreating in their fraternal societies the 'natural' condition of cooperation that prevailed among those earlier, artisan masons who shaped stones for a common building.

"The progression of each 'brother' from the stage of apprentice through journeyman to master required philosophical and philanthropic accomplishment rather than social status. 'Free' masonry was, thus, a moral meritocracy -implicitly subversive within any static society based on a traditional hierarchy. Men of intelligence and ambition in the eighteenth century often experienced within Masonic lodges a kind of brotherhood among equals not to be found in the aristocratic society outside...

"Most important for our story, Masonry was deliberately used by revolutionaries in the early nineteenth century as a model and a recruiting ground for their first conspiratorial experiments in political organization."
(Fire in the Minds of Men, pgs. 92-93)

On the historical Illuminati's role in the French Revolution after it had allegedly been whiped out by the Bavarian authorities, Billington writes:

"The substantial German influx into Paris itself included former Illuminists like the Saxon physician of Philip of Orleans, Jean-Geoffrey Saiffert, the Frey brothers, and the journalist Rebmann. Occult -possibly Illuminist -influence is detectable in Babeuf's first clear statement of his communist objectives early in 1795 -inviting a friend to 'enter into he sacred mysteries of agarianism' and accepting fidelity from a chevalier de l'orde des egaux. Babeuf's subsequent first outline for his conspiracy spoke of a 'circle of adherents' 'advancing by degree' from les pays limotrophes to transform the world. Babeuf's secret, hierarchical organization resembled that of the Illuminists...

"Such borrowings from Illuminism seem substantial enough to challenge the long-accepted judgement of the leading students of the subject that, after 1790, Illuminism 'having disappeared from history... lived on only in legend.' There seems good reason to believe that Illuminist influence was not so much a 'legend' as an imperfectly perceived reality. The same historian's perplexed observation that 'the police legend' about Illuminists began to 'develop with more amplitude and originality' in the Napoleonic era points to a surprising source of Illuminist influence. Illuminist ideas influenced revolutionaries not just through left-wing proponents, but also through right-wing opponents. As the fears of the Right became the fascination of the Left, Illuminism gained a paradoxical posthumous influence far greater than it had exercised as a living movement."
(Ibid, pgs. 97-99)

1848 witnessed the various workers' revolutions across Europe in addition to the publishing of the Communist Manifesto. These events would be instrumental to the rise of communism in the 20th century. 1920 ushered in the rise of fascism with the founding of the Nazi Party and the rapid rise of the Italian Fascist Party. Fascism has continued to play  a major role in the 20th century, especially within NASA and the US intelligence community, despite its alleged defeat after the second World War. This was largely due to Operation Paperclip.

"...Russian troops were advancing towards Peenemuende from the east and would capture the Nazi rocket scientists and their laboratories, factories, and blueprints, thus permitting the Soviets unprecedented access to the 'art of German engineering.' Policy makers in Washington knew that the next major conflicts would be fought between the United States and the Soviet Union, and they could not permit the Russians to have the upper hand in technology. It was of utmost importance that those scientists -or as many of them as possible -made it to American shores, out of reach of the Russians and, more importantly perhaps, pressed into service to the United States.

"Most people who have heard of Paperclip assume that it was a program to bring Nazi scientists to the United States to assist the space program, a concept that is at least partially true. There was much more to Paperclip -and subsequent Nazi recruitment -than rocket science, however. Nazi medical personnel were also recruited, as well as psychological warfare experts and, with the Gehlen Organization, spies, assassins and saboteurs. Eventually, some of these imported Nazi war criminals wound up holding impressive executive positions in American industry, principally high-technology firms in the aerospace and military hardware industries...

"By the time Paperclip was over, thousands of Nazi scientists -many of them accused of war criminals who had participated in some of the war's worst outrages -had managed to find homes in the United States, South America and other locations. In many cases, they brought their families with them as well. And while the Paperclip agents were seeking scientists, other organizations were looking for Nazi espionage agents and recruiting them by the thousands to work for the United States and Great Britain against the Soviets."
(Sinister Forces Book One, Peter Levenda, pgs. 134-137)

The final flight of the space shuttle Discovery on February 24th was a nice shout out to NASA's origins in Nazism.

1992 seems to have marked the rise of globalism after Bush I's infamous 'New World Order' speech on September 11, 1990, the fall of the Soviet Union in the last week of 1991 and the 1992 Maastricht Treaty that ushered in the European Union. Much of the negotiations on NAFTA were conducted in 1992 as well, though it wouldn't be signed into law until 1993 by Bill Clinton.

Of course, we're still in the early stages of globalism. Communism didn't gain real political power until the 20th century, several decades after the events of 1848. The Cryptocracy isn't likely to wait that long for globalism to take hold and has acted accordingly. One of the key objectives to bring about globalism is a process of 'Balkanization' that we've witnessed throughout Eastern Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union. Here nation states are progressively broken down into smaller and smaller units as the peoples within continue to hate one and other over the competition for scarce resources rather than the Cryptocracy that causes the scarcity. The events unfolding now, in February 2011, appear to be a part of this strategy. Full scale tribal warfare amongst the various peoples in the Muslim world would be the best gift imaginable to the Cryptocracy come Christmas time.

The next phrase will inevitably be to bring the 'revolution' home, which already seems to be occurring. At the end of a prior post I noted that media has already been proclaiming a 'War on Police' breaking out across the US despite the fact that police fatalities are lower now than in the early part of the 00s and much lower than in either the 1920s or 1970s when there were far fewer cops on the streets. Then there's the Loughner shooting spree coming a little over a year after the 2010 Austin plane suicide attack on an IRS building. Over the past week we've been bombarded with the Wisconsin budget protests, an event seemingly designed to pit normal people against one and other in the name of political ideologies, be they 'left' or 'right', that ceased having any relevancy decades ago. Regardless of how this turns out, nothing on the streets will look any different. We seem to be on course for a year of rage both domestically and internationally, seemingly to the delight of the Cryptocracy.

In a display of utter contempt, psychological warfare against the American public was subtly acknowledged on Nazi Party Day via this piece:

"The U.S. army reportedly deployed a specialized ''psychological operations' team in 2009 to help convince American legislators to boost funding and troop numbers for the war in Afghanistan.

"Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops, ordered the operation, Rolling Stone Magazine reported in a story published late on Wednesday.

"An officer in charge of the unit objected when he was ordered to pressure the visiting senators and was harshly reprimanded by superiors, according to the magazine.

"'My job in psy-ops is to play with people's heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave,' the officer, Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, told Rolling Stone.

"'I'm prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you're crossing a line,' he added.

"Miklaszewski also pointed out that using such tactics on U.S. citizens is against regulations and not to be done under any circumstances."

I put that last line in bold because that has to be the biggest crock of shit I've read in some time, and I read some doozies on a daily basis. Like the MSM's 'War on Police' meme, for instance.

The Cryptocracy seems hell bent on bringing it 'all back home' so to speak and that does not bode well. Most of the American population still considers the NFL labor negations and the Carmelo Anthony trade to be the most pressing pieces of news in the world during this past week. Many that have some awareness of what's going on are becoming ever frustrated and falling into what I like to think of as 'Soldier-of-the Apocolyspe' mode, which can lead to a violent reaction against the mass American.

Perhaps all these calls for a 'summer of rage' may finally come true, only not in the way many proponents may have envisioned.

Suffer the Children II

Child abuse is institutionalized in our society, as it is in much of the West. Our leaders actively try to screw up as many kids as possible by hook or by crook, either through official channels (eg the school system) or the unspeakable (ritual abuse). There are many reasons for this policy, but the simplest is chaos. Children in this country that do not have strong parental guidance do not always grow up to become the most civil adults. This in turn creates problems that only the TPTB can solve.

Charles Manson is a fine example of this. His first strike was to be born to a poor, unwed mother that did not want him. As a result he spent much of his childhood being passed back and forth amongst various relations that had about as much interest in him as his mother... That is, when he wasn't in some type of reform school, which likely had a profound influence on his life. He was sodomized for the first time at such an institution when he was 12 years old, after all.

The following article is certainly a fine testament to the peculiar fashion that children are now raised in the 21st century:

"These days, the medicine cabinet is truly a family affair. More than a quarter of U.S. kids and teens are taking a medication on a chronic basis, according to Medco Health Solutions Inc., the biggest U.S. pharmacy-benefit manager with around 65 million members. Nearly 7% are on two or more such drugs, based on the company's database figures for 2009.

"Doctors and parents warn that prescribing medications to children can be problematic. There is limited research available about many drugs' effects in kids. And health-care providers and families need to be vigilant to assess the medicines' impact, both intended and not. Although the effects of some medications, like cholesterol-lowering statins, have been extensively researched in adults, the consequences of using such drugs for the bulk of a patient's lifespan are little understood...

"Researchers attribute the wide usage in part to doctors and parents becoming more aware of drugs as an option for kids. Unhealthy diets and lack of exercise among children, which lead to too much weight gain and obesity, also fuel the use of some treatments, such as those for hypertension. And some conditions are likely caught and treated earlier as screening and diagnosis efforts improve...

"Parents and doctors also say nondrug alternatives should be explored where possible. Tom Wells, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences who sees patients at Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock, frequently pushes diet and exercise changes before drugs for hypertensive kids. 'Obesity is really the biggest cause I see for high blood pressure in adolescents,' he says. But only about 10% of families adhere to his diet and exercise recommendations, he says.

Another major justification for the doping of the youth is AD/HD, which is typically treated by drugs such as Ridalin and Adderall, which also happen to be amphetamines:

"Ritalin and Adderall are amphetamines - brain stimulants that physicians very frequently prescribe to treat Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD). ADD and AD/HD are common behavioral disorders affecting attention span, impulse control, and self-discipline, and in the case of AD/HD, hyperactivity...

"Ritalin and Adderall are closely related to illegal "street" drugs, including dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine, or "dexies"), methamphetamine ("crystal meth") and cocaine."

To recap: A country that incarcerates more people than any other nation on Earth (and likely in human history), in no small part because of the 'War on Drugs', hands out over a million doses of a crystal meth-like drug to its own children on a daily basis. Well, I guess if the doctors (and the pharmaceutical industry) says it's okay....

This is really a coup for the Cryptocracy. A generation of children raised on prescription meds, which Dr. Ronald W Dworkin has dubbed 'Artificial Happiness', will have profound social implications in our future:

"Inducing Artificial Happiness in children, and on a mass scale, has far greater social repercussions. A whole species of humanity stands ready to emerge in which Artificial Happiness has blunted psychological development during a crucial period of life -childhood. As children, these people are given Artificial Happiness to drive off feelings of sadness. Avoiding sadness becomes a habit for them. When the next downturn in life occurs, the Artificial Happiness experience is repeated. These Happy Children go on for months, even years, standing before the same life dilemmas and not moving a step toward their solution, stifling the growth of their consciences through repeated bouts of stupefaction. They become Happy Adults and then Happy Seniors, using the same method throughout their lives to deal with unhappiness. What emerges is an entire life cycle based on Artificial Happiness."
(Artificial Happiness, Ronald Dworkin, pg. 262)

Dworkin is referring to antidepressants, but the same observations could be made about virtually any other type of drug that is prescribed to children. Consider the rise in obesity -This has become a national crisis at all levels and the only response is to try to medicate it away. Somehow, I don't think that's going to get people eating healthier or exercising more. And unfortunately, this 'cure' is going to continue to be administered at an ever younger age.

Between the pills and the Disney porn, future generations will likely have a much different view of what childhood consists of than prior generations. In fact, it could charitably be said that childhood as it was previously known is being all but phased out.

The War on Consciousness

Cults throughout history have shown a remarkable proficiency in the art of mind control. For those that doubt the legitimacy of the prior statement I suggest that you contemplate the horrors of Jonestown and Heaven's Gate and ponder how they could have been induced without the aid of master mind manipulators. This unique legacy of course stretches much further back than that -Consider the lengths that the Hashshashins or the Dionysians went to in their rituals and acts. This fact was no lost on various intelligence agencies and would be social engineers. Various techniques of these sects would be adopted wholesale into the mass conditioning that would define the 20th century.

A common goal of the engineers of mass conditioning and the heads of cults is the severing of the individual from their family. In the case of cults, the sect itself is supposed to replace the family. In order to achieve this, the individual must break off all contact with family members, typically after a period of long isolation with the cult. While a common stereotype of cult members is that they are weak and unstable people that are easily manipulated the
reality is that even highly sophisticated and intelligent persons can fall pray. Scientology has proven especially effective at recruiting well coined followers in the latter half of the 20th century.

Consider the case of Vivian Kubrick, the daughter of legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, surely a man that knew a thing or two about the realities of the world. Shortly after Stanley died in 1999 Vivian was permanently lost to the clutches of Scientology to her family. Consider these comments from Christine Kubrick, Stanley's widow and Vivian's daughter:

"On the day of Stanley's funeral, Christiane says, Vivian arrived with a woman nobody recognised. 'She just sat in Vivian's room. Never said hello to us. Just sat. We were all spooked. Who was this person? Turns out she was a Scientology something-or-other, don't know what.'

" 'I think she must have been very upset,' Christiane says, 'but, again, I wouldn't know. I know nothing. That is the truth. I can't reach her at all. I've had two conversations with her since Stanley died. The last one was eight years ago. She became a Scientologist and didn't want to talk to us any more and didn't see her dying sister, didn't come to her funeral. And these were children that had been joined at the hip.' "

Mass conditioning had much the same goal. Writing in 1901 in his book Social Control, sociologist, Stanford academic and a major figure of early criminology, Edward A Ross stated:

"Plans are underway to replace community, family, and church with propaganda, education, and mass media... the State shakes loose from Church, reaches out to School... People are only little plastic lumps of dough."

(quote taken from The Underground History of American Education, John Taylor Gatto, pg. 58)

With such visionaries as Mr. Ross molding Stanford in the early 20th century we need not wonder at its epic research into mass conditioning as the century wore on.

As Ross alludes to, the first step in creating the mass man is the educational system. This is a common thread with many Mystery Schools of antiquity. Many of these institutions sent would be members through the various Academies of the ancient world as a process of 'purification' for their eventual initiation. Similar methods were used by the Shia branch of Islam, a minority party that felt it could overcome its rivals by superior organization. To achieve these ends they created numerous secret societies (from which the Hashshasins derive, among others), many of which were centered around colleges that taught a secret doctrine to the sons of the Elect. One such institution was the Abode of Learning in Cairo which led initiates through nine separate degrees, the last of which supposedly revealed the secrets of the ages.

The trend continues to this day in the form of our public school system. It is here that a process of what I like to think of as institutionalized alienation is begun in earnest in persons life -alienation from both their family and themselves. Former New York State and City Teacher of the Year John Taylor Gatto elaborates:

"...correctly managed mass schooling would result in a population so dependent upon leaders that schism and revolution would be things of the past. If a world state could be cobbled together by Hegelian tactical manipulation, and such a school plan imposed upon it, history itself would stop. No more wars, no civil disputes, just people waiting around pleasantly like the Eloi in Wells' The Time Machine. Waiting for Teacher to tell them what to do. The psychological tool was alienation. The trick was to alienate children from themselves so they couldn't turn inside for strength from their families, religions, cultures, etc so no countervailing force could intervene."
(The Underground History of American Education, pg. 107)

Gatto further elaborates:

"Nearly a hundred years ago, this schoolman thought self-alienation was the secret to successful industrial society. Surely he was right. When you stand at a machine or sit at a computer you require an ability to withdraw from life, to alienate yourself without a supervisor. How else could that be tolerated unless prepared in advance by simulated Birkenhead drills? School, thought Harris, was sensible preparation for a life of alienation."

(ibid, pg. 106)

The Harris Gatto is referring to is William Torrey Harris, a major figure in education in the late 19th and early 20th century that was instrumental in molding the modern system. Here's an example to Harris' approach to schooling:

"The great purpose of school can be realized better in dark, airless, ugly places... It is to master the physical self, to transcend the beauty of nature. School should develop the power to withdraw from the external world."

(ibid, pg. 106, taken form Harris' The Philosophy of Education)

If the purpose of education is cut man off from nature, then Harris' goal seems to finally be coming to maturity as we limp into the 21st century. Gatto implies that the gradual decline in discipline within schools has been intentional as well. This, along with filthy, ugly schools and unnatural hours has created an increasingly 'ADD' ridden and traumatized student body that loses the ability of independent thought a little more each year. The current national 'debate' over school bullying is downright comical in this sense. How do you stop abuse in an institution that, from its conception, was designed to be trauma inducing? If the public truly cared about the safety of the nation's children then they would pass laws against public schooling and not bullying.

Students replace their own individuality with cliques or risk total rejection by their peers. From this point onward most people are perpetually wired into the Group Mind. Now they are completely susceptible to the state of total propaganda the mass media projects.

Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, was a pioneer of propaganda and 'public relations' that specialized in manipulating the public via their subconscious. Among his greatest achievements were the marketing of cigarettes to women and selling the US invasion of Guatemala on behalf of the United Fruit Company to the American people.

Of the Group Mind, he wrote:

"Universal literacy was supposed to educate the common man to control his environment. Once he could read and write he would have a mind fit to rule. So ran the democratic doctrine. But instead of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of history, but quite innocent of original thought. Each man's rubber stamps are the duplicates of millions of others, so that when those millions are exposed to the same stimuli, all received identical imprints. It may seem an exaggeration to say that the American public gets most of its ideas in this wholesale fashion. The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale is propaganda, in the broad sense of an organized effort to spread a particular belief or doctrine."

(Propaganda, pg. 48)

To Bernays it was a given that a small, anonymous group of individuals would be able to rule society through mass propaganda:

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

"We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.

"Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.

"They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons -a trifling fraction of our one hundred and twenty million -who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world."
(Propaganda, pgs. 37-38)

According to social critic Jacques Ellul, a state of personal alienation makes an individual totally susceptible to propaganda in the fashion Bernays described above:

"To be alienated means to be someone other (alienus) than oneself; it can also mean to belong to someone else. In a more profound sense, it means to be deprived of one's self. That is definitely the effect of propaganda. Propaganda strips the individual, robs him of a part of himself, and makes him live an alien and artificial life, to such an extent that he becomes another person and obeys impulses foreign to him. He obeys someone else."
(Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes, pg. 169)

Twilight language is used to manipulate men through their subconscious. People, so submerged in the collective, begin to identify with archetypes while their own personalities are savagely suppressed. Continuing with Ellul:

"In this process of alienation, the individual loses control and submits to external impulses; his personal inclinations and tastes give way to participation in the collective. But that collective will always be best idealized, patterned, and represented by the hero. The cult of the hero is the absolute necessary complement of the massification of society. We see the automatic creation of this cult in connection with champion athletes, movie stars, and even abstractions as Davy Crockett in the United States and Canada in 1955. This exaltation of the hero proves that one lives in am ass society. The individual who is prevented by circumstances from being a real person, who can no longer express himself through personal thought or action, who finds his aspirations frustrated, projects onto the hero all he would wish to be."
(Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes, pg. 172)

The Hero is of course one of Jung's prime archetypes and one that appears time and again in the twilight language of mass media. But this is nothing new. Despots throughout history have tried to get their subjects to identify with archetypes rather than finding themselves:

"The highest concern of all mythologies, ceremonials, ethical systems, and social organizations of the agriculturally based societies has been the suppressing the manifestations of individualism; and this has been generally achieved by compelling or persuading people to identify themselves not with their own interests, intuitions, or modes of experience, but with the archetypes of behavior and systems of sentiment developed and maintained in the public domain."

(The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology, Joseph Campbell, pg. 240)

On the flip side of the coin, public relations gurus also created negative archetypes, which Walter Lippmann referred to as stereotypes, to demonize before the public so that anger is misplaced. Historian Peter Levenda notes:

"Stereotypes can be created, and manipulated, by the gurus of mass communications and psychological warfare. Stereotypes are culturally-loaded and therefore not 'value neutral.' We make snap judgments based on the nature of the stereotype; in the hands of the psy-war expert, a stereotype does not contain much complexity or depth. The idea is not to make the target think too clearly or too profoundly about the 'text' but instead to react, in a Pavlovian manner, to the stimulus it provides."
(Sinister Forces: Book One, pg. 127) 

That the mass man continue to identify with archetypes while fearing and loathing stereotypes is crucial to the American way of life.It is only through the total subjection of the individual to the collective consciousness that modern Americans could be expected to make the sacrifices that they have in terms of privacy invasions, loss of freedom, work, taxation, etc. For instance, Americans work more hours than any other peoples on Earth except for the Chinese and Japanese yet a common stereotype set forth by the media is one of a domestic population s riddled with doles and sloth that it general refuses to work. This intern inspires the population to identify more with their righteous, hard working corporate overlords rather than the 'trash' that comprises the lower classes of this country. That corporations take more in doles via the Federal Reserve's 'quantitative easing' policies that all the common folks combined is never even allowed into the debate and would be a concept barely even understood or believed by most potential voters if it were.

To replace the loss of family, culture, and individuality modern man is given consumerism. His thoughts are no longer his own, but hs shirt is chic.

Professor and social critic Christopher Lasch lays down the modern image of 'the good life':

"... the good life... conceived as endless novelty, change, and excitement, as the titillation of the senses by every available stimulant, as unlimited possibility. 'Make it new' is the message not just of modern art.. but of modern consumerism. The modern capitalist economy rests on the techniques of mass production pioneered by Henry Ford but also, no less solidly, on t principle of planned obsolescence introduced by Alfred Sloane when he instituted the annual model change. Relentless 'improvement' of the product and upgrading of consumer tastes are the heart of mass merchandising, and these imperatives are built into the mass media at every level.

"Even the reporting of news has to be understood not as propaganda for any particular ideology, liberal or conservative, but as propaganda for commodities -for the replacement of things by commodities, use values by exchange values, and events by images. The very concept of news celebrates newness. The value of news, like that of any other commodity, consists primarily of its novelty, only secondarily of its informational value... the model of possession, in a society organized around mass consumption is addiction. The need for novelty and fresh stimulation becomes more and more intense, intervening interludes of boredom increasingly intolerable.

"It is only in their capacity a quintessential consumers that young professionals dominate the airwaves and set the tone of American life. Their distinctive manner of living embodies the restless ambition, the nagging dissatisfaction with things as they are, they are fostered by a consumer economy... 'Leisure,' for them, closely resembles work, since much of it consists of strenuous and for the most part solitary exercise. Even shopping, heir ruling passion, takes on the character of a grueling ordeal: 'Shop till you drop.' Like exercise, it often seems to present itself as a form of therapy, designed to restore a sense of wholeness and well-being after long hours of unrewarding work. 'It hardly matters what I buy, I just get a kick out of buying. It's like the first whiff of cocaine. It's euphoric and I just get higher and higher as I buy.' Sociological profiles of the 'compulsive shopper' report that 40 percent are 'most likely to buy something when feeling bad about themselves.' According to a summary of these studies in the Wall Street Journal, shopping serves as a means of 'alleviating loneliness,' 'dispelling boredom,' and 'relieving depression.' 'They don't really need what they are shopping for. Often they don't even know what they're after.' A survey of shoppers in malls indicates that only 25 percent come to buy a particular item."

(The True and Only Heaven, pg. 520-522) 

In other words, addiction is the driving factor behind the 'values' of modern America. Of course this is glossed over by noble and high-minded rhetoric about 'work ethic' and 'the future of the children' but this is merely a justification for a destructive way life, either personally or to the society as a whole.

With addictive forms of behavior being hardwired into the minds of Americans routinely for the past fifty years it's no wonder that the late 20th century witnessed the rise of widespread drug use. As Lasch implies above, modern consumerism provides a thrill similar to what the addict gets from his fix. Many times when people can't get this rush from consumption for whatever reason drugs will easily fill the void. Of course the CIA and other branches of the US intelligence community were quick to harness this trend, which they were also largely responsible for creating. This led to the 'counterculture' and the 'War on Drugs.' I have already written on this topic extensively, which can be viewed here.

In the 21st century we face a second wave of the mass drugging of America, only this time with the rubber stamp of the medical community. Over the past decade prescription med abuse has become epidemic. Consider this recent report:

"WASHINGTON — U.S. officials reported a 400 percent increase over 10 years in the proportion of Americans treated for prescription painkiller abuse and said on Thursday the problem cut across age groups, geography and income...

"They said 9.8 percent of hospital admissions for substance abuse in 2008 involved painkillers, up from 2.2 percent in 1998. The percentage of people admitted to treatment for alcohol dropped by 5 percent and for cocaine dropped by 16 percent over the same period...

"Fifty-six percent of the patients got their drugs for free from a friend or relative, and another 9 percent purchased them from someone they knew."

This is only painkillers. For all prescription meds the figures are even more disturbing, as this citation from the Journal of the American Medical Association highlights:

"The annual death toll from synthetic prescription drugs, both from the correctly prescribed and the incorrectly prescribed, amounts to about 231,000 deaths every year. To put this into perspective, this is the equivalent of a world trade center disaster every week for over a year and a half or the crash of two fully loaded 747 aircraft every day of the year. No information was reported on the number of outpatient and doctor's office deaths caused by these very same drugs when prescribed by these very same doctors. The reported figures alone, however, make drug deaths caused by physicians the third leading cause of death in the US. It is far ahead of accidents, drunk driving, homicides, airline accidents, as well as all other disease with the sole exceptions of cancer and heart disease."

While the sheer loss of life is surely troubling the long term social effects of the mass drugging of society has even more dire implications. Writing on antidepressants, the use of which he dubs 'Artificial Happiness' Dr. Ronald Dworkin writes:

"Because people feel Artificial Happiness independent of life or age, the life cycle generated by Artificial Happiness has nothing to do with moving forward in life. In the traditional life cycle, a new kind of happiness beckons at each stage, but in Artificial Happiness people have no reason to advance through stages, since they enjoy happiness independent of life's progression. Although Happy Children become Happy Adults, who in turn become Happy Seniors, the whole process lacks a sense of movement with direction."
(Artificial Happiness, pgs. 260-261)

In other words people are finally cut off from personal growth all together. Personal development is thus permanently retarded and we become total cripples with no recourse but to dumb ourselves with whatever thrills are overlords provide for us. Truly the most disturbing state of affairs is not that this is happening to us, but that most Americans would hardly see the loss of personal growth, independent thought, culture and family as things to concerned over in the face of the latest novelty and buzz. That life is meaningless without petty distractions is taken for granted by most peoples in the streets nowadays.

We marvel at the individuals at Jonestown, at Waco, at Heaven's Gate and so forth and the sacrifices that they made to live the lifestyles that they lived in these communities. But at least many of the individuals believed in some higher principle which led them to join these cults. What does modern man believe in? The stock market? His football team? Daily he makes even more incredible sacrifices than the cultist which he puts himself above and he does it for increasingly diminishing highs.

While the techniques the cult guru and the public relations official are similar, it the PR man that is by far the greater master.