The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Mencken, H.L. A Mencken Chrestomathy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956, p. 29

The winner of the last contest, a very powerful man, walks down the ramp to the deafening sound of thousands of fans cheering his name, holding up signs with his name, catch-phrases, etc. The challenger, follows in a like manner albeit with a smattering of boos thrown in, but with his own followers with their own signs held up. Upon reaching the platform both men ready themselves for battle, watching the referee for the signal to begin. Some the know the ‘fix’ is in, while others think the spectacle is real. There are promoters and financial-backers behind these men who who really runs the show and benefit from it. This narrative could well be describing a United States presidential election debate instead of a professional wrestling event.

Until Vincent Kennedy McMahon exposed pro-wrestling as theater, not competition, in the mid-eighties, the predetermined outcomes of professional wrestling were just a conspiracy theory. Many suspected it was scripted, but only a few were on the inside knew. Now everyone knows and looks at pro-wrestling like the theatre-in-the-round version of an action film.

Sadly, voting in America makes about as much sense as betting on pro-wrestling. Fraud is rampant throughout the voting processes in America, but it is brushed under the rug. A few years ago, HBO aired an excellent documentary called Hacking Democracy about the alarming shortcomings and conflicts of interests of the Diebold corporation that manufactured the electronic voting machines used to tally votes in elections nationwide. Most people have at least heard of the terms ‘Gerrymandering’ and ‘ballot stuffing.’ The 2004 Bush/Cheney re-election had proved to be rigged; however, it was minimized as mere ‘incompetence’ and not malfeasance. (Miller, Mark Crispin. “Our Rigged Elections.” The Baltimore Chronicle, October 4, 2006).

The word conspiracy is derived from Latin conspirare (to breathe together); it’s simply the notion that two or more people agree to perform an illegal act and keep that act secret. By this definition, the Constitutional Convention was a conspiracy. And so was 9/11. You even have a choice as to which which conspiracy theory is more compelling; that 19 Muslims with box-cutters, led by a super-villain cave dweller from the other side of the planet somehow circumvented the most sophisticated intelligence and military system in the history of human kind, or that it was an “inside job” (Eggen, Dan. 9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon. August 2, 2006.). The conspiracy of the powerful to remain and grow in power echoes throughout recorded history. Those who are financially and politically more powerful than us share the same foibles of egotism, deceit (of one’s self and others) that we all do—whether prince, pauper, politician, or scientist.

In our earliest records, since at least the time of the Pharaohs, tyranny and cruelty have been the norm, not the exception. The rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are anomalies in an otherwise exceptionally long paradigm of tyranny. Given the phenomenon of mean reversion, it is important not to take lightly the defense of the words in the Bill of Rights.

We all have secrets; the powerful are no different, except that their secrets, at times, have a greater impact. In totalitarian regimes, such as the Soviet Union, Communist China, and Nazi Germany, punishment for political dissent went beyond the ridicule of calling those with alternative paradigms ‘kooks’ or ‘crazies.’ Frequently, dissent is squelched with more drastic measures, such as a diagnosis of schizophrenia, followed by involuntary commitment and forced sedation. 

The ‘scientific control’ of behavior based on the ‘science of psychiatry’ is a gigantic confidence game which consists of transforming, by means of psychiatric jargon, what is perfectly obvious into what is impenetrably mysterious. Its inevitable result is a series of crimes against humanity, usually perpetuated by the créme de la créme of the profession. In the 1940s and 1950s, some of the most prominent American medical institutions, psychiatrists, and psychologists were engaged in medical ‘experiments’ that differed only in degree and scope from those engaged in by Nazi physicians experimenting on the inmates of concentration camps. Working in secret for the CIA, psychiatrists systematically poisoned people and used electric shock treatments to destroy their memories, ostensibly in an effort to discover methods of ‘mind control’. Like all psychiatric ‘abuses’ this massive criminal conspiracy against the public was quickly forgotten.

Szasz, Thomas. Pharmacracy: Medicine and Politics in America. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2001, p. 103

To understand the conspiracist mindset simply real that our political and business leaders are really no different than we are. They are not any more or less ‘morally superior’ than the rest of the population. These men and women have secrets, ethical lapses, and unspoken alliances, just as all of us do. The big difference is that their secrets and agendas can adversely affect the health and well being of millions of innocent individuals.

Conspiracies happen. Our own government has been caught many times, like in the case of Operation Northwoods (a plan by U.S. black chambers to commit apparent acts of terrorism in American cities in order to rally public support for a war against Castro’s Cuba) or the inhuman Tuskegee syphilis experiment conducted between 1932 – 1972 (it wasn’t until 1997 that President Bill Clinton issued a formal apology to the surviving victims). Such atrocities beg the question; how many times have they conspire and not been caught?

One particular nefarious conspiracy is MKULTRA, a top-secret mind control and chemical interrogation program run by the Office of Scientific Intelligence, a branch of the CIA. [1]

MKULTRA was hidden from the general public until 1975 when the U.S. Senate committee ‘United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities’ (aka The Church Commission) chaired by Senator Frank Church was formed due to the crisis of confidence created by the Vietnam Conflict and the ensuing Watergate scandal (due in large part to the aforementioned work of Daniel Ellsberg, as well as that of journalist Seymour Hersh). President Gerald Ford[2] created his own commission, ‘U.S. President’s Commission on CIA activities within the United States,’ headed by the then Vice President Nelson Rockefeller (whom Ford had nominated to serve as VP upon Nixon’s resignation), brother of David Rockefeller, chair of Council of Foreign Relations at the time.[3] David Rockefeller writes:

For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.

Rockfeller, David. Memoirs. New York: Random House, Inc., 2002, p. 405

Within the Black Chambers and on the periphery of the intelligence community, there are heroes, like Daniel Ellsberg, Ray McGovern, and many others that are willing to challenge veiled paradigms. Conspiracy theorists make much of the interconnections among the people in power, among their families, and conspiracy-suggesting incidents in their or their family members’ lives.[4]  The only way we can know whether these connections are sinister is if a hero, usually an insider, comes forward, filled with sympathy for his fellow human beings, with proof. Until then, we can only guess and speculate about motives.

For now, the Freedom of Information Act is an extraordinary means provided to ordinary citizens to gather such proof. Every American should contact their Congressperson, their Senators, and dedicated military personnel and elected officials and remind them of their pledge to support and defend the Bill of Rights.

[1] You can read about it (under the Freedom of Information Act) by writing CIA. You need to provide your name, address, phone number and date, along with a money order for $30 payable to the US Treasurer, for the request to be processed.  The address and format follows:

Central Intelligence Agency
FOIA and Privacy Act Coordinator
Washington, DC 20505

Re: Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act Request

Pursuant to the provisions of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts, 5 USC552 I am formally requesting access to the three-volume CD set containing the entirety the of the Artichoke/Bluebird and MKULTRA records (approx. 20,000 pages).

Enclosed please find my money order for $30 made payable to the United States Treasurer.

Thank you,

[2] Gerald Ford was the only President and the only Vice President that was never actually elected to office. He was appointed by Nixon to the Vice Presidency, under the terms of the 25^th amendment when Spiro Agnew resigned and became President upon Nixon’s resignation. Ford then nominated Nelson Rockefeller to serve as his Vice President and to head his investigation of the CIA. Ford was no stranger to Presidential commissions; years earlier, President Lyndon B. Johnson had assigned him to the Warren Commission (which investigated the Kennedy assassination) where he was to prepare a biography of Lee Harvey Oswald. The Assassination Records Review Board was created in 1992 by the U.S. Congress and in 1997 released a document revealing that Ford altered the documents to read, a “bullet had entered the base of the back of [Kennedy’s] neck slightly to the right of the spine.” According to records found in FBI documents released in 2008, Ford had strong ties to J. Edgar Hoover. This portrait of Gerald Ford is a far cry from the caricature of him performed by Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live. Ford could very well control what information was made public about the Black Chambers in this way.

[3] It is interesting to note in this context that Nelson and David Rockefeller are the sons and grandsons of the same John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Sr. eugenicists that created the Rockefeller Foundation.

[4] Here are some interesting linkages: For the Vice Presidency appointment, Gerard Ford’s choice came down to Nelson Rockefeller or George Herbert Walker Bush. In 1975, Ford appointed Bush to become Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, a position he held until 1977 when he left to become Director of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which, at the time, was chaired by David Rockefeller.

George H.W. Bush’s great-grandfather in law was William Averell Harriman (yes, the son of wealthy eugenicist Mrs. E.H. Harriman). Averell Harriman served as Senior Partner of Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. when the Harriman Bank was the primary Wall Street home for an early financial backer of the Nazi party Fritz Thyssen. In 1942, the Harriman business interests were seized under the Trading with the Enemies Act. This set back, however, didn’t stop Harriman from becoming the Secretary of Commerce under Truman and then the Governor of New York, a seat he eventually lost to future VP of the United States, Nelson Rockefeller. As the son-in-law of the wealthy Averell Harriman, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of the 41^st and 43^rd Presidents of the United States, would soon become a United States Senator. As a senator, Prescott Bush advised both Presidents Eisenhower (the same “fella” that Truman felt “never paid any attention to it [the CIA], and it got out of hand”)and Richard Nixon. In fact, Prescott Bush was a major financier of Nixon’s presidential campaign against Kennedy.

The Rockefeller/Black Chamber influence within Arkansas politics is also worth noting. Another Rockefeller Oil heir, Winthrop Rockefeller was the 37^th Governor of Arkansas, the brother of Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, the father of Winthrop Paul Rockefeller (who, under Governor Mike Huckabee, would become Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas and later make a run for the Presidency of the United States).

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a former First Lady of both Arkansas and the United States and a Democratic Presidential candidate in 2008 has also been found to be connected to the affair that put Nelson Rockefeller in the Vice Presidency. In 1973, Jerry Zeifman, the general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee wrote a letter to the New York Post, which was published on August 16^th, 1999. In the letter, he claims that Hillary Clinton responsible for ‘establishing the legal procedures to be followed in the course of the inquiry and impeachment [of President Nixon]’ recommended ethically flawed procedures and violated rules by disclosing confidential information to unauthorized persons.

Hillary Clinton’s ‘partner in power’ Bill Clinton, was a CIA recruit. Roger Morris, a senior staffer on the National Security Council, says in his book Partners in Power: “One former agency official would claim that the future president was a full-fledged ‘asset,’, that he was regularly ‘debriefed,’ and thus that he informed on his American friends in the peace movement in Britain…” (Morris, Roger. Partners in Power. 1996, p. 103).