OVO

One of the great misfortunes of men who do not like democracy is surely that Hitler began his political action with nine comrades in the basement of a beer hall. Too many excellent young men have concluded that with a half-dozen pals and a mimeograph machine they were also going to seize power. Clarence, in spite of his excess enthusiasm as a neophyte, was a courageous and estimable young man. He had dared to sacrifice his career and, his comfort in order to protest violently against the Nuremberg trial, an indignation which was unwise at that time. He gave himself over entirely, without money, without support, to a difficult and hopeless apostolate. One does not meet very often men of that stamp. Why is it necessary that nearly all of them have in themselves a predisposition to a jealous and implacable despotism? I have known, after Clarence, very many “fascists,” for the race is not dead. Some of them had boots, they were familiar with the runes, and they camped out on the night of the solstice in order to sing under the stars the beautiful solemn songs of their ancestors. The others did not have boots, they held up their skinny reformers’ heads severely, they wore glasses, they collected cards, and they made furious speeches. All were poor, they believed, they fought, they detested lying and injustice.

quoted in Dreamer of the Day by Kevin Coogan.

Protestant Christianity was founded by Martin Luther. What did Luther have to say about Jews? Maybe Luther wasn’t such a great moral leader after all. Maybe these proposals bore fruit in Luther’s country four hundred years later.  The following are quotes from Luther’s book The Jews and Their Lies (1543).

I had made up my mind to write no more either about the Jews or against them. But since I learned that these miserable and accursed people do not cease to lure to themselves even us, that is, the Christians, I have published this little book, so that I might be found among those who opposed such poisonous activities of the Jews who warned the Christians to be on their guard against them. I would not have believed that a Christian could be duped by the Jews into taking their exile and wretchedness upon himself. However, the devil is the god of the world, and wherever God’s word is absent he has an easy task, not only with the weak but also with the strong. May God help us. Amen

My essay, I hope, will furnish a Christian (who in any case has no desire to become a Jew) with enough material not only to defend himself against the blind, venomous Jews, but also to become the foe of the Jews’ malice, lying, and cursing, and to understand not only that their belief is false but that they are surely possessed by all devils. May Christ, our dear Lord, convert them mercifully and preserve us steadfastly and immovably in the knowledge of him, which is eternal life. Amen.

What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies, cursing and blasphemy. Thus we cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of divine wrath, of which the prophets speak, nor can we convert the Jews. With prayer and the fear of God we must practice a sharp mercy to see whether we might save at least a few from the glowing flames. We dare not avenge ourselves. Vengeance a thousand times worse than we could wish them already has them by the throat. I shall give you my sincere advice:

First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly – and I myself was unaware of it – will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know.

Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God.
Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them.

Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. For they have justly forfeited the right to such an office by holding the poor Jews captive with the saying of Moses (Deuteronomy 17 [:10]) in which he commands them to obey their teachers on penalty of death, although Moses clearly adds: “what they teach you in accord with the law of the Lord.” Those villains ignore that. They wantonly employ the poor people’s obedience contrary to the law of the Lord and infuse them with this poison, cursing, and blasphemy. In the same way the pope also held us captive with the declaration in Matthew 16 [:18], “You are Peter,” etc, inducing us to believe all the lies and deceptions that issued from his devilish mind. He did not teach in accord with the word of God, and therefore he forfeited the right to teach.

Fifth, I advise that safe conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let they stay at home.

Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. The reason for such a measure is that, as said above, they have no other means of earning a livelihood than usury, and by it they have stolen and robbed from us all they possess. Such money should now be used in no other way than the following: Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred florins, as personal circumstances may suggest. With this he could set himself up in some occupation for the support of his poor wife and children, and the maintenance of the old or feeble. For such evil gains are cursed if they are not put to use with God’s blessing in a good and worthy cause.

Seventh, I commend putting a flail, an axe, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen 3[:19]). For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants.

(from OVO 16 ANTICHRIST January 2006)

Why do the results achieved by a conspiracy as a rule differ widely from the results aimed at? Because this is what usually happens in social life, conspiracy or no conspiracy. And this remark gives us an opportunity to formulate the main task of the theoretical social sciences. It is to trace the unintended social repercussions of intentional human actions. I may give a simple example. If a man wishes urgently to buy a house in a certain district, we can safely assume that he does not wish to raise the market price of houses in that district. But the very fact that he appears on the market as a buyer will tend to raise market prices. And analogous remarks hold for the seller. Or to take an example from a very different field, if a man decides to insure his life, he is unlikely to have the intention of encouraging other people to invest their money in insurance shares. But he will do so nevertheless.

We see here clearly that not all consequences of our actions are intended consequences; and accordingly, that the conspiracy theory of society cannot be true because it amounts to the assertion that all events, even those which at first sight do not seem to be intended by anybody, are the intended results of the actions of people who are interested in these results.

It should be mentioned in this connection that Karl Marx himself was one of the first to emphasize the importance, for the social sciences, of these unintended consequences. In his more mature utterances, he says that we are all caught in the net of the social system. The capitalist is not a demoniac conspirator, but a man who is forced by circumstances to act as he does; he is no more responsible for the state of affairs than is the proletarian.

This view of Marx’s has been abandoned – perhaps for propagandist reasons, perhaps because people did not understand it – and a Vulgar Marxist Conspiracy theory has very largely replaced it. It is a come-down – the come-down from Marx to Goebbels. But it is clear that the adoption of the conspiracy theory can hardly be avoided by those who believe that they know how to make heaven on earth. The only explanation for their failure to produce this heaven is the malevolence of the devil who has a vested interest in hell.

First published in the Library of the10th International Congress of Philosophy, 1948. From Conjectures and Refutations. Routledge 1989

I was in my late twenties when I stopped identifying myself as a liberal. When evidence started mounting that shot machine-gun holes through the block of liberal cheese I’d purchased at the local liberal co-op, I concluded that liberalism was not a logically consistent belief system.

But it wasn’t only liberal illogic that caused me to dump the whole program – much of it had to do with gradual changes in liberal attitudes and behavior. I’m old enough to remember when liberals were free-speech absolutists and conservatives tended to be the book-burners. But historical forces can blur, erase, and often invert party lines.

Over the years, I watched as liberals slowly became the group most likely to flat-out refuse discussing certain topics and answering certain questions, their purportedly “open” minds snapping shut like a giant clam. They became the group most likely to try and silence their opponents by shouting them down, defaming them, assaulting them, and even urging legislation to ban the use and expression of certain terms and sentiments. They became the group most disposed toward emotional appeals, double standards, wishful thinking, and wretchedly malodorous sanctimony.

Up through my teens and twenties, I had considered liberals to be the most open-minded and free-thinking group in America, only to watch them morph into the most ideologically rigid pack of true believers I’d ever seen. With modern American liberalism, it’s as if their cute, multicolored, and sincerely curious little 1960s caterpillar had blossomed into a hardened grey butterfly fossil. Liberalism had become an emotion-driven folk religion that somehow had convinced itself science and logic were on its side.

These days, I suppose I’d rather hang out with conservatives than liberals, if only for the fact that I offend conservatives less, and it’s a drag to hang out with people who are always getting offended.

Article continues.

President Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917.  The United States joined World War One.  117,465 soldiers and civilians died from the United States alone.  Thousands upon thousands came home disabled.  Samuel Gompers was the founder and a president of the American Federation of Labor.  He was a supporter of WWI and of President Wilson.  Gompers influenced the Wilson administration to keep union members out of the draft pool and, at the same time, increase the pay of civilian union members.  The rate of pay for those who stayed home as union members compared to those who served in the military (sometimes involuntarily) was profound. Those who stayed home had opportunities in business and education that those who served were denied.

On 29 May 1924 Congress passed the Adjusted Service Certificate Law.  This law compensated WWI veterans for opportunities missed while serving in the military at the rate of $1.00 per day served and $1.25 per day served overseas.  The pay would be held to gather interest for twenty years.  Vets could borrow against their pay at interest, and many desperate vets did so at a great loss.  If a veteran died in the mean time, the full amount would be paid to their survivors and so it became known as the Tombstone Bonus.  The Wilson administration also wanted to replace disabled veterans benefits with an optional insurance policy to be paid by the soldier himself.  While Congress passed the Adjusted Service Certificate Law it was voted down by the Senate.  In 1929, Herbert Hoover became President and the Great Depression began.  Many disabled veterans were unable to perform the jobs they returned to.  Many veterans had already been out of work for eight years and were not content with waiting twenty more to be paid for work done long ago.

On 22 January 1932, President Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation as a means to address the Great Depression.  Between $1.5 and 2 billion dollars were given to banks and businesses.  Will Rogers described the scene: “You can’t get a room in Washington.  Every hotel is jammed to the doors with bankers from all over America to get their ‘hand out’ from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.  [The bankers] have the honor of being the first group to go on the ‘dole’ in America.”

Among the discontent not getting a hand out was Sergeant Walter W. Waters.  Walters was born in Burns, Oregon in 1898.  He served in the Idaho National Guard in 1910 against Francisco “Pancho” Villa.  In 1917 he served in the Oregon National Guard, shipping to France on Christmas Eve to fight in World War I.  He received an honorable discharge in 1919.  In 1925 he moved to Washington and then Portland, Oregon looking for work.  He picked fruit and worked in a cannery.  Wherever he went he listened to veterans unable to find work who were also not being paid for services rendered in war.  He met many other veterans who had lost their jobs and savings after the war.  Congress did pass a law allowing for a one-time half-payment borrowing (with interest until repayment) of the Adjusted Service Certificate.  Walters noted that special interest lobbyists got results in Washington, and conceived of a lobby of veterans to encourage the United States Government to deliver the payment the veterans were due.

On 11 March 1932 Waters called for a march on Washington and 250-300 men from Portland joined him.  They marched behind a banner reading “Portland Bonus March – On to Washington.” The veterans and their families had popular support and the support of some authorities.  A Portland railroad offered the use of dung-stained cattle cars to transport the Bonus Army.  The Indiana National Guard and the Pennsylvania National Guard used military vehicles to transport the Bonus Army.  Toll bridge operators let the Bonus Army march silently across bridges without pay, and police officers refused to arrest Bonus Army veterans for trespassing.  Thousands joined the Bonus Army as it marched towards Washington with Sergent Waters as their elected leader.  Waters forbade drinking, panhandling, and ‘anti-government’ or ‘radical’ talk.

Tombstone Bonus protest, Portland Oregon USA August 1932. SW 4th and Main Street facing west.

When Waters and his Bonus Army arrived in late May 1932 they were twenty thousand strong.  The veterans and their families camped in buildings abandoned during the Great Depression and in giant shantytowns. Communists showed up at the shantytowns and agitated for their cause among the veterans.  In reply, Bonus Army veterans seized the communists, held trials and sentenced them to fifteen lashes.  More than two hundred communists were expelled from the Bonus Army camps.  But supporters who were not communists showed up at the shantytown with material support.  Among them were eight German soldiers, each having fought against US soldiers, each wounded twice or more in World War I, all naturalized citizens and bearing a total of eight tons of food and supplies for the Bonus Army.

On 29 June the US Government announced it would not meet the demands of the Bonus Army and that the Bonus Army had to leave by 15 July.  By 5 July there was no food remaining.  On 7 July congress offered $10,000 to the Bonus Army if it would simply leave Washington DC.  Some did take the money and leave, but many more took the money and stayed while other veterans joined for the first time.  One thousand more veterans and their families had joined the Bonus Army in Washington and more were on their way.  On 17 July 1932 Congress voted down the bonus and then adjourned.  President Hoover went on a vacation.

Theodore Roosevelt had described Major General Smedley Butler as the ‘ideal soldier.’  At the time of his death, Butler was the most decorated Marine in U. S. history.  But he had also spoken disparagingly of Benito Mussolini in Italy, for which he was reprimanded and threatened with court marshal.  He retired in protest in 1931. Butler addressed the Bonus Army on 19 July 1932.  “Men, I ran for the Senate in Pennsylvania on a bonus ticket.  I got the hell beaten out of me.  But I haven’t changed my mind a damned bit.  I’m here because I’ve been a soldier for thirty-five years and I can’t resist the temptation to be among soldiers.  Hang together and stick it out till the gates of Hell freeze over; if you don’t, you’re no damn good.  Remember, by God, you didn’t win the war for a select class of a few financiers and high binders.  Don’t break any laws and allow people to say bad things about you.  If you slip over into lawlessness of any kind you will lose the sympathy of 120 million people in this nation.”

Walter W. Waters in Washington DC 1932

Waters, meanwhile, announced the formation of ‘shock troops’ within the Bonus Army to be called the Khaki Shirts.  “Inevitably such an organization brings up comparisons with the Facisti of Italy and the NAZI of Germany.  For five years Hitler was lampooned and derided, but today he controls Germany.  Mussolini, before the war, was a tramp printer driven from Italy because of his political views.  But today he is a world figure.  The Khaki Shirts, however, would be essentially American.”  Waters demanded “complete dictatorial powers” of the Bonus Army.  Like many of Waters’ demands, this did not come to pass.

Communists tried once more to force a confrontation with the US Government on 20 and 25 July by rushing the White House.  The Government responded by ordering Waters to evacuate several of the Bonus Army camps.  Waters agreed to leave with the promise the Bonus Army could leave in stages and would not be forced by fellow soldiers or police to do so.  Waters told his followers: “When you start defying the federal government, which don’t take any consideration of the human element, you’re going to get licked.  We can’t lick the United States Government, but when the United States troops are called to escort me out, I’m going out.”  After making this speech, Waters was informed that all of the Bonus Army needed to leave Washington immediately.  “There you are!  You’re double crossed!  I’m double crossed!”  The Bonus Army ceased all evacuation.

On 28 July 1932 United States soldiers attack United States veterans.  The charge against the Bonus Army was led by future General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, future President Dwight Eisenhower and future General of the Army George Patton.  Thousands of civil servants lines the streets to honor the Bonus Army, but they were also attacked.  MacArthur, Eisenhower and Patton were supported by Washington police.

Police attack the Bonus Army 1932.

Four hundred infantry from the the 12th Infantry Regiment and two hundred cavalry from the 3rd Cavalry Regiment mobilized against the Bonus Army.  The infantry attacked with sabers, bayonets and tear gas.  Several Army trucks with machine guns and five or six tanks also moved against the veterans.

US Tanks mobilize against US veterans in Washington DC 1932.

In the streets of Washington DC, US soldier fought US soldier. Two veterans were shot.  The shantytowns were burned to the ground, including the American flags of the veterans and all the worldly possessions of their families.

Bonus Army shantytown burning in front of Capital Building 1932.

Bonus Army shantytown burning in front of Washington Monument 1932.

When the fighting started, the Communists fled.  Bonus Army soldiers remained, retaliating with brickbats and fists but never firing a shot nor returning the bayonet or saber attacks.

President Hoover later described the attack on the Bonus Army in this way: “A challenge to the authority of the United States Government has been met, swiftly and firmly. After months of patient indulgence, the Government met overt lawlessness as it always must be met if the cherished processes of self-government are to be preserved. We cannot tolerate the abuse of Constitutional rights by those who would destroy all government, no matter who they may be. Government cannot be coerced by mob rule.”  Hoover’s Attorney general William D. Mitchell described the Bonus Army as “the largest aggregation of criminals that had ever assembled in the city at one time.  A very much larger proportion of the Bonus Army than was realized at the time consisted of ex-convicts,  persons with criminal records, radicals and non-servicemen.”  MacArthur later described the attack on the Bonus Army in this way: “If there was one man in that group today who is a veteran, it would surprise me.  The mob down Pennsylvania Avenue looked bad.  They were animated by the spirit of revolution.  The gentleness and consideration with which they had been treated had been mistaken by them as weakness and they had come to the conclusion that they were about to take over the government in an arbitrary way or by indirect methods.”  The day after the eviction, a veteran approached Patton.  When Patton saw the veteran he said “Sergent, I do not know this man.  Take him away, and under no circumstances permit him to return!”  When the man left, Patton said this: “That man was my orderly during the war.  When I was wounded, he dragged me from a shell hole under fire.  I got him a decoration for it.  Since the war, my mother and I have more than supported him.  We have given him money.  We have set him up in business several times.  Can you imagine the headlines if the papers got wind of our meeting here this morning?  Of course, we’ll take care of him anyway.”

The Bonus Army veterans and their families scattered.  Some returned to their home states, whether or not they had a home there.  Some stayed in or near Washington.  The Bonus Army marched again, some of the men in the Bonus Army marched or petitioned under other names, but their back had been broken.

Hoover was not re-elected.  Franklin D. Roosevelt became the next President of the United States.  Roosevelt established the Civil Conservation Corps, the G. I. Bill, the Works Progress Administration and in 1936 he paid the bonus.  On average, $583 per soldier.

In 1930 the most prosperous nations in history were seized by widespread poverty.  War was blossoming around the globe.  At the same time, post-revolutionary Russia was rapidly evolving into a superpower.  There was a sense that a new beginning was both necessary and possible.  The economy could no longer be left to chance, and the downtrodden could no longer be left to their own devices.  Three nations – Germany, Italy and the United States – initiated ‘third way’ proposals that were not quite capitalism and not quite socialism.  The Khaki Shirts founded (then abandoned) by Waters had branches in Washington and Philadelphia.  Sir Oswald Mosley of England made a proposal but did not have the opportunity to implement it.  Roosevelt’s solution in the United States was called the New Deal.  Roosevelt and Mosley were friends, enjoying cruises and a playful vacation in Florida.

Cinny Mosley, Franklin Roosevelt and Oswald Mosley.

Bonus Army veterans had a different experience in Florida.  Roosevelt sent them to Florida to do construction work during hurricane season.  On 29 August 1935 the Labor Day Hurricane destroyed the area and killed hundreds of veterans.  Hurricane warnings had gone out all over the state but had been specifically withheld from the veterans camps.  The blowing sand had caused such abrasion to their bodies that many could not be identified.  Their bodies were anonymously burned en mass.

The New Deal did bring relief to many desperate Americans.  At the same time, the New Deal increased the burdens of the wealthy in America.  Some of the wealthy decided to follow the Bonus Army example and have a private army march on Washington.  This time, however, the private army would seize the city and install a new leader. In the Summer of 1933 General Smedley Butler was approached by Gerald MacGuire.  MacGuire said veterans should be paid in a gold-backed currency.  He also said he represented Robert Sterling Clark (heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune) and Grayson Murphy (a wealthy stockbroker).  MacGuire’s group, the American Liberty League, enjoyed the patronage of the Du Pont companies and other wealthy supporters.  They saw soldiers trusted Butler, and so they wanted Butler to lead a private army of 500,000 men to take over Washington DC.  Butler rejected the offer, saying “If you get those 500,000 soldiers advocating anything smelling of fascism, I am going to get 500,000 more and lick the hell out of you, and we will have a real war right at home.”  Butler then warned the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars about the coup.  National Commander James E. Van Zandt replied that he had also been approached by MacGuire.  Butler went to Congress and reported the Business Plot, who investigated his claims.  MacGuire denied Bulter’s claims.  Congress found Butler’s claims largely credible, and no further action was taken.  Butler went on to write the book War is a Racket.

In 1783, the Continental Army at Newburgh, New York realized that they not only had not been paid in years but also that they would not be paid what they had been promised by the new United States Government.  The rate of pay for those who did not fight compared to those who served in the military was profound. Those who stayed home had opportunities in business and education that those who served were denied.  Some veterans of the Continental Army sent representatives to Congress demanding pay and compensation for missed opportunities.  Other Continental Army veterans surrounded the State House.  General George Washington advised them not to slip over into lawlessness.  The politicians left by back doors and under guard. The new United States Army then forcibly expelled the Continental Army from the area.  The expulsion of the “Newburgh Conspiracy” from Washington helped form the Posse Comitatus Act. The Posse Comitatus Act forbids the use of the military for police work except in the city of Washington DC.  This exception was created to expel the Continental Army and it was used again to expel the Bonus Army.

In 2010 the most prosperous nations in history are seized by widespread poverty.  War is blossoming around the globe.  There is a sense that a new beginning is both necessary and possible.  The economy can no longer be left to chance, and the downtrodden can no longer be left to their own devices.  To that end, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has handed out nearly $800 billion dollars to banks and businesses.  There are an estimated 107,000 homeless veterans in the United States.  The Veterans Administration served 92,000 veterans in 2009, leaving over 100,000 veterans without care.  Payments allowing veterans to attend college are often late and college students are unable to complete their degrees.  Unemployment among veterans is two percent higher than civilians.  Two hundred thousand or more US soldiers will return from Iraq and Afghanistan looking for work while the US experiences a recession and scarcity of jobs.  So let’s all sing…

They used to tell me I was building a dream and so I followed the mob.
When there was earth to plow or guns to bear I was always there, right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream with peace and glory ahead.
Why should I be standing in line just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad, now it’s done, brother can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower to the sun, brick and mortar and lime.
Once I built a tower, now it’s done, brother can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee, we looked swell, full of that yankee doodle de dum.
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell and I was the kid with the drum.
Say don’t you remember, they called me Al, it was Al all the time.
Say don’t you remember, I’m your pal, brother can you spare a dime?

- Brother Can You Spare a Dime? by E. Y. “Yip” Harburg and Jay Gorney, 1931

Video:
PBS: March of the Bonus Army via youtube [1][2][3] or purchase.
PBS: History Detectives Season 6, Episode 5. [video][transcript]
Bonus Army documentaries via youtube [1][2][3], sources unknown.
BBC 4: The Whitehouse Coup via youtube [1][2][3] or listen.
Graham Frye reads an excerpt from War is a Racket.
Library of Congress: Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen on 22 June 2005.

Books:
The Bonus Army.  Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen.  New York: Walker and Company 2004. [Paul Dickson] [Thomas B. Allen][New York Times][worldcat]
The Portland Red Guide.  Michael Munk.  Portland: Ooligan Press 2007. [Michael Munk][Ooligan Press]

France bans internet Nazi auctions – A French judge has ruled that the US Internet Service Provider Yahoo! Inc must make it impossible for French users to access sites auctioning race hate memorabilia. In a landmark ruling, Judge Jean-Jaques Gomez gave Yahoo! Until 24 July to comply with his order. Existing French law prohibits the selling or display of anything that incites racism. [...] Yahoo said it condemned all forms of racism but added the case raised significant questions. A lawyer for the internet service provider said the real question was whether a French court had jurisdiction over the English-language content of an American website.

Yahoo!, Inc. v. LICRA, 169 F.Supp. 2d 1181 (N.D. Cal. 2001) – “Although France has the sovereign right to regulate what speech is permissible in France, this Court may not enforce a foreign order that violates the protections of the United States Constitution by chilling protected speech that occurs simultaneously within our borders. The reason for limiting comity in this area is sound. ‘The protection to free speech and the press embodied in [the First] amendment would be seriously jeopardized by the entry of foreign judgments granted pursuant to standards deemed appropriate in [another country] but considered antithetical to the protections afforded the press by the U. S. Constitution.’ Bachchan v. India Abroad Publications, Inc., 585 N. Y. S. 2d 661, 665 (Sup. Ct. 1992). Absent a body of law that establishes international standards with respect to speech on the Internet and an appropriate treaty or legislation addressing enforcement of such standards to speech originating within the United States, the principle of comity is outweighed by the Court’s obligation to uphold the First Amendment.”

Convicted Murderer Sues Wikipedia, Demands Removal of His Name – Wikipedia is under a censorship attack by a convicted murderer who is invoking Germany’s privacy laws in a bid to remove references to his killing of a Bavarian actor in 1990. Lawyers for Wolfgang Werle, of Erding, Germany, sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding removal of Werle’s name from the Wikipedia entry on actor Walter Sedlmayr. The lawyers cite German court rulings that “have held that our client’s name and likeness cannot be used anymore in publication regarding Mr. Sedlmayr’s death.” [...] Jennifer Granick, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says German publications must also alter their online archives in a bid to comport with laws designed to provide offenders an avenue to “reintegrate back into society.” [...] Granick said the First Amendment protects San Francisco-based Wikipedia.

Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle are citizens of the United Kingdom who operate a web site in California, USA called heretial.com (previously at OVO).  The content of their website is considered illegal ‘hate speech’ in the UK but is not illegal in the USA. Sheppard and Whittle applied for asylum in the USA but were instead extradited and are now in prison. The ‘Heretical Two’ did not enjoy the protection of the First Amendment that others have found in similar situations.  No evidence was presented at their trials that any ‘racial hatred’ had resulted from their website. No evidence was presented at their trials that anyone had accessed the website other than the single police officer who had downloaded the website for the purpose of the prosecution.  Is free speech only for those in the right who speak with a pleasant tone?  What nation’s laws govern US websites?

Wikipedia, Smedley Butler:

Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940), nicknamed “The Fighting Quaker” and “Old Gimlet Eye”, was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps and, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.

During his 34 years of Marine Corps service, Butler was awarded numerous medals for heroism including the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor twice. Notably, he is one of only 19 people to be twice awarded the Medal of Honor, and one of only three to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor, and the only person to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor for two different actions.

In addition to his military career, Smedley Butler was noted for his outspoken anti-interventionist views, and his book War is a Racket. His book was one of the first works describing the workings of the military-industrial complex and after retiring from service, he became a popular speaker at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists and church groups in the 1930s.

In 1934, he alleged to the United States Congress that a group of wealthy industrialists had plotted a military coup known as the Business Plot to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Wikipedia, War is a Racket:

War Is a Racket is the title of two works [...] by retired U.S. Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler [...] in which Butler frankly discusses from his experience as a career military officer how business interests have commercially benefited from warfare.  After he retired from the Marine Corps, Gen. Butler made a nationwide tour in the early 1930s giving his speech “War is a Racket”. The speech was so well received that he wrote a longer version as a small book with the same title that was published in 1935 by Round Table Press, Inc., New York. The booklet was also condensed in Reader’s Digest as a book supplement which helped popularize his message.

War is a Racket as a free text online, a book to purchase from Feral House or in a dramatic reading.

Wikipedia, Business Plot:

The Business Plot was a reported political conspiracy in 1933 which involved wealthy businessmen plotting a coup d’état to overthrow United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1934 retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler testified to the McCormack-Dickstein Congressional committee that a group of men had approached him as part of a plot to overthrow Roosevelt in a coup. In the opinion of the committee these allegations were credible. One of the purported plotters, Gerald MacGuire, vehemently denied any such plot. In their report, the Congressional committee stated that it was able to confirm Butler’s statements other than the proposal from MacGuire which it considered more or less confirmed by MacGuire’s European reports. However, no prosecutions or further investigations followed. While historians have questioned whether or not a coup was actually close to execution, most agree that some sort of “wild scheme” was contemplated and discussed. Contemporaneous media initially dismissed the plot, with a New York Times editorial characterizing it as a “gigantic hoax”. When the committee’s final report was released, the Times said the committee “purported to report that a two-month investigation had convinced it that General Butler’s story of a Fascist march on Washington was alarmingly true” and “It also alleged that definite proof had been found that the much publicized Fascist march on Washington, which was to have been led by Major. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, retired, according to testimony at a hearing, was actually contemplated”.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was no stranger to fascism.  He was a friend to Sir Oswald Mosley, as shown in this photograph (mirror) as well as Lady Mosley.  Sir Mosley was the founder of the British Union of Fascist.  Fascism as an economic plan, as a ‘third way’ that was neither communism nor capitalism, is not unlike what President Roosevelt established in his New Deal.  No implication is made or should be understood that the New Deal or Sir Mosley’s BUF also included the excesses of fascism found in Germany or other fascist-by-name countries.  No implication is made or should be understood that OVO supports fascism as an economic plan or in any other manifestation.

“War is father of all, king of all. Some it makes gods, some it makes men; some it makes slaves, some free.  We must realize that war is universal, and strife is justice, and that all things come into being and pass away through strife.” – Heraclitus.

When openly gay college student Matthew Shepard was targeted, tortured and murdered in 1998 the story made national headlines. Soon after, MTV sent a camera crew down to Charleston, South Carolina searching for a redneck or two who might offer some insensitive remarks about homosexuals for their “True Life” series. They found one. Me. I was a student at the College of Charleston and as the lone conservative writer at the school paper, was asked to participate in the television tapings. I remember telling MTV I believed Shepard’s murderers should receive the death penalty. I also told them, when prodded, that I believed homosexuality was “against God.” It’s a comment I’ve regretted ever since. My first regret stems from the blasphemous assumption that I could know the mind of God and secondly, that I had portrayed gay men and women as somehow lesser children of that God. Despite my youthful ignorance, there is nothing more obvious to me today than the fact that the overwhelming majority of homosexuals are born gay. It is nature, not nurture and certainly no choice. [...]

Most violent crime is born of some sort of hatred and examining motive is certainly crucial in any criminal investigation. But “hate” – for gays, minorities, women, chivalrous men – is still just a thought, and should not be itself, a criminal action. Criminalizing the thought behind a violent act sets dangerous precedent and gives special justice to special groups and lesser justice to victims of similar crimes who do not belong to those groups.

Article continues at link.  How is freedom of speech defended on the left, on the right, and at the extremes of each?  How does that change over time?  Are you ready to go this far to defend freedom of speech?  How about this far?  How far, my friend?

Nick Griffin of the [British National Party] has been gagging to appear on Question Time, because it is a test of his continental-style strategy of normalising and legitimising the extreme right. On the model of the Italian National Alliance, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Front National and Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands, Griffin is attempting to yank his party into greater acceptability and live down its Mosleyite roots of confrontation and street violence. Since the BNP’s objectives have not changed – and they remain racist – that is a very good reason to be sceptical about the BBC’s decision to give him a platform. However, the issue is one of thresholds. The BBC has judged that two MEPs in a nation-wide election entitles the BNP to a voice on Question Time, just as previously a similar threshold elevated Ukip and the Greens. The BBC’s duty of impartiality is too important to have broadcasting executives decide that some opinions are acceptable and others are not, providing of course that those opinions are within the law (notably in avoiding incitement to racial hatred or violence). Therefore I do not myself criticise the BBC for making the invitation, even though I am acutely aware that extending such democratic rights to a party that does not respect them is paradoxical. [...]

The issue here is different to the old “no platform” policy. I would not appear at a meeting organised by the BNP, and nor would I extend an invitation to them. It is no part of the business of an elected liberal to drum up larger audiences for our most reviled opponents. They are welcome to their freedom of speech, but they can choose their own street corner and their own soapbox without my help. But the BBC has decided to invite Griffin, and I fear that Thursday night’s excitement would not have been called off just because the Liberal Democrats decided not to participate. Better surely to champion the great British values of moderation and tolerance rather than give bigotry the only say.

Article continues at link, with much to recommend it. I am not a member or supporter of the BNP, and I don’t expect them to fare well on the television show Question Time. I am a supporter of public debate. I believe people’s words and actions speak for themselves. I believe accurate judgments are best gained by access to source materials and not second-hand opinion. The contradiction of offering a debate platform to someone who would not do the same to you is an important one. It is exactly the reason the tradition of debate is superior to the ‘no platform’ policy. If you can articulate why it is superior, you will have advanced in your defense of free speech.

Having said that, a few comments on Huhne’s article. Huhne compares the BNP to the Italian National Alliance, Front National and Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands. But only the BNP has limitations on the race of who can join, so the comparison is not entirely accurate. Huhne writes about confrontation and street violence and incitement to racial hatred or violence. Are these all the same thing, or points along a continuum, or actions that always and only appear as a set? The heart of public debate is confrontation, and there’s no getting around some of that confrontation being awful. Incitement to racial hatred is illegal in England and in much of the world, but not in the USA. I do not support ‘hate speech’ laws for the same reason I do support public debate. I do not believe hate speech leads to violence (in the street or otherwise) any more than I believe love songs lead to love. Huhne talks about Mosley and Pin Fortuyn, who did know about street violence. Watch a film of Mosley in 1936 trying to march down Cable Street. Look at a photograph of Mosley in 1962 as he speaks to a crowd. Marching, speaking, violence – but who is committing the violence, and against whom, and for how many decades? Free speech has its contradictions, and Mosley had some practical lessons in these contradictions by being put in prison (along with his wife) for years without charge or trial. Pin Fortuyn had fewer experiences with street violence, but one was enough. Again, who is committing the violence and who is speaking their mind?

No matter your beliefs, at some point in its evolution it got in your head because you or someone else proposed it at a time when it was a heresy. All religious founders are by definition people who were heretics of their time. Science progresses by questioning what has come before, not by observation of what is. I sometimes feel frustrated (even confronted and incited) by other people, but the knowledge that belief is a market of ideas and not a battleground of ideas gives me calm. I am glad the BNP will appear on Question Time and that has nothing to do with my general dislike for the nationalists, racists or television.

Amnesty International comes in two flavors.  First we have Irrepressible.info, an Amnesty International campaign:

Chat rooms monitored. Blogs deleted. Websites blocked. Search engines restricted. People imprisoned for simply posting and sharing information. The Internet is a new frontier in the struggle for human rights. Governments – with the help of some of the biggest IT companies in the world – are cracking down on freedom of expression. The web is a great tool for sharing ideas and freedom of expression. However, efforts to try and control the Internet are growing. Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. It is one of the most precious of all rights. We should fight to protect it.  The more people take part the more we show that freedom of expression cannot be repressed.

And second we have Freedom of Speech Carries Responsibilities for All, an Amnesty International public statement:

The right to freedom of expression is not absolute – neither for the creators of material nor their critics. It carries responsibilities and it may, therefore, be subject to restrictions in the name of safeguarding the rights of others. In particular, any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence cannot be considered legitimate exercise of freedom of expression. Under international standards, such “hate speech” should be prohibited by law. AI calls on the government officials and those responsible for law enforcement and the administration of justice to be guided by these human rights principles in their handling of the current situation.

What is the ‘current situation’ mentioned in the above quote?  Was it the publication of twelve editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005? Or was it the murderous response of thousands of Muslims around the world after the publication of twelve editorial cartoons?  Again, from Freedom of Speech Carries Responsibilities for All:

Newspaper editors have justified the publication of cartoons that many Muslims have regarded as insulting, arguing that freedom of artistic expression and critique of opinions and beliefs are essential in a pluralist and democratic society. On the other hand, Muslims in numerous countries have found the cartoons to be deeply offensive to their religious beliefs and an abuse of freedom of speech. In a number of cases, protests against the cartoons have degenerated into acts of physical violence, while public statements by some protestors and community leaders have been seen as fanning the flames of hostility and violence. [...] AI also calls on those working in the media to act with sensitivity and responsibility so as not to exacerbate the current situation. This incident highlights the power and reach of the media and AI calls on those in the media to apply greater political judgement, taking into account the potential impact of their output and the range of often competing human rights considerations involved. While AI recognises the right of anyone to peacefully express their opinion, including through peaceful protests, the use and threat of violence is unacceptable. Community leaders must do everything in their power to defuse the current atmosphere of hostility and violence. Culture and religion are of central importance to many people’s lives, but they cannot be used as an excuse to abuse human rights.

Amnesty International presents ‘the current situation’ as a controversy.  On the one hand are cartoons and on the other hand are murderers.  Both sides are equally worthy of respect and should talk it out.  But they are not equally worthy of respect.  Murdering people over cartoons is never worthy of respect, not in any circumstance.  It is never a controversy, it is never open to debate.  It is absolutely wrong, in a world where much is morally ambiguous.  The comics did offend some Muslims, perhaps even deeply.  I think some of the cartoons may have been drawn and published with that goal in mind.  And even then, murder over cartoons is not justified.  The publication of cartoons is a peaceful expression of opinion and a peaceful protest.  Every Muslim on the entire planet should be free to make offending cartoons (even deeply offending cartoons) about anything they like.  Amnesty International does condemn the use and threat of violence and urges community leaders must do everything in their power to defuse the current atmosphere of hostility and violence.  That’s an organization I can support.  Amnesty International does consider freedom of expression as a fundamental human right.  I can get behind that too.  But shame on Amnesty International abandoning its own principles when it comes to “hate speech.”

Why is the right to freedom of expression not absolute?  If freedom of expression is not absolute then what is it other than a lack of freedom of expression?  The Bible and the Quran call for the murder of non-believers.  If we are to respect a believer’s freedom of superstition, we do so by respecting their freedom of speech.  And if we respect their freedom of speech, we must respect the freedom of speech of others.  Absolutely.  All the way up to these pesky heretics, who are now serving time in prison exclusively because of words and pictures they published on the internet.  I say freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. It is one of the most precious of all rights. We should fight to protect it. The more people take part the more we show that freedom of expression cannot be repressed.  What do you say?

I think that the people who approach the social sciences with a ready-made conspiracy theory [...] deny themselves the possibility of ever understanding what the task of the social sciences is, for they assume that we can explain practically everything in society by asking who wanted it, whereas the real task of the social sciences is to explain those things which nobody wants – such as, for example, a war, or a depression. (Lenin’s revolution, and especially Hitler’s revolution and Hitler’s war are, I think, exceptions. These were indeed conspiracies. But they were consequences of the fact that conspiracy theoreticians came to power – who, most significantly, failed to consummate their conspiracies.)

Lecture delivered to the Third Annual Conference of the Rationalist Press Association on 26 July 1984.  From Conjectures and Refutations, Routledge 1963.

It is one thing, I am told, to defend the free speech rights of Holocaust deniers; but to engage and defend the content of their views, however cautiously – well, that’s another matter. Smoky’s over the line, says the one consumed with electric suspicion. And questions must follow. What are your motives? Do you hate Jews? Do you still beat your wife? Of course, the abstract argument is fine as far as it goes. It’s just that it doesn’t go very far. If we are serious, the next question must, at some point, intrude. Put another way, if people are being sent to jail for expressing ideas and writing words – and they are – it is only natural and fair to ask: what are those ideas? What are those words? When does a thought expressed become a crime? When it is incitement? When it is a lie? Could it be more complicated? Or less? My position is simple. I believe that you absolutely have to get your fucking hands dirty. I am convinced this is ultimately a matter of decency, and I mean this without irony. [...]

Decades ago, when the works of Henry Miller and William Burroughs and Hubert Selby and Jean Genet and other “literary outlaws” were at issue, expert witnesses lined up to testify as to the redeeming merit of every presumed obscenity. Sometimes the good guys won, and sometimes they lost. But such recourse is largely denied to today’s class of thought criminal. When Ernst Zundel’s lawyer attempted to defend the credibility of her client’s presumptively criminal views, they locked her up. Thus a game is rigged. Grove Press isn’t going to step up this time. It’s easier to sign the petition and shrug. If the lying fuckers should’ve known better, if they’re as bad as CP traders, if they only stoke the embers of a special hate – then a problem may filed away with an asterisk, that might as well be a swastika.  A subject has become inseparable from the stigma that latches. In lieu of discourse, one finds crass signage and deflective satire. A genuine controversy is held hostage by the nuanced strictures of dinner-party form, by the huff and heat of the latest never forget editorial. Yet the noise can only mask a familiar authoritarian gesture. The greatest taboo of our age is sustained in the synchronized cultural choreography of finger-wagging, sometimes from the professoriate, sometimes from the judge’s bench. You are being admonished. You are being told not to consider that there could be a second possibility. You are being told, in so many ways, not to look. And it’s only too easy to abide. All you have to do is read from the script you’ve been handed. Tell yourself it’s of a class with snuff porn or whatever agreed-to boundary. Console yourself with anti-hate sugarplums and bubbles and Frankfurt-schooled excuses. Play it safe. You will have their blessing. Yet something is wrong. Because people are in prison for writing and selling books. Once again, the public library etagerie is arranged for your edification. Construction paper letters stapled to the tackboard. Mark Twain and D.H Lawrence chain-locked in the display case. Harry Potter facing off against familiar cartoon christian enemies. Newsclips about southern school-board busybodies wringing hands over Heather’s two mommies. Banned Books Week as nostalgia, as distraction. As crude extortion, really – once you know what’s missing. And you don’t even feel the chill.

People are in prison for writing and selling books.

Article continues at link.

Sibel Edmonds has a story to tell. She went to work as a Turkish and Farsi translator for the FBI five days after 9/11. Part of her job was to translate and transcribe recordings of conversations between suspected Turkish intelligence agents and their American contacts. She was fired from the FBI in April 2002 after she raised concerns that one of the translators in her section was a member of a Turkish organization that was under investigation for bribing senior government officials and members of Congress, drug trafficking, illegal weapons sales, money laundering, and nuclear proliferation. [...] John Ashcroft’s Justice Department confirmed Edmonds’s veracity in a backhanded way by twice invoking the dubious State Secrets Privilege so she could not tell what she knows. [...] But on Aug. 8, she was finally able to testify under oath in a court case filed in Ohio and agreed to an interview with The American Conservative based on that testimony.

“During my work with the FBI, one of the major operational files that I was transcribing and translating started in late 1996 and continued until 2002, when I left the Bureau. [...] The monitoring of the Turks picked up contacts with [Douglas] Feith, [Paul] Wolfowitz, and [Richard] Perle in the summer of 2001, four months before 9/11. They were discussing with the Turkish ambassador in Washington an arrangement whereby the U.S. would invade Iraq and divide the country. The UK would take the south, the rest would go to the U.S. They were negotiating what Turkey required in exchange for allowing an attack from Turkish soil. The Turks were very supportive, but wanted a three-part division of Iraq to include their own occupation of the Kurdish region. The three Defense Department officials said that would be more than they could agree to, but they continued daily communications to the ambassador and his defense attaché in an attempt to convince them to help. [...]

“So these conversations, between 1997 and 2001, had to do with a Central Asia operation that involved bin Laden. Not once did anybody use the word ‘al-Qaeda.’ It was always ‘mujahideen,’ always ‘bin Laden’ and, in fact, not ‘bin Laden’ but ‘bin Ladens’ plural. There were several bin Ladens who were going on private jets to Azerbaijan and Tajikistan. The Turkish ambassador in Azerbaijan worked with them.  There were bin Ladens, with the help of Pakistanis or Saudis, under our management. Marc Grossman was leading it, 100 percent, bringing people from East Turkestan into Kyrgyzstan, from Kyrgyzstan to Azerbaijan, from Azerbaijan some of them were being channeled to Chechnya, some of them were being channeled to Bosnia. From Turkey, they were putting all these bin Ladens on NATO planes. People and weapons went one way, drugs came back. (Was the U.S. government aware of this circular deal?) 100 percent. A lot of the drugs were going to Belgium with NATO planes. After that, they went to the UK, and a lot came to the U.S. via military planes to distribution centers in Chicago and Paterson, New Jersey. Turkish diplomats who would never be searched were coming with suitcases of heroin.”

Article continues.  More on Sibel Edmonds from her official website, Wikipedia, History Commons, CBS News, Let Sibel Edmonds Speak, and National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.

The Heretical Two are Simon Sheppard [Wikipedia] and Stephen Whittle (Luke O’Farrel).  Their web site is heretical.com.  Previous OVO editorial about The Heretical Two here.  Their words speak for themselves.  Their words  and many of the sites listed below contain words and images I find in error and cruel.  It remains that words and images never hurt anyone.  It is wrong to imprison people for ownership or publication of words or images.  It is maddening that these two are in prison while the governments that put them there are releasing known murderers (US / UK).   Their freedom of speech is no different from that of Jews, Christians and Muslims, no different from political or sexual minorities, no different from yours.  Throw away the freedoms of one and you can be sure the freedoms of the others will not be far behind.

• Antiquity: Anonymous authors pen The Bible.  This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1851: Arthur Schopenhauer writes On Women. This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1853: Charles Dickens writes The Noble Savage. This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1857: Charles Darwin writes The Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestication. This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1875: Charles Darwin writes The Origin of Species. This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1884: Sigmund Freud writes Über Coca. This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1912 (circa): H. P. Lovecraft writes On the Creation of Niggers. This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1920: H. L. Mencken writes In Defense of Women. This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1925: Adolph Hitler writes Mein Kampf.  This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1926: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writes The Adventure of the Three Gables. This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 12 June 1942 – 1 August 1944: Ann Frank writes The Diary of a Young Girl. This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1940 (circa): Rudyard Kipling writes The Burden of Jerusalem. This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1941: Ivan Pavlov writes Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes. This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1956: Jens Bjerre writes The Last Cannibals.  This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1960: George Lincoln Rockwell writes In Hoc Signo Vinces, including an essay called The Swastika.
• 1964: Roald Dahl writes Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1976: A. K. Chesterton writes Facing the Abyss. This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1979: Douglas Adams writes The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1980: John Money writes Love and Love Sickness. This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1980: Clark Howard writes Zebra. This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1984: Isaac Asimov writes Counting the Eons. This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 24 March 2005: What is heretical.com? by $14 Worth of Sex.
• 1987: Graham Smith writes When Jim Crow Met John Bull. This work is quoted at heretical.com.
• 1989: Tales of the Holohoax published [archive.org 22 September 2009]
• 1993: Niggers Over America by R. Crumb published in Zap Comics.
• 14 November 1994: R. Crumb regarding his comic Niggers Over America: “I just had to expose all the myths people have of blacks and Jews in the rawest way possible to tilt the scale toward truth.”
• June 1999: Simon Sheppard and David Hannam distribute about 1,500 copies of Our Politicians Are Traitor Criminals. [heretical.com 4 November 2009]
• 8 June 1999: Simon Sheppard and David Hannam are arrested for the distribution of Our Politicians Are Traitor Criminals.  [heretical.com 4 November 2009]
• 19 July 1999: Simon Sheppard is considered for early release on the condition of electronic tagging.  He is rejected for early release because “‘you have stated that you have no intention of obstaining from your offending behaviour, i.e. racist and sexist.”  [heretical.com 4 November 2009]
• 1 August 1999: Simon Sheppard appeals his rejection for early release.  “I am sorry that you disagree with the decision, but the fact is that, because of your views regarding incitement to racial and sexual hatred, you are viewed as danger to the public and to women and people from ethnic minority backgrounds in particular.”  [heretical.com 4 November 2009]
• 8 August 1999: “My heartfelt thanks to all those who have written to me in prison and who have sent postal orders, which are keeping me in small luxuries like chocolate and a cigar at the end of every day to celebrate its passing. The large number of letters I have received have made a great difference to my morale during this ordeal; and I know the support I have been shown has made an impression on the prison authorities. Following assaults by other prisoners I am now segregated. I am reading prodigiously and managing to remain cheerful and optimistic for the future. – Simon Sheppard” [heretical.com 4 November 2009]
• 2 January 2000: Simon Sheppard (and David Hannam?) are charged with Publishing or Distributing racially inflammatory material, Possession of racially inflammatory material and other charges for the distribution of Our Politicians Are Traitor Criminals.  [heretical.com 4 November 2009]
• 6 January 2000: David Hannam pleads guilty to all charges for the distribution of Our Politicians Are Traitor Criminals.  He is sentenced to three months in jail.  [heretical.com 4 November 2009]
• 14 June 2000: Simon Sheppard is sentenced to nine months imprisonment for the distribution of Our Politicians Are Traitor Criminals.  [heretical.com 4 November 2009]
• January – February 2002: Robert Frenz quoted: “Although listed in the ‘links’ folder, Simon Sheppard deserves another plug. Visit his http://www.heretical.com site. On it you’ll find a reproduction of Lincoln Rockwell’s famous BOAT TICKET which were popular hand-outs during the 1960s.”
• 7 March 2005: Whittle writes Dumb Niggers and Gloating Sheeneys.
• 1 June 2005: Whittle writes Hells Bells.
• 10 July 2005: Whittle writes Make Niggers History.
• 7 September 2005: Whittle writes Diversity = Death.
• 15 January 2006: Whittle writes Three Parasites and a Funeral.
• 10 February 2008: Simon Sheppard was found guilty and sentenced to 9 months imprisonment by Alex Linder.
• 4 June 2008: LA Times reports Whittle and Sheppard straight and true by Guessedworker.
• 28 June 2008: Earliest comment regarding Tales of the Holohoax at archive.org.
• 12 July 2008: Holocaust denier convicted of trying to incite race hate online by Rob Preece.
• 14 July 2008: Sheppard found guilty of eleven counts of ‘race hate.’ Whittle found guilty on five counts relating to internet publishing. Charges include: possession of Tales of the Holohoax on 30 March 2005, possession of Tales of the Holohoax on 12 April 2006, publishing Tales of the Holohoax, publication of Dumb Niggers and Gloating Sheeneys, publication of Hells Bells, publication of Make Niggers History, publication of Diversity = Death, publication of Three Parasites and a Funeral, publication of Niggers Over America, publication of When the Goddamn Jews Take Over America, publication of Boat Ticket #2, publication of The Swastika, publication of Auschwitz Holiday Report, publication of Evil Zionist Kikes, publication of Kike Windchimes, distribution of Don’t Be Sheeple, possession of Don’t Be Sheeple on 4 July 2007, possession of Tales of the Holohoax on 4 July 2007.  No evidence is presented at the trial that any ‘racial hatred’ had resulted from the internet material. No evidence is presented at the trial that anyone had accessed the relevant internet pages other the single police officer who had downloaded the website for the purpose of the prosecution.  [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 14 July 2008: Fugitives from Injustice by North West Nationalists.
• 16 July 2008: Race-hate pair flee to US for political asylum by Rob Preece.
• 16 July 2008: Race-hate pair flee to US for political asylum by John in Basel.
• 16 July 2008: The ‘Heretical 2′ Claim Political Asylum in the USA by The International Campaign for Real History.
• 20 July 2008: Heretical Two Seek Political Asylum in U.S. by Jeff Davis.
• 20 July 2008: One Law for Them? by Sarah Maid of Albion.
• 21 July 2008: Sheppard has seven charges considered related to printed material. The jury is unable to reach a decision.  [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 22 July 2008: Britain’s Political Refugees in the USA – The Heretical Two! by North West Nationalists.
• 24 July 2008: Latest News on the British Asylum Seekers in the USA – Heretical Two! by North West Nationalists.
• 24 July 2008: In Other Bizarre British Free-Speech Cases by Brendan Kiley.
• 24 July 2008: Update on Heretical Two! Donations Please by North West Nationalists.
• 25 July 2008: Re: The Heretical Duo & Closing the Border Between the UK and Ireland by North West Nationalists.
• 26-27 July 2008: Sheppard and Whittle leave England.  They fly to Ireland, then the United States.  They surrender to authorities in Los Angeles International Airport as a way of seeking political asylum. [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 31 July 2008: The Heretical 2, Asylum Seekers the Refugee Industry Won’t be Fighting for by Nicholas Stix.
• 28 July 2008: The Heretical Press Website by Arthur Cristian.
• 31 July 2008: Fund Holder for Heretical Two by North West Nationalists.
• July 2008 – June 2009: Sheppard and Whittle are held in Santa Ana Jail by the Department of Homeland Security.  Correspondents were asked not to place return address stickers on envelopes as all letters with labels of any kind were sent back marked unauthorized. Sheppard and Whittle can only send two replies per week and so used heretical.com to thank people who had written messages of support and requested they kept writing. [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 2 August 2008: Update on Heretical Two by BPP WD by John in Basel.
• 2 August 2008: The Heretical Two by ironwand.
• 2 August 2008: The Heretical Two by Jack Black.
• 5 August 2008: Heretical Two – Latest News! by North West Nationalists.
• 6 August 2008: Lady Renouf Speaks About the Heretical Two by  John in Basel.
• 7 August 2008: Heretical Two Appeal Fund by North West Nationalists.
• 11 August 2008: Simon Sheppard & Steve Whittle Seek Asylum Over Thought Offense Charges by jailingopinions.com.
• 11 August 2008: Fund Created for the Heretical Two by Socrates.
• 22 August 2008: Heretical Two – Latest News! by North West Nationalists.
• 23 August 2008: Heretical Two Requests for Political Asylum by hereticaltwo.nfshost.com.
• 9 September 2008: Payment Problem to Heretical Two by John in Basel.
• 12 September 2008: Online race hate pair who fled to US launch appeals by Rob Preece.
• 17 September 2008: Sheppard and Whittle have their first immigration court hearing.  Bruce Leichty is their defense attorney.  The residing judge claims she did not have the power to release Sheppard and Whittle under the defensive procedures adopted by the US authorities. [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 17 September 2008: The Heretical 2, Requests for Asylum and Letters from Santa Ana Jail by Nicholas Stix.
• 29 September 2008: Jailed British “Heretics” Hire Asylum Lawyer by hereticaltwo.nfshost.com.
• 5 October 2008: Dear Mr. Huhne by Kate Dermody.
• 14 October 2008:  Sheppard and Whittle have an ‘asylum-only proceeding.’  Immigration Judge Rose Peters resides.  Sheppard and Whittle attempt release before the ruling, which is denied by the Judge. [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 18 October 2008: Heretical Two Denied Bail Hearing by Alex.
• 21 October 2008: “Heretical Two” Denied Bail by Paul Ballard.
• 24 October 2008: No Remedy for Jailed British ‘Heretics’ by GWR.
• 13 November 2008: Sheppard and Whittle have a ‘calendar meeting’ of the Immigration Court.  Judge Peters set the merits (main) appeal for three afternoons in blocks of four hours from 2 pm on March 10, 12 and 24 of 2009. [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 8 December 2008: Sheppard retried in his absence in Leeds Crown Court, England.  Six charges are considered, one charge is dropped.  [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 22 December 2008: Sheppard retrial in his absence in Leeds Crown Court, England deferred to 5 January 2009.  [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 5 January 2009: Sheppard retrial in his absence in Leeds Crown Court, England continued.  Professor Rabkin argues Jews are a religion and not a race.  [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 6 January 2009: Sheppard retrial in his absence in Leeds Crown Court, England continued.  Jury deliberates.  [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 8 January 2009: Sheppard retrial in his absence in Leeds Crown Court, England continues.  Sheppard found guilty on three counts relating to Tales of the Holocaust and later in the day by a majority verdict on two charges relating to Don’t be Sheeple.  [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 8 January 2009: Guilty verdicts in retrial for race hate pair who fled to US by Yorkshire Post.
• 8 January 2009: Two guilty of inciting racial hatred against Jews by The Crown Prosecution Service.
• 9 January 2009: Race-hate pair face jail after mocking Holocaust by Rob Preece.
• 9 January 2009: ‘Forthright’ opinions play down Holocaust by Rob Preece.
• 11 January 2009: Help The Heretical Two by Paul Ballard.
• 24 January 2009: Simon Sheppard & Stephen Whittle, “The Heretical Two” by Andy.
• 21 February 2009: “Holocaust Fundamentalism” and the War on Dissent by Mark Green.
• March 2009: Police Close In on Race Hate Duo by Awaiting a Western Renaissance.
• 10 March 2009: Main Hearing against Sheppard and Whittle in their absence in Leeds Crown Court, England.  Lasts 90 minutes and concerned documentation.  [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 12 March 2009: Sheppard and Whittle, wearing handcuffs and leg irons, have asylum hearing before Judge Peters.  Sheppard and Whittle present their own case.  The US Government is represented by attorney Miss Myers. Sheppard and Whittle speak of their experiences at the hands of the British police and Crown Prosecution Service.  English counsel Adrian Davies confirms and gives evidence about the relevant provisions of English law (the Public Order Act 1986, as amended) and the English Court’s assertion of jurisdiction over web pages hosted on a server located in Torrance, California.  Court adjourned to 1pm 24 March 2009.  [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 14 March 2009: Sympathy for the “Heretical Two” by Chip Smith.
• 24 March 2009:  Sheppard and Whittle, wearing handcuffs and leg irons, make closing arguments for asylum before Judge Peters.  US Government attorney Miss Myers makes closing arguments against asylum.  Judge Peters reserves judgment.  [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 28 March 2009: Police close in on race hate duo by This Is Hull and East Riding.
• 28 March 2009: Holocaust-Denying Brits Languish in Santa Ana Jail, Become Worldwide Far-Right Celebrities by Gustavo Arellano.
• 30 March 2009: Sheppard retrial in his absence in Leeds Crown Court, England continues.  Hearing deferred until 15 May 2009 to await the decision of the American asylum court.  [heretical.com 22 September 2009].  [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 31 March 2009: US asylum case of web race-hate pair ‘could drag on’ by Rob Preece.
• 14 March 2009: Sympathy for the “Heretical Two” by Chip Smith updated.
• 29 March 2009: Monday Sentencing for Heretical Two by Mia.
• 5 April 2009: Sheppard and Whittle lose their appeal for asylum.  Sheppard and Whittle given thirty days to appeal.  Sheppard declines opportunity to appeal.  [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 5 April 2009: “Dear Harold: You were right. Our asylum claim has been denied, as has witholding of removal. We were thinking of appealing and sticking it out, but really this place is replete with people hanging on hoping for a miracle that’s never going to happen, and we don’t want to join them. Our barrister told us when he visited to testify for us that this immigration judge, Rose Peters, has granted asylum to an IRA murderer who had killed two policemen, supposedly on political grounds, so that’s the level of hypocrisy we’re up against. Better we think to go back to England, face the music, and get it over with. The ground for refusing asylum was that our prosecution in the UK did not constitute persecution (i.e. the government attorney and the IJ, both women, agree with it. The government attorney even argued against the First Amendment.) I believe that because this is a subjective assessment it is quite difficult to appeal against, and we could spend years taking it through various courts. Best wishes, Simon Sheppard & Stephen Whittle.” [Nationalists Online]
• 15 April 2009: “Heretical Two” British Dissidents Simon Sheppard And Stephen Whittle Reportedly Denied Political Asylum by White Reference.
• 15 April 2009: Heretical Two Denied Political Asylum in USA by GWR.
• 17 April 2009: Race-hate pair who fled to US refused asylum by Rob Preece.
• 6 May 2009: What the Heretical 2 Case Says about the Federal “Hate Crimes” Bill by Nicholas Stix.
• 18 May 2009: Another Letter from Stephen Whittle of the Heretical 2 by Nicholas Stix.
• June 2009: Refugee Week by Awaiting a Western Renaissance.
• 3 June 2009: Men bedeviled in bid for sanctuary by Dana Parsons.
• 4 June 2009: ‘Heretical Two’ to be Deported from USA by GWR.
• 4 June 2009: Persecution is Complicated: An Update on the “Heretical Two” by Chip Smith.
• 5 June 2009: Race-hate Britons seeking asylum in U.S. to be deported after judge rejects ‘free speech’ plea by Mail Foreign Service.
• 10 June 2009: Race hate pair set to be deported to Britain by Rob Preece.
• 16 June 2009: Sheppard and Whittle deported from the United States.  [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 17 June 2009: Sheppard and Whittle arrive in London.  They are arrested, taken briefly to Leeds Court, then sent to prison.  [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 18 June 2009: Heretical Two Appear at Leeds Crown Court by GWR.
• July 2009: Web Racists to Appeal Unsafe Sentence by Awaiting a Western Renaissance.
• 10 July 209: Sheppard and Whittle appear at Leeds Crown Court.  Sheppard is sentenced to four years and ten months.  Sheppard’s sentence is twelve months concurrent on the three counts relating to ‘Tales of the Holohoax’, followed by a consecutive sentence of twelve months in aggregate on the two counts relating to ‘Don’t Be Sheeple’, followed by two years and six months in aggregate on the eleven Internet counts, followed by four months on the Bail Act charge.  Whittle is sentence to two years and four months.  [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 10 July 2009: Pair jailed for web race crimes by BBC.
• 10 July 2009: The neo-Nazi ‘asylum seekers’ by BBC.
• 10 July 2009: Landmark ruling as internet race-hate fugitives locked up by Olwen Dudgeon.
• 10 July 2009: Key victory for human decency by Yorkshire Post.
• 10 July 2009: Heretical Two Jailed for ‘Race Hate’ Crimes by GWR.
• 10 July 2009: Two jailed for online racial incitement [first listing] [second listing] by Index on Censorship.
• 10 July 2009: A Couple of Whining Bitches by Big Mental Disease.
• 11 July 2009: Cosmodromium Supports Heretical.com by James D. Sass.
• 11 July 2009: Nutzies are Weird by Slackbastard.
• 12 July 2009: Two Writers by Chip Smith.
• 13 July 2009: Sheppard and Whittle imprisoned for free speech in UK by James Edwards.
• 14 July 2009: Court of Appeal (Richards LJ, Jack J and HHJ Baker QC) give leave to appeal against conviction on all the Internet counts but refused leave to appeal with respect to the hard copy counts.  Full appeal to take place in 2009 and to take a day.  [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 14 July 2009: Quest for justice that goes beyond borders by Denis MacShane.
• 14 July 2009: Jailed race-hate pair win go-ahead for appeal by Rob Preece.
• 25 July 2009: Why does Britain ignore antisemitism? by Denis McShane.
• 29 July 2009: Heretical Two Win the First Round by James Brewster.
• 31 July 2009: Forfeiture hearing against Sheppard and Whittle before Judge Grant at Leeds Crown Court.  Sheppard and Whittle physically attacked on their way to court.  Sheppard fears his jaw is broken.  This is not the case although he still had difficulty eating several days later.  Judge Grant decides every contested point against Sheppard.  Judge Grant orders the forfeiture and destruction of office equipment which Simon had serviced.  An appeal is lodged against forfeiture of the printers, computers and other office equipment.  [heretical.com 22 September 2009]
• 31 July 2009: The Heretical Two by Trevor Blake.
• 1 August 2009: The Heretical Two by Klint Finley.
• 1 August 2009: Heretical Two in Court Again by GWR.
• 20 August 2009 – 13 December 2009: Niggers Over America by R. Crumb exhibited by David Zwerner Gallery in New York City. Sheppard had been found guilty of race hate crimes for publication of Niggers Over America by R. Crumb.
• September 2009: freethehereticaltwo.com by various authors.
• 22 September 2009: Heretical Two Timeline by Trevor Blake.
• 22 September – 5 October 2009 (circa): Message from Simon Sheppard. “I feel fortunate in being in Armley prison for a cause and for standing up for my beliefs, rather than incarcerated for some sordid, drug-induced crime. It is obvious that three-quarters of the people are here due to government incompetence or indifference, either through allowing the import of enormous quantities of heroin or failing to provide employment. The establishment’s love affair with globalization and failure to confront obvious problems of over-population are chiefly at fault. I am doing reasonably well at present though dreading another change of cell-mate. Recently I had three different cell-mates in as many days, and a proportion are complete head cases, making me feel like a resident psychiatrist. I console myself that I am making a sacrifice for my people and although I would obviously rather not be here it is superior to being a a POW in a Japanese wartime camp, or interned for the duration of the World War 2 under Britain’s 18B Regulations. I will come through this ordeal one day. I am still held as a category B ‘remand prisoner’ in Armley Prison, Leeds – pending the appeal to the High Court in late Autumn 2009 on internet publishing charges.”
• 2 October 2009: British “Heretical Two” hire US asylum lawyer by Club of Now.
• 12 October 2009: Me and the H-Bomb Part Two: The Gas Chamber of Samuel Crowell by Chip Smith.
• 17 October 2009: Blogs from all over teh interwebs by Kevin Slaughter.
• 18 October 2009: Amnesty International, Two Flavors by Trevor Blake.
• 28 October 2009: Jack Hunter, Hate is Not a Crime by Trevor Blake.
• 30 October 2009: (circa): Stephen Whittle moved from HMP Leeds to Everthorpe Prison. [heretical.com 30 October 2009]
• 5 November 2009: Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle by Threatened Voices.
• 27 December 2009: Prosecution of the Heretical Two by James D. Sass.
• 3 January 2010: Canaries in the Coal Mine by Jack Donovan.
• 24 January 2010: The Heretical Two by eccnineten.
• 29 January 2010: “The appeal against conviction on internet publishing on a foreign website has been lost. Fortunately, the appeal judges ruled the sentences were excessive and reduced Simon Sheppard’s sentence by a year to 3 years and 10 months and Stephen Whittle’s sentence by six months to 1 year and 10 months.” [heretical.com]
• 31 January 2010: Heretical Two Lose Appeal, But With Sentence Reduction by James Fulford.
• 18 May 2010: “At least he’s not in prison for year like the Heretical Two are.” ATBOTL.
• 18 May 2010: “Stephen was released from prison on May 18th to a hostel in Preston, Lancashire subject to restrictions on his movements and political associations.” [heretical.com circa June 2010]
• 10 June 2010: Internet Repression by Eddy Morrison.
• 12 June 2010: Oh Noes!  Wigan Mike Goes to Court Again by Slackbastard.
• 15 June 2010: Simon Sheppard and Steve Whittle, The Heretical Two, H2 by Fragileswan.
• 9 July 2010: “The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, formerly the judicial committee of the House of Lords, has refused the H2 leave to appeal. It is the practice of this Court not to give reasons for refusing leave to appeal, whereas it would be considered an error of law for any other court not to give reasons for its decisions. The H2 are now entitled to petition the European Court of Human Rights for leave to appeal to that court, which they could not do before, as would be petitioners are obliged to exhaust all domestic recourse first. Meanwhile, Steve, who was out on bail at a bail hostel in Blackburn which he found fairly agreeable, has been caught on the internet in breach of bail conditions, and sent to Preston prison. He was found by the police using the internet in Blackburn public library [the UK is no different to China and Burma in treatment of dissidents!!!]. Steve would, as ever, appreciate messages of support to show that the H2 are not forgotten in gaol.” [heretical.com]
• 15 July 2010: “On 15th July 2010 Simon was moved from Armley to a privately run prison.” [heretical.com]
• 17 August 2010: Simon Sheppard by Encyclopedia Dramatica.

You may have noticed that people who convert to religion after the age of 20 or so are generally more zealous than people who grew up with the same religion.  People who grow up with a religion learn how to cope with its more inconvenient parts by partitioning them off, rationalizing them away, or forgetting about them.  Religious communities actually protect their members from religion in one sense – they develop an unspoken consensus on which parts of their religion members can legitimately ignore.  New converts sometimes try to actually do what their religion tells them to do.  I remember many times growing up when missionaries described the crazy things their new converts in remote areas did on reading the Bible for the first time – they refused to be taught by female missionaries; they insisted on following Old Testament commandments; they decided that everyone in the village had to confess all of their sins against everyone else in the village; they prayed to God and assumed He would do what they asked; they believed the Christian God would cure their diseases.  We would always laugh a little at the naivete of these new converts; I could barely hear the tiny voice in my head saying but they’re just believing that the Bible means what it says…

How do we explain the blindness of people to a religion they grew up with? Cultural immunity. Europe has lived with Christianity for nearly 2000 years. European culture has co-evolved with Christianity. Culturally, memetically, it’s developed a tolerance for Christianity. These new Christian converts, in Uganda, Papua New Guinea, and other remote parts of the world, were being exposed to Christian memes for the first time, and had no immunity to them. [...]

The reason I bring this up is that intelligent people sometimes do things more stupid than stupid people are capable of.  There are a variety of reasons for this; but one has to do with the fact that all cultures have dangerous memes circulating in them, and cultural antibodies to those memes.  The trouble is that these antibodies are not logical.  On the contrary; these antibodies are often highly illogical.  They are the blind spots that let us live with a dangerous meme without being impelled to action by it.  The dangerous effects of these memes are most obvious with religion; but I think there is an element of this in many social norms.  We have a powerful cultural norm in America that says that all people are equal (whatever that means); originally, this powerful and ambiguous belief was counterbalanced by a set of blind spots so large that this belief did not even impel us to free slaves or let women or non-property-owners vote.  We have another cultural norm that says that hard work reliably and exclusively leads to success; and another set of blind spots that prevent this belief from turning us all into Objectivists.

A little reason can be a dangerous thing.  The landscape of rationality is not smooth; there is no guarantee that removing one false belief will improve your reasoning instead of degrading it.  Sometimes, reason lets us see the dangerous aspects of our memes, but not the blind spots that protect us from them.  Sometimes, it lets us see the blind spots, but not the dangerous memes.  Either of these ways, reason can lead an individual to be unbalanced, no longer adapted to their memetic environment, and free to follow previously-dormant memes through to their logical conclusions.    (To paraphrase Steve Weinberg, “For a smart person to do something truly stupid, they need a theory.”  Actually, I could have quoted him directly – “stupid” is just a lighter shade of “evil”.  Communism and fascism both begin by exercising complete control over the memetic environment, in order to create a new man stripped of cultural immunity, who will do whatever they tell him to.)

Article continues.  High recommendations to Less Wrong and Overcoming Bias. – Trevor

Astronaut Frank Culbertson photographs ground zero on 9/11 while in the International Space Station.  “What a frightening sight this must have been. How many sci-fi shows and movies are there, where the crew of a spaceship watches helplessly as their planet is attacked?” – John in Canada at nasawatch.com.

Gareth Porter, Bush had no plan to catch Bin Laden: New evidence [Oct 1, 2008] from former United States officials reveals that Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders were able to skip Afghanistan for Pakistan unimpeded in the first weeks after September 11, 2001, as the George W Bush administration failed to plan to block their retreat. Top administration officials instead gave priority to planning for war with Iraq, leaving the United States with not nearly enough troops or strategic airlift capacity to close the large number of possible exit routes through the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area where Bin Laden escaped in late 2001.

Bush Covered Up Saudi Involvement in 9/11: The former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee tells Salon that the White House has suppressed convincing evidence that the Saudi royal family supported at least two of the hijackers. As the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman during the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks and the run-up to the Iraq war, Sen. Bob Graham tried to expose what he came to believe were national security coverups and manipulations by the Bush administration. But he discovered that it was hard to reveal a coverup playing by the rules. Much of the evidence the Florida Democrat needed to buttress his arguments was being locked away, he found, under the veil of politically motivated classification. Gerald Posner, The CIA’s Destroyed Interrogation Tapes and the Saudi-Pakistani 9/11 Connection: U.S. intelligence established a so-called “fake flag” operation, in which the wounded Zubaydah was transferred to Afghanistan under the ruse that he had actually been turned over to the Saudis. The Saudis had him on a wanted list, and the Americans believed that Zubaydah, fearful of torture and death at the hands of the Saudis, would start talking when confronted by U.S. agents playing the role of Saudi intelligence officers. Instead, when confronted by his “Saudi” interrogators, Zubaydah showed no fear. Instead, according to the two U.S. intelligence sources that provided me the details, he seemed relieved. The man who had been reluctant to even confirm his identity to his U.S. captors, suddenly talked animatedly. He was happy to see them, he said, because he feared the Americans would kill him. He then asked his interrogators to call a senior member of the Saudi royal family. And Zubaydah provided a private home number and a cell phone number from memory. “He will tell you what to do,” Zubaydah assured them. That man was Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul-Aziz, one of King Fahd’s nephews, and the chairman of the largest Saudi publishing empire. Later, American investigators would determine that Prince Ahmed had been in the U.S. on 9/11.

Verbatim Quotes from Republicans when Clinton was Prez.: “Domestic terrorism is not a cause we have to fight or a project we need to fund. We are not interested in capturing bin Laden. Even though he has been offered to us. We are not the world’s policemen. It’s not our job to clean up other countries messes or arrest it’s bad guys.” Senior Senator Mitch McConnell (R).

Radley Balko, Six Years Later [2007] Bin Laden Still Free, U.S. Mired in Iraq: We have created in Iraq the exact type of scenario Bin Laden was hoping (but failed) to lure us into in Afghanistan [...] our only options are bad and worse.

Robert Scheer, Bush’s Faustian Deal With the Taliban: [Los Angeles Times May 22, 2001] Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously. That’s the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that “rogue regime” for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban’s estimation, are most human activities, but it’s the ban on drugs that catches this administration’s attention. Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998.

The Internet Archive suggests that The Raving Atheist started some time in 2002.  By September 2002 the site described itself as “an atheistic examination of the culture of belief: how religious devotion trivializes American law and politics.”  The site and its author have had a curious history.

The Raving Atheist (TRA) was influential on me in three ways when I found it in 2004.  First, TRA’s essays clarified for me the importance of distinguishing between religious belief and theocracy.  TRA wrote (quote): “any person asserting a special individual right or attempting to dictate social policy based about a belief in god must first 1) define the god, 2) prove that the god exists and 3) demonstrate how the right or policy follows from the belief in god.” Religious belief can be foolish, harmful and sad (or clever, helpful and joyous) but it is largely a matter of personal choice.  The trouble for all of us starts when religion is enfranchised into law.  The Raving Atheist helped me understand theocracy is where my criticism should primarily be addressed, with criticism of religion in general coming behind.  I often fail, but I’ve tried to criticize theocracy more harshly than religion or any particular religion.

Second, TRA reminded me that no set of beliefs is a package deal.  Just because a person is an atheist does not mean they are necessarily also a capitalist or a communist, although some capitalists and some communists would like to claim otherwise.  In this case, the reminder came in the form of TRA being strongly in favor of atheism and strongly against abortion.  That’s a combination I’d never seen before, TRA himself said it was rare and which remains a minority view.  TRA was banned from anti-abortion Christian sites for being an atheist, and looked at askance for being anti-abortion by atheists.  This rare combination of beliefs was helpful to me, whether or not I shared them.  Just as the Dalai Lama is not a vegetarian, The Raving Atheist and you and I pick and choose and invent our beliefs from a variety of inspirations.  Sometimes they seem to go together, sometimes we find others that share our beliefs and they appear to form a self-consistent ideology.  But it is just as likely we’re dressing up our preferences in fine justifications.

Third, for better and for worse The Raving Atheist influenced my writing style.  He didn’t just use reasoned criticism to address his concern.  He also heaped scorn and mockery on those he opposed.  TRA took news stories about theocracy and changed the wording so their absurdity and cruelty was emphasized.  I do these things as well.  If you like my work in this style, thank TRA.  If you don’t, blame me.

The better influences that TRA has given me remain, I hope, as I’ve changed in being an atheist and a writer.  TRA has also changed. There were few posts to the blog between 2006 and 2009.  Among them was a June 2006 post stating TRA “will never write another bad word about Jesus or Christianity on The Raving Atheist.” TRA also wrote:

“Neither Christ nor Christianity shall ever again be maligned on this site, I have vowed. In contemporary America continuing this blog under such constraints might appear to rival the composition of a thousand-page novel without the letter ‘e.’ Or perhaps without the alphabet, given that Christianity equates Christ with God, and that the denial of His existence could be fairly construed as an insult. The seeming impossibility of the challenge might suggest an abandonment of disbelief. Consequently charges of atheist heresy, of conversion to theism, have now been lodged against me. With such conversions I am well familiar. Often I have questioned whether a committed, well-read atheist has ever come to faith. No one is better able to recognize the symptoms of a religious transformation than I. But my own diagnosis I will not disclose. [...] I can only assure you that I will not be acting indifferently or agnostically. What has led me to this point, whatever this point is, is a firm conviction that I must go beyond words and set an example. I will not say whether what lies behind that conviction is God or not. You will have to content yourselves with the understanding that the truth of His existence, whether founded in fact, logic, or a combination of both could not possibly vary with what my words might command you to believe. But I will not tell you what I believe. And I will not tell you why I will not, and you will never trick it out of me.”

Reading that I wondered if I could write in favor of atheism without criticizing religion. I haven’t done so online, but I do have a book manuscript that attempts to do just that. Perhaps someday it will get that last bit of editing and see print.

On December 22, 2008, TRA wrote: “Three years ago, I promoted and appeared in the atheist documentary The God Who Wasn’t There, dedicated to the proposition that Jesus never existed. TODAY I DEDICATE THIS SITE AND MY LIFE TO THE WORSHIP AND SERVICE OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST.”  Is this evidence that some beliefs are package deals, that it’s impossible to stay atheist if you’re against abortion?  Some say yes.  But I’m going to stick with no.  Just because you’re a vegetarian or a nature-worshiper or an occultist doesn’t mean you’re also a fascist.  Just because you’re an homosexual it doesn’t mean you’re gay.  You are what you are by choice and by chance, and political correctness of every stripe be damned. I am still puzzled when friends have a mix of heresies that don’t match my own.  But it doesn’t threaten me like it used to.

As of September 2009 a Google search for “Raving Atheist” returns his blog as the first match, with the byline “Atheistic examination of American law and politics.”  The site‘s own byline is “Dedicated to Jesus Christ, Now and Forever.”  The back content is mostly there, and what isn’t there is usually at the Internet Archive. TRA’s site isn’t as funny or inspirational to me as it used to be.  But the number of anti-abortion atheists was small, and the number of atheists-turned-Christian is also small.  TRA’s site is worth reading at minimum for its rarity.

Some 30,000 Spanish children were forcibly removed from their parents and given to childless pro-Franco couples – or put into Catholic Church-run institutions where they were brainwashed and cruelly abused.

Harrowing documentary uncovers the cruelties of Franco’s paedophile priests

Camp for Climate is “a place for anyone who wants to take action on climate change.”

The Climate Camp is too self-regarding to be effective: Its critics have levelled many charges whenever it has appeared over the last few years [...] And while some criticisms have a kernel of truth, it remains hard to argue that a movement fighting climate change and promoting social equality is a bad thing. But that is not the question. Rather, Climate Camp should be judged on its own ambitions. How effective is the camp in inspiring change?

It is confronting this issue that lies at the heart of one of the key works on grass-roots organising: Rules for Radicals written by Saul Alinsky who inspired US radicals in the 1960s and 1970s. A revolutionary in outlook who began agitating for social change in the Chicago stockyards in the 1930s, Alinsky’s methodology has proved to have had a greater relevance and longer shelf-life than perhaps he ever expected. In recent history, it not only informed Barack Obama’s early political organising, but its tactics have been adopted by the US Republican right to disrupt Obama’s health policies. So how does the Climate Camp fare judged by his rules?

In some respects, Alinsky, who died in 1972, would have admired the Climate Campers’ dedication. “Liberals protest; radicals rebel,” he wrote. “Liberals become indignant; radicals become fighting mad and go into action.” Alinsky, however, is unlikely to have approved of much of the Climate Campers’ methodology. The problem with the Climate Campers is not a lack of conviction (as some commentators try to argue); it stems, rather, from an obsession with its own structures and its relationship with media and the police.

More seriously, seen from Alinsky’s point of view (he believed in “not rhetoric, but realism”), the Climate Camp suffers from a preoccupation with measuring its achievements in terms of the protests it has undertaken rather than a series of achievable goals that those outside the camp movement can easily identify with.

Alinsky insisted the radical must be able to make a persuasive case for why change is necessary and urgent, a task to which the theatrics of protesting are subsidiary. He taught another crucial lesson, one that has been highly visible in the right’s campaign against Obama’s health reforms, that campaigners should avoid targeting abstracts such as phenomena and institutions; instead, they should single out individual figures to act as the “personification… of a particular evil”. To lever their positions through ridicule and criticism.

Climate change and social equality aside, what appealed to me about this article is the rare mass media mention of the fluid lines between political camps. The goals and tactics of one camp become the goals and tactics of another camp in the next generation. Sometimes the shift happens because the other camp rejects or revises their goals, sometimes because they see tactical success in the other camp. But goals and tactics shift as often as not due to powerful individuals with personal preferences, or as solicitation for mass approval by politicians willing to pinch their noses and roll in all sorts of filth if it maintains and expands their power.

History is not goal-oriented. History does not inevitably build toward a better world based on past successes. Things just happen. The eugenics movement of one generation becomes the family planning movement of the next. The inherently atheist left goes all woo-woo. The children of yesterday’s conservatives can’t have a government too gigantic today. One generation says “the war on want is the war we want” and advocates Europe a Nation, the next fights a “war on want” and lives in an European Union. Advocates of freedom for their sex team up with their opponents to fight sexual freedom. Universal suffrage turns out to not be so universal after all. Temperance becomes the war on drugs. Rarefied French philosophy is later sold as a lowest common denominator consumer product.

Political camps do learn from each other. But they also ape each other because it seems exciting or popular. Political parties and most political groups are package deals. You hopefully get some of what you want among plenty of what you don’t want. But politics itself is not a package deal. The shifting goals and tactics found in history is evidence, but your own complex views are the proof. Politics are maddening but keep on advocating for what is right and true. Political correctness, left and right, be damned.

COMRADES!

Recently some confusion about “Chaos” has plagued the A.O.A. from certain revanchist quarters, forcing us (who despise polemics) at last to indulge in a Plenary Session devoted to denunciations ex cathedra, portentous as hell; our faces burn red with rhetoric, spit flies from our lips, neck veins bulge with pulpit fervor. We must at last descend to flying banners with angry slogans (in 1930′s type faces) declaring what Ontological Anarchy is not.

Remember, only in Classical Physics does Chaos have anything to do with entropy, heat-death, or decay. In our physics (Chaos Theory), Chaos identifies with tao, beyond both yin- as-entropy & yang-as-energy, more a principle of continual creation than of any nihil, void in the sense of potentia, not exhaustion. (Chaos as the “sum of all orders.”)

From this alchemy we quintessentialize an aesthetic theory. Chaote art may act terrifying, it may even act grand guignol, but it can never allow itself to be drenched in putrid negativity, thanatosis, schadenfreude (delight in the misery of others), crooning over Nazi memorabilia & serial murders. Ontological Anarchy collects no snuff films & is bored to tears with dominatrices who spout french philosophy. (“Everything is hopeless & I knew it before you did, asshole. Nyahh!”)

Wilhelm Reich was driven half mad & killed by agents of the Emotional Plague; maybe half his work derived from sheer paranoia (UFO conspiracies, homophobia, even his orgasm theory), BUT on one point we agree wholeheartedly – sexpol: sexual repression breeds death obsession, which leads to bad politics. A great deal of avant-garde Art is saturated with Deadly Orgone Rays (DOR). Ontological Anarchy aims to build aesthetic cloud-busters (OR-guns) to disperse the miasma of cerebral sado-masochism which now passes for slick, hip, new, fashionable. Self-mutilating “performance” artists strike us as banal & stupid–their art makes everyone more unhappy. What kind of two-bit conniving horseshit… what kind of cockroach-brained Art creeps cooked up this apocalypse stew?

Of course the avant-garde seems “smart” – so did Marinetti & the Futurists, so did Pound & Celine. Compared to that kind of intelligence we’d choose real stupidity, bucolic New Age blissed-out inanity – we’d rather be pinheads than queer for death. But luckily we don’t have to scoop out our brains to attain our own queer brand of satori. All the faculties, all the senses belong to us as our property–both heart & head, intellect & spirit, body & soul. Ours is no art of mutilation but of excess, superabundance, amazement.

The purveyors of pointless gloom are the Death Squads of contemporary aesthetics – & we are the “disappeared ones.” Their make-believe ballroom of occult 3rd-Reich bric-a-brac & child murder attracts the manipulators of the Spectacle – death looks better on TV than life – & we Chaotes, who preach an insurrectionary joy, are edged out towards silence.

Needless to say we reject all censorship by Church & State – but “after the revolution” we would be willing to take individual & personal responsibility for burning all the Death Squad snuff-art crap & running them out of town on a rail. (Criticism becomes direct action in an anarchist context.) My space has room neither for Jesus & his lords of the flies nor for Chas. Manson & his literary admirers. I want no mundane police – I want no cosmic axe-murderers either; no TV chainsaw massacres, no sensitive poststructuralist novels about necrophilia.

As it happens, the A.O.A. can scarcely hope to sabotage the suffocating mechanisms of the State & its ghostly circuitry – but we just might happen to find ourselves in a position to do something about lesser manifestations of the DOR plague such as the Corpse-Eaters of the Lower East Side & other Art scum. We support artists who use terrifying material in some “higher cause” – who use loving/sexual material of any kind, however shocking or illegal–who use their anger & disgust & their true desires to lurch toward self-realization & beauty & adventure. “Social Nihilism,” yes – but not the dead nihilism of gnostic self-disgust. Even if it’s violent & abrasive, anyone with a vestigial 3rd eye can see the differences between revolutionary pro-life art & reactionary pro-death art. DOR stinks, & the chaote nose can sniff it out – just as it knows the perfume of spiritual/sexual joy, however buried or masked by other darker scents. Even the Radical Right, for all its horror of flesh & the senses, occasionally comes up with a moment of perception & consciousness-enhancement – but the Death Squads, for all their tired lip service to fashionable revolutionary abstractions, offer us about as much true libertarian energy as the FBI, FDA, or the double-dip Baptists.

We live in a society which advertises its costliest commodities with images of death & mutilation, beaming them direct to the reptilian back-brain of the millions thru alpha-wave-generating carcinogenic reality-warping devices – while certain images of life (such as our favorite, a child masturbating) are banned & punished with incredible ferocity. It takes no guts at all to be an Art Sadist, for salacious death lies at the aesthetic center of our Consensus Paradigm. “Leftists” who like to dress up & play Police-&-Victim, people who jerk off to atrocity photos, people who like to think & intellectualize about splatter art & highfalutin hopelessness & groovy ghoulishness & other people’s misery – such “artists” are nothing but police-without-power (a perfect definition for many “revolutionaries” too). We have a black bomb for these aesthetic fascists – it explodes with sperm & firecrackers, raucous weeds & piracy, weird Shiite heresies & bubbling paradise-fountains, complex rhythms, pulsations of life, all shapeless & exquisite.

Wake up! Breathe! Feel the world’s breath against your skin! Seize the day! Breathe! Breathe!

(Thanx to J. Mander’s Four Arguments for the Abolition of Television; Adam Exit; & the Moorish Cosmopolitan of Williamsburg)

(first published in OVO 10, later collected in T.A.Z. The Temporary Autonomous Zone)