Monday, December 24, 2012

Beware the Season

This is a rerun of a post I wrote around this time a few years ago. I think it's still relevant.

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The men in black (MIB) entered UFO lore in 1956 in a book entitled They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. The author was one Gray Barker who had been a member of one of the first American UFO groups, the rather ambitiously named International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB). Though Barker's book dealt with a number of paranormal topics, the largest part of it dealt with his former boss, IFSB founder Albert Bender.

In 1953 the IFSB was about two years old with a few hundred dues paying members (called "investigators") who all received the Bureau's newsletter Space Review. The group was doing well enough when, in October 1953, Bender suddenly stopped publication of Space Review, and dissolved the IFSB. The last issue of the news letter gave only this explanation.
STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE: The mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any information about this is being withheld by order from a higher source. We would like to print the full story in Space Review, but because of the nature of the information we are very sorry that we have been advised in the negative.
According to Barker, the reason Bender had so abruptly ended the group was that three mysterious men in black had visited Bender and warned him off. But before they did, the MIBs were good enough to explain at least part of the true secret of the flying saucers. UFOs, they said, actually come from Antarctica. They have bases in both polar regions and regularly fly between them. Bender told a different story in his own book in 1963.

Enough UFO stories end with the craft departing due north or south that Barker's version of Bender's visitors has been adopted by conspiracy theorists who believe in a decidedly terrestrial origin for saucers. My personal favorite version is that saucers and MIBs are Atlanteans from within the hollow earth, but the theory that they are Nazi refugees from super-scientific bases beneath the ice cap has its devotees, too.

The MIBs are the key to the mystery. The most mundane explanation that has been offered is that they work for the American government and that they are trying to hide the truth about the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs. But that could itself be disinformation. No government has the ability to do what the MIBs do. Think for a moment about the men in black. They have appeared all over the world. They have a special interest in unidentified flying objects and in protecting the polar regions. They seem to actually know what is in the minds of the people they visit. Who has the ability to manage an intelligence network like that? Ask yourself: Who has the ability to travel everywhere, at any time, and even seemingly to appear in two places at once? Who has a special interest in protecting the polar regions? Who knows when you are sleeping? Who knows when you are awake? Who knows if you've been good or bad?

I think you know the answer.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and be good for goodness sake.

10 comments:

  1. The way in which you responded to my reaction on Jason`s blog demonstrates 2 things.
    1)You are probably more diplomatic than I am.
    2)Certainly older
    But wisdom in itself is not always synonymous with "superior" intelligence & "higher" education.You immediately draw analogies between Holocaust denial & "modern Antisemitism from Middle Eastern terrorists to Midwestern Neo-Nazi militias".This statement represents an amazing intellectual confusion.

    1)Most Middle Easterners are Semites,calling them antisemitic is an oxymoron.
    2)The conflicts in the Middle East between Arabs & Israelis (Jews & non Jews)
    have nothing to do with racial-ethnic(or even religious)issues.The cornerstone of Arabs resentment towards Israelis is based on a territorial dispute,& the policy of ethnic cleansing-state sponsored terrorism perpetrated by Israeli governments since 1948.

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  2. Having said that I find your blog very interesting.Regarding your comments on Jason`s blog,as with many intelligent & highly educated individuals,you are letting your political positioning (sensibilities) & personal ideologies interfering with historical accuracy

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  3. When I say Antisemitism, with a capital A, I'm referring to a specific anti Jewish phenomena that originated in Europe at the end of the Nineteenth Century. I mean the peculiar set of conspiracy theories, lies, and images that were used so effectively in the thirties to prepare the way for the Holocaust.

    That phenomena has moved into the Middle East over the last few decades. "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is available all over the Middle East in Arabic and Persian. Cartoons portraying Jews use the same hook-nosed, thick-lipped monster that the Nazis used. The Iranians hosted a conference of Holocaust deniers. This has nothing to do with the causes of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This is an intellectual colonization by the worst of Europe.

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  4. Middle East "antisemitism" is a fad & is directly linked to American unconditional support for Israel.The Iranian government hold a conference of Holocaust deniers, but John,you are an educated man & you probably know why they are doing it. It is a part of a psychological war against what is perceived as Israel ever increasing aggressivity, ideological hegemony & "Zionization" of local & international geostrategy.The Iranians people have nothing against Jews.Jews have had a continued presence in Iran since the time of Cyrus the Great,& so far Iranian Jews have categorically refused to move to Israel. Ahmadinejad is using "antisemitism" as a way to resist American & Israeli domination over Middle East geopolitics.(I agree this is not the smartest thing to do,but they are succeeded at seriously pissing off both Tel Aviv & Washington DC).I am glad you mentioned European nefarious antisemitic influence over the Middle East.I could cite Poland as an example for the most enigmatic conflict of ideological interest.Polant is the country where antisemitism is the most intrinsically virulent among European nations, yet they are pro-Israeli in terms of foreign policy.

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  6. Let me just deal with Iran for the moment.

    According to the Iranian census published last July there are currently fewer than 9000 Jews in Iran. That's quite a bit down from the estimate of 80,000 living there at the time of the 1979 revolutions. According to Israeli census figures for 2007, 48,000 Israeli Jews were born in Iran, and another 87,000 are second generation decendents of Iranian Jews. I assume there is some overlap between those two categories, but these figures hardly look like Iranian Jews categorically refusing to move to Israel.

    Of course Ahmadinejad used his Holocaust Denial conference for propaganda purposes and in a childish effort just to offend the West (and Israel, but that goes without saying). However, I find it naive to think that this kind of propaganda barrage has had no effect on Iranian public perceptions. However rational people want to be, as a mass, we respond to the big lie. It worked in Germany in the 30s and it worked in Rwanda and Yugoslavia in the early 90s. One of most the terrifying things about being historically aware in the US in the 21st Century is watching the far right use that kind of eliminationist rhetoric and getting the platform of their own cable news channel and members of Congress.

    Just out of curiosity, since you think I lack integrity and professionalism because I'm blinded by my ideology, what do you think my ideology is?

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  7. John, I may be arrogant and pertinent but I have a good education.I would never suggest that you lack integrity,unless proven otherwise. We both (you & I,at least I hope ) know that Westerners & Americans in particular ,have a very sanitized perception of their own history. We occupy the high moral ground & everything we do is protected by an impeccable blinding light of self righteousness.

    Hence when Americans invade a country like Iraq,blow to the smithereens the country infrastructure & use depleted uranium on civilian population,it is for the sake of getting rid of a "Hitler like" dictator & bring democracy to that country. But in the West we have the magic argument,we might be doing the wrong thing but we are working on behalf of democracy. The best example of this ostensibly insane criminal pathology is probably Madeleine Albright who responded to a question regarding the death of more than Iraqi 500,000 Children (as the direct aftermath of Iraq Sanctions),by: "I think this is a very hard choice,but we think the price is worth it...".

    Do I have to remind you the number of civilian casualties as the result of both Afghanistan & Iraq military invasions since 2001?. The worst atrocities are always motivated by the best intentions.
    But I digress. The Iranian Jews who may have fled Iran prior and after the 1979 revolutions,did it from a strictly socio-political perspective.I have no recollection of pogroms and persecutions towards Iranian Jews perpetrated by Iranian revolutionary guards.Some elements amongst Iranian leadership may be on the edge of political incorrectness, but so far they have not engaged in military invasions and mass slaughter.
    I have a question for you, why are you so concerned & fixated on Iran?. Thank you for your time

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  8. I'm not fixated on Iran. I just happened to know the answer to that one of your claims. I remember the 1979 revolutions. I followed them, hour by hour on the radio, along with all of the other toppling of dictators that happened that spring. For a moment, it looked like the bipolar world of the Viet Nam years was over and that these countries, who had merely been pawns in the Cold War, were taking control of their own destinies. That illusion died a few months later and then Reagan was elected.

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  9. "I find it naive to think that this kind of propaganda barrage has had no effect on Iranian public perceptions....".

    At the time where Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was hosting an international holocaust revisionist conference in Teheran, Iranian national TV was airing a dramatic movie series based on the life and work of Abdol Hossein Sardari,the Iranian diplomat who saved the lives of 100`s of Iranian and Juguti Jews residing in France,under German occupation.

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  10. I have another blog where I do most of my political stuff. Although, this last year, for personal reasons, I hardly wrote anything about anything. The comments are broken, but I'm going to try to get them running again tomorrow. When I do, that'll be the better place to have these conversations. Some other knowledgeable people might join in. The address is johnmckay.blogspot.com.

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