Skilluminati Research

The 2008 US Election is Not About the Issues.

Posted Apr 30, 2009 18 comments

political ritual staged spectacle

The title of this piece is not an original statement, it's actually a direct, and verifiably real, quotation from Rick Davis. Rick Davis, believe it or not, is a (currently still employed) campaign manager for John McCain. The response I've seen has mostly alternated between disbelief and cheering victory -- my Democratic friends took that quote as a tacit admission of failure on behalf of the McBush campaign. I'm here to say that it's not: Rick Davis was telling the truth.

Welcome to post-reality. I don't expect anyone to get used to this anytime soon. Even CBS News is reporting on how most of the military footage from the Republican National Convention was paid actors in a stadium somewhere -- this is the real 2008 Election:

The soldiers were actors and the funeral scene was from a one-day film shoot, produced in June. No real soldiers were used during production.

The footage, sold by stock-film house Getty Images was produced by a commercial filmmaker in Chicago. Both Getty and the production company, Mr. Big Films, confirmed that the footage was shot on spec and sold to the Republican National Committee.

One of the actors, Perry Denton of Chicago, IL also confirmed that he was hired on a day-rate as an actor for the shoot and told CBS News he was surprised to learn the footage was shown at the convention.

Remember the Last Post?

Bush Obama Convention Stages

Previously on Skilluminati, I did a simple post juxtaposing the podium for the 2004 Republican Nation Convention with the podium for the 2008 Democratic Nation Convention. I also posted this a number of times as a myspace bulletin. In both experiments, I got some highly entertaining and insightful responses. Specifically, I found out that people were responding to something that only existed in their own heads. I provided no commentary, yet people had created -- confabulated, really -- a whole explanation for why I would post the photographs, and they responded to that.

So why did I post the photographs?

Of course, as one commentator noted, the design is hardly original. Not only that, the design is actually done by the same company in both instances. They're the same company that pulled off the 2008 Olympics Games ceremonies, and this reflects a long-standing interest of mine in the business of staged ritual and mass spectacle. The power of mass spectacle is well known, and it's dangerous. No matter what the cause, it's a clear-cut form of deliberate manipulation.

Bob's First Rule of Power

We live on a planet with 6 billion humans, and most of them are uninformed and ignorant. Here in the United States, despite high standards of living and abundant material wealth, the situation is no different. In 2006, during coverage of the manufactured debate over "Intelligent Design," Newsweek conducted a national poll about scientific literacy. All of the participants were adult residents of the United States. The results were astonishing:

Fewer than a third of those polled know that DNA is the molecule of heredity

Only 10 percent know what radiation is

20 percent think the Sun revolves around Earth.

But of course, that was from 2006, and Bush's educational reform program has probably improved things considerably since then. I truly hope so, since that same year an even more disturbing poll was conducted by the Washington Post:

While the country is preparing to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives and shocked the world, 95 percent of Americans questioned in the poll were able to remember the month and the day of the attacks, according to Wednesday’s edition of the newspaper.

But when asked what year, 30 percent could not give a correct answer. Of that group, six percent gave an earlier year, eight percent gave a later year, and 16 percent admitted they had no idea whatsoever.

This memory black hole is essentially the problem of the older crowd: 48 percent of those who did not know were between the ages of 55 and 64, and 47 percent were older than 65, according to the poll.

The Post telephone survey was carried out July 21-24 among 1,002 randomly selected adults. The margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.

I'm Not Pointing Fingers and Laughing

Don't mistake this for crowing about how dumb people are. This is a serious and intractable problem. The vast majority of voters in the United States are dangerously ignorant and easily manipulated.

Here's the moral quandary: is it ethical to use deception in order to control these people? If you don't do it, guess who will? Karl Rove. Rick "not about the issues" Davis. The same paid operatives who have been running the real power structure of the United States since John Rockefeller and Edward Bernays were alive.

Here's the logistical problem: how can you and I compete against multi-million dollar budgets? The business of spectacles, like any other, is a business that runs on money. Those who have money shape the spectacle, and the rest of us are consigned to...well, meaningless critiques on obscure websites.

“UFO Hypothesis and Survival Questions”—1968 NSA document

Posted Apr 30, 2009 7 comments

This has been a document I return to often. The author is unknown but the concepts are exceptionally tasty. Enjoy.

It is the purpose of this monograph to consider briefly some of the human survival implications suggested by the various principal hypotheses concerning the nature of the phenomena loosely categorized as UFO.

1. All UFOs Are Hoaxes.

From the time when hoaxes were first noted in history, they were characterized by infrequency of occurrence and usually by a considerable restriction of their geographical extent. Rarely have men of science, while acting within their professional capacities, perpetrated hoaxes. The fact that UFO phenomena have been witnessed all over the world from ancient times, and by considerable numbers of reputable scientists in recent times, indicates rather strongly that UFOs are not all hoaxes. If anything, rather than diminishing, the modern trend is toward increased reports, from all sources. In one three month period in 1953 (June, July and August) Air Force records show 35 sightings whose nature could not be determined. If UFOs, contrary to all indications and expectations, are indeed hoaxes--hoaxes of a world wide dimension--hoaxes of increasing frequency, then a human mental aberration of alarming proportions would seem to be developing. Such an aberration would seem to have serious implications for nations equipped with nuclear toys--and should require immediate and careful study by scientists.

2. All UFOs Are Hallucinations.

People, of course, do hallucinate. Although groups of people hallucinating is rare, it has been known to happen. Machines have their own form of hallucination; the radar, in particular, 'sees' temperature inversions. But a considerable number of instances exist in which there are groups of people and a radar or radars seeing the same thing at the same time; sometimes a person and gun camera confirm each other's testimony. On occasion, physical evidence of a circumstantial nature was reported to have been found to support witnessed sightings. A continuing high percentage of reports of unusual aerial objects are being reported by people in responsible positions in science, government, and industry. The sum of such evidence seems to argue strongly against all UFOs being halluciinations. In spite of all the evidence to the contrarty, if UFOs did turn out to be largely illusionary, the psychological implications for man would certainly bring into stong question his ability to distinguish reality from fantasy. The negative effect on man's ability to survive in an increasingly complex world would be considerable--making it imperative that such a growing impairment of the human capacity for rational judgment be subjected to immediate and thorough scientific study so that the illness could be controlled before it reaches epidemic proportions...

3. All UFOs Are Natural Phenomena.

If this hypothesis is correct, the capability of air warning systems to correctly diagnose an attack situation is open to serious question.

A. Many UFOs have been reported by trained military observers to behave like high speed, high performance, high altitude rockets or aircraft. The apparent solidity and craft-like shape of the objects have often been subject to radar confirmation. If such reports can appear to trained military men as rockets or aircraft and if such objects should come over the Arctic from the direction of Russia on the United States, they could trigger 'false reports of missle attacks.'

B. Many responsible military officers have developed a mental 'blind spot' to objects which appear to have charachteristics of UFOs. Such an attitude is an open invitation to the enemy to build a replica of the phenomena in order to penetrate the 'hole' in his aversary's defenses...

C. Sometimes the phenomena appear to defy radar detection and to cause massive electromagnetic interference. Surely it is very important to discover the nature of these objects or plasmas before any prospective enemy can use their properties to build a device or system to circumvent or jam our air and space detection systems--Any nation certainly could use a system or device to penetrate enemy defenses.--Was this the purpose of the lense shaped reentry vehicle tested by the USAF in 1960?

4. Some UFOs Are Secret Earth Projects.

The above-referenced U.S. Air Force reenetry vehicle and an often publicized Canadian 'saucer' project leave little doubt as to the validity of this hypotheseis. Undoubtedly, all UFOs should be carefully scrutinized to ferret out such enemy (or 'friendly') projects. Otherwise a nation faces the very strong possibility of being intimidated by a new secret 'doomsday' weapon.

5. UFOs Are Related to Intra-terrestrial Intelligence.

According to some eminent scientists closely associated with the study of this phenomenon, this hypothesis cannot be disregarded. (The well documented sightings over Washington, D.C. in 1952 strongly support his view.) This hypothesis has a number of far-reaching human survival implications:

A. If 'they' discover you, it is an old but hardly invalid rule of thumb, 'they' are your technological superiors. Human history has shown us time and again the tragic results of a confrontation between a technologically superior civilization and a technologically inferior people. The 'inferior' is usually subject to physical conquest.

B. Often in the past, a technologically superior people are also possessors of a more virile or aggressive culture. In a confronttion between two peoples of significantly different culture levels, those having the inferior or less virile culture most often suffer a tragic loss of identity and are absorbed by the other people.

C. Some peoples who were technologically and/or culturally inferior to other nations have survived--have maintained their identity--have equalized the differences between them and their adversaries. The Japanese people have given us an excellent example of the methods required to achieve such survival:

(1) full and honest acceptance of the nature of the inferiorities separating you from the advantages of the other peoples,
(2) complete national solidarity in all positions taken in dealing with the other culture,
(3) highly controlled and limited intercourse with the other side--doing only those things advantageous to the foreigner which you are absolutely forced to do by the circumstances,
(4) a correct but friendly attitude toward the other people,
(5) a national eagerness to learn everything possible about the other citizens--its technological and cultural strengths and weaknesses. This often involves sending selected groups and individuals to the other's country to become one of his kind, or even to help him in his wars against other adversaries,
(6) Adopting as many of the advantages of the opposing people as you can, and doing it as fast as possible--while still protecting your own identity by molding each new knowledge increment into your own cultural cast.

Comment: Although this paper has hardly exhausted the possible hypotheses related to the UFO phenomena, those mentioned above are the principal ones presently put forward. All of them have serious survival implications. The final answer to this mystery will probably include more than one of the above hypotheses.

Up until this time, the leisurely scientific approach has too often taken precedence in dealing with UFO questions. If you are walking along a forest path and someone yells 'rattler' your reaction would be immediate and defensive. You would not take time to speculate before you act. You would have to treat the alarm as if it were a real and immediate threat to your survival. Investigation would become an intensive emergency action to isolate the threat and to determine its precise nature. It would be geared to developing adequate defensive measures in a minimum amount of time. It would seem a little more of this survival attitude is called for in dealing with the UFO problem.

Observations of chimpanzees while in a captive environment have shown that the animals tend to become confused and disoriented. Since they do not usually have adult chimps to teach them how to be good apes, they are not even sure of their behavior. Often their actions are patterned after human behavior and would have virtually no survival value in the wild. Lacking the challenge of environmental adaptation, the bodies of the animals atrophy and become subject to may diseases -- mostly unknown in their wild counterparts. Reactions to stimulus usually become less responsive and suitable. Sex becomes a year-long preoccupation instead of a seasonal madness.

Do the captivity characteristics of modern civilization cause a similar lessening of man's adaptive capability, of his health, of his ability to recognize reality, of his ability to survive?

Perhaps the UFO question might even make man undertake studies which could enable him to construct a society which is most conducive to developing a completely HUMAN being, healthy in all respects of mind and body and, most important, able to recognize and adapt to real environmental situations.

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Filed in: Social Control

Two Cautionary Tales From the Front Lines

Posted Apr 29, 2009 5 comments

This article might appear to be mere pessimism. To the reader with a good imagination and better common sense, though, I'm advocating an entirely different angle from the traditional binary trap of Fighting Against Power Elites vs. Fighting For Power Elites.

Humans fight -- let them. (Seriously, trying to stop a fight is dangerous and stupid 99% of the time, unless it's kids who are smaller than you...and even then, they probably have knives.) The 5th Generation Warfare angle we'll be pursuing at Skilluminati is based on leveraging the existing fault lines, ongoing conflicts and profitable culture wars that we live within today.

I'm not advocating that we should stir up more bullshit -- I'm suggesting that we practice the martial art of invisibly exploiting the bullshit that's already here. To do otherwise is to ignore history -- here's a look at why.

Those Who Would Overthrow Them

Let's bypass Kent State, the fate of the Branch Dividians, disappearances in Chile, Argentina and everywhere else in Latin America, and the assassinations of Archbishop Oscar Romero, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, since none of them were actually advocating the overthrow of the United States government, they just happened to get in the way.

Let's focus on a single event which is much more recent, and far more relevant to the inept would-be "5GW warriors" among us.

This is the story of a federal agent who tried to get three hippies to commit to a plan -- any plan -- to blow something up and break Federal laws. It took her many months of prodding, lots of pushy confrontations, and a lot of her FBI money, but they finally managed to frame their targets. Yep, that's the story in two sentences -- here's a great article that explains it detail if you want more narrative background. I'm going to be exploring the tactical insights here. What amazed me most: how "Full Spectrum Dominance" applies to the surviellance of activists.

On January 10, the four toured the Institute of Forest Genetics in Placerville, using fake names and posing as college students for a tour. They were under surveillance the whole time by FBI agents and agents of the U.S. Forest Service.

On the morning of January 13, the FBI was keeping a close eye on a cabin in Dutch Flat, about a half-hour north of Auburn. The government had the cabin and its four occupants--two men and two women--under 24-hour surveillance for nearly a week because the group was suspected of plotting acts of domestic terrorism in the name of the Earth Liberation Front.

The four left the cabin at around 10 a.m. in a 1997 maroon Chevy Lumina and traveled about 30 miles to a Kmart in Auburn. There were agents inside the store, watching them shop.

Hippies are the butt of jokes for a reason, and these kids were basically stumbling around in a minefield. Lesson: Effective 5GW is a process that takes total surveillance for granted. It must be exceedingly subtle and executed in plain sight.

YOU MIGHT BE WONDERING, as I was, how exactly Federal agents justify the dirtywork they do undercover, and there is a precise answer. It's referred to as a Tier 1 Otherwise Illegal Activity when an agent breaks the law in order to catch someone breaking the law. The question of legal rights and entrapment is far too boring to pursue, though, so let's move along.

Since this is a cautionary tale, it's worth remembering the overall rules for how punishment is distributed. Here is how a 4-member cell being set up on a Federal level will fare, on precedent:

Zack Jenson, age 20, spent 6 months in prison, then agreed to testify against McDavid.

Lauren Weiner has an unfortunate last name, but at least it was a wealthy one -- she's been free on bail with her family and also agreed to testify against McDavid. She was also 20 years old.

Eric McDavid was sentenced to 19 years and 7 months. He's 28 and got logically framed up as the dangerous ringleader. (Note to Derrick Jensen fans: shave the beard.)

And as for Anna? The article says she made out alright: "According to testimony from Sacramento-based FBI Special Agent Nasson Walker, she got paid at least $75,000 for her work."

The reader could be forgiven for thinking I'm telling some sort of moral story -- perhaps implying that "Anna" is down with 5GW and one of the cool kids. NAY. "Anna" is just a servant of power -- and those who serve power historically fare no better than those who oppose it. Which is the subject of my next cautionary tale.

Those Who Would Work For Them

Let's just bypass Paul Wellstone, James Forrestal, Vincent Foster, the assassinations of JFK, RFK and the strange fates Roberto Calvi and Frank Olson. The past is dead, and the news has given us a even-more interesting example.

Roland Carnaby was a company man -- a veteran of the CIA, although that's a matter of some dispute. The other publicly known facts about Carnaby are not disputed, though, and they're eye-opening. At the age of 52, he was shot in the chest, handcuffed, and left to bleed to death while Houston Police officers watched. The image above is real -- I cribbed it off a Fox News website and it was taken from a news helicopter. My own interpretation of facts is obvious and predictable -- Carnaby either knew too much or threatened the wrong people, both essentially the same problem.

When you serve power, you cannot protect yourself from those who protect you. Of course, when you fight power, you're left with the exact same problem again, and I apologize for making resistance sound futile.

It is, though. Resisting the momentum of your culture is absurd. Who can seriously talk about fighting globalization? You might as well resist the Pacific Ocean.

"All of this other stuff (about Carnaby's mysterious life) is all very interesting, but it is of no consequence when you consider a man is dead and he died handcuffed and nobody tried to stop the bleeding or anything," Brooten said. "You know what you call that? You call that an assassination."

Jett defended the officers at the scene, saying they are not trained to assist people with serious gunshot wounds.

"We would handcuff people and try to get them comfortable, but we're not paramedics, and most officers don't know about giving first aid like that other than CPR, and you don't want to give CPR to a gunshot victim," he said.

Investigators later found three weapons in Carnaby's car, police said. One pistol was under the passenger-side floormat. A second was between the seats. On the back seat floorboard lay a pistol-grip shotgun with a round in the chamber and the safety off.

No Moral to the Stories

This is only food for thought, of course. Things are going to change a lot in the next decade, but archetypes will repeat like always. We will always rationalize our actions, no matter how callous or brutal. I'm sure you think you're a good person, too.

Here in the 21st century, talking about warfare is essential. Our planet is being turned into a slaughterhouse and Control is going to be a lot more elusive for everyone -- especially those in power. We've seen a nearly infinite array of permutations of "kill the enemy" -- 5GW is something new. Harmonize with the enemy, control the enemy, use the enemy.

Next week: my first Dreaming 5GW contribution, working out the details of my own theory, beta version though it may be. Sorry for the long lead-up, and thanks for all the brainfood from everyone commenting, especially Eric Patton who's been a huge help behind the scenes.

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“Changing Images of Man” in PDF Format

Posted Apr 28, 2009 13 comments

UPDATE 11/11/08: Apologies to those readers who've been trying to get ahold of this fascinating document. We switched servers recently and neglected to transfer a lot of PDF files -- entirely my mistake. This is the single most-requested item in the Library, so here's an OCR scan of the 1974 forgotten classic:

DOWNLOAD PDF NOW

Changing Images of Man SRI report Changing Images of Man is the stuff of legend -- but the actual document is way more interesting than the conspiracy theory that surrounds it. It's an undeniably weird document, though, and even the most airbrushed versions of it's origin and history make for mind-expanding reading.

Changing Images is especially interesting today because the "future crisis" it was written to avert is now coming to pass. The Stanford Research Institute gathered a diverse group of brilliant thinkers and asked them to imagine how to change the entire world. Today it makes for occasionally challenging but rewarding brainfood.

When I first got ahold of this document, I thought it was the blueprint for world government and Willis Harman's beloved "Global Mind Change." There's no secret formulas here, and no admissions from the secret society. There is a robust and still-valuable body of work about how to change human culture for the better -- I'd like to think that's more useful. Let me know if you agree.

13 comments

Pentagon Red Teams: Get a Job Overthrowing the Government

Electromagnetic and Acoustic Weapons: Knowledge is Power

The United States is the Least Free Nation in the World

The Rosetta Stone of US History: Quigley’s “Tragedy and Hope”

Filed in: Social Control

The Language of Power II

Posted Apr 27, 2009 30 comments

When I wrote "Plain and Simple: Fuck 9/11," the title wasn't an afterthought or even a joke. Words were chosen carefully for maximum effect and sure enough, I still get an email a week about an article I wrote a year ago. It was in the context of asking 9/11 Truth activists what they expected that I raised a question I've been chewing on ever since:

Be honest with yourself: who are you asking for justice? Are you expecting the same power structure that has been running the United States of America for the past 50 years to give up because you're right? Because you can prove mathematically that two buildings collapsed faster than they should have? Because you have thousands of pages of evidence to prove every point you're making? Does the truth matter? Seriously. Does the truth matter? Or does power matter?

That's really the central question, and I'm not proposing it as an either-or. Both would be nice, but I'm also proposing it might be too late for that kind of hope. I've had a number of Skilluminati readers email the instant classic quote from an anonymous source, of course, in the Bush administration -- named as "a senior advisor to Bush":

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

This article emerged from some conversations I had after the first installment of The Language of Power. I was only sketching out a few points I would like to state much more clearly here.

5GW generation warfare William Burroughs

Happiness is Slavery

Until about six months ago, I was unable to put my finger on why Barack Obama makes me uneasy.

I was having a (deeply hilarious) conversation with an Obama volunteer who stated it perfectly for me. She told me that Obama was all about how American 20-somethings were transforming -- from the Me generation to the We generation.

Skilluminati Research has nothing to do with the United States or the US military and I personally view all 195 "legitimate" nation-states on Earth as equally damaging to human progress. As Doug Stanhope puts it, nationialism is "baggage from dead people." All governments are founded on violence and maintained by exploitation.

I am very much indebted to the work of Curtis Gale Weeks, John Robb, Mark Safranski, and everyone at Dreaming 5GW and Small Wars Journal, but our language has some differences. I am unlike most 5GW bloggers in that I'm not worried about the future of the US as a global superpower. I'm writing for an audience very much like myself: post-nationalism, post-racism, post-religion human beings with no respect for authority, national borders or even the laws of physics.

Happiness is a Warm Gun

Peter J. Carroll, who is himself a 5GW veteran, operating under a pseudonym and re-wiring tens of thousands of brains around the world, posed this question in terms of religion. On a planet with over 10,000 actively worshipped Gods -- none of which are currently visible, none of which can be proven to exist -- how can you be sure which Divinity to bet upon? Doesn't it make more sense to invest that faith in yourself?

With Skilluminati Research, I'm making the same argument on a political level. Why make appeals to power when you could build your own? You could be learning to weld, working out or reading a book with that valuable time. Why worry about your leaders when they can't actually control you, and don't care what you personally think, want or feel?

5GW is power.

Specifically, 5GW is dedicated individuals exercising their power to achieve their own goals at the expense of everyone who gets in their way. I think this kind of clarity is missing from the discussion because the occult dimension of power has no place in a respectable debate, from military theory to politics to history. For thousands of years, small groups of humans using ritual magick have been controlling nations, waging wars and engaging in economic and psychological warfare. One occult warfare master who does get mentioned in military circles is Hassan i Sabbah, long a muse of William S. Burroughs and Robert Anton Wilson.

I'm open to the argument that I'm only engouraging a plague of lone psychopaths declaring war on the world, but my own 5GW practice is informed and indebted to D.J. Kilcullen, author of the 28 Articles, which you should probably read right now if you haven't already. Article 26 states: "Build your own solution -- only attack the enemy when he gets in the way."

As I said at the outset of this project, "my interest in 5GW (5th Generation Warfare) is rooted in it's potential for positive social and cultural change." I am investigating warfare for the same reasons I investigated psychology and marketing -- beacuse the tools of social control will be less damaging when they're widely distributed. Executives who have power over millions of other humans are inherently dangerous -- millions of humans with executive control over themselves is where we're headed this century.

The dinosaurs of governments and corporations and media conglomerates and think tanks and universities -- the old legitimate White Control System -- will not let go quietly and politely. So I think every future mutunt has a common-sense obligation to learn how to disable and disarm them as effectively as possible. This is going to be a very bumpy ride and we can all help minimize the bloodshed.

In closing I realize that I have used the word "I" far, far too often in this post. That trend shall not continue -- it's all technique from here on out.

Thank you for listening.

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