Tag Archives: honor

The Alamo [1960)

America is at a dangerous crossroads.

Hot tamales.

And they’re red hot.

Donald Trump is currently being politically persecuted in four different U.S. jurisdictions.

In New York (34 state felony charges with a potential of up to 136 years in jail for the former President [brought by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg]).

In Florida (40 federal felony charges with a potential of up to 440 years in jail for the former President [brought by Joe Biden appointee Merrick Garland’s appointee special counsel Jack Smith]).

In Washington, DC (four more felony counts with a potential of up to 55 years in jail for the former President [also brought by Joe Biden appointee Merrick Garland’s appointee special counsel Jack Smith]).

In Georgia (13 state felony counts with a potential of up to 75 and 1/2 years in jail for the former President [brought by Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis]).

That adds up to 701 and 1/2 years of potential jail time for Donald J. Trump.

That is obscene.

How many times did Bill Clinton ride on Jeffrey Epstein’s Lolita Express?

Was George W. Bush the President who presided over an administration that perpetrated a false-flag/stand-down (self-inflicted terror attack) on 9/11/01?

Did Barack Obama cover up the crimes of his false-flagging neocon predecessors (Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Stephen Hadley, Elliott Abrams, David Wurmser, John Bolton, Elliot Cohen, Douglas Feith, “Scooter” Libby, Rabbi Dov Zakheim, W., etc.)?

All of these other former Presidents are still alive.

None has faced so much as a parking ticket since leaving office.

Trump could have misused his Department of Justice (as Joe Biden is misusing his), but Trump didn’t do that.

For all the “Lock Her Up” rhetoric, Trump did not go after Hillary Clinton during his Presidency.

Which brings us to the courage of Texas.

William Barret Travis.

Born in South Carolina.

Died at age 26 for the freedom of his adopted state.

Jim Bowie.

Born in Kentucky.

Died at age 40 for the freedom of his adopted state.

Davy Crockett.

Born in Tennessee.

Died at age 49 for the freedom of his adopted state.

Let’s be frank.

There is no plan.

There never was a plan.

QAnon was either:

A. the FBI

B. FSB/GRU (Russian intelligence)

or

C. the FBI pretending to be Russian intelligence

D. Russian intelligence pretending to be FBI

In 1836, it was 13 days of darkness.

That was real.

Not made-up, PSYOP bullshit.

Not hopium meant to have you be a spectator rather than an actor in your own destiny.

YOU have to have a plan.

Local action = national impact.

Now is the time to put aside differences.

What is the major issue for you?

For me, it is the murderous vaccines that were all-but-forced upon (and acquiesced to by) a vast majority of American citizens (not to mention the coercive mass vaccination that occurred in the rest of the developed world).

For this reason, I want to vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in 2024.

He is (BY FAR) the strongest candidate on this issue.

So Trump is not my first pick (even though I voted for him in 2016 and 2020).

But what is being done to Trump is unacceptable.

Why can’t Biden and the Democrats just beat Trump at the polls in 2024???

Why seek 700+ years in prison for him (AFTER HE’S ANNOUNCED HIS CANDIDACY FOR A SECOND TERM [a race in which he is currently lapping all other Republican candidates])?

The leader (Biden) is seeking (by proxy [Garland]) to imprison the opposition leader (Trump).

This is what the West accused Putin of doing to Navalny.

This is what Lula is doing to Bolsonaro.

And it is the same type of thing currently being experienced by Imran Khan.

So the United States is now, politically, very similar to “devoloping countries” (think Third World) Russia, Brazil, and Pakistan.

The comparison to Pakistan is particularly rich considering Imran Khan was the most recent Prime Minister (analogous to President Trump) and he has now been jailed.

Furthermore, Pakistan is a “lower middle income” country according to the IMF (as opposed to “upper middle income” countries Russia and Brazil).

One month ago (August 5th), Imran Khan was sentenced to three years in prison.

His conviction was, however, suspended and he was granted bail on August 29th.

In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro was barred on June 30, 2023 by the Brazilian Superior Electoral Court from running for office again until 2030.

Were the post-election Brazilian riots of January 8, 2023 as provocateured as the post-election American protest of January 6, 2021?

If so, by whom were these events provocateured?

The playbook is the same.

Trump and Bolsonaro are both accused of “undermining the validity” of “democratic” elections.

The federal governments of both the USA and Brazil are attempting to lawfare these former leaders into submission.

In the case of Bolsonaro, he is set to appeal the career-derailing decision against him.

The defenders of the Alamo sacrificed themselves.

REMEMBER THE ALAMO united Texans.

Trump is sacrificing himself.

Rudy Giuliani, a true American patriot, is also being dragged through the mud in Georgia.

Forced to pose for a mugshot.

Ditto for American patriot Sidney Powell.

So congratulations, liberals.

Enjoy your Alamo slaughter.

Enjoy your mugshot vengeance.

Half of America is SEETHING over what is happening to Trump.

Because roughly half of the electorate voted for him in the last election.

Polls be damned!

Remember those amazing 538 polls from 2016?

Remember the New York Times putting Hillary’s chances of winning 2016 at 95%…EVEN UP TILL AND DURING THE ELECTION???

How were those polls so wrong?

Because they were fucking lies meant to demoralize conservative voters into staying home and not bothering to cast a ballot.

QAnon was meant to keep you lazy and WAITING FOR “THE MILITARY” TO COME AND SAVE THE DAY.

Ain’t gonna happen.

YOU ARE the military.

Our military has all been sent to secure the borders of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.

And this was IMMEDIATELY AFTER they had been finghting pointless wars (predicated on absolute lies) in Afghanistan and Iraq for two decades–wars which bankrupted America.

And now the final bankrupting of America is happening.

Most of it happened during the scamdemic.

To be fair to Joe Biden (thought he does not at all deserve a fair shake), “Bidenflation” is largely the fault of U.S. Congress spending during the scamdemic.

The nails in the coffin are interminable aid to Ukraine and the rapid ascendency of BRICS.

It is time to have courage, America.

Pray to God.

Pray to know your mission.

Your mission IS NOT violence.

Your mission is in the realm of fifth generation warfare (5GW).

Your mission is to spread to word.

And have some fucking courage.

Like the defenders of the Alamo.

But each of us has a unique mission.

Pray to the Lord Jesus Christ to show you the way.

There is no time.

There is no future.

The future is now.

We are in a perpetual present.

You can either live bravely–with your head held high–and die with honor.

Or play it safe and cast your lot with Joe Biden and the America-destroying Democrats.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could save the Democrat Party.

He could make a Democrat out of me.

But I have a feeling he won’t be getting the nomination.

In which case, I’m voting for Trump.

In any case, there is much to be done before the 2024 election (if it even occurs at all).

Now is the time to pull out all the stops on the organ.

-PD

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Twin Peaks “The Last Evening” [1990)

The essence of Twin Peaks is make-believe FBI.

Our main character (arguably) is a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He is a shining example of honor.  A professional.  A vestige of Norman Rockwell’s America.

And before we go crying kitsch and digging up old Soviet propaganda posters in the spirit of Milan Kundera’s distillation (“Soviet kitsch” from Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí), let’s pause for a Mom and apple-pie moment…and a damn good cup of coffee.

Ahhh!

Do one nice thing for yourself every day.

Says agent Cooper.

And he’s right.

Fit as a fiddle.  Healthy as an apple.  A strapping young man.  Not to be confused with the boy with the Arab strap.

Lime in the coconut.  I knew but I didn’t know.

Fleeting.

No, I never spent hours on the beach.

Always a day late and a dollar short.

But we learn.

Attack the attackers.

Neutralize the threat.

While setting Mexican standoff traps to protect all of your resources.  Capabilities.  Core competencies.

You might just achieve a competitive advantage.  And achieve strategic competitiveness.

THis is the meaningless parlance of business.

Leverage without mechanical advantage–without the amplification of force.

And always a metaphorical lever without the equally necessary fulcrum.

Stay with me!

Twin Peaks was the era of VHS.  And cassette tapes.

And mixtapes…  [Now don’t we miss those?]

Something beautiful about the analog warmth.

Analog to digital and back to analog.

And when the tape would unravel…?  Oh well, as long as the tape player is alright 🙂

IT’s really a nasty prank.  But Lara Flynn Boyle fits the Nancy Drew role like a reincarnated Bonita Granville.

And James with his Harley-Davidson…by her side.  like Sade.  Sha-day.

Not as Yoshimi as Saoirse Ronan in Hanna, but I digress.

THe drum-machine universe keeps on boppin’.

Seagrams?  AMF?  Seeburg?  Seberg?

I can remember the magic fingers of Merlin at the Wurlitzer.

That suitably sums up “and Russ Tamblyn as Dr. Jacoby”.

That old television credits ritual.  Need a history on that.  Stat!

Wigs and fake mustaches.  In a little undersized briefcase.  Like Lon Chaney.

Walter Olkewicz seems quintessentially from “down the bayou”, but it’s a mashup with QUebecois generalizations…transposed to British Colombia.

Ahh, how my heart years for Bellingham…

[film is truth 24 times a second]

cuckoo’s nest

Can’t blame Michael Horse.

The lesson here is, Never wash your hair.

Which is to say, Keith Richards has a method to his madness.

His long life.  His longevity.

So much intercutting.  Such convergence.

The strands are not tied up, yet we come to a significant knot in a series of many mini-loops.

D’you know what I mean?

 

-PD

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Twin Peaks “Realization Time” [1990)

Always apologize to the authorities.

What the French call cache-cache.

There are two great series of propaganda of which I’m aware.

One is the James Bond franchise.

The other is Twin Peaks.

External intelligence (I/O).

Internal intelligence (RB).

I/O (:OT)

RB (SW:)

I might suck at chess, but so did Napoleon.

Admitting one does not really understand does not have to lead to abject sellout.

Certain information is classified for a reason.

It was hard to come by.

It does not exist in an open source.

And so I try real hard to imagine an honorable employee of the CIA.

Maybe somebody like “Buzzy” Krongard who forgets to unpack a couple of Walther PPKs from his overnight bag before heading to the airport.

Oops…

Could happen to the best of us.

But why A.B.?

Why the lapse??

9/11:  where are they now???

When we imagine external intelligence, we might think of a world completely ruled by consequentialism and Realpolitik.

We like to think of Daniel Craig.  Sean Connery.  Roger Moore.

We like to think of our operatives as protectors.

But my guess is they perform some of the ugliest jobs on the planet.

For the state!

The dear, sweet NSA knows every book I’ve bought (unless I paid cash).

Knows my library withdrawals.

So I might as well cite Burckhardt.

The State as a Work of Art.

Seems pretty self-explanatory (if fanciful).

But German can be slippery.

And so we come to,

War as a Work of Art.

The “dilettante” Machiavelli gets the usual translation (Art of War), but not Burckhardt.

Not in my edition.

1958.

Imagination lets me conceive of a good FBI agent.

Like Coleen Rowley.

Robert Wright.

These, perhaps, are the forward projections of Special Agent Dale Cooper.

But let’s get deeper.

The turf war.

Two agencies of the same government.

Working at cross purposes.

I can easily imagine a unique relationship.

You don’t investigate our wholesale illegal activities,

and we don’t disappear your agents.

So that the CIA is beyond the law.

Perhaps it must be that way.  Beethoven might even resign it.

But it is naïve to think of the FBI as merely an investigative entity.

They too get creative.

In Twin Peaks we have an honorable man.  One of the best and brightest.

Dale Cooper.

Doing a job.  Innocent as a dove, but wise as a serpent.

When dealing with Log Lady, one gets crosswise with Elf Power and Stereolab.

Ending up, Gus the Mynah Bird with the Candy Bar Head.

There is an information hierarchy.

Pertinent to all forms of intelligence gathering and interpretation.

Data–>Info–>Knowledge (–> Wisdom)

The final stage is not optional, but it is elusive.

It is the most valuable.

It’s the part that says, “Hey, CIA man (or woman)…don’t take The Fugs too seriously.”

It’s also the fine line between bravery and stupidity (practically the same phenomenon) which inspires Sherilyn Fenn to smoke a fag in the closet.  [Err…]

Nothing to lose.  Fearless.

And what if such fire is married to morals?  Ethics?

We’re no saints, but we do a lot of selfless stuff.

And yet we spout our shit and muck up the mission of consummate professionals.

Differing perspectives.

Two meanings of intelligence.

We don’t have the intelligence (because we are civilian nobodies…combing the net for OSINT).

But we have intelligence.

It may not be Ivy League.

But it’s relentless.

 

-PD

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Senso [1954)

How does love turn into hate?

Does it ever work the other way around?

Hate into love?

Because the natural course seems to be love into hate.

Vulnerability into hurt.

Hurt into resentment.

And somewhere along the continuum, God forbid, revenge.

Senso, despite its extravagant period costumes and generous budget, is still a product of neorealism.

Sure…it’s hard for most of us to relate to a Countess.

That’s why I can’t read Tolstoy.  I can’t read Fitzgerald.  Not even out of curiosity or hatred.

I can only read Dostoyevsky.  I have only ever related to the outlaw.

Of outlaw literature.

But cinema does a funny thing.

We may not be able to really “get into” Il Trovatore or Der Freischütz, but occasionally a talented auteur can make us appreciate the truly foreign:  a higher social class.

In this case, it is the highest.

The nobility.

In English we might (but probably won’t) know it as the Third Italian War of Independence.  How confusing.  That would seem to entail a July 4th (for us Americans) three times a year (assuming there wasn’t a fourth war).

In plain terms, it was Austria vs. Italy (rather like a soccer match).

Football.  Footie.  FTSE.  Yes…

All rather humdrum after the smoke has wafted away.

Idiots, they call us.

Those who fight.

Some join an army.  Very brave.

Others expose themselves needlessly.  What might be termed “impulsive” or again “thoughtlessness”.

What does this?

In both cases, pride (generally speaking).

Sure, a professional soldier makes a decent living (as long as he or she is living), but said soldier is a chess piece of one type or another…always manipulated from above…lacking autonomy.

And yet, perhaps, no price is too high to pay people who are willing to die to defend their country.

But we must define country.

Defending those who cannot (for one reason or another) defend themselves is indeed honorable.

Defending the abstract structures and mechanisms of a state, perhaps less so…

And yet, a pride can infuse the defense of all of this (either separately or collectively).

And then there is the rebel.

Perhaps the rebel will never again find his army in the first world.

In terms of class warfare, then, the United States is a frozen conflict zone.

Just like Abkhazia or some other little-talked-about blip on the map.

Is there a class war?

Should there be a class war?

Shouldn’t wars of all kinds have been evolved out of existence long ago?

Yes?

No…the rebel shan’t find his army in America.

The battlefield has changed.

And as bathos is my witness, “love is a battlefield”!

Discourse on Benatar.

Cannot contain the dodo on his perch.

But never does Luchino Visconti stoop to such poor taste.

No.

Fever pitch, yes.

But poor taste, never.

Because he is telling Spengler’s story.

And he is still telling WWII.

There can be no avoiding that.  Nine years later.

It must be couched in allegory.

And I, like Baudelaire, am nourished by my own misery.

All of this I owe to Walter Benjamin.

Avoid the jalapeno pronunciation.  ~ath do us part.

Alida Valli gets to show more of her breadth here than in the criminally underrated Paradine Case (no pun intended).

Pennies and “the” will be eliminated from the verbal money supply.

Farley Granger is more of a maniac than in Rope (the Hitchcock closest to my snob heart).

Most importantly, Visconti sets the mood with Bruckner’s 7th Symphony.

And now Carlo Maria Giulini’s recording for Deutsche Grammophon makes more sense.

Senso in what sense?

Direction?

Love leaves you with a worthless compass.

The sun begins to revolve around the Earth.

What a perilous pleasure.

That we hope for forever until our end of days.

No matter the hurt…always more.

For the romantic.

 

-PD

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The 39 Steps [1935)

Oh, to be a spy.  At once the dream of the adventurous and the curse of the actualized.  Why?  Why does Robert Donat let Annabella Smith come home with him from the music hall???  Perhaps it is her allure…  Her strange foreign accent.  Once you take the first step, the case collapses to become a chute…a slide.

Perhaps Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) was simply curious.  We know how the cat ended behaving thusly…

Perhaps Hannay was horny?  It was, after all, 1935…things were lightening up a bit.  No Tinder, but still…one might luck out at the music hall.

Well, Hannay has the misfortune of true cloak and dagger.  Annabella Smith…Hannay asks if she’s ever heard of persecution mania?  Yes, a good question until she comes stumbling from the kitchen with a knife in her back.

And so Hannay sees her fears materialize before his very eyes.  Sure, she could have stabbed herself in the back, but it’s not bloody likely!  And what’s this?

Her last words…cryptic…and a map of Scotland clutched in her hand.

Hanney has become a believer.  It is that moment when hypothetical (suppose she’s right?) becomes, to a certain extent, proven.

No time to split hairs quibbling…she makes it clear with her last breath:  they killed me and you’re next.

Why trust?  Perhaps the spy becomes tired.  She is, after all, a mercenary in a foreign country.  Yes, she is protecting the Kingdom, but for a price…  Her homeland is elsewhere.

And so an act of transference occurs.  Robert Donat now bears the burden of a secret…a hint of a secret…a trail.

He has a couple of choices.  The decision he makes ends up saving his life, yet it is completely counterintuitive.

He decides to get the hell out of there.  Annabella Smith is dead on the bed.  Hanney makes a deal with the milkman (1935) and creeps off towards the train station.

To Scotland.

Things begin to go very hard for Mr. Hanney.  He is pursued relentlessly.  A daring escape from a train stopped on a bridge brings him eventually to the Scottish moors and the village circled on Annabella’s map.

On the way he must overnight with a farm couple…  The man of the house is an overbearing null…the woman, an angel trapped in an unhappy provincial cage.

This is really the beginning of the James Bond idea.  In 1935, they shared but a kiss.

Now, if you have made it this far you will be spared further spoilers…because that is not the purpose of my site.  This isn’t Cliff’s Notes.

We must talk of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States.  Perhaps you have noticed the news element of my homepage?  It is really not fair to criticize our CIA…it is too easy.  There can be no doubt as to the difficulty of their work.

As a citizen of the USA I have dreamed of being a secret agent…just as many people do.  It would be a treasonous dream for me to wish employment by the MI6.  I am not British.  So my thoughts have turned now and again to my own country’s external intelligence organization.

Oh, I am too old to be a covert agent…too out of shape to have a fistfight with a Daniel Craig type.

But we remember certain things from our readings.  Wall Street = CIA.  This was Michael Ruppert’s assertion in his excellent book Crossing the Rubicon.  May Mr. Ruppert rest in peace.  No doubt he tried to do the right things during his time on this earth.  It was not until recently that I learned of his death.

Perhaps I began studying business as a roundabout way to court adventure.  There is no doubt that my future is not on Wall Street.  In fact, I don’t see much future at all.

Why?  Because I am like Robert Donat’s character in this film.  I can’t leave well-enough alone.  Killing in self-defense or in the defense of others can be honorable, but stretched to its limits by tenuous connection it eventually becomes murder.  When I read about the leading intelligence agencies of the world, I get the whiff of murder.  I get the scent of those who are “just following orders”…just like those good little Nazi soldiers.

It is this thirst for justice which makes me unemployable.  I know it.

And so I soldier on.  I do my cardio.  I lift my weights.  I study my texts.  I enrich my mind.

I am just a loner with my films.  I would like to contribute, but I was born of no prestigious family.  I don’t speak Dari or Pashto.

There are two camps of which I wish to be part of neither.  Camp one holds that everything America does is just and good. Camp two holds that nothing America does is just nor good.

I do not wish for a clean slate.  It is not possible.  Those who wish for the collapse of society are fools.  They are wishing for their own death and are far too optimistic about the practicality of starting over.

Now, dear film lover…you must be asking what this has to do with The 39 Steps.

Mr. Memory.

Office of Strategic Services.

Office of the Coordinator of Information.

Robert Sherwood.  movie critic.  Vanity Fair.  Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley.  Algonquin Round Table. Rebecca and Foreign Correspondent.  Hitchcock.  Yes, it is a tenuous link.

Continuing…

Admiral John Godfrey.  “M”

Centre for Spastic Children, Chelsea.

…and finally

William Stephenson (c’est-à-dire) James Bond

the Icelandic orphan

alluded to in Casino Royale (2006)

to wit

British Security Coordination

Camp X (Whitby, Ontario) [the original Farm]

Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl

Rockefeller Center (35th and 36th floors of the International Building)

under the cover of British Passport Control Office

For better or worse, CIA is MI6.  Where does one stop and the other begin?  To what extent is this a private army for the corporate members of the Council on Foreign Relations (Royal Institute of International Affairs)?

Surely we’re all playing by the Chatham House rules here, aren’t we, gents?

-PD

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