The goal of fucking up a sound recording to the greatest extent possible.
And then those beautiful strings come in.
Like The Cure.
All cats are grey.
Bass doesn’t drop until two minutes.
Pretty slick.
The Specials.
Ghost town.
Of James Brown pianists.
Federal.
The Bar-Kays.
Soul finger.
Spies like us.
Not so long ago now, seems it?
Have you got your anti-radiation supplements?
Let me help you out on that.
In case your city gets nuked.
And the 300 kiloton warhead doesn’t incinerate you.
Because it was dropped on the other side of town.
Maybe because the missile was old.
Or clunky.
You don’t have to be that accurate with a nuke of that yield.
Now you are battling radiation.
Stay inside as long as possible.
Days.
Weeks.
Months.
Water will soon be contaminated.
But soaking for 30 minutes in a bath of sea salt (one capful [as if it were bath salts]).
Nancarrow.
William S. Burroughs.
Has to be sea salt.
Can’t be table salt.
Pulls the radiation out of your body.
But you’ll need more than that.
Storable drinking water.
Storable food.
Air ok to breathe, but don’t go outside.
Air conditioner filter will remove radioactive particles.
But do not open any windows or doors.
[NB The EMP of the nuclear weapon will fry all electronic devices…so you will not have electricity probably for the next few months (at least). Air conditioner will not be working, but any air that passes through its filter will be cleared of a lot of radioactive particles. Phones will not work. Computers will not work. Internet will not work.]
Avoid yellow dust (nuclear fallout).
Here’s what you need to combat those radioactive isotopes (assuming you and your family didn’t get incinerated as a result of NATO’s insane and incessant eastward push over the past 30 years).
You need iodine.
Yes, potassium iodide is good.
Nascent iodine is probably even better.
But you need something to protect you from iodine-131.
Nascent iodine and/or potassium iodide will do that.
You need potassium.
You’re not gonna be making any trips to the store for bananas (unless you’re a moron).
And there will be no food arriving at any stores for quite some time (an understatement).
Potassium orotate.
Protects you against cesium-137.
You’re gonna need calcium.
Same story as with the bananas.
DO NOT GO OUTSIDE.
You don’t need milk from the store.
There will be none there anyway.
Get some calcium that includes magnesium.
If it has a little zinc in there too, that’s fine.
But you mainly need the calcium to protect you against strontium-90.
The magnesium is gonna help the calcium work better.
You’re gonna need iron.
I’d say probably take for a week or two.
No longer than that.
You need iron to protect against plutonium-239.
And finally, you need some vitamin B12.
This is gonna protect you against cobalt-60.
What a schizo record!
If you wanna bump up the effectiveness of the sea salt bath, add a cup of baking soda each time.
Most astonishingly, Dickopf was the head of INTERPOL from 1968-1972.
So here is one Nazi (an SS member) that the CIA paid.
And INTERPOL was headed by a Nazi.
And that particular Nazi, Dickopf, was also on the CIA payroll while he was head of INTERPOL.
What if there were Ukrainian Nazis that shared this kind of cozy relationship with the CIA?
There were.
You may know Operation Paperclip.
You probably think scientists.
But there was more (and less) to it.
People avoided Nuremberg merely because the CIA found them useful.
And what this movie points out is important.
How did the CIA control former-Nazis?
By threatening to reveal their past Nazi actions.
Such was the case with Dickopf.
His Nazi activities only came to public attention after his death.
After his usefulness had been gleaned by the CIA.
Of course the Soviets had an analogous program.
Operation Osoaviakhim.
You probably know of Wernher von Braun.
SS.
1937-1945.
A Major in the SS.
Major von Braun.
I believe my father crossed paths with von Braun at Redstone Arsenal.
They did not meet.
But they were there at the same time.
Strange, isn’t it?
Nazi Wernher von Braun worked with Walt Disney (the man) on a series of films about space travel.
1955-1957.
Let me repeat, Disney worked with a Nazi.
For two years.
Von Braun took music composition as a boy from Paul Hindemith.
One of my texts as a music theory and composition undergraduate was by Hindemith.
There is solid testimony that Von Braun picked slave laborers from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp.
There is solid testimony that this Nazi SS Major did nothing to help those who were being tortured and worked to death.
But to Von Braun’s credit, he was (supposedly) arrested by the Gestapo for “not being Nazi enough”.
He was considered a defeatist who knew the war wasn’t going well.
He complained that he wasn’t working on a spaceship.
And POOF, a young female dentist reported him.
Himmler, who was trying to angle in on the production of V-2 rockets, had him charged as a communist sympathizer.
There was also fear that Von Braun, who piloted his own plane, might defect to England.
There were 14 tons of paper (!) documents on the V-2 rocket which Von Braun hid in the Harz mountains.
These were located by Army Counterintelligence (who blocked and have me blocked on Twitter).
Wernher von Braun and his brother Magnus turned over the V-2 rocket technology to the USA (and not the Soviet Union) because they ostensibly perceived the Americans to be “guided not by the laws of materialism but by Christianity”.
Hmmm.
SOUNDS good.
To flesh out the story, I should mention that Wernher von Braun conspired to be captured by the Americans (and not by the Soviets).
Von Braun and his team were housed at Fort Bliss (near El Paso, TX).
Von Braun and team then spent the next 20 years in Hunstville, Alabama.
Redstone Arsenal.
The war we are currently facing is a face-off between two nuclear powers (USA and Russia).
The USA owes its development of rocketry in a large part to a Nazi.
There are American satellites in space because of a Nazi (beginning in 1958 [Explorer 1]).
The idea and dream of traveling to Mars can largely be attributed to this same Nazi.
In 1946, this Nazi had become an Evangelical Christian after attending church in El Paso.
Pretty amazing, eh?
Makes for a good story, doesn’t it?
But is it true???
But let’s get another Nazi into the picture, shall we?
What about Kurt Debus?
The first director of Kennedy Space Center.
A NASA Nazi.
SS.
Debus joined the SA (Brownshirts) in 1933 and the SS in 1940.
By the way, Von Braun signed an affidavit where he erroneously said that he joined the SS in 1939.
He actually joined in 1937.
Hmmm.
Debus was with Von Braun at Fort Bliss.
He was also with him at Redstone.
This roving band of merry Nazis.
In the summer of 1966-67 (southern hemisphere), Von Braun went to Antarctica.
Hmmm.
And guess who came up with Space Camp for kids?
You guessed it.
A Nazi!
[Von Braun]
Jawohl!
So America (and the Soviet Union) took credit for “defeating” the Nazis.
But both countries pilfered important (and not-so-important) Nazis for various purposes.
And now Putin says he is fighting Naziism in Ukraine (which I believe).
Gerald Ford (a 33rd-degree Freemason) awarded the National Medal of Science in Engineering to Wernher von Braun in 1977.
The highest science honor that can be bestowed by the American government.
Good job, Nazi!
Von Braun is buried in Alexandria, Virginia.
Nazis like Von Braun were given American citizenship.
The U.S. Navy took Herbert Wagner.
The U.S. Army took 127 rocket scientists (including Von Braun).
The Bureau of Mines (pre- Department of Energy) took seven synthetic fuel specialists.
The USAF really liked the imported Nazis.
They took 260 of them.
Did Operation Paperclip continue until 1990?
If so, continue in what sense?
Paperclip wasn’t CIA per se.
It was run by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency.
So we could start by calling it an OSS (CIA’s predecessor agency) and Army CIC (counterintelligence corps) program.
Only problem is, the CIA came into existence in 1947.
So in what way was Paperclip NOT a CIA program?
Hmmm.
Paperclip appears to have been overseen by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
So you would have:
Army Intelligence
Naval Intelligence
Air Force Intelligence
and
State Department?!?
For instance, Magnus von Braun (Wernher’s brother) had an INSCOM dossier.
Fascinating.
Wernher von Braun’s dossier has never been made public.
Hmmm.
The U.S. military helped Kurt Blome escape to Argentina to avoid trial for human experiments conducted at Ravensbruck.
Ravensbrück.
But the CIA wanted assets.
And access.
We’re not talking about the commonly-known scientists like Wernher von Braun.
We’re talking more about people such as Paul Dickopf.
Let me reiterate, the head of INTERPOL (Dickopf) from 1968-1972 was on the CIA payroll.
We’re not talking about Camp Ashcan and the 86 Nazi leaders in Luxembourg.
But it falls somewhere in the realm of Safehaven, doesn’t it?
Let’s talk about Klaus Barbie.
U.S. “intelligence services” (CIA?) employed Klaus Barbie and helped him escape to Bolivia.
Barbie was a master of torture (as disgusting as that sounds).
This was applied in Bolivia.
Why would the United States support such a thing?
In an effort to “fight communism”, of course.
I agree that communism is bad.
And should be fought.
Indeed, capitalism and communism ought to fight each other (as ideological concepts) on the “battlefield” of economics.
But torture is unacceptable.
It is evil.
To what extent did the “U.S. intelligence services” simply (and cynically) “look the other way” in regards to Barbie torturing people in Bolivia?
We are talking about 1980.
The “Cocaine Coup”.
But you gotta go back to 1973.
And Kissinger.
In Chile.
Pinochet.
To what extent were Italian Fascists allowed to set up camp in Chile by their “intelligence services” (DINA)?
To what extent were Italian Fascists (supported by the Kissinger State Department) responsible for the overthrow of democratically-elected socialist Salvador Allende?
Pinochet.
To what extent did this 1973 coup rely upon Italian Fascists?
Where were these fascists coming from?
Were there any Nazis involved in Chile?
Where had these people been since the end of WWII?
In Francisco Franco’s Spain, perhaps?
When did Franco die?
1980s?
What role did Italian Fascists (who fought on the same side as the Nazis in WWII) play in the Operation Gladio false-flag bombings in Italy?
When did this start?
If Gladio was a stay-behind network (and it was), when was it formed?
Immediately after WWII?
Yes.
But the communists lost the first elections in postwar Italy.
Gladio didn’t really get kicking with their false-flag bombings (blamed on communists) until the 1970s.
And this is just one country’s (Argentina’s) commander for Operation Condor.
Same thing in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.
Now you see why Uruguay called for Kissinger’s arrest.
Because Kissinger oversaw this program (apparently).
What time period are we talking about?
1968-1989.
We are talking about 60,000-80,000 deaths under Operation Condor.
Who was targeted?
The left-wing.
Communists.
Socialists.
But also right-wingers who “weren’t right-wing enough”.
It seems the CIA had a big role in this.
U.S. government operation.
Support often “routed” through CIA.
The U.S. military was concerned about “perceived threats” and “subversives” in Latin America.
Similar to Operation Gladio.
The end justifies the means.
A brute-force way of preventing communist takeovers.
Dirty.
Clumsy.
Evil.
Fighting one evil (communism) with another (murder/torture).
But what brought Operation Condor into being?
It was a series of coups.
Paraguay (1954).
Brazil (1964).
Bolivia (1971).
Uruguay (June 1973).
Chile (September 11, 1973).
Peru (1975).
Argentina (1976).
Wow.
That is SEVEN coups in 22 years.
And FIVE coups in FIVE years.
In five DIFFERENT Latin American countries.
How the fuck did that happen?
Did they all just spontaneously get infected with anti-communist fervor???
It seems our CIA was “watching” dissidents in Argentina and Uruguay.
And don’t forget about the Brazilian “death squads”.
With whom the CIA worked.
This communism thing must be really powerful.
Granted, it’s a fucked-up, inefficient system.
A perverted, perverse system.
But was it really necessary to “disappear” and murder all these people over???
Why not just let capitalism show its merits?
Capitalism is a value-creating juggernaut (it is!).
Why did the U.S. government feel so threatened by communism?
One reason was the USSR (which no longer exists).
All those Soviet Republics.
That giant monolithic block.
Let’s name ’em:
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Estonia
Georgia (Tbilisi, not Atlanta)
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Latvia
Lithuania
Moldova (Moldavian SSR)
Russia
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Ukraine
Uzbekistan.
Wow.
How many is that?
15.
The U.S. has 50 states.
So we are more impressive, right?
The USSR covered about 8.6 million square miles.
The USA covers about 3.7 million square miles.
The Soviet Union was twice as big as America.
And it was (WAS!) communist.
And it had (and HAS!) nuclear weapons.
ICBMs.
Intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Hell, they even have hypersonic missiles now.
And the USA doesn’t.
So Russia (the main successor) could definitely fuck us up (WIPE US OUT).
But that’s not what they wanna do.
They just want us to get the fuck off their doorstep.
Because if they wipe us out, they know we will also (simultaneously) wipe them out.
And we should understand this equation too.
But apparently we don’t.
Because we have led a NATO (Now A Terrorist Organization) that has continuously gobbled up former Soviet territories for the past 30 years (since the fall of the USSR in 1991).
But I understand why America was concerned.
I understand the concept of fighting communism in Vietnam.
I respect those soldiers who went.
Maybe that war needed to happen.
Maybe the United States was right for fighting.
But let’s be frank: what’s the strategic significance of Vietnam?
There is none.
Unless you’re in the heroin business.
Which may be the main reason we were ACTUALLY there.
Same with Afghanistan.
Heroin.
Poppies.
Oil?
The pipeline across Afghanistan?
Sure, maybe.
But that never materialized.
And why were we in Bolivia?
And Peru?
Cocaine.
Perhaps.
The “Cocaine coup” in Bolivia.
1980.
When the mafia took over the country.
With the help of Klaus Barbie.
Who worked for American intelligence (CIA?).
By the way, Russia is still the biggest country on Earth.
6.6 million square miles.
But they didn’t come to Mexico.
They don’t have a mutual-defense treaty with Canada.
They don’t have troops and military bases on our border.
Hell, they don’t even have nukes in Cuba anymore (Havana being 230 miles from Miami).
Tallinn (Estonia [part of NATO]) is 230 miles from Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Are there nukes in Tallinn?
Probably not.
But there are NATO troops in Estonia.
Right on Russia’s fucking border.
And same with Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Norway.
NATO was not content to border Russia with merely Norway for 50 years (since 1949).
NATO saw fit to add Poland in 1999 and the Baltic countries in 2004.
FIVE NATO members border Russia.
That is unacceptable.
USAoutofNATO.
Now!
NoMoreNATO!
America first!
Who founded Operation Condor?
Pinochet?
Hmmm.
Don’t forget about Orlando Letelier.
Car bomb.
D.C.
Pinochet.
Operation Condor.
30,000 dead in Argentina alone.
Nuns.
Anyone even tangentially-Marxist.
I hate Marxism as much as the next capitalist (I am a proud capitalist!), BUT YOU DON’T FUCKING KILL MARXISTS JUST BECAUSE THEY HAVE ADOPTED AN INEFFICIENT ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHY!!!
Violent Marxists are another thing.
I have no tolerance for violent Marxists.
Whether they be BLM or Antifa.
But there should be a proportionate riposte.
If somebody commits and arson, YOU ARREST THEM.
You don’t just indiscriminately kill people.
Rule of law is the best way.
Rule of man is a pitfall.
There is, however, a problem.
The 2020 election was stolen.
And I believe Trump left office.
I believe he threw us to the wolves.
I believe our military leaders are pussies.
But Vladimir Putin, who was presented with an immediate threat on his doorstep (a creeping invasion by NATO that he personally oversaw and had patience for FOR 30 YEARS), actually did something.
So I respect Putin more than I respect Trump.
Putin, at this rate, is going to save Russia.
Trump, at this rate, will have no America left to save.
I respect Putin more than I respect the American military’s top leaders.
The American military, at this rate (if they ever decide to actually PROTECT the country), will have no America left to protect.
Death flights.
Taking dissidents out to sea by plane or helicopter and dropping them in the water.
Argentina.
Chile.
Disgusting.
Something the French also apparently did in Algeria.
Bodies washing up in Buenos Aires.
1977.
Kidnapped babies.
Illegal adoptions.
Babies taken to punish mothers who are in jail.
Don’t have a different economic philosophy.
Or we will kidnap your children.
Disgusting.
Latin America as one big network of torture and psychological warfare.
DINA in Chile (Pinochet) and SIDE in Argentina.
Propaganda.
Counter criticism.
Cultivate national pride.
I love America!
I really do.
But the best thing for America to do right now is to get the fuck out of NATO.
America first!
Operation Condor was going to murder a Uruguayan opposition politician.
And leaders of Amnesty International.
That’s pretty fucked-up!
Operation Condor really had a “if you see something, say something” mentality.
A big police state across the entirety of Latin America.
Number of dead as a result of Operation Condor:
Paraguay: 2,000
Chile: 3,196
Uruguay: 297
Brazil: 366
Argentina: 30,000
Archives of Terror.
Archivos del Terror (Spanish).
Arquivos do Terror (Portuguese).
Found in a police station in Paraguay.
4 tons of documents.
[14 tons for V-2]
Operation Condor: 50,000-90,000 people killed in South America
Condor ended in 1983 after Argentina’s defeat in the Falklands War.
The military dictatorship was ousted and democracy restored.
Desaparecidos.
The disappeared.
Perpetrators of Operation Condor who were executed:
General Carlos Prats (Chile)
Uruguayan MP Zelmar Michelini
Uruguayan MR Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz
former Bolivian President Juan José Torres
Argentina was involved with the Cocaine Coup of Klaus Barbie in Bolivia.
1980.
Italian fascists in South America.
December 1977.
Two French nuns and several founders of Madres de la Plaza de Mayo disappeared.
Put on death flights.
Dropped in the ocean.
Remains washed up on beaches south of Buenos Aires in December 1977.
Remains identified.
A commission.
COVID.
Forced disappearances.
Crimes against humanity.
Kudos to writer Ernesto Sabato.
Argentina.
Getting to the bottom of the 30,000 dead/missing/disappeared.
Life in prison:
Jorge Rafael Videla (Argentina [d. 2013])
Emilio Eduardo Massera (Argentina [d. 2010]) P2 Masonic lodge member
Roberto Eduardo Viola (Argentina [d. 1994])
Armando Lambruschini (Argentina [d. 2004])
Orlando Ramón Agosti (Argentina [d. 1997])
Omar Graffigna (Argentina [d. 2019])
Leopoldo Galtieri (Argentina [d. 2003])
Jorge Anaya (Argentina [d. 2008])
Basilio Lami Dozo (Argentina [d. 2017])
In 1986 and 1987, amnesty laws were passed to protect military officers involved in human rights abuses.
What?!?
No more prosecutions of the Dirty War.
In 1989-90, the leaders of the junta were pardoned.
An attempt at “healing”…
FUCK THAT!!!
Massera was pardoned in 1990 and lived to be 85 (d. 2010).
Massera imprisoned again in 1998.
Viola was pardoned in 1990 and died four years later.
Viola served a mere seven years in prison.
Lambruschini pardoned in 1990.
Later came under house arrest (2003).
Died 2004.
But here’s an interesting fact.
Lambruschini’s 15-year-old daughter was murdered in 1978 when a bomb was placed under her bed by an Argentine left-wing guerrilla organization.
Equally disgusting.
All because one side loves communism and the other side hates communism.
Fucking idiots!
But Operation Condor started in 1975.
So was this payback?
Either way, it’s disgusting.
Murdering children is the lowest of the low.
Total insanity.
Total EVIL!
Agosti.
Convicted of eight counts of torture.
Served a mere three years and nine months.
Was accused of 88 murders.
11 abductions of minors.
Was pardoned in 1990.
Graffigna was initially acquitted.
2003 arrested again.
Was not sentenced until 2016.
Was found responsible for the abduction, torture, and murder of a married couple in 1978.
The woman was eight-months-pregnant.
The child was born and given to an Air Force Intelligence operative.
Galtieri was sentenced in 1986 to 12 years in prison for human rights violations during the Dirty War.
He was pardoned in 1989.
Still received an Army pension for the rest of his life.
Invited to military parade in 2002.
New charges of kidnapping of children and disappearance of 18 people brought against him in 2002.
Because of his poor health, he was allowed to remain at home.
Bullshit!
Anaya was acquitted in 1985.
Spain intervened in 1997 because some of their citizens had disappeared during the Dirty War.
Extradition requested.
Request denied.
Criteria amended.
Proceedings proceed.
Extradition ceased.
Overturned.
Extraditions continue.
Heart attack.
House arrest.
Dozo was acquitted in 1985.
1989 sentenced to eight years.
Pardoned in 1990.
Didn’t even lose his rank.
Came under same extradition request from Spain.
What happened?
Lived until 2017.
Brazil’s military dictatorship lasted 21 years.
1964-1985.
Brazil also had a bullshit amnesty law that protected the human rights abuses of the military leaders.
In 1978, the Uruguayan Army crossed into Brazil and kidnapped two activists and their children: ages five and three.
The Uruguayan Army made the mistake of capturing two Brazilian journalists during this operation.
This probably saved the lives of the couple and their children.
Otherwise they would have been tortured and dropped in the ocean on a death flight.
But the couple was tortured and imprisoned for five years.
The children were sent to live with grandparents in Montevideo because the whole operation had been fucked up by the presence and arrest of the Brazilian journalists (and the ensuing international attention of this particular case).
In the case of the Brazilian reporters, they were actually kidnapped by the Brazilian military regime.
Uruguay also passed a bullshit amnesty law.
No one ever got in trouble for torturing the couple.
It is likely that two ex-Presidents of Brazil were assassinated as part of Operation Condor.
João Goulart (“heart attack” )and Juscelino Kubitschek (“car accident”).
Goulart was likely poisoned.
Pinochet was arrested in London in 1998.
The “big wedding” was Franco’s funeral in Spain.
That’s when Pinochet met Italian fascist Stefano Delle Chiaie.
It is quite possible that Pablo Neruda was murdered by the Pinochet regime.
Reagan finally withdrew support for Pinochet after the Chilean Army set two protestors on fire.
We’ll end with this.
Colonia Dignidad.
Chile.
Germans.
Nazis.
Internment, torture, and murder of dissidents in the underground tunnels of a farm known as the Dignity Colony (Colonia Dignidad).
1970s.
During Pinochet regime.
Leader of Colonia Dignidad: Paul Schäfer.
German fugitive.
Colonia Dignidad later changed its name to Villa Baviera.
This facility existed about 200 miles south of Santiago from 1961-2005.
Sexual abuse and torture of young children were committed there.
Torture and execution of political dissidents (under Pinochet) were committed there.
Schäfer spent a mere five years in prison at the end of his life.
He had been a rumored child molester (in Germany) since 1945.
He lost his job as an Evangelical preacher on account of this.
In 1959, he was charged with sexually abusing two boys.
He fled.
The Chilean ambassador to Germany invited him to Chile.
He set up a cult near Parral, Chile (the Colonia Dignidad).
Schäfer had a bit of David Koresh about him.
A coup against Salvador Allende was organized at Colonia Dignidad by Germans including Roberto Thieme.
Schäfer began punishing children in his cult by electric shocks to their genitalia.
After the coup, Colonia Dignidad became a secret detention, torture, and execution center for DINA (the National Intelligence Directorate under Pinochet’s military government).
Then the biological weapons production began.
#biolabs
Nazis in Ukraine.
CIA Nazis.
CIA protecting Ukrainian Nazis after WWII who should have been subject to Nuremberg.
Schäfer used sedatives on children and then raped them.
The farm contained “subterranean living containers”.
Tunnels.
Schäfer was charged with all matter of crimes.
He fled.
He was found in 2005 in Buenos Aires.
There was a plethora of military weaponry buried at Colonia Dignidad.
2006: Schäfer sentenced to 20 years for abusing 25 children.
He was found guilty on five counts of child rape.
The compound was surrounded by barbed wire and had searchlights and a watchtower.
There were underground prisons.
There may have been cooperation between the BND (Klaus Barbie’s employer from 1965 onwards) and Colonia Dignidad.
Only German was spoken inside the colony.
Children were “imported” from German.
Schäfer first arrived in the early-1960s with kidnapped children.
Illegal adoptions.
Torture in the tunnels.
Torture specifically tailored to their personality.
At least 100 murders at Colonia Dignidad.
A Soviet-born math professor from Penn State disappeared while hiking near Colonia Dignidad in 1985.
Escapees of the colony claim that the facility housed former Nazis.
But who did Chilean secret police operative Michael Townley report to about the DINA/Colonia Dignidad links?
Fucking INTERPOL!!!
Was the head of INTERPOL in 2005 also on the CIA payroll (as the head of INTERPOL from 1968-1972 had been)???
What Townley seems to have done right is expose Colonia Dignidad as a LABORATORY ON BIOLOGICAL WARFARE!!!
Biological experiments were done on political prisoners at Colonia Dignidad.
Now here is the fucking kicker.
The CIA and Simon Wiesenthal have both proven that Josef Mengele was at Colonia Dignidad.
This South American network for escaped Nazis was partially supported by Juan Perón in Argentina.
Was Klaus Barbie at Colonia Dignidad?
I would not doubt it.
Former SS and Gestapo TAUGHT torture methods at Colonia Dignidad to the Chilean secret police.
Just as Barbie would later do in Bolivia–teaching the Bolivian military.
Hartmut Hopp was Schäfer’s “right hand man” at Colonia Dignidad.
He went with Schäfer at age 17 to Chile in 1961.
Michael Townley, an American-born former agent of Chile’s DINA (wait…what?!? how the fuck did he get that job???) pled guilty to the 1976 car-bombing murders of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt.
There was a plea bargain.
He was not extradited to Argentina (where he was wanted for the 1974 murders of Chilean General Carlos Prats and his wife).
He was convicted in absentia in Italy for the 1975 murder attempt on Bernardo Leighton.
What was Townley’s specialty (apart from being a prolific assassin)?
Chemical and biological weapons.
And who did he develop these for?
For his employer DINA.
With the help of Colonel Gerardo Huber and DINA biochemist Eugenio Berríos.
Townley moved to Chile in 1957 at the age of 15.
His dad worked for Ford.
In Chile.
Townley came back to Miami.
Hooked up with anti-Castro Cubans.
Prats and his wife were killed with a radio controlled car bomb.
Enter Italian fascists again.
Townley was the go-between for DINA and Avanguardia Nazionale.
Enter Stefano Delle Chiaie again.
Connection to DINA.
Townley got a mere five years and two months in jail for the murders of Letelier and Moffitt.
Whether truthful or not, DINA’s now-deceased chief Manuel Contreras claims that Townley was partially working for the CIA when he murdered Letelier and Moffitt.
This was around the time that Lt. Gen. Vernon Walters was Deputy Directory of Central Intelligence (CIA).
Walters proposed an American military intervention in Italy in 1961 if the Socialist Party had won.
Townley give us the goods on the Laboratorio de Guerra Bacteriológica de Ejército (Bacteriological Warfare Laboratory of the Army) that was located at Colonia Dignidad.
Carmelo Soria (a Spanish diplomat) was assassinated in 1992 with sarin gas produced at Colonia Dignidad.
It is thought that Pablo Neruda was assassinated with an injection of Staphylococcus aureus.
The sarin gas was produced with the expertise of biochemist Eugenio Berríos.
Other bioweapons Berríos produced were anthrax and botulism.
Berríos also produced cocaine for Pinochet.
There is a suspicion that he worked for both drug traffickers and the DEA.
Former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Montalva was likely killed with a poison devoloped by Berríos.
Did Operation Condor continue as La Cofradia?
Don’t underestimate Chile’s role in Haiti.
MINUSTAH.
Eduardo Aldunate Hermann.
Berríos producing “black cocaine”.
Gerardo Huber also worked on the DINA biochem program.
Stepan Bandera.
2010.
Awarded title Hero of Ukraine.
By Viktor Yushchenko.
Banderites.
Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).
And here’s the magic bullet, you fuckers:
Mykola Lebed.
Leader of OUN-B.
Responsible for the genocide of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.
Died in 1998 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (aged 89).
Why?
Because he had “a relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency during the Cold War”.
His Prolog (or Prologue) Research Organization in New York (where he emigrated) was funded by the CIA.
Lebed gathered intel on the Soviet Union.
The CIA paid him for this.
The CIA shielded Lebed (as late as 1991) from prosecution for war crimes (aka “his wartime connections to the Nazis”).
How many people did Lebed massacre?
50,000-100,000.
And the CIA hired him.
Yes.
Putin is right.
Ukrainian Nazis exist.
And they have for a long time.
And we’re not just talking about the Azov Battalion.
Lebed was the chief of a Nazi Abwehr school for espionage and sabotage in 1939-1940.
Lebed took over Stepan Bandera’s faction in western Ukraine.
During AND AFTER the Cold War, the CIA supported the OUN.
What groups are we talking about?
Svoboda.
Right Sector.
Ukrainian National Assembly — Ukrainian National Self Defense.
Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists.
Babi Yar/Babyn Yar.
Ukrainian Auxiliary Police.
Made up of people from Ukrainian People’s Militia.
Svoboda. 2014. Euromaidan. Major role.
Yatsenyuk (installed by U.S./Soros coup) had three Svoboda ministers.
Sich Battalion formed by Svoboda for war in Donbass.
Why is billionaire Ukrainian Jew Ihor Kolomoyskyi an apologist for Svoboda?
He’s the second or third richest person in Ukraine.
Kolomoysky has triple citizenship: Ukraine, Israel, and Cyprus.
It starts off approaching the genius of Histoire(s) du cinéma and F for Fake, but miraculously (?) loses its way around the midpoint (or a little before that).
So it is not an all-time cinematic masterpiece.
So what?
It is still important.
And germane to today because one Pistol has had the bollocks to stand up for Donald Trump (the underdog [just look at those fucking polls]):
namely, Johnny Rotten.
What will today hold?
Johnny Rotten has said that he would vote for Trump.
So, I suppose, we can assume he did.
It wasn’t a joke.
I voted for Trump.
Again.
And proud of it.
Most celebrities have spent the past four years agreeing with one another that Trump is literally Adolph Hitler.
Good for them.
Whatever.
And from the throng of brainless celebrities emerged Johnny Rotten.
He made me feel more comfortable out here in the cold.
Am I a typical Trump voter?
I don’t know.
I have a degree in music theory.
I wrote a string quartet.
I toured England, Scotland, and Spain as the bassist in a hard rock band.
I am from Texas.
I played on Steve Jones’ radio show in Los Angeles.
I toured the world (U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark) as the drummer in a French-language Cajun punk rock band.
[at least they were punk when I was in the band]
I have an MBA.
I could quite easily vote for Trump just based on my knowledge of economics.
Free-market capitalism works.
No, it’s not perfect.
Communism/socialism does not (in the long term) work.
It is an economic death wish.
It produces so little value * relative to capitalism.
But, you know, fuck it.
I also like Trump!
And so does Johnny Rotten.
Me, Pauly Deathwish…
I like Trump.
Trump has gotten me to see the light.
Trump has taught me to respect our great U.S. military.
Trump has taught me to respect our wonderful American law enforcement officers.
And Trump does not take any shit FROM ANYONE.
Particularly the press.
I always knew the press was full of shit since 9/11/01.
And I found out that the Democratic Party was just as full of shit after I voted for Obama in 2008.
I thought Obama would hold the neocons responsible for the 9/11 false-flag/stand down.
I was wrong.
Obama was/is a fake.
In every sense of the word.
Trump has fought tooth and nail for four years AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT.
And he is still going.
This motherfucker is TOUGH!
And the more I learn about Joe Biden, I realize he’s just another corrupt career politician scumbag.
So what’ll it be, America?
You have the opportunity to throw off the mind control which has blanketed you since birth.
Throw off 99% of news coverage.
All of it says that Trump sucks.
Every day.
In every way.
That’s all they say.
Is it because he’s mean to them and their feelings are hurt?
Not exactly.
It’s more sinister than that.
It’s more un-American than that.
You have been brainwashed by Jeff Zucker and others of his ilk.
But go ahead, swallow the blue pill.
Zucker’s CNN told you in 2016 that Hillary would win.
They (and every other American news outlet) proffered that Trump had almost no chance of winning in 2016.
Why does that sound familiar?
Oh, that’s right.
BECAUSE IT’S THE VERY SAME FUCKING THING THEY ARE SAYING THIS TIME.
But this time they are saying that Trump has LESS THAN a slim chance of winning.
The hyperbole is staggering.
So, you know what?
Might as well not even vote, right?
How many CNN viewers will get lazy?
How many MSNBC viewers will get lazy?
They say (“the polls”) that Joe has had a massive lead for months.
And his lead hasn’t changed at all.
Do you believe that?
Do Democrats believe that?
Then why even vote?
Is there a possible boomerang effect from such an audacious PSYOP???
Trump voters know that the polls can be wrong.
Biden voters SHOULD know that.
Trump voters will vote either way.
Sure, there might be some “casual Trump voters” (though the type seems pretty improbable) who get discouraged by Joe’s seeming victory before the match has even been played.
Brexit voters would remember.
“Leave” had no chance, right?
“Remain” would take the day.
All the polls said so.
But what happened?
That’s right:
“leave” won.
And Johnny Rotten stood with those people.
When the people had decided, he stood with the people.
Brexit was fine with him.
And Trump is fine with him too.
I support Britain’s exit from the EU.
The EU is a nightmare of well-meaning mismanagement.
Can “control freaks” be poor managers?
Apparently so.
Just look at the EU.
I’m not gonna make a prediction here.
I don’t know who’s going to win today (or next week [or two months from now]).
But I am dedicated to the idea of America.
I’m not gonna freak out like a child and go out looting and committing arson.
I’m not going to make life miserable for “Biden supporters” (if they even truly exist).
Biden is a joke.
And not a very funny one.
There is no true enthusiasm for him…not anymore…not within his own party.
He’s a “safe pick” (like Mitt Romney was for the Republicans).
I didn’t vote in 2012.
Obama had disappointed me.
No neocons were brought to justice re: 9/11 false-flag terror attacks.
And I had no desire to vote for Mitt Romney.
So I just dropped out of politics.
I didn’t care.
Until Trump came along.
At first, I too thought he was a racist, etc.
Then I came to the realization that those thoughts had been planted in my head by way of misleading “journalism” (propaganda) which assailed me at every turn.
I broke out of the matrix.
I came to see that it was all bullshit.
Calling Trump a racist was the kryptonite that the Dems thought would keep Donald out of the White House.
And I have been immersed in a strange dual-study regimen focused on the LSAT and the GRE.
For my international readers, the LSAT is the Law School Admission Test and the GRE is the Graduate Record Examination.
The second test would be required should I choose (or be so lucky as) to go on to PhD studies.
Quite frankly, my MBA has not been sufficient to wow the employers out to which I have reached.
And so life presents us with little conundrums.
I have a bachelor’s degree in music theory/composition and a master’s degree in business.
Long ago, my bachelor’s degree wasn’t enough to gain me employment at places like 7-Eleven and Wendy’s. That’s right. Five years of higher education and a diploma above and beyond the high school level was not enough to overcome the nepotistic morass which dominates the distribution of unskilled labor jobs in the U.S.
I’m guessing this situation might (for obvious reasons) be particularly mark-ed in the American Southwest (where I am located).
So I thought a master’s degree in business would really distinguish me.
I worked myself sick.
Almost to death.
Maintained a 4.00 GPA.
Not only have I had zero unsolicited interest in my skills, but I have received nothing save rejections.
Which is to say, I have not even been graced with an interview.
And so it was some days ago (about two weeks) that I decided I should have a contingency plan in place in case such conditions persist.
So perhaps I will find myself in law school in a few years.
Perhaps in a PhD program.
But I have been trying to better myself every day.
My focus, academically, has been on two areas: logic and mathematics.
I have never been very keen on (or good at) math.
And logic is something in which I have had zero formal training.
The logic emphasis is, of course, pursuant to the law school possibility.
The math studies (currently algebra, but geometry and statistics to come) are in support of the PhD path.
In addition, I am happy to report that I am exercising (walking) every day.
And I have also added weight training in the most recent nights.
But today I took a day (and night) off from the rigors of autodidactic asceticism.
Yes, today only involved my ongoing survey of Ezra Pound’s Cantos.
Indeed, I suppose I really don’t know how to relax anymore 🙂
But I was very interested to hear Donald Trump’s “Address to Congress”.
This is, mind you, a once-a-year phenomenon in the U.S.
In his next three years (assuming no untimely cessation of his Presidency), these speeches will each be called (respectively) a “State of the Union” address.
Well, I won’t keep you in too much suspense.
If you have read me at all in the past year, you will know that I have become an ardent Trump supporter.
And I continue to be such.
So it is not without immense bias that I posit his speech tonight to have been rather excellent.
But Mr. Trump’s speech comes at a very important time.
And I have purposely raised my visibility as a Trump supporter because of this crucial time.
To wit, many forces have sought and are seeking to undermine the President (at the very least).
The proliferation of protests would truly be remarkable (if we didn’t know the general source and support network for these faux-demonstrations).
And so I haven’t written about a movie in some days, but there is no better viewing than our current President.
The Left tunes in to vomit, and the Right tunes in to cheer.
I am, and have been for only a short time, on the Right.
Conservative.
I will make no apologies about this.
In this past week I have had multiple people who call themselves my friends attack me as a “bigot” and worse.
That’s fine.
My response is no response.
It is beneath me to respond to such.
I have had people question my artfulness.
I, who gave my blood-sweat-and-tears for 15 years as an artist.
It is beneath me to qualify such attacks on my character with a response.
And finally, I have been the subject of surreptitious attacks which attempt to equate me with “misguided” artists of the past.
If Trump can be “packaged” (in marketing terms) by hacks like Mika Brzezinski as “Mussolini, Hitler, Lenin”, then I suppose the lesser Leftists are taking this cue to equate me with Nietzsche, Wagner, and certain American artists which shall remain nameless.
But again, my response is no response.
And it’s not because I can’t respond.
But I tire of these games…
I can destroy my enemies.
In some cases, quite easily.
In other cases, with immense effort.
But my friends have proven (over years…the ingrates…abandonment) to now be my enemies in deed.
And yet I consider them friends.
And I will consider them friends.
Until such time as this becomes impossible for my physical safety.
But all of this because I support Trump.
Shame on you, friends.
[N.B. I doubt any of them are reading this. These are “real world” friends. And real pains in the ass(es).]
Indeed, I need more than one ass to put up with the crappy “friends” I have.
To a one, they are all liberal…every one of them.
And if they are conservative, they have not come to my aid in any significant way.
Except for one dear pen-pal.
And it was she who delineated the brilliance in Donald Trump’s message to me in the first place.
She knows who she is 🙂
MAGA!
But that one beautiful soul notwithstanding, “the world” has failed me.
And yet, the President of the United States has made me very proud indeed.
Verily, never before have I felt such immense pride in my country.
Pride in the men and women of our armed forces.
Pride in the men and women of law enforcement.
And so I could dissect what Donald Trump said tonight, but it is more important to analyze the gist.
I could fixate on the pathetic Democrats who applauded nothing…in their Kim Jong-Hillary white pantsuits.
Slobs like Al Franken.
His posture has its own closet…
Witches like Nancy Pelosi.
“Should I clap here? Will it look good or bad if I clap? Why does every mirror I look into shatter upon gaze?”
It’s really too easy.
But it does very little good.
Bernie…what could have been.
Except for that whole socialism thing…which is a crock of shit.
And so it didn’t matter that the Democrats were puerile, impotent faux-testers tonight.
Because Donald Trump has guts.
Yeah, his wife is hot as shit!
And so is his daughter.
That’s because they were MODELS.
But, even more so, because they have SCRUPLES.
They are good human beings.
They stand for something.
THAT’S why they’re really attractive.
To me.
But I know when I’ve met my better.
Ted Cruz? Fuck you.
Paul Ryan? I don’t fucking think so.
Mike Pence? Meh.
But Donald Trump? Yeah. Big league!
I may have more formal education than the President of the United States (‘deed I do), but the current POTUS is the real deal.
He knows who is better than him.
Our soldiers.
He knows.
And he says it.
And he never presumes that his job is any harder than those who carry out their orders in godforsaken deserts and jungles.
Yes, Virginia, many of those orders have been COMPLETE BOLLOCKS.
But that’s not their job.
In general.
It’s the job of policymakers to get the policies right.
For a long, long (LONG) time, the policies have sucked.
And so maybe, MAYBE (maybe) we now have a President who is competent.
I know when I’ve met my better.
There are many skills in this world.
And Donald Trump has a priceless skill set.
He’s not a saint.
He’s not a god.
But compared to those who have preceded him over the past few decades in the job of POTUS, he sure seems like one or the other.
So thank you, Mr. Trump!
Your understanding of the USA is really remarkable.
We have been taught to hate our own country for so long.
Enough of that.
Fuck that!
We will love what is good about our past.
And not wallow in our transgressions.
And to the detractors around the globe, you can fuck right the fuck off.
Most of all, to the domestic detractors…especially my “friends”…
Thanks a fucking lot…for proving exactly why Donald Trump is right.
You’re all a bunch of liberal frauds…spewing platitudes while being horrible people.
This film, directed by Ethan Hawke, is a masterpiece.
The premise seemed interesting.
On Netflix.
“This should,” I thought, “be an easy one to jettison after a few painful minutes of shabby mise-en-scène…[after ignoring it on my ‘list’ for quite some time]”
And though there is no Liszt (ha!), Ethan Hawke tells one of the most touching stories I’ve ever seen.
Yes, that is the correct verbiage.
In the synesthesia of cinema.
It is the story of Seymour Bernstein (and not, as the title might lead one to believe, that of Seymour Glass).
Seymour did not become the supernova which his fellow Bernstein (Leonard) became.
No, Seymour Bernstein stepped away from the stage early.
As in, curtailed his career.
As a performer.
A pianist.
[but always a son–a man]
And so what makes Ethan Hawke’s film particularly special for me is the synergy created from two colliding ideas of great power: music and anxiety.
Ah, to perform…
It’s hard (really, very fucking hard) for me to recall the good times which make me sad.
Those would be my four short years as a professional music performer.
[three of which coincided with a parallel mini-career as a studio (recording) musician]
Why did I step away?
To paraphrase Bogart in The Big Sleep, I must rank pretty high on insubordination.
I’m a rebel.
And though I pray that I never follow in the darker footsteps of Phil Spector, I was very much in what one would term popular or pop music.
But it wasn’t from a lack of training.
My bachelor’s degree, from an esteemed institution, is almost exclusively due to courses in Western classical music.
Though I am but an amateur pianist compared to Mr. Bernstein, I have a deep appreciation for what he is doing all throughout this film.
As a trained music theorist (my specialization).
And a trained composer (the activity to which I dedicated the bulk of my undergraduate hours).
But there is something more.
Seymour: An Introduction is very much about hard work.
About craft.
What I’m doing right now.
What you are reading.
It is my craft.
Now.
Music has flown…like a fleeting bird.
And I have had to transpose my urge to create from “EveryGoodBoyDoesFine” by way of copious vicissitudes to “PleaseExcuseMyDearAuntSally” and other far-afield mnemonic devices.
Yes, dear friends…I identify with Ethan Hawke’s struggle.
And it is painful to watch him.
But he has redeemed himself with this film.
Through great doubt we travel…
What the fuck am I doing in business school?
Does my acting mean anything whatsoever to ME anymore?
To weave it, my problems were/are different than those of Mr. Hawke.
He is standing on the stage…[places, everyone]…on the X where I wish I was.
Directing a film.
You need a producer.
An “executive” producer.
You need a law firm.
Legal counsel.
[for all those archival clips you want to interpolate]
Yes…there is a long list of credited individuals at the culmination of Seymour: An Introduction.
It doesn’t just say “Ethan Hawke”.
Those are the realities of film.
Godard has illustrated it as a process of check-writing.
$50 here. [more like] $3,000 here.
And again. And again.
But it is obvious this was a project of love for Ethan Hawke.
And it worked.
Mr. Bernstein is 89 and still (apparently) teaches at NYU.
And what a gifted soul!
Ah…
This documentary reminded me of so many beautiful, important things!
It all moves too fast…
The pictures with Nadia Boulanger…
But Korea sticks.
At the front lines.
As jaw-dropping as Messiaen in his prison camp.
But let me speak to the choir now…
Friends of Deutsche Grammophon et al..
It’s important.
That extra dot.
To point out.
No pun intended.
A service.
PRACTICE in front of your audience (Warhol advised).
Dear Messrs,
[and scholarly, epicurean (?) womenfolk]
We have, in these minutes, footage of the great Glenn Gould.
We learn the chair.
How low.
Carry out folded.
Like a shabby parcel of manuscripts.
But Mr. Bernstein gives us the cinderblocks.
And while it is scary (Glenn Gould) in its proficiency.
The ear of God.
We get an even greater surprise.
Yes, most startling.
Clifford Curzon.
And the passion of a boy from Islington.
Precision.
Snap!
Unfurling arpeggios effortlessly.
While the baritone fingers surface the melody.
Just breathing above the water’s surface.
Curzon.
Those glasses.
We fall in love.
1977.
Year after I was born.
By 17 days.
Seymour Bernstein’s eight-year career was over.
As a public performer.
Debuting with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (!) a Brazilian piano concerto in world premiere (the 2nd by Villa-Lobos).
1969-1977
Double my career 🙂
[in more ways than one, I’m sure]
But as an astute student in the film observes, it was many thousands of hours (of practice and other dedicatory acts) to get to that point.
Mr. Bernstein didn’t sit down with the CSO and sightread the Villa-Lobos concerto.
It wasn’t his first time playing.
And so it comes back to work.
And anxiety.
& music.
Seymour Bernstein: God bless you for knowing the quadrivium.
That MUSIC was one of the four higher liberal arts.
For the ancient Greeks.
Along with arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy.
What isn’t mentioned is that in which I am currently dabbling.
[dabbling my ass off]
The trivium.
Those “lower” three of the liberal arts.
Grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
And the liberal arts…in opposition to the practical arts.
[the latter being such as medicine…or architecture]
{Footnotes to be provided when hell freezes over}
And so I heartily recommend you watch this documentary.
Indeed, I regret that I cannot express myself at this time without resort to expletive, but this film by Miloš Forman is truly bone-chilling.
And it is especially so for me: a former composer.
Oh, there is always still time.
To set pencil to paper (or pen, if [like Mozart], you make no mistakes).
And so we shall take under consideration the director’s cut of Amadeus as our subject.
This later, R-rated version is from 2002 and adds 20 minutes to this magnum opus.
Yes, dear friends…we shall consider many things.
The uncanny embodiment of Tom Hulce.
The deft, dastardly thespian skills of F. Murray Abraham.
And even the indispensably aghast facial expressions of Richard Frank.
You might wonder why I have chosen this film to honor God on this day rather than a movie like Ernest Saves Christmas.
I will let you ponder that one for a moment.
But in the meanwhile, we shall press onwards with the young Salieri.
Please remember the pious of Western classical music.
J.S. Bach.
Antonio Vivaldi.
Haydn. Handel.
Ok, perhaps not so much the latter.
Because he too, like Mozart, was a man of the world.
Of the earth.
A joyful sinner.
A composer with a dirty mouth.
Yes, there are miracles in this film.
Too many to count.
Salieri’s father choking on a fishbone.
For starters.
But let us consider the whole city of Vienna a miracle on assumption.
Wien.
A city in which one could dial the number 1507 and receive an A (435 Hz) with which to tune an instrument.
We have long appreciated this bit of trivia from scholar Norman Lloyd.
It has always endeared Vienna to our hearts.
A place where [it must] music flows through every pipe and connects the city in divine harmony.
But that time period for which we yearn…that “common practice” period is just the era in which Mozart is plopped down with his hilarious little giggle.
Jeffrey Jones is magnificent as the judicious statesman the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II.
Which brings us back to Christmas.
A child was born. To a woman by the Holy Spirit.
Yet the child had an earthly father: Joseph II (not to be confused with the Old Testament Joseph).
Mozart was a child.
Childish.
A hellion.
Yet I would choose him over Shakespeare and Einstein when it comes to true genius.
I had heard it.
With my own ears.
In my days of getting my bachelor’s of music in music theory and composition.
I had heard that Symphony #39. I played it.
I was inside the music.
And it is like none other.
I had discovered the ingenious counterpoint in Mozart’s Symphony #41.
What lightness! What architecture!
What a vision of the beyond…
It takes memory to succeed.
And we guard our memories.
But it takes observation to create memories.
An eye. An ear (in the case of Mozart).
Yes, Mozart’s prowess for hearing something once and then playing it back or either writing out all the parts (if a mixed ensemble) is legendary.
His fame grew with these stunts.
His novelty tours with father Leopold and sister Nannerl (not pictured).
I had at least one Harvard/Stanford-trained Dr. of music warn me about the historical inaccuracies in this film.
But this is Hollywood.
Of course there will be changes.
And yet, it is an incredibly moving picture.
To borrow a programmatic description from Richard Strauss, this film becomes (for much of it) a symphonia domestica.
Which, let me just say, happens to grace us with the presence of genius beauty: Elizabeth Berridge.
But always in life (even into the bubble of music) creeps in business.
Economics.
Finances.
Debt.
Mozart was gifted with a once-in-humanity talent, yet he did not have the self-marketing skills to always position his talent at the best place in the market.
Meanwhile, Signor Salieri activates a little psychological warfare (captured by Forman’s camera lit by little gaslights all around…).
And so it is machinations versus manifestations of God’s glory.
The story is rich.
That a composer might write his own Requiem mass…and that the writing of that mass might just kill him.
We know how cursed the 9th symphony became after Beethoven (Bruckner, Dvořák, Mahler, Schubert…).
Musicians are subject to powerful forces which attack their necessary imaginations.
Superstitions.
Salieri’s character proves that those closest to us are not necessarily to be trusted. His disingenuous psyop has Mozart working himself to death.
And that is a scary thing.
To push and push and push.
And yet, who will be remembered?
The expert in psychological warfare?
Or the symphonist?
Times have changed, but it is still the creator who has the benefit of creating goods.
Super-warriors aren’t even creating bads. They are creating nothing.
But, it might be argued, that they are doing the most good in this world which no longer appreciates the music of its heritage.
Yes, European classical music is on life-support.
But we return to Mozart, who is in not-much-better condition.
Part of me longs for the treatment of Ingmar Bergman in his underappreciated film version of Trollflöjten (The Magic Flute in Swedish).
But Miloš Forman does everything else right.
The scene in which Mozart and Salieri are working on the Requiem is masterful!
And still…Mozart doesn’t realize that his greatest enemy is posing as a friend to help him compose his own death from exhaustion.
It’s only when they’re throwing the lime on you that you get real perspective.
But by that point, you’re wrapped up.
It is thus a fitting Christmas story…that hatred and jealously are futile.
And that a naive genius had the keys to the musical kingdom.
For his 35 short years on Earth.
Perhaps Mozart was not a pious man, but Salieri (who burned his own crucifix in the fireplace) consistently recognized the voice of God in Mozart’s music.
I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season and that your hearts will be filled with melodies which could make the heavens weep.
This film has every reason to be horrible, but it’s not.
It’s actually quite a good piece of filmmaking.
It’s not cinema, but it’s the kind of stuff which resonates even with a crusty old jaded bloke like me.
BP.
That’s why I went.
As my few diehard readers know, I am a business student.
And Charles Ives was an insurance salesman.
Similar juxtaposition of temperament and métier.
It is my job to research. To go to school.
I am infinitely lucky to have such an opportunity to retrain.
If you hear of a music theory factory, let me know.
But the men and women on the Deepwater Horizon rig were doing real work.
And so it is an honor to see these employees of Transocean conduct themselves with bravery and virtue on the big screen.
And BP.
What about BP?
We’ll be getting to that.
In 2010, I was still the drummer in a Cajun punk-rock band.
We played benefits in places like Venice, Louisiana.
I can personally attest to the fact that the media focus at the time (2010) was on the plight of shrimpers and marine life.
The focus was on the oil spill.
Sadly, the 11 Transocean employees who lost their lives in this textbook case for business ethics (lack thereof) were never given the memorial they deserved.
Until now.
Yes, this is a story of the deplorables.
Working on an oil rig.
Gulf of Mexico.
These are your Donald Trump voters.
And I am proudly among their number.
If you want to get the real story of class conflict in regards to the deplorables, try parsing this (mostly-good) socialist take on the situation.
While I do not agree with all of the author’s conclusions, I think the “white working class” has been unjustly portrayed as deplorable by elitist, pseudo-leftists like Hillary Clinton.
Make no mistake (to use Obama’s favorite phrase): Hillary Clinton is an extremely wealthy individual posing as a “people’s candidate”.
Her opposition (Donald Trump) does not adopt such Janus-faced dissimulation. He largely admits to being a (gasp!) capitalist.
It would have been more exciting to see the extremes of the continuum represented by Trump and Bernie Sanders, but the infinitely-crooked Clinton stole the Democratic Party nomination from the genuinely-socialist Sanders.
However, Sanders immediately turned around and campaigned for Clinton.
Bernie, then, is the spineless, wet rag he always seemed to be.
But Trump hits back. Hard!
And that is what the deplorables want.
There are many aggrieved parties in America.
Deepwater Horizon presents the case of craven, feckless British Petroleum executives who let the little people die.
Socialism is right to focus on workers.
Capitalism is right to focus on value-creation.
China (a real nightmare) just happens to have had a very large hand in funding this film.
Right?
Maybe not.
It seems, however, that there are a few names (and one Hong Kong company) missing from the Wikipedia rundown of Deepwater Horizon.
The company in question is TIK Film (or Films) of China.
As of 2015, Lionsgate had signed a $1.5 bil. cooperation deal with TIK’s parent company Hunan Television.
And so this brings up a point: was Deepwater Horizon Chinese propaganda to further smear British Petroleum? It’s a possibility worth considering.
In fact, there are a couple of associate producer credits (if I remember the description correctly) missing even from iMDB’s more extensive summation of the film’s business players.
The two Chinese executives (presumably) are clearly identified in the opening credits of Deepwater Horizon. Unless you have a photographic memory, you’re not likely to find corroboration of this once you get home from the theater.
But maybe this angle is a diversion.
Certainly, the most important issue covered by this film is that 11 human beings with wives and children lost their lives ostensibly because a company put profit before people.
The film lays the blame primarily on two BP executives.
But all of the major oil and gas players are there including the pivotal case of Schlumberger. One company suspiciously missing from the film is Halliburton. Indeed, it doesn’t take very long to realize that this outfit was intimately involved in the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Maybe Dick Cheney promised to donate his pacemaker to the CCP?
What about these players?
Transocean Ltd. of Switzerland (lovely).
Hyundai Heavy Industries of South Korea.
Indeed…the OptiCem cement modeling system of Halliburton is extremely germane to the issue of culpability for the deaths of these 11 workers.
And yet Halliburton managed to extricate itself completely from this cinematic muckraking.
What gives a company such power?
We likewise don’t hear about Anadarko Petroleum.
Or the Mitsui Group.
It certainly seems BP had a controlling interest in the Macondo Prospect well which blew out, but 35% of the ownership pie was not held by BP.
Our film portrays BP as playing an operational role in overriding the experience and wisdom of Transocean workers at the site. It portrays BP executives as committing the cardinal sin of business ethics: focusing on short-term profits over long-term safety. Indeed, the film under review makes the case that BP executives prevented Schlumberger from performing due diligence in testing the concrete at the well in question.
The most disgusting part is that no one personally got in trouble. That, indeed, is the most deplorable aspect of all.
paulydeathwish 