But no one should be killed or tortured for their political beliefs.
A crime must be committed in order for rule of law to come into play.
It is not a crime to hold naive theories (like communism) on what is a good economic system.
A Marxist can only be punished insofar as they promote the overthrow of the government.
I do not think Joe Biden was duly-elected.
But I am not calling for him to be overthrown.
That is not my place.
I could play no role in that.
The only entity which could overthrow Joe Biden’s regime would be the U.S. military.
They should do what they think is right.
They do, however, have an obligation to NOT FOLLOW illegal orders.
Would all orders emanating from a President who was not duly-elected be illegal?
I would think they would be.
But it is not my role to decide that.
Our military will either let us suffer and cease to exist as a country (under the criminal leadership of Joe Biden), or they will make their voices heard.
Every time our military follows an order of Joe Biden, they are making the choice that that order is legal and valid.
And that is their choice.
History will judge them.
It is not my place to give the military advice.
Even though they work for me.
And Joe Biden also derives his (stolen) power from me.
I repudiate Joe Biden.
He is not the legal President.
But what can I do about it?
Here’s what I CAN’T do about it.
I cannot act like a Marxist and encourage the overthrow of the government.
I don’t encourage that.
But I do encourage our military leaders to think.
I do encourage our military leaders to take the situation and condition of the country into consideration.
And I do encourage our military leaders to be abreast of the “irregularities” (to put it nicely) of the 2020 election.
It is up to them to decide what to do.
If they think they are following legal orders by carrying out the commands of Joe Biden, then there’s not much I can do about that.
Joe is right.
We the people would need nukes and fighter jets.
But we the people will only allow our rights to be infringed UP TO A POINT.
An unjust law is no law at all.
Natural law.
I reserve the right to peacefully protest and to utilize my First Amendment rights of free speech.
I wish Biden well.
I hope he keeps us out of WWIII.
I wish he would get us out of NATO.
But I know he won’t.
Because he’s a corrupt moron.
I hope the 2022 midterms actually happen.
I hope Bill Gates doesn’t unleash a smallpox attack.
I hope the 2022 elections are actually free and fair.
I believe the 2020 elections were neither free, nor fair.
Trump won.
I am very disappointed with Trump’s stance on the COVID vaccines.
I am also quite disappointed that Trump called Zelensky a hero.
But it doesn’t change the fact that Trump won.
Would I vote for Trump again?
I don’t know.
I voted for him two times.
I might prefer Ron DeSantis, Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, RFK Jr., Robert Malone, Joe Rogan, Alex Jones…
I think any of these people would make a fine President.
And I am liking Tulsi Gabbard more and more.
Which brings us to NATO.
NATO is clearly (CLEARLY!) at fault in the Ukraine war.
NATO precipitated this war.
And the presence of the USA in NATO is unnecessary.
Being in NATO is an unnecessary danger for the United States.
NATO should not even exist anymore (because its enemies…the USSR and the Warsaw Pact alliance) no longer exist.
NATO is no longer a force for peace.
Was it ever?
That brings us to our current film.
Years of Lead.
Anni di piombo.
Italy.
Guido Salvini.
Good guy.
CIA using groups like Ordine Nuovo (fascists) in Italy.
New Order.
New World Order.
Britain wants to maintain that MI6 are choir boys.
P-26.
But what about SHAPE?
And SACEUR?
Gladio (Italy) reported (“responded”) to SACEUR.
It is GOOD to know how communist revolutions work.
It is GOOD to stop them before they happen.
But it is VERY, VERY BAD to murder innocent dumbasses who are wearing Che Guevara t-shirts.
And it is even worse to indiscriminately bomb banks and train stations to scare a population into not voting communist.
The formula was:
-NATO-led (right-wing) stay-behind networks commit terrorist attack on behalf of US/NATO
-attack blamed on leftists
-population avoids voting for communists out of fear
Children were killed in these operations.
Bombings.
Mass shootings.
All blamed on leftists.
And most (if not all) carried out by right-wing paramilitary groups under orders from US/NATO.
P26.
Switzerland.
Felice Casson.
Good guy.
Daniele Ganser (whose article I posted near the top of the page).
Good guy.
Italian intelligence may have stolen the 2020 U.S. election.
Via the military/satellite company Leonardo.
In the days of Gladio, the prime mover within Italy was SISMI.
Military intelligence.
Italy.
Switzerland.
Belgium.
Germany.
But Italy was hit the hardest.
Along with SISMI (which no longer exists per se), another suspect would be VSSE of Belgium.
Only the Vatican’s intelligence agency is older than VSSE.
VSSE is the CIA of Belgium.
Belgium also has a military intelligence organization (GISS).
Strategy of tension.
Look it up.
It dominated the USA in the years after 9/11/01.
And it has dominated the past two years of COVID (with biological warfare [disguised as a naturally-occurring pandemic] replacing higher-intensity forms of terrorism).
The W. Bush administration denies that the USA had anything to do with the terrorism of the stay-behind networks (like Gladio) which they set up in all NATO countries following WWII.
Yeah, sure.
This same Bush administration says it’s just all “made up” by the Russians.
All evidence points to the various security services in Europe (Italy, Belgium, etc.) protecting these stay behind networks from prosecution when they committed these acts of terrorism.
So the Bush administration was (in 2006) relying on an implausible deniabilty.
It’s possible, but highly unlikely, that the United States didn’t participate in these terror activities.
And it is even less possible that they didn’t know about them and condone them.
It remains to be discovered just what just the U.S. and NATO played in this terrorism.
There is no question that NATO/US set up these stay-behind networks.
And there is very little question that these stay-behind networks committed acts of terrorism upon European civilians.
Indeed, the original mission of these stay-behind networks appears to have changed from “use in case of emergency [a Soviet takeover of Western Europe]” to “use for any purpose which will cause Europeans to fear communist political candidates”.
This violence should not have been committed.
When children are killed (as they were by a bombing in Munich at the Octoberfest), then the end does not justify the means.
Try telling the father who lost his young son and daughter to that bombing.
The girl was ripped open by the bomb.
The boy had bomb fragments which went through his head.
They both suffered.
They did not die instantly.
They both spoke to their father.
The girl said, “Please help me, father.”
The boy said, “I’m ok. I’m just cold.”
They both died soon after.
And that father had to live with that grief.
All so that communists would not be voted into power in Western Europe.
Bullshit!
FUCK THAT!!!
SDRA8 in Belgium.
Absalon in Denmark.
TD BDJ in Germany (where a former Nazi, Gehlen, was head of post-war German intel).
LOK in Greece.
Stay-Behind in Luxembourg.
I&O in Netherlands.
ROC in Norway.
Aginter Press in Portugal.
Red Quantum in Spain.
P26 in Switzerland.
Özel Harp Dairesi in Turkey.
AGAG in Sweden.
Plan Bleu in France.
OWSGV in Austria.
The name of the Finnish version is unknown.
Italy.
Giulio Andreotti.
Vincenzo Vinciguerra.
Licio Gelli.
Propagada 2 (Masonic lodge).
Nazis and fascists in South America.
Operation Condor.
CIA-backed Nazis in Ukraine.
Lebed.
Stepan Bandera.
Azov Battalion.
Ihor Kolomoyskyi.
The second or third richest person in Ukraine.
A Jew.
Who supports (and funds) the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.
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.
Retired as a KGB Lieutenant Colonel on the second day of the 1991 Soviet coup attempt against Gorbachev.
August 20, 1991.
“As soon as the coup began, I immediately decided which side I was on.”
One can assume that Putin was against the pro-communist coup.
As for Gorbachev.
Gorbachev the reformer.
Putin was on the same side as Yeltsin.
Which explains what happened next.
But we need to back up.
May 1990.
Putin starts working for the mayor of Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) as an advisor on international affairs.
So Putin was working for both the KGB and the mayor (Anatoly Sobchak).
Approximately one year later, he became head of the Committee for External Relations for the mayor of Leningrad.
June 28, 1991.
He was still in the KGB.
Putin held this job until 1996.
Remember when Putin retired from the KGB.
August 1991.
Concurrently, Putin was first deputy chairman for the Government of Saint Petersburg.
He assumed this role in March 1994.
About one year later, he organized the Saint Petersburg chapter of Our Home – Russia: a pro-government political party.
May 1995.
It was a liberal party.
It was founded by Viktor Chernomyrdin.
Pro-government. And liberal.
Remember, Russia had just gotten finished with being a communist country.
So the previous form of government was radically (totalitarian) liberal.
Putin was a legislative election campaign manager that same year.
For the next two years, he was leader of the Saint Petersburg chapter of Our Home – Russia.
1995-1997.
Sobchak, the Saint Petersburg mayor for whom Putin had begun working in 1990, lost his reelection bid.
Putin had been in charge of the reelection campaign.
At this point, Putin resigned his positions within the Saint Petersburg government.
He moved to Moscow.
He began working for Pavel Borodin as deputy chief of the Presidential Property Management Department.
June 1996.
Putin remained in this position for approximately a year.
March 1997.
Yeltsin, with whom Putin had sided in the failed August coup of 1991, hired Putin to become his deputy chief of staff.
March 26, 1997.
Putin held this position for about a year.
May 1998.
He also was the chief of the Main Control Directorate of the Presidential Property Management Department.
His tenure there lasted slightly longer.
June 1998.
This position was an important one.
Both his predecessor (Alexei Kudrin), and his successor (Nikolai Patrushev), wound up in positions of prominence and also worked with Putin later in their careers.
Putin successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in economics at the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute.
June 27, 1997.
His thesis advisor was Vladimir Litvinenko.
Putin then succeeded Viktoriya Mitina as First Deputy Chief of the Presidential Staff “for regions”.
May 25, 1998.
Two months later, he succeeded Sergey Shakhray as head of the commission for “delimitation of power” agreements “of the regions” and head of the President’s federal center.
July 15, 1998.
Putin soon-afterwards, by appointment of Yeltsin, became head of the FSB: the successor to the KGB.
July 25, 1998.
Here’s where our story gets interesting.
And here’s where the current Ukraine war started.
The Czech Republic (AKA Czechia) [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact] joined NATO.
Hungary [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact countries] joined NATO.
Poland [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact countries] joined NATO.
March 12, 1999.
Approximately five months later, Putin became acting Prime Minister of Russia.
August 9, 1999.
The Warsaw Pact was a mutual defense organization like NATO.
The Warsaw Pact ceased to exist on July 1, 1991.
When did the Warsaw Pact begin?
May 14, 1955.
When did NATO begin?
April 4, 1949.
The Soviets created the Warsaw Pact (CoMEcon) IN RESPONSE to the actions of NATO and the West.
So surely NATO dissolved after July 1, 1991, when the threat of the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist, right?
Oh, they didn’t.
Well, then surely NATO ceased operations at least when the USSR ceased to exist on December 26, 1991, right?
Oh, they didn’t take that opportunity for peace either, eh?
Are you fucking telling me that NATO, instead of disbanding and toning it down, INCORPORATED COUNTRIES FROM THEIR FORMER ADVERSARY (CoMEcon AKA the “Warsaw Pact” countries) INTO THEIR FUCKING “MUTUAL-DEFENSE ALLIANCE”?!?
Yes.
That’s exactly what NATO did.
Just five months before Putin first rose to the Prime Minister position in Russia.
1999.
22 years ago.
22 years ago NATO first began to BORDER RUSSIA, right?
[because Poland borders Russia]
No, actually.
NATO began to border Russia in 1949 (!) with the joining of founding member Norway.
Russia was patient.
It was only six years later (1955) that Russia (the Soviet Union) decided to make a proportionate riposte and create the Warsaw Pact zone IN RESPONSE to NATO.
So when Poland joined NATO in 1999, it became the second country bordering Russia to do so.
NATO has been on Russia’s doorstep since 1949.
And NATO set up a fucking tent on Russia’s doorstep in 1999.
Fifty years later.
NATO, if they were really about “defense” and peace, would not have taken this provocative action.
Yeltsin wanted Putin to be his successor.
And so Putin ran for President.
Putin had become Russia’s fifth Prime Minister in 18 months.
The State Duma overwhelmingly-approved this: 233 in favor, 84 against, and 17 abstained.
August 16, 1999.
Putin was an unknown outside of Russia.
He had only briefly been the head of the FSB.
Most intelligence analysts expected him to go the way of the four Prime Ministers who came before him (in a mere 18 months).
Yeltsin was sick.
He unexpectedly resigned.
And Putin became Acting President.
December 31, 1999.
Putin won an early Presidential election.
March 26, 2000.
He was inaugurated.
May 7, 2000.
Life came at him fast.
The Kursk submarine sunk.
August 12, 2000.
Another crisis arose two years later with the Moscow theater hostage crisis.
October 23, 2002.
Putin was elected to a second term.
March 14, 2004.
Here’s where “peace-loving” NATO stepped in again.
Bulgaria [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact countries] joined NATO.
Estonia [a former Soviet Republic bordering Russia] joined NATO.
Latvia [a former Soviet Republic bordering Russia] joined NATO.
Lithuania [a former Soviet Republic bordering Russia] joined NATO.
Romania [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact countries] joined NATO.
Slovakia [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact countries] joined NATO.
Slovenia [a former part of communist Yugoslavia] joined NATO.
March 29, 2004.
Wow.
So NATO, instead of being satisfied with expanding NATO by two countries in 1999 (and bordering Russia with two members), decided to expand by a further SEVEN (!) countries (giving them FIVE members that border Russia).
The provocativeness of this cannot be understated.
Russia does not have a mutual defense treaty with Canada.
Because Canada is in NATO.
And Russia does not have a mutual defense treaty with Mexico.
Indeed, Russia no longer has nukes in Cuba.
It is approximately 230 miles from Havana, Cuba to Miami, Florida.
The world almost ended in October 1962 because of this kind of proximity.
230 miles.
And how far is Tallinn, Estonia (a part of NATO since 2004) from Saint Petersburg, Russia?
Approximately 230 miles.
Look it up.
Don’t take my word for it.
Google.
Havana to Miami.
And.
Tallinn to St. Petersburg (in miles).
Are there nukes in Tallinn?
Probably not.
But there are NATO forces in Tallinn.
And in Estonia.
NATO was on Russia’s doorstep for six years (since 1949) before the Warsaw Pact even existed .
NATO pitched a tent on Russia’s doorstep in 1999 with the accession of Poland.
And then NATO effectively started brandishing weapons on Russia’s doorstep with the accession of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 2004.
What would you do if someone was on your doorstep?
You ask questions.
You find out their name is Norway and they’re in a gang called NATO.
They say, “if you mess with me, then my gang will declare war on you”.
Pretty unsettling.
But you let them hang out and loiter on your doorstep for fifty years.
After fifty years, they bring a friend named Poland and set up a tent on your doorstep.
They are there, every day and every night, sleeping in their tent and cooking on their camping stove.
They leave their trash everywhere.
They act like they own your doorstep.
You cannot leave your house by your front door.
You have to go out of your garage.
Or through your backyard and out the side gate.
Five years later, Norway and Poland (NATO gang members), bring their gang buddies Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to live in the tent on your doorstep.
It’s getting crowded in that tent!
But this time there’s something even more unsettling.
These gang members are brandishing automatic weapons.
They have hand guns.
Every time you look out your peephole, you see the five people on your porch.
And they are heavily armed!
That is where Putin was at in 2004 when he began his second Presidential term.
Since then, NATO has added:
-Albania [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact] in 2009
-Croatia [a former part of communist Yugoslavia] in 2009
-Montenegro [a former part of communist Yugoslavia] in 2017
-North Macedonia [a former part of communist Yugoslavia] in 2020
East, east, east.
Always east.
Ever eastwards!
NATO is the gang on Russia’s porch.
It started with Norway loitering and saying, “mess with me and you mess with my gang”.
For fifty years Russia let punk Norway hang out and brag about their gang.
After fifty years, Norway and their buddy Poland (another NATO gang member), set up a tent on Russia’s porch.
Day and night.
Norway and Poland talking shit about how their gang would fuck Russia up.
Russia used to be in a gang.
Two, actually.
Russia was the kingpin of both of them.
The capo.
NATO are crips.
CoMEcon (Warsaw Pact)/USSR were bloods.
The bloods have ceased to exist.
Their gang has been broken up.
The bloods (Russia) even made their colors red, white, and blue: same as USA and France (two of NATO’s founding members).
The bloods have taken on the ways of the crips.
The bloods are a defeated gang.
But that’s not good enough for the crips.
The crips want to push their face into the pavement and grind it.
In 2014, with five armed gang members living in a tent on their porch, Russia decided to start going in and out of its own front door again.
They invented a curse word.
Russia invented a curse word.
The word is/was, “Crimea!”
At first, the gang members were shocked that the homeowner (Russia) had grown a pair of balls.
And then every day it happened.
Russia would emerge from its front door.
The gang members would brandish their weapons and say, “why don’t you try something?”
The gang members would say, “this is our porch now, motherfucker!”
And Russia would just say, “Crimea river!”
Russia would go out to the mailbox.
Russia would enter and leave through its own front door.
For eight years Russia has been doing this.
Refusing to be prisoners in their own home.
But last year a new little shit named Ukraine started hanging out in the tent on the porch.
And Ukraine said, “We’re gonna prevent you from saying, ‘Crimea river!'”
Russia said, “How are you going to do that?”
Ukraine said, “I’m gonna fuck you up if you say, ‘Crimea river!'”
Russia asked, “Are you in this NATO gang?”
Ukraine replied, “Well, not yet. But I want to be. And I’m gonna join as soon as possible.”
This last reply was in the fall of 2021.
There was a new shit on the block: Ukraine.
And Ukraine wanted to be the badass.
Ukraine wanted to make sure that Russia could no longer enter and leave through its own front door.
But Ukraine made a threat.
Ukraine said, “As soon as I get into NATO, I’m gonna fuck you up the first time I hear the words, ‘Crimea river!'”
Russia finally decided to do something.
Russia thought, “Ok, I can’t fight these five gang members living with automatic weapons in a tent on my porch. There’s too many of them. But I cannot go back to being unable to enter and leave through my own front door. So there is only one solution. I must fight the one who is threatening my freedom. I should be able to enter and leave through my own front door. And these gang members let me do that. I can even tell them to go fuck themselves and get away with it. Because I’m polite. I just say, ‘Crimea river!’ But now the time has come. I cannot tolerate little shit Ukraine telling me that he is gonna restrict my movement and my speech ON MY OWN FRONT PORCH! This little comedian shit has made his intentions known: as soon as he joins the NATO gang, he is gonna have them fuck me up in colossal manner anytime I exert my ownership of my own house. As soon as I go out to check the mail and they heckle me. As soon as I respond with a relatively-tame, ‘Crimea river!’, Ukraine is gonna sic the entire fucking gang on my ass. So that is the final straw. I can’t fight the whole bullshit gang of thugs, but I can fight the little shit. And I must fight him before he gets into the gang. Now is the time. Do or die.”
After awhile, you wonder whether such will ever appear again.
To call Mattew (Mateo) Stoneman a white “mariachi” singer is somewhat misleading.
But that’s the gist of it.
The premise.
Of this documentary.
No, this isn’t the Columbian drama Mateo from about the same year.
This is Mateo, the priceless documentary directed by Aaron Naar.
Why perfect?
Why priceless?
Because it is true.
I can attest.
To the life of the musician.
Somewhere…I must have been dreaming…while watching.
But the life of a musician is really not even worth two dollars.
I know.
I know the life of a rubbish-filled room.
Sleeping on some pillows.
Or a mattress on the floor.
Bedbug man comes to spray.
Doesn’t know where to start.
I know the life of playing crap gigs.
All for the big payoff.
To leave a legacy.
I know.
Mr. Stoneman (Mateo) references Scorsese.
That’s rich. And right.
Talking to the filmmaker.
Do we ever see him?
The man with the movie camera?
I don’t know.
But he more-or-less makes himself invisible in this pungent story.
We get Los Angeles.
Where I should be.
But I chose another path.
And yet, Mateo chose the right one.
For him.
Follow the music.
Not the money.
Follow your heart.
Play and write and sing until your heart gives out.
Until the apple juice and Subway sandwiches finally kill you.
Bukowski described it as dog food.
The life of a writer.
Or musician.
Alpo.
Post office.
But what Mateo does is scrimp and save.
Because he’s addicted to recording.
Or rather, he’s making his masterpiece.
A $350,000 album.
Self-funded.
No record label.
Fuck ’em.
This guy, Mateo, has cojones.
A white man in a brown man’s genre.
But he’s all love.
Love for the music.
And the kicker is Cuba.
Yes, dear friends…
Much of our action happens in Havana.
Over and over and over again…Mateo travels to Cuba.
To record.
It’s real.
Quantegy GP9 tape.
2″
I may be useless to most of the world, but I get this.
Reel after reel after reel.
And so it is mambo.
But so soft and subtle.
Like the bossa nova of 60s Brazil.
But Mateo succeeds in his aspiration.
And so his voice is feathery-light…like Billie Holiday on Lady in Satin.
Because Mateo Stoneman had to pay his dues.
Prison.
A thief.
Almost like François Villon.
Stealing to make music.
To afford to record.
I’ve been there.
Pawned all my best shit.
To make a record.
Nobody heard.
Or cared about.
But finally for me it came down to family.
And we get some of that too.
Matthew (Mateo) Stoneman.
From New Hampshire.
We wonder about Ernest Stoneman.
Virginia.
And we get Ernest Hemingway.
20 years in Cuba.
“Who was he?,” asks the novia.
Dead guy.
Shot himself.
Up in Ketchum.
Next to where Ezra Pound, his champion, was from.
Hailey.
These are the savant details which Stoneman, Mateo can rattle off concerning music.
And I can do the same.
But I had to diversify.
So from cornering the market in shit, I spread my tentacles into manure.
A bit too pithy a metaphor.
But just so you know.
The life of a musician.
One minute up.
Touring Japan. Or Sweden.
Signing autographs.
Wads of money in your pocket.
Next minute down.
Catching hell from the two-bit valets.
Having to pull out the LA Times.
Look.
This is me, motherfucker.
…it ain’t easy.
Sticking to your guns.
Your dreams.
Through extreme poverty.
Duress.
But Mateo shows you what it takes.
Dream big.
You might be autistic.
You might have crippling anxiety.
You might have existential episodes…depression…woozy disorientation.
“What the fuck am I doing?!?”
So do the best of them/us.
And so if I am counted “in that number”…of saints…like Mateo…then I am happy that I have lived my life bravely and to the last drop of blood and courage.
This must be “Axis of Evil” week here at paulydeathwish.com 🙂
As I have stated recently to a friend.
George W. Bush was the worst President the United States has ever seen.
And Barack Obama was probably the second-worst.
So what does that make me?
Democrat?
Republican?
Libertarian?
Let’s get to that question (if you even care to know) by a circuitous route, shall we?
First, we must again praise the people of Iran.
It was long ago that I saw my first Iranian film.
Taste of Cherry.
طعم گيلاس…
[Ta’m-e gīlās…]
It was such a profound experience.
There I was.
In a movie theater in Austin.
And I couldn’t have given a shit about cinema.
But I was there.
For some reason.
God only knows why.
And I saw a movie which in many ways changed my life.
[but it took many years to sink in]
Even so, I came to regard the name of its director (Abbas Kiarostami) with a sort of awe.
Yet, I doubted.
[as we all well should]
And so I said to the cinema gods, “Let Kiarostami perform his miracle again…if he be so brilliant!”
And he did.
I was supposed to be watching Life, and Nothing More…
But I made a mistake.
Because my French is so bad.
[you know, Kiarostami died in Paris last year (may God rest his soul)]
I needed 1991, but I chose 1990.
And it was another miracle.
Close-Up.
I don’t know.
Is it…
کلوزآپ ?
Or…
نمای نزدیک ?
[“Klūzāp”? Or “nemā-ye nazdīk”?]
Because the unfailing Google Translate (now the second-most popular “tr” search after “Trump” [as “translate”]) tells me that both terms mean “close-up”.
But who can translate Trump?
[ahhh…]
Perhaps only an Iranian?
Well, we would be in good hands if director Jafar Panahi was that man.
Why?
Because Mr. Panahi has made a film which is of the same rarefied air as the two Kiarostami films which I have referenced.
The work is called Jafar Panahi’s Taxi, and it is currently available on Netflix in the U.S.
No, it’s not a really trite game show.
No, it’s not some premise for an uncreative pornographer.
Jafar Panahi’s Taxi ( تاکسی) pushes the limits of barebones filmmaking in much the same way that the Palestinian masterpiece 5 Broken Cameras did.
[yes, I know the latter film was an Israeli coproduction…with an Israeli co-director…but the film was very much Palestinian in its inmost heart]
What our director Mr. Panahi adds to the method (budget cinematography) is an uncertainty of reality.
Frankly, I have never seen a film quite like Jafar Panahi’s Taxi.
Is it a documentary? Is it staged?
One thing’s for sure.
If it’s staged, the injured man and his wailing wife deserve Oscars “toot sweet”!
Truly, it is panic-inducing…
Which is not true of this film in general.
No, dear eggshell friends (if you’re out there)…don’t be afraid.
Jafar Panahi’s Taxi will only take you on a “wondrous boat ride” (so to speak) for a brief, more-or-less manageable period of time.
The rest of the film is fascinating…engrossing…painfully and gloriously perplexing.
Yes, Mr. Panahi borrows Kiarostami’s favorite device: filming from a moving vehicle.
But so what?!?
Panahi was an assistant director to Kiarostami.
And Abbas certainly wasn’t the first to film out of a car window.
But let’s examine for a moment…
Yes, the special part of this method is that the camera is turned INWARDS.
And so we feel we are seeing Homayoun Ershadi vacillate between life and death…all over again.
Or we feel we are seeing the calm, gracious mannerisms of Mohsen Makhmalbaf transposed from motorcycle to taxicab.
But what we are seeing most of all is a director stepping in front of the camera.
Like Truffaut.
And Chaplin before him.
Godard has done it to excellent effect as well.
And Jafar Panahi is like an empty reed of meditation as he navigates an unending stream of chaos which enters his faux-taxi.
But the most poignant moments are when Hana Saeidi reminds us of the childish joy of being an auto passenger…and when the lawyer Ms. Nasrin Sotoudeh addresses us…we, the watchers of cinema.
Who will watch those watching the watchers?
It’s like Juvenal in a hall of mirrors.
But Ms. Sotoudeh breaks the fourth wall and takes us to a very special place.
Prison.
And so, again, frankly: we don’t know how Jafar Panahi’s Taxi was ever made.
Isn’t Iran one of the most intolerant countries on Earth?
Just what is going on here??
All of this Shostakovich-ean rebellion is really breathtaking when under the microscope of close viewing.
But Jafar Panahi remains stone-faced.
Like Buster Keaton.
Yet, this is largely no comedy.
This is a big “fuck you” to the government of Iran.
And yet, it is the most subtle “fuck you” ever committed to film.
Only a genius can do such things.
DSCH
etc.
Yes, dear friends. Mr. Panahi has been banned from making films.
And yet he made one.
And then another.
And then this one.
So we salute you, Mr. Panahi.
We appreciate such in America.
To illustrate:
<–fuck you, fuck you–>, and most of all…fuck you ^
That is freedom.
It is ugly.
Messy.
But it works.
And so as a Donald Trump supporter (yes, me), I say, “bring it on, you whiny, sub-literate protesters!”
Maybe they’re right.
But it’s their right.
To protest.
And so we mix and knead.
And we need the yeast of dissent to ever grow again.
First, I owe a deep apology to my fellow bloggers who have continued to follow and support me. I have been swamped with work and embroiled in the current US election. Thank you so much for your kindness! I look forward to graduating with a master’s degree in about a month and hope to “get back on the wagon” of following each and every one of your amazing blogs.
Second, my conscience requires that I addend my previous takes on two very controversial figures: Marina Abramović and Edward Snowden.
As I have continued my research on Ms. Abramović, I am more and more convinced that her dabblings in the occult are not mere innocent instances of artistic expression. I still do not know what role she plays in the increasingly lurid child sex ring which is leaking from NYPD and FBI sources, but her buddies the Podestas (John Podesta, Hillary’s campaign chairman, and his brother Tony) seem more and more solidly “in the tank” as regards genuine sexual abuse of minors, child trafficking, and (even more shocking) ritualistic murder of these same kidnapped children.
I am not saying that the Podestas are guilty of these crimes. I am, however, pointing out that mounting evidence suggests they are part of something which bears this general outline. Also involved is the (likely) Saudi spy Huma Abedin. But the kingpins seem to be the Clintons themselves.
I was a bit dismissive of hysteria when I defended Marina Abramović’s artistic merits. I do still think she is an incredibly gifted artist. But no amount of genius excuses child rape and ritualistic murder of young people. [We shall be discussing here a similarly “brilliant” psychopath: Lex Luthor.]
Quite frankly, Hillary Clinton seems to be a witch in the most literal sense.
Lexi Luthor?
Lexus Luthor?
It was my imperfect knowledge which caused my failure to grasp the bigger picture in the Abramović case (“spirit cooking”, in which the Podesta brothers and John’s wife Mary engaged in presumably a dinner with artist Marina Abramović which likely involved ingesting breast milk, semen, urine, and blood).
But there is more to “spirit cooking”…and more to Marina Abramović.
First, it has been suggested that the TRUEST (most genuine) “spirit cooking” would be, essentially, cannibalism: eating the flesh or organs of spirits (dead children) who are cooked.
Second, Abramović’s references are not anodyne. I cannot get into the details of “spirit cooking’s” connections to Aleister Crowley and Thelema because I am not conversant in such esoteric knowledge. But I can confirm that child sacrifice is an obsession of the ruling elites in at least the US and UK (as evidenced by the opening ceremonies of Bohemian Club meetings near San Francisco which are documented to include a “mock” child sacrifice called “the cremation of care”).
My conclusion that Hillary Clinton truly practices illegal manifestations of magic is partly due to the words of former Clinton family employee Larry Nichols who is on record as saying that Bill Clinton told him that Hillary Clinton would make monthly (at least) treks to California to participate in a witches’ coven. You can bet she wasn’t playing second fiddle at these shindigs!
And so what my readers must understand is that, for these perverse elites, black magic is very real. At the very least, it appears that they are engaged in illegal activities pursuant to these ritualistic leanings. And thus, as stated, my take on Marina Abramović was both uninformed and naïve insofar as occult context goes.
Hillary Luthor.
vs. Superman.
I must make a further confession. I may have done injustice to Edward Snowden to be so skeptical of his aims. The same goes for my suspicion of Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras.
And I’ll tell you why.
The majority of real news we are getting in the USA is thanks to WikiLeaks.
Edward Snowden has certainly been lumped in with Julian Assange.
To my satisfaction, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have proven themselves to be a credible (and priceless) asset for world freedom.
And so perhaps I was too harsh on Snowden.
One thing is certain: we must remember that the eyes are the most easily-fooled of our senses.
So for me to proclaim, as an amateur film critic, that I know the score of Snowden’s veracity should not be taken as gospel truth.
Superman.
Is Edward Snowden the Superman in this whole thing?
Is Assange?
Actually, I would make the case that it is (rather) Donald Trump who is the true Superman on the world stage at the moment.
And it is indeed germane that he be facing off against Hillary Luthor.
And so we have a brilliant movie.
From director Richard Donner.
This is what superhero movies should be like.
Back when CGI didn’t suck (and the Clinton Global Initiative was yet to exist).
Superman brings hope.
To the deepest, darkest, most depressed and forgotten corners of America.
Not insignificant, Superman is a journalist by day.
The names here are blockbuster.
Marlon Brando as Superman’s biological father.
Perhaps James Comey is like Brando’s character Jor-El (who pronounces judgment against insurrectionists but then must acquiesce to the fate of death for he and his wife).
Which is to say, maybe James Comey of the US FBI is an honorable man.
Sure doesn’t seem like it.
But from surrender, a child is borne upon the seas of outer space.
Glenn Ford is excellent as Superman’s adoptive father.
Phyllis Thaxter is wonderful as Superman’s adoptive mother.
Jeff East is very good as the teenage Clark Kent.
Superman is all about the outcast getting his revenge on society…BY DOING GOOD!
Are you an outcast?
Yes.
Me too.
And we all know pain.
The pain of discrimination. Not fitting in. Being the odd man out. The ugly duckling.
We can feel that the world (our little world) doesn’t want us.
And it is tremendously traumatic.
But Superman is a bit like Saint Jude the Apostle: patron saint of lost causes.
Superman speaks to the most lowly among us.
Schizophrenics. Shut-ins. Impoverished. Living in squalor.
Superman lets us dream.
We may have nothing but a VCR. We have never gone on a date, much less had a girlfriend.
The world has forgotten about us.
But Superman gives us hope.
That someone or some thing is going to come along and lift us out of our misery.
The Trump connection is strong.
Doesn’t drink. Doesn’t smoke.
Superman.
The World Trade Center (still standing) in the background (1978).
As Christopher Reeve zips through the New York City sky.
Mr. Reeve is astonishingly good as an actor in this film.
Enter Lois Lane.
Margot Kidder is so charming in this film 🙂
Her skinny little frame never stops moving as she tries to get the latest scoop in her job as a reporter.
But what else does Superman represent?
He represents the good cops who dive into the abyss each night to patrol the unpredictability of our streets.
He represents the good FBI who “damn the torpedoes” and go after the bad guys (and gals) [whomever they turn out to be].
Superman fights crime.
He never lies.
Superman is a protector.
Like the brave Secret Service agents who did a wonderful job shielding Mr. Trump two days ago in Reno from what could have been imminent gunfire.
Supermen are willing human shields.
Defenders.
Like our military.
And Superman does not suffer the deviance of pencil pushers who would try and leverage their brilliance to harm people.
If I was a Hillary supporter, I would compare Trump to Lex Luthor (realtors both).
But sometimes history offers us a counterintuitive option.
Donald Trump, while a realtor, is not out to screw the American public.
He has enough money.
He’s not a sycophant like Hillary.
The famous red “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) hat does not feature Trump’s name on it.
It’s not about him.
It’s about America.
Hillary’s campaign always comes back to her…in a self-serving way.
The ubiquitous H signs and the trite “I’m with her” détournement of a decades-old pop culture phrase.
Neither of Hillary’s taglines (including “Stronger Together”) ring true.
Mostly because SHE doesn’t ring true. In anything. At all. Ever.
But Superman is for real teamwork.
Superman has humility.
But he also has immense confidence. Pride, not arrogance.
And not least, Superman has a wry sense of humor.
With Luthor’s “staffer” Otis (Ned Beatty), there are a plethora of possible parallels to the iniquitous (and, frankly, incompetent) team of ass-kissers with whom Hillary has surrounded herself.
While John Podesta may very well be categorically evil, he’s no evil genius.
What kind of idiot forgoes the advice to encrypt?
But Hillary is really her own Otis.
Only Otis would be so dumb as to use a personal email server and (among other things) let her Filipino maid print out classified documents while Hillary was at Foggy Bottom.
Which makes Hillary the foggy bottom-feeder. Always. Forever.
Good attracts evil.
Good can change evil (and vice versa).
But be good…and you will reap the rewards of goodness.
Perhaps Valerie Perrine will rescue you from a swimming pool 🙂
We must save our mothers in Hackensack.
If you’re on the side of evil, it’s time to switch teams.
Good is merciful.
Do not wait until it’s too late.
Hillary has poisoned her own well just like Lex Luthor.
She is coming down.
It’s not a question of if, but rather of when.
However, those who have the opportunity to expose her misdeeds and yet stay silent must bear upon their consciences their accessory roles as silent partners to the evil destruction of America.
There may not be another chance.
So many people are tied to Hillary’s ring of corruption.
If they retain power, they will use all means necessary to purge the country of dissenters.
I could have sworn the titles said Hududların Kanunu, but there’s never any mistakes on Wikipedia, right?
So we are going with Hudutların Kanunu.
The Law of the Border.
And it is such an honor to review another Turkish film.
I must say, this one really “spoke” to me.
Not only does Yılmaz Güney play the lead role of Hidir, but this same actor also wrote the screenplay.
As I watched Yılmaz Güney’s wonderful portrayal of the smuggler Hidir, I was reminded of Antonin Artaud’s acting in La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc.
Güney’s penetrating eyes and stoic face are very similar to Artaud’s physical features.
But not only that.
It occurs to me that Güney bears a striking resemblance to a more contemporary figure: Vladimir Putin.
This is all the more interesting when one considers that Güney was born Yılmaz Pütün.
Hmmm…
Güney was a Zaza Kurd who apparently got in trouble often with the Turkish government.
He died an early death at age 47 (in 1984).
Whether Hudutların Kanunu is propaganda is beside the point.
It certainly has traits of propaganda films, but it’s such a damn good movie that it doesn’t really matter.
Yes, there is a social justice angle to Güney’s story, but much credit should go to the wonderful directing job of Ömer Lütfi Akad.
Though Güney himself was a director as well, he did not direct this film.
Güney, by the way, had a fascinating life (including an escape from prison in 1981 and a subsequent Palme d’Or at Cannes for the film Yol).
[Sounds a bit like Timothy Leary’s prison-break and rendezvous in Switzerland with Ash Ra Tempel.]
If my numbers are correct, Güney acted in 14 films released in 1966 (!) [including this one] and also directed one as well.
Only one copy of Hudutların Kanunu survived Ahmet Kenan Evren’s 1980 coup in Turkey.
I would describe this wonderful film as being like a 1960s Turkish version of Sicario.
Though The Law of the Border is not a big-budget movie (a military officer comically says “let’s surround them” when he only has three soldiers [himself included]), the film is overall convincing. It conveys a very powerful story.
As stated earlier, the principal activity at issue is smuggling.
What could be more timely to this day and age?
In the US it is drugs (from Mexico), and in Turkey it is perhaps other things (coming in and out of Syria).
And if the main character looks like Putin?!?
Well, it certainly confuses the meaning, but it still makes it like a Salvador Dalí dream.
It’s like a perfect storm of symbolism.
Furthermore, besides being a film set on a border, a main issue is education in Turkey.
This is, once again, a very timely issue.
As you might have heard last year, there were many protests by high school students in Turkey about the trend of religious schools replacing secular (or science) schools.
Incidentally, our director Ömer Lütfi Akad went to the oldest high school in Turkey: Galatasaray Lisesi in Istanbul. The school was started in 1481.
But let me tell you something important…
This film is very entertaining!!!
The gunfights!
Whizz! Bing! Pow!
It reminds me a bit of Howard Hawks’ Scarface from 1932.
Also at issue in this film is the concept of change.
Can a person change their beliefs?
Like me…
Can I change my beliefs?
I am 39.
Yılmaz Güney was 29 at the time of this film.
Can we change our beliefs?
And should we?
For Güney’s character Hidir, changing his beliefs is a Herculean effort.
And the moral of the somewhat-propagandistic story is that he’s a hero…JUST FOR TRYING.
He tried to change.
He makes a valiant effort.
A bit like Samuel L. Jackson’s character Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction.
This is the challenge for the world.
To look ourselves in our mirrors and make an effort.
Not physically (necessarily), but philosophically.
I’m not here to offer you propaganda.
But I am very concerned with the situation the real Vladimir Putin has been put in in Syria.
Why do we fight? [to echo the old series of American propaganda films from WWII]
We fight for the same reason anyone else does.
Or rather, Putin fights because he has drawn a line.
No more American aggression.
Syria is his line.
It’s not a game.
It’s real blood and real tears.
Proxy wars are not like AGMs (annual general meetings).
They are more like air-to-ground missiles (AGMs).
War is not a strictly academic affair.
It’s messy. It’s sad. It’s unnecessary (most of the time).
And the US and Russia have painted themselves into a corner.
That corner is Syria.
Perhaps Hudutların Kanunu is the Sholay of Turkey.
Perhaps it is The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Anatolia.
One thing is sure: Yılmaz Güney, “the Ugly King” (Çirkin Kral), was a brilliant man.
As if Jeremy Bentham was tomorrow appointed head of the NSA.
From the single, centralized watchtower.
Stares out the embalmed ego of Bentham.
Auto-icon.
It’s just a skeleton stuffed with hay. Dressed in Bentham’s clothes.
Like the panopticon.
A straw man prison.
Dear friends, I know of no film which conveys the horror of the 21st century.
Quite like this gem of resistance against totalitarianism.
This was the underbelly of communism.
The “evil empire” of which Reagan spoke.
His words seem funny today. His unscientific, hypocritical words.
Because the Red Scare in the United States was typified by the same methods on display.
Here.
Surveillance.
Which I fear will not subside anytime soon.
Nor has this wave even crested.
“Mass surveillance doesn’t work,” Mr. Snowden wrote. “This bill will take money and liberty without improving safety.”
Finally The New York Times prints something worthwhile.
And even Hillary Clinton’s “History made.” ad can’t deflate the importance of Snowden’s words.
And so if you want to see the 12-tone paranoia of the communist “big brother” state (now that we are living in a “capitalist” big brother state), I would heartily recommend The Ear by director Karel Kachyňa.
It was banned for 19 years in Czechoslovakia.
Because it got real close to the truth.
It painted the communist party leaders as a bunch of jerks.
It portrayed the constant suspicion upon bureaucrats as a living nightmare.
The Ear. Maybe some HUMINT at the party.
But largely this film deals with SIGINT (if author Jeffrey T. Richelson can be trusted).
The Ear deals primarily with what Richelson calls “clandestine SIGINT” in his book The U.S. Intelligence Community.
What we encounter in Ucho are “the oldest of these devices” (viz. “traditional audio surveillance devices”).
Wikipedia does a passable job outlining this area of inquiry in the article “Covert listening device”.
But dear friends…describing it so matter-of-factly does no justice to the strain which omnipresent surveillance puts on largely innocent people.
And therefore The Ear is a film which shows the psychological toll that governments exact when they make ethics secondary.
What we get from director Karel Kachyňa is the portrait of a society (his society) which assumes all citizens to be guilty until proven innocent.
This is ostensibly the opposite of the American system, but today’s Amerika is merely the other side of the coin: same pervasion of surveillance (even if it is “capitalist”).
My hypothesis is that “free market” America has come to all-to-closely resemble the regimes it fought to defeat. Those “victories”, then, were hollow. We have appropriated the worst, most tortuous means of our past enemies.
But Kachyňa has another message for us in this masterpiece.
In such upside-down societies, promotion might be the worst form of punishment.
paulydeathwish 