Victims

I'd like to share a few vague and ill-formed thoughts on an important topic: The strange allure of "victim" status.

In recent posts, we looked at some well-known instances of women who brought false rape accusations. Statistics indicate that the problem may be worse than previously supposed.

Now zoom out for a larger view.

One of those earlier posts referenced the case of Lauren Stratford (real name: Laurel Rose Willson), who wrote a popular book about her alleged persecution by conspiratorial Satanists. Later, she claimed to be a concentration camp survivor -- even though documentation proves that she spent her childhood in Canada. Her "camp" memories were seconded by one Binjamin Wilkomirski, another fraud.

Inevitably, the exposure of the Stratford and Wilkomirski hoaxes proved useful to the Holocaust revisionists -- who are themselves fraudsters of a different sort.

Without giving aid or credence to the "revisionist" goon squads, we may fairly ask: Just how many Laurens and Binjamins are out there? I'm not just talking about false Holocaust claimants, of which there are, fortunately, only a handful. I'm talking about a widespread cultural disease with a dizzying variety of symptoms.

The sorry history of this planet offers many genuine cases of oppression, persecution, mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide. We must find ways to talk about the dangers of "victim chic" while maintaining proper respect for the real victims, of which we have an appallingly abundant number.

Take, for example, the religion known as Wicca.

Like all other religions, Wicca has its foundation myths. Practitioners like to pretend that theirs is the world's most ancient religion, even though it was actually invented by a genial oddball named Gerald Gardner in the 1930s. So far, so harmless.

Less innocent, perhaps, is the Wiccan rallying cry: "No more burning times!" Many self-proclaimed "witches" identify themselves with the victims of the great European witch hunts of the early modern period. Worse, they have an utterly skewed idea of that history.

A figure of nine million victims (or "nine million women" killed) in the European witch-hunts is an influential popular myth in 20th century feminism and neopaganism.

Voigt's and Roskoff's nine million figure is too high by a factor of at least 100 according to modern estimates, but it has kept on being repeated throughout the second half of the 20th century, by Gerald Gardner (1954) and subsequently in Gardnerian Wicca and second wave feminism, as late as in the 1990 The Burning Times film and the lyrics of the 2005 Burning Times album by Christy Moore.

The best books I've read about the witch hunts are Norman Cohn's Europe's Inner Demons and Elliot Rose's wittily-titled A Razor for a Goat (the "razor" being Occam's). According to these scholarly works, the number of victims was roughly 50,000. Men and women were persecuted equally, and the barbarism was (slightly) worse in Protestant countries than in Catholic countries.

Yet the legends live on. Many people today believe that wearing a pentagram and repeating the phrase "blessed be" confers spiritual kinship with the persecuted millions.

True, today's fundamentalist Christians have been known to spread nonsensical conspiracy stories about witches. But paranoia does not justify counter-paranoia, myth does not justify counter-myth, and screwing with history is always uncool.

Speaking of fundamentalist Christians...

At some point in the 1970s, they began to circulate the myth that their imaginary "one world government" would soon try to quash their faith. Throughout the 1980s and '90s, a strange, quasi-samisdat literature persuaded millions that the American government had already erected concentration camps designed to be filled, one day, by the followers of Jesus. Many people still believe this malarky.

Those who traffic in this legend can point to actual examples of persecution of Christians -- in communist countries and in certain Islamic nations. Which brings us back to our main problem: "Victim chic" always justifies itself by pointing to real-world examples of victimization.

The Tea Partiers show us what can happen when the "Laren Stratfords" among us receive major funding. They have convinced much of the country that Obama has raised taxes, when in fact he has lowered them. They believe that Obama was strangled capitalism with draconian financial regulations, when in fact he gave the economy over to Wall Streeters Larry Summers and Tim Geithner. They argue that Obama has instituted socialized medicine, even though this administration's health care plan was a gift to the (unnecessary and vampiric) insurance industry.

These fantasies are credibilized by a kernel of truth: Obama has indeed been a terrible president -- precisely because he did not do the things which teabaggers believe he has done.

I suppose a few words must be said here about America's view of the Holocaust.

Over the years, American attitudes (both within the Jewish community and outside of it) toward that unparalleled crime have shifted. The nature of the shift is elusive and difficult to explain, although Norman Finkelstein has made an interesting attempt to find the right words:

My original interest in the Nazi holocaust was personal. Both my father and mother were survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps. Apart from my parents, every family member on both sides was exterminated by the Nazis. My earliest memory, so to speak, of the Nazi holocaust is my mother glued in front of the television watching the trial of Adolf Eichmann (1961) when I came home from school. Although they had been liberated from the camps only sixteen years before the trial, an unbridgeable abyss always separated, in my mind, the parents I knew from that.

Photographs of my mother's family hung on the living-room wall. (None from my father's family survived the war.) I could never quite make sense of my connection with them, let alone conceive what happened. They were my mother's sisters, brother and parents, not my aunts, uncle or grandparents. I remember reading as a child John Hersey's The Wall and Leon Uris's Mila 18, both fictionalized accounts of the Warsaw Ghetto. (I still recall my mother complaining that, engrossed in The Wall, she missed her subway stop on the way to work.) Try as I did, I couldn't even for a moment make the imaginative leap that would join my parents, in all their ordinariness, with that past. Frankly, I still can't.

The more important point, however, is this. Apart from this phantom presence, I do not remember the Nazi holocaust ever intruding on my childhood. The main reason was that no one outside my family seemed to care about what had happened. My childhood circle of friends read widely, and passionately debated the events of the day. Yet I honestly do not recall a single friend (or parent of a friend) asking a single question about what my mother and father endured. This was not a respectful silence. It was simply indifference. In this light, one cannot but be skeptical of the outpourings of anguish in later decades, after the Holocaust industry was firmly established.

I sometimes think that American Jewry "discovering" the Nazi holocaust was worse than its having been forgotten. True, my parents brooded in private; the suffering they endured was not publicly validated. But wasn't that better than the current crass exploitation of Jewish martyrdom? Before the Nazi holocaust became The Holocaust, only a few scholarly studies such as Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of the European Jews and memoirs such as Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and Ella Lingens-Reiner's Prisoners of Fear were published on the subject. But this small collection of gems is better than the
shelves upon shelves of shlock that now line libraries and bookstores.

I cannot agree with Finkelstein. A lifetime of "brooding in private" hardly seems healthy or reasonable. Our society has greatly benefited from an intense and ongoing discussion of Nazi barbarity, and I certainly would not restrict the literature to a mere three books.

And yet...

I had a Jewish stepfather and thus can claim to have spent the 1960s and 1970s growing up in a family that was at least partly Jewish. My stepfather came from New York and had no relatives (at least no close ones) who suffered during the war.

He was the first to tell me about the extermination camps. Although he emphasized (correctly) the tragedy of the Jews, he also made very clear that Hitler had many other victims. In fact, he used to do a grimly comic impersonation of Hitler celebrating his ultimate triumph -- delivering a speech to an empty stadium echoing with recorded Seig Heils.

"I think that's what he wanted in the end: Everyone gone but him."

The lesson my stepfather took from the Nazi era was simple. The world is mad. He repeated those words like a mantra.

During the 1970s, many Jews came to a subtly different conclusion: Not "the world is mad" but "they are out to get us." The problem is not humanity; it is non-Jewish humanity. The presumed Gentile desire to kill Jews -- to kill for the sake of killing -- is considered preternatural, inherent and ineradicable.

Finkelstein seems to link this attitudinal shift to the 1973 Yom Kippur war. I think he's wrong.

That shift within the Jewish community occurred at the same time fundamentalist Christians began to spread bizarre stories about the coming "one world gummint" crackdown on Christianity. Feminists began spreading the myth that All Men Are Born Rapists. Anti-feminists began spreading myths about a non-existent conspiracy of man-hating radical liberals. A resurgent Nation of Islam under Farrakhan revived the myth of the insidious Dr. Yakub. (Farrakhan, Falwell, Kahane: Same guy, different names.) Conservatives spread rumors of Soviet troops massing at the Mexican border, just waiting for the order to invade the United States. (Those rumors continued to circulate as late as 1995!) During the Carter administration, talk radio started to blare warnings about the Bilderbergers and the Illuminati and other scarecrows which continue to haunt our landscape.

The "Satanic Ritual Abuse" frenzy exemplifies the phenomenon. Arguably, the aliens-raped-me fad of twenty years ago was simply the most outre symptom of this cultural disease. The madness continues with allegations of a "war on Christmas."

To give our lives meaning, we need The Other. To make our failures comprehensible, we need persecutors. To make our sins bearable, we need Radical Outside Evil. To define us, we need them.

I'm a victim; you're a victim; wouldn't you like to be a victim too?

Or, to phrase the question another way: Are we all victims of "victim chic"?

Question for my readers...

Anyone out there know the law?

As many of you know, we've been preparing for a big cross-country trip. There was a delay, but right now it looks like we'll be on our way on or around New Year's day. To make this journey, we have purchased (for a very reasonable price) a sizable, low-mileage minivan that previously saw use as a well-maintained (we hope) fleet vehicle.

We call it the Hippo, in honor of the song: "We got a hippopotamus for Christmas..."

Problem: It has no plates.

We passed CA's infernally difficult smog test and paid our DMV reg fees. But -- get this -- the DMV guy would not hand over plates until we installed rear seats!

Y'see, under a particularly wacky subsection of California law, a minivan without rear seats is considered a commercial vehicle, which means that the reg fees would be more than three times the amount required for a passenger van. So the DMV guy told us to grab a rear seat from a junk yard and install it, along with seat belts.

Turns out installing those overhead belts is kind of a pain. I COULD do it -- but time is short.

To be honest, it just seems ridiculous to invest any further money and time acquiring "proper" CA registration when we are not even going to be living in CA after January 1. Once we get to our Eastern destination, we have to go through the whole damned process all over again.

We paid the reg fees for a passenger van. Right now, we have a temporary registration sticker in the back window, which allows us to drive here in the state throughout the month of January. (Those things are pretty common sights in California.) My question is this:

Do you think that we can drive across country with a temporary registration sticker?

If the Highway Patrol stops us, we will have paperwork proving ownership of the vehicle, as well as insurance and registration. I'd prefer not to be cited, and I sure as hell can't have the car impounded.

Frankly, we need to save the cash to pay for the registration hassle in Maryland, which will be expensive. Like all other states, MD seems to be hurting right now -- hence the much higher 2011 car reg fees, compared to last year. Also: There will be another emissions test, some sort of "vehicle inspection test," and a new, more expensive insurance policy. Yikes!

No doubt a lot of folks in Maryland have been grumbling about all this extra expense.

We'd be very grateful if anyone out there knows about what sort of treatment we can expect from the Highway Patrols in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- and maybe West Virginia.

(Why West Virginia? Because we're big fans of the Mothman legend, and we want to see where it all started.)

I thank you, my ladyfriend thanks you, my Hell-Hound thanks you, and the Hippo thanks you.

What happens when you sleep with woman #10?

(Note: The original version of this post was too discursive. I've cut some flab.) I didn't want to start the post-Christmas season with a discussion of Julian freaking Assange, but infuriating stories like this one in The Nation are mushrooming (toadstooling?) all across liberal-land, and they must be countered.

And everyone who believes and promotes the "information" that "Miss A" is a CIA "honeytrap" is an anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier. Because the original source for that story is one Israel Shamir, writing in Counterpunch and vigorously defended by Counterpunch editor and Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn...

In other words, Hitler was a vegetarian and therefore everyone who promotes vegetarianism must be a Nazi.

Screw that. This Cannonfire post gave the lowdown on Shamir -- and gave it well before The Nation saw fit to mention the guy, thank you very much. Yet I still believe that the "spookier" theories deserve a respectful hearing, as do a lot of other people, including some Swedes who wrote long before Shamir published in Counterpunch. (Please note that I said "a respectful hearing" -- not "blind acceptance.")

Incidentally, this blog has never had a kind word for Cockburn, who remains best-known for his work in (a-hem!) The Nation. In fact, Cockburn and Hitchens are the reasons why some folks stopped buying that rag.

A false dichotomy has taken hold across blogland: If you cast a suspicious eye toward the rape allegations, people will presume you to be an uncritical admirer of Assange. We saw a similar false dichotomy in 2008, when everyone who argued against Obama's liberal credentials was considered a mesmerized Hillary cultist and a racist.

Well, this post should immunize me against charges of being a blinkered Assange fan. Nothing I've read about this clown has made him seem lovable. So, like, neener.

In our political culture, these false dichotomies crop up every year or so, and they always serve the useful purpose of separating the second-rate minds from the first-raters. The dullards, unable to conceive of any alternative, will dutifully line up in front of door #1 or door #2, as long as those are the only doors recognized by the big opinion-shapers. Meanwhile, the independent thinkers will grab a jackhammer and carve out a door #3, and maybe doors 4 through 44. Why? Because we're ornery sunzabitches, and that's what ornery sunzabitches do.

Such is our purpose here.

In a previous post, we addressed the popular feminist meme that anyone who questions a rape accusation must be a rape enabler. In a perfect example of the fallacy of petitio principii, feminists refer to the accusers as "victims," as though accusation equals proof.

Let me clue you in to two facts. First: One out of ten human beings is flat-out loony. Second: Women are human beings.

If you've ever taken introductory logic, you know where this syllogism is going. Invite ten randomly chosen females into your bedroom, and chances are good that at least one of 'em will suffer from serious mental health issues. (If you think that females are inherently saner than males, please link to the scientific studies that prove your point.)

As noted previously, a respected study found that DNA evidence indicated the innocence of about a quarter of the American males who have been convicted of rape. Obviously, there are a lot of disturbed women out there -- Heidi Jones, for instance -- who cannot distinguish fantasy from reality.

Does this mean that we must sweep aside all rape accusations unsupported by physical evidence? Of course not. However -- and contrary to feminist mythology -- it is not only fair but mandatory to scrutinize the character and history of the accuser, and to judge each case on an individualized basis. We must exercise caution when considering any and all accusations, even when one ten-year-old boy accuses another ten-year-old boy of bicycle theft.

In the present case, you can't expect to get the whole story from this or any other single blog post, so read widely and skeptically. (If you don't read me skeptically, I'm ashamed to have you as a reader.) All we can do here is to present some aspects of this widely-discussed case which remain little-known to the dullards who have queued up in front of doors 1 and 2.

We'll start with this August 31 post by a Swedish investigator whose English is spotty but comprehensible:

Rumors online tell names of the two women who made the accusations. They are claimed to be Anna A (social democrats, SKS) and Amelia A (the pirate party). Both are active in politics and thus objects of public interest. Early on it is revealed Anna A is a well known radical feminist which partly validates our theory what the case really is about: The Sexual politics of radical feminism.

Anna A is Anna Ardin. The identity of the second woman was a matter of some confusion in the Swedish press for a while; the name is now known to be Sofia Wilén. I see no problem in using both names since they have been widely published in Sweden. Besides, as we shall see, neither woman made an actual claim of rape.

Anna A was already known to us as she had earlier tried to ban juvenile lyrics in student-songs at Uppsala University. The claim she was behind the accusation was strengthened by the fact that she just closed her blogs while Google-cache revealed the radical feminist content. One post said “Rape is a part of men power” “It is time to end the male ideal” which proves she in fact is heavy into the radical feminist viewpoint where the dominant opinion is rape is not about sex but about power.

Now our suspicions were confirmed. It was neither a serial rapist nor a conspiracy by the CIA. It was two young women with warped view of men, unrealistic idea of sex-life and last but not least, a feminist prosecutor on-call with unrealistic picture of what rape means according to the law.

Anna A is also has worked with women's issues at Uppsala University, specially with sexual harassment cases. She is working with encouraging women to report just about anything they don’t like from guys. The more we read about her the more extreme her opinions on the issue seem. On UU a text regarding sexual harassment goes: “With sexual harassment we mean any unwelcome behavior based on gender or/and sexual nature”. Basically she is outlawing for guys to hit on girls at all without the girls more or less wearing a sign telling it s ok.

We also discussed how he first had sex with Ardin, and then with a younger woman. It is logical to point out the accusation was not even made until the women talked to each other. Thus Anna Ardin found out Assange had sex with a younger woman 3 days after her.

It is very common women become really angry over their partner having a new younger woman.

Please, please, please -- just try to convince me that the previous statement isn't true. I need a good laugh.

The point here is simple: When an older woman not accuse the guy until hearing he had sex with a younger woman, we know she was not as angry until she heard he replaced her.

Even then, they spoke of molestation, which, in Sweden, is a much less serious offense than rape.

The POLICE STATION makes it a matter of rape. Also I personally suspect the police station are responsible for leaking the information to the Expressen reporter on the same evening.

Rape, it seems, has a new definition:

...some women we speak to claim Assange did not act like a “gentleman” and they also claimed to have heard he did not show proper respect to women in general, and young women specifically.

Here's a lovely point missed by every single American who has commented on this case:

AFTONBLADET SUNDAY: They write the rape-charge was about a condom being ripped. I just read this and the first thought from me is: If a guy ripping a condom commits rape, then a woman lying about being on the pill is also committing rape. The interpretation is crazy, clearly political. When the law was written there is no chance they intended this use.

Let me add another point about this condom business: It makes no sense.

If a guy hates the idea of wearing a rubber, he won't intentionally poke a hole in it (which is what Ardin claims Assange did) -- he will simply refuse to wear it.

C'mon. Think about it: The problem with a condom is that it reduces tactile sensation and intimacy. A condom with a hole in it has all of the "not really there" reduction of sensation and none of the protection. So what would be the goddamned point?

Of course, if you are the sort of feminist whose ideology has segued into psychosis, you will argue that Assange did such a nonsensical thing for the purpose of intentionally humiliating his victim. If you think that any male thinks that way, get a straitjacket: You are Woman #10.

I've met a lot of dudes in the #10 category, including some who were very aggressive and very weird and very scary. They were capable of violence -- even murder. But, in my personal assessment, none would have considered doing that.

Think about your own sexual history. Think of everything you've ever read. Think back to all the third-hand accounts you've heard. Have you ever before encountered a report of a guy who got so pissed off when his one-weekend-stand asked him to plasticize that he intentionally poked a hole in his condom? Does that scenario seem even slightly likely to you?

Ask yourself: What kind of "player" would want a short-term fling to end in pregnancy? Not even the nuttiest of the nutty is that nutty. Not even in Utah.

Finally: Important to remember is that the driving force behind these accusations of rape was the police at Klara närpolisstation in central Stockholm, not the two women involved. Borgström asked in Aftonbladet replies: They are not law-trained.

Basically the radical feminist agenda is declaring women raped when they don’t even see themselves as raped.

This post is in Swedish. I've managed to translate the language with acceptable accuracy on a previous occasion, using internet resources. You should understand that the afore-linked story appeared before the Assange case made the news, and that the person called X is Anna Ardin.

She is a "gender equity officer" at Uppsala university. Men working for that university are forced to listen to her give lengthy harangues on the "five great domination techniques" used by men to repress women.

During one such lecture, one of the males in attendance committed the sin of looking at his notes, not at her. She made sure that he was officially censured for committing three out of the five "domination techniques"! (All words within brackets are mine.)

A gender expert -- let's call her X [Ardin] -- working at the university leadership's Office, was invited to one of the university institutions to present a seminar on gender, domination and sexual harassment of staff. During a seminar on sexual harassment, a male member of the audience, whom we will call Y, was inattentive. It was later revealed that someone heard him comment on the gender expert's clothing in the hallway. (Ridicule and objectification). X then wrote a letter to the university, even though she gave no formal notification [to the offending male, presumably]. The university nonetheless chose to launch an investigation into the matter since, according to the Equal Opportunities Act (1991:433) § 22, an employer who learns that an employee considers herself to have been subjected to harassment based on sex is required to investigate the circumstances and, if necessary, to take action.

After Y [the offending male] had been informed of this investigation and prompted by a colleague, Z, he called up X [Ardin] to explain why he had discussed X's dress, with his colleagues. He thus became guilty of an additional rule violation, the third in row, because X considered the call to be (quoting from the decision), "another example of a suppression technique, namely guilt and shame, which means that she has been subjected to victimization..."

Dig it: Ardin is so fucking touchy that she even considered herself "victimized" when the guy made an attempt to call her up and smooth things over.

If we are going to start criminalizing sotto voce behind-the-back commentary about clothing, my ladyfriend would be doing hard time by now, and so would at least a quarter of the gay guys in America. I wouldn't feel offended or "objectified" if any woman (or man) made a snarky remark about the way I dress. Of course, my idea of sartorial elegance is wearing a shirt that doesn't advertise what I had for lunch.

Am I guilty of "domination" when I don't pay close attention to what a woman says? But there are also plenty of occasions when I don't pay attention to what a man says. Especially if the guy is, say, a Jehovah's Witness. Or a Rush Limbaugh fan. I probably filter out a large chunk of everything that everyone tries to tell me. Is that a crime?

As for "guilt and shame" -- well, in the first place, that guy's apologetic phone call had nothing to do with the infliction of guilt or shame. Ardin was foolish to take it that way.

In the second place, guilt and shame are part of the human experience, and I have had it up to freakin' here with New Age ninnies seeking to banish those useful emotions. If Ardin thinks that she can use feminist ideology to force everyone to avoid saying anything that might possibly be construed as injurious to her precious widdle self-esteem, she should move to another planet. And she should be damned glad that she does not live in the United States, where we still have the First Amendment.

We begin to get a clearer picture of Ms. Ardin.

This next bit is directly relevant to the Assange situation:

It was reported that Anna Ardin planned a party at her place after the so called attack took place, she sent tweets from her phone and texted on her phone that she was in the company of “the world’s coolest smartest people, it’s amazing!” After she became aware of how these could prove him as innocent she tried to destroyed them, but she couldn’t and and in what seems like a lame revenge technique, she released an article about how to get back at cheating boyfriends.

“Sometimes It Is Difficult To Go On Without Some Kind of payback. As a Human Being You Should Be Able to Understand that. In this case I was very upset with a forms fiancé WHO betrayed me for a longtime.

You read that right. On her blog, she discusses no less than seven methods for getting revenge on lovers!

Ask yourself: How would you feel about a male who had compiled such a list?

Ask yourself: Is this or is this not a woman with a persecution complex, a woman defined by her pathological resentments, a woman fueled by inchoate rage and an incessant need for vengeance, a woman so pathetically insecure that she uses feminist dogma not as a means to achieve equality but as a weapon to bludgeon everyone she encounters into absolute submission and compliance?

For a final bit of humor, let's look at another passage from Ardin's own blog. Basically, she alleges -- in all seriousness -- that a famous Swedish manufacturer of orange juice intentionally laced its product with urine.

Those bastards. Those awful penis-wielding bastards.

There's more, but the foregoing should suffice. Based on the above, I feel justified in suspecting that Anna Ardin may well be the Tenth Woman.

Do I scry the hand of the CIA in her strange behavior? Of course not. She is not the bait in a honeytrap -- although she may be what the spooks call a "useful idiot."

As we have seen, the "rape" charge was pushed by the Swedish government, not by the "molested" women. An inane Swedish law allows for situations in which a man can be accused of rape even when the putative victim insists otherwise.

The deeper question is this: Did any covert force within the Swedish or American governments attempt to affect the course of jurisprudence in Sweden? That possibility deserves further investigation.

Although most Americans think of Sweden as an ultra-liberal nation, there are extreme right-wing elements within SAPO, the Swedish security service. Moreover, there is a long history of cooperation between SAPO and the CIA.

The following should give you some idea of what is possible. As you read, keep in mind that "03" is the name of a counterintelligence section within SAPO:

In 1973 three journalists alleged the existence of such a group with the 03 department of the service, a faction which carried out dirty tricks against radical and anti-Vietnam groups, incited Palestinians living in Sweden to violence, and conducted smear campaigns on behalf of prominent members of the Social Democrat hierarchy....

Any of that have a familiar ring to you?

Best of the season...

As the mean and green one learned, you don't need presents or decorations or even roast beast in order to merrify your Christmas. All you need are tunes. Our favorites are these...


The lyrics of this one change with every singer -- in some versions, Miss Fogarty even bears another name. This recounting is the best online, and it's the only one to include the all-important "capper" bit at the end.

Believe it or not, I look even dorkier than this guy when trying to dance a jig.


Now we get serious. This is my all-time favorite carol. I like the sad ones, and none go deeper than this. It is sung here by Aled Jones, the British singer who first came to fame in boyhood. The a cappella version by the Medieval Baebes is, perhaps, even more haunting. You can't listen to that rendition without picturing bloodstains in a moonlit snowscape. Happy holidays!


Someone should pass a law preventing any other singer from attempting this song. One can only imagine the impact this scene had when first shown, during wartime. The little girl here is Margaret O'Brien, the original gothling. True, she was not allowed to dress the part -- but in spirit, she made Wednesday Addams look like Tinkerbelle.


P, P and M never topped this.


Aled Jones sings a duet with his younger self.


This is a truly great song, although it is usually done all wrong. Here, we hear it sung properly -- solo voice, no instruments, no pretense or straining for effect -- just purity of tone and sentiment. The song was written in 1933 by musicologist John Jacob Niles, who collected the first snatches of it from an impoverished little girl named Annie Morgan, who lived in Appalachia.


Another one of my favorites, sung by the finest Christmas caroler of his time. (Sorry for the odd visual.)


It wouldn't be Christmas without Da-hoo Dor-aze. No previous singer has ever demonstrated such elan. You gotta love the big finish.


Still another version of the Coventry carol. Puts chills up and down your spine, dunnit? I had never heard of Hayley Wesetnra previous to a few days ago, but -- well, suffice it to say that Cannon has a new crush.

Believe it or not, this song premiered as part of a 16th century musical revue (or mystery play) called The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, which may not have been the best title for a work about Herod's slaughter of the innocents.


THE finest "Pat-A-Pan" ever. This is the one where the carol seques into Bizet's L'arlésienne suite. The opening theme of that suite was based on a much older Christmas carol about the magi.


What more can one say?


The "three tenors" version is beautifully sung and very, very, very weird. Do not start this video unless you are willing to shove your head into a big, steaming green bucket of bizarre and keep it there. Happy-a Chris-a-mas-a!


Sung by the voice of Tony the Tiger, Thurl Ravenscroft. Best name ever. What a wonderfully deep voice!


A Christmas melody sung by Julie Andrews, Placido Domingo and John Denver? Mind blowing. I didn't know that this existed until about ten minutes ago. Like no other singer I've ever heard, Placido Domingo makes the miraculous seem effortless.

I'll always love Julie.


Boy, this takes me back.

And now, from our classical annex...


The Troika from Prokofiev's "Lieutenant Kije" suite receives frequent Christmastime hearings. Americans usually call it "Russian Sleigh Ride" or something similar. There's a vocal version of this, although it is rarely preformed.

This piece was originally written as part of a film score for an early Russian sound film. Back in my college days, I spent weeks trying to track down a copy of that movie, to no avail; my sources all told me that Lieutenant Kije was a lost film. And here it is, although what I presume to be the sole surviving print is not in good shape. The opening montage is pretty damned trippy; it's a better marriage of image and music than anything you'll find in Eisenstein's later collaborations with the same composer.

The story later inspired an episode of M.A.S.H.

My attempts to do kazatskis are even dorkier than my attempts to do an Irish jig.


Speaking of dancing...! This is from The Nutcracker. Ms. Vandal "gets something in her eye" every time she hears it. That's the lovely Lesley Collier and Anthony Dowell.


Maybe I'm crazy to include the end of Beethoven's "Choral Fantasy" in this list -- but don'tcha think that revamped lyrics could turn this melody into a seasonal favorite? If "Greensleeves" can become "What Child is This?" every December, the Choral Fantasy can undergo a similar transmogrification. It's one of the catchiest melodies old Louis ever came up with. (Believe it or not, his friends called him Louis.)

Apparently, Beethoven wasn't crazy about the lyrics heard here, and encouraged his publisher to come up with something new. So we have the composer's permission to deck the halls with tunes by Ludwig...

"Rape apologia"

Even in these grim times, people want to talk about below-the-waist matters -- and nothing else. Few care to discuss the "Dreyfus" treatment handed out to poor Bradley Manning, whose only crime was attempting to expose a Pentagon lie. The hot topic is the "rape" (well, rape-ish) allegation against Julian Assange.

All males are penis-monsters, or so we are told by some denizens of blogistan left. Therefore, on some cosmic level, Bradley Manning deserves everything now happening to him. Of course, he is also gay, which means that lefties will grant him a few sympathy points forever denied to one so monsterific as (say) my unforgivably hetero self.

Julian Assange is very, very monsterific indeed. He's male and...(cue the old-time radio music)...he likes to fuck! He likes to fuck women that he has no intention of marrying or even dating on a long-term basis!

As one of my fellow (male) bloggers put it, apparently expecting agreement, Assange "can't keep it zipped." That, it seems, is his true crime. The rape accusations are presumed to be true, because the accuser is female, and women are genetically incapable of lying.

Under our new cultural rules, a woman who sleeps with an entire army division is simply expressing her individuality and empowerment and growthfulness and all of that uplifting stuff. But any man who wants to fuck a woman is an abusive bastard. We remain haunted by the words of Marilyn French: All men are rapists.

This argument is eerily reminiscent of 2008, when the Obama cultists screamed racism at anyone who did not favor their candidate, because there could be no other reason for standing against the Lightbringer. Similarly, anyone who criticizes Israel's ghastly actions in Gaza and Lebanon must be an anti-Semite.

Welcome to the world of identity politics. No more of that messy, frustrating searching-for-truth stuff: Nowadays, everything comes down to group solidarity. Shirts versus skins. Life is simpler that way.

In a private communication, a reader expressed the situation thus:

I'm literally being told "STFU". And this is even despite that fact that I've articulated that I think Assange was a jerk and committed major boundary violations.

One thing I’m told: “questioning the veracity of a victim's actions, regardless of your own circumstances or experience, is rape apologia.”

Note the wording: The accuser is not an accuser -- she is a victim.

I was under the impression that her "victim" status was the very issue at question. It seems, however, that this issue has already been settled before trial, before the presentation of facts -- settled by the mere act of accusation. Even at trial, cross-examination is not permissible. In our brave new world, cross-examination equals rape apologia.

Petitio principii. Begging the question. It's the most insidious of all logical fallacies -- and it's the ideologist's favorite weapon.

"What's this, Cannon? Are you arguing for a return to the bad old days, when a rape victim could expect to have her entire sexual history held up to public scrutiny?"

In answer to that question (which must have popped into the noggins of a few of you), let's look at a famed courtroom case that first made the public skeptical of an accuser's unsupported testimony. The last century gave us many "trials of the century," and this was one of them.

Alexander Pantages. Do you recognize the name? He built what was once my favorite old-time movie palace, now a legit theater near Hollywood and Vine.

In 1929, he owned a large number of major theaters in big cities across the nation. This operation came under the envious eye of one Joseph P. Kennedy, who was then trying to establish himself in film production and distribution. Although Kennedy made a generous offer, Pantages refused to sell his theaters. Kennedy vowed to have them one way or another.

That's when a 17 year-old vaudeville dancer named Eunice Pringle brought a rape accusation against Pantages.

If you think that journalists covering rape trials used to favor males and condemn females, you're wrong. Look up the contemporary coverage of the Pantages case. She was pictured as a mere schoolgirl, a virginal blossom sullied by a fat, greasy foreigner in his 50s.

(Interestingly, the newspapers showed far more sympathy toward Pantages' wife Lois, who, that same year, was found guilty of vehicular manslaughter.)

The newspapers made no inquiries into Pringle's sexual history, yet they published an avalanche of sordid allegations about Pantages -- even though they were irrelevant to the matter at hand. Eventually, these allegations resulted in a secondary trial.

People did not complain when a male's sexual history was placed under public scrutiny. As then, so later: How many so-called liberals objected when Bill Clinton was asked irrelevant questions about his private life during the Paula Jones deposition?

Pantages was found guilty. He hired a couple of sharp up-and-coming young lawyers, who successful engineered a new trial -- precisely on the grounds that the judge on the first trial has disallowed any examination of Pringle's history.

I can guess what you're thinking:

What? They let the jurors hear about her private life, just as they had heard about the private life of the accused? Outrageous!

Outrageous or no, that testimony was heard -- and guess what? Pantages was acquitted.

For good reason.

The record demonstrated that Pringle, a trained actress, had always repeated her story word for word, never changing a syllable -- indicative of coaching. This young lady also had a short but notable history as a con artist. Moreover, she had a rep for sexual promiscuity -- and yes, that news was relevant: A promiscuous 17 year old is more likely than a virgin to allow herself to be used as bait in a honeytrap.

Lawyers reconstructed the crime (which allegedly took place in a broom closet) and proved that Pringle's description of events was physically impossible. The jury then heard evidence that Pringle's manager had made a demand for hush money.

I first read of the Pantages rape case in a book which asserted without qualification that Joseph Kennedy had engineered the Pringle accusation. More cautious writers insist that no hard evidence links the Kennedy paterfamilias to Pringle. Still, most historians familiar with the case believe that the whole thing was a set-up.

No-one can dispute that the scandal ruined Pantages. He lost two years of his life and was forced to sell his theater chain at far less than its value -- to Joe Kennedy.

In the 1970s, many feminists asked why the accuser in rape trials had to undergo so much unfair and obtrusive questioning about past habits. The reason can be summed up in a name: Eunice Pringle. She changed the way American jurisprudence -- and American journalism -- regarded rape accusations.

Is it really the case that anyone who views an accuser suspiciously is a "rape apologist" produced by a "rape culture"?

Consider the Tawana Brawley case. I never condemned Al Sharpton for championing her cause. When women turn on the tears, they wield a weapon more powerful than C4.

Consider Crystal Gail Mangum.

Consider Danmell Ndonye, who withdrew a false accusation of rape after video evidence surfaced demonstrating that the sex had been consensual.

Consider television weather forecaster Heidi Jones.

Consider Paula Jones, who at first told friends that Clinton was "sweet, very sweet" -- and then changed her story, making herself out to be the victim of sexual harassment. Remember?

In late 1997, Judge Susan Webber Wright ruled Jones was "entitled to information regarding any individuals with whom President Clinton had sexual relations or proposed to or sought to have sexual relations and who were, during the relevant time frame, state or federal employees."

Fishing expeditions are permissible when males are targeted.

Ann Coulter considered Paula a "good Christian girl who had suffered sexual harassment." Then she -- Paula -- posed nude for a very hefty sum of money. Labor deserves payment.

Consider Gennifer Flowers, whose story kept growing like topsy. She also got the Penthouse pay-off. Bob Somerby:

Do famous accusers say things which aren’t true? Yes, they sometimes do—although the mainstream press, and the liberal world, worked quite hard to bury that fact during the Clinton jihad. One example: It seems abundantly clear that Gennifer Flowers made up a whole lot of crap about Clinton. (She raked in a whole lot of dough for her trouble.) But so what? By 1998, a jihad was on, with all the fools chasing Clinton around, determined to prove he was vile. As a result, the fools all stood in line to vouch for Flowers’ moral grandeur.

Lucre is not the sole motive. More often than not, accusers are prompted by something other than money.

There are a number of individuals -- male and female -- who wander through life in a haze, unable to determine the difference between reality and fantasy. These people can seem very convincing. I know this from personal experience.

Time to make a confession: I spent quite a lot of time in the 1990s researching a book which would have dealt, in substantial part, with the then-raging controversy over Satanic Ritual Abuse allegations. In that era, there were quite a few women leveling charges at a bizarre occultist named Michael Aquino. I talked to some of these women. Although they had made no formal complaints to the police (at least, not to my knowledge), they eagerly told Aquino-raped-me tales to various writers.

Unknown to these claimants, I had also conferred with a woman named Linda B., who had had a brief (consensual) romantic liaison with Aquino some years before the media discovered him. Linda -- who had parted with Aquino on less-than-amicable terms -- gave me a physical description.

None of the women making "satanic rape" accusations could describe the man accurately. One woman even pretended to faint when I asked for a description! In fact, the accusers didn't even know the correct way to pronounce his name.

I've had more experience with fantasists of this sort than you can possibly guess. They demand victimization status. They crave sympathy the way an addict craves an armful. They can shoot enough moisture out of their eyes to fill the California aqueduct.

(There are also plenty of male fantasists out there. They don't blubber as readily, although they do get weirdly angry over their imaginary abuses.)

For a perfect example of the breed, read the tale of Lauren Stratford, alleged rape victim, Satanic abuse victim and Holocaust survivor. Nothing she said was true. Not one word. Yet some people still believe her -- and some of the believers are motivated by feminist mythology.

I never met Lauren, but I've met women like her -- more of them than you can ever guess. They lied and lied, right to my face. When I finally admitted that I could not believe their allegations, they started making up lies about me.

To this day, I shake with outrage at the memory. In a sense, they were rapists.

So don't you fucking DARE try to tell me that women can't lie.

Here's the truth:

In a study that span nine years, sociologist Eugene J. Kanin’s findings were that in the United States, 41% of rape allegations are false. Kanin discovered that most of the false accusers were motivated by a need for an alibi or seeking revenge. Kanin was once popular and highly praised by the feminist movement for his groundbreaking research on male sexual aggression. His studies on false rape accusations have received very little interest.

Some people have criticized Kanin's methodology. But when Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld of the Innocence Project studied the FBI's testing of semen samples, they found that DNA had exonerated the accused "rapists" in a quarter of all cases. Keep in mind that semen samples are not obtained from many rape accusers. Keep in mind, too, that a false accuser would have to be pretty damned bold to maintain the charge even after physical evidence has been placed on a microscope slide.

Should accusers be investigated and cross-examined? Damned right.

They should be grilled about everything relevant, including, in certain instances, their sexual history. If men have to go through that kind of humiliation, then women should not be exempt. All arguments in favor of double standards are casuistry.

Each case must be judged on its merits; each case demands an individualized approach to investigation. Too often, when objective evidence (such as a video tape) is absent, the only way to get closer to the truth is to allow jurors to learn as much as possible about both accused and accuser.

Yes, that process can be grim, unpleasant and unfair. But what choice is there? The only alternative is to give the Lauren Stratfords of this world free reign to rewrite reality.

No, I am not saying that every female is a Lauren Stratford. That's no more true than is the idea that we live in a "rape culture." But I believe that there are thousands of Laurens out there.

Anyone who respects our legal traditions should never tolerate any question-beggers who automatically refer to accusers as "victims" before the airing of evidence.

In the Assange case, we have a woman who cried rape even though she threw a party for the guy after the incident, even though she slept with him after the incident, and even though she complained to her fellow upper-class activist hipsterettes that he was the world's worst screw. She was not some traumatized, battered Iowa housewife with nowhere to go, and I am infuriated by the scoundrels who have attempted to frame her story in those terms. She belongs to the Swedish equivalent of the "Whole Food Nation." I am never going to believe that someone like that would throw a party for a guy who took her without consent.

This piece has it (mostly) right:

What this unappetising spectacle of feminists telling us that everything with a dick is capable of rape really represents is an attempt to assert one longstanding liberal orthodoxy – that rape is rife – over another, newer liberal orthodoxy – that Assange is an untouchable, saintly speaker of truth to power. This is a competition of victimhoods, with the feminist set within the liberal elite feeling aggrieved that their favoured victims – women, everywhere, at all times – have seemingly been elbowed aside by a new pet victim: Assange and political hackers. There is no meaningful principle at stake here; rather we’re witnessing a clash of miserabilist, conspiratorial outlooks, with one side insisting that all women are at potential risk from ‘rape culture’ and the other side arguing that Assange is at risk from the military-industrial complex’s ‘power culture’.

This isn't funny any more

Room at the Inn -- Cannonfire version

Over at Corrente, Lambert has pled on behalf of some bloggers facing dire straits this holiday season. All causes seem quite worthy. But I would like to add another name: Dakinikat of Sky Dancing.

She seems not to want to describe her situation in public; truth be told, she may be angry at me for saying anything. Suffice it to say that the economy has walloped her as it has walloped so many others. Governor Jindal appears to be doing his best to place her -- and other residents of Louisiana -- out on the cold, wet streets.

The sitch is getting grimmer. Considering the fact that Dakinikat runs one of the best blogs in blog-land, those of you with funds enough for further generosity should consider hitting her PayPal button.

Once again, I managed to stave off hunger by drawin' pitchers for my supper. Who knows how much longer that trick will work? Despite my love for the Golden State, I'm happy to be getting out of Dodge before that which is brown hits that which spins. Dkat's latest piece discusses the Day of Reckoning for the states, which aren't likely to get any further federal stim money. Drastic cutbacks will result -- especially in California.

Louisiana as well:

This situation has already worried Wall Street and will undoubtedly cause an increase in unemployment as state and local workers are laid off to balance budgets. One problem that we’ve had here in Louisiana is that state employment levels have been frozen in the clerical areas and the increased demand for unemployment has led to a 4 – 6 month backlog in processing unemployment benefits. If you don’t have a rich relative or an emergency savings fund, you’re most likely going to find yourself out on the street. It’s been the topic of many an investigative report in local TV. I found that it’s not just in Louisiana. It’s happened in Connecticut, Kansas, Rhode Island, and California too.

She's talkin' personal, folks.

This "jobless recovery" just ain't working.

Red and green: Thanks for the Christmas memories

I'd like to offer a brief note expressing thanks to all the generous readers who funded my Kickstarter project, "Chalice." We made the goal with room to spare! You folks were lifesavers. Of course, Kickstarter takes out a percentage, as does Amazon payments. So even with the "overage," the artist receives less than you might think -- but still enough, one hopes, to remake a couple of lives.

I have some great writing lined up for the New Deal website. Alas, we may have to wait on that until after the big move. Right now, it's hard to predict where we'll spend Christmas.

If Kickstarter releases the money soon, I would love to spend Christmas night in "Apple Turkey" New Mexico. Those of you have had the privilege will understand why: The luminarios decorating homes in Old Town Albuquerque are astonishing. They make electric light displays seem gaudy and foolish. Which, in fact, they are: That's their charm. Luminarias (which those Santa Fe swankpots call faralitos) have a different charm -- hand-crafted, antique, organic, alive and glowing. Because their creation is labor intensive (I've set up a few luminarias myself, and somehow managed to do the job without incinerating the neighborhood), they appear only on Christmas Eve and (maybe) Christmas Night -- unlike electric displays, which appear right after Thanksgiving and stick around until Twelfth Night.

You're not allowed to drive through Old Town on Christmas Eve, so everyone does the walking tour. Most years, the cold bites right through your thickest winter coat -- yet you can't turn back, because the sight of all those flickering candles propels you forward.

As you might have guessed, I used to do Christmases in Apple Turkey. Another life, another family.

New Mexican food is like Mexican food, but better. Expect an esophagus-melting inferno -- but don't complain about the heat, or everyone will think you're a wussy. Fortunately, you can quench the fire in an instant with a bite of honey-soaked sopapilla. In New Meixico, sopapillas are puffy "air pocket" breads served as a side dish; you bite off a corner and pour in the honey, which the finer establishments serve up in little plastic bear bottles. Discerning palettes need only a few bites to determine where the chile peppers were grown. The best come from the small village of Hatch (population 1,673), although some know-it-alls stump for other chiles from even smaller villages.

When you order food in a New Mexican restaurant, you'll be asked "red or green?" That refers to the chile sauce. Both options are good, so just pick one with confidence and you'll be taken for a local. Do not ask for sour cream; that's like asking a French chef for catsup. The iconic dish of NM is stacked blue-corn enchiladas with an egg on top, although visitors will also want to try stuffed sopapillas, posole, or green chile cheeseburgers. You can't get these things outside of NM -- at least, not done right.

In some lunch places, your meal will be interrupted by Navajos selling jewelry. You'll want to support them, but there's only so much you can do.

We won't be able to try much in the way of local cuisines when we do the "Ma and Pa Joad in reverse" trip. The budget will dictate fast food and home-made sandwiches. But we may allow ourselves at least one visit to a "sit down" joint. It would be terrific to hear a waitress say "Red or green?" -- and perhaps even to see the trail of luminarias as they light Mary and Joseph's way to Bethlehem.

Thanks and thanks again. At this stage, there's little more I'd ask out of life than another chance to sample some really good blue corn enchiladas. Green, please.

Lieberman triumphant?

This is a follow-up to the previous post about WikiLeaks. I find Anglachel's words from the 12th so thought- (and shudder-) provoking that the only recourse is to repeat them:

I think that you will see the Congress going directly after Sec. Clinton because CDS is always in vogue inside the Beltway. The Right (correctly) calculates that this needs to be done for two reasons - first is that they need to remove as many competent administration officials as possible to undermine what little stability and resilience the administration has left, while the second is to do their best to undermine HRC personally just before a primary season begins. They know who can rally Democrats. If they can badger Obama into asking for HRC's resignation, they score a major win. Given Obama's frantic desire to be seen as reasonable and given that Versailles is already howling for her blood, I believe it is a question of when, not if, she will be asked to resign. And for those of you on the Left who cheer the removal of who you think of as an enemy, I've got five words for you:

Secretary of State Joe Lieberman

Yeaaahhhh, kinda puts it all in perspective, don't it? As I alluded to in an earlier post, Lieberman's office getting in touch with Amazon probably didn't make any difference to the company's decision, but the public optics sure were nice. And then there he is with his face hanging out saying Assange should be charged with treason (which is not a legal possibility) and even threatening the dastardly New York Times...

Whoever Assange may be, whatever his agenda may be, one thing is clear: He is merely the publisher of leakers. He is, as it were, the fence, not the burglar.

The real leakers have their own agendas, their own schemes. I think that Anglachel may have identified one such scheme.

Let me add this: Obama himself may be one of the schemers. He may hope to remove the "Clinton problem" once and for all by forcing Hillary to leave under a cloud of scandal.

Sorry to sound like George C. Scott in Dr. Strangelove, but I smell a great big neo-con rat in all this.

Okay, so just who IS this Assange guy?

I'll have the rest of the Abramoff/Obama story soon. In the meantime, a word or two about Wikileaks.

Frankly, I believe Julian Assange when he says that he had no contact with the imprisoned Private Bradley Manning.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Bradley Manning is being kept in very rough detention in order to pressure him to testify against Assange. So far, all the evidence suggests that Manning did not reveal the State Department cables. The helicopter video, perhaps -- but not the later releases. I've said it before and will say it again: This poor schlub has fall guy written all over him.

In other words, the administration plans to "Dreyfus" Private Manning until he breaks. If and when he does (and keep in mind that Dreyfus finally cracked), I would counsel taking a skeptical attitude toward his testimony.

The Assange conundrum continues to perplex. On one hand, the right-wingers are screaming for his head -- literally. On the other hand, you can make a pretty good argument that most WikiLeaked material serves a right-wing agenda: Embarrass Hillary, foment hostility against Iran, boost global warming denial, and so on. Some of the leaked anti-Iran documents buttress the viewpoint propagated by these forgeries.

Michel Chossudovsky gives us a background briefing worth noting, although I advise you to read cautiously. (Even for me, Chossudovsky is too foily.) An early adviser to WikiLeaks was the right-wing Freedom House, which had links to the Bush administration. The original focus of the WikiLeaks operation was China and Russia; we are even told that Russian and Chinese dissidents helped to create the site.

John Young, founder of Cryptome.org, thinks that Assange has been secretly working for "the Man" from the beginning. (Of course, Young may simply be paranoid.) One of Assange's closest early associates in the hacker community is employed by DARPA. Right now, Assange is under "manor arrest" in the abode of a wealthy "right wing libertarian." Chossudovsky:

Wikileaks has the essential features of a process of "manufactured dissent". It seeks to expose government lies. It has released important information on US war crimes. But once the project becomes embedded in the mould of mainstream journalism, it is used as an instrument of media disinformation...

Well...maybe. But story gets even odder.

WikiLeaks is allegedly supported, at least in part, by Carl Lundstrom, who can usually be spotted goosestepping around the far right of Sweden's far right. It also appears that one Israel Shamir has a place among Assange's small coterie of employees. Shamir is just about the oddest duck in Duckberg: Although he claims to be a Russian-born Israeli, he also writes ludicrously anti-Semitic material under the name Jordan Jer­mas. In Sweden, he and his son (who is just as bizarre) are counted among the Scandanivian versions of Alex Jones and Milton Cooper. At this point, I can't tell if the "Jermas" identity is some sort of cover (a la "John Roy Carlson," a pseudonym which may be familiar to some of you), or if the "Israel Shamir" persona was bogus to begin with. Either way, my nostrils detect an unpleasant odor.

Worth noting: Very little WikiLeaks material has proven embarrassing to Israel or to the neo-cons. True, we have this and this, but I consider that stuff to be weak tea. The vast majority of the WikiLeaked documentation pushes for war with Iran -- a goal of America's neo-cons and Likud's hawks.

Count me among those who think that the rape allegations against Assange seem honeytrap-ish -- downright outlandish. A raped woman isn't going to let the rapist sleep in her bed for the next week, and isn't going to tell friends that the guy is a lousy lay. Feminist readers may become infuriated by these words, but I don't care: No male dissident is safe if the unverified word of a female is considered sacrosanct. The idea of a woman making false accusations may be inconceivable to you, but not to me. (Does anyone still believe Juanita Broaderick?)

So where does this leave us? Some web sites will tell you that Julian Assange is a tool of Western intelligence; others say that he is the target of Western intelligence. Both sides can mount an intriguing argument. Some call him an anti-Semite (or at least a friend to anti-Semites), while others call him a stooge for Israel. Both sides can mount an intriguing argument.

In short: The man finds himself on the receiving end of mutually contradictory accusations. That takes talent.

One possibility: Maybe Assange's operation began as an intelligence front. Then he went off the reservation. Simple as that.

Another possibility: Assange is legit -- and naive. The neo-cons decided to use him for a two-fold purpose: First, to spread memes favoring their cause -- and second, to get laws and legal precedent in place which may one day be used to shut down all investigative reporting.

Your take...?

The parts left out of the Abramoff movie -- or: Of Jack and Barack (Part 1)

Yes, I've seen an advance screening of Casino Jack, even though it hasn't opened yet -- and no, I did not download an illegal copy. The film stars Kevin Spacey as Abramoff, and he's terrific. So are Jon Lovitz, who plays Adam Kidan, and the late Maury Chaykin, who plays a character obviously modeled on Anthony "Big Tony" Moscatiello. It's a fascinating movie, and I'm confident that at least one of the aforementioned actors will get a major award.

I've also seen the other Casino Jack -- the documentary whose full title is Casino Jack and the United States of Money. Get that Jack if you want facts. It's more informative and almost as entertaining.

The missing stuff. Superlobbyist Jack Abramoff made many strange deals with many strange people (including, amusingly enough, a fellow named Joseph Cannon). The story is really too big for a single film. At certain points, Casino Jack -- the non-documentary version -- comes very close to having the actors turn to the audience and confide: "We can't tell you everything we know." This movie is a palimpsest; the most unsettling truths hide beneath the visible story. When you see it, count the number of times the script winks at you.

The movie rather too rapidly glides past Abramoff's dark doings in the Marianas. Abramoff and his clients used luxurious vacations and "Potemkin village" factory tours to secure congressional approval for a vile system of indentured servitude, sex slavery and enforced abortions, all on American soil. The movie offers brief and vague references to these obscenities but never dramatizes them. In this regard, the documentary makes a far greater impact -- especially when the filmmakers visit Tom DeLay, who still defends what went on.

The Spacey version treats the Indian casino scams in an entertaining but somewhat veiled fashion. In essence, Abramoff and his partner -- Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition -- ran a protection racket. If a tribe forked over millions to Abramoff and the GOP, Reed promised not to have his Christian soldiers shut down the operation. If a tribe didn't pay off, Reed would send the moralists into an anti-gambling frenzy. In other words: "Hey, nice little casino you got here. Wouldn't want to see anything happen to it..."

Casino Jack informs us about this scam but -- once again -- refuses to dramatize or to visualize. Imagine a Ben-Hur remake that doesn't show the chariot race, but has a character give us the gist of what happened.

The film grants Abramoff a moment of genuine concern for the oppression that indigenous Americans have suffered. Maybe he had such moments in real life; I don't know. I do know that the email trail demonstrates that Abramoff routinely used racist and insulting terms to describe Indians.

Most followers of the Abramoff scandals believe that his crew's dirtiest dealings involve the SunCruz casino ships and the murder of owner Gus Boulis. (SunCruz goes by another name in the film.) One senses that a secret scandal rests beneath the one which newspapers -- and Hollywood -- feel comfortable discussing.

I have an idea as to what that secret might be. Believe it or not, it indirectly involves Barack Obama.

Unfortunately, we'll need a lot more background before we get to Obama's long-ignored links to the Abramoff milieu. If some of this material is already familiar to you, allow yourself a smirk at the expense of your dullard fellow-citizens: Many Casino Jack reviewers on IMDB don't know who Jack Abramoff is or Gus Boulis was.

The casino ships. Gus Boulis was a Greek who had made millions from a chain of sandwich shops. Some writers strongly hint that his restaurants functioned as money laundries; I've never seen any proof for that allegation.

In 1994, he started SunCruz in Key Largo, offering gamblers luxurious trips outside the reach of Florida's laws. The venture proved very successful. It also attracted the attention of certain Florida authorities who became fixated on the goal of shutting Boulis down. Eventually, they discovered a little-known law which indicated that Boulis could not legally operate these ships because his American citizenship was in question.

Boulis needed to transfer ownership pronto. But he still wanted to run the operation and to keep at least part of the profits. Enter Jack Abramoff.

Toward the end of the year 2000, Abramoff bought the SunCruz line for some $147 million dollars, even though he didn't really have that kind of money. His partner and front man was Adam Kidan, an old chum from his college Republican days who had made some decent coin running a chain of mattress stores. Kidan was, as they say, somewhat "mobbed up" -- that is, he had acquaintances in organized crime.

Here's where things get murky. The movie gets murky, the documentary gets murky, and about three zillion Abramoff stories available via Google get murky.

We know this: Boulis at first wanted nothing to do with Abramoff and Kidan. In order to turn the Greek around, Abramoff sicced his paid-off congressional pal Bob Ney on the SunCruz operation. In essence, Abramoff and his political cronies acted like classic mafiosi, pressuring a businessman to sell out to the made guys.

Result: Boulis agreed to a deal which allowed him to keep a silent ten percent of the take. Kidan offered a down payment of $23 million, which came in the form of a wire transfer. The transfer turned out to be a phony cooked up at Kinkos.

Enraged by this fraud, Boulis confronted Kidan and physically attacked him, using (of all things) a pen. Kidan acquired a bodyguard, then paid a visit to "Big Tony," an underworld associate.

In the film -- whose makers obviously consulted both Abramoff and Kidan -- Kidan asks Big Tony to deal with Boulis, but not to employ violence. "I abhor violence," says Kidan. Accept that story if you will. As a general rule, fragile souls and lovers of peace rarely ask guys named Big Tony to do their negotiating.

On February 6, 2001, hit men ambushed Gus Boulis in his car.

In the film, we see Big Tony and a junior associate pull off the job personally. (In real life, Kidan blames the killing on a mobster who conveniently died in 2003.) Just before the hit, Big Tony mentions something about a plan to take over the casino boat operation himself, indicating that the decision to commit murder was his and his alone. Although I can't be certain, that line appears to have been looped in after filming was completed. It's the most suspicious and unconvincing moment in the movie, because it absolves Abramoff and his partner.

A "cruise to nowhere" can still make pick-ups. What were these men fighting over? Why were so many inside players -- mobsters and lobbyists and congressfolk -- scrambling to gain control of those casino ships?

One reason is obvious: The gambling operation was, in and of itself, extraordinarily lucrative. But that fact doesn't really explain the hit.

As the film makes (more or less) clear, Boulis and Team Abramoff reached a deal which gave Boulis ten percent. Distribution of the casino profits had been settled. The true bone of contention was the issue of who would run the day to day operations.

Why was that so important?

In the film, Boulis insists on maintaining daily "on site" control because he wishes to secure employment for family members. I don't buy it. The Greek tycoon was worth millions and could easily have secured all kinds of jobs for cronies and relatives.

So what was going on aboard those boats? What made actual command of the ships a life-or-death matter? Why did Kidan ask a guy called Big Tony to take charge of "catering" on those cruises?

If you're a grown-up, one possible answer should have already popped into your mind.

The ships routinely went out beyond U.S. territorial waters and returned without any interference or inspection from the Coast Guard or any other governmental authority. These floating casinos were unregulated, and they carried large amounts of money on a daily basis.

Hypothetically speaking, such an operation could have provided a perfect cover for drug smuggling. Hypothetically.

Now let's take the issue a step further. Why did the Florida authorities go after Gus Boulis with such gusto? The Broward County state attorney was a guy named Michael Satz, derisively nicknamed "Michael Sitz" because he was notorious for sitting on cases involving political corruption. Yet in the late 1990s, the lethargic Mr. Satz went gunning for Boulis with a vengeance -- "Sitzkrieg," as it were.

Were those Floridian officials truly bothered by the possibility that Boulis' citizenship problem might have placed him afoul of an obscure law? Or is it possible that someone in a powerful position coveted his operation?

Now let's take our ship into even stranger seas. Newspapers occasionally publish certain stories which average citizens are later required to flush down the memory hole. In our political culture, facts are considered permissible topics of discussion not when they enter the published record but when they are mentioned day after day by the talking heads on cable news.

Here is a fact reported by Associated Press writer Vickie Chachere on September 26, 2001 -- not long after the attack on the World Trade Center. Although the talking heads will probably never mention Cachere's report, her words deserve remembrance:

SunCruz Casinos has turned over photographs and other documents to FBI investigators after employees said they recognized some of the men suspected in the terrorist attacks as customers.

Michael Hlavsa, chairman of the gambling cruise company, said Wednesday two or three men linked to the Sept. 11 hijackings may have been customers on a ship that sailed from Madeira Beach on Florida's gulf coast.

These visits occurred shortly before the terror attacks, at a time when Abramoff owned the SunCruz ships. That AP story was not the only one of its kind. A flurry of reports appeared in the Florida press linking the 9/11 hijackers to Abramoff's boats.

At that time, those ships were under investigation for money laundering.

If you visit the above-linked website, you'll see a compendium of stories indicating that the 9/11 hijackers spent a lot of time visiting casinos, both on the high seas and in Nevada. These Islamic fanatics don't seem to have had any interest in gambling. Something else was on their minds.

What might that "something" have been? Again, if you are a grown up, one possibility has probably already popped into your cranium -- but just in case that has not happened yet, I'll make matters plain.

Before they hijacked the jets, Mohammed Atta and his crew functioned as stateside representatives for Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden was a man with heroin for sale. Let's rephrase that: Osama Bin Laden held a controlling influence over the leader of Afghanistan, where much of the world's heroin is grown. Bin Laden also needed large amounts of cash to fund a private army.

As noted in an earlier post:

Al Qaeda was funded by drug money. Drug money must needs be laundered. Casinos have been known to be used for that purpose. Casino ships are unregulated.

To repeat: At the time, those casino ships were under investigation for money laundering.

Clear enough?

Casino Jack and Bin Laden. It may be possible to find other links between the Abramoff operation and Al Qaeda.

Although Jack Abramoff was and is a devout Jew and a funder of Israeli sniper schools, he also did PR work for a Saudi billionaire named Saleh Abdullah Kamel, chairman of the General Council for Islamic Banks. Kamel sure as hell needed some good PR after newspapers started to discuss his suspected association with Osama Bin Laden.

Kamel has denied any link to Al Qaeda. Even so, he co-founded Bin Laden's bank of choice and was fingered as a sponsor of terrorism in a 2002 United Nations report. A document discovered in Bosnia listed Kamel as a Bin Laden associate. And here's the most interesting link of all: One of Kamel's companies paid (via a third party) the rent for the 9/11 hijackers who lodged in San Diego.

Am I implying that Jack Abramoff knew about the impending disaster or that he sympathized in any way with Islamic terrorists? No. Although I have a somewhat elastic concept of the possible, that notion strikes me as preposterous.

All I'm saying is this: As a general rule, both politics and the drug trade are notorious for creating strange bedfellows.

The germinal phase. Linkages between the worlds of Jack Abramoff and Osama Bin Laden may predate the founding of Al Qaeda.

Early in his career, during his stint with the college Republicans, Jack Abramoff glommed onto Arnaud de Borchgrave and his crowd. If you were alive and politically aware in that period, you will recall the Moon-funded wheeler-dealers who spent the Carter and Reagan years screaming nonsensical conspiracy theories about covert KGB control of the "liberal" media and American foreign policy. (Remember The Spike? Remember the bogus "Bulgarian" plot to kill the Pope?) Casino Jack the documentary goes into some of this; Casino Jack the Hollywood movie does not.

In 1985, Grover Norquist and Jack Abramoff put together a summit of anti-Communist "freedom fighters," many of whom were outright thugs. The "Democratic International" confab was held in, of all places, Angola -- where the Soviet Union and the United States had turned a bloody civil war into a proxy fight between superpowers. The guest of honor at this confab was the CIA's puppet in the Angolan conflict, a charismatic brute named Jonas Savimbi. For more on Savimbi and the CIA, see here and here and here.

(Just to complicate matters, we should note that Savimbi's other sponsor was China, and that he considered himself a Marxist.)

Abramoff later wrote and produced an action film called Red Scorpion, in which a fictionalized version of Jonas Savimbi wins the civil war -- with a little help from Dolph Lundgren. The movie was shot in apartheid South Africa, which funded both Savimbi and, it seems, the film. For a while, Abramoff tried to deny his links to the apartheid regime, even after the more responsible members of the Hollywood community launched protests of Red Scorpion.

Savimbi, at a later date, appears to have established links with Al Qaeda. Those ties emerged from the trade in "conflict diamonds," which are used to fund both Islamic terror and African revolutionary movements. See here and here.

Also attending that 1985 conference in Angola were Nicaraguan contra commanders and leaders of the anti-Soviet mujahadeen. Afghan fighter Abdul Rahim Wardak attended the meeting at Abramoff's invitation.

Although neither Al Qaeda nor the Taliban existed in 1985, this was the period when Osama Bin Laden emerged as the leading organizer of Saudi aide to the Afghan resistance movement. Thus, we can fairly state that Bin Laden and Warduk fought on the same side -- then. The two men now stand in opposition.

This assessment of Warduk is of some interest:

If you enter the circles within the Washington DC Afghani diaspora, and if you get close enough to hear the hushed comments, you’d be able to make out words like ‘corrupt,’ ‘ties to drug-running warlords,’ or ‘Afghan mafia.’ But for some ‘mysterious’ reasons our Central Intelligence Agency and hard-core Neocons within our foreign policy arena had deemed this general ultra special and important...

The CIA's most important operative in Pakistan at this time was Milt Bearden, who worked with Warduk and the Pakistani ISI. He insists that he did not work with Bin Laden:

"I think it is factually false that the U.S. in any way backed Osama and his group of Arabs. I was there. I know who we backed. No reliable official source has ever confirmed that the U.S. program included Osama and his Arabs.....

Many tell a different tale. See, for example, "How the CIA created Osama bin Laden," written shortly after the 9/11 disaster. Der Spiegel has said that Bin Laden was one of the CIA's best customers. Le Monde has asserted that the CIA recruited Bin Laden. Former UK foreign secretary Robin Cook considers Bin Laden a creation of western intelligence agencies. Both Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia and former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds have said that American intelligence aided Bin Laden.

In this context, perhaps we should mention this rather bizarre post from the Cannonfire archives -- a post which references none other than Milt Bearden. Also keep in mind that the CIA instituted "Operation Cyclone" in the 1980s. One of the goals of this program was to give training in the United States to various mujahadeen warriors -- indigenous Afghans, Arab imports, and even U.S.-born "Nation of Islam" types.

Not long after the Soviets pulled out of Aghanistan, the Pakistanis installed the Taliban. That's when General Warduk moved to America and came under the general protection of the neocons. Today, his son runs a defense firm which does work for (of all things) the Drug Enforcement Agency in Afghanistan -- while the elder Warduk is back in his home country functioning as Defense Minister. The Warduks are still in business with Milt Bearden, although no-one seems to know just what they are up to.

For more info on Bearden's Afghan network -- which includes Joe Lieberman's campaign finance director! -- see here.

Has this side-trip through spookland diverted us from the world of superlobbyist Jack Abramoff? Perhaps. And perhaps not.

The name's Abramoff -- Jack Abramoff. Persistent reports -- unmentioned by either of the Casino Jack films -- hold that, in the 1980s, Abramoff formed subterranean ties to American intelligence. Even though mainstream news stories ignore those ties, you shouldn't consign the notion to the conspiratorial loony bin, because the idea isn't all that controversial.

Ask yourself: Could Jack Abramoff have put together that 1985 conference in Angola (the one which brought together Savimbi, the contras, the mujahadeen and other CIA-backed fighters) without the connivance of the American intelligence community? I don't think so. You just can't do a thing like that unless you have some help from the Company.

After the conference, Jack Abramoff helped put together the International Freedom Foundation, which was funded by South African military intelligence. As this documentary makes clear, South Africa became involved with the Angolan war at the behest of the CIA; in essence, South Africa acted as a cut-out. In its publications, the IFF portrayed Nelson Mandela as a Soviet-backed terrorists, and briefly allied itself with the notoriously racist Western Goals Institute. (Earlier, Abramoff's College Republicans had defended apartheid and denounced all critics of South Africa as KGB propagandists.)

Since that period, Abramoff has often skulked on the outskirts of the covert world.

For example: When he needed a congressperson to put pressure on Gus Boulis, he called upon Bob Ney of Ohio. Although Casino Jack presents Ney as a cluelessly corrupt ninny, he's a rather more interesting fellow than Hollywood would have you believe. According to certain unverified but intriguing reports, American intelligence recruited Ney as a young man. He learned Farsi, worked in Iran, and then ran a security firm in Saudi Arabia -- an odd career path for an Ohio lad in his 20s. Some believe that Ney functioned under "non-official cover" while in these countries, and that his friends in the covert world helped grease his entry into Congress. Although such allegations remain unproven, it is beyond dispute that the Iranians later used Ney as a conduit during a brief period of thawing relations between Tehran and Washington. This fact suggests that Ney had previously established relationships with high-ranking Iranians.

Abramoff's former firm, Greenberg Traurig, is of no little interest, and not only because they have represented Diebold, Jeb Bush and Dubya's campaign in 2000. One of the firm's alumni became head of the Office of Naval Intelligence. We have conflicting reports regarding a possible familial connection between Mel Greenberg, the co-founder of the law firm, and Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, the AIG founder with undeniable ties to both American intelligence and the Bush family. (Anyone hoping to discover more about Mel Greenberg will find the internet strangely uncommunicative.)

Bob Ney was the one who saw to it that an Israeli company called FoxCom (a.k.a. MobileAccess Networks) got the contract to install a wireless LAN in the House and Senate buildings. As I wrote on an earlier occasion:

By applying a liberal dose of grease, Foxcom managed to edge out another firm whose security arrangements had been cleared by the FBI and the NSA. For some reason, the Israeli company really, really wanted to set up the wireless network used by your congressfolk.

That reason (according to cynics such as yours truly) probably has something to do with spying. Here's former CIA officer Phil Giraldi:

Telecommunications security experts note that equipment that can be used to enhance or improve a signal can also be used to redirect the phone conversation to another location for recording and analysis. The possibility that someone in the Israeli Embassy might be listening to congressmen's private phone conversations is intriguing to say the least.

A number of published sources claim that Ney made this deal because Abramoff pushed for it. FoxCom got the contract after making a hefty donation to one of Abramoff's favorite charities.

The Hollywood version of the Abramoff story demurely neglects to mention one word about spying on Congress.

Abramoff also lobbied on behalf of Verizon and other private firms seeking to benefit from a partial privatization of the NSA's eavesdropping systems. One of the chief execs at Verizon is an old CIA hand.

In short: Jack Abramoff appears to be a fellow who has made a few friends in the clandestine world. Much the same can be said about Barack Obama.

In part two -- coming very soon -- we'll detail the Obama/Abramoff connection.