RANDY HERSCHAFT and CRISTIAN SALAZAR (AP) – Jul 29, 2010

NEW YORK — It was a night in early November during the infancy of the Cold War when the anti-communist dissidents were hustled through a garden and across a gully to a vehicle on a dark, deserted road in Budapest. They hid in four large crates for their perilous journey.
Four roadblocks stood between them and freedom.

What Zoltan Pfeiffer, a top political figure opposed to Soviet occupation, his wife and 5-year-old daughter did not know as they were whisked out of Hungary in 1947 was that their driver, James McCargar, was a covert agent for one of America’s most secretive espionage agencies, known simply as the Pond.

Created during World War II as a purely U.S. operation free of the perceived taint of European allies, the Pond existed for 13 years and was shrouded in secrecy for more than 50 years. It used sources that ranged from Nazi officials to Stalinists and, at one point, a French serial killer.

It operated under the cover of multinational corporations, including American Express, Chase National Bank and Philips, the Dutch-based electronic giant. One of its top agents was a female American journalist.

Now the world can finally get a deeper look at the long-hidden roots of American espionage as tens of thousands of once-secret documents found in locked safes and filing cabinets in a barn near Culpeper, Va., in 2001 have finally become public after a long security review by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The papers, which the Pond’s leader tried to keep secret long after the organization was dissolved, were placed in the National Archives in College Park, Md., in 2008 but only opened to the public in April. Those records plus documents obtained by The Associated Press in the past two years from the FBI, CIA and other agencies under the Freedom of Information Act portray a sophisticated organization obsessed with secrecy that operated a network of 40 chief agents and more than 600 sources in 32 countries. The AP has also interviewed former officials, family members, historians and archivists.

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See also: “Another Herbert O Yardley Mystery“

The Collins Brothers Unleashed Season Two, Epsiode One: Invaders From Earth?

Season Two of The Collins Brothers Unleashed opens with an examination of the UFO phenomenon as a possible terrestrial-based manipulation carried out for sociopolitical purposes. [Listen here]

The Collins Brothers Unleashed Season Two
Epsiode Two: The Emergent Occulture - From Subculture to Dominant Culture

In this installment, we examine how cults and occultism have filled the spiritual vacuum left by secularization, thereby ascending from the status of subculture to dominant culture. [Listen here]

(more…)

More here
and here.

Related: “North American Forum: The Secret Cabal of Trinational Elites“

Persuaded they held the key to great treasure and were targets of a Masonic plot, members of the aristocratic de Védrines family turned over their lives, fortune, and ancestral château to a shadowy “grand master.” Then came captivity and torture—and a bizarre escape.

BY MICHAEL JOSEPH GROSS
AUGUST 2010

Far, far down the High Street, long past where Oxford’s golden spires give way to neon strip malls, you come to a dense residential zone of tidy town houses, row upon row. In one of these, in a small room, a woman sits immobile in a chair.

She has been held prisoner in this room for days. Eight? Ten? Hard to keep track, when they won’t let you sleep. In shifts, day and night, her captors take turns berating her:

We know you know the number.
You have to tell us.
Why won’t you tell us?

The woman is 58 years old. Not long ago she was the mistress of a château near Bordeaux—elegant, soignée, an aristocrat. Now she is fed a single meal each day. She is not allowed to bathe or use the bathroom. She is drugged, and sometimes she is beaten.

The captors include members of her own family. They say she knows the number because she is The One—the possessor of knowledge that will free her and the rest of them to fulfill their destiny. They want the number of a bank account in Brussels that will lead them to a secret that will save the world. They were selected for this mission by a global network of secretive grandees, whose head, named Jacques Gonzalez, is said to be a cousin of the Spanish king Juan Carlos, and reputed to be more powerful than the presidents of France, Russia, and the United States.

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Peter Edel, 15 July 2010

Each time just after an act of terrorism in Turkey there is this strange obscure vacuum. When the assault is claimed and even when suspects have been detained there will always be questions about the facts.

It’s far from illogical to bring up questions like, “Who really did it?” An analytical view of modern history shows that terrorism is often not what it appears to be at first. An act of terrorism may very well be instigated by provocateurs who have infiltrated groups. Or it may be a “false flag” operation, meaning terrorism committed in ways that make it appear as though it was done by others. With such strategies entering the arena, the edges between various forms of extremism can become very blurred. And they become even more blurred with the phenomenon that extremists on whatever side usually have more in common with each other than with the moderates in society. This effect can lead to the most paradoxical alliances and is often the reason why nothing is really what it seems at first with terrorism.

There is a distinctive psychological side to terrorism. While traditional warfare is about gaining territory, the terrorist wants to conquer public opinion instead. Whether based on religious or political ideologies, terrorists always go for public opinion one way or another. The intention to create political chaos through violence is another common denominator between them. These common grounds can to a certain extent lead to contacts and sometimes even to cooperation and joint operations by groups which oppose each other entirely in the “normal world.” A similarity in strategies applied by various terrorist groups is usually the basis for connections of this kind. Let’s illustrate this with the strategies of radical left and extreme right terrorist groups in Italy during the ’70s. Of course, we see opposing schemes. Violence from the left follows the expectation that political chaos will unmask the state, followed by a sequence of unchained revolutionary events. In the approach of right-wing terrorism, political chaos and instability will make the public demand drastic measures, with success for right-wing parties during elections, or a military takeover as an imagined result. Major differences. The point is that as long the state of political chaos has not been reached, the strategies are almost identical, which is the lubricant for infiltration and black flag operations. This combination is able to cover any terrorist attack in a shroud of uncertainty. That’s what happened in Italy during the ’70s. And that’s what seems to be taking place in Turkey nowadays.

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Angelo M. Codevilla, July 2010 - August 2010 issue

As over-leveraged investment houses began to fail in September 2008, the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties, of major corporations, and opinion leaders stretching from the National Review magazine (and the Wall Street Journal) on the right to the Nation magazine on the left, agreed that spending some $700 billion to buy the investors’ “toxic assets” was the only alternative to the U.S. economy’s “systemic collapse.” In this, President George W. Bush and his would-be Republican successor John McCain agreed with the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. Many, if not most, people around them also agreed upon the eventual commitment of some 10 trillion nonexistent dollars in ways unprecedented in America. They explained neither the difference between the assets’ nominal and real values, nor precisely why letting the market find the latter would collapse America. The public objected immediately, by margins of three or four to one.

When this majority discovered that virtually no one in a position of power in either party or with a national voice would take their objections seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the term “political class” came into use. Then, after those in power changed their plans from buying toxic assets to buying up equity in banks and major industries but refused to explain why, when they reasserted their right to decide ad hoc on these and so many other matters, supposing them to be beyond the general public’s understanding, the American people started referring to those in and around government as the “ruling class.” And in fact Republican and Democratic office holders and their retinues show a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits, opinions, and sources of income among one another than between both and the rest of the country. They think, look, and act as a class.

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Barbara Kay, Jul. 28, 2010

“Strange times to be a Jew.” That’s the master theme, voiced early and demonstrated often, in a haunting 2007 novel about Jewish messianism, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.

Michael Chabon’s darkly brilliant achievement in alternate history sprang to mind last week, when news broke that if Israel’s extreme right wing ultra-Orthodox — the Haredim, who control the Chief Rabbinate–have their way, who is or isn’t a Jew will be far more narrowly circumscribed than ever before in Israel’s history.

The Knesset has approved a draft bill that would permit the Haredim to dictate the criteria for legal Jewish status. They would then hold the power to exclude thousands of Jewish converts, even many converted by Orthodox rabbis, from eligibility for Israeli citizenship under the “law of return” accorded all Jews as aninherentright.

Whether the bill passes or not this time — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reassured panicked Diaspora Jews he wouldn’t support it — it reminds us that, given Israel’s electoral system of proportional representation, the political will of the disproportionately swelling ranks of Haredim (now about 1.3 million) will, one rapidly approaching day, dominate the Knesset–and Jewish destiny.

The root of the word Haredim means anxiety, which is what all Jews should feel about a putative Haredi balance of power. The Haredim are not simply religious fundamentalists with a prolific birthrate. The most eschatologically ambitious amongst them harbour lunatic urges to “force history,” to hasten the arrival of a dilatory Messiah.

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The Establishment is Fighting to Stay Alive as the Globe Reaches a Critical Juncture in History

Old-Thinker News | July 28, 2010

The world, it seams, is reaching a critical juncture in history. Current trends are pointing towards dramatic changes in government and society. Long standing institutions are scrambling to stay afloat as new rivals challenge old ideas. Meanwhile, the global elite, foreseeing these changes, is fighting to retain control over a global system that is being torn apart by economic meltdown and a global political awakening. As top global strategists like Zbigniew Brzezinski have admitted, cracks are forming in the many bases of establishment control.

Global Political Awakening

Global governance has been a long term goal of elites for decades. However, a global political awakening is taking place that is proving to be a major stumbling block under the feet of the world’s elite. During a recent Council on Foreign Relations meeting in Montreal, Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted that, “Mankind is now politically awakened and stirring,” stating that a fractured elite “…makes it a much more difficult context for any major power, including currently the leading world power, the United States.”

In an earlier speech in 2009, Brzezinski elaborated further, saying, “…in early times, it was easier to control a million people, literally it was easier to control a million people than physically to kill a million people. Today, it is infinitely easier to kill a million people than to control a million people. It is easier to kill than to control….”

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H.P. Albarelli Jr. and Zoe Martell, 21 July 2010

With little fanfare on July 13, Florida officials released the findings of a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study conducted recently in the Key West area revealing that about 10 percent, or 1,000 people, of the coastal town’s population are infected with the dengue fever virus.

While the July 13 release made little mention of it, the CDC study was provoked by an earlier 2009 report that a woman in New York State, who had returned from a Florida Keys’ visit, had contracted dengue fever. Within a few weeks of this initial report, two additional cases were discovered in people who had returned from Key West. Over the next three months of 2009, an additional 26 cases were identified, all tied to visits to the town.

Because of these reported cases, the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District conducted greatly increased aerial spraying to control mosquitoes. Following the spraying, a small amount of other cases were reported, including that of a 41-year-old Key West man who found blood in his urine and had severely aching joints. Following these additional reports, the CDC launched its study of antibodies in Key West residents and found that 5 percent of the town’s residents have been exposed to the dengue virus. Said CDC dengue expert, Dr. Christopher J. Gregory, “The best estimate from the survey is that about 5 percent of [residents] was infected in 2009 with dengue.” Gregory also stated, “We have known for a while it is a possible risk, but this outbreak shows it is more than possible: It is something that did happen and could happen again.”

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RACHEL DONADIO, July 21, 2010

[...] As a heretic he could not be given a proper church burial. But for years after his death, his followers in the circle of the grand dukes of Tuscany pushed to give him an honorable resting place.

Nearly a century later, in 1737, members of Florence’s cultural and scientific elite unearthed the scientist’s remains in a peculiar Masonic rite. Freemasonry was growing as a counterweight to church power in those years and even today looms large in the Italian popular imagination as an anticlerical force.

According to a notary who recorded the strange proceedings, the historian and naturalist Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti used a knife to slice off several fingers, a tooth and a vertebra from Galileo’s body as souvenirs but refrained, it appears, from taking his brain. The scientist was then reburied in a ceremony, “symmetrical to a beatification,” said Mr. Galluzzi.

After taking their macabre souvenirs, the group placed Galileo’s remains in an elegant marble tomb in Florence’s Santa Croce church, a pointed statement from Tuscany’s powers that they were outside the Vatican’s control. The church has long been a shrine to humanism as much as to religion, and Galileo’s permanent neighbors include Michelangelo, Machiavelli and Rossini.

Leigh Phillips, 19.07.2010

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Brussels is to hold an EU summit with atheists and freemasons in the autumn, inviting them to a political dialogue parallel to the annual summit the bloc holds with Europe’s religious leaders.

While the EU is a secular body, the three European presidents, of the commission, parliament and EU Council, alongside two commissioners, on Monday met with 24 bishops, chief rabbis, and muftis as well as leaders from the Hindu and Sikh communities. The annual dialogue, which has taken place since 2005, is for the first time this year made legally obligatory under Article 17 of the Lisbon Treaty.

Under pressure from Belgium, which constitutionally protects and financially supports humanist organisations as well as churches, the EU has been forced to hold a mirror-image summit, but of atheists, scheduled for 15 October.

However, in a move that perplexed and annoyed humanist groups, the EU atheist summit will also welcome under the rubric of ‘non-religious groups’, the Freemasons, the secretive fraternal organisation, according to commission spokeswoman Katharina von Schnurbein.

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See also: The Masonic “Reconquista”

Sami Zubaida, 20 July 2010

[...] An important venue for this Ottoman cosmopolitanism were the Masonic lodges. Ottoman Muslims were admitted into these lodges in the 1860s and many intellectuals and public figures embraced Masonry with enthusiasm. The lodges they favoured followed the French Grand Orient, which, unlike its British counterparts, jettisoned the references to a Supreme Being, and the Immortality of the Soul, the deistic principle of earlier Masonry. It also embraced the slogan of the French Revolution of Equality, Liberty and Fraternity (to which the later Young Turks added Justice). In effect, those lodges favoured secular positivism and rationality, which was part of its attraction to Ottoman liberals. Membership included Greeks, Armenians and Jews, as well as European residents. Turkish was introduced as one of the languages of proceeding in some lodges. Many Ottoman intellectuals combined Masonry and positivism with heterodox Muslim mysticism, notably Bektashism, a historic Turkish Sufi order, outlawed in the 1820s and organised in secret societies. Ibn Arabi (1165-1240), the main reference of Muslim mysticism, was embraced alongside Herbert Spencer and Auguste Comte. What the two strands had in common was the rejection of religious authority and institutions. Masonry was equally prevalent in Egypt, where the Muslim reformer Jamal-ad-Din Al-Afghani (1838-1897) was the master of a lodge, which also embraced some of his followers, including Muhammad Abdu (1849-1905). It played an important part in the politics of the elites. The Iraqi poet, Ma`ruf al-Rusafi (d.1945) was recruited into a lodge when in Istanbul, but renounced that affiliation in statements in later life as an Iraqi and Arab nationalist.

The conspiracy which culminated in the Young Turk revolution of 1908 took place within the Italian Masonic lodge in Salonica. The legal immunities of the foreigners and their homes in that city offered protection for the military conspirators from Hamidian police and spies. In 1909 there was a counter-revolution in Istanbul, in support of the Sultan and the Islamic shari`a, led by religious figures. This was put down by army contingents from Salonica, and culminated in the deposition of the Sultan. The four member delegation which went to the Palace to inform Abdul-Hamid of his deposition were all from minority communities, including the Jew Emmanuel Karasso, a prominent Mason. Of course this fed into later conspiracy theories about Masons and Jews plotting to end the last Islamic caliphate. Karasso, in fact, was an Ottomanist, and explicitly rejected Zionist claims.

Daniel Hopsicker, August 4 2010

The American owner of record of the DC9 airliner from St Petersburg busted in Mexico carrying an astonishing 5.5 tons of cocaine was the subject of a drug trafficking investigation back in 1995, we have learned.

According to a DEA report on the DC9 sent to Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office, Frederic Geffon was investigated by US Customs in Tampa, Florida in 1995, after being identified as an aircraft-broker-dealer working with drug traffickers.

“Frederic J. GEFFON DOB: 08.02.1948, home address 10316 Paradise Blvd, Treasure Island, Florida, was the subject of an investigation by US Customs in Tampa, Florida in 1995,” stated a DEA report on the highly-publicized DC9 incident in the Yucatan to Luis Correa, the Director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office. “GEFFON was identified in 1995 as an aircraft-broker-dealer working with drug traffickers.”

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Antifascist, July 20, 2010

When investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker broke the story four years ago that a DC-9 (N900SA) “registered to a company which once used as its address the hangar of Huffman Aviation, the flight school at the Venice, Florida Airport which trained both terrorist pilots who crashed planes into the World Trade Center, was caught in Campeche by the Mexican military … carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine destined for the U.S.,” it elicited a collective yawn from corporate media.

And when authorities searched the plane and found its cargo consisted solely of 128 identical black suitcases marked “private,” packed with cocaine valued at more than $100 million, the silence was deafening.

But now a Bloomberg Markets magazine report, “Wachovia’s Drug Habit,” reveals that drug traffickers bought that plane, and perhaps fifty others, “with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.,” Wachovia and Bank of America.

The Justice Department charge sheet against the bank tells us that between 2003 and 2008, Wachovia handled $378.4 billion for Mexican currency exchanges, “the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history.”

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