You are currently browsing the archives for the General Media category.
- General Media (17)
- Television (3)
- 04/09/2010: Cineology Live! ... The Autopsy
- 13/03/2010: The three types of people in the world
- 23/02/2010: Being “An Enemy of the People” is not a new idea …
- 29/12/2009: Resolutions for 2010 (No, seriously ...)
- 01/08/2009: Go on, BE CURIOUS!
- 04/07/2009: Imitation is the sincerest form of theft
- 27/06/2009: Engaging with a Straw Man
- 05/06/2009: AVII - The Post-Conference View
- 11/04/2009: Never give anything for "free"
- 19/03/2009: Positive vibes
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Archive for the General Media Category
Cineology Live! … The Autopsy
04/09/2010 by AJ.
There’s a saying that you should never go back. Be it relationships, careers, and indeed hobbies. The world is changing around us, and the speed of that change is gathering pace. It’s possible to make the case that the majority of these changes are NOT for the better. However, if you feel you can improve things, you become convinced to get back in harness again.
So it came to pass that I was tempted to revive the live weekend celebration that had been the CULT TV FESTIVAL. Something that was part of my life from the middle of 1993 (the start of the run-up to our 1994 event), right up until the end of 2007 - when we concluded proceedings at the excellent Heythrop Park venue in Oxfordshire.
This weekend would have been the debut of the CINEOLOGY WEEKENDER. Taking the best elements of the Cult TV Festival, and improving what we thought had kept people away in the later years of our first format. We had major sponsorship in place to help make it happen – in fact, we’d been invited to get ‘back in business’. And it all would have been a huge success… ten years ago!
Back in 2007, we still had a core of around 150 people who we knew would join us, come rain or shine wherever we happened to be. They were not concerned with who we might have along as celebrity guests. Rightly or wrongly we were trusted to do the best we could and to put on an excellent show. Not only that, charity fundraising was absolutely core to our efforts, keeping alive the altruism of fandom that has been part of true media appreciation from the beginning. We had a ‘professional’ approach, with non-commercial intentions.
I was approached by Pontin’s in July 2009 with the offer to format a new version of the Cult TV Festival. Within a couple of weeks I had tabled a new weekender, and it was warmly welcomed. Unfortunately, it took until the end of January 2010 to get everything was signed off; this is the problem with new ways of working, it takes time to iron out the rough corners.
The real upside was that Pontin’s were prepared to underwrite everything – meaning it was no longer my house (or that of any of the Production Team) which was at risk should everything go horrendously wrong. We could concentrate on the organising of the programme, the charity fund-raising initiatives, and getting the talent ‘on board’.
Unfortunately, it appears that this radical way of thinking was way beyond the comprehension of a few very-vocal people, at various TV-related society meetings around the county. As far as they were concerned, we had ‘sold out’ to ‘the man’. The fact that the only way I could be tempted back onto the scene was by not risking the rest of my life on such a venture was not something they wanted to pay attention to. The fact that charity fund-raising was still at the core of our format was also dismissed. Yet these self-same people will be seen at the commercial media events happening at various ‘aircraft hangers’ around the country, handing over their dosh, knowing full well none of the profits will be going to charity (unless a celebrity makes that decision themselves).
That was one barrier to success. It’s actually a very minor one, simply because in reality these people only have power when no-one comes to the defence of the side being attacked. As we have known for ages, the problem is that our core of attendees actually kept their interest in Cult TV (the event) to themselves: they never acted as ‘brand ambassadors’, spreading the word to anyone who would listen.
Getting the word out is now more difficult than ever – no-one should believe that the internet gets you instantly to a mass audience! In terms of genre magazines, we’re now down to two generic ones – SFX and SCI-FI NOW. There are many reasons for this contraction, but one major clue to the reason Cineology failed is how many magazines now out there which are dedicated to specific series – more on that later. But in the case of the generic mags, we just couldn’t find a way to illustrate the difference between us and the other weekend media events out there.
And now the big blocker to getting the stars people want to see at an event such as ours. Celebrity agents. If the stars only knew how their representatives tarnish their image and reputations, many of these doozies would have no clients left. It was nigh on impossible to get them to understand the concept – professional charity fund-raising if you like, so I take full responsibility for not getting through the cotton wool between their ears. The fees being quoted were, quite frankly, laughable. To book them would have been financial suicide – none of them would have brought in what they would have cost. It’s complete madness.
What of our proposed venue, Pakefield? It’s on the east coast of England, and is definitely the best location Pontin’s has in its portfolio by a long chalk. Once more, we had complaints that we were ‘out of the way’. I believe this gets back to the problem that our prospective supporters never wanted to see Cult TV Weekenders as being a holiday. What they thought our event actually was is still difficult for me to comprehend. The first sign of trouble this time out was, again, that we were having people asking what the ‘day rate’ was. Therein lies a nice little contradiction… we’re so out of the way for some to get there and stay for a weekend, and then others wanted to get there and back in a day (despite it apparently being such a hike). You can already see how it is impossible to even get close to pleasing everyone.
What we also get back to is that despite having run the Cult TV Weekender for 14 years, still there were those who didn’t have us on their radar. Then there were those who knew of us, but didn’t associate it with being something for them. This is where ‘brand image’ comes in. For instance, are you one of those people who heard the initial press last year that ‘organic’ food was no better for you than ‘ordinary’ food? After the headlines, the small follow-up articles actually said that they’d effectively got it wrong, and organic products were indeed packed with higher levels of valuable nutrients. This didn’t stop organic sales going through the floor – I was picking up a plethora of organic stuff cheaply for a long time afterwards. The lies stuck, and to some extent I think the early bad press that Cult TV got (thanks, SFX magazine et al) never went away – it was always an uphill struggle to sell. It didn’t matter what amazing things we managed to pull off, they never get reported.
For instance, we were the first organisers to have Philip Glenister along as a celebrity guest. A year later and a commercial organiser would have you believe that THEY were the first event where he had signed autographs. ALL Cult TV’s guests signed autographs – and what the commercial organiser didn’t mention was that at our show you got the autographs of most stars included in your registration price…
Indeed, the cost became the final unsolvable mystery with Cult TV. Some looked at the overall price and considered it was too good to be true, so didn’t sign up. Others thought it a lot of money to go for a weekend at Pontin’s, so didn’t sign up. Many didn’t want to make a commitment in advance – why should they when the aircraft-hanger events demand none such? So, they didn’t sign up. And despite it being virtually an ‘all-in’ package price, some couldn’t do the maths to see how much they were getting – the bang for their buck. Guess what? They didn’t sign up.
And on top of that there were those who had already made their plans for the year, and others who simply said in the current climate they couldn’t afford to come along. So, even our core audience couldn’t help us out, either. With less than 50 people having signed up, early July saw us all agreeing that we had to pull the plug.
Unfortunately, this means that I have to admit something which is the ‘elephant in the room’ concerning television fandom. TV is a passive medium – the majority just sit there and consume. When there was little access to the shows, and no DVDs with extras where you could find out more, then conventions had their place. For sure, that has all changed now. You no longer have to spend a weekend away to ‘have a look’ at a celebrity. Or get their autograph. No point watching their interviews onstage at an event as you’ll have heard it all on their DVD commentaries or specially filmed extras on the discs. Not many actually want to ask questions of these stars (although plenty use ‘question time’ to ask for a hug or a kiss … yuk).
The result is that the hit-and-run aircraft-hanger events have taken over the market. As for interacting, you can get all that online, and not have the inconvenience of having to go anywhere to mingle…!
And that’s the final nail in the multi-series event format. Fans actually don’t want to mingle with fans of OTHER shows. These people won’t have the same central interest, so Heaven’s above, there might be some debate about the merits of various series. Don’t have comedy, some said. Don’t have this. Don‘t have that, don’t have the other. Just include what ‘they’ like. Rather than be supportive of others who find similar apathy to their own favourite shows and stars, fans make their appreciation incredibly insular. They don’t want to know about other shows discovered by what could be like-minded people, they’d rather stay obsessed with their own series. Until they get bored of it and move on to the next obsession, that is…
So, what of live events in the future? Well as Sean Connery said, ‘never say never again’, but the answer stems back to something cynical I once said, and I stand by. In the case of some fans, you could hold a convention (they say) they’d really love to go to in their own front room, and they’d still choose that weekend to go out! Equally, the number of acquaintances in the last year of Cult TV who said to me “I really must get along to a Cult TV weekend some time”, to which my reply was “you’ve missed 13 already, you’re obviously just incredibly unlucky!”, well, it’s too many to mention. They were given a final reprieve with Cineology, and they failed once more.
To summarise … I don’t know what real fans want from a live event any more, if there are indeed enough ‘real’ fans out there. Put it this way, if it’s only autographs, traders and home by teatime, I’m not interested in serving that market.
Which is why internet broadcasting is the next stop for Cineology. We’ve tried podcasts, but I realised from feedback received that many TV fans can’t cope with ‘radio’ as a medium! They need pictures in front of them. And that’s the thing. This route of delivery CAN be straight into their front room, as more and more people will be able to view the internet on their main telly. And they can choose to go out whenever they like, but we’ll still be there when they get back, on a re-run. Which will leave them with just one thing left to say: they are simply not that interested to make the time to watch.
At that point, we’ll finally know what the truth is!
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The three types of people in the world
13/03/2010 by AJ.
It’s some three years since I started to look ‘behind the curtain’ of what we are told in the mainstream media. You have Tony Blair to blame (or thank) for that. This is the background for you. I recall watching Blair ‘live’, standing up in Parliament telling everyone who would listen that the
As the years went by, and the tragedy and lies revealed themselves, thousands of British soldiers and over a million Iraqi citizens, not military personnel, including innocent women and children, were killed. We all know now WHY that happened. Nothing at all to do with freedom – and if you are reading this and still think it was, I have some Swiss seaside property you may be interested in. No-one could be in any doubt that Blair knew what he was doing. I felt betrayed.
As those who know me well, the one thing I cannot ever abide is betrayal. It sends me psychotic. It makes me angry. The one thing I could not understand was why Tony Blair had flushed his reputation down the toilet for a lie. He knew he would never be seen as a great statesman when it all came out, as the truth always has a nasty habit of doing (even though on my occasion it fails to be timely in doing so).
In order to investigate, you have to go back to where the
It was January 2007, and I started to become aware that there were people who believed that we weren’t being told the truth about the events of 9/11. The evidence was inconsistent, and people had questions which were being ignored. The truth can withstand any sort of investigation, so why weren’t answers forthcoming to explain the uncovered inconsistencies? My suspicions by now were well and truly aroused. However, by this point, I began to get a little worried by some of those who were adding their voices to exposing the cracks in the 9/11 ‘official story’.
In particular, one particular former BBC sports presenter… David Icke. Infamous from an appearance on Terry Wogan’s TV chat show at the beginning of the 1990s, telling people that the world was not as we thought it was, claiming that we were all the ‘son of God’. Strange that this latter statement, something so central to the majority of religions on this planet, was ridiculed as being the words of a loony. In fact, it got misrepresented as David Icke saying HE was the son of God. Not what he said at all if you go and check back the videos on YouTube of this now-distorted version of the incident.
Taking a deep breath, I realised I actually knew nothing about what David Icke’s viewpoint was. Again, taking the attitude of wondering WHY someone would do something irrational, as I had with Blair, I had to investigate. Why would he dump a cushy BBC job, become an object of ridicule, and then still be active in what he believed in? Surely you’d just purposely vanish into obscurity, lick your wounds and change direction? Surfing the web, I suddenly found out this was far from the truth. Icke’s name was all across the internet, connected to 9/11 information and investigations.
And then I wondered what David Icke material might be on
When the DVDs arrived (and hey, this was a triple disc set!), the wealth of topics covered was mind-boggling. 9/11 was just one small section of the six or so hours of the presentation. That may sound like a long time, but it passed in a blink of the eye. Our political ‘system’ and the nasty secrets of those who head it up, the truth behind microchipping the population, erosion of civil liberties and so forth. It was the day that the world changed.
I followed up first on the 9/11 angle – in February 2007 I bought Icke’s book which demolished the ‘official story’ of that fateful day. It’s called Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster: Why the Official Story of 9/11 is a Monumental Lie
Since then, I’ve found out about the evil done in the UN’s name that is the Codex Alimentarius ‘food code’. I’ve discovered the concept of ‘false flag’ terrorism, and how this has been a feature of dividing and ruling the population of planet Earth for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. I’ve realised that, as the saying goes “whoever you vote for, the Government gets in”. We are willingly sleepwalking into a totalitarian world state that was prophesised by George Orwell in ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four
It’s called an ‘awakening’ by those who’ve gone through it. You look around and you feel really dumb that something so obvious has been hidden from you. Right in front of your eyes. For those who think the BBC has not been corrupted and turned into a propaganda machine, those of us who now understand see one major news story after another failing to be covered. Don’t believe me? Well, just Google “Hollie Greig Panorama”. Enough said.
Which brings me to the title of this posting. The three types of people in the world. The first is the group that I am now part of – who see the reality of what is around us. Those for whom the BBC News is our starting point, and then we go and find out what the real story is. They may feature a lot of the facts, but misinterpret them deliberately, and reach a conclusion which is nowhere near the truth.
The next grouping is those who simply refuse to question the reality as fed to them by the media. I know so many people who I’ve given DVDs to for free, well produced and entertaining ones which are very watchable, and in essence I might have well given them these things as coasters. The truth is on these precious items, but all you get is excuse upon excuse as to why they don’t set aside an hour or two to watch the gift they have been given. I’m giving these out because I’d love them to join me on the inside track, see the World for what it is. I fully understand what a scary journey it is at first. However, they really do seem to want to live in ignorance rather than get a handle on what is so obvious once you start your journey.
The final third group is one that, to my mind, is one of the most dangerous we can imagine. In effect, they have become the sheepdogs who keep the sheep from finding out what’s really going on. They do their best to reinforce the ‘official stories’ we are fed, day after day.
This is how they operate: first, they will hear of the ‘conspiracy theories’ floating across the net. However, rather than investigate the evidence that turns theories into facts, they simply read the tenuous defences put out by those intent on defending the status quo. The ‘official lines’ which, if you step back from what’s being said contradict fundamental scientific principles and simple logic.
Stuff like jet fuel being able to melt steel. That completely wrong detail alone is enough to crush the ‘official story’ of 9/11. However, one ‘MacGuffin’ or another is brought into play to explain how the laws of physics changed for just one day in Earth’s history. And one MacGuffin begets another MacGuffin, and before you know it an entire house of cards has been built. Suddenly you’ve got the sort of pseudo-science that much of Star Trek lore has been built upon. It sounds good, but falls apart if you just step back and look at what’s actually being said.
The reason they are doing this is because the alternative is finding out that they have been lied to their entire life. They apply one fundamental conceit about our ‘powers-that-be’: they assume those in charge work to the same values and belief systems that the rest of us do. In order to crack this Curate’s egg open, you have to play the game of ‘What If?’
What if those pulling the strings have absolutely no empathy for mankind? It would certainly explain why killing over a million innocent people, some of them of your own country, would be met with a shrug of the shoulders. Why it would be perfectly acceptable to defend your actions, and say categorically you’d do it again in another country without a blink of the eye.
Just as Blair did recently as he took centre stage at the
Let’s be straight about this. It’s not because there’s nothing you can do. It’s because you don’t want to do. Once enough people realise the truth, the construct around us will fall. Are you going to be one of those who helps make it happen by spreading the word, or are you going to leave it to others… ?
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Being “An Enemy of the People” is not a new idea …
23/02/2010 by AJ.
And you certainly can’t escape that temperature records began just after the end of that little ice-age. So, when we are told that we have had ten of the warmest years since records began from 1990 onwards, this is errant smoke and mirrors when you realise those records started in 1850 … just 160 years ago! Starting from a low temperature point means that, of course, the current temperatures are considerably higher - but not if you project backwards into history, stuff you can do via other methods to record temperature.
And don’t get me started on the curtailing of the temperature monitoring machinery, with us now seeing stations in more remote areas no longer being included in the figures … meaning that only urban devices continue to be monitored henceforward.
All this steers us away from the reality: that big conglomerates are responsible for polluting our planet, and carbon trading won’t bring them to justice or stop their progress. They pay to pollute, but CO2, plant food (remember that from basic biology?), is seen as the bogey man. It has become the equivalent of Emmanuel Goldstein in George Orwell’s “1984”. A straw man set up to lead us away from the truth.
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Resolutions for 2010 (No, seriously …)
29/12/2009 by AJ.
I haven’t been into making resolutions for a New Year for a long, long time. In fact, it’s probably 20 years ago since I last bothered to do so. That was at the end of 1989 and the beginning of 1990. 1989 was without doubt the worst year of my life, and it was one that I’d love to be able to either erase, or revisit with what I know now. Mind you, I have friends who have had a really rough 2009, and no doubt if I asked them to rate this past year, they’d see now as the time that they’d most like to delete from their history.
I’ve had quite some time to reflect over this last week, and have another week to go before my world gets back onto its rail track of conformity. It’s one of those things about the way we experience the world that most of us are kept so busy with work, play, and the worry and fear upon which our life experience is restrained. Therefore, we never give ourselves a chance to do a stock-check on where we are now, and where we want to be.
In the last days of 1989, I had realised that I had just one friend left that I could rely upon. The others had proved to be selfish, either with a backbone of wickedness or a mask of wilful ignorance (which meant they never wanted to take a position on anything). At that time I had no comprehension of ‘wilful ignorance’ or indeed how intrinsic it was in society.
And here, twenty years later, I have realised what a danger ‘wilful ignorance’ is to the world around us. There was a quote that summed it up perfectly that I came across the other day: ‘people only want to be consumers, not citizens’. To a great many, our society is defined by what we own; how big our house is, what car we drive, and the price ticket of the Christmas gifts we give out.
These things should not define who you are. If they do, then there’s nothing else about you. The house where I now live rightfully can be called a home – my wife, my pets, and I have all we need to be comfortable. Each room is a basis for whatever mood we want to experience at the time, and for me they also reflect parts of my life – the conservatory is the old family caravan, the bar defines my time working in The Hollybush public house in Wolverhampton, the study feels like the same study I had in my first flat, and so on.
Our car is functional – it’s never let us down, and because it’s a four-wheel drive we never get stuck anywhere (although we are slowed down by those in front of us who DO get stuck and block the roads). I don’t have it to ‘cock a snoot’ at global warmists, it’s a functional device, a tool. We also feel safer in it given the utter and complete lunatics who litter the highways these days.
As for Christmas gifts, well, what many folk got from me this year was a book called “The Truth Agenda” by Andy Thomas. It’s a work of genius, separating the facts from fiction on all sorts of unexplained mysteries, global cover-ups and the 2012 prophecies. I didn’t give it because it was ‘the right price,’ I gave it because if I can give any one thing, I want to hand out the truth about our world. As those who have already started their journey in realising that the mainstream media is dishonest, deliberately misleading us, there has to be the desire to pull back the veil and look beyond our conditioning. I just wish 20 years ago, in my time of greatest despair, I had found the tools to break the glass, think outside the box, and find out what’s really going on around us.
That said, people have to be at the place in their life where they sense something is not quite right. Until then, they’ll not dip into any book they’re given, watch any DVD they’re gifted, or do any research on the internet into the alternative readings of what is happening in the world. It’s a shame that it will take time for some to catch up, but I know that in 2010 more people are going to see how big the lies we are being told actually are. As Hitler noted, “The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies, but would be ashamed to tell big lies” (Mein Kampf).
There was a point way back when, probably 1983 I think, when I was presented with the opportunity to begin the walk along the truthseeker road which has now become such a part of my life. One of my teachers gave me a purple folder that contained an archaic photocopy of a document called “The Gemstone File”. It was supposed to be an inspiration for my creative writing, but unfortunately got boxed up and came on life’s journey with me. I only got around to reading it earlier this year. The revelation was that it covers a host of the greatest conspiracies we have ever known, and I think if I had read it at the time, the last 25 or so years would have been a lot, lot different. It’s that regret which makes me want to help people get with the programme sooner rather than later, so they don’t duplicate my error. The amazing thing is that this privately circulated document did get properly published. In fact, you can even now find it available at Amazon:
And now, in a very Harlan Ellion-esque way I finally get around to those resolutions for 2010. What I hope to do is look after myself a little more, whilst at the same time not biting my tongue so much when I hear people spouting uninformed gibberish. Specifically:
1. Continue to keep free of Aspartame (and other artificial sweeteners). When I see ANY NEW product contaminated with this crap, I will tell people and complain to the manufacturers (already done with a brand of pear cider. I mean, PEAR CIDER fer Crissakes! I simply don’t accept there’s no other way to thin out the cider, as was the excuse from the manufacturers – if that was the case, it would have ALWAYS had to have been in the damn stuff!!!). More info at:
http://www.conspiracy101.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=165&sid=4f719f2e99b66a914292ce0b3e36e1f0
2. Continue to try and avoid anything containing refined white salt. The stuff that’s removed from processed salt actually constitutes trace elements that are good for you. For instance, when we use ‘ordinary’ table salt, we are missing 81 nutrients taken out by the production process, and their absence has an adverse effect on us. .It makes us weaker, imbalanced and more susceptible to disease. Pay the extra and buy either Himalayan or Gaelic Salt. Read more at:
http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/salt.htm
3. Avoid white sugar. Simply, it is a poison that has been bleached, highly processed, and deprived of its nutrients. I will continue to support Stevia, the occasional spoonful of Honey (in particular Manuka), and investigate Agave Syrup, Blackstrap Molasses and Maple Syrup. Find out more at:
http://food-facts.suite101.com/article.cfm/nutrients_in_natural_sweeteners
http://www.mvholisticretreat.com/article.html/sweet-poison
4. Avoid white flour. Studies show that alloxan, the chemical that makes white flour look ‘clean’ and ‘beautiful’ destroys the beta cells of the pancreas. So, go for anything wholegrain on the flour front because, guess what, the extra stuff it contains is actually good for you! Further reading at:
http://www.naturalnews.com/white_flour.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/whole_grain.html
5. Continue to switch over from dead lager to real ale. Well, there’s got to be some pleasures in life, and it’s reassuring to know that cask ales actually have considerable health benefits (but, like most things, must be consumed in moderation). Read the good news at:
http://www.familybrewers.co.uk/home/cask-beer/health-benefits-of-cask-ale
And to help with eating right, I’m going to stick the Honest Food Guide to my fridge, which you can download at:
http://www.honestfoodguide.org/
Right, that’s the body part of my resolutions; now here are the ones on the soul side of things:
6. Continue to develop the new direction for the Cineology® brand – exploring the facts found in extraordinary fiction. One of the reasons it took me a long time to appreciate that a world government was not a good thing was how prevalent the concept was in favourite fictions from my childhood. Whether it was Captain Scarlet or Star Trek, the reason that such a totalitarian structure was seen as a good thing was it was the best way to fight the enemy from outside our borders. Unfortunately, such a structure means that we are susceptible to the enemy within, and absolute power corrupting absolutely. The one party state of George Orwell’s “1984” is with us already, it’s just that many of us haven’t realised this yet. There are many truths that have been demonstrated first in TV and film fiction, and that helps hide what’s really going on – dismissed because it was an element of a television storyline. Just because it was in a work of fiction does not mean it was never part of a planned reality …
7. Bring back the fun to television fandom. We’ve seen commercial interests decimate the spirit of media appreciation. It’s become a big money-making machine with no soul, and a level of corruption which is quite simply criminal. There are some aspects that are beyond repair, but there must be new way of doing things that can be more palatable to the stars, creators and appreciators alike. It will need the assistance of a great many fan groups, who had better be able to demonstrate their ability to mobilise people. However, we’ve seen what CAN be done if people band together – witness the Christmas chart success of Rage Against The Machine. Watch this space …
8. Get it together on becoming a public speaker on truth topics. It’s been a rollercoaster of a ride over the last three years, getting my head around what’s really going on in the world. The first five of these resolutions should, if you are getting with the plot, make you realise there’s a lot that makes little sense in our world. If our food is being processed so that it becomes more harmful to us, then what else is wrong? If you read beyond the headlines, you’ll realise that organic food is better for you. The hit-piece this year which tried to make the case that there were no health benefits to organic crops soon fell apart when you actually inspected the results - see:
http://www.conspiracy101.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=100&sid=4f719f2e99b66a914292ce0b3e36e1f0
Helping to organise the last two Alternative View conferences has shown me that I’m actually now well-placed to help others connect the dots and see the big picture.
9. Stop buying things I want, and limit myself to what I actually need. Hopefully I’m not the only person who looks at a pile of recent acquisitions and begins to wonder why on Earth I bought more than half of what’s in front of me! This gets back to getting one’s head straight about what’s really important in life. It’s almost a Spock quote from the original Star Trek episode “Amok Time”: ‘After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting’.
10. Not to lose patience with those who are engaging in ‘cognitive dissonance’. This is when people try to rationalise the continuance of their view of the world as they have always seen it, rather than rationally take on board new evidence which smashes their current position (or ‘paradigm’, as has become the word of choice for this). However, the following quote comes to mind: “All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident.” (Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860). So many are still at the First stage. Let’s hope that we can pass through the Second stage without too much grief, so that next Christmas we can all be at the third stage!
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Go on, BE CURIOUS!
01/08/2009 by AJ.
You probably remember the time as a child when your curiosity was admired. With our cats, it’s the same. Whatever they investigate is met with a mixture of laughter and awe. So, given that it seems such a valued trait, how come when you get to adulthood, displaying such is treated with so much disdain?
I mention it as one of the speakers at the Glastonbury Symposium this year (my first time of attending it, by the way) said that if we did nothing else in our lives, we should be curious. Suzanne Taylor, an American, who has just produced what is the definitive film on the crop circle phenomena, relayed that this was one trait we should always be proud of. She mentioned how her intellectual friends had disowned her for making a documentary about a phenomena that, to those who continue to pay any attention to the mainstream media, you would think had been discredited. She didn’t mind their intolerance, as their reaction said more about them than it did about her.
Fast forward to breakfast at the B&B on my second day in Glastonbury – a Saturday. Our landlady made a sweeping statement about not believing any conspiracy theories, forcefully addressed to myself and an Australian lady who were swapping stories connected to the Friday symposium talks. As an ex-Civil Servant our host made the statement that our leaders couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery, but a more polite way of saying the same. I noted that I was also a civil servant, and that it wasn’t us ‘pen pushers’ who would have been involved in orchestrating the conspiracies, it would be people so highly trained that the SAS would have been beneath them.
The next scattergun response was for me to consider the “nonsense” that was the Diana conspiracy. Having been able to stop people in their tracks before on this, I went in with my usual bombshell: yeah, how come every CCTV camera on the route in Paris that night was turned off - part of a refitted system that had just been put in place for the France 98 football World Cup?
No, they had been working, as our landlady had seen the Diana Mercedes speed into the tunnel, pass the white Fiat Uno, and crash into the 13th pillar.
Cue a moment of dumbfounded silence. What was being related to us as stone cold fact was one of the numerous reconstructions that had been made for TV to surmise what had happened. This was now a cheat of memory, the event having been designated as real in orchestrating this lady’s recollection.
There have never been any images released from those CCTV cameras around Paris before the crash. We are told that the tapes do not exist. All of them for the relevant few minutes, all failed to operate. Thus, we have an incident much the same as when Americans were polled recently, and a significant number believed Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9-11.
So, in processing all the information, the Reader’s Digest version in her personal history had edited things in such a way that ‘Conspiracy nuts’ were talking nonsense by suggesting that the CCTV cameras had not been working, as the public had been shown the lead up to, and the actual, crash.
All a lot easier than actually investigating the evidence. Of course, me saying that what she was relating was the content of a reconstruction of part of a documentary was met with a belligerent snort. How do you actually tell people they are wrong when you don’t have a DVD and player in your pocket to show that their own memory has cheated them?
But, this is part of the game. Every day the enlightened ‘conspiracy theorist’ gets more opportunities to see what people have stuffed inside their heads, and what you have to un-bung so that the truth can flow through them. It’s a big task, but the sooner each and every one of us joins in the quest to get the truth to everyone, the better.
Of course, it’s only now that I remember the response I’d once heard to the opinion that those in charge did not have the organisational ability, let alone the sort of closed ranks needed, to keep such things a secret. The answer is simple: The Manhattan Project. A fair few people were involved in keeping the development of atomic bombs secret, and it was kept confidential until after the time when there was no danger from the details being released. It is one of those examples that simply cannot be denied as a reality, of when people were silenced.
More modern examples, 9-11 for instance, are still in the bracket where people keep quiet about them under pain of death. The reasoning going that if anything dodgy had been going on we would have heard about it. The simple truth is that people have TRIED to tell what they know. Well, they have been ridiculed, via ad hominem attacks, ignored, or died in mysterious circumstances (Google ‘Barry Jennings’ if you don’t believe this happens).
So, I’m in a pub in Glastonbury now, of a lunchtime and listening to that Motown classic “Nowhere to run, baby, nowhere to hide”. In the end that’s the bottom line. The truth really has nothing to fear from investigation. And suggesting that conspiracies could never happen because those behind them are too inept really shows a belief in an incredibly naïve world view. As well as a lack of accurate historical knowledge of when our glorious leaders really have got away with things.
And as Andy Thomas encouraged at the Glastonbury Symposium this weekend, yes, I AM a Conspiracy Theorist, because there are a lot of events out there with a lot of unanswered questions that are not satisfactorily explained upon investigation. Care to be curious about my concerns, or do you REALLY believe that those in power have our best interests at heart?
And if your answer to that last question is “Yes” then go on, have that swine flu jab. Because that’s exactly what they want you to do. I love guinea pigs, but not the variety that wear human skin…
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Imitation is the sincerest form of theft
04/07/2009 by AJ.
Those of you with your ear to the ground will be aware that a major genre magazine in the UK has just announced that it is planning a convention-style thingy at a holiday camp in 2010.
As usual, the marketing boys are playing hard and fast with the truth. Apparently, it’s the first event of its kind in the UK. Well, that honour went to WARP ONE up at Morecambe in 1993. Then, of course, the minor irritant that the CULT TV WEEKENDERS started at a Holiday Camp (and indeed nine of the 14 Annual Festivals were at Holiday Camps). Still, people have short memories and, as we know from a host of other subjects, most people don’t question ‘facts’ these days.
Anyhow, not really putting pinkees to keyboard to bitch about such things. Good luck to them in making it work - the Cult TV Production Team should be flattered that someone has decided to resurrect what became our preferred way of doing things. However, as we found out, you’ll get people moaning about a whole host of things - the cost (particularly if a person wants to go along on your own), the fact the venue is so far from where certain people live, those who only want a day ticket (unable to comprehend the concept of entertainment in the evenings going right through to the morning after), the cost of autographs (being done as an added extra in the pricing structure), not being able to buy a “ticket” that doesn’t include accommodation, the lack of access by public transport (or at least the apparent problems - hey, try getting to Glastonbury by train!!!), having to bring your own towels, electric meters in certain chalets, and so forth.
Fan conventions are supposed to be fun, and there used to be a non-commercial heart to them which meant they were being organised with best intentions rather than profit at their heart. So many of these avid amateurs have seen the back-hander cash that can be made from joining “the professionals” and have suckled up to the Lords of Capitalism. What was a hobby has become a delightful second income. Charity these days never gets a look-in as it gets in the way of personal dosh!
The last decade has seen fandom change, possibly forever. No-one is surprised any more that they have to pay for autographs, and certainly endless queues are trying to be solved one way or the other. The thing is, some time soon there will be nostalgia for conventions as ‘they used to be’. However, I have my doubts that people actually would want things as they were.
The final problem is that if you were to do market research, you’d find that people actually don’t know what they want. For every type of venue, there will be supporters and detractors; for every change of format, some will cheer, some will huff. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
The ultimate struggle in formatting is between creating an all-in package which makes administration and on-the-day security easier, against creating a “build your own” itemised way of doing things which can turn into a nightmare before you know it (mainly caused by people not realising what they have bought, or not reading the information thoroughly enough so that they know what they have rights to do … and what they haven’t).
At the moment, it appears “pay as you go” is winning the day, which has the disadvantage that it actually makes things MORE expensive for those that want everything, as they effectively have to dig deeper to make up for those in attendance who want the bare minimum. “Quite right, too”, some may say … but if Sky and Virgin Media were ever to “debundle” to the Nth degree, just watch the topline all-in packages jump in price to make up for this.
So, there’s the ultimate dilemma. The Cult TV Weekender for many years became known for being “all or nothing”, which put a lot of people off. At ‘AVII’ I saw the ultimate in catering for everyone. You could have an all-weekend pass - in three flavours, Gold - Silver - Bronze. Each one gave you different levels of benefits, with a badge and a lanyard. And Gold Ticket people HAD to be staying at the venue for the 3 nights of the conference
Then there were day passes - for these you got a wrist band. And then there were even individual lecture tickets - printed passes specifically for each speaker.
All of this worked - mainly because of the pre-planning done before the weekend. So, “Pay As You Go” CAN be done. It’s just a question of whether it should be encouraged …
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Engaging with a Straw Man
27/06/2009 by AJ.
So, let’s see now. It must be well over a year since I cut Aspartame out of my diet. Of course, being a stocky fellow all my life, for far too long taking “Diet” and “Sugar Free” products seemed like a good idea. Then I found out that not only was this additive an excitotoxin, but it also does the opposite of what it says.Have enough of it and it apparently makes you PUT ON weight. The reason? It allegedly makes you crave more food and more calories. Not only that but it dumbs you down, in much the same way as apparently Fluoride does. Find out more at http://www.dorway.com
What does all this have to do with the concept of ‘straw men’? Well, I encountered the use of one this week, and it was in relation to Aspartame. What this little anecdote will hopefully demonstrate is that many, many people are so conditioned to being their own sheepdogs, amongst the flock, that they actually don’t realise they are doing so.
Wind things back about a week. Went to the local ‘cash and carry’ to pick up some supplies, and my eye was caught by a dozen-bottle pack of Kingstone Press Pear Cider. Very reasonable price, and as their ordinary apple cider was already a hit at Cult TV Towers, well, why not try the pear variant?
First off, a confirmation that it WAS Aspartame in the pear cider. They explained the use of Aspartame as follows (and please note that, so far, I have yet to find any other cider on the market which contains it – let me know if you discover some so we can cut this practice off at the pass):
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AVII - The Post-Conference View
05/06/2009 by AJ.
First, apologies for being away from the blog for so long again. There’s been so much to talk about, too - concerts by Ultravox and Gary Numan, doorstep encounters with people with religious convictions and political aspirations (them coming to me, I should state!), and incident upon incident where people all around are realising the World is just NOT making any sense in the way it is portrayed on the TV news and in the newspapers.
Exciting times, indeed, so here’s my first chance to sit down and tell you about what it was like working behind the scenes on the ALTERNATIVE VIEW conference last weekend.
I started off just by being a consultant, making the connection between the organisers and prospective venues. When you do the negotiating you then sort-of become part of the team, so I was asked if I’d be the Hotel Liaision at the actual weekend itself. I couldn’t argue with the logic, so I found myself right at the heart of things at the Thistle London Heathrow Hotel.
The first thing that struck me was the similarities on so many fronts to the Cult TV Festivals. The attendees of AVII could have easily mingled with Cult TV delegates - all ordinary people, separated from the mainstream audiences only by their passion for particular subjects. Indeed, senior hotel staff said of the AVII delegates that they were amazed at how reasonable a bunch of folk they all were. I recall similar comments about Cult TV attendees of times past from hotel and holiday centre staff.
The way things worked out in the end saw all the aspects of the conference contained within the Thistle Heathrow conference centre itself - the Main Arena, the Workshop, the Traders’ Market, the Restaurant and Bar. Nearly 500 people were present, with the major difference from Cult TV being that, when there was a talk going on in the Main Arena, virtually everyone was in that room, listening to the guest speakers.
I guess you don’t need to give too much choice when all the talks are jigsaw pieces that fit together to give the bigger picture.
In terms of atmosphere, AVII is less hectic but more intense than Cult TV. Most guest speakers were given an hour and a quarter, and then there were 15 or 30 minute breaks until the next speaker. A couple of hours for lunch, a couple of hours for evening meal. Last guest speaker concluding around 10pm to 10.30pm, and then late night entertainment in the form of a band and comedy from FKN News.
Oh, and the late night Baps on sale, to wash down the reasonably priced beer, lager, cider and wine, were simply divine!
With almost all of those booked into the hotel staying for either 2 or 3 nights (over two thirds of these took advantage of the cheaper rate you got for booking 3 nights), the bar stayed open on all of the nights beyond its scheduled 1.45am close. Now THAT is another similarity with Cult TV - the networking going on was fantastic!
Friday didn’t really kick off until the evening; however, in the late afternoon everyone was buzzing when a BBC film crew turned up to interview some of the speakers and give an overview of the conference. Considering that coverage of the sort of thing being discussed at AVII is usually completely excised from the mainstream media, some thought this would be a “hit piece” - luckily there was no-one about in a tin-foil hat for the cameras to gawp at.
So, the good news was that this wasn’t a hit piece. It was very balanced, and appeared on broadcast TV over 20 times during the weekend. The bad news is that it only went out on BBC Arabic! For a limited time you can find the piece, which ran to almost four minutes, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/videos/newsid_8077000/8077859.stm
Now, you see, for anyone who thinks that there is nothing ‘fishy’ about the mainstream media in the UK, this is one of the biggest clues that something is just not right. With resources stretched in all news providers, you would have expected this would have been an excellent opportunity to repackage a feature for the actual country in which the conference in question was being held. Except they didn’t. These are the sort of clues you have to add to the picture of what’s really going on to understand that the world is NOT as advertised.
It was a busy time right through from 3.00pm Friday (the registration desk was supposed to be open at 4.00pm, but hell, if you’re ready to roll, get rolling!) until the delayed opening ceremony at 8.15pm. The M25 had played its usual Friday night trick of turning into a car park, hence the three-quarters of an hour delay.
Frankie Ma (well-known to all viewers of Edge Media’s Controversial TV on Sky Channel 200) was the M.C. for the weekend, but it became apparent that my scrawled house-keeping ‘parish notices’ were not legible, and there was no time to write it all out neatly. So, I suggested that perhaps I should do these first time around, as the list had grown so long; Frankie could deal with the rest of them, from that point on, done out in my best block hand-writing, for the rest of the weekend.
Which meant I got to be the first person on-stage for the conference! And what a warm audience they were too - laughing at my jokes (incredible!) and clapping and cheering in the right places. Let’s put it this way - afterwards I had one of the Team come up pleading to be my Manager!!! Surreal or what???
Headline Speaker, Dr Len Horowitz suffered two catastrophes over the weekend - one in each of his keynote speeches. On the Friday, the bulb in the main central projector blew (but professionals like Edge Media weren’t phased by this - they simply transferred the slide content to the two smaller ‘big screens’ - one on each side of the stage). On the Saturday, he knocked over a full glass of water into his laptop, which meant he had to do the whole thing without a presentation supporting him.
The weekend flew by, minor teething problems with breakfast service soon sorted for the rest of the weekend, and provision of things like soya and organic milk having to be brought into being. The hotel was hit by several key staff calling in sick, which meant more work for those on duty, but it was all carried off admirably. Well done all at Thistle London Heathrow!
Highlight of the weekend was the Sunday night double header. First up was TV legend David Bellamy, putting to the sword windmill energy efficiency and the myth of man-made global warming. Hopefully when this gets played out on Controversial TV (Sky channel 200) in the weeks running up to the next Alternative View conference, it will draw in a considerable audience. Indeed, having all the presentations from the weekend being broadcast in this way will certainly draw people to the next AV, without a shadow of a doubt. This is an event that is going to grow and grow as people wake up to the lies they are being told by the mainstream media.
Edge Media did indeed record the whole event, and went one step further. The talks were edited and mastered to DVD there and then, allowing delegates to actually buy these talks the following day and take them away with them. Absolutely incredible use of technology. These DVDs will be available to buy at http://www.ianrcrane.co.uk soon.
Closing the event was AV founder Ian R Crane - joining the content of the previous speakers’ talks together for an uplifting conclusion. Amongst all the doom and gloom, there are rays of hope, which people can see as the potential for real change (without Obama being anything to do with it!). We have the power, all we have to do is take it back from those we have given it away to.
The power to change things is in our own hands. Strangely, last night, on European and Local Election Night, I had an encounter at a local restaurant which put everything into perspective. Basically, at our table, things got heated as I couldn’t believe that there was still doubt in a friend’s mind that 9/11 was an inside job - a fairy tale created by the establishment to justify two wars and the gradual erosion of our civil liberties. A lady on the table opposite found this remark from me distasteful, so I politely asked why she thought that. She had been to Ground Zero on a couple of occasions and therefore thought that the dead should be respected. I noted that absolutely they should be, but we should also be respecting the firefighters and others from the emergency services who are heading to painful and agonising deaths from what happened on that day, and they all want the truth to come out, as they were people who were actually there when it happened and they know damn well tha we have’t been told the truth.
Especially when 6 of the 19 alleged hi-jackers are still alive around the world and protest their innocence, and have not been consequently arrested. Especially as none of their 19 names appear on any of the airline flight manifests for the planes involved. How did they get aboard if they weren’t passengers on the list?
And most especially since two scientists who have managed to get hold of rubble and dust from Ground Zero at the time of 9/11, and have been able to independently prove, conclusively, that a highly-engineered weapons-grade explosive was present in the particulates.
Surprisingly (!), this is NOT mentioned in the mainstream media.
And that’s before I got on to explain the mystery of World Trade Centre 7, the third building to suddenly fall into its own footprint at freefall speed, in the late afternoon of 9/11. An “unexpected” occurrence which was actually reported by the BBC a full TWENTY MINUTES BEFORE IT HAPPENED.
Oh, and the minor detail of the most sophisticated air defence outfit on the planet, who know when a plane is doing something unusual over its skies within seconds, was made to stand down by a guy in a cave thousands of miles away. A guy who had gone for dialysis in an overseas American hospital just a few months before this.
The evidence is there. You just have to look for it. And then join it together to see what it all means … if you can’t, look up what “Cognitive Dissonance” means, and realise that it is entirely possible you are suffering from that condition.
The situation isn’t hopeless. We are simply being told that it is.
AV3 is just being organised, and AV4 is already pencilled in for next year. Look out for details, and come and play your part in getting aware and informed. Part of defeating evil is quite simply understanding what it looks like and what it is doing in our name.
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Never give anything for “free”
11/04/2009 by AJ.
As I fast approach my next birthday, I’ve got to that stage in midlife where I start to wonder whether I would have done anything differently in the past.
Certainly in terms of looking back with the insight I have now, then if you had put the ‘me of now’ in the shoes of ‘me of then’ it’s very likely I would have. I was never good at realising at exactly what point you are ‘flogging a dead horse’ and should drop something and move on.
However, the ‘me of then’ would NEVER have done anything differently. Despite the fact that I could make a decision quickly, I would usually have stuck to it, unless someone could give me a pretty good reason to change course. And that hardy ever happened.
So, I realise that what I did then is what makes me what I am now. Very ‘Star Trek’ in outlook - it’s the painful memories as much as the pleasant memories upon which you continue to build your foundations and world view.
That said, there is one thing that I wish I’d got into sooner, and I wonder whether the me of, say, 15 years ago would have been intrigued enough to follow up and get a new interest.
I would love the ‘me of now’ to bump into the me of 1994 and point out some of the truth behind what was going on around us. Back then, there were no DVDs to quickly burn copies of and hand out. Then it would have been third or fourth generation VHS tapes containing such material that these days absolutely cascades across the internet and on discs you can pick up on Amazon and eBay.
I could have seen myself watching a VHS in that scenario. Probably less likely that I would have bought a book and got absorbed in it - my initial interest would have had to be attracted enough to it first, in order to devote that much effort to something.
15 years ago, I wasn’t political at all. Labour and Conservative have never been on my scanner. Liberals seemed fair enough until they became the Liberal Democrats, then that kind of blew it. I have vague memories of campaigning back in the early 1970s (when my age would have been a single digit) AGAINST entry into the ‘Common Market’ - at the time when we were allowed referendums on such things. Even at that age being part of Europe seemed a complete nonsense to me - Great Britain didn’t need it then, and there’s enough evidence to show that even in the 21st Century we would be better off out of the whole shooting match than remaining in an ‘institution’ (and so many definitions of that word apply in this case) that the majority of British people do NOT want to be part of.
So, politically speaking, I’ve been in a limbo for well over 20 years. Basically, anyone who stands on an ‘out of Europe’ platform is likely to get my attention, but should there not be a choice, then I vote by scrawling on the ballot sheet “None of the above”. That way the politicians don’t confuse my stance with apathy - yeah, if you don’t vote it’s because you couldn’t care less, rather than no-one actually making a strong enough case for my vote. Ah-hem.
Which leads me to believe that, 15 years ago, I would have been interested if someone had come along and told me that the political left-right paradigm was phoney, that they were all masks on the same face, and that what we saw in the media was on the whole nothing to do with what was REALLY going on. I would have been interested in following up and seeing what was being talked about.
And fifteen years ago, if there had been a VHS of David Icke offered to me, I would have been interested in seeing what he had to say. Even back then I wondered what the hell he had said to have become so hated and ridiculed by the media. The reaction seemed to be entirely over-the-top; and besides, if this man really WAS having a nervous breakdown, was this REALLY the best way to treat him? With the benefit of hindsight, it was probably because he is very persuasive in his debating, and the last thing wanted was people actually listening to what he had to say, rather than the media’s completely unfair version of his views.
Which brings us to where we are now. The ‘me of then’ would have wanted the ‘me of now’ to give out materials and stuff to take a look at. DVDs in particular, as these often reference books and websites that you can then research further through.
I’ve given out dozens of ‘copyright free’ copies of DVDs that I have found enlightening, mainly because I would really like it if others broke through their programming and saw what was actually right in front of them.
The downside is that I KNOW the vast majority of these remain unwatched. I try to think of these as little ticking time-bombs, waiting to ‘go off’ the moment they are viewed. However, for whatever reason, people I respect have decided that if I have given them something I think important, their reaction is not to watch it.
Despite it covering things they have expressed a view on, which shows they need to watch this stuff to discover an alternaive view of things.
One fellow truther said to me a few months ago that he has stopped giving out DVDs for free. The reason being that if people received it for ‘free’ then they actually place no value on it. This is not the case in other cultures, but here in the UK it is absolutely the case.
The problem is, if I was to ask for a pound to cover my production costs (DVD blank, pouch, printer cartridge ink), you then get pounded with the response “well, if it’s that important, why aren’t you giving them away?”
Damned if you charge, damned if you don’t. As you may know, The Alternative View II is happening at the end of May in London. A three day conference with speaker fees and expenses to cover, venue hire, advert costs, stationery, leaflets, event programme and so on. And people make the excuse that they won’t go because there’s a registration fee to pay! “If it’s that important, it should be for free”.
Of course, even if it was, they still wouldn’t go - a bluff, basically. Same sort of attitude as those who complain about having to pay for a DVD. If they are going to watch the DVD, they will be prepared to pay for it. If they would be prepared to go to AVII, they’d be prepared to pay for it.
So, should you ever give someone something for nothing? A dilemma, indeed. It may indeed only cost me about 25p a time to give someone a DVD, but that soon mounts up when you are giving out handfuls of them.
That said, it’s better they have something at hand for a rainy day that might just change their world view.
The ‘me of then’ would have taken the documentary from the ‘me of now’ and may not have watched it immediately.
But the ‘me of then’ WOULD have watched it at some point. And then the sparks would begin to fly.
I just hope that the people I trust with free DVDs in the here and now will do the same … because I KNOW the ‘me of then’ could have been so far ahead of the game if I’d had an extra 15 years to find out what was going on, and the biggest secret is that it’s never too late to jump aboard and seek out the truth!
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Positive vibes
19/03/2009 by AJ.
Had a restless night. We all get them - you wake up in the early hours, and no matter what you try, your brain is running overtime on all sorts of issues. No matter what you do, there’s no way to switch off and get back to sleep again.
If you’re one of those folk who have been enlightened to what’s going on around us, and hell that’s a HUGE number of people over recent months, you’ll know the moments keep coming at you where you wonder whether we can make a difference. Can we wake up enough people so that the “100 Monkeys Syndrome” kicks in, and the whole conspiracy is revealed as being self evident to everyone? How it works is that in communities of species, there comes a point where enough monkeys (or whatever) know how to do something, or have the knowledge in their brains, that suddenly ALL of the monkeys know how to do something or are aware of a fact or set of facts. Their fellow monkeys have never done the action, or came across the knowledge, but suddenly it’s all self-evident.
This is why when people ask what they should be doing to fight the situation we find ourselves in, the answer is simply to keep spreading the word. It sounds lame, but it’s following the rules of the 100 Monkeys. If we all look at the BBC 6 O’Clock News and can see where the truth ends and the lies begin, then we cannot be lied to again.
Equally, the answer is not to go on marches, as these will be engineered to turn into riots. The Mainstream Media is TELLING us there will be riots this summer - so guess what will happen? You’ll have establishment goons amongst the ranks of the demonstrators there to ensure that the best efforts to keep protests peaceful will be turned into violence. Non-cooperation with the system is the way forward. We stick with those who are being picked upon, no matter what their supposed crime is - putting their bins out on the wrong day, fined for parking in a space they are entitled to but the private company in charge wants to get cash out of them, threatened with legal action for an internet download that was never made. The list goes on.
So, to a couple of little incidents that have made me smile and given me renewed energy to get the truth out. Firstly, we did a Cult TV postal mailshot - the last one we will ever do, to selll our back catalogue of DVDs and magazines, and also to publicise The Alternative View conference in May (http://www.avll.co.uk). On the downside, we had a couple of people saying “Send me Cult TV stuff, but please never send me the other sort of stuff ever again”.
Closed minds. How strange is it that people have such a negative reaction to part of their mailing that they feel the necessity to write in to say that they don’t want to even be advised of something that they might not know about (actually, strike that, they DEFINITELY don’t know about - I have yet to meet a defender of the established view of the world who knows what they are talking about!).
But, one letter basically said that they could see where I was coming from, and enclosed a clipping from the newsletter of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, which was UFO star Ed Bishop’s obituary. Ed was a CAAT supporter, and had been part of a publicity stunt where he tried to gain entry to an Arms Fair dressed as a South American Dictator. So, in other words, one of our Cult TV heroes would probably be supportive of what The Alternative View is trying to do.
So, that was uplifting. And then something very minor, but equally impactful. I’ve been selling some stuff on eBay, and with every package sent out I’ve been enclosing as a free extra a very good DVD transfer of “Big Brother - The Big Picture”. One of the buyers put the following down as feedback: “Thanks for the freebee but you are preaching to the choir I’m afraid! Good stuff”.
Seems inconsequential, but this short sentence said more than anything else - the word is spreading, the people are waking up, and we are getting ever closer to the 100 Monkeys we need that will bring down the walls of this huge conspiracy.
So, that’s why I’m smiling this morning after seeing that feedback on eBay.
We’re winning … !
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