Any F-----g Questions?

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Re: art and spies

Postby israelirealities » Sun Nov 20, 2005 4:52 pm

one of those mind opening threads, for me. <br>For the last year or so I was looming over the subject with just gut feelings about connections between art/secret services, without actually knowing what to make of it. I had two posts about it. The first was called "art and espionage", where I reviewed several painters who were known ex spies. My theory was : 1/ people with good imaginative and creative faculties are sought by secret services and their "higher self" is co opted and recruited for war, deception etc. Thus, after they retire/dismissed, they would likely end up as partially professoinal painters. (one of them is Ostrovsky, in fact, who has a "art gallery" in the internet with some interesting pieces. 2/ Many israeli singers and novelists are sons/daughters of major league spies (mossad/military intelligence top agents). I focused on the fact that these artists had their connections and status paved for them, and their art is not necessarily the best around, and they exclude others. It was a post about militarism and its damages to the arts. I was bold enough to suggest, with respect to one recent best seller writer (daughter of former Chief of Mossad) that she is continuing the work of her father in sweeping under the rug, the major problems of her father's organization. She wrote a book about women as soldiers with the sexual harassment and derogation in the army. THis was classic "gatekeeping" and disinfo. While the book was hailed for being "feminist" and courageous expose of women's plight in the regular service, it actually minimized and covered up the major sexual crimes that Mossad engages in, and which were described aptly by Ostrovsky, and a lot more than that which he didn't write about. I was not smart enough to see it as is - work ! not art.<br>However, I also noticed there are several weird bloggers and journalists (from the right right wing) who keep trying to define art, boundaries and forcefully (aggressively) spin metaphores, archetypes, mythologies, in a subtle ideological ZIonist or Religious twist. Recently, the government announced that "art and literature" are a matter of foreign policy as well, so that "people in the world see that there is more to ISrael than just war", money and budgets were created to bolster a "national cultural" project. <br>What I couldn't verablize (and thanks for this thread) is that art is a tool, first of all in creating and dismissing certain ideologies AND it is more than anything else a method to keep people away from becoming aware of their condition and ACTING to change it. This last bit is important for me, and resonates, as a valid truth (make them masturbate with art, and keep them busy thinking they are doing something important. Its also a very cheap way to keep people busy, that and Meditation/Yoga). HOwever, this should not keep us from art/culture or Yoga, just be more attentive who wants what and where are we gently "being guided". good thinking.<br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=israelirealities@rigorousintuition>israelirealities</A> at: 11/20/05 1:56 pm<br></i>
israelirealities
 
Posts: 385
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 8:47 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: art and spies

Postby dbeach » Sun Nov 20, 2005 5:19 pm

"Limited hang out' = the revealing of one crime to cover a bigger and more dangerous crime.<br><br>That is the MO of all these related but different crime families.<br><br>It also why we get a few lesser fish although tasty and intriguing BUT the big heavy fish swim past the dragnets with govt approval.. <p></p><i></i>
dbeach
 
Posts: 2650
Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2005 7:40 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Dream's End...

Postby robertdreed » Sun Nov 20, 2005 8:44 pm

"But think about ALL that was done..."<br><br>I do. That's one of the reasons that I can't get too excited about Cold War-era programs like the Congress for Cultural Freedom. Considered in context, it's like adding a double parking charge to an indictment for kidnapping and murder. If covertly funding "non-politically hostile" art was the worst thing to be said against the CIA, I'd be hard-pressed to condemn them. Similarly, if US psyops were to flood the Muslim world with CDs of secular and Sufi peace songs to compete with recordings of vicious radical mullah preaching, I'd have to say "right on." As a tactic, it could conceivably save lives. <br><br>"COINTELPRO was not done to stop political organizing (goes the official explanation) but to defeat the communist threat in this country."<br><br>Please keep your agencies straight. COINTELPRO was not a CIA project, they (once upon a time) were prohibited from doing things like that within this country. COINTELPRO was primarily FBI. In theory, as a counterintelligence sting project, COINTELPRO is the sort of thing to be expected from a government seeking to undermine internally threatening movements. This includes provocateur tactics. Of course, the historical record reveals a lot of times when the line was crossed into unconscionable activity, even felonies. But any political revolutionary movement- especially ones who arm themselves and prepare for or engage in violent resistance- needs to accept infiltration, provocateur tactics, and divisive psywar tactics as part of the ground rules. They're responsible for not falling for it, and for taking counter-measures. <br><br>I'm trying to be as fair as possible, here. <br><br>"Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile, Guatemala...why did we ALWAYS back the bad guys."<br><br>Actually, "we" (taken administration by administration) didn't always "back the bad guys." Under the Carter administration, "we" withdrew assistance from the Somoza regime, for instance. The expectation was that the non-Marxist Eden Pastora ("Commander Zero" ) of the anti-Somoza coalition would be the leader to assume power. But the Marxist Sandinistas turned out to be the ones who won the post-Somoza power struggle. This proved to be a considerable embarrassment to Carter. <br><br>In the case of El Salvador, according to on-the-scene observers, the US intervened in an election to hand the presidency to Jose Napoleon Duarte, a moderate in comparison to Roberto Du'Aubuisson of the right-wing ARENA Party. It was apparently electoral fraud, but it kept the country out of the hands of the far-right wing. The US did this because there in fact was a moderate alternative. <br><br>It gets even more confusing in places like Angola, where the CIA was known to have shipped arms even to the Marxist Left. The explanation given to CIA agent John Stockwell was "this isn't about ideology, this is about money." Hmm...<br><br>For the most part, the US did back the right-wing over more moderate alternatives, in places like Latin America. But the justification used was the Cold War- right-wing bad guys who would allow the US to have influence in the country vs. left-wing guys who would invite the Soviet Union (also bad guys) into the hemisphere. <br><br>"Again, the official explanation was freedom from communism." <br><br>As I've noted previously, I understand the rationales of the Cold War. I also understand that in the post-Cold War "unipolar" world, it's a moot point. I don't think there's any excuse whatsoever for doing something like attempting to overthrow the Hugo Chavez regime in <br>Venezuela, which is at least as legitimate as any other government on that continent. <br><br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 11/20/05 9:16 pm<br></i>
robertdreed
 
Posts: 1560
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 11:14 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

israelirealities...

Postby robertdreed » Sun Nov 20, 2005 8:51 pm

I love Victor Ostrovsky's art. Stone love it. <br><br> <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.victorostrovsky.com/">www.victorostrovsky.com/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>I don't think he's an artistic genius, but as a Surrealist painter, I prefer him to Salvador Dali. I love the humor. And he really does capture the through-the-looking glass realm of the "secret agent man", for me. <br><br>If I were a musical artist, I'd have Ostrovsky do a record cover for me. Maybe he should do one for Bruce Cockburn, or Leon Rossellson. <p></p><i></i>
robertdreed
 
Posts: 1560
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 11:14 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: art and spies

Postby israelirealities » Sun Nov 20, 2005 8:58 pm

thanks dbeach, didn't know this term, i'll think of a hebrew translation for the locals..<br>I am still not sure I understand the very high rate of "artistic famous kids" of major league spies in Israel. Is it sheer manipulation ? OR, is it the deep wishes of the spies for their children to do what they actually wanted to do and were unable ? why art ? (mostly pop musicians in the case of male kids, and novelists in the case of females; whereas ex spies themselves are more in visual arts, if they do retire into any artistic hobby). I found the theme of the "israeli spying <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>art students</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->" caught in the USA - amusing in that sense as well, and it fits into the puzzle nicely, but I don't have any larger explanation of the theme. I had two other possible explanations. One has to do with an old Jewish myth of the "master of books and sword", a Davidic image, of a king who masters war but is also a spiritual/literary genius, and a musician. I can see how his model is being used for training of certain military elites. (and how pathetic the outcome must be). Another, is that an artist is also a good cover, because it is the opposite of what one would expect from spies or warriors. <br>REcently, there was a weekend interview with a senior ex spy-shabak agent ( a real killer type) who holds a PhD in <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>literature.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> He said he is now retiring to work on his academic pursuits, but it wasn't clear from the article whether he took this course of studies as a real interest or as part of his previous cover/work. He retired after not receiving some position he was after. His wife, another killer, is a Reiki massage therapist. He he...well, this is another item worth writing about. (Reiki and spies or newage therapists and spying, there is a growing enmeshment there as well, at least in our part of the world). <br> <p></p><i></i>
israelirealities
 
Posts: 385
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 8:47 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Apples and oranges

Postby starroute » Sun Nov 20, 2005 9:07 pm

The point isn't that funding the anti-communist left as an alternative to Stalinist totalitarianism was a bad thing. It's that coopting the liberal left in order to marginalize and eventually destroy the more radical left was an extremely bad thing. It's left this country without any genuinely progressive alternatives, left the Democratic Party without a platform, and allowed the Republicans an open field to pose as the party of new ideas and alternative thinking.<br><br>That's why I told my little anecdote about the American Veteran's Committee. For about three years after World War II, there was a veterans' group with a genuinely progressive vision, but by 1948 any possibility of fulfilling that vision was dead. This was partly because of the country's general turn to the right. (The Republican takeover of Congress in 1946 put an end to Truman's hopes of extending the New Deal and forced Truman to adopt a more bellicose foreign policy.) It was partly because of the bitter internecine battle with the Communists. But at least part of it has to be laid at the door of Cord Meyer and people like him, with their schemes to coopt and sanitize the non-communist left.<br> <p></p><i></i>
starroute
 
Posts: 341
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 12:01 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: New Age and spies

Postby robertdreed » Sun Nov 20, 2005 9:07 pm

israelirealities, that brings up around to what was going on with the Rajneesh cult of Poona, India, and Rajneeshpuram in Oregon. It also leads places such as the questions of exactly who was involved in backing and supporting the Mel Lyman family in the Boston, Mass. area in the 1960s, as described in the book <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Mindfuckers</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->. <br><br>Truly, a book for RI denizens to read thoroughly and mull over, if they can find a copy. I think it's long out of print. <br><br>I recommend <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://bookfinders.org/">bookfinders.org/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> for such cases.<br><br>I think that in terms of intelligence projects seeking to influence the Sixties Counterculture in the USA, this thread is much more productive than looking into pedestrain projects like covert funding of arts and literature by the Congress of Cultural Freedom. <p></p><i></i>
robertdreed
 
Posts: 1560
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 11:14 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

starroute...

Postby robertdreed » Sun Nov 20, 2005 9:18 pm

"...coopting the liberal left in order to marginalize and eventually destroy the more radical left was an extremely bad thing. It's left this country without any genuinely progressive alternatives, left the Democratic Party without a platform, and allowed the Republicans an open field to pose as the party of new ideas and alternative thinking."<br><br>See, I simply disagree with that analysis. I don't lay the primary responsibility for that at the feet of a CIA-funded plot.The truth is much more complicated, and I think it includes some acknowledgement of the movements marginalizing, hamstringing, and destroying themselves. See books like <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>The Demon Lover</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> and <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>The Panther Paradox</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, for an idea of what I'm getting at. <br><br>Of course, I'm not a Marxist. I don't think that's the direction a progressive alternative to Republican thug-swindler reactionaries should take. It's a false choice, to me. I'm really a centrist moderate. The problem for me with the Democratic Party isn't so much their pronounced ideology as their invertebrate character, which has repeatedly led them to do things like, for example, proposing a year 2001 military budget that called for $8 billion more than the George W. Bush Republicans, prior to 9-11. <br><br>I'm not saying that the history of the US hasn't been marked by consistent attempts to co-opt popular movements with Establishment-approved alternatives, though. Considering veteran's organizations, for instance, look into the history of the American Legion. <br><br>And you also have symbolic co-optings like Labor Day, which represented an end-run around the already extant movement to make May Day <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>the</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> international worker's holiday. ( But it can also be counter-argued that the declaration of May Day represented an attempt to co-opt all labor movements by the Marxists... ) <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 11/20/05 6:27 pm<br></i>
robertdreed
 
Posts: 1560
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 11:14 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: israelirealities...

Postby israelirealities » Sun Nov 20, 2005 9:30 pm

i like his paintings too, I thought they remind me of the art deco posters of the 50's or the french paintings of that time. I posted some of this work on my blog - SILENCE aboud ! nobody commented...:-). He has one called :"the flight of the swallow"...touching.<br>I once had a weird exchange about him with an ultra orthodox Rabbi in Israel, he said, this man is sensitive, they shouldn't take people like that and place them in situations of underworld. it was strange comment coming from this man,but perhaps he was very accurate.<br>I will look into the Poona/Rajneesh story again, I read some stuff about it years ago. How he was subject of CIA or FBI persecution. <br>In Israel, what I've noticed is a "trend" among mainly Shabak (that the General Security Service) to have their people also practicing at least one for of "alternative medicine" or so, like Reiki, tai chi, yoga etc. The former deputy chief of Shabak, now the minister of internal security (Police etc.) is a real groopi of astrologers, channellers and what not(also of Kabala center). Since he is also not a very wise person (to say the least) he kind of added to the growth of a large number of voodoo practitioners of the lowest kind (coffee readers, tarot readers, stone readers who supposedly know something). I don't know about Mossad, I imagine its the same, but being more "lucrative", they probably go to elite superstition vendors and practice Indian Shamanism with special bionic mushrooms that make them superhuman. I think it is worth examining, not only the fascination with crap, that makes sense, and not only cult-ra/mc via black magik, but also the connection to "new age" philosophies (if such exists), but I think someone already mentioned something about "natural living", "martial arts", and other fascisms of all kinds. <p></p><i></i>
israelirealities
 
Posts: 385
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 8:47 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Occultism

Postby robertdreed » Sun Nov 20, 2005 9:42 pm

What I find interesting about occultism is the manipulation of post hoc propter hoc irrational thinking. It's illogical, but there's something about the human mind that has a fascination with it. Maybe it has something to do with the quantum paradoxes that are implicit in attempts at "precognition", etc. <br><br>The other thing that I find noteworthy about occultism is the fact that to have a real ongoing fascination with it, it helps to be rich. As long as you never risk enough to put yourself in peril of losing your material underpinnings and your privileged status, it's possible to feel as if you're always "winning", or "learning" something from it. You can have every expectation in your predictions confounded, re-set the counters, and come back for more, telling yourself that a loss was actually a win, or re-framing the symbolism to continue to reify the validity of your "divinations." As long as the stakes are relatively trivial, that is...super-affluent people can afford to get swindled out of thousands of dollars, it's pocket change to them. Some of them spend more money on grooming their dogs, or buying exotically constructed interconnect cables for their AV systems. <br><br>The above makes it sound as if I'm an arch-skeptic. Yet I can't shake the notion that there is such a thing as legitimately uncanny clairvoyance, telepathy, and precogntion. But in terms of organizing it into a "system"- I think it was Dream's End who pointed out that just when one thinks they've found the Magic Key, the carpet gets pulled out from under one's feet, often just at the point when they begin fitting it into a lock of some sort or another...<br><br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 11/20/05 6:49 pm<br></i>
robertdreed
 
Posts: 1560
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 11:14 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Occultism

Postby Project Willow » Sun Nov 20, 2005 10:21 pm

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>i like his paintings too, I thought they remind me of the art deco posters of the 50's or the french paintings of that time. I posted some of this work on my blog - SILENCE aboud ! nobody commented...:-). He has one called :"the flight of the swallow"...touching.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>IR, and Robert, I had the exact opposite reaction to his paintings. I was about to post a little critique here. Perhaps I'll save it, I got pretty brutal.<br><br>Interesting thread regardless. <p></p><i></i>
User avatar
Project Willow
 
Posts: 4793
Joined: Sat May 07, 2005 9:37 pm
Location: Seattle
Blog: View Blog (1)

Re: Occultism

Postby dbeach » Sun Nov 20, 2005 10:34 pm

politics has becoem a family dyansty project and it sounds like arts/music is a least a reflection of that..<br>Dylans kid or Lennon kid is gonna get attention anyways <br> BUT the culture allows for their kids to be not so talented BUT sellable ..Meanwhile some local musicians or artists and <br>I know a few very talented artists who will NEVER get that chance and KNOW that and stay quiet and local and unnoticed.<br><br>I read that last yr the big players determine the big stars in arts,music.movies.<br><br>BUT its more noticable with politics..<br>so the culture of established family dynastys remains and we get conditioned into accepting that mrs. clinton will be a great pres or the kids of carridine or barrymore or cher or whomever will be great actors ect...<br><br>Dynastys EAT LOOSH as far as I am concerned<br>and I mean that more at politicians than the arts but again arts reflect reality. <p></p><i></i>
dbeach
 
Posts: 2650
Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2005 7:40 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

PW

Postby robertdreed » Sun Nov 20, 2005 10:48 pm

Project Willow, I'd be interested to read your criticism of Ostrovsky's work. <br><br>Does it go beyond merely aesthetics, to examining the doll-like quality in his human depictions, and the fact that he reduces his human characters to the sum total of two- "Ken" and "Barbie"? I find it humorous, personally, but I'd be interested to hear an alternate view... <br><br>I don't have any problem hearing my taste gainsayed, personally. <br><br>What do you think of Salvador Dali's work, incidentally? <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 11/20/05 9:08 pm<br></i>
robertdreed
 
Posts: 1560
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 11:14 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Apples and oranges, continued

Postby starroute » Mon Nov 21, 2005 12:44 am

Robert -<br><br>You and I may have to agree to disagree, at least until one of us can come up with evidence sufficient to convince the other. However, at this point, I can't help feeling that you're using blame-the-victim thinking with regards to the left. <br><br>One of the things that's been both most difficult and most rewarding for me during these Bush years is gradually coming to accept that everything I most hated about the 50's as a kid, and everything I've found most horrifying in the years since, is neither "just the way things are" nor "the left doing it to itself," but the very deliberate result of conscious forces working to assume American supremacy in the world and elite supremacy in America.<br><br>The linchpin of both those efforts has always been the destruction or discrediting of any authentic left-wing movements, whether at home or abroad. I say that not as someone with any great fondness for Marxism, but because I'm aware that in the mid-20th century, communism and socialism had provided the only solid vantage-point from which it was possible to critique the flaws of capitalism, in either its free-market or fascist varieties.<br><br>The people who had expected they could simply repeal the New Deal when they took Congress in 1946 -- and found it wasn't that simple -- turned instead to a long, gradual, covert process for achieving the same ends. McCarthyism was one early aspect of that process. CIA manipulation of the media was another. The attempt to turn all social issues into personal issues, so that anyone with a social grievance could be labeled as merely neurotic or maladjusted, was a third.<br><br>The abortive attempt in the 60's to escape this ongoing obliteration of alternatives led the controllers to show just a bit more of the iron fist and less of the velvet glove. The destruction of the Panthers was a cautionary tale. The dwindling of 60's radicalism into identity politics -- feminism, gay rights, and all the rest -- was an acknowledgment that message had been received and understood.<br><br>I was interested in your mention of Mel Lyman -- a name I haven't thought of in 35 years and remember at this remove only vaguely as a second-string Manson type who somehow fucked up the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. But if I read you right as suggesting he could have been a covert operator, then the lesson to take is surely that his presence represented an escalation of the sort of tactics that started with CIA funding of the arts in the early 50's. Just because Lyman was heavily toxic doesn't mean the earlier CIA antics were benign.<br><br>We currently seem to be in the midst of an escalation to level 3 -- torture, death squads, and the like -- with level 4, in the form of UFO cults or goodness knows what waiting in the wings. The consistent message at every level appears to involve convincing people that they are helpless, ignorant, and dependent on higher authority. The only way I know to fight back against that is to offer an alternative story in which we have very real enemies who are both powerful and evil but who can be exposed and fought against not only successfully but joyously.<br><br>Do you have a better suggestion?<br><br> <p></p><i></i>
starroute
 
Posts: 341
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 12:01 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: PW

Postby Project Willow » Mon Nov 21, 2005 12:45 am

Hi Robert,<br><br>I think you are giving him more credit than I did. I wasn't able to determine whether he was glamorizing or poking fun at the characters, and that's a problem. A general audiance will see glamour.<br><br>I think his work is childish monkeying with glitter and surface. He's layering another level of game upon a game. He's saying "See, am I not clever, am I not special? I know things you don't know." It's a ruse, a distraction, because underneath it all, emptiness, like his characters' masked eyes. I don't see him in his paintings, or what I see of him doesn't go too far beyond playing with the perception of the spy racket. At this point I don't think the emptiness is commentary, but a reflection of who he is. <br><br>(I told you it was brutal, and I feel uncomfortable because heaven forbid someone was so brutal with me!) <br><br>Interesting title on one piece: "The Monarch Cover".<br><br>I would not attempt a comparison between Dali and Ostrovsky, it's like apples and oranges.<br>Dali was a master, and Dali knew he was a master. I admire his work certainly, but not his ego. Although if he hadn't had the ego, we might never have heard of Dali (or was that Gala's work?). Like a lot of surrealism, the symbolism in periods of his work is highly personal, so most of us can't get to meaning without doing some research. I have that problem with my own work sometimes. Audiences can and do write their experiences onto the art, as it should be. But when symbols are so idiosyncratic and individual, it can put the work out of reach. <br>Sometimes I find Dali's images cold, and I wouldn't want to penetrate them. He was courageous enough to go to extremes in both self and social analysis, but then what you get is Dali's analysis, so there is the limitation. However, I like pieces such as his "Visage of War", 1940, which I think is stunning and effective. <br><br>I studied many of the women surrealists, and their images are more accessible to me. A favorite is Dorothea Tanning.<br><br>I am not an art history scholar, these are reactions based on my experience as an artist, and in working with other artists. Generally, if you like and admire the person creating the work, you'll like the work. I sell mostly to people who happen to know and like me, and I like the art of those I know or who are close to me. It's an interesting phenomenon, but it makes sense. <p></p><i></i>
User avatar
Project Willow
 
Posts: 4793
Joined: Sat May 07, 2005 9:37 pm
Location: Seattle
Blog: View Blog (1)

PreviousNext

Return to Deep Politics

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 7 guests