'Gremlins' - WWIIDisney/Vietnam/Plum decoy by Spielberg

[Wombaticus Rex]

Is Hugh seriously implying that the GI Joe villain COBRA is because of Dahl being former M16 and mentioning that in a (totally, utterly un-related) children's story of a different title?

Hugh, you have a point that the original line of GI Joe toys didn't feature COBRA as a villain, but when it was relaunched in 1982, thus cementing itself as my main archetype for awesome, violent masculinity, suddenly there was COBRA.

Thanks to you, I now know this was retrocausality in action, because in 1985, Dahl would write a childrens story to....oh wait, that's retrocausality again, huh? Because he was doing it to obscure something that would happen in 2009.

I'm glad you're on the frontlines against WOO, man. I just hope you've got a sense of humor on the other end, in your human head. You give fascinating info, but your compulsive pattern recognition keeps giving the rest of us LULZ attacks.

[barracuda]

No, Wombaticus. Hugh is stating that the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (also known as the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986), a federal program which mandates giving some employees the ability to continue health insurance coverage after leaving employment for a short period at a cost of around $700.00 per month, was deemed dangerous enough to the fascist powers that be that British Intelligence, MI6 specifically, had Roald Dahl, in his presumptive role as an undercover agent of the Crown, place a distractive keyword in an obscure children's book which he wrote in 1984 about a giraffe, a pelican, a monkey and a boy named Billy, in the form of a minor character with the same name as the health program's acronym in order to deflect attention from the leftist agenda of the bill, signed into law by Ronald Reagan. This crucial deflection was subsequently reinforced via the release of a big-budget Hollywood movie named G.I. Joe and the Rise of Cobra just in time for an aftershock effect to be felt with regards to the then-current debate on healthcare in the United States. The creation of the fictional villainous Cobra organization in the early 1980's was simply a convenient placeholder for the acronym itself - virtually any evil connection with a cobra in the context of a militarised fictional big budget Hollywood film would have been effective, but the G.I. Joe nemisis has the added bonus of using as an identifying mark a logo that eerily resembles a blood-engorged vagina.



Or something like that.

This is a fucking zombie thread.

[justdrew]

I remember GI Joe when they were still called the Village People. Then they got drafted into the First Earth Battalion, and of course the enemy had to be named COBRA... "snakes are evil"

Now you know... and...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJQcJBjObEc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eA3XCvrK90

... they never come right out and say what the other half of the battle is ...

[monster]

I wonder what internet historians will think of shit like this when they read it 1000 years from now.

[Wombaticus Rex]

I wonder what internet historians will think of shit like this when they read it 1000 years from now.

Given the feverish intensity of our exegisis, I think they will have to conclude Hugh was a prophet or holy man of some kind.

[Searcher08]

I wonder what internet historians will think of shit like this when they read it 1000 years from now.

Given the feverish intensity of our exegisis, I think they will have to conclude Hugh was a prophet or holy man of some kind.

And that barracuda was a priestly theologian.

I worked with the woman now running the Roald Dahl Museum for several years.

It is obvious that there is now a huge psy-ops cmpaign underway there. Look, look at this!
http://www.roalddahlmuseum.org/cafe/default.aspx

[IanEye]

Back when CIA-Disney was still trying to hide its WWII psyops work, an old primer for Air Force pilots (or their kidz) called 'The Gremlins' (now an expensive collector's item) -

. . .
...was displaced twice with decoys, a 1961 and a 1983 television episode about 'gremlins on planes'-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightmare_at_20,000_Feet
. . .

and then the 1984 CIA-Hollywood Spielberg movie called...'Gremlins.'


. . .

Original 'Gremlins' author Roald Dahl later wrote Cold War propaganda for kidz, just like Brit spook Ian Fleming who wrote 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.'

http://delarue.net/gremlins.htm

In the darkest hours of World War II, the British Secret Service infiltrated agents into both enemy and neutral countries. The purpose of these agents behind enemy lines is obvious; but in neutral USA, led by "A Man Called Intrepid", these agents had a less obvious purpose: to inspire sufficient public sympathy to enable Roosevelt to openly support Britain.

These agents included actors, astrologers and - a children's author! Not only that, but the children's author was infiltrating Walt Disney's studios!

Roald Dahl, then a pilot injured in action with the RAF, was sent to the US as an air attaché. His outspoken style made him at once unpopular with his Air Force chiefs, and a favourite of the cocktail set. He was packed home, recruited by William Stephenson (Intrepid), then sent back with a promotion, much to the chagrin of his chiefs.

He wrote The Gremlins, a book for children about the hazards of being an RAF pilot. These were the original Gremlins - Dahl claimed that he coined the name (a claim that has been disputed). These Gremlins were the anthropomorphised explanation for any mishaps experienced by pilots and their machines.

One edition of a cartoon book was printed by Disney, and plans were in place to make an animated movie version. The Gremlins in the book have more than a passing resemblance to Mickey Mouse. They certainly appeared much milder than some more recent portrayals of their species, and probably milder than Dahl's idea of them.

Dahl's presence in Washington came to the attention of Eleanor Roosevelt, who had been reading The Gremlins to her grandchildren. Through this, he gained close contact with FDR, and was in his confidence on many war issues. It is claimed that he also became an informal, but very important go-between for Roosevelt and Churchill.

It appears that Disney may have worked out what was going on, as the movie was never made. The book has never been re-printed.

Based on an article that originally appeared in the Jan/Feb 1998 edition of TableAus.

And then in 2006-

http://www.afdw.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123033463

Mr. Stephens began the Gremlins Project in February 2006, finding a rare copy of the Dahl book in the National Archives. His research showed that Dahl, then a Royal Air Force flight lieutenant, had served in Washington during the time in which the book was written.
"Dahl was an air attaché here during the war," said Mr. Stephens. "His duties had him working closely alongside Air Force visionaries at Bolling Field on Operation Bolero, as well as other critical needs. Bolero was an important mission, providing flyers, airplanes and other equipment to Britain for the extensive buildup of the Normandy invasion over a long period of time. It is likely that then-Lieutenant Dahl wrote this book as a way to de-stress from the demands of mission planning, as well as a tongue-in-cheek ribbing of mechanical problems that plagued Allied airmen."
The story goes that, after Lieutenant Dahl crashed an airplane earlier in the war, he blamed gremlins--little magical creatures that injected mischief into the everyday operations of pilots. The concept had universal appeal: a scapegoat for when things don't go the way they're supposed to, and was embraced by pilots everywhere.
But Dahl's story goes further, Mr. Stephens said. The book delivers a moral lesson as well--that those problems that plague pilots can be overcome through cooperation and that building a friendship can turn a problem into a winning solution.
The message for children is different, said Mr. Stephens.
"Airmen can read this book to their children and explain that they always have someone looking out for them. Children worry that their parents go into battle alone, because they don't understand the social structure of the military. The gremlins then becomes a metaphor for the wingmen who serve alongside us, comforting our children in the process. It's an unrivaled opportunity for parents to bond with their children in a military setting; a real win-win for the Air Force."
Mr. Stephens said that Walt Disney was one of the loudest and most effective advocates of airpower and of a separate service during World War II. He added that the animator-entrepreneur invested his own money into a serious animated feature making the case for the Air Force. That movie, "Victory Through Airpower," is also part of Mr. Stephens' history-themed projects for the Air Force 60th Anniversary.
"Walt Disney created this image of the air as a place of adventure and wonder, inspiring American citizens to think of the world beyond their horizon," Mr. Stephens said. "The Gremlins was one such vision, and it clearly moved the great thinkers of the time. During World War II, many airpower advocates owned copies of the book--from the Women's Air Force Service Pilots, who adopted the female gremlin, Fifinella, as their mascot, to first lady Eleanor Roosevelt herself. The book is almost impossible to find now; the rarest of the rare with fewer than 300 copies known to exist worldwide today."
Originally intended as a local re-release for the 11th Wing only, the Air Force 60th Anniversary Committee asked Mr. Stephens to pursue a larger-scale project to get the books into the hands of Airmen everywhere.

hey Hugh, have you seen this thread?

I just stumbled across it in the 'Deep Politics' section and thought of you.

But again, let's leave Phoebe out of this...

btw, did you know there is an adult film called 'Clitty Shitty Gang Bang'? And one of the main characters is named Ian Phlegming!