W. Niederhut

Has this Edward Curtin review already been posted here? I just saw it today at the Unz Review. JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass by Oliver Stone A Film Review JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass by Oliver Stone, by Edward Curtin - The Unz Review January 16, 2022

Ron, These are questions I'm asking myself now, after reading Lisa Pease's Mind Games chapter. Did Estabrooks initiate/invent the Manchurian Candidate protocols with the U.S. military-- beginning in the 1940s, prior to the Korean War? Why are his books, apparently scarce and/or out-of-print? And why aren't Estabrooks and Bryan household names, especially in psychiatric circles? I had never heard of these guys during my psychiatry residency training. (My old supervisors were mostly classically trained psychoanalysts who were not really interested in hypnosis or dissociate disorders.) I suspect that Estabrooks' "Manchurian Candidate" work for MK-Ultra was something that the CIA deliberately concealed from the public. We know that the film, Manchurian Candidate, was banned for many years in the U.S., as were public hypnosis demonstrations in many U.S. states. The only public hypnosis exhibition that I ever attended was in Mexico in the summer of 1973-- the same year that Richard Helms destroyed the MK-Ultra archives.

You're missing the forest for the trees, Ben. In fact, you're looking at the shrubs. The issue with yesterday's shocking RNC declaration is that the leadership of a major U.S. political party is; 1) denying the criminality of the violent January 6th attack on Congress, incited by Trump, and 2) denouncing the people investigating Trump's historic crimes.

I wish you knew too, Ben. Just kidding... 🤥 But, when I first heard about the U.S. government outing the Kremlin's false flag op, I wondered if Putin would retaliate by spilling the beans on the 9/11 op.

Ben, It sounds like you have discovered the old medical subject of zoonoses-- pathogens that can be transferred from other animal species to humans I had to memorize a lot of that stuff back in my medical school days-- yersinia pestis, brucellosis, tularemia, etc.-- but I've forgotten most of it. Meanwhile, speaking of partisan idiots, the RNC has just declared that the January 6th attack on Congress was "legitimate political discourse." Do you agree?

Addendum: Good news. I found some of G.H. Estabrooks' out-of-print texts and commentaries on hypnosis and MK-Ultra at SCRIBD. His earliest work antedated the Korean War military interest in the Manchurian Candidate phenomenology. https://www.scribd.com/document/491428492/G-H-Estabrooks-Hypnotism-ocr https://www.scribd.com/document/35683278/Brainwashing-Hypnosis-Comes-of-Age-Estabrooks https://www.scribd.com/document/35683505/Brainwashing-MK-Ultra-Thomas-Porter

Interesting stuff, Ron. As always, I learn something new every day here on the Education Forum. BTW, I just finished reading the "Mind Games" chapter in A Lie Too Big to Fail. Great chapter! It has to be one of the most interesting things I've read in quite a while, with a multiple references that I want to explore in more detail. Estabrooks' books are, apparently, out of print, but John Marks' 1991 book, The Search For the Manchurian Candidate, is available at Amazon. (William Joseph Bryan hasn't published anything that I can find.) One subject that Lisa Pease did not explore in much detail is the common relationship between childhood trauma and dissociative disorders, including psychogenic amnesia, fugue states, and dissociative identity disorder (i.e., multiple personality disorder.) I treated a number of patients with MPD over the years. The best book I've read on that subject is Multiple Personality Disorder, by Frank Putnam. It sounds like Sirhan experienced horrific trauma in childhood, which must have played a significant role in his enhanced dissociative tendencies (and hypnotizability.) It's not clear that he had identifiable alters prior to his "treatment" at the Corona facility, but the descriptions of Sirhan's psychogenic amnesia and induced "Range Mode" post-hypnotic alter state sound accurate. It also sounds like Sirhan may have experienced some kind of torture at the Corona facility-- the Manchurian Candidate regimen?

Well, kudos to Pence for finally declaring that the Orange Emperor has no clothes. Will he be denounced by the Party next?

What should he say-- "I'm sorry that the film JFK was historically accurate regarding the sexual orientation of some key characters who had foreknowledge of the JFK assassination plot in the summer of 1963?"

Paul, There is ample documentation that U.S. COVID deaths in 2021 mainly occurred in the un-vaccinated, and at a higher rate in Trump-voting counties. I agree that vaccination rates, alone, don't account for the disparities, as in the case of Vietnam!

Ben, The Hong Kong hamster story seems to be your new obsession, now that the Fox/"Patriot Purge" narrative has been debunked. You have posted redundant, un-sourced comments this week about the COVID threat posed by animals and illegal immigrants. It's a variation on the old "Yellow Horde" paranoia-- the notion that our society is being threatened by nefarious outsiders-- and also a kind of Trumplican projection of guilt onto the Biden administration, an implication that Biden is not doing enough to protect us from COVID! 🤥 "State-approved experts don't want to talk about animal-to-human transmission or un-vaccinated illegal immigrants?" Huh? Are you hearing this goofy narrative on Fox News? Obama's FDA Director, Peg Hamburg, was a classmate of mine at Harvard Medical School. Highly intelligent, conscientious, and ethical. I met her father, Dr. David Hamburg, back in the day. He was the director of the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Anthony Fauci is a similarly ethical, conscientious physician, as are the docs at the NIH and CDC. Yet, Fauci has become a Fox/Trumplican scapegoat in the eyes of the same MAGA screwballs who have consistently undermined basic U.S. public health measures during the pandemic-- testing, social distancing, vaccination, and the use of effective masks. If any recent POTUS has appointed unethical corporate profiteers to the FDA and other Federal health institutions, it has been Donald Trump. Bush and Cheney were similarly inclined. In contrast, Obama and Biden have appointed reputable, conscientious physicians, and have based their health policy decisions on the advice of America's top docs. As an example, Biden has pushed hard for legislation to reduce pharmaceutical costs-- efforts that have been sabotaged by Republicans (along with Manchin and Sinema.) And let's not forget that Trump abolished Obama's White House pandemic-response team in 2018, and pulled our public health monitors out of China before the COVID-19 pandemic commenced.

Shocker. It looks like Parnell will not leave his Trail of Delusion to respond to the historical evidence from Oliver Stone's filmography that Stone is no homophobe.

There has been a recurrent narrative in the M$M and on social media lately accusing Jim Garrison of homophobia, and Oliver Stone of being homophobic in his depiction of Jim Garrison's prosecution of Clay Shaw in the film JFK. Fred Litwin was an early promulgator of this homophobia narrative about Garrison's prosecution of Clay Shaw, and Oliver Stone's movie, JFK. But the homophobia narrative has also been repeated in the Washington Post by Louisiana State University historian Alecia P. Long, and, more recently, by James Kirchick. This homophobia narrative appears to be an obvious straw man-- an attempt to deflect attention from Clay Shaw's work for the CIA, and his association with Oswald in the summer of 1963. Instead of being a known CIA asset who committed perjury in the Garrison trial, Shaw is made out to be a victim of homophobic persecution by Garrison and Stone. My own take on the depiction of homosexuality in the film, JFK, is that it was historically accurate and of secondary importance to the central plot, about men in New Orleans who had apparent foreknowledge of JFK's assassination in the summer of '63. The characters might just as well have been heterosexual, if history dictated as much. As for the more general issue of Oliver Stone being accused of homophobia, there are two Stone films I know of that debunk that narrative. One is Alexander, which prominently features a sympathetic, historical narrative about Alexander's relationship with Hephaestion. Where's the homophobia? Another is the more subtle depiction of the relationship between Chris (Charlie Sheen) and Sgt. Elias (William Dafoe) in Platoon.

Not sure which is the more onerous task this morning-- shoveling snow in -4 F weather or reading Parnell's Litwin-esque propaganda. At least there's an end to shoveling the snow... 🤥

Paul, Here are a few references about technical issues related to the identification of Omicron, and its differentiation from Delta. Omicron SARS-CoV-2 new variant: global prevalence and biological and clinical characteristics - PubMed (nih.gov) Wastewater Based Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2: Challenges and Perspective from a Canadian Inter-laboratory Study (nih.gov) Omicron (B.1.1.529) - variant of concern - molecular profile and epidemiology: a mini review - PubMed (nih.gov)

Paul, Omicron has been the prevalent new variant in the U.S. during the past month. Western Europe and the UK experienced the Omicron wave earlier. The most disturbing thing about the latest Omicron death stats (in the NYT article I posted this morning, and below) is that Omicron death rates in the U.S. have exceeded death rates in Europe-- mainly because of our relatively low vaccination rates. Those numbers are in this article. Coronavirus Briefing: Omicron’s Death Toll - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Ben, Omicron is, in fact, killing adults in the U.S. The Meat Loaf Syndrome. I recently posted that disturbing U.S. mortality data (above.) And the UK data has shown a dramatically reduced Omicron death risk for the fully vaccinated. It's all about the science, if we pay attention.

LOL. I'm sure Glenn Kessler was thrilled to read Peter Janney's letter questioning Ann Hornaday's nonsense. (Nothing like fact checking the sanctimonious fact checkers.) I wonder if Kessler knows that Janney's father was a friend of Ben Bradlee back in the day. As a rule, Kessler's Fact Checker column at WaPo is excellent. I read it regularly. But, when it comes to honesty about covert CIA and military ops, does any newspaper have a more ludicrous slogan than WaPo's, "Democracy Dies in Darkness?"

Paul, I'm a social democrat. IMO, the vaccine technology should be shared with the human race. As for childhood vaccinations, the risk/benefit ratio is, obviously, higher than for adults, so the decision is less clear cut. At risk children should be vaccinated, to prevent death. But, since the vaccines haven't prevented Omicron infections, there seems to be a less compelling case for vaccinating children to protect the general population. I'll defer to the judgment of infectious disease experts. Not my area of expertise. If children are un-vaccinated, other public health interventions seem all the more important.

Paul, Vaccination is, obviously, only one aspect of a constructive social response to a pandemic. Other measures include testing, quarantine, social distancing, and the use of effective masks. In that context, let's not forget that Trump held deadly, super spreader MAGA rallies during the pandemic and criticized testing, lock downs, and the use of masks in his Fox News echo chamber. My brother-in-law got a phone call from an old college buddy who had attended Trump's MAGA rally in Tulsa in the summer of 2020. The guy was dying of COVID after the rally, and called Dennis to say goodbye. True story.

There are two interesting data-based articles about COVID in the M$M this week, for those around here who are interested in data. 🤥 One is the NYT article about the far higher COVID death rates in the U.S. compared to other wealthy nations, which is largely attributed to non-compliance with basic U.S. public health recommendations.* The second is a fascinating analysis of Vietnam's remarkable success in managing the pandemic.** A multi-factorial analysis showed that the decisive factor in Vietnam's success is TRUST in the government and the citizenry. The U.S. has money and vaccines but no social cohesion or trust in government health experts. On the contrary, Dr. Fauci and his family have been receiving death threats from angry Fox News-watching Trumplicans. Donald Trump, Fox News, and the anti-vax propagandists deserve a lot of credit for undermining our U.S. response to the pandemic. It's all about free-dumb. MAGA! * https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/01/science/covid-deaths-united-states.html ** https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/01/trust-lancet-covid-study/

Paul, I beg to differ. Science is science. It's about epistemology--the scientific method for discerning the truth, through empiricism and a logical analysis of data. That includes probabilistic analyses of treatment outcomes in relation to control populations. How does treatment compare statistically with a placebo or no treatment? Post-truthers and the anti-vaxxers have tried to present this vaccine debate as a mere polarized difference of opinion between "experts," in which, "no one has a monopoly on truth." It isn't. That is why I have consistently tried to post the actual peer-reviewed scientific data in our discussions, with associated statistical analyses. Conversely, if you look carefully at what the anti-vaxxers are presenting as evidence, it falls apart under scientific scrutiny. At worst, it is anecdotal material, devoid of context or controls. That's why their claims have been consistently debunked by the true experts. As an example, what are the risks of COVID infection and stillbirths for vaccinated and un-vaccinated, pregnant women? Where is that data in the Children's Health Defense Organization article posted above? I've been analyzing medical papers for 40 years, and I've even been quoted in the New York Times on a couple of occasions as a critic of Big Pharma. And I know that pharmaceutical companies have often massaged data and oversold their over-priced products. But the efficacy and relative risk data for the COVID vaccines has been phenomenal, contrary to the constant disinformation coming from the anti-vax community. The people dying from COVID are the un-vaccinated, like Meat Loaf. Even Donald Trump admitted that much recently. (And he got booed for admitting it.)

Paul, I haven't studied the pediatric COVID data very closely. Obviously, the COVID morbidity and mortality risks are significantly lower for children than for older adults, so the risk/benefit ratio for vaccinations is higher-- which is not to say that COVID isn't killing children. As for the dubious Children's Health Defense article (posted above) about vaccines allegedly causing stillbirths, here's some context. In a recent study of 18,000 women in Scotland, vaccinated women had significantly reduced risks of severe illness, hospitalizations, death, and stillbirths compared to the un-vaccinated. So much for Senator RoJo and the "Children's Health Defense Organization." SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccination rates in pregnant women in Scotland https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01666-2

Paul, The Children's Health Defense Organization is one of the main sources of anti-vaccine disinformation in the world. You know you're on shaky ground when a screwball like Senator Ron Johnson is your spokesperson. Children's Health Defense - Wikipedia In terms of scientific data analysis, adverse events need to be interpreted in the context of the normal population prevalence of such adverse events. Sh*t happens, with or without vaccines. For example, the anti-vaxxers have repeatedly emphasized the risk of myocarditis in young people receiving COVID vaccines. (Glenn Kessler's Fact Check article in today's WaPo reviews some of that disinformation.) But what does the properly analyzed scientific data about vaccines and myocarditis indicate? A recent analysis of 3,500,000 younger adults in Denmark who received the Pfizer vaccine showed that only 1 in 75,000 vaccinated adults experienced clinically verified myocarditis. 1 in 75,000! SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and myocarditis or myopericarditis: population based cohort studywww.bmj.com/content/375/bmj-2021-068665 Meanwhile, COVID-19 infections cause a significant risk of myocarditis, in addition to irreversible damage to lung, kidney, and neuronal tissue. www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7035e5.htm

Geez, Ron, what a frigging psychopath... 😵 What sort of twisted physician would hypnotize and program a Manchurian Candidate to murder Bobby Kennedy? They say that the culture of any institution comes from the top down. That was, evidently, the case with the CIA in the MK-Ultra era. Certainly makes me wonder about the John Hinckley, Jr. case. Incidentally, I'm finally reading A Lie Too Big to Fail this week. The first few chapters are mostly a re-hash of material that Pease published in DiEugenio's The Assassinations anthology. However, I didn't recall reading before that James Angleton had copies of the RFK assassination photos.