Posts by Dogpatch

I'll never forget how I first learned that Gene Kahn killed Kennedy. It was a Saturday in the summer of 1993. In Massachusetts no less. I was interrogating a fidgety informer who spun a vivid account -- delivered to him, he explained, by a swarthy foreigner -- of an intricate assassination conspiracy and an ensemble cast that boasted mob hit men, Cuban migrs and Marilyn Monroe. Only now can it be told: the informer was our 11-year-old son.

The interrogation took place at his summer camp on parents weekend. The foreign contact was his Australian counselor, whose own source for the plot was a dog-eared paperback called ''Double Cross.'' But who was Gene Kahn? Not until a few hours later, when we had driven halfway home, did I realize that a surfeit of syllables and an Aussie accent had conspired to mangle the culprit's name. Gene Kahn didn't kill President John F. Kennedy. Sam Giancana did. Or did he kill Marilyn Monroe?

It has been said that in a world of cause and effect, coincidence is always suspect. Previous books have explored the psychological motives that drive people to perpetrate or perpetuate sinister plot lines to rationalize extraordinary events. In ''Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America'' Robert Alan Goldberg, a history professor at the University of Utah, takes a different tack. He tries to identify the historical and social undercurrents that have driven seemingly sane Americans to attribute such events to nefarious conspiracies instead of embracing equally or more plausible -- if also more mundane -- causes like government arrogance, sloppiness and even coincidence.

Professor Goldberg dissects five contemporary plots, including the specter of Communist infiltration (borrowing his title from J. Edgar Hoover's handbook for red hunters, ''The Enemy Within''), the impending arrival of the Antichrist (which, he writes, ''has become as essential to repentance as faith in Jesus''), the roots of hostility between blacks and Jews, and several variations of the Kennedy assassination (at least some of which required few leaps of faith). Completing the quintet are the U.F.O. sightings and cover-ups that supposedly percolated up from accounts by ordinary people and became collectively known as Roswell. (The twisted plots-within-plots in television's ''X-Files'' produced this epiphany: ''The U.S. military saw a good thing in '47 when the Roswell story broke. The more we deny it the more people believed it was true. Aliens had landed, a made-to-order cover story for generals looking to develop the national war chest.'')

Professor Goldberg sheds little new light on to what degree, if any, the purported plots are grounded in fact. But he pinpoints and then stitches together several intriguing common threads.

''Conspiracy'' is derived from Latin meaning to breathe together, and since the act of breathing by itself seems to all but suffice legally to justify a criminal conviction for conspiracy, it's not surprising how little it takes to stoke the popular imagination.

Why are conspiracy theories so credible? Invoking a litany of bunglings, half-truths and outright distortions that distinguished the government's original responses to U.F.O. sightings, the U-2 spy plane incident of 1960, Vietnam, Watergate, Ruby Ridge and Waco, conspiracists and countersubversives can claim that history is on their side.

Each player in the real or imagined plots -- the seekers of secrets and the keepers of secrets -- inevitably performs to character, provoking what Professor Goldberg explains is the requisite confrontation that conspiracism demands. Contradictions and consistency each are seized upon as evidence of Byzantine conspiracies that become as difficult to disprove as to prove. The establishment press dutifully parrots the government line. Ham-handed officials repress dissent and plant informers, feeding the siege mentality in which paranoid plots flourish.

These plots are also means to other ends. They galvanize believers. They enable anxious and powerless people to cope. Arguably, they even offer closure and a modicum of hope that whatever injustice was wrought by the conspiracy will be ameliorated, or at least won't be repeated, once the plot is finally exposed. They provide a moral counterpart to Newton's Law, reassuring a jittery public that major effects require major causes and are not the result of simple twists of fate or lone assassins. After all, the true skeptic believes that anything is possible.

Professor Goldberg credits -- or blames -- Hollywood as the great validator of conspiracy theories. The most influential historians, he concludes, are filmmakers.

That may be true up to a point; witness ''J. F. K.'' or ''Wag the Dog.'' But conspiracy theories also flourished well before they were popularized by the movies, and although films and the Internet can spread those theories wider and faster, the greatest impetuses are usually the government officials or other authority figures who suppress information or engage in cover-ups. Secrecy breeds rumor, Professor Goldberg writes, and it's no surprise that the creator of ''The X-Files'' came of age during Watergate. (It's also noteworthy that, as Professor Goldberg writes, conspiracies typically are a male preserve.)

Professor Goldberg occasionally indulges in jargon; plot imaging is a favorite phrase. But a larger shortcoming is the book's occasional failure to distinguish adequately between cause and effect in conspiracy theories. In a case I explored, the accused atomic spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg may have been framed 50 years ago, their punishment was disproportionate to their conviction, and as we now know the chief witness against Ethel Rosenberg perjured himself. Still, none of that negates the overwhelming evidence that Julius Rosenberg himself was also guilty of a conspiracy: a conspiracy to commit espionage.

Conspiracism is an American tradition, Professor Goldberg writes, although only rarely, as in the 1850's and 1930's, do the conspirators seem even temporarily to have penetrated vital institutions. In that context his finger wagging over the emergence of a new nationalism of conspiracism seems a trifle alarmist. Conspiracy thinking has moved Americans beyond a healthy skepticism of authority, he writes. Lacking public confidence, core institutions become unstable and lose their ability to govern. The cancer of conspiracism has begun to metastasize. Without a new awareness of its character and quick intervention, countersubversion may overcome the body politic. Sounds to me like the makings of a conspiracy.

Published: 12 - 18 - 2001 , Late Edition - Final , Section E , Column 1 , Page 7

9

JWs selling AVON kidnapped by Muslims

by Dogpatch in

jw
friends

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020821/ap_wo_en_ge/philippines_abu_sayyaf_10

philippine muslim rebels seize avon salespeople in first hostage taking since u.s. military mission wed aug 21, 6:32 am et .

by zeny masong, associated press writer

Dogpatch

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020821/ap_wo_en_ge/philippines_abu_sayyaf_10 Philippine Muslim rebels seize Avon salespeople in first hostage taking since U.S. military mission Wed Aug 21, 6:32 AM ET

By ZENY MASONG, Associated Press Writer

PATIKUL, Philippines - Suspected Abu Sayyaf guerrillas kidnapped at least six people selling Avon cosmetics door to door in a remote village in the southern Philippines, officials said Wednesday.

Reuters
	Slideshow: The Philippines' Abu Sayyaf

The kidnappings were the first on the troubled island of Jolo since the United States began supporting a Philippines military campaign to wipe out the al-Qaida-linked Muslim militants seven months ago in the middle of a yearlong mass kidnapping that included three American captives.

Philippine troops responded by shelling Abu Sayyaf positions and searching for the gang.

Officials initially reported that eight people had been kidnapped, but two of them the only Muslims and local residents in the group showed up at their homes Wednesday, saying they spent the night with relatives and were surprised by the attention. Police were investigating.

Sulu provincial police chief Col. Ahiron Ajirim reported two men with pistols stopped a jeep carrying the sellers, five women and three men, and forced them out Tuesday afternoon. He said the driver was left behind in the rural area of Jolo island, about 900 kilometers (600 miles) south of Manila.

Ajirim said the driver later identified one kidnapper as Muin Maulod Sahiron, a nephew of local Abu Sayyaf leader Radullan Sahiron.

Ajirim said six of the victims were from Zamboanga, the biggest city in the region, but were staying at a local inn and selling Avon products on Jolo island. Two women in their 40s and a 21-year-old man registered at the inn with the same last name and are likely related, he said.

A police report said the six were all Jehovah's Witnesses, but said police found no evidence they were trying to promote their religion in the predominantly Muslim area.

He said police found boxes of Avon cosmetics in the jeep.

New York-based Avon Products Inc. is the world's largest direct seller of beauty products and has thousands of salespeople in the Philippines. Managers at its Manila office said they were not immediately aware of the abductions.

For six months from February, about 1,200 U.S. troops trained and provided logistical and intelligence support for the Philippine army's push to eradicate the Abu Sayyaf.

The U.S. program ended officially three weeks ago, although a few Americans remained on Basilan island, which neighbors Jolo, to finish infrastructure projects.

U.S. Navy ( news - web sites ) Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, said in a speech at the closing ceremonies that the military campaign left the Abu Sayyaf "in disarray and on the run, unable to find the money or the time to eat, rest and resupply."

The rebels in Jolo, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of Basilan, are from a different Abu Sayyaf faction and suffered less from the intense offensives that the military says decimated the Abu Sayyaf on Basilan.

Patikul Vice Mayor Esmon Suhuri said the Philippine army shelled suspected Abu Sayyaf hide-outs around Patikul Tuesday night. Residents heard at least 10 ground-shaking artillery blasts. The fighting was the first in the war-stricken area in months.

Suhuri said the region's people were in the middle of a major harvest and renewed fighting could disrupt the relative prosperity the area has enjoyed this year.

The recent years of kidnapping have hit tourism and the economy nationwide.

On Wednesday, the 30-company Philippine Stock Exchange Index fell 2.1 percent on news of the kidnapping, which came amid fears of a widening national budget deficit.

The Abu Sayyaf has often kidnapped for ransom but more frequently has abducted poor Filipinos to serve for weeks or months as slave labor.

In the past the army has refrained from launching major attacks against Abu Sayyaf while they held hostages.

Most hostages have been released, but more than a dozen have been killed in the past year, some beheaded. The group also has kidnapped women to force them to marry guerrillas.

The last Abu Sayyaf kidnapping spree ended in June when U.S.-trained soldiers, helped by U.S. surveillance and communications, tracked down rebels holding the last of 102 captives: American missionaries Gracia and Martin Burnham and Filipino nurse Ediborah Yap.

On June 7, soldiers rescued Mrs. Burnham, but her husband and Yap were killed. The Abu Sayyaf leader who led those kidnappings was believed killed with two of his men in a clash at sea two weeks later.

A Filipino man, Roland Ullah, is still being held from another Abu Sayyaf mass kidnapping two years ago from a tourist resort in Malaysia.

The U.S. mission in the Philippines was the first expansion of the U.S. war on terrorism outside Afghanistan ( news - web sites). The operation, unprecedented in the Philippines, involved deployment of U.S. troops in a combat zone and lasted much longer than normal joint maneuvers, sparking protests in the former U.S. colony.

29

My illustration web site is finally done.

by seven006 in

jw
friends

with working on client's projects and playing on this board i finally squished in some time in to finish my site.

it isn't anything fancy with animations and shockwave magic shooting all over the place like i have done in the past.

it is simple, clean, and straight forward boring html.. the work is just a small portion of what i have done over the last year or so.

Dogpatch

Nice!

Dave also designed my Virtual Church door at:

http://www.exjws.net/message/index.htm

Randy Watters

Net Soup!

http://www.freeminds.org

25

watchtower.org and freeminds demonized at study

by heathen in

jw
friends

as we were digesting the spiritual food at the bookstudy tonight [yes i actually had to see this for myself] the topic of watchtower.org and freeminds came up from the elder in charge of the study.he flagrantly discredited freeminds with verbal sarcasm and distain and condemned watchtower.org as apostate and totally demonized the website .during this he mentioned he was not abliged to answer any of the questions that may have been raised about the society and beliefs because he felt that jesus didn't always answer the pharisees with what they would have expected like something that would incriminate himself.then the term legal department was brought to the fore.i really couldn't believe this is their reaction to inquiring minds.

Dogpatch

Might have meant Free Minds and Watchtowernews.org, which are linked together.

Randy

http://www.freeminds.org

http://www.watchtowernews.org

41

I'd like to introduce myself.......

by DJ in

jw
friends

my name is donna.

i was directed to this forum through freeminds.org by randy watters.

i found his site to be very helpful to me and i highly recommend it to other newbies.

Dogpatch

Thanks Donna!

It was sure good to hear from you!!

Give your miracle husband my regards as well,

love,

Randy Watters

Net Soup!

http://www.freeminds.org

2

Thought Reform Exists

by Dogpatch in

jw
friends

some exchange occurs but communication generally one-sided.

takes authoritarian stance to persuade masses.

6. singer, m.t.

Dogpatch

Welcome to the Vol. 3, No. 4, June/July 2002 edition of the reFOCUS Forum: An Internet Newsletter for Recovery

reFOCUS is: ...a network of referral and support for former members of closed, high demand groups, relationships or cults.

reFOCUS is dedicated to the recovery of former membersplease visit our web site at http://www.refocus.org We are a tax-exempt not-for-profit corporation - all contributions to reFOCUS are 100% tax deductible. Because reFOCUS is dedicated to recovery, we are looking for suggestions and input from you: are there articles or topics you want to see covered? Are there questions you need answered? Email us at [email protected] or [email protected]

Recovery Article of the Month

Thought Reform Exists: Organized, Programmatic Influence

("Thought Reform" throughout this article can be read as synonymous with "Brainwashing" & "Coercive Persuasion".)

Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D.

Recently, cult apologists have attempted to create the impression that the concept of thought reform has been rejected by the scientific community. This is untrue.

As recently as May of this year, the new Diagnostics and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) published by the American Psychiatric Association cites thought reform as a contributing factor to "Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified" (a diagnosis frequently given to former cult members). Thought reform (notes 1,2,3 below) and its synonyms brainwashing and coercive persuasion (4.5) were also noted in DSM-III (1980) and is DSM-III revised (1987), as well as in widely recognized medical texts (6.7).

Thought reform is not mysterious. It is the systematic application of psychological and social influence techniques in an organized programmatic way within a constructed and managed environments (5,7,8,9,10). The goal is to produce specific attitudinal and behavioral changes. The changes occur incrementally without its being patently visible to those undergoing the process that their attitudes and behavior are being changed a step at a time according to the plan of those directing the program.

In society there are numerous elaborate attempts to influence attitudes and modify behavior. However, thought reform programs can be distinguished from other social influence efforts because of their totalistic scope and their sequenced phases aimed at destabilizing participants' sense of self, sense of reality, and values. Thought reform programs rely on organized peer pressure, the development of bonds between the leader or trainer and the followers, the control of communication, and the use of a variety of influence techniques. The aim of all this is to promote conformity, compliance, and the adoption of specific attitudes and behaviors desired by the group. Such a program is further characterized by the manipulation of the person's total social environment to stabilize and reinforce the modified behavior and attitude changes. (8,9,10)

Thought reform is accomplished through the use of psychological and environmental control processes that do not depend on physical coercion. Today's thought reform programs are sophisticated, subtle, and insidious, creating a psychological bond that in many ways is far more powerful than gun-at-the-head methods of influence. The effects generally lose their potency when the control processes are lifted or neutralized in some way. That is why most Korean War POWs gave up the content of their prison camp indoctrination programs when they came home and why many cultists leave their groups if they spend a substantial amount of time away from the group or have an opportunity to discuss their doubts with in intimate (11).

Contrary to popular misconceptions (some intentional on the part of naysayers), a thought reform program does not require physical confinement and does not produce robots. Nor does it permanently capture the allegiance of all those exposed to it. In fact, some persons do not respond at all to the programs, while others retain the contents for varied periods of time. In sum, thought reform should be regarded as "situationally adaptive belief change that is not subtle and is environment-dependent". (8,10)

The current effort by cult apologists to deny thought reform exists is linked to earlier protective stances toward cults in which apologists attempted to deny the cults' active and deceptive recruitment practices, deny the massive social, psychological, financial, spiritual and other controls wielded by cult leaders and thus dismiss their often destructive consequences.

These earlier efforts to shield cults from criticism rest on a seeker theory of how people get into cults, which overlooks the active and deceptive tactics that most cults use to recruit and retain members. When bad things happened to followers of Jim Jones or David Koresh, the twisted logic of some apologists implied that these "seekers" found what they wanted, thus absolving the cult leader and his conduct.

Finally, to promulgate the myth that though reform has been rejected by the scientific community, cult apologists doggedly stick to faulty understanding of the process contrary to findings in the literature, they ---- that physical coercion and debilitation are necessary for thought reform to occur, and that the effects of thought reform must be instant, massive, uniform, universally responded to, and enduring.

The recent upholding of thought reform in DSM-IV is but one more piece of evidence that this orchestrated process of exploitative psychological manipulation is real and recognized within the professional psychiatric field. To say then that the concept of thought reform is rejected by the scientific community is false and irresponsible. The phenomenon has been studied and discussed since 1951, and continuing studies by social psychologists and other behavioral scientists have solidified our understandings of its components and overall impact.

1994 M.T. Singer { The Cult Observer , Vol.11, No.6 (1994): 3-4.}

This table is from Cults In Our Midst

Table 3.2. Continuum of Influence and Persuasion

Education Advertising Propaganda Indoctrination Thought Reform Focus of body of knowledge Many bodies of knowledge, based on scientific findings in various fields. Body of knowledge concerns product, competitors; how to sell and influence via legal persuasion. Body of knowledge centers on political persuasion of masses of people. Body of knowledge is explicitly designed to inculcate organizational values. Body of knowledge centers on changing people without their knowledge. Direction & degree of exchange Two way pupil-teacher exchange encouraged. Exchange can occur but communication generally one-sided. Some exchange occurs but communication generally one-sided. Limited exchange occurs, communication is one-sided. No exchange occurs, communication is one-sided. Ability to change Change occurs as science advances; as students and other scholars offer criticisms; as students & citizens evaluate programs. Change made by those who pay for it, based upon the success of ad programs by consumers law, & in response to consumer complaints. Change based on changing tides in world politics and on political need to promote the group, nation, or international organization. Change made through formal channels, via written suggestions to higher-ups. Change occurs rarely; organization remains fairly rigid; change occurs primarily to improve thought-reform effectiveness. Structure of persuasion Uses teacher-pupil structure; logical thinking encouraged. Uses an instructional mode to persuade consumer/buyer. Takes authoritarian stance to persuade masses. Takes authoritarian & hierarchical stance. Takes authoritarian & hierarchical stance; No full awareness on part of learner. Type of relationship Instruction is time-limited: consensual. Consumer/buyer can accept or ignore communication. Learner support & engrossment expected. Instruction is contractual: consensual Group attempts to retain people forever. Deceptiveness Is not deceptive. Can be deceptive, selecting only positive views. Can be deceptive, often exaggerated. Is not deceptive. Is deceptive. Breadth of learning Focuses on learning to learn & learning about reality; broad goal is rounded knowledge for development of the individual. Has a narrow goal of swaying opinion to promote and sell an idea, object, or program; another goal is to enhance seller & possibly buyer. Targets large political masses to make them believe a specific view or circumstance is good. Stresses narrow learning for a specific goal; to become something or to train for performance of duties. Individualized target; hidden agenda (you will be changed one step at a time to become deployable to serve leaders). Tolerance Respects differences. Puts down competition. Wants to lessen opposition. Aware of differences. No respect for differences. Methods Instructional techniques. Mild to heavy persuasion. Overt persuasion sometimes unethical. Disciplinary techniques. Improper and unethical techniques. References:

1. Lifton, R.J. (1961). Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism . New York: W.W. Norton. (Also: 1993, University of North Carolina Press.)

2. Lifton, R.J. (1987). Cults: Totalism and civil liberties. In R.J. Lifton, The Future of Immortality and Other Essays for a Nuclear Age . New York: Basic Books.

3. Lifton, R.J. (1991, February). Cult formation. Harvard Mental Health Letter .
4. Hunter, E. (1951). Brainwashing in China . New York: Vanguard.
5. Schein, E.H. (1961). Coercive Persuasion . New York: W. W. Norton.
6. Singer, M.T. (1987). Group psychodynamics. In R. Berkow (Ed.). Merck Manual , 15th ed. Rahway, NJ: Merck, Sharp, & Dohme.

7. West, L.J., & Singer, M.T. (1980). Cults, quacks, and nonprofessional psychotherapies. In H.I. Kaplan, A.M. Freedman, & B.J. Sadock (Eds.), Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry III , 3245-3258. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins.

8. Ofshe, R., & Singer, M.T. (1986). Attacks on peripheral versus central elements of self and the impact of thought reforming techniques. Cultic Studies Journal . 3, 3-24.

9. Singer. M.T. & Ofshe, R.(1990) Thought reform programs and the production of psychiatric casualties. Psychiatric Annals , 20, 188-193

10. Ofshe, R. (1992). Coercive persuasion and attitude change. Encyclopedia of Sociology . Vol. 1, 212-224. New York: McMillan.

11. Wright, S. (1987) Leaving Cults . The Dynamics of Defection . Society for the Scientific Study of religion. Monograph no. 7, Washington, DC.

* * * * *

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Email: [email protected] or [email protected]

13

Cygnus and Surgery

by LovesDubs in

jw
friends

.

i believe our old friend cygnus had surgery this week too...lets keep him in our thoughts.. love ya cyggie!.

loves

Dogpatch

I talked to his relative yesterday and he said it was postponed until tthe last week of September.

Hang in there Cygnus!!

Randy