Thursday, November 18, 2010

"FOOTNOTES ON GLEN BARRY/EDWARD ABBEY & CARL SAGAN/IMMANUEL VELIKOVSKY", JEFF PHILLIPS









































NOTE FROM JEFF: What follows is a two-part follow-up to recent postings on my e-group, motivated by responses from three friends for whose acumen I am grateful. Please check it out, as these are important qualifications to the articles I posted.

1) GLEN BARRY INTERVIEW, founder, ECOLOGICAL INTERNET

http://www.ecologicalinternet.org/

I have to thank our great friend John Garlick of Auckland NZ for pointing this out to me. As I sometimes do, I posted this interview without having read it in its entirety. I first heard of Barry only a few weeks ago through Jean Hudon's newsletter, and learned of his internet activism which supposedly had been instrumental in shutting down Gunns Timber in Tasmania, or at least in getting them to stop old-growth logging there.

John sent this email:

"Jeff

I believe this is a highly dangerous proposal which could get out of control!

Glen Barry wrote:
'I firmly believe that on a personal level—without asking anyone to do anything illegal—that it may well come to a period where a cell-based structure that carried out sabotage and very carefully-conceived insurgency activity against the equipment and people destroying the Earth, may well be the one and only means that we have to stop what are such insurmountable trends destroying the Earth.' "

I replied to John that I agreed with him and that I hadn't read far enough in the Barry interview to see this statement. Thanks again, John!

Here are my thoughts on all this: Barry seemed to be taking credit for "ending" old-growth logging by Gunns in Tasmania, which for years has been one of the grossest of environmental catastrophes sponsored by corrupt politicians in all of Australia. But when I thought back on my early years in Tas, meeting many activists there, they told me that the permits for old-growth logging actually ended in 2010, and that Gunns was pushing to take as much as possible before then. So, if this is in fact the case, Gunns would have had to quit this year anyway, and so this apparent move to "voluntarily" stop is really just a "pr" maneuver to enhance their dismal public image.

More importantly, in this quote from the interview, Barry is more or less inviting people to become what is actually the New World Order's textbook definition of the "terrorists" that they have vaulted to the status of "Global Enemy Number One." Think about it.

In 1968 American author Edward Abbey published what is to this day one of my favouite books of all-time, Desert Solitaire, a collection of essays based on journals he kept as a park ranger in Arches National Park in Utah. In this book he formulated the origin of what later became known as "monkey-wrenching", whereby environmental activists or whomever would do things to obstruct the commercial destruction of the environment, like cutting down bill-boards with a chain-saw or putting sand in the gas-tank of a bulldozer. This was, to me, an acceptable response; even though it did involve the illegal destruction of "private property", it was more symbolic than anything.

What Barry is advocating is decidedly NOT "monkey-wrenching." Because of his choice of words like "cells", "sabotage" and "insurgency" what he is doing is recommending that people actually BECOME the textbook definition of the "terrorists" that the NWO is so keen on ridding us of through any means possible.

What I see at work here could in fact be the CIA. The way they work is to "infiltrate" a country, government, environmental organization, etc. with someone who pretends to be a "leader of the cause"; these people draw to them unwitting supporters who believe in "the cause", whether it be "fundamentalist Islam rights" or "protecting the Earth." These unwitting do-gooders then BECOME exactly what the "anti-terrorism" NWO police-state junkies want: REAL 'TERRORISTS.' Then, with "real terrorists" out there, the NWO can then justify whatever means they wish to employ to "protect" us all from them.

Even further, Barry is also using the internet for all this, which adds another dimension: the NWO-controlled Pentagon has long targeted the internet for "cyber-warfare." For someone advocating "terrorist cells", "sabotage" and "insurgency" on-line, this gives the police-state crowd yet more "justification" to clamp down on the internet.

Are you following me here?

Finally, and most ridiculously, Barry is targeting the "the equipment and people destroying the Earth." But who, in fact, is that? What conscious and intelligent person can stand there pointing a finger at some "evil them" when the reality is that it's US all together who are making it all possible. We ALL contribute to supporting the corporations and military-industrial complex everytime we pay Federal income tax, buy petrol, use electricity from the grid, consume commercially manufactured products, take a pill or use a mobile phone.

All I can say is "be aware" of this person.

2) "CARL SAGAN AND THE ULTIMATE TECHNOLOGY"

Last week I posted an article I wrote about the astronomer Carl Sagan, who I had admired for his "cosmic vision" and goal of inspiring people to be aware of the uniqueness and fragility of life on our "pale blue dot", Earth. I was aware that Sagan had been an outspoken critic of Immanuel Velikovsky, a well-known Russian psychoanalyst who, like Carl Jung, had been a student of Sigmund Freud, and had moved on to do some extremely ground-breaking research into the history of the Earth and the local solar system.

In response to two emails, one from Michael Armstrong of Mikamar Publishing ( http://www.mikamar.biz/Default.htm ), whom I thank for alerting me to this BUT whose email I will not reproduce because he completely berated both Sagan and myself, accusing Sagan of the worst forms of evil and me of being "self-aggrandizing" and an "Earth worshipper." Armstrong is a big fan of Velikovsky, as you might guess.

The second email was from Jon Eisen, publisher of Uncensored magazine in Auckland

http://uncensored.co.nz/

(see a new article "Former CIA Officials Admit Faking Bin Laden Video")

http://uncensored.co.nz/2010/11/17/former-cia-officials-admit-to-faking-bin-laden-video/

Eisen alerted me to the fact that Sagan went to the trouble of lobbying the publisher of Velikovsky's books to stop publishing them...successfully!

I had no idea of this! Below are two reviews of a book Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky...the basic scenario is explained.

SO pitiful and ironic that a HUGE public figure like Sagan, advocating "scientific" thought and the "search for truth" could be so arrogant and stupid, even as he praised the importance of "imagination." In his Cosmos series, Sagan even goes into great detail on how the great library at Alexandria had been burned by the barbarous invaders, and how hundreds of thousands of unique scientific texts had been lost forever. Sagan even details the story of a lone women scientist who was burned to death for daring to stick to the quest for "truth."

Velikovsky's insights may in the long run prove to be FAR more valuabe than anything Sagan contributed, especially concerning his "mankind in amnesia" theory that may in fact explain why humanity as a whole acts like a traumatized psychiatric patient in our refusal to act on the best knowledge we already have.

To read more of what I have to say about this, check out

"Carl Sagan and the Nuclear Scenario: A Cosmic Perspective on Terrestrial Problems"

http://synthaissance.blogspot.com/2006_07_16_archive.html

http://www.velikovsky.info/Carl_Sagan_and_Immanuel_Velikovsky

Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky is a book (1995) by Charles Ginenthal, who gives his views on Carl Sagan's criticisms of Velikovsky's work. Ginenthal states:

"Dr. Carl Sagan, a professor of astronomy from Cornell University, a well known public personality and writer of popular books of science, in 1974 at a symposium of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) delivered a paper, "An Analysis of Worlds in Collision". This paper was later edited and presented in a book, Scientists Confront Velikovsky, published by Cornell University Press. The paper was further edited and presented in Sagan's book Broca's Brain, under the title "Venus and Dr. Velikovsky". Sagan's paper is a critique of Immanuel Velikovsky's book Worlds in Collision.
"Having read Velikovsky, I also read Sagan's paper; I thereafter discovered that a group of scientists and scholars had written critiques of Sagan's analysis. After reading these criticisms I began a search of the literature and over a period of time I became convinced that Sagan's critique lacked substance. Most surprising was the number of statements made by Sagan that proved to be clearly untrue. Further reading reinforced this discovery of the glaringly unscientific and unscholarly quality of Sagan's paper. What was much worse, was that it was difficult to imagine that even Sagan was unaware of the misrepresentation of evidence presented as scholarly criticism by him and offered to the public."
"[..] the realization struck that Carl Sagan's criticisms had been uncritically read by a wide audience. This was soon discovered to be the case among friends and relatives. Seemingly, they had all read Sagan's side, but not Velikovsky's. With little or no scientific background with which to judge, they had accepted Sagan's word on all matters. It was then that I conceived the idea for this book. It is hoped that reading the other side will permit laymen to clarify the issues."[1]
http://www.revish.com/reviews/1561840750/MauriceAWilliams/

Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky
by Charles Ginenthal

The dark side of scientific debate

Charles Ginenthal in his “Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky” tried to correct the unfair treatment of Velikovsky by his contemporaries. Ginenthal points out that Velikovsky predicted many never-before-proposed phenomena about The Solar System (like Venus was very hot at a time when the Venus was considered by main stream scientists to be a planet similar to Earth but possessing a heavy cloud cover). Mainstream scientists scoffed at Velikovsky’s predictions and ridiculed him for proposing them. Later, when space probes explored The Solar System, many of Velikovsky’ predictions proved true. In an unbiased way, Ginenthal clarifies much of what Velikovsky proposed.

Immanuel Velikovsky rocked the scientific community in 1950 with the publication of his Worlds in Collision. In that book, he claimed that Venus suddenly appeared in The Solar System dragging a long atmospheric plume along with it and nearly collided with Earth and later with Mars. Because of the atmospheric plume, Velikovsky considered Venus a comet (the word “comet” originally meant having a hairy tail). By profession a renowned psychiatrist, Velikovsky was also keenly interested and well read in many fields. His study of ancient civilizations brought him to the conclusion that some of the irrational myths of early civilizations might not be irrational after all. They might be based on first-hand observation of cataclysmic events no longer occurring, especially the almost universal myths among early civilizations that the planets were gods, had battled in the heavens, and had influenced the destinies of these early cultures. Worlds in Collision was followed by Ages in Chaos in which Velikovsky claimed that the accepted dates for Egyptian history and Biblical history are out of sequence by several hundred years.

Sixty years ago, The Solar System was compared to a perfect watch. The positions of the planets were considered stable and secure and had been that way for many millennia. Worlds in Collision changed public opinion about the stability of the Solar System when it became a best seller almost as soon as it was published. Velikovsky proposed that, during historical times, with humans as witnesses, Venus was ejected from Jupiter, nearly collided with the Earth, then nearly collided with Mars, thereby causing Mars to nearly collide with the Earth.

Influential members of the scientific community immediately and prejudicially rejected Velikovsky’s thesis and went out of their way to ostracize him and refute his claims by any means possible, even dishonesty. Open-minded younger, not yet established, scientists rallied behind Velikovsky and fueled a scientific debate that lasted for decades. Disillusioned, Velikovsky desperately tried to defend his position and tried to explain how he came to his conclusions. Finally, drawing on his professional training, this eminent psychiatrist wrote Mankind in Amnesia, proposing that mankind witnessed terrifying and traumatic experiences, the significance of which subsequent generations repressed into their subconscious by redefining them as myths and legends.

Velikovsky died in 1979, still vilified and ridiculed by some very prominent members of the scientific community like Carl Sagan. Velikovsky has been given very little credit by later scientists who wound up making similar observations as Velikovsky, like the Egyptologist David M. Rohl, who proposed that the accepted dating of Egyptian and Biblical history is off by a couple hundred years in his “Pharaohs and Kings: a Biblical Quest,” published in 1995 or like D.S. Allan and J. B. Delair who, in their “Cataclysm! Compelling Evidence of a Cosmic Catastrophe in 9500 B.C.,” proposed that the solar system was disrupted by a huge planet-sized body that entered the solar system from outer space, disrupting the orbits the outermost planets, destroying the planet Electra (now the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars), disrupting Mars, Earth, our moon, and Venus, before plunging into the Sun. These scientists cite many of the documents cited by Velikovsky, plus, as they say, much new evidence that came to light. Yet they give Velikovsky only minimal mention and they give him no credit at all for having been the first to propose that events like these had, indeed, happened.

How sad for Velikovsky to be denied recognition for his contribution to our understanding, even after he is dead. Ginenthal’s “Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky” is a much needed book, not only to set the record straight, but also to show how even the best educated people can let their presumptions overshadow their scholarship. Reading “Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky” will be time well spent.

Maurice A. Williams
http://www.mauriceawilliams.com

FOOTNOTE FROM JEFF:
Here is a very interesting response from Richard K. Moore, author and independent researcher ( www.cyberjournal.org ) Apparently Richard knows Glen Barry and believes him to be a very passionate, even emotional "Earth-saving" person, and probably not a CIA-asset (not knowingly, anyway). So this is cool. And Richard once heard Immanuel Velikovsky speak, which is cool as well.

Glen...[he's in my e-group, too!] Keep up the good work bro BUT...here's what I think: since it's US...that's humanity collectively...who's doing the damage, there is no "them" at whom we can point a finger. More "violence" is just that: more violence.

The way I see it is that if we EACH voluntarily simplified our lives in the material dimension, for example, by reducing the amount we drive, the amount of meat we eat, the amount of energy we use, and avoid health-destroying technologies like mobile phones, television, pharmaceutical drugs, food additives and pesticides, the summation of a widespread simplification done collectively yet by individuals, would have enormous consequences in terms of reducing the ecological impact of the human process, which is literally an unconscious jihad akin to "world war three."

We also have been blessed with "the ultimate technology", our minds/brains, and if we could simply learn how to use it as it's meant to be used, we could very easily literally "reprogram our biocomputers", to paraphrase John Lilly, so that we could perceive reality in entirely new, more creative, less destructive ways. WE HAVE THESE ABILITIES...but why we refuse to use them is the crux of the problem.

Start by loving the Earth and showing her you love her by changing destructive patterns in your day to day life; then show you love yourself by using your mind/brain in ways that reflect a genuine respect for life, our fellow beings, and the Earth.

Jeff Phillips
Balingup WA


FROM RICHARD K. MOORE:

Finally, and most ridiculously, Barry is targeting the "the equipment and people destroying the Earth." But who, in fact, is that? What conscious and intelligent person can stand there pointing a finger at some "evil them" when the reality is that it's US all together who are making it all possible. We ALL contribute to supporting the corporations and military-industrial complex everytime we pay Federal income tax, buy petrol, use electricity from the grid, consume commercially manufactured products, take a pill or use a mobile phone.

Hi Jeff,

Interesting points you make. I've spent time with Barry, and he's emotionally caught up in 'saving the Earth'. He actually started crying when he was talking about how the Earth is getting destroyed. I don't blame him at all, but most people aren't quite that emotional about it. So I'd say we're seeing a sincere activist speaking, who is getting desperate in his hopelessness, rather than a CIA covert op.

And yes, his words would go over quite well in a Congressional hearing about closing down the Internet.

There's a scene in Grapes of Wrath that is relevant. A farmer is being evicted, and a fellow is driving a bulldozer, about to demolish the farmer's house. The farmer confronts him (ie, 'equipment and people destroying the Earth') with a shot gun. The driver explains he's just another bloke, needing a job, and someone else would come if the farmer shoots him. A classic scenario.

I really enjoyed The Monkey Wrench Gang, by the way.
Velikovsky died in 1979, still vilified and ridiculed by some very prominent members of the scientific community like Carl Sagan.Velikovsky has been given very little credit by later scientists who wound up making similar observations as Velikovsky, like the Egyptologist David M. Rohl, who proposed that the accepted dating of Egyptian and Biblical history is off by a couple hundred years in his “Pharaohs and Kings: a Biblical Quest,” published in 1995 or like D.S. Allan and J. B. Delair who, in their “Cataclysm! Compelling Evidence of a Cosmic Catastrophe in 9500 B.C.,” proposed that the solar system was disrupted by a huge planet-sized body that entered the solar system from outer space, disrupting the orbits the outermost planets, destroying the planet Electra (now the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars), disrupting Mars, Earth, our moon, and Venus, before plunging into the Sun. These scientists cite many of the documents cited by Velikovsky, plus, as they say, much new evidence that came to light. Yet they give Velikovsky only minimal mention and they give him no credit at all for having been the first to propose that events like these had, indeed, happened.
Velikovsky was cool. I went to a lecture by him, just before he died, and I read most of his books. The response of the scientific community to Velikovsky is shameful in the extreme, and it is also the standard response to anyone who challenges mainstream models, particularly if thy are perceived as amateurs.

It is also shameful that the critics focus on Worlds In Collision, his first book in a series, which was by far the least rigorous and most easily attacked. A 'cheap shot' as we used to say. They never talk about Ages in Chaos, which is much more scientific.

ciao,
rkm