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History doesn't repeat itself... but it rhymes...

The following is an excerpt from chapter seven of my first book: The Tek-Gnostics Heresies - Tales of Wonder from the Collective Conscious... published in 2016. Given the socio-political shenanigans of the ensuing last half-decade, this excerpt seems (almost) more pertinent today, as we struggle through the insidious culture war that is modern Amerika.

This chapter was originally intended to outline the historic significance and nefarious activities that certain intelligence services played in attempting to control the rise of psychedelia, in the United States, during the Cold War era. In the book, I refer to these cultural phenomena as the Psychedelic Apocalypse. Upon re-reading this section, the history lesson takes on new, more important nuances...

Even as America basked in the sunshine of a new-found prosperity in the years following World War II… all was not well in the nation considered to be the leader of the free world. A profound expansion of higher education, driven by the GI Bill… fueled by an unbridled optimism in the decades following the end of the War, was in retrospect, the calm before the storm. There was a growing concern in the mind of then 34th U. S. President, Dwight D Eisenhower… a nagging suspicion was creeping into his consciousness. A suspicion that, given the outcome of WWII, given the growing concern over the USSR and China and the rise of the “Cold War,” the “powers that be” in Washington DC were mutating into something beyond the control of traditional political checks and balances.

As the supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe during the war, Eisenhower knew better than most, the ramifications of a changing world. The nation Dwight loved had risen to the challenges of Nazism & Fascism during WWII… had “pulled together” …militarily in Europe, the South Pacific. On the home front, via the heroic efforts of civilians, as epitomized by “Rosie the Riveter” …a united America answered the call to defeat the Axis powers.

Even as the Allied forces accepted the surrender of their adversaries on May 7th, 1945, the insidious seed of Nazism & Fascism persisted. Defeated… denounced… dormant… but very much alive. It was as if the fascist seed, trampled under-foot by allied forces, clung to the tread of their military boots marching home… carrying an unexpected and sinister contaminant to American soil.

This contamination first took the form of “Operation Paperclip” which was enacted by Eisenhower’s predecessor, 33rd U. S. president,  Harry Truman in August of 1945. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which later became the CIA, launched Operation Paperclip to recruit Nazi scientists for employment by the United States, thereby denying Nazi technological expertise to the Soviet Union (USSR). Specifically, the OSS was desperate to acquire Nazi rocket scientists and aerospace engineers to monopolize inter-continental weapons delivery and the militarization of space.

The USSR was keenly aware of the strategic ramifications of operation paperclip. The Soviets, via their newly occupied satellite, the  German Democratic Republic (East Germany), responded by erecting the “Berlin Wall” in 1961 …separating Germany’s Capitol into East & West Berlin and eliminating access to West Berlin, by land. This was the genesis of the “Cold War” …a protracted covert campaign of espionage, statesmanship and military brinksmanship, waged between the US and the USSR.

With the Cold War (which lasted overtly until 1991) as a backdrop… the two “superpowers” as they became known, entered into what amounted to a technology war… a race between East & West to achieve technological superiority. In retrospect, the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War, the Cuban missile crisis, mutually assured destruction (MAD), the space race, détente… and finally the demolition of the Berlin Wall (“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”  –Ronald Reagan, circa 1987) …all fall into place as pieces of the puzzle that was the “global techno-industrial” clash of superpowers.

The symbolism of the Berlin Wall being the “alpha and omega” of the Cold War is intriguing, given that Germany, now unified and twice rising from the ashes of national defeat and devastation, rose again to become the dominant power of the twenty-first century European Union.

Meanwhile, back on January 17, 1961… a worried President Eisenhower is preparing to leave office by delivering his now famous “Military-Industrial Complex” speech. In this farewell address, Eisenhower predicted and succinctly defined humanity’s current socio-political dilemma…

“Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence… economic, political, even spiritual… is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

- Dwight D Eisenhower, 1961

Prior to the invention and first use of the “Atomic Bomb” in WWII, industries making swords in times of war could make plowshares in times of peace. After WWII, military weaponry became so sophisticated as to require a large complex of industries dedicated solely to its development. Military technologies such as intercontinental missile capability and nuclear weapons gave rise to the modern corporate-controlled State.

The “defense industry,” in tandem with an escalating legislative bureaucracy, fed by outrageous sums of money and influence wielded by the fledgling lobbying industry, was the cancerous mutation in American politics that Ike feared. If left unchecked, Ike implied, the military-industrial complex would become the tyrannical masters of a new world order.

But it was not enough to control governments and economies… these tyrants, via their newly created lackey spook show, the CIA… wanted to control the very minds of their perceived adversaries, as well as… perhaps… the citizenry they were supposed to protect. They not only sought to control outer space, (a nudge from Sputnik 1 in 1957 launched both the space race and the aerospace industry) they planned to control “inner space” as well.

Several secret U.S. government projects grew out of Operation Paperclip. Their purpose was to study mind control, interrogation, behavior modification and related topics. These projects included Project Chatter and Project Bluebird, which was renamed Project Artichoke in 1951. A memorandum from OSS veteran, Richard Helms to CIA director Allen Welsh Dulles indicated Artichoke became Project MK-ULTRA on April 13, 1953.

Project MK-ULTRA was the code name for a covert, illegal CIA human experimentation program, run by the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence. MK-ULTRA began in 1953 and continued at least through the late 1960s, and used ordinary citizens, including university students, as its test subjects. Over thirty universities and institutions were involved in this extensive testing and experimentation program, which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens, Native Americans and foreign nationals. Several of these tests involved the administration of LSD-25 to test subjects in a variety of social situations...

The chapter goes on to identify the specfics of those early, covert operations... outlining their inception and pedigree. The curious are (of course) encouraged to pick up a copy of The Tek-Gnostics Heresies, wherever books are sold.... including direct from our on-line products catalogue. All copies bought through our site are signed by yours truly. 

There is also a great deal on purchasing the entire trilogy, to be found on the right-side column of this weblog. Thank you in advance, for your support...