FULL DISCLOSURE: I am no longer associated with Sibel Edmond, or BoilingFrogs/Newsbud. I think she is a con-artist and a petty and vindictive individual. If you want to know more about why I broke off all ties with Sibel you can find out more here:
Sibel Edmonds is our final guest as we dissect this shambolic re-telling of the Soviet-Afghan War. Much of this conversation is devoted to what the film leaves out, such as Charlie Wilson being a CIA asset, the origins of Operation Cyclone being older and much more important than one drunk congressman and his ultra-right wing Christian friend and of course the likes of Jalaluddin Haqqani, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Osama Bin Laden who are completely absent from the movie. This was a no-holds-barred critique of this quite shameful piece of CIA propaganda, and all the more fun because of that.
Thomas Sheridan joins us to talk about the 2010 film The Social Network, which tells the story of the origins of facebook. We discuss the class struggle portrayed in the story, the mechanism by which the film could have been influenced by the CIA, the archetypes in the finely-produced melodrama that plays out, the CIA’s silicon valley network which is conspicuous by its absence from the narrative, and the meaning of the movie’s dark and brooding tone. We also get into some unusual areas, including the mystery of the sub sandwich.
Tom Secker and I joined Kira Young once again to discuss our new podcast series The CIA and Hollywood. We discussed our reasons for creating the show as well as where we will be taking it in second season. Later we get into some of the cultural memes that the CIA is currently introducing into popular culture, with a particular emphasis on female characters in TV.
Good friend Adam joins us to discuss the 1998 action thriller Enemy of the State, and its unprecedented ‘revelation’ of surveillance technology. We talk about how the film has a rogue’s gallery of technical advisers – including Chase Brandon and Marty Keiser – and how this led to one of the most spectacular depictions of the NSA and the spy state in general. Following from this we analysed the likely purpose in the CIA masking themselves as the NSA in the film, and how this has scuppered the progress of any serious dialogue about mass surveillance.
Aaron Franz joined in the conversation as we looked at the film The Recruit, which more than any other film we’re covering in this season was moulded by CIA entertainment liaison Chase Brandon. Like so many films, it tells the story of a young person inducted into a secret world with secret rules and codes of thinking and behaviour, and in doing so inducts the audience into that same world. We discussed this dynamic from various angles – black operations, secret societies, occult or mystery school philosophies – before studying Brandon’s appearance in the most fascinating ‘making of’ documentary ever made.
Guillermo Jimenez joins us for this episode to talk about Robert De Niro – a man whose relationship with the CIA spans two decades. We look at four films – Wag the Dog, Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers and The Good Shepherd, the latter three of which have documented CIA assistance in their production. We discuss Robert De Niro’s transformation from a serious dramatic actor into a kooky comedy figure, and the CIA’s apparent involvement in that. This led to us asking whether the three comedy films are trojan horses for a sneaky CIA agenda, and talking about how The Good Shepherd has many flaws but this did not stop the CIA themselves from praising it as ‘probably as good as any film on the Agency’.
In this opening episode of the new series Pearse and Tom look into the CIA’s adaptations of George Orwell’s two most famous novels – Animal Farm and 1984. We focus primarily on Animal Farm, a revolutionary animated film in several senses of the word, produced by Louis De Rochemont – a man who had worked with several other government agencies prior to making Animal Farm with the CIA. The animation was does by British firm Halas and Bachelor, and we also discuss their background. This episode also examines the paper trail, looking in Orwell’s FBI file and the MI5 records on actor Michael Redgrave, who starred in 1984 despite being a suspected Communist. We conclude that the CIA had something of an obsession with Orwell at this time, and were subverting his works quite radically in these films.
Tom Secker and I had the great pleasure of joining Kira Young on her radio show The Bridge. This time around we continued our discussion of cults by focusing on those within the alt-media. We took at a look at how and why cults seem to flourish within the alt-media, with a particular focus on the role that the Internet plays in reaching out to potential members.
Later we looked at the cult of personality around people such as Alex Jones, and how he is able to operate at the level he does today. We then moved onto a well known figure in the alt-media, Stefan Molyneux, and delved deeply into the cult he has created with the Free Domain Radio community. Tom and I discussed the fact that much of Molyneux’s cult activity is masked by his libertarian/anarchist ideology. We zeroed in on his obsession with destroying one’s own family structure (De-Fooing) so that one can join his own digital family where he is the guru in charge. We also discussed whether or not Molyneux is a psychopath.
Later the three of us explored how many of the more extreme views in alt-media (reptilians, ancient aliens) tend to isolate people from their families and friends, which ultimately makes them vulnerable prey for cults. I rounded off our discussion with a look at the role that cults such as the Moonies and The Church Universal Triumphant have played in crafting and co-opting the alt-media community.
In this interview Pearse Redmond shares some of his research and thoughts on Scientology and cults in general. What is a destructive cult, and why would anyone join one in the first place? A better question might be: what pseudo-cults have I, myself been involved in, and to what extent? Human nature is ours, but it is also the Garden from which the guru attempts to pick Forbidden Fruit.
On Saturday, February 21, Tom Secker and I had the great pleasure of joining Kira Young on her live radio show The Bridge. We started out with a discussion of the recent surge of neo-nazism within the alt-community and what this means for alternative media. Later on, we explored the fascination the Left has with Vladim Putin and all things Russian. We then moved on to the subject of cults and their connections with the intelligence services. I went into some detail regarding Scientology and various cultic connections to the CIA. In particular, I discussed psychic research being conducted by the CIA at Stanford Research Institute, headed by two high-ranking Scientologists, Harold Puthoff and Ingo Swann. I related how the CIA was funding this research while the FBI was deeply involved in infiltrating and arresting high-ranking members of the cult. Later, we explored the LSD movement and the CIA orchestration behind it, as well as the interesting Scientologists who were part of that movement. We rounded off the conversation by looking at the current drug culture within the alt-movement. All three of us gave our thoughts on the popularity of DMT and ayahuasca, and how the promotion of these power psychoactive drugs may be part of a much wider plan to derail the alternative community. We also reflected on how cannabis culture has changed from a movement promoting personal freedom into a cult of getting stoned all the time. Finally Tom and I talked about our new podcast series The CIA and Hollywood, and what to expect from it.
Porkins Policy Review 