From: Jim Mortellaro <Jsmortell@aol.com>
Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2001 18:23:26 EDT
Fwd Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2001 06:16:50 -0400
Subject: Re: Alert: Majestic Art of Electronic


 >Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 14:04:24 -0500
 >From: Bruce Maccabee <brumac@compuserve.com>
 >Subject: Re: Alert: Majestic Art of Electronic Disinformation
 >To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@sympatico.ca>

 >>Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 16:46:37 z (MDT)
 >>From: Stephen MILES Lewis <smiles@elfis.net>
 >>To: updates@sympatico.ca
 >>Subject: Alert: Majestic Art of Electronic Disinformation

 >>Majestic Art of Electronic Disinformation

 >>"A character in the game might ask me the name of my wife. A few
 >>months later I might get a call saying, "'Neil, if you don't
 >>stop snooping, you might find Laurie in a pool of blood'."

 >- Neil Young, Game Designer at Anim-X

 >>Back in February I learned of a new "game" which threatens to
 >>further blur the lines between fact and fiction within the ufo
 >>community and its relevant parapolitical/conspiracy sub-
 >>communities. It's called Majestic and it is being billed as "The
 >>game that plays you." This new online interactive experience
 >>uses the player's own mind as the gaming environment with the
 >>world wide web and telecommunications networks as its
 >>intravenous feed straight into that player's paranoia prone
 >>imagination.

 >The inventor of this game will be happily raking in the dough
 >until the game turns around to bite him as the altimate
 >conspirator.

 >A major problem with society in the USA today is the
 >"acceptance" of conspiracy. Just because you are paranoid
 >doesn't mean you don't have people looking at you. Maybe your
 >paranoia is "justifiable." When my son started discussing the
 >moon landing hoax I know that conspiracy was hitting too close
 >to home. He watched the FOX show. He has already been "brought
 >up" to think that you can't trust public officials, the
 >government, etc. Who taught him this?

Hello Bruce, List and Errol,

This is a most fascinating post, with some particularly
fascinating and important facts lurking deep within't. At least
in my opinion. You mention conspiracy in the same breath as a
lack of trust in government (public officials). I wonder if this
is the correct association? Certainly the movie your son saw on
FOX begs the question I raised, however the fact of mistrust in
public officials is not entirely due to that program or programs
like it. Nor is it due to the Internet's sound berating of
truth, no matter whose, eh?

Rather, it has (again - in my opinion) is due entirely to
"information." Wrong information, right information;
information. Sucked up by eager minds seeing the irony (Lord
forgive me for understating the point) of politics, of law
enforcement (which I've supported all my life), of government in
general. Bruce, these institutions are committing suicide by
virtue of their very existence, not by virtue of FOX TV
programming. They lie themselves to death!

Look at any media venue and see the twisted sisters of ananias
laying the groundwork for their own demise. It's truth which
your son likely seeks and is not finding it. And when such as
FOX presents something counter to the institutions which confuse
and confound, which distort and make helpless our adult
population (those with an intellect) let alone those forming
one, done with a freedom of stupidity - culpable stupidity - of
their own, then those young minds ask many questions.

Which is good. Because as they grow, they will question, not
authority, as in the 1960's, but rather, someone's truth. God
bless them for that. Because our generation did not do this. I
grew up rather likely close to you, was born in 1943 and when
Truman dropped the bomb I cheered with the rest of them. And
laughed when Truman got the prize in the face of news articles
to the contrary. And I laughed hard when Ike did what any good
general would do, create a air of such total secrecy with the
CIA propaganda touting it as necessary in the cold war, that to
me, it was all a happy happening.

Little did I know. It was when I was on the air on the 75 meter
amateur band, speaking with a ham in the Virginia area, when I
heard the news about JFK. And today, ask your kid what he
thinks about that scenario. Ask what they taught him in school
about the event. Was it truth? I was flat on my nose due to
surgery in those days, and had ample opportunity to read the
entire Warren Commission Report. Were you ever able to do so?
I laughed then too. But that time, it was the beginning of the
end. My realization did not come soon enough.

Not to belabor the point, but that pristine bullet went thru
bone, gristle and flesh, thru two men, and just "fell" off the
gurney. And I've got bullets in my speed loader which deform
just by being there. The check is in the male. Clean as a
whistle. Right.

So you see, Bruce, this subject of conspiracy is quite
independent of the subject of mistrust. In the mind of this
lunatic who thinks he was taken up in a solid beam of blue light
into a flying saucer. HAH! What a maroon!

 >I didn't do it,...at least not directly, although he is
 >indirectly aware that my UFO research essentially calls into
 >question the honesty of certain portions of the government in
 >relation to the UFO subject. After all, the UFO FBI CONNECTION
 >is based on documents that were secrets when written and for
 >many years afterward. What has the government been hiding? we
 >would all like to know. (This also holds true of the Kennedy
 >Assassination, King assassination, etc.)

But the Warren Commission claimed truth. As did (and do) the
Air Farce... the Army and the Queen R.... uh, What's her name!

 >But what if the future generations of children (say 20 and under
 >at the present time) grtow up continually suspicious of the
 >government, just as are the so called "militias" we have heard
 >about in recent years, taking up arms in preparation for a
 >"government attack?"

That boat won't float. Militias will always be here. Want to
know the real truth about them? The vast and overwhelming
majority of members of the NRA think they are whackos. So much
for propaganda.

 >When paranoia rules, civilization decays slowly or quickly
 >depending upon how untrustful people are.

 >The bottom line here is trust. Civilization is based on mutual
 >trust between people. Where trust fails laws intervene. Either
 >you do "good things because you are a responsible person or
else >"we " will pass laws to make you do good things ./ (Good,
iin >all its various contexts, is defined by the popular opinion
if >not by religious dictate such as the Ten Commandments). If I
 >can't trust you to make sure the brakes on your car are good
 >then I will pass laws that enforce the rule... you shalll have
 >your brakes checked. If I can't trust you to have drivers
 >insurance, then I will pass laws to make sure you can't drive
 >until you have insurance. And So On.

Perhaps this is not such a bad thing if properly managed by you,
the parent.

 >So what if kids grow up not trusting authority? This has already
 >happened in a small way (e.g., the children of the 60's and
 >70's, war protesters, etc.)

 >Now with the internet and many kids "plugged in"... without
 >experience of life and history behind them, how are they to
 >discern truth from falsehood? How are they to understand the FOX
 >TV show? My son was quite accurate in recalling the various
 >"telling points" against the landing (it was originally the
 >Chinese who denied the moon landing back in the 70's).

That's where you come in. The parent.

 >We have guys like HOagland going around talking about structures
 >on the moon being covered up by NASA, shuttle videos galore of
 >UFOs galore in outer space. Why shouldn't kids mistrust the
 >government? But if you don't trust the government, why do what
 >the government asks?

 >I was on a radio show in Bremerton, Washington, the other day...
 >"Conspiracy Radio." Gee, conspiracies are entertainment (watch
 >"Conspiracy Theory for great entertainment) until they hit too
 >close to home. As I recall the host of the show emphasized all
 >the conspiracies that could be discussed and how the UFO
 >conspiracy was that day's topic. He wanted to bring all the
 >conspuiracy information to the kids listening to the show (the
 >truth about conspiracy HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA oxymoron). I responded
 >by saying I didn't think it was a good idea to bring kids up on
 >a diet of conspiracy, or words to that effect.

 >It will be interesting...and perhaps scary -- to see what our
 >civilization in the USA and other "advanced" countries will be
 >in 10,. 20 years when the children of today are the rulers of
 >tomorrow.

 >And I wonder when Neil Young will think when his kids come to
 >him and accuse him of being a conspirator... because that is
 >what is on the web... and the web is the truth.

Well, in spite of my desire to debate the points, I must retire.
I wrote until six AM this morning and remembered something which
gave me a whopper of a headache.

I think you got the point and the Mott's old buddy.

Jim

PS: A Zissen Passoch to those of the Passoch persuasion