Dollar Bill

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href=" " imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img alt="The" and="" been="" bill="" border="0" dollar="" esoteric="" great="" has="" long="" of="" on="" seal="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtswjThe29Yi08tP-0StiEIW4EzFy4uocNTbHVuZibpINjQ0rSqcXTtT2s4XQoPSIaUneuRVsae0-nZ2JUBf44AguWkY1mu51AitMgm3myMtdPFw6EYoHlIj6fEJdsP8zXQkhfMRWHjvU/s1600/dollar-bill.jpg" symbolism="" the="" title="Dollar" unique="" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dollar Bill</td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> The unique and esoteric symbolism of the Great Seal on the dollar bill has long been the subject of speculation and debate among conspiracy theorists. Many have linked the origin of the familiar symbols to the Masons or other secret or occult societies. The incorporation of these symbols into the Great Seal of the United States of America has been viewed as a sign that secret societies are controlling the nation and are attempting to assert control over the world.<br /> <br /> After signing the Declaration of Independence, the Second Continental Congress decided that a seal should be designed for the new nation. After several years and the formation of several committees, the design was approved in June 1782. <br /> <br /> Members of the committee that selected the Great Seal included Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and <a href=" " target="_blank">Thomas Jefferson</a>. Franklin and Adams were Masons, as were many of the nation’s founders (including George Washington). The exact number of Masons among the founders has been a matter of debate.<br /> <br /> <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OSHORFK/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00OSHORFK&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=YHFLARJQ26KWGMPX"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00OSHORFK&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="The" and="" been="" bill="" border="0" dollar="" esoteric="" great="" has="" height="1" long="" of="" on="" seal="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00OSHORFK" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" symbolism="" the="" unique="" width="1" /></span><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060530456/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0060530456&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=SWHNEDWAP6UH2F4U"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0060530456&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="The" and="" been="" bill="" border="0" dollar="" esoteric="" great="" has="" height="1" long="" of="" on="" seal="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0060530456" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" symbolism="" the="" unique="" width="1" /></span></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <br /> Some Masonic historians and conspiracy theorists view the Freemasons as the driving force behind the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">American Revolution</a> and believe that they continue secretly to influence the U.S. government to the present. It is only natural, then, that the Great Seal would symbolize the Masonic brotherhood.<br /> <br /> The front of the seal, which is on the right-hand side of the back of the dollar bill, depicts an eagle holding an olive branch and arrows. The eagle has been the traditional symbol of American liberty for generations, but there has been speculation that the eagle was originally supposed to be a phoenix. <br /> <br /> The phoenix, which represents rebirth, dates to the time of the ancient Egyptians and has also been an important symbol in Masonic ceremonies and mythology. It represents being initiated and reborn into the Masonic brotherhood as well as being reborn into wisdom. The phoenix is the symbol of the thirty-third degree of Masonry, the highest level members of the Scottish Rite of Masonry can obtain. <br /> <br /> In occult circles, the phoenix is associated with the lost civilization of Atlantis. Early depictions of the Great Seal show a bird with a long, narrow neck and a tuft of feathers on the back of the head. While this description is very different from that of a bald eagle, it fits the traditional description of a phoenix. Conspiracy proponents believe the bird on the early seal was a phoenix. <br /> <br /> The presence of the phoenix is thought to have implied that the United States would become a new Atlantis guided by the Masons. The phoenix/eagle on the seal has thirty-two feathers on the right wing and thirty-three on the left, symbolizing again the highest levels of Scottish Rite Masonry. <br /> <br /> The bird’s nine tail feathers are thought to represent the nine orders of the York Rite of Masonry. The scroll in the mouth of the phoenix/eagle is inscribed with the familiar phrase “E Pluribus Unum,” which translates as “From Many to One.” Usually this phrase has been assumed to refer to the uniting of the thirteen former colonies. <br /> <br /> It has also been said to reference the rise of monotheism. Conspiracy theorists see a double meaning in this phrase and believe it also represents the unity of the brotherhood of Masons and their plans to bring the entire world under the control of one secret organization. In later attempts to downplay the Masonic imagery in the eyes of the public, the eagle slowly replaced the phoenix, but the tuft of feathers is still visible on the back of the eagle’s head.<br /> <br /> The other side of the Great Seal, which is on the left-hand side of the back of the dollar bill, has been considered even more controversial. In the center of the seal is a pyramid without a capstone. Above it, in a triangle, floats the “All Seeing Eye of God,” projecting rays of light. <br /> <br /> The unfinished pyramid plays a major role in the symbolism of the Masons. The pyramid without a top represents the loss of ancient wisdom and the connection to God. When a person obtains the rank of Master Mason, they themselves become the capstone and a link to the divine. The pyramid also signifies the release of the Israelites from Egypt and is viewed as a symbol of freedom. <br /> <br /> Across the base of the pyramid on the seal is the date 1776 in Roman numerals, the year American independence was declared. A double meaning has also been attributed to this date, as 1776 was also the year the <a href=" " target="_blank">Illuminati</a>, another secret society, was formed in Bavaria. <br /> <br /> Two sayings appear on the back of the seal. “Annuit Coeptis,” which translates as “ He Favors Our Undertakings,” appears above the pyramid and the “All Seeing Eye.” Across the bottom of the seal it reads “Novus Ordo Seclorum” or “New Order of the Ages.” <br /> <br /> Among conspiracy theorists, this has been considered proof of the existence of the “New World Order,” which is thought to be a network of secret societies and organizations with cross-membership that is working to create a world government controlled by a handful of powerful elites.<br /> <br /> The number thirteen has a recurring role in the symbolism of the Great Seal. In the cloud above the eagle’s head are thirteen stars. There are thirteen arrows in one of the eagle’s talons and an olive branch with thirteen leaves in the other. The shield has thirteen stripes. <br /> <br /> The pyramid is made up of thirteen levels including the “All Seeing Eye.” Both “E Pluribus Unum” and “Annuit Caeptis” contain thirteen letters. Despite the number thirteen’s obvious symbolic connection to the thirteen original colonies, the recurring number has been viewed with suspicion. The number thirteen has numerous occult meanings, both positive and negative.<br /> <br /> On the front of the dollar bill, unconnected with the Great Seal, is another supposed symbol of Freemasonry. The seal of the United States Treasury Department contains the Scales of Justice, a key, and a square. All three of these items are considered to be important Masonic symbols used in initiation ceremonies. <br /> <br /> Many conspiracy theorists agree that the Freemasons and the <a href=" " target="_blank">New World Order</a> conspirators control the world’s leading financial institutions and use them to exert their will, and the Masonic and occult symbolism on the dollar bill is viewed as proof of this. Conventional historians tend to make a different interpretation. <br /> <br /> While most agree that there are elements of Masonic influence on the Great Seal of the United States, they believe that these elements were used, intentionally or unintentionally, because of their familiarity to the creators.

Dollar Bill

Dollar Bill The unique and esoteric symbolism of the Great Seal on the dollar bill has long been the subject of speculation and debate ...

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Fears of Disunion

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href=" " imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img a="" alt="s" be="" border="0" critical="" disunion="" fears="" for="" independent="" many="" newly="" of="" period="" seemed="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbdX-IIA0Bc6VesGlVJaO4fdGWfX0aAKSk9G_rtBPmZcta13vIQHc070Tr41XHgZa3lEMR2mcek4smcumaAHL7LRaNSnnNN_WOTm6DickRl5xVx2oWutmTOLptKMprPa1SXqYqmRvnkzY/s1600/Fears-Disunion.jpg" states="" the="" title="Fears" to="" truly="" united="" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fears of Disunion</td></tr> </tbody></table> The 1780s seemed to many to be a truly critical period for the newly independent United States. By 1787 proposals for disunion had circulated throughout the states, and suspicions of disunionist conspiracy gripped the nation. Between 1781 and 1788, when the country functioned under the Articles of Confederation, economic dislocation and diplomatic difficulties converged to threaten the survival of the fledgling nation. <br /> <br /> Domestic political stalemate rendered Congress unable to take corrective measures. The thirteen states simply could not agree on a course of action. As the decade progressed, the states divided into regional factions, and fears grew that the country would break apart into regional political entities.<br /> <br /> <b>Regional Factionalism</b><br /> <br /> The American regions had always perceived differences among themselves. Virginians and Massachusetts Puritans were already trading insults by the 1650s, and throughout the colonial period people stressed the forces of climate, geography, economy, religion, manners, and customs that bound them together within each region but differentiated them from their extraregional neighbors. New England, the South, the Mid-Atlantic, and the western frontier all brought different, and often opposing, needs and expectations to the confederation government. <br /> <br /> By 1787 it seemed to many that such differences simply could not be resolved, that one government could not serve the needs of all. Despite increasing similarities of all regions over the eighteenth century, opposing regional interests and identities had fully crystallized by the time of independence, and people from different regions began to see each other as enemies.<br /> <br /> Flare-ups of regional tension occurred throughout the decade. Alexander Hamilton noted in 1781 that support for the war tended to be regional in correspondence to the area under duress by British forces at any given time. Early in 1783, as Congress debated the perpetual persoalan of revenue, accusations flew that certain states were benefiting at the expense of others. <br /> <br /> Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts warned that states with common interests were seeking their own confederation because of the impasse. James Madison of Virginia clearly understood that Gorham was talking about regional divisions, for he worried to his fellow Virginian Edmund Randolph that such an occurrence would make the southern states easy prey for New England. <br /> <br /> Regional hostility exploded in 1786 over diplomatic negotiations with Spain. Southerners insisted that Spain grant the United States navigation rights to the Mississippi River, while New Englanders sought commercial privileges with the European nation. <br /> <br /> When Spain offered a commercial treaty at the expense of navigation rights, New Englanders favored the arrangement, while southerners believed that New England was literally trying to sell them down the river. For their part, when the South blocked passage of the proposed treaty, New Englanders fumed that the South meant to strangle their commercial lifeline.<br /> <br /> <b>Fears of Disunionist Conspiracy</b><br /> <br /> The idea that separate governments might better serve the American regions received increasing attention in New England during the confederation period. At first used as a warning in an attempt to garner interregional cooperation, some New Englanders seriously contemplated the benefits of separate governments based on regional affiliation. They pointed to the opposing interests of the regions and the resulting political stalemate. <br /> <br /> New England alone, however, could pursue its own interests without southern interference. Following up on Gorham’s 1783 remark in Congress, <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Massachusetts</a> politicians wrote among themselves in 1785 about the possibilities of regional confederations within the Articles government. During the diplomatic crisis of 1786, their tone became more serious as the concerned leaders began to contemplate outright disunion in their correspondence.<br /> <br /> Such contemplation inflamed the fears of those who perceived a disunionist conspiracy. During the heated debate over diplomacy in 1786 James Monroe of Virginia began a letter campaign to warn fellow Virginians of intrigue. Men in Massachusetts were scheming, he proclaimed. Plans were underfoot to break up the United States into regional governments. <br /> <br /> Should circumstances progress far enough, he asserted, it would be necessary for the South to go to war with New England over Philadelphia, a commercial center the South badly needed. Monroe was not alone in his fears. The respected Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush wrote to an English correspondent that autumn of specific plans to divide the union into three confederacies, Eastern, Middle, and Southern. <br /> <br /> In late 1786 and early 1787, political leaders from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia worried among themselves about the prospect of disunion and competing regional governments, and David Humphries of Connecticut shared similar concerns with George Washington. <br /> <br /> Even foreign observers noted the possibility. As early as 1784 Richard Champion, a British writer, predicted that the United States would break up into three distinct republics, and advocated a foreign policy based on the prospect. <br /> <br /> Regarding the regional stalemate over Spanish diplomacy in 1786, the French minister to the United States wrote his government that the South and New England were engaged in a power struggle. He suggested that navigation of the Mississippi River provided only the occasion, not the cause, of the regional hostility and disunionist schemes.<br /> <br /> Providing further fodder for conspiracy theories of disunion, concrete proposals for breaking up the United States into several governments circulated in the spring of 1787 in the newspapers of all states. The articles asserted that the regional divisions of climate and geography could never be overcome by positive law, and therefore the regions should form separate political entities. <br /> <br /> Specifically directed to the upcoming Philadelphia Convention, one recommended that the convention consider regional governments, rather than revising or replacing the Articles of Confederation. In Philadelphia, the delegates did not consider disunion, but made continual reference to the possibility as the undesirable alternative.<br /> <br /> At the Philadelphia Convention, the idea of disunionist conspiracy provided a bogeyman to attack. Perceptions of conspiracy fears also shaped the ratification debates. Federalists asserted that failure to ratify the new Constitution would result in disunion, new regional power structures, and interregional competition and warfare. <br /> <br /> Thus Anti-Federalists, Federalists claimed, supported disunion because they argued against ratification. Anti-Federalists protested their innocence, but fears of disunion lay deep enough for Federalists to continue to use the issue, and they often focused their arguments more on the evils of disunion than the virtues of the proposed Constitution. <br /> <br /> The accusations of disunionist conspiracy subsided with ratification, but continued to surface throughout the early years of the Republic, most notably in the turmoil occasioned by the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts, the <a href=" " target="_blank">Hartford Convention</a> of 1814, the nullification crisis of 1832, and in the decade preceding the Civil War.

Fears of Disunion

Fears of Disunion The 1780s seemed to many to be a truly critical period for the newly independent United States. By 1787 proposals for ...

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Philip K. Dick

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href=" " imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img about="" alt="s" anxieties="" border="0" by="" conspiratorial="" dick="" e="" fiction="" from="" infusing="" k.="" outside="" philip="" pulp="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2biApTWcq7-64AJFDX5G58Bw3eK6C6nDcTgNNE30Kj7RO4r30-VO649tfUW91zRNK_zVeRE3YbAAYJr59XnjC7iDwmVXPacSX_-9v5POfz1TdvEDh8O2kEXSahBwZp8prJG6gsQp64SY/s1600/Philip-Dick.jpg" them="" threats="" title="Philip" with="" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Philip K. Dick</td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> The speculative fiction of Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) transformed the paranoid plots of 1930s–1950s pulp fiction about conspiratorial threats from outside by infusing them with anxieties emerging in the 1960s–1970s regarding the disintegration of psychological structures under the pressure of postmodernity (the turning of every last realm of public and private life into a commodity; disinformation produced by media elites; the construction of a consensus reality through manufactured illusion; technologies of behavior modification). <br /> <br /> Dick’s most important books—<a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B001Q8H4RC" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="ee387aee7f8d880b043795809125ae88" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Time Out of Joint (1959)" href="http://www.amazon.com/Time-Out-Joint-Philip-Dick/dp/B001Q8H4RC/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=ee387aee7f8d880b043795809125ae88&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_9072650" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Time Out of Joint (1959)</a><img about="" alt="s" anxieties="" border="0" by="" conspiratorial="" dick="" e="" fiction="" from="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_9072650" infusing="" k.="" outside="" philip="" pulp="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=ee387aee7f8d880b043795809125ae88&_cb=1482126762768" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" them="" threats="" width="0" with="" />, The Man in the High Castle (1962), The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="0547572298" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="b68cbb2c75f0b654a4dbb21ced8a7879" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Ubik" href="http://www.amazon.com/Ubik-Philip-K-Dick/dp/0547572298/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=b68cbb2c75f0b654a4dbb21ced8a7879&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_8956192" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ubik (1969)</a><img about="" alt="s" anxieties="" border="0" by="" conspiratorial="" dick="" e="" fiction="" from="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_8956192" infusing="" k.="" outside="" philip="" pulp="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=b68cbb2c75f0b654a4dbb21ced8a7879&_cb=1482126809143" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" them="" threats="" width="0" with="" />, A Maze of Death (1970), A Scanner Darkly (1977), <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B000TNZH1A" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="4c4d044a8cf9d3f0ff22fe65d8301e58" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="The Divine Invasion (1981)" href="http://www.amazon.com/Trilogy-Divine-Invasion-Transmigration-Timothy/dp/B000TNZH1A/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=4c4d044a8cf9d3f0ff22fe65d8301e58&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_627373" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Divine Invasion (1981)</a><img about="" alt="s" anxieties="" border="0" by="" conspiratorial="" dick="" e="" fiction="" from="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_627373" infusing="" k.="" outside="" philip="" pulp="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=4c4d044a8cf9d3f0ff22fe65d8301e58&_cb=1482126840496" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" them="" threats="" width="0" with="" />, Valis (1981), The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982)—extrapolate the idea of revelation, the ideological nucleus of the conspiracy genre, into something at once sublime, uncanny, and insidious. The humdrum lives of his “little guy” protagonists are totally disrupted as they discover themselves implicated in “an intricate, sustained illusion-system of massive proportion” (The Game Players of Titan, 110). <br /> <br /> Nightmarish disclosures that cannot be rationalized away to maintain the illusion of free will, in combination with the suggestion that the paranoid nightmares might be not fantasies but glimpses of the vast underlying system of society, incompletely comprehended, allow Dick’s conspiracy narratives to function simultaneously as casestudies of paranoia and as allegorical critiques satirizing the totalitarian tendencies of postwar U.S. capitalism.<br /> <br /> <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0547572484/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0547572484&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=YXSXOMWR6ERFXBLN"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0547572484&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img about="" alt="s" anxieties="" border="0" by="" conspiratorial="" dick="" e="" fiction="" from="" height="1" infusing="" k.="" outside="" philip="" pulp="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0547572484" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" them="" threats="" width="1" with="" /></span><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345404475/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0345404475&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=G66LLB4CRU7UIPKH"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0345404475&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img about="" alt="s" anxieties="" border="0" by="" conspiratorial="" dick="" e="" fiction="" from="" height="1" infusing="" k.="" outside="" philip="" pulp="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0345404475" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" them="" threats="" width="1" with="" /></span></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <br /> Rehearsing the various mechanisms and detours of paranoia, Dick’s protagonists proceed to construct more and more elaborate explanatory models in compensatory response to profound feelings of personal insubstantiality and social impotence.<br /> <br /> Dick reconceived the common science fiction device of the “pocket universe”—a discrete microcosmic enclave of incubated ignorance—as a virtual reality perpetrated by governmental or corporate media. He presciently depicted dystopian near-future societies characterized by systems of simulation that serve to control the population by infiltrating consciousness and structuring the individual’s sense of self. <br /> <br /> Plots concerning the capture of audiences and markets by oligarchic networks render in fictional terms his recognition of how an emerging society of the spectacle was beginning to induce people to invest in hegemonic models of the world that were against their best interests.<br /> <br /> Dick’s deeply ambivalent work typically merges the angst-ridden folklore of mind control (e.g., the implantation of false memories) with the superficially more hopeful folklore of alternate realities (e.g., via drug-enhanced psi powers). <br /> <br /> By blurring the demarcation between “actual” events and psychic processes, and thereby surrendering cognitive suppositions to endless permutation, Dick’s destabilizing narratives throw into question all criteria for establishing credibility or future action. For example, A Scanner Darkly depicts the gradual blurring of demarcated role-identities as a police undercover agent is required to surveil a drug user/dealer he had been pretending to be, but in fact has now become. <br /> <br /> Here the unimpeachable founding premise, so dear to conspiracy theory, is tinged for comic effect with digressive thought processes typically conduced by certain pharmaceuticals: “‘I mean, it’s my theory that I did it,’ Barris said. ‘Under posthypnotic suggestion, evidently. With an amnesia block.... Possibly ... to cause dissension to break out [about] whom we can trust, who is our enemy, and like that’” (A Scanner Darkly, 53).<br /> <br /> The compulsively suspicious scrutiny applied by Dick’s protagonists to their circumstances typically effects an uncanny return of metaphysical speculation in accord with his validation of pop culture: “the symbols of the divine show up in our world initially at the trash stratum” (Valis, 212). As Dick’s critique of capitalist production-consumption regimes became increasingly absorbed in indeterminacy, the conspiratorial agendas of oligarchies were personified as entrepreneurial trickster demigods. <br /> <br /> In Ubik a ubiquitously promoted product approximates deity in promising to be all things to all people, although—as “a further hoax, to bewilder them that much more” (Ubik, 212)—it might not exist at all. Similarly, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch concerns a battle for the market between two hallucinogenic drugs, Can-D, a palliative, and Chew-Z, a wafer that seems to place the receiver in communion with a demonic higher reality.<br /> <br /> Like so much of U.S. conspiracy thinking, Dick’s paranoid scenarios ultimately situate the economic and the political on essentially gnostic metaphysical foundations (“I think we’re living in some other world than what we see” [Time Out of Joint, 138]). Like their creator, Dick’s protagonists live in a universe of intimations, visitations, and epiphanies. <br /> <br /> And like him, they seem to be inspired by the thought of being conspired against because conspiracy makes you feel that you are at the center of the universe. Goaded by the violent incursions of indiscernible political or commercial power, their complicity resides in the ingenious way they reconstruct their daily existence by linking seemingly incongruent phenomena and events. <br /> <br /> Obsessively scanning the environment for clues and traces of unseen powers, they speculate themselves into cul de sacs, where they repeatedly revisit unsolvable enigmas: “‘The clues we are getting don’t give us a solution; they only show us how far-reaching the wrongness is.... [They have] introduced confusion rather than verification.... What’s it mean?’.... Ragle found himself poking through reality.... a splitting rent opening up, a great gash” (Time Out of Joint, 180).<br /> <br /> Dick’s speculative fictions almost uniquely occupy the nexus where various “high” and “low” traditions of U.S. conspiracy thinking and paranoid world-designs converge. More accessible because less densely allusive than Melville or Pynchon, Dick tapped the conversation between U.S. vernacular and popular cultures, overhearing subliminally encoded communiqués of sublime revelation and subversive admonition. <br /> <br /> For this reason his ideas seem comparable to those of other eccentric autodidacts of the U.S. tradition of carnivalesque metaphysics: Charles Fort’s assurance that “we are property”; Richard Shaver’s account of malign robots inhabiting “the Hollow Earth”; <a href=" " target="_blank">Elijah Muhammad</a>’s revelation that the white race was devolved from the black by a cosmic “big head scientist” [sic]; L. Ron Hubbard’s claim that humans derive from incorporeal entities who became entrapped and self-forgetful while playing at “the game” of incarnation. <br /> <br /> However, Dick’s bouts with psychological dysfunction, legendary binges on mind-altering substances, and heartfelt terror of <a href=" " target="_blank">FBI</a> cooptation lend existential authenticity to his (knowingly) outrageous conspiratorial fabulations. <br /> <br /> In 1974 he reputedly received coded pictographic revelations beamed from a “Vast Active Living Intelligence System”—an event fictionalized in Valis, his magnum opus. The Exegesis, a two-million-word, 1,000+ page commentary on this experience develops the premise that time/space are delusional—an experimental labyrinth devised as a game by higher beings. <br /> <br /> Dick sporadically believed he had been contacted by the original, now immortal, Christian resistors to the tyranny of the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Roman Empire</a>, who had come into <a href=" " target="_blank">Watergate</a> America to help bring down <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Richard Nixon</a> (“The Savior woke me temporarily, & temporarily I remembered my true nature & task, through the saving gnosis, but I must be silent, because of the true, secret, transtemporal early Christians at work, hidden among us as ordinary humans” [Sutin 1995, 288]).<br /> <br /> His more radical epiphanies notwithstanding, Dick’s vision of how consensus reality might be produced by the conspiratorial manipulation of simulacra has passed into the mainstream through Hollywood films based on his novels (<a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1451662440" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="ecccb4bd1fe780ed1c39aedd232217b8" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Total Recall" href="http://www.amazon.com/Total-Recall-Unbelievably-True-Story/dp/1451662440/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=ecccb4bd1fe780ed1c39aedd232217b8&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_3978811" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Total Recall</a><img about="" alt="s" anxieties="" border="0" by="" conspiratorial="" dick="" e="" fiction="" from="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_3978811" infusing="" k.="" outside="" philip="" pulp="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=ecccb4bd1fe780ed1c39aedd232217b8&_cb=1482126883410" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" them="" threats="" width="0" with="" />, <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B003XURDAY" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="4b7437052f571b95fef9dbeec899303a" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Blade Runner" href="http://www.amazon.com/Blade-Runner-Harrison-Ford/dp/B003XURDAY/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=4b7437052f571b95fef9dbeec899303a&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_1949408" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Blade Runner</a><img about="" alt="s" anxieties="" border="0" by="" conspiratorial="" dick="" e="" fiction="" from="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_1949408" infusing="" k.="" outside="" philip="" pulp="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=4b7437052f571b95fef9dbeec899303a&_cb=1482126900788" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" them="" threats="" width="0" with="" />, <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B0035WTJFW" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="8025a4ffd3528a3c652ab22a3c29acb6" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Minority Report" href="http://www.amazon.com/Minority-Report-Blu-ray-Tom-Cruise/dp/B0035WTJFW/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=8025a4ffd3528a3c652ab22a3c29acb6&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_5035035" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Minority Report</a><img about="" alt="s" anxieties="" border="0" by="" conspiratorial="" dick="" e="" fiction="" from="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_5035035" infusing="" k.="" outside="" philip="" pulp="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=8025a4ffd3528a3c652ab22a3c29acb6&_cb=1482126915142" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" them="" threats="" width="0" with="" />) or reflecting the appropriation of his conceptual paradigm (Capricorn One, The Truman Show, The Matrix). His analysis has much in common with postmodern practitioners of “the hermeneutics of suspicion” such as Jean Baudrillard and Frederic Jameson, who have praised his work.

Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick The speculative fiction of Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) transformed the paranoid plots of 1930s–1950s pulp fiction about c...

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Democratic-Republican Societies

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href=" " imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img alt="Republican" arou="" associations="" border="0" democratic-republican="" existed="" from="" in="" popular="" societies="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkSN0OoeB7dqGaLeCXaDf7PVOv1X1Pb-IUkr3JLhb1tGvARVV-lCkhcM9LxoJjx3PgQ5rFBl643Y0GzlOt1Nf6KmQInBukx7YGUaUS_AnXwfwpC3xwwEzxI11B7FddyU3G-L_vNBdisZs/s1600/Democratic-Societies.jpeg" states="" that="" the="" title="Democratic-Republican" united="" were="" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Democratic-Republican Societies</td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> Democratic-Republican Societies were popular associations that existed in the United States from around 1793 to 1799. The impetus behind these short-lived societies was a stated desire to guard against the government conspiring against the people. <br /> <br /> In 1792, Philip Freneau, an early Republican newspaper editor, summarized that defensive and mistrusting sentiment in his National Gazette when he spoke of the need for such societies “for the purpose of watching over the rights of the people, and giving an early alarm in case of governmental encroachments thereupon.” <br /> <br /> Such groups he considered “absolutely necessary in every country, where the people wish to preserve an uncorrupted legislation” (National Gazette, 25 July 1792). The Charleston Society stated their founding principle clearly: they had only “one general purpose, that of watching narrowly public characters” to guard against encroachments on the rights and liberties gained during the American Revolution. <br /> <br /> <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0837189071/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=f83f37239b54a335fdadd409fd0ba4f9" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0837189071&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="Republican" arou="" associations="" border="0" democratic-republican="" existed="" from="" height="1" in="" popular="" societies="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=0837189071" states="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" that="" the="" united="" were="" width="1" /></span><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1627795391/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=1c9335a491579336f816019ff2c5cc24" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1627795391&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="Republican" arou="" associations="" border="0" democratic-republican="" existed="" from="" height="1" in="" popular="" societies="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=1627795391" states="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" that="" the="" united="" were="" width="1" /></span></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <br /> The Democratic Society of the City of New York declared in its 1794 constitution “THAT all legitimate power resides in the People” (Foner, 151). Societies, of which there were about fifty, were formed in rural and urban settings, in all but two states. Especially active and important groups were formed in Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. <br /> <br /> Members, of which there were thousands, were varied in their social status and occupations, and were drawn from many ranks of society, counting in their numbers artisans and farmers, but also doctors and lawyers, and other professionals. Members were also diverse in terms of their religious and political affiliations, even including some Federalists.<br /> <br /> As U.S. political culture became increasingly polarized in the mid-1790s, Democratic-Republican Societies were at the heart of debate about the nature of the early American Republic. Members toasted the French Revolution at their meetings, waxed enthusiastically in newspaper articles published in the expanding press, and warmly greeted Citizen Edmund Charles Genet, the French ambassador, when he visited the United States in 1793. <br /> <br /> The societies also tended to be mistrusting of the second Federalist administration of President George Washington, which they thought aimed to expand the powers of the national government, especially the executive branch, and to encroach upon the liberties of the common man. <br /> <br /> Many Federalists came to believe that the societies themselves were conspiring to overthrow the government, a theory that was often broadcast in newspapers of the day like John Fenno’s Gazette of the United States or from pulpits like that of David Osgood of Medford, Massachusetts. Parallels were drawn between the Democratic-Republican Societies and the Jacobin Clubs of the French Revolution. <br /> <br /> Charges against the Democratic Societies became more pronounced and were leveled with more conviction after the outbreak of the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania in 1794. Historians are not yet agreed on the exact role of the societies and their members in that insurrection. There was a degree of overlap between society membership and the Whiskey Rebels, but a lack of solid evidence means the precise connections may never be known with certainty. <br /> <br /> To many at the time, however, a lack of solid evidence did not seem to matter. Washington thought that blame for the insurrection lay squarely on the shoulders of the societies. The rebellion, he wrote, was “the first formidable fruit of the Democratic Societies” (Allen, 593). In a famous statement, Washington spoke of certain “self-created Societies” which had “spread themselves over this country, have been laboring incessantly to sow the seeds of distrust, jealousy, and of course discontent; thereby hoping to effect some revolution in the government”. <br /> <br /> Democratic-Republican Societies increasingly came under criticism as being hotbeds of conspiracy, a view summarized by a critic in the Kentucky Gazette when he described the Democratic Society of Kentucky as a “horrible sink of treason,—that hateful synagogue of anarchy,—that odious conclave of tumult,—that frightful cathedral of discord,—that poisonous garden of conspiracy,—that hellish school of rebellion and opposition to all regular and well-balanced authority” (31 August 1793). By 1796 membership in most Democratic-Republican Societies was waning and by 1800 they had all but disappeared, although their spirit lived on, in part, through the Republican Party they helped bring to power.

Democratic-Republican Societies

Democratic-Republican Societies Democratic-Republican Societies were popular associations that existed in the United States from around...

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Don DeLillo

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href=" " imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img alt="a" birdwell="" border="0" by="" cleo="" delillo="" don="" novel="" penned="" pseudonymously="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisdohv5WN3rXl7w1JB1-iVHRnz3zOAY5atCzLbO3eEiX2EMaD2z5uV1IpeDfSYv7ds455Ord9_umd90XZhJDclEtWGYM1ioxdVIBqSQi_DG9vedNP3a9CgmJ_1qFjOQj7hdGVUlXwlidE/s1600/Don-DeLillo.jpg" title="Don" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Don DeLillo</td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> Don DeLillo, the distinguished contemporary U.S. novelist, is the author of thirteen novels—including Amazons (1980), a pseudonymously penned novel by Cleo Birdwell—and two plays. His many awards include the National Book Award for White Noise (1985), the PEN/Faulkner award for Mao II (1991), and in 2000, the William Dean Howells Medal for Underworld (1997). <br /> <br /> DeLillo is also the first American to receive the Jerusalem Prize (1999) in recognition of his complete works that, in the words of the prize committee, “express the theme of the freedom of the individual in society” (Time).<br /> <br /> DeLillo’s novels are prescient critiques of U.S. culture, engaging specifically U.S. subjects like cultural materialism, sports hysteria, rock music, terror and violence, conspiracies, waste, post–World War II U.S. history, corporate America, and the <a href=" " target="_blank">assassination of John F. Kennedy</a>. DeLillo’s works are prophetic as they apprehend and explore latent U.S. ills before they achieve privileged status in the media. <br /> <br /> DeLillo understands that many U.S. predilections are connected as Underworld claims: “everything is connected in the end” (826). For his acute perceptions DeLillo has been dismissed by the New York Times Review of Books as the “chief shaman of the paranoid school of American fiction” (Begley, 303), and detractors criticize him for his tenacious exhuming of Americana and for creating what Bruce Bawer calls, “conspiracy-happy protagonists” (35).<br /> <br /> <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143105981/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0143105981&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=3F63EOZVKCAW5VTX"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0143105981&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="a" birdwell="" border="0" by="" cleo="" delillo="" don="" height="1" novel="" penned="" pseudonymously="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0143105981" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684848155/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0684848155&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=3C6XS37EGCMAHGIF"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0684848155&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="a" birdwell="" border="0" by="" cleo="" delillo="" don="" height="1" novel="" penned="" pseudonymously="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0684848155" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <br /> Speaking with Anthony DeCurtis on the Zapruder film, DeLillo remarked that “the strongest feeling I took away from that moment is the feeling that the shot came from the front and not from the rear” (291). From this comment, and its implication of an alternative to the Warren Commission’s findings, critics immediately branded him as a conspiracy theorist writing fiction. It is not surprising that DeLillo’s artistic integrity has invited such criticism. <br /> <br /> DeLillo’s work is perhaps better understood as daring, exploring the underside or undercurrent of U.S. history and culture. DeLillo’s significance emerges from his willingness to explore alternatives to the mainstream consensus and to address the unaccountability of the many, intricate connections— cosmic, quotidian, and profound—of chance and coincidence in modern and contemporary America.<br /> <br /> Much of DeLillo’s writing underscores what he calls in his first novel, Americana (1971), the “true power of the image” (12), particularly media images. For DeLillo, no image is more penetrating and culture-altering than frame 313 of the Zapruder film, the frame capturing the precise moment of Kennedy’s assassination. <br /> <br /> The assassination is so pervasive in U.S. culture and so significant for DeLillo that he has asserted in an interview with Adam Begley that U.S. history seems “engineered” since then (303), and that it even “invented” him as a writer (DeCurtis, 285). This is not to say that DeLillo views history as necessarily controlled as part of a massive military-industrial conspiracy, but that he has charted a collective shift in U.S. consciousness since 22 November 1963. <br /> <br /> Moreover, a corollary of DeLillo’s works is that they call for a more critical appraisal of our cultural media images by pointing to and critiquing prominent images, like the famous picture of <a href=" " target="_blank">Lee Harvey Oswald</a> holding a Manilicher rifle and purportedly Communist journals. It has been alleged that the photo was adulterated with Oswald’s head inserted afterward.<br /> <br /> Don DeLillo has found resonance and connectivity in parallel U.S. events since JFK. He has further tailored his fiction for, and written perspicacious essays on, seemingly disparate events like Oswald’s death (Libra), shot simultaneously by television cameras and Jack Ruby’s pistol, and the <a href=" " target="_blank">Ronald Reagan assassination attempt </a>with, as he writes in “American Blood,” its “choreography of gesture” of Secret Service agents flourishing drawn weapons (24). <br /> <br /> Don DeLillo here shrewdly notes that Americans are so culturally steeped in the lore of JFK’s assassination that even Reagan’s agents displayed a palpably self-conscious awareness of the gravity of their videotaped moment as the drama unfolded, and that event’s historical antecedence in JFK’s assassination. In an age of ubiquitous video cameras and amateur-video footage, Don DeLillo contends that it is no longer possible to live without an urgent selfconscious awareness, even during the mundane happenings of common existence. <br /> <br /> For DeLillo, the United States unalterably changed in 5.6 seconds at Dallas’s Dealey Plaza. Connecting subsequent events with the Kennedy assassination is not paranoid, as DeLillo’s detractors have claimed. Rather, it demonstrates a circumspect understanding of the power of U.S. media images, and how no event after JFK can be performed without reference to the assassination on some level.<br /> <br /> His work often returns to doublings and mirrored events. In Libra, Lee Harvey Oswald and Kennedy’s lives are linked; DeLillo himself claims an affinity for Lee Harvey Oswald, noting that they lived close to each other as children in the Bronx. The basis for DeLillo’s largest and perhaps most complex novel, Underworld, is the 4 October 1951 New York Times’ double headline of “Giants capture pennant” and “Soviets explode atomic bomb.” <br /> <br /> The headlines’ interpenetrating “shot-heard-around-the-world” resonance and synchronicity is just one of many chance events of twentieth-century America that engage Don DeLillo. For Don DeLillo, our age is increasingly technologically bounded, and while these gains are beneficial they are also bewildering and isolating. DeLillo’s fiction, then, operates as a counter to U.S. existential loneliness and despair. <br /> <br /> His fiction is a restorative by turning our collective attention back to the ordinary elements of human life, noting the sometimes alarming moments of conjunction in disparate episodes. Finding these instances of revelation and transcendence in seemingly typical junctures is a hallmark of his fiction.

Don DeLillo

Don DeLillo Don DeLillo, the distinguished contemporary U.S. novelist, is the author of thirteen novels—including Amazons (1980), a pse...

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Cuban Missile Crisis

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href=" " imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img a="" address="" alt="President" announcing="" blockade="" border="0" communist="" crisis="" cuban="" island="" kennedy="" made="" missile="" of="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0qJf-5gBg4_ZxWLWveOqiRosWv5PtMWE9wnkAznHuGv0CxkkygefrFuWKNI79qjxxAdE3_2PhxCiLWujkUYX0vCpbV2njl_eDRJEn7z9BOT8E_oHH74H-xHo2oYImAtHT3deRtHqmTVk/s1600/Cuban-Missile.jpg" television="" the="" title="Cuban" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cuban Missile Crisis</td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> On 22 October 1962, President Kennedy made a television address announcing a blockade of the Communist island of Cuba. The broadcast followed seven days of meetings held by the National Security Council Executive Committee (ExComm), a group of advisors specially convened by the president in response to the discovery of Soviet missile bases under construction in Cuba. <br /> <br /> The “quarantine” was to prevent further equipment from reaching the island and its announcement caused the Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, to stop his ships. There then followed an exchange of letters and secret back-channel negotiations that resulted in a deal. The missiles would be removed in exchange for a public U.S. pledge of noninvasion; a secret second part, involving the removal of U.S. Jupiter missiles in Italy and Turkey, was only revealed later.<br /> <br /> Few conspiracy theories regarding the crisis itself have been given much credence by Western historians. During the cold war, Russian writers (e.g., Nechayev, 1987) argued that there had never been any missiles in Cuba and that the CIA had doctored photographs.<br /> <br /> <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400078911/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1400078911&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=6KNIQZHVLQUHY22T"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1400078911&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img a="" address="" alt="President" announcing="" blockade="" border="0" communist="" crisis="" cuban="" height="1" island="" kennedy="" made="" missile="" of="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1400078911" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" television="" the="" width="1" /></span><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393318346/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0393318346&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=WFWHK5OBYVXD3ROY"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0393318346&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img a="" address="" alt="President" announcing="" blockade="" border="0" communist="" crisis="" cuban="" height="1" island="" kennedy="" made="" missile="" of="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0393318346" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" television="" the="" width="1" /></span></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <br /> However, glasnost and the opening up of the Soviet archives provided plenty of evidence that there were actually more missiles on the island than the United States thought. It has also been suggested that the peaceful resolution of the crisis and the withdrawal of missiles from Italy and Turkey were part of the reason for the <a href=" " target="_blank">assassination of President Kennedy</a>. <br /> <br /> Elements within the military and the CIA are said to have seen Kennedy’s refusal to fight as a sign of weakness and defeat. Coupled with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion and the noninvasion pledge, Kennedy greatly angered anti-Castro Cubans as well as businessmen whose assets in Cuba were nationalized.<br /> <br /> Few conspiracy theories regarding the crisis itself have been given much credence by Western historians. During the cold war, Russian writers (e.g., Nechayev, 1987) argued that there had never been any missiles in Cuba and that the CIA had doctored photographs. <br /> <br /> However, glasnost and the opening up of the Soviet archives provided plenty of evidence that there were actually more missiles on the island than the United States thought. It has also been suggested that the peaceful resolution of the crisis and the withdrawal of missiles from Italy and Turkey were part of the reason for the assassination of President Kennedy. <br /> <br /> Elements within the military and the CIA are said to have seen Kennedy’s refusal to fight as a sign of weakness and defeat. Coupled with the failure of the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bay of Pigs</a> invasion and the noninvasion pledge, Kennedy greatly angered anti-Castro Cubans as well as businessmen whose assets in Cuba were nationalized.<br /> <br /> Members of ExComm and Kennedy’s inner circle also took part in a conspiracy of silence and misinformation to protect the president and his brother, Bobby, over the resolution of the crisis. Aside from not revealing the deal to remove the Jupiter missiles from Turkey and Italy, insiders also distorted key events in the crisis to portray the Kennedys more favorably. <br /> <br /> In particular, Kennedy aide Theodore Sorenson secretly edited Bobby Kennedy’s posthumously published diary of the crisis, Thirteen Days, making it seem that Bobby had led the anti–air strike faction in ExComm, and that he and Sorenson had devised the solution that solved the crisis. <br /> <br /> Key meetings with the Soviet ambassador were also misrepresented. Similarly, another aide waited thirty years before revealing that the president had been prepared to ask the secretary general of the UN to impose a peaceful resolution.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Cuban Missile Crisis On 22 October 1962, President Kennedy made a television address announcing a blockade of the Communist island of C...

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David Cronenberg

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href=" " imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img a="" alt="David" and="" border="0" canadian="" cronenberg="" david="" director="" features="" film="" horror="" is="" science="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-WA0sz8J_iom7XTsCpnl-H4Wuyet_E7PFCeDa66IqFe5dIrBHbnmJYzNx4tmD0DJB2wmxm706U1T8TFGvZAKUT84m3ZS6iwA_p05pRTMTQ-GFLEP_-Sq00ZnIMixZPR0R9f6SK9770Yg/s1600/David-Cronenberg.jpg" title="David" whose="" work="" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">David Cronenberg</td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> David Cronenberg is a Canadian film director whose work features horror and science-fiction narratives in which characters find themselves transformed by some viral, technological, or pharmaceutical agent. Such “mutations” are frequently caused by conspiratorial corporations and produce paranoid psychological states and violent outcomes. Cronenberg’s unnerving films have explored the ways in which biological horror and pleasure intermix by portraying transformations that are both sexually charged and pathological.<br /> <br /> Born in Toronto, Canada, on 15 March 1943, Cronenberg has had a career mostly spent in Canada. While attending the University of Toronto as an English student, Cronenberg made two short films, Transfer (1966) and From the Drain (1967). He also began two short features, Stereo (1969) and Crimes of the Future (1970), in which his distinctive sensibility began to emerge. <br /> <br /> The subjects that were explored in these films, such as medical and psychological experimentation, sexual ambiguity and metamorphosis, violence and torture, would recur and find development in all his later work. The auteurist nature of Cronenberg’s work—in which he tended to fill the roles of writer, director, cinematographer, and editor—was also already evident.<br /> <br /> <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416596143/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1416596143&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=ZVTYTD46JOX33BNB"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1416596143&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img a="" alt="David" and="" border="0" canadian="" cronenberg="" david="" director="" features="" film="" height="1" horror="" is="" science="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1416596143" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" whose="" width="1" work="" /></span><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003KGBIRK/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B003KGBIRK&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=OHID7FHNF3DYQSKR"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B003KGBIRK&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img a="" alt="David" and="" border="0" canadian="" cronenberg="" david="" director="" features="" film="" height="1" horror="" is="" science="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B003KGBIRK" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" whose="" width="1" work="" /></span></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <br /> In 1975, Cronenberg’s first feature film, The Parasite Murders (a.k.a., They Came from Within, Shivers), was released. Shivers (as it is now generally known) tells the story of a doctor who produces a parasite that transforms its hosts into sexobsessed psychotics. The film is set in a secluded apartment complex that becomes the setting for the eventual epidemic. Like Cronenberg’s Rabid (1976), the outbreak of a virus and the ensuing community-wide panic drive the plot of the film. <br /> <br /> While this reiterates the familiar social paranoia that informed historical events such as the witchhunts of Salem or even the McCarthy period, these plots focus more particularly upon the personal transformation of individuals into some new stage of being, or what is referred to in Videodrome as the “New Flesh.” These scenarios are often represented with ambivalence, in which characters both welcome and abhor the venereal transformations wreaked upon their bodies. <br /> <br /> The recurring subject of what Cronenberg has called “creative cancers” (Rodley, 80) has been reinterpreted and remade throughout his films, particularly because this “takeover” of his characters’ identities is never simply the result of an external agent (though this is often the catalyst) but a result of their bodies turning against themselves.<br /> <br /> Scanners (1981) tells the story of Cameron Vale, a homeless man with telepathic and telekinetic psychic powers. He is recruited by a recently attacked corporation with its own Scanner aktivitas to infiltrate a Scanner conspiracy with plans for global conquest. The scanners are a product of a mass-marketed pharmaceutical (“ephemerol”) developed by the scientist who recruited Vale, and the conspiracy they are fighting is producing a new generation of “Scanner soldiers.” <br /> <br /> The play of conspiracy and counterconspiracy in Scanners, which recurs throughout Cronenberg’s films, presents an ethically uncertain universe in which no side is entirely good or evil, and where characters are usually implicated in, if not responsible for, their own destruction.<br /> <br /> Recognized by most critics as Cronenberg’s masterpiece, Videodrome (1983) introduces us to Max Renn, a cable television executive who discovers an obscure cable transmission of sadomasochistic films. In his quest to purchase the snufflike offerings of the Videodrome channel, Renn falls victim to the subliminal content embedded in the films, losing his ability to distinguish reality from fantasy. Eventually, he discovers that he has been the unsuspecting guinea pig in a right-wing plot to take over a sexually depraved North America through these transmissions. <br /> <br /> As with many of Cronenberg’s films, Videodrome uses an unreliable protagonist whose perspective becomes progressively more delusional. Without the aid of an omniscient perspective, the audience is left to navigate between the paranoid vision of the protagonist and the supposed “reality” of the conspiracy that affects it. <br /> <br /> The Borgesian reality-games of Videodrome repeat themselves in eXistenZ (1999), which uses the future of virtual reality gaming as its premise for a world of shifting realities. Both films espouse similar theories regarding the media and the manner in which it has become a part of the human nervous system, affecting and transforming reality.<br /> <br /> Cronenberg’s direction of The Dead Zone (1983), based on the novel by Stephen King, is the most explicitly “political” of his conspiracy narratives as well as one of the few successful adaptations of Stephen King’s work. Based on material other than his own, The Dead Zone was not immediately identifiable as a Cronenberg film since it is particularly unmarked by his usual filmic obsessions. It is in some ways a “classic” conspiracy tale, dealing with a psychic character who becomes an assassin in order to prevent the election of a presidential candidate he believes will one day start a nuclear war.<br /> <br /> The strong influence of William S. Burroughs on Cronenberg’s films—apparent in their shared fascination with conspiracy, biological mutation, and parasitism—led to his direction of Naked Lunch (1991). Though the film did not attempt to present the reputedly unfilmable novel by Burroughs, it based itself in the mythology of Burroughs’s work and the biographic details of his life, amalgamating the worlds of New York junkies, pest controllers, and Beat writers, with that of American expatriates and conspiratorial plots in Tangier. <br /> <br /> While Cronenberg has authored the screenplays for most of his films, his interest in the work of underground writers led to his direction of a film version of J. G. Ballard’s Crash (1996), for which he won the Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival.<br /> <br /> Because the majority of Cronenberg’s films are characterized by visceral depictions of the body and rely on gruesome special effects, critical appreciation of Cronenberg’s work as something more than exploitation cinema took some time. <br /> <br /> Though Cronenberg’s work has never become a part of the mainstream, the early criticism of his films as exploitation has developed into a recognition of the director as someone intimately concerned with telling stories about the human body, disease, and transformation.

David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg David Cronenberg is a Canadian film director whose work features horror and science-fiction narratives in which charac...

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