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The proper authority saw to it that the proper belief should be induced and the people believed properly.”
— Charles Hoy Fort
Showing posts with label Kenn Thomas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kenn Thomas. Show all posts

Friday, January 22, 2010

Tim Leary and Kenn Thomas In Chaos, Together

This just in from my buddy Kenn, master of conspiracy...

NEW FROM THE STEAMSHOVEL ARCHIVES: TIM LEARY AND KENN THOMAS IN CHAOS TOGETHER

The following comes from a longer interview set to appear in an upcoming issue of After Dark, the companion magazine to Art Bell’s Coast To Coast show.

Q: In recent years, do you think conspiracy theories have moved out of the fringe, and become more mainstream?

A: Actually, that was our great intent back in the early 90s, to open conspiracy and secret manipulation more to the popular culture. "We" refers to me, with my magazine Steamshovel Press; Jim Martin and his old Flatland zine; and Greg Bishop, who did The Excluded Middle zine (all building on the efforts of people like Mae Brussell, the conspiracy maven who long had a respected place in the American counterculture.) We provided a basis for parodies reflected in things like that X-Files offshoot series, The Lone Gunmen -- the first episode of which not only predicted 9/11 but otherwise took elements right out of the Octopus book. So the extent to which conspiracy became a much bigger concern in the mainstream is some measure of the success of that effort. Then, of course, Bush stealing the election in 2000, convinced a lot of people that we weren't just joking around and then 9/11 led to a whole new generation of the conspiracy obsessed. It took several years for the JFK research community to get started after Kennedy's death; after 9/11 thousands of web sites about possible conspiracies sprang up almost immediately.

Of course, conspiracies have always been a mainstream activity among power elites. I prefer the term "parapolitics," which means the kind of secret politics that happens alongside the more visible activities like elections. Surely most people understand by now that the real flow of power has something to do with things other than the establishment process and the narrow range of issues discussed in mainstream media like FOX and CNN. The measure of chaos is much more enormous than that now.

I recently started making available a DVD of an encounter I had with Timothy Leary in 1992 at a place called Café Chaos. It’s great to see his enthusiasm for the potential of information technology and talk about the vast changes he saw coming in the near future. Too bad he didn’t live to see the ensuing chaos, something he thought was necessary for change. So, yeah, I think things have mainstreamed a bit but in ways the mainstream hasn’t fully absorbed. (The “Café Chaos” DVD is available from Kenn Thomas, POB 210553, St. Louis, MO 63121, for $10.)

Friday, October 31, 2008

Secret and Suppressed - Paranormal Podcast 52

This just in from my friend Kenn Thomas, a pivotal force in parapolitics and someone who diligently researches his subject. Documentation rules for KT, which, of course, is pretty important in this field... keeping in mind Sagan's old quote about extraordinary evidence... trust me... Kenn's got that. Despite what the text below copied off the site says, unlike some folks out there, Kenn's research modalities justify the motto of his magazine: "All Conspiracy, No Theory."

Listen and learn!

Secret and Suppressed - Paranormal Podcast 52

Conspiracy buffs, your time has come on the Paranormal Podcast! Tonight, we interview Kenn Thomas who is the co-editor of the new book Secret and Suppressed II.

The book is the sequel to the 90s cult classic that partially inspired the X Files. It is chock full of every conspiracy theory you've heard of and a bunch you haven't.

Check out the book at Amazon.com, it is fascinating even if, like me, you don't buy all of the theories:
Secret and Suppressed II: Banned Ideas and Hidden History into the 21st Century


Also, check out Kenn's website:

steamshovelpress.com

Thanks Kenn!


Yes, thanks indeed :)

Monday, October 13, 2008

LOWFI's most exciting event yet!

The League of Western Fortean Intermediatists

Presents our most exciting event yet!

Join conspiracy writers Kenn Thomas and Adam Gorightly for an evening of brain-tickling lectures

Sunday, October 19 @ 7pm at an undisclosed location in Echo Park

Were the Early UFO Contacees Ritual Magicians?

Adam will present startling evidence that the early UFO contactees, as well as current day abductees, have used ritual magick, wittingly and unwittingly, to summon forth UFOs and their often interesting occupants!

Wilhelm Reich Versus the Flying Saucers

Kenn traces the history of the battle between the psychologist Wilhelm Reich and UFOs in the desert of the American southwest in the 1950s, detailing the involvement of the Eisenhower administration and the development of the military industrial state. Reich was a world renowned intellectual, a protégé of Sigmund Freud, who emigrated to America after WWII and caused controversy over his work with an energy source he called orgone. Toward the end of his life, Reich designed technologies to utilize orgone in combating what he perceived as an alien invasion from space. Thomas reviews this story, including Reich's trip through Roswell and the documentary proof left behind by Reich of the existence of MJ12, the shadowy alien interface group.

Copies of Kenn's new book, Secret and Suppressed II: Banned Ideas and Hidden History into the 21st Century will be available at the lecture.

Please consider carpooling for this event, as there is limited street parking. The location will be provided in an email later this week. If you have any questions, please email Skylaire at gmail dot com.

--
Skylaire Alfvegren
"yellow journalism, elfin magic"

...

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Jack Kirby, Conspiracy Theorist

When Steamshovel Press editor Kenn Thomas speaks on “JFK to UFO” at RetroCon, his prefatory remarks will concern “Jack Kirby, Conspiracy Theorist.” Thomas looks at the famous comic book artist’s interest in parapolitics as well as the possibilities that Kirby had back channel sources within the world of covert intelligence. Richard Hoagland speculated that the secret space program gave Kirby information leading to the artist’s 1958 comic book story, “The Face On Mars”--an anomaly that did not become part of the conspiracy lexicon until the Viking probe’s Cydonia photographs of 1976. Thomas examines the history of this as well as Kirby’s prescient forecasts of American involvement in World War II and Vietnam; the use of conspiracy themes in his 1970s comics; and his documented involvement with a CIA rescue operation during the 1980 Iranian crisis. How does central intelligence shape our view of conspiracies in the popular culture? Find out at RetroCon, at the Integratron in Landers, CA, April 26 and 27.

“Not your typical UFO convention.”

Retroufo.com

Steamshovelpress.com

Below: Ruby shoots Oswald; as envisioned by Jack Kirby; and as envisioned by Chauncey Holt, suspected mystery tramp at the grassy knoll.


Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Kenn Thomas interview for the Belgian e-zine Karmapolis

Kenn was kind enough to send me his interview for Karmapolis to run with the previous one.

http://www.karmapolis.be

Kenn Thomas

Specialist in parapolitics, the American conspiracy theorist and writer Kenn Thomas analyzes important historical facts, current situations and future trends to integrate them in a global approach of Contemporary Conspiracy. Questioned on FEMA camps, Kenn explains the difficulty to go on the rumor as well as the necessity to adopt a larger vision of current issues. While underlining the lack of interest and the disengagement of the Government in civil protection matters, Kenn highlights the passivity of a vast majority of American citizens as well as an orchestration of parapolitics events which has been conducted by the State for a long time. No need to declare the martial law, the authoritarian and regimented structures are already in place.

Kenn Thomas has tackled various subjects from extraterrestrials abductions to secret societies as well as parapolitical affairs such as the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy and the 9/11 attacks. In 1992, he founded the Steamshovel Press magazine, a forum for his theories. He is currently working on a second volume of Secret and Suppressed for Feral House which will include a chapter on US concentration camps.

An interview with Kenn Thomas

Kali : FEMA detention camps have been subjected to a lot of writing and speculation during these last years in United States. Videos, images and detailed descriptions of these camps are available on the net. It is difficult to source the origin of these descriptions. Do they really exist? What are their final purpose ?

Kenn Thomas : Activists in parapolitical studies—let’s call them “conspiranistas”—come up with these identifications to underscore the idea that America still has disaster areas that suffer from federal emergency mismanagement. As Randy Newman sings, “free to live in a cage in East St. Louis and the south side of Chicago,” with the obvious most recent example being post-Katrina New Orleans. The kind of detailed thing you refer to, with video images and all, rarely reaches a level above rumor. The conspiracy-denial world sees it as benign neglect; the conspiranistas would call it a deliberate, planned effort to corral the poor and dispossessed for future execution. I would characterize it more as malevolent neglect. Certainly when George Bush patted former FEMA management head Michael Brown on the back and said “Good job!”, he was rubbing it in, and announcing that he really didn’t give a damn about taking responsibility for the Katrina aftermath. Brown previously had been professionally wrapped up in cosmetic surgery for horses. On the other hand, someone like Lt. General Russell Honore, who led the relief convoy into New Orleans, is certainly not anyone people would expect to round up and execute civilians. He was a real hero, in fact, heading the largest military deployment in the American south since the Civil War in order to rescue people. But whether or not the concentration camps you describe exist, no one doubts the existence of large lots of empty, unused FEMA trailers while people displaced from disasters supposedly managed by FEMA remain homeless.

Kali : Are these camps the same ones that were used for Japanese and German civilians during World War II ?

Kenn Thomas: No. Different thing entirely. The equivalent of the old internment camps for the Japanese would be something like having a camp for people of Middle eastern ethnic origin. The Japanese camps, for instance, were in very specific places in Arkansas, California, Utah and Wyoming and were closed by official order in December 1945. These are not the places where the current FEMA camps are rumored.

Kali : Most of these camps are reported empty. Do you know if this is really the case? Is there a temporary or any other use "in the meantime" ?

Kenn Thomas : Empty is kind of the point, like all the empty FEMA trailers. It could be an abundance of advance planning and, hence, wasted resources. The idea that the Iraq war was all planned way before the 9/11 attacks. Of course this is true. At any given point, these neocon think tanks have war contingency plans for the entire world. So it wouldn’t be surprising if large, empty camps are in the ready in case a round-up of citizens under some kind of martial rule becomes possible.

Kali: Phil Schneider revealed the existence of railroad boxcars fitted with shackles aiming at deporting populations within the US. Did you hear about that ? Do you happen to have concrete facts confirming the existence of these potential human convoys?

Kenn Thomas : I have nothing more on it than Phil Schneider had. He died under unusual circumstances, after having done some interesting research on the early deaths of many prominent UFO researchers. I did a lecture following up on this for the International UFO conference in Laughlin one year. In the case of the Japanese camps, when detainees were released, many fled the areas where they had been detained by train.

Kali : Is there a link between FEMA camps and the underground military bases reported by many researchers such as Richard Sauder ?

Kenn Thomas : Sauder’s original research was all based on publically available documents on official government underground facilities and tunneling technology. People have been critical of that but who else took the time to collect all that data, and this is hard information, not rumor. As for taking a real-world look at the rumors of underground military bases, I would recommend Greg Bishops book, Project Beta, about Paul Bennewitz, who largely was responsible for the reports about humans working side-by-side with aliens at an underground base in Dulce, New Mexico in the 1980s. So far, Greg’s is the definitive work on the subject.

I last met Richard Sauder at Roswell a couple of years back. He’s a great, outgoing guy, although we had a bit of a clash about the nuances of our approaches to the 9/11 conspiracies.

Kali : Do you think their use could be imminent ? Considering the current political situation, what could lead to the declaration of martial law?

Kenn Thomas : I can’t remember who came up with the dictum, “why declare martial law when you don’t have to?”, but I think it fits your question. One part of America fits the description of a friendly fascist state: happy, SUV driving, George Bush supporting, McCitizens who have no need for a tank to be pointed at them in order to get them to obey. People with an awareness of the country’s parapolitics don’t need martial law declared to know they’re already in a fight against that kind of thing. We are in the middle of an election year, however, so expect to see various forms of manipulation, such as voter fraud and potential assassinations. In a sense, the Diebold voting machines, and the form of control they represent, already make the entire country a giant FEMA camp!

Kali : During these last 60 years, many executive orders enforcing the state control in case of martial law were issued. Specific military plans were designed such as REX 84 during the Reagan era, announcing a military state, still in case of martial law. Considering these historical elements, could the 9/11 be part of these long term plans to control and dominate citizenship ? Were the 9/11 attacks the major event that opened the path to the enslavement of the US, and possibly the rest of the World?

Kenn Thomas : It would be pretty long term, since it has been twenty four years since REX 84 and the great enslavement has yet to appear. I would just refer you back to my previous answer, that a certain structural apparatus has existed for some time that allows many dreadful things to happen without the kind of overt declaration of martial law that you suggest ever taking place. Take, for instance, the national security action memorandum signed by Lyndon Johnson that reversed the one signed by JFK to deescalate the Vietnam War—a draconian thing that long predates REX 84. Many American citizens are unaware that such a thing happened, or are in denial about it, or don’t care or find it perfectly acceptable, despite the enormous tragedy of the war. They live in a happy consumerist culture where such things are not given the weight they deserve. Announcing a military state would burst the bubble of an existing level of control.

Kali : George W. Bush is often connected to theocrats. Could these theocrats, these religious groups behind George W. Bush be able to influence or even create a fake war with Iran leading also to a civil unrest for instance within the United States ? Would they be able to create a major event as serious as a second Pearl Harbor that would lead to the implementation of a theocrat police state ?

Kenn Thomas : Unfortunately, theocracies span the globe. A certain percentage of the US population recognize American theocrats like Pat Robertson and the late unlamented Jerry Falwell as charlatans and buffoons, something not true of places like Iran. 9/11 actually caused a large backlash against religionism in America, helping to bring great popularity to such atheist writers as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens--although that was mostly due to radical jihadism supported by state theocracies in the Middle east. I often quote William S. Burroughs when considering religion in American public affairs: “Never trust a religious son of a bitch, not with the Lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal.” 9/11 mostly was an Islamic conspiracy but nothing about Christian and Jewish “morality”. In the US government prevented the ruling elite from using 9/11 to expand its power in unconscionable ways. The chaos started to erupt on that day and Dick Cheney thought, “hey, we can work with this”, and ordered a stand down to allow its completion. That’s my sense of it: half-perceived; half-created.

Consider also the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988—conducted by a supposedly secularist country and US puppet-if-not-proxy, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, against the Iranian theocracy. Neither that George Bush nor this one really seem very religious. Those are just constituencies they have to play to, as does any president. A conservative economist that certainly the first Bush must have read (and certainly not the second), Herman Kahn, once said, “hypocrisy is the tribute that virtue pays to vice.”

Kali : What would be the use of FEMA camps within this scenario ?

Kenn Thomas : It’s just that such a scenario is offered with the same dull repetition of evangelists claiming that the end of the world is at hand. It hasn’t happened and it will not happen. America will continue to have these oppressed enclaves of poverty and ignorance and many, many people will happily live under the regimented, conformist, authority driven, volunteer military culture. If imagining the FEMA concentration camp scenario empowers students of the Conspiracy to think for themselves, fine. But many other areas of research exist that need to be understood in order to get a better grip on the global parapolitical situation that simply bleating that they’re coming around to lock us up and shoot us!

Kali : Is the economical crisis in United-states a manipulation as well as the first sign of an obvious forthcoming state of emergency that would allow the government to control everyone and everything ?

Kenn Thomas : Well, the economic crisis supposedly just started hitting today. 9/11 happened after a long period of supposedly relative economic prosperity of the Clinton years, although I knew just as many people then as I do now that live in economic crisis every day.

Yes, an argument could be made that it’s all orchestrated. The Situationists have been making that argument since the early 1950s, in fact—the Society of the Spectacle! And it truly has been going on during the entire post-war period. But it’s important to look at and work against what we face right now and not just be mindful of how bad we can imagine it will become.

Kali

Kenn Thomas’ web site is steamshovelpress.com, which makes available DVDs of his television and lecture as well as his renown conspiracy magazine, Steamshovel Press. His latest book, Conspiracy Files, is available from Murdoch Books. He can be reached at POB 210553, St. Louis, MO 63121 USA. Copies of the latest issue of Steamshovel cost $10 overseas. PDF copies are available over the internet for $7.

Kali © Karmapolis - Janvier 2008

Kenn Thomas interview for Winnipeg Sun

Thomas, Kenneth F. to me -- Thanks, Kenn :-)

Kenn Thomas has written more than a dozen books on various conspiracy topics. Murdoch Books published the last one, Conspiracy Files, and another entitled Secret and Suppressed II will be published by Feral House this fall. Thomas operates out of the American Midwest and keeps a post office box in St. Louis, Missouri: POB 2100553, St. Louis, MO 63121. He regularly publishes the conspiracy magazine Steamshovel Press, available for $10 (checks payable to “Kenn Thomas” not “Steamshovel Press.”) His website can be found at steamshovelpress.com, which also offers DVDs of his lectures and television appearances.

Q: What's your take on what the most enduring conspiracies of our time are, and why?

A: The JFK assassination, of course. Just today the two major news items about the current political campaigns have become a mysterious draw-down of security for Barack Obama and an accident in Hillary Clinton’s motorcade that killed a police officer on a motorcycle. Both stories come from Dallas, Texas, which give them a resonance they might not otherwise have had. John Kennedy died in a Dallas motorcade that had lax security.

The JFK assassination endures because during every election season the electorate tries to harken back to a memorable time of prosperity and purpose. JFK represents that unrealized potential, whereas the succeeding presidencies bogged America down in conspiracy and corruption. No one harkens back to the good ol’ days of Richard Nixon, for instance. The Iran-contra and Inslaw scandals mar the memory of Reagan; the Bush and Clinton dynasties brought on the current state of war. Obama directly tries to recapture the JFK chemistry and his candidacy to a certain extent seems like an attempt to reboot Camelot.

Another enduring conspiracy would be the UFO cover up, from before Roswell to the present day. That’s why science-fiction remains such a vital part of the American popular culture and, in fact, conspiracy theory has become some kind of offshoot genre of that. The US space program always includes some level of secrecy. NASA even announces that it sends up secret payloads on some space shuttles.

9/11 will be an ongoing thing, too, especially as more of the people in office when it happened leave office. and the people who came up with all the many crazy theories—like no plane ever hitting the Pentagon--move on to other things. The urge among serious scholars to straighten it out will lead to many revelations over time, perhaps starting with what the reporter Danny Pearle was on to before he was captured and killed.

Q: Why doesn't mainstream media, in your opinion, focus on other aspects of stories like 9/11, and G. Bush's back-room politics. Would more publicity make conspiracies more legitimate in the eyes of some? Or why do you believe people are reluctant to accept these as fact?

The media sells soap via commercials and it’s own scrubbed up reality tunnel via its “news” reports. It has no interest in the truth about anything, let alone conspiracies that may involve power elements it wants to serve. To test this, find a topic that you know something about and watch a newscast about that topic. The distortion will amaze you. The media imposes that same distortion on all topics, since most people are not specialists about any one.

The latest example for conspiracy students involved some JFK assassination memorabilia recently found in Dallas County. The media played up the sensational aspect that it included a transcript of a conversation between Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald—proof positive of conspiracy. So that brings in the conspiracy audience, only to drop the other boot at the need of the story: the transcript was probably a movie script that Dallas DA was working on. They always end on the no-conspiracy angle. Neither scenario had any truth, however. The transcript actually came from a Texas letter, sent to J. Edgar Hoover, and has long been published and well-known to students of the assassination.

Q: Are there are theories without any basis in reality? Do fringe theories, ie; Dinosaurid-like alien reptiles are secretly controlling earth, take-away from, or hinder the development of legitimate or political conspiracies, such as those surrounding the JFK assassination, or the invasion of Iraq?

Well, reality rarely has only a single dimension. I have always believed that the shape-shifting reptilian theory put forth most famously by an author named David Icke, is an insult to reptiles. Nevertheless, some powerful socialites do seem to be have at one time injected themselves with cobra venom as a means of prolonging life, and some of them no doubt developed some rather leathery skin. It’s something worthy of more study. But even the craziest theories serve the purpose of drawing more people into the debate about parapolitics (conspiracy theory), so I allow a wide berth. It’s what people do in lieu of a media that presents the full spectrum of facts and perspectives.

The most notable conspiracy concerning the Iraq war concerns Saddam Hussein’s interest in getting yellow cake uranium from the country of Niger. Documents surfaced establishing this true fact that became discredited. Discredit the document, discredit the fact. This provides the basis of the Valerie Plame scandal and demonstrates clear intent on the part of the intelligence community to undercut Bush’s foreign policy, the Iraq War. Since that seems counter-intuitive to conspiracists who oppose the war, the opportunity to observe that tactic of covert agency became lost on many. But as I say, reality has many dimensions.

Q: What smoking guns exist for the big conspiracies? ie; JFK and 9/11.

The Zapruder film has always been the smoking gun on JFK—a clear film of the grassy knoll shot. This, despite the fact that Life Magazine reversed its frames and Dan Rather made a radio report saying it shows JFK being hit from behind. Forty five years of that kind of coordinated cover up in the media hasn’t been able to wipe away the reality seen in the film.

A document called the Lew Douglas memo triangulates with another one in the National Archives called the Cutler-Twining memo that conclusively proves the existence of MJ12. MJ12 was the secret group supposedly put together by Harry Truman after the Roswell crash. Several “MJ12 documents” exist of questionable provenance, but these two are quite real and their appearance in archives in different parts of the country, uncovered at completely different times, with dates that match perfectly, is as definitive proof as anyone can find about anything.

Congressional testimony exists that pretty much establishes that Dick Cheney gave a stand-down order after the 9/11 events started to happen. That’s a smoking gun only to the idea that Bush and company decided to take advantage of what happened that day, not that they caused it.

Many other smoking guns exist for various things. You just have to sniff the smoke.

Q: Is there anything going on right now, that you think people should be aware of, that is being kept under wraps?

Good heavens, it’s an election year in the US. No doubt many behind the scenes things are going on that will only come out in time. Hillary Clinton has been running as the incumbent, which supports everything said about her husband’s connection with the Bush power bloc. Bill Clinton came to power in part because he covered up an Iran-contra operation in a place called Mena, Arkansas, and he maintains a global profile in partnership with the first George Bush. If Barack Obama prevails as Democratic candidate, questions will emerge about his religion, since he has Islam in his near family background and people worry about the global jihad conspiracy. Even the Christian church Obama attends in Chicago calls itself “afro-centric” and Muslim sympathetic. So expect that to come under close scrutiny.. Many on the conspiracy circuit regarded Mitt Romney’s campaign as a Mormon plot to take over the country. This is not just religious prejudice but a genuine concern about secret groups using non-rational beliefs to manipulate people. Religion always remains ripe with conspiracy.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

The New Issue of Steamshovel Press!

New Steamshovel Press Issue Out!
All conspiracy. No theory.

The contents include:

Charles Fort: Dogma be Damned by Skylaire Alfvegren; Southern California, Cult Mecca, by Adam Gorightly; Parapolitics in Popular Culture: The Prisoner by Kenn Thomas; Notes on Conspiracy Theories, by Jim Keith; Correspondence with Jim Keith; Freeplay Excerpted by Len Bracken; Short Shrift: Beatnix and Comix by Kenn Thomas; Caries, Cabals & Correspondence with X. Sharks DeSpot; Robert Anton Wilson RIP; The O’Reilly Factor In The JFK Assassination by Bill Kelly; Dark Matters by James Romerger.

PDF: $7; PRINT OUT: $10; SUBSCRIPTIONS: $25. Be sure to include e-mail address with order. All checks payable to “Kenn Thomas” at POB 210553, St. Louis, MO 63121

www.steamshovelpress.com