Oceania’s Dead Mercurial Messengers

In the arcane art of alchemy, the element of Mercury is called the “universal agent.” This was no common mercury, but was what was called the “Philosopher’s Mercury,” something far more subtle than what you might find in the bottom of a thermometer.

To the alchemists, the universal agent was personified by the Roman mythological figure of the same name, the equivalent of the Greek Hermes. He was the patron of alchemy, as he was also the lord of communication. He was seen as the “slave” of the Olympian gods, and they used him an emissary to send messages to people on Earth.

In alchemy, Mercury was viewed as a slave as well. It was his “blood” that was used in alchemical operations to break down other elements and extract the hidden “gold” within them. But because of his wily and capricious nature, he who walked with wings on his feet was considered a dangerous tool to use, and hard to control. This is why he had to be kept in a “Hermetically sealed” container. This was to prevent him from becoming what alchemists called a “Servus Fugitivus,” a “runaway slave.” Tracy R. Twyman writes about this in her book Money Grows on the Tree of Knowledge:

…in keeping with Mercury’s reputation as a trickster god, alchemists were warned that the philosophic mercury needs to be somehow imprisoned or kept on a leash. As seventeenth century alchemist Eirenaeus Philalethes put it: ‘You must be very wary how you lead him, for if he can find an opportunity he will give you the slip, and leave you to a world of misfortune.

One of the cryptic images that alchemists used in their books to depict the control of Mercury was to show Saturn cutting off his feet: the lord of Death hobbling him to prevent him from flying off. Other images from alchemy show Mercury being smacked around by a queen to whom he serves as cupbearer. To discipline Mercury, he must be abused, and shown who’s boss. Matheus Franciscus Maria van den Berk, in his alchemical analysis of Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute, wrote that in the alchemical process, “Mercury needed to be tortured.”

To the modern-day alchemists who attempt to manipulate the elements to craft the world according to their will, their mercurial messengers are what’s called the “Fourth Estate”: the press corps. They are useful because the stories they tell can be used to alter the public’s perception of any situation that comes about, and thus, reality itself can be manipulated. But that is also what makes them dangerous. This is why their true masters, who remain invisible to the public, keep them on a short leash, in a Hermetically sealed prison. And when they step out of line, sometimes they are tortured, hobbled, or destroyed utterly. They know this, because they have seen it happen to their colleagues, and they have even been allowed to file reports on how the security state is used against them. This has a chilling effect on the speech of journalists, which is perhaps related to the fact that, according to a recent article in The New American, 64% of them say they suspect that the government is spying on them specifically.

Every once in a while you are offered clues to explore in order to try and explain patterns and connections that no one really observes unless it is pointed out to them in detail. I would like to open up the dialogue about a show that Ground Zero produced called The Invasion of Disinformation.

We presented to the audience a number of facts to observe about the idea of fake news and journalists as opposed to hard working journalist that try to deliver truth that above all else keeps the empire honest.

There is no denying that the American way of life is motivated by what they selectively hear from messengers that bring them information either on the nightly news, on the radio or in print.

Unfortunately the U.S. government and its mouthpiece the corporate media present only a few nuggets of information to steer the public opinion into enabling politics to somehow infiltrate everything from science, religion and who you are supposed to have sex with.

It is absolutely taboo to mention the murder and mayhem committed by the U.S. government in foreign lands and it is also anathema to cite when a government using dirty war tactics finds a convenient way to swallow up and silence a true journalist that wants to expose their criminal behavior.

Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA’s Bin Laden unit in the 1990s has commented many times about the failure of the American press and how many journalist who don’t parrot the state department are being ignored or even silenced. He has stated that no matter what is reported to them, the American people use selective hearing when it comes to political infiltration and the constant reports of Neo-Con destabilization of countries in order to create dialogue for war.

Scheuer laments that trying to tell the American people that their being lied to is like “yelling into a closet.” The American people, God bless ‘em, are just so badly educated and unaware of how duplicitous their leaders are.”

Americans just don’t seem to get the difference between what they are told and what the reality is, and when information blends with disinformation we can only surmise that the government is behind telling reporters to toe the line or face some pretty frightening consequences.

The truth is that the silencing of journalists and the manipulation of the mainstream happens in waves. It is done according to plan. If a particular journalist decides that he is a freedom fighter or wants to get the truth out in “dirty war” conditions, he is asked to step down, or is mocked, or is even killed by other agents.

Back in the summer of 2013 the internet was buzzing about the death of mentioning of the death of Michael Hastings, a journalist who wrote for Rolling Stone and was killed in a crash in Los Angeles.

Hastings was an award-winning journalist and realized that his words were very powerful. As writer for both Buzzfeed and Rolling Stone he was able to write expose’s that would put his target’s feet to the fire. It may or may not be known by the casual observer that Hastings had an exclusive interview with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, he also did a controversial story on Hillary Clinton.

Hastings’s also did a scathing article on General Stanley McChrystal back in 2010 that created so much controversy that McChrystal was forced to resign. It was speculated that this alone would create some enemies and Hastings was the type of reporter that had his colleagues frightened for his safety.

According to Buzzfeed staff, Hastings sent out an e-mail that raised an eyebrow of concern by his friends. The e-mail read:

Hey (NAME WITHHELD) the Feds are interviewing my ‘close friends and associates.’ Perhaps if the authorities arrive ‘BuzzFeed GQ,’ er HQ, may be wise to immediately request legal counsel before any conversations or interviews about our news-gathering practices or related journalism issues.
Also: I’m onto a big story, and need to go off the radar for a bit.
All the best, and hope to see you all soon.

Michael

Less than 24 hours later, Michael Hastings’ car smashed into a tree on Hollywood Avenue and burst into flames. He died immediately.

Immediately, the thought of a conspiracy to wipe out Michael Hastings was underway.

And with good reason there have been many stories in the conspiracy fringe that have included whistleblowers and other journalists that have stumbled on to something that when reported catches the attention of the intelligence agencies who feel that it is too sensitive to report.

We can go back in history to the story of Dorothy Kilgallen who was an old Hearst corporation journalist that was mainly a Broadway gossip columnist. In 1938, she began her newspaper column, The Voice of Broadway, which eventually was syndicated to more than 146 papers. She became a regular panelist on the television game show “What’s My Line?”

In 1950, Kilgallen’s columns featured mostly show business news and gossip, but also ventured into other topics such as politics and organized crime. She wrote front-page articles on the Sam Sheppard trial, the trial that spawned the story of “The Fugitive” and later the John F. Kennedy assassination.

Many people believe that when she stepped out the lines of her gossip column she was treading in an area that would have her silenced.

Kilgallen was publicly skeptical of the conclusions of the Warren Commission’s report into the assassination of President Kennedy and wrote a number of articles on the subject. Later she obtained a copy of Jack Ruby’s testimony to the Warren Commission, which was published on the front pages of the Journal American, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Seattle Post Intelligencer, and other newspapers.

Most of that testimony did not become officially available to the public until the commission released its 26 volumes of hearings and exhibits in November 1964, around the time of the first anniversary of the assassination.

She had collected new information about the Kennedy assassination and those involved and was about to publish a book about the subject called Murder One.

The book never got published because Kilgallen was found dead in her bedroom on November 8th, 1965. She was still in makeup after her appearance on the game show “What’s My Line” and sitting up in bed reading a novel. The opened book was the Honey Badgers by Robert Ruark. Kilgallen’s hairdresser had stated to police that she thought ot was odd that Dorothy would reading that book in bed since she finished it months ago. Kilgallen also needed reading glasses but the investigators could not find them. Not only was she unable to read without them, but she would have never bedded down for the night wearing makeup and false eyelashes.

According to the medical examiner Dorothy Kilgallen died of a fatal combination of alcohol and barbiturates, possibly concurrent with a heart attack.

After her death, noted conspiracy theorist Penn Jones, Jr. claimed that Kilgallen had conducted an interview with Jack Ruby inside the Dallas courthouse where he was tried for the shooting death of Lee Harvey Oswald, without ever revealing the subject of their purported conversation. Jones made the alleged Jack Ruby interview the basis of a claim that Kilgallen was murdered in order to silence her before she could release supposedly explosive information about the Kennedy assassination.

I was thinking of Dorothy Kilgallen today when I read that RT news correspondent Abby Martin was stepping down from her acclaimed TV show “Breaking the Set.” Abby wrote in a letter to her fans that she has decided to focus her attention on investigative field reporting.

In a letter to Media Roots, Abby writes:

RT has given me opportunities I will be eternally thankful for and hosting Breaking the Set has been the best and most invaluable experience of my life. I never imagined the kind of support it would generate, proving how many people are hungry for raw truth and systemic change.
Throughout the course of the show, I’m most proud of the stories we’ve done on the road – Pine Ridge, Detroit, Gulf Coast, Guantanamo Bay and soon to be released Cuba. As such, after almost three years of reporting from the studio I’ve decided to focus on investigative field reporting.
Please note I’m not stopping or going anywhere. If I can’t find a platform to host my show vision with the same editorial freedom, I will turn to crowdsourcing. And until I establish my next venture I’ll be writing daily, podcasting, producing video shorts and doing talks around the world.
Please follow me on facebook, youtube, twitter and my website Media Roots to stay tuned. I’m excited to put all my heart into the last two weeks of the most hard hitting show on TV and celebrate a great run, all of which wouldn’t have been possible without you. Much love and appreciation to everyone for supporting me and my future endeavors.
Never Stop Breaking the Set,
Abby

So Abby Martin is another well known truth teller that will abandon her “Breaking the Set” duties for other news reporting in the field.

She winds up being another casualty in this dirty war, along with John Stewart, Brian Williams. After Ground Zero reported that many reporters would either step down or would be killed after what we called the “brain drain,” Bob Simon, a longtime correspondent for CBS’ “60 Minutes” and a CBS News veteran of more than 45 years, was killed in a car crash on the West Side Highway.

Police said the 73-year-old Simon, was in the back seat of a Lincoln Town Car livery cab that lost control as it headed south on the highway. The driver struck a black 2003 Mercedes Benz that was stopped at a red light at 30th Street, and then struck the stanchions that separate northbound and southbound traffic on the highway.

Simon was pronounced dead after being extricated from the mangled wreckage.

Police have confirmed that the Lincoln Town Car was transporting Simon to a medical lecture about Ebola. The town car sped up before rear-ending the Mercedes-Benz in front of it and crashing into metal barricades on Manhattan’s West Side Highway.

Law enforcement officials have suggested that Simon’s driver, Abdul Reshad Fedahi, likely hit the gas pedal instead of the brake. But reports from the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and CBS New York question whether Fedahi should have been behind the wheel in the first place.

With less than a year as a livery driver under his belt, the 44-year-old Fedahi, an Afghan immigrant, still had a temporary Taxi and Limousine Commission license, which has since been temporarily suspended. But his rap sheet with the DMV is lengthy. Since November 2011, Fedahi’s driver’s license has reportedly been suspended nine times. According to DMV records, the suspensions resulted from his failure to respond to court summonses. Recent driving convictions include speeding in September and disobeying a traffic sign in January 2014.

Disconcerting driving record aside, a cousin revealed aspects of Fedahi’s past that raise questions about the driver’s mindset at the time of the accident. This wasn’t Fedahi’s first brush with death, according to Rauf Sharif, who told the New York Daily News that his cousin had survived a jump from the window of a Brooklyn building in 2004. The apparent suicide attempt followed Fedahi’s split from his wife. “He was on a suicide mission,” Sharif told the Daily News. “He dropped himself from a building. I don’t know how many floors in Brooklyn. He went through hard days in his life.”

According to CBS New York, Fedahi had been living at a homeless shelter on Ward’s Island, off Manhattan. Three sources also confirmed to CBS New York that an injury had rendered his left arm useless many years ago.

Fedahi is reportedly in good condition at New York’s Bellevue Hospital Center, suffering arm and leg injuries in the crash. Sharif told the Daily News that, when he visited his cousin at Bellevue, Fedahi told him he’d had sharp chest pains and “blacked out” right before the crash.

58 year old David Carr a columnist for the New York Times, dropped dead in his office just a day after the Simon report. Carr had fell dead just after interviewing NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in a “Times Talks” episode which was captured on video for Google.

Before Carr’s death he was said to have drawn out candid conversation with the whistleblower Snowden about the release of secret documents and also touched on the new film Citizenfour.

During the interview Snowden gave information to Carr about a secret NSA encryption program. Moments later a clip of Citizenfour was also shown in which Snowden, who sitting in bed at a hotel room at the time, was being interviewed by a journalist as fire alarms kept going off, promptly alerting Snowden to unplug his room phone.

Autopsy reports on Carr said that he died of lung cancer.

It was also announced that Ned Colt, a former NBC News foreign correspondent, has died. On “NBC Nightly News” tonight, Lester Holt reported that Colt “covered the world for NBC News for more than a decade starting in the mid-90s.” In 2004, Colt and his NBC News crew were kidnapped and held for three days in Iraq.

After leaving NBC, Colt worked for humanitarian organizations, first for the International Rescue Committee as a manager for the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. More recently he’d been working for the United Nations on the refugee crisis.

Colt died after suffering a major stroke at his home in Boston. He was 58.

After the deaths of these journalists, Attorney General Eric Holder addressed the national press club and warned reporters against coverage which “has a negative impact on the national security of the nation.”

Holder conceded that the US is not yet “in a time of war,” but cited censorship during World War II as an example of the government’s ability to clamp down on the press when they feel it necessary.

“In World War II, if a reporter had found out about that existence of the Manhattan Project, is that something that should have been disclosed?” Holder asked, by way of providing an “example” of the need to limit media coverage.

At the same time, Holder’s assessment of the US as not “in a time of war,” seems to contradict his own comments just a month ago in Paris, when he declared the US to be at war with “radical Islam,” and declared the US “determined to take the fight to them.”

Holder made the comments in response to questions about the Justice Department’s hostility toward journalists covering national security matters, suggesting that the policy is only going to get worse as officials escalate the current crop of wars.

The paranormal world we now live in is by design. It is a program being used to breed uncertainty about your core beliefs. It maligns the curious, it kills inspiration and imagination and it attempts to deprogram those among the populace who believes that there is a conspiracy against their liberty. Many times on my program I have discussed my experiences during the Dirty War in Argentina, and how you can determine that you are in the middle of a dirty war.

I know that the topic has struck the thin nerves of those that are in denial of the lack of harmony with the current administration; however, the more I read about the image and action parameters of our current situation, the argument that we are experiencing a shard psychosis of a satanic conspiracy is compelling.

The first targets in a dirty war are members of the media, such as talk show hosts and newspaper columnists, as well as artists and performers: those most likely to express dissatisfaction with the status quo and have their opinions heard.

I am now at full attention of what Eric Holder has said and what has been said about journalists and any story that would put the administration or the government in a bad light.

But, isn’t that what true journalists do?

Tonight, Clyde speaks to investigative reporter and New York Times bestselling author Greg Palast about the death (literally) of the Fourth Estate.

Text – Check out Ground Zero Radio with Clyde Lewis Live Nightly @ http://www.groundzeromedia.org