("Quid coniuratio est?")
("Everything is Under Control," by Robert Anton Wilson. New York: Harper Perennial, 1998. ISBN: 0-06-273417-2.)
Robert Anton Wilson dedicates his latest book, in part, to Mimi Hill, a "wonderfully efficient Websearcher." Mimi ought to take a bow since she has indeed come up with a lot of material that even the august Conspiracy Nation had not known previously. (Examples later.)
The book, "Everything is Under Control," is a wide-ranging compendium of various conspiracy "theories," and includes sources for those wishing to delve further into a particular "theory." In its all-encompassing coverage of various conspiracy stories, Wilson's book follows trails already blazed by previous cataloguers such as Jonathan Vankin, Kenn Thomas, Al Hidell, and Donna Kossy. Wilson's book offers a good crash course in conspiracy "theories" for the beginner and has new information for the experienced connoisseur.
Wilson himself is a hard person to figure out. In his introduction, he distances himself from conspiracy "theories" in general, declaring that "Conspiracy theories flourish in times and places of anxiety and uncertainty" and that the various "theories" renew his faith in "poetic imagination." But throughout the book itself, Wilson frequently seems to endorse some of the "theories" as extremely likely. Then again, he keeps throwing in references to "The Church of the Sub-Genius," obvious kooks. There is a lot of truth camouflaged by kooks, sneers, and pseudo-intellectualism in Wilson's book: did he have to include the camouflage in order to get the book past the corporate censors? Is Wilson actually "pushing the envelope," sneaking good information to the public hidden beneath a pose of skepticism?
Here are samples of various "theories" covered by Wilson which Conspiracy Nation had not previously encountered:
** SOME SAY that the Cain-Abel story "represents lying propaganda by the carnivores against the vegetarians." Cain, a farmer, is non-violent versus Abel, a shepherd, who is violent. (Another angle on the Cain-Abel story is given by Rene Girard in his book, "Violence and the Sacred." "One of the brothers kills the other, and the murderer is the one who does not have the violence-outlet of animal sacrifice at his disposal.")
** SOME SAY that John Adams had opinions about banks that sound "shockingly like some modern conspiracy theorists and money cranks."
** SOME SAY that Saint Ambrose of Milan viewed usury as not the charging of =excessive= interest on money loaned but as the charging of =any= interest on such loans. "His view therefore condemns the entire structure of modern finance capitalism..."
** SOME SAY that the death of communism leaves "malcontents" as the only remaining serious opposition to the "money-power elite." (This idea is echoed in Michael Moore's latest, hard to find movie, "The Big One." Moore suggests that, yes, =one= "evil empire" is gone, but adds that the =other= "evil empire" remains.)
** SOME SAY that Ambrose Bierce's later writings (after Devil's Dictionary) "deal increasingly with weird and uncanny subjects and often concern other worlds or other dimensions of being..."
** SOME SAY that "they listen to you through your telephone without its being off the hook."
** SOME SAY that the quatrains of Nostradamus "=reveal the past=. The quatrains tell what really happened in past history."
** SOME SAY that the real and absolute money power originated with the Warburg Bank of Amsterdam "and was part of the 'Orange' take-over of England and America, after the mildly illegal installation of the Dutchman William of Orange as King of England."
There's a lot more. Marina Oswald, widow of Lee Harvey Oswald, is quoted as saying
The answer to the Kennedy assassination is with the Federal Reserve Bank. Don't underestimate that. It's wrong to blame it on [James Jesus] Angleton and the CIA per se only. This is only one finger of the same hand. The people who supply the money are above the CIA.
The late Howard Hughes is claimed to have believed that the Rockefellers own the U.S. courts and judges.
David Rockefeller is claimed, through his Chase Manhattan Bank, to be a top stockholder in the Federal Reserve Bank. That idea is not delved into enough: The "Federal" "Reserve" is a =private= bank; who are the other stockholders?
There's a lot more. Read the book to find out some things you didn't know. Then delve into the sources.
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