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Date: 15 Jul 1998 08:50:15 BST
From: ITDCJB
I am feeling extra sadistic today as a result of intense preparation for a game convention tomorrow. Thus here's a Shotgun Scenario (TM) for you deranged keepers to use:
Agents investigating missing persons turn up a KKK/Militia/Karotechia backed Concentration Camp operating on US Soil.
You might like to track down "Among the Dead" for Dark Conspiracy, which has similar ideas. It's reasonably easy to convert though I'd cut down the fireifghts a little and drop the teleport gate in favour of a smuggling operation myself. With a bit of tweaking the Karotechia could be involved in some of the insane experiments.
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 09:22:00 -0400
From: "Randall L. Orndorff"
ITDCJB wrote:
Agents investigating missing persons turn up a KKK/Militia/Karotechia backed Concentration Camp operating on US Soil.
Have you ever read any of The Invisibles (published by Vertigo Comics). I only mention it because there is some really dark stuff in it about government sponsored concentration camps. Also, anyone looking for exceptionally dark conspiracies which are vaguely Lovecraftian could do a hell of a lot worse than looking towards the Outer Church for some ideas,
Robert Oppenheimer: Priest of Azathoth, need I say more?
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 10:11:24 -0400
From: "Eric Brennan"
Yes, the Invisibles are definitely the best comic out there to steal from for Delta Green. My first character for Jim Bise's game was based loosely on King Mob. (If he would've ever accepted a job in the guv'mint.;) Another great idea nabbed from modern conspiracy buffs floating about in the Invisibles is the Multi-Jurisdictional Task Force (From the "How I became Invisible" issue) and the "Hidden King" of Britain. If anybody's interested, I can post more about that. But the MJTF idea above definitely had links to the "American Concentration Camps" that our MIB speaks of.
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 20:02:25 -0400 (EDT)
From: The Man in Black
On Wed, 15 Jul 1998, Randall L. Orndorff plugged a comic book:
Have you ever read any of The Invisibles (published by Vertigo Comics). I only mention it because there is some really dark stuff in it about government sponsored concentration camps. Also, anyone looking for exceptionally dark conspiracies which are vaguely Lovecraftian could do a hell of a lot worse than looking towards the Outer Church for some ideas,
Robert Oppenheimer: Priest of Azathoth, need I say more?
Nope, read sandman and some early vertigo GN's, but haven't caught invisibiles yet. There are conspiracy theories about alien/consortium concentration camps, so the idea isn't original to the Invisibles. A Majestic-12 facility where abductees are taken (for organlegging) was already done in some previous posts. Similar stuff can be found in Conspiracy-X, X-files, and probably a lot more sources.
The Karotechia camp I'm working on would be more of an experimental one, as 24/7 operation would likely be logistically impossible. I'm thinkin' of each building or room as another method of genocide. Here's a list of rather sick things investigators can uncover:
1) The Slaughterhouse - built for people instead of cattle. Stun Hammers, Cattle Prods, Chainsaws, Kosher preparation (cut throat and hang upside down till the blood drains out), Meat Grinders, and the Butcher shop in the nearest town. Reinhard Galt would be so proud! LOSE 1/1d10 SAN for discovering this horror or 1d6/1d20 SAN if you go through this process and survive.
2) Please be seated - a room lined with rows of electric chairs. This would probably work better as narrow metal lined corridors with floors that opened above cremation kilns/ovens. Love the smell of Ozone in the morning :) LOSE 1/1d3 SAN or 1/1d10 if you survive it.
3) The Gas Chamber - An old reliable. Building airtight rooms is harder than you'd think if you buy into Holocaust Denial. What industrial activity (delousing?) could be used as a cover for buying large amounts of HydroCyanic Acid? LOSE 0/1d3 SAN or 1/1d8.
4) The Oven - My personal favorite. Dress victims in tinfoil suits and march them into a large round room. Powerful Blower fans activate, the floor begins to rotate, and the room becomes a Giant Microwave Oven (TM). It has two settings, Zap and Cremate. LOSE 1/1d8 SAN or 1d4/1d20.
Actually I think tinfoil suits would provide protection in addition to sparking the hell out of the victims, but hey, it would look kewl, and that's what's really important.
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 13:54:43 +0100
From: Nick
Nope, read sandman and some early vertigo GN's, but haven't caught invisibiles yet. There are conspiracy theories about alien/consortium concentration camps, so the idea isn't original to the Invisibles. A Majestic-12 facility where abductees are taken (for organlegging) was already done in some previous posts. Similar stuff can be found in Conspiracy-X, X-files, and probably a lot more sources.
If I recall correctly, the original Invisibles vol.1 made lots of Lovecraftian references eg. "a crucified toad; that's a symbol of Tsathoggua." Grant Morrison also made a lot of similiar references in his earlier series 'Zenith', including Azathoth the idiot God, Cthulu of the eyes and the many angled ones.
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 11:28:16 -0400
From: "Eric Brennan"
As far as some scary real life concentration camps in America conspiracies go, I cannot recommend highly enough "The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time," which discusses in detail the REX-84/FEMA contreversy in the mid '80s, the personalities involved, etc. (REX-84 is the basis for Morrison's Invisibles story.) For those of you who've seen the X-Files movie, you already know about FEMA and their governmental powers. One of their ideas was to create concentration camps to hold "possible terrorists." These are also the people who had a shadow-government ready in case of a nuclear strike, as well as what has been described as a James Bondian base underneath the mountains in Virginia. Why is this important? Because some people say that they didn't just _plan_ the camps. They put them into execution…
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 14:00:42 -0400
From: "Walter B. Haight"
At 11:28 AM 7/16/98 -0400, you wrote:
As far as some scary real life concentration camps in America conspiracies go, I cannot recommend highly enough "The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time," which discusses in detail the REX-84/FEMA contreversy in the mid '80s, the personalities involved, etc. (REX-84 is the basis for Morrison's Invisibles story.)
Where could one get this marvelous book, if I could ask? Please give us more information. I've already used some elements from the X-files in my game ( which I started about 2 years ago before I had ever heard of DG, it just worked out so perfectly, everything I was wanting to do planned and laid out! ) and my players would LOVE to go up against something like that.
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 14:20:29 -0400
From: "Eric Brennan"
Where could one get this marvelous book, if I could ask?
The copy I've got was purchased three weeks ago at a Barnes & Noble in Philly while I was on travel, so I'd wager it's still in print. The ISBN is 0-8065-1833-2 and it's 19.95.
Another illuminated writer, Robert Anton WIlson, also just released an encyclopedia of conspiracies which I'll probably pick up tonight at my local Borders. ("The WalMart of Bookstores.") Speaking of the X-Files, the aforementioned "60 Greatest Conspiracies", was featured in an episode of the show, according to a friend of mine, and the back cover has a glowing recommendation from Chris Carter. It's also got some really disturbing items, that if you piece together seem to point to an "Occult Hit-squad" a la the Fate. (Which is interesting given the rumor I've heard that the modern day American mafia had their origins in the "Sons of Jupiter" or something, which was a magickal order based out of a bandit group in Sicily. For more on that, check out Daroul's "Secret Societies." Any Italians on the list no anything about that last bit?
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 22:58:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Petherick
At 08:02 PM 7/15/98 -0400, you wrote:
3) The Gas Chamber - An old reliable. Building airtight rooms is harder than you'd think if you buy into Holocaust Denial. What industrial activity (delousing?) could be used as a cover for buying large amounts of HydroCyanic Acid? LOSE 0/1d3 SAN or 1/1d8.
Well, if you care to generate HCN on-site, you could purchase sodium cyanide using a cover of precious metals recovery or refining. It is usually sold in either one tonne bags or bulk (witness the recent enviromental problem in Kazakhstan due to a spill of NaCN by a truck hauling to a gold mine).
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 00:30:09 -0500 (CDT)
From: Don Juneau
On Thu, 16 Jul 1998, Eric Brennan wrote:
As far as some scary real life concentration camps in America conspiracies go, I cannot recommend highly enough "The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time," which discusses in detail the REX-84/FEMA contreversy in the mid '80s, the personalities involved, etc. (REX-84 is the basis for Morrison's Invisibles story.)
Yup; back in my CircuitNet days, some discussion came up in the Firearms and Debate echoes about such conspiracies. (I think one fellow had read a book called REX84 or suchlike; I'd have to check the olde mail..) Popped up around the same time as (supposedly) the UN was establishing equipment depots of armoured vehicles and the like, and adding cryptic codes to the backs of road signs for non-English-reading "Occupation Forces"… at one point, someone was claiming there were hundreds of SovSurplus APCs being shipped around Montana's hinterlands (ie, anywhere outside of the "major" cities <G>).
All *I* ever saw was a trainload or two of Humvees, and those might have been through-shipments. Oh, and the rare US Navy or Canadian fighter. (Some came in for the "Big Sky Day" airshows at Malmstrom, but sometimes they'd pop in up at the airport - Reservists or training, I suspect.)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 09:57:35 +0100 (BST)
From: Stephen Joseph Ellis
For some more information on Concentration camps in the US, try subscribing to the newsgroup misc.activism.militia to find some of the most extreme conspiracy views on the planet.
Certain members of the newsgroup are convinced that the federal government has already started re-equipping concentration camps for use against US civillians and are training the Armys in running them. Very scary people.
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 09:08:03 -0400
From: "Eric Brennan"
Just found this at http://www.techmgmt.com/restore/concamps.htm. I use Web Ferret to search all of the Search Engines out there and it gathered 500 hits before it stopped. It talks a bit about what I've been discussing at the bottom…
CIVILIAN INTERNMENT CAMPS UP FOR REVIEW
In a revealing admission the Director of Resource Management for the U.S. Army confirmed the validity of a memorandum relating to the establishment of a civilian inmate labor program under development by the Department of the Army. The document states, "Enclosed for your review and comment is the draft Army regulation on civilian inmate labor utilization" and the procedure to "establish civilian prison camps on installations." Cherith Chronicle, June 1997.
Civilian internment camps or prison camps, more commonly known as concentration camps, have been the subject of much rumor and speculation during the past few years in America. Several publications have devoted space to the topic and many talk radio programs have dealt with the issue.
However, Congressman Henry Gonzales (D, Texas) clarified the question of the existence of civilian detention camps. In an interview the congressman stated, "the truth is yes - you do have these stand by provisions, and the plans are here…whereby you could, in the name of stopping terrorism…evoke the military and arrest Americans and put them in detention camps."
HISTORY OF CIVILIAN INTERNMENT CAMPS
The concept of mass internment camps was implemented during the decade of the 1930's when the idea was either integrated into national security planning or put to actual use in the world's three socialistic experiments - the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and the United States under Roosevelt.
On March 9, 1933, Adolph Hitler put his Dachau detention center into operation where thousands of his own countrymen were sent. (Source: Martin Gilber,The Holocaust). Stalin exterminated 7 to 10 million in his rural collectivization program from 1931-1933 and another 10 million in the purges of 1934-1939. It was this decade that the Soviet Gulag proved its worth. On August 24, 1939, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover met with FDR to develop a detention plan for the United States. Five months after this meeting, Hitler opened the Auschwitz detention center in Poland.
On August 3, 1948, J. Edgar Hoover met with Attorney General J. Howard McGrath to form a plan whereby President Truman could suspend constitutional liberties during a national emergency. The plan was code-named "Security Portfolio" and, when activated, it would authorize the FBI to summarily arrest up to 20,000 persons and place them in national security detention camps. Prisoners would not have the right to a court hearing or habeas corpus appeal. Meanwhile, "Security Portfolio" allowed the FBI to develop a watch list of those who would be detained, as well as detailed information on their physical appearance, family, place of work, etc. (David Burnham, Above the Law).
Two years later Congress approved the Internal Security Act of 1950 which contained a provision authorizing an emergency detention plan. Hoover was unhappy with this law because it did not suspend the constitution and it guaranteed the right to a court hearing (habeas corpus). "For two years, while the FBI continued to secretly establish the detention camps and work out detailed seizure plans for thousands of individuals, Hoover kept badgering…[Attorney General McGrath for] official permission to ignore the 1950 law and carry on with the more ferocious 1948 program. On November 25, 1952, the attorney general…caved in to Hoover." ibid.
Congress repealed the Emergency Detention Act of 1950 more than twenty years later in 1971. Seemingly the threat of civilian internment in the United States was over, but not in reality. The Senate held hearings in December, 1975, revealing the ongoing internment plan which had never been terminated. The report, entitled,
"Intelligence Activities, Senate Resolution 21", disclosed the covert agenda. In a series of documents, memos and testimony by government informants, the picture emerged of the designs by the federal government to monitor, infiltrate, arrest and incarcerate a potentially large segment of American society.
The Senate report also revealed the existence of the Master Search Warrant (MSW) and the Master Arrest Warrant (MAW) which are currently in force. The MAW document, authorized by the United States Attorney General, directs the head of the FBI to: "Arrest persons whom I deem dangerous to the public peace and safety. These persons are to be detained and confined until further order." The MSW also instructs the FBI Director to "search certain premises where it is believed that there may be found contraband, prohibited articles, or other materials in violation of the Proclamation of the President of the United States." It includes such items as firearms, shortwave radio receiving sets, cameras, propaganda materials, printing presses, mimeograph machines, membership and financial records of organizations or groups that have been declared subversive, or may be hereafter declared subversive by the Attorney General."
Since the Senate hearings in 1975, the steady development of highly specialized surveillance capabilities, combined with the exploding computerized information technologies, have enabled a massive data base of personal information to be developed on millions of unsuspecting American citizens. It is all in place awaiting only a presidential declaration to be enforced by both military and civilian police.
In 1982, President Ronald Reagan issued National Security Directive 58 which empowered Robert McFarlane and Oliver North to use the National Security Council to secretly retrofit FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) to manage the country during a national crisis. The 1984 "REX exercises" simulated civil unrest culminating in a national emergency with a contingency plan for the imprisonment of 400,000 people. REX 84 was so secretive that special metal security doors were installed on the FEMA building's fifth floor, and even long-term officials of the Civil Defense Office were prohibited entry. The ostensible purpose of this exercise was to handle an influx of refugees created by a war in Central America, but a more realistic scenario was the detention of American citizens.
STATE OF EMERGENCY
Under "REX" the President could declare a state of emergency, empowering the head of FEMA to take control of the internal infrastructure of the United States and suspend the constitution. The President could invoke executive orders 11000 thru 11004 which would: 1- Draft all citizens into work forces under government supervision. 2- Empower the postmaster to register all men, women and children. 3- Seize all airports and aircraft. 4- Seize all housing and establish forced relocation of citizens.
FEMA, whose black budget comes from the Department of Defense, has worked closely with the Pentagon in an effort to avoid the legal restrictions of Posse Comitatus. While FEMA may not have been directly responsible for these precedent-setting cases, the principle of federal control was seen during the Los Angeles riots in 1992 with the federalization of the National Guard and during the siege at Waco, where Army tanks equipped with flame throwers were involved in the final conflagration.
GOVERNMENT VIOLENCE IS "LEGITIMATE"?
The Deputy Attorney General of California commented at a conference that anyone who attacks the State, even verbally, becomes a revolutionary and an enemy by definition. Louis Guiffreda, who was head of FEMA, stated that "legitimate violence is integral to our form of government, for it is from this source that we can continue to purge our weaknesses."
It is significant to note that the dictionary definition of terrorism - "the calculated use of violence" - corresponds precisely to the government's stated policy of "the use of legitimate violence." One might ask, who are the real terrorists? Guiffreda's remark gives a revealing insight into the thinking of those who have been charged with oversight of the welfare of the citizens in this country. If one's convictions or philosophy does not correspond with the government's agenda, that individual may find himself on the government's enemy list. This makes him a "target" to be "purged" by the use of "legitimate violence."
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 09:38:11 -0400
From: "John C. Detwiler"
I seem to remember seeing a documentary some years ago detailing how during the '50s and '60s (IIRC) the US and Canadian governments were taking retarded people and others deemed 'unfit' and putting them in institutions where they were sterilized. This was to keep them from breeding and perpetuating their 'defects'.
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 14:43:34 +0100 (BST)
From: Stephen Joseph Ellis
Just as a point of history, the article in Agent Brenan's email is slightly incorrect. It was actually us Brits who invented Concentration camps. They were used in the Boer War at the turn of the century. The reason for this, was that the Boers were acting like guerrila's and attacking in hit and run raids, then hiding with the rest of the population. So we put the rest of civillian population in concentration camps and cut off their support.
Imperialism at its best.
We also laid down huge swathes of barbed wire across the South African savannah in a grid formation. At each intersection, there was a manned bunker. The idea was to cut off the Boers mobility (they typically used horses) across country. And it worked. (Sort of.)
A fascinating period, but more 1890's Coc, than DG.
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 09:52:57 -0400
From: "Randall L. Orndorff"
John C. Detwiler wrote:
I seem to remember seeing a documentary some years ago detailing how during the '50s and '60s (IIRC) the US and Canadian governments were taking retarded people and others deemed 'unfit' and putting them in institutions where they were sterilized. This was to keep them from breeding and perpetuating their 'defects'.
I seem to recall hearing a report on NPR about that happenning from the '30s until the '70s in Finland (I think it was Finland). Kind of scary.
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 15:57:28
From: Davide Mana
Apparently Eric and me were researching the same topic at the same time…
Just found this at http://www.techmgmt.com/restore/concamps.htm. I use Web Ferret to search all of the Search Engines out there and it gathered 500 hits before it stopped. It talks a bit about what I've been discussing at the bottom…
CIVILIAN INTERNMENT CAMPS UP FOR REVIEW
The article sure offers some food for thought, but here's the equivalent of the fortune cookie coming with the bill at the end of the dinner: I couldn't help but noticing that many of the sites coming up on a quick search about "REX-84" (et similia) are made of just this same article, variously formatted, that thus apparently forms the bulk of the Web information available on the topic.
Disinformation, anybody?
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 16:12:04
From: Davide Mana
All this talk about concentration camps in the USA has reminded me, of course, of the old Thomas Disch novel, "Camp Concentration", about political prisoners in american concentration camps used as guinea pigs for testing bioweapons and more. It is of course a suggested reading.
And this also awakened an older and dimmer memory. The late lamented Philip K. Dick once related a funny story about Disch's novel. According to the notoriously paranoid (but brilliant!) Dick, agents from an unknown USA Government outfit contacted him in the '60s, commissioning a SF novel and requiring certain narrative elements and ideas to be inserted in the plot. P.K. Dick refused (and possibly turned even more paranoid) but was shocked to find said "forced passages" in "Camp Concentration" when he read the book years later.
Questioned on the subject, Disch dismissed the whole thing and said he was glad to know that the great writer had found the time to peruse his worthless book (or something equally suspicious).
This is how I remember it from an old, borrowed copy of Science Fiction Chronicle.
Does anyone else recall something about this?
Has anyone attemped reading "Camp Concentration" through a Glass from Leng?
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 10:34:39 -0400
From: "Eric Brennan"
I seem to recall hearing a report on NPR about that happenning from the '30s until the '70s in Finland (I think it was Finland). Kind of scary.
Eugenics (which the above atrocities were committed in the name of) is still quite a nasty bit of business even today. Although the sterilization of the mentally "unfit" (in which category the State of California included alcoholics) is a thing of the past for now, the current aims of the Eugenics movement seem to be scientifically proving that blacks and minorities are for some reason "different" and "less" than good 'ole white folks. Enough real scientific "think-tanks" are eating up private and government funds while trying to prove that, it's scary. They'll use terms like heredity and try to link race to job performance, but it's mainly an excuse for shallow science that doesn't take into account things like environment and quality of education. (You take a kid out of DC, which has the worst schools in the nation, and see how well he scores on the SAT. Is it because he didn't get taught the info, or genetics? Go to school in DC and then ask yourself that.)
My DG gm's current campaign has a company with it's roots in the concentration camps trying to build a better person. I wish it was far-fetched.
I find this entire vogue of "genetic predestination," with everything being writ in the DNA like some organic astrological chart, as being yet another symptom of the average American's attempt to throw off personal responsibility. Yeah, DNA does have a bit to do with it…
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 10:40:39 -0400
From: "Eric Brennan"
I've seen different versions, but they're all slanted toward the various site's own issues. One site that was pro-drug law reform used the Rex 84 bogeyman to say that this was what the DEA and the Right had in store for them if they spoke up aloud their thoughts on drug use. Could it be disinformation? Could I be spreading it on purpose? Am I a member of DG or MJ12? I don't know!!! All I remember is the fungus, visiting me in the night, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing!
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 13:03:18 -0400
From: "Eric Brennan"
Stolen from the Annotated Invisibles Web Site is this brief write-up of Concentration Camps real and fictional:
<Begin Copied Bit:)
U.S. concentration camps in real life:
Various "reservations" for Indians during the wars against them in 19th Century. Chiefly marked by neglect Civil War. Both the North and South had 'em. Andersonville (Georgia?) was the most notorious. The camp doctor hanged, the Confederate officers in charge walked. Notable feature was the "dead line," marked by planks. If you walked past it, the guards shot you. Japanese-Americans kept in camps such as Manzanar during World War II. U.S. government eventually made some reparations to victims and relatives In sorta real life:
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) - founded 1979, answers to the President, via National Security Council. A Miami Herald article published 5 July 1987 reported that U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, then employed to draw up national security contingency plans, often met Louis O. Guiffrido, then head of FEMA, between 1982 and 1984, to discuss FEMA's role in the event of civil unrest and the imposition of martial law. Guiffrido produced a plan for mass roundup and imprisonment of subversives, recycled from a plan he devised in 1970 for the Army War College in the event of an uprising of black militants (!). The Miami Herald got a copy of the 2 Aug 1984 memo detailing the plan, to be included in an Executive Order or National Security Directive that President Reagan was supposed to sign. According to various right-wing web pages, this is NSDD 58. The Herald story says it's unclear whether it was signed. As for REX-84, the Winter 1990 issue of the Covert Action Information Bulletin reports a series of simulations designed to coordinate the various agencies, civilian and military, needed under the above arrangement. One of these wargames was called REX-84/Night Train (!!).
Whatever the ultimate fate of this program, it may have cost FEMA the resources it needed to its ostensible job: disaster relief. FEMA was utterly unprepared for Hurricane Andrew when it hit Florida in 1992 and was therefore overhauled. Neither source cited above says whether camps were actually built, though a few web pages list possible sites.
In the 1980s, some politicans wanted mandatory ID of AIDS victims, followed by relocation to hospitals little better than charnel houses. Didn't happen. In fiction:
Vineland - Thomas Pynchon (1980s) - There's one in northern California. Unreconstructed hippie Zoyd Wheeler finds it. Squirrelly U.S. government (FBI?) agent Brock Vond dreams of raising families of informants to travel around the country busting opposition groups. It Can't Happen Here - Sinclair Lewis (1935). Fascists led by the folksy Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip win the 1936 election, defeating FDR. Detention camps for dissidents, victims of grudges and almost all blacks and Indians. Two coups follow, each worse than the last.
Camp Concentration - Thomas A. Disch. Government experiments on political prisoners. Great!
[CAG]
Hope that helps, though this thread is beginning to depress the hell out of me. My DG group and I discussed how quickly the US could become a police state, and it was a grim forecast.
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 10:46:16 -0700
From: Joseph Camp
Questioned on the subject, Disch dismissed the whole thing and said he was glad to know that the great writer had found the time to peruse his worthless book (or something equally suspicious).
Interesting, though probably a delusion on Dick's part. Students of synchronicity should note that Disch wrote at least one, and I think perhaps two or three, licensed novels based on THE PRISONER television show many a year ago.
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 13:38:29 -0400
From: "Jimmie Bise, Jr."
I've seen different versions, but they're all slanted toward the various site's own issues. One site that was pro-drug law reform used the Rex 84 bogeyman to say that this was what the DEA and the Right had in store for them if they spoke up aloud their thoughts on drug use.
Methinks that, now public, Rex 84 will become the bogeyman du jour of just about every cause…
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 14:15:49 -0400
From: "John C. Detwiler"
I find this entire vogue of "genetic predestination," with everything being writ in the DNA like some organic astrological chart, as being yet another symptom of the average American's attempt to throw off personal responsibility.
Ahhh, the Human Genome Project. On the other side of the coin this DNA mapping stuff could allow employers to deny employment, insurers to deny coverage, because an individual is considered to be genetically predisposed to some condition. You should take responsibility for your actions but there's no way you can be responsible for your lineage.
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 20:28:34 +0100
From: Ian/Cath Ford
I seem to recall hearing a report on NPR about that happenning from the '30s until the '70s in Finland (I think it was Finland). Kind of scary.
Sweden I think - was in the press over here fairly recently. All sorts of embarrased Swedes. Might have been happening a little later than the 70s even?
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 13:26:18 -0700
From: Phil A Posehn
For those interested in one of the few relatively benign experiments in eugenics, check out "Without Sin" , the history of the Oneida Community in upstate New York. They existed there between c.1840 and 1889 or so. They practiced selective breeding for one generation, hardly a statistical sample. However, none of the resulting children died before the age of majority in an era when the infant mortality rate was still around 10%. Please note that all of the members of the community were there voluntarily and I am not advocating eugenics. The Oneida commune was one of the most interesting social experiments in American history.
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 12:19:37 +0900
From: "David Farnell"
Davide Mana wrote:
And this also awakened an older and dimmer memory. The late lamented Philip K. Dick once related a funny story about Disch's novel.
This seems to be part of the plot of _Radio Free Albemuth_, a Dick novel I read about a year ago. The jugenpolezei of the fascist America (ruled by a thinly disguised Richard Nixon whose initials correspond to 666) try to force Dick to write such messages into his novels; he refuses but they publish novels in his name anyway, carrying the messages. He is sent to a concentration camp, and most of his friends get bullets in the backs of their heads. Of course, the pseudo-Nixon is actually a member of the International Communist Conspiracy (along with the Pope), and Dick becomes part of an anti-conspiracy, trying to work subliminals into rock songs to let people know the truth.
Most of the book was later cannibalized into _Valis_.
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 00:23:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Petherick
Just as a point of history, the article in Agent Brenan's email is slightly incorrect. It was actually us Brits who invented Concentration camps.
Actually, the British borrowed the idea (and name) of concentration camps, fences and manned bunkers and outposts from the Spanish.
During the Cuban Revolution of ? (the one that triggered the Spanish-American War), the Spaniards laid down two ditch / wall / outpost lines across the width of the island. In areas with high support for the rebels, peasants were relocated to camps or fortified villages. The intent was to prevent them from supporting the rebels, joining the rebels or being influenced by the rebels.
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 00:40:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Petherick
I seem to recall hearing a report on NPR about that happenning from the '30s until the '70s in Finland (I think it was Finland). Kind of scary.
The eugenics program in the province of Alberta began in the 1920's or 30's. It predated the Nazi eugenics program and was cited as an inspiration. Forced sterilizations apparently continued up to the 1970's.
For a somewhat scarier program of the same time period, look to the Duplessis government in Quebec. A large number of children were diagnosed as mentally retarded or insane, institutionalized and sometimes sterilized.
All because their mothers were not married … and the taint of illegitimacy would surely result in morons.
In the same vein, has anyone used the Tuskegee experiments in a CoC/DG campaign?
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 13:21:39 +0900
From: "David Farnell"
I find this entire vogue of "genetic predestination," with everything being writ in the DNA like some organic astrological chart, as being yet another symptom of the average American's attempt to throw off personal responsibility. Yeah, DNA does have a bit to do with it…
Check out Stephen J. Gould's _The Mismeasure of Man_ for a long history of such attempts to "throw off personal responsibility" and simultaneously justify racism and sexism. Good refutation of _The Bell Curve_ at the end. Might need a little math for that part, though.
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 09:52:17 -0400
From: Steven Kaye
Actually, the British borrowed the idea (and name) of concentration camps, fences and manned bunkers and outposts from the Spanish.
This was during the Ten Years' War (1868-1878) - the Spanish built two fortified lines running north-to-south, surrounded with barbed wire, punji sticks, land mines, and cheveux-de-frise (jagged spikes or glass set into the masonry of the wall). A railway ran down the trochas (as they were called), and there were regular forts/blockhouses along the trochas.
Part of the reason for the reconcentrado policy (which earned General Weyler much condemnation and helped influence U.S. opinion in favor of war), was that the Cuban rebels were destroying anything of economic value to deny resources to the Spanish and to encourage the U.S. to send troops (the U.S. invested heavily in Cuba). There's a great quote from the Cuban leader to this effect - "Blessed be the torch!"
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 10:43:32 -0700
From: "Bruce Baugh"
Check out Stephen J. Gould's _The Mismeasure of Man_ for a long history of such attempts to "throw off personal responsibility" and simultaneously justify racism and sexism. Good refutation of _The Bell Curve_ at the end. Might need a little math for that part, though.
It's worth noting that Gould attracts _very_ serious criticisms from historians of science. Not that he presents wrong info, but a) he blithely refuses to acknowledge data that would complicate matters and b) never responds to demonstrations of complicating factors left out. His work is at best incomplete, at worst misleading; compare, for instance, his remarks about 19th century geologists with those in Mott Greene's histories of the field. Gould slants.
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 23:04:40 +0900
From: Jay and Mikiko Noyes
Hope that helps, though this thread is beginning to depress the hell out of me. My DG group and I discussed how quickly the US could become a police state, and it was a grim forecast.
Depresses me, too. In all fairness, though, _any_ country is only a few very small steps from becoming a police state. It's all dependent on a willingness to exercise power, backed by public support both active and tacit.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Date: 20 Jul 1998 13:42:30 BST
From: ITDCJB
I'm probably mistaken but wasn't there some project somewhere or other where graduates were given government subsidies to have children whereas non-graduate lost their subsidies when they started a family. Sounds pretty sinister to me…
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 10:32:43 -0400
From: "Randall L. Orndorff"
By the way , I just recalled a certain report on Dateline (I think) where they exposed a psychiatric institution that was trying to "cure" gay patients. As if the philosophy of it wasn't all wrong to begin with, they were accepting children commited by their parents for their "latent homosexual behavior". It gets worse. Among the therapies used were electroshock and many other Clockwork Orange-ish treatments. They interviewd a girl who had escaped from this facility (yes, escaped). To the best of my knowledge, the institution may still be working. Who needs supernatural enemies?
What good DG agent wouldn't burn the f*/&ing place down regardless of cult activity?