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[ by Charles Cameron — a strange and winding tale, from Frank Sinatra to Donald Trump with possible Babylonian intrigue, too ]
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There has been a quick flurry of news attention devoted to QAnon — a supposed high-clearance, deep-cover source leaking confidential “the truth from behind the curtain” so to speak, supporting a Pro-Trump pro-Mueller (!!) narrative:

causing Q ripples within conspiracy circles

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Here:

Tampa rally, live coverage,” wrote “Dan,” posting a link to President Trump’s Tampa speech in a thread on 8chan, an anonymous image board also known as Infinitechan or Infinitychan, which might be best described as the unglued twin of better-known 4chan, a message board already untethered from reality.

The thread invited “requests to Q,” an anonymous user claiming to be a government agent with top security clearance, waging war against the so-called deep state in service to the 45th president. “Q” feeds disciples, or “bakers,” scraps of intelligence, or “bread crumbs,” that they scramble to bake into an understanding of the “storm” — the community’s term, drawn from Trump’s cryptic reference last year to “the calm before the storm” — for the president’s final conquest over elites, globalists and deep-state saboteurs.

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Q-materials now have enough YouTube channels starting up daily than no single human can keep up with them, and I’m certainly not trying — but one Q-related social media post caught my eye recently:

because it reminded me of a book I’d bought years ago, possibly as early as 1999, when I was researching conspiracism around the 1999/2000 millennium bug scare:

featuring, if you can’t manage to read the small print or recognize the tiny photos, Bob Hope, whom she alleged was her owner, JFK, LBJ, Henry Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Elvis, Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis Jr, Reagan, who took her to visit Queen Elizabeth Ii to discuss a breeding program, it goes on and on.. Satanic ritual abuse, prostitution, porn, all under the auspices of MK_Ultra.. including cannibalism, human and animal sacrifice..

Hillary Clinton‘s alleged pedophile ring out of a Pizzaria basement had nothing on this Kennedy-Kissinger-Ford lot, and now Q seems to be corropobrating a variant on the same plot line…

For the Sarah Ruth Ashcrsft – Q connection see this tweet:

The #Hivites are openly threatening the anons & #TheGreatAwakening itself now, in addition to attacking #QAnon & @POTUS. They are showing their true colors. Gloves are off. They're in full combat mode, scrambling, hangry & naggingly terrified… #HangryHangryHivites #ByePhoenicia

— Sarah Ruth Ashcraft (@SaRaAshcraft) July 23, 2018

A recent QAnon video drop:

And the Royals? My book companion to the Bryce Taylor book was this one, about Prince Charles:

I may be a Brit, but fair’s fair, we have our conspiracists, too.

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Readings:

WaPo, ‘We are Q’: A deranged conspiracy cult leaps from the Internet to the crowd at Trump’s ‘MAGA’ tour

WaPo, QAnon: Meet a real-life believer in the online, pro-Trump conspiracy theory that’s bursting into view

WaPo, The mystery of ‘Q’: How an anonymous conspiracy-monger launched a movement (if the person exists)

WaPo, How QAnon, the conspiracy theory spawned by a Trump quip, got so big and scary

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I hope none of this will be confused with Bond’s Q and Q-bond — although Bond’s Q may be the inspiration for QAnon’s name, and Q-bond may make the whole Trump-Mueller duel/duet a whole lot tighter than it previously had been.

Oh, and Q for Quelle (source) is a supposed ur-gospel containing the sayings of Jesus, from which the evangelists may have borrowed..

[ by Charles Cameron — continuing from Metaphors, more — which has become seriously overloaded and is listing to port ]
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This one’s from Cass R. Sunstein, It Can Happen Here, in the LRB:

What matters are “we anonymous others” who are not just “pawns in the chess game,” because the “most powerful dictators, ministers, and generals are powerless against the simultaneous mass decisions taken individually and almost unconsciously by the population at large.”

That’s worth reading and (critically) pondering in its entirety — partly because Sunsttein’s a writer worth pondering (I was particularluy taken with his exploration of Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures), but also because the comparison of developments leading up to Nazi Germany and events here in Trumpian USA is both a significant topic and one that is all too easily and often marred by hyperbole, and therefore demands deliberative elucidation in long form, rather than brash assertiveness or denial in short.

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Okay, now here’s a doozy.

I’m more used to questioning “prophetic” explanations of earthquakes and the like as literal acts of God, but some seismologists in Mexico have an altogether more engaging explanation:

Did Mexico’s Revelry in World Cup Win Over Germany Cause an Earthquake?

Late Sunday morning, seismic sensors in Mexico City detected what was reported to be a small earthquake. But it was triggered in an “artificial manner,” according to the group monitoring the gauges.

“Possibly because of mass jumping,” said the group, the Institute of Geologic and Atmospheric Investigations in Mexico, which said that at least two of its sensors picked up the activity.

The cause of that mass jumping? Moments before, the Mexican men’s national soccer team had scored a goal against powerhouse Germany in their group-stage match in the World Cup in Moscow.

I’ve heard of the idea that soldiers marching across a bridge might cause it to collapse — but an entire earthquake? I stand impressed..

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Ourob, New Yorker:

The Reputation-Laundering Firm That Ruined Its Own Reputation

Bell Pottinger’s work in South Africa included the covert dissemination of articles, cartoons, blog posts, and tweets implying that the Guptas’ opponents were upholding a racist system. As the brothers’ influence over Zuma’s government fell under increasing scrutiny, Bell Pottinger’s tactics were exposed. More details of the Oakbay account became public, including revelations about the inflammatory economic-emancipation campaign. Soon, one of the world’s savviest reputation-management companies became embroiled in a reputational scandal. Bell Pottinger could not contain the uproar, and, in September, 2017, it collapsed.

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Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan:

[Coming 8/31] When CIA analyst Jack Ryan stumbles upon a suspicious series of bank transfers his search for answers pulls him from the safety of his desk job and catapults him into a deadly game of cat and mouse throughout Europe and the Middle East, with a rising terrorist figurehead preparing for a massive attack against the US and her allies.

Ah, yes, “a deadly game of cat and mouse”.

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I’ll add more good or odd ones as they occur..

[ by Charles Cameron — ouroboric and boustrophedonic news aggregated for yr edification ]
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this is certainly tne essential Ouroboros, no?

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Okay, first, several examples of serpent-bites-own-tail comments:

How a Liberal Scholar of Conspiracy Theories Became the Subject of a Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory

That’s pretty straightforward — and this:

A sample headline in the Netherlands: “The new Trump Ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, lies about his own lies.”

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Then there are Mueller-specific ouroboroi:

One of Trump’s lawyers said the president’s legal team wants a second special counsel — one to investigate the investigators..

And:

Trump’s lawyers want a special counsel to investigate special counsel Robert Mueller:

Donald Trump’s legal team has suggested appointing another special counsel to investigate the existing special counsel, Robert Mueller, who is probing the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia.

One commenter went a level farther, opining:

there should be a Special Counsel to investigate the Special Counsel which is investigating the Special Counsel. When concluded, the Special Counsel investigating the Special Counsel, which is investigating the Special Counsel should deliver their report to a newly formed unbiased Special Counsel, which in turn should be investigated to ensure that all the investigative legalities have been adhered to.

??!!

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Okay, enough ouroboroi — let’s approach zen from the side, with this:

President Trump is quoted in a clip in Ari Melber‘s The Beat (MSNBC) at 2.34, “I don’t want to talk about pardon for Michael Flynn yet, we’ll see what happens.” This is followed by a Rachel Maddow clip, in which RM says, “I have a Tree Falls in the Forest question for you: “If the President issues a pardon, do we have to know about it?”

That’s about as close to an overt koan as we are liable to find on mainstream political TV.

Go, Rachel! But what exactly do you mean?

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And ah! — we are so fotunate that Rachel is not alone in thinking thoughts of this kind.. Kaveh Akbar has a New Yorker poem, What Use Is Knowing Anything If No One Is Around:

What use is knowing anything if no one is around
to watch you know it? Plants reinvent sugar daily
and hardly anyone applauds. Once as a boy I sat
in a corner covering my ears, singing Quranic verse

after Quranic verse. Each syllable was perfect, but only
the lonely rumble in my head gave praise. This is why
we put mirrors in birdcages, why we turn on lamps

to double our shadows.

and so forth. Thank you, Kaveh Akbar, I hear you, I hear your silent, recited Quranic verses.

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I’ll add further instances of posts and comments with the formal properties I’m so fond of in the comments section as they catch my eye..

[ Charles Cameron — glance, okay, because it’s strange, and about tomorrow — no need to play the videos ]
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Nostradamus:

Brother Nathanael:

Sheikh Imran Hosein:

Illuminati:

And:

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Just dipping my toe in the strange waters of Matthew 24:36:

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

and Qur’an 33:63:

People ask you concerning the Hour. Say, “Knowledge of it is only with Allah. And what may make you perceive? Perhaps the Hour is near.”

So:

Socrates, The unexamined life is not worth the living…

Christ, That they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly..

Anais Nin, The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself..

Bob Dylan: It’s life and life only..

[ by Charles Cameron — conspiracies in the lead up to Jo Cox’s death and the Brexit referendum ]
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Im often told that cunning people behind the scenes run everything according to a plan. Interested if there are any conspiracies re #Brexit

— Amil Khan (@Londonstani) June 24, 2016

Amil Khan, aka Londonstani, is a London-based journalist and author of The Long Struggle: The Muslim Worlds Western Problem. If I recall correctly, he was roommate for a while with Andrew Exum, aka Abu Muqawama, and a frequent contributor to Exum’s Abu Muqawama blog.

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Here are three tweets I found that answer Londonstani‘s question — two conspiracy theories and a conspirator with motive:

Jo Cox was either murdered by MI5 or her death was faked. It was absolutely a false flag stunt by Remain/EU/NWO

— Paul (@Dudda_P) June 20, 2016

and:

Please RT: make sure you take a BLACK PEN with you to vote as pencil votes can be tampered with #VoteLeave #EUref

— No Thank EU (@No_Thank_EU) June 23, 2016

and by way of motive:

Far-right 'activist' who claimed the Jo Cox murder was a 'false flag' attack by Remainers is after her seat https://t.co/fx1kvqmWgr

— Will Black (@WillBlackWriter) June 22, 2016

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See also:

Washington Post, Pencil or pen? An unusual conspiracy theory grips Brexit vote.

Veterans Today, BREXIT victory shocks NWO – were “conspiracy theories” responsible?

Qur’an 8.30: And Allah is the best of plotters.