It Begins
Here is the first serial installment of Michael's book that his brother sent to me, which will be published in its entirety on this blog as time goes by. For a format, and to keep Miker (typo that keeps cropping up so I've left it in) alive as well as to keep his more scholarly thoughts circulating, I have settled on this format: First, a bit from his book, then a more conversational snippet from one of his letters. From time to time, I may not be able to refrain from comment, as well. My commentary in response to this first segment is this:
WHAT Great Cat?!?!?!
Also, want to mention that he told me about ancient Sumer one time and had me aching to have lived there/then. He said that the genders were completely equal, the society was copiously devoted to the arts, and some other stuff I'd best not mention here. It is sounding a bit less like the Promised Land in the below..... (Ed. Note)
The Guarded Moment
--Mike Zempter
© 1991
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION: THE ENDLESS BEGINNING
II. THE CRIME: INDICTMENT WITH BILL OF PARTICULARS
A. Breaking and Entering
B. Denial of Civil Liberties
C. Conspiracy to Defraud
D. Poisoning of the Wells
E. Terrorism
F. Treason
1. MaClellan
2. The Lincoln Assassination
3. The Kennedy Assassination
4. Aspects of American Financial History
5. Watergate
G.. Lying in Wait
III. THE PERPETRATORS
IV. THE MEANS AND OPPORTUNITY
A. Force
B. Subversion of Government
C. Mind Manipulation
D. Technology
V. THE MOTIVE
VI. CLOSING STATEMENT
VII. BIBLIOGRAPHY
VIII. APPENDIX
A. The Federal Reserve System and Wall Street Communism
INTRODUCTION
THE ENDLESS BEGINNING
"Great men are almost always bad men. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it."
-- Lord Acton
"Only Zeus is free."
-- Aeschylus
In its main elements, human history is a history of conquest. The relatively slow, relatively weak vegetarian, once confined to the trees or to his cave, somehow overcame the physical superiority of the larger predatory animals and moved as a group, with relative impunity, into the open field. How was this change accomplished? The means remain unknown. Presumably, the oral history of those times, if there was one, was long ago lost. The possible avenues, however, are illuminated by practicality: "Man the Wise" either formed the greatest "wolfpack" in the animal kingdom, or he had outside help. Legends and theories abound attesting to both courses. The thinking animal lay in wait by the millions. The gods watched over him and wreaked havoc on his four-legged competition.
Recent archaeological evidence does more and more to support the contention that the end result of the transformation -- Civilization -- rose originally at Sumer, and that Egypt was a beneficiary, not a rival (Sitchin). Translation of the Sumerian cuneiform moves slowly, and as the words resolve after their long journey from the dim past, something eerie presents itself. To the Sumerian, as well as to the Egyptian, the first place where humanity began to coordinate its activities was called "Land of the Watchers" (Sitchin 84). What, exactly, was being watched? Who was watching? Why was the birthplace of writing, the wheel, mathematics, law, agriculture, astronomy, metallurgy, animal husbandry and religion, known by a phrase which, to this day, calls into mind the atmosphere of a police state?
The birthplace was not a place of innocence. Even in ancient times, Sumer was admittedly a place where men lived as beasts of the field, without law.
What put sudden order -- law and order, no less -- to our ancestral rabble? This genesis is debatable, but the fact that it happened is not. Hunting packs became herders of livestock. The gathering of edible plants gave place to the plowed field. The great cat looked on, puzzled beyond imagination, as the scheme unfolded and the majority took their part. Some only grudgingly, no doubt, as all change provokes resistance, but the mass went along in numbers sufficient to assure the scheme's continuance.
The original civilization was not a leaderless mob, any more than was the stone age tribe, which had elders and "alpha males" -- the superior hunters, later warriors, whose political tool was force. "Power grows out of the barrel of a gun" (Mao Tse Tung). Before the gun, power grew out of the strongest arm, or will. Did one strong man establish Sumer and order it into his preferred shape by the force of his will and the strength of his body?
Would the great hunting pack have allowed such a thing? It is far more likely that he was helped by less commanding but necessary members of his tribe. A cult of personality (personal force, whatever its form) may well have been enough, in the beginning, if that was indeed the beginning, to form a center around which the first society could have coalesced. Through his idea of order, spreading outward in waves across the local inhabitants and time, something like a nation could have taken shape. There could be no more aimless brutality if the thing was to stay organized. There could be no more hunting and gathering with agriculture and ranching suddenly demanding whole lifetimes of devotion. Serious breaches of this order -- the Peace -- would suddenly have been dealt with in the new, orderly way. Repeat offenders -- those who would not honor this social contract -- would be exiled or broken or executed, depending on the offense, the offender, and the mood of the day.
The method rose up out of the madness where it had been sleeping, and as the conscious mind instinctively drives out the dream, so would the system of new, civilized affairs have driven the old way into the heath where heathen could have it to themselves, and good riddance.
Power made Society happen. In society, then, the powerful ruled with the support of their recruited partners. Rule of the people -- Democracy -- is not, nor was it ever, rule of the majority, but rule of the dominant group, made acceptable in some wise to the majority, or a plurality sufficient to command the nascent political field.
The rule of order is a battleground. He who controls the high ground controls the field, in war as in politics, and the high ground, then as now, was simply wherever the dominant man stood, giving the orders that made the thing function. Subjective through his view may have been, as long as his orders were carried out, they had their effect in objective, observable ways, enforced upon the outraged heads of the Heathen -- the minority.
The primitive lessons of the irrelevant past were hurdled. A new order was installed, however haltingly, and there stood civilized man, at uneasy peace as the consequences began to penetrate and this wildly unorthodox mission took on a life of its own in the Land of the Watcher.
To Be Continued...
* * * * * *
My friend Graham called two days ago, and right before I grabbed the phone, it occurred to me to begin the conversation with "How's your marriage?" just to take him aback, and turns out he'd just left his wife this week. He's happy, she's satisfied and he gave her their cottage on a lakeside out in the Virginia countryside to stay in, keep, whatever. He's living in a flat with no phone, no furnishings, and doesn't care. He's satisfied out roaming the streets all night and being with himself. I hope he's okay. His father committed suicide. Graham's been like a brother to me for twelve years, calls me "Mikey" (Mike-ee) all the time, cursed me when I was overweight, egged me to do something, has flown to see me in every city I've been in, and loves talking about our past at Antioch. He remembers me better than I do. He said he wanted to marry you one time, but I told him you'd end up shooting him to death. He said he didn't care, maybe you'd adopt him instead. He's got the enthusiasm of a dog, and the blues.
(Letter from Mike,
talking about a very
important friend.)