Bartholomew's Notes

At this time of year TV brings us the usual Hollywood Biblical epics. Here are a couple of great legends which, alas, have to be debunked:

(1) From Michael Munn’s 2004 biography John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth, on Wayne’s famous cameo as the Roman Centurion at the Crucifixion in The Greatest Story Ever Told (p.261):

According to legend, Wayne said his line “Truly this was the Son of God” three times, none of them  to [Director George] Stevens’s satisfaction. So Stevens said, “Can you give it a little more awe, Duke?” and Duke said, “Aw, this was truly the Son of God.” Very funny. But not true.

Apparently the studio originally wanted Wayne just to be an extra, but after filming Stevens was embarrassed that Wayne had been used in this way and asked him to record his famous Biblical line later. Wayne agreed reluctantly, but complained that being in a studio meant he had “nothing to react to”.

(2) From Charlton Heston’s autobiography In the Arena, responding to Gore Vidal’s claim that he added a homosexual subtext to Ben-Hur and that there was a conspiracy not to tell Heston about it (p. 187):

His comment is no doubt based on a story (also probably apocryphal) about Laurence Olivier, playing Iago to Ralph Richardson’s Othello, suggesting to director Tyrone Guthrie that it might be interesting to play Iago as homosexually obsessed with Othello. ‘Oh, I suppose we could try it for a bit,’ said Guthrie. ‘But for God’s sake don’t tell Ralph.’

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A thundering editorial in the Washington Times:

In a shocking display of fealty to a foreign potentate, President Obama bowed to Saudi King Abdullah at the Group of 20 summit in London last week…The bow was an extraordinary protocol violation. Such an act is a traditional obeisance befitting a king’s subjects, not his peer. There is no precedent for U.S. presidents bowing to Saudi or any other royals…

The Washington Times, of course, is owned by this guy:

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And while we’re on the unhappy subject of WorldNetDaily, there was also this from a few days ago:

WASHINGTON – Michael Savage, the author of four best-sellers and the host of the third highest-rated radio talk show in the U.S., joins WND today as a regular and exclusive columnist.

…”It is a great honor and privilege to offer Michael Savage’s insights into the news at WND,” said Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of the world’s largest independent news source on the Internet. “He has an immense following because he is witty, entertaining and fearless. We have partnered with Savage on many projects – his website, two No. 1 New York Times best-sellers and now a column.”

I’ve blogged on some of this “partnership” before – when Savage was threatening to sue CAIR to stop it from using clips from his radio show for critical purposes, Farah encouraged his readers to donate cash for the obviously doomed legal effort. Savage eventually backed down and declared “victory”.

Meanwhile, here’s a clip of Savage from 2001 when he came across a film-crew in San Francisco who were making a documentary about the police. Although the filmakers were actually there with the consent of the police, Savage and his wife assumed that they must be harrassing the law officers, and the two of them launched into a blustering and foul-mouthed tirade (Hat tip: Brad Kava):

Despite this vulgar way of conducting himself, Savage is a popular figure with the Christian right, and he has been published by the Christian publisher Thomas Nelson. Here he is having a friendly chat about Bible prophecy with Christian Zionist Pastor John Hagee:

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From Bob Unrah at WorldNetDaily:

A security analyst who provides intelligence information to a wide range of law enforcement, private corporation and security interests has written in a publicly released “white paper” that the issue of Barack Obama’s eligibility to be president could become a “flashpoint” in the United States.

The suggestion comes from Lyle Rapacki, a former police officer who has worked in the field of psychological disorders for years. Since the 1990s, he has provided his analysis in public “white paper” reports and classified documents to various safety and security interests.

…”If…this case continues and Mr. Obama fights revealing his documentation, there are growing concerns of civil unrest, or worse, being unleashed in the streets of our nation,” the report said. “The economic crisis could with this type of constitutional crisis could prove to be a ‘flashpoint’ that would test conventional law enforcement and elements of homeland security.”

The idea that the USA is on verge of mass rioting is being pushed by numerous conservative sources – Sadly No! recently brought us the Riot Swank, while over a month ago Pastor David Wilkerson warned the world that God had told him that riots were imminent, and that the godly should put 30 days’ worth of supplies aside. So who is Rapacki?

Rapacki, now vice president of protective services for Southwest Risk Advisors Inc., also has provided reports to InfraGard, an FBI program that collects information about security, terror, intelligence and other issues.

But what does that mean? A summary of Rapacki’s “report” – which insists on refering to Obama as “Obama/Soetoro” – hit the internet a couple of weeks ago. Much hilarity ensued, however, when it was quickly noted that Rapacki is best-known as an exponent of “Satanic panic” conspiracy theories. Kerr Cuhulain’s website Witchvox has a profile of the man dating from 2002 which raises serious questions about his credentials, qualifications, and integrity. In particular, he is alleged to have lied about a girl having been sacrificed by a coven of Satanists in Halloween 1988 when in fact he knew she was still alive. After being invited to give a seminar to police in Anchorage, an attendee reported that

He instructed police officers that if they were not ‘Christian’, not to approach a satanic crime scene, or ‘demons will jump on you.’ …He also made very blatant statements about law enforcement academies attempting to ‘brainwash’ its attendants into satanism. APD’s academy was singled out, and an officer ‘witnessed’ to the fact that he had been required to listen to a tape which so influenced him.

Further:

Rapacki’s Intel organization is supposed to be an intelligence network in which “a nation wide network of dedicated people assist with the on-going collection of data which is then analyzed, coded and rated for validity, and then disseminated to those in need of such intelligence and consultation.” Examining the list of individuals and organizations Rapacki credits as his primary sources of such “data” reveals that his sources are all disseminators of the Satanic conspiracy myth: Lt. Larry Jones/Cult Crime Impact Network Inc, Ed Vecchry & Joe Vieira/Shatter the Darkness Outreach, Sue Joyner/WATCH Network, Jack Chick/Chick Publications, Believe the Children, Tom Wedge, Johanna Michaelson, “Dr.” Rebecca Brown & Elaine Moses, Dr. Al Carlisle and Mike Warnke.

Many of these names of course need no introduction – several are the authors of bogus “Satanic survivor” Christian paperbacks. Michaelsen [sic], it should be noted, is a relative of WND columnist Hal Lindsey, and both of them bitterly opposed investigations undertaken by Christian journalists that debunked Warnke and another fantasist, by the name of Lauren Stratford. Lindsey’s view was that Stratford’s lurid lies had persuaded some people to become Christians, and so should be allowed to stand. Carlisle apparently claims that 60,000 Americans are sacrificed to Satan each year. Rapacki’s credibility is also attacked on this website, and in Gareth J. Medway’s 2001 book Lure of the Sinister: the Unnatural History of Satanism?, published by New York University Press.

However, Rapacki’s report is being promoted by the website DefendOurFreedoms (run by Dr Orly Taitz, a dentist and lawyer whose “experiences under the totalitarian Communist regime convinced her that this is a path that she would rather not see the United States take”), and his supposed InfraGard association is being used by some sites to claim this is an official FBI report.

Rapacki’s supporters have a nice bit of jujitsu to get around the problem of his credibility: Cuhulain is a pagan, so does this not simply mean that this is just an occult conspiracy for the benefit of Obama? A commentator at DefendOurFreedoms explains:

PAGAN POLITICS AND CHARACTER ASSASINATIONS BASED UPON ANTICHRISTIAN LEANINGS OF PAGANS/WITCHES AND SATANIST- TRYING TO UNDERMINE THE CREDENCE OF THE WORK OF VARIOUS OF THE FBI’S PROGRAMMES.

IN REGARDS TO TODAYS RELEASE OF A THREAT ANALYISIS REPORT WROTE ON BEHALF OF THE FBI BY A FBI ARIZONA INFRAGUARD MEMBER.

Oh suprise suprise, the witches are trying to get obama out of this one by trying to discredit the infragaurd memeber.

It looks like the information about Lyle J. Rapacki comes from the Pagan Protection web page of Wiccan Kerr Cuhulain. There seems to be a feud between the Wiccan and the Evangelical going back to November of 2002.

http://tiny.cc/PiQoF

In response let me ask how much credibilty does obama himsaelf have when his lobby group code pink (a bunch of satanists) were given permision by him to perfor a witchcraft cleansing ceremony in the whithouse itself before he walked into the place.
talk about whakos.
Nonetheless the man who wrote this report as part of hi job working for the FBI’s INFRAGUARD PROGRAMME was talking about real possible threats to the public peace because of this very real constitutional crisis.

THE UNCHRISTIAN/ANTICHRISTIAN CHARACTER ASSASINATIONS BY A GROUP OF WITCHES I AM AFRAID ARE NOT A GOOD MEANS FOR OBAMA TO NEGATE ACTUAL OFFICAIL THREAT ANALYISIS REPORTS WARNING OF THE DANGERS OF HIM CONTINUING TO REFUSE PUBLIC AND LEGAL ACCESS TO HIS VIATAL RECOEDS/DOCUMENTS, THAT ARE OF MAJOR IMPORTANCE FOR HIM TO RETAIN THE PUBLIC TRUST.

THIS AMOUNTS TO SUBVERSION OF THE FBI’S INTELLIGENCE PROGRAMMES BY COMMUNIST PAGANS AND IS SURELY A CRIME AGAINST NATIONAL SECURITY.
Please see more on obamas family and communist/witchraft/christian church infiltrators/satanists here
some conjecture some fact-

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message753298/pg1

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Somewhat belatedly, I’ve become aware of reports on Hatewatch and at Searchlight about February’s “Preserving Western Civilization” conference in Baltimore. As I blogged in February, this event planned to bring together some of the usual characters from the racialist American Renaissance crowd, with a bit of input from the British National Party and from Serge Trifkovic, an anti-Muslim polemicist popular with the more mainstream conservative right. The organiser, Michael Hart, is Jewish, and he apparently held the event because he was fed up with tolerance for anti-Jewish racists at American Renaissance events.

It seems the event was the usual mixture of “scientific” racist ramblings about supposed black IQ levels and brain size, attacks on immigratation, and a bit of neo-confederatism. According to Hatewatch, there was also a bizarre fantasy about invading Saudi Arabia, and the claim that the USA is currently under an “occupation government”.

Searchlight, meanwhile, gives us Rushdon’s contribution:

Rushton, the soft-spoken psychology professor at the University of Western Ontario and a leading figure among academic racists, went even further, contending that Islam was not just a cultural, but a genetic problem. According to Rushton, the Muslim problem is not just a condition of their particular belief system. Instead, he argued that Muslims have an aggressive personality with relatively closed, simple minds, and are less impervious to reason than one might expect.

One wonders if this simply applies to Arabs (an echo of religious prejudice against “Ishmael” which I’ve blogged before) or to all Muslims. Also:

Governor Palin’s name surfaced several times during the conference. At lunch on Saturday, “Draft Sarah” flyers were placed on tables. At the banquet, Paul Streitz, chairman of the 2012 Draft Sarah Committee, assured the crowd that Palin was learning the appropriate anti-immigrant “cues” and that his committee was working to arrange a trip for her down to the Arizona border to meet with Glenn Spencer of the nativist group American Patrol. The announcement drew cheers from the banquet crowd.

And for light relief, there was comedy from conservative commedienne Julia Gorin.

(Hat tips: Harry’s Place and Islamophobia Watch)

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 The above is the web logo of the British Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches. You’ll note the organisation is very keen to present a multiracial image, with a black man and a woman of East Asian heritage among its smiling members – doubtless a visual representation of Galatians 3:28:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

So what happens when a church that is part of the Fellowship gives a platform to a man who preaches a Gospel of racial separation for the benefit of a far-right political party? That’s what happened a few weeks ago, when the BNP’s Rev Robert West was invited into the pulpit of a historic village Baptist church.

I contacted the FIEC asking if they had any views on the matter. After a couple of follow-up emails I finally got a response – a very general statement that the FIEC is aware of the need “advise” churches about the “dangers” of political extremism. This was despite the fact that West’s appearance at the church seems to have been with the full knowledge of the chapel wardens (there is no minister) – a relative of theirs, BNP councillor Ian Meller, is a member of the congregation.

So, I tried to contact the FIEC president directly. Here is my email, sent over a week ago to his church:

Dear Mr Bentley-Taylor

I am writing to you in your capacity as President of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, to express my concern that an FIEC affiliated church was recently used to promote the views of Rev Robert West. Rev West is a propagandist for the British National Party, and he teaches that “mixing of races” is a sin against God.  I see the FIEC website carries a headline banner which includes a black man and a woman of East Asian heritage, so it seems to me that West’s religious teachings are a direct challenge to the values to which the FIEC is publicly committed.

Rev West was given the pulpit of a Baptist chapel a couple of Sundays ago, and there is reason to believe that those who allowed him to do so were fully aware of his political affiliation.

Further background on Rev West can be seen here:

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_060316bnp.shtml

I am sure that you already know what the BNP stands for, and that many church groups have made public stands against its policies of hate and racial divisiveness. I would like to urge the FIEC to make a public statement repudiating Rev West and his views, and expressing dismay that an FIEC affilitated church would invite such a person. Without it, it is likely that Rev West will use his church appearance to legitimise the BNP and for electoral advantage in the European elections, in which he intends to stand as a candidate.

I have corresponded about this matter with the FIEC administrator, but he has declined to go further than to make vague assurances about the FIEC’s commitment to advise churches about political extremism. I understand that FIEC churches are independent, but surely affiliation is based on commitment to the FIEC’s view of the Christian Gospel? The FIEC’s website “talks the talk” of racial harmony; I believe it is now time to “walk the walk”.

Yours sincerely
Richard Bartholomew

Response? None.

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Sadly No! has some fun with a conspiracy theory from Glenn Beck on Fox News:

BECK:…I mean, look, I want to show you something. This is — explain what this is. Do you have feedback? This is that — this is all the sticks bound together in the axis. It’s the Roman symbol of fascism?

[SHELDON] RICHMAN: This is what the fascists in Italy used as their symbol, which was this Roman depiction of a bundle of rods bound together with an ax coming out the top, which I assume is a symbol of a collective unity and force of power.

BECK: Right. OK, could you zoom in on this? Here it is — Harry, bring it forward a little bit. Zoom in right here.

This is — this is the Mercury Dime. On the back of the mercury dime — and Harry saw this earlier today. He works the gib camera that’s zooming in right now. They look familiar? This is the symbol of fascism.

Who brought this dime in? It happened in 1916, Woodrow Wilson was the president. I didn’t even put this together. We’ve have been on the road to fascism for a while.

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Right on cue following yesterday’s blog entry, Tim Ireland has had further communication with Jeremy Reynalds, whose article about Glen Jenvey was recently removed from the ASSIST News Service:

I’ve just been in touch with Jeremy Reynalds, who insists that he has “no advocacy position” on Glen Jenvey, and claims merely to have given Glen Jenvey an opportunity to tell his side of the story, as he felt there was an imbalance in reporting at the time; in his own words, Jeremy Reynalds’ intention was to “present Mr. Jenvey’s response to the charges against him and to share some of his perspective about why they surfaced,” as he felt this had not been done…However, after delivering one side of the story, Jeremy Reynalds appears to have failed to keep up with both sides of the story, as he now claims not to have heard from our Mr Jenvey in a month, and to be unaware of any accusations of sex crimes…

As I blogged previously, Jenvey’s response to Tim’s investigation of Jenvey’s bogus posts to Muslims forums has been to threaten physical violence – and various random blogs have now received pseudonymous comments accusing Tim of being a convicted paedophile.  Jenvey’s “side of the story” was that Guardian has sought to discredit him as a ploy to protect a Muslim columnist whom he alleged (with a few hedging question-marks) was the real author of the Muslim forum posts. The story was bizarre, and perhaps actionable.

Reynalds’ article can be seen reposted at Global Politician – it is 1352 words long, and Jenvey is not mentioned until after 445 words. It is obviously far more than simply “an opportunity” for Glen Jenvey to put his side; Reynalds himself provides most of the background context that supposedly supports Jenvey’s conspiracy theory, and even if Jenvey fed it to him Reynalds presents it in his own “voice” and has to take responsibility for it.

ASSIST’s target readership is unlikely to read the Guardian or Tim’s blog (or mine), so currently all they know of the controversy is what Reynalds has shared with them. I can understand Reynalds’ problem – he’s had links with Jenvey for some years, and his credibility is to some extent (perhaps to a great extent) tied up with Jenvey’s. But if Reynalds can’t do the right thing, isn’t it time for someone else at ASSIST to step in and make sure readers know the full story?

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A few weeks ago I noted a very strange article written by Jeremy Reynalds concerning self-described “anti-terror” expert Glen Jenvey. As I’ve blogged at length lately, there is strong evidence that Jenvey wrote anonymous postings to a Muslim forum to concoct a bogus story about Islamic extremism, which he then sold to the Sun. The story is now the subject of a Press Complaints Commission investigation, and this was noted an article that appeared in the Guardian.

Reynalds, who writes for the Evangelical ASSIST News Service, responded to this with a sympathetic piece that allowed Jenvey to promote a bizarre conspiracy theory: that the inflammatory postings had in fact been written by a former Guardian columnist, and that the paper’s editor knew this. The Guardian supposedly ran its piece on the PCC investigation because the editor wished both to protect his former columnist and to discredit Jenvey. To quote what I said at the time:

The whole thing is a blustering screed so shameless in its ad hominem attacks and conspiracy-mongering that Reynalds really ought to be ashamed of himself.

Looks like someone at ASSIST agrees, as it has been removed.

Tim Ireland further noted that Reynalds has long-standing links to Jenvey; in particular:

Glen Jenvey had link-spammed Wikipedia to promote Jeremy Reynalds’ (now out of print) book War of the Web: Fighting the Online Jihad, here on this page about Islam.

Oh, and here on this page about Islamic terrorism, here on this page about the Tamil Tigers, here on this page about Al Qaeda, here on this page about Abu Hamza, here on this page about Hizbut-Tahrir, here on this page about Osama Bin Laden, here on this page about ‘espionage’, , here on this page about the PLO, here on this page about Terrorism,here on this page about Cyberterrorism, here on this page about the September 11 attacks, and, quite hilariously, here on this page about ‘bestsellers’.

Which brings me to a second issue…how come Reynalds’ War of the Web appears to be unavailable from anywhere?

I remember it being trumpeted as “forthcoming” back in 2005; it supposedly eventually appeared in October 2007, from World Ahead Publishing (now WND Books). Yet it is already “out of print”, and no-one seems to be selling any second-hand copies. There’s no copy in the Library of Congress, and the British Library catalogue tells us it is “on order”. No-one has reviewed it, and no blogger gives any indication of having read it (although it was promoted by Jenvey’s associate “Lionheart”) – even though you’d think it would be a hot topic in some circles. The only person who has provided details of its supposed contents beyond the publisher’s blurb is a certain “Zaidi234”, writing on an obscure Pravda forum – and, for reasons I have explained, there is reason to think this name is another Jenvey alias.

Just where is this book?

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Walid Shoebat’s son Theodore has embedded a number of videos on his blog taken from a site called TruthTubeTV, which is devoted to posting footage of atrocities committed by Muslim extremists. All the videos he has chosen were uploaded by a user named “ChristianResistance”, who, like a number of others attracted to this kind of thing, likes to imagine he’s some kind of medival crusader. However, ChristianResistance’s purpose is clearly to promote fear and hatred of Muslims rather than to oppose extremism. Here’s his commentary:

To our VISITORS. TruthTube.Tv has given you numerous examples on this website as to the true nature of the sickening brutality of the “cult” Islam. Hopefully, you will have noticed that none of these examples are isolated instances nor are they confined to a particular Muslim controlled country. Everywhere you find the “Religion” of the “False Prophet” Muhammad you will find some form of Muslim brutality or other. In the US and Canada we have witnessed a number of honor-killings. Likewise in Europe, we regularly hear of the gang rape of Muslim women as honor-punishment, beatings, murder and mutilation. There have even been reports of beheading’s in Ireland which has a national population of less than 5 million people. There are young Muslims rioting in the streets and calling for the murder of anyone that dares oppose Islam. We have Muslim no-go areas, where Sharia Law is practiced and the law of the land ignored and the list goes on-and-on. And this trend is set to continue and grow as more and younger Muslims turn to Radical Islamic groups whose sole purpose is to cause as much civil unrest as possible. In conclusion, all the examples we have given you are verifiable and factual and not scare-mongering on our part. Thus, we pose this question to YOU. Now that you are aware of all these facts what are you going to do to halt the growth of Islam in your COUNTRY?

Apparently he is based on London (although his spelling is American), and elsewhere his name is given as “Will”. He’s also pro-fascist – and I mean that literally, rather than as an insult. Here’s a snapshot of a short ChristianResistance-sourced video that the junior Shoebat decided not to add to his site:

ChristianResistance has also uploaded a video of Jean-Marie Le Pen.

A few months ago I noted Shoebat’s links with Jeff Davis, an American BNP supporter. Theodore’s blog is linked directly from the Walid Shoebat Foundation website, and he and his father sometimes give presentations together at churches.

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