This week’s radio show features alternative news sources, Ronald Reagan and gun control, NPR, and the Thunderbolt Prison Project Chapter 3 — Crime Does Pay. Finally, we point out some existential threats to fill out the News & Commentary section.
Cover your ass. Don’t cover your ears. The Thunderbolt is about to strike!
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There are no calendar events this week so there is no difference between the Olympia show and the Seattle show other than the station ID’s,
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Olympia Version
Bonus 6
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This program is best listened to at high volume over high-quality headphones
This week’s News & Commentary section originally aired on December 7th, 2018
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Segments:
Disclaimer / Station ID / Into
00:00-01:34
The Shadow Knows
Music: Tipsy — Add N To (X) — Les Paul Trio
01:34-09:22
The Birth of Gun Control
Music: The Fibonaccis
09:21-12:08
National Propaganda Radio
Music: Frédéric Chopin — Polysics
12:08-18:46
The Thunderbolt Prison Project Chapter 3: Crime Does Pay Part 1
Music: Mong Hang — Caravan Palace
18:45-26:59
Disclaimer / Station ID
26:59-27:23
The Thunderbolt Prison Project Chapter 3: Crime Does Pay Part 2
This week’s radio show reports on a teenage girl picking on privileged white men, I reveal several of my own sources for information, and we feature the first half of The Thunderbolt’s Most Evil Persons in History Award Nomination #4.
Get ready for blastoff. It’s time for the Thunderbolt…
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This program is best listened to at high volume over high-quality headphones
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Olympia Version
Seattle Version
Bonus 6
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Segments:
Disclaimer / Station ID
00:00-00:49
TB Intro
Music: Focus
00:48-02:35
Teenage Girl Bullying Privileged White Men!
Music: Screaming Santas — The Chipmunks
02:35-08:36
The Source(s)
Music: Arthur Lyman — Crew X — Bruce Haack — Béla Fleck & The Flecktones — Paul Garrison, Zane Musa, Roy Shakked
A detailed description of all events is located after the News and Commentary section
To go directly to an event description just click on the index entry above
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You Know What You Know
191218
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Trump Embraces the Houseless
Donald Trump has announced that he is appointing a new ‘homelessness czar’. His name is Robert Marbut Jr. and amongst other things Mr. Marbut believes that “feeding homeless people enables them”.
Yes, I would say that eating ‘enables’ the houseless to continue living, amongst other things.
How much do you want bet that one of the first ‘solutions’ that the new ‘homelessness czar’ will present will be concentration camps for the houseless?
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Artificial Friend
The Machine knows that their central competition for the hearts and minds of their victims are the victims’ own families. Thus, they long ago very consciously set out to destroy those connections. I could write for pages and pages on the many and varied methods that they used to do this — but the bottom line for this article is that they have largely succeeded in destroying those connections. Go talk to the houseless folks downtown or go talk to people who are in prison and almost invariably you will hear of broken or non-existent family ties.
The problem is that we evolved for millions of years to operate in very intimate social structures and communities. The connections with other people that such relationships produce are vital to many of the other vital functions of our brain functioning. Within families and communities most people had a place and a sense of belonging in that place and that was — and still is — a very important thing.
There is research emerging that the central ‘cause’ of the opioid crisis is loneliness, or the lack of such social connections. They are finding that the opioids artificially reproduce the brain chemicals associated with pleasure that have traditionally been released as reward for the social connections that we used to enjoy.
If people can’t have the real thing, they will often settle for the artificial.
They will crave it, in fact…
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You Know What You Know
When I was a child I had a worldview imposed upon me that I accepted without question because I never met anyone who did question it. Then a drunk driver killed my mother and suddenly I found myself with a lot of questions.
I just heard an interview with a white guy who grew up in apartheid South Africa and he pointed out that he never questioned apartheid until he was in his early 20’s because he had never met anyone else who had ever questioned it. Apartheid was a very effective system. This gentleman had never in his life interacted with a black person until he was in his early 20’s. All his life it had been explained and assumed by everyone he ever knew that apartheid was a beneficial paternalistic system wherein white people were taking care of the black people because black people couldn’t take care of themselves. It was never explained to this gentleman that the reason black people couldn’t take care of themselves was because everything that they had had long ago been stolen by a bunch of white people with guns.
I’m thinking most everyday Israelis have never spent much time hanging out with any Palestinians.
I am convinced that the vast majority of the evil shite that goes on is the result of ignorance rather than evil. People know what they know and don’t know what they don’t know. The trick is to first accept that — and then to learn the difference.
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That’s all I’ve got this week. This is my last full week of doing the full time job thing, so I should be back in the groove soon thereafter.
In the meanwhile, though, it’s time to get to work…
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The Olympia Action Alert
Week of December 18th thru December 24th, 2019
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1) FYI Section:
1A) Action Alert from Just Housing
This message came from Just Housing:
JHO friends and supporters,
Residents of the 4th Ave Bridge encampment are stepping up their clean-up efforts at the camp, in preparation for their eventual move from their current site. The residents hope to remove garbage, downsize individual spots, and remove graffiti from the area.
Just Housing Olympia will be supporting this clean-up effort by facilitating a community cleanup at the camp on Saturday, December 21st, from 10am-3pm. We are inviting the rest of the community to join us and the residents!
How you can help:
Collect/move garbage: Extra hands to help collect trash into bags or to move it into the dumpster are always needed! Gloves, masks, cleanup tools and basic safety training will be provided!
Paint: JHO will be providing paint and painting equipment to help cover the graffiti currently on the bridge. We will also be providing the appropriate supplies to wash graffiti off of the port-a-potties.
Donate supplies: We will be accepting donations of clean-up supplies (garbage bags, gloves, masks, tongs, shovels, rakes, pitchforks, pushbrooms, etc) as well as snacks, food, coffee, and water. We are also looking for folks who can bring wheelbarrows or other wheeled carts for the day.
We hope you all are having a safe, warm, and wonderful holiday season and hope to see you on the 21s!
Love & Solidarity,
Just Housing Olympia
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1B) Message from The Backbone Campaign: Solutionary Rail
I got this message from Bill:
Friend — Thanks to you, Solutionary Rail made fantastic progress in 2019.
Just last month we submitted recommendations to the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. The BIG NEWS this week is that progressive champion in the US House of Representatives Ro Khanna tweeted this:
“While we fight climate change, 30 percent of all US carbon emissions come from transportation. That’s why I support the Solutionary Rail which will decarbonize our railway system. Check out the full plan: www.SolutionaryRail.org @BernieSanders
Today, we got word that Winona LaDuke, in an interview with Jane Fonda, spoke about Solutionary Rail and how excited she was for it. You can watch the Fire Drill Fridays interview HERE.
This week, I spent an exciting hour with folks who are establishing a Blue Green Alliance in Iowa, then another with folks advising policy makers, and then pivoted to putting the final touches on our new Moonshot Modeshift2030 supplemental policy brief for the Select Comm. with recommendations for topics and experts for hearings.
This is an exciting time for Solutionary Rail. Our years of policy and alliance building work is paying off!
IF you make your tax deductible donation HERE in the next day or so, it will be generously matched by Patagonia Action Works! (They are matching the first $10 million given to all the nonprofits they have supported. Backbone is lucky to be among the pool of recipients, but we just got word that they have almost met their match goal. So please, make your donation there as soon as possible!)
Please let us know if you use that link, so we know it is for the Solutionary Rail part of Backbone’s program. Just a quick email to info@solutionaryrail.org will do the trick.
Solutionary Rail has never been more urgent.
The report from Madrid is that not only are we failing to meet GHG reduction goals, emissions are actually increasing. Living beings on this planet are in serious jeopardy. There is no time for half measures or business as usual. We are in a Climate Emergency.
Leveraging the efficiency of rail transport & railroad rights-of-way for transmission as Solutionary Rail proposes is our best hope for reducing emissions from both transportation AND electricity generation (60% of US GHG emissions).
Experts consistently agree that Solutionary Rail is an appropriate, proportionate, and doable response to the scale of the crisis we are amidst.
2020 will be a pivotal year for bringing allies together and forming bold agendas.
This is a Solutionary Moment – and you are an essential part of the Solutionary Rail organizing “Hive.”
In 2020, your actions and generosity will propel the Solutionary Rail approach deeper into the national conversation on climate mitigation and resilience. (And plain old common sense.)
Last week, I spent an inspiring few days with allies in Southern California on the front lines of freight transport and the poisonous diesel pollution of our current freight system. East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice have been leaders in the effort to decarbonize freight transportation. Their leadership and inspiration – and enthusiasm for Backbone Campaign and Solutionary Rail affirm that we are “on the right track.”
But we need to grow the campaign in 2020, and we have plans to do so with gatherings in DC, Minnesota, Iowa and more. We are navigating how to most cost effectively get key pieces of research and data to support you and all of us to make the case for Solutionary Rail. We are determined to continue interviewing and introducing allies to each other via our interview series.
To do all this, and to support your outreach to organizations, policy makers, and universities, we need to increase our staff capacity. That’s the only way to make this a truly national campaign that keeps the values in tact and allies at the table.
As we witness a frightening degree of polarization, nothing could be more timely than a national vision like Solutionary Rail – bringing people together in common cause for the common good, with railroads that figuratively and literally connect us all.
Backbone Campaign · PO Box 278, Vashon, WA 98070, United States
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1C) Action Alert from Rise Up!
I got this message from Rise Up!:
Friends,
It is more important than ever that everyone who hates the horrors the Trump/Pence regime is perpetrating on humanity join in taking to the streets, not just to register their disgust at everything the regime does and represents or to oppose one of the unjust things it does. But to raise the demand: Trump/Pence, Out Now! and to inspire and mobilize others to join in being part of ever-growing protests that can create the kind of political crisis in society that can force the ouster of this fascist regime before it’s too late.
Look at how the impeachment battle is shaping up. The Democrats have focused it on the narrowest of terms – US national security interests being undermined by what Trump and his minions have done and are doing around Ukraine – and they have all but conceded that it won’t lead to Trump being removed from office. Meanwhile, the Trump/Pence regime is barreling ahead with its fascist agenda – pardoning war criminals, accelerating the devastation of the environment, packing the courts with more and more fascist judges, warning Black and Brown people that they better respect the cops who inflict terror on their communities or else and more. The only thing that can change this dynamic is people taking to the streets in mass, sustained non-violent protest starting now, starting Dec 14th.
See you in the streets,
Carl Dix, Co-founder
Stop Mass Incarceration Network
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2) Thursday December 19th
Supplies Drive: Oly Mutual Aid Partnership
1 to 6 pm @ 115 Legion Way SW
This event was organized by 115 Legion:
Come donate to the Supplies Drive, hosted by Olympia Mutual Aid Partnership! Drop off supplies every Third Thursday at 115 Legion from 1pm-6pm.What are Mutual Aid Mondays? We meet every Monday to distribute supplies and food to a houseless camp. We strive to build community and eliminate boundaries between our neighbors and community neighbors!How can you help? Any supplies are welcome. What’s needed most: Canned food, tarps, socks, batteries, reusable items. You can also donate at PayPal.me/Justhousing or becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/Justhousing
Join US to watch the Dems Debate! If you’re a Bernie Sanders supporter or Bernie curious or just want to come for the fun please join us! Vegan or Vegetarian potluck option. Please bring a dish to share if you can. Please bring a ingredient list for those of us with food sensitivities / allergies.
This event is all ages. We will have an open bar by donation held by Last Word Books and Press !!! ( Must be 21 years of age and have a valid ID to purchase drinks. ) All ages welcome to attend event.
Bernie yard signs,Tie-dye Bernie shirts and bags, buttons available for donation.
10 am to 3 pm @ Olympia Yashiro Friendship Bridge, 4th Ave Just West of Downtown
This event was organized by Just Housing:
Residents of the 4th Ave Bridge encampment are stepping up their clean-up efforts at the camp, in preparation for their eventual move from their current site. The residents hope to remove garbage, downsize individual spots, and remove graffiti from the area. Just Housing Olympia will be supporting this clean-up effort by facilitating a community cleanup at the camp on Saturday, December 21st, from 10am-3pm. We are inviting the rest of the community to join us and the residents. How you can help: Collect/move garbage: Extra hands to help collect trash into bags or to move it into the dumpster are always needed! Gloves, masks, cleanup tools and basic safety training will be provided!Paint: JHO will be providing paint and painting equipment to help cover the graffiti currently on the bridge. We will also be providing the appropriate supplies to wash graffiti off of the port-a-potties. Donate supplies: We will be accepting donations of clean-up supplies (garbage bags, gloves, masks, tongs, shovels, rakes, pitchforks, pushbrooms, etc) as well as snacks, food, coffee, and water. We are also looking for folks who can bring wheelbarrows or other wheeled carts for the day. Donate funds to help cover supply costs:www.paypal.me/justhousing
This event was organized by the Olympia Democratic Socialists of America:
We are the local chapter of DSA, the largest socialist organization in the United States. We are working in Olympia and the South Sound to empower working people and create a more free and equal world, whether that is through universal healthcare, housing for all, or strong, democratic unions.We hold our general membership meetings on the third Saturday of every month, at 4pm at 119 Washington St in downtown Olympia. People who are new to DSA are welcome, but we encourage folks who are interested to reach out to us ahead of time at dsaolympia@gmail.com. That way, we can provide some orientation and maybe meet in person head of time, either for a quick meeting over coffee or at one of our monthly Socials.
This week’s radio show wonders if there’s a there there, we contemplate the waste of breaking golden eggs, and we suggest that sometimes both anarchists and liberals are idiots.
We cross lines and then we go further. Only on the Thunderbolt!
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Olympia Version
Seattle Version
Bonus 6
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This program is best listened to at high volume over high-quality headphones
All of the programs in this week’s News & Commentary section originally aired on April 7th, 2017
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Segments:
Disclaimer / Station ID
00:00-00:49
TB Intro
Music: Focus
00:48-03:10
Is There a There There?
Music: Yello
03:10-07:16
Golden Eggs
Music: Ludovico Einaudi, Daniel Hope & I Virtuosi Italiani — Polysics — Hoyt Curtin — Yello — Huun Huur Tu
07:15-26:41
Disclaimer / Station ID
26:41-27:11
Evidence that Some Anarchists are Idiots
Music: Raymond Scott Quintette
27:11-30:16
Evidence that Some Liberals are Idiots
(Featuring the Toothless Old Grandpa)
Music: Carl Stalling — Ben Bernie — Peter Thomas — Uncle Ho
30:16-40:03
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Olympia Version:
Olympia Action Alert
Music: Mannheim Steamroller
40:03-50:44
Music Intro
50:44-50:54
Deaf Kids
by The Books
50:52 51:59
Credits / Disclaimer / Promo
Music: Jethro Tull
51:59-54:00
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Seattle Version:
Music Intro
40:03-40:10
She Was Waiting for Her Mother At the Station In Torino and You Know I Love You Baby But It’s Getting Too Heavy to Laugh
A detailed description of all events is located after the News and Commentary section
To go directly to an event description just click on the index entry above
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The Most Evil Person in History Award Nomination #4: Sidney Gottlieb
191211
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Good News for Suburban Dwellers!
Hey, Kids!
Yes, I have some fantastic news for Suburban dwellers! (Keep in mind, though; in referring to ‘Suburban dwellers’ I’m not talking about people who live in Lacey or Tumwater — I’m referring to people such as myself that financial necessity has forced to live in Chevy Suburbans…)
Yes, Kids, I’m most happy to announce that we have a new buddy that revolutionizes SUV living!
Yes, I would like to introduce Thunderbolt fans to the ‘Portable Buddy’ by Mr. Heater!
My new Portable Buddy is about the size of a breadbox — and once I crank him up my Portable Buddy heats my Suburban to room temperature within a couple of minutes!
Gone are the days of trying to operate a keyboard with frozen fingers! Gone are the days of trying to record my radio show swathed in blankets and forced to wear gloves so my microphone won’t freeze to my hand! And even if/when I ever manage to find a proper home, I now have a year-round recording studio and I don’t need to continue my years-long search for a heated place to record my radio show during the winter months! (Since recording my show involves playing really loud music in headphones whilst yelling into a microphone and since I need to be able to do that at 4 in the morning, that has been a major issue in my life ever since I left Media Island.)
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When I was in prison I would have given a body part for the opportunity to live in my Suburban — so I can look at my current situation from that perspective and it’s not really so bad.
The fact remains, though, that it still kind of sucks, especially during winter months.
However, thanks to my Portable Buddy it certainly sucks far less than it did before!
Thank you, Mr. Heater!
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The Importance of Action
Sometimes is seems as if we are merely talking to ourselves in circles and that our activism isn’t actually getting anything done.
The thing is that you never know what is going to hit and what isn’t — and when something does hit the results are sometimes profound.
To those of you who feel activism is ineffective, I would also point to the Battle of Seattle…
Before the WTO protests there were plenty of studies demonstrating that globalized capitalism was not only not leading us to sustained growth and prosperity, but indeed, it produced the exact opposite, especially in the global South. I’ll bet you didn’t know that the actual data actually shows that global pro-market policies promote more inequality and more poverty and more economic stagnation because the Media Machine somehow always forgets to report on that.
After the Battle of Seattle, though, it was not just the WTO meeting that collapsed, but afterwards the press actually started paying attention and reporting on the inequalities and the other downsides of our current model of global capitalism. After Seattle we had some spectacular defections from the globalist camp, such as George Soros, Joseph Stiglitz, and even ‘Dr. Shock Therapy’ himself, Jeffrey Sachs.
Then two more independent studies were published — one by American University Professor Robin Broad in the Review of International Political Economy and the other by a panel of neoclassical economists headed by Princeton’s Angus Deaton and former IMF chief economist Ken Rogoff — that demonstrated the World Bank Research Department — the source of most assertions that globalization and trade liberalization were leading to lower rates of poverty and inequality — had been deliberately distorting its data and making unwarranted claims.
Gee. I’m shocked.
As a result of all this, public confidence in global capitalism has been seriously eroded — and this happened not because of the facts (which had been there the whole time) but because the protesters in Seattle put a spotlight upon those facts.
That is just one of many reasons why activism is so important.
The Thunderbolt Most Evil Persons in History Award Nomination #4: Sidney Gottlieb
And now, ladies, gentlemen, and various permutations thereof — it’s time for yet another nomination for the official Thunderbolt Most Evil Persons in History Award.
We are proud to announce that the fourth nominee for this dubious award is (fanfares, trumpets, wild cheering) Sidney Gottlieb!
(Fanfares, trumpets — what? Sidney who?)
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First of all, while I have since adopted a policy of trying to demonize actions rather than individual people, my Most Evil Persons in History award predates that policy and while I considered changing the award to The Most Evil Acts in History Award, I have decided that I don’t want to do that because it just doesn’t pack the same punch.
I am going to continue calling it Most Evil Persons in History award in spite of the fact that of all the nominees thus far, this nomination is for a man who appears to have been the only candidate who wasn’t a sociopath and the only candidate who actually had a conscience.
Whether that fact makes the things he did better or worse than otherwise would be a good question to which I must confess to not having a ready answer…
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In his novel Cat’s Cradle, author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. created a scientist who in his spare time invented a method of ‘teaching’ water to freeze at room temperature rather than at 32o F. He called this new form of ice ‘Ice 9’. He did not invent his ‘Ice 9’ to end the world; he simply thought that it was an interesting thing to do and so he did it without considering the consequences.
His ‘Ice 9’ eventually infected all the water on the entire planet killing everything on the planet except ants and a few humans.
And then we have someone like Richard Gatling, who invented the Gatling gun and who said of his terrible invention, “It occurred to me that if I could invent a machine – a gun – which could by its rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle duty as a hundred, that it would, to a large extent supersede the necessity of large armies, and consequently, exposure to battle and disease [would] be greatly diminished.”
In other words, Richard Gatling wanted to make warfare such a deadly and terrible thing that no one would want to engage in it anymore. Such naivety is refreshing in a way — or at least it would be refreshing if the results hadn’t been so horrific. While the Gatling gun did not see much service in the Civil War, numerous Native American tribes were all too familiar with the effectiveness of Mr. Gatling’s gun.
Sidney Gottlieb represents a chip off of this block. Sidney Gottlieb was actually a caring person who considered himself to be a ‘humanist’ even as he was trying to help rid the world of the Communist scourge. As was the case with the vast majority of Americans at that time, Sidney Gottlieb 100% bought into the pervasive propaganda stating that the Communists posed an existential threat to both freedom in general and to mom and apple pie in particular.
Mr. Gottlieb sought to destroy Communism by torture and poison. Literally. Sidney Gottlieb was certainly America’s most prolific torturer of all time (and that is saying something) and Sidney Gottlieb also spent many years as the CIA’s ‘Chief Chemist’. (He had a PhD in chemistry.)
You may remember all the CIA’s crazy attempts back in the day to kill Fidel Castro of Cuba? They tried slipping him cigars laced with botulism. They tried gifting him a wet suit that had been infected with a skin-eating fungus. They tried slipping various lethal pills into Castro’s tea.
All of these methods of attempted assassination were invented by Sidney Gottlieb — and Castro was far from the only world leader targeted by Mr. Gottlieb’s unique methods of dealing lethality.
So — you would think that would be crazy enough by itself, right? This guy was the inventor of all kinds of crazy ways of clandestinely dealing out death and he was traveling the world doing just that.
However — there’s more: Sidney Gottlieb was also more responsible than any other single person for the spread of LSD in the 60’s and 70’s. Not Timothy Leary, not Ken Kesey, not Stanley Owlsley; it was frigging Sidney Gottlieb, a frigging government employee.
It was frigging Gottlieb, in fact, who originally dosed frigging Ken Kesey!
The LSD had become part of the MK ULTRA program, wherein the CIA sought methods of destroying people’s brains so they could then make that person think whatever the CIA wanted them to think. LSD proved to be ineffective at this task, but the MK ULTRA people did find other methods that did indeed work for breaking minds (if not ‘controlling’ them) and they often employ those methods to this day. Even today hardly anyone understands that the infamous ‘Jonestown incident’ back in the 1978 was also part of MK ULTRA. Jonestown was where almost 1,000 mostly Americans who were allegedly members of a religious cult that had immigrated to Guyana when actually most of them were taken there against their will and then all of them allegedly committed suicide when actually most of them were murdered.
The cult leader — Jim Jones — was a longtime CIA operative. Jim Jones literally grew up with and was a personal lifelong friend with Dan Mitrione, the infamous CIA operative.
Dan Mitrione had gotten his start in law enforcement when he had been the chief of police in Richmond, Indiana, where Jim Jones had gotten his own start in evangelical Bible-thumping. Mr. Jones would stage huge tent revivals where he would do things like pull a chicken liver out of somebody’s ear and then say that it had been a cancer.
Jim Jones soon thereafter moved on to more sophisticated methods.
While large parts of the MK ULTRA program are now public knowledge, what is not common knowledge is that Sidney Gottlieb was both the father and the chief administrator of the MK ULTRA program — which was originally called ‘Bluebird’ and then ‘Artichoke’ (Allen Dulles’ favourite vegetable) before they settled upon MK ULTRA. (‘MK’ is CIA parlance for a project that is worldwide in scope rather than one that is regionally limited. As for the ‘ULTRA’ part, Allen Dulles did indeed consider the project to be ‘ultra’ because if the CIA could control other people’s minds then that meant nothing less than global mastery — which seemed to be those people’s ultimate goal.)
(Don’t ask me why anyone would want to run the whole world in the first place other than the fact that they are simply insane…)
Even the CIA’s proudest accomplishments up to that time — the overthrow of the governments of Iran and Guatemala — would pale to utter insignificance in the face of being able to control other people’s minds.
And of course, very early on they realized that in order to take control of someone’s mind they needed to first destroy the mind that was already there — and thus destroying minds became a central focus of the MK ULTRA program. They hired several ex-Nazi doctors who had literally worked at the concentration camps — up to and including Kurt Blome, the chief of the Nazi Bio-Warfare Program — to assist them in their studies of how to most effectively destroy someone’s mind.
Sidney Gottlieb was MK ULTRA. Before Gottlieb’s arrival the project had been scattered and uncoordinated and indeed, Allen Dulles brought Sidney Gottlieb onboard specifically to have one single person coordinating all of these efforts. In addition, Sidney Gottlieb worked without supervision. Allen Dulles and his sidekick Richard Helms almost certainly knew the broad outlines of what Mr. Gottlieb was up to, but when it came to the nitty gritty details, no one wanted to know what Mr. Gottlieb was up to.
This was almost textbook ‘need to know’ kind of information.
Such is actually a common practice in intelligence circles because if you don’t know then you aren’t responsible. After some of the details of MK ULTRA became public, CIA officials claimed that there was just this one crazy guy doing all this crazy stuff back in the day and that evidently he hadn’t been properly supervised — failing to mention that this lack of supervision had been very conscious and intentional on the part of Mr. Gottlieb’s superiors.
The MK ULTRA program eventually branched out into numerous other projects, and to make things even more confusing the original project itself actually went through several further name changes over the years — but all of it stemmed from Sidney Gottlieb’s vision and Sidney Gottlieb’s work.
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I’d be willing to bet that most of you have never heard of Sidney Gottlieb, because I had never heard of Sidney Gottlieb until recently when Stephen Kinzer, the source for most of the information I have reported upon here in Thunderbolt concerning the Dulles Brothers (previous nominees for the Thunderbolt’sMost Evil Persons in History Award in their own right) wrote a book about Mr. Gottlieb called Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control.
No one has heard of Sidney Gottlieb because Sidney Gottlieb worked deep in the shadows. Hardly anyone working within even the CIA itself at the time had ever heard of Sidney Gottlieb. He was like a ghost. A former director of the CIA that Stephen Kinzer later interviewed had also never heard of Sidney Gottlieb.
Stephen Kinzer, who literally wrote the book on Allen and John Foster Dulles (The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War) said that after he discovered Sidney Gottlieb he felt as if he had found, quote, “The most powerful unknown American of the 20th Century”.
For over a decade Sidney Gottlieb — working in complete secrecy and with a virtual license to kill — carried out a large number and a wide variety of thoroughly grotesque experiments on numerous human beings over three continents. This included mass-torture, mass murder, and medical experiments that might have given pause to Joseph Mengele. This ‘humanist’ Sidney Gottlieb was responsible for an untold amount of thoroughly nasty death and misery.
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Though he didn’t realize it until later, Mr. Kinzer first became aware of Sidney Gottlieb when during his research into the Dulles Brothers he uncovered a story from 1960 wherein someone Mr. Kinzer at first assumed was a CIA courier had delivered poison to the CIA Station Chief in the Congo along with instructions that the poison was to be administered to Patrice Lumumba, the elected and popular prime minister of the Congo. Mr. Kinzer only spent about two pages in The Brothers concerning that incident, but it had intrigued him and so he continued looking into it.
He then learned that the supposed ‘courier’ hadn’t been a ‘courier’ at all, but that it had been Sidney Gottlieb himself personally bringing his lethal concoctions to the Congo.
As a result of this discovery Mr. Kinzer became interested in Sidney Gottlieb and he quickly learned that inventing poisons to kill foreign leaders was actually just a minor sideline for Sidney Gottlieb.
Sidney Gottlieb was, in fact, into all kinds of seriously deep and thoroughly nasty stuff.
And Sidney Gottlieb had sanction in the highest levels. Upon delivering the poison to the CIA Station Chief, according to his memoirs the Station Chief had angrily asked Mr. Gottlieb, “Who authorized this operation?”
Whereupon Mr. Gottlieb replied, “President Eisenhower authorized this operation.”
Oh. OK.
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The Belgians managed to assassinate Mr. Lumumba before the CIA could poison him (Mr. Lumumba’s enthusiasm for nationalizing Belgian mining interests had been what marked him for death) but still, such an operation was mind blowing even for the CIA.
While Mr. Gottlieb never actually took down a head of state, he is believed to have been responsible for numerous other high-profile assassinations of world figures over the years, including an Iraqi colonel who received a scarf tainted with tuberculosis and who indeed died soon thereafter of tuberculosis.
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Another thing about Sidney Gottlieb was that he was always the odd man out at the CIA. Virtually all the other officers were silver spoon elites who had been in the same fraternities in the same elite colleges and/or were involved with the same banks or investment clubs or country clubs and most of those guys mostly already knew each other before coming to the CIA. Sidney Gottlieb was from a New York family of Jewish immigrants. He stuttered and he limped. And another totally crazy thing about Sidney Gottlieb was that in the early 1950’s Sidney Gottlieb was a frigging proto-hippie not only in his enthusiasm for LSD, but Sidney Gottlieb also lived in an isolated eco-cabin with no running water. He meditated and studied Buddhism. He grew his own vegetables and he got up before dawn to milk his goats.
Sidney Gottlieb seems to have been one of the most gentle-hearted torturers and murderers on record.
Sidney Gottlieb became so fixated on LSD that in 1953 he convinced the CIA to spend $240,000 to purchase the entire world’s supply from Sandoz Industries, the sole manufacturer at the time. He used some of this LSD to conduct horrific experiments upon prisoners in America’s prisons. In one experiment in a federal penitentiary in Kentucky, seven African Americans — without even their knowledge much less consent — were put in an isolation cell together and all of them were given triple doses of LSD every day for 77 days. Mr. Gottlieb speculated that doing this would destroy people’s minds — and indeed, that is just what happened. The protocols for this experiment were destroyed so we don’t know what eventually happened to these seven inmates and indeed, we don’t even know what their names were.
Abroad, Gottlieb’s experiments were even more brutal as in many of those cases he did not need to worry about how to dispose of the many dead bodies his experiments produced. He experimented upon destitute refugees and North Korean prisoners of war, amongst others. He not only used LSD but he experimented with every kind of drug and extreme technique that he could imagine — and he seems to have had a pretty wild imagination.
According to Stephen Kinzer, Sidney Gottlieb performed, quote: “The most extreme experiments on human beings that have ever been conducted by any agent or agency of the United States government”.
Sidney Gottlieb also experimented with providing LSD to ‘volunteers’ because he wanted to know how ordinary people would react to LSD. One of the first volunteers was Ken Kesey, who participated at the Veteran’s hospital in Menlo Park, California, and this was how Ken Kesey learned that he absolutely loved LSD. He thereafter got a job at the hospital with the express intent of stealing their LSD, which he did indeed do. Then he went out and dosed all of his friends.
And in a side note, Ken Kesey also used his experience working at that hospital as the basis for his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Meanwhile, over at Stanford, one of the first volunteers to participate in their LSD program was famed beat poet Allan Ginsberg and Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. They all absolutely loved the stuff, they told all their friends to come on down and volunteer for Mr. Gottlieb’s program, and soon LSD had leaked out into the public at large. Then, when Augustus Owsley learned how to manufacture the stuff, he then pretty much dosed the entire nation.
What this means is that Sidney Gottlieb — a CIA operative who was one of the most prolific perpetrators of crimes against humanity in the 20th Century — was also the individual who first turned on Ken Kesey, who first turned on Alan Ginsberg, and who first turned on the Grateful Dead. Thus, Sidney Gottlieb became the unwitting godfather an entire counterculture whose central aim was to destroy everything that the CIA was and everything that the CIA stood for.
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Gottlieb’s experiments were numerous, crazy, widespread, and highly criminal. One of the 146 programs that Mr. Gottlieb administered was called ‘Operation Midnight Climax’, wherein a CIA operative named George Hunter White (a bizarre character in his own right) set up a bordello in San Francisco and hired prostitutes to dose their customers with LSD so Mr. White could then watch and record what happened.
The infamous gangster Whitey Bulger was also experimented on whilst in prison, he was also subjected to being dosed for many days on end, and Mr. Bulger later stated that this experience had changed his entire life.
He also expressed a desire to go and ‘kill the doctor’ who had administered the experiment.
In spite of all that he did, Sidney Gottlieb remained mostly an invisible ghost. The only time Sidney Gottlieb’s words were recorded for the public record was when he was questioned by the Church Committee (in secret session) concerning his involvement with the assassination plots. He was never questioned about MK ULTRA. With the assassination plots, Mr. Gottlieb had had approval from the highest sources, so he was legally covered. That would not have been the case with MK ULTRA.
When the lid was finally blown off of MK ULTRA, Sidney Gottlieb was soon to be dead and thus the CIA was most happy to escape accountability for MK ULTRA by blaming everything on him, stating that things were just crazy back in those days and thus Mr. Gottlieb was able to perform all his actions without anyone upstairs knowing anything about it — which, as I mentioned, was indeed true. However, as I also mentioned it was only true because Mr. Gottlieb’s superiors didn’t want to know what Mr. Gottlieb was up to specifically because they could then avoid accountability if/when the lid were ever were blown off the activities by truthfully claiming ignorance.
The final bizarre twist to his story is the aforementioned fact that Sidney Gottlieb was not a sociopath. In spite of everything, Sidney Gottlieb seems to have had a conscience. After retiring from the CIA (and after destroying all records of MK ULTRA) it was obvious to many people who knew him at the time — as well as to Seymour Hersh who interviewed him during this period — that Sidney Gottlieb was a very troubled man. After his retirement Sidney Gottlieb and his wife spent 18 months running a leper hospital in India and then Mr. and Mrs. Gottlieb spent his final years looking after the dying at a hospice.
When he died in 1999, Mrs. Gottlieb declined to provide a cause of death.
In spite of all the evil he perpetrated, the toll of the death and misery that Sidney Gottlieb perpetrated pales in comparison to that caused by men such as Allen Dulles, who was directly responsible for the deaths of many millions if not tens of millions of innocents, or even compared to some of the more famous mass exterminators such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. Still, the bizarre nature of the harm Sidney Gottlieb caused and the fact that unlike all the others Sidney Gottlieb didn’t have the excuse of being a sociopath I feel qualifies him for the nomination of Most Evil Person in History if not the actual award itself.
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2) Wednesday December 11th and Numerous Other Times Throughout December
“Nuclear Weapons: Updates on the Crisis and Opportunities”
5 to 6 pm on Your computer or TCTV cable channel 22
This is Glen Anderson’s most excellent monthly TV program:
The December 2019 interview on “Glen’s Parallax Perspectives” TV series (cable channel 22 in Thurston County — and also watchable anytime through Glen Anderson’s blog (www.parallaxperspectives.org) provides information about nuclear weapons that most people do not know.
When the Cold War ended 30 years ago, tensions eased, but the danger of nuclear war has increased again recently, so this hour brings you up to date on the currently escalating dangers – and also some new opportunities for disarmament.
Three knowledgeable guests – Bob Delastrada, Joanne Dufour and Mark Fleming – bring us up to date with information, insights and opportunities that you will find interesting and exciting. We report on some exciting new efforts to restrain and reduce nuclear weapons – and some efforts to abolish them altogether. All three guests and the host are active members of the Olympia Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
We highlight some of the hard realities from the Cold War (policies such as Mutually Assured Destruction and First-Strike, dangers of “command and control,” accidents that nearly caused horrible devastation, etc.) and attempts to reduce the dangers (including the growth of the disarmament movement, the Freeze Campaign, etc.).
We also share insights into the fear-mongering and the government’s attempt to make people feel powerless and subservient to the nuclear Establishment.
After the Cold War ended, some tensions reduced, but nuclear weapons persisted with recklessness but less public awareness. Now Trump has been trashing treaties and provoking a new nuclear arms race that could destroy the world.
All of this serves the military-industrial-political complex. But the disarmament movement now is growing again and organizing for new opportunities to reduce and actually abolish nuclear weapons worldwide. We explore some of the new opportunities at the global, national and local levels.
Our December 2019 TV program covers the first half of this material, and the same guests will cover the second half in our February 2020 program.
We prepared more information than we could squeeze into the TV interviews, so I encourage you to visit my blog, www.parallaxperspectives.org, so you can not only watch this video but also read my article thoroughly summarizing what we said during this interview. The article also includes much additional information beyond what we had time to say on TV. See below.
Watch Powerfully Insightful and Important TV Programs
Through Your Computer or on TCTV
Cable TV subscribers in Thurston County can watch this interview on Thurston Community Television (TCTV) three times a week throughout the entire month: every Monday at 1:30 pm, every Wednesday at 5:00 pm, and every Thursday at 9:00 pm.
Everyone everywhere can watch this interview – and/or read a thorough summary of what we said (and additional information) – through Glen’s blog, www.parallaxperspectives.org. Each program and thorough summary are posted to the blog’s “TV Programs” category and one or more additional categories (in this case, the blog’s “Nuclear Weapons” category).
Questions? Contact Glen Anderson, the TV series’ producer/host at (360) 491-9093 glenanderson@integra.net
This event was organized by the Olympia Democratic Socialists of America:
Oly DSA hosts a Jacobin Reading Group that meets on the second Wednesday of every month at 6PM at Orca Books, 509 E. 4th Ave. Olympia, WA 98501. We generally discuss three or four short articles of interest to socialists published primarily, though not exclusively, in Jacobin. Contact us at jacobin@olydsa.com for more information. All are welcome!
Fantastic Fungi Film – Meet Paul Stamets in Olympia, WA
6 to 9:30 pm @ Capitol Theater, 206 5th Ave SE
This event was organized by Fantastic Fungi:
Tickets $15 (members $12)
Doors open at 6:00 PM
Special Post-Screening Mushroom Discussion with Paul Stamets! This event will sell out quickly!
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Fantastic Fungi is more than a film – it is a portal to connection and collaboration. We are establishing the team of edge runners (leaders in the mycelium world) who will be instrumental in getting this important film and message out to create the largest and most meaningful conversation and impact possible. We invite you to join us on this journey!
Film Summary:
When so many are struggling for connection, inspiration, and hope, Fantastic Fungi brings us together as interconnected creators of our world.
Fantastic Fungi, directed by Louie Schwartzberg, is a consciousness-shifting film that takes us on an immersive journey through time and scale into the magical earth beneath our feet, an underground network that can heal and save our planet. Through the eyes of renowned scientists and mycologists like Paul Stamets, best-selling authors Michael Pollan, Eugenia Bone, Andrew Weil, and others, we become aware of the beauty, intelligence and solutions the fungi kingdom offer us in response to some of our most pressing medical, therapeutic, and environmental challenges.
11 am to 6 pm @ The Evergreen State College Longhouse, 2700 Evergreen Pkwy NW
This event was organized by the Evergreen Longhouse:
Native artists selling work in a wide range of media and prices on the beautiful Indigenous Arts Campus at The Evergreen State College.Parking is $3.00 on Friday (free on Saturday) and can be purchased at the main entrance to the college. Park in lot B and take the short walk to the Longhouse.
This event was organized by the South Sound Chapter of the Ecobuilders:
EcoBuilders Holiday Party! Please Join us for a celebration of green building progress, to reconnect with old friends and new ones, and look ahead to 2020! Party is at Sasha’s House…. turn South at next traffic circle west of Boulevard traffic circle, on Hewitt Lake. House has a hedge around it and a 6-car garage. Call (360) 789-0171 if you get lost…
6:30 to 7:30 pm @ Huntamer Park, 629 Woodland Square Loop SE,
Lacey
This event was organized by the Olympia Peace Choir:
In the depths of winter, we celebrate the return of the light with songs of peace, hopefulness, and connection. Please join the 120-voice Olympia Peace Choir for a secular celebration of the season guaranteed to inspire you. As with all Peace Choir events, this concert is free and family-friendly.
11 am to Noon @ the Olympia Center, 222 Columbia St NW
This event was organized by the Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation:
Olympia FoR Holiday Gathering ~ December 14 ~Let us stand all together and conspire ~
We warmly invite you to participate in Olympia’s 44th Annual Holiday Peace Vigil Saturday, December 14, 11:00 am to 12:00 noon along West 4th Avenue
(south side of Percival Landing and north of Heritage Fountain)
The Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) sponsors this annual peace vigil, which has become a beloved Olympia tradition. We welcome children! The Olympia FOR provides signs, and participants may bring their own. The Artesian Rumble Arkestra will perform and help us dance to keep warm.
Please join us at the Olympia Center, 222 Columbia St NW, for hot soup and fellowship.
FELLOW OLYMPIA RESIDENTS: Please honor the plight of our houseless population as winter grips us. You have seen good coverage in The Olympian regarding the increasing need and the scarcity of resources. Union Gospel Mission, Interfaith Works, Providence Community Care Center, Community Youth Services and other government and faith groups are working constantly, but individual charitable giving is vital. Thurston Food Banks do a monumental job, and other feeding programs support survival without normal housing. As the situation deteriorates, anger, violent crime and theft put pressure on law enforcement. Lack of shelter exposes already vulnerable people to disease and predation from criminal intruders. Please watch and help as you can.
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9) Saturday December 14th
Duck the Malls 2019
11 am to 4 pm @ Capitol Theater, 206 5th Ave SE
This event was organized by Duck the Malls:
An awesome local craft fair taking place inside the historic downtown Olympia Capitol Theater. This event was created to support local and independent artisans and artists in the South Sound and visual art programming at the Olympia Film Society. Duck the Malls has become a holiday tradition and draws a huge part of our community members wanting another great opportunity to shop locally, creatively, and alternatively for the holidays and support true craftsmanship! And there is no entrance fee for shoppers!
Trans-Expansive Potluck for Youth & their Families
11 am to 1 pm @ 700 4th Ave E
This event was organized by UNITE Olympia:
UNITE Olympia presents an inclusive trans-expansive (transgender, non-binary, and questioning) potluck for elementary and middle school youth and their families! Come join us in our community room on Saturday, December 14th from 11am to 1pm. Come build community and enjoy great food!
** Unaccompanied youth must present a signed permission slip for entry.
This event was organized by Stonewall Youth of Olympia:
It’s time for a Stonewall Youth Community Potluck! Our all-ages community potlucks are queer-centered and also open to folks who don’t identify as LGBTQ+. Bring yourself, your friends, your (chosen) family, and/or that person you’ve been meaning to hang out with.The theme of this potluck is Community Care and Wellbeing. Along with feasting, we’ll talk together about how we can take care of ourselves and each other during these stressful times. There will also be time for playing board games, getting to know each other, and hanging out at Stonewall Youth’s fabulous headquarters.Stonewall Youth will provide rotisserie chicken and more! You’re encouraged to bring something tasty to share. Don’t stress if you’re not able to bring anything or only have time to sprint into the store to pick up chips & dip or some non-alcoholic beverages to share! The important thing is that you show up and feast in community with us. No alcohol, please.It’s FREE! Of course, we will be delighted if you want to donate some funds to help us cover the costs of the event.Stonewall Youth is committed to making these monthly potlucks a safer place for all in our community, particularly LGBTQ+ folks, youth, people of color, elders, and low-income folks. Bring your respect! The potluck is on Sat. Dec 14 from 6pm to 8pm at Stonewall Youth (112 State Ave NE, Olympia WA 98501)
Noon to 4 pm @ Sylvester Park, 615 Washington St SE
This event was organized by the Olympia Assembly:
The rainy season is upon us, and the Really Free Market is returning to Sylvester Park! On Dec 15th, we’ll be in the park from 12 to 4 PM. Come on down to take, trade or give whatever you want. All items are free! Hopefully there will be hot food.We are looking to obtain a few specific items ahead of time in order to make the event beneficial to those most in need of some mutual aid. If you want to donate or volunteer, PM or email rrfm.oly@gmail.comto let us know.Here’s a list of items we’re looking for:clothes (for cold weather especially)tarpsfirewoodTents(hot) foodbooksbags/backpacksshoessocksphone chargersheadphoneslighterspatch kits for tires/tentskids toystools (bike tools especially)random useful stuffvolunteer tasks:hot foodhaircutstransporting suppliesevent set up/take down
1 to 4 pm @ the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, 100 Brown Farm Rd. NE
This event was organized by Learning Right Relations:
For our December Gathering, we are honored to welcome Cynthia Iyall, in honor of the Exoneration of Chief Leschi!”It is important to have Leschi portrayed correctly so that the future, our children, have a true sense of where they come from. They should inherit and feel the strength, pride, tenacity and intelligence that Leschi left us.” – Cynthia Iyall, speaking on the importance of her ancestor’s, Chief Leschi’s, exoneration in a bio by the Washington State History Museum. Please join us for this wonderful opportunity to learn more about the legacy of Chief Leschi, known for his generous heart, loyalty and shrewd intelligence. Presentation will be held in the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge Auditorium, and will be followed by an informal potluck. Contributions of plated, ready-to-serve finger food are greatly appreciated! Note: $3 Refuge fee and parking pass requirement are waived for those attending presentation.To learn more about the story of Chief Leschi’s exoneration, please click here to read article by Hans Sherrer, Chief Leschi Exonerated of Murder – 146 Years After His Execution
6 to 8 pm @ The United Churches of Olympia, 110 11th Ave SE
This event was organized by Olympia SURJ:
Olympia Showing Up for Racial Justice has a monthly General Meeting that is open to the public on the 4th monday of each month from 6-8 (altered this month because of holidays) with a newcomers/core values meeting from 5:30pm-6. We host quarterly POT LUCKS and December’s general meeting is a POT LUCK. The purpose of the pot lucks is to break bread and share food together and get to know each other. Please bring food to share or arrive hungry. Our core organizers also meet once a month together and in meetings throughout the month… if you are interested in attending those or if you are interested in becoming a core organizer or a more involved general member, please contact us.——————-SURJ is a national network of groups and individuals working to undermine white supremacy and to work toward racial justice. Through community organizing, mobilizing, and education, SURJ moves white people to act as part of a multi-racial majority for justice with passion and accountability. We work to connect people while supporting and collaborating with local and national racial justice organizing efforts. SURJ provides a space to build relationships, skills and political analysis to act for change. The Olympia SURJ Chapter is a multi-racial group striving to put white people in motion to fight white supremacy. We are accountable to many people, we have BIPOC led organizational partners, we are accountable to each other, and we are accountable to our community, which includes YOU. Our Olympia SURJ chapter hosts monthly GENERAL MEETINGS from 6-8pm and you are invited. There will be lots of updates on work happening and ways to plug in or get in motion. We will be talking about the work being done with our core organizers, general membership, and accountability partners. There will be teachings and opportunities to TAKE RISKS, connect with each other and build trust. There’s lots of work to do so please join us in showing up for racial justice. Our General Meetings offer an opportunity to share events, announcements and work that we or other folks might not know about. Bring a friend and/or try to connect with someone you haven’t yet met during tonight’s gathering. Bring your wallet as you will learn about ways to make reparations and contribute to needs of our BIPOC community members. We continue to grow deeper connections, by getting to know each other, building with each other, and sharing strategy by asking and sharing “How are you? How’s your family? What have you done today to fight white supremacy?” are you NEW TO SURJ, or do you have a desire to GO BACK TO OUR SURJ basics and CORE VALUES? Please arrive a half hour early to participate in our new member orientation from 530-6pm accessibility The United Churches of Olympia is on the 12, 13 and 68 bus routes. There are parking lots in front of and behind the church, there is also off street parking behind the church. The building has a ramp and ADA compliant restrooms. Enter at the main doors on 11th Avenue. There are no stairs, the meeting is on the main floor. Our monthly meetings have snacks provided, thanks to the on-going support of the Olympia Food Coop. Childcare IS provided for this meeting. Please email us at olympiasurj@gmail.comif you will need childcare (so we roughly know how many children to expect) or if you have any other access needs. thanks.WE LOOK FORWARD TO CONNECTING WITH YOU!
This week’s radio show reunites with a childhood friend, we view reality from both sides now, we reveal perfidy at the Southern Poverty Law Center, and we reveal how the Rump is inciting treason, civil war, and coup.
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High voltage stuff. Take proper precautions.
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Olympia Version
Seattle Version
Bonus 6
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This program is best listened to at high volume over high-quality headphones
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Segments:
Disclaimer / Station ID
00:00-00:31
TB Intro
Music: Focus
00:30-02:17
The Zig Zag Man Abides
Music: Edward G. White — Michael Manring — The Sound Dogs
02:17-07:43
Yes He Sucks — Except When He Doesn’t
Music: Coconut Monkeyrocket (2X) — Black Randy & the Metrosquad — Don Byron
A detailed description of all events is located after the News and Commentary section
To go directly to an event description just click on the index entry above
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A Forecast of Thunderbolts
191204
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A Forecast of Thunderbolts
Hey, Kids!
So — if you hadn’t noticed — the holiday season is upon us. As with most things created by humans, I find many admirable things about Christmas and many other highly disturbing things about Christmas. We’re supposed to be celebrating the birthday of the ‘Prince of Peace’, who was a homeless far-left radical activist who took direct action against the status quo and who paid with his life — yet his holiday has devolved into an insane explosion of consumerism gone wild. This seems to me to be pretty much the polar opposite of the message that Christ was trying to convey.
I suspect that a contemporary Jesus would likely be throwing over the tables at the nearest Amazon warehouse…
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I have a projected Thunderbolt project on the table — another nomination for the official Thunderbolt Most Evil Person in History Award, in fact — but due to my current temporary status as a full time employee and due to the fact that I spent a lot of time on the radio show this week, I’m afraid that I don’t have anything else for this week’s issue.
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That means it’s already time to get to work!
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The Olympia Action Alert
Week of December 4th thru December 10th, 2019
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1) Wednesday December 4th
Pizza Party for a Cause Dec 2019
6 to 8 pm @ 518 Capitol Way S
This event was organized by the Capital Homecare Cooperative:
Feeling those winter blues comin’ for ya? Fear not, for Pizza Party for a Cause is back again! Come share some delicious pizza, play games and drink nummy drinks for a good cause with friends! This event never fails to deliver giggles, a great time, and as always benefits the vulnerable adults in our community! Even if you can’t make it to the event, you can still participate by ordering pizza ToGO on December 4th and writing CDC on the tip receipt.
Pizzeria La Gitana is donating 20% of the event proceeds in support of Capital Homecare Cooperative’s ongoing effort to create a fund for those who do not qualify for public pay and cannot afford private home care prices.
This event was organized by the Thurston Climate Action Team:
Lynn Fitz-Hugh will give a public presentation on both the history and theories of social change. You will leave with a clear understanding of how social change works.
History is written by the victors. The history of social change movements is under reported and generally not taught in our schools. How can we stop recreating the wheel and learn from the success and failures of the amazing giants who acted before us?
What are the tools for social change beyond depending upon politicians who maybe corrupt or unresponsive?
How can we learn to create affective strategies pulling upon a wide range of tactics?
Come join us and learn some of the answers to these questions!
We have had Thirsting for Bernie at Burial Grounds, Tabling for Bernie at the Farmers Market, Phonebanking for Bernie at various locations. Thursday December 5th let’s leave our cares and worries outside and come in to Oly Underground for a fun night of Bernioke: karaoke with a progressive twist inspired by Bernie Sanders!
Bernioke is karaoke with progressive themes, activist elements, and if you really feel the Bern, singing in the style of Bernie Sanders!
We will be noshing on poblano poppers, discussing the benefits of the Green New Deal, healthcare w/ no deductibles or co-pays, there will even be a prize in the best Bernie look alike contest!
Enjoy the fun side of progressive politicking and feel the BERN with fellow activists. Start planning your karaoke set now and see you next Thursday!
Noon to 3 pm @ Washington State Capitol, 416 Sid Snyder Avenue SW
This event was organized by the WA Youth Climate Strike:
We had over 2,000 people attend the September 20th strike, let’s keep the momentum going! This time we will be gathering at the Capitol steps, marching, and rallying at Heritage Park!
Schedule:
12PM: information at the Capitol steps, a couple speeches
12:30PM: start marching
1:00PM: arrive at Heritage Park where there will be tables, music, art, etc.
This event is partnered with the Protectors of the Salish Sea, and we stand in solidarity with their demands for Governor Inslee.
Monthly 1st Friday Open House: Get to Know a Muslim Event
Noon to 2 pm @ Islamic Center of Olympia – Masjid Al-Nur, 109 Legion Way SW
This event was organized by the Islamic Center of Olympia – Masjid Al-Nur:
“GET TO KNOW A MUSLIM” event:
Welcoming friends, allies, and people of all faiths or no faith with a sincere desire to learn more about our faith and connect with individuals and families from the most diverse faith community in South Puget Sound.
At the same time you will get to experience the sermon in English and Arabic, hear a beautiful call to prayer, witness the prayer itself, have a Q&A session and enjoy ethnic and American snacks.
PROGRAM:
• 12:00 PM sharp meet on the steps of the center for a welcome briefing. If it’s raining/snowing please proceed up the steps of the main building to the foyer of the main prayer area (shoes off please).
• 12:10 PM enter the mosque to hear the call to prayer at 12:15 sharp.
• 12:15-12:45 sermon (English and Arabic)
• 12:45-1:00 observe the prayer (or join if you like)
• 1:00-1:15 mix and mingle with community members
• 1:15-2:00 Q&A circle time, a brief presentation and snacks in the community hall (basement)—every 1st Friday of each month.
1:30 to 3:30 pm @ the Northwest Detention Center, 1623 E J St, Tacoma
This event was organized by La Resistencia:
For too long, ICE has held the power to determine who stays in our communities and who gets detained and deported. Meanwhile, landlords and big developers determine who stays in our neighborhoods and who is forced to move.
We are reclaiming the power to define our own communities, to determine who stays and what has to go! And we’ve decided that ICE and GEO Group must go! We demand that ICE be abolished and that GEO Group pay reparations to families harmed by the detention system. We demand accountability for big developers and self-determination for displaced tenants. We demand that the land on which NWDC is built be returned to its rightful owners – the Puyallup Tribe.
Join us this Saturday, Dec. 7 for a rally outside NWDC to #EvictGEO!
This event was organized by the Thurston Conservation District:
Come hear from local farmers about how the current drought conditions and local climate change conditions have impacted their production and practices. Representatives from forestry, vegetable production, livestock farming, and shellfish will be present to answer questions and share their experiences.
Please RSVP here or contact Nora White, nwhite@thurstoncd.comor 360-754-3588 ext.136
The Thunderbolt newsletter archive (new editions posted every Wednesday morning) and the Thunderbolt radio program archive (new shows posted every Friday morning):
The Thunderbolt 