Jamie xx - It's So Good

 

Lord Bragg & BBC In Our Time - The Millenary Edition

In Our Time is a weekly BBC R4 conversation hosted by Melvyn Bragg with usually three top scholars or academics in their field of study. I've been wanting to complete this since the 1000th episode I drafted, and so it's now or never. 

We must press on.

 I've been listening to IoT from the early episodes if not just a wee bit later than 1998. The information we're allowed to overhear, the quality of conversation, is valuable and often precious, but not just for what we learn. It continually adds more context to what we already know. I can't say school was a good experience for me but IoT has contributed to my ongoing education more than any other source in my life.

A thousand episodes is an extraordinary achievement. IoT is now an online resource that will always encapsulate the life and times of Lord Bragg, with a range and depth of subjects that are now steadily topping up ours.

Now, on that subject when I was an adolescent before Melvyn Bragg was ennobled, he had a Television production called The South Bank Show. He was always comfortable around authentic, inquiring minds and a wide range of interesting people. To top it off he was handsome on the Telly and a public intellectual you'd want to hang around with, and he still is. Do you know how hard it is to be all those things in British culture and still be well regarded?

Tough call. There are many pretenders but fewer successors and regrettably impostors are everywhere, lisping their way though the third act. Jonathan Myles-Lee perhaps came closest. Now there was a man who likewise had an enormous appetite for, the true, the beautiful and the good.

It's impossible for me to hold back on a few theories I've picked up, like lucky pennies and tuppences over the years from listening to IoT. 

This may come as a surprise to many listeners but Lord Bragg is awake, and red-pilled. Maybe even initiated, and possibly not as well. The questions asked of his guests are seldom easy to answer. It's not doctrinaire responses we're looking for it's the differences in the views of the guests as well when they're all singing from the same spreadsheet. It's all informative.

From time to time questions are answered with a little hesitation that is not expected from our best and brightest. One of the best questions regularly asked by Baron Bragg is 'How do we know that?' and the answer is we don't. We're relying on accounts often written centuries later.

I invite you to revisit the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum - March 2017. I can't emphasise enough to listen over and again till a familiarity with the material emerges. This may then fuel your own questions about the official version of human evolution with respect to the climate, weather and atmosphere that initiated our launch from primordial soup to sentient biped. Be sceptical and if you have the ability, be cynical.

Got that?

That's the warm up although there are more absolute gems in that episode, but the objective here is to be limbered up for the kind of detached and cool headed analysis from the Climate Change episode produced much earlier on 6 January 2000

It takes a sort of cobbled-stone stubbornness, and refreshing use of reason, logic and curiosity to listen properly to In Our Time. Kissinger said only academics fight over tiny details, as the stakes are so low.

Don't get me wrong. In our Time is invariably warm, authentic and collegial, it's edited but not in a way that seems anything less than generous. Though rare, I've noticed over the decades that a guest or two appear to be scoring points. It's out of order. They diminish themselves while blaming the victim for the very qualities of restraint they are lacking in. I only mention it because Melvyn Bragg doesn't engage in tit for tat and also leaves it in the episode for us overhear. That's aristocratic integrity. You can't buy that, especially from a working class background.

Over the years I have learned more about great women in history (often the first notable writers in the United Sates and Europe) from Lord Bragg than anywhere else. I  was a prolific book reader who tried as many genres as possible up to my 30s. I've said it before in the Hildegaard of Bingen post but its worth a reminder. If feminism means emancipating women with opportunities they are ordinarily excluded from, Lord Bragg is the greatest living feminist I know. It's unmissable that he enjoys and appreciates women as well respecting them. 

One more playful observation. Again, over the years so it doesn't happen every time but I've noticed that Melvyn (if I may) has the ability to make people laugh at the drop of a hat. Now he may deny that, but it's a quality suppressed through self control, because his work isn't as an entertainer. Funny, charming and erudite are all qualities he has but Lord Bragg is a serious contributor to understanding the nature, as well as the times that our lives are living in.

I shall be adding episodes below that I feel have been most important to me over the years. There's no rush to list them all immediately, and so I'll start with Strabo who like Jesus, nobody had bothered to document until centuries later.

Strabo's Geographica

States of Matter

Edward Gibbon

Parasitism

The Upanishads

Melvyn Bragg Interviews Gore Vidal - Southbank Show - 2008

It's a wonderful conversation although for me, there are two exceptional moments in this 2008 Southbank production. Baron Bragg says he saw the US President was in Africa on TV that morning but Gore Vidal interrupts his story.

'How can they tell?'

Lord Melvyn Bragg tries not to laugh louder and it's worth paying attention.

I'll come back to the second moment a little later.

As a little Torquemada?

— LAsky (@LAsky66) September 6, 2023

Took ages to find out the word I couldn't understand. I find listening very difficult in any language and generally respond to body language more than words. That's why podcasts are the best way of learning for me. Nothing to distract my eyes. In any case Gore Vidal is referring to Torquemada. A name I've never heard before.

What's striking is the comparison with Bobby Kennedy and saying it on camera. This is why Gore Vidal was a Greek among Romans. He said what he thought even if it took its toll, as he did with the Salzburgers who own the New York Times, now even worse and inarguably a propaganda rag. GV was an insider and knew the Kennedys so it's an exceptional piece of intel as we're now presented with RFK Jr who has done an excellent job on the Covid scamdemic only to declare his unfailing support for Zionism despite Ben Gurion's role as the highest authority (he reported to the next level up) for initiating JFK's and by extension RFK's assassination. To understand all that do a search on JFK + PERMINDEX then look at the correspondence between JFK and Ben Gurion on Dimona. JFK was adamant that Israel would have no nukes and that decision cost him his life.

Don't get me wrong. JFK upset everyone you could imagine (CIA, DoD and the FED etc) but the one thing nobody discusses is that he was bloodline and he chose to make the speech that went too far at the Waldorf Astoria which is Astor bloodline. They had to take him. He was doing everything he could to expose them. 

Another gem that I picked up from Gore is that his blind Senator grandfather was 33 Degree Mason and that it's common in bloodline families for one child to be clued up and another to have no idea. They are 5th Dan black belts in secrecy and most people haven't a clue.

I'm going to use this space to share a little more of what this video confirmed for me but only those who bother to check back on this post will know. I have no intention of embarrassing anyone, but the above video confirms my hypothesis and that's a confirmation that is mostly for my indulgence. I hope the future looks upon In Our Time as a very classy effort at asking difficult questions to answer about their lies. 

The credit goes to the man in the arena.

Professor Ronald Hutton - Gresham College - Early Roman Paganism

It's an exceptional presentation and sometimes hallucinogenic in its Damascene honesty. 

Unforgettable. 

What was the name of the college again?

Compelling Diocletian Arguments

A lot of history is biased, which is why Diocletian requires more attention. A lowly born Roman emperor. Did some amazing things, made some cruel sectarian decisions.

Most importantly he diluted his power with The Tetrarchy ;its unprecedent and he retired to Split in Croatia. He grew vegetables and felt more proud of that than any of his power endeavours.

This narrative is completely counter cultural to orthodox history. Guys who do the right thing in the end, are easily airbrushed from the past or branded as traditores.

Lord Bragg on Early Christian Martyr's intersects with the topic.

The Silk Roads

The Silk Roads commences a little bumpy, and ends premature.

Other than that it's a great educational journey.

Horses and silks for sale, more interesting than gunpowder routes.

Flavian Dynasty Creation of the Gospels - A Refutation

I still like the idea of Flavian dynasty creation of the gospels because frankly I'm damn sure all religious texts are copied, manipulated, created or corrupted by the winners of history called the victors (ahem). However given I've written so much about this in the past in favour of Atwill's work I think it's only fair that a counterargument is posted here, though you will note the argument doesn't actually tackle the spooky consecutive coincidences that is the foundation of Atwill's thesis.

 Nevertheless good arguments are raised in this video above though I'm too busy paying taxes to have time to rebel against any authority figures.

Meet The Romans | Mary Beard

The Romans started to come together for me while watching I Claudius some years back but only in a chronological kind of way. To get some real texture I recommend Mary Beard's Meet the Romans three part series. Mary's focus is on ordinary Roman life and after watching all three of these it's unlikely you'll find Roman history so abstract or remote as it has been previously.

There's some great scenes including the thumbnail cover for video two above where Mary sits in the public latrines. We don't know if men and women sat together but up to 40 people sitting in an open room taking a shit is fascinating anthropology. Just imagine how liberating it would be to know you're not the loudest, longest, smelliest or messiest. 

Or even if you are how you would post rationalise it as 'only nature'.

I'd love to take a shit Roman style just to appreciate modern conveniences a bit more.

Mary Beard's - Caligula

If Caesar is the rock star of Roman history, Caligula is the Charles Manson. 

Real name Emperor Gaius, Caligula is the diminutive for Roman Boot so it actually means something like Bootikins and was the name the Roman soldiers called him when he was a child and walked around the garrison towns in his small Roman boots.

Mary Beard is an excellent presenter of information who talks to the viewers in simple language and in a direct, forthright manner. She's a joy to learn history from.

Carthage - The Roman Holocaust

I'm not very comfortable using the holocaust word in a post title, as it props up a terrible lie with a grain of truth in it.

However, that's the name of this BBC documentary on Carthage which like Germany was destroyed and subject to barbaric mythologising through, in this case, Roman propaganda merchants like Virgil.

I've already stated that the numbers for Jews killed in prison camps is grossly exaggerated but there's the gas chamber mythology that needs to be nailed and snuffed out, despite the shrill calumny it will earn me.

I have to do it however or I wont be able to live with myself.

Great atrocities are committed by all sides during war but make no mistake the winners are by no means the greatest people to write history.

If anything the reverse is true.

Jewish & Roman History | Titus Flavius Josephus AKA Joseph ben Matityahu

The lecturer Henry Abramson is too conflicted in this presentation to offer much value on the subject of Josephus ben Matityahu  but it's not a bad introduction for those studying Roman and Jewish history.

This yarmulke wearing historian is unable to say a single word critical of Judaism which is perplexing because he can't call out Josephus as an obvious Jewish traitor and Roman disinformation agent.

In addition Abramson suggests ideas like the Roman Empire no longer exists. 

Does he even look at the architecture of D.C or the symbolism of Oval office pronouncements?

It seems not.

Josephus seems to have had a role in the creation of the Jesus mythological character though it's fair to say that the full story is probably a mixture of little bits of real and fiction in spades.

The Roman Creation Of Jesus - Joseph Atwill's Signature Presentation

I do have questions such as why are there Roman writings that nod towards the Flavian dynasty creation of Jesus to dissipate the messianic uprisings in Judea. However the overall thrust of Joseph Atwill's claim is robust and I'm confident that the Gospels are a form of propaganda that in many respects have taken on a direction of their own that I don't think even the Flavian dynasty could have anticipated.

The power of this work is that once we recognise that Jesus is a fictitious character used to mind control populations we are then more prepared to look around us and ask where else are we being misled. There's plenty of it about.

Joseph Atwill - Caesars Messiah | The Roman Conspiracy To Invent Jesus

Earlier today, Richard Dawkins tweeted about Joseph Atwill's work on the synthetic creation of Jesus by the Flavian dynasty who also built the Roman Coliseum

I've posted a few times before on Joseph's brilliant information detailing the complex story of the Roman Flavian dynasty's manufacturing of Jesus Christ, through the gospels, to contain the messianic religion of Judah with their own God called Caesar. 

The clues are in the narrative genre of the day called a 'typology'.

Typology is no longer really used or well understood, but you can imagine it as say an allegory like George Orwell's Animal Farm. It would be difficult to understand this style two thousand years in the future if there are no farm animals left on the Earth. The story isn't meant to be grokked by those doing the religious mind control but fully understood by the educated Romans and Jews of the day.

Christianity's Conversion To Emperor Constantine

This is very good though I can't help but be suspicious of Portillo since the gossip of his taste in young boys has emerged from the Savile scandal though of course that may be all it is. Just gossip. He comes across as authentic unlike Dirty Dave Aaronovitch and Andrew Neil who both vigorously defended Lord McAlpine.

I'm coming to the conclusion that if the Flavian dynasty's creation of the typological Jesus (a literature genre of the time) is accurate, it's been the biggest double edged sword of history and a philosophical anomaly to deism that is worth discussing with atheists. Fascinating stuff and this episode is a great example of the politics of supplanting religion where an Emperor wants it.

Update: The Portillo movie was removed so I replaced it with the best. Professor Freedman of Yale who is single handedly responsible for teaching me the Early Middle Ages.

Caesar's Messiah - The Roman Conspiracy To Invent Jesus By Joseph Atwill

Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus - Flavian Signature Edition

The thing that intrigued me most when I first learned about this is Joseph Atwill's claim that the Roman Flavian dynasty created Jesus as a typology in much the same way that a thousand years from now only a clever historian might be able to understand that Animal Farm is an allegory 'typology'. 

That's a crude explanation but watch the trailer and you may get a feel for this subject which is crucial for emancipation from the notion that we're here to worship anything other than life itself.

I should be more clear about Joseph Atwill's work.

When I first heard the Flavian's mentioned here I thought who the fuck are they? But the more I learn about them the more sense it makes. The usual way to make a buck from this kind of topic is to use familiar historical figures like Julius Caesar. This is why I groaned at having to learn a new Roman dynasty but I knew deep down there was something to this.

Did Rome Create Islam?

 

From time to time I'll listen to this argument. I haven't heard or seen the concrete evidence I want and I've never had a chance to put the questions I have about this claim but it does interest me and it does fit into the thesis, antithesis Hegelian dialectic. Walter Veith is quite scholarly and less religious rant than Eric Phelps. I don't like any of the Abrahamic faiths. They're all pretty ugly in the way their followers behave. Christians the most murderous and ugly.

Was Jesus A Flavian Dynasty Propaganda Invention?

I've posted interviews with Joe Atwill before over here. He asks a great question. In an area where Qumran, Jericho and Jerusalem are a stone's throw from each other in 'shoebox sized' Judea how did the Christian story emerge with two conflicting narratives? One from the Dead Sea Scrolls talks about killing the gentiles and the other talks about turning the other cheek and rendering unto Caesar that which is his.

They also cover Aramaic scholar John Allegro's mushroom and the cross which I've posted about previously, and I recommend reading my Was Jesus An Arsehole Zadokite? and this Dead Sea Scrolls post.

There are so many conflicting accounts of Jesus that I just a pick a couple of lines here and there like, love thy neighbour, and hope they're the right ones to keep and are not elite manipulation of the kindness of humans. Religion has after all been their most powerful tool to get us killing each other. Their latest religious cult is called Government and a lot of people are hooked on it.

Here's the details from Jan Irving's post:

This episode is an interview with Joe Atwill, author of Caesar’s Messiah, part 2, titled “On Caesar’s Messiah, John Allegro, and mind control” and is being released on Monday, August 06, 2012. My interview with Joe was recorded on June 09, 2012.

This is our first video episode, so if you’re getting this in audio only, please go to the Gnostic Media website if you’d like to see the video version.

We had Joe on back on April 1, and today he’s back.

Joseph Atwill spent his youth in Japan where he attended the only English-speaking school in the country, St. Mary’s Military Academy. The school was run by Jesuits so removed from the events of the modern world that they did not even consider shutting it down during World War II, and taught a curriculum that had not changed since the eighteenth century. Atwill describes that, “The majority of every one of my school days was spent studying Greek, Latin and the Bible, which for some reason I found fascinating.”

After studying computer science in college, Atwill began working with one of the most renowned programmers in the world, David Ferguson. David had been granted the first two patents ever issued in computer software. Over the next twenty years, between 1975 and 1995, David Ferguson and Atwill started a series of companies including Ferguson Tool Company and ASNA. “After selling my interests in our companies to investors in 1995, I returned to my earlier interest; the origins of Christianity,” Atwill says of this time period.

Atwill continues, “Though I had drifted away from the Catholic faith, my study of Christianity never stopped. Over the course of my life I had read perhaps six or seven hundred books relating to the historical Jesus and early Christianity, but none of them left me feeling like I really knew anything about how the religion began or its founder.” Atwill contends that the more he studied Christian origins the more he saw the question of how the religion began as an open one. Atwill held this position in spite of the fact that in the popular mind, and in the minds of most scholars, Christianity began as a movement of lower class followers of a radical Jewish teacher in the 1st century CE.

Says Atwill, “I did not share in this certainty.” What contributed most to his skepticism was that at the exact time the followers of Jesus were purportedly organizing themselves into a religion that urged its members to “turn the other cheek” and to “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s”, another Judean sect was waging a religious war against the Romans and seeking a Messiah who would lead them militarily. Atwill continues, “It seemed implausible to me that two diametrically opposite forms of messianic Judaism would have emerged from Judea at the same time. So the Dead Sea Scrolls became of such interest to me that I began what turned into a decade-long study of them.” Like others, Atwill was hoping to learn something of Christian origins in the 2,000 year old documents found at Qumran. To assist in his understanding of them, Atwill began studying the history of the era.

It was then that Joseph Atwill came across the key that led to his discoveries. “While reading Josephus’ War of the Jews, and his account of Titus’ destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE,” Atwill recounts, “I noticed some curious parallels. At first I could make no sense of the parallels between Titus’ campaign and Jesus’ ministry. So I tried to look at the Gospels with fresh eyes, as if I had never seen them before, giving up any preconceived notions about what they meant.” This perspective resulted in the discoveries Atwill presents in Caesar’s Messiah and his soon-to-be-published book, The Single Strand. A Roman imperial family, the Flavians, had created Christianity, and, even more incredibly, they had placed a literary satire within the Gospels and War of the Jews to inform posterity of this fact.

Understanding the symbolic framework for the Gospels opened up the hidden history of Western Civilization to Joseph Atwill. That framework enabled him to recognize the typology that underlies authors such as Marlowe and Shakespeare and see the incredible story their typology tells us, and is the basis for The Single Strand.

Joseph Atwill concludes, “I am an avid chess player and proud to state that I have more than 100 victories over Grandmasters and International Masters. I hold an ICC Masters rating of 2358.” It is this form of strategic thinking that enabled Atwill to uncover the strategy behind the Romans’ invention of the Gospels.

Books by Joseph Atwill include Caesar’s Messiah, Ulysses Press 2006, the best selling work of religious history in the US in 2007, and its German translation Das Messias Ratsel, Ulstein 2008, achieving #1 Best Seller status. Atwill’s upcoming book, The Single Strand is also slated to be published by Ulstein. The German Magazine Focus published a cover article of Atwill’s work: Issue #52 December 25, 2008.

Chalmers Johnson - The Republic Has Crossed The Rubicon

The late Chalmers Johnson points out that Eisenhower's Military Industrial Complex speech was meant to be Military Industrial Congressional Complex but he was advised it would be too incendiary. I love the smell of broken republic in the morning. Then we can move on.

I Claudius - The Documentary (Who Will Be The American Praetorian Guard?)

Claudius was one of the most capable, yet unlikely emperors. Shunned as an idiot by his family due to a limp and embarrassing stutter, Claudius spent the first decades of his life absorbed in scholarly studies until the death of his nephew Caligula. After Caligula's murder the Praetorian Guard found him hiding behind a curtain in the Imperial Palace, expecting to be murdered. Instead the guard proclaimed him emperor. His reign was marred by personal catastrophes, most notably promiscuity and betrayal by his first wife. He governed well and conquered the troublesome island of Britain. He was poisoned by his second wife, Agrippina Jr., mother of Nero. His story was brought to life by Robert Graves in the 30's who channelled him although that term didn't come into usage until the seventies with the Seth material.


At some point a neo Praetorian guard needs to emerge in the United States and round up the treasonous US Senate including the current president for signing the NDAA legislation if the Republic is to survive. I'll leave that to history to decide if that is its wish.

I Claudius - Reign Of Terror (Department Of Sounds Familiar)

There is much to be learned from Robert Graves' I Claudius. Who the States deems too stupid and insufficiently polished to pay attention to. What kind of self serving psychopaths it elevates to the highest positions, and most telling is how ambition serves to bring the edifice down as it crumbles under the weight of its own absurdity.

The reign of terror and war on terror cannot exist without each other. But in the end they destroy each other.

John Hurt as Caligula is in a league of his own. So dark and sinister he's mesmerizing. A truly Kali Yuga figure.