Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Eliot Spitzer lives in his father’s building: Douglas Feiden, “Empire of the Son. How Dad’s Real Estate Fortune Pays Spitzer Benefits,” NY Daily News, October 29, 2006, http://www.ny dailynews.com/archives/news/2006/10/29/2006-10-29_empire_of_the_son_how_dad_s.html
In Chapter 17: Tom Clancy’s book Debt of Honor included a sequence where a plane loaded with fuel is hijacked and flown into the U.S. Capitol. Some conspiracy theorists might say that this means Clancy was involved in planning 9/11, but the rest of us realize that this shows just how outside-of-the-box thriller writers think. Clancy himself has talked about meeting with an Air Force officer during the writing of that book and asking the officer about the planes-as-weapons scenario he was spinning. The officer replied, “Mr. Clancy, if we had a plan to deal with this, it would be secret, I wouldn’t be able to talk to you about it. But to the best of my knowledge we’ve never looked at this possibility before.”
Clancy writes about crashing planes into buildings: Steve Bradshaw, “A Warning from Hollywood,” BBC, March 24, 2002, http:// news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/audio_video/programmes/panorama/transcripts/transcript_24_03_02.txt
In Chapter 18: Rudyard Kipling was fifty-three when he wrote the poem I excerpted in the book. As Noah explains, Kipling had lost his son in World War I and his daughter prior to that, and he was in a dark place in his life. The “Copybook Headings” he refers to are the headings from the handwriting-practice notebooks that used to be distributed. In these, a famous quotation or commonsense adage would be printed at the top and the student would practice their penmanship by rewriting that sentence over and over, all the way down the page. This would accomplish two things: handwriting practice (obviously), and a subtler reinforcement of practical knowledge and life lessons from history. As Noah says, the entire poem is well worth a read.
Rudyard Kipling’s poem: Rudyard Kipling, “The Gods of the Copybook Headings,” See the full text here: http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_copybook.htm
Kipling’s biography: Harry Ricketts, Rudyard Kipling: A Life (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2001), http://books.google.com/books?id=x4sTAiRqhKMC
In Chapter 19, we see the term “COINTELPRO” included in the agenda that Noah and Molly discover. This term seems to have now been adopted by conspiracy theorists, but before you write it off it’s worth looking at what this real government program was originally intended to accomplish.
COINTELPRO: Ed Gordon, “COINTELPRO and the History of Domestic Spying,” National Public Radio, January 18, 2006, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5161811
See also: Michelle Goldberg, “Outlawing Dissent: Spying on Peace Meetings, Cracking Down on Protesters, Keeping Secret Files on Innocent People-How Bush’s War on Terror Has Become a War on Freedom,” Salon.com, February 11, 2004, http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/02/11/cointelpro/print.html
See also: David Horowitz, “COINTELPRO’s Overdue Return: The New FBI Will Be Able to Investigate Americans Who Pose a Threat to National Security-and That’s a Good Thing,” Salon.com, June 4, 2002, http://dir.salon.com/story/news/col/horo/2002/06/04/cointelpro/index.html
More from Chapter 19:
Casus Belli: Daniel Schorr, “In Search of a Casus Belli,” Christian Science Monitor, August 9, 2002, http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0809/p11s02-cods.html
The Overton Window: Nathan J. Russell, “An Introduction to the Overton Window of Different Possibilities,” The Mackinac Center, January 4, 2006, http://www.mackinac.org/7504
Airline security reacting to failed threats: Alan Gathright, “No Small Feat, Tightening Up Shoe Inspections,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 12, 2003, http://www.seattlepi.com/national/130541_shoes12.html
If you want to understand what programs like “cap and trade” are really all about (money) then start doing some homework on the intersection of corporations, politicians, and special interests. The links below on Enron, the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and Fannie Mae are a great place to start:
Carbon trading and Enron: Lawrence Solomon, “Enron’s Other Secret,” Financial Post, May 30, 2009, http://network.national post.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/05/29/lawrence-solomon-enron-s-other- secret.aspx
See also a video of Rep. Scalise (R-LA) questioning Al Gore along these lines: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpEcPFSEIwQ
U.N. Agenda 21: See the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs publication: http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/index.shtml
The Chicago Climate Exchange: “The $10 Trillion Climate Fraud,” Investor’s Business Daily, April 28, 2010, http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=531731
See also: Ed Barnes, “Obama Years Ago Helped Fund Carbon Program He Is Now Pushing Through Congress,” FoxNews.com, March 25, 2009, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/25/ obama-years-ago-helped-fund- carbon-program-pushing -congress/
See also: Barbara Hollingsworth, “Barbara Hollingsworth: Fannie Mae Owns Patent on Residential ‘Cap and Trade’ Exchange,” The Washington Examiner, April 20, 2010, http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Fannie-Mae-owns -patent-on-residential-_cap-and-trade_- exchange-91532109.html
In Chapter 20 we get a chance to hear Molly begin to state her case, and she focuses on the economy. If you were still doubting that both political parties are driving us toward the same place at different speeds, the first statistic she cites is pretty eye-opening:
National debt has doubled since 2000: Mark Knoller, “National Debt Up $2 Trillion on Obama’s Watch,” CBSNews.com, March 16, 2010, http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20000576503544.html
Bailout money going overseas: Eamon Javers, “AIG Ships Billions in Bailout Abroad,” Politico, March 15, 2009, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20039.html
See also: Sharyl Attkisson, “Following Bailout Money to Tax Havens,” CBSNews.com, February 23, 2009, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/23/eveningnews/main4822689.shtml
In Chapter 21: Ragnar Benson, whose books we hear about here, is the pen name of a survivalist author who has written some pretty edgy books over the years. (The story goes that the pseudonym Ragnar Benson was originally borrowed from the name of a construction company outside Chicago.) Benson’s book Mantrapping (which is actually available on Amazon.com) opens with the line: “Without question, man can be the most difficult animal on earth to trap…” But, as Molly tells Noah, “he’s mellowed out since then” and his more recent books deal with survival and self-sufficiency techniques.
Ragnar Benson: Mary Roach, “The Survivalist’s Guide to Do-it-Yourself Medicine,” December 17, 1999, http://www.salon.com/health/col/roac/1999/12/17/survivalists
See also: Paladin Press’s list of books by Benson: http://www.paladin- press.com/category/Ragnar_Benson
More from Chapter 21:
“Cherish, therefore, the spirit…”: Thomas Jefferson, Merrill D. Peterson, The Political Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Jefferson Foundation, 1996), http://books.google.com/books?id=MlhB2iCTq60C
Washington, wooden dentures and the cherry tree: “Facts and Falsehoods about George Washington,” http://www.mountvernon.org/visit/plan/index.cfm/pid/808/
“These are the times that try men’s souls.” Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, http://books.google.com/books?id=vDq6AAAAIAAJ
Many in Washington want us to start looking at regulation as a good thing, but here’s an example of what can happen when government gets to regulate existing law. Sure, the Second Amendment says that you are allowed to
