This is continued conversation with Walter Starck, editor of the impressive Golden Dolphin Video CD Magazine, who first contacted us after hearing of our crop circle documentary, Crop Circles: Quest for Truth. For the first part of the conversation, visit Walter Starck – Page One.

Walter writes:

Ongoing world events leave one wondering if somehow one has stumbled through some wormhole of space/time into a dimension akin to the Wonderland of Alice. On all sides passionate belief and righteousness accompany denial, fantasy and logical contradiction that in more rational dimensions would be simply deemed insanity.

Fundamentalist Muslims invoke the name of Allah (the all merciful) for making possible the mass slaughter of innocents. More moderate Muslims disavow the carnage in principle but many seem peculiarly reluctant to condemn specific acts or those responsible. It almost seems as if such would somehow be perceived as disloyal or if perhaps on some level such acts if not justifiable are thought to be at least understandable. The first response to each act of terrorism also appears to be widespread denial of responsibility for any suspects. Then, as evidence mounts, denial is replaced by accusations of nefarious plots claiming CIA culpability. The hardcore fundamentalist cry jihad and seek confrontation with America by atrocities against it. Should Allah bless their endeavors with significant success the outcome would indeed be the holy war they are seeking but most likely in the form of nuclear retaliation that would reduce their civilization to scattered remnants of desert nomads, a peculiar aspiration to say the least.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we have a President who assures the Iraqi people we have no beef with them. Unfortunately, however we may have to kill a few hundred thousand of them because their government might have or could develop weapons of mass destruction that might possibly be used against us. Surely they will understand, it's nothing personal. Strangely, volatile Pakistan and paranoid North Korea do have such weapons and pose a more real threat of use but they present too many complications. So, they go into the too hard basket, and anyway they don't have anything really valuable, such as oil. Still, one sure way of finding out if someone is hiding dangerous weapons is to attack them and see if they use them.

In Congress, amid all the genuine soul searching over Iraq, one speaker after another has seemed compelled to express our peace-loving nature before deciding on the reluctant necessity of war. The United States was founded by war and our history is that of one war after another. Although we see ourselves as a peaceful nation we have never known a generation without war and the rest of the world sees us as rather bellicose. If our protestations of peace are for the benefit of others it's not working. If we are trying to reassure ourselves it clearly seems we have some doubt and taking a more careful look at where we are going (again) might be a good idea.

Our overriding concern at the moment is terrorism. While we have been agonizing over the maybes of Iraq, terrorists have been having open season all over the globe. The obvious fact is it cannot be prevented by force. Israel has endured decades of it despite having excellent military and intelligence capabilities, a compact well-policed area to protect and a small source area that is under their direct military control. The U.S., on the other hand, has a vast area to protect, a multitude of vulnerable targets impossible to police, a global source for terrorism with which to deal and very poor intelligence access to much of it.

While the situation is already bad it is growing worse in term of the means to and targets for terrorism being ever increasing with the advance of technology. Already cross country oil, gas, electricity, water and communication lines are vulnerable as are bridges, tunnels, and dams. Food distribution and the health care system are open to chaos. Various crop and livestock pests and diseases can easily be unleashed to play havoc with food production. Forest fires are trivial to start. All this doesn't even have to involve taking human life but can have even more detrimental effect on society as a whole. As time goes on knowledge of such things as genetic engineering becomes more advanced and widespread. Even an individual with modest funds will soon be capable of unleashing havoc.

It is clear we will not be able to prevent massive disruptions with force alone. We are going to have to discover and address the root causes of terrorism. We may even have to do the unthinkable and actually communicate with the terrorists and try to reach some degree of mutual understanding. Or, we can stand on principle with both sides claiming God and righteousness while continuing to slaughter one another.

Repeatedly I hear our politicians proclaim the terrorists hate our freedom, our tolerant open society, our democracy. This is nonsense, they couldn't care less about us or the way we live. What they hate is the poverty, ignorance, corruption, and repression in their own society. Unfortunately, being humans they refuse to consider that any of this is an outcome of their own culture and beliefs. America is a conspicuous scapegoat. Its influence is large and obvious. It represents success at many things where their own society has failed. It also commonly aligns with corrupt and brutal regimes and intervenes or meddles in the affairs of other nations. Although this may be less (or less effective) than is often claimed it is nevertheless enough to provide a foundation in reality to support whatever more elaborate paranoid fantasies that chance to arise.

As the uncontested superpower the U.S. must learn to use that power with great care and discretion else it become the hated bully and subject of blame for all that is wrong in the world. Although terrorism can't be controlled by force it can be prevented by alleviating its root causes of poverty, ignorance, and injustice. This is the real war on terror. Military action is only a tactic. It may be effective in certain limited circumstances but as a sole strategy it will only generate more terror. Until we recognize this and move the balance of our effort to favor peace building over war making we will have terrorism to endure.



Suzanne responds:

Indeed, Walter, "Ongoing world events leave one wondering if somehow one has stumbled through some wormhole of space/time into a dimension akin to the Wonderland of Alice." I recoil at war being as neutral a subject as tennis or cooking, let alone at the horror of an aggressiveness where America is fomenting invasions. As I listen to conversation that is so accepting of the whole issue of war, I feel out of tune with many patriots. Actually, there is a little respite I get from David Hawkins's map, where, although a large majority are indeed in a mentality in which war is an ordinary modality, that's offset by the power of more conscious people being exponentially greater than the power of unconscious ones. I especially resonated with these pithy statements of yours and that conclusion you draw, that you and I are so resonant about, where America has to look to how we participate in causing the mess we are in:

"Should Allah bless their endeavors with significant success, the outcome would indeed be the holy war they are seeking, but most likely in the form of nuclear retaliation that would reduce their civilization to scattered remnants of desert nomads."

"One sure way of finding out if someone is hiding dangerous weapons is to attack them and see if they use them."

"Although we see ourselves as a peaceful nation we have never known a generation without war and the rest of the world sees us as rather bellicose."

"The obvious fact is it cannot be prevented by force. Israel has endured decades of it despite having excellent military and intelligence capabilities, a compact well policed area to protect and a small source area that is under their direct military control. The U.S., on the other hand, has a vast area to protect, a multitude of vulnerable targets that are impossible to police, a global source for terrorism with which to deal and very poor intelligence access to much of it.

"While the situation is already bad, it is growing worse in term of the means to and targets for terrorism being ever increasing with the advance of technology. Already cross country oil, gas, electricity, water and communication lines are vulnerable, as are bridges, tunnels, and dams. Food distribution and the health care system are open to chaos. Various crop and livestock pests and diseases can easily be unleashed to play havoc with food production. Forest fires are trivial to start. All this doesn't even have to involve taking human life but can have even more detrimental effect on society as a whole. As time goes on knowledge of such things as genetic engineering becomes more advanced and widespread. Even an individual with modest funds will soon be capable of unleashing havoc.

"It is clear we will not be able to prevent massive disruptions with force alone. We are going to have to discover and address the root causes of terrorism. We may even have to do the unthinkable and actually communicate with the terrorists and try to reach some degree of mutual understanding. Or, we can stand on principle with both sides claiming God and righteousness while continuing to slaughter one another."

Sent by Walter:

THE FURTHEST OUT: CLINTON AIDE SLAMS PENTAGON'S UFO SECRECY
By Richard Stenger cnn.com 10/22

(CNN) -- One winter night in 1965, eyewitnesses saw a fireball streak over North America, bank, turn and appear to crash in western Pennsylvania. Then swarms of military personnel combed the area and a tarp-covered flatbed truck rumbled out of the woods.

Now a former White House chief of staff and an international investigative journalist want to know what the Pentagon knows, calling on it to release classified files about that and other incidents involving unidentified flying objects, or UFOs.

"It is time for the government to declassify records that are more than 25 years old and to provide scientists with data that will assist in determining the real nature of this phenomenon," ex-Clinton aide John Podesta said Tuesday.

A Pentagon spokesperson could not be reached for comment regarding the requests for information.

Despite earning little credence, cases of strange aerial phenomena that defy explanation abound -- whether witnessed by thousands of Arizona residents, commercial airline pilots or a U.S. president.

The new initiative is not setting out to prove the existence of aliens. Rather the group wants to legitimize the scientific investigation of unexplained aerial phenomena.

Podesta was one of numerous political and media heavyweights on hand in Washington, D.C., to announce a new group to gain access to secret government records about UFOs.

Specifically, the Coalition for Freedom of Information (CFI) is pressing the Air Force for documents involving Project Moon Dust and Operation Blue Fly, clandestine operations reported to have existed decades ago to investigate UFOs and retrieve objects of unknown origins.

Mysterious case?

One of the most mysterious cases, the Kecksburg, Pennsylvania incident of December 5, 1965, is the first cited in the group's request for records through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Despite an official government story that the object was a meteorite, some eyewitnesses claimed that a military truck took an acorn-shaped object the size of a small car from the rural Pennsylvania crash site to an Air Force base in Ohio.

"We can't come up with a reason why this information is being withheld. The government won't even acknowledge that the incident took place but we know that it did," said Leslie Kean, a California-based freelance reporter who drafted the FOIA request.

In the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, the government did take the UFO search seriously and top generals considered the pros and cons of informing the U.S. public, Kean said, citing top secret memos.

In 1969, however, the Air Force terminated Project Blue Book, concluding that no reported UFOs were threats to national security.

Paradoxically, Kean notes, the military continues to deny some requests for UFO information by citing national security concerns.

Trying to stamp out ridicule

Backed by the Sci-Fi channel, the CFI hopes to reduce the scientific ridicule factor in this country when the topic is UFOs.

"There's definitely evidence of strange phenomenon in the world. These are well documented," said Kean, who has written for The Nation, the Boston Globe and the International Herald Tribune.

"Most people don't think that there is evidence because they haven't look for it. There's such a little green men mindset in this culture. It's hard to work your way through that."

The CFI director Ed Rothschild also works for Podesta's public relations firm, PodestaMattoon, which is coordinating the new group at the behest of the Sci- Fi channel. He said the initiative was a call for serious investigation, not a publicity stunt for the cable network.

"The Sci-Fi channel has had an interest in [UFOs] for some time. The difference here is that they are focusing attention on the serious, factual side of the issue, and that scientists have not had a chance to thoroughly examine it," Rothschild said.

"Of course it could help programming. But Sci-Fi thought they had some resources they could bring to the table."



Suzanne replies:

This is a ray of sunshine. It feels like it has legs. I see the wondrous Leslie Kean, whose terrific piece, Origin of Crop Circles Baffles Scientists, is posted in my Crop Circle Diary, is the person who filed here under the Freedom of Information Act. Boy, get some hot people interested in supressed subjects and just watch sparks fly. Feels like there's some play of forces beyond our control going on -- that the heightened danger we're in is getting balanced by opening to what's further out than otherwise could get in.



Walter writes:

My real fear is that if we continue to try to exterminate the terrorists while doing nothing to understand or address the underlying causes, terrorism will only fester and escalate and sooner or later they will succeed in obtaining and using a nuclear weapon. Perhaps unspeakable catastrophe is the only thing that will shake the power worshipers from their righteousness. One can only hope not.

Look at this. Unbelievable. The fundamentalist mindset is similar no matter what religion it adheres to. If there is way to perpetuate and exacerbate misery and injustice they will find it.

U.S. May Abandon Support of U.N. Population Accord

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 - The Bush administration, embroiling itself in a new fight at the United Nations, has threatened to withdraw its support for a landmark family planning agreement that the United States helped write eight years ago. The reason for the threat is contained in two terms that the administration contends can be construed as promoting abortion...

Suzanne writes:

This election feels ominous. What can happen now but something awful? What can avert that? It's so obvious that we can't win the game we are in that it's hard to believe people support it so wholeheartedly. I so wish I could help. What I know about that they don't is the crop circles. I did a presentation yesterday with my PowerPoint materials. Every time I review the data I go deeper into it -- this time especially about the geometry. It is so staggering. The circlemakers use all sorts of mathematical tricks. I made a list of some more arcane or unusual or at least foreign to me things they employ -- beyond all the geometric and fractal elements that the formations abound in, from which in fact we've derived new geometry theorems. Circles demonstrate the harmonics of light, the tetraktys (sacred symbol of the Pythagorian order), eastern Yantras (used for meditation), Borromean Rings (from the Renaissance and Medieval design), Koch fractals, the Sierpinky Sieve, Archimedes Spirals, Cycloids, Tribars (like Escher used), and the diatonic scale that is embedded in many of the formations. The hand of a brilliant designer is plain to see. How can this be ignored by mathematicians? I can understand systems' resistance to change, but for no noteworthy individuals to get it is very bizarre to me. That George Bush is popular, which is beyond my comprehension, even that is not as strange as the failure to pay attention to what is so visible and available. In the face of the exquisiteness which is being laid out for us, could we really keep our guns pointed at one another? I think not. We would be in another realm, where attempting to cope with what is so beyond us would take precedence -- even if at first it was a recognition of a species-wide need for defense against what could be an enemy to humanity. I wonder if, after being awed, we'd look to defense.



Walter responds:

The most logical (and obvious) explanation, that crop circles are the product of an advanced non-human intelligence still can't be voiced [in the media], even as a hypothesis, but we're getting closer. I am with you on crop circles and inner awareness. Although we don't know enough yet to support any firm conclusions the most reasonable hypothesis is that they are intended for our benefit and not to instruct but to discover. Moreover, they are indeed already having such effect upon those who are not in denial and that number is growing.



Suzanne writes:

Look at this piece, Sidney M. Willhelm's Understanding the new Imperial Empire, sent by Daniel Pinchbeck, which gets pretty heavy duty toward the end - predicting internment camps for dissidents, and suggesting the new 'perma-war' is based on many of the same conditions that led to the Civil War: the necessity of transitioning from one energy economy to another, resisted to the death by the established elite.



Walter responds

While I don't dispute the facts and the dangerous potential of what is occurring I do think is overdrawn in certain respects. In the antebellum South slavery was the only significant basis of wealth. Today the energy sector represents only a fraction of wealth. True, the Bush administration is quite obviously pro oil and gas and generally pro big business, but the interests of finance, manufacturing, agribusiness, IT, media, medical etc. do not coincide with those of oil and are indeed a useful counterbalance. Also, despite obvious examples of malfeasance it is a mistake to attribute wrongful motives to big business, the oil business, the administration or even George Bush himself. Few people are truly evil but most have a remarkable ability to justify their own personal interests even when others suffer as a result...

There is also another important difference between slavery and oil that should not be overlooked. Slavery could go on indefinitely. Oil is in quite finite supply and the oil industry is very much aware of this. Already supply barely meets demand, demand is increasing, new discoveries decreasing and reserves diminishing. Large price increases, shortages, and severe economic effects will force major changes away from oil even if the chaos threshold of climate change does not dramatically intervene first. Regardless of what big oil does its days are limited unless it leads the way into renewable energy.

Right now all I see happening is oil pursuing its immediate interests and a conservative administration lashing out at enemies without much thought to causes or consequences. That's bad enough without adding paranoid conspiracies of global domination, dictatorship and a police state.



Suzanne writes:

With Daniel Pinchbeck having us thinking about psychedelics, it is curious that certain psychedelic substances put different people in touch with the same 'entities,' making one think they have a tangibility beyond interior experience.




Walter replies:

Different persons perceiving similar "entities" is significant but says little about their independent existence. They could as well reflect cultural stereotypes, Jungian archetypes, simple neurochemistry or even telepathic linkages among ourselves. I remain open to the possibility of their independent reality but see no benefit and some danger in bestowing them with belief without the necessity of reasonable proof.

There are various ways of reading psychedelic experience. This is my best guess. I don't think the perceived light and dark forces are separate discrete entities but rather different aspects of ourselves. Our consciousness is a small part of the universe that mirrors the whole, however imperfectly, like a small piece of a hologram. It is the microcosm that encompasses the macrocosm. When it focuses on its immediate self it tends to become small, vulnerable, selfish and mean. When it looks outward and sees itself as integral with the whole it becomes more generous, compassionate, and comfortable with itself.

The forces of dark and light are both potentials within us. Like waves vs. particles, what becomes manifest depends upon our point of view. In this respect we create the kind of world we live in. The dark side does have its attractions and it's immediately available with no special effort. The light side requires ongoing development but is a vastly more pleasant place to be. Whatever objective existence the forces of dark and light may have apart from us is intriguing but not a pressing issue. They can only manifest through our cooperation.

In the Gnostic Gospels Christ is reported to have said that if we develop what is within us it will save us but if we do not it will destroy us. I suspect that this was what Christianity was all about before small mean undeveloped spirits usurped it as a power structure to be used for their own ends.

As with the circles, it's up to us. Enlightenment has to be developed. It can not be bestowed or appropriated.

 

For more exchanges with Walter Starck, click here...

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