From Fabian Socialism to Class Struggles: Looking Both Ways on the Road to Revolution

BY GREG GUMA

  

In Edward Bellamy's 1888 best seller a time traveler went a century forward, "Looking Backward" from a future when the work week has been drastically reduced, products and services are delivered instantly and everyone retires at forty-five with health benefits. Transported to the same year in Dons of Time, my time-traveling hero Tonio Wolfe interrupts a debate with William Morris at a London soiree and discusses modern problems with Ignatius Donnelly.

"That's William Morris," said Annie Besant. "Wallpaper, carpets, curtains and all that. These days he's a revolutionary." Five years ago, she explained, Morris had joined the Democratic Federation, then the only active socialist organization in the country. But the businessman knew nothing about Marx or Henry George. He was an aesthete and an instinctive rebel. As a result he split the Federation a year after joining it, and formed the Socialist League.
      Last year he split again when the anarchist faction asserted itself.

      "As much as I would like to join the chorus I'm afraid I cannot," Morris announced. "We have moved past the point where propaganda will turn the tide. We are on the road to revolution - or oblivion. The corruption of society is complete, is it not? Well, all right, then the time has come for a new order, not another manifesto."
      "And what is this order -- is it imposed by force, does it include nationalization and control of individual initiative?" It was a comment from someone in the crowd, just beyond Tonio's view. That voice, so familiar. He strained to see.
      Ignatius Donnelly looked exactly as Tonio remembered him from the View Room, piercing blue eyes, stocky frame, commanding presence. "I enjoyed and appreciated Progress and Poverty," he said, an acknowledgement of Henry George's grand opus. "His argument is logical, and in terms of Ireland it may be correct. There is no way to justify such vast quantities of land in the hands of so few."
      "Your point, sir." Morris didn't appreciate being interrupted mid-rant.
      "But personally, I remain too much a Jeffersonian to embrace nationalization and so-called panaceas like the single tax. Such ideas strike at basic rights and the very fundamentals of society."
      "What rights?" A challenge from the crowd.
      "The right of any man -- or woman -- to enjoy the fruits of his labor," Donnelly said defiantly. "Without that we relapse into barbarism."
      "I think we've heard enough of the American position," Morris cut in. "So, what can the Society do about the individualist strain? I suspect any educational project on the other side of the pond will run a bit longer than the masses can afford."
      "America will follow its own road," Donnelly insisted.
      "And who will lead it, sir? You?"
      "Maybe he will," blurted Tonio before he could stop himself. Dozens of faces turned his way. Realizing what he'd done, he quickly added, "as governor in the great state of Minnesota. You are the Farmer Labor Party candidate, are you not?"
      "I have that honor," acknowledged Donnelly, a bit shocked that anyone in the audience recognized him. The room erupted into spontaneous applause. Donnelly basked in the moment.
      "You know him?" Annie was impressed. "I do as well actually, we met briefly last spring. Interesting man -- strange ideas."
      Tonio thought: There goes another time commandment. This is not inconspicuous.
      As the debate continued, they retreated outside for a private moment. Donnelly needed to know something about the random American who had come to his defense. Annie re-introduced herself and apologized for Morris, insisting that there was enough room in the Fabian Society for differing views on the issues he raised.
      Tonio kept his introduction vague, then inquired about Donnelly's latest book, The Great Cryptogram.
      "That's why I'm here instead of campaigning at home," the politician explained. "It's my second trip this year. But this one will be brief, a few paying engagements and I'm gone. Where are you staying, we should meet."

The Great Cryptogram (1888) 

       In February, he'd attended a Labor Alliance convention but failed to notice a growing rift between farmers and the Knights of Labor. After he left for England the Alliance endorsed a St. Paul banker named Albert Scheffer as its candidate for governor. This upset the unions, which hadn't been consulted. Scheffer was playing the angles, seeking the Republican nod while talking about temperance and tariffs. The establishment sensed a split they could exploit, while Donnelly's labor friends launched a plan to draft him. A letter from one ally, reaching him in London, said he was "the only man in the state in whom the people have confidence."
      "It was an awful dilemma," Donnelly lamented. "Meanwhile, savage insects ravaged the wheat. For the first time in twenty-five years we didn't have a bushel to show this season. And the Bank of Minnesota was making unpleasant noises about some debts. Still, the party leaders promised to raise a substantial war chest. In a sense I suppose my critics are right. I really can't say no to a nomination, one more chance to put my case before the people."
      "Then what are you doing here?"
      Donnelly flashed a devilish grin. "Money goes farther and the food is cheap. But seriously, it's all the Republican's fault. They may be many things but they are not stupid. In the end they didn't nominate Scheffer. Instead they went with Bill Merriman. Do you know who that is? Why should you? He's the man I supported for Speaker of the House just last year, a solid supporter of many of our issues, including the usury bill. Yes, he is also a banker, but I have to say he is essentially an honest fellow who seems to want fair, economical government."
      He had decided to withdraw from the race after several friends in the GOP arranged an invitation by the Republican National Committee to speak on behalf of Ben Harrison in New York. But at a meeting the pols suggested, without much subtlety, that should Harrison become President, well, Donnelly's contribution would not be ignored. He despised such vote buying and influence peddling. On the other hand, he thought James Blaine's decision to break the GOP convention deadlock and back Harrison had given him a solid edge.
      "It's also really what Kate wants," Donnelly admitted with some embarrassment, "for me to be paid for all the campaigning and perhaps to secure a federal appointment at some point."
      "What did you decide?"
      "I declined," he said glumly. "I had to. I'm in pretty hot water at home over that. And meanwhile, the Alliance hasn't been able to raise the promised funds for the governor's campaign. So, as to why I'm here, the honest answer would be, I'm in hiding. Hopefully, by the time I start home word will begin circulating that my withdrawal is imminent. Eventually, I will have to bite the bullet and make the endorsement."
      "Won't your labor friends feel betrayed?"
      "I'm not looking forward to that discussion."

Terror in the Air

Donnelly was a pleasant host but a bit mercurial. He would begin most days like a fighter in training for a match, but then get distracted or preoccupied for hours by some minor statistic or news item. He'd then regroup and pen some letters, corresponding rapid-fire with family and friends in Minnesota and Illinois. On the other hand, he would fret over a single line in a note from Kate Donnelly saying the bank might seize a parcel of land. Then someone would call and he'd be off in fine form with a list of talking points in hand. He was a whirlwind, no vortex required.
      That evening Tonio was in the sitting room on Duke Street when he returned with news of a new assault on rationality. Near Ratcliffe Highway he'd watched a crowd pursue a hapless seaman, trailing and surrounding him with curses and accusations. He was "Leather Apron," they shouted, and "the Ripper." He wasn't of course. If the police hadn't arrived in time, Donnelly thought they might have killed the fellow.
      "Who was he in the end?"
      "No one, just someone with red paint stains on his pants. But they held him, for his own protection. It's mayhem out there."
      "Talk about deja vu," Tonio mumbled.
      "How so? I've never seen a thing like it. People are frantic, suspicious of everything. There's a smell of terror in the air."
      Tonio wasn't sure how to respond. The mood actually reminded him of the period after 9/11, as well as several cities he had visited in recent years, desperate neighborhood in tough times, and too many lives wasted. How could he begin to explain that? "I was thinking about my novel," he answered instead.
      "Really." Donnelly sounded skeptical but curious. "The one about the detective who tracks a killer into a cave? What happens next? They didn't let you get very far the other night. Do tell, where does he end up?"

      What could he say? In Edward Bellamy's book the time traveler went a century forward, "looking backward" from a future when the work week has been drastically reduced, products and services are delivered instantly and everyone retires at forty-five with health benefits. "The nation is the sole employer and capitalist," Bellamy wrote about the year 1988. All industrial production has been nationalized and goods are equally distributed. There is no need for dissent, and crime, though not completely eliminated, is handled as a medical issue, well on its way to the dustbin of history.

      Quite a fantasy, he thought, very much the conservative Tea Party's nightmare.
      "Actually, in my book the detective comes to this time to catch the killer and eventually takes him back," Tonio pitched. Technically, he wasn't breaking rules. He wasn't revealing anything about the Jump Room or claiming to be a detective. The way he saw it, there was no reason to think any fantasy he concocted would have any impact. And if it did, well, he was stuck here and would just have to do what felt right.
     "Wonderful," cheered Donnelly. "What kind of future is it? Peace and harmony?"
      "I wouldn't want to give away too much. That would spoil the ending. But let's begin with technology," he offered, and commenced an elaborate description of modern marvels like air travel, air-conditioning, mass communications and other features of the high-tech world he missed, a place where everything seemed possible and almost anything was for sale.
      "And yet there is enormous inequality. A very few, just one percent, have almost half the wealth, while most people don't have basic security. Many are hungry and brimming with rage. Guns are everywhere. It's a heavily armed, alienated and unhappy society, I'm sorry to say, a mockery of its past, glittering on the outside but sick inside, prone to arbitrary and senseless violence, and littered with unnecessary victims. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, someone simply goes berserk, and executes dozens in public, then kills himself, or commits what we call suicide by cop."
      He stopped before getting into nuclear weapons and genocide, fearing they would sound too extreme or too debilitating if believed.
      "Terrible. But possible." Donnelly sat down to enjoy the performance. "Tell me about women. Are so many still forced to sell themselves on the streets?"
      "On the streets? Maybe not so much. There are private clubs for that type of thing. But pimps are bigger than ever. I mean, the word has become a verb. Still, in many places women are afraid to go out alone at night."
       "Why's that?"
      "Fear of rape, robbery or murder." Donnelly remarked that it sounded like London these days. Tonio had to agree. "Some women have learned to defend themselves," he continued. "In fact, some are as strong or powerful as any man. But they make the same mistakes."
     "Fascinating. Has humanity at least solved problems like crime, illness and poverty?"
      What a question. The straight answer was no. But instead he talked about the kafkaesque criminal justice system and byzantine corrections industry, balancing that with improvements in life expectancy and medical care.
      "Have we at least agreed that people have a right to end their own lives?"
      "Not yet," Tonio said, taken aback by his interest. "But professionals do tell us how to live."
      "You paint a grim picture, almost anti-Bellamy. And who are the rulers of this dystopia? Has royalty made a comeback?"
      "Not officially, but we do have dynasties and hand out titles. First at this, best of that. And people are celebrated just for being well-known." He'd moved from narration to role playing along the way.
      "A corrupt paradise, you might say a commons pillaged by violence and greed."
      "Elementary, my dear Donnelly."
      "Then it's a matter of choosing sides," the old politician concluded. "Ask yourself: What really threatens humanity, the few who break some arbitrary rules or challenge the government, or those who control the economy and the government, and enact laws causing millions to suffer and die? It's obviously a rhetorical question. But I do wonder, in this troubled future of yours, is progress and reform still possible?"
      Tonio had no clever plot twist to cover that. 

Greg Guma is the Vermont-based author of Dons of Time, Uneasy Empire, Spirits of Desire, Big Lies, and The People’s Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution.  Based on real events, these recreations were excerpted from Dons of Time, Part Three: Gilded Nights, Chapters 31 (Society), 32 (Choices) and 33 (Another Normal). From Fomite Press, also availabe from Amazon.

Want more time travel? Try Annie Besant: London's 1st Wonder Woman or Finding Annie Besant

The Vortex: Exploring the Smoke Rings of History

Vortices exist in numerous forms —  liquids, smoke rings, whirlpools, hurricanes — and move 

in complex ways.

     They drove along the Rim Road and stopped at a turnout to walk the edge of the Colorado Plateau and take in the valley below.

The Yavapai and later the Tonto Apache were drawn to this area more than a millennium ago. But the Army drove them off in the 1870s after gold was discovered near Prescott. He remembered the story. In the summer of 1882, not far from where they were standing on the Mongollon Rim, the high escarpment of the plateau that ran across central Arizona, the Apache had made their last stand.

The drive had been soothing, and when they reached the plateau Ryan Crown began with the tale of Nock-ay-del-klinne, the Apache medicine man who had set the battle in motion. Nock-ay-del-kinne had begun a ghost dance cult, he said, and had predicted that dead warriors would return and lead them to victory. The Army was worried enough to send almost two hundred soldiers from Fort Apache to arrest him. In the shootout that followed the medicine man was killed and the troops were slaughtered. But the uprising ended when the Army tracked a band of Apaches to the rim just north of Payson and killed most of them.

The Yavapai and Apaches recognized the natural energy of the area, Crown said. They didn’t need shiny scientific toys to sense that powerful forces were at work. He talked about the abundance of Iron Oxide, which gave the soil, the rocks, even the bark of trees their reddish hue. That and other metals and minerals common to the area helped to focus the earth’s geomagnetism, produced by its molten outer core. Below the surface quartz was embedded in the sandstone. Years of research with Fluxgate magnetometers and induction coils confirmed the intensity of the resulting electromagnetic activity, he explained.

As stimulating as he found such ideas he couldn’t turn off the other questions collecting and colliding in his brain or the roiling emotions they reinforced. Crown recognized the problem and shifted the conversation, pivoting to a recap of government experiments with paranormal abilities, beginning with hypnosis in World War II. The classic Hitchcock movie The 39 Steps turns out to be pretty close. Hypnosis was used with couriers, apparently splitting their personalities so that one could remember a secret message while the other wouldn’t be aware of it or crack under pressure.

Hypnosis was also used to increase endurance and reduce sensitivity to pain, a useful ability if a spy was captured and tortured. This was an early inkling of the deadly dream, Crown explained, the goal of creating super-soldiers. The Nazis tried it without success, and ironically enough, many of the same training techniques were also used traditionally in Shamanic rituals. One example had been put on public display in A Man Called Horse when Richard Harris was suspended from hooks in his final test for admission to the tribe.

In 1983, while Crown was recording the images of remote viewers, the army was pursuing the Jedi Project. Visualization, positive reinforcement and suggestion became tools to increase concentration and willpower. They were the keys to high performance in battle, while neuro-linguistic programming accelerated the training.

Over time, however, Crown lost faith in the government’s intentions. He accepted the need for a strong national defense, even the use of hypnosis, remote viewing and paranormal abilities, but he began to notice a shift to the dark side — aggressively preemptive methods — as well as a tendency to classify political opponents as threats. Remote viewing as reconnaissance was one thing, telepathic projection was another. Research was underway on how to exert remote influence on blood pressure, respiration and other functions, and how infrasound and ultrasound could be used to kill.

He claimed to have no direct knowledge of what DARPA was doing then, or of the specific tests Tonio Wolfe had undergone long ago. From his descriptions and Crown’s own knowledge of the agency, however, he speculated that it was probably connected to aerospace research. Children were considered good test subjects because they reacted more spontaneously and had fewer preconceptions. They might also have been looking for kids who showed above-average potential for NASA or other space program projects, perhaps trolling for the astronauts of the future.

That made it sound only slightly less offensive.

Once they were back from walking the Rim for an hour, Crown suggested that Tonio could use some time “off the grid,” a period with no email or calls, time and space to get centered. It sounded like the right idea.

“When?”

“Right now. I have gear in the trunk, sleeping bags, food, everything we need.” Tonio hesitated. “Be prepared, the scouts have at least one thing right.”

That night they camped at the foot of Schnebly Hill, a high plateau with views of Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon. After dinner Crown turned the discussion to what he had learned since leaving the government. The techniques he and others were attempting to control in the service of national security had existed for millennia, he said. In ancient Mexico Aztec dream interpreters used sleep deprivation and drugs to sharpen their minds and, so they claimed, travel through space to spy on enemies. Remote viewing, Crown suggested, might be a modern version of what was once called soul traveling.

He explained that human beings specialized in mastering their power to reason, and also gave considerable attention to their emotions. What they did not practice nearly enough was the control of dreams and will. The focus on reason reinforces our ordinary perception of the world and the “rules” we believe govern it, he said. But it is also possible to transcend reason and mobilize the will.

Beyond the personal level, he said, there are places that can amplify natural abilities, some of them conducive to introspection, others more helpful with skill development or expanded consciousness. Schnebly Hill was such a place, he said, a center of energy that can heal and purify.

Tonio wanted to object. He had heard his mother enthuse about Sedona’s vortices, places where the earth’s energy is somehow enhanced and helps with self-awareness and health. Tourists treated them like spiritual hot tubs. As a teen he had witnessed hundreds of believers, his mother among them, waiting at Bell Rock in 1987. They had convinced themselves that the top of the rock would open to reveal an alien craft. The fact that nothing happened failed to prevent people from believing that the area was a vortex buffet.

Sensing the skepticism Crown returned to basics — the spinning motion around an imaginary axis known as vortical flow. He pointed out that vortices exist in numerous forms — stirred liquids, smoke rings, whirlpools, hurricanes — and move in complex ways. Their most evolved form is the spiral. 

He had selected their campsite because of its location near a magnetic inflow vortex, where energy flowed toward the earth. This tended to generate pensive reactions and a cleansing focus that could help with introspection or on a spiritual quest.

He had to admit feeling “heavy” since settling down for the night. Not depression, but definitely an increased intensity in the air.

“What are you afraid of?” Crown asked. “Not superstition or personal secrets, the real deal. Do you know?”

He thought about it before answering. “Being trapped, I suppose. That I can’t escape my circumstances or change anything. Also, that there may be no answers out there, that there’s just chaos.”

“That makes sense. You remind me of Stephen Dedalus, from Ulysses. Joyce has him talking with a teacher who believes that history is moving toward one goal — the manifestation of God. But Stephen, who is Irish, thinks history is filled with chaos and violence — to begin with, the violence of excluding people who don’t believe in God. And he thinks people who are responsible for terrible violence too often get away with it.”

“I agree.”

“Yes. So, he’s feeling pretty hopeless. But he also feels that his personal history must somehow be overcome.”

“I can identify.”

“And so he says ‘history is a nightmare from which I’m trying to awake’.”

“Can’t argue with most of that, though I don’t accept the chaos part. At least I hope he’s wrong.” 

That night he slept soundly for the first time in almost a week.

— adapted from Greg Guma’s novel, Dons of Time

Exposing State Secrets: From Treason to Whistleblowing

For decades federal agencies in the US conducted secret operations, questionable experiments and selective assassinations that had little to do with the public platitudes of political leaders. But now Tonio Wolfe knew, for example, that DARPA, the agency supposedly launched in response to Russia’s Sputnik, was really an R & D wing of the military industrial complex. 

And its publicly-acknowledged projects represented only a fraction of what the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency had been doing for the last half century.

From Dons of Time, Chapter 7: Secrets

WOOD-RIDGE, 2010

The conversation was bland until coffee and dessert. Against his better judgment Tonio accepted an invitation to attend dinner with the family over the holidays. But the latest stories about kids, vacations and home improvements were followed by inevitable arguments.

As a child he’d enjoyed family rituals, despite the disputes of the era — Carter energy prices, the hostage crisis and Reagan, the meltdown at Three Mile Island and the nuke plant in East Shoreham near Long Island Sound. They would gathered in Bayside at the palatial home where Shelley, Giancarlo and their three siblings grew up. Among Tonio’s earliest childhood memories was Roman Wolfe presiding at a bountiful table in the formal dining room. 

Tonio didn’t remember much about two of his uncles — Alek and Georgie — both dead when he was around two. But he was close with Gianni and appreciated the sunny disposition of his aunt Vivian. After dinner they would spend hours opening presents, one by one, enjoying each reaction and anticipating the next surprise.

But this was Wood-Ridge and not Bayside, and Shelley was not the man his father was, a war-hardened Croatian immigrant who left Yugoslavia in the fifties with little but knowledge of construction, the phone number of a family associate in New Jersey, and a flexible attitude toward the use of illegal means and violence to achieve the American Dream. By the time Tonio was born, Roman Lupinjak, who changed his name to Wolfe, was the owner of Wolfe Enterprises, a construction business that concealed involvement in pornography, prostitution, money laundering and murder.

To Tonio he was Grandpa, the benign family patriarch who distributed candy and provided unconditional love.

Even then, however, death was no stranger to the family. In 1974 uncles Al and George perished in a plane crash during their return flight from a Florida construction site. Inconsolable, Roman deteriorated and suffered a fatal stroke in 1977. Tonio was only five years old at the time. Five years later uncle Gianni died. He never accepted the official explanation of that, a sudden heart attack at forty-two while on his regular jogging route.

Over coffee Tania, one of Vivian’s kids, brought up Wikileaks, the whistleblower group that had released a slew of State Department documents shortly after Thanksgiving. “All their dirty little secrets are out,” she chirped, “all in one big, stinking dump.”

“Tanny, that’s disgusting.”

“That’s what they call it, mom, a document dump. They released over 250,000 cables. Now we know the truth.”

“Oh really,” Shelley sniffed. “What truth is that, honey?”

He was asking for trouble. Tania, a college junior majoring in political science, was prepared to defend her position.

“The truth? Our embassies around the world are involved in spying, that’s one. Also, we’ve bribed countries into accepting detainees in exchange for aid, and then let them be tortured. Or how about this? Did you know we support the Kurdish Workers Party in Turkey? The Turks and the US say it’s a terrorist group. I mean, total hypocrisy.”

“And oh, in 2003 the CIA kidnapped a German citizen, and then took him to a secret prison in Afghanistan, and they tortured him and held him there for months. And when they were done they just dropped him off on a hillside in Albania. Afterward, they pressured the Germans not to prosecute the agents who did it.”

She was just getting started but Shelley’s hand wave said enough. “Where are you getting this?” It came off as an accusation.

“Newspapers, Julian Assange. Where have you been, gramps?”

“Oh that one, he should be in prison, that one. It’s treason, what he did.”

A few years earlier Tonio would have said nothing. More accurately, he would have had nothing much to add. But what he had learned since taking on the first serious work of his life made it more difficult to accept Shelley’s knee-jerk blustering. Tania was being provocative but she was on the right track. Tonio was no longer so willing to swallow his feelings or conceal his contempt.

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” he said, “that’s what G used to say. And he worked for the State Department.” He glared at Shelley. “It was State, right? I agree with Tanny. We need whistleblowers. We wouldn’t know about the secret prisons without them. And the body armor — we had troops in battle without decent armor until someone said something. Some things need to be secret, no argument. But the reason some of it stays secret is because it’s embarrassing, or against the law.”

Shelley wasn’t happy. “It’s a free country so we can have a civil discussion here,” he offered, trying to sound flexible while simultaneously playing Alpha dog and family patriarch. “But I say he has blood on his hands, Assange. I like Steve King’s idea — treat him like an enemy combatant, get him and take him to a military tribunal.”

Tonio hit back. “So, you’d rather not know what the government is doing?”

“In our name,” Tania added supportively.

“Don’t be naive,” Shelley snapped. “Things need to be done, in business, in government, in private. Not everything belongs on the Internet. Gianni knew that, by the way. He was a patriot. And he would have been the first to go after an anarchist like that albino. He worked on important projects.

“It’s always better to surprise your enemy than to be the one who gets surprised,” he finished. “G appreciated that.”

It was accurate, as far as it went. But working with Danny and Angel had introduced Tonio to a more complex and cynical view. For decades, he’d learned, various federal agencies conducted secret operations, questionable experiments and selective assassinations that had little to do with the public platitudes of political leaders.

He now knew, for example, that DARPA, the agency supposedly launched in response to Russia’s Sputnik, was really an R & D wing of the military industrial complex, engaged in everything from hypersonic research to lightweight satellites. In recent years it had been working on high-energy lasers, advanced aircraft, automatic target recognition, submicrometer electronic technology, electron devices, the Strategic Defense Initiative — also known as Star Wars — and a congressionally-mandated particle beam program directly related to Tesla’s original research. But Danny said the publicly-acknowledged projects represented only a fraction of what the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency had been doing for the last half century.

One example among the many was the suspected use of children in a series of top-secret experiments known as Project Pegasus. The name had triggered the memory of a trip with Gianni to Nutley, and standing in another cavernous room with a gang of kids to see what was described to them as the latest innovation in 3D filmmaking.

Shelley had mentioned his brother’s “important” work. “What projects?” Tonio asked, “do you know?” He had been waiting to pose the question for months. In hindsight, the likelihood that his uncle worked for the State Department looked slim. He wasn’t the type for purely diplomatic missions. More like a field operative, a guy you sent in with a team to rescue hostages or conduct sabotage.

“He couldn’t talk about it,” barked Shelley. “And he didn’t. Like I said, he was a patriot. He followed orders. Loyalty, duty — that used to make a difference.”

“Did he ever talk about DARPA?”

Shelley flinched but tried to conceal his reaction with a joke. “Yeah, I remember him dating somebody with that name.”

“It’s a government agency,” Tania injected.

Now Tonio knew Shelley was holding back. One of his own companies was a subcontractor involved in building the agency’s new headquarters in Arlington, just a few miles from the Pentagon. Shelley’s clumsy evasion added to the growing suspicion that his uncle never completely left the military, and instead went into a defense project like DARPA. It was even possible that the official version of his death was a cover up.

Read Excerpt - Enemy of the State, Part One: https://muckraker-gg.blogspot.com/2013/10/enemy-of-state-dons-of-time-preview.html

Part Two: http://muckraker-gg.blogspot.com/2013/10/enemy-of-state-2-dons-of-time-preview.html

Read Excerpt - Human Traffic: https://gregguma.blogspot.com/2015/03/human-traffic-in-queen-city-dons-of.html

Read Excerpt - Bloody Sunday and the Matchgirl Strike:

https://www.globalresearch.ca/19th-century-protest-and-the-matchgirls-strike-1888-annie-besant-londons-first-wonder-woman/5573731

Follow Dons of Time on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GregGumaMedia/

To read chapter one or buy the book: Dons of Time

Maverick Media: From Politics to the Paranormal

Four Interviews... military, media, history, and Vermont.  

Privatizing National Security

Most governments rarely admit to using mercenaries. But today’s private contractors perform almost every function essential to military operations, what has been called 

“a creeping privatization of the business of war.”

Greg and RETN’s Scott Campitelli examine the trend toward privatization of government and military functions. They also explore regulation of private entities, safety and secrecy, accountability, and security of technology. Recorded on 08/19/2004. Complete Report: Outsourcing Defense

Independent Media

Robin Lloyd and Greg join Scott to discuss the landscape of independent media in the US. They also explain the mission of Toward Freedom and other sources of independent news and views. Recorded on 08/19/2004

Spirits of Desire

”It was a strange time, an explosive era of spiritualism as well as a period of rapid industrialization, economic depression and political corruption.“

Greg and Scott explore Spirits of Desire, Greg’s historical novel dealing with spirituality and the paranormal in the 1870s. Recorded on 04/07/2005. 
Get the Book: Spirits of Desire

Vermont Guardian

Co-founders Shay Totten and Greg discuss Vermont Guardian, the weekly newspaper they launched in 2004, and the state of journalism in Vermont. Recorded on 04/07/2005.

And one more... on development, democracy, and the environment

The Road Not Taken:

The Green Mountain Parkway

With Frank Bryan, Greg Guma, and Bruce Post

Out of This World: History, Afterlife, & Spirits of Desire

Greg Guma discusses "Spirits of Desire," his historical novel 
dealing with spiritualism in the 1870s, with RETN’s Scott Campitelli.

To order a copy: Spirits of Desire

Belief in ghosts and the survival of some immaterial essence beyond the span of human life dates back thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians visited the family plots of departed relations to provide food and clothing for the journey beyond, and Enlightenment-era scientists conducted ghoulish experiments to determine the precise location of the soul.

Most religions tell us that the soul goes somewhere after death — traveling to heaven, hell or a pleasant afterlife resort; reincarnating into a new body; or remaining in the ground until the Second Coming. At the start of the 20th century, Duncan Macdougall, a respected surgeon, thought he had determined the precise weight of the soul by using an ornate Fairbanks scale to track weight loss as people died. People will try anything.

My own quest began in the 1970s, sparked by synchronicity and an unexplainable “journey.” While living in Bennington, I had received as a present a book by Helena Blavatsky, the famous Russian occultist and founder of the theosophical movement. It was published in 1888 — the same year as a “lucky” silver dollar I used to carry in my pocket. That was also the publication date of an unusual antique book that had mysteriously “appeared” in my apartment. As a result of all that I became curious about what it all might mean.

And that led to the discovery of a key turning point: Blavatsky’s first encounter with Henry Olcott, the psychic investigator who would become her life partner, in nearby Chittenden, Vermont.

In October 1874, Blavatsky followed Olcott to that small town near Rutland, to see the “manifestations” of an alleged medium named William Eddy. Their resulting alliance led directly to the founding of Theosophy, an impressive synthesis of Buddhism, occultism, and Western philosophy that became enormously influential in subsequent decades.

It was a strange time, an explosive era of spiritualism as well as a period of rapid industrialization, economic depression and political corruption. Interest in “spirit” phenomena had been building since 1848, when reports circulated that two teenage sisters in upstate New York could stimulate “spirit rappings.” By the early 1870s, little Chittenden had become a popular pilgrimage site for those interested in contacting deceased relatives and friends in the Eddy family’s “circle room,” a second floor séance hall in their farmhouse.

The local press wasn’t impressed. A June 29, 1874, article in the Rutland Herald pronounced the Eddy manifestations “the vilest deception upon whoever they can get to pay 50 cents for being duped.” But Olcott, a retired colonel who had looked into naval yard corruption during the Civil War, had an open mind, and spent more than two months in Vermont, looking into the case and publishing his findings in New York city newspapers. One of his stories attracted Blavatsky’s attention.

According to his accounts, later published in book form as People from the Other World, the nightly materialization of “spirit forms” included Native Americans, children, and deceased businessmen, along with disembodied hands playing musical instruments, and, once Blavatsky turned up, exotic visitors from the other side of the world.

Although Olcott felt that some of the alleged phenomena might be fake, he couldn’t disprove everything he witnessed. Like Dr. Macdougall, at one point he used a Fairbanks scale in an attempt to weigh a spirit. With special access to the tiny closet in which William Eddy sat during his trances, he concluded that there were no secret compartments; in short, no way to explain how so many “spirits” could appear and disappear.

The notoriety of the Eddy séances also attracted the attention of a celebrity doctor from New York City, George Miller Beard, one of the first to experiment with electricity as a stimulant to deal with nervous disorders. Convinced that spiritualism was hokum and materializations had to be a case of mass delusion, he came to Chittenden to observe, debunk, and apply a strong electric current to one of the “spirits.”

To his own shock, nothing happened. But that didn’t stop Beard from giving a newspaper interview afterward in which he claimed that it was all a hoax, accomplished through disguises and convincing only because the witnesses were “weak-brained.” As he put it in The New York Sun, “In this land of marble and mountains the natives are drunk with excess of beauty and live in a moral state somewhat analogous to chronic alcoholism.”

Even the Rutland Herald, no friend of the Eddy family, was incensed. “We characterize him [Beard] as a humbug and a conceited ignoramus,” the editor wrote on Nov. 18. Olcott took to calling him the “electric eel.”

If George Beard was the archetypal rationalist quack, Helena Blavatsky was surely another archetype — the occult pioneer. By her own account, before reaching the US in 1873 she had already delved into various mystical traditions, become a student of Tibetan adepts who sent her telepathic messages, and had a special destiny — to bring what she alternately called a wisdom religion, divine magic, and the “secret doctrine” to a materialistic yet psychically fertile Western world.

Once she started attending séances in Vermont, the cast of materialized spirits expanded dramatically — a Russian boy, a Kurdish warrior who had once been her bodyguard, an old Russian woman, and her dead uncle, among others.

But her explanation was a far cry from Beard’s denunciation and also different from Henry Olcott’s surmise. Although she declined to comment at the time, preferring to defend spiritualism against the attacks of people like Beard, she later argued that spirits of the dead rarely return, and that materializations are “usually the astral body or double of the medium or someone present.” The medium is often a passive participant, whose mind is attracted by the “astral light” while the physical body is in a trance, she offered.

She also issued a warning. Attempting to contact the dead “only opens the door to a swarm of ‘spooks,’ good, bad, and indifferent, to which the medium becomes a slave for life.” In The Key to Theosophy, a kind of “occultism for dummies” primer written shortly before her death in 1891, Blavatsky added that while some so-called spirits are just “poll-parrots” that repeat whatever they find in the medium’s or other people’s brains, “others are most dangerous, and can only lead one to evil.”

A century later, I weighed the evidence and wrote a series of newspaper and magazine accounts. During visits to Chittenden, I interviewed two women who knew William Eddy and his brother Horatio in later years.

Agnes Gould, at 96 the oldest local resident at the time, told stories suggesting that what might have begun as a sincere pursuit descended into fakery. “If they’d kept honor among themselves, they would have been the richest people in the world,” she said. But, “then they got jealous of each other and began telling lies about each other.” After the séances of William Eddy ended, one of his sisters, Mary Eddy Huntoon, capitalized on the family’s fame with performances that were far less convincing.

Another local resident, 80-year-old Mabel Potter, was undecided. There might have been some tricks, she said, “but I don’t know. I think a lot of it was genuine, because they’d been all over that house to find out about cupboards or closets that they could use to be doing something tricky.” Although Potter moved into Horatio Eddy’s house in the 1920s, she didn’t see any ghosts. But, she knew others who did. One account involved a sewing machine in the house that started up unassisted in the middle of the night.

Potter also described William Eddy in his 90s, working alone in his garden, a tall, solidly-built man who still sported a full black beard. He spent most of his life alone, living an interior existence, never marrying, and declining to indulge in the theatrical spiritualism evidently practiced by his brother and sister.

Will he be back? I asked Agnes. Although she did believe some people can see into the future, she replied, “I don’t think anybody can bring a person back to this earth. Nobody but God.” When I pressed, she added, “And who’d want to come back?”

A good question, along with several others that have yet to be definitively resolved. Are spirits of the dead real? Is material existence a one shot deal? Are all such unexplained phenomena merely the result of suggestion, wish fulfillment, and clever manipulation? Or could Blavatsky have been on the right track? To explore the possibilities, I eventually wrote Spirits of Desire, a novel about the spiritualist craze of that bygone era and a trail that led Blavatsky, Olcott and many others to Vermont and a world of séances, elemental forces, astral projection, and past lives.

Still, my personal quest wasn’t over, in part because I still couldn’t explain the “journey” I mentioned at the start. It happened in October 1974, precisely a century after Blavatsky and Olcott met, and not far away.

One evening, while I was napping with my partner in our Central Vermont home, she felt my body grow uncommonly cold and couldn’t wake me up. As far as I knew, however, I wasn’t lying there. I was at the other end of the house, reading one of Blavatsky’s books.

It wasn’t just the usual dream state. I felt completely present, as if it was just a normal experience in daily life — that is, until something pulled at me, and I felt myself zooming up and backward. Suddenly, I was back on the bed, being violently shaken by my panicked partner. Afterward, she told me that she feared I was dead.

Was it just a vivid fantasy? Or was I taking a brief astral stroll, somehow drawn to Blavatsky or her ideas? Was it a message or merely a dream? I still do not know for sure. But I keep asking. And, in the meantime, I choose to believe that not everything in life — or afterward — can be neatly explained.

To buy a copy, here’s a link: Spirits of Desire

Human Traffic in the Queen City: A Dons of Time Excerpt

Chapter 39: HUMAN TRAFFIC

BURLINGTON, MARCH 2, 2013

The brick monolith had been out of service for decades. Various plans for the decommissioned coal plant came and went, most recently the former mayor’s idea of transforming it into a city-owned recreation and sailing center. But the future of the 90-foot high building on the waterfront remained unclear. The overgrown site was surrounded by a chain link fence to discourage vandalism and prevent injuries.

         The new mayor, an energetic housing developer, had convinced voters to finance a series of improvements for a central section of the shoreline on Lake Champlain. However, he also announced that the city would no longer try to re-purpose the hulky structure on its own. Before it was shut down, mainly due to pollution, the Moran generating station loomed over the shore for years providing 30-megawatts of power. In 1986, the same year it was shuttered, voters backed a waterfront plan with new zoning, a public park and a bike path. They also backed any legal actions that would be needed to extend public authority.

            Tonio arrived inside the building, then exited through a broken window and found a break in the fence. Except for a few die-hard skateboarders who used a rundown park on the opposite side of the building few people came to this part of the lakefront during the winter months. But only blocks away, despite a lead-colored sky, thousands of people lined the sidewalks along Main and the Church Street Marketplace to celebrate. Harry would be nearby.

The tradition, known as the Magic Hat Mardi Gras Parade, started after he left school and had continued for almost two decades.  The Vermont brewer had figured out how to win local backing and bring thousands of people out in the cold. It was an annual winter ritual with live performances, floats and good commercial cheer, as well as an effective fundraiser.

            The night before several bands performed in the heart of town to heat up the mood and launch the festivities. Right now they were cheering the new mayor, waving to the crowd in a gold lame jacket, silver boots and a feathered hat as the floats rolled through town.

            Tonio made his way across Waterfront Park, passing a row of condos and Main Street Landing, the arts center where he’d watched The Millennium a few months ago. When he attended school at the top of the hill most of this area was still undeveloped. But if Harry had come to town and was talking with Danny at this moment he wouldn’t be doing it on the waterfront or along the parade route. Most likely he would be in a spot where he felt at home.

            Cutting across Battery Street he walked up Pearl to South Winooski and checked the area that served as unofficial gateway to the Old North End and meeting spot for the alternative set. As he suspected, Harry was having coffee at the Radio Bean as he learned the truth about the Jump Room and Tonio’s disappearance.

When the call was over Tonio quickly entered the funky coffeehouse.

            “Jeez,” Harry shouted, “He wasn’t kidding.”

            “No. ” He sat down on the opposite side. “But things have gone even further south since you spoke with him.”

            “In ten seconds? And where did you come from?    

            “Next Wednesday,” said Tonio, “and so far it’s a very bad day.” He rapidly retraced recent events, as explained to him by Danny, including the fact that Angel had gone to see Shelley and may have been drugged.

            “Unwise,” Harry said, “given what we know, which is also why I was looking for you.”

            “Whatever it is, can we use it as a bargaining chip?”

            “Bargaining? I’m not so sure. He’s your blood. But yes, there’s more than enough to nail him.” Tonio demanded details. “Well, we began by digging into what we already knew and worked backward. For example, we know Wolfe Enterprises builds projects around the world, that it has a controlling stake in various casinos and is developing Jefferson Spaceport. We also know they have E-Global and its satellites.

“Now, the Feds could exercise what they call shutter control on the satellites with anything they considered off limits or a national security matter. But we haven’t seen any evidence of that, which suggests cooperation. What we know is that Shelley’s buying up land, in the US and elsewhere. But it’s hard to see the pattern; some of the parcels are in the middle of nowhere and have no apparent development potential.”

             There was more. Harry’s group also found evidence suggesting that Wolfe ran a blackmail operation targeting high rollers at the casinos and used Private Intelligence Associates (PIA), the security company it had purchased, to conduct corporate espionage.

            “I met two associates not long ago.” Tonio meant the guys tied up in the warehouse.

            “But the main thing,” Harry continued, “is the link back to the old country. Your grandfather came over from Croatia, right?” As Tonio recalled the family history, he had emigrated sometime after the Second World War. “This is the key. It’s how Wolfe went from being a construction front for prostitution and gambling to what it is today, a transnational holding company. Do you know what’s happened in the homeland in the last twenty years or so?”

            Tonio had no idea. He usually didn’t even keep up with the headlines, and when he visited Europe his destination was normally a Mediterranean island or a beach on the Italian Riviera.

            “After Yugoslavia collapsed, Croatia’s president, Franjo Tudman, started selling off state enterprises in a way that was, let’s just say, not legal. It was known over there as ‘Privatization Robbery.’ Basically, about 200 families got control over everything, and yours was one of them. It was an ‘everything must go’ deal, and it went at fire sale prices. Then the new owners sliced up the businesses and sold off the pieces, which was lucrative for them. But as a result some companies that were successful for years went bankrupt, and it also led to massive unemployment. So, basically you could say the Don participated in a post-Communist gang rape of his native land.”

            Tonio wasn’t completely shocked. But he was humbled and challenged by a growing realization that his education and most of his life had been financed by human misery.

            “We’ve also established his ties with Ivo Sanader, the former prime minister, who was recently sentenced to ten years for taking bribes. When Sanader was Deputy Foreign Minister – the fight for Independence was winding down at the time – he received payments through an Austrian bank. He called them fees. At least two foreign companies were involved. One suspect was Hungary’s oil and gas company, MOL. They categorically denied any involvement, which tends to suggest the opposite. The other was a front for Wolfe Enterprises.

“The judge called what Sanader did war profiteering. Until a few years ago this was the most powerful man in the country. However, in 2009 he resigned suddenly and designated his successor on the way out the door. But the new PM, Jadranka Kosor, launched an anti-corruption campaign that eventually led back to him.”

            “Why would Kosor turn on the man who made him?”

            “Kosor is a she, and we don’t know that she really turned on him. But we know that the Croatian elite badly wants into the European Union,” Harry explained, “and to do that they have to clean up their act on corruption, or at least look like it. The HDZ, the ruling party, is staking everything on EU entry. Unemployment is at least 20 percent, youth unemployment is double that. The country’s per-capita debt-to-GDP ratio is one of the highest in Europe.

            “From what we see, the EU agreement will mean disaster for the country’s remaining economic independence. Also say goodbye to fishing and agriculture. Fiscal policy will be decided by Euro-crats in Brussels. So will exploitation of oil and gas reserves in the Adriatic. The country will basically become another Greece, a dependent state. The US and EU have already provided a billion dollar bailout, supposedly for anti-corruption reforms. It won’t be the last. But most of the money has been misused or stolen.

“What the political class wants – and what Shelley wants – is access to about four billion Euros that Brussels will provide after EU entry this summer.

“There is an opposition, including a group called Croatia 21^st Century with a female leader, Natasha Srdoc. She's one of the few politicians willing to take on corruption. She's pretty conservative on social issues -- she wants to make abortion illegal -- but wants to seize assets and prosecute any official who has amassed unexplained wealth while in office. This alone would smash organized crime in Croatia.

            “However, the party’s supporters are already being intimidated or framed. One candidate, an anti-corruption author, documented the crimes of the Interior Minister, a thug who uses the cops as henchmen. Result – the writer ends up in jail, a political prisoner.”

Tonio interrupted. “Danny mentioned something about the Balkan Route.”

Buy Dons of Time

            Harry hesitated and then warned, “This is rough stuff. Of course, it’s been a smuggling route for a long time – weapons, immigrants, heroin from Afghanistan. Originally, most of it went through Pakistan and Iran, now it mostly uses Balkan states. Cigarettes, oil, anything you don’t want seen or taxed. Almost 90 percent of the heroin in Europe gets in that way.”


            The smuggling route helped organize crime get a foothold in the country, Harry explained. After Yugoslavia’s collapse, social confusion made the whole region an easy mark. As the country moved toward democracy ties between the elite and the underworld flourished. Officials in the old regime saw a path to convert their waning political power into economic gain. Black market smuggling was already common, even encouraged.  The traditional economy had never matched consumer demands. But corrupt officials and security forces helped the black market run like a well-oiled machine. Once communism was gone and privatization began, ex-cops and other officials with connections in the underground were positioned to take smuggling to the next level.

“The Serbs claim that Croatian ports have become a primary conduit for cocaine entering the region,” he said. “It’s also believed to be the source of about a billion annually in illegal exports, everything from cars and trucks to ships, medicines, sugar and electronics. But the worst is transporting humans.”

Tonio stopped him. “You’re talking about human trafficking, basically slavery?”

“I’m afraid so, and Shelley has a hand in that too. It’s largely Bosnian woman who are brought in to service the tourist trade. The offer is usually a legitimate job, but then they take away the documents and force them into sex slavery. During the last decade underage Croatian girls have become part of the mix.”

It was even worse than he suspected. After months tracking down just one serial killer of women, he had been informed that his father was responsible for crimes as heinous and created even greater misery. What Harry described sounded like the “Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon,” William Stead’s expose on child prostitution in 1880s London. Little had changed.

“I need air,” he said, standing up.

Harry followed him outside to the sidewalk. “Let’s walk and talk. I also want to know what you’ve been doing. And we definitely need a plan.”

“Yeah, the first thing is to call Angel and stop her from going to Shelley.”

“Sure, she’ll listen to me.”

“Try anyway. Next, get out of sight and assemble everything you have. If Truthsquad wants to shake things up this ought to do it.”

Harry stopped. “Wait. You want me to expose your family?”

“I do. And you have to do it within two weeks, before the demo for Shelley. We need to turn up the heat, startle the snake, force a reaction, get him to deny some charges and then hit him with more. We need to escalate and isolate him, and expose him for the lying scum and hypocrite he is.”

“Harsh,” said Harry, “but doable.”

“Then do it with my blessings. Afterward, we meet with him and show him that, as bad as things are, they could get worse. We re-run his past. The only thing I’m not sure about is which parts of this new information we should actually use. What’s your call?”

“As much as security allows,” replied Harry, “our security I mean. People first I always say. We’re people too.”

            They were on the top block of the Marketplace, ducking between revelers in beaded necklaces, when Tonio noticed two men on the corner who looked out of place. Wearing identical parkas and matching sunglasses they were eyeballing the crowd while the taller of the two conferred with someone on a smart phone. The shorter one occasionally glanced down to check an image on his own device.

            “I think they’re here,” he said. “More associates.” He nodded across the street.

Harry noticed and cursed, “Frigging satellites.”

“I’ll draw them off. You get out of here. Now!”

Harry stepped away and turned. “It’s on,” he yelled, drifting into the crowd. “A week or less.”

            The short guy spotted Tonio and they moved to flanking positions. The order was clearly to wait for back up. Tonio walked casually down the center of the street, not acknowledging them until he reached the entrance to the underground mall that extended toward the lake. He froze in the pedestrian flow, waiting for a moment when the doors were wide open, then bolted inside and down the escalator, executing a quick U-turn to hide beneath.

            Seconds later the two men followed him down the escalator, scattering people as they headed into the underground structure. As soon as they rounded the first corner Tonio emerged, ran back up and outside. He turned the first corner and headed west toward the lake. Someone might be watching from above, but he had trump.

            “If you’re up there, I’m on my way,” he shouted to Danny, tracking his movements from four days ahead. At Battery Street he crossed against the light and jogged toward the nearest connection with Waterfront Park. The two who spotted him earlier were on the opposite side after ending up inside the Hilton. Two more pairs were stationed at Main and Pearl Streets with the intention of boxing him in. His only option was straight ahead, down a steep embankment that emptied into a parking lot. He made it halfway before tripping and tumbling to the bottom.

Ruffled but uninjured, he shot across the lot and leapt a fence. From there it was a long stretch of open land to another, higher fence around Moran. He could see them coming, just reaching the first fence, and behind them two police cars screeching along Lake Street, drawn by the complaints about men causing a disturbance around the mall.

All he needed was to get there. He ran faster, smashing into the fence, bounced off and kept going. The break was on the other side. They were still coming. One fired a warning shot, meant to get his attention. He ran until he was around the corner and saw the opening. Ducking inside, he made for the building, found the window, and crawled inside onto a catwalk.

Streams of pale light illuminated the dank interior. Below him were several floors submerged in murky water. He pulled out the pocket watch and checked. It had been less than an hour, as agreed, and he was back in the right spot.

“Hey,” he shouted. “You guys are ex-military, right? What’s it like? One day you’re defending your country. The next, you’re mob muscle. Can you hear me now?” The reply was several gunshots.

“Cold,” he said, moving along the catwalk, sticking to the darkest spots.

By now, he assumed, the cops outside had called for backup. These guys weren’t going anywhere and their actions would be hard to explain. It was time to get back to New Jersey and put things in motion.

  He held his breath and pressed recall. This time it worked.