Richmond: Space Acts and Space Weapons
Part the First:
On October 2, 2001, U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich
(D-Ohio) introduced HR 2977, a bill “to preserve the cooperative peaceful uses
of space for the benefit of all humankind by permanently prohibiting the basing
of weapons in space by the United States, and to require the President to take
action to adopt and implement a world treaty banning space-based weapons.” The
short title was “The Space Preservation Act.”
As is usual in the American legislative system, the bill was
referred to House of Representatives committees under whose purview it seemed
to fall – in this case, the Committee on Science and the Committee on Armed
Services and International Relations. The bill had no co-sponsors – in other
words, none of Kucinich’s colleagues had officially signaled their support for
HR 2977 by listing their name alongside his on the bill. Not unusual, but a
bill typically has to have co-sponsors to have a chance at passage.
The verbiage of the bill began by establishing the
legitimacy of its mission by quoting the 1958 Act that created NASA, the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration: “It is the policy of the United
States that activities in space should be devoted to peaceful purposes for the
benefit of all mankind.” The ban specified by the bill required the removal of
all US space-based weapons and termination of all research and development of
space-based weapons. Further, it required that the President of the United
States work toward implementation of a “world agreement” banning space-based
weapons. Every three months, the President would be required to submit a report
to Congress on progress being made along these lines.
However, the bill also specified it was not about the US
pulling out of space altogether. Space exploration and research, development
and deployment of civil, commercial or defense technologies could continue, as
long as it wasn’t related to space-based weapons or systems.
What is a space-based weapon? According to HR 2977, the term
encompasses a variety of mythical technologies taken straight from the land of
late-night talk radio: electronic and directed energy weapons, ELF and ULF
(extremely- and ultra-low frequency) beams and various psychotronic technologies
aimed at “individual persons or targeted populations for the purpose of
information war, mood management, or mind control of such persons or
populations.” The list of “exotic” weapons systems also includes “information
weapons; chemtrails; high-altitude, ultra-low frequency weapons systems;
plasma, electromagnetic, sonic or ultrasonic weapons; laser weapons systems;
strategic, theater, tactical, or extraterrestrial weapons; and chemical,
biological, environmental, climate or tectonic weapons.”
Conspicuously absent from this list, of course, was the
mention of any possibility that a small group of people armed with box cutters
and basic flight training could deliberately fly a fully fueled-up jetliner
into a skyscraper. Introduced shortly after the 9/11 attacks that stunned the
nation, it was not surprising that HR 2977 got no traction on the legislative
agenda. What was surprising was that it got introduced in the first place. The
exotic space weapons listed in the bill were familiar territory to people
familiar with fringe UFO and conspiracy subcultures, but very much newcomers to
the national policy conversation around space, war and weapons.
Chemtrail activist Lorie Kramer deemed the inclusion of
chemtrails in HR 2977 to be a huge step forward for her cause. Circa 2002 she
wrote, “By its conspicuous appearance in 2977, the term ‘chemtrails’ received a
form of credibility with the official government process never seen before . .
. the simple fact of their inclusion in Kucinich’s 2977 list of weapons systems
was deemed a major breakthrough by tens of thousands of citizens and
researchers across the country.”
HR 2977 was re-introduced in the next legislative session as
HR 3616, also called the Space Preservation Act. It won nine co-sponsors,
possibly because all references to “exotic” weaponry had been excised. Kramer wondered
why HR 3616 was so different: “So, what happened here? Did someone have a ‘friendly
chat’ with Rep. Kucinich? Did the Congressman inhale a bit too much aluminum
during his morning job [sic]? . . . It remains a mystery as to how the word
‘chemtrails’ appeared in HR 2977 to begin with . . . Who actually is authoring
these bills? Why such an emphasis on ‘exotic weapons’ in HR 2977 but then
nothing mentioned about them in HR 3616?”
The concise answer, given by Metabunk.org admin Mick West here, is that HR 2977 was “written by
UFO enthusiasts Alfred Webre and Carol Rosin, who were trying to:
1.
Nullify a vast conspiracy by the ‘military-industrial
complex’
2.
Allow the use of suppressed alien technology for
free energy
3.
Avoid accidentally shooting down (or scaring
away) visiting aliens.”
In the same piece West goes on to ask, “So what’s Kucinich’s
involvement in this? It’s difficult to say. Kucinich is an anti-war, so perhaps
that’s his motivation. He does have lot of new-age, UFO-believing friends, but
he’s also running for president. When he was made aware of the nature of the
‘exotic weapons’ language in the bill, it was re-written, and when questioned
about it, he said, “I’m not into that. Understand me. When I found out that was
in there, I said, ‘Look, I’m not interested in going there.’”
Those who follow the history of UFO discourse will recognize
Webre under the sobriquet of “father of exopolitics” and one of the first
champions of “disclosure”. Exopolitics (our relations with aliens from outer
space) and disclosure (the government finally revealing the truth about aliens
from outer space and the technology they have brought to earth) are both sacred
touchstones in UFO discourse. In 2001 Webre, along with UFO activist Carol
Rosin, founded something called the Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS)
in 2001. Its mission was “to educate decision-makers and the grassroots about
why it is important to ban space weapons.” [rationalwiki]
If Webre and Rosin meant HR 2977 to demand some form of government
disclosure of UFO and alien activity and technology, they didn’t seem very
serious about it. As soon as the successor bill HR 3616 was introduced, co-author
Rosin claimed that chemtrails, psychotronic and other “exotic” weaponry had
only been mentioned in the first bill as an example of what MIGHT happen if the
bill isn’t passed. By 2011, Webre had left ICIS to advocate full-time against
HAARP, which he held to be a form of exotic weaponry and later hooked his wagon
to time-traveling Canadian lawyer Andrew Basiago’s star.
Neither version of the Space Preservation Act figure in any
of the periodic campaigns for disclosure that are mounted by the UFO community.
If disclosure advocates were unmoved by Kucinich’s legislative efforts,
chemtrailers found in them renewed hope. Chemtrail activist Lorie Kramer wrote online,
“By its conspicuous appearance in 2977, the term ‘chemtrails’ received a form
of credibility within the official government process never seen before.” Fellow
believer Bea Bernhausen added, “Bill HR2977 brought chemtrails and mind control
to the attention of thousands of people who had never heard of them before, as
well as revitalizing a sagging chemtrail
community.” [Italics added]
Berkeley
In September of 2002, Kucinich was set to visit Berkeley,
California in order to speak against what the Berkeley Daily Planet described as “Star Wars, a proposal to put
weapons in space.” City Council member Dona Spring put forward a resolution to
support Kucinich’s Space Preservation Act, which passed. The Planet reported, “the city’s resolution
to side with Kucinich’s cause is the first formal support the Congressman has
received.”
Actually, after HR 3616 in 2002 with its nine co-sponsors,
there was HR 3657 in 2003 with four co-sponsors and HR 2420 in 2005 which won
35 cosponsors. Kucinich clearly continued to work the bill in the normal
legislative fashion and had been successful in getting support, at least among
Democrats. In contrast, the Berkeley City Council’s resolution in support of a
bill that had never actually passed into law was largely a symbolic measure.
The Daily Planet article
quotes Spring as saying that the resolution was a model for the country because
weapons in space are a bad idea, escalate the arms race and makes the nation
less secure. Also, they pollute. The article goes on to quote Rosin, the
original bill’s co-author, who warns that without such legislation “Every
weapon you know about will be up there . . . along with many you can’t even
imagine.”
In 2008, an article about gang stalking and targeted
individuals was published in the Fashion & Style section of the New York Times. Terms like gang
stalking, mind control and targeted individuals will be somewhat familiar to
most consumers of fringe discourse. They all connote an intense paranoia in
which everyone in a person’s world is actively colluding in trying to control
and/or harm that person. The terms emerge from fringe discourses and often
invoke imaginary technologies held to be real by such discourses. Sharing Their Demons on the Web
described online communities of targeted individuals – victims of gang stalking
and mind control – and talked to psychiatrists about what it all meant.
Targeted individual Derrick Robinson is quoted as saying,
“It was a big relief to find the community.” One online victim community had
started IRL meetings; in Missouri, a state representative had agreed to call
for an investigation into mind control torture. As far back as 2008, then, we
see that activists around mind control issues are concerned about getting their
issue onto a legislative agenda.
On the other hand, Yale psychiatry professor Ralph Hoffman warned,
“The views of these belief systems are like a shark that has to be constantly
fed. If you don’t feed the delusion, sooner or later it will die out or
diminish on its own accord. The key thing is that it needs to be repetitively
reinforced.” Assuming that targeted individuals are almost certainly people
with untreated mental illness, which is my belief, enabling rather than
addressing the illness can have serious consequences.