@Daddie0 said:

I enjoyed this series and it did a great job of weaving an effective and balanced narrative. Like many, I had heard of Bundy, but learn a lot from this series. One thing I found kinda annoying was the audio mixing...it seems to me if you're calling the series "The Bundy Tapes" you might be particularly focused on quality audio. Too many times the background music was drowning out the low-quality audio recordings. All that said, it's a minor flaw in a great film.

Excellent point. In fact, that is my most frequent complaint with television shows and movies: background music which drowns out the conversation. It is astounding to me how often this is a problem. Producers must believe that loud background music is necessary to induce an emotional response in the viewers. There is no doubt that music makes a tremendous contribution to media productions. But it is equally true that music can ruin media productions. In fact, when I cannot make out conversation because of background music which is too loud, I sometimes get very angry about it. But as you said, it isn't that bad in this series, and the show did a nice job summarizing the Bundy story.

I recall hearing something about the killings in the Northwest when I was a young man. Of course it was after Bundy was identified as the kidnapper and as a suspect in the slayings of many young ladies that the story became a front page item. I was amazed when I heard that Bundy had escaped the second time from custody in Colorado. What an embarrassment that was for the state.
Bundy's escapes must have triggered a review of jail and courthouse security designs and procedures nationwide.

It is often the case that news coverage of psychos like Bundy sensationalizes them and builds them up in ways which later seem ridiculous. Bundy was portrayed as a very intelligent man, astute in legal maneuvers and so on, according to news reports at the time. And he clearly believed himself to be smarter than everyone else. But looking at the historical record, listening to him speak, I find him to be of only average intelligence. Bundy was a manipulator, not a genius. His choice of words was frequently sub-par, as were his attempts at humor. But he delivered his lines as though full of import, staring at his audience to gauge their effect. Though he laughed, his eyes were almost threatening, pushing the listener to laugh with him, or else. When things didn't go his way, he couldn't disguise his anger, as when he pointed his finger repeatedly at the judge while expressing his displeasure, until the judge made him stop it.

He was a narcissist, and a sociopath (or else a psychopath) too. And judging from the descriptions of his extreme mood swings, from the elevated, highly personable and energetic moods to his dark somewhat depressed moods, and according to one evaluation, he had bi-polar disorder as well.
Those disorders don't excuse his crimes in any way. He made the decision to give in to his dark desires, rather than seeking help in order to protect others. He chose evil. Most others so affected don't do what he did.

The defense attorney in the film criticized the use of Bundy's dental impressions to tie him to the bruises on Miss Levy's buttocks. She said dental bruises had been discredited as an identifier.

Perhaps that is generally true, but not so in this case, because Ted Bundy had very badly misaligned teeth, so badly misaligned as to make his bite mark quite distinctive, almost like a fingerprint. The odontologist's testimony bothered Bundy. He scurried over to stand near the jury, attempting to manipulate them to be on his side. And the look on his face showed that he knew just how devastating the bite evidence was to his case. (Ironic that Bundy's anger drove him to bite Lisa Levy's butt, and that bite was crucial in frying his butt.)

Unable to either threaten or charm the jury to disregard that evidence, Bundy once again postured as a victim, and left the courthouse in protest. 'I don't like that testimony, and I won't put up with it!' he was saying in effect. Then he stuffed wet toilet paper into the lock on his jail cell so the guards could not get him out in time for court the next day.

"I was feeling embittered and persecuted. I couldn't endure this humiliation. I had to make a statement."

What humiliation? The state provided clear evidence that Ted Bundy bit Miss Levy's buttocks the night that he killed her. The state showed that he was guilty. How dare they do that? Bundy decided he would just show the court how unhappy that made him. But the court and the jury were not impressed. He was found guilty on all counts, and again found guilty when tried for the murder of Kim Leach.

He was still keeping up the ruse of innocence, still seeking sympathy, still angry at those who refused to buy his facade of passivity, still manipulating those around him.

His final grand attempt at manipulation came three days before his scheduled execution. He finally admitted to the state that he had killed around 30 women and buried about 10 of them. He agreed to show the investigators where the bodies were buried if they would delay his execution date. "I'm the only one in possession of this information, that's just the way it is. To do a proper job, for everybody, I'm gonna need some time." he said.

But Gov. Bob Martinez wasn't having any of that. The state, the whole nation, was sick of Ted Bundy's theatrics, his lies, his flouting of the justice system, his voice, his laugh, his fake grin, his evil eyes, and fed up with 10 years denying his guilt. Now he had confessed to dozens of brutal, premeditated murders scattered over 6 states, and he needed "some time". Too bad. He had three days.

At that time I recall hearing Bundy became enraged when he learned there would be no stay of execution. He believed his manipulation would buy him a few years. He finally admitted the truth, and he got nothing for it, and he was angry about that. But he didn't have long to stew about it. The world was finally rid of Ted Bundy.

Write2topcat - I enjoyed your description of the trial etc - I haven't seen it yet but I have taped it. I couldn't agree more with your conclusions. Frighteningly - if he was on trial today he would probably end up on death row or a cushy mental hospital because we are all so liberal these days as far as criminals are concerned. With regard to the background music on virtually all programs nowadays - I simply cannot understand why there should be music when people are speaking - it is irritating beyond belief particularly when your hearing (like mine) is not so good anyway. I use subtitles constantly along with the mute button. It is the only way I can watch most programs these days.

@strangebedfellows said:

Write2topcat - I enjoyed your description of the trial etc - I haven't seen it yet but I have taped it. I couldn't agree more with your conclusions. Frighteningly - if he was on trial today he would probably end up on death row or a cushy mental hospital because we are all so liberal these days as far as criminals are concerned. With regard to the background music on virtually all programs nowadays - I simply cannot understand why there should be music when people are speaking - it is irritating beyond belief particularly when your hearing (like mine) is not so good anyway. I use subtitles constantly along with the mute button. It is the only way I can watch most programs these days.

Strangebedfellows- Indeed the times have changed. I suspect if he were on trial these days his disposition would depend more on who his victims were, and what their politics were, than the facts of the cases. Also, as you say, the modern political climate is such that half the politicians are apt to charge the police with crimes for forcefully arresting the murderer, or for racism if the perpetrator is a minority, despite whatever crime he may have committed. I don't know, maybe I am too cynical about that.

Certainly back then Bundy had enraged the nation and his mental status was not going to be allowed to be used to stay his execution. No court wanted to be the one to make that decision. Besides, he had demonstrated his competency to the satisfaction of several courts of law already, and his grandstanding before news crews was sufficient that the whole nation had already decided that this guy was quite aware of reality, of the law, and certainly knew the difference between right and wrong. He was a white male, which is practically a crime these days according to some. I suspect that he would have the same impact on people if his trials happened today. There would be differences, but overall, his arrogance, the brutality of his crimes, his targeting of women, all of that would make him enough of a monster in the public and political eyes that he would still get the death penalty.
His best defense these days would be to take female hormones, crossdress, register as a Democrat, and get a black boyfriend.

And I use subtitles also. I couldn't get by with some shows without them.

Write2topcat - You are so funny !!!! I absolutely agree with you. In Britain we are not allowed to even mention the ethnicity of criminals in news articles. The only clues we get are from their names and from photographs published after they have been found guilty of the crimes they were accused of. Serial killers are extra lucky because they are usually assumed to be insane and committed to mental hospitals where they are treated as patients and enjoy take out meals - if they get too fat they get a free £15000 gastric bypass. A female who stabbed her boyfriend to death got £5000 of free plastic surgery on her release. The PC brigade has turned the world into a cess pit.

@strangebedfellows said:

Write2topcat - You are so funny !!!! I absolutely agree with you. In Britain we are not allowed to even mention the ethnicity of criminals in news articles. The only clues we get are from their names and from photographs published after they have been found guilty of the crimes they were accused of. Serial killers are extra lucky because they are usually assumed to be insane and committed to mental hospitals where they are treated as patients and enjoy take out meals - if they get too fat they get a free £15000 gastric bypass. A female who stabbed her boyfriend to death got £5000 of free plastic surgery on her release. The PC brigade has turned the world into a cess pit.

It is almost that bad here. The news has self imposed rules on themselves by which they often hide the ethnicity of suspects, but that isn't a hard and fast rule. In local newscasts it is not uncommon to hear that a black male in his 20s is a suspect. Usually their victim is a black person and I think the black community wants them caught more than anyone, so they want the description out there.

But when it is a political issue, as when a police officer has to shoot a black person, the news will often twist the issue. About 90 miles from where I live, a few years back there was a shooting. A black man pointed a gun at an officer who shot him first. The news reported it as a racial issue, as though it indicated a racist police officer. The police officer who had to shoot him was black, but they neglected to report that. There were riots in Charlotte NC for about 2 to 3 days, and a couple of people died in the riots. And I blame that on the news. They wanted to push the racist police officer angle, even though none of the facts supported that interpretation. Perception becomes reality, so they say. In that case perception led to ruined lives. But it boosted the news ratings and advanced certain agendas, which is what matters most to some people.

The insanity defense was abused in our system at one time. So now it is pretty difficult to use insanity to avoid prison. A person has to be able to convince several psychiatrists that they can't tell right from wrong. The public just got tired of people escaping justice by acting crazy. A sociopath is mentally ill, but they know damned well that what they are doing is wrong.
But if the person has a break with reality, such that they didn't realize what they were doing, or that they didn't know it was wrong at the time, then they would go to a mental hospital. It's just not that common.

It is quite common here - our hospitals for the criminally insane are always full. We have had no capital punishment since the sixties - maybe that explains it. A serial killer (jailed in 1988) for the murder of three young girls - one killed whilst his baby was in the car alone) is in an open prison and enjoys day release where he can walk about unmonitored. His next parole hearing is in 2020 and the chances are they will let him out at the age of 58. This is our justice system - at least you get sensible sentences in America - sometimes for hundreds of years. The parole board has no comment when they re-offend. Newspapers disgust me - all they do is stir up trouble and make up stories for sensationalism - "The Sun" has been taken to task many times for claiming interviews with people that never happened. I don't know why people believe what they read in these rags. I guess it is human nature to want to believe the worst and the newspapers know it.

As you indicated, the liberals are making the world a crazy, dangerous place. I hope that 58 year old man has received life changing therapy, but let's face it; when someone is so badly twisted that they murder multiple young girls the odds of them becoming normal are very slim, just as with the child molesters. They re-offend at high rates. Liberals don't have an answer for that other than to blame racism, or some other injustice, as though that explains and justifies the violence. They blame the innocent, and don't even support law abiding people having the right to defend themselves.

Here in the US the liberals want to disarm everyone. The trouble with that is that the murder rates are higher when law abiding people are disarmed. Perhaps there are fewer shootings, but murder by all means goes up. In jurisdictions where law abiding citizens are granted concealed carry handgun permits, the violent crime rates always decrease. And permit holders are responsible; they get in trouble less frequently than even the police. The majority of shootings are done by people who obtain weapons illegally, mostly gang members and drug dealers and so on.

I read a study which showed the same thing in other countries. In the UK, in jurisdictions where more people own firearms, violent crime rates are lower, and vice versa. More guns equal less crime. In fact, the countries with the highest murder rates per capita all have strict gun control. The US is not even in the top 100 countries, despite having more guns per capita than any other nation, by far. If not for the big Democrat controlled cities with gun control, and their very high murder rates, the US would have one of the lowest rates in the world, not the lowest, but in the bottom 10 to 15 or so.
It just makes too much common sense; criminals don't want to attack someone if that person might shoot them. But if they know their target doesn't have a handgun, then the elderly, the frail, women, a person walking alone, etc. make an easy, safe, target for thugs up to no good.

Yet liberals want to disarm everyone. It is am emotional position, not a rational one. The police cannot protect you. They will try to find out who killed you after you're dead. That is their job, they're not bodyguards. When a criminal is shot by a citizen defending themselves, usually there is nothing said about it. But if it is possible to twist the facts, the liberal news media will try to attack the citizen. That happened with the case of George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin several years ago. I think it made international news. Zimmerman was a neighborhood watchman for an apartment complex which had seen multiple break ins and robberies. He saw a guy wearing a hoodie sweatshirt looking into windows and followed him as he called the police. When he was told he didn't need to follow any further he went back to his car. But the guy in the hoodie, Trayvon Martin, saw that Zimmerman was following him and didn't like it. When Zimmerman turned away Martin decided to chase him down and give him a beating. The younger, stronger Martin caught up to Zimmerman and took him down and began beating his head against the pavement as he sat on his chest. Zimmerman feared he was going to lose consciousness and possibly his life. He pulled his licensed handgun and fired once into Martin. The news decided to crucify Zimmerman. They ran photos of Martin when he was 12 years old, to make it appear that a child had been killed. And they touched up the police photos of Zimmerman, removing the lacerations and blood.
The news media tried to start a riot over this justified shooting. Had Zimmerman been beaten to death, we would have heard nothing about it. Even though in the trial the facts about Martin's criminal activity were suppressed, the truth as determined by forensics and witness statements was sufficient to confirm that Zimmerman had acted legally to save his life.

The news goes crazy when a mosque is attacked. Yet every single day (on average) in Europe a Christian church is physically attacked in some way, defecated on, rocks through windows, people attacked, and so on. Yet the news never mentions this.

As you said, the news prints lies intended to inflame or push an agenda. They print propaganda, and are seldom made to suffer for it. Until they are made to pay a price for their libel, propaganda, and other lies, they will continue. (I have my own "conspiracy theories" about how and why the news gets away with all they do, but won't go into all of that.)

There is some justice. The worst offenders here in the US, CNN and MSNBC, have become so outrageous in their bias and propaganda that the public has become disgusted with them. Their ratings have fallen significantly, and their profits along with them. The phony "Trump-Russia collusion" story was pushed via the media for over 2 years. Now that the investigation has proven there was no such collusion they have egg on their faces.

The funny thing is, the Russians gave the Clinton Foundation around 174 million dollars, but never gave Trump a penny! And Hillary approved the sale of 20% of America's uranium reserves to a Russian company, and got rewarded handsomely for it. Yet the news ignores this outrageous, almost treasonous action by Hillary Clinton.
I am hopeful that an investigation will reveal the crimes of those who attempted to take down Trump with this phony accusation. If the whole truth ever comes out, I believe there will be members of the media shown to have been willing participants in the attempts to take down Trump.

Wow, I really got off on a tangent. LOL

I enjoyed your post - I don't mind going off topic when the post is as interesting as yours is. American culture is very interesting to me - especially from an ordinary citizen who lives life at the sharp end. My information usually comes from the likes of Judge Judy !! I too tend to have conspiracy theories, especially about things like 9/11 and JFK and Princess Diana. I could go on forever !! I think that people don't actually think for themselves anymore - they just accept what the media tells them to. To get back on topic - sort of - I just watched the movie "Extremely wicked exceedingly shocking and vile" another Ted Bundy vehicle which was very accurate and quite interesting told from his girlfriends point of view.

@strangebedfellows said:

I enjoyed your post - I don't mind going off topic when the post is as interesting as yours is. American culture is very interesting to me - especially from an ordinary citizen who lives life at the sharp end. My information usually comes from the likes of Judge Judy !! I too tend to have conspiracy theories, especially about things like 9/11 and JFK and Princess Diana. I could go on forever !! I think that people don't actually think for themselves anymore - they just accept what the media tells them to. To get back on topic - sort of - I just watched the movie "Extremely wicked exceedingly shocking and vile" another Ted Bundy vehicle which was very accurate and quite interesting told from his girlfriends point of view.

I saw that one as well. I had not realized it was she who sent in his name in response to the police sketch after the girls were taken from that public park/beach area.

You said "I think that people don't actually think for themselves anymore - they just accept what the media tells them to. "

I could not agree with you more. And I am sure that it is by design that people don't think for themselves. On that one subject I could go on for quite a while. The American education system has changed a great deal since I graduated from college. Much has been written about the dumbing down of education in America. Our students have high self esteem, and believe themselves well educated, yet they score near the bottom on standardized tests compared with other industrialized nations. The national educators, the ones who develop the new curriculae, go to conferences, write articles, etc. brag about how they are shaping society, changing beliefs, indoctrinating children in how and what to think, rather than teaching them facts, and critical thinking skills (though in a grotesque bit of deceit they at one point designed an indoctrination lesson they labeled 'critical thinking') are responsible for the adulteration of our educational system. There was a meeting in 1985 of American educators with Soviet bloc educators for the purpose of 'exchanging ideas'. The American national educators came away with designs for behavioral conditioning methodology. "Political Correctness", while it did not originate as a concept from those meetings, began to be taught to students shortly thereafter. These educators believe it is the job of education to effect social engineering, to instill certain beliefs, & attitudes, and to condition students to behave and respond in certain ways, rather than to prepare them to think for themselves. Our students are taught to value group conformity rather than individuality and independent, critical thinking. Students are desensitized to their parents' traditional values as teachers who have been trained as "change agents" lead them to new values, though the students believe they have come up with these new values on their own. Peer pressure, ridicule, and similar means are employed to isolate those who resist adopting the new, approved values. Students are taught to make emotional decisions (which is how all sales decisions are actually made, by the way). One fellow said that the problem isn't so much that they cannot think; it's that they confuse thinking with feeling. And he was so right. I am sure you have observed young people who arrive at 'conclusions' based on their emotional responses, though those conclusions are contradicted by a rational analysis of the facts.

We wind up with students who have been conditioned to respond in predictable ways to stimuli, as one does to post hypnotic suggestions. And they believe they are thinking for themselves. (Donald Trump used to be a popular figure, both in business and in the media with his television show in which he assigned business tasks to teams of people, firing those who failed to perform up to standards. It was only after he decided to run for President, and was thus an impediment to Hillary Clinton that he came under intense fire from the news media - and almost immediately the younger generations began to "think" of him in extremely negative terms. They could not tell you why they disliked him, other than to repeat whatever phrase they had heard on the news. But they have no idea why they think, or rather feel, they way they do. Speaking to Obama supporters, you can describe one of Obama's policies and tell them it is one of Trump's policies, and they will denounce it as racist, or in some other negative manner. Or you can describe Trump's policies and tell them they were Obama's policies and they will lavish praise upon them, recognize the wisdom of them, etc. They only "know" what the news media has instructed them to think.) It is just as you said.

High school graduates (in America) need remedial work when they enter college (if they take any serious course work), and college graduates are no better off.
Our students are so poorly prepared that universities have simply lowered entrance requirements. One almost has to be retarded to be rejected. The poorer students are funneled into "studies" majors, such as "gender studies", "feminist studies", etc. And even the regular majors have been dumbed down to the point that getting a degree no longer indicates competency. Corporations report that they have had to develop remedial training in house for college graduates because they no longer have the basic skills and knowledge base which was standard in past decades.

I don't know if she is in the news in the UK or not, but New York recently elected a young lady named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC for short) who graduated college with a degree in economics. She regularly embarrasses herself, not only with her often incoherent rants on social media, but with her incompetence. She didn't even understand what a tax break is. I assume things are done the same in the UK, but don't know for sure. Anyway, in the US, different states compete to attract companies to locate and employ their people, and one way to do this is to give them lower tax rates, or credits (sometimes dependent upon them meeting certain goals in terms of hiring people, constructing new buildings, and so on). And recently New York City tried to entice Amazon to put their new headquarters there by offering them quite a bit, I think it was over $2 billion in tax credits over time, as Amazon met certain goals. NYC would have seen around 25,000 jobs averaging over 150,000 dollars each and the net increase in revenue over that period was predicted to be around $25 billion, if I recall. But AOC began loudly and publicly fighting against the deal, saying NYC could spend that $2 billion on education, or to create jobs! Someone had to explain to her that a tax credit isn't a pile of cash. But she is so bull headed that she maintained her opposition and Amazon finally decided that they would look for a more friendly environment.
How could she graduate with a degree in economics and be so ignorant? She is thoroughly conditioned to -hate the rich, like Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, -support whatever her leftist backers tell her to, -and believe in herself completely, even though she has no idea what she is talking about.

Could there be a better example of how far our educational standards have been allowed to fall? Not everyone is so ignorant as she, but the mere fact that she could graduate and know so little speaks volumes about the decline of American education.

The crazy thing is that this is by design. The powers that be desire a malleable, easily led, unthinking, mass of people who can be told what they 'think', who can easily be induced to become enraged over issues they don't even comprehend.
We live in a brainwashed society.
Everyone recalls when "subliminal advertising" was banned back in the 1950s. In movie theatres, they show ads for coming films for a couple of minutes prior to the movie. It was proven that by placing a picture of a box of popcorn in the ads, every 7th frame, the sales of popcorn increased significantly, EVEN THOUGH IT WAS IMPERCEPTIBLE TO THE EYE. That is very basic tech, and it works. I recall reading of studies published back in the early 1980s regarding the use of electronic frequencies, undetectable by our senses, which lead individuals into altered states of consciousness similar to hypnosis. I read of one demonstration of such a frequency which would cause physical arousal in males in which members of the military audience started becoming erect during a boring speech, as the frequency was silently beamed into the audience.
Much of that work is likely classified but imagine the advances made in such technology over the past 30 plus years. (It makes me want to build a house with lead lined walls. )

Of course this leads me right back to your point about the news media. We have 24/7 news coverage these days, and much of it is opinion based content, and highly emotive at that. Combined with electronic frequency technology, and probably other related technologies, people are unwittingly becoming mere automatons.

I don't pretend to be as obviously intelligent and well informed as you are - I wish I was !!! All I can say is that in Britain educational standards have been dropping for years whilst we are being told that exam passes are higher than ever before. Considering the number of children that leave school without being able to read or write one has to wonder where they get their statistics from. Our educational system starts at five years old and there is a demand that these babies are taught the ins and outs of every sexual persuasion there is. The GCSE exams start at 16 and used to require an A B or C to be considered a pass - it is now down to a G. University starts at 19 or so and degrees include tourism and television soap operas amongst other Mickey Mouse subjects. I have always believed that this is a deliberate political policy - it is much easier to control the ill educated sheep than it is to control the privately educated wolves. What better way to maintain the status quo. The rich control the poor. You only have to watch any quiz show to see the level of intellect in the general population and to make matters worse these idiots can't stop talking which serves to accentuate their complete lack of knowledge. An example - for your amusement - "What William wrote "As you like it?" Answer - "Tell". Yes he wasn't joking. Literature in particular seems to have fallen by the wayside. People have been made intellectually lazy - it is hard to think - it requires effort and application - they would rather take a selfie and appear on TV - the media takes full advantage of this desire for self aggrandizement - it's great television to watch people having intercourse under a blanket rather than informing them of the truth of what is going on in the world. I haven't heard of AOC, but I am sure there are plenty of her ilk in our political system also. It's very frightening - like a science fiction scenario which is going to be science fact. You may be aware that we are in the throes of Brexit - the British people have had a referendum and have voted to leave - the wolf pack who have their snouts in so many businesses that would be affected by our departure - are fighting tooth and nail to overturn that referendum - and if they do then democracy will be dead in Britain and we shall be a dictatorship. At least it will be out in the open then because the indigenous British people have had all their rights stripped away from them bit by bit for years in the interests of votes and cheap labour. With regard to gun laws - most people in Britain are unarmed - I think permits are required and you have to be a farmer or a member of a gun club to own one - I am not sure about that. Our laws are so stupid with regard to self defence. If someone breaks into your home you have to use "comparable force" to confront them - if you don't you can end up in court and convicted. As if you are going to have time to look around for a knife the same size as his !!! A pensioner recently stabbed a burglar who was a career criminal - a young man - he died - his relatives were outraged and left floral tributes outside the pensioners home - for the burglar !!! The pensioner was arrested but not charged. Probably because the knife was a small domestic implement. Another pensioner - living in a remote farmhouse who was being constantly burgled shot and killed a burglar and he was imprisoned for it - it was only after a huge public outcry that he was eventually released after serving some time in jail. I believe that our laws are in dire need of being amended because they are definitely skewed in favour of the criminal.

It sounds as though the dumbing down of education is not just going on here in the US. That doesn't surprise me. There is an organization comprised mostly of very wealthy leftists called the Club of Rome. Bill Gates, David Rockefeller, & Prince Phillip are a few of the members. They published a small book in 1992 or 3 called The First Global Revolution in which they described their goal of forming a global government based in the United Nations. Not surprisingly, it would not be a democratically elected government, but apparently one run by the world elites, presumably the same ones in the Club of Rome. They talked about the need for an external threat, either real or something created for the purpose, something to cause the nations of the world to come together as one, the same as a country tends to unify when they must go to war. Global warming was one of the ideas mentioned. They spoke of the need to exaggerate the danger in order to motivate people to unify. I thought it was pretty amazing that they published all that in the first edition of the book. I suppose they think nobody can stop them. When you read a list of the top 100 people you see they represent most of the money in the world. Basically they are advocating a world dictatorship, and selling it as a benevolent idea, because they are saving the world.

Incidentally, they also advocate lowering the world population from around 7 billion presently down to somewhere in a range between 250 million up to about 2 billion. They don't say how they would seek to achieve that. Given that the natural tendency is for population to increase, they would have to implement some sort of plan against our wills. Bill Gates gave a speech on overpopulation and ways to lower the population to a college crowd. There is video of this still floating around the web. The really spooky thing is that one of the ways he listed for lowering the population was through the administration of vaccines! The audience didn't fail to notice that I thought, because they seemed to be very still and silent after he said it. Usually vaccines reduce disease, and therefore death, and would therefore tend to increase the population. So what is in the vaccines Bill and Melinda Gates want to distribute throughout the third world? Some kind of sterilization or long term birth control? There will always be narcissists and sociopaths who seek to rule nations, and the world. They want dumbed down populations, for the very reason you mentioned; it is much easier to control ill educated sheep than well educated critical thinkers.

Sometimes one of the late night talk show hosts will conduct a "man on the street interview" piece in which random people are stopped and queried with elementary questions about American history. For instance on July the 4th, which is our Independence Day, people were asked "What country did the early settlers fight a war with in 1776 to gain independence from, and form the new nation of the USA?" I watched this one night and was amazed that nobody younger than about 45 years old knew it was Great Britain! Incredible. The only exception was a couple of tourists from Holland I think got the answer correct. The others had no idea that we had been a British colony and had fought to gain independence. I could not believe it. And it was the same for other very simple questions like that. However, if they asked a question about which Hollywood star is dating which other star, the people instantly called out the answer. And that once again shows how people seem to rely on TV for their knowledge and beliefs.

That is terrifying - but quite honestly I think the above scenario has been in place since at least the 1950's. I don't think it is just the third world that they are intending to decimate either. I have long believed that there is a secret agreement between our government and the medical profession to start reducing the grey population. I don't know if you have heard of Harold Shipman - a doctor who killed at least 250 people and probably many more before he was found out. He would answer no questions and committed suicide in jail. There is now another case in Gosport - a female doctor who over medicated the same amount of people to death - she - at the moment - has retired from the hospital and from the GMC. It remains to be seen if she will even be charged. My father went into hospital with a non life threatening condition - overnight he became doubly incontinent, unconscious, and died for no apparent reason. Other people I have spoken to relate the same experiences. The super rich seem to think that they can live forever - I was wondering recently why there have been no serious health issues with our super rich and royal family since Princess Margaret died - she was a heavy smoker and drinker - so maybe she was not able to be saved - but nobody else seems to be getting ill in our royal family. I wonder sometimes if cures have been found that the general population know nothing of. You say "they talked about a need for an external threat" isn't there a saying "first create a climate of fear" isn't that what 9/11 was all about? A false flag operation to place an unconscionable level of surveillance and control over the population in a situation where they wouldn't question it - even be grateful for it. I read a book called "The Second Pearl Harbour" which described how a building a few blocks away from the Twin Towers collapsed in exactly the same way with no sign of any outside attack. The only consolation is that at the moment - everybody dies at some point - including the most corrupt of us.

You're so right. In fact when Obama overhauled our medical system and instituted his Obamacare program, it included death panels, though they were not called such. When the elderly go into hospital they need to watch out, in my opinion. Like you, I cannot prove anything, but there is anecdotal evidence suggesting they are being allowed to die, or possibly being assisted. Most of the healthcare costs are incurred at the end of life, so if you don't have a really good private plan, you cannot expect life preserving treatment I am sorry to say.

And yes, 9/11 was not merely a terrorist attack. In fact it was mostly an inside job. The terrorist team was likely an infiltrated team, if there even was one. I won't go into all of that. Perhaps Trump will expose this once he is able to clean out the traitors inside our government (if they don't kill him first).

The building you're referring to is world trade center #7, a 47 story (I think) steel frame skyscraper which was not hit by a plane or major debris. It came down inside its own footprint, at freefall speed, exactly like a controlled demolition using conventional explosives. It was just like all those buildings you have seen taken down in controlled explosive demolitions. It was shown once on 9/11, and never again after that. Because everyone knows that it takes a team of experts several months of full time work to rig the explosives, the cutting charges timed to take out the supporting girders at exactly the right moments to allow the building to fall straight down, with no resistance. There is simply no way to rig a building to do that in a few hours. So those who suggest that the building was badly damaged by fire and debris, and that therefore the owner decided to demolish it that day are talking impossible nonsense. Since it could only have come down the way it did by controlled demolition, that is proof that WTC7's destruction was planned at least several months prior to 9/11. And that was hidden from the public.

The physics involved in the twin towers destruction, the residue in the dust, and other factors offer proof that the towers did NOT come down according to the official NIST report rationale. The planes could not have brought down the towers. It is impossible. I won't go into the evidence, or speculate on what it implies, but clearly it was an inside job.

And yes, this false flag terror attack provided the motivation for the public to grant the government a massive increase in their power, and the infringement and cancellation of much or our rights and liberties. It was a huge psychological warfare operation carried out on the American people, as well as mass murder, and it provided a coverup for the theft of $ Trillions. The records for the disposition of trillions of dollars were all destroyed, both in monies which the Pentagon could not account for and was beginning to investigate, and also on Wall Street. "Steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you King."

When you steal trillions of dollars, which politician can you not buy off? Anyway, the people who stole the money already own our politicians (except Trump, which is why they hate him so). They already have people all throughout our intelligence agencies. It really is a spooky and depressing situation, but I think we may still have a chance to turn things around. If not, well I am 61 and won't live to see the worst of what is coming I suppose.

Me neither. But as I have often said - if the whole world was wiped out and we had to start again from scratch knowing what we know now - it would play out exactly the same way because human beings will never change. Thank you for all your insights and information - I have really enjoyed this conversation.

By the way, earlier you mentioned Princess Diana. Sometime if you feel like it, I would like to hear what you think of her death. I thought perhaps the Royals didn't like her dating an Egyptian man since she was the mother of a future King, or something like that. We know it is technically possible to hack the controls of autos which have computer chips, to control the steering, braking, and speed. The wreck could easily have been engineered. What do you guys think? As far as JFK, that is a deep one. I am fairly confident I know who was behind it. If you want I can summarize what I believe happened.