By Ulrich von Kafkanien for The Saker Blog

I guess this mini-essay, a homage to the late Dave McGowan (1960–2015), needs some captatio benevolentiae as introduction. First: Rest assured, I am not going to question the veracity of the moon landings, of which the first one was broadcasted 50 years ago, July 20 1969. Second: I need to apologise for my poor command of the English language, which would be a good excuse for me not writing anything at all about a linguistic master like Dave McGowan. But as I don’t believe anybody else is going to do so, I set out to write my tribute to McGowan anyway. The reemergence of the Epstein case in the news this month, persuaded me to make good on this intent, not to feel guilty in a sin of omission.

Moon landings? The Epstein case? At the first glance these topics seem to be fallacious by their sheer lack of importance. Why not rather write about something serious and less sensational, like for example the nature of money or the current state of international finance? And didn’t I just promise you not to discuss the moon landings? Well, I promise to keep my promise, but on the other hand I will not abstain from assessing the possibility or impossibility of questioning said moon landings.

So I begin by taking you back to my mindset about 15 years ago; it feels like an eternity now. One day I bought my then beloved Der Spiegel magazine, which I read in order to keep myself informed on current affairs. That week it featured a story criticising certain conspiracy theories about the 11. September terror attacks. I did not bother to read that story. However, I still remember very well why I didn’t bother. I had yet never heard about anybody questioning 911 and I felt insulted that my Spiegel was wasting valuable pages on such bullshit. I was paying for the magazine after all, so I felt the editors were wasting my money. And what would be the next? Running a story informing the reading public that it is not likely that Elvis Presley resurrected from death in 1977? To me the story of 911 conspiracy theories was Thema verfehlt, fallacious as topic, not worth any consideration at all. It did not even occur to me that such hallucinogen induced fantasies could have any relation to politics.

In breve, I was far from any Dave McGowan. It took me five years after the fact to arrive to 911 truth and I embarked on that journey only because somebody appealed to my snobbishness by assuring me that 911 truth was a matter of becoming politically mature, something that I obviously was not, for my lacking understanding of Realpolitik.

The late Dave McGowan

During my two, three years of studying 911, I don’t think I ever came across the name Dave McGowan. It does not seem he had many friends in the 911 community. My current guess is that he was too far ahead from most truthers, too avant garde so to speak, and too irreverent as well.

First some weeks ago I discovered that he wrote and published an almost perfect analysis of 911 already the day after, the September 12 2001. Apart from one minor assumption that I don’t buy, his analysis could work as a good introduction to 911 truth even today, after nearly 18 years of investigations by so many great researchers. More than that, as early as August 3 2000, McGowan published a prophetic post called «The Terrorists are coming! The Terrorists are coming!». In many ways it reads as written today…

It must have been about that time McGowan started to question the moon landings. He was certainly not the first to do so, but he was well before Gerhard Wisnewski who published Lügen im Weltraum (English edition: One Small Step?) October 2005, with references to McGowan’ earlier effort on the subject, not available anymore.

Well, we search only where we expect to find something, don’t we? I knew that Wisnewski as early as 1992 had documented false flag terrorism in Germany, in Das RAF-Phanthom, co-written with fellow journalists Wolfgang Landgraeber and Ekkehard Sieker. (Incredibly, more than ten years after that book, Wisnewski managed to continue as mainstream investigating journalist in Germany, before he was kicked out after his documentary about 911 made him persona non grata, i.e. branded him as «conspiracy theorist».) After Das RAF-Phantom, I expected a certain standard by Wisnewski, and I was not disappointed, but there is one drawback with him; he is meticulous enough, but when it comes to writing style, rather dry, dead serious.

Dave McGowan is certainly not dry, he is engaging, funny, very good at generating laughs by hilarious sarcasms. So if you don’t think the moon landings are worthy of your time, you may read Wagging the Moondoggy to get entertained, that is, if you have some spare time from your otherwise busy life.

It is very difficult to question common assumptions, because most of the things we believe we know, we really don’t know at all; mostly somebody is knowing it on behalf of us. For example I believe that I know that sun rays takes about 8 minutes to reach me from the sun, but the reality is that somebody knows that on my behalf; I don’t have the time and the energy to find out how they have found it out for me. On the other hand, I know the method to ascertain the distance from Earth to Proxima Centauri, thus I think I know that distance of 4,2 or 4,3 light years for sure. The point is, I have no means to ascertain most of common assumptions, I just accept them, because my time and capacity are limited.

The moon landings are well published, and thus easy to accept; my former «knowledge» rested on such facts that my issue of Discovering the Essential Universe by Neil F. Comins has a splendid photo of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the front page or that Brian Eno (with Roger Eno and Daniel Lanois) recorded a great album back in 1983, named Apollo – Atmospheres and Soundtracks. Things like that.

After reading only the first part of Wagging the Moondoggy, I saw clearly that I am no intellectual. And that is not for lack of knowledge. Simply by combining the few «facts» I know about the spaceship’s journey to the moon 50 years ago and my knowledge of gravity, I should have figured out on my own that the story of Apollo 11 is very unconvincing, to say the least. But I am obviously no intellectual; I had to read Wisnewski to start disbelieving the story and McGowan to realise that the story is downright ridiculous. Why this slowness on my part? It took me only some hours back in 2006 to understand that the official story of 911 was fraudulent, but it took me at least two years to internalise it and fully accept it.

My initial belief, that «conspiracy theories» concerning 911 belonged to psychiatry and not to politics, is very similar to my former attitude to moon hoax theories. I used to perceive the moon landings as non-political events. I was not conscious that the soft power of the empire is very much a matter of politics. In India, MacDonald is considered chic, and obesity among the well-off on the rise, although traditional Indian fast food, for example dosa with chutney, has a quality sky above junk food from the USA. The Indian people, not to speak about the upper class, should be immune to anything from MacDonald. One more example, recently Ramin Mazaheri wrote here on this blog:

I visited Iran to enjoy the end of Ramadan: there was a rock and roll band playing in public at a food festival downtown Tehran the night before the Eid morning celebrations. I didn’t hear any Floyd from them, but they did do a lot of rather aimless, endless noodling – must have been Grateful Dead fans.

Grateful Dead fans in Tehran… It is astonishing how pervasive the culture of the Empire really is.

McGowan had something on that, too. His series Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon takes a unmerciful look at the origin of the hippie culture. I’ve read most of it twice. It is brilliantly written, as expected when it comes to McGowan. It is very much about «The Dark Heart Of The Hippie Dream». McGowan said about the improved book issue, «I was discovering, early on in my research, that there were a number of aspects of the Laurel Canyon scene that didn’t really seem to fit in with the prevailing image of a hippie utopia that was ostensibly all about peace and love.»

I don’t necessarily buy all of McGowans hypothesises, but his material speaks for itself.

After his video deconstruction of the Boston Marathon incident, published on You Tube, «[…] someone using the username Phoenix Archangel posted an interesting comment: this David McGowan fella really ought to quit smoking. With all the elitist feathers he’s ruffling, he’s likely to come down with a spontaneous case of hitherto undiagnosed stage 4 inoperable Pancreatic cancer. […] As for Mr./Ms Archangel, he/she wasn’t too far off, though I’ve been told that it’s actually incurable small-cell lung cancer that has already spread to my liver and bones.» (McGowan, July 14, 2015)

Dave McGowan passed away 23 November 2015.

…all the elitist feathers he’s ruffling… Not political? It seems that the powers that be are more concerned about the image of «the indispensable nation» than I for my part have been inclined to believe. (I have for years perceived Michael Hudson as the most dangerous person for the powers that be.)

When it comes to Jeffrey Epstein, I see that case a bit different after reading McGowan’s book Programmed to Kill: The Politics of Serial Murder. Epstein appears to be not more than the visible tip of a much bigger and much darker iceberg, which the public probably never will be aware of. In an understatement, McGowan introduce his subject with: «It is probably safe to say that this is not your typical ’true crime’ book.» Part One, «The Pedophocrazy», is about systematic «acts of depravity committed against children that are so heinous as to be almost beyond human comprehension.» (page 68) Curiously, the name Epstein doesn’t even occur in the book, and is there anything McGowan never is short of, it must be names, his Weird Scenes in the Canyon reads partly like a who is who. Part Two of that volume, «There’s Something About Henry», is deconstructing popular myths about serial killers, for example the lone nut myth. Naturally, this book is not funny at all. It made me think about something Dmitry Orlov once wrote; the USA is more a country club than a country. All the trials of the serial killers come across as cover-ups, it is a consistent pattern.

Finally I should perhaps insert a little caveat, I do not agree with McGowan in every minor detail. Unwarranted interpretations may occur, some inaccuracies as well. But that is only my quibbles. Mostly he does not push his hypothesises, but let an overkill of facts speak for itself. I am not even qualified to write this little homage, as I first came across his writings three months ago. Only recently I have started to read his Newsletters from 2002 to 2008.

I think readers of The Saker blog deserve to know Dave McGowan’s writing. He was really good at ruffling elitist feathers, perhaps so good that somebody finally let him pay for it with his life.