The new kid in town
 | By Billy Cox
De Void
9-6-13 |
With allowances for the inevitable transmission glitches, something with extraordinary potential occurred Thursday evening in the new-media realm. Now let’s see where it goes from here.
In a 90-minute Skype chat, author Leslie Kean joined four characters who figured prominently in her 2010 New York Times bestseller
UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record. Jose Lay of the Chilean government’s UFO research program, USAF officer veterans Charles Halt and Robert Salas, and retired Iranian air force general Parviz Jafari recounted some dramatic incidents they shared with Kean years ago. If you follow this stuff at all, you’re probably familiar with the talking points.
YouTube's fledgling 'citizen journalism' channel apparently has no aversion to addressing The Great Taboo.
For De Void, the revelation was the stage itself: Truthloader, a component of YouTube’s $200 million original channels initiative. Founded by ITN Productions last year in the UK, Truthloader — like most startups — trumpeted its ambitions with the prerequisite hype. Announced ITN’s “community producer” Phil Harper, “We take on the stories the mainstream news won’t or cannot cover.” Vowed ITN’s managing editor: “Our experts will separate truth from fakery and bring the very best in eyewitness accounts to audiences around the world.”
What fuels “the very best” of those eyewitness accounts? Video offerings from the bane of knee-jerk mainstreamers like, well, De Void. Truthloader promises, among other things, to champion “citizen journalism,” which is the traditional punch line to the truism that begins: “When you’re too lazy, cheap, or cynical to hire
real reporters ...”
A quick scan reveals Truthloader’s uneven plane, like an unsourced clip asserting there were 300,000 attempts to access Internet porn last year using computers in the British Parliament. The accusation provoked a government denial, which also accompanied the piece.
And then there’s Truthloader’s uh-oh declaration that “We love science, tech, conspiracies, and weird stuff,” which, to De Void, initially reeks of garden-variety paranoia. Front and center are video entries dedicated to the Bilderberg Group. Typically, cyber-rants about blue-helmeted gulag-slaving jack-booted iris-scanning New World Order tyranny are incomplete without tossing the old Bilderberg saw into middle of the laundry basket.
But instead of regurgitating endless theories about this comically secretive, 59-year-old nexus of powerful corporate and political rainmakers, Truthloader actually puts boots on the ground at Bilderberg’s annual conventions, where protesters are kept at arm’s length by formidable security. The results can be enormously entertaining. Look — there’s Henry Kissinger in the back seat of a limo, looking as remote and grainy as an Everglades skunk ape. See former PM Tony Blair’s deer-in-the-headlights shock at being confronted about his attendance at a Bilderberg confab in 1993, especially when the question is
Wasn’t that a conflict of interest? “Yeah,” Blair responds after some thought. He sighs, then offers a hopeful brushoff. “But it may have changed a bit since my day.”
And here’s where things get even more interesting. Described as an assembly of the “high priests of globalization,” Bilderberg's yearly gathering of CEOs, bankers, Euroroyals, and poohbahs as eclectic as Rupert Murdoch and Angela Merkel gets no media attention. Zilch. And it’s not just because the media aren’t invited. Truthloader manages to corner the likes of erstwhile ABC/CNN anchor Paula Zahn, who admits her cluelessness on camera. These guys are absolutely undaunted in the unplowed fields.
“I have no idea what that is,” replies MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell. “
If ," the Truthloader presses on,
"I could tell you it’s a meeting of the most influential people in the world —” “No it’s not,” O’Donnell interrupts. “I have no idea what that is, so it’s not.” Wow. That doesn't look arrogant.
Truthloader may well turn out to be another flash in the pan. For now, anyway, it is young, fearless, energetic and bristling with the kind of vibe that could really shake things up, maybe even with the UFO stalemate. Phil Harper, who hosted Thursday night’s UFO discussion, has demonstrated a command of the basic issues, and has so far avoided the dreck that often sidetracks so many naive intentions. Truthloader's framing of Leslie Kean's material wasn’t for the old hands — it was for a generation which has been screwed on so many fronts by the status quo.
If Harper and Truthloader can deliver persistent substance and context to The Great Taboo, who knows? Perhaps they could stoke an aggressive curiosity, with or without the mainstream media, and in the kind of numbers for whom complacency and indifference are no longer options. And maybe even convert the kind of people who vote with their wallets.
.jpg "Truthloader")
.jpg "General Parviz Jafari")
.jpg "Colonel Charles Halt")
.jpg "Captain Robert Salas")
.jpg "Leslie Kean")
.jpg "Jose Lay")
She spent 10 years researching the book, which includes officially documented cases and reports by highly credentialed people from around the world.