My feeling is that Casalaro got played by fantasists. The inescapable nature of ‘the octopus’ conspiracy is that its extremely undercooked in terms of evidence. Casalaros investigations point towards CIA laundering of drug money - but we already know about Iran Contra, it was known in the early 90s, and the world greeted it with a shrug. It’s a big leap from there to the realms of literal ‘shadow government’ type conspiracy.
So why did guys like Micheal Rioscutto or Booth Nichols spin these stories?
Riocsutto claims he has it all worked out. In reality, he is trying to work out his own life. Yes he was involved with intelligence, these kinds of operations are compartmentalised and its likely he never understood the significance even of his own role. Now as a washed up pawn of no importance to anyone, having sold his life to the most grubby and evil enterprise and having been burned for it, his desire to understand - combined with a narcissistic refusal to realise his own insignificance - leads to him creating fantasies of being an integral part of an earth-shattering conspiracy of power.
Nichols Booth is a similar story, although probably more self-conscious. Recall the scene in the documentary where a female journalist tells of him showing the ‘true’ Zapruder film. Her interpretation is that this is to ensure plausible deniability (ie her reporting of such an obvious fake would discredit anything else he said in meeting with her). My interpretation is it was rather the actions of a narcissistic conman trying to weed out a sucker. Is she prepared to go along for the ride with him, or does she have the critical thinking skills that will ultimately lead to her doubting him (and thus crippling his self importance) - if it’s the latter, best not to waste time in the first place. So show her something absurd straight away.
I dont know if Danny was murdered or not, but regardless I think his life was effectively stolen by these creeps, and it’s a dead end as far as conspiracies go.
What do you think? Apologies if it’s been discussed here already
Edit: none of this is to suggest that the idea of an old boys intelligence network involved in all sorts of heinous shit isn’t plausible in theory, just that Cassalaro’s sources were the worst possible combination of dangerous and useless
I was hoping there would be a good thread about this on hexbear!
I think that what Danny was piecing together was the fact that there really aren't as many operators as people think. It would stand to reason, especially back then, when the electronic intelligence field was just getting started, that it would be a group of clandestine dorks doing all the heavy lifting.
I think all the "they're out to get me" stuff was likely paranoia based on self importance. It's just like people that go on conspiracy websites and think they're a target because they're still discussing project Oxcart or something. Also, using meth increases paranoia and solipsism.
There is a "conspiracy", but its just the government doing what the government does. I think at this point, we know most of these details individually, but the documentary makers went all
and connected dots that weren't exactly well hidden.The only thing I can't really figure out is why the government didn't just pay the damn money for the software. It seems like it would be easier than killing a bunch of people and rigging the courts in their favor. Especially since it was such a public trial.
As for the Zapruder film thing, I just don't get these people's "Cat and Mouse" game with the reporters. That stuff was a bit too Tom Clancy for me. All in all, it's a bunch of people who are wasting their time proving something that nobody cares about anymore, so it needed some sensationalism. Like most people are saying on the podcasts and stuff, there is truth there, but it's a bunch of self important liars trying to outspin each other's story.
But I'm just some schmuck from nowhere that probably got too high while watching it, and spaced on some of the details.
Yes exactly, the ruling elite will do what they do. We know there are various factions, and there probably is some kind of nexus of intelligence, military industrial complex and old money bourgeoisie among them capable of operating far outside democratic norms. But I doubt these groups are as rigid or artificial as conspiracy theorists suggest. And for left we should ask how important they really are, in a historical sense. The documtary points out that the ambiguity and contradiction of conspiracies gives them a paralysing effect. But it fails to realise that the way to cut through that knot is with theory, which already gives both the motivations and the solutions.
I think in the documentary they suggest the government stopped paying Inslaw because they knew it would send them bankrupt, and presumably that made it easier to steal/sell/modify/profit off their software. The plan was to buy them out but the owner refused to sell. Actually the owner sounded as dodgy to me as the rest of Casalaro’s sources though. If there’s a moral to the story it must surely be never to trust anyone that’s been anywhere near intelligence work
As an aside, the second they got Michael in the car, they should have done the world a favor and drove it into a brick wall at 150 mph
I just finished listening to the Octopus series from Ghost Stories For The End Of The World after listening to a recent CTH Poppy pt4 ep.
Basically the Netflix doc fixates too much on some people and details that obscure the larger picture. For example the PROMIS software seems to be the basis for much modern day intelligence data collection and analysis like for PRISM and what 972 revealed about Israel’s AI targeting. There were also connections to Robert Maxwell and Adnan Khashoggi not really touched on in the doc. Another is that Reconosciutto is an odd character whose importance may be overstated in the doc but who does have weird connections to all of the other characters. There is a much larger web of many more relevant people who operated in many areas at the same time.
The way Danny imagined the Octopus was that it was just the same 8 dudes (hence octopus) who pulled all the strings instead of being people and groups whose interests often aligned (capital) but were distrustful of each other (spy agencies). Danny himself may have had a libertarian streak and was influenced by the larouchites who operated a lot around that time and in the same circles.
If you’re interested in this topic then go and listen to that podcast