The Singer of Tales

 Preface

by Harry Levin

The term "literature," presupposing the use of letters, assumes that verbal works of imagination are transmitted by means of writing and reading. The expression "oral literature" is obviously a contradiction in terms. Yet we live at a time when literacy itself has become so diluted that it can scarcely be invoked as an esthetic criterion. The Word as spoken or sung, together with a visual image of the speaker or singer, has meanwhile been regaining its hold through electrical engineering. A culture based upon the printed book, which has prevailed from the Renaissance until lately, has bequeathed to us—along with its immeasurable riches—snobberies which ought to be cast aside. We ought to take a fresh look at tradition, considered not as the inert acceptance of a fossilized corpus of themes and conventions, but as an organic habit of re-creating what has been received and is handed on. It may be that we ought to re-examine the concept of originality, which is relatively modern as a shibboleth of criticism; there may be other and better ways of being original than that concern for the writer's own individuality which characterizes so much of our self-conscious fiction. We may even come to believe that, great as some authors have been, their greatness is finally surpassed by that of the craft they have served; hence, whenever we reckon their contributions, we should also remember their obligations; no credit need be lost if some of it is shared anonymously with others trained in the same techniques and imparting the same mythology.

The present study sets forth the considered findings from twenty-five years of collection, transcription, and interpretation in the field of oral literature. These years have been strategic for applying scholarly methods to a subject which first developed amid the enthusiasms of the Romantic Movement; a systematic approach has been made feasible by the more recent development of facilities for intensive travel and phonographic reproduction; and literary history has been empowered to draw upon—and, reciprocally, to illustrate—folklore, anthropology, musicology, linguistics, and other related disciplines. The issue upon which such investigations still converge is all too well known, under its classical aspect, as the Homeric Problem. That problem may have remained unsolved for centuries because it was irrelevantly formulated: because, on the one hand, a single literate author was taken for granted and, on the other, the main alternative was a quasi-mystical belief in communal origins. Those presuppositions have been radically challenged by the sharp insight and the rich documentation {xxxi|xxxii} to which this volume offers a key. Its authority rests on a monumental substructure, Serbocroatian Heroic Songs, the series of texts, translations, and commentaries now being published under the joint auspices of Harvard University Press and the Serbian Academy of Sciences. Here, by way of critical prolegomenon and editorial parergon, the editor sums up what he has learned in bringing together that unique body of epic material.

What is more, and what commands a special interest transcending that material, he concretely discerns and lucidly states the principles he has been watching at work. Moreover, in the second part of the book, he extends their application to the Iliad and the Odyssey, and demonstrates their relevance to Beowulf, the Chanson de Roland, and other epics previously conceived as "literary." Careful stylistic and thematic analysis of such works has raised questions, and stimulated certain conjectures, as to the form and function of heroic poetry. These hypotheses, through a happy conjunction of opportunity and ingenuity, have been fully tested in a "living laboratory": the school of nonliterate bards, surviving yet declining in Yugoslavia and other South Slavic regions, has been caught at perhaps the latest possible moment; and its recorded songs provide both a solid basis for comparative studies and a new comprehension of oral technique. Through a wealth of contextual testimony, we are permitted to witness the act of composition—which, as Professor Lord makes abundantly clear, is at once a transmission and a creation. Vividly he communicates to us his personal sense of contact with the singers, as he and his collaborator sought them out or listened to them in Turkish coffeehouses during the nights of the Ramazan. In the mind's ear, we too are enabled to hear them, improvising out of their fabulous memories, filling in with stock epithets and ornamental formulas, accompanying themselves on their one-stringed fiddle, the gusle. And we are led to realize, more acutely than we could have done before, that the epic is not merely a genre but a way of life.

Formally, it might be described as a dynamic structure. Indeed the whole undertaking might be viewed, from some degree of distance, as an inquiry into the dynamics of poetic construction. The poem is, by this definition, a song; its performer is, at the same time, its composer; whatever he performs, he re-creates; his art of improvisation is firmly grounded upon his control of traditional components; and the tales he tells bear a family resemblance to many sung in other countries under other circumstances. The canons of esthetics, and even those of epistemology, should be at least as well satisfied by that approximation to the artistic event, at the very instant it happens, as they are by the frequent distortions of print or of the personalities behind it. Our conception of Homer, in particular, has not been helped by reinterpretations which cast him in the mold of latter-day authorship. Yet it is greatly enhanced, not undermined, by being approached through a more precise understanding of those patterns which he supremely {xxxii|xxxiii} exemplifies and those standards which he establishes for others working in his medium. Professor Lord appreciates, as perceptively as any critic or commentator, the "subtlety and intricacy" of the Homeric poems. He never loses sight of the qualitative distinction between Homer and Petar Vidić. But since he has heard and talked with Petar Vidić, while Homer himself remains an opaque attribution, the humble guslar has light to throw upon the Ionian epos. More significant than our value-judgments, which we are always free to make as we like, is our knowledge of literature as a process, endlessly multiform and continuous.

Professor Lord's exposition speaks for itself, with an expert attention to detail which will meet both Hellenists and Slavicists upon their respective grounds. It is not because I would presume to mediate between specialists that I have set down these preliminary impressions, but because I am glad to attest a fortiori what The Singer of Tales can mean to a lay critic or common reader. It was my privilege to study with Milman Parry during the period, so prematurely cut short, when he was teaching Classics in Harvard College. Thus, by sheer good luck, I have been among those who watched his project from its inception, and who—after having feared that his accidental death would terminate it—have rejoiced to see it carried toward this completion. No one who knew Parry is likely to forget his incisive powers of formulation or to underrate the range and depth of his cosmopolitan mind. He has been appropriately hailed, by an eminent archeologist, as the Darwin of oral literature; for if the évolution des genres has been scientifically corroborated, it is largely owing to his discovery. Yet, as he himself would have been the first to admit, it was only a beginning; and he generously acknowledged the prescient counsel of his own teacher, Antoine Meillet. Albert Lord, in his turn, has become much more than the ablest of Parry's disciples. It should be recognized, in spite of his devoted modesty, that he too has pioneered; he has contributed many ideas and important modifications; his comprehensive mastery of the field has taken him far beyond any of his forerunners; it is he who has turned an exciting aperçu into a convincing argument. The Parry-Lord theory, like the epic itself, is the product of an imaginative collaboration.

Cambridge, Massachusetts 

15 May 1959 {xxxiii|}

Foreword

This book is about Homer. He is our Singer of Tales. Yet, in a larger sense, he represents all singers of tales from time immemorial and unrecorded to the present. Our book is about these other singers as well. Each of them, even the most mediocre, is as much a part of the tradition of oral epic singing as is Homer, its most talented representative. Among the singers of modern times there is none to equal Homer, but he who approaches the master most closely in our experience of epic song is Avdo Međedović of Bijelo Polje, Yugoslavia. He is our present-day Balkan Singer of Tales.

We believe that the epic singers from the dawn of human consciousness have been a deeply significant group and have contributed abundantly to the spiritual and intellectual growth of man. Although only two segments of the Indo-European peoples have been treated here in any detail, namely the Greeks and the Slavs (or more truly the speakers of Serbocroatian and of Bulgarian), it is my hope that the book is not parochial. Narrowness has never been excusable, whether it be ethnic, geographic, religious, social, or even academic, least of all in the space age. Of the epic songs of the past (or of the present for that matter) Homer's have always been recognized as supreme. When our collecting began in the nineteen-thirties the Yugoslav oral epic was accessible, alive, and distinguished. Russian and central Asiatic oral traditions might have done as well for purposes of comparative study, but for an American professor at that time they were not within easy reach.

This book concentrates on only one aspect of the singers' art. Our immediate purpose is to comprehend the manner in which they compose, learn, and transmit their epics. It is a study in the processes of composition of oral narrative poetry. Hence the reader must not seek here a survey of oral epics, or a history of oral epic in the Balkans or elsewhere.

Introduction 

In the early thirties of this century, when Milman Parry began to write the book from which this one takes its name, [1] what was needed most in Homeric scholarship was a more exact knowledge of the way in which oral epic poets learn and compose their songs. Now in the late fifties of the same century the need is still great; in spite of the number of books about Homer and his poems, about epic poetry in general, and about specific epic traditions in various parts of the world, the student of epic still lacks a precise idea of the actual technique of poiesis in its literal meaning. Thanks to Parry, however, we have the material for the research necessary to determine what this technique is. He has left us his collection of South Slavic texts, which is the record on phonograph discs and in manuscripts of experiments in the laboratory of the living epic tradition of the Yugoslavs. [2] In 1935 Milman Parry was Assistant Professor of Classics at Harvard University. He had already made a name for himself in classical scholarship by his masterly analysis of the technique of the formulaic epithets in the Iliad and the Odyssey. [3] This work had convinced him that the poems of Homer were traditional epics, and he soon came to realize that they must also be oral compositions. [4] He therefore set himself the task of proving, incontrovertibly if it were possible, the oral character of the poems, and to that end he turned to the study of the Yugoslav epics. In the autumn of 1935, he wrote:

 

The aim of the study was to fix with exactness the form of oral story poetry, to see wherein it differs from the form of written story poetry. Its method was to observe singers working in a thriving tradition of unlettered song and see how the form of their songs hangs upon their having to learn and practice their art without reading and writing. The principles of oral form thus gotten would be useful in two ways. They would be a starting point for a comparative study of oral poetry which sought to see how the way of life of a people gives rise to a poetry of a given kind and a given degree of excellence. Secondly, they would be useful in the study of the great poems which have come down to us as lonely relics of a dim past: we would know how to work backwards from their form so as to learn how they must have been made. [5] In Part I of this book I shall attempt to fulfill Parry's purpose of setting forth with exactness the form of oral narrative poetry, drawing my illustrative {3|4} material from this collection; in Part II I shall use the principles presented in Part I in studying the form of some of the great epic poems from the past. Because I intend to limit the scope of this book to a consideration of oral form and manner of composition, a discussion of a broader sort which would aim at seeing "how the way of life of a people gives rise to a poetry of a given kind and a given degree of excellence" will not be fully entered upon. Yet considerations of this kind will inevitably occupy us to some extent in this book. It is hoped that what is said here will be of use for future comparative study of oral poetry.

***

The burden of the first few chapters of Part I will be to work out in fullness of detail a definition of oral epic song. Stated briefly, oral epic song is narrative poetry composed in a manner evolved over many generations by singers of tales who did not know how to write; it consists of the building of metrical lines and half lines by means of formulas and formulaic expressions and of the building of songs by the use of themes. This is the technical sense in which I shall use the word "oral" and "oral epic" in this book. By formula I mean "a group of words which is regularly employed under the same metrical conditions to express a given essential idea." This definition is Parry's. [6] By formulaic expression I denote a line or half line constructed on the pattern of the formulas. By theme I refer to the repeated incidents and descriptive passages in the songs.

These definitions are but the bare bones of the living organism which is oral epic. We shall peer into the structural heart of the formulas to discern the various patterns which merge to give them form. We shall see that the formulas are not the ossified clichés which they have the reputation of being, but that they are capable of change and are indeed frequently highly productive of other and new formulas. We shall come to realize the way in which themes can be expanded and contracted, and the manner in which they are joined together to form the final product which is the song. We shall note the difference both in the internal structure and in the external connection of themes as they are used by different singers.

Finally we shall turn our attention to the song itself. We shall see that in a very real sense every performance is a separate song; for every performance is unique, and every performance bears the signature of its poet singer. He may have learned his song and the technique of its construction from others, but good or bad, the song produced in performance is his own. The audience knows it as his because he is before them. The singer of tales is at once the tradition and an individual creator. [7] His manner of composition differs from that used by a writer in that the oral poet makes no conscious effort to break the traditional phrases and incidents; he is forced by the rapidity of composition in performance to use these traditional elements. [8] To him they are not merely necessary, however; they are also right. He {4|5} seeks no others, and yet he practices great freedom in his use of them because they are themselves flexible. His art consists not so much in learning through repetition the time-worn formulas as in the ability to compose and recompose the phrases for the idea of the moment on the pattern established by the basic formulas. He is not a conscious iconoclast, but a traditional creative artist. His traditional style also has individuality, and it is possible to distinguish the songs of one singer from those of another, even when we have only the bare text without music and vocal nuance.

***

The need for a clarification of the oral process of composition is reflected in the many terms which are used for oral narrative poetry. To no small degree difficulties have arisen because of the ambiguity of terminology and because each school has chosen a different facet of this poetry as distinctive. The term "oral" emphasizes, I believe, the basic distinction between oral narrative poetry and that which we term literary epic. But it too carries some ambiguity. Certain of the misunderstandings of Parry's oral theory arise from the failure to recognize his special use of the word "oral." For example, one often hears that oral poetry is poetry that was written to be recited. Oral, however, does not mean merely oral presentation. Oral epics are performed orally, it is true, but so can any other poem be performed orally. What is important is not the oral performance but rather the composition during oral performance. [9] There may be ambiguity also when we say that the oral poet learns his songs orally, composes them orally, and transmits them orally to others. Like so many statements made in the debate on the oral theory, this one too is perfectly true if the word "oral" is understood in the technical sense in which it will be presented in this book. But if the reader interprets oral learning as listening to something repeated in exactly the same form many times, if he equates it with oral memorization by rote, then he will fail to grasp the peculiar process involved in learning oral epic. The same may be said for oral composition. If we equate it with improvisation in a broad sense, we are again in error. Improvisation is not a bad term for the process, but it too must be modified by the restrictions of the particular style. The exact way in which oral composition differs from free improvisation will, I hope, emerge from the following chapters. It is true also that oral epic is transmitted by word of mouth from one singer to another, but if we understand thereby the transmission of a fixed text or the kind of transmission involved when A tells В what happened and В tells С and so on with all natural errors of lapse of memory and exaggeration and distortion, then we do not fully comprehend what oral transmission of oral epic is. With oral poetry we are dealing with a particular and distinctive process in which oral learning, oral composition, and oral transmission almost merge; they seem to be different facets of the same process. {5|6}

The word "epic," itself, indeed, has come in time to have many meanings. Epic sometimes is taken to mean simply a long poem in "high style." Yet a very great number of the poems which interest us in this book are comparatively short; length, in fact, is not a criterion of epic poetry. Other definitions of epic equate it with heroic poetry. Indeed the term "heroic poetry" is sometimes used (by Sir Cecil M. Bowra, for example) to avoid the very ambiguity in the word epic which troubles us. Yet purists might very well point out that many of the songs which we include in oral narrative poetry are romantic or historical and not heroic, no matter what definition of the hero one may choose. In oral narrative poetry, as a matter of fact, I wish to include all story poetry, the romantic or historical as well as the heroic; otherwise I would have to exclude a considerable body of medieval metrical narrative.

That whole body of verse that we have now agreed to designate as oral has been called by many names; the terminological battle is a serious one. Those who call it "folk epic" are carrying on a nineteenth century concept of composition by the "folk" which has long since been proved invalid. At one time when "folk epic" referred to a theory of composition, it was a justifiable term. It pointed to a method of composition as the distinction between oral narrative poetry and "written" poetry. It was looking in the right direction. But when its theory of composition was invalidated, because no one could show how the people as a whole could compose a poem, then the technical meaning of the term was lost and it came to be equated in a derogatory sense with "peasant." The attention was then shifted from the way in which the poetry was made, first to the social status of those who practiced it, and then to the content and quality of the poetry itself. Although it may be true that this kind of poetry has survived longest among peasant populations, it has done so not because it is essentially "peasant" poetry, but rather because the peasant society has remained illiterate longer than urban society. [10] Indeed this poetry has more often been aristocratic and courtly than of the folk. It would seem even from its origins to have belonged to serious ceremonial occasions, to ritual, to celebration. The term "folk poetry" becomes more and more inadequate, more and more restricted in time and place. To apply the term to the medieval epics or to the Homeric poems is ever more inadmissible.

Another reason why this poetry should cease to be denominated as "folk epic" is that outside the circle of folklore enthusiasts the connotations of "folk" in many countries tend to be derogatory. One thinks of the simple peasant with his "quaint" ideas, his fairy stories, and children's tales. The use of folk stories as entertainment for young children has its ironic aspects; we are beginning to realize the serious symbolism and meaning of folk tales, which, if rightly understood, would be far from proper fare for children. Moreover, if we mean by "folk epic" to indicate that oral epic shares some of its subject matter with folk tale and all that is seriously {6|7} implied in that term, we are ignoring or underestimating all the other subjects of oral epic, historical, legendary, and heroic: we have outgrown the appellation "folk epic." It is no longer exact, and in time it has come to misrepresent oral epic poetry rather than to describe it.

Similar objections can be brought against the term "popular," the Latin derivative equivalent to "folk." While this term avoids the "simple peasant" connotations of "folk," its literal meaning has been overlaid with another set of unfortunate implications from its use in English to denote "popular music" and "popular songs."

The fever of nationalism in the nineteenth century led to the use of oral epics for nationalist propaganda. The poems glorified the heroes of the nation's past; they depicted the struggles of the nation against outside foes. Hence the hero emerged as a "national" hero, and the poems themselves were labeled "national" epics. In some of the Slavic countries the word narodni has a useful ambiguity, since it means both "folk" and "national." As a term to designate oral epic "national" is woefully inadequate and an insidious imposter.

Some scholars have sought to avoid the pitfalls of the three terms already discussed, folk, popular, and national, by recourse to the word "primitive." It sounds somehow more "scientific" because it has been borrowed from the social science of anthropology. But here too the ambiguity is great and the connotations hardly less flattering than those of "folk" in some countries. If the idea behind the use of "primitive" for this poetry is that oral epic poetry precedes written poetry in time in the cultural growth of a society, then its use would be legitimate, because as a rule oral poetry does precede written poetry, but it would, like the other terms, still miss the fundamental difference in form between the two.

In summary, any term that is used to designate oral narrative poetry in an attempt to distinguish it from written narrative poetry must contain some indication of the difference in form. It is because the terms which we have discussed above failed to comprehend this distinction that they have proved themselves to be inadequate. Any terms, also, carrying implications derogatory to either oral narrative poetry or written poetry (as, for example, such terms as "authentic" and "artificial"; "primary" and "secondary") must be abandoned, for they represent an attitude that is neither scholarly nor critical. Both these forms are artistic expressions, each with its own legitimacy. We should not seek to judge but to understand.

If the need for a clarification of the process which produces oral narrative poetry is reflected in the confusion of terms which have been used to designate that poetry, this need is even more apparent, of course, in the variety of theories put forth in the last two centuries (and which still survive in one form or another today) to explain the peculiar phenomenon of oral epic. On the one hand there has been a solid block of loyalists to the literary tradition who have maintained through thick and thin that the {7|8} Homeric poems, as well as the great epics from medieval times, are written literary productions by a single author.

These loyalists have found themselves defending their position from attacks by those who from time to time raised annoying questions. One of the earliest questions posed was whether writing existed in the ninth century B.C., the traditional date of Homer. This was first raised by Josephus; [11] it came to the fore again in D'Aubignac [12] in the early eighteenth century and reached its classic expression in Friedrich August Wolf's famed Prolegomena (1795). A second problem was formulated during the seventeenth century and played a great role in the Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes; this was the problem of the "errors" or inconsistencies in the Homeric poems. D'Aubignac, Perrault, Giambattista Vico, Robert Wood, and others led once again to Wolf and the later Separatists. A third question concerned the unusual length of the Homeric poems. If there was no writing in Homer's time, how could such long poems be preserved until the time of writing? In fact, how could poems of such length come into being at all without the aid of writing? Clearly this was a corollary of the first question raised. Among the earlier scholars who attempted to answer this question the name of Robert Wood stands out. A fourth problem arose from the increased knowledge of and interest in medieval minstrelsy and contemporary oral poetry during the eighteenth century and later. Here again we may begin with D’Aubignac and continue with Thomas Blackwell, Percy, Macpherson, Herder, Goethe, and a host of others. There was, fifthly, also the problem, inherited from ancient times, of the meaning of the Peisistratean legend about the recension of the Homeric poems. And finally with the development of linguistic studies in the nineteenth century the question was raised about the possibility of one man using dialect forms from several regions and archaisms from different periods.

These were the chief questions that were current in Homeric scholarship and still are. In answering them some scholars have gone so far as to deny even the existence of Homer, but the usual answer has been some form of multiple authorship for the poems with Homer at one end or the other of a series of poets. Sometimes he was the originator whose poems were carried through oral tradition or whose works were modified by later poets; more often he was the last of the redactors or compilers or, in an attempt to bridge the gap between Unitarians and Separatists, he was the great poet who reworked oral tradition into a "literary" poem. The concept of multiple authorship led scholars naturally to the dissection of the Homeric poems in an attempt to see what parts were done by different authors. They were thus led also to seek the "original" or archetype of the poems.

The doubt as to the existence of writing in Homer's time has given Homerists three choices: to seek proof that the doubt was ill founded and that there was writing as early as the traditional date of Homer; to change Homer's date, bringing it down to a period when writing was possible; to {8|9} leave Homer's date where it was and to cover the intervening years to the age of writing by oral transmission of Homer's poems.

The most significant step in proving that writing was possible and indeed existed not only in the ninth century but earlier has been made only recently in the discovery that Linear В is Greek. Although none of the texts yet deciphered is literary, [13] the old argument of Josephus and Wolf has had the ground cut from under it. Ironically enough, however, the proof has come at a time when many scholars realize that the existence of writing or even of a literary tradition does not necessarily mean that Homer's poems belong in the category of "written" literature; and many realize, and have realized for some time, that obviously our Homeric texts could not have been preserved had there not been writing in Homer's day. Valuable as the decipherment of Linear В is, it is no longer relevant to the Homeric problem.

Unless not only literary texts are discovered in Linear В but also some evidence can be unearthed to prove that epic poetry was being written down during the period of Linear B, its decipherment cannot help us much in determining Homer's date. Some Homeric names seem to have been deciphered, Hector and Achilles, for example, but this might indicate no more than that these were common names or that songs about these heroes existed; it tells us nothing about our poems. There is no evidence at all at this point that Homer was written down in Linear В and later copied in the Greek alphabet that we know. Were there such evidence, we would be justified in moving Homer's date back. So the problem of the date of Homer still remains with us.

Wolf and some of his predecessors turned to the Peisistratean legend to answer the question of date, as has Carpenter in our own century, although the latter's reasons are different from those of Wolf. Carpenter reflects our growing knowledge of oral literature and seeks a time when the writing down of the poems would make sense in the context of this knowledge. To him Peisistratus seems the most likely person to sponsor this. Certainly he is right that the Peisistratean legend is an invaluable clue, one that cannot be ignored but which demands explanation and interpretation. But Carpenter has been little heeded, and the date accepted now by most scholars is the second half of the eighth century.

Those scholars who made the third choice were moving in the right direction, namely towards oral tradition, but in putting the poet of our Homeric texts before the period of writing, they were unwittingly creating more problems than they were as yet equipped to handle. Their choice was a compromise. Oral tradition was a fickle mistress with whom to flirt. But scholars could call in to their help the "fantastic memories" so "well attested" of illiterate people. They felt that a text could remain from one generation to another unaltered, or altered only by inconsequential lapses of memory. This myth has remained strong even to the present day. The main points of confusion in the theory of those scholars who made the third {9|10} choice arose from the belief that in oral tradition there is a fixed text which is transmitted unchanged from one generation to another.

The quarrel about the errors and inconsistencies in the Homeric poems, inherited from the seventeenth century, has continued steadily until our own times. In its narrower aspects the strife has resulted in a stalemate; the real inconsistencies still remain unexplained in spite of the ingenuity of the Unitarians, who have to their credit the checking of the excesses of the Separatists. [14] The picture of the great Homer nodding has looked more like an excuse than an explanation. Bowra's remark in Tradition and Design in the Iliad that the oral poet concentrates on one passage at a time is closer to the truth. We have been gaining much perspective on the inconsistencies, despite the hard core of apologist opinion. Of far greater importance than the labeling of the inconsistencies themselves has been the theory of multiple authorship which emerged when the quarrel over the "errors" began to find added fuel from the attention paid to still living bards and bardic traditions and to medieval minstrelsy. The many theories of multiple authorship of the Homeric poems have contributed more to Homeric scholarship than any other single concept. Not that they were right. But they led in productive directions. They were honest attempts to meet the challenge offered by the growing body of oral ballads and epics as well as of medieval epic.

The theories of multiple authorship can be divided into two general classes. The first, and the earliest, saw the Homeric poems as compilations of shorter songs, stitched together by their compiler. D'Aubignac presented this in his Conjectures in 1715, but it was Lachmann and his followers in the nineteenth century who made serious attempts to dissect the poems according to this lieder theorie. The attempts were unsuccessful and unconvincing; for the dissectors could not agree on where to use the scalpel. The theory was discredited.

A second general approach moved in vertical rather than horizontal lines. The scholars who used this approach abandoned the idea of a compilation, even of poems of different times and places, and conceived of an original kernel which was modified by a succession of later authors. Usually to them Homer was not a compiler but the last and greatest of the redactors. They too whisked out the scalpel and began to peel off the layers in the Homeric poems. Linguistic and dialect evidence came to their assistance. But they were equally unsuccessful and their theories too have been discarded, although with considerably less finality than those of the first group.

The work of the first group of dissectors led to several valuable compilations. Lönnrot put together the Finnish Kalevala, the Estonians entered the competition with the Kalevipoeg, and the Serbs attempted a number of "national" epics on the Kosovo theme. But nothing comparable to the Homeric poems was produced. The problem of the way in which the {10|11} Homeric poems had attained their length, if they were not literary productions of a single author, remained unsolved.

So also did the problem of the variety of dialect and archaic forms in the poems. One of the attempts to solve this problem was the theory of a special poetic language, a kind of artificial dialect which was the property of epic poets. This of course did not solve anything. It merely put a label on the diction as found in the poems and pushed into the background the question of how such a diction could have been formed.

Hand in hand with the theory of multiple authorship went the emphasis on a search for the archetype. Leaf's work is typical of this trend. His five strata began with an original and then discerned expansions and interpolations of later periods. One still hears echoes of this kind of dissection, for example, in MacKay's The Wrath of Homer.

The work of all these theorists should not be dismissed as without avail, certainly not with the tired yet vituperative cynicism of Allen in his Origins and Transmissions. The service of these scholars has been in essence to point out the peculiarities of language and structure of the Homeric poems, peculiarities that we now recognize to be those of oral poetry. The inconsistencies, the mixture of dialects, the archaisms, the repetitions and epic "tags," and even the manner of composition by addition and expansion of themes have been noted and catalogued by these scholars. The questioned existence of writing led them to use the word "oral" and their experience of folk epic seemed further to justify this term. The elements that were needed to crystallize the answers to their questions were there. It is a strange phenomenon in intellectual history as well as in scholarship that the great minds herein represented, minds which could formulate the most ingenious speculation, failed to realize that there might be some other way of composing a poem than that known to their own experience. They knew and spoke often of folk ballad and epic, they were aware of variants in these genres, yet they could see only two ways in which those variants could come into being: by lapse of memory or by willful change. This seemed so obvious, so much an unquestioned basic assumption, that they never thought to investigate exactly how a traditional poetry operated. They always thought in terms of a fixed text or a fixed group of texts to which a poet did something for a reason within his own artistic or intellectual self. They could not conceive of a poet composing a line in a certain way because of necessity or because of the demands of his traditional art.

I believe that the greatest moment in recent Homeric scholarship was expressed by Milman Parry when he wrote his field notes for his collection of South Slavic texts and spoke of his growing realization that what he had been calling traditional was in fact oral:

 

My first studies were on the style of the Homeric poems and led me to understand that so highly formulaic a style could be only traditional. I failed, however, at the time to understand {11|12} as fully as I should have that a style such as that of Homer must not only be traditional but also must be oral. It was largely due to the remarks of my teacher M. Antoine Meillet that I came to see, dimly at first, that a true understanding of the Homeric poems could only come with a full understanding of the nature of oral poetry. [15] The real impact of this revelation of Milman Parry has not yet been fully felt in Homeric scholarship, which has chosen to disdain oral epic and to move into the more abstruse kinds of literary criticism. [16] Although often referred to, the oral theory of Milman Parry is at best but vaguely understood. It is the purpose of this book to present that theory as fully and yet as simply as possible. Parry himself did not live long enough after making his monumental collection to think out his theory in detail, let alone to develop it and present it to the learned world in completeness. Working from the clues that he left, I have tried to build an edifice of which he might approve. {12|}

Footnotes

  1. In 1935, when Parry returned from Yugoslavia, he began a book entitled The Singer of Tales. This was to contain the results of his study of the problems of oral form. He had written only a few pages before his death. These pages have been published in my article, "Homer, Parry, and Huso," AJA, 52:34–44 (Jan.–March 1948). 

 2. The Milman Parry Collection is now housed in the Harvard University Library. It contains over 3500 twelve-inch aluminum phonograph discs recorded in various parts of Yugoslavia in 1934 and 1935. There are both epic and lyric songs in the collection as well as recorded conversations with the singers about their lives and their art. There are over 12,500 texts in the collection, some of which are on the phonograph records; the remainder are songs taken down by dictation. Fuller accounts of the Parry Collection may be found in "Homer, Parry, and Huso," AJA, 52:34–44, in Serbo-Croatian Folk Songs, by Béla Bartók and Albert B. Lord (New York, 1951), and in the introduction to Volume I of Serbocroatian Heroic Songs, by Milman Parry and Albert B. Lord (Cambridge, Mass., and Belgrade, 1954), which is the first volume of translations of Parry Collection texts to appear. Volume II containing Serbocroatian texts translated in Volume I has also been published. Volumes III and IV of the series, which it is expected will contain over twenty volumes, are in preparation. 

3. L'Epithète traditionnelle dans Homère (Paris, 1928). 

4. See his "Studies in the Epic Technique of Oral Verse-Making. I: Homer and Homeric Style," HSCP, 41:73–147 (1930), and "II: The Homeric Language as the Language of an Oral Poetry," HSCP, 43:1–50 (1932). 

5. See Note 1 above. 

 6. "Studies in the Epic Technique of Oral Verse-Making. I: Homer and Homeric Style," HSCP, 41:80. 

 7. I emphasize the creative or dynamic role of the individual performer throughout this book in order to counteract the impression in some quarters that the oral poet is merely a transmitter; that all originality is closed to him. Perhaps the words "create" and "originality" are too strong; they may lead to misunderstanding. Yet I believe that the evidence of the actual texts, both as studied from the Parry Collection, and as reported in studies by other scholars who have worked with an abundance of texts and variants, indicates that at the moment of performance the singer, or narrator, produces something unique. The degree of uniqueness varies with the particular circumstances and with the individual performer, provided, of course, that one is dealing with a true oral poet and not with a mere reciter to begin with. It would, however, be a mistake to equate the creative process and function of the oral poet with those of the literary poet, as I attempt to show later in the book. A somewhat different point of view is presented in an important paper, published in 1929, "Die Folklore als eine besondere Form des Schaffens," Donum Natalicium Schrijnen (Nijmegen-Utrecht, 1929), pp. 900–913, by P. Bogatyrev and R. Jakobson. They apply very interestingly on a theoretical level Saussure's distinction between langue and parole to folklore. It might be worth suggesting that we have in the case of oral epic performance something that is neither langue nor parole, but some third form; as Lévi-Strauss has intimated in the case of myths (see his paper, "The Structural Study of Myth," Journal of American Folklore, 68 (1955):430. Or again with Lévi-Strauss we might question whether we have something that is both langue and parole at the same time under different aspects, thus making a third form of communication, or of relationship, peculiar to oral verbal art. 

8. See Marcel Jousse, Etudes de psychologie linguistique. Le style orale rythmique et mnémotechnique chez les verbo-moteurs (Paris, 1925). 

9. It should be clear from this and from what follows that sacred texts which must be preserved word for word, if there be such, could not be oral in any except the most literal sense. Bogatyrev and Jakobson (p. 912) mention the Vedic hymns and say: "Dort, wo die Rolle der Gemeinschaft allein in der Aufbewahrung eines zu einem unantastbaren Kanon erhobenen dichterischen Werkes besteht, gibt es keine schöpferische Zensur, keine Improvisation, kein kollektives Schaffen mehr." 

10. Or perhaps in some cases because what was in writing belonged to the ecclesiastical and not to the popular milieu. See, in the case of Russia, Jakobson's "Commentary" to the English translation of A. N. Afanas'ev, Russian Fairy Tales (New York, 1945), pp. 632 ff. 

11. Flavius Josephus, Contra Apionem, i, 2. [ back ] 12. François Hédelin, Abbé d'Aubignac, Conjectures académiques ou Dissertation sur l'Iliade (Paris, 1715). [ back ] 13. See Joshua Whatmough, Poetic, Scientific, and Other Forms of Discourse (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1956), p. 86. [ back ] 14. See F. M. Combellack, "Contemporary Unitarians and Homeric Originality," AJP, 71:337–364 (1950). [ back ] 15. Parry and Lord, I, 3. [ back ] 16. The recent book of Cedric Whitman, Homer and the Heroic Tradition (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), and the work of several years ago of Rhys Carpenter, Folk Tale, Fiction, and Saga in the Homeric Epics (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1946) are important exceptions.

Albert Bates Lord The Singer of Tales

"Lansky" by Hank Messick

Author’s Note

The existence of the National Crime Syndicate has been known for many years by those who studied organized crime in the days before the FBI acknowledged that such an animal existed.

In 1961 Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and his aides decided to launch a campaign against ‘‘the enemy within” and looked about for the best method of attack. Kennedy was perhaps the first Attorney General of the United States to have personal insight into the problem, and as brother of the President, he had the political muscle to force rival federal agencies into a semblance of cooperation. Yet he knew that unless and until the American people recognized the reality of organized crime, little could be achieved.

Somewhat cynically, despite the best motives, Kennedy and his advisers decided to limit their attack. They recognized that the National Crime Syndicate was too vast, too sophisticated, too insulated, to be understood by the average citizen. On the other hand, the Mafia was compact enough, crude enough, exotic enough, to capture the imagination of people who thought of organized crime in terms of Al Capone and The Untouchables.

Equally important was the necessity of getting J. Edgar Hoo- ver’s FBI into the battle. Thanks largely to Hoover’s refusal over the decades to admit that organized crime existed, the FBI knew next to nothing about either the Mafia or the National Crime Syndicate. Yet in the eyes of the public, the FBI was an elite group. If a war on organized crime was to be believable, the FBI had to participate.

La Cosa Nostra was created as a public image. This simple device of giving the Mafia a new name worked wonders. Hoover was taken off the limb where he had perched so long, and citizens had a new menace to talk about with tales of blood oaths, contracts for murder, secret societies. Kennedy knew the picture was some thirty years out of date, but at least it offered a point of departure.

The author has maintained for years that if every member of the Mafia (or La Cosa Nostra) were jailed tomorrow, organized crime would be just as powerful as ever. And in fact the FBI has jailed many of the top leaders of the Mafia in the nine years since Kennedy took office; yet the National Crime Syndicate continues to exert its influence on the economy, on govern- ment, on international affairs.

Ironically, the National Crime Syndicate has benefited by the emphasis on La Cosa Nostra. The real leaders of crime have remained hidden while the nation’s law enforcement agencies have chased minor punks. And naive is he who believes this de- velopment has been accidental.

Where the National Crime Syndicate is concerned, matters of such importance are not left to chance. Research reveals that non-Mafia leaders of crime have been hiding behind the vendetta-ridden society for decades. It took the Kefauver Com- mittee in 1950, for example, to disclose the fact that behind the old Mayfield Road Mob was the Cleveland Syndicate.

Over the years the name of Meyer Lansky has appeared again and again—but always in the shadow of someone else. When at- tention centered on Luciano and Lepke, Lansky was in the background. When it shifted to Costello and Genovese, Lansky was still there. During the uproar over La Cosa Nostra, Lansky became almost invisible. One would assume that the mere fact he has survived while the Capones, the Lucianos, the Costellos, and, yes, the Lepkes and the Zwillmans have been murdered, deposed, or jailed would at last, inevitably, bring him to the forefront of public attention. But such is not necessarily the case.

Yet any careful study of Lansky will reveal that he has done more than survive. He has been the key man in almost every sit- uation involving other top hoods, and he has pulled the strings in every important move made by the National Crime Syndicate. While there is, unhappily, no such thing as a Mr. Big con- trolling all crime, Lansky has been for years the Chairman of the Board. Crime is too large, too sophisticated for a single man to control, but more than anyone else, Lansky has shaped and guided it. Thanks largely to Lansky, organized crime has changed from an ugly growth on the body politic capable of being removed by surgery to a cancerous part of our economic and political systems. Small wonder then that we prefer to hunt down the punks rather than deeply probe the basic illness of Our society.

Most crime books are usually based on the findings of law enforcement agencies since there has been little independent re- search in the field. As one who has spent thousands of hours studying and comparing official files, I know the data may be biased, is certainly incomplete, and can be unreliable on occasion.

Many professionals who may not be so naive depend upon their sources for their livelihood. The writer who offends the FBI, for example, will find all doors closed when he returns; a crude form of censorship is exercised by some official agencies, and a writer who lacks the time and contacts to do his own re- search is at their mercy. If he wants to continue writing, he must trim his sails. When the FBI says La Cosa Nostra runs crime, the professional must concur.
Over the years I have had access to files on federal, state, and local levels. I have supplemented the data they contained by talking to politicians, gangsters, and involved citizens. I’ve visited the plush casinos of Las Vegas and the Bahamas, as well as the meanest bust-out joints of Cicero and Biloxi. I sat alone with Robert Kennedy in a Louisville hotel room and heard the first whisper of Joe Valachi’s song. I’ve talked with black numbers writers who wore their fingernails long to prove they did no physical labor. The wives and the mistresses of gangsters have told their secrets, as have elderly madams and young pros- titutes. Castro’s mistress told me her story, and I obtained access to the diary of Mrs. “Trigger Mike’’ Coppola.

During those years, I might add, I was indicted in Louisville, cited to show cause why I shouldn’t be held in contempt in Fort Lauderdale, and held under guard as a witness in Cincinnati.

I've been offered $250,000 bribes and been threatened with murder. Attempts to frame me have been made, and I’ve been smeared as anti-Semitic from coast to coast by gangsters who used religion as a cloak.

And I’ve sometimes played the curious role of middleman, relaying to a dedicated agent information obtained by a dedi- cated agent of another agency. Luckily there are such investigators in all agencies who put crime fighting ahead of empire building.

The book that follows is based on data supplied by no one agency or individual. I have drawn upon dozens of sources, some of them conflicting, and I have filled in the gaps with in- formation supplied by gangsters themselves. The result may not be the entire story, but I have made every effort to see that it approaches that elusive goal more closely than anything yet published.

Some readers may question the dialogue quoted at intervals in the pages ahead. The dialogue is based on the best recollections by several important associates of Lansky of the actual words spoken. I have attempted to disguise the sources quoted. In some cases, of course, the individual was not present but obtained an account of the conversations from someone who was there. In other situations, dialogue is reconstructed from actual tape recordings.

Obviously, then, this book couldn’t have been written had the author not promised to hold in confidence the source of such material. I can be justly proud, I believe, that—like Lansky—my word is respected in the more intelligent circles of the underworld. Good police reporters will know what I mean.
The gangsters know, as does the FBI, that on more than one occasion I have risked jail rather than violate a confidence.
The story that follows concerns the life of one man. But this life, this man, perhaps better than many books (some of them mine) I hope will convey a picture of crime as it truly exists in America—and show how it became as powerful (and generally misunderstood) as it is today.

In this book I try to show that organized crime is not the province of any one ethnic group or secret society. Just as no such group has a monopoly on virtue, neither does one have a monopoly on evil. Yet, until this simple truth is accepted, there can be little of lasting value achieved in a war against what, after all, is but an extension of our cherished free enterprise system.

Equally essential is recognition that without political and economic corruption there could be no organized crime syndicate, and no Chairman of the Board.

HANK MESSICK
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
***
(...)
Money had been needed to survive in the old country. It had  purchased protection from the ignorant population, from hostile officials of corrupt governments. The lowest of the low, no Jew had dared appeal to law or force for his basic rights. The bribe had become his basic tool.

In the new land, however, the children of immigrants soon recognized that more than immunity from persecution could be purchased. Properly used, money could be an instrument for power in a society where wealth was easier to achieve. And with power still more money could be made and more power obtained.

Meyer Lansky, as Maier soon called himself, was physically unimpressive. At maturity he stood only 5 feet 414 inches tall and weighed less than 136 pounds. But his brown eyes were sharp beneath a mop of brown hair, and his face had a pinched, hungry look. His teachers in Public School 165 and, later, in Public School 34 recognized his intelligence. He was eager for knowledge. At the same time they noted a passion for secrecy and a self-control that seemed remarkable in so young a boy.

Despite his size, his classmates respected him and even the bullies of the schoolyard sought his friendship. Meyer Wassell, an oversized boss, took orders from Lansky on occasion. One day a teacher asked why.

“The little guy has brains,” said Wassell.

Friendships made in those days survived for years. Indeed, some of Lansky’s classmates ultimately became part of his organization and their loyalty remained steadfast.

More than fifty years later, Wassell was operating the plush Singapore Motel in Bal Harbour, north of Miami Beach. It was Lansky’s headquarters, a fact Wassell defiantly admitted. At the same time he deposited a check for $25,000 with the local Optimist Club to be held until someone could prove that organized crime had anything to do with the motel. It was a safe gesture. Long before, Lansky had learned the arts of insulation. He owned men, not property, and they were bound to him by bonds of respect, loyalty, and fear.
**

But Lansky was more than a skilled mechanic. He was a nat- ural businessman unencumbered with ethics or respect for law and justice. There were plenty of hoods too lazy to steal when they could rent, so Lansky began supplying autos as well as doc- toring them. Siegel, now called Bugs by almost everyone—but never to his face—joined Lansky in the auto rental agency. He proved most adept at stealing enough vehicles to meet the de- mand. A customer could order almost any make or model in the morning and pick it up the next day, complete with techni- cal improvements provided by the skilled mechanics who now worked under Lansky’s direction. If in the course of business the car became hot, it could be returned for remodeling.

The next step was obvious and provided the basis for the formation of the Bugs & Meyer Mob. Using the rental business as a base, Lansky began contracting to haul booze. If a gangster was expecting a shipment, he could hire Lansky to pick it up at the designated place and haul it to its destination. For added fees, Lansky would provide enough men to ride shotgun and thus guarantee delivery. If, on the other hand, the hood wanted a rival’s shipment hijacked, Lansky could provide the muscle and the machines to do it.
Young, daring, and completely ruthless men were needed.

Thanks to Lucania’s advice, Lansky had been carefully selecting men for several years. His gang soon acquired a reputation for courage, audacity, and efficiency. Lansky, meanwhile, built up a personal reputation of being a man of his word. He lived up to his contracts to the bottle and to the bond. In a society where the double cross was the rule rather than the exception, this reputation for honesty became a tremendous asset. In decades to come, in multimillion-dollar deals, the word of Lansky was enough. As much as anything, it made him a leader respected even in the Mafia, where the stab in the back was considered admirable as long as it was successful.

From the activities of the Bugs & Meyer Mob eventually developed Murder, Inc. Lansky and Siegel proved that controlled violence, even murder, could be profitable; but as they moved up the ladder to leadership, and organization replaced chaos, the bribe largely supplanted the bullet. Specialists in violence remained, but they became an elite group concerned more with internal policing than with external aggression.

The Bugs & Meyer Mob in the mid-twenties was not adverse to free-lance activity. If between contracts there was time to spare, a loft job or a bit of hijacking on their own was in order —after all, they had payrolls to meet.

On the whole, morale was high in the Bugs & Meyer Mob.
The men considered themselves specialists and were convinced their continued value depended on giving full service on contract jobs. The mood was different, however, when called upon to work for themselves. Understandably, perhaps, some men felt they deserved a cut of the profits, and one or two even attempted to take it.

Such a man was John Barrett, an ex-con whose uncle first hired Lansky and taught him the tool and die business. No doubt Barrett thought that sentiment was on his side, but he underestimated Lansky—a man who didn’t cheat and had no intention of being cheated. The loft job had been a big success. It was fingered by Jake Lansky, Meyer’s hump-shouldered and dense younger brother. Jake had secured a job with the Bronx Fur Dressing Company, and he arranged details that led to the profitable venture. Upon checking the loot, however, Jake reported that some valuable furs were missing. Suspicion pointed to Barrett.

A few nights later, leaders of the gang met at the home of Louis Buchalter—later to be feared as the terrible Lepke.
While not a member of the mob as such, he was a close friend of Lansky’s and a power among Jewish gangsters. His advice was wanted, especially since the accusation had been made by Jake, and Meyer wanted to be completely objective.
It was more of a court-martial than a trial and it didn’t take long. Faced with the cold-eyed Lepke, Barrett soon confessed his crime.

“It ain’t fair,” he blurted, “for us to take all the risks while he”—¢gesturing at the impassive Lansky—‘gets most of the gravy. On jobs like this there ought to be a better split.” “Balls,”’ said Bugsy, who took more risks than anyone. Siegel owed Barrett $2,500, but of that he said nothing. Some thirty years later, Barrett told the story to the FBI and complained the debt was the real reason for the trouble. By then, of course, Siegel was dead and Lansky was more powerful than ever. The decision was quickly made. The men went out to their car. Bugsy took the wheel as usual. The Lansky brothers and their chief gunman, Sam ‘‘Red” Levine, got in the back. The trembling Barrett had no choice but to take the dangerous seat beside Bugsy. He sat waiting for what he was sure would follow —a bullet in the back of the head.

That very subject was being discussed. Levine, an efficient killer, wanted to do it that way. Meyer, the efficient business- man, saw no need to get blood all over the car and make necessary an expensive cleaning job. “Hit him on the wing,” ordered the boss.

A few blocks from Lepke’s house, where a Jewish ceremony known as bris was occurring, Siegel slowed the big car to a crawl. “Get out,” he told Barrett. Puzzled but relieved, Barrett jumped from the still moving car. He landed on his feet and kept moving. From the back seat, Red Levine took target practice. The first bullet struck Barrett in the body. He spun around, staggered to the gutter, and dropped. Satisfied, Siegel gunned the motor and the car sped away.
It was not very efficient, and Siegel blamed Lansky. For Bar- rett wasn’t dead. Police found him a few minutes later and rushed him to a hospital. On the basis of his mumbled remarks, a search began for the gunmen. But the search wasn’t pushed with much vigor; Barrett was an ex-convict, a punk, and gang killings were too common to get excited about.

Nevertheless, Siegel and the Lanskys had to take precautions for a few days. Siegel resented it, blaming Meyer’s small economy for the trouble. Meanwhile, in the hospital Barrett made a quick recovery. Police urged him to sign a complaint, which he promised to do upon leaving the hospital. After all, he explained, he wanted to be in hiding when the cops went after the Bugs & Meyer Mob. It sounded logical enough.

Shortly before Barrett was to be released, Daniel Francis Ahearn came calling with a covered dish of chiboni. It was liberally dosed with strychnine, sprinkled on by that master chef Meyer Lansky. Barrett expressed thanks but no thanks—he just wasn’t hungry. Ahearn left the food behind just in case, and Barrett told a nurse to put it in the garbage can.
Nevertheless, he got the message, and when the cops returned, he told them he had changed his mind about signing a complaint.

Much has been written of omerta, the legendary code of silence imposed on Mafia members, but it isn’t peculiar to the Mafia. Most criminals refuse to talk. Basically, they consider their affairs are none of the square world’s business. To be called a stool pigeon is the worst insult in the underworld jungle; many non-Mafia gangsters have gone to the chair unwilling to talk. On the other hand, plenty of Mafia hoods have broken omerta to save their own skins.

Barrett did not talk and lived to be reinstated in the good graces of Meyer Lansky. His uncle, who had been a second father to Meyer, interceded. Barrett returned the stolen furs, and nothing more was said about the debt Siegel owed him —apparently that was considered canceled by Bugsy’s speed in driving away before Levine could put another bullet in him.

There was a strange sequel to the affair in 1928, however. A rare argument between Lansky and Siegel developed, and the reckless Bugsy accused his partner of being soft. To rub it in, he recalled the Barrett episode. Lansky only smiled, knowing full well the younger man would soon calm down and apologize. Present during the argument was Ahearn, the man who delivered the poisoned chicken to Barrett. Not understanding the real affection between the two men, or perhaps seeing a chance to become a hero, Ahearn slapped Bugsy and ordered him to shut up. The handsome Siegel went white with rage but turned on his heel and left the room. To Ahearn’s surprise, Lansky also walked away without a word.

Next evening Ahearn was walking along Broome Street on the Lower East Side. It was almost midnight. A car driven by Jake Lansky drove alongside Ahearn. Siegel sat beside Jake— on this trip he wanted his gun hand free. Barrett, the cause of all the trouble, was in the back seat with another man.
The car stopped. Siegel stepped out and shot Ahearn twice— in the face and arm—got back into the car and rode away. The cops arrived and so did Pete Bender, a friend of Ahearn. In answer to the inevitable question—who did it?—Ahearn muttered Lansky’s name. It was Lansky’s fault, he felt, for not appreciating Ahearn’s efforts and for not stopping Bugsy.
On March, 1928, Lansky was charged with felonious assault pending the outcome of Ahearn’s battle for life.

Meanwhile, Bender, another would-be hero, went gunning for Lansky. He didn’t return. Next day the felonious assault charge was dropped and replaced with a charge of homicide. Word was that Lansky had killed Bender. But informants could whisper all they pleased; no body and no witnesses were found. Three days later, all charges were dropped and Lansky went back to his home at 125 South Third Street, Brooklyn, a free man.

Ahearn lived and in 1957 told the true story to federal officials, then trying to find grounds on which to deport Lansky. But Bender was never seen again. This time, or so went the gossip, the guns of the Bugs & Meyer Mob had been more accurate.

By 1928 the confusion of the early years was coming to an end. Following Rothstein’s withdrawal from the business, Frank Costello and William “Big Bill” Dwyer emerged with the best organization, and despite the hijacking efforts of Legs Diamond it continued to grow. Eventually Rothstein withdrew his support of Legs, and the white-haired young man became a target. He proved agile enough to survive Rothstein, however, but was finally blasted in the bed of his mistress by a team of Dutch Schultz's killers.

Late in 1925, however, Dwyer and Costello were indicted on assorted smuggling and bribery charges. Dwyer was convicted a year later, but Costello ultimately beat the rap. He needed allies, so he joined forces with the emerging Broadway Mob headed by Joe Adonis. At a meeting in the Claridge Hotel, where headquarters were established on the twelfth floor, the problems of supply were discussed. Costello’s old organization was in shambles and new sources were needed. An obvious one was the Bahamas. The docks in Nassau and West End were loaded with liquor bought in England and Canada, and the Bay Street Boys who ruled the islands were eager to do business. ‘There was one difficulty, however. Sam Bloom of Chicago, backed by the guns of Al Capone, had achieved something of a monopoly in Nassau and was supplying most of the Midwest, including Cleveland, with illicit booze.

Capone was a local boy, however, who had been tutored by Johnnie Torrio—another product of the East Side of New York. What’s more, Lucania was his cousin and enjoyed friendly relations. A telephone call was made, and in a few days Bloom appeared at the Claridge ready to talk business. His prices were high, but he agreed to deliver 10,000 cases a month from Nassau.

Conditions being what they were in New York, Bloom decided he needed some local muscle. And opportunity dawned for the Bugs & Meyer Mob. At Lucania’s suggestion, the Bugs were hired by Bloom to protect his shipments against hijackers and his person against kidnapping. Quite a kidnapping racket had developed. Inevitably, once an individual achieved considerable wealth in the booze business, he became a natural target of less fortunate gangsters. The law offered such a person no protection. Indeed, the code of the underworld required that police be left out. Sometimes the payment of a large ransom was sufficient, and the beer baron or rumrunner was released.
Often as not, however, if his kidnappers feared his power for revenge, the money was taken and the victim dropped at sea with concrete overshoes. In later years those unimaginative gangsters who were unable to adjust to Repeal tried to carry on the racket by kidnapping legit guys or their children, but the leaders of the mob had more sense. J. Edgar Hoover, the youthful head of the FBI, might warn that kidnapping was the new menace, but the emerging crime syndicate knew better.
As usual, the Bugs & Meyer Mob lived up to its contracts.
Siegel handled the actual guard duties, commanding a crack group of killers so tough that even the Dutchman, as Schultz was called, shied away. Lansky played the part of the diplomat. In his calm, reasonable fashion, he was able to dissuade rival gang leaders from attacking his convoys by pointing out that all would profit if a reliable source of booze could be maintained.

Not only did Lansky win immunity from attack, but also in many cases he persuaded the rivals to join the Combination, as it was becoming known. Charles “King” Solomon of Boston was one of the first. Solomon’s sphere of influence included most of New England, and on his team were such stalwarts as Joe Linsey, Hyman Abrams, and Mickey “the Wise Guy” Rocco. Lansky’s friendship with these lieutenants was to outlast his association with Solomon.

Similarly, a working agreement was reached with the Cleveland Syndicate headed by four men of Jewish extraction: Moe Dalitz, Morris Kleinman, Sam Tucker, and Louis Rothkopf.
They had achieved domination of the smuggling trade over Lake Erie from Canada and were men after Lansky’s heart.
Willing and able to use violence if necessary, they depended largely on logic to convince Mafia elements of the Mayfield Road Mob to cooperate for the common profit. Such tough gangsters as Tony and Frank Milano, Al and Chuck Polizzi took orders from Dalitz and Company and got rich.
Even the flood of booze across Lake Erie was insufficient at times to meet the demand and had to be supplemented. Lansky worked out an arrangement whereby the boys could buy from New York in times of shortage and, conversely, sell to New York if a shortage developed there. It was a profitable deal and led to a lasting alliance that has continued until this day.

Bloom was quite shocked, however, when Lansky submitted his first expense account. It totaled $30,000. He demanded that the Combination pay it. Lucania, seeing an opportunity, suggested that Lansky and Siegel be brought into the outfit as equal partners. After some grumbling—and several more expense accounts—his plan was accepted.

Within a few months Lansky knew more about Bloom’s business than did the gentleman from Chicago. And suddenly Bloom, who no longer had a contract with the Bugs & Meyer Mob, began having problems. Somehow, part of his shipment vanished en route to New York. He demanded payment for the missing cases, claiming with some justification that it was the Combination’s duty to protect the cargo. Leaders of the Combination stalled. By 1929 Bloom claimed they owed him $500,000.

One day, Joe Adonis walked into the headquarters and asked for $100,000 to be paid to Bloom on account. The Combination’s accountant handed it over. That night Bloom vanished from his apartment at 307 West Seventy-fifth Street and was never seen again.

Cursing the world and oneself

 The attitude you speak of, that of cursing the world and oneself, is, in a sense, the beginning of wisdom. Revolt is the first reaction of an intelligent man when he begins to understand the desperate nature of his situation in the world; and it is probably true to say that nothing great has ever been achieved except by a man in revolt against his situation. But revolt alone is not enough—it eventually contradicts itself. A man in blind revolt is like someone in a railway compartment trying to stop the train by pushing against the opposite seat with his feet: he may be strong enough to damage the compartment, but the damaged compartment will nevertheless continue to move with the train. Except for the arahat, we are all in this train of samsāra, and the problem is to stop the train whilst still travelling in it. Direct action, direct revolt, won’t do; but something, certainly, must be done. That it is, in fact, possible to stop the train from within we know from the Buddha, who has himself done it:

I, monks, being myself subject to birth, decay, and death, having seen the misery of subjection to birth, decay, and death, went in search of the unborn, undecaying, undying, uttermost quietus of extinction (nibbāna), and I reached the unborn, undecaying, un-dying, uttermost quietus of extinction. <M. 26: i,167> 

Revolt by all means, but let the weapons be intelligence and patience, not disorder and violence; and the first thing to do is to find out exactly what it is that you are revolting against. Perhaps you will come to see that what you are revolting against is avijjā.

Nanavira Thera 

Vaccination - Is There A Conspiracy?

 

Part I: WAR ON INFANTS

The history of vaccination is littered with so many inaccuracies – and doctoring of medical records – that it is sometimes hard to sift fact from fiction. No matter how much has been written or spoken about the efficacy of vaccination, the truth is that there is absolutely no proof that vaccines work.

Later in this book, we shall discuss the absolute lack of scientific studies to prove that vaccination theory is founded on sound scientific principles. Suffice to argue for the time being that if it indeed were, the medical establishment would not need to distort figures and present selective data to prove that vaccines are effective.

Alternatively, a theory founded on scientific fact does not need propagandists as it speaks for itself.

So who benefits from brainwashing the public with such untruths? What are they trying to hide? What are their ulterior motives? Just how do they achieve their devious ends?

1. Modern-Day Pogrom?

 As we debate these ethical and moral issues, we shall also take a look at the often-lethal consequences of these unconscionable actions. Not surprisingly, some researchers and anti-vaccination campaigners go so far as to compare immunization campaigns to Nazi ‘pogroms’.

Why else would Western public health agencies thrust a polio vaccine on Uganda when the African country did not have a history of the disease? (More on this in Part III: All The World’s A Lab). If the anti-vaccine camp has been accused of exaggeration and paranoia, their beliefs seem to gain credibility as you delve into the details. With increasing awareness and access to information, thanks to tools the Internet and other technologies have given us, evidence is piling up, for instance, to make a convincing case that AIDS was deliberately introduced to Africa by Western governments.

What better way to control entire nations than by keeping them sick, weak, impoverished and at the mercy of donors?

There are powerful material benefits to controlling entire nations, not least of which are their abundant natural resources like oil. Is it too farfetched to believe that vaccination is being used as a deliberate means to manipulate, scare and even kill people in nations where lack of literacy subdues the will of the people and discourages them from asking ‘awkward’ questions?

When the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) was introduced to Nigeria in 2002, Muslim clerics rallied the population to revolt. The campaign was born of skepticism of Western nations and their motives.

Whether justified or not, there were suspicions that the OPV contained infertility agents targeted at Nigeria’s Muslim population. Some reminded UNICEF, which was spearheading the polio immunization campaign in Nigeria, of the horrific clinical trials conducted by American drug giant Pfizer in 1996.

The Nigerian government has since sued the company, which was then experimenting with an antibiotic drug called Trovan. The drug was administered to 233 Nigerian children with bacterial meningitis during an epidemic. During the clinical trials, 196 children died and the remaining 37 children suffered debilitating health problems including paralysis and brain damage.

The third reason the Nigerian population was outraged by UNICEF’s polio vaccination campaign was the accusation that the Western world, through agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and other global non-profit bodies, had deliberately introduced HIV to Africa in the 1950s through the polio vaccine. The vaccine was administered to a million people in what is now Rwanda and Burundi, where the earliest cases of HIV in Africa were later detected.

Whether true or not, there is widespread skepticism in several quarters regarding mass immunization campaigns and the seemingly altruistic intentions of international public health and aid agencies and their motives. Is it all conjecture? (More on this in Part III: All The World’s A Lab and Chapter 4: Critical Mass)

2. Who Stands To Gain?

 All this suggests a medical conspiracy of sorts, involving the pharmaceutical industry, the medical establishment, health regulators and policy-makers. If this were true, what’s in it for these vested interests?

The truth is more layered than is immediately apparent. While only some – a core group – can be accused of consciously and deliberately plotting the murder of innocent children and adults, there are many who collude unwittingly.

At the core of the vaccine cartel are pharma companies, senior members of the medical fraternity, policy makers and health regulators. Drug companies earn billions of dollars a year from the sale of vaccines and research grants while politicians have their own ulterior motives.

But, pray, why would someone as lowly in the pecking order as, say, a general practitioner, push the same agenda? Surely, he or she can’t be in on a global conspiracy?

Let me put it this way. Why are diseases that result from vaccination misdiagnosed so very often? Is there a deliberate attempt to cover up the truth? What has the doctor to gain by hoodwinking a child and his or her parents?

When a doctor brought up in the fine traditions of allopathic medicine is confronted by glaring discrepancies, it is a natural tendency to rationalize the truth. That is, if a doctor is confronted with a patient who displays symptoms of, say, polio, and he knows the patient has been vaccinated against the disease, he would rather misdiagnose the symptoms than acknowledge that the vaccine did not work, or even worse, that the vaccine actually caused the disease.

Why would doctors stake their reputation and fundamental beliefs on a system of medicine by questioning the very basis of their life’s work? Unconsciously or not, generation upon generation of medical practitioners and specialists have thus, and in many other ways, pushed the cause of vaccination. They were simply raised to do so during years of academic study.

Others may indulge in pro-vaccination propaganda and even fudge clinical data to secure coveted and lucrative research grants and fellowships, public recognition and awards.

Just as the motives are many, the players in this dangerous game of smoke and mirrors are also many. But the objective is always the same: to conceal the truth from the public.

It is a closed system that works on many levels, a system that has worked perfectly for the last 200 years since Edward Jenner ‘developed’ the smallpox vaccine, also touted as the world’s first ‘successful’ vaccine. (The modern version, Dryvax made by Wyeth Laboratories, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1931)

3. An Ignorant Public

 But a system such as this works only if we buy into it. And we have. The most oft-used tactic used by the vaccine lobby is fear. Leveraging this primal human emotion and burned into public consciousness is the fear of ‘dire consequences’ (read death) if we don’t vaccinate our children, ourselves and even our pets!

It is a message that comes to us through subtle and blatant advertising paid for by pharma dollars to perpetuate the myth that vaccines protect our health and save human lives.

Mass hysteria is another extremely effective tool, witnessed most recently during the 2009 swine-flu outbreak and before that the SARS outbreak in 2002. This pandemic of fear, fuelled by an overzealous media, enabled the vaccination of millions of willing and unwilling victims across many continents.

What were in those vaccines? Were researches using the hysteria to test unknown strains of viruses and chemical additives? Was the global pandemic deliberately engineered? (See Chapter 7: Swine Flu: The Pandemic That Didn’t Pan Out)

Another weapon to brainwash a willing public is the media, which sold out to corporate pharma decades ago. How often we read about the “successful” results of public health agencies such as the WHO every time an immunization campaign is conducted! Such propaganda serves only to reinforce the so-called life-saving nature of these lethal cocktails. How often do we read about wonder drugs written about by a media whose owners often have close ties to Big Pharma?

Finally, public ignorance has also helped perpetuate the notion that vaccination is a rite of passage that every child must undergo in the first few weeks of their lives. The brainwashing (regarding the benefits of vaccination) begins in the maternity ward. It continues in school, and as we grow up, we are bombarded with public service messages on the need for immunization.

It’s a crafty tool as education and public service messages are ‘positive’ and do not create resistance. They effectively create a certain mindset, which makes the public easily vulnerable to other tactics such as fear and mass hysteria.

Finally, the human tendency for quick-fix solutions and an easy way out completes the cycle of brainwashing. For most people, it’s easier to submit to a couple of jabs than live a healthy lifestyle and boost one’s immune system the way nature intended.

Living healthy is often hard work, considering the way modern lifestyles are designed. But instead of investing in healthy nutrition, adopting healthy sleeping habits, exercising, and spending time in the sun to make us immune against most diseases, we prefer to vaccinate ourselves and our children.

How easy it is to turn an untruth into sound scientific theory – in the case of vaccines, it’s taken just 200 years.

4. Sudden Death

 Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS is a convenient term the medical establishment has coined to describe deaths in infants resulting from an inconclusive diagnosis. It is a convenient term that conceals the number of infants who actually die of adverse reactions to vaccination.

The only official estimate comes from the Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System or VAERS cell sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). VAERS records the reports of vaccine-related reactions as well as deaths in infants submitted by the public and doctors when vaccination goes wrong. However, few are aware of VAERS and few doctors use the system. Here is a quote from the VAERS website:

“More than 10 million vaccines per year are given to children less than 1 year old, usually between 2 and 6 months of age. At this age, infants are at greatest risk for certain medical adverse events, including high fevers, seizures, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Some infants will experience these medical events shortly after a vaccination by coincidence. These coincidences make it difficult to know whether a particular adverse event resulted from a medical condition or from a vaccination. Therefore, vaccine providers are encouraged to report all adverse events following vaccination, whether or not they believe the vaccination was the cause.”

VAERS’s statistics reveal that on average, doctors in the US report 11,000 cases of serious vaccine-related events every year. Of this, 1 percent of infants die after being vaccinated. That’s approximately 100 children a year.

If these figures appear low, consider the FDA’s own estimates – that doctors report only 10 percent of vaccine-related serious adverse reactions (hospitalization, life-threatening illnesses and permanent disability) to VAERS. Hence, the number of infant deaths reported every year – approximately 100 – is actually infinitesimal.

No matter how much the medical community cloaks the truth, researchers agree that SIDS is linked to vaccination. According to one independent study, the number of SIDS cases in the US is greatest in infants aged two to four months, which is when babies receive the first round of vaccines. Other studies have found a three-week lag between vaccination and death.

While none of these studies can conclusively state that vaccines killed these infants, it is difficult to draw any other conclusion considering the weight of research that correlates the two variables. You may also recall that in countries like Iceland where children receive less than a third of the number of vaccines given to children in the United States, the death rate is also 50 percent lower.

Interestingly – and alarmingly – VAERS data reveals that a large portion of the reported “adverse events” pertain to vaccines for pertussis or whooping cough, a disease routinely ‘taken care of’ by the DPT vaccine (Diphtheria, Pertussis and Tetanus). Independent studies state that children die eight times faster than normal after a DPT shot.

Considering the extent of underreporting to VAERS, it is difficult to estimate how many individuals are seriously disabled by vaccination. One estimate, quoted during a lawsuit, claimed that one in every 300 DPT immunizations causes seizures.

It was in response to widespread concerns over the DPT vaccine that the US Federal Government set up the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, loosely called the ‘Vaccine Court’, to settle claims against vaccine manufacturers in cases of adverse reactions to their drugs.

Since the NVICP was set up in 1998, it has received 5,000-odd claims including 700 pertaining to vaccine-linked deaths. The total sum awarded in compensation to date is $724 million.

5. Early Assault

 Despite the overwhelming evidence that vaccines are not safe and that there is no conclusive evidence that they protect us from disease, we consent to allow these harmful chemicals to be pumped into our children.

On the contrary, there is a growing body evidence to suggest that vaccines may, in fact, thwart a child’s immune system from developing normally. For instance, doctors have found that individuals who have not suffered a bout of measles in childhood are more prone than those who have, to skin diseases, diseases of bone and cartilage, and certain types of tumors. It has also been found that individuals who do not contract mumps are more prone to developing ovarian cancer.

Some researchers believe that the viral genetic material in the chickenpox vaccine may surface years after vaccination in the form of herpes zoster or shingles or other disorders of the immune system.

Confirmation of this trend is seen in the increase of adult shingles by 90 percent from 1998 to 2003, following the release of the chickenpox vaccine for mass use. Shingles is linked with three times as many deaths and five times as many hospitalizations as chickenpox.

Chickenpox has never been a serious illness, at least until 1995 when the live virus chickenpox vaccine was licensed in the United States and mass vaccination began. Before and even now, for 99.9 percent of healthy children, chickenpox is a mild disease without complications. Children who have chickenpox by age six develop a natural, long-lasting immunity to it.

After Merck developed and distributed the chickenpox vaccine in 1995, chickenpox was suddenly declared a life-threatening disease for which children must get vaccinated or face serious health problems!

By vaccinating and thereby preventing children to develop natural immunity to chickenpox, we are now facing a new epidemic of adults getting shingles. Chickenpox is caused by the varicella zoster virus, which is a member of the herpes virus family and is associated with herpes zoster (shingles).

After recovering from chickenpox, the virus can remain dormant in the body’s nerve roots for many years, unless it is reactivated. Physical or emotional stress and exertion are among the most common activators. When awakened, the symptoms present themselves as shingles rather than chickenpox.

Nature creates chickenpox to strengthen natural immunity and prevent shingles. Children who go through the disease naturally and later come into contact with other children recovering from it receive a natural immune booster which helps them to stay protected from contracting shingles later in life. In other words, by not allowing chickenpox to occur in the population of children, we are risking an epidemic of shingles among the population of adults. We have been taught to stay away from people who are infected with chickenpox. In truth, if you have already had chickenpox in the past, coming in contact with someone who has chickenpox actually serves as a further ‘booster vaccine’ to help avoid shingles, regardless your age.

Since the mass-introduction of the chickenpox vaccine, there is just not enough chickenpox around to keep providing natural immune boosters to children and adults. Hence the man-made escalation of shingles among adults.

Shingles, marked by pain and a blister-like rash on one side of the body lasting three to five weeks, does not typically lead to serious complications. However, in persons with a weak immune system (which happens after being vaccinated), complications may be serious and even life-threatening. These include postherpetic neuralgia, bacterial skin infections, Hutchinson’s sign, Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, motor neuropathy, meningitis, hearing loss, blindness, and bladder impairment.

As it often happens, the short-term benefits achieved through the silver-bullet approaches of medical intervention, actually lead to irreparable disasters in the long-term. Accordingly, we may have achieved a decline of chickenpox (mild illness) among children through mass vaccination, while having generated a near-equal increase of shingles (severe illness) among adults.

Please note that the chickenpox vaccine may only provide temporary, superficial immunity, whereas recovering from chickenpox bestows long-lasting superior immunity. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “The effectiveness of the vaccine is 44 percent against disease of any severity and 86 percent against moderate or severe disease.” I am not sure how they can know this for sure, especially since their estimates underwent major revisions in recent years.

Investigations of a recent chickenpox outbreak in a New Hampshire daycare revealed that it began with a child who had previously been vaccinated. And as reported by the Washington Post, in another outbreak, 75 percent of the affected children had been vaccinated against chickenpox.

It also helps that most 10-year-old children are naturally immune to chickenpox even though they have not gone through the illness. A Canadian study involving over 2,000 school children found that 63 percent of youngsters with no history of chickenpox had antibodies against the virus. It is presumed that they had a very mild case of chickenpox, which produced no symptoms at all, or just a runny nose and a mild rash. In fact, most infections (of any kind) are uneventful, and we will never know that we were infected. In other words, it is very beneficial for children to hang out with other children who are recovering from chickenpox.

Of course, the same principle works for adults. Researchers at Britain’s Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) found that adults living with children enjoy higher levels of protection from shingles.

We must remember that we have a smart immune system that doesn’t require us to fall ill to become immune to most illnesses. Just breast-feeding for at least one year is known to bestow children with the most effective immune system there can be.

In any case, it may be a blessing that the chickenpox vaccine is as ineffective as it appears to be. This may actually prevent an even more serious shingles epidemic than is already in the making. However, this blessing in disguise may be short-lived. The drug giant Merck has already developed a shingles vaccine (Zostavax) to help foil the escalating shingles epidemic which it helped to create by disseminating its chickenpox vaccine. Approved by the FDA in 2006, the vaccine is being targeted at people age 60 and older, at the cost of $200 a shot, and regardless whether these older folks are already immune-compromised or suffer from another illness such as cancer. For the medical industry it’s just another clever marketing scheme. First, they cause the problem and then they offer their help in fixing it. The fix, in turn, causes even more health problems, which then require new fixes. And so the medical Ponzi scheme continues to grow exponentially.

The main question here is whether it is worth risking the health or life of your children, now or in the future, for no real benefit at all. Consider the following adverse events that may accompany chickenpox vaccination:

According to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), between March 1995 and July 1998, one in 1,481 chickenpox vaccinations were followed by an adverse health event.

Among the adverse events, about 1 in 33,000 doses involved serious complications such as shock, encephalitis (brain inflammation), thrombocytopenia (a blood disorder) cellulitis, transverse myelitis, Guillain-Barré Syndrome, and shingles.

Fourteen out of the reported 6,574 chickenpox vaccine adverse events ended in death.

Given the fact that adverse vaccine events are notoriously underreported – by as much as 90 percent – the more probable 140 deaths instead of the reported 14 cases should caution every parent and doctor about such a risky vaccination program.

The risk may be even greater when the vaccine is combined with other vaccines, like MMR, which was confirmed by Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC). She said: “We have been getting reports from parents that their children are suffering high fevers, chickenpox lesions, shingles, brain damage and dying after chickenpox vaccination, especially when the vaccine is given at the same time with MMR and other vaccines.”

The bottom line is, vaccination offers no advantage over non-vaccination. Vaccination only helps to further increase the incidence of disease and thereby generates an endless requirement for medical attention, which in turn benefits those who make money off the unsuspecting population.

This brings us back to the issue of natural immunity versus acquired immunity discussed in Chapter 1: The Vaccine Myth. In other words, childhood infectious diseases gift the body with a natural immunity that vaccines purport to artificially induce, but in vain.

The fact is that we are assaulted by pathogens – bacteria, viruses, amoeba, etc – every single day but do not succumb to the infectious diseases that these germs are alleged to produce. This is solely due to the body’s immune system and other natural filters that continuously and tirelessly kill and weed out non-beneficial germs and debris every single day of our lives. Individuals whose immune system has been compromised and who are unable able to keep their insides clean require an invasion and proliferation of germs to help detoxify their bodies for them.

The immune system consists primarily of white blood cells, antibodies and the lymphatic system. White blood cells and lymph circulate throughout our organs, tissues and cells while simultaneously cleansing them of cellular debris, toxins and naturalizing pathogens along the way.

That’s not all. The immune system is beautifully layered and operates at various levels. It is also composed of various lines of defense that a pathogen must encounter so that it can effectively deal with the pathogen. In other words, the body uses multiple filters while screening for pathogens to make sure anything that is harmful perishes before it can cause an infection, unless, of course, an infection becomes warranted and the body allows it.

What are these various ‘filters’? In addition to the already mentioned mucus lining along the body’s orifices, saliva protects against germs and our skin serves as armor for our internal organs. The liver is the body’s supreme filter and purifier, and cleanses the blood of all types of toxic waste including chemicals and by-products from drugs as the blood passes through the organ.

Then there are the excretory organs such as the kidneys and the large intestine and bowels to get rid of solid waste. When you breathe out, the air you exhale too contains cellular waste just as your perspiration does.

The fact is that in order to create natural and real immunity to disease, a pathogen must provoke the complete inflammatory and immune response. This is a complex response that resonates throughout the body’s equally complex immune system. When this happens naturally, the body acquires life-long immunity to a particular germ.

But for this to happen, the pathogen must pass through natural channels, from outside to inside. For instance, the pathogen must pass from the respiratory system or through the saliva or skin and then to the other organs involved in filtering it out such as the mucus membranes, thymus, liver and spleen.

Vaccines do not do this. Instead, they completely bypass the outside-to-inside process by being directly injected, thereby failing to provoke the full immune response.

By injecting a live but attenuated virus, parts of a virus or a dead virus, vaccines trick the immune system into releasing antibodies against a particular pathogen. This shortcut, as it were, is what vaccine theory is based on and is seriously flawed.

For instance, it was only later discovered that the immune system is composed of two parts. While one part is active, it suppresses the other part and vice-versa. Artificially stimulating one part of the system to produce antibodies abnormally inhibits the other part of the system and thus throws the entire immunological response out of gear.

One of the major repercussions of this is that the body sometimes begins to produce antibodies that attack its own cells, thus creating an autoimmune disease. At least that’s the theory behind such autoimmune disorders; but I will offer a slightly different explanation below. The organ that is affected depends on which tissues are attacked by the antibodies.

For instance, when the brain and spinal cord are attacked, the individual develops vaccine-induced encephalitis. This in turn leads to a number of diseases including Guillain-Barré Syndrome and other neurological diseases that often manifest themselves in behavioral symptoms.

Is it pure coincidence that the incidence of autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, minimal brain disorder, autism and subacute lupus erythematosus has increased dramatically as the medical establishment recommends multiple-vaccine immunization?

Indeed there are other factors that cause autoimmune diseases but some researchers are unequivocal that vaccines are also responsible. In my opinion, it is not the antigen itself, but the foreign protein particles and chemical additives in the vaccines, such as mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, body parts containing foreign DNA, and squalene that produce the same response.

Once this toxic sludge is injected directly into the blood, it will inevitably make its way into the brain, spleen, kidneys, liver, joint fluids, blood vessel walls, lymph vessels and connective tissues of intestines, lungs, breasts and other parts. The multiple tissue damage caused by these toxins requires a continuous and significant healing response by the body that includes the production of antibodies. As already mentioned, the body uses antibodies to heal damaged tissue and neutralize accumulated harmful toxic substances. To successfully detoxify and heal the affected tissues, antibodies and other cells of the immune system must inflame them first.

An overreaction of the immune system may occur when the body becomes overwhelmed with the sudden appearance of unnatural, toxic substances in the blood such as mercury and antibiotics. Modern medicine conveniently calls such a healing attempt autoimmune disease, meaning, the body attacks itself. In truth, the body has no intention to commit suicide.

Let us now see how vaccines contaminate the immune system and why they throw it off-balance. Most vaccines are ‘live’ vaccines i.e. they contain the intended virus, which is weakened so that it doesn’t produce full-blown symptoms of disease, before it is introduced into the human body.

Before that, the virus must be ‘cultured’ or grown artificially while being fed on nutrient-rich substances such as aborted human fetuses, chick embryos, pig embryonic tissues, and monkey kidney cells.

Can you imagine how putrid this ‘culture’ must be? The next step is to remove the impurities and isolate the virus by subjecting it to a series of complex chemical processes.

When the attenuated or weakened virus is introduced into the human body, the body by reflex attempts to neutralize the intruder and produces a greater amount of antibodies in the process. This is a violent biochemical reaction as under normal circumstances, viruses rarely if ever enter the body directly through the bloodstream.

Yet, vaccines contain chemical additives called adjuvants to exaggerate the initial immune response. They also contain chemical fixers to stop the immune system from altogether destroying the antigen. Destroying the viral material would defeat the very purpose of the vaccine, right? Next, preservatives are added to the vaccine to prevent it from putrefying and to create shelf-life.

Among the chemical additives in vaccines are monosodium glutamate, thimerosal (mercury), antibiotics, anti-freeze and other acidic and toxic compounds.

Children are the most vulnerable section of the population because their immune systems are practically defenseless against these poisons. They have a lot against them since most mothers were once vaccinated and hence fail to pass on their own natural immunity to them through breast milk.

More evidence that vaccines are lethal to children comes from James R Shannon of the National Institutes of Health. He said, “No vaccination can be proven safe before it is given to children.”

A new life, whose immune system is already compromised, cannot effectively cope with such a genetic and chemical assault. According to an Australian study, children who received the pertussis vaccine were five times more likely to contract encephalitis from the vaccine than developing encephalitis by contacting pertussis through natural means.

Also, when babies are immunized, there is no regard for the infant’s unique biochemical make-up. Since babies scarcely have a medical ‘history’, there is no way to tell what medical vulnerabilities the infant might have. For example, a prematurely born child is typically not as healthy as one that was born at full-term.

Still, vaccines are administered regardless of individual differences (the same applies to older children and adults). It’s a one-dose-fits-all policy. Also, doses are not varied with body weight and other variables.

As soon as the vaccine is administered, the infant’s body musters all its strength to eliminate it. If the child is biologically sensitive or weak, the vaccine may pass through the crucial blood-brain barrier and damage the brain’s cells. Autism is just one of the many debilitating neurological consequences of vaccination.

In the section that follows, we shall further explore how vaccines declare an all-out war against the human immune system.

Vaccine-nation Poisoning the Population,

One Shot at a Time

Andreas Moritz