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From: ParadigmRG <ParadigmRG@aol.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 23:31:47 EST
Fwd Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 09:40:27 -0500
Subject: Anthony Ortega, Kal Korff and "The Hack and the

As a consequence of additional posts to Updates by Mr. Kal Korff,
please indulge a consolidation and expansion of two previous
posts of mine.  Repost or reprint as you like.

ANTHONY ORTEGA, KAL KORFF AND "THE HACK AND THE QUACK"

The circumstances regarding the publishing of Anthony Ortega’s
"Phoenix New Times" article, “The Hack and the Quack” and the
involvement and subsequent follow-up by Mr. Kal Korff are not
unprecedented.  We have been through this before, many times.
What is at issue here is not spirited disagreement over the
research and viewpoints of others.  What is at issue here is
McCarthyism.

For those not old enough to recall this episode of eponymous
demagoguery, it concerned the use of ideological differences to
justify disrupting the rights and opportunities of others.  It
utilized the tools of innuendo, guilt by association, lies,
implied threats, invasion of privacy, economic sanction and much
more. You may also recall that it was not merely the agenda of
its namesake, but the actions of many dispersed throughout the
political, military and entertainment communities.

Can you here the sucking sound as the time, attention and
resources are directed toward new acts of disruption and
distraction?

Mr. Korff’s well established game has been given the imprimatur
of a newspaper article which significantly relied on Mr. Korff’s
published works as well as his interview with Ortega.  This
article was much more than a broad attack on Jim Dilettoso, it
was clearly intentioned to show the Laughlin Conference in the
worst possible light, attack as many people as space would permit
within the context of the article, and above all, to damage the
efforts of Frances Emma Barwood to seek the office of Secretary
of State of Arizona.

This is real politik.  You are seeing an interactive process
between mainstream media and certain elements within the general
field of ufology which is designed to feed on itself and do
damage.  This damage will have consequences.  I am a believer
that the work is primary, the internecine personal conflicts
secondary.  However, there will be times, and this is one, when
the majority camp of this field must step forward and speak out.

It is fortunate that after 50 years, the extraordinarily complex
substance and history that represents the extraterrestrial enigma
and its pursuit by fallible human beings has finally been
clarified via the multi-month research effort of Mr. Ortega. Of
equal benefit to our understanding was the further clarification
by Mr. Korff.

In his initial post New Timeis article diatribe, he claimed that
ufology is now divided into two “schools of thought,” “two basic
camps” - those who think critically and those who do not.

There are not two but many "schools of thought" among the
thousands of individuals addressing the ongoing phenomena we
awkwardly call ufology. However, "two basic camps" can, indeed,
be discerned.

The majority camp consists of a broad array of people from all
ranks and stations who have elected to invest a significant
portion of their one and only life to somehow understand and deal
with the most extraordinary event in human history.  People with
limited resources, mismatched educations, conflicting life
demands and little social support moving against great
resistance, making many mistakes, but pressing forward when every
institution that human civilization has brought forth (academia,
journalism, science, political agencies, elected bodies, the
church, the military) has elected to either stand down or subvert
understanding for ulterior agendas.

The minority camp consists of arrogant, self-serving,
self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing and self-appointed purveyors of
aggressive invective, libel, slander and personal attacks.
Individuals who, by chance or design, found themselves nicely
positioned in the gap between an amazing citizen science
initiative and a confounded and cowering scientific
establishment, and elected to feast on the mistakes and
imperfections of the former for no other reason then the targets
were easy. Individuals who are less concerned with the impact of
the unfolding truths on the global public than gorging themselves
on their own self-importance as critics, executioners, debunkers
and McCarthyesque holders of lists of the “unworthy and
misguided.”

This minority camp persists because the larger, greater work is
too demanding, the cascade of events too compelling, available
funds too limited to afford the waste of time and money required
to properly address their games.

In the post-paradigm world we inevitably approach, there will be
time enough for chroniclers of history to document which of these
camps served humanity and which served themselves.

Stephen Bassett
Founder of Paradigm Research Group
Registered lobbyist with the Senate Office of Public Records and
the House of Representatives Legislative Resource Center for and/or
consultant to:    Stargate International
                         Enterprise Mission
                         Operation Right to Know
                         Citizens Against UFO Secrecy
                         Skywatch International
                         CSETI
                         MSN UFO Forum

Friend of:     Robert Dean
                   Jim Marrs
                   Jim Dilettoso
                   Frances Emma Barwood