Obviously the show is grade A copaganda. Fincher has always really loved the idea of a bunch of unhinged psychos lurking behind every corner to get you. Really plays into the thesis of Programmed to Kill, which is that the feds/CIA created the idea of the serial killer to cause fear and chaos in the public so that we would welcome the police state we currently live in.
The existence of serial killer / psychological crime shows is actually so fucked when you think about it lol. Like literally perpetuates the bs cop myth that theyre protecting the public from this never ending tidal wave of dangerous criminals, which is of course not based in reality at all. Totally demonises mental illness as well.
Shame bc I love Hannibal lmao where theres like multiple serial killers running around and the fkn FBI are protecting the public from them lol.
True Detective
The only good cop show out there. Twin Peaks is second.
True detective is supposedly inspired by stuff like the Franklin scandal, the finders and other cases of child trafficking and ritual abuse. It definitely pulls back the veil A LOT more than most cop shows
I remember watching season 1 ages ago. I remember liking it a lot but wasnt a leftist then. Felt like it was really nihilistic maybe? Need to watch it again probably.
Can you comment a little more on the idea of the serial killer being a fed creation? They are real and exist in many countries?
I don't doubt that serial killers occasionally do exist. The huge number in the US during the 60s thru the 80s (along with "crazy lone gunman assassins"), and the media hype around them is very very suspicious imo. Many of them were patsies: Berkowitz, Boston Strangler, Henry Lee Lucas to name a few. A bunch of others were mkultra subjects (Manson, Unabomber etc) or had really intense military training (operation phoenix in Vietnam for instance) which basically turned them into psycho killers. Highly recommend Programmed to Kill and the other books mentioned in the post.
Also, for a more current take on this look into the involvement of feds with young Muslim "radicals". There are a ton of stories where they push these people into acts of violence, often giving them bombs, guns etc
Berkowitz was not a patsy, the only reason to think he was a patsy is if you literally believe satanic panic bullshit what the fuck are you talking about.
There is also logical reasons for why there was a fuckton of serial killers proportionally at that time, mobility massively increased in America while forensics were not yet developed. So killers could either move long distances and fast or they could target people who were moving around the country like hitchhikers and others like that.
Citing the two most blatant examples of the police using serial killing as a patsy doesnt mean that there wasnt a fuckton of killers, there is evidence for the vast vast majority of them. I mean I always joke about how much borderline apologism there is for Ted Kaczynski but I seriously hope theres not gonna be a fucking wave of Serial Killer apologism/denialism going, like what the fuck.
Have you seen the police sketches? Sure don't all look like Berkowitz. He was definitely involved, pulled the trigger on two or three. He just didn't act alone.
I'm no Ted Kaczynski apologist. I don't have any sympathy for the guy. Doesn't change the fact that he was part of an mkultra experiment though.
Thats the only thing that suggests he didnt act alone, its simply far more reasonable to assume witnesses got things wrong than that Berkowitz was part of a conspiracy.
Nah, the last SOS shooting, the one in the park, had a credible eye witness who saw Berkowitz walking away from his car at a time when he wouldn't have been able to be the shooter.
Thats not evidence of acting with others, if this is evidence of anything its that they pinned something on him, theres no evidence that suggest he was working with other people. It doesnt mean he was a patsy either it just means they pulled a Lee Lucas on him and wanted to clear shit they were too lazy to solve.
I would love to find the witness testimony exactly cause I have seen the time span described as anything from 2 minutes exactly before the shooting vs "a few minutes" and shit like that, plus exactly how the witness determined the time span. Unfortunately that seems to be difficult.
Multiple, very different sketches and accounts of shooters. The timing of the eye witness of the last shooting is pretty much pinned down because Berkowitz got a parking ticket which he was taking off his car when the witness saw him. Other witnesses saw a scraggly hippy guy in the park before the shooting who later matched the description of the gunman. A yellow vw was chased from the scene, obviously involved in the shooting. NYPD was looking for a yellow vw, but after Berkowitz (who didn't have a yellow vw) was arrested they just moved on.
Also, two associates of Berkowitz died suspiciously in the months after his arrest. Maury Terry, author of Ultimate Evil, had been trying to track them down. One got suicided, shotgun found on top of his body. The other ran into a median going full speed a few weeks later.
Read the first 100 pages or so of Ultimate Evil (before it goes somewhat off the rails with the occult stuff). Terry makes a very solid case that Berkowitz didn't act alone.
The claim that the "associates"(The Carr brothers, who I dont believe there exists evidence of being more than just aware of Berkowitzs existence) of Berkowitz died suspiciously is not backed up with significant evidence and Berkowitz only named them after they had been dead for some time, essentially slandering men who had no way of defending themselves.
His further claims of accomplices are also a load of shit frankly cause he refuses to properly name anyone cause he claims that his family is under threat, but under such lenient of a threat that he can talk as much as he wants about the cult as long as he doesnt name direct names, talking is talking and the idea that anyone threatening him to shut the fuck up would let him reveal that much is laughable.
Its also not backed up with evidence that the yellow VW was "involved in the shooting", it could very simply have been someone escaping the shooting and who was being pursued for witness statements and leads.
Multiple witnesses say Berkowitz visited John Carr in North Dakota
Alright, but still you cant claim that you can just ignore the occult part when berkowitz only connected the carrs to himself as part of the occult story, and the only reason their deaths are suspicious are through the occult story. If this was a viable theory it would surely also be presented by someone else who isnt just a gullible jackass who took Berkowitz at face value in order to produce a bunch of satanic panic bs.
Its not though, Terry is gullible and so is McGowen cause he took fucking Henry Lee Lucas at face value too and believe the hand of death bullshit, he even refers to Henrys "considerable skills" when the only skill Henry was ever really proven to have was lying and stabbing people like any other person who might try to stab someone, for all of his 3 or so confirmed murders he can only describe the process as something like "punching them with the knife". There is absolutely no evidence or substance to Lee Lucas's stories and he never displayed any of the skills he claimed to have been taught by "The Hand of Death".
He even openly acknowledges that the cops used Lucas as a tool to clear cases yet still pretends that the lack of consistency in method and process is a testament to how well trained and versatile Lucas is rather than the fact that there is only evidence to connect him to a handful of murders, all basically done in the same style of "I had an argument with a person and then I stabbed them suddenly".
He literally quotes Lucas and Ottis Toole doing a fucking improv "yes and" bit but for inventing a serial killer story and acts like its evidence. Like it literally goes "Hey remember when I ate that person, why did I do that Henry, remember when I did that?" and Henry goes "Oh yeah, well it was the devils doing that made you do it", like its that level of stuff.
A bunch of others were mkultra subjects (Manson, Unabomber etc)
Doesn't Ted get really pissed if you accuse him of being an MKULTRA subject? I've heard he's very grumpy in letters in general.
Yep. The recordings that his lawyers got of his uhh therapy sessions where they basically broke him down mentally are crazy. PSA: if you are a 17 yo prodigy attending an ivy league college, don't let any government psychologists experiment on you
From my knowledge they literally tortured and belittled him weekly for almost 2 years. Still wrong what he did though. Weird ass target choices. P.S.: The guy who did the interviews was never named soooo
Pretty sure if the FBI was making up serial killers they wouldn't all be white
Also a significant part of that times serial killer profiling was that killers would kill within their own race, if it was all a hoax they would 100% say that the scary black psychos were slaughtering the pure white women.
It was definitely a weird phenomenon that seems to have slowed down significantly in recent years
This is also one of the understated things in this thread; crime is romanticized (& 'worthy of exploration') when done by whites and trashy when done by people of color.
It's like how some people still believe the Italian mafia has "a code" against drug trafficking, and thus romanticize their nobility -- except it was because they had no hope of breaking into an area already dominated by other criminal groups, not morality. They basically got rejected and said "lol well I didn't want to fuck you anyway".
There is an element of that but there is also an element of serial killers being perceived as greasy oddballs with no friends or social skills
Skimming through the book you recommended, what cases I have significant knowledge in I can say that the author doesnt know fucking jack shit about and just blames it on satanism. I wasnt aware that the satanic panic was now woke. Edit: Wait I completely missed that you recommended the Ultimate Evil, which is literally just 200% satanic panic bullshit that has no substance to it and also slanders at least two dead men as satanic cult murderers.
Editing as I go along so thats why this may look incoherent: Reading this it feels like 90% of claims are simply described as "reportedly", so many people were "reportedly" members of satanic cults, he makes claims that have absolutely no sources or signs of ever having existed even for extremely famous serial killers like Herb Mullins(Who he claims was diagnosed with MPD/DID and names several alters, none of which I can find any trace of anywhere, Mullins was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and only ever named his fathers voice as something he heard), it sounds like a fun conspiracy story to believe in but the lack of clear citations and flat out faulty evidence makes me suspect this is horseshit.
It's a miracle considering how many people seem to be intimately connected through murder and satanic cults that no one ever really tried to spill the beans except Berkowitz, who has changed his story half a dozen times always switching between it being occult and him just being a sex pervert freak who came in his pants from shooting people.
It seems like another core theory of this guy is that serial killers commonly have DID somehow induced in them and that the "Other person" they often describe is a literal other personality rather than just a dissociative technique to separate guilt and responsibility for various reasons. DID is significantly different from anyone I have yet seen him claim in the book to have DID.
Following up on this he keeps claiming that serial killers who are able to rapidly change their behavior and perceived personality are not just, as the common rube would think, skilled at manipulation and keenly aware of how to present themselves, but actually inhabited by multiple personalities, none who ever identify themselves in any significant way.
Suddenly theres a throwaway line asserting that cattle mutilations are linked to satanic cult activity, something which substantial evidence has never been shown for, only anechdotal and weak speculation.
He keeps acting like serial killers are supposed to be hyper competent assassins and whenever any of them does anything stupid or incriminating he acts like it casts suspicion on the entire concept of a person having been a serial killer, currently he seems to be doubting that Ted Bundy was a serial killer cause he would use his real first name with people he intended to kill. Could it be cockyness and stupidity or is he actually a patsy? ooooOOOooOOooOooO spooky innit?
Lmao he claims that its suspicious to refuse to take a polygraph, isnt this book supposed to be anti-cop?
Claims Richard Ramirez met Anton Lavey personally, Ramirez himself stated in a letter that he never met him.
Consistently describes crimes as "Identical to an assassination/contract killing" but I never see him expand on why he believes that and the vague context given always seems to be different, it seems like the criteria may be as wide as "Gunman is accurate and not a stormtrooper" for being a pro assassin.
Consistently also just tosses out supposed facts or connections and describes them as "interesting, odd, unlikely" and shit like that, never or extremely rarely explains what he thinks they mean or why they are significant in the ways he describes, this is classic conspiracy bullshit tactics where you just throw out coincidences and let the reader make connections and assign significance.
Alright ive gone as far as I can manage, while he occasionally presents interesting coincidences and discrepancies, his conclusions are rather batshit, he makes the case that satanic cults are running contract killer businesses all over the US and that serial killers are trained and indoctrinated to kill. The most reasonable conclusion I would make is that cops probably used Serial Killers as a way to close off cold cases and shit they didnt wanna investigate properly, we know this happened for a fact with Henry Lee Lucas, but the conspiracy shit of satanic cults and government training is just not backed up.
From what I remember, he describes the assassin type killings as small caliber hand guns directly to the head. Anyway, McGowan's stuff (he also wrote a book on laurel canyon) should obviously (?) be taken with a large grain of salt. It's a fun, trashy read, but one that manages to present a lot of info that falls thru the cracks, and that pushes back on the accepted narrative that serial killers are simply crazed lunatics that our society just happens to churn out. He does do a lot of "hmm what a coincidence" stuff, this was just his style and a lot of times it is tounge in cheek, and to me funny (like when he constantly points out how close murders are to various pagan holidays).
The DID thing is a major part of the whole Manchurian candidate, mkultra, project monarch thing. Some of this info is verifiable, but a lot is not due to these records being destroyed before the mkultra investigation and the general secrecy of all these programs. It is definitely known that mind control/mkultra/etc projects were going on in prisons (see Vacaville etc), mental institutions (see Ewen Cameron), orphanages (see boys town) and colleges. There is also good evidence that various cults were real world workshops for this research (see jonestown, Manson family, process church).
The world of (for lack of a better term) left conspiracy or what somebody like mae brussel called anti-fascist conspiracy is very crazy, and if you don't want to go there I definitely don't blame you lol. By definition a lot of this is supposition, but there is also a lot there.
Anyway, Berkowitz didn't act alone. Have you seen all the sketches of the shooters?
I mean, it tries to push back against "the narrative" but not particularly successfully since the narrative it counters with is many times more unbelievable and not backed up, plus even if it is his style to just sprinkle random facts and connections it makes his style inherently manipulative to an extent that is far more than most true crime books. Öike sure its funny that he relates shit to occult/pagan holidays but it also distinctly reads like he wishes for you to consider that significant, or at least to constantly have the occult in your mind when you think of these crimes. If there is evidence for all of this then he just has to present it in easily readable and verifiable ways, by drowning it in claims it turns into Qanon tier stuff frankly.
McGowan was cool (rip👁️), I don't know what to tell ya. His books are fringe, they are funny, very grim and obsessively researched. They can lead to a lot of other shit. You basically have the case for CIA programmed killers laid out in the book Chaos, don't know if you've read that, it's a popular one. There is also a ton of fishy stuff around Sirhan Sirhan, some of which is covered in A Lie Too Big to Fail.
Also, quite a few of the cases revolve around vets (some having been involved with operation phoenix etc) who were literally programmed to kill and terrorize and they simply brought that home with them.
As far as I'm concerned the purpose of much of the occult/satanic stuff is precisely to make people go "damn, this is too insane and ridiculous to be true". Like, child abuse and trafficking, people can believe that. Satanic child abuse and trafficking, nah that's crazy. I think it works as a very effective cover.
I mean the reason people think its not true is that there has never been any significant evidence of large scale cult murders like that, the closest thing are small scale stuff run by a single personality like Manson, Adolfo Constanzo etc. Like the case being made is essentially nationwide cohesive satanist organizations that murder people in rituals, which ritual killings are rare enough in most of the killer cults, where the murders are usually for profit or for safety. And if someone was trained for military purposes and then brought that home thats a significantly different claim than the idea that people are programmed to become serial killers inside of the US for the sole purpose of being serial killers.
And I cant comment on all of the research but I was quite dissapointed with a ton of the serial killer research for those that I know particularly much about, and even a lot of those where I am less aware of details he makes ridiculous statements and conclusions that dont mesh with any real psychology studies of serial killers.
"single personality like Manson"
This is the point. Manson was not a single personality. He was connected to various spooks (see SF Free clinic and Jolly West, etc etc)
I frankly did not see what concrete connections were made and I tried about as well as I could, most of those I could find were either shakey or "reportedly"s again.
Cool , you spent 5 minutes analyzing tom oneils 20 years of research. Yr probably right
Sounds like he should have been able to write a better book with less filler if he spent 20 years on it. Its his fault if people get mentally exhausted cause every claim somewhat backed with evidence is surrounded by describing what 3 people "reportedly" were doing or involved in, 5 occult dates that the event happened close to and a short description of what Anton LaVey was up to at the time. If its bad writing its bad writing no matter if its for style or tongue in cheek, though I lean on the side of "was not confident in his actual facts and evidence" than doing it for a laugh.
Are you talking about the Manson CIA connections? That's in a different book called Chaos by Tom Oneil, which he spent 20 years writing.
Anyway, this stuff is fun. Go listen to the Death is Just Around the Corner podcast if you haven't.
Sure it may be fun but Qanon can also be fun to read and I wouldnt want people to sincerely believe in that, especially if it essentially ends up slandering people without concrete evidence. I didnt have time to check out the Oneil book but frankly having to slog through Terry and Mcgowen I have no desire to.
I can't watch any of these kinds of shows anymore being a leftist now. They usually never mention how capitalism intersects with all these crimes, why would they I guess. I do enjoy missing persons cases, those are interesting, a common thread with them is that the police usually flub the operation in the early days then wildly fuck up the case. So many stories where it was obvious someone close to the missing person was the culprit but the cops were like "nah, it was the mysterious drifter at the truckstop and not the significant other."
Serial killers would most likely still be serial killers, unless strong indicators like child abuse and traumatic head injuries can be prevented/cured entirely. Or well, they maybe wouldnt be "serial" killers if cop shit develops far enough but most communists I know would of course cut down on surveillance and profiling and shit for obvious reasons.
I'd imagine people engaging in like anti-social behavior would be helped.
I saw Memories of Murder recently and wanted to like it so bad, but like just couldnt totally get past this ^
I heard that's a good movie. Even good movies about cops are still just copganda at their core which sucks.
i watch everything David Fincher because the man is an absolute genius behind the camera. his whole "action = movement / time" shtick and his dogged pursuit to get the timing of camera movement/tilt to follow a subject in even the smallest of sequences makes everyone else in the industry look like a child with a viewfinder. if i watch a lot of Fincher, it infects the way i look at the world for a while.
anyway, Mind Hunter is cool. i appreciate very much that the show isn't out to gross me out with like visual body horror. a description of things is more than enough to get in my head.
anyway, serial murderers and shit, though rare, are real and not an fabrication of the modern state security / intelligence apparatus (HH Homes). deeply traumatized people can and do traumatize others, and though US capitalism traumatizes the shit out of its people, individual trauma can happen anywhere to create a very destructive person / sadist (Andrei Chikatilo), and the clever ones target minorities/dis-empowered groups out of self-preservation.
like, i get that the feds are shit and the campaign of fear surrounding aberrant behavior (so many goddam serial killer movies, cop shows, seasons of goddamn SVU) is played up to isolate us and make us suspect our neighbors of running satanic sex dungeons, but maintain some perspective.... crazy shit does happen and it really was not well understood or sometimes even stopped until someone decided to bring psychology (like Alexandr Bukhanovsky) into the mix.
