PARANOIA - Book Review

Book Review

The Covert War Against Rock
Alex Constantine
Feral House, 1999.
www.feralhouse.com

Review by Jaye C. Beldo
LoneNutter@aol.com

Think you've got the scoop on the deaths of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G.? If you're getting your info from Corporate-controlled media, what you've been fed is most likely more of the same canned lies dished out to us on a daily basis. However, thanks to the efforts of Alex Constantine, one of the foremost conspiracy writers and author of such compelling titles as Psychic Dictatorship in the U.S.A. and Virtual Government, the mysteries behind the demise of these stars and others, such as Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix and Peter Tosh, is cleared up once and for all.

Constantine unveils a music industry controlled by a Mafia with CIA, FBI and NSA connections so powerful that any maverick musician who dares to confront the powers-that-be ends up getting iced in the most unsavory of ways. The author exhibits much courage in describing the deaths of rebellious rock stars, through the thoroughness of his research and documentation of testimony provided by those who personally knew and worked with the musicians included in the book. One of the more harrowing chapters in The Covert War Against Rock is that devoted to Reggae superstar Bob Marley, who passed away on May 11, 1980.

Surviving an attempt on his life by a well-armed death squad at his Hope Road home in Jamaica, Bob was later given a 'gift' of a new pair of boots by Carl Colby, son of the late CIA director William Colby. When the unsuspecting Marley put them on, something pricked his foot. He then reached into one of the boots and pulled out a piece of copper wire. Many of his closest friends suspected that the wire contained some carcinogenic substance, since Marley contracted cancer shortly thereafter.

It is a well known fact that the CIA has often employed such devious tactics to silence dissidents, such as the conspiracy researcher Mae Brussels, for example, who contracted stomach cancer after her lifelong dedication to empirically exposing Project Paperclip, a U.S. Government sponsored program which insured that top Nazis scientists were smuggled into the United States shortly after WWII to work in mostly the aerospace industries.

After a heroic bout of non stop touring in spite of the disease, and Bob refusing to have his leg amputated based on Rastafarian creed, he was eventually sent to a 'holistic' practitioner, Dr. Josef Issels, who, as it was later on discovered, worked at the Auschwitz Concentration camp alongside the infamous, as well as inhuman, Dr. Mengeles. How Marley got linked up with a known Nazi doctor is an irony beyond comprehension. Perhaps it was somehow his personal destiny to come face to face with archetypal evil in such a way. I'll spare the reader the horrific things done to him by this so called Doctor in the name of eugenics (genocide) disguised as therapy, and I commend the author for bringing this disturbing information to the public domain.

Over and over again, Constantine succeeds in cutting through a malignant yet dangerously alluring smokescreen which only serves to obscure the deaths of celebrities and continues to perpetuate a kind of morbid fascination that is fully exploited by mainstream media as a means to distract us from the more important political and spiritual matters at hand. His book offers us a much needed antidote to this pervasive plight by offering us a sobering perspective on the bottom line motives behind the murders of the rock stars themselves.
While reading The Covert War Against Rock, it becomes harder and harder to ignore that the Military-Mafia-Industrial complex is very much threatened by musicians dedicated to raising the political awareness of young people and will do whatever it can to permanently squelch them.
The Covert War Against Rock should further inspire those of us who want to head straight for the front lines and 'Fight the Power.' Whatever latent courage we have within ourselves will perhaps become fully manifest thanks to the encouragement that Constantine provides.