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Friday, March 31, 2023

Oklahoma's occult governor

 


I am from Oklahoma, as I believe I have mentioned, but I don't remember being taught in Oklahoma history class about Henry S. Johnston, the 7th governor of Oklahoma, who was impeached.

"Johnston was a Rosicrucian, a Grand Master Mason, & a member of the KKK & Knights Templar. He was open about his mystical beliefs & interests in Theosophy, New Thought, Christian Science, yoga & astrology. He was a vegetarian & reportedly spent much time in his office meditating."

Johnson was kicked out of office, but was elected to the state Senate.

Twitter thread here.  Via Jesse Walker. 

The Wikipedia bio is markedly less interesting. 

I have remarked on Oklahoma's odd relationship with marijuana and casino gambling. 

Oklahoma was also the home of a state representative, John Monks, who warned that the first thing Communists do when they take over a country is outlaw cockfighting.  I guess some of those socialist RAW fans in Britain don't realize that banning cockfighting is an important element in class struggle. 


 


5 comments:

Eric Wagner said...

Interesting slice of history.

chad said...

Re: Wikipedia, I was fascinated to learn yesterday that even they have been (are?) involved in the censorship industrial complex. For some reason, I'd thought of Wikipedia as something quite different than social media / search engines. But it makes sense...

Brian Dean said...

@chad - "censorship industrial complex"? Oh boy, I hope that's not a phrase being bandied about. It sounds like something coined on Infowars. Wikipedia seems relatively harmless to me, but who knows. Many people see "censorship" everywhere these days - it's like a moral panic. (In my next blog post I mention RAW's take on censorship at some length, with a lot of quotes - not everyone will like it, I suspect).

chad said...

It was the title of Michael Shellenberger's testimony before the congrescritters a few weeks ago: https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/shellenberger-testimony.pdf

I agree, sort of a cringe title, but whatever you want to call "it," it does seem to have the hallmarks of other industrial-complexes.

I look forward to your post. I'm sure it'll be great even if I don't like it. At this point, it's become mostly a bore to me to read stuff I like. I'd rather have something tough to chew on all day.


Brian Dean said...

@chad - fascinating, thanks. I recall the name from a few years back (the UK's conservative press lauded him in a big way for his environmental heresies). Interesting (to me at least) that his testimony lists as his main censorship concerns: COVID origins, COVID vaccines, Hunter Biden emails, and his environment-related heresies.