Moon morons and End-Time idiots

 

The Jewish New Year begins at sundown today, which is around 7:30 PM in my still-verdant and currently quite pleasant little part of the world. And as I say at this time every year, even though I am not Jewish I think this is a far better time to have a new year than January 1. This is just about my favorite time of year, for in my neck of the woods summer is finally thinking of releasing its oppressive grip, and although we will never enjoy the most resplendent autumn colors, the very promise of fall and marginally cooler weather makes everything seem new and a little bit thrilling nonetheless. It's also high hummingbird season here, and I am having trouble concentrating on my work because I hung a feeder right outside my office window.

Anyway. To all of my Jewish friends, Shanah tovah.

Speaking of the Jewish calendar and whatnot, many in the credulous crowd -- and this of course includes the conspiracy fanatics -- have been blathering for months that today, September 13, 2015, marks the beginning of the end of the world as we know it. And they are basing that claim on the cycles of the Jewish calendar. It all centers around this being a Shemittah (often spelled "Shemitah" or "Shmita") year. Here is an explanation about Shemittah from a good resource that is NOT a nutcake site.

And here is one article from a notorious nutcake site that sums up many of the nutcake fears about September 13.

And here is more panicky panic.

It amuses me no end that one of the loudest and daftest voices promoting September 13 as The Beginning of the End -- and using the Jewish calendar as the basis of the prediction -- is a man whose writings indicate that he does not like Jews. That would be one Not-Doctor Leonard Coldwell, former b.f.f. of serial scammer Kevin Trudeau. At this moment, if all went according to schedule anyway, Lenny is spreading his cancer quackery at a health expo in Brazil. Too bad for them, but it seems to be part of his recent pattern of encroaching on the Latin American market. Eastern Europe is also being invaded, but that's another topic.

At any rate, here is one of several examples of content that includes Coldwell's claim that September 13 will be the beginning of something truly momentous. It is a hilarious March 31, 2015 interview with paranoia-porn radio host Jeff Rense, and it's almost worth the forty-plus minutes you'll never get back. (This is also the interview where, beginning at about 36:00, Lenny talks about the many thousands of dollars he has paid in legal fees to finally bring some of his enemies to justice. Given the timing, I'd say he was talking about that doomed-to-failure defamation suit against Salty Droid and me and a few other entities.)

I had a passing thought that perhaps Lenny's employment of the Jewish calendar as a basis of his dire predictions about September 13 was just another way of blaming the Jews for everything bad. But that seems too subtle for him. In any case he, like many other September 13 alarmists, seems to have been on the "prepper" bandwagon and has advised people to stock up on canned goods, ammo and of course gold and silver.

By sheer coincidence many of these alarmists just happen to sell gold and silver coins and/or other hedges against doomsday. Lenny himself has ties to a gold and silver peddling company in Germany run by "life coach" Jurgen Kettner, and Lenny frequently promotes that company. There's an ad on his main site for Kettner Precious Metals, and he has posted promos on his Facebook timeline without actually mentioning his ties to the company.

If you don't mind a brief diversion, here's the Googlish translation of a 2010 interview indicating ties between Coldwell and Kettner.

First of all I would like to thank for their support and assistance in my precious friend Jürgen A. Kettner. Without Jürgen and his Life Coaching Group, it would have been much more difficult for me to carry on my message in recent years in Germany...

Uh-huh, because Germany didn't want Lenny's quackery. The interview included this interesting little snippet (and remember, this is a Google automatic translation from German to English, so it's a bit awkward):

[Interviewer:] Now there is in Germany still a tinge of disappointment, because somebody has already very criticized their work years ago and joined with a negative report on the Internet. Do you know them all?

Coldwell: Yes, my friend Jürgen has reported me about it several times. For me it is still amazing, what is really so easily possible today in Germany. Thus, even after more than ten years of my absence, oddly enough, only in Germany, by a small group of opponents who have formed an unemployed secretary and their cronies are associated even with child pornography, lies or false statements on the Internet about me spread that defy description. I am very grateful for this information Jürgen and will defend myself quite sure about it.

I'm pretty sure Lenny was been referring to Karin Paetow-Froese, the person associated with the late-1990s German lawsuit and documentation that just won't go away. (Note: Although Lenny has earnestly protested to the contrary in the years since then, he LOST that lawsuit.) Notice his accusation, in the interview snippet above, that his critics are linked to child pornography -- not too far removed from his more recent false accusations that critical bloggers Omri Shabat and Bernie O'Mahony are child molesters/rapists.

I also think it's interesting that he refers to "a small group of opponents" who are "only in Germany" -- when in most of his accusations he claims there are huge, multi-million dollar conspiracies against him, run by Big Pharma and other major enemies.

This is interesting too:

[Coldwell:] Several state-recognized universities in the US have set me as a professor and entrusted me with it to develop state-approved courses for their virtual campus on the Internet.

And there is now good news for my German patients: Immediately also German patients in the US can be treated by my method, just as in Mexico and the Dominican Republic. Please contact on my homepage. Jürgen A. Kettner, the founder of Life Coach group of companies will leave me all inquiries as soon as possible to come. Discretion is guaranteed.

I wonder why he left his long-time buddy and business partner, German physician Dr. Thomas Hohn, out of that particular referral loop.

Well, that was then and this is now. On September 3, 2015 Lenny posted this advice on Facebook regarding September 13:

And on that thread he he linked to one of the usual panic resources:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/september-2015-sure-started-off-with-quite-a-bang-eh

I'm reminded of a hilarious picture from early 2013, of Lenny hoarding his gold coins, watches, and his horsey statue. I wonder if he has "barried" all of that loot in his yard in preparation for today, or if it is still spread out on his dining room table so he can show it off to visitors.

Coldwell says that he has been telling us for years now about September 13. But I have been closely following his nonsense for more than three years and have done a lot of research on him and his writings and speeches and videos -- and I never saw him mention September 13, 2015 until a few months ago.

However, I have seen numerous occasions where he picks up on some conspiracy meme or random stupid (and debunked) urban legend, and he claims that he has been making that exact same prediction or warning (whatever it may be) for years. September 13 is just more of the same, and it too shall pass as soon as he has milked it of every possible marketing opportunity.

And milk it he has. Lenny has even used the dire predictions to promote his GIN ripoff club the IBMS Master's Society, which of course costs money to join and to maintain membership. He says members of the society will get exclusive survival information for the hard times ahead. Many of you will recall that this was the same line that Kevin Trudeau was using three years ago, re the December 2012 panic, to scare people into joining his own secret society, GIN. (Alas, the video link I provided in that 2012 post is no longer working, but most of you ex-GIN members know what I'm talking about anyway. And Bernie wrote about it in this early GINtruth post, under "Member Audio Update.")

For that matter, someone just reminded me that Lenny himself was not above exploiting the 2012 scare, even though after being fired from GIN in spring of 2012 he repeatedly made fun of Kevin for the same type of exploitation. Here is an example from June 2012 of Lenny raving on Facebook about Trudeau's lunacy re 2012. Notice that Lenny links to Bernie's blog, GINtruth.com (he was still buds with Bernie back then, calling him "brother" and telling Bernie he loved him).

Yet here's a link to a description of a November 2011 Coldwell seminar -- The Doctor Coldwell 2012 Mind Revolution (stop snickering) -- which seems every bit as exploitative of the 2012 hype as anything Trudeau ever did. (Here is a direct link to the promo video.)

In other words, Lenny Coldwell was never above using every smarmy scam tactic that he so vehemently condemned Trudeau for using. But then, y'all probably knew that already.

It's only a bloody moon...
Now, if you're not satisfied with a mere beginning of The End and you want a real End to be alarmed about, just wait another two weeks for the next blood moon: the eclipse that happens on September 27-28. Most of the conspiracy fans and fear-mongers lump this upcoming event in with the September 13 thing, saying it's all part of the same larger phenomenon that people in the know are informed about, and that the rest of us fast-asleep sheeple will ignore to our peril.

There is a lot of Biblical prophecy hoopla with this blood moon, the same as there was during the ones last year. (The blood moon in October also happened to be the anniversary of James Arthur Ray's Death Lodge, and I wrote about it here.)

Lenny hasn't really said anything about the blood moon specifically, at least not that I've seen, and for that matter his ex-b.f.f. Kevin Trudeau hasn't either. In fact, so far today I haven't even seen any September 13 rants on Lenny's Facebook pages. That could be because the Brazil scamfest has him occupied, but on the other hand someone has been writing on his page today, and that person seems to be interested in the same things that have occupied Lenny over the past few days: hating on the Syrian and other refugees who are "invading" Europe, according to Lenny. 

Here are a few very recent gems; the first one is from September 13 and the other two are from a couple of days ago:

Well, you get the idea. As per usual, he has also been posting links to hate sites that suggest that Hitler wasn't such a bad guy after all. But I guess all of that is another topic too. 

As for Kevin, he's still at Camp Cupcake (Federal Prison Camp in Montgomery, Alabama) working his current scams and continuing on his mission to raise money for his legal fees. He doesn't seem too interested in either Shemittah or blood moons, but rather on getting out of the cage so he can scam more freely once again.

September 13 will soon pass, as will the next blood moon or other interesting anomaly, and the next. Yes, the stock market is doing wonky things and oil prices are iffy, but that is something that's been building up for a while and that many credible experts have observed and written about; it is all part of normal cycles that have nothing to do with anyone's mystical calendar or the phases of the moon. But that doesn't matter. There will always be another harbinger of the Apocalypse around the next corner, and with it will come renewed opportunities to scare people into shelling out for prepper supplies, ammunition, overpriced gold and silver trinkets, and memberships to idiotic seekrit clubs. The marketing ops are endless in the End Times: a crapitalist's dream come true.