The British Have Invaded, And They’ve Got Our Kids!

By Lorne Bair

It’s been a great couple of weeks here at Lorne Bair Rare Books – Catalog 13 is more than 60% sold in just over a week; Ashley Loga (about whom more soon) came, saw, and conquered our hearts; Jordan found herself an apartment in Manhattan; and Ernesto Mango Smoothie, who’s been looking a little undernourished lately, ate a cricket. Or most of a cricket, anyway.

But there’s an old adage in the book biz that you’re only as good as your next book, and truth be told it’s been a little while since we’ve been able to spin a Tale of Splendid Acquisition that made our hearts go pitter-patter. But lo and behold, in an unsolicited box of pamphlets received this morning from one of our long-term suppliers, we found this.

Now, for those of you unfamiliar with David A. Noebel’s theories of Commie Rock-n-Roll Mind Control, here’s a sample:

“…The destructive music of the Beatles merely reinforces the excitatory reflex of the youth to the point where it crosses the built-in inhibitory reflex. This in turn weakens the nervous system to a state where the youth actually suffers a case of artificial neurosis. And the frightening, even fatal, aspect of this mental breakdown process is the fact that these teenagers, in this excitatory, hypnotic state, can be told to do anything – and they will… Since our teenagers under Beatlemania will actually riot, it is imperative to understand the basic underlying philosophy of the Beatles. Are they susceptible to the enemies of our republic? Are they religiously capable of wreaking havoc for ‘social’ reasons? … the beatnik crowd, represented by the Beatles, is the communist crowd. The truth of the matter is that many of the beatniks on our college campuses are communists firmly entrenched in atheistic literature and moral degeneration working for ‘social revolution.”

I swear to whichever god you worship, we’re not making this shit up. Noebel goes on to describe the “lewd, disgusting, revolting” antics at several different Beatles concerts, and also to expose the hidden communist messages contained in the children’s records produced by the Children’s Record Guild — aimed at 2 to 5 year olds, with titles such as “The Little Puppet” and “Tom’s Hiccups” — all of which apparently contained “a certain power of suggestion and musical arrangements designed to be frustrating and hypnotic [as well as] such things in the background as a ticking clock, a metronome and properly placed wind sounds – all elements used in the process of hypnotism.”

I would point out that at the time he wrote these words, the author was only 27 years old, giving the decided lie to the hippie dictum “Never trust anyone under thirty.” And I’m hapy to say that, having gotten such an early start in reactionary religio-political discourse, Mr. Noebel is still among us and still plying his trade! He’s now the director of Summit Ministries, an anti-secularist training school (don’t we call those Madrassas?) in Manitou Springs, Colorado, where he’s presumably happily engaged in churning out fresh crops of right-wing nut job conspiracists. Lest you fear that Mr. Noebel’s theories are insufficiently grounded on a sound intellectual foundation, let us set your minds at rest — he does hold anHonorary Doctorate from American Christian College in Tulsa.

So, are we making this shit up? Well, gentle reader, there’s just one way to find out – buy your copy today!

The article is published in Minivan of the Revolution. Pages From the Career of a Not-So-Radical Bookseller. It is presented here by permission of the author.