Why government shills & intellectual cowards LOVE the term "conspiracy theory"

[Constitutionary]

The only problem is that it is all fact.

Globalism is well documented and no longer in the realm of theoretical.

He's about 15 years too late.

 

[Geolibertarian]

The only problem is that it is all fact.

Globalism is well documented and no longer in the realm of theoretical.

Dude, boot-licking, authority-worshiping coincidence theorists would say that even the three branches of government are a "conspiracy theory" if the talking point media told them to.

Their fairy-tale belief system has nothing to do with facts or logic and everything to do with sheep-like conformity.

[Constitutionary]

The term "conspiracy-theory" is nothing more than a social conditioning tactic to shut people off to things that are bad.

Globalism is real and many people to this day shut down to it cuz of all its badness.

However a good dose of alethephilia is enough to either wake one up or cause a great deal of irritation.

Adults got to stop being 30, 40, 50, year old teenagers mentally and wake the hell up.

[Satyagraha]

And all those self-incriminating papers he wrote, he now 'forgets' .. he's "just doing what his boss tells him to do"...
like so many Nazi war criminals, Cass Sunstein is just 'following orders".

Gratz to Luke "Bill deBerg" Rudowsky for capturing that wimpy scared pansy-ass bootlicker globalist arse-kisser on video.
He's a 'big man' on paper - but a scared little man, scuttling away when confronted with his own treason.

[Constitutionary]

... Good ol' Luke...   The New World Order should know that between Luke & Poland that you cannot out-stubborn the POLISH.   

 

[Geolibertarian]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-9-11-myth-state-propaganda-historical-revisionism-and-the-perpetuation-of-the-9-11-myth/30721

THE 9/11 MYTH: State Propaganda, Historical Revisionism, and the Perpetuation of the 9/11 Myth

by Prof. James F. Tracy



Global Research
May 6, 2012

In the immediate wake of President Obama’s May 1, 2011 announcement of the alleged extrajudicial killing of Osama bin Laden by US military forces, a struggle reemerged over the official 9/11 myth that major journalistic outlets have been complicit in perpetuating over the past decade. The corporate media’s reaction to the robust skepticism over bin Laden’s assumed execution suggested a great deal about the extent to which they are locked in to upholding the broader 9/11 parable and serving the Anglo-American political-economic establishment and status quo.

After Obama’s statement on bin Laden’s fate citizen journalists and activists employing blogs and social media posed questions that should have been asked by professional journalists—specifically pointing to the need for further evidence supporting the president’s claims and the Obama administration’s curiously inconsistent description of events. Many cited reports and commentary by mainstream news outlets, such as CBS, CNN, and The New York Times, quoting government sources that bin Laden was in failing health and likely died in December 2001. Nevertheless, once a lie has been put in to motion and accepted as truth by the intellectual class it often becomes a de facto reality the broader society is obliged to endure, for better or worse.

In 2005 author and media critic Normon Solomon contacted the Washington Post to inquire whether its reporting of the 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident alleging the North Vietnamese attacked US ships was ever retracted. Though later proven false, the reports were carried as front page news in US papers and figured centrally in the Congressional passage of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution formally initiating the Vietnam War. Solomon eventually caught up with one especially pertinent Post staffer. "’I can assure you that there was never any retraction,’ said Murrey Marder, a reporter who wrote much of the Washington Post's coverage of August 1964 events in the Gulf of Tonkin. He added: ‘If you were making a retraction, you'd have to make a retraction of virtually everyone's entire coverage of the Vietnam War.’"

A similar dynamic is at play in defending the 9/11 myth. Yet today public skepticism more forcefully presents itself as an unmanageable chorus of disbelief through the internet. Nevertheless, following the lead of official spokespersons when such sources should be vigorously scrutinized, the so-called free press continues its willful immersion in a false historical reality. In so doing it condemns much of society to a constant forgetting and continued existence in a government-devised milieu impervious to conventional reason and logic.

Journalistic outlets exercising true independence and not beholden to maintaining the official 9/11 story would have likewise exhibited skepticism at Barack Obama’s claims, especially in light of the administration’s clearly contrived attempts at selling the event, such as photos of cabinet members allegedly watching it via satellite. Instead, journalists became part of the dutiful cheering section, attacking detractors’ assertions as “conspiracy theories”.

In keeping with a tradition of largely superficial reportage of 9/11 and its aftermath, many stories derided what professional journalists themselves should have been forcefully demanding: more proof of the operation’s authenticity and outcome. In fact, this skepticism is exactly what a variety of bloggers and like alternative news outlets offered.

When such assertions can’t be easily suppressed they must be ridiculed. A LexisNexis search yields over 100 stories and opinion pieces appearing in major newspapers and wire services for the week of May 2, 2011 dismissing criticisms and calls for further evidence as “conspiracy theories”. In light of the following one must ponder whether the national media’s output would differ significantly if the US government exercised direct control over them.

[Continued...]

[criticalunity]

What a perfect set of articles.... This is going to be a big job posting all this on criticalunity.org ... Any volunteer helpers?

[Geolibertarian]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/why-people-reject-conspiracy-theories.html

Why People Reject Conspiracy Theories

Saman Mohammadi
Prisonplanet.com
August 19, 2012

“On his Infowars.com Web site, Jones headlines his page with “Because There Is a War on for Your Mind.” True enough, which is why science and reason must always prevail over fear and irrationality, and conspiracy mongering traffics in the latter at the expense of the former.” – Michael Shermer, "Why People Believe Conspiracy Theories," Scientific American, August 18, 2012.

“The repression and revised imposition of September 11th and the attendant “war on terror” on the public mind have important implications not only for the integrity of public discourse, but also for the collective sanity of western culture and civilization. As crafted by dominant news media 9/11 has become the cracked lens through which we view and conceive of our own history, identity, and purpose. Each act of subverting or evading factual accounts of actually existing events manifests itself as a small fissure in the broader edifice of truth and rationality. So does it also contribute to furthering the designs of broader forces seeking to build a once seemingly pretend brave new world.” – Prof. James F. Tracy, “9/11 Truth, Inner Consciousness and the “Public Mind,” Global Research, March 18, 2012.

The mocking of conspiracy theories in the American press and Western media is based on the simplistic argument that reason is on the side of the government and officialdom, not on the fringe of society and civilization.

Anti-conspiracy proponents ludicrously claim that conspiracy theorists are prey to paranoia and irrational thinking without explaining their own faulty reasoning. They put a huge emphasis on labels and none on facts. But they’re not unique. Apparently, name-calling is enough to win a court case in a 21st century American courtroom.

Let’s set aside the mockery and look at the real picture. In the court of world public opinion, 9/11 truth has already won.

The truth is that 9/11 “conspiracy theorists” [read truth-tellers] are not the irrational party in the debate about what happened on 9/11, for the facts of history are on their side and no one with an honest intellect can say otherwise.

Since most people are not persuaded by facts but by fear, they blindly reject the truth about 9/11 and accuse the truth-tellers of being irrational, conspiratorial, and paranoid.

In addition to fear, there are four other reasons why people reject conspiracy theories in a wholesale manner, especially the fact-based claims made by the global 9/11 truth and justice movement. Below I’ve stated each reason in bold and briefly elaborated on them.

1. Fear. There are many dimensions to how fear blocks people from discovering, accepting, and telling the truth about 9/11.

The first dimension is cosmic. The official story about the most important socio-political event in modern history has been burned into the heart of American culture and Western civilization. America’s image of itself is wrapped up with the 9/11 fairy tale. For many, the fear of challenging the authenticity of the story is related to the fear of shaking up the cosmological scenery within one’s own mind that has been constructed by political leaders and the television.

The second dimension is social. People have a basic fear; they don’t want to be associated with those “crazy conspiracy theorists and their paranoid views.” They want to stay within the safety of the tribe, and disowning the most sacred myths of one’s tribe goes beyond treachery; it is interpreted as spiritual suicide.

The third dimension is the most obvious one: the fear of death. The government is watching what you say, and read, and it knows what you think and believe. Most people naturally don’t want to stick the bullseye on their chest and yell out in the crowd, “I don’t belong to you because I reject your lies and fables, now come and get me, punks.”

2. Ignorance. Due to the systemic blackout of the evidence showing that the official 9/11 story is a lie, people just don’t know. Not only are they ignorant of the facts underlining the case of the global 9/11 truth and justice movement, but they are ignorant that there is even a media blackout.

Of course, the excuse of ignorance is harder to defend in the era of the Internet and new media. A lot of people who reject conspiracy theories are just too lazy to sit down and do the research for themselves.

3. A False Sense of Superiority And A False Sense of Knowledge. The smugness of 9/11 truth deniers is hard to stomach. They actually look down on new information and new knowledge, which is strange to me. I value learning and am always open to new ideas and new ways of seeing the world.

When I came across ’9/11: The Road to Tyranny’ by Alex Jones in February 2004 I was floored. I remember watching the hanging of Saddam on CNN a few months earlier and thinking, “Wow, this Iraq War turned out to be alright, at least the Iraqi people got to see justice served.” But the discovery that the 9/11 story was an invented fable turned my goodwill towards the American government to absolute rage.

It was easy for me to rethink the purpose of the war on terror upon seeing the real facts about 9/11 laid out for the first time because I’m not an American so I don’t have any emotional stake in what the American government does. Americans are in a much more spiritually difficult place. The sin of 9/11 must be a heavy burden to carry for such a morally minded country and people.

This article is not about judging anyone or any country, but an attempt to understand why people react differently to the same information. Why do some people think they know how the world works and refuse to accept the validity of new worldviews, while others hunger for such awesome discoveries? I know how ignorant I am of the world, of history, and of mankind, so I’m comfortable with letting go of worldviews if the facts don’t fit.

4. Collective Brainwashing. The brainwashing of America, Israel, the West, and the world since the false flag September 11 events is definitely one of the biggest reasons why people reject alternative interpretations of 9/11 and the war on terror. The nations of the world are living inside the big lie offered by the grand decoder of reality, who goes by the political name of the United States government. The spiritual name for this false decoder of reality is Satan, otherwise known as the accuser.

People live, breathe, and eat the 9/11 lie. It is a live virus that is inside their bodily organs and their digestive systems. A teaspoon of reason is not enough to treat the spiritual patient.

5. Institutional Silence And Cover-Up. Academic, media, and governmental institutions in the West have all agreed to keep the truth about 9/11 a secret from the American people and the world.

The culture at the top of the top of modern American society and other societies as well operates on a basic principle: “keep your mouth shut, or else.”

To learn more about the culture of silence in America’s elite institutions, read, “False Flag Terror and Conspiracies of Silence,” by Prof. James F. Tracy, and “Codes of Silence and Child Abuse Cover-Ups: The Sick Underbelly of Institutions in the US,” by Nathalia Jaramillo.

At the top, secrets are kept, knowledge is guarded, and silence is valued.

[CheneysWorstNightmare]

Awesome article.  This country will never be straight until 9/11 Truth is accepted.

[Satyagraha]

Bump.

'Conspiracy theorist'
is the modern-day equivalent of 'Thought criminal'
from Orwell's novel 'Nineteen Eighty Four'.

Really, it's that simple. They applied that concept straight from Orwell's book onto modern society - and it serves them well. If Orwell were alive today, he would use that exact same term instead of 'Thought criminal'.

[Geolibertarian]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/beyond-paranoia-the-ridicule-style-in-american-politics.html

Beyond Paranoia: The Ridicule Style In American Politics

Saman Mohammadi
Prisonplanet.com
August 27, 2012

“And then the conspiracy theorists who come along later have to piece everything together with the Zapruder film and the footage of the Grassy Knoll and so forth, which enables us then to begin to perceive that based on piecing these images together there most likely was a conspiracy.

"So it’s either that or we see this the way the Warren Commission wanted us to see it, in which case we would have Lee Harvey Oswald as a lone gunman, which would then fit the assassination within the pre-existing celebrity myth of the death of the celebrity by a stalker.

"Here we would have Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone gunman who inserts himself into history by assassinating the Sun King. Now, the Sun King is also known as the Oak King. He’s the King Noon who battles with his lunar adversary, which in the ancient/medieval myth would’ve been the Holly King. So you have the Oak King vs. the Holly King, the summer solstice vs. the lunar winter solstice. And that puts Lee Harvey Oswald in the role of the lunar adversary, the Judas vs. Christ, Set vs. Osiris, the boar that kills Adonis. So he fits into that mode.

"Although the one bit of cognitive dissonance within that paradigm of seeing him as a lone stalker who decides to insert himself into history by killing a great Sun King is the fact that this scenario with Jack Ruby, who comes in and shoots him live on television. That’s another televisual first, by the way, the first live murder caught on television. As far as I know, and all the other stalkers that have killed celebrities, they never generate their own stalkers. This would be a case in which a stalker generates his own stalker, Jack Ruby, which is a little bit odd and doesn’t quite fit the theory. And it’s one of the main things that leads us to suspect that Oswald was embedded in a larger web, that sends ripples out beyond him and captures them in this mesh of complicated interrelationships.

"But, in any event, so we have him assassinating the Oak King, he inserts himself into history, and this is all consistent with what the myth that Jean Baudrillard describes, that America as being based on an attempt to escape from history. The whole idea of America as a Utopian colony that escapes the historical cycles that have hitherto governed all the other civilizations in history, especially European civilizations. [These historical cycles] don’t apply here. We don’t assassinate our presidents here.

"So the myth goes that tends to foster this lone gunman theory that America is based on an escape from history and that it has suspended the laws that normally govern historical processes. Coup d’états are normal all throughout history. They’re a normal part of the way history has worked everywhere. But in America somehow it’s an ideal new world that has suspended all those old laws. So I think there’s a predisposition on the part of our American academic-literary establishment to just stick with the official case of the Warren Commission and just see this as an example of the celebrity myth of the stalker who makes himself famous by killing a famous person.” – John David Ebert, “John F. Kennedy Assassination,” December 13, 2011. [4:05 - 7:20].

“The story is fashioned this way because Adonis is the Sun and the boar is winter. Indeed, the boar killed Adonis because when winter comes, the sun runs out of heat and dies. Venus, the earth, weeps, because the earth produces nothing when winter obscures the sun.” – Ronald E. Pepin, “The Vatican Mythographers.” 2008. Fordham University Press: New York. Pg. 120

The day before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, renowned American historian Richard J. Hofstadter delivered a lecture at Oxford University that would later turn into his most famous essay entitled, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.”

The day before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, renowned American historian Richard J. Hofstadter delivered a lecture at Oxford University that would later turn into his most famous essay entitled, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.”

The timing was purely coincidental, of course. To suggest that the two events were connected in any way would affirm the essay’s thesis, which has been dishonestly used as an intellectual cover by the Establishment media to pour cold water on JFK and 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Hofstadter’s basic point was that the intellectual devolution of political discourse on both sides of the political paradigm has one source: the paranoid and conspiratorial mind. He wrote:

“American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years, we have seen angry minds at work, mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated, in the Goldwater movement, how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But, behind this, I believe, there is a style of mind that is far from new, and that is not necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style, simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.”

The word “paranoia” is used by Hofstadter almost with a religious zeal, and the defenders of his essay to this day have spread his gospel with an equally fervent sense of historical mission.

To be clear, I admire Hofstadter and appreciate his scholarship. Also, I am not denying the existence of sub-cultures that have their own conspiratorial scriptures to which they pay allegiance even in the face of new revelations.

But the all-out dismissal of conspiracies of power by high-minded intellectuals despite the long historical record that proves that such things are commonplace in the evolution of societies and empires reeks of totalitarianism.

Whenever American intellectuals and journalists bring up 9/11 and JFK conspiracy theories they refer to Hofstadter’s timeless essay. His catchphrase, the “paranoid style,” has become their default intellectual position because they cannot come up with their own ideas to combat the proponents of alternative history.

The lives of controversial and buried truths, most famously the truth about the JFK assassination, have an energy of their own because they are based on documented facts. If they were based on pure paranoia and cosmic make-believe then they wouldn’t persist this long.

Describing alternative historians and citizen researchers as “paranoid” is a lame attempt at suppressing the evidence that vindicates them and their factually based beliefs. It doesn’t bother me that intellectual elites reject conspiracy theories because that is their job, but throwing mean-spirited insults at others for holding unorthodox views about modern history goes too far. It reflects a poor mind at work. Ridiculing and belittling the other side is one of the oldest rhetorical tricks to avoid a debate.

[Continued...]

[Geolibertarian]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/conspiracy-theory-foundations-of-a-weaponized-term/5319708

Conspiracy Theory”: Foundations of a Weaponized Term

Subtle and Deceptive Tactics to Discredit Truth in Media and Research

By Prof. James F. Tracy
Global Research
January 22, 2013



“Conspiracy theory” is a term that at once strikes fear and anxiety in the hearts of most every public figure, particularly journalists and academics. Since the 1960s the label has become a disciplinary device that has been overwhelmingly effective in defining certain events off limits to inquiry or debate. Especially in the United States raising legitimate questions about dubious official narratives destined to inform public opinion (and thereby public policy) is a major thought crime that must be cauterized from the public psyche at all costs.

Conspiracy theory’s acutely negative connotations may be traced to liberal historian Richard Hofstadter’s well-known fusillades against the “New Right.” Yet it was the Central Intelligence Agency that likely played the greatest role in effectively “weaponizing” the term. In the groundswell of public skepticism toward the Warren Commission’s findings on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the CIA sent a detailed directive to all of its bureaus. Titled “Countering Criticism of the Warren Commission Report,” the dispatch played a definitive role in making the “conspiracy theory” term a weapon to be wielded against almost any individual or group calling the government’s increasingly clandestine programs and activities into question.

This important memorandum and its broad implications for American politics and public discourse are detailed in a forthcoming book by Florida State University political scientist Lance de-Haven-Smith, Conspiracy Theory in America. Dr. de-Haven-Smith devised the state crimes against democracy concept to interpret and explain potential government complicity in events such as the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the major political assassinations of the 1960s, and 9/11.

“CIA Document 1035-960” was released in response to a 1976 FOIA request by the New York Times. The directive is especially significant because it outlines the CIA’s concern regarding “the whole reputation of the American government” vis-à-vis the Warren Commission Report. The agency was especially interested in maintaining its own image and role as it “contributed information to the [Warren] investigation.”

The memorandum lays out a detailed series of actions and techniques for “countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries.” For example, approaching “friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors)” to remind them of the Warren Commission’s integrity and soundness should be prioritized. “[T]he charges of the critics are without serious foundation,” the document reads, and “further speculative discussion only plays in to the hands of the [Communist] opposition.”

The agency also directed its members “[t]o employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose.”

1035-960 further delineates specific techniques for countering “conspiratorial” arguments centering on the Warren Commission’s findings. Such responses and their coupling with the pejorative label have been routinely wheeled out in various guises by corporate media outlets, commentators and political leaders to this day against those demanding truth and accountability about momentous public events.

*  No significant new evidence has emerged which the [Warren] Commission did not consider.
*  Critics usually overvalue particular items and ignore others.
*  Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States.
*  Critics have often been enticed by a form of intellectual pride: they light on some theory and fall in love with it.
*  Oswald would not have been any sensible person’s choice for a co-conspirator.
*  Such vague accusations as that “more than ten people have died mysteriously” [during the Warren Commission’s inquiry] can always be explained in some natural way e.g.: the individuals concerned have for the most part died of natural causes.

Today more so than ever news media personalities and commentators occupy powerful positions for initiating propaganda activities closely resembling those set out in 1035-960 against anyone who might question state-sanctioned narratives of controversial and poorly understood occurrences. Indeed, as the motives and methods encompassed in the document have become fully internalized by intellectual workers and operationalized through such media, the almost uniform public acceptance of official accounts concerning unresolved events such as the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building bombing, 9/11, and most recently the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, is largely guaranteed.

[Continued...]

[Mr Grinch]

http://www.jfklancer.com/CIA.html

CIA Document 1035-960
Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report

CIA Document #1035-960

RE: Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report

1. Our Concern. From the day of President Kennedy's assassination on, there has been speculation about the responsibility for his murder. Although this was stemmed for a time by the Warren Commission report, (which appeared at the end of September 1964), various writers have now had time to scan the Commission's published report and documents for new pretexts for questioning, and there has been a new wave of books and articles criticizing the Commission's findings. In most cases the critics have speculated as to the existence of some kind of conspiracy, and often they have implied that the Commission itself was involved. Presumably as a result of the increasing challenge to the Warren Commission's report, a public opinion poll recently indicated that 46% of the American public did not think that Oswald acted alone, while more than half of those polled thought that the Commission had left some questions unresolved. Doubtless polls abroad would show similar, or possibly more adverse results.

2. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization. The members of the Warren Commission were naturally chosen for their integrity, experience and prominence. They represented both major parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections of the country. Just because of the standing of the Commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of American society. Moreover, there seems to be an increasing tendency to hint that President Johnson himself, as the one person who might be said to have benefited, was in some way responsible for the assassination.

Innuendo of such seriousness affects not only the individual concerned, but also the whole reputation of the American government. Our organization itself is directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation. Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us. The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.

3. Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the assassination question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active [business] addresses are requested:

    a. To discuss the publicity problem with [?] and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors), pointing out that the Warren Commission made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation.

    b. To employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (I) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories. In the course of discussions of the whole phenomenon of criticism, a useful strategy may be to single out Epstein's theory for attack, using the attached Fletcher [?] article and Spectator piece for background. (Although Mark Lane's book is much less convincing that Epstein's and comes off badly where confronted by knowledgeable critics, it is also much more difficult to answer as a whole, as one becomes lost in a morass of unrelated details.)

4. In private to media discussions not directed at any particular writer, or in attacking publications which may be yet forthcoming, the following arguments should be useful:

    a. No significant new evidence has emerged which the Commission did not consider. The assassination is sometimes compared (e.g., by Joachim Joesten and Bertrand Russell) with the Dreyfus case; however, unlike that case, the attack on the Warren Commission have produced no new evidence, no new culprits have been convincingly identified, and there is no agreement among the critics. (A better parallel, though an imperfect one, might be with the Reichstag fire of 1933, which some competent historians (Fritz Tobias, AJ.P. Taylor, D.C. Watt) now believe was set by Vander Lubbe on his own initiative, without acting for either Nazis or Communists; the Nazis tried to pin the blame on the Communists, but the latter have been more successful in convincing the world that the Nazis were to blame.)

    b. Critics usually overvalue particular items and ignore others. They tend to place more emphasis on the recollections of individual witnesses (which are less reliable and more divergent--and hence offer more hand-holds for criticism) and less on ballistics, autopsy, and photographic evidence. A close examination of the Commission's records will usually show that the conflicting eyewitness accounts are quoted out of context, or were discarded by the Commission for good and sufficient reason.

    c. Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States, esp. since informants could expect to receive large royalties, etc. Note that Robert Kennedy, Attorney General at the time and John F. Kennedy's brother, would be the last man to overlook or conceal any conspiracy. And as one reviewer pointed out, Congressman Gerald R. Ford would hardly have held his tongue for the sake of the Democratic administration, and Senator Russell would have had every political interest in exposing any misdeeds on the part of Chief Justice Warren. A conspirator moreover would hardly choose a location for a shooting where so much depended on conditions beyond his control: the route, the speed of the cars, the moving target, the risk that the assassin would be discovered. A group of wealthy conspirators could have arranged much more secure conditions.

    d. Critics have often been enticed by a form of intellectual pride: they light on some theory and fall in love with it; they also scoff at the Commission because it did not always answer every question with a flat decision one way or the other. Actually, the make-up of the Commission and its staff was an excellent safeguard against over-commitment to any one theory, or against the illicit transformation of probabilities into certainties.

    e. Oswald would not have been any sensible person's choice for a co-conspirator. He was a "loner," mixed up, of questionable reliability and an unknown quantity to any professional intelligence service.

    f. As to charges that the Commission's report was a rush job, it emerged three months after the deadline originally set. But to the degree that the Commission tried to speed up its reporting, this was largely due to the pressure of irresponsible speculation already appearing, in some cases coming from the same critics who, refusing to admit their errors, are now putting out new criticisms.

    g. Such vague accusations as that "more than ten people have died mysteriously" can always be explained in some natural way e.g.: the individuals concerned have for the most part died of natural causes; the Commission staff questioned 418 witnesses (the FBI interviewed far more people, conduction 25,000 interviews and re interviews), and in such a large group, a certain number of deaths are to be expected. (When Penn Jones, one of the originators of the "ten mysterious deaths" line, appeared on television, it emerged that two of the deaths on his list were from heart attacks, one from cancer, one was from a head-on collision on a bridge, and one occurred when a driver drifted into a bridge abutment.)

5. Where possible, counter speculation by encouraging reference to the Commission's Report itself. Open-minded foreign readers should still be impressed by the care, thoroughness, objectivity and speed with which the Commission worked. Reviewers of other books might be encouraged to add to their account the idea that, checking back with the report itself, they found it far superior to the work of its critics.

[Geolibertarian]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/conspiracy-theories-and-media-coverage-of-the-sandy-hook-school-massacre-in-search-of-the-last-liberal-intellectual/5328743

“Conspiracy Theories” and Media Coverage of the Sandy Hook School Massacre: In Search of the Last Liberal Intellectual

By James F. Tracy
Global Research
March 28, 2013



In the wake of the Sandy Hook School shooting public incredulity with the official version of events led to numerous speculations on what really happened. In short order corporate media marshaled pundits to disparage such alternative interpretations as “conspiracy theories” and the work of deranged and even malevolent Sandy Hook “truthers.”

The now-prevalent phenomenon where only the narratives authorized by law enforcement and government authorities are worthy of serious consideration suggests the unmistakable extent to which public discourse has declined. In such an ideational system journalists and academics are expected to either fall silent or perform the rearguard action of deflecting criticism from the state.

Events such as Aurora or Sandy Hook have profuse informational gaps and a multitude of questions authorities have not begun to adequately address. Regardless of political stripe journalists and academics especially should be instinctively distrustful of such momentous incidents. Unfortunately many put short term interests of preserving reputation and livelihood above the obligatory search for truth.

Today’s project of policing the public sphere for unorthodox thoughts is a form of stealth authoritarianism that combines the weight of academic or journalistic expertise with a phony liberalism (or conservatism) to confirm the often unexamined perspectives of a specific political constituency. Such a technique is most readily employed against the apparently irrational ideas, beliefs and practices of a foreign other. In this regard “conspiracy theorists” and “truthers” typically play the “straw man” role.

For example, a recent piece by Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan exhibits anxiety over major media’s attention toward individuals critical of what authorities have told them to believe about Sandy Hook.[1] Nyhan is fearful that research into the Newtown massacre contradicting the government’s official narrative—what he emphatically terms “conspiracy mongering” and “obscure myths”–may be given a platform by more “prominent advocates” from the political realm. From here the dangerous notions could gain the support of the unenlightened–“credulous believers” and “new adherents who would not otherwise have been exposed to or persuaded by false claims.” Such verboten ideas, Nyhan argues, should instead be allowed to “wither and die.”

The problem with this stance is that it consciously paves the way for the official false claims and myths that powerful political entities and corporate news and entertainment media are capable of forcing upon the public mind and collective memory, be they Osama bin Laden masterminding the 9/11 attacks, babies being thrown from incubators in Kuwaiti hospitals, or North Vietnamese forces firing the first shots in the Vietnam War. Such a position is not unusual from a palace court intellectual; whether it is morally sound and faithful to the liberal tenet of speaking truth to power is a matter for another day.

In reviewing other arguments of those using this form of defamatory innuendo toward the Sandy Hook truth community I encountered numerous poorly reasoned arguments and claims that could not withstand serious scrutiny and amounted to a bulwark for the official narrative–indeed, arguments most appealing to those with a dangerously unexamined faith in state power and lacking the inclination to consider alternative perspectives or investigate the event for themselves.

This prompted me to contact several notable “conspiracy theory” decriers and request an interview with each of them. Instead of mere name-calling, I remain sincerely interested in better understanding why such apparently intelligent individuals have come to arrive at their conclusions and become the self-appointed guardians of legitimate public exchange. I thus set about assembling a set of questions on a wide array of “conspiracy”-related issues and phenomena.

I figured I would begin by reaching out in a collegial manner to Professor Nyhan himself. “Sorry, not interested,” he replied, rather tersely. I next contacted Ben Smith and C J Lotz, staff writers at the popular liberal website Buzzfeed.com, who wrote a piece remarkably similar to Dr. Nyhan’s titled, “Sandy Hook Conspiracy Theories Edge Toward the Mainstream.”[2] Smith and Lotz never responded to my emails.

Undeterred, I contacted the operators of the well-known liberal “fact check” website Snopes.com. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid we just can’t,” Barbara Mikkelson replied. “I fear this is the downside of having a small operation.”

Next I dropped Salon.com political writer and ThinkProgress assistant editor Alex Seitz-Wald a line. The youthful Seitz-Wald prides himself as being one of today’s foremost “truth” skeptics. Since early January he has written a series of articles generally disparaging Sandy Hook researchers. “I’m writing one more story on this,” he said, “but really not interested in getting back into this subject or enduring more hate mail.”

I moved on to career anti-conspiracist and former High Times editor John Foster “Chip” Berlet. Calling himself a progressive and champion of liberal democracy, Mr. Berlet wrote profusely on the resurgence of the so-called “new right” throughout the 1990s.[3] “I do not spend time with people promoting crackpot conspiracy theories,” he replied, somewhat peevishly. “It is annoying, counterproductive, and gives me a headache. Nevertheless, I support your First Amendment right to waste bandwidth and electricity.”

Just when I was about to give up hope Jonathan Kay, editor at Canada’s National Post and author of Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America’s Conspiracist Underground [4] responded favorably to my interview request. “Sure,” he said, much to my delight. Yet when I provided Kay with the questions he balked. “Just about all the answers to these questions are in my book,” he replied. I countered that very few of the questions were actually addressed in the book. “I get the sense that my perspective wouldn’t really be that meaningful to you. I’m going to pass on this.”

In the end while skilled at defending the varied machinations of our out-of-control police state by helping to confirm their immediate audiences’ prejudices, none of the foremost conspiracy cynics and debunkers opted to have a dialogue–one where they would likely be compelled to interrogate their own claims and assumptions.

Could it be that what these commentators desire in lieu of dialogue is a one-way transmission of their ideas devoid of critique or interpretation–one where the pursuit of “truth” itself is caricatured as a fool’s errand? If liberalism is based in part on a free and open exchange perhaps some of the foremost figures and media outlets touting themselves as progressive and liberal, and purporting to preserve and defend rational discourse, really aren’t so open-minded after all.

The following are the questions I was hoping my would-be interlocutors would address.

[Continued...]

[BlackMask]

It's Pavlovian. A kneejerk label to ad hominem people without fairly addressing their information. "Ignore any and all documentation, it's a conspiracy theory!"

The trouble for good people who love and respect truth and always seek to understand the truth of events and situations is this: There are quite a few people out there who in their hearts simply don't want to know or don't care. Amoral people who wear masks of reason but have cowardly dark hearts.

And of course there are also terrible evil people who love lies and deception. All this goes to show that the Infowar is not merely an "info" war, it's a SPIRITUAL war.

[Geolibertarian]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/a-surprising-number-of-americans-believe-in-conspiracy-theories-%e2%80%93-and-many-of-them-are-actually-true.html

A Surprising Number Of Americans Believe In Conspiracy Theories

And Many Of Them Are Actually True

Michael Snyder
American Dream
April 3, 2013

Have you ever noticed that whenever the government or the mainstream media wants to demonize a particular point of view they call it a “conspiracy theory”?  The unspoken message is that normal people such as us should never dare to question the official propaganda being put out by “official sources”.  But what if those “official sources” are wrong?  What if those “official sources” have a specific agenda that they are trying to promote?  Has it become a crime to ask questions?  Has it become a crime to think for ourselves?  The other day, Public Policy Polling did an opinion poll about “conspiracy theories”.  Just by reading the questions they asked, it is obvious that the goal was to make those that believe in those theories to look foolish.  When they released the results of the poll, they stated that some of the “conspiracy theories” could only be found in “the darker corners of the internet” – as if there was something unsavory or evil about them.  But is it really “crazy” to believe that sometimes bad people do bad things?  A conspiracy is just “a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful”.  So do conspiracies ever happen?  Of course they happen.  They have happened for as long as humanity has existed.  But in this day and age, we are just supposed to assume that all of our politicians and all of the big corporations that dominate our society are just sweet and wonderful and would never want to do us any harm whatsoever.

Let’s take a look at some of the results of the Public Policy Polling survey about conspiracy theories.  Excerpts from the results are in bold, and my comments follow thereafter…

[Continued...]

[Geolibertarian]

Thanks to the heroic efforts that Alex Jones and other infowarriors have made over the years to heighten mass awareness of the history of false flag terror attacks (see this, this and this), many informed Americans will, of course, refuse to do the "SIEG HEIL" to either (a) the official story on (among other things) the Boston bombing or (b) the Nazi-style police state measures this story is already being used to justify.

Since, in response to this refusal, the tragedy-exploiting blame-freedom-firsters in the talking point media will be squawking "conspiracy theory!" over and over again like the trained parrots they all are, I thought I'd bump this thread.

[BlackMask]

Poor globalists. It's so much harder to manipulate an informed public.

[Geolibertarian]

Poor globalists. It's so much harder to manipulate an informed public.

Many people are indeed informed, but it obviously hasn't reached critical mass, yet, or else a much lower percentage of the public would be rolling over liked trained animals whenever the banker-owned political and media establishments tell them to.

So there's clearly much more work to do in the infowar.

[BlackMask]

Many people are indeed informed, but it obviously hasn't reached critical mass, yet, or else a much lower percentage of the public would be rolling over liked trained animals whenever the banker-owned political and media establishments tell them to.

So there's clearly much more work to do in the infowar.

Totally agree.

[jamesld]

Maybe people should ask why the status quo hates all things that involve Conspiracy?  In the past the News was a one-way platform where those in power wrote the script and it was read by a fast-blinking Barby/Ken doll anchor.  Then horror of horrors for the establishment – the advent of Talk Radio…interactive media was born, but easily controlled and monitored by ‘Call Screeners’ who tossed out anything and anyone the Owners did not want to hear or wanted others to hear.  Right on the back of this came the Internet, and a new freedom/voice for the mistrusting masses.   All hell broke loose in cyberspace.
 
The problem with conspiracy theory (truth or not) is it goes to the heart of the given establishment, and not only threatens the livelihood and comfortable positions of our Very Important  Public 'Servants' and their Corporate Bosses, but their minions of professions and intellectuals who cling to the word of the given order.  If the word/order does crumble, they go with it.  The Conspiracy Theorist can harm them and those important people close to them. This is why it is rarely mentioned in popular MSM culture; and when it is, and those important people are forced to acknowledge it,  it is spat it out with such venom it’s almost unbecoming the emotional detachment the masses expect of very clever, highly intelligent, Highly paid important people.

At the moment the ‘conspiracy’ community has been herded to the outer fringes of the web, where they can be manipulated and monitored, while also used to hide the truth in the open.  This will have to change as more youth are drawn to this exciting form of rebellion that up and till now is getting the attention of some of the brightest young minds who could cause a revolution unlike the world has seen yet.  A revolution that can’t be controlled with guns – the worst kind for those in control...imho

[ClevitonNeves]

Artistas gospel-USA FOR ÁFRICA-we are the word
http://www.poesias.omelhordaweb.com.br/index.php?cdPoesia=105514

[Tlion714]

This is an awesome thread +1000

 

[Geolibertarian]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/media-disinformation-and-the-conspiracy-panic-phenomenon/5336221

Media Disinformation and the Conspiracy Panic Phenomenon

By James F. Tracy
Global Research
May 24, 2013



To posit that one’s government may be partially composed of unaccountable criminal elements is cause for serious censure in polite circles. Labeled “conspiracy theories” by a corporate media that prompt and channel emotionally-laden mass consent, such perspectives are quickly dispatched to the memory hole lest they prompt meaningful discussion of the political prerogatives and designs held by a global power elite coordinating governments and broader geopolitical configurations.

Cultural historian Jack Bratich terms such phenomena “conspiracy panics.” Potentially fostered by the coordinated actions of government officials or agencies and major news organs to generate public suspicion and uncertainty, a conspiracy panic is a demonstrable immediate or long-term reactive thrust against rational queries toward unusual and poorly understood events. To be sure, they are also intertwined with how the given society acknowledges and preserves its own identity—through “the management and expulsion of deviance.”[1]

In the American mass mind, government intelligence and military operations are largely seen as being directed almost solely toward manipulation or coercion of unfortunate souls in foreign lands. To suggest otherwise, as independent researchers and commentators have done with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the CIA-Contra-crack cocaine connection, and 9/11, has been cause for sustained conspiracy panics that act to suppress inquiry into such events by professional and credentialed opinion leaders, particularly journalists and academics.

At the same time a conspiracy panic serves a subtle yet important doctrinal function of manifesting and reproducing the apt ideational status quo of the post-Cold War, “War on Terror” era. “The scapegoating of conspiracy theories provides the conditions for social integration and political rationality,” Bratich observes. “Conspiracy panics help to define the normal modes of dissent. Politically it is predicated on a consensus of ‘us’ over against a subversive and threatening ‘them.’”[2] These days especially the suggestion that an official narrative may be amiss almost invariably puts one in the enemy camp.

Popular Credence in Government Conspiracy Narratives

The time for a conspiracy panic to develop has decreased commensurately with the heightened spread and availability of information and communication technology that allows for the dissemination of news and research formerly suppressed by the perpetual data overload of corporate media. Before the wide access to information technology and the internet, independent investigations into events including the JFK assassination took place over the course of many years, materializing in book-length treatments that could be dismissed by intelligence assets in news media and academe as the collective activity of “conspiracy buffs”—amateurish researchers who lack a government or privately-funded sinecure to overlook or obscure inquiry into deep events.

Not until Oliver Stone’s 1991 blockbuster film JFK, essentially an adoption of works by author Jim Marrs, Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, did a substantial conspiracy panic take shape as a response to such analysis thrust upon the public in popular narrative form. This panic arose from and centered around Hollywood’s apt challenge to traditional journalism’s turf alongside commercial news outlets’ typically deceptive  interpretation of the event and almost wholly uncritical treatment of the Warren Commission Report.

Shortly thereafter investigative journalist Gary Webb’s “Dark Alliance” series for the San Jose Mercury News demonstrated the internet’s capacity to explain and document a government conspiracy. With Webb’s painstaking examination of the CIA’s role in the illicit drug trade hyperlinked to a bevy of documentation and freely distributed online, the professional journalistic community and its intelligence penumbra fell silent for months.

In the interim the story picked up steam in the non-traditional outlets of talk radio and tabloid television, with African Americans especially intrigued by the potential government role in the crack cocaine epidemic. Then suddenly major news outlets spewed forth a vitriolic attack on Webb and the Mercury News that amazingly resulted in the Mercury‘s retraction of the story and Webb’s eventual departure from the paper and probable murder by the US government.[3]

Criticism of Webb’s work predictably focused on petty misgivings toward his alleged poor judgment—specifically his intimation that the CIA intentionally caused the crack epidemic in African American communities, an observation that many blacks found logical and compelling. So not only did Webb find himself at the center of a conspiracy panic because of his assessment of the CIA’s role in the drug trade; he was also causing mass “paranoia” within African American communities allegedly predisposed toward such thinking.

Since the mid-1990s conspiracy panics have increasingly revolved around an effort by mainstream news media to link unorthodox political ideas and inquiry with violent acts. This dynamic was crystallized in Timothy McVeigh, the principal suspect in the April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building bombing,  who through the propaganda-like efforts of  government and major news media was constructed to symbolize the dangers of “extremist” conspiratorial thought (his purported fascination with white supremacism and The Turner Diaries) and violent terrorist action (the bombing itself). Conveniently overlooked is the fact that McVeigh was trained as a black ops technician and still in US Army employ at the time of his 2001 execution.[4]

Through a broad array of media coverage and subsequent book-length treatments by the left intelligentsia on the “radical right,” the alleged lone wolf McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing became forever coupled in the national memory. The image and event seemingly attested to how certain modes of thought can bring about violence–even though McVeigh’s role in what took place on April 19 was without question one part of an intricate web painstakingly examined by the Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee [5] and in the 2011 documentary A Noble Lie: Oklahoma City 1995.

The Quickening Pace of Conspiracy Panics

Independent researchers and alternative media utilizing the internet have necessitated the rapid deployment of conspiracy panic-like reactions that appear far less natural and spontaneous to neutralize inquiry and bolster the official narratives of  momentous and unusual events. For example, wide-scale skepticism surrounding the May 1, 2011 assault on Osama bin Laden’s alleged lair in Pakistan was met with efforts to cultivate a conspiracy panic evident in editorials appearing across mainstream print, broadcast, and online news platforms. The untenable event supported only by President Obama’s pronouncement of the operation was unquestioningly accepted by corporate media that shouted down calls for further evidence and alternative explanations of bin Laden’s demise as “conspiracy theories.”

[Continued...]

[jerryweaver]

Popular Children's Book Author Reveals The 'Spooky Truth' About Creepy Conspiracy Theories

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQoixkM_2u4

The bestselling author of "The Spooky Truth" series wants to teach kids that pulling back the curtain on what the government doesn't want us to know can be fun!

[lllSlughornlll]

I think Alex said it best: Conspiracy theorists are people that question well known liars. I'm going to use this now; it's perfect and so true.