By James F. Tracy
A new crusade appears to be underway to target independent research and analysis available via alternative news media. This March saw the release of “cognitive infiltration” advocate Cass Sunstein’s new book, Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas. In April, the confirmed federal intelligence-gathering arm, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), released a new report, “Agenda 21: The UN, Sustainability, and Right Wing Conspiracy Theory.” Most recently, Newsweek magazine carried a cover story, titled, “The Plots to Destroy America: Conspiracy Theories Are a Clear and Present Danger.”
As its discourse suggests, this propaganda campaign is using the now familiar “conspiracy theory” label, as outlined in Central Intelligence Agency Document 1035-960, the 1967 memo laying out a strategy for CIA “media assets” to counter criticism of the Warren Commission and attack independent investigators of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. At that time the targets included attorney Mark Lane and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who were routinely defamed and lampooned in major US news outlets.
Declassified government documents have proven Lane and Garrison’s allegations of CIA-involvement in the assassination largely accurate. Nevertheless, the prospect of being subject to the conspiracy theorist smear remains a potent weapon for intimidating authors, journalists, and scholars from interrogating complex events, policies, and other potentially controversial subject matter.
As the title of Newsweek‘s feature story indicates, a primary element of contemporary propaganda campaigns using the conspiracy theory/ist label is to suggest that citizens’ distrust of government imperatives and activities tends toward violent action. The “conspiracy theorist” term is intentionally conflated with “conspiracist,” thus linking the two in the mass mind. Images of Lee Harvey Oswald, Timothy McVeigh, and Osama bin Laden are subtly invoked when the magic terms are referenced. In reality, it is typically Western governments using their police or military who prove the foremost purveyors of violence and the threat of violence—both domestically and abroad.
In his Newsweek article, author and journalist Kurt Eichenwald selectively employs the assertions of the SPLC, Sunstein, and a handful of social scientists to postulate in Orwellian fashion that independent research and analysis of the United Nations’ Agenda 21, the anti-educational thrust of “Common Core,” the dangers of vaccine injury and water fluoridation, and September 11—all important policies and issues worthy of serious study and concern—are a “contagion” to the body politic.
In a functioning public, honest academics and journalists would uninhibitedly delve into these and similar problems–GMOs, state-sponsored terrorism, the dangers of non-ionizing radiation– particularly since such phenomena pose grave threats to both popular sovereignty and self determination. Such intellectuals would then provide important findings to foster vigorous public debate.
Absent this, segments of the populace still capable of critical thought are inclined to access and probe information that leads them to question bureaucratic edicts and, in some cases, suggest a potentially broader political agenda. In today’s world, however, such research projects carried out by the hoi polloi that are expressly reserved for government or foundation-funded technocrats “’distort the debate that is crucial to democracy,’” says Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan.
With the above in mind, a simple yet instructive exercise in illustrating the psycholinguistic feature of the conspiracy theory propaganda technique is to replace “conspiracy theories/ists” with the phrase, “independent research and analysis,” or “independent researchers.” Let us apply this to some passages from Eichenwald’s recent Newsweek piece.
For example, “Psychological research has shown that the only trait that consistently indicates the probability someone will believe in conspiracy theories independent research and analysis is if that person believes in other conspiracy theories independent research and analysis,” Eichenwald sagely concludes.
“One of the most common ways of introducing conspiracy theories independent research and analysis is to ‘just ask questions’ about an official account,’’’ says Karen Douglas, co-editor of the British Journal of Social Psychology and a senior academic … at Britain’s University of Kent.”
In fact, substituting the phrases accordingly throughout the article significantly neutralizes its overall propagandistic effect.
Researchers agree; independent research and analysis are espoused by people at every level of society seeking ways of calming the chaos of life, sometimes by simply reinforcing convictions.
While the growth in the number of news outlets has helped spread independent research and analysis, it doesn’t compare to the impact of social media and the Internet, experts say.
9/11 conspiracy theorists independent researchers protest outside the World Trade Center in 2011 [Photo caption]
“If you have social networks of people who are talking with one another, you can have independent research and analysis spread in a hurry,’’ says Cass Sunstein, a professor at Harvard Law School … “It literally is as if it was contagious.”
While some may dismiss independent researchers as ignorant or unstable, research has shown that to be false. “The idea that only dumb people believe this stuff is wrong,’’ says Dartmouth’s Nyhan.
People who more strongly believed in independent research and analysis were significantly less likely to use sunscreen or have an annual medical checkup.
According to a just-released report from the Southern Poverty Law Center, the independent research and analysis flowed in April at a hearing before Alabama’s Senate Education Committee about legislation to allow school districts to reject Common Core.
It’s true. Since September 11, 2001 the internet has increasingly allowed for everyday people to retrieve, study, and share information on important events and phenomena as never before. And as a recent study published in the prominent journal Frontiers of Psychology suggests, tendering “alternative conspiracy theories” to the government-endorsed explanations of September 11, 2001 is a sign of “individuation,” or psychological well being and contentment.
Such a condition is a clear danger to those who wish to wield uncontested political authority. Indeed, the capacity to freely disseminate and discuss knowledge of government malfeasance is the foremost counterbalance to tyranny. Since this ability cannot be readily confiscated or suppressed, it must be ridiculed, marginalized, even diagnosed as a psychiatric condition.
The recent abandonment of network neutrality may eventually further subdue the nuisance of independent research, thought, and analysis. Until then, the corporate media’s attempts to bamboozle and terrify the American public with the well-worn conspiracy theory meme will be a prevalent feature of what passes for news and commentary today.
Republished at Global Research and Activist Post.
Excellent article. The critical thinking people are the now dangerous ones in society according to the psychopaths in government and media. What a giant mess this world has become thanks to a certain tribe!
Just thought it would be fun to add to Jame’s parody –
“If you have social networks of people who are talking with one another, you can have independent research and analysis spread in a hurry,’’ says Cass Sunstein, a fuzzy-feel-good-people-loving professor at Harvard Law School … “It literally is as if it was contagious.”
Reblogged this on The Grey Enigma.
Kudos once again ! Thanks to you & a few others who weather the onslaught of criticism, public chastisement, etc. to bring us real news & plant the seeds for “independent research & analysis”, Fla. became the 2nd state to be fully constituted for a Common Law Jury !
http://www.nationallibertyalliance.org/
Only the naive and well trained (dumbed down) could possibly believe the garbage the mainstream feeds us everyday. This is why we see the big drop off of the major networks, people are waking up. I proudly wear my tinfoil hat. I think a great protest to this Orwellian nightmare would be for all of us to wear a tinfoil hat and Anonymous mask everywhere we go everyday.
You should see the negative and articulate responses online to the Kurt Eichenwald op-ed in Newsweek. Hardly a positive statement. It also reminded me of a call-in at WBUR Boston where every person who confronted the bankers being interviewed was a bruised and bloodied member of the middle class resentful that his entire way of life was being destroyed. You couldn’t get an understanding word out of any of them. The opposition is a deep majority of the public, and they are not responding to terror threats or even sounding particularly reverent about memorials to them either. We’re talking “resilience” and in a good way, not something concocted by propagandists. How this translates into actions will be interesting. Sometimes inaction and not signing up is better – but TPTB know that and will adjust accordingly until they are brought down.
I just read that Newsweek article, “The Plots To Destroy America”. Thanks for the tip-off, ‘musings’. I would urge everyone else to read it, too.
I can tell you that I’ve not come across a finer example of blatant, bought-and-paid-for ‘presstitution’.
So blatant, in fact, it had me wondering whether it was much less op-ed than psy-op: some sort of experiment to push a ‘conspracist’ thermometer up the backside of the Newsweek readership. Research intended to gauge by the comments where the mercury reaches on the conspiracy-theory-believers scale.
Well, judging by the overwhelming backlash by intelligent, articulate commenters, the mercury peaked within a few degrees of boiling point. You really must check the comments out — hallelujah brothers and sisters!
Now ‘News-weak’ knows unequivocally why, among the thinking and independently-minded, mainstream media is increasingly dissed and derided.
And, if there’s any justice, headed for the dumpster.
That would be hilarious! …I remember that Abby Hoffman was the master of ironic comedy to make a point. If you can get people laugh at the thought that critical thinkers are somehow dangerous people…you might get more of them. It’s like those who are pointing out the Emperor has no clothes..is being chastised…
Yes humor is the best weapon there is when you are being bullied. It has saved a lot of smart kids that did not fit in. Bullying is what this is about.
And I see Dr Tracy agrees enough to put up a sign declaring tin foil hats mandatory.
How about defusing the bomb. Start using the word “conspiracy theorist” as a title. I feel personally it is apt – I do believe conspiracies are common in crime. And I do theorize about them. Things are generally not facts until someone is convicted. I feel no shame about that.
See, that’s more propaganda. Everyone knows you can’t even get tin foil at the supermarket anymore. This Aluminum foil they have forced on us is totally ineffective at keeping the alien thought beams out of a person’s head.
CLASSIC, Rich !!
If only it were that funny. But I get the humor. Have to laugh, it’s getting scary out there
No its not, but maybe like it was said in another comment, the humor can be a way to fight back.
Aside from that we see this Congressman Markey and his hate speech legislation on Dr. Tracy’s previous post. I said before that when lame social climbers like this Markey pursue this kind of bad law they are merely hanging the “for sale” or “open for business” sign around their neck. Its their way of saying “I want in”. Is it any wonder when another social climber like Sunstein takes hold of a theme like “conspiracy theory”? It is only a matter of time before “conspiracy theory” is lumped in with hate speech and its Fema camp here I come!
Our tolerance for accepting threat of force and violence from our government goes up. Now the big thing is “bullying”. How many children will be destroyed by this garbage? Shut down the playgrounds, because they are just hotbeds of bullying! At the same time we have a government that increasingly tells its citizens that violence never solved anything, and fighting is not the answer. Yet they continue to load bombs on planes, and give what were once purely administrative agencies bigger and bigger guns, while the police are giver more free reign to beat people up and shoot them.
Meanwhile husband A gets in a little verbal argument with wife B and the police come and say violence is not the answer. So they tackle husband A, put a knee in his back, smash his face in the pavement before he even thinks of resisting, and its off to the jailhouse full of sex offenders and whackos for some real violence(no, this is not the voice of experience, but the threat of it has modified my behavior and outlook in countless ways).
And don’t even get me going on camping in Albuquerque. Violence never solved anything… and neither did running away mister, so here is your 4 bullets in the back. Are you telling me that 4 or 5 cops with an arsenal of non-lethals, and a dog can’t take down one dude? But violence is not the answer John Q. Public… for you. We here at the government are only defending ourselves.
The conclusions based on independent research and analysis have found that there is no longer a need for tin foil hats. It’s time the critics were let in on this little secret.
The NSA has done away with that need. Tin foil hats were previously thought to prevent the government from reading thoughts.
Now the government has other means of doing this which are no longer blocked by foil.
Those who continue to use the “tin foil hat” type comments simply display their own ignorance.
Yeah, we may not NEED tin foil hats but they certainly are a fashion statement and conjure up some deserved respect. When I order coffee with my got chemtrails? shirt and head wrapped in foil I get service RIGHT AWAY with a yes sir, and a thank you ma’am. They don’t even think about smiling.
Reblogged this on Unmutual76.
I found it interesting that I got a very cryptic warning when I went to check out GodLikeProductions this morning (I know “GLP” – but you can weed through garbage sometimes and find gems). Even after I said ignore and continue to site, another warning came up….last chance!
Seems as if Google somehow had caused GLP to have to register something in order to validate itself. Quite a few browsers popped this warning up according to several threads going on. This warning did not come via my anti-virus – I believe it was some division of Google which was odd. Google was claiming that within the past 90 days it had detected unknown malware zero times??!
I went to one other site and got a similar type warning. Seems as if someone is just looking out for me in my browsing sessions.
And what is your excuse to use Google?
I don’t use google. I just went to the GLP website and somehow google shoved a warning into my browser.
If you’re using Firefox, that feature is the “Block reported attack sites” checkbox in Options and then Security. I did some research on it, and *they say* it no longer sends all of the websites you visit to Google. They say Firefox instead somehow updates the database of “bad” sites to your browser, and all address checking happens locally. I don’t know if that is true though.
A few years ago I regularly found malware on GLP. They would not reply to detailed reports via email, and would ban you if you made a thread about it. I think the owner of GLP also runs the ad network that is serving up the malware. It was reported to Google for a long time and they never added GLP to the bad site list (never noticed it since I found the malware). I haven’t checked GLP in awhile, but I’d recommend disabling scripts on that site, I’d also be wary of their flash video player and other flash widgets.
When you think about the vigorous exposes of an earlier, healthier society, one not operating (so obviously) under a Stasi model of control, you see the popularity of ground-breaking findings by writers like Rachel Carson (“Silent Spring”) and Vance Packard (“The Hidden Persuaders” about manipulation through advertising using psychological techniques). The leftish public was out there prodding away at the Eisenhower American Dreamscape, providing a chorus of questions and individual whistle-blowers’ fora. That this was somehow subversive was often said, but little interfered with, except by McCarthyites. It may have seemed somewhat naughty to question the virtues of DDT and cigarette ads, to question the sexual come-on of automobile design, but it was part of our great republic’s free speech as opposed to some limited free speech zone. “The Way We Were” is not the way we are. Yes, some bad things came then, but worse exists now and it is accepted. There are only big dogs in the fight – U.S. v. Google, and the oligarchs like it that way.
One of the most telling stories is the way private email providers have been hounded out of business and threatened with prosecution for not turning over their customers’ private data. This would be an “Atlas Shrugged” moment if ever there was one. Real human beings with small companies are being treated like members of criminal underground.
Is Google to be the one organization that interprets the Constitution for us? Given our history of Supreme Court cases being brought only by those with deep pockets, this may well be the case. But it is as they say in French, “Faut de mieux” or for want of an alternative. As Livia said in “I. Claudius” – you have to find a dog who’ll eat a dog. She was an empress and she knew what an empire required. Big dogs only.
Ironically, in 2003 Cass Sunstein published a book, “Why Societies Need Dissent,” in which he argues, according to the publisher’s blurb,
“. . . that organizations and nations are far more likely to prosper if they welcome dissent and promote openness. Attacking ‘political correctness’ in all forms, Sunstein demonstrates that corporations, legislatures, even presidents are likely to blunder if they do not cultivate a culture of candor and disclosure. He shows that unjustified extremism, including violence and terrorism, often results from failure to tolerate dissenting views. The tragedy is that blunders and cruelties could be avoided if people spoke out.”
So, we purveyors of independent research and analysis can always play the political-correctness card, as in, “by demonizing independent research and analysis, you stooges of the ruling class are just imposing political correctness, something Cass Sunstein has warned you about.”
Also, if the stooges blame us purveyors of independent research and analysis for civil unrest, then we can finger Sunstein as having provided fair warning: Such unrest “often results from failure to tolerate dissenting views” he has cautioned.
Your unspoken assumption seems to be that TPTB (and Sunstein as one of their policy wonks) want the US to be a successful country. Everything I’ve seen in the past 30 years leads me to the opposite conclusion – there is a focused intent on taking down the US.
Many people in the upper echolons of corporate and government American seem to be unaware of that. They just quietly accept the ridiculous cover-stories they are given,
As Catherine Austin Fitts said, “The lie is different at every level.”
So what’s in it for them? I suppose to loot the place at the end.
I often wonder what the final revelation is supposed to be from Snowden’s downloading of NSA snooping. My own favorite, in the spirit of fantasy baseball, is that total transparency arrives and we see the numbers of the Swiss bank accounts and offshore accounts of all of our most prominent politicians of both parties. Perhaps we see the compromising material used to pressure them towards certain choices (although the anthrax in the Senate Office Building and the USA Patriot Act made it pretty obvious once upon a time). But lets fling open those secrets, all of them, for the benefit of the rest of us, whose own lives are known (at least potentially) by them. Disaster capitalism proceeds apace, but some people are getting fed up with it. I suppose the final straw will be wrecking the Ogalalla Aquifer in order to ship oil to the Chinese, to pay debts for goods we could have made ourselves if our factories had not been off-shored.
I agree with you, Margaret. You say “Many people in the upper echolons of corporate and government America seem to be unaware of that. They just quietly accept the ridiculous cover-stories they are given”.
Here is how I explain it.
Think about the world of 1984, and how we will get there. The monsters who are behind that game are very few, and their power is almost unimaginable; no one knows their names, as Kubrick alludes in Eyes Wide Shut. They allow certain people to be billionaires in the same way we allow certain dogs to live in our house; if the dog’s attitude turns unsuitable, the dog will find he’s been removed from the picture one way or another.
For instance, was Bill Gates always obsessed with vaccinating/sterilizing all the darkies in Africa, for instance? Probably not; his racism/eugenicism, I suspect, came about when he started to contemplate retiring and becoming a “philanthropist” (in his case perhaps the most ironic description possible, “misanthrope” being closer to the mark), and needed a cause. But in this choice he fits right in with his pals in the club–Maurice Strong, Javier Solana, George Soros, etc.–in that all his money-spending, while public-relations-wise being universally called “good,” contributes directly to the construction of a global society no one will be able to escape from, and where almost everyone has a lifestyle closer to the African bushman or the villager in Peru than to the suburbanite in Topeka (of course, as per the Georgia Guidestones, there will whole lot fewer people, period). That’s why they hate coal so much: coal = electricity, and electricity = freedom from the material horrors that have always plagued humanity.
So what would happen to Gates if, instead, he dedicated himself to spending his billions on a vast project to provide clean water and electricity to every impoverished African (there are lots of wonderful technologies recently invented that make such a goal entirely within reach, with almost no negative environmental impact–if you agree with me that humans are a good thing, and keeping them numerous and healthy is environmentally a very positive thing), instead of subjecting them to false pharmaceutical “solutions” to the problems clean water and electricity easily resolve? Answer: we would soon be reading in the papers how Bill’s billions are mysteriously evaporating, and how the mighty are fallen. Perhaps he’d even find himself caged in one of the vast network of prisons America has been constructing with such abandon for the last few decades. That is, they wouldn’t allow him to remain a billionaire, if his mind was not right.
Just below the billionaires stand the worker-bees of the New World Order, your “people in the upper echolons of corporate and government America who seem to be unaware” that they are contributing to the creation of a nightmarish World Government, which by definition necessitates destroying what remains of the constitutional republic we started out being. They SEEM to be unaware of it because the system set up to destroy America is designed to make them prosper along the way. Travel to Washington, and spend a night in Georgetown to see them in their native habitat. Likewise the Upper West Side, or Rodeo Drive, or Palm Beach. They’re having far too much fun inside the game to find the time to contemplate that they are actively building the world of 1984. Why doubt the “ridiculous cover-stories” if doing so will jeopardize your fabulous lifestyle, not to mention the nightmare of no longer being invited to the right parties?
Below them are the drones; the bureaucrats and the middle-management drudges who just want to make it through the system until their pensions are vested and they can spend the rest of their lives watching The View, or for men, whatever it is that couch-potatos these days find suitably unchallenging. All they have to do in return is to make everything in life just unpleasant enough to make the rest of us feel powerless–but not so horrible that we will rebel against the insane world being forced upon us.
Who knows how many of the billionaires, and how many of the political and business whores, will be allowed to keep what they have when Orwell’s nightmare is fully in place? Revolutions eat a lot more than their children: they also tend to murder as many who represented the Ancien Régime as possible. Still, there WILL be an “inner party,” the substantial number of very privileged people required to maintain the system for the unnamed powers, so few in number but so vast in power.
In what way are large populations of humans healthy?
I agree with much of what you say though. The hierarchy works in large by ridiculing and violently repressing dissent. It is no more evident than in the Holocaust debate. It trains people to be non active in critical thought, the same way a sociopathic parent or spouse will train his/her kids/partner in becoming a slave.
I do not think Bill Gates was a sociopath way back when he was working on computer programs in his garage as a kid. It is something he has been trained to become, in a sociopathic system. He has adapted by choice to survive at the level he wants to live.
Only the truly sociopathic can thrive at the top effortlessly. They can shape and control that environment. And they choose who they want to work with. The film “Eyes wide shut” is a masterpiece, from the king of “movie creators”. It does describe this well. Jay Weidner’s reviews of Kubrick films are essential companions in my pov.
And I took my “Nom de Plume” from one of Kubric’s movies. Kubrick is my favorite movie creator. Here Kubrick demonstrates the insanity of militarism and war:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry2n4v9G4_k
Col. Bat Guano,
The current administration does not have a problem with large populations of humans… As long as they are not middle class. Great Dr. Strangelove clip. The blank look on Keenan Wynns face, priceless.
“In what way are large populations of humans healthy?”
Obviously, it must be done in the right way. Which we rarely do. But, because human life is the pinnacle of creation, the greatest thing in the material world, it is very, very, good, by definition. How we manage our affairs is the problem, not that we have affairs to manage.
That is, those who identify the problems humans have created, and conclude that they exist because there are too many of us, are getting the story backwards.
If we did not do everything in our power, for example, in North America, to kill all the bees and butterflies and drain dry, as musings mentioned, the Ogallala Aquifer, a vastly larger population could be wonderfully accommodated here, indefinitely. We know how to clean up our waste and we constantly develop excellent ways of producing more, healthier, food, while healing ruined land. Joel Salatin is the poster boy: http://www.polyfacefarms.com. Others have proven that a single acre, in a place like Maine, can provide an immense amount of food with no harm, only good, to the environment (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/garden/living-off-the-land-in-maine-even-in-winter.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)
We can do things the right way, and expand and thrive. Even vast cities can be environmentally beneficial. We just need to do it the right way.
Now, anyone who reads my comments here knows I am a pessimist, and do not expect this to be accomplished; I expect the worst. But that does not mean that more humans is a negative thing, and a reduction in human populations is positive. By definition, more people is better, because humanity is a good thing. (You can read my articles about the horrible movie Noah if you wish to learn something about my thought on that subject).
So: large populations of humans are only unhealthy to the planet when they are managed insanely, as they are doing currently. Culling them is not the solution. Stopping the insanity is the solution. Culling the population is as evil as the destruction of the environment is.
It is, therefore, a question of what we advocate. As I said, if Gates wants the best for us, his billions could be used differently. Done right, people across the globe can grow their families and flourish, improving the environment all along the way. I’d advocate that.
Great points Margaret!
A big thanks to you, James Tracy, for tackling the Newsweek article, I was hoping you would! It may be the most absurd mainstream media article I’ve ever read, replete with: emotive psy op language; pandering to the faux left vs. right paradigm by subtly infusing a reactionary “right wing” aspect to examples; specific examples described in such a way as to arouse indignation and disgust; outlier examples of conspiracy and others provided without context to be used as red herrings and to reinforce the notion of “fringe” or worse; quoting Beck, an Establishment gatekeeper, using the charged and misplaced term communism when, ultimately, the debate and reality is far more sophisticated and nuanced than the cartoonish images being conjured; and a glaring limited hangout, refusing to acknowledge the depth of deep state control as a reflection of extreme centralization of power in a model of global Technocracy (which, ironically, the MSM is beginning to grudgingly admit to as reflected in recent topics covered by Moyers and others – up to a point and with a ready made “solution”).
By the way, I’d like to see Eichenwald explain David Rockefeller’s statement at a 1991 Trilateralist meeting thanking the the Washington Post, NY Times, Time, and similar publications for their “discretion” for more than 40 years on the plan to eliminate nation state sovereignty in favor of a world government system to be overseen by a group of international bankers and supranational elite.
Ultra Zionist Kurt Eichenwald has a conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories?
He should take his meds.
Thank you, times ten.
The 800 pound gorilla that no one but you dares mention on this comment board. In Dr. Tracy’s recent radio / blog interview with Kevin Barrett, PhD, Dr. Barrett in no uncertain terms lays the blame for 9/11 directly at the feet of radical NeoCon Zionists.
Newsweek is owned by former Californian Congresswoman Jane Harman who stepped down from her Congressional post after being caught in a FBI wire tap spying for Israel.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has been described as an extremist Zionist organization. Cass Sunstein is also a staunch Zionist.
The 800 pound gorilla is beginning to smell real bad and becoming hard to ignore. Can we at least admit he’s in the room?
Newsweek is not solely owned by the Harman family.
What we need is a book on how those in power who call the masses crazy for not agreeing with them actually meet the profile of sociopaths. Propaganda = manipulation, a favorite tool of sociopaths. They despise truth, it is the enemy of their façade. Power and control over others fills the black hole where the heart goes.
Show me someone in power who isn’t a sociopath. That’s a gem more rare than platinum.
We are Always on the defense. Expose them for a change!
Brilliant idea, James. In fact we should just correct everybody with “ohhhhhh…. you mean independent research and analysis”. Say it like they are not too familiar with the “topic specific jargon” and are begging to be corrected. Someone at work hit me with “you aren’t a conspiracy theorist are you?” My visceral fantasy reaction was punching him in the nose. Knowing that would be the end of my employment, I countered with “so if you just say that, then it relieves you of having to actually to think for yourself?” or words to that effect. His whole “snide schtick” lost all it’s verbal punching power. From then on I had to discipline myself to sticking to bland pleasantries, comments on the weather and ski conditions. People are like that so they can “live their illusion” and stay mired in their “harsh reality coping mechanism”. My good friend Roger said “Dave, I can’t even go there”… if I could convey to you the feeling he conveyed to me it would be… “I know deep down, what you are saying is true, however if I even consider what you are telling me, it will so wreck my day – so I can’t give it serious consideration”… thought bubble forms over the head… ‘When’s my next tee time?’… That’s what the phrase “I can’t go there or don’t go there” actually means.
Thanks for analyzing the newsweek article, could not bring myself to open it. Bet if they did not distribute hardcopy for free to doctors’ offices and such, there would be close to 0 distributions.
Here’s a Democratic rep from FL, declaring we have proved communism works in the USA!
http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/21/dem-congressman-weve-proved-that-communism-works/
Thanks, Dr. Tracy. Your point abt academics like Brendan Nyhan, who said the contributions of the hoi poloi distort public discussion, presumably because we lack “qualifications”, like a degree from Dartmouth, suggests that Academia is contemplating a public forum composed only of institutionally licensed commentators. Thomas Franks made a very similar point in a most polite throw-down of current phenome Thomas Piketty, whose solution to the global problem of economic inequality is a global wealth tax administered by the UN (!). Franks offered a far humbler Rx – unions. When unions are strong, inequality is relativized and vice versa. The problem is that highly credentialed people and the rest of us “educated masses” don’t much like the thought of messing with union bosses and their unruly members, still less with their pedestrian concerns, like workplace safety and – economic equality. I like to think of this as the elitist trap that “they” set for us two generations ago by opening up “higher” education to greater and greater numbers of people. We may or may not get anything out of the “opportunity to go to college”. I know, however belatedly, that I didn’t, save for one thing – massive pretense based on a “certificate” awarded on graduation day. I was “qualified” and a prime candidate to side with guys like Nyhan, whose bias against “independent (citizen) research and analysis” is palpably smelly and if by “distort” he really meant “dangerous”, overtly sinister.
“You are called to a great work and yours is to be a transcendent privilege to present this revelation to the peoples of this strife-torn world.
“Supercilious scientists will ridicule you and some may even charge you with collusion and fraud.
Well-meaning religionists will condemn you as enemies of the Christian religion and accuse you of defaming Christ himself.
Thousands of spiritually hungry souls will bless you for the message you bring, and thousands of others will condemn you for disturbing their theologic complacence.
Are you ready for your baptism of joys and sorrow which will certainly attend upon the early distribution of our beliefs?”
These are just a very small portion of what was in those seven pages.
http://urantia-book.org/archive/readers/doc802.htm
Very clever finding, thank you! So Eichenwald, Sunstein and their accomplices take their time to compose their prose, and once they determine that they have finished, they hit the “find and replace all” button to turn “independent research and analysis” into “conspiracy theories.” Indeed this simple process must make their job much easier. Thinking of it, doublespeak must have been so hard before the word processor!
Incidentally, I challenged (http://www.global-platonic-theater.com/Censors,%20Handling/Challenging%20on%20Baby%20Step/Eichenwald.htm) the distinguished author of the Newsweek piece to refute the elementary http://www.911babystep.com, which is a logical impossibility. Based on past experience, he likely understands the 9/11 censorship much better than we do and is likely to let me follow up and pummel him with insults instead of answering and making himself look like a fool.
Love,
We are in the final stage of societal devolution when even our thoughs are plucked for categorzing and/or ostrasizing. This administration is full of clowns. Birds of a feather….Worse yet, they are on the public payroll and in places of authority. Woe unto the corporate media which gives them space to pontificate. The less sense they make, the more
the platform expands.
Dissent didn’t destroy this country; consensus at th top did–the egregious concentraton of power is always the downfall of any
organized entity. Chatter away while D.C. burns Cass.
What a great comment thread and article. Thanks to all.
I seriously doubt that either Eichenwald or Sunstein really believe their own diatribes against conspiracy theories. Anyone with any awareness can see that there are a great many damningly unanswered questions surrounding most of the controversies cited. Instead, this constant and escalating babble about the danger posed by conspiracy theories serves to provide cover for our entire government, legal system and mainstream media against the increasingly obvious truth that they are all ‘accessories after the fact’ to the murderous treason perpetrated on 911. Honest politicians like Cynthia MacInney are expelled from the club of liars.
Your first line rings so true. It almost seems that Sunstein and Eichenwald are in the position of a high school newspaper journalist, currying favor with and providing soundbites for the high school administration about some problem on campus. The superficial and juvenile quality of the article by Eichenwald is just in that kind of sucking up tone.
Wjonderful interview by Alex JONes today with Climate change critic British peer, Lord Moncton. Monction dissects process and the rogues at the top of the climate change totum for their real agenda–a power and landdgrab scheme for personal enrfichment. He also has a solution to curb their auithoritarian hold by organizing a counter push to stand in oppostion to their global reach. Behind fhe “Geen Mask” that covers their true identity,, lies an ugly face of ruthless greed
Sorry—if you talk about climate change and fail to mention geo-engineering you are part of the problem.
Your blanket rejection of Marilyn’s point is actually the problem. We have to stop focusing on criticizing details and support all ideas that lead us to a better place from a public perspective. The point is that climate change is a political cover for action. To reject this notion because someone may not include geo-engineering in their deliberation is a failure.
I agree that my comment on the Lord Christopher Monckton interview could have been more comprehensive. But his tireless pursuit of truth in tje face of overwhelming media and government blitz to suppress facts stands alone. HIs site, Science and Public Policy Institue lays out his thesis. i once did hear him deny the exestance of chemtrails as relevant– surpriseTh Can’t explain that.
But like so many government secrets, the chemtrails are guarded
insider information. Where do we start on the road to sanity? The Lord Monckton has his own path; we can follow, change course, begin our own search. I find that many spokesmen have something to offer to the cause and I incorporate their findings into my own belief system; they are much more advanced than I am. i
Am sold on the chemtrail dangers and on tfhe menace of the HAAAP phenomenon. But where are the whistleblowers to begin a public debate? Until then, it’s all ‘conspiracy theory.’
Tthat is the trap set for truthers of all colors. We are dealing with pros, after all, with unlimited resources..
“A new crusade appears to be underway to target independent research and analysis available via alternative news media.”
In an example of Orwellian newspeak, the CNN show The Lead with Jake Tapper took on Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth over its decision to distribute information pamphlets outside the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at Ground Zero in New York City. The pamphlets mimic the design of the “official” ones, but instead of the official story, they contain key scientific forensic evidence indicating that the three World Trade Center towers were brought down with explosives and incendiaries. Unlike the official version, the photo on the cover of the AE pamphlet shows the Twin Towers and Building 7.
The Tapper report is a hysterical compendium of all the empty slogans and anti-conspiracy-theory talking points that make up the mainstream media’s continuing attack on the 9/11 Truth Movement. It didn’t take more than a couple of seconds into the report to see how Tapper was going to play the story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMrU84r_2X8
Wow! this Tapper actually admitted 3 buildings collapsed! I have never heard MSM actually say that. What’s next… Kennedys dead? OMG!
Only 13 years. We are really getting to these guys! And the vilification of the truth movement. Why do these liars think they have a monopoly on respect and mourning for the dead. Our persistence is the proof of our desire for justice for the victims. What a great news network. Lets get some dope who was 12 years old on 911 come on and agree with me. What a coward!
If my memory serves me that is not actually true. That same day 9-11, I am pretty sure it was Dan Rather that said the buildings came down like it was a demolition. He was probably told to shut up after that one.
Yes, I am aware of that Kathy. My facetiousness was directed at what seems to have been a pushing aside of the whole building 7 phenomena by the MSM for so long. I could ask any 10 people I know and most would have no idea what building 7 I am talking about. I always saw building 7 as an extremely simple key to awakening the masses to something… anything. Nonetheless it is quite apparent to me that most people do not care, that is why the conspiracy theorist label has worked so well for the MSM. Hell, most people are too oblivious to know the left lane is for passing, let alone be bothered with building 7.
Victims? What victims? Check out the disturbing and mind-blowing evidence against these ‘vicsims’ at http://septemberclues.info/vicsims.shtml
In response to this thoughtful commentary I’d like to share this alarming article from the LA Times http://www.latimes.com/la-na-nn-holder-terrorism-task-force-20140601-story.html
It leaves one to wonder how a “self-radicalized individual” might be determined. I felt a chill when reader of Eric Holder’s new task force designed to specifically target those persons who have become “radicalized” via the internet. Is he referring to independent researchers who may have come to the realization that perhaps all is not well in the land of the free?
CNN President Zucker has outed the Communist News Network as specializing in story telling!
“I don’t think there’s any question about our commitment to breaking news, as evidenced by all the questions about the plane,” he told New York Times television reporter Bill Carter during an interview at the Deadline Club’s annual awards dinner. “So we’re still there whenever that happens, but we’re going to supplement that with some different kind of storytelling.”
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/05/8545669/jeff-zucker-talks-cnns-post-plane-plans
Am thinking all that liberal education, strike that – indoctrination, is catching up to them.
Sarah Palin was quoted today saying that the President gets his intelligence briefs from the Drudge Reports.
We are growing tired of hearing how mad they are about the latest scandal, they only heard about in the news.
Let’s hope the VA death panels, do not provide health care and they will die, is the last straw.
I feel like I have a badge of honor, being audited for an income of about $100k and owed a fine of $35 for not properly prepaying taxes of which I did nothing wrong. Paid the silly fine, and sent along with a letter of disgust as clearly all that paperwork cost the taxpayers more than the fine.
I’m sure some shlup over at the IRS got a chuckle out of that. You should have included a gift certificate for TGI Fridays while you were at it.
Well might of thought of that, if instead they sent a thank you note. Thank you for your payment of $20,000 in taxes, however, we have noted that you did not pay that sum fast enough and therefore you owe $35. Failure to pay this fine will result in 100 times that fine per day and the sacrifice of your first born child….
Dr.Strangelove announced more than blind allegiance– regards our best options.
For example– could we offer (plus or minus) one hundred and four obvious reasons –why the environment is better portrayed by what is rather than what ‘should be’:
“Nuclear power plants deliver the same lethal fission products in their emissions over a period of months and years that a nuclear bomb delivers in a nanosecond. ”
Enthusiasts of nuclear power and of medical irradiation are forever hoping, quite understandably, that there will be found some threshold a dose of radiation below which no harm would occur.
It turns out that nuclear-power and medical-irradiation enthusiasts have all been going in exactly the wrong direction,They have consistently suggested that linearity may overestimate the true cancer risk per rad.
The real problem is that linearity underestimates the true cancer risk per rad when one derives values from studies based on higher doses of radiation than the doses at which we wish to apply those values.”
(Gould and Goldman, the Petkau effect,1971).
It is sadly amiss to universally believe:
” We know how to clean up our waste and we constantly develop excellent ways of producing more, healthier, food, while healing ruined land.
Even vast cities can be environmentally beneficial.
We just need to do it the right way.”
when health figures for fifty years– are the reverse?
It is a mystery to me how you can infer from my comment that I was referring to nuclear energy electricity production.
It is equally mysterious to me how you regard my comments as somehow holding that I regard the way human health practices over the last half century as being somehow admirable.
I hold neither view, and nothing I wrote remotely implied it. Read what I wrote again; you clearly did not comprehend it the first time.
So what?
I don’t think the nuclear industry should exist, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the ideal, proven, technologies that can deliver free, absolutely clean, energy, anywhere, without the poisonous infrastructure we’ve been propagandized into thinking is required. For simplicity’s sake, we can call them Tesla technology. They don’t involve boiling water.
Of course, all of that is actively suppressed.
If we did not suppress the wonderful inventions that are constantly being made, and we raised food in the way the two articles I linked to demonstrate, we could accommodate a growing human population, in good health, cleaning up and improving the environment all the while.
That’s what I said, and I stand by it, because it is true.
As for lands already poisoned by radioactivity, I have read more than one article in the past claiming that there exists technology to stop radioactive materials being radioactive. I can’t claim any knowledge about such techniques, but I am fully confident that human ingenuity is capable of cutting that Gordian Knot. The more happy, healthy humans we have, the more likely some of them will solve even the most intractable problems.
hey, while you guys are on the subject, here is something to think about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG1YjDdI_c8
Thanks, fish! Perfectly on point.
What’s a real bonus here, and I probably knew it but forgot, is the fact that lots of rare earth elements are bound to thorium. I’ve been following the RE story for a while–and also the thorium energy story, too. I’d forgotten they were tied together. Talk about a twofer!
This guy is an example of how steadfast the establishment is in blocking any change to the establishment paradigm, no matter how obvious. (It helps that he talks like us, and makes it easy to follow without sounding like he thinks we are morons). This stuff is CONVENTIONAL technology; no exotic aspect to it–which is what I always have in mind, conspiracy wacko that I am. We can do what he’s talking about without forcing the monsters to cough up the free energy inventions, and make the world vastly better without killing the establishment industries.
Of course, I’d like 100% freedom from slavery, but I’ll take what I can get.
For what it’s worth, I think James previous term of ‘false flag’ is more useful for public relations than ‘independent researcher.’ Most people don’t give a s*^t about research, independent or otherwise, except academics, and most are largely useless in combating the conventional truth consensus. They will get fired, or threatened to be fired for sticking their necks out. The term ‘false flag analysis’ or false flag truther’ or something like that I think would be more useful conceptually and ideologically for strengthening a people’s truth consensus.
There is no way that the current power system is EVER going to come clean on false flags, although it is worth while challenging them to do so. The power system can’t. In the 9/11/anthrax false flags, American power killed nearly three thousand Americans, and they can never acknowledge this and survive.
So the only solution is to continue to build distrust of what they say among the American people, and world’s people, to eventually change the power system. This may help mitigate the brutality that most likely will be used to maintain oligarchical gangster power, until the American people can replace it.
Also as James or someone (or perhaps me) pointed out, ‘false flag’ is an international term. In Ukraine, for example, the Nazis integrated in the military are attacking conscripted soldiers who refuse to shoot the people, killing and brutalizing them under the guise of being anti-Kiev Easterners. As the world’s people learn of false flags in other countries, it would tend to legitimate the term in the USA.
Just as the opposition of the world’s people against an attack on Syria helped to firm up an opposition by the American people, so a conceptual language used by the world would help legitimate its use in the US. And once the concept is legitimated, it is easier to apply it to American homicidal operations in opposition to the media truth consensus. This would tend to broaden the parochial historical illiteracy of the American people, increasing the opposition to American media deceit, delusion, ideological repression, and irrationality.
“Psychological Warfare and the False Flag Meme“
Reblogged this on Today,s Thought.
You know with everyone’s ridiculous need for political correctness we ought to treat anyone who says conspiracy theorist as if they just muttered the N word. “Hey, that’s a derogatory term. You are supposed to use independent researcher or analyst. This is 2014.” people are so crazy they just might go for it. On the other hand, they have no problem being derogatory towards fat or ugly people or religious people for that matter, so it might not work on everybody but I will give it a try.
Good idea. If it offends someone aren’t they obligated to stop saying it, isn’t that how it works? The word gets banned into oblivion.
We’ve moved forward. The world is not flat. Independent research proved that while being called crazy conspiracy theorists.
What’s wrong with those people?
We live in a round world where research disproves formerly held misconceptions. Don’t they want to progress?
Fishes and Roaches, you always make me laugh which is a good thing! I think we do need to keep a sense or humor and USE it as a political tool, it’s what differentiates us from those who are either pure right or left and seem to have lost their sense of humor along the way.
Yeah, it was James piece that he gives a link to that emphasized the international application of the ‘false flag’ meme.
Another advantage of the ‘false flag’ concept is that it allows us to Mention the Unmentionable in the corporate media. The NY Times for example, does not Mention that the US tortures its prisoners, torture being called ‘enhanced interrogation procedures’ to sanitize it.
The US government and media cannot Mention that Egypt has undergone a military coup, because there is an American law that would cut off funds if it were acknowledged. Similarly the Nazis involved in the American backed coup in Ukraine, and now control the military and police function under the leadership of American CIA and FBI agents, which also involve Blackwater–associated mercenaries, is, astonishingly, Unmentionable in the American and most Western media because it would validate Putin’s assessment, and he is portrayed in this regard as an Evil but crazed paranoid.
But a false flag concept assumes power systems on one side and people on the other, and the function of homicidal operations is for power to deceive the people. This allows the truthers who identify with the people against anti-people power some political space to tell the truth from a people’s perspective. The media can stigmatize the concept of ‘Conspiracy Theory,’ but they can’t very well stigmatize in the people’s truth consensus the internationally legitimated comcept of ‘false flag.’ It can not Mention false flags, but it can’t demonize the concept.
The new world order speech as declared by President Bush the senior.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtlO39wIRWs
I think it might be useful for someone to start elucidating the exact differences and categorizations of ‘false flag’ or ‘psy op’ etc.
We discussed this at some length a few articles ago, Sue. You’ll appreciate the conversation if you go back a few threads and read throughout the comments there.
All the scandals and distractions are now making perfect sense to me, they need time to deploy Agenda 21, especially in America, as they slowly take away our rights.
The VA scandal, where our brave Veterans died while awaiting medical care and those in charge received bonuses as their false reports of good service were created by shredding waiting lists, exposes one of their primary goals – depopulation.
This conspiracy to deny medical care, is one that all political parties can agree is a disgrace. Most of the media is covering it, even CNN has a few articles, although it is not visible on their top news for today.
Here is everything they do not want you to know about Agenda 21, the sustainability effort, their efforts to change verbiage so as not to alert those pesky conspiracy theorist Americans, etc.
http://americanpolicy.org/agenda21/
I have become used to blatant “hit pieces” but this one is especially galling as they could have asked the architects and engineers to defend their brochure which was both accurate and tasteful, but instead chose a one sided smear.
Sometimes it helps to be a native or nearly so. My sister called this morning from California, and in the course of our usual conversation, in which she told me about her students, etc. (she knows more teenagers than I do and has worked with them for years), she told me (from a place of real conventionality about authority, believe me), that she thought Elliott Rodgers, the alleged Santa Barbara killer, was reading from a script.
The politics of my family is such that I never discuss what I do with you guys online. It would be too easy to lose caste and be tin foiled in the raucous mass that is my sibling hood. They’re just waiting for me to slip up believe me, and the teasing would never end. Perhaps it’s like Congress itself.
But I said to her – “Why?” She was at the moment driving through inner city LA, on her way to teach, and she always comments upon a mixture of road kill pets and prostitutes being picked up by white family men in expensive cars who are supposedly also on their way to work. “How would a little rich punk in Hollywood who drives a BMW not have his choice of hookers? This makes no sense. He’d have plenty of opportunities. I just don’t buy the loner nerd story. Of course there has to be a reason.”
“Apart from a lousy script?”
“No come on, I wasn’t saying he was REALLY reading from a script, I’m saying that’s how it sounded. There must be come explanation in his psychology.”
“You mean the character’s psychology? He’s a fictional character to both of us. We don’t know him,” I said.
“But just because the way he sounded to ME isn’t right, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a true story.”
“Why do you think that? What else have you got to go on?”
“I don’t know. This just must be real. Maybe I am jumping to conclusions.”
Like fun.
Personally I think it does not sound scripted, but it sounds like its acted, not genuine. To me it seems he needs a while to get into character enough to act with deeper emotions. But then I think he does it rather well actually!
This shooting has a common denominator with SH and Aurora, i.e successful backgrounds. Rich people can live in controlled environments. They often have more to lose than gain from talking to media.
Three is a trend, it it happens this close to each other.
Sounds like your sister may be waking up and you might be the only person she can talk to. My sisters recently called me a conspiracy theorist when I was attempting to explain weather modification that is happening now. They never noticed but suspect they may be looking up in the sky as they continue to get bombarded with terrible weather.
Here we have another young man, who has been seeing a therapist since he was 8 years old, was on mind altering prescription drugs, and yet had legal guns in a state with one of the most restrictive gun laws.
These laws are under debate in the CA courts who recently ruled that it is unconstitutional to only give concealed weapons permits to those who are threatened or have valuables.
http://www.npr.org/2014/03/18/290252895/calif-fight-over-concealed-weapons-could-head-to-high-court
My apologies if this has been previously posted:
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/elliot-roger-santa-barbara-killer-parallels-and-numbers/