quite an amazing and horrifying rant
Quoting Mike Dingle :
> Hey folks... this is almost a month old, but still a fascinating,
> disturbing, humourous, etc. read... and one of those sites on my
> alternative web site list that sends regular postings... and I thought
> this was worth forwarding... If you haven't gotten The List previously,
> I'd be happy to send it along. regards, Mike ... and pardon if you got
> two copies.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: dave@davesweb.cnchost.com
> Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 11:15 AM
> Subject: "America Through The Looking Glass"
>
>
> Greetings from the Center for an Informed America! Please forward this
> message widely. If this message was forwarded to you and you would like
> to receive future mailings, e-mail a request to be added to this mailing
> list.
> This article comes courtesy of Swans. The original is at:
> http://www.swans.com/library/art8/dmg001.html
>
>
> America Through The Looking Glass
> by David McGowan
> April 8, 2002
> In the immortal words of Lewis Carroll, things are getting curiouser and
> curiouser. If there has ever been a more bizarre presidential team in
> place at the White House at any other time in U.S. history, it doesn't
> immediately come to mind.
> Consider, if you will, that we have a vice-president (and I use
> that term rather loosely) who has all but disappeared from public view
> without any kind of credible explanation having been given to the
> American people. It appeared at first as though Cheney's vanishing act
> was a temporary and cynical ploy that would allow George the Younger to
> appear as though he were actually running the show.
> But six months have now passed and Dick has only been whipped
> out for a few passing photo-ops (and to do some arm-twisting in the
> Middle-East). Never before, even during times of World or Civil War, has
> such secrecy and security ever been deemed necessary. What possible
> explanation can there be for this? What credible threats is the
> vice-president facing?
> The only possible danger that Cheney could find himself in would
> be facing impeachment proceedings for, among other things, his
> involvement in the Enron scandal and his questionable dealings with Iraq
> (1). But that of course could only happen if we had a Congress that
> wasn't as fully corrupt as the White House team that they are supposed
> to provide checks and balances on.
> Consider also that we have a president (and I use that term even
> more loosely) who is so intellectually challenged that before even
> losing the election he had already issued enough verbal gaffes to fill a
> book or two. He seemingly cannot open his mouth to utter an unscripted
> response without lapsing into almost complete incoherence, as though he
> received his English instruction via home-schooling by his dad.
> On top of that, he has appeared in public no fewer than three
> times now with noticeably large bruises/contusions on his face. First
> there was the enormous bandage he sported in the dark days of the
> 'hanging chads.' Then there were the obvious contusions late in the year
> that would have gone without mention were it not for a reporter's
> question; only then did the White House hurriedly issue a claim that
> Bush had had lesions removed from his face.
> And then we were treated to the sublimely comical story that our
> fearless leader lost consciousness while snacking on a pretzel and fell
> face-first into a coffee table (I could make a cheap joke here about the
> 'leader of the free world' being unable to watch TV and chew pretzels at
> the same time, but will refrain from doing so). And we were told that
> this is actually a very common occurrence.
> Say what? In what parallel universe is this a common occurrence?
> What exactly is going on behind closed doors on Pennsylvania Avenue?
> Is Poppy Bush trying to slap some sense into his brain-addled
> youngster? Is George hitting the bottle a little too hard ... just
> before hitting the floor? Is Stepford-wife Laura a closet dominatrix who
> sometimes gets a little carried away ("Goddamnit, Laura! How many times
> do I have to tell you? ... stay away from the face!")? Something is
> obviously not quite right here.
> The media though doesn't seem to find anything unusual about the
> George and Dick Show. Nary a question has been raised about what exactly
> Cheney is doing in his 'secure' location. Bush's incoherent mumblings,
> brain-deadening jingoism, and stunning lack of knowledge about any issue
> of any significance are somehow presented as though the man has
> magically assumed presidential stature unequaled in U.S. history.
> What the hell is going on here?
> For the most part, just business-as-usual as the media performs
> its time-honored role of covering-up for the inadequacies and crimes of
> our 'elected' leaders. Yet it has become bizarrely surreal as the press
> struggles mightily to continue performing that function even while faced
> with an administration both arrogant and criminal almost beyond human
> comprehension.
> How are we to digest the events of the last year? - the
> wholesale theft of a presidential election, the massive give-aways to
> the largest and most corrupt corporations in the country, the largely
> unexplained and completely uninvestigated September 11 attacks, the
> declaration of open-ended war on much of the world, the rapidly
> escalating attacks on civil liberties and privacy rights ....
> Millions are surely struggling to make sense of their world as
> the full extent of the corruption of the American political, economic
> and legal systems is increasingly laid bare. Denial is a fierce weapon,
> but it does have its limits - even when aided and abetted by a 'mental
> health' community that hands out MK-ULTRA-derived anti-anxiety and
> anti-depressant drugs like Halloween candy.
> How are we to make sense of a vast sea of media outlets all
> shouting the same lies and all failing to ask the most obvious of
> questions? How are we to account for an allegedly thriving 'alternative'
> press that takes at face value the official version of the events of
> September 11 - pretending not to notice the gaping holes in the story?
> And how are we to make sense of the fact that the leading voices of the
> supposed 'left' have questioned the events of 9-11 only in terms of
> so-called 'blowback,' carefully avoiding questioning the underlying
> assumption that "Osama did it"?
> And how long can we cling to the futile hope that the Democratic
> Party is somehow going to ride to the rescue and get us out of this
> mess? The party whose two standard-bearers, "Animatronic Al" Gore and
> Joe "Jews for Fascism" Lieberman, have openly cheered the 'War on
> Terrorism,' all but demanded its expansion into Iraq, endorsed the
> preposterous notion of an 'Axis of Evil,' and given favorable reviews to
> America's new nuclear 'Posture'? The party whose congressional members,
> in both houses, have embraced nearly every reactionary appointment by
> the Bush regime, signed on to every openly fascistic 'security' measure
> that has come their way, given a huge thumbs-up to virtually unlimited
> military spending, and failed completely to voice even the tiniest
> protest over the flagrant theft of the election or to launch any sort of
> an investigation into the events of September 11?
> And those are just a few of the Democratic Party's recent sins.
>
> Of course, our learned opinion-shapers insist that the
> Democrats' hands are tied - hampered by the massive public support
> behind the Bush agenda. Opinion polls, brought to you by the very same
> media to whom lying is an art form, keep insisting that to be the case.
> And I have a couple of towers in New York that I can let you have for a
> real good price ....
> The truth is that the Democratic Party, quite frankly, offers no
> resistance to the Bush juggernaut because they differ from their
> Republican counterparts only in that they give slightly more lip-service
> to social issues. And that, of course, is only posturing for public
> consumption.
> Changing the party in charge of the White House and/or Congress
> isn't going to significantly alter the agenda. Everyone of any
> importance in Washington is on-board the war train for the long haul.
> And the notion that the war is being prolonged just to gain a Republican
> advantage in the 2002 and 2004 elections, propagated by many a
> pseudo-dissident journalist, is pure fantasy.
> As has been made quite clear by a steady stream of official
> statements, this is a 'war' without end - a war with the goal of wiping
> out any and all pockets of resistance throughout the world, including
> here on the home front, to the corporate and military elite's vision of
> a system of global fascism, and with the parallel goal of identifying
> false enemies to keep the American people too frightened, disoriented
> and disjointed to fight back against the encroaching police state.
> Doesn't anybody read Orwell anymore?
> But I know how comforting it is to believe in the American ship
> of state. To believe in the two-party system. To believe in the
> Democratic Party as the party of the people. To believe that things will
> be OK again just as soon as the next election rolls around and we can
> get 'our' party back in charge. To believe that our obviously free press
> isn't really lying to us. To believe that 'this too shall pass,' and
> that we'll be back to 'normal' soon.
> It wasn't that long ago that I was a believer.
> But that was before I joined the ranks of those who inhabit a
> strange, hallucinatory world that is roughly akin to waking up every
> morning finding yourself trapped in a cheesy sci-fi film. Clicking on
> the TV, you find that the same lies that you just heard the day before
> are still spewing out. Turning the channel, you discover that everyone
> is telling the same lies, in the same way, using the same catch-phrases
> as though if everyone repeats them they somehow acquire some kind of
> inherent meaning.
> No matter how many times you change the channel, all you hear is
> "war on terrorism ... axis of evil ... rule of law ... evil-doers ...
> weapons of mass destruction ... enduring freedom ... 9-11 ... 9-11 ...
> 9-11 ... "
> You briefly ponder whether you might be a victim of some kind of
> practical joke - an unwitting participant in some kind of new 'reality
> show.' But then you find that everyone else seems to believe the lies,
> or at least they pretend to. Could they all be in on the joke? And if
> this isn't a joke, then how come you seem to be the only one who can see
> so clearly that the emperor has no clothes?
> You hear on the news that the key witness in the biggest
> financial scandal in the nation's history has been found shot to death
> in his car not long before he is to begin delivering his testimony.
> "Holy shit!" you say, "they're killing off witnesses in broad daylight."
> But no, the somber newscasters all intone, it was an unfortunate
> suicide.
> "Ha!" you say, "nobody's going to believe that one. The shit is
> really going to fly now." You remember back to when Vince Foster
> supposedly committed suicide, and how the 'liberal' media had a field
> day with the story. "Payback's a bitch," you say to yourself. "The
> Dumbocrats are going to get some mileage out of this one."
> But nobody says a word. No one on Capitol Hill, no one in the
> press corps. You mention to some co-workers that the suicide story
> sounds a little suspect, and they look at you as though you are wearing
> an "I Love Osama" button on your lapel as they robotically ask you if
> you've been to see Black Hawk Down yet. Realizing that you've blown your
> cover, you start nervously watching out of the corner of your eye for
> the goon squad to arrive and send you happily on your way to Guantanamo.
>
> The Enron scandal, you quickly realize, is not going to be
> seriously investigated - just as the coup-like nature of the election
> wasn't investigated, and just as the 'terrorist' attacks on Washington
> and New York aren't being investigated, and just like the anthrax
> attacks, so obviously timed to ratchet up the level of fear and outrage
> among the American people, aren't being investigated.
> You absent-mindedly take note of the 'terrorist alert' warning
> color for the day as you ponder when this extended acid trip began and
> if and when it is going to end. What will it take to wake the American
> people up to the fact that there is something seriously wrong with this
> picture?
> The mounting of a coup d'etat in that diseased appendage known
> as Florida didn't do it (2). Nor did the Supreme Court arrogantly ruling
> that the American people have no right to have their votes counted in a
> presidential election (3). Nor the revelation that the Bush regime -
> itself a shamelessly illegal, unconstitutionally-assembled government -
> has established an even more illegal, secret and unaccountable 'shadow'
> government. And neither did the fact that military tribunals have been
> proscribed that have the authority to hand down anonymous death
> sentences based on secret evidence presented by government-appointed
> lawyers.
> The indefinite detention of 'suspects,' held without charges in
> undisclosed locations and largely deprived of legal counsel, didn't do
> it. Nor the open talk of torturing these same 'suspects.' Nor the open
> admissions of an emerging surveillance infrastructure that goes far
> beyond anything Orwell ever envisioned. Nor even the deliberate leaking
> of the country's sociopathic 'Nuclear Posture Review.' And, as we have
> seen repeatedly in the past, mercilessly bombing yet another civilian
> population in yet another oil-driven military venture certainly didn't
> do it.
> Is the control too complete - control not just of information,
> but of thought? Are we so blinded by propaganda, and so desperately
> clinging to the basic human desire to view ourselves as the good guys,
> that we are fundamentally incapable of taking an objective look at the
> world we live in? Can the government get away with literally any lie, no
> matter how brazen? Is there no hope?
> Or is the script of this particular Roger Corman flick somewhat
> different than what it appears to be?
> What if you're not the only sane person left in a world gone
> mad? What if there are millions of others out there, all harboring
> serious doubts about the increasingly unpalatable servings of 'news' we
> are being dished-up? And what if the number of such individuals is
> growing every day?
> What if the constant touting of Bush's alleged popularity is all
> part of a well-orchestrated psy-war campaign aimed at stifling dissent
> by intimidating doubters in the crowd into keeping their opinions to
> themselves, lest they be viewed as clinically insane for failing to
> interpret reality in the same way that everyone else purportedly does?
>
> A campaign designed to make you feel, in other words, precisely
> as you now do: alone, isolated, frustrated, powerless, frightened and
> confused. A part of that campaign seems to involve, amazingly enough,
> efforts to taunt you - to rub in your face your utter powerlessness - by
> dropping tantalizing hints along the way, as though you are being dared
> to do something about it.
> Wasn't it, after all, France's Le Figaro that dropped that
> little bombshell about bin Laden meeting a CIA operative in a Dubai
> hospital room shortly before September 11? And isn't Le Figaro owned by
> the Carlyle Group, whose investors and principals include the Bushes,
> the bin Ladens, and various ranking members of the national security
> infrastructure?
> And wasn't it that mouthpiece of the far-right, the Wall Street
> Journal, that dropped the story about the stock market manipulations
> that occurred in the days immediately preceding the September 11
> attacks?
> And wasn't it a vice-president of the New Mexico Institute of
> Mining and Technology, itself a fully-integrated part of the
> military/intelligence complex, who initially identified the collapse of
> the World Trade Center towers as controlled implosions?
> And wasn't it James Bamford (a man with uncomfortably close
> connections to numerous NSA operatives), working with Doubleday (a
> publisher not known for bringing the work of dissident authors to
> light), whose book - released just five months before 9-11 - revealed
> the details of 'Operation Northwoods' - a purported anti-Cuban operation
> involving a staged provocation with marked similarities to the events of
> September 11?
> And what of the obviously deliberate, and curiously
> well-publicized, leaks of the so-called Nuclear Posture Review, of the
> existence of Dick's 'shadow' government, and of the proposed Ministry of
> Propaganda*? Why leave all these crumbs scattered along the evidence
> trail?
> It's a little something the spooks like to call 'Mind War' -
> more commonly known on the streets as 'fucking with your head.' They
> want you to feel as though you are stuck in the Twilight Zone. I believe
> Mr. Orwell referred to it as a state of "controlled insanity."
> But even with the endless blizzard of propaganda - coming
> straight at you from all directions, including from virtually every
> avenue of the media, 'news' and 'entertainment' alike - there are clear
> indications emerging that there is considerably more dissent out there,
> considerably more questions being raised, than we are being led to
> believe.
> As just one indication, several commentators have noted that
> Michael Moore's new book, Stupid White Men, is selling like hotcakes,
> despite the fact that conventional wisdom holds that there is currently
> no market for what is reportedly a fairly harsh assessment of America
> under a Bush.
> Perhaps a more significant measure of the level of discontent
> and frustration among the American people was reflected in the
> shockingly low turnout for the recent California gubernatorial primary.
> As the Los Angeles Times reported:
> "After the terrorists struck and the buildings fell, Americans
> united in a surge of patriotism not seen in a generation. On Tuesday in
> California, citizens were asked to join in what may be the most
> patriotic ritual of all, the celebration of democracy known as voting.
> Two out of three registered voters were no-shows." (4)
> The article also noted that many eligible voters didn't even
> bother to register. The net result was that nearly four out of five
> eligible California voters opted not to cast a vote in the March
> primary. The Times further noted that the California election was a
> continuation of a post-September 11 trend:
> "In Washington, for instance, turnout for the November general
> election - which featured two ballot initiatives on taxes - was 13
> percentage points below the 1999 figure. Virginia and New Jersey elected
> governors in November, and turnout was down about 3% and 7%,
> respectively, from the previous governor's races in 1997.
> "In Georgia, meanwhile, a special election to fill a state
> Senate seat was decided by just 3% of the electorate: 'It's always low
> in specials, but we usually get 15%,' lamented Georgia's director of
> elections, Linda Beazley. 'This is dismal. What's wrong with our
> voters?'" (4)
> A concerted effort is made by the Times reporter to offer up any
> number of excuses for the dismal voter turnout. But three words in the
> article, uttered by a small-business owner in Fresno, pretty much said
> it all: "Politics are crooked." Or, to elaborate just a bit - a large
> majority of citizens recognize that voting - when presented with
> hand-picked, interchangeable candidates - is not a true exercise of
> democracy, but rather an exercise in futility.
> Perhaps one of the clearest indications that large sectors of
> the American electorate aren't buying the mainstream-media line is the
> fact that the decades-long effort to discredit and marginalize those
> dissidents derisively referred to as 'conspiracy theorists' has been
> stepped-up dramatically in recent months, by both the corporate media
> and the self-proclaimed 'alternative' press.
> Prominent among those heaping derision on 'conspiracy theories'
> is The Nation's David Corn. Among other inanities, a piece penned by
> Corn makes the rather remarkable claim that: "Simply put, the spies and
> special agents are not good enough, evil enough, or gutsy enough to
> mount this operation ... Such an operation -- to execute the
> simultaneous destruction of the two towers, a piece of the Pentagon, and
> four airplanes and make it appear as if it all was done by another party
> -- is far beyond the skill level of U.S. intelligence." (5)
> No ... an operation of that sort would clearly require a
> loosely-organized band of poorly-equipped cave-dwellers.
> There's no way that the largest and most well-funded
> intelligence network the world has ever seen could pull off something
> like that. They may be capable of rigging foreign elections, routinely
> plotting and carrying out assassinations and coups, and 'destabilizing'
> the economies and political structures of various hapless nations, but
> it clearly strains credulity to posit that they could hijack a few
> planes.
> They may have an enormous, secret and unaccountable budget,
> 'front' companies and organizations set up in every corner of the globe,
> and prominent mouthpieces installed throughout academia, the media, the
> legal community, the mental health community, the entertainment
> community, the medical community, and pretty much every other community
> that is in a position to influence public opinion; and they may control
> proxy armies and fascist (though certainly not 'terrorist') cells around
> the world, and they may have their very own private air force, but
> certainly no one would ever seriously suggest that such a vast
> intelligence network could pull off something of the magnitude of what
> the world saw on September 11.
> As yet another reason why alternative explanations of 9-11 are,
> in Corn's words, "absurd," "tripe," and "crap," he makes the bold claim
> that: "in the spy-world some things [are] beyond the pale." One of those
> things, insists Corn, is "kill[ing] an American citizen." (5) That would
> certainly take the wind out of the sails of many a 'conspiracy theory' -
> if it weren't a statement totally unsupported by the historical record.
>
> Corn has already been challenged in print by such writers as
> Stephen Gowans, Alex Constantine, and Michael Ruppert, who is identified
> in the Corn article as one of those who are promoting conspiracy
> theories "too silly to address." Corn has also, apparently, been
> challenged by many of his readers. In an L.A. Times opinion piece, he
> complains of the response to his missive: "I was besieged by people
> accusing me of being a CIA disinformation agent." (6) Imagine that.
> Corn ends his diatribe on an interesting note: "Perhaps there's
> a Pentagon or CIA office that churns out this material. It's mission:
> distract people from the real wrongdoing." (5) There is little doubt
> that at least some of the conspiracy theories seeking to explain the
> events of September 11 have been put out as deliberate disinformation to
> muddy the waters. But when it comes to distracting people from the "real
> wrongdoing," few allegedly progressive publications do as good a job at
> that as does the one that Corn is associated with.
> The L.A. Times piece, written by Gale Holland a few weeks after
> the Corn article was posted, is a particularly offensive attack on
> 'conspiracy theorists.' The article, entitled "Have You Heard About
> Osama's Cheez-It Stash?," is illustrated with oversized, side-by-side
> photos of Osama bin Laden and, naturally enough, Elvis Presley. The
> obvious and rather heavy-handed intent is to equate alternative
> explanations for the September 11 attacks with Elvis sightings.
> Apparently the newspaper didn't have any stock photos of any
> 'alien grays' to accompany the article.
> Holland refers dismissively to what he calls a "conspiracy
> lobby, a tiny but persistent subgroup spawned by the John F. Kennedy
> assassination" that is obsessed with "shadowy government agencies with
> Maxwell Smartish-sounding acronyms." (6)
> As for how this "persistent subgroup" views September 11,
> Holland writes that: "In the misty climes where the far left meets the
> far right, conspiracy theories have begun to dominate the 9/11 rumor
> mill. The basic premise is that President Bush/ the CIA/ Big Oil either
> planned the attacks or let them happen to secure a U.S. oil pipeline/
> take over the Middle East/ launch a one-world government." (6)
> Well ... let's see now. Is it 'conspiracy theorizing' to posit
> that Bush, the CIA and "Big Oil" would work together towards a common
> cause? Is there any political family in the country with closer and more
> extensive ties to both the CIA and the oil industry than the Bush
> family? Isn't it only stating the obvious to note that this triumvirate
> shares common interests and goals - goals that were in fact advanced as
> a result of the 'terrorist' attacks?
> As for the pipeline, it is a well-documented fact that the U.S.
> has long harbored plans to build both oil and natural gas pipelines
> through the nation of Afghanistan. (7) It is also an established fact
> that the oil companies have long coveted having a 'stable regime' (which
> is to say, a regime under the direct control of the U.S.) in place
> before committing to constructing those pipelines. (7) And it has
> already been reported that those pipeline plans, which have languished
> in recent years, have now been put on the fast track. (8)
> As for the Middle East, it certainly appears as though there is
> a major effort underway to destabilize the entire region - currently
> being spearheaded by the U.S.-armed proxy known as Israel, but likely
> soon to be coupled with a U.S. invasion of Iraq, accompanied by general
> mayhem in the area. It should also be noted that oil-rich Central Asia
> is quite obviously slated to be brought under the control of the U.S. as
> well, with troop deployments and the building of military bases in the
> region accelerating rapidly. (9)
> And as for the notion of a one-world government, what exactly
> does Holland think is the goal of all those "Maxwell Smartish-sounding
> acronyms" - the IMF, the WTO, the CFR, the TLC - if not to turn the
> planet into one global marketplace governed only by corporate
> spreadsheets - a global marketplace that can be exploited and pillaged
> to consolidate all of the world's wealth into the hands of the few?
> Even while dismissing 'conspiracy theories,' Holland obliquely
> acknowledges the implausibility of the official 9-11 story: "Faced with
> the inexplicable, we seem to take comfort in irrational
> pseudo-explanations." (6) Or perhaps, when faced with the irrational
> pseudo-explanations offered by the state, we take comfort in searching
> for a more rational, logical explanation. Or, as Gowans has written for
> Swans: "Where the official conspiracy theory is so bad, other conspiracy
> theories rush in to fill the void." (10)
> Also jumping into the conspiracy-bashing fray, the very same
> week that the L.A. Times opinion piece was published, was the allegedly
> progressive L.A. Weekly. A report by Ella Taylor purported to shed light
> on the KPFK controversy - by declaring the "jewel in [the station's]
> crown" (11) to be Marc Cooper, the 'left's' leading cheerleader for the
> 'War on Terror' and an unapologetic supporter of the Warren Report.
> Throughout the article, Taylor refers to anyone whose politics
> fall to the left of hers - which is to say, anyone who is even vaguely
> progressive - as "hard-line Marxists," the "Marxist left," the "far
> left" which spouts "vulgar Marxist doctrine," and finally as the "loony
> left." Exemplifying the "far left," according to Taylor, is "Amy
> Goodman's popular Democracy Now" - easily the most honest offering the
> station serves up.
> Singled out for derision in Taylor's tirade, as he was by both
> Corn and Holland, is Michael Ruppert, a former LAPD investigator who
> runs the From the Wilderness website (www.copvcia.com) and newsletter.
> In the Weekly piece, he is described as a "defrocked cop" and a "nutball
> conspiracy theorist." That title is bestowed upon him for the sin of
> having compiled a timeline of occurrences in the months leading up to
> September 11, drawn from respectable media sources, that all raise
> serious questions about the official version of events.
> As for Taylor's hero - Marc Cooper, one of Corn's fellow scribes
> at The Nation - she notes that he "has received hundreds of e-mails
> insinuating that he survived the coup in Chile because he's a CIA agent
> who plotted the murder of his boss, Salvador Allende." (11) Imagine
> that.
> The conspiracy debunkers are striking on other fronts as well. A
> website billing itself as the Urban Legends Reference Pages
> (www.snopes2.com) has skyrocketed in popularity in the post-9-11 world,
> largely due to numerous citations in the print and broadcast media
> (Holland's L.A. Times piece references the site twice). Along with
> purportedly debunking so-called 'urban legends,' the site has focused
> its attention of late on various September 11 'conspiracy theories.'
> On television, cable's TNN premiered its new Conspiracy Zone in
> January 2002. The primary purpose of the show appears to be to make
> 'conspiracy theorists' the butt of jokes by the show's marginally
> talented host, Kevin Nealon, and by the show's almost entirely
> untalented celebrity guests, such as Gabe "Welcome Back, Kotter" Kaplan
> and Adam "The Man Show" Carrolla.
> The most recent airing of the show, on March 31, 2002, featured
> an appearance by, of all people, Mike Ruppert - to discuss the 1968
> assassination of Robert Kennedy. Every effort was made to discredit the
> facts brought to the table by Ruppert (who came very well prepared), but
> the ringer brought in for the job, Ann Coulter, was clearly outclassed
> and reduced to repeatedly making the asinine assertion that
> "million-to-one coincidences" actually occur millions of times every
> day, and so we should expect to find numerous oddities and discrepancies
> littered throughout the RFK evidence.
> Coulter is, by the way, the very same reprehensible individual
> who recently wrote in the National Review that America's response to the
> perpetrators of September 11 should be to "invade their countries, kill
> their leaders and convert them to Christianity." More recently, princess
> Ann has been quoted as saying: "In contemplating college liberals, you
> really regret, once again, that John Walker is not getting the death
> penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to
> physically intimidate liberals by making them realize that they could be
> killed, too. Otherwise they will turn out into outright traitors." (12)
> Talk about your "nutballs" ...
> The question that needs to be raised here is: why is all this
> energy being expended to discredit 'conspiracy theorists'? If we're just
> talking here about a few "nutballs" preaching to a "tiny subgroup," then
> why all the fuss? What possible threat to the purportedly rock-solid
> American system could such a marginalized group pose?
> As anyone who has ever published material in this country that
> falls outside of the boundaries of acceptable dissent can tell you, the
> first response of the power structure is not to attack the messenger -
> it is to ignore the messenger. If the publication receives no mention by
> the media, if it garners no reviews and - as is virtually always the
> case - the publisher lacks the resources and/or the opportunities to
> market the work, then for all intents and purposes the published
> material does not exist.
> It is only if and when the information manages to find an
> audience despite the obstacles erected, despite being ignored in the
> hopes that it would just go away, that the second line of defense kicks
> in: destroy, by any means necessary, the credibility of the source.
> We can only conclude from this then that 'conspiracy theories'
> are beginning to reach a much wider, and much more receptive, audience
> than the boys in Washington are comfortable with. And that which can't
> be ignored must be destroyed. Coupled with the depressed voter turnouts
> and the apparent hunger by the American people for books critical of the
> current agenda, it begins to look as though there may be a considerable
> amount of dissent bubbling just beneath America's tranquil surface.
> That simmering anger and frustration can be gauged in another
> way as well - by perusing the e-mails that are pouring in to websites
> that offer alternative 9-11 scenarios. The confusion, anger and fear is
> palpable in such mailings. They frequently begin something like this: "I
> have never considered myself to be a conspiracy theorist, but .... "
> The desperation evident in such mailings is striking, as
> respondents struggle mightily to find answers to questions they never
> thought they would be asking. One such letter, drawn from my own
> mailbag, captures quite eloquently the spirit of such letter writers. It
> is reproduced here just as it was received:
> "I am 52 years old, an Episcopal nun (formerly a professional
> musician and, before quitting my day job, a math teacher) and the
> executive director of a small non-profit organization - an interfaith
> meditation center. I'm a pretty mainstream sort of person - liberal on
> most issues and conservative on a few. I'm moderately well educated
> (master's degree), reasonably well read, and considerably well traveled
> - having studied some in England and worked for years in both Ireland
> and South Africa as well as various parts of the United States. Until
> quite recently I considered "conspiracy theorists" to be, at best,
> pathetically misguided and, more likely, suffering from paranoid
> delusions. I don't know what was the wake up call for me after September
> 11. Maybe it was Dan Rather prostituting himself on the Dave Letterman
> show. Maybe it was Time Magazine's photograph of Osama Bin Laden in evil
> red. Maybe it was watching unprecedented war powers handed to the
> executive branch with only one congressperson daring to utter a lone
> plea for moderation that hardly qualifies as dissent. Maybe it was that
> implosion of the towers that looked suspect from the get-go. I'm the
> only person I know who has actually read huge chunks of that so-called
> "Patriot's Act" and it makes my blood run cold. I knew then that I was
> watching a coup inexorably unfold and I'm sick at heart.
> "I've only talked about any of this with one trusted colleague
> who warned me that I was starting to sound like those crackpots who
> think the moon landings were faked. I don't dare tell him that I'm
> actually having my serious doubts about that too. (Why haven't we gone
> back in 30 years? Why has no other nation duplicated the feat?)
> "I'm wondering if I'm losing it or finally seeing clearly. The
> magnitude of it all is devastating. The "cognitive dissonance" is
> horribly painful. I understand why people turn off their faculties for
> critical thought and inquiry; they want to be able to sleep in their
> beds in reasonable peace.
> "What do you propose that ordinary people like me actually do? I
> currently live in a very conservative part of the country where the
> flag-waving jingoism is nauseating."
> E-mails such as this pile up in my in-box day after day, week
> after week - awaiting answers that are difficult to come by. What,
> indeed, can ordinary people do to reverse the course we are on? How are
> we to begin to fight back against a system that few seem to even
> recognize as an enemy of the people?
> The best advice that I can offer at this time to all those who
> currently inhabit The Twilight Zone is to let your voices be heard. Stop
> biting your tongues and begging off from engaging in political debates.
> You just may find that there are other non-believers around you who are
> just waiting for someone else to break the ice.
> As much as appearances may suggest otherwise, you are not alone.
> There are many other non-believers out there, but they too are
> intimidated into silence. You will only find them if you have the
> courage to speak up - if you refuse to be cowed by the propaganda war.
> Only then can grass-roots organizing begin to take shape.
> Alone, you are powerless. But you don't have to be alone.
> Gale Holland concluded his L.A. Times opinion piece with the
> following words: "Getting at the truth is tough, accepting it can be
> harder still. Paranoia is a lot easier." (6) Getting at the truth is
> indeed tough. And accepting it may be one of the hardest things that you
> ever do. But it is not paranoia that is easier; it is complacent
> acceptance of the inexplicable.
> The unfortunate reality though is that there isn't time for
> complacent acceptance. We don't have the luxury of taking the easy
> route. And maybe, just maybe, there are enough quiet dissenters out
> there to make a difference. And maybe, just maybe, our fearless leaders
> have overstepped this time - overestimated the level of lies and
> corruption that they can get away with.
> Those are, alas, very big 'maybes.' But now is certainly not the
> time to throw in the towel by standing mute. The stakes are far too
> high. Our children and grandchildren have to grow up in this world that
> is being created for them. They deserve far better. For their sake, it
> is time for all the non-believers to stand up and be counted. And to
> refuse to sit back down until our voices are heard. The clock is ticking
> ....
>
> * All of these leaks were, notably, disinformational. The premise of the
> Nuclear Posture Review, for instance, was that America's eagerness to
> unleash nuclear weapons came about in response to the September 11
> attacks. Earlier documents reveal, however, that the United States has
> been itching to cross the nuclear threshold since long before last
> September. The reports of the establishment of a 'shadow' government
> implied that America hasn't long been run from behind the curtain. And
> the uproar over the proposed establishment of a disinformation ministry
> served to cloak the fact that the overwhelming majority of the news we
> already get is government approved disinformation/propaganda.
>
> REFERENCES
> 1. Martin Lee "Reality Bites: The Campaign Issue That Wasn't," San
> Francisco Bay Guardian, November 13, 2000
> 2. David McGowan "The Unelectable Son: Parts I, II, and III," The Center
> for an Informed America, November 10, 15, and 28, 2000
> 3. David McGowan "A Supreme Injustice: Parts I, II, and III," The Center
> for an Informed America, December 4, 12, and 13, 2000
> 4. Jenifer Warren "Election Turnout Hit a New Low," Los Angeles Times,
> March 8, 2002
> 5. David Corn "When 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Go Bad," ZNet, March 1,
> 2002
> 6. Gale Holland "Have You Heard About Osama's Cheez-It Stash?," Los
> Angeles Times, March 24, 2002
> 7. "Testimony by John J. Maresca, Vice President, International
> Relations, Unocal Corporation to House Committee on International
> Relations, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific," February 12, 1998,
> Washington, D.C.
> 8. Daniel Fisher "Afghanistan: Oil Execs Revive Pipeline From Hell,"
> Forbes.Com, February 4, 2002
> 9. Patrick Martin "US bases pave the way for long-term intervention in
> Central Asia," World Socialist Web Site, January 11, 2002
> 10. Stephen Gowans "Conspiracy Theory as Received Wisdom," Swans, March
> 25, 2002
> 11. Ella Taylor "Family Feud: The Left Eats Its Own at KPFK," L.A.
> Weekly, March 22-28, 2002
> 12. Patrick Martin "Conference of US right-wingers hears call to execute
> John Walker," World Socialist Web Site, February 27, 2002
>
> Hey folks... this is almost a month old, but still a fascinating,
> disturbing, humourous, etc. read... and one of those sites on my
> alternative web site list that sends regular postings... and I thought
> this was worth forwarding... If you haven't gotten The List previously,
> I'd be happy to send it along. regards, Mike ... and pardon if you got
> two copies.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: dave@davesweb.cnchost.com
> Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 11:15 AM
> Subject: "America Through The Looking Glass"
>
>
> Greetings from the Center for an Informed America! Please forward this
> message widely. If this message was forwarded to you and you would like
> to receive future mailings, e-mail a request to be added to this mailing
> list.
> This article comes courtesy of Swans. The original is at:
> http://www.swans.com/library/art8/dmg001.html
>
>
> America Through The Looking Glass
> by David McGowan
> April 8, 2002
> In the immortal words of Lewis Carroll, things are getting curiouser and
> curiouser. If there has ever been a more bizarre presidential team in
> place at the White House at any other time in U.S. history, it doesn't
> immediately come to mind.
> Consider, if you will, that we have a vice-president (and I use
> that term rather loosely) who has all but disappeared from public view
> without any kind of credible explanation having been given to the
> American people. It appeared at first as though Cheney's vanishing act
> was a temporary and cynical ploy that would allow George the Younger to
> appear as though he were actually running the show.
> But six months have now passed and Dick has only been whipped
> out for a few passing photo-ops (and to do some arm-twisting in the
> Middle-East). Never before, even during times of World or Civil War, has
> such secrecy and security ever been deemed necessary. What possible
> explanation can there be for this? What credible threats is the
> vice-president facing?
> The only possible danger that Cheney could find himself in would
> be facing impeachment proceedings for, among other things, his
> involvement in the Enron scandal and his questionable dealings with Iraq
> (1). But that of course could only happen if we had a Congress that
> wasn't as fully corrupt as the White House team that they are supposed
> to provide checks and balances on.
> Consider also that we have a president (and I use that term even
> more loosely) who is so intellectually challenged that before even
> losing the election he had already issued enough verbal gaffes to fill a
> book or two. He seemingly cannot open his mouth to utter an unscripted
> response without lapsing into almost complete incoherence, as though he
> received his English instruction via home-schooling by his dad.
> On top of that, he has appeared in public no fewer than three
> times now with noticeably large bruises/contusions on his face. First
> there was the enormous bandage he sported in the dark days of the
> 'hanging chads.' Then there were the obvious contusions late in the year
> that would have gone without mention were it not for a reporter's
> question; only then did the White House hurriedly issue a claim that
> Bush had had lesions removed from his face.
> And then we were treated to the sublimely comical story that our
> fearless leader lost consciousness while snacking on a pretzel and fell
> face-first into a coffee table (I could make a cheap joke here about the
> 'leader of the free world' being unable to watch TV and chew pretzels at
> the same time, but will refrain from doing so). And we were told that
> this is actually a very common occurrence.
> Say what? In what parallel universe is this a common occurrence?
> What exactly is going on behind closed doors on Pennsylvania Avenue?
> Is Poppy Bush trying to slap some sense into his brain-addled
> youngster? Is George hitting the bottle a little too hard ... just
> before hitting the floor? Is Stepford-wife Laura a closet dominatrix who
> sometimes gets a little carried away ("Goddamnit, Laura! How many times
> do I have to tell you? ... stay away from the face!")? Something is
> obviously not quite right here.
> The media though doesn't seem to find anything unusual about the
> George and Dick Show. Nary a question has been raised about what exactly
> Cheney is doing in his 'secure' location. Bush's incoherent mumblings,
> brain-deadening jingoism, and stunning lack of knowledge about any issue
> of any significance are somehow presented as though the man has
> magically assumed presidential stature unequaled in U.S. history.
> What the hell is going on here?
> For the most part, just business-as-usual as the media performs
> its time-honored role of covering-up for the inadequacies and crimes of
> our 'elected' leaders. Yet it has become bizarrely surreal as the press
> struggles mightily to continue performing that function even while faced
> with an administration both arrogant and criminal almost beyond human
> comprehension.
> How are we to digest the events of the last year? - the
> wholesale theft of a presidential election, the massive give-aways to
> the largest and most corrupt corporations in the country, the largely
> unexplained and completely uninvestigated September 11 attacks, the
> declaration of open-ended war on much of the world, the rapidly
> escalating attacks on civil liberties and privacy rights ....
> Millions are surely struggling to make sense of their world as
> the full extent of the corruption of the American political, economic
> and legal systems is increasingly laid bare. Denial is a fierce weapon,
> but it does have its limits - even when aided and abetted by a 'mental
> health' community that hands out MK-ULTRA-derived anti-anxiety and
> anti-depressant drugs like Halloween candy.
> How are we to make sense of a vast sea of media outlets all
> shouting the same lies and all failing to ask the most obvious of
> questions? How are we to account for an allegedly thriving 'alternative'
> press that takes at face value the official version of the events of
> September 11 - pretending not to notice the gaping holes in the story?
> And how are we to make sense of the fact that the leading voices of the
> supposed 'left' have questioned the events of 9-11 only in terms of
> so-called 'blowback,' carefully avoiding questioning the underlying
> assumption that "Osama did it"?
> And how long can we cling to the futile hope that the Democratic
> Party is somehow going to ride to the rescue and get us out of this
> mess? The party whose two standard-bearers, "Animatronic Al" Gore and
> Joe "Jews for Fascism" Lieberman, have openly cheered the 'War on
> Terrorism,' all but demanded its expansion into Iraq, endorsed the
> preposterous notion of an 'Axis of Evil,' and given favorable reviews to
> America's new nuclear 'Posture'? The party whose congressional members,
> in both houses, have embraced nearly every reactionary appointment by
> the Bush regime, signed on to every openly fascistic 'security' measure
> that has come their way, given a huge thumbs-up to virtually unlimited
> military spending, and failed completely to voice even the tiniest
> protest over the flagrant theft of the election or to launch any sort of
> an investigation into the events of September 11?
> And those are just a few of the Democratic Party's recent sins.
>
> Of course, our learned opinion-shapers insist that the
> Democrats' hands are tied - hampered by the massive public support
> behind the Bush agenda. Opinion polls, brought to you by the very same
> media to whom lying is an art form, keep insisting that to be the case.
> And I have a couple of towers in New York that I can let you have for a
> real good price ....
> The truth is that the Democratic Party, quite frankly, offers no
> resistance to the Bush juggernaut because they differ from their
> Republican counterparts only in that they give slightly more lip-service
> to social issues. And that, of course, is only posturing for public
> consumption.
> Changing the party in charge of the White House and/or Congress
> isn't going to significantly alter the agenda. Everyone of any
> importance in Washington is on-board the war train for the long haul.
> And the notion that the war is being prolonged just to gain a Republican
> advantage in the 2002 and 2004 elections, propagated by many a
> pseudo-dissident journalist, is pure fantasy.
> As has been made quite clear by a steady stream of official
> statements, this is a 'war' without end - a war with the goal of wiping
> out any and all pockets of resistance throughout the world, including
> here on the home front, to the corporate and military elite's vision of
> a system of global fascism, and with the parallel goal of identifying
> false enemies to keep the American people too frightened, disoriented
> and disjointed to fight back against the encroaching police state.
> Doesn't anybody read Orwell anymore?
> But I know how comforting it is to believe in the American ship
> of state. To believe in the two-party system. To believe in the
> Democratic Party as the party of the people. To believe that things will
> be OK again just as soon as the next election rolls around and we can
> get 'our' party back in charge. To believe that our obviously free press
> isn't really lying to us. To believe that 'this too shall pass,' and
> that we'll be back to 'normal' soon.
> It wasn't that long ago that I was a believer.
> But that was before I joined the ranks of those who inhabit a
> strange, hallucinatory world that is roughly akin to waking up every
> morning finding yourself trapped in a cheesy sci-fi film. Clicking on
> the TV, you find that the same lies that you just heard the day before
> are still spewing out. Turning the channel, you discover that everyone
> is telling the same lies, in the same way, using the same catch-phrases
> as though if everyone repeats them they somehow acquire some kind of
> inherent meaning.
> No matter how many times you change the channel, all you hear is
> "war on terrorism ... axis of evil ... rule of law ... evil-doers ...
> weapons of mass destruction ... enduring freedom ... 9-11 ... 9-11 ...
> 9-11 ... "
> You briefly ponder whether you might be a victim of some kind of
> practical joke - an unwitting participant in some kind of new 'reality
> show.' But then you find that everyone else seems to believe the lies,
> or at least they pretend to. Could they all be in on the joke? And if
> this isn't a joke, then how come you seem to be the only one who can see
> so clearly that the emperor has no clothes?
> You hear on the news that the key witness in the biggest
> financial scandal in the nation's history has been found shot to death
> in his car not long before he is to begin delivering his testimony.
> "Holy shit!" you say, "they're killing off witnesses in broad daylight."
> But no, the somber newscasters all intone, it was an unfortunate
> suicide.
> "Ha!" you say, "nobody's going to believe that one. The shit is
> really going to fly now." You remember back to when Vince Foster
> supposedly committed suicide, and how the 'liberal' media had a field
> day with the story. "Payback's a bitch," you say to yourself. "The
> Dumbocrats are going to get some mileage out of this one."
> But nobody says a word. No one on Capitol Hill, no one in the
> press corps. You mention to some co-workers that the suicide story
> sounds a little suspect, and they look at you as though you are wearing
> an "I Love Osama" button on your lapel as they robotically ask you if
> you've been to see Black Hawk Down yet. Realizing that you've blown your
> cover, you start nervously watching out of the corner of your eye for
> the goon squad to arrive and send you happily on your way to Guantanamo.
>
> The Enron scandal, you quickly realize, is not going to be
> seriously investigated - just as the coup-like nature of the election
> wasn't investigated, and just as the 'terrorist' attacks on Washington
> and New York aren't being investigated, and just like the anthrax
> attacks, so obviously timed to ratchet up the level of fear and outrage
> among the American people, aren't being investigated.
> You absent-mindedly take note of the 'terrorist alert' warning
> color for the day as you ponder when this extended acid trip began and
> if and when it is going to end. What will it take to wake the American
> people up to the fact that there is something seriously wrong with this
> picture?
> The mounting of a coup d'etat in that diseased appendage known
> as Florida didn't do it (2). Nor did the Supreme Court arrogantly ruling
> that the American people have no right to have their votes counted in a
> presidential election (3). Nor the revelation that the Bush regime -
> itself a shamelessly illegal, unconstitutionally-assembled government -
> has established an even more illegal, secret and unaccountable 'shadow'
> government. And neither did the fact that military tribunals have been
> proscribed that have the authority to hand down anonymous death
> sentences based on secret evidence presented by government-appointed
> lawyers.
> The indefinite detention of 'suspects,' held without charges in
> undisclosed locations and largely deprived of legal counsel, didn't do
> it. Nor the open talk of torturing these same 'suspects.' Nor the open
> admissions of an emerging surveillance infrastructure that goes far
> beyond anything Orwell ever envisioned. Nor even the deliberate leaking
> of the country's sociopathic 'Nuclear Posture Review.' And, as we have
> seen repeatedly in the past, mercilessly bombing yet another civilian
> population in yet another oil-driven military venture certainly didn't
> do it.
> Is the control too complete - control not just of information,
> but of thought? Are we so blinded by propaganda, and so desperately
> clinging to the basic human desire to view ourselves as the good guys,
> that we are fundamentally incapable of taking an objective look at the
> world we live in? Can the government get away with literally any lie, no
> matter how brazen? Is there no hope?
> Or is the script of this particular Roger Corman flick somewhat
> different than what it appears to be?
> What if you're not the only sane person left in a world gone
> mad? What if there are millions of others out there, all harboring
> serious doubts about the increasingly unpalatable servings of 'news' we
> are being dished-up? And what if the number of such individuals is
> growing every day?
> What if the constant touting of Bush's alleged popularity is all
> part of a well-orchestrated psy-war campaign aimed at stifling dissent
> by intimidating doubters in the crowd into keeping their opinions to
> themselves, lest they be viewed as clinically insane for failing to
> interpret reality in the same way that everyone else purportedly does?
>
> A campaign designed to make you feel, in other words, precisely
> as you now do: alone, isolated, frustrated, powerless, frightened and
> confused. A part of that campaign seems to involve, amazingly enough,
> efforts to taunt you - to rub in your face your utter powerlessness - by
> dropping tantalizing hints along the way, as though you are being dared
> to do something about it.
> Wasn't it, after all, France's Le Figaro that dropped that
> little bombshell about bin Laden meeting a CIA operative in a Dubai
> hospital room shortly before September 11? And isn't Le Figaro owned by
> the Carlyle Group, whose investors and principals include the Bushes,
> the bin Ladens, and various ranking members of the national security
> infrastructure?
> And wasn't it that mouthpiece of the far-right, the Wall Street
> Journal, that dropped the story about the stock market manipulations
> that occurred in the days immediately preceding the September 11
> attacks?
> And wasn't it a vice-president of the New Mexico Institute of
> Mining and Technology, itself a fully-integrated part of the
> military/intelligence complex, who initially identified the collapse of
> the World Trade Center towers as controlled implosions?
> And wasn't it James Bamford (a man with uncomfortably close
> connections to numerous NSA operatives), working with Doubleday (a
> publisher not known for bringing the work of dissident authors to
> light), whose book - released just five months before 9-11 - revealed
> the details of 'Operation Northwoods' - a purported anti-Cuban operation
> involving a staged provocation with marked similarities to the events of
> September 11?
> And what of the obviously deliberate, and curiously
> well-publicized, leaks of the so-called Nuclear Posture Review, of the
> existence of Dick's 'shadow' government, and of the proposed Ministry of
> Propaganda*? Why leave all these crumbs scattered along the evidence
> trail?
> It's a little something the spooks like to call 'Mind War' -
> more commonly known on the streets as 'fucking with your head.' They
> want you to feel as though you are stuck in the Twilight Zone. I believe
> Mr. Orwell referred to it as a state of "controlled insanity."
> But even with the endless blizzard of propaganda - coming
> straight at you from all directions, including from virtually every
> avenue of the media, 'news' and 'entertainment' alike - there are clear
> indications emerging that there is considerably more dissent out there,
> considerably more questions being raised, than we are being led to
> believe.
> As just one indication, several commentators have noted that
> Michael Moore's new book, Stupid White Men, is selling like hotcakes,
> despite the fact that conventional wisdom holds that there is currently
> no market for what is reportedly a fairly harsh assessment of America
> under a Bush.
> Perhaps a more significant measure of the level of discontent
> and frustration among the American people was reflected in the
> shockingly low turnout for the recent California gubernatorial primary.
> As the Los Angeles Times reported:
> "After the terrorists struck and the buildings fell, Americans
> united in a surge of patriotism not seen in a generation. On Tuesday in
> California, citizens were asked to join in what may be the most
> patriotic ritual of all, the celebration of democracy known as voting.
> Two out of three registered voters were no-shows." (4)
> The article also noted that many eligible voters didn't even
> bother to register. The net result was that nearly four out of five
> eligible California voters opted not to cast a vote in the March
> primary. The Times further noted that the California election was a
> continuation of a post-September 11 trend:
> "In Washington, for instance, turnout for the November general
> election - which featured two ballot initiatives on taxes - was 13
> percentage points below the 1999 figure. Virginia and New Jersey elected
> governors in November, and turnout was down about 3% and 7%,
> respectively, from the previous governor's races in 1997.
> "In Georgia, meanwhile, a special election to fill a state
> Senate seat was decided by just 3% of the electorate: 'It's always low
> in specials, but we usually get 15%,' lamented Georgia's director of
> elections, Linda Beazley. 'This is dismal. What's wrong with our
> voters?'" (4)
> A concerted effort is made by the Times reporter to offer up any
> number of excuses for the dismal voter turnout. But three words in the
> article, uttered by a small-business owner in Fresno, pretty much said
> it all: "Politics are crooked." Or, to elaborate just a bit - a large
> majority of citizens recognize that voting - when presented with
> hand-picked, interchangeable candidates - is not a true exercise of
> democracy, but rather an exercise in futility.
> Perhaps one of the clearest indications that large sectors of
> the American electorate aren't buying the mainstream-media line is the
> fact that the decades-long effort to discredit and marginalize those
> dissidents derisively referred to as 'conspiracy theorists' has been
> stepped-up dramatically in recent months, by both the corporate media
> and the self-proclaimed 'alternative' press.
> Prominent among those heaping derision on 'conspiracy theories'
> is The Nation's David Corn. Among other inanities, a piece penned by
> Corn makes the rather remarkable claim that: "Simply put, the spies and
> special agents are not good enough, evil enough, or gutsy enough to
> mount this operation ... Such an operation -- to execute the
> simultaneous destruction of the two towers, a piece of the Pentagon, and
> four airplanes and make it appear as if it all was done by another party
> -- is far beyond the skill level of U.S. intelligence." (5)
> No ... an operation of that sort would clearly require a
> loosely-organized band of poorly-equipped cave-dwellers.
> There's no way that the largest and most well-funded
> intelligence network the world has ever seen could pull off something
> like that. They may be capable of rigging foreign elections, routinely
> plotting and carrying out assassinations and coups, and 'destabilizing'
> the economies and political structures of various hapless nations, but
> it clearly strains credulity to posit that they could hijack a few
> planes.
> They may have an enormous, secret and unaccountable budget,
> 'front' companies and organizations set up in every corner of the globe,
> and prominent mouthpieces installed throughout academia, the media, the
> legal community, the mental health community, the entertainment
> community, the medical community, and pretty much every other community
> that is in a position to influence public opinion; and they may control
> proxy armies and fascist (though certainly not 'terrorist') cells around
> the world, and they may have their very own private air force, but
> certainly no one would ever seriously suggest that such a vast
> intelligence network could pull off something of the magnitude of what
> the world saw on September 11.
> As yet another reason why alternative explanations of 9-11 are,
> in Corn's words, "absurd," "tripe," and "crap," he makes the bold claim
> that: "in the spy-world some things [are] beyond the pale." One of those
> things, insists Corn, is "kill[ing] an American citizen." (5) That would
> certainly take the wind out of the sails of many a 'conspiracy theory' -
> if it weren't a statement totally unsupported by the historical record.
>
> Corn has already been challenged in print by such writers as
> Stephen Gowans, Alex Constantine, and Michael Ruppert, who is identified
> in the Corn article as one of those who are promoting conspiracy
> theories "too silly to address." Corn has also, apparently, been
> challenged by many of his readers. In an L.A. Times opinion piece, he
> complains of the response to his missive: "I was besieged by people
> accusing me of being a CIA disinformation agent." (6) Imagine that.
> Corn ends his diatribe on an interesting note: "Perhaps there's
> a Pentagon or CIA office that churns out this material. It's mission:
> distract people from the real wrongdoing." (5) There is little doubt
> that at least some of the conspiracy theories seeking to explain the
> events of September 11 have been put out as deliberate disinformation to
> muddy the waters. But when it comes to distracting people from the "real
> wrongdoing," few allegedly progressive publications do as good a job at
> that as does the one that Corn is associated with.
> The L.A. Times piece, written by Gale Holland a few weeks after
> the Corn article was posted, is a particularly offensive attack on
> 'conspiracy theorists.' The article, entitled "Have You Heard About
> Osama's Cheez-It Stash?," is illustrated with oversized, side-by-side
> photos of Osama bin Laden and, naturally enough, Elvis Presley. The
> obvious and rather heavy-handed intent is to equate alternative
> explanations for the September 11 attacks with Elvis sightings.
> Apparently the newspaper didn't have any stock photos of any
> 'alien grays' to accompany the article.
> Holland refers dismissively to what he calls a "conspiracy
> lobby, a tiny but persistent subgroup spawned by the John F. Kennedy
> assassination" that is obsessed with "shadowy government agencies with
> Maxwell Smartish-sounding acronyms." (6)
> As for how this "persistent subgroup" views September 11,
> Holland writes that: "In the misty climes where the far left meets the
> far right, conspiracy theories have begun to dominate the 9/11 rumor
> mill. The basic premise is that President Bush/ the CIA/ Big Oil either
> planned the attacks or let them happen to secure a U.S. oil pipeline/
> take over the Middle East/ launch a one-world government." (6)
> Well ... let's see now. Is it 'conspiracy theorizing' to posit
> that Bush, the CIA and "Big Oil" would work together towards a common
> cause? Is there any political family in the country with closer and more
> extensive ties to both the CIA and the oil industry than the Bush
> family? Isn't it only stating the obvious to note that this triumvirate
> shares common interests and goals - goals that were in fact advanced as
> a result of the 'terrorist' attacks?
> As for the pipeline, it is a well-documented fact that the U.S.
> has long harbored plans to build both oil and natural gas pipelines
> through the nation of Afghanistan. (7) It is also an established fact
> that the oil companies have long coveted having a 'stable regime' (which
> is to say, a regime under the direct control of the U.S.) in place
> before committing to constructing those pipelines. (7) And it has
> already been reported that those pipeline plans, which have languished
> in recent years, have now been put on the fast track. (8)
> As for the Middle East, it certainly appears as though there is
> a major effort underway to destabilize the entire region - currently
> being spearheaded by the U.S.-armed proxy known as Israel, but likely
> soon to be coupled with a U.S. invasion of Iraq, accompanied by general
> mayhem in the area. It should also be noted that oil-rich Central Asia
> is quite obviously slated to be brought under the control of the U.S. as
> well, with troop deployments and the building of military bases in the
> region accelerating rapidly. (9)
> And as for the notion of a one-world government, what exactly
> does Holland think is the goal of all those "Maxwell Smartish-sounding
> acronyms" - the IMF, the WTO, the CFR, the TLC - if not to turn the
> planet into one global marketplace governed only by corporate
> spreadsheets - a global marketplace that can be exploited and pillaged
> to consolidate all of the world's wealth into the hands of the few?
> Even while dismissing 'conspiracy theories,' Holland obliquely
> acknowledges the implausibility of the official 9-11 story: "Faced with
> the inexplicable, we seem to take comfort in irrational
> pseudo-explanations." (6) Or perhaps, when faced with the irrational
> pseudo-explanations offered by the state, we take comfort in searching
> for a more rational, logical explanation. Or, as Gowans has written for
> Swans: "Where the official conspiracy theory is so bad, other conspiracy
> theories rush in to fill the void." (10)
> Also jumping into the conspiracy-bashing fray, the very same
> week that the L.A. Times opinion piece was published, was the allegedly
> progressive L.A. Weekly. A report by Ella Taylor purported to shed light
> on the KPFK controversy - by declaring the "jewel in [the station's]
> crown" (11) to be Marc Cooper, the 'left's' leading cheerleader for the
> 'War on Terror' and an unapologetic supporter of the Warren Report.
> Throughout the article, Taylor refers to anyone whose politics
> fall to the left of hers - which is to say, anyone who is even vaguely
> progressive - as "hard-line Marxists," the "Marxist left," the "far
> left" which spouts "vulgar Marxist doctrine," and finally as the "loony
> left." Exemplifying the "far left," according to Taylor, is "Amy
> Goodman's popular Democracy Now" - easily the most honest offering the
> station serves up.
> Singled out for derision in Taylor's tirade, as he was by both
> Corn and Holland, is Michael Ruppert, a former LAPD investigator who
> runs the From the Wilderness website (www.copvcia.com) and newsletter.
> In the Weekly piece, he is described as a "defrocked cop" and a "nutball
> conspiracy theorist." That title is bestowed upon him for the sin of
> having compiled a timeline of occurrences in the months leading up to
> September 11, drawn from respectable media sources, that all raise
> serious questions about the official version of events.
> As for Taylor's hero - Marc Cooper, one of Corn's fellow scribes
> at The Nation - she notes that he "has received hundreds of e-mails
> insinuating that he survived the coup in Chile because he's a CIA agent
> who plotted the murder of his boss, Salvador Allende." (11) Imagine
> that.
> The conspiracy debunkers are striking on other fronts as well. A
> website billing itself as the Urban Legends Reference Pages
> (www.snopes2.com) has skyrocketed in popularity in the post-9-11 world,
> largely due to numerous citations in the print and broadcast media
> (Holland's L.A. Times piece references the site twice). Along with
> purportedly debunking so-called 'urban legends,' the site has focused
> its attention of late on various September 11 'conspiracy theories.'
> On television, cable's TNN premiered its new Conspiracy Zone in
> January 2002. The primary purpose of the show appears to be to make
> 'conspiracy theorists' the butt of jokes by the show's marginally
> talented host, Kevin Nealon, and by the show's almost entirely
> untalented celebrity guests, such as Gabe "Welcome Back, Kotter" Kaplan
> and Adam "The Man Show" Carrolla.
> The most recent airing of the show, on March 31, 2002, featured
> an appearance by, of all people, Mike Ruppert - to discuss the 1968
> assassination of Robert Kennedy. Every effort was made to discredit the
> facts brought to the table by Ruppert (who came very well prepared), but
> the ringer brought in for the job, Ann Coulter, was clearly outclassed
> and reduced to repeatedly making the asinine assertion that
> "million-to-one coincidences" actually occur millions of times every
> day, and so we should expect to find numerous oddities and discrepancies
> littered throughout the RFK evidence.
> Coulter is, by the way, the very same reprehensible individual
> who recently wrote in the National Review that America's response to the
> perpetrators of September 11 should be to "invade their countries, kill
> their leaders and convert them to Christianity." More recently, princess
> Ann has been quoted as saying: "In contemplating college liberals, you
> really regret, once again, that John Walker is not getting the death
> penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to
> physically intimidate liberals by making them realize that they could be
> killed, too. Otherwise they will turn out into outright traitors." (12)
> Talk about your "nutballs" ...
> The question that needs to be raised here is: why is all this
> energy being expended to discredit 'conspiracy theorists'? If we're just
> talking here about a few "nutballs" preaching to a "tiny subgroup," then
> why all the fuss? What possible threat to the purportedly rock-solid
> American system could such a marginalized group pose?
> As anyone who has ever published material in this country that
> falls outside of the boundaries of acceptable dissent can tell you, the
> first response of the power structure is not to attack the messenger -
> it is to ignore the messenger. If the publication receives no mention by
> the media, if it garners no reviews and - as is virtually always the
> case - the publisher lacks the resources and/or the opportunities to
> market the work, then for all intents and purposes the published
> material does not exist.
> It is only if and when the information manages to find an
> audience despite the obstacles erected, despite being ignored in the
> hopes that it would just go away, that the second line of defense kicks
> in: destroy, by any means necessary, the credibility of the source.
> We can only conclude from this then that 'conspiracy theories'
> are beginning to reach a much wider, and much more receptive, audience
> than the boys in Washington are comfortable with. And that which can't
> be ignored must be destroyed. Coupled with the depressed voter turnouts
> and the apparent hunger by the American people for books critical of the
> current agenda, it begins to look as though there may be a considerable
> amount of dissent bubbling just beneath America's tranquil surface.
> That simmering anger and frustration can be gauged in another
> way as well - by perusing the e-mails that are pouring in to websites
> that offer alternative 9-11 scenarios. The confusion, anger and fear is
> palpable in such mailings. They frequently begin something like this: "I
> have never considered myself to be a conspiracy theorist, but .... "
> The desperation evident in such mailings is striking, as
> respondents struggle mightily to find answers to questions they never
> thought they would be asking. One such letter, drawn from my own
> mailbag, captures quite eloquently the spirit of such letter writers. It
> is reproduced here just as it was received:
> "I am 52 years old, an Episcopal nun (formerly a professional
> musician and, before quitting my day job, a math teacher) and the
> executive director of a small non-profit organization - an interfaith
> meditation center. I'm a pretty mainstream sort of person - liberal on
> most issues and conservative on a few. I'm moderately well educated
> (master's degree), reasonably well read, and considerably well traveled
> - having studied some in England and worked for years in both Ireland
> and South Africa as well as various parts of the United States. Until
> quite recently I considered "conspiracy theorists" to be, at best,
> pathetically misguided and, more likely, suffering from paranoid
> delusions. I don't know what was the wake up call for me after September
> 11. Maybe it was Dan Rather prostituting himself on the Dave Letterman
> show. Maybe it was Time Magazine's photograph of Osama Bin Laden in evil
> red. Maybe it was watching unprecedented war powers handed to the
> executive branch with only one congressperson daring to utter a lone
> plea for moderation that hardly qualifies as dissent. Maybe it was that
> implosion of the towers that looked suspect from the get-go. I'm the
> only person I know who has actually read huge chunks of that so-called
> "Patriot's Act" and it makes my blood run cold. I knew then that I was
> watching a coup inexorably unfold and I'm sick at heart.
> "I've only talked about any of this with one trusted colleague
> who warned me that I was starting to sound like those crackpots who
> think the moon landings were faked. I don't dare tell him that I'm
> actually having my serious doubts about that too. (Why haven't we gone
> back in 30 years? Why has no other nation duplicated the feat?)
> "I'm wondering if I'm losing it or finally seeing clearly. The
> magnitude of it all is devastating. The "cognitive dissonance" is
> horribly painful. I understand why people turn off their faculties for
> critical thought and inquiry; they want to be able to sleep in their
> beds in reasonable peace.
> "What do you propose that ordinary people like me actually do? I
> currently live in a very conservative part of the country where the
> flag-waving jingoism is nauseating."
> E-mails such as this pile up in my in-box day after day, week
> after week - awaiting answers that are difficult to come by. What,
> indeed, can ordinary people do to reverse the course we are on? How are
> we to begin to fight back against a system that few seem to even
> recognize as an enemy of the people?
> The best advice that I can offer at this time to all those who
> currently inhabit The Twilight Zone is to let your voices be heard. Stop
> biting your tongues and begging off from engaging in political debates.
> You just may find that there are other non-believers around you who are
> just waiting for someone else to break the ice.
> As much as appearances may suggest otherwise, you are not alone.
> There are many other non-believers out there, but they too are
> intimidated into silence. You will only find them if you have the
> courage to speak up - if you refuse to be cowed by the propaganda war.
> Only then can grass-roots organizing begin to take shape.
> Alone, you are powerless. But you don't have to be alone.
> Gale Holland concluded his L.A. Times opinion piece with the
> following words: "Getting at the truth is tough, accepting it can be
> harder still. Paranoia is a lot easier." (6) Getting at the truth is
> indeed tough. And accepting it may be one of the hardest things that you
> ever do. But it is not paranoia that is easier; it is complacent
> acceptance of the inexplicable.
> The unfortunate reality though is that there isn't time for
> complacent acceptance. We don't have the luxury of taking the easy
> route. And maybe, just maybe, there are enough quiet dissenters out
> there to make a difference. And maybe, just maybe, our fearless leaders
> have overstepped this time - overestimated the level of lies and
> corruption that they can get away with.
> Those are, alas, very big 'maybes.' But now is certainly not the
> time to throw in the towel by standing mute. The stakes are far too
> high. Our children and grandchildren have to grow up in this world that
> is being created for them. They deserve far better. For their sake, it
> is time for all the non-believers to stand up and be counted. And to
> refuse to sit back down until our voices are heard. The clock is ticking
> ....
>
> * All of these leaks were, notably, disinformational. The premise of the
> Nuclear Posture Review, for instance, was that America's eagerness to
> unleash nuclear weapons came about in response to the September 11
> attacks. Earlier documents reveal, however, that the United States has
> been itching to cross the nuclear threshold since long before last
> September. The reports of the establishment of a 'shadow' government
> implied that America hasn't long been run from behind the curtain. And
> the uproar over the proposed establishment of a disinformation ministry
> served to cloak the fact that the overwhelming majority of the news we
> already get is government approved disinformation/propaganda.
>
> REFERENCES
> 1. Martin Lee "Reality Bites: The Campaign Issue That Wasn't," San
> Francisco Bay Guardian, November 13, 2000
> 2. David McGowan "The Unelectable Son: Parts I, II, and III," The Center
> for an Informed America, November 10, 15, and 28, 2000
> 3. David McGowan "A Supreme Injustice: Parts I, II, and III," The Center
> for an Informed America, December 4, 12, and 13, 2000
> 4. Jenifer Warren "Election Turnout Hit a New Low," Los Angeles Times,
> March 8, 2002
> 5. David Corn "When 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Go Bad," ZNet, March 1,
> 2002
> 6. Gale Holland "Have You Heard About Osama's Cheez-It Stash?," Los
> Angeles Times, March 24, 2002
> 7. "Testimony by John J. Maresca, Vice President, International
> Relations, Unocal Corporation to House Committee on International
> Relations, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific," February 12, 1998,
> Washington, D.C.
> 8. Daniel Fisher "Afghanistan: Oil Execs Revive Pipeline From Hell,"
> Forbes.Com, February 4, 2002
> 9. Patrick Martin "US bases pave the way for long-term intervention in
> Central Asia," World Socialist Web Site, January 11, 2002
> 10. Stephen Gowans "Conspiracy Theory as Received Wisdom," Swans, March
> 25, 2002
> 11. Ella Taylor "Family Feud: The Left Eats Its Own at KPFK," L.A.
> Weekly, March 22-28, 2002
> 12. Patrick Martin "Conference of US right-wingers hears call to execute
> John Walker," World Socialist Web Site, February 27, 2002
>