A year or two ago, I saw the much-touted science fiction film Interstellar , and although the plot wasn't any good, one early scene was quite amusing. For various reasons, the American government of the future claimed that our Moon Landings of the late 1960s had been faked, a trick aimed at winning the Cold War by bankrupting Russia into fruitless space efforts of its own. This inversion of historical reality was accepted as true by nearly everyone, and those few people who claimed that Neil Armstrong had indeed set foot on the Moon were universally ridiculed as "crazy conspiracy theorists." This seems a realistic portrayal of human nature to me.

Obviously, a large fraction of everything described by our government leaders or presented in the pages of our most respectable newspapers-from the 9/11 attacks to the most insignificant local case of petty urban corruption-could objectively be categorized as a "conspiracy theory" but such words are never applied. Instead, use of that highly loaded phrase is reserved for those theories, whether plausible or fanciful, that do not possess the endorsement stamp of establishmentarian approval.

Put another way, there are good "conspiracy theories" and bad "conspiracy theories," with the former being the ones promoted by pundits on mainstream television shows and hence never described as such. I've sometimes joked with people that if ownership and control of our television stations and other major media outlets suddenly changed, the new information regime would require only a few weeks of concerted effort to totally invert all of our most famous "conspiracy theories" in the minds of the gullible American public. The notion that nineteen Arabs armed with box-cutters hijacked several jetliners, easily evaded our NORAD air defenses, and reduced several landmark buildings to rubble would soon be universally ridiculed as the most preposterous "conspiracy theory" ever to have gone straight from the comic books into the minds of the mentally ill, easily surpassing the absurd "lone gunman" theory of the JFK assassination.

Even without such changes in media control, huge shifts in American public beliefs have frequently occurred in the recent past, merely on the basis of implied association. In the initial weeks and months following the 2001 attacks, every American media organ was enlisted to denounce and vilify Osama Bin Laden, the purported Islamicist master-mind, as our greatest national enemy, with his bearded visage endlessly appearing on television and in print, soon becoming one of the most recognizable faces in the world. But as the Bush Administration and its key media allies prepared a war against Iraq, the images of the Burning Towers were instead regularly juxtaposed with mustachioed photos of dictator Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden's arch-enemy. As a consequence, by the time we attacked Iraq in 2003, polls revealed that some 70% of the American public believed that Saddam was personally involved in the destruction of our World Trade Center. By that date I don't doubt that many millions of patriotic but low-information Americans would have angrily denounced and vilified as a "crazy conspiracy theorist" anyone with the temerity to suggest that Saddam had not been behind 9/11, despite almost no one in authority having ever explicitly made such a fallacious claim.

These factors of media manipulation were very much in my mind a couple of years ago when I stumbled across a short but fascinating book published by the University of Texas academic press. The author of Conspiracy Theory in America was Prof. Lance deHaven-Smith, a former president of the Florida Political Science Association.

Based on an important FOIA disclosure, the book's headline revelation was that the CIA was very likely responsible for the widespread introduction of "conspiracy theory" as a term of political abuse, having orchestrated that development as a deliberate means of influencing public opinion.

During the mid-1960s there had been increasing public skepticism about the Warren Commission findings that a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, had been solely responsible for President Kennedy's assassination, and growing suspicions that top-ranking American leaders had also been involved. So as a means of damage control, the CIA distributed a secret memo to all its field offices requesting that they enlist their media assets in efforts to ridicule and attack such critics as irrational supporters of "conspiracy theories." Soon afterward, there suddenly appeared statements in the media making those exact points, with some of the wording, arguments, and patterns of usage closely matching those CIA guidelines. The result was a huge spike in the pejorative use of the phrase, which spread throughout the American media, with the residual impact continuing right down to the present day. Thus, there is considerable evidence in support of this particular "conspiracy theory" explaining the widespread appearance of attacks on "conspiracy theories" in the public media.

But although the CIA appears to have effectively manipulated public opinion in order to transform the phrase "conspiracy theory" into a powerful weapon of ideological combat, the author also describes how the necessary philosophical ground had actually been prepared a couple of decades earlier. Around the time of the Second World War, an important shift in political theory caused a huge decline in the respectability of any "conspiratorial" explanation of historical events.

For decades prior to that conflict, one of our most prominent scholars and public intellectuals had been historian Charles Beard , whose influential writings had heavily focused on the harmful role of various elite conspiracies in shaping American policy for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many, with his examples ranging from the earliest history of the United States down to the nation's entry into WWI. Obviously, researchers never claimed that all major historical events had hidden causes, but it was widely accepted that some of them did, and attempting to investigate those possibilities was deemed a perfectly acceptable academic enterprise.

However, Beard was a strong opponent of American entry into the Second World War, and he was marginalized in the years that followed, even prior to his death in 1948. Many younger public intellectuals of a similar bent also suffered the same fate, or were even purged from respectability and denied any access to the mainstream media. At the same time, the totally contrary perspectives of two European political philosophers, Karl Popper and Leo Strauss , gradually gained ascendancy in American intellectual circles, and their ideas became dominant in public life.

Popper, the more widely influential, presented broad, largely theoretical objections to the very possibility of important conspiracies ever existing, suggesting that these would be implausibly difficult to implement given the fallibility of human agents; what might appear a conspiracy actually amounted to individual actors pursuing their narrow aims. Even more importantly, he regarded "conspiratorial beliefs" as an extremely dangerous social malady, a major contributing factor to the rise of Nazism and other deadly totalitarian ideologies. His own background as an individual of Jewish ancestry who had fled Austria in 1937 surely contributed to the depth of his feelings on these philosophical matters.

Meanwhile, Strauss, a founding figure in modern neo-conservative thought, was equally harsh in his attacks upon conspiracy analysis, but for polar-opposite reasons. In his mind, elite conspiracies were absolutely necessary and beneficial, a crucial social defense against anarchy or totalitarianism, but their effectiveness obviously depended upon keeping them hidden from the prying eyes of the ignorant masses. His main problem with "conspiracy theories" was not that they were always false, but they might often be true, and therefore their spread was potentially disruptive to the smooth functioning of society. So as a matter of self-defense, elites needed to actively suppress or otherwise undercut the unauthorized investigation of suspected conspiracies.

Even for most educated Americans, theorists such as Beard, Popper, and Strauss are probably no more than vague names mentioned in textbooks, and that was certainly true in my own case. But while the influence of Beard seems to have largely disappeared in elite circles, the same is hardly true of his rivals. Popper probably ranks as one of the founders of modern liberal thought, with an individual as politically influential as left-liberal financier George Soros claiming to be his intellectual disciple . Meanwhile, the neo-conservative thinkers who have totally dominated the Republican Party and the Conservative Movement for the last couple of decades often proudly trace their ideas back to Strauss.

So, through a mixture of Popperian and Straussian thinking, the traditional American tendency to regard elite conspiracies as a real but harmful aspect of our society was gradually stigmatized as either paranoid or politically dangerous, laying the conditions for its exclusion from respectable discourse.

By 1964, this intellectual revolution had largely been completed, as indicated by the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the famous article by political scientist Richard Hofstadter critiquing the so-called "paranoid style" in American politics , which he denounced as the underlying cause of widespread popular belief in implausible conspiracy theories. To a considerable extent, he seemed to be attacking straw men, recounting and ridiculing the most outlandish conspiratorial beliefs, while seeming to ignore the ones that had been proven correct. For example, he described how some of the more hysterical anti-Communists claimed that tens of thousands of Red Chinese troops were hidden in Mexico, preparing an attack on San Diego, while he failed to even acknowledge that for years Communist spies had indeed served near the very top of the U.S. government. Not even the most conspiratorially minded individual suggests that all alleged conspiracies are true, merely that some of them might be.

Most of these shifts in public sentiment occurred before I was born or when I was a very young child, and my own views were shaped by the rather conventional media narratives that I absorbed. Hence, for nearly my entire life, I always automatically dismissed all of the so-called "conspiracy theories" as ridiculous, never once even considering that any of them might possibly be true.

To the extent that I ever thought about the matter, my reasoning was simple and based on what seemed like good, solid common sense. Any conspiracy responsible for some important public event must surely have many separate "moving parts" to it, whether actors or actions taken, let us say numbering at least 100 or more. Now given the imperfect nature of all attempts at concealment, it would surely be impossible for all of these to be kept entirely hidden. So even if a conspiracy were initially 95% successful in remaining undetected, five major clues would still be left in plain sight for investigators to find. And once the buzzing cloud of journalists noticed these, such blatant evidence of conspiracy would certainly attract an additional swarm of energetic investigators, tracing those items back to their origins, with more pieces gradually being uncovered until the entire cover-up likely collapsed. Even if not all the crucial facts were ever determined, at least the simple conclusion that there had indeed been some sort of conspiracy would quickly become established.

However, there was a tacit assumption in my reasoning, one that I have since decided was entirely false. Obviously, many potential conspiracies either involve powerful governmental officials or situations in which their disclosure would represent a source of considerable embarrassment to such individuals. But I had always assumed that even if government failed in its investigatory role, the dedicated bloodhounds of the Fourth Estate would invariably come through, tirelessly seeking truth, ratings, and Pulitzers. However, once I gradually began realizing that the media was merely "Our American Pravda" and perhaps had been so for decades, I suddenly recognized the flaw in my logic. If those five-or ten or twenty or fifty-initial clues were simply ignored by the media, whether through laziness, incompetence, or much less venial sins, then there would be absolutely nothing to prevent successful conspiracies from taking place and remaining undetected, perhaps even the most blatant and careless ones.

In fact, I would extend this notion to a general principle. Substantial control of the media is almost always an absolute prerequisite for any successful conspiracy, the greater the degree of control the better. So when weighing the plausibility of any conspiracy, the first matter to investigate is who controls the local media and to what extent.

Let us consider a simple thought-experiment. For various reasons these days, the entire American media is extraordinarily hostile to Russia, certainly much more so than it ever was toward the Communist Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s. Hence I would argue that the likelihood of any large-scale Russian conspiracy taking place within the operative zone of those media organs is virtually nil. Indeed, we are constantly bombarded with stories of alleged Russian conspiracies that appear to be "false positives," dire allegations seemingly having little factual basis or actually being totally ridiculous. Meanwhile, even the crudest sort of anti-Russian conspiracy might easily occur without receiving any serious mainstream media notice or investigation.

This argument may be more than purely hypothetical. A crucial turning point in America's renewed Cold War against Russia was the passage of the 2012 Magnitsky Act by Congress, punitively targeting various supposedly corrupt Russian officials for their alleged involvement in the illegal persecution and death of an employee of Bill Browder, an American hedge-fund manager with large Russian holdings. However, there's actually quite a bit of evidence that it was Browder himself who was actually the mastermind and beneficiary of the gigantic corruption scheme, while his employee was planning to testify against him and was therefore fearful of his life for that reason. Naturally, the American media has provided scarcely a single mention of these remarkable revelations regarding what might amount to a gigantic Magnitsky Hoax of geopolitical significance.

To some extent the creation of the Internet and the vast proliferation of alternative media outlets, including my own small webzine , have somewhat altered this depressing picture. So it is hardly surprising that a very substantial fraction of the discussion dominating these Samizdat-like publications concerns exactly those subjects regularly condemned as "crazy conspiracy theories" by our mainstream media organs. Such unfiltered speculation must surely be a source of considerable irritation and worry to government officials who have long relied upon the complicity of their tame media organs to allow their serious misdeeds to pass unnoticed and unpunished. Indeed, several years ago a senior Obama Administration official argued that the free discussion of various "conspiracy theories" on the Internet was so potentially harmful that government agents should be recruited to "cognitively infiltrate" and disrupt them, essentially proposing a high-tech version of the highly controversial Cointelpro operations undertaken by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI.

Until just a few years ago I'd scarcely even heard of Charles Beard, once ranked among the towering figures of 20th century American intellectual life . But the more I've discovered the number of serious crimes and disasters that have completely escaped substantial media scrutiny, the more I wonder what other matters may still remain hidden. So perhaps Beard was correct all along in recognizing the respectability of "conspiracy theories," and we should return to his traditional American way of thinking, notwithstanding endless conspiratorial propaganda campaigns by the CIA and others to persuade us that we should dismiss such notions without any serious consideration.

For Further Reading:

Pat Casey says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 4:55 am GMT • 100 Words "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." –William Casey, CIA Director, from a first staff meeting in 1981 You can read the context of that quote according to the person who claims to be its original source here: https://www.quora.com/Did-William-Casey-CIA-Director-really-say-Well-know-our-disinformation-program-is-complete-when-everything-the-American-public-believes-is-false I think it's worth pointing out what I've never seen explained about that quote, a quote with as much currency in the conspiracy theory fever swamps as any single quote has ever had. The point of the disinformation campaign was not to manipulate the public but to manipulate the soviets. Because our CIA analysts spent so much time unriddling the soviet media, we figured their CIA analysts were doing the same thing with ours. • Replies: @AnotherLover People dismiss obviousness and redundancy, yet often both are necessary to fully paint the picture. Where you wrote: "The point of the disinformation campaign was not to manipulate the public but to manipulate the soviets" you could have been more accurate by continuing: "by manipulating the public." Ah, redundant and obvious to be sure, but more complete, no? Should it pacify the average prole to know that not even their acquiescence is desired of them, but that they are useful as a disinformation tool? Have things changed since then? Is less intelligence publicly available today? Or more? And what lessons did the CIA learn in manipulating public opinion by domestic propaganda operations in the meantime? Sure, the context of the quote adds the realism it's clearly lacking as it floats by itself surrounded by quotation marks, yet the takeaway is the same, is it not? A massive intelligence operation designed to confuse the public with the media is what we've got on the table. Let that sink in good and hard. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments



FKA Max says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 4:56 am GMT • 400 Words Mr. Unz, this study/paper might by of interest to you: emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/CONSPIRE.doc

[MORE] Note: This paper was published in Political Psychology 15: 733-744, 1994. This is the original typescript sent to the journal, it does not include any editorial changes that may have been made. The journal itself is not available online, to my knowledge. Belief in Conspiracy Theories Ted Goertzel1 Running Head: Belief in Conspiracy Theories. KEY WORDS: conspiracy theories, anomia, trust Table Three

Means Scores of Racial/Ethnic Groups on Attitude Scales

White[W] Hispanic[H] Black[B]

Scale

Belief in Conspiracies 2.5[W] 2.8[H] 3.3[B]

Anomia 3.4[W] 3.8[H] 4.1[B]

Trust 3.7[W] 3.3[H] 3.1[B]

Note: All scales varied from 1 to 5, with 3 as a neutral score. One of the most interesting discussions of the paper: It is puzzling that conspiratorial thinking has been overlooked in the extensive research on authoritarianism which has dominated quantitative work in political psychology since the 1950s. One possible explanation is that much of this work focuses on right-wing authoritarianism (Altmeyer, 1988), while conspiratorial thinking is characteristic of alienated thinkers on both the right and the left (Citrin, et al., 1975; Graumann, 1987; Berlet, 1992). Even more surprisingly, however, conspiratorial thinking has not been a focus of the efforts to measure "left-wing authoritarianism" (Stone, 1980; Eysenck, 1981; LeVasseur & Gold, 1993) or of research with the "dogmatism" concept (Rokeach, 1960) which was intended to overcome the ideological bias in authoritarianism measures.

On a more fundamental level, the difficulty with existing research traditions may be their focus on the content of beliefs rather than the res[p]ondent's cognitive processes or emotional makeup. As I have argued elsewhere (Goertzel, 1987), most studies of authoritarianism simply ask people what they believe and then assume that these beliefs must be based on underlying psychological processes which go unmeasured. Since these scales ask mostly about beliefs held by those on the right, it is not surprising that they find authoritarianism to be a right-wing phenomenon. Research with projective tests (Rothman and Lichter, 1982) and biographical materials (Goertzel, 1992), on the other hand, has confirmed that many aspects of authoritarian thinking can be found on both the left and the right. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments



Carlton Meyer says: • Website Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 5:08 am GMT • 900 Words One of the greatest conspiracy theories of our time is that Osama Bin Laden was responsible for 9-11. This is refuted by the US government, despite occasional suggestions by political leaders. From my blog, that has links: May 21, 2016 – Another 9-11 Truther

[MORE]

In my April 16th blog post, I mentioned that former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman and 9-11 Commission co-chair Bob Graham had become a "Truther", i.e. one who openly doubts the official 9-11 story. It seems the powers that be tried to shut him up. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) openly criticized the Obama administration for trying to strong-arm Graham, who is pushing to declassify 28 pages of the 9/11 report dealing with Saudi Arabia. He recounted how Rep. Gwen Graham (D-Fla.) and her father, former Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), were detained by the FBI at Dulles International Airport outside Washington. He said the FBI "took a former senator, a former governor, grabbed him in an airport, hustled him into a room with armed force to try to intimidate him into taking different positions on issues of public policy and important national policy." Last week, another Republican member of the 9-11 Commission, former Navy Secretary John F Lehman, said there was clear evidence that Saudi government employees were part of a support network for the 9/11 hijackers – an allegation, congressional officials have confirmed, that is addressed in detail in the 28 pages. Lehman said: "there was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people worked in the Saudi government."Events this past year in Syria highlighted close ties between Saudi Arabia, Israel, and our CIA The 9-11 attacks generated the "Pearl Harbor" type of anger they needed to rally the American people to support their semi-secret plan to conquer all the Arab world. Here is a summary of events for those confused by American corporate media. Al Qaeda is not an organization. It is a CIA computer database of armed Arab nationalists who violently oppose western domination of the Arab world. (Al Qaeda is Arabic for database.) This database was established by the CIA in the 1980s when our CIA trained and armed Arabs to fight the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden (OBL) was never an official leader since it has never been a real organization, although he did lead a large group of Arab nationalists who lived in Afghanistan. OBL had nothing to do with 9-11, he didn't even know about it until it was reported in the media. He was never formally accused of the attacks because there is zero evidence. OBL was a wealthy Saudi who is said to have inspired the attacks. Our government blamed a Kuwaiti, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad (pictured), and a dozen Saudis who died in the airplanes. These persons had never been to Afghanistan and are said to have planned and trained for the attacks in the Philippines, Germany, and the USA. Then why was Afghanistan invaded, and later Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, and Yemen? But we did not invade Saudi Arabia! Instead, recall that days after 9-11 several jets from our federal Justice Department rounded up Saudi suspects in the USA and flew them home before FBI agents could ask them questions. All this explains why the accused mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, has yet to go to trial almost 16 years since 9-11! He has not been allowed to speak to anyone outside the CIA Even the 9-11 Commission was not allowed to interview him. The U.S. military set up a kangaroo court at Gitmo to hold a trial many years ago, but brave military defense lawyers keep causing delays by insisting on a fair trial. It seems evidence is so "sensitive" that our CIA does not want it revealed. even in a secret military court. Whenever documents are requested by the defense, some are destroyed instead! This included all the CIA interrogations of the accused! Our media propaganda is so prevalent that nearly all Americans think OBL was the 9-11 mastermind, and since he is dead the case is closed. However, there is zero evidence of his involvement, something our government has long acknowledged. Americans watched thousands of hours of television coverage of the 9-11 attacks. Ask one if they think the accused mastermind of the attacks should be put on trial, and they'll have no idea what you are talking about. More Americans are becoming aware and demanding action, who are demeaned as crazy "truthers", which now include two former members of our government's official 9-11 Commission once tasked with investigating these crimes. The failed invasion of Syria has revealed that the Saudis, our CIA (with its defense contractor and media allies), and Israel have been working to conquer all the Arab world and control it with corruption and puppet dictators. Over the past couple years the Saudi government has changed hands and this CIA-Saudi-Israeli alliance has frayed, mostly because of failures in Syria and Yemen. Will the Saudis now be blamed for 9-11 to satisfy public demands for the truth, and to protect other conspirators? Will this lead to a CIA-Israeli coup to take over Saudi Arabia? Or will other high-level truthers surface and expose our nation's darkest secret? Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments



Lot says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 5:14 am GMT • 100 Words Given how easy it is to create a conspiracy theory, most of them will be crazy. Another problem with elite conspiracies is that elites usually do not have to act in secret because they already are in control. For Kennedy, a centrist cold warrior, his views already reflected those of elites, maybe even more so than Johnson. The other problem is that actual criminal conspiracies by elites quite often are discovered, such as Watergate and Iran Contra. • Replies: @Abraham Given how easy it is to create a conspiracy theory, most of them will be crazy. A statement that appears straight out of the CIA's playbook. Another problem with elite conspiracies is that elites usually do not have to act in secret because they already are in control. Such control does not imply they have nothing to hide, particularly when exposure of the deed would have damaging repercussions for them. For Kennedy, a centrist cold warrior, his views already reflected those of elites, maybe even more so than Johnson. It didn't reflect that of Israel's elites. After JFK's assassination, American foreign policy vis a vis Israel was completely reversed under Johnson, who hung the crew of the USS Liberty out to dry. The other problem is that actual criminal conspiracies by elites quite often are discovered, such as Watergate and Iran Contra. How is this a problem? Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments



Chief Seattle says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 5:17 am GMT • 100 Words So, a conspiracy theory is a theory without media backing. There's no better recent example of this than when the DNC emails were released by wikileaks during their convention. The story put forth was that Russian hackers were responsible, and were trying to throw the election to their buddy Trump. The evidence for this? Zero. And yet it became a plausible explanation in the media, overnight. Maybe it's true, maybe not, but if the roles had been reversed, the media would be telling its proponents to take off their tin foil hats. • Replies: @art guerrilla ahhh, but 'Russkie!/squirrel!' worked, didn't it ? ? ?

virtually NOTHING about the actual content of the emails...

what was hysterical, was a followup not too long afterwards, where pelosi 'warned' that there might be a whole raft of other emails which said bad stuff and stuff, and, um, they were -like- probably, um, all, uh, fake and stuff...

it really is a funny tragi-comedy, isn't it ? ? ?

...then why am i crying inside... , @anti_republocrat Note also that the allegations immediately become "fact" because they were reported by someone else. As Business Insider reported, "Amid mounting evidence of Russia's involvement in the hack of the Democratic National Committee...," without any specificity whatsoever as to what that "mounting evidence" was (most likely multiple reports in other media) never mind that the article goes on to quote James Clapper, "...we are not quite ready yet to make a call on attribution." WTF! Here, read it yourself: http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-dnc-hack-black-propaganda-2016-7 Totally mindless. So not only is Russia hacking, but we know it's intention is to influence US elections!!! And now their hacking voter DBs and will likely hack our vote tabulating machines. You can't make this s**t up. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments



Miro23 says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 5:20 am GMT • 300 Words The British and Americans have been the victims of conspiracies (False Flag operations) for years. For example: The Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel (headquarters of the British Mandate Government of Palestine) in which Zionist activists dressed as Arabs placed milk churns filled with explosives against the main columns of the building killing 91 people and injuring 44. Israeli prime Minister Netanyahu, attended a celebration to commemorate the event. Operation Susannah (Lavon Affair) where Israeli operatives impersonating Arabs bombed British and American cinemas, libraries and educational centers in Egypt to destabilize the country and keep British troops committed to the Middle East. Or June 8, 1967, the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty with unmarked aircraft and torpedo boats. 34 men were killed and 171 wounded, with the attack in international waters following over nine hours of close surveillance. When the ship failed to sink, the Israeli government concocted an elaborate story to cover the crime. Original plan to blame the sinking with all lives lost on the Egyptians and draw the US into the war. Or Israelis and U.S. Zionists appearing all over the most recent WTC 9/11 "Operation" with Israelis once again impersonating Arabs in a historic deception/terror action of a type that seems to carry a lot of kudos with old Israeli ex-terrorist Likudniks. Israeli agents were sent to film the historic day (as they later admitted on Israeli TV), with the celebrations including photos of themselves with a background of the burning towers where thousands of Americans were being incinerated. Iraq was destroyed as a result of 9/11 but unfortunately for the conspirators, the momentum wasn't sufficient for a general war including Iran. Also the general war would have included the nuclear angle and justified the activation of a neo-con led Emergency Regime (dictatorship) in the US enforced with the newly printed Patriot Act and Homeland Security troops – or maybe that's just another Conspiracy Theory? • Replies: @Wizard of Oz I accept that your explanation of the attack on USS Liberty is relatively plausible but another which runs it close is that Israel had to ensure that there was no proof left of the true order of events which were not in accordance with the Israeli official version. So I ask what are your sources? Likewise, if you are saying that suicidal hijackers flew planes into buildings on 9/11 but that it was organised by Mossad or other Israelis your story needs a lot of filling out and evidence to be credible. Or are you merely saying the Israelis knew what was going to

happen and let it go ahead because it could be turned to their advantage? , @Konga So true!

But you forgot the two missiles shot from a NATO naval and HQ base in Spain towards Damascus, shot down by the Russians (two weeks before the "agreement" on chemical weapons, remember?) and then attributed to Israel's drills turned wrong... , @exiled off mainstreet The Israelis learned their false flag lesson from the Nazis, who used concentration camp inmates dressed as Polish soldiers as part of a phony attack on the frontier radio station "Sender Gleiwitz" a day or so before they invaded Poland. , @WowJustWow Come on. If you're going to false-flag 9/11, you hijack one plane. Hijacking four planes is exactly the kind of plan that has too many moving parts to be sensible. And it didn't go according to plan! Only three out of four planes hit their targets. If the hijackers on United 93 had been fully subdued and found to be Israelis in funny clothes, the other three planes would have been for nothing. I can see the USS Liberty one though. I've never heard a plausible explanation for it. Reply , @Sam Shama [Oh well, a delicious sweet dish will attract a fly as much as a gourmet.] LOL. I'll compile a mental list of both. Aren't the comments missing someone btw? , Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments



smiddy says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 8:13 am GMT • 500 Words Mr. Unz's direct confrontation with this topic leads me to feel a sense of sentimentality or coming full circle as my "red-pilled" experience literally started with his The Myth of American Meritocracy a little over 2 years ago (I finally looked into the "white privilege" I was "highly exposed" to in college). Long story short, I was a lazy liberal beforehand, now a highly motivated conservative; nothing helps one get their ish together better than understanding the trajectory at which our society is heading. The Myth of American Meritocracy singularly led me to have a more open mind in understanding how non-congruent the mainstream narrative can be with man's shared universal reality, and having spent way too much time in school learning research methodology, I finally applied it via whim thereafter to criminal statistics (but we know where this story ends), then WW2, the mainstream narrative of which I grew up worshiping For someone who, when I was naive, hung on to every word one heard or read in the countless amount of hours I've spent in American history classes, for me to learn the hard way of Operation Keelhaul, the Haavara Agreement, the disease epidemic, the migrant crisis (before hand), the hand THE banksters probably played (in playing both sides), and so on, it becomes all too clear how amazingly systematically corrupt our academic system has become. Not once did I ever hear one smidgen about those extremely large plot points; they're so consistently implicitly left out of the script its terrifying. Alternating to my freshman year of high school now, when I was still naive, I complained to our just hired 22 year old (conveniently) Jewish teacher (fresh out of the Ivy League but back to sacrifice where he had graduated high school, he had always reminded us) over having to read about the Little Rock 9 and Ann Frank for literally (in my case) the 4th time (each). Point is, even when I was entirely clueless, and had no defensive instinct at all, it still didn't feel healthy to read over and over again; I was emotionally exhausted already. I accepted their stories at face value, faced the guilt, and just wanted to move on, yet according to my teacher I "lacked empathy" (so if only we were taught about how the Irish were treated in the 17th we'd be fine). It really is this kind of dwelling on the past that has been institutionalized, and its borderline brain-washing, regardless of the said tragedy's validity. There is one such particular event of WW2 that, once naive, I've personally cried over more than any other historical event easily (perhaps even more than anything subjectively experienced), much in thanks to programmed televising So what's so weird about all of this, is its like a meta-intellectual betrayal, but with all the emotional connotations of a woman who wronged you in all the worse ways (and she's inevitably waiting in seemingly every dark corner of history you delve into, thus the "endless rabbit hole" you fall through). And its this implicit brand of deceit that is patently feminine which can be inductively read from the MSM to "read the tea leaves" I could go on and on but really I initially just wanted to thank you Mr. Unz, your publication, and your current and past writing staff. I don't even want to imagine a world where I had never stumbled upon your work! Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments



JL says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 10:40 am GMT • 100 Words Perhaps the media tried too hard, were too eager to be complicit, and now they've completely lost the plot. The rise of Trump, in the face of a completely and uniformly hostile media, suggests that a large part of the American public, consciously or not, now completely rejects entire media narratives and assumes the exact opposite to be true. And they're panicking. Not knowing what to do, they double and triple down on the same fail that got them into this mess. Truly interesting times. Thanks, Mr. Unz, for your "small webzine". • Replies: @John Jeremiah Smith The rise of Trump, in the face of a completely and uniformly hostile media, suggests that a large part of the American public, consciously or not, now completely rejects entire media narratives and assumes the exact opposite to be true. And they're panicking. Are they? Or, have they simply fired the first few rounds of easily-dispatched, easily-targeted artillery? I do note that this is the most massive full-court press in support of the oligarchy that I have ever seen. But, I sense that political wars have moved from the court of public opinion and perception, into the courtyards of the moneyed elite. Inasmuch as no rich person has ever believed that he or she has enough money and power, the national political conflict is now composed solely of issues that affect the wealth and power of the 0.1%, which is itself segmented into areas of economic focus and varying forms of wealth acquisition. For example, if air transport systems threaten the wealth and power of ocean-based shipping, that competition between oligarchs will morph into politically-expressed contexts. There is absolutely no concern, anywhere within the dominion of the 0.1%, with human values, human rights, or any of that sort of ethically-principled hoo-hoo. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments



Gene Tuttle says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 10:41 am GMT • 300 Words I've often used the argument myself that conspiracies inevitably have short shelf lives in the US because it was so difficult for Americans to keep secrets. The article makes a useful point in suggesting that secret plots, even after being revealed, may nevertheless remain widely ignored. Ideology, group-think, pack journalism etc. are powerful forces, often subconsciously at work, preventing alternative theories from developing legs. Though long an admirer of Karl Popper, I hadn't strongly associated him with attacks on conspiracy theories per se. As an American "outsider" living abroad most of my adult life, I've all too often encountered those who assumed my background alone explained an argument of mine that they didn't like. Popper had hit the nail on the head when he wrote about "a widespread and dangerous fashion of our time of not taking arguments seriously, and at their face value, at least tentatively, but of seeing in them nothing but a way in which deeper irrational motives and tendencies express themselves." It was "the attitude of looking at once for the unconscious motives and determinants in the social habitat of the thinker, instead of first examining the validity of the argument itself." The powerful nazi and communist ideologies of his day assumed that one's " blood " or " class " precluded "correct" thinking. Those politically incorrect challengers to their own totalitarian weltanschauung were (to put it mildly) persecuted as conspirators. No doubt, as Ron Unz notes, Popper's personal experience "contributed the depth of his feelings" - I would say skepticism – about conspiracy claims. But the author of the " Open Society " had an open mind and I suspect he'd find the thesis reasonable that real conspiracies can both be uncovered and largely ignored because so many simply opt to ignore them. In such cases, evidence and "not taking arguments seriously" often reflects "intellectual groupieism," emotions, professional insecurities as well as venal collective interests. • Replies: @Connecticut Famer "But the author of the "Open Society" had an open mind and I suspect he'd find the thesis reasonable that real conspiracies can both be uncovered and largely ignored because so many simply opt to ignore them. In such cases, evidence and "not taking arguments seriously" often reflects "intellectual groupieism," emotions, professional insecurities as well as venal collective interests." Possibly as in the JFK case? I actually watched Lee Harvey Oswald get drilled by the man who was later identified as Jack Ruby (real surname "Rubenstein") live on television. The minute it happened and even at age 16 at the time I smelled a rat. Who was ultimately behind it all is something which I can't answer and care not to speculate upon, but to this day I remain suspicious about the circumstances surrounding Oswald's death and Ruby's subsequent dissembling. , @Bill Jones Nice try. The Manhattan Project was successfully kept secret despite its scope and the fact that it consumed 17% of the electricity production of the entire US. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments

Rehmat says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 12:03 pm GMT • 200 Words There are more so-called "conspiracy theories" claimed by the US government, CIA, and organized Jewry than the Jews may have been killed by the Nazis. The "conspiracy theorists" like the "terrorists" are chosen by the Zionist-controlled mainstream media. Like the September 11, 2001 attacks, the lie that Iran's president Ahmadinejad called, WIPE ISRAEL OFF THE MAP, is still kept alive by the Organized Jewry even though Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor admitted that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never said Iran wanted to "wipe Israel off the face of the map" in an interview with Al Jazeera in April 2012. American investigative writer and author, Robert Parry, claimed on September 19, 2009 that Ahmadinejad never denied Holocaust. He just challenged Israel and the western powers to allow an open debate to find the truth behind the Zionist Holy Cow, "Six Million Died". In reality, the only country that has been 'wiped off the map' is the 5,000-year-old Palestine by Europe's unwanted Jews. Iran's current president Dr. Hassan Rouhani like Dr. Ahmadinejad, is also blamed for denying the Zionist Holy Holocaust as parroted by Wiesel, which he never did, saying it's up to historians to decide who's lying. https://rehmat1.com/2013/09/28/holocaust-the-word-rouhani-never-uttered/ • Replies: @Moi If the Zionists can lie so much about Israeli history (e.g. The Arabs encouraged Palestinians to flee, that the Arabs were about to attack Israel in 1967, land without a people for a people without a land, etc.), one can only wonder about the official holocaust narrative of 6M dead, gas chambers, etc.). I've not read Elie Weisel's book Night, but I understand that no where does he mention gas chambers in Auschwitz.... , @dahoit The only conspiracy with legs is the 70 year old Zionist one,and the only one that matters today.

And only fellow travelers or their duped concern trolls disagree on that obvious truth.

Today's lying times says latent racism by the Danes is behind their resistance to their nation being inundated by the refugees of the zionists war of terror.

Coming from the malevolent racist scum in history,it sure wreaks of total hypocrisy,and another nail in divide and conquer.

Can one point out one synagogue or rabbinical statement condemning the 70 years of CCs and the imprisonment of Gaza?

The only Jewish opponents(outside of a few dissidents),the ultra Orthodox are considered self haters,as are the dissidents. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments



anonymous says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 12:24 pm GMT • 300 Words One conspiracy theory is that some of the wilder, more incredible notions of what may have taken place are deliberately circulated so as to muddy the waters and discredit those who question the party line. For example, outlandish claims by some that no planes were crashed on 9-11 but were really just holograms are seized upon by supposed debunkers as being representative of all skeptics, overshadowing the more reasonable types who question the narrative. This seems to be quite deliberate.

The mainstream American press is the freest in the world, we've been told endlessly, and at some point I realized that I was reading these accolades to itself in the very same press. Not the most objective source one comes to realize. Now on the internet it seems there are those who appear to fan out everywhere to influence the discussion, spread their slogans and shout down opposing ideas. Paid trolls and others? Conspiracies exist. Consider the Gulf of Tonkin fabrication which certainly involved many actors and yet the general public was kept in the dark about the real facts. The results need not be rehashed yet again. There's a streak of denial in most people. They don't want to contemplate the idea that FDR may have deliberately allowed American servicemen to die at Pearl Harbor in order to get the war he wanted. Stepping back from it all to get a long distance view one can see the patterns of deceit and manipulation all throughout American political life. It's not just incidental but rather is built in. • Replies: @SolontoCroesus Stepping back from it all to get a long distance view one can see the patterns of deceit and manipulation all throughout American political life. It's not just incidental but rather is built in. Is this built-in deceit and manipulation unique to American life, or -- beyond the usual understandings about human nature -- is the systematic or institutionalized "deceit and manipulation" present in all cultures? in western cultures? in some but not all cultures? If the lattermost, in which cultures is "deceit and manipulation" less systematic and institutionalized? Was "deceit and manipulation" institutionalized into American life from the beginning -- by the Founders, or did USA deviate from its intended path at some point? If so, at what point? How did it happen? Is there the possibility of redemption? Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments



Pat Casey says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 12:44 pm GMT • 100 Words @Emblematic I get the sense Ron's building up to something. For those who haven't seen it, can I recommend Ryan Dawson's 'War by Deception': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK6VLFdWJ4I I get the sense Ron's building up to something. One can only hope. This time he mentioned 9/11- so that base is covered; no need to say more about that than that; besides I doubt even he could add to what has already been published and posted on this site re that Big Lie. I would like to see how he weighs all the evidence on RFK's assassination, what he would be willing to call what looks like nothing as much as what MK-Ultra was about. • Replies: @anonymous Pearl Harbor (covered in "Day of Deceit") is good starting point. I strongly encourage Mr. Unz to read Robert Stinnet's book next before moving on. FDR never intended that 2,400 Americans would die there. He just thought that if Japan "struck first", he could justify our entry into WWII to the public. What's really fascinating (and almost wholly unknown) is the sequence of events and headlines from December 8 to December 11, 1941, the date Hitler declared war on the USA. While Pearl Harbor meant war with Japan, it did not necessarily guarantee war with Nazi Germany. For 72 hours, no one could be sure that Germany would declare war on us. Did FDR manipulate events post-Pearl Harbor to ensure it did happen? Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments



Wizard of Oz says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 12:44 pm GMT • 100 Words @Miro23 The British and Americans have been the victims of conspiracies (False Flag operations) for years. For example: The Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel (headquarters of the British Mandate Government of Palestine) in which Zionist activists dressed as Arabs placed milk churns filled with explosives against the main columns of the building killing 91 people and injuring 44. Israeli prime Minister Netanyahu, attended a celebration to commemorate the event. Operation Susannah (Lavon Affair) where Israeli operatives impersonating Arabs bombed British and American cinemas, libraries and educational centers in Egypt to destabilize the country and keep British troops committed to the Middle East. Or June 8, 1967, the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty with unmarked aircraft and torpedo boats. 34 men were killed and 171 wounded, with the attack in international waters following over nine hours of close surveillance. When the ship failed to sink, the Israeli government concocted an elaborate story to cover the crime. Original plan to blame the sinking with all lives lost on the Egyptians and draw the US into the war. Or Israelis and U.S. Zionists appearing all over the most recent WTC 9/11 "Operation" with Israelis once again impersonating Arabs in a historic deception/terror action of a type that seems to carry a lot of kudos with old Israeli ex-terrorist Likudniks. Israeli agents were sent to film the historic day (as they later admitted on Israeli TV), with the celebrations including photos of themselves with a background of the burning towers where thousands of Americans were being incinerated. Iraq was destroyed as a result of 9/11 but unfortunately for the conspirators, the momentum wasn't sufficient for a general war including Iran. Also the general war would have included the nuclear angle and justified the activation of a neo-con led Emergency Regime (dictatorship) in the US enforced with the newly printed Patriot Act and Homeland Security troops - or maybe that's just another Conspiracy Theory? I accept that your explanation of the attack on USS Liberty is relatively plausible but another which runs it close is that Israel had to ensure that there was no proof left of the true order of events which were not in accordance with the Israeli official version. So I ask what are your sources? Likewise, if you are saying that suicidal hijackers flew planes into buildings on 9/11 but that it was organised by Mossad or other Israelis your story needs a lot of filling out and evidence to be credible. Or are you merely saying the Israelis knew what was going to

happen and let it go ahead because it could be turned to their advantage? • Replies: @Miro23 [Sorry, long reply] The basic fact about the USS Liberty is that an American navy ship was attacked with the aim of sinking it, which is an Act of War since the ship was clearly marked. In contrast, the attacking Israeli jets and torpedo boats were unmarked (i.e. they wanted to hide their identity), so a question is why were they unmarked if this was a standard military interception? Whether the Israelis wanted to trigger a US attack on Egypt or hide their communications with regard to their attack on Syria is a secondary question. The main concern of the United States surely had to be to rescue their seamen and respond to the aggression. And, this is where the story turns really nasty. At least two rescue attempts were launched from US aircraft carriers nearby, but after the (obligatory) communication to Washington, both rescue flights were cancelled within minutes on direct orders of Secretary of Defence, Robert McNamara (source: 6th Fleet Rear Admiral Lawrence Geis speaking in confidence to the senior Liberty survivor, Naval Security Group officer, Lieutenant Commander David Lewis in a meeting requested by Geis). Surviving personnel all received strict orders not say anything to anyone about the attack. Eyewitness accounts say that 4 nuclear armed aircraft were simultaneously launched from the aircraft carrier America on the instructions of President Johnson only to be recalled when, presumably, the information came through that the Israelis had not succeeded in sinking the Liberty. Nuclear weapons were not needed to defend the Liberty. Also there was an oral history report from the American Embassy in Cairo, (now in the LBJ Library), which notes that the Embassy received an urgent message from Washington warning that Cairo was about to be bombed by US forces. An investigation led by Thomas Moorer, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff held the opinion that the Israeli motive was to draw the US into war against Egypt , through a false subterfuge of the same type as their King David Hotel bombing and Lavon Affair operations. Any rational person has to conclude that Johnson was virtually following Israeli orders, which raises the question of why? Maybe they were blackmailing him with regard to something else that was more important to him than the destruction of Cairo? 9/11 had some of the same features as other Israeli False Flag attacks against Britain and the US, such as Israelis dressed as Arabs (framed Arabs) motivated towards tricking these countries into military action against Arab states. In fact the Israeli involvement in 9/11 was much deeper and more generalized as shown in investigative reporter Christopher Bollyn's book, "Solving 9-11: The Deception That Changed the World". https://www.amazon.com/Solving-9-11-Deception-Changed-World/dp/0985322586/ref=cm_cr-mr-title 15 years later his account is supported in multiple ways from investigations in Florida (they didn't sneak in unseen – they were highly visible and got red carpet treatment with regard to visas etc. and they were completely incapable of flying the 9/11 airliners at the speeds and on the trajectories seen on the day + everyone who had contact with them was visited by the F.B.I. and told to shut up) - Source, a detailed and very interesting investigation by Daniel Hopsicker in "Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta and the 9/11 Cover-Up in Florida. https://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Terrorland-Mohamed-Cover-up-Florida/dp/0975290673/ref=cm_cr-mr-title High-rise buildings don't collapse due to fire (reason given by the US government). All high rise fire disasters have been examined in detail, with most of them much more intense than the WTC ones, and no building collapsed - let alone in 7 seconds and three on the same day. These Arabs didn't fly the jets and it's now clear that the buildings were taken down by placed explosives - the aim being to trick the US into an Iraq and Iran war and possibly launch an "Emergency" Neo-con regime (dictatorship) in the US led by Cheney and enforced by the Patriot Act/ Homeland security. The other aspect here is that a government (and media) which genuinely represented the American people would give top priority to revealing the truth about the USS Liberty and 9/11 rather than engage in the present obfuscation, blocking, threats, smears and hiding of the truth. , @Alden Re: your first question about the USS Liberty. The media covered it up completely. I was a young adult who read the newspaper every day plus Atlantic. new Republic and sometimes Newsweek.

And I never, never heard about it until 20 years later when I began reading books about Zionism I've read the book written by survivors. They were severely coerced to not say a word about it. I wouldn't be surprised if they were not threatened with death if they talked. They were in the navy remember and subject to the military code of Justice which means no ha rays corpus no access to attorneys until the trial and other nasty things. I can't have an opinion about 9/11 because there is no way I can discover the truth. Silverstein's insurance payout is just a version of a standard insurance scam. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments



SolontoCroesus says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 1:24 pm GMT • 100 Words @anonymous One conspiracy theory is that some of the wilder, more incredible notions of what may have taken place are deliberately circulated so as to muddy the waters and discredit those who question the party line. For example, outlandish claims by some that no planes were crashed on 9-11 but were really just holograms are seized upon by supposed debunkers as being representative of all skeptics, overshadowing the more reasonable types who question the narrative. This seems to be quite deliberate.

The mainstream American press is the freest in the world, we've been told endlessly, and at some point I realized that I was reading these accolades to itself in the very same press. Not the most objective source one comes to realize. Now on the internet it seems there are those who appear to fan out everywhere to influence the discussion, spread their slogans and shout down opposing ideas. Paid trolls and others?

Conspiracies exist. Consider the Gulf of Tonkin fabrication which certainly involved many actors and yet the general public was kept in the dark about the real facts. The results need not be rehashed yet again. There's a streak of denial in most people. They don't want to contemplate the idea that FDR may have deliberately allowed American servicemen to die at Pearl Harbor in order to get the war he wanted. Stepping back from it all to get a long distance view one can see the patterns of deceit and manipulation all throughout American political life. It's not just incidental but rather is built in. Stepping back from it all to get a long distance view one can see the patterns of deceit and manipulation all throughout American political life. It's not just incidental but rather is built in. Is this built-in deceit and manipulation unique to American life, or - beyond the usual understandings about human nature - is the systematic or institutionalized "deceit and manipulation" present in all cultures? in western cultures? in some but not all cultures? If the lattermost, in which cultures is "deceit and manipulation" less systematic and institutionalized? Was "deceit and manipulation" institutionalized into American life from the beginning - by the Founders, or did USA deviate from its intended path at some point? If so, at what point? How did it happen? Is there the possibility of redemption? • Replies: @Wizard of Oz It would be worth considering the different contributions to truth telling and also honest scepticism of the Puritan and other Protestant culture, and of the Enlightenment for a start. Some subjects were difficult - like whether there is a God for all Christians and of course the one that must have addled many brains: slavery. , @John Jeremiah Smith Is there the possibility of redemption? Of what is "redemption" constituted? Considering that fewer than 20% of American residents during the Revolution were actually involved in the revolt, with an estimated 40% preferring to retain the colony under monarchy, and considering that the ethical and political awareness of the Average American and the Average Illegal Resident Alien have gone downhill from there, can it honestly be said that there's enough true flavor of human rights and equal access/opportunity to redeem? , @Mulegino1 To my mind, the real point of deviation in the history of the United States is the Spanish American War, and the transformation of America from a tellurocratic to a thallasocratic power. America's traditional role had been that of a vast, continental, land based power, eschewing intervention in the affairs of Europe and the rest of the world outside the Western Hemisphere. (This is largely the reason that the Russian Czar allied with the Union in the American Civil War). Unfortunately, America's traditional tellurocratic role was abandonded - thanks to the likes of Admiral ("Victory through Sea Power") Mahan, John Hay, and the loopy Teddy Roosevelt, inter alia - and the nation went on to embrace the role of international arbiter and busybody, and became insatiable in the pursuit of empire, with catastrophic results for the world. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments

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biz says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 1:48 pm GMT • 200 Words Actually, there is no symmetry in conspiracy theories as you imply. The definition of a conspiracy theory is an explanation of events that traces them to a secret network, and when presented with contradictory evidence, simply enlarges the network of supposed conspirators rather than modifying the explanation. So, just to cite one example, all of the 9/11 controlled demolition stuff is a conspiracy theory because at first it had the government and maybe the property owners in on the secret, but then the circle of supposed conspirators was enlarged to include the editors of Popular Mechanics after they did their study. Or take the moon landing, which involved 'only' thousands of NASA people until you point out that the astronauts left mirrors on the surface of the moon in a precise location, for which astronomers around the world use laser ranging to determine the distance to the moon down to the centimeter level. So then the astronomers who claim to do this had to be added to the list of conspirators and liars for this theory to stand. Then of course the more you point out, the more people who have to get added to the conspiracy, which eventually becomes all of the television industry, and even the Soviets! That is the reason why the so-called alternative explanations for 9/11, the moon landing, the various assassinations, the safety of vaccines, etc, are conspiracy theories, while the mainstream explanations are not. • Replies: @John Jeremiah Smith The definition of a conspiracy theory is an explanation of events that traces them to a secret network, and when presented with contradictory evidence, simply enlarges the network of supposed conspirators rather than modifying the explanation. LOL x 2. I think you're saying that the above is YOUR definition of "conspiracy theory", not to be confused with any real and accurate definition of "conspiracy theory". , @zib but then the circle of supposed conspirators was enlarged to include the editors of Popular Mechanics after they did their study Nice attempt to conflate the planners and executors of the 9/11 attacks with those who run interference for the "official" history of what happened that day. PM editors aren't "conspirators" of the deed, they're just a mouthpiece for NIST. Here's a link to Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth's evisceration of Popular Mechanics hit piece against skeptics of the NIST whitewash: http://www1.ae911truth.org/en/news-section/41-articles/604-debunking-the-real-911-myths-why-popular-mechanics-cant-face-up-to-reality-part-1.html Let's see how you rationalize this one. If you have the cajones, that is. , @Boris The definition of a conspiracy theory is an explanation of events that traces them to a secret network, and when presented with contradictory evidence, simply enlarges the network of supposed conspirators rather than modifying the explanation. This is a fairly useful definition, and certainly highlights some of the pathological reasoning that is associated with conspiracy theories. However, not all conspiracy theories will exhibit this characteristic. Conspiracies like 9/11 that rely on scientific facts are sometimes rationalized this way, but other conspiracies are built on suspect witness testimony or a biased interpretation and don't require an ever-widening conspiracy. , Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments

Decius says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 2:22 pm GMT • 600 Words Your characterization of Strauss on conspiracy has almost no basis in anything Strauss actually wrote. I would bet that you are presenting a dumbed -down and inaccurate version of Shadia Drury's books on Strauss, which are themselves abysmally inaccurate and libelous about Strauss. The only place Strauss discusses conspiracy thematically that I can recall–and I have read all his books several times, and still read them; have/do you?–is on Thoughts on Machiavelli . Strauss does so, first and foremost, because conspiracy is a major theme of Machiavelli's and the subject of the two longest chapters of his two most important books ( Prince 19 and Discourses III 6). Strauss further develops the idea that modern philosophy begins as a conspiracy between Machiavelli and (some of) his readers. Strauss simply never said anything like this: Meanwhile, Strauss, a founding figure in modern neo-conservative thought, was equally harsh in his attacks upon conspiracy analysis, but for polar-opposite reasons. In his mind, elite conspiracies were absolutely necessary and beneficial, a crucial social defense against anarchy or totalitarianism, but their effectiveness obviously depended upon keeping them hidden from the prying eyes of the ignorant masses. His main problem with "conspiracy theories" was not that they were always false, but they might often be true, and therefore their spread was potentially disruptive to the smooth functioning of society. So as a matter of self-defense, elites needed to actively suppress or otherwise undercut the unauthorized investigation of suspected conspiracies. As for his relationship with neoconservatism, you also overstate that considerably. Yes, there are many neoconservative Straussians. But there are also Straussian paleos, tradcons, liberatarians, liberals, and moderates. There are many who are apolitical and interested only in abstract philosophy. There are Straussian religious conservatives, agnostics and atheists. Christians, Jews and Muslim. Catholic, Protestants and Mormons. The neocons just get all the attention–owing again, in part to Drury and in part to one terrible 2003 article by James Atlas, which no one these days has read, but quickly became THE account of neocon Straussians controlling the Bush administration, which everyone today believes without having read, or even being aware of (have/are you?). If "neocon" has any meaning, it means, first, a former intellectual liberal who has drifted right. Second, a domestic policy scholar who focuses on data-driven social science. And third, a foreign policy hawk. None of these really apply to Strauss, who spent his who career studying political philosophy, with an intense focus on the Greeks. He voted Dem in every election in which he could vote, until his last, 1972, when he voted for Nixon out of Cold War concerns. You might say that makes him a "hawk" but he never wrote any essays saying so. He simply told a few people privately that McGovern was too naïve about the Soviets. You might also say that is evidence that he "drifted right" but he didn't think so. He apparently considered himself a Cold War liberal until his death. As for data-driven social science, he famously attacked it in of the very few of his writings that ever got any attention in mainstream political science ("An Epilogue"). You may well be right about the CIA's role in popularizing the phrase "conspiracy theory." But Leo Strauss had nothing to do with it. Or, if he did, he hid his role exceptionally well, because there is no evidence of such in his writings. • Replies: @SolontoCroesus C Bradley Thompson was educated/trained as a Straussian neoconservative, then got mugged by reality and started to re-assess his own philosophical orientation. One of the most interesting points Thompson makes in this discussion of his book, Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea, occurs in the Q&A segment when he demonstrates that Strauss was, indeed, an acolyte of Nazi philosopher Carl Schmitt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Oh6DmjQaho , @Ron Unz Your characterization of Strauss on conspiracy has almost no basis in anything Strauss actually wrote. I would bet that you are presenting a dumbed -down and inaccurate version of Shadia Drury's books on Strauss, which are themselves abysmally inaccurate and libelous about Strauss. The only place Strauss discusses conspiracy thematically that I can recall–and I have read all his books several times, and still read them; have/do you?....The neocons just get all the attention–owing again, in part to Drury and in part to one terrible 2003 article by James Atlas, which no one these days has read, but quickly became THE account of neocon Straussians controlling the Bush administration...He apparently considered himself a Cold War liberal until his death. I'll candidly admit I haven't read a single one of Strauss's own books, nor even that very influential James Atlas article you dislike so intensely. Instead, I was merely summarizing the extensive arguments of Prof. deHaven-Smith, who, as a prominent political scientist, is presumably quite familiar with Strauss, though I don't doubt that his views might differ considerably from your own. But on your second point, I do remember seeing a very amusing private letter of Strauss that came to light about a decade or so ago. Written shortly after his arrival in America, it was addressed to a fellow ultra-rightwing Jewish exile from Europe, and in it he praised fascism and (I think) Nazism to the skies, arguing that their regrettable deviation into "anti-Semitism" (which had precipitated his own personal exile from Germany) should in no way be considered a refutation of all the other wonderful aspects of those political doctrines. This leads me to wonder if Strauss was truly the "liberal" you suggest, or perhaps was instead engaging in exactly the sort of "ideological crypsis" that seems such an important part of his political philosophy... It's likely my faulty memory may have garbled important aspects of the letter I mention, and given your expertise on Straussian issues, I'm sure you should be able to locate it and easily correct me. , @Pat Casey Actually I don't think Ron is so far off. And I think, at best, you must be overeducated. Strauss held that authentic philosophy is a conspiracy . From there, certain practical advice about how to carry out the philosophy of the true philosopher follows. Such advice would about seem to be how Ron said it was. I have not read the essay by Atlas. But for the duration of the Bush Administration I did read the Weekly Standard. I recall in particular one time when the editors recommended what books to bring to the beach, and Bill Kristol said "anything by Leo Strauss." My impression is that the Weekly Standard's brazen propaganda back then was the way certain editors understood themselves to be acting like Strauss's true disciples. And of course now Krystol is hocking a former spook to run against Trump in Utah. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments



Connecticut Famer says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 2:28 pm GMT • 100 Words @Gene Tuttle I've often used the argument myself that conspiracies inevitably have short shelf lives in the US because it was so difficult for Americans to keep secrets. The article makes a useful point in suggesting that secret plots, even after being revealed, may nevertheless remain widely ignored. Ideology, group-think, pack journalism etc. are powerful forces, often subconsciously at work, preventing alternative theories from developing legs. Though long an admirer of Karl Popper, I hadn't strongly associated him with attacks on conspiracy theories per se. As an American "outsider" living abroad most of my adult life, I've all too often encountered those who assumed my background alone explained an argument of mine that they didn't like. Popper had hit the nail on the head when he wrote about "a widespread and dangerous fashion of our time...of not taking arguments seriously, and at their face value, at least tentatively, but of seeing in them nothing but a way in which deeper irrational motives and tendencies express themselves." It was "the attitude of looking at once for the unconscious motives and determinants in the social habitat of the thinker, instead of first examining the validity of the argument itself." The powerful nazi and communist ideologies of his day assumed that one's " blood " or " class " precluded "correct" thinking. Those politically incorrect challengers to their own totalitarian weltanschauung were (to put it mildly) persecuted as conspirators. No doubt, as Ron Unz notes, Popper's personal experience "contributed the depth of his feelings" -- I would say skepticism – about conspiracy claims. But the author of the " Open Society " had an open mind and I suspect he'd find the thesis reasonable that real conspiracies can both be uncovered and largely ignored because so many simply opt to ignore them. In such cases, evidence and "not taking arguments seriously" often reflects "intellectual groupieism," emotions, professional insecurities as well as venal collective interests. "But the author of the "Open Society" had an open mind and I suspect he'd find the thesis reasonable that real conspiracies can both be uncovered and largely ignored because so many simply opt to ignore them. In such cases, evidence and "not taking arguments seriously" often reflects "intellectual groupieism," emotions, professional insecurities as well as venal collective interests." Possibly as in the JFK case? I actually watched Lee Harvey Oswald get drilled by the man who was later identified as Jack Ruby (real surname "Rubenstein") live on television. The minute it happened and even at age 16 at the time I smelled a rat. Who was ultimately behind it all is something which I can't answer and care not to speculate upon, but to this day I remain suspicious about the circumstances surrounding Oswald's death and Ruby's subsequent dissembling. • Replies: @Wizard of Oz I don't dismiss your intuitions as such but you hardly present a great case for affording them much weight. What you immediately felt at age 16 watching a screen? Nope. The fact that Jack Ruby dissembled? , @dahoit I was 12 and had the same feeling. Lanskys mob member shoots down any investigation into just what happened that day. And remember Arlen Spector came up with the magic bullet theory,and was rewarded with Congress. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments



anonymous says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 2:39 pm GMT • 100 Words @Pat Casey I get the sense Ron's building up to something. One can only hope. This time he mentioned 9/11--- so that base is covered; no need to say more about that than that; besides I doubt even he could add to what has already been published and posted on this site re that Big Lie. I would like to see how he weighs all the evidence on RFK's assassination, what he would be willing to call what looks like nothing as much as what MK-Ultra was about. Pearl Harbor (covered in "Day of Deceit") is good starting point. I strongly encourage Mr. Unz to read Robert Stinnet's book next before moving on. FDR never intended that 2,400 Americans would die there. He just thought that if Japan "struck first", he could justify our entry into WWII to the public. What's really fascinating (and almost wholly unknown) is the sequence of events and headlines from December 8 to December 11, 1941, the date Hitler declared war on the USA. While Pearl Harbor meant war with Japan, it did not necessarily guarantee war with Nazi Germany. For 72 hours, no one could be sure that Germany would declare war on us. Did FDR manipulate events post-Pearl Harbor to ensure it did happen? • Replies: @Hibernian "FDR never intended that 2,400 Americans would die there." Did he think our forces at Pearl, lacking needed intelligence, would limit the losses to a lesser number? Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments

John Jeremiah Smith says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 2:44 pm GMT • 100 Words @biz Actually, there is no symmetry in conspiracy theories as you imply. The definition of a conspiracy theory is an explanation of events that traces them to a secret network, and when presented with contradictory evidence, simply enlarges the network of supposed conspirators rather than modifying the explanation. So, just to cite one example, all of the 9/11 controlled demolition stuff is a conspiracy theory because at first it had the government and maybe the property owners in on the secret, but then the circle of supposed conspirators was enlarged to include the editors of Popular Mechanics after they did their study. Or take the moon landing, which involved 'only' thousands of NASA people until you point out that the astronauts left mirrors on the surface of the moon in a precise location, for which astronomers around the world use laser ranging to determine the distance to the moon down to the centimeter level. So then the astronomers who claim to do this had to be added to the list of conspirators and liars for this theory to stand. Then of course the more you point out, the more people who have to get added to the conspiracy, which eventually becomes all of the television industry, and even the Soviets! That is the reason why the so-called alternative explanations for 9/11, the moon landing, the various assassinations, the safety of vaccines, etc, are conspiracy theories, while the mainstream explanations are not. The definition of a conspiracy theory is an explanation of events that traces them to a secret network, and when presented with contradictory evidence, simply enlarges the network of supposed conspirators rather than modifying the explanation. LOL x 2. I think you're saying that the above is YOUR definition of "conspiracy theory", not to be confused with any real and accurate definition of "conspiracy theory". • Replies: @biz No what I have put is the generally accepted definition used in journalistic and sociological works about conspiracy theory culture, e.g. this book . Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments



Paul Jolliffe says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 2:53 pm GMT • 100 Words Mr. Unz, Here is a link to Carl Bernstein's definitive 1977 Rolling Stone article "CIA and the Media" in which he addresses – and confirms – your worst fears. You are very right, and no less a figure than Bernstein has said so for nearly four decades . . . http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php • Replies: @Ron Unz Here is a link to Carl Bernstein's definitive 1977 Rolling Stone article "CIA and the Media" in which he addresses – and confirms – your worst fears. You are very right, and no less a figure than Bernstein has said so for nearly four decades... Thanks so much for the excellent reference to the Bernstein article, of which I hadn't been aware. I found it fascinating, not least because of all the speculations floating around over the last decade or two that Bernstein's famed collaborator, Bob Woodward, had had an intelligence background, and perhaps Watergate represented a plot by elements of the CIA to remove Nixon from the White House. As for the 25,000 word article itself, I'd suggest that people read it. Since quite a lot of this comment-thread is already filled with debates about the supposed liberalism of Leo Strauss and an alleged Moon Landing Hoax, I might as well provide a few of the provocative extracts: http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php He was very eager, he loved to cooperate." On one occasion, according to several CIA officials, Sulzberger was given a briefing paper by the Agency which ran almost verbatim under the columnist's byline in the Times. "Cycame out and said, 'I'm thinking of doing a piece, can you give me some background?'" a CIA officer said. "We gave it to Cy as a background piece and Cy gave it to the printers and put his name on it." Sulzberger denies that any incident occurred. "A lot of baloney," he said. Stewart Alsop's relationship with the Agency was much more extensive than Sulzberger's. One official who served at the highest levels in the CIA said flatly: "Stew Alsop was a CIA agent." An equally senior official refused to define Alsop's relationship with the Agency except to say it was a formal one. Other sources said that Alsop was particularly helpful to the Agency in discussions with, officials of foreign governments-asking questions to which the CIA was seeking answers, planting misinformation advantageous to American policy, assessing opportunities for CIA recruitment of well‑placed foreigners. The New York Times. The Agency's relationship with the Times was by far its most valuable among newspapers, according to CIA officials. From 1950 to 1966, about ten CIA employees were provided Times cover under arrangements approved by the newspaper's late publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger. The cover arrangements were part of a general Times policy-set by Sulzberger-to provide assistance to the CIA whenever possible. When Newsweek waspurchased by the Washington Post Company, publisher Philip L. Graham was informed by Agency officials that the CIA occasionally used the magazine for cover purposes, according to CIA sources. "It was widely known that Phil Graham was somebody you could get help from," said a former deputy director of the Agency. "Frank Wisner dealt with him." Wisner, deputy director of the CIA from 1950 until shortly before his suicide in 1965, was the Agency's premier orchestrator of "black" operations, including many in which journalists were involved. Wisner liked to boast of his "mighty Wurlitzer," a wondrous propaganda instrument he built, and played, with help from the press.) Phil Graham was probably Wisner's closest friend. But Graharn, who committed suicide in 1963, apparently knew little of the specifics of any cover arrangements with Newsweek, CIA sources said. The Agency played an intriguing numbers game with the committee. Those who prepared the material say it was physically impossible to produce all of the Agency's files on the use of journalists. "We gave them a broad, representative picture," said one agency official. "We never pretended it was a total description of the range of activities over 25 years, or of the number of journalists who have done things for us." A relatively small number of the summaries described the activities of foreign journalists-including those working as stringers for American publications. Those officials most knowledgeable about the subject say that a figure of 400 American journalists is on the low side of the actual number who maintained covert relationships and undertook clandestine tasks. From the twenty‑five files he got back, according to Senate sources and CIA officials, an unavoidable conclusion emerged: that to a degree never widely suspected, the CIA in the 1950s, '60s and even early '70s had concentrated its relationships with journalists in the most prominent sectors of the American press corps, including four or five of the largest newspapers in the country, the broadcast networks and the two major newsweekly magazines. Despite the omission of names and affiliations from the twenty‑five detailed files each was between three and eleven inches thick), the information was usually sufficient to tentatively identify either the newsman, his affiliation or both-particularly because so many of them were prominent in the profession. , @LondonBob No coincidence that all the CIA agents involved in the JFK assassination are known to be experts in 'black ops' and news media specialists. Jim Angleton, Cord Meyer, David Atlee Phillips and E. Howard Hunt, who confessed his involvement, all made their names in black propaganda or news management. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments



John Jeremiah Smith says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 2:58 pm GMT • 200 Words @JL Perhaps the media tried too hard, were too eager to be complicit, and now they've completely lost the plot. The rise of Trump, in the face of a completely and uniformly hostile media, suggests that a large part of the American public, consciously or not, now completely rejects entire media narratives and assumes the exact opposite to be true. And they're panicking. Not knowing what to do, they double and triple down on the same fail that got them into this mess. Truly interesting times. Thanks, Mr. Unz, for your "small webzine". The rise of Trump, in the face of a completely and uniformly hostile media, suggests that a large part of the American public, consciously or not, now completely rejects entire media narratives and assumes the exact opposite to be true. And they're panicking. Are they? Or, have they simply fired the first few rounds of easily-dispatched, easily-targeted artillery? I do note that this is the most massive full-court press in support of the oligarchy that I have ever seen. But, I sense that political wars have moved from the court of public opinion and perception, into the courtyards of the moneyed elite. Inasmuch as no rich person has ever believed that he or she has enough money and power, the national political conflict is now composed solely of issues that affect the wealth and power of the 0.1%, which is itself segmented into areas of economic focus and varying forms of wealth acquisition. For example, if air transport systems threaten the wealth and power of ocean-based shipping, that competition between oligarchs will morph into politically-expressed contexts. There is absolutely no concern, anywhere within the dominion of the 0.1%, with human values, human rights, or any of that sort of ethically-principled hoo-hoo. • Agree: Jacques Sheete • Replies: @JL I suppose my comment came off somewhat like unbridled, naive optimism. Your points are unquestionably valid, however, and I am disinclined to argue. Of course Trump represents the interests of certain groups of elites and is not merely the essence of a popular movement. I'll be honest, though, I'm having a tough time determining who these groups are, exactly. Just like with Brexit, these events don't happen without powerful manipulation from somewhere within the 0.1%. Still, it's tough for me to imagine what a Trump presidency will even look like. Who will be in his cabinet, from what backgrounds will they come? There is absolutely no concern, anywhere within the dominion of the 0.1%, with human values, human rights, or any of that sort of ethically-principled hoo-hoo. Certainly not. What are fundamentally important questions for us are merely means to an end for them. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments



CanSpeccy says: • Website Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 3:22 pm GMT • 200 Words Good epistemological analysis. The great flaw in the Western system of "democratic" government is that hardly anyone knows the meaning of the word "epistemology", let alone have any grasp of the underlying challenge of knowing what they know, or rather knowing how little they know beyond what they know from direct personal experience. This is a challenge made vastly more difficult in the modern age when almost everything we know is derived not from personal experience, or from other people of whose character and intellectual competence we have some personal knowledge, but from the arrangement of ink on paper or of pixels on a video screen. To this problem, there is probably no solution, although either a sharp restriction of the franchise to those of some maturity and education, or a division of the franchise according to what each particular individual could be expected to know something about, would be a step in the right direction. As it is, we will, inevitably, continue to be the target of high powered manipulation by corporate owned media and other powerful interests. Professor Lance Haven de Smith, whose book you mention is an expert on SCADS, or state crimes against democracy. An article by him on this topic is available here . There is some interesting academic material about SCADs here . Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments



SolontoCroesus says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 4:12 pm GMT • 100 Words @Decius Your characterization of Strauss on conspiracy has almost no basis in anything Strauss actually wrote. I would bet that you are presenting a dumbed -down and inaccurate version of Shadia Drury's books on Strauss, which are themselves abysmally inaccurate and libelous about Strauss. The only place Strauss discusses conspiracy thematically that I can recall--and I have read all his books several times, and still read them; have/do you?--is on Thoughts on Machiavelli . Strauss does so, first and foremost, because conspiracy is a major theme of Machiavelli's and the subject of the two longest chapters of his two most important books ( Prince 19 and Discourses III 6). Strauss further develops the idea that modern philosophy begins as a conspiracy between Machiavelli and (some of) his readers. Strauss simply never said anything like this: Meanwhile, Strauss, a founding figure in modern neo-conservative thought, was equally harsh in his attacks upon conspiracy analysis, but for polar-opposite reasons. In his mind, elite conspiracies were absolutely necessary and beneficial, a crucial social defense against anarchy or totalitarianism, but their effectiveness obviously depended upon keeping them hidden from the prying eyes of the ignorant masses. His main problem with "conspiracy theories" was not that they were always false, but they might often be true, and therefore their spread was potentially disruptive to the smooth functioning of society. So as a matter of self-defense, elites needed to actively suppress or otherwise undercut the unauthorized investigation of suspected conspiracies. As for his relationship with neoconservatism, you also overstate that considerably. Yes, there are many neoconservative Straussians. But there are also Straussian paleos, tradcons, liberatarians, liberals, and moderates. There are many who are apolitical and interested only in abstract philosophy. There are Straussian religious conservatives, agnostics and atheists. Christians, Jews and Muslim. Catholic, Protestants and Mormons. The neocons just get all the attention--owing again, in part to Drury and in part to one terrible 2003 article by James Atlas, which no one these days has read, but quickly became THE account of neocon Straussians controlling the Bush administration, which everyone today believes without having read, or even being aware of (have/are you?). If "neocon" has any meaning, it means, first, a former intellectual liberal who has drifted right. Second, a domestic policy scholar who focuses on data-driven social science. And third, a foreign policy hawk. None of these really apply to Strauss, who spent his who career studying political philosophy, with an intense focus on the Greeks. He voted Dem in every election in which he could vote, until his last, 1972, when he voted for Nixon out of Cold War concerns. You might say that makes him a "hawk" but he never wrote any essays saying so. He simply told a few people privately that McGovern was too naïve about the Soviets. You might also say that is evidence that he "drifted right" but he didn't think so. He apparently considered himself a Cold War liberal until his death. As for data-driven social science, he famously attacked it in of the very few of his writings that ever got any attention in mainstream political science ("An Epilogue"). You may well be right about the CIA's role in popularizing the phrase "conspiracy theory." But Leo Strauss had nothing to do with it. Or, if he did, he hid his role exceptionally well, because there is no evidence of such in his writings. C Bradley Thompson was educated/trained as a Straussian neoconservative, then got mugged by reality and started to re-assess his own philosophical orientation. One of the most interesting points Thompson makes in this discussion of his book, Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea, occurs in the Q&A segment when he demonstrates that Strauss was, indeed, an acolyte of Nazi philosopher Carl Schmitt • Replies: @SolontoCroesus @ 12 min, Thompson asserts that "Leo Strauss was the most important influence on Irving Kristol's intellectual development. My book reveals for the first time the importance of Kristol's 1952 review of Strauss's Persecution and the Art of Writing . For me this is the Rosetta Stone . . .for understanding the deepest layer of neoconservative political philosophy."

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It should also be noted that Irving Kristol was sponsored by- on the payroll of - the CIA while still in Britain. Kristol has acknowledged that CIA support got his movement off the ground. , @Decius No. Strauss and Schmitt were friendly in the 1930s but Strauss was critical of Schmitt's work even then and said so. Schmitt himself said that Strauss had "seen right through" his arguments. Strauss was no acolyte of Schmitt's, he was a greater and deeper thinker and Schmitt--something Schmitt himself acknowledged. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments



The Alarmist says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 5:00 pm GMT @John Jeremiah Smith This is a good piece which deserved an acceptable level of mental hygiene in the comment section. Unfortunately, two of the first nine comments are from morons spamming their "no lunar landing" drivel. Indeed, and absolute drivel. During the first two moon landings, I was working as an electronic technician, aligning and tuning the radio communications antennas at one of the monitor sites. Unless the physics of the electromagnetic Universe was altered by the conspirators, the origin of radio transmissions from the landing crew could only have come from the Moon. Either that, or space aliens operating a whole 'nuther conspiracy used "seekrut" technology to make it look like signals received at every monitor station were from the Moon. If so, kudos on a boss fake-out scheme. "Unless the physics of the electromagnetic Universe was altered by the conspirators, the origin of radio transmissions from the landing crew could only have come from the Moon. " I suppose NASA could have sent an S-Band repeater to the Moon. • Replies: @John Jeremiah Smith I suppose NASA could have sent an S-Band repeater to the Moon. There's more than one scenario that can be assembled to explain any one or two conditions that would have to be "covered" in order to carry out a conspiracy of deception regarding the Moon landings. Considering the inferior level of video jiggering available at the time, it seems to me that providing full "evidence" of the low-gravity behavior of objects, and the absolute two-color light/shadow effects in an absence of atmosphere would be the most difficult. The principle of parsimony becomes ascendant at some point in that Hall of Mirrors. It was easier to go to the Moon than it was to fake it. Not to be arch, but, even with the repeater on the moon, what about the bounce echo from the tight-beam signal coming from Earth carrying the deceptive info? ;-) Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments



Pat Casey says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 5:11 pm GMT • 200 Words @Wizard of Oz From my experience of actors, including amateur actors i have no problem believing Pat Casey's old guy talking about aliens was either a scripted gig maybe for a bet, maybe to see if he could get some money for his family or for medical treatment and the "tells" I totally discount though it might merely be evidence that he's been telling the story for yonks and no one bothers to pull him up on the one mentioned. As to the demeanour of the one astronaut that I have now seen from below your comment it does invite questions but yyou seem to be wrong about it being an occasion for celebration. It seems to be much later when they are probably bored out of their minds and quite pissed off at being required to perform yet again as circus ponies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9Jw0pwTtus Ok, what about that tell? You should really watch the whole thing here if you haven't: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NlJQJUUqR4 My friend knows the guy that interviewed the man about Eisenhower and area 51. He's supposed to be the steely-eyed vet in a field full of dupes. It's possible he's a charlatan employing an actor, but that's not what it sounds like. The one that I can't decide on is this disinformation agent Richard Doty from the film Mirage Men. That one is worth watching. My education into the likelihood of extraterrestrials took a quantum leap when I watched The Pyramid Codes on netflix. Mind you that is not an idea the series puts forward-the footage of the Pyramid they don't take tourists to see is enough to know those folks had technology we do not have today. For the record I believe we landed on the moon. But, the idea that we did not probably comes from the underbelly of our own government. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments



KA says: Show Comment Next New Comment September 5, 2016 at 5:19 pm GMT • 600 Words "HANGZHOU, China - The image of a 5-year-old Syrian boy, dazed and bloodied after being rescued from an airstrike on rebel-held Aleppo, reverberated around the world last month, a harrowing reminder that five years after civil war broke out there, Syria remains a charnel house.

But the reaction was more muted in Washington, where Syria has become a distant disaster rather than an urgent crisis. President Obama's policy toward Syria has barely budged in the last year and shows no sign of change for the remainder of his term. The White House has faced little pressure over the issue,

That frustrates many analysts because they believe that a shift in policy will come only when Mr. Obama has left office. "Given the tone of this campaign, I do