"The art of Debate is a blood-sport for the scholar, and his words are his sword."
As the Manifesto for the program states, the Gypsy Scholar "holds a flower in one hand (or name) and a sword in the other."
It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who once said, it is the duty of the scholar to toil against presumption to reveal the truth, and to do so with the utmost authenticity:
The
office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise and to guide men by showing
them facts amid appearances. He plies the slow, unhonored, and unpaid
task of observation. –Emerson
Therefore, with Emerson and Blake in mind, the Gypsy Scholar takes up the "Mental Fight."
"Rouze Up, Oh Young People of the New Age! Set your foreheads against the ignorant Hirelings ! For we have Hirelings in the Camp, the Court, & the University, who would, if they could, forever depress Mental & prolong Corporeal War."
"I will not cease from Mental Fight, / Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand ...."
“... strength to form the golden armour of science / For intellectual War / The war of swords departed now....”
(William Blake)
The Gypsy Scholar Raves On ... Words on Printed Page
To those of the 9/11 Truth community--and now to an ever-increasing number of Americans--the “official account” (or, official conspiracy theory) of what happened on 9/11 is an example of one
of the greatest myths ever told to keep the public from questioning the exposed contradictions of the events of 9/11. As cognitive and behavioral scientist Laurie Manwell has told us, in the interests
of social responsibility, we must ask: “Why do we need to be vigilant of faulty ideologies in our North American democratic society, especially in the regards to the events of 9/11?” And, in this spirit of inquiry, we should "charge both the sciences and the humanities with the responsibility to demolish any false beliefs, however widely-held, about the events of 9/11 and rebuild them with the truth, based on real evidence and reason, which only comes with the freedom of unchained thought."
Therefore, in the interests of being vigilant of getting to the truth of what happened on 9/11, and demolishing the greatest myth of the "official story," the Gypsy Scholar (as a grad-student in the humanities) offers the following essays toward this goal. Here the Gypsy Scholar takes on those whom have come to be known as "Left-Gatekeepers;" that is, those journalists, investigative reporters, and media professionals who have not only kept silent about alternative information uncovered by those in the 9/11 Truth community, but also gone out of their way to discredit and ridicule (usually through the ad homenim of "paranoid conspiracy theorist") the very same who are doing the job the left/progressive professionals have avoided, shirking their responsibilty. Thus, the Gypsy Scholar focuses here on Left-Gatekeppers, both national and local, who seem to care more about their funding sources and/or their reputation amongst their peer-group than discovering the truth. But what the Gypsy Scholar finds even more egregious is the Left-Gatekeeper habit of grossly mis-characterizing what (the best of ) the 9/11 Truth community is actually saying, and the echoing these mis-characterizations, without checking, from one Left-Gatekeeper to the next. The Gypsy Scholar takes up these and other problems in getting alternative information about 9/11 past the Left-Gatekeepers (who, unfortunately, have heretofore been like mentors to him).
The Gypsy Scholar presents:
9/11 & THE RULING GROUP MIND: the Fascist Mind, or the Christo-Fascist Mind?
"It is the duty
of the teacher and scholar to toil against presumption to reveal the
truth, and to do so, not with arrogance, but with the utmost of
authenticity. The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise and to
guide men by showing them facts amid appearances. He plies the slow,
unhonored, and unpaid task of observation." --Ralph Waldo Emerson
John McMurtry is Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at University of Guelph and Fellow of Roayal Society of Canada. His two talks ("Why the facts of 9/11 are suppressed: understanding the ruling group mind behind the war without end" and "The undeniable unifying framework of 9/11 truth") were broadcast on April 21, 2008.
"Why the Facts of 9/11 Are Suppressed: Understanding the ruling group-mind behind the war without end: In response to the extreme pressures of forcing reality to conform to manufactured delusions, the group and its members become increasingly submerged within a pre-conscious field of hysteria, denials and projections. In the case of 9-11 and the 9-11 Wars, the shadow subject of the ruling group-mind and its executive vector propelled two war criminal invasions of other societies and police-state laws across the world in under three years. Insight into the ruling group-mind is reflected by David Rockefeller at a Bilderberg session in 1991: A supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries. Their program is being played out in Iraq against heroic resistance, while elsewhere in the empire the regulating group-mind (what Julian Jaynes calls the collective cognitive imperative; and Leon Festinger, in his manual on cognitive dissonance, calls cognition.) demands complicity with its fundamental assumptions, e.g. that 9-11 was an attack from the outside and that the Earth and its creatures are not sacred." (Prof. John McMurtry)
What is the "Ruling Group Mind," which is behind 9/11, the "war without end," and the Shadow Government?
In talking about what he calls "the promised land of the global free market" and "the pure capitalist form of the U. S. empire," Prof. McMurtry says the "ruling group mind," which he identifies as "an instituted cognitive structure," controls the very perception and understanding of our entire era:
"Behind the 9/11 or the global market wars at the core of the borderless metaprogram, which regulates the perception and understanding of our epoch, lies the ruling group mind. It's ancestor predates the U. S. as a nation, but corporate America and its President express its last global armed crusade."
The Gypsy Scholar finds Prof. McMurtry's ideas extremely important for going deeper into the reality of 9/11 and the Shadow Government. It seems that the scholars, who are the philosophers (and philosophers of religion, like David Ray Griffin) and psychologists in the 9/11 Truth community, are in a unique position to bring to our awareness the bigger picture that the event of 9/11 brings into focus and epitomizes. Prof. McMurtry's concept of the "ruling group mind" also naturally connects to the hidden theological aspect of the post-9/11 American empire, which is, with the Christian Right, a kind of incipient christo-fascism. In other words, if Prof. McMurtry's concept of "ruling group mind" is connected with the Gypsy Scholar's concept of the group "theological unconscious mind," then the total picture of what's really going on in America appears and, once more, makes sense of what Prof. McMurtry sees as the "ancestor" of the "ruling group mind." Here, the word "crusade" is the key. We remember that President Bush and General Boykin called the U. S. operation in Iraq a "crusade." (Boykin is a fanatical Christian, who sees the war entirely in terms of Biblical vision.) Thus, the Gypsy Scholar thinks that the "ancestor" to the secular "ruling group mind" is the former (ancient and medieval) group mind of Christianism, which operates behind the scenes (the theological unconscious) in our own epoch, "regluating perception and understanding." (Let us not forget, that even so far as "the promised land of the global free market" is concerned, without the values of Christianism--"the Protestant ethic"--capitalism would have been impossible.) Seen in this light, the conspiracy of church and state is revealed, and the recent (Nazi) Pope's (whose own hidden Nazi past mirrors in minature the hidden nazi/fascist past of the Catholic Church) visit to WTC Ground Zero is, symbolically, the final finishing touch to the Shadow Government cover up of what really happened on 9/11--sanctifying the cover up. Therefore, the Gypsy Scholar believes that if, as several recent books have maintained, fascism is taking over America, then it is a religious-based fascism--not a crypto-fascism, but a christo-fascism! Furthermore, this present "ruling group mind" of the corporate state means that, with its tactic of Psy-Ops, it is the perfected Mind Control of what the Church invented in the medieval period (as we now know that its methods of torture were invented by the same Church, like water-boarding). This is why the Gypsy Scholar has come up with the following equation of Mind Control by our Intelligence agencies: Religious Dogma is the perfection of Political Propaganda. (Here we get to the essence of the connection between "religion and politics." It is no mere coincidence that Pope Benedict XVI formerly held, as Cardinal Ratzinger, the office of Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the new name for the old office of the Inquisition! The secular equivalent in our shadow government would be former CIA head, George Bush Sr., becoming President.) In other words, America, as fascist empire, has moved in our epoch from armed warfare to psychological warfare--to spiritual warfare. This, believes the Gypsy Scholar, is the ultimate meaning of 9/11.
OPEN LETTER TO THE 9/11 TRUTH COMMUNITY from the Gypsy Scholar October 15, 2007
The 9/11 Truth Community, Left Gatekeepers & When You Meet The Buddha On The Road To /911, Kill Him
As you probably know, the 9/11Truth community of researchers and writers have an epithet to identify those in the Left media who control the flow of information about what happened on 9/11; that is, those who accept the official, government story (“conspiracy theory”) and refuse to allow the alternative “conspiracy theory” to be read or heard (or, if it is, they make sure to set it up so it’s debunked and ridiculed). That epithet is “Left Gatekeeper.” Again, they are those who neglect to do their job in investigating and disseminating the alternative information about what really happened on 9/11, and, when others have to their job for them, the Left Gatekeepers label them with the ad homenim “conspiracy theorists.” To name a few among the foremost of this politically correct crowd: Alex Cockburn, Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman, and Larry Bensky, and publications like Counterpunch, The Nation, The Progressive, etc. These are names recognized on a national level.
But did you know that we have at least two Left Gatekeepers here locally? Both are radio talk-show hosts at the university’s KZSC. Mike Sammet hosts “Talk About” (Wednesday, 7 – 8:30 p.m.) and John Sandich hosts “Politics of Santa Cruz Reality” (Thursday, 7 – 8:30 p.m.). Here I want to focus on talk-show host Mike Sammet, since he identifies himself as a “progressive,” whereas I’m not sure what John Sandich is (he seems to be progressive on some issues and conservative on others, but oftentimes uninformed and muddled on important issues). I single out Sammet because he is much more intelligent on issues that matter to progressive people, yet seems the most duplicitous on 9/11. (Sandich maintains that, although he’s seen the 9/11 documentary, Loose Change, he remains skeptical of any alternative accounts of the official story.) At least Sandich admits a relative ignorance of the body of reportage from the 9/11 Truth Community and is, therefore, more honest. Sammet, on the other hand, pretends to in-depth knowledge in his assessments and evaluations of the 9/11 Truth community—and that’s the problem.
In making my argument that Sammet is, contrary to appearances, a Left Gatekeeper, I want to present a piece of dialogue from Sammet’s “Talk About” show aired 10/3/7. I say “contrary to appearances” because he has recently had as a guest Paul DeGiere from Santa Cruz 9/11 Truth for the premiering of Alex Jones’ Terror Storm at the Rio Theater, (9/7/7). However, I believe this one-time show was more of a publicity stunt than a serious issue for Sammet, who loves to be at the center of political goings-on in Santa Cruz. 1 In case anyone thought that Sammet had changed his mind (his previous statements about 9/11 “conspiracy theories” were, on the whole, negative) and was now tacitly supporting the 9/11 Truth claims, this was belied in his closing, editorial statements, which basically cautioned (maybe that’s not quite the right word—chastised is more like it) the 9/11 Truth movement for its claims of verity. (In past shows, Sammet has charged that there was “hardly any evidence” on the 9/11 Truth Community side and vociferously aired his disbelief that “George Bush was responsible.” (This is, by the way, what the Left Gatekeepers would like us to believe, even though I know of no top-notch 9/11 Truth researcher who believes, with the evidence pointing to an “inside job,” it’s that simple. Thus Alex Cockburn, in his Counterpunch hit piece, “9/11 Conspiracy Nuts,” and again in a C-SPAN interview, bellicosely dismisses the 9/11 Truthers because [to paraphrase] “they’re asking us to believe that George Bush’s people pulled off 9/11 when they shown themselves to be totally incompetent in every other way. 2 ) Getting back to Sammet, he has also asserted: “You people [9/11 Truthers] are fixated on this issue,” “It’s not that important of an issue; there are other issues,” and “It doesn’t matter if it was an inside job or if the terrorists did it and they let it happen.”
With this background in mind, here now is the exchange between Sammet and his guest, Donald Rothberg, a Buddhist meditation teacher and “socially-engaged Buddhist” from the Spirit Rock Zen Center, who was in town to teach a workshop. (Donald Rothberg’s credentials read thus: A long-time organizer and teacher for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, he is the guiding teacher for a new Spirit Rock program, the Path of Engagement. He also teaches insight meditation, socially-engaged Buddhism, and transpersonal psychology at Saybrook Graduate School. He is also author of the book: The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World.)
Mike Sammet: “Donald, a good percentage of my listeners believe that the President's men were behind 9/11--that it was an inside job! And there's no way you can talk'm out of it, because the evidence goes on both sides almost equally!” [chuckles]
Donald Rothberg: “This is where I think that it's actually crucial not just to stay with the cognitive level or the reading, but really to look at how ... look at the emotional dimension, or how ... this is where this ... almost this ... sadness and pain and grief and anger--when it's not dealt with I think can lead sometimes to ... hum ... distortions, confusions, and hopelessness. And that's what the daylong workshop on Saturday is directing itself to.” 3
This is obviously one of the tried-and-true set-up tactics used by Left Gatekeepers. It is not meant to be a serious inquiry, but designed to be an a priori put down (with ridicule—notice the chuckle), of the 9/11 Truth community. But what is most obvious about it on a purely rhetorical level is that it doesn’t make sense. What did Sammet mean “you can’t talk’m out of it because there’s evidence equally on both sides”? Arguably, one could claim that there’s equal evidence, but why does this mean 9/11 Truthers can’t be “talked out” of their position? (And why would Sammet want to “talk’m out of it” anyway? Ah, there’s the rub!) Be that as it may, this statement is inaccurate on a factual level too. (I guess Sammet, because previously challenged over the air on his “hardly any evidence” on the 9/11 Truther’s side, has now conceded “equal evidence.”) The plain fact is that there is no evidence to speak of for the government’s official “conspiracy theory.” 4
My problem, then, with progressive talk-show host Sammet is not so much what he personally believes about 9/11 (at this point, frankly, I don’t much care), but his characterizations of the 9/11 Truth community/ movement—what we claim, our evidence, and our significance in the larger arena of political discourse. My problem, in other words, is Sammet’s tactics as a Left Gatekeeper—his distortions, his misinformation, not to mention his cunning pretence and duplicity. (I’m referring here to the talk show episode already noted, where guest Paul DeGiere of Santa Cruz 9/11 Truth was set-up to be dismissed as just another conspiracy nutcase.) These last are particularly disturbing. It’s one thing to just plain ignore or dismiss out-of-hand the 9/11 Truth “conspiracy theory” (like Sandich); it’s quite another to portray oneself as a well-versed expert on 9/11 Truth research in order to authoritatively pronounce judgments as to its veracity, or lack of such, when you are not—when you haven’t really done your homework. And to anyone who has, Sammet’s gross mischaracterizations of the 9/11 Truther’s claims are all too evident. (This does not mean that I’m implying that there’s some sort of monolithic consensus arrived at by the 9/11 Truth Community of researchers. Indeed, there is an entire spectrum of views on the unanswered questions of 9/11, from well-informed, judicious speculation to the outrageous and bizarre. Nonetheless, I believe that there has now been compiled enough cumulative “evidence” to successfully challenge the official “conspiracy theory” in a court of law. And, as you all know, that’s the goal of the 9/11 Truth movement—to reopen an (independent) investigation into what really happened on 9/11 and get a Congressional hearing, and not to claim we have all the answers. I stress this because Left Gatekeepers such as Sammet will try to shut down 9/11 Truthers, if they maintain that “9/11 was an inside job,” by insisting that they name names as to exactly who was behind it. This is Sammet’s dismissive tactic. And here we must remember, when we get a public hearing on talk-shows and try to give reasons for our point of view, it’s easy for Left Gatekeepers to put us on the defensive, since we’re already characterized on the mainstream media as “conspiracy theorists” and, thus, ipso facto “conspiracy nutcases.” No, on the contrary, it’s our job to put them on the defensive: “Since you seem to believe in the official conspiracy theory, please show me evidence for believing such!” So if we maintain, for instance, that “9/11 was an inside job,” then we would do better—short of the “shadow government” theory—to make our argument by demanding of our critics to explain how something like 9/11 could have been pulled off without a great deal of top-level government orchestration/ participation.)
Therefore, having established that Sammet (with his proud progressive reputation) is a Left Gatekeeper, I now want to briefly lay out what his talk-show, and others like it, mean for the 9/11 Truth community, in the sense of what we’re up against. Recently, I have (on my own radio program) aired an interview with Laurie A. Manwell, a cognitive and behavioral scientist from Guelph University (she’s aligned with the fast-growing and vibrant 9/11 Truth movement in Canada) and Robert Forte (MA Religious Studies, U. of Chicago Divinity School, focusing on the history and psychology of religion). Their work concerns an analysis of the psychological barriers people put up in order not to question the official 9/11 story, which thus prevents them from coming to terms with alternative information about what really happened on 9/11. 5 From the information gleaned in these interviews, and thinking of Sammet’s talk-show, I believe that where we, as 9/11 Truthers, stand in the view of both the mainstream and left-wing media (and thus in the eyes of our fellow Americans, who obtain their views from it) also needs to be understood from the psychological point of view. Here, I don’t want to repeat the new information about the psychological mechanisms involved in the resistance to 9/11 Truth claims, a la Manwell and Forte (both of whom have documented the academic acceptance of the official story of 9/11, Manwell in the field of behavioral science and Forte in social psychology), but give a picture of the consequences of the uncritical acceptance of the official founding myth of 9/11 and the Left Gatekeeper media’s role in promoting the popular stereotype of the “paranoid conspiracy theorist.” Here, I would say that we are dealing with what could be called the “Psycho-Politics of 9/11.” 6
Ever since the JFK assassination, those of us who didn’t accept the official story of the “lone gunman” and found substantial evidence to point to an “inside job” have been psychoanalyzed as paranoid by the psychiatric establishment. (The movie Conspiracy Theory is a popularization of the type of person who fits the pathology of paranoia.) But lately, we have another class of (dare I say) “healers” who have joined in. Now that we 9/11 conspiracy psychos have been pop-psychoanalyzed—“you people just can't accept that shit happens; you need order and meaning in your lives and so you create these fantastic conspiracy theories”—, it’s time for the new-age (Buddhist) enlightened teachers, because of their great compassion, to spiritually minister to us for our “distortions, confusions, and hopelessness.” Ergo, once we pathologized “conspiracy theorists” come to terms with our “suffering” (with the aid of the socially-engaged Buddhists who, unlike ourselves, are rational, peaceful minded, and enlightened, because they live without the “distortions” of the 9/11 conspiracy theory) and learn to live without these psychological crutches, we will no longer make life difficult for the rest of our fellows, especially our Left Gatekeepers—and, oh, how we pester them with our paranoid fantasies! And, hey, if they (the psycho-therapists) can't “talk us out of it” (our conspiracy paranoia), then maybe they (the pneuma-therapists) can meditate us out of it! How fortunate we are to live in California, where we can take advantage of all the spiritual abundance in order to meditate ourselves through our political paranoia—with the compassionate help of our local socially-engaged Bodhisattvas!
In my view, what seems to be happening here is that we have a new element added to 9/11 therapeutic scene. 7 We already have the psychoanalytic class of our society, who counsel to the psychic problems caused by 9/11. And we already have the priestly class of traditional organized religion, who see their role as ministering to the spiritual shock of 9/11 (and the “crisis of faith” that it has led to for some Americans). 8 Now, on top of this, we have a new class—the crypto-healers of the new-age religions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they’re all well-meaning and believe the official story. Yet, to add farce to tragedy, all these classes of healers are post facto mess managers—naively coming to the aid of damaged psyches yet all the while under the illusion of the origin-myth of 9/11. (Origin-myth? Need I point out we’re constantly reminded by our leaders that “it’s a totally different world after 9/11”?) Yes, sincere and well-meaning, yet unknowingly serving the interests of the fascist shadow government. (And, as far as socially-engaged Buddhists are concerned, the last time I checked the Buddha had plenty to say about illusion and ignorance—no matter how well-meaning!) Therefore, it is my opinion that our Socially Engaged Buddhist teachers need to “wake up” and gain “insight” to the practice “preventive medicine,” and go to the first cause of our suffering—that 9/11 was an in-house coup d’etat that had been a long time in the planning. (Yet, if the socially-engaged Buddhists continue to cast their lot in with the Left Gatekeepers, I suspect it won’t be that long before the neo-con/fascist architects of the 9/11 False-Flag/PsyOps, after they’re rounded up the traditional Leftists, “come for them too”—as the anti-fascist saying goes. And, hey, you never know, perhaps sensei Rothberg, from that extra-special meditation (concentration) camp they’ll have set up for socially-engaged Buddhists, will still find the compassion to write another book—The Engaged MeDetention Camp Life: A Funny Thing Happened On My Way to the Zen Center. Yes Virginia! Col. North’s “Rex 84 Plan” hasn’t been scuttled.)
I stated that 9/11 Truthers need to understand what we’re up against in the Left Gatekeeper media, but we also need to address it. In my opinion, a good way to begin to address the problem of the “conspiracy theorist” put-down is to avoid playing into the hands of our arch-critics, since, as I said, we’re already characterized on the mainstream media as “conspiracy theorists” and, thus, ipso facto “conspiracy nutcases.” Given this, I have, unfortunately, heard too many 9/11 Truthers come off sounding like messianic zealots by calling into talk shows and beginning an argument for 9/11 Truth by linking the 9/11 False Flag/Psy-Ops to the grand, trans-historical conspiracy of the Illuminati- Freemason-Skull & Bones-Satanic plot to rule the world—the New World Order! 9 Another option in addressing the 9/11 bulwark defended by Left Gatekeepers is to take the debate about “what really happened on 9/11” to another level. As I said in my introduction to the radio interview with Laurie Manwell and Robert Forte:
While it is of utmost importance that the 9/11 Truth Community’s researchers need to present the evidence for their claim, there is nevertheless a need for them to step back, as it were, and look at the language of the debate itself, especially use of the ad homenim of “conspiracy theory” by both right- and left-wing gatekeepers. Of course, the evidence is where the rubber meets the road, but the ignorant hirelings and hacks of the Official Government Conspiracy Theory use the ad homenim of “conspiracy theory” to dismiss, a priori, whatever evidence that is contrary to the official myth in order to short-circuit debate. Therefore, when this is the strategy (and not particularly the evidence of the case), the 9/11 Truth researchers are obligated to take the game (the case against the Official Conspiracy Theory) to the next level, which is to deconstruct the use of language by the supporters of the Official Conspiracy Theory; i. e., their rhetorical weapons. In other words, the more scholarly of the 9/11 Truth researchers should analyze, deconstruct, and make transparent the meta-narrative of the debate. I say this because I think there is a sense in which to understand “what really happened on 9/11” also means to understand what really is happening in the debate about 9/11. And this is because the put-down of the alternative view of what happened on 9/11 is the second stage of the False-Flag/ Psy-Operation that was the attack on 9/11. In other words, the original act and its on-going cover-up are actually two aspects of the total Intelligence Operation that is designed to usher in the fascist police state.... 10
Here, I would add that we in the 9/11 Truth community can address our problem of Left Gatekeepers indirectly by looking to our own conceptualizations of what exactly the alternate “9/11 conspiracy theory” is and how it fits, as a primary issue, into the larger arena of political discourse. (Sammet, as I have already cited, has taken 9/11 Truthers to task because, as he claims, we are a single-issue group; we are fixated on only this issue to the detriment of other important issues.) Here, my interview guest, cognitive and behavioral scientist Laurie Manwell, can be of help. She has borrowed from biologist E. O. Wilson the term consilience (“literally, “a jumping together of knowledge by the linking of facts and fact-based theory across disciplines to create a common groundwork for explanation”). I would suggest that the principle concilience, if adopted as a modus operandi by the 9/11 Truth community investigators, researchers, and scientists, would synthesize areas of knowledge that have been accumulated (going back to the JFK assassination and cover-up). Once more, it would operate not only to interlink the 9/11 issue to other issues but to the various aspects of meaning that the 9/11 event has for our lives—political, economic, environmental, psychological, and religious. Because “the world changed after 9/11,” what really happened on 9/11 is re-visioned as a para-political event horizon that forms a matrix (i.e., something that constitutes a place or point from which something else originates) of political meaning in a post-9/11 national landscape, and thus the alternative “9/11 Conspiracy Theory” becomes not just another important issue alongside all the other issues which political theorists and activists engage, but rather a nexus (a means of connection, tie, link; the core or center, as of a matter or situation) that conciliates the rest.
In conclusion, as to the aforementioned new message of socially-engaged Buddhist compassion heard on Left Gatekeeper Sammet’s radio show (remember the one designed to ridicule 9/11 conspiracy theorists?)—that 9/11 Truthers are paranoid sufferers from “emotional ... distortions, confusions, and hopelessness”—, I would like to go on record with the following statement:
If they’re going to engage in Spirit-Rock throwing at the 9/11 Truthers, and now want me to put down my new copy of Peter Dale Scott’s The Road To 9/11 and pick up a copy of sensei Rothberg’s The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World, then, hey, I don’t know about you but I claim to be a devotee of that other, heretical socially-engaged Buddhist sect—the “If-You-Meet-The-Buddha-On-The-9/11 Road-Kill-Him” school. 11
1. After writing this letter, I received a reply from Paul DeGiere informing me that when he was invited to be a guest on Sammet’s program he wasn’t told there was going to be another guest on too. This other guest turned out to be Matthew Weyman. a rather messianic advocate of the great “secret- society” conspiracy theory, who was also having an event in Santa Cruz. (My view is that the conflation of the “secret society” conspiracy with what happened on 9/11 is counter-productive to the aims of the 9/11 Truth movement, and have said so on that very show and my radio program. For comment on “secret- society” conspiracy, see note #9 below.) I wanted to include the DeGiere episode in my analysis of Sammet as a Left Gatekeeper (since most listeners will think, because he had the representative of SC 9/11 Truth on his program, that he must be open to the 9/11 Truth position, or at least not an out-and-out foe), but I had at that time no first-hand knowledge to support my claim—that it was a set up, designed to paint DeGiere with the same broad brush and put him in the same camp as the “secret society” conspiracy theorist, so listeners, who may be inclined to give DeGiere a chance, will just go: “See, they’re all wacko conspiracy theorists!” (As it turned out, when Sammet commented that DeGiere’s version of what happened on 9/11 would be hard for the American people to believe, Weyman followed up DeGiere’s astute and carefully drawn analysis by suggesting that it makes more sense if you put the 9/11 conspiracy theory into the bigger “secret society” conspiracy theory—then the American people will find that easier to accept!) Very clever! Left Gatekeeper Sammet kills two birds with one stone; he obfuscates his real position about 9/11, making it look like he’s really not a Left Gatekeeper, and, at the same time, shows everybody that, after all, the 9/11 Truthers are all a bunch of conspiracy wackos! Yes, a real “show.” Why do you think I use the word “cunning” about Left Gatekeeper Sammet? (A recent conversation with Paul DeGiere has confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that Left Gatekeeper Sammet’s show was a set up. Paul spoke of the palpably unfriendly reception he received and how he felt manipulated by Sammet and Weyman.)
2. Left Gatekeeper Cockburn is particularly condescending in his criticism of the 9/11 Truth movement, especially to David Ray Griffin. He calls Prof. Griffin one of the movement’s “high priests,” as if it were a religious movement. But as Prof. Griffin, one of the finest analytical minds in his profession, points out, in his response to Cockburn (“The Truly Distracting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory: A Reply to Alexander Cockburn”), 9/11 Truth is “a fact-based movement that involves scientists, engineers, pilots, war veterans, politicians, philosophers, former air traffic controllers, former defense ministers, and former CIA analysts.” Prof. Griffin renders this verdict on Cockburn’s hit piece (“US: The Conspiracy That Wasn’t”)—“faulty in virtually every respect,” and then goes on to debunk it. Cockburn, in a recent C-SPAN interview, responded to a caller, who was foolish enough to ask him about the evidence that implied government involvement in the orchestration of the 9-11 attacks, with his usual flair for ego-manical, mean-spirited rhetoric about how idiotic and nutty it was to entertain such views.
It is particularly ironic—and, for the peace movement, tragic—that Left Gatekeepers all of a sudden trust, carte blanche,
the government’s word on 9/11, calling us “conspiracists,” which, as
David Ray Griffin points out, ignores the fact that in defending the
government’s account, the Left Gatekeepers, like Cockburn, are
in effect defending “the original 9/11 conspiracy theory.” In
countering this official conspiracy theory (the Muslim Terrorist
Highjacker theory) with our own, it looks like the rhetorical tactic of
“effective communication” is to accept the label and show that it cuts
both ways.
I stated that 9/11 Truthers need to understand and address what we’re up against in the Left Gatekeeper media. The frustrating fact is that 9/11 Truthers are up against the ad homenim or pejorative “conspiracy theorist,” as the media both reflects and encourages the stereotype in popular culture. It controls the response of both the mainstream and left media to the 9/11 Truth information, effectively shutting down any possible serious debate as to what really happened on 9/11. Many 9/11 Truthers have experienced this first hand, but perhaps there are not enough 9/11 Truthers who truly appreciate the socio-political flak we need to overcome just to get a fair hearing. We are, according to the Left Gatekeepers,
“a bunch of irrational, unscientific nuts.” As David Ray Griffin says:
“ ... the assumption that conspiracy theories are inherently
irrational has recently taken root in American culture, making any
attack on the official government record instantly dismissible....”
Once more, the apparent popularity of conspiracy theories is often
cited as a cause of concern that our society is breaking down. For
example, Canadian journalist Robert Sibley has warned that conspiracy
theory is “a nihilistic vortex of delusion and superstition that
negates reality itself.” Other Left Gatekeepers want to appear
a little more sympathetic to the “conspiracy theorists” by explaining
that it is possibly the government’s fault, because, in the absence of
answered questions concerning 9/11 (which are assumed to be
forthcoming), “paranoid conspiracy theories” rush in to fill the void.
“Conspiracy theory” is used by Right- and Left Gatekeepers as
a pejorative label, meaning paranoid, nutty, and marginal— outside the
boundary of rational discourse. The power of this pejorative is that it
discounts a theory by attacking the motivations and mental competence
of those who advocate the theory. By labeling an explanation of events
“conspiracy theory,” evidence and argument are dismissed, not because
they have been shown to be incorrect, but because they come from a
mentally or morally deficient personality. “Conspiracy theory”
designates ideas to be feared, and implies that the ideas and their
advocates are simple-minded or insane. (For the mentally deficient
personality type conspiracy theorist as “paranoid schizophrenic,” see
footnote #7.) Calling an explanation of events “conspiracy theory”
means, in effect, “We don't like you, and no one should listen to your
explanation.”
Many on the 9/11 Truth side have a hard time
understanding why those who they previously admired on the Left have
this newly acquired trust in the government’s official story of what
happened on 9/11 and why the new cadre of Left Gatekeepers use
of the pejorative “conspiracy theorist” against them, while letting the
government’s story slide as fact. Several explanations have been
floated on the 9/11 side, among them fear on the Left of the cut-off of
grant monies by big (liberal and, maybe, secretly nefarious)
foundations. Although this may be the case with some Left Gatekeepers,
it may be that it’s a bit more simple—fear of losing their reputation.
“Conspiracy theorist” and all such labels implicitly define a community
of orthodox believers, who try to banish or shun people who challenge
orthodox beliefs. Members of the community of believers (in this case
the orthodox Left) shy away from the new ideas and join in the shunning
due to fear of being tainted by the pejorative label—of being mentally deranged; of being, in the case of 9/11 Truthers, “conspiracy nutcases.” (When most believers in the original 9/11 conspiracy theory are confronted by 9/11 Truthers with the unanswered questions of 9/11 and the alternate conspiracy theory, the typical response is, instead of rational argument, ad homenim, whether it be face-to-face or on the internet blog. Here are the favorite pejoratives used to dismiss 9/11 Truthers: “Paranoid nutcase,” “nutjob,” “wackjobs,” “wackos,” “crazies,” “tin foil hat wearing crazies,” “lunatics;” “the so-called ‘9/11 truth movement’ is really just a bunch of mentally unstable idiots.” I should note also that long before the popularity of “conspiracy nutjob/nutcase” came into use, thanks to the South Park hit piece, “conspiracy lunatic,” or “loonie,” was popular.
3. I have transcribed this from a tape recording, since Sammet, when challenged over the air about statements made, either outright denies he said them or obfuscates their meaning.
4. For instance, the “pancake collapse” theory of the WTC buildings has collapsed, by the National Institute for Standards and Technology’s (NIST) own admission, almost as fast as the buildings themselves. According to Kevin Ryan (ex-engineer for UL), the Pancake Theory, was promoted in 2002 by the PBS TV show Nova (“Why the Towers Fell”). In August of 2004, Underwriters Laboratory (UL) tested the Pancake Theory and the WTC floor models did not collapse, which NIST reported in October of 2004 update, and again in June 2005. Thus, Kevin Ryan, noting that this information was available to anyone to cared by 2003, concludes: “The bottom line is that, after more than four years, it is still impossible for the government even to begin to explain the primary events that drive this war on terror.” Furthermore, the 9/11 Commission has mandated that their evidence be withheld until 2009. For the paucity of evidence on the government’s side, See David Ray Griffin and et al., 9/11 and the American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out, 2007
5. See Laurie Manwell’s articles, “Faulty Towers of Belief”: http://www.journalof911studies.com [link on this webpage above]. Robert Forte has recently presented a talk in New York, “The Psychology of Non-Perception,” pertaining to the attacks of September 11th. Robert describes it in the following way: “A scientific look at the evidence of September 11th clearly shows that these attacks were orchestrated from within the Bush Administration. The overwhelming implications of this view of the facts exemplifies one of the basic factors of the psychology of non-perception: that big lies can hide in plain sight because people are able to deny unpleasant truths, even if they remain obvious. In this PST, we’ll begin with a straightforward look at the evidence that 9/11 was an inside job, and the implication that the country has been, essentially, conquered by a transnational fascist clique. The first part of this discussion will be an analysis of the psychological factors that continue to skew perception of this event for the more than half of the American people who are still under the influence of this psychological operation. Secondly, we will explore the implications of this awareness in the pursuit of our own life, liberty, and happiness.”
6. I have borrowed this phrase from Richard Falk’s (Professor Emeritus of International Law, Princeton University) essay in 9/11 and the American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out, 2007 (Ibid.) However, I’m using it in a more strictly psychological way.
Yet it’s worth quoting Faulk as a response to Left Gatekeepers (like Sammet), who don’t think the issue of 9/11 Truth is all that important. “... there is a dark, paralyzing secret harbored in the deepest recesses of the governing processes. The failures of the 9/11 Commission to allay these anxieties, but on the contrary its contribution to increasing the credibility of these anxieties, supports the conclusion that the entire elite structure of authority was unable and unwilling to confront the realities of 9/11, even in an investigative mode of truth-telling. The acute fear that the dark secrets will somehow be exposed also generates strong inhibiting pressures on the citizenry, which are exhibited in way ways, including exaggerated threat perception of enemies within and without, and reliance on the magician’s gift of diverting a perplexed audience from real dangers. That is, until the dark secret is either revealed or effectively explained, the entire political order will lack the moral agency to perceive the challenges confronting society, much less manifest the capacity to respond successfully. In this sense, probing the mysteries of 9/11 is a crucial precondition for addressing the structural deficiencies of a globalizing world in desperate need of a humane form of global governance.... Never before has it been as imperative to struggle for a true rendering of the 9/11 reality, and never have the incentives been greater to prevent such a rendering.”
On second thought, this is also good response to the Gatekeeper psycho-pathologizing of 9/11 Truthers. Let us challenge Left Gatekeepers and the professional psychologists and ask them, if their standard of mental health recognizes what happens when repressed “deep, dark secrets” cause individuals increasing “anxieties,” which are only further intensified by “the acute fear that the dark secrets will somehow be exposed.” If the psychology of fear manifests such symptoms in the individual, as any psychiatrist/psychotherapist knows, then so, too, in the body politic.
I should note here, since it may throw light upon the origin of the Left Gakekeeper’s scorn of “paranoid conspiracy theory,” that the conception of political “conspiracy theory” as essentially paranoid was first developed by the “consensus” historian Richard Hofstader, The Paranoid Style In American Politics (1966). Briefly put, Hofstader traced the political ideology of many conspiracy theorists back to 19th-century radical populists, who, for instance, promoted conspiracy theories of Wall Street Bankers. Hofstader would see this kind of populism in the current conspiracy theories of Communists, the Federal Reserve, the Trilateral Commission, etc. The most extensive body of research on American conspiracy theory was developed in the 1950s and 1960s within the framework of “consensus” or “counterprogresive” history by historians and “pluralism” by political scientists. What Hofstader and others termed “political paranoia” was a “pathology” suffered by those outside the pluralistic consensus. Although they focused chiefly on right-wing extremist populists, because this “fear of conspiracy” took place during the rise of the “New American Right” of McCarthyism and, later, Goldwater, as well as the ultra-reactionary John Birch Society, these “consensus” historians and political-science “pluralists” concerned with political “paranoia” were nevertheless suspicious of any type of populism. Thus, the conspiracy populism of the Right evoked a new skepticism about the older populism of the Left, becoming also an object of criticism and scorn. Their work was widely disseminated within academia and the intellectual community in general and remains influential in academic and popular notions of the politics of conspiracy theories. Futhermore, this suspicion and carte blanche rejection of populist conspiracy theory became particularly important, because contemporaneous with the work of later consensus historians on “political paranoia,” during the years of student activism and the emergence of the New Left. The consensus history, which from its earliest moments had used “extremism” as a convenient and effective label for all forms of poplulist dissent, had to account for the rise of populist “fear of conspiracy” through such explanatory frameworks and historical parallels. This explanatory framework of “paranoid conspiracy theory” was to make up a sizable body of literature in journals, article collections, and books from the mid-1950s to 1970. Again, it is the mainstream liberal historian Hodstader who, because of his emphasis on the social-psychological basis for conspiracy theory, is most responsible for the now popular ad homenim of paranoid describing today’s conspiracy theorist as fantasist. In other words, Hofstader was the first to make “conspiracy theory” synonymous with pathology. However, to be more accurate, I should also point out that he not only objected to the form of “paranoid” political style, but also to its content. This meant that, although he allowed that not all the fears and claims of those who engage in the paranoid style of politics need be dismissed as entirely fanciful, granting them a modicum of truth, he condemned what he called “the apocalyptic and asbsolutist framework” in which they appear. Here he admits that conspiracy does indeed exist—that legitimate political strategies often require secrecy and thus some measure of “conspiracy”—yet, he adds, such strategies are merely mechanisms to properly political ends and do not in themselves constitute historical forces with real-world effects. To believe they do is the be guilty of the “paranoid style,” which is to misread the real evidence and displace it into a distorted or “sick” explanatory frame of reference—i.e., a conspiracy theory. Odd as it may at first seem, given my defense of “conspiracy theory,” I nevertheless think that Hofstader’s identification of “the apocalyptic and absolutist framework” is useful in distinguishing the 9/11 (and earlier JFK assassination) conspiracy theory from the trans-historical “secret society” conspiracy theory. (See note #9.)
7. This is, by the way, a growing field of professional concern and thriving service industry. See, for instance, the book 9/11: Mental Health in the Wake of Terrorist Attacks, ed. by Yuval Neria, Columbia University, New York, 2006. It begins with the question: “Does terrorism have a unique and significant emotional and behavioral impact among adults and children?” (It would be interesting to have a study from the perspective of the 9/11 Truth researcher of the place of the 9/11 origin-myth—a with its terrorist message—in the psychotherapeutic establishment and the extent to which it has become a new area of theory and treatment.)
Considering the ad homenim attacks on 9/11 Truthers, to be “mentally deranged” means that you’re not just wrong politically, but sick—psychologically. Thus we have a new element added to the issue of 9/11; therapeutic treatment for “conspiracy theorists” by the psychoanalytic class of our society, who counsel to the psychic problems caused by 9/11. And, of course, this treatment includes those who are supposedly so traumatized that they must create a simple yet meaningful explanation for incomprehensible, or too complex of, events—a conspiracy theory: “In the case of incomprehensible external catastrophes, it makes our catastrophic, chaotic, incomprehensible world understandable— giving it and our existence meaning. It reduces complexity. Many-layered, complex causes of events can be reduced to a single scapegoat.” According to Psychology Professor Cary Cooper (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) conspiracy theories come out of attempts to “stave off fear of random violence and unpredictable death” Commenting on conspiracy theorists of the JFK assassination and 9/11, he says: “They do that because they can't come to terms with the fact that it could be just a few people .... If this can happen, what sense of security can you have? We create alternate realities because we reject the world where a single madman can bring down a president, a reckless driver can snuff out a princess... and a few men with knives can terrorize a country.”
This seems to be the typical view of the mental health establishment. (Of course, this is certainly reflected in the popular media against “paranoid conspiracy theorists” in general and 9/11 conspiracy theorists in particular, who have been ridiculed in shows from South Park to Real Time. 9/11 Truthers, like other conspiracy theorists, have mental problems—“nutcases,” “nutjobs.” Thus Bill Maher, in a Sept. 14th show of Real Time, declared that the 9/11 movement is a bunch of “crazy people” in need of mental help.) Then there is the clinical case of the “paranoid schizophrenic,” who is just the extreme case of the paranoid conspiracy theorist: “Paranoid schizophrenics are prone to delusions, tales in which random events become deeply meaningful. Some believe in complex conspiracies.” Notice that the explanations have it both ways—the conspiracy theorist either reduces complexity or fosters it! But perhaps we have not long to wait until science finds a cure for the “conspiracy theorist” personality. A new theory comes from Shitij Kapur (professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and vice president of research at the Canadian Centre for Addiction and Mental Health). In an article with the modest title, “Conspiracy Theories Explained” (2006), Dr. Kapur says conspiracy theories come from schizophrenics who have too much dopamine. “These stories sound crazy, but they may be the brain's efforts to make sense of its own internal messages.” Dr. Kapur calls it “biased inductive logic,” which is “a top-down effort to explain the feeling that everything seems important. The cognitive parts of a schizophrenic's brain create the paranoid tale in an effort to explain the constant red alert blaring from the dopamine circuits, using any stimuli available. High levels of the neurotransmitter make schizophrenics believe that everything is significant.” Dr. Kapur cautions that this theory is still speculative, but nonetheless it could support the radical idea of treating paranoid schizophrenia with cognitive therapy. (Laure A. Manwell might be interested in this!) So 9/11 Truthers, be not in despair! (there’s nothing worse than a depressed “conspiracy theorist”), if there’s hope for paranoid schizophrenics, maybe there’s hope for their ambulatory brothers and sisters in the 9/11 Truth community.
In hoping for another view on this (where would we 9/11 Truthers be if all conspiracy theories could so easily be explained away?—taking Prozac for our depression?), I have recently discovered a paper from Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush (professor of psychiatry at the Standish Sanitarium), “The Dopy Dopamine Conspiracy Theory,” in which he dismisses Dr Kapur’s findings, as “the ravings of a paranoid schizophrenic who is, in trying to make himself feel important, apparently concocting a dopamine conspiracy theory which reduces the rich complexity of the brain to a dopamine neurotransmitter.” Hackenbush also accuses Kapur (a psychiatrist who “has never met a healthy conspiracy theorist”) of making this new theory all-significant, based an faulty and “biased inductive logic.” When asked to give an example of this kind of logic, Dr Hackenbush was quoted as saying: “Either he's dead or my watch has stopped!” ☺
8. This was the subject of a Frontline documentary, “Faith and Doubt At Ground Zero” (2006), which was billed as, “an exploration of the spiritual questions emerging from the events of September 11th.” The program began with this prologue: “Tonight on Frontline an intimate and profound investigation of the spiritual aftershocks of September 11th. Those who lost loved ones, and many other Americans, are haunted by questions of faith. Was it true evil the world witnessed on that day? Was religion itself to blame? And where was God on September 11th? Tonight, confessions of faith and doubt at ground zero.” Of course, if religion was responsible, it was the religion of Islam! But, on the other hand, if “God” wasn’t there, it wasn’t the “God” that has nothing to do with Islam, but the one-and-only “God” of the one-and-only true religion— Judeo-Christianity. It’s interesting, given this spin-off from the 9/11 event, that one of the foremost researchers, David Ray Griffin (put down by Alex Cockburn [paraphrase]: “what can a theologian know of the field of political research?), is a philosopher and theologian by trade. Thus, I ask: How exquisitely appropriate is this anyway—that a theologian should be on hand to deal with 9/11?
9. The “secret society” conspiracy theory is a grand narrative of trans-historical proportions, which identify secret societies at the center of a world conspiracy to take over governments and set up a one-world government. Beginning with the Illuminati, the Masons, the Templars and etc., they morph into the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group, Skull and Bones, etc. in our time, who will bring on the “New World Order.” (Of course, Dan Brown has popularized these “secret societies” in his The Da Vinci Code, and the movie National Treasure has focused on the Masonic conspiracy in America as part of the secret-society-behind-all-things myth. Here, I’m not suggesting that there’s no real conspiratorial power exercised by these 20th-century groups, but only that the “secret society” trans-historical conspiracy theorists lump them into an “apocalyptic and absolutist framework,” by which they become an historical continuation of the satanic secret societies, now becoming the agents of the fulfillment of the latter’s totalitarian fantasy—a one-world government. Again, there is evidence that this is the goal of these modern conspiratorial groups, but my argument is that they are not part of this cosmic conspiracy, with its theological overtones.)
The veracity of these claims is highly questionable. To give just one example, citing the history of the real “Perfectibilists.” “Illuminati” is the name that refers to several groups, both real and fictitious. Most commonly, as used by secret-society conspiracy theorists, it refers specifically to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment era secret society founded on May 1, 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, no arch-sorcerer but the first lay professor of canon law at the University of Ingolstadt. The group's adherents were given the name Illuminati (although they called themselves “Perfectibilists”). The movement was made up of rationalist freethinkers and, as an offshoot of the Enlightenment, represented a movement to challenge the hegemony of the Church and its superstitions. Soon rumors spread of a conspiracy to infiltrate and overthrow the governments of many European states. Although a few Freemasons were known to be members, there is no evidence that it was supported by Freemasonry as an institution. Indeed, membership in the Illuminati, unlike that in Freemasonry, did not require belief in a Supreme Being. As a result, atheists and the Illuminati’s largely humanist and anti-clerical bent probably accounts for many of the claims of atheism that were sometimes leveled at the alleged world conspiracy of which the Illuminati supposedly a part. This is a far cry from the satanic mystification charged by modern secret-society conspiracy theorists, who claim that the Bavarian Illuminati survived to this day, though very little reliable evidence can be found to support that Weishaupt’s group survived into the 19th century. However, in modern times it refers to a purported conspiratorial organization that acts as a shadowy hand behind the centers of power, allegedly controlling world affairs through present day governments and corporations, usually as a modern incarnation or continuation of the Bavarian Illuminati.
Yet, ignoring this real history, the secret-society conspiracy theorists ask us to believe that, say, the Skull and Bones is a powerfully satanic secret society that is part of the Illuminati/Freemasonic conspiracy, plotting the New World Order. Closer to the real truth, is that the Yale elite fraternity is no more genuinely occult (in the Masonic tradition) than the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (the Shriner’s) are ancient, Arabic, or mystic. No, they are more of a glorified, elite men’s bonding fraternity, and their rituals are closer to the sexual perversions of the decadent sons of the ruling class than genuine mystic/esoteric rites. I believe that a good argument could be made that the secret-society conspiracy, with its ever-present satanic allusions and its suppression of the Illuminati’s anti-Christian origin, is a product of closet-Christianism (whether its advocates are or are not believers of this religion). And who should better know about a vast, organized church-state conspiracy than Christianism? which is, in its medieval Catholic phase, the only proven historical world conspiracy I know about. In fact, if one looks into the Church’s Inquisition (which actually had its beginnings in Southern France in the 13th century and ended in the 16th) and Witch-hunts (1450-1700), one finds a 500 year reign of terror (actually not suppressed in Spain until the 19th century). In terms of a great historical conspiracy, one finds the prototype of all later intelligence agencies; a Europe-wide intelligence gathering network to hunt down and prosecute the Church’s enemies. (And in terms of “secret societies,” I haven’t mentioned the Church’s notorious Opus Dei and P2 Lodge!) Given this, and that certain “secret-society” conspiracies are cosmic in scope (like the LaRouchees promote), going back the evil Gnostics (and even Satan himself), could it be that the “secret-society” conspiracy, then, is actually the grand psychological shadow-projection of Christianism?
So about the secret-society conspiracy vis-a-vis 9/11: we of the 9/11 Truth Community are already, in my opinion, trying to overcome the media stereotype of wacky conspiracy theorist, without feeding into it. We then get lumped in with the lunatic fringe conspiracy theorists: Jews rule the world, alien encounters/Area 51, crop circles, Nazi moon base, fake moon landing, face on Mars, Stephen King killed John Lennon, Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK, and Muslim Highjakers pulled off 9/11! Thus, in order to be given a fair hearing by the general public, I think Barrie Zwicker’s “effective communication” imperative should be taken into serious consideration. (See his “The Conspiracy Theory Conspiracy,” in Vancouver 9/11 Truth Conference, June 2007.) Yet, if we must talk about grand secret society conspiracies—that all seem to finally go back to Satan himself—, let’s save them for around the campfire with other occult narratives that go bump in the night!
10. A few 9/11 Truth scholars have been doing this—taking the 9/11 debate to another level by an analysis of the linguistic and psychological issues embedded in the debate itself. See, of course, Laurie A. Manwell for the latter, and for the former see Barrie Zwicker, “The Conspiracy Theory Conspiracy” and Michael Keefer, “The Gatekeepers: How 9/11 Information Is Suppressed.” (Vancouver 9/11 Truth Conference: 911 Canada and the New World Order, June 2007)
11. In case there be any misunderstanding, the phrase, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him,” is metaphorical and in no way is to be taken literally. (Since the Buddha died long ago, it would be impossible to kill him, right?) There was also a book written by Sheldon Kopp some time ago titled with the same phrase.
In case it might also be objected, when earlier I called Buddhists like Rothberg “post facto mess managers” and suggested they were part of the context of “new-age religions,” that Buddhism is not a typical “new-age” religion, I should clarify. Rothberg and company represent American Buddhism and, insofar as it comes out of the social American milieu that spawned the post-sixties “the new religions” (Joseph Needleman, Understanding the New Religions, 1978), it can be called “new-age.” Thus psychologist Daniel Goleman, “The Impact of the New Religions On Psychology,” states: “By the term ‘new religions,’ I am not referring to the new religiosity, such as the Charismatics, or the brand-new religions, like the Unification Church. Rather, I refer to the old religions, notably Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism, in new places. At the core of each of the old religions is a psychology.... Suddenly psychologists are confronted with a set of living, non-Western psychologies ....” (Ibid.) I discovered Goleman’s essay after finishing this one, and it not only confirms my view that American Buddhism is a “new-age” religion but also lends weight to my conjecture that (in the hands of Rothberg and the like) it is has become part of the psycho-therapeutic movement to counsel to the terrorism of the 9/11 origin myth—and, of course, to the paranoid personalities that dare to question it. Thus, getting back to my closing phrase, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him,” the larger frame of reference meant by this is that American Buddhism has made a “religion” (in the Western sense of a dogmatic belief system) out of Buddhism and, thus, is susceptible to a heretical and iconoclastic challenge. (See S. Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs, 1997.) Therefore, it is itself contaminated with “distortions” (which Rothberg wants to rid 9/11 Truthers of), especially those of the new-age religions. If I seem hard on American Buddhist teachers such as Rothberg, it is because (as a professional student of religions—in theory and practice) I have time and time again witnessed the saffron-robed arrogance and spiritual hypocrisy of those who pretend to some higher level of humanity. This new holier-than- thou spiritual attitude needs killing, especially when it now puts on the mantle of “socially- engaged Buddhism.” I have found one published critic, Wendy Kaminer, who agrees: “Smugness coupled with false humility is a common, central trait of popular religious writers.” This socially- engaged spiritual ego, combined with “new-age solipsism” (thank you Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy!), pontificates new political insights for the anti-war-social-justice movement, such as the following (from a KPFA interview with S. F. Socially Engaged Buddhists): “We need to realize that we have no real enemies out there; all enemies are in our heads.” I have dealt with this larger issue of the new so-called “spiritual politics” in a previous essay. (See “My Loyal Opposition Argument with the Spiritual Politics Camp” on my web sub-page, “Religion & Reason.”) Therefore, to sum up, it would not be too un-Buddhist to remind our brothers and sisters in the Socially Engaged Buddhist movement that those who live in glass Zen centers shouldn’t throw stones!
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* By way of clarification, although I may appear to take a rather harsh line with those who are Left Gatekeepers, I draw the line when it comes to charging that these, such a Noam Chomsky, have ties to certain government Intelligence agencies (as some prominent in the 9/11 Truth Community unfortunately do charge). Here I must admit that I feel somewhat conflicted in having to criticize these nationally known figures, since I have had great respect for many of them in the service they’ve done for the “good fight.” Thus, I find the tactic of charging those on the Left with being clandestine government agents as not only outrageous but counter- productive to the interests of winning them over to our 9/11 Truth point of view. I would hope that this kind of smear tactic would cease in the 9/11 Truth Community. Just because there are major LeftGatekeepers who make these kind of wild accusations (e.g., either there are paid disinformation 9/11 Truthers, or the government is feeding conspiracy theory misinformation through 9/11 Truthers, because it somehow serves its purposes) I believe, even though they show themselves to be misinformed--and oftentimes belligerently so--that all the national Left Gatekeepers are sincere and, for the most part, honest in what they believe, and that we must respect their opposing point of view. Having said this about most all Left Gatekeepers, let me just add that Alex Cockburn can go fuck himself!
**By way of disclaimer, although I single out Rothberg as a “socially-engaged Buddhist,” who seems to buy the official 9/11 conspiracy theory, this doesn’t mean all “socially-engaged Buddhists” share the same view. A prime exception being someone I just mentioned above, Joanna Macy, who happens to be a signatory to the 9/11 Truth Statement. (The 9/11 Truth Statement, NY, Oct. 26, 2004, documents the alliance of 100 prominent Americans and 40 family members of those killed on 9/11. It calls for immediate inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur. However, the wording seems ambiguous enough to distinguish it from the more radical view that "9/11 was an inside job.")
9/11 Conspiracy Theorists: Got To Keep the Loonies On the Path and Off the Media by the Gypsy Scholar October 22, 2007
Introduction
This essay is another version of my last essay on the subject of media Left Gatekeepers. It covers the same ground as the last, but focuses more particularly on what I call the psychological politics that short-circuit the debate about what really happened on 9/11. In other words, it focuses on the way 9/11 Truthers are branded as “conspiracy theorists” and, ipso facto, “conspiracy loonies” or “nutcases.” The use of these ad homenims by the believers in the official government story is the habitual response that 9/11 Truthers get when they confront their fellow Americans with the unanswered questions about 9/11. Furthermore, this popular stereotype seems to be backed up by the psychiatric establishment and used most efficiently by both local and national Left Gatekeepers.
A local radio Left Gatekeeper has charged that there was “hardly any evidence” on the 9/11 Truth Community side and vociferously aired his disbelief that “George Bush was responsible.” This is, by the way, what the Left Gatekeepers would like us to believe, even though I know of no top-notch 9/11 Truth researcher who believes, with the evidence pointing to an “inside job,” it’s that simple. Thus Alex Cockburn, in his Counterpunch hit piece, “9/11 Conspiracy Nuts,” and again in a C-SPAN interview, bellicosely dismisses the 9/11 Truthers because [to paraphrase] “they’re asking us to believe that George Bush’s people pulled off 9/11 when they shown themselves to be totally incompetent in every other way.”
National Left Gatekeeper Cockburn is particularly condescending in his criticism of the 9/11 Truth movement, especially to David Ray Griffin. He calls Prof. Griffin one of the movement’s “high priests,” as if it were a religious movement. But as Prof. Griffin, one of the finest analytical minds in his profession, points out, in his response to Cockburn (“The Truly Distracting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory: A Reply to Alexander Cockburn”), 9/11 Truth is “a fact-based movement that involves scientists, engineers, pilots, war veterans, politicians, philosophers, former air traffic controllers, former defense ministers, and former CIA analysts.” Prof. Griffin renders this verdict on Cockburn’s hit piece (“US: The Conspiracy That Wasn’t”)—“faulty in virtually every respect,” and then goes on to debunk it.
It is particularly ironic—and, for the peace movement, tragic—that Left Gatekeepers all of a sudden implicitly trust, carte blanche, the government’s word on things. But calling us “conspiracists,” as David Ray Griffin points out, ignores the fact that in defending the government’s account, the Left Gatekeepers, like Cockburn, are in effect ironically defending “the original 9/11 conspiracy theory.” In countering this official conspiracy theory (i.e., the Muslim Terrorist Highjacker theory) with our own, it looks like the rhetorical tactic of “effective communication” may be to accept the label and show that it cuts both ways.
However, it seems to this “9/11 conspiracy theorist” that it would help to understand just how this pejorative label originated and came to be such a powerful rhetorical tool for a tout court dismissal of an heuristic method that tends to a deeper analysis and connection-making than allowed by establishment journalistic investigation. Thus, in this version of my essay, I will attempt to seek out the origins of the negative notion of the wrong-headed and sick individual who indulges in the fantasy of secret, behind-the-scene goings-on in our world by powerful figures or groups—that is, of the “paranoid conspiracy theorist.”
The Psycho-Politics of 9/11
“You raise the blade, you make the change You re-arrange me ‘till I'm sane You lock the door And throw away the key There’s someone in my head but it's not me.”
Ever since the JFK assassination, those of us who didn’t accept the official story of the “lone gunman” and found substantial evidence to point to a government-sponsored operation and cover-up have been branded with the ad homenim or pejorative “conspiracy theorist” and psychoanalyzed as paranoid by both the political science and psychiatric establishments. (The movie Conspiracy Theory is a popularization of the type of person who fits the pathology of paranoia.) Now, we 9/11 conspiracy theorists have been pop-psychoanalyzed—“you people just can't accept that shit happens; you need order and meaning in your lives and so you dream up these fantastic conspiracy theories.” Thus, the frustrating fact is that 9/11 Truthers are up against the ad homenim or pejorative “conspiracy theorist,” as the media both reflects and encourages the stereotype in popular culture. Many 9/11 Truthers have experienced this first hand, but perhaps there are not enough 9/11 Truthers who truly appreciate the socio-political flak we need to overcome just to get a fair hearing. We are, according to the Left Gatekeepers, “a bunch of irrational, unscientific nuts.” As David Ray Griffin says: “ ... the assumption that conspiracy theories are inherently irrational has recently taken root in American culture, making any attack on the official government record instantly dismissible....” Once more, the apparent popularity of conspiracy theories is often cited as a cause of concern that our society is breaking down. For example, Canadian journalist Robert Sibley has warned that conspiracy theory is “a nihilistic vortex of delusion and superstition that negates reality itself.” Other Left Gatekeepers want to appear a little more sympathetic to the “conspiracy theorists” by explaining that it is possibly the government’s fault, because, in the absence of answered questions concerning 9/11 (which are assumed to be forthcoming), “paranoid conspiracy theories” rush in to fill the void. “Conspiracy theory” is used by Right- and Left Gatekeepers as a pejorative label, meaning paranoid, nutty, and marginal— outside the boundary of rational discourse. The power of this pejorative is that it discounts a theory by attacking the motivations and mental competence of those who advocate the theory. By labeling an explanation of events “conspiracy theory,” evidence and argument are dismissed, not because they have been shown to be incorrect, but because they come from a mentally or morally deficient personality. “Conspiracy theory” designates ideas to be feared, and implies that the ideas and their advocates are simple-minded or insane. (For the mentally deficient personality type conspiracy theorist as “paranoid schizophrenic,” see below.) Calling an explanation of events “conspiracy theory” means, in effect, “We don't like you, and no one should listen to your explanation.”
Many on the 9/11 Truth side have a hard time understanding why those who they previously admired on the Left have this newly acquired trust in the government’s official story of what happened on 9/11 and why the new cadre of Left Gatekeepers use of the pejorative “conspiracy theorist” against them, while letting the government’s story slide as fact. Several explanations have been floated on the 9/11 side, among them fear on the Left of the cut-off of grant monies by big (liberal and, maybe, secretly nefarious) foundations. Although this may be the case with some Left Gatekeepers, it may be that it’s a bit more simple—fear of losing their reputation. “Conspiracy theorist” and all such labels implicitly define a community of orthodox believers, who try to banish or shun people who challenge orthodox beliefs. Members of the community of believers—in this case the orthodox Left—shy away from the new ideas and join in the shunning due to fear of being tainted by the pejorative label—of being mentally deranged; of being, in the case of 9/11 Truthers, “conspiracy nutcases.” (When most believers in the original 9/11 conspiracy theory are confronted by 9/11 Truthers with the unanswered questions of 9/11 and the alternate conspiracy theory, the typical response is ad homenim, whether it be face-to-face or on the internet blog. Here are a list of the most used pejoratives that are designed to dismiss 9/11 Truthers instead of engaging in rational argument: “Paranoid nutcase,” “nutjob,” “wackjobs,” “wackos,” “crazies,” “tin foil hat wearing crazies,” “lunatics;” “the so-called ‘9/11 truth movement’ is really just a bunch of mentally unstable idiots.” Thus a prominent debunking internet blogger’s characterization of the evidence put forth by 9/11 Truthers is typical: “material presented as fact is unsubstantiated rumor or lunatic conspiracy theories.” This being the case, if I have a preference for what I’d want to be labeled, I guess (for reasons which will become apparent by the end of this essay), “lunatic” would be it—with its ancient, honored poetical associations!)
Considering the implications of the pervasive ad homenim attacks on 9/11 Truthers, to be mentally deranged means that you’re not just wrong politically, but sick—psychologically. Thus we have a new element added to the issue of 9/11; therapeutic treatment for “conspiracy theorists” by the psychoanalytic class of our society, who counsel to the psychic problems caused by 9/11. This is, by the way, a growing field of professional concern and thriving service industry. See, for instance, the book 9/11: Mental Health in the Wake of Terrorist Attacks, ed. by Yuval Neria, Columbia University, New York, 2006. It begins with the question: “Does terrorism have a unique and significant emotional and behavioral impact among adults and children?”
It would be interesting to have a study (from the perspective of the 9/11 Truth researcher) of the place of the 9/11 origin-myth (with its terrorist message) in the psychotherapeutic establishment and the extent to which it has become a new area of theory and treatment. And, of course, this treatment includes those who are supposedly so traumatized that they must create a simple yet meaningful explanation for incomprehensible, or too complex of, events—a conspiracy theory: “In the case of incomprehensible external catastrophes, it makes our catastrophic, chaotic, incomprehensible world understandable—giving it and our existence meaning. It reduces complexity. Many-layered, complex causes of events can be reduced to a single scapegoat.” According to Psychology Professor Cary Cooper (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) conspiracy theories come out of attempts to “stave off fear of random violence and unpredictable death” Commenting on conspiracy theorists of the JFK assassination and 9/11, he says: “They do that because they can't come to terms with the fact that it could be just a few people .... If this can happen, what sense of security can you have? We create alternate realities because we reject the world where a single madman can bring down a president, a reckless driver can snuff out a princess... and a few men with knives can terrorize a country.”
This seems to be the typical view of the mental health establishment. Of course, this is certainly reflected in the popular media against “paranoid conspiracy theorists” in general and 9/11 conspiracy theorists in particular, who have been ridiculed in shows from South Park to Real Time. 9/11 Truthers, like other conspiracy theorists, have mental problems—“nutcases.” Thus Bill Maher, in a Sept. 14th Real Time show, declared that the 9/11 movement is a bunch of “crazy people” in need of mental help. 1
Then there is the clinical case of the “paranoid schizophrenic,” who is just the extreme case of the paranoid conspiracy theorist: “Paranoid schizophrenics are prone to delusions, tales in which random events become deeply meaningful. Some believe in complex conspiracies.” Notice that the explanations have it both ways—the conspiracy theorist either reduces complexity or fosters it! But perhaps we have not long to wait until science finds a cure for the “conspiracy theorist” personality. A new theory comes from Shitij Kapur (professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and vice president of research at the Canadian Centre for Addiction and Mental Health). In an article with the modest title, “Conspiracy Theories Explained” (2006), Dr. Kapur says conspiracy theories come from schizophrenics who have too much dopamine. “These stories sound crazy, but they may be the brain's efforts to make sense of its own internal messages.” Dr. Kapur calls it “biased inductive logic,” which is “a top-down effort to explain the feeling that everything seems important. The cognitive parts of a schizophrenic's brain create the paranoid tale in an effort to explain the constant red alert blaring from the dopamine circuits, using any stimuli available. High levels of the neurotransmitter make schizophrenics believe that everything is significant.” Dr. Kapur cautions that this theory is still speculative, but nonetheless it could support the radical idea of treating paranoid schizophrenia with cognitive therapy. (Is this really supposed to be an improvement over the traditional psychiatric methods, or is it a more sophisticated form of mind control? “You raise the blade, you make the change / You re-arrange me ‘till I'm sane / You lock the door / And throw away the key / There’s someone in my head but it's not me.”) So 9/11 Truthers, be not in despair! (there’s nothing worse than a depressed “conspiracy theorist”), if there’s hope for paranoid schizophrenics, maybe there’s hope for their ambulatory brothers and sisters in the 9/11 Truth community.
In hoping for another view on this (where would we 9/11 Truthers be if all conspiracy theories could so easily be explained away?—taking Prozac for our depression?), I have recently discovered a paper from Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush (professor of psychiatry at the Standish Sanitarium), “The Dopy Dopamine Conspiracy Theory,” in which he dismisses Dr Kapur’s findings, as “the ravings of a paranoid schizophrenic who is, in trying to make himself feel important, apparently concocting a dopamine conspiracy theory which reduces the rich complexity of the brain to a dopamine neurotransmitter.” Hackenbush also accuses Kapur (a psychiatrist who “has never met a healthy conspiracy theorist”) of making this new theory all-significant, based an faulty and “biased inductive logic.” When asked to give an example of this kind of logic, Dr Hackenbush was quoted as saying: “Either he's dead or my watch has stopped!”
Seriously though, added to the psychiatric class of 9/11 information managers we have another—the priestly class of traditionally organized religion, who see their role as ministering to the spiritual shock of 9/11 (and the “crisis of faith” that it has led to for some Americans). Yet, to add farce to tragedy, both classes of these healers are post facto mess managers—naively coming to the aid of damaged psyches yet all the while under the illusion of the origin-myth of 9/11. (Origin-myth? Need I point out we’re constantly reminded by our leaders that “it’s a totally different world after 9/11”?) I case there are those listening who suspect that I’m just making these priestly big brothers up for effect, this was actually the subject of a Frontline documentary, “Faith and Doubt At Ground Zero” (2006), which was billed as, “an exploration of the spiritual questions emerging from the events of September 11th.” The program began with this prologue: “Tonight on Frontline an intimate and profound investigation of the spiritual aftershocks of September 11th. Those who lost loved ones, and many other Americans, are haunted by questions of faith. Was it true evil the world witnessed on that day? Was religion itself to blame? And where was God on September 11th? Tonight, confessions of faith and doubt at ground zero.” Of course, if religion was responsible, it was the religion of Islam! But, on the other hand, if “God” wasn’t there, it wasn’t the “God” that has nothing to do with Islam, but the one-and-only “God” of the one-and-only true religion—Judeo-Christianity. It’s interesting, given this spin-off from the 9/11 event, that one of the foremost researchers, David Ray Griffin (put down by Alex Cockburn [paraphrase]: “what can a theologian know of the field of political research?), is a philosopher and theologian by trade. Thus, I ask you who may feel, as perhaps those who to take Cockburn’s word for it may feel: How exquisitely appropriate is this anyway—that a theologian should be on hand to deal with 9/11?
The Liberalist Beginnings of Psycho-Politics: The Paranoid Style in American Politics
What seems to throw some light on the origin of the Left Gatekeeper’s scorn of “conspiracy theory” is the explanatory frame of reference that considers political “conspiracy theory” essentially paranoid. This was first developed by the “consensus” historian Richard Hofstader in his influential study, The Paranoid Style In American Politics (1966). Briefly put, Hofstader traced the political ideology of many conspiracy theorists back to 19th-century radical populists, who, for instance, promoted conspiracy theories of Wall Street Bankers. Hofstader would see this kind of populism in the current conspiracy theories of Communists, the Federal Reserve, the Trilateral Commission, etc. The most extensive body of research on American conspiracy theory was developed in the 1950s and 1960s within the framework of “consensus” or “counterprogressive” history by historians and “pluralism” by political scientists. What Hofstader and others termed “political paranoia” was a “pathology” suffered by those outside the pluralistic consensus. Although they focused chiefly on right-wing extremist populists, because this “fear of conspiracy” took place during the rise of the “New American Right” of McCarthyism and, later, Goldwater, as well as the ultra-reactionary John Birch Society, these “consensus” historians and political-science “pluralists” concerned with political “paranoia” were nevertheless suspicious of any type of populism. Thus, the conspiracy populism of the Right evoked a new skepticism about the older populism of the Left, becoming also an object of criticism and scorn. Their work was widely disseminated within academia and the intellectual community in general and remains influential in academic and popular notions of the politics of conspiracy theories. Furthermore, this suspicion and carte blanche rejection of populist conspiracy theory became particularly important, because contemporaneous with the work of later consensus historians on “political paranoia,” during the years of student activism and the emergence of the New Left. The consensus history, which from its earliest moments had used “extremism” as a convenient and effective label for all forms of populist dissent, had to account for the rise of populist “fear of conspiracy” through such explanatory frameworks and historical parallels. This explanatory framework of “paranoid conspiracy theory” was to make up a sizable body of literature in journals, article collections, and books from the mid-1950s to 1970. Again, it is the mainstream liberal historian Hodstader who, because of his emphasis on the social-psychological basis for conspiracy theory, is most responsible for the now popular ad homenim of paranoid describing today’s conspiracy theorist as fantasist. In other words, Hofstader was the first to make “conspiracy theory” synonymous with pathology. However, to be more accurate, I should also point out that he not only objected to the form of “paranoid” political style, but also to its content. This meant that, although he allowed that not all the fears and claims of those who engage in the paranoid style of politics need be dismissed as entirely fanciful, granting them a modicum of truth, he condemned what he called “the apocalyptic and absolutist framework” in which they appear. Here he admits that conspiracy does indeed exist—that legitimate political strategies often require secrecy and thus some measure of “conspiracy”—yet, he adds, such strategies are merely mechanisms to properly political ends and do not in themselves constitute historical forces with real-world effects. To believe they do is the be guilty of the “paranoid style,” which is to misread the real evidence and displace it into a distorted or “sick” explanatory frame of reference—i.e., a conspiracy theory. 2
I stated that 9/11 Truthers need to understand and address what we’re up against in the Left Gatekeeper media. I have spent some time laying out how the ad homenim “conspiracy theorist” controls the response of both the mainstream and left media to the 9/11 Truth information; how it shuts down any possible serious debate as to what really happened on 9/11. In countering this rhetorical dismissive tactic, we can, as David Ray Griffin has implied, make or detractors defend “the original 9/11 conspiracy theory” (the Muslim Terrorist Highjacker theory) by the rhetorical counter-tactic of making the case that the pejorative label cuts both ways. Thus we must remember, when we get a public hearing on talk-shows and try to give reasons for our point of view, it’s easy for Left Gatekeepers to put us on the defensive, since we’re already characterized on the mainstream media as “conspiracy theorists” and, thus, ipso facto “conspiracy nutcases.” No, on the contrary, it’s our job to put them on the defensive: “Since you seem to believe in the official conspiracy theory, please show me evidence for believing such!” So if we maintain, for instance, that “9/11 was an inside job,” then we would do better—short of the “shadow government” theory—to make our argument by demanding of our critics to explain how something like 9/11 could have been pulled off without a great deal of top-level government orchestration/ participation.)
Another good way to begin to address the problem of the “conspiracy theorist” put-down is to avoid playing into the hands of our arch-critics, since, as I said, we’re already characterized on the mainstream media as “conspiracy theorists” and, thus, ipso facto “conspiracy nutcases.” Given this, I have, unfortunately, heard too many 9/11 Truthers come off sounding like messianic zealots by calling into talk shows and beginning an argument for 9/11 Truth by linking the 9/11 False Flag/Psy-Ops to the grand, trans-historical conspiracy of the Illuminati-Freemason-Skull & Bones-Satanic plot to rule the world—the New World Order!
So what is this “secret society” conspiracy anyway, and can we trust the claims made by its advocates when they lump it together with the 9/11 Inside Job conspiracy theory? Briefly, the “secret society” conspiracy theory is a grand narrative of trans-historical proportions, which identify secret societies at the center of a world conspiracy to take over governments and set up a one-world government. Beginning with the Illuminati, the Masons, the Templars and etc., they morph into the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group, Skull and Bones, etc. in our time, who will bring on the “New World Order.” (Of course, Dan Brown has popularized these “secret societies” in his The Da Vinci Code, and the movie National Treasure has focused on the Masonic conspiracy in America as part of the secret-society-behind-all-things myth. Here, I’m not suggesting that there’s no real conspiratorial power exercised by these 20th-century groups, but only that the “secret society” trans-historical conspiracy theorists lump them into an “apocalyptic and absolutist framework,” by which they become an historical continuation of the satanic secret societies, now becoming the agents of the fulfillment of the latter’s totalitarian fantasy—a one-world government. Again, there is evidence that this is the goal of these modern conspiratorial groups, but my argument is that they are not part of this cosmic conspiracy, with its theological overtones.)
However, despite the so-called evidence the “secret society” conspiracy theorists believe, the veracity of these claims is highly questionable. To give just one example, citing the history of the real “Perfectibilists.” “Illuminati” is the name that refers to several groups, both real and fictitious. Most commonly, as used by secret-society conspiracy theorists, it refers specifically to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment era secret society founded on May 1, 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, no arch-sorcerer but the first lay professor of canon law at the University of Ingolstadt. The group's adherents were given the name Illuminati (although they called themselves “Perfectibilists”). The movement was made up of rationalist freethinkers and, as an offshoot of the Enlightenment, represented a movement to challenge the hegemony of the Church and its superstitions. Soon rumors spread of a conspiracy to infiltrate and overthrow the governments of many European states. Although a few Freemasons were known to be members, there is no evidence that it was supported by Freemasonry as an institution. Indeed, membership in the Illuminati, unlike that in Freemasonry, did not require belief in a Supreme Being. As a result, atheists and the Illuminati’s largely humanist and anti-clerical bent probably accounts for many of the claims of atheism that were sometimes leveled at the alleged world conspiracy of which the Illuminati supposedly a part. This is a far cry from the satanic mystification charged by modern secret-society conspiracy theorists, who claim that the Bavarian Illuminati survived to this day, though very little reliable evidence can be found to support that Weishaupt’s group survived into the 19th century. However, in modern times it refers to a purported conspiratorial organization that acts as a shadowy hand behind the centers of power, allegedly controlling world affairs through present day governments and corporations, usually as a modern incarnation or continuation of the Bavarian Illuminati.
Yet, ignoring this real history, the secret-society conspiracy theorists ask us to believe that, say, the Skull and Bones is a powerfully satanic secret society that is part of the Illuminati/Freemasonic conspiracy, plotting the New World Order. Closer to the real truth, is that the Yale elite fraternity is no more genuinely occult (in the Masonic tradition) than the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (the Shriner’s) are ancient, Arabic, or mystic. No, they are more of a glorified, elite men’s bonding fraternity, and their rituals are closer to the sexual perversions of the decadent sons of the ruling class than genuine mystic/esoteric rites. I believe that a good argument could be made that the secret-society conspiracy, with its ever-present satanic allusions and its suppression of the Illuminati’s anti-Christian origin, is a product of closet-Christianism (whether its advocates are or are not believers of this religion). And who should better know about a vast, organized church-state conspiracy than Christianism? which is, in its medieval Catholic phase, the only proven historical world conspiracy I know about. In fact, if one looks into the Church’s Inquisition (which actually had its beginnings in Southern France in the 13th century and ended in the 16th) and Witch-hunts (1450-1700), one finds a 500 year reign of terror (actually not suppressed in Spain until the 19th century). In terms of a great historical conspiracy, one finds the prototype of all later intelligence agencies; a Europe-wide intelligence gathering network to hunt down and prosecute the Church’s enemies. (And in terms of “secret societies,” I haven’t mentioned the Church’s notorious Opus Dei and P2 Lodge!) Given this, and that certain “secret- society” conspiracies are cosmic in scope (like the LaRouchees promote), going back the evil Gnostics (and even Satan himself), could it be that the “secret-society” conspiracy, then, is actually the grand psychological shadow-projection of Christianism?
In conclusion, my advice about the secret-society conspiracy theory: we already, in my opinion, are trying to overcome the media stereotype of wacky conspiracy theorist, without feeding into it. We then get lumped in with the lunatic fringe conspiracy theorists: Jews rule the world, alien encounters/Area 51, crop circles, Nazi moon base, fake moon landing, face on Mars, Stephen King killed John Lennon, Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK, and Muslim Highjakers pulled off 9/11! Thus, again, I believe that in order to be given a fair hearing by the general public, I think Barrie Zwicker’s “effective communication” imperative should be taken into serious consideration. (See his “The Conspiracy Theory Conspiracy,” in Vancouver 9/11 Truth Conference, June 2007.) Yet, if we must talk about grand secret society conspiracies—that all seem to finally go back to Satan himself—, let’s save them for around the campfire with other occult narratives that go bump in the night!
9/11 Conspiracy Loonies, Got to Keep Them On the Path and Off the (Left) Media: Nighttime in America
Yet, indeed, it is night in America, but it isn’t because of a mere bump in the matrix of our daytime reality function—the smoke and debris from the TWC controlled demolitions not only spread over the city to eclipse the sun on that once-bright September 11th morning, but didn’t stop until it spread over into the collective psyche of America, benighting (i.e., “overtaking by night or the dark”) its interior landscape and thus its ability to distinguish between illusion and reality. And, thus, if we of the 9/11 Truth community are judged in the media as “paranoid conspiracy theorists”—as benighted souls—we are nevertheless able to judge illusion from reality and, by extension, to discriminate between a theory of conspiracy based on scientific methodology and a conspiracy of superstitions that mask themselves as rational theories. Our fate or this clarity is that we are judged benighted—for pointing to the "dark, paralyzing secret" at the heart of the American psyche. We are exiled and consigned into what may seem to the 9/11 Truther as an endless night (when “the sun feels like it’s been eclipsed by the moon”) of the post-9/11 world because we know too much, and not because we are “brain-damaged” 9/11 conspiracy theorists. With the “thunder in your ear / You shout and no one seems to hear” because of the TWC demolitions, we so-called “9/11 conspiracy lunatics” are accused of believing in the Nazi-moon-base type conspiracy theory (though some of us may believe that it’s more like an Nazi-earth-base in Amerika). Thus, if we are to be forever branded as moon-struck conspiracy theorists, we can take some ironic consolation in this, because we lunatic’s know that the “dark side of the moon” is a superior conspiracy theory, since it explains not only the complex ways in which the media, especially the Left Gatekeeper one, conspires to shut us out in darkness, but explains the true state of the nation until we know what really happened on 9/11.
What justification can I give for this dark take on our post-9/11 world? And why does my analysis of the fate of 9/11 Truthers, via the media, imply that the ad homenims by which they are dismissed—e.g., “conspiracy lunatics”—is actually a projection of the very minds that fear the truth of 9/11 being revealed? I will let Richard Falk, emeritus Professor of International Law at Princeton, give both justification and explanation; one, may I add, that trumps all the pseudo-psychologizing of so-called 9/11 conspiracy loonies:
... there is a dark, paralyzing secret harbored in the deepest recesses of the governing processes. The failures of the 9/11 Commission to allay these anxieties, but on the contrary its contribution to increasing the credibility of these anxieties, supports the conclusion that the entire elite structure of authority was unable and unwilling to confront the realities of 9/11, even in an investigative mode of truth-telling. The acute fear that the dark secrets will somehow be exposed also generates strong inhibiting pressures on the citizenry, which are exhibited in way ways, including exaggerated threat perception of enemies within and without, and reliance on the magician’s gift of diverting a perplexed audience from real dangers. That is, until the dark secret is either revealed or effectively explained, the entire political order will lack the moral agency to perceive the challenges confronting society, much less manifest the capacity to respond successfully. In this sense, probing the mysteries of 9/11 is a crucial precondition for addressing the structural deficiencies of a globalizing world in desperate need of a humane form of global governance.... Never before has it been as imperative to struggle for a true rendering of the 9/11 reality, and never have the incentives been greater to prevent such a rendering. (Richard Falk, “Global Ambitions and Geopolitical Wars: the Domestic Challenge: The Psycho-Politics of 9/11,” in 9/11 and the American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out.)
This is also good response to the Gatekeeperpsycho-pathologizing of 9/11 Truthers. Let us challenge Left Gatekeepers and the professional psychologists and ask them if their standard of mental health recognizes what happens when repressed “deep, dark secrets” cause individuals increasing “anxieties,” which are only further intensified by “the acute fear that the dark secrets will somehow be exposed.” If the psychology of fear manifests such symptoms in the individual, as any psychiatrist/psychotherapist knows, then so, too, in the body politic.
Thus, in conclusion to my argument about Left Gatekeepers and their ad homenim stereotype, I submit that the attempt by so-called "loony conspiracy theorists” to reveal the dark secret about what really happened on 9/11 is the challenge of our time; a challenge to the dark secret that benights our national psyche, when on that fateful day in September the world was supposed to have changed forever—“the sun was eclipsed by the moon.” I say “supposed” to change forever, since it definitely has changed, but not in the way the neo-cons/fascists want us to believe—we are, post-9/11 (metaphorically speaking), “on the dark side of the moon.” Yet, in this darkness, the media and its Left Gatekeepers—with their ad homenim attacks of lunacy against 9/11 Truthers—would keep those that can shed (moon)light on that dark secret behind their gates and forever on the path of the official conspiracy theory of 9/11. Hence my essay title: “9/11 Conspiracy Theorists: Got To Keep the Loonies on the Path and Off the Media.”
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1 The incident with the 9/11 activists on the Bill Maher show, Real Time (10/19/7), should serve as a lesson for 9/11 Truthers. Maher, in a Sept. 14th “New Rules” segment, declared that the 9/11 movement is a bunch of “crazy people” in need of mental help. Apparently disgruntled by the continued encounter with 9/11 Truthers outside the CBS studios, Maher bellicosely told these crazies to quit bugging him about airing their conspiracy theory on his show. (This hit piece, by the way, relied on the most vulnerable, and by now indefensible, positions of the official 9/11 myth—the airplane fires bringing the towers down.) The LA 9/11 Truther’s response came on the October 19th show: it was interrupted and brought to a temporary halt by 9/11 Truth hecklers in his audience.
I’m sure that this televised incident will cause reverberations throughout the 9/11 Truth community, raising a debate on what happened and, perhaps, on future media actions. To anticipate such, it’s my opinion that Maher has a perfect right to expect to carry on his show without having to debate the audience members. On the other hand, Maher had previously attacked 9/11 Truthers, virtually inviting an incident of some sort, whether outside or inside the studio. Moreover, Maher had no excuse in his hostile overreaction, acting like a little tyrant (not only to the hecklers, but to his own staff). That said, I have mixed feelings about the appropriateness of this 9/11 Truther action. On the one hand, I must confess a certain fondness for Maher; he not only makes me laugh out loud at his all-too-cogent ridicule of the Neo-Cons, but also makes me want to stand up and cheer at his devastatingly apt, and sometimes eloquently moving, “New Rules” comments about what’s really going on in this country, which nobody else on TV seems to have the nerve to say. On the other hand, Maher’s stubborn unwillingness to give the 9/11 Truth perspective air time on his show profoundly bothers me and raises serious questions as to his real motivations, some of which have been speculated about on internet blogs. Nonetheless, at the end of the day I suspect that this 9/11 Truth action will simply reinforce the stereotype that the only kind of Americans who are in the 9/11 community/movement are extremists of lunatic-fringe movements—i.e., ”nutcase conspiracy theorists.” Perhaps, though, desperate times require desperate actions. And I’m sure some 9/11 Truthers will say that at least this gives them media exposure that they haven’t yet had. True, but I must ask: of what kind? This action will, I’m sure, be spinned throughout the media as proof of the stereotype of the 9/11 conspiracy wacko. I’m sure, for two reasons: (1) the overwhelming positive response Maher got from his audience (probably liberal to progressive in composition) upon the ejection of the 9/11 trouble-makers, and (2) the popular TV media (from mainstream news programs to South Park) have already portrayed 9/11 Truthers as “paranoid conspiracy theorists,” or simply “nutjobs;” this action will just play right into the stereotype.
So I evaluate what happened on Real Time to be a strategic screw-up, in terms of being counter-productive to the aims of the 9/11 Truth movement—part of which is to counter the “conspiracy lunatic” stereotype. (I have tried to articulate this in a previous essay. In that essay I had seriously questioned some of the counter-tactics of certain 9/11 Truthers when it comes to being written off as “paranoid conspiracy theorists.”) Thus, proving my point about smear tactics against the integrity of those who don’t see things our way, like Left Gatekeepers—Chomsky and et. al—, some 9/11 Truth bloggers are simply chalking Maher up as one of them—a “Neo-Con” after all! In my opinion, this either/or game of “for-us-or-against-us” (and, if you’re against us, you must be connected to either some nefarious funding and/or some counter-intelligence program) is only a version of the Bush doctrine. I think we need to lose this kind of tactic. I think we’re better than this—smarter, more confident in our truth, and more committed to the long-term struggle to get that truth out. So for those in the 9/11 Truth community that feel something was gained by trying to derail the Bill Maher show, and that more actions like this will help the cause, sorry, but at least one thing Maher said to 9/11 Truthers was on the mark: “Get over yourselves!” As far as this 9/11 Truther is concerned, we need to take a lesson from Barrie Zwicker’s program of “effective communication;” in short, we need to be cool.
Again, everything I say is debatable. Be that as it may, one thing is certain: if by the 9/11 Truther presence outside his studio was the hope to get Maher to back-off on his so-called “skepticism” of 9/11 Truth claims and open up his program to a guest from our camp (and Maher has shown himself to come around on important issues), then we can just forget it—after this fiasco, Maher has permanently closed the door on the 9/11 Truth movement! Thus, I would respectfully inquire of my LA 9/11 Truth fellow-travelers: Is this what you were trying to accomplish Friday night?
“Hostile attitudes only serve to heat up the situation, whereas a true sense of respect gradually cools down what otherwise could become explosive. We must recognize the frequent contradictions between short-term benefit and long-term harm.” --The Dalai Lama
2. What is extremely ironic about the liberal notion that conspiracy theory is a "paranoid style" is that, if this were true, then the American colonists, who were responsible for the Revolution against their British masters, also have to be classified as participating in the "paranoid syle of American politics." In other words, American "The Logic of Rebellion" is a paranoid logic. The following is from Bernard Bailyn's classic book, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. (It begins the chapter, "The Logic of Revolution." The italicized "conspiracy" words are mine.)
Lord Chancellor Camden . . . declared . . . that for some time he had beheld with silent indignation the arbitrary measures which were pursuing by the ministry; . . . that, however, he would do so no longer, but we openly and boldly speak his sentiments . . . In a word, he accused the ministry . . . of having formed a conspiracyagainst the liberties of their country. –Report of Speech in the House of Lords, 1770
It is imparted to events after 1763 by this integrated group attitudes and ideas that lies behind the colonists’ rebellion. In the context of these ideas, the controversial issues centering on the question of Parliament’s jurisdiction in America acquired as a group new and overwhelming significance. The colonists believed the emerging from the welter of events during the decade after the Stamp Act a pattern whose meaning was unmistakable. They saw in the measures taken by the British government and in the actions the officials in the colonies something for which their peculiar inheritance of thought had prepared them only too well, something they had long conceived to be a possibility in view of the known tendencies of history and of the present state of affairs in England. They saw about them, with increasing clarity, lot merely mistaken, or even evil, policies violating the principles upon which freedom rested, but what appeared to be evidence of nothing less than a deliberate assault launched surreptitiously by plotters against liberty both in England and in America. The danger to America, it was believed, was in fact only the small, immediately visible part of the greater whole whose ultimate manifestation would be the destruction of the English constitution, with all the rights and privileges embedded in it.
This belief transformed the meaning of the colonists' struggle, and it added an inner accelerator to the movement of opposition. For, once assumed, it could not be easily dispelled: denial only confirmed it, since what conspirators profess is not what they believe; the ostensible is not the real; and the real is deliberately malign.
It was this—the overwhelming evidence, as they saw it, that they were faced with conspirators against liberty determined at all costs to gain ends which their words dissembled—that was signaled to the colonists after 1763, and it was this above all else that in the end propelled them into Revolution.
Suspicion that the ever-present, latent danger of an active conspiracy of power against liberty was becoming manifest within the British Empire, assuming specific form and developing in coordinated phases, rose in the consciousness of a large segment the American population before any of the famous political events of the struggle with England took place. No adherent of a nonconformist church or sect in the eighteenth century was free from suspicion that the Church of England, an arm of the English state, was working to bring all subjects of the crown into the community of the Church; and since toleration was official and nonconformist influence in English politics formidable, it was doing so by stealth, disguising its efforts, turning to improper uses devices that had been created for benign purposes. . . .
