----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Wheeler" <twbounds at pop.mail.rcn.net> To: "Infoshop" <infoshop-news at infoshop.org> Sent: Sunday, June 23, 2002 5:06 AM Subject: (en) US, alt. media, "Pathologizing" protest: An exploration of "conspiracy phobia"
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> June 17, 2002-In April, when mainstream media reported Congresswoman Cynthia
> McKinney's call for an investigation of the events of September 11, I was
> surprised, yet not at all shocked to hear pejorative comments from the likes
> of Ari Fleischer, alleging that McKinney must be competing in a contest for
> "The Grassy Knoll Society." However, I was and continue to be viscerally
> astounded with the inordinate terror of "conspiracy theory" within
> mainstream, and yes, even progressive, media.
>
> A lifetime of psychological training immediately kicked in, and rather than
> feeling defensive of McKinney's assertions, with which I happen to
> thoroughly agree, I felt compelled to reflect upon what I have come to
> believe is "conspiracy phobia" among some of the greatest minds in media. I
> find no other way to account for a perception of anything even remotely
> resembling conspiracy paradigms as a kind of intellectual leprosy. What is
> so tragic about this dread and loathing is not the irrationality of it all,
> but the enmity and polarization it is creating within what could and should
> be a consistent, collaborative, congenial left-liberal alliance in a time of
> unprecedented corruption, criminality and constitutional degradation in
> American government.
>
> For example, shortly after September 11, the websites of Mike Ruppert's From
> The Wilderness, Global Research and The Emperor's New Clothes began
> publishing a plethora of inconsistencies in the "official" U.S. government
> explanation of the attacks. Shortly thereafter, Chip Berlet of (Public
> Research Associates) criticized Ruppert's "conspiracism," stating that
> Ruppert's allegations "fall short of journalistic standards of evidence and
> proof." He goes on to say that Ruppert makes sweeping claims that cannot be
> verified and "serve to distract from serious progressive opposition to the
> status quo and sometimes even discredit it."
>
> In March, referring specifically to Mike Ruppert, David Corn of The Nation,
> in his article "When 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Go Bad," wrote: "I won't argue
> that the U.S. government does not engage in brutal, murderous skullduggery
> from time to time. But the notion that the U.S. government either detected
> the attacks but allowed them to occur, or, worse, conspired to kill
> thousands of Americans to launch a war-for-oil in Afghanistan is absurd." Oh
> really? Then how is it that Gore Vidal, Seymour Hersch and Michael Moore are
> now asking the same questions that were asked by the aforementioned websites
> shortly after September 11? More dramatically, on May 12, 2002, MSNBC
> released a story: "What Did FBI Know About 9-11 Attacks?" indicating that
> the FBI has now embarrassingly admitted that some of its agents had received
> information last summer regarding a possible World Trade Center attack in
> the fall.
>
> Anyone who has read stories published by From The Wilderness, Global
> Research or Emperor's New Clothes can only be in awe of the impeccable
> documentation of evidence presented. A particular case in point is Mike
> Ruppert's extraordinary video documentary, The Truth And Lies About 9-11,
> recorded at a three-hour presentation at Portland State University in
> November 2001. In the presentation, Ruppert explicitly states that he is
> presenting his case as an attorney would to a jury or as law enforcement
> would present evidence to a district attorney. After viewing the video
> several times, I could only chuckle at Berlet's assertion that Mike Ruppert
> "makes sweeping claims that cannot be verified," or "that Ruppert's
> allegations serve to distract from serious progressive opposition to the
> status quo and sometimes even discredit it."
>
> In a letter to KPFA, the Berkeley, California, radio station on which
> Congresswoman McKinney first publicly verbalized her call for an
> investigation of 9-11, columnist Norman Solomon questioned the station's
> scheduling of a radio interview with Mike Ruppert, suggesting that the
> station had been giving him too much airtime. Solomon warned that " . . .
> such programming, when it is 'successful,' encourages people to fixate on
> the specter of a diabolical few plotters rather than on the profoundly
> harmful realities of ongoing, structural, institutional, systemic factors."
> Solomon continues with phrases such as, " . . . when logic becomes secondary
> to flashy claims . . ." and " . . . assertions unsupported by evidence." He
> concludes with a curious question: "Aren't the well-documented crimes of the
> U.S. government and huge corporations enough to merit our ongoing outrage,
> focused attention and activism?"
>
> I find Solomon's remarks fascinating not only because Ruppert, Global
> Research, Emperor's New Clothes, Cynthia McKinney, and now, the MSNBC news
> story suggesting foreknowledge of the attacks, all include assertions
> overwhelmingly supported by concrete evidence. But I find Solomon's
> concluding question even more curious for another reason, and herein lies a
> key hiatus of logic in conspiracy phobia. Solomon is essentially polarizing
> the assertions of those questioning the U.S. government's explanation of
> 9-11 as somehow separate from the "well-documented crimes of the U.S.
> government and huge corporations." In other words, progressives who do not
> raise the question of U.S. government foreknowledge of the attacks operate
> in the realm of "ongoing, structural, institutional, systemic factors,"
> whereas those who do present evidence for government foreknowledge are
> "fixating on the specter of a diabolical few plotters." Hence, we are asked
> to choose between "systemic" and "conspiracy" as the only options in the
> 9-11 debate.
>
> Apparently, Solomon, Berlet and Corn have never read or understood anything
> written or spoken by those who assert government foreknowledge. Mike
> Ruppert, in particular, painstakingly embeds the events of September 11 in
> the "ongoing, structural, institutional, systemic factors" of a government
> that has in the last four decades, become, in his words, "a criminal
> empire." His perspective is not one of scapegoating a small minority of
> conspirators, but rather is a perspective that can best be described as what
> Peter Dale Scott calls an understanding of deep politics or "A deep
> political system or process . . . one which habitually resorts to
> decision-making and enforcement procedures outside as well as inside those
> publicly sanctioned by law and society. In popular terms, collusive secrecy
> and law-breaking are part of how the deep political system works." What
> Solomon is describing (ongoing, structural, institutional and systemic) is
> precisely synonymous with "deep politics."
>
> But even aside from the systemic vs. conspiracy dichotomy, the very word
> conspiracy has in itself become a smearing epithet for some-tantamount to
> schizophrenic or delusional. As Carla Binion noted at the beginning of her
> excellent May 2001 article in Online Journal, "Conspiracy Fact vs.
> Conspiracy Theory," there have been actual conspiracies in this country such
> as Watergate, Iran-Contra, BCCI, the savings and loan scandal, Iraq-gate and
> Cointelpro. Unfortunately, those who would turn reality inside out in order
> to avoid being labeled with the horrifying "C" word, rarely make a
> distinction between conspiracy fact and conspiracy theory, simplistically
> dismissing the evidence presented by those who suggest foreknowledge of 9-11
> as "conspiracy" theory (interpretation: psychotic drivel).
>
> What would be amusing, were it not so distressing, is that progressives who
> criticize those who suggest foreknowledge as holding a non-systemic view,
> seem themselves, to be behaving extraordinarily "non-systemically" in their
> censure of those individuals. Why might this be so? Again, I return to the
> issue of fear. What I continue to hear is the terror of crossing a line, for
> as Berlet says, "I think Ruppert steps over the line into conspiracist
> allegations. . . ." What is that line, and why is crossing it so dreaded by
> certain progressive thinkers?
>
> What would it mean to state with all candor, holding in one's hands
> extraordinary amounts of credible, superbly-documented, coherent, sound
> evidence that the U.S. government may have had foreknowledge of the
> September 11 attacks? What are the consequences of making such an assertion?
> For the short answer, we have only to ask Cynthia McKinney to tell us how
> the media have savaged her, some even calling for her investigation by the
> House Ethics Committee. That in itself, is certainly enough to discourage
> any journalist from crossing the frightful line. But even attacks have not
> daunted McKinney, Ruppert or others. "Sticks and stones," and so on. The
> issue of line-crossing is much more complex-a word so beloved by our
> conspiracy-phobic friends.
>
> To conclude on the basis of what is a groundswell of extraordinarily
> well-documented evidence that the U.S. government had foreknowledge of the
> attacks is to essentially conclude that we do not have a government-at least
> one based on the rule of law. It is, furthermore, to conclude that the
> Constitution of that government is virtually non-existent and that our civil
> liberties, like all of the documents pertaining to Enron trading that were
> stored in the offices of the SEC in the World Trade Center, went up in smoke
> on that tragic September morning. To conclude that our government had
> foreknowledge of the attacks is to conclude that within the current
> political system, as we now know it, there is no hope-no party, no
> candidate, no organization in this country that can reverse the brick wall
> toward which this nation is reeling at locomotive speed.
>
> In other words, crossing the line is synonymous with crossing into the
> reality that we have long since ceased to live in a democracy and that we
> now live in a criminal, militaristic empire that is essentially holding us
> hostage as it takes its war for oil and drugs all over the world for what it
> shamelessly admits may be the rest of our lives.
>
> To cross the line is to realize that the president, vice-president and
> secretary of defense, undoubtedly along with numerous other officials in the
> Executive Branch of government, must be arrested and tried for treason.
> Perhaps most poignantly, crossing the line would mean that one finally
> comprehends, on a cellular level, that while we say that everything changed
> on September 11, nothing meaningful has changed if our thinking remains
> intact. And certainly, no profound changes on behalf of human decency and
> democracy will result as long as those on the left continue to posture,
> polarize and pontificate an antiquated worldview.
>
> While all of this may sound morbidly hopeless, I do not feel so. I see
> enormous hope in the sharing of information and the constant bubbling forth
> of unexpected voices questioning the "official" explanations of 9-11. Among
> other incisive statements made by Mike Ruppert in his 9-11 tape is this one:
> "People playing in a rigged game get stupid."
> The U.S. government has been playing in a rigged game for decades, and it is
> growing increasingly sloppy and inept in covering up its surreptitious,
> felonious, murderous machinations. Whether or not the dam will fully break
> and a torrent of public opinion will ignite protest in this nation that will
> pale the '60s by comparison remains to be seen.
>
> But meanwhile, let us examine the conspiracy phobias we all have and let us
> be courageous enough to reflect and examine introspectively whatever
> investments we still hold in the criminal empire, be they in stock
> portfolios or deep in the trembling recesses of our vulnerable psyches.
>
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> > http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/Baker061702/baker061702.html
> By Carolyn Baker
> Online Journal Contributing Writer
>
>
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