PROPAGANDA AND CONSPIRACY
What we hear a lot of about policy decisions and actions taken is that they
are are in the interest of the National security, but never what that means.
And, if we think we're due an explanation, and one is not given, the reason
is because of National Security. Anotherwords, National Security can be and
is practically always used to keep information from us or to justify doing
anything the government wants to do.
It is part of the propaganda of communications.
Politicians are adept at telling the truth but not necessarily the whole
truth - but enough of the truth to support whatever it is they do and not
enough of the truth for anyone to object, if they knew the _whole_ truth. It
is a kind of doubletalk that politics is very good at.
It involves clever, well crafted telling of partial truth - but if the whole
truth were known, it might amount to an untruth. Anotherwords, saying enough
to distract and prevent conflict, and only tell the desireable truths.
Foreign Affairs is the PR arm of the CFR afterall and it is good to
communicate ideas. With regard to the objects? Well, the end justifies the
means. Is this conspiratorical? Probably. Is it confirmed? Not by any
definitive evidence.
But, it is all part of the publicity, the promotion, the puffery, the
propaganda. Some circumstantial conclusions are afterall apt, but much is
strained and still others are nonsense. They are all circles within circles.
The propaganda involves embellishment, mutation and ambiquity and sometimes
selective anecdotes lend coherence to the myth of conspiracy.. But, only the
most credible evidence should stand the definitional test - and many do not.
I'd like to concentrate on the ethics question rather than on the semantics
of what constitutes an actual conspiracy because ethics can be reduced to
truth.
When is this telling of only a partial truth [or untruth] acceptable.
Ethically, perhaps never, but this isn't a perfect world and the players
feel there are legitimate reasons for not telling the whole truth....
Society tends to overlook partial truths because as an example, with
environmental degredation, it is known that there is the impact on the
environment from its exploitation but to do less would change our lives in
ways we might not like enough so that the half truths are acceptable -
rather than face the whole truth that the planet is being destroyed by over
use of resources, use of chemicals in the environment, i.e. pesticides, the
combustion engine and its fuel which depletes ozone, etc. And most of the
degradation occurs because of greed and profits in favor of a healthy
environment. These things are unethical from a LEFT wing point of view.
The propaganda used to ensure the status quo for the privileged class
requires subversion of rational thinking with plausible lies.
And the propaganda is infectious. It takes on a mind of its own, as is often
the intention and enter the conspiracy theories. There is an eagerness to
attribute events to conspiracy which are interesting but not conclusive and
even ingenious conspiratorical explanations fail for lack of confirmation.
But the propaganda lives.
Machiavelli emphasized the weakness of group actions with regard to
conspiracies because of the frequent lack of secrey and common resolve.
Machiavelli in "Discources" [Of Conspiracies] writes: "Because conspiracies
rarely suceed, they most of the time bring about the ruin of those who plan
them..." Some on the Left sometimes falls into the trap of labeling anything
a conspiracy simply to be able to reinforce an already preconceived view.
There must be confirmation, not speculation.
Rather, there is a preponderance of individual acts over acts by cabals and
other explanations often fail for lack of confirmation.
Delusional, paranoid conspiracy freaks!
The late Richard Hofstadter of Columbia University described bizarre
attitudes as nothing new in an essay written about 30 years ago: "The
Paranoid Style in American Politics."
The clinical paranoid, according to Hofstadter's observations, believes in a
vast conspiracy against him, personally. The political paranoid sees the
conspiracy "directed against a nation, a culture, a way of life whose fate
affects not himself alone but millions of others."
The political paranoid feels dispossessed and lives at the most critical
moment in history: "Time is forever just running out." The enemy is always
powerful, with unlimited funds, skilled at seducing the unwary, and
manipulates public opinion through control of the press.
A plausible premise quickly leads to a fantastic conclusions.
Fluoridation of drinking water was an insidious "socialist plot." [a
conspiracy]. It was supposed to rot the brains of Americans. Some would
argue it already has. They may be right about this brainlessness, but it
ain't from fluoridation or because of a socialist plot.
Who can forget the political paranoia of Joseph McCarthy and the damage it
did? The John Birch Society declared that Secretary of State George C.
Marshall was an agent of the Kremlin, while the latter proclaimed that
"Communist influences are now in almost complete control of our Federal
Government."
The paranoid style of politics has been part of our history from the
beginning. In the eighteenth century, it was European conspirators who were
undermining religion.
There have been similar anti-Masonic, anti-Mormon, and anti-Catholic
movements. In 1895, the Popular manifesto declared:
"Every device of treachery, every resource of statecraft, and every artifice
known to the secret cabals of the international gold ring" were being used
to destroy America.
And, now they [the wacko conspiracy theorists] are connected by computer
networks and fax.
Our very freedom makes us vulnerable from these wackos.
There is a NEW AGE nazism which is also becoming the fad on the right and it
is based on conspiracy theories. Much of it deals with what they call a
"secret" NEW WORLD ORDER. Only it isn't so secret. We all know about it. It
is really a NEW WORLD ODOR, just like the old one and it is all laid out in
detail by the Council on Foreign Research, which publishes Foreign Affairs
Mag. You can read about it there and except for it being 100% capitalist, it
isn't anymore sinister than any other think tank which promotes specific
positions to insure the preservation of their ideas and way of life. What is
sinister is the oppression caused by positions which favor profits over
people.
And, what is sinister are the paranoid delusions of right-wing conspiracy
freaks who conjure up scapegoats and fantansies about reality as a way to
divide and conquer and are diversions from the real cause of oppression and
away from the work the LEFT must involve itself in to overcome all
oppressions, including economic exploitation, racism, bigotry, war, and
fascism.
And, today many New Age, including even some in the green movement, feed
their delusions with unconfirmed conspiracy theories.
Even the right wing in Israeli has joined the irrational and delusional
paranoid conspiracy freaks on the right with their anti-Left conspiracy that
Rabin was murdered by the LEFT to discredit the right.
The Golem
The following is abridged from the New Statesman & Society Mag in compliance
with the Fair Use Doctrine for discussion purposes only. It is being posted
to PNEWS, an "alternative" and "progressive" forum for news and views and
for discussion on JWV [Justice Without Violence], the companion discussion
forum for PNEWS. PNEWS has been on the interNUT for a decade and existed as
a forum and hard copy newspaper in the 60s and throughout most of the 80s
and is gated to the APC networks, PeaceNet on two forums there hosted by the
Golem [p.news and p.news.discuss] and on alt.thebird, a newsgroup and to
various BBSs.
[Read the following article in toto in the New Statesman & Society. The
Golem recommends a subscription to this magazine]
New-age nazism.
( New Statesman & Society )
On 19 April, if the allegations are correct, Timothy McVeigh planted a bomb
in Oklahoma City that killed 167 people, including children at a nursery.
McVeigh had been influenced by a video called Waco - the Big Lie. As we all
know now, he is associated with the right- wing militias in the US. He hates
the federal government and is fearful that an oppressive "New World Order"
is being secretly planned. He calls himself a prisoner of war and won't
answer police questions.
What has this got to do with the "New Age" and green movement? More than one
might expect. Visit many New Age and other shops in Britain and you can pick
up the magazine Nexus. A hit on the New Age circuit, it is a new arrival
here but already has a claimed worldwide readership of 130,000-plus. It
offers a beguiling, and often interesting, mixture of "prophecies, UFOs, Big
Brother, health, the unexplained, suppressed technology, hidden history and
more".
But Nexus is also a propaganda journal for the ideas and conspiracy theories
of the US militias. Recent issues have included the call by Linda Thompson,
self-proclaimed "adjutant-general" of the US militias, for a march on
Washington to arrest and try Congressmen for treason. Her declaration
includes the advice that "militia members must wear identifying insignia and
be armed", in order to be treated like "a prisoner of war, not as a criminal
arrestee". It was Linda Thompson who produced the Waco video that influenced
McVeigh; Nexus distributes it, and even produced a special version for
Europe. The June 1994 issue reviewed the video thus: "There is a very big
underground movement building up in the US at the moment. Every night,
someone is showing this video to a bunch of friends. Nobody remains
unaffected after seeing it. It is contagious, so beware!"
Another notorious militia member, Mark Koernke, of the now infamous Michigan
Militia, also appears in Nexus attacking the "New World Order of America's
secret police forces". He warns that the government plans to take away the
people's guns, build detention camps and suchlike. The "processing centre
for detainees in the western half of the US is Oklahoma City," he claims. He
was shown on Panorama holding up some nylon rope: "You can get about four
politicians for about 120 feet of rope. Remember, when using it, always try
and find a willow tree. The entertainment will last longer." Koernke was
sought by the FBI after the Oklahoma bombing and went on the run; he was
later questioned and freed. The Guardian's Washington correspondent calls
him "a guru to the shadowy legions of conspiracy theorists, anti-government
activists and gun freaks whose ranks appear to have produced the Oklahoma
bombers" .
A few pages on from the Koernke article is part four of a "history" of
banks. It is clear who the author feels might save the world from "usurious
bankers": "Hitler knew he was earmarked for a 'showcase trial' and so he
killed himself . . . There is no one left alive who can rock the usury boat.
Mussolini was executed for the same reason." In case the reader still hasn't
got the message, notes refer to racist, far-right books like Teutonic Unity
("a clarion call by one of America' s great racial historians," says the Ku
Klux Klan) and White America. An address is given for the far-right Liberty
Lobby's holocaust-denying book distributor, Noontide Press, which sells the
whole disgusting panoply of Nazi favourites, from The hoax of the 20th
century to Mein Kampf.
In Britain, the former TV sports presenter and ex-Green Party speaker, David
Icke, is the best-known promoter of Nexus. He calls it "incomparable" and
"excellent" in his book The robots' rebellion: the story of the spiritual
renaissance. The book is both an anti-elite, green and new- age rallying cry
and a fantastical tapestry of far-right conspiracy theories and militia
concerns: banking, the "New World Order", Freemasons, microchip mind
control, extra-terrestrials, gun control; and it resurrects one of the
oldest conspiracy theories of them all - The protocols of the elders of
Zion, a fraudulent "proof" that the Jews are out to control the world that
forms the basis for his historical analysis. Icke seems oblivious to the
fact that it helped the Nazis justify the Holocaust: "Just because Hitler
used knowledge for negative reasons doesn't reflect on the knowledge," he
says. He dismisses the overwhelming evidence that the Protocols are a
concocted forgery.
Elsewhere, he repeats the outpourings of leading militia spokespeople,
sometimes almost word for word. The American Federal Reserve is controlled
by freemasons. Lincoln was assassinated because he wanted to introduce
interest-free money "independent of the banking elite". JFK was eliminated
for the same reason. "The American Gun Control Act of 1968 is word for word
the Nazi gun control law of 1938 . . . If you are planning a takeover . . .
then it is much easier if the population is unarmed."
Also thrown in is another favourite of the far right: the alleged
Bolshevik-Jewish conspiracy. Of the 388 members of the Russian revolutionary
government of 1917, only 16 were Russians by birth and "95 per cent of the
rest were Jews from elsewhere, mostly from New York". Bankers, usually
Jewish, funded the Bolsheviks and the Nazis, Icke tells us.
[...]
Some of these "various people" are to be found around the London-based New
Age magazine Rainbow Ark. Recent issues have targeted the same Jewish
bankers, "Illuminati" and suchlike, and it has printed a fair amount of Icke
material. It helped organise a lecture he gave at the Glastonbury festival
and other meetings.
Rainbow Ark, despite operating in the New Age milieu, was launched from the
flat of a well known right-wing racist propagandist, Mary Stanton. It was
used by the National Front during one election as its press office. Stanton
was also questioned by [MI.sub.5], who were investigating the appearance of
her address on a list of international contacts for the anti-Semitic far
right. In the launch issue of Rainbow Ark, the three largest donors are
gratefully thanked for gifts of [pounds]250 and over: Mary Stanton, Anthony
Chevasse and a Mr Bloom. Above is an advertisement seeking volunteers for
Stanton's "Free Society to Save the Planet".
Chevasse is intimately involved with Rainbow Ark. Little is clear about him
except his interest in the right-wing economic theories of C H Douglas, who
was attracted to the Nazis. The key organisation pushing Douglas' ideas is
the British League of Rights, headed by Don Martin. Martin is an important
figure in the far-right. His writing has appeared in the British National
Party's paper, Spearhead. One lecture he gave, organised by Rainbow Ark, was
picketed by anti-fascists. The magazine's editors clearly have close ties to
Martin - one says they meet him periodically for briefings.
An idea of Martin's beliefs can be derived from his mail-order firm,
Bloomfield Books. This services the far right with more than 700 of their
favourite books and magazines - including the 100,000-plus circulation
anti-Semitic Spotlight, another source used continuously by Nexus, as well
as Icke. The books include the usual Nazi favourites: Did Six Million Really
Die? and so on.
BNP leader John Tyndall calls Martin and the organisations he runs "allies".
The British League of Rights, for example, seeks among its aims: "To oppose
large-scale immigration of alien peoples, and to work for the maintenance of
a homogenous community." Martin is also a friend of Lady Jane Birdwood, who
has a criminal record for promoting racially inflammatory material.
His organisations are known for their avoidance of publicity in their own
right and an often high-level involvement in campaigns by other
organisations. Martin is known also for taking over groups. One, the British
Federation for European Freedom, was turned into the British arm of the
ultra-rightwing World Anti-Communist League, a franchise later taken over by
the pro-apartheid Western Goals.
Another organisation he is involved with is the British Israelites, part of
an international right-wing church. According to KlanWatch, its US
outgrowth, Christian Identity, of which Randy Weaver is a member, is
powerful and well-financed, with 30,000 members, though British Israelism's
sympathisers run into millions. Members in Britain are said to include such
establishment and ex-military types as the Duke of Montrose and Sir Walter
Walker, the mid-1970s anti-Labour Party plotter. His book, The Next Domino,
was published by the British Israelites. Their creed, that Anglo-Saxon
Aryans are the "chosen people" - the ten lost tribes of Israel - is
expressed by the Christian Identity movement in the US, which provides a
focus for both the old Nazi right and newer, semi-anarchistic right-wing
militia groups.
[...]
Initially, Nexus was a green alternative magazine with a multicultural and
liberal orientation, containing a smaller amount of New Age and health
material along with third-world issues. After hitting the financial rocks,
Roads took over the editorship and it metamorphosed into the far-right
magazine it is today.
[...]
There are important lessons to be learnt from all of this: most importantly
the continuing attraction of the sort of millenarian, apocalyptic and
mystical thinking that helped spawn the Nazis. A possible lesson for the
left is the extent to which it has dropped populist anti-elitism, leaving
the right, with its nasty hidden agendas, as the only place to look for
information. Bookslike Trilaterelism, about the international foreign policy
elite, written by left-winger Holly Sklar, are largely forgotten by the
left, but eagerly taken up by the right. The deaths of the multi-racial
occupants at Waco, ignored on the left as a political issue, became a
burning issue of civil liberty on the right.
As far-right watcher, Larry O'Hara, says: "This is a worrying phenomenon. A
demoralised left seems to have forgotten many of the lessons it should have
learnt from history. The fact is, many of the ideas articulated in magazines
like Nexus are hostile to the US-dominated New World Order, and murderous
political police, the FBI and others, for good reason. WE NEED TO
DIFFERENTIATE VERY CAREFULLY BETWEEN WHAT IS VALID AND WHAT ISN'T." BUT
ABOVE ALL, WE MUST MAKE THE GREEN AND NEW AGE MOVEMENT AWARE OF THE RACIST
AND NEO-NAZI THINKING THAT IS TRYING TO MASQUERADE UNDER ITS BANNER.
[Emphasis is mine - The Golem]
RELATED ARTICLE: GLOBAL DECEPTION
The "Global Deception" conference in 1993, brought together conspiracy
theorists internationally. Organised by one Mary seal, with help from Nexus
and Rainbow Ark, the audience of "1,000 people over two days" , among them
NSS's Vicky Hutchings (see "if they ruled the world", NSS, 15 January 1993),
listened to right-wing conspiracy theorists, including Eustace Mullins, the
protege of Mussolini supporter Ezra Pound, denounce the usual array of dark
forces. The Rothschild, Bilderberg Group, Federal Reserve Bank, UN, UFOs,
ozone hole hoax, JFK - all figured, as one speaker or another, laid into the
"New World Order" . Even the Aids virus (triggered by a WHO vaccination
campaign!) is a conspiracy to bankruptcy nations and force them into a
totalitarian cashless society. Militia hero Bill Cooper acted as stand-in
compere when Antony J Hilder, a far-right radio DJ, failed to appear. Seal
initially booked the 12,000-seat Wembley Arena, and complains that every one
of the small-press magazines she advertised in suffered a breakdown of their
printers. One month before the conference, she had sold only 15 tickets.
Matthew Kalman and John Murray are editors of "Open Eye", available from BM
Open Eye, London WC1N3XX. Tel 0956250654
Original article was published in 1995 by the Statesman and Nation
Publishing Company, Ltd - UK Presented here in compliance with Fair Use
Doctrine. PNEWS is an educational forum. Subscribe to: PNEWS
Almost anyone can fall pray to conspiracy notions. Some just want to
believe.
Extremist groups love conspiracy theories. Here is a sampling of some of the
ideas floating around: Pick one if it makes you feel good. Unfortunately
these theories are not the private dominion of the far Right.... It use to
be, [60s] "if it feels good, do it." Now, it is, "If it makes you feel good,
believe it."
Queen Elizabeth II is behind a plot to win back Britain's lost colonies. You
want evidence? Didn't British companies just take over the Burger King and
Holiday Inn chains?
Black helicopters have been seen making unexplained swoops over U.S. land.
These are not unexplained to the conspiracy wackos who say the flights are
reconnaisance missions prior to a United Nations invasion led by Hong Kong
police and Russian soldier s.
Paper currency has bar codes on it so that government agents can drive by
your house and use secret scanners to find out how much money each family
has.
Electronic devices have been installed in cars ignitions; these will be
activated to disable all autos on the day the new world order takes over.
The Golem
RETURN TO
ARTICLES
OR to the PREVIOUS page
with the "back" button on your WEB browser
FOR OTHER LINKS, GO TO:
THE MALL
GO TO WHERE IT ALL BEGINS
HOME
©Golem Designs
http://www.applicom.com/pnews/propcons.htm
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid
matters
and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html
<A HREF="http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
