While we were not watching, conspiracy theory has undergone Orwellian redefinition.
A “conspiracy theory” no longer means an event explained by a conspiracy. Instead, it now means any explanation, or even a fact, that is out of step with the government’s explanation and that of its media pimps.
For example, online news broadcasts of Russia Today (RT) have been equated with conspiracy theories by the New York Times simply because RT reports news and opinions that the New York Times does not report and the US government does not endorse.
In other words, as truth becomes uncomfortable for government and its Ministry of Propaganda, truth is redefined as conspiracy theory, by which is meant an absurd and laughable explanation that we should ignore.
When piles of carefully researched books, released government documents, and testimony of eye witnesses made it clear that Oswald was not President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, the voluminous research, government documents, and verified testimony was dismissed as “conspiracy theory.”
In other words, the truth of the event was unacceptable to the authorities and to the Ministry of Propaganda that represents the interests of authorities.
The purest example of how Americans are shielded from truth is the media’s (including many Internet sites’) response to the large number of professionals who find the official explanation of September 11, 2001, inconsistent with everything they, as experts, know about physics, chemistry, structural engineering, architecture, fires, structural damage, the piloting of airplanes, the security procedures of the United States, NORAD’s capabilities, air traffic control, airport security, and other matters. These experts, numbering in the thousands, have been shouted down by know-nothings in the media who brand the experts as “conspiracy theorists.”
This despite the fact that the official explanation endorsed by the official media is the most extravagant conspiracy theory in human history.
Let’s take a minute to re-acquaint ourselves with the official explanation, which is not regarded as a conspiracy theory despite the fact that it comprises an amazing conspiracy. The official truth is that a handful of young Muslim Arabs who could not fly airplanes, mainly Saudi Arabians who came neither from Iraq nor from Afghanistan, outwitted not only the CIA and the FBI, but all 16 US intelligence agencies and all intelligence agencies of US allies, including Israel’s Mossad, which is believed to have penetrated every terrorist organization and which carries out assassinations of those whom Mossad marks as terrorists.
In addition to outwitting every intelligence agency of the United States and its allies, the handful of young Saudi Arabians outwitted the National Security Council, the State Department, NORAD, airport security four times in the same hour on the same morning, air traffic control, caused the US Air Force to be unable to launch interceptor aircraft, and caused three well-built steel-structured buildings, including one not hit by an airplane, to fail suddenly in a few seconds as a result of limited structural damage and small, short-lived, low-temperature fires that burned on a few floors.
The Saudi terrorists were even able to confound the laws of physics and cause WTC building seven to collapse at free fall speed for several seconds, a physical impossibility in the absence of explosives used in controlled demolition.
The story that the government and the media have told us amounts to a gigantic conspiracy, really a script for a James Bond film. Yet, anyone who doubts this improbable conspiracy theory is defined into irrelevance by the obedient media.
Anyone who believes an architect, structural engineer, or demolition expert who says that the videos show that the buildings are blowing up, not falling down, anyone who believes a Ph.D. physicist who says that the official explanation is inconsistent with known laws of physics, anyone who believes expert pilots who testify that non-pilots or poorly-qualified pilots cannot fly airplanes in such maneuvers, anyone who believes the 100 or more first responders who testify that they not only heard explosions in the towers but personally experienced explosions, anyone who believes University of Copenhagen nano-chemist Niels Harrit who reports finding unreacted nano-thermite in dust samples from the WTC towers, anyone who is convinced by experts instead of by propaganda is dismissed as a kook.
In America today, and increasingly throughout the Western world, actual facts and true explanations have been relegated to the realm of kookiness. Only people who believe lies are socially approved and accepted as patriotic citizens.
Indeed, a writer or newscaster is not even permitted to report the findings of 9/11 skeptics. In other words, simply to report Professor Harrit’s findings now means that you endorse them or agree with them. Everyone in the US print and TV media knows that he/she will be instantly fired if they report Harrit’s findings, even with a laugh. Thus, although Harrit has reported his findings on European television and has lectured widely on his findings in Canadian universities, the fact that he and the international scientific research team that he led found unreacted nano-thermite in the WTC dust and have offered samples to other scientists to examine has to my knowledge never been reported in the American media.
Even Internet sites on which I am among the readers’ favorites will not allow me to report on Harrit’s findings.
As I reported earlier, I myself had experience with a Huffington Post reporter who was keen to interview a Reagan presidential appointee who was in disagreement with the Republican wars in the Middle East. After he published the interview that I provided at his request, he was terrified to learn that I had reported findings of 9/11 investigators.
To protect his career, he quickly inserted on the online interview that my views on the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions could be dismissed as I had reported unacceptable findings about 9/11.
The unwillingness or inability to entertain any view of 9/11 different from the official view dooms to impotence many Internet sites that are opposed to the wars and to the rise of the domestic US police state. These sites, for whatever the reasons, accept the government’s explanation of 9/11; yet, they try to oppose the “war on terror” and the police state which are the consequences of accepting the government’s explanation. Trying to oppose the consequences of an event whose explanation you accept is an impossible task.
If you believe that America was attacked by Muslim terrorists and is susceptible to future attacks, then a “war on terror” and a domestic police state to root out terrorists become necessary to make Americans safe. The idea that a domestic police state and open-ended war might be more dangerous threats to Americans than terrorists is an impermissible thought.
A country whose population has been trained to accept the government’s word and to shun those who question it is a country without liberty in its future.
Extraordinary. The first authoritive media voice to break ranks and put forward another point of view. The lap dog press parading as guard dog have unilaterally smeared every single question that a network of amateurs without direct access to the evidence demanded with the conspiracy calumny.
Like the word terrorist has the establishment trashed their own creation? I applaud Foreign Policy for having the guts to put forward a point of view that is not to be found elsewhere.
God bless you, Mr. Roberts. You are a new hero to me.
Pardon me; Dr. Roberts
Thank you for this excellent article. It provides a very accurate description of my personal experience over the past 6 years.
Another excellent piece by PCR.
I should add that some of the sites in question, like antiwar(dot)com, have now gone so far as to no longer host any articles about *any* important historical “conspiracy”; e.g., the attack on the USS Liberty, the *first* “Pearl Harbor”, etc.
I noticed this change in editorial policy seemed to happen around the same time that they started their big money fund drives. Just a coincidence I’m sure.
Excellent article. My sentiments echoed herein. I have had the same experiences with Huffington Post, Daily Kos, Mother Jones, The Nation, and all manner of “progressive” publications-they refuse to acknowledge the absurdity of the “official conspiracy theory”, while ridiculing the theories that are based on science and empirical facts. Conspiracies happen every day, and are prosecuted regularly by the district attorneys of this nation; why should those that espouse other theories, not promulgated by the government, be considered “tin foil hat wearing” fools, as we are often called? The events of 9/11/01 are not adequately explained by the official conspiracy theory, not even close. The real fools are the progressives-Chomsky, Taibbi, Moulitsas, Cockburn, Corn, Monbiot, Hayes, Allen, et al-who distrusted everything the Bush cabal ever did and said, from WMDs, to Valerie Plame, to stolen elections, but yet somehow choose to believe that the truth has been told about 9/11. Shame on them.
The USS Maine, the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, gulf of Tonkin, Iraqis killing Kuwaiti babies, now 9/11 – there is big money to be made in war and its aftermath, and plenty of people willing to throw up false flags or stand down and let attacks happen – the list above is incomplete. Wake up, brothers and sisters.
Thank you!
I was beginning to think they had brainwashed everyone! Good to know a few of us are holding out. :)
Kudos to FPJ for having the fortitude and attachment to the democratic idea of free flow of information to publish this article.
Paul Craig Roberts tells it as he sees it. He has a right to be heard and it’s extraordinary how many mainstream and alternative outlets run scared of his words.
The easiest way for the mainstream media to get over their phobia is for them to ascertain whether P C Roberts is right by hosting open media debate, calling on experts in the field to give their opinions. If an idea is openly and widely debated, and experts from all fields engaged, the fallacious and erroneous arguments will wither away and the truth will be left, for all to see.
So what are mainstream media – and alternative media – so afraid of?
Their silence on this issue seems a giveaway in itself, does it not?
Phillip F. Nelson has written an extremely informative book entitled LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination. Whether or not you agree with the premise, there is a great deal to learn about our political system from this book. It is currently hard to find and overpriced, but will be reprinted in November.
As for 9/11, the definitive scientific study is the book Where Did the Towers Go? by Dr. Judy Wood. Again, you need not agree with any conclusions in order to examine and learn from the evidence.
Those who thoughtlessly dismiss facts and evidence as “conspiracy theory,” are not capable of looking at things objectively. It is tragic that so many of these closed minds call themselves “progressives,” as no progress has ever been made without critical thinking. It is the lack of critical thinking that binds us to the past and the status quo. I’m glad to see that Paul Craig Roberts and Foreign Policy Journal aren’t blindly following the herd off the cliff.
Dr Judy Wood hasproposed ‘space beam’ theories and ‘dustification’ (her own invention) theories which a majority of other scientists in the 911 reject as being unscientific. Woods’ theories are debunked at 911 Review and Journal of 911 Studies etc.
The best science on the subject is proposed by Scientists for 911 Truth – led by John Wyndham (PhD Physics University of Cambridge) – or by Scholars for Truth and Justice.
Another exceptional article from Paul Craig Roberts, one wonders how much longer the compliant mainstream media can keep plugging holes in the dam?
The author does a fine job of explaining how the meaning of the word “conspiracy” has come to mean “any explanation not official.”
However, what has changed more significantly is the STATUS of a conspiracy. SO, years ago if you could prove a group of individuals were collectively responsible for something happening, you could say it is a “conspiracy” and be correct and understood: men have conspired to bring about the event(s) in question.
Today, “conspiracy” has been equated with “stupid theory with no basis in fact.” Thus its status has changed, perhaps intentionally. As a concept it has become something explicative to something derogatory.
But in fact we CAN prove 9-11 did not happen as we were told. We have the proof that the Gulf of Tonken did not occur as we were told. We have many questions about the assassinations of MLK, JFK, and his brother. We can show how we were ripped off to pay off banks who would then go on to reward themselves with multi-million dollar bonuses, as if a reward for incompetency. And we know full well, by following the transactions, that Big Money controls the prices of stocks and commodities, manipulating the market (which should be CLOSED) at will, making millions in hours by selling short, buying and so on, and we have enough information publicly available to prove that hundreds of millionaires are getting richer every time we send out American troops somewhere. For examples.
All these things are true conspiracies, in that men conspire, in an inside way, to bring about events and have them result in their favor. “JUST a conspiracy” becomes then the big understanding, as there is nothing insignificant about one…in fact, every single conspiracy theory deals with items of utmost seriousness. Conspiracies they are, and so conspiracies they shall be called, never mind the limited vocabularies of John McCain and those other sorry excuses for men who twist everything to suit their personals agendas.
However we do a dis-service to ourselves by continuing to refer to these things “in mixed company” as conspiracies. We should better be naming names and making the accusations individual, and have the individuals answer for them. In a way they are protected, in the non-specifics of most conspiratorial claims, as they are rumored this-or-that but never explicitly named and charged.
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