“The CIA’s campaign to popularize the term ‘conspiracy theory’ and make conspiracy belief a target of ridicule and hostility must be credited, unfortunately, with being one of the most successful propaganda initiatives of all time.” (Lance deHaven-Smith, Conspiracy Theory in America)
Conspiracy theorists are really nothing more than skeptics. But as the case put forward by the Warren Commission began to collapse in the late 1960’s, CIA saw a need to immunize the general population from doubt, and so instructed its media moles to start branding skeptics as that. (In the late 70s we learned that CIA had placed 400 or more moles in the news media and academia, giving us our nightly news and scholarly books on current events, basically rewriting our history as we go.)
Skeptics, now belittled as conspiracy theorists, are the vigilant citizenry that a republic might need if there still existed a chance to keep it.
It appears now that the education system, nothing to brag about from the 1900’s forward, has gotten very proficient at turning out graduates at all levels who are not capable of exercising skepticism, or critical thinking skills. Consider this:
In 2003 the Department of Education did a study of adult literacy, and the findings were unsettling. Here is how it defined “proficient,” its highest level of skill:
Only 13 percent of Americans qualified as proficient. More interesting, only 31 percent of college graduates did. [More disturbing yet, see page 15 of the study: The grouping of those involved in graduate studies is only 36% proficient!]
Knowing the basic skill sets of most Americans, government, the media, advertisers and public relations people, writers and elected officials are able to lie with ease. And they do. As the bumper sticker says, everything we know is wrong. Here’s an extreme example (a 17 second clip):
(I do like that the news reader in this clip said “if you can believe that.”)
Stop and think: We were told that a jet aircraft slammed into a building at 500+ miles per hour* and that in the resulting inferno the planes and everyone aboard were incinerated.
Knowing that, what are the chances that one piece of paper encased in plastic not only survived, but ended up several blocks away? It has to escape the blaze, be transported in some manner, and be found in the huge mess that was Ground Zero. It has to be that one person’s passport, and not that of another passenger or airline employee, or even one of the several thousand people who died that day.
I do not have to calculate odds here. It is simply impossible. That passport came from some other source.
Given that the passport could not possibly have survived the inferno and then move blocks away, what are the implications?
________________
*Passenger airliners can only travel at those speeds in rarified air at 30-40,000 feet. At ground level, flying at that speed would cause a jet aircraft to disintegrate in midair due to resistance. The process of landing an airliner takes a half an hour or more because the pilot is slowly reducing his speed to allow him to enter heavier air as he approaches the airport.
Piece of Mindful 
UN placed the passport there.
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Too funny. I doubt you read this post, though you might have viewed the YouTube. You surely did not follow the link to the study.
Therefore, your grouping in that study is mostly likely “Below Basic”, or “Basic” at best.
More importantly, such abilities as that carry with them no self-awareness. You are impermeable in that regard, and so able to exist as a self-perceived high-functioning citizen. So you are a joy to all you visit on the Internet blogs, a case study. Thank you for dropping by!
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I really don’t understand your specific kind of crazy Mark, but I do admire your commitment to it.
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All of us who exist outside the margins of mainstream thought are challenged to examine our ideas and evaluate our own sanity. It is not easy, Swede, to believe things that we know will invite ridicule. I invite you to read the Clemens quite top right on this page, in the blog header.
I think people who honestly self-examine their own sanity are usually sane. Truly crazy people rarely have that self-awareness.
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http://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/6/
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blockquote> A final characteristic of the paranoid style is related to the quality of its pedantry. One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is the contrast between its fantasied conclusions and the almost touching concern with factuality it invariably shows. It produces heroic strivings for evidence to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed. Of course, there are highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow paranoids, as there are likely to be in any political tendency. But respectable paranoid literature not only starts from certain moral commitments that can indeed be justified but also carefully and all but obsessively accumulates “evidence.” The difference between this “evidence” and that commonly employed by others is that it seems less a means of entering into normal political controversy than a means of warding off the profane intrusion of the secular political world. The paranoid seems to have little expectation of actually convincing a hostile world, but he can accumulate evidence in order to protect his cherished convictions from it…
Perhaps the central situation conducive to the diffusion of the paranoid tendency is a confrontation of opposed interests which are (or are felt to be) totally irreconcilable, and thus by nature not susceptible to the normal political processes of bargain and compromise. The situation becomes worse when the representatives of a particular social interest—perhaps because of the very unrealistic and unrealizable nature of its demands—are shut out of the political process. Having no access to political bargaining or the making of decisions, they find their original conception that the world of power is sinister and malicious fully confirmed. They see only the consequences of power—and this through distorting lenses—and have no chance to observe its actual machinery…
We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.
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Craig, I can read as well as anyone and am intimately familiar with the discussion of paranoid personality as discussed by people who have quashed their critical thinking skills to virtual nonexistence. It all started with the CIA suggestion to its media moles that the phrase “conspiracy theorist” be attached to skeptics of the Warren Report, and was followed up by a book by mainstream historian Richard Hofstadter, which has become common currency among non-skeptics, their go-to when troubled by evidence.
In truth, it is nothing but reinforcement for the sloppy habit of never confronting evidence and uncritically accepting offical government truth.
That in mind, Craig, I [cautiously] assume you actually read the post above.
1: What do you think of the DOE 2003 study on literacy?
2. Where do you think you fall within their levels of proficiency?
3. What are the implications of the hijackers passport?
Can you deal with these questions, Craig? Or will you again disappear until some other post inspires a new link from you?
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Craig, put down the bong for a minute. Your vision is impaired. Harpers; really? You are behaving more like a politician than a truth-seeker.
“I believe this must be addressed and that the truth has considerable bearing on where the world stands now. Although constrained, to a certain extent, by the existence of the Soviet Union, the United States’ actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.
Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America’s favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as ‘low intensity conflict’. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued – or beaten to death – the same thing – and your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years to which I refer.”
“When we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimetre and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror – for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.”
– Harold Pinter accepting The Nobel Prize in Literature 2005
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture-e.html
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Can’t help but to wonder about what that American turned terrorist thought when he looked in his rear view mirror at a drone fired missile sent courtesy of our Nobel Peace Prize President.
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I have problems with your statement, as I have long concluded that the American executive is just a figurehead, an actor. I watched him on Jimmy Kimmel recently, and he is indeed charming and intelligent. He’s perfect for the role.
Regarding the murder of Anwar al-Awlaki, your decision that he was worthy of death without trial or examination of evidence shows me that you too do not believe in the principles of our constitution. You’re just another totalitarian.
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More of a slight of the Nobel PCers.
As far a constitutionally he should have been tried in abstention first, then droned.
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Again, you presume to know the facts. What then distinguishes you from Stalin?
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I don’t think Joe used trials.
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“Show trials,” we called them when he did it. As with you, the outcome was a foregone conclusion. You’re not that much different than him in authoritarian outlook.
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Swede with Joe’s power, or Rockefeller? Now that’s scary.
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9/11 was also a massive taxpayer heist, as were all the massive events in world history. We all know about the story where we couldn’t account for $2.3 trillion under the shady mismanagement of the Bush-era DOD, which then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld excused as the receipts being “stored on dozens of technological systems that are inaccessible or incompatible”, which he blames on the department’s slow adoption to the meteoric rise in technological advancements in the private sector, ironically spurred by the developments made by DARPA, a division of the DOD. Convenient. So where did all that money go? I think we all know the answer.
(Rumsfeld also called for (a) more military spending and (b) modernization of the Pentagon (the second point has to do with the “missing” $2.3t), which means more tax dollars funneled into the coffers of weapons contractors such as Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, contractors which he and his buddies are shareholders in. These were requested prior to 9/11 as part of the agency’s budget. As history shows us, Rumsfeld got the last laugh at the table thanks to his buddies granting him exactly what he wanted. It pays to grift.)
DOD Acquisition and Logistics Excellence Week Kickoff—Bureaucracy to Battlefield:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100301161721/http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=430
There were suggestions that the Saudis played some in the production of that psyop, and Saudi Arabia contracts billions in weapons sales from the United States. The Bushes enjoy good relations with Saudi’s aristocracy, including the bin Ladens who gave us fake terrorist Osama bin Laden, yet another creation of intelligence. The fact that the 9/11 Commission overlooked this connection is very telling.
Who Funded 9/11 Attacks? Insurers, 9/11 Families Still Want Answers:
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/funded-911-attacks-insurance-companies-911-families-continue/story?id=14512391
Now, this is very revealing, for the timing of events was exquisitely convenient. Early in the Bush administration, foreign relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia weren’t doing so fabulously, which impacted their profit margins. There were even hints of retaliation concerning the oil market from the Saudis. That perfectly explains why, following the staged 9/11 attacks, Bush responded back with retaliation to ensure that America’s access to oil (as well as drugs) in the Middle East wasn’t cut off from its traders. The net positive flow of monies was too lucrative to lose for our robber barons here in the good ol’ U.S.A.
“The George W. Bush administration also got off to a bad start with Saudi Arabia in 2001. The Saudis had great hopes for him because they’d had such a good relationship with GHWB. But George W. Bush had no interest in foreign policy. He neglected the Middle East, and King Abdullah became more and more irritated. Just before 9/11, there was a real blow-up. The king said, if you don’t do something about getting peace talks going in the Middle East, we are going to freeze our military relationship with you. There were even hints they might do something with oil.”
The U.S. and Saudi Arabia Since the 1930s:
https://www.fpri.org/article/2009/08/the-u-s-and-saudi-arabia-since-the-1930s/
And then there were tax schemes such as the 9/11 compensation fund established by the DOJ, a multibillion-dollar scheme that saw cases of financial mismanagement due to Congress having “offered little guidance regarding the procedural framework for resolving claims.” One such case of misconduct involved a lawyer who embezzled almost a million dollars from the fund that was supposed to go to his client.
September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2002/03/13/02-5923/september-11th-victim-compensation-fund-of-2001
Disbarred Attorney Pleads Guilty To Stealing 9/11 Victim Compensation Funds:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/disbarred-attorney-pleads-guilty-stealing-911-victim-compensation-funds
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And what’s even more pathetic is they have the audacity to say this shit below. Atrocious how they justify this form of legalized robbery, to say the least. To quote the Federal Registrar:
“One final concern should be addressed. I have received during the comment period, and have read in the newspapers, comments from a few American citizens expressing the opinion that the victims and their families are “greedy” in seeking additional compensation.”
Well, seeing what we’ve seen, I do agree with the characterization. Anyone who knows how these roaches operate shouldn’t trust that the stolen monies will ever be spent wisely.
“As I have repeatedly stated, both publicly and privately, I believe that such a characterization is unfair. This Fund, and the comments of distressed family members, are not about “greed” but, rather, reflect both the horror of September 11 and the determination of family members to value the life of loved ones suddenly lost on that tragic day.”
Again, who these clowns are fooling? They really think we are stupid, don’t they? If anything, this scam reflects the absolute corruption that is the Washington establishment and the bozos that run it.
“I believe the American people understand this and in no way associate the efforts of family members to secure compensation with any characterization of “greed.” This Fund represents the best spirit and compassion of the American people. I believe that America is unique in creating such a Fund that expresses the compassion, concern and determination of its people in coming to the aid of the victims of September 11.”
More like credulous enough to be embezzled billions of dollars against their will by a bunch of power-hungry, parasitic psychopaths – all in the name of the “common good”.
And these cocksuckers wonder why people’s trust in them is steadily decreasing. It should be obvious by now why that’s so.
(If we are to believe the above graph, anyways. I suspect it’s probably lower than that, at least in some segments of the population.)
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