The Need to Question Conventional Wisdom and “Official” Version of Events - Some Personal Experience

History is full of examples of powerful people conspiring to increase their wealth and power at the expense of the masses. When they do that, they almost invariably try to cover up their misdeeds by establishing “official” stories to hide the truth. And our country has by no means been immune to this phenomenon, as I have discussed in several previous posts.

Because DUers are in general much more informed and open minded about these things than most Americans, they are usually much more inclined than most Americans to be skeptical of “official” stories propagated by their government, corporate news media, or other sources of elite opinion.

Given both the motive and capacity of the powerful to increase their own power at the expense of everyone else, our country and the world need people who have the capability of being skeptical of “official” government accounts. Indeed, that is the main reason why our Founding Fathers created the First Amendment to our Constitution. We need a free and independent press who refuse to take government (or any powerful institution or corporation) at its word, but rather that will routinely take what the powerful say with a grain of salt and investigate their claims in an attempt to find the truth.

William Rivers Pitt made a similar point in his book, “The Greatest Sedition Is Silence”. In that book he discusses a grave conspiracy theory (not to be discussed in this post) that involves the U.S. government. He notes that people who voice ideas like that tend to be excoriated as “unpatriotic”. But in reality it is those who are willing to question our government when it is wrong who care most about our country and constitute some of the most valuable resources that our nation has.

These are some of the reasons why it is very frustrating to me when those of us who challenge the accepted, “official” view of events are excoriated as “conspiracy theorists” in the most pejorative sense of the word. Those who excoriate us in this way define “conspiracy theorist” as those who are exceptionally inclined to believe alternative accounts of the “official story”, in the absence of any credible evidence to support those beliefs, because they are paranoid, gullible, or stupid.

In support of the pejorative definition of a “conspiracy theorist”, some have said that our exceptional beliefs or claims demand exceptional proof. But my contention is that many of our “exceptional” beliefs or claims for which we are labeled “conspiracy theorists” are in reality not so exceptional. In the lead up to the Iraq War, the claim that the Bush administration lied to the American people to justify that war was deemed an exceptional claim (and unpatriotic or treasonous). And many people today still feel that a belief that our government was complicit in President Kennedy’s assassination is an exceptional belief. But why should such beliefs be considered exceptional – and therefore demanding of substantially more proof than the “official” story? Given a good familiarity with history, it seems to me that a benign motive for the invasion of a sovereign country, or a lone assassin of a popular leader should be considered the more exceptional beliefs.


Some of my personal experiences in challenging “official” positions, etc

My 32 year career as a public health worker has perhaps been characterized more than anything else by my tendency to question and investigate “official” positions, “conventional wisdom”, or standard ways of operating when I believed it was warranted to do so. Had I never done this, probably nobody would have noticed. But then my career would have been much less successful in the ways that I consider to be most important.

The personality trait that led me to do these things in my public health work is the same personality trait that has led me to question my government’s actions in ways that cause some people to deem me a “conspiracy theorist”. For that reason, I offer some examples from my public health career, in the hope of showing that questioning and investigation of the “official” story or way of doing things is not a bad thing. Of course these examples in no way compare in magnitude with the important and well known events in American history that have created such great controversy and most of the “conspiracy theory” charges. But I think that the general principles are similar.

I have been fortunate in that when I have been involved in these events my supervisors have been generally supportive of my attempts to investigate them. That is to be expected, since public health personnel tend to be some of the most progressive people in our country (I don’t doubt that 90% of public health personnel in our country vote Democratic or for more liberal/progressive alternatives in presidential elections). Training in public health begins with the presumption that one of the major purposes of government is to protect the health and life of all of our citizens – the vulnerable and the powerful alike. With that as a starting point, no wonder we public health workers are so progressive.

Over the course of my public health career, the investigation and challenging of “official” story lines or “conventional wisdom” have been the most interesting, enjoyable, and important work that I have performed, as well as the work that I have been most proud of. The times when I have been involved in this kind of work are the times when I was most excited about coming to work every day, whereas at some other times it has been hard to drag myself out of bed in the morning.

I am aware that some may take that statement to indicate a bias towards belief in alternative realities. But I don’t see it like that. I see this kind of thing as my job. I believe that challenging existing beliefs, paradigms, and “official” stories is how progress is made. As a public health worker, I have always considered ordinary American citizens as the people whom I work for. I work for the government, but ultimately my purpose is to serve ordinary citizens, not my fellow government workers.

With all that as background, here are some examples:

Research on the low carbohydrate diet
When I was a resident in Preventive Medicine and Public Health, I became interested in the use of the low carbohydrate diet in the treatment of obesity. So I did a lot of reading on that subject. The diet had become popularized through Dr. Robert Atkins and his books. However, highly “prestigious” medical journals either ignored the subject or had nothing but negative things to say about it.

Nevertheless, I found some very good research on the subject in some relatively obscure medical journals. The methodology used and the depth of knowledge demonstrated in explaining the subject in some of those journals was very impressive in my opinion. I therefore came to the conclusion that the low carbohydrate diet should be given a lot more attention than it was then given. I gave very little credence to the fact that it was mainly ignored or mocked in the most highly “prestigious” circles.

Why is that? Whereas it is true that the more prestigious medical journals tend to have a more stringent peer review process than the more obscure journals, that does not by any means mean that excellent research doesn’t sometimes appear in obscure journals. There are many different criteria that journals use in determining what articles to publish, including, often, whether or not the research results fit in with current paradigms. If they don’t, they’re unlikely to be published in the most prestigious journals.

So I did some of my own clinical research on the subject, had some very successful results, published a manuscript in a very obscure medical journal, finished my residency, and then forgot about the subject. Many years later (I can’t remember exactly when, but here’s one study), favorable research on the diet did begin to become published in highly prestigious medical journals, which of course caused a resurgence of the use of the diet by the American public.

Illness caused by fluorescent lights
In the early 1980s, as the epidemiologist for the Palm Beach County (Florida) Health Department, I received a call from a Visiting Nurse Association (VNA) regarding symptoms which their members had been experiencing. The main symptoms were headache, eye irritation, sore throat, nasal congestion, nausea and dizziness, which the nurses believed were related to the building in which they worked.

I interviewed all 16 nurses who worked in the building and found that 15 of the 16 exhibited the typical symptoms. A relationship of the symptoms to the building was demonstrated by the fact that the good majority of the nurses routinely developed the symptoms within three hours of entering the building, and the symptoms disappeared within four hours of leaving. The nurses’ symptoms were increasing over time, suggesting cumulative effects as whatever it was that caused their symptoms built up in their bodies over time.

But despite my interviews, examination of the building, and review of the physician and laboratory reports, no cause for the symptoms was found. Nor did investigation of the building by environmental health experts and testing for airborne chemicals reveal a cause.

The owners of the building held that there was nothing in their building that could cause the symptoms, and that the symptoms were psychological in origin or caused by “suggestibility” in some of the nurses after they noticed their co-workers complain of symptoms. This is a typical reaction when no provable cause of an illness is discernable, and much too often it is accepted as an excuse to cease further investigation or action.

But I felt reasonably certain that there was something in the building causing the symptoms. So I asked the environmental health experts to go back and look again, even though I couldn’t tell them what to look for. This time we got lucky. One of the environmental health experts noticed that one of the fluorescent light fixtures looked a little suspicious, so she removed the glass covering to take a closer look, following which she immediately experienced virtually all the symptoms which the VNA nurses had been complaining about. She also noticed that melted asphalt covered the fixture. Consultation with an electrician and an engineer revealed that the ballast of the light, which was over ten years old, had overheated, causing the asphalt to melt – and then probably volatilize. Inspection of the other fluorescent lights in the building revealed that many of them were affected by the same process.

We ordered the building owner to replace all the malfunctioning fluorescent lights. Two weeks later, I came back to re-interview the VNA personnel. Almost all the symptoms had diminished, and most had resolved completely.

Illness resulting from volatized asphalt from malfunctioning fluorescent lights had never previously been reported in the medical or public health literature. So I wrote up our findings and published them in the American Journal of Public Health.

Illness from a mushroom compost operation in Southeastern Pennsylvania
In the early 1990s, as the Pennsylvania State Epidemiologist I received reports of various symptoms including headache, nausea (with some vomiting) and fatigue in residents of Chester County, PA. The symptoms were said to be associated with proximity to a mushroom compost operation.

These complaints had long been ignored by the Chester County Health Department and other government agencies, which claimed that no further investigation of the matter was indicated, for various reasons: though many of the residents had seen a doctor for their symptoms, there were no consistent diagnoses made which suggested a pattern; there were no laboratory test results that suggested a specific exposure; and, they believed the symptoms to be of psychological origin, due to the wish of those complaining of them to be rid of the mushroom compost operation.

These rationalizations are indicative of some common misunderstandings of environmental health problems. The mushroom compost operation emitted hundreds of different chemicals, so if it was indeed responsible for the symptoms there would be no way of knowing what to test for. Non-specific symptoms such as nausea, headache and fatigue are very often not associated with any specific laboratory tests. Rather, usually the only way to determine the presence of such symptoms is to interview those who complain of them. There are many kinds of illnesses that are extremely difficult or impossible to diagnose because medical science is unaware of them. And, it is a common but unfortunate occurrence for symptomatic complaints that remain undiagnosed to be reflexively attributed to “psychological” causes or “suggestibility” factors.

I discussed the matter with some local activists who were concerned about the problem, and I took their complaints seriously. Another event that led me to believe that the symptoms weren’t merely “psychological” was that an Environmental Resources employee who went on-site to investigate the problem developed similar symptoms that were so severe that she passed out at the site. So I designed an epidemiologic study that involved interviewing a random sample of subjects who lived within a mile of the mushroom compost operation and making various statistical comparisons.

Five of us went out to do the interviews. The analysis of the interview results demonstrated what I considered to be a serious problem, with much evidence that exposure to the mushroom compost operation was the cause of the symptoms. About two thirds of the interviewees exhibited the typical symptoms. Symptoms were much more common in those who lived within a half mile of the operation and those who lived downwind of it. They were intensified when people left their home windows open, and they tended to disappear when people left town.

We never did identify a specific responsible chemical – thus eliciting criticism from the owners and management of the mushroom compost operation, the Chester County Health Department and others. Nevertheless, we held a town meeting at which I passed out a report of our findings to community residents and to the press. The mushroom compost operation was forced to make some changes to reduce exposure of community residents. This resulted in a marked reduction of symptoms and the gratitude of the residents.

Ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms
Over approximately a three year period in my work at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) I evaluated the performance of a medical device whose purpose it is to prevent ruptures of abdominal aortic aneurysms. This is done by placing the device over the aneurysm (from inside the aorta) so as to prevent blood getting into the aneurysm, which could otherwise cause the aneurysm to enlarge and rupture. Rupture of an aortic aneurysm is usually fatal because it is followed by internal bleeding which can only be stopped surgically, and because the aorta is the largest blood vessel in the human body. The device in question provides an alternative to full surgical repair of the aneurysm.

The problem was (and is) that sometimes the device slips out of place, thus allowing blood to seep into the aneurysm, with the possibility of subsequent rupture and death. Because of my concerns about the performance of the device, following the completion of my analysis I proposed putting out a Public Health Notification to warn physicians and patients of the problem. The manufacturer demanded a meeting to argue against this, and they brought along a team of lawyers and physicians to dispute my analysis. However, with all the thousands of dollars worth of hired guns that they brought to the meeting, they neglected to bring along anyone who actually knew how to analyze data (perhaps because they realized that they didn’t have a case worth arguing). So they lost their argument, and the Public Health Notification was published.

Then I wrote a scientific article which describing my analysis, and I submitted it to Vascular surgery (the primary journal read by vascular surgeons in the United States). My article was eventually accepted for publication, and it was about to be published.

But then the manufacturer of the device found out about the article and they went directly to the highest levels of the FDA to complain about it. To make a long story shorter, the FDA complied with the request of the manufacturer by withdrawing the article.

What this story demonstrates is the way that life and death decisions are often made in our country. They should be based on scientific considerations, but in fact are often based instead on the need of politicians to placate their corporate masters. Anyhow, that’s the only interpretation that I can put on this story.

I would not even be legally allowed to discuss this story publicly (because of the FDA’s rules regarding the privacy of manufacturers) if not for the fact that it is already in the public domain because someone leaked it to a conscientious reporter for the Wall Street Journal, which then published it. Here is the WSJ article that published the story.


Vincent Bugliosi as an archetypical example of anti-“conspiracy theorist” bias

I have a great deal of respect for Vincent Bugliosi because of his stands on both the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision, which made George W. Bush president in 2000, and on Bush’s lies that got us into the Iraq War. Bugliosi is more outspoken on those issues than any other prominent writer, going so far a to advise that the Supreme Court justices responsible for the Bush v. Gore decision be tried for treason and that Bush himself be tried for murder for leading us into a fraudulently based and completely unnecessary war.

Bugliosi’s excellent book, “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder”, drips with contempt for Bush on almost every page, as he argues vehemently that George W. Bush should be prosecuted for murder, for purposely and with malice aforethought, lying our country into a needless war against a nation that posed no danger to us whatsoever.

Bugliosi’s disparaging of those who question the official 9/11 story
Yet, surprisingly, Bugliosi disparages those whose opinion of Bush is just a teeny bit worse than his own. Referring to George W. Bush’s statement that “Had I known that there was going to be an attack on America, I would have moved mountains to stop the attack”, Bugliosi writes:


I find it so weird that he should toss out a gratuitous insult at us on the “loony left” in the midst of his accusations of mass murder against George Bush. On the one hand he accuses Bush of the murder of thousands of American soldiers in his effort to advance his fraudulently based war, and yet at the same time he says that it should “go without saying” that Bush “would have moved mountains” to stop an attack that served to justify his war. Why should that “go without saying”? Because the attack killed thousands of Americans? Bugliosi already accused Bush of maliciously murdering thousands of Americans. Yet, so certain is he that Bush wouldn’t purposely allow a few thousand additional Americans to die, that anyone who disagrees with him on that point is “loony”.

And then, Bugliosi goes on to rant about how “unbelievable” the official story of 9/11 is, while at the same time giving no indication that he doesn’t believe it. After using the word “unbelievable” several times to describe Bush’s lack of effort to prevent or respond to the 9/11 attacks, Bugliosi says:


But why complain that “unbelievable” isn’t a strong enough word to describe the official story if he actually believes it? And if unbelievable is too weak a word to describe the situation, then why show contempt to those of us who actually don’t believe it? Like Bugliosi, many of us on the “loony left” think that the official 9/11 story is “unbelievable”. But unlike him, many of us actually don’t believe it.

Bugliosi’s anti-“conspiracy theorist” bias regarding the JFK assassination
I have been attacked on DU for discussing the assassination of JFK without having read Bugliosi’s supposedly definitive debunking of the alternative versions to the official story. Here again we run up against the double standard that the official story adherents wish to impose on those who hold alternative views. I’ve read five and a half books on the JFK assassination and have formed a pretty solid conclusion (discussed in some other posts) that the bullet that killed him came from the area of the grassy knoll in front of him, rather than the Texas School Book Depository behind him, from where Oswald presumably shot him. Why should not having read Bugliosi’s book disqualify me from discussing the issue, when those same people, who vigorously support the Warren Commission version of the events, haven’t read David Lifton’s book, “Best Evidence”, and are unable to counter his arguments? And anyhow, Bugliosi has given plenty of evidence of bias against alternative versions of the event. For example, here is a quote of his from a recent interview on the subject:


That is such a gross over-simplification and so off-target as to be ridiculous. If there are any books on alternative versions to the official story that argue what Bugliosi says they do – let alone use that as their principle argument – I certainly haven’t seen them. If those are the only arguments for alternative versions that Bugliosi has seen, then he certainly has no business writing a book on the subject.

There are other statements in his interview that I find almost as bad, but I won’t go into them here. Suffice it to say that Bugliosi has done plenty enough to show his bias against those who hold views that deviate from the official line. In light of his outspoken views of the Bush v. Gore decision and George Bush’s Iraq War, the only sense I can make of his disparaging of so-called “conspiracy theorists” is that he feels he needs some cover in order to make himself appear somewhat mainstream.


Truth seekers do not automatically reject official views and policies

Contrary to the accusations of the anti-“conspiracy theorist” crowd, most of us who have a tendency to question the “official” story line do so selectively when we believe the evidence warrants it – not automatically on all occasions. I’ll give one example from my public health career. When I was responsible for the immunization program in Pennsylvania and a popular TV host came out with an anti-vaccine show, which threatened to pave the way for a measles epidemic, I was pretty mad about that. From my book on the subject:



The marginalization of those who seek the truth

I’ve said it before: I believe the major reason for the marginalization of those who refuse to accept the “official” version of events is that if people knew more about the reality of those events, the seeds of rebellion to the agenda of the wealthy and the powerful would be sown. In the run-up to the Iraq War, our corporate news media utterly failed to expose it for the fraud that it was because powerful interests in our country wanted that war. The U.S. Senate rejected the proposed National Standards for United States History by a vote of 99-1 because, as Lynn Cheney put it, the document contained “multicultural excess”, a “grim and gloomy portrayal of American history”, and a disparaging of the West. And how much faith in their government would Americans lose if they knew that it was complicit in the assassination of President Kennedy – or worse?

But it’s not just the powers that be who insist on disparaging those who disagree with them. Through their never-ending propaganda they spread their attitudes throughout our country. The example of Vincent Bugliosi, discussed above, is a good example of that.

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Because history has shown us, time and time again, that the "official story" is often a steaming pile of rodent feces, deliberately created to obscure the truth in some way, if only in a SMALL way. We get it from the time we first enter school, hearing only PART of the truth about historical events. With the attacks on science carried out by certain religious extremists, we're now seeing it in science as well.

I pissed off a historian once by saying "half of history is bullshit." We all know that history is written by the victor, that often times the ones called upon to record history have their own biases and perspectives that may not, in fact, be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Question everything and it's hard to go wrong. It's like the notion of a "Fair Witness" as described in Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land." If a Fair Witness looks at a house and is asked the question, "what color is that house," the FW would answer "It's white. On THIS side. Not having seen the other side, I cannot make a claim about what color it is over there."

Therefore, as critically thinking citizens, we need to take into consideration not just what we're told, or what we assume we KNOW, but what may or may not be possible given the circumstances surrounding the event. It MIGHT be that everything we've been told about 9/11 is absolutely correct, but there's no reason to accept what we've been told as an absolute certainty.

On the other hand, this also goes for conspiracy theories as well. One must examine all angles and determine for oneself if something falls within what one considers the realm of possibility.

It has been said that certainty is the barrier to true wisdom.

Suffice to say, nothing would surprise me. Not LIHOP, not MIHOP, or even alien overlords manipulating us to their advantage (though this last I consider highly unlikely. But I'm not willing to put it entirely outside the realm of possibility. Probability, yes. Possibility--not for a minute.

Yes, we must evaluate conspiracy (or alternative) theories of reality using the same criteria that we use for evaluating the official story lines.

by the Warren Commission have stood the test of time.

Not only that, but the scientific findings, forensic evidence and the facts behind the assassination (Oswald as lone killer) have only been confirmed in greater nuance and detail through the advances in science that have occurred since the assassination.

That's 45 years of major assault on the facts in the case from the majority position held in America that a conspiracy was behind JFK's killing. Yet, the evidence and the conclusions drawn from the four "official" investigations still stand.

Were we living in a sane world, we would marvel at the efficiency, professionalism, talent and wisdom of those who gathered the evidence and solved this case within a day of the killing. But we live in a country where no good deed goes unpunished, so the CT crowd asserts by fiat their right to smear, condemn and vilify those who actually got it right those many years ago...and all without a shred of proof or "new evidence" in the case.

This distrust of science and the evidence that scientific investigation provides now poisons our country, from those who assume that the JFK killing and the WTC attacks were the result of some grand conspiracy (in spite of the mountains of scientific evidence in the case) to those who look to legislate religion into the science classroom. it's all based on a belief that there are dark, hidden forces at work in the world, be they human conspirators or gods, and that these powers, these "powerful paternal figures," if you will, are weaving their schemes behind the scenes.

How easily we project our infantile "big daddy is watching" beliefs throughout our lives. Starting with our parents, then on to benevolent figures like Santa Claus, then on to not-so-benevolent figures like god, and finally to entirely evil human forces like the Masons and the Bilderbergers...even to people in our own elected "government of, for and by the people."

How sad. And how childlike in the embrace of fiction over fact. How unfortunate that the "overtness" of science is tossed aside with the embrace of the covert world of shadows and the fears that attend them.

"Civility: Treat other members with respect. Do not post personal attacks against other members of this discussion forum."

Edited for speling.

and I don't just say that because I agree with you -- or do I? At any rate, I am just glad to see this all presented so well.

Expecially your diagnosis of what seems to ail Vincent Bugliosi.
"..he feels he needs some cover in order to make himself appear somewhat mainstream."

I notice something about him that I also pick up in prosecutors whose convictions have been overturned, from dna evidence or whatever, their victims have been exonerated and they still refuse to accept it. And they appear honest in their refusal, but as outsiders we can see that they are so emeshed in their theory, so determined to make the facts fix their case -- rather than let the facts determine their case -- they they are blind to anything other than "facts" leading to their own predetermined result (my hunch is this guy is guilty so I will only look at evidence pointing to just that, and if someone presents other evidence I will not see it).

It is exactly the same with anyone who comes to a conclusion without considering ALL (or as much as reasonably possible) the evidence. And then they marry their conclusion, for better or worse.

They can be conspiracy theorists or anti-conspiracy theorists, it doesn't matter, their common denominator appears to be fear of ambiguity, or simply the inability to re-think their own position.

and also IMO an intense reluctance to acknolwedge that their own government, which they've been brought up to revere, could be involved in very dark undertakings. Psychologists refer to it as the psychological defense mechanism of "denial".

It's not conspiracy nor theory if it's blatantly hidden in plain sight. The trick is to get the populace to not see what's before them.

"We need a free and independent press who refuse to take government (or any powerful institution or corporation) at its word, but rather that will routinely take what the powerful say with a grain of salt and investigate their claims in an attempt to find the truth. "

"But in reality it is those who are willing to question our government when it is wrong who care most about our country and constitute some of the most valuable resources that our nation has."

"These are some of the reasons why it is very frustrating to me when those of us who challenge the accepted, “official” view of events are excoriated as “conspiracy theorists” in the most pejorative sense of the word. Those who excoriate us in this way define “conspiracy theorist” as those who are exceptionally inclined to believe alternative accounts of the “official story”, in the absence of any credible evidence to support those beliefs, because they are paranoid, gullible, or stupid."

The remarkable thing is how many willfully gullible people there are, when the public knows TPTB lie to them, over and over again. This also goes back to JFK and through Paul Wellstone and beyond -- the American underlying sense that truthtellers get dead.

How blatant is the propaganda?

"In the lead up to the Iraq War, the claim that the Bush administration lied to the American people to justify that war was deemed an exceptional claim (and unpatriotic or treasonous)."

In 2003, it didn't take Jon Stewart and one of his montages to notice that the whole administration (same faces Liebowitzed with dead eyes in Vanity Fair) spent a weekend on the airwaves saying the same "16 words" in the same order over and over and over:

"aluminum tubes" "aluminum tubes" "aluminum tubes" "aluminum tubes' "aluminum tubes"
"yellowcake from Africa" "yellowcake from Africa" "yellowcake from Africa" "yellowcake from Africa" "yellowcake from Africa"

Who the hell's BS detectors don't go off with that multi-catapult assault of identical propaganda?

No, the threshold for BS has gotten so high that Stewart and Colbert have built careers on poking holes in it for a a public that has largely lost the ability.............

...and those that can are considered the aberration.

The propaganda is so thick, you'd think those green shoots are growing a huge garden. What those green shoots are actually weeds, and they are withering.

Thousands (millions?) of unemployed people from bankrupt Chrysler and GM closing dealers and shutting down factories, are not green shoots.

in it for a a public that has largely lost the ability..."

That just about says it all.

Moreover, secrecy (nontransparency) is an open invitation to corruption and abuse of power.

Given the Bush regime was the most secretive in US history, it is not possible as a scientific matter to rule out conspiracies. (i.e. agreements among two or more to accomplish an illegal result)

For truth-seeking purposes, the anti-conspiracy theory position actually provides very effective cover for real conspiracies. The more outlandish, the more likely the conspiracy would be to succeed, simply because even if it were discovered, few would believe it, and many people totally unaware of and not involved in any conspiracy would rush to play the "conspiracy theory" card under the impression they can win a debate that way or score points for themselves.

Every "conspiracy theory" attack bespeaks a secrecy problem. Either the "theorist" has not done their homework and research, or (as is more likely) the key information that would test the theory is (most often) inappropriately kept secret.

Your thinking is spot on. If the "conspiracy" had been presented as the official version it would be accepted and all other versions would be looney.

QUESTION AUTHORITY! except if you're MY children

sociological epidemiology, or plain enquiring beyond the fences we're taught to run in, but I like it.

As I said in my book: "The mathematical computations used in the analysis of this outbreak (the one involving the fluorescent lights) were of no more greater complexity than those I had learned in grade school".

Your post read like a good detective novel combined with a discourse on epistemology. I enjoyed it.

I made a post a number of years ago entitled losing my religion. I don't care to get into a pissing contest around the particulars but what I found out about a common medical procedure first exposed how much of medicine is faith based rather than science based and then, with further research, my faith was utterly destroyed. I know on one level that much of what the CDC does is good, sound, science but knowing that they have also participated and continue to participate in massive cover ups really destroyed my belief in the institution.

What cover-ups are you referring to.

Our information base in medicine and other sciences grows over time, and it is in the nature of science that theories and knowledge will sometimes change as additional information becomes available. Although there have been instances where scientists have been involved in fraud, I would say that most changes in accepted scientific knowledge are more related to scientific progression. Sometimes, too, scientists simply hold too closely to accepted paradigms, that is, are too inflexible to seriously consider large alterations to existing theories.

You mentioned the Senate rejection of the proposed National Standards for United States History. I am curious as to why even liberal senators such as Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Ted Kennedy, and even Paul Wellstone voted to reject the standards.

There are many issues for which our elected representatives are under great pressure to vote in certain ways -- the impression being given that to vote otherwise would be "unpatriotic". The proposed National Standards for U.S. History was such an issue. It was a proposal that would have opened up history teaching in the schools and resulted in widely changed attitudes of school children towards our country by exposing a lot of our imperfections. So, it was a radioactive issue.

I think of it as something akin to the PATRIOT Act, which was initially passed in a Senate vote of 99-1, with only Feingold voting against it.

The Senators you mention would almost certainly, IMO, have not voted against the National Standards if there was a chance that their vote would have made the difference in whether the measure passed or not. But in circumstances like these, our elected representatives have to pick and choose their battles. They don't want to be seen as always voting for things for which their opponents can make them seem to be "unpatriotic".

Thanks for taking the time to write this up.

Why, just the other day, the same thoughts were expressed by Daily Kos user, "Heckler";

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/3/738515/-9-11...

"But here in United States, cradle of modern democracy and the unfettered Fourth Estate, our ostensible leaders and most of our media still cannot honestly face the seminal neo-fascist crime of over 40 years ago, the assassinations of JFK.. When one of the principal suspects, Cold War fanatic E. Howard Hunt, arranged a posthumous confession two years ago (“Surely someone would have talked by now!”), implicating the CIA’s Cuba faction, it was left to Rolling Stone alone to get the word out (whatever the veracity of that confession was later determined to be, there is no excuse for blacking out news of it). Twenty years earlier, when Mark Lane convinced a Miami jury that the same E. Howard Hunt and the CIA were complicit in the assassination, news of the landmark trial (Hunt vs. Liberty Lobby) never made it beyond a local Miami TV station. If there’s a conspiracy-of-silence theory here, fault our panjandrums of the press for feeding it, including radical luminaries Alexander Cockburn, Noam Chomsky and Justin Raimondo, all still preposterously swearing fealty to the rancid Warren Commission corpse as a holy relic."

Book review - "Into the Buzzsaw"


Slapped by a gag order when Ashcroft was AG, whistleblower Sibel Edmonds most recent blog posts has some pithy quotes from various sources on the suppposed "free press."


And read her account about how Michael Isikoff and Newsweek assisted the Feds in ensuring her story of malfeasance, corruption and treason within the FBI translation department does not see the light of day in the mainstream media:
http://123realchange.blogspot.com/2009/06/project-expos...

K&R for the OP.

"The Shock Doctrine" is such a great book and eye opener.

Bugliosi's book is hardly definitive, or the final word on JFK. JFK researcher Rex Bradford, (who helped to build the very useful Mary Ferrell website, has gathered together a number of critical reviews of Bugliosi's book here at ReclaimingHistory.org.

and I am thankful and grateful that we have the Internets to research for additional information rather than listening to the propaganda that is spewed on TV. I started to really wake up in 2004 figuring out that Bush could not have won the election. So I happened to find DU, and started reading, and reading more, and reading other places, and finally concluded that there is a LOT that is politically motivated, and not always in the best interest of WE the People.

It's sad and unfortunate that most people are still 'sleeping', but they have their other priorities like job, family, hobbies, vacations, mindless TV shows. If they would just open 1 eye, they would see that the propaganda that the economy is recovering, could not be possible when millions of people are unemployed and there are not enough new jobs being created. It seems like people have to be personally drastically affected, before they start to question what they have been hearing.

If the corporate media ever gets control of it, our democracy is over with.

Simply because the official version is the result of no evidence or testimony, other that that which supported the official version. The conclusion was reached first by the Bush Regime, "official bi-partisan investigation" then sought only evidence to support it - then ignored & suppressed everything which called it into question.

Those are not the actions of people who wish to learn & broadcast the truth, they are those of someone who wishes to hide it.

cowardly, and/or irresponsible.

If you've got a gift for analysis, for being able to look at the patterns between the big picture and the small details, and for seeing what fits and what doesn't, it seems irresponsible to ignore the questions that pop up in your mind simply for the sake of going with the flow.

The town needs curious minds just as it might need a bucket brigade or sandbags when the water is rising. We all have our own talents.

from the CT crowd, what then?

Blather on and on about how the facts are in your side of the court while never actually providing any facts of your own. Don't worry, typically just the marginalization of saying how decades of history have proven you to be correct will do it, because we all know that our government always owns up to its past abuses of power as soon as they're made aware of them. Then you pat yourself on the back for a job well done. Knowing that the people you've insulted will be that less likely to engage in critical thought in the future.

not to impressed with parroted theories in general that are not legitimately thought out and investigated or that persist even in the presence of massive data to the contrary.

Some of us somehow have managed to adhere to a sense of ethos, or ethics, in our private lives which we use as a standard in our dealings with others and there is an ambivalence which results in our dealings with others in our predatory society that long abandoned ethos.

The glass is both half full and half empty in a way.

We have learned that people are innately evil. Still, we look for the good. And therein lies the ambivalence.

Bugliosi would prosecute George W Bush for mass murder and yet fails to see that his prosecution would fall apart on the basis of his apparent belief in the "innocence" or "goodness" of George W Bush.

Conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories. Facts are facts.

The facts are that George W Bush knew there was a credible threat by Osama bin Laden and al Qeuda to hijack planes. Despite saying he would have "moved mountains" to stop it if he had known, he did know and he did absolutely nothing to stop it.

And yet Bugliosi refuses to see that for some reason. Because of the ambivalence. It is hard to believe anyone would do such a thing.

And yet the facts are that they did.

For those who no longer have a sense of ethos it merely is a matter of the "objectivism" of our society. There is no real rule of law. We determine for ourselves what is right or wrong. And on that basis, there really is no right or wrong. Which causes ambivalence as well.

The Bushes and the Clintons and everyone who served in their administrations who supported the two wars and the sanctions that left untold numbers of Iraqis without access to "necessities of life" in the hope that they would rise up and assassinate Saddam Hussein belong at Nuremberg.

And sadly if Barack Obama and everyone in his administration continue the policies of the Bushes and the Clintons, they belong at Nuremberg as well. Considering that Hillary Clinton is secretary of state there realy is little doubt that Barack Obama and everyone in his administration belong at Nuremberg as well.

The world at some point will rise up against us the way it did against Nazi Germany. And those of us who have managed to adhere to a sense of ethos accept that and no longer have any ambivalence about it.

We are not only a shameful nation but an evil nation.

The same holds for journalists, the tame watchdogs of the same.

Regarding the left's worship on the alter of the rotten, steaming corpse that is Warren Commission Report:



Thank you for an excellent essay, Time for change. It is an honor to be your virtual colleague through DU.

It's an honor to be your virtual colleague too, Octafish.

That seemed to be the culture's credo of the late sixties and early seventies.

Now it seems that people tend to instinctively trust and believe authority. In fact, most people seem to immediately reject information that does not derive from authority.

And so it goes...

coming from one who knows (you, I mean! Not me!!)

Thanks once again TfC.

Now that I think of it, thank you for all those who you helped with your determination to seek the truth; good to know you are out there (and others like you--I hope there are many like you)...

On the other hand, this part really infuriated me:



disgusting that the manufacturers are at the top of the food chain......

But now, with a new FDA Commissioner, we're trying again. Maybe it will be successful this time.

Especially since we have a whole forum designed to do exactly that.

will a majority swallow wholesale the preposterous lies fed to the public by the corps media.

In no other country have I ever met anyone who insists that JFK was assassinated by a lone gunman. In Europe, Asia, the ME, people at least have grave doubts. And nowhere else in the world will anyone call you a silly conspiracy theorist when you voice questions about the official version of events we can't mention here. Again, people are willing to think for themselves, to re-consider, to follow new leads if you point them out.

The graduation of Americans from force-fed adolescents to mature adult world-citizens has been excruciatingly slow. Delayed by CIA psy-ops that have successfully retarded an entire nation.

And as a bonus, you can feed the media all kinds of "preposterous lies" about who you killed, whether they be a sitting President of the United or a member of the United States Senate or a lowly receptionist working on floor 110 of Two World Trace Center.

of a conspiracy (Source: Gallup Polls, 2001 & 2003). That's an overwhelming majority of Americans, however you count it.

I hate to break it to all you "truthers" out there, but you're hardly some small group of people fighting to get out the "truth." You're actually the ones toeing the conventional wisdom party line that has been adopted by the unwashed masses.

The majority of Americans are, in fact, "swallowing wholesale the preposterous lies fed to the public by the conspiracy theorists."

Why you CTists do not wear this fact as a badge of honor is beyond me. You have convinced the vast majority of Americans of your claims (with a major assist from Oliver Stone). One would think you'd be slapping each other on the back, rather than imagining that you are the minority raging against the machine. It wouldn't be that perceiving oneself as being in an elite and enlightened minority is part of the attraction of falling in with the CT crowd, would it? Hmm.

Also, if you insist on calling this a "retarded" nation, then you need to embrace the "fact" that said retardation must account in some measure for the vast majority of Americans believing your CT views of the JFK killing. Yes, the "majority (of Americans) swallow wholesale the preposterous lies fed to the public," but it's not the lies of the media or the establishment they're swallowing, it's your lies.

Hope that clears things up for you.

you are conflating two separate events and distorting what I said in my post beyond recognition. All in the service of jumping to the foregone conclusion that "truthers" are liars, one and all.

Quote stopbush:

"Yes, the "majority (of Americans) swallow wholesale the preposterous lies fed to the public," but it's not the lies of the media or the establishment they're swallowing, it's your lies."

How do you know I'm lying? Is Time for Change lying? Is everyone on earth who doesn't believe the official versions a liar now?

"Hope that clears things up for you."

If you don't realize how preposterous the above accusations are, how insulting your tone is overall, and how your use of obfuscating debating tactics in various threads have diminished your credibility on DU, you need to have a few things cleared up for YOU!

bombarded the American people.

His books and articles are based on logic, science, and research... just as your personal examples were.

I guess one is only a truthseeker if their opinions match ones own.

What I said about Bugliosi in the OP is that he seems to have a bias against those who question the "official" story. For examples, I cited this from an interview that he did:


Having read several books on the Kennedy assassination, regardless of what one believes about how he was assassinated, Bugliosi's characterization of the arguments of the so-called "conspiracy theorists" is grossly inaccurate. For example, David Lifton's book is filled with several hundred pages of some of the most detailed forensic arguments I've read on any subject, and he doesn't even mention the motives that anyone might have had for killing JFK.

Do you think that Bugliosi's characterization of the "principle argument" of the so-called "conspiracty theorists" is accurate or fair?

can't be bothered to even read his book? So what if you've "read several books on the Kennedy assassination" - you haven't read Bugliosi's! That's like saying you've read plenty of books on religions but haven't read the Bible.

You amaze me. You are constantly starting threads on conspiracies, especially the JFK killing. Yet you refuse to read Bugliosi's book. One would think that a person who constantly preaches to others to keep an open mind and to "examine everything" would follow their own advice when it comes to the largest, most-detailed and most-comprehensive book ever written on the JFK killing. One would think that your obvious fascination with the JFK killing would impel you to read Bugliosi's book. One would think that you'd be driven to read it if for no other reason than to debunk it. Yet, you can't be bothered.

There's a name for people who read only books that agree with their pre-conceived ideas, and they're called Republicans. (OK, I admit that was snarky).

On the other hand, you have no problem whatsoever criticizing the author and his book by name. You have no problem challenging what he says in his book while - in reality - you have no idea whatsoever what he says in his book.

If you're going to criticize Bugliosi, then simple human DECENCY says that you owe it to him, to us and to yourself to read his book before offering such criticisms and whole-cloth opinions. Otherwise, recuse yourself when the topic turns to Bugliosi and Reclaiming History. Do the right thing and say, "Sorry, but I haven't read the book and I can't comment upon it." THAT I could respect, as I'm sure the rest of us who don't share your CT beliefs would as well.

You piss and moan that those of us on the other side of this issue are attacking you, yet you invite the attack with your cavalier attitude about Bugliosi's book and - by necessity and extension - your cavalier attitude toward the JFK assassination itself.

And just to be clear - I once believed as you did. I read all of the main JFK conspiracy books. But I read them without the knowledge of the lies they told, the falsifications of evidence they presented and without knowledge of what they omitted from their arguments. That all changed when on the urging of a friend, I sought out the WCR and a few books that supported the WCR. What I found was that the people on the side of the WCR didn't need to lie or tell half truths or omit things. What I found was that the EVIDENCE in the case was on their side, from autopsy reports to ballistics tests to where JFK and Connally were seated in the limo, not to mention logic and reason. Bugliosi's book just confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt what the evidence has shown for years.

That you won't be bothered to read his book says more about you on its face than do the pages after pages of essays you post here at DU.

I didn't comment on Bugliosi's book, which I acknowledged I hadn't read. I commented on his anti-"Conspiracy theorist" bias, as indicated by his comments which I did read.

Why should I read a 1600 page book which, from all I've been able to determine (based on reviews and Bugliosi's own comments) does not appear to be worth the time?

Have you read Lifton's book?

and that was during the period when I believed the CTs had merit. JFK's coffin was never unattended. Never. Sort of blows his whole premise.

Next question.

Now people can't comment on excerpts taken from books they haven't read in their entirety? Does the same go for long articles and film clips too? How about pdf's from the government?

Mind you, I'm not talking for TFC here; he can talk for himself and do it very well, as most everyone can see.

What's noteworthy about the bulk of your posts (as far as I've read them) is that your arguments amount to nothing more than appeals to authority.
Case in point, your OP titled, "Ha! Obama Disses 9/11 Conspiracy Theories in Cairo Speech"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

...As if readers could be swayed by a remark Obama made! Laughable, really. And your gloating tone doesn't help make your case either.

But most often you position yourself as the voice of authority... as if veiled insults and condescension establish you as the sole purveyor of the indisputable Truth with a capital T.

Please... someone with your interpersonal communication skills calling into question the decency (of all things), the thoroughness and the clear thinking of writers like TFC.... well, it's an insult to normal people's intelligence. But do go on. With every diatribe posted, you expose your mind-set a little bit more.

if you're simply parroting the views of others? Personally, I prefer to do my own reading and form my own opinions.

As far as me making arguments that "amount to nothing more than appeals to authority," in the JFK case, that authority goes by the name of evidence. It's that simple. All I ask is that the CTists produce counter evidence, and by evidence, I don't mean opinion, theory or crazy-ass psychosis.

As far as TFC's writing skill, he's OK, if verbose, but he's a writer of fiction. I would appreciate the creative element a bit more if he actually presenting his own take on things rather than parroting the opinions of others.

Obviously, you don't like the directness of my writing or that of a Vincent Bugliosi. Perhaps our writing is overly direct out of a sense of frustration, frustration that evidence is always trumped by fantasy when it comes to the JFK CTists. Were I writing about baseball instead of JFK, there could be a faction of baseball CTists who insisted that the Chicago Cubs have won every WS since 1980. I could show them the evidence to prove they hadn't, but it wouldn't matter. I'd be told that the evidence was faked, that the games were played but the record books were all altered after the fact. Worse, they were altered to make the WS Champ look like the biggest losing team of all time. And everybody in baseball and even the majority of Cubs fans are in on the conspiracy to hide the truth.

That's what we get from the CTists who aver that JFK's closest confidants and every security branch of the government were in on his killing. Some CTists even aver the Kennedy family is in on the cover up.

Of course, there's no evidence for the Cubs victories, just as there's no evidence that there was a conspiracy to kill JFK, but that doesn't stop you and the others from dreaming your dreams.

BTW, TFC - which anti-conspiracy books you have read on the JFK killing?

Oh, and Kaleko, as far as "you don't realize how preposterous the above accusations are, how insulting your tone is overall, and how your use of obfuscating debating tactics in various threads have diminished your credibility on DU."

I really don't care a rat's ass about what my credibility is on DU, especially with CTists like yourself. I'm not here to launch an admiration society for myself. The day that reality-based thinking is no longer welcome at Du is the day Du isn't Du anymore. And I can see how being a CTist you find facts insulting, because they are insulting of fantasy. No overlapping majesteria here.

If you find my debating tactics to be "obfuscating," then I'd ask you to give me an example and tell me what, exactly, is obfuscating about presenting hard, cold facts to counter whimsy. I'll wait.

we need to look no further than your latest post. It is rife with distortions of what TfC and I have said, it is riddled with strawman arguments, and it constantly appeals to authority: your supposedly superior authority - based on... you.

Starting with the very first sentence, you accuse TfC of parroting other's opinions. Now, how do you back up your claim that your studies and the conclusions you have reached are more authoritative than TfC's? Easy - by simply claiming that it is so! Every single argument you have presented here amounts to Just Because I Say So, It Must Be True (JBISSIMBT)! That's the extent of the proof you submit and the apparent limit of your debating skills.

I wonder whether you are aware enough to actually notice the logical fallacies in your text. But who cares? I surely don't, and so I won't bother to pick apart the next example and the one after that. It's a waste of time arguing with someone who has the temerity to claim "reality-based thinking" for himself after delivering a writ like you just did above.

I read "Case Closed" by Gerald Posner, which was heralded as the definitive book on the subject, just as some herald Bugliosi's book now. It was so full of holes as to be ridiculous. I wrote a 50 page essay in rebuttal to it, but unfortunately the computer on which I wrote it was destroyed in a fire (and I don't care if you believe that or not).

Other than that, I don't have anything to add to what Kaleko said (which was right on target) in post 88, except for one thing. You are not worth having a discussion with because you are incapable of having a discussion with someone with whom you disagree without filling it with insults. I don't doubt that you have a lot of information on this subject, and it would probably be worth discussing it with you if you cared to discuss it without the insults. But as it is, I consider discussing anything with someone like you to be a great waste of time.

the "no calling out other members" rule.

& R

Question everything. The main problem, as I see it, is when we are only willing to question authority when it suits our neat political opinions. Question everything means just that -- question *everything*. Not just the other guy, the other war, the other party, the other president, the other side.

(edited for spelling)

you have a lot of support here.

an important "rule" when writing is to write short. If the writer cuts out the least necessary things, "the value per minute spent reading the text" increases.

But it's just a coincidence that I mention this here, this is a problem in many posts.

If you noticed the other day Obama went out of his way to shake his

finger and tell us that 9/11 was NOT an "inside job."

I'd say he's well aware of the opposition to the official myth.

Yep, I'm no Bugliosi fan -- didn't he do a book on Charles Manson/Helter Skelter?

Also disagree that we know everything about that situtation. Like the Bush/Cheney

need to create terrorism -- Manson also looks like a false flag effort to create

fear of "hippies."

The press is a prime target -- Obama also confirmed the other day that US toppled

Prime Minister Mossadeq of Iran -- but imagine if the public had truly known at the

time all of the "topplings" of liberal leadership the US/CIA has been responsibile

for !!!

Mohammad Mosaddeq ( Mossadeq ) was the Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953 when he was removed from power by a coup d'état.

And without doubt those tricks, false flag operations, conspiracies were also brought

home by the CIA to keep liberals and progressives out of office in America!

CIA/right wing money has long financed the right wing political interests/Republican

Party in America!

Wake up, America!!!

This is not conspiracy free America -- this is conspiracy-ridden America!!!

Now, are those COMPLEX carbohydrates, or simple?

The interesting thing when you read science for challenging the prevailing thought is that it causes an imbalance of satisfaction in one's mind.... and it causes critical thinking in ALL walks of life.

Bugliosi is a good example. He chooses somehow to belittle those on the left in his 911 work, incongruent with what he says about Bush -v- Gore. Maybe in the more recent stuff, he was just pressed to come out with a book that would sell. For his lack of insight, it didn't very well.

Also, we need to take that critical thinking a step further and see through time, patterns of abuse in what has become "accepted" truth/case closed. The case is never closed scientifically!

One could write a book on it.

Thanks for the kind words. Now, back to the dungeon with me.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

sometimes the government is lying and "conspiracy theorists" are right.

Other times the official version is right and the conspiracy theorists are scam artists or paranoid or simply wrong.

The best protection for conspirators is to inject the wildest conspiracy theories for plausible deniability.

See "COINTELPRO" or G. Gordon Liddy's biography "Will" wherein he boasts of dressing up as a hippy to disrupt '60s protests.

But tossing that label around whenever somebody voices an uncomfortable or dissenting point of view is among the most intellectually dishonest and dishonorable ways wingers have used over the years to marginalize anyone who dares point out that -- for example -- pure sociopaths like Rumsfeld and Cheney are the very people most likely to act as general contractors for any number of murderous rampages -- as long as there's political advantage to be achieved and, of course, gigantic piles of money to be made.

Consider that at any given moment, there are literally tens of thousands – maybe millions – of ad hoc conspiracies of mutual convenience going on that draw certain people with certain skill sets together to plan and execute an attack on a mutual enemy.

They're called business meetings and are so common and accepted that only an idiot would call them conspiracies. But that's exactly what they are, according to the criteria respected dictionaries like the OED and Webster's 10th use to define the term.

Given that humans are prone to lie like Persian rugs, it's never surprising when nearly everything we hear, read or see is complete and utter bullshit.

Mass culture, and the kind of inane faux journalism that keeps the national focus on trivial garbage and away from events that actually matter, is now the sole property of six -- SIX -- giant mega-holding companies. The news and information biz has been replaced by another tedious, predictable corporate message machine. The thousands of frauds they recruit to pitch the wonderfulness of "corporate values" -- a first-rate oxymoron if ever there was one -- all day, every day are just Limpball clones and Tourettes sufferers who are unable to just sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.

It's hard to imagine that Rush himself actually believes his own bullshit. If he does, then he's the consummate delusional fool, the type who'd rather wallow in self-deception and self-aggrandizement than try to find and use the miniscule, underdeveloped little section of what's laughingly known as his brain to reason his way out of a wet paper bag.

While his vocabulary is first-rate, it's just a shallow substitute for what's left of his analytical skills, the lot of which are so laughably threadbare and pathetic that it's easy to understand his well-known aversion for uncontrolled places and situations. Last thing he needs is an instant identity crisis every time he hits the first tee at Pebble Beach.

And when he does, there tend to be a few wags around to set him straight. In fact, I was an ecstatic audio witness when somebody in the gallery at the annual AT&A golf tournament yelled: "Big slice coming up, fat boy." No big deal for most, unless you're so delicate and your ego is so fragile that the slightest little attack on his fabricated public persona can have far-reaching consequences to his long-term mental stability.

So the lardass of the century (or two of them, I guess) and self-proclaimed ideological leader of the Grand Old Reactionary Party is a hopeless agoraphobe who won't venture out into the real world without a security phalanx to keep the peasants at bay and well back from his corpulence -- the same world, mind you, he claims is rapidly becoming a macrocosm of his own simple-minded vision of Calvinist/Cotton Mather morality.

Hard to imagine how this helpless little dildo and mental midget ever sucked enough of the right corporate dicks to get on the radar screen, much less radio and TEEEE VEEEE, where he can "inspire" the thousands of imitative motor-mouths who've turned Murikan radio into the vapid wingnut cesspool of blind racism and mindless liberal bashing it's become.


wp

True, true, so true.

And evidence that one conspiracy is "real" has absolutely no bearing on the validity of another CT.

Good post.

Sid

thumbs up.

Welcome to DU

This was the question that investigative journalist Garry Webb was asked by a colleague when he first started investigating the CIA's connections to Contra drug runners (AKA Freedom Fighters as per Ronnie Reagan) and the role the CIA played in assisting the Contras in importing cocaine into the US for sale on the streets of US cities. But hey, it was just another "conspiracy theory" after all. Surely it would be safe to assume that those honorable employees of the CIA would never stoop to flagrantly violating US law and allowing their Contra... er Freedom Fighting allies to wreak havoc on US inner cities just to fund another covert operation (and no doubt a good few Cayman Island and Swiss bank accounts).

PS. I found the link to this 1998 FAIR article on whistleblower Sibel Edmonds' blog where she is currently posting a series of blog entries describing the consistent and shameful failure of the mainstream media to report on topics that could be damaging to the established order, and even worse, to publish knowingly false information to assist in coverups and to protect the "powers that be" from embarrassment or having to face legal consequences for their actions. Here is the link:

http://123realchange.blogspot.com/2009/06/dissecting-ma...

That the freedom of mankind is the work of those who question authority; and for those who blindly accept what they are told, the resolution of slaves...

K&R Dr. Dale
Larry

Fortunately, I think that the internet is increasing the amount of people who question authority. Maybe in due time, the MSM brainwashing machine will be as irrelevant as the telegraph.

great post

I have three objections to your writing, and it may seem to come off as nit picking or a semantic argument, but I think it really goes to the larger topic.

1) You use the expression "official version". In many of the subjects to which you reference, there is barely anything that can be labeled as an "official version". That expression implies that our government has any such process. It doesn't, not really. After any event or period of history, there will be various government agencies, and branches, which produce descriptions of the past. Some, like a Warren Commission, a Challenger commission, or the 9/11 committee, will attempt comprehensive reviews and reports, but they never really accomplish that. Furthermore, they will not be the "only" government report. Various departments and branches of government will often do reviews after major events. Predominately they will be efforts to review that agencies performance and recommend changes or improvements. They often can include summaries (extensive in some cases) of the events being referenced. These can be highly "political" documents, for both the internal and external political environments. Often the very goal of the document is basically to use the events of history to justify changes. Those recommended or desired changes are often known by the authors prior to, or during the writing of the reports. It is inevitable that such reports will contain synopses that are influenced by those goals. Furthermore, these reports should not be compared to say a peer reviewed report, or a judicial proceeding with a judge. It is a known and understood phenomenon of these reports that the authors are also the editors and fact checkers of the documents. No peer reviewed journal would allow such a thing, no judicial proceeding (save maybe a grand jury) would allow such a thing. Furthermore, there will be multiple such reports generated by various departments and there will be NO attempt to particularly coordinate either the information contained therein, or the summary of events. And large, broad commissions may utilize these reports, but to a great extent their purpose is not to rectify them with each other.

The reason the expression "official version" is popular is because the expression gives an implication that lends itself to the "conspiracy" label. If there is "A" official version, then it's shortcomings are implied to be intentional for the purpose of distorting history. Any and all actors within the government can then be held accountable for the contents of the document. Detractors can be suggested to be "whistle blowers" or victims of those attempting to alter history. It removes the hint that they could possibly be merely bringing internal political arguments of their organization out into public view in an attempt to widen the argument. "Deep Throat" did what he did, not out of some intense feeling of patriotism, but out of a desire to "protect" the FBI from people he thought would undermine their standing and authority. That difference is important to the assessment of the "version" being presented. That's why I object to expressions like "official version" because it elevates detractors to a position that is unlikely and often not true.

2) History is messy. There is no shortage of books to be found that will tell "different" histories. Politics uses history to its own ends and that results in narratives that won't exactly stand up to typical academic scrutiny. Even at some distance in time, most articles on historical events have a larger purpose and the description of those events will be done to serve that larger purpose. That, however, is not evidence of any particularly "nefarious" intent on the part of the author. The presence of motive is not evidence of action either. Both of these assumptions however are fundamentals of the "questioning of official versions". It is very difficult to construct accurate and fully self consistent descriptions of past events, and the quantity of information available is directly proportional to the difficulty of doing so. As such, any large public event will have an enormous amount of information available and it won't all be correct, and much of that is unverifiable as well as it will often rely extensively upon recollection. This, in and of itself won't be evidence of a conspiracy or otherwise a coordinated effort to alter our understanding of past events. Many "alternative explanations" aren't really presented as alternative explanations, but a collection of alternative contributing events. There is little attempt to rectify them with the whole of the events, and they are as likely to ignore nonconforming information as the explantations to which they object.


3) There's always a "cover up". Success has a million parents, failure is an orphan. After major events, many folks will want to either avoid credit, or associate themselves with the event, depending upon whether the event is considered a success or not. Worse, in early periods immediately after an event, the success or failure nature of the event may not be obvious. So organizations will often attempt to "cover up" either the extent to which they were involved, or the extent to which they were inconsequential. And this effort can often morph from one to another as the nature and impression of an event changes over time. That, however is not evidence of foreknowledge, cause, nor subsequent discovery that the organization was some how "responsible". And strangely, evidence that an entity was attemtping to avoid blame, isn't evidence that they were in fact responsible. Furthermore, an organization that cannot avoid an association with an event, will often not particularly be interested in defending itself, nor explaining itself, at least publicly. It tends to only further the examination they wish to avoid. So the response can tend to be one of "taking the blame and moving on". This is a political move mostly and not evidence of guilt, coordination, foreknowledge, or "cover up".

It's completely appropriate to consider alternative understandings of history. And yes, those alternative understandings will often contain politically unpopular points of view. Just take the "holy struggle" language out. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Not everyone who isn't interested in studying the finer points is a spawn the the devil, and not everyone who is, automatically qualifies as a martyr. And as any academic historian will explain, not everything that happens together is connected, or related. Correlation is not causation.

The cover ups are just rewritten history that should not be construed as an Official story? Even if the officials who have attempted to rewrite the history are seen as doing so just to cover up the truth?

"It's completely appropriate to consider alternative understandings of history"

Well, hallelujah!! And when we do consider alternatives to the official versions we usually do find someone attempting to write history to cover up what they did. And so we continue. Thanks anyway.

The only "truth" they are attempting to cover is their own incompetence. The distortions or inaccuracies involved have little to do with attempting to alter the basic facts of what happened, and more to do with altering the proof of their own mistakes. There are no "official stories". The government has no mechanism for such a thing. You wish to use those descriptions so as to give them a standing they do not deserve, and enable comparisons and standards to which they were never held. The most rigorous reports the government does are NTSB post incident reports. Even those are subject to scrutiny and debate because of the same phenomenon I outlined before. They are effectively "single sourced". There is no "peer review" and no external editing. The reports have a purpose, which is to justify a conclusion. Maybe we should have another method, maybe something akin to a thesis "defense". But there is no such thing and the value added would be limited since one can't defend a thesis to "all comers". Quite honestly, in the final analysis, the best thing we can have is multiple reports, from multiple entities and branches. That typically results in the greatest amount of information being made available and it makes it all that much more difficult for the reports to be coordinated or consistent. Consistency will only come from folks finding the same facts, which ultimately is the goal.

Folks which to consider alternative understandings of history should follow the academic example. Rarely do you find someone directly deconstructing someone elses thesis. The more common approach is merely to construct their own, almost to the exclusion of even considering the others. THAT gets defended and the more "credible" thesis tends to "survive" and the alternatives tend to be forgotten. Merely tearing down anothers thesis will rarely get one anywhere.

You say: "the best thing we can have is multiple reports, from multiple entities and branches. "

That's what we do, we offer up alternatives, the multiple reports. But when we do, we get hammered because it differs from the insiders story.

And really, when reports come from insiders like the FBI, DA's and the CIA, they are 'official' especially in the sense that someone can be hanged by the 'finding'.

"you" get hammered because of your technique. And the reports to which you are referring cannot "hang" anyone, much less in the context of a critique of a low carb diet. Those NTSB reports to which I referred can get peoples licenses pulled, and they are about as "official" as anything gets, and they can be formally challenged in court.

How you can deny the simple fact that, for instance, the Official report of what happened on 9/11 has lead to thousands of people being 'hung'.

And you have the gall to say it is our technique that is at fault, when all kinds of evidence is hidden from us by the officials in government using their official reports.

Which report do you consider to be the official one?

The one that was used as justification to invade Afghanistan.

If you have a better name for it, we're all ears.

You are dancing around the subject. You claim it is our 'technique' that is the problem.... well your technique is nothing but a denial of historic actualities.

No "report" was used, unless you mean the large number of news reports. That was a forgone conclusion when the towers went down. The three closest reports to anything "official" were the NIST report, the Graham/Senate committee reports, and the 9/11 commission.

How about the FBI reports? And the Bush administrations reports? If there were no 'offical' reports then how did they officially invade?

Oh wait, you are saying that the media reports made us invade? Are you inclined to believe that the media tells us the truth? What would have happened if the media told us a different story than what Bushco told us? Gawd, they were one and the same... anytime the media even began to wander off the official report they were smacked back in line.

Nope, you seem like a real fart smeller, but you can't even come up with a coherent explanation as to why we invaded. A sign of true obfuscation at best and at worst an enemy of the truth.

I'm saying that the administration waited for none of those reports prior to deciding to invade. The most significant reports came out of the CIA, and those were more like memos than reports. Calling these things "official reports" gives them a status they do not actually have. The vast majority of them would be more accurately labeled "data dumps".

The definition is 'one that holds public office. Appointed or elected.' What you are doing here is an attempt to make up a new definition of official, and it doesn't fly with me.

These were officials that reported what happened using their official status and our official money, yet you claim that none of it was official? Look at who is trying to rewrite shit now.

Your technique is the problem. I've called you on it several times, maybe now you will finally see what a hole you are digging and come clean?

This is about nothing more than fair questioning of what our paid officials have reported. And you object. F that.

I would contend (and have already) that the reason that "official report" is used in the singular is to give it the impression of depth and breadth that it does not deserve. Furthemore, this is done so that all member of the government, and government related entities, in all branches can be held accountable for its contents. There are no such reports generated. Furthermore, many of the reports generated are exactly the opposite, narrow reports written and published with little review, especially from out side of the authoring activity and whose purpose is far from universal but in fact are narrow and generated for the purpose of supporting points of view that existed prior to the initiation of the report. There is virtually no mechanism for creating "official reports" within the US government. The closest thing to them would be intercongressional committees whose results must be voted upon, or "sense of congress" kinds of resolutions. As someone who has to write "official reports" that are reviewed, internally and externally, and have to be "accepted" by our customer, there is no such similar thing in the US government today. Departments have internal procedures for such things, but they are written, edited, and published by those departments.

You want to define an "official report" as "one written by an official". I don't think you'll find a definition anywhere that is that broad. You want "offical" to mean "definitive" and even the authors of most of these reports wouldn't accept that definition.

Official reports are not definitive that is why we question those reports.

You like to call them "data dumps". And then when we question those dumps you argue that we are going about it the wrong way. Fine, in your narrow vision and in your narrow responsibilities, that may fit your narrow view.

But in the broader world where the "data dumps" have real and lasting consequences someone has to be held responsible and that responsibility lies with the appointed and elected officials who dump that crap.

Like I say, the best I can make of your arguments is a cover up of the official responsibility, at best, and a rewrite of the truth at worst.

Many, if not most of them are intented merely to limit/avoid the exposure of the particular departments incompetence. Using those reports and their biases as evidence that there was prior knowledge, or coordination, is absurd. And referring to the as "the official report" is to give them a level of pedigree they do not deserve.

I agree that: "...most of them are intented merely to limit/avoid the exposure of the particular departments incompetence."

But then you state:" Using those reports and their biases as evidence that there was prior knowledge, or coordination, is absurd."

That is totally off the friggin wall. Using the reports findings to show that there was knowledge and actions taken, is absolutely a correct and fair way to go about establishing facts.

I see you want all of this to be as one sided as you can make it out to be. You are against using official reports in any way to make an alternative case. As if the data dumps should be out-of-bounds to anyone elses use!!.

As in most cases of presented evidence from what you may call CTers, when that evidence contradicts the official reports, yall use the official reports to beat down that evidence.

F that.

The basic tact is to suggest that short comings in reports, or biases, or distortions are evidence that there was prior knowledge of the basic events in question. Worse, it is used as a basis for asserting that there was coordination or cooperation. Furthermore, any similarities in different report's biases are used as evidence of coordination between departments. And the explanation for these features is rarely that they are trying to cover up incompetence, but instead an intentional plan to hide their involvement in the plotting and execution of the original events. Basically, that the authors are "in on it".

If you can use the actual data, fine I don't dispute that it is certainly valid to use the data. And if you can demonstrate that particular distortions are false, that is fine. It is the projection that because there are errors or distortions, or even biases, that this is proof positive that the authors were involved, or had prior knowledge that I find wanting. These features have far more mundane explanations buried in the fact that they are trying to make themselves look good. Errors will always exist in these reports, partially because of the flawed nature of their publication. Errors don't invalidate whole reports. Biases will exist, again partially because of the flawed authoring process. This is not proof of an intentional conspiracy of deception. We all have biases, especially professional biases. Distortions or ommissions again are not surprising, nor particularly evidence of intentional conspiracies of prior knowledge. Truth is, if there is something that would lead me to believe there was a wide spread conspiracy, it would be the "perfect" report. But the worst thing done is to elavate a particular report to a level or importance that it does not deserve by assigning the title of "offical report", when it is merely one of many, and not even necessarily the best one.

You are talking about the "Official Conspiracy Theory, or OCT" and whether it is or is not to be trusted?

When examining the OCT it pays to establish the veracity of the source, eh? So when one looks at the source of the OCT we see that indeed it is full of crap and not to be taken as in anyway shape or form as an 'official' report because it is full of crap.

So we should not elevate the OCT. Believe me, I don't. I do not support the OCT. Do you support the OCT?

I don't believe I ever mention any OCT. Quite the opposite, I'd generally prefer anything that could even hope to attain such a label. In most conversations on these topics, one is stuck having to review "my" conspiracy theory because all the other ones missed the important aspects. So one ends up re-reviewing the same basic set of "facts" presented in a slightly different manner as the last 27. I'd much prefer that folks drop the entire "theory" aspect of these things all together. First, none of this stuff qualifies as theories, they are hypotheses at best. Speculation would be a much better term for most of it. But furthermore, the vast majority of the "questioning" is just that. They question certain conclusions of others work, but present precious little of their own, other than an attempt to undermine the conclusions of others. Issue ones own "report" and present it in essence in ignorance of the conclusions of others. At best one can include a section discussing the differences between their own work and others, without the reference to nefarious motives and potential subterfuge.