Sonntag, 18. Januar 2009

50 Fakten, 1 Debatte und 0 Verschwörungstheorien

Der unermüdliche Jon Gold hat die vorläufigen Ergebnisse seiner jahrelangen Recherchearbeit in einem Artikel gebündelt, in „The Facts Speak For Themselves“. Diese 50 Fakten sind Zeile für Zeile durch glaubwürdige Quellen belegt und sie sprechen wirklich für sich, ohne irgendwelche Theorien zu erfordern. Und wer nach ihrer Lektüre noch immer meint, die offizielle
Version sei so richtig, wie sie ist, dem wird wohl nicht zu helfen sein.

Ebenfalls ohne Verschwörungstheorien kommt Jon Gold in der Debatte mit
Pat Curley von „Screw Loose Change“ aus. Wie er den selbsternannten „Debunker“ mit der Wahrheit und nichts als der Wahrheit nach Punkten klar besiegt, lässt sich hier (leider nicht in optimaler Soundqualität) bewundern:





Samstag, 17. Januar 2009

Prominente Zweifler: Peter Scholl-Latour

Peter Scholl-Latour bedarf wohl keiner weitschweifenden Vorstellung. Deutschlands erfahrenster Auslandskorrespondent wird von vielen zu Recht sehr respektiert und auch wenn man ihn sicher nicht kritiklos beurteilen sollte, ist er fraglos ein großer Experte für die islamische Welt. Da dürfte es den meisten, so sie nicht Henryk M. Broder heißen, sicherlich schwerfallen, seine Aussagen als die eines paranoiden Verschwörungstheoretikers abzutun.

Am 26.11.2002 wurde er im ZDF-Morgenmagazin interviewt:

Peter Scholl-Latour: „Kampf gegen den Terror“ ist ein Phantom-Krieg. Und wenn wir sagen, wir befinden uns in einem Kampf gegen den Terror - so viel ist ja nicht passiert; ...es ist die Tragödie vom World Trade Center gewesen, und dann sagt man bei jedem Attentat, was jetzt stattfindet, Al Qaida ist dahinter. ich bin vor ein paar Monaten...

Cherno Jobatey: Glauben Sie das nicht? Glauben Sie nicht, dass das Al Qaida war?

Peter Scholl-Latour: Nein, es gibt diese zentrale Organisation für Al Qaida in der Form nicht; ich war vor kurzem ja noch in Afghanistan, ich habe mich wirklich umgehört; alle Leute, die haben mir geschworen, den Namen Al Qaida haben sie vor dem 11. September nicht gehört…
Gegenüber der Neuen Presse blies er später ins gleiche Horn: Al-Qaida sei „eher ein Mythos, den die Amerikaner hochgespielt haben, der im Irak und der gesamten arabischen Welt aber keine so große Rolle spielt."

Zu einem der möglichen Motive des 11.9., die Wiederherstellung des
2000 plötzlich versiegten
und für die Weltwirtschaft lebensnotwendigen afghanischen Drogenexports, hatte er an anderer Stelle indirekt ebenfalls etwas Interessantes zu sagen:

Welche Aufbauleistungen? Was gibt es da, außer dem Drogenanbau? Die Opiumernte ist 2005 um 40 Prozent gestiegen, aus Afghanistan
werden jetzt 92 Prozent der weltweiten Nachfrage bedient. Und die Bundeswehrsoldaten stehen in Sichtweite der Mohnfelder und schreiten nicht ein.

Und im selben Interview äußerte er sich auch zum angeblichen Mastermind des 11.9., gegen den das FBI nach eigener Auskunft ja nicht einmal stichhaltige Beweise in der Hand hat:
Wobei man nicht alles auf Osama bin Laden schieben sollte. Der hat die Anschläge des 11. September bestimmt nicht organisiert. Er hatte doch in seiner afghanischen Höhle keine Flugpläne aus den USA, um irgend- etwas zu koordinieren. Und falls er heute überhaupt noch lebt, kann er kein Telefon, kein Fax und kein Internet benutzen, wenn er nicht sofort geortet werden will. Wie kann er da Terror in Auftrag geben?
Dass Osama Bin Laden dazu logistisch gar nicht in der Lage gewesen wäre, erläuterte er in seinem Buch „Zwischen den Fronten“ auf Seite 348:
Die resignative Formel „mundus vult decipi - die Welt will betrogen werden“, muss allzuoft als Regierungsrezept herhalten. Wann werden die deutschen Politiker auf die erwiesenermaßen falsche Argumentation verzichten, die exakte Planung, die präzise Ausführung von Nine Eleven seien in den Höhlen des Hindukusch erfolgt. Mag sein, dass Osama Bin Laden, der bis 1991 als Rekrutierungs-Agent der CIA in diesem Raum tätig war, nach seiner plötzlichen, religiös motivierten Kehrtwendung gegen die USA den Auftrag zur Zerstörung des World Trade Centers erteilte. Das hätte er aber auch von jedem beliebigen Punkt der Erde aus tun können. In den vielgenannten El-Qaida-Lagern Afghanistans fand nicht viel mehr statt als infanteristische Grundausbildung und eine rudimentäre Anleitung zum Bau von Sprengsätzen. Das Spezialtraining der überwiegend saudischen Todeskandidaten als Piloten vollzog sich ausschließlich in den USA, und nur dort konnten die Flugpläne eingesehen und koordiniert werden, die den Todesengeln den Zeitplan vorgaben.
Und auf Seite 50 wies er auf einen der kontroversesten Aspekte des 11.9. hin:
Bemerkenswert ist ebenfalls die exakte Durchführung dieser Selbstmordmission. Unter dem Anprall der beiden Flugzeuge sind die monumentalen Wolkenkratzer beinahe senkrecht in sich zusammen- gesackt, wie das bei der sorgfältig vorbereiteten Sprengung eines abbruchreifen Hochhauses geschähe. Die Umgebung blieb weitgehend verschont.
Diesen Durchblick würde man sich von jüngeren Journalisten auch wünschen. Aber die sind ja zu sehr damit beschäftigt, offizielle Verlautbarungen einfach nachzuplappern, da bleibt für eigene Gedanken nun mal keine Zeit. Peter Scholl-Latour hingegen verkörpert auch mit 84 Jahren noch immer, was guter Journalismus sein sollte, und bleibt uns hoffentlich noch viele weitere Jahrzehnte erhalten.

Prominente Zweifler: Michael Parenti

Michael Parenti ist ein beängstigend kluger Mann. Sei’s über das alte Rom oder das Christentum, über den Faschismus oder den Kapitalismus, die Ermordung John F. Kennedys oder die Julius Caesars, über Venezuela oder Jugoslawien, über Wahlbetrug oder Medienmanipulation, stets weiß er etwas Gescheites zu sagen. Seine mit Witz und Charme vorgetragenen Einsichten vermögen es immer wieder, auch die am härtesten zementierten Denkdogmen in Stücke zu sprengen. Und im Gegensatz zu anderen linken Intellektuellen wie Noam Chomsky oder Alexander Cockburn, die sich mit ihrer diesbezüglichen Sturheit ein um’s andere Mal blamieren, schreckt er auch vor dem Igitt-Wort „Verschwörung“ nicht zurück. Seinen Artikel „Conspiracy phobia on the left“ (Verschwörungsphobie auf der Linken) über die seltsame Realitätsverleugnung der Linken, die Verschwörungen partout nicht Verschwörungen nennen wollen und denen hanebüchene Zufälle noch jedes Mal plausibler erscheinen als die triftigsten Verschwörungsindizien, sollte man gelesen haben.

So dürfte es nicht verwundern, dass Dr. Michael Parenti wie jeder kluge Mensch, der sich vorurteilsfrei mit ihr beschäftigt hat, an der offiziellen Version des 11.9. zweifelt. Schon 2004 unterschrieb er eine Petition von 911truth.org, die u.a. den Insiderhandel, die ignorierten Warnungen und den Ausfall der Luftabwehr ansprach. Und in „Contrary Notions“ schrieb er später auf Seite 334:
There are the classified documents and disappeared materials and many unanswered questions relating to the mind boggling events of 9/11.
In seinem Vortrag „Lies, War, and Empire“ sagte er:
The findings or non-findings of the 9/11 commission... There are many unanswered questions about 9/11 that really do need further investigation. I mean, would you really accept a commission that's been hand-picked by George Bush? Think of it that way.


In einem Artikel über das Project for the New American Century [PNAC] wies er auf dessen Ruf nach einem „neuen Pearl Harbor“ hin und ließ zwischen den Zeilen seine wirkliche Meinung zum 11.9. durchschimmern:
The PNAC report bemoaned the fact that US public opinion might not go along with a totalistic global policy unless it felt compelled to do so in response to “some catastrophic and catalyzing event---like a new Pearl Harbor.” In another of those seemingly fortuitous happenings that work so well for the plutocracy, the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon served as just such a catastrophic catalyst.
Der 11.9. war für ihn „ein weiteres jener scheinbar zufälligen Ereignisse“, die der Plutokratie so gut dienen. Im nächsten Satz wies er außerdem auf die unzähligen ignorierten Warnungen hin:
The White House seems to have done nothing to prevent the attacks despite any number of warnings.
2008 sprach Peter Dale Scott in einem gemeinsamen Interview mit Tariq Ali und Michael Parenti PNAC und das „neue Pearl Harbor“ an. Parenti nannte den 11.9. daraufhin „godsend… very godsend“, ein Geschenk des Himmels also.



Barrie Zwickers Buch „Towers of Deception“ ist folgender Kommentar Parentis vorangestellt:
Even skeptics like myself will find much in Barrie Zwicker’s book to
ponder, enjoy, and, yes, even embrace. Interestingly researched and well written, a valuable aid to correct thinking about “conspiracy theory.”
Und das über ein Buch, das u.a. sehr deutlich die kontrollierten Sprengungen der World Trade Center anspricht. Da erstaunt es einen dann auch nicht mehr, wie Jon Gold Michael Parenti aus ihrer Email-Korrespondenz zitiert:
Yes, it could well have been an inside job. Most certainly Bush et al knew that an attack was pending (they say so) and they looked the other way (tho they deny looking the other way of course).
„Gut möglich, dass es ein Inside Job gewesen ist“, meint Parenti. Auf jeden Fall habe die Bush-Regierung gewusst, dass ein Anschlag bevorstand, und ihn geschehen lassen. Und zumindest darauf werden sich mittlerweile die meisten Menschen einigen können.

Er spricht selten über dieses Thema, aber wenn er darauf angesprochen wird, zeigt sich der wunderbare Michael Parenti auch in Sachen 9/11 unerschrocken wie eh und je und stellt damit alle anderen großen linken Intellektuellen, die entweder zu zahm oder blind sind, weit in den Schatten.

Hoch soll er leben.

Mittwoch, 14. Januar 2009

NIST im freien Fall

Der Physiklehrer David Chandler hat NIST in die Enge getrieben und dazu gezwungen, den Bericht über World Trade Center 7 zu ändern. Jetzt gibt NIST zu, dass WTC 7 2,25 Sekunden lang in der Geschwindigkeit des freien Falls einstürzte, auf einer Strecke von 8 Stockwerken.
In Stage 2, the north face descended at gravitational acceleration, as the buckled columns provided negligible support to the upper portion of the north face. This free fall drop continued for approximately 8 stories or 32.0 m (105 ft), the distance traveled between times t = 1.75 s and t = 4.0 s.
Die neue offizielle Version lautet demzufolge: Die Nordseite ist für etwa 2 Sekunden in der Geschwindigkeit des freien Falls kollabiert. Und die Videos zeigen eindeutig, dass die Südseite der besagten 8 Stockwerke parallel zur Nordseite und demnach gleich schnell absackt.

„Freier Fall“ bedeutet de facto, dass kein Widerstand vorherrscht. Jeder noch so geringe Widerstand hätte den Einsturz so sehr verlangsamt, dass es nicht mehr freier Fall gewesen wäre. In diesem Sinne hatte Dr. Shyam Sunder von NIST ja vorher auch erklärt, weshalb der freie Fall für WTC 7 ausgeschlossen wäre:

The analyses show there is a difference in time between a free-fall time-- free-fall time would be an object that has no structural components below it. ... And that is not at all unusual, because there was structural resistance that was provided in this particular case and you had a sequence of structural failures that had to take place where everything was not instantaneous.
Sunder stellte richtig fest: Freier Fall kann nur stattfinden, wenn sich keine strukturellen Komponenten unter dem fallenden Objekt befinden und hier traf das fallende Objekt (die oberen Stockwerke) auf eine weitgehend intakte Gebäudestruktur, die Widerstand hätte leisten müssen. Das heißt also, dass die oberen Stockwerke so durch 8 Stockwerke fielen, als gäbe es diese nicht. 8 Stockwerke mit 24 Kernsäulen und 57 Perimetersäulen aus Stahl - sie wurden praktisch zu Luft.

Kann so etwas auf natürliche Weise in unserer schönen und heiß und innig geliebten Realität geschehen? Die Antwort hat vier Buchstaben und reimt sich auf „klein“. Als einzig sinnvolle Erklärung bleibt also, dass jemand diese acht Stockwerke mit Sprengstoff aus dem Weg geräumt hat - ob uns dieser Gedanke nun gefällt oder nicht.

WTC 7 in Freefall:



NIST Finally Admits Freefall, Part I:



NIST Finally Admits Freefall, Part II:



NIST Finally Admits Freefall, Part III:



Und so stürzt auch der auf Sand gebaute Wolkenkratzer namens „Offizielle Version des Einsturzes von World Trade Center 7“ in sich zusammen in der Geschwindigkeit des freien Falls. Todesopfer fordert er zum Glück keine, wohl aber die Reputation einiger Journalisten, Wissenschaftler und Politiker, die sich ihre Schlussfolgerungen offensichtlich von Vorurteilen hatten bestimmen lassen. Möge es ihnen eine Lehre sein.

Donnerstag, 1. Januar 2009

Conspiracy and the State of the Union

by Jamey Hecht, PhD

Assistant Managing Editor, From The Wilderness

http://www.911inquiry.org/Presentations/JameyHecht.htm

Based on a presentation at the Internation Citizen’s Inquiry Into 9-11, Phase Two: Toronto, May 2004

www.fromthewilderness.com

John Judge: Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like, so long as you call yourself a coincidence theorist. - Coalition On Political Assassinations (COPA) presentation, 2002

Philip Berg: Conspiracy is among the most common legal categories of crime – conspiracy to commit murder; conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist act, and on and on. -International Citizen’s Inquiry Into 9-11, Phase One: San Francisco presentation, 2004

Greg Palast: People tell me they don’t believe in conspiracy; I tell them, look – I have the minutes of the meetings! What more do you want? -Interview

John Newman: Let me introduce myself. I’m a conspiracy theorist.-JFK Lancer’s ‘November In Dallas’ conference presentation, 1999

Peter Dale Scott: “If a nation decides to live by lies, it has chosen a course of intellectual stagnation, and ultimately of political decay.” -The Assassinations, 1975 (ix).

Kevin Costner in Bull Durham: “I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone; I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter…”

E. Martin Schotz: “One of the primary means of immobilizing the American people politically today is to hold them in a state of confusion in which anything can be believed and nothing can be known…nothing of significance, that is.” -History Will Not Absolve Us: Orwellian Control, Public Denial, and the Murder of President Kennedy

INTRODUCTION: 9-11, 11-22, AND THE STATE OF THE UNION

Let me begin by saying that the United States is extraordinary in that the idealism of our founding documents proceeded straight from the 18th Century’s Enlightenment principles of the universal rights of human beings. Though the Indian genocide, the genocidal African slave trade, and the lack of women’s suffrage tore gaping holes in the American application of these principles, our Constitution remained among the world’s best hopes for the achievement of equality, opportunity, and civic peace. The French Revolution emulated our own; the 1994 post-apartheid Constitution of South Africa — one of the most beautiful documents of hope ever conceived — was modeled on these same American documents, and as the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out, national liberation movements the world over (including post-French Vietnam in 1945) have taken our Declaration of Independence as the template of their own Declarations. Rather than list each of the remarkable advances our democracy has made — from the Bill of Rights to the Progressive legislation of the Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson administrations, to Robert Kennedy’s Civil Rights Act of 1964 — let me point out that each significant improvement was driven by popular participation in civic life: in a word, democracy.

Dissidents are patriotic critics — in the best cases, anti-nationalist cosmopolitans — whose arguments have not yet won the day. If ever the merits of their cases are established and their ideals legitimated, others come to recognize the urgent benevolence that motivated their dissent, and their faces appear on postage stamps with those of Thom Paine, Crazy Horse, and Paul Robeson. A critic is an interpreter who uses his or her mind and heart to clarify a text or a situation for the effective benefit of the larger public. Political criticism is a vexed but noble attempt to think past the limits of official opinion and earnestly diagnose the legitimacy of our political institutions and their occupants. Critics of the national security state are marginalized as dreamers, sometimes brilliant in their efforts at information gathering and critique, but finally unable to dramatically change the brutal order of realpolitik they denounce. The public they address is mostly indifferent, powerless, and thoroughly distracted from issues of the greatest possible relevance to their own well-being.

The forces of violence, reaction, and American exceptionalism can claim a long series of epochal triumphs, of which I will name only the most egregious: Operation Paperclip, which brought the Nazi Intelligence “community” into the nascent CIA (thereby rescuing the most depraved murderers in history from certain death at the hands of British military tribunals); the National Security Act of 1947, which established the CIA as a secret society of military adventurism and political sabotage under the guise of an intelligence-gathering body; the murders of President Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, which issued in a disastrous Vietnam War that killed up to three million people and pitched the U.S. economy into a permanent free-fall of debt; the Savings and Loan Robbery, which did so much to bankrupt the vanishing middle class; the 1990’s three trillion dollar theft under the auspices of the departments of Defense and Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which motivated America’s international creditors to begin withdrawing their confidence from the dollar; and the “velvet coup” of the fraudulent presidential election of 2000, which openly discredited the residual myth of popular sovereignty. But perhaps 11-22-63 and 9-11-01 are the deepest wounds they have inflicted upon the body politic so far. These represent two seizures of state power by the most violent elements of the longstanding elites who make policy in the absence of popular sovereignty and genuine legislative oversight. In the long meantime, they have consolidated their power and expanded their domain of operations and propaganda with an inexorable momentum.

Policy is no longer driven by leadership figures, but by consortia of mutually interested elites. The forty years since 11-22 have seen exponential growth in defense spending as a portion of the USG’s annual budget. Forty-six cents of every tax dollar we pay goes to military debt payments, salaries, deployments, and weapons stockpiling. This flood of capital into the arms industry drives a domestic policy of despair and a “foreign” policy of violence. Weapons are expended so that they can be replaced; their manufacture enriches Lockheed-Martin, the largest purveyor of lethal weapons in the world, and its competitive partners. In pursuit of new raw materials to seize and new markets to monopolize, corporations and their clients drive policy toward aggressive expansionism. CIA is the spearhead of the war process, so its activity has been cloaked from all genuine Congressional oversight. The beauty of the CIA’s position is that it apparently always takes its orders from the President, but for the most part it also insures that the President orders roughly what CIA wants. When he doesn’t do so, and insists on forming his own intelligence apparatus inside the White House or the Pentagon — as in the Nixon and G. W. Bush administrations, respectively — the CIA is likely to destroy the administration. Whenever that happens, the administration is unseated on the strength of some nonviolent crime like a “third rate burglary” or the disclosure of a CIA operative’s identity. Bombing Cambodia or Afghanistan at the cost of thousands of lives never ranks as an impeachable offense.

Only a handful of Senators have endured the overwhelming personal and political risk of applying even a kernel of real power to the disciplining of the Intelligence “community”: Senators Frank Church, Gary Hart, Richard Schweiker, John Kerry, James Trafficant; Richard Shelby, and Charles Grassley are among this small number.

Since the Vietnam War, the diplomatic arm of the U.S. government has withered into a propagandistic rubber-stamp instrument. Whereas the Department of State was once so powerful that its Secretary shaped foreign policy by reporting viable options to the Chief Executive, today the Department has been reduced to visa functions, information gathering, and statute enforcement. But as we’ve seen, CIA regularly overrides the visa authority of State (often with murderous results), and intelligence agents of all sorts violate the Arms Export Control Act at with an institutionalized impunity. To view the heartbreaking laxity of this law, see the page on the website of the State Department which explains its mandate.[1]

One more bitter irony is the CIA’s use of the State Department as a hidden channel for its covert programs; more broadly, State is a tool for the implementation of policies driven by the lobbies from oil, arms, drugs, and construction. If it were really a public (and not a private) institution, the diplomatic arm of a democratic government, it would advance diplomacy-based solutions to international crises[2]. Instead, private firms (e.g., Kellog, Brown and Root; DynCorp; Halliburton; Bell; Bechtel; Boeing; etc.) and their proxies in the NSA and NSC (e.g. Oliver North, Elliot Abrams, John Poindexter, etc) and CIA (e.g. Ray Cline, Laili Helms, etc.) wield it as one special sword-and-shield in their vast tactical arsenal.[3] Colin Powel, the current Secretary, is a military man whose rise to power began with his cover-up of the Mi Lai massacre.[4] Where the public perception of Powell’s role in the months leading up to Gulf War II was that of a moderate who pushed for diplomacy, at the crucial moment Powell neither strategized for such a policy, nor resigned in protest: he became the very spokesperson of the martial policy he had formerly seemed to oppose. In doing so by means of false documents, it’s been suggested that Powell made the State Department look both servile and conniving. And he certainly committed a repetition of the “moral suicide” that started his political career.

So much for diplomacy. As for an informed electorate, all major American newspapers and television networks are owned by defense corporations like G.E. The Permanent Warfare State has absorbed the media into its own project, neutralizing mainstream American journalism. Even the largest and oldest Leftist journal, The Nation, utterly fails the 9-11 test that any reliable news outlet must pass. In this case, as in that of 11-22, journalistic integrity can be measured by the frequency with which the phrase “intelligence failures” appears in its pages. As I’ve written elsewhere, crime and failure are not the same thing.[5]

Elsewhere on the Left, Noam Chomsky and Alexander Cockburn seem to me quite wrong about 9-11 and its significance, but they are vocal and passionate critics of the long history of global CIA / NSC / JCS violence and political sabotage. Yet both writers argue that leadership figures count so much less than the elites they represent, that it doesn’t much matter who is in office. This kind of thinking prizes independence more than insight; since everyone else quarrels over who killed JFK and what it means, one can easily find a fresh position by simply declaring that the assassination itself is a red herring, the wrong place to look for an understanding of politico-economic reality. A single hearing of the American University Speech, a single reading of NSAM-263, ought to persuade anyone so circumspect as Noam Chomsky that unique officeholders do emerge, at least once or twice per century.

By the same token, Chomsky and Cockburn are important critics of the crypto-fascism of the G.W. Bush administration. But their insight is sometimes limited by their commitment to a structural view of society. Admittedly, had it not been for Adolph Hitler, Hermann Goering, and Heinrich Himmler, some other successful fascists might well have shattered the Weimar Republic and begun a domestic and international reign of terror. But I believe that the Nazi regime was staffed by especially damaged and talented individuals whose capacity for sadistic destruction exceeded that nearly-universal disposition demonstrated in Stanley Millman’s obedience experiments and the Stanford Prison simulation study. So it is with the neocons and most of the executive branch in the G.W. Bush administration. The now-famous Operation Northwoods provided for American deaths, but on 9-11 those deaths ran into the thousands, and most of the people murdered that day were well within the ethnic and socio-economic identity with which their actual killers identify to the most vulgar extremity of white supremacy and social Darwinism. That’s not quite typical, even among imperial dynasties.

Disputes among critics are harmless compared to the government’s assault on the public mind. Given what we now know about the national and global consequences of this assassination, our trouble in 2002 has grown more or less directly out of 11-22-63. And in response to the pressures of recession, the Patriot Act, endless war, and the events of 9-11-01 — in other words, in response to the dawning reality of Peak Oil — the Political Justice movement is indeed growing, and many of those drawn to it find themselves led on as if by a specter to the 9-11 and / or the Kennedy Assassinations. Whether their initial interest is in heroin traffic, CIA black ops, police malfeasance, Constitutional history, the Federal Reserve, US-Latin American economic partnership, or any other aspect of the modern world, sooner or later the myriad implications of these events become relevant, and on looking at the evidence, another critic is born.

THE TERM ‘CONSPIRACY THEORY’

This phrase is among the tireless workhorses of establishment discourse. Without it, disinformation would be much harder than it is. “Conspiracy theory” is a trigger phrase, saturated with intellectual contempt and deeply anti-intellectual resentment. It makes little sense on its own, and while it’s a priceless tool of propaganda, it is worse than useless as an explanatory category.

“Theory” is a term from Plato, derived from the Ancient Greek theorein, “to see.” From it we get the word “theater.” Theory is a conceptual overview of the way something works. In science, the word refers to a guiding set of concepts derived from testable hypotheses about a domain of facts in nature or procedures in an art.[6]

When the evidence is gathered together, some observer sees it in such a way that it configures an hypothesis.

When that hypothesis is verified by induction and experiment, it can be gathered together with similar hypotheses from analogous cases.

If we say, 9-11 was orchestrated by the bin Laden organization, the Pakistani intelligence agency, and elements of the neoconservative group that seized power in 2000, that’s an hypothesis, derived logically from a set of documented facts that constitute evidence. It isn’t a theory. It can become part of a theory if it’s joined with other hypotheses into a coherent descriptive pattern that can help to predict future events in general terms.

For instance, the amply demonstrated hypothesis that the 35th President of the United States was murdered by a consortium of interests including the CIA, Cuban exiles, organized crime, and the military. 11-22 and 9-11 are examples of premeditated murder by more than one person – in law, they are cases of conspiracy to commit murder (and fraud, and perjury, and treason). Taken together, they imply a theory whose greatest expression is the work of Peter Dale Scott, who coined the term deep politics: “the constant, everyday interaction between the constitutionally elected government and forces of violence, forces of crime, which appear to be the enemies of that government.”[7] Deep politics is a robust theory, a powerful explanatory account of demonstrable phenomena; it applies to myriad cases and offers a unified understanding of their causes and meanings. Like Goethe’s conceptual account of color, and like Newton’s rival account which refuted it, Scott’s deep-political theory applies uniformly to the domain it describes.

Conspiracy, on the other hand, is a hypothesis about a particular case at hand. The only rigorous meaning that the phrase “conspiracy theory” can have would be that political crimes involving more than one actor are usually exceptional episodes unrelated to one another – rather than the ongoing, systemic and unacknowledged relationships between authorities and the criminals they are paid to hinder and to punish.

The appeal of the phrase “conspiracy theory” lies in the slang meaning of “theory”: unproven and even unprovable claims about the way things get done in government and business. But there are two problems here.

First, a theory is still rightly called a theory long after it has been proven, even to the limits of human understanding. Einstein’s theory of Relativity and Darwin’s theory of evolution are incomplete, like every product of human thought. But they are as certain as any grounds we can give for them, as certain as the palpable facts on which they rest. The public imagines that this word “theory” implies confusion and controversy. It doesn’t.

The second problem is this: in order for a theory to be worthy of that name, it must be falsifiable. This is a term invented by Karl Popper; it means that your description of events has to be demonstrably true based on valid experiments – or genuine evidence – that might otherwise have proven it demonstrably false. Like the hypotheses that form its bones and flesh, a theory must turn out to be either true or false, or it’s not a theory. For instance, consider the beautiful claim that the world is governed by a God who rules by reward and punishment. Nothing observable counts as evidence for or against the claim. If I say “show me a sign,” an immediate lightning bolt on my head is not evidence of a God any more than the absence of a sign is evidence against it. Nothing can count as a test, so theism is not a theory; it may be something wonderful, but it’s something else. Relativity, however, is a theory of the natural world, verified by experiments like Michaelson-Morley which demonstrated its conformity to observable facts – and had the experiments turned out differently, the theory would have been falsified. The public thinks falsifiability means that the theory can already be disproved and is therefore wrong. It actually means that the theory is either right or wrong, but not meaningless.

• In a criminal conspiracy, Arthur Anderson and Enron defrauded investors and employees of billions of dollars. But they also compromised the S.E.C., the Congress, the executive branch, and the duck-hunting judicial branch in order to make part of this activity technically legal. That’s deep politics.

• In a criminal conspiracy, a core group of Secret Service personnel (Roberts, Greer, Boring, etc.) conspired with elements of the CIA (Phillips, Angleton, Dulles, etc.) to murder the 35th President of the United States. But they also collaborated with organized crime figures (Trafficante, Giancana, Marcello, etc.), paramilitary groups, and international heroin traffickers. That’s deep politics.

"We must speak the truth about terror. Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th, malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists themselves, away from the guilty."

-George W Bush speaking before the UN General Assembly 11/10/2001

When somebody does something really terrible, he tries to attribute it to somebody else. Sometimes this gets out of hand, and he unconsciously betrays himself. This applies to intolerable feelings just as it applies to the criminal guilt that generates them. Here are some definitions and examples of what psychologists mean by “defense mechanisms”:

Projective Identification

The individual deals with emotional conflict or internal or external stressors by falsely attributing to another his or her own unacceptable feelings, impulses, or thoughts. Unlike simple projection, the individual does not fully disavow what is projected. Instead, the individual remains aware of his or her own affects or impulses but mis-attributes them as justifiable reactions to the other person. Not infrequently, the individual induces the very feelings in others that were first mistakenly believed to be there, making it difficult to clarify who did what to whom first.

If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier... just as long as I’m the dictator... –G.W.B. in Washington, Dec.18, 2000, during first trip to DC as President-Elect

The nature of the terrorists is evidenced once again - we see their utter contempt for innocent life. They hate freedom, they hate free nations. –G.W.B., at joint news conference with Tony Blair, Thursday, 20 November, 2003

Omnipotence

The individual deals with emotional conflict or internal or external stressors by feeling or acting as if he or she possesses special powers or abilities and is superior to others.

‘Of course not,’ he said. “I’m the commander. See, I don’t have to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation. –G.W.B., when asked Bob Woodward whether he talked with staff and advisers about what he was doing.

Splitting

The individual deals with emotional conflict or stressors by compartmentalizing opposite emotional states, and by failing to integrate the positive and negative qualities of the self or others into cohesive images. Images of the self – and of other persons and institutions – tend to alternate between polar opposites: exclusively loving, powerful, worthy, nurturing, and kind, or exclusively bad, hateful, angry, destructive, rejecting, or worthless. Splitting may compromise an adult’s ability to function well in many ways. In order to maintain a view of oneself or one’s world that is either completely ‘all good’ or ‘all bad’, aspects of reality must be denied. Splitting acts as a set of blinders that keep all contradicting evidence out of sight.

Our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil. –G.W.B at the pulpit of Washington National Cathedral, Sept. 15, 2001

Projection

Projection is attributing your own unacceptable impulses to someone else. The impulses are still judged unacceptable but they belong to someone else, not you. This defense mechanism is commonly over utilized by the paranoid.

The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages -- leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured. – G.W.B. State of the Union Address, Jan 29, 2003

One source of [WMD’s] is dangerous and secretive regimes that build weapons of mass destruction to intimidate their neighbors and force their influence upon the world… The former dictator of Iraq possessed and used weapons of mass destruction against his own people. For 12 years, he defied the will of the international community. He refused to disarm or account for his illegal weapons and programs. – G.W.B., Remarks by the President on Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation, Fort Lesley J. McNair - National Defense University, Washington, D.C.

DU munitions are classified by a United Nations resolution as illegal weapons of mass destruction. Their use breaches all international laws, treaties and conventions forbidding poisoned weapons calculated to cause unnecessary suffering. – Amy Worthington, Triangle Free Press, July 11, 2003

As many as 400,000 U.S. troops entered into and some lived as long as two months inside areas heavily contaminated by more than 640,000 pounds (300,000,000 grams) of very fine, yet highly toxic, DU dust particles. – National Gulf War Resource Center, August 27, 1999

Dr. Asaf Durakovic explains that the initial symptoms will be mostly neurological, showing up as headaches, weakness, dizziness and muscle fatigue. The long-term effects are cancers and other radiation-related illnesses, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, joint and muscle pain, rashes, neurological and/or nerve damage, mood disturbances, infections, lung and kidney damage, vision problems, auto-immune deficiencies and severe skin conditions. It also causes increases in miscarriages, maternal mortality and genetic birth defects. – Sara Flounders, “Another US war crime? Iraqi cities ‘hot’ with depleted uranium” www.globalresearch.ca, 18 August 2003

The Pentagon and the United Nations estimate that the U.S. and Britain used 1,100 to 2,200 tons of armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium during attacks on Iraq in March and April--far more than the 375 tons used in the 1991 Gulf War… By now, half of all the 697,000 U.S. soldiers involved in the 1991 war have reported serious illnesses. According to the American Gulf War Veterans Association, more than 30 percent of these soldiers are chronically ill and are receiving disability benefits from the Veterans Administration. Such a high occurrence of various symptoms has led to the illnesses being named Gulf War Syndrome.

Let me close with a passage from what I consider the best book on the subject, Peter Dale Scott’s Deep Politics:

Bureaucratic struggles, even when not officially acknowledged, could be discussed in mainstream journals like the New York Review of Books. My articles which focused on underlying economic motives for U.S. intervention were denied such outlets, but could still be published in journals like The Nation, or what I have come to think of as the establishment left. But even the Nation is fiercely hostile to the notion that criminal interventions… can themselves be part of the system or process by which we are governed. (Scott, 10)

APPENDIX: CONSPIRACY STATUTE

http://www.ce9.uscourts.gov/web/sdocuments.nsf/0/dd07ed3536d4559b882564b5000eb4fe?OpenDocument

Office of the Circuit Executive

Ninth Circuit Model Criminal Jury Instructions

8.18 CONSPIRACY—KNOWING OF AND ASSOCIATION WITH OTHER CONSPIRATORS

A conspiracy may continue for a long period of time and may include the performance of many transactions. It is not necessary that all members of the conspiracy join it at the same time, and one may become a member of a conspiracy without full knowledge of all the details of the unlawful scheme or the names, identities, or locations of all of the other members.

Even though a defendant did not directly conspire with [the other defendant] [or] [other conspirators] in the overall scheme, the defendant has, in effect, agreed to participate in the conspiracy if it is proved beyond a reasonable doubt that:

(1) the defendant directly conspired with one or more conspirators to carry out at least one of the objects of the conspiracy,

(2) the defendant knew or had reason to know that other conspirators were involved with those with whom the defendant directly conspired, and

(3) the defendant had reason to believe that whatever benefits the defendant might get from the conspiracy were probably dependent upon the success of the entire venture.

It is no defense that a person's participation in a conspiracy was minor or for a short period of time.

Comment

A person may be a member of a conspiracy even though the person does not know all of the purposes of or participants in the conspiracy. United States v. Escalante, 637 F.2d 1197, 1200 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 856 (1980); United States v. Kearney, 560 F.2d 1358, 1362 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 971 (1977).

A single conspiracy can be established even though it took place during a long period of time during which new members joined and old members dropped out. United States v. Green, 523 F.2d 229, 233 (2d Cir.1975), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1074 (1976). See also United States v. Thomas, 586 F.2d 123, 132 (9th Cir.1978) (holding that proof that the defendant "knew he was plotting in concert with others to violate the law was sufficient to raise the necessary inference that he joined in the overall agreement"); United States v. Perry, 550 F.2d 524, 528 (9th Cir.) (holding that the law of conspiracy does not require the government “to prove that all of the defendants met together at the same time and ratified the illegal scheme”), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 918, 434 U.S. 827 (1977).


[1] Licenses for India and Pakistan: H.R. 1646 also amended Section 9001(e) of Public Law 106-79, making applicable to munitions authorizations for India and Pakistan the dollar amount thresholds of Section 36 of AECA (i.e., the global non-NATO thresholds of $14/50 million for MDE/non-MDE respectively).

Firearms Notification Requirements: Sales or exports of U.S. Munitions List Category I articles at $1 million or more will also, henceforth, require prior notification to Congress pursuant to a new provision H.R. 1646 added to Section 36 of the AECA. (Exporters are reminded that, as with other notification requirements, contracts and orders may not be split to avoid notification.)

Reports to Congress: Recently posted reports include the Section 655 Report on all authorizations for Fiscal Year 2001 and the End Use Monitoring Report for 2001, which points out the continued need for the utmost care by U.S. defense exporters in assuring that all appropriate measures are in place in order to prevent U.S.-origin military equipment from falling into the wrong hands.

[2] For an example of a State official who espouses this view and has resigned in protest as a result, see the Kiesling letter at http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/030103_resignation.html

[3] The evidence for this claim is so massive that any choice of references is quite arbitrary, but see for example Forbidden Truth, Jean-Charles Brisard, p.7; Drugs, Oil, and War, Peter Dale Scott, p.xviii.

[4] http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/reagan.htm http://www.mathaba.net/news/news1/zc10528panafegal.htm http://www.lutte-ouvriere-journal.org/art_prt.php?LO=1805&ARTICLE=28

[5] “Bad Faith Again: An Open Letter to The Nation Magazine,” Media Monitors Network (MMN), May 12, 2003: www.mediamonitors.net/jameyhecht1.html; “Failure and Crime Are Not the Same: 9/11's Limited Hangouts,” From The Wilderness, November 22, 2003: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/112203_failure_crime.html

[6] http://www.google.com/search?q=define:theory

[7] http://www.math.unl.edu/~lcharbon/JFK/presentations/debate

The Spaghetti Theory of Conspiracy

from:
The Illuminati Conspiracy - The Sapien System
Donald Holmes, MD(C)(1987)
New Falcon Publication
655 East Thunderbird
Phoneix, AZ 85022
602-246-3546
Introduction by Robert Anton Wilson

The Spaghetti Theory of Conspiracy

by

ROBERT ANTON WILSON

WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE?

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

—Oz the Omnipotent

It is characteristic of the primitive conditions on this backward planet that virtually nobody knows any of the basic facts about how the human race is actually governed. For instance—

1. Governments are not nearly as important as most people think. Since we live in a post-barter economy—a money economy—those who control the money supply effectively control the planet. Governments gave up all attempt to coin or control money in the 19th Century, mostly because they did not trust one another, i.e. no nation had faith that the coinage or currency of another nation was really worth what it claimed to be worth. The great International
Banks stepped into this vacuum and, by demonstrating more fiscal rectitude than governments had in the past, became the creators of money in the modern world.

After the banks had control, they no longer needed to be quite so prim in their fiscal rectitude. Nobody could challenge them.

This means that governments cannot do anything—good or ill, wise or foolish—unless the banks first lend them the money for the project. The power is in the banks. The governments survive on the permission of the banks. If the banks cut off their credit, governments die. Any government that resists has its credit cut off and dies.

As Buckminster Fuller stressed in all his writings (especially Critical Path and Grunch of Giants) this means that, in the modem world, banks act and governments only re-act to the situations the bankers have ordained. Even earlier, historian Brooks Adams wrote of the British financier Samuel Loyd, in The Law of Civilization and Decay,

He comprehended that, with expanding trade, an inelastic currency must rise in value; he saw that, with sufficient resources at command his class might be able to establish such a rise, almost at pleasure; certainly that they could manipulate it when it came, by taking advantage of foreign exchange.

In other words, as soon as the great multi-national banks had control of the money supply, they saw that they could manipulate cash and credit to maximize profits. They would have been rather dense if they had not seen this. Nonetheless, while these financiers quite sanely and legally maximize profits, the rest of us are at their mercy; but we never elected them to this position of power, and, by and large, we do not even know who they are.

2. In the present decade, it costs $50,000,000 to run a campaign for the presidency of the United States, $10,000,000 to run a campaign for the Senate and $5,000,000 for the House of Representatives. (These figures are documented in Buckminster Fuller's Grunch of Giants.) This means that the U.S.—the strongest country in the West—is not only "owned" (in trillion-dollar debt to) the banks, but also governed by persons who are either (a) millionaires or (b) heavily in debt to millionaires. In the words of ex-Senator Pettigrew, we now have "government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations

3. As Edward Luttwak documents in his cheerfully Machiavellian little text, The Coup d'Etat, more governments have been changed, since World War II by the coup d'Etat than by any other method. More governments have been changed by coup than by all the democratic elections and revolutions combined.

Since every coup is by definition a conspiracy, this means that conspiracies have had more effect on the past 40 years of world history than all the electoral politics and all the popular revolutions added together. That is rather ominous, in a period when "educated" opinion holds that it is infamous, nutty, eccentric or downright paranoid to think about conspiracies at all. We are, in effect, forbidden to think about how the planet is actually governed.

4. If governments cannot act without permission of the banks— without loans or "lines of credit" granted by the banks—and if the U.S. government is "owned" by the multi-millionaire (or billionaire) banking and corporate elite, and if other governments are, more often than not, changed by conspiratorial coup, the major portion of humanity is economically-politically controlled by persons who are largely unknown to the general public and/or have never been elected to any office. Democratic theory is beautiful and inspirational, but has nothing to do with the actual situation of the domesticated primates of this boondocks planet.

5. If the masses of the planet are politically-economically controlled by shadowy financiers and conspiratorial adventurers, the same masses are intellectually controlled by persons who are more visible but equally unpalatable to the Rationalist view of history. In blunt language, nearly 300 years after the Age of Reason was prematurely announced, most people in most nations most of the time are mentally in total bondage to religious leaders who operate on sheer bluk, i.e. on the basis of claims that cannot be proven and appear clearly insane to everybody who hasn't been raised within their frameworks.

The Methodist can see how absurd are the beliefs of Roman Catholics. The Catholics can see the obvious insanity of the Sikh militants who blow up airplanes because there are a few Hindus aboard. The Sikhs, no doubt, can see how nonsensical Scientology is. But none of the people processed by any of these cults can see how crazy their own cult is. It is often quite hard for a
rational observer to determine if the leaders of these cults are just cynically raking in the cash or are genuinely as deluded as their brainwashed followers.

One can acquire a reputation as a satirist, a wit, a cynic, etc. simply by stating blunt facts. For instance, it is quite clear from the above that the human race is largely governed politico-economically by unknown financial cliques and criminal scoundrels and governed intellectually by borderline psychotics and charlatans. But we have all been so conditioned and indoctrinated that to state the facts simply makes it sound as if one is being sarcastic or perhaps even trying to be"shocking."

Let us look at the situation of this planet in a little more detail.

SOCIOBIOLOGY OF DECEIT

All men are born liars.

—Liam O'Flaherty, Autobiography (first sentence)

Conspiracy is the first manifestation of intelligent life.

The original organic molecules formed affinity groups and conspired to exploit the resources of this planet. Working in small cells originally, these DNA conquistadores quickly developed organizations of higher complexity and spread a network of hungry, predatory Life over the previously dead Earth. In less than 3,500,000,000 years this network has expanded from the ocean beds to the very peaks on the Himalayas. No square centimeter of Earth is uninfested.

The trapdoor spiders formed their own secret society and went underground. They lurked silently, hidden beneath a plausible surface of twigs and soil, waiting to pounce out and devour any beetle or other tasty-looking morsel that happened to pass by.

The day of the undercover agent had come.

This technique of cover-up and disguise has proven an evolutionary success and is widely copied everywhere. Thousands of species of conspiratorial insects even today still hide behind ingenious make-up that deceives us into thinking they are only branches or rocks.

Other species got even smarter even faster. Polar bears donned white fur coats to fade into snowy landscapes. The leopard's spots make it hard to distinguish from speckled sunlight on foliage. The Norway rat (mus rattus Norwegious) learned to hide by day and come forth under cover of darkness.

The first human beings looked about them and very sensibly concluded, "It's a jungle out there." Human psychology has remained jungle psychology. As historian Carl Oglesby writes in The Yankee and Cowboy War

... a multitude of conspiracies contend in the night.... Conspiracy is the normal continuation of normal politics by normal means . . . and where there is no limit to power, there is no limit to conspiracy

As soon as we find evidence of human beings on this planet, we find evidence of secret societies. Paleolithic paintings show that they met, typically, in the deepest, darkest caves, and they plotted sorcery and mischief against all competing species.

In every tribe known to anthropology, we still find secret societies. Most tribes have all-male secret societies, but many also have all-female secret societies. Most readers will probably remember that they had their own secret societies as children, with passwords and quasi-Freemasonic grips determinedly hidden from the adults.

>From this evolutionary perspective, every paranoid is partly right. The major error of the paranoid appears to be his characteristic belief in one jumbo Mega-Conspiracy that explains everything This is impossible, because it violates basic laws of primate psychology. Domesticated primates like wild primates are mischievous, sly and have a keen sense of humor: the double-cross is their most characteristic invention.

George Washington, who rose to power by conspiring against his king, said with blunt honesty, "Nations have no permanent allies, only permanent interests." This is why governments, corporations and other large-scale conspiracies all have a natural life-span, like other living systems. There is no government on this planet that has existed in its present form for more
than 200 years; aside from the Dutch East India Company, most corporations rise and fall within 100 years (average). Outside of paranoid fantasy and Romantic fiction, most conspiracies collapse of their own"internal contradictions"within months or years. (Thus, if there actually is one big jumbo-conspiracy governing this planet, it must be, as Donald Holmes wittily
suggests in the following pages, of non-human origin.)

The study of conspiracy as a branch of primate psychology, has great interest in itself, as Machiavelli knew; but real conspiracies are not as clever or long-lived as the ones that paranoids and ideologists imagine; they are simply much dirtier.

It is one of the ironies of our time that conspiracies and secret societies have proliferated more than ever at precisely the same time it has become impolite and uncouth to discuss them. In this sense, the Nazis defeated the Liberal Democracies in World War II, because they have achieved a form of Thought Control over the Liberal Mind. Liberals are afraid to think of conspiracies because that might lead to the One Big Mega-Conspiracy, i.e. to"thinking like Hitler." But a mind chained by Tabu is a mind unfree. I believe it is time we broke Hitler's power over our minds and began to think in terms of the facts instead of being restrained by Tabu.

Disguise, deception and group-action have a long evolutionary history, and primates have all these traditional evolutionary habits, which in political jargon are called conspiratorial habits. Even if it is Tabu to think about it, that seems to be the way things are on this planet.

TRUE CONFESSIONS

When four sit down to conspire, three are fools and the fourth is a government agent.

—Duncan Lunan, Interstellar Communication

Frankly I myself never dared to violate the Liberal Tabu—"Thou shalt not think about conspiracies"—until I was virtually forced to think about them.

In the 1960s in Chicago, I was involved in the anti-war movement. Congressional investigators later revealed that there were over 5000 government agents assigned to infiltrate peace groups in Chicago alone—some working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), some for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and some for Army Intelligence. From 1968 on, the
FBI was following a program code-named COINTELPRO. The purpose of COINTELPRO was to make sure the anti-war movement knew it was infiltrated, in order to spread suspicion, distrust and paranoia among individuals and groups who might otherwise have cooperated harmoniously. Working in the peace movement in those days was, accordingly, like living in an Eric Ambler novel. In any given week I would be warned perhaps three times that somebody I trusted was really a government agent, and, of course, somebody who was accused one day might very well be around to accuse somebody else the next day. Over 20 years later, I still don't know who was a government agent and who was not. I enjoyed it all rather than being terrified only because I basically agree with Helen Keller that "Life is either a great adventure or it is nothing."

I encountered the same Spy Story atmosphere in the early 1970s when involved in the campaign to secure the release from prison of the controversial scientist, Dr. Timothy Leary. At one time or another, everybody in the Leary Defense Committee suspected everybody else of being a government agent (I think the poet, Allen Ginsberg, suspected me for over a year) and eventually government "leaks" in the press attempted to persuade us that Dr. Leary himself had become a government agent. I still relish that classic John Le Carre touch, especially since some people believed it.

Eventually it was confirmed that Leary's son-in-law, Dennis Martino, had been entrapped into becoming a government agent. Dennis later died in Spain and three press reports in two days claimed the cause of death had been murder, suicide and accident. That mystery is still unsolved, at least in America. Presumably, the Spanish authorities finally came up with a coroner's verdict,
which may or may not be the truth, but by then the U.S. media had lost interest. As far as you can learn from American sources, Dennis Martino accidentally overdosed, committed suicide and was murdered, all on the same day. Evidently, nobody in the U.S. media wanted to find out what the hell really happened.

But there are wheels within wheels in this modern Machiavellian world.

During the last year of my employment as Associate Editor of PLAYBOY, a certain executive came into my office one day and closed the door behind him. He told me that my home phone was tapped and that I was under heavy surveillance by the Red Squad of the Chicago Police Force.

I was stunned, and asked how the hell he knew this.

He replied that certain people in the PLAYBOY empire had made an arrangement with a Chicago police official. The official received regular money through some circuitous route that was not explained to me; in return, he notified his PLAYBOY contacts whenever an executive of the firm was under police investigation.

That was when I first realized how often there are spies spying on spies.

Incidentally, my informant told me why I was under heavy surveillance. A police informer in the Black Panthers, he said, had reported that I was involved with a group of white radicals who were buying guns for the Panthers.

Despite my cynicism about cops, I was shocked. I explained heatedly that there was no truth in this at all. "We know, we know," said the executive, who was very close to Hefner. "We trust you." And they did trust me. They never made any attempt to ease me out the back door, or dissociate the Bunny Empire from me. They even offered to pay my legal expenses if the police ever busted me on this absurd charge.

It was years before I wondered why the Bunny Empire decided to trust me in such an explosive matter. My guess, now, is that they had me under surveillance, too, along with their other editors—but that's only a guess. Maybe it was just that I have an honest face. I'd like to think that. Of course, I was not buying guns for the Black Panthers. I had met a few Panthers at Peace rallies, and the informer had seen me. He or she had probably "improved" the story to impress the Red Squad. A PLAYBOY editor talking to Black Panthers is not all that sensational, but a PLAYBOY editor buying guns for the Panthers was a story that made the informer seem on the edge of discovering a major conspiracy.

I could tell several similar stories, but I would again have to conceal the names of my sources and you would probably not believe me. Truth is much, much stranger than melodrama. Instead I will examine the neuro-economics of conspiracy and then relate some notable conspiracies that have become matters of public record. We will see that the theories outlined by Dr. Holmes in this book are, however shocking, no more bizarre than the world in which we live.

WEALTH AND "MONEY"

A banker is a man who will loan you money if you can prove you don't need it.

—attributed to Mark Twain

Just as most people have no idea how this planet is governed at this barbaric stage of evolution, most people have no concept of where "wealth" comes from. This is because most of us have never learned to distinguish between wealth and money.

Money was originally created by the State, as I mentioned at the beginning; this is why King Lear says his persecutors can't accuse him of counterfeiting. The State was, in those days, the only legal creator of coin: a legal coin was, by definition, a State coin.

As States learned the advantages to be gained by issuing debased coinage—a matter discussed with great clarity and wit in Jonathan Swift's little-known but brilliant Drapier Letters every State and every individual became the potential victim of coins that did not contain the amount of gold stamped on them. Eventually, no State would trust any other State in this area and, more
and more, the paper of the great banking firms began to seem the only"safe" medium of exchange.

The U.S. Constitution, amusingly, says that Congress shall have the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof, but Congress has not exercised that power in over a century. Official U.S. money is issued by a private bank, just like the money of all other nations (except Albania, a lonely heretic), but, because U.S. money says "Federal Reserve Note" on it, most Americans assume it is issued by the Federal government. It is issued, actually, by the Federal Reserve Corporation, a private bank, owned largely by the Rockefellers and Morgans. We do not "owe the National Debt to ourselves" as the late Franklin Roosevelt once said; we owe it to the Rockefellers and Morgans.

Irish money says "Bank of Ireland" on it and English money says "Bank of England," and so on; all across Europe, most people know that the banks are in control of the creation of money. Only in America, because the word "Federal in Federal Reserve is thought to mean "federal" and because the Constitution says Congress shall coin money, is there a lingering belief that the government is still a sovereign entity not owned by the bankers to whom it is in debt.

None of this has anything to do with Real Wealth in the sense of classical
economics.

Real Wealth, in the economic sense, consists of tangible assets. It includes, not only plants in operation "owned" by individual or corporate capitalists, but known resources, inventions, bridges, roads, scientific data—all the creations of human intelligence that can be concretely applied to make the human environment more pleasant for somebody or for everybody.

Thus, if all the Real Wealth disappeared over night, the world would be entirely different. We would literally be back in the Old Stone Age, and no amount of Federal Reserve Notes or other paper would change our situation. We would have to re-invent and re-create all the science and technology of the past 30,000 years step by step.

On the other hand, all the money in the world—all the Federal Reserve Notes, Bank of England notes, etc. and all the stocks and bonds—could disappear over night and the world would be exactly the same physically. There might be a hell of a fight over who owned what, but the human world of Real Wealth would still be here.

In kindergarten language, Real Wealth consists of "things" that can't be stored in banks or computers, while money consists of "tickets" or symbols that can be stored in banks or computers.

Of course, Real Wealth is more than solid "things." I have been arguing for 30 years, in various publications, that Real Wealth is essentially pure information. It has finally dawned on me that nobody understands that but a few mathematicians and computer buffs; so I now say, more simply, that Real Wealth is ideas that work. In the terminology of General Semantics, Wealth is
ideas that are similar in structure (isomorphic) to the energy systems of space-time.

Wealth is created by analysis: by extracting higher-order structure from the raw signals perceived by the senses. You can starve to death in a wheat field if your mind has not analyzed the energy system of space-time sufficiently to recognize that wheat is edible and nourishing. Money, then, is not Real Wealth, but consists of tickets for the exchange of Real Wealth. Such tickets are necessary in an advanced technology-economy-society, because barter becomes cumbersome and unwieldy.

Most money, however, does not exist in tangible form at all, not even as paper. Most money, in today's advanced techno-society, exists only as computer records or, in less advanced outposts, notations in ledgers. Banks may legally lend up to eight times the amount they have on deposit, and as Penny Lernoux documents in her invaluable In Banks We Trust, they often go far beyond this and hope to cover their tracks before the bank examiner comes around.

Michele Sindona, a kingpin of the Vatican/Mafia/P2 clique and founder of the infamous Franklin National Bank, was convicted of murdering a bank examiner in Italy, after being convicted of 65 counts of bank fraud in the U.S. His principle flaw appears to have been that he was more reckless than older and wiser financiers who have been running the world longer and more judiciously. (We shall return to the Sindona/P2 case history.)

When banks lend eight times what they have on deposit, or more than that, they are gambling that everybody will not come in and withdraw their funds on the same day. It is a safe gamble, most of the time. But it means that paper wealth has become even more metaphysical and ghostly than the most debased coinage of the most corrupt Tudor or Stuart monarchs. It means that, by a species of magic, the Real Wealth of the planet can be manipulated as the ghostly paper is maneuvered from one computer to another. And it means that the really bold adventurers and pirates can alchemically transform totally unreal paper into ownership of resources, factories, roads, bridges and whole nations on occasion, as they, following Samuel Loyd, establish a rise . . . at their pleasure," or just as easily establish a fall.

The reader should consult some of the books I will be summarizing here especially illuminating is Richard Hammer's The Vatican Connection, which tells how Johnny Roselli and his friends in the American Mafia printed one billion dollars worth of counterfeit stocks which disappeared into the
Vatican Bank/Banco Ambrosiano feedback loop in such a manner that the New York District Attorney's office, which had wiretaps on most of the felons, never did find out where the $900,000,000 of the $1,000,000,000 finally landed.

Buckminster Fuller, in Grunch of Giants, describes the modern world as governed by MMA&O—Machiavelli, Mafia, Atoms and Oil. You know the Mafia. Atoms and Oil are the multi-national corporations. Machiavelli is the symbol of the paper-magic wizards, or international banks, who make the whole system possible. GRUNCH stands for GRoss UNiversal CAsh Heist. It's another book you really ought to read.

NEURO-GEOGRAPHY OF CONSPIRACY

Go West, young man.

—Horace Greeley

As I pointed out in Prometheus Rising (Falcon Press, 1983), the Real Wealth of the world has been doubling every generation since statistical economists started collecting data in the 18th Century. This is a side-effect of the accelerated doubling of knowledge that has been occurring in the past two milleniums. (Information, or ideas-that-work, is the source of Real Wealth.
Remember?) As George Anderla, a French statistician, determined, if we take all the knowledge of 1 A.D. as our base, then knowledge has doubled at the following rate since then:

AD 1 unit
500 AD 2
750 AD 4
1900AD 8
1950 AD 16
1960 AD 32
1967 AD 64
1973 AD 128

A glance at world-historical trajectories indicates that this doubling of knowledge-and-wealth has followed a western (and mildly northern) vector, as has been documented e.g. in Brooks Adams' Law of Civilization and Decay, Timothy Leary's The Intelligence Agents and Buckminster Fuller's Critical Path.

Bronze Age tools first appeared in Southeast Asia, followed by large-scale agriculture, slavery and war. By 1 A.D. all the technology thusfar produced was being processed through the schools and banking establishments of Rome. By the time this knowledge/wealth doubled in 1500, the universities of North Italy and the great Florentine banking families like the Medici held the hot center of power. By 1750, the next doubling was occurring mostly in England, the first Empire on which the sun never set."

By 1900, the U.S. was becoming a rival to England; by 1950, the American Empire had replaced the English Empire. The years since 1950 have witnessed what Prof. Oglesby calls "the Yankee and Cowboy war" as Eastern bankers like the Rockefellers try to hold on to control and are challenged by Western mavericks like Howard Hughes.

The more adventurous and innovative persons—those with nervous systems programmed by maverick genes and/or bizarre imprints and conditioning: the "misfits"—have been moving steadily westward for about 5000 years. They have been moving away from centralized Authority, out into the perimeters and frontiers, because that is where misfits and geniuses can function.

Clausewitz described war as a continuation of politics by other means; Oglesby calls conspiracy "the normal continuation of normal politics by normal means." Conspiracy, the murky territory between politics and war, is part of our glorious primate heritage, which is why Ambrose Bierce defined peace as "a period of cheating between two periods of fighting."

The role of conspiracy in human history, I suggest, is a period of cheating during which two power centers are struggling,-one of them Eastward and representing established ideas and old wealth, the other Westward and generally representing maverick ideas and new wealth. Enclaves of "outlaws" move in the shadowy territory between these two power poles, running their own games and exploiting the paranoia of each side where and when they can.

Anthropologist William Irwin Thompson has suggested, in a recent address in Oslo, Norway, that the Reagan administration's Strategic Defense Initiative—the so-called "Star Wars" program—is more radical, and less reactionary, than it looks on the surface. Thompson alleges that, under the
pretext of military bluster, SDI actually represents the total re-alignment of American society into a scientific-technological paradigm. Only the most "patriotic" rhetoric, Thompson says, could sell to the American people a program which amounts to the most expensive and most daring scientific research-and-development project humanity has ever attempted. In this context, Reagan represents the "Cowboy elite" that Oglesby sees as being on the edge of toppling the Rockefeller and other Yankee empires. The Cowboys are looking for a High Frontier, and they are computerized Cowboys now.

Werner von Braun used Disneyworld—both the amusement park and the TV show—to "sell" NASA's more adventurous ideas to the politicians by first selling them to the people. General Graham, who gave the "Star Wars" idea to Reagan, is following the same scenario. Amid the 24 separate-and-interlocking conspiracies struggling over the turf on this planet, the Cowboys are
struggling for higher and more imaginative lands in the stars. Why not? They are, in the 20th Century, the same sort of mavericks the Yankees were in the 18th Century— namely, "the products of the Protestantism of the Protestants and the dissidence of dissent," as Edmund Burke said of the wealthy radicals who wrote the Declaration of Independence. The coming dominant looks to be, like California, a mad mixture of Hollywood, computers, special effects,
apocalyptical visions and dope. Reagan does not fully understand the neuro-geography of the historical forces he represents.

The next dominant will probably be further west and more technological.

If we revise our chart of the doubling of knowledge (Real Wealth) to include
these factors we find:
                                KNOWLEDGE      CENTER OF       PRINCIPLE
DATE FACTOR POWER ENEMIES
1 AD 1 Rome Greece, Egypt


1500 AD 2 Florence Turks
1750 AD 4 England France, Spain
1900 AD 8 England Germany
1950 AD 16 New York Russia
1960 AD 32 California Russia
1967 AD 64 California Russia
1973 AD 128 California New York
? Japan California

The rising power always seems to the West or Northwest of the declining power that struggles against it; it is always richer and more powerful than any previous Empire; it always seems to the older power center (and its kept intellectuals) exactly what California seems today—a kind of sociological Granola made up of equal parts of fruits, nuts and flakes.

THE C.I.A. & THE MAFIA

Patriotism, sir, is the last recourse of the scoundrel.

—Dr. Samuel Johnson

In the 1960s, the CIA conspired with two Mafia leaders, Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli. Mr. Giancana and Mr. Roselli provided professional Mafia assassins and the CIA trained them and sent them to Cuba to kill Fidel Castro. Like most real conspiracies, this was unsuccessful, Senor Castro is still alive. This conspiracy was also well documented in Congressional hearings and broadcast in the news media internationally, so you are not considered a crank if you write about it.

You will begin to understand what I call the Spaghetti Theory of Conspiracy when I remind you that Johnny Roselli was also involved in printing one billion dollars ($1,000,000,000) worth of counterfeit stock for the Vatican Bank. That is documented fully in The Vatican Connection by N.Y. Times reporter Richard Hammer, which I again recommend to your attention.

According to Anthony Summers' book, Conspiracy there is a good prima facie case that Johnny Roselli was also an instigator of the assassinations of both John and Bobby Kennedy, in collaboration with Sam Giancana—the same Giancana who had previously collaborated with Roselli in providing assassins for the CIA. While Summers' evidence is not conclusive, it is chillingly plausible.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded, on the basis of the hard scientific evidence of acoustics, that there were two gunmen shooting at John Kennedy in Dealy Plaza, one from the front and one from the back. On the basis of softer but persuasive supporting evidence, the Committee concluded further that a conspiracy of more than two persons was probable and that the possibility of Mafia involvement was worthy of deeper investigation. The Chief Counsel for the Committee, Prof. Howard Blakey, was willing to be more definitive in a press conference. 'I am now firmly of the opinion that the mob did it,n he said. "It is a historical truth." (Quoted by Summers in Conspiracy.)

Sam Giancana was shot dead in June 1975, after testifying once before the committee and while negotiating with their investigators about further questions they wished to ask him under oath. Giancana was shot through the mouth—the sasso in bocca, traditional Mafia punishment for suspected informers.

Johnny Roselli was shot dead in July 1976, after he, too, had been called once before the Assassinations Committee. According to journalist Jack Anderson, Roselli had told him that he was not involved in the Kennedy assassinations but another Mafia "family" was.

The Mafia has acquired its international empire only because the most popular drugs of our time are illegal. In the past 40 years, the rulers of the Mafia have graduated from multi-millionaires to billionaires only because these absurd anti-drug laws remain on the books.

It is permissible in "liberal""educated" circles to say that these laws remain in force because of stupidity or conservatism or superstition. If you say the laws remain because somebody is making a profit out of them, you are supposed to be eccentric or downright nutty.

Nonetheless, the ancient Romans knew that the basic question about any social policy was cui bono? (Who profits from it?)

INTERLUDE & KOAN

In CIA jargon, a "useful idiot" means somebody who is working for them but doesn't know it.

My involvements with controversial politics have left me with one lasting legacy. Whenever I suspect that I am taking myself or my theories too seriously, I stop and ask myself, "Have I become a useful idiot yet?"

THE STATE AS CONSPIRACY

The more laws that are written, the more criminals are produced.

—Lao Tse, Tao Te Ching

It is likely that the State as we k[n]ow it is an innately conspiratorial organism. As the sociologist Franz Oppenheimer pointed out in his remarkable book, The State, there is no anthropological or historical evidence that anything like Rousseau's "Social Contract" ever happened in pre-history; on the contrary, the State appears in human affairs only after conquest by armed force. It is to maintain themselves in power over the conquered that a conquering elite create those institutions— police, army, taxation—that make up the skeleton of the State as we know it historically. There is no record of a tribal people peacefully "contracting" to set such a machinery of oppression above themselves. Conquerors impose it upon them.

Bakunin argued in God and the State that nobody has ever seen "God" or the "State." This, although startling, is true. Human beings, called priests, claim to represent "God," and other human beings, called civil servants, claim to represent the "State," and this metaphysical sleight-of-hand is alleged to justify acts which would be regarded as not only criminal but barbarous if it were remembered that mere human beings were doing these things. Similar verbal magic—meaningless words like "heresy and "treason"—are used to convince the victims that resistance is evil, escape or flight is just as evil, and even thinking that you are being victimized is somehow sinful.

In simple language, anybody who robs you is a thief, unless he claims to be an agent of the "Staten—in which case, he is not a thief but only a tax-collector. By the same metaphysical trick, anybody who murders millions is a lunatic, unless he claims to be an agent of "Gods—in which case he is a Crusader. You can resist an ordinary bandit with a perfect sense of righteousness, but you feel guilty about resisting the Churchman or Statesman, since that is called "heresy" or "treason"

Since the State was founded in conquest and is maintained by metaphysics (or, in the Logical Positivist jargon, "abuse of language"), it follows Oglesby's rule—"where there is no limit to power, there is no limit to conspiracy.

We have already cited Anthony Summers' book Conspiracy, to indicate that there is real evidence, not mere paranoia, behind the claim that the Mafia was involved, perhaps centrally, in the Kennedy assassinations. According to Summers' more recent book, Goddess, there is also good evidence that Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli had arranged for the electronic bugging of the bedroom of a house belonging to Peter Lawford, where Marilyn Monroe and Bobby Kennedy met for romantic dalliance in what they thought was privacy. Jimmy Hoffa of the Teamsters' Union, who had been imprisoned by Bobb's get-tough" Justice Department, was allegedly also involved in this plot, which was intended to obtain material with which Bobby could be blackmailed. A BBC documentary on Summers' book—"Say Goodnight to the Presidents BBC-TV 1985—supported all of Summers' charges.

Giancana and Roselli were both shot in the mid-l970s as we have seen. Jimmy Hoffa simply disappeared and has never been found dead or alive. Rumor claims he is buried beneath an interstate highway in Illinois.

Norman Mailer, many of you might remember, became convinced, while researching his biography of Marilyn Monroe, that there was some kind of "cover-up" connected with her death. Mailer even implied that there was a definite possibility of murder.

According to Summers' Goddess and the BBC documentary previously cited, there was indeed a conspiracy in which Marilyn's death was concealed for three hours while persons unknown removed from her house all documentia of her love affairs with John and Bobby Kennedy. The weight of circumstantial evidence suggests that this conspiracy was instigated by Peter Lawford, who had, as we noted, loaned his house as a trysting place for Marilyn's affairs, and who was also brother-in-law to the Kennedys. It is not demonstrable that Lawford ever thought, or allowed himself to think, that he might also be concealing clues in a murder case. He probably thought, or wanted to think, that he was merely concealing politically embarrassing sexual dalliances. The possibility of murder remains only a possibility, although it is still insisted upon by Hank Messick, a former consultant to the New York Joint Legislative Committee on Crime. Messick claims that unnamed informants in the Mafia told him Marilyn was killed to lure Bobby Kennedy into a trap and then blackmail him into ending his crusade against the Mob. All one can say about that theory is "Maybe.”

Nonetheless, another of John Kennedy's mistresses—although he did not pass her on to Bobby—was one Judith Exner. Ms. Exner, the House Select Committee on Assassinations later noted, was, curiously enough, the mistress of Mafioso Sam Giancana before, during and after her affair with the President. The Committee was of the opinion that it was probable that Mr. Giancana more or less shoved Ms. Exner into the President's bet, for blackmail purposes. Mr. Giancana, you may remember, was also suspected by the Committee of having a hand in JFK's assassination, and diet of gunshot wounds—through the mouth—while under investigation.

Another of JFK's amours was with a Mary Pinchot Meyer, a most interesting lady. She was married to Cord Meyer, a top CIA official who happens to be the only man to have received the Agency's Distinguished Intelligence Metal three times. Mary Pinchot Meyer was also a dear and good friend of Dr. Timothy Leary; and, according to his book, Flashbacks, Mary told Dr. Leary in 1962 that the CIA wanted to stop him and other scientists from publishing LSD experiments, because they wanted to keep the mind-altering properties of LSD one of their own little secrets. In 1964, about a year after John Kennedy was assassinated (or about two years after the somewhat mysterious death of Marilyn Monroe), Mary Pinchot Meyer was shot dead on a street in Washington.

Thereafter Dr. Leary was repeatedly arrested, and although every case against him except one was dismissed by the courts, he was finally convicted in that one case, which involved alleged possession of one half of one marijuana cigarette. He was sentenced to 37 years— although the penalty for that crime in that state (California) was normally six months—and was released after
serving over five years. Dr. Leary claims he was framed by the arresting officer; he also claims there was a cover-up in the shooting of Mary Pinchot Meyer. Nobody much cares what Dr. Leary claims, because for over a year before his release government officials had leaked to the press claims that he had become an informer. There is no record of any person or persons convicted on the basis of Dr. Leary's testimony, oddly, but the rumor has stuck to his name and "everybody knows" he is a government agent these days.

As the French say, it gives one ferociously to think.