Judge Andrew Napolitano, a libertarian television commentator and author, has discussed the issue of whether there was a cover-up regarding the 9/11 attacks on his show "FreedomWatch". You can see part of this in this youtube video, in which he talks with Col. Anthony Shaffer, the former head of the US Special Operations Command's Able Danger program.
In dealing with the issue of cover-up, one of the first questions that comes to mind is---"what information did the U.S. government possess in advance regarding the 9/11 attacks?" It turns out, there were indications of an attack to come---as you can see here.
More specifically, it is not correct to say the hijackers were unknown to authorities prior to the attacks. 15 of the 19 hijackers received visas through the U.S. consulate of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where there had reportedly been a history of CIA intervention to allow visas to be issued to what would normally be unqualified applicants. (See also this). In the months prior to 9/11, alleged hijackers Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi were renting rooms in a house owned and lived in by an FBI informant. Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman documented in a 2002 article entitled "The Hijackers We Let Escape," how "The CIA tracked two suspected terrorists [the same two who rented from the FBI informant---Rob] to a Qaeda summit in Malaysia in January 2000, then looked on as they re-entered America and began preparations for September 11." There is also this report concerning the training of alleged hijackers at U.S. air bases.
Then there is the Able Danger program which we referred to at the beginning of our post, which identified the hijackers and their accomplices before 9/11. However, when the head of the program, Colonel Shaffer, tried to pass the information on to the 9/11 Commission, he was gagged and slandered, and information retrieved is now lost. Curt Weldon, former Congressman and senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, documented how the U.S. government tracked the hijackers' movements prior to September 11.
According to the testimony of FBI whistleblower and translator Sibel Edmonds, a foreign spy ring that has penetrated the U.S. government may be connected to 9/11. And indeed, there are other very suggestive reports indicating foreign intelligence involvement or at least foreknowledge.
In discussing the 2002 report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on 9/11, Senator Bob Graham, the committee chairman, said he is “surprised at the evidence that there were foreign governments involved in facilitating the activities of at least some of the [9/11] terrorists in the United States.… To me that is an extremely significant issue and most of that information is classified, I think overly classified. I believe the American people should know the extent of the challenge that we face in terms of foreign government involvement. I think there is very compelling evidence that at least some of the terrorists were assisted not just in financing—although that was part of it—by a sovereign foreign government and that we have been derelict in our duty to track that down.… It will become public at some point when it’s turned over to the archives, but that’s 20 or 30 years from now.” The former senator has just recently (July 2011) elaborated on this issue further, specifying the government of Saudi Arabia.
Mahmoud Ahmad, the chief of Pakistan's Inter-Services-Intelligence (ISI), was reportedly the money man behind the hijackers. Significantly, Ahmad was meeting with U.S. government and intelligence officials on the very morning of September 11, 2001.
There are also the five “dancing Israelis” arrested that day who were reported to have set up camera equipment pointed at the World Trade Center before the attack unfolded. When the planes slammed into the towers, the men were seen dancing and cheering.
But what of Osama bin Laden, the terrorist leader blamed for the 9/11 attacks? What did the U.S. government know of him prior to that day? It has been admitted that bin Laden was at one time a CIA asset. (For a more in-depth piece on bin Laden, see "The Truth behind 9/11: Who Is Osama Bin Laden?"). According to former FBI translator Edmonds, the US maintained 'intimate relations' with Bin Laden "all the way until that day of September 11."
Perhaps, leaving intelligence issues aside, there was another national security issue or situation that would call for a cover-up. There was a total break with known standard operating procedure in relation to NORAD's failure to intercept any of the planes, as shown in this post of George Washington's Blog
If Judge Napolitano was right when he said that "the State...is rooted in deception, theft, and murder," it would not be too surprising if we have been given a false picture of 9/11.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Thursday, October 14, 2010
John Robison Exposes Illuminati Plans in 1798
In 1798 John Robison, a professor of natural philosophy at Edinburgh University in Scotland, published Proofs of a Conspiracy Against all the Religions and Governments of Europe Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati and Reading Societies. It contained large portions of original writings of the reputed founder of the Order of the Illuminati, Adam Weishaupt, and other members which had been seized by the government of Bavaria (in what is now Germany) in 1786. The extreme importance of Robison's book lies in the fact that it was written when the Illuminati was first brought into public view. A copy of this book (often called Proofs of A Conspiracy for short) had been sent to George Washington, and he responded with a letter to the sender saying that he was aware of the diabolical plans of the Illuminati.
Robison explains, "AN ASSOCIATION HAS BEEN FORMED for the express purpose of ROOTING OUT ALL THE RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS, AND OVERTURNING ALL THE EXISTING GOVERNMENTS OF EUROPE. ...the most active leaders of the French Revolution were members of this Association...this Association still exists, still works in secret, and ... several appearances among ourselves show that its emissaries are endeavoring to propagate their detestable doctrines among us..."(p.6-7)
"The Association of which I have been speaking, is the Order of ILLUMINATI, founded in 1775, by Dr. Adam Weishaupt, professor of Canon law in the university of Ingolstadt, and abolished in 1786 by the Elector of Bavaria, but revived immediately after, under another name, and in a different form, all over Germany. It was again detected, and seemingly broken up; but it had by this time taken so deep root that it still subsists without being detected, and has spread into all the countries of Europe. It took its first rise among the Free Masons, but is totally different from Free Masonry."(8-9)
Robison goes on to explain how information began to be uncovered about this secret association---
"In the beginning of 1783, four professors of the Marianen Academy, founded by the widow of the late Elector, viz. Utschneider, Cossandey, Renner, and Grunberger, with two others, were summoned before the Court of Enquiry, and questioned, on their allegiance, respecting the Order of the Illuminati. They acknowledged that they belonged to it, and when more closely examined, they related several circumstances of its constitution and principles. Their declarations were immediately published, and were very unfavorable. The Order was said to abjure Christianity, and to refuse admission into the higher degrees to all who adhered to any of the three confessions."(58)
He also tells of how their original papers had been found and made public---
"A collection of original papers and correspondence was found by searching the house of one Zwack [Xavier von Zwack] (a Member) in 1786. The following year a much larger collection was found at the house of Baron Bassus; and since that time Baron Knigge, the most active Member next to Weishaupt, published an account of some of the higher degrees, which had been formed by himself."(72)
Some of what else had been found---
"There are, in the same handwriting, [the handwriting of Zwack] Description of a strong box, which, if forced open, shall blow up and destroy its contents--Several receipts for procuring abortion--A composition which blinds or kills when spurted in the face--A sheet, containing a receipt for sympathetic ink--Tea for procuring abortion--Herbae quae habent qualitatem deleteriam--A method for filling a bed-chamber with pestilential vapours--How to take off impressions of seals, so as to use them afterwards as seals--A collection of some hundreds of such impressions, with a list of their owners, princes, nobles, clergymen, merchants, &c. ..."(75)
Here are some excerpts of Illuminati writings quoted by Robison---
Some revealing quotes:
"The Order must possess the power of life and death in consequence of our Oath; and with propriety, for the same reason, and by the same right, that any government in the world possesses it: For the Order comes in their place, making them unnecessary. ..."(118)
"By this plan we shall direct all mankind. In this manner, and by the simplest means, we shall set all in motion and in flames. The occupations must be so allotted and contrived, that we may, in secret, influence all political transactions....(80)
"... The pupils are convinced that the Order will rule the world. Every member therefore becomes a ruler." (117)
"I [Weishaupt] have considered...every thing, and so prepared it, that if the Order should this day go to ruin, I shall in a year re-establish it more brilliant than ever."(80)
Different means of manipulating society (including by indoctrination through schools):
"There is no way of influencing men so powerfully as by means of the women. These should therefore be our chief study; we should insinuate ourselves into their good opinion, give them hints of emancipation from the tyranny of public opinion, and of standing up for themselves; it will be an immense relief to their enslaved minds to be freed from any one bond of restraint, and it will fire them the more, and cause them to work for us with zeal, without knowing that they do so; for they will only be indulging their own desire of personal admiration.
We must win the common people in every corner. This will be obtained chiefly by means of the schools, and by open, hearty behaviour, show, condescension, popularity, and toleration of their prejudices, which we shall at leisure root out and dispel.
If a writer publishes any thing that attracts notice, and is in itself just, but does not accord with our plan, we must endeavour to win him over, or decry him."(105)
Continuing on the theme of media manipulation or control:
" ...the form of a learned or literary society....may be a powerful engine in our hands. By establishing reading societies, and subscription libraries, and taking these under our direction, and supplying them through our labours, we may turn the public mind which way we will.
In like manner we must try to obtain an influence in the military academies (this may be of mighty consequence) the printing-houses, booksellers shops, chapters, and in short in all offices which have any effect, either in forming, or in managing, or even in directing the mind of man: painting and engraving are highly worth our care."(106)
Robison quotes an internal report of the order thus:
"We get all the literary journals. We take care, by well-timed pieces, to make the citizens and the Princes a little more noticed for certain little slips. ..."(107)
All quotations here are taken from the recent reprint of Proofs of A Conspiracy by The Resistance, which is described on the website www.theresistancemanifesto.com as “a conservative political and media watchdog and activist organization focused on preserving family values and upholding the Constitution of the United States.”
Robison explains, "AN ASSOCIATION HAS BEEN FORMED for the express purpose of ROOTING OUT ALL THE RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS, AND OVERTURNING ALL THE EXISTING GOVERNMENTS OF EUROPE. ...the most active leaders of the French Revolution were members of this Association...this Association still exists, still works in secret, and ... several appearances among ourselves show that its emissaries are endeavoring to propagate their detestable doctrines among us..."(p.6-7)
"The Association of which I have been speaking, is the Order of ILLUMINATI, founded in 1775, by Dr. Adam Weishaupt, professor of Canon law in the university of Ingolstadt, and abolished in 1786 by the Elector of Bavaria, but revived immediately after, under another name, and in a different form, all over Germany. It was again detected, and seemingly broken up; but it had by this time taken so deep root that it still subsists without being detected, and has spread into all the countries of Europe. It took its first rise among the Free Masons, but is totally different from Free Masonry."(8-9)
Robison goes on to explain how information began to be uncovered about this secret association---
"In the beginning of 1783, four professors of the Marianen Academy, founded by the widow of the late Elector, viz. Utschneider, Cossandey, Renner, and Grunberger, with two others, were summoned before the Court of Enquiry, and questioned, on their allegiance, respecting the Order of the Illuminati. They acknowledged that they belonged to it, and when more closely examined, they related several circumstances of its constitution and principles. Their declarations were immediately published, and were very unfavorable. The Order was said to abjure Christianity, and to refuse admission into the higher degrees to all who adhered to any of the three confessions."(58)
He also tells of how their original papers had been found and made public---
"A collection of original papers and correspondence was found by searching the house of one Zwack [Xavier von Zwack] (a Member) in 1786. The following year a much larger collection was found at the house of Baron Bassus; and since that time Baron Knigge, the most active Member next to Weishaupt, published an account of some of the higher degrees, which had been formed by himself."(72)
Some of what else had been found---
"There are, in the same handwriting, [the handwriting of Zwack] Description of a strong box, which, if forced open, shall blow up and destroy its contents--Several receipts for procuring abortion--A composition which blinds or kills when spurted in the face--A sheet, containing a receipt for sympathetic ink--Tea for procuring abortion--Herbae quae habent qualitatem deleteriam--A method for filling a bed-chamber with pestilential vapours--How to take off impressions of seals, so as to use them afterwards as seals--A collection of some hundreds of such impressions, with a list of their owners, princes, nobles, clergymen, merchants, &c. ..."(75)
Here are some excerpts of Illuminati writings quoted by Robison---
Some revealing quotes:
"The Order must possess the power of life and death in consequence of our Oath; and with propriety, for the same reason, and by the same right, that any government in the world possesses it: For the Order comes in their place, making them unnecessary. ..."(118)
"By this plan we shall direct all mankind. In this manner, and by the simplest means, we shall set all in motion and in flames. The occupations must be so allotted and contrived, that we may, in secret, influence all political transactions....(80)
"... The pupils are convinced that the Order will rule the world. Every member therefore becomes a ruler." (117)
"I [Weishaupt] have considered...every thing, and so prepared it, that if the Order should this day go to ruin, I shall in a year re-establish it more brilliant than ever."(80)
Different means of manipulating society (including by indoctrination through schools):
"There is no way of influencing men so powerfully as by means of the women. These should therefore be our chief study; we should insinuate ourselves into their good opinion, give them hints of emancipation from the tyranny of public opinion, and of standing up for themselves; it will be an immense relief to their enslaved minds to be freed from any one bond of restraint, and it will fire them the more, and cause them to work for us with zeal, without knowing that they do so; for they will only be indulging their own desire of personal admiration.
We must win the common people in every corner. This will be obtained chiefly by means of the schools, and by open, hearty behaviour, show, condescension, popularity, and toleration of their prejudices, which we shall at leisure root out and dispel.
If a writer publishes any thing that attracts notice, and is in itself just, but does not accord with our plan, we must endeavour to win him over, or decry him."(105)
Continuing on the theme of media manipulation or control:
" ...the form of a learned or literary society....may be a powerful engine in our hands. By establishing reading societies, and subscription libraries, and taking these under our direction, and supplying them through our labours, we may turn the public mind which way we will.
In like manner we must try to obtain an influence in the military academies (this may be of mighty consequence) the printing-houses, booksellers shops, chapters, and in short in all offices which have any effect, either in forming, or in managing, or even in directing the mind of man: painting and engraving are highly worth our care."(106)
Robison quotes an internal report of the order thus:
"We get all the literary journals. We take care, by well-timed pieces, to make the citizens and the Princes a little more noticed for certain little slips. ..."(107)
All quotations here are taken from the recent reprint of Proofs of A Conspiracy by The Resistance, which is described on the website www.theresistancemanifesto.com as “a conservative political and media watchdog and activist organization focused on preserving family values and upholding the Constitution of the United States.”
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
On Foreign Policy, PART 2....
Here is an answer I found to the question asked in the last post, "If the original foreign policy of America was based on nonintervention, how did this nation forsake it and become interventionist?"
You may remember the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) from my earlier posts relating to Carroll Quigley's 1966 book Tragedy and Hope. The following includes an account of its origin that is in general agreement with what Quigley had to say about it.
What now follows is quoted from my copy of Dan Smoot's 1962 book The Invisible Government. Dan Smoot was one of the first to expose the role of the CFR to the public. -----
"President George Washington, in his Farewell Address to the People of the United States on September 17, 1796, established a foreign policy which became traditional and a main article of faith for the American people in their dealings with the rest of the world.
Washington warned against foreign influence in the shaping of national affairs. He urged America to avoid permanent, entangling alliances with other nations, recommending a national policy of benign neutrality toward the rest of the world. Washington did not want America to build a wall around herself, or to become, in any sense, a hermit nation. Washington's policy permitted freer exchange of travel, commerce, ideas, and culture between Americans and other people than Americans have ever enjoyed since the policy was abandoned. The Father of our Country wanted the American government to be kept out of the wars and revolutions and political affairs of other nations.
Washington told Americans that their nation had a high destiny, which it could not fulfill if they permitted their government to become entangled in the affairs of other nations.
Despite the fact of two foreign wars (Mexican War, 1846-1848; and Spanish American War, 1898) the foreign policy of Washington remained the policy of this nation, unaltered, for 121 years–until Woodrow Wilson's war message to Congress in April, 1917.
Wilson himself, when campaigning for re-election in 1916, had unequivocally supported our traditional foreign policy: his one major promise to the American people was that he would keep them out of the European war.
Yet, even while making this promise, Wilson was yielding to a pressure he was never able to withstand: the influence of Colonel Edward M. House, Wilson's all-powerful adviser. According to House's own papers and the historical studies of Wilson's ardent admirers (see, for example, Intimate Papers of Colonel House, edited by Charles Seymour, published in 1926 by Houghton Mifflin; and, The Crisis of the Old Order by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., published 1957 by Houghton Mifflin), House created Wilson's domestic and foreign policies, selected most of Wilson's cabinet and other major appointees, and ran Wilson's State Department.
House had powerful connections with international bankers in New York. He was influential, for example, with great financial institutions represented by such people as Paul and Felix Warburg, Otto H. Kahn, Louis Marburg, Henry Morgenthau, Jacob and Mortimer Schiff, Herbert Lehman. House had equally powerful connections with bankers and politicians of Europe.
Bringing all of these forces to bear, House persuaded Wilson that America had an evangelistic mission to save the world for 'democracy.' The first major twentieth century tragedy for the United States resulted: Wilson's war message to Congress and the declaration of war against Germany on April 6, 1917.
House also persuaded Wilson that the way to avoid all future wars was to create a world federation of nations. On May 27, 1916, in a speech to the League to Enforce Peace, Wilson first publicly endorsed Colonel House's world-government idea (without, however, identifying it as originating with House).
In September, 1916, Wilson (at the urging of House) appointed a committee of intellectuals (the first President's Brain Trust) to formulate peace terms and draw up a charter for world government. This committee, with House in charge, consisted of about 150 college professors, graduate students, lawyers, economists, writers, and others. Among them were men still familiar to Americans in the 1960's: Walter Lippmann (columnist); Norman Thomas (head of the American socialist party); Allen Dulles (former head of C.I.A.); John Foster Dulles (late Secretary of State); Christian A. Herter (former Secretary of State).
These eager young intellectuals around Wilson, under the clear eyes of crafty Colonel House, drew up their charter for world government (League of Nations Covenant) and prepared for the brave new socialist one-world to follow World War I. But things went sour at the Paris Peace Conference. They soured even more when constitutionalists in the United States Senate found out what was being planned and made it quite plain that the Senate would not authorize United States membership in such a world federation.
Bitter with disappointment but not willing to give up, Colonel House called together in Paris, France, a group of his most dedicated young intellectuals–among them, John Foster and Allen Dulles, Christian A. Herter, and Tasker H. Bliss–and arranged a dinner meeting with a group of like-minded Englishmen at the Majestic Hotel, Paris, on May 19, 1919. The group formally agreed to form an organization 'for the study of international affairs.'
The American group came home from Paris and formed The Council on Foreign Relations, which was incorporated in 1921.
The purpose of the Council on Foreign Relations was to create (and condition the American people to accept) what House called a 'positive' foreign policy for America–to replace the traditional 'negative' foreign policy which had kept America out of the endless turmoil of old-world politics and had permitted the American people to develop their great nation in freedom and independence from the rest of the world." (pp.12-14)
You may remember the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) from my earlier posts relating to Carroll Quigley's 1966 book Tragedy and Hope. The following includes an account of its origin that is in general agreement with what Quigley had to say about it.
What now follows is quoted from my copy of Dan Smoot's 1962 book The Invisible Government. Dan Smoot was one of the first to expose the role of the CFR to the public. -----
"President George Washington, in his Farewell Address to the People of the United States on September 17, 1796, established a foreign policy which became traditional and a main article of faith for the American people in their dealings with the rest of the world.
Washington warned against foreign influence in the shaping of national affairs. He urged America to avoid permanent, entangling alliances with other nations, recommending a national policy of benign neutrality toward the rest of the world. Washington did not want America to build a wall around herself, or to become, in any sense, a hermit nation. Washington's policy permitted freer exchange of travel, commerce, ideas, and culture between Americans and other people than Americans have ever enjoyed since the policy was abandoned. The Father of our Country wanted the American government to be kept out of the wars and revolutions and political affairs of other nations.
Washington told Americans that their nation had a high destiny, which it could not fulfill if they permitted their government to become entangled in the affairs of other nations.
Despite the fact of two foreign wars (Mexican War, 1846-1848; and Spanish American War, 1898) the foreign policy of Washington remained the policy of this nation, unaltered, for 121 years–until Woodrow Wilson's war message to Congress in April, 1917.
Wilson himself, when campaigning for re-election in 1916, had unequivocally supported our traditional foreign policy: his one major promise to the American people was that he would keep them out of the European war.
Yet, even while making this promise, Wilson was yielding to a pressure he was never able to withstand: the influence of Colonel Edward M. House, Wilson's all-powerful adviser. According to House's own papers and the historical studies of Wilson's ardent admirers (see, for example, Intimate Papers of Colonel House, edited by Charles Seymour, published in 1926 by Houghton Mifflin; and, The Crisis of the Old Order by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., published 1957 by Houghton Mifflin), House created Wilson's domestic and foreign policies, selected most of Wilson's cabinet and other major appointees, and ran Wilson's State Department.
House had powerful connections with international bankers in New York. He was influential, for example, with great financial institutions represented by such people as Paul and Felix Warburg, Otto H. Kahn, Louis Marburg, Henry Morgenthau, Jacob and Mortimer Schiff, Herbert Lehman. House had equally powerful connections with bankers and politicians of Europe.
Bringing all of these forces to bear, House persuaded Wilson that America had an evangelistic mission to save the world for 'democracy.' The first major twentieth century tragedy for the United States resulted: Wilson's war message to Congress and the declaration of war against Germany on April 6, 1917.
House also persuaded Wilson that the way to avoid all future wars was to create a world federation of nations. On May 27, 1916, in a speech to the League to Enforce Peace, Wilson first publicly endorsed Colonel House's world-government idea (without, however, identifying it as originating with House).
In September, 1916, Wilson (at the urging of House) appointed a committee of intellectuals (the first President's Brain Trust) to formulate peace terms and draw up a charter for world government. This committee, with House in charge, consisted of about 150 college professors, graduate students, lawyers, economists, writers, and others. Among them were men still familiar to Americans in the 1960's: Walter Lippmann (columnist); Norman Thomas (head of the American socialist party); Allen Dulles (former head of C.I.A.); John Foster Dulles (late Secretary of State); Christian A. Herter (former Secretary of State).
These eager young intellectuals around Wilson, under the clear eyes of crafty Colonel House, drew up their charter for world government (League of Nations Covenant) and prepared for the brave new socialist one-world to follow World War I. But things went sour at the Paris Peace Conference. They soured even more when constitutionalists in the United States Senate found out what was being planned and made it quite plain that the Senate would not authorize United States membership in such a world federation.
Bitter with disappointment but not willing to give up, Colonel House called together in Paris, France, a group of his most dedicated young intellectuals–among them, John Foster and Allen Dulles, Christian A. Herter, and Tasker H. Bliss–and arranged a dinner meeting with a group of like-minded Englishmen at the Majestic Hotel, Paris, on May 19, 1919. The group formally agreed to form an organization 'for the study of international affairs.'
The American group came home from Paris and formed The Council on Foreign Relations, which was incorporated in 1921.
The purpose of the Council on Foreign Relations was to create (and condition the American people to accept) what House called a 'positive' foreign policy for America–to replace the traditional 'negative' foreign policy which had kept America out of the endless turmoil of old-world politics and had permitted the American people to develop their great nation in freedom and independence from the rest of the world." (pp.12-14)
The Original American Foreign Policy---Can We Go Back?
Representative Ron Paul, whose run for president in 2008 essentially sparked the current "get-back-to-the-constitution" movement, wrote a piece in 2007, "The Original American Foreign Policy" which I believe succintly explains what our nation's foreign policy ought to be. He writes:
"I believe our founding fathers had it right when they argued for peace and commerce between nations, and against entangling political and military alliances. In other words, noninterventionism."
This view was long ago stigmatized for many by the application of the word "isolationism." However, isolating America is not what the congressman is suggesting here:
"Nonintervention simply means America does not interfere militarily, financially, or covertly in the internal affairs of other nations."
He quotes Thomas Jefferson from his 1801 inaugural address as summing up this noninterventionist foreign policy position as follows:
"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances with none."
"Washington similarly urged that we must, 'Act for ourselves and not for others,' by forming an 'American character wholly free of foreign attachments,'" says Paul.
He concludes thus:
"It is time for Americans to rethink the interventionist foreign policy that is accepted without question in Washington. It is time to understand the obvious harm that results from our being dragged time and time again into intractable and endless Middle East conflicts, whether in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, or Palestine. It is definitely time to ask ourselves whether further American lives and tax dollars should be lost trying to remake the Middle East in our image."
John Quincy Adams, who served as U. S. Secretary of State, delivered a speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on July 4, 1821 in which he described America's place in the world:
"And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind?
Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.
She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.
She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.
She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart."
Adams then described the foreign policy of the Republic:
"Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.
But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.
She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.
She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.
She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....
She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....
[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice."
In an article, "A Tea Party Foreign Policy," Rep. Paul tries to show that the foreign policy position of our founding fathers accords with the values of the "Tea Party" movement:
"As many frustrated Americans who have joined the Tea Party realize, we cannot stand against big government at home while supporting it abroad. We cannot talk about fiscal responsibility while spending trillions on occupying and bullying the rest of the world. We cannot talk about the budget deficit and spiraling domestic spending without looking at the costs of maintaining an American empire of more than 700 military bases in more than 120 foreign countries. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for cutting a few thousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool at home while turning a blind eye to a Pentagon budget that nearly equals those of the rest of the world combined.
Our foreign policy is based on an illusion: that we are actually paying for it. What we are doing is borrowing and printing money to maintain our presence overseas. Americans are seeing the cost of this irresponsible approach as their own communities crumble and our economic decline continues."
Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan are the main representatives of antiwar conservatism in this era. "What? Antiwar Conservatism?" you say---yet there is a long tradition of conservatives who said no to war....it's just lost to our normal understanding of history.
In Ain’t My America: The Long, Noble History of Anti-War Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism, a book by Bill Kaufman, we get some enlightenment on this subject. There is this excellent review of this book by Thomas Woods--- "Come Home, Conservatives!—to the Antiwar Conservative Movement". I own Kaufman's book, and he is truly a good writer, by the way.
One of those profiled in the book is Ohio Senator Robert Taft, who was a powerful member of the Republican party known in his day as "Mr. Republican." He declared on the Senate floor in 1951 that “the principal purpose of the foreign policy of the United States is to maintain the liberty of our people. … Its purpose is not to reform the entire world or spread sweetness and light and economic prosperity to peoples who have lived and worked out their own salvation for centuries, according to their customs, and to the best of their abilities.” According to Taft, the second goal of American foreign policy was peace.
"I believe our founding fathers had it right when they argued for peace and commerce between nations, and against entangling political and military alliances. In other words, noninterventionism."
This view was long ago stigmatized for many by the application of the word "isolationism." However, isolating America is not what the congressman is suggesting here:
"Nonintervention simply means America does not interfere militarily, financially, or covertly in the internal affairs of other nations."
He quotes Thomas Jefferson from his 1801 inaugural address as summing up this noninterventionist foreign policy position as follows:
"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances with none."
"Washington similarly urged that we must, 'Act for ourselves and not for others,' by forming an 'American character wholly free of foreign attachments,'" says Paul.
He concludes thus:
"It is time for Americans to rethink the interventionist foreign policy that is accepted without question in Washington. It is time to understand the obvious harm that results from our being dragged time and time again into intractable and endless Middle East conflicts, whether in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, or Palestine. It is definitely time to ask ourselves whether further American lives and tax dollars should be lost trying to remake the Middle East in our image."
John Quincy Adams, who served as U. S. Secretary of State, delivered a speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on July 4, 1821 in which he described America's place in the world:
"And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind?
Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.
She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.
She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.
She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart."
Adams then described the foreign policy of the Republic:
"Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.
But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.
She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.
She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.
She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....
She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....
[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice."
In an article, "A Tea Party Foreign Policy," Rep. Paul tries to show that the foreign policy position of our founding fathers accords with the values of the "Tea Party" movement:
"As many frustrated Americans who have joined the Tea Party realize, we cannot stand against big government at home while supporting it abroad. We cannot talk about fiscal responsibility while spending trillions on occupying and bullying the rest of the world. We cannot talk about the budget deficit and spiraling domestic spending without looking at the costs of maintaining an American empire of more than 700 military bases in more than 120 foreign countries. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for cutting a few thousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool at home while turning a blind eye to a Pentagon budget that nearly equals those of the rest of the world combined.
Our foreign policy is based on an illusion: that we are actually paying for it. What we are doing is borrowing and printing money to maintain our presence overseas. Americans are seeing the cost of this irresponsible approach as their own communities crumble and our economic decline continues."
Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan are the main representatives of antiwar conservatism in this era. "What? Antiwar Conservatism?" you say---yet there is a long tradition of conservatives who said no to war....it's just lost to our normal understanding of history.
In Ain’t My America: The Long, Noble History of Anti-War Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism, a book by Bill Kaufman, we get some enlightenment on this subject. There is this excellent review of this book by Thomas Woods--- "Come Home, Conservatives!—to the Antiwar Conservative Movement". I own Kaufman's book, and he is truly a good writer, by the way.
One of those profiled in the book is Ohio Senator Robert Taft, who was a powerful member of the Republican party known in his day as "Mr. Republican." He declared on the Senate floor in 1951 that “the principal purpose of the foreign policy of the United States is to maintain the liberty of our people. … Its purpose is not to reform the entire world or spread sweetness and light and economic prosperity to peoples who have lived and worked out their own salvation for centuries, according to their customs, and to the best of their abilities.” According to Taft, the second goal of American foreign policy was peace.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Bombshells in Professor Carroll Quiqley's "Tragedy and Hope," PART 2
I suppose after building up my topic so much in the previous post, I should provide more quotes from Professor Quigley's book "Tragedy and Hope." Here we go:
... the powers of financial capitalism had (a) far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences....
Each central bank, in the hands of men like Montagu Norman of the Bank of England, Benjamin Strong of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Charles Rist of the Bank of France, and Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank, sought to dominate its government by its ability to control treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world. (p. 324)
There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the radical Right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups, and frequently does so. (p. 950)
At the end of the war of 1914, it became clear that the organization of this system had to be greatly extended.... Lionel Curtis... established, in England and each dominion, a front organization to the existing local Round Table Group... This front organization, called the Royal Institute of International Affairs, had as its nucleus in each area the existing submerged Round Table Group. In New York it was known as the Council on Foreign Relations, and was a front for J.P. Morgan and Company in association with the very small American Round Table Group. The American organizers were dominated by the large number of Morgan 'experts'... who had gone to the Paris Peace Conference and there became close friends with the similar group of English 'experts' which had been recruited by the Milner group. In fact, the original plans for the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Council on Foreign Relations were drawn up at Paris. The Council of the RIIA ... and the board of the Council on Foreign Relations have carried ever since the marks of their origin. (951-952)
More on the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) later.
... the powers of financial capitalism had (a) far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences....
Each central bank, in the hands of men like Montagu Norman of the Bank of England, Benjamin Strong of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Charles Rist of the Bank of France, and Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank, sought to dominate its government by its ability to control treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world. (p. 324)
There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the radical Right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups, and frequently does so. (p. 950)
At the end of the war of 1914, it became clear that the organization of this system had to be greatly extended.... Lionel Curtis... established, in England and each dominion, a front organization to the existing local Round Table Group... This front organization, called the Royal Institute of International Affairs, had as its nucleus in each area the existing submerged Round Table Group. In New York it was known as the Council on Foreign Relations, and was a front for J.P. Morgan and Company in association with the very small American Round Table Group. The American organizers were dominated by the large number of Morgan 'experts'... who had gone to the Paris Peace Conference and there became close friends with the similar group of English 'experts' which had been recruited by the Milner group. In fact, the original plans for the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Council on Foreign Relations were drawn up at Paris. The Council of the RIIA ... and the board of the Council on Foreign Relations have carried ever since the marks of their origin. (951-952)
More on the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) later.
Bombshells in Professor Carroll Quiqley's "Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time." (1966)
Professor Carroll Quigley, a Professor of History at the Foreign Service School at Georgetown University who formerly taught at Princeton and Harvard and was a major influence on future president Bill Clinton, was the author of "Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time"---a book of history focusing on economics. A huge tome totaling about 1,300 pages with chapter titles such as "Finance, Commercial Policy, and Business Activity, 1897-1947," it was doubtless considered a dry read from the standpoint of the average Joe---yet incredible revelations are to be found here and there, nestled within.
Tragedy and Hope was in fact withdrawn by its original New York publisher after attention was drawn to it by the likes of the John Birch Society, according to G. Edward Griffin in The Creature From Jekyll Island, but by then there was an edition put out by a California publisher and the "cat was out of the bag" so to speak. Now the book may be purchased through amazon.com, where I got my copy.
If you add many of the biggest revelations with which we are here concerned together, the following is what you get "in a nutshell" so to speak:
A secret society with the aim of maintaining and expanding the British Empire was founded in England at the end of the 19th century by Cecil Rhodes---one of the wealthiest men in the world. This secret society extended branches into all countries of the British Commonwealth and the United States. These national branches, or "Round Table groups," themselves had "front groups" called Royal Institutes of International Affairs---but in America called the Council on Foreign Relations (which became quite powerful).
To assure us he's qualified to write on this, Dr. Quigley states:
"I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960's, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments. I have objected, both in the past and recently, to a few of its policies... but in general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known." (p. 950, emphasis added)
So we see that the author of "Tragedy and Hope" regards himself as an "insider"---he considers himself to be on the side of the "network" he writes about---but he breaks with them on the issue of secrecy.
Rather than laboriously produce here extacts of the book, I shall direct you to two pieces by writers of quite different perspectives who provide overviews and quotes---
Henry Makow's 2005 article, "Democracy Is An Illusion"
And an article on the liberal website Daily Kos which features extensive quotation called "How The US Government Was Overthrown In Three Easy Steps"
There is however, one quote I would like to get into here.
"The chief problem of American political life for a long time has been how to make the two Congressional parties more national and international. The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out' at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy" (Tragedy and Hope: 1247-1248).
This notion of the control of our political system is echoed and connected to the above-mentioned Council on Foreign Relations, albeit non-approvingly, by Senator Barry Goldwater in his book With No Apologies, pp. 277-78 where he asserts it as an actuality:
"When we change presidents, it is understood to mean that the voters are ordering a change in national policy. Since 1945, three different Republicans have occupied the White House for 16 years, and four Democrats have held this most powerful post for 17 years. With the exception of the first seven years of the Eisenhower administration, there has been no appreciable change in foreign or domestic policy direction. When a new President comes on board, there is a great turnover in personnel but no change in policy. Example: During the Nixon years Henry Kissinger, CFR member and Nelson Rockefeller's protege, was in charge of foreign policy. When Jimmy Carter was elected, Kissinger was replaced by Zbigniew Brzezinski, CFR member and David Rockefeller's protege."
See this article in the New American magazine for a much more expansive and up-to-date treatment on this behind-the-scenes control.
Tragedy and Hope was in fact withdrawn by its original New York publisher after attention was drawn to it by the likes of the John Birch Society, according to G. Edward Griffin in The Creature From Jekyll Island, but by then there was an edition put out by a California publisher and the "cat was out of the bag" so to speak. Now the book may be purchased through amazon.com, where I got my copy.
If you add many of the biggest revelations with which we are here concerned together, the following is what you get "in a nutshell" so to speak:
A secret society with the aim of maintaining and expanding the British Empire was founded in England at the end of the 19th century by Cecil Rhodes---one of the wealthiest men in the world. This secret society extended branches into all countries of the British Commonwealth and the United States. These national branches, or "Round Table groups," themselves had "front groups" called Royal Institutes of International Affairs---but in America called the Council on Foreign Relations (which became quite powerful).
To assure us he's qualified to write on this, Dr. Quigley states:
"I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960's, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments. I have objected, both in the past and recently, to a few of its policies... but in general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known." (p. 950, emphasis added)
So we see that the author of "Tragedy and Hope" regards himself as an "insider"---he considers himself to be on the side of the "network" he writes about---but he breaks with them on the issue of secrecy.
Rather than laboriously produce here extacts of the book, I shall direct you to two pieces by writers of quite different perspectives who provide overviews and quotes---
Henry Makow's 2005 article, "Democracy Is An Illusion"
And an article on the liberal website Daily Kos which features extensive quotation called "How The US Government Was Overthrown In Three Easy Steps"
There is however, one quote I would like to get into here.
"The chief problem of American political life for a long time has been how to make the two Congressional parties more national and international. The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out' at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy" (Tragedy and Hope: 1247-1248).
This notion of the control of our political system is echoed and connected to the above-mentioned Council on Foreign Relations, albeit non-approvingly, by Senator Barry Goldwater in his book With No Apologies, pp. 277-78 where he asserts it as an actuality:
"When we change presidents, it is understood to mean that the voters are ordering a change in national policy. Since 1945, three different Republicans have occupied the White House for 16 years, and four Democrats have held this most powerful post for 17 years. With the exception of the first seven years of the Eisenhower administration, there has been no appreciable change in foreign or domestic policy direction. When a new President comes on board, there is a great turnover in personnel but no change in policy. Example: During the Nixon years Henry Kissinger, CFR member and Nelson Rockefeller's protege, was in charge of foreign policy. When Jimmy Carter was elected, Kissinger was replaced by Zbigniew Brzezinski, CFR member and David Rockefeller's protege."
See this article in the New American magazine for a much more expansive and up-to-date treatment on this behind-the-scenes control.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
The Conspiracy Theory of History, Revisited
Murray Rothbard, one of the main intellectual progenitors of modern libertarianism and a major influence on the thinking of congressman Ron Paul, wrote an article in 1977 that appeared in Reason magazine entitled "The Conspiracy Theory of History Revisited," which can be read here. Rothbard notes that:
"Anytime that a hard-nosed analysis is put forth of who our rulers are, of how their political and economic interests interlock, it is invariably denounced by Establishment liberals and conservatives (and even by many libertarians) as a 'conspiracy theory of history,' 'paranoid,' 'economic determinist,' and even 'Marxist'."
For example, the idea that the war in Iraq was initiated for reasons other than those publicly promoted, such as for control of the supply of oil, was called "conspiracy theory." Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair used that term in the run-up to the war.
Yet we were lied to---the much feared "Weapons of Mass Destruction" were nothing more than a propaganda ploy to build public support for the war. A good article on this was written by Michael Rivero of whatreallyhappened.com, "The Lie of the Century"---a must read, must follow-the-links-piece. Is it irrational or unreasonable, especially in view of the thousands of US dead and several tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead, to ask "WHY?"
"Conspiracy Theory" is often a term put to a type of propaganda use, to shut down critical thinking at the outset (although more recently we are seeing "conspiracy theorists" themselves using the term perhaps as a marketing move, such as former Governor Jesse Ventura using it as the title of his TV show exploring possible cases of government and media deception).
Back to Rothbard. In his article he offers this piece of insight:
"It is no wonder that usually these realistic analyses are spelled out by various 'extremists' who are outside the Establishment consensus. For it is vital to the continued rule of the State apparatus that it have legitimacy and even sanctity in the eyes of the public, and it is vital to that sanctity that our politicians and bureaucrats be deemed to be disembodied spirits solely devoted to the 'public good.' Once let the cat out of the bag that these spirits are all too often grounded in the solid earth of advancing a set of economic interests through use of the State, and the basic mystique of government begins to collapse."
Thus we can see why "conspiracy theories" are seen as dangerous. Cass Sunstein, who is now President Obama's regulatory czar, wrote a Harvard law paper in 2008 (which is gone over in a piece over at WorldNetDaily) in which he asks, "What can government do about conspiracy theories?"
Says Sunstein:
"We can readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories."
However, he and his co-author explain their favorite option as follows:
"We suggest a distinctive tactic for breaking up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories: cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents or their allies (acting either virtually or in real space, and either openly or anonymously) will undermine the crippled epistemology of believers by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity."
A report recently published in Britain by a leading think tank made a similar recommendation.
Back to Rothbard once more:
Far from being a paranoid or a determinist, the conspiracy analyst is a praxeologist; that is, he believes that people act purposively, that they make conscious choices to employ means in order to arrive at goals. Hence, if a steel tariff is passed, he assumes that the steel industry lobbied for it; if a public works project is created, he hypothesizes that it was promoted by an alliance of construction firms and unions who enjoyed public works contracts, and bureaucrats who expanded their jobs and incomes. It is the opponents of 'conspiracy' analysis who profess to believe that all events – at least in government – are random and unplanned, and that therefore people do not engage in purposive choice and planning.
So a good conspiracy theorist begins by asking, "Who benefits?" and from there attempts to see if there was a real connection with the beneficiary and the event or process in question. It is the same methodology used normally in the attempt to solve crimes---you look at means, motive, and opportunity. If you can establish all three criteria, you have a case against the alleged criminal.
Rothbard concludes his article thusly:
"I submit that the naïfs who stubbornly refuse to examine the interplay of political and economic interest in government are tossing away an essential tool for analyzing the world in which we live."
"Anytime that a hard-nosed analysis is put forth of who our rulers are, of how their political and economic interests interlock, it is invariably denounced by Establishment liberals and conservatives (and even by many libertarians) as a 'conspiracy theory of history,' 'paranoid,' 'economic determinist,' and even 'Marxist'."
For example, the idea that the war in Iraq was initiated for reasons other than those publicly promoted, such as for control of the supply of oil, was called "conspiracy theory." Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair used that term in the run-up to the war.
Yet we were lied to---the much feared "Weapons of Mass Destruction" were nothing more than a propaganda ploy to build public support for the war. A good article on this was written by Michael Rivero of whatreallyhappened.com, "The Lie of the Century"---a must read, must follow-the-links-piece. Is it irrational or unreasonable, especially in view of the thousands of US dead and several tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead, to ask "WHY?"
"Conspiracy Theory" is often a term put to a type of propaganda use, to shut down critical thinking at the outset (although more recently we are seeing "conspiracy theorists" themselves using the term perhaps as a marketing move, such as former Governor Jesse Ventura using it as the title of his TV show exploring possible cases of government and media deception).
Back to Rothbard. In his article he offers this piece of insight:
"It is no wonder that usually these realistic analyses are spelled out by various 'extremists' who are outside the Establishment consensus. For it is vital to the continued rule of the State apparatus that it have legitimacy and even sanctity in the eyes of the public, and it is vital to that sanctity that our politicians and bureaucrats be deemed to be disembodied spirits solely devoted to the 'public good.' Once let the cat out of the bag that these spirits are all too often grounded in the solid earth of advancing a set of economic interests through use of the State, and the basic mystique of government begins to collapse."
Thus we can see why "conspiracy theories" are seen as dangerous. Cass Sunstein, who is now President Obama's regulatory czar, wrote a Harvard law paper in 2008 (which is gone over in a piece over at WorldNetDaily) in which he asks, "What can government do about conspiracy theories?"
Says Sunstein:
"We can readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories."
However, he and his co-author explain their favorite option as follows:
"We suggest a distinctive tactic for breaking up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories: cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents or their allies (acting either virtually or in real space, and either openly or anonymously) will undermine the crippled epistemology of believers by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity."
A report recently published in Britain by a leading think tank made a similar recommendation.
Back to Rothbard once more:
Far from being a paranoid or a determinist, the conspiracy analyst is a praxeologist; that is, he believes that people act purposively, that they make conscious choices to employ means in order to arrive at goals. Hence, if a steel tariff is passed, he assumes that the steel industry lobbied for it; if a public works project is created, he hypothesizes that it was promoted by an alliance of construction firms and unions who enjoyed public works contracts, and bureaucrats who expanded their jobs and incomes. It is the opponents of 'conspiracy' analysis who profess to believe that all events – at least in government – are random and unplanned, and that therefore people do not engage in purposive choice and planning.
So a good conspiracy theorist begins by asking, "Who benefits?" and from there attempts to see if there was a real connection with the beneficiary and the event or process in question. It is the same methodology used normally in the attempt to solve crimes---you look at means, motive, and opportunity. If you can establish all three criteria, you have a case against the alleged criminal.
Rothbard concludes his article thusly:
"I submit that the naïfs who stubbornly refuse to examine the interplay of political and economic interest in government are tossing away an essential tool for analyzing the world in which we live."
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