Conspiracy

"Conspiracy" and Other 'C' Words

If one were asked to think of a word or phrase beginning with the letter "c" that is most associated with the issues surrounding September 11, 2001, the overwhelming response is likely to be "conspiracy". Starting with President Bush's edict: "Let there be no outrageous conspiracy theories" concerning the events of 9/11, and continuing on with an array of media gurus, both left and right, who have sought to ridicule, dismiss, and marginalize anyone who so much as hints at the possibility that the narrative being promulgated by, say, The 9/11 Commission Report is fundamentally and essentially flawed, the one word which has been used to try to frame and control the discussion about 9/11 has been the term "conspiracy".

Of course, one can point out that The 9/11 Commission Report is, from beginning to end, nothing but a conspiracy theory. However, when one does this, the response is likely to lead to some form of cognitive dissonance in which the person who previously has been railing away at the "conspiracy nuts" will pause for a second as his or her mind seeks to find a way out of a conundrum in which the term "conspiracy" no longer seems to apply to just the people who reject the "official story" concerning 9/11 but applies, as well, to the proponents of the "official theory" about September 11, 2001. This pause in the conversation will go on until the person caught-up in the conundrum can find a way to re-frame the discussion in terms more favorable to the individual or until that individual can invent a suitable form of rationalization or evasion as to why her or his form of "conspiracy" is so much more acceptable to the light of reason than the childish fantasies of the usual bunch of conspiratorial rabble.

Oftentimes, the people in such an emotional conundrum enter into some form of dissociation because they are cognitively unable to deal with the information concerning 9/11 that is being placed before them. Because the condition of dissociation in which such people tend to find themselves is very, very disconcerting as a result of the feelings of de-realization, de-personalization, anxiety and stress which permeate that state, quite frequently, these people become angry since they feel their basic sense of identity and worldview is being called into question.

In any event, one of the factors why the term "conspiracy" has such a powerful regulatory hold on any discussion concerning the events surrounding September 11th is because there are a considerable array of "undue influence" techniques being used by almost every facet of the media, educational institutions, and the political spectrum to oppress people in the United States by preventing the latter from thinking about 9/11 in an open, rigorous, and critically reflective manner. Undue influence entails all processes that give expression to social, cognitive, and emotional methods and tactics that are used with the intention of restricting, directing, undermining, impeding, confusing, or stopping people from examining information which might lead such people in a direction other than what is desired by the people who are exercising the techniques of undue influence.

More precisely, techniques of undue influence are used to induce people to cede their moral, intellectual, and spiritual authority to another individual, group, political organization, or corporate entity so that the latter may make all moral, political, and spiritual decisions on behalf of those who have been led to believe, through techniques of undue influence -- that the latter have no inherent right to make up their own minds and hearts about any given issue while simultaneously holding that the so-called "leaders" have every right to strip people of such a right.

In short, with only a small set of exceptions here and there, the media, educational institutions, and politicians (both federal and local) in America are all engaged in using the very same kinds of technique as are religious or political cults who seek to influence the members of such a cult in ways that will prevent those members from ever having access to data which might interfere with the attempts of the cult to keep people thinking, feeling, and doing precisely what the cult wishes its members to think, feel, and do.

Among other things, the media, educational, and political cult leaders in America use emotional terms like "freedom", "democracy", "patriotism", "terrorism" and/or "conspiracy" as conceptual weapons or branding irons. Thus, if a person seeks to communicate information about, say, 9/11, to other human beings -- information that is in opposition to the desires of the cult leaders in the United States, -- then, the purveyors of such information are branded as anti-democratic, unpatriotic, terrorist sympathizers, and/or conspiracy nuts.

If the political, educational, and media cult leaders of America have their way, then, the conversation concerning 9/11 is never intended to go beyond the application of epithets leveled against the informational miscreants who wish to critically explore the issues surrounding the events leading up to, during, and following 9/11. Once labeled, people are dealt with in accordance with those labels, and, consequently, quite apart from whatever the merits of the information being communicated by such an individual may be, that information can be ignored because the operative factor in the affair becomes the label with which the individual has been branded by the cult leaders who head the media, political offices, and educational institutions.

Moreover, once a few people have been crucified in this manner and strung up along the pathways of educational, political, and media activity, then, as was the case with the Roman imperial cult leaders of old, the appropriate message of fear has been delivered to anyone else who might be so foolish as to seek to communicate anything about such taboo subjects as 9/11 to other individuals. Furthermore, like the Roman imperial cult leaders of old, although the cult leaders of the media, political office, and educational institutions in the United States are the actual oppressors and terrorists, these perpetrators of domestic terror and oppression have re-framed the situation to give the impression that only those who seek to throw off the yolk of oppression of the occupying forces of the educational, media, corporate, and political cults which rule America are the ones with whom fault should be found.

The previous comments serve as something of a prologue to that which is to follow. What comes next is an exercise, of sorts, to show how, in reality, there are a lot of other words and phrases beginning with "c" which are appropriate to use in conjunction with issues concerning 9/11.

In fact, some of these c-words already have surfaced in the foregoing prologue - for example, "cognitive dissonance", "cult", "conundrum", and "crucify". However, let's not bring the exercise to an end before surveying a variety of other possibilities.

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Censorship: Naturally, the media cult leaders in America, whether left or right, will never admit that what they are engaged in are vigorous forms of censorship concerning 9/11. Instead, they will seek to re-formulate the issue in terms of having a duty to maintain standards of journalistic integrity such that the information that comes to their attention is properly vetted to ensure that the public has access to only the very best information available.

This sounds nice, but, in truth, the vetting process that takes place consists of a radical censoring of anyone who poses a threat to the vested interests -- whether left or right -- that the media helps to keep in place and in power. One hears almost nothing in the media about the many commercial pilots, architects, scientists, engineers, scholars, ex-military personnel, and everyday common people who are talking about "facts", "information", "data" and reasoned arguments concerning 9/11 which often cannot be credibly countered by the "official" narrative of the power elite in relation to September 11th.

The media will respond with something along the lines of: The reason why you hear nothing about such pilots, architects and the like is because what they have to offer is not credible. However, the public never gets to witness a fair airing of the alleged reasons why such testimony is not credible. Rather, the public tends only to hear the unelaborated conclusions /judgments about the matter (like the Supreme Court rejecting a case without comment) or the public gets a very unfair, biased, and one-sided characterization of the data and arguments which run counter to the "official" government conspiracy theory.

When the media is unwilling to put forth the various sides of an argument in a judicious manner, then the media is engaged in censorship. They can try to re-frame what they are doing in any way they care to in order to try to make themselves look good, but they have become, in effect, censors for the power elite.

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Career: While many of the political, media, and educational cult leaders in America will try to convince the public that they have only the noblest of intentions with respect to their handling of the matters surrounding 9/11, the ugly fact of the matter is that many of these cult leaders are preoccupied with self-serving intentions in relation to maintaining their careers, along with the comfortable perks entailed by such careers such as substantial paychecks, retirement benefits, health care, social status, fame, power, and so on.

Unfortunately, while engaged in finding ways to perpetuate their own careers, many of these power elite cult leaders are not at all averse to sacrificing truth, justice, or the public in their attempt to survive in the style to which they have become accustomed. They further try to shore up their shaky sense of integrity by, sometimes, arguing that if others were in their shoes, they would be doing the same thing.

However, such a contention is not true. There have been many people who have been trying to communicate with the public concerning 9/11 who have lost their jobs as engineers, scientists, and educators because of their willingness to treat the search for truth and justice as having a greater priority than that of career.

I once had an animated discussion with an individual who rejected the idea of there being any other account of 9/11 which is true except that of the "official" power elite. The person in question argued that there are so many media people who hate the existing government administration that such people would be dancing in the streets if they had an opportunity to bring down the present government with any kind of scandal involving 9/11. And, given the fact there are no such people who are dancing in the streets, this is prima facie evidence that there aren't any credible arguments capable of disproving the official narrative of the power elite.

The aforementioned individual is, to say the least, a little naive when it comes to the sort of calculus which people employ when their lives and career may be at stake. There are very few, if any, media types -- whether left or right -- among established newspapers, magazines, radio stations, television stations, or scholarly journals who are willing to pursue matters concerning 9/11 because, both individually and collectively, they understand that such an undertaking likely would lead to career suicide in one form or another.

Journalists and columnists are answerable to editors. Editors are answerable to senior editors and editorial boards. Editorial boards are answerable to media lawyers, owners and/or boards of directors. They are all answerable to advertising revenues.

In these sorts of environment, there are many points of entry through which vested interests can make the weight of their interests known. People who work in such environments are acutely aware of who butters their bread, and they quickly learn how to work in accordance with the degrees of freedom existing in those environments or they find themselves out of a job or they find themselves losing advertising revenue.

There are any number of "left-leaning" media people who refuse to rigorously pursue the issues surrounding 9/11 because they fear being labeled as card-carrying "conspiracy nuts" or "terrorist enablers" or members of the "lunatic fringe". Once labeled in this manner, they believe this would cast a shadow over, or doubt upon, everything else they do or report or about which they write ... which is just another way of saying that they are worried about their career as leftists.

Many of these so-called left-leaning or liberal or progressive media types will gladly engage in any manner of administration-bashing -- and, quite frequently, with considerable justification -- for whatever constitutional, economic, or political sin is the soup de jour that has been concocted by the various chefs of the current administration. However, those same media types will not venture into the tricky waters of 9/11 because they fear the labeling process that is likely to ensue and which would tend to marginalize all that they have to say about other matters of importance as their entire body of work is reduced down to "why, he or she is just one of those conspiracy nuts, or one of those terrorist lovers, or one of those unpatriotic people who hates freedom and America."

Good-bye credibility. Good-bye Career. Good-bye influence. Good-bye paycheck. Good-bye perks.

However, one is likely to get very limited and limiting truths from someone who is more concerned about her or his reputation and career than such an individual is concerned with matters of truth and justice. Unfortunately, the issues of truth and justice which are caught up in the actual nature of 9/11 underlie virtually every problem in which the United States is currently embroiled -- from: Iraq and Afghanistan, to: energy policy, military spending, the deficit, health care, the "intelligence community", public debt, education, the Constitution, civil liberties, and the economy.

Currently, there is no more important topic to explore than the realities of 9/11. Yet, while educational institutions, the media elite, as well as elected and unelected officials are willing to explore a vast array of issues, nonetheless, the one topic -- namely, 9/11 -- which is not critically pursued encompasses a set of forces which is relentlessly destructive in relation to democracy, the Constitution, human rights, freedom, truth, justice, and the economy.

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Courage: There are all too many individuals in the media, in government, and in education who lack courage concerning the events of 9/11. Apparently, they feel or believe that if they can continue to ignore the problems surrounding and permeating the "official" account of 9/11 as communicated through documents like The 9/11 Commission Report, NIST’s Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Towers, and The Pentagon Performance Report then, perhaps, they will be able to avoid ever having to put their life, reputation, and job on the line for the sake of truth and justice.

The line which comes to mind with respect to a lot -- but not necessarily all -- of the foregoing individuals is from the movie The Rainmaker based on a John Grisham book of the same name. During a meeting intended to generate some depositions, the Matt Damon character, Rudy Baylor, a lawyer for the plaintiff, asks a question of the big corporate lawyer played by Jon Voight whose firm is representing a life insurance company that is refusing to pay out on a claim made by the plaintiff. After continuously being given the run-around by Jon Voight"s character, the Matt Damon character poses the following question: "Do you even remember when you first sold out?"

Do the individuals who do the nightly news on television and who are news television commentators and opinion makers, or do the columnists and editorial page writers, or do the individuals who are running for the presidency of the United States or for other political offices in the forthcoming elections, or do the individuals who are supposedly educating the youth and hope of tomorrow even remember when they first sold out to the myth makers of 9/11? Unfortunately, the sordid condition of American public life is such that, for the most part, only those who lack the courage to serve truth and justice are permitted to have ready access to the rest of the American people so that the latter may become infected with the same sort of cowardice that governs the former.

Many from the media, political life, and educational institutions have become like Jayson Blair, the disgraced journalist who was fired from the New York Times because, among other things, he fabricated data and failed to do his own, independent investigations on any number of stories while, instead, uncritically borrowing from the work of others. Similarly, all too many media representatives, educators, and politicians have failed to exercise due diligence with respect to 9/11. Their critical, investigative skills, along with their moral integrity, appear to have gone on an extended hiatus, and they tend to just go with whatever they are told by "official" sources concerning 9/11, and, in the process, they all have betrayed the public.

There may be a variety of reasons why the people being alluded to above have decided it is in their best interests to betray the public"s trust on the 9/11 issue. However, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that many of the people involved fail to do due diligence in relation to their jobs because they lack the courage to stand up and fight on behalf of the citizens of the United States rather than on behalf of the members of the power elites who wish the matter of 9/11 to be understood in a way that advances their own self-serving goals rather than the public good.