Obama staffer suggests conspiracy to combat "CT"ers

[nathan28]

I say they are checking to see whether 'liberals' will notice that a fellow 'very smart liberal' resorts to duplicitous means.

I predict that liberals will continue to keep their heads under the pillow, while the 'rightists' scream bloddy murder.

Huh, just like they pictured it.

I'm not a liberal, i'm a social democrat actually pretty upset by a lot of liberal projects, or, more accurately, think they've outlived their welcome and are increasingly preventing progress, and that only the uglier liberal projects really remain, but sometimes people get those things confused, especially conservatives of the "Need a sense of a people" stripe.

Sunstein, however, is a big-L Liberal, as in, Libertarian. He's a paternalistic libertarian: he wants "market solutions" to encourage better behavior. Which makes him an elitist with a sense of noblesse oblige. Significantly, both his current wife and ex-wife are smarter than him, and they're still of the same exact persuasion, this kind of "I went to Harvard" bullying-not-bullying you policy worldview.

But all that means is that it all re-capitulates the same crap about "noble lies" that the Straussians were just out in the open about. It's inherently aristocratic; whether you support a right-leaning or left-leaning social/foreign policy is secondary to it. The only place where the term "false left/right dichotomy" applies is here, to Sunstein and his ilk; for them, policy is more an aesthetic choice, because when the chips are down, both the Obamaites like him and the Neocons like the Public Interest edit staff still call for the same neoliberal economic political responses to the same social problems. Cassandra Sunstein advocates for a "benevolent hegemon" that lobbies for UN sanction to bomb the shit out of countries for abusing women's rights and then opening them up to free flow of unrestricted hot money; tools like Donald Rummy advocate freeing the shit out of countries that harbor terrorists to open them up to free flow of unrestricted hot money. The difference is that Sunstein thinks Freakonomics is a neat book and Rumsfeld is reading "Machiavelli and the Art of Golf" and let one of his dominatrixes borrow his copy of The Book of Virtue or whatever it was called. Same shit, the only difference is whether or not you've got a silver or a gold lining on your flag lapel pin.

Again, it's aristocratic nonsense. It's not going to go away--not, at least, before these people wreck the train or all of Latin America goes communist and then uses the Mexican majority in the US to make every Northeastern Establishment goon cry in his last gently-warmed glass of 30-year bourbon while he looks out his window at the pitchforks and torches and thinks, "Jesus, they're ruining the lawn. I used to hire Latinos to fix it. What a stupid thing to think now."

[Uncle $cam]

Obama Confidant's Spine-Chilling Proposal to 'Cognitively Infiltrate' Conspiracy Theorist Groups

http://www.alternet.org/story/145229/

By Glenn Greenwald, Salon
Posted on January 20, 2010, Printed on January 20, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145229/


Published on Friday, January 15, 2010 by Salon.com

Cass Sunstein has long been one of Barack Obama's closest confidants. Often mentioned as a likely Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, Sunstein is currently Obama's head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where, among other things, he is responsible for "overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs." In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-"independent" advocates to "cognitively infiltrate" online groups and websites -- as well as other activist groups -- which advocate views that Sunstein deems "false conspiracy theories" about the government. This would be designed to increase citizens' faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists. The paper's abstract can be read, and the full paper downloaded, here.

Sunstein advocates that the Government's stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into "chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups." He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called "independent" credible voices to bolster the Government's messaging (on the ground that those who don't believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government). This program would target those advocating false "conspiracy theories," which they define to mean: "an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role." Sunstein's 2008 paper was flagged by this blogger, and then amplified in an excellent report by Raw Story's Daniel Tencer.

There's no evidence that the Obama administration has actually implemented a program exactly of the type advocated by Sunstein, though in light of this paper and the fact that Sunstein's position would include exactly such policies, that question certainly ought to be asked. Regardless, Sunstein's closeness to the President, as well as the highly influential position he occupies, merits an examination of the mentality behind what he wrote. This isn't an instance where some government official wrote a bizarre paper in college 30 years ago about matters unrelated to his official powers; this was written 18 months ago, at a time when the ascendancy of Sunstein's close friend to the Presidency looked likely, in exactly the area he now oversees. Additionally, the government-controlled messaging that Sunstein desires has been a prominent feature of U.S. Government actions over the last decade, including in some recently revealed practices of the current administration, and the mindset in which it is grounded explains a great deal about our political class. All of that makes Sunstein's paper worth examining in greater detail.

* * * * *

Initially, note how similar Sunstein's proposal is to multiple, controversial stealth efforts by the Bush administration to secretly influence and shape our political debates. The Bush Pentagon employed teams of former Generals to pose as "independent analysts" in the media while secretly coordinating their talking points and messaging about wars and detention policies with the Pentagon. Bush officials secretly paid supposedly "independent" voices, such as Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher, to advocate pro-Bush policies while failing to disclose their contracts. In Iraq, the Bush Pentagon hired a company, Lincoln Park, which paid newspapers to plant pro-U.S. articles while pretending it came from Iraqi citizens. In response to all of this, Democrats typically accused the Bush administration of engaging in government-sponsored propaganda -- and when it was done domestically, suggested this was illegal propaganda. Indeed, there is a very strong case to make that what Sunstein is advocating is itself illegal under long-standing statutes prohibiting government "propaganda" within the U.S., aimed at American citizens:

As explained in a March 21, 2005 report by the Congressional Research Service, "publicity or propaganda" is defined by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to mean either (1) self-aggrandizement by public officials, (2) purely partisan activity, or (3) "covert propaganda." By covert propaganda, GAO means information which originates from the government but is unattributed and made to appear as though it came from a third party.

Covert government propaganda is exactly what Sunstein craves. His mentality is indistinguishable from the Bush mindset that led to these abuses, and he hardly tries to claim otherwise. Indeed, he favorably cites both the covert Lincoln Park program as well as Paul Bremer's closing of Iraqi newspapers which published stories the U.S. Government disliked, and justifies them as arguably necessary to combat "false conspiracy theories" in Iraq -- the same goal Sunstein has for the U.S.

Sunstein's response to these criticisms is easy to find in what he writes, and is as telling as the proposal itself. He acknowledges that some "conspiracy theories" previously dismissed as insane and fringe have turned out to be entirely true (his examples: the CIA really did secretly administer LSD in "mind control" experiments; the DOD really did plot the commission of terrorist acts inside the U.S. with the intent to blame Castro; the Nixon White House really did bug the DNC headquarters). Given that history, how could it possibly be justified for the U.S. Government to institute covert programs designed to undermine anti-government "conspiracy theories," discredit government critics, and increase faith and trust in government pronouncements? Because, says Sunstein, such powers are warranted only when wielded by truly well-intentioned government officials who want to spread The Truth and Do Good -- i.e., when used by people like Cass Sunstein and Barack Obama:

Throughout, we assume a well-motivated government that aims to eliminate conspiracy theories, or draw their poison, if and only if social welfare is improved by doing so.

But it's precisely because the Government is so often not "well-motivated" that such powers are so dangerous. Advocating them on the ground that "we will use them well" is every authoritarian's claim. More than anything else, this is the toxic mentality that consumes our political culture: when our side does X, X is Good, because we're Good and are working for Good outcomes. That was what led hordes of Bush followers to endorse the same large-government surveillance programs they long claimed to oppose, and what leads so many Obama supporters now to justify actions that they spent the last eight years opposing.

* * * * *

Consider the recent revelation that the Obama administration has been making very large, undisclosed payments to MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber to provide consultation on the President's health care plan. With this lucrative arrangement in place, Gruber spent the entire year offering public justifications for Obama's health care plan, typically without disclosing these payments, and far worse, was repeatedly held out by the White House -- falsely -- as an "independent" or "objective" authority. Obama allies in the media constantly cited Gruber's analysis to support their defenses of the President's plan, and the White House, in turn, then cited those media reports as proof that their plan would succeed. This created an infinite "feedback loop" in favor of Obama's health care plan which -- unbeknownst to the public -- was all being generated by someone who was receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in secret from the administration (read this to see exactly how it worked).

In other words, this arrangement was quite similar to the Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher scandals which Democrats, in virtual lockstep, condemned. Paul Krugman, for instance, in 2005 angrily lambasted right-wing pundits and policy analysts who received secret, undisclosed payments, and said they lack "intellectual integrity"; he specifically cited the Armstrong Williams case. Yet the very same Paul Krugman last week attacked Marcy Wheeler for helping to uncover the Gruber payments by accusing her of being "just like the right-wingers with their endless supply of fake scandals." What is one key difference? Unlike Williams and Gallagher, Jonathan Gruber is a Good, Well-Intentioned Person with Good Views -- he favors health care -- and so massive, undisclosed payments from the same administration he's defending are dismissed as a "fake scandal."

Sunstein himself -- as part of his 2008 paper -- explicitly advocates that the Government should pay what he calls "credible independent experts" to advocate on the Government's behalf, a policy he says would be more effective because people don't trust the Government itself and would only listen to people they believe are "independent." In so arguing, Sunstein cites the Armstrong Williams scandal not as something that is wrong in itself, but as a potential risk of this tactic (i.e., that it might leak out), and thus suggests that "government can supply these independent experts with information and perhaps prod them into action from behind the scenes," but warns that "too close a connection will be self-defeating if it is exposed." In other words, Sunstein wants the Government to replicate the Armstrong Williams arrangement as a means of more credibly disseminating propaganda -- i.e., pretending that someone is an "independent" expert when they're actually being "prodded" and even paid "behind the scenes" by the Government -- but he wants to be more careful about how the arrangement is described (don't make the control explicit) so that embarrassment can be avoided if it ends up being exposed.

In this 2008 paper, then, Sunstein advocated, in essence, exactly what the Obama administration has been doing all year with Gruber: covertly paying people who can be falsely held up as "independent" analysts in order to more credibly promote the Government line. Most Democrats agreed this was a deceitful and dangerous act when Bush did it, but with Obama and some of his supporters, undisclosed arrangements of this sort seem to be different. Why? Because, as Sunstein puts it: we have "a well-motivated government" doing this so that "social welfare is improved." Thus, just like state secrets, indefinite detention, military commissions and covert, unauthorized wars, what was once deemed so pernicious during the Bush years -- coordinated government/media propaganda -- is instantaneously transformed into something Good.

* * * * *

What is most odious and revealing about Sunstein's worldview is his condescending, self-loving belief that "false conspiracy theories" are largely the province of fringe, ignorant Internet masses and the Muslim world. That, he claims, is where these conspiracy theories thrive most vibrantly, and he focuses on various 9/11 theories -- both domestically and in Muslim countries -- as his prime example.

It's certainly true that one can easily find irrational conspiracy theories in those venues, but some of the most destructive "false conspiracy theories" have emanated from the very entity Sunstein wants to endow with covert propaganda power: namely, the U.S. Government itself, along with its elite media defenders. Moreover, "crazy conspiracy theorist" has long been the favorite epithet of those same parties to discredit people trying to expose elite wrongdoing and corruption.

Who is it who relentlessly spread "false conspiracy theories" of Saddam-engineered anthrax attacks and Iraq-created mushroom clouds and a Ba'athist/Al-Qaeda alliance -- the most destructive conspiracy theories of the last generation? And who is it who demonized as "conspiracy-mongers" people who warned that the U.S. Government was illegally spying on its citizens, systematically torturing people, attempting to establish permanent bases in the Middle East, or engineering massive bailout plans to transfer extreme wealth to the industries which own the Government? The most chronic and dangerous purveyors of "conspiracy theory" games are the very people Sunstein thinks should be empowered to control our political debates through deceit and government resources: namely, the Government itself and the Enlightened Elite like him.

It is this history of government deceit and wrongdoing that renders Sunstein's desire to use covert propaganda to "undermine" anti-government speech so repugnant. The reason conspiracy theories resonate so much is precisely that people have learned -- rationally -- to distrust government actions and statements. Sunstein's proposed covert propaganda scheme is a perfect illustration of why that is. In other words, people don't trust the Government and "conspiracy theories" are so pervasive is precisely because government is typically filled with people like Cass Sunstein, who think that systematic deceit and government-sponsored manipulation are justified by their own Goodness and Superior Wisdom.

UPDATE: I don't want to make this primarily about the Gruber scandal -- I cited that only as an example of the type of mischief that this mindset produces -- but just to respond quickly to the typical Gruber defenses already appearing in comments: (1) Gruber's work was only for HHS and had nothing to do with the White House (false); (2) he should have disclosed his payments, but the White House did nothing wrong (false: it repeatedly described him as "independent" and "objective" and constantly cited allied media stories based in Gruber's work); (3) Gruber advocated views he would have advocated anyway in the absence of payment (probably true, but wasn't that also true for life-long conservative Armstrong Williams, life-long social conservative Maggie Gallagher, and the pro-war Pentagon Generals, all of whom mounted the same defense?); and (4) Williams/Gallagher were explicitly paid to advocate particular views while Gruber wasn't (true: that's exactly the arrangement Sunstein advocates to avoid "embarrassment" in the event of disclosure, and it's absurd to suggest that someone being paid many hundreds of thousands of dollars is unaware of what their paymasters want said; that's why disclosure is so imperative).

The point is that there are severe dangers to the Government covertly using its resources to "infiltrate" discussions and to shape political debates using undisclosed and manipulative means. It's called "covert propaganda" and it should be opposed regardless of who is in control of it or what its policy aims are.

UPDATE II: Ironically, this is the same administration that recently announced a new regulation dictating that "bloggers who review products must disclose any connection with advertisers, including, in most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were paid in any way by advertisers, as occurs frequently." Without such disclosure, the administration reasoned, the public may not be aware of important hidden incentives (h/t pasquin). Yet the same administration pays an MIT analyst hundreds of thousands of dollars to advocate their most controversial proposed program while they hold him out as "objective," and selects as their Chief Regulator someone who wants government agents to covertly mold political discussions "anonymously or even with false identities."

UPDATE III: Just to get a sense for what an extremist Cass Sunstein is (which itself is ironic, given that his paper calls for "cognitive infiltration of extremist groups," as the Abstract puts it), marvel at this paragraph:


this paragraph is embedded go to the link or click here: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/S ... nstein.png


So Sunstein isn't calling right now for proposals (1) and (2) -- having Government "ban conspiracy theorizing" or "impose some kind of tax on those who" do it -- but he says "each will have a place under imaginable conditions." I'd love to know the "conditions" under which the government-enforced banning of conspiracy theories or the imposition of taxes on those who advocate them will "have a place." Anyone who believes this should, for that reason alone, be barred from any meaningful government position.


Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book "How Would a Patriot Act?," a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, released in May 2006. His second book, "A Tragic Legacy", examines the Bush legacy.

[brainpanhandler]

Latest stats at SSRN:

Paper statistics

Abstract Views: 21,751
Downloads: 7,802
Download Rank: 113


I'm betting it makes top ten. Any takers? Loser buys the winner an RI mug.

[exojuridik]

I say they are checking to see whether 'liberals' will notice that a fellow 'very smart liberal' resorts to duplicitous means.

I predict that liberals will continue to keep their heads under the pillow, while the 'rightists' scream bloddy murder.

Huh, just like they pictured it.

I'm not a liberal, i'm a social democrat actually pretty upset by a lot of liberal projects, or, more accurately, think they've outlived their welcome and are increasingly preventing progress, and that only the uglier liberal projects really remain, but sometimes people get those things confused, especially conservatives of the "Need a sense of a people" stripe.

Sunstein, however, is a big-L Liberal, as in, Libertarian. He's a paternalistic libertarian: he wants "market solutions" to encourage better behavior. Which makes him an elitist with a sense of noblesse oblige. Significantly, both his current wife and ex-wife are smarter than him, and they're still of the same exact persuasion, this kind of "I went to Harvard" bullying-not-bullying you policy worldview.

But all that means is that it all re-capitulates the same crap about "noble lies" that the Straussians were just out in the open about. It's inherently aristocratic; whether you support a right-leaning or left-leaning social/foreign policy is secondary to it. The only place where the term "false left/right dichotomy" applies is here, to Sunstein and his ilk; for them, policy is more an aesthetic choice, because when the chips are down, both the Obamaites like him and the Neocons like the Public Interest edit staff still call for the same neoliberal economic political responses to the same social problems. Cassandra Sunstein advocates for a "benevolent hegemon" that lobbies for UN sanction to bomb the shit out of countries for abusing women's rights and then opening them up to free flow of unrestricted hot money; tools like Donald Rummy advocate freeing the shit out of countries that harbor terrorists to open them up to free flow of unrestricted hot money. The difference is that Sunstein thinks Freakonomics is a neat book and Rumsfeld is reading "Machiavelli and the Art of Golf" and let one of his dominatrixes borrow his copy of The Book of Virtue or whatever it was called. Same shit, the only difference is whether or not you've got a silver or a gold lining on your flag lapel pin.

Again, it's aristocratic nonsense. It's not going to go away--not, at least, before these people wreck the train or all of Latin America goes communist and then uses the Mexican majority in the US to make every Northeastern Establishment goon cry in his last gently-warmed glass of 30-year bourbon while he looks out his window at the pitchforks and torches and thinks, "Jesus, they're ruining the lawn. I used to hire Latinos to fix it. What a stupid thing to think now."

Well at least he ain't a Yalie as the neo-liberal order has had quite enough of their piquant japes of late, eh chap ...

So okay, Cass is an arrogant east coast elite who has spent his life justifying a world that affords him his entitled due. Well, that can also be said of 99.55 of the professors and attorneys whom I’ve encountered. Most of whom are spending their productive energies trying to banish from this earth the bloody tooth/claw state of nature they had to endure on schoolyards and street corners their entire childhoods. This does not excuse or even really explain anything but it should be noted that there is a distinction between a personage’s political role and intellectual product. Obviously, Cass did not get to where he is today by embracing “the other.” He has managed to work his way through the most elite of institutions to the President’s office and I imagine his success had little to do with empathy or compassion. However, his work should stand on its own merits even if it has been used as part of the Straussian scam that has been foisted upon us by neo-libconartists.

From your comments it appears that you eschew not only liberal projects per se but the entire post-enlightenment course of civilization as well. Indeed, perhaps the problems goes back to a virus of thought that can be traced to the Greeks – Socrates being the diseased monkey that unleashed an epidemic of analytical reasoning which has resulted in the planet being paved over for the parking lots of a million Walmarts. And actually, if this is your point, I whole heartedly agree with you. Personally, I blame whoever was behind the construction of the pyramids.

Egyptian space vampires, aside, I do think that Sunstein’s work does have some merit on its own terms. You denounce his market based solutions and his paternalistic government but this has been under the purview of statecraft since well the ancient ones. It maybe evil and pernicious and lead to spiritual death but, such is the nature of politics. No need for any drama on this score. The state of the art of the art of the states involves using policies and laws to craft desired social outcomes i.e. the role of government. This elemental truth is not diminished by fact that the Frankstein state we have today is poised to implode and take the whole down world with it. The problem is that people like Cass often forget the true nature of their dark masters. However, were this a game like Civilizationtm , I would think a constitutional republican form of government would be the winning choice. Its all just a matter of keeping the lifeworld and the political economic operating system properly in balance.

Law is one of those ugly but necessary things that are doomed to fail because its practice becomes inevitably dominated by the worst elements of society. Believe me, I don’t know any true idealists who graduated from law school. Right now, I don’t see any other viable alternatives being offered to the ineluctable reality of what we have now. Anarchy seems to just a step back whereby other players will eventually achieve oligarch status by mastery of the dynamics driving human civilization. The current status quo is certainly the imminent death and the abolition of humanity, but what is the alternative besides hopeful counterfactuals? If we cannot deal on with the horrible realities of modernity on its own terms, we are indeed doomed to suffer the consequences of its lifeless logic.

Okay, the only words of worth I will put in this post comes from a true legal scholar, the late Robert Cover. His understanding of the law stems from a vision of humanity informed by his commitment to understanding Ha Shem and the normative universe which we all define and are, in turn, defined by:

LAW IS THAT WHICH LICENSES IN BLOOD CERTAIN TRANSFORMATIONS WHILE AUTHORIZING OTHERS ONLY BY UNANIMOUS CONSENT. LAW IS A FORCE, LIKE GRAVITY, THROUGH WHICH OUR WORLDS EXERCISE AN INFLUENCE UPON ONE ANOTHER, A FORCE THAT AFFECTS THE COURSES OF THESE WORLDS THROUGH NORMATIVE SPACE. AND LAW IS THAT WHICH HOLDS OUR REALITY APART FROM OUR VISIONS AND RESCUES US FROM THE ESCHATOLOGY THAT IS THE COLLISION IN THIS MATERIAL SOCIAL WORLD OF THE CONSTRUCTIONS OF OUR MINDS.

Cass may well be a deluded, self-promoting asshole but that doesn’t gainsay his theoretical contributions to how we understanding the workings of man, god and law.

[brainpanhandler]

Alright, so here's the thing... do any of Sunstein's theses about group polarization and informational cascades as they apply to "conspiracy theories" apply here at RI? Do they?

The Basic Phenomenon

Much of the time, groups of people end up doing things that group
members would never do on their own. This is true for groups of
teenagers, who take risks that individuals would avoid. It is true for
student organizations, labor unions, political protestors, police offi-
cers, and juries. It is certainly true for those prone to violence,
including terrorists.

In order to understand why this is so, we need to explore the phe-
nomenon of group polarization, which offers large lessons about the
behavior of interest groups, religious organizations, political parties,
executive agencies, legislatures, judicial panels, and even nations.
What happens within deliberating bodies? Do groups compro-
mise? Do they move toward the middle of the tendencies of their
individual members? The answer is now clear, and it is not what
intuition would suggest: members of a deliberating group usually end
up at a more extreme position in the same general direction as their
inclinations before deliberation began.1
This is the phenomenon knownas group polarization.
Group polarization is the typical pattern
with deliberating groups. It has been found in hundreds of studies
involving over a dozen countries, including the United States,
France, Afghanistan, and Germany.2

Consider a few examples:

1. Those who approve of an ongoing war effort will, as a
result of discussion, become still more enthusiastic about
that effort.

2. People who dislike the head of state, and his current
tendencies, will dislike him more intensely after talking
with one another.

3. Those who disapprove of the United States, and are sus-
picious of its intentions, will increase their disapproval
and suspicion if they exchange points of view. Indeed,
there is specific evidence of the latter phenomenon
among citizens of France.3

4.White people who tend to show significant racial preju-
dice will show more racial prejudice after speaking with
one another; white people who tend to show little racial
prejudice will show less racial prejudice after speaking
with one another.4

In these and countless other cases, like-minded people tend, after
discussions with one another,to end up thinking a more extreme ver-
sion of what they thought before they started to talk. It should be
readily apparent that enclaves of people, separated from others and
inclined to rebellion or even violence, might move sharply in that
direction as a consequence of internal deliberations. Political extrem-
ism is often a product of group polarization.5

In fact, a good way to
create an extremist group, or a cult of any kind, is to separate mem-
bers from the rest of society, either physically or psychologically, by
creating a sense of suspicion about nonmembers. With either formof
separation, the information and views of those outside the group can
be discredited, and hence nothing need disturb the process of polar-
ization as group members continue to talk.

I have been involved in three sets of investigations of group
polarization, involving citizens, judges, and juries. To understand
the nature of the basic phenomenon and its range and generality,
let me outline the central findings here.
A small experiment in democracy was held in Colorado in 2005.6
About sixty American citizens were brought together and assembled
into ten groups, most of them consisting of six people. Members of
each group were asked to deliberate on three of the most controver-
sial issues of the day. Should states allow same-sex couples to enter into
civil unions? Should employers engage in “affirmative action” by giving a
preference to members of traditionally disadvantaged groups? Should the
United States sign an international treaty to combat global warming?
As the experiment was designed, the groups consisted of “liberal”
and “conservative” members—the former from Boulder, the latter
from Colorado Springs. It is widely known that Boulder tends to be
liberal and that Colorado Springs tends to be conservative. The groups
were screened to ensure that their members generally conformed to
these stereotypes. For example, group members were asked to report
on their assessment of Vice President Cheney. In Boulder, those who
liked him were excused from the experiment; in Colorado Springs,
those who disliked him were similarly excused.

In the parlance of election years, the experiment created five “Blue
State” groups, whose members tended toward liberal positions in
general, and five “Red State” groups, whose members tended toward
conservative positions. On the three issues, however, participants were
not screened at all. They were asked to state their opinions anony-
mously both before and after fifteen minutes of group discussion, and
also to try to reach a public verdict before the final anonymous state-
ment. As the experiment was designed, participants followed norms
of civic respect; the tapes of the discussions reveal that for most of the
participants, there was an effort to think hard, to listen to others, and
to be reasonable. What was the effect of discussion?

The results were simple. In almost every group, members ended
up with more extreme positions after they spoke with one another.
Liberals favored an international treaty to control global warming
before discussion; they favored it more strongly after discussion.
Conservatives were neutral on that treaty before discussion; they
strongly opposed it after discussion. Discussion made civil unions
more popular among liberals; discussion made civil unions less pop-
ular among conservatives. Mildly favorable toward affirmative action
before discussion, liberals became strongly favorable toward affirma-
tive action after discussion. Firmly negative about affirmative action
before discussion, conservatives became even more negative about
affirmative action after discussion.

Aside from increasing extremism, the experiment had an inde-
pendent effect, one that is equally important: it made both liberal
groups and conservative groups significantly more homogeneous—and
thus squelched diversity.Before members started to talk, many groups
displayed a fair bit of internal disagreement. The disagreements were
reduced as a result of a mere fifteen-minute discussion. Note that my
primary test here involves comparing members’ anonymous state-
ments before and after deliberation. Group members showed far more
consensus after discussion than before.

It follows that discussion helped to widen the rift between
liberals and conservatives on all three issues. Before discussion,
some liberal groups were, on some issues, fairly close to some
conservative groups. The result of discussion was to divide them far
more sharply.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25273405/Why-Groups-Go-to-Extremes-by-Cass-R-Sunstein


Over the years I've read numerous posters disdainfully refer to RI as an "echochamber", usually shortly before they decide to leave. Are we as a group and/or subgroups driving each other toward more extreme views? Nashvillebrook accidentally coined the beautiful protologism "echolocution" which I now nominate as the term we use to describe this phenomenon, if it exists. edit: 8bit also accidentally coined the equally beautiful term "obversation" which maybe has it's own application in this context. I'm open to opinions as to how these terms apply. Obversational echolocution?

Personally, I believe RI is remarkably diverse. Some of that is attributable to just plain old contrarianism. We're a bunch of misfits that hate being pigeoholed in any way. Besides which there is such a diversity of topics discussed here that it is hard to say much about the opinions of the RI population in any sort of global way. This is at least partially the result of Mr. Wells' style of management which is inclusive in the extreme, despite the occasional and ridiculous protestations of a tiny minority that feel censored. But still, it is true that there are RI members and non RI members. We are a tiny bubble in the vast sea of the internet. Yes? Does that tend in any way to make our views more extreme than they would otherwise be? And if it does, is that necessarily either a good thing or a bad thing?

There's a reason that advocating violence is forbidden and it's not just because admin is against violence or that there would potentially be nasty consequences. It's because we (and I hesitate to use the term we) see the world differently and what we see so clearly sometimes is just how horrific human beings can be to each other and it makes us fucking sad and really, really pissed off. I know I have to bite my tongue.

[brainpanhandler]

and btw, I notice I didn't get any takers on the bet.

Paper statistics

Abstract Views: 22,618
Downloads: 8,056
Download Rank: 98

[brainpanhandler]

Cowards.


One man's extremism in another man's, well, non-extremism. While I think there is some truth to the idea that our views can become a bit skewed if we only ever associate with like minded people, nonetheless, it seems to me that RI tends to attract very independent minded folks and so we're never really in any danger of group think as is occasionally suggested. It's no surprise that from a mainstream, conventional perspective we are extremists, but really if you're not an extremist from a mainstream perspective then you've either completely abdicated your desire to learn the truth or you've just got your head up your ass. I say extremism is a good thing. I say extremism is a sane reaction to an extremely fucked up world. And if I can't be extreme in my actual life, like living in a yurt in the wilderness away from this madness, then I can at least be extreme in my mind. In fact if i can't think and express the extreme thoughts I have then I'd rather not think at all and I've never found a way to pull that off, not thinking. That doesn't happen until I lay me down to sleep for the big final dirt nap. This is the only place I have left to express my "extreme" thoughts. So, Sunstein can go fuck himself in his lovely ivory tower and think his tepid, acceptable thoughts about the unclean masses of the internet lost in their paranoid fantasies about political assassinations, engineered population control, false flag terror events, and the war of the ruling classes on the rest of us.

[MacCruiskeen]

only had time to skim this blogpost, but it looks well worth reading, so i'm saving it here:

-----------

Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Towards a Theory of Conspiracy Theories

http://stonefruit.blogspot.com/2010/01/ ... ories.html

Cass Sunstein, confidante of Obama, Harvard Law professor, current head of the federal Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, potential Supreme Court nominee - and the latest crusader against those dastardly conspiracy theories

Recently, there was quite a hullabaloo in the blogosphere over a reprehensible academic paper Sunstein co-wrote in 2008 (available for download here), which argued for a Cointellpro-type program of government infiltration of conspiracy theorists, online and in person. Given the incredible scope and flexibility of the powers of his office, as enunciated in this September 30, 1993 executive order signed by Clinton, his proposal should certainly give us pause.

His paper, "Conspiracy Theories," was originally scooped by Marc Estrin at Rag Blog, and covered in short order by Daniel Tencer at The Raw Story and Glenn Greenwald at Salon and pretty much went viral from there. Although Greenwald's piece was the most extensive, none of the reports really examined the paper in great detail.

I took the time to read the whole thing. I've also read the entire academic literature on conspiracy theory and written one of my masters theses on the topic at a Division I research university. If I have the stomach for it, I may offer a more detailed analysis of Sunstein's paper in a future post, but for now I'd like to offer something else.

More important than a detailed analysis of a single essay would be a sustained theoretical critique of the role of "conspiracy theory" in delegitimizing information contrary to the interests and consensus reality of the elite. None of the coverage of Sunstein's journal article offered this broader view. I would like to do so, by posting a revised version of something I posted here a few years back which, unfortunately, remains as timely as ever.

Contemporary America is of two minds regarding conspiracy theory - or "conspiranoia" as I like to call it, a term combining conspiracy and paranoia which I got from a book by Devon Jackson of the same name.

On one hand, it has become the default popular view, one of commodified skepticism towards history and government. It's a sentiment that has proliferated extensively since the 1960s, Watergate, and the Church Committee. With the collapse of the reassuring dualities of the Cold War in the early 1990s, it has culminated into an extremely pervasive apocalyptic teleology. It has become one of the leading intellectual leitmotifs of our time.

On the other hand, the disavowal of conspiranoia has also become an integral part of the conventional wisdom itself, a social technology of control that establishes the boundaries of "responsible discourse" by reflecting elite consensus on the fundamental nature of social reality, in accordance with the elite's own class interests. This makes for an incredibly effective means of establishing ruling class hegemony by controlling dissent, foreclosing alternatives, engineering support, and transmuting the interests of the ruling class into that of the nation as a whole.

As Gore Vidal once said "The way our ruling class keeps out of sight is one of the greatest stunts in the political history of any country" and conspiracy theory is one of their most potent methodologies.

In fact, one is apt to be labeled a conspiracy theorist for merely suggesting that there is a ruling class in this country that seeks to maintain hegemony, to say nothing of the idea that the ruling class might occasionally use conspiratorial methods. Rather than conspiracy theory, most media and intellectual gatekeepers prefer to view elite behavior through the lens of "somnambulist theory," "coincidence theory", "incompetence theory", or "spontaneity theory". No amount of intellectual gymnastics is spared to avoid arriving at the conclusion that the rich and powerful, like the rest of us, might possibly act in support of their own perceived best interests. This is, of course, in spite of a voluminous sociological literature on the power elite and "elite deviance" and a plethora of laws on the books against criminal conspiracy.

True freedom of mind - presumably the bedrock of the informed consent of the governed in a democracy - requires not only the negative absence of constraint but the positive presence of other alternatives. Even though the rich and powerful have repeatedly used conspiracy to get richer and more powerful, to mention this sociological fact immediately draws the most vicious criticism, including charges of conspiracy mongering, and many variations on superstition, cynicism, paranoia, hysteria, and primitivism.

Conspiranoia can and should be a tool of empirical explanation. It is possible to point fingers and name names. The powers that be, perhaps as few as thousands of people enslaving as many as six billion, act not in conspiracy but in tacit collusion fostered by the similarity of their backgrounds, calibrated at key forums and through key organizations in support of a global agenda of domination, economic plunder, and environmental devastation.

Ultimately, however, the appeal of conspiranoia is that of narrative itself: it's ability to explain, predict, motivate, and entertain. Although conspiranoia offers the aficionado an integrated worldview, a weltanschauung, it also provides more than that. When confronted with the potential evidence of conspiracy, one must ask, as in criminal trials: "Is there motive, means, and opportunity?" All too often there is, especially at the intersection of politics, law, high finance, intelligence, diplomacy, covert military operations, narco-trafficking, organized crime, and the media simulacrasphere.

Instead of the usual characterization of conspiracy theory as a branch of group psychopathology, "troubled minds looking for order in chaotic and rapidly changing times" as the academic literature so uniformly spins it, conspiranoia might be better and more accurately thought of as a populist fusion of life writing, historiography, and political science which provides explanatory narratives that void the epistemic warrant of the elite consensus on history, social reality, and the "conventional wisdom." This is a major development in the long tradition of popular resistance to state power and economic oligarchy, not of the right vs. left, but of the bottom vs. the top.

At its best, conspiranoia is a radical exercise of the skepticism and critical reason at the heart of the Enlightenment project. In this sense it represents a last-ditch effort by the supposed repositories of popular sovereignty - the people - to save liberal humanism and the Enlightenment from its demented doppelganger - the program of perpetual war for perpetual peace and the enslavement of the autonomous bourgeois subject under regimes of panoptic control managed by technocrats serving the super rich, using the powerful tools of the nation-state as they've evolved since the Peace of Westphalia in the 17th century.

Conspiranoia narratives could be empirical explanations of social reality, since it can easily be argued that, as Carl Oglesby put it in The Yankee and Cowboy War, "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." The knee-jerk denigration of such attitudes by the media and the academy, however, demonstrates that their disavowal has become a vital social technology of control in the late modern age.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, virtually all pre-capitalist and anti-capitalist systems have been colonized by "global monetocracy", a transnational corporate socialism that socializes the costs and privatizes the profits. This is kleptocracy by any other name, albeit a far more sophisticated version than that practiced by hacks like Marcos, Duvalier, Mobutu, and their ilk.

Although seemingly at its moment of universal triumph, this system may in fact be teetering on the brink of economic, political, social, and environmental collapse. This collapse may even already be underway. It seems likely usher in an extremely reactionary, corporate-managed pseudo-populism and overt police state fascism in all of the core states of global capitalism - perhaps even a hybrid of revolution and civil war.

It is precisely the dramatically escalating accumulation of these fundamental contradictions within the global capitalist system that "coincidence theorists" try to deflect public attention away from with their hysterical vilification of conspiracy theories. Their relentless disparagement continues even though, ala Occam's Razor, conspiracy theories often provide the simplest, most rational explanation for much of history and current events.

The power elite deliberately obscure the structural limitations on free will (that they themselves largely created) to mask the sad fact that, as human civilization has evolved from slavery to feudalism to democracy, we have traded kings and tsars for presidents and prime ministers but the money power behind the scenes has remained the same. The king, the theocrat, and the money changers have conceded just enough to stave off revolution, and these small victories have only been won by long and arduous struggle.

Their regime of capital accumulation can only survive by feeding off the subject body and stupefying the subject mind with the myth of individual agency and the "society of the spectacle" while simultaneously doing everything in their power to ensure that this alleged agency can't be used in any meaningful way. In such an environment, denigrating conspiranoia becomes a means of cordoning off from the masses the fact that they are being lied to every day of their lives by the very authority figures they trust to give them the "good life," and that the consumerist hydrocarbon-based industrial civilization they live in is arguably psychopathic and quite possibly in terminal decline.

While the provisional government of politicians does the lying, they do so in the service of a permanent government above and behind political power, a secular oligarchy working in tacit collusion. In America they are the great commercial dynasties, the Fortune 500 companies and their lobbyists, the media simulacrasphere, the civil and military services, the large research universities, law firms, charitable foundations, and their ilk.

They hire the politicians and frame the boundaries of the politicians' agenda - even the boundaries of "reasonable" political discourse itself. They authorize the production of regular election pageants to protect the brand name of American democracy. They convince a large enough portion of the general population that the system still works, so that the machinery of oppression, theft, enslavement, murder, and incarceration can continue without interruption.

This oligarchy makes effective use of such groups and forums as the Bilderberg Group, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Economic Forum at Davos, Bank of International Settlements, World Trade Organization, Council of Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bohemian Grove, Group of Eight, Trans-Atlantic Business Council, and other organizations to calibrate their rhetoric, achieve consensus, and even set policy superceding that of sovereign governments. This isn't done in singular smoky star chambers, as the straw man argument against conspiracy theories routinely and condescendingly jokes.

Instead, there are many camps within this oligarchy. Sometimes they compete, sometimes they cooperate, but all are unified by a miasmic group-think that stems from the similarity of their backgrounds, class interests, and institutional positions, and their sensitivity to the behavioral cues given off by the institutional structures within which they seek to advance. Pursuing a misguided sense of their own self interest, they pursue the interests of the global "capitalist" system as well.

As the key nations of transnational corporate imperialism degenerate into police states, they slowly strip citizens of their rights by periodically manufacturing crises to enact the Hegelian dialectic of "crisis-response-resolution," with each new "resolution" bringing them greater control and pushing the world's resources into what George H.W. Bush has called "higher, tighter, and righter hands."

Although conspiranoiacs exist in great variety, many share a belief in the rough outline of this dystopian nightmare. If true, it is the truth which cannot be spoken. For that reason, the media and academic gatekeepers of "credible" information will continue to dismiss anything that challenges the conventional wisdom as a "conspiracy theory" until some catalyst finally reveals enough of the horrible truth to enough people, facilitating a paradigm shift of world historical importance, a tipping point, the 100th monkey effect.

The ills of society can neither be ameliorated nor even adequately described by means of the law alone. Nevertheless, progressive efforts to ameliorate these ills cannot succeed without committed work in the legal field. However, such work will be necessarily defensive in posture until such time as substantial extraparliamentary pressure is brought to bear on the system by means of "either grassroots citizen participation in credible progressive projects or rebellious acts of desperation that threaten the social order," as one of America's greatest public intellectuals, Cornel West, put it.

With adequate reach into a broad enough segment of the general population by leaking past the media oligarchy, and armed with adequate credibility by weeding itself of the pervasive disinformation that so often taints it, conspiranoiac analysis has the potential to precipitate and consolidate a very significant portion of that extraparliamentary pressure of which West speaks.

I believe it was the inimitable psychonaut philosopher Terence Mckenna who said "Like it or not, the people of the fringe are in an apocalyptical struggle: either the elite techniques of control will be perfected to the level where dissent can be abolished, or heretics will mutate to some level of consciousness where they can do holy and miraculous works to resurrect the old dream of freedom for all."

Although this may seem a millennial hope, it may also be a cogent empirical analysis of a decisive historical crossroads, and certainly a large number of us have our eyes on December 21, 2012. In any event, until our individual consciousness (and our collective unconscious) is liberated, and we can finally establish abiding regimes of peace, social justice, and sustainability, as Rousseau said "Man is born free, yet he is everywhere in chains."

http://stonefruit.blogspot.com/2010/01/ ... ories.html

[exojuridik]

I agree with the last two posts. Conspiracies are both symptoms of, and weapons to be used against the elite consensus justifying the status quo. In this regard, the very act of interpreting events engages the thinker into a liberating revolutionary process. Any self-serving explanations proffered by the PTB are evaluated against an array of equally plausible “counter-factuals.” This is the natural outcome of the much vaunted “ free-market of ideas” which is exactly why there is such an urgency by government officials to discredit those interpretations that don’t jell with the story they are trying to tell. They are aware that these conspiracy theories would have no traction were people’s interests aligned with the official narratives.

I still think it is vital for people to critically evaluate their belief-systems for their own benefit – cults and political parties thrive on fashioning self-serving tales for the intellectually lazy. But for the most part I think that the demons of dogma and rhetoric can be dispelled by a simple Cui Bono? line of questioning.

Let me just add - despite being a fucking tool, Sunstein, were he a supreme, would undoubtably gone against the Robert's majority on the Corporate contributions as free-speech issue. but he aint one so let the bastard sink under the weight of this stone stupid albatross of a proposal.

[Sounder]

You folk are awesome, thanks loads.

Off to ruminate

[elfismiles]

DoD “Clarifies” Doctrine on Psychological Operations
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2010/01/psyop.html
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/jp3-13-2.pdf
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/jp1_02.pdf

DoD “Clarifies” Doctrine on Psychological Operations

January 19th, 2010 by Steven Aftergood
The Department of Defense has issued a new publication (pdf) to update and clarify its doctrine on “psychological operations.”

Psychological operations, or PSYOP, are intended to “convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of psychological operations is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to the originator’s objectives.”

PSYOP is among the oldest of military disciplines, but the new DoD doctrine continues to wrestle with basic definitional issues.

It endorses a new, negative definition of the term “propaganda,” which had formerly been used in a neutral sense to refer to “Any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of any group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.” From now on, propaganda will refer only to what the enemy does: “Any form of adversary communication, especially of a biased or misleading nature, designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of any group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.”

The new doctrine also dictates that the term “perception management” shall be eliminated from the DoD lexicon (pdf).

DoD acknowledges that PSYOP is limited by legal constraints, including statutes, international agreements, and national policies. Among other things, the DoD doctrine states, there is a “requirement that US PSYOP forces will not target US citizens at any time, in any location globally, or under any circumstances.” Yet in a near contradiction, the doctrine also states that “When authorized, PSYOP forces may be used domestically to assist lead federal agencies during disaster relief and crisis management by informing the domestic population.” Perhaps the PSYOP forces are supposed to inform the domestic population without “targeting” them.

Fundamentally, psychological operations are tethered to the reality of U.S. government actions, for good or for ill. As the new doctrine notes, “Every activity of the force has potential psychological implications that may be leveraged to influence foreign targets.” But PSYOP cannot substitute for an incoherent policy or rescue a poorly executed plan.

See “Psychological Operations,” Joint Publication 3-13.2, Joint Chiefs of Staff, January 7, 2010.


http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2010/01/psyop.html

[DrVolin]

Towards a Theory of Conspiracy Theories

That's a fantastic article, but... why does he go all 2012 at the end? To completely alienate his intended audience? Is the whole article an elaborate setup for a sucker punch?

[elfismiles]

AN ATTACK FROM HARVARD LAW ON THE ESCALATING 9/11 TRUTH MOVEMENT
For OpEdNews: Bill Willers - Writer

A wide appreciation of the implications of "Conspiracy Theories" by Harvard law professors Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? ... abs=292149) has been slow in coming. What makes the article and the views expressed therein all the more significant is that author Sunstein in 2009 was made Administrator of Information and Regulatory Affairs of the Office of Management and Budget by President Obama (click here).

(Note: The 2008 article at the Social Science Research Network's website appeared in virtually identical form in the Journal of Political Philosophy 17(2), 2009, pgs 202-227, except that the Journal's version, which carries the title "Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures", lacks several terminal pages dealing largely with 9/11 theories outside the U.S.. References to pages below are for the easily downloaded online article for those who want the entire article. The actual Journal is scarce and requires $41 for a download.)

While the article's title suggests conspiracy theories broadly, the 9/11 Truth Movement is the paper's focus, and it reveals substantial concern regarding that Movement's ongoing advance. Particularly ominous is that the authors, who use "theorists" and "extremists" interchangeably, limit their focus "to potentially harmful theories". To whom, one might wonder, would the 9/11 Truth Movement, so "worrisome" for the authors, be harmful? And why do the authors consider the 9/11 Truth Movement such a "serious threat" that it should be "broken up or at least muted by government action"? (pg 21)

The authors contend that conspiracy theorists suffer from "cognitive blunders" and "crippled epistemology". Using psycho-philosophic parlance they are saying those failing to accept the official story of the 9/11 Commission, leading members of which admitted it was "set up to fail", cannot think straight. But the "theorists/extremists" they wish to censure include by now thousands of physicists, architects and engineers using only physical facts and data; substantial figures in theology and philosophy applying elementary logic; military, political and intelligence personnel from all over the world with lifetimes of experience in how the system -- including its underbelly -- functions.

So, what is proposed? "Practically speaking", the authors write, "government might do well to maintain a more vigorous counter-disinformation establishment." (pg 19) They recommend that government officials respond "to more rather than fewer conspiracy theories [which] has a kind of synergy benefit: it reduces the legitimating effect of responding to any one of them, because it dilutes the contrast with unrebutted theories." (pgs 15, 29) Such advice assumes that all theories -- or aspects of a single theory -- are essentially equal in validity or lack of validity -- an odd position for legal minds supposedly sensitive to fine distinctions. But that would not matter when the point is simply to defeat citizen efforts.

More menacing, however is that the authors suggest "planting doubts [to] undermine the crippled epistemology [through] cognitive infiltration" of groups by governmental agents or by forces appointed by government. (pgs 3, 14, 15, 22, 29)"Government agents (and their allies)", they write, "might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories." In light of such proposals for dealing with citizens seeking truth, that Cass Sunstein is "one of America's leading constitutional scholars" (See above link to the White House announcement) is appalling.

The authors contend that "crippled epistemology" arises from the "sharply limited number of (relevant) informational sources" used by conspiracy theorists, this making the theories "especially hard to undermine or dislodge; they have a self-sealing quality, rendering them particularly immune to challenge." (pg 3) This drips with irony, for information coming from the expertise found within the 9/11 Truth Movement, while both extensive and diverse, has been limited only through censoring by the U.S. Government. What's more, there has rarely been a "theory" more resistant to opposing information -- more absolutely and officially "self-sealing" -- than the mockery that is the official 9/11 Commission Report.

As one reads through the Sunstein/Vermeule article it is clear that the authors, while aware of the now infamous Popular Mechanics article -- that absurd prop for the official governmental account (pg 18) -- have carefully avoided any relevant material from within the mountain of easily available credible information that would dash their thesis. For academics ostensibly wedded to truth this is shameful.

Consider from page 20 the following misrepresentation of the position of the 9/11 Truth Movement:

"After 9/11, one complex of conspiracy theories involved American Airlines Flight 77, which hijackers crashed into the Pentagon. Some theorists claimed that no plane had hit the Pentagon; even after the Department of Defense released video frames showing Flight 77 approaching the building and a later explosion cloud, theorists pointed out that the actual moment of impact was absent from the video, in order to keep alive their claim that the plane had never hit the building. (In reality the moment of impact was not captured because the video had a low number of frames per second."

This is a classic "straw man" set up to be knocked down. The intensely grainy few frames made available (of the many certainly detailed security camera records that exist) were not adequate to identify Flight 77. But in this instance it is beside the point anyway, because 'moment of impact on the video' was never a central issue in a case consisting of an abundance of strong evidence. The authors certainly know this as they seek to create the false impression that 'moment of impact on the video' is the centerpiece of the 9/11 Truth Movement's case, an impression the authors can then refute.

And the authors continue:

"Moreover, even those conspiracists who were persuaded that the Flight 77 conspiracy theories were wrong folded that view into a larger conspiracy theory. The problem with the theory that no plane hit the Pentagon, they said, is that the theory was too transparently false, disproved by multiple witnesses and much physical evidence. Thus the theory must have been a straw man initially planted by the government, in order to discredit other conspiracy theories and theorists by association."

This convolution is rife with falsehood. Witnesses have been conflicting, but of greater import is that abundant physical evidence actually points in a direction contrary to the official narrative. After creating one straw man, the authors cite (manufacture?) "conspiracists" who, once convinced that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, now see the contrary view as a government-sponsored straw man. Sunstein and Vermeule thereby create scenarios that carefully avoid the considerable evidence countering the government's explanation of 9/11.

The authors flit between conspiracy theory generally and 9/11 specifically, in this way suggesting connections that denigrate the 9/11 Truth Movement through association with people "mentally ill and subject to delusions" (pg 9), "conspiracy entrepreneurs -- who profit directly or indirectly from propagating their theories" (pg 9), and, most disturbingly, Holocaust deniers. (pgs 7,8) While some have sought to connect the 9/11 Truth Movement with Holocaust denial (e.g., the former head of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, who made the association twice in the same interview -click here)there is no such relation either in the inclination of researchers, or in the thought processes involved, or in fact. One suspects therefore that such association is simply one more attempt to silence a movement that is alarming certain powers because if its seemingly unstoppable growth.

Readers of the article are guided toward a false impression that 9/11 conspiracy theories outside the U.S. are virtually limited to the Arab -Muslim world. The authors write that it is likely "that the virulence of conspiracy theorizing in Muslim nations has a great deal to do with social cascades and group polarization, and with weak civil liberties and lack of a robust market for ideas in many of those nations." (pg 26) As to the prospect that elements of the U.S. Government might be involved in such an incident as 9/11, the authors maintain that for many people in Islamic nations "it is far from jarring to believe that responsibility lies with the United States (or Israel)". (Parenthesis around "or Israel" in the original, pg. 10)

The implication that the 9/11 Truth Movement outside the U.S. is fundamentally a Muslim/Arab phenomenon is an extraordinary lie of omission, because the 9/11 Truth Movement is indeed global and incorporates experts of every sort, including scientists and demolition specialists, a past president of Italy and even the Russian equivalent of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. And what, one might ask, of the protests at European Union Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium that have drawn demonstrators from all over Europe? What of the open discussions on the very floor of the Japanese Parliament that reveal agreement with the 9/11 Truth Movement?

"Extra resistance to correction through simple techniques", the authors write, "is what makes conspiracy theories distinctly worrisome." (pg 5) "Worrisome"? Their concern is mirrored by Philip Zelikow, who was appointed by Bush to direct the 9/11 Commission and who became the primary instrument in the prevention of information flow to the Commission, and hence its planned failure as declared by Commission members. They quote Zelikow thus: "Our worry is when things become infectious .....".



Bill Willers is emeritus professor of biology, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh now living in Middleton, WI. He is founder of Superior Wilderness Action Network (SWAN) and editor of Learning to Listen to the Land and Unmanaged Landscapes, both from Island Press.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/AN-ATT ... 3-909.html

http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/AN-A ... 3-909.html

[elfismiles]

Big Brother Propaganda Strikes Back At Oldest Enemy
Debbie Morgan, staff writer www.TakeBackWashington.com, February 12, 2010

An article has been making its way around the Internet, and followers of the United States Constitution are gasping for breath at the thought of the message. According to a political Internet blog, we need to be a bit concerned with one of Obama’s advisors and what he has in store for the dissenting American population. But, are the “threats” posed by big brother elitists really “new” or are they echoes from the past whispering softly of the nightmares to come.

The offensive news is centered around a paper written by Cass Sunstein entitled “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures.” Sunstein suggests that in order to silence the escalation of conspiracy theories in America the federal government should train operatives to infiltrate neighborhood groups and Internet chat rooms for the purpose of spreading disinformation, undermining the groups efforts, and planting doubts in the minds of concerned Americans.

In Cass Sunstein’s own words, “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.”

At this point, I think it only right to learn a bit about Cass Sunstein. Sunstein, first of all, is the current administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. According to a Glenn Greenwald article, in his current position, one of the areas Sunstein will be responsible for is “overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality and statistical programs.” Secondly, he teaches/has taught Constitutional, Administrative and Environmental law at places like Harvard, Columbia and the University of Chicago. Thirdly, and maybe most importantly, Sunstein is a long time friend of President Obama.

Why, you ask, is this important? Greenwald made it rather clear, “This isn't an instance where some government official wrote a bizarre paper in college 30 years ago about matters unrelated to his official powers; this was written 18 months ago, at a time when the ascendancy of Sunstein's close friend to the Presidency looked likely, in exactly the area he now oversees.”

Sunstein’s “conspiracy theory” paper, written in 2008, deals with the infiltration of chat rooms as well as social and other group meetings, whether online or in person. Their definition of “false conspiracy theories” is those theories that suggest that powerful people have been directly involved in certain affairs and have managed to keep their role in these affairs “secret” from the public’s eye.

Interestingly enough, in his The Power of Dissent article from 2003, Sunstein, while talking about the failures at NASA with regard to the Columbia crash, seizes the opportunity to “speak” to all organizations about the good that comes from dissent. In the very first sentence he says we “need dissenting opinions” stating later in the article that, without them, people generally end up “believing a more extreme version” of what they believed before.

In September 2003, Sunstein was the guest speaker at a Carnegie Council Meeting…the topic? Why Societies Need Dissent. Program coordinator Joanne Myers, in her introduction of Sunstein, pointed out that in his latest work of the same title he “casts new light on the fundamental importance of freedom of speech and shows us that nations are far more likely to prosper if they allow their citizens the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and dare to challenge the unchallengeable.”

The pieces, all authored by the same man, clearly contradict each other. Is Sunstein, then, saying that dissent is a GOOD thing during the Bush administration, where MANY questioned what Bush and his administration were up to, but NOT during the Obama administration? And, remember, when Bush got caught at the “infiltration tactics” the political left railed against him for it, yet now we have something very similar being proposed from a prominent person in the Obama administration, yet almost no one seems to be bothered by it or even talking about it.

My proposition is this: Sunstein is spewing forth the same old worn out tactics, but under a new disguise…and the died-in-the-wool Democrats, as well as others, are buying it hook, line and sinker as if it were something of a great revelation to be beheld!

Greenwald states that there is no proof that the program has been installed…but there is no need to “install it” because it is not a new program. What the suggested program IS is business as usual. The Bush administration, certainly guilty of “cognitive” infiltration, weren’t the first to employ these kinds of Anti-First Amendment tactics. In fact, the new film Camp FEMA brought to our attention that “over the course of four Presidential administrations, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover ordered FBI agents to ‘expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize’ the activities” of different organizations. The narrator in the film goes on to say that ”the purpose of the FBI’s counterintelligence program was a series of covert, and often illegal programs, conducted by the United States government and aimed squarely at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States.” (Emphasis mine)

So, while the newer Sunstein paper is disturbing, it isn’t new…it is a regurgitation of something VERY old. J Edgar Hoover led the FBI for 48 years and died in 1972! Again, is Sunstein really try to pass his ideas off as a new tactic or is he thinking of resorting to something very old?

Something else pointed out in the Lewis/Franchi film is that in the book War at Home, author, and attorney, Brian Glick outlines the four methods used by the FBI’s CoIntelPro: infiltration, psychological warfare, harassment through the legal system, and extralegal force and violence. The Sunstein paper seems to echo some of these egregious practices, but his reasoning is simple…if the government officials are “well-intentioned” then it’s okay. What if ALL of the former administrations thought their actions were “well-intended?” Or maybe we should ask another question. Will the double standards and deception ever end?

As for “conspiracy theories,” Sunstein, as well as right-winger Sean Hannity and former Clinton buddy Dick Morris, has had to concede that some of these formerly “insane” or “fringe” theories have actually been proven true. Yet, even realizing that some of what they consider “conspiracy theories” are true, he believes it’s okay for the government to “cognitively infiltrate” the groups perpetrating these “theories.” Greenwald states that “The most chronic and dangerous purveyors of ‘conspiracy theory’ games are the very people Sunstein thinks should be empowered to control our political debate,” the government and people like himself.

So, should we be afraid of the power and influence wielded by Cass Sunstein on a President that is his close friend, but more importantly, the President that he advises? In light of how long this type of behavior has been going on in the United States, I’d say we’d be better served to be leery of ANYONE who takes it upon “his” administration to exhibit any such behavior at all!

It is time that we face some hard facts. Our government does not represent the “common people” that make up the grandest vision of what the United States of America should be and our government certainly does not have the best interest of those that elected them at heart. Obama promised many things, but most of all, he promised change. We all hoped for more, but for the most part, it is what we feared it would be, the same ole same ole. Sunstein’s paper is interesting, but, again, nothing new.

So, what do we do? How do we take back what rightfully belongs to We-the-People? Isn’t it time we did something? Many of us have had it with politics as usual. We want our government back. The phrase “Don’t Tread On Me” comes to mind, with a bunch of people waving Gadsden Flags standing in the background!

There is something that can be done. Charles Key has started a firestorm across the country with his State’s Rights Initiative. Other states are following suit and still other state legislators are being prodded to do the same by their respective constituents. If our Federal government won’t hear us, we have no choice. We have to take back our local governments…Exercise our Tenth Amendment rights…isn’t that why it was put into our Bill of Rights, to protect us from a tyrannical, over-reaching government? Where is YOUR line in the sand?


Endnotes:

For more information, please visit www.TakeBackWashington.com

Obama confidant's spine-chilling proposal

Cass Sunstein wants the government to "cognitively infiltrate" anti-government groups
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn ... print.html


Got Fascism?
Obama Advisor Promotes 'Cognitive Infiltration'
http://www.takebackwashington.com/artic ... ation.html
http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/ ... motes.html


The Power of Dissent
All organizations need it. Are you listening, NASA?
http://articles.latimes.com/2003/sep/17 ... sunstein17

Why Societies Need Dissent
http://www.cceia.org/resources/transcripts/1030.html
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/SUNWHY.html

Federal Bureau of Investigation: Hoover
http://www.fbi.gov/libref/directors/hoover.htm

White House Office Of Management and Budget
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg_administrator/

Hannity Morris Agree with Conspiracy People About New World Order
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wH5YqsuZiw

Camp FEMA
www.CampFEMA.com

Don’t Tread On Me
www.DontTreadOnMeMovie.com

[DrVolin]

Some days I wish the no-planers would stop trying to help.