The CIA Created the Label 'Conspiracy Theorist' To Combat Questions on its Role in the Kennedy Assassination — Here's the Memo

The CIA was concerned that not enough Americans were buying into the report on the assassination of president John F. Kennedy issued by the Warren Commission. So the CIA issued a memo on how to deal with the "conspiracy theories" (a term coined by the CIA) on JFK's murder. A close look at the 1967 memo suggests that pundits in mainstream media are still using talking points that come almost verbatim from that CIA memo. Here's one of the most overused CIA-provided talking points: "Claim that it would be impossible for so many people to keep quiet about such a big conspiracy." — Sound familiar?

Photo by Lucie Höhler.

By WTStaff

[...]

In 1967, the CIA Created the Label “Conspiracy Theorists” … to Attack Anyone Who Challenges the “Official” Narrative

Conspiracy Theorists USED TO Be Accepted As Normal

Democracy and free market capitalism were founded on conspiracy theories.

The Magna Carta, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and other founding Western documents were based on conspiracy theories. Greek democracy and free market capitalism were also based on conspiracy theories.

But those were the bad old days …Things have now changed.

The CIA Coined the Term Conspiracy Theorist In 1967

That all changed in the 1960s.

Specifically, in April 1967, the CIA wrote a dispatch which coined the term “conspiracy theories” … and recommended methods for discrediting such theories. The dispatch was marked “psych” – short for “psychological operations” or disinformation – and “CS” for the CIA’s “Clandestine Services” unit.

The dispatch was produced in responses to a Freedom of Information Act request by the New York Times in 1976.

The dispatch states:

2. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization.

The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.

3. Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the [conspiracy] question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active addresses are requested:

a. To discuss the publicity problem with and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors) , pointing out that the [official investigation of the relevant event] made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by … propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation.

b. To employ propaganda assets to and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (II) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories.

4. In private to media discussions not directed at any particular writer, or in attacking publications which may be yet forthcoming, the following arguments should be useful:

a. No significant new evidence has emerged which the Commission did not consider.

b. Critics usually overvalue particular items and ignore others. They tend to place more emphasis on the recollections of individual witnesses (which are less reliable and more divergent–and hence offer more hand-holds for criticism) …

c. Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States, esp. since informants could expect to receive large royalties, etc.

d. Critics have often been enticed by a form of intellectual pride: they light on some theory and fall in love with it; they also scoff at the Commission because it did not always answer every question with a flat decision one way or the other.

f. As to charges that the Commission’s report was a rush job, it emerged three months after the deadline originally set. But to the degree that the Commission tried to speed up its reporting, this was largely due to the pressure of irresponsible speculation already appearing, in some cases coming from the same critics who, refusing to admit their errors, are now putting out new criticisms.

g. Such vague accusations as that “more than ten people have died mysteriously” can always be explained in some natural way

5. Where possible, counter speculation by encouraging reference to the Commission’s Report itself. Open-minded foreign readers should still be impressed by the care, thoroughness, objectivity and speed with which the Commission worked. Reviewers of other books might be encouraged to add to their account the idea that, checking back with the report itself, they found it far superior to the work of its critics.

Here are screenshots of part of the memo:

Summarizing the tactics which the CIA dispatch recommended:

• Claim that it would be impossible for so many people to keep quiet about such a big conspiracy


• Have people friendly to the CIA attack the claims, and point back to “official” reports


• Claim that eyewitness testimony is unreliable


• Claim that this is all old news, as “no significant new evidence has emerged”


• Ignore conspiracy claims unless discussion about them is already too active


• Claim that it’s irresponsible to speculate


• Accuse theorists of being wedded to and infatuated with their theories


• Accuse theorists of being politically motivated


• Accuse theorists of having financial interests in promoting conspiracy theories

In other words, the CIA’s clandestine services unit created the arguments for attacking conspiracy theories as unreliable in the 1960s as part of its psychological warfare operations.

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False Flags Not a 'Conspiracy Theory': Presidents, Prime Ministers, Congressmen, Generals and Cops ADMIT to False Flag Terror

Not Theory … Admitted Fact

By Washingtonsblog
There are many documented false flag attacks, where a government carries out a terror attack … and then falsely blames its enemy for political purposes.

In the following instances, officials in the government which carried out the attack (or seriously proposed an attack) admit to it, either orally or in writing:

(1) Japanese troops set off a small explosion on a train track in 1931, and falsely blamed it on China in order to justify an invasion of Manchuria. This is known as the “Mukden Incident” or the “Manchurian Incident”. The Tokyo International Military Tribunal found: “Several of the participators in the plan, including Hashimoto [a high-ranking Japanese army officer], have on various occasions admitted their part in the plot and have stated that the object of the ‘Incident’ was to afford an excuse for the occupation of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army ….” And see this.

(2) A major with the Nazi SS admitted at the Nuremberg trials that – under orders from the chief of the Gestapo – he and some other Nazi operatives faked attacks on their own people and resources which they blamed on the Poles, to justify the invasion of Poland.

(3) Nazi general Franz Halder also testified at the Nuremberg trials that Nazi leader Hermann Goering admitted to setting fire to the German parliament building in 1933, and then falsely blaming the communists for the arson.

(4) Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev admitted in writing that the Soviet Union’s Red Army shelled the Russian village of Mainila in 1939 – while blaming the attack on Finland – as a basis for launching the “Winter War” against Finland. Russian president Boris Yeltsin agreed that Russia had been the aggressor in the Winter War.

From The JFK Assassination to 9/11: Network TV and Government-Sanctioned Lies

Williams reporting from Iraq with Tom Brokaw in 2003.

By Prof. James F. Tracy
NBC suspended Brian Williams for six months on February 10. The fashionable anchor admitted to lying about being involved in a life-threatening combat situation while reporting in Iraq over a decade ago. Yet a survey of Williams’ career indicates that this isn’t the first time he’s been dishonest with the American people.

In one important instance while broadcasting from Dallas Texas on November 22, 2013, Williams began the NBC Nightly News by remarking,“We’re in Dealey Plaza just across from the sixth-floor window in the Texas School Book Depository building where three shots were fired fifty years ago today that changed the course of American history.”

The statement flies in the face of honest reportage by upholding the powerful myth devised by the Warren Commission that former US Marine and intelligence operative Lee Harvey Oswald was the principal assassin in President Kennedy’s murder.

“In this city where there are still so many reminders of that day half a century ago,” Williams continues, “not just Dealey Plaza itself and the School Book Depository building, but also the Texas theater where Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested that afternoon.”[1]

The American public can now point to overwhelming evidence presented by attorney Mark Lane, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, the US Congress, and a host of other researchers indicating that the “three shots fired from the Texas School Book Depository” was a CIA-contrived conspiracy theory. In fact, at least three sharpshooter teams killed Kennedy and wounded Texas Governor John Connally in Dealey Plaza in a triangulated crossfire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TluFxKf9xQ

A few minutes into the November 22, 2013 broadcast Williams segues to an outtake from a 1963 broadcast with NBC’s David Brinkley, where Brinkley states:

“The essential facts are these: President Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas. He was shot by a sniper hiding in a building near his parade route. He was dead within an hour. Lyndon Johnson is President of the United States.”[2]

Williams returns after the Brinkley soundbite to further emphasize the historical fallacy of a lone assassin, as if five decades of research and thousands of declassified government documents have not put the unfounded notion to rest. “[F]rom November 22, 1963, just over six hours after the shots were fired from the building here behind us, meaning this place and this city and our country would never be the same.”[3]

Thus not only is Williams perpetuating a lie—one might safely conclude that he is also a conspiracy theorist. And, he is among the world’s most famous journalists working at a major US broadcast network that intends to bring him back after a six month hiatus for “a second chance.”[4]

Seahawks Blew The Superball Over 'Image': Wanted an 'All-American' Type To Win MVP — Not the 'Rebel'

The Seahawks and the NFL hierarchy would have preferred quaterback Russell Wilson win the game and get the MVP, so the theory goes.  They preferred a nice-guy-pretty-boy like Wilson over a rebel like Marshawn Lynch, who ignores the media, says things like "Shout out to all the real Africans" during press conferences, and has a nickname like "Beastmode." The Seahawks were willing to risk a Superbowl win for good public relations. They gambled and lost.

The "nice guy" Russell Wilson (left) and the "rebel" Marshawn Lynch.

 

The Conspiracy Theory Surrounding The Seahawks’ Last Play

By Dave Zirin
...In the stunning aftermath, after that unfathomable decision, conspiracy theories sprouted like Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors. I’m not talking about Twitter-theories from deep-thinking eggs, or any cris de coeur from devastated Seahawks fans. I’m talking about people inside Seattle’s own locker room. I’m talking about texts I received from mainstream writers who don’t want to deal with the backlash that would come with writing it up.

The theory goes something like this. Russell Wilson is your young clean-cut God-fearing media-perfect quarterback. If one was creating a superstar face to market for the twenty-first century, chances are they would look, sound and basically be Russell Wilson. He’s Derek Jeter with a Bible, someone who comes across like he has never spoken out of turn in his entire life.* Marshawn Lynch is… Marshawn Lynch, and if you haven’t figured out what that means after the past two weeks, then you haven’t been paying attention.

The theory goes that there were major financial, public relations and football reasons for Russell Wilson and not Lynch to be the one who ends the game in glory. If he throws that touchdown for the victory, Wilson is almost certainly the Super Bowl MVP. He gets the commercial. He gets to stand with the commissioner. And oh, by the way, he also gets his new contract, one that will fasten his prime, at only 26 years old, to the Seattle franchise. Marshawn Lynch is also due a new contract. Marshawn Lynch, had he punched that ball over the goal line, would probably get to be the one handed the MVP trophy. Marshawn Lynch also maybe gets on the mic to say Lord knows what.

[...]

I contacted someone inside that locker room and they said to me as if on repeat: “Can’t believe it. We all saw it. They wanted it to be Russ. They didn’t want Marshawn to be the hero.”

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"SHUT UP Conspiracy Theorist!": The Various Methods of Censoring and Suppressing Ideas the Power Elite Doesn't Like (Video)

A man who dared to raise the 'wrong' questions at a press conference gets ejected. (Screen capture from YouTube video)

________________

Censorship and Orwellian “Double Think” — That's Official Public Discourse in America

The publicity of the unspeakable ensures that, under penalty of de facto or formal censure, deference to official narratives will increasingly eclipse free inquiry and expression in the West.

Photo by rhobinn.

An infirmity once characterizing the past century’s most severe totalitarian regimes has now taken root in Western public discourse and practice, a process akin to Orwellian “double think” acting as a form of de facto censorship preempting consideration of major issues and events. This mindset is obliquely shared by a majority of professional journalists, academics, and public office holders—in short, those who represent and lead public opinion. Their collective publicity of the unsaid preserves and perpetuates existing belief systems and power relations. To be sure, there are self-evident injunctions for those straying from such unspoken protocols, including expulsion from this professional class.

By James F. Tracy
Once a state-endorsed narrative of a questionable event has been presented to and conveyed by the mainstream news media, it is almost invariably accepted without question by “Inner Party” members. Such silence is abetted by a mechanical allegiance to prevailing authority figures and institutional power. In possessing such a worldview one reflexively forfeits personal integrity to uphold the collective publicity of the unspeakable and an overarching faith in the given sociopolitical system’s artificial spontaneity. Alternative interpretations of such events by the laity can be dismissed out-of-hand as “conspiracy theories,” thereby further confirming the Party’s creed.

The publicity of the unspeakable ensures that, under penalty of de facto or formal censure, deference to official narratives will increasingly eclipse free inquiry and expression in the West.

The notion that one’s country is becoming a ruthless police state becomes clichéd, particularly with a lack of historical context. Extreme totalitarian regimes based on, for example, Marxist fundamentalism and unquestioning loyalty to the Party famously utilized internment and compulsory psychiatry to quell political dissidents and unorthodox speech. Yet in the US and elsewhere, objectively assessing the facts surrounding events such as the key political assassinations of the 1960s, the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building bombing, 9/11, or more recent mass-mediated terror events, is tantamount to political heresy and potential justification for state surveillance, interrogation, obligatory “medical” (psychiatric) treatment, and even a sort of asset confiscation in the form of reputational damage and job loss.

Such informal measures were brought against New Hampshire State Representative Stella Tremblay, who was compelled to resign from public office after she questioned the causes of the Boston Marathon bombing,[1] and similarly played out when this author questioned the official storyline of the Newtown Connecticut shooting in early 2013.[2]

The most recent example is New York state school teacher Adam Heller. Following the suspicious disclosure of his private instant messaging communications to another party where he raised questions regarding the Sandy Hook massacre and other dubious events vis-à-vis the legal purchase of two long guns, Heller was forced by local law enforcement, acting under probable direction of the FBI, to endure a 12-day inpatient psychiatric evaluation. Then, upon the conclusions of another assessment by a “forensic psychiatrist,” Mr. Heller was terminated from his tenured teaching position. The school teacher’s experience is an especially dangerous precedent; one in which the state, with the aid of psychiatry, has imposed forced institutionalization and severe monetary punishment for “thought crimes” in a fashion commonplace to Soviet Russia and similar police states.

“An individual in our country has basic civil rights, and [Heller’s] were fundamentally violated,” the former school teacher’s attorney, Michael Sussman observes. After being visited by the local police, Heller proceeded to the hospital and “thinks he’s getting some sort of physical checkup,” Mr. Sussman continues. After the checkup, hospital personnel direct Heller to the facility’s mental health unit. “For what purpose?” Heller responds. “You’re confused. You seem sick,” they advise.

Sussman maintains that Heller is neither confused nor sick.

This is Siberia in the United States! They keep him in the mental health unit for twelve days, and after twelve days they can find nothing wrong with him. He’s a cogent, bright, well-read, urbane young man. He’s in his mid-thirties. There’s nothing about him that’s peculiar—other than, as you’ll find out—perhaps from somebody’s point of view, some of his beliefs or explorations or considerations; the stuff that we hope people will engage in in their own intellectual curiosity.[3]

In a similar vein, on July 30, 2014 UK blogger Christopher Spivey was arrested on “suspicion of harassment” in a 2AM police raid on his Essex residence. A few days prior to his arrest Spivey posted an article on his site arguing that the May 2013 murder of British soldier Lee Rigby was a deception intended to incite anti-Islamic sentiment. Police refused to disclose what parties were subject to potential harassment. “Among Mr Spivey’s online supporters are David Icke, the former footballer and BBC Grandstand presenter who has become known for his conspiracy theories,” the Daily Mail reports.[4]

There are clear historical antecedents to such state extremism. In his treatise on psychiatry’s political deployment in the Soviet Union, for example, Russian author and political dissident Alexandr Podrabinek points to how a designation of mental illness was an especially effective means for the state to disallow nonconformist thoughts from the public realm while maintaining its own legitimacy. Those “who do not accept the lies and who are prepared to suffer for the sake of the truth … are few,” Podrabinek observes, “but the regime fears them more than all the thieves, murderers, rapists and other criminals combined, for they are armed with the truth. As Shakespeare wrote, ‘Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just.’”[5]

Because the truth about the USSR must be suppressed both within and without, and since “trials make too much noise, and execution without a trial is too scandalous,” an ideal “solution” is “declar[ing] political opponents mentally ill. Indeed, who would take a schizophrenic’s resistance seriously?” Not unlike most Western psychiatric practitioners, Soviet doctors generally “designate[d] what they deem[ed] abnormal according to their unprofessional pseudo-standards: ‘mania of justice seeking,’ ‘Marxismomania,’ and the like.”[6]

Dissenters guilty of “agitation or propaganda” aimed at “Soviet authority” or with a like intent to “commit particular, especially dangerous crimes against the state” were routinely diagnosed as criminally insane. State clinicians comprising a “psychiatric commission” then relieved the accused of responsibility for their purportedly illegal acts, historians Sidney Bloch and Peter Reddaway explain. “Almost without exception, the court accepts the recommendation of the commission and the trial becomes a mere formality.” The defendant’s counsel as a matter of course argues for his client’s sanity against the commission’s judgment and without the aid of potentially countervailing evidence and opinion.[7]

In the spirit of such pseudo-scientific procedure, contemporary social scientists are closely aligned with Western countries’ severe police state policies and protocols seeking to address aberrant thought and expression. Alongside Cass Sunstein’s well-known proposal to “cognitively infiltrate” research and social communities harboring non-official narratives on complex events, similar postulations have filtered into the literature that approach “conspiracy theories,”[8] even using terms such as “inoculation” and “metainoculation” against such views.[9]

“Despite the psychological comfort afforded by conspiracy theories,” one recent study asserts, “its attitudes are typically maladaptive. Conspiracies distract public attention from other more pragmatically important political issues and prevent constructive approaches to whatever issues they do address. Additionally,” the paper’s literature review notes, “conspiracy theories ‘can have detrimental consequences: undermining confidence in government, contributing to extreme cynicism about the business and corporate sectors, and fueling dangerous extremist movements’’”[10]

The political assumptions and implications evident in such a preamble are stunning. Most significantly, its authors assume that certain reportage and observations emerging apart from official pronouncements and corporate media reportage–many of which appear in prominent online foreign and alternative news media–are of limited merit and may even be detrimental to the body politic. Like their Soviet counterparts, such social scientists invariably become part and parcel to the enforcement of what the state authorizes as “permissible” thought and discourse.

The state’s resort to psychiatry suggests a desperate move as non-sanctioned reports and analyses receive greater consideration than ever before via the internet. Citing a recent scholarly paper focusing on the contestation of such perspectives, political analyst Kevin Barrett recently observed, “[T]he negative stereotype of the conspiracy theorist–a hostile fanatic wedded to the truth of his own fringe theory–accurately describes the people who defend the official account of 9/11, not those who dispute it.”[11]

Still, as the foundations of civil society further erode to elite prerogatives under state auspices, false narratives remain foregrounded through the publicity of fear and quiescence augmented by corporate media disinformation and scientific authority. When such fictions take up residence in popular consciousness and memory the broader society travels down one way historical trajectories not of its own choosing. The prospect of counterpublics applying reason to known facts and evidence is the Inner Party’s greatest fear–one now being met with police state measures and phony science to subdue.

___________
Notes
[1] John Celock, “Stella Tremblay Resigns From New Hampshire Legislature,” Huffington Post, June 20, 2013.
[2] John Jaschik, “Reprimand for a Blog,” Inside Higher Ed, April 12, 2013.
[3] Michael Sussman interviewed by Jim Fetzer, The Real Deal, June 25, 2014; Jim Fetzer, “1984 Arrives 30 Years Late: Teacher Fired for Questioning Sandy Hook,” Veterans Today, June 26, 2014.
[4] Stephanie Linning,” Blogger Arrested in 2AM Raid on His Home After Claiming Lee Rigby’s Murder Was an Anti-Islam Hoax,” Daily Mail, July 31, 2014.
[5] Alexandr Podrabinek, Punitive Medicine, Ann Arbor MI: Karoma Publishers, 1980, 4.
[6] Ibid., 5.
[7] Sidney Bloch and Peter Reddaway, Russia’s Political Hospitals: The Abuse of Psychiatry in the Soviet Union, London: Victor Gollancz, 1977, 103.
[8] See, for example, Special Issue: The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories, the British Psychological Society’s Psychology Post-Graduate Affairs Group Quarterly, September 2013.
[9] John A. Banas and Gregory Miller, “Inducing Resistance to Conspiracy Theory Propaganda: Testing Inoculation and Metainoculation Strategies,” Human Communication Research 39 (2013): 184-207.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Kevin Barrett, “New Study: Conspiracy Theorists Sane; Government Dupes Crazy, Hostile,” PressTV, July 12, 2014.

Mainstream Media Types Are Miffed That Man Called 'The New Face of Wall Street' Thinks 9/11 and the JFK Assassination Were 'Inside Jobs'

9-11 Memorial - Bayonne, NJ. (Photo by Jackie)

By Hamilton Nolan
Mark Gorton is a prominent financier and a respected entrepreneur. He founded the music sharing site Limewire, and he runs Tower Research, a famed high-frequency trading firm. Gorton also believes that the "ruthless" secret cabal that assassinated JFK and planned 9/11 could be coming to kill his family.

Mark Gorton does not have a reputation as a crackpot. Quite the opposite. He's been favorably profiled in the New York Times for his business acumen and charitable deeds. His experience as the head of Limewire—which disrupted the music industry and then lost a $100 million lawsuit as a result—was closely followed by the press. And when Michael Lewis's blockbuster new book about high frequency trading was published recently, prominent media outlets turned to Gorton to learn what HFT firms are really like. The Huffington Post even dubbed him "the new face of Wall Street." He is a very respected and very wealthy man.

RELATED STORY: The “Conspiracy Theory” Label: Powerful Tool of Media Disinformation and Political Discourse: Cognitive Infiltration for the Masses — Some Facts & Figures

This week, we were forwarded documents that Gorton was sending out to employees at Tower Research. These documents—embedded at the bottom of this post—are essays by Mark Gorton, laying out his theories on the secret high-level murderous criminal "Cabal" that is responsible for, among other things, the JFK and RFK assassinations, the presidential careers of the Bushes, Clinton, and Obama, the Oklahoma City bombing, the 9/11 plot, and the murder of countless witnesses, politicians, and journalists who sought to expose them, including Sen. Paul Wellstone and even Hunter S. Thompson. Everything, according to Gorton, has been an inside job.

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The “Conspiracy Theory” Label: Powerful Tool of Media Disinformation and Political Discourse: Cognitive Infiltration for the Masses — Some Facts & Figures

"Crazy Conspiracy Theory Banner" at Peak Tram, Hong Kong - Jan 18, 2014 (Photo by Martin Lewison)

On March 18, 2014 Cass Sunstein released his latest collection of essays, Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas.[1] Like his other works geared toward a mainstream readership, the prominent Harvard law professor, former Obama administration regulatory czar, and NSA advisor [2] points to numerous alleged dangers posed by even “rational people” who are susceptible to adopting “crippled epistemologies.” What Sunstein fails to explain throughout his most recent medley of gentle authoritarianism is how the “conspiracy theory” term has received vigorous promotion from the editorial practices of certain major corporate news media.

By James F. Tracy
“Conspiracy theory” is not merely a flippant or off-handed water cooler term, but rather a powerful tool of political discourse. “Deployed as a pejorative putdown,” political scientist Lance deHaven-Smith observes,

the label is a verbal defense mechanism used by political elites to suppress mass suspicions that inevitably arise when shocking political crimes benefit top leaders or play into their agendas, especially when those same officials are in control of agencies responsible for preventing events in question or for investigating them after they have occurred.[3]

Along these lines, “conspiracy theory” and its common variants, “assassination buff,” “crackpot,” “wacko,” and so on, were essentially interpolated into news reports and commentary in the late 1960s by CIA media assets as the agency maneuvered to bolster the Warren Commission’s “lone assassin” explanation of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

When confronted in 2012, Sunstein does not “remember very well” co-authoring a 2008 paper, “Conspiracy Theories” (the namesake of his most recent book) in which he suggested covert operations should be launched to manipulate the thinking of activists and organizers.

Only in the past forty years or so has the label become an especially salient discursive technique for channeling political dialogue and inquiry. From the late 1800s through the first half of the 1900s the phrase can seldom be found in news discourse. A search of the Historical New York Times database finds that “conspiracy theory” is used 30 times between 1870 and 1960, often in accounts of criminal court proceedings. Yet from 1960 to 1969 alone there are 46 instances of the term’s usage in Times articles. Since 1970, it is invoked in over 1,700 pieces, with a peak between 2000 and 2009 (728).[4]

Today the pejorative not only acts as a disciplinary measure–journalists and scholars alike fear such a trenchant smear–but also as a technique to shape information and analysis. It serves as a more-than-subtle way of saying, “Look here, not there,” thereby guiding readers and viewers to place their reasoning faculties in abeyance and adopt what are often uncritical and even misleading modes of substantiation and conclusion. While this phenomenon is clearly demonstrable in print news media, it is also widespread in US-based cable and broadcast news.

A LexisNexis search of news program transcripts for the dates March 1, 2011 to March 1, 2014 reveals 2,469 usages of the “conspiracy theory/theories” term. Probing the surveyed time span reveals CNN (586 transcripts) and MSNBC (382) as the foremost purveyors of the phrase, with Fox News (182) a distant third. The US government’s transcript service, US Federal News, comes in at fourth, suggesting persistent strategic usage of the label at federal government press conferences and similar functions to drive home official positions and dispel challenges to them. Programming on National Public Radio ranks fifth, with 115 instances.

The following is a breakdown of the cable or broadcast outlet/program referencing “conspiracy theory” or “conspiracy theories” in transcript text within the aforementioned three-year span.

CNN Transcripts - 586
Global Broadcast Database (local broadcast transcripts) - 416
MSNBC - 382
Fox News - 182
US Federal News - 144
National Public Radio - 116
Australian Broadcasting Corporation - 71
NBC News - 67
Congressional Quarterly Transcripts - 57
ABC News - 55
CTV TV (Canada) - 55
CBS News – 54
CNN International - 48
Imus Simulcast - 39
Financial Market Regulatory Wire - 31
PBS News Hour - 21
Bloomberg: Surveillance Show - 17
Congressional Quarterly Testimony - 16
The Charlie Rose Show - 15
Follow the Money - 14
Euro News - 13
Lou Dobbs Tonight – 12
Cavuto - 8

Rachel Maddow. (Photo by Paul Schultz)

To be more conclusive, the specific contexts in which the term is mobilized might be more fully examined and delineated. An argument may also be waged that this metric is not exactly proper given the dissimilar breadth of content produced by each outlet. After all, a 24-hour cable news channel such as CNN simply has far more “news hole” to fill than a daily one-hour broadcast like PBS News Hour or Charlie Rose.

Yet even here the variances are telling. For example, when comparing domestic CNN transcripts to those of the channel’s counterpart, CNN International, the former uses the term over twelve times as frequently. Such findings suggest the execution of a clear-cut editorial policy to fulfill certain propaganda-related ends–indeed, not unlike the Central Intelligence Agency’s usage of the term to combat alternative interpretations of President Kennedy’s assassination.

Along these lines, further examination of the data sample distinguishes how even news personalities’ bylines are correlated with frequent employment of the “conspiracy theory” label. Searching within the same data set, transcripts with CNN Anderson Cooper’s byline possess the highest incidence of the expression (81), with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Al Sharpton tied for second place (77), and Piers Morgan (38) ranking third. CNN’s Erin Burnett and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes tie for fourth. Ostensibly conservative Fox News personalities Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity use the expression less frequently.

Anderson Cooper (CNN) - 81
Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) - 77
Al Sharpton (MSNBC) - 77
Piers Morgan (CNN) - 38
Erin Burnett (CNN) - 31
Chris Hayes (MSNBC) - 31
Sean Hannity (Fox News) - 29
Bill O’Reilly (Fox News) – 19

Anderson Cooper.
(Photo by Adam Glanzman)

With the exception of ABC (Australia) and CTV (Canada), all of the outlets are US-based, suggesting how the American population, well known for its limited historical comprehension and political sophistication, is expressly targeted with repeated usage of the “conspiracy theory” phrase. A population relying on sensation, caricature, and hearsay to understand national and world affairs has already forsaken its freedom. It is perhaps ironic that CNN and MSNBC in particular cater to audiences that see themselves as open-minded and “liberal”–indeed, the opposite of cunning technocrats such as Sunstein. At the same time, if these two networks’ continually depressed ratings are any indication, the public is becoming more and more skeptical of how it is being patronized.[5]

A most profound political act any individual can undertake may involve adopting a basic regimen of intellectual self-defense that would include an increased awareness of the “conspiracy theory” label itself and a resolve to assess the term’s utilization vis-á-vis the context in which it is employed, in an effort to better determine what it seeks to obscure, legitimate, and redirect attention to.

______________________
Notes
[1] Cass Sunstein, Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014.
[2] “America’s Joseph Goebbels to Serve on NSA Oversight Panel,” Liberty Blitzkrieg, August 25, 2013.
[3] Lance deHaven-Smith, Conspiracy Theory in America, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013, 9.
[4] See also deHaven-Smith, 126-131.
[5] “Key Indicators in Media & News,” Pew Research Journalism Project, March 26, 2014.

Reprinted with permission from Center for Research in Globalization.

The Boston Bombing: There's Something Very Wrong with the Official Story About the Boston Bombings - And Big Media Won't Tell You

The Boston Bombers: Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. There's something "missing"
from the Boston bombing story. But the FBI and members of big media won't say a
word.

"There are gaping holes in the story about the largest terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11"

Stop and think about it for a moment. We have the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Time Magazine, Newsweek, NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS and MSNBC, just to name a few.  Then there's the myriad of websites from conservative to progressive. Taken together these "news organizations" have millions of dollars at their disposal and can field hundreds of professional investigators and journalists to independently look into this and any other story.  But they don't.  The question is: Why don't they? The answer seems simple enough: The big media outlets are often owned by members of the very same clique that would be the subject of any investigation. And  big-time journalists are not going to risk their cushy jobs and positions on the "big stage" by chasing a story that might seriously challenge power.  So they sit in silence and watch innocent people die while they help perpetuate the super lie that passes for "freedom and democracy" in America.

By Russ Baker
An exclusive WhoWhatWhy investigation has found serious factual inconsistencies in accounts provided by the only witness to the alleged confession of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.

Why does this matter? Because this witness is the sole source for the entire publicly accepted narrative of who was behind the bombing and its aftermath—and why these events occurred.

RELATED STORY: Compilation of FBI Synthetic Terrorism - With Prologue, Compendium, Epilogue & Notes

In case we’ve forgotten how convoluted and murky the story initially seemed, let’s recall how:

-Tamerlan Tsarnaev, on a US security watch list since 2011 after the Russians provide a warning to American intelligence, goes overseas and allegedly exhibits further problematic behavior.

-In April, 2013, a savage attack is unleashed at the Boston Marathon, disrupting an iconic American event. Innocent people lose limbs and lives, America is traumatized anew, and a large American city is “locked” down” while normal processes and procedures are abandoned. We are told that Tsarnaev and his younger brother are responsible for all this–and for the cold-blooded execution of a campus police officer several days later.

_______________

How does the 'Deep State' get away with murder? Because journalists in big media
and elected officials across the political spectrum play along,

as this video clip demonstrates.

From the new documentary, Counter-Intelligence.

_______________

Yet our sense of certainty that the Tsarnaevs did this—and did it alone, with no one else, including America’s security apparatus, knowing a thing—is actually dependent largely on the say-so of one person, one witness.

Thus, the problems we have uncovered with the witness’s testimony (as represented by law enforcement) now raise questions about almost everything concerning what has been described as the largest terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11.


Truth and Its Pants

As the classic saying goes, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” That is perhaps even more true in these days of Twitter and Facebook and instant blogging. When a big news story breaks, the first reports are often rife with misinformation based on a combination of innocent mistakes, sloppiness, conjecture, and poor communication. Yet it’s also true that during those first 24 hours pieces of inconvenient truth may emerge that will soon be denied or even suppressed as the messy facts get neatly fashioned into an “official story.”

Such was the case with the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy: sheriff’s deputies converging on the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas reported finding an entirely different type of gun than the one ultimately said to have been the murder weapon. And doctors at Parkland Hospital claimed initially that a shot had hit President Kennedy from the front, before they were told in no uncertain terms that they were mistaken, and a narrative formed around all the shots coming from behind—and only from the Depository.

Truth seekers know, from experience, to pay close attention to how a narrative changes in the first hours, days and weeks following an event of significance. And nowhere would that be truer than when the source of the changing story is the principal witness.

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Disinfo Wars: Alex Jones’ War on Your Mind

Jones' sensationalist tactics has consistently caused more damage than good to legitimate movements that stand in opposition to government repression and big media propaganda. When powerful people and big media want to "delegitimize" a belief or a movement, they need only suggest that Jones is associated with it.

Alex Jones. (Caricature: DonkeyHote)

Jones’ ability and pattern of delegitimizing controversial, yet evidence-based contingents of so-called truth movements through radicalization and guilt by association, is eerily analogous to the blueprints of various US Government programs– most notably COINTELPRO from the 1960s and ‘70s. More recently, this has also been the case regarding establishment efforts to discredit the Occupy Wall St. Movement. This article will explore the work of Alex Jones’ and the effects he has had on others who research similar controversial subjects, and how research into those very subjects comes to be viewed in the public once Jones is perceived as a spokesperson or figurehead.

by Nolan Higdon
In 1833, William Miller predicted the second coming of Jesus Christ in the year 1843. Only after his fourth failed prediction, each of which saw hundreds of thousands of followers turn out, did his followers abandon him. By this time, Miller had already absconded with copious amounts of their money, spent on his publications and for ascension robes that were supposed to prepare them for Jesus Christ’s arrival.1 A profiteer relying on distortion and unfulfilled predictions, contemporary radio personality and activist Alex Jones operates in the same mode as Miller. Instead of ascension robes, Jones profits from the fear and uncertainty he relentlessly peddles via DVDs, publications, books, a TV show, a radio show, and websites.

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