In the past year or so, we’ve seen several mass media outlets “reporting” on the popularity of conspiracy theories and of alternative news. However, in every case, the resulting article is not an objective report on a growing phenomenon but an all-out hit piece, bashing those who dare questioning the “official story” dictated by mass media with strong words and specific labels.

A recent article published on CNN entitled Still ‘paranoid’ after all these years does a great job at equating all those who use critical thinking before guzzling down the toxic drink that is mass media with all kinds of crazy. The word “paranoid” is used about ten times in the article as well as the words “panic”, “wingnut”, “lunatic”, “dupes”, “derangement”, “irrational”, “extremism”, “idiot”, “fearful” and “insecurity”.

Another way the article places the label of “crazy” on people who think outside of the TV box is by mixing ridiculous theories with those that are more credible in order to lump them together and to discredit everything that is not the “official story”. Yet another classic technique is to associate those who seek the truth with racism, terrorism and other scary -isms. A fourth way to discredit non-mainstream information is to equate those who write about alternative news and conspiracies as money-hungry crackpots. All of these techniques are in this CNN article.

One particular passage of the article is quite intriguing as it ridicules those who research extremely powerful organizations such as the Trilateral Commission.

“Yesterday’s paranoid types feared elite groups such as the Illuminati and the Masons. Today’s bogeymen include the members of the Rockefeller-founded Trilateral Commission and the politicians and financiers who attend the monied confab at Bohemian Grove and are suspected of mapping out the “new world order.”

Perhaps the author of the article forgot that the founder of CNN, Ted Turner, is a member of some of the most important “elite groups” in the world such as the Council of Foreign Relations and the Bilderbergs. He is known for having donated over a BILLION (that’s a thousand millions) dollars to the United Nations – the leading force working towards the creation of a New World Order. Furthermore, he is one of the most vocal advocates of massive depopulation, even going on record to saying that world population should be reduced to 2 Billion in the next hundred years (that’s a 70% reduction).

Here’s the CNN article.

Still ‘paranoid’ after all these years

We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are.” — Anais Nin

(CNN) — Ever have the feeling you’re being lied to by the news media, the authorities, the corporate world? That somebody — or something — is out to get you?

You’re not alone.

Welcome to 21st-century America.

Look around. Trust is hitting historic lows. Just a third of Americans have a favorable view of the federal government, a decline of 31% since 2002, according to the Pew Center for People and the Press. Gallup has Congress’ approval rating is in the low 20s, after nearing single digits last summer. And the news media aren’t much better off.

“Negative opinions about the performance of news organizations now equal or surpass all-time highs on nine of 12 core measures the Pew Research Center has been tracking since 1985,” a Pew report said.

Add in our wired, social media-addicted world, and rumors reign. You’ve heard them all, whether they involve the presidential candidates, global climate change or illegal immigration.

They’re our little open secrets. They give us the sense that we’re on to Them.

Opinion: What’s really at stake in election 2012

“It’s easier to be suspicious,” says Geoffrey Vaughan, a political science professor at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts. “There is something attractive in thinking that you know something, that you haven’t bought into the mass public opinion.”

That attitude is nothing new. In a famous 1964 essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” historian Richard Hofstadter traced what he called “the paranoid style” through American history. What he found was that a fearful strain of mistrust flows through the blood of the republic, whether it was 18th-century religious leaders worried about the Illuminati, politicians suspicious of immigrants or McCarthyites convinced of Communist infiltration.

Hollywood has dined out on these feelings for years: “The Manchurian Candidate,” “The Parallax View,” “Wag the Dog,” the TV series “The X-Files,” even the James Coburn comedy “The President’s Analyst” — all are based on the idea that some kind of secret, malevolent operation is going on behind the curtain.

It’s as American as apple pie — filled with razor blades.

Sure, like the stories about those razor blade-tainted apples, there are sometimes bits of truth within. More often, however, the truth is overwhelmed by panic and hyperbole.

Which is a problem, because fear and mistrust have real-life implications, especially in an election year like this one, where it has seeped into the body politic like acid.

To 17% of Americans, President Obama is a Muslim — and 65% of that group are “uncomfortable” with that. It’s not enough for many opponents to disagree with the president on the issues; he has been characterized as a socialist and even the Antichrist.

Mitt Romney’s had his own problems. During the Republican primaries, he struggled to attract evangelical voters who considered his Mormonism a “cult.” (It wasn’t until mid-October that the Rev. Billy Graham’s organization decided to remove that designation from its website.)

This election year, in fact, has been one for the books. Facts, apparently, don’t matter anymore. Both campaigns have earned “pants-on-fire” ratings from the fact-checking site Politifact; both sides have blithely ignored them and moved forward. After the Romney campaign was called out for some falsehoods, pollster Neil Newhouse responded, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”

Worse are the actual laws on the books based on some kind of perceived threat. Oklahoma banned courts from considering Islam’s Sharia law. (Oklahoma’s law has been temporarily blocked.) The Texas state Republican Party even created a platform opposing “critical thinking” in state schools, though a spokesperson was quick to point out that the platform regards “critical thinking” as another name for “outcome-based education” (which the platform criticizes as having “the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority”).

Paranoia isn’t on the fringe anymore, like it was in Hofstadter’s day. It’s now closer to the beating heart of the mainstream.

“The fringe has begun to blur with the base,” says John Avlon, author of “Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America.” As the title of Avlon’s book indicates, he’s concerned about this. “That’s the key dynamic, and that’s the key danger.”

The bogeymen of a new generation

Avlon, a former speechwriter for New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and a contributor to the Daily Beast and CNN, observes that one reason Hofstadter’s essay remains valuable is that it shows that in “every generation, there are enthusiastic dupes who are getting sold the same old snake oil.”

In Hofstadter’s time, the ultra-right John Birch Society received attention for its claims of communist conspiracies and elitist cabals. In our time, says Avlon, conservative talk show hosts give voice to these claims. “These are dog-whistle echoes of very old arguments — arguments that have been thoroughly discredited by history.”

It’s not just right-wingers who engage in this talk, he adds. During the George W. Bush administration, some commentators on the left were afflicted with what Avlon, borrowing a term from columnist Charles Krauthammer, calls “Bush Derangement Syndrome.” Left-wing opponents of the president called for his impeachment and compared him to Hitler.

Regardless of who sponsors them, these arguments keep following us. Almost 50 years ago, Hofstadter chronicled a handful of overlapping paranoid fears — the belief in an elite conspiracy that wants to run the world, the concern that immigrants and members of other religions will displace “real” Americans, and the idea that a fifth column is working to bring down the United States from within.

Those fears continue to emerge today. It’s no wonder there are calls to “take our country back,” with the implication that “back” was a golden age before the world went to hell.

Yesterday’s paranoid types feared elite groups such as the Illuminati and the Masons. Today’s bogeymen include the members of the Rockefeller-founded Trilateral Commission and the politicians and financiers who attend the monied confab at Bohemian Grove and are suspected of mapping out the “new world order.”

Or consider immigration. In the 1850s, the nativist American Party (also known as the Know-Nothings) formed over fear of the new immigrants — Irish and German — coming to the United States, allegedly stealing jobs. Today, there’s Arizona SB 1070, nicknamed the “show me your papers” law. Though parts of the law were shot down by the U.S. Supreme Court, other states have used it as a model, and immigrant suspicion is routinely in play — especially along the southern border. This despite studies that have shown that immigrants don’t take jobs away from U.S. citizens.

Even suspicion of an internal coup remains. In the 1950s, we had the Red Scare; today there are people claiming the coming of Sharia law; rumors about Agenda 21, a United Nations development initiative that has inspired fears of world government; and the always reliable anti-Semitism, whether it concerns the “Zionist media,” blame for 9/11 or a belief that Israel is pulling the strings of the U.S. government.

For Hofstadter, the “Paranoid Style” was an extension of two decades of work that promoted reason over emotion and critiqued America’s fondness for an idealized, agrarian past, says his biographer, Elizabethtown College history professor David S. Brown. By the time he wrote the essay, the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner was convinced that all those pesky extremists were a thing of the past. But he was well aware that consensus was fragile.

As Derek Arnold, a Villanova communications professor, observes: “You can almost see him as pretty prescient.”

‘Leaving rationality behind’

It’s certainly easy to fall under the spell of paranoia. Since the dawn of mankind, we have been clannish and tribal animals, wary of others, fused by emotional connections. In the modern world we create tribes beyond blood — like sports fans or, well, political parties.

The danger is that many people don’t develop the rationality to tamp down the emotion, says Dr. David Reiss, a San Diego-based psychiatrist who studies personality dynamics.

“It’s not so much that they’re paranoid in a clinical sense, but if they feel their needs are going to be met — or they’re connecting with someone powerful — they’re basically leaving rationality behind,” he says.

Then there’s another deeply human element: the attraction of the story.

“If it’s something that’s interesting and grabs your attention, regardless of your background, it’s appealing,” says Villanova’s Arnold. He mentions the theories about the Mayan calendar predicting catastrophe. “Look at the end-of-the-world stories we’ve been getting this year.”

Though much of the focus these days is on right-wing paranoia, both sides, as they get more extreme, look at their opposition as the enemy and hold on more tightly to their own beliefs, says Jonathan Haidt, a professor of moral psychology at NYU and the author of the recently published “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.”

“Extremism on either side leads to very predictable patterns of thinking and usage of fact,” he says. “Morality binds and blinds. As long as you’re on a team, you’ll have your own set of values and facts.”

Extremists on both sides often take leaps beyond the logical. They indulge in hyperbole: for the left, the right is engaged in a “war on women”; the right has talked about the left waging a “war on religion.” (After the massacre in Aurora, Colorado, Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert attributed the tragedy to “ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs.”)

Why don’t believers follow logic? Again, the mind’s fascination with patterns and groupings is to blame, says Assumption’s Vaughn: We use shortcuts to make decisions, often dictated by our biases.

Add to that our tribal instincts, and shades of gray are reduced to a black-and-white world.

“It’s something you can understand,” he says. Those who don’t see things the same way, he continues, are the deluded ones.

Cashing in

Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat and one of only two Muslims in Congress, has seen plenty of fear-mongering, whether it’s accusations that up to 81 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are communists or that Huma Abedin, a Hillary Clinton aide, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

He believes the accusations are tied to both demagoguery and paranoia — “there are people who have an appetite for conspiracy” — but undergirding it is something even more elemental in politics: money.

“It is lucrative,” he says. “As long as there is a financial payoff, and it also happens to feed their paranoia and thirst for conspiracy, it’s going to keep going — until the American people just totally reject it.”

Avlon, the “Wingnuts” author, agrees.

“People who listen to partisan media don’t appreciate that what they have taken to be a tribe of true believers is nothing more than a business plan,” he says.

Indeed, there is good money in playing to your audience. the more the audience buys into it, the harder it is to dislodge their beliefs.

Writer Charles P. Pierce laid out the rules in his indispensable book “Idiot America”: “1. Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings or otherwise moves units. 2. Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough. 3. Fact is that which enough people believe (and) Truth is determined by how fervently you believe it.”

No wonder the so-called mainstream media has trust issues. In the search for ratings and Internet traffic, it gives voice to the same fearful hyperbole found elsewhere in society — and often plays it for entertainment value. (Witness the rise of Donald Trump, political pundit and almost-candidate, whose regular proclamations headline the New York tabloids and are then repeated throughout cable news.) It’s the classic case of preying on our insecurities, points out Ari Kohen, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska.

“Like those teases for the 10 o’clock news: ‘What household product might be making you sick? Tune in at 10!’ It’s the same idea,” he says.

Throw in the echo chamber of right- and left-wing websites, and these claims are even harder to escape, particularly in what’s been described as “the post-truth era.”

“It’s almost as if everybody’s creating his or her own reality at this point,” says John Carroll, a Boston University communications professor and regular media commentator. “They can essentially construct an information environment that’s so self-reinforcing, and so exclusionary, that they don’t really have to consider any evidence that contradicts what they already believe.”

‘We’re in the danger zone’

American history has not been kind to the conspiracists. In general it has fought off their claims, laughed at their theories.

But there have been times when the suspicious have had a point. As the old saying goes, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

After all, the Soviet Union did infiltrate some U.S. agencies, and Julius Rosenberg really did deliver classified information. The CIA was instrumental in a number of coups. The FBI’s COINTELPRO program spied on domestic groups. Watergate revealed a tangle of Nixonian malfeasance. A handful of climate scientists did try to clamp down on dissent. (Their opponents have also worked together.) Finance industry workers did cover up bad loans and, more recently, fix the LIBOR rate.

All are “clear evidence,” says Fordham University professor Bruce Andrews, who has taught courses on conspiracies and covert activity, “of actual organized groups doing things.”

The dark currents can give a person pause.

“One of the reasons conspiracy theories have proliferated over the last half century is that they have so often been proven correct,” says Assumption’s Vaughan.

It may never hurt to have a healthy dose of skepticism. But, a willingness to accept — or immerse oneself in — mistrust has been shown to weaken civic structure in other cultures. Russia and some countries in the Middle East have suffered from a lack of transparency, along with great divides between the haves and have-nots. Those cultures also have long histories of conspiracy-mongering and little trust in their governments.

The United States was intended to be different.

“America’s ability to question and, if necessary, change our government made such (conspiracy-minded) thoughts here against the grain,” says Villanova’s Arnold.

Despite our weakened faith in government and institutions, the country chugs along. But what of the future? “I wish I could be optimistic, but I really can’t,” says Reiss, the San Diego psychiatrist. “There’s so much power behind making things destructive. It’s really in the service and to the advantage of the politicians on both sides to keep people in a somewhat scared state.”

“(Consensus) is not dead, but we’re in the danger zone,” says Avlon. “There are real costs to hyperpartisanship. Most importantly it becomes ultimately a threat to self-governance — it’s stopping us from being able to solve the serious problems we face.”

“Righteous Mind” author Haidt, however, sees a reason for hope — though not immediately.

We’re stuck for probably the next five years, he says. After that, events could intercede. We could face economic collapse; we could have total victory by one party. But the most intriguing, he observes, is the passage of generations.

“We went from the Greatest Generation, which was the most civic-minded because they fought World War II together … to the baby boomers, who were the worst at working together because their foundational experience was splitting apart to fight the left-right battle,” says Haidt. “We’ll soon be moving on to the millennial generation, which is marked by a reluctance to make moral judgments.”

That has its own drawbacks, he adds, “but some tolerance and reluctance to judge might be just what we need in the 2020s.”

Until then, however, there will be no golden age of understanding, no rebirth of trust. No, for now, we’re stuck with the system we have, the noise it creates, and the voices in our heads.

- Source: CNN

Before lecturing people about “credibility”, maybe the folks at CNN should look at their own reporting” in the past years. Here’s a prime example of it.

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The next defense authorization bill to be proposed by the American congress contains a not-so-publicized amendment that would legalize the use of propaganda on American citizens. The bill would indeed nullify an existing law that (supposedly) protects U.S. audiences from misinformation campaigns conducted by its own government. In other words, Americans could now be subjected to the hardcore, massively manipulative and disinformation-filled propaganda that is usually reserved for foreign countries such as Iraq. Yes, the American public is the new “enemy” to brainwash and the internet will be an important battlefield.

Readers of this site might ask: “Since when Americans were NOT subjected to propaganda?”. That is a true assessment.  Most of the articles on this site effectively describe how mass media products are filled with propaganda and disinformation that is communicated to the American public. The new bill would however legalize the process, making it official and out in the open. While propaganda in the United States was always somewhat covert and disguised as something else, the new bill apparently seeks to form an actual Orwellian Ministry of Truth, where propaganda is just part of daily business. If you believe that mass media is full of BS now…there’s apparently a lot more of it coming our way soon.

Here’s an article on the “propaganda” bill.

Congressmen Seek To Lift Propaganda Ban

Propaganda that was supposed to target foreigners could now be aimed at Americans, reversing a longstanding policy. “Disconcerting and dangerous,” says Shank.

An amendment that would legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences is being inserted into the latest defense authorization bill, BuzzFeed has learned.

The amendment would “strike the current ban on domestic dissemination” of propaganda material produced by the State Department and the independent Broadcasting Board of Governors, according to the summary of the law at the House Rules Committee’s official website.

The tweak to the bill would essentially neutralize two previous acts—the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987—that had been passed to protect U.S. audiences from our own government’s misinformation campaigns.

The bi-partisan amendment is sponsored by Rep. Mac Thornberry from Texas and Rep. Adam Smith from Washington State.

In a little noticed press release earlier in the week — buried beneath the other high-profile issues in the $642 billion defense bill, including indefinite detention and a prohibition on gay marriage at military installations — Thornberry warned that in the Internet age, the current law “ties the hands of America’s diplomatic officials, military, and others by inhibiting our ability to effectively communicate in a credible way.”

The bill’s supporters say the informational material used overseas to influence foreign audiences is too good to not use at home, and that new techniques are needed to help fight Al-Qaeda, a borderless enemy whose own propaganda reaches Americans online.

Critics of the bill say there are ways to keep America safe without turning the massive information operations apparatus within the federal government against American citizens.

“Clearly there are ways to modernize for the information age without wiping out the distinction between domestic and foreign audiences,” says Michael Shank, Vice President at the Institute for Economics and Peace in Washington D.C. “That Reps Adam Smith and Mac Thornberry want to roll back protections put in place by previously-serving Senators – who, in their wisdom, ensured limits to taxpayer–funded propaganda promulgated by the US government – is disconcerting and dangerous.”

“I just don’t want to see something this significant – whatever the pros and cons – go through without anyone noticing,”
“ says one source on the Hill, who is disturbed by the law. According to this source, the law would allow “U.S. propaganda intended to influence foreign audiences to be used on the domestic population.”

The new law would give sweeping powers to the government to push television, radio, newspaper, and social media onto the U.S. public. “It removes the protection for Americans,” says a Pentagon official who is concerned about the law. “It removes oversight from the people who want to put out this information. There are no checks and balances. No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false.”

According to this official, “senior public affairs” officers within the Department of Defense want to “get rid” of Smith-Mundt and other restrictions because it prevents information activities designed to prop up unpopular policies—like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Critics of the bill point out that there was rigorous debate when Smith Mundt passed, and the fact that this is so “under the radar,” as the Pentagon official puts it, is troubling.

The Pentagon spends some $4 billion a year to sway public opinion already, and it was recently revealed by USA Today the DoD spent $202 million on information operations in Iraq and Afghanistan last year.

In an apparent retaliation to the USA Today investigation, the two reporters working on the story appear to have been targeted by Pentagon contractors, who created fake Facebook pages and Twitter accounts in an attempt to discredit them.

(In fact, a second amendment to the authorization bill — in reaction to the USA Today report — seeks cuts to the Pentagon’s propaganda budget overseas, while this amendment will make it easier for the propaganda to spread at home.)

The evaporation of Smith-Mundt and other provisions to safeguard U.S. citizens against government propaganda campaigns is part of a larger trend within the diplomatic and military establishment.

In December, the Pentagon used software to monitor the Twitter debate over Bradley Manning’s pre-trial hearing; another program being developed by the Pentagon would design software to create “sock puppets” on social media outlets; and, last year, General William Caldwell, deployed an information operations team under his command that had been trained in psychological operations to influence visiting American politicians to Kabul.

A U.S. Army whistleblower, Lieutenant Col. Daniel Davis, noted recently in his scathing 84-page unclassified report on Afghanistan that there remains a strong desire within the defense establishment “to enable Public Affairs officers to influence American public opinion when they deem it necessary to “protect a key friendly center of gravity, to wit US national will,” he wrote, quoting a well-regarded general.

The defense bill passed the House Friday afternoon.

CORRECTION: The amendment under consideration would not apply to the Department of Defense, though the it is attached to a defense authorization bill.

- Source: Buzzfeed

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Is the internet rewriting history?

Osama Bin Laden is not dead; 9/11 was an inside job; and police were slow to tackle this summer’s rioters as an excuse to lock up a whole raft of young black men.

Conspiracy theories like these are nothing new; opposing views to the official line given by authorities are in fact crucial in exposing deceptions.

However, independent think tank Demos says that young people do not know how to navigate this information when it appears on the Internet.

“We have something like a Wild West on the internet,” says Jamie Bartlett, senior researcher at Demos.

“There’s a huge amount of very trustworthy, academic, good bits of journalism [on the internet], more than ever before, which is extremely liberating.

But at the same time, equal proportions of distortions, propaganda, lies, mistruths, half-truths and all sorts of rubbish. It can be very difficult, especially for younger people, to sort the wheat from the chaff.”

‘Trust’

As part of their research into the influence of the internet on young people, Demos teamed up with creative agency Bold for a workshop exploring digital literacy at a secondary school in Tower Hamlets, in East London.

Pupils were asked to rate various sources of information – the government, Twitter, the Guardian newspaper, their family – according to how much they trusted it. The results were telling.

Closest to the heading ‘Trust’ the pupils placed YouTube; somewhere near the heading ‘Distrust’, they placed the government.

As part of the exercise, the pupils were asked what kind of videos they had viewed online. A lot of discussion ensued about various conspiracy theories. All the pupils had seen videos about 9/11, but were not sure who had made them.

“Those ones are true,” said Aminul Islam, 16.

“There was a documentary, I forgot the name of the guy, but he presented evidence that 9/11 was an inside job. I saw it on the internet – I don’t know what website it was,” said Rizwan Choudhury, 16.

It is the same with news surrounding the death of Osama Bin Laden. Pupils said that they had found evidence showing that he was not killed when it was reported that he had been.

The pupils at this school are predominantly of Bangladeshi Muslim heritage, and stories relating to Muslim communities are a common theme in their internet research.

However, Demos say that this problem is not limited to one community, but is prevalent among deprived communities in general.
‘Digital literacy’

At another school session – this time at Shorefields Technology College in Liverpool, the class is more ethnically diverse. Videos raising questions about 9/11 are still the first examples of conspiracy theories to be discussed.

Some pupils are more sophisticated in their knowledge. They point out a need to double-check facts and sources and not take information directly from sites such as Wikipedia. But there is still confusion about the way the internet operates.

“I was searching on Google,” said pupil Faye Barkley.

“I just believed the first answer that came up, to be honest. I know I shouldn’t do it, but Google’s like a trusted website; it’s a lot of people’s home page and you just automatically put trust in it.”

Demos’ report into digital literacy brings together existing research alongside a new survey of 500 teachers across England and Wales.

The report says that students did not verify sources, had poor understanding of how search engines work, and were not good at differentiating between propaganda and accurate information.

“These are the skills now that are so central to education and to broader life for young people, but it’s just not getting taught enough.”

What is needed, according to Demos, is ‘digital judgement’. The think tank says it should be a core part of the curriculum, alongside functional skills that are already taught.

At Shorefields Technology College in Liverpool, teachers say that they are already trying to improve their pupils’ internet skills, placing emphasis on research and interpretation of information.

“We’re no longer a knowledge-based industry, we’re about developing the independent learning skills of students.”

Associate head teacher Larry Wilson says that he is very aware of the power of the internet, but argues that it should be embraced.

“The impact of the internet is colossal but we sometimes dwell too much on the negatives and not the fact that it’s been so liberating.”

“I don’t welcome that people will be taken down the garden path so we [teachers] have to skill ourselves up to ask the right questions as well.”

‘Revisionism’

There is certainly plenty of confusion about who or what to trust at the school in Tower Hamlets. The pupils have recently been watching videos and reading about links between government figures and the News of the World, leaving them ever unsure about who is telling the truth.

“Why should we trust the government when everything that is being broadcast on TV could be misleading us as well… what are we supposed to believe?” said Reema Begum, 16.

A tough question, and not one that anyone in the classroom could answer completely.

“A lot of the information on the internet is radical historical revisionism,” said Jamie Bartlett.

“Without a common base of history that we all understand and accept and agree upon it’s very hard for people to have a shared understanding of where we are now.”

- Source

I wrote above that this BBC report was “interesting” – not for its content – but for the way it treated the issue. It is a classic case of double-speak as described in the novel 1984 (WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH), where the definition of critical thinking is reversed. Critical thinking implies questioning the official version of a story, seeking alternate sources of information and processing everything to come to an independent conclusion. This is exactly what some of these young people have accomplished, yet the report concluded that they have not used critical thinking because they have believed sources that are not deemed trustworthy (not mass media). Instead of praising their resourcefulness, they are almost perceived as a threat.

There is no question that critical thinking and fact checking is absolutely necessary when researching information. There is indeed a lot of garbage and propaganda on the internet. But what about the #1 source of propaganda in the world: mass media? Why isn’t critical thinking towards the biggest information machine in the world being taught?

Let’s take this very report and apply some critical thinking to it. Who are the authors and what message are they trying to convey?

Logo of Demos: Keeping an "eye" on the people.

Demos is a think tank that is said to be “independent” but is, in reality, strongly connected with corporate media and the government. In fact, the Chair of Demos, Philip Collins was the Chief Speech Writer to the Prime Minister Tony Blair until 2007. As for the BBC, it is the biggest news network and is owned by…the Crown. So, chances are, the editorial view of these entities are “pro elite”.

How is this report treating “conspiracy theories” (I hate that term and I put it in quotes because that is the term used by the media)? Are they alternative explanations that deserve some attention or ridiculous stories invented by ignorant people?

At first, the little “theorists” are shown to be mostly Muslims, subtly implying that alternate views are usually accepted by those who naturally sympathetic to terrorists. The report then goes on to state that conspiracies are not only believed by Muslims but also poor people (and therefore not educated people).

“However, Demos say that this problem is not limited to one community, but is prevalent among deprived communities in general.”

Deprived communities?

The report closes with an odd statement from a Demos researcher:

“Without a common base of history that we all understand and accept and agree upon it’s very hard for people to have a shared understanding of where we are now.”

In other words, if the youth does not fully buy and agree with the official version of History – the one that was written by the elite – we won’t have the society we’re looking for. Is the report truly promoting critical thinking or the unquestioning acceptance of official propaganda?

The post UK Think Tank Wants School Teachers to Address “Conspiracy Theories” appeared first on The Vigilant Citizen.

“We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years.”

It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.”
- David Rockefeller, Bilderberg meeting 1991

Now that the cat is out of the bag, mass media have no choice but to report these meetings which, after all, include the world’s most powerful businessmen, politicians and intellectuals. However, instead of accurately reporting the activities of the event (i.e. the attendees, the topics discussed, etc.) the only articles referring to the meeting are condescending, borderline insulting, disinfo pieces such as this one from the BBC. The overall tone of the article screams out “non-objective propaganda”. Compare this article with the “25 Rules of Disinformation” described in this article and judge for yourself.

Some of the article’s features:

1. Repeated use of the term “conspiracy theorist”
2. Associating people who question the Bilderberg with terrorists groups such as the Hamas
3. Repeated use of the term “anti-semitism”
4. Associating people who question the Bilderberg with David Icke’s repitilian shape-shifters
5. Those who believe in “wacky cabals” (yes the word “wacky” was used) have psychological problems: they don’t even “trust their neighbours”

So enjoy what is nowadays called “journalism”.

Bilderberg mystery: Why do people believe in cabals?

Ordinary people can only guess at the goings-on at the meetings of the secretive Bilderberg Group, which is bringing together the world’s financial and political elite this week. Conspiracy theories abound as to what is discussed and who is there. Why, asks Tom de Castella?

The belief in secret cabals running the world is a hardy perennial. And on Thursday perhaps the most controversial clandestine organisation of our times – the Bilderberg Group – is meeting behind closed doors.

In the manner of a James Bond plot, up to 150 leading politicians and business people are to gather in a ski resort in Switzerland for four days of discussion about the future of the world.

Previous attendees of the group, which meets once a year in a five-star hotel, are said to have included Bill Clinton, Prince Charles and Peter Mandelson, as well as dozens of company CEOs.

First meeting in 1954, the aim was to shore up US-European relations and prevent another world war. Now under the group’s leadership of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and one-time EU vice president, Viscount Davignon, the aim is purportedly to allow Western elites to share ideas.

But conspiracy theorists have accused it of everything from deliberately engineering the credit crunch to planning to kill 80% of the world population. Longtime opponent and US radio host Alex Jones, heckled one meeting through a megaphone: “We know you are ruthless. We know you are evil. We respect your dark power.”

Part of the reason for alarm is the group’s secretive working methods. Names of attendees are not usually released before the conference, meetings are closed to the public and the media, and no press releases are issued.

The gnashing of teeth over Bilderberg is ridiculous, says Times columnist David Aaronovitch. “It’s really an occasional supper club for the rich and powerful,” he argues.

Denis Healey, co-founder of the group, told the journalist Jon Ronson in his book Them that people overlook the practical benefits of informal networking. “Bilderberg is the most useful international group I ever attended,” he told him. “The confidentiality enabled people to speak honestly without fear of repercussions.”

So why do groups like this cause so much alarm? Aaronovitch, who wrote the 2009 book Voodoo Histories, says plots to install a new world order have traditionally been a conspiracy fantasy. “They tend to believe that everything true, local and national is under threat from cosmopolitan, international forces often linked to financial capitalism and therefore, also often, to Jewish interests.”

Secret cabals extend beyond the Bilderberg Group. The Illuminati, which derives from a 16th Century Bavarian secret society, is alleged to be an all powerful secret society, including US presidents, that has controlled major world events. The Freemasons – famous for their peculiar handshakes – is a secret fraternity society that has become more open in recent years after extensive criticism.

The charter of Hamas – the Islamist party governing Gaza – asserts that the Freemasons are in league with the Jews and those unlikely bully boys – the Rotary Club – to undermine Palestine.

John Hamill, spokesman for freemasonry’s governing body in England and Wales says the organisation is aware of Hamas’s allegation.

“There’s no truth in it, freemasonry is apolitical. It probably arises because one of our ceremonies is about the story of King Solomon’s Temple. For some reason Islamic governments translate that into Zionism.”

In fact, many conspiracy theories surrounding cabals hint at an anti-Semitic worldview. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a forged document, probably created by agents of Tsarist Russia, which appeared to show a Jewish plot to take over the world.

Despite being proved to be a fraud, the idea has been kept alive by anti-Semites and has spawned later versions. One of those, the Zionist Occupational Government, argues that countries have puppet governments but that the real power is held by Jewish interests.

More recently, former sports journalist David Icke has proclaimed that the world is governed by alien, reptilian shape shifters. In other words, giant lizards.

There is obviously no right-wing monopoly on conspiracy theories. During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Hilary Clinton blamed a “vast right-wing conspiracy” for her husband’s predicament. And more recently, some on the left have argued that the 9/11 attacks were organised by President Bush’s inner circle in order to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

The politics of cabals has always been pretty muddled, says James McConnachie, co-author of the Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories. These groups allow protesters to project their own fears onto them.

In the US, the most extreme fear over Bilderberg is of a hidden cabal run by the European Union and threatening American freedoms. In Europe, the view is often of a free market elite trying to push through a right-wing agenda.

“Conspiracy theories are quite blind to conventional notions of left and right,” says McConnachie. “The left is organising an international government. Meanwhile, global capitalism on the right may be doing the same thing by different means.”

For Aaronovitch what often triggers widespread cabal theories are moments of great upheaval.

“It happens a lot when times are changing significantly. Whether, oddly, they are changing for better as well as for the worse. Why did McCarthyism happen at the time when US economy was growing faster than at any time in history?”

Society was in flux, the economy expanding rapidly and millions of servicemen were coming back from the war.

It’s not just the about social context. Some people are more susceptible than others to believing in wacky cabals, says Prof Chris French, of Goldsmith College’s psychology department. “It’s people who tend to be alienated by the mainstream, who feel powerless. They have a need to have a sense of control.”

Not only do they not trust the government, they tend not to trust their neighbours either. And in the need for control, there may be links to the roots of religious belief, he says.

The conspiracy theorists may get overexcited but they have a point, says Prof Andrew Kakabadse, co-author of new book Bilderberg People.

The group has genuine power that far outranks the World Economic Forum, which meets in Davos, he argues. And with no transparency, it is easy to see why people are worried about its influence.

“It’s much smarter than conspiracy,” says Prof Kakabadse. “This is moulding the way people think so that it seems like there’s no alternative to what is happening.”

The agenda the group has is to bring together the political elites on both right and left, let them mix in relaxed, luxurious surroundings with business leaders, and let the ideas fizz.

It may seem like a glorified dinner party but that is to miss the point. “When you’ve been to enough dinner parties you see a theme emerging,” he says. The theme at Bilderberg is to bolster a consensus around free market Western capitalism and its interests around the globe, he says.

“Is this all leading to the start of the ruling the world idea? In one sense yes. There’s a very strong move to have a One World government in the mould of free market Western capitalism.”

Degree of nefariousness

Conventional critiques of alienated people seeking order in a chaotic world may well be true. But there’s more to it than that, McConnachie argues.

“The other explanation is more dangerous. That they are precisely right – they just over-egg the way they articulate it.”

The Bilderberg Group matches up to how a global conspiracy would work – a secretive body attempting to shape the direction of the world, he suggests.

“The only difference is the degree of nefariousness,” he says. “They tend to see this cabal as outright evil. When things are more nuanced than that.”

For all the tales of lizards running the world, we all owe a debt to conspiracy theorists, McConnachie argues.

“Occasionally you have to give credit to conspiracy theorists who raise issues that the mainstream press has ignored. It’s only recently that the media has picked up on the Bilderbergers. Would the media be running stories if there weren’t these wild allegations flying around?”

But Aaronovitch disagrees. Believing in cabals leads to certain groups being victimised and obstructs a rational view of the world.

“To have a strong belief in the Bilderberg Group means believing in a fantasy,” he says. “It suggests that there are people – like God – acting as a higher power. And it replaces the intolerable thought that there’s nothing at work at all, that the world is chaotic. It may be a form of therapy but it has people believing in an anti-scientific message.”

- Source

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From Twenty-Five Ways To Suppress Truth: The Rules of Disinformation (Includes The 8 Traits of A Disinformationalist) by H. Michael Sweeney. These 25 rules are everywhere in media, from political debates, to television shows, to comments on a blog.

1. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Regardless of what you know, don’t discuss it — especially if you are a public figure, news anchor, etc. If it’s not reported, it didn’t happen, and you never have to deal with the issues.

2. Become incredulous and indignant. Avoid discussing key issues and instead focus on side issues which can be used show the topic as being critical of some otherwise sacrosanct group or theme. This is also known as the “How dare you!” gambit.

3. Create rumor mongers. Avoid discussing issues by describing all charges, regardless of venue or evidence, as mere rumors and wild accusations. Other derogatory terms mutually exclusive of truth may work as well. This method works especially well with a silent press, because the only way the public can learn of the facts are through such “arguable rumors”. If you can associate the material with the Internet, use this fact to certify it a “wild rumor” which can have no basis in fact.

4. Use a straw man. Find or create a seeming element of your opponent’s argument which you can easily knock down to make yourself look good and the opponent to look bad. Either make up an issue you may safely imply exists based on your interpretation of the opponent/opponent arguments/situation, or select the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Amplify their significance and destroy them in a way which appears to debunk all the charges, real and fabricated alike, while actually avoiding discussion of the real issues.

5. Sidetrack opponents with name calling and ridicule. This is also known as the primary attack the messenger ploy, though other methods qualify as variants of that approach. Associate opponents with unpopular titles such as “kooks”, “right-wing”, “liberal”, “left-wing”, “terrorists”, “conspiracy buffs”, “radicals”, “militia”, “racists”, “religious fanatics”, “sexual deviates”, and so forth. This makes others shrink from support out of fear of gaining the same label, and you avoid dealing with issues.

6. Hit and Run. In any public forum, make a brief attack of your opponent or the opponent position and then scamper off before an answer can be fielded, or simply ignore any answer. This works extremely well in Internet and letters-to-the-editor environments where a steady stream of new identities can be called upon without having to explain criticism reasoning — simply make an accusation or other attack, never discussing issues, and never answering any subsequent response, for that would dignify the opponent’s viewpoint.

7. Question motives. Twist or amplify any fact which could so taken to imply that the opponent operates out of a hidden personal agenda or other bias. This avoids discussing issues and forces the accuser on the defensive.

8. Invoke authority. Claim for yourself or associate yourself with authority and present your argument with enough “jargon” and “minutiae” to illustrate you are “one who knows”, and simply say it isn’t so without discussing issues or demonstrating concretely why or citing sources.

9. Play Dumb. No matter what evidence or logical argument is offered, avoid discussing issues with denial they have any credibility, make any sense, provide any proof, contain or make a point, have logic, or support a conclusion. Mix well for maximum effect.

10. Associate opponent charges with old news. A derivative of the straw man usually, in any large-scale matter of high visibility, someone will make charges early on which can be or were already easily dealt with. Where it can be foreseen, have your own side raise a straw man issue and have it dealt with early on as part of the initial contingency plans. Subsequent charges, regardless of validity or new ground uncovered, can usually them be associated with the original charge and dismissed as simply being a rehash without need to address current issues — so much the better where the opponent is or was involved with the original source.

11. Establish and rely upon fall-back positions. Using a minor matter or element of the facts, take the “high road” and “confess” with candor that some innocent mistake, in hindsight, was made — but that opponents have seized on the opportunity to blow it all out of proportion and imply greater criminalities which, “just isn’t so.” Others can reinforce this on your behalf, later. Done properly, this can garner sympathy and respect for “coming clean” and “owning up” to your mistakes without addressing more serious issues.

12. Enigmas have no solution. Drawing upon the overall umbrella of events surrounding the crime and the multitude of players and events, paint the entire affair as too complex to solve. This causes those otherwise following the matter to begin to loose interest more quickly without having to address the actual issues.

13. Alice in Wonderland Logic. Avoid discussion of the issues by reasoning backwards with an apparent deductive logic in a way that forbears any actual material fact.

14. Demand complete solutions. Avoid the issues by requiring opponents to solve the crime at hand completely, a ploy which works best for items qualifying for rule 10.

15. Fit the facts to alternate conclusions. This requires creative thinking unless the crime was planned with contingency conclusions in place.

16. Vanishing evidence and witnesses. If it does not exist, it is not fact, and you won’t have to address the issue.

17. Change the subject. Usually in connection with one of the other ploys listed here, find a way to side-track the discussion with abrasive or controversial comments in hopes of turning attention to a new, more manageable topic. This works especially well with companions who can “argue” with you over the new topic and polarize the discussion arena in order to avoid discussing more key issues.

18. Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad Opponents. If you can’t do anything else, chide and taunt your opponents and draw them into emotional responses which will tend to make them look foolish and overly motivated, and generally render their material somewhat less coherent. Not only will you avoid discussing the issues in the first instance, but even if their emotional response addresses the issue, you can further avoid the issues by then focusing on how “sensitive they are to criticism”.

19. Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the “play dumb” rule. Regardless of what material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed or withheld, such as a murder weapon). In order to completely avoid discussing issues may require you to categorically deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made by government or other authorities have any meaning or relevance.

20. False evidence. Whenever possible, introduce new facts or clues designed and manufactured to conflict with opponent presentations as useful tools to neutralize sensitive issues or impede resolution. This works best when the crime was designed with contingencies for the purpose, and the facts cannot be easily separated from the fabrications.

21. Call a Grand Jury, Special Prosecutor, or other empowered investigative body. Subvert the (process) to your benefit and effectively neutralize all sensitive issues without open discussion. Once convened, the evidence and testimony are required to be secret when properly handled. For instance, if you own the prosecuting attorney, it can insure a Grand Jury hears no useful evidence and that the evidence is sealed an unavailable to subsequent investigators. Once a favorable verdict (usually, this technique is applied to find the guilty innocent, but it can also be used to obtain charges when seeking to frame a victim) is achieved, the matter can be considered officially closed.

22. Manufacture a new truth. Create your own expert(s), group(s), author(s), leader(s) or influence existing ones willing to forge new ground via scientific, investigative, or social research or testimony which concludes favorably. In this way, if you must actually address issues, you can do so authoritatively.

23. Create bigger distractions. If the above does not seem to be working to distract from sensitive issues, or to prevent unwanted media coverage of unstoppable events such as trials, create bigger news stories (or treat them as such) to distract the multitudes.

24. Silence critics. If the above methods do not prevail, consider removing opponents from circulation by some definitive solution so that the need to address issues is removed entirely. This can be by their death, arrest and detention, blackmail or destruction of their character by release of blackmail information, or merely by proper intimidation with blackmail or other threats.

25. Vanish. If you are a key holder of secrets or otherwise overly illuminated and you think the heat is getting too hot, to avoid the issues, vacate the kitchen.

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Spy bloggers not ‘friending’ U.S. targets, Centcom says

The U.S. Central Command says its new “Persona” social media “infiltration” software is designed to cozy up to extremist bloggers overseas, not law-abiding Americans chatting on Facebook or similar sites.

Earlier this month, the Web buzzed with a report that the software was designed to “manage ‘fake people’ on social media sites and create the illusion of consensus on controversial issues,” implying that the Defense Department was targeting critics of the war in Afghanistan and other conflicts.

Further compounding a sinister view of the software was the discovery of e-mails from the head of a company implicated in “dirty tricks” against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and a pro-labor organization, which discussed how such technology could be used.

“There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas…” wrote Aaron Barr, the chief executive officer of HBGary Federal, a Colorado Springs company whose hacked e-mails revealed plans to attack critics of Bank of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Barr resigned Feb. 28 “to allow the company to move on after an embarrassing data breach,” according to the technology Web site ThreatPost.

Centom’s June 22, 2010, contract, offered through the U.S. Air Force’s Air Mobility Command, specified that “Individual applications will enable an operator to exercise a number of different online persons from the same workstation and without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries…while hiding the existence of the operation…and provid(ing) excellent cover and powerful deniability.”

“Individuals can perform static impersonations, which allow them to look like the same person over time,” the contract added. It “also allows organizations that frequent same site/service often to easily switch IP addresses to look like ordinary users as opposed to one organization.”

The fake Internet personas, the contract specified, “must be able to appear to originate in nearly any part of the world and can interact through conventional online services and social media platforms.”

Centcom spokesman Cmdr. Bill Speaks acknowledged in an interview last week that the Air Force had a contract for the Persona Management Software, but denied it would be deployed against domestic online protesters.

“The contract, and the Persona management technology itself, supports classified blogging activities on foreign-language Web sites to enable CENTCOM to counter violent extremist and enemy propaganda outside the U.S.,” Speaks told SpyTalk. “The contract would more accurately be described as supporting U.S. Central Command, rather than the Air Force — the Wing here at MacDill provides contracting support for us — efforts.”

Speaks said the software would “absolutely” not be used against law-abiding Americans.

[Update: Speaks adds, "The phrase [law-abiding] suggests that we might use it against Americans who are not law-abiding. The truth is that these activities are not directed towards Americans, without qualification.”]

Former CIA director and retired Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden called the technology cutting-edge but “developmental.”

“Operationally developmental, technologically developmental and legally developmental,” he told Washington Times reporter Shawn Waterman.

But in testimony last June, then-Centcom commander Gen. David Petraeus suggested the use of such technology was well underway.

“Operation Earnest Voice (OEV) is the critical program of record that resources our efforts to synchronize our Information Operations activities, to counter extremist ideology and propaganda, and to ensure that credible voices in the region are heard,” Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“OEV provides Centcom with direct communication capabilities to reach regional audiences through traditional media as well as via Web sites and regional public affairs blogging,” Petraeus said.

The FBI has also used fictitious identities for years to infiltrate jihadist Web sites.

Sometimes touted as “America’s first online operative in the War on Terror,”   the FBI’s Shannen L. Rossmiller, a former Montana municipal judge, is said to have “created 30 fictitious male Islamist undercover identities…for purposes of communicating and tracking the enemy [in] Arabic language Internet forums.”

“Since 9/11, Judge Rossmiller has delivered more than 200 cases of actionable intelligence and stings — including two of the largest convictions in the War on Terror,” her Web site claims.

Despite the fact that this article mentions numerous times that those tactics are not used against “Law Abiding Americans”, there are reasons to think that they might be used anyhow – especially against “conspiracy theories” (I hate that term). Cass Sunstein, who is the current administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs published in 2008 an important essay entitled “Conspiracy Theories” (read it here).

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