"Conspiracy Theorist" -- The Latest Ad Hominem to Shut Out Leftists and Civil Libertarians

On January 9, CNN ran this on their web site in an article about Alex Jones and conspiracy theories: "Bankers pull the strings on world governments to solidify their power. Companies are harming you and ducking responsibility. Antidepressants are "suicide mass murder pills." President Barack Obama is using drones against Americans. And the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, was engineered by the government."

One month later, a white paper was leaked to NBC that briefly described the White House's legal arguments for assassinating American citizens with drones. Civil libertarians have been screaming their heads off about this for two full years, but it's only when this memo leaked to a major news corporation that anyone pays attention. One minute, major news corporations outright denied that Obama's disposition matrix existed, and lambasted anyone who mentioned it as "conspiracy theorists." Then once it's shoved in their faces, mainstream partisans -- on the left -- pound their chests in a pathetic attempt defend it. Given that this is how most Americans get their news, it's not terribly surprising that we're all so fucking stupid.

George Orwell faced censorship in England when he tried to get Animal Farm published. It was a novel critical of the Soviet Union, which was a British ally at the time. He wrote this for the preface of the novel. When he finally did find a publisher, only as the war was winding down, the preface was censored and left out of the book.

"At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done' to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was 'not done' to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals."

Any kind of viewpoint that contradicts the dominant narrative is now labeled as "conspiracy theory," so that it can be more easily shut out and dismissed without any kind of serious discussion. One of my favorite subreddits, /r/endlesswar, made it to /r/bestof earlier. EndlessWar is an anti-war subreddit, but war has been so ingrained into our society over the last decade that simply being "anti-war" will get you labeled you as conspiratorial. Here's the post from EndlessWar that made it into BestOf:

---

"a few people with no means to actually hurt America"

911 only happened due to incredible incompetence by the Federal government. The plan for 911, including hijacking with box cutters was found on Ramzi Yousef's computer in the Philippines in 1995 by the CIA. They gave that information to the FBI who never considered that it might be a good idea to tell the FAA to review their airline crew training, or perhaps think about putting a real door in cockpits. The government had the plan for six effing years and did NOTHING to protect Americans.

"There is no enemy"

The people in Yemen and Pakistan, in Mali and Libya have no way to hurt America. If they attack a US embassy, that is a crime, not an act of war because they do not act on the behalf of a state. There are criminals that should be dealt with through international police work and through the police services in the countries that they live in. They should not be used as an excuse for the American military domination of the world.

"There is no war"

There is no war, there is an American military presence in various countries that is killing people, and not surprisingly suffering some casualties in return. But it is not a war. The Taliban for instance doesn't field any weapon more sophisticated than an RPG against the military might of the most expensive army in the history of the world. If you call that a war, then please concede that the US military is clearly the most pathetic organization to ever put on a uniform. They have lost every single operation that they have been involved in since WWII with the exception of Grenada. You should be ashamed to think that the US is losing wars against illiterate, poorly armed, and outnumbered tribesmen.

But the reality is that it is not war. It is police work done with an army. That is why it doesn't work. Police work needs to be done with police methods and personnel. That is hard for Americans to understand in today's world because the American police have also become militarized.

"There is no international terror network"

Al Qaeda has ceased to exist as an international organization. There are numerous new salafist organizations that want to hurt the US, punish US stooges and attack Israel for the simple reason that the US has been killing thousands of Muslims a year for many years and because Israel has stolen the Palestinians land and their future.

But there is no international organization. Aiman al Zawahiri is not controlling these different groups from some bomb shelter in the mountains of Yemen.

"Imperial expansion and unending wars"

Please tell me that the US is not engaged in unending wars. Please try to explain how "international military area access" does not constitute Empire.

"911 was planned in Germany and the USA"

Do you dispute this? Are you that ignorant of how 911 came together? This is not truther stuff. The principle architects of 911 met and planned the attack in an apartment in Hamburg Germany, then they sent the hijackers to the US, where they trained for the Attack.

Wow. Just wow. I have no words that could possible address this sort of antipathetic reality you choose to live in. "that the citizens' rights trump everything else"

Wow, just wow, you think that the citizens' rights should be trumped by a phony war. You are not a real American, sir. You are a coward.

---
There is nothing controversial about anything said in this post. The only mistake is that the poster didn't cite any sources, which I guess is understandable since this was said in the heat of conversation without knowing it would be posted to /r/bestof. And the sources could all be easily found if one cared to look. I've literally read so many articles about these things over the last few years that they all seem like common knowledge to me at this point -- which is a bad thing, because it's easy to forget that most people simply don't give a fuck about our endless slaughter around the globe, don't bother to read about any of it, and simply remain unaware that this stuff is happening. /r/bestof was livid.

• "This subreddit has really gone to shit."
• That thread is embarrassing. I'm so flustered by how profoundly wrong it all is I can't even imagine where I'd start if I had the time or motivation to try and undo the knot of bullshit woven by this teenage know-nothing.
• Blind, unashamed twaddle at its most concentrated.
• This is conspiratard bullshit. Who upvotes this?
• Are you fucking kidding me? This isn't the "best of" anything except ignorant angst.
• This is the shittiest post I have ever seen in this sub. The people who upvote this should be ashamed.
• They're too busy high-fiving themselves for being "informed" and "not sheeple" who have "woken up" and their "eyes are open to the truth" and they cannot be "controlled by the media". Any other ones I missed?

There is nothing in the post that is even remotely conspiratorial. No one used the words "inside job." No one used the word "sheeple." It was a post arguing against war. The BestOf thread was an embarrassing display of endless ad hominem attacks towards positions that didn't actually exist. I saw one or two people halfheartedly try to address what was actually said, but for the most part it was a "lol look at how dumb they are" circlejerk. This collective mass ignorance towards facts, and hatred towards those who preach them, is not uncommon throughout history. Chris Hedges wrote an article the other day about when this happened to a much greater extent in Nazi Germany:

Although history has vindicated resistance groups such as the White Rose and plotters such as von dem Bussche, they were desperately alone, reviled by the wider public and forced to defy the law, their oaths of national allegiance, and public opinion. The resisters, once exposed, were condemned in vitriolic terms by most of the German public, and their lopsided trials were state-choreographed lynchings. Von dem Bussche said that even after the war he was spat upon as he walked down a city street. He and those like him who made a moral choice to physically defy evil teach us something extremely important about rebellion. It is, when it begins, not safe, comfortable or popular. Those rare individuals who have the moral and physical courage to resist must accept that they will be pariahs. They must live outside the law. And they must be prepared to be condemned.

This problem of labeling valid critics as "conspiracy theorists" hits home for me. Numerous times, I've had conversations with people who have literally denied that the government is illegally wiretapping law-abiding citizens, and I was then branded as a "conspiracy theorist" and the conversation ground to a halt. The Patriot Act was once considered controversial and illegal; now many don't know it exists, and get angry and confused if you dare mention it. The FBI's COINTELPRO program illegally monitored, infiltrated, blackmailed, framed, and assassinated law-abiding activists throughout the 1960s and 1970s. This fact is in the public record, and it is not a "conspiracy theory." There were hearings over COINTELPRO once it came out. It was illegal. The FBI was reprimanded. Now? Now post-9/11 laws such as the Patriot Act, the NDAA, and Obama's disposition matrix made all of these things legal. And they're still being used to target activists. The FBI infiltrated Occupy. The NYPD is stalking innocent people for being Muslim. Aaron Swartz was illegally spied on for his activism -- before he committed any crime. These are facts.

In 1975, Sen. Walter Mondale made these comments as he opened up hearings into the COINTELPRO revelations:

Yesterday, this committee heard some of the most disturbing testimony that can be imagined in a free society. We heard evidence that for decades the institutions designed to enforce the laws and Constitution of our country have been engaging in conduct that violates the law and the Constitution. We heard that the FBI, which is part of the Department of Justice, took justice into its own hands by seeking to punish those with unpopular ideas. We learned that the chief law enforcement agency in the federal Government decided that it did not need laws to investigate and suppress the peaceful and constitutional activities of those whom it disapproved.

Then on the floor of the Senate:

We heard testimony that the FBI, to protect the country against those it believed had totalitarian political views, employed the tactics of totalitarian societies against American citizens. We heard that the FBI attempted to destroy one of our greatest leaders in the field of civil rights [referring to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.], and then replace him with someone of the FBI's choosing.

In 1976, the U.S. Congress issued its Final Select Committee report, which stated:

"We have seen segments of our Government adopt tactics unworthy of a democracy and occasionally reminiscent of the tactics of totalitarian regimes. ... [T]he chief investigative branch of the federal government [FBI], which was charged by law with investigating crimes and preventing criminal conduct, itself engaged in lawless tactics and responded to deep-seated social problems by fomenting violence and unrest."

Harry Truman said of the FBI:

"We want no Gestapo or secret police. FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail...Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him."

It's understandable if you were a little put off when I quoted that Chris Hedges article, comparing the current American political climate to a lesser version of Nazi Germany. Maybe you should reconsider your position when the president who defeated Nazi Germany is comparing American law enforcement to Nazi Germany.

The FBI, under COINTELPRO, tried to blackmail Martin Luther King into committing suicide. This blogger gives his comments on that:

The FBI had been wiretapping King for over a year by then, and Bureau chief J. Edgar Hoover made no secret of his loathing for the civil rights leader. The suicide package was prepared by Hoover deputy William Sullivan, an Assistant Director of the Bureau and the head of its Domestic Intelligence Division.

When you teach American history, as I do, you get asked about conspiracies a lot. As it happens, I’m skeptical about some of the biggest conspiracy theories out there — unlike nearly all of my students, for instance, I think it’s highly likely that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

But I’m not one to ridicule such theories, either, and I find the smug dismissal with which they’re so often greeted deeply obnoxious. Because forty-six years ago one of America’s highest ranking law enforcement agents launched a secret campaign intended to blackmail the country’s most prominent civil rights activist into committing suicide.

That’s not a theory, it’s a fact. And once you know that, it gets a lot harder to dismiss other people’s stories of shadowy government goings-on.

Skepticism is the highest form of thought, and it should always be embraced over every idea. But there is a big difference between healthy skepticism and "smug dismissal" -- that kind of attitude accomplishes the exact opposite of what skepticism is supposed to do, and instead closes your mind off to every idea that's contradictory to your own worldview. This widespread smug dismissal is dangerous, because it makes people overlook real conspiracies that have actually happened. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a conspiracy. The American government fed the public a manufactured incident that never happened in order to spark a war in Vietnam. The Business Plot was a conspiracy. Wealthy American corporatists conspired to overthrow FDR and install a fascist dictatorship. The political assassination of activist Fred Hampton was a conspiracy. An FBI informant drugged Hampton at a party, so he would not wake when police broke down his door and murdered him in his bed as he slept next to his pregnant girlfriend -- literally tactics straight from the Gestapo, in every sense. The other day, former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs went on TV and said that the White House told him to flatout deny that the drone program even exists. That's also a conspiracy. The big ones like the JFK assassination, the 9/11 truthers, the fake moon landing, etc., are obvious rubbish -- not just because the very idea of these things happening are so laughable, but simply because this government is full of incompetent dumbshits who couldn't even cover up something as easy as Watergate. Hell, they couldn't even cover up all this shit I just mentioned. But political conspiracies have happened, and perhaps there would be more of an outcry to change things if more people knew it.

Mainstream politics shocked to discover that Obama has been claiming the authority to assassinate American citizens anywhere on the planet

Consider this for a moment: If you had to decide the one absolute most dangerous power any national leader can claim, what would it be?

I don't know about you, but claiming to have the authority to assassinate any citizen at any place on earth, for any reason, without due process, is pretty high up on my list. Since day one in office, that fascist power is exactly what Barack Obama has claimed to have. Not only has he claimed to have it, but he has acted on it. Numerous times.

Let's talk about Abdulrahman al-Alwaki for a second.

Abdulrahman could've been that dorky kid you sat next to in high school. He was just that for somebody, because he was born and raised in Denver, and was just as much of an American as you or me. In 2011, he was visiting family in Yemen. On October 11, as he and his friends were barbecuing outside, a missile shot from a drone blew his body apart into a bloody mess. I'm being descriptive because "strike" doesn't do justice to what actually happens when a missile hits you. Pieces and bones of Abdulrahman were blown across the sand in a bloody mess. He wasn't "struck."

He was 16.

A number of Abdulrahman's friends -- also innocent teenagers -- were killed as well. But they don't get the spotlight, because they weren't born within our borders and therefore have no basic human rights.

Abdulrahman's father was Anwar al-Awlaki, another American who was assassinated without due process. He was likely an al-Qaeda propagandist, but he did preach nonviolence in the past. He was certainly not a "mastermind" and he was never involved in the actual "plotting" of terrorist attacks. We'll never know what exactly he was up to, because the Obama administration felt the need to murder him without charging him with any crimes. Cowards who defend this policy often make comparisons to police work. If a dangerous lunatic is running around in public waving a gun at people, or even taking hostages, the police certainly have a right to use deadly force against that person. However, that doesn't apply to any of these situations, because of none of the four known Americans who have been assassinated by drones so far were an imminent threat to anyone at the time of their deaths. If they committed any crimes, then bring them to trial and try them. There was this thing called the "Magna Carta," written about 800 years ago, which is the basis for all Anglo-American law. It made the wild assertion that a government can't just fucking murder you whenever it wants.

When Abdulrahman was first killed, the Obama administration initially lied and said he was 21. His family had to present a birth certificate to prove his real age. A few months back, an independent journalist cornered former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, and asked him about Abdulrahman. Asked about the murder of a child, Gibbs instead talks about how evil his father was, and avoids the question entirely. It's fucking disgusting. This is literally the only comment anyone close to the Obama administration has ever made on the death of this boy. No one knows to this day whether Abdulrahman himself was the target of the missile.


Last night, NBC released a leaked 16-page memo from the Department of Justice that attempts to legally justify why the Obama administration thinks it can do this. It had to be leaked, because the administration refuses to publicly say how it legally justifies murdering Americans without due process. You can read it here.

I'm not going to get much into it actual contents, because you can read if yourself and the kinds of things I'd have to say about it are pretty obvious. And Glenn Greenwald does a much better job at it than I could, anyway. Democracy Now also talked about it this morning. Summed up -- George Bush's legacy was the Bush Doctrine, which made the entire planet a battlefield. All countries and all borders are fair game for the "war on terror" -- even inside the United States. Obama has continued the Bush Doctrine. With the NDAA, he has the authority to lock up any American at any place (including within our own borders) without charges, indefinitely. With his "disposition matrix," he can assassinate Americans on American soil, not just overseas. And the memo's vague wording, "al-Qaeda" or "associated forces", means that literally anything can justify your assassination. It really is the absolute worst-case scenario. Even if you trust Obama with this kind of power (in which case you're an absolute lunatic), he just handed this to literally every future president we will ever have. Think about the implications of this. Julian Assange of Wikileaks is classified as an enemy of the state. That's the same status given to al-Qaeda. The executive branch has the legal authority to assassinate journalists and whistleblowers in their homes on American soil.

This is not new or even remotely surprising. Civil libertarians on both the right and the left have been screaming our heads off about this shit for the last couple years. After being continuously dismissed and berated as Alex Jones conspiracy theorists (literally), the truth has finally hit mainstream with the release of this memo. It's the top story on MSNBC's web site right now. Rachel Maddow was talking about it. Drudge Report -- fucking Drudge Report -- mentioned Abdulrahman al-Awlaki.

I. Am. Elated.

That's a pretty horrible reaction to a topic like this, but I really can't describe it any other way. I am in such an arrogant I-FUCKING-TOLD-YOU-SO mood right now. And I fucking deserve it, dammit. This is finally breaking through into mainstream press. A lot of Obama supporters were often annoyed with me if I dared bring it up during the election, and many didn't even believe me at all. So, seriously -- fuck all of you.

One of the saddest and most predictable things about mainstream politics is that the "left" and "right" (those words are essentially meaningless) always descend into their little partisan dickwaving over every fucking issue. This won't be any different. In the coming days, Republicans will pretend to be outraged without seeing the slightest bit of hypocrisy about advocating torture. Many Obama supporters will do the same, in reverse, defending this policy without seeing the hypocrisy in opposing George Bush at some other obscure point in their sad lives. Then there will be the racist right-wing conspiracy theorists who will whine some more about being victims, moving beyond "Obama orchestrated Sandy Hook to take away guns" into "Obama wants to assassinate Republicans." I doubt there will be much serious discussion, and Obama will continue to assassinate Americans whether we like it or not.

I'm actually extremely happy, because I'm seeing a lot more outrage on the left than I expected. But there are still idiots. The propaganda wing of the Democratic party on MSNBC has been especially hilarious.

This is the face of America's establishment "left." They have become so disillusioned and seduced that they are defending the most terrifying claim to power that any president has made in our entire history -- extrajudicially murdering any person, for any reason, at any place. America's "left" is to the right of Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and George W. Bush, slightly to the left of Augusto Pinochet. Congratulations, lesser-of-two-evil voters. You got everything you voted for: evil.