By SEVAK GULBEKIAN

In his book Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace Gore Vidal suggests that the American public has been conditioned to respond to the word ‘conspiracy’ with a smirk and a chuckle. Conspiracy, in other words, is for the nuts and the loners, and is not to be taken seriously. In this way, he argues, through the media’s association of the concept of conspiracy with fringe or extreme elements, the real conspirators go unnoticed.

It is a vital point, and Vidal courageously chases and exposes genuine conspiracies by politicians, the FBI, lobbyists for the tobacco companies, and so on. But the flip-side of the conspiracy coin is the proliferation of fanciful and fantastic theories that now crisscross the globe in seconds with the help of electronic media.

The spread of the internet has democratised conspiracy theory. Millions of people now have the means to publish their own unique analysis of what is going on. A necessary consequence of this massive growth in personal digital publishing is that it is getting to be much more difficult to find the pearls among the rubbish. Someone even observed that, in the age of the internet, if you want to keep something secret you make it public…

Amidst the more fantastic theories of UFOs and intergalactic lizards, certain core themes do persistently reoccur in the mass of ‘conspiracy theory’ material now available. Principal among them is the idea that a shadowy elite is seeking to enslave humanity under the auspices of a single, centralised world government. The name of the mysterious ‘Illuminati’ is most often associated with such a group, although what is meant by it is frequently ill defined. The Illuminati are, supposedly, a cabal of top bankers, politicians and businessmen seeking to create the aforesaid all-powerful government.

What is the truth of all this? I do not propose to give a full answer here, but would like to introduce a perspective on the theme – one that has generally not been given serious consideration – taken from the research of Rudolf Steiner. In the second part of the article I will try and relate Steiner’s ideas to other more familiar conspiracy research.

So why Steiner? Because, if for no other reason, his pronouncements and indications on practical areas of life have borne such remarkable fruit, testimony to which are thousands of Waldorf schools offering a new kind of education, farms successfully practicing bio-dynamics, clinics dispensing anthroposophic medicines, and so on.

As a profound clairvoyant, Steiner claimed to investigate other dimensions of reality for insight into the human condition. His legacy is hundreds of volumes of published talks and written works on a cornucopia of themes. However, as mentioned above, his work – in contrast to that of many other spiritual teachers and gurus – has shown itself to have practical applications in all areas of life. This in itself does not provide ultimate evidence for the truth of his work, but it does correspond to the biblical dictum: “[B]y their fruits ye shall know them.”

In 1916 and 1917, in the midst of the catastrophic First World War, Steiner gave a series of 25 lectures to a group of his followers who gathered together at their centre in Dornach in neutral Switzerland. These lectures, since translated and published in English,1 offer a unique reading of contemporary events.

Behind the outer façade of world affairs, suggested Steiner, the machinations of occult groups or ‘brotherhoods’ were at work. Certain of these brotherhoods had wanted the Great War to take place, and had manipulated events to bring it about. In doing this, they sought to protect the dominant economic position of the English-speaking world, and in turn to crush the ‘mediating’ role of Central European powers such as Germany, the Austro-Hungarian empire, and so on.

These occult brotherhoods – small groups of men who met together in ‘lodges’ and practiced ceremonial magic as a means of achieving certain goals – originated from the English-speaking (Anglo-Saxon) world and were allied, in particular, with Anglo-American interests. Their aim was to extend Anglo-American influence across the globe, and to ensure the predomination of Anglo-American culture. Furthermore, they sought to extend its superiority into the distant future; essentially to ensure that the present state of affairs continues evermore.

According to Steiner’s research, human evolution goes through ‘great periods’ of development. During each of these periods, a particular people is given the task of leading humanity in a spiritual sense. Over the millennia, it has been the destiny of different peoples to bring specific qualities, in a benevolent way, to the whole of humanity. Particular periods of history are thus led by particular nations. This does not imply a form of political control or empire – and is certainly not a theory of national or racial superiority – but is referring to a spiritual form of authority.

Steiner suggested that the Western world, and in particular the English-speaking peoples, have been given the task of getting to grips with the material world – of becoming comfortable on Earth and developing in harmony with it. In this specific sense, the West was to introduce a certain kind of (beneficial) materialism into human development. But this materialism was only meant to be developed up to a certain point. It was necessary in order for humans to become fully part of the earthly world, and to help introduce an individualised consciousness (the ‘I’). But beyond that it had the potential to be destructive. Materialism as a philosophy, which shuts out the possibility of soul and spirit, is retrogressive, asserted Steiner, and works as an evil in human evolution.

The Anglo-American brotherhoods that seek dominion over mankind know this, and hence today are deliberately sponsoring various kind of materialism in the hope of halting and trapping humanity at the present stage of its development. They don’t want humans to progress beyond the present stage of immersion in the material world. In other words, they don’t want us to reconnect in a free way with our spiritual ‘I’, because they know that their grip over humanity would then be lost. Human progress is dependent on spiritual knowledge, and thus the occult brotherhoods work against it.

Steiner explained further the brotherhoods were aware that the Slavic peoples were to be given the task of leadership on behalf of humanity during the next ‘great period’ of history. For this reason, the Anglo-American brotherhoods not only sought to dominate the present great period of human development, but – knowing that the Slavs had an important mission in the future – sought to gain control over the Slavic peoples (Russia in particular) in the present, in order to interfere with or even put a halt to their coming task. In this way, the Anglo-American brotherhoods could extend their control over human development into the distant future.

Steiner later claimed that the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, which led to the creation of the USSR and the 72-year cultural, intellectual, economic and political repression of the populations of its various peoples, was masterminded and sponsored by these same brotherhoods as a means of controlling the region and its peoples.2

What is the evidence for Steiner’s analysis? Apart from anything else, it is interesting to note the present state of world affairs, and how – since Steiner spoke about this topic in 1916-17 – Anglo-American culture has come to dominate the globe in tandem with American economic and political influence (with the enthusiastic support of British politicians). The assertion of unilateral military action by the United States and Britain in the 2003 invasion of Iraq – in the face of almost total global opposition – was a good example of this formidable power at work. However, admittedly these observations do not provide ‘proof’ in a strict sense.

Another source of evidence is the remarkable research of Prof. Carroll Quigley (1910-77) who wrote two substantial volumes, The Anglo-American Establishment (1949) and Tragedy and Hope (1966),3 on the secret network which emerged from the enterprise of Cecil Rhodes. Quigley characterised the power of this group through its influence in politics, culture and social life as “terrifying”.

It is important to note that Quigley was no crazed and paranoid conspiracy nut, but a respected Georgetown professor, and even the teacher of Bill Clinton. (How such networks might be related to the brotherhoods Steiner is talking about will be considered later.) Other authors have followed Quigley’s lead and complemented his studies with contemporary observations. A few have even related Steiner’s ideas to Quigley’s research.4 In this context, however, I would like to mention only two external ‘symptoms’, which, at the very least, offer circumstantial evidence for Steiner’s diagnosis.

In 1893, an Englishman called C.G. Harrison delivered six lectures to the Berean Society, a mysterious group of ‘Christian esotericists’. A record of these lectures is to be found in Harrison’s remarkable book The Transcendental Universe. Little is known about the Berean Society or Harrison, although he wrote two further books in his lifetime. What is clear is that Harrison, who speaks in defense of the “high” Church, had access to a phenomenal store of esoteric thought, and was furthermore privy to a certain amount of inside knowledge. In his second lecture, he spoke not only of “the next great European war”, but also of the “national character” of the Slavic peoples and its ability to “enable them to carry out experiments in Socialism, political and economical, which would present innumerable difficulties in Western Europe”.5 Remember that these lectures were given in 1893, 21 years before the First World War and 24 years before the Bolshevik Revolution!

While Harrison claimed to be a “theoretical occultist” as opposed to a “practical” one – i.e. he did not practice magic or ritual, with the implication that he was not a member of a “lodge” himself – from his work it is evident he represents an esoteric strain of thought which clearly defends the English establishment. How could he know about the forthcoming War as well as the “experiments in Socialism”, which would take a grip on Russia and its surrounding states for most of the twentieth century? If he was not, as he claimed, a “practical occultist” himself, it is reasonable to assume he had contact with people who were, and who had access to the malign plans of such secret groups referred to above.

The second significant piece of evidence which offers some backing for Steiner’s claims of occult interference in world politics is to be found in a special edition of the satirical weekly The Truth, published at Christmas 1890. Under the heading ‘The Kaiser’s Dream’, the magazine featured a cartoon map of Europe together with a humorous commentary. Many observations can be made of the map, but the most pertinent point to note in relation to the above is that all the countries of Europe are shown as republics with the exception of Russia and its neighbouring states, over which are written the words “Russian Desert”. In addition, Germany is identified with the words “German Republics”! This map signifies not only a foreknowledge – similar to Harrison – of the fate of Russia to become a cultural as well as an economic ‘desert’, but also of the future splitting of Germany into ‘republics’. The magazine’s editor, Henry Labouchère, was a Freemason. Was his remarkable foresight pure luck, or once again did he have some inside knowledge of future plans to shape the world?

It is of course possible that the above examples are merely coincidences and happy flukes, but surely it is unlikely. Do these examples offer evidence for the existence of occult brotherhoods with pernicious plans for political manipulation? We may never know for sure, but it is evident that Steiner’s perspective offers much serious food for thought, and opens up important new vistas for understanding current world events.

Steiner and Modern Conspiracy Research

Having sketched out Steiner’s picture of secret brotherhoods, I would like now to try and show how his perspective might relate to the more general conspiracy research referred to earlier. To many readers of this magazine the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission will be more than familiar. In addition, the Yale University secret society Skull and Bones is often identified by investigators in the conspiracy field. The latter has been thrown into the limelight recently due to the remarkable admission by both Republican and Democratic candidates of the 2004 American presidential election that they are members of the exclusive club.

As Skull and Bones is a tiny society that invites only 15 undergraduates per year to join its ranks – and at any one time has only 800 or so living members – the fact that the two candidates for the post of the most powerful position in the world are members of it (from a population totaling some 293 million people) is quite incredible!

It has long been known that George W. Bush is an initiate of Skull and Bones (as was his father George Bush Snr. and grandfather Prescott Sheldon Bush).6 According to the key researcher of Skull and Bones, Antony C. Sutton, the society was first founded in 1833. Members, who meet secretly in its ‘tomb’ on the grounds of Yale, are sworn to secrecy about the group’s rites and activities. In terms of its operations and philosophy, Sutton refers to the ‘dialectical’ process, based on the philosopher Hegel, as being at the heart of Skull and Bones thinking. In particular, he tries to prove that the group has been instrumental in funding and encouraging the development of both far-left and far-right political groupings – principally the Communists and Nazis – in the twentieth century. From the point of view of Skull and Bones’ broad vision of human development, left and right are viewed as two parts of the Hegelian dialectical process; one political wing represents ‘thesis’ while the other represents ‘antithesis’. These two aspects clash and fight each other, but eventually merge to form a ‘synthesis’. It is this synthesis, according to Sutton, that Skull and Bones is aiming to create. By controlling and manipulating the conflict, it controls the outcome (or synthesis).

It is interesting to note that Sutton first published his interpretation of Skull and Bones in the mid-1980s. At that time, he quoted the group as working for a ‘New World Order’ (NWO). This NWO was to be the product of the synthesis of political left and right. Shortly after the collapse of the Eastern-bloc communist countries, and the subsequent triumph of Western capitalism – a triumph that Francis Fukuyama referred to in his famous book as ‘the end of history’ – George Bush Snr. began to use the specific phrase ‘New World Order’ in public speeches.

This fascinating fact offers some circumstantial evidence for Sutton’s reading. Presuming that Sutton is correct, humanity is living right now within the period of ‘synthesis’ – the birth of a NWO led by the West, and principally the United States. (And perhaps it will come as no surprise to adherents of Sutton’s analysis that a new ‘dialectic’ has suddenly appeared to take the place of the old, i.e. Communism versus Capitalism is replaced with the West versus Islamic Fundamentalism.)

Antony Sutton’s series of booklets on Skull and Bones begins with hisIntroduction to the Order,7  in which he points out that – despite them being commonly associated with conspiracy – organisations such as the Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission are ultimately not secret, and have large public memberships. Likewise, it could be added that despite the fact the Bilderberg conferences are not open to the press or public, the names of the people who attend these yearly private meetings are not concealed. (The minutes of the 1999 meeting in Sintra, Portugal were even leaked and published wholesale on the internet.) Lists of members of the above groups can be found in Robert Gaylon Ross’s Who’s Who of the Elite, Members of the Bilderbergs, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission and Skull and Bones Society.)

Sutton suggests that organisations such as the above form a larger ‘outer circle’ of members, while societies such as Skull and Bones form part of an ‘inner circle’ of truly secret groupings, of which there is a still further ‘inner core’ – the ‘decision-making core’ – which remains completely out of public view, i.e. truly hidden (or, literally, ‘occult’). This is a reasonable hypothesis. From what is known of the Bilderberg conferences, for example, it could be inferred that their essential motivation is to further the Western Capitalist Project through high-level networking and the grooming of young talent. To put it in another way, they are working for the economic, political and cultural domination of a globalised world by the West – in particular by the English-speaking peoples led by the United States and Britain. (Although the Bilderberg conferences include guests from around the world, the emphasis is on North America and Europe, and its leadership is Anglo-Saxon.)

From what is known of the Bilderbergers – and much has reached the public domain – there appears to be no more conspiracy than that. Groups such as Skull and Bones (and Sutton deduces that there are others such as Scroll and Key) are not completely secret in that their existence and membership are well documented. According to Sutton these are the ‘core’, with similar objectives to the more public groups but with more focused and consciously-held goals.

In contradistinction to the Bilderbergers etc., true secret societies usually have elaborate initiation ceremonies and use ritual as a critical part of their mutual enterprise. The brotherhoods Steiner speaks of, as has already been mentioned, are also built on Masonic principles of secrecy and ritual, but are hidden from public view.

In relation to the groups referred to above, it is quite possible that such genuinely occult brotherhoods form part of the inner, ‘decision-making’ core, which Sutton refers to. Having said that, as Sutton points out, most members of the larger groups would have no inkling of any subterfuge or conspiracy, and neither would many members of Skull and Bones. This work would be left to the directors, or ‘initiates’, with esoteric knowledge and understanding. According to Steiner, the specific brotherhoods he is referring to not only have the conscious goal of maintaining Anglo-American domination, but complement this aim with real esoteric insight – i.e. an understanding of the evolutionary cycles referred to above.

The above sketch gives a useful framework for comprehending how public groups such as Bilderberg, more secret groups like Skull and Bones, and the occult societies that Steiner refers to might interact and co-exist. In this sense, the true occult societies would be the central inspiration for the larger intersecting groups of organisations with politically active individuals. To my mind, such a complex picture is more convincing than the nebulous idea of a single all-powerful ‘Illuminati’ that is supposedly responsible for creating a massive conspiracy that controls every aspect of modern life.

If you appreciate this article, please consider a digital subscription to New Dawn.

Footnotes:

1. Karma of Untruthfulness Volumes I & II, Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1988 and 1992.
2. See further in Sergei O. Prokofieff, The Spiritual Origins of Eastern Europe and the Future Mysteries of the Holy Grail, Temple Lodge Publishing, London, 1993.
3. The Anglo-American Establishment was only published in 1981, Books in Focus, New York.Tragedy and Hope was published in 1966 by Macmillan, New York.
4. See Terry Boardman, Mapping the Millennium, Behind the Plans of the New World Order, Temple Lodge Publishing, London, 1998, and Amnon Reuveni, In the Name of the ‘New World Order’, Manifestations of Decadent Powers in World Politics, Temple Lodge Publishing, London, 1996.
5. The Transcendental Universe, Lindisfarne Press, New York, 1993, pages 98-99.
6. Daily Telegraph, London, 12 July 2004.
7. The Secret Cult of the Order (1983), An Introduction to the Order (1984), How the Order Creates War and Revolution (1985), How the Order Controls Education (1985), Veritas Publishing Co., Aukland. A more recent and high profile study is Alexandra Robbins Secrets of the Tomb.

SEVAK EDWARD GULBEKIAN lives in England. He is the publisher and chief editor of Clairview Books, Temple Lodge Publishing, and Rudolf Steiner Press. The above is an expanded chapter from his book In the Belly of the Beast, Holding Your Own in Mass Culture. Sevak can be reached at [email protected].

Source: http://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/brothers-of-the-shadows-a-perspective-on-conspiracies

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

by George Washington

Feb 23, 2015 8:26 PM

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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 would 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.

But Aren’t Conspiracy Theories – In Fact – Nuts?

Forget Western history and CIA dispatches … aren’t conspiracy theorists nutty?

In fact, conspiracies are so common that judges are trained to look at conspiracy allegations as just another legal claim to be disproven or proven based on the specific evidence:

Federal and all 50 state’scodes include specific statutes addressing conspiracy, and providing the punishment for people who commit conspiracies.

 

But let’s examine what the people trained to weigh evidence and reach conclusions think about “conspiracies”. Let’s look at what American judges think.

 

Searching Westlaw, one of the 2 primary legal research networks which attorneys and judges use to research the law, I searched for court decisions including the word “Conspiracy”. This is such a common term in lawsuits that it overwhelmed Westlaw.

 

Specifically, I got the following message:

“Your query has been intercepted because it may retrieve a large number of documents.”

From experience, I know that this means that there were potentially millions or many hundreds of thousands of cases which use the term. There were so many cases, that Westlaw could not even start processing the request.

 

So I searched again, using the phrase “Guilty of Conspiracy”. I hoped that this would not only narrow my search sufficiently that Westlaw could handle it, but would give me cases where the judge actually found the defendant guilty of a conspiracy. This pulled up exactly 10,000 cases — which is the maximum number of results which Westlaw can give at one time. In other words, there were more than 10,000 cases using the phrase “Guilty of Conspiracy” (maybe there’s a way to change my settings to get more than 10,000 results, but I haven’t found it yet).

 

Moreover, as any attorney can confirm, usually only appeal court decisions are published in the Westlaw database. In other words, trial court decisions are rarely published; the only decisions normally published are those of the courts which hear appeals of the trial. Because only a very small fraction of the cases which go to trial are appealed, this logically means that the number of guilty verdicts in conspiracy cases at trial must be much, much larger than 10,000.

 

Moreover, “Guilty of Conspiracy” is only one of many possible search phrases to use to find cases where the defendant was found guilty of a lawsuit for conspiracy. Searching on Google, I got 3,170,000 results (as of yesterday) under the term “Guilty of Conspiracy”, 669,000 results for the search term “Convictions for Conspiracy”, and 743,000 results for “Convicted for Conspiracy”.

 

Of course, many types of conspiracies are called other things altogether. For example, a long-accepted legal doctrine makes it illegal for two or more companies to conspire to fix prices, which is called “Price Fixing” (1,180,000 results).

 

Given the above, I would extrapolate that there have been hundreds of thousands of convictions for criminal or civil conspiracy in the United States.

 

Finally, many crimes go unreported or unsolved, and the perpetrators are never caught. Therefore, the actual number of conspiracies committed in the U.S. must be even higher.

 

In other words, conspiracies are committed all the time in the U.S., and many of the conspirators are caught and found guilty by American courts. Remember, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was a conspiracy theory.

 

Indeed, conspiracy is a very well-recognized crime in American law, taught to every first-year law school student as part of their basic curriculum. Telling a judge that someone has a “conspiracy theory” would be like telling him that someone is claiming that he trespassed on their property, or committed assault, or stole his car. It is a fundamental legal concept.

 

Obviously, many conspiracy allegations are false (if you see a judge at a dinner party, ask him to tell you some of the crazy conspiracy allegations which were made in his court). Obviously, people will either win or lose in court depending on whether or not they can prove their claim with the available evidence. But not all allegations of trespass, assault, or theft are true, either.

 

Proving a claim of conspiracy is no different from proving any other legal claim, and the mere label “conspiracy” is taken no less seriously by judges.

It’s not only Madoff. The heads of Enron were found guilty of conspiracy, as was the head of Adelphia. Numerous lower-level government officials have been found guilty of conspiracy. See this, this, this, this and this.

Time Magazine’s financial columnist Justin Fox writes:

Some financial market conspiracies are real …

 

Most good investigative reporters are conspiracy theorists, by the way.

And what about the NSA and the tech companies that have cooperated with them?

But Our Leaders Wouldn’t Do That

While people might admit that corporate executives and low-level government officials might have engaged in conspiracies – they may be strongly opposed to considering that the wealthiest or most powerful might possibly have done so.

But powerful insiders have long admitted to conspiracies. For example, Obama’s Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Cass Sunstein, wrote:

Of course some conspiracy theories, under our definition, have turned out to be true. The Watergate hotel room used by Democratic National Committee was, in fact, bugged by Republican officials, operating at the behest of the White House. In the 1950s, the Central Intelligence Agency did, in fact, administer LSD and related drugs under Project MKULTRA, in an effort to investigate the possibility of “mind control.” Operation Northwoods, a rumored plan by the Department of Defense to simulate acts of terrorism and to blame them on Cuba, really was proposed by high-level officials ….

But Someone Would Have Spilled the Beans

A common defense to people trying sidetrack investigations into potential conspiracies is to say that “someone would have spilled the beans” if there were really a conspiracy.

But famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg explains:

It is a commonplace that “you can’t keep secrets in Washington” or “in a democracy, no matter how sensitive the secret, you’re likely to read it the next day in the New York Times.” These truisms are flatly false. They are in fact cover stories, ways of flattering and misleading journalists and their readers, part of the process of keeping secrets well. Of course eventually many secrets do get out that wouldn’t in a fully totalitarian society. But the fact is that the overwhelming majority of secrets do not leak to the American public. This is true even when the information withheld is well known to an enemy and when it is clearly essential to the functioning of the congressional war power and to any democratic control of foreign policy. The reality unknown to the public and to most members of Congress and the press is that secrets that would be of the greatest import to many of them can be kept from them reliably for decades by the executive branch, even though they are known to thousands of insiders.

History proves Ellsberg right. For example:

• One hundred and thirty thousand (130,000) people from the U.S., UK and Canada worked on the Manhattan Project. But it was kept secret for years

• A BBC documentary shows that:

There was “a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by a group of right-wing American businessmen . . . . The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression”

Moreover, “the tycoons told General Butler the American people would accept the new government because they controlled all the newspapers.” Have you ever heard of this conspiracy before? It was certainly a very large one. And if the conspirators controlled the newspapers then, how much worse is it today with media consolidation?

• 7 out of the 8 giant, money center banks went bankrupt in the 1980′s during the “Latin American Crisis”, and the government’s response was to cover up their insolvency. That’s a cover up lasting several decades

• Banks have been involved in systematic criminal behavior, and have manipulated every single market

• Governments have been covering up nuclear meltdowns for fifty years to protect the nuclear industry. Governments have colluded to cover up the severity of numerous other environmental accidents. For many years, Texas officials intentionally under-reported the amount of radiation in drinking water to avoid having to report violations

• The government’s spying on Americans began before 9/11 (confirmed here and here. And see this.) But the public didn’t learn about it until many years later. Indeed, the the New York Times delayed the story so that it would not affect the outcome of the 2004 presidential election

• The decision to launch the Iraq war was made before 9/11. Indeed, former CIA director George Tenet said that the White Housewanted to invade Iraq long before 9/11, and inserted “crap” in its justifications for invading Iraq. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill – who sat on the National Security Council – also says that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11. And top British officialssay that the U.S. discussed Iraq regime change one month after Bush took office. Dick Cheney apparently even made Iraqi’s oil fields a national security priority before 9/11. And it has now been shown that a handful of people were responsible for willfully ignoring the evidence that Iraq lacked weapons of mass destruction. These facts have only been publicly disclosed recently. Indeed, Tom Brokaw said, “All wars are based on propaganda.” A concerted effort to produce propaganda is a conspiracy

Moreover, high-level government officials and insiders have admitted to dramatic conspiracies after the fact, including:

• Supporting terrorists to promote geopolitical goals

• Supporting false flag terror

The admissions did not occur until many decades after the events.

These examples show that it is possible to keep conspiracies secret for a long time, without anyone “spilling the beans”.

In addition, to anyone who knows how covert military operations work, it is obvious that segmentation on a “need-to-know basis”, along with deference to command hierarchy, means that a couple of top dogs can call the shots and most people helping won’t even know the big picture at the time they are participating.

Moreover, those who think that co-conspirators will brag about their deeds forget that people in the military or intelligence or who have huge sums of money on the line can be very disciplined. They are not likely to go to the bar and spill the beans like a down-on-their-luck, second-rate alcoholic robber might do.

Finally, people who carry out covert operations may do so for ideological reasons — believing that the “ends justify the means”. Never underestimate the conviction of an ideologue.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that some conspiracy claims are nutty and some are true. Each has to be judged on its own facts.

Humans have a tendency to try to explain random events through seeing patterns … that’s how our brains our wired. Therefore, we have to test our theories of connection and causality against the cold, hard facts.

On the other hand, the old saying by Lord Acton is true:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.

Those who operate without checks and balances – and without the disinfectant sunlight of public scrutiny and accountability – tend to act in their own best interests … and the little guy gets hurt.

The early Greeks knew it, as did those who forced the king to sign the Magna Carta, the Founding Fathers and the father of modern economics. We should remember this important tradition of Western civilization.

Postscript: The ridicule of all conspiracy theories is really just an attempt to diffuse criticism of the powerful.

The wealthy are not worse than other people … but they are not necessarily better either. Powerful leaders may not be bad people … or they could be sociopaths.

We must judge each by his or her actions, and not by preconceived stereotypes that they are all saints acting in our best interest or all scheming criminals. 

Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-23/1967-he-cia-created-phrase-conspiracy-theorists-and-ways-attack-anyone-who-challenge