Untitled Document
Most people in the west have been programmed by media propagandists
to react negatively when they hear the word "conspiracy." They treat
anyone who investigates actual conspiracies as an oddball and call them names
in an attempt to dismiss and discredit what is being said and what is being
investigated at times with thorough and revealing research.
I struggle with this because on one hand history proves that people with power
consistently plot to grab and maintain power and control over wealth and resources
especially media resources like news and education. On the other hand, many
things do happen in a complicated matrix of mishaps, mistakes and human failures
that then someone or group will take advantage of. Of course it always helps
to "follow the money" and analyze "who benefits" when seeking
the truth about the research, planning and development that has been going on
for centuries in the age old battles for power.
No one likes to admit the level at which we in the West are being manipulated
to think, feel believe, act or not to act. No one wants to believe they are
enslaved. It goes against our belief that we still live in a basically "free
country" and that we ourselves are "free" in a world where "freedom
isn’t free". Heavy Orwellian crap, right?
Knowing the histories, especially the military histories of the world do not
make for a positive spin or a have a happy day type of response. In this respect
we must be "Buddha knowing history" and be willing to walk courageously
without illusions, in other words without being conspiracy phobic.
"The conspiracy phobics believe that conspiracies do not exist, or if
they do exist, they are of no great significance...those who suffer from conspiracy
phobia are fond of saying: " do you actually think there’s a group
of men sitting around a room plotting things/" for some strange reason
this image of a group of men ( usually with no women present) actually sitting
around a room is considered utterly unbelievable...of course they sit around
in rooms. Where else would they meet? They are constantly conferring and they
have plenty of rooms at the CIA, the white house, the state department, the
FBI, the pentagon, the NSA, and where ever else. And yes, they consciously plot
to make certain things happen, to overthrow governments, to set up systems violent
repression against reformist or revolutionary governments and movements, to
ship arms to clandestine armies. They don’t call it plotting, they call
it "planning." they have a whole vocabulary to designate their state-sponsored
conspiracies: "secret operations", "covert actions", ’deep
operations", " off the shelf-operations", black book operations...at
the broader policy level, no one confabulates and plans more than the political
and corporate elites of America.
No one does more consciously self-interested policy studies--most of it in
secrecy- they have whole professions dedicated to special planning. They spend
billions of dollars each year of our tax money to make the world safe for their
interests. Yet we have our conspiracy phobics asking us, with incredulous and
patronizing smiles, if we really think that the people at the top actually talk
to each other about their mutual interests and agendas, and intentionally act
in pursuit of their interests...these elites get to know each other. They plant
words of ambition and promise in each others ears. They solicit support, offer
reassurances, reach understandings. They meet, talk, and plan--yes, in rooms.
Their meetings are usually kept private, as are their agendas. They conspire
regularly and frequently.
The word "conspiracy" should not be used to dismiss the actuality...in
sum, public policy should be directed to the needs of the many rather than the
greed of the few. The problem we face is that the ruling interests are profoundly
committed to a vision of the world that is ruthlessly exploitative, hegemonic,
self-serving, and ecologically unsustainable. Our only choice is to expose and
oppose them with all our concerted effort...the conventional view is that power
is anti-thetical to freedom, a threat to it. This can be true of state power
and other forms of institutionalized authority. However, popular power and freedom
are not anti-thetical but complementary: if you do not have the power to limit
the abuses of wealth and position, you do not have much freedom. In order to
wrest democratic gains from entrenched interests, we the people must mobilize
a countervailing power. " the concessions of the privileged to the unprivileged"
wrote John Stuart mill in 1869, " are so seldom brought about by any better
motive than the power of the unprivileged to extort them"...rather than
saying you cannot fight city hall, we might better say that we cannot afford
not to. It is often frustrating and sometimes dangerous to challenge those who
own and control the land, labor, capital and technology of society. But, in
the long run, it is even more dangerous not to do so (Parenti, M. 1998. America
Besieged.)."
It is enraging and exhausting to fight the powers that be. It is also extremely
dangerous to do so and not to do so. How does one have a good god damn day when
to know is to die and not to know is to be dead men walking?