Conspiracy Theories, WikiLeaks and the Culture of Fear
We live in a culture of conspiracy theories. Mystery always attracts attention as do the conspiracy theories revolving around it. Be it religion, science, politics, war or economy, conspiracy theories have consistently emerged throughout recent and ancient history, persisting to this very day.
With countless such theories floating around the web of information, each presenting its own often convincing counterevidence to the alleged “truth”, the line between fact and fraud seems to be blurring day by day. Following is a list of the top or most popular conspiracy theories in history.
The 9/11 Conspiracy
According to popular belief – even in the United States itself – the 9/11 incident was planned and executed or simply allowed to happen by the then government to engender support of the American public and the world for invasion of the Middle East, the war being a mere cover for the chief purpose – accessing Middle Eastern oil reserves and consequently, Pax Americana.
The Pearl Harbor Conspiracy
Advocates of this theory believe that that officials at the highest tiers in the US and British government, including the then US President Franklin D. Roosevelt himself, knew of the Japanese attacks ahead of time, my even have provoked them and took no countermeasures with the intent to ‘fool’ the German Führer Adolf Hitler into declaring war on America, forcing her to step in to assist the Allies.
The New World Order
Innumerable conspiracies revolve around the concept of a New World Order, that is, a dominating world power steadily and covertly spreading its influence and rising in strength, all for the purpose of bringing the world under a unified rule or master government.
Princess Diana’s Death Was No Accident
Proponents of the Diana death conspiracy claim that the Princess of Wales was assassinated by elements of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service to prevent her allegedly deep relationship with the Egyptian Muslim film producer Dodi Fayed from tainting the purity and honor of the British Royal Family. It is believed that Diana was pregnant and planning to get engaged to Fayed.
JFK Assassination Conspiracy
According to numerous polls, a majority of American citizens and researchers believe, owing to several flaws in released evidence and FBI reports, that the assassination of John F. Kennedy involved a cover-up or conspiracy orchestrated by either the American or Russian intelligence agencies, the Israeli government, the then Cuban President Fidel Castro or a union of these and other such elements.
Global Warming
The gobal warming conspiracy states that the phenomenon of global warming is a scientific hoax concocted to provide the government with an excuse to raise taxes, climate science researchers with an opportunity to draw greater monetary support, the UN with support to propogate a “system of world government” [via Wikipedia] and/or several other distinct motives.
The Roswell UFO Conspiracy and Proof of Alien Existence
In July of 1947, debris of a crashed aircraft, described by its first witness as a “flying disk”, was found spread over a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico and recovered by the US military which claimed it was a military surveillance balloon. It is believed that flying object was of extraterrestrial origin and that alien bodies may also have been found within the debris.
Apollo Moon Landing Conspiracy Theory
“Different Moon landing conspiracy theories claim that some or all elements of the Apollo Project and the associated Moon landings were falsifications staged by NASA and members of other organizations.” [via Wikipedia]. Advocates of certain theories believe that mock-up sets were used to film the landings.
Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion
‘The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion’ is allegedly an old textual guide addressing novice Jewish Elders on the methods to gain control of world economy and media, ultimately to attain global dominance. Over the years, convincing evidence has been put forth, labeling it as mere propaganda and a hoax.
CIA-Bin Laden Conspiracy Theory
Conspiracy proponents adamantly claim that Osama Bin Laden was trained and sponsored by the CIA to fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Belief in said speculation only escalated after the 9/11 incident referring to which, some theorize that Bin Laden was a “blow back” while others assert he was and is still working for the CIA, repeatedly mentioning instances where he was reportedly allowed to escape.
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SMH - It was the ultimate post-modern attack, the crash of planes into one of New York's most recognizable landmarks, recorded in bursting color by television on September 11, 2001.
The ideas underpinning the attacks could be explained by the tremendous force of conspiracy theory. In al-Qaeda's case, its belief that the trajectory of world affairs and modern history in general could, in part, be explained by the West's desire to dominate Muslims.
In the classification of conspiracy theories, the belief is not unlike that of Hitler and National Socialism, for it sought to explain economic and political problems in a specific group's perceived exploitation of another.
The year is ending with WikiLeaks, the release of diplomatic cables which, for the most part, are rather bland and show US diplomats essentially doing their job. But perhaps the greater significance of the leaks will be to reinforce a view among many that the world's levers are pulled by a shadowy elite seeking to deceive or oppress the majority for their own ends.
To further bookend the arc of a decade through the lens of conspiracy, both WikiLeaks and the September 11 attacks are now being linked by some, albeit fringe, elements who see Julian Assange's arrest as part of a plot to ensure the truth about the World Trade Centre attacks is not exposed.
In the mid-1990s, the American sociologist Ted Goertzel surveyed thousands of residents across the United States to appraise their acceptance or rejection of popular conspiracy theories. Goertzel identified three traits that correlated with such beliefs.
They were the experience of anomia - the respondent stated that he or she felt alienated or disaffected by "the system", a tendency to distrust others and a feeling of insecurity regarding continued employment.
Goertzel concluded that conspiracy theories served to provide an enemy to blame for problems that otherwise appeared too abstract and impersonal. They also provided ready answers for the believer's unanswered questions and helped to resolve contradictions between known "facts" and an individual's belief system.
We live at a time where the factors that make people vulnerable to conspiracy theories are arguably at their peak. The notion of anomie could be measured by the massive uptake in psychological services and the growing proportion of people living alone. The decline in trust could be measured by our decades-long fall in joining civic groups, as outlined by the professor turned federal Labor MP Andrew Leigh in his book Disconnected. And modern work has shifted, perhaps permanently, to a more casual, liquid relationship between employer and employee, a trend exacerbated by the financial crisis.
This bodes poorly for the prospect of reason trumping emotion and fear in public debate. For all the pundits that decried the vacuity of debate surrounding our recent federal election, perhaps the politicians and their advisers were just acting sensibly. As the former premier Bob Carr told me recently, it is an enormous political risk these days for a political leader or party to really stand for something.
A closely related theory is that of cognitive dissonance, pioneered by a psychologist in the 1950s, who followed a housewife who was convinced the apocalypse was coming after she received messages from aliens. Leon Festinger followed the housewife and her many followers to see their reaction when the date of the apocalypse, December 21, arrived. On the night of December 20, they assembled in the housewife's home only to find there were no aliens.
While some of the group cried in disappointment, their trusty leader informed them that she just received a new telegram from outer space that the group's gathering and stubborn faith had flooded the world with such goodness that it prevented the apocalypse. The group became more emboldened in its beliefs thereafter.
In other words, the notion of dissonance is that we have a tendency to react to being proven wrong by becoming even more certain that we are right.
In our information age this problem is getting worse, for the internet can allow us to find "evidence" for almost any belief, promoting a Balkanisation of our society. This is already apparent in the fragmentation of media consumption.
There is no doubt WikiLeaks and Assange are worth celebrating. Their computing brilliance has resulted in some of the era's best journalism exposes. But the idea that there is some new transparency that is shifting the relationship between governments and the citizenry is far fetched. What is more likely is that a more fractured, tense engagement between opposing sides is now the new norm, promoted by rigid views on all sides reinforced by their equally blinkered media supporters. The psychological basis for this is a greater preponderance for conspiracy theory and its mental ally, cognitive dissonance. The information age is merely making the voice of reason more stifled and more relative.
If Tony Abbott believes he can be more polite and civilized next year in political debate, I wish him luck. History may not be on his side. - Tanveer Ahmed
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HP - A Christian Science Monitor article describes WikiLeaks as having no "obvious ideology beyond exposing secrets." Todd Gitlin, playing at geriatric scold, calls Julian Assange a representative of "his generation's anarchism -- the kind that wears a black mask, values disruption as action, and thinks it imperative to obstruct the workings of international meetings."
In his own words, Julian Assange says that he wants to expose secrets to disrupt the conspiracies at the root of state and corporate power, leading to "system-wide cognitive decline."
"Where details are known as to the inner workings of authoritarian regimes," Assange wrote in a 2006 manifesto, "we see conspiratorial interactions among the political elite not merely for preferment or favor within the regime but as the primary planning methodology behind maintaining or strengthening authoritarian power."
As blogger Aaron Bady writes, Assange believes that powerful institutions perpetuate themselves by conspiracy:
"A state like the US [is.]... essentially an authoritarian conspiracy, and [Assange] then reasons that the practical strategy for combating that conspiracy is to degrade its ability to conspire, to hinder its ability to 'think' as a conspiratorial mind. The metaphor of a computing network is mostly implicit, but utterly crucial: he seeks to oppose the power of the state by treating it like a computer and tossing sand in its diodes."
Some proponents say that WikiLeaks' politics are immaterial. The organization is a natural reaction to an ever more powerful national security state and the credulous media (a-la-Judith Miller) that buys their story hook, line and sinker; a world where governments insist on knowing all of your secrets without sharing any of their own. Trying to understand WikiLeaks the organization is a distraction from the leaks themselves, and the myopic focus on Assange obscures the diffuse and networked nature of the entire episode, from WikiLeaks to the hacker posse called Anonymous. Something this organic can't be debated or talked down.
Michael Moore, explaining why he posted bail for Assange, put it this way: "WikiLeaks exists, in part, because the mainstream media has failed to live up to its responsibility. The corporate owners have decimated newsrooms, making it impossible for good journalists to do their job."
For Salon blogger Glen Greenwald, WikiLeaks isn't so much picking up the slack as deposing a craven charlatan, a media whose "servile role...[is] serving government interests and uncritically spreading government claims."
Certainly, we should focus on the cables that expose government wrongdoing or tell us something interesting. As Mother Jones editor Dave Gilson, who calls the leaks a net plus, told me, "You can think he's mercurial, touchy, brilliant, whatever, and still separate that from the work the group does."
But it matters what WikiLeaks thinks and wants. They are a powerful organization that might be with us for a long time. We should treat them as such. Only if we accept the naive premise that secrets are inherently bad and transparency inherently good can WikiLeaks be considered a neutral arbiter.
As Raffi Khatchadourian put it in the New Yorker, "Assange must confront the paradox of his creation: the thing that he seems to detest most -- power without accountability -- is encoded in the site's DNA, and will only become more pronounced as WikiLeaks evolves into a real institution."
It's the very prosaic nature of many recent cables that are most unnerving. The leaks of greatest consequence -- the Collateral Murder video showing a U.S. attack helicopter kill twelve Iraqis or the summer documents showing the futility of the Afghanistan war -- have provoked far less hysteria than the relatively less explosive diplomatic cables.
"If WikiLeaks," writes the New Yorker's George Packer, "and its super-secretive, thin-skinned, megalomaniacal leader, Julian Assange...were uncovering crimes, or scandals, or systemic abuses, there would be no question about the overwhelming public interest in these latest revelations. But the WikiLeaks dump contains no My Lais, no black sites, no Abu Ghraibs."
As the Washington Post's Ezra Klein put it, "Assange isn't whistleblowing or leaking. Both of those are targeted acts focused on an identified wrongdoing or event."
Assange isn't interested in targeted change. According to Bady, Assange's entire "point is not that particular leaks are specifically effective.
"WikiLeaks does not leak something like the 'Collateral Murder' video as a way of putting an end to that particular military tactic; that would be to target a specific leg of the hydra even as it grows two more. Instead, the idea is that increasing the porousness of the conspiracy's information system will impede its functioning, that the conspiracy will turn against itself in self-defense, clamping down on its own information flows in ways that will then impede its own cognitive function. You destroy the conspiracy, in other words, by making it so paranoid of itself that it can no longer conspire."
You also destroy the conspiracy by delegitimizing it before the public. The next batch of leaks are said to target a major financial institution, rumored to be Bank of America. If the documents turn out to be explosive, the American people may become more supportive of WikiLeaks, an organization dead set on impact.
"Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce resistance," Assange wrote. "Hence these plans are concealed by successful authoritarian power. This is enough to define their behavior as conspiratorial... If all links between conspirators are cut then there is no conspiracy."
If there's no conspiracy, there's no authoritarian state. There is some comfort in the idea that there is a secret out there, at the heart of state and corporate power, that would change everything if it were to be exposed; that a network of secrets are the system's lifeblood. This is especially comforting to a U.S. left battered by disappointment after crushing disappointment.
Assange conflates the way secrets function in an authoritarian government like China and a liberal democracy like the United States. In some ways, WikiLeaks mirrors the national security state's own secrecy fetish: Assange believes the government's story, and so does the government; television police dramas mold actual police work, James Bond movies shape the mindset of future real-life spies.
Umberto Eco makes an interesting point in arguing that WikiLeaks has done real damage by showing that state secrets are often "empty" or banal, recycled from news clippings. But he overstates his case when he says that "to actually reveal... that Hillary Clinton's secrets were empty secrets amounts to taking away all her power," that it has done "irreparable damage to Clinton and Obama."
But that's what, if anything, WikiLeaks threatens here: the U.S. government's image, and thus its legitimacy. Thus the hysterical, Espionage Act-laden response. It's the U.S. government, on the world stage, playing itself. And its a performance that it will likely pull off as well as it ever has.
"Even if the analysis that government works in conspiratorial ways is correct, I don't know if his version of exposing the conspiracy will play out the way that he hopes it will," says Mother Jones' Gilson, describing WikiLeaks' programmer-like mindset: a function requires an input, which prompts a particular output. Assange was initially so confident that the leaks would bring the State Department to its knees that he called for Hillary Clinton's resignation.
"I'm not saying they're ho-hum," says Gilson, "but there's no huge bombshell that was going to turn everyone's heads 180-degrees."
And certainly no bombshell that would bring the state to its knees. Assange wants to build a "social movement" to expose secrets. I don't see such a movement taking shape, and if it did, it would be no substitute for the non-existence of an anti-war movement over at least the past five years. Nor would it create such a movement.
Assange, to his credit, dismisses conspiracy theories, 9/11 and otherwise. Yet his is still a conspiracist mindset. Blogger Aaron Bady distinguishes between the two, saying that "for Assange... a conspiracy is something fairly banal, simply any network of associates who act in concert by hiding their concerted association from outsiders, an authority that proceeds by preventing its activities from being visible enough to provoke counter-reaction."
But what both ways of thinking have in common is their belief that secrets are the foundation upon which illegitimate power rests. That's not true, and it muddles our thinking about how power works and why bad things happen.
If only exposing secrets would bring the whole rotten edifice down. Thus the cognitive dissonance on the left when Americans reelected Bush even after his WMD lies were exposed. When it comes to the American people, the most sinister lies hide in plain sight.
I need only walk through any of the many dilapidated blocks of my city to know that the status quo is bankrupt. But most people don't take that walk; or they're too busy watching Fox News, Good Morning America, or whatever. The curtain is already pulled back, the true nature laid bare. Keep the secrets coming. But we already know more than enough to know better. Sadly, and paradoxically, we still don't.
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Blue-Dog Found in Kentucky
wave3 - Has a mythical creature made its way to Kentucky? Some people seem to think so, after a Nelson County man came across a creature with grayish, wrinkly skin and no fur.
Mark Cothren shot and killed an animal on Dec. 18 because he said he feared what it was, since he did not recognize it. He said the animal walked from the woods onto his front yard around 3 p.m. Cothren lives on Mount Carmel Church Road in Lebanon Junction.
"I was like: 'every animal has hair, especially this time of year!' What puzzled me is how something like that could survive through a winter with no hair," Cothren said.
"Everybody is getting very curious, you know. [The] phone is ringing off the hook. It's kind of a mystery right now," Cothren said.
Cothren described the creature as having large ears, whiskers, a long tail, and about the size of a house cat. He says many people have tried to guess what the animal may be. He said he's heard anything from raccoon to a dog to the legendary Chupacabra.
"Everybody is leaning kind of toward that - it's the Chupacabra! People have come up to me [saying] 'that's what the thing is 'cause I pulled it up on the Internet'" Cothren laughed.
Legend has it the Chupacabra - also known as the "Goat Sucker" - kills goats and sucks their blood. The fabled creature has supposedly been spotted in South America, Mexico, Puerto Rico, as well as Texas and Oklahoma.
"It's hard to judge what an animal is from just a photograph," said Sam Clites with the Louisville Zoo. Clites say he would have to see the animal in person to study it and determine its species. At first glance, he believed the animal could be a raccoon or a dog, but not a mythical creature.
"This is an animal that's native to our area, most likely that is suffering from some type disease," Clites said.
Clites says it isn't uncommon for an animal with a severe disease to lose fur and look unrecognizable.
Cothren says he has spoken with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources and is preserving the animal to hand over to them.
Click for video
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Japanese tourist claims Australian man told her 'You must have sex with me or die'
A Northern Territory man said he could see into the future and told a Japanese tourist she would die if they did not have sex on a "sacred site", a court has heard. The woman said the man told her he could see her dying in hospital in three years' time if she rejected his advances while at Ubirr Rock, a popular Kakadu site of ancient cave art. The woman's allegations were heard at a committal hearing in Darwin Magistrates Court this week.
Magistrate Michael Carey dismissed the four charges of sexual intercourse without consent against the man, saying the woman's evidence was unreliable, contradictory in some places and "did not hang together". "There is no way (a jury) would convict on her evidence," Mr Carey said. The woman alleged she was raped four times over October 16 and 17 last year at Ubirr Rock and the man's Jabiru home, 40km southwest of the tourist attraction.
Officer in charge of the investigation Detective Sergeant Ian Young told the committal hearing the case was thrown away, but he fished it out of the rubbish in August this year. The court heard the woman met the man when he offered to fix her tyre. Doctor Tracey Johns, who later examined the woman, told the court her patient said he had manipulated her into staying at his house while he fixed her tyre by talking about the dangers of camping in Kakadu.
Prosecutor Georgia McMasters said the Crown's case was that the woman did not have the ability to say no because her will was overpowered by him. When interviewed, the woman, who had limited English, said: "I had no option but to follow because I was scared, I was told I could no longer say no in this sacred place. I was told if I reject I will die, someone did because of rejecting." Mr Carey said the woman did not indicate a lack of consent to the sexual encounters. He said she might have been "incredibly naive or gullible".
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Ghostly Presence at 'A Christmas Carol' Production
watfordobserver - Ghosts are writ large in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, but when Talkwood Productions started rehearsals for their production at The Chorleywood Memorial Hall, they found they had one spook too many.
When Dickens penned the tale in 1843 he made Ebenezer Scrooge endure four ghostly visitations – Marley’s Ghost, and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. However, the hall may possibly house a real spirit. Apparently, several people, including caretaker Mike Arnold have experienced some ghostly goings-on there. The voice of a young girl has been heard on several occasions over the years. The voice, which seems to be just in the next room, greets them with a simple ‘Hello’.
Rest assured, all who have reported the presence have maintained it is not frightening.
“It only happens when someone is working there alone at night,” explains producer Tom Barton. “I haven’t heard her but at least half a dozen others have. I hope she enjoys the show.”
Tom is busy collecting props in north London when we speak. So far the company has sourced items from the Opera House in Covent Garden, various theatres and scenic workshops in Luton.
“We want it to be authenthic in every way possible,” says Tom. “We are really trying hard to capture the ethos of a Christmas show that is a whole village event. There’s a good history of festive shows at the Memorial Hall and we want to continue that tradition and bring the community together without the need for flashing swords and rehashed pop songs.”
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UFO Attack, Damage in India
The latest entrant to the list of people in Madhya Pradesh, who claim to have sighted unidentified Flying objects (UFO), is state Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Ramkrishna Kusmaria. Kusmaria said he spotted an UFO in Sukha village in Damoh district, about 275 km east of state capital Bhopal, while on an official tour.
Kusmaria said he clearly saw the object in the sky, and it was emitting sharp sparks. “The object caused damage to the standing crops in the area. I saw papaya fruits fell off the trees as the UFO passed by,” the minister said.
“I took photographs of the circular object with my camera. I would share the photograph with you as soon as I come back to Bhopal,” he told HT over the phone.
Kusmaria’s story, however, has landed the district officials in soup, as villagers have already started claiming compensation for crop damage caused by the UFO sighted by a no less than a minister.
Superintendent of Police D.K. Arya said he was aware of the incident. But he said since he had not yet visited the spot, it would be difficult for him to comment on the UFO.
District Collector R.A. Khandelwal rushed to Sukha village on Wednesday to assess the extent of crop damage.
The village is located nearly 40 km from Damoh city.
Several people have claimed seeing UFOs in the state in the last one year or so. Ram Srivastava, a retired professor of Holkar Science College in Indore, said there had been nearly half-a-dozen similar claims in the state recently.
He said, “Often there is optical illusion or gravitational whirlpool in which solar wind gets trapped that gives an impression of UFO.”The latest entrant to the list of people in Madhya Pradesh, who claim to have sighted unidentified Flying objects (UFO), is state Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Ramkrishna Kusmaria.
Kusmaria said he spotted an UFO in Sukha village in Damoh district, about 275 km east of state capital Bhopal, while on an official tour.
Kusmaria said he clearly saw the object in the sky, and it was emitting sharp sparks. “The object caused damage to the standing crops in the area. I saw papaya fruits fell off the trees as the UFO passed by,” the minister said.
“I took photographs of the circular object with my camera. I would share the photograph with you as soon as I come back to Bhopal,” he told HT over the phone.
Kusmaria’s story, however, has landed the district officials in soup, as villagers have already started claiming compensation for crop damage caused by the UFO sighted by a no less than a minister.
Superintendent of Police D.K. Arya said he was aware of the incident. But he said since he had not yet visited the spot, it would be difficult for him to comment on the UFO.
District Collector R.A. Khandelwal rushed to Sukha village on Wednesday to assess the extent of crop damage.
The village is located nearly 40 km from Damoh city.
Several people have claimed seeing UFOs in the state in the last one year or so. Ram Srivastava, a retired professor of Holkar Science College in Indore, said there had been nearly half-a-dozen similar claims in the state recently.
He said, “Often there is optical illusion or gravitational whirlpool in which solar wind gets trapped that gives an impression of UFO.”
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NAVAJO SKIN WALKERS and LEGENDS
This documentary by JC Johnson of Crypto Four Corners is a fascinating glimpse into the Skin Walker phenomenon and includes other cryptids and legends of the Navajo people...Lon
