What do you do when there is an outbreak of a deadly virus wreaking havoc in your society, infecting and killing scores of the population and it's reaching epidemic proportions? You seek out and find patient zero for it is there and only there where you will find the cure in that unadulterated, pure, original strain of the threat.
You find that, you isolate it, you expose it and eventually you use it to inoculate the remaining population against the virus' offspring.
You do that not to avenge those who are already gone... but to save and protect those who remain.
The United States suffers from a sickness. A virus of sorts. And the only way to stop it's spread (as we all know it is spreading in many ways with many variants) is to find the source, the original source (patient zero) and from there start to heal.
We have heard for the better part of 16 years (though I personally only became aware of the true nature of the events of Sept. 11 2001 in late 2005) all the arguments Caitlin Johnstone recently cobbled together in an article she titled "Nothing In Any Conspiracy Theory Is As Bad As What’s Being Done Out In The Open"
The core of her now cliched argument can be summed up with this tweet she put out yesterday:
""I often get conspiracy buffs asking/telling me to write about this or that theory of 9/11 or the JFK assassination or whatever, and I’m just like, dude, have you seen the stuff they’re doing in broad daylight??" Caitlin JohnstoneIt has been a long established cliche for so-called "alternative" writers and activists to distance themselves from the Truth Movement with this parroted talking point as it allows them to sit on the fence and not take a side one way or the other when it comes to any number of so-called "conspiracy theories" whether that be JFK or 9/11 or Amerithrax or the American Gladio campaign or election rigging or LIBOR or whatever.
I believe the first to employ this particularly vapid approach was Noam Chomsky when he used it to explain why he never delved his big brain into the murder of a seated president or the "New Pearl Harbor type event" of 2001.
So, all the accolades Caitlin is receiving at the time on her Twitter feed for her "sensible" stand on 'conspiracy theories" is kind of like giving her credit for plagiarism. Chomsky was only the first, there have been dozens since and the argument never stands up under the slightest scrutiny.
r1josephus @r1josephus 5 hours ago
Holy shit! That's the kind of writing I want to read.
Paul Craig Roberts posted your article today and I was so much in agreement that I am now following you on Twitter, unless you "Kick me to the curb."
Used to go to the library every few days, read up on Masons, secret societies, old, old books. lol hit me 1 day. The worst are in plain sight. They don't even hide. The wealthy. Not even secret. Started focusing on economics after that lolAnother#RedPill .
Caitlin Johnstone and her husband, for the most part, do good solid work calling attention to the obvious, "in broad daylight", ruthless crimes of our empire and the brutal, horrific nature of the neoliberal Washington Consensus.
As a result, she (they) have gained a lot of attention in a short period of time but they able to maintain their current standing only because they only go so far.
But this has not always been the case.
Caitlin used to push the PizzaGate disinfo back when that was really popular. Though she sort of sat on the fence for that one as well, she wrote several articles explaining how there must be kind of truth at the core of all that bullshit the creators of the psyop came up with.
"Don’t scurry me along with a pat on the bum. I’m going to stop and check this thing out (PizzaGate) for as long as I need, thank you very much...""So talk about Pizzagate. Talk about it whenever you want, wherever you want. It's entirely possible that it's got everything dead wrong, but so what?... you've got a lot more integrity and intellectual honesty than someone who says you shouldn't talk about this thing." Caitlin Johnstone
PizzaGate was a deliberate disinformation campaign designed to discredit by association folks looking into the very real problem of pedophilia in our political class at a time when that issues was getting a lot of attention.
Interestingly enough, Caitlin didn't take the position then that folks should ignore it and instead focus of the child-diddling that was being done "right out in plain sight"
Also of note she makes the claim that folks talking about "hot dogs" and "cheese pizza" being code words used to order kids to be delivered for rape is more intellectually honest than say... 3,000 architects and engineers who signed a statement saying the Twin Towers could not have come down due to office fires on Sept. 11th 2001.
Just thought I would toss that out there for consideration.
Caitlin and her ghost writer husband made some waves a year ago when she (they) suggested the alt-left team up with the likes of neoliberal, libertarian, rapist and fascist wannabe Mike Cernovich. Notice in this paragraph, Caitlin (et al) mentions fighting against the "Deep State". Point of order... the existence of the "Deep State" USED to be considered a CONSPIRACY THEORY until enough CONSPIRACY THEORISTS did the RESEARCH and PROVED it to be true. Food for thought Caitlin.
"I made a tweet a couple hours ago about US warmongering and the mainstream media, and according to my notifications the very first person to retweet it was alt-light hero Mike Cernovich. To be frank I think a lot more people on the anti-establishment right understand this need to collaborate than those on the anti-establishment left. Cernovich and I probably disagree on more things than we agree on ideologically, but where we do agree it’s absolutely stupid for us not to work together, because you can be damn sure the establishment Republicans and Democrats are working together to advance the agendas of the deep state. Once we’ve killed the establishment propaganda machine that holds America’s unelected power establishment in place and given the American people the power to determine the direction that their country will take, Cernovich and I can fight all day and all night over socialized medicine and whether white men really have it that hard. Until then that fight is a pointless waste of energy which distracts from the real clear and present danger posed by the deep state right now." Caitlin Johnstone
If you recall, this is around the same time that swindler Robert David Steele was pushing for the same "unite" cause but at least he was honest when he said he was doing it in order to bring the alt-left into the Trump camp in order to ensure his victory in 2020. That fraud fell apart and eventually Caitlin realized what a cretin Cernovich was and she too gave up on this effort.
I find it odd that Mike Cernovich was "the very first person" to retweet her statement considering she already had a large loyal following. Almost as if he were expecting her to make that statement and he wanted to get it out to his followers as well.
But that would be a conspiracy theory.
Recently (like two days prior to Caitlin (and others?) writing her Ode to Chomsky screed) folks over at CounterPunch started attacking her on various fronts. This was done very publicly on Twitter and I am not entirely sure this establishment protecting effort of hers is entirely unrelated to that latest attack.
Understandably Caitlin has received some flak for taking this position as she has in the past for certain stances she took like the ones I highlighted above and for those she takes regarding Yemen and Syria and the crimes of empire.
Why does Caitlin Johnstone bash people seeking 9/11 and 1963 Coup truth as "conspiracy theorists?" The ongoing concealment of these conspiracies, which actually did happen, are precisely what make what is done "out in the open" possible. Why can't she see this?
She doesn't bash people seeking 9/11 truth! She just says in her opinion other issues are more important. We don't happen to agree with that, but it's still a valid POV. No need to be divisive
To which she replies:
It's not that they're more important, it's that they're more useful. The softest spots in the armor of the machine are the things nobody can deny, like Iraq, or a seven year-old girl spouting clearly scripted war propaganda on CNN. Those attacks do far more damage.
And it is at this point that I will now dissect Caitlin Johnstone's baseless argument.
Some would have you endlessly swatting at flies in your home while others suggest you focus on finding the rotting squirrel carcass in the attic, the source of the infestation.
That's what "conspiracy theorists" attempt to do. And that is why they are hated by the establishment and marginalized by the so-called "alternative" media.
The "softest spots in the armor of the machine" are only softer because so many credible investigators and writers out there refuse to address what happened on 9/11. And yes, the war crimes of Iraq are obvious, but so too is NIST saying no steel framed skyscrappers have EVER fallen due to office fires and what happened to Building 7 was so impossible, they had to make up an entirely new excuse for it (thermal expansion)
That's pretty obvious when you think about it, so much so that two news casters live on the air said the building looked like they were being brought down by controlled demolition AS IT HAPPENED LIVE.
That's pretty obvious too don't you think?
In fact it's so obvious, half the country already knows and more than half don't believe in the Magic Bullet theory.
Now, what "damage" has been done to the efforts in Syria and Iraq that Caitlin is talking about? To my knowledge, Russia was responsible for turning the tide in Syria and we are still stationed and pulling triggers in both Iraq and Syria. So what great damage has been done as folks like Caitlin swat at flies as they buzz around the MSM propaganda tour?
Now, there was that time when ObamaGod said there was a "red line" Syrian better not cross back in 2013 and don't you know, Assad crossed it just days afterward.
But what happened? "Conspiracy theorists" proved the conspiracy the US military and intelligence services cooked up with their terrorists and Obama couldn't launch his all out war on Syria because everyone knew it was his proxy army that did the deed, not the SAA.
So in that case, the "conspiracy theorists" saved the day, not the fence sitters of the alt-left who were busy demonizing Assad as "an evil dictator" (thanks Bernie Sanders and Amy Goodman for that one)
So no. Shooting down the kites they fly from time to time without addressing the core of the problem is NOT the best solution and does NOT do the most damage.
In fact I would argue right now in this country more people are worrying about "ebil turrrurrurrrists" embedded in the migrant horde invasion coming up from Mexico than there are folks concerned with tens of thousands of starving children in Yemen.
"I mean, take 9/11. Pretty bad, right? 2,996 dead human beings. If that were engineered or permitted to happen by any faction of the US government or any of its allies, that would be pretty diabolical. But would it be worse than a million Iraqis killed in a war based on lies?" Caitlin JohnstoneWould it be "worse"? Is that the question? No it is not.
It would be easier to hold them accountable and to show future leaders and folks who are inclined to use false flags that there is and will be a price too pay for doing it. That's legitimate.
Hows that thing Obama promised back in 2007 working out? You know, the thing we were promised about holding folks accountable for war-crimes? How did that work out?
"We tortured some folks" Barack Obama
Oh yeah, he didn't hold anyone accountable and simply continued on with the program and even expanded upon it by creating kill lists for his droners in the CIA and even killed a couple U.S. citizens on purpose in the process...
one of whom was 16 years old.
And that is too say nothing of the fact that what happened to Afghanistan (also a war crime most "alt" writers fail to mention) and Iraq and Syria and Libya were ALL a DIRECT RESULT from not holding people accountable for 9/11.
Accountability is the key and you aren't ever going to stop the boulder rolling down the hill to fascistville unless you dig an accountability trench and start tossing criminals in it.
To be honest Caitlin, this is the most perverse argument you make in your article.
Why don't you ask family members of those 2,996 people what they think is worse?
Why don't you ask the families of the hundreds of first responders who are suffering or died from cancer as a direct result of the controlled demolitions of 9/11 what they think as worse ("alt" folks always forget about them as well)
Let me also point this out... the overtly fascist Patriot Act and subsequent "national security" bills that have been passed recently (since 9/11?) are all based on what? The war crimes of Iraq (AFGHANISTAN) Yemen, Syria and Libya? Or are we ALL suffering from the attack on our constitution as a result of... 9/11?
So much Caitlin didn't think about when she cobbled together her Chomsky-lite screed.
And lastly I would suggest EVERYONE go watch Ralph Nader's speech from July of this year where he talks about how the military industrial complex has EXPLODED with cash ever since 9/11 and the glorious, never-ending Global War OF Terror.
Ralph Nader | Eisenhower's Warning: Prophetic and Presently Understated9/11 the "conspiracy theory" version, was the foundation for all of this "CHANGE" and the blue-print was the Project for the New American Century's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" paper which just happened to have been published on Sept. 10th, 2000... one year to the day they got their "new Pearl Harbor type event" they wanted so badly.
So some like Caitlin here will try to argue the body count numbers in order to dissuade folks from learning, investigating and understanding just how evil these people really are.
Arguing to collectively turn a blind eye to what the MSM and establishment voices call "conspiracy theories" is beyond reprehensible in my book especially when that someone once wrote of the folks looking into the PizzaGate bs...
"...you've got a lot more integrity and intellectual honesty than someone who says you shouldn't talk about this thing."
Ultimately false flags and other forms of Deep State terror are done right out in the open, "in broad daylight" as it were. They have to be. Like the murder of a president or the dropping of the Twin Towers. That's how Shock and Awe works. Like all those staged ISIS be-headings we were subjected to as Obama needed justification to sent troops back to Iraq and into Syria, terrorism only works in broad daylight for all too see.
When we refuse to see beyond what they want us too see, when we deliberately close our eyes for comfort or for self preservation, that's when we have really lost.
That's when they know they can get away with anything like, for example, telling us there was one shooter in Vegas when everyone could clearly hear multiple rifles being fired simultaneously from different positions.
Or maybe then they can tell us Vladimir Putin poisoned some dude in England for no apparent reason.
Or maybe then they can tell us there's been another Gulf of Tonkin only this time its in the Gulf of Oman.
We live in a time when full on neoliberal corporate fascism is spreading like a virus across the globe and across our political/media system. It has been enabled by willful complacency, a decision most make to ignore the horror of what they know in the back of their minds to be true because it is more comforting to do so.
Suggesting that continue is downright irresponsible, in my opinion. And that's not just because I am a conspiracy analyst, it's because I know what becomes of viruses that go unchecked in a society. And I fear them.
Quite the contrary to what Caitlin Johnstone suggests, we must collectively seek out and expose patient zero if we want to halt the progression of this disease that thrives among us. Treating the sores and cancers that spring up as results of this illness will not save us or those who come behind.
Those are half measures and as I am sure some of you know, half measure avail us nothing.
Horrid truths often start as "conspiracy theories". Our history books are full of former theories we now know to be facts. And those who perpetrated them, and those who serve their interests, would always make it known the folks who work to expose these terrors must be marginalized, called derogatory names, made to look insane.
This has been going on since Galileo challenged the church and it has not changed nor will it.
But the courageous still step forward and we are forever in their debt. And we should not attempt to pile on the marginalization during this holiday season Caitlin... rather, we should give thanks and credit where it is due. And if you don't have the courage to stand yourself, you should at least have the decency to applaud those that do.
--
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you from myself, mom and my furry family.
She speaks with a split-tongue. (she is a snake)
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving everyone....
jan
I agree with most of what Caitlin posts but I agree she is completely wrong in this case. Well written rebuttal Scott. Thanks for all the work you do and have a great Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteGeez, Caitlin. It doesn't have to be either/or. It wouldn't be too much for a very prolific writer such as yourself to devote one story, say, on the anniversary of 9/11 to the multitude of holes in the "official" 9/11 narrative.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Scott that she is trying to rationalize self-censoring for the sake of her career. So it goes with the young -- people with more to lose are more susceptible to compromise.
At least she is engaging publicly regarding this. I hate the annoying game of trying to figure out whether someone is "compatible left"/corrupted or not. But hopefully she will see that her position is weak and admit it. That would be cool.
I've gotten into "fun" arguments with both my liberal brother and Catholic rightwing uncles/parental over topics like 9/11, or the Korean War. They've fully imbibed the propaganda against anti-neoliberal populism un Latin America. Aside from a few disagreements, it's lonely without people like you, Scott.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the Lonely Island Martin. If you don't bleat to the tune of the complicit, exploitable versions of political groups, you'll end up here. In fact, people like us end up on this little island, but don't let the negative aspects of loneliness get the better of you, mentally or physically.
DeleteGood response.
ReplyDelete