Originally posted by: mjuszczak
First, I wouldn't consider myself amazingly smart with politics. I know that I'm stupid. That's about all I know. I was a political science major in College, but it wasn't my primary program, and I primarily focused on International Growth and Development and Third World Dependency, etc., so my United States knowledge itself isn't the best.
With that said, I'm a bit confused. I walk around Boston (where I live) and almost once or twice a week, reliably, someone is mentioning a conspiracy theory by our government - either on 9/11, the Iraq war, etc. etc. Some of their arguments *seem* very valid and very convincing, though I'm skeptical as to how something like that would be able to be hidden (and no, to protect myself, I don't believe most of what I've heard). But then there's things like Operations Northwoods which make me question the validity of some of these arguments.
How do you guys decide whether or not a "theory" makes a valid point or is totally imbalanced and unrealistic? Are some of these theories just things people may not want to believe but could be true?
In College, I used to read a lot of books at how Governments have manipulated masses of people, even in our own country, in the past. What would make things different now?
Appreciate any responses.
Thanks!
I don't think there's much substitute for learning 'how the system works', which takes a long time.
One thing to remember is that any such conspiracy is specifically designed not to be discovered, so many won't be; others are necessary despite the risks, and there's little they can do but try to paint those who are trying to expose it as nutty. Other times, the people who claim the conspiracy are being nutty.
Here are a few guidelines for sorting it out that won't get you too close:
- Small conspiracies work better than big conspiracies; most people, especially in government, are people who see themselves as decent people serving the nation.
Getting them to cooperate in some nefarious conspiracy, especially given the risks, is not easy, and even asking them has a big price.
- Balancing that is the issue that when the leaders can cherry pick from thousands who want senior positions, and who can be selected for the reason they have proven track records of being 'discreet' in serving their bosses willingly; and the intoxicating power close to the top where a 'the rules don't apply' mentality can take over, create the sorts of John Ehrlichmans and John Mitchells, not to mention G. Gordon Liddy (for Nixon), the James Watts and Oliver Norths for Reagan, and the countless corrupt officials in the current administration.
Let's look at just a few examples of known corruption of the public trust issues with this President:
- The nation's children being at risk for Viet Nam service was an issue of the public trust that there was no 'official' pass for kids of powerful people. But that didn't prevent the 'Champagne Unit' of the Texas Air National Guard being one place for those kids to stay out of the war. The speaker of the assembly had a public duty not to corrupt the waiting list of 500 who wanted spots - but by his own admission, he broke that trust, and called the General of the Guard to get powerful congressman George H. W. Bush a spot for his kid.
The Congressman, a war advocate, had no business corrupting the system for his son, also for the war, to avoid the war. But he did not act ethically. The Guard had no business agreeing to it, but they know who butters their bread and did let them have spots.
- Later, George W. Bush as a candidate for governor pledged to replace the company who did the lottery, as it had broken its public trust for profit; once in office, the company had hired that same former speaker as a lobbyist for $3M a year, and to keep him quiet about his history, Bush reversed his position and kept the lottery company; the former speaker was later paid $23 million. Who was the head of the lottery commission who could keep the contract where Bush wanted, asking no questions? Hariett Miers, later White House counsel.
- When George W. Bush was a director of Harkin, he was in charge of a three person committee to investigate suspected 'cooking the books'. He found they were and that it would be coming out soon - and illegally dumped his stock right away to avoid the loss, using insider knowledge. The Directors had been specifically warned not to do so; he broke his trust not to abuse insider info and did it. The SEC had responsibility for investigating and punishing him; the head of the SEC was appointed by President H. W. Bush and the chief investigator was George W. Bush's own laywer from the shady Texas Ranger purchase. They had a duty to enforce the law; they let him off, and the staff simply could just issue a note of protest.
- George W. Bush had a duty, one could argue, to be honest about his history, including a drunk driving arrest, as a candidate for president. Admittedly, candidates routinely break the public trust for such damaging info to get out; not all of them have their attorney do a coverup for them, keeping them off jury duty which would expose the arrest, and few are likely to have then rewarded such discreet loyalty by making the attorney the Attorney General of the United States, where their commitment to serve the appointer first and the public second would result in the scandal of the politicization of the US Attorneys, getting rid of those who prosecuted scandalously guilty republicans such as Duke Cunningham, and who refused political demands to prosecute democrats without evidence.
The bright side is that those few attorneys among the 108 appointed by Bush did the right thing by their public responsibility; others apparently did not, as during a time of the republican control of the White House and both branches of Congress, US attorneys investigated democrats over 600 times, to only over 200 for republicans.
There are other nice stories of officials in corrupt administrations doing the right thing; when Nixon ordered the Justice Department to get rid of the independent counsel, the AG refused and resigned; his deputy did the same. It wasn't until the next in line, Robert Bork, was asked that someone was willing to do the political thing. As we all know, Robert Bork was later rewarded with an appointment to the Supreme Court (as was Harriett Miers - both, thankfully, blocked). Another nice story is the State Department officials who resigned over the Iraq war, seeing how the president had broken his promise to treat war as the last resort and let the inspectors complete their search for WMD.
Such stories as these are part of understanding how corruption of the public trust works; then there are plenty of phony stories to understand.
- Another rule of thumb is that for any controversy, there will be crackpots; some real, and sometimes, other 'plants' to confuse the debate, to discredit all the other critics.
Eventually, you have to reach your own conclusions from understanding 'how the system works'. False flag operations (which you allude to with Operations Northwoods) are so commonly schemed up that the name 'false flag operations' exists for them; it's not unreasonable to suspect some happen. The US government has been known to use planes with markings designed to deceive in attacks, for example, and if the US, as transparent as it is, is doing it, others are likely to as well.
Consider the history of the origin of the Viet Nam war - you had the US secretly training terrorists for murder and sabotage in North Viet Nam, and our navy escorting them there; when the North Vietnamese spotted one such escort and shot at it in their waters, it was denied that the ship was in their waters; in the next day or two, you had a report, which was wrong, of a second attack that triggered that war. I know of no one who intentionally lied about the second attack - but it's an interesting example to look at. You had a lot of people not block the phony report, allowing it to be used for what the government wanted, a cover for war.
