Obama Info Czar Declares War on Free Thought

Let us not tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the eleventh.
- George W. Bush

Cass Sunstein, who is the head of Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama Administration, and is considered as ""the nation's most-cited legal scholar," has officially labeled a wide majority of the American population as 'kooks,' whose mental capacities are insufficiently dangerous, and who require government assistance to see reality "objectively" through "cognitive infiltration." In a paper called "Conspiracy Theories," published in 2008 by the University of Chicago and Harvard University, and which can be viewed here, Sunstein and co-author Adrian Vermeule promote the idea that the US government should actively penetrate groups who voice conspiracy theories about current and past historical events, most famously about the attacks on 9/11, and effectively destabilize their political discussion and potential political activities. Daniel Tencer at Rawstory has written up a good summary of the paper's most important details. Before I fully convey how outrageous and criminal their proposals are, I first would like to direct your attention to the meat of the matter. The authors define a conspiracy theory as follows:

We bracket the most difficult questions here and suggest more intuitively that a conspiracy theory can generally be counted as such if it is an effort to explain some event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role.

What this means is that anybody who draws connections between powerful people in high office and powerful people in charge of banks and corporations, and others who have unusual power or wealth in society, is a crazy person who does not deserve the respect of the law. It should be pointed out that powerful persons in society do occasionally meet each other in secret in a undisclosed location and exchange their opinions about the world and how it should be controlled. Powerful people usually conspire with each other to scam the public and they make up the one group in human society that is most interested and fairly capable to direct human affairs and the progression of humanity as they see it. They are not gods, of course, but the pages of history attest to their willingness to act like ones. The general population usually has little concern for such abstract notions as the evolution of the species, instead concentrating on their immediate surrounding, and clearly, this narrowness has proven to be very fatal.

It is a no-brainer that powerful people not only have a big interest in politics and society, but also have the resources and the political capital necessary to produce desired changes. As Arthur Silber has written on numerous occasions, the ruling class are called the ruling class because 'they rule.'

Some suggestions the authors give to counteract the profusion of conspiracy theories in the public mind appear on page fourteen of the paper;

(1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories. (3) Government might itself engage in counterspeech, marshaling arguments to discredit conspiracy theories. (4) Government might formally hire credible private parties to engage in counterspeech. (5) Government might engage in informal communication with such parties, encouraging them to help. Each instrument has a distinctive set of potential effects, or costs and benefits, and each will have a place under imaginable conditions. However, our main policy idea is that government should engage in cognitive infiltration of the groups that produce conspiracy theories, which involves a mix of (3), (4) and (5).

Believe it or not, calling for these methods to be used aggressively by government officials and so called "independent" sources essentially demands for the outlaw of thinking. Imagine the arrogance! Sunstein and Vermeule both appear to be soviet apparatchiks dressed in American clothes here. But they do not seem to be fully conscious of what they are calling for, because these statements make them both liable to stand before a jury at a future court date. When reading this paper, one thinks Sunstein is either a useful idiot or a very sinister point-man. Whatever is the case, I certainly hope he has a good lawyer because he is going to need one.

It should be noted that Sunstein is only interested in taking action against low-level conspiracy theorists and not conspiracy theorists in high office, such as former president George Bush and vice-president Dick Cheney.

In a debate on impeaching Bush with journalist and author Glenn Greenwald on Democracy Now in the summer of 2008, Sunstein argued against holding the Bush administration responsible for war crimes in Iraq and their practice of torture, illegal spying, and illegal detention of enemy combatants in the war on terror. Sunstein came off as a sorry apologist for a band of criminals when downplaying the law-oriented arguments made by Glenn Greenwald. Listening to Sustein pretend to balance the weight of justice and law is deeply infuriating, kind of like watching a dog repeatedly chase his tail. At one point in the debate he voices approval for "holding people accountable for criminal wrongdoing," but then dismisses the crimes of the Bush administration because the Clinton administration also participated in them. Such a man is not an intellectual and should not be acknowledged as a scholar with any weight, but as a patron of power who engages in doublethink. The fact that Obama surrounds himself with such people further reveals that he is a no-good lying tool.

Any person who possesses an ounce of common sense can see the evidence for the crimes of the Bush administration, as well as those of previous administrations. Also, let's not forget the current one. All the facts point to a very criminal agenda at work in the American government, which has its way over the direction of the government policy regardless of party or administration.

Greenwald has wrote an excellent rebuke of Sunstein's policy of infiltration and invasion of the American people called Obama's confidant's spine-chilling proposal. Towards the end Greenwald goes out guns-blazing by attacking the most damaging element of Sunstein's proposal: his belief that the US Government is moral and indestructible:

Who is it who relentlessly spread "false conspiracy theories" of Saddam-engineered anthrax attacks and Iraq-created mushroom clouds and a Ba'athist/Al-Qaeda alliance -- the most destructive conspiracy theories of the last generation? And who is it who demonized as "conspiracy-mongers" people who warned that the U.S. Government was illegally spying on its citizens, systematically torturing people, attempting to establish permanent bases in the Middle East, or engineering massive bailout plans to transfer extreme wealth to the industries which own the Government? The most chronic and dangerous purveyors of "conspiracy theory" games are the very people Sunstein thinks should be empowered to control our political debates through deceit and government resources: namely, the Government itself and the Enlightened Elite like him.

The belief that the American government is good and just, and all who question its authority are crazy or misinformed is shared by many influential journalists, pundits, politicians, intellectuals, and others key figures who knowingly or unknowingly are protecting the interests of a very criminal elite. They may possess the highest intellectual faculties but because of their position and life choices they refuse to believe that the US government had a hand in 9/11. If true, their whole world would come crashing down, so for survival's sake they dismiss any evidence that suggests it may in fact be true. Participating in doublethink, demeaning skeptics, and trusting 'Big Daddy' to be the great moral agent are just three of the psychological defects that the elite intellectual class and political commentators share.

Psychologist Gregory W. Lester explains why human beings have a hard time accepting new realities in any field, whether religion or politics, in a famous article called "Why Bad Beliefs Don't Die." Lester writes that "the biological purpose of beliefs can help skeptics to be far more effective in challenging irrational beliefs and communicating scientific conclusions." When it comes to new conclusions about reality, Lester argues, nothing less than survival is at stake. Beliefs ranging from the insecurity of the outside world to the integrity of public officials play a crucial role in ensuring our survival, and new information that should dispel these worn out beliefs are not unable to because beliefs take a long while to process data that goes against its most basic assumptions, which have developed in cultures over generations. Those of us who question authority are surprised why long-held beliefs are incredibly repellent to new evidence, but Lester says there are very good reasons which can help us understand our human predicament:

Because senses and beliefs are both tools for survival and have evolved to augment one another, our brain considers them to be separate but equally important purveyors of survival information. The loss of either one endangers us. Without our senses we could not know about the world within our perceptual realm. Without our beliefs we could not know about the world outside our senses or about meanings, reasons, or causes.

This means that beliefs are designed to operate independent of sensory data. In fact, the whole survival value of beliefs is based on their ability to persist in the face of contradictory evidence. Beliefs are not supposed to change easily or simply in response to disconfirming evidence. If they did, they would be virtually useless as tools for survival. Our caveman would not last long if his belief in potential dangers in the jungle evaporated every time his sensory information told him there was no immediate threat. A police officer unable to believe in the possibility of a killer lurking behind a harmless appearance could easily get hurt or killed.

As far as our brain is concerned, there is absolutely no need for data and belief to agree. They have each evolved to augment and supplement one another by contacting different sections of the world. They are designed to be able to disagree.

This is incredibly enlightening for why many people automatically discount unofficial versions of 9/11, even though there is a sufficient amount of factual data to raise doubts about the original story. People mistakenly believe that their interests are looked after by the government, and so, they follow through with this belief and assume that their survival will also be looked after by the government in the event of an emergency or crisis. But if Katrina and other natural disasters have proved anything, it is that the government is not solely interested in the survival of the general population. Even under a new administration, the US government is not capable to ensure the survival of countless numbers of people. So putting any trust in such a government should be considered suicide at this point. Survival demands that we question authority, and put trust in ourselves and in our communities, not in distant relatives of the human family who mean us harm.

But will people reexamine their beliefs and readjust their survival watch? No, because as far as they are concerned their lives will be counted under the government. So the reason why some people are still not "waking up" is because they believe that they will fare better if they have faith that the government will not abandon them, and who knows, some of them may be right. Certainly those in power like Sunstein know that in an emergency their lives will be accounted for by the rulers. Or they may be wrong and are being deceived.

To go back to Lester again: "The brain doesn't care whether or not the belief matches the data. It cares whether the belief is helpful for survival. Period." Lester's points are ever more enlightening when we realize that we live in a time when survival is paramount. Noam Chomsky remarked in a lecture last year that humanity is currently facing incredible threats to its existence:

Right at this point, crucial questions arise about the nature of Western democracies and their future, these are extremely important topics, they're obviously the most important ones for us, and they're important for everyone because it's quite literally true that the survival of the species is at stake.

I think Chomsky hit it on the spot. We live in a very exciting but also critical time in human history. We must all raise our individual and communal standards, and regain respect for one another, regardless of the different beliefs we may hold. I must admit that my views of what some regard as the 'sheep' has not always been kind, but I will make a greater effort to diffuse my anger and try harder to communicate with them. This age demands a new metaphor; the public are not sheep, but elephants led astray. And I regard it as my duty to make sure that the survival of our species is achieved in conjunction with the survival of our liberties. Because if survival means slavery, then count yourself dead already.

II. A Critique of Sunstein's Exotic Proposals and Beliefs

There is a difference between being bold and being stupid, and Sunstein is being stupid. I suggest Sunstein pick up G.K Chesterton's book called Heretics. In a chapter on George Bernard Shaw, Chesterton writes: "A sentiment of superiority keeps us cool and practical; the mere facts would make our knees knock under as with religious fear," (63). Assuming that you know more than other people is annoying but it's fine, I even do it sometimes, as long as you don't act on your supposed superiority in a politically violent manner, especially with the full backing of the law and the state. Even promoting such practices, whether in your basement or in the White House, is criminal. Law enforcement agents engage in illegal activity to achieve their ends all the time but at least they know they're getting their hands dirty, and regard it as part of the job. Sunstein and those of his ilk maintain that they are pristine and scholarly, even after calling for the illegal infiltration of various groups who mean no harm to the public. And this last point is crucial. Conspiracy theorists are not looking for revenge, but for the truth and accountability, and they have not engaged in criminal or violent activity. The only conspiracy theorists who have acted violently are those within the government, who are the most paranoid conspiracy theorists there are.

Sunstein shockingly admits that governments are not without their conspiracies, and he even mentions such documents as Operation Northwoods and other declassified information, which reveals the depth of criminal activities that the US government has done and thought about doing. Sunstein and his co-author, however, put aside all that history and advance the mistaken notion that the US government is no longer acting criminally, and that America is a free society.

But to give Sunstein some credit, he does acknowledge that totalitarian societies can harbor legitimate conspiracy theories:

In a closed society, secrets are not difficult to keep, and distrust of official accounts makes a great deal of sense. In such societies, conspiracy theories are both more likely to be true and harder to show to be false in light of available information. But when the press is free, and when checks and balances are in force, government cannot easily keep its conspiracies hidden for long. (pg. 7).

Let us briefly go over his points in relation to American society. In America the press is not free, and Congress has given up all its checks and balances, allowing the executive to exercise greater control and power over very important decisions. The well-read authors of the article are either making a very stupid assumption about the social and political nature of current American society, or they are deliberately covering up their tracks with intellectual dirt so as not to appear so sinister, but whatever is true, there is no doubt that their proposals, which are clearly developed based on a free society, are incredibly dangerous and even insane. Keep in mind, the case that America is a half-way closed society is not hard to make, especially if we look at the aftermath of 9/11. The corporate media and government have effectively shutdown debate about the origins and motives of terrorism, and have continually barred different points of view about what really happened on that day from reaching the public airwaves. Also, the pentagon's propaganda in the lead up to the Iraq war has been well-documented, so the assertion that the US government is lying to the people is by no means kooky or strange.

Even before 9/11 there existed an official party line that is always kept up in the public and in the media by politicians, journalists, and intellectuals. Chomsky and others have presented irrefutable evidence that wide-ranging political debate is not allowed on the American mainstream media about such important issues as the regulation of the economy, the illegal practices of corporations, the accountability of US officials for war crimes, and the viability of the two political parties. One look at mainstream American society and one comes to the conclusion that it is closed up, and is in a free fall.

I don't want to be too critical, because the authors do make some general good points throughout the article, and they get bonus points for quoting Robert Anton Wilson. Particularly, I'm glad they recognize the complex nature of beliefs held by different societies, and the political implications for those beliefs. They make the comparison that those living abroad are better conditioned to believe that the US and Israeli government were behind 9/11 because they don't identify with American leaders as strongly as the American people do:

For most Americans, a claim that the United States government attacked its own citizens, for some ancillary purpose, would make it impossible to hold onto a wide range of other judgments. Clearly this point does not hold for many people in Islamic nations, for whom it is far from jarring to believe that responsibility lies with the United States (or Israel). (pg. 10).

Similarly, the American people at the beginning of WWII were able to see Hitler for what he was: a maniacal monster, opposed to an indestructible god as most Germans then viewed him. The point is that closed societies cannot correctly judge the morality of their leaders. And there are a number of reasons why they can't, from the lack of credible information to be able to judge correctly, to the people's survival instincts which they wrongly learn is connected with the governing class at an early age through propaganda, ignorant parenting, and general cultural conditioning, which involves school, entertainment, and the media.

Throughout the paper, the authors reveal their inability to understand what penetrating analysis demands. A scholar cannot stand on top of a mountain and declare that ignorant hikers below must be held up, through force if necessary, because if they don't then they risk bringing the whole mountain down. Sunstein and his author must come to the realization that they are in actuality standing inside a cave and are unable to see what is going on below or above them. To put it differently, the patient is himself immune from evidence and suffering from “crippled epistemology,” as the authors call it, but still insists that he is the one who is qualified to diagnose the doctor, and even heal him against his will. Such delusional thinking, from a scholar no less, is a scary development in human and public affairs.

Sunstein and his partner in crime could be speaking about elites and also themselves when they describe the pattern of selection in extremist groups:

A crippled epistemology can arise not only from informational and reputational dynamics within a given group, but also from self-selection of members into and out of groups with extreme views. Once polarization occurs or cascades arise, and the group’s median view begins to move in a certain direction, doubters and halfwaybelievers will tend to depart while intense believers remain. The overall size of the group may shrink, but the group may also pick up new believers who are even more committed, and in any event the remaining members will, by self-selection, display more fanaticism. Group members may engage in a kind of double-think, segregating themselves, in a physical or informational sense, in order to protect their beliefs from challenge by outsiders.45 Even if the rank and file cannot coherently do this, group leaders may enforce segregation in order to insulate the rank and file from information or arguments that would undermine the leaders’ hold on the group. (pg. 14).

Most of the psychological and behavioral traits that the Sunstein and Vermeule outline are chiefly applicable to powerful and connected insiders who possess either great wealth, or valuable information and skills which qualifies them to be among the connected and unaccountable elite. Elites are by definition a very close-knit group, they self-select members and hold extremist views about human nature, and how the world should run. The Bilderbergers of the world socially isolate themselves from the rest of society, and intentionally avoid talking with regular people throughout their lives. And their disdain for the average population is not kept a secret; in fact, some members of the elite even go out of their way to make their outrageous views known to the public. Prince Philip has said in an interview that he would like to return as "a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation." Overpopulation is only a problem if you believe the Earth is destined to be yours and yours only, which the ruling elite genuinely believe. The idea of sharing is deeply repugnant to powerful and wealthy individuals, and ironically those who are born into money and privilege are the most greedy and immature because they spend their whole lives being spoon-fed that they are the greatest individuals on the planet.

Numerous fiction writers, who have thought along the same lines and are part of the same cohort, have laid out in their novels the conspiratorial plans of a ruling elite that is comprised in the West but whose tentacles reach all over the world. Aldous Huxley and H.G Wells are two of the most famous and influential writers in the 20th century who fictionalized the plans for humanity envisioned by the international plutocracy. Of course, their accounts are not completely true, and they added a little bit of grandiosity, but they provided a well enough sketch of what the rulers of politics and nations have had in mind for quite a while.

But if fiction is not your thing, then you can go directly to the horse's mouth. James Warburg, son of banker and endorser of the Federal Reserve, Paul Warburg, told the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1950: ""We shall have world government, whether or not we like it. The question is only whether world government will be achieved by consent or by conquest." So many other important figures, from President Woodrow Wilson, to US Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter have spoken of an invisible and powerful army that rules Washington and other governments in the world. And this makes perfect sense. If I was a member of the elite, I too would ensure that my survival along with my wealth and power were guaranteed for generations. One man's conspiracy is another man's history.

Furthermore, Sunstein damages his own conclusions by starting out with a false assumption about the motives of the American government in the war on terror. But at least he is honest enough to reveal his great defect:

Throughout, we assume a well-motivated government that aims to eliminate conspiracy theories, or draw their poison, if and only if social welfare is improved by doing so. (We do not offer a particular account of social welfare, taking the term instead as a placeholder for the right account.) This is a standard assumption in policy analysis, and is useful for clarifying the policy questions, but we note that real-world governments can instead be purveyors of conspiracy theories. (pg. 16).

The problem is that the US government is this century's greatest purveyor of conspiracy theories. The Bush administration deliberately lied to the public about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein to American security, but ask George Bush today about what Iraq had to do with 9/11 and he'll tell you: nothing. So, if Sustein's true goal is to achieve a situation where there are very few conspiracy theories and anti-government views in society, then he must fully support a new independent investigation of 9/11, and clear the waters once and for all. Otherwise, his efforts will be seen as nothing more than a totalitarian measure against free speech and free political activity, regardless if that is not his intention, as he so claims.

But the biggest problem I have with the paper is the all-out lying practiced by the two authors. Clearly, these scholars have no intellectual integrity, and should not be called professors. Here is just one example:

The widespread belief that U.S. officials knowingly allowed 9/11 to happen or even brought it about may have hampered the government’s efforts to mobilize social resources and political support for measures against future terrorist attacks. (pg. 17).

Conspiracy theorists can only dream that they have such influence on the decision-making process of security analysts and government agencies. Anybody who argues that the US government was not given the benefit of the doubt after the 9/11 attacks and entrusted with public resources to hunt down terrorists suspects and disable future attacks is insane. A majority of Americans supported their government's intervention into Afghanistan, and over half thought that the war in Iraq was justified, until evidence came out to the contrary, revealing the fact that Bush officials cooked the intelligence. On the domestic front, Americans and citizens of the West have made very real sacrifices in the public domain, by allowing their information to be taken at will by government officials if deemed suspicious, and by following very demanding procedures at airports. Also, in the last decade an enormous percent of the annual budget has been spend on security hardware and other measures to help law enforcement officials to fight terrorism. One can argue very sufficiently that the issue of terrorism has been overblown, and public resources could have been better used for other life-threatening issues such as the crisis in health care, and the crisis in the environment. To suggest that conspiracy theorists have influenced law officials from doing their job thoroughly is so out of tune with reality that Sunstein must be declared insane and not fit for government service in any capacity.

I will end this critique by submitting my own proposal: Sunstein and Vermeule should immediately check into a mental rehab center, and pray for the forgiveness of Americans whose thoughts they have deemed unworthy for their tiny minds.


Alexandria's Link.