Demand an Investigation

And then, what happens when you still don't know what really happened on Sept. 11? So much of the real story has been classified, and so much of the evidence has been suppressed, that of course you cannot possibly know. And this is the point when you need to ask: Why don't you know? How does "homeland security" justify keeping any secrets about what already happened on Sept. 11? The terrorists know exactly what they did, so the secrets are mainly being kept from you, the American public. What is the reason for keeping the details of 9/11 suppressed? What do members of the U.S. government want to hide? Starting with Dick Cheney, the most stubborn and consistent opponent of an independent 9/11 commission?

Clearly, those who would know the truth must organize to demand it, and search for it themselves. That is the only avenue open to us.

If you have caught the government lying enough times, when  do you stop assuming that they ever tell the truth? When is it enough for people to begin conducting their own investigation?

Conspiracy and Analysis

Aha, that tired all-purpose argumentative bludgeon, "conspiracy theory." The official story of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory. It posits a conspiracy of Islamist terrorists who caught their adversaries entirely by surprise. For many years, Americans were told they faced the specter of an organized Communist plan to overthrow the Free World. Why wasn't that dismissed as a "conspiracy theory"? 

An institution that works in secrecy is by definition conspiratorial. Two or more people planning to conceal a course of action can qualify as a conspiracy under the law. Law books are full of conspiracy statutes, and these allow for consideration of circumstantial evidence. Conspiracies are not everywhere, but to look for signs of secret machinations in mysterious political events is natural and sensible.

In practice, those who attack with the "conspiracy theory" label generally do so to discredit lines of investigation that suggest U.S. government complicity or involvement in crimes. Yet history has seen all manner of such criminal involvement, not just by the U.S. government, but by most governments. There is nothing unusual about conspiracies per se. They are the stuff of normal power politics.

The conspiracy theory label is easily wielded by those who are too lazy to think for themselves, or who do not want to learn the actual details of history and politics. 

We move in a world of appearances and deceptions. How do we evaluate what happens behind the official scenes? How do we explore connections among power brokers and power elites? Should we not investigate deep politics, meaning the decision-making processes that are hidden from democratic control? Should we not investigate parapolitics, the decisions made in secret by self-appointed, informal groups such as mafias, spook networks, and other secret societies? If we are interested in politics, then we need to study hidden connections in a way that is often attacked as conspiracy theory. 

Many of the "anti-conspiratorialists" suffer from obvious institutional or ideological blindspots. Among the most stubborn are a brand of left-liberal intellectuals who dismiss the existence of parapolitics because it conflicts with their commitment to neatly-defined social theory. Certain kinds of leftists hate thinking there is anything they don't already know, or that is not accounted for in their prefabricated models. 

Genuine scholarship does not entrap itself in spurious abstractions like "conspiracy theory" versus "institutional theory." To take either option as a preferred methodology sets up a rigid paradigm and determines our conclusions in advance. When we choose one or the other, we always see "conspiracies" or "institutions" as the root of all social phenomena. 
In genuine practice, the study of elites ("conspiracy") and the study of structures ("institution") tend to yield microscopic and macroscopic views of the same phenomena. In other words, "conspiracy" is micro and "institution" is macro, although the terms are both of limited descriptive value, since both suggest something essential and timeless. Time was when social analysts preferred vigorous and truly descriptive terms, terms like elite, class, interest, structure, power, dynamic, peoples. This is a set of terms that can describe actors making decisions according to mindset, perception, and resources, and within constantly evolving constraints and situations.

Real analysis begins with <i>empirical</i> observation and derives hypotheses by using logic. Real reflection hunts for the paradigms that predetermine our thinking, in an effort to overcome them, to go beyond them, and not to enshrine or condemn them.

Jack Riddler
www.osamaskidneys.com

 #e 11.500 in Portland