Once Upon a Time (On a Paranoid Planet)

Episode Three: The Slow Movements of Suspicious Discontent

😱👉 The Complete, Post Modern, New Age Idiots’ Guide to the Dark, Subversive, Malevolent Forces that Shape the New World Order in Which we Live.

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Friends and subscribers, what follows are some semi-serious reflections on conspiracies, conspiracy theories, and their respective devotees. And same on one of the most successful, enduring and popular PSYOPS/social engineering experiments in living memory. Now six decades in the making. Still going strong.

🗣👉 ‘There’s never been a conspiracy in this country.’ — Duane Clarridge, former senior CIA ‘black ops’ spook, exercising the Company’s bespoke prerogative aka “plausible deniability”. Pardoned by president George HW Bush for his role in the Iran-Contra conspiracy.

🗣👉 ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ — “Sherlock Holmes”

🗣👉 ‘I have certain rules I live by. My first rule: I don't believe anything the government tells me.’ — George Carlin.

👀🔗👉 Once Upon a Time (On a Paranoid Planet) — Episode 1️⃣: The Crippled Epistemologists of Conspiracy

👀🔗👉 Once Upon a Time (On a Paranoid Planet) — Episode 2️⃣: One Man’s Conspiracy is another Man’s Theory

👀🔗👉 Once Upon a Time (On a Paranoid Planet) — Episode 4️⃣: We’re All Conspiracy Theorists Now and Then

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Preamble: 'For too long the proprietary domain of the time-rich "whack-job", in an age of growing paranoia, insecurity, fear, loathing, mistrust, suspicion and political disillusion—fuelled as it is by mounting government, corporate and institutional secrecy, surveillance, incompetence, corruption, subterfuge, propaganda, censorship, maladministration and criminality at the highest levels of global power—it’s perhaps as good a time as any to ‘rehab’ the rep of the much-maligned “conspiracy theory”. In doing so we by necessity go in to bat for and on behalf of its more dedicated disciples past and present. We’re talking here of course those occasionally useful nuisances we just love to label then 'libel' as “conspiracy theorists".

Having secured the perimeter, dead-bolted the doors n' windows, and drawn the drapes n’ blinds, it's time to embark on what might turn out to be a quixotic quest, to wit: Compiling a post modern, new age idiots’ guide to the dark, malevolent, subversive, conspiratorial forces shaping the New World Order into which we’re slowly but assuredly being socially and psychologically engineered. With desperate times calling for even more desperate theories, in this third instalment in a series Greg Maybury breaks out the aluminum foil, of which there’s plenty to go round for all. Read on...😉|

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 — The Conventional Wisdom and Ignorance of Conspiracy

In one of his less sardonic ruminations on the peculiar psycho-pathology of his fellow man, Mark Twain drolly suggested that ‘Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.’

In a not dissimilar vein, the great American satirist and closet misanthrope Ambrose Bierce—author of the deliciously diabolical Devil’s Dictionary—opined that, ‘Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial; but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth*.’

And in his paper Conspiracy Theories and the Conventional Wisdom Revisited, New Zealand academic Dr Charles Pigden, noted the following:

‘If a conspiracy theory is simply a theory which posits a conspiracy, then every politically and historically literate person is a big-time conspiracy theorist, since every such person subscribes to a vast range [of theories]. That is, historically literate people believe organised bodies of propositions that explain alleged facts by positing conspiracies. [T]here are many facts which admit of no non-conspiratorial explanation and many conspiracy theories that are well established to qualify as knowledge. This affords us a deductive argument for the claim that it is not irrational to believe in some conspiracy theories, an argument that proceeds from premises that it is difficult to rationally deny.’ [Emphasis added]

With these thoughts in mind then, we should consider the following when examining the conspiracy theory contrivance. Although they might be in the minority, human history is ‘littered’ with the mortal remains of outliers who at first doubted then courageously defied the ‘received ignorance’ of the era and/or rejected the rigid beliefs, holy writs and entrenched prejudices and bias of their contemporaries. Then only to have the passage of time vindicate, elevate and then revere them on the one hand and—on the other—relegate their detractors and persecutors to the trash bin of that same history.

Though it’s probably fair to say he didn’t have conspiracy theories per se in mind at the time, we might say that this aligns very much with the proposition attributed to the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer: ‘All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.’

Oh what might have been for humanity and the civilised world then had the peoples of the era listened more closely to the “outliers”, and paid less attention to their detractors and defended them from their persecutors. We might safely say these “outliers” included many a derided, “loony-toon conspiracy theorist”, though they probably weren’t described as such at the time.

As a corollary to Bierce’s above rumination on doubt—a fundamental prerequisite for any budding conspiracy theorist—it is incumbent upon us to consider another key element herein: This is the courage to express that doubt and question the assumptions and received wisdom that give rise to it. The phrase “condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance” (often attributed to Einstein but whose provenance remains uncertain), serves to underscore this observation.

(*Author Note: Readers may find my feature length exploration of such themes The Psychic Dangers of our Infected Minds (With a Lie this Large) of interest here. This was written at the height of the Covid “pandemic” and attempted a deep dive into the fear, panic, hysteria and paranoia that prevailed throughout—for which there’s now ample evidence it was deliberately fomented then exploited for reasons unrelated to the protection of our public health. In other words, the whole Covid gambit was one of our biggest conspiracies, one which remains a work in progress. We’ll explore this proposition further in a future episode.)

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The World’s Most Famous ‘Tuft’ of Turf (avec the Picket Fence)

Who are the real “conspiracy theorists” then? Those who believe in them because of the overwhelming evidence, or those who deny them in spite of such evidence? Whenever even the most circumspect of individuals ruminate on the possibility that official explanations for seminal historical events may not be quite what the power political elites would have us believe, for less polite folks not similarly predisposed, the first and last refuge is the evergreen Pavlovian response: “Oh, you’re just another one of those conspiracy theorists, aren’t you?”, or some variation thereof.

Yet there are studies which strongly suggest that contrary to mainstream-media stereotypes, those designated “conspiracy theorists” are saner, more rational than those who uncritically accept the official versions of events. One such study was published in 2013 by psychologists Michael Wood and Karen Douglas of the University of Kent in the UK. Titled “What about Building 7? A social psychological study of online discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories,” this paper compared “conspiracist”(i.e. pro-conspiracy) and “conventionalist” (i.e. anti-conspiracy) comments at various websites. Here’s what they found:

‘….among people who comment on news articles, those who disbelieve government accounts of such events as 9/11 and the JFK assassination outnumber believers by more than two to one. That means it is the pro-conspiracy commenters who are expressing what is now the conventional wisdom, while the anti-conspiracy commenters are becoming a small, beleaguered minority.’ [My emphasis].

However much as this may be the case, it doesn’t mean that the “small, beleaguered minority” are copping it sweet and allowing the “conspiracists” free rein over our political reality. Not by a long shot, this time from another, entirely different building, that being the one called the Texas School Book Depository! Well might we say they have come too far and worked too hard to give up the ghost now. As it is they’re fighting back, as they have been for some time, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable. Indeed, not only are they defending to their respective deaths old favourites, as we’ll see they are no slouches at inventing new conspiracies for folks to theorise about. It was ever thus.

In this respect, the estimable Paul Craig Roberts—insofar as we can gather a man not normally known for his promiscuous embrace of all things conspiratorial (theoretical or otherwise), after noting that the concept of the ‘conspiracy theory’ has undergone an “Orwellian redefinition”, and interestingly using The 9/11 Thing as his reference point—observed the following:

‘A “conspiracy theory” no longer means an event explained by a conspiracy. It means any explanation, or fact, that’s out of step with the government’s explanation and that of its media pimps. For example, online news broadcasts of RT have been equated with conspiracy theories by the New York Times (NYT) simply because RT reports news and opinions that the [NYT] does not report [on] and the US government does not endorse.’ [My emphasis]

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— One Man’s Conspiracy is another Man’s Coincidence

The following perhaps presents more evidence of the ‘best form of defence is attack’ mindset of the “conventionalists”.

In 2008, professors Adrian Vermeule (Harvard Law School) and Cass Sunstein (Chicago U Law School)—the former later becoming chief of President Barack Obama‘s decidedly Orwellian White House Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs—released a paper titled “Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas”. This treatise on all things conspiratorial—later turned into a book, natch—came complete with suggestions on how the then US government might respond to their proliferation and increasing acceptance.

Vermeule & Sunstein — Self Anointed “Crippled Epistemologists of Conspiracy” (Wheelchairs not Shown)

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Their proposals for managing the phenomenon—and by implication, the behaviour of conspiracy theorists and their not always small cults following—included everything from “cognitive infiltration” of pro-conspiracist groups, [to] effectively banning conspiracy theorising, and (I kid you not), levying a surcharge (tax) on those who propagate and/or disseminate such theories. One imagines this is akin to their version of a swear jar for the chronic Tourette’s Syndrome sufferer!

Now quite apart from the curiously anomalous fact that these recommendations came from a constitutional lawyer and, to boot, a mate of the then POTUS—himself a former constitutional lawyer and a president who, prior to being elected, purported to be a champion of more than one of the bedrocks of said Constitution, e.g. free speech—it seems like the paranoia, insecurity, fear and anxiety commonly associated with the “conspiracists” is now manifesting itself decidedly more so with the “conventionalists”. And how, one might add.

SIDEBAR: It may come as little surprise that Sunstein is the ‘hubbie’ of Samantha Power, who as Obama’s gung-ho, ultra-hawk UN ambassador, was part of the then White House inner circle. She was also one of the so-called ‘liberal interventionists’, those whom I’ve long dubbed the “Beltway Bedlamites”. Power and her ilk did as much as any insider to foster the conspiratorial group-think that to this day still informs Washington’s increasingly dangerous posture toward Russia. As with Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan—another of the Beltway’s infamous power couples and fully paid-up subscribers of that same anti-Russian, anti-Putin cabal—we can only speculate as to the pillow talk. Oh to be the proverbial fly on the walls therein.

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Given any such development, whilst one is tempted to say “rightly so”, one is also left with more evidence—if it was required—that this president pulled off one of America’s greatest conspiratorial gambits himself by getting his ass elected from the off considering his campaign shill. It is also tempting to muse on why Sunstein and Vermeule, after making these Constitution-defying proposals, didn’t go the ‘full Monty’ as it were and advocate conspiracy theorists be clamped in the stocks in the town square sans habeas corpus, legal counsel and due process, and then have the townsfolk pelt rotten vegetables at them. And if they persisted, [then] have them tarred and feathered and run out of town! OK, I digress, but am hoping folks will forgive my sardonic sidesteps on this occasion.

Yet one of those contentious areas we might’ve expected these people to address was the following. The authors, along with the general coterie of conspiracy debunkers and denialists—especially the always compliant members of the Fourth Estate—studiously avoid any consideration of the reality that governments’, organisations’ and institutions’ general inclination towards scandal, subterfuge, and secrecy itself is the primary catalyst for conspiratorial conjecture. They are either oblivious to, or simply ignoring, the principle of cause and effect. In short, these blokes are ‘putting the horse behind the cart’ as it were.

Moreover, the failure or refusal of those same governments etc. and/or their successors to satisfactorily respond to the issues at the heart of the theorising—usually premised on the basis of that hoary old chestnut ‘national security’—is inevitably going to fuel even more theorising. This, not just about a particular theory, but about any event for which there are considered to be less than plausible explanations. And of the latter, from the distant past to the present, it probably goes without saying that there is no shortage.

With all this in mind, now may be as good a time as any for some slightly ‘off piste’ theorising about theorising. For that we take a step back into the literary past.

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— The Windmills of our Paranoid Minds

In Miguel Cervantes’ great literary epic The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (aka Don Quixote), whenever the eponymous hero saw windmills in his travels, he boldly suggested the following to Sancho Panza, his devoted, albeit long-suffering squire: ‘Those giants that you can see over there Sancho, with long arms: [they are] giants with arms almost six miles long.’ 

The bemused Sancho replied: ‘Those aren’t giants, they’re windmills, and what look to you like arms are sails—when the wind turns them they make the millstones go round.’ To which Don Quixote responded: 

‘It is perfectly clear, that you are but a raw novice in this matter of adventures. They are giants; and if you are frightened, you can take yourself and say your prayers while I engage them in fierce, arduous combat.’

The Don & Sancho — Another Day, Another Windmill, Another Conspiracy

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With this exchange in mind, the outward adventures and the inner imaginings of Cervantes’ iconic and woefully idealistic protagonist provide us a rich reservoir of allusions to, and insights into, the conspiracy-theory construct. We might begin by viewing The ‘Don’ himself as the novel’s conspiracy theorist-in-residence, and Sancho as the conspiracy debunker (or at least skeptic). Either way, key memes and motifs evident in this hugely influential novel are useful to gaining a better understanding of any real or imagined conspiracy itself.

For his part Quixote sees corruption, decadence and un-gentlemanly conduct everywhere while others appear either oblivious or indifferent to—even defensive of—this state of affairs. He sees unwelcoming, fortified castles where people see welcoming inns; he sees monstrous, menacing giants where others see innocuous windmills. And he pursues seemingly noble, virtuous quests that, for all their drifting pointlessness, ‘predictably’ produce very little of personal worth or insight for the novel’s eponymous hero or any of the characters. Or so it seems.

At its core, Don Quixote (the novel) is at once a solemn meditation on self-delusion and disillusion, the real and the imagined, [the difference between] reality and fantasy, sanity and madness, [and] between what is genuine and what is phoney. Only Don Quixote (the character) remains constantly moral and upright (more or less), while the world around him is persistently and infuriatingly indifferent, immoral, perverse, self-serving, possibly beyond redemption.

For his part ‘The Don’ doesn’t understand the world as it is, only how he sees it should be. And “the world” returns the favour. Indeed the knight-errant might be thought too delusional—a caballero without a full suit of armour as it were. To possess such morality and idealism reveals more about the world than it does about Quixote himself, not only about the nature of truth in the world and the certainty of our place in it, but about the nature of human existence and the inherent purpose of said existence. Y’know what I’m saying here dear reader—the ‘meaning-of-life’ shit.

So much of Quixote’s view on the world is a figment of his supposedly delusional musing on the possibilities of existence and his wild-eyed imaginings, which themselves inspire his meandering adventures, his adventures in turn, doubtless fuelling more imaginings. A personality-specific feedback loop of sorts. 

The descriptor “quixotic”—along with meaning idealistic, impractical, or unrealistic, also describes behaviour of someone following beliefs even though they embrace foolish or unreachable goals—is derived from the book’s character of course. (A testament to be sure of its enormous literary, cultural, philosophical and, one might suggest, ‘political’ import.)

The Don then is caught up in the romance of noble deeds and the selfless pursuit of unattainable goals; idealistic without regard to practicality or allowing for the lack of idealism in others; and undertaking adventures along the sometimes rough and rocky high moral road unaccompanied and unencumbered by a leavening sense of reality, pragmatism and obvious purpose. His commitment to living chivalrously, with honour and good intentions toward all men (although less than perfect himself, ‘natch’), and with his moral compass unerringly pointing ‘north’, forbids him to allow wrongs to go uncorrected.

What this means is that if the Mediaeval Iberians had a term for ‘whack-job’ or ‘loony-toon’, ‘The Don’ would’ve ‘made the team’ without breaking a sweat. On the face of it his behaviour is irrational to many with whom he comes into contact. His seemingly vague, elusive, at best ambiguous goals are driven by a curiously anomalous, yet inexplicable, mix of paranoia and idealism with more than a smidgen of wishful thinking thrown into the mix for good measure, his pursuits and imaginings the butt of derision by other characters in the novel.

In short, the novel’s themes and memes concerning the nature of reality, deception, personal illumination, determination, [the] courage of one’s convictions, and simply doing the right thing, are especially applicable to the conspiracy theory construct. They are also, by definition, apposite to the inherent worth to the rest of us [of] the conspiracy theorists’ own motivations, imaginings and insights. As it is to the worth of the theory itself, whatever that theory is.

As noted, ‘The Don’ is the ‘knight-errant’—the ‘do-gooder’ trying to preserve the “universal” moral code. He attempts to coerce those around him and whom he meets on his ‘quixotic’ exploits, to face their own failure to maintain—or preparedness to preserve—the ‘old school’ system of virtue, of morality, of ‘proper conduct’. To use the contemporary vernacular, we might say The Don sees the world going to Hades in a hand basket. This is what drives him forward, against all odds seemingly, no small number of which may be of his own making.

Yet as noted—and this is where the exercise gets even more interesting—Don Quixote’s ironclad (sorry) commitment to courtesy, honour, truth and justice eventually does not go entirely unnoticed by those around him—even those who formerly sneered at his behaviour or found it naive, absurd even.

Now readers who have come this far should be able to see where this is going. If he was around today, one suspects The Don would gladly cop the conspiracy-theorist rap; he’d wear it as a badge of honour. He’d see threatening giants on/in/around/behind the Grassy Knoll (with the Picket Fence), the Stemmons Freeway Overpass, the Triple Underpass, the windows of the Dal-Tex Building, the rooftop of the Texas School Book Depository and maybe even in the storm-water drains underneath Dealey Plaza—where others don’t, or won’t.

And it is here of course that we bring the discussion full circle. Are conspiracy theorists—like the Don—’tilting at windmills’, or is there something more to their ‘gameplan’? Might we all have something to learn from them, just like the Don? In essence then, this is what this exercise is all about! For it is the divide that Cervantes so symbolically and yet at once, eloquently portrayed—the gulf of perception if one likes—between believers (theorists or truth-seekers) on the one hand, and non-believers (debunkers or truth deniers) on the other, that must be at the heart of this discussion from the off.

This is particularly so if we are to better understand our history and the not-so-grand political drivers of that overarching historical ‘chronicle’ and especially the motivations and machinations of the dramatis personae that comprise the cast of those who do create our daily reality.

John Judge — “Don’t Call me a Coincidence Theorist!”

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— Noble Lies and Ignoble Truths

For the not quite so polite though there are still any number of descriptors for those who disbelieve or simply question official accounts of events, and I’ll leave that for curious readers and the more prurient minded to search.

It’s notable though the now deceased John Judge, long-time stalwart of the JFK research community, was reportedly content to be called a “conspiracy theorist”. By all accounts he wore the label well. Judge, who did his share of heavy lifting in restoring a badly needed measure of credibility into research of the conspiracy phenomenon itself and into specific conspiracies, did so however by reserving the right to call those dismissing him as a “conspiracy theorist”, [as] “coincidence theorists”.

Now the humorless, indignant mindset of the righteous conspiracy ‘defilers‘ is such that Judge’s ‘backatcha’ response would hardly have registered a ripple. But for those prepared to consider that some of those official explanations may not pass the smell test, his riposte was perfectly legitimate. His distinction between “conspiracy” and “coincidence” is singularly apposite to any understanding of history’s big events, developments and turning points.

Indeed, one might posit the idea that ultimately our insight into history—and the lessons to be learned from it—is premised on whether events were driven by either design or accident, with the truth in varying cases being, likely, more or less falling somewhere in between. (This refers to the design v accident theory of history, to be discussed in future episodes).

In both cases then, there is a lot to be learned to be sure. But given the antipathy most people have towards even the most plausible of conspiracy theories, we could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. To disregard a “conspiracy” as both precursor and consequence of events is to disregard all possibilities out of hand. It is notable that it is often eminent historians, investigative journalists, self-styled truth seekers and myriad other political animals who should know better that are the worst offenders. Certainly not the Sherlock Holmes way then!

SIDEBAR: The reasons for his passing aside, one imagines “The Judge” would be more than happy for the specifics of said demise to be the subject of any future conspiracy theory more so than a “coincidence theory”, the “coincidence” presumably in his case being “dying of natural causes”. I’m sure he’d appreciate the delicious irony, to say nothing of the wry amusement his friends, admirers and family might derive from such a development in the collective remembrance of his life and legacy.

Another tangent is worth exploring herein. As one Foster Gamble has noted, conspiracies are sometimes “philosophically justified” by those who perpetrate them via the notion of the “noble lie”. One suspects though this happens only when the noble lie has eventually been indisputably outed by some intrepid theorist or investigative journalist, and is generally deemed with the benefit of such hindsight to have been less than noble after all. A text-book case-study of such might be the Iran-Contra conspiracy mentioned in the epigraph, although there is no dearth of examples.

Gamble says that the term “noble lie” was coined by Leo Strauss, one of the philosophical ‘godfathers’ of the neo-conservative movement. No surprises there one supposes. This is especially so when we consider the position to where Leo’s devotees still strutting the political stage today have brought us all thus far via their unending if not always unerring secretive and subversive machinations. In short, they are no strangers to the mostly no-so-noble lie.

Leo Strauss — Father of the “Noble Lie”

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For his part Strauss advocated state political propaganda and covert actions no less to “protect a society’s traditional beliefs” from “unrestrained inquiries“—or in other words—”conspiratorial theorizing.” Herein it’s safe to say the aforementioned Sunstein, Vermeule et. al. and their ilk proudly include themselves amongst the Straussian cabal of devotees. As Gamble sees it:

‘Strauss believed that scientific criticism of official accounts of important historical events, even when those criticisms were true, undermined respect for the nation’s laws and traditional beliefs. ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ and ‘regime change’ are examples of “noble lies”—untruths put forth to achieve an end goal that could not be achieved without manufactured evidence (e.g. a false-flag operation) to sway public opinion.” [My emphasis]

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— Meanwhile, Back Down on “The Farm”

As we’ve already noted, the Grand American Narrative boasts a rich legacy of conspiracy and conspiracy theorising, and we’ve only scratched the surface. When it comes to all things conspiratorial, even ‘Honest’ Abe Lincoln—a man whose own murder is the subject of much entirely plausible conspiracy theorising—threw his iconic stovepipe hat into the ring. From what follows we can surmise that he may have been at least a closet conspiracy theorist, to wit:

‘When we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out of different times and places, and by different workmen...and when we see those timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house, in such a case we find it impossible not to believe that...all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan, drawn up before the first [hammer] blow was struck.’ [My emphasis]

Clearly, when speaking of conspiracy, Abe was onto something methinks. Given the circumstances of his assassination, in death then we can further assume he’d be even more inclined toward this view! Not to be outdone, one of his estimable successors Franklin D Roosevelt (FDR)—by accounts no stranger to the odd conspiracy both of his own construct and of those who might have conspired against him—felt compelled to weigh into the fray, albeit with a less enigmatic, more ‘thrifty’ (to be expected given the times one supposes) theory of his own. He had this to say:

‘In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.’ [My emphasis]

OK, I have to go now. The phone’s running hot again. That’ll be the Langley Gang calling. Can’t keep the Spy v Spy mob waiting. I’m hoping they’ll magnanimously provide some more conspiracy theories for me to digest, ponder, expand on and proliferate. Or they may just want to experiment with some new and innovative, enhanced-interrogation techniques. In this latter respect however I’m not sure that I’ll be of much assistance to them as I don’t know much about anything really, but I expect that’s unlikely to be of any great concern to them. They’d do it just for the hell of it, not necessarily because they need the practice. Though who better to “practice” on than a ‘fly-in-the-ointment’, ‘pain-in-the-ass’, “counter-subversive hypothetician” like your humble? Not that I’m volunteering mind you. I’m too old for that shit! In any event I’m sure they have bigger fish to fry.

Oh, and a couple more things. If perchance the next planned episode doesn’t materialise however, and you never hear from me again, I invite all and sundry to start spreading your own bespoke theories (hypotheses?) about my ultimate fate, regardless of what my autopsy report or death certificate says. The more outlandish, outrageous and over-the-top the better. Like John Judge I expect, for my part I’d be more than happy to leave behind a lasting legacy that was coloured and flavoured by all sorts of conspiracy theories as to the specifics of my untimely demise and the motivations of the culprits behind it. There may be better ways to achieve a measure of immortality, but as of this mo’, given all is said and done, I’m hard pressed to think of any.

On the other hand, I do urge readers though not to believe a goddamned word of anything that comes out of the mouths of the intrepid Gang down on The Farm in Virginny! We should know by now their track record for telling the truth is patchy, their moral universe pitted with black holes! Moreover, their truth in war and—now just as much it seems—in peace is almost always escorted by a Praetorian Body Guard of lies, armed to the teeth and backed up with everything from Reaper drones, Enhanced Sniper Rifles and TASER Shockwave, the threat of torture, rendition, assassination, or permanent incarceration, themselves all accompanied by more or less equal parts ulterior motive and extreme prejudice!

But still their best weapon of all is the “conspiracy theory” contrivance.

Notwithstanding then the Company’s positioning statement, “the truth shall set you free”—etched in marble as it is in the foyer of its Langley fortress so everyone gets the point—the “truth” as most of us counter-subversive hypotheticians have come to know and love it, clearly has limits. It’s either that or the CIA—and one imagines their partners-in-crime the mainstream media (MSM) along with of course their political masters past and present—long ago developed its own definition of said “truth” and is keeping that to itself for a ‘rainy day’.

Put simply, the Langley ‘farmhands’ don’t like having alternative realities to their own singularly versioned “truth” aired anywhere in the public domain. Unless of course it’s a limited hangout, but that mon cheries is a story for another episode.

See you next week (fingers crossed, and fingernails intact).

Greg Maybury, 27 July, 2024

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