Conspiracy as a Four Letter Word

Real journalism starts with healthy skepticism of authority

Ever since first coloring outside the lines as a teenager researching the JFK assassination in the mid-1970s, I have been unwelcome by most of polite society. The infamous 1967 CIA memo on “Countering Criticism of the Warren Report” set the template for the Mockingbird media, and has been applied to doubters of any and all official narratives, past and present.

I’ve been admonished many times for “thinking everything is a conspiracy.” When you are led by conspirators, they will conspire. Our leaders don’t know any other way of doing business. It’s standard operating procedure for them. As Jonathan Swift commented about the judges of his own eighteenth century era, they were so corrupt you couldn’t bribe them to do the right thing. I think our present leaders are so corrupt that they couldn’t be bribed to do anything good, either.

I used to think that the most important issue in this country, and around the world, was the sinful disparity of wealth. No one should be homeless or starving in the most wealthy nation the world has ever seen. The problem is, the vast majority of that wealth in concentrated in fewer and fewer elitist hands.

However, as horrific as the disparity of wealth problem is, I believe that the systemic corruption of high profile figures, from politicians to CEOS to athletes and entertainers, is even more glaring. Anyone who has dealt with our legal system knows there is no justice in America. Our overcrowded prisons are for the poor and working class exclusively. Punitive measures are only taken against those without any means to hire powerful lawyers. The cries of “Lock Her Up!” can apply equally to many, if not most, of our elected “representatives.” Or their families. Hunter Biden is merely the latest scoundrel who is going to get away with crimes that average people would be held accountable for.

That is perhaps the greatest of all the disappointments of Trump’s four years in office. No one, least of all career criminal Hillary Clinton, was even prosecuted, let alone “locked up.” The swamp wasn’t remotely drained. “Drain the Swamp” was a rallying cry that everyone out in the heartlands understood. You can’t have a system of laws when they don’t apply equally to everyone. Actually, they don’t apply at all to some. Those with wealth or celebrity are utterly, absolutely above the law.

Most people of all political persuasions understand this quite clearly. The inequities of the system go far beyond any double standard. The system is rigged against the average person, as I detailed in my book Survival of the Richest. Every eighteen year old who was convicted of statutory rape for having sex with his sixteen year old girlfriend must be contrasted to all of Jeffrey Epstein’s powerful friends. Child sex trafficking is very real, and international in scope. Despite the Jeanne Dixon-like inaccurate predictions of QAnon, none of them are going to pay for their crimes.

Some of the crimes of those who misrule us are hard to quantify. What is the criminal charge for consistently peddling state lies about everything from the JFK assassination to 9/11? All mainstream journalists are guilty of this. They cannot be stupid enough to believe in the single-bullet theory or the magical collapsing Twin Towers. And virtually all entertainers are in on it, too. The Stephen Colberts and John Olivers are even quicker to smear those who distrust our corrupt authorities with sobriquets like “crazy,” “wackos,” “nut jobs,” and of course “conspiracy theorists.”

I have engaged enough “normies” in debate to understand that the first impulse for virtually all of them is to resort to name calling. Kill the messenger. This is understandable, given that they have no other argument. The facts are not on their side. They use the primary weapon that all identity politics revolves around; emotion. “You don’t really believe that,” or “I guess you believe Jewish space lasers beamed Elvis onto the grassy knoll.” Exaggeration is the crux of comedy and satire. Appeal to authority. Play on everyone’s normalcy bias.

Of all people, J. Edgar Hoover once accurately described the situation when he said, most people simply can’t accept the nature of what they’re confronting. He was speaking about the “communist conspiracy,” but it applies to others, like for instance the JFK assassination cover-up, which he was an integral part of. The average person doesn’t want to confront the extent of the corruption. It’s easier to believe in the fairy tale that those in charge have our best interests at heart. It’s certainly better for your career prospects, and you’ll definitely have more friends.

While I am still popular at some parties, you have to gage your crowd. Are they possibly receptive to your contrarian message? Usually, my outspokenness entertains more than enrages. But I have attracted many trolls. You can find them in comments at my blog, or in responses to my posts on social media. It’s disconcerting to know that people you’ve never met, or even communicated with, really, really hate you. I understand that taking controversial positions invites that, but it’s still unsettling.

There are far more people interested in conspiracies now than there were when I was young. There are even conspiracy friendly dating sites. Can’t imagine what I would have done with something like that back in the day. I used to rein myself in on dates, because almost everyone interested even in the JFK assassination was male. Now, there are a bunch of females attracted to these issues. I don’t know how easy it is to base a relationship on distrusting the establishment, but maybe some do.

Especially since the election of Trump, and the intense demonization of him by the same media that has lied to us about everything significant, “conspiracy” has become a four letter word. Press certain buttons- any assassination, 9/11, Oklahoma City, the Clinton and other Body Counts, electoral fraud, the plandemic, among many others- and the respectable figures will sneer “conspiracy theorist” at you. I used to watch C-SPAN’s “Morning Journal” call-in show for years, before they weeded out the conspiracy callers by rigging the phone-in lines. Without exception, every journalist responded to the significant points these kinds of callers would make by chuckling and saying, “"I’ve never been a conspiracy theorist.”

There have been a few courageous souls in the mainstream media; for instance, Sharyl Attkisson, who tried to actually be investigative journalists. Almost all of them abstain completely from investigative journalism, unless it’s to smear a skeptic (someone who has done the job they should be doing). As Garry Webb lamented, the reason he’d never been targeted during his career as a journalist, was because he’d never written anything worthwhile, until he exposed the CIA’s funneling crack cocaine into inner cities. He would commit “suicide” by shooting himself twice in the head.

They don’t exactly hide what they’re doing. They could have easily planted a “magic” bullet that actually looked like it hit something. The magical passport found on the rubble of the World Trade Center was one of their most prominent calling cards. They evidently like to boast. But no matter how obvious they make it, most people don’t notice. Or care. The conspirators- for lack of a better word- know that they can figuratively spike the football, without fear of any repercussions.

They are on the verge of creating a Disinformation Task Force- Thought Police, let’s call it what it is. So posts like this may be outlawed. Don’t think they’re going to stop at You Tube, Facebook, and Twitter. They will get to the podcasts. And blogs. And they’re very concerned about Substack. No censorship? Why, that’s downright un-American! No “hate speech!” They can’t define it, much as bluenoses in the 1970s couldn’t define “obscenity,” but they too “know it when they see it.”

The most disillusioning thing about this whole plandemic and unconstitutional lockdown is just how easy it was to accomplish. The whole world was basically shut down in a few weeks. Without a single troop or cop needed. Without a shot being fired. And the majority, over a year later, are clinging to their masks and “social distancing” as tightly as they cling to lone-assassin and crazed Arabs fairy tales. Double or triple masks? No problem. Two doses of untested vaccines? Bring it on!

I will not give ground on the issues I’ve researched so extensively for decades. I’m not going to be intimidated by academics who’ve done no real research into anything. As I wrote in Hidden History, we have been ruled by organized corruption, not unlike the Mafia. Except those mobsters have some principles. Our leaders don’t. Organized corruption is a pretty good working definition for “conspiracy.”

The last year has made it perfectly clear that we are vastly outnumbered. We have to send out a lot of tiny ripples of hope, as RFK put it, to create a tidal wave to counter the lies and corruption. So we have be more knowledgeable. And much louder.