Paul Craig Roberts: "How Conspiracy Theories Really Work"

[Deleted]

Paul Craig Roberts Explains "How Conspiracy Theories Really Work"

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS | 13.08.2017 | WORLD

In the United States «conspiracy theory» is the name given to explanations that differ from those that serve the ruling oligarchy, the establishment or whatever we want to call those who set and control the agendas and the explanations that support the agendas.

The explanations imposed on us by the ruling class are themselves conspiracy theories. Moreover, they are conspiracy theories designed to hide the real conspiracy that our rulers are operating.

For example, the official explanation of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory. Some Muslims, mainly Saudi Arabians, delivered the greatest humiliation to a superpower since David slew Goliath. They outsmarted all 17 US intelligence agencies and those of NATO and Israel, the National Security Council, the Transportation Safety Administration, Air Traffic Control, and Dick Cheney, hijacked four US airliners on one morning, brought down three World Trade Center skyscrapers, destroyed that part of the Pentagon where research was underway into the missing $2.3 billion, and caused the morons in Washington to blame Afghanistan instead of Saudi Arabia.

Clearly, the Saudi Arabians who humiliated America were involved in a conspiracy to do so.

Is it a believable conspiracy?

The ability of a few young Muslim men to pull off such a feat is unbelievable. Such total failure of the US National Security State means that America was blindly vulnerable throughout the decades of Cold War with the Soviet Union. If such total failure of the National Security State had really occurred, the White House and Congress would have been screaming for an investigation. People would have been held accountable for the long chain of security failures that allowed the plot to succeed. Instead, no one was even reprimanded, and the White House resisted all efforts for an investigation for a year. Finally, to shut up the 9/11 families, a 9/11 Commission was convened. The commission duly wrote down the government’s story and that was the «investigation».

Moreover, there is no evidence to support the official conspiracy theory of 9/11. Indeed, all known evidence contradicts the official conspiracy theory.

For example, it is a proven fact that Building 7 came down at freefall acceleration, which means it was wired for demolition. Why was it wired for demolition? There is no official answer to this question.

It is the known evidence provided by scientists, architects, engineers, pilots, and the first responders who were in the twin towers and personally experienced the numerous explosions that brought down the towers that is described as a conspiracy theory.

The CIA introduced the term «conspiracy theory» into public discourse as part of its action plan to discredit skeptics of the Warren Commission report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Any explanation other than the one handed down was debunked as a conspiracy theory.

Conspiracy theories are the backbone of US foreign policy. For example, the George W. Bush regime was active in a conspiracy against Iraq and Saddam Hussein. The Bush regime created fake evidence of Iraqi «weapons of mass destruction», sold the false story to a gullible world and used it to destroy Iraq and murder its leader. Similarly, Gaddafi was a victim of an Obama/Hillary conspiracy to destroy Libya and murder Gaddafi. Assad of Syria and Iran were slated for the same treatment until the Russians intervened...

...The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, NPR, and the rest of the presstitutes are quick to debunk as conspiracy theories all explanations that differ from the explanations of the ruling interests that they serve.

Yet, as I write and for some nine months to date, the presstitute media has been promoting the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump was involved in a conspiracy with the president of Russia and Russian intelligence services to hack the US presidential election and place Trump, a Russian agent, in the White House.

This conspiracy theory has no evidence whatsoever. It doesn’t need evidence, because it serves the interests of the military/security complex, the Democratic Party, the neoconservatives, and permits the presstitutes to show lavish devotion to their masters. By endless repetition a lie becomes truth...

...For the gullible and naive who have been brainwashed into believing that any explanation that differs from the officially-blessed one is a conspiracy theory, there are available online long lists of government conspiracies that succeeded in deceiving the people in order that the governments could achieve agendas that the people would have rejected...

[More In Article]

Article: www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/08/13/how-conspiracy-theories-really-work.html

[Deleted]

Paul Craig Roberts

President Reagan appointed Dr. Roberts Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and he was confirmed in office by the U.S. Senate. From 1975 to 1978, Dr. Roberts served on the congressional staff where he drafted the Kemp-Roth bill and played a leading role in developing bipartisan support for a supply-side economic policy. After leaving the Treasury, he served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Commerce.


Paul Craig Roberts is trying to help people avoid continually falling for conspiracy theories governments create, which are, "designed to hide the real conspiracy that our rulers are operating."

Please help those suffering needlessly under their tinfoil hats, by telling others about this article!

[Ozarks Tom]

@headlesshorseman, Every time you use Paul Craig Roberts as a reliable source (for anything) I'm reminded of another ex-government official - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alger_Hiss

[Deleted]

Aug 14, 2017 13:24:30 GMT Ozarks Tom said:

@headlesshorseman , Every time you use Paul Craig Roberts as a reliable source (for anything) I'm reminded of another ex-government official - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alger_Hiss

I fail to see the similarity between Alger Hiss and Paul Craig Roberts. Alger Hiss was a mid-level U.S. State Department official [assistant to Assistant Secretary of State Francis B. Sayre (son-in-law of Woodrow Wilson)], a Communist, and a convicted perjurer. Dr. Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy in the Reagan administration, who played a leading role in developing bipartisan support for a supply-side economic policy, and an American patriot. The only real similarity is that in later life both worked as authors and lecturers.

[Ozarks Tom]

@headlesshorseman, For some reason I didn't think you'd see the similarity. Hiss was at Roosevelt's side at the Malta conference, and was influential in the Russians taking Eastern Europe. He was far from mid-level.

The only difference between the two in my mind is Roberts is also a stooge for the Iranians.

Don't think so? I challenge you to find a quote from him criticizing either the Russians or Iranians.

[Deleted]

Aug 14, 2017 14:33:51 GMT Ozarks Tom said:

@headlesshorseman , For some reason I didn't think you'd see the similarity. Hiss was at Roosevelt's side at the Malta conference, and was influential in the Russians taking Eastern Europe. He was far from mid-level.

The only difference between the two in my mind is Roberts is also a stooge for the Iranians.

Don't think so? I challenge you to find a quote from him criticizing either the Russians or Iranians.

Being an assistant to an Assistant Secretary of State (Alger Hiss) is mid-level, compared to being an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury (Dr. Paul Craig Roberts). Also, Paul Craig Roberts was never accused of helping the Soviet Union in his capacity as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, and he was never convicted of perjury, as Alger Hiss was. Paul Craig Roberts is squeaky clean and an American patriot.

Yes, I am very much aware that Hiss was at the Yalta conference, but his influence, such as it was, remained very limited. 

"...In February 1945, as a member of the U.S. delegation headed by Stettinius, Hiss attended the Yalta Conference, where the Big Three, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill, met to consolidate their alliance to forestall any possibility, now that the Soviets had entered German territory, that any of them might make a separate peace with the Nazi regime. Negotiations addressed the postwar division of Europe and configuration of its borders; reparations and de-Nazification; and the still unfinished plans, carried over from Dumbarton Oaks, for the United Nations. Before the conference took place Hiss participated in the meetings where the American draft of the "Declaration of Liberated Europe" was created. The Declaration concerned the political future of Eastern Europe and critics on the right later charged that it made damaging concessions to the Soviets.[25]

Hiss stated that he was responsible for assembling background papers and documentation for the conference "and any general matters that might come up relating to the Far East or the Near East."[26]

Hiss drafted a memorandum arguing against Stalin's proposal (made at Dumbarton Oaks)[27] to give one vote to each of the sixteen Soviet republics in the U.N. General Assembly. Fearing isolation, Stalin hoped thus to counterbalance the votes of the many countries of the British Empire, who he anticipated would vote with Britain, and those of Latin America, who could be expected to vote in lockstep with the United States.[28] In the final compromise offered by Roosevelt and Stettinius and accepted by Stalin, the Soviets obtained three votes: one each for the Soviet Union itself, the Ukrainian SSR, and the Belorussian SSR.[29]..."-Wikipedia

Alger Hiss had a mid-level support role at the Yalta Conference, which ended up limiting the Soviet Union's influence in the U.N.'s General Assembly and dividing Europe into Eastern and Western spheres of influence/blocs, eventually the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact and the USA/NATO.

Alger Hiss's role at the Yalta Conference could best be described as limited and mid-level support staff. He was a member of the U.S. delegation headed by U.S. Secretary of State Stettinius, where he assembled background papers and documentation for the conference. Alger Hiss took part in the meetings where the American draft of the "Declaration of Liberated Europe" was created, but the 'Big Three' (Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and FDR) decided what happened in Eastern Europe after the war, not Alger Hiss.

Yalta (Crimean) conference Left to right: Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Maj. Gen. L. S. Kuter, Admiral E. J. King, General George C. Marshall, Ambassador Averell Harriman, Admiral William Leahy, and President F. D. Roosevelt. Livadia Palace, Crimea, Russia [Note: The Yalta Conference was held in the Crimea, a part of Russia since 1783.]

[Ozarks Tom]

@headlesshorseman, Just give up, PCR is a front man for Russia and Iran, and you know it. Find any words from him critical of Russia or Iran yet? No? Color me surprised. He has all the credibility of Pravda or the Tehran Times.

Assistant Secretary of State is mid-level? Hardly. A nearly dead Roosevelt leaned heavily on advice from the State Department at the meeting, you can be sure Hiss had input, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, just because someone had a substantial position in the government doesn't make them automatically a "patriot". A short search will show traitors in every branch of government, from scientists, to the FBI, to the CIA.

[Deleted]

Aug 14, 2017 21:48:46 GMT Ozarks Tom said:

@headlesshorseman , Just give up, PCR is a front man for Russia and Iran, and you know it. Find any words from him critical of Russia or Iran yet? No? Color me surprised. He has all the credibility of Pravda or the Tehran Times.

Assistant Secretary of State is mid-level? Hardly. A nearly dead Roosevelt leaned heavily on advice from the State Department at the meeting, you can be sure Hiss had input, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, just because someone had a substantial position in the government doesn't make them automatically a "patriot". A short search will show traitors in every branch of government, from scientists, to the FBI, to the CIA.

I guess you did not read my posts from above. No, Alger Hiss was never an Assistant Secretary of State. He never held that office or rank at the U.S. State Department. Alger Hiss, when he was working at the U.S. State Department was an assistant or aide to Assistant Secretary of State Francis B. Sayre, and during the Yalta Conference he was a member of the U.S. delegation headed by U.S. Secretary of State Stettinius, but not an Assistant Secretary of State. Hiss stated that he was responsible for assembling background papers and documentation for the Yalta Conference "and any general matters that might come up relating to the Far East or the Near East." Yes, Hiss had input at the Yalta Conference, but only in a support role as a member of the U.S. State Department under U.S. Secretary of State Stettinius. The Secretary of State had the President's ear, not Hiss. Did you notice who was sitting next to FDR in the photo of the U.S. Delegation to the Yalta Conference which I posted above? It was U.S. Secretary of State Stettinius, not Alger Hiss. In fact, Alger Hiss is not in the photo and likely not even in the room.

I have yet to see anyone prove Paul Craig Roberts ever did anything un-American, traitorous, or harmful in any way to America, while he worked for the U.S. Government as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, and later as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Commerce. During his latter years, Paul Craig Roberts has written and lectured on, among other things, the dangers and problems faced by America at home and abroad.

[DEKE]

Debating how high in gov't anyone was is irrelevant. We can all site things presidents have said that turned out to not be true - see Obama, Nixon, GWB, Clinton, etc. We can all cite positions presidents have had that turned out to be morally repugnant - see W Wilson. The pope once told us the Earth is the center of the universe. Holding high office doesn't make you right, moral, or honest in all things. That is a logical error called "appeal to authority". The absurdity of the argument is obvious to all except the absurdly blind conspiracy nut. If PCR's arguments are said to be credible because he held a title of "Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy" then what are we to believe when the actual Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy disagrees with him, or the even higher Secretary of the Treasury?

Most of what PCR says about 9/11 is pure bunk and many sources have proven it so. We can only guess why the gullible few desperately cling to the absurd when multiple independent sources have proven them wrong. As I've posted elsewhere, conspiracy thinkers just don't think right.

As an example of their poorly formed and irrational reasoning, conspiracists suffer from the logical error of the false dilemma or false dichotomy. Conspiracists ask how do you explain XYZ and erroneously believe that if science doesn't offer a quick answer then they have found proof of the conspiracy. Failing to prove an item is not a part of a conspiracy does not prove the conspiracy true any more so that having two murder suspects and proving one innocent means the other is guilty. There's always the chance someone else could be the murderer and due to bad police work, you didn't have enough suspects.

A good indicator of people making this logical error is when they ask, "OK, then how do you explain XYZ?" Not all questions conspiracists ask will have a readily available answer, especially from someone who is not an expert in the particular field in question. Sometimes we don't have an answer because science and scientists have limitations, like our knowledge of Mars (see thread "Death on Mars"). Sometimes it's because circumstances don't always allow for the kind of answers guaranteed to be found on an hour long episode of CSI. Appropriately, dealing with 9/11 focused first on saving lives, then returning the effected areas to some semblance of order. Keeping the disaster sites pure in a long term state of disaster might have helped dispel some of the nut job conspiracy theories, but there would still be unanswerable questions and crazy theories for what the rubble was hiding.

[sawmilljim]

Most of what PCR says about 9/11 is pure bunk and many sources have proven it so. We can only guess why the gullible few desperately cling to the absurd when multiple independent sources have proven them wrong. As I've posted elsewhere, conspiracy thinkers just don't think right.

What part did he get wrong in the above article Box cutters, plane miles off course inexperienced pilots ? Way I see it is when any critical thinking is required outside one's safety zone (level of understanding) they resort to uneducated attacks on others, thus debate ends and emotions prevail . Hiring one fox to determine why another fox ate the chickens don't make for a acceptable source to most that have any understanding above surviving their daily living in their little world .

For a fun exercise try flying your private plane into restricted airspace near Fort Campbell Ky if you survive tell me how it works out for you . Some places get really nervous when you deviate from your flight plan or refuse radio contact .

[7thswan]

I just do not understand what is so unbeliveable about a conspiracy. people get together ,plan , do ,all kinds of things. Even Evil people. There must be something special about conspiracys, how are they any diffrent than planning a supprise birthday party?

[DEKE]

Aug 15, 2017 18:35:49 GMT 7thswan said:

I just do not understand what is so unbeliveable about a conspiracy. people get together ,plan , do ,all kinds of things. Even Evil people. There must be something special about conspiracys, how are they any diffrent than planning a supprise birthday party?

7thswwan, of course conspiracies exist.  9/11 was indeed a conspiracy involving at least the 4 teams of hijackers.  Watergate was conspiracy involving the buglers and it grew larger as the coverup was attempted.  If Lee Harvey Oswald had any help planning the JFK then technically it was a conspiracy.  If you and I make a plan to steal Tom's sheep and set one of them up to run for for the MO Senate seat as an illegal alien, that's a conspiracy.  

When I and others refer to nut job conspiracists we're talking about people who foolishly buy into the types of grand and glorious government conspiracies envisioned by 9/11 so called truthers.  A 9/11 conspiracy as described by the truthers would require 1000s and 1000s of people to participate in the coverup.  It would require a gov't that can't do much of anything right to perfectly execute what had never been done before, getting impossible details right, like having the wreckage from the two main towers strike bldg 7 in just the right way to match the supposed controlled demolition explosions. 

We had one nut job JFK conspiracist here at CC who blamed the assassination on a combination of  CIA, FBI, mafia, space aliens, and the Illuminati.   We've got at least one member who claims the USA never made it to the moon which requires a conspiracy of at least 10s of 1000s of people in the US, Russia, China, and other space going countries.  And bizarrely, the US did the conspiracy to fool the Russians, but now Russia continues to help us do the cover up for reasons I've never heard.

If you prefer, I'll differentiate between the everyday run of the mill small scale criminal conspiracies (SSC-Conspiracies) and the grand, glorious, government conspiracies (GGG-Conspiracies), but I think we all know the difference. 

[DEKE]

Aug 15, 2017 18:01:04 GMT sawmilljim said:

What part did he get wrong in the above article Box cutters, plane miles off course inexperienced pilots ?

See Popular Mechanics (PM) for a refutation of the most common claims made by truthers.  link   I won't try to address HH's points one by one because what is the use.  I'm not an expert, I haven't collected first hand information.  There is already plenty of info available if you'll only read.

Way I see it is when any critical thinking is required outside one's safety zone (level of understanding) they resort to uneducated attacks on others, thus debate ends and emotions prevail . Hiring one fox to determine why another fox ate the chickens don't make for a acceptable source to most that have any understanding above surviving their daily living in their little world .

You're right, Jim.  Some people don't use critical thinking skills and they do use uneducated attacks on others.  The hard part  is understanding what is truly critical thinking and what is uneducated.  PM wrote at least a couple of articles and books which debunked the vast majority of the truther claims.  They used over 300 sources who were experts in particular areas such as NORAD, FAA, piloting jets, fire fighting, steel, etc to refute the outlandish claims made by the truthers.  If there is anything out there refuting the PM information, please send me a link because I haven't found it.  See, those with an open mind will read both sides, not just the half truths, misquotes, and innuendo used by the lying truthers.  

For a fun exercise try flying your private plane into restricted airspace near Fort Campbell Ky if you survive tell me how it works out for you . Some places get really nervous when you deviate from your flight plan or refuse radio contact .

That is addressed in the PM article and book.  You should read it. 

[sawmilljim]

To remain willfully ignorant in today's times with information still at present available is one's own choice . If you believe the Govt version that is one's own choice . To me is is a complete farce ,no buildings have ever fell due to fire . Notice black smoke is a fire starved for oxygen , but then these buildings turn to dust as they come apart .

9/11 Prediction in 1948 Cartoon?


Now this is a lot of questions ask to make one think . Really long but there are condensed versions .
Dr Judy Wood Where did the towers Go ?

[Ozarks Tom]

Err, no sawmilljim, black smoke is what you get when petroleum based material is burning. Never burned a tire? Just like every other office building, the towers were full of plastic.