CRITICAL THINKING
A Field Guide to Critical Thinking from the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
Guide to Logical Fallacies
Handbook for Reasoned Discussion from the Committee for the Fourth R
INTRODUCTION
"Let's say that everything you know is not only wrong, it is a carefully wrought lie. Let's say that your mind is filled with falsehoods - about yourself, about history, about the world around you - planted there by powerful forces so as to lull you into complacency. Your freedom is thus an illusion. You are in fact a pawn in a plot, and your role is that of a compliant dupe, if you're lucky." - Charles Paul Freund, "If History Is a Lie," Washington Post, January 19, 1992
"The ancients believed that an evil heart traveled to the eye and caused it also to be evil." - George Bohigian, M.D., "The Evil Eye and Its Influence on Medicine and Social Customs," Skeptic, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1998
"Although a full understanding of how signs work cannot be imparted by the written word, it is possible to provide an underlying perception of the dynamics of signs and their corresponding symbolism. Signs capture abstractions of the human condition and create a bridge between the realm of the spirit and the realm of form, as well as reveal the connection that exists between seemingly diverse objects. They can also reflect our feelings and reveal our fears. The study of signs spans ages; therefore, signs are best understood in the context of the religious, cultural, and historical backgrounds from which they arose, as well as how they operate in your life." - Denise Linn, The Secret Language of Signs
"The notions of sinister aliens in our midst, secretly plotting the downfall of society, is an illusion that can lead to madness and has been the cause throughout history of innumerable witch-hunts, pogroms, lynchings and mass murders. Conspiracy theory is a figment of perverted imagination and belief in conspirators is both a symptom and a cause of insanity. "Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, Conspiracies for societal control
"The adoption of the "all seeing eye" motif [on the Great Seal of the United States] was thought to be the influence of Benjamin Franklin's Masonic connections..." - George Bohigian, M.D., "The Evil Eye and Its Influence on Medicine and Social Customs," Skeptic, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1998
"A small dose of conspiracy theory is the best prophylactic against infection by them, and also serves as a useful corrective to the fatalistic worldview." Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, Conspiracies for societal control
CONSPIRACY THEORIES
Definition & Background
"Conspiracy theory is the belief that the entire course of history has been determined by an hereditary group of hidden plotters, whose purpose is to destroy all the civilized institutions and values which block their path towards world-domination. Conspiracy theory emerges in the sometimes paranoid perspectives of secret services, political parties, religious fundamentalists, tabloid newspapers, specialist publishers, and daily conversations." -Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, Conspiracies for societal control
"Simply put, it is a belief system that asserts that world events are being controlled in secret by a group of ultra-powerful puppeteers behind the scenes. While nothing much can be done about this overall conspiracy, at least we can have the satisfaction of being smart enough to have figured it all out." - Dean Vandruff, Christians & Conspiracy Theories
"Very few notions generate as much intellectual resistance, hostility and derision within academic circles as a belief in the historical importance or efficacy of political conspiracies. Even when this belief is expressed in a very cautious manner, limited to specific and restricted contexts, supported by reliable qualifications, it still manages to transcend the boundaries of acceptable discourse and violate unspoken academic taboos." - Jeffrey M. Bale, Lobster, issue 29
"A new kind of explanation for political events came into existence almost exactly two centuries ago, when some opponents of the French Revolution ascribed to their enemies an inhuman capacity for planning and a hideous intention to rule the world. This set of fears, which began as the midnight thoughts of malcontents, took shape in the course of the nineteenth century as a body of political ideas that I call conspiracism. Conspiracism took on two major forms, one focused on the dangers posed by secret societies, and the other preoccupied by Jews. With time, these fears grew to include governments as well - specifically the British, American and Israeli. Conspiracism gained a steadily larger constituency through the nineteenth century; by its end, ruthless political operatives had adopted this approach and promoted its ideas, imbuing it with a hardness of tone and using it as the base of ambitious, radical movements." - Daniel Pipes, Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From
"Conspiracy theory was pioneered and popularized in the UK by Nesta Webster. She was a natural mystic with a fascination for the occult, but brought up as a strict Protestant she had a distrust of cults and secret societies. The true purpose of these organizations, as she saw it, was to undermine religion and bring about the downfall of civilization. She researched the conspiracy by the Illuminati sect which underlay the French Revolution, and claimed that the underground sects which succeed it have been responsible for every subsequent revolution, for the spread of atheism, rationalism, communism and capitalism, and for all other plagues and problems of the modern world. It was responsible, for example she believed, for sending Lenin to Russia as "the agent of the great German-Jewish conspiracy that hopes to rule the world" and her views influenced Winston Churchill in his belief in an international Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy. She also identified occult powers at work behind international finance, theosophy and grand orient masonry."- Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, Conspiracies for societal control
"Not all conspiracy theories are that sinister. Most occult groups posit a benevolent conspiracy - a 'great white brotherhood' of mystical adepts guiding human evolution from behind the scenes. The very word conspiracy means nothing more wicked than 'breathing together.'" Steve Mizrach, A Close Look at Conspiratology
"Treating conspiracy theorists with silent contempt has had unfortunate consequences. While libertarian journals have provided intellectual ammunition to their readers for all sorts of other battles, few dissections of conspiracy fallacies have appeared in free-market publications. Readers who could look to any one of several periodicals for detailed criticism of statist propositions have not been presented with corresponding arguments against conspiracy theories. This has permitted conspiracy-mongers to promote their ideas in an intellectual vacuum and to suggest that the lack of response from the conventional media is evidence of a plot to prevent the real story from being exposed." -John McCormack, The Conspiracy Bugaboo
"A cursory search of the Internet reveals of plethora of equally bizarre conspiracy theories. A "Study of Corporate and Banking Influence" by Don Allen purports to show the "linear connection" between the Rothchilds, the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve. The "A-albionic Research Weekly" by James Daugherty claims to have identified "The World Money Cartel' or 'Empire of the City (of London)' operated for the 'Crown' by the 'legendary' Merchant Bankers of the Bank of England, including the Warburgs, Rothchilds [and] Barings." "Scriptures for America" gives a more elaborate version of Icke's claims about the economic rationale behind Rothschild support for Zionism, "the single purpose" of which is supposedly "to secure permanent and secure access to [the] vast natural resources in the Far East." In a similar vein, Sherman H. Skolnick's "Conspiracy Nation" repeats the claim that the Rothchilds "arranged the murder of President Lincoln," as his "post-war policies would have wrecked [their] commodity speculations." Skolnick also repeats the allegation that "the Rothchilds...financed the rise of Hitler as a bulwark against the Soviet Union," adding by way of "explanation" that "the Rothchilds are interwoven with the Catholic Church and, jointly with the traditional mafia and the American CIA, interlocked with the Vatican Bank, which was pro-Nazi." - Niall Ferguson, The House of Rothschild
Why are conspiracies popular?
"... a belief in conspiracy theories helps people to make sense out of a confusing, inhospitable reality, rationalize their present difficulties and partially assuage their feelings of powerlessness. In this sense, it is no different than any number of religious, social, or political beliefs, and is deserving of the same serious study." - Jeffrey M. Bale, Lobster, issue 29
"One factor is the increasing availability of computer technology. I first began to notice conspiracy theories in the late 1970s as a by-product of getting interested in the Kennedy assassination. In those days getting a decent-looking magazine together was expensive. You had to pay for typesetting. The fringe mags looked like fringe mags. These days about $700 will buy a computer kit with which you can turn out an imitation of the 'Wall Street Journal' if you want to; and with a fax machine you can spread it around the world. There has been an increase in conspiracy theories; but its also that those that exist are getting around much faster than they used to. Another factor is the increasing difficulty people have in working out what is real and what is not. In the USA, Mr and Mrs Joe Sixpack are faced with thirty, sixty, a hundred and twenty cable channels of TV putting out varieties of piffle at best; tabloid papers like the 'National Enquirer' and all its imitators in supermarkets putting out honest-to-god inventions as `news'; endless right-wing radio talk shows pumping out nonsensical conspiracy theories about the evils of liberalism." - Robin Ramsay, Of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories: The Truth Buried by the Fantasies
"It must also be said that the government has been guilty of enough conspiracies to fuel the paranoia. The FBI did spy on a host of radical but nonviolent domestic groups like Vietnam Veterans Against the War as part of its Cointelpro effort. The CIA has worked hand in hand with a gallery of liars, thieves, and drug traffickers. The U.S. Public Health Service did allow some 400 African-American men with syphilis to go untreated while it observed them for 40 years in the Tuskegee study--for which the federal government did not apologize until last month." - Gordon Witkin, Conspiracy's Twisted Appeal, US News and World Report, June 2, 1997
"As the response to the death of Diana Spencer demonstrates, the impulse to ascribe tragedies to the interference of outside agencies appears to be a widespread occurrence. Conspiracy theories demonstrate that conspiratorial thinking is a normal, if not normative, human response to traumatic events. Conspiracies are generated from all points of the ideological spectrum, and conspiratorial thought is found at all levels of society. Marginalized groups pass on stories of the hidden motives of small, powerful elites aligned against them. Politicians gather followers by disclosing them. Talk radio hosts speculate about them. Businessmen expound upon them. People discuss them everyday. Conspiracy theories provide narrative proof that conspiratorial thinking is a normative, if not normal, response to human events. However, the very idea of conspiracy conspires against open serious discussion of the phenomenon today, not to mention any type of objective scholarly inquiry.
The speed with which the Diana conspiracies spread was astonishing, even taking the considerable impact of the increasingly ubiquitous computer networks into account. This impact is primarily responsible for the myriad forms that the almost instantaneous responses to the events of her death took. Lamentations, shrines, rumors, reminiscences, jokes, even shrines arose immediately. So did conspiracy theories, a phenomenon that would have been inconceivable ten, even five years ago, when the diffusion of information was (relatively) slower and the open expression of conspiracy theories was (socially) prohibited." - Tyrone Yarbrough, Consider the Source: Conspiracy Theories, Narrative, Belief
"The expansion of the internet provided another channel of communication for conspiracy theories, one freer and more sympathetic to the open expression of belief in them. It provide a safe site where people could discuss their ideas, and before long, dozens or newsgroups and websites had formed. Before computers were widely available, conspiracy theorists circulated their beliefs by word of mouth, in underground broadcasts, alternative presses, and the circulation of unpublished xeroxed written works and documents. These narratives that have been circulating within an extensive information underground for generations. This information underground formed precisely because the open expression of conspiracy has been unacceptable." - Tyrone Yarbrough, Consider the Source: Conspiracy Theories, Narrative, Belief
Elements of conspiracy theory
The Secret Masters
"'The Conspiracy' goes back to 400 B.C., in Great Britain. "The Battle of the Trees" was the culmination of a religious revolution which replaced the seven-letter name of God (nature) with an eight-letter name, "dedicated to the suffocation and extinction of all organic process..." -William L. Avery, writing in the Spring 1977 issue of Conspiracy Digest, a newsletter connected to A-Albionic Research
"Though no two students of Illuminology agree totally on the details (and there is room for much speculation), one generally finds in the current Illuminati literature of the anti-Semitic far right, the idea of international communism and international banking interacting with Masonry, witchcraft and Satanism. Even the fall of communism does not dampen the commitment of true “believers.” They insist that international communism will rise again or just take on a new and more insidious form." - G. Richard Fisher, The Present-Day Illuminati Theory: The Real or Illusionary Threat of a Secret Worldwide Conspiracy
"The organization of the Secret Societies was needed to transform the theorizings of the philosophers into a concrete and formidable system for the destruction of civilization." Nesta Webster, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements
"I see in Rothschild one of the greatest revolutionaries who have founded modern democracy. Richelieu, Robespierre and Rothschild are for me three terroristic names, and they signify the gradual annihilation of the old aristocracy. Richelieu, Robespierre and Rothschild are Europe's three most fearful levellers. Richelieu destroyed the sovereignty of the feudal nobility, and subjected it to that royal despotism, which either relegated it to court service, or let it rot in bumpkin-like inactivity in the provinces. Robespierre decapitated this subjugated and idle nobility. But the land remained, and its new master, the new landowner, quickly became another aristocrat, just like his predecessor, whose pretensions he continued another name. Then came Rothschild and destroyed the prominance of land, by raising the system of state bonds to supreme power, thereby mobilising property and income and at the same time endowing money with the previous privileges of the land. He thereby created a new aristocracy, it is true, but this, resting as it does on the most unreliable of elements, on money, can never play as enduringly regressive a role as the former aristocracy, which was rooted in the land, in the earth itself. For money is more fluid than water, more elusive than the air, and one can gladly forgive the impertinences of the new nobility in consideration of its ephemerality. In the twinkling of an eye, it will dissolve and evaporate." - Heinrich Heine, from "Ludwig Borne" as quoted in The House of Rothschild by Niall Ferguson
"These are oligarchical families that are extremely powerful and if you go back in history and ask yourself the question, "when did the elite, powerful, oligarchical families ever give up their power?" You can't find any point in history. These are the families that - some of these bloodlines go clear back to Nimrod. The Rothschild secret genealogy that they have secretly written down through the centuries, traces their genealogy back to Nimrod."- Fritz Springmeier on CKLN 88.1 FM.
I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960's, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments....I have objected....to a few of its policies....but in general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown." - Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, as quoted in The Rise of the Modern Conspiracy Theory Movement by R. Daniel Woolman, Ph.D.
"If we do not follow the dictates of our inner moral compass and stand up for human life, then his [Saddam Hussein's] lawlessness will threaten the peace and democracy of the emerging new world order we now see, this long dreamed-of vision we've all worked toward for so long." - George Bush, 1991 State of the Union address, as quoted in The Rise of the Modern Conspiracy Theory Movement by R. Daniel Woolman, Ph.D.
"It is understandable that those who see the world as rushing to its final doom are likely to see any group urging international cooperation as being an instrument of the Antichrist." - Tim Callahan, "The End of the World & The New World Order," From Skeptic vol. 4, no. 3, 1996, pp. 44-51."
"Later, a Vatican spokesman said, 'Ali Agca knows only up to a certain level. On a higher level, he doesn't know anything. If there was a conspiracy, it was done by professionals and professionals don't leave traces. One will never find anything.' - Gordon Thomas, Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad.
The Media
"In present day life, it is ironic that the media, like the Greek Furies of old, have inherited the malevolent capacity to drive any one of us mad. In essence, with the echoing power of modern communications, they have replaced the assassin's bullet as the means of political destruction. Their capacity for malice has been phenomenally effective in ending the presumptions of outspoken iconoclasts by simplifying and marginalizing them." - Oliver Stone, Our Counterfeit History, George Magazine, October 1998.
"Looked at another way: here we are in Uncle McCluhan's global village; and what is village life like? Word of mouth, rumour, gossip - most of it inaccurate. Maybe conspiracy theories are just the gossip of the global village." - Robin Ramsay, Of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories: The Truth Buried by the Fantasies
"Well, all truths begin as hearsay, as far as I'm concerned" - Matt Drudge, Anyone with a Modem Can Report on the World.
Inclusivity & Coincidence
"Conspiracy theories are like black holes--they suck in everything that comes their way, regardless of content or origin...Everything you've ever known or experienced, no matter how 'meaningless', once it contacts the conspiratorial universe, is enveloped by and cloaked in sinister significance. Once inside, the vortex gains in size and strength, sucking in everything you touch." - Kooks: A Guide to the Outer Limits of Human Belief (Portland: Feral House, 1994), p. 191.
FEATURED CONSPIRACIES
The CIA/Nazi Nexus
"What do you call a group that over the course of fifty years has been toppling regimes, training national police forces in torture, looting S&Ls, running an extensive mind-control superproject, helping import ex-Nazi war criminals into America and collaborating extensively with them, apparently assisting in the transport and importation and sale of illegal drugs, running propaganda campaigns designed to create and exacerbate conflict among political groups within foreign nations, exploring and funding all sorts of university and private research into consciousness for possible use in controlling people's minds, paving the way for multinational corporations to expand their operations into foreign countries - thus considerably aiding the economic ruination of those nations - infiltrating the American and foreign press with significant numbers of reporters who are compromised, who slant news, who omit vital news, who protect the Agency from harmful exposure, who keep the American people from knowing what is going on behind the scenes in their own country..." Jon Rappoport, The Secret Behind Secret Societies: Liberation of the Planet in the 21st Century.
"Had the United States government followed the Yalta Accord, they would have been required to turn Gehlen over to the USSR. Instead, the American government made a deal with him. Not only would Gehlen turn over his massive cache of files on the Soviet Union to the U.S., he would also serve as an intelligence source on the Russians. In other words, the United States collaborated with a known Nazi who had committed mass murder in return for information. In doing so, the government permitted Gehlen to utilize a network of Nazi SS officers, fugitive war criminals and fascist sympathizers. In effect, they helped establish the post-war Organization of Former SS Members (Organisation der Ehemaligen SS-Angehorigen), known as Odessa. And Gehlen wasn't the only high-ranking Nazi to make such a deal. Other Nazi war criminals were used for intelligence work: Klaus Barbie, Franz Alfred Six, Emil Augsburg and Otto Skorzeny were among the hundreds of fugitives on the payroll of the U.S. government. Nazi scientists were secretly imported into the country through a project codenamed Paperclip by the U.S. War Department. According to their own intelligence reports, approximately seventy-five percent of the German scientists were "ardent Nazis". Many had conduct experiments on prisoners in concentration camps. Truman had approved "Paperclip" on the condition that no Nazis were brought into the country. This would have eliminated scientists such as Werner von Braun, who was an SS major, and Arthur Rudolph. Each had been assessed as security risks. The War Department solved this problem by sanitizing their reports. Paperclipped reports were rewritten, allowing many Nazi veteran entrance into the United States." - Tyrone Yarbrough, Consider the Source: Conspiracy Theories, Narrative, Belief
"Gehlen's spy network, called the Org, was funded by over 200 million dollars from the U.S. government. He gained tremendous influence over American foreign policy during the Cold War. The Org submitted reports on Russian military strength, which Allen Dulles passed on without change. These reports greatly exaggerated Soviet military preparedness, once claiming that they were massing to attack West Germany by 1946 with a ten to one troop advantage over Western forces. At this time, Soviet forces were, in fact, recovering from the losses they incurred fighting the Nazis. They were militarily underequipped and had no combat troop advantages. Additionally, Gehlen often advised the United States to launch a first strike assault against the Russians, advice they came perilously close to taking. By providing the U.S. government with erroneous information about the Soviet military buildup, Gehlen's Org helped to increase hostilities between the U.S. and the USSR, and escalate the Cold War. His intelligence reports contributed to the decision to engage in an arms race that lasted over forty years. Finally, Gehlen's Org helped to establish the C.I.A." - Tyrone Yarbrough, Consider the Source: Conspiracy Theories, Narrative, Belief
"During the 1950s and 60s, the CIA was developing LSD as a tool for mind control, and very probably wanted to keep the drug their own dirty little secret. It would be more effective that way. However, a certain Captain Al Hubbard, a man highly placed in the intelligence community--a friend of J. Edgar Hoover's no less--disapproved of MK-ULTRA and began promoting LSD as a tool for transcendental experience. It was he, for instance, who introduced Huxley and other members of the intelligentsia to the drug. Perhaps this was his own personal agenda. Or perhaps it was the agenda of another element of the intelligence community, possibly even foreign. Whatever the full explanation, there is no doubt that there is a larger, hidden history behind the Sixties." - Mack White, An Interview with Mack White, Ex-Digest, July 29, 1997
"As of May, 1986 there were probably 6,500 of an estimated 10,000 Nazi collaborators who had been assisted by the pro-war criminals organization, still living in the U.S. According to The Times of London. "The U.S. had classified the documents until now in order to protect allied governments and the Vatican from the embarrassing revelations in them", it said. "They showed that the intelligence agencies of France and Britain, immediately after the war, revived a former Nazi organization, called Intermarium, he said. The organization was formed originally by a Russian tsarist general shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution in order to fight communism. "The intelligence agencies of France, Britain, Australia, Canada, Austria, West Germany, and Italy, as well as high Vatican officials, had then become involved in recruiting former Nazi war criminals for the organization. They rearmed and funded them while helping them to emigrate, Mr. Loftus said. "The central governments of these countries apparently did not know about their intelligence agencies' activities. "The U.S. Army Counter-intelligence Corps found out about the allied involvement in 1947, and the U.S. decided to get involved itself and to keep the entire operation secret." - Avro Manhattan, The Vatican's Holocaust
"Precisely what was the relationship between various branches of the government, particularly the CIA, and this country's super-cocaine kingpins, such as Arkansas's own Barry Seal, during the 1980s?" - Mara Leveritt, A Selective Passion for Truth, Arkansas Times, Feb. 12, 1999
"This scenario [of right-wing/military governmental takeovers] has been repeated so many times that the CIA actually teaches it in a special school, the notorious "School of the Americas." (It opened in Panama but later moved to Fort Benning, Georgia.) Critics have nicknamed it the "School of the Dictators" and "School of the Assassins." Here, the CIA trains Latin American military officers how to conduct coups, including the use of interrogation, torture and murder." - Steve Kangas, Timeline of CIA Atrocities
"One is our true mind, the product of all our life experiences, the one that rarely speaks because it has been defeated and relegated to obscurity. The other, the mind we use daily for everything we do, is a foreign installation." - Don Juan Matus, The Active Side of Infinity by Carlos Casteneda.
President Clinton
"Linda Thompson's list, called "The Clinton Body Count: Coincidence or the Kiss of Death?" and updated biweekly, now contains 34 names of people she believes died suspiciously and who had ties to the Clinton family. Thompson admits she has "no direct evidence" of Clinton killing anyone. Indeed, she says the deaths were probably caused by "people trying to control the president" but refuses to say who they were. Thompson says her allegations of murder "seem groundless only because the mainstream media haven't done enough digging." - Greg Ferguson, Whatever It Is, Bill Clinton Likely Did It, US News & World Report, 8/8/94. The updated Clinton Body Count now lists over 60 people.
...But asked if he knew Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, (Larry) Flynt said, ''I haven't seen Strobe Talbott in years. But he is married to a sister of a very good friend of mine.'' Surprisingly, that red flag went unnoticed. So who is Talbott's brother-in-law? His name is Cody Shearer, and a review of his White House connections reveals the possible workings of a new plumber operation. A self-styled ''free-lance journalist'' (although he hasn't published in nearly a decade), Shearer is a former business associate of Terry Lenzner's Investigative Group International - the premier opposition-research firm that Dick Morris calls ''the White House secret police.'' - Sam Dealey, A Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy? (New York Post, January 22, 1999)
"'There are conspiracies in history,' wrote Sidney Blumenthal in a forward to a 35-year old book gleefully unearthed by reporter Chris Ruddy, no conspiracy couch potato himself." - Daniel Hopsicker, Men in Black - Chevrolet Suburbans from. The Drug Money Times.
"The tainted blood came from Cummins Correctional Unit, a huge, grim prison farm east of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Cummins was second only to the lucrative highway department as a cash cow for Arkansas politicians. If nothing else, the inmates could always be used for free labor -- as if the slaves had never been freed in this corner of the Old South. In the early 1980s, "Friends of Bill" devised an easy-money scheme to harvest inmate blood plasma at Cummins. The high risks of prison blood had long been recognized, and were certainly known to Dr. Francis "Bud" Henderson, the founder of Health Management Associates (HMA), which got an exclusive, Clinton-approved contract for the operation. But the profit potential was enormous and the bleeds were safe from public view, behind the prison walls. HMA already had an exclusive contract to provide ordinary health care within the prison, approved by Clinton in his first term as governor. The expansion into plasma harvesting got going when he was reelected in 1982. In the meantime, HMA's medical care had been so sloppy that its medical license was pulled. Yet it was awarded a new license and a broader contract when Bill Clinton got back into office. In fact, HMA's license was voided three times for medical violations before it went out of business in 1987. Each time Bill Clinton conspicuously rode to the rescue. A new program under different owners got his approval and the scheme continued until 1994. Arkansas was the last state to terminate its prison plasma program." - Tim J. Wheeler, Bloodgate: A New Theory on the Death of Vincent Foster
"[Vincent] Foster's role is not speculation. When HMA's unsanitary practices led to inmate injuries and deaths, a $12,000,000 lawsuit was filed against the company. Foster approached Michael Galster, a prosthetist working in the prison as an HMA subcontractor, with a scheme to take the heat off of HMA. Galster refused. Foster threatened that if he didn't cooperate, he'd never get another STATE contract (a private lawyer could not make such a threat but an agent of Clinton could). Galster refused again and quit HMA on the spot." - Tim J. Wheeler, Bloodgate: A New Theory on the Death of Vincent Foster
"In so many ways it reminds you of Nazi Germany," [Michael] Galster says. "If it had been the typical Arkansas scam, where we are talking about pigs, tractors, even land, that would be one thing. These guys had the power over a captive audience to make money from human beings." - Suzi Parker, Blood Money: Tainted Plasma from Arkansas Prisoners Still Reverberates in Canada, Arkansas Times, January 15, 1999.
QUESTION: Do you think the Mena story will ever be made public by Congress? Will they ever do an investigation in which the truth comes out?
STICH: Congress has been involved for so many years in the cover up on Mena and other drug trafficking, that if they were to come out now and admit it, what would they do about the evidence showing they knew about it decades ago? I have never seen one congressional investigation that got to the heart of the issues. In Iran-contra, for example, they skirted all the drug-trafficking, even though Walsh had boxes of evidence presented to him by law enforcement officers in Mena and elsewhere.
QUESTION: Do you think Bill Clinton is coming down?
STICH: I would not count on that. They are not going after the heavy stuff, like the drug trafficking. They are not going after the Dan Lasater connection, or the Arkansas Development Finance Authority. And all the people who were murdered or beat up in Arkansas who had information detrimental to Clinton... they are still covering up for all that. - The DrugMoney "Kingpin" Interview with Rodney Stich, DrugMoney Times.
"Precisely what was the relationship between various branches of the government, particularly the CIA, and this country's super-cocaine kingpins, such as Arkansas's own Barry Seal, during the 1980s? Republicans don't want to touch them for fear of where the answers might lead. The trail already points to the offices of former presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Likewise, Democrats are not keen on kicking up a lot of dirt about Barry Seal, a major cocaine smuggler who, for reasons that remain a mystery, was allowed to base his multi-million-dollar operation in Arkansas, under the very eye of the Arkansas State Police, for four years while Bill Clinton was governor." - Mara Leveritt, A Selective Passion for Truth, Arkansas Times, Feb. 12, 1999
"For anybody willing to find it, and write about it, and explain it, is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for President. A few journalists have kind of caught on to it and explained it, but it has not yet been fully revealed to the American public. And actually, you know, in a bizarre sort of way, this may do it." - Hillary Clinton, in an interview on the Today Show, January 27, 1998.
"Hillary Clinton had what I would now describe as "a prophetic nightmare." You probably remember Hillary talking about this bad dream in a television interview in which she explained that her husband's problems were all manufactured by "a vast right-wing conspiracy." What you might not know is how this nightmare is chronicled in a 331-page report co-published and distributed, at taxpayer expense, by the Democratic National Committee and the White House counsel's office. The report was titled, "The Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce." This was a report distributed to select U.S. reporters in an effort to discredit a new breed of investigative journalism into what was already emerging as the most scandal-plagued administration in the history of the United States." - Joseph Farah, Hillary Clinton, Conspiracy Theorist, WorldNetDaily 2/11/99.
"According to a Pentagon-released outline of her past work experience, [Linda] Tripp held several unusual positions in the Department of the Army, some of which earned her classified security clearance. In the entry for 1987, she is listed as an "administrative assistant" in Army Intelligence Command at Fort Meade, Maryland. From 1988 to 1989 she served as an "operations assistant" on a "classified assignment" at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Later, when testifying before a House committee investigating the suicide of Vince Foster, she stated that her Pentagon experience included work with highly classified Army intelligence and commando units. "I've worked on the covert side of the Department of Defense," she said, explaining why she was able to act swiftly in sealing off Foster's office after his death." - What a Short, Strange Tripp It's Been
"As an agent, [Lucianne] Goldberg has pedaled (unsuccessfully) a number of nasty anti-Clinton books to publishers, including one on Vince Foster to be written by Mark Fuhrman, another by a woman claiming to be a former Clinton lover, and Tripp's proposed White House tell-all. And Goldberg writes fiction in a genre that might be termed mildly naughty romance novels. But Goldberg is also a political animal, with a spookish pedigree of her own: As has been widely reported, in 1972 Goldberg was a dirty-tricks operative and spy for the Nixon re-election campaign. What hasn't been widely reported are Goldberg's historical ties to a news organization recently described as being "infested with CIA connections": the North American Newspaper Association (NANA). Apparently no longer extant, the group was founded in the 1950s by Ernest Cuneo, a high-ranking OSS veteran. Among the CIA links to NANA were Priscilla Johnson McMillan, a journalist with many CIA and State Department ties. JFK researchers find McMillan especially suspicious because she traveled to Moscow in 1959 to interview then-little known defector Lee Harvey Oswald -- and, of course, Oswald is thought by many researchers to have been a U.S. intelligence operative." - What a Short, Strange Tripp It's Been
"[Richard Mellon Scaife]...the ultimate patron of the Clinton haters has been identified by Salon and the New York Observer as a key funder of the $2.4 million Arkansas Project, a four-year effort organized through the American Spectator magazine to discredit the president. Scaife foundation money, as Salon has reported, has also allegedly been used to pay key Whitewater witness David Hale and to help bankroll Paula Jones' sexual harassment case against Clinton." - Karen Rothmyer, The Man Behind the Mask, SALON April 7, 1998.
"Scaife also funds projects that create legal and political trouble for his enemies. Consider Bill Clinton. In 1997, Scaife donated $550,000 to Judicial Watch, whose director, Larry Klayman, has filed 18 lawsuits against the Clinton Administration. Scaife also assigned one of his newspaper’s reporters, Christopher Ruddy, to a full-time, ongoing investigation into the deaths of Vince Foster and Ron Brown, trying to find evidence that the Clintons murdered them. Scaife has also given $450,000 over three years to the Independent Women’s Forum. This is a media-booking agency that heavily seeds female conservative pundits into the media. (This is an attempt to reduce the "gender gap" that Democrats enjoy in the polls.) The IWF has given generous public support to Paula Jones in her lawsuit. In fact, one IWF pundit, Ann Coulter, heard at least one of the Linda Tripp tapes before it even reached Ken Starr. This proved that she was deeply involved with the Paula Jones’ camp (who received the tapes first), even though she was pretending to be an objective commentator on the scandal in the media. But perhaps most alarming is Scaife’s ties to independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr. Starr’s conflicts of interest are almost too numerous to mention. Early on, Starr had been given an open-ended job offer as the dean of Pepperdine University’s Schools of Law and Public Policy. At first, Starr planned to accept the job after finishing his investigation. But it turns out this school is a heavy recipient of Scaife money, and the resulting media scandal finally convinced Starr to refuse the job. But the appearance of Scaife attempting to pay off Starr for getting Clinton lingers." - Steve Kangas, Myth: There’s No "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" to Get Clinton
"One fact about Steve Kangas is indisputable: This proud veteran of years of political argument in Internet discussion forums, and creator of an award-winning Web site devoted to liberal issues, is dead. On Feb. 8, his body was discovered in a men's room on the 39th floor of a building in Pittsburgh -- just outside the offices of conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife." - Andrew Leonard, A Vincent Foster for Usenet Liberals?, Salon Magazine, 3/19/1999.
"Lewinsky testified under oath that after a session of heavy petting and oral sex in the White House, Clinton told her that a foreign embassy was tapping the two phone lines in her D.C. apartment. She said Clinton advised her that if she was questioned about their phone-sex sessions she should claim that they knew their calls were being bugged - and were joking to make the phone-tappers look silly. Starr did not pursue the matter, as far as the public record shows, and Lewinsky apparently accepted Clinton's story without asking for details. But author [Gordon] Thomas says Danny Yatom, Mossad inspector general, succeeded in tapping Lewinsky's phone and amassed some 30 hours of sexually explicit conversations between the president and Lewinsky. Thomas says Tel Aviv used the tapes to stop the probe of an operative code-named "MEGA," who was, and could still be, deep within the White House." - Neal Travis, Israel Blackmailed Bill with Monica Tapes
"[Jim] Norman contends that Vince Foster, whether murdered or not, was under investigation because he was a spy for Israel. For years Foster had been an intermediary between the National Security Agency and Systematics, Inc. (now called ALLTEL) in Little Rock. Systematics was installing bugged software in banks around the world, and the Rose Law Firm was their attorney-of-record. The bugged software allowed the CIA to manipulate covert funds to service their various operations, and also allowed the NSA to monitor banking transactions around the world. CIA hackers broke into a Mossad computer and discovered that Vince Foster owned some Swiss bank accounts. They simulated a withdrawal and took out $2.73 million from one of Foster's accounts. Foster discovered this shortly before his death, and upon making inquiries, determined that he was under investigation for espionage. The CIA hackers went on to drain the accounts of another 200 or so prominent members of both the Republican and Democratic parties. They returned this money to the U.S. Treasury. The account holders couldn't complain because they were guilty." - Daniel Brandt, The Norman-Grabbe Theory Regarding Vince Foster: Why We Should Be Careful
"[Jim] Norman then goes on to say that there are a group of computer hackers at the CIA ("this sort of renegade vigilante group of guys they call the Fifth Column") that has been monitoring (with PROMIS?) the international transfer of drug and terrorist monies in 3,000 foreign accounts! He even claims that this "Fifth Column" is presently terrorizing Washington by having taken 2.5 Billion Dollars from some of these accounts but no one has officially and openly complained about these thefts because of the original illegal source of these monies." - Art Kunkin, The Octopus Conspiracy: Has The U.S. Been Spying On Your Bank Accounts?
"Starting in 1991, this five-man Fifth Column team has been using its own Cray supercomputer to break into foreign bank computers, download vast libraries of data and trace this money to a wide range of illegal activities, from kickbacks on drug and arms deals to insider trading profits, software piracy and the sale of state secrets. Oh yes, don't forget tax evasion. The money has been moved to a U.S. Treasury holding account at several Federal Reserve Banks, escrowed for use by the CIA if and only if the CIA gets rid of its own bad apples. How could the government hide that much money, denying under Freedom of Information Act requests that it even exists? Just ask the National Reconnaissance Office, the government's spy satellite agency, which recently fessed up to having $1.7 billion stashed in secret accounts. More important then the money, however, are the NAMES. Who had these accounts? Are they still in office? Who has the list and the proof? Are they using this information to extort political blackmail? Will the bad guys be able to buy their way out of exposure? One thing is certain: Whoever controls this phantom roster of corrupt politicians and money men has this government's private parts in a tightening vise." - James Norman, The Still Before the Storm, Media Bypass, December 1995.
Princess Diana
"The recent visit to the United States by Prime Minister Tony Blair of England, was quickly arranged because President Clinton had some vital information to relay to him. The vital information included the spoken or unspoken threat that if Blair didn't get on board the Clinton train, that Clinton would release the information that the CIA has accumulated, proving that Blair and the Queen were behind the murder of Diana. (Added note: RMNEWS released a story the first of May, 1998, regarding the "surfacing" of stolen intelligence documents which state that British Intelligence asked the CIA to help them murder Diana. Could this be what President Clinton was using to blackmail Tony Blair?) Tony Blair became the first of our allies to stand with us in the threat to bomb and destroy Iraq." - Ru Mills, How Many People Can Blackmail a President?
"The simple reason for the murder is, British Intelligence is pledged to protect the monarchy. The monarchy was *not* going to have a new step-father for the heir to the throne, Prince William; they weren't going to have a Moslem. Further than that, it comes out that Diana had already been given an engagement ring by Dodi Fayed. What has *not* come out is that she was 3-months pregnant." - Sherman Skolnick from U.K., French, Journalists Confide: "Princess Diana was assassinated"
…."Princess Diana and her soon-to-be husband, Dodi Fayed, were fatally injured in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel. The site is ancient, dating back to the time of the Merovingian kings (ca. 500 - 751 A.D.), and before. In pre-Christian times, the Pont de l'Alma was a pagan sacrificial site. Note that in the pagan connotation, at least, sacrifice is not to be confused with murder: the sacrificial victim had to be a willing participant."
…."British intelligence (MI-6) arranged the deaths of Lady Diana and Dodi Fayed. It was imperative that the Saudi royal family not have control over Diana. The driver of the ill-fated Mercedes was a "Manchurian candidate," with connections to the French military. How did so much alcohol get into his system? Amounts suggested in mass media reports are truly staggering -- so much alcohol that the driver would have had to been carried to the car."
…."But even within British intelligence there are factions. A rogue faction in MI-6, powerless to prevent the assassination, arranged for the deaths of Lady Diana and Dodi Fayed to happen at Pont de l'Alma. Cleverly, it was known that a death at that historic location would not only "send a signal"; it would eventually lead to the creation of a "Saint Diana." In Roman paganism, Diana is "Queen of Heaven," a triple-goddess. "Al-mah," in mideast language, means "moon goddess." One aspect of the Roman triple-goddess is the "lunar virgin." The *al-mahs* served as maidens of Diana, the lunar virgin. In France, the Cult of Diana was so powerful that it wasn't until the Middle Ages until the French gave up worship of the pagan goddess. The *true* Knights Templar are sworn to protect the Merovingian blood -- i.e., that of the *true* royals, such as Lady Diana." - Ru Mills from "Whoever Controls Princess Diana Controls the World"
"Henri Paul, driver of the Diana death-mobile, was on the payroll of MI-6 (British intelligence), as an informer. Mr. Paul reported to British intelligence, for example, on several meetings held between Mohamed Al Fayed and "a notorious international arms dealer" (Adnan Khashoggi?), at the Ritz Hotel, in Paris." - Brian Redman, Mechanics of Diana Murder Revealed.
"Additional information from the Exegesis web site (not included in the National Examiner article) shows that a fetus carried by Princess Diana, apparently the result of her union with Dodi Fayed, was taken from her womb and destroyed while she was in the ambulance, enroute to the hospital. According to a report carried by Exegesis, it took 67 minutes for the ambulance to travel from the Alma tunnel to the hospital, a distance of under 4 miles." - Brian Redman, Mechanics of Diana Murder Revealed.
"Witness accounts recorded by TV crews directly after the tragedy stated that there was an initial impact or explosion, then the sound of metal scraping followed by the sound of a very loud crash when the vehicle hit the tunnel structure. These descriptions were edited out of subsequent broadcasts and have not been heard since. What was the initial sound caused by? If a massive crash could somehow be instigated, the time, location, and condition of the armor-plated limousine would assuredly create some delays in any occupants not killed receiving medical attention, which itself could be of a terminal sort administered by specially assigned agents who, while returning to the hospital in the ambulance, inconceivably lose their way!" - John Andrew Quinn, Diana's Death: An Assassination?
"Perhaps Princess Diana's potential independent financial power by way of her boyfriend, a wealthy movie producer, was becoming a serious political threat to the status quo. The senior Mr. Fayed had been quite influential in bringing about the downfall of the Conservative government which held power for so long in England. This fact would have hardly endeared him (or his son) to certain major British power brokers; in fact they detest Mr. Fayed and many liked Diana hardly a little more. Diana herself was becoming more and more overtly political in her campaign against the use of land mines and in her visits to promote peace efforts in Bosnia, etc. This was a threat to the stated New World Order objective of a destabilized Russia and a wary, edgy Western bloc (Europe, the U.S. and allies). The Royal Family is a major player in the high-stakes game of position within the New World Order, and international arms sales including land mines provide a substantial portion of their necessary operating capital. Some objectives of the removal of Diana as a significant influence in our world could be: to keep Diana from interfering with the further development and education of her two boys, Princes William and Harry; to derail Diana's ever-more-effective international peace efforts (Great Britain is a major exporter of land mines); to send a message to and set an example for other members of Royalty, other world political figures and the entire human population; and to prevent a marriage to a member of the Saudi royal family." - John Andrew Quinn, Diana's Death: An Assassination?
"American intelligence agencies have amassed a small library of Top Secret records involving the late Princess of Wales and are refusing to make those documents public. The highly secretive National Security Agency (NSA), which eavesdrops on foreigners, says its portions of the records are "currently and properly classified" Top Secret and if made public could "cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security." The files include 1,056 pages held by the NSA, Central Intelligence Agency, State Department, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and perhaps other government organizations." - Tami Sheheri and Mark Sauter, Secret Princess Diana Papers: NSA Refuses to Release 'Top Secret' Documents
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