Et Tu Lindorff?

Facts to the contrary, there just are no conspiracies

David Lindorff has finally stuck his foot in his mouth, over at Commondreams.org, a notorious anti-truth gatekeeping site. I suppose we should all just abandon even the hope for justice, truth and reconciliation and take orders from the establishment Democrats?

Lindorff mixes irrational hyperbole with some revisionist whitewashing, all in an effort to put those pesky "conspiracy theories" behind us -- in the service of "the left." This tactic was employed previously by Alexander Cockburn among others, and is quite simply shameful.

Even the title is gibberish: "The End Is at Hand (to Leftist Conspiracy Theories)." By "Leftist" he can name any theory he chooses, and dismiss it out of hand without supporting evidence or any investigation of the facts of the case. How original. The thesis seems to be that because Obama will win the election, there were no conspiracies to bother with these last eight years. What an odd anti-intellectual exercise in peddling bunkum.

"Hopefully one thing such an across-the-boards win will lead to would be a withering away of the self-destructive conspiracy-theory paranoia that has gripped much of the Left over the last eight years."

Why on earth does this follow?

Mr. Lindorff has quite a fundamental misunderstanding of 9/11, for starters, and of vote theft for seconds.

The treasons of the Bush gang are not a "Leftist" issue. The 9/11 Truth and Justice Movement has millions of persons from across the political spectrum, and globally.

As for people pursuing vote integrity in the face of massive vote theft over these last few election cycles, this is hardly a "Leftist" issue du jour either. What is Mr. Lindorff smoking these days?

Fraudulent voting machines are a "paranoid" "conspiracy theory?" Why is that, exactly?

Blackboxvoting established years ago the secretive proprietary and easily rigged nature of the private election machine industry. "Spaghetti code" has been outed, and bogus vote counts have been documented in machines from Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S and others. The system is fundamentally designed to be vulnerable, and Mr. Lindorff should really know better.

"Following this line of thinking (if it can be called that), there's no point in voting, because "they" are going to steal the election anyhow (and that, of course, is if the election is even held next week!)."

Lindorff is getting old, but this framing is approaching Rovian standards. Are "they" not attempting to steal the election Dave? Why would you frame your arguments so badly? Of course they will attempt to steal votes in every venue they can affect. This is a historical reality, not a "conspiracy theory," although I suppose you feel better labelling it as such. It seems to be all about how you feel in this diatribe, despite facts to the contrary.

Lindorff goes through so many complaints, without any compunction to back up any of his sneering dismissals, that I can't really treat his propaganda piece as a legitimate argument. But, Commondreams was more than happy to run it.

"There's no point in going to rallies or marches in Washington DC, because "they" are going to attack Iran and start World War III anyhow."

Well, Dave, the "focus groups" of 2003 did wonders to stop that war crime in Iraq. Is this the fault of the people who stood up? Or is there indeed a "they" quite impervious to public protest? Your illogic is as insulting and counterproductive as can be, and yet you seem to think that this is the way to lead "the left" to your charge (for Obamarama?).

"Public protest is also dangerous, because "they" are going to declare martial law, and then all of us who go out and publicly oppose the government will end up locked away in detention camps in the Mojavi desert."

You're mocking the real risks involved in challenging a criminal regime that controls the most advanced military in world history? Are you saying they are incapable of "detaining" political opponents? Are you disputing that detention "camps" have been funded by the US Congress? Just what are you saying?

Oh yeah, "Public protest is dangerous..." That's true. Why the idiotic sarcasm about it?

As for the 9/11 "black boxes" which disappeared from history, there is no justifiable reason for hiding them, lying to congress and to the world, and this should be treated as another CRIME, something that doesn't seem to register in Lindorff-land.

Obstruction of justice is easily established time and time again in regards to the 9/11 attacks. That and TREASON.

Time to put up or shut the fuck up David Lindorff: Name the "foreign governments" and explain why hiding their identities from America is not high treason. "Aid and comfort," Lindorff, aid and comfort. I do not expect an answer from you. I do not expect you are actually concerned with the truth. You've made your bed, and that's that.

"...The contents of the redacted pages discuss sources of foreign support for some of the September 11th hijackers while they were in the United States.
(3) The Administration's decision to classify this
information prevents the American people from having access to information about the involvement of certain foreign governments in the terrorist attacks of September 2001." -US Senate, October 28, 2003

Further shoving his own foot in it deeper, Lindorff attempts to dismiss the much heralded "attack on Iran."

"I would add that this is a far cry from imagining that the administration was planning to fake an Iranian attack on American forces."

Except in Dick Cheney's office they floated such ideas openly (more treason, which "the left" never seems to have the guts to come out and type):

"(SEYMOUR) HERSH: There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.

Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. "

Correction for Mr. Hersh: You can't have Americans caught killing Americans, which this wacko idea could easily lead to. You can certainly have foreigners killing Americans, however, because that is more acceptable as a "cassus belli."

A similar human-sacrifice scenario was offered to start the Iraq war (which actually has killed over 4,000 US troops and maimed tens of thousands of others, Lindorff).

"The U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in U.N. colours," the memo says, attributing the idea to Mr. Bush. "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach." -To Provoke War, Cheney Considered Proposal To Dress Up Navy Seals As Iranians And Shoot At Them

The New Yorker also exposes ongoing acts of war by the US regime against Iran:

“United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation...”--Preparing the Battlefield, The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran, by Seymour M. Hersh

The Hersh article comes out and explicitly mentions "false flag" attacks as a "basic" tool that is routinely used in US foreign policy:

“We’ve had wonderful results in the Horn of Africa with the use of surrogates and false flags—basic counterintelligence and counter-insurgency tactics."

And further, Hersh ties two radical Islamic terrorist groups to the US: Jundullah and M.E.K. The M.E.K. group is actually on the US State Department's own terrorist list!

But, as Gore Vidal has famously said, "It is an article of faith that there are no conspiracies in American life."

Lindorff attempts to clarify, but the effort is muddled and steeped in preconceptions:

"What I am saying is that the grander conspiracies being concocted in the more fevered brains of some people on the Left do not hold up under careful and critical inspection."

It's easy to dismiss your opponents when: 1) They can't respond. 2) You don't even feel compelled to state their case for them, accurately nor not. Sure, the "grander" people may be wrong, whoever they are. Those bastards. How is this helpful?

If Lindorff would be honest and come out and state the obvious: there is an extensive cover up of the 9/11 attacks, then he might have retained some credibiliity. He has done no such thing. He has played the game of demonizing "conspiracy theories" and those who accept them.

"The biggest failings they share are two: first of all, conspiracies as grand as multi-state election thefts via electronic fraud, and the carrying out of a two-front, high-casualty mass terrorist act on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, require the cooperation of such large numbers of people that leaks, turncoats, informants and simple screw-ups are inevitable;"

Really? So if an election machine company rigs the machines of one state, it's plausible. But,if they also rig their same machines in a second state, it's completely beyond comprehension?

And then, as arrogantly as the "left" debunker class has been (see a long and disreputable list, from Monbiot to Chomsky, to Cockburn to Taibbi) Lindorff gives us the tired 'too many people' excuse.

No, Lindorff. No. Your own conspiracy theory is not mine. Your own fantasy about how many people it took, is not my claim. Your own implausible scenario is not endorsed by me.

If "the left" would consider some honest debate on 9/11 (yeah, right), then other possibilities would quickly become apparent. No such openness is on display on the highly guarded "left" propaganda sites like Commondreams, where such alternatives were systematically censored for years (I have been since been banned from commenting there, of course). Counterpunch will never run the alternative version, the one that relies on the facts as can be determined to date.

As I already stated, Lindorff should name the "foreign governments", that's plural Dave, and explain the meaning of treason before I'll again bother with his worthless opinions on the matter of 9/11.

"Conspiracy thinking produces a deep cynicism towards positive action and towards the kind of long-term organizing upon which real social and political change depends."

Except the only people really organizing these last years in decent numbers have been the 9/11 Truthers. So how's that test against your theory?

"When people think that the fix is in, they are not inclined to put time and energy into the hard work of organizing unions, working to get local candidates elected to office, running for positions on party committees, etc."

Evidence exists to the contrary. Opposing the crimes of the government has been a rallying cry for millions. They are not in the majority, however, partly because of the "perception management" of people like Cockburn, Taibbi and now, yourself.

You and Cockburn have been lamenting the diminished influence of leftist propagandists, but that doesn't mean knowledge of US rule by "conspiracy" hasn't motivated a hell of a lot of people to speak out and demand answers. They aren't all "leftist," and so there's the rub. Your irrational stance on finding the truth has actually pushed a lot of people away from your sphere of influence.

We don't trust you. You, nor those who place a higher priority on attacking truth-seekers than they do on exposing the truth. You exert more effort on 9/11 Truthers than you do on the cover up. And that's a credibility-killer. It's as simple as that.

"Conspiracy thinking also leads people on the left to completely write off the Democratic Party as a vehicle for progressive change, as the notion that "they" run everything is broadened to include in the term "they" the elected Democrats in the White House and Congress."

Are you fucking kidding me Dave? Do I really need to list a giant mass of Democratic party collaborations with the imperial warmongers? Strike that. They ARE the imperial warmongers, with better PR.

What was the party of that woman who said, "Impeachment is off the table?"

Did you not realise that criminality was ON the table?

Do you have any grounds to dispute the bipartisan crime spree chronicled daily? Who's payroll are YOU now on?

Hey there's a good reason to dismiss me as a conspiracist, because I accused you of being on a payroll. Hey, maybe you're not smart enough to make the paid-journalist Operation Mockingbird class, and you're betraying us for free out of sheer ignorance. The point is how utterly wrong you are, and how little excuse you have for being this wrong.

"Democrats may be weenies, but such a conflation of Republicans and Democrats is also self-defeating nonsense..."

The prophet of nonsense thinks "weenies" is sufficient to describe a body count of 3 million Iraqis over two decades of high tech massacre, and a medieval sanctions regime. Yeah, what "weenies" those mass murderers are. Or is it that Democrats are incapable of killing anyone intentionally? They're the smiling happy neo-fascists, and so we don't accuse them. We only accuse the mean nasty Bushies. When Democrats seize power, the proper etiquette is to look the other way.

"The reality is that if Obama is elected president, and if Democrats end up gaining solid control of Congress, it will be critically important for progressives to organize powerfully to press this new government to do the right things..."

I'm already ahead of you. First let's define the "right things" David. Your list is a little light.

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