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-Caveat Lector-
http://disc.server.com/Indices/165346.html
FROM THE PORTLAND FREE PRESS
The Truth Matters
by Ace R. Hayes
(July/August 1997 issue)
Berlet's Papal Bull Is Back
Pope (John Foster, A.K.A. "Chip") Berlet has issued more papal bull. His new
encyclical is titled, "Challenging Populist Conspiracism."
As usual, Berlet takes my name in vain; so it seems only fair that I should
take his phony psyop apart yet again. Since this craven piece of
government-issue "spy and lie" is once again on the Internet with government
propaganda, it seems that I owe people a reminder of Berlet's rotten roots.
(To be absolutely fair -
Berlet's name does not appear on this article. It came from the Political
Research Associates' (PRA) Public Eye Website, 7 June 1997, and there is no
byline for authorship. But, since it is his outfit and his turgid style, I
am giving him the discredit. If, in fact, someone else wrote this twaddle,
then I suggest PRA stop putting unsigned crapola on the Internet; however,
since I would be too embarrassed to put my name to such trash, I probably
should express some sympathy for the author choosing anonymity.)
Berlet has been in and out of bed with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL),
FBI, CIA and John Birch Society (JBS) so many times over the years it is a
joke.
Nonetheless, this amoral factoid still pontificates as though he had any
more credibility than his JBS buddy, John Rees. Having blown this clown's
cover
starting with the July/August 1995 PFP in my article, "Berlet for
Beginners," I don't feel any obligation to replow the same ground. Anyone
who wants the
documentation can send three bucks for each back issue.
Berlet spends 99 percent of his time attacking the people who have actually
exposed U.S. Government crimes and cover-ups, and one percent of his time
exposing same. This is 100 percent U.S. Government damage control. Attacking
some of the best investigators of Imperial state crimes is a state lap dog's
job.
He babbles incessantly about the need for and value of "progressive power
structure research," but he never does any. Instead he whines constantly
about
"pseudo-radical allegations of conspiracism." He attacks the Christic
Institute and defends Bush, Rockefeller and the Imperial oligarchy.
He reduces history to "broad forces and large structures of human
collectives." This is the Big Mac version of "analysis." This nut-case
standard beats President
Bush's Christmas Eve Pardons of the other Iran-Contra criminals. It is a
preemptive pardon for all government crimes, criminals and cover-ups. It
cancels the
Nuremberg laws.
"It is important to see anti-elite conspiracism and scapegoating as not
merely destructive of a progressive analysis but as specific techniques used
by fascist
political movements, to provide a radical-sounding left cover for a rightist
attack on the status quo."
Berlet is really saying that he loves the plutocrats and considers any
expose of their crimes to be a fascist conspiracy.
Elite conspiracy put the American people through the Spanish-American War,
World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War and dozens of
secret wars over the past half century. Elite conspiracy runs drugs around
the world, etc., etc., and yet Berlet denounces elite "scapegoating."
How can anyone possibly scapegoat murdering mobsters? The elite kills more
people with one phony war than all the street hoods who ever lived.
The constitutional CEO of Pax Americana should be prosecuted for crimes
against peace, and would be, were there any rule of law. However, the
Nuremberg
Laws only apply to losers and "might makes right" is still the law of the
jungle we laughingly call Democratic Civilization.
It is the right and duty of every citizen to demand that the elite live by
the very law that they pretend to respect and require the people to obey.
Gold-collar
crimes are no more to be admired than are the gold-collar criminals.
To take any other position is to aid and abet corruption. To do so for money
is prostitution. So Pope Berlet turns out to he a whore, because he gets
paid to
aid and abet elite corruption.
The sick sophistries of CIA/FBI/ADL propagandists such as Berlet simply
prove that the psywar boys and girls in D.C. are running scared. The people
are
catching on to the terminal corruption of the Washington and Wall Street
Nazis.
Berlet is failing in his assigned mission to preserve the division of the
people in the moribund camps of Left and Right The division of the people
into warring
camps which make no more sense than the Big Enders verse the Little Enders
of Lilliput. (Gulliver traveled to Lilliput and found that half the people
opened
their soft-boiled egg from the big end and half from the other. Over this
trivial preference, wars were fought) Are we any brighter than the
Lilliputians?
Berlet's mission can be precisely identified from the writings of one of his
chief patrons, Richard Dennis. Dennis was president of the Center for the
Study of
Democratic Institutions in 1990. The Fall 1990 edition of their publication
had the following from Dennis on the "Publisher's Page":
"It is no accident that George Wallace introduced all-intrusive populism
into postwar America. If politicizing everything becomes the rule, we'll get
Ollie North's
foreign policy and Jesse Helms' FBI-monitored cultural policy long before we
get Ted Kennedy's health and human services policies. Transmogrifying
limited
democracy into unlimited populism would be a liberal's nightmare." As usual,
Political Research Associates (PRA), which employs Berlet as their "senior
research analyst," received some $522K in 1996 while selling a mere $14K of
its screeds. And, as usual, the lead donor was "Anonymous" (PRA Annual
Report, Spring 1997, p.7).
That none of this seems to bother the institutional Left, tells this analyst
that the institutional Left is as corrupt, co-opted and compromised as the
institutional
Right Both are sheep dogs for the fascist plutocracy.
This is one sheep that despises all the plutocrats' sheep dogs with equal
enthusiasm. It is devoutly to be wished that every citizen would become an
active
populist and join together to overthrow the unconstitutional misrule and
abuse by the corporados and their paid propagandists.
To add to Pope Berlet's heresy nightmares, I would like to briefly recount a
meeting I was invited to attend and speak at recently. It was a hundred-plus
people
who came from every point of the political compass. It opened with a
Protestant Christian prayer for God's guidance and justice.
I reminded the folks that what we had permitted our government to do to the
peasants in other countries, they will do to us. I went on to remind people
that
what they had possibly thought great FBI work when it was killing members of
the American Indian Movement, Black Panther Party and others in the '60s
and '70s, was now killing them at Ruby Ridge and Waco.
Finally, I insisted that unless the Bill of Rights protected everyone
against government abuse then no one would be protected. So we all had
better get it
through our heads that the problem is top verses bottom and not Left verses
Right.
The people provided several rounds of applause at my remarks. This is what
scares the crap out of all propagandists for the Imperial corporate elite -
they will
lose their perks and paychecks if the secret services get shut down.
If we do not drain the cesspool of secrecy, shut down the jack-booed
government gun thugs and put an end to the entire government-directed system
of
spying and lying by NGO's (non-governmental organizations) such as the
Anti-Defamation League, Political Research Associates, Coalition for Human
Dignity,
Southern Poverty Law Center, John Birch Society, etc., our Bill of Rights is
doomed and so is the nation.
Who Is Gordon Witkin?
The 2 June 1997 U.S. News & World Report had its lead editorial by Gordon
Witkin. It was another "Yes-we-have-no-conspiracies" hummer which is
becoming the dumbo de jure of corporate media, including The Nation
magazine. Witkin deserves substantial citation:
"The past several years have been a boon for America's growing legion of
conspiracy theorists; Waco, Ruby Ridge, TWA 800, the CIA-crack connection,
and
the death of Clinton aide Vince Foster are only a few of the recent stones
that have called them (sometimes literally) to arms. Surely this conspiracy
fever has
something to do with the popularity of Chris Carter's foreboding TV series,
The X-Files. In one episode, the mysterious "smoking man" revealed that the
dark government cell he represents was indeed responsible for the
assassinations of John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. and almost
everything in
between. ...
"What's different today is that a larger slice of the country's elite
believe these notions, which modern bullhorns like talk radio and the
Internet make familiar
and seemingly unexceptional.
"Government guilt. It must also be said that the government has been guilty
of enough conspiracies to fuel the paranoia. ...
"But adopting conspiracies wholesale means not figuring out who's really
responsible. Conspiracymongers make it doubly hard for truth seekers to do
their
work. They can also cause deep anguish while damaging the credibility of
government institutions already regarded with cynicism. The San Jose Mercury
News admitted that articles it published suggesting CIA involvement in the
spread of the crack epidemic were significantly flawed. Allegations that a
Navy
missile brought down TWA Flight 800 now appear to reflect the buffoonery of
former newsman Pierre Salinger and a few cohorts. Independent Counsel
Kenneth Starr is expected to release a report concluding, as previous
inquiries have, that Foster committed suicide.
"Unfortunately, such refutations will not diminish the appeal of outlandish
conspiracy theories. They reflect a primary need. In a world where
everything seems
to be changing incomprehensibly fast, conspiracy theories satisfy a hunger
for logical explanations, for order. It may be twisted, but it's order
nonetheless -and
more attractive than the explanation that events unfold randomly. Conspiracy
thinking allows people to avoid confronting the idea that sometimes, well,
stuff
happens...."
Since The X-Files claims that Government Murder, Inc. assassinated JFK and
MLK, then it must be a joke, a fraud or a fantasy. But, of course, this is
one of
the key functions of The X-Files. While I know of no direct evidence that
U.S. Government spooks created and script The X-Files, it seems entirely
probable.
Since we can document a half-century of CIA/FBI media manipulation in print
and publishing, it would be stupid not to expect the same game in electronic
modes. As well, the CIA is authorized under Executive Order 12333 (thank
you, Ronald Fecal Brain) to enter into secret contracts for goods and
services with
any company (PFP, May/June '97, p.8).
Given all this, how can it be assumed that Witkin himself is not just
another spook writer? There is a long and well documented history of people
like Witkin
turning out to be spooks. PFP is willing to assume as a self-evident truth
that Witkin is a witting asset, if not an agent, of U.S. Government
spookery.
Otherwise, he would not be pumping damage-control propaganda for the USG.
Sick, twisted lies for Daddy Warbucks don't get written by accident, nor do
they get published on page 9 of one of the three most powerful weekly news
magazines in America.
Sinister Sidebar
Witkin and Berlet have an amazing similarity of formulation in their most
recent damage-control screeds for Plutocracy, Inc. When one finds identical
cookies
in two separate lunch boxes, one is reasonably inclined to suspect that they
came from the same cookie cutter Perhaps Jimmy and Johnny Jones have the
same
mama making their lunches. Or, in the case of Witkin and Berlet, the same
script supplied by the same psyop folks at the same headquarters.
Looking at each canard in its totality, there is the same basic
architecture. Each concedes the truth of some U.S. Government crimes and
cover-ups that are
common knowledge and impossible to deny. Both mentioned COININTELPRO and
each mentioned the usual others-- CIA drug running, Tuskegee syphilis
experiment, Iran/Contra, Watergate and the S&L swindle.
To make such pro forma concessions of U.S. Government crimes and cover-ups
safely in the misty past provides the phony credibility to attack the
current
critics of U.S. Government crimes and cover-ups whether past or present
Witkin spends the bulk of his piece denigrating anyone who challenges the
plutocrats'
party line on JFK, MLK, OKC, CIA, TWA 800 and the Foster "suicide." Berlet
attacks Dave Emory, John Judge, Dan Sheehan, Ace Hayes and Dan Brandt,
among others, by name, as "practioners" [sic] of "conspiracist
pseudo-radical parodies of power structure research." Further, he attacks
the defunct Christic
Institute, "the Secret Team" that took out JFK and all criticism of "the
Zionist lobby."
Witkin was a speaker at the June 1994 National Institute of Justice
Conference, "Law Enforcement Technology for the 21st Century," Panel A.
This conference, combined with the Center for Strategic and International
Studies' March 1993 report on "Military Technical Revolution: A Structural
Framework," are the blueprint for global Imperialism.
More on these in future issues. Lobster magazine has some interesting
observations about the Left-vs.-Right issue. The thesis of "fusion paranoia"
advanced
by the corporate-state flacks is considered to be "contamination paranoia"
by the corporate-state critics. If the "Right" spends some time bashing a
particular
government abuse then the "Left" won't touch the issue with a forked stick
because it would "contaminate" them, and vice versa. The goal of political
purity is,
of course, an up-front declaration of brain death. Truth is irrelevant to
anyone who holds religious orthodoxy as the highest value, and it is no less
absurd to
elevate politics to the status of religion.
See the Summer 1997 Lobster, #33.
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