http://blogs.alternet.org/refugee/2010/07/31/they-...
They Want Us to Know: On Conspiracies and Cover-ups
The Transparent Conspiracy by Michael D. Morrissey: A Review
The Mass Psychology of Partial Disclosure
The Transparent Conspiracy is a collection of essays written between 2006 and 2010, mainly about the 911 and JFK conspiracies and cover up, with a short collection of poems on the same topic. Morrisey’s latest book is a definite departure from other conspiracy literature. Morrissey has no interest in proving or disproving either the 911 or the JFK conspiracy – he feels this territory is well-covered by other authors. The topic of this book is mass psychology. Morrissey believes our government’s propaganda arm (whatever they call it now) is fully aware that a well-managed conspiracy cover-up can have a very intimidating effect, which can be very effective in keeping the public docile and obedient.
The Government Wants Us to Know
Specifically he argues there is major value (from the government point of view) in disclosing a limited amount of information concerning government culpability in atrocities such as the JFK assassination and 911. He bases his view on something he calls “Transparency Theory†– thus his title The Transparent Conspiracy. He says the CIA has long recognized that “telling part of the truth is the best way to lie.†They even have a term for it: “white propaganda.†Morrissey argues that for the government to brazenly commit criminal acts can be quite effective in demoralizing and alienating the tuned-in segment of the population that fully comprehends the corrupt nature of our government institutions.
He then lays out the hypothetical question: if the reality of the 911 conspiracy were widely accepted by the American public, would they be capable of doing anything about it? Morrissey believes that in this point in history that they would be powerless (that they lack the power to bring the culprits to trial or even impeach them). Which he contends is a powerful basis for demoralization and alienation.
Contrasting 911 with the JFK Assassination
He then contrasts the 911 conspiracy cover-up with the cover-up of the JFK assassination, in which years of advanced planning went into creating a fictional identity (as an unstable Marxist) for a US intelligence agent named Lee Harvey Oswald – and in which scores of witnesses were murdered and evidence secretly destroyed and/or fabricated.
In the case of 911 there was very limited – a few fictitious cell phone calls from a high altitude that weren’t technologically feasible in 2001 and some clumsily forged bin Laden videotapes. The government made no attempt to conceal that they were destroying evidence at Ground Zero – they simply loaded all the twisted steel onto trucks and shipped it to Long Island to be melted down into something else. The 911 Commission was more of a whitewash than a true cover-up.
Noam Chomsky’s Puzzling Position on Conspiracies
Morrissey’s essays also cover, at length, his correspondence with American’s pre-eminent dissident Noam Chomsky, regarding the JFK assassination conspiracy and cover-up. Morrisey, who has always been one of Chomsky’s greatest admirers, describes his initial dismay at his hero’s categorical rejection of the mountains of irrefutable evidence that the JFK assassination conspiracy originated at the highest levels of government. He was even more troubled, after their lengthy correspondence (published as Looking for the Enemy in 2008), at Chomsky’s inability to rationally justify his position. He initially tended to side with media critics who believe Chomsky plays some deliberate “left gatekeeping†function (having to do with right wing foundation funding). He now believes Chomsky more likely has other reasons – relating more to what is increasingly self-evident in the 911 Truth movement – that the endless investigation of government conspiracies playing little pragmatic role in the massive institutional change (such as the end of capitalism) which is the only hope for real and permanent change in the US.
Morrissey also touches on his correspondence with Vincent Salandria (published in 2007 as Correspondence with Vincent Salandria). Salandria, a “left leaning†Philadelphia lawyer, was the first to publicly challenge the Warren Commission (in 1965). Morrissey is also careful to credit Salandria’s ideas about the propaganda uses of a well-managed cover-up for helping to develop his own thinking.
The poems make a moving addendum to the essays. They convey quite poignantly Morrissey’s personal struggle with the despair and heartache of learning a government you believed to be fair and democratic is actually deeply corrupt.
peakchoicedotorg 0 minutes ago
Vince Salandria's analysis of the "transparent conspiracy" is correct. The perpetrators WANT you to know they did it. They especially want the politicians to know they removed President Kennedy from office after he called off the nuclear arms race and Cold War, it is useful for controlling effective dissent to the military industrial complex. The best book about the motive for the coup is James Douglass's "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why he died and why it matters."
One item not in the book review, and maybe not in Morrisey's book -- the perpetrators are skilled at salting the counter narratives (of JFK, 9/11 and other crimes) with a mix of true claims and disinformation that can then be used to smear the critics of the conspiracy. With 9/11, there's an endless list, including the (false) claim that phone calls could not have been made from the doomed planes, that the plane crashes didn't happen, etc.
Many people intuitively understand the official story is fishy and for an alternative narrative to arrive, ready made, they easily latch onto them despite the embedded poison pills, which are time delayed for when it becomes necessary to discredit the "conspiracy theorists."
The rise of the internet makes this process easier (with 9/11) than it was when citizens dared to suggest that Lee Harvey Oswald did not shoot President Kennedy.
from public correspondence between Morrisey and Salandria
Correspondence with Vincent Salandria (1993-1999)
VS 10/25/93
My sense of the critical community is that it was from the beginning heavily infiltrated by the intelligence community. Powerful persons and forces which consummate a successful coup would not be satisfied to surrender to honest critics the task of analyzing the implications of the cover story or stories and the consequent effects of the coup on our society. It is safe to say that the killers would place in the critical community various persons who would occupy the whole spectrum of possible analyses.
One or more would defend the Commission's findings but attack the Commission's methodology and explain away mistakes on the basis of poor methods, sloppy execution, time constraints, etc. Others would entertain a possible conspiracy but would emphasize the prolix nature of the evidence, the need to ascertain all the hows of the execution of the killing and the error of seeking to draw any conclusions about the meaning of the assassination until all the mysteries of how it was accomplished were resolved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Others would undertake to apply scientific analyses to the data of the Commission's findings and seek to attribute evidence that ran contrary to the Commission's conclusions as requiring further experimentation. Others would leap to the conclusion that there was a conspiracy of a communist nature. Others would emerge from the Birchite direction to announce that there was a U.S. governmental conspiracy so as to discredit that explanation. Others would leap forward with various other false sponsors such as the Mafia, low-level right-wing, rogue intelligence elements, and the like.
Others would come forward with an all-inclusive combination of big oil, big business, military-industrial, C.I.A., Joint chiefs, Mafia, Johnson, Southern Rim, etc. to make the conspiracy so large as to reduce it to an absurdity. Others would emerge to trash JFK as the quintessential cold warrior and point in the direction of Castro. We can go on and on with this. I feel that I can identify persons who came forward with these approaches with the result that rather than improved political insight and knowledge growing out of the killing of Kennedy we got babble.
VS (10/18/94)
Thirty years of microanalysis has converted simple, incontrovertible proof of a high-level coup for significant policy reasons into a cloud of mystery. I submit that such "truth hunting" serves the purpose of hiding the truth under a pile of worthless dung. I further submit that this research has been to a great extent government driven and directed by skillful agents.