Conspiracy Theory, Espionage, and Psy-Ops (A Spectrum)

[guruilla]

Hey all

I am working on a piece, sparked by one more frustrating conversation with academically-oriented conspiracy-debunker & the growing realization that so much of the disagreement seems to come down to unconscious straw-man assumptions about what we are even talking about.

I decided to try and organize a "conspiracy spectrum" showing how the words "conspiracy theory" can be used indiscriminately to refer to everything from proven historical facts to the wildest Ickian speculations.

So here's a starting list which I'd much appreciate any additions to:

Conspiracy Fact (acknowledged conspiracies in history):

44 BCE - Liberatores plot assassination of Julius Caesar to restore Roman Republic
1605 - Gunpowder Plot to blow up the House of Lords
1865 - Abraham Lincoln assassination plot, to include assassination of cabinet members
1939 - Operation Himmler and its Gleiwitz incident, “False Flag” terrorism by Nazi Germany as pretext for invasion of Poland
Small-pox blankets for Native Americans
The Gulf of Tonkin incident
Watergate
Iran-Contra
Jimmy Savile cover-up
Gladio (NATO's secret "left behind armies" in Europe post-WWII)
MK-ULTRA
Operation Mockingbird
Bilderberg meetings
Psy-ops foreign & domestic

Conspiracies more or less proven but not yet rubber-stamped by orthodoxy:

JFK assassination & cover-up
WW2 deals
CIA involvement in Jonestown
Marilyn Monroe’s murder
Princess Diana’s murder
9/11 cover-up
Weather control
Organized ritual abuse in daycare centers & elsewhere
“Manchurian Candidate” programmed killers (Sirhan Sirhan, Hinckley, Chapman)
AIDS and other bio-warfare

Too much evidence to dismiss without investigation

Faked Moon landing footage
Chem trails
Illuminati
Jack the Ripper Masonic conspiracy
Lies around “the Holocaust”
Government involvement in a UFO “cover up”
Sandy Hook and other school shooting inconsistencies
Cultural Marxism
Fluoridation as mind control
Vaccination
GMO as bio-warfare
Global warming hoax
Secret space programs
Alien abductions
Sinister food additives
Underground military bases
Occult symbols in mass media
Project Bluebeam
Bohemian Grove
Gang Stalking
Remote Viewing
Suppressed Cancer Cures

Loony tunes?

Icke’s Reptilian shapeshifters
Flat-earth theories
No-plane theory for 9-11
Miles Matthis
Vaccination causes autism

Now for a bit more context.

“We might wonder, for example, whether the activities of intelligence agencies involved in spying and carrying out covert missions count as conspiracies by this definition. They are by their very nature plotted in secret, and they are indeed intended to alter the shape of history, but we might wonder if the everyday machinations of, say, CIA agents constitute a conspiracy because they are merely doing their job. Only in some cases is it immediately obvious that their actions are illegal or improper, and hence a conspiracy rather than merely being a covert operation. The problem with making illegality or impropriety part of the definition of a conspiracy is that it depends who is defining what’s illegal or not.”
—Peter Knight, Conspiracy Theories in American History

Point being: Espionage as a practice, methodology, and central component of statecraft throughout history, is so wholly dependent on conspiracy as to be almost synonymous with it. Men in rooms (and women, yes), plotting to bring about specific ends via the manipulation of mass media, military and police action, government policies, legal sanctions, assassinations, technology, commerce, and so forth, all done in secret on a “need-to-know” basis, ensuring only the strictly necessary communication between levels and tiers of power hierarchies and that almost no one has more than one or two pieces of the puzzle and everyone has plausible denial—even to themselves.

Lastly, psyops. Hmm. Seems I don't have my notes on this right now (at my place of work), so I will post them a bit later on.

What I'm looking at, partly, is how there seems to be a mindset shared by both “conspiracy theorists” and conspiracy debunkers or skeptics.

Peter Knight again:

there have indeed been actual conspiracies here or there in U.S. history, but ... a conspiracy theorist believes that there is “a ‘vast’ or ‘gigantic’ conspiracy as the motive force in historical events” (Hofstadter, 29). According to this kind of view, conspiracy theory is more than just the odd speculation about clandestine causes; it is a way of looking at the world and historical events that sees conspiracies as the motor of history.

Knight writes that: “one of the important functions of conspiracy theory today, namely questioning how much we are in control of our own minds and our own actions through the debate over exactly what is to count as a conspiracy or not.”

This points to the idea that an anti-conspiracy position is really a philosophical position rather than a historical or factual one. Many people tend to reject the idea of long-term, organized conspiracies, not on a case-by-case basis but on principle. And in the same way, many people who do advocate for a “grand conspiracy” fall into the exact same trap, that of extrapolating prematurely from the evidence of long-term social engineering strategies and policies the existence of a single, cohesive group and agenda behind them (the Illuminati, the Masons, the Jews, etc.). In both cases—whether the philosophical position is to believe or to debunk—a perceived order, direction, and design is literalized, in much the same way that religious people literalize the evidence of a divine order into hierarchies of angels, gods, and demons.

[American Dream]

I love it!

Too much evidence to dismiss without investigation

Faked Moon landing footage
Chem trails
Illuminati
Jack the Ripper Masonic conspiracy
Lies around “the Holocaust”
Government involvement in a UFO “cover up”
Sandy Hook and other school shooting inconsistencies
Cultural Marxism
Fluoridation as mind control
Vaccination
GMO as bio-warfare
Global warming hoax
Secret space programs
Alien abductions
Sinister food additives
Underground military bases
Occult symbols in mass media
Project Bluebeam
Bohemian Grove
Gang Stalking
Remote Viewing
Suppressed Cancer Cures

Loony tunes?

Icke’s Reptilian shapeshifters
Flat-earth theories
No-plane theory for 9-11
Miles Matthis
Vaccination causes autism

[guruilla]

Psyops:

A PO is a general statement of measurable response that reflects the desired behavioral change of foreign TAs. The purpose of a PO is to state the desired behavior changes in selected TAs that will best support the accomplishment of the supported commander’s mission. POs are written in a sentence using a “verb – object” structure. The verb describes the direction of the desired behavior change. The object is the overall behavior to be changed. Some action verbs commonly used in PSYOP are “reduce,” “decrease,” “increase,” “build,” or “gain.”

https://info.publicintelligence.net/USA ... actics.pdf

PSYOP are a vital part of the broad range of United States (U.S.) diplomatic, informational, military, and economic (DIME) activities. The employment of any element of national power, particularly the military element, has always had a psychological dimension. Foreign perceptions of U.S. military capabilities are fundamental to strategic deterrence. The effectiveness of deterrence hinges on U.S. ability to influence the perceptions of others. The purpose of PSYOP is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to U.S. national objectives. PSYOP are characteristically delivered as information for effect, used during peacetime and conflict, to inform and influence. (1-1)

The mission of PSYOP is to influence the behavior of foreign target audiences (TAs) to support U.S. national objectives. PSYOP accomplish this by conveying selected information and/or advising on actions that influence the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign audiences. Behavioral change is at the root of the PSYOP mission. Although concerned with the mental processes of the TA, it is the observable modification of TA behavior that determines the mission success of PSYOP. . . . PSYOP help shape both the physical and informational dimensions of the battlespace. (1-2)

5-1. Planning is a process. Change is a constant in war planning as assumptions are shown to be false, operations are more successful or less successful, and political events change military objectives. Even as one plan is about to be executed, planners are turning their attention to the next anticipated operation. Flexibility, adaptability, and adjustment are critical to all planning. The importance of adjusting PSYOP plans and series in response to events in the battlespace cannot be overemphasized. 5-2. PSYOP planners must be agile to be successful in an environment that has simultaneous and competing requirements to plan for an event that is in itself an ongoing process. At any given moment, PSYOP forces may be disseminating messages while military forces are executing a PSYACT in support of PSYOP objectives. At the same time, planners are readying the next action or message and evaluating the effects of the ongoing mission. Managing this dynamic and ongoing series of events is central to creating and adjusting an effective PSYOP plan. Therefore, the need for PSYOP planners to anticipate situations where PSYOP will be crucial to the military operation is essential to success.

“Most PSYOP activities and accomplishments in Panama were hardly noticed by either the U.S. public or the general military community. But the special operations community did notice. The lessons learned in Panama were incorporated into standing operating procedures. Where possible, immediate changes were made to capitalize on the PSYOP successes of Operations JUST CAUSE and PROMOTE LIBERTY. This led to improved production, performance, and effect in the next contingency, which took place within 6 months after the return of the last PSYOP elements from Panama. Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM employed PSYOP of an order of magnitude and effectiveness which many credit to the lessons learned from Panama.” USSOCOM Report, “Psychological Operations in Panama during Operations JUST CAUSE and PROMOTE LIBERTY,” March 1994 (5-1)

7-12. PSYOP are an essential tool in both C2-attack and C2-protect operations. As one of the five core elements, PSYOP integrate their activities with those of electronic warfare (EW), military deception, OPSEC, and computer network operations to create a synergistic effect. PSYOP serve as a focal point for persuasion and influence strategy. PSYOP forces facilitate targeting by analyzing the various factors that affect and influence the behavior of an adversary, such as religion, ethnicity, economics, politics, culture, region, history, leadership, geography, demographics, and national interests. They use this analysis to nominate targets in order to change the behavior of TAs in order to deter conflict (whenever possible), facilitate military operations, and to support and communicate national objectives. (7-4)

8-18. Media analysis is the structured, deliberate tracking and analysis of opponent and neutral media (TV, radio, Internet, and print). Properly performed media analysis, although time-consuming and linguist-intensive, can identify trends and become predictive when the supported force considers a potentially unpopular activity. To be truly effective, media analysis must be conducted on a daily basis. PSYOP units usually do not have the organic personnel sufficient to accomplish this task. The TAAD of the PDC is best suited for conducting media analysis. (8-5)

https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-05-30.pdf

[thrulookingglass]

Life is a psyop. Psychological operations (PSYOP) are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. Emotions are the ultimate motivator. The key word is selected, absolving the full spectrum.

[Elvis]

Great post, guruilla, and your breakdown is pretty right on.

This points to the idea that an anti-conspiracy position is really a philosophical position rather than a historical or factual one. Many people tend to reject the idea of long-term, organized conspiracies, not on a case-by-case basis but on principle.

Sometimes it's a "lifestyle" choice, based on how one wants to perceive oneself. I had a friend (in his 60s, a schoolteacher, widely traveled with an MA in history) who had readily agreed that JFK was killed by a CIA/mafia conspiracy. A few months later, he said he now thought Oswald acted alone, there was no conspiracy. I asked him if he'd seen some new information, read an article somewhere or had a conversation that changed his mind; he just looked at me with a tight smile. Silence. I pressed: then why the shift?

He explained, "As I mature and get older, I just find that I don't care to believe in conspiracies."

This is a guy who always insisted on critical thinking and evidence-based analysis—one of the reasons he knew that a conspiracy killed JFK. But he was willing to forget all the evidence when he decided he just didn't want to be a "conspiracy person."

I think what happened is, he was worried about what people would think; he didn't want to be associated—in his own mind—with lizard people, flat-earthers, no-planers, antivaxers. . . .

It's a problem I see growing. Conspiracy?


P.S. by my estimation there is a 14% chance the guy himself had been CIA

[guruilla]

Apologies if this has been shared elsewhere seems relevant to this thread:

Former Canadian Defense Minister claims the Illuminati is REAL and has technology to reverse climate change but wants to keep it secret to help the petroleum industry

Paul Hellyer, who served as Canadian Minister of Defense from 1963 to 1967, made his claims on the Lazarus Effect podcast
Hellyer claims the Illuminati is a real entity that runs the world
He said that the elite of the world possess the technology to reverse climate change but are suppressing it
Hellyer also talked about alien life on the podcast, stating it is more advanced than humanity

By DAILYMAIL.COM REPORTER PUBLISHED: 22:45 EDT, 12 February 2018 | UPDATED: 09:00 EDT, 13 February 2018

Paul Hellyer, who oversaw the Canadian defense forces in the 1960s, has come out and said that the illuminati is a real entity and is controlling the world - making him the highest ranking government official worldwide to do so.

Hellyer told the Lazarus Effect podcast he believes the world's elite has the technology to reverse the effects of climate change, but is holding back from the public. When asked why, Hellyer said that the Illuminati wanted to help the petroleum industry.

The Illuminati are a group that conspiracy theorists assert controls the world's affairs and economy, and its members come from the worlds of politics, business and entertainment.

According to Hellyer, many members of the Illuminati have stakes in how well the oil industry performs financially.

'You have a got secret cabal that's actually running the world and they've managed to keep this technology under wraps until they can cash in the trillions of oil assets that they've got,' Hellyer said.

'And it's not going to change until hundreds of thousands of people band together and say look "you've got to come clean, tell us what is going on, and change your priorities to save the world for further generations instead of blowing it on wars."

Hellyer is known for making some rather outrageous claims - in the past, he's said the United States intervened to take over an alien crash site in the Canadian province of Manitoba. These aliens are the source of the anti-climate change technology, claims Hellyer.

He also says in the podcast that in the eyes of these alien life forms, humans are primitive life forms, and that these aliens could help humans in times of need in the future.

'Certainly they are more advanced in agriculture and medicine and many other areas and if that's true why aren't we cooperating with them to build a better world?'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... world.html

And the same month:

The 'Illuminati' is REAL and trying to take over our world claims former politician

A FORMER politician sensationally claims the legendary Illuminati is REAL and secretly trying to run world affairs from behind the scenes. Simon Parkes, a former Labour London borough councillor and town councillor for Whitby in North Yorkshire, is a signed up believer of the popular conspiracy theory.
By JON AUSTIN PUBLISHED: 12:13, Tue, Feb 13, 2018 | UPDATED: 13:14, Tue, Feb 13, 2018

As one of the world's biggest conspiracy theories, the Illuminati is said to be a secretive global elite which runs governments from behind the scenes and is planning to introduce a New World Order (NWO).

Its key members are said to be drawn from Hollywood and world political and business leaders, with some even accusing its true leaders of being reptilian lizards from space.

Accusations vary in extremities from the simple implementation of the NWO as a goal at the least, to the Illuminati being a highly Satanic cult seeking to return the devil to earth.

Other than repeated claims by conspiracy theorists, which have ballooned in number since the growth of the internet, there is no actual proof the Illuminati exists at all.

However, Mr Parkes, who runs his own website about his claims and takes part in alternative and paranormal conferences up and down the country, insists the Illuminati is real and attempting to be all powerful.

Mr Parkes even believes outlandish claims the Illuminati is a satanic sect that is seeking to return Satan to Earth.

Among his most outrageous claims are that he once led a group that stopped the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) opening a portal to another dimension that would have destroyed mankind through "meditation."

He claimed "psychopathic" Illuminati members were hellbent on using the huge atom colliding machine in Geneva to open a vortex that would allow them complete control over all of us.

The LHC, run by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) at Geneva on the French-Swiss border, is the world’s largest and most powerful machine and used to collide particles at close to the speed of light in a bid to discover more about physics and the possibility of parallel universes.

The curious machine developed across a 16-mile ring of superconducting magnets has had critics before amid claims it could inadvertently create a black hole that may swallow up the world, but Mr Parkes' story is one of the strangest to date.

Mr Parkes, who has previously been a borough councillor in London and lectured at the Natural History Museum, claimed to have sources who made him aware of what was about to unfold, so he set about arranging a global "mind warp" to defeat the plan.

He said: "We couldn't just do nothing. There is much you could do without sticking your head above the parapet.

"A number of people who associate with me made me aware that someone had activated it in the early hours and placed Satanic black magicians, who were remotely viewing the installation on the inside."

Mr Parkes claimed his group sent a telepathic wave of "positive energy" which stopped the portal from completely opening and damaged the LHC.

He said: "All over the globe good people started to meditate for five to six minutes, after the meditation it failed again, but we did take some damage. One person lost hearing in an ear for three weeks and others had ringing in ears because there was an attack by those psychically protecting it."

Other than his word, there is, of course, no evidence that the LCH was used in any such attempt or that Mr Parkes and his group stopped it in its tracks.

Mr Parkes also said the failure of the LCH plan meant the cruel Illuminati leaders needed a new plot as there were just 200 of them left on Earth, after some of them had fled the planet.

He claims another twisted Illuminati plan is to secretly inject tiny identity microchips into people while they receive inoculations against diseases, so there is a global database of humans.

He said people with the chips could also be punished remotely by "mind blasts."

He said: "For 25 years it has been know the psychopaths want to kill half to a third of the population.

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"But now they may not need to kill so many because of this device which is RFID injectable."

He claimed the chips, once implanted, could affect the neurone system.

He added: "This is how they are going to inject people and put a chip in their hand.

"If you went on a demo and got picked up they can penalise you electronically."

Mr Parkes joins the ranks of world famous conspiracy theorist David Icke, the former footballer and BBC1 Grandstand presenter, who came out as a so-called "truther" in the 1990s.

He describes the Illuminati as a cabal and the "Hidden Hand" in lectures across the globe.

However, before you decide to believe Mr Parkes or not about the Illuminati, it is worth knowing he also believes that several species of intelligent aliens are secretly living on Earth, and world leaders keep this secret from us.

Yesterday, Express.co.uk told how Paul Hellyer, a former Canadian Minister of Defence, also claimed the Illuminati was real and preventing technology that could reduce climate change from being used because of investments in fossil fuels.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/91 ... lite-cabal

[American Dream]

Did a Former Canadian Official Say the Illuminati Are Real—And Hiding Alien Stuff?



You wouldn’t know it from the tabloid headlines, but this is hardly breaking news. Hellyer, who did serve as Canadian defense minister in the 1960s, has been on the record making these types of comments for years.

In fact a simple web search of his name reveals that news stories about Hellyer’s outlandish theory appear with some frequency and they rarely veer off the same theme — aliens have visited Earth and are hiding key technology from humans because they believe we are too destructive and irresponsible. Daily Mail has previously published at least two nearly identical stories about Hellyer’s alien conspiracy theory: one in 2011 and another in 2014.

Repetition doesn’t make Hellyer’s theories true, however, regardless of his former title. The “Illuminati” conspiracy theory is a long standing and pervasive yarn in which a secretive global cabal aiming to form an autocratic single world government pulls the strings and is behind basically every major event. Although the idea that aliens have visited Earth is favored among UFO enthusiasts self-proclaimed abductees, scientists haven’t found evidence that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists, let alone any that have visited Earth and judged humans beneath them.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/forme ... echnology/

[guruilla]

I think what happened is, he was worried about what people would think; he didn't want to be associated—in his own mind—with lizard people, flat-earthers, no-planers, antivaxers. . . .

It's a problem I see growing. Conspiracy?

Yes not so much a philosophical question but an ideological one. If you believe in conspiracy you are now increasingly associated with the Man in the Tower and hence State Power - how weird is that ??

There are Leftists (or Marxists anyhow) who define belief in large-scale conspiracies as anti-antisemitism, regardless of whether jews are named at all (the common thread being scapegoating),

[Elvis]

Although the idea that aliens have visited Earth is favored among UFO enthusiasts self-proclaimed abductees, scientists haven’t found evidence that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists, let alone any that have visited Earth and judged humans beneath them.

Snopes is the first place I'd go for answers about UFOs!

In other words, what is this shit?

[guruilla]

LOL; I think AD might have ideological objections to articles about politicians advocating Illuminati c-theories, tho needless to say I posted them to indicate how mainstream the meme is growing. RAW could only dream - or did he know all along?

(I have asked Jan Irvin for what he's got on RAW-CIA data; no response as yet)

I presume someone has already posted here about the official Illuminati website?

[American Dream]

Ideological objections are secondary- first and foremost I object to the lack of rigor in such sketchy claims from dubious characters.

LOL; I think AD might have ideological objections to articles about politicians advocating Illuminati c-theories

[Elvis]

And Snopes is sooo rigorous.

[liminalOyster]

I presume someone has already posted here about the official Illuminati website?

Oh fuck this is well done. Thanks for sharing it.

[guruilla]

First installment of this series "Psychological Operatives in Hollywood: Divide & Conquer in the Realm of Conspiracy Research"

Let’s take the word “conspiracy.” The Oxford dictionary defines it as “A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.” Generally speaking, the three main ingredients of conspiracy are collectivity, criminality, and secrecy. Of these descriptors, only the first can be considered absolute, since both criminality and secrecy are relative terms that depend on point of view. This is especially so when the secret crimes in question cross national borders and thence definitions of what constitutes crime and what constitutes justified acts of war or espionage. Many acts that are crimes for the rest of us are legally sanctioned under the National Security Act, for example, an idea popularized by (MI6 agent) Ian Fleming’s 007 and his “license to kill.”

It’s been a long time since the word “conspiracy” was simply a neutral descriptor, in any case. Since the 1960s (courtesy of the CIA, as we’ll see), it has been associated with the word “theory” and thereby, for several decades, with crackpots and paranoids. In the last decade or more, the words have become increasingly linked to dangerous crackpots (Pizzagate shooters and Unabombers), as well as antisocial extremists (Sandy Hook deniers) and, of course, right-wing hate criminals, anti-Semites, holocaust deniers, and neo-Nazis.

As Floyd Rudmin writes, in “ConspiracyTheory as Naive Deconstructive History”:

The power of this pejorative is that it discounts a theory by attacking the motivations and mental competence of those who advocate the theory. By labeling an explanation of events “conspiracy theory,” evidence and argument are dismissed because they come from a mentally or morally deficient personality, not because they have been shown to be incorrect.

The most recent guilty association of conspiracy theory is perhaps the most unexpected of all: in the days of the Trump administration, “conspiracy theories” have become linked to state power of the most deplorable sort: dangerously right-wing, extremist, antisocial, wing-nut neo-fascists running—and ruining—Western society. How did this happen?

[etc]

[liminalOyster]

This looks great and will read more closely later. In meantime, viz this

By this understanding, any hypothetically controlling individuals, groups, and agendas are only really effective to the extent that a) they are themselves possessed; and b) they are able to possess the rest of us. By passing on their “demons” (ideologies and methodologies) mimetically, they ensure we will embody, implement, and extend them into the world, via our own thoughts, beliefs, words and actions.

Have you seen Matthew Fuller's Evil Media Studies book?