This diary has been bouncing around in my head for about 6 months but with the recent banning of Tocquedeville for a diary that was perceived as a conspiracy theory diary, and the give and take surrounding that banning, it seemed time to raise this very serious question.
When does person’s "observations" regarding the world move from a paranoid perspective to actually one of prophecy?
If I could get everyone reading DailyKos to take a few minutes and put their mind back in a pre-election 1999 mindset. Clinton is finishing his final few months in the WH. Gore is running a tight race and there is a feeling a possible extension of a democrat in the WH but GW is playing the right strings – appeasing the far right while presenting a – we can all work together face to the middle-of-the road.
Okay – got it? Now, imagine DK is up and a blogger puts up one (or more) with the following predications:
On election day Republicans in FL will disenfranchise thousands of democratic voters. Voting irregularities will be so wide spread the results go into a recounting effort that is eventually dismissed by a move to the SCOTUS who turns its back on the "states rights" line and awards the state to GW, thereby costing the democrats the WH.
A terrorist attack on the WTC in NY will result in basically martial law being declared, the US Bill of Rights will be gutted by a "Patriot" Act. The US President will go on television and LIE to the citizens of the country – and the citizens and leaders of other countries - in order to declare a war on middle east country.
Anyone in elected office who publically disagrees with movement to war is labeled a traitor and unpatriotic. Any disagreement with the move to war becomes a litmus test on a person’s citizenship and patriotism; questioning is not allowed.
The media abandons its role as a "questioner" and becomes the megaphone for the war effort by not digging or researching any aspect of WH operations and assumptions.
The Vice President will approve, if not orchestrate, the outing of an active undercover CIA operative with heavily involved in the Middle East to insure the movement to war is not slowed down or questioned.
During the hunt for "terrorists" the president allows the rendition of citizens from other counties (including members of NATO) to secret prisons for questioning and possible torture.
The WH approves the torture of individuals arrested or detained by the military during combat, turning its back on all standards of international behavior and long standing treaties.
The DOJ writes the legal cover for allowing torture.
The US government secretly coordinates with telecomm businesses to access in intercept all domestic and international communications, including tapping the internal calls and internet communications of US citizens with no history of extreme political behavior.
One of the largest hurricanes hits the southern gulf coast but the POTUS is having cake and then only looking for photo-ops. Federal rescue and relief efforts are delayed while a major US city becomes racked in chaos, death, hunger and despair.
Okay - be honest, had DK been up and running in 1999 – a series of these diary’s would have probably resulted in banning. At the very least, they would have been taken as some SciFi and some person’s paranoid perspectives.
But as one blogger (MotleyPatriot) noted in an entry on July 5, 2007 in the entry It happened...and we never knew it
There is an huge gap between whatthe citizens of this country think they know and the very few that do know (but not officially). Because we require our elected citizens to take an oath to never disclose an "official" secret of state, we set up the conditions that feeds the undercurrent of suspicion and doubt that plagues our country. All issues are issues of politics, and all issues are subject to the spin of the media masters. How can any truth be discovered in the short term and sometimes the immediacy of resolving the issue.
As a person involved in politics and government for some time the following motto is standard:
Those that talk, don’t know; those that know, very seldom talk.
I know I have my own CT’s – surrounding the military and the ultimate goal of the far right to create a military that will not answer to a civilian leader, but a series of generals influenced and endorsed by the "Christian Embassy" (see Weinstein on CNN Re: Breaking "Christian Embassy" News by Troutfishing (Troutfishing is an excellent starting point for researching and gaining an understanding of the overall far Christian right’s influence in the pentagon and the US military.)
But that is for another day. For today, just take a minute and try to see how many events in the last 8 years would have been labeled a CT – but for the fact that they actually happened and not too many people would have predicted them.
A couple final stories though on the "knowing only what we know" concept.
My wife was a faculty member at a very upscale, private, catholic University. One year the University had Martin Luther King III deliver the commencement address. My wife comes home from the ceremony and says, "You know what? During his speech, he said that the King family knew who shot his dad but they couldn’t talk about it. Isn’t that just weird?"
Yes it was because if what he knew was the same as what we have all been told, there should be no reason NOT to talk about it.
And finally - I am having a beer with a person who has a long, long history in the military, with a number of friends with TS/SCI clearance and working in the IT field. The evening is late and we are talking about the Soldiers for Christ movement (a church or meeting hall outside of every military base, or so I was told). We start talking about the government’s ability to "watch" its citizens. The friend says, "Remember the DC sniper? Want to know how they actually caught the guys?"
"Yea, sure"
And so he tells me a very, very possible and very, very plausible story regarding how they caught the snipers using existing military IT capabilities.
Was it true? I don’t know but I have no reason to believe it was not true. And anyway, how will I ever find out. Not that many people know; and those that do, don’t discuss it. I'm not.
So are we hearing CT’s, the truth as some insiders know it, or are they prophecies of what is to come?
Only time will tell.