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Why Disinformation?
One more thought before I turn into a pumpkin… I was reading something earlier, I guess it was the Jeff Wells interview, and somebody said something about disinformation. Now in conspiracy theorism, this is something you hear people talking about fucking constantly. You don’t agree with somebody, all of a sudden, you’re a disinformation agent. Somebody has a questionable past, they’re a disinformation agent. Somebody has brown eyes and blond hair, they’re a disinformation agent. It just gets ridiculous. I guess my question is more towards the “serious” use of the term though: if you’re a government, why would you need to put out disinformation to confuse conspiracy theorists?
This seems like one of the weak-spots in a lot of conspiracy thinking, because it presumes that the theorist is actually dangerous. They are not. Nobody takes conspiracy theorists seriously except for other conspiracy theorists. Everybody forgets that, because they want to be taken seriously. And anyway, a better point is: why would a huge powerful government entity use such a weak muddied channel to transmit vital disinformation?
Case in point: Mike Ruppert. People accuse him of being a disinfo agent. They claim that his whole championing of the idea of Peak Oil was designed by the Rockefeller’s or some group as a way to present Peak Oil as an idea into the culture. Whatever other valid arguments you might make against Ruppert, this one is almost non-sensical. If these people have so much money, why would they choose a slightly overweight graying cop to present this information to an extremely tiny group of weirdos sitting up too late in their underwear, while they balance porn-browsing with conspiracy research? Why not just, I don’t know, broadcast it on Fox News? Wouldn’t that be a smidge more effective?
July 4th, 2005 at 2:45 am
No question, the concept of disinformation, in itself, does most of the dirty work, all by itself.
And yet, in the name of national security, various government agencies did, in fact, seek to discredit UFO researcher Paul Bennewitz through a disinformation campaign, as recounted in Greg Bishop’s new book. It was apparently felt Bennewitz was getting too close to discovering something important and needed to be targeted. In his new book on the Roswell case, which he concludes did not involve an alien spaceship, Nick Redfern says that the infamous MJ-12 papers were probably leaked to UFO researchers by the Soviets, who wanted to use them as vehicles for authentification. Under this scenario, the Soviets were the real targets of this scam, which would have been about convincing your enemy that you were in possession of exotic technology.
The Mike Ruppert example is interesting, because the Peak Oil idea has been showing up more and more in the mainstream, which could mean that IF it is deception, perhaps it was leaked in smaller venues originally as a sort of trial balloon, to see if people would buy into it. More generally, and in the opposite vein, maybe the idea behind some disinformation is to discredit certain kinds of subject matter altogether, make it all seem so outrageous that “reputable” academics, journalists, etc., won’t look at any part of it. So, for example, maybe controlled demolition of the Towers isn’t that unbelievable to anyone who watches the videos closely, but if you add into it stuff about mysterious pods and flashes and no plane hitting the Pentagon, then the whole thing gets muddied and muddled, and it becomes much easier to just look the other way. Of course, I don’t suppose you can dismiss the idea that maybe real disinfo is just the Insiders having some fun, playing around a little with some of the undiscerning boobs who fancy themselves giant slayers.
July 4th, 2005 at 3:08 am
My theory that doesn’t have a name, but I suppose I could name “The Theory of Covering All Bases”: goes like this.
Say you have a baseball game between two teams. One of the teams thinks it can spot itself a runner on every base with each and every batter that comes to the plate. So runners are on first, second and third by default at all times when Team X is on offense. It’s against the rules. But hey, if you can get away with it, why the hell not? So say they get away with it.
Leakage and trial balloons pop up just as suddenly as genuine creative speculation — the Internet is a hive of who knows what. The whole mix is impossible to truly follow. PROFIT! And then fine tune to reproduce results. You cover scandals in tandem with a much more diminuitive media twin that fancies itself as seeing through it, keeping the conspiracy soil of “organic AMerica” properly churned. But in reality, its all just holograms of what we’re wound up and set down to march towards. It’s social scripting if I’ve ever seen it. I think disinfo is more real than anything we’re prepared to accept.
I could be wrong. I hope I am. I don’t take it seriously on mundane levels, but I do think that its a possibility to remain aware of.
July 4th, 2005 at 6:19 am
I didn’t explain that very well. I was running out the door at the time.
Suppose the “bases” are loaded and there is always a continual squeeze play going on — even between at bats. The umpires can barely do anything about it. The crowd is throwing trash and whatever else onto the field. The umps are scared they might fuck it up for the rabid home team fans. Who wins? It’s mob rule.
Eventually you begin to get umps like the hapless refs who call the games between the Globetrotters and the Generals. Actors really. Mouthing and dictating a party line that is no more conservative than it is fundamentally honest. The game is dead now and becomes more obviously rigged. So the umps and the teams collude to make for an even more exciting “product”. If you see through it: good for you. But most will not.
In some ways I think those mythic words about the “reality based community” will come back to haunt us as total war begins to encroach. I don’t know whether there is a reality. And I think this is just fine with those who are creating their own. They have enough leverage and buying power to let everybody else’s chips fall where they may, while they are engineered to suffer no losses. The disinfo is a symptom of this breakdown. Again, nobody’s fault — unless they are knowingly engaged in the evil. Which makes evil’s banality all the more potent — nobody recognizes it as such. People are getting more and more desperate and the State is increasingly showing itself to hold the answer. Ultimately, when the time does come, there won’t be anywhere else to turn.
The Internet as we know it, surely cannot last much longer.
So I wonder. Perhaps we need to be frank with the authorities now. Ask them what they want to do with our natural discourse. Find out what they think of us. We are not a secret. Do we want to be a mere cat’s toy?
July 4th, 2005 at 7:18 am
we are far less than a cat`s toy. we are feudal slaves. thankfully, we can do things like this and gain some sense of measure. the g8 media orgasm over the week-end was a spectacle paid for by the elite. welcome to 1984. and the new boss is the same as the old boss. there is no sense in getting pissy about it like roger daltry. ther is opportunity for (personal) growth, and the sharing with like-minded folks. i do think it would be nice to sit in the forest around a campfire, roasting one of the king`s elk and discuss things well into the night, but this will do in a pinch.
July 4th, 2005 at 10:17 am
whenever people start talking about disinformation, i start thinking about reptilians.
re: your reptilians as disinfo post — let’s say there are roughly 3 segments of the population, the largest being the average joe schmoe. the smallest, then, is the HARDCORE conspiracy theorist. the middle (and still very small but DEFINITELY LARGER than the hardcore camp) segment would be the people who are sort of “on the fence” — they’re suspicious of the government, their gut instinct is telling them that something is amiss, and they’re willing to poke around online a little. now consider how easy it would be for the shadow government to fund/promote one or two nutjobs like icke. i think the disinfo is in place partly to keep the on-the-fence folks from wanting to go deeper. you’re right — i don’t think they’re afraid of the hardcore tinfoil hat wearing crew. i think that in the minds of the people in power, those who are a little more middle-of-the-road in their suspicions are MORE dangerous. like it’s not the extremity of the theories that scares them, it’s just the fact of a critical mass of people believing that something fucked up is going on behind the scenes, and talking about it.
they know that the only curtain they have to hide behind is the ignorance of the people. they’re less afraid of extreme, complex, fleshed out conspiracy theory, and MORE afraid of a widespread softening, a general loss of popular trust.
maybe?
July 4th, 2005 at 12:10 pm
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, LJ. And I think Nathan touched on that as well. This idea that the fundamental purpose of disinformation is not to actually discredit anything, but to merely taint it, so that it’s not acceptable as a line of serious inquiry. It’s pretty much the same thing as I wrote about in my bit about how Scientology seeks to intentionally change the meaning of words by forging new emotional associations with them.
July 4th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
i think the fear that government has is that “popular support” wanes. the more disinfo, info, opinion is out there, the the more validity is given to the process. when we have questions, who do we turn to for answers? democracy?
July 4th, 2005 at 3:23 pm
this whole argument begs the question of personal responsbility.
the internet itself as a mechanism for gathering information has brought it to a head.
do you believe everything you hear or read?
the world is changing. it’s time to stop depending on OTHER people to tell you WHO’S RIGHT and WHO’S WRONG. only you can deceide that for yourself.
1. listen to your gut
2. think about it logically
3. put yourself in each persons’s shoes and imagine their perspective and motivations. *all of them*. some may seem sinister, others innocent.
4. Do your own research.
5. Don’t be so damn gullible!
THINK FOR YOURSELF has rung through my head a lot lately–it’s a message most of the world needs to hear. So simple, yet so powerful.
July 4th, 2005 at 8:02 pm
a meme rooted in “conspiarcy theory” then bubbling its way up is much more effective than a top down propaganda effort.
whether or not Ruppert is a concious disinfo agent is irrelevant, his ideas re: Peak Oil are very very very dangerous.
IMO.
i disagree when you say
Nobody takes conspiracy theorists seriously except for other conspiracy theorists.
i think things have changed quite a bit…. even my father, a history (standard version) fanatic, who always loves to argue with me to no end, has begun to see the method to my maddness…. and i think the public at large is in general, “conspiracy theorists”
one
human?