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Tom Ridge’s admission/accusation that the Terror Alerts were politicized has proven yet another accusation of the Left of The Left to be true.
An accusation that as Greenwald ably and extensively illustrates, was labeled a “Conspiracy Theory” when the accusation was made.
So….What Other “Conspiracy Theories” Are True?
Don’t worry folks, I will not mention the Big Enchilada, the “Conspiracy Theory” That Must Not Be Named. (It’s impossible to believe they were competent enough to pull that one off anyway, lol.)
But the point is simply begging to be made. As more and more facts are revealed about the depth breadth and complete corruption and previously unimaginable extent to which our country and government were hijacked by the Bush Crime Family….one is forced to wonder just how far they DID go. And just how many “Conspiracy Theories” will be proven true in the future.
The “Conspiracy Theory” of Bush stealing the 2000 election is now widely accepted wisdom on The Left, right? 2004 and Ohio less so, I believe. But let’s look at some others.
The fact that Bush and Cheney lied us into war in Iraq was called a “Conspiracy Theory.”
The fact that Bush and Cheney outted a covert CIA agent….and her network of anti nuclear terrorism operatives….was called a “Conspiracy Theory.”
The fact that Bush and Cheney authorized torture and an entire network of secret torture prisons and an entire torture infrastructure was called a “Conspiracy Theory.”
Karl Rove is still insisting, despite Harriet Meier’s testimony, that it is a “Conspiracy Theory” that he politicized the Justice Dept.
It was called a “Conspiracy Theory” that Bushco was using an electronic surveillance dragnet to monitor the communications of Americans. Even though he was.
It was considered a “Conspiracy Theory” that the science of Climate Crisis was being politicized and covered up….but it was.
Sy Hersh’s charges of a Cheney controlled Hit Squad were called a “Conspiracy Theory.” Until now. When THOSE facts have emerged. As Juan Cole puts it…
And if any of us had said that Dick Cheney was setting up civilian mercenary assassination squads (at least 007 works for the British government), and set things up so that perhaps neither the CIA director nor the president even knew about it, we would have been branded moonbats. But well, that is today’s story.
You shudder to think what hasn’t come out yet.
Ambinder sums it up, from the perspective of The Village. The Village that said that we weren’t seeing what we were seeing. The Village and conventional wisdom that insisted that the Emperors WAS wearing clothes, when we on The Left of The Left could see his ugly nakedness….and what it was doing to our country…
Journalists, including myself, were very skeptical when anti-Bush liberals insisted that what Ridge now says is true, was true. We were wrong. Our skepticism about the activists’ conclusions was warranted because these folks based their assumption on gut hatred for President Bush, and not on any evaluation of the raw intelligence.
“We were wrong.”
Well, at least he admits it.
And admits that it was sheer prejudice against The Left of The Left that caused him, and presumably the rest of the media, to NOT do their job of investigating and exposing The Bush Crime Family….while they could still be stopped.
Facts could be discounted, were routinely discounted, solely because it was the The Left of The Left that were exposing the facts.
Once again, The Left of The Left was Right
But that is how our political culture works. Throughout the Bush years, those who said demonstrably true things were continuously dismissed as fringe, conspiracy-driven leftist-losers: those who questioned whether Saddam really had WMDs; those who argued that the invasion of Iraq would lead to long-term military bases in that country; those who worried that warrantless eavesdropping and Patriot Act powers would lead to abuses; those who opposed the war in Afghanistan on the ground that it would be drag on for years with no resolution, etc. etc.
Having been proven right about all of those things hasn’t changed perceptions any at all. As Ambinder’s comments today reflect, the paramount unchangeable Beltway Truth is that those who distrust government claims are unSerious Fringe Leftist Losers. Even when they turn out to be right, they’re still that.
Time and time again The Left of The Left have been proven correct. Proven to be the true ‘Grown Ups.’ Proven to be the true “reality based” segment of the Politoshpere. Proven to be just plain RIGHT. While time and time again it has been proven that The Village and Conventional Wisdom and the Traditional media is wrong.
ESPECIALLY about the Bush Administration.
Why doesn’t that count, in the political and journalistic Halls of Very Serious People?
Being wrong (like Kristol for instance)gets you plum jobs and the accolades of The Village, being right gets you marginalized. The World Turned Upside Down. Why is our country screwed up? That’s why. And why does this still go on?
Because the Seriously Prejudiced Very Serious People have bought the Right Wings Bullshit meme that we are motivated by, as Ambinder expressed it….and then was forced to (yet again) apologize for…
gut hatred for President Bush.
Just as some Obama supporters say we are motivated by gut hatred for Obama.
They are BOTH wrong.
The Left of The Left have proven time and time again what we are motivated by: The Truth, the issues, and wanting good government. For ALL of us. Even our ‘enemies.’
THAT is why we tell the truth as we see it.
Even though we are often branded as “Conspiracy Theorists” or “Obama Haters” or “The Fringe” or “Moonbats” or “The Looney Left.”
We are Right.
“They” are Wrong.
And I challenge anyone to disprove that statement, on any topic, with facts. Because the facts, as a wise man once said, have a distinct Liberal Bias.
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So adjust your dials folks. STOP listening to the Very Serious Villagers and The “conventional wisdom,” and lend an ear to the folks who have, time and time again, been proven right.
Where do we go from here?
Tune in tomorrow!
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Yeah, I said somewhere else, the whole Tom Ridge thing, “file that under “things we already knew””.
It was so freaking obvious at the time.
I almost miss the transparency of the Bush administration. Almost.
I’m a very different person, because of it, than I might otherwise be. I have gotten quite an education because of it. And so did a lot of other people.
But we definitely can’t talk about that one. We can talk about how W skipped the “Bin Laden to Attack US” briefing, though. Can we mix in David Rockefeller’s desire for a catastrophe of such singularity that it would enable the New World Order – or some such.
Nahhh! That’d be conspiracy theory crap. Heil Rahm!!!
good stuff, budhyman!
at almost any level–few play by the rules and win. As for the quip that the Big Enchilada could not have been planned because “they” are too stupid. Yeah, their official frontmen certainly are but look at the record–whoever designed what they designed are fucking smart. Really fucking smart!
Look at the income distribution statistics over the past 3-4 decades–look at the now almost official status of the U.S. as a police state and the looting of the Treasury that went on after 9/11. Fucking brilliant because the disciples of Edward Bernays have thrived and perfected the use of social science to engineer consent and compliance.
I mean, not so much in the broad strokes – yes, plenty of what people thought Bush was doing, he was doing – but in some of the details, including the suggestion that the left’s love of conspiracy theories is an almost wholly positive one.
A good segue into this, on one particular specific:
I don’t know anyone who considered politicization of the climate crisis by the Right a conspiracy theory, but if you can post a link showing me otherwise, I’ll withdraw that. In fact, the claims of conspiracy theory on climate change come exclusively from the other side: climate change is a manufactured crisis by bleeding heart liberal scientists who want to cripple the United States economically.
So from your diary, I’m not sure if you’re suggesting that we embrace conspiracy theories more willingly, because that’s one CT I think we can all agree is a load of b.s. Is it just because it came from Republicans, or is there something wrong from the reasoning itself?
Before you answer that, there’s another CT – this time from the left – that I consider more than just a little problematic: the belief that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. It’s got all the markers of a good potboiling conspiracy, from the way Big Pharma profits off of AIDS medications to the fact that it seems to ‘target’ homosexuals and Africans – except that it isn’t a conspiracy at all. I’ll be posting more on this later in the week because I think it’s a fascinating case study for the way we determine what we know and what we believe, who we can trust, and what we’re willing to take on faith.
Anyway. Sorry for the very late comment here; I was putting together resources for the AIDS diary and realized it tied into what you were writing here.
Cheers!