None Dare Call It Conspiracy
Does anyone still believe what they read in the New York Times or watch on any major television network news broadcast? Because for millions of Americans, their credibility is at an all time low. The internet hive mind, even in the face of blatant censorship by search and social media monopolies, simply offers too many verifiable, alternative facts for establishment media to get away with lying, but they still do. Exposed, discredited, they keep on lying, relying on an exhausted populace to simply not bother to fact check every single thing they report.
Writing for the American Conservative, Arthur Bloom recently published a critique of American media with the not-so-subtle title “They Really Are Lying to You.” His opening sentence: “The most effective kind of propaganda is by omission.”
Bloom’s probably right, especially when one considers how much mainstream reportage was obsessed, for years, on what ultimately were non-stories – think “Russian collusion,” “Ukrainian impeachment,” or overblown stories, think “8 million COVID deaths in the U.S. by this time next year,” and now, “the nation reeling under an epidemic of systemic racism” that suddenly, so very suddenly, has been an urgent crisis for, well, forever.
What will be next week’s crisis of the century? And what is really going on behind these blinding lunges from one overwhelming and orchestrated media fixation to the next? What events of greater consequence are being obscured, ignored, omitted?
Media Making News
It doesn’t take a sleuth to watch ABC’s news anchor David Muir go through his nightly patter, where he curates the same stories, on the same themes, as every other major establishment network, to wonder what’s going on. Why is there so much unity? Across the networks, the same facts. The same phrases. And it doesn’t take a numbers genius to realize that Muir and his “experts” have made stunning misuse of statistics to spread agenda driven panic, first over COVID, and now over “systemic racism.”
America’s mass media aren’t reporting on mass panics and mass protests, they are creating them. They only secondarily “report” on them. Maybe COVID is the pandemic of the century. Or maybe not. The only thing we know for certain is that we can’t trust anything we hear about it on ABC Nightly “News.”
Arthur Bloom’s article is a well-documented expose of how the media has lied in recent, and not so recent years. He only alludes briefly to conspiracy theories, making the tantalizing suggestion that the media elites are trying to discredit conspiracy theorists by seeding conspiracy theories with information that is so fantastic as to be obviously false. He even suggests this tactic is behind QAnon, which has, as he writes “a remarkable ability to absorb all other conspiracy theories that came before it.”
But what is behind the curtain? America’s media lies all the time, and they do it in lockstep with one another. Sometimes they lie via omission, sometimes they manipulate statistics, or distort their coverage, or they present quotes or report activities in an unrepresentative context, or they engage in selective editing, or sometimes they just adopt a smug tone that lets the compliant or lazy listener absorb a clear message: this is a bad guy, this is a good guy. Why are they doing this?
Fifty years ago, a slim book, almost a pamphlet, was written that within a few years sold over six million copies. Written by a freelance journalist and conservative, Gary Allen, None Dare Call it Conspiracy was first published in 1972. During that election year and for years afterwards, this book was required reading for anyone who thought there were untold stories and unnamed forces driving current events. What is remarkable is how relevant this book is today.
The historical narrative and players identified in None Dare Call it Conspiracy cannot be briefly summarized. Suffice to say that what Gary Allen described back then is similar fare to what you’ll get if you watch Alex Jones today, as well as many of the videos now coming from the QAnon network. And if you watch these sources, remember this: Maybe instead of being seeded with information so fantastic as to be obviously false in order to discredit the entire body of work, the obviously ridiculous content is added in order to protect the body of work. Discard the ridiculous, but consider the rest, as its absurdity protects it from the censors.
False Choices
While Allen’s discussion of specific players and events defies brief explication, he made several other points which are especially relevant today, because while only conspiracy theorists may have believed them back in 1972, today there is nearly a consensus. The first of these concepts is what Allen called the false choice between left and right, between communism and fascism.
The chart shown below, taken from page 29 of the April 1972 third edition, shows the conventional political spectrum compared to what Allen believes is a more accurate political continuum. He writes:
“We are told that on the far Left of the political spectrum is Communism, which is admittedly dictatorial. But, we are also told that equally to be feared is the opposite of the far Left, i.e., the far Right, which is labeled Fascism… this is absurd. Where would you put an anarchist on this spectrum? Where would you put a person who believes in a Constitutional Republic and the free enterprise system? He is not represented here, yet this spectrum is used for political definitions by a probable ninety percent of the people of the nation.”
Allen’s point is that if all you can choose are points in between communism on the far left, and fascism on the far right, then all you really are doing is choosing between international socialism and national socialism. Only by placing both of these forms of socialism on the left, and by placing pure anarchy on the far right, do you create room within the continuum for free market capitalism and limited government to exist.
There’s a reason for the promotion of this false choice, according to Allen, which gets to one of the main points of his book. He argues that socialism is not a share-the-wealth program, but is in reality a method to consolidate and control the wealth. He writes:
“The seeming paradox of rich men promoting socialism becomes no paradox at all. Instead it becomes the logical, even perfect tool of power-seeking megalomaniacs. Communism, or more accurately, socialism, is not a movement of the downtrodden masses, but of the economic elite.”
This insight would explain a lot of current events in America and other Western Democracies. Again quoting Allen, “Radical movements are never successful unless they attract big money and/or outside support…the Left is controlled by its alleged enemy, the malefactors of great wealth.”
Gems of wisdom abound in this book that enjoyed huge but fleeting popularity during the Vietnam era, but is perhaps more relevant today than when it was written. Allen explains how by concentrating power in government, wealthy insiders will actually increase their economic power and political influence. “One must draw the distinction between competitive fere enterprise, the most moral and productive system ever devised, and cartel capitalism dominated by industrial monopolists and international bankers…the cartel capitalist uses the government to force the public to do business with him. These corporate socialists are the deadly enemies of competitive private enterprise.
Sound familiar?
The next chart, also taken from the book (page 125), offers a visual explanation of how wealthy insiders fund and manipulate naive radicals to apply pressure to the middle class from above and below. As can be seen, some but not all of the names noted fifty years ago by Allen will change, but the dynamic stays the same. Perhaps one may add the names Soros, Bloomberg, Gates to the names on top, and swap for the names at the bottom new versions of the original groups; BLM, Antifa, the Democratic Socialists. And along with race and class as salient issues to incite the mob, add the “climate emergency.”
This strategy is diabolically clever: Identify the most hardened, potentially violent fanatics in a nation, and surreptitiously give them money and training. As they destabilize society, exploit the backlash that desires order to increase the size and power of government.
What Gary Allen diagnosed and wrote about fifty years ago was not unfounded. Without commenting on the conspiracy aspects, but merely on the process he identified, he was prescient, wrong only in his belief that it would happen faster than it actually did. What slowed down the process is anyone’s guess, but some broad cultural shifts come to mind: The Reagan revolution, the growing activism of the religious right, conservative intellectuals finding their voice, conservative talk radio mobilizing millions, and more recently, the power of the internet.
What has decisively changed between 1972 and today is the fact that millions of Americans, if not most Americans, now realize that there is a phony war between establishment Democrats and Republicans, and that they cannot trust the media.
History will judge whether or not the election of Donald Trump marked a restoration of American sovereignty and a resurgence of America’s middle class. All that is certain today is that with rare exceptions, every establishment player, every wealthy special interest, every corporate controlled media outlet, every billionaire, every influential actor or entertainer or athlete, all of them, have lined up to oppose President Trump with every ounce of energy they’ve got. Why?
Allen’s answer is both easy and difficult. Easy, because “conspiracy” contextualizes everything going on with no further analysis required. Difficult, because if you attempt to ferret out the entire intricate history of these alleged global insiders, you will enter an abyss of infinite pathways and unlimited possibilities. And how much does it really matter? How much difference is there between a conspiracy among elites, and a general consensus among elites? What would be handled differently, if anything?
There is an alternative answer, more hopeful and also more practical, which is simply to fight – heedless of whatever underlying conspiracies may exist – to convince more people to vote for the preservation of America’s freedoms and to stop the assault on America’s middle class. To do that requires allocating energy to exposing the fraud and hidden agenda underlying leftist policies, and convincing all people of good will that better alternatives exist.
This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.
* * *
Edward Ring is a contributing editor and senior fellow with the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013 and served as its first president. He is also a senior fellow with the Center for American Greatness, and a regular contributor to the California Globe. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Forbes, and other media outlets.
To help support more content and policy analysis like this, please click here.
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!