"Fighting words against the opposition" - Part 2

Contents

Part 1
"Conspiracy theory": origin of a term and its use
Where does the term "conspiracy theory" come from?
Who are conspiracy theorists and who are their enemies?
What is labelled a conspiracy theory today?
What favours the emergence of conspiracy theories

Part 2
Conspiracy theory, conspiracy theorists, fake news - origins, distinctions and significance
Today, the USA is often seen as the origin and hotspot of conspiracy theories - for obvious reasons
An example from the early days of the USA
Several examples from the recent past
"Conspiracy theories" arising from mistrust of the government, military and intelligence services
The mood in the USA

Part 3
Internationally disseminated or discussed "conspiracy theories"
Why conspiracy theories arise
A conspiracy theory fills a gap
Not only in the USA - mistrust and "conspiracy theories" are now becoming increasingly widespread throughout the Western world
Preliminary conclusion: The different types of conspiracy theories briefly categorised
Fighting words against the expression of opinion and free thinking
What this has to do with Donald Trump
Conclusion and evaluation

Conspiracy theory, conspiracy theorists, fake news - origins, distinctions and significance

Today, the USA is often seen as the origin and hotspot of conspiracy theories - for obvious reasons

Conspiracy theories as well as gross lies have often been exposed in the United States of America in the past by Politicians or Media The aim is to achieve something specific in the public eye, to evoke a certain mood or to deliberately influence the majority of citizens in their behaviour. Influence the formation of opinion.

The historian and philosopher Richard Hofstadterwho was concerned with conspiracy fantasies, analysed in the first half of the 1960s in the essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" (The paranoid style of American politics). In it, he explains how, in his opinion, a widespread "paranoid style" was used in American politics. Debates were thus emotionalised and objectivity eliminated. Hofstadter explains why he uses the term "paranoid style". Nevertheless, later criticism of his work repeatedly criticised the use of this term.

Throughout US history, suspicions and publicised conspiracy fantasies have been used to agitate against certain groups of people and to instil a state of insecurity or aversion in the masses of the population. Although he originally saw angry minds at work primarily on the political right and therefore focussed on this, Hofstadter identified the paranoid style among various actors in the USA, regardless of a particular political orientation. He explained that it is a style of thinking that is neither new nor necessarily right-wing.

An example from the early days of the USA

In the first half of the 19th century, the anti-Catholic movement in the USA, in the origins of which evangelical women played a major role. Individuals and newspapers led a campaign against Catholics, their institutions and further Catholic immigration with drastic conspiracy claims. This culminated in the 1850s. One newspaper article claimed: "It is a notorious fact that the monarchs of Europe and the Pope of Rome are at this very moment plotting our destruction and threatening the extinction of our political, civil and religious institutions."

But nothing of this years-long firework display of agitation and insinuations against Catholics with fuelled hysteria and hatred remained in reality. More Catholics immigrated, for example from Ireland and Italy, and nothing conspiratorial happened - the USA was not attacked or even destroyed by Catholics and the Roman Church.

It often became clear to the attentive public in retrospect that claims made by politicians or the government, portrayals in the press, fuelled fears and delusionally conjured up imminent dangers consisted of exaggerations or had no basis in reality.

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time."

- Abraham Lincoln. (USA) Abraham Lincoln was born on 12 February 1809 near Hodgenville, Hardin County (today: LaRue County, Kentucky); he died by assassination on 15 April 1865 in Washington D.C. Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the USA from 1861 to 1865.

The lax handling of the truth or what is presented as such has a long tradition in the United States of America in political and media events. Propaganda lies have long been regarded as legitimate ways of influencing moods and elections and achieving other political or economic goals. It is probably no coincidence that in the USA Manipulation and Propaganda were scientifically investigated early on and subsequently utilised for marketing methods and product advertising.

A well-known pioneer in this field was Edward Bernays with his books "Crystallising Public Opinion" and "Propaganda" from the 1920s (1). Bernays and Ivy Lee were pioneers in the USA of the Propaganda theory and public relations research, but also drew on the preliminary work of other US and European authors. The work of the Frenchman Gustave Le Bon, "Psychology of the masses" , published in 1895, is regarded as the key to this field of research and the development of mass psychology and manipulation. Some of Le Bon's numerous works are still important today.

Footnote:

(1) Edward Bernays was a nephew of Sigmund Freud and a great-grandson of the Hamburg rabbi Isaak Bernays. His mother was Freud's sister Anna, his father Ely Bernays was the brother of Freud's wife Martha. (Source: Wikipedia - https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays)

Several examples from the recent past

The Iraq war

The way in which the US government constructed a reason for the Iraq war in 2002 and 2003 is one such case of a "conspiracy theory" devised by the government in the recent past. By means of false claims and insinuations, the world public and US citizens were presented with the narrative that Iraq and, above all, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was (also) behind the attacks in the USA on 11 September 2001.

When this could not be substantiated in the slightest and there was obviously no evidence to support it, the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was spread. Sceptical Europeans were insulted and contemptuously referred to as "old Europe" by the US government. The then US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz as well as the Secretary of State Colin Powell were essentially responsible for these claims in order to invent a pretext for war. The British Prime Minister at the time, Tony Blair, strongly supported this approach, and Britain was later part of the so-called "coalition of the willing" that went to war against Iraq. As it turned out, these were lies that served as a pretext to start a war that violated international law and was ethically indefensible, and to find allies for it.

This was not the first and not the last time in US history that this was the case.

The Vietnam War

Vietnam had been scarred by a colonial war and proxy wars between various powers and a civil war since 1946 (1) and now became the theatre of a proxy war between the USA in support of South Vietnam against the Soviet Union and China on the side of communist North Vietnam.

This geopolitically and morally highly questionable entry into the war by the United States was also a catastrophe for the US military and for the hundreds of thousands of US soldiers who were killed and physically and mentally injured. Added to this was the fact that Atrocities and serious war crimes of the US military became public in this war. Politically and socially, the effects were also devastating for the United States. A large number of brutalised, mentally injured and disturbed Vietnam War veterans, who did not receive adequate treatment and care from the US Army, placed a considerable burden on society for decades.

With the alleged "Tonkin incident" in August 1964, the US leadership used a lie to create a pretext for entering the Vietnam War to enter. The United States presented itself as the victim of a military attack by communist North Vietnam on the ship "Maddox" in international waters. But not only that: the US Army was already operating on the side of South Vietnam before and during the presidency of John F. Kennedy, including as part of 'Operation Plan 34A', in the Vietnamese civil war against the largely communist North Vietnam.

In reality, the situation in this civil war was much more complicated than 'communist north versus good south'. US intelligence agencies shared the details in detail with government advisors. But no attention was paid to this on the government side.
Due to deliberate misdirection through false information, the US Congress passed the "Tonkin Resolution". She gave the President Lyndon B. Johnson the authority to "use all means to repel Vietnamese attacks". Johnson initially made little use of this. In the subsequent election campaign, Johnson clearly positioned himself as being in favour of peace and against US hostilities in Asian countries. His opponent, Barry Goldwater, was openly in favour of an all-out war in Vietnam, which was rejected by the vast majority of US voters.

Johnson's campaign statements later turned out to be purely calculated and dishonest. He harboured war intentions just like his opponent Goldwater. The plans for the large-scale war were already in place. The Misleading the public unwilling to go to war in the USA was then systematically continued. And Johnson, in consultation with his advisors, now did exactly what he had ostensibly rejected during the election campaign: waging a large-scale war in Vietnam.

The publication of the "Pentagon Papers" by Daniel EllsbergThe leaks, which began in 1969, gradually revealed to the public the reprehensible way in which the President and the military were acting. Firstly, Ellsberg copied the 7,000 pages of secret material from the end of 1969 and made them available to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. When Laos and Cambodia were also invaded and bombed by the US military, he handed the papers over to the New York Times in 1971.

"The Vietnam War began with a lie. It was triggered by an alleged attack by the North Vietnamese on one of our warships stationed in the Bay of Tonkin. But it never happened. It was a lie. It was pure propaganda to start this terrible war. Sometimes history repeats itself."

- Dustin Hoffman. USA (from https://gutezitate.com/zitate/propaganda)

The Jewish philosopher and publicist Hanna Arendt dealt with the matter and firmly condemned the concealments, untruths and purposeful lies of the US leadership. It became clear to US citizens and the world public how governments and presidents had lied, deceived and defrauded citizens over a long period of time.

Daniel Ellsberg was thus an early whistleblower, long before the days of the internet. Richard M. Nixon, who had been US President since January 1969, made desperate and again illegal attempts to prevent the feared future publication of compromising documents. This subsequently led to the "Watergate affair", which also profoundly shook the credibility and acceptance of the government, its advisors and, above all, the US President. Trust in the office of president was irrevocably lost by many. Nixon finally resigned in August 1974, thereby avoiding impeachment proceedings.
The Vietnam War led to a serious and continuing US citizens' loss of confidence in politics and government and parts of the media, indeed the political system as a whole. This is important to know in order to understand later events and today's sensitivities in the USA.

Footnote:

(1) A brief history: Since the end of the Second World War, Vietnam had been engaged in a colonial war with the then colonial power FRANCE, which later developed into a civil war with French, Chinese and initially Japanese participation. The USA was already supporting France at great expense against the communist independence fighters at this time. The Indochina War was a major proxy war in which the USA was already involved at this time. At the "Indochina Conference" in Geneva in 1954, complex peace negotiations between the participating states of the People's Republic of China, Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, Vietnamese representatives, Laos and Cambodia resulted in a division into the (communist) North Vietnam and the southern part.
Without the financial and military support of the USA totalling several billion US dollars, France would have had to end the war prematurely in order to avert national bankruptcy. Various sides used torture during the Indochina War. The French used torture on a large scale, even after 1946, despite a ban on torture. During the Indochina War, an estimated one million Vietnamese lost their lives, the majority of them uninvolved civilians. Exact numbers of deaths on the various sides were not collected or published later. After the Geneva Peace Conference, the USA continued to exert direct influence and interfered heavily in internal affairs in Vietnam and Laos. In South Vietnam, a dictatorial regime followed under the Catholic Ngô Đình Diệm, who was installed and supported by the USA. A new civil war broke out against Diem's regime of terror. Initially as an armed uprising in South Vietnam, then with the participation of communist North Vietnam, a civil war developed in Vietnam.

The communist hysteria under McCarthy

In this context, the fear of communists, which was massively fuelled in the USA and by the Republican US Senator Joseph McCarthy in the early 1950s, was one of them. McCarthy exaggerated his fuelling of communist panic; he repeatedly spoke of a conspiracy against the USA. He himself sensed communist activities in central offices of the US administration, the military, political parties and the government. Excessive measures, including unfounded suspicions and unjustified persecution of innocent people, were used by the state to harm numerous people. It turned out that this was a case of paranoia and fuelled insecurity and fears, not an actual large-scale communist conspiracy.

"Conspiracy theories" arising from mistrust of the government, military and intelligence services

The following are a few well-known examples of events for which theories or theses have emerged to refute official accounts. And one thing must be clear: These conspiracy theories may seem absurd to many, but there are nevertheless clues that cause many people to doubt or come up with their own explanations. And some conspiracy theories are being investigated worldwide today. It would therefore be reckless to immediately dismiss everything that contradicts official government accounts as nonsense.

The individual examples will only be dealt with briefly, as there is not enough space here to cover them in detail. Each would be an exhaustive topic in its own right. The focus remains on the USA. There are several reasons for this, above all the fact that the USA has a major influence worldwide with its foreign and geopolitical policy and the sensitivities of US citizens are of considerable importance.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour during the Second World War

The Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 claimed the lives of 2,403 Americans, 2335 marines and 68 civilians. In addition, around 1170 were wounded. Two large US warships were sunk and many were severely damaged. Well over 300 US fighter planes, which were also stationed in Pearl Harbour, were destroyed or damaged. The Japanese air attack was carried out by over 350 aircraft, which had been brought across the Pacific by aircraft carriers and attacked the bases on the Hawaiian island of O'ahu in two main waves. Several small Japanese submarines were also involved(1).

Although the Japanese army planned in advance with secrecy and no radio communication is said to have betrayed the action, there are indications that the US secret service nevertheless had prior knowledge of an imminent attack and President Rooseveld was informed.
Since then, there has been a theory that the Americans knew of an imminent Japanese attack. US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is said to have let it happen without taking any precautions. In doing so, he hoped to gain a welcome excuse from the largely pacifist US population to enter the Second World War alongside Great Britain - with declarations of war against Japan and Germany. This was agreed with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. This controversial thesis still stirs many emotions in the USA today. However, many believe that the President (and his advisors) probably calculated this way.

Two days after the Japanese air raid, the USA declared war on Japan. The German Empire and the USA declared war on each other; Italy also sent a declaration of war to the USA. As it turned out, the Japanese Empire had completely miscalculated its strategy in several respects and achieved the opposite of what was intended.

Footnote:

(1) The air attack on the US base in Hawaii is considered an attack because the Japanese side "neglected" - by mistake or deliberately - to send the USA an official declaration of war beforehand.

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy

The probably better-known conspiracy theory concerns the deadly Assassination in Dallas John Fitzgerald KennedyThere are numerous speculations and assumptions about the circumstances of Kennedy's assassination and the motives and perpetrators. These include serious theories as to what may have happened instead of the official account and who may have been behind the assassination. Some of the officially declared course of events appears less credible. Witnesses made other observations, and things happened after the attack that understandably aroused suspicion. As a result, numerous speculations quickly sprouted that the assassination attempt on the president took place in a completely different way than officially declared. In the meantime, numerous articles and several books have been written and films made worldwide on the subject.

There are assumptions that it could have been a conspiracy from US leadership circles against their own president. The communist Lee Harvey Oswald, who was presented as the assassin, could therefore not have been the actual murderer. Oswald was shot dead in a police station in Dallas by the terminally ill Jack Ruby a few days after the assassination attempt on Kennedy, before a trial against him could begin. Ruby was a dodgy mobster (member of certain criminal gangs) and nightclub owner from Dallas. Statements he made in interviews after the trial against him reinforced the impression that there was probably something else behind the assassination than officially declared. However, Ruby may have been increasingly mentally disturbed and therefore not sane. The course of events and background to Kennedy's assassination have not been conclusively clarified to this day.

The 1969 US moon landing

Another major conspiracy theory from the USA concerns the moon landing. For a long time, some have doubted that the US moon mission actually took place. In the decades since 1969, numerous conclusive statements have been made by official bodies and the media to dispel doubts. Nevertheless, there are numerous people (in the USA and internationally) who believe that the US moon landing never took place, but that the whole thing was faked.

11 September 2001

The attacks on targets in the USA using hijacked airliners on 11 September 2001 were particularly significant, with assumptions and conspiracy theories circulating about the collapse of the Twin Towers, the twin towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, shortly after the shocking event. Here too, inconsistencies and events and processes that were difficult for outsiders to comprehend raised questions, aroused suspicion and gave rise to a wide range of speculation.

As is so often the case, there are also incomplete descriptions and unconvincing explanations and neglected aspects that are not addressed by the official, state authorities. This weakens credibility. Critical minds naturally recognise such incomplete accounts or contradictions. If there is also enough imagination and mistrust of one's own government, politics in general and the media, it is obvious that numerous conjectures and conspiracy theories will arise. In addition, the attacks of September 2001 served as the reason for the start of the war in Afghanistan.

On 11 September 2001, not only was the World Trade Center destroyed, but a plane was also steered into the Pentagon and another plane, UA 93, crashed after there was probably resistance from passengers and crew against the hijackers.

Without going into the details here, it must be said that the official reports and explanations to the public about these tragedies were incomplete and appear contradictory or not satisfactorily conclusive. Added to this is the scale of the shocking event.

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At this point, of course, it is not possible to judge whether the official accounts are correct or not. The point is to show how doubts arise and for what reasons considerations are made that reject official, state explanations or other explanations are developed, assumptions about completely different courses of events and so on are worked out in detail.

The intention here is not to take a position on the examples mentioned or to make an assessment. Rather, the cases mentioned are simply intended to illustrate how great both the mistrust and the rejection of the US leadership is and how little credibility it is considered to have by a large number of people.

The mood in the USA

The mistrust of a large part of the population towards the government, state institutions, the military and large corporations as well as wealthy (and influential) individuals, which had built up over decades and was entirely understandable, runs very deep in the USA. Past experience had taught US citizens how inventive these ruling elites are when it comes to constructing a reason to start a war or enter an existing one, deploy troops worldwide and interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.

The fact that shortly afterwards the US leadership wanted to use the attacks of 11 September as justification to invade Iraq and then actually started the war in Afghanistan under this justification invited assumptions that these were engineered attacks. At the very least, they were carried out with the knowledge of secret services and were not prevented. The events fit a pattern: the USA is (allegedly) attacked and uses this as an opportunity to wage a war that apparently serves economic or geo-strategic interests. Apart from that, the USA has never been successful in its military actions since the Second World War. The USA has come out of every war with high losses, enormous costs and unachieved goals.

The attacks of 11 September 2001 were compounded by the fact that a large number of people in the western world had only had access to the internet for a few years at that time. This allowed various doubts, speculations and attempts at explanations to spread quickly and widely. As this dynamic was possibly still new to governments and secret services and caught them somewhat unprepared, there was not much to counter the speculation in 2001.

The image that many US citizens have long had of their political leadership, and which is becoming increasingly entrenched, clashes with their sense of morality and their expectations of a leading elite. The demand for morality and a sense of justice among the broad mass of the population should not be underestimated. They do not want immoral liars and warmongers as representatives and decision-makers, but a leadership elite that at least fulfils the basic moral standards that apply to society as a whole.

Over the past decades, US citizens have lost confidence in politics and in the government's ability and willingness to work for their good and for their state.

A Article from "The Economist" deals with the mistrust of the US-Americans.

Interesting in this context is the detailed study by the Pew Research Centre: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/06/06/americans-views-of-government-decades-of-distrust-enduring-support-for-its-role/

Here you get to Part 1 of "fighting words against the opposition".

Part 3 will be published shortly. Please be patient.