Showing posts with label Cass Sunstein. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cass Sunstein. Show all posts

Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee's Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory


The latest book by Dr. David Ray Griffin

* ACTION ALERT: If you go to Amazon to read about this book, please be sure to click and request the Kindle version - as there are NO credible books about 9/11 available for the Kindle.

There are also NO credible books about 9/11 recorded and available from Audible.com Please call or email them to request this.


The paper “Conspiracy Theories” by Harvard law professors Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule is a warning for all 9/11 Truth groups. Although the paper is allegedly about conspiracy theory in a general sense, it is clearly centered on 9/11. I submit that this indicates a rising concern within certain powerful but ill-defined circles. Below is a self-explanatory segment from Sunstein’s Wikipedia page as well as Dr. David Ray Griffin’s new book, Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee’s Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory.

Sunstein co-authored a 2008 paper with Adrian Vermeule, titled Conspiracy Theories, in which they wrote, ”The existence of both domestic and foreign conspiracy theories, we suggest, is no trivial matter, posing real risks to the government’s antiterrorism policies, whatever the latter may be.”

They go on to propose that, ”the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups”, where they suggest, among other tactics, ”Government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action.”

Sunstein and Vermeule also analyze the practice of secret government payments to outside commentators, who are then held out as independent experts; they suggest that ”government can supply these independent experts with information and perhaps prod them into action from behind the scenes,” further warning that ”too close a connection will be self-defeating if it is exposed.”

Sunstein and Vermeule argue that the practice of enlisting non-government officials, ”might ensure that credible independent experts offer the rebuttal, rather than government officials themselves. There is a tradeoff between credibility and control, however. The price of credibility is that government cannot be seen to control the independent experts.”

This position has been criticized by some commentators who argue that it would violate prohibitions on government propaganda aimed at domestic citizens.

Shortly after taking office on January 20, 2009 President Obama appointed Harvard law professor (and personal friend) Cass Sunstein to the post of administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. In June 2009 Sunstein published an essay in The Journal of Political Philosophy entitled “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures,” in which he provided an “analysis” of conspiracy theories, viewing them, as his title indicated, as “caused” by psychological conditions and requiring “cures”, i.e., elimination.

The article led to an outcry by civil libertarians of all political stripes, who especially singled out for protest Sunstein’s call for covert “cognitive infiltration” by government agents of organizations the government deems “conspiracist”.


Because Sunstein explicitly states that “9/11 conspiracy theories” are his main focus, virtually all interpreters have agreed that Sunstein’s call for what is essentially another Cointelpro Operation is directed specifically against the 9/11 truth movement.

(Cointelpro, or “Counter Intelligence Program”, was the FBI’s name for its high-priority operations to infiltrate, provoke, undermine and disable civil rights, socialist, antiwar, black power and Native American movements during the late 1950s and the 1960s.)

The fantastic picture Sunstein paints of the 9/11 truth movement as “harmful,” “dangerous,” and likely to resort to “terrorism” suggests that he is serving a function similar to Philip Zelikow’s during the Bush/Cheney years; in his own way, Sunstein too is a “myth-maker.”


In his new book COGNITIVE INFILTRATION David Ray Griffin has provided the first truly adequate response to Sunstein’s deeply-flawed and legally-questionable arguments. Griffin penetrates the obfuscation and phony scholarship employed by Sunstein to create the illusion of a rational critique of the 9/11 truth movement’s alternative account of the events of September 11, 2001.

Griffin presents a series of ten theses put forward by Sunstein, and shows that each is fundamentally flawed. Further, he demonstrates that Sunstein is unable to avoid numerous self-contradictions, either explicit or implied, that together amount to an internal, hidden counter-argument to his own position, which Griffin, in a novel and entertaining approach, brings out as an ironic “esoteric” meaning of Sunstein’s essay.


Griffin demonstrates that Sunstein is completely unable to refute the major positions of the 9/11 truth movement, and doesn’t actually even try to do so. Instead, Sunstein has produced a pseudo-scholarly fake “analysis” as a basis for a call for the government to infiltrate and neutralize the movement through activities which create “cognitive dissonance,” clearly not the least bit different from the FBI’s Cointelpro operations.

But in so doing Sunstein has provided Griffin the means to demonstrate yet again that defenders of the official account of 9/11 actually cannot proceed by using reason and fact. They are forced to resort to disinformation, suppression of evidence, lies, illogic, threats and intimidation, always with the same result: failure. The more people study the events of 9/11 the more certain they become that the government and its media outlets are lying.


Sunstein’s essay appears to reveal that the government response to its ongoing failure will be to resort to illegal activities directed against people who are speaking out about the highest crimes carried out in the corridors of power.

The remarkably inept manner in which he makes his case suggests, however, that providing a rationale for such a future policy may not have been his real intention. Rather, it seems plausible that his purpose is to suggest that such actions have not even been considered before, let alone implemented, when in fact such operations have been ongoing since 9/11.


Griffin’s COGNITIVE INFILTRATION is a lucid and compelling exposure of the contempt held by the official defenders the 9/11 myth for dissenters who have seen through their Big Lie.

These officials expect that no one will be able to penetrate the murk of Sunstein’s latest defense of the pretext for the US wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq, now covertly expanding into many other countries.

But with David Ray Griffin’s book, everyone who is concerned with bringing their carnage and criminality to a stop, as well as to reverse the rapid erosion of civil liberties in this country, will have no difficulty remaining clear-headed in the face of the “cognitive infiltration” carried out by the holders of high office and their agents.

Buy it now - click here.

Your Tax Dollars at Work: The "Official" Government Disinformation, Misinformation and Bogus Science - Now on the America.Gov Website


Oh for cryin' out loud!

So why has our own government stepped-up the lavish use of our tax dollars for an inept and ham-handed cover up of the crimes of 9/11? Good question. And we want some answers.

Just in case you think that there isn't an Active Government Cover-Up of 9/11 - just feast your eyes on the america.gov website:





Click on the "9/11 info." link on this page and you'll get a face full of bogus and discredited science. They have even quoted the pathetic and thoroughly debunked Popular Mechanics as a pseudo-scientific source.





This is the "home page." Do a search in the upper right-hand corner for "9/11" and see what you get. This could be funny - except that it isn't at all.





This is their little pop-up. Check out all the links for laffs.




Sometimes a survey pops up. Do feel free to fill it out and tell 'em what you REALLY think...and it wouldn't hurt to be factual. I'd hate to see us sink to their level.

Should we be "thanking" Cass Sunstein for making this brand spankin' new Official Government Propaganda Machine at america.gov?




Cass Sunstein is currently on leave from Harvard while working in the Obama administration.

Sunstein co-authored a 2008 paper with Adrian Vermeule, titled Conspiracy Theories, in which they wrote, "The existence of both domestic and foreign conspiracy theories, we suggest, is no trivial matter, posing real risks to the government’s antiterrorism policies, whatever the latter may be."

They go on to propose that, "the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups", where they suggest, among other tactics, "Government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action."

Sunstein and Vermeule also analyze the practice of secret government payments to outside commentators, who are then held out as independent experts; they suggest that "government can supply these independent experts with information and perhaps prod them into action from behind the scenes," further warning that "too close a connection will be self-defeating if it is exposed."

Sunstein and Vermeule argue that the practice of enlisting non-government officials, "might ensure that credible independent experts offer the rebuttal, rather than government officials themselves. There is a tradeoff between credibility and control, however. The price of credibility is that government cannot be seen to control the independent experts."

This position has been criticized by some commentators, who argue that it would violate prohibitions on government propaganda aimed at domestic citizens.

By now you may find yourself in need of a breath of fresh air, so listen to Dr. David Ray Griffin here and clear your head.


Increasing Threats To The 9/11 Truth Movement


By Bill Willers *

"Those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of violence."
--Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, 2008, "Conspiracy Theories"

Attacks directed at the 9/11 Truth Movement are on the increase as the Movement grows globally, drawing ever more from technical, scientific, intelligence and military communities. While earlier criticism aimed only to insult and trivialize, more recent attacks have suggested stronger, even militant reaction.

Efforts to neutralize the 9/11 Truth Movement now involve describing a common "conspiratorial thinking" that essentially renders all conspiracy theories equally fallacious. By association, such a premise places one who cannot accept an official story replete with blatant lies into the company of vacuous fringe groups. A case in point is the new (2010) and widely advertised book "Voodoo Histories" in which David Aaronovitch, a "political journalist", frets about the "seditious role" conspiracies play and the"shadow armies" of the Internet that allow for "9/11 revisionism".

While Aaronovitch makes the empty claim that conspiracists are guilty of "exaggeration of the status of experts", he avoids referencing the 1200+ Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, or the likes of Dr. Robert Bowman, head of the "Star Wars" program under two presidents; Francesco Cossiga, former president of Italy; Dr. Alan Sabrosky, former Director of Studies at the U.S. Army War College; Andreas von Bulow, former Secretary of Germany's Federal Defense Ministry; General Leonid Ivanshov, former Chief of Staff of Russian's Armed Forces; Ronald D. Ray, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration, and hundreds more of like credibility and authority.

It is simply not believable that a competent journalist dealing with this subject could be unaware of them, since their positions have been public for many years.


Likewise, law professors Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, whose article "Conspiracy Theories" centers on 9/11, intermingle 9/11 Truth with beliefs involving such as faked moon landings and global warming denials.

Throughout, they express such fear of the "harmful" 9/11Truth Movement that they prescribe "cognitive infiltration" by governmental agents. Because they use "theorist" and "extremist" interchangeably, it is not difficult in this era of the Patriot Act to envision scenarios in which governmental infiltration goes beyond the merely cognitive, should the Truth Movement make it necessary. Sunstein was made head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OMB) after authoring this article and is considered a contender for the Supreme Court.

Last year, Michael Chertoff, former head of Homeland Security, charged that failure to accept the official 9/11 Commission's narrative was akin to Holocaust denial - a serious charge although ludicrous on its face. Others have made a similar comparison, including Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine.

Regarding Skeptic, for a lengthy but unconvincing defense of the governmental story re 9/11, consider this 2006 article at eSkeptic by Phil Mole. One has to wonder why an account by the 9/11 Commission, admittedly "set up to fail", a story so full of holes and physical impossibilities that it cries out for a skeptical assessment , is not merely immune to skepticism by self-proclaimed "skeptics" but aggressively defended by them. Yes, it does make one wonder.

In March, the Washington Post, exposing itself in a way it may come to regret, published a venomous editorial attacking a prominent Japanese politician as "susceptible to the imaginings of the lunatic fringe" for his opinions regarding 9/11. While the editorial depicted the man's views as a threat to U.S.-Japanese relations, his views simply mirror those of the global Truth Movement, about which the Post is certainly aware, so that the editorial became a de facto attack on the entire Movement as"reckless and fact-averse ... too bizarre, half-baked and intellectually bogus to merit serious discussion."

Evidence that three buildings came down via internal demolition is simply overwhelming, and by any reasonable standard this cries out for investigation. For the likes of Sunstein, Aaronovitch, Chertoff, Shermer et al. to so aggressively attack what is a global effort for truth puts them way, way beyond mere believers of a discredited governmental story. And this is very interesting, for when an influential cadre of lawyers, journalists and bureaucrats take such pains at organized attack of such a Movement, it makes them a major bulwark in a monstrous fiction.

Why such concern on their part if the Truth Movement is, as it was depicted early on, so silly as to warrant "troofer" ridicule? In fact, their efforts indicate considerable apprehension (itself a validation of the Truth Movement) within certain interests. What interests, exactly, are they? What do these people have in common that is not clear to the larger public? One wonders.


A glaring aspect of these attacks is the apparent refusal of attackers to engage technical experts of the 9/11 Truth Movement in civil debate. So far, face-to-face exchanges of evidence, on camera and for the record, have not taken place as certainly they should have. Sunstein and Vermeule maintain that the claims of the 9/11 Truth Movement are easily refuted. Likewise "skeptic" Shermer. Fine, let them present their evidence, and let Richard Gage and his colleagues present theirs, so that the evidence of each side can be compared in full light.


* Bill Willers is emeritus professor of biology, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh now living in Middleton, WI. He is founder of Superior Wilderness Action Network (SWAN) and editor of Learning to Listen to the Land and Unmanaged Landscapes, both from Island Press. He posts occasionally online at OpEdNews, Common Dreams, Counterpunch and Dissident Voice.