Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

[Sinti]

Have you seen these around here?

1. Dummy up. If it's not reported, if it's not news, it didn't happen.

2. Wax indignant. This is also known as the "how dare you?" gambit.

3. Characterize the charges as "rumors" or, better yet, "wild rumors." If, in spite of the news blackout, the public is still able to learn about the suspicious facts, it can only be through "rumors." (If they tend to believe the "rumors" it must be because they are simply "paranoid" or "hysterical.")

4. Knock down straw men. Deal only with the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Even better, create your own straw men. Make up wild rumors and give them lead play when you appear to debunk all the charges, real and fanciful alike.

5. Call the skeptics names like "conspiracy theorist," "nut," "ranter," "kook," "crackpot," and of course, "rumor monger." Be sure, too, to use heavily loaded verbs and adjectives when characterizing their charges and defending the "more reasonable" government and its defenders. You must then carefully avoid fair and open debate with any of the people you have thus maligned. For insurance, set up your own "skeptics" to shoot down.

6. Impugn motives. Attempt to marginalize the critics by suggesting strongly that they are not really interested in the truth but are simply pursuing a partisan political agenda or are out to make money (compared to over-compensated adherents to the government line who, presumably, are not).

7. Invoke authority. Here the controlled press and the sham opposition can be very useful.

8. Dismiss the charges as "old news."

9. Come half-clean. This is also known as "confession and avoidance" or "taking the limited hangout route." This way, you create the impression of candor and honesty while you admit only to relatively harmless, less-than-criminal "mistakes." This stratagem often requires the embrace of a fall-back position quite different from the one originally taken. With effective damage control, the fall-back position need only be peddled by stooge skeptics to carefully limited markets.

10. Characterize the crimes as impossibly complex and the truth as ultimately unknowable.

11. Reason backward, using the deductive method with a vengeance. With thoroughly rigorous deduction, troublesome evidence is irrelevant. For example: We have a completely free press. If they know of evidence that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) had prior knowledge of the Oklahoma City bombing they would have reported it. They haven't reported it, so there was no prior knowledge by the BATF. Another variation on this theme involves the likelihood of a conspiracy leaker and a press that would report the leak.

12. Require the skeptics to solve the crime completely. For example: If Vince Foster was murdered, who did it and why?

13. Change the subject. This technique includes creating and/or publicizing distractions.

14. Scantly report incriminating facts, and then make nothing of them. This is sometimes referred to as "bump and run" reporting.

15. Baldly and brazenly lie. A favorite way of doing this is to attribute the "facts" furnished the public to a plausible-sounding, but anonymous, source.

16. Expanding further on numbers 4 and 5, have your own stooges "expose" scandals and champion popular causes. Their job is to preempt real opponents and to play 99-yard football. A variation is to pay rich people for the job who will pretend to spend their own money.

17. Flood the Internet with agents. This is the answer to the question, "What could possibly motivate a person to spend hour upon hour on Internet news groups defending the government and/or the press and harassing genuine critics?" Don't the authorities have defenders enough in all the newspapers, magazines, radio, and television? One would think refusing to print critical letters and screening out serious callers or dumping them from radio talk shows would be control enough, but, obviously, it is not.

Link:
http://www.dabney.com/wacomuseum/library/martin1.html

Also Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation:

http://www.ominous-valve.com/blog/25ways.html

[Bolo Boffin]

1. You forgot number 18

18. Maintain a list of truth supression techniques. Refer to it as a facesaver whenever your debate opponents have completely shredded your position.

[Grateful for Hope]

2. I haven't seen any evidence in these threads

that the OP's debate opponents have shredded his/her positions.

All I am seeing is opposing points of view with varying degrees of supportive evidence.

[mirandapriestly]

11. Yeah, I agree. Arguments are never won

just attempts to prevent discussion by insisting on answers to minor questions unrelated to thread and other tricks.

[Sinti]

3. If I was being persnickety, I'd say your post reflects Technique #6 :)

Of course, I'm not. Thanks for the snicker. :)

[petgoat]

4. Ah, good old #19.

Claim victory (without substantiation) and disappear.

[Bushknew]

6. #20 Claim that this has already been debunked many times before.

this thread should be made a sticky.

[mirandapriestly]

10. Example please?

...thought so...

[petgoat]

5. 5,7,10,11,12 very popular here. nt

[Make7]

7. Dulce II? ( n/t )

[reprehensor]

8. Not just here.

On practically every message board in cyberspace.

It's contracted these days.

"Rendon was also charged with engaging in "military deception" online -- an activity once assigned to the OSI. The company was contracted to monitor Internet chat rooms in both English and Arabic -- and "participate in these chat rooms when/if tasked." Rendon would also create a Web site "with regular news summaries and feature articles. Targeted at the global public, in English and at least four (4) additional languages, this activity also will include an extensive e-mail push operation." These techniques are commonly used to plant a variety of propaganda, including false information."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/8798997/the_man_who_sold_the_war/4

[Sinti]

9. Thanks for the story link. Damn... they even admit it.

Mind War, the psychology of victory. When I read this paper it seemed creepy, but I guess it's now policy, and apparently it's privatized/outsourced.

"From Psyops To Mind War" Army Paper:

http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/pmt/exhibits/1214/MindWar.pdf

[mirandapriestly]

12. that's great! they are all the same more or less

let's roll has a thread on "How to be a Gov't 911 Shill" facetiously by the John Rendon group, which describes how they pretend to be liberals and go to sites with 911 forums , make a few posts about "Bush is going down" then head straight for the 911 forum. It's funny you can practically see them gritting their teeth when they repeat the anti Bush rhetoric. The other thing they do is claim to be experts while cutting and pasting mathematical and physics info from other sites, pretending to be pilots, and recently, I've noticed, claiming to have a "dear friend" who died on 911 (but spelling their name wrong).

[AZCat]

13. While there might be those that shill...

how do you, mirandapriestly, distinguish from those with genuine knowledge and a skeptical bent from the so-called "Gov't 911 Shill(s)" that, if I am interpreting your post correctly, you have witnessed posting on this site?

Do you use a certain set of criteria or do you just go with your "gut"?



On Edit: Whoops, forgot about the square brackets - mea culpa.

[mirandapriestly]

15. I've noticed quite a few posters

get a high post count really fast by posting relatively banal "I agree" and "bravo" and "indeed" posts in other forums on DU and being very nice, then showing up here and suddenly being very opinionated, while appearing to be "legit".
Otoh, there are a few posters who are "on the fence" or basically believe the OCT, and they genuinely seem to want to figure out what is happening and know a lot and I like reading their posts and asking them stuff.
The words in my other post are paraphrased from what I read elsewhere, it is interesting to me because I read that and I had thought/noticed the same things and whoever wrote it was not even talking necessarily about DU.
I think it is very strange for someone to post daily and frequently where they do nothing but try to "disprove" others, while feigning to be an expert at something. It would be like me posting day in day out at Freeperville or something (If they would let me). Why would I want to spend so much time among dissimilar thinking people? Occasionally maybe as a joke, but...
and the techniques mentioned in the OP are laughably familiar.

[AZCat]

16. Perhaps the differences are not as great as you think.

I can of course only speak for myself, but DU attracted (and continues to attract) me because issues are covered and discussed here that get short shrift elsewhere. Unfortunately the two forums that contain the most discussion are also the two that can be the most overwhelming. I find it comforting to post in the smaller forums (like 9/11) because here I don't get lost like I do in the rapid posting that occurs in LBN and GD.

Am I interested in 9/11? Yes, but probably on a different level than some of the other posters here. Does that invalidate my opinion? Some posters might think so - I'm not sure. But even though there are nasty catfights here over details of the events, I think any genuine participant in this forum is aware of the duplicity of the Bush Administration on myriad issues and that is (IMHO) a strong force binding us together. We may not agree whether they caused 9/11 or are just covering up their incompetence, but skepticism about alternatives to the OCT does not imply support of Bush (or his policies).

On a side note - DU has had ample infections of the type of member that you describe: the rapid, agreeable poster. The Lounge has been post-spammed by that type before but it isn't hard to pick them out from the crowd. You just have to be careful - it isn't unusual for a DU newbie to post excessively in their jubillance at finding the place.

[mirandapriestly]

18. There are a few who stand out

and they seem to have no interest other than to manipulate thread outcome in a negative way. (I am referring to posters who engage in ridicule and harassment, subtle or otherwise, not posters who just started posting recently) It's not just DU. I believe that there are some "paid" posters on the internet(s), but I don't think they post as "debunkers" necessarily. I think people find very specific, niches of 911 "truth", that they push and criticize anyone who doesn't believe that particular theory, which cause rifts and infighting, whereas the debunkers tend to unify 911 skeptics and even sharpen their arguments. (I don't want arguments , though, I want opinions and information not to have the topic cut short by ridicule.)

I agree with you, though, this is one of the forums that brings out extremes and I am being a hypocrite because I was "nice" until I started posting in 911, too, although I didn't start out by calling people "crazy" and being abusive like some of them.

[Jazz2006]

14. Well, how can I resist, Sinti?

Have you seen these around here?

1. If it's not reported, if it's not news, it certainly happened but the government is covering it up.

2. Wax indignant. This is also known as the "how dare you?" gambit.

3. Characterize any and all anomolies, real or perceived, as "suspicious facts". This is especially effective with fuzzy photographs in which one can claim to see just about anything and subsequently refer to it by name as though the photograph actually shows what you've named it. E.g. "molten metal", "demolition squibs", "concrete core". Repeat over and over again until your newly attributed title becomes the "conventional wisdom" among those who agree with you.

4. Knock down straw men. Deal only with the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Even better, create your own straw men. Make up anything you like and give it lead play while you pretend to respond to the facts and evidence presented by those who disagree with you, while simultaneously studiously avoiding the facts and evidence presented.

5. Call those who disagree names like "government shill", plant", "disruptor", and of course, "freeper". Be sure, too, to use heavily loaded verbs and adjectives when characterizing their posts and evidence. You must then carefully avoid fair and open debate with any of the people you have thus maligned, but you can still fling little arrows in their general direction by maligning them in posts directed to others.

6. Impugn motives. Attempt to marginalize those who disagree with you by suggesting strongly that they are not really interested in the truth but are simply pursuing a partisan political agenda or are out to make money (because they are really paid government shills, after all).

7. Invoke authority, any dubious form will do.

8. Dismiss the facts and evidence of those who disagree with you as "old news."

9. Don't ever come even half-clean. Toss your wildest and most outrageous claims out there on the basis that it is true because you thought it up and never, ever give an inch to allow some actual facts or evidence get in the way. Better to just say things like, "of course, this would be utterly simple to do" and ignore anything that suggests it might not be such a walk in the park as you pretend it is. Avoid all logic and never utilize any critical thinking skills.

10. Characterize the complexities required to carry out the events in the alternative scenario you've dreamt up as utterly simple, (E.g. all you need is a pickgun and a uniform; or all it would take is 7 people) and the truth as something that should be discernible in 60 minutes, including commercial breaks.

11. Reason backward, using the deductive method with a vengeance. With thoroughly rigorous deduction, troublesome evidence is irrelevant. For example: The government has many secrets that we are not privy to. The government has secret operations and operatives that we do not know about. The government has secret technologies that we do not know about. The government has unlimited resources to fund secret operations, research, and technology. Therefore, any theory I assert - no matter how preposterous on its face - is possible and you can't prove otherwise.

12. Require those who disagree with you to explain every bit of minutiae and every anomoly, and pretend that in the real world, anomolies do not exist or, alternatively pretend that in the real world, every anomoly and every bit of minutiae are fully explainable, so they should be in this case.

13. Change the subject. This technique includes creating and/or publicizing distractions.

14. Loudly report manufactured facts, and make mountains of them. Don't let real facts get in the way.

15. Baldly and brazenly lie. A favorite way of doing this is to attribute the "facts" you've made up to a plausible-sounding, but anonymous, source. A second way of doing this is to paraphrase a quote from a real person to make it sound like the source said something different than what was actually said. A third way is to quote a source who has retracted and renounced the alleged quote, but pretend that the source maintains the position that you cite.

16. Expanding further on numbers 4 and 5, have your own stooges follow you around and agree, sometimes quite breathlessly, with everything you say. You must do the same for those who agree with you. You must also be sure to have at least a few of your group jump in to disagree with everything said by anyone who disagrees with you. This creates the illusion of solidarity and strength in numbers among your "group". The purpose of this is to preempt others who disagree with you from bothering to respond because nobody enjoys the kind of piling on that you will quickly master and demonstrate so adeptly.

17. Repeat number 5 - call everyone who disagrees with you a "government agent". Act incredulous that anyone would disagree with you on the internet. Don't they know that discussion boards are for only one side (yours, of course) of any discussion? Apparently not. Pretend that anyone who disagrees with you is "defending the government" and "harassing" you. Pretend that only you and those who agree with you are "genuine critics". Pretend that you are the downtrodden, maligned and misunderstood underdog, the sole champion of truth, struggling mightily against an imaginary giant and evil foe, and that one day, you will rise like a phoenix from the ashes, you will save the world from its imminent destruction, all of your theories will be proven (by others, of course, since you're too busy posting theories on the internet to actually research any of the points you post) and the crowd will go wild. Well, it IS nice to have a dream.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=125

[greyl]

17. Do you know anything about the two guys you're quoting? nt

[vincent_vega_lives]

19. Do now

http://www.dabney.com/wacomuseum/index.html

But I doubt the poster does.

[greyl]

20. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. ;)

I'd hope the reference to Vince Foster being "murdered by" Clinton would have raised a skeptical eyebrow.