Lance deHaven-Smith in Conspiracy Theory in America reframes issue as state crime against democracy (SCAD).
Lance deHaven-Smith, in his concise treatise on “conspiracy theory in America,” demonstrates that Americans have been suspicious about the powerful from before the birth of our nation. Our country was born of a conspiracy theory that the King of England was plotting against the colonies. Read the Declaration of Independence to see the list of grievances.
The American founders realistically feared that the King of England and the British Parliament were conspiring to limit the colonists to the Eastern seaboard and end the slave trade and slavery itself, as Britain eventually did. The King of England sought to make the land to the west of the Appalachia his private park. George Washington had already claimed title to land in the Ohio Valley, land claimed by the King of England.
Ironically, the American oligarchs feared domination from the King while aspiring to build their own private domains of power and expand slavery into states to the west. The point is, suspicion of the powerful is baked into our culture.
Inspite of this history, public intellectuals would argue that thinking “conspiracy theories” about the elites is “paranoid” and “unscientific.”
Meanwhile, popular suspicion of the elites increased after the JFK assassination in 1963, and since then, there has been a steady run of suspicious activity from the deep state that indicates state corruption, like October surprises, Iran / Contra arm sales, Octopus murders of journalists, up to the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001 and the subsequent Anthrax letter bombs, and there is more.
deHaven-Smith sets the ‘conspiracy theory’ stage by laying out how popular thinking has been moulded to not think about the evidence that shows a state crime against democracy. For example, the obvious violation of Texas law by the Secret Service when they whisked (at gunpoint) JFK’s body out of the state on Air Force One; thus, the Secret Service denied the state’s sovereign right to make findings of fact for a death.
Furthermore, washing the president’s limousine is a tell that the event was orchestrated and evidence covered up. Tampering with evidence, not conducting a true forensic examination of the crime scene, is a crime and cannot be rationalized as “in the national interest.”
Managing the truth: suppress curiosity
deHaven-Smith examines the ideas of Charles Beard, Karl Popper and Leon Strauss, all active during the period preceding and following WW 2. These scholars influenced the social sciences, ideas which filtered into popular thought. The CIA would build on Popper and Strauss in the famous 1967 memo to discredit doubters of the Warren Commission Report.
deHaven-Smith further discusses how the CIA weaponized the term “conspiracy theory” to deflect attention away from evidence that points to a deep state crime. The term ‘conspiracy theory’ was developed as a logical fallacy to slur anyone who would doubt the official narrative.
A SCAD is a category of crime that should be investigated like we normally investigate other crimes. Examples of a SCAD include killing presidents, stealing elections, starting wars, the September 11th crimes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the Anthrax attack on the Senate to push the Patriot Act into law.
deHaven-Smith wrote Conspiracy Theory in America because he wanted to restore democracy, or restore some semblance of constitutional integrity, including checks and balances, on people who have command of the state. He points out that there is not a statute of limitations for murder and that if state crimes were actually prosecuted, then the bad guys committing the crimes would be put in jail or hanged, and this would end what has developed into elite impunity to commit SCADs.
Creating an actual democracy requires a solid majority of Americans accepting the truth that we do have a powerful ruling class that is antagonistic to the people having power and influence. We the people need to understand that elements within the ruling power elite deploy a deep state that commits crimes and then covers them up. We need to counteract this political fact (juggernaut of power) with civic awareness that if we don’t act, we face a technocratic fate if we don’t pursue a democratic destiny. https://greenlibertycaucus.org/resist-fate-choose-destiny/
By naming a state crime a SCAD, deHaven-Smith provides language to cut through the fog of war that obfuscates deep state crimes.
Though many accept that the government lies to us, many can’t conceive of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, much less the John F. Kennedy assassination, as events carried out by people in the government, people who have taken the constitutional oath of office to look out for the “general welfare” and protect the country from domestic and foreign violence. Suggesting there is, or once was, a government deep state evil cabal is a preposterous proposition to some. Indeed, the claim often triggers cognitive dissonance. But evidence suggests this is in fact the case.
The difficulty of speaking frankly and forthrightly about conspiracy theories, about the role of the deep state in state crimes, has been conditioned into society by the CIA’s program to make “conspiracy theory” a slur, a rhetorical poison pill.
How can we remove the slur of “conspiracy theory” and give the term the dignity it deserves so we can identify and talk about actual SCADs? Short answer: talk about the evidence. What does it show? Frame “conspiracies” as SCADs when evidence suggests this is the case.
deHaven-Smith opens his book with an observation about Richard Hofstadter, “a political scientist and author who wrote that popular conspiracy theories stem from the ‘paranoid style in American politics.’”
This was 1964, a year after JFK’s assassination, but he wasn’t talking about doubters of the Warren Commission Report but about “right-wing fears of communism in the McCarthy era.”
Indeed, characterizing ‘conspiracy theories’ as a mental flaw has its antecedent in the work of Karl Popper and Leon Strauss, but Hofstadter’s article presages the 1967 CIA memo.
DeHaven-Smith contrasts Popper and Strauss with the ideas of Charles Beard, who was suspicious of the rich ruling class and who viewed elite power as a real problem. He claimed that the elites used the Fourteenth Amendment as a Trojan horse to get corporations protection under the constitution (think https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/118/394/). Beard expressed a healthy skepticism about the power elite.
Beard’s reasoning about the powerful plutocracy played third fiddle to the ideas of Karl Popper and Leon Strauss. Popper, considered more left and a proponent for an “open” society, is considered the source for a neoliberal perspective; he painted “conspiracy theories” as “unscientific” and unreliable and argues that plots by the elites invariably fail because of institutional and individual variables that cannot be controlled.
Leon Strauss, on the other hand, accepts that to save society from negative forces, the powerful elite should engage in conspiracies against the people and use false flag events to contrive war, in the spirit of advancing the “noble lie,” which Plato rationalized as a tactic to rule over the people and run society. Strauss, a “conspiracy realist,” is considered the father of the neoconservative movement.
The point is that Popper and Strauss, for different but related reasons, come down against questioning the power elite as capable of a state crime, thus stifling the natural suspicion that leads people to look at the evidence and recognize an elite conspiracy and its manifest state crime.
Beard, on the other hand, accepts that the elites do conspire and do carry out crimes against democracy out of class interest to dominate and be in control.
Popper and Strauss have had the greatest influence on the social sciences and therefore dominate the academic discourse, while Beard’s frank and open consideration of elite crimes is given short shrift.
The term “conspiracy theory” was weaponized by the CIA in 1967 to stop the growing community of doubters of the Warren Commission Report from gaining a strong foothold in the popular consciousness. The propaganda campaign was very successful given how today discourse about state crimes remains obfuscated by fears of wading into a “conspiracy theory.” When the “conspiracy theory” slur is directed against someone inquiring about the truth of JFK or 9/11, the inquiry is discredited; hence, talking about elite conspiracies is a dead end for many.
Conspiracy Theory in America introduces language that reveals a type of crime that is taboo to discuss. The book endeavors to reclaim language and pull the veil back on events that are covered up under a ‘conspiracy theory’ slur. This book gives us, we the people, the rhetorical means to highlight the corruption, condemn it, and in the process undermine plutocracy by indicting them as a criminal class. This can create an opening in society to build a real democracy.