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

David Ray Griffin
4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)

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Book Description

September 1, 2010
Griffin's meritorious effort to raise public awareness and understanding

Former Chicago and Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, who in 2009 was appointed by President Barack Obama to direct an important executive branch office, had in 2008 co-authored an article containing a plan for the government to prevent the spread of anti-government "conspiracy theories." Arguing that such theories are believed only by groups suffering from "informational isolation," he advocated the use of anonymous government agents to engage in "cognitive infiltration" of these groups in order to introduce "cognitive diversity," with the aim of breaking them up.

Noting that Sunstein's proposal has evoked condemnations from across the political spectrum--not least because it, being similar to the FBI's COINTELPRO of the 1960s, would be illegal--David Ray Griffin focuses on the fact that Sunstein's primary target is the conspiracy theory advocated by the 9/11 Truth Movement. Examining Sunstein's charge that this theory is both "harmful" and "demonstrably false," Griffin uses both satire and overwhelming evidence to show that this twofold charge applies instead to what Sunstein calls "the true conspiracy theory" about 9/11-namely, the "theory that Al-Qaeda was responsible for 9/11."


Frequently Bought Together

Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee's Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory + 9/11 Ten Years Later: When State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed + Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"In the United States today, the phrase `conspiracy theory' functions as a sort of giant cudgel, used to scare us out of talking openly about a broad (and ever-growing) range of scandals that the powerful cannot afford to let the people comprehend. In this new book, David Ray Griffin takes devastating aim at that repressive tactic, exposing it for what it really is. All those who cherish democracy, and intellectual freedom, owe it to themselves to read this brave analysis---and owe its author their sincerest thanks." --- Mark Crispin Miller, Professor of Culture and Communication, New York University

About the Author

David Ray Griffin is professor of philosophy of religion and theology, emeritus, at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California, where he remains a co-director of the Center for Process Studies. He is the author of over 30 books.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 202 pages
  • Publisher: Olive Branch Press (September 1, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1566568218
  • ISBN-13: 978-1566568210
  • Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #367,566 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

4.9 out of 5 stars
(42)
4.9 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
211 of 218 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The Traitor Betrays Himself August 30, 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
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 "informational isolation" 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 diversity," 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 of 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.
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87 of 89 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A demolition of Sunstein's essay September 19, 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Griffin's complete demolition of Sunstein's essay is controlled and precise. The ten major pillars of Sunstein's argumentative structure are taken apart one by one in this brilliant book. Be prepared for a bit of slower reading in the first fifty pages as the fuses are being set, but run for your lives starting with Chapter Five as the edifice of the official 911 story and Sunstein's rhetorical supports come crashing down. If you're an evidence-based thinker and you're not completely persuaded that the official narrative of 911 is completely implausible after reading this book, please discuss that in a review here. I would really like to hear it.

Merri Sue Clark, Eugene OR
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63 of 64 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
David Ray Griffin's "Cognitive Infiltration" is a devastating deconstruction of Cass R. Sunstein's shocking and dangerous proposal to have the U.S. government illegally infiltrate and destroy the 9/11 Truth Movement. Sunstein--a Harvard Law Graduate, President Obama's choice to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and once described by Elena Kagan (now a Supreme Court Justice) as "the preeminent scholar of our time"--is unmasked by Griffin and shown to be a fascist automaton, eager to openly do the bidding of the enforcers of the official 9/11 myth that is used to justify the government's perpetual wars in the Middle East, and the ongoing suppression of civil liberties at home. Especially horrifying is that Sunstein is now in a position to help implement the very unconstitutional policies he so eagerly espoused. "Cognitive Infiltration" provides an intelligent and measured response to the twisted madness of Sunstein, who as a result of offering his frightening proposal, has revealed himself to be unworthy of holding public office.

In an analysis of the ten theses that form the basis of the Obama appointee's proposal to eradicate 9/11 Truth, Griffin distinguishes between two levels of meaning in Sunstein's essay: the exoteric (surface) and the esoteric (hidden). The esoteric interpretations portray Sunstein in such a favorable light that readers may wonder if Griffin is being serious in his praise or not. The answer is provided in the Conclusion of "Cognitive Infiltration."

Early on in "Cognitive Infiltration," to counter Sunstein's thesis that conspiracy theories in the U.S. are usually both unjustified and false, Griffin provides excellent summaries of no less than seventeen so-called "conspiracy theories" involving the U.S. government that in time proved to be true, including: numerous U.S. overthrows of legitimate governments around the world (Iran, Guatemala, Indonesia, Chile, Panama, Haiti, etc.); the manufactured Gulf of Tonkin incident (which Lyndon Johnson used as a pretext for escalating the Vietnam War); the FBI's illegal counter-intelligence program (COINTELPRO) which targeted Martin Luther King and the anti-Vietnam War Movement (and which seems to have served as a model for Sunstein's plan to target the 9/11 Truth Movement); Operation Mockingbird, involving CIA infiltration and (ongoing) control of the U.S. "free press;" and the "Deadly Lie at Ground Zero (2001)" initiated by the Bush-Cheney White House which ordered the EPA to tell the public that the air around NYC's World Trade Center following the 9/11 attacks was safe to breathe, even though test results indicated that the air was highly toxic. Trusting their government, 40,000 rescue and clean-up workers dutifully returned to work, unaware of the lies and the danger. As Griffin documents, 60-70% of these Ground Zero workers have come down with various debilitating illnesses, including cancer, and many have already died.

While analyzing Sunstein's primary claim--that those who hold to any unofficial 9/11 conspiracy theory do so because they suffer from `informational isolation' and a `crippled epistemology'--Griffin exposes the absurdity of Sunstein's theory by focusing on the intellectual leadership of the 9/11 Truth Movement, and their impressive credentials. In so doing, Griffin effectively demonstrates that it is Sunstein who is informationally isolated and possessed by a crippled epistemology, as a result of not having done his 9/11 homework.

Similarly, Griffin shows that Sunstein's charge that the 9/11 Truth Movement's evidence is weak or nonexistent would be more appropriately leveled at proponents of the official 9/11 conspiracy theory. In refuting this Sunstein allegation, Griffin includes a masterful overview of the existing evidence which proves, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the government has lied about what really happened on 9/11.

In a draft of his essay published on the internet, Sunstein, an old friend of Obama, let slip that the government enlisted the editors of Popular Mechanics to serve as the government's `independent experts' on 9/11, Griffin reports. Thus, Sunstein's "proposal" may have sprung from an inner-circle knowledge that the 9/11 Truth Movement is already being cognitively infiltrated (which would come as no surprise to many 9/11 Truthers who suspect that there already are trolls, provocateurs, and "limited hangouts" on the internet). In this light, Sunstein's essay can be seen more as a clandestine attempt to legitimize the government's cognitive infiltration that is already taking place.

Whatever the motivations for Sunstein's fascist proposal, the number of 9/11 Truth converts continues to grow, Griffin notes. If the call for illegal infiltration of the 9/11 Truth Movement is the best plan that can be devised by this "pre-eminent legal scholar," Griffin asks, tongue in cheek, might it not be time for the defenders of the official 9/11 conspiracy theory "to throw in the towel?" Synchronistically, just prior to this writing, two mainstream media personalities--Geraldo Rivera and Judge Andrew Napolitano, both on Fox no less--have begun challenging the government's official conspiracy theory, while admitting that the 9/11 Truth Movement could be right in saying that 9/11 was an inside job.

Time will tell how much 9/11 Truth will be allowed to enter the mainstream, and where exactly that will lead. Whatever the extent and direction, Sunstein will have unwittingly contributed to the effort by writing an essay that "has provided such an excellent foil for [Griffin's] laying out of the current nature of the 9/11 Truth Movement, along with the extent and quality of its evidence," as the literary leader of the 9/11 Truth Movement acknowledges at the end of "Cognitive Infiltration," a truly brilliant work.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars Important material not well presented
In spite of the legitimacy of the material presented, the book lacked a compelling discussion of its material. Other books telling the same story were more interesting.
Published 4 months ago by Robert Deller
5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect Solution
Mr. Griffin has found the key to gain support for all of his excellent information on 9/11 -that wasn't drawing as much interest in the past. Read more
Published 19 months ago by KC
5.0 out of 5 stars A Noble Lie
I had great fun reading David Ray Griffin's Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee's Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Shawn Hamilton
5.0 out of 5 stars Clever, inarguable interpretations by David Ray Griffin
David Ray Griffin has written yet another great book. "Cognitive Infiltration" is a great review of Cass Sunstein's essay on how to halt the growth of the 9/11 Truth Movement and... Read more
Published on March 16, 2011 by Me2
5.0 out of 5 stars DRG Does it Again!
Over the years, Dr. Griffin has tirelessly, repeatedly, and systematically done the scientific yeoman's work that other "truth gurus" regularly get rich off of and this latest work... Read more
Published on January 28, 2011 by Long Beach Dude
5.0 out of 5 stars A Case for the High Court
Cass Sunstein is a highly regarded, pedigreed constitutional scholar and lawyer. He graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude, clerked for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood... Read more
Published on January 14, 2011 by Rev. Dr. Ronald David
5.0 out of 5 stars Sly and dry
For those who are already 'awake' this book is a must, if only for DRG's sly, dry wit in lampooning Obama's communication consigliere, Cass Sunstein. Read more
Published on January 5, 2011 by Allan Weisbecker
5.0 out of 5 stars how to dismantle and demolish the government conspiracy theory of 9/11
david ray griffin is an intellectual giant.
he also has a good soul.
read this book
if you still believe in the official 9/11 conspiracy theory
you have... Read more
Published on November 2, 2010 by lethal77
5.0 out of 5 stars Cognitive Infiltration a Must Read
Author David Ray Griffin covers all the bases. All of his previous books about 9-11 are fact based set in a logical format. Cognitive Infiltration is no diffeent. Read more
Published on October 28, 2010 by Tim D
5.0 out of 5 stars Does Obama have a secrect plan to real the truth to the American...
While reading this book I must admit I was reading it nearly literally as if it was true that Obama does indeed have a secret plan to reveal the truth about 9/11 to the American... Read more
Published on October 24, 2010 by Herbert Giles
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