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

David Ray Griffin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 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."

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: #477,901 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

213 of 220 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Traitor Betrays Himself August 30, 2010

By Thomas C. Fletcher

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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. Read more ›

87 of 89 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A demolition of Sunstein's essay September 19, 2010

By M. S. Clark

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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

63 of 64 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Deconstruction of a Fascist Proposal to Destroy the 9/11 Truth Movement November 29, 2010

By Dennis P. McMahon

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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. Read more ›

81 of 87 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lives, Fortunes, Sacred Honor September 13, 2010

By James L. Hufferd

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Dr. David Ray Griffin's dozen or so remarkable books to date dealing with 9/11 and closely-related subjects -- including this latest one -- and the reception accorded them by the minute but ultra-powerful intellectually-occupied segment of the population speak volumes about our tenuous national condition. First of all, Dr. Griffin, not a forensic scientist himself, assembles and both ingeniously and impeccably (from a logical viewpoint) analyzes all of the knowable evidence from all sources on the 9/11 crimes or attacks, and renders it into stunning courtroom-ready evidence PROVING, among other things, that insiders, and not al-Qaeda, brought down the three WTC buildings that fell, by contolled demolition and not utilizing airplanes, jet-fuel fires, or 4 or 5 tiny box scalpels against all of the crew and passengers per plane. Any just court in the world would, through its machinations, accept such evidence and find prolbable cause for an impartial full criminal investigation. But America's entire legal system is sealed against that possibility, to protect ____?_____ from the unimpeded workings of justice. Furthermore, other public intellects don't protest this truly appalling (and sadly revealing) official reception to inroads of the truth when it comes to 9/11. In fact, 99.9% of them remain silent and calm, neither outwardly recognizing David Ray Griffin for his monumental courage or giant epistemological feat of priceless truth-telling in the thankless service to his country.... And, though the enterprising among them may write books and doorstop-size tomes dealing with the horrific events of our times and their deep backgrounds and consequences, the giant, inescapable truth involving the true origins and meaning of 9/11, the greatest and defining event of our time is NEVER in the run of things attributed to the PROVEN true perpetrators; not are any of Dr. Griffin's great studies or conclusions ever even mentioned in such. Major media sources don't pan them or dispute any of their conclusions. In fact, they are TABOO -- year after year, they never even mention them. Is such a total shutting out of David's matchlessly-powerful, impeccably-justified message due to the workings of POWER against it? No. It's due, above all, to the nearly-universal lack of COURAGE in contemporary America. Courageous members of the media would not shirk their sworn responsibility of learning ALL about 9/11, the biggest potential news story of our world, and thereby, inevitably confronting the truth of David Ray Griffin. And NOTHING could keep them from standing shoulder to shoulder at his side. Public figures who know the truth of what he divulges grovel in their comfort and pretended ignorance, instead of rushing to join him, REGARDLESS of the cost. Because, can their fleeting lives, or their careers, spent smugly complicit in hiding the lie, ever stack up at all significalntly against the worsening fate of their country and world, cowering in its state of denial and submission to many of the very unjust and shameless fugitives from justice, who should be in jails or dungeons worse than Guantanamo, wielding many of the levers of power still today going forward? If there are any good men and women, let them read and be inspired by David's books, our blueprints along with a few others, and not fail to act. And if Cass Sunstein is more than an intellectual worm or worse, let him heed and answer truth with admirable integrity! Read more ›