The Aluminati, redux

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About a year ago, I wrote about the creation of a new class of political operatives; the Aluminati.

Over the years, becoming noticeable after the resignation of Richard Nixon and the subsequent abrogation of the U.S. promise to defend South Vietnam, the Aluminati came into influence, spreading the most irresponsible gossip and anti-American propaganda from the safe comfort of academic and journalistic bastions, free from criticism or the need to prove their case; the allegation was enough for the Left. One wonders what the Boston inflection of ‘J’accuse!’ might be.

Once established, the Aluminati fed richly off their unchallenged assertions. Claims that the Central Intelligence Agency had deliberatedly created and spread AIDS, while created from whole cloth of Leftist paranoia, nonetheless found currency among inner-city radicals and anti-American agents. The connection between Ronald Reagan and the Iranian government, though it never existed in fact, was firmly set in the minds of those pre-disposed to believe that an American President would put connivance ahead of his sworn oath. Even a Democrat President was not immune; as the end of the century approached, the completely unbalanced not only came to believe that the U.S. government was about to impose martial law and replace the American Constitution with something from the 'X-Files' for no reason or cause at all, but produced hoax tapes and fake documents to sell their story. Small wonder then, that when a Republican won the next election, the Aluminati saw the election as a coup d’tat, and when a terrorist group actually did kill thousands of Americans in a vicious act of malice, the Aluminati blamed America for the attack. Success in the War on Terror must, to their mind, be derided as failure. Authorizing the tools to be used against terrorists, already in use against gangsters and drug cartels, must be denounced as attacks on Civil Liberties. An age of unparalleled hypocrisy and hate began in 2002, not by the government but by those individuals and groups which hated the American ideal and mission.

The Aluminati knew they were losing in 2003. The fall of Baghdad was a crushing blow for thugs in Fallujah and Damascus, and also for professors in Berkeley and Senators known to Martha’s Vineyard. The Aluminati might have been unbalanced, but they were not without resources, and it is no coincidence that Michael Moore began production of his most infamous propaganda piece to counter the clear U.S. victory. It is no coincidence that Moore sided with the terrorists in Iraq; he knew their brothers as his patrons in the film industry.

Moore’s earlier success in selling lies cloaked as a documentary opened the door to a cottage industry for the Aluminati. It worked for Oliver Stone, Michael Moore, and Barbra Streisand, and it allowed Jane Fonda and Sean Penn to commit treason with effective impunity. It wasn’t long before the Democrats, aware of their chronic losses in federal elections, decided to consider implementing Aluminati tactics in their campaigns. It became apparent early in the primary season, that attacks on the Republicans brought in contributions and poll support, even when those attacks were completely irresponsible and included lies about the troops and misquoted history. With the support of the television and print media, the Aluminati believed they had little reason to worry about contradiction or backlash. Fortunately, the 21st Century has produced a social antibody to the Aluminati; the New Media.

Abuses of the truth and public trust by the Old Media had become obvious to most Americans by the end of the 1980s. Even the clear disdain by the New York and Los Angelese elites against regular people and their concerns could not stop the rising popularity of Talk Radio, and the subsequent stardom of Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh proved unanswerable for the Aluminati, in large part because he destroyed their contentions simply by presenting them in context, by presenting the historical facts against their claims, and by allowing regular people to say their piece. While Limbaugh at times is himself bombastic and over-the-top, he still presented a threat the Aluminati could not answer. And Limbaugh was only the first of many voices in radio. By 1999, the Aluminati could no longer present a claim with the assumption that it would be accepted simply because they said it was so.

Many people born before 1980 do not understand the full impact of the personal computer; certainly IBM blundered in not even making a true PC available until after Apple proved the market’s viability for the product. But the evolution of the Internet Community was unseen by almost everyone. The Aluminati believed that by controlling the print and television media, they could prevent any serious threat to their control of the flow of information. The creation of the FOX network proved that was incorrect but worse, the sudden rise in the ability and number of blogs showed a vector dominated not by political factions, but by the users and audience themselves. Where Old Media influence was controlled by money and patronage, the New Media depended on the coin of Credibility of the blogs. By the beginning of 2004, the number of blogs showed a strong rise, and by the end of 2004 the count had positively exploded, with speciality blogs relevant to any consideration. The Aluminati falsely compared the Bush Administration to failed economic periods and disastrous enterprises; blog economists and historians not only countered their claims, but provided compelling proof. The Aluminati lied about military morale and conditions; military on active duty themselves countered those claims with the new class of ‘Milblogs’. The Aluminati lied about the polls; statisticians and analysts ripped open contrived analyses to show flawed demographics, even the outright manipulation of the respondent pool to obtain the desired results. The Aluminati even found themselves unable to manipulate smear campaigns; an attempt to defame the Swift Boat Veterans’ criticism of John Kerry backfired as the Swift Boat Vets provided consistent and corroborated evidence to back up their claims; to this date John Kerry has not backed his contentions. Worse for the tinfoil warriors, a crass attempt by CBS to influence the 2004 Presidential Election by using forged documents to back up false claims about President Bush’s service during the Vietnam conflict backfired when document and typesetting experts, along with military clerks who served during the early 1970s and family of the supposed author countered the claims effectively. The Aluminati’s favorite weapon, to flood the airwaves with rumors and charges against Conservatives, was now worth a great deal less, as average Americans began to challenge unsupported contentions and demand evidence.

The 2004 re-election of George W. Bush, accompanied by gains in the Congress which reinforced the message, has scared the Aluminati enough that a number of Democrats have reverted to the faux Americana that got Bill Clinton elected. But a number of the Aluminati refuse to reject the tactics that brought wealth to Michael Moore and fame to Howard Dean. The easy glory from the Hard Left has become an addiction the Aluminati cannot do without, even in the face of growing evidence that America is growing more conservative, away from liberalism.

The selection of Howard Dean as the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, the continuing efforts by CNN and CBS to pursue an all-out policy of false accusation against the Bush Administration, and the resurgent attempts to quell free speech on the internet and in radio all show the determined if last-ditch effort to stop or slow the advance of citizen journalism. For the near future at least, the market for tinfoil accessories remains alive, however futile its mission.