This interpretation is equally plausible (perhaps more so) for those who havent read Chalmers book, but got the metaphor. But in his book, Chalmers actually makes the case that blowback is very rare from the victims of any empire.
For Leftists after 9-11, blowback entails acceptance of the official story that the four planes were hijacked and commandeered by Al Qaida zealots and that those planes caused the WTC buildings to collapse, etc. This entails the repudiation of the notion that US government culpability could be anything more than incompetence; usually it involves an attempt to explain the motives of the people who did it, a rationalization for the actions of a group presumed to be guilty. Well offer two instances of blowback and one repudiation of conspiracy theory as a roadblock to truth. But first, a note on the metaphor.
THE IMPORTANCE OF METAPHOR FOR UNDERSTANDING
In his book, the Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Princeton psychologist Julian Jaynes observes that in trying to understand a thing we are trying to find a metaphor for that thing. Not just any metaphor, but one with something more familiar and easy to our attention. Understanding a thing is to arrive at a metaphor for that thing by substituting something that is more familiar to us. And the feeling of familiarity is the feeling of understanding.
But there can be inadequate metaphors, irrespective of the feeling of understanding. For example, this feeling of understanding was undoubtedly felt by those Greeks and Egyptians who got Ptolemys theory of the earth-centered universe.
Errors of attempted metaphor are errors of consciousness, Jaynes reminds us.
Failed metaphors (e.g., an earth-centered universe) might fall away faster if it werent for the vested interests in the metaphors continuity. The Church, for example, with its thousand-year investment in the Ptolemaic worldview, finally gave in to the evidence only after brutally suppressing people (e.g., the Churchs execution by burning of Giordano Bruno, 1600, Rome) and the increasingly abundant evidence.
Like the Ptolemaic metaphor, blowback as a metaphor holds credibility as long as the evidence is avoided. Among the secular, Progressives (The Left) tend to play an important role in keeping the new metaphor at bay.
HOW DID MICHAEL PARENTI BECOME A BLOWBACKER?
How did he join the ranks of The Left, the opposition that sees no need to examine the evidence, that goes along with Condoleezza Rices NSC pal Paul Zelikow and their blatant cover-up report on 9-11?
In Snowshoefilms haphazard query on the question of 9-11 (which began after we recovered from the blowback metaphor), weve watched Progressives shy away from conspiracy theory as an explanation of anything other than occasional scams, such as Iran-Contra and BCCI (as Parenti points out). Their critique is that the CIA/FBI etc. are sloppy & incompetent and cover-up only their own incompetence. Therefore to focus the Lefts attention on 9-11 is to just give the police agencies more money for more graft, incompetence and waste, and a bigger police state-spy apparatus. To focus on 9-11 is a waste of time, divisive, counter-productive, crazy. All this is possible if one doesnt examine the MOUNTAIN OF EVIDENCE. The leading advocate of this response is Noam Chomsky, top Progressive.
Historian and political analyst Walter Karp in his first book, Indispensable Enemies (1974), observed, When it can be established that a number of political acts work in concert to produce a certain result, the presumption is strong that the actors were aiming at the result in question. When it can be shown, in addition, that the actors have an interest in producing those results, the presumption becomes a fair certainty. No conspiracy theory is required On the other hand, those who make blanket condemnations of conspiracy theories base their own view on a farfetched theory indeed, namely that whatever those in high office actually do, they are essentially men of goodwill. According to this school of special pleading the King can do no wrong doctrine suitably updated it is entirely proper to praise an American President for skillfully engineering some desirable result, but to not the same skillful engineering of an indefensible one is to fall victim to political paranoia and conspiratorial fetishism [1]
PARENTIS CRITIQUE Weve been reading and buying Parentis books (& Chomskys) for a long time now, and it was a pleasure in 1996 to read in Parentis critique of Chomsky on this crucial point. In The JFK Assassination II: Conspiracy Phobia on the Left, Parenti wrote, Chomsky is able to maintain his criticism that no credible evidence has come to light only by remaining determinedly unacquainted with the mountain of evidence that has been uncovered
But after 9-11, Parenti rejoined The Progressives, eschewing conspiracy theory. His 1992 book The Terrorism Trap (September 11 And Beyond) begins this way: On the morning of September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked four US commercial airliners and managed to plow two of them into the twin towers of New Yorks World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon And later he distances himself from them further, saying they were a coterie of fanatical evildoers driven by a deranged theology who killed thousands by plowing planeloads of innocent people into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
Does his description fanatical evildoers driven by a deranged theology sound like any of the purported hijackers? Diminutive Hani Hanjour, whose hope was to become a airline steward? Who couldnt fly a single-engine plane. He was purportedly the pilot who did the near-360 degree the maneuver to plow into the Pentagon.. (www.physics911.net/missingwings.htm ). Or does Parentis description sound like supposed mastermind Muhamad Atta, cocaine-using fast track player documented by Daniel Hopsicker in Welcome to Terrorland ( http://www.madcowprod.com)? Its easy enough to pick up a copy of Paul Thompsons The Terror Timeline (Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute: A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Road to 9/11 ), or books by Michel Chossudovsky or David Ray Griffins books etc.
Never mind all the evidence (see www.snowshoefilms for starters), the books, films, conferences etc., Parenti, like Chomsky is able to maintain his criticism that no credible evidence has come to light only by remaining determinedly unacquainted with the mountain of evidence that has been uncovered
And how did it happen to Parenti? If you share the constituency with Chomsky, being an outcast on The Left may have been too unpleasant. If youre labeled a conspiracy theorist, you stop getting invited to the big rallies, the talk shows that sell your books. What good can you do if you havent got an audience? And then theres the matter of manipulated cog dis, to which well return.
PROGRESSIVE BLOWBACK Our awareness of Progressive Blowback was heightened in May 2005 in New York City (we were there to interview Sr. Rosalie Bertell). At an anti-nuke symposium at SUNY grad school, we encountered dozens of Leading Leftists in the halls and foyers, waiting their turn to speak, talking to friends and fans. Here was our chance to get their take on 9-11. Do you accept the official story? Isnt it important that we get it right, given that its the basis for Bushs whole war on terror.
Our first interview was with a physics professor from Princeton, a speaker at the previous days 60,000-plus Central Park anti-nuke rally that wed filmed. After a few other questions, we brought up 9-11, questions about the collapse of the WTC towers, including Building 7. I see no reason not to accept the official story I dont want to get into conspiracy theories about how September 11 happened or didnt happen. Im sorry. I dont think theres any reason to . Thousands of people died, including people I know. And I see .I see no evidence whatsoever that it was anything other than just what happened
I asked again about Building 7. Even awareness of the most basic details of the 6.5-SECOND collapse of the 47-story skyscraper should lead one to suspect the official story. What about Building 7?
I dont know the details of that particular situation; sorry, then left. Then he ran around warning about us; and so we finally left.
In a previous note, I referenced cognitive dissonance (http://www.snowshoefilms.com/filmmakersnb85cont.htm). In that encounter with Chautauqua County Republican minority leader, a man who identifies with the Right Wing, as opposed to the Left Wing represented by the physics professor, we saw Festingers explanation of cognitive dissonance hold up:
In his 1957 book, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, master behaviorist Leon Festinger explains involuntary and forced contact with information. He writes, Up to now [we have] focused mainly on voluntary exposure to, or avoidance of, new information. We must, however, also concern ourselves with situations where a person, through no voluntary action on his part, has new information impinge upon him which, if cognized, would increase dissonance. So lets say, for the sake of this brief experiment, that my colleague Mr. Caflisch is the person in the above situation described by Festinger, above. Im going to impinge new information on him which, if cognized, would increase dissonance. In most cases so far, for those on the left, dissonance has increased when weve impinged new information on them. According to Festingers sliding scale, Mr. Caflisch. is in a low dissonant state. By and large, this is because he has near-total faith in his government and the media (particularly Fox), and therefore does not actively avoid situations (i.e., myself, our topic) that could increase dissonance. Whereas a person like Chautauqua County Executive Mark Thomas (a Democrat and a liberal with the tendency to suspect that Bush is a liar) would avoid situations which, quoting Festinger, if cognized would increase dissonance. (filmmakers notebook 85: cog dis on the left/cog dis on the right)
The same holds true for our physics professor. Further, the pressure is so great that he proselytizes as a way to reduce dissonance, as predicted by Festinger.
(AN ASIDE: The CIA and Festinger were concerned in 1957 about large-scale proselyting activities. Festinger explained that such large scale proselytizing was conceptually no different from isolated instances of one person attempting to influence another to agree with some opinion. To put a little meat on this abstraction, lets say the large-scale proselyting was an exposure of the bogeyman farce of the threat of communism, or perhaps Paperclip Project and NASA, or MKULTRA mind control programs continuing the work of the Nazi doctors.
Or, to bring it up to date, the 9-11 hoax. What if mass proselytizing could expose the hoax that clearly the CIA was involved in (just as the Helms-Angleton group in the CIA orchestrated the assassination of JFK)? Festinger anticipated this concern: It remains for us [those who financed his research] however, to inquire into the conditions under which the existence of dissonance and the pressures to reduce it will manifest itself in mass proselyting activities. A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, p. 200
One way to assure that the they attacked us metaphor withstands scrutiny is to keep up the pressure on those prone to question George W. Bush (the predominant purveyor of the metaphor), the otherwise skeptical Left, or Progressives to respond with blowback. Clearly theres conscious manipulation involved but the bulk of the behavior is unconscious susceptibility to cog dis.
PARENTIS BLOWBACK (case #1) Toward the end of his Oshkosh lecture, Parenti offers an example of blowback when he says, it gets kind of sad when Osama bin Laden sounds better than your own president. There was a statement he made in November 2004 just before the elections. [here he quotes or paraphrases Osama bin Laden]:
Dont expect Bush or Kerry, either of them, to save you. We are not waging a war against you. You have been waging a war against us for decades. You have come in to the Middle East and have expropriated our resources, you have undermined our cultures, you have corrupted our youth, youve done all these things. We are fighting back. Thats what September 11 was about. And you can save yourself by changing your direction. Our fight is not a war of aggression, its a retaliation against your aggression. This is what he was saying.
Thus Parenti explains what 9-11 was blowback: revenge, retaliation, backfire, backstab, Al-Qaida, Osama, Abu Musab Zarqawi .
He continues, You go back to the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center 10 years before it was finally demolished September 11, 2003 [sic], go back to 1993. Those guys planted these huge van planted with explosives in the garage, the sub-basement of the World Trade Center and they blew up and they injured about a hundred people and killed about 18. It didnt bring down t he Trade Center as they were hoping. Theyre all in jail now. They published a letter in the New York Times, Why We Did It. It said, We did it because you have been destroying us.
Given Ralph Schoenmans isolation from the mainstream Left, its not too hard to understand how Parenti would not be familiar with Ralph Schoenmans 1993 expose of the FBI-Mossad false flag 1993 WTC bombing, but if not, he could look at Snowshoefilms interview with Schoenman, or Ted Gunderson, former FBI special agent in charges account, also on Snowshoefilms. But then, in the light of our understanding of cognitive dissonance, its very apparent that Parenti wouldnt be looking any sort of Schoenman-type debunking of the blowback, but rather, avoiding it.
Leaving aside Parentis easy acceptance of globally disseminated oracles from Osama and jailhouse confessions by framed patsies in the 1993 false flag bombing, Parenti buys into the Bush paradigm: e.g., that THEY ATTACKED US.
Many things are derived from accepting this collective cognitive imperative, and foremost, it appears, a continuing vulnerability to subsequent scams.
Julian Jaynes tries mightily to explain consciousness, just what it is, and how it quickly evolved as bicamerality broke down. He gets close to it, I think, when he explains that the recognition of treachery induces consciousness.
To back track just a tad, Jaynes suggests that the highpoints of our social civilizations (e.g. 18th Century BC societies of Crete and Hammurabi) were bicameral, pre-conscious, god-listening. Treachery was not part of that paradigm; treachery came into being as a survival tactic during the extended period of post-bicameral breakdown. Outmaneuvering the treacherous became a big source of entertainment, as per The Odyssey, Jaynes observes.
Treachery is an eye-opener; and once you realize treachery, fall victim to it, you tend to be CONSCIOUS of it the next time. If your fall is not ruinous.
It appears that The Left, the Progressives, play gatekeepers to consciousness, eschewing thoughts of comprehensive treachery by the government. This can be explained largely by a carefully controlled mass-media manipulation of cognitive dissonance.
Take the question of the 9-11 conspiracy (either way its a conspiracy, whether orchestrated from within or without). Who are the researchers and writers looking into the question? Largely theyre a disparate group, not part of anything quite often: engineers, scientists, technical people. By and large theyre not alarmed that The Left is silent on the great conspiracy of 9-11 because not being a part of the left (or politically hostile), they expect little or nothing.
WHY ITS IMPORTANT THAT THE LEFT ADDRESS ITS COGNITIVED DISSONANCE AND RE-EXAMINE 9-11 Just as the Commissars of the Culture (academics, journalists, artists et al., as described by Chomsky) have enormous influence (via institutions controlled by others), so also do Progressives have some power to address the depoliticized population of basically honest people who are otherwise vulnerable to manipulation through fear and sustained ignorance.
It doesnt require reading Julian Jaynes to sense that George W. Bush plays the role of oracle (as in Delphic Oracle), repeating the mantra, they attacked us. If THAT is believed, then the debate becomes about what the appropriate response should be. Ergo blowbackers with their metaphor merge and support the dominant metaphor, the war on terror.
Now, for a last example of the rejection of conspiracy theory as guided by Professor Chomsky. Questioned about 9-11, a young American Indian college student told us: I have to say I dont have enough information to make an educated decision about that, but I would like to say something about labeling things as conspiracy theories. Noam Chomsky has said before in the past that when you label things as conspiracy theories, it really puts a roadblock into finding out what the truth is, or uncovering what may lay behind the search for the truth. And I think that when people label something a conspiracy, its really a tragedy that it discounts almost all information that would go in to the search for the truth.
While those are the precise words of the young American Indian student, it would be unfair to hold Chomsky accountable for the students interpretation. Even so, its his interpretation and one he was so taken with he felt compelled to tell us on camera. The young man has not and will not examine evidence [re 9-11] because to do so would be conspiratorial and therefore would put a roadblock into finding out what the truth is
[1] In Indispensable Enemies (1974), Karp explicates the collusion between the two political parties, showing the process to be as rigged as commercial wrestling. In a 1988 roundtable discussion on the Iran-Contra Report (http://www.harpers.org/HearingNothingSayingNothing.html) Karp said, Much was left out and I dont think its an accident. You must attribute intentions to mens actions, otherwise we life in a completely lunatic world. If you go into a hardware store and the guy behind the counter cheats you, you dont say, Mistakes were made or He didnt have the right leadership or Its a failure of proper management. No, you say, That son of a bitch is a crook. Thats what you say. Men intend the consequences of their actions. filmmakers notebook #103
by Roy Harvey
In his book Dirty Truths (1996), Progressive historian Michael Parenti challenged the obfuscation by The Left on questions of conspiracy in particular, the assassination of JFK.
How is it that now he goes along quietly with the official story on 9-11, this granddaddy of all lies, this foundation of the Bush administrations war on terror? And not only that, Parenti became an aggressive proponent of blowback.
WHATS BLOWBACK? The term blowback, invented by the CIA, refers to the unintended consequences of American policies In Blowback, [Chalmers Johnson] issues a warning we would do well to consider: it is time for our empire to demobilize before our bills come due. -- Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (back cover).