First, they ignore you.

Then, they call you a "conspiracy theorist."

Then, they fight a strawman and pretend it's you.

Then, you're proven right. But it doesn't make any difference, because they control the spin, and by now they're lying about something else, anyway.

A whole lot of sensible knickers are getting twisted over some folks questioning the provenance of the earthquake and tsunami. Look, for instance, at this story: "Conspiracy theorists see dark forces behind tsunami disaster":

In bars and Internet chatrooms around the world questions are being asked, with knowing nods and winks, about who caused the submarine earthquake off Sumatra on December 26, and why governments were so slow to act in the minutes and hours before tsunamis slammed into their shores, killing almost 150,000.

"There's a lot more to this. Why is the US sending a warship? Why is a senior commander who was in Iraq going there?" whispered designer Mark Tyler, drinking a pint of beer at a bar in Hong Kong's Wan Chai district.

"This happened exactly a year after Bam," said Tyler, referring to the earthquake in Iran which killed 30,000 on December 26 last year. "Is that a coincidence? And there was no previous seismic activity recorded in Sumatra before the quake, which is very strange," he said, nodding somberly.

...

Among the more common suggestions is that eco-weapons which can trigger earthquakes and volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves were being tested.

You gotta love that Lone Gunmen colour. I wonder how many "knowing nods and winks" the author really saw, or if the conspiracist truly "whispered."

Democratic Underground was singled out this week by The New York Times and FoxNews for posts which asked whether there might be more than nature at play. That the US mainstream - and it doesn't get more mainstream than those two - would pick over an anonymous message board for "extreme" examples of free speech was silly enough. (Unbalanced, too: when has either singled out examples of the grotesque ignorance and bloodlusting hate on sites such as "Free Republic"?) Compounding the silliness with a dispiriting concession to those who are forever permitted to frame the debate, DU's administrators have now banned "Kooky Tsunami Conspiracy Theories," though every relevent post merely questioned whether a human agency was possible, and tried to raise awareness of the military's interest in weaponizing the forces of nature. This, despite the fact not a single death can be attributed to "Kooky Tsunami" theories; unlike, say, the Kooky WMD Theories popularized and unretracted by the Times and FoxNews. (And, as was to be expected, the call has already gone out from DU's perpetually embarrassed handwringing moderates to further constrict the freespeech zone: "Can we extend this to 'Kooky 9/11 Conspiracy Theories' too?")

If it's a kooky theory, and it involves killing people, you can be sure the Pentagon is there. In 1997, then-Secretary of Defense William Cohen admitted to taking seriously the threat of seismic weapons in the hands of terrorists. Even the hypothetical possibility of triggering "earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves" was cause for the Pentagon's concern. What does that suggest regarding the Pentagon's level of interest towards the research and development of its own seismic weapon system?

And not just the Pentagon. In his autobiography Through the Eyes of the Enemy, Lt Col Stanislav Lunev - the highest ranking defector from Soviet military intelligence - acknowledges that the USSR was developing and testing seismic weapons in the mid-1980s. (The Amazon editorial review notes that the book "could be dismissed as fantastic paranoid ravings were the source not so credible and the ramifications not so severe.") Also Akif Gasanov, a former KGB intelligence officer, claims to have seen evidence of Soviet tectonic weaponry 20 years ago:

GASANOV: I became aware of this subject quite by accident in 1985. I was working in the Second Department (counterintelligence) in the linear branch of Western espionage. I needed some new assistants to "set up" foreign diplomats. We would usually select these people from among intellectuals who were of interest to the Western special services.

...

The information I received seemed fantastic. Certain scientists at the Academy of Sciences were working on problems associated with earthquakes. There was a certain Ikram Kerimov and a group of his associates, the most notable of whom was Dzhafar Dzhafarov, son of Khady Dzhafarov, the well-known [Azerbaijani Petrochemical Institute] professor.

Ikram Kerimov asserted that they could control and initiate earthquakes. Moreover, he said they had theoretical justification for their assertions and were attempting to obtain minimal financing in the academic sphere. In their opinion, there were grounds to believe that a number of earthquakes that had occurred recently may well have been initiated through a remote control device or accidentally triggered directional influence on the Earth's core.

We collected materials that might prove factually relevant, then drew up and submitted our report to the center.... It would usually take a month or more to process information. On this occasion, however, we received a conclusion very quickly. The assessment was fairly high for internal USSR information. It was treated as intelligence information. There was an immediate request to prepare the most extensive possible analytical reference package on the material and send it to the VPK (military-industrial complex). As a result of VPK study, a very high assessment was given. Scientists were then brought to Moscow to elaborate the subject matter. According to main information, an outstanding environment was created for them. They were afforded almost unlimited financing and the ability to conduct experiments.

...

In the late 1980s, a series of earthquakes took place encompassing a vast territory -- from India to Central Asia. Accusations of the use of tectonic weapons and directed towards the Soviet Union appeared in the Western press at that time. Our scientists who had participated in the development of tectonic weapons declined to give a response to all questions dealing with the nature of these earthquakes.

Then there's Dennis Kucinich's Space Preservation Act. As tabled before Congress on October 2, 2001, it defined "exotic weapons" as those "designed to damage space or natural ecosystems (such as the ionosphere and upper atmosphere) or climate, weather, and tectonic systems with the purpose of inducing damage or destruction upon a target population or region on earth or in space." But be careful to whom you mention it. No evidence is enough for some who need to deny the hidden High Weirdness of our world.

The same goes for weather modification, mind control, remote viewing - heck, even attempting to kill with a stare and walk through walls. The deep black world of military-intelligence R&D is all real, all crazy, all the time. And that's just the part we know about. There is no greater conspiracy theorist than the US defence establishment, and its kooky theorizing has the benefit of God knows how many trillions of unaudited dollars to see its theories become practice. What has it left us to not question?

Here's a tsunami conspiracy story even the Times and Fox wouldn't ridicule, because they would likely commend it:

US eyes greater military clout in Asia following tsunami tragedy

The massive US-led relief operation in tsunami-hit Asia is expected to give the American military greater clout in the region and bolster counterterrorism efforts, analysts say. Backed by an array of US warships, planes and helicopters, more than13,000 US military personnel have been dispatched to help Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka, the countries most affected by the December 26 disaster.

Conducting its largest operation in Asia since the Vietnam War, the US military could remain in the region for up to six months, analysts said here Tuesday.... US forces are also using Thailand's Vietnam war-era air base of Utapao as an airlift hub for the humanitarian mission in the region, strengthening potential US military logistical support throughout southeast Asia.

Also:

The emergency relief operations appear to provide a windfall opportunity for beefing up the American military presence in Southeast Asia, part of the expanding Pentagon strategy of "forward positioning,"establishing sites, so-called "air cargo hubs, "where American forces can stash equipment and enter and leave as desired."

Myself, I think it's most likely the earthquake and tsunami occurred naturally, but I can't say with certainty. And certainty about the natural world is something I miss.


By the way, all those who wonder whether there's something fishy about David Corn, and all those who don't, really ought to read Andres Kargar's "A Mole in the Progressive Movement"? Corn does more damage to the left than a hundred thousand "Bush caused the tsunami!" threads.