It was around 6 p.m. on April 1, 2002. Earlier that day, I had finished the book Bias, by Bernard Goldberg. MSNBC's Hardball, hosted by Chris Matthews, was on the TV. As I watched, Matthews introduced his two guests for the next segment of the show, a segment focusing on the current situation in the Middle East.
But Matthews missed the point. Instead of labeling Pipes' opponent for the sake of fairness, Matthews simply reasserted that the label he had given Pipes was appropriate. No label was ever given to the other guest, the man from the Brookings Institute, who was of course, there to debate the issue with Pipes and present the alternate viewpoint.
What's the point of this short story from my daily life? Well, first of all let me say that I generally like Chris Matthews. He's one of my favorite commentators. And although I don't always agree with him, I generally find him to be an honest, sincere person. And that is precisely my point.
The result of Chris Matthews' label was that Daniel Pipes was identified as potentially biased and prejudiced against the Palestinians. Pipes' opponent, on the other hand, was not labeled at all, creating by default the impression that, unlike Pipes, this man was unbiased and neutral. This, in turn, produces the unstated but clear impression that his views were more credible than Pipes' views and should be subject to less scrutiny.
It was all very subtle and I'm sure most of us wouldn't have even noticed, myself and Chris Matthews included. If I hadn't just finished Bias, it wouldn't have even occurred to me. But this type of one-sided labeling is one of the items that author Bernard Goldberg brings to light in the book. And, I'm sure Chris Matthews himself probably didn't even notice. He probably wasn't intentionally trying to color his audiences' perception of the two guests. It was just a reflex based upon Matthews' own genuine assessment of the two men and their respective positions.
But we'll come back to Bernard Goldberg's book and its exploration of the subtleties of mass communication later.
A while back, sometime in the last six months, I was watching a special about "Conspiracy" on the History Channel. One of the experts on the program made comments along the following lines. Conspiracy theorists, he asserted, may at first glance appear to base their work on research. However, as he put it, there was, in fact, "no credible scholarship" behind the notion of an ongoing, global conspiracy.
No doubt there is no shortage of cooks and nuts in the camp of the conspiracy theorists. But is there really not a single credible scholarly work supporting the theory of a global conspiracy?
Perhaps, ironically, the History Channel expert who made those comments was none other than the aforementioned Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum. Pipes' assertion was simple. According to Pipes, all global conspiracy theories were hogwash because they were based upon shoddy research.
But is that the case? No, it is not. In fact, there is at least one scholar of very solid repute and credibility that makes a very meticulous record of the history of a global conspiracy and the secret society behind it.
Carroll Quigley lived and died between 1910 and 1977. He was a professor of history at the Foreign Service School of Georgetown University, the very same Georgetown University attended by former President Bill Clinton. During his career, Carroll Quigley had also taught at both Princeton and Harvard. He was also a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Anthropological and the American Economic Association as well as a few other historical associations.
Carroll Quigley has also written several books including the thirteen hundred page Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time, in which he chronicles in detail western historic events dating back to before the turn of the nineteenth century. Another book for which Quigley is perhaps best known is his work Evolution of Civilizations. And then there is his shorter book, roughly three hundred pages, entitled The Anglo-American Establishment. It is this last work that bears the most relevance to this article.
As if all this wasn't enough to establish Quigley's credentials, he also has the testimonial of one-time student Bill Clinton, who in his acceptance speech on July 16th at the 1992 Democratic National Convention in the state of New York had this to say about the Georgetown Professor.
I can attest to this testimonial myself because it's printed among the endorsements on the book jacket for the colossal book Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time. And (since I own the book) I just so happened to be looking at that book jacket right now as I type these words.
I myself first became acquainted with the works of Carroll Quigley during an art history survey class my freshman year at college. One day, the professor of that class distributed to the students a small, photocopied handout of an article written by Quigley.
Being a college freshman at the time, I wasn't particularly intrigued by Quigley's article on cognitive systems and human thought processes in different cultures. In fact, there were only two reasons that the name Carroll Quigley stuck in my head. First, as a somewhat naive college freshman, it seemed odd to me that this man had a woman's first name. Second, my professor seemed to have a strong affinity for Carroll Quigley, an affinity which at the time seemed to be almost comical. And so, the frequent (albeit exaggerated) mention of Quigley became part of our caricature of this particular professor.
Needless to say, Carroll Quigley was indeed a credible scholar. His books were based upon thorough sound research and methodology and his credibility is widely accepted among the educated establishment and elite.
Since we have established Quigley's credibility as a scholar, before we get into what he has to say about the existence of a conspiracy, let's also establish the credibility of Bernard Goldberg, the author of the book Bias.
First let me state that I do not believe that the global conspiracy is exclusively the work of liberals or democrats. While it might be nice to think of a sort of yin yang relationship wherein benevolent conservative republicans combat the evils of malevolent liberal democrats, this type of thinking is completely naive. (Maybe something like the Autobots and the Decepticons, for those of us who grew up watching cartoons in the 1980's.) It is my opinion that the agenda of the conspirators is being advanced by both liberals and conservatives, by both republicans and democrats to one degree or another, some knowingly (although very few) and the vast majority unknowingly. However, it should be said, that increasing government control over both economic and social aspects of life is advanced and necessitated by the publicized liberal agenda quite well.
Having dismissed the notion that the conspiracy is exclusively the work of liberals in the media, I will now go on to discuss how the liberal bias in the media acts as one component of a larger agenda pushing the world toward the goal of the conspirators.
Bernard Goldberg's credibility on the subject of a media bias (or slant) on the news hangs very prominently on the fact that he is not a conservative or a republican or an outsider to the news media that he criticizes. In fact, Goldberg is an admitted liberal (and proud of it), a democrat, and perhaps even more importantly a veteran insider of the news industry.
The following facts bear out Goldberg's Credibility.
Concerning Goldberg's political views, here's Bernard Goldberg in his own words.
2. When Goldberg returned to CBS Evening News, Dan Rather introduced him with a positive endorsement of his credentials.
3. Goldberg worked at CBS News for 28 years.
From the time Bernard Goldberg began his career with CBS in 1972 until the day his now famous and instantly controversial op-ed piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal, CBS News considered Bernard just as credible and well-balanced as any of their other veteran reporters. Only after that controversial column about a persistent, prevalent liberal slant to the media did CBS consider Goldberg's credibility to be in question.
It is clear that Goldberg's veteran correspondence and track record at CBS unequivocally demonstrate his credibility on the issue of a prominent slant to the news media.
Now that we know Bernard Goldberg is credible, exactly what is it that he's saying?
As Goldberg demonstrates in his book Bias (which by the way was a New York Times #1 best seller), the news media DOES slant the news. And by slant we (me and Goldberg) mean that the media doesn't simply tell the news straight (the who, what, why, when, where, and how.) Instead, from the top anchors like Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings on down, they distort these facts to present and promote a particular social perspective to their audience (which inevitably acts as an attempt to persuade the audience's viewpoint).
However, even though Goldberg is convinced from his years of experience that there is a liberal slant to the news, Goldberg does not believe that this slant is a result of a conspiracy. For Goldberg, the slant is the news results MERELY from the personal biases of the men and women who produce and report it to us. According to Goldberg, these men and women aren't even slanting the news deliberately. They simply think they are doing an objective, fair, and balanced job, when, in fact, they aren't.
And Goldberg is even more explicit on this point.
On this point I agree with Goldberg. The conspiracy is not in the newsrooms. The conspiracy takes place at a far higher level than that. And that does make it much, much worse. But that assertion will be demonstrated in a little while when we get back to Quigley.
According to Goldberg, there is "overwhelming" liberal bias that twists the facts to support particular, identifiable socio-political views, but there's no conspiracy because no one sat down in a meeting to prescribe this treatment of the news. But WHERE is Goldberg looking? WHERE is it that Goldberg attests there were no meetings? In the news rooms. In the news agencies. Among the reporters, the producers, the anchors, and the executives. And that single fact is extremely significant to this issue. Goldberg doesn't subscribe to the notion of a conspiracy because he doesn't see deliberate meetings AT THE NEWS AGENCIES AMONG HIS PEERS.
So, how does Goldberg's testimony about a liberal slant to the news support the notion of a global conspiracy (especially when Goldberg himself rejects the notion of such a conspiracy)?
Here's where Carroll Quigley comes back into the picture.
Goldberg's definition of a conspiracy is a straw man precisely because it necessitates that the reporters and anchors themselves be aware of the conspiratorial agenda and that these men and women must set that agenda at official company meetings. But that's just not how the conspiracy to distort the news works. And that's not how Carroll Quigley described it working either. In fact, those kind of open formalized company meetings are the exact opposite of what Quigley described when he wrote about the workings of the secret society.
Earlier on in this article, I stated that according to Carroll Quigley, a deliberate slanting of the news was one component of a larger agenda designed to push the world toward the goal of the conspirators. We will now return to that very point.
In his book, The Anglo-American Establishment, Quigley spoke of a three-pronged method that would guide the world into the control of the conspirators. Or in other words, to eventually control the world, the conspirators would need to gain control over primarily three spheres of influence.
Particularly of note to our discussion here is that, according to Quigley, one of the three main methods of the secret society of conspirators is to control three areas of public influence: 1) politics, 2) education, and 3) journalism.
In this article we are specifically discussing journalism. For that reason, we will set aside the other two spheres of public influence mentioned by Quigley (politics and education.) And we will continue to focus on the issue of journalism as a means of influencing and shaping public opinion by presenting a particular slant on events and issues.
So, from Quigley's meticulous chronicling of the activities of the conspirators we learn that they most certainly sought to gain control over the channels of journalism and to use that control to shape public opinion in such a way as to advance their own agenda.
In fact, Quigley has more to say on this subject. Speaking of the organizations remarkable ability to conceal itself from the public, Quigley states the following.
Notice, in particular, that this group established two periodicals, The State and The Round Table and it assumed control over The Times all for the purpose of propagating its agenda, even to the point of causing political skirmishes and wars.
Keep in mind as you read all these things the impeccable credentials Quigley has. He was a professor at Georgetown, Harvard, and Princeton and was so well liked and admired by President Clinton that Clinton paid tribute to him upon receiving the nomination of the Democratic National Convention in 1992. So, Quigley is no nut. With credentials like these, Quigley's record of the activities of the conspirators is beyond reproach.
But we might ask, how is it that Quigley was able to write about this group? Would any group with that much power allow a scholar of Quigley's note and credibility to chronicle their activities in such detail?
This is a good question and Quigley himself answers it for us.
In short, Quigley was permitted to write about the group because he was friendly to it. He was not an enemy but an admirer who felt that their work was so important to human history that it must be recorded.
While this is indeed a rather lengthy quote, it answers several important questions for us. First, Quigley was not only "permitted" to write this account of "the Group" but persons close to "the Group" actually assisted him at times.
Third, the question might arise, "wouldn't such a book pose a threat to the Group and so cause it to prevent Quigley from writing the account?" Obviously not. This book was published well over two decades ago and the public, by the mast majority, is still blissfully ignorant of the existence of this conspiracy, and blissfully ignorant of Quigley's book as well. The Group was no doubt aware that the danger of the public discovering there existence through Quigley's book would be minimal. As Quigley put it, it was simply a matter of "knowing where to look." This book has largely been OVERLOOKED, marginalized, and ignored by the mainstream academic and journalistic circles, who, quite relevantly, are controlled by the very "Group" Quigley chronicles in his book.
Now that we've covered the how's and why's behind Quigley's writing the book, let's return to the question at hand. How does Quigley's book relate to Bernard Goldberg's book?
To be sure, we have already covered this in part. Quigley wrote about a conspiracy that sought to control journalism as a means of shaping public opinion in order to advance its agenda. Goldberg has written a book substantiating the theory that modern American news is deliberately slanted to favor particular social issues and views (thereby, consequently propagating those views to the American audience).
Goldberg, as we have stated, does not believe this media bias constitutes proof of the existence of a conspiracy because there are no meetings between reporters, anchors, producers, and executives to deliberately set protocols to slant the news.
But what does Quigley have to say about this?
Quigley then goes on to list a series of examples all of which involved appointments to positions of significant influence over journalistic institutions including the Pall Mall Gazette, the Westminster Gazette, the Daily News, the Daily Chronicle, the Cape Times, and of course, The Times.
And Quigley writes even more explicitly a little later on.
"In his 'Confession of Faith' Rhodes outlined the types of persons who might be useful members of this secret society."
Then Quigley places a rather lengthy insert from Rhodes.
This description sounds remarkably like Goldberg's description of himself and the liberal crowd in general whom Goldberg defines in terms of their compassionate idealism and which just so happens, according to Goldberg, to overwhelmingly populate the news media.
It was exactly this type of idealistic people that Quigley says the conspirators sought to use, many of whom did not even know they were being used, let alone that such a "Group" existed. People working on the outer circle, according to Quigley, were not actually members. And, because the members surrounded themselves with people of similar ideals that were engaged in similar activities, it was impossible to tell the members from the non-members.
Now, while a few of today's news media may indeed be aware of the secret society, how much the better if as many as possible could be brought on with the right ideals and do their work to further the cause according to those ideals, without ever being "conscious that they were being used by a secret society." (Quigley, Preface page x.) Individual awareness on the part of the majority of reporters is NOT a prerequisite to their usefulness to the conspirators.
In short, the types of formal meetings that Goldberg sets forth as a prerequisite for the existence of a conspiracy are wholly unnecessary precisely because, instead of holding these types of formal meetings to set protocols and keep every reporter to executive on the same page, the conspiracy is set up in such a fashion that from reporters to executives men and women are hired who already hold to the relevant ideals necessary to propagate the agenda of the conspirators.
The fact that a journalist's tendency to color their reporting with their own biases is one readily attested to by Goldberg himself.
It is not necessary to hold meetings in the newsrooms. By hiring (almost exclusively) reporters, anchors, producers, and executives with a uniform set of biases, you are bypassing the need for such meetings. You are ensuring an unbalanced, one-sided slant to the news simply by hiring the vast majority of your employees possessed of the same, single ideological persuasion.
Given that Goldberg so completely believes that people will automatically assert their own biases into their reporting as a function of human nature, Goldberg's own notion that it would be necessary to hold meetings to enact such a bias becomes obviously extraneous and absurd.
In fact, as Quigley puts it, it was well understood by members of the Group that it is better, as often as possible, to use men and women to advance their cause who had no knowledge that they were being involved in the agenda. Once again, I want to restate this quote from Quigley because it is very important to our study.
So, in other words, to hold meetings to set the protocols for how to use the media to distort the news and reshape public opinion was expressly contrary to the methods of the conspiracy and, therefore, in no way does the lack of such meetings disprove the existence of that conspiratorial group. In fact, the existence of entire profession (journalists) populated by people with the same ideological perspective itself demonstrates the existence of a conspiracy to distort the news in favor of a particular social outlook PRECISELY BECAUSE it is human nature for an individual to insert their biases into their reporting. People of a single socio-political persuasion are hired exclusively for the specific purpose of advancing the conspiratorial agenda without having to have meetings, which set formal protocols on reshaping public opinion.
The existence of a uniform (or overwhelming majority) of reporters, anchors, producers, and executives of the same social-political perspective on life proves the existence of a conspiracy. Bernard Goldberg simply has to reset his sites a little higher from the news room meetings to those who set the tone for hiring and filling out the news industry with reporters and executives from an overwhelmingly uniform political view. No one knows exactly who is setting that tone because the system was designed for anonymity, just as Quigley stated.
To say that a conspiracy cannot exist unless we know whom the conspirators are is absurd because one of the primary goals of the conspirators would necessarily have to be to conceal their identities. And Quigley understood this completely.
For the purposes of this article it is not necessary to delve into the specific subtle ways in which the mainstream press distorts and colors the news to cover to create the desired picture and reshape public opinion to match their own (through carefully chosen descriptive words, one-sided labeling, the selection of experts, and even the very selection of what topics, etc.) Nor is it necessary to go into the depth of examples documented by Goldberg in his book where he chronicles in detail the media's distortion of such issues as poverty/homelessness, AIDS, identity politics (a.k.a. the politics of division), family life, and the Middle East. For the details on these items, I invite you to pick up a copy of Bernard Goldberg's book Bias at your local library or bookstore where you can review them for yourself.
And one last important item before we go. In our previous articles on the existence of a conspiracy, we examined the interlocking relationships found among the board of directors of major commercial and journalistic companies. In that article we demonstrated that control over the major public media outlets was not only possible but quite plausible given these interlocking relationships.
This article finishes where that article left off. We now know, thanks to a quick review of Carroll Quigley and Bernard Goldberg, that someone does, in fact, exercise control over how the news is presented. They exercise that control in the same way that control is best exercised, through the subtle method of hiring and promoting those with similar ideas and like minds.
But just to drive the point home, consider this fact. No less than 5 times does Bernard Goldberg assert (somewhat casually, in fact) that all TV News takes not only WHAT it reports but HOW it reports from the New York Times. This is just as Carroll Quigley described back in England with The Times (The London Times). It would appear that the same group is doing the same thing here in the United States.
And, of course, Goldberg also clearly establishes the liberal persuasion of the New York Times as well.
I conclude this article with what is an admittedly over-used quote by conspiracy theorists.
The fact is, Bernard Goldberg, a veteran insider of the news industry has chronicled in detail not only the existence of an overwhelming liberal bias to the news (particularly with regard to social issues) but also the deliberate, persistent refusal of those inside the news media to correct or even address this problem. And, just as the esteemed Georgetown professor and mentor of President Clinton, Carroll Quigley, demonstrated in his book, the Anglo-American Establishment, the use of journalistic institutions to distort the news and reshape public opinion to advance their agenda is one of the primary tactics of the conspirators. Bernard Goldberg's book provides clear evidence that this kind of control over the public news media did not end in the days of Ruskin and Rhodes and Milner but persists, molding public opinion, to this very day.
Just as Quigley said of the conspiracy, "evidence of its existence is not hard to find, if one knows where to look." (Quigley, Preface page x.) The question is not whether the conspiratorial view of history is correct. It is most certainly correct. And it is most certainly going on right now. The question is, are we strong enough to accept that fact?