Branded a Conspiracy Theorist

RFK, Jr. breaks through censors, contends with fresh coordinated attack.

In years past, as RFK, Jr. called into question the safety of vaccines, he contended primarily with censorship. A spectacular recent example of this was the almost complete media blackout of his book, The Real Anthony Fauci. Every statement in the book is documented with a citation of primary sources including federal agency documents, peer reviewed medical literature, and public records. Any reader can easily evaluate these sources. The Kindle edition features hyperlinks to the documents. Nevertheless, not a single major newspaper reviewed the book, and not a single network or cable broadcaster with the exception of Tucker Carlson interviewed the author.   

As a presidential candidate, RFK, Jr. is still contending with constant censorship in the corporate media. However, with the recent rise in popularity of independent media outlets and podcasters such as Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson—and with Bill Maher maintaining his independence—it has become progressively more difficult to silence him.

This last week, the legacy media opened a fresh and coordinated attack against the presidential candidate—that is, they flooded the zone with assertions that he is a conspiracy theorist. Flooding or fire-hosing is a well-known propaganda technique of broadcasting the same message repetitively and simultaneously over multiple media channels.

Hit pieces calling Kennedy a conspiracy theorist were published by NPR and CNN on Thursday, July 13. And then, on Saturday, July 15, the flood gates opened following Kennedy’s remarks (captured in an undercover video). He was in conversation at a press event about the frequently observed and documented fact that some ethnic groups appear to be more susceptible to severe COVID-19 illness than others.

Though all of his statements were based on a vast literature and recent reporting on ethnically targeted bioweapons, his reference to the well-documented fact that Ashkenazi Jews seem to be less susceptible to severe COVID-19 than other ethnic groups was pounced on and used against him in a blitz of terrible and misleading reporting. Especially notable was an attack piece in the National Review calling him a “lunatic conspiracy theorist.” Just three months ago, this same magazine published a long piece titled The Coming Threat of a Genetically Engineered ‘Ethnic Bioweapon.’

What is a conspiracy theory? In my recent book, The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex, which I co-authored with Dr. Peter, McCullough, I give numerous examples of how anyone—even an eminently qualified scientist or researcher—who questions the prevailing orthodoxy about a range of public policy issues will likely be labelled a “conspiracy theorist.” 

Since the JFK assassination, “conspiracy theorist” has become a pejorative, accusatory label like “racist” or “sexist.” Through common usage, the label has become charged with the power to smear and dismiss someone outright without supporting evidence.

The greatest trick that powerful interest groups ever pulled was convincing the world that everyone who detects and reports their activities is a “conspiracy theorist.” Only the naivest consumer of mainstream news reporting would fail to recognize that powerful interest groups in the military, financial, and bio-pharmaceutical industries work in concert to further their interests. Their activities cross the line into conspiracy when they commit fraud or other crimes. The term “conspiracy theory” suggests the feverish imaginings of a crackpot mind. This ignores the fact that the United States government prosecutes the crime of conspiracy all the time. As one prominent defense attorney described this reality:

Any time the government believes that it can allege that two or more individuals were a part of a common agreement to commit the same crime, they will include a charge of conspiracy in the indictment. There is no requirement that all of the members of the conspiracy even know about each other, or even know each other personally.

As far as “theory” goes, every prosecutor develops a theory of a crime and presents it to the jury. If you are a concerned citizen and you perceive that your government officials and media are not telling the truth about a vitally important matter, you have no choice but to formulate a theory of what is going on. Developing a theory to explain a pattern of ascertainable facts is a rational attempt to detect and expose criminal conduct. To be sure, some theories are more plausible than others. Some are logical and coherent; others are wild and contradictory.

When President Eisenhower left office in 1961, he expressly warned about what he called the Military-Industrial Complex acquiring “unwarranted influence” that could “endanger our liberties and democratic processes.”

President John F. Kennedy issued a similar warning in his address to the American Newspaper Publishers Association at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City on April 27, 1961. The President’s subject was the critical importance of maintaining a free press for the maintenance of a free Republic.

The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society, and we as a people are inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it.

For decades, RFK, Jr. has possessed a keen understanding of what Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy were talking about. He knows—far better than any legacy news reporter today—that U.S. government agencies may be captured by powerful military-industrial, financial, and bio-pharmaceutical interests whose activities are largely veiled in secrecy.

What I find most compelling and charming about RFK, Jr. is his immense curiosity about the world, and his love of conversing about it. Like all great conversationalists, he is frequently inclined to wander into domains of emerging knowledge in which we are in the process of investigating new leads and making fresh discoveries, without having yet reached the point of complete understanding.

If his interlocutors are intelligent and sympathetic to the fact that he is acting in the capacity of an investigator following new leads, and not presuming to possess full knowledge of the subject, then he is safe with such expositions. However, now he must be alert to the reality that instead of censoring him, his opponents may seek to record his statements (even without his knowledge) and to twist and distort them so that they can be used against him.