History, documentation, facts. A respect for life, and a respect for truth. This is what I heard, over and over again, at this remarkable conference. Wayne Madsen – a former naval officer and NSA operative – spoke of the atmosphere of "hype and fear" that still grips America, 10 years after 9/11. A fear that's pumped into us, relentlessly, through our flatscreen HD Orwellian "telescreens".
I found myself blinking back tears for the second time when McGovern read out a poem – in his polished CIA Russian – about a mother mourning the loss of her child. This thread of grieving ran throughout the conference. Wayne Madsen grieved for the loss of "shoeleather journalism", McGovern mourned the death of the fourth estate, while Tarpley spoke of the hollow memorial at Ground Zero – the two "abysses": the reflecting pools, or "voids", as they're often called. He sees these memorials as an appropriately empty vision of "nothingness. Nihil. No ideals, nothing." A nothingness at the heart of America. "But we have to do something."
We have to do something. Even if that something is simply to Google 'Cass Sunstein' and start from there. Begin your own cognitive infiltration. Google 'Vigilant Guardian' or 'Able Danger'. Crosscheck 'Abdel Hakim Belhadj' and 'Al-Qaida'. Begin digging. Begin thinking. And stop believing.
Six air traffic controllers provided accounts of their communications with hijacked planes on Sept. 11, 2001, on a tape recording that was later destroyed by Federal Aviation Administration managers, according to a government investigative report issued today.
this thread has now officially descended into an amateur theatre stage where self-indulgent losers are allowed to make their infantile and worn-out jokes in front of an awed audience of imbeciles. Da Vinci's remark comes to mind: "What is humanity but fillers of a cloaca."
I will put in my two cents here (in a foreign currency no doubt, kroner or something that is basically worthless, two francs maybe)...
This relates to a phenomenon I've seen called the Galileo Effect, although I'd noticed it long before I'd heard that name for it: namely, the line of reasoning that goes "Galileo was persecuted by the ignorant masses for his theories, yet they turned out to be true: I'm 'persecuted' [called a crank] by the ignorant masses, therefore - like Galileo - my theories will eventually be recognised as true (and even if they aren't, they're still true)."
Ar recently peddled by climate denier Chris Perry.
I used to believe in challenging things but then I realised, what's the point?
The thing is, classic conspiracy theorists work on exactly the opposite basis: the more official and professional a source of evidence seems to be (e.g. a report by a panel of experts at a reputable university, as you mention), the less it should be trusted, since the higher up you go in the social/political/academic hierarchy, the closer you get to the shadowy They who control everything, so the more likely that information is to be compromised, incomplete or totally falsified.
By extension, the less official and professional the source, the more trustworthy the information - hence the reliance on home-made videos uploaded to Youtube, badly laid-out websites full of unformatted text and animated .gifs, etc.; in pre-web days I guess it would have been home-printed pamphlets and street demagogues with megaphones and hand-drawn placards. This relates to a phenomenon I've seen called the Galileo Effect, although I'd noticed it long before I'd heard that name for it: namely, the line of reasoning that goes "Galileo was persecuted by the ignorant masses for his theories, yet they turned out to be true: I'm 'persecuted' [called a crank] by the ignorant masses, therefore - like Galileo - my theories will eventually be recognised as true (and even if they aren't, they're still true)."
i think it's worth pointing out though, that it also works the other way 'round. i.e. anything sounding slightly out of the basic reality 'they' feed the public through the mainstream news immediately gets called a conspiracy theory. which obviously is correct, it is a theory, but the stigma attached to that term is imo unjust. just because most conspiracy theories have more in common with what happens in fiction than what we're shown on the news doesn't mean we should instantly disregard them. there are plenty of extremely fucked up, elaborate plots and schemes carried out by governments all the time that have been proved and occasionally admitted to that fall into this category.
it surprises me how many apparently intelligent and well read people instantly reject anything resembling a conspiracy theory. for some reason they don't seem to be able/willing to open their minds enough to even entertain the ideas. maybe i'm mistaken but it seems like there's this instant reaction to anything out of the rationally explainable where it has to be mocked and taken down as quickly as possible with little desire to even discuss it. knowing what we do know, as in the devious kinds of things our governments get up to, (e.g. selling weapons to the very countries we end up fighting/funding rebel forces to violently topple governments who's politics we don't agree with) is it really not even worth going over these ideas?
i fell like lanugo has put across some points in this thread that are worth discussing. but most people are content with casting them off or mocking it and moving on. a small few have pointed to counter arguments, but still don't really seem keen on delving into it. i get that it's tiresome to many, and also amusing to wind up the theorists. but i'd really like to know why most people are reluctant to even get into it? it feels like it's the easy way out to put an 'irrational' type tag on these ideas and then move on.
i really wonder whether i'm missing the point here. but i'm a layman when it comes to politics, so forgive me if i'm being naive. obviously there are other places to discuss this, but i dunno, this forum seems pretty broad in it's topics. why not this one?
i fell like lanugo has put across some points in this thread that are worth discussing. but most people are content with casting them off or mocking it and moving on. a small few have pointed to counter arguments, but still don't really seem keen on delving into it. i get that it's tiresome to many, and also amusing to wind up the theorists. but i'd really like to know why most people are reluctant to even get into it? it feels like it's the easy way out to put an 'irrational' type tag on these ideas and then move on.
i really wonder whether i'm missing the point here. but i'm a layman when it comes to politics, so forgive me if i'm being naive. obviously there are other places to discuss this, but i dunno, this forum seems pretty broad in it's topics. why not this one?