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Recent Times Online hit piece (20 posts)

  1. truthmod
    Administrator

    http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/...

    In his new book a Times commentator debunks the world's greatest conspiracy theories. Here he deconstructs those that followed 9/11 and the 7/7 bombings

    The internet has created shadow armies whose size and power are unknowable. Cyberspace communities of semi- anonymous and occasionally self-invented individuals have grown up, some of them permitting contact between people who in previous times might have thought each other's interests impossibly exotic or even mad. At the same time, the democratic quality of the net has permitted the release of a mass of undifferentiated information, some of it authoritative, some speculative, some absurd. But, increasingly, material originating on the net has turned up in popular culture - a millennial version of the word-of-mouth route to popularity. The online encyclopaedia Wikipedia has, at the time of writing, become a first resource for many students, despite the amusing randomness of its reliability.

    Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of English-language websites have sprung up specifically devoted to proselytising for the 9/11 Truth movement. In addition many “independent” or “alternative” media sites routinely replicate 9/11 conspiracy material uncritically, and many of these sites link to or cite each other. Sites endorsing 9/ll conspiracy theories, and those subscribing to them in passing, far outnumber sites devoted to debunking or refuting such theories.

    The construction and circulation of audio and visual material devoted to 9/ll revisionism is easy on the internet. Cheap movies, often made using material not cleared for copyright, made and narrated by non-professional film-makers, have been posted on Google video, YouTube and other sites specialising in moving pictures. Invariably such items make the same claims to accuracy and balance as do mainstream TV programmes, but have been concocted with the smallest fraction of research and resource, though no little ingenuity.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  2. Arcterus
    Member

    Only a few paragraphs in and he's using the classic disinfo technique of discrediting by association.

    The Pentagon was not hit by an airliner but by a guided missile. Various ruses, including faked mobile phone calls and fraudulent claims of such calls were used to disguise the true nature of the crime.

    He almost gives himself some excuse with "different people in the Truth movement might agree or disagree with various parts of it." but at the end of that same paragraph, he re-iterates the supposedly mysterious disappearance of Flight 77.

    But the explosives had to be sufficiently inert not to be triggered either by the impacts of the planes or by the thousands of gallons of burning aviation fuel, an especially tricky proposition since no precedent existed for the crashing of a large civil airliner into a 1,000ft skyscraper.

    Whether or not there was precedent is hardly the issue. Explosives such as C-4 and Cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (better known as RDX), for example, requires the simultaneous applications of heat AND pressure to detonate, making the crash of an airliner relatively insignificant. More importantly though, they didn't necessarily have to have not exploded. They could have simply gone off but been disguised by the mass of aerosolized jet fuel.

    Although another theory, favoured by the makers of [the internet documentary series] Loose Change, is that Flight 93 didn't crash and wasn't shot down, but, like Flight 77, was made to disappear.

    Not only is this classic discrediting by association that we've seen throughout the essay, but it's also blatantly deceitful. The makers of Loose Change have since reverted to the shoot-down theory.

    Another was more complex: the passengers of Flight 77 and possibly Flight 93 were either murdered in a secret location and their bodies disposed of beyond any chance of discovery, or else they were relocated, lost for ever to their families and friends, somewhere they could never be found. This would have been slightly easier if, as the millionaire 9/ll Truth activist Jimmy Walter has claimed, they were all “working for the government”.

    References Jimmy Walter, a well-known advocate of "TV Fakery". Now anyone who sees his name attributed to 9/11 Truth will find through a simple Google search various theories that are highly discrediting. Also appeals to a sense of Pathos towards the reader. Making us seem insensitive towards the victims and their families by saying they were all in on it. I doubt, as I read further in the essay, that David will note how victims' families have been calling for a new investigation.

    Although the ingenious A.K. Dewdney

    First Loose Change, then Jimmy Walter, now A.K. Dewdney. Does anyone see a pattern here?

    Hundreds, if not thousands, would have to have been directly involved in different aspects of the conspiracy.

    No, they would not have.

    http://911research.wtc7.net/sept11/analysis/scenar...

    On the fifth anniversary of the attacks, the New Statesman carried an interview with David Shayler and his partner Annie Machon, the former employees of MI5.

    Let's play a game. We'll predict how many credible 9/11 researchers he names for the rest of the article, and whoever gets closest wins.

    I have my bets on 0.

    “‘Oh f*** it, I'm just going to say this', (Shayler) tells her. ‘Yes, I believe no planes were involved in 9/ll.' But we all saw with our own eyes the two planes crash into the WTC. ‘The only explanation is that they were missiles surrounded by holograms made to look like planes,' he says. ‘Watch footage frame by frame and you will see a cigar-shaped missile hitting the World Trade Center.' He must notice that my jaw has dropped. ‘I know it sounds weird, but this is what I believe.'”

    WHOO! What a relief! I was worried that the Jimmy Walter reference would be what would alert people to No-planes-at-WTC theories. Thankfully, David chose to mention them himself. How very kind.

    I am choosing not to address the 7/7 section, as that is a field I'm less familiar in. I will, however, make a few final notes.

    *No mention of PNAC, the documented history of the hijackers, or any other non-disputable evidence. Only vague references to the war games, which were not elaborated on. *No mention of legitimate researchers, or qualified ones for that matter. I.e; no mention of AE911, STJ911, and other such organizations or individuals *No mention of the recent report of Active Thermitic Material published by Neils Harrit and numerous other authors. *Very evenly spaced out between legitimate theories and hoax theories. *No mention of the evidence used to support the legitimate theories. Simply says how the story [supposedly] goes, often in an exaggerated or deceitful fashion to make said theories seem as ridiculous and loony as the hoax ones. *A clever trick is employed where he, early on in the essay, says how not everyone believes in certain aspects of the story he described, and then near the end of his essay talks of people who believe no planes were involved in the World Trade Center attacks. This may easily deceive the reader into thinking that the people who "don't agree with all aspects" into thinking that said disagreements are kooky nutcase theories just like the no-planes one.

    I'd say this is one of the worse hit pieces I've read in a while.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  3. it seems obvious that the intimidation alone would need as many if not more operatives than that. Hundreds, if not thousands, would have to have been directly involved in different aspects of the conspiracy. And all of them would have to have been either fanatically committed to the project or else almost unimaginably immoral. Think for a moment about the men who rigged the twin towers with explosives.

    For an article with a clearly advertised intent to debunk, this was a peculiar deviation.

    And:

    The aftermath of the bomb blasts didn't look like the product of peroxide bombs to Shayler, who as a deskbound operative for MI5 would, one must imagine, have seen very few peroxide bombs exploding.

    Most of the article is interpretation of various speculative ideas of the 9/11 Truth movement. Except for these two quotes. This is the author's own indulgence in speculation, and not only lacks verifiable evidence, but it lacks any intent thereof.

    Would the problem which debunkers face not be one of accepting crazy, unverifiable theories? Would it be that debunkers only attack those unverifiable theories which do not fit their world view?

    It would be kind of nice to see a debunker go all the way in regards to 9/11. To debunk not only conspiracy theory, but also the official story. Interchangeably. It's always, as far as I've seen, either one or the other. But has there been a video which really goes across the board with debunking all the speculation, showing the absurdity of both sides, and explaining why there are problems with actionable evidence in regards to 9/11, whether one wants to use it as a pretext for invading another land, or a pretext for sending certain U.S. government officials to court.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  4. truthmod
    Administrator

    I do say, those Brits sure do love their hit pieces. Maybe something about conspiracy theories offends their refined manner.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/02/voodoo...

    Blame the lizards from Zog

    Giles Foden looks at the need to believe in conspiracy theories

    We in the west, says David Aaronovitch, "are currently going through a period of fashionable conspiracism". But perhaps this is a condition of modernity in general rather than of our own period in particular. In the aftermath of the first world war, for example (to which it would be asinine to compare current frets), conspiracy theories blossomed, expressions of the facts of economic and social volatility.

    For these facts it was natural to seek a cause. As Aaronovitch himself says of 1919 in Voodoo Histories: "Everywhere people stared out of the abyss, their certainties and traditions replaced by extreme anxiety and dangerous novelty." Mainly, the cause they fixed on was the Jews, who were suspected of somehow being behind the turbulent new times, plotting and controlling and string-pulling.

    One gets a strong sense from this book that it is Aaronovitch's intellectual curiosity about the early phases of that tragic (but also, in his capable hands, sometimes comic) ascription of control that has driven the whole project. For all that, he makes a very good case for a general theory of conspiracy theories. It is his working out of this - a teasing out of argument through the particularities of individual narratives - that makes Voodoo Histories a success, despite some flaws.

    The narratives themselves concern the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Pearl Harbor and its relation to Roosevelt's keenness to enter the second world war, the assassination of JFK, Marilyn Monroe, the death of Princess Diana, and so on. To these long-time staples of the paranoid imagination, he adds the death of the CND activist Hilda Murrell in 1984, the death of Dr David Kelly in 2003, 9/11 and the bloodline-of-Christ myth associated with The Da Vinci Code

    It is the fabrications associated with the tumbling of the World Trade Center in 2001 that are the most fascinating. These tend to centre on the idea that the terrorists were dupes of a "parallel network" or "secret team" of state-sponsored intelligence operatives. As Aaronovitch observes, what is interesting about these theories is their holders' "absolute contempt" for the idea that Arabs might have done this on their own. Occidentalism is thus paradoxically reinforced by those nominally opposed to it.

    Oh my, how extremely clever.

    One aspect of conspiracy theories he is good on is how they propagate by relying on previous conspiracy theories as scaffolding. So the attack on Pearl Harbor as a deliberately engineered ploy by Roosevelt to get the US into war is linked with the Bush-Cheney faction's supposed provocation of 9/11 in order to enable war in Iraq. The next stage in this tale - too recent for Aaronovitch's book but all over the internet - could be the Federal Emergency Management Agency's supposed purchase of half a million plastic coffins, which is somehow tied up with concentration camps, an extermination programme and a coming police state in America, as well as now being linked with swine flu.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  5. newcomer
    Member

    Aaronovitch, author of "Voodoo Histories", was of course a cheerleader for the Iraq war.

    It's a pity Aaronovitch, a journalist who uncritically accepted government say-so and parroted it in the British media, blatantly ignored a couple of crucial 'conspiracies' in his infotaining book.

    If Aaronovitch, who I've heard describing himself as 'obsessed with conspiracy theories', is going to reduce history to a hotch-potch of Conspiracies, he needs to treat all conspiracies with equal weight and impartiality.

    Pity he missed out two biggies: - Iraqis conspiring to hide WMD across the breadth of Iraq; north, south and east of Baghdad. - Osama and 19 lads conspiring to attack the US.

    Mark Thwaite at Ready Steady Blog heard Aaronovitch publicising this book on radio and wrote:

    "I'm always happy to see "conspiracy theories" debunked, but I'm equally intrigued by which theories are deemed to be conspiratorial and which historical theses are deemed to be sensible and sound. For example, why isn't the suggestion that Iraq had stockpiles of WMD a "conspiracy theory"?

    Posted 15 years ago #
  6. Arcterus
    Member

    From Screw Loose Change:

    Of course, the "responsible" wing of the "Truthers" is up in arms over that characterization of their movement.

    Quoted from me:

    *Only a few paragraphs in and he's using the classic disinfo technique of discrediting by association.

    The Pentagon was not hit by an airliner but by a guided missile. Various ruses, including faked mobile phone calls and fraudulent claims of such calls were used to disguise the true nature of the crime.

    He almost gives himself some excuse with "different people in the Truth movement might agree or disagree with various parts of it." but at the end of that same paragraph, he re-iterates the supposedly mysterious disappearance of Flight 77.*

    Back to Pat:

    Except of course that the movement's high priest, David Ray Griffin does indeed believe that Flight 77 didn't hit the Pentagon, and frequently claims that the phone calls were faked. Just last week:

    Tsk, tsk, c'mon Pat, I know you've read my work before. You should realize by now that I hardly decide what theories seem legitimate based on the individual. In fact, just a few weeks ago, I posted an article on my blog which, among other topics, criticized David Ray Griffin for such unsubstantial claims. The entire point is that we, as a movement, do not universally accept such claims, and we feel it's invalid for it to be so heavily associated with us.

    Arcterus also gripes that the article is not up to date on the latest Loose Change theory on Flight 93, which he claims is the more sensible "shoot down" theory rather than the famed Cleveland Airport Mystery.

    Yes, I do gripe about that. Loose Change: Final Cut has been around for a couple years now. More than enough time for it to sink in that they no longer endorse the theory that it landed in Cleveland. For someone to reference a claim from an earlier edition that is CONTRADICTED by a later edition is, by all means, misleading.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  7. If Aaronovitch, who I've heard describing himself as 'obsessed with conspiracy theories', is going to reduce history to a hotch-potch of Conspiracies, he needs to treat all conspiracies with equal weight and impartiality.

    I was doing some research on The Secret phenomenon, and I came across a blog comment which, in being supportive of The Secret, wrote:

    its better to be skeptical of beleifs that limit you rather than beleifs that will allow you to accomplish far more than your context might appear to allow. i'd be more skeptical of some bitter loser who has nothing than somebody very succesfull.

    The pejorative usage of "conspiracy theory" is meant to take the heat off other, useful, successful conspiracy theories. There are some semantic problems which complicate this: effectively, conspiracy theorist has ceased to mean

    a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators

    and instead means the attempt at alternative theory in regards to 9/11, JFK assassination, and the like. It's the attempt at alternative theory which is being exclusively "criticized". And I put "criticized" in quotes because it has nothing to with critical thinking and everything to do with an assault meant to belittle.

    More specifically, conspiracy theory means the attempt to use alternative theory to confront a covert source of highly influential and successful power.

    (I could never figure how the WeAreChange confrontations, such as Bill Clinton in Minneapolis, were considered as substantial, even effective. But if one chooses to view conspiracy theory essentially as the act of confrontation, as is the common usage, WeAreChange is immensely successful in their public activation of conspiracy theory. And in doing so, WeAreChange has been validating a twisted pop-culture definition of "conspiracy theory", if not cornering the market.)

    This makes it very easy for Aaronovitch to avoid discussion of other conspiracies as conspiracies, since the other conspiracies, such as Iraqis hiding WMD, effectively do not qualify as conspiracies. His positioning allows him to indulge in conspiracy theories (or alternately debunk them) without having any cultural backlash directed toward him.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  8. truthmod
    Administrator

    Another one
    http://www.esquire.com/features/thousand-words-on-...
    By Stephen Marche

    Conspiracy theorists — 9/11 deniers, moon-landing paranoiacs, Cassandras of the New World Order — are the holy fools of our age. Things are not what they seem, they preach to us daily from their street corners and Web sites, and try as we might to ignore them, we can't help but soak up their toxic paranoia and narcissism in our best sellers and blockbusters. Pop culture has always had plots and conspiracies, of course — the first blockbuster was the white-supremacist epic Birth of a Nation, whose major theme was the secret agenda behind Southern Reconstruction. Back then conspiracy theory was a shocking device; today it's a marketing tool. This month Angels and Demons will be released, the latest installment of the conspiracy-themed global franchise spawned by Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. While Da Vinci starred Opus Dei, a Catholic organization whose secret, unstated mission is to suppress the knowledge that Jesus had kids with Mary Magdalene, Angels and Demons takes on the Illuminati, a secular secret society that supposedly exists to impose Enlightenment on the world against its will. As far as Brown and his readers are concerned, it doesn't matter what purpose any given secret society serves — religion or atheism, the church or its opposite — just so long as there's a conspiracy. The hunger that Brown's books feed is not a hatred of one group or another but the fantasy that someone, whoever it may be, is running the show from behind the scenes. The rumor circulating about his next book, putatively titled The Solomon Key, is that it's about the Freemasons. Maybe Mel Gibson will get lucky and Brown will then move on to the Jews.


    Any profession of belief in a conspiracy has become, automatically, a sign of dangerous delusion. Napoleon said that you should never ascribe to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence, and the one positive legacy of the Bush years is that no one can sensibly believe in a "vast right-wing conspiracy" anymore. When they wheeled away Dick Cheney after Obama's inauguration, he was a Strangelovian symbol of all that is cruel and vicious, but who could say he ran the world? Who could still believe that Bush was capable enough to conspire? He could barely speak in complete sentences. The world is falling apart around us, and we are repulsed and attracted in equal measure by the idea of secret workings behind the collapse: We crave having someone to blame but recognize that our craving is fantastic. So we cower in conspiratorial delusions that we know cannot be true. If only there were a conspiracy, pop culture screams, if only there were a secret mechanism holding everything together. "Human kind cannot bear very much reality," T. S. Eliot wrote. The reality we can't bear to look at, however, isn't hidden groups of powerful men controlling everything but the more terrifying truth that there are no hidden groups of powerful men controlling everything. It's our deepest form of escapism to imagine a world in which we are powerless, because it excuses our selfishness. The real nightmare is that no one is to blame for the state of the world but ourselves.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  9. Arcterus
    Member

    I like the term "9/11 deniers". It makes it sound like we're denying the event ever happened and that the towers are still standing tall in NYC and the whole thing was just moon-landing-style pre-edited video footage where the twin towers were replaced with legos.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  10. newcomer
    Member

    giveback: "The pejorative usage of "conspiracy theory" is meant to take the heat off other, useful, successful conspiracy theories".

    Flinging all kinds of theories together - cooking a gloopy concoction of Elvis/alien autopsies/Marilyn Monroe/911/X-Files - encourages people to ditch the lot and throw the babies out with the bathwater.

    Mission Accomplished.

    You''ll notice, though, that certain conspiracies are rarely in the mix: like Watergate, Iran-Contra, Osama and 19 Arabs conspiring to hit the US; Iraqis conspiring to hide WMD from UN inspectors.

    It's interesting that 'serious journalist' Aaronovitch, Iraq war cheerleader, should waste his time penning schlock like "Voodoo Histories". Another war cheerleader, Daniel Pipes, is also the author of a tome on conspiracy theories. Right wing warwongers devote time to crafting works accusing the left of being 'conspiracy nuts' . Is it this blatant?

    Some good deconstruction on the subject comes from Canadian psychology professor Floyd Rudmin.

    Conspiracy Theory Inside Out http://homepage.mac.com/kaaawa/iblog/C2128262602/E...

    Conspiracy Theory as Naive Deconstructive History http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/conspiracy.htm

    It would good to see Michael Green get his teeth into the subject too.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  11. newcomer
    Member

    Nicholas Levis makes a very good comment on the Critical Thinking thread: 911 was done to preserve The Old World Order. This got me thinking.

    What if all this talk about The New World Order (Alex Jones does a lot of it) distracts from the fact that the 911-led wars are all about preserving The Old World Order?

    911 kick-started a war waged to preserve The Way Things Were. A world where darkies and the poor know their place; oil-rich nations and their Arab leaders are the evildoers; struggling nations buckle under IMF rules; the rich and powerful further entrench themselves; populations are passive and dependent on authority figures and corporate media.

    The Old World Order types fear the sceptics and those who 'see through' the official structures and mass media memes that hold The Old World together. They fear those who've opened their eyes and activated their Bullsh*t Detectors.

    This pesky lot need to be belittled and side-lined lest they convert too many people. Divide and rule is the name of the game. How better to disable independent thinkers and divide them from the serious (Chomsky) left than to slap them with the pejorative 'Conspiracy Theorist' label?

    Books like "Voodoo Histories" and big tent 'documentaries' that laud Alex Jones as 911 'leader' serve to entrench the put-down.

    I think we need psychologists to help deconstruct how the 'Conspiracy Theorist' tool (similar to the 'loser' and 'freak' labels) is wielded, how it works and how to counter it.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  12. truthmover
    Administrator

    Newcomer,

    You are very welcome here. Thanks for giving this forum a little kick in the pants. It's been a bit slow around here, but you've helped encourage more conversation.

    And your post above is great. The end of the Cold War was some kind of total fiasco for the Old World Order. The breakdown of the dialectic. With no "massive and widely perceived direct external threat" the world might not be such a friendly place for weapons manufacturing, certainly one of the largest world industries. And so 9/11 allowed for the emergence of a new threat and its ultimate purpose, starting another war without end.

    And the AJ approach is all about extending the concept of an external threat, externalizing the problem further. The problem isn't our own consumption. It's not sustainability or that our comforts are sustained by industrial excess. Hard core AJ fans are all about prosperity and against environmentalism. It very compelling as an easy out. Don't change your lifestyle, focus your anxiety on elite bankers that will never listen to a word you say or even hear you.

    I believe that wittingly or not, AJ serves the interests of the Old World Order quite well. Getting AJ fans to face that possibility is next to impossible. The psychological comfort of not blaming yourself is hard to break through.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  13. newcomer
    Member

    @ truthmover - thanks for the welcome. As you say "wittingly or not", some commentators bog us down in a noisy video games arcade, with lots of bells and whistles and distractions, so that we lose sight of the bigger picture.

    The two most important things to do, imo, are to (a) get a better psychological understanding of how counter-strategies work and (b) to constantly call out the disinfo-tainers and obfuscators. Let them stand exposed for all to see.

    British journalist and author of "Voodoo Histories" David Aaronovitch is a prime example of someone needing to be exposed. Good comments are currently flying in thick and fast.

    Here's what a commenter called Kevin B says of Aaronovitch over at Craig Murray's website:

    "Aaronovitch is an establishment instrument. I have seen him at the back of 9/11 meetings feverishly scribbling. He understands the danger posed by 9/11 truth if it ever gets widely accepted ...

    "His job is to firefight. Counteract threats by whatever means that are necessary.....

    "......spin, outright lies, omission......but mostly name-calling."

              - - - - - - -                  - - - - - - -
    

    Craig Murray, an ex British Ambassador and now Rector of Dundee University, has this to say about "Voodoo Histories" on his website craigmurray.org.uk:

    "David Aaaronovitch's new "conspiracy debunking" book Voodoo Histories is getting an extraordinary level of boosting by the mainstream media. Here are a few highlights from this masterly exposition:

    • No government has ever done anything nasty to any of its citizens, ever, unless they were Socialists (including National Socialists) or Islamists. All other government is entirely open and secretive acts do not occur.

    • All official inquiries, commissions and judicial investigations in history have been composed of entirely honourable people with no agenda to serve political masters and inspired only by a pure devotion to unalloyed truth

    • There was no conspiracy to lie about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Colin Powell did not lie and show fake photos to the Security Council. Tony Blair did not lie to Parliament. George Bush did not lie to the American public. Nobody was waterboarded into confessing to the Al-Qaida/Iraq link. The dodgy dossier on weapons of mass destruction was a figment of the imagination of socialists/Islamists/other mad people, and anyway it was all true except they have hid the WMD, so there.

    • The US had no part in the overthrow of Allende.

    • Patrice Lumumba just went away on holiday.

    • There was no conspiracy to kill JFK, or if there was, it was the Socialists

    • Anybody who ever takes a different view on any of the above is a dangerous lunatic whose views on no subject at all need to be taken seriously.

    • Belief in the official narrative is the definition of sanity.

    • To defend the official narrative, the establishment needs to employ fat ugly propagandists with greasy hair and incredibly bad complexions.

    Oh look, so they do. "

    http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/05/bru...

    Posted 15 years ago #
  14. newcomer
    Member

    Oops - failed to edit before I hit the SendPost button. It's 8am where I am and i'm rushing off to work. Have a good day.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  15. Who could still believe that Bush was capable enough to conspire? He could barely speak in complete sentences.

    That's all the evidence that is deemed necessary? Now that is truly luxurious rhetoric! That is a privileged position to be in (at the expense of whom?). But this entire Esquire article had that angle of fake-it-til-you-make-it luxury, and because of that angle, has effectively has set it's own expiration date. Really, it was so 2006, with a requisite "deep thought" and a President Obama reference inserted at the end to appear relevant. I say, keep it up! The further pop culture drifts from this article's mindset, the more apparent the underpinnings of that mindset become.

    Any profession of belief in a conspiracy has become, automatically, a sign of dangerous delusion.

    Because why? Because... you say so? Because it's in the air? I am not sure if this is a stupid thought in itself, but it certainly comes across as an investment in outright stupidity. And the investment in stupidity is certainly a well trodden method to enable us to escape from unclear and complicated issues. Or so-called "dangerous" issues.

    Dangerous because it will make us "the holy fools of our age"? Would it not be prudent to promote conspiracy theories which have no official endorsement. Would it be just flat out nuts to implicate the officials themselves? But to perpetuate the officially endorsed conspiracy theories, that would be wise ego boosting social positioning, especially if you create cover by lambasting "the holy fools of our age"?

    Well, yes. As long as the alignment of power and its manifestations do not change in a deep and thorough sort of way. Or at least the fearsome obedience to that power does not change. But what is the catalyst of this power?

    The reality we can't bear to look at, however, isn't hidden groups of powerful men controlling everything but the more terrifying truth that there are no hidden groups of powerful men controlling everything.

    The real battle lines amongst conspiracy theorists! Who really has control over us? And who actually doesn't. Whether one is asserting or denying, there is that obsessive theme of control, most often through sinister forces or hapless accidents. It could be somewhat accurate, or it could be hyperbole. Or it could be ones own lifelong issues with control, and the conspiracy theory is made to fit, as some sort of metaphor for personal pain and suffering, spread across the world. Which doesn't have to be the case if one remains disciplined about the issue, realizing it's not about oneself any more than the fact that they are a citizen of the world.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  16. newcomer said:

    I think we need psychologists to help deconstruct how the 'Conspiracy Theorist' tool (similar to the 'loser' and 'freak' labels) is wielded, how it works and how to counter it.

    The two most important things to do, imo, are to (a) get a better psychological understanding of how counter-strategies work and (b) to constantly call out the disinfo-tainers and obfuscators. Let them stand exposed for all to see.

    The movement definitely can use a great number of pertinent psychologists. 9/11 was a psy-op, an act of terrorism, whether one ascribes to the official story or not. In the follow-up to 9/11, pain management became the hyperactive central cultural theme. Most of Bush's rhetoric involved and depended upon managing pain. And the strategy was almost exclusively: how to pass that pain on to others. And how to keep it with others.

    Since then, passing the pain has been overtly hip. Well, much more than usual. 9/11 truth movement generally followed suit, but in uncommon, if not bizarre directions. I mean, we were, and still are pretty bad at offering a truly revolutionary alternative to passing off the pain. That would involve using psychology to vet ourselves before we advocate the same process amongst the public at large (or public officials) in regards to addressing 9/11. If we expect people to run into a potential stream of pain and suffering, might as well become genuine experts and guides in regards to that stream.

    It seems the 9/11 truth movement has underestimated or discounted the resistance of the public at large, quite possibly because we are subject to very similar methods of dealing with pain and suffering. And to point out their common coping technique would be pointing out our own common coping technique.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  17. newcomer
    Member

    "The movement definitely can use a great number of pertinent psychologists. 9/11 was a psy-op, an act of terrorism, whether one ascribes to the official story or not."

    Yes, this is why I think it's crucial to identify the psychological tools used to (a) transmit official narratives via the mass media and (b) shut down counter narratives. You guys have already done a lot of this on this very site. Kudos to you.

    It's also important to deconstruct how the psychology of fear works. A good starting point would be to study the psychology of marketing, which fairly often uses Fear as a highly effective selling tool: ... " if you don't want to grow old/harm your kids/be considered a loser or freak - you'd better buy OUR product".

    To continue the marketing metaphor, 911 can be seen in terms of a catalyzing Product Launch - the product being: Pre-Emptive War.

    The 911 spectacular "Son et Lumiere" staged by Shock & Awe Inc, was used to dazzle and disable American citizens primarily, but also had the desired effect on the CNN, FOX, BBC, ABC worldwide television-watching audience. (Not the poorest of the poor, who do not own TV sets and have no say and do not need to be persuaded of anything, anyway).

    Without this psychologically riveting, 'catalyzing' event, there was no way any US President was going to get Americans (generally a peaceful, friendly people) to sign overnight for an instant war of heavy aggression and occupation in two Middle Eastern nations, as well as the Patriot Act, hugely increased funds to the military and a bellicose foreign policy.

    Perhaps some of the psychologists/psychiatrists who've signed up to Medical Professionals for 911 Truth could be called upon to start building up the research. Apart from anything else, we need to be de-programmed and re-empowered to read between the lines and demand far more from our global corporate media and career journalists, lest we fall prey to another, future scam from some other nation.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  18. truthmod
    Administrator

    Speaking of career journalists, it has occurred to me that professional journalists (and other supposedly knowledgeable authorities) may have an especially hard time grasping contrarian truths. To most journalists, "conspiracy theories" are a laughable phenomenon born of ignorance and paranoia. Many of these theories, if true, would nullify the importance of much of these journalists' work and show them to be utterly out of touch with truth and reality. At the same time, they would be getting shown up by those they most look down upon--amateur researchers and journalists, and the purveyors of a kind of populist "street knowledge." No wonder that their brains mostly switch off as soon as they hear talk of the socially-defined "conspiracy theories."

    The motivation to maintain their habits and comfort and to belittle the psychological and intellectual work of the "classes below," so that they can define themselves as "elevated," are quite strong incentives not be rational when looking at "conspiracy theories." And of course, so are embarrassment and fear of ridicule/alienation, which are both similar dynamics in the social hierarchy.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  19. newcomer
    Member

    Truthmod, I really enjoyed reading your excellent points about journalists vis-a-vis street amateurs.

    Having a salary and a desk in a corporate news outfit would seem to magically give you powerful insight into 'the facts of the matter', which no street amateur could ever hope to attain, apparently. You've pinpointed career journalists' 'incentive' not to take 'street knowledge' seriously: these dynamics are utterly explainable in simple psychological terms.

    Corporate media is a store selling a product : info-tainment 'packages'. The journalists fashion these items, according to management and financial strictures. The store has tightly-focused 'stock' and limited shelf capacity; no-one has described this better than Chomsky.

    Was it Napoleon who said: 'Fear and Interest are the levers that move men"? An astute insight. We will seek out information that stirs our 'Fear" in the hope that we can find a solution therein to quell the fear. "Interest' of course encompasses everything linked with ego, aspiration and intellect, from sex and vicarious living to housing, financial info and consumer goods.

    Is this all we want? Village square news bytes that whet our fear and interest? Do we get the press we deserve?

    The huge upswell of interest in the counter-911 narrative indicates something positive to me: a significant number of street people (rank amateurs!) want something more from their journalists and news outlets. They noticed the black holes, the lies of omission, the stenography. They want something approaching the truth. They want journalists to step out, push the envelope, show an interest, be on their side. (See how CNN, reading this mood, has slickly reshuffled and trained its journalists to act more like....on-the-ball-journalists .. on air. It's a good show but content hasn't budged too much, though!).

    Post 911, many have had first-hand experience of the limitations and bias of media outlets. The media currently stands exposed, for those who care to see. It's been quite an education.

    What we need is more sustained analysis of how exactly the Anglo-Saxon media dropped the ball on 9/11, because it is particularly instructive. New media analysis is needed, along the lines of the excellent Glasgow Media Studies group, which quantifies and qualifies exactly how media interfaces with the facts on the ground.

    Posted 15 years ago #
  20. mark
    Member

    http://www.oilempire.us/media-strategy.html Media 9/11 Strategy: Highlight Hoaxes, Ignore Best Evidence

    Posted 15 years ago #

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