Re: Conspiracy Theories and other Looney Tunes
Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2013 8:36 pm
Another day in the Universe
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https://www.onthenatureofthings.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=603
Typhoon wrote:Poll: Which conspiracy theories do people believe in?
Many popular conspiracy theories are missing, and many of the listed ones are not conspiracy based but simply ignorance on parade.Typhoon wrote:Poll: Which conspiracy theories do people believe in?
Might not be true, but sure feels that way12 Million Americans Believe Lizard People Run Our Country
When we try to catch them, the tail breaks off in our hand and the lizard escapes!Heracleum Persicum wrote:.
from the link
Might not be true, but sure feels that way12 Million Americans Believe Lizard People Run Our Country![]()
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Yeah it is way too Obvious given Oswald's uncle was in the Mob and jack Ruby was in the Mob And the mob felt they were double crossed by the Kennedys after getting JFK elected, and that is who Bobby Kennedy believed ordered his brother's murder. Plus the mobster admitting he ordered Kennedy's murder it 20 years later. It is just not believable that it is that simple.Heracleum Persicum wrote:.
The US Secretary of State has become one of the highest-ranking politicians to publicly doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone conspirator in Kennedy's murder
Now, pretty much everybody knows Kennedy was killed by "military industrial interest" .. in America, everybody, including WAR, is mainly and only business, to make money .. and .. biggest business is Arms Industry
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http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... ingle.htmlTo believe that the U.S. government planned or deliberately allowed the 9/11 attacks, you’d have to posit that President Bush intentionally sacrificed 3,000 Americans. To believe that explosives, not planes, brought down the buildings, you’d have to imagine an operation large enough to plant the devices without anyone getting caught. To insist that the truth remains hidden, you’d have to assume that everyone who has reviewed the attacks and the events leading up to them—the CIA, the Justice Department, the Federal Aviation Administration, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, scientific organizations, peer-reviewed journals, news organizations, the airlines, and local law enforcement agencies in three states—was incompetent, deceived, or part of the cover-up.
And yet, as Slate’s Jeremy Stahl points out, millions of Americans hold these beliefs. In a Zogby poll taken six years ago, only 64 percent of U.S. adults agreed that the attacks “caught US intelligence and military forces off guard.” More than 30 percent chose a different conclusion: that “certain elements in the US government knew the attacks were coming but consciously let them proceed for various political, military, and economic motives,” or that these government elements “actively planned or assisted some aspects of the attacks.”
How can this be? How can so many people, in the name of skepticism, promote so many absurdities?
The answer is that people who suspect conspiracies aren’t really skeptics. Like the rest of us, they’re selective doubters. They favor a worldview, which they uncritically defend. But their worldview isn’t about God, values, freedom, or equality. It’s about the omnipotence of elites.
Doc wrote:.
Fake There is no record of this speech and it never showed until 2011.
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Religious beliefs have a lot in common with paranoid “conspiracy theory” beliefs. It’s worth taking a look, and asking the question: Is God just one big conspiracy theory?
First, let’s look at some of the superficial similarities between the most common religious beliefs and paranoid “conspiracy theory” types of beliefs.
1) There is something that has extraordinary powers that knows the intimate details of your life, your mind, and your intentions even before you act.
2) This thing with extraordinary powers has a specific agenda, and will punish you if you do not comply with that agenda.
3) There is no direct evidence (only indirect evidence) that this thing with extraordinary powers exists and acts within the world.
When this “something” is the Illuminati or “The Jews” or a top-secret government cabal that nobody has ever heard of, we refer to these beliefs as a “conspiracy theory”. But when the “something” is God, we refer to the exact same set of beliefs simply as “religion”.
And that is just the surface similarity.
But above and beyond that, there is also a similarity in the way these beliefs are treated by people when they are thinking.
Psychologists and anthropologists who study religious belief have long recognized that religious beliefs operate in a manner that is different from “regular beliefs”. Religious beliefs are constructed in a way that is inherently non-falsifiable. There exists no experiment that can falsify the existence of angels, or of an afterlife, or of a God that answers all prayers. Even events that might appear on their face to deny the belief can be interpreted in a way that is not threatening to the core belief itself (e.g. “God works in mysterious ways” or “God answers all prayers, but sometimes the answer is ‘no’.”)
This is different from your normal day-to-day beliefs about the world. You believe that your friend is home, but if you go to your friend’s house and see that it is empty, you do not construct an elaborate explanation that allows you to continue the belief in the face of this new evidence: you simply stop believing that your friend is home.
Conspiracy theories, on the other hand, function exactly like religious beliefs. Any evidence that can be interpreted as consistent with the theory will be seen as supporting evidence, whereas any evidence that is inconsistent will be seen as part of the “great plan” that is obfuscating the truth. Moreover, the belief itself is taken as a given that need not be proved. On the contrary, the believer in a conspiracy theory (much like a believer in God) will ask a person who does not believe to prove that the theory is false.
So this raises an interesting question: Are “conspiracy theories” and “religion” just similar and overlapping mental constructs, that maybe draw on some of the same underlying elements?
Or is it more simple than that?
Is belief in God just an example of the biggest, most popular, most widely-accepted conspiracy theory in all of human history?
Thank You Very Much for your post, Azari,Heracleum Persicum wrote:.
That Ukrainian famine episode was due to a "shortcoming" of that stupid "western communist conspiracy" (western because Communism was invented by German/British/Jewish Marx/Engel) that was forced (by Germans/Lenin) on Russian people
Stalin did not intent doing harm to USSR agriculture production or any other sector, Stalin was building Russia up .. Stalin, a Georgian revolutionary, did not understand communism and Agri do not mix, did not do good in Cuba, did not do good in China, did not do well in Israel/Kibbutz .. was not like Stalin KNEW this would lead to famine in Ukraine unlike those Brits emptying the Silos in Iran (WW I) knowing very well that will lead to famine and 10 million Iranian dead
What territory did Russia get from Germany as war reparation ? ? nothing .. East Germany did not belong to Russia, it was Germany but communist .. Russians did not annex anything after WW II .. USSR was same as B4 WW II
One looking at "communism" today, one will say .. Communism was same as "Stuxnet" of today, a virus, sent by west, to destroy Russia .. a very handy western conspiracy used as excuse to do all those things to Vietnam, to Iran, to South America and and and
As said, Russia, Iran (Mossadehg episode), Nasser (Egypt), South America and Africa, Lumumba and and all victims
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Evidence is that Stalin the Sociopath Terrorist did not give a damn about whether it was hurt or Ukrainians died as long as it got collectivized per his orders and resisters to that were eliminated by whatever means necessaryStalin did not intent doing harm to USSR agriculture production
Wrong!What territory did Russia get from Germany as war reparation ? ? nothing ..
Wrong!Russians did not annex anything after WW II
Wrong!USSR was same as B4 WW II
Al-Baghdadi, born Ibrahim al-Badri in Samarra, is an average Sunni Iraqi cleric with a degree in pedagogy from the University of Baghdad. His alter ago was born after Shock and Awe in 2003, and soon metamorphosed into a de facto serial killer - blowing up Shi'ite kids at ice-cream shops or scores of women at Shi'ite weddings.
ISIL's track record in Syria includes banning every flag apart from its own; the destruction of any "polytheist" temple or sanctuary (except if it is Sunni); and strict imposition of Islamically correct women wear. Most of all, it is a track record of terror. This is not an army, rather a well-trained militia of professional mujahid, European passport holders included, with battlefield experience in Iraq, Afghanistan and, to a lesser degree, Chechnya. Heavy weaponizing is petrodollar-financed - the usual, wealthy "Gulf donors", which does not exclude official connections.
Sources of income diversified mightily when ISIL captured the oilfields surrounding Deir Ezzor in Syria; and after the recent offensive across Niniveh province in Iraq, they were able to lay their hands on vast arsenals of heavy artillery, lots of cash and gold bullion and, why not, US Humvees left behind. Their trademark, of course, are those columns of brand new white Toyota Land cruisers - free off road advertising Toyota HQ in Japan may not find particularly welcome.
Loaded with oil and profiting from tax revenue, IS is now firmly on its way to provide (minimal) services and support a (mighty) Jihadi Army - much like the Taliban from 1996 to 2001. One may be sure IS will continue its massive "social engagement" strategy; talk about a chatty Caliphate which loves YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. No wonder they are a hit among Google generation recruits - as well as becoming fund-raising aces via gruesome videos. In thesis, indoctrination progresses hand in hand with "charity work"; residents of Aleppo, for instance, can dwell on how ISIL (gruesomely) looks and feels on the ground.
Mission forever unaccomplished
It's unclear how the new IS reality will play on the ground. The new Caliph has in fact declared a jihad on all that basket of corrupt and/or incompetent Middle East "leaders" - so some fierce "battle for survival" reaction from the Houses of Saud and Thani, for instance, is expected. It's not far-fetched to picture al-Baghdadi dreaming of lording over Saudi oilfields - after decapitating all Shi'ite workers, of course.
And that's just a start; in one of their Tweeter accounts IS has published a map of all the domains they intend to conquer within the span of five years; Spain, Northern Africa, the Balkans, the whole Middle East and large swathes of Asia. Well, they are certainly more ambitious than NATO.
Being such a courageous bunch, the House of Saud is now tempted to accept that imposing regime change on Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq is a bad idea. That puts them in direct conflict with the Obama administration, whose plan A, B and C is regime change.
Turkey - the former seat of the Caliphate, by the way - remains mute. No wonder; Ankara - crucially - is the top logistical base of IS. Caliph Erdogan's got to be musing about his own future, now that he's facing competition. In theory, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan are all saying they're ready to fight what would be a "larger-scale war" than that gift that keeps on giving, the original, Cheney junta-coined GWOT (global war on terror).
And then there's the future of the new $500 million Obama fund to "appropriately vetted" rebels in Syria, which in fact means the expansion of covert CIA "training facilities" in Jordan and Turkey heavily infiltrated/profited from by IS. Think of hordes of new IS recruits posing as "moderate rebels" getting ready for a piece of the action.
It's easier for Brazil to win the World Cup with a team of crybabies with no tactical nous than having US Secretary of State John Kerry and his State Department ciphers understand that the Syrian "opposition" is controlled by jihadis. But then again, they do know - and that perfectly fits into the Empire of Chaos's not so hidden Global War on Terror (GWOT) agenda of an ever-expanding proxy war in both Syria and Iraq fueled by terror financing.
So 13 years ago Washington crushed both al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Then the Taliban were reborn. Then came Shock and Awe. Then came "Mission Accomplished". Then al-Qaeda was introduced in Iraq. Then al-Qaeda was dead because Osama bin Laden was dead. Then came ISIL. And now there's IS. And we start all over again, not in the Hindu Kush, but in the Levant. With a new Osama.
What's not to like? If anyone thinks this whole racket is part of a new live Monty Python sketch ahead of their reunion gig this month in London, that's because it is.