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Anaxagoras -> RE: Alex Jones Creates Hysteria Amongst His Readers/Listeners (6/27/2011 6:24:39 PM)
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ORIGINAL: xssve
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George Bush Senior was US ambassador to the United Nations for two years in the early 70's. Linking him to some sort of NWO conspiracy because he was part of some family planning programme perhaps of questionable morality is not sufficient to re-evaluate pretty clear sentiments as expressed in his speech about a stronger UN.
It's a clue as to what he might mean by "credible".
I don’t think so. You can’t alter the obvious meaning of his words based on a single project he was a member of two decades earlier. I don’t know anything about the project in question but assuming a form of eugenics was included in the programme, then bear in mind this was also the case in some European countries up until the 1970’s. Like phrenology, eugenics was a respected part of science for a long time until it gradually became discredited several decades ago and is now regarded as unethical.
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I really don't think so. Most conspiracy theories originate from two places principally: the far-right and far-left. The political fringes. They can be unhealthy places morally speaking. Since when? It's a whole new world, PR wise, viral marketing, virtual networks updated in real time - these things did not exist for practical purposes 20 years ago, and it's changed and accelerated dramatically in the last Ten years, one cannot base assumptions on historical patterns, right wing philanthropies for example, spend huge amounts of money on this stuff, a lot of it comes out of AEI, it's straight up disinformation, and it's disseminated through the various media organs on the internet, the NRO, etc., radio and television, within hours, if not minutes.
Since when? For over one hundred years. The Internet is just a new tool that both the far right and far left use, most effectively I might add. They are one of the big winners of the Internet revolution.
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People wheel and deal all the time. Many people are greedy and self serving. The same goes for organisations. Its an unfortunate part of human nature. Yes there is corruption and often a lack of transparency. Reality is messy. People are messy morally speaking. Same goes for some institutions all of which are human made. I can accept those points and question the morality of politicians etc. without going through the conspiracy theory portal of believing for example that the US government would willingly kill 3,000+ of its own people. This is a key point about conspiracy theorists. It is a re-orientating of one's perception of reality to become a conspiracy theorist. Such people look for it under every stone. Any lack of clarity, any contradiction spells evil intent, Goldman-Sacks and the NWO. That is a perverse paranoia where mere doubt can validate views. You should appreciate that there is a distinction between accepting that governments can be corrupt where conspiracy can happen, and allowing it to infuse entire worldviews. The latter is corrosive to society.
Lol, corruption is corrosive to society, free speech is all that stands between us and corruption, that is the purpose of the bill of rights, all of our freedoms are predicated on free speech, that, not the government, is the ultimate guarantor of your rights, of everyone's rights, it's worth the price of listening to a few rants - right wing conspiracy theories do real damage, Jones isn't telling anybody to kill people, he's not trying to overthrow the Constitution or the Bill of rights, he's ostensibly advocating enforcing it - unlike others I could, and have mentioned.
You seem to be implying I made points which I have not made. Of course free speech is important as is an open society and of course corruption is corrosive too. However, spreading fear where it is not warranted, seeing evil intent where it cannot be reasonably inferred has the potential to be hugely damaging to civil society even more so than corruption unless the latter is so severe that it gravely undermined the functioning of society in its totality. It’s not a matter of believing that conspiracies do sometimes happen. It is a matter of seeing them all the time, everywhere one looks. It is a fundamental re-orientation of perception.
Conspiracy theorists forward the view that the government is extremely evil. One of the biggest theories is 9/11. What conclusion does this theory forward: at will the institution that should protect its civilians can kill large numbers of the people it represents for no other reason than to start war. That is an assertion so beyond the pale in terms of reason that it’s an absurdity to even countenance. All they would have to do is invent having one of their ships and a couple of planes destroyed by a foreign force to invent cause to start a war. It would be far easier to do and essentially as effective. The thing is that if people truly believe their own government would cynically kill a huge number of innocents at will then trust breaks down to such an extent that all authority becomes the enemy. People would understandably pick up guns and an amass against this enemy. Some have to an extent with unofficial militias and heavily armed families often retreating into the back of nowhere. If such ideas became mainstream beliefs then the damage they could cause would be immense. It could destroy the country.
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I think he comes up a bit short of messianic status, he's a shock jock, but like I said, he covers a lot of stories that get short, or no play in the mass media, more power to him.
His stories get little coverage in the mainstream media for good reason. Most are quite frankly nuts so no, definitely not “more power to him”. There needs to be more factual accountability for these people.
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Sure, Conspiracies happens all the time, so what are you saying? Pretend it isn't there? If there are conspiracies, there will be conspiracy theories, you want to end conspiracy theories, end the conspiracies - not gonna happen, we'll have to keep limping along with all of it, one thing that doesn't change much is human nature.
I never implied we should pretend conspiracies never happen. It depends on what you mean by conspiracy. There is criminal conspiracy. That happens quite a lot. There are low level conspiracies that occur as a result of corruption, but that’s just people wishing to feather their nest rather than bring in grand plans covertly. There probably are higher level government conspiracies that do happen on occasion. Things like Watergate. It is the latter that conspiracy theorists see as happening all the time and they conflate it with corruption. Then they throw other elements into it such as fiendish desires to control or kill off the populace. They also integrate personal prejudice such as an unhealthy obsession over Jews. Now there is the internet this stuff can go viral which makes it extremely dangerous. Regardless of actual conspiracy, there will be conspiracy theories where there is radical doubt and certain kinds of hatred. We should encourage greater transparency and accountability in governance rather than going off the deep end and feverishly imagining the government is out to get us somehow.
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"When the government is honest, the people are simple, when the government is corrupt, the people are devious".
--Chinese aphorism.
Well I don’t know how much stock to put in a Chinese aphorism but many who live under pretty good governance yet are very dissatisfied with it. Our perception is just as much a factor if not more so.
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