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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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 Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 5:12 pm Post subject: |
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Remembering the Alamo
Remember, remember the 5 of November,
Gunpowder, treason, and plot,
I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent
To blow up the King and Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
http://www.rhymes.org.uk/remember_remember_the_5th_november.htm |
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regicide
Joined: 01 Sep 2006
Location: United States
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| Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 4:36 pm Post subject: |
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| igotthisguitar wrote: |
Remembering the Alamo
Remember, remember the 5 of November,
Gunpowder, treason, and plot,
I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent
To blow up the King and Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
http://www.rhymes.org.uk/remember_remember_the_5th_november.htm |
Conspiracy theories arise from evidence. After the government releases an explanation of a particular event, a conspiracy theory is only born because evidence exists to disprove their explanation, or at least call it into question. There's nothing insane about it, unless you define sanity as believing whatever the government tells you. In light of the fact that our government lies to us regularly, I would define believing everything they tell you as utter stupidity.
Everyone has heard, and has probably used the term "conspiracy theorist," and the fact of the term being in common use, also indicates that we generally agree on what it means. I saw a movie by that name, and the title character was a raving lunatic who kept his food in thermoses with combination locks to reduce his chances of being poisoned by imaginary enemies.
Regardless of how the stupid movie turned out, what's important here is the common perception people have of someone to whom that label is applied, and just as important, is who it is that applies the label. The common perception is that someone who is labeled a "conspiracy theorist" is suffering from some type of psychological disorder, and that label is usually applied to people by our government, and our news media. The next thing to consider, is that the label is applied to anyone who questions our government's version of events in any matter. Doesn't it logically follow that the media are teaching us to assume that anyone who questions the government is insane? When that label is applied to a person, doesn't it become easy to dismiss everything they say without even hearing it? How convenient for them.
I think the label first became widely used to slander people who questioned the details surrounding the JFK assassination, and forty years later, there aren't too many thinking people who still believe the Warren Commission's "lone gunman" explanation. That explanation is doubted by everyone who has taken the time to look into the details, and believed only by people who refuse to.
Now look at this: Gopher is calling us pederasts and drug abusers since we don't believe everything the government tells us. This is exactly the nonsense and closed mindedness that we need to be fearful of. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 5:45 pm Post subject: Re: Conspiracy Theories |
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| igotthisguitar wrote: |
| Blindly believing ANYTHING ANYONE tells us is stupid. |
But that's exactly why most people don't believe conspiracy theories either, IGTG. It's distrust - wise distrust, as you pointed out - of those who claim they've "got it all figured out". Conspiracy theorists - often, not always - claim that EVERYTHING government tells them is a lie, and that they (the conspiracy theorists) have got the real goods.
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You ever heard of SOLON?
Some wicked men are rich, some good are poor;
We will not change our virtue for their store:
Virtue's a thing that none can take away,
But money changes owners all the day
He would likely very much agree with you reg. Check him out!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solon
Every responsible citizens' sacred duty is to remain vigilant & awake. |
Now that's more like it. You've finally made a post where people can follow your reasoning, and your justification for it. Thank you.
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ALWAYS QUESTION THE "OFFICIAL" LINE.
Keep em' honest. Hold these duplicitious bastards accountable. |
I couldn't agree more. LOOK, MY MAN, I'm not saying I trust everything the government tells ME, either. The US government said there were weapons of mass destruction of sufficient quantity in Iraq as to constitute an immediate military threat to the West. The President of the United States lied to the American people, and to the whole world. The Britsh PM lied to the British people. The Australian PM lied to the Australian people.
The Canadian PM lied to the Canadian people, when he said he didn't want Canada participating in the invasion of Iraq because Canada was already overcommitted in Afghanistan. The real reason was because he thought/knew the US President was full of shit. But he lied, because telling the truth risked causing a diplomatic breach with the US. I know - we all know - he lied, but we all (in Canada) know the reasons why he did it.
YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT we should hold the bastards accountable. There's almost a million dead in Iraq, and in Canada we've got a government burying its head in the tar sands over global warming. So how do we do it? Do we go chasing after rumors of chemtrails, or go shuffling through pictures of a president who was assassinated fifty years ago? HELL, NO, BOY!
You do it by getting your shit together. PICK YOUR BATTLES. Find the pressure points in the here and now, and focus on those. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 6:05 pm Post subject: |
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IGTG, look what you just posted in the other thread:
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"For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.
Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match." |
That's John F. Kennedy, writing about Soviet Communism, fifty years ago.  |
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loose_ends
Joined: 23 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 6:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
IGTG, look what you just posted in the other thread:
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"For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.
Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match." |
That's John F. Kennedy, writing about Soviet Communism, fifty years ago. |
you've taken it out of context. he warns that the same action in america would be unamerican and thus warns that america should not follow the same path.
he makes it clear, that the above action (done the soviet union) should not be done in america.
it seems the actions he describes are now taking place in america.
need any links????? I know you love them
try reading the whole speech. |
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Funkdafied
Joined: 04 Nov 2007
Location: In Da House
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| Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 7:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Conspiracy theories arise from evidence. |
Correction. Conspiracy theories ( valid ones ) arise from solid evidence. Thus, JFK is a valid conspiracy theory, 9/11 is not. |
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loose_ends
Joined: 23 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Funkdafied wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Conspiracy theories arise from evidence. |
Correction. Conspiracy theories ( valid ones ) arise from solid evidence. Thus, JFK is a valid conspiracy theory, 9/11 is not. |
can you expand on this?
how is 9/11 not valid?
just give me a few examples. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 4:41 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
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| Conspiracy theories arise from evidence. |
I don't agree. They arise from skepticism gone haywire.
I think the normal person hears a government report, adjusts the statistics by 2 or 3 percentage points, tilts the picture back the other way just a bit and tries to eliminate the natural spin; after all, everyone tries to present his case in the best possible light. Perfectly understandable.
A conspiracy theorist notices something, it doesn't seem to matter much what it is because they've already decided 'government' cannot be trusted, and creates the most cynical, sinister explanation possible.
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Agreed. A better way of describing what the OP wrote is to say that conspiracy theories arise from an inadequate capacity to evaluate 'evidence' (facts), and a tendency to fit facts to a theory, not vice-versa. It's noteworthy that most conspiracy theorists never seem to have any doubts about the theories they are examining. And everything is always all-or-nothing. Either you believe what "the government" is saying - lock, stock and barrel - or you believe in the conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy theorists believe in the theory as an end in itself, not a means to an end: to get at the truth of a given situation. They seem to function more as belief systems than as analytical frameworks. |
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regicide
Joined: 01 Sep 2006
Location: United States
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| Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 10:52 am Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Conspiracy theories arise from evidence. |
I don't agree. They arise from skepticism gone haywire.
I think the normal person hears a government report, adjusts the statistics by 2 or 3 percentage points, tilts the picture back the other way just a bit and tries to eliminate the natural spin; after all, everyone tries to present his case in the best possible light. Perfectly understandable.
A conspiracy theorist notices something, it doesn't seem to matter much what it is because they've already decided 'government' cannot be trusted, and creates the most cynical, sinister explanation possible.
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Agreed. A better way of describing what the OP wrote is to say that conspiracy theories arise from an inadequate capacity to evaluate 'evidence' (facts), and a tendency to fit facts to a theory, not vice-versa. It's noteworthy that most conspiracy theorists never seem to have any doubts about the theories they are examining. And everything is always all-or-nothing. Either you believe what "the government" is saying - lock, stock and barrel - or you believe in the conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy theorists believe in the theory as an end in itself, not a means to an end: to get at the truth of a given situation. They seem to function more as belief systems than as analytical frameworks. |
The biggest "theory" regarding the JFK assassination is that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, killed the president on November 22, 1963.
No, that isn't a theory; it is fantasy since mountains of facts have been uncovered regarding what actually happened that day and these facts are contradictory to what was reported by the government.
You can look at those facts and come up with your own conclusion, or you can live in the fantasy world of believing the official government reports, (the Warren Commission, Rockefeller, HSCA and others).
If there is any reason for people's cynicism, it would be that the mother of all governmental lies, the facts surrounding the Kennedy assassination have been exposed.
I believe this has led to healthy skepticism regarding what we are told by our government and its media arm. |
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deadman
Joined: 27 May 2006
Location: Suwon
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| Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 3:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Conspiracy theories arise from evidence. |
I don't agree. They arise from skepticism gone haywire.
I think the normal person hears a government report, adjusts the statistics by 2 or 3 percentage points, tilts the picture back the other way just a bit and tries to eliminate the natural spin; after all, everyone tries to present his case in the best possible light. Perfectly understandable.
A conspiracy theorist notices something, it doesn't seem to matter much what it is because they've already decided 'government' cannot be trusted, and creates the most cynical, sinister explanation possible.
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Agreed. A better way of describing what the OP wrote is to say that conspiracy theories arise from an inadequate capacity to evaluate 'evidence' (facts), and a tendency to fit facts to a theory, not vice-versa. It's noteworthy that most conspiracy theorists never seem to have any doubts about the theories they are examining. And everything is always all-or-nothing. Either you believe what "the government" is saying - lock, stock and barrel - or you believe in the conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy theorists believe in the theory as an end in itself, not a means to an end: to get at the truth of a given situation. They seem to function more as belief systems than as analytical frameworks. |
I love self appointed experts.
You speak with such resounding authority and confidence! But again you are making pretty much useless generalisations.
The funny thing is you seem to demonstrate all the qualities of the very people you attack
1. You adopt an extremely simplified view of the world, and then think you know all about it!
| Quote: |
| And everything is always all-or-nothing |
2. It's all or nothing for you: All conspiracy theories are false. Anyone who strays from the official line is a conspiracy theorist.
| Quote: |
| Conspiracy theorists believe in the theory as an end in itself, not a means to an end: to get at the truth of a given situation. |
3. You certainly don't consider a conspiracy theory as a means to get at the truth of a situation! They are all false! They have been deliberately designed to attack democracy!
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conspiracy theories arise from an inadequate capacity to evaluate 'evidence' (facts),
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4. You have an inadequate capacity to evaluate facts. First you ask "Is this labelled a conspiracy theory? If so, all the facts they claim are false, and have been made up to confuse ordinary people"
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| It's noteworthy that most conspiracy theorists never seem to have any doubts about the theories they are examining. |
5. It is noteworthy that you never seem to have any doubts about whether a conspiracy theory has any truth to it, or for that matter, about the truth of your opinions. You have absolutely no capacity for self evaluation!
I hope you can see that you make no contribution to the truth. You just post your fanatic and ill thought out opinions. You're as bad as the worst kind of conspiracy theorist.
There are plenty of people on both sides of the debate making contributions to the truth. You are just not one of them.
Last edited by deadman on Mon Nov 12, 2007 7:03 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 6:25 pm Post subject: |
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Judge Orders White House To Hold E-mails
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
Mon Nov 12, 6:21 PM ET
WASHINGTON - A federal judge Monday ordered the White House to preserve copies of all its e-mails, a move that Bush administration lawyers had argued strongly against.
U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy directed the Executive Office of the President to safeguard the material in response to two lawsuits that seek to determine whether the White House has destroyed e-mails in violation of federal law.
The White House is seeking dismissal of the lawsuits brought by two private groups � Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government and the National Security Archive.
The organizations allege the disappearance of 5 million White House e-mails. The court order issued by Kennedy, an appointee of President Clinton, is directed at maintaining backup tapes which contain copies of White House e-mails.
The Federal Records Act details strict standards prohibiting the destruction of government documents including electronic messages, unless first approved by the archivist of the United States.
Justice Department lawyers had urged the courts to accept a proposed White House declaration promising to preserve all backup tapes.
"The judge decided that wasn't enough," said Anne Weismann, an attorney for CREW, which has gone to court over secrecy issues involving the Bush administration and has pursued ethical issues involving Republicans on Capitol Hill.
The judge's order "should stop any future destruction of e-mails, but the White House stopped archiving its e-mail in 2003 and we don't know if some backup tapes for those e-mails were already taped over before we went to court. It's a mystery," said Meredith Fuchs, a lawyer for the National Security Archive.
CREW and the National Security Archive are seeking to force the White House to immediately explain in court what happened to its e-mail, an issue that first surfaced nearly two years ago in the leak probe of administration officials who disclosed Valerie Plame's CIA identity to reporters.
Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald revealed early in 2006 that relevant e-mails could be missing because of an archiving problem at the White House.
The White House has provided little public information about the matter, saying that some e-mails may not have been automatically archived on a computer server for the Executive Office of the President and that the e-mails may have been preserved on backup tapes.
The White House has said that its Office of Administration is looking into whether there are e-mails that were not automatically archived and that if there is a problem, the necessary steps will be taken to address it.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071112/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_e_mail
;_ylt=Amd_TeGc31o0nnUtgmA0bDEDW7oF |
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loose_ends
Joined: 23 Jul 2007
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regicide
Joined: 01 Sep 2006
Location: United States
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| Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 11:01 am Post subject: |
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9/11, JFK, and War:
Recurring Patterns in America�s Deep Events
Peter Dale Scott
http://www.peterdalescott.net
In American history there are two types of events. There are ordinary events
which the information systems of the country can understand and transmit. There are also
deep events, or meta-events, which the mainstream information systems of the country
cannot digest. I mean by a �deep event� one in which it is clear from the outset that there
are aspects which will not be dealt with in the mainstream media, and will be studied
only by those so-called �conspiracy theorists� who specialize in deep history.
The events I shall discuss today exhibit continuities with each other and with
other deep events, notably the Iran-Contra affair of the mid 1980s and the Oklahoma City
bombing of 1995. But the two I shall discuss today � the JFK assassination and 9/11 � are
outstanding in this respect: that while they were attributed to insignificant and very
marginal people, they had momentous impact, far more than most daily events by more
important people, in redirecting American history.
If history is what is recorded, then deep history is the sum of events which tend to
be officially obscured or even suppressed in traditional books and media. Important
recent deep events include the political assassinations of the 1960s, Watergate, Iran-
Contra, and now 9/11. All these deep events have involved what I call the deep state, that
part of the state which is not publicly accountable, and pursues its goals by means which
will not be approved by a public examination. The CIA (with its on-going relationships to
drug-traffickers) is an obvious aspect of the deep state, but not the only one, perhaps not
even the dirtiest.
When I talk of a deep state, this term (as opposed to others, like deep politics), is
not my own invention. It is a translation of the Turkish gizli devlet, or derin devlet, a term
used to describe the networks revealed by the so-called Susurluk incident of 1996, when
the victims traveling together in what became a deadly car crash were identified as "an
MP, a police chief, a beauty queen and her lover, a top Turkish gangster and hitman
called Abdullah Catli.� The giveaway was that �Catli, a heroin trafficker on Interpol's
wanted list, was carrying a diplomatic passport signed by none other than the Turkish
Interior Minister himself.�1 He was carrying narcotics with him at the time of the crash.2
1 Adrian Gatton, �The Susurluk Legacy,�
http://adriangatton.com/archive/1990_01_01_archive.html. Both Catli and the terrorist Grey Wolves
network from which he emerged had global intelligence connections. In 1978 �Catli linked up with
notorious Italian right-wing terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie and together they traveled to Latin America and
2 The study of these deep events has slowly become more respectable in the almost
half-century since the JFK assassination. A major reason has been the emergence of the
Internet and other forms of new media, where the same deep events tend to get far more
extensive treatment.3 If the new media come in time to prevail over the priorities of the
old, it is possible that we will see a paradigm shift with respect to what is appropriate for
serious public discourse.
What I have learned over the years is that it is helpful to look at all these deep
events together. This is true for both external reasons (how the nation and its media
handle deep history) and for internal reasons (the content of deep events themselves).
What is particularly disturbing, in the case of the JFK assassination (henceforward
referred to as �JFK�) and 9/11, is the number of similarities that might seem to indicate a
recurring modus operandi or scenario.
While I myself am still open-minded as to how seriously we should interpret these
similarities, we should also open our minds to the alternative: that it was not by chance
that two major events were soon followed, first in 1965 and again in 2003, by America�s
longest military involvements in the nation�s history.
JFK and 9/ll: Possibly Innocent Similarities
I will begin with three similarities which could possibly, especially in the case of the first,
be marginal or irrelevant to how the events themselves unfolded. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 2:12 pm Post subject: |
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"Deep" Events. Sorta like "deep structure".
Chomsky would love this. |
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loose_ends
Joined: 23 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 2:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
"Deep" Events. Sorta like "deep structure".
Chomsky would love this. |
care to expand on your comparison? |
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