conspiracy theories

[skeptik]

"Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."

This is a very famous quote by Herman Goering during the Nuremberg trials. Reading between the lines he is saying that any lie can be formulated and accepted, even on a mass scale as in this case, especially were a question of people's safety, livelihood and honour is at stake. He is also making the point that what a leader says can be made to be accepted.

Interesting. THe famous American Journalist H.L. Menken ( http://www.io.com/~gibbonsb/mencken.html ) said almost exactly the same.

""The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
~ H. L. Mencken, "Women as Outlaws"

'He is also making the point that what a leader says can be made to be accepted."

That was easier for the Nazi's than it is for any politician today. The Nazi's controlled all the media in Germany. Only long and short wave wave foreign radio was outside the control of the German censors. No politician today has such a degree of control, or the ability to hide uncomfortable facts from their populace.

In Hitlers day, for instance. what went on in Abu Ghraib prison would never have come to light. The technology which blew the lid off that story did not exist.

Ok... Ive gone off topic.. I think. or maybe not. Would Peak Oil have come to the publics attention in the mainstream media (the Guardian, front cover of National Geographic, BBC radio progs etc. ) in the way that it is starting to had Peak occured in the 80's prior to the development of the WWW. I dont think so.

[Ballard]

Of course the whole trick is to get people debating the ?wrong? subject, for example. By creating up the whole ?wea-pons of mass de-struction? debate people are notionally in one of two camps (for the in-vasion to remove the wea-pons) or (against the in-vasion because none were found) this is deliberately done to distract from the real issues, (peak oil as the reason for in-vasion).

This is the ultimate ?conspiracy?, in totalitarian states such as the old USSR where you could identify pr-opaganda easily (It was anything the state said), it is easy to acknowledge the state viewpoint whilst holding an alternative view in your head. In the new ?democracy? the idea is to truly control the thinking of the population by manipulating the arguments, therefore the basic premise is never even considered by the vast majority of people.

We can see in the media that although it has now been acknowledged that the wea-pons never existed, the debate has been so muddied that no-one asks ?so why did we go to war then?? Therefore this is a successful outcome on the part of the go-vernment because almost everyone has missed the real and uncomfortable reason for the in-vasion in the first place.

Remember, you never know who?s watching!

[Bozzio]

Remember, you never know who?s watching!

Ballard is exactly right in his post and it helps to explain the difficulty conspiracy theories and any other theories have of competing with mainstream thinking. It is all about controlling our thoughts.

This was in the Sunday Times yesterday,

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 39,00.html

When a mother said on the radio that she thought gay couples should not adopt children, the police were soon in touch.

Incidently, last month, during a new round of mass-mailing email viruses which my ISP would automatically inform of each time I received one, I couldn't help but notice how many came from one of two addresses, either being xxxx@cia.gov or xxxxx@fbi.gov. Since I am signed up to receive newsletters from Michael Moore and the 9/11 Visibilty Project and have never given my email address to the FBI or CIA, I can only assume my details have been gleaned from there. Interesting.....!

[MacG]

Incidently, last month, during a new round of mass-mailing email viruses which my ISP would automatically inform of each time I received one, I couldn't help but notice how many came from one of two addresses, either being xxxx@cia.gov or xxxxx@fbi.gov. Since I am signed up to receive newsletters from Michael Moore and the 9/11 Visibilty Project and have never given my email address to the FBI or CIA, I can only assume my details have been gleaned from there. Interesting.....!

Dont worry. Its simple social engineering from a worm writer, the sender adress is spoofed. Some person who have you in their adress book(s) have caught a worm. That's all.

[thorgal]

Remember, you never know who?s watching!

Ballard is exactly right in his post and it helps to explain the difficulty conspiracy theories and any other theories have of competing with mainstream thinking. It is all about controlling our thoughts.

This was in the Sunday Times yesterday,

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 39,00.html

When a mother said on the radio that she thought gay couples should not adopt children, the police were soon in touch.

Incidently, last month, during a new round of mass-mailing email viruses which my ISP would automatically inform of each time I received one, I couldn't help but notice how many came from one of two addresses, either being xxxx@cia.gov or xxxxx@fbi.gov. Since I am signed up to receive newsletters from Michael Moore and the 9/11 Visibilty Project and have never given my email address to the FBI or CIA, I can only assume my details have been gleaned from there. Interesting.....!

don't use MS windoze, use linux. You'll be among the few doing that, so no viruses around and there are lots of free softwares competing with commercial ones.
I know it's a bit off topics, I just can't help advertizing linux when someone comes up with computer virus stories

[Bozzio]

don't use MS windoze, use linux. You'll be among the few doing that, so no viruses around and there are lots of free softwares competing with commercial ones.

I don't, I have Mac Safari so no real concerns there.

Dont worry. Its simple social engineering from a worm writer, the sender adress is spoofed. Some person who have you in their adress book(s) have caught a worm. That's all.

I thought so only I can't account for the virus emails that have come through from about 20-30 addresses I know and would be of no interest to a rogue programmer.

[Bandidoz]

OK i've decided to research in to Conspiracy now, to gain info about Peak Oil and how the Goverment may try to cut the population down to put off PO.

Try reading the book "A Planet for the President". It's a satire story that goes in that direction. "More people" is better for business so I doubt very much that there is any motive to reduce population, certainly not before PO. Killing off the over-50s may be used as a last resort to solve problems of pensions and food shortages (no doubt the drug companies would also benefit in some way) far into the future. We'll see rationing long before any such drastic action.

In evaluating conspiracy theories I usually feel inclined to do a "Columbo" and look at the "Means, Motive and Opportunity". Pretty much the same approach Mike Ruppert took in "Crossing The Rubicon". "Weird deaths" are also indicators of conspiracy, such as the Marconi workers in the 1980s, David Kelly and possibly even the Brazilian guy who was gunned down at Stockwell. The "weird deaths" would obviously be used to minimise the number of "participants" who are at risk of squealing. Thus I don't believe any suggestion that Man didn't land on the Moon, because there were no such "weird deaths" (that's not to say that the original pictures may have become damaged so may have been "reproduced" in a studio).

BTW I think Alex Jones is a complete nut-job. He connects "dots" that are not there or are irrelevant.