Comments on: Conspiracy theorists

By: TheFriendlyInfidel

TheFriendlyInfidel — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 14:57:45 +0000

“Firstly that the internet makes dissemination of conspiracy theories easy and people are still willing to believe stuff just because itâ€™s on a website. This is the obvious point.”

Lets not forget mobile phones and what your mate told you. If you look at the nonsence that is going on in Isreal and the rumour that it was a Zionist plot, that wasn’t the web, its word of mouth backed up by modern technology.

The world has become a petri dish for rumours and mistruths.

The question is why are religous wackos so keen to believe in unsupported mistruths? is it because their faith teaches them to believe in supernatural forces and never to question contraditions?

The highly religious need to be considered slightly retarded in my opinon.

TFI

By: Paul Moloney

Paul Moloney — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 13:10:23 +0000

I’ve been posting comments on CIF since it began. No other thread – no, not even ones about Israel – has been as full as illogical tin-foil-hatted bong-sucking cockfarmers as that one.

By: sonia

sonia — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 11:29:53 +0000

oops. post 37 is on the wrong thread.. i need my specs..

By: sonia

sonia — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 11:29:17 +0000

yes of course the fuck-up factor – well said Katherine. Governments and non-government people conspire to do something. could be large scale small scale. something always goes wrong. inevitably. no wonder the streets are often dirty and the bins are full – the government ‘conspiring’ to systematically clean the bins and keep the system going often fails. but it gets the job done most of the time. some governments are more efficient at this sort of ‘conspiring’ than others – e.g. my very own Bangladeshi government, which – either is not conspiring to clean the streets at all – or there is a higher fuck-up factor. probably both.

point is – yes plans don’t usually go the way they are meant – doesn’t mean there aren’t people planning, or some plans succeeding, if only in part and in ways not foreseen. thing about ‘conspiracy theories’ – always judge for yourself, if you can, assuming you have some information. seems to me usually when there is a lack of information, you can’t say if something is a conspiracy theory, any more than some one can definitively say it is a conspiracy theory.

always keep an open mind. truth is stranger than fiction as history has proved more than once. asking questions is the smart thing to do. we wouldn’t have science without it.

By: sonia

sonia — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 11:21:31 +0000

i’ve read the bbc inside out phone box experiment. now unless they’ll tell us the good looks factor of the two women it’s going to be difficult to judge whether it was down to racial discrimination rather than ugly person discrimination. everyone knows that if someone not so good looking is trying to get people’s attention they’ll find it much harder than someone more goodlooking.

By: Sanityforsale

Sanityforsale — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 11:21:00 +0000

One thing people with a brain fail to realise that this so called 9/11 conspiracy is not based on the idiocy of loose change. If you actually cared to find out about the intelligence reports and alike you make have found your self at:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project

The site is currently down. But that is NOT a conspiracy. And because all of these people are idiots:

Michael Meacher MP, John Pilger (journalist), Richard Clarke, Republican Congressman Curt Weldon, Sibel Edmonds (FBI interpreter), Josef Bodansky, (director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare), David Shayler (former MI5 officer), Morgan Reynolds (economist in GW Bush administration), Scott Ritter (UN Weapons Inspector), Republican Congressman Ron Paul (2, 3), Andreas von Buelow (2) (German government minister), Indira Singh (whistleblower), Max Cleland (Former 9/11 Commissioner), US Green Party (2), Fire Engineering Magazine, Greg Palast (BBC journalist), Catherine Austin Fitts, Charles Grassley (Republican Senator), David Schippers (Attorney), Peter Dale Scott (1),William Rodriguez, Gore Vidal (journalist), Cynthia McKinney (US Congress), former ISI director-general Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad, Dan Ellsberg (Former Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense (ISA), DOD), over 100 family members (1,2, 3), senior military, intelligence, and government critics of 9/11 Commission Report

By: Katherine

Katherine — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 11:04:54 +0000

One thing to remember when assessing conspiracy theories is the fuck-up factor. Is it feasible that a conspiracy/plan/dodgy deal involving more than a certain number of people but requiring precise planning and execution and post-event secrecy could avoid a fuck-up somewhere along the line? Experience of the world, life, people and, in fact, reality would suggest not, in most cases.

By: Bert Preast

Bert Preast — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 01:42:33 +0000

Sid – why on earth would the powers that be have murdered Kelly? What exactly would his death have covered up?

I mean, if he was found in stockings and sussies with an orange in his gob it’d be a warning to others – but this death didn’t even serve that purpose. So why would they bother?

By: numeral

numeral — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:24:49 +0000

Nyrone

Let me get you started. I have got to know about those impossible cell phone calls.

By: Nyrone

Nyrone — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 23:54:09 +0000

I saw loose change a few weeks ago.
agreed with Monbiot.
what a joke of a film it was…
I’m not saying there are not questions to be asked
but that film was a real pathetic attempt at asking them…

As an editor myself, I felt cheated literally within the first few seconds of it…and by the end, I felt like I had just had a sock shoved into my mouth.
horrible, stupid, manipulative piece of work.

Dont get me started on their theory about the cell-phone messages from the doomed planes…

By: numeral

numeral — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:11:27 +0000

Monbiot has let the side down. One simply does not talk to the likes of conspiracy nuts. Ignore them, delete them, shoot them. But whatever you do never never never take tiffin with them. What does the man think he is playing at? He comes from a good family – father the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. He ought to know better than to mix with the lower orders.

By: douglas clark

douglas clark — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:07:39 +0000

I think Monbiot has a valid point when he says that the cause of calling governments to account is weakened by the loopier conspiracy theories. It is where you draw the line. Monbiots first thread was dominated by folk who apprarently believe that flying airliners into the twin towers ain’t enough, and that a controlled explosion followed. This, as the man said, is not credible.

What may be credible is a huge cover up of the failures that took place that allowed 9/11 to happen, and, possibly, a quick move by the US government to capitalise on the tragedy for their own reasons, such as re-electability.

I think John Christopher is right to say that time will tell.

By: John Christopher

John Christopher — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:50:48 +0000

I don’t know Sid but I do know that the enquiry which followed after his (David Kelly’s) death was an absolute whitewash. Lord Hutton will forever be associated with the worse kind judical fraud to have ever been played on the british public. Worse still, this is no conspiracy, it’s a fact. Anyone who informs you different, Sid, watch and watch closely.

By: Sid

Sid — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:24:20 +0000

Where would folks put the death of weapons inspector David Kelly? Conspiracy la-la-land or Oxfordshire assasination?

By: John Christopher

John Christopher — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:15:40 +0000

Not so long ago black people were accused of being paranoid for saying that the police regularily lied and planted evidence in their bid of criminalising an entire community. The same accusations of nuttiness were levelled towards the miners by Thatcher’s bootboys during the Miners Strike. In Northern Ireland, Catholics were accused of drinking too much holy water for saying that the RUC were in cohoots with Unionist Paramilitaries in an joint enterprise to commit murder. Two weeks ago, sceptics on both sides of the divide were finally proved right. Conspiracy one day, fact of life the next. Everything is possible, all that is required is proof and time.

By: Don

Don — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 20:09:59 +0000

Can anyone explain what you are talking about?

By: Numeral

Numeral — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 20:04:55 +0000

Can anyone explain why Monbiot’s two articles produced hundreds of comments? Can anyone explain why Monbiot, who is supposed to be a clever bloke, called 911 sceptics morons? After all, he’s been to Stowe and Brasenose. Why is he so floored by a few (hundred) care in the community cases that he starts talking like a yobbo?

By: Don

Don — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 20:02:52 +0000

‘The US gov might not have setup what happened on 9/11 but they sure helped it along the road to success.’

What, consciously? Or just by being crap at their job?

Of course there are conspiracies at the heart of many historical moments, from Caesar’s fall to Suharto’s rise, the death of Allende was the result of a conspiracy backed by the US, and there are unanswered questions over the Kennedy assasinations. Quite agree.

But the problem is that once a conspiracy is scented, there is a tendency to look for The Conspiracy, where it all comes together. And then there are The Conspirators, and a broad brush usually comes into play here. Ther is no Guiding Hand; there are squalid deals going down all over the world and sometimes they result in a spectacular. Mostly not. I suggest you read Hitchens on Kissinger to get a (to me) convincing take on how ‘conspiracies’ work.

But 9/11? Look at what the theorists suggest, the scale and the number of personnel involved alone…

Nah, not going there.

By: Chairwoman

Chairwoman — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 19:38:32 +0000

Well John, you know where you were when JFK was assassinated!

By: Chairwoman

Chairwoman — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 19:36:02 +0000

Personally I like the dollar the way it is.