Monday, July 02, 2007

Conspiracy Theories Arise

Timeline The car bombs in London and Glasgow

http://uk.reuters.com/article/UKNews1/idUKL0231720320070702?src=070207_0940_TOPSTORY_police_seek_more_bomb_suspects

In light of the recent London car bombing, Fox 'n Friends interviewing Steven Emerson, author of Jihad Incorporated.

Worth a read?

So is everything, everything else on the subjects, including the continued prevalance of conspiracy theories...


Anger, conspiracy and 9/11 truth
David Kupelian
Posted: September 11, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

A recent Scripps Howard survey reports that one in three Americans believe or suspect their democratically elected government is guilty of the worst crime in American history – of participating in the wanton murder of thousands of its own citizens and the destruction of the national economy in order to advance some nefarious, secret agenda.

If that poll is accurate, then I think it's time for us to face some hard truths.

First, we need to understand that, when it comes to 9/11 conspiracy theories, the choice is not between believing that the Bush administration is as pure as the newly fallen snow or believing that the president is a murderous extraterrestrial shape-shifter (as at least one conspiracist alleges). There's a lot in between those extremes.

In fact, if you line up all the possible alternative explanations for 9/11 next to each other, you get a continuum – everything from the most eminently reasonable concerns to the most demented and moronic theories imaginable.

Questions such as whether Flight 93 was actually shot down by the U.S. military over rural Pennsylvania before it could crash into the White House or the Capitol are legitimate. Indeed, the history of clandestine government operations in our own lifetime suggests our government is not only capable of taking such an action (which might well have been the right thing to do under the circumstances), but also capable of keeping it a secret, for whatever reasons.

Likewise, all issues regarding the government's lack of preparedness before 9/11, its myriad intelligence failures, its failure to pay sufficient attention to the growing Islamist threat even after the 1993 World Trade Center car-bombing and other attacks on American interests worldwide, are legitimate.

Cover-ups, official obfuscation and other attempts at hiding past failures, ineptness and gross incompetence are all fair game. Citizens have the perfect right and duty to hold their government accountable.

However, where 9/11 conspiracy theorists cross the line into Bizarro Land is when they conclude, utterly without proof, that the Bush administration is filled with the most craven mass murderers in American history – in other words, that 9/11 was an "inside job."

Stop and think. To believe that 9/11 was an "inside job," that it was accomplished with the blessing of the U.S. government, requires that you believe not only that George W. Bush is a demonically inspired, genocidal monster, but also that dozens and perhaps hundreds of other people in the government are likewise crazed mass-murdering psychopaths.

How can bright and intelligent Americans believe such things?

Perhaps the Scripps Howard poll provides a clue. It cited two major findings:

1. More than a third of Americans believe the U.S. government somehow assisted in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, or else took no steps to stop them from occurring, so the Bush administration could launch a war in the Middle East; and

2. A record number of Americans (54 percent of respondents) claimed they "personally are more angry" at the government than in the past.

In case you're not aware, brainwashers and dictators and master manipulators of all sorts have long known and exploited the knowledge that when people are angry, emotional and upset, they are automatically more vulnerable to outside suggestion (that is, to believing nonsense) than if they were not angry. (That's why Hitler always insisted on appealing to the German population on the basis of powerful emotion, never reason and logic.)

If, in addition, the people are in denial – that is, they've rejected the truth – then they are open to believing virtually anything. Having already denied reality, they literally have a need for lies...



http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51836


How to Identify Misinformation

How can a journalist or a news consumer tell if a story is true or false? There are no exact rules, but the following clues can help indicate if a story or allegation is true.

Does the story fit the pattern of a conspiracy theory?
Does the story fit the pattern of an “urban legend?”
Does the story contain a shocking revelation about a highly controversial issue?
Is the source trustworthy?
What does further research tell you?
Does the story fit the pattern of a conspiracy theory?

Does the story claim that vast, powerful, evil forces are secretly manipulating events? If so, this fits the profile of a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories are rarely true, even though they have great appeal and are often widely believed. In reality, events usually have much less exciting explanations.

The U.S. military or intelligence community is a favorite villain in many conspiracy theories.

http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jul/27-595713.html


Related, sort of

To keep America free, we must keep the Internet stupid!


http://www.richard-nathan-scripts.com/web.htm

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