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gradenko_2000 posted:With regards to conspiracy theorists like David Icke and Alex Jones, etc. etc., do we know if any of them are just in it for the money, or if they really believe in all of this stuff? I suspect they are in it for the money, and truly believe their shite too. Even L Ron Hubbard supposedly believed most of the crap he was spouting, despite the fact he was tayloring it for maximum brainfuck on his followers. Its not a normal mode of thinking.
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Jan 14, 2014 08:39
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Omi-Polari posted:Can anyone explain what LaRouche's deal is? It's so batshit. It looks like a totalitarian cult that combines elements from all over the political spectrum: LaRouche is a classic messianic narcissist who built a religious-like cult of personality for himself. Bob Avakian did the same thing with his Revolutionary Communist Party.
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Jan 14, 2014 08:41
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duck monster posted:I suspect they are in it for the money, and truly believe their shite too. And I agree. The point in the Salon piece is that the economics and belief system intersect. While it might seem like Jones is a fraud for pouncing on every little thing as proof of the conspiracy, since it's an obvious way to hook listeners and make buckets of money, it's also just how they think. I'm sure there's a social or political theorist out there who can draw some connection between modern conspiratorial thinking and consumerism. (Hey there's a thought...) I think doublethink would probably explain a lot of it, too. The last time I read Infowars closely was during the Boston bombings, and it was interesting to see them adopt one narrative, then switch to an entirely different narrative that contradicted the first in response to new information from the mainstream press, while simultaneously disavowing the first narrative as part of the government-created plot.
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Jan 14, 2014 08:48
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Jones is definately making a lot of money, but he's a rank amateur compared to Larouche. Larouche has been around long enough to almost qualify as old money, and his followers are truly spiral eyed devoted. The cult takes a tithe of wages and has huge fundraising capacity. Even in australia at one point it was the most well funded political group in the country, and the australian arm (Citizens electoral council) is possitively dinky compared to his huge network of front groups in the US. This article: http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/lyndon-larouches-dirty-little-secret/Content?oid=926950 from 1987, 25 years ago therabouts, suggested a $20mil a year income. His organization has grown *considerably* since then. And thats just in the US. He's got parallel orgs in almost every country in the world. Of course Larouche himself isn't even in the scientologists league, but those cats are a true religious cult, so its sort of cheating.
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Jan 14, 2014 11:25
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If they are just doing it for the money, its disgusting and they are doing incredible harm to society and progress by doing it. It creates a atmosphere of distrust of all sources of information and of any authority figure. Questioning authority is a good thing, but learn to know when they are actually right. Scientists are probably right more than goverment anyways.
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Jan 14, 2014 21:39
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Speaking as a recovering conspiracy theorist, it simply makes more sense from a cause/effect standpoint. Knowing what America is like, doing wanton destruction towards it with no goal or desired result beyond the act seems too idiotic for anyone to actually commit (the actual motivations are more complex than that, but this is what it seems like to someone out of the know); the attacks being the result of actions taken by the people who gained from the attacks (directly or a couple degrees removed) simply makes more sense.twistedmentat posted:If they are just doing it for the money, its disgusting and they are doing incredible harm to society and progress by doing it. It creates a atmosphere of distrust of all sources of information and of any authority figure. I highly disagree. In my experience, scientists are just as ignorant about things outside their field as the average person, sometimes even more so. Hell, I distinctly remember many of the more prominent conspiracy theorists being scientists and other "experts" who's experience in their field unequivically disprove the official story. Main point is completely valid, though.
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Jan 14, 2014 23:06
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Slanderer posted:It's not a Cosmonaut, but the Nedelin catastrophe was covered up. In 1960 a rushed rocket test went bad and incinerated some military commander (Nedelin) along with a bunch of officers and engineers. The whole thing was hushed up, and the official story was that Nedelin died in a plane crash. Although word leaked out within the decade, it wasn't officially acknowledged until 1989. This just proves my point though. If Nedelin eventually came to light, how is there zero documentation on any lost cosmonauts? At this point state secrecy is in and of itself a reason to invent conpsiracies, in order to fill the gap where there must be secret knowledge hidden away. boner confessor fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 23:10
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Popular Thug Drink posted:This just proves my point though. If Nedelin eventually came to light, how is there zero documentation on any lost cosmonauts? At this point state secrecy is in and of itself a reason to invent conpsiracies, in order to fill the gap where there must be secret knowledge hidden away. It wouldn't be too hard to destroy documents that had to do with the mission, or even just getting rid of any mention of using a human in the test (though it would have some glaring holes if read later on). Dealing with the people who also worked on the project wouldn't be too har either; most likely you'd just need say it needs to be hidden for have them any sort of a chance at having a career (especially outside the agency). Sure, it wouldn't be easy by any definition of the word, but it's far from impossible.
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Jan 15, 2014 00:16
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MizPiz posted:It wouldn't be too hard to destroy documents that had to do with the mission, or even just getting rid of any mention of using a human in the test (though it would have some glaring holes if read later on). Dealing with the people who also worked on the project wouldn't be too har either; most likely you'd just need say it needs to be hidden for have them any sort of a chance at having a career (especially outside the agency). Sure, it wouldn't be easy by any definition of the word, but it's far from impossible. This is the first step towards being a conspiracy theorist. It's not possible that the USSR accidentally killed a human in a failed spaceflight and destroyed every bit of evidence that the flight or the pilot ever existed. The process of building and launching a ship, as well as training a pilot, takes too many people and generates too much paper for all of it to be suppressed.
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Jan 15, 2014 00:21
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Popular Thug Drink posted:This just proves my point though. If Nedelin eventually came to light, how is there zero documentation on any lost cosmonauts? At this point state secrecy is in and of itself a reason to invent conpsiracies, in order to fill the gap where there must be secret knowledge hidden away. Oh, I don't think there's any reason to believe there are hidden dead cosmonauts. Instead, stories such as Nedelin, where a rumored conspiracy ends up being true, are the inspiration for Secret Dead Cosmonaut stories.
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Jan 15, 2014 01:26
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gradenko_2000 posted:With regards to conspiracy theorists like David Icke and Alex Jones, etc. etc., do we know if any of them are just in it for the money, or if they really believe in all of this stuff? I think David Icke really does believe giant lizards run the world (and not just as a codeword for Jews) and is genuinely insane. He was a normal guy leading a normal life and then goes off his rocker talking about absolutely batshit conspiracies which people close to him insist he really believes in. If he wasn't previously famous he would just be another poor sap on pills trying to hold his life together. The rest are totally in it for the money. Jones I think likes to play along and like a lot of conspiracy theory opinion leaders has taken comfortably to running a sort of cult centered on himself. Which is ironically what conspiracy theorists like to accuse everyone else of doing.
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Jan 15, 2014 01:45
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Popular Thug Drink posted:This is the first step towards being a conspiracy theorist. It's not possible that the USSR accidentally killed a human in a failed spaceflight and destroyed every bit of evidence that the flight or the pilot ever existed. The process of building and launching a ship, as well as training a pilot, takes too many people and generates too much paper for all of it to be suppressed. It's the same principle as the Moon Landings. The USSR would have every reason to expose them as a hoax and embarass the US- it's confirmed by things like the laser reflectors that were placed there by Apollo astronauts. If the story of Italian radio operators picking up cries for help is true wouldn't the CIA be all over? Or were they too busy dropping acid and throwing paint at a canvas?
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Jan 15, 2014 01:53
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The Italian dudes were just some nerdy guys who got in a little over their heads and had to start one-upping themselves to continue having people pay attention to them.
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Jan 15, 2014 01:54
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmuxAXugloQ All these people are in fact the same person. See how they look similar. But they look different but thats because *lenses*. Pure unadulterated madness. edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1ei6SxTzBQ This video claims Richard Branson is David Icke lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdOmiSnJdAg Full off the deep-end stuff..... duck monster fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 02:11
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MizPiz posted:I highly disagree. In my experience, scientists are just as ignorant about things outside their field as the average person, sometimes even more so. Hell, I distinctly remember many of the more prominent conspiracy theorists being scientists and other "experts" who's experience in their field unequivically disprove the official story. I think you missed  goverment is pretty much incorrect all the time, science a little bit less so.Install Windows posted:The Italian dudes were just some nerdy guys who got in a little over their heads and had to start one-upping themselves to continue having people pay attention to them. It's still super cool that they were able to cobble together something that could listen in on the transmissions http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4115 duck monster posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmuxAXugloQ The Wellaware guy has a serious mental illness, probably combined with that thing were people have trouble remembering peoples faces. None of those people look a like other than the gender and race. Best is the video confirming that Walt Disney and Hitler were the same person. Related to both the Youtube lizard people vids are pretty funny. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPY26U64XRk Oddly, lizard people can only be seen by recording your tv screen with your phone. This is pretty funny too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kPM8x1lfcU More like a cracked "look how shocking stars looked when they were kids" list twistedmentat fucked around with this message at 03:29 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 03:27
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Actually face memory is a common problem with autistic folks. My legitimately autistic post-doc mathematician housemate has almost no memory for peoples faces. I can stand across the road and call something out to him and he'll be wondering who I am until I say "ITS <duckmonster>".
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Jan 15, 2014 04:43
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duck monster posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmuxAXugloQ I want to laugh at this insanity but it just makes me angry at the conspiracy industry 
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Jan 15, 2014 04:49
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Popular Thug Drink posted:This is the first step towards being a conspiracy theorist. It's not possible that the USSR accidentally killed a human in a failed spaceflight and destroyed every bit of evidence that the flight or the pilot ever existed. The process of building and launching a ship, as well as training a pilot, takes too many people and generates too much paper for all of it to be suppressed. I'm not suggesting that the dead cosmonaut thing has any sort of basis in reality, but it's not exactly hard to hide something when your project is already semi-covert. I feel like I'm getting far too defensive for a side I'm supposed to be against, so here's this: Practically every popular conspiracy theory is a collection of "independently plausible truths"* (with some unconnected facts, if any) put together in such a way that it becomes the theorist's inalienable proof of how the world works. At it's best, conspiracy theories can be a good basis for a creative writing exercise. *By this, I mean any sort of factor that has even the slightest of chances of being real, even if it would be contradicted by another "independently plausible truth". twistedmentat posted:I think you missed Yeah, that happens to me quite a bit. 
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Jan 15, 2014 05:01
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MizPiz posted:I'm not suggesting that the dead cosmonaut thing has any sort of basis in reality, but it's not exactly hard to hide something when your project is already semi-covert. I saw on Snopes forum (I think) way back just after 9/11 about the whole "Jews didn't show up for work on 9/11 at the WTC because they were WARNED" actually came from someone noticed a jewish coworker called in sick that morning. That ballooned into the crazy that is so often taken for granted. quote:Yeah, that happens to me quite a bit. No worries. I mean, at least you can tell a good scientist from a bad one a little easier, because they have to go through things like peer review, testing of their hypothesis and all kinds of other checks and balances to get their stuff published. Unless its some corprate funded study that says fracking actually makes water safer or employees want to be paid in company script. Its generally good to keep in mind "Extraordinary claims required extraordinary evidence" when dealing with conspiracies. Claims of talking to an unnamed source that was the payroll supervisor for the crew that planted microthermite in the WTC needs to be verified with something, and not just taken on faith. Its also interesting to note a lot of the stuff conspiracies are founded on have been proved without a doubt to being hoaxes. Previously mentioned Protocals of the Elders of Zion for example. More recently the so called Majestic-12 documents have been proved to be a hoax after careful examination of the documents that were claimed to be products of some well known figure like FDR or Einstein or Oppenheimer were examined for their linguistic fingerprints. How you talk and write is different from how i talk and write, and you can actually create an algorithm that can compare documents. Obviously the more you have the more accurate they become. Obviously someone like the president we can get lots of primary source material to compare it too. Its very cool. But a lot of UFO Roswell conspiracies are based on this stuff. Or like Zacharia Stichen, who claimed to have translated Mesopotamian tablets which talked about sky gods from the 10s planet mining gold and loving homonids women to produce modern humans. Because thats what beings that can travel interplanetary want to do, get money, gently caress cave bitches. His translations of stuff was very strange, and even Ancient Alien believers who were able to read the languages found that his translations were extremely wrong. One of his biggest ones is the sky gods were called Annunaki, which Stichen claims means "sky gods from afar" while more mainstream and modern experts say it just means "Sons of Annun". I spend way too much time reading and listening to debunking of conspiracies.
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Jan 15, 2014 07:54
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I can't help but hypothesize that David Icke has always had some kind of untreated psychosis and/or delusional disorder like a
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Jan 15, 2014 08:05
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Have there been any claims of a conspiracy against Chris Christie? Surely someone believes that he is the next victim of Obama's communist take over.
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Jan 15, 2014 08:15
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twistedmentat posted:I saw on Snopes forum (I think) way back just after 9/11 about the whole "Jews didn't show up for work on 9/11 at the WTC because they were WARNED" actually came from someone noticed a jewish coworker called in sick that morning. That ballooned into the crazy that is so often taken for granted. (Seventy-six Jews died on 9/11) E-Tank posted:Have there been any claims of a conspiracy against Chris Christie? Surely someone believes that he is the next victim of Obama's communist take over. BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 08:23 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 08:17
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Omi-Polari posted:Can anyone explain what LaRouche's deal is? It's so batshit. It looks like a totalitarian cult that combines elements from all over the political spectrum: LaRouche is probably the closest political movement we have to out-and-out fascism in the US. Well, except for Neo-Nazis, but that's cheating.
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Jan 15, 2014 08:46
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Some of that 'lost cosmonaut' audio is on youtube if anyone's curious. There's even russian dudes in the comments saying that it doesn't sound like a native russian speaker.
A human heart fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 10:55
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Sergg posted:I can't help but hypothesize that David Icke has always had some kind of untreated psychosis and/or delusional disorder like a Paranoid Schizophrenia typically kicks in late teens/early 20s but can kick in later on in some cases. Currently research recently suggests weed can accelerate that kick in by as much as 6 years. However things like Bipolar disorder can more than account for some pretty paranoid and delusional thinking (I had a bipolar friend once accuse me of being part of a grand plot to poison his water with *medicine*) and this can often have its onset suppressed for years by alcoholism (Turns out booze can keep a guy sane, but only SORT OF Do not do this if you think you are bipolar, it only masks it by hiding it under a more potent mental illness, alcoholism, btw) Its kind of fraught to speculate on why the guys so barmey. He's definately got SOMETHING since he thinks aliens have contacted him. But there are a lot of ways a man can lose his mind.
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Jan 15, 2014 13:16
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Blarghalt posted:LaRouche is probably the closest political movement we have to out-and-out fascism in the US. Oh theres a whole history of fascist (Klansmen) , proto-fascist (John birch society/tea party etc) and crypto-fascist (Larouche) to chose from. Larouche is pretty hosed up, but he's not the first and he wont be the last.
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Jan 15, 2014 13:24
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What about Ur-fascism?
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Jan 15, 2014 13:29
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While I'm mentioning the john birch society, its worth remembering that the John Birch society used to be considered the canonical example of American conspiracy theorists. Everything , to them, was a communist plot to secretly ensnare america, and the soviet tanks where lined up on the canadian border just ready to spill in and finish off what the "fabians" had started. Does anyone remember a book called "The Fabian Freeway"? That was a classic Birchite book. Hundreds of footnotes, incredibly well researched, but utterly barmy reasoning. Essentially if you had ever even met a fabian, you where in on the conspiracy, and therefor the fabians where EVERYWHERE secretly carrying out stalins sinister plot. Guess who distributes it now? http://mises.org/document/4621/Fabian-Freeway-High-Road-to-Socialism-in-the-USA-Digital-Book  Austrian economics! Its really all about this guy:  Barry "loving" Goldwater. The Ron Paul of the 1960s, and the dude who made the republican party into the sort of party that could produce Ronald Reagan. He was supported by a vast army of loving lunatics who lapped up John Birch publications about the communist menace that the democrats represented and even after Kennedys assasination made conspiracizing about Kenedy being a communist faux par (see now kennedy was a VICTIM of the communists instead) , it just evolved to be about hating on LBJ, and long past Goldwaters time, to hating on Carter. By the time it had gotten to clinton, it had evolved well beyond just the birchites to the crazy sprawl of loons we have today, with the black helicopters and clinton death lists and so on. But I still reckon, as irrelevant as the birchites might seem bleating about how communists are the REAL enemy, that the john birch society needs more scrutiny today than it gets.
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Jan 15, 2014 13:41
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duck monster posted:Barry "loving" Goldwater. In fairness to Goldwater, he was an outspoken opponent of one of, if not the, most important Reagan constituents -- the religious right. Also like Reagan, he might have been too "liberal" for today's Republican party. You don't see too many Republicans today that are pro-choice, pro-gay rights, and pro-medical marijuana. Not white-knighting him in the least, he was against just about every social safety net imaginable and there's no telling how many foreign entanglements we would have gotten in to if he'd had his way. But whatever his role in the growth of the Birchers, his overall views evolved such that the Birchers wouldn't have put up with him.
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Jan 15, 2014 14:49
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Senate "Intelligence" Committee Benghazi report just dropped: http://mojo.ly/1dvI09A the "additional views" near the end are authored by a bunch of far-right nutcases. anyone know how much of the conspiracy poop this thing touches? I haven't been keeping up enough emdash fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 16:58
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I read an article way back when Glenn Beck was king of the shitheap saying how the Birchers have won as the right wing is pretty much running on all the Bircher talking points; communists, socialists, minorities and women. During the black helicoptors era in the 90s, they would talk about how the entire North Eastern US was already under UN ZOG control and all media saying how it was normal was just a lie. Goldwater was totally for segregation as well. That famous LBJ ad with the little girl at the mushroom cloud was against Goldwater as well.
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Jan 15, 2014 19:55
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duck monster posted:Im not sure even Larouche has claimed the world is secretly run by giant bipedal space dinosaurs. David Icke is next level bonkers.
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Jan 16, 2014 03:48
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twistedmentat posted:I read an article way back when Glenn Beck was king of the shitheap saying how the Birchers have won as the right wing is pretty much running on all the Bircher talking points; communists, socialists, minorities and women. During the black helicoptors era in the 90s, they would talk about how the entire North Eastern US was already under UN ZOG control and all media saying how it was normal was just a lie. Yeah the tea party seems to have done an astonishing job of flushing out the non crazies, and Fox seems to have done a pretty effective number on a lot of peoples heads too.
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Jan 16, 2014 08:38
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Republican Vampire posted:As I understand it, the Dinosaur thing is about all Icke brings to the table that's new. It's part of what I mean about re-branding it to be more attractive. The stuff he talks about in his literature is, for the most part, what LaRouche and other conspiracy theorists in that vein talk about. I think that the lizards, along with the new age stuff, is an easier sell for a lot of people since it means not overtly blaming a real group. I honestly suspect if V hadnt run in the early 80s (Seriously go find the original V miniseries and watch it. its actually surprisingly watchable if you can tolerate the silly hair cuts and occasionally hammy acting. Just the original miniseries + the final battle though. It all went downhill from there.). Without that and its narrative of space lizards taking over the earth via stealthy takeover, I doubt the lizardoid theorists would have ever existed. Its literally a "V is real!" movement. Incidently, googling V along with conspiracy theory words brings up some really loving funny reviews. edit: Oh whilst Im at it When I was a teenager/early 20s dude in the early 90s, X-Files was the biggest thing on TV. Just after it started, my best friend succumbed to paranoid schizophrenia and he became quite convinced X-Files was completely 100% true. His parents where actually contemplating getting rid of the TV set to stop him seeing more episodes as he'd practically end up crazier each time he'd see an episode. duck monster fucked around with this message at 08:59 on Jan 16, 2014 |
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Jan 16, 2014 08:51
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I'm sure this has been posted before, but I haven't seen it so here it is again, My favorite skewering of conspiracy nuts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KGmHsKsa-U
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Jan 16, 2014 09:05
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What is the endgame in the truther mindset? I mean, if they are right, and it's all a huge hoax and setup, what, in their mind, is the result? Do they expect once everyone knows "the truth," there will be a revolution or something? Certainly if the government is the diabolical authoritarian mastermind they claim it is, even everyone knowing that 9/11 was a false flag can't stop them. I get that it's a narrative and they want to hold on to the idea that we still have some modicum of power over the government if we know the truth or whatever, I am just curious what the false flag crew think results in everyone knowing "what really happened".
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Jan 16, 2014 10:56
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kirkjames posted:What is the endgame in the truther mindset? To make money. At least all the people who are actually pushing this poo poo. 'Loose Change' made a good bit of 
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Jan 16, 2014 11:24
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E-Tank posted:To make money. At least all the people who are actually pushing this poo poo. 'Loose Change' made a good bit of Loose change started as a students fiction film project. Then some nut offered the student a dirty great pile of cash to investigate the " claims" made in the movie and offered a large cash reward if the student could find proof. Against all odds he found proof!!!!
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Jan 16, 2014 14:42
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E-Tank posted:My favorite skewering of conspiracy nuts. I like it - here's another Conspiracy / School House Rock parody. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3JLKw0q4kY
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Jan 16, 2014 14:48
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TheQat posted:Senate "Intelligence" Committee Benghazi report just dropped: http://mojo.ly/1dvI09A Thanks for posting this, I'm reading it right now. They did a good job of organizing the events. I haven't been following too closely so it's nice to see exact times and exact counts of the security forces.
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Jan 16, 2014 18:22
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