Birthers, truthers, etc... by Niki2

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Birthers, truthers, etc...

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Thursday, May 12, 2011 08:54
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Thursday, May 5, 2011 4:00 PM

Magon

Its paradoxical but not unexpected, americans on both sides hate our govt and everhing it does. Our country is in a long term downward spiral and most of us are enslaved to debt with no chance of advancement. We need something to make us feel good about ourselves. The patriotic mantra is the same sort of lie as our advertising, we need to say it in order to believe it. If it were true, we wouldnt have to say it.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Thursday, May 5, 2011 4:53 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Magon

Its paradoxical but not unexpected, americans on both sides hate our govt and everhing it does. Our country is in a long term downward spiral and most of us are enslaved to debt with no chance of advancement. We need something to make us feel good about ourselves. The patriotic mantra is the same sort of lie as our advertising, we need to say it in order to believe it. If it were true, we wouldnt have to say it.

Is this what is known as industrial disease?

Western liberal culture aspires to freedom from tyranny, to the ideals of democracy, to the pursuit of happiness for the individual. Yet it denies those same rights to the citizens of the countries it demands control over. Hence we all end up as crazy as PN.

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Thursday, May 5, 2011 7:25 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Its paradoxical but not unexpected, americans on both sides hate our govt and everhing it does. Our country is in a long term downward spiral and most of us are enslaved to debt with no chance of advancement. We need something to make us feel good about ourselves. The patriotic mantra is the same sort of lie as our advertising, we need to say it in order to believe it. If it were true, we wouldnt have to say it.

I'm not enslaved to debt, and yet I don't feel hopeful of the future. In fact I feel anxious, because I think that whatever problems we DO face, I'm certain we will manage to (collectively) deny their existence until we panic, and then will do exactly the wrong thing. MOST of our problems are self-created, and we can't even manage to solve those. There are those among us who even deny the existence of society and necessity of collective action. We are so screwed.

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Thursday, May 5, 2011 7:35 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

If instead of jumping on slogans to decide on a course of action and acting on faith they they will somehow work out - freedom! capitalism! truth, justice, and the American apple pie! - we stopped to ask people to spell it out IN DETAIL how EXACTLY is this going to be better for us? we would be a lot better off.

People don't seem to be asking what looks to me like a basic question.

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Friday, May 6, 2011 3:51 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
If ... we stopped to ask people to spell it out IN DETAIL how EXACTLY is this going to be better for us? we would be a lot better off.

For people supposedly being so "greedy", very few actually ask "What does this mean for ME?"

I start out by assuming that everyone has an agenda. EVERYONE. (Me included.) But yanno what? You could go crazy trying to figure out everyone's agenda. Most agendas... don't matter. Unless it is someone to whom you have given access to your bank account and home, or someone who has significant power over you (your boss, your bank, your doctor, your media, and your state or Federal government) it's all just ghafla*

* It's a word I found in Dune, which means "distraction". It's such a succinct and useful word, I'm surprised that we don't have it in the English language. (Of course, why should people be educated and aware of the machinations of CEOs and politicians?) Closest idea we have is "bread and circuses". I like ghafla better.

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Friday, May 6, 2011 5:58 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I grok your love for ghafla.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Saturday, May 7, 2011 4:20 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I like the word "grok", too. It means to understand something thoroughly in all its manifestations and implications that you make it part of yourself. Another good word.

Grok and ghafla may seem far afield of the title of this thread, but I assure you- they are entirely on-point.

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Saturday, May 7, 2011 4:53 AM

DREAMTROVE

I basically agree with everything in the kast everal posts since my own and have nothing to add other than I hope we can agree that not all theories suspicions and agendas are equal.

My initial object was to the equating of searching for the truth after rejecting an official story of major consequence as to making up stuff about the president's nation of birth, which has no bearing on anything, including his presidency. It was a story concocted by crazy people based on nothing.

I think we are mostly on accord on all of these.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Saturday, May 7, 2011 5:49 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
My initial object was to the equating of searching for the truth after rejecting an official story of major consequence [ as being a conspiracy theorist]

Well, if you really want to see an "official story" in action, just go look at Fukushima. It is an ongoing nuclear catastrophe which has moved entirely off the front page. Fukushima isn't the second-worst accident since Chernobyl, it's Chernobyl on steroids. The equivalent contents of FOUR nuclear reactors (not just one) have either blown up, or melted down, or both, and released a lot of radiation into the air and are continuing to spew radiation into the groundwater and ocean. There is a sewage treatment plant in Koriyama due exactly WEST of Fukushima about 50 miles and a range of low coastal mountains away, which had 26,400 Bq/kg of cesium in the sludge. That's a LOT of contamination for a city that has been mostly upwind and a LONG ways away. How did the radiation get there?

http://sites.google.com/site/yoshiakitsuzuki/Home/radioactivity-in-sew
age
You may have seen the videos of anonymous people who post their dosimeter or Geiger counter readings and locations as a kind of person-to-person warning system bc their personal dosimeters never seem to match the "official" word? In fact, just recently there was a person who posted a Geiger counter during the rain. At background, the reading was about 100 microsieverts, but as soon as it started to rain it climbed over 700 and pegged out. That's bc the rain is bringing down all of the very fine radioactive particles.

I have a friend in Japan who wrote me that these people have gotten emails asking them to take their posts down and identifying them by their personal information (name, address etc.) She says she feels like she's working in China, not Japan.

The Japanese government just recently raised the safety limit for children by X20. I guess when you fail by the current rules, success is just a rule change away, right?

Anyway, eventually that released radiation is going to make its way to the west coast by water as well as by air, but the EPA is taking down RADNET and the FDA refuses to test fish for radiative contamination.

So here's a question about information that we have never received, but can be easily supposed:

I strongly suspect that we have satellites- several of them- constantly scanning the globe for nuclear threat. Thanks to N Korea's well-publicized nuclear threats, I would imagine there is one parked over that region most of the time. How much effort do you think it would take to turn that thing around a little bitty-bit and look at Japan instead? I would bet you dollars to donuts that we (the USA military) knows pretty closely how many nuclear explosions have occurred (prompt criticalities), how many focal criticalities, how much contamination has been spewed out etc.

But the IAEA, our NRC, and a lot of engineers (not just nuclear ones.... you listening, Hardware?) have been content to let TEPCO, the Japanese government, and the Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC) bamboozle, intimidate, and risk the public for the sake of money, convenience and the status quo.

Just saying.

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Saturday, May 7, 2011 4:01 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I basically agree with everything in the kast everal posts since my own and have nothing to add other than I hope we can agree that not all theories suspicions and agendas are equal.

My initial object was to the equating of searching for the truth after rejecting an official story of major consequence as to making up stuff about the president's nation of birth, which has no bearing on anything, including his presidency. It was a story concocted by crazy people based on nothing.

I think we are mostly on accord on all of these.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

Wow, I find myself in agreement with you, DT, :shock:

Governments do lie, they talk up their own achievements, minimise or cover up their stuff ups. They manipulate information, particularly when it comes to going to war. No-one really ever says - 'listen, we're off to war, because that make good economic sense', so they make up stories of good vs evil to make it seem honourable that economics often requires the slaughter of civilians by a well armed military.

For me, a conspiracy theory has to make sense, there has to be a logic to the whys, and it has to be plausable. If it involved elaborate, careful planning and scheming and a capacity to cover up that defies probability, if it involves high levels of secret co-operation between multiple individuals, organisations and governments, I'm prone not to believe it. I think that says more about me culturally. Americans may look upon their leaders with suspicion, Australians tend to view them with contempt. That is, I just don't believe in my governments organisational capacity to carry out an elaborate conspiracy theory, and what I can see of the US government, I doubt they could either.

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Saturday, May 7, 2011 4:42 PM

DREAMTROVE

Magon

History is a history of conspiracy theories.

Nowhere is it easier to carry off a conspiracy than in govt. You are surrounded by loyal people who can can destroy or even outright kill if they betray you. You have their guaranteed cooperation. Its a breeding ground for the worst ideas ever devised.

Your analysis of how we get into wars follows just this model: the govt, conspires because its the easiest way to get things done, and no govt, is ever accountable to anyone: they hold absolute power, that's why they talk so much about accountability, so we will believe that it exists.

That said, there different kinds of conspiracies.

If i can use Nazis as an example without gettinnng Godwined, so, no, im not omparing anyone to nazis, they're just the best example i can think of for the double conspiracy, it works like this. (it could even be a triple)

Nazis conspired to kill jews using legitimate immigration laws and deportation and police enforcement of the sort that our country uses every day. Deported jews were then assigned debts, and put to work under the banner "work will set you free." this was essentially slave labir for the war machine, that's just history, but there's a conspiracy theory that the German govt. Intended ti kill all the jews in europe. Germans of the time didn't believe this govt. Conspiracy, but all of us believe it today.

Not, the second conspiracy is that the EU has passed a law banning further investigation. I think this is a ploy to cover up what such an invewtigatjon might find. What it certainly wiuldnt find would be that there wasnt a german govt conspiracy to kill the jews, or that six million or so died. I suspect what might be overturned is that there were companies involved, and maybe even other govts, which were involved, and do not want their involvement disclosed, and so the nuremberg story stands without further investigation.

If there were a third conspiracy it would be this: after WWI there was a lot of anger and hostility at bankers who people felt, ritly so, had set up the war, aiding both sides. Nazis managed to narrow that down to jewish bankers, and then segue into "jews" and then use that to attack poor jews in eastern europe, and not those bankers who were considered most responsible, many of whom, jewish and not, were in switzerland, outside of the war,

One of the things abiut conspiracies is that there are many conspiracies running all of the time, at the same time, and they do not tie in to one grand theory. Everyone has their own agenda. Those bankers saw that axe coming from a mile away, and got out from under it, those corprorations saw a chance to make a buck off the war, and now dont want to own up to it, and the nazis saw the situaiton as an opportunity to irradicate what they considered genetically and morally inferior populations from europe.

Fighting them, of course, the US govt. Had openly anti-semitic policies, no interest in saving jews, but was looking to establish its own empire based on air power, that's conpspiray #4

And so it goes.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Monday, May 9, 2011 11:40 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Oops..

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Monday, May 9, 2011 11:41 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Thanx, Magons. I’ve been gone a few days, so starting where I left off. That’s what I was hoping for, some ideas to discuss about WHY there are so many conspiracy theories running around, not whether there are or not and whether they’re valid or not. I appreciate your input.

Quote:
americans on both sides hate our govt and everhing it does

DT, I find that an amazing statement. While many of us fit that, almost as many do NOT. I agree with the rest of that post, however.

Magons, I dunno if we all end up as whacko as PN, but there’s validity to what you say, unfortunately, It shame me, but I recognize it.

I agree with Sig, too, and Jim and I are definitely not enslaved to debt! We learned about that one ages ago, and now don’t even have credit cards. Our ATMs fill the need quite nicely. But the rest, yes, they are valid points.

Kiki, I also agree with you. Those catch phrases are tossed around by virtually everyone, but often people not only don’t know what THEY mean by them, but don’t recognize the dichotomy at all. Another sad and embarrassing fact.

Sig, hey, I like “ghafla”, will have to remember that one. I picked up “grok” from “Stranger in a Strange Land” for exactly the same reason. It’s a succinct way of stating something for which we have no actual word (it’s not “understand”, it’s deeper than that). It took me years, by the way, actually a couple of decades, to realize how much of Dune was taken directly out of Middle Eastern and Asian mentality, philosophy, verbiage, environment, etc. Looking back once I did, the book took on a whole new meaning! Then I was pissed by how they translated it to the screen...

Oops, I see Anthony groks, too, hee, hee, hee! And you explained it perfectly. Forgive my duplication, I’m responding as I go down the posts.

DT, I didn’t think we NEEDED to agree “that not all theories suspicions and agendas are equal.” I kind of thought that was understood. Yes, I titled this “birthers, TRUTHERS, etc.”, but to me “truthers” are the people who latched onto the belief that 9/11 was an “inside job” without giving it much thought (some of them no doubt because it was “the” thing to do within their circle of friends, some just out of hate for the government). I didn’t mean to indicate those who have valid questions and ARE just seeking truth.

My only problem, really, is with people who state such-and-such is true, PERIOD, as if everyone has already agreed to it and it’s not out of the norm. That’s partly where Magons’ “agenda” thing comes into being for me. There are so many reasons within the human brain for conclusions to be subjective, that it makes my hackles rise when someone states things flatly that are their subjective opinions. We can’t even know all that goes into our believing one thing or another, our subconsciouses are busy, imaginative little beast, so stating things as if everyone believes them or they are just fact, I guess it feels like someone believes they have the right not only to speak for me, but to THINK for me too. I try very hard to caveat my conclusions, judgments and opinions AS my opinion or what I believe, etc., for just that reason. I think some of your conclusions are pretty far fetched, and some of them make sense, but that doesn’t guarantee any of them are absolutely correct, even the ones I agree with. It’s up to each person to decide what conspiracy theory is true and what is not; eventually some of them will be proven true, but until that time, it’s each person’s opinion, only.

Sig, I don’t think it’s JUST “have been content to let TEPCO, the Japanese government, and the Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC) bamboozle, intimidate, and risk the public for the sake of money, convenience and the status quo”, tho’ certainly those are at play too. I think it’s damned difficult to “let it all hang out” about another country—-the ramifications could be extensive!---and we’re such a global village, what one country says about another gets reeeel tricky, as we’re seeing right now with our relations with Pakistan. None of that is any excuse, of course, just wanted to add that I think those are at work, too.

Well, Magons,

Quote:
For me, a conspiracy theory has to make sense, there has to be a logic to the whys, and it has to be plausable. If it involved elaborate, careful planning and scheming and a capacity to cover up that defies probability, if it involves high levels of secret co-operation between multiple individuals, organisations and governments, I'm prone not to believe it. I think that says more about me culturally. Americans may look upon their leaders with suspicion, Australians tend to view them with contempt. That is, I just don't believe in my governments organisational capacity to carry out an elaborate conspiracy theory, and what I can see of the US government, I doubt they could either.

If it’s cultural, then I’m of the same culture. You explained it perfectly; word for word, that’s how I feel. And I also doubt our government’s ability to do so either; I DO believe in their capacity to do some elaborate conspiracies, but some of the more outlandish ones, I don’t have faith that they’d be able to organize that well OR that everyone would keep their mouths shut. Thank you for elucidating so clearly exactly how I feel about the matter.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Monday, May 9, 2011 2:48 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

Niki, what about the word "conceptualize" or "internalize"

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Wednesday, May 11, 2011 7:51 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

What about 'em? Context, please? I don't know what you're responding to, sorry.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Wednesday, May 11, 2011 4:19 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Birthers, Deathers, Truthers, and now...

EARTHERS!

Couldn't resist. It was just too good.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Wednesday, May 11, 2011 6:47 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

I'm talking about how English doesn't have a word for understanding and making knowledge part of your mindset, you reference a word above from some other language and then a Dune word so I was trying to come up with English equivelents.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Thursday, May 12, 2011 8:54 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Mike: Prize for first giggle of the day. But it's dangerous to give them ideas!

Riona: Ah, I see. Neither of those words fits, unfortunately. "Grok" is far more than either, it's comprehending something to such a degree that it's within you and you're within it, there really are no words to explain it.

Aha! Trust Wikipedia, they do a better job than I could:

Quote:
To grok ( /'gr?k/) is to intimately and completely share the same reality or line of thinking with another physical or conceptual entity. Author Robert A. Heinlein coined the term in his best-selling 1961 book Stranger in a Strange Land. In Heinlein's view, grokking is the intermingling of intelligence that necessarily affects both the observer and the observed. From the novel:
Quote:
Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—-to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science-—and it means as little to us (because of our Earthling assumptions) as color means to a blind man.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines grok as "to understand intuitively or by empathy; to establish rapport with" and "to empathise or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment." Other forms of the word include "groks" (present third person singular), "grokked" (past participle) and "grokking" (present participle).

The OED definition is incorrect in that it is incomplete; the given, narrow, definition of this term is beset by the challenges of similar, more encompassing terms such as gestalt and quiddity that reference a much broader frame than we normally recognize.

As you can see, neither Heinlein nor Wikipedia nor Oxford could really find the right words; one could say, to "grok" grok is so all-encompassing that we Earthlings can't put it into words.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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