Something fun for a Saturday.
Obama's release of his long form birth certificate has gutted support for the Birthers. In conjunction with the one two punch that was Obama's order to successfully rid the world of Osama Bin Laden, the Tea Party New Right GOP is on their heels. While fun to watch, the Birthers will evolve and continue on to other silliness. Their party will continue the freak show as the Republicans try to select a challenger from a pitiable field of contenders for the 2012 election.
Some (if not most) of the Birthers will follow Trump's racist lead and become obsessed with the President's school records--you know the fix was in for that black guy to be voted head of the Harvard Law Review folks. Others, desperate to deny the President any success, will spin elaborate fictions where Osama is still alive and hidden away somewhere; Obama strategically waited to kill him as to find the most politically expedient moment to hurt the Republicans; and the most desperate and partisan will not rally around the flag, but instead will find a way to question Obama's leadership and role in the decision to send Seal Team 6 to double tap Bin Laden's melon.
The paranoid style is an old script in American politics. History tells us that the Birthers and the Deathers will eventually fold into the lunatic fringe--to the degree they do not already overlap. But, conspiracy-talk and the propensity of people to practice and believe in it, signals to important ebbs and flows in the collective political subconscious. Oftentimes, the root problem that breeds a belief in conspiracy theories is either a sense of powerlessness or a feeling that the world is changing. Thus there is something existentially "wrong" with it. Consequently, a need for explanations--however ridiculous--becomes necessary to resolve cognitive dissonance and to find parsimony in one's understanding of reality.
I love a good conspiracy theory (thank you Art Bell). For example, I am highly suspicious of the official accounts of the events on 9/11 (Operation Northwoods anyone?). The moon landings occurred, but I have not heard a compelling explanation for why we have not returned (perhaps we never left?). The National Security State is real: the panoptic moment occurred decades ago. Military technology is at least two to three generations ahead of that generally known to exist by the mass public (just what was the secret weapon alluded to by Bow Woodward on 60 Minutes a few years ago?)
[On documentary films. Loose Change is great precisely because of the scale of its fraudulent presentation. Zeitgeist, good, but not as compelling to me. The Power of Nightmares is spot on.]
In thinking about the Birthers and Deathers my thoughts returned to David Icke, one of my favorite practicioners of the conspiranoid craft. He melds the frightening truth of the global power elite with a carnival barker's style. There are aliens afoot, Planet X is coming, and the world is not as the common man understands it to be.
I wonder how how the Deathers will bend their worldview to fit into Icke's vision?
16 comments:
The mouthbreathers already have their own opportunistic storytellers with their own well established narratives and an enormous institutional installed base.
Pro-Zionist, Pro-Materialist, Militarist, and deeply embedded in the structural mainstream.
Isn't David fun to watch?!
I think he may have taken 1 step outside the circle, but there is a grain of truth in some of his ramblings.
The Rothschilds look like reptiles to me... JMHO
Sadly, these duelling crankodoodles like Icke, Alex Jones (I see they've made nice in recent years, ain't that sweet), and others have their influence on the gullible factions on the left, i.e. our own fringe.
They often slither in under the guise of supposed "anti-Zionism", "Zionism" being an ill-defined throwaway term for the boogie man if I've ever seen one. Then, they start peddling trash and bullshit such as the Apollo Moon Landing being a hoax.
Sometimes, these assholes are not too far from legitimacy. Rense.com, which is sympathetic to David Duke, whatreallyhappened, also sympathetic to white nationalists; and that paranoid asshat Alex Jones' infowars.com and prisonplanet.com were common gateways to whackjobbery, not even ten years ago, especially around 9/11 conspiracy theories.
Some of the ones generated by white nationalists like Michael Collins Piper of American Free Press (a Willis Carto "publication") and Christopher Bollyn, another AFP bigot, still have sway.
Cynthia McKinney's tragic, needless descent into the crankodoodle set is possibly the worst example. She's to the point where she's touting the supposed heroism of Gaddaffy (who backed the Janjaweed in Sudan and Idi Amin in Uganda); cavorting around with Apollo Moon Landing deniers, lending her name to groups of dumb white thuglets like We Are Change (formerly associated with Alex Jones), and extremist antigay bigots like Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamed, former PM of Malaysia.
Yeah, that's really radical [rolls eyes].
This kind of crap still carries credence among some of our own who are not paying attention. Then, people end up supporting causes that seek their demise, and wonder why the world is so effed up.
imoho - LaRouchian and particularly Larouche-noirian influences have inflicted numerous casualties on what would otherwise be a moderate-progressive tending Black intelligentsia.
one wonders how/why folk don't disavow these shyte machinations the very instant they detect the faint but unmistakeable ordure of a LaRouchian tentacle in the background?
Yeah, the LaRouchies never went away, either. They run as Dems, too. You've probably seen that embarrassment Kesha Rogers Mars Girl of TX, ugh. Barney Frank handed another one of these dimbulb cult members her ass during all that screaming and hollering the teabaggers did at the townhalls, summer of '09. http://bit.ly/mlVkMz
But I see more crankage-creep, e.g. peddling white nationalist, David Duke lite b.s. like whatreallyhappened and Alex Jones as if they are somehow legit, moreso than LaRouche. It used to be they made inroads on the left just because they hated Bush in the '00s, now it's because they claim to be oh so pro-Palestinian. Sure... they just luvvvv Brown people in the middle east. Lol!
Though I've not been able to document it to the extent required to meet all applicable evidentiary standards, the overlap in personnel and messaging between Alex Jones, David Livingstone, Henry Makow, Red Ice Creations and a handful of others - has led me to conclude that many of these web media entities are themselves LaRouche fronts.
I was quite the cult-sleuth back in my day, and Cambridge MA, was a hotbed of cultic and specifically LaRouchian publishing and bookselling activity (awesome bookstores mind you). One of my buddies (now deceased) was the only child of the highest ranking Council of 25 with nominal administrative control of LaRouchian organizational activities out of Chicago.
He was on permanent student status at MIT and spent quite a bit of time recruiting and a little bit proselytizing for the LHL cartel.
@Cnu. I am learning something here. What are the connections that you suspect? Certainly, they are part of an industry of sorts, but it would be cool to see how the interpersonal conflicts and allegiances are colouring their analysis.
Tangentially: I remember one of the best weeks on the Art Bell Show where it was exposed that the Emperor has not clothes. There is a small community of ufologists and one was lying and exaggerating his findings in an effort to discredit his colleagues. Then it came out through FOIA that said expert was actually on the payroll for the Feds for an extended period.
The tension was palpable as all parties involved were invested in squashing this bit of info while bringing their now exposed boy back into the fold. If you want to track it down I think the debacle involved George C Hogland (sp?)
Hoaxland been pimpin since day one brah...., you sure it wasn't J.Allen Hynek you heard on C2C am back in the day? (following that link to the wikipedia page for Hynek, you'll peep Jacques Vallee who in my occassionally humble estimation is actually on about the phenomenon underlying all of this here mystery)
But Vallee an'em an entirely separate conversation of monumental proportions in its own right - and we ain't need to go into all of these outer limits right about now and get completely sidetracked from the issue of disinformation agents in the age of Cass Sunenstein and at the behest of master gamesman and cryptonomiconician extraordinaire Barack Double-O'bama.
What I'd most like you to do is to pick up a copy of Julian Jaynes Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind - and read Jaynes' masterfull summation of the 8 systematic approaches to the hard problem that consciousness is NOT - and then - read his chapter on Hypnosis.
Published in 1976 - Jaynes disclosed more about what is not only feasible to cults, but also without ever explicitly addressing himself to the topic - disclosed many of the methods used by those who exploit both individual and mass suggestibility for political advantage. The reason that book remains an unsung masterpiece is that it goes SOOOOO deep into the specific nature of psychological root mechanics that it comprises a virtual hackers compendium of getting over on these here shills, dubs, and marks - which is precisely where I believe we pick up on what LHL and the current coterie of digital disinfo agents is doing and what they're really all about.
Sunstein on these information cascades is no joke, and Double-O cannot afford to fight the kind of hot counterinsurgency in the U.S. that both James Earl Carter and William Jefferson Clinton were forced to fight in defence of the state monopoly on violence. The Hon.Bro.Preznit gots to Brer'Rabbit and High John the Conqueror these ignant muhphuggahs....,
For my money, Steven Mizrach has gone further with the contemporary popular psychological manifestations of the UFO phenomenon than just about anybody else bothering to try and explain it along those dimensions.
@CNu, yeah, everyone is being hip-mo-tized [rolls eyes]. I'd be interested to know your findings that lead you to believe La Rouche is behind the current crop of cranks.
BTW, the Mizrach piece you link at your site gives an error upon download.
@Vid Truth, lol you crankodoodles never miss a beat. Your post would not be complete with references to that neo-nazi lite whatreallyhappened, and paranoid idiot Alex Jones, so thank you for that.
Why is anyone with sense supposed to believe in non-sense?
Lol!
@CNu, yeah, everyone is being hip-mo-tized [rolls eyes].
Not quite what I said, and certainly not what Jaynes would lead one to conclude...,
Jaynes explanation of the phenomenon of hypnosis - and his use of that as evidence for bicamerality - is - however, directly applicable to understanding how a significant number of people can suspend all disbelief and submit to the kind of dubious authority wielded by cult leaders and political disinformation sources.
The alternative - opening out onto the conclusion - that many or most of these people are evil, stupid, or ignorant - seems much harder to swallow.
Oh Crap, didn't you attend a bible-buddy college or university? Haven't you had first-hand exposure to the higher order system of indoctrination applied in such settings - and the way in which said indoctrination is processed and received?
I'd be interested to know your findings that lead you to believe La Rouche is behind the current crop of cranks.
Alex Jones, Red Ice, Livingstone, and Makow specifically (not SOTT btw) - focus on the explanatory device of the "Illuminati" denominates the alternative identity (as in "identity politics") that these elements share in common.
It's bible-buddy stuff, but aimed at a slightly higher IQ demographic. That's the pre-prison LaRouchian modus operandi through-and-through. Though I've casually looked for $moking gun interlocks, I haven't found any yet, thus my hesitation to assert that they're LHL fronts. They simply operate like them, and strongly give the appearance of being what the LHL
"organization" would do in transition away from a printed disinformation cult into a digital and multimedia disinformation cult.
Oh Crap, didn't you attend a bible-buddy college or university? Haven't you had first-hand exposure to the higher order system of indoctrination applied in such settings - and the way in which said indoctrination is processed and received?
Indeed, I did. But unless you've been to one, you wouldn't be clear on the main elements that make those mechanisms work, namely threats of being cut off, and physical force. One is that most kids who end up in places like that, say, a BYU or Wheaton or Liberty U, have already been steeped in the authoritarian/totalitarian lifestyle from childhood. I was one of them.
Another is, those kinds of schools require the student to be under physical watch at all times. E.g., one must sign an Honor Code that signs away one's basic rights to attend the school; even grad students MUST live on campus; your room is subject to random search/seizure by Resident Advisors; there is a Gestapo-like system of tattling to authority (at my school, they were called chaplains, and every floor division had them) that relayed any misdeeds such as untoward thoughts to the Dean of Men or Women.
So from my experience, most kids who go to those places already come from those places.
BTW, LaRouche is by no means the first crank to harp on the so-called "Illuminati" bugaboo. That kind of crankage dates back to the 18th century.
But unless you've been to one, you wouldn't be clear on the main elements that make those mechanisms work, namely threats of being cut off, and physical force.
rotflmbao...,
From the 7th-12th grades I was the third negro enrolled in this monstrosity - which featured intensive indoctrination in not only the Hayekian economic madness of its Bircher founders, but also the Dominionist doctrines comprising their theological foundation, such as that is...,
sheeeeiiiiitttt......,
Francis Schaeffer himself was a fairly regular visitor to that campus back in my day, and it was during this period that he "engineered" the anti-abortion movement in America.
The late Dr. George Tiller was a pall-bearer at my father's funeral. To characterize my upbringing in that context as "that which does not kill you, makes you stronger" would be an understatement.
BTW, LaRouche is by no means the first crank to harp on the so-called "Illuminati" bugaboo. That kind of crankage dates back to the 18th century.
Of course.
Much as the Casti Connubii marked the beginning of the anti-abortion movement among Catholics, yet we know that that movement did not achieve anything remotely approaching critical mass until Vatican II and the 1974 Declaration on Procured Abortion - moreover - that the Dominionists have had a greater impact on that movement than has the Catholic church.
So also - IMOHO - contemporary "crankage" on the kwestin of apotheosis and the preeminence of cognitive and financial elites in the governance of human affairs. Anti-Illuminism, anti-science, anti-education has been propelled to its current "critical mass" proportions through the work of cults of information anarchy, not least of which is LHL and the various offshoots I believe LHL has spawned. These cults share in common the goal of acquiring mindshare through dictating what is and is not valid knowledge and information praxis.
To characterize my upbringing in that context as "that which does not kill you, makes you stronger" would be an understatement.
My condolences. Sounds like my high school. But then, you should be using your own personal anecdotes about the mechanisms of indoctrination rather than guessing about mine.
"Cults" is one of those contested terms. Anyone can label anything they don't like a "cult", including actual authoritarian/totalitarian new religious movements and their secular brethren like the LaRouchites. I'm glad you acknowledge there's no tangible link between these jackasses online and the LaRouchie jackasses.
Not every crankage movement is part of a unitary, traceable whole.
But then, you should be using your own personal anecdotes about the mechanisms of indoctrination rather than guessing about mine.
lol,
I'm not the one with a crush that crosses the applicable species line (^;
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