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The Chemtrails Conspiracy (Or "How I Became a CIA Shill")

Started by 23 Daves, January 03, 2014, 01:57:09 PM

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George Oscar Bluth II

Thing is, none of those real conspiracies are events that there was an official explanation of, which were exposed as something different in reality. They're not JFK or 9/11.

Hillsborough is basically the closest you come to that, and the only conspiracy there is the desperate and shameful cover up, rather than some deliberate plot to kill Liverpool fans.

MojoJojo

Quote from: biggytitbo on January 05, 2014, 09:53:55 PM
Paperclip was a conspiracy, and a pretty big one at that. Dulles, McCloy and their cronies conspired behind Truman and Esienhowers backs to bring over war nazi criminals on a vast scale, something expressly forbidden as part of the officially sanctioned plan. They also kept the operation going long after it was meant to have stopped.

Ah shit, I should have at least done a bit more research before being a prick. I knew of Operation Paperclip, didn't know about the express order not to include nazi's party members over. I just assumed the whole thing was done in secret.

Apologies to ATOB in particular.

Pepotamo1985

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on January 05, 2014, 10:14:32 PM
Thing is, none of those real conspiracies are events that there was an official explanation of, which were exposed as something different in reality. They're not JFK or 9/11.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Also, you're just wrong. The Gulf Of Tonkin, for instance, which was specifically an official, fabricated 'explanation' which later was exposed to have little relation with reality. Similarly, Northwoods would've involved a policy of shooting down US passenger and military planes and blaming it on Cubans - an official explanation covering up a conspiratorial reality. COINTELPRO roughly similar in many instances. And, we allegedly know little about the full extent of MK ULTRA (Richard Helms had the vast bulk of the documentation burned and showed Congressional investigators fuck all), and former CIA agents have called into question whether the program was stopped when the CIA said they'd stopped it.

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on January 05, 2014, 10:14:32 PM
Hillsborough is basically the closest you come to that, and the only conspiracy there is the desperate and shameful cover up, rather than some deliberate plot to kill Liverpool fans.

Again, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. I mean, yeah, it was a desperate and shameful cover up to...cover up obfuscate the murder of Liverpool fans by police. In conceptual terms, it's an example of an institution or group conspiring to cover up illegality and corruption within its own ranks. If you transpose this to JFK, or 9/11 (not that I'm a believer), or whatever, it's useful as a demonstration of the lengths powerful groups and institutions in society will go to in order to cover up the actions of some of their representatives if it would damage the organisation as a whole. There needn't be a grand conspiracy to ensure cover up in these cases (probably less applicable to 9/11), merely a culture which favours obfuscation and reflexive collective preservation.

George Oscar Bluth II

I'll give you Gulf of Tonkin, although I thought there were two separate 'engagements', one being real and the other being a fake?

And Operation Northwoods, crucially, didn't actually happen. Because, y'know, it'd have been an appalling and monstrous thing to do.

My point is, the 'conspiracy' after disasters and attacks is almost always of the arse covering variety, rather than the "mwahaha, we flew some planes into some buildings and blamed it on someone else" variety of the fevered imagination of conspiracy types.

Replies From View

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on January 06, 2014, 01:28:59 PM
"mwahaha, we flew some planes into some buildings and blamed it on someone else"

"And also used some explosives on those buildings.  And just to mix things up used a missile on the Pentagon and entirely faked a plane-load of panicking passengers so that nobody would think for one second it was pointlessly a missile, mwahaha."

And I speak as someone who likes Steven Moffat's writing.

biggytitbo

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on January 06, 2014, 01:28:59 PM
And Operation Northwoods, crucially, didn't actually happen.


Didn't it? Didn't it? Ohhh it didn't did it?

Alberon

Quote from: Replies From View on January 06, 2014, 01:33:46 PM
"And also used some explosives on those buildings.  And just to mix things up used a missile on the Pentagon and entirely faked a plane-load of panicking passengers so that nobody would think for one second it was pointlessly a missile, mwahaha."

And I speak as someone who likes Steven Moffat's writing.

Well, I think the fact that the pilot of the X-Files conspiracy theorists comedy drama spinoff "The Lone Gunmen" was about a passenger jet being flown into the World Trade Center and was broadcast just months before 911 is proof it was all set up by the Illuminati.

Or maybe Bin Laden was just an X-Files fan? I dunno.

George Oscar Bluth II

Quote from: biggytitbo on January 06, 2014, 01:47:57 PM

Didn't it? Didn't it? Ohhh it didn't did it?

And here's the problem. Conspiracy theorists demand you disprove everything, which is obviously impossible.

People believe what they want to believe.

Neville Chamberlain



Pepotamo1985

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on January 06, 2014, 01:28:59 PM
I thought there were two separate 'engagements', one being real and the other being a fake?

One was talked up, the other didn't happen, and dates were muddled around.

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on January 06, 2014, 01:28:59 PM
And Operation Northwoods, crucially, didn't actually happen.

And that's probably one of the reasons we have official documentation attesting to its existence.

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on January 06, 2014, 01:28:59 PM
Because, y'know, it'd have been an appalling and monstrous thing to do.

What the US actually did to Cuba during the 1960s was arguably worse, so I don't think humanity was at the core of Kennedy's opposition. After all, only 10 years earlier Eisenhower and Churchill had Israeli intelligence operatives plant bombs around the Middle East, and blamed the explosions on Mossadegh.

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on January 06, 2014, 01:28:59 PM
My point is, the 'conspiracy' after disasters and attacks is almost always of the arse covering variety, rather than the "mwahaha, we flew some planes into some buildings and blamed it on someone else" variety of the fevered imagination of conspiracy types.

Yeah, I get that. But I think you're using an exceptionally narrow conception of 'conspiracy' (and 'cover up') to illustrate your point. A conspiracy doesn't have to involve a manufactured event carried out to suit a specific political agenda, which is then blamed on a specific group or individual. In MK ULTRA,  the CIA conspired to conduct illegal mind control experiments on unwitting and unwilling subjects, then conspired to lie about it existence to the public, the press and politicians, then conspired to keep it going after they'd been told to stop. I might add that the CIA then conspired to cover up the extent of the operation, but that part doesn't really matter (and is the subject of speculation) - it's still, overall, a conspiracy.

Also, add to this that the US and UK intelligence services have a lengthy history of infiltrating movements and groups and using them to carry out assassinations and bombings and subterfuge etcetera. There often hasn't been much effort to actively cover up involvement in these cases, to boot (although it's taken diligent work on the part of researchers and journalists) - does this count as conspiracy to your mind?

Anyway, my point was that this reflexive arse covering tendency could easily apply to when individuals or elements within a power structure plan and execute something (like the JFK assassination), or when something they're doing gets out of control (MK ULTRA), or when they do something they shouldn't have, or when one or more institutions do their job terribly (7/7).

kngen

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on January 06, 2014, 02:14:37 PM
And here's the problem. Conspiracy theorists demand you disprove everything, which is obviously impossible.

People believe what they want to believe.

I wouldn't classify myself as a conspiracy theorist, although I have a feeling many would. But I don't demand anyone disproves anything. When I have these kind of discussions[nb]less so now, as I can't be arsed, frankly[/nb], all I ask is that people keep an open mind. I would say what I have is a 'healthy scepticism'; it's just that this scepticism has been rebranded as 'conspiracy nut paranoia woowoo tinfoil helmet loonyism' over the years. Coincidentally, a lot of the conspiracy theories my scepticism has allowed me to entertain have been proven as correct, or at least based in reality, in the same timeframe.

biggytitbo

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on January 06, 2014, 02:14:37 PM
And here's the problem. Conspiracy theorists demand you disprove everything, which is obviously impossible.

Do they, all of them?

I was jesting of course, but the serious point is none of the specific incidents described in Northwoods happened, but are we just to believe they gave up on the idea entirely and none of these things were evolved in other, perhaps less brazen or more creative directions? Does getting Bing Crosby to make a porn film with a lookalike of president Sukarno of Indonesia and then distributing it in Indonesia to try and discredit him count as a false flag operation? And all the stuff they did against Castro? And the aforementioned Gulf of Tonkin. A lot of this stuff came from the same people as Northwoods, like Edward Landsdale and Bill Harvey. I personally find it hard to believe they were entirely dissuaded from the more terroristy black ops by the President, thats not the kind of psychopaths they were.


And as Pep points out, the last thing these people would have done is write any of it down.

George Oscar Bluth II

My mind is always open[nb]Seriously, I read a load of biggy's JFK stuff and I certainly think more was going on than simply 'Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone nut who wanted to be famous'.[/nb] but with some shit there has to be at least a bit of evidence surely?

Chemtrails people, for instance, are worth only our derision. There's nothing there, absolutely nothing.

Quote from: Pepotamo1985 on January 06, 2014, 02:23:17 PMWhat the US actually did to Cuba during the 1960s was arguably worse, so I don't think humanity was at the core of Kennedy's opposition. After all, only 10 years earlier Eisenhower and Churchill had Israeli intelligence operatives plant bombs around the Middle East, and blamed the explosions on Mossadegh.

Except, crucially, these are all terrible things they did to other people in other countries. Of course the US is willing to punish foreigners. So is every country. So is our country.

Are they willing to kill their own people in their own country and blame it on someone else? Of course not, the stakes are far too high. Imagine if it really was revealed that Bush did 9/11. There'd be a revolution.

Replies From View

#74
Quote from: biggytitbo on January 06, 2014, 02:30:18 PM
Do they, all of them?

What does "conspiracy theorist" mean, though?  Somebody who every now and then considers one or two conspiracy theories to be plausible alternatives to an official narrative?  Somebody with a generally open mind?

Or does it mean somebody who makes it a core part of who they are to read and talk about conspiracy theories?

To me it's more the latter.  It's a kind of fanaticism.  The difference between somebody liking something a bit (he or she 'likes comic books') and somebody making it a central part of their life (he or she is 'a comic book fanatic').  I don't know why the term "conspiracy theorist" needs to be reworked to mean "a healthily open-minded individual" if that's not what it means.  And this isn't to say "fanatic" and "conspiracy theorist" are terms to mock people with at all.  We all have our hobbies and obsessions.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Absorb the anus burn on January 05, 2014, 09:05:53 PM
It's obfuscation and disinformation... It's a way to paint people 'who think about conspiracy theories' in a negative light with tainted and grubby associations. Let's tick off the list, shall we? The content of every article and forum thread in the topic repeats the same crap.
Ah, you're ignoring the direct question! Fair enough, I know where I stand now.

QuoteConspiracy theorists are loners with inadequate professional and social lives....They think they are important because they have special, inside information.... Conspiracy theorists think they are being watched by the secret services...[nb]conspiracy theorists are all weirdos, losers, loners, immature thinkers and suffering from mental illness..... If you believe one, you believe them all, apparently...[/nb]
If they're quotes from this forum (it's hard to tell, you're not big on attribution) then you're aware it's a comedy forum, right?

QuoteThe BBC article I linked to in October suggested conspiracy theorists are a threat to democracy... It contained phrases like "swivel-eyed loons," / "poor personal hygiene and halitosis" / "lose the will to live..." I linked to similar articles with the same sneery tone in The Telegraph and US newspapers.
Care to link to it again so we can see the context those quotes are lifted from?

QuoteTell us all about the psychology of the people who believed in these conspiracies.

Paperclip: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
Operation Northwoods: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
Hillsborough: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster
Cointelpro: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
Gulf of Tonkin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
Project MK-Ultra: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra
Mockingbird: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird [nb]Mockingbird is certainly appropriate, as it was an attempt by the CIA to directly influence and eventually control the flow of information in an expanding media age.[/nb]
The subtle difference between the ones you listed and all the other ones (which are the ones being discussed in this thread, as well you know) are that those have evidence to back them up, and are no longer "theories".

But whatever. Another potentially interesting conversation derailed into part 1090899908 of the exact same fucking conversation as always. Congratulations.

Replies From View

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on January 06, 2014, 02:55:53 PM
part 1090899908 of the exact same fucking conversation as always.

At least we are making progress then.

biggytitbo

Bill Harvey's ZRRIFLE black ops group explicitly stated that they would blame Soviets for assassinations committed by the CIA and plant false backdated documents in the record to do so - http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/quote/phoney-201-file-all-documents-therein-forged-and-backdated/

This stuff is a spiritual cousin of Northwoods.

kngen

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on January 06, 2014, 02:37:19 PM
My mind is always open[nb]Seriously, I read a load of biggy's JFK stuff and I certainly think more was going on than simply 'Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone nut who wanted to be famous'.[/nb] but with some shit there has to be at least a bit of evidence surely?

Chemtrails people, for instance, are worth only our derision. There's nothing there, absolutely nothing.


I agree with you on the Chemtrails thing - it's all bollocks, but it's not without precedent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States

Pepotamo1985

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on January 06, 2014, 02:37:19 PM
Imagine if it really was revealed that Bush did 9/11. There'd be a revolution.

Well exactly, which is presumably one of the reasons Northwoods wasn't signed off by the Kennedy administration. It's also a key reason (amongst others) that I think 9/11 absolutely wasn't a conspiracy, or at least not one orchestrated by the Bush administration.

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on January 06, 2014, 02:37:19 PM
Are they willing to kill their own people in their own country and blame it on someone else? Of course not, the stakes are far too high.

Nah, I'd say 'they' were certainly willing to -  or, at least, there are elements with the US Government, FBI, CIA, whatever who are willing. Whether they would ever be allowed to do it, or would actually do it, is a different matter.

Conversely, if the target was only one person, or a few people, then I'd definitely say they were beyond willing and able.

shiftwork2

I don't know much about conspiracy theories and nor do I care, to be honest.  However Doug Stanhope's latest podcast includes discussion of a group who believe that Sandy Hook never actually happened.  Not that it was orchestrated or something about it was covered up, but that it didn't take place.  I sat up and listened when I heard that.  What absolute nutballs.

Pepotamo1985

I encountered someone on my Facebook about three days ago saying WMD were found in Iraq, but have been buried in the desert somewhere.

When I pointed out that mountains of evidence indicated the US & the UK knew full well there were no weapons of WMD and were desperately lying, exaggerating and distorting to build a case for WMD ownership, his response was "well, that was clearly put there to make it look like they thought there were none".

Thanks.

kngen

Quote from: shiftwork2 on January 06, 2014, 04:20:12 PM
I don't know much about conspiracy theories and nor do I care, to be honest.  However Doug Stanhope's latest podcast includes discussion of a group who believe that Sandy Hook never actually happened.  Not that it was orchestrated or something about it was covered up, but that it didn't take place.  I sat up and listened when I heard that.  What absolute nutballs.

This is something I've noticed about conspiracies in the internet age. The classics - some of the more outre JFK theories, faked moon landings, Philidelphia Experiment etc - existed in the gaps that the relatively limited reportage didn't account for. I thought the infinite access to information that the internet provides might actually ground a lot of the theorising. Instead, it's sent it the other way entirely - and people are just basically denying reality. I think for those people, the pop-psychology template of people wanting to be on the inside track regardless actually fits.

George Oscar Bluth II

Quote from: shiftwork2 on January 06, 2014, 04:20:12 PM
I don't know much about conspiracy theories and nor do I care, to be honest.  However Doug Stanhope's latest podcast includes discussion of a group who believe that Sandy Hook never actually happened.  Not that it was orchestrated or something about it was covered up, but that it didn't take place.  I sat up and listened when I heard that.  What absolute nutballs.

I don't want to become tedious, but I'll link to this again: http://www.cluesforum.info/

These people don't seem to believe that anything at all happened, ever. All news is lies created to...er...pacify us or something.

Because that's loads easier and cheaper than just, y'know, going out there and reporting on actual news.

Absorb the anus burn

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on January 06, 2014, 02:55:53 PM
Ah, you're ignoring the direct question! Fair enough, I know where I stand now.
If they're quotes from this forum (it's hard to tell, you're not big on attribution) then you're aware it's a comedy forum, right?
Care to link to it again so we can see the context those quotes are lifted from?
The subtle difference between the ones you listed and all the other ones (which are the ones being discussed in this thread, as well you know) are that those have evidence to back them up, and are no longer "theories".

But whatever. Another potentially interesting conversation derailed into part 1090899908 of the exact same fucking conversation as always. Congratulations.

Your attempts to insult, antagonise and take some moral high because a thread has been disrupted and derailed are amusing and fascinating to me. [nb]Here is the profound text of a post you made from Jan 04th " am sharing a room with a Jewish person right now...I just asked, they looked oddly at me, whispered something into their wrist and left the room." Derailing by definition perchance?[/nb]

I have no interest or belief in Chemtrails (on page one I shared an example of somebody I know who treats them as gospel and how I failed to use logic and science to argue with them) but I am interested in the media's negative portrayal of conspiracy theorists... That's where I came into this thread and that's where I've tried to stay. I always share links and sources if they are relevant and of interest... I also read links like the ones posted by Zetetic. Here is the original BBC article that lead me to post in October 2013 and the original thread.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24650841

http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,38850.0.html

My views on conspiracies remain a constant.

1. There is no conspiracists type of person.
2. There are real tangible conspiracies.
3. There are imagined and unproven conspiracies...
4. People are free to be interested in subjects from both extremes (real and proven / fantastic and intangible) without being insulted, belittled, patronised and psychologically boxed as a type of person.

And btw typing shit like "do you know it's a comedy forum?" demeans you and everybody who has to read it.

Pepotamo1985

Quote from: kngen on January 06, 2014, 04:52:18 PM
I thought the infinite access to information that the internet provides might actually ground a lot of the theorising. Instead, it's sent it the other way entirely - and people are just basically denying reality.

Yeah, it's odd, isn't it. There has to be a reason for this.

A similar logic plays out with UFOs/aliens - what with the ubiquity of mobile phones replete with reasonably high quality cameras, the widespread ownership of cheap click and shoot cameras and high definition video recorders et al one would think there'd be a glut of absolutely compelling documentation of extra terrestrial visitations (and, conversely, that the lack of any such testimonial would be inverse proof that we're almost certainly not being visited by aliens...), but we're still being presented with fuzzy shots of mid-air frisbees, obviously docored photos and videos (although, admittedly, I think most of the obvious hoax footage circulating on YouTube has been created in jest), snapshots and brief clips of floating lights and black dots, and anecdotal testimony.

This seems to have had absolutely no adverse effect on UFO belief - and older hoaxes and frauds are still popular in some quarters. Checking out the faked alien autopsy footage concocted by Ray Santilli on YouTube brings up thousands of people who believe it's real, and still others who believe that Santilli was 'got to' and coerced into 'admitting' it was forged. FFS.

Dale K Meyers wrote something quite interesting on his blog on this subject a while ago;

QuoteWhen the Internet was in its infancy, a friend of mine introduced me to Internet newsgroups. I was thrilled at the idea of being able to instantly communicate with serious researchers from around the globe. He logged on to alt.conspiracy.jfk and turned the keyboard and mouse over to me. I eagerly began browsing the topics and reading a few entries. "Oh my gawd!" I exclaimed, absolutely horrified. "These people are nuttier than a fruit cake!" My friend laughed his fool head off.

To say that things have only gotten worse would be an understatement. My early vision of an Internet utopia where serious research and discussion of the Kennedy assassination would lead to truth and clarity floundered on the rocks of reality on day one. It never occurred to me that the Internet might allow lonely, irrational, and psychotic people to clutter up the chat rooms and discussion boards. And God knows, the Kennedy assassination is one big magnet.

The worse part about the Internet and the Kennedy assassination is that the technology has allowed old myths to rise from the ashes and proliferate. Spin down the subject headings of any newsgroup: The Figure in the Doorway, Two Rifles on the Sixth Floor, The Sidewalk Scar, Tommy Tilson's Car Chase, James Files and the Dented Cartridge Case, and on and on. These subjects were not just debunked decades ago - they were destroyed beyond recognition and don't belong in any serious discussion, except perhaps as part of a brief and whimsical look back on what passed for "important" issues. Yet, there they are - hot, time-wasting topics for a new generation of young, naive minds. Sadly, this cycle of endless myth-making, destruction, and resurrection will never go away. It is the heart of the Internet.

Then again, this guy believes it's possible that Oswald carried out the JFK assassination on behalf of the KGB - and (I may be wrong) postulated that it was plausible that there was more than one shooter, but they were acting independently of Oswald, so there you go.

Neil

It's just impossible to know what to believe, you can find "evidence" for anything - for years now scientists have went back on forth on wine, for instance. One minute a glass is good for you, then that gets debunked, then back it swings. Which is one of the reasons people want to come up with a "type" of person who is a conspiracy theorist, to understand what drives them, but of course, this is evidently part of a conspiracy invented by the CIA, too.

Obviously, some of the sources for these conspiracies come from mentally ill people as well, but this doesn't matter when some of the "info" trickles down.  Valerie Solanas was mentioned in another thread last week - that's an abused woman with a serious mental illness, whose manifesto still circulates amongst radfems today.

massive bereavement

If somebody told me that the stuff they put in chemtrails increases people's sex drives to the point where they take their clothes off on webcams and masturbate online, I would believe them.

biggytitbo

Quote from: Pepotamo1985 on January 06, 2014, 07:38:33 PM
Dale K Meyers wrote something quite interesting on his blog on this subject a while ago;

QuoteThe worse part about the Internet and the Kennedy assassination is that the technology has allowed old myths to rise from the ashes and proliferate. Spin down the subject headings of any newsgroup: The Figure in the Doorway, Two Rifles on the Sixth Floor, The Sidewalk Scar, Tommy Tilson's Car Chase, James Files and the Dented Cartridge Case...

...and the silliest myth of all - the single bullet theory, which Dale Myers has been spreading around the internet for 20 years.

Operty1

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on January 06, 2014, 05:01:41 PM
I don't want to become tedious, but I'll link to this again: http://www.cluesforum.info/

These people don't seem to believe that anything at all happened, ever. All news is lies created to...er...pacify us or something.

Because that's loads easier and cheaper than just, y'know, going out there and reporting on actual news.

I believe they only let people post on there that completely agree with everything they have put forth, there is no counterpoint or argument against, just people endlessly backing each other up. I stopped reading anything on that forum when somebody had posted something along the lines of 'I don't believe in satellites'. Well, fair do's, but you can see them from your back garden with a decent enough telescope on a clear night.