Against conspiracy theories: Why our activism must be based in reality
repost | 03.11.2011 16:28 | Analysis | Social Struggles | Birmingham
The text of a talk given at Occupy Wellington, New Zealand, on October 27 2011. The talk was organised to try to counter the prevalence of conspiracy theories amongst the local wing of the Occupy movement.
Kia ora kotou, thanks everyone for coming. Firstly, a brief run-down of how this workshop will work: first, I'm going to give a brief talk, followed by an open discussion which anyone can contribute to. I also want to make it clear that I'm not here today to debunk or debate any specific conspiracy theory. I've got no interest in doing that, I don't think its particularly productive. What I want to be doing is talking about the title of the workshop is – why our activism must be based in reality. So we'll be talking about the whole conspiracy world-view, we'll be talking about what I think is a much better alternative to that, but I'm not going to sit here and argue with you over whether the Government is secretly poisoning us from the skies, or whether shape-shifting reptilian lizards are controlling our lives, or whether or not you can cure cancer with baking soda.
First up, who am I? For those of you who don't know me my name is Asher, I'm born and bred in Wellington, though I have also spent a few years recently living in Christchurch. I've been involved in activism and radical politics for around about 7 years, in a variety of different campaigns and struggles.
If we're going to talk about conspiracy theories, the first important question is obvious: what is a conspiracy theory?
Now, if you go by a dictionary definition, a conspiracy is just a group of people who get together to plan something, and don't tell others about it. If I'm organising a surprise birthday party for my friend, then I am conspiring with others. But that's not a particularly useful definition for the purposes of a discussion like this.
So, for this discussion, the way I'm defining a conspiracy theory is thus: a conspiracy theory is a theory based in supposition, one that flies in the face of evidence or science, often one that claims its correctness can be shown by the paucity of evidence in favour of it, in the sense that 'this conspiracy goes so far that they've even buried all the evidence that proves it!' Conspiracy theories often encourages an 'us few enlightened folk versus everyone else' world view. This creates an atmosphere where conspiracy theorists look down on people, or sheeple as they are often called, and ignores the fact that people, by and large, are actually pretty intelligent. In and of itself this world-view is hugely problematic for as I will discuss later, mass social change requires the participation of the masses and therefore, we have to have faith in the ability of people to decide things for themselves, to come to correct conclusions and ultimately to change the world.
Why am I interested in conspiracy theories, or at least arguing against them? Firstly, because I'm passionate about science and rationality, and I find it fascinating how and when these things are ignored.
Secondly, because I'm Jewish, and many conspiracy theories are antisemitic – whether directly and obviously (eg: Jews run the world, or the media, or the banks). Sometimes its more subtle – people might not talk about Jews explicitly but they may use Zionist as a code word, or talk about the Rothschilds, or an elite cabal of shadowy bankers who all coincidentally have Jewish surnames.
Lastly, I'm interested in conspiracy theories because I want radical social change, and to have radical social change, we need to have an understanding of how society actually works.
We are here at Occupy because we want to see change. What we want differs: some want new regulations on the financial sector, others want to change taxes or the minimum wage, while others still want to destroy capitalism and bring in a new form of production and distribution. Regardless of which of these boxes you fit in, if you fit in any of them at all, we all want change.
We're also here because we know we can't simply rely on Government to benevolently grant us the changes we desire. If we believed that, we'd sit at home and wait for the Government to give us these gifts. We're here because we know that those with power won't give it up lightly, and that it is only through our collective strength that we can win reforms, or create revolution.
But what do I mean when I say 'our collective strength'? I think it's important to clarify who is contained within the word 'our'. While people involved in the Occupy movements around the globe frequently refer to it as the 99%, I actually think that's a really imprecise term. So, instead, I refer to the working class. When they hear the term working class, some people think simply of male factory workers, but this is not what I mean. The working class is not limited to blue collar workers in factories, but instead it includes all of us who are forced to sell our labour power to survive. This includes people who are in paid employment, whether in a factory, office, café or retail store. It also includes those who are unable to find paid employment, or have chosen to refuse the drudgery of paid work in order to attempt to live on the meagre benefits supplied by the state, and who provide a vast potential pool of labour that enables the ruling class to further keep wages down. The working class includes stay at home parents, doing vital unpaid work to raise the next generation of human beings. It includes people who are too sick or unable to work for other reasons. In short, if you don´t own a business, if you aren't part of the Government, if you aren't independently wealthy (such as from an inheritance), then chances are you are a part of the working class that I'm talking about, this collective 'our'.
If we agree that we can't simply rely on Government to benevolently grant us gifts, and that we need to fight for it using our numbers and our power, then it becomes necessary to understand how society is structured and how capitalism actually functions, in order to know where our collective strength comes from, where we have the most power, and where we need to apply the metaphorical blowtorch.
So, why are conspiracy theories not helpful here? Why are conspiracy theories not useful for developing that understanding? There's a variety of reasons.
Some conspiracy theories, such as those around 9/11, even if they were true, which I don't believe they are, would only tell us “Governments do bad things”. That's not actually news to anyone. We know that the British Crown & the New Zealand Government stole vast tracts of land from Maori. We know that the Crown and the Australian Government engaged in genocidal acts against Australian aborigines. We know that Governments the world over have repeatedly sent people overseas to fight, kill and die in wars. There's so, so much more, but to cut a long story short, everybody knows that sometimes Governments do bad things. So theories that only serve to prove that, even if they were true, aren't actually particularly useful.
Some conspiracy theories are simply bizarre and the logical conclusions from them, don't fit with what their believers do. If you actually believed that the majority of people in power around the world was a blood-sucking shape-shifting reptilians from another solar system, then you wouldn't limit your activity to promoting one guy's book tours around the globe and chatting with other believers on the internet.
Conspiracy theories often feed on people's mistrust and their fear. They claim to provide simple answers to complicated questions, but actually when you examine them in detail they're highly complex themselves. For example, with 9/11, it seems like a simple solution to say 'it was an inside job by the US Government'. But actually, when you look into what would be required for this to be true, the thousands upon thousands of people who would need to be lying, it becomes incredibly implausible.
Some conspiracy theories, such as many of the shadowy financial cabal conspiracies, only serve to mystify capitalism and falsely suggest a level of control that doesn't actually exist. Additionally, they remove any sense of our own power, whether real or potential. A theory which suggests such overwhelming power and control over the entire way we live our lives is actually a catalyst for inaction – if a group has such a high level of control over everything, then there's not really anything we can do about it. On the contrary, capitalism is not a static system, it is dynamic and changing and constantly adapts in response to threats. The threat of working class power has resulted in a number of changes to the functioning of capitalism over time, including the introduction of Keynesian and Neoliberal economics in the late 1930s and 1970s respectively.
Even if conspiracy theories can sometimes seem relatively harmless on the surface, they play a role of absorbing us into a fictional world, somewhat like a dungeons and dragons enthusiast. Once you are in this fictional world, it becomes really easy to get lost in it and to be defensive when challenged, even when challenged on a logical, rational basis.
I'll quote British political blogger Jack Ray:
Quote:
The trouble with conspiracy theories is that they're all rendered pointless by one fundamental, unarguable element of capitalism. That it is, whatever else you have to say about, positive or negative, a system of elites. It has elitism coded into it´s DNA, from the smallest company, to the largest multinational, from the political system to the culture. It's purpose is to promote elites. It does this legitimately within the logic of the system. It does this publicly, lording super-capitalists like Bill Gates or even for a time, Enron boss Ken Lay. It lays its theories of elitism out for all to see, in policy projects, in university research, through political theorists.
It has no interest in secret cabals, or conspiracies. It has no need for them. It is a system openly, and publicly, run by elites. They might go home at night and secretly dine with their illuminati, lizard-jew, Bilderberg Group friends, and laugh about how they've taken over the world. It doesn't matter to me or you whether they do or not. They are the elite, and we can see who they are and how they live their lives. People know that we live in a system of elites, that acts in its own interests, according to the logic of the society they dominate. Everyone who looks around know this. We don't need internet documentaries to tell us that we're dominated, we just need to go to work, or walk through a posh neighbourhood or have a run-in with any politicians, big businessman or even a celebrity to know that. What we need are weapons, ways of challenging that domination, so maybe we don't have to live under it forever.
So what is the alternative to this conspiracist world-view? For that, we need to look at history. The history of how social change comes about is not always easy to find. It suits those in power to downplay the role of mass movements, so the dominant narrative is often one that ignores the long term grassroots organising that has happened, and simply focuses on legislative change enacted by the Government of the day. But a people's history is out there – often in the form of first hand accounts by those who took part in these movements, such as those for homosexual law reform, of the 1970s strike wave across New Zealand, of the movement against native forest logging and so on.
One thing, from looking at this history, is abundantly clear. Mass action is vital for mass change. If you look through history, time and time again, it is when large groups of people have got together and shown themselves to be a threat to those in power that concessions have been granted. This happens on a small scale as well as a big one – when all 10 employees at a small business go on strike and refuse to work until their boss gives them a pay rise, the boss is forced to listen.
From this example, it becomes obvious that it isn't simply numbers alone that allow us to exercise power. It is also using those numbers strategically to hit those in power where it hurts. As workers, we create wealth for the bosses each and every day at our jobs. Some of this wealth is returned to us in the form of wages, but much is stolen. This stolen wealth is often called ¨surplus value¨. It is the accumulation of surplus value, stolen by our bosses, that forms the wealth of the ruling class. But because the goods and services that create this surplus value ultimately come from our hands and our brains, through collectively withdrawing our labour, we can force the bosses to give in to our demands.
So taking collective action the workplace is one way we can impose our power on the bosses to help us better meet our needs and desires. And if we extrapolate this to larger numbers of work-sites, to larger numbers of people both employed and unemployed, then we can begin to see how we can make changes to the functioning of society as a whole.
I don't have all the answers, though I do have plenty more to say than I've had time to touch on in this talk. But I want to open things up to discussion soon, because I think that's one thing that is really important about this Occupy Wellington space, that we can talk through things, together, to come to new ways of thinking and working politically.
To finish things off, I want to emphasise that while it is important to have an open mind, this must be tempered with a commitment to rationality and the examining of evidence. Or, to quote Australian sceptic and comedian Tim Minchin, “If you open your mind too much, your brain will fall out”.
First up, who am I? For those of you who don't know me my name is Asher, I'm born and bred in Wellington, though I have also spent a few years recently living in Christchurch. I've been involved in activism and radical politics for around about 7 years, in a variety of different campaigns and struggles.
If we're going to talk about conspiracy theories, the first important question is obvious: what is a conspiracy theory?
Now, if you go by a dictionary definition, a conspiracy is just a group of people who get together to plan something, and don't tell others about it. If I'm organising a surprise birthday party for my friend, then I am conspiring with others. But that's not a particularly useful definition for the purposes of a discussion like this.
So, for this discussion, the way I'm defining a conspiracy theory is thus: a conspiracy theory is a theory based in supposition, one that flies in the face of evidence or science, often one that claims its correctness can be shown by the paucity of evidence in favour of it, in the sense that 'this conspiracy goes so far that they've even buried all the evidence that proves it!' Conspiracy theories often encourages an 'us few enlightened folk versus everyone else' world view. This creates an atmosphere where conspiracy theorists look down on people, or sheeple as they are often called, and ignores the fact that people, by and large, are actually pretty intelligent. In and of itself this world-view is hugely problematic for as I will discuss later, mass social change requires the participation of the masses and therefore, we have to have faith in the ability of people to decide things for themselves, to come to correct conclusions and ultimately to change the world.
Why am I interested in conspiracy theories, or at least arguing against them? Firstly, because I'm passionate about science and rationality, and I find it fascinating how and when these things are ignored.
Secondly, because I'm Jewish, and many conspiracy theories are antisemitic – whether directly and obviously (eg: Jews run the world, or the media, or the banks). Sometimes its more subtle – people might not talk about Jews explicitly but they may use Zionist as a code word, or talk about the Rothschilds, or an elite cabal of shadowy bankers who all coincidentally have Jewish surnames.
Lastly, I'm interested in conspiracy theories because I want radical social change, and to have radical social change, we need to have an understanding of how society actually works.
We are here at Occupy because we want to see change. What we want differs: some want new regulations on the financial sector, others want to change taxes or the minimum wage, while others still want to destroy capitalism and bring in a new form of production and distribution. Regardless of which of these boxes you fit in, if you fit in any of them at all, we all want change.
We're also here because we know we can't simply rely on Government to benevolently grant us the changes we desire. If we believed that, we'd sit at home and wait for the Government to give us these gifts. We're here because we know that those with power won't give it up lightly, and that it is only through our collective strength that we can win reforms, or create revolution.
But what do I mean when I say 'our collective strength'? I think it's important to clarify who is contained within the word 'our'. While people involved in the Occupy movements around the globe frequently refer to it as the 99%, I actually think that's a really imprecise term. So, instead, I refer to the working class. When they hear the term working class, some people think simply of male factory workers, but this is not what I mean. The working class is not limited to blue collar workers in factories, but instead it includes all of us who are forced to sell our labour power to survive. This includes people who are in paid employment, whether in a factory, office, café or retail store. It also includes those who are unable to find paid employment, or have chosen to refuse the drudgery of paid work in order to attempt to live on the meagre benefits supplied by the state, and who provide a vast potential pool of labour that enables the ruling class to further keep wages down. The working class includes stay at home parents, doing vital unpaid work to raise the next generation of human beings. It includes people who are too sick or unable to work for other reasons. In short, if you don´t own a business, if you aren't part of the Government, if you aren't independently wealthy (such as from an inheritance), then chances are you are a part of the working class that I'm talking about, this collective 'our'.
If we agree that we can't simply rely on Government to benevolently grant us gifts, and that we need to fight for it using our numbers and our power, then it becomes necessary to understand how society is structured and how capitalism actually functions, in order to know where our collective strength comes from, where we have the most power, and where we need to apply the metaphorical blowtorch.
So, why are conspiracy theories not helpful here? Why are conspiracy theories not useful for developing that understanding? There's a variety of reasons.
Some conspiracy theories, such as those around 9/11, even if they were true, which I don't believe they are, would only tell us “Governments do bad things”. That's not actually news to anyone. We know that the British Crown & the New Zealand Government stole vast tracts of land from Maori. We know that the Crown and the Australian Government engaged in genocidal acts against Australian aborigines. We know that Governments the world over have repeatedly sent people overseas to fight, kill and die in wars. There's so, so much more, but to cut a long story short, everybody knows that sometimes Governments do bad things. So theories that only serve to prove that, even if they were true, aren't actually particularly useful.
Some conspiracy theories are simply bizarre and the logical conclusions from them, don't fit with what their believers do. If you actually believed that the majority of people in power around the world was a blood-sucking shape-shifting reptilians from another solar system, then you wouldn't limit your activity to promoting one guy's book tours around the globe and chatting with other believers on the internet.
Conspiracy theories often feed on people's mistrust and their fear. They claim to provide simple answers to complicated questions, but actually when you examine them in detail they're highly complex themselves. For example, with 9/11, it seems like a simple solution to say 'it was an inside job by the US Government'. But actually, when you look into what would be required for this to be true, the thousands upon thousands of people who would need to be lying, it becomes incredibly implausible.
Some conspiracy theories, such as many of the shadowy financial cabal conspiracies, only serve to mystify capitalism and falsely suggest a level of control that doesn't actually exist. Additionally, they remove any sense of our own power, whether real or potential. A theory which suggests such overwhelming power and control over the entire way we live our lives is actually a catalyst for inaction – if a group has such a high level of control over everything, then there's not really anything we can do about it. On the contrary, capitalism is not a static system, it is dynamic and changing and constantly adapts in response to threats. The threat of working class power has resulted in a number of changes to the functioning of capitalism over time, including the introduction of Keynesian and Neoliberal economics in the late 1930s and 1970s respectively.
Even if conspiracy theories can sometimes seem relatively harmless on the surface, they play a role of absorbing us into a fictional world, somewhat like a dungeons and dragons enthusiast. Once you are in this fictional world, it becomes really easy to get lost in it and to be defensive when challenged, even when challenged on a logical, rational basis.
I'll quote British political blogger Jack Ray:
Quote:
The trouble with conspiracy theories is that they're all rendered pointless by one fundamental, unarguable element of capitalism. That it is, whatever else you have to say about, positive or negative, a system of elites. It has elitism coded into it´s DNA, from the smallest company, to the largest multinational, from the political system to the culture. It's purpose is to promote elites. It does this legitimately within the logic of the system. It does this publicly, lording super-capitalists like Bill Gates or even for a time, Enron boss Ken Lay. It lays its theories of elitism out for all to see, in policy projects, in university research, through political theorists.
It has no interest in secret cabals, or conspiracies. It has no need for them. It is a system openly, and publicly, run by elites. They might go home at night and secretly dine with their illuminati, lizard-jew, Bilderberg Group friends, and laugh about how they've taken over the world. It doesn't matter to me or you whether they do or not. They are the elite, and we can see who they are and how they live their lives. People know that we live in a system of elites, that acts in its own interests, according to the logic of the society they dominate. Everyone who looks around know this. We don't need internet documentaries to tell us that we're dominated, we just need to go to work, or walk through a posh neighbourhood or have a run-in with any politicians, big businessman or even a celebrity to know that. What we need are weapons, ways of challenging that domination, so maybe we don't have to live under it forever.
So what is the alternative to this conspiracist world-view? For that, we need to look at history. The history of how social change comes about is not always easy to find. It suits those in power to downplay the role of mass movements, so the dominant narrative is often one that ignores the long term grassroots organising that has happened, and simply focuses on legislative change enacted by the Government of the day. But a people's history is out there – often in the form of first hand accounts by those who took part in these movements, such as those for homosexual law reform, of the 1970s strike wave across New Zealand, of the movement against native forest logging and so on.
One thing, from looking at this history, is abundantly clear. Mass action is vital for mass change. If you look through history, time and time again, it is when large groups of people have got together and shown themselves to be a threat to those in power that concessions have been granted. This happens on a small scale as well as a big one – when all 10 employees at a small business go on strike and refuse to work until their boss gives them a pay rise, the boss is forced to listen.
From this example, it becomes obvious that it isn't simply numbers alone that allow us to exercise power. It is also using those numbers strategically to hit those in power where it hurts. As workers, we create wealth for the bosses each and every day at our jobs. Some of this wealth is returned to us in the form of wages, but much is stolen. This stolen wealth is often called ¨surplus value¨. It is the accumulation of surplus value, stolen by our bosses, that forms the wealth of the ruling class. But because the goods and services that create this surplus value ultimately come from our hands and our brains, through collectively withdrawing our labour, we can force the bosses to give in to our demands.
So taking collective action the workplace is one way we can impose our power on the bosses to help us better meet our needs and desires. And if we extrapolate this to larger numbers of work-sites, to larger numbers of people both employed and unemployed, then we can begin to see how we can make changes to the functioning of society as a whole.
I don't have all the answers, though I do have plenty more to say than I've had time to touch on in this talk. But I want to open things up to discussion soon, because I think that's one thing that is really important about this Occupy Wellington space, that we can talk through things, together, to come to new ways of thinking and working politically.
To finish things off, I want to emphasise that while it is important to have an open mind, this must be tempered with a commitment to rationality and the examining of evidence. Or, to quote Australian sceptic and comedian Tim Minchin, “If you open your mind too much, your brain will fall out”.
repost
Homepage:
http://libcom.org/library/against-conspiracy-theories-why-our-activism-must-be-based-reality
Comments
Hide the following 25 comments
We see what you are doing but the truth will out
03.11.2011 16:34
Who chooses to still believe the lie of 9/11? Undoubtedly, the high officials and elites who planned the event, who successfully achieved everything they wanted---unending war for oil, naked fascism and militarism, and economic conquest---from this ultimate false flag operation. The atrocity of 9/11, the desperate act of an empire facing extinction, was not an “intelligence failure”, but the greatest intelligence success and criminal operation in history.
Underneath all of their somber play-acting, they’re celebrating. They are all laughing, from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, to Barack Obama, the Osama-killer "avenger of 9/11". You should be able to hear peals of laughter from the members of the Bilderberg Group and elite think tanks, and laughs must certainly echo in the halls of CIA headquarters, the offices of the Pakistan’s CIA subsidiary, the ISI, and in the offices of multinational oil companies and Wall Street banks.
They are all dancing on the graves of 9/11. And George W. Bush does it literally, every time he dares stand on the ground of the World Trade Center that he helped bring down.
And along with the criminals, the legions of victims and witnesses who still, after ten years of unabated suffering under the lash of empire, continue to dance to the tune of the official propaganda myth, every time it is played.
How many of those who never hesitate to worship first responders have bothered to understand who and what actually those brave men and women into the flames of the Twin Towers? How many of those who have proudly sacrificed their children to the wars have truly questioned the official lies that resulted in the destruction of their families?
On this day, rather than drown in the familiar waves of conspiracy theory that is the official 9/11 myth, know that a decade of conspiracy fact has long shattered this myth, exposing the ugly reality for those who choose to know the truth. This body of conspiracy fact not only exists, but it continues to grow, despite years of intimidation, cover-up, attempted derision.
This true history and exhaustively compiled evidence can be found in Michael C. Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon and Michel Chossudovsky’s America’s ‘War on Terrorism’, to name just two landmark studies among hundreds, too many to name. Their work remains as vital today as the day they were penned.
Tragically, every single thing that whistleblowers of 9/11 have predicted has come about. This is the tragic, bitter vindication for everyone who has spoken and written the truth. The world around us speaks for itself, and it is a harrowing death scream.
Today’s world---of endless war for oil, endless false flag terror operations and atrocities, unabated political criminality, economic looting, social upheaval, fascism, and a global war/intelligence-industrial police state---is the fruit of 9/11. So too is the post-9/11 Peak Oil wreckage that is the United States, its population embracing open fascism, and with a proposed Keystone tar sands pipeline cutting through the very heart of the continent.
Consider this single conspiracy fact: energy-rich Libya is being overthrown and conquered by NATO, in attacks spearheaded by CIA, its allied intelligence branches, and Al-Qaeda.
Yes, Al-Qaeda. What happened to the “war on terrorism” fiction? Why is the arch-enemy, Al-Qaeda, working openly with NATO?
This, too, is 9/11’s bounty. It brings us to the conspiracy fact of historical record:
Islamic “terrorists”, including CIA asset and (and US ally in Kosovo) Osama bin Laden, have been in the continuous employ of western forces and the CIA since the Cold War---before, during, and since 9/11. Al-Qaeda and “Islamic terrorism” is an instrument of Anglo-American intelligence, propaganda, and geostrategy. Al-Qaeda has always been an American-made and CIA-sponsored brand.
Just as is the case with the many other false flag terror events and wars since 9/11, any careful analysis of the forces behind the destruction of Libya brings us back to the same places, pointing to the same inevitable conclusions.
The “war on terrorism” is a lie, founded on the Big Lie of 9/11.
On this day, rather than commemorating propaganda, truly commemorate the work of those who have dared tell the truth, who have never stopped telling the truth. These are the real heroes of 9/11, the ones who truly honor the memory of those who died.
These people, not the liars or the murderers and criminals in high office, remain the only dim light in this post-9/11 apocalypse that continues to unfold.
Larry Chin
Homepage:
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26453
Excelllent
03.11.2011 16:52
Seriously, excellent article.
Town End Boy
Or maybe the WTC towers were just gerry built!
03.11.2011 17:17
The WTC towers built to with stand multiple plane impacts and intense fires - don't believe the hype! Ever thought the builders might be lying about how good their building was?
Realist
Looks dodgy.
03.11.2011 18:14
The 'conspiracy theory' movement is in and of itself a conspiracy.
Its function is to derail and disrupt adaquate discussion and debate on the subject of how 9/11 came about and who might have been responsible for it. So in place of the US relationship with the Afghan Mujahedeen between 1980 and 1999, you have a secret cabal of Jews in the Whitehouse. In place of the elaborate and sinister trading of loyalties that led to the assassination of Massoud in Afghanistan on September 9th 2001 just two days before 9/11, you have American air defences standing down in readiness for the attacks. In place of accurate and competent analysis of what Al Qaeda is and where it came from, you have Jewish teenagers filming the attacks on video camera's and catching the first plane as it flew into the first tower.
This isn't to mention the holograms, explosives and microscopic evidence of nano this and that which has been presented over the years.
There can be no doubt, that the conspiracy theories have smothered any debate on what actually happened, and who actually was involved. Whenever any article has been published about the reality of this, the conspiracy theories have been flying and have served to divert attention away from what actually matters.
I'm a bit confused about why the writer or speaker would claim that Zionism is a conspiracy and codeword for Jews. The Zionist movement goes back to before World War 1 and was created by a group of Jews to describe and articulate their dream for the creation of the state of Israel. To talk about Zionism, is simply to use word the Zionists created to describe their own political movement.
If I use the word Zionist, I use it to describe a Jewish political movement in its historical sense and its present carnation. If they called themselves 'Romulans' then I would refer to them as Romulans! I don't care that they are Jewish, it is what they are doing with this politcal credo that is offensive to me and a greatt many others.
'Apartheid' was the name adopted by the National Party of South Africa in 1948 to describe a political policy of racial segregation or 'apartness'. To use it in the context of opposing it does not mean you have adopted it. You wouldn't describe an anti-Apartheid campaigner as being a racist against all Boar or white South Africans. It is the political policy you are objecting to, not the people who are using it. And the semantics of the names used, are simply what they are.
I don't like this article. It smacks of the very tactic it is attempting to critique.
Hmmmm.
This is not NEWS !!
03.11.2011 18:34
Marsiglio Ficino
Damn straight.
03.11.2011 18:51
bsb2.0
Excellent post
03.11.2011 18:57
Definately NOT the "love police"
nah
03.11.2011 19:12
I'm passionate about science
-full of crackpot theorism
"Governments do bad things"
-investigating and proving them is worth doing.
'our collective strength'
-conspiracy
a commitment to examining of evidence
-view it then
r
@r
03.11.2011 19:26
100% not david (Y)icke(S!)
Lizard tongues
03.11.2011 20:25
Conroy
think for yourself
03.11.2011 21:05
what is the point in wasting all this time trying to stop people thinking for themselves?! i find it insulting that some 'intellectual' has to do a talk to tell others how to think, as if we were all so stupid that we can't make up our minds for ourselves! it's very sad that rather than encourage people to be open minded and to try to gain a clear picture from both (all) sides, members of the so called 'radical' community act as thought police telling us what we can and can't think.
i am aware of the global banking conspiracy ...(conspiracy
1. a secret plan or agreement to carry out an illegal or harmful act, esp with political motivation; plot
2. the act of making such plans in secret)... but i am also very aware that it's got nothing to do with jews or judaism! the term '1%' describes these people very well, they're not jews, christians, muslims, whatever - they have no love for any human even themselves - they're the wealthy elite - who see us as chattel - who naturally conspire to maintain their privileged position!
i fully agree that mass action is the key to change, and therefore the masses need to be aware of what they're up against and need to be open minded so as not to be fooled into another system of control.
i encourage everyone to, before they judge, read what it is that they are judging. it seems obvious but too few people actually do it, preferring to laugh at or fear what they don't or haven't bothered to understand.
peace
anon
Dangerous Idiots
03.11.2011 22:18
Most of the theories put forward by many other conspiracy theorists are nothing more than the spontaneous method of developing an irrational knowledge based soley upon the critical and systematic objectivity of the associations and interpretations of delirious phenomena. Therefore, what is required is the ability to perceive links between things which rationally are not linked. This is a natural phenomena, yet is specifically associated with the critical method of a paranoiac. It promotes LOGIC over REASON, which is a dominant symptom in those suffering from pyschosis. Lacan noticed this in his work with schizophrenics. Additionally, having suffered an episode of psychosis, I can attest to the truth of Lacan's findings.
This is not to say that conspiracy theorists are suffering from pyschosis, not at all. I declare them idiotic and foolish but not psychotic. No, I wish to come at it from a different angle and suggest it is from those who do suffer from psychosis that we can help develop a rational and reasoned understanding of reality, and thus know when we are failing to do so.
The truth doesn't need to assert itself. However, a useful starting point would be not distracting ourselves with falsehoods, assumptions and distractions whether that be god/s, cults or anything that gives our minds pleasurable stimulation (which conspiracy theories are great at).
For Free Communism (not lizard-hunting)
Squirrelboy
drawing board
03.11.2011 22:39
Endless hours of conspiracy videos that are fed to the disciples have stopped the disciples thinking of another possible world, it seems. The amount of this information fed into cyberspace is so massive these people simply can't think beyond what they're being fed.
Not looking forward to that day when the truncheons of the met rain down a they sit and chant "We are peaceful what are you?".
not_ttm
Obaaama is the sheeples hero INNIT !!
04.11.2011 08:01
Anyone who believes that behind the old left / right politcal facade there exist semi secret groups of unelected people who make the big decisions, is a Raving bonkers lunatic
who believes in shape shifting lizards, flying saucers and lives in a science fiction fantasy world.
So what about Bilderberg, CFR, The Trilateral Commission, Chatham House, Opus Dei
Knights of Malta and so on and on, are these all invented by the Lizard man ?
If you think that United Masons was set up to help the poor of this world you gotta really wake up, the plot of land for the league of nations was donated by oh no dare I say it, look it up for yourselves !! It was later changed to UN.
This year is the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy, but of course Garibaldi is a tin of biscuits and he never set sail from the UK financed by English Freemasonry and he was not the Grand master of world Freemasonry. That over 1,000,000 million people (brigands) were murdered by Northern (piemonte) soldiers in the Two Sicilies in probably the worst case of Ethnic cleansing Europe has ever known is a not very often mentioned historical fact. But not taught in schools, or talked about very much, unless you go to Naples.
That the Russian and French revolutions, were masonic plots, is historical fact, nothing to do with David Icke. That most of the USA's founding fathers were freemasons is FACT
That the Americans knew that the japanese were about to attack Pearl harbour is FACT
That Prescott Bush and Morgan Stanley, Standard Oil and the rest of the gang financed the Nazis (I.G Farben) is FACT. That Standard Oil (fucking ESSO) recieved a royalty for the fuel the german Bombers used whilst bombing London is fact. That Bayer is the present day I.G Farben, builders of the WWII concentration camps, will grow your GM food is fact.
See Cambridge ex Bayer site heavily polluted quick tosh it over fake clean up and there you go a new housing estate. In the constituency of Andrew Lansley is FACT:
Bayer patented Heroin in 1898, and Carl Duisberg (one of the biggest scum bags ever) invented pesticides after he fired them at the Tommy's in WW1.
The Hamburg connection to 911 was through the hard right Carl Duisberg foundation, where Atta was studying FACT .
That the very city of London is covered in Masonic / Hermetic symbols is FACT just look up above your heads and you'll see them, but cos you are so fucking ignorant you won't know what they mean. How about Durers magic square on the old Nat west building, next to the bank of England, oh yeah that's another Conspiracy theory, Icke probably put it there.
It's the planetary seal for Jupiter it adds up to 34, 17 different ways, but then what would you worry about some old medieval magic, just cos it's all over the institutions that control your lifes.
If you look at it from another angle, 90% of what Icke says is FACT, he adds 10% of Science fiction to these facts and discredits the whole story. he is doing a Gr8 job, he is the bane of the anti conspiracy theorists, who obviously never studied history and is wheeled out every time anyone whats to discredit any argument what so ever.
Take a look at the links between organized crime, freemasons, Italian mafia, Russian /jewish mafia and offshore money laundering, of which England and Holland have about 40.
Of course this is all just another conspiracy theory and your all too busy trying to lay your shit on other people to notice that the world is run by a BUNCH of CRIMINALS !!
Sir Francis Dashwood
sounds like 'leiberal, privileged' bullshit to me
04.11.2011 12:03
this article sounds like it was transcripted from the speech of a person in a very privileged position in life.......upper middle class, liberal type. no offence, but your article doesn't tell us anything more about what to do to have a revoluition than thousands of other politicos have already said: mass action.
yes we know we need mass action, thats the whole point. when you are being poisoned from the air, poisoned from the television, from the GM food, from the water and when you have to scrape each day to pay bills, rent and so on, to feed kids, to get them to school, or face RUIN, then how the fuck is it easy for people, the masses to stand up and change things, particularly when the system divides us daily?
The system we are fighting is very strong and those at its helm know exactly what to do to keep us at bay. propaganda, divide and rule, etc.
in my opinion, we need massive insurrections which will in themselves cause revolutions and a crumbling of the system. then when it has collapsed, peoples lives will be in tatters - unfortunately, but i never told them to get mortgages or to buy cars and televisions...the system did - and THEY WILL HAVE TO CHANGE, they will have no choice. People are good at adapting, but only after the change has come. to ask them to change now, when they have their next meal and their next bill and their next school run to think of, is naive, to be honest.
the uni-bomber, in his manifesto (yes i know, it is not very good in parts, sexist in others and downright manic in others, but listen...) states that is necessary to collapse the system in order that people can be truily free of the system. no reform will do it, not even massive reform or the replacement of one power system with another...it must be total collapse. that collapse brings about catastrophy, deaths panic and trauma. but the very system we are fighting does that everyday and MAKES MONEY FROM IT while we slave away trying to survive. if the system collapses...in the long run, over years and years, the planet, and those that survive the collapse, will be far better off than if we remain under the system, or any power system, for that matter.
hard to swallow, and inciting, yes, what i have said maybe, but im sorry, we will have no lasting, beneficial change without using force to collapse the system. and all empires crumble in the end..see greek, see roman, see history........
Francesca
re: chemtrails
04.11.2011 13:43
Well, it's not natural in the sense that aircraft aren't "natural", sure.
But that doesn't mean they are deliberately spraying some mind-altering chemical to create them.
Vapour trails that appear from the wingtips of aircraft is a perfectly understood phenomenon - it's just water vapour, like clouds! There is water vapour in the air and the passage of the airplane causes it to condense - look up the details if you want.
We have enough things to attack governments and the air travel industry with already without resorting to crazy conspiracy theories like this. They just make us look like idiots.
I shudder to think of a world that is run by conspiracy theorists - I'm sure it would be at least as bad as the existing one.
anon
Conspiracy theories aren't a new problem where Indymedia is concerned
04.11.2011 14:24
Indymedia has always had this problem with conspiracy theorists, they've been ever present ever since I first started regularly reading the newswire about nine years ago, and it went downhill as 9/11 Truthers stated becoming part of editorial collectives and promoting 9/11 Truth events as main features and "promoted" articles. What doesn't help is the selective moderating where criticisms of pet theories and causes are "hidden", whist content defending brutal dictators (Gaddiffi, Assad, Milosevic, Mugabe, et al) has a blind eye turned to it (on account they all hate America/"the West"). Having a high level of quality control is one thing, applying double standards is another.
bsb2.0
X-Ray complete. Tests are negative.
04.11.2011 15:22
Clean as a whistle. It must be the system!
And yet here you are! Scrawling away on the walls of the toilet.
Indymedia does have a problem with trolls (I'm not saying you're one) and they clearly have an agenda. It doesn't do to constantly carp on about how crap everything is because the system is quite easily able to come along and say "Oh, I know, it is isn't it. So support us and we'll make the whole world a better place". And then use your support to wage their own private wars and economic catastrophe's.
We all know what we beleive in and thats something the conspiracy theorists and the trolls are never able to dent, no matter how much they try.
As we can see in the modern world Capitalism is crap. But the real problem is nobody yet knows what to replace it with or how to make the most of its failures.
As for the rant above somewhere about chemtrails, sure, the airline industry does indeed pollute the environment. Those jet engines are poisonous. But taking that and claiming that the pollution is in actual fact a chemical plot to harm us all renders us all stupid...and its this stupidity the aerospace industry is able to use to deflect attention away from the pollution itself. All they have to do when questioned about pollution is to laugh, suck their teeth and say "Well, these are the same people who beleive in chemtrails...come on, lets have lunch and I'll let you know how I want you to write your article!!"
Conspiracy theories serve to infantilise us all by arranging us into neatly placed ranks which serves to render us inactive and incapable of active participation in our society, and into that gap steps the representatives of the system.
The 9/11 movement said something quite didn't add up about the event, they were right. But they went off into contrived detail...and that was wrong.
The Anti-war movement said the wars were unjustified...they were right. But nobody was prosecuted...and that was wrong.
The Anti-Capitalists said the economic system caused inequality...they were right. But Marxism was used to describe it...and that was wrong.
For every movement there is a counter movement. This is based on the concept of adversorialism.
"The adversarial system is the two-sided structure under which criminal trial courts operate that pits the prosecution against the defense. Justice is done when the most effective adversary is able to convince the judge or jury that his or her perspective on the case is the correct one."
Conspiracy theories are too often used by one side, to prevent the other side adequately making their case.
Doctor Foster.
Conspiracy theories (in action)
04.11.2011 15:44
Ghaddafi dead, 1
ghaddafi dead, 2
There is overwhelming evidence that Ghaddafi is dead and I have posted it above.
Now go away, and accept reality.
While you are about it, stop trolling Indymedia with garbage and stop disrupting the newswire under names that do not belong to you.
You are only making a fool of yourself.
IMC
conspiracies
05.11.2011 09:59
eattherich
MAFIA-ROME_LONDON-ST-MAARTEN
05.11.2011 11:31
Deal with Italian Government, AAMS (State Monopoly)
Through a highly reputable Solicitors DAWSONS of 2 NEW SQUARE LINCOLNS INN LONDON WC2
The Italian state was forced to liberalize it's gambling laws by the UK Mafia, which wanted a stake in the market. So now there are quite a few of these new betting companies.
Bet and Win and the like.
These are real life Conspiracy theories, not for the likes of the still wet behind the ears school kids that operate on IMC,
IMC Schoolboys
Reptile Banker Bungay jumps Blackfriars Bridge !!
05.11.2011 12:48
Some story about Reptilian banker do acrobatic stunts under Blackfriars Bridge, what is the world coming to, and he had his pockets stuffed full of house bricks. They'll be telling us next that the City of London Police HQ is really a masonic Lodge.
Who is thei Licio Gelli lizard, just a pigment of David Ickes amalgamation ? no he is the geezer who sold the Two Exocet Missiles to "The Argies" (Sun, Quote) the ones that sunk the British Warship HMS Sheffield during the Falklands / Malvinas War. He was the Grand master of the Propaganda Due (P2) which Wiki refer to as Clandestine, bullshit !!, all top cops and military, Politicians and anybody who was anybody were on board. A long career, started off working for the Nazis in WWII and carried on working for them after WII through the CIA.
The P2 AKA i Frattelli Neri, er that translate to Blackfriars, but don't tell the UK corporate media.
From this story you can go to other Reptilian tales like Gladio, secret stay behind forces of Lizards and snakes ... International banking scams many of which pass through the City of London, never mind the Reptiles, on the London arms, read the motto "Domine dirige nos" much the same as the Nazis "Got mit uns" or the Crusaders "Deus vult" the so called War on terror is just another Crusade, to them
Ouroborus
Spot on
08.11.2011 03:04
These conspiracy documentaries paint us a fictional world without hope or reason to continue, and feed on our negativity and desperation. And they have this childlike mentality of simplification, that everything bad in the world is down to some shady group lurking in the background. The moment I do something deemed to be wrong I'm a reptilian Jew with coincidental links to some rich-ish businessperson or politician somewhere. And if not I must be the real cheese because I'm doing especially well at covering up. Not every murder is ordered by the mothership, and some people just go out there and rape and draw swastikas of their own volition.
The first comment, by Larry Chin, was so illuminating. What a pile of jingoistic rhetoric aimed directly at the disillusioned confused x files generation. I'm especially interested in what he's referring to by 'years of intimidation' ... I don't think the elites of the world could give less of a shit about conspiracy twaddle and I've definitely never heard a single story of a conspiracy theorist suffering ruling class intimidation for their views. Compare that to the vast tranches of state repression for those who cause havoc for real existing enemies. Is David Icke serving 4 years for what he posts on facebook?
More than anything, I agree with one particular thing the speaker said. It simply doesn't matter whether none, some or all of these conspiracy theories are true - and some of them may be, even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day. They provide nothing for a social movement except their own brand of elitism and division. They alienate people with their ridiculousness. They peddle hopelessness and passivity. They don't provide us with a way forward, they simply involve constant reanalysing (and I struggle to call anything I've seen in my research 'analysis') and regurgitating of past events. They are all talk and no action, and most of the sources for them are frankly sickening home-businesses that I put in the same bracket of society as the smack industry.
This would all be laughable if it weren't so fucking serious. These marketeers of conspiracy theories are the eric cartmans of the real world, the depraved little shits and sociopaths abusing and manipulating all the well-intentioned people out there with a pile of juvenile nonsense. We either need to start moving on this or at the very least more overtly distancing ourselves from it.
Nick
Oh and another thing
08.11.2011 14:37
That Jack Ray quote was really good, but I'd like to suggest a second fundamental flaw of conspiracy theories, one may well seem really obvious to a lot of people but I haven't seen it mentioned yet. They rely upon a flawed model of capitalism as a centrally controlled inflexible control base. This simply is not the case. The most basic idea behind capitalism is decentralisation. No one person has control over anything that big. Even the President of the USA has severely limited power. We are not dealing with a tiny, remote minority (quite often you'll see the theorists refer to the council of 12). We're dealing with a staggeringly flexible and chaotic system of checks and balances. Everyone in the world has some power, from the Rockefellers down to prisoners in the roughest prisons, but some have more than others and obviously a small number of people hold the majority of power. It is this power structure that we should challenge, rather than a fictional group of people pulling impossibly long and fragile strings. 'Normal' activism and anarchism involve taking on people, but (as far as I'm concerned at least) as a means to an end - tearing down an abusive power structure. Activism that derives from conspiracy theories is more concerned with taking on a small group of individuals. The natural action from a conspiracy theories standpoint is to get a gun and find as many of these people as you can and put them in their graves. By all means please go and do that, it'll be great to watch on the news, but you won't change a single thing as the powerful enemy is the power structure, that will present new Rockefellers and Eisenhowers to stand in the place of the dead ones, and manipulate public opinion into backlashing against any resistance movements.
Nick
An Accurate Understanding of 'Deep Politics'
09.11.2011 12:05
eg
“At every major strategic point in the world, we find that US and Western power is symbiotically melded – through financial, military and intelligence connections – with al-Qaeda; and further that al-Qaeda has in certain places been explicitly used as a military-intelligence asset by Western powers, particularly the United States and United Kingdom. This documentation indicates that international terrorism in the form of al-Qaeda is not merely an enemy to be fought, but rather an unruly asset to be, when possible, controlled and manipulated in the pursuit of quite specific strategic and economic interests. Worse still, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that certain elements of the policy-making establishment are perfectly cognizant that as a direct result of such policies, national security is being fundamentally and continuously undermined with repeatedly fatal consequences. Yet the same brand of policies persists. Without dwelling unnecessarily on the possible theoretical ramifications of this phenomenon, it is sufficient for me to note that these facts fundamentally challenge the entire paradigm of the ‘War on Terror’ as articulated and legitimized by the official narrative.”
Source: Ties With Terror: Western-Al-Qaeda Relations in the Post-Cold War Period by Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Gareth Newnham