Conspiracy Theorists The Most Sane Of All

[Mordae]

A very illuminating article here...and nice to know I'm not as crazy as people think

If you’re a conspiracy theorist, then you’re crazy, right? That’s been the common belief for years, but recent studies prove that just the opposite is true.

Researchers — psychologists and social scientists, mostly — in the U.S. and United Kingdom say data indicate that, contrary to those mainstream media stereotypes, “conspiracy theorists” appear to be more sane than people who accept official versions of controversial and contested events.

The most recent study was published in July 2013 by psychologists Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas of the University of Kent in the UK. Entitled “‘What about Building 7?’ A Social Psychological Study of Online Discussion of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories,” the study compared “conspiracist,” or pro-conspiracy theory, and “conventionalist,” or anti-conspiracy, comments on news websites.

The researchers noted that they were surprised to find that it is now more conventional to leave so-called conspiracist comments than conventional ones.

“Of the 2174 comments collected, 1459 were coded as conspiracist and 715 as conventionalist,” the researchers wrote.

‘The research showed that people who favored the official account of 9/11 were generally more hostile’

So, among people who comment on news articles, those who discount official government accounts of events like the 9/11 attacks and the assassination of John F. Kennedy outnumber believers by more than two-to-one. That means the pro-conspiracy commenters are those who are now expressing what is considered conventional wisdom, while the anti-conspiracy commenters represent a small, beleaguered minority that is often scoffed at and shunned...

[Agartha]

Great article!!!

I actually really agree with this:

Also, it seems that those who do not believe in the conspiracies were not just hostile but fanatically attached to their own conspiracy theories as well. The researchers said that, according to the anti-conspiracy holders, their own theory of 9/11 — one which says 19 Muslims, none of whom could fly commercial airliners with any proficiency, pulled off an amazing surprise attack under the direction of a man on dialysis (Osama bin Laden) who was living in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan — is unwaveringly true.

Meanwhile, “conspiracists,” on the hand, did not have to pretend to have a theory that completely explained the events of 9/11. “For people who think 9/11 was a government conspiracy, the focus is not on promoting a specific rival theory, but in trying to debunk the official account,” the researchers said.

[Lenzabi]

Oh I do also agree that 9/11 was a false flag operation. I can also go into some details like the "Loose change" movie and some other footage from Democracy Now and other sources. The people who want the official story to be real and accept the government story do get rather hostile and very angry if the official story is challenged in any way.

[Rockhopper]

Everyone has a conspiracy theory (or two!). Just because some-one doesn't believe in conspiracies doesn't mean there ain't any!

Tim.

[Lenzabi]

No conspiracy as this is what America is in for the past couple of decades, all 12 parts we have committed

1. Exuberant nationalism

Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic images, slogans and symbols - National flags are seen everywhere in public display. Territorial aggression is explained to be mere destiny -- an unbidden greatness thrust upon the nation by history.

It is this burden of unique responsibility that now raises the fascist state above all previous constraint, no longer bound by international obligations, treaties or law.

2. Enemies Identified

This national cause is identified as unity against enemies - The people are rallied around a unifying patriotism directed against some common threat: communists, liberals, a racial, ethnic or religious minority, intellectuals, homosexuals, terrorists, etc.

The state's message is sometimes couched in an easily recognized religious theme. Amazingly, this language is used even when the full context of the teaching shows the meaning to be diametrically opposed. Any dissent is "siding with the enemy", and therefore treasonous.

3. Rights Disappear

Disdain for human and political rights - Fascist regimes foster an artificial climate of fear by intentionally amplifying stress and anxiety. Citizens naturally feel a strong need for security and are easily persuaded to ignore abuses in the name of safety. The few still willing to question are met with bullying and smear campaigns of intimidation.

Legislative bodies, if still in existence at all, are cowed into rubber-stamp submission with occasional ceremonial opposition. The judiciary tends to become activist in support of state views. The public often looks away, or even enthusiastically approves as rights are stripped away.

The concept of the individual inevitably yields ground, exchanged for the promised safety of the all-powerful state.

4. Secrecy Demanded

Obsession with secrecy and national security - The workings of government become increasingly hidden. Questioning of authority is discouraged at all levels of society. From office talk at the water cooler up through the entire apparatus of rule, guarded speech and secrecy become ends in themselves.

Troubling questions are muted and entire areas of scrutiny are placed out of bounds by simply invoking "national security".

5. Military Glorified

Supremacy of the military - The military establishment receives a disproportionate share of government resources, even as pressing domestic needs are neglected. Individual soldiers and military culture are glamorized and made constantly visible.

This provides both an object for public glorification, as well as sharp warning to possibly restless citizens that the power of the state stands close at hand, ready to use its great potential for violence.

6. Corporations Shielded

Corporate power is protected - Typically, a segment of the business elite plays a major role in bringing fascists to national leadership, often from an unsavory obscurity. This marriage of big money and raw violence is often considered by historians to be the hallmark and backbone of fascism.

As these business-government-military interests meld, the significant threat of organized labor is clearly recognized. Labor unions and their support organizations are either co-opted successfully or ruthlessly suppressed and eliminated as soon as possible.

7. Corruption Unchecked

Rampant cronyism and corruption - Fascist states maintain power through this relatively small group of associates, mutually appointing each other to interlocking and rotating positions in government, business and the military.

With this degree of control, they make full use of both official secrecy and the ready threat of state violence to insulate themselves from any meaningful criticism. They are not accountable and are shielded from scrutiny in a way unthinkable in a democratic society.

8. Media Controlled

Mass media - Sometimes the media are controlled directly by clumsy government functionaries. At other times, sympathetic corporate media insiders shape the themes indirectly, and therefore more skillfully. Image regularly trumps content as the "news" is presented breathlessly and with flashy stage effects.

A practiced formula of tenacious repetition brings even the most absurd lie into acceptance over time. By design, the very language itself and the coloration employed will push alternate views "out of the mainstream".

The terms of any remaining debate are narrowly defined to the state's advantage, making it easy to marginalize a truly differing perspective. Censorship and "self-censorship", especially in wartime, is common.

9. Rampant Sexism

Rampant sexism - Governments of fascist states tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Traditional gender roles are made even more rigid and exaggerated. Virulent homophobia is commonly built into broad policy.

10. Intellectual Bullying

Disdain for intellectuals - Fascist society tends to create an environment of extreme hostility to critical thought in general, and to academics in particular.

Ideologically driven "science" is elevated and lavishly funded, while any expression not in line with the state view is at first ignored, then challenged, then ridiculed and finally stamped out.

It is not uncommon for academics to be pressured to attack the work of their insufficiently patriotic peers. Writings are censored; teachers are fired and arrested. Free artistic expression in new works is openly attacked, and existing works deemed unpatriotic are often publicly destroyed.


11. Militarized Police

Obsession with crime and punishment - Fascist society is often willing to overlook police abuses and forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. Long jail sentences for clearly political offenses, torture and then assassination are at first uncomfortably tolerated, and then start to pile up to become the norm.

Often a national police force is given virtually unlimited power to snoop through the civilian population. Networks of surveillance and informers are employed, both for actual intelligence gathering and also as a means to keep neighbors and co-workers isolated and mistrustful of each other.

12. Elections Stolen

Fraudulent elections - In the disordered time as fascists are rising to power, the electoral arena becomes increasingly confusing, corrupted, and manipulated.

There is rising public cynicism and distrust over what are widely believed to be phony elections manipulated by moneyed influence, obvious media bias, smear campaigns, ballot tampering, judicial interference, intimidation, or outright assassination of potential opposition. Fascists in power have been known to use this disorder as the rationale to delay elections indefinitely.

America is in full denial if it thinks it has not become so fascist a Oligarchial, Plutocratic, Corporatocracy

[Rockhopper]

Yup Len, so is Europe and the UK. All are moving in that direction.

We have it too. John Key wants to "Privatise" our State Health System, Social housing, Welfare et al. He's doing it by stealth a bit at a time.

We have a separate Accident Insurance system (state owned), the ACC, and they are wanting to privatise that too. It's financed by very small levies on pay and employers contributions. By privatising it the levies are increasing.

In your case what Little Georgie Bush said is true, he wanted to be a Dictator!

Tim.

[Lenzabi]

Privatisation is proving useless and worse than government municpality managemnent

[Lenzabi]

Many of the films are short, Just a way to give information to do one's own investigating

[Rockhopper]

Oh I do also agree that 9/11 was a false flag operation. I can also go into some details like the "Loose change" movie and some other footage from Democracy Now and other sources. The people who want the official story to be real and accept the government story do get rather hostile and very angry if the official story is challenged in any way.

Think about it for a moment Len. An inside job had to be done by Little Georgie and his band of Merry Men. The very fact that it was successful shows that the Georgie Gang didn't have anything to do with it.

Everything they planned and carried out NEVER was successful!

Tim.

[Lenzabi]

Georgie had special handlers, his cousins though were in charge of 2 security projects, one at the Boston airport that 2 planes were jacked from, and the "upgraded security system" that was a year long project no one was allowed to look at on the empty floor where covered pallettes and spools of something like wires were stored.

[Rockhopper]

Know what you're sayin' Len. Great food for a conspiracy!

Let's look at the practicalities though; the WTC was a particular design of highrise (read cheap and nasty) where it had a spine of vertical girders surrounding the lift wells and stairs. There are no firestop doors on the lift wells or stairs. The floors cantilevered off that. the outer frame was only so that the exterior could be attached and had no structural strength.

A 747 is 270T of aluminium and plastic. Fully fueled up they take 35T of jet fuel (kerosene). The ones that tapped the WTC had about 27T of fuel on board.

The planes hit at about 2/3 of the height of the building and whacked a bloody great hole in the side of it. When ally burns it produces a heat of around 2000C. So now we have a big hole in the side of the building through to the stair well and a heap of burning ally right there. The hole in the side allowed a powerful draught into the fire and the stair well acted like a huge flue. It turned the place into a blast furnace! Steel melts at 1200C.

The heat weakened the spine and the weight of the building above brought it down. The weight would and did pancake the floors below the fire and the building came a-tumbling down.

The fascinating thing about it all was the page of Atta's Passport fluttering down and landing right on top of the heap. That is nothing short of miraculous!! A piece of fancy paper surviving the crash, heat of the fire and then landing relatively unscathed on a heap of rubble, stretches credibility to breaking point!

Now did Georgie know about it? I am pretty sure that he did before hand. The Bush family and the bin Ladens were and still are great mates. Remember too, that OBL tried once before to bring the building down with two car bombs in the carpark back in 94 I think.

That's my view anyway!

Tim.

[Lenzabi]

Know what you're sayin' Len. Great food for a conspiracy!

Let's look at the practicalities though; the WTC was a particular design of highrise (read cheap and nasty) where it had a spine of vertical girders surrounding the lift wells and stairs. There are no firestop doors on the lift wells or stairs. The floors cantilevered off that. the outer frame was only so that the exterior could be attached and had no structural strength.

A 747 is 270T of aluminium and plastic. Fully fueled up they take 35T of jet fuel (kerosene). The ones that tapped the WTC had about 27T of fuel on board.

The planes hit at about 2/3 of the height of the building and whacked a bloody great hole in the side of it. When ally burns it produces a heat of around 2000C. So now we have a big hole in the side of the building through to the stair well and a heap of burning ally right there. The hole in the side allowed a powerful draught into the fire and the stair well acted like a huge flue. It turned the place into a blast furnace! Steel melts at 1200C.

The heat weakened the spine and the weight of the building above brought it down. The weight would and did pancake the floors below the fire and the building came a-tumbling down.

The fascinating thing about it all was the page of Atta's Passport fluttering down and landing right on top of the heap. That is nothing short of miraculous!! A piece of fancy paper surviving the crash, heat of the fire and then landing relatively unscathed on a heap of rubble, stretches credibility to breaking point!

Now did Georgie know about it? I am pretty sure that he did before hand. The Bush family and the bin Ladens were and still are great mates. Remember too, that OBL tried once before to bring the building down with two car bombs in the carpark back in 94 I think.

That's my view anyway!

Tim.

Bush sat on the report handed to him by agencies that said they knew men were learning to fly not land.

1997 was a think tank report discussing the need to bolster a flagging economy with a new war, and to jump start it with a p[earl harbor style shock to rally the Americans to the the cause of fighting it. Of course the big winners have been the military Industrial complex of America.

Yes, he did attempt the garage bombing.

Many thought the way the planes clipped the sideways of the buildings they would see the upper parts fall off like a cut tree and land on building nearby and below.

No matter who know what and could have stopped it, it wasn't stopped and fell right into the hands of those seeking to rob liberties in the name of fighting our latest boogyman.

[Rockhopper]

No matter who know what and could have stopped it, it wasn't stopped and fell right into the hands  of those seeking to rob liberties in the name of fighting our latest boogyman.

No argument there Len. The Bush Boys knew all about it but did nothing and that, on it's own is criminal but they are the Untouchables. I want to live long enough to see them charged and convicted of Crimes against Humanity!

Tim.

[Lenzabi]

No matter who know what and could have stopped it, it wasn't stopped and fell right into the hands  of those seeking to rob liberties in the name of fighting our latest boogyman.

No argument there Len. The Bush Boys knew all about it but did nothing and that, on it's own is criminal but they are the Untouchables. I want to live long enough to see them charged and convicted of Crimes against Humanity!

Tim.

As do I, sadly that may not happen till they pass away. Unpunished physically just judged by uncovered historical facts. at the very least, if 9/11 was not a full on false flag operation, it was a partial as they allowed it to happen, air force units were way out of position to shoot the planes down before they hit NYC. I still have seen the pics of the pentagon site and still feel that was a missile, I have heard testimony from airline pilots that said even as experienced with flying/controlling those planes, the moves that were needed by the one plane to hit the pentagon so low were beyond even them, they are doubtful of the poorly and scantily trained terrorists capability to pull such a maneuver w/o crashing the thing into the ground and poles that should have been knocked down were still standing in the pics, construction modules on that side were also undisturbed, something a almost to the ground plane would have hit on it's way in. No wings or engines seen as they ought to have pics were shortly suppressed.

But yes,m it happened on Georgie and Dickies watch, they are responsible for at the very least letting the terrorists get their hands on those planes.

[Lenzabi]

Weird Al seems to poke fun at conspiracy theorists

[Agartha]

hahaha he's still the best!!!

...but darn lizards!
lol

[Lenzabi]

hahaha he's still the best!!!

...but darn lizards!
lol

Yeah, them darn lizards squeeze in everywhere!

[Ken McClellan]

Follow the money.  Who got paid off for a building that managed to blow up and was never struck?  What nation benefited from the resumption of the new crusade between its religiously derivative cousins?  Tim's right ...

The very fact that it was successful shows that the Georgie Gang didn't have anything to do with it.

I think lots of folks saw it coming.  Hell, I worked in the Pentagon and wrote a paper on the coming war on terrorism six months ahead of the disaster ... and mentioned UBL by name.  William Cooper said it was coming.  So did Aaron Russo.  And those were just some regular guys ... not crystal ball gazers or intel wienies.

[Lenzabi]

A bogus war where they offer us bogus security from a bogus threat, which in turn was derived from a bogus at it's heart attack allowed to be, so that liberties would be allowed to be removed. Why are so many humans this insanely stupid?

[Ken McClellan]

Why are so many humans this insanely stupid?

Err, ahh, Amurrican skooling?

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