What Country Do I Live In Again?

Post Reply New Topic

Little hint: conspiracy theories aren't true. There's a reason why people who believe in those theories are ridiculed and said to be bat-shit crazy.

New? Ever heard of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798?

Or check out what measures the Republican Party wanted to enact upon the Southern states after the Civil War (for instance, all states were to be stripped of their statehood, and would not be able to reapply until after jumping through a punitive series of hoops - one of the reasons for the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson was because he argued against these plans).

Or the treatment of anything related to Germany during WWI. Beer gardens were closed because they could be "gathering places for German agents"!

Or the roundup of anyone with Asian ancestry during WWII.

"I hold in my hand a list of known Communists..."

J. Edgar and the tracking of any group that dared protest the US government's actions in Viet Nam.

Nixon's Enemies List.

This is just the latest iteration - call it Newton's Third Law of Politics. "Persons in power tend to try to remain in power until acted upon by an outside force." Odds are good that if anyone above Cabinet level has even heard about this, it's been buried somewhere in the morning briefings - it's the sort of thing functionaries in the Justice Department have fomented ever since there was a Justice Department.

I don't see much of the point to this. Can't they already they get a court order to get the information they need from these internet companies?
Under Bush they had to get court orders for thier wire taps... oh wait. lol

Besides, they're asking for a weakness to be encoded into these systems. Are hackers just going to sit this out and abide since it's the fed's own loophole? I think not.

I'm not really surprised.

The hypocrisy of partisans really bugs me. I don't like how progressives stop making a fuss about the erosion of civil liberty as soon as their guy is in power. It's the same thing with conservatives who only start bitching and whining about "government spending" when it's spending to help people rather than spending for the military and war. It sickens me.

http://www.newworldorderreport.com/News ... -Know.aspx

Some conspiracy theories are true as pointed out above. They're ridiculed because such ridicule is encouraged. It's certainly easier than Bush having to defend his family's ties with not only with the bin Laden family and the "freedom fighters of Afghanistan" but also with the terror training flight school in FL that was also associated with a drug bust and had been reported as being a hub for illicit drug import. Not to mention on top of that, the people involved were also involved in the drug importation that the CIA did back during the Iran-Contra mess (hint: the CIA imported illegal drugs into the country from South America and one of the heads, Ollie North, was later pardoned by Bush Sr.; the same one who was also directly involved in the operations as VP).

It's not batshit crazy. What's batshit crazy is that someone who ran an international drug ring with the CIA is now a news correspondent/op-ed contributor on a "news" television channel rather than being in jail for his crimes.

Believe it or not Sand, I do read Counterpunch as well. I almost posted that article myself in support of the one I used as this thread's OP, but I thought that using a mainstream sourced article would be less contentious as far as people attacking the source. I remember when the cops preemptively raided some of the Minnesota protesters ahead of the RNC, and as a veteran of the Seattle WTO protests of 1999 thinking that legally questionable or not it probably wasn't a bad idea. This though is a whole other level of persecution of protesters, and initiated by a Democratic administration elected on a platform of changing these sorts of Bush era policies no less. Again, I didn't think Obama was going to curtail Bush's excessive national security programs to the extent that some of his supporters thought, but I also didn't expect him to actually expand some of them and introduce new and more odious ones.

Why should I trust that that list is factually accurate, especially seeing as it comes from a conspiracy theorist website?

I know that plenty of people in the world are corrupt, trust me, I've seen far too much to be able to deny that. What I have an issue with are all of the "doomsday theories" and the "they're all out to get us" theories that center around pointless paranoia. (A great example of this would be the New World Order conspiracy theory, or the Illuminati conspiracy theory.) We already have more than enough things to worry about without having to waste our energy worrying about insane theories that never actually come to fruition.

Fact check it. The CIA importing drugs into the country is recorded fact, the existence of Operation Northwoods is declassified, Operation Paperclip did occur, MK-ULTRA did occur (though some of the related tests have yet to be confirmed...such as the mass dosing of the French town of Point Saint-Espirit), Iran-Contra was real, the Business Plot was real.

Okay, maybe some conspiracy theories are true, but you have to admit, there are plenty of conspiracy theories that just sound absolutely insane. I mean, what about the conspiracy theorists who think that fluoride is a way for the government to control our minds, or the conspiracy theorists who think that vaccines are a way for the government to kill us?

The "Illuminati" ones are the ones that give me a really good chuckle - given that the Illuminati were invented by Robert Anton Wilson for a trilogy of satirical novels, and later expanded by Steve Jackson Games for the card game Illuminati! (which also has a New World Order expansion pack - probably no more expansions in the near future, however, as the company is more tied up with the Munchkin franchise and various zombie-themed games). So, y'all feel seriously threatened by organizations so fictional their names are copyrighted by a company in Texas?

Echelon is a real program, although not nearly so nefarious as generally pictured - AIs simply aren't yet sufficiently advanced. It scans a sample of the data flowing through certain servers, primarily located on the East Coast, scanning for a short list of phrases preprogrammed in as possibly relating to terrorist activity. They're not reading the slashfic you're submitting to fansites, unless you're writing, say, Jack Bauer/Osama bin Laden slashfic for a really strange 24 fansite... And your emails to Aunt Sadie in Israel are also safe, so long as you never send her your yellowcake recipe.

I loved RAW's trilogy and am currently reading (on top of my mound of non-fiction) his Schoedenger's Cat Trilogy.

The Illuminati actually was a legitimate group...back in 1800 Germany. Adam Weishaupt founded it as a secret society of secular thought with intent of getting rid of government established religion in 1776.



The conspiracy that's around today is absurd, though. What makes more sense is that the same group who looked to originally overthrow the government in 1933 continued its approach through the generations with gradual media corruption. Illuminati? No. A bunch of rich fascists who are gluttons for money and power? Sure. Not to mention that it better fits what history has drawn up so far and the various actions and associations that have occurred since. Whether its Rockefeller's social engineering experiments he's funded over the years or the Bush family's involvement in government secrets and foreign affairs.

But yeah...satanic Illuminati Muslims looking to destroy Christianity? Uh, no. A bunch of powerwhores looking to essentially establish a global plantation system through monetary manipulation and manipulation of perceptions through the media? That one's a little bit more on note.

And for the sake of all conspiracy theories: THERE'S ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHY THERE WOULD EVER HAVE TO BE A CONSPIRACY TO PUT IN A NON-AMERICAN AS PRESIDENT. Obama is a natural born citizen of this country. You don't have to look outside the borders to find someone who is willing to sell out the country and its freedoms. So quit even bothering to push such a moronic, idiotic, baseless conspiracy that holds absolutely no value to even begin to try and push. Do you get that? There's absolutely no positive value to push such a moronic conspiracy theory ever. EVER!!

Well...unless you're looking to make other conspiracy theorists look just as insane and idiotic and that actually fits pretty nicely under COINTELPRO's mode of operations and is easy enough to get just enough racists/closet racists to pick up on it for just the reason of hating a non-white president.

I readily admit that there is a quantity of material in Counterpunch that is emotionally driven and over the line, but there is also a core of fact driven articles which are well worth perusal and not found in standard media. Their sensitivity to basic violations of foundational constitutional rights is interesting and founded on hard fact.

Another dumb one I've heard is that they're going to put us all on windowless cargo trains with handcuffs in them, then drive us somewhere and gas us... I have no idea how anyone would be able to pull that off without people knowing. You would need so many people working on such a project, that it's guaranteed ONE PERSON would find it abhorrent and blow the whistle. Also, the whole concentration camp thing. I can't see how anyone could feasibly hide that either.

If anything, the concentration camps will be our own cities... if you've heard of the recent "Livable Communities Act" that's in the Senate right now...

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here considering which part of my text you're quoting. The Obama is a foreign Muslim thing is about as bunk as bunk can get.