So you started out with the assumption it was all crap but at least you looked. As for his friend Alex Jones, I didn't know of this guy till recently and they are two different animals and by no means friends. At the recent Bilderberg meeting in London, Icke did his best to avoid Jones and Max Keiser without trying to be rude but did eventually label jones as unprofessional and someone doing harm to people with alternate ideas. David Icke is very measured in his words, can be quite convincing but then again that's how a lot of maniacs get hold of power. Icke can however hold audiences of 100,000 at Wembley stadium for 13/14 hours at a time, Jones' loud mouth rants keep his audiences for 13/14 minutes. I've no idea why RT love "The Kaiser" another boring loud mouth. Nobody has mentioned Michael Moore, bowling for columbine, farenheit 911...
I think this world is so deeply entrenched in conspiracies and secret societies, not the wacky kind like Masons or what have you, but highly profitable conspiracies. Like they say, just follow the money trail. Also, I think governments have relied on panic generated by conspiracy theories and they encourage this anxiety and use it for their ends. So the situation is such that even the most outlandish conspiracy theory can turn out to be perfectly real, but likewise, it might never have happened, we just don't know. However, I think it's possible to recognise bs, you just need to know what to look for. But it takes practice and experience that not many people have. So all in all, I listen to them all, disregard the ones I think are bs and the rest I try to make up my own mind, based on real evidence. As far as David Icke is concerned, he's either delusional but intelligent, so he recognised the issues but his reptile hallucination interferes with the logic, or he is just very intelligent and has used the crazy talk to disarm people who would have otherwise thought he was dangerous. Personally, I think it's the first, rather than the second, but I'm not discounting both possibilities.
Well, yeah I'll admit I did start with an assumption, but it doesn't mean I can't get over a preconception if I see genuine merit in something. My mind doesn't work in the way of it being fixed on any one conclusion. I have good critical & reasoning skills, you need to to pass anything at a degree level. And I'm perfectly open and happy to change my mind, sometimes drastically, if something else seems more logical or well thought out. If Icke had something interesting to say in his documentaries I honestly would have listened to it. I'll not lie, he made some interesting points I thought, but that's all they were. And about Jones I watched these things in 2007, when the whole Illuminati, New World Order thing was probably at it's peak, and I can assure you at that time they were friends. Icke went on Jones's radio show often at the time and the two did public events together. I distinctly remember one filmed radio show where Jones started going into this tirade about the Illuminati and Icke clearly felt very uncomfortable. It was honestly interesting to see the two in the same room, I must admit it did give me a little respect for Icke as a person. Does this mean I respect his theories? NO!
Uh, yeah, I pretty much assume that some guy claiming a psychic and voices in his head are the source of his beliefs that lizard people are here is not someone acting on evidence. So we come to the basis of your support of Icke. Don't you think it's possible Icke mixes real with crazy? How can you tell where the lines are? Bowling for Columbine was about the gun culture, not about a conspiracy unless my memory is worse than I think. Fahrenheit 911, despite the successful campaign to discredit Moore with the "59 Deceits", (which actually was itself discredited though not many people know that), and despite some insignificant errors in the film, the conspiracy to lie to the American people to garner support for a war we should never have fought is now the accepted truth for more than half the country. There are NeoCons who will never honestly assess the evidence, but most people (as in more than half) in the US now see how the evidence was distorted and fabricated to make it look like there were WMDs in Iraq. Some people refuse to believe the obvious that the Bush Admin knowingly lied and distorted the evidence. They prefer the excuse the CIA was wrong rather than Bush knew full well the CIA was wrong. I am not so generous. So you have an example of a CT that has a basis in fact.
My own conclusion is that it was more of a case of willful ignorance. Bush II clearly had an agenda to take out Saddam early on, as evidenced by early attempts to peg Iraq as the source of the 9-11 attacks and clearly decided to rely on the reports he liked and ignore the reports he didn't like. Not a new development - one of the reasons that Operation Market Garden (of "A Bridge Too Far" fame) failed was because Montgomery was so hell-bent on the operation that he refused to consider contrary intelligence (which turned out to be correct). Apparently lost in the noise at the time of the Iraq debate was that in diverting resources away from a war we were winning in Afghanistan, Bush II was repeating the error of Bush I and thereby rendering Afghanistan permanently unwinnable (not just in a military sense, but more in a political one). But this notion of only listening to the news that supports one's pre-existing opinions has been hugely expanded in the "information age" in a way that makes rational debate almost impossible. Turn to different outlets and you don't just hear contrary opinions, you hear contrary facts, which in the end only serves to buttress the existing human tendency to cling to one's beliefs even in the face of evidence to the contrary.
the comment was in response to Lemex. By the way, not sure he ever claimed to have voices in his head. What's with the attack? We are discussing the idea of CTs not trying to prove or disprove anything. Nor is anyone an apologist for anybody with different views although I would stand by his right (and anyone else's) to have them. Ok
Farenheit 911 is full of misinformation and propaganda. The oil pipe that takes up so much of the film was actually something agreed with the Aghan people in the 1990s, during the Clinton administration. It's not a Bush idea at all. I tend to think, also, that Afghanistan could actually use an economy. Christopher Hitchens' essay on the film is really worth a read. The idea of only listening to one set of propaganda and denouncing the other side, that's pretty Orwellian.
[MENTION=2124]Lemex[/MENTION] - I was not referring to the film, nor to the pipeline. I was referring to the lack of any rebuilding support after the Afghans had defeated the Soviets. By withdrawing forces from Afghanistan prematurely - in effect, abandoning the country for the second time in a little over a decade - Bush II gave permanent credibility to anti-American forces there. There seems to be an assumption among American political leaders that the answer to any crisis is to go in, throw some cruise missiles around, give CNN some good "action" footage, then cocktails. Sort of a case of National ADD. Edit: Oh, I forgot - knock over a huge statue of a deposed leader, if available.
It's alright, that post wasn't aimed at yours. (actually, I've had this window open for a long time, I didn't see your post until after I posted mine) my post was just an open statement about Michael Moore and, to be honest, it was a general point about propaganda as a tool. It's been a long day so I didn't word it as well as I should have at first. Sorry for any confusion. I actually fully agreed with your point about the parallel lines of propaganda today, agree with you completely.
[MENTION=2124]Lemex[/MENTION] - I realized after I made my post that such might have been the case. For what it's worth, I've never been a big fan of Moore's, even when I've agreed with him. It might be the predominant theory these days that the way to win an argument is to shout the loudest and the most persistently, but all that does is make your opponent go away. It doesn't change his/her mind.
That's precisely why I've never liked him, that and I find him insufferably smug at times. I don't know, I just don't like him I guess you can say. Just to clarify: I've spent most of today signing paper work and yadda-yadda, all in preparation for returning to university this September. Paper work related to my coming move needed signed, paper work accepting the terms of this position signed, coming to a final agreement with my friends about living spaces - everything. My actions on this forum have been very much guerrilla posting for most of the day. Now at the day's end I'm exhausted. :redface:
Or stage a knocking over of a huge statue of a former great friend and ally... The truth about Iraq is Bush II just couldn't spell, he meant weapons of mass distraction; fallen statues a case in point.
I'm pretty sure the real reason for the Iraq war is that he stubbed his toe on boulder and to his security said he wanted to attack 'a rock'.
Deceits 27-31 are all about the pipeline, but Kopel doesn't clearly indicate what the five deceits are. I'll hazard a guess: Moore made a film that was intended to present a specific position, it wasn't intended to be as balanced as something like Bill Moyers, "Buying the War". At the same time Moore's film was attacked by people who know how to present propaganda better than anyone. It's all water under the bridge, no sense beating dead horses. But when I see people who believe the real propaganda that was used to discredit a passionate anti-war activist, I think it's important to at least point out the "59 Deceits" that have been instilled in the public discourse was itself deceitful propaganda. Bottom line, if Bush knew Saddam did not have WMDs, just what was the agenda? Bush certainly knew Saddam had nothing to do with 911.
The 'revenge' idea can easily be dismissed out of hand, it's ridiculous on the face of it. Afghanistan was all America needed to do for the second part.
I actually believe that the Bush cartel started the Iraq war essentially because they thought it would be fun and fed their egos. What's more important than running a war? Cheney and Rumsfeld got to be on television all the time, got to make super-important decisions, got to plan things like battles and reconstruction, until they got tired and just decided they didn't want to do those parts anymore, because pesky realities got in the way and that part was no longer fun. Plus there was the added bonus that Cheney's old company and friends got a whole lot of money.
No, not you [MENTION=2124]Lemex[/MENTION]. GC's comments on Max Thunder gaybashing, clinic burning, moonshine kibbutzing machine gun holy vengeance righteous anger tempering. It was late last night <hic>. Indeed I half-drafted a post about what a jolly reasonable chap you were, but was verging manlove/ fanmail - so deleted 'fraid. Next time x Threads spiralled since I began tiping
If Moore's point was to suggest that the pipeline deal wasn't the reason for the war, just a by-product, in Afghanistan then I'm confused, why exactly does it take up so much of his film? It's referenced along with the Iraqi oil fields and alright they are not outright said 'this is the reason' but ... I don't get it. I can't have Michael Moore to sit with and ask him specifically, but it seems to be bizarre that he would work so hard to build up the impression of a point he wasn't focused on making. I'm not interested in getting into a debate here, just an honest question. This thread made me chuckle, here's some rep for you!
I fall closer to libertarian. It's not politics, it's just ludicrous. I think America should have stayed out of Iraq and Bush was a moron for going in, but the idea that he would invade a whole country over revenge? Dropping a bomb from a B-2 is cheaper and gets less negative press.
9/11 Here you go, some 'proper' CT stuff. The tradition is known as kabarett. The views are controversial and offensive to many in parts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RJdf3AkaRP0
