|
Welcome to the International Skeptics Forum, where we discuss skepticism, critical thinking, the paranormal and science in a friendly but lively way. You are currently viewing the forum as a guest, which means you are missing out on discussing matters that are of interest to you. Please consider registering so you can gain full use of the forum features and interact with other Members. Registration is simple, fast and free! Click here to register today. |
17th January 2016, 10:29 PM | #81 |
Muse
Join Date: May 2012
Posts: 692
|
Note for comprehension: "THEY" (the subject) being the 'many...on a site I frequent'.
Did I not state thus? Yes, 'they' are the vilest individuals I have had the displeasure of interacting with online. Their comments are unbelievably hateful.
Quote:
|
17th January 2016, 10:41 PM | #82 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 10,335
|
Another actual Jew checking in. I agree 100% with this comment, but the point is that Jew haters seem to be at the root of truthdoom and many similar CT's. I doubt trutherism would have acquired a fraction of its peak momentum without its despicably racist foundation.
|
__________________
"To me, Hitler is the greatest man who ever lived. He truly is without fault, so simple and at the same time possessed of masculine strength" -Leni Riefenstahl Wollen owns the stage
|
|
17th January 2016, 10:53 PM | #83 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: United States of America
Posts: 1,688
|
|
__________________
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair |
|
17th January 2016, 10:56 PM | #84 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: United States of America
Posts: 1,688
|
|
__________________
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair |
|
17th January 2016, 11:13 PM | #85 |
Muse
Join Date: May 2012
Posts: 692
|
|
17th January 2016, 11:19 PM | #86 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 10,335
|
|
__________________
"To me, Hitler is the greatest man who ever lived. He truly is without fault, so simple and at the same time possessed of masculine strength" -Leni Riefenstahl Wollen owns the stage
|
|
17th January 2016, 11:32 PM | #87 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 10,335
|
|
__________________
"To me, Hitler is the greatest man who ever lived. He truly is without fault, so simple and at the same time possessed of masculine strength" -Leni Riefenstahl Wollen owns the stage
|
|
18th January 2016, 12:39 AM | #88 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: United States of America
Posts: 1,688
|
|
__________________
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair |
|
18th January 2016, 12:41 AM | #89 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: United States of America
Posts: 1,688
|
|
__________________
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair |
|
18th January 2016, 02:54 AM | #90 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 18,667
|
|
__________________
Thermodynamics hates conspiracy theorists. (Foster Zygote) The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. (Gilbert Keith Chesterton) |
|
18th January 2016, 06:27 AM | #91 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: nyc
Posts: 3,232
|
It seems as if people who reject all sorts of mainstream narratives find common cause with each other. I suspect this accounts for the fact that many "main stream narrative rejecters" pop up in various groups. It the tendency to dismiss the mainstream as a pack of lies... on issue A and then embrace that notion... that someone who lies about A is probably lying about B, C, D, E and so on... They find common elements in the "official" narrative and this reinforces the notion of a systematic approach to manage perception and conceal agendas.
|
18th January 2016, 07:26 AM | #92 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: United States of America
Posts: 1,688
|
Ever read Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media or anything else from Noam Chomsky that has to do with public relations, the media or national security?
Here's two recent examples of changing stories to better manage perception: https://theintercept.com/2015/10/05/...justification/ https://theintercept.com/2016/01/15/...cious-version/ |
__________________
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair |
|
18th January 2016, 11:56 AM | #93 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 10,335
|
I freely agree my conclusions are based on a certain degree of subjective experience and observation, by their very nature. That doesn't mean, of course, that they aren't balls-on accurate, which I believe they are.
I also believe racists seem to be at the root of the Obama "Birther" CT, and I doubt it would have have reached a fraction of its peak momentum without its despicably racist foundation. Honestly, do you think most reasonable skeptics would find that statement a stretch to even take seriously, let alone accept? I don't. |
__________________
"To me, Hitler is the greatest man who ever lived. He truly is without fault, so simple and at the same time possessed of masculine strength" -Leni Riefenstahl Wollen owns the stage
|
|
18th January 2016, 12:15 PM | #94 |
Banned
Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 6,556
|
Quote:
Possibly, but how does one know for certain? Are they actually anti-semitic? Maybe they thought they saw criminal ie deception activity. Wouldnt proof of antisemitism be needed? Are you saying that accusing Mossad is automatically anti-semitic? Without proof, why would accusing Mossad be deemed antisemitic? Thats why I ask if accusing mafia of crime is anti-italian. Suspecting an italian of being in mafia might be similar....possible but not automatic. Suspecting a truther of being anti-semitic is similar...possible but not automatic. |
18th January 2016, 12:18 PM | #95 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Dog House
Posts: 26,122
|
|
__________________
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen" - Albert Einstein "... education as the means of developing our greatest abilities" - JFK |
|
18th January 2016, 03:31 PM | #96 |
Muse
Join Date: May 2012
Posts: 692
|
Come on, you're fooling no-one. If you don't strawman, you go for the cheap 'gotcha' moment. Most interactions with you are the same.
If you observed the subject of my post you would have had no problem, but you chose to ignore it on some quest for a cheap 'gotcha' moment. You chose to interpret my post incorrectly and ignore the key clauses and words in order to manipulate the converstaion, and for that immature tactic you've earned my contempt. |
18th January 2016, 04:21 PM | #97 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 18,667
|
Yes I have read Manufacturing Consent (by Chomsky and Edward Herman). Good, convincing book.
It doesn't conclude that the media lie about everything and are able to invent anything and conceal forever everything they want to conceal. In fact, Chomsky himself finds the idea that 9/11 was a huge conspiracy by the Bush government (or substantial elements thereof) idiotic, precisely because the information that all the necessary co-conspirators would have could not be managed in the way truthers imagine - and that would include truthers who have read Chomsky. |
__________________
Thermodynamics hates conspiracy theorists. (Foster Zygote) The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. (Gilbert Keith Chesterton) |
|
18th January 2016, 05:12 PM | #98 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 10,335
|
Not to mention the type of contortions necessary for the collective mass media to continuously achieve in order to maintain this astronomically complex sham.
An actual example of Chomsky's consent-manufacturing in action would be RT and PressTV's glossy campaign to convince the willingly guillable that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job secret conspiracy. |
__________________
"To me, Hitler is the greatest man who ever lived. He truly is without fault, so simple and at the same time possessed of masculine strength" -Leni Riefenstahl Wollen owns the stage
|
|
18th January 2016, 05:27 PM | #99 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 10,335
|
|
__________________
"To me, Hitler is the greatest man who ever lived. He truly is without fault, so simple and at the same time possessed of masculine strength" -Leni Riefenstahl Wollen owns the stage
|
|
18th January 2016, 06:26 PM | #100 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: United States of America
Posts: 1,688
|
|
__________________
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair |
|
19th January 2016, 07:46 AM | #101 |
"más divertido"
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: USA! USA!
Posts: 24,384
|
|
19th January 2016, 11:42 AM | #102 |
Scholar
Join Date: Dec 2015
Posts: 97
|
Jews can't melt steel beams.
|
19th January 2016, 12:34 PM | #103 |
Banned
Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 6,556
|
Quote:
Isnt it also possible that some proponents of these 911 and holocaust theories are not anti-semitic...but instead (as I understand it) are suspicious of fraud, ie criminal scams designed to benefit a party which happens to be a group or element of people in power who happen to be Jewish? Suspicion of sophisticated criminal fraud is not the same as swastikas painted on synagogues and similar expressions of anti-semitism. How do you know their suspicions are anti-semitic rather than anti-criminal? How do you make the step from suspicion of fraud to anti-semitism? Why isnt suspicion of criminal mafia activity by italians considered anti-italianism? I'm not asserting they (truthers) are not anti-semitic. Maybe some are. I'm just saying I can still see a difference between suspecting powerful people of fraud versus knee jerk anti-semitism. I've seen where some rabbis and other Jews protest zionism in their govt. Does that shed a different light on this? Whether it were true/nutty or not, for sake of the argument, I can see how accusing Mossad of fraud that is designed to frame their enemies and or protect/benefit Jews/Israel is not necessarily anti-semitic. Could it be that a non anti-semitic person said it first (theorized Mossad involvement) and then anti-semitic people jumped on board and repeated it? |
19th January 2016, 05:29 PM | #104 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 3,173
|
No, Bubba. You are ignoring well over a century's worth of outright lying about anything connected with Jews, propagated by modern antisemites.
This lying has come to fixate on the actions of the state of Israel and of its agencies such as Mossad to an almost comic degree. In the Middle East, the paranoia has been so intense that Iran captured "Zionist pigeons" a few years back, while a kestrel was held captive for a while in Turkey on suspicion of being an 'Israeli spy', and indeed there's an entire Wiki page chronicling zoologically themed Israel-related conspiracy theories circulating around the region. Intelligence services are low-hanging fruit for conspiracy theorists. There are literally thousands of false accusations against this or that intelligence service, ANY accusation against the CIA, FSB, MI6 or Mossad that is not properly documented by mainstream sources is suspect, until proper evidence is provided. This is what happens when loons cry wolf. Several previous generations of loons have removed any benefit of the doubt, to the point that when Mossad-flavoured conspiracy theories emerged after 9/11, they were not taken seriously in the mainstream, because there were too many antisemites who had every incentive to smear and malign Jews and Israel to make it at all probable that any specific allegation did not come from an antisemitic source or mindset. |
__________________
Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard. A Critique of the Falsehoods of Mattogno, Graf and Kues. (biggest ever skeptical debunking of conspiracy theorists; PDF available) Everytime one asks you holocaust deniers for positive evidence you just put your finger in the ears, dance around and sing lalala - Kevin Silbstedt |
|
19th January 2016, 11:05 PM | #106 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Dog House
Posts: 26,122
|
Blaming Jews for manipulating world events like 911 is not new; 911 truth claims blaming Jews is anti-Semitism. 911 truth followers share the most idiotic claims with their fellow 911 truth failed followers who are also anti-Semitic.
Faith-based 911 truth followers know they are right, and smarter than everyone who knows 911 truth is BS, and they learned all they know from the Internet... A movement based on BS googled on the Internet, the 911 truth movement of dumbed down lies for those who have no clue where their overwhelming evidence is, or what it is. |
__________________
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen" - Albert Einstein "... education as the means of developing our greatest abilities" - JFK |
|
20th January 2016, 04:37 PM | #107 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 20,571
|
What happens is that pre-existing conspiracy theories are often simply expanded to include new events. Thus, for those who argue that the Jews control the world, it is not much of a stretch to claim that the Jews pulled the 9-11 strings, just as Alex Jones blamed it on the Bilderberg Group, and liberal conspiracy theorists implicated the Bush Administration.
|
__________________
My new blog: Recent Reads. 1960s Comic Book Nostalgia Visit the Screw Loose Change blog. |
|
20th January 2016, 07:00 PM | #108 |
Critical Thinker
Join Date: May 2015
Posts: 344
|
You don't have an argument. Acknowledging that Israelis helped to conceal the 911 crimes, Bazant and Chertoff for example, does not make one an antisemite. Acknowledging that agents of Mossad were filming the first plane strike and celebrating does not make one an antisemite. Understanding that Israel tried to kill every single sailor aboard the USS Liberty does not make one an antisemite. These are simply factual relationships that you are uncomfortable accepting. You're just grasping at a ridiculous framework in which you might try to marginalize 'truthers' by associating them with racism, when in fact what you're terrified of is American Nationalism. Sent from our shared looking glass platform |
20th January 2016, 07:54 PM | #109 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 7,296
|
|
__________________
What do Narwhals, Magnets and Apollo 13 have in common? Think about it.... |
|
20th January 2016, 07:56 PM | #110 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 10,335
|
I never claimed it wasn't possible. I simply said that the probability someone without an antisemitic agenda would claim Mossad was behind the 9/11 attacks is roughly equivalent to the probability someone without an antisemitic agenda would claim the Holocaust was a Jewish hoax. That's all. In fact, let me express it in an updated form:
P(claim Mossad behind 9/11 with no antisemitic agenda) approx= P(claim Holocaust was a Jewish hoax with no antisemitic agenda) approx= P(claim Pres. Obama faked his Birth Certificate for presidential eligibility with no racist agenda). I'd say that's just about right. |
__________________
"To me, Hitler is the greatest man who ever lived. He truly is without fault, so simple and at the same time possessed of masculine strength" -Leni Riefenstahl Wollen owns the stage
|
|
20th January 2016, 11:42 PM | #111 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: United States of America
Posts: 1,688
|
|
__________________
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair |
|
21st January 2016, 12:38 AM | #112 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 7,296
|
Can address, can counter, but why bother? It's already on record in this forum and nothing I say is going to change what Notconvinced purports to believe.
Was I incorrect in alluding to it being a Gish Gallop? BTW - thank you for the italicised awe. You have no idea how much it means to me, to receive that from an anonymous poster on a web forum. |
__________________
What do Narwhals, Magnets and Apollo 13 have in common? Think about it.... |
|
21st January 2016, 01:27 AM | #113 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: United States of America
Posts: 1,688
|
Perhaps for those that are interested? Ever think about that? Maybe it is information and perspectives that may fill in someone's data set about the topic(s). There are worthwhile intellectual principles spoken about here at great lengths, but if what you describe his post as is true, countering the wrongness with what you say can address and counter his post is certainly preferred than saying what you did and simply moving on. You say 'he is full of ******** so why bother responding to him?' by responding to him without showing why he is full of ********. Notwithstanding, you're perfectly within your right to do so; however, I'm just saying it would be refreshing to see informative counters rather than what has turned into a comedy routine.
|
__________________
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair |
|
21st January 2016, 01:28 AM | #114 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 18,667
|
Au contraire.
Absent any evidence that Bazant and Chartoff are in fact citizens of the country Israel, and absent any evidence they did what you allege, this appears rather obviously a sneaky way of avoiding what you really want to say: "They did eevil things cuz they're Joooos!" I asked you previously to show evidence that Bazant, who is from Czechoslovakia and emigrates to the US after short times in France and Canada, is an "Israeli"! I asked you previously to show evidence that Chertoff, born in the USA and having never lived a day in Israel, is an Israeli! Your fraudulent "acknowledgement" that they are "Israelis" appears as a very obvious indication that you are, in fact, anti-semitic. Anti-semitism + Nationalism = Nazism |
__________________
Thermodynamics hates conspiracy theorists. (Foster Zygote) The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. (Gilbert Keith Chesterton) |
|
21st January 2016, 05:25 AM | #115 |
Bandaged ice that stampedes inexpensively through a scribbled morning waving necessary ankles
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Cair Paravel, according to XKCD
Posts: 34,249
|
|
__________________
There is truth and there are lies. - President Joseph R. Biden, January 20th, 2021 |
|
21st January 2016, 08:50 AM | #116 |
"más divertido"
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: USA! USA!
Posts: 24,384
|
|
21st January 2016, 09:00 AM | #117 |
Banned
Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 6,556
|
Quote:
Questions re his origins arose long before he produced the birth cert and suspicion grew when he didnt do so sooner. Would you accuse Chileans or Iranians or various other 3rd world LEO of anti-americanism or racism for putting CIA/America on a list of who'd benefit by orchestrating false flag stunts in overthrowing their democratically elected govts back then? Suppose some LEO put Mossad/Israel govt on a list of "Who would benefit from 911?" ....How anti-semitic is that? |
21st January 2016, 09:56 AM | #118 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 3,173
|
Obama released his short form birth certificate in June 2008, before he was even elected. The policy of the state of Hawaii was to provide computer-generated certificates, which of course fuelled the fire. The original long form was released in April 2011. By then there was every incentive for the Obama White House to let various Republicans discredit themselves by endorsing what had become a mass delusion on the right wing of the political spectrum.
Quote:
Since the mid-1970s, however, increased congressional and senate oversight along with a shift towards electronics intelligence and away from human intelligence make it less probable that any new accusation of CIA malfeasance is actually true. This does not rule out the possibility but it makes it less likely. Moreover, from the mid-1970s direct actions have been more frequently carried out by US special forces, e.g. the failed attempt to free the Teheran hostages in 1980, or the apprehension of Osama Bin Laden, in both cases certainly with CIA support, but not the work of "the CIA". Seeing the hand of the CIA in everything that might possibly be construed as bad would indeed be a sign of anti-Americanism, but there's a big difference between a rational suspicion of foreign interference in a conflict, and a kneejerk accusation, such as Hugo Chavez claiming that multiple Latin American leaders were victims of a US "cancer plot". Chavez was previously nearly ousted in a coup in 2002, and despite earlier denials then changed his tune to say later on that the US was involved, even though the evidence indicates the opposite. Iran made anti-American noises for decades after the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, and backed up the rhetoric with actions, e.g. the hostages crisis in the first years of Khomeini's rule. In recent decades Iranian leaders have tended not to provoke the US directly but have made their feelings rather plain about Israel, especially under Ahmadinejad. Thus when bad things happen to Iranian nuclear scienists it is perfectly rational to assume that Israel (and thus Mossad) may indeed have been responsible, since there is a very overt conflict there. Israel struggled unsuccessfully against the US-brokered deal over nuclear power with Iran. There was a lot of sabre-rattling from Israel and its supporters elsewhere, and since they had previously attacked an Iraqi nuclear plant to derail a potential nuclear weapons program, everyone including the US took them seriously. However, for years there were conspiracists claiming that the US was imminently about to attack Iraq, echoed at various times by mainstream media comments from kneejerk anti-American writers. Yet the Obama administration was actually working quietly behind the scenes to broker a deal with Iran. Today, the two countries are cooperating to a certain extent against ISIS, in an enemy-of-my-enemy scenario.
Quote:
Since the WTC had previously been attacked by Al-Qaeda, it seems very unlikely that any law enforcement officer would have had cause to brainstorm possible culprits by resorting to 'cui bono'. Had one done so and fingered Mossad then the chance would be indeed quite good that the LEO was an antisemite, for the simple reason that even moderately geopolitically informed investigators (i.e. anyone who reads the foreign news sections of quality newspapers) would know that Israel was and is a US ally, with no known reason then or now to orchestrate a massive terrorist strike on its chief sponsor. For the same reason, if the LEO had fingered the United Kingdom in this unnecessary hypothetical brainstorming exercise on September 11-13, then the probability would be overwhelming that the investigator was a deranged Anglophobe. |
__________________
Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard. A Critique of the Falsehoods of Mattogno, Graf and Kues. (biggest ever skeptical debunking of conspiracy theorists; PDF available) Everytime one asks you holocaust deniers for positive evidence you just put your finger in the ears, dance around and sing lalala - Kevin Silbstedt |
|
21st January 2016, 09:59 AM | #119 |
Bandaged ice that stampedes inexpensively through a scribbled morning waving necessary ankles
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Cair Paravel, according to XKCD
Posts: 34,249
|
It would depend on whether they actually benefited, which is debatable at best given that the US was already a staunch ally of Israel. Just handwaving imaginary benefits, as so many CTs seem to do, is very suspect; how, specifically, is Israel supposed to have benefited from 9/11? And don't just say "It's obvious"; if you can't come up with specific examples, then no, it isn't, and it starts to look like a justification for prejudice.
Dave |
__________________
There is truth and there are lies. - President Joseph R. Biden, January 20th, 2021 |
|
21st January 2016, 10:01 AM | #120 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 18,667
|
The difference is: CIA/US involvements in the coups in Chile (1970s) and Iran (1950s) have lots of evidence going for them and are essentially acknowledged by the CIA and the USA (although neither were "false flags" - I don't think you understand properly what that term means).
There is, however, no evidence for Mossad/Israel involvement in the 9/11 attack, except for some labored, prejudiced "cui bono" assessment. I am not exactly sure Israel actually profited from the destabilization of countries in her neighborhood. Face it: Some truthers accuse Israel and Mossad because they are despicable anti-semites. There is nothing more to it. |
__________________
Thermodynamics hates conspiracy theorists. (Foster Zygote) The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. (Gilbert Keith Chesterton) |
|
Thread Tools | |
|
|