View Full Version : Something I've Always Been Curius About
adios
11-08-2003, 02:26 PM
Rightly or wrongly my observation has been that distrust of the government seems to be more prevelant and deeper among those that are left leaning. Nothing necessarily wrong with that. The deeper, more prevlant distrust of government seems to breed IMO quite a few government conspiracy theories. I know that the JFK assassanation has been discussed at length here many times so I'm not trying to resurrect a discussion of that case again. However, my observation is that the left leaning do a total about face on the JFK assassanation i.e. the FBI, CIA, Congress and the presidentially appointed Warren Commission found all of the facts, made all of the right conclusions, their subsequent explanations make total sense and any notion of any government cover up or conspiracy is nonesense and outlandish. Why is there the total trust of the government and it's findings by the left in this case of all cases? At least that's my take. I like brad a lot and I have to give him his due, he's suspicious of all governement activity including the JFK assassanation and the subsequent investigation.
'I like brad a lot and I have to give him his due'
gee thanks but i was hoping you were gonna follow this by saying i support my positions with facts and im rational heh. (like in usatoday florida recount propaganda piece)
as for the government being criminal, well, i mean its just not even close. the local draft boards are being reconstituted as we speak, and of course a draft is necessary as weve got 5 more countries to go.(short term)
really though people are just too stupid the super wealthy/powerful have figured out how to manipulate people and even a lot of death wont wake them up. (eg, take gandi. even though he wasnt responsible for kicking out british, he gets credit, but still, take gandi. the quote unquote new world order crowd now knows how to handle him. its easy. you infiltrate his organization, you have his org. resort to violence, you then smear him in the media as a leader of a terrorist group. throw in innuendo of young boys or something. he may even deny it but things keep getting blown up and thats it its over no one would ever suspect british of killing own people. -- remember bush after 911 saying dont believe these outrageous conspiracy theories. without internet he wouldnt have had to even mention it cause of media lockdown. etc.)
Cyrus
11-08-2003, 03:37 PM
I know that I'm assumed here to be part of the larger notion of Left, which would make lots of people laugh, in real life, but so be it. I will state that, although I used to think otherwise, the (public) evidence I happened to have come across and studied, such as Posner's book, points to the lone gunman answer. I do not believe that the JFK assassination was the result of a conspiracy -- although no sane person would rule out the possibility that conspiracies to that end were indeed taking place in various circles of Americana.
One of the things I have learned about the Orthodox Left's mentiality is that they distrust practically everybody and everything! Especially simple and obvious solutions to problems. They are the archenemies of Occam's Razor.
maybe cause they want big daddy gov , or johnson a dem so he looked into it.
----------------
http://www.infowars.com/print/nwo/northwoods_cartoon.htm
neat cartoon and all true stuff ive read before
adios
11-08-2003, 04:10 PM
"gee thanks but i was hoping you were gonna follow this by saying i support my positions with facts and im rational heh. (like in usatoday florida recount propaganda piece)"
Let's put it this way, IMO your skepticism and the evidence supporting your positions are rational. I don't agree always with the conclusions you reach but they certainly encourage me to view issues from another perspective. I have come to the conclusion that I need to view government more askance than I do. Somehow I find your consistent skepticism and questioning an admirable trait really.
adios
11-08-2003, 04:19 PM
Could be but JFK was a Democrat too who at least voiced his support for left wing causes. The government line was that some left wing nut killed JFK. I would think that somehow those on the left would take umbrage with that.
really u should listen 2 alex jones, live streaming internet is free. it'll blow your mind.
hes totally rational, reads mainstream ap/reuters newspaper articles, has high level guests (congressmen, etc.),
discusses important issues youve probably never heard of (rfid, microchip) and thier interrelationship,
and
he totally goes off screaming and yelling (monologues only not with guests) which is really funny (but sad since its all true).
what i mean is very entertaining and very informative.
well i think most people think of oswald (anti-castro, etc.) as more of a right wing ( i mean hey he owned guns!)
but anyway that doesnt matter.
people look at it the other way around.
big gov is answer. they take care of us. (cant tell you how many 30 y.o. women off internet i meet who get money from .gov, like its their daddy).
daddy doesnt do any wrong. what? you say my daddy had something to do with what? a killing? a big evil preplanned thing? no way!
what do u mean what happened? a freakin nut killed him! thats what! daddy make the world safe for me (take away all guns) (oh and by the way keep sending me money). and people call me names cant they get in trouble for that (hate speech, pc correctness, etc.)
hillary's 'it takes a village'. well [censored] of course it takes a village if instead of having to send your bastard kids to an orphanage you get sent money instead.
in case u missed it. (florida recount thing)
basically usatoday does a whole propaganda piece on florida 2000. its the subthread around this post below.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=392153&page=&view=&sb =5&o=&vc=1
ACPlayer
11-08-2003, 11:15 PM
Tom, the odd thing is that most people on the left think that there is a deep distrust of the govt by the people on the right. The right distrusts the govt on most domestic spending issues and believes --- if left to itself with out the oversight of the right wing groups, the govt will spend the country into poverty.
So, one has to conclude that people distrust the govt when they dont agree with it and not that the govt is worthy of trust on any issue.
Dismissing and rehashing the JFK assisination is amusing to watch and follow but completely benign. Dismissing intelligence failures, for example, is dangerous. Someday intelligence may lead a future president to incorrectly deploy nuclear weapons. If our justice dept is actually running amok that is dangerous. Who killed JFK, frankly in the pragmatic sense, do we really care?
'Who killed JFK, frankly in the pragmatic sense, do we really care?'
do we care about iran-contra? that was 'long ago' too.
Cyrus
11-09-2003, 08:30 AM
"JFK was a Democrat too who at least voiced his support for left wing causes. The government line was that some left wing nut killed JFK."
This would be illogical. Besides, the powers that be at the time tried to play the card of Oswald's "communist past" but Moscow protested and they backed down rapidly.
The popular theory is that JFK was killed through a conspiracy in which were involved the Mob, Lyndon B. Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover and FBI renegades, the CIA, the expatriate Cuban community, members of the American military, several American millionnaires, and others, less notable. In short, a gigantic, right-wing conspiracy.
This conspiracy managed to kill JFK without allowing a single leak! A colossal achievement. Actually, what started me doubting my original conviction that there was such a conspiracy was the ever-expanding circle of conspirators. I saw the operational impossibilities and decided to dig deeper into some books.
--Cyrus
PS : That lunatic DA, Garrison's treatment of the unfortunate fall guy and the subsequenet glorification of the DA's "heroics" by Oliver Stone in JFK will be an eternal disgrace.
John Cole
11-09-2003, 12:50 PM
brad,
I like you, too. I just made this one up; what do you think?
Government scrutinizes what goes into dogfood with rabid intensity. (I like the word "rabid" here.) Seems that since so many old people eat dogfood so they can buy prescriptions, the FDA has stepped in to carefully control the ingredients. The government has even found ways to make dogfood more palatable for humans by adding taste enhancers. Purina, Pedigree, and Iams all deny this, of course. But what would you expect given their sales?
How would you rewrite this, brad, to make it seem more believable?
Chris Alger
11-09-2003, 02:48 PM
1. If we define "left" as the side that, relatively speaking, seeks a more equal distribution of wealth, power and privilege, and "right" as the other side of that spectrum, we would expect to see more "distrust of the government" by the left.
2. "Conspiracy theories" are almost by definition the use of weak evidence to support an argument, usually by some process of reduction that suggests a "conspiracy" must be the only expalnation for some event. One can certainly explain events by identifying evidence of an agreement, a tacit alliance, or common interests, and take it from there. A "conspiracy theory," however, implies a secret conspiracy for which there is little or no evidence, the conspiracy being secret. It's therefore usually a waste of time. If the evidence is secret, why consider it? This is one reason why the stereotypical conspiracy theorists appear vague and unsophisticated.
3. Left-wingers are constantly being accused of being conspiracy theorists when they aren't. This is because they try to explain how the use of political power tends to benefit the few instead of the many and the manner and means by which this process is disguised. Although this obviously challenges conventional thinking, it shouldn't be any more controversial (I mean apart from the merits of their arguments) than someone who claims that politicians tend to lie. It hardly implies "conspiracy." If one argued that TV advertising tended to benefit the advertiser instead of the consumer, despite the apparent claims to the contrary, you wouldn't call that a "conspiracy theory."
The left asks basic questions about which individuals and groups benefit the most from particular policies. The conventional (meaning conservative) wisdom says "most people," perhaps only eventually, or "most of the people who deserve to benefit." The left disagrees and tries to explain why. There isn't any inherent need to invoke a "conspiracy."
4. There are conspiracy theorists on the left, but with the possible exception of Oliver Stone (a good filmaker who's contribution to political discourse is zero), the kingfish of these nuts are all on the far right. Further, right-wing conspiracies have been better received by the mainstream than solid, well-documented anti-conspiracy critiques by the left. ("JFK," btw, has been disparaged as ridiculous by every left-wing writer I'm aware of, notably Alex Cockburn and Noam Chomsky).
For decades, right-wing propaganda about a "communist conspiracy" to subvert American and conquer the planet was so prevalent that it flourished in the mainstream to the point where thinking people became afraid to openly challenge it. Reagan, for example, was a major proponent of the notion that communism was an "international, criminal conspiracy," if I correctly recall the phrase he used from an early documentary. In some privileged subcultures, notably military and intelligence, claims like these were not only accepted by formed a large part of the institutional ideology. One of the CIA's leading lights during the 1950's and 60's, James Jesus Angleton, openly claimed that the Sino-Soviet split was a cover for an intact alliance bent on world domination.
In fact, mainstream acceptance of these nuts created a sort of crisis as the most reckless and fanciful among them them spun out of control. McCarthy is the most famous example, but there are many others, notably the early denunciations of civil rights advocates as communist agents, a largely forgotten episode that resurfaced almost comically when Jesse Helms took to the floor to denounce the creation of Martin Luther King day, for which he almost universally denounced. I recall US News and World Report editorials from the early 1960's suggesting that civil rights demonstrators were dominated by communists (some truth to this, as the CPUSA and other communist groups had been agitating for civil rights for decades before it was acceptable, and several prominent civil rights leaders, like Marcus Raskin, emerged from those struggles).
So McCarthy was censured, the notion of civil rights being "tainted" by communism went away, and McCarthy defender Wm. F. Buckley later felt compelled to denouce the John Birch Society after Robt. Welch wrote "The Soldier," positing that President Eisenhower was a communist agent. In the end, the far-right anticommunists coalesced around an "insider's conspiracy" of which communism was merely a part ("None Dare Call it Conspiracy"), and which took it for granted that the entire apparatus of the U.S. state was under control of the "insiders." Accross the board of the far-right spectrum, you see conspiracy theorists of the sort that the far left believes are infantile and psychopathic, such as the "Zionist Occupation Government."
Recently, the tide has shifted and right-wing conspiracy nuts are once again becoming more mainstream, this time with theories about unified "terrorist" and "Islamicist" conspiracies.
Another variant of the theme, of course, is the enduring myth of the "liberal media." A recent WSJ editorial began with the assertion, apparently meant to be taken seriously, that "the left," until very recently, has held a "near monopoly over the institutions of opinion and information" in the U.S. Of course that's just silly (but not as silly as the author's hypothesis that "South Park" relfects an emerging trend toward right-wing media). Yet what most readers might dismiss as comic hyperbole is actually taken as gospel by many on the right. Yet they usually cannot explain how the left acquired its "monopoly" over the information apparatus without resort to some version of a "conspiracy theory."
Ray Zee
11-09-2003, 06:36 PM
seems believable just as it is. the govt. has allowed the meat industry to cram hormones and antibiotics into cows and chickens for years now. so after finding out the people who eat the stuff are no longer able to fend off sickness easily they are thinking of stepping in. not to mention that the studies that have shown that reproductive organs and sperm have suffered which they do not publicize as its important not to hurt the meat industry.
Phat Mack
11-09-2003, 06:49 PM
Maybe it's not a case of right vs. left, but a matter of who is in power an who is out--with those out of power constituting the most active conspiracy theorists.
In the 60's, when liberals were in power, the 'interesting' conspiracies seemed to come from the right. Remember that most right-wing politicians seem to campaign on a platform that involves mistrust of government. Reagan never said, "Government is really cool, let's build more of it."
Poker games are great places to listen to bi-partisan conspiracy theories. When the new hundred dollar bills came out, I listened to countless stories about how the embedded strip would trip money detectors in airports and could be tracked by satelites. Were these theories right- or left wing?
im a little coinfused. r u saying usatoday florida recount story wasnt propaganda?
in any case better scenario for your made up story is that certain low power (peta or someting) lobby group wants fda or epa or whatever to regulate dogfood.
industry says no we will self regulate. uses that to get fda/epa whatever to lift all restrictions. heh. and gets a government subsidy or somethihng. meanwhile epa/fda hires ex dogfood executives. retiring epa/fda civil servants given lucrative consulting jobs at dogfood companies . heh
peta's bill dies in congress as 'problem is now solved'.
'In the end, the far-right anticommunists coalesced around an "insider's conspiracy" of which communism was merely a part ("None Dare Call it Conspiracy"), and which took it for granted that the entire apparatus of the U.S. state was under control of the "insiders.
'
im not familiar with this exactly but i think people like alex jones are and agree with it. in short, look at US and its position regarding globalization and the trend towards (effectively) one world government (eg, supreme court justices sayihng that US has to 'be in line' with other countries, with this in mind the US consitution may 'be outdated', etc.). its basically an open conspiracy to consolidate wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands, destruction of middle class, etc. so in this sense , yes, i really think the US 'leaders' are acting traitorous in the sense they are acting against the interests of the US and only in the interests of the global elite.
John Cole
11-10-2003, 12:15 AM
brad,
That's perfect, I think.
adios
11-10-2003, 01:44 AM
"Dismissing and rehashing the JFK assisination is amusing to watch and follow but completely benign."
I don't agree at all. A totally inept government investigation and conclusions by that government that actually have a very low probability of being the least bit accurate regarding a presidential assassantion is hardly benign. The result is that there was a presidential assassination that was "swept under the rug" more or less. I for one find that very disturbing. Especially in light of who benefitted the most from the Kennedy assassanation. Also there's a very good chance that JFK would not have made the military committment in Viet Nam that Johnson did and many enterprises benefitted from that war that would not have. Why is it so "logical" that Bush would invade Iraq to benefit oil companies, boost profits of big business Bush is friendly with, and enhance the strategic position of the US military in the middle east while lying about WMD's and so far fetched that people and businesses who stood to benefit a great deal from a Kennedy assassanation would have JFK blown away and lie about the assassanation? People who felt like JFK had already screwed them over and had shown his true colors. I recall several recent posts about the government lying about body counts in Viet Nam, posts about lies regarding the domino theory, and as well as other lies about the war in Viet Nam. A war that resulted in 50,000 or so American fatalities. Why wouldn't this same government be willing to lie about an assassantion? If the members of the government are willing to conjur up phoney reasons to go to war in Viet Nam and have 50,000 Americans killed why would these same people have an qualms about pulling off an assassanation of a president who stood in their way? I mean most people on this forum agree that government compulsively lies to it's citizens, why is the JFK assassanation any different? It certainly isn't because that evidence makes it clear who's responsible for the JFK murder.
ACPlayer
11-10-2003, 01:55 AM
Perhaps you are right. I am not up on the issues surrounding JFKs assasination. Never really followed it or cared about it.
My main point was that the people who scream about distrusting the govt's role in an issue are usually the people who have an opposing view from what the govt is saying on that issue.
Distrust appears to be bred by the position on the issue. It is not a left or right thing.
adios
11-10-2003, 01:58 AM
"Distrust appears to be bred by the position on the issue. It is not a left or right thing."
I agree with that and I stand corrected from my orginal post on that.
ACPlayer
11-10-2003, 02:06 AM
On further reflection I would actually go one step further:
It is highly desirable to distrust the government on an issue where you agree with the govt.
This would help us all follow non-self weighting strategies. Tough to do though.
Chris Alger
11-10-2003, 04:26 AM
Legally, a conspiracy is an agreement to commit illegal conduct and one or more affirmative acts in furtherance of the agreement. In the sense we're talking about, "conspiracy" implies at least secrecy. It doesn't make sense to talk of an "open conspiracy."
Take away the conspiracy language, and I think you're take on globalization is basically right in that the policies surrounding it are designed in the short run to transfer as much wealth as is politically possible to the interest groups that have the greatest influence on policy making. But a lot of people probably think this at least as good as the next best alternative, and in any event, weaker economies are increasingly doomed to be dominated by the major ones, so one would expect the policies that facilitates this process would be tailored in favor of the most powerful interests in the most powerful countries. But this is merely saying that economic policy favors the privileged. So what else is new?
nicky g
11-10-2003, 07:38 AM
Tom,
Timely, I was just emailed this JFK conspiracy theory in the form of a comic strip, which foregrounds Vietnam as the main reason for the assassination:
Operation Northwoods (http://www.tcj.com/ws03/cartoon.html)
A shame it doesn't source anything. It speculatively extends the conspiracy to the Gulf and War on Terror without trying to back it up. I don't know anything about JFK or how credible any of the theories are; I wasn't aware that the left tended to dismiss it more than the right.
One conspiracy theory that I think is almost certainly true is that the Russia security services were behind the bombings that Putin used to reinvade Chechnya (claiming they were the work of Chechen terrorists). Will find links if anyone's interested.
adios
11-10-2003, 09:11 AM
I think I'm on safe ground in not resurrecting a discussion of the JFK assassanation by saying that the Johnson appointed Warren Commission, conducted a totally inept investigation of the assassanation. Even the widely cited proponent of the government findings, Gerald Posner, has to find fault with Warren Commission findings in order to provide support for the lone assassin. The JFK autopsy should provide what's called the "best" evidence of where shots came from etc. Hovever, the chief examining doctor missed the JFK throat wound in the Nov. 22, 1963 autopsy. Realizing his incredible gaffe the following day, the doctor burned the original autopsy notes and formulated a new set from memory including the bullet wound to the throat. The famous Zapruder film captured the assassanation that should establised a time line for the shooting. I'll just leave it there.
jokerswild
11-10-2003, 02:05 PM
The HSCA determined that Kennedy was probably killed by a conspiracy. Robert Blakey of Cornell Law School is on record stating it was probably the Mafia.
Howard K. Smith revealed that Lyndon Johnson told him in an interview after he left office (1970) that he believed that Kennedy was killed in a conspiracy.
A Gallop poll 2 years ago indicated that 88% of the American public believed that Kennedy was killed in a conspiracy.
Few people on the "Left" believe that Oswald was a communist. He was in fact a registered, and paid FBI informant.
Cyrus
11-10-2003, 02:06 PM
The United States has being a superpower for quite some time, to the point that the system has bred and incorporates several checks and balances that ensure that the "right people" rise to the top of the hierarchy and especially the Presidency. By "right people" I mean people what do not seriously endanger the status quo, are set on strengthening American supremacy in the world and are eager to promote American business interests (the last two are strongly intertwined). Hence, a healthy dose of distrust towards the American gov't, any American gov't, and particularly by Americans, is de rigueur, as they say.
This doesn't mean that everything that the US administration or the powers that be (press conglomerates, etc) are doing is clouded in conspiratorial mystery. Most of what they do is transparent but isn't seen for what it is, because of partisan politics or just plain loyalty to one's ideology. (Witness this forum's many otherwise very intelligent participants who treat Bush's doings with the benign attitude, to the point of blindness, that they'd never adopt towards a poker player at their table. Even the strongest tell goes by them.)
So, the JFK assassination can be explained by a gigantic conspiracy that involved practically everybody who was anybody (per Jim Garrison, Mark Lane, et al) -or- alternatively by Occam's razor.
I would highly, if humbly, recommend Posner's primer (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400034620/qid=1068486524/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/002-1050807-9797608) as a good start to anyone left befuddled in a 60s cloud of paranoia about this. (Most of the other issues, we and you are right to be paranoid about : Chile, Iran, Lebanon, Niaragua, etc, yes, they were all 'conspiracies' from the top down. We were fucked.)
well a good example of open conspiracy is illegal immigration.
if media went nonstop about how govs own numbers show 5 million border crossings a year and like 2+ million permanent illegal migrants a year and how this , though illegal, is actually tolerated and encouraged by both political parties, how long do u think it could go on?
but the fact that only publicity shows how it is actually good (though illegal) and that anyone against it (ie in support of the law) is actually a racist or worst, shows the manipulation of the people via propaganda.
but its not a secret though.
its kind of like in politics if you critcize US aid to israel or US foreign policy vis a vis israel youre politically dead (eg pat buchanan).
perhaps open secret is better.
i guess u get my drift.
'So, the JFK assassination can be explained by a gigantic conspiracy that involved practically everybody who was anybody (per Jim Garrison, Mark Lane, et al) -or- alternatively by Occam's razor.
'
completely illogical. (really a straw man argument)
a) yes ive heard taht about putin, almost certainly true.
b) seen the cartoon, and i was familiar with all of it from mainstream news sources. if you want to know about any of them post and i'll tell u what ive heard and sources or whether its just specualation. (northwoods plan, btw, was leaked by high level nsa to james bamford and is 100% true, although whether it was killed by kennedy or mcnamara isnt clear. what is clear though is that the pentagon approved it.)
p.s. i have bamford's book so i can look up stuff in it but actually most all of relevent section is on internet (in realation to northwoods).
Cyrus
11-11-2003, 02:05 PM
"Completely illogical. (Really a straw man argument)"
I fail to see the lack of logic or the straw man, sorry.
I submit that the case for a conspiracy against JFK that actually organised and carried out his assassination is bankrupt. Do you not agree that the participants in said conspiracy are those I quoted? (CIA, FBI, Mob, LBJ, Cubansm and lots'others.) How can you explain the airtight security and subsequent mystery in a matter involving so many people? Anyone who's half familiar not with spook work but just with operations of any kind will tell you that keeping something a secret when it's known to so many people is practically an impossibility. (I recall the supposedly alarming evidence of "everyone involved in the assassination" eventually dying! As if people should live for ever.)
The case for the Warren Commission being correct is far more solid than anything else, despite the distortions and the woolly conspiratorial hocus pocus -- and its mistakes (but remember the pressure too). Yes, Occam's razor. No, no straw man.
I like as much as the next person (OK as much as Brad) a good conspiracy theory but ...JFK?!? Pull the other one.
youre comparing the two extreme cases, lone gunman vs. massive conspiracy and excluding all the middle cases.
and of course the massive 'everybody is in on it' conspiracy is a straw man cause its not beliebable.
p.s. people have come out and confessed to jfk ass. that actor who played woody on cheers his father confessed to being one of the shooters. and btw, hes in federal pen for killing a federal judge. with a rifle, at long range.
Cyrus
11-11-2003, 08:04 PM
"You're comparing the two extreme cases, lone gunman vs. massive conspiracy and excluding all the middle cases."
I presume one such "middle case" would involve only a coupla G-Men, one Cuban, three CIA spooks, Sam Giancana's driver? And Lady Bird?
Seriously, the British television documentary, some 15 years ago?, purporting to show the shooters of the grassy knoll, and their current whereabouts, was more fantastically exciting and scary than anything I've seen abt the assassination bar Zapruder. Terrific and harmless fun.
"People have come out and confessed to JFK ass."
Too damn many of them. Practically every man, woman and child in the intersection of Houston and Elm fired a shot at the President.
"That actor who played Woody on Cheers, his father confessed to being one of the shooters. And btw, he's in federal pen for killing a federal judge. With a rifle, at long range."
Woody Harelson's father is a confessed and convicted hit man. It has been established that he was nowhere near Dallas at the time of the JFK assassination. Still, the bragging probably gives him some prison yard mileage or something. Only thing he can look forward to.
--Cyrus
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