“Truth? You can't handle the truth!”

[Proudhuff]

A quick glance at the first one:

'Well, it turns out that those of us that feared the worst were right after all.  Just consider the following quote from the New York Times....

Broad areas around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant could soon be declared uninhabitable, perhaps for decades, after a government survey found radioactive contamination that far exceeded safe levels, several major media outlets said Monday.'

Hardly a major conspiracy fact unmasked: a nuke plants gets hit by a giant wave and the area could be dodgy for perhaps ten years,  what is the wiki term for them? weasle words? and that conspiracy is number one! don't know if I can be ersed debagging the rest  but am looking forward to the Moore youtube

[The Legendary Shark]

If I follow one more link to that bloody Alex Jones site...  He hasn't done anything good since The Snowman.

A more misleading mealy-mouthed dancing around a set of non-conspiracy-theories I have never seen.  For example, how is 'Gold will reach $2000' a conspiracy theory?  Everybody knows what happens to gold prices when the stomm hits the fan.

I believe the point about gold hitting $2,000 an ounce is that it demonstrates not an appreciation of gold prices but a depreciation of currency. Depreciating currency drives people to buy gold and as mega-banks like JP Morgan have been shorting gold for decades (ie, selling more gold shares than the actual physical gold they own will cover) mass gold/silver/platinum buying by the general public is a very real threat to the stability and reputation of these essentially corrupt banks. So they say that the gold price is a freak or a bubble. It's not the gold price itself that is the conspiracy, but what it means.

Also, the dangers of fluoride, cell 'phones, prescription drugs and Bisphenol-A aren't worrisome to you? Governments lie, we all know that. Corporations lie, we all know that, too. Haven't we grown up with the joke "How can you tell if a politician's lying?" gag and the nudge-nudge, wink-wink idea that institutions can't be trusted? Why, then, is it so difficult to believe when governments and corporations do lie? It seems to me a strange form of mass-denial, as if people think "well, sure, of course we were lied to in the past, but they don't do that any more because they know we'd see through it."

But I'm having a great time Mr Shark! What should I do to make my life miserable, I'm confused 

Just continue on as-is. Use credit cards instead of cash. Save cash instead of gold or silver. Continue accepting the throwaway nature of consumerism and encourage the linear production model. Support the just-in-time method of supply, which leaves no reserves in the system to cover unforeseen circumstances. Vote for red, blue, yellow or green when you're told to. Continue to believe that freedom is freedom of choice. That kind of thing. 

Alex Jones, there's more wrong than right about him. I reckon my initial gut-feeling still stands, he's an egotistical oppurtunist with possible big money behind him. He's been caught lying multiple times and has shafted quite a few while he proclaims himself leader of the 'truth' movement. When you court people such as David Icke onto your show just so you can have access to their audience and shift some more DVDs, it's a bit of a sham.


My favourite bit is when he called Alan Moore an 'admitted Mason' and that Watchmen is Illuminati/NWO propaganda. What a fuckin' twit.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctTOzEFbXLU


Never trust anyone who calls it 'the' Watchmen...

And yes, Alex Jones is a bit... full-on. He does get on my nerves sometimes and, I think, often goes too far in his analyses - but, by God, I'm glad there are people like him out there. When the likes of Alex Jones fall silent, that's the time to really worry. Love him or hate him, though, he is often correct and is the embodiment of that old Gorge Orwell quote, "freedom is the right to tell other people what they don't want to hear."

The plot of Watchmen is NWO propaganda - but that doesn't make Alan Moore a propagandist any more than it makes J.K. Rowling a wizard. In fact, the "alien threat" idea has been bubbling under recently - as in Watchmen - a staged alien attack forming the excuse to consolidate world power. Even Ronald Reagan used to go on about it.

Furthermore, I think that 14 Conspiracy Theories That The Media Now Admits Are Conspiracy Facts article is more about the use of the phrase "conspiracy theory" than anything else. That phrase is too often used as a thought-stopper. When you think about it, what does the phrase actually mean? It's a theory about a conspiracy, like the official theories of what happened on 9/11 or 7/7 or the theories that police investigate to get at the truth. The phrase "conspiracy theory" has come to mean "crackpot idea" in modern Newspeak and has the effect of immediately warning-off any independent investigation you might want to do on your own. It switches off your curiosity - at least, it does in most people who never look beyond the mainstream for their news.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

You got me Shark, I'm now off to live in Zimbabwe to speak my mind. Bollocks to that, I think North Korea is the place for me, hang on a second what about Cuba, that's a lovely place if you are on holiday, so it must be brilliant for the locals 

[TordelBack]

I have no doubt that Governments and Corporations lie, all the time, for their own benefit, eternally.  But some of the things cited here... over-flouridation of water, for example?  Appreciating the trade-off between the benefits of some flouride to reducing tooth decay and the essentially cosmetic hazards of too much flouride... isn't this how the accumulation of all knowledge proceeds? 

And mobile phone cancer... quoting from the cited article: 

I'm not telling people to stop using the phone. I'm saying that I can't tell you if cell phones are dangerous, but I can tell you that I'm not sure that they are safe," said Dr. Devra Davis, professor of preventive medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.

We're into Daily Mail territory here.

Leaping on every divergent factoid as evidence of hidden conspiracy in government/big pharma/the saucer people is just as wrongheaded a strategy as believing everything you're told.  Question, evaluate, reappraise, of course, but surely this is how an adult navigates the world anyway?  Personally I expect to have to look at as many angles as possible before I make up my own mind.

As to Alex Jones:  it's very hard for me to take a grown man seriously who straight-facedly asserts that the global masonic illuminati pre-adapt the world to their schemes through the medium of Tom Clancy, Alan Moore and The Lone Gunmen.  I think this gleeful fantasy-building undermines the very questioning approach that Sharky advocates, and I wouldn't be remotely surprised to find that he's the false-flag element here.

Here, this'll cheer you up:

http://www.viruscomix.com/page552.html

[JOE SOAP]

The plot of Watchmen is NWO propaganda - but that doesn't make Alan Moore a propagandist any more than it makes J.K. Rowling a wizard. In fact, the "alien threat" idea has been bubbling under recently - as in Watchmen - a staged alien attack forming the excuse to consolidate world power.

I know where it originates from, an epsiode of the Outer Limits 'the Architects of Fear' which was then adopted by the Rand corp. for one of their think-tank papers, but how do you go from that to Alan Moore  being a Mason and really what purpose does it serve except as deliberate disinfo?


Nothing that Jones really does can in all seriousness be called analyses -cherry picked internet foraging- and what disturbs is how quickly he changes tack when he's faced with an 'uncomfortable truth' or anyone with a legitimate opposing view, rather than defend -which usually involves him shouting louder than everyone else- he uses the same tactics he accuses his enemy of using, verbal abuse and denigration.

Anyone who refers to an Alex Jones site for news/facts/debate is immeditaely discredited and that's Jones' fault. He conflates legitimate concerns with nonsense.

[The Legendary Shark]

A quick glance at the first one:

'Well, it turns out that those of us that feared the worst were right after all.  Just consider the following quote from the New York Times....

Broad areas around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant could soon be declared uninhabitable, perhaps for decades, after a government survey found radioactive contamination that far exceeded safe levels, several major media outlets said Monday.'

Hardly a major conspiracy fact unmasked: a nuke plants gets hit by a giant wave and the area could be dodgy for perhaps ten years,  what is the wiki term for them? weasle words? and that conspiracy is number one! don't know if I can be ersed debagging the rest  but am looking forward to the Moore youtube

Searching for fukushima + radiation on the BBC website produces few results, but the same search on Al Jazeera led me here and here. Now, admittedly these two Al Jazeera pieces aren't as "Aieee!" as Alex Jones paints, but they do point to a massive problem that the BBC doesn't seem too concerned with.

[Proudhuff]

I think that alan has sat next to me on the bus 

[JOE SOAP]

Searching for fukushima + radiation on the BBC website produces few results, but the same search on Al Jazeera led me here and here. Now, admittedly these two Al Jazeera pieces aren't as "Aieee!" as Alex Jones paints, but they do point to a massive problem that the BBC doesn't seem too concerned with.

If you want good analyses on Fukushima this is the best non-alarmist source:

http://fairewinds.com/

[Matt Timson]

Anyone who refers to an Alex Jones site for news/facts/debate is immeditaely discredited and that's Jones' fault. He conflates legitimate concerns with nonsense.

Tsk. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Personally, I think it's short sighted to rubbish the message just because the messenger tends to be a bit of a twat.

If I did that, I'd have to foe half the forum. And I'd miss a lot.

[The Legendary Shark]

I know where it originates from, an epsiode of the Outer Limits 'the Architects of Fear' which was then adopted by the Rand corp. for one of their think-tank papers, but how do you go from that to Alan Moore  being a Mason and really what purpose does it serve except as deliberate disinfo?

Nothing that Jones really does can in all seriousness be called analyses -cherry picked internet foraging- and what disturbs is how quickly he changes tack when he's faced with an 'uncomfortable truth' or anyone with a legitimate opposing view, rather than defend -which usually involves him shouting louder than everyone else- he uses the same tactics he accuses his enemy of using, verbal abuse and denigration.

Anyone who refers to an Alex Jones site for news/facts/debate is immediately discredited and that's Jones' fault. He conflates legitimate concerns with nonsense.

While I'm not going to defend Alex Jones, I view his interpretations of events with as much scepticism as I do the interpretations of the BBC, CNN, RT or anyone else, I do find them helpful in piecing together my own interpretations of events. I don't doubt that Jones is very close to his subject matter and that condition causes a somewhat blinkered view - but he is in no way alone in this. There is so much information out there, both real and imagined, that it is often hard to connect the dots and therefore I can allow him a certain level of ignorance with something like Watchmen. Nobody can know everything, after all.

I don't know if my following assumptions about Jones' behaviour are true or not, and I'm in no way making excuses for him but rather trying to understand, but I'll put it out there anyway. Jones' radio show has a lot of competition from the chattering uber-media and maybe sensationalism is an advertising tool. If he believes in the creeping tyranny as fervently as he claims then he'll feel compelled to get the message out there (God knows, I understand that feeling) and one sure-fire way of grabbing attention is sensationalism. Whether this tactic is right or wrong I couldn't say, but it is used by mainstream media as well - some of the trailers for mainstream media "News Specials" or documentaries, with their arresting graphics, sensationalist voice-overs and dramatic music could easily be trailers for dramas. Sensationalism (and getting things wrong from time to time) is not the exclusive purview of Alex Jones - and I know that you never said it was and that you've probably already considered this point and come to different conclusions.

"Anyone who refers to an Alex Jones site for news/facts/debate is immediately discredited and that's Jones' fault." I think that's a rather sweeping and unfair statement akin to rubbishing the sayings of Gandhi because he was married to 14-year-old Kasturbai Makhanji when he himself was only 13 (he obviously had a thing for older women). Ok, maybe it's not exactly like that, but you get my drift. I don't like rejecting any message out of hand just because I don't like the messenger - I do find Alex Jones intensely annoying.

In the final analysis, though, he's just one voice amongst thousands upon countless thousands - to be treated with the same scepticism and respect as anyone else.

Gah - Matt beat me to it! I really must consider availing myself of that old favourite species of forum-posting style that is colloquially known as brevity.

[JOE SOAP]

Tsk. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Personally, I think it's short sighted to rubbish the message just because the messenger tends to be a bit of a twat.

Depends on what that message is? If it's to make you fear that 'the man/illuminati' are controlling your life through ritual sacrifice and mass murder whilst the messenger, needing to fill four hours of air-time everyday like an apocalyptic evangelist, makes money from practicing that same fear-mongering, I'm not too sure that's exactly a message worth hearing. That seems to be the sum total of Jones message, whatever the specifics of his half-truths. I've yet to see Jones message having much positive effect other than lining pockets.


Propaganda works best when it's only telling you half the story, twice-a-day.

[Matt Timson]

Searching for fukushima + radiation on the BBC website produces few results, but the same search on Al Jazeera led me here and here. Now, admittedly these two Al Jazeera pieces aren't as "Aieee!" as Alex Jones paints, but they do point to a massive problem that the BBC doesn't seem too concerned with.

If you want good analyses on Fukushima this is the best non-alarmist source:

http://fairewinds.com/

I can't get that to load (but I am in the arse end of nowhere at the moment).

My own thinking on the situation, as terrible as it is, is that it can't be any worse than the hundreds of open air atomic bomb tests of the '50s, surely? Or am I missing something?

Genuine question, btw. If anybody has any info, I'm all ears.

[Matt Timson]

Tsk. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Personally, I think it's short sighted to rubbish the message just because the messenger tends to be a bit of a twat.

Depends on what that message is? If it's to make you fear that 'the man/illuminati' are controlling your life through ritual sacrifice and mass murder whilst the messenger, needing to fill four hours of air-time everyday like an apocalyptic evangelist, makes money from practicing that same fear-mongering, I'm not too sure that's exactly a message worth hearing. That seems to be the sum total of Jones message, whatever the specifics of his half-truths. I've yet to see Jones message having much positive effect other than lining pockets.


Propaganda works best when it's only telling you half the story, twice-a-day.

I refer you to my previous post on the subject.

[Matt Timson]

And that's not me being snippy, by the way. Apologies if it reads that way.

[JOE SOAP]

Genuine question, btw. If anybody has any info, I'm all ears.

Well the first point would be Fukushima/Northern Japan is/was a more densely inhabited place with a lot of localised agriculture and fishing. Fukushima is constantly leaking radiation of various kinds -cesium et al- that at the moment is equivalent to 29 Hiroshimas entering the sea, land and water table. It's also in danger of 'China Syndrome', burning through the ground-casing into the earth. There's also the problem of not being able to stay near the reactor for more than a few minutes or your toast so it's extremely hard to contain it once it's out.

As far as I know when a nuke is detonated it's an instantaneous explosion of radiation rather than a constant output.