Topic: Regarding Conspiracy Theories. (Again)

[Agent99]

Sky arts have those sixties/seventies/eighties/nineties docs running at the moment done by CNN, fantastic watch

Yeah they are really good. My only gripe is the sixties episode where they cover the JFK assassination. I loved JFK the movie but that episode ridicules Jim Garrison and makes him out to be a bit of a nutter, which is a shame really.

[Alan_X]

Yeah they are really good. My only gripe is the sixties episode where they cover the JFK assassination. I loved JFK the movie but that episode ridicules Jim Garrison and makes him out to be a bit of a nutter, which is a shame really.

Jim Garrison was a nutter and JFK is a movie not a documentary. Oliver Stone did a lot of damage by promoting conspiracy theories that have no substance if you actually bother to look at the facts. The ‘back and to the left’ and ‘magic’ bullet’ stuff are easily shown up for the nonsense they are if you’re interested.

There’s a short film on Amazon Prime called ‘JFK Assassination Revonstruction’ that shows the view from the Book depository window as a copy of the Presidential limo drives by. It’s eye-opening after listening to all the monsense about the impossibility of the shots from the depository. In fact, it’s about the best possible location and the position of the limo where the shots hit would be like shooting fish in a barrel to a competent shooter. The car effectively becomes a stationery target.

It’s certainly far easier than trying to hit a target moving left to right as the ‘grassy knoll’ theory proposes.

It’s no wonder we end up with Trump and Brexit when people are so willing to ignore facts and go with conspiracies that provide a comfortingly simplistic view of the world.

[Nessy76]

It’s no wonder we end up with Trump and Brexit when people are so willing to ignore facts and go with conspiracies that provide a comfortingly simplistic view of the world.

Agree. I used to enjoy the X-Files as much as anyone, but the damage done to our culture by the erosion of intellectual authority is immense.

"We have had enough of experts" well, no wonder everything is fucked now.

Vaccination "debates".
Immigration "debates".
Climate change "debates".
The way all of these things are presented now, you might well think these are open questions, and that any body's guess is as good as another. When you spend five minutes with the science, when you see what the people who spend their lives studying these things professionally are saying, there is no more "debate" to be had than there is over whether water is wet.

[Agent99]

Jim Garrison was a nutter and JFK is a movie not a documentary. Oliver Stone did a lot of damage by promoting conspiracy theories that have no substance if you actually bother to look at the facts. The ‘back and to the left’ and ‘magic’ bullet’ stuff are easily shown up for the nonsense they are if you’re interested.

There’s a short film on Amazon Prime called ‘JFK Assassination Revonstruction’ that shows the view from the Book depository window as a copy of the Presidential limo drives by. It’s eye-opening after listening to all the monsense about the impossibility of the shots from the depository. In fact, it’s about the best possible location and the position of the limo where the shots hit would be like shooting fish in a barrel to a competent shooter. The car effectively becomes a stationery target.

It’s certainly far easier than trying to hit a target moving left to right as the ‘grassy knoll’ theory proposes.

It’s no wonder we end up with Trump and Brexit when people are so willing to ignore facts and go with conspiracies that provide a comfortingly simplistic view of the world.

Wow, that's me told. Intimating I'm uneducated and I support Trump and Brexit is a bit strong though.

[Trendisnotdestiny]

Jim Garrison was a nutter and JFK is a movie not a documentary. Oliver Stone did a lot of damage by promoting conspiracy theories that have no substance if you actually bother to look at the facts. The ‘back and to the left’ and ‘magic’ bullet’ stuff are easily shown up for the nonsense they are if you’re interested.

There’s a short film on Amazon Prime called ‘JFK Assassination Revonstruction’ that shows the view from the Book depository window as a copy of the Presidential limo drives by. It’s eye-opening after listening to all the monsense about the impossibility of the shots from the depository. In fact, it’s about the best possible location and the position of the limo where the shots hit would be like shooting fish in a barrel to a competent shooter. The car effectively becomes a stationery target.

It’s certainly far easier than trying to hit a target moving left to right as the ‘grassy knoll’ theory proposes.

It’s no wonder we end up with Trump and Brexit when people are so willing to ignore facts and go with conspiracies that provide a comfortingly simplistic view of the world.

You are so wrong about this, it is not even funny.   You should spend a bit more time reading and understanding the history of the CIA.

[Alan_X]

You are so wrong about this, it is not even funny.

I’m really not.

[Trendisnotdestiny]

I’m really not.

Then start a thread mate, and begin to tell us yanks how it is, from over there - especially those of us who have been studying this topic for decades. 

Your certainty and linkages to "conspiracies" here is embarrassing in both its certainty and its ignorance of the CIA (programs).

Have at it sport, show the world you are right!   Piece of work, you are.

[Ray K]

Then start a thread mate, and begin to tell us yanks how it is, from over there - especially those of us who have been studying this topic for decades. 

Your certainty and linkages to "conspiracies" here is embarrassing in both its certainty and its ignorance of the CIA (programs).

Have at it sport, show the world you are right!   Piece of work, you are.

[Trendisnotdestiny]

This has nothing to vaccinations or the painting of people as conspiracy theorists.  It was offensive to read this.

There are thousands of well educated researchers with years and years of work on this subject --- spending their lives considering the minutia.   The history of the CIA under Allen Dulles is relevant.  The history of assassination in the US implicating lone gunmen is relevant (King Jr., Bobby, Malcolm, Medgar et al).  The mobilization of the far right in the military, war profiteering, and our long history of regime change through assassination in US Foreign policy is also relevant. 

I can provide names, references, and insights if people would like, but the last time I did that, it got shut down.

For those who are wondering why is Trend so pissed, this response comes after getting about three or four threads shut down by Alan two months ago (one on Monsanto and another on the US Political Shitshow), and being told that this is footy thread and I needed to show more respect to the mission of this site and that what I was posting did not fit the site.  Lastly, I was inciting others like Kesey --- who are good people and just do not understand the whole picture sanctimony. 

Simultaneously, I was told I can leave any time, which was eye opening.  I am a guest here and that I need to play along to get along and probably just post in the footy side.   

Who has power?  How is it being used?  But I accepted it.

And then I read Viva's response to Alan about Corbyn, and I got the feeling that somehow being bullied and spoken to like what I have to offer people is not important. Besides the MaM2 series, its clear I am a foreign invader in Alan's fiefdom. 

So, its time I should leave.  But do not piss down my back and tell me its raining.   

[Alan_X]

Thanks for all that. For your information I have started a thread on JFK and a load of other conspiracy theories. I’ve read and reviewed all the theories and they don’t bear close observation. A few years back I ran a thread that examined any evidence that people wanted to bring to the table. 9/11, JFK, Moon Landings, RFK all looked at with an open mind on the basis of the evidence rather than the narrative.

You’re making the classic mistake of starting with the conclusion and making the facts fit. I am well aware of Dulles and the history of covert action by the US. That doesn’t change the ballistic evidence which points in one direction when reviewed and reconstructed using modern methods.

I’m still open to being persuaded that Oswald might possibly have been coerced in some way but the facts are straightforward. Kennedy was shot from the Book Depository and the shooter was Oswald beyond reasonable doubt.

You can say ‘grassy knoll’ and ‘back and to the left’ as much as you like but it doesn’t change anything. Its ironic that you are posting a gif of the Zapruder film which doesn’t show what you think it shows.

As you’ve brought into the open I’m happy to reply in here. I’ve shut down a few things from you because you have a leaning towards the kind of conspiracy thinking that is always looking for a narrative that explains everything.

JFK is a perfect example of grand conspiracy thinking. It has so much traction because it is extremely uncomfortable to believe that a President could be killed for no reason. We all like a narrative, it’s part of human consciousness, and the narrative of a death as dramatic and traumatic as the assassination of Kennedy demands an explanation that balances that trauma. Some random, disturbed young man with a rifle deciding to kill the president simply doesn’t cut it. It has to be something bigger.

But that’s where the evidence points. And if you want to cite other examples, the history of the US is peppered with angry and disturbed individuals who decide to make a mark by killing someone famous or killing large numbers of people. It’s ironic that many of them driven to act by some kind of conspiracy thinking.

There are undoubtedly conspiracies and they happen all the time, all around the world. But there are also random unplanned acts which happen far more often. The only way to determine between between the two is by examining the facts of the case in isolation. If your starting point is ‘look at what the CIA have done before’ then you are not doing that.

I’ve spent years and a huge amount of time looking at modern conspiracy thinking. It worried me when it was relatively isolated but the internet has pushed conspiracy thinking into the mainstream. Your President is the conspiracy theorist in chief and his ‘base’ will believe absolutely anything that fits their narrative. And I think you can draw a straight line from JFK, with all the ‘back and to the left’ & ‘grassy knoll’ tropes through to the ‘fake news’ ‘liberal elite’ and ‘MSM’ that underpinned Trump’s ascendancy to the presidency. I am genuinely saddened at the shite that is now available on places like Amazon and Netflix.

You seem like an intelligent person. If you want my advice, I'd take a step back and look at everything from a purely fact-based point of view. And the things that deserve the most scrutiny are the things that you find the most comforting, the ones that fit your internal narrative.

https://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=223442.0

[Trendisnotdestiny]

Snip - Alan's comments in Red italics

https://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=223442.0

A few things here Alan.


1.  Lumping people, beliefs, questions, theories into one engineered box called "conspiracies" does 3 things
             A.  It magnifies and highlights your disdain for people who have different views on the matter
             B.  It creates a culture of agreement with the mod who has the most power to shut down the conversation
             C.  Your use of certainty, tolerance for engagement, bullying nature are forms of unchecked power (ironic)


"I have started a thread on JFK and a load of other conspiracy theories. I’ve read and reviewed all the theories and they don’t bear close observation. A few years back I ran a thread that examined any evidence that people wanted to bring to the table. 9/11, JFK, Moon Landings, RFK all looked at with an open mind on the basis of the evidence rather than the narrative."


2.  I just read through your 9 page thread on "conspiracies".  It hardly does justice to the very dense, complex, and wildly chaotic range of research done on the JFK assassination.  This thread you had me read was all over the place, jumping around anti-conspiracy thread.  In my estimation, it is a bit of an embarrassment to analytical discussion, shared dialogue, and a few scant facts pulled out, applauded and then forgotten.   There is very little analysis, and mostly attempts to use humor, self promoted authority and a few references citations to make its points.  Are we smarter because of its existence?  Not at all.

A real well thought-out thread would help readers at all levels of the discussion, jump in and understand the main points of contention.  It would have more discussion from those that do not agree with you and their resources (like Weisburg, Mary Ferrell, Mae Brussell, Gerald McKnight, David Talbot, and a few hundred more people who have spent longer than you have with much less certainty). 

As a result, I experience your attempts in this manner as disrespectful and antithetical to a genuine discussion.  So, why are we here then?  To be a cheerleader for you?


"You’re making the classic mistake of starting with the conclusion and making the facts fit. I am well aware of Dulles and the history of covert action by the US. That doesn’t change the ballistic evidence which points in one direction when reviewed and reconstructed using modern methods.       

3.  Irony meet Alan.  Alan meet irony.   You made up your mind a long time ago on these topics (all unique) but now bundled together in your mind. You spent 9 pages stretching out a few facts to fit your conclusion.  Classic indeed. 

When comparing facts, it is important not to privilege any one piece in an incomplete series (i.e. ballistics evidence over institutional analysis).  For the record, I am not at all convinced you have read the work of David Talbot's (Salon) on Dulles or really know the history of CIA programs from 1950's to 1980's.  But I am open to reversing my opinion in this.

"I’m still open to being persuaded that Oswald might possibly have been coerced in some way but the facts are straightforward. Kennedy was shot from the Book Depository and the shooter was Oswald beyond reasonable doubt."

4.  This is not being open.  The lack of consideration to multiple shooters is the opposite of being open --- the Warren Commission report reads the same way.  Shutting down opposition to the narrative.  And truthfully, I am not at all interested in your opinion as a point of singular contention, as it is yours to wield.  But, I am interested in where the conversation goes with differing opinions and how these opinions are treated. 


"You can say ‘grassy knoll’ and ‘back and to the left’ as much as you like but it doesn’t change anything. Its ironic that you are posting a gif of the Zapruder film which doesn’t show what you think it shows."

5.  My post was a direct response to your level of certainty about the JFK Assassination.  And I find it funny your response is to say to me Trend: "Don't believe your eyes". 

JK Rowling helps us out for the reference to Orwell reminder today

“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”


"As you’ve brought into the open I’m happy to reply in here. I’ve shut down a few things from you because you have a leaning towards the kind of conspiracy thinking that is always looking for a narrative that explains everything."

6 - Alan's Process
Point #1 - This explains so much about you and so little about me.  Very Orwellian...
Point #2 - Bringing things into the open should be the mission of all of us -- information and education as a tool not hierarchical control
Point #3 - Leaning towards conspiracy and explaining everything --- Is that what I do?

Well then, Trend must be stopped by all means necessary.  He's not even from Liverpool.  Let's not permit the conspiracy "leaners" replicate or foul up our perfect thread, it will be ruined by people who need a monolithic explanations for complex questions. 

Wow.  Just Wow.


"JFK is a perfect example of grand conspiracy thinking. It has so much traction because it is extremely uncomfortable to believe that a President could be killed for no reason. We all like a narrative, it’s part of human consciousness, and the narrative of a death as dramatic and traumatic as the assassination of Kennedy demands an explanation that balances that trauma. Some random, disturbed young man with a rifle deciding to kill the president simply doesn’t cut it. It has to be something bigger.  But that’s where the evidence points. And if you want to cite other examples, the history of the US is peppered with angry and disturbed individuals who decide to make a mark by killing someone famous or killing large numbers of people. It’s ironic that many of them driven to act by some kind of conspiracy thinking."    

7. More Process
1st sentence - Alan's Thesis
2nd sentence - Alan's logic
3rd sentence - Injection of Social desirability argument - mansplaining conspiracy to us neophytes
4th sentence - general statement about disturbed young men (not cited)
5th sentence - another certain statement of where all the evidence points (not cited)
6th sentence - history of young disturbed men 'killing" large number of people summary thesis
7th sentence - the blame is laid at the feet of conspiracy now --- tight little bow

Not that I asked for Alan to engage me in content, but he has already performed for us how he thinks.  Unsolicited, but since he has the power to start and stop this conversation, fine thanks for that.  His polite tone seems to be less polite when you consider that I am leaning towards conspiracy.

Point being, I am stuck in this conspiracy box now, because I do believe there was a second shooter, makes Alan's work here a 'classic example' of someone who wants to explain everything via conspiracy/anti-conspiracy. 

Well great.  But nothing new has been learned here.  It has been imposed by a bully. Not using his education and intellect as a tool to help other know, but as baton to bully with (Nov, 2018 VivaBG)


"There are undoubtedly conspiracies and they happen all the time, all around the world. But there are also random unplanned acts which happen far more often. The only way to determine between between the two is by examining the facts of the case in isolation. If your starting point is ‘look at what the CIA have done before’ then you are not doing that."

8 - Finishing Up Alan's Process
Behold.  Reasonable Alan! Yeah 
Thoughtful Alan.  Wait, lets examine facts.   
No, stop this nonsense and let's guess at his thesis and go fishing for more conspiracy from which to criticize.


"I’ve spent years and a huge amount of time looking at modern conspiracy thinking. It worried me when it was relatively isolated but the internet has pushed conspiracy thinking into the mainstream. Your President is the conspiracy theorist in chief and his ‘base’ will believe absolutely anything that fits their narrative. And I think you can draw a straight line from JFK, with all the ‘back and to the left’ & ‘grassy knoll’ tropes through to the ‘fake news’ ‘liberal elite’ and ‘MSM’ that underpinned Trump’s ascendancy to the presidency. I am genuinely saddened at the shite that is now available on places like Amazon and Netflix."

9.  One might be interested in your investment of time and energy, but your focal point on modern conspiracy thinking could really bias your understanding of facts, new readings, and an ability to ask the right questions when conspiracies do exist.  In fact, if you do not account for this bias (that we all have to some extent), then you are destined to become exactly like the people you seem to criticize (just the other side of the coin).   

There is no cloak of science or facts that protects you from this criticism --- because being challenged by people with different views is designed to make your arguments stronger.  It is only when one confronts criticism and moves beyond silencing, scapegoating, and minimizing when one really makes improvements to one's own thinking.  Black and white thinking, certainty and a passionate disdain for opposing views is more of a sign of a pub doctorate (big fish, small pub) than someone really considering all of the facts of any particular question (let alone something as polluted as the JFK assassination).

Drawing a straight line?  Again, you engage content only when it serves, you make these big statements and hold on desperately to your thesis about other people without offering any weaknesses in your own thinking. 


"You seem like an intelligent person. If you want my advice, I'd take a step back and look at everything from a purely fact-based point of view. And the things that deserve the most scrutiny are the things that you find the most comforting, the ones that fit your internal narrative."   


10.  Back to polite, insincere flattery.  I did not ask for your advice.  And it seems your fact-based point of view suggestion means I should go get my own website and control the content that comes into it with a false sense of community, an unwillingness to engage others with very different views, and a low tolerance for anything other than cheerleading.

I would say thank you for your time in replying, but that would not be genuine as this is a very painful experience to be honest. 

In ending, I think George Bernard Shaw's quote is most fitting here:

"Assassination is the extreme form of censorship."
   

[Trendisnotdestiny]

This and this are perhaps quite apt.

As is this Gulley (not a documentary yet):
 
Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance

Londa Schiebinger
Robert N. Proctor
(Editors)
Stanford University Press
May 2008


What don't we know, and why don't we know it? What keeps ignorance alive, or allows it to be used as a political instrument?

Agnotology—the study of ignorance—provides a new theoretical perspective to broaden traditional questions about "how we know" to ask: Why don't we know what we don't know? The essays assembled in Agnotology show that ignorance is often more than just an absence of knowledge; it can also be the outcome of cultural and political struggles. Ignorance has a history and a political geography, but there are also things people don't want you to know ("Doubt is our product" is the tobacco industry slogan). Individual chapters treat examples from the realms of global climate change, military secrecy, female orgasm, environmental denialism, Native American paleontology, theoretical archaeology, racial ignorance, and more. The goal of this volume is to better understand how and why various forms of knowing do not come to be, or have disappeared, or have become invisible.

Or this

Killers of the Flower Moon - by David Grann  "one of the biggest and most tragic conspiracies of the 19th century"

The systematic murder and theft of Native American (Osage) communities in Oklahoma and the start of the FBI


<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/cZeGniBL6Gs" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/cZeGniBL6Gs</a>
 

[The Gulleysucker]

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/nov/26/opinion/la-oe-shermer-jfk-conspiracy-theories-20131126

Anyway, been up since 6.30 this morning, and after a long day with students and an even longer journey home from London back to Devon despite a high tide and storms at Dawlish closing the railway down, it's now time for bed...

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/3iQEfAwl_6E" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/3iQEfAwl_6E</a>

[Trendisnotdestiny]

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/nov/26/opinion/la-oe-shermer-jfk-conspiracy-theories-20131126

Anyway, been up since 6.30 this morning, and after a long day with students and an even longer journey home from London back to Devon despite a high tide and storms at Dawlish closing the railway down, it's now time for bed...

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/3iQEfAwl_6E" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/3iQEfAwl_6E</a>

Wish you well Gulley!  Commuting takes the wind out of you at times. 

The one thing I'll say, separate of my issues with Alan and the rest of the thread, regardless of alliance, is:

The on-going investigation/research of the JFK assassination does not deserve to lumped into a big vat called conspiracy and then shamed as being unscientific or grouped in with other events as to prove larger points about human nature.  I could  make a thousand arguments as to why, but somehow would be characterized as leaning towards conspiracy --- which is an absolutely ludicrous.

But to bed it is.  Go Reds!   

 

[Alan_X]

I’ve moved these posts here and reported Trend’s long accusation to the moderators.

Essentially, for those who don’t have the time to read the post, the issue is that Trend believes in the Kennedy conspiracy theory and I don’t.

As we have a long standing policy of not hosting conspiracy theories the straightforward thing to do would be to delete and issue a warning. As he’s made a whole load of accusations I’ve moved it here.

I’ll just say one thing in response. Having strong opinions and expressing them is not ‘bullying’.

[24/7]

Hang on, aren't we a footie site?! 

[Alan_X]

Apparently not Jim.

[Crosby Nick]

Hang on, aren't we a footie site?! 

Yeah but after a bad result I’d rather read everything but the football stuff!

[Jake]

This is more than a footy site, it's a community, or at least a lively pub. Some of the best discussion, most of it actually, is on other topics. We're essentially The Sandon. Right next to the ground and full of reds but there's loads of rooms with other stuff going on.

One of the problems is we can get a mega debate going on and neither side will concede any ground, then it gets locked. There's no problem with lengthy heated debates. End of the day we're all strangers anyway.

[CHOPPER]

Banning Trend for this is ridiculous. Has to be said.

A conspiracy about a conspiracy where conspiracies are not allowed all sounds like a conspiracy to me.


Or a great big load of bollocks that does't really matter in the grand scheme of things. Its not like the Crowman has got it in for Aunt Sally or anything serious like that, is it.

SLN

[Alan_X]

I didn't ban him but what are we supposed to do? I simply pointed out to someone else that the Kennedy conspiracy has been debunked and he went off on one. He has a penchant for conspiracy theories and we have a long standing policy on here that we don't host them.

It's a shame but if that's what he's into this isn't the place for him.

And you don't see everything that goes on or all of the attempts to steer people in the right direction.

[Alan_X]

...Or a great big load of bollocks that does't really matter in the grand scheme of things...

Exactly.

[24/7]

It's just the fucking internet

And to be brutally honest, we don't need a massive debate about why 'x' or 'y' is banned or who did it or when or whatever.

Oh wait, I see a grassy knoll with some smoke rising from what looks like a hastily-dismantled ban button......

Locked.

[Alan_X]