Right now, it’s very popular among
Mark “tinfoil hat” Levin added this:
“I’ll tell you what I think they’re simulating: the collapse of our financial system, the collapse of our society and the potential for widespread violence, looting, killing in the streets, because that’s what happens when an economy collapses. I suspect that just in case our fiscal situation, our monetary situation, collapses, and following it the civil society collapses, that is the rule of law, they want to be prepared. I know why the government’s arming up: It’s not because there’s going to be an insurrection; it’s because our society is unraveling.”Get back on your meds Mark.
Anyway, this conspiracy theory is quite popular at the moment because IQs have dropped in recent years. It’s so popular that Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan) even asked DHS why they were buying up all the ammo. Do you know what DHS told him? Nuthing! They refused to answer! At least, that’s what Huelskamp told CPAC, “They have no answer for that question. They refuse to answer to answer that.” Problem is, that’s a lie. Not only did DHS respond to his letter, but they previously responded to an identical request from Sen. Tom Coburn.
Drudge then ran with this, using the following three headlines: “Homeland Denies Massive Ammunition Purchase,” “Won’t Answer Congress” and “Cover-up?”. These headlines are entirely misleading. DHS did not deny the purchase and they did answer Congress. In fact, if you read the links behind the headlines you will see that quite clearly. Be careful what you trust from Drudge.
So what is the truth? Let’s explain the ammo purchase.
First, the contracts in question are DHS contracts for the purchase of “up to” 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition over five years. That’s about 320 million rounds a year. That may sound like a lot, but consider this. DHS has more than 100,000 law enforcement personnel including border security (ICE). They use bullets in their jobs. They use bullets for training. They use bullets for quarterly qualifications. The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia, for example, uses 15 million rounds a year in training exercises, and that’s just one center. Last year, DHS used 148 million rounds. Over five years that would be 740 million rounds and that’s without them operating a single concentration camp for Glenn Beck listeners. Even the NRA has said this purchase is not excessive or unusual.
Moreover, when something like ammo is purchased, agencies often purchase for multiple agencies under the same contract. This creates economies of scale and lets smaller agencies piggyback on the expertise of larger agencies. You have no idea, for example, how much stuff the Army buys for agencies you would never imagine.
Further, what you need to understand is that a contract for “up to” 1.6 billion rounds is NOT a contract for 1.6 billion rounds. Government contracts don’t work that way. Requirements contracts typically dramatically overstate the actual purchase to be made because government procurement is a cumbersome process. For example, new contracts can be protested and delayed, whereas task orders under an existing contract can’t. Also, getting money for new work is difficult, especially across fiscal years, whereas using money already on a contract is easy. So it is simply easier to issue a massive, multi-year contract that covers every possible need plus a huge fudge factor and then issue task orders under that contract as needed, than it is to issue a new contract whenever a need arises. I can’t tell you the number of contracts I’ve seen that never reached even a tenth of their face value. The truth is, DHS will buy what they always buy and the rest of the contract will expire and it won’t be close to 1.6 billion.
Here’s the thing. This is all publicly available information which people like Levin and Huelskamp could have looked up if they cared about the truth. . . but they don’t. They would rather mix ignorance with paranoia and spin this crap to get your attention. And let me add that this fantasy has been going on for some time. In 2008, right after Obama got elected, these same people screamed about the army being retrained at Fort Polk, Louisiana to go house to house to confiscate guns. That didn’t happen. Then in 2009, they discovered the shortage of ammo for the first time and they attributed it to new regulations by the EPA intended to prevent the manufacture of bullets. Only, that didn’t happen either. Now it’s the great bullet purchase mystery.
This is nonsense. According to the NRA, there are between 10 and 12 billion rounds of ammunition produced in the US each year with “billions more imported.” Now do the math. That means there will be more than 50-60 billion rounds produced in the US over five years. In that same period, the feds will buy up a maximum of 1.6 billion rounds, or 2.5% of all domestically produced rounds. Is it remotely possible that the feds buying 2.5% of the domestically produced ammo will cause an ammo shortage in the country? Hardly. The shortage, if there is such a thing, is because people are panic buying because people like Levin are telling them there is a shortage.
By the way, Levin claims this 1.6 billion round purchase represents 24 times the number of bullets used in Iraq. Here’s his quote:
“To provide some perspective, experts estimate that at the peak of the Iraq war American troops were firing around 5.5 million rounds per month. At that rate, the Department of Homeland Security is armed now for a 24-year Iraq war. A 24-year Iraq war.”This is being repeated in article after article now, but it’s total crap. According to the GAO in 2005, US troops were firing 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition per year in Afghanistan and Iraq (about 28 times what Levin claims), so the 1.6 billion round purchase wouldn’t even cover a full year... much less 24 years. Again, this information was out there if Levin wanted to check it.
Don’t believe this garbage. And more importantly, don’t trust people who push this garbage.
51 comments:
I see Napolitano has gotten to you. Mark Levin is a constitutional lawyer!
Seriously, I don't blame the high profile cynics and nutjobs who spread conspiracy theories. Their fans want to believe.
There's a line in a rap song where a drug dealer offers the rationale 'They are going to get it from somebody, it might as well be me'.
I suspect if any of these entertainers had an attack of honestly or sanity then their fans would just move on to someone who told them what they wanted to hear.
this is just ... silly. It seems like news hs become just live "Survivor" or the "Bachelor." Infotainment.
Andrew.......Conspiracies are the stuff both sides of the political spectrum...probably throughout history. If it keeps your base excited and engaged, then folks like Levin have a tool to use just like the left does all the time (religious right, rich repubs).
I like the idea of people like Limbaugh and Levin more than the reality. I couldn´t listen to them in years. But they are not my problem.
At worst they are doing what the left is doing. It tells me that they are not credible - and I will remember that - but I´m not going to waste any energy being angry about them.
I just wish it worked, to be honest. Perhaps we have long reached the point where we can fight myths only with countermyths.
How does the left win? You remember all the hysteria about Bush and FEMA and bankers and the new world order and shredding the constitution. There was always a hysterical nutroots version and a "serious" version for wider consumption. That´s how you do it. A multi-pronged approach for different target groups. This has a cumulative effect of giving everyone the feeling that "this can´t go on, this is a disaster" which is how you win the masses.
To be effective in creating a sense of crisis and permanenetly smear your opponents, you need a multi-pronged approach, and preferably the support of the MSM. Otherwise it is just sectarianism. Preaching to the choir, and therefore not effective. That is the problem with Levin and the others: that there is no coordinated strategy. Their flanks are open.
Conspiracy theories aside, we DO have a problem with overbearing government at all levels, and the militarization of law enforcement, pervasive surveillance and the collection of personal data are real and underrated issues.
Civil liberties are at stake. History shows that in fighting for civil liberties you don´t have to be subtle or correct in the details.
My advice for the so-called professionals is to mirror the left: studiously ignore Levin´s nonsense (which means, let it stand for those in your base who need it) and push similar issues at other levels in a more serious way and you could succeed in making the term "national database" as despised as, say, "nation building". Unfortunately I don´t see that happening.
First of all, my hat is made of aluminum, not tin, because aluminum is harder to say/write therefore is harder to penetrate.
But seriously, conspiracy "theories" have been around since man could put two and two together and come up with five. And they have grown exponentially since the proliferation of blogs/website communication. And it seems no matter how hard one tries to dispel some theories as pure bunk, they just don't go away. Even hard and irrefutable evidence can just becomes part of the plot.
It is probably the "imagination" equivalent to "pareidolia" where your brain orders visual images to see faces. But in this case your brain orders facts to see a pattern of behavior that probably does not exist.
Anthony, I often wonder if these people are cynically selling this garbage to keep their listeners or if they really believe? I suspect there's a lot more cynicism than people believe, but I also suspect quite a few of them genuinely believe the garbage they spit out.
In any event, you're absolutely right that sanity doesn't sell in talk radio... bat sh*t crazy sells.
Oh, and Napolitano is just a figure-head. The real power behind the world government is... oops, said too much. ;P
P.S. I've said this before, but I think that's what happened to Rush. I think that Rush discovered after 2010 that he was bleeding listeners because he wasn't insane enough, so he went hard-core insane to win them back.
Jed, It is silly. Facts are things of the past, fantasies are the "news" of the present.
Patriot, Both sides are awash in conspiracy theories and it's getting worse all the time.
And you're right in calling it a "tool" because that's exactly what these things are. They are a way to create a victim mentality and to scare the weak-minded into huddling together behind you.
"And you're right in calling it a "tool" because that's exactly what these things are. They are a way to create a victim mentality and to scare the weak-minded into huddling together behind you."
Reminds me of the South Park episode.
"One-Fourth of the country is retarded!"
El Gordo, Extremely well said! I agree 100%.
I think you are absolutely right that to create the kind of wave of public opinion you need to move the public to action, you need a multi-pronged approach. You need serious arguments to support your claims to win over the straights. You need emotional appeals to win the people who only want the highlights, you need base-appealing arguments to get the energy, and you need fringier ideas to motivate the really card-core enthusiasts. That is exactly what the left does and that's what we need to do too.
Unfortunately, it's become clear that the right does not coordinate. The right spends its time infighting and trying to profit from politics, so they seem pathologically incapable of working together.
I totally agree with your statement too about liking Limbaugh et al in theory more than in practice. I like the idea of having these people out there informing people, warning them of things to worry about, and creating a sense of community. And I think that was what they were at one point. Today, however, the result is rather different. Today, it's about fantasy, distraction, and anger and they've created a base that savages its own side and which tears down its own ideology in favor of myths.
The other problem with guys like Levin, however, is that they are killing our side by discrediting it and by distracting it. For one thing, no one who isn't already in the cult will believe Chicken Littlism. So as soon as our side jumps into those things, we've lost the argument because we lose the moderates and the rational left. Just as importantly, look at the distraction factor. You talk about the erosion of civil rights and you are 100% right, but people aren't paying attention to that because they're spending all their time worrying about the bizarre conspiracies spun around these things or whatever phony outrage the talkers have imagined. In effect, these talkers distract people from seeing the real harm because they have everyone looking for fake harms.
This creates three problems. (1) It makes the real harm seem less serious. If you tell people someone is going to kill you and it turns out they only want to punch you, the punch no longer seems as outrageous. (2) It loses the argument with the 95% of the public that it's insane because they know that no one is planning to kill you. And (3) it keeps people focused on fringey stupid ideas which are entertaining rather than focusing on the more serious but less sexy violations that need to be stopped. Basically, these guys are focusing the public on wild goose chases as the thieves walk off with everything.
Bev, I think the motivation behind believing conspiracy theories is actually an attempt to find self-importance. Falling for one of these things lets people believe that they are smarter than everyone else because they "see" something that no one else can see... they KNOW the truth... you can't fool them.
That makes people feel like they are much more important than they are because it lets them see themselves as superior to everyone else. It's no surprise that most conspiracy theories are promoted by people who are otherwise not very successful in life.
Further, there is a lot of psychology around this which tells me this is about ego-stroking. These people begin to wrap their self-worth into being right and they invariably add an element of "the powers that be want to stop ME from telling you this." Basically, they are nobodies who now think their ability to see "the truth" has made them so important that very important people have become obsessed with stopping them. It's pure ego stroking.
Interestingly, they've also all learned to create a defense mechanism which lets them continue their delusion no matter how much evidence there is that they are wrong because they all seem to learn very quickly that (1) friends and family who don't agree are simply blind to the truth, i.e. not as smart as they are, and (2) anyone with authority who tells them otherwise is "part of the system" and can't be trusted.
It makes this all impossible to fight except by mocking these people and denying them the one thing they want -- a sense of importance.
Good point on the aluminum. But don't forget, aluminum causes cancer... so stick with tin foil. ;)
Kit, Ah yup. I would estimate that the fringe is actually 10%. If you look at human behavior, you will invariably see people broken into 80%/20%, with the 20% broken down further into 10% good, 10% bad.
That's how bell curves work and it seems to be true of pretty much every human endeavor -- from product adaptation to grades to... well, everything.
Basically, in almost anything you measure regarding people, you will find 10% of humans excel, 80% are sheep and follow the leaders, and 10% are destructive.
So I would guess that about 10% of the population are conspiracy theorists in one form or another on either side of the spectrum or on their own side of the spectrum.
Kit, BTW, an interesting area where this 80/10/10 rule came up was in airplane disasters. They studied airplane disasters and they found that 10% of people went straight for the exits and didn't let anything block them -- they went over seat backs if they needed to. 80% followed the leaders and basically stood in line but didn't use any of their own initiative if things got blocked. And 10% actively interfered with the others, doing things like blocking aisles to stop to get luggage or just sitting down in the aisles.
It's a pretty fascinating phenomena, but that 80/10/10 rule comes up over and over and over once you know to look for it.
"... and they've created a base that savages its own side and which tears down its own ideology in favor of myths."
"...these guys are focusing the public on wild goose chases as the thieves walk off with everything."
Well said. That is where they become a problem. I agree about the discrediting and distracting (I´m sure the military would call it "D&D") though it is more serious because there is no coordination.
For example, a liberal politician would simply point to his "serious, important" civil rights concerns and claim that questions about his crazy base are themselves just D&D because they have nothing, zero, nada to do with that. End of story. Conservatives need to learn that.
The left-wing base is smart enough to know that they have to be repudiated/ignored from time to time. They also don´t always believe their own propaganda. The conservative base is always insecure about their candidates, and that is in part experience but also in part the fault of the rabble rousers on our side. Guys like Levin or Limbaugh could be immensely helpful in that regard but it seems they don´t want to be.
Prior to the "Great Right Insanity" of the late 00s/early 10s, I used to say the way to determine what was serious was like this: If Savage talked about it, it could be anything. If Beck then picked it up from Savage, it could be interesting. If Limbaugh then picked it up from Beck, it could be news. But now they are all nutjobs, so that's out the window.
"That makes people feel like they are much more important than they are because it lets them see themselves as superior to everyone else. It's no surprise that most conspiracy theories are promoted by people who are otherwise not very successful in life."
That is true of many believers but not necessarily of the promoters. Like Al Gore with global warming, people can promote stuff with all their heart (and get rich in the process) but never act like they believe their own words.
I mean, you get millionaire rock musicans peddling conspiracies of the coming captalist-fascist order. Do they believe their own words? Let me put it this way, they never look worried on stage. It´s a fact you can get assassinated very easily on stage. They have trained professionals who can kill you with a ricin-tipped pen when they ask for your autograph. They can lace your drugs with ... drugs. And that groupie. Who sent her?
El Gordo, True. The left's base is much more savvy about politics. They realize that they need to go silent about six months before each election and they realize that the Democrats need to pretend to be moderates. Our base doesn't get that all. Our base wants to hear our side push as far to the extreme as possible as an election strategy and they whine like mad if their fringe issues aren't the top of the ballot. Then they spend their time hunting the disloyal.
In fact, I'm amazed how much time our side spends tearing apart our politicians. I've listened to a lot of talk radio lately and (more importantly) I've listened to the people who listen to it. And I would bet that half of what I hear is attacks on Republicans (usually without a factual basis) and the other half is spent repeating conspiracy theories or being outraged about total irrelevancies.
As for the talkers not seeming to want to help, I think that goes back to Anthony's point above. To help would require them to tone down the rage and to instead try to bring a little reality into people's lives, but that will kill their ratings and ratings are all that matter.
tryanmax, At one point, that was probably a good way to look at it. But you're right, that doesn't work anymore. These days they all say the same things, the only difference is tone.
It's the same thing with bloggers. Take a tour online and you'll see nothing but parroting of the same garbage -- even at supposedly reputable places -- only bloggers tend to be nastier about it and they usually preface everything with "I'm done with the Republicans this time!! harrumph harrumph harrumph!"
El Gordo, Good point and I should have been more clear. What I said is why most followers believe in conspiracy theories. The leaders are often a different animal. They often know they are lying but they do it because they crave that cult-like following and there's nothing more loyal than a cult who think you're letting them in on some hidden truth.
The other thing about conspiracy theories is that they give people comfort. It's a great way to explain personal failure if some hidden conspiracy is why you really failed. It also gives people a sense that the chaos of the world is actually order and that we can perfect the world if only we could stop the evil people who are doing bad things.
Andrew, I'll raise that last statement of yours, put my cards on the table, and- recalling the grand-daddy of all conspiracy-related events- let William Manchester sum it up:
"Those who desperately want to believe that President Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy have my sympathy. I share their yearning. To employ what may seem an odd metaphor, there is an esthetic principle here. If you put six million dead Jews on side of a scale and on the other side of the scale put the Nazi regime- the greatest gang of criminals ever to seize control of a modern state- you have a rough balance: greatest crime, greatest criminals.
"But if you put the murdered President of the United States on one side of a scale and that wretched waif Oswald on the other side, it doesn't balance. You want to add something weightier to Oswald. It would invest the President's death with meaning, endowing him with martyrdom. He would have died for something. A conspiracy would, of course, do the job nicely. Unfortunately, there is no evidence whatsoever that there was one."
(Letter to the New York Times, 2/5/1992)
I'd say the basic premise here can relate to most, if not all, conspiracy thinking.
-Rustbelt
Rustbelt, I've seen that quote before and I think it's very insightful. The truth is that these things give people comfort. It's scary to believe that some random nut could kill a president, that a random storm could wipe out my town, or some natural disease could kill us all. If these things are true then we could all die at any point and there is no way to protect ourselves.
But if the truth is that an evil conspiracy is what killed the president, that we get storms because we have too many factories, and that viruses are all the result of CIA experiments, then we can stop those things. That gives people a sense of comfort because it puts us in control over events rather then events controlling us. It's wrong, but it's comforting to a lot of people.
Rustbelt - That about sums it up perfectly. Occam's Razor works too.
A crazy actor killed Lincoln
A crazy loser killed Kennedy
A crazy love-struck loser tried to kill Reagan
6 crazy terrorists along with a bunch of other terrorists helped bring down the WTC along with engineering flaws that did not account for a 747 flying into it at full speed and fully loaded with jetfuel.
And Obama really was born in Hawaii and is an American citizen with all rights reserved.
and so on, and so on, and so on
Though I am not giving up my theory that connects Pope Francis, a Jesuit (aka a black priest) and the God Particle being announced at the same time as being the fulfillment of a prediction of Nostradumus that signals the end of the Papacy or all humanity. I forget which one it's supposed to be, but it doesn't matter. But then, I could be wrong. ;-)
Andrew: You are behind the times. The progs are waging political war. Outlandish rumors and unsubstantiated charges are a major political weapon now.
= 9.11 trutherism
= Romney's a tax criminal
= Global Warming
= McCain's bimbo
= Republican responsibility for meltdown.
+ dozens more.
Maybe the mainstream voters don't believe these things, but it is obvious that there was no punishment attached to using them to energize the Democratic party base.
More importantly, having a component of your base out in wacky land sets the limit of your support and makes the mainstream, who publicly separates themselves from the fringe, look plausibly sane, rational and "Centrist". Obama did this with OWS. Without the Levin's et al mainsteam Republicans would (and have been) characterized as "far right" or "fringe".
In the words of Mao, the revolution is not a tea party.
Bev, You must work for THEM! ;P
Actually, that's exactly right. Stuff happens. And crazy people do crazy things. Unfortunately, there is no way to stop them in advance and sometimes they get lucky. There's nothing more to it than that.
I'm with you on the Pope Francis thing. :)
But K, what the progs have never done "successfully" is talk radio. That is where we have the problem of not being able to "publically separate ourselves from the fringe".
Progs have never been successful in talk radio because no one wants to listen to them for very long. If we can just MAKE it successful for them, then we could make some headway.
K, The problem is that the left breaks their team into two parts. They have the whackos, who they use to spread this stuff to anyone who will believe it, and they have the straights who appear to disclaim it without disclaiming it and who then adopt it once it no longer sounds so crazy. That's an effective 1-2 punch because it lets them use their crazy fringe to make themselves seem moderate even as they slowly drift ever further into crazyland.
Our side doesn't get this. Our whacko fringe is now in charge and has become the norm. They rant and rave about insane garbage and then spend most of their time trying to purge the last few people who haven't drunk the KoolAid.
The difference is this. When a moderate looks at the left, they see rational sounding people downplaying their crazies. When they look at the right, they seem foaming-at-the-mouth-crazies trying to crucify the latest moderate they've uncovered.
This is a serious problem for us.
Andrew, I've been thinking about this aspect of conspiracy for a while. If the point we're getting at is true, and that an all-powerful conspiracy that controls everything, keeps us in our places, and basically eradicates free will is somehow comforting...
well, maybe that's why conspiracy nuts are so crazy.
Ah, this thread is hurting my brain.
-Rustbelt
Bev, That is a good point. The crazies on the left put their stuff out on obscure channels that only progs watch and at blogs. They then need to disseminate it to people one at a time. By the time, the MSM has picked it up, there it already has a history, it's been cleaned and processed, and it's ready for consumption.
The crazies on the right are on 12 hours a day on the radio. It comes out completely unfiltered to the public and the MSM gets a goldmine of footage they can pick through to frame our side as they see fit.
Moreover, the left is very clear that their talkers should not be taken as representatives of their ideology. Obama doesn't worship Olbermann or Madow. They call them journalists and would never suggest they are "leaders" of the movement. They also claim to be unbiased.
Our side is different. Rush and Hannity et al wrap themselves in the flag of purity and all themselves genuine conservatives, and then our politicians pander to them and describe them as leaders.
Again, we elevate our crazies, they downplay theirs.
Also, Punxsutawney Phil issued a retraction of his February 2nd statement about an early spring today. He said he was paid by snow-shovel and rock salt companies to fool people into not preparing for the inevitable blizzards of this season...therefore resulting in people having to buy more snow-related equipment and, not consequently, driving up sales.
Also, the sun came out here in western PA this afternoon during Phil's statement. He saw his shadow, went all Carl Sagan and declared a nuclear winter to be on the horizon as he ran back inside his hole.
The 'Western Pennsylvania Society for a Better Groundhog' is now recruiting angry mob volunteers, preferably those with digging and mining skills.
-Rustbelt
Rustbelt, Conspiracy theory thinking is very compartmentalized. They can believe both "A is true" and "A is false" at the same time because they aren't being rational... they don't actually have a theory, they have a series of unconnected "facts" which they use to create the appearance of a conspiracy. They explain away the missing links in the logic chain by saying that those are areas where information has been intentionally suppressed, so we don't need to explain it yet. Thus, A can be both true and false because we just don't understand the missing parts yet which would explain how it can be both true and false.
That's why an all-powerful conspiracy can be comforting. The existence of such a thing proves that "we" control our own destiny because all events are the result of this all-powerful conspiracy. BUT the fact that I know about them, proves they aren't all powerful, thus I have more power than they do because I can expose them and they haven't been able to stop me. Ergo, I control my own destiny.
It doesn't make rational sense because it's not rational, it only appears to be rational because it adopts bits of logic as needed to make sense to people who want to believe it.
Rustbelt, I always knew that Phil was in the employ of Big Snow! ;P
"It's scary to believe that some random nut could kill a president, that a random storm could wipe out my town, or some natural disease could kill us all. If these things are true then we could all die at any point and there is no way to protect ourselves."
Don´t forget asteroids. Just google "tunguska truth". These theories used to be funny in the early days of the internet because one hadn´t been exposed to them as often (black helicopters, anyone?) but now they are everywhere and sooo predictable.
Rustbelt and Andrew - Phil is just trying to save his own tail! He lied and he knew he was lying when he said Spring would come early. I can prove it -
the Evidence!
El Gordo, Yep... asteroids. Look at how many of those have recently been turned into secret CIA weapons. Actually, it's never the CIA anymore. It's someone more secret than the CIA.... someone on double secret probation!
I agree that this was entertaining stuff when the net got started, but these days it's becoming disturbingly mainstream. These days otherwise reputable people are repeating these things and treating them as true. Everything is a conspiracy now. It's making society insanely paranoid and downright stupid.
And when you get someone like a sitting Congressman/woman claiming these things are true, then you know things are spinning out of control.
Bev, LOL! Just what we need... groundhog truthers!
Oh, and where can I sign up to play "Angry Mob"? I have experience, though none of my experience has been specifically for "angry mob", as you will see I have played various other types of mobs (or as reviewed by the MSM). Here is my resume if you could pass it along -
1. "small mob" 2/28/09
2. "crazy mob" 4/15/09 NYC
3. "astroturfin' mob" 9/12/2009, 9/12/2010 DC
4. "racist mob" 3/20/2010 DC
5. "general mob" various productions 2009-2013
Andrew -
"When a moderate looks at the left, they see rational sounding people downplaying their crazies. When they look at the right, they seem foaming-at-the-mouth-crazies trying to crucify the latest moderate they've uncovered."
I can get on board with this line of thinking. :-)
On the conspiracy theories, we've talked about it before and yeah, it's harder to believe one lone nut can change the course of history.
Maybe it's been on my mind because I just watched JFK again but what's interesting is that Oliver Stone (before he went completely insane) postulated that the same "entity" that killed JFK (and RFK) also orchestrated Nixon's downfall and the Vietnam War.
He called it "The Beast" which is basically the military-industrial complex, corporate money, the media (which - left or right - only seeks to protect itself), and perhaps the money-fueled political process itself.
The "Beast" doesn't distinguish between left and right, though in Stone's mind, it's no doubt a creature of the right.
Food for thought... :-)
Bev, the mob is being organized somewhere in the mountains of western PA. No experience is necessarily required. But it does help! Tracking skills, pickup trucks, and disrespect for animal rights are also bonuses.
I think the website is still being set up. I'll pass on your resume and let you know when the contact information is available.
Please dress for slightly cooler weather (it's still in the Appalachians) and bring a pack lunch.
Also, if you have skills in cooking hamburgers made from the ground remains of rodents, please let us know.
This info from the 'Western PA Society for a Better Groundhog."
-Rustbelt
Bev, Excellent resume! LOL!
Scott, Every moderate to whom I've spoken has said basically the same thing only using different words. And if you send a couple weeks just watching to the sides, that is what you see. The left plays down their whackos, we play ours up. That's a bad thing.
Stone is a flake. And like most flakes, he only sees the things he wants to see and he fills in the rest with what he wants to believe. Unfortunately, people like him add the word conspiracy to things that should be of legitimate concern and people stop paying attention. They connect dots that are real into patterns that are pure fantasy and in the process people stop thinking about the dots.
Rustbelt, LOL! Yikes.
The squirrels in my backyard have told me (psychicly, through my dental work) that you are ALL disastrously and irredeemably WRONG about all this stuff. You'll see, just wait...
It's funny you did this article today.
I give you exhibit A, B, and C.
Click here.
To this guy, I just want to say, "F--- you!" Bill O'Reilly's no saint and maybe he could've phrased his "Bible-thumpers" line a tad more eloquently (considering his audience), but let the guy have an opinion.
A hanging offense? Really?
Backthrow, Well, if the squirrels say so, then it must be right. :)
Backthrow - I hate squirrels just for that very reason...they talk too much.
But that being said, that is the real reason that "vast [fill-in-the-black] conspiracies" are just bogus. Someone's gonna talk! Do you really think that the Illuminati could really conspire for centuries without SOMEONE braggin'?
Scott, There's a lot of insanity on this issue right now, and it's only going to get uglier as more conservatives drift away on the issue.
Bev, LOL! Yeah, squirrels don't know when to shut up, do they?
That's the fun part of these conspiracies. They are all-power, except when they aren't. So they can move the world, manipulate time and space itself, and keep hundreds of thousands of people from ever speaking the truth... but they can't keep this guy (idiot) from knowing what really happened.
Speaking of Tinfoil hats:
Important Information
K, That is fantastic. But then, for all we know, you're in the employ of the plastic hat industry! ;)
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