This weekend Prison Planet and Infowars embodied that spirit of attacking and lying about people conspiracy theorists degree with rather than actually challenging their ideas.
Between opposing popular revolutions in Libya and opposing efforts to improve standards of living around the world, Jones places himself squarely on the side of suffering on most issues. This is the statistical cost of being a reactionary: Revolutionaries need powerful friends to overthrow powerful enemies, and so every uprising becomes a "power grab" by foreigners. Technology spreads as it effectively solves daily problems, and so people become "sheeple" as they come to rely on science to make life better rather than suffer quotidian inconveniences of old. Unexpected horrors force people to realign their worldview and understanding of the world around them, and so the die-hards must assume that the enemies they're used to fighting are really at the heart of terrorist attacks, rather than the new breed of global terrorism we're really dealing with. The anti-intellectual identity forces one to constantly recode the good and the new as the cynical and the bad. Alex Jones' livelihood depends on his idiotic ideas from thirty years ago, the ones he has been parroting ever since, on being immutable and correct, and so the banal truth that there are worse entities out there than the U.S. government becomes anathema to the faith of Alex Jones.
So this week, when protestors took to the streets pointing out that democracy has a role to play in preventing future crises, Alex Jones' acolytes went into action: They branded the protestors as "puppets" and "communists." Another popular uprising Jones has to ignore, because it seeks to refute his belief that democracy doesn't work.
The lies to be rattled off feel almost too obvious: The Occupy Wall Street protestors are not employees of George Soros (I'm pretty sure he pays better, and his actual employees dress better); they are not "communists;" and so on down the line. Hell, the story on infowars on the matter links to a sign that it describes as "being held" that is just laying on the ground.
I'm not particularly fond of George Soros, Warren Buffett, or Ron Paul, so I sympathize with anyone who has difficulty picking an ideological figurehead with whom to align everyone in this debate. So here was my solution: Don't. Let their arguments stand on their own. This, of course, has thus far been much too much to ask of the Infowars crowd and its herd of unquestioning readers.
Jones has nothing useful to contribute to the financial reform protests in the US. His bloggers have randomly taken the side of both Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul, in the hopes that he can be remembered for supporting whichever side gets him more Google hits at any given time. His life is a cynical scheme designed to profit off the gullibility of his readers, and hopefully by forcing him to take a side now, he can be called on his bullshit later.
So, let's have it: Alex Jones, does government have a role to play in solving this problem, or not?
Showing posts with label Prison Planet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prison Planet. Show all posts
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Starting to crack
Something happens to successful movements about the time people start calling them “successful.” In poli-sci speak they start to develop institutions and organizations. Institutions are rules, organizations are groups (mnemonic go: “The Constitution is an institution, while the nation is an organization”). 9/11 denial could only be college kids passing around Loose Change for so long. Alex Jones, Disinfo and others who profit from gullibility smelled cash in the water, and 9/11 denial had some organizations behind it. Along came Prisonplanet then the wave of “(appeal to authority X) for 9/11 Truth” sites, and we were off to the races.
This is a familiar story. The cottage publishing industry that rose up around President Kennedy’s assassination and the mini-movement of modern-day UFO hunters tell the same story: Once enough people with enough money are engaged in promoting an idea – any idea, a bad idea, a good idea – that idea is probably going to stick around. Today nobody really seems to give a shit if the Bavarian Illuminati secretly controls the world or if aliens crash-landed at Roswell, but we all immediately know what I’m talking about. Truthers have their own versions of dedicated sources of content and attention that keep their movement going.
But lately, those organizations have started to break down. Infowars and Prisonplanet can barely be troubled to cover 9/11 denial these days. Alex Jones has a lot more to be wrong about concerning fluoride and the President’s birthplace. Skeptics are literally running out of content about 9/11 denial because there is so little by way of new absurdity actually being produced. Indeed, we’re generating more books about them these days than they are. And 9/11 deniers are starting to turn on those who have wandered from the path. For example, 9/11 deniers now generally believe one of their own founding fathers is now clearly a "disinformation agent."
Yet its “institutions” – its norms and rules – remain. 9/11 deniers still must believe everything they’re told by the higher-ups. It is still unpatriotic to the 9/11 denial community to admit that the thermite theory chapter of conspiracy theories has failed and must be closed. The cargo-cult approach to science remains: veteran deniers are trapped at the table bobbing their heads at each other about laughable hypothesizing, embarrassing “data collection” techniques and non-analysis. Newcomers have nowhere to start: by starting to rely on nonsensical jargon, the cult has eliminated most of its ability to initiate new acolytes.
This is just the beginning of a larger theory about conspiracies I’m just starting to think about, but it seems that the institutions can greatly outlive the organizations. Organizations that thrive on conspiracy theory talk can easily hop from subject to subject, and so those theories are unstable: their primary clearing-houses can abandon them at any time. 9/11 denial is starting to look so sloppy and silly because it has no organizations to forward its institutions: it is rules without rulemakers and, like any unenforced legal system, has come to just look sad, silly and empty.
This is a familiar story. The cottage publishing industry that rose up around President Kennedy’s assassination and the mini-movement of modern-day UFO hunters tell the same story: Once enough people with enough money are engaged in promoting an idea – any idea, a bad idea, a good idea – that idea is probably going to stick around. Today nobody really seems to give a shit if the Bavarian Illuminati secretly controls the world or if aliens crash-landed at Roswell, but we all immediately know what I’m talking about. Truthers have their own versions of dedicated sources of content and attention that keep their movement going.
But lately, those organizations have started to break down. Infowars and Prisonplanet can barely be troubled to cover 9/11 denial these days. Alex Jones has a lot more to be wrong about concerning fluoride and the President’s birthplace. Skeptics are literally running out of content about 9/11 denial because there is so little by way of new absurdity actually being produced. Indeed, we’re generating more books about them these days than they are. And 9/11 deniers are starting to turn on those who have wandered from the path. For example, 9/11 deniers now generally believe one of their own founding fathers is now clearly a "disinformation agent."
Yet its “institutions” – its norms and rules – remain. 9/11 deniers still must believe everything they’re told by the higher-ups. It is still unpatriotic to the 9/11 denial community to admit that the thermite theory chapter of conspiracy theories has failed and must be closed. The cargo-cult approach to science remains: veteran deniers are trapped at the table bobbing their heads at each other about laughable hypothesizing, embarrassing “data collection” techniques and non-analysis. Newcomers have nowhere to start: by starting to rely on nonsensical jargon, the cult has eliminated most of its ability to initiate new acolytes.
This is just the beginning of a larger theory about conspiracies I’m just starting to think about, but it seems that the institutions can greatly outlive the organizations. Organizations that thrive on conspiracy theory talk can easily hop from subject to subject, and so those theories are unstable: their primary clearing-houses can abandon them at any time. 9/11 denial is starting to look so sloppy and silly because it has no organizations to forward its institutions: it is rules without rulemakers and, like any unenforced legal system, has come to just look sad, silly and empty.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Wow, they're really going for it
Skeptics shouldn’t ruin the fun when it comes to bin Laden’s “Deathers”
Prisonplanet returned to the 9/11 denial world today after a protracted silence on the issue, posting a couple of clips of people claiming the American raid on Abottabad was ‘botched.’ Of course those claims are contradictory, nonsensical and so far appear to be essentially baseless, which makes them right at home on PP.
The fraud is obvious – was the raid “immediately aborted,” or did the helicopter explode “as they were preparing… to leave?” – and of course editorial content to this effect is entirely absent in the post itself. A couple of the commenters seem suspicious, but the hivemind shouts them down, as always. The author of that post gets extra props for adding in a fourteen minute clip of a news report with no translation and no context whatsoever. From the first clip, the author blindly parrots its narrator: “now if Osama was in that helicopter he must have died and got burnt in that helicopter too, then how they took him?”
So far we’ve gotten a few e-mails asking why we haven’t “bothered” with The Next Big Thing in 9/11 denial: bin Laden death denial (Deatherism?). We’re not getting into it for the same reasons we didn’t get involved in the Judy Wood nonsense about laser beams from space blowing up the World Trade Center. If merely writing out your belief induces a giggle, you’re probably not doing the conspiracy movement with which you’re associated any good.
“Osama bin Laden is alive and well… he’s just not interested in showing it.” “He was killed years ago, Obama was just waiting for a completely random time way too far before his election and way too far after the disastrous midterms to show it.” “He’s a fiction of the New World Order. You can tell because his death so far seems to be presaging the expulsion of American forces from Pakistan.”
Unfortunately for deniers they’re apparently stuck with Deatherism. It is the only way out of the logical trap bin Laden’s death imposes on them. His death was clearly not politically timed. It is not being used to advance American interests – indeed, it is fueling claims that it’s time to leave Afghanistan and Pakistan. It proves that America is interested in hunting and killing terrorists. It demonstrates that there is a genuine war on terrorists, with concrete and achievable objectives. It’s not going perfectly, but it is going.
I’m not interested in refuting the obvious lunacy that Deathers are spewing. Heck, I want them to shout it from the rooftops – and I want skeptics to point out that all 9/11 deniers are logically obligated to agree with them! At this point, few things could help kill the movement faster.
Prisonplanet returned to the 9/11 denial world today after a protracted silence on the issue, posting a couple of clips of people claiming the American raid on Abottabad was ‘botched.’ Of course those claims are contradictory, nonsensical and so far appear to be essentially baseless, which makes them right at home on PP.
According to a close neighbor who watched the alleged US raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound from his rooftop, the operation was almost immediately aborted because of a helicopter crash that killed several people, eyewitness testimony that completely contradicts the official narrative put out by the White House.
Mohammad Bashir lives a stone’s throw away from the purported Bin Laden compound that was raided on May 1. In an astounding interview with Pakistani news channel Samaa TV, Bashir describes how he watched men land in the helicopter and enter the compound. However, in contrast to the official story, Bashir then claims the helicopter exploded and killed the men as they were re-entering the chopper to leave.
The fraud is obvious – was the raid “immediately aborted,” or did the helicopter explode “as they were preparing… to leave?” – and of course editorial content to this effect is entirely absent in the post itself. A couple of the commenters seem suspicious, but the hivemind shouts them down, as always. The author of that post gets extra props for adding in a fourteen minute clip of a news report with no translation and no context whatsoever. From the first clip, the author blindly parrots its narrator: “now if Osama was in that helicopter he must have died and got burnt in that helicopter too, then how they took him?”
So far we’ve gotten a few e-mails asking why we haven’t “bothered” with The Next Big Thing in 9/11 denial: bin Laden death denial (Deatherism?). We’re not getting into it for the same reasons we didn’t get involved in the Judy Wood nonsense about laser beams from space blowing up the World Trade Center. If merely writing out your belief induces a giggle, you’re probably not doing the conspiracy movement with which you’re associated any good.
“Osama bin Laden is alive and well… he’s just not interested in showing it.” “He was killed years ago, Obama was just waiting for a completely random time way too far before his election and way too far after the disastrous midterms to show it.” “He’s a fiction of the New World Order. You can tell because his death so far seems to be presaging the expulsion of American forces from Pakistan.”
Unfortunately for deniers they’re apparently stuck with Deatherism. It is the only way out of the logical trap bin Laden’s death imposes on them. His death was clearly not politically timed. It is not being used to advance American interests – indeed, it is fueling claims that it’s time to leave Afghanistan and Pakistan. It proves that America is interested in hunting and killing terrorists. It demonstrates that there is a genuine war on terrorists, with concrete and achievable objectives. It’s not going perfectly, but it is going.
I’m not interested in refuting the obvious lunacy that Deathers are spewing. Heck, I want them to shout it from the rooftops – and I want skeptics to point out that all 9/11 deniers are logically obligated to agree with them! At this point, few things could help kill the movement faster.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
NIST Tested Bomb, Demolition Hypotheses!
The torrent comes in at a massive forty GB, but if you're interested, 9/11 deniers have epically shot themselves in the foot by obtaining the NIST burn video database, much of which includes video of the various computerized tests NIST ran while trying to assess how the buildings collapsed on 9/11. In theory, this dataset includes virtually every test NIST engineers ran in devising their explanation for what happened.
Kind of makes you wonder why this wasn't bigger news in the conspiracy theory echo chamber.
These videos are just nails in the coffin of an already-defunct movement. Rather than vindicating the faith, this archive proves that not only were the NIST and 9/11 Commission reports based on rigorous testing, but that engineers, academics and scientists working for the government explicitly tested conspiratorial claims. We have gigs and gigs of video proof that NIST and its affiliates considered every possible angle of the event, and were able to rule out the kinds of hypotheses that today guide what remains of the faith's holy writ.
The 9/11 Datasets Project is run by The "International Center for 9/11 Studies" and apparently all of its content was freely obtained by FOIA suit. Has anything ever so beautifully refuted anti-government paranoia? Maybe its the afternoon coffee kicking in, but I'm positively giddy that this has happened. IC911 has destroyed the 9/11 truth movement.
In fact, searching for "International Center for 9/11 Studies" on PrisonPlanet returns the incredibly flaccid response deniers had to actually surveying the footage: All that they cared to report about were things like 'CBS reporters heard explosions on ground floor before collapse' and 'CNN reported third explosion on 9/11' and 'firefighters heard explosions!' All that they really seemed able to deal with was the same old laughably tired fact that mainstream journalists suck at their jobs, and turns out 9/11 was a confusing day. They apparently have no interest in the substantive evidence. There's really no question as to why.
At the very least, we now have definitive proof that NIST didn't "whitewash" jack when it came to their investigation. There is terabytes of data here to deal with. These guys worked damn hard. As 9/11 deniers have themselves demonstrated, anyone who calls the 9/11 investigation a bogus effort is either lying or stupid. We now have a few weeks of video with which to address that claim.
I downloaded one of the archives, "42A0016," which is about 300mb of video and photographic depictions of NIST laboratory activity and photographs of the buildings. One video shows the hours of construction that went into recreating just one of the sections of the tower for a NIST in-lab test, and another shows a theoretical bomb blast on another such in-lab rendering. The files are too big to upload to Blogger and, for some reason, aren't in the uploads the deniers have been making to YouTube...
There really are too many photos, bits of video, and other such stuff to deal with, but make sure to check out the data yourself. Nothing I've seen to date stands as a better refutation of 9/11 denial than the evidence they themselves are presenting here.
Kind of makes you wonder why this wasn't bigger news in the conspiracy theory echo chamber.
These videos are just nails in the coffin of an already-defunct movement. Rather than vindicating the faith, this archive proves that not only were the NIST and 9/11 Commission reports based on rigorous testing, but that engineers, academics and scientists working for the government explicitly tested conspiratorial claims. We have gigs and gigs of video proof that NIST and its affiliates considered every possible angle of the event, and were able to rule out the kinds of hypotheses that today guide what remains of the faith's holy writ.
The 9/11 Datasets Project is run by The "International Center for 9/11 Studies" and apparently all of its content was freely obtained by FOIA suit. Has anything ever so beautifully refuted anti-government paranoia? Maybe its the afternoon coffee kicking in, but I'm positively giddy that this has happened. IC911 has destroyed the 9/11 truth movement.
In fact, searching for "International Center for 9/11 Studies" on PrisonPlanet returns the incredibly flaccid response deniers had to actually surveying the footage: All that they cared to report about were things like 'CBS reporters heard explosions on ground floor before collapse' and 'CNN reported third explosion on 9/11' and 'firefighters heard explosions!' All that they really seemed able to deal with was the same old laughably tired fact that mainstream journalists suck at their jobs, and turns out 9/11 was a confusing day. They apparently have no interest in the substantive evidence. There's really no question as to why.
At the very least, we now have definitive proof that NIST didn't "whitewash" jack when it came to their investigation. There is terabytes of data here to deal with. These guys worked damn hard. As 9/11 deniers have themselves demonstrated, anyone who calls the 9/11 investigation a bogus effort is either lying or stupid. We now have a few weeks of video with which to address that claim.
I downloaded one of the archives, "42A0016," which is about 300mb of video and photographic depictions of NIST laboratory activity and photographs of the buildings. One video shows the hours of construction that went into recreating just one of the sections of the tower for a NIST in-lab test, and another shows a theoretical bomb blast on another such in-lab rendering. The files are too big to upload to Blogger and, for some reason, aren't in the uploads the deniers have been making to YouTube...
There really are too many photos, bits of video, and other such stuff to deal with, but make sure to check out the data yourself. Nothing I've seen to date stands as a better refutation of 9/11 denial than the evidence they themselves are presenting here.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
The government did 12/25?
Because 9/11 denial requires that there be no such thing as genuine terrorism, you can bet that places like PrisonPlanet is having a field day. 911truth.org is tellingly silent. No word yet from our Facebook friends!
For those living under a rock on Mars 3,000 years in the past, yesterday aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit, MI Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was disarmed by two passengers, neither of whom were apparently flight marshals. The nature of the explosive he brought and assembled on board is still being investigated.
So, 9/11 deniers? There's no such thing as terrorism, right? Obama orchestrated this because he's slightly more popular at the end of his first calendar year than Reagan was at the same time and that means he's in electoral danger, right? He needs to help justify sending more troops to Afghanistan which he already did a month ago, right?
Lets see what kind of malarkey has already surfaced out of this one. Taken straight from the comments at prisonplanet's articles, each more pathetically vaguely implicative than the next (the terrorist seemed strangely 'stunned,' mumbles one). Plenty of readers of Alex Jones' personal money shed are happy to chime in on his behalf:
yo Says:
December 26th, 2009 at 7:46 am
manchurian candidate 10000000000000%
Huggles Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Probably not a manchurian candidate but some guy quietly sitting on his chair and something been thrown on him that ignited.
Aidan Monaghan reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 2:50 am
The first in a series of stage-setting events before the next major false flag event? (like the interantional bombings that preceded 9/11)
Or just a carefully timed holiday “reminder” of a western-manufactured threat (Al Qaeda) with a guaranteed large audience of at-home holiday celebrants watching TV, tens of millions of whom will be “re-reminded” at more scrutinized airport security screening points upon their return flights.
“Attacking” the aviation industry is a fabulous means of conditioning tens of millions of the public to the presence of the “Big Brother” apparatus at your conveniently located local airport.
Charles Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 6:08 am
Isn’t it funny that the man is claiming the device its from Yemen, only now as the offensive of the war on terror is moving to Yemen?
candleinthecave Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Or more likely he could be a Manchurian candidate type brainwashed patsy.
Mike Adkison Says:
December 25th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
NO ONE can come forward and claim to work for Al Queda, because Al Queda is a term invented by counter terrorism coordinator Richard Clark. It means “the base”, coming from a data base aquired that had names of perceived terrorists. There is no organization, per se, named Al Queda. This story is totally hokey, same goes for the arms bound for Iran story. Their lies are becoming totally transparent. They are fooling no one but the fools. Are they quite proud of themselves for that?
MIKE Says:
December 25th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
ABSOLUTE BULLs---….This is another false flag..to get the amerikan sheeple yet again..to be driven to the pavement like pigs as they now must endure demonic searches of their person at the airp[orts during this holiday season..THEY MAY EXPLODE…WHICH WILL CAUSE MARTIAL LAW…YOU HEARD IT HERE..mj ssg usa ret
BA911Truth Says:
December 26th, 2009 at 5:35 am
IT’S ALL STAGED BY THE CIA! WE ALL KNOW THAT! AL-QAEDA EXISTS ONLY IN THE MINDS OF BILDERBERGERS LIKE ZBIGNIEW BRZENSKI!
And, of course, the most trenchant insights thus far:
wolf56 Reply:
December 25th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Charlie Sheen getting arrested sounds like a setup!
fromtheoutsidein Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 4:45 am
SET-UP!!!
See? I'm not kidding when I say that 9/11 deniers are forced to argue that there's literally no such thing as terrorism to support their religion.
For those living under a rock on Mars 3,000 years in the past, yesterday aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit, MI Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was disarmed by two passengers, neither of whom were apparently flight marshals. The nature of the explosive he brought and assembled on board is still being investigated.
So, 9/11 deniers? There's no such thing as terrorism, right? Obama orchestrated this because he's slightly more popular at the end of his first calendar year than Reagan was at the same time and that means he's in electoral danger, right? He needs to help justify sending more troops to Afghanistan which he already did a month ago, right?
Lets see what kind of malarkey has already surfaced out of this one. Taken straight from the comments at prisonplanet's articles, each more pathetically vaguely implicative than the next (the terrorist seemed strangely 'stunned,' mumbles one). Plenty of readers of Alex Jones' personal money shed are happy to chime in on his behalf:
yo Says:
December 26th, 2009 at 7:46 am
manchurian candidate 10000000000000%
Huggles Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Probably not a manchurian candidate but some guy quietly sitting on his chair and something been thrown on him that ignited.
Aidan Monaghan reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 2:50 am
The first in a series of stage-setting events before the next major false flag event? (like the interantional bombings that preceded 9/11)
Or just a carefully timed holiday “reminder” of a western-manufactured threat (Al Qaeda) with a guaranteed large audience of at-home holiday celebrants watching TV, tens of millions of whom will be “re-reminded” at more scrutinized airport security screening points upon their return flights.
“Attacking” the aviation industry is a fabulous means of conditioning tens of millions of the public to the presence of the “Big Brother” apparatus at your conveniently located local airport.
Charles Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 6:08 am
Isn’t it funny that the man is claiming the device its from Yemen, only now as the offensive of the war on terror is moving to Yemen?
candleinthecave Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Or more likely he could be a Manchurian candidate type brainwashed patsy.
Mike Adkison Says:
December 25th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
NO ONE can come forward and claim to work for Al Queda, because Al Queda is a term invented by counter terrorism coordinator Richard Clark. It means “the base”, coming from a data base aquired that had names of perceived terrorists. There is no organization, per se, named Al Queda. This story is totally hokey, same goes for the arms bound for Iran story. Their lies are becoming totally transparent. They are fooling no one but the fools. Are they quite proud of themselves for that?
MIKE Says:
December 25th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
ABSOLUTE BULLs---….This is another false flag..to get the amerikan sheeple yet again..to be driven to the pavement like pigs as they now must endure demonic searches of their person at the airp[orts during this holiday season..THEY MAY EXPLODE…WHICH WILL CAUSE MARTIAL LAW…YOU HEARD IT HERE..mj ssg usa ret
BA911Truth Says:
December 26th, 2009 at 5:35 am
IT’S ALL STAGED BY THE CIA! WE ALL KNOW THAT! AL-QAEDA EXISTS ONLY IN THE MINDS OF BILDERBERGERS LIKE ZBIGNIEW BRZENSKI!
And, of course, the most trenchant insights thus far:
wolf56 Reply:
December 25th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Charlie Sheen getting arrested sounds like a setup!
fromtheoutsidein Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 4:45 am
SET-UP!!!
See? I'm not kidding when I say that 9/11 deniers are forced to argue that there's literally no such thing as terrorism to support their religion.
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