Security Theater ("Crisis Actors")

[Karmamatterz]

Infowars dosen't have it, and RawStory doesn't have it. All they have is clickbait horseshit to feed into pre-existing beliefs for the stories they run that cite twitter feeds and 4chan posts. The fact that this horseshit even gets placed alongside the occasional story by actual reporters at real publications when it is aggregated by google news literally sickens me.

We are living in an age where Truth with a capital T is dead. Not because people are suddenly "woke," "red-pilled," or whatever you want to call it, suddenly able to see propaganda when it rears it's head as it so often does, but because these people can no longer discern questions and innuendo from verifiable facts and are less capable of telling the difference than ever before.

There has always been some overlap of fact, questions, and innuendo in true investigative reporting, but never in my lifetime (born in the early 80s) have the leaps of logic been so great and the ideology so stubborn as to deny everything you dislike (that does not conform) and accept everything you do like (that does conform) as it is today.

When people I otherwise respect text me stories only found on sites whose agenda is clearly based on supporting one ideological lie or the other, I sigh sadly, knowing there is nothing I can say to convince them otherwise.

This is the great tragedy of our time. Once upon a time, people were at least willing to frame their ideas as opinion, and acknowledge them as such. Not anymore. Belief becomes fact for such folks. When opinion becomes truth, Truth is dead.

Damn, well done.

I would have to add that "journalists," you know, the reporters who think they are actually journalists, are so caught up in activist reporting now that the lines are blurred. It is literally in almost all media now. The truth is dead. I would ask, was it ever really present?

I don't doubt, and know some journalists who try really hard to remain non-biased and do good work. They are now a minority, very rare indeed. Go back to Hearst and all the manipulations of "truth." Then skip ahead to Operation Mockingbird. Skip ahead again to one of Obama's last acts as president, signing the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act which authorizes the use of propaganda inside the U.S.

You mentioned the sad sigh because people send you stories only found on sites that have an idealogical bent. Some good discernment. But I would go further to suggest the sites that don't publish the same stories have their own agendas and biases. It's just that they are all on the same playbook page and ideology so you have to consider what is not being reported. I'm not suggesting there are wacky stories that are just complete bullshit. But offering that just because the MSM does not publish the wacko story does not mean they are to be relied upon as being truthful. When discussing the media with the general public one of most important things I tell them is to pay attention to what the media is not covering. We are bombarded with so much noise, and it really appears deliberate. One only has to watch MSM TV for a short period to see how it all works.

Money quote:

Belief becomes fact for such folks. When opinion becomes truth, Truth is dead.

[SonicG]

He was in Cali. on vacation.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/heavy.com/ ... video/amp/

[JackRiddler]

So maybe a student at the school who was already an activist against the universal availability of easy-murder sticks is still an activist after 17 of his classmates are murdered in cold blood by an easy-murder-stick wielding asshole. Wow.

These dumb motherfuckers -- who may as well be a CIA psyop to render all anti-state propaganda efforts meaningless -- are forcing the poor kid to actually have to say things like, "I am not a crisis actor."

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/us/david ... index.html

This latest horror pretty much will put an end to this most moronic and mean-spirited of all fake CTs, but the damage done by Alex Jones & co. will probably never be overcome.

.

[seemslikeadream]

Thanks to Gateway Pundit, the name of a child (David Hogg) who survived the Florida school shooting is now the #1 trending topic per @SecureDemocracy's Hamilton 68 dashboard. They're spreading conspiracy theories calling him a crisis actor.


http://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org

[American Dream]

NRA board member Ted Nugent pushes conspiracy theory that Parkland school shooting survivors are actors
Nugent “liked” Facebook comment calling student David Hogg a “crisis actor”



Nugent promoted similar conspiracy theories after the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, CT, claiming that no assault weapons were used in the elementary school shooting despite the fact that authorities confirmed the shooting was carried out with a Bushmaster AR-15 assault weapon.

Following the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nugent appeared on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ show and backed his baseless theory that the massacre was “scripted by deep state Democrats.”

As recently as February 2016, there were calls for Nugent to resign from the NRA board after he shared a Facebook image claiming prominent Jewish figures were the ones “really behind gun control.”

https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/ ... ors/219443

[Elvis]

Is there any evidence this kid is the same who appeared in a random news report in California about a lifeguard? If it is the same kid, does it mean anything?

Agree with your whole post, generally. I didn't watch the Alex Jones video (why bother?), and I didn't mention the CA beach video because it's untterly irrelevant. Except that it does show the kid making a 'journalistic' effort to record the event. And it's his journalism study/practice at achool that makes it fairly plain to me that he was coaching himself, "wait let me try that again," to make good media. He had probably rehearsed in his mind what he would say. The (CNN?) cameraman's remarks are things I would say..."you're fine, keep going...."

So here I'm assigning "crisis actor" less than 1% possibility. I think it was worth taking a look because ya never know....


Also, to make my own position clear, I assign a very low probability to any mass shooting being perpetrated by 'deep state' agents (of any real or imagined stripe) who want to take away guns. To make people fear Muslims?—Yes, no question in my mind. So that satanic majesty Diane Feinstein can grab our guns?—er, not so much.

Maybe germane to the thread ("yawn"), it is well known that Feinstein—probably like most other war-profiteer billionaires—packs a 23-round semiauto under her jacket. I'm not saying she isn't a special person who deserves special privileges, but it points to the fact that exceptions will be made and the question will become, "okay, who is to be allowed to own and carry guns?" Congress will probably be the first to exempt themselves.

[American Dream]

Crisis actors, deep state, false flag: the rise of conspiracy theory code words


David Hogg, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school, speaks at a rally calling for more gun control three days after the shooting at his school.

It’s no coincidence that the cottage industry of false flag allegations has grown in tandem with the mass uptake of social media – theories are absorbed and spread rapidly online by a range of groups. Conspiracy broadcasters have large, international audiences, and some polling suggests that up to half of Americans believe in at least some signature conspiracy theories.

Some outlets spreading “crisis actor” theories, like Alex Jones and True Pundit, have been lent credibility by the president or members of his family. And there has been some suggestion that conspiracy theory has now been automated, with tall tales about the Parkville massacre being spread by a network of bots.

As with 9/11 conspiracy thinking, Alex Jones acted as a major popularizer of crisis actor meme. Jones said back in 2012 and 2013 that Sandy Hook was a “false flag” and that “no one died”. He claimed that the children killed were acting for the cameras, and that the parents had faked their own childrens’ deaths.

Under pressure, Jones has sometimes tried to back away from his role in propagating the theory. But in other incidents since – from Orlando to Las Vegas, Jones’s first resort in his broadcasts and on his website has been to assume that the official accounts are elaborate lies, and that many on the scene are in on the deception.

Jones and others often take advantage of the inevitable confusion that attends complex events like mass shootings to freely speculate on the events, and lodge their explanation in the minds of their audience.

These theories would be laughable, and unworthy of our attention, were it not for their real world impacts, and the fact that so many people accept them. When Jones was interviewed by Megan Kelly last year, parents of Sandy Hook victims took to the airwaves and the Internet to protest. They said that on top of their grief, they had been harassed for years since the massacre by people who, thanks in part to Jones, believed that they and their dead children were lying.

The teens who are bravely speaking out after the attack will not only have to contend with conservative media bottom-feeders questioning their competence to speak about the massacre. They will also have to deal with people who think that they are knowingly participating in an elaborate hoax.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... are_btn_fb

[Elvis]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/21/crisis-actors-deep-state-false-flag-the-rise-of-conspiracy-theory-code-words?CMP=share_btn_fb

Crisis actors, deep state, false flag: the rise of conspiracy theory code words

The takeaway from the headline: "deep state" is just one more nutty conspiracy theory.


This passage shows that the Guardian writer Jason Wilson hasn't the slightest idea what they're talking about when it comes to "deep state":

The “crisis actor” concept augments the “false flag” idea. It offers an alternative narrative for incidents of mass violence: that government agencies or other powerful actors stage shootings, and then employ actors to play victims, witnesses, and bystanders.

This one can be read so many ways:

Conspiracy broadcasters have large, international audiences, and some polling suggests that up to half of Americans believe in at least some signature conspiracy theories.

Understating the problem. More like 70% believed Saddam had WMD and was behind 9/11. Those darned conspiracy theories spread by broadcasters with large, international audiences (including The Guardian) have traction for sure. These theories would be laughable, and unworthy of our attention, were it not for their real world impacts, for example over 1,000,000 civilian deaths in Iraq.

I appreciate the little bit of actual news in the article, but on this subject I can't take this writer seriously.

AD, I would read your threads more if you filtered out a lot of the junk pieces.

[American Dream]

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

[Burnt Hill]

These dumb motherfuckers -- who may as well be a CIA psyop to render all anti-state propaganda efforts meaningless
.

May as well be a CIA psyop, but may actually be a Putin psyop....

[Elvis]

pogo spy.jpg

[Grizzly]

"I repeat, Albert, you loose in the flue!"

...lol

[seemslikeadream]

Donald Trump Jr. Liked Tweets Promoting A Conspiracy Theory About A Florida Shooting Survivor
https://www.buzzfeed.com/tasneemnashrul ... .wb90rvxZx

YES THE SON OF THE PRESIDENT

[robotilt]

Has there been any intelligent (non-Alex Jonesy) discussion about this Cruz kid being a patsy?
Smells funny to me, so I've got the intuition, now seeking some rigor.

[American Dream]

"Crisis actors" conspiracy theory spreads across the radical right

February 23, 2018 Rachel Janik

As with so many mass shootings before, the fringe right is racing once again to generate some theory — any theory — to cast doubt on the circumstances of last week’s Parkland, Florida, shooting.

After the events at Sandy Hook, a shooting that took the lives of 20 small children and six school staff members, Alex Jones declared that the massacre was “completely false.” Like-minded conspiracy theorists terrorized grieving parents, accusing them of being paid performers, or “crisis actors.” After Parkland, they’re attacking student survivors with the same accusation.

Shortly after Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students began speaking publicly about their ordeal and sharing their opinions about what the government ought to do, the right-wing blogosphere responded with posts questioning their credibility, their motives and their right to speak about their own experiences.

Lucian Wintrich, of the conspiracy-courting blog “The Gateway Pundit,” got the ball rolling on Monday with a post claiming he’d “exposed” 17-year-old shooting survivor David Hogg as a trained operative reciting lines on behalf of the FBI. His melodramatic headline lost some of its impact due to an unfortunate typo that identified Hogg as a “surviver [sic].”

Wintrich’s hypothesis relied on two tenuous assumptions: first, 17-year-olds are never articulate, and second, Hogg cannot be trusted because his father was in the FBI. His accusations, though flimsy, were popular with Wintrich’s alt-lite political circle. The fake news campaign picked up steam when a YouTube account trafficking in conspiracies about UFOs and chem-trails produced videos alleging Hogg was an actor because he’d appeared in a CBS Los Angeles news segment in 2017.

The “crisis actor” narrative gained traction in some of the most extreme corners of the online radical right. Mike Peinovich’s viciously racist blog, “The Right Stuff,” features a spirited discussion on the conspiracy in its 504um, complete with the usual speculation about imagined Jewish influence and the distasteful slurs to match. On Wednesday, The Daily Stormer piled on with a blog post from founder Andrew Anglin, called, “So are These Florida Gun Control Kids Crisis Actors or What?”

Anglin stopped short of insisting the shooting was entirely fabricated, counseling his audience to please, “not go crazy with the conspiracy stuff.” But he didn’t rule it out. “The Jews are extremely desperate right now, and basically willing to do whatever,” he wrote.

Other extremist groups propagated the conspiracy on social media. Ryan Ramsey, of the American Guard, shared a “crisis actor” meme on Instagram. The American Guard has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center because of the organization’s association with violent skinheads. A Facebook page for the III% Security Force, an antigovernment militia, featured multiple articles from Infowars attacking Hogg.

Not everyone is on board. Mike Cernovich, one of the most accomplished fake news ambassadors on the right, declined to fan the flames of this particular conspiracy. Known for his enthusiastic dissemination of falsehoods, like #Pizzagate, and his fondness for accusing his political enemies of pedophilia, Cernovich said of the current controversy, "Right now we are in a fight for free speech — a fight for our lives. This does not help any of us. This crisis actor bullshit is completely discrediting all the hard work that I do...to get real journalism, to get stories out there."

But even right-wing pundits considered more mainstream, like former Fox News star Bill O’Reilly and longtime conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, have entertained the conspiracy. CNN political commentator and former Georgia congressman Jack Kingston suggested on the air that there were behind-the-scenes forces directing the students, saying, “Do we really think — and I say this sincerely — do we really think 17-year-olds on their own are going to plan a nationwide rally?”

National Rifle Association board member and musician Ted Nugent, shared an article on social media alleging the students were “rehearsing scripted lines” and “coached” on what to say. He “liked” a comment on Facebook that said Hogg was a 26-year-old paid crisis actor. Sharing these conspiracies has become a bad habit of Nugent’s — he also spread bogus claims about the Sandy Hook shooting and told Alex Jones last October that the Las Vegas shooting was “scripted by deep state Democrats.”

The nation is stuck in the ugliest possible incarnation of a Groundhog Day scenario: a gunman kills en masse in a school, university, church or movie theater; there’s an outpouring of condolences and calls for change; inevitably, attempts at change fall apart, and interest wanes until the next tragedy. These conspiracies have become another feature of that déjà vu. Survivors and the bereaved are subjected to doubt, disdain and defamation from those for whom their testimony is politically or ideologically inconvenient. As this latest lie makes its way across the web, the gullible should beware the bad-faith opportunists.

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/201 ... ical-right