American Dream wrote:I am not referring to isolated droplets of information but rather streams of opinion mixed with fact, as flow from Alex Jones, David Icke, Glen Beck, and others on an ongoing basis.
AD, C_w asked you a metaphysical question about whether there is such a thing as consciousness independent of what we understand to be the physical realm of the brain; not the one you're answering.
I hereby declare that everyone should back off on turning this thread into a fight. Seriously. What I consider to be another outrageous embarrassment for Mr. Jones has still prompted a lot of interesting debate here. And you should trust that the RI regulars (and most irregulars, for that matter), even if they still tolerate Mr. Jones for some reason, are not consuming him like crack, are not subtly pushing a secret encoded agenda, and are not likely to turn either themselves or anyone reading this into robots of an evil ideology.
Here are some thoughts:
1. Talk of secret top-level vampire types (magical or otherwise) is sometimes used as a code for racist conspiracy theory, or just plain racism.
2. Some talk about secret out-of-sight top-level controllers is meant to be taken at face value, and is not encoded. Whatever we may think about it.
3. Accusations of anti-Semitism have been used to unfairly characterize cases of #2 that are not actually encoded Jewish conspiracy theory. This is very counterproductive and actually helps to give cases of #1 a pass. Such accusations are levelled promiscuously from a number of factions at anything that they disagree with, especially critique of Israel, critique of US empire, and fully plausible speculations (such as the historically pedestrian and empirically supportable hypothesis that the September 11th events were the intended product of covert operations originating in US government and allied agencies and related networks).
4. Some talk about secret out-of-sight top-level controllers is, to me, more like confused metaphor about the not-so-secret well-in-sight top-level power elites and their various hidden adjuncts in parapolitics and the deep state. We live in a culture where reasonable, empirical statements about the concentration of wealth and power in small groups who are allied and organized and who pursue class war end up confused with or rendered as "conspiracy theory." Also, a number of non-conformist subjects that aren't always related have been forced into a common idea-ghetto (so if you talk about CIA covert operations you will be forced to deal with some idiot's expectation that you must think vaccination is an extermination plot). We also have a corporate system, and the big and powerful corporations have a right to secrets and "proprietary information" and pyramidal structures with increasingly conspiratorial action at the top, and people don't wanna talk about it cause it's all too damn much to follow.
5. Alex Jones is a sociopath who chose the career of a performance artist deceptively selling himself as though he were a committed political activist and commentator. This is a business model. He has picked up a number of different ideas that varied demographics want to hear and sells them with outrage and constant crisis-stoking. He clearly doesn't care what might be racist, homophobic, sexist, nationalist, voodoo fundamentalist, factually exaggerated, unfounded, or just plain pack-of-lies in what he sells. I don't believe he believes anything. For all that, he has his adherents whom I respect, who listen to him selectively for his addressing certain issues that he has tried to trademark as his own (such as 9/11). He has been incredibly active in fucking up and trying to take over and shape the truth movement, out of obvious self-aggrandizement, but you need not doubt that if enough people were to hoist him up as their Hitler (not that this is going to happen!), he'd be thrilled to take the ride. I wish all of his listeners that they may get over this clown and see that there is absolutely no need for him, that he shouldn't be mixed into political discussions or used as a source for anything, since every fact and claim you want to make has better alternate sources. Fuck him.
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