Difficult journey to Ghana Europe snow now here very intermittent connection speedtest 3kbps (sic) when working. Almost impossible post. Ghana Telecom privatised to Vodafone much worse. Try post tomorrow.
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The chances of the US First Amendment being altered as called for by this Sunstein are as close to zero as anything could get. You can always find some crackpot who’s written up some whacked-out proposals which normal people would quite rightly ignore. And ignored they would be, but “Prison Planet” (home of that shameless publicity-hound, the bandwagon-hopping liar Alex Jones) will always find a place for it.
Alex Jones is betting that nearly everyone holds one “conspiracy theory” or another to be true. So compile every one of them into a big mega-conspiracy, and you should be a AJ follower/supporter…. right? Well, it isn’t working out as well as he’d hoped, but he’s still got a quite undue following. He can rope in the right-wing with tales of how guns n’ freedom are about to be snatched from them, the left wing with tales of a right-wing takeover (the 2008 elections were apparently about to be cancelled, etc.), the racists with his Big Scary “Obama Deception” video which packs in more lies per minute, particularly in the second half, that one would believe possible.
AJ also expects anyone who doubts Official Truths to find his screwy world-view to be their natural home. Don’t believe the government version of “9/11” ? Welcome aboard! Bought into the corporate line that global climate change is a hoax? Come on in! Think Obama’s a manchurian candidate, a hard-core commie with terrorist connections? You’ve found your place!
Some of Jones’s points are definitely worth considering, but I’d consider looking at a more balanced source before concluding anything. You have to admire his ability to glide so smoothly between Bush conspiracies to Obama conspiracies, even before the latter had finished his acceptance speech.
Of course, it’s topped off with the claim that if one _doesn’t_ buy into his shameless conspiracy theorising, then clearly that person is working on the dark side too!
@Clark
I note the post by Jaded, later than yours, which makes some of the points which are in my mind, but it’s a bit lengthy – I’m one of those people who just scrolls past long posts (please, commenters, serve the community by giving a precis of what you want to cite, then supply a link for any who might want more detail).
Anyway, Clark, it’s a mistake to suppose that trolls are stupid – the content they drop on sites like this is contrived to appear vacant and stupid in order to present an aggravating and appealingly easy target, and to tempt us to address these people instead of each other. When (a million years ago) I played rugby, one of my occasional intructions to the team was to ‘provoke an inappropriate response’. This meant to attack the physical side of the game with a bit more gusto than was strictly necessary (nice euphemism, huh?) in order to get the other team to lose the place, because I had a feeling that they weren’t very mature and would do just that. It probably looked very vulgar and primitive, but in fact it was coldly and intellectually calculated, and often worked. Confident and mature players don’t respond to such provocation.
In addition, the slanging matches which we see taking place may not be all they seem. One person can use two aliases, or collude with a friend, to present the appearance of an ill-natured quarrel, when in fact there is only a soliloquy.
The advice repeatedly offered by dreolin (sp?) is best: if some poster contributes only one or two sentences of abuse (usually including favourite words like ‘moron’ and ‘nutjob’) ignore them and do not respond in any way. Eschew the inappropriate response – continue the discussion with those who wish to discuss.
But we’re not, so we can smile. 🙂
My above at 4:09 PM was a response to Glenn, not Vronsky. Sorry.
Original article cited in Jaded’s comment:
Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures*
Cass R. Sunstein, Adrian Vermeule
Journal of Political Philosophy
Volume 17, Issue 2 , Pages202 – 227
© 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
I haven’t found a downloadable copy yet.
dreoilin: I’m trying to avoid the ‘poisoning the well’ fallacy, but Alex Jones makes it so difficult to avoid!
“Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures”
Causes: Governments offering explanations for events that appear not to address all the evidence.
Cures: Having proper public enquiries into said events (rather as they did with Clinton’s extramarital affairs, which weren’t even illegal).
Vronsky,
I agree.
GLENN, from comments such as your shrewd observation “What CEO would want to tie up 6 months’ worth of income in having 6 months of reserves?” I can tell that you have expertise in this subject; so I have to be careful in my response. Fortunately I find little in what you have said that I would disagree with anyway. Core utilities are by definition always monopolies. After all, it would not make sense to plant 25 competing pipelines under the road, so that one could have real competition in gas deliveries. Public ownership of core utilities does make sense, particularly where it is at the more decentralized municipal level rather than at the centralized State level. After all municipally owned utilities still have an element of competition in them, since one can benchmark their results across the UK to see who is doing the best job (and why).
However, what about the major gas trunk lines? They too are likely to be monopolies. But should they be nationalized, or regulated private utility companies? At first blush one tends to think nationalized, except that my own experience tells me different.
30 years ago as financial accounting manager, I headed up corporate accounting for Canada’s then largest Canadian owned Oil & Gas Company (subsequently split up into separate companies such as Husky Oil, Novachem, Trans Canada Pipe, etc). One of our business units was the huge regulated “Alberta Gas Trunk Line” division. What I saw was that if properly regulated private utilities can work well for their customers, even though they are monopolies. But the key is ?” they have to be properly regulated.
If I may boast (seeing as how I have had the hell knocked out of me with slanders for 20 years), one of the things I did is that I designed and produced an annual report for Alberta Gas Trunk Line that was awarded the Financial Post Award for the best Utility Company reporting in Canada.
I would like to thank RUTH for her gutsy comment a few days ago. I have experienced many similar incidents ?” it is how they operate (They have psychologists on staff, and I suspect a few psychopaths as well). You have to experience it to understand just quite how evil these animals are.
Finally may I say that I do agree with CLARK “don’t let your comments become personal. Site original sources” I do try to back up any unusual statements made by referring to sources of corroboration (which can often be found on the wiki). My horrible issue is a very emotional area for me and my family, but I make every attempt to try and look at it from a 3rd parties’ perspective. I hope that I have not personally attacked anyone. Honest critisism is fine. However, may I just say that for those who must make contentious personal attack statements against other commentators, it’s best not do it from anonymity ?” but to put one’s name and contact details behind it as I do.
“Alex Jones makes it so difficult to avoid”
— glenn
Sure, but it’s hard not to believe that he’s sincere about the stuff that agitates him. I’ve seen him haranguing his nemesis, the Bilderberg guests. Maybe he’s addicted to conspiracies. Maybe he’s a wee bit mental. He uses up a hell of a lot of energy on-air.
Clark:
You can find a PDF of the paper here: {papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585}
I can’t help but think that by writing such a paper, Sunstein will have helped create more conspiracy theories than he will debunk =P
All:
Haven’t heard too much said about the recent Scott Ritter news.
{thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0114101ritter1.html}
{foxnews.com/story/0,2933,583027,00.html}
I don’t really know what to make of it. It seems strange that he could be so ridiculously stupid, but it also sounds like there is some pretty damning evidence. I’m curious to know more.
Roderick,
some day, when I have the time, I will take a thorough look at your wiki article. I expect that there is little I can do to help beyond becoming informed.
There are those who think he’s the ‘controlled opposition’. Probably best not to take him too seriously. But the comments on his site can be a hoot.
I thought at first that “Cass Sunstein” sounded like a joke. But he really exists. Here’s a website for downloading his paper:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585
Background wiki marticle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Sunstein#Conspiracy_Theories
CheebaCow,
thanks for the PDF, which I’ve saved.
CLARK, thank you. When you do you will find that there is a substantial body of documentary evidence (letters attached to the wiki) to back up some of my statements. Chapter 4 of the wiki (can be viewed by clicking on table of contents in the left hand margin – 4. government cover-up conspiracy – UK & Canada) summarizes some of the items of cover-up together with where the sources of proof are. There is actually much more that isn’t on the wiki.
Mr. Russell – I’ve read through some of your so-called “documentary evidence.” I’m at a real loss here. Could you please point out your best two pieces of evidence that proves this torture that is being committed against you. (And, as you should know, a marginal note stating “GOVERNMENT NOT HELPFUL = COVER-UP CONSPIRACY” is not evidence).
CheebaCow: Scott Ritter is a pedophile who harbored irrational hatred for the Bush administration, even to the point of entertaining kooky 911 conspiracies.
Oh bother. Larry, how you can say anyone “is” anything, without any proof or backup or sense, is beyond me (and this is surely slanderous). Are you being briefed by men in raincoats going “pssst?”. Why should anyone keep listening to you?
It’s interesting, and noticeable that the tone on anti-war sites is quite sombre if discussing this, with very few voices shouting ‘fit-up’ until further evidence. You’re at the extremes, Larry. It discredits you.
Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True
http://tinyurl.com/yz8j6br
And personally, I don’t believe for a minute that Scott Ritter is a paedophile. Innocent until proven guilty, remember? And what on earth his sex life has to do with his ‘hatred of the Bush administration’ or otherwise, I cannot see. Argh. Larry, am I wrong? Are you someone who just parrots lines without any true curiosity and/or conviction? Are you having fun making mischief? What are we all doing on this board if it’s not to support positive enquiry and spirited solutions?
Ahem.
technicolour, have you read the details of his past transgressions?
If it were just a matter of this particular recent situation, I would agree with you.
It appears that this asshole can’t keep himself away from teenage girls.
technicolour, if I were serving on a jury, I would of course presume him to be innocent. But I’m not sitting on a jury.
I wasn’t the one who brought him up.
But Larry, you could be serving on a jury.
Glenn Greenwald discussing Cass Sunstein’s paper in Salon.com:
http://tinyurl.com/yde4ug8
brings up some fascinating stuff.
Roderick: Thanks for your comments on private industries. I’m sure some do a reasonable job, and it is true that nationalised industries often suffer from poor management and workers. But poor management is not unknown in private industries by any means, but even if they are run very well, who benefits? Shareholders and CEOs/ top management layers. The profits and benefits do not help the country, because the majority of the profits are going to go to people who don’t pay tax or hold their money in the country concerned. These are largely foreign institutions and those holding off-shore accounts. The workers certainly don’t benefit – as a rule, wages and conditions go down once privitisation takes place. The most common result is mass redundancy at the outset.
Customers are unlikely to benefit under where the price is set as high as the market will stand. Competition is always hailed as a great benefit to customers, but corporations tend to amalgamate – see the mergers and acquisition fever particularly since the early ’90s. When only a handful of mega-corporations exist, you do not see them competing so much as getting down to the real business of screwing the customers.
Of course, I’m talking about utilities here. There is no reason Singapore investors should be profiting when, say, customers of Yorkshire Water get a 20% above-inflation rise year on year, while the only local benefit is a CEO on millions annually. All the private company will care about is how to maximise profits as quickly as possible, and providing the minimum service to which they are legally obliged as cheaply as possible.
Nobody is calling for the fire department or the police to be privitised for very obvious reasons. They are a public necessity and a monopoly, as with water, gas, electricity, rail and buses. It makes no sense to grant a company the rights to exploit that monopoly for profit unless that is one’s philosophy bordering on religious belief.
———-
Funny that Scott Ritter was the republican poster-boy when it looked like he was going to report what they wanted to hear from Iraq. Same with Blix for that matter. Ritter was (and afaik, is) a republican himself. How disgustingly typical that he should be labelled a sex offender etc. the moment he falls out of favour.
(For the record, Ritter was using a general chat room – as people often do – when a girl said she was in trouble in MacDonalds, being pursued by a couple of men. This happened to be just down the street and Ritter, being an ex-marine, put on his boots and rushed down to help. There was no 15-year old girl in trouble, but there were two FBI agents who arrested him because – wait for it – he was going to meet an under-age girl. The case was thrown out, of course, but it allows those with no scruples to claim – to this day – that Ritter is a child molester.)
I think there are a couple of people who post here just to stop us from talking to each other. We all know who they are so I’m not going to name them.
If we spend all our time responding to them, they have wan, because they have stopped us from taling to each other which would have resulted in the exchange of ideas which could result in us working togeather.
So lets just ignore them and stop respond to each other instead.
I mean start responding to each other.
“How disgustingly typical that he should be labelled a sex offender etc. the moment he falls out of favour.”
I suppose his behaviour had nothing to do with it…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8460340.stm
[This is a clumsy medium for attrbutng things properly, I’m sorry]
“The advice repeatedly offered by dreolin (sp?) is best: if some poster contributes only one or two sentences of abuse (usually including favourite words like ‘moron’ and ‘nutjob’) ignore them and do not respond in any way. Eschew the inappropriate response – continue the discussion with those who wish to discuss”.
There’s an ancient Usenet saying that applies (quoted here already, I think) :- “Don’t feed the trolls”.
Some people are attention-vampires. Maybe they’re True Believers (in something), maybe they’re being paid, maybe they’re just silly people, doesn’t matter. The result’s the same.
Somebody else talked about ‘cold calculated operations’ – again, doesn’t matter, sheer stupidity can work too. Just say something really obviously wrong and people will rush to correct you (chorus: “Oh no they won’t”).
Also, there seem to be huge numbers of people Out There who appear to take pleasure in pointless malignancy; stirring things up, disrupting conversations, upsetting people, for no particular good reason at all. Anybody else here familiar with usenet ? I think they’ll know what I mean. “It’s always September”.
“I think there are a couple of people who post here just to stop us from talking to each other”.
It could be. I seem to be championing stupidity, this evening. Maybe it’s the beer ?
*Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
*But sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
But, again, whatever, the point’s as you say (Arsalan ?), and maybe it all takes care of itself in the long run; those that want to talk with each other learn how to avoid the distractions and do so.
Conspiracy ? Cock up ? It’s probably a conspiracy to cock up a conspiracy to cock up. Or worse.
It’s a pity if we’re going to have to cross ourselves and spit whenever Scott Ritter’s name is mentioned, he seemed to have some things to say.