Alien mind-rays and such

[sabotabby]

There has been another round of conspiracy theorizing over at anarchists. It seems like one of the most popular conspiracy theories these days (after "Jews faked the Holocaust!") is that the official story about 9-11 is...well, somewhat lacking. The Left, for obvious reasons, seems to be more willing to entertain such theories than the Right, and I am genuinely interested in knowing who among you believes what.

When it comes to conspiracy theories, and in particular to the Bush administration, I tend to go with Hanlon's Razor, "Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity," and its corollary, "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice."



[Poll #685162]

On a related note, and this is not snark, I'm not entirely sure what a "disinfo agent" or what a "confusionist" is, although I keep running into the latter online. Are they the same as Discordians? Why do they keep showing up on anarchists?

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And now, for your Ted Nugent Quote of the Day:

Though modern man has mostly come to depend on technical services and indulgent conveniences, the pulse of the warrior rages on—even downtown. Mother Nature can be a bitch, but we love her madly anyway. That flash of history from caveman to European to pioneer to city dude reveals a powerful force of intellect, courage, reason, and creativity that is alive and well. Leaping into the millennium on the backs of strong, uppity entrepreneurs and timeless Jeremiah Johnsons, the pecking order is accurate and in place. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it. Conform to this truism or perish. You get what you deserve.

Comments

[nom-de-grr.livejournal.com]

1) I like your Jabbar Gibson icon. I wrote a couple of good journal entries about the Gibson media coverage here and here.

2) Is Holocaust denial actually rampant in the anarchist community?

3) I have mixed feeling about 9-11 conspiracy theories. On the one hand, Bush & Co certainly did take, and continue to take full advantage of the attacks in a very post-Reichstag Fire sort of way. I do not believe they would have been capable of selling a great number of their policies without it. Does this imply that they were responsible for the attacks? Not necessarily, but it does imply a potential motive.

Also, I personally know a person who was involved in the 9-11 investigation and was privy to some inside information. She is subject to a gag order, but she is also a huge blabbermouth. In any case, she described to me some of the things she saw as part of the investigation, and she says that what she learned absolutely convinced her that the attacks were, in part at least, an inside job. Do I believe her, or rather do I believe her interpretation? ehhhh... well, I definitely don't think she's a nut or a liar, but while she may have had access to certain interesting bits of info that the rest of us don't, I kind of doubt that what she saw forms a complete picture of the attacks. Still, what she told me unsteadied what I held to be assumed truths about 9-11.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

1. I love your icon, is it form the "communist party" t-shirt?

2. Everybody nkows that it was the mossad did it, thier responsible for everything bad! lol.

[nom-de-grr.livejournal.com]

It is.

Of course.

[sabotabby]

1) Thanks! Jabbar Gibson is my hero.

2) anarchists (like free_palestine) gets a flood of neo-Nazi-types every so often. There's a higher level of tolerance for them in anarchists than there is in other communities, though. And quite often, they're not overt neo-Nazis, but they're so messed in the head that they take a lot of the subtler propaganda at face value and echo anti-Semitic talking points.

3) I have a similar issue with a journalist friend of mine. He is rather smart, and often privy to information that other people don't have. Occasionally he will say something that seems a bit nuts at the time and it'll be proven conclusively later. He is pretty convinced that it was an inside job. I'm still not sure that they're even competent enough to pull off something like that.

[nom-de-grr.livejournal.com]

Why do you think anarchists is more tolerant of neo-Nazis than other communities? And do you think that this tendency can be generalized to the real world anarchist community beyond livejournal?

"They" meaning the Bush administration? Policy makers don't have to be competent. Only the people carrying out and enforcing the policy must be. I have no doubt that there are a great many individuals and groups in our military/intelligence community with the expertise and competence to carry out such an operation. None of this is necessarily indicative of some sort of shadowy conspiracy planned and carried out by God knows whom, but I wouldn't rule it out based on speculations of competency.

[sabotabby]

A bunch of reasons: anarchists has pretty loose moderation, and a lot of people think that there should be no moderation or banning at all. (In free_palestine, neo-Nazism will pretty much guarantee an insta-ban.) Many anarchists don't understand what neo-Nazis are or the methods they use. And yeah, in general I think the anarchist movement is more tolerant of wingnuttery in the name of inclusiveness -- which is actually not very inclusive, since the presence of wingnuts alienates sane people.

I get your second point