Open Discussion

[James H. Fetzer]

Sandy has suggested that we have a space for open discussion of topics that may be off-topic. That's fine with me. Let's see if the "Discussion" option will serve that purpose. Please give it a shot. Jim

[James H. Fetzer]

Birds of a Feather: Subverting the Constitution at Harvard Law
by Jim Fetzer
http://911scholars.ning.com/profiles/blogs/birds-of-a-feather-subve...

sandy rose said:

got this from my cincy bud Karl...


Obama staffer wants ‘cognitive infiltration’ of 9/11 conspiracy groups

By Daniel Tencer
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 -- 10:48 pm










Source:http://rawstory.com/2010/01/obama-staffer-infiltration-911-groups/



In a 2008 academic paper, President Barack Obama's appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs advocated "cognitive infiltration" of groups that advocate "conspiracy theories" like the ones surrounding 9/11.


Cass Sunstein, a Harvard law professor, co-wrote an academic article entitled "Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures," in which he argued that the government should stealthily infiltrate groups that pose alternative theories on historical events via "chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine" those groups.


As head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Sunstein is in charge of "overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs," according to the White House Web site.


Sunstein's article, published in the Journal of Political Philosphy in 2008 and recently uncovered by blogger Marc Estrin, states that "our primary claim is that conspiracy theories typically stem not from irrationality or mental illness of any kind but from a 'crippled epistemology,' in the form of a sharply limited number of (relevant) informational sources."


By "crippled epistemology" Sunstein means that people who believe in conspiracy theories have a limited number of sources of information that they trust. Therefore, Sunstein argued in the article, it would not work to simply refute the conspiracy theories in public -- the very sources that conspiracy theorists believe would have to be infiltrated.


Sunstein, whose article focuses largely on the 9/11 conspiracy theories, suggests that the government "enlist nongovernmental officials in the effort to rebut the theories. It might ensure that credible independent experts offer the rebuttal, rather than government officials themselves. There is a tradeoff between credibility and control, however. The price of credibility is that government cannot be seen to control the independent experts."
Download a PDF of the article here.


Sunstein argued that "government might undertake (legal) tactics for breaking up the tight cognitive clusters of extremist theories." He suggested that "government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action."


"We expect such tactics from undercover cops, or FBI," Estrin writes at the Rag Blog, expressing surprise that "a high-level presidential advisor" would support such a strategy.
Estrin notes that Sunstein advocates in his article for the infiltration of "extremist" groups so that it undermines the groups' confidence to the extent that "new recruits will be suspect and participants in the group’s virtual networks will doubt each other’s bona fides."


Sunstein has been the target of numerous "conspiracy theories" himself, mostly from the right wing political echo chamber, with conservative talking heads claiming he favors enacting "a second Bill of Rights" that would do away with the Second Amendment. Sunstein's recent book, On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done, was criticized by some on the right as "a blueprint for online censorship."
Sunstein "wants to hold blogs and web hosting services accountable for the remarks of commenters on websites while altering libel laws to make it easier to sue for spreading 'rumors,'" wrote Ed Lasky at American Thinker.



nice. i'm pretty sure most of us know that they've been doing this all along, but
hey, it just goes to show that they are worried about the truth community and that
is a good thing! ha ha! if we weren't on to something huge, why would they care?
i also read it as an admission of guilt for the same reason. guilty guilty guilty.
strikes me as a wee bit odd after 7/eight years of 'getting away with it' why care now?
nice to know they see us as an obstacle to their big lie(s). like a twisted compliment!

ps to the infiltraitors, truth doesn't go away no matter how hard you try! doh!

(it is always sensible to assume that the guilty ones are 'listening', i'm sure most of us do.)
thanks, Karl, this is a nice thing to pass on to all our fellow truthers, eh? sandy




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[Thoth II]

Thoth II said:

History Channel: Propaganda central

Add discovery channel to the history channel as propaganda central. All day I am watching a marathon of phony docs on discovery. I just heard Gary Mack on one say something like no shooters could possibly have fired from the triple overpass because too many people were up there (I wonder why he focuses on that location to debunk? probably because it WAS a firing location). Then he claims there is no hard evidence that anyone other than Oswald did any shooting. He is outright lying here.
History and Discovery channels, disgusting lies parading as legit documentaries.

.

[James H. Fetzer]

Google "Reasoning about Assassinations" and "Thinking about 'Conspiracy Theories': 9/11 and JFK" for evidence that contradicts him. Download my chapter from http://www.und.edu/org/jfkconference/ . Oswald's weapon was not high velocity, but JFK was killed by the impact of high velocity bullets. Therefore, Oswald's weapon cannot have fired the bullets that killed JFK. Mack tells lots of whoppers! I think it is fair to say that he--the Curator of The 6th Floor Museum--deliberately disseminates false information about the assassination.

Thoth II said:

Thoth II said:

History Channel: Propaganda central

Add discovery channel to the history channel as propaganda central. All day I am watching a marathon of phony docs on discovery. I just heard Gary Mack on one say something like no shooters could possibly have fired from the triple overpass because too many people were up there (I wonder why he focuses on that location to debunk? probably because it WAS a firing location). Then he claims there is no hard evidence that anyone other than Oswald did any shooting. He is outright lying here.
History and Discovery channels, disgusting lies parading as legit documentaries.

.

[James H. Fetzer]

Sandy, I think you mean "trolls", who are zealous supporters of specific positions or personalities, such as Judy Wood, or agents of disinformation, who are deliberately misrepresenting situations, as appears to be the case with Gary Mack. No doubt there are other categories, too, but those are among the most important.

sandy rose said:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/03/intel-chief-risk-crippli...
what are the TOOLS trying to tell us with this one? and do we count as people who use the internet for malicious purposes? i bet we qualify in their warped mugs. or might they pull a cyber attack of their own and then say 'we told you so'.

i think i got this from clg.

[James H. Fetzer]

Sandy, you are right and I was wrong. I thought you were responding to Thoth II's comment (above) about Gary Mack. I completely agree that Tony Blair and others were TOOLS of the Bush administration, which in turn appears to have been a TOOL of the Israeli government. Gary Mack and other apologists for THE WARRREN REPORT (1964) are TROLLS.,

sandy rose said:

egads! it's hard to keep track of who is against who any more.
and no, i meant to say TOOLS, and i was referring to the article i sent
where it says,

Blair, speaking to the House Intelligence Committee, said U.S. tools
are not yet up to the task to fully protect against such an attack.

(i was using the word tools as a bit of an insult) :)

i get frustrated also with 'truthers' who won't budge on an opinion
no matter what, and i'm not sure what you're referring to exactly but
i for one don't like how we split ourselves apart over disagreements,
when there is no way on earth that we will all agree on all points, no
matter how fiercely we believe or don't believe them. but....it's been
my opinion for ages now that the criminals had that in mind, for sure.

i don't know who gary mack is but i'm behind on some conversations.

[Lee Cahalan]

Allow me to start. This is my first attempt to join an organized forum on 9/11. Or any other "conspiracy" related group for that matter.

There have been so many good people doing incredibly well thought researches. It's all mind blowing and staggering in effort. I can't expect, nor wish to make any name for myself in this. Nor even come up with a of lot new material.

In fact the only pieces of any conspiracy puzzle I've ever put together was the stand down of Secret Service in 1975. This led to the two feeble attempts on President Ford's life which THEN resulted in George H.W. Bush being put in charge of CIA starting Jan., 1 of the next year 1976. Ending all CIA cooperation with Senate and HSCA.

Not much but I have never seen this discussed elsewhere. It may have happened and probably doesn't really matter. Not a large piece of the pie.

But what i do have to offer are the thoughts of a relative newbie. That said what I notice is all the flack we researchers and hobbyists get when mentioning these ideas anywhere. Doesn't matter what the scenario is Liberal, Moderate or Conservative. I'm a Liberal but my Democratic Party friends practically burn my ears off every time.

That being so I feel like offering a few suggestions and in return maybe others can add their two cents.

1. Don't waste a lot of time trying to convince hostile idiots. Even Bill Maher has become a tool. Cenk Uygyr from The Young Turks is hesitant though not vvehemently opposed to these ideas. Rachel Maddow is a peach but this subject would cost her the job she has at MSNBC.

2. Work with only the most obvious smoking guns with newbies. Like WTC 7, Hani Hanjour being an idiot pilot, lack of Pentagon videos, Norman Minneta's testimony etc. Maybe you can come up with better and easier examples.


The hostile idiots will usually come back at you with some redundant, obfuscating, nonsensical rebuttal. Time after time. This is why we shouldn't waste time. they can only make me mad and offer no helpful input other than to sharpen our claws. Occasionally they may even hit you in an area where you aren't well equipped. Then after feeling that they have struck at your heart will try and devalue everything you say based upon one tiny discrepancy. Either real or imagined in their fictional view. With this kind of attitude it is like they would convict you for an overdue library book while letting a serial killer run free. Metaphorically speaking that is.

Democrats are especially prone to this. Which is odd as the obfuscation/smear attitude is right out of the GOP/Karl Rove playbook. A few of the more viral Dems aren't much more teachable than the nut case tea baggers. Even Chomsky is kind of stupid in this regards. And he should know better.

Again, I'm a newbie at reaching out but for what it's worth it seems to me that the less politically motivated types seem to be more responsive. THis is where I'm finding friends. Righties are all fools and many Liberals think they already know everything. In general the righties are worse and the lefties correct about 2/3rds of the time not including matters of 9/11 or JFK type theories of course.

That's all for now.

Lee

[James H. Fetzer]

Good comments, Lee. Thanks for joining us. I appreciate having the point of view of someone new to all of this.

Lee Cahalan said:

Allow me to start. This is my first attempt to join an organized forum on 9/11. Or any other "conspiracy" related group for that matter.
There have been so many good people doing incredibly well thought researches. It's all mind blowing and staggering in effort. I can't expect, nor wish to make any name for myself in this. Nor even come up with a of lot new material.
In fact the only pieces of any conspiracy puzzle I've ever put together was the stand down of Secret Service in 1975. This led to the two feeble attempts on President Ford's life which THEN resulted in George H.W. Bush being put in charge of CIA starting Jan., 1 of the next year 1976. Ending all CIA cooperation with Senate and HSCA.

Not much but I have never seen this discussed elsewhere. It may have happened and probably doesn't really matter. Not a large piece of the pie.

But what i do have to offer are the thoughts of a relative newbie. That said what I notice is all the flack we researchers and hobbyists get when mentioning these ideas anywhere. Doesn't matter what the scenario is Liberal, Moderate or Conservative. I'm a Liberal but my Democratic Party friends practically burn my ears off every time.

That being so I feel like offering a few suggestions and in return maybe others can add their two cents.

1. Don't waste a lot of time trying to convince hostile idiots. Even Bill Maher has become a tool. Cenk Uygyr from The Young Turks is hesitant though not vvehemently opposed to these ideas. Rachel Maddow is a peach but this subject would cost her the job she has at MSNBC.

2. Work with only the most obvious smoking guns with newbies. Like WTC 7, Hani Hanjour being an idiot pilot, lack of Pentagon videos, Norman Minneta's testimony etc. Maybe you can come up with better and easier examples.


The hostile idiots will usually come back at you with some redundant, obfuscating, nonsensical rebuttal. Time after time. This is why we shouldn't waste time. they can only make me mad and offer no helpful input other than to sharpen our claws. Occasionally they may even hit you in an area where you aren't well equipped. Then after feeling that they have struck at your heart will try and devalue everything you say based upon one tiny discrepancy. Either real or imagined in their fictional view. With this kind of attitude it is like they would convict you for an overdue library book while letting a serial killer run free. Metaphorically speaking that is.

Democrats are especially prone to this. Which is odd as the obfuscation/smear attitude is right out of the GOP/Karl Rove playbook. A few of the more viral Dems aren't much more teachable than the nut case tea baggers. Even Chomsky is kind of stupid in this regards. And he should know better.

Again, I'm a newbie at reaching out but for what it's worth it seems to me that the less politically motivated types seem to be more responsive. THis is where I'm finding friends. Righties are all fools and many Liberals think they already know everything. In general the righties are worse and the lefties correct about 2/3rds of the time not including matters of 9/11 or JFK type theories of course.

That's all for now.

Lee

[James H. Fetzer]

Good catch, Sandy. I have blocked Lomovarman. This entity will not be participating here. Thanks very much.

sandy rose said:

SEE LOMOVARMAN: search the web on this one, i believe this
non person or person is a fraud. i'll put my foot in my mouth if wrong, but with a little help from my i.t. specialist, we found that:
this person/computer has joined tons of groups in the past few days,
possibly all of the .ning variety, uses various photos and always says
n/a instead of male/female, uses Afghanistan as address in all of them
and shows as ALWAYS BEING ONLINE on all groups. i think some of the
groups were even womens' groups.

i thought 'he' was a normal person, duh, and sent 'him' a comment
last night which i believe was blocked, then i removed it after becoming
suspicious, and look, it no longer even says 'he' joined the group on
main page. i would consider this person/computer a fraud and
possibly worse. Lomovarman, if you want to dispute this go right ahead.
i'm listening. all he/it posts are ads for drugs and casinos. i smell a rat.

[Lee Cahalan]

Like many people I've had my doubts about Alex Jones. To the point where I will usually only copy & paste his links but not reference him directly. I probably shouldn't do this but we all have some level of shyness. Our limitations.

The main "problem" with Alex is that he's usually proved correct down the road. My Democratic party buddies distance themselves from him as if he's got the Plague. And yet time after time we see the evidence that Obama is acting as if the Illuminati were going to hurt his family if he starts acting like a real President. He caves in to the banks and puts Rahm Emanuel and Tim Geitner in very sensitive positions to help all the fat cats.

If there was one real reason I have left to doubt Alex Jones it is that someone hasn't killed him in retaliation yet. Seriously! So while I won't drink Fluoridated water at his suggestion I'm not really believing it to be a mind control conspiracy either. Or that Obama will take away the right to bear arms.

But then again maybe we're all just waiting for the other shoe to drop...

The other researcher I'm worried for the sake of his life for is John Hankey. It's like we know we're really on top of something important when we wake up dead.

The internet must be driving the Illuminati bonkers. Can't censor it like CNN, Fox, CBS, NBC etc. So a cyber attack makes a lot of sense coming from their perspective.

In the meantime I hope Alex Jones keeps on "taking one for the team".

[Thoth II]

Self fulfilling prophecy?

I just saw a Jane Velez show where the legal eagles talking heads all weighed in on the guy who wigged out and flew the plane into the IRS building. And of course, I knew what they were going to make a theme for the show even before I watched it: you guessed it! Of course, in their minds, there was no doubt he should immediately be labeled a "domestic terrorist" and they were so vehement about that. I say, stop you brain-washed people. This is a crime, lets go back to law school and determine what the textbook crime statute that was violated. What the heck is this "terrorism" stuff?

Of course, we all know what is behind this. If there are no terrorists, they invent them. If there are crimes, they are subsumed under the "terrorism" umbrella. And the danger of this is that then when that "terrorist" button is invoked, legal traditions go right out the window.

Step by step, we see George Orwell's state coming.

[Sharon Smith]

Watching the History channel yesterday Feb 20, 2010, I saw part of the show "Life after Humans". They were showing what they want us to believe would be natural destruction of the Grand Central Terminal over the Met Life Building. It caught my eye because they had the very top break and lean over and the lower part of the building pulverize from the top down as we saw with the towers. I didn't like this.

[Thoth II]

Are the basic principles of Western Civilization being eroded?

I am wondering lately, and considering the history of the west over the last half century to century, if we are not seeing an erosion in the basic foundation pillars of society that were hammered out in the middle ages and formed the basis for the republic of USA:

in government: the founding fathers established a system of 3 branches of federal govt. with carefully crafted checks and balances, and later the amendments to protect individual rights. Are these being eroded? Well, is there really still a robust set of checks and balances among the various branches of govt? In 2000, the supreme court decided the election for president, is that the way it was supposed to work? During W's regime, apart from the false flag stuff even, he got the congress to pass the patriot and military commission acts. Doesn't that de facto take away the power from the other branches of govt. and put it solely into the hands of the chief executive? And can a congress beholden to K street superwealthy lobbyists, really function in the national interest?

And above is just for the "legitimate" govt.? How does the "secret govt." fit into all this. Would the founding fathers have approved of the national security act of 1947?

For jurisprudence: the founding tenet is the Magna Carta of the middle ages, which one encylopedia descibes as : "Magna Carta required the king to renounce certain rights, respect certain legal procedures and accept that "the will of the king could be bound by law."". But are legal procedures being circumvented with this "war on terror" (the more I think of that concept the more I realize it is an unbounded meaningless phrase). Prisoners are detained without legal representation, american citizens can be branded "terrorists" . I get the feeling that anyone could be arbitrarily branded as a terrorist for any offense and he would no longer have any legal rights.

In science: I am recently seeing books and blogs (like Phil Plaitt's the bad astronomer) that are promoting this idea of "skepticism". But what is it? The established principles of scientific reasoning are such as the IBE technique, well founded methodologies. Is this an attempt to redefine science? And in what way? I don't get what is being meant by "skepticism" .

in economics: what are the principles of free market economy that are being practiced? Seems like monopolies are coming back in, and banks are dipping into public treasuries. Where are labor rights?

in the press: probably everyone reading this forum knows how far, far afield "journalism" has strayed from its intended purpose. Today, pundits rule the airwaves, no serious public debates are being conducted, or if they are, they are being rigged. And last week the Huffington post banned commentary from Jesse Ventura, no doubt because of the great success of his conspiracy theory show. Is the press in america now blatant censorship? And is this an attempt to continue suffocating any serious public discourse through the next several elections?

Is this a reversal back to the medieval times?