The worst part about this big shindig of conspiracy theorists?

[Archae]

Many of the wacko theories being pushed by these assholes I've seen being pushed by DU'ers.

Roger Stone Sells Himself As Trump's Inside Man To Gathering Of Conspiracy Theorists

At a book signing in Austin, Texas, political "dirty trickster" Roger Stone sold himself to a group of conspiracy theorists as a conduit to the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

On February 27, a packed house came to see Stone talk about his official and unofficial involvement with Trump's campaign and promote his books Jeb! and the Bush Crime Family and The Clintons' War On Women (which is dedicated to an anti-Semitic Holocaust denier).

The event was held at Brave New Books, a conspiracy-friendly bookstore that peddles -- alongside several of Stone's books and Flouride Filtration Systems -- books with titles like 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA and Alien Agenda: Investigating The Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us. Brave New Books also hosts a weekly "Conspiracy Comedy Open Mic" and has promoted multiple 9-11 conspiracy books with in-store events.

Also in attendance was Stone's co-author Robert Morrow, who has published bizarre sexual writings about the Clinton family and has wished death on Secretary Clinton.

The night kicked off with an introduction by radio host Alex Jones, arguably the leading conspiracy theorist in America (Infowars.com, his website, called him "one of the very first founding fathers of the 9-11 Truth Movement&quot , who was recently praised by Trump for his "amazing" reputation. Stone, who is a frequent presence on Jones' show, appeared late last week for an extended interview on Jones' program.

During his speech, Jones praised Trump for opposing the "globalist agenda" -- reiterating a previous claim that Trump's call to audit the Federal Reserve was evidence of his support of the conspiracy theory movement -- and described Stone as "the true Trump insider" working to expose the "great mighty Oz."

In his presentation, Stone promoted an array of conspiracy theories, rehashing the unsupported claims in his books that the Clintons have covered up sexual crimes, sometimes with the aid of the Bush family. Stone also claimed that President George H.W. Bush had a role in the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in 1981, and that Lyndon Johnson was involved in the Kennedy assassination.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/03/01/roger-stone-sells-himself-as-trumps-inside-man/208893

[uhnope]

1. there's unfortunately an overlap btwn leftism, anti-US, & conspiracy theories

Though CT has usually been strongest among the far right -- where everything was a Jewish or Communist plot--there has been an overlap between leftist politics and CT for a long time.

Back in the day, people who were fighting for good progressive issues--civil rights, economic fairness, stopping the Vietnam War--sometimes fell prey to dualistic thinking and willful blindness and started thinking the USSR/Russia must be OK since it opposed the USA. Russia is the place that invented the granddaddy of all conspiracy theory hoaxes, the Elders of the Protocols of Zion. The "globalist agenda" from the OP, used by both the right and the left, is just code for The Jews Run the World.

This kind of overlap continues to this day, with people on DU pushing RT videos and pro-Putin propaganda mixed with conspiracy theories--and it's even more bizarre now since Russia no longer pretends to be the land of Soviet equality but is now a hyper-capitalist dictatorship overtly shutting down human rights. RT (Russia Today, funded & run by the Kremlin) recently got caught with an "expert" host who was in fact the editor of a German neo-Nazi magazine, so nothing much has changed.

RT promotes Birthers, Truthers, climate change deniers and even the evils of water fluoridation, while giving airtime to pro-militia "patriots" & dimestore racists. Same for "New World Order", the Illuminati, Bilderberg conspiracy theory, all stand-ins for Jewish world control anti-Semiticism. The anti-Semiticism CT even envelopes Hillary Clinton in the RT bizarroworld.

Have you ever noticed that another major mainstay of conspiracy theories, that the moon landings were fake, just happens to involve the fact that the US is the only country to have landed people on the moon?

There are other reasons for CTers on a progressive website like DU, and some might have other influences than the historical connection between CTs & anti-US extremism. For example, environmentalism overlaps with chemtrail CTs. But it's hard to get away from that historical overlap between anti-US politics and CT.

Some links
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/08/21/conspiracy-theories-arent-just-for-conservatives/
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/18/conspiracy-theories-extreme-right-far-left-threaten-democracy
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2010/russian-tv-channel-pushes-patriot-conspiracy-theories
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RT#Conspiracy_theories
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories

[Archae]

2. Of course.

I just posted an article that is on Cracked.com, about how Venezuela is going to hell in a handbasket.

"The Left" (including a few people here at DU,) know EXACTLY who is to blame for this mess.
The US and the CIA!

Maduro and his cronies being vicious, corrupt, incompetent and brutal like any other banana republic "El Presidente" has absolutely nothing to do with it, donchu know!

[HuckleB]

6. Where did you post that piece?

[Archae]

8. Right here...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027651122

[HuckleB]

9. Thank you!

[Initech]

3. Gathering of Conspiracy Theorists, is that like Gathering Of The Juggalos?

[snooper2]

4. yeah, but instead of boob contests & Faygo, it would be Ipads and drawing in the dirt

Look! I have a SOURCE for it it is true!

Oh, and if you get lucky you'll get a live experiment- Like the GREATEST DU THREAD OF ALL TIME!



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x56836


I set up the following experiment using steel rabbit fencing as the steel structure supporting a heavy cement block.

Note, this fencing is easily bendable, has no significant rigidity, and was not reinforced in any way. The fencing was bent into an outer square and an inner rectangle (the core):



Then I damaged the "columns" by cutting them with wire cutters:




Just inside where the gash was made in the outer wall, I placed a cup of kerosene (jet fuel), and there was newspaper around the bottom on the structure.

Then I put a heavy cement block on top, weighing about 15 pounds. I don't think the wire structure would hold more than three of these blocks, so the "safety factor" was not particularly high.



Then I tipped over the cup and lit the kerosene:





Then fire burned for about twenty minutes, and toward the end, I put my foot on the structure to see if it would extra weight. It still did:


The structure held up fine after the fire died:


After the fire was hot, the "columns" were not hot at all:



In a second experiment, I used the same wire fence and block set up, but increased the amount of "airplane damage", added in newspaper all around the inside of the structure, and soaked everything thoroughly with kerosene. In this expt, the fire was more intense and lasted significantly longer, but... the structure held up just fine. (Sorry no pictures of this one).

What I conclude is that a fairly flimsy steel structure does not distort and bend and collapse very easily from a simple hydrocarbon fire. And thus, it is not clear why the much stronger steel columns in the WTC towers weakened so much from fires that the towers underwent global collapse.

If kerosene/jet fuel/hydrocarbon fires can indeed cause steel structures to collapse, it should be quite simple to show this in an experiment-- right?

[Bonx]

7. That thread right there is a work of art.

The art of laughter

[zappaman]

11. spooked 911 was entertaining until...

He revealed himself to be a holocaust denier.
As are many conspiracy theorists.

[HuckleB]

5. It's truly sad to see liberals conned by anti-science nonsense.

And DU gives their posts a ludicrous number of likes. So few of us are willing to stand up against this harmful propaganda. It's deflating.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Robert Morrow has just been elected as Republican Party Travis County chairman

INSANE NEW GOP CHAIR IN TEXAS COUNTY IS TWO DEGREES OF SEPARATION FROM TRUMP

In non-presidential election results last night, the county that includes Austin, Texas, elected a Republican chairman who's a rage-driven, unsocialized head case -- and who recently co-authored a book with a man who's been a top Donald Trump aide:

The newly elected chair of the Republican Party in the county that includes the Texas Capitol spent most of election night tweeting about former Gov. Rick Perry’s sexual orientation and former President Bill Clinton’s penis, and insisting that members of the Bush family should be in jail.

He also found time to call Hillary Clinton an “angry bull dyke” and accuse his county vice chair of betraying the values of the Republican Party.

“The people have spoken,” Robert Morrow, who won the helm of the Travis County GOP with 54 percent of the vote, told The Texas Tribune. “My friends and neighbors and political supporters -- they wanted Robert Morrow.”

... vice chair Matt Mackowiak, ... a Republican strategist, immediately announced over social media that he would do everything in his power to remove Morrow from office.

...
Morrow's ravings (against the Clintons, against the Bushes, against other politicians) are the product a diseased, rage-driven mind; even if you don't like Media Matters, I recommend this collection of his rants if you have an interest in psychological deviance -- it's worse than a Michael Savage radio marathon, worse than a Breitbart comments section. The material is raw and repulsive -- I'm not a big fan of trigger warnings, but I'm warning you about this material.

http://www.nomoremister.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/insane-new-gop-chair-in-texas-county-is.html