Okay, tin foil hat conspiracies need to go

[Writer]

Not that it's not fun to speculate - who doesn't love to speculate? But the concept that the country is run on some grand master plan where the illuminati get together to either:

a) rig the media
b) rig elections (well... ALL the time, that is)
c) stop/start candidacies

etc. etc. etc. ... is ridiculous.

There ALWAYS will be anecdotal evidence that vote rigging and propaganda exist in this country , but not EVERY powerful group participates. Not EVERY media company is looking to carry out "marching orders," not EVERY election that doesn't go our way has been hit by Diebold.

Sometimes we just don't hear, see, or receive what we want. 'Tis all.

With much respect, common sense, and love to all my sweeties,

Writer.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BlueEyedSon]

2. That the rich and powerful share common goals and exercise their

power to achieve them is a LOGICAL.

[bowens43]

4. fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord

fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnordfnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnordfnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnordfnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnordfnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnordfnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnordfnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnordfnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord fnord

[mongo]

14. Couldn't find any text in your message.

Did you forget to type?

fnord

[anarch]

23. yeah, what's with the blank subject fnord?

it makes me nervous....

[EVDebs]

5. ...and Operation Northwoods and Operation Mockingbird are fantasies ?

What's that George Orwell quote about telling the truth being a revolutionary act ?

[JohnyCanuck]

13. Yeah it's all a conspiracy

so lets all re-insert our heads where the sun don't shine and continue on with our happy, productive lives in Wonderland.

The reporters committee for Freedom of the Press


www.rcfp.org


Operation Mockingbird: CIA Media Manipulation

By Mary Louise

The CIA's secret activities, covert missions, and connections of control are all done under the pretense and protection of national security with no accountability whatsoever, at least in their minds. Considering the public is held accountable for everything we think, say, and do there is something seriously wrong with this picture. The CIA is the President's secret army, who have been and continue to be conveniently above the law with unlimited power and authority, to conduct a reign of terror around the globe.

The "old boy network" of socializing, talking shop, and tapping each other for favors outside the halls of government made it inevitable that the CIA and Corporate America would become allies, thus the systematic infiltration and takeover of the media.

<snip>

The instigators of MOCKINGBIRD were Frank Wisner, Allan Dulles, Richard Helms and Philip Graham. Graham was the husband of Katherine Graham, today's publisher of the Washington Post. In fact, it was the Post's ties to the CIA that allowed it to grow so quickly after the war, both in readership and influence. (8)

MOCKINGBIRD was extraordinarily successful. In no time, the agency had recruited at least 25 media organizations to disseminate CIA propaganda. At least 400 journalists would eventually join the CIA payroll, according to the CIA's testimony before a stunned Church Committee in 1975. (The committee felt the true number was considerably higher.) The names of those recruited reads like a Who's Who of journalism:
Philip and Katharine Graham (Publishers, Washington Post) William Paley (President, CBS) Henry Luce (Publisher, Time and Life magazine) Arthur Hays Sulzberger (Publisher, N.Y. Times) Jerry O'Leary (Washington Star) Hal Hendrix (Pulitzer Prize winner, Miami News) Barry Bingham Sr., (Louisville Courier-Journal) James Copley (Copley News Services) Joseph Harrison (Editor, Christian Science Monitor) C.D. Jackson (Fortune) Walter Pincus (Reporter, Washington Post) ABC NBC Associated Press United Press International Reuters Hearst Newspapers Scripps-Howard Newsweek magazine Mutual Broadcasting System Miami Herald Old Saturday Evening Post New York Herald-Tribune

http://www.apfn.org/APFN/cia-media.htm

"You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month." - CIA operative discussing with Philip Graham, editor Washington Post, on the availability and prices of journalists willing to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories. "Katherine The Great," by Deborah Davis (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1991)

As terrible as it is to live in a nation where the press is known to be controlled by the government, at least one has the advantage of knowing the bias is present, and to adjust for it. In the United States of America, we are taught from birth that our press is free from such government meddling. This is an insideous lie about the very nature of the news institution in this country. One that allows the government to lie to us while denying the very fact of the lie itself.

Operation Mockingbird, The Subversion of the Free Press by the CIA by Alex Constantine



Part 1 of a two part-series
Secret admirers: The Bushes and the Washington Post

By Michael Hasty
Online Journal Contributing Writer

SNIP

With a 21st-century perspective, where internationalism has become globalization, and monopoly capitalism is so powerful it no longer needs to mask its agenda with welfare programs, we can see the Establishment's "liberalism" for the ruthless neoliberalism it has always been. Yet the more powerful and elite the ruling class, the greater its need for an effective propaganda system to maintain that power; and the Washington Post remains, as writer Doug Henwood described it in 1990, "the establishment's paper."

In an article published by the media watchdog group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), Henwood traced the Post's Establishment connections to Eugene Meyer, who took control of the Post in 1933. Meyer transferred ownership to his daughter Katharine and her husband, Philip Graham, after World War II, when he was appointed by Harry Truman to serve as the first president of the World Bank. A lifelong Republican, Meyer had been "a Wall Street banker, director of President Wilson's War Finance Corporation, a governor of the Federal Reserve, and director of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation," Henwood wrote.

Philip Graham, Meyer's successor, had been in military intelligence during the war. When he became the Post's publisher, he continued to have close contact with his fellow upper-class intelligence veterans—now making policy at the newly formed CIA—and actively promoted the CIA's goals in his newspaper. The incestuous relationship between the Post and the intelligence community even extended to its hiring practices. Watergate-era editor Ben Bradlee also had an intelligence background; and before he became a journalist, reporter Bob Woodward was an officer in Naval Intelligence. In a 1977 article in Rolling Stone magazine about CIA influence in American media, Woodward's partner, Carl Bernstein, quoted this from a CIA official: "It was widely known that Phil Graham was somebody you could get help from." Graham has been identified by some investigators as the main contact in Project Mockingbird, the CIA program to infiltrate domestic American media. In her autobiography, Katherine Graham described how her husband worked overtime at the Post during the Bay of Pigs operation to protect the reputations of his friends from Yale who had organized the ill-fated venture.

After Graham committed suicide, and his widow Katharine assumed the role of publisher, she continued her husband's policies of supporting the efforts of the intelligence community in advancing the foreign policy and economic agenda of the nation's ruling elites. In a retrospective column written after her own death last year, FAIR analyst Norman Solomon wrote, "Her newspaper mainly functioned as a helpmate to the war-makers in the White House, State Department and Pentagon." It accomplished this function (and continues to do so) using all the classic propaganda techniques of evasion, confusion, misdirection, targeted emphasis, disinformation, secrecy, omission of important facts, and selective leaks.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Media/020504Hasty/020504hasty.html

[whatever4]

40. oh yes

what a great post on that slant, that was great! :)

[wtmusic]

6. What makes you think it has to be well-organized

to be extremely effective?

We have a huge motive for large corporations (profits) to do the bidding of the * administration.

The thought that Republican think tanks don't assemble to discuss ways to control media and elections seems incredibly naive.

[johnaries]

7. OK. But who gets to decide what's tin-foil hat and what's legit?

:shrug:

[leftofthedial]

8. everyone beware Writer is apparently a tool of the global

Illuminati-Freemason-Bilderberger conspiracy

they must be afraid that we are onto them . . .

:sarcasm:

[Ganja Ninja]

9. So your saying Bush isn't paying off members of the media?

Does the name Armstrong Williams ring a bell?

And you don't think a verifiable system of voting should be a requirement for an honest election?

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. I agree.

After all, over the past five years the Republicans have shown themselves, time and again, to be fair minded, honest to a fault, and completely incorruptible.

You love to speculate -- but do you ever really look at the evidence? Or do you really believe it can't happen here? I suppose you always leave your door unlocked and your keys in the ignition on that same principle.

After all, not EVERYBODY wants to break into your house or steal your car.

[peacetalksforall]

11. Yes, I just checked....my hat is lined with tin foil - this administration

made me do it.

If you don't believe the theories, all the clues and suppositions are useless. You have nothing. Cunning people drop and plant clues. I am proud to be a clue gatherer with a tin foil lining to my hat.

[ailsagirl]

12. No offense, but you're living in a dream world

And it's not "fun to speculate."

Ever hear about "the dumbing down of America?"

Or is that apocryphal as well?

Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, former Senior Policy Advisor in the U.S. Department of Education wrote the book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America in 1999.

http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/pages/book.htm

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Horse with no Name]

16. Wow--you are the best

You've been here 3 months and are able to debunk everything.
Links please?

[ailsagirl]

17. :=)

[JackDragna]

18. True enough. Not every election is rigged..

..but I get little comfort out of this when I know our voting machines are produced by private firms who refuse to release the internal structure of their machines, who do not leave paper records of the votes and are otherwise unaccountable to the public. We may never be able to prove fraud with these machines, but the point of having a verified system is to have a way of ruling it out. When we cannot do that, the very essence of our democracy is threatened. It's no tinfoil-hattery to require our government to use a reliable system of counting our votes.

[Zomby Woof]

19. What bothers me...

Is not speculation, but when speculation is offered as FACT, without evidence.

People take hunches, and assert them as irrefutuable evidence. When you ask a tinfoiler for evidence, you get a barrage of defensive replies and accusations of being a kool-aid drinker, etc. Because it COULD be true, it is asserted as BEING TRUE.

I am not talking about the elections, or even 9-11. I am talking about things like the tsunamis being engineered by Rove, or the recent quakes in CA. THOSE go beyond rational thought for what is valid speculation on government or corporate malfeasance.

[Stirk]

20. You may not agree with them (I often don't), but they're worth noting.

What do you think it says about our society when so many people are seeing malevolent puppeteers under every rock?

It speaks of a very demoralized populace. Alot of people look around and intuitively pick up on the fact that the system has been rigged against them, and the powers-that-be are out to screw them. These feelings may manifest in "kooky, conspiratorial fantasies"- but the feelings that give birth to them are potent and not to be ignored.

I'm also not sure what your definition of "conspiracy theory" is. If you doubt that big money conspires to make more big money, then you need to do some looking around. That's just an obvious fact.

[onenote]

31. it says different things

"What do you think it says about our society when so many people are seeing malevolent puppeteers under every rock?"

Among other things, in some cases it may say that there isn't as much difference between some of the conspiracy theorists on the right (e.g. Vince Foster-philes) and some of the conspiracy theorists on the left. That said, I believe in a healthy skepticism. However, I apply it indiscriminately -- I don't accept what I hear from the administration at face value, but I also don't accept every theory I read about on the Internet at face value either. And I apply to real life the same test I apply to the movies: is it believable or does it suspend reality more than I can accept. For example, if I had seen a movie in which a team of experts managed to secretly implant in both towers of the World Trade Center explosives that would take the buildings down, I would have scoffed at its inherent implausability. And while I've seen speculation that it exactly what happened on Sept 11, I still haven't seen anything that makes it seem any more plausible from a practical standpoint. That doesn't mean, however, that the Bush administration didn't turn a blind eye to evidence that an attack was forthcoming

onenote

[bettyellen]

21. oh i see they just rig elections sometimes, when YOU believe they did....

"anecdotal evidence that ...........propaganda exist(s) in this country , "
how about the president saying it outright? where the heck have you been?

[hughee99]

29. So...

"anecdotal evidence that ...........propaganda exist(s) in this country" = the president outright saying that elections are rigged?

Perhaps many people just aren't clever enought to see this OBVIOUS conclusion.

[bettyellen]

51. the president outright said he's pitching propaganda

* using the word propaganda himself. sorry, i thought it was common knowledge around here.

[hughee99]

67. I understand this...

How does this constitute an admission that the election was rigged?

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

24. You are totally right: Gore didn't win in 2000

The Gulf of Tompkins incident really did happen, and opertion mockingbird and the northwoods plans were all made up by someones whose tie was a little too tight...I mean, its not like the MSM intentionally didnt mention the DSM for the first, what, 6 weeks it was around. just a simple oversight

:sarcasm:

[ailsagirl]

39. And don't forget-- the MSM still insist that "Oswald acted alone"

What a crock.

[Junkdrawer]

25. I think people are starting to look at the pre-2000 election history...

Heard of the Urosevich Bros? Their companies now count 80% of the presidential votes. A Fundie billionaire funded the Urosevich bros. in 1979 and I don't think they could or would go after the Presidency as their first act of election fraud. Several things would have to have been put in place:

1.) They needed time to penetrate the market to their current 80% numbers.

2.) Detailed knowledge of election procedures, including the canvass prior to certification.

3.) Laws would have to be put into place to prevent audits of the software and to lock away or destroy any paper trails.

4.) Friendly Secretary of States would have to be appointed and/or elected as well as friendly local election officials.

This was a long process that probably started at least as far back as the mid 70s.

[iconoclastNYC]

61. Excellent points.

What gets me is people seem to think that just because a conspiracy would require lots of effort and lots of secrecy that it must be impossible.

Most people get to don't get beyond this point. They just come up with the conclusion that it is impossible and stop evaluating the evidence on hand.

The Manhattan project would be a great example of a government conspiracy that required lots of effort and lots of secrecy.

Did we ever get any verification of that conspiracy?

You can call votergate a conspiracy theory. It is a theory. We need to test it. We need a real investigation. And even baring that we need to eliminate the possibility of election fraud. If that makes me crazy then we need to add critical thinking to the DSM-IV

[hemp_not_war]

26. the media, rigged?

no they didn't try to slander people who said bush was lying about WMD. They were trying to investigate it. They didn't ruin Deans candidacy by harping on the Dean yell. Noo I must believe the media is honest because people will say I have tinfoil on my head.

[Individualist]

27. None so blind as he who will not see

Some may pity the willfully ignorant, but I feel nothing but contempt for them.

[QC]

28. OMG!! They've even gotten to Writer! n/t

[RBHam]

30. National Security Act of 1947

This is when the long, slow road to an Orwellian Utopia began.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/cwr/17603.htm

Later, during the Vietnam debacle, "Give "Em Hell" Harry wrote an op-ed publicly REGRETTING ever creating a domestic spy agency.

[rucky]

32. Haven't really heard much about the illuminati around here.

are you addressing something specific, or just ranting?

[oasis]

64. "Aluminati" as in "tin foil".

:spank:

[gorbal]

33. Oh goody, someone to burn a copy of "Outfoxed"

I understand the second two, but it is an established FACT that the media is biased. Not so much by some plan by the "illuminati" as much as to hold on to their cherished white house press passes.

How come we haven't heard hardly a whisper about the Downing Street Memo? That's all the proof you need if your knew copy of "Outfoxed" doesn't clue you into reality;)

[DrDebug]

35. And the illuminati aren't in control either

It's not like most people in the government and CEOs are illuminati :sarcasm:

And the Bohemian Groove is just about people having fun and there was never a child raped there and KKK like murders committed with hooded men!

[Zhade]

34. Uh, yeah, sure. We'll get right on that.

:eyes:

[tinfoilinfor2005]

36. Excuse me...my outfit was designed by "jeb of florida"

from the bottom of my silver boots to the tippy top of my pointy hat.
Us Floridians know ALL about conspiracies...and they ain't theories.

[Jackpine Radical]

37. I just love these wild-assed

coincidence theories.

Like it was just coincidence that PNAC declared their need for "a new Pearl Harbor" and months after Bush got into office and days after his brother set up plans for martial law in FL, we just happened to get that Pearl Harbor on a morning when the Air Force was ordered to stand down for military exercises and then these untrained Saudis flew a big plane for the first time, crashing it precisely into a skyscraper and then 39 minutes later another bunch of Saudis flew another one into another skyscraper and the black boxes were destroyed on both planes and the only piece of evidence was Muhammad Atta's passport that fell out on the sidewalk or something, and then there was that car they left in the parking lot with a Koran and a video on how to fly jumbo jets...

I guess some people will believe in anything. I mean, holy shit man, just how credulous are you, anyway?

[Bridget Burke]

38. So--go to a "conspiracy" thread & express your objections.

There ARE some weird ideas floating around. And some that are all too likely...

Why give everyone a general order to shut up?

[Pastiche423]

41. 18,181 - 18, 181 - 18,181

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

43. Hey Writer: Google 18,181

[Writer]

45. LOL! I'm imagining Alfred Hitchcock music...

cue the dramatic framatta! It's a...

conspiracy! :o :tinfoilhat: :o

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

47. You don't find it strange that 18181 was

the exact number of votes republicans won in a bunch of races?

from http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0307/S00064.htm

November 2002, Comal County, Texas - A Texas-sized lack of curiosity about discrepancies: The uncanny coincidence of three winning Republican candidates in a row tallying up exactly 18,181 votes each was called weird, but apparently no one thought it was weird enough to audit. Conversion to alphabet: 18181 18181 18181 ahaha ahaha ahaha

also, http://blog.democrats.com/node/886:

DANNY SCHEEL (Texas): 18,181 votes (Comol County)
CARTER CASTEEL (Texas): 18,181 votes (Comol Country)
JEFF WENTWORTH (Texas): 18,181 votes (Comol County)
CANDICE MILLER (Michigan): 18,181 Votes (Lapeer County)
MICHAEL SMIGIEL (Maryland): 18,181 Votes (St. Anne's)
All five won and all five Republicans.

[Name removed]

42. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[meganmonkey]

46. Ha! Thanks for clarifying that for me.

I'll just go home and watch reality TV and CNN and buy an SUV now.

There's no one out to get me!

:hide:

[Name removed]

48. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[The Magistrate]

49. This Discussion, Ladies And Gentlemen

Must be carried out without further accusations that persons who disagree with a particular view-point are, by virtue of that, rightists and disruptors.

A half dozen messages have been removed for that cause, and it grows tiresome.

[DemonFighterLives]

50. Lots of deleted messages

:tinfoilhat:

[The Magistrate]

52. Comedy, Sir, Is Best Left To Professionals....

[DemonFighterLives]

54. Thank you Sir for the offhand cutdown

And thanks for destroying the debate. Why don't you just throw this whole thread in the trash. It is flamebait anyway.

[The Magistrate]

55. It Presents, Sir, A View Different Than Yours

A view many members of this forum hold.

My comment was meant to treat in a humorous fashion something that could, in context, be considered a more grave sort of thing, as a public questioning of the need for the deletions, or their propriety. that seemed the best course to me, in the situation, and you have my apology for any offense given.

[DemonFighterLives]

57. Thank you Sir!

I was attempting to educate the OP on their rediculous statement. There is a lot of truth contained in the so-called conspiracy theories.
Just because everything can be written off as a conspiracy, does not mean that some "conspiracy theories" will be proven true in the future.

[The Magistrate]

63. My Only Point, Sir

Is that discussion of the question be carried on without violation of the rule against alleging an opponent to be a conservative disruptor. Among my many flaws of character is a disinclination to unnecessary effort....

"Never put off till tomorrow what you vcan put off till the day after tomorrow."

[Lilith Velkor]

59. Well, Sir, I thought it was funny.

Brevity being the soul of wit and all that. YMMV. :shrug:

[DemonFighterLives]

62. Har de har nt

[damntexdem]

53. Conspiracies?

Did a conspiracy rig the media? Well, actually, it is a group of large corporations that together owns the media. Do they need to conspire? Or are their interests all in killing real news reporting?

Is a conspiracy rigging elections? Again, a small group of corporations control computer voting where it is used. Do they need to conspire to rig elections? Or do they do it on their own? And aside from computer voting, there is evidence that local election officials, and sometimes local policy officials, have undertaken actions that denied votes to many Americans. Did they have to conspire? Or did they simply follow the examples of their granddaddies -- use the techniques that so long denied African Americans their voting rights in the South?

Is a conspiracy controlling candidacies? Well, two parties have long controlled candidacies. Do they conspire? Well, recently, certainly not with each other!

So, no, I don't see any conspiracies. Just business as usual.

[Terran1212]

56. How do you think the rich, powerful, militaristic are always in power?

Manipulation of the people and direct control of them in times where democracy has a chance of breaking out (great depression, vietnam)

There are very active conspiracies, and calling people "tin foil" hat wearers is just playing into the hands of the conspiracy.

[gatorboy]

58. Really? Gee, it works for the Conservatives.

Newsweek, Dan Rather....All considered a grand conspiracy to take down our great President and destroy America...And people believed it.
None of these stories were ever proven to be true fabrications. But they were drilled into the heads of Americans hard enough that they lost all legitimacy in alot of people's minds.

[Lilith Velkor]

60. Go where, pray tell? n/t

[Media_Lies_Daily]

65. Yeah? And what is it that you want to hear or see? Nothing at all?....

...that sounds like the philosophy of the NeoCon Junta.

Take a hike.

[Walt Starr]

66. Well, you wrote it, but that doesn't mean you're right.

:shrug:

Go figure.