How many "Crazy Conspiracy Theories" have to come TRUE before we realize these are extreme times?

Stolen Elections in 2000 and 2004.

WMDs in Iraq.

Torture.

Disabling Iraqi Oil Pipeline Meters and leaving them disabled.

Handing out $100 bills to Afghani warlords.

Shipping 330 tons of $100 bills on massive palates to Iraq, where the money promptly disappeared.

So many more "crazy conspiracy theories" that have all turned out to be true true TRUE!

Now this one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hYaZhZDdeI

...Bushler and Cheney not only contemplated just throwing off the mask and "going straight to Nazi", they fully and completely had prepared the legal justification for doing so...like the Nazis.

So, each and every minute the legions of Coincidence Theorists descended to sneer and smear, it was THEY who were full of shit. 100% completely and totally.

Coincidence Theory Defined: Coincidence Theory: By sheer chance things just happen repeatedly and coincidentally to benefit (a certain group's) interests without any conscious connivance by (that certain group), which is most uncanny. (thanks to seemslikeadream and Michael Parenti)

I might also add that a Coincidence Theorist ONLY believes in thing that have been fully investigated and vetted and told to them they can "officially" believe, but their attitude is such that dismisses any investigation of anything not yet having been investigated sufficiently for them.

This is a Catch-22, which, if Law Enforcement followed such dictates there would never be anything investigated at all.

BushCheney and their bunch LITERALLY created the legal justification for virtually ALL of Hitler's atrocities, minus the legal rationale for liquidation of slave labor prisoners, which would have come naturally once the rest was in place. Besides, that may be in one of the memos still to be released.

But the fact is, the nine memos show QUITE CONCLUSIVELY, that peoples fears were NOT "crazy conspiracy theories", but concerns that anyone with a sense of history and an eye toward understanding human and totalitarian nature could have seen.

And DID see!

Now, what will the dwindling legions of Bullshit Coincidence Theorists say NOW?

That those memos only outlined a detailed plan and legal justification? Just that written detailed plans don't mean anything and that we were NEVER in danger from totalitarian tyranny?

Except that it was planned and rationalized to the point where it was ready to swing into action at a moment's notice.

:rofl:

I expect them to say that and more. It is no coincidence that Coincidence Theorists sound a lot like Sean Hannity dismissing Lib'ruls. Not that they are all Hannidiots, but that the mindsets are clearly similar.

How much more evidence do they need? Like the Bushies, no amount of fact and evidence will stop their Coincidence Theorizing and contemptuous smearing. It's what they do.

But NOW, the evidence is out there, and they look more ridiculous in doing so. It is a FACT that CheneyBush prepared full detailed legal rationalizations of essentially what Hitler did, minus the industrialized slaughter of Liberals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hYaZhZDdeI

FACT. Suck on FACT, you Coincidence Theorists. Give me more of your unsubstantiated pie-in-the-sky sneering!

:rofl:

You've been right about everything so far.

:sarcasm: :rofl:

Hey Coincidence Theorists? Want to change the fact that you're repeatedly proven wrong so many times over and over? Just remember this: In a strong, healthy Republic, you'd be right more often. But the more totalitarian a nation is, the more under threat it is from the forces of totalitarianism, the more "crazy conspiracy theories" turn out to be true FACT.

NOTE: Clearly Obama's election is a good sign, but only a fool believes the danger of a totalitarian sub-group like the Rushpublic Party goes away just because they lose an election or two. Nazis and Rushpublicans are playing on a different field entirely. We would do well to remember that when assessing their continued danger to America.

in "coincidence."

"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way."

We are in good company.

:toast:

that which can be explained by stupidity.

Think about it. Every mendacity they knowingly perform, instantly and automatically absolved by your naive attitude.

Thanks for proving my point. That's a very bad attitude you have, and I am sorry to be so blunt.

But, don't take my word for it.

Listen to someone who has much more direct experience than I.

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/jaspers02.htm

Saying, "He's too stupid to pull anything off" or "the administration is incompetent". From where I'm sitting they achieved almost every single goal they set out. People who think that the Bush administration are incompetent boobs are politically naive.

And always has. People can ALWAYS be counted on to not believe what they're seeing, to navel gaze and wonder and hem and haw as to whether what they are seeing could be true.

ALWAYS. And while the suckers are wondering, the Bushes don't spend one nanosecond "wondering". Not one nanosecond.

It's all about shattering basic assumptions and people's unwillingness to abandon them with the changing of the times.

If one assumes the Bushies were trying to "do good" but in their own way from their own beliefs, THEN it MUST BE that the Bushies were incompetent.

Because the horrifying realization that the worst kind of criminals just basically went on an 8-year crime spree is too much for people to take. Avoiding the blow to the ego, that comes with realizing that they were so badly fooled for so long, becomes in itself an unconscious reason for persisting in naivete.

All tyrants know of this aspect of the human condition. They knew it instinctually long before pyschology ennumerated and quantified it.

Even ol' J. Edgar Hoover knew it and said it, "The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a Conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists."

But it all springs from denial.

I am not seeing what I am seeing. It is impossible. Therefore I do not see it.

Some things never change much, do they?

Sounds like it belongs in an Octofish post.

Oh, yeah, I'm way on board with your worldview.

-Hoot

Bushies and Nazis ALWAYS accuse others of what they are doing themselves.

Still doesn't make it any less true, in this particular case.

Cheney and his neo-Nazi cabal were not. Chimpenfuhrer did as he was told to do by his masters. That he certainly agreed with them is somewhat beside the point. Everything can be traced back to DicKKK.

by what he accomplished in the same breath.

...not just in how he did it. It's hardly like intelligence is a singular thing -- there are different kinds of intelligence. Bush's stupidity was in stubborn adherence to simplistic ideas, it was in his lack of intellectual curiosity, it was in surrounding himself with yes-men. That certainly doesn't mean he didn't have some of the kind of intelligence you need to manipulate people to follow you -- even with Rove's help, Bush obviously needed some of that kind of intelligence to get elected. Once you've got people willing to follow you, or merely willing to pretend to follow you while using you for their own agendas, it doesn't take a lot of intellectual fortitude to tell other people what you want them to do for you, and letting a lackey with the necessary brain power attend to the details.

his entourage was very very cunning and clever....

What a lot of people said is that bush is too stupid to be running the show, but I can't think of anyone here who said that the powers behind the throne so to speak weren't completely competent and executing a very purposeful and sinister agenda.

Few if anyone was talking about people like Cheney or Rove as "incompetent boobs"

Is incompetent. But Poppy, Cheney, Rumsfailed, Condi, Wolfowitz, Turdblossom know how to play the game.

Don't presume that tyrants are brilliant, merely determined. Presuming that Bush was following a well thought out policy is a mistake. It was a herky jerky move towards goals that were rarely if ever accomplished. They had no intention of getting stuck in Iraq for this long. They thought they could bomb their way to success in Iran. They thought they could undermine Fatah in Israel and not empower Hamas. Trying to out wit the witless is an exercise in futility. One of the big mistakes minorities tend to make is to try to "prove them wrong". That's letting them control the argument. They had goals they were pursing, those goals can be opposed. Presuming that they were capable of being particularly talented in pursuing them is the mistake many made, and came to regret.

How about going through the entire process of rationalizing the full tyrannization of the US, which is why I posted this in the first place?

That a "mistake", too? They sure spent a lot of time on a "mistake".

Sorry, guy. You're a Coincidence Theorist. And awfully naive. Good luck with that whole, "being the last to figure it out", thing.

Sorry to be so harsh, but this kind of naivete, even NOW, is not only staggering, but proves my point nicely.

Did you even watch the You Tube I linked to?

You are extremely dismissive of my views considering this is a discussion forum.

You presume much, including that the tyrannizing was a goal, instead of a method.

I do not suggest their actions were coincident, merely that they were not methodical.

They pursued goals, and they took actions to pursue those goals that were neither smart, nor well conceived. You are assigning them goals they never expressed, and ignoring those goals they did express. In the process you suggest an amount of cunning in attempting to achieve those unspoken goals by subterfuge using the goals they did express, as a diversion. Their goals were real and open, it was their methods they chose to try to hide. They were spectacularly unsuccessful at both. Those methods were a means to and end, not an end in and of themselves. Their intention on hiding their methods was to avoid undermining their goals by association. These people demonstrated little if any particular brilliance, and quite to the opposite, people both on the inside and outside were astounded by their incompetence, even folks who might otherwise be sympathetic to their wider aims. The magnitude of their failures, if nothing else, should be testimony to their lack of brilliance.

I am dismissive because you have been twisting into a pretzel to hold up your end of our "conversation".

You have descended into pure sophistry and it is pointless for me to do other than shake my head and laugh.

Sorry. The twisted semantics of goals and methods borders on something Rush might say.

And your bull about "what goals they expressed".

Yeah, criminals ALWAYS come right out and express their goals.

In either case, the distinction of tyranny as differentiating as a "goal" or a "method", I am sorry to say, is the worst kind of sophist BS.

I don't mind that you disagree with me, not at all. What incurs my dismissiveness is that you refuse to make an argument for yourself on something other than sophistry and false premises, which cannot be argued against because they shift like mercury as you need them to.

You keep displaying willful obstuseness to make your "points". But a point made on willful obtuseness and semantic hair-splitting is no point at all.

Your whole post is shot through with willful obtuseness, all based on YOUR faulty premise that stupidity explains everything "even folks who might otherwise be sympathetic to their wider aims".

Well, DUH!

Which is a more beneficial "explanation" to sell the gullible? That Bushler's "failures" were just honest mistakes of a good guy gone stupid? Or that they are tyrants aiming for tyranny, as close as they can get until conditions permit another push forward?

No, that doesn't serve anyone's self-interest for you to think them stupid insetad of mendacious. No criminal would rather have you think they were good guys, but just stupid, instead of criminals.

:rofl:

Nevermind. Don't bother replying. If I want what you've got, I'll just toodle over to FR. THEY probably think BushCheney was just "stupid", too.

"In either case, the distinction of tyranny as differentiating as a "goal" or a "method", I am sorry to say, is the worst kind of sophist BS."

It is the conflict between "the ends justify the means", and your inference that the means DEFINE the ends. You are suggesting that the presence of certain means is an indication of an intent towards a particular set of goals. What I'm saying is that means are means and goals are goals and one isn't the same as the other. There is no doubt that there is a danger in the pursuit of certain means toward certain ends that can result in "unintended consequences". The most common problem in politics is the pursuit of power towards accomplishing certain goals, at which point the pursuit of power BECOMES the goal. Furthermore, as I suspect you are concerned, in the pursuit of power, the power itself becomes so intoxicating (especially in the hands of a man who had admitted addiction problems) that the end result is tyranny, even if it was not the initial goal. My personal objection to much of the power they were pursuing was that ultimately we have found that whether they intended on becoming tyrannical, they or their successors would ultimately have gotten there, regardless of what their intents were.

But again, I don't understand the connection between this and conspiracy theories, much less coincidence theories.

You said, "But again, I don't understand the connection between this and conspiracy theories, much less coincidence theories."

I must have not made myself clear in my OP and all the posts after. Let's just leave it at that.

That sounds like a useful outcome from a discussion forum.

and their true goals remained unspoken?

Consider Iraq - the stated goal was, first, to eliminate a threat of WMDs. It was a LIE. They knew there were no WMDs before we invaded - if they hadn't known it they would not have felt it necessary to present forged documents to bolster their case.

The unstated, true goal was to gain operational control over Iraqi oil fields. Goal accomplished.

The just-released memos indicate that the tyrannizing of America WAS their goal, not a method. They realized that even despite 9/11 the American people were not ready for such drastic measures, that they would not get away with it. If it had been an incompetent method, rather than a goal, they WOULD have proceeded with it. The pushed the boundries to the breaking point, but not beyond - if people objected to 'free speech zones', they would never accept Night and Fog as governmental policy.

Bush is a moron.
Cheney is not.
Cheney is the one who was really in charge for the last 8 years. And he accomplished the vast majority of his goals - just very few of Bush's stated goals.

I'm absolutely sure they have unspoken goals. However, it is a leap to go from there to presuming an attempt at tyrannical government. The just released memos (to the extent I've read them) don't seem to express these as stated goals. In my mind it is the inescapable conclusion if such policies were actually enacted. I think potentially people even inside the administration saw the same thing. However, it isn't clear how often, or to what extent they were used. We know they were ultimately withdrawn. Such actions would suggest that it wasn't tyranny they were pursuing, but merely more executive power.

"If the President does it, it means it is NOT illegal."

Richard M. Nixon

I've said several times that whether it was a goal, or a means to an end, the end result is inescapable. Power tends to corrupt. The magnitude of power he was seeking would have been dangerous in anyones hands. IMHO congress should take these memos, and pass specific legislation to ensure that nothing like them can be written again. We're long past the time that the war powers act be modified.

Hoffer gave us the definition of what it takes to be an evil leader. If I can find my copy of that book, I will type out what he wrote. You will be stunned at how it fit Bush.

...but if something looks fishy i assume cunning until proven otherwise. at high levels of government and business, hell, even at low levels, people play really dirty, almost as a matter of course.

explaining to the KKK Bunch how the "new slavery" of sharecropping was going to work.

During his explanation, Burl says, "Ol' Brer Rabbit, if he can't get his way one way, he's got to find another way. And bye and bye ol' B'rer Rabbit will get his way."

The fact this that this one statement, in a very folksy way, says exactly what you are saying. In many cases, possibly most cases, Occam's Razor doesn't work for people as it does for scientific principle and experimentation.

I agree with you, where people are concerned, it's usually mendacity first, stupidity second.

forestalls any preparation for the next 'stupid' thing that occurs.

Which is, in the end, more dangerous - to think it was 'cunning' and be proven wrong, or to think it was 'stupidity' and be proven wrong?

Like so many have shown so many times throughout history, to think it's "stupidity" and then be proven wrong.

But the human conidition of Denial makes it certain that will keep happening again and again and again, just like it is happening now.

I'd say as an abstract, to be wrong in these situations has equivalent outcomes. If you resist cunning when you are fighting stupidity, you may fail. If you resist stupidity when you are up against cunning, you may also fail. To fail against either is to run the risk of allowing them to succeed. To some extent this gets to my point elsewhere that one needs to resist the goals (intents, whatever) regardless of the intelligence or lack thereof. Now of course becomes the problem of what are the "true" intents.

when some dumb platitude already exists to confirm your prejudice.

:toast:

than overwhelming force.

"Never credit to cunning that which can be explained by stupidity" is a line that is used to temper a knee jerk reaction.

It is meant that you better get your facts straight before you accuse anyone.

Now, when you start asking for evidence and performing due diligigence on matters that should be public knowledge, or knowledge that you have a right to know, and those individuals Delay, omit, obfuscate, hide, delete, lose, destroy, corrupt, secrete or classify the information, then you have to admit that there may be some reason behind it.

We know that the Bush Administration is a bunch of crooks. We know that there is some force controlling the Mainstream Media, so one has to assume that all of this vile, hateful speech is condone by some greater force to continue to create rifts in society, suppress life changing information that would affect opinion to the detriment of established institutions.

Wake up people. The only way people like Rush, Hannity, Cramer and Hume can even be able to do what they do is through a complicit government that uses it as a tool to manipulate opinion. They trot out the vacuum headed mouthpieces with the well crafted message to reassure, Inflame or nudge the public in directions they see fit. Then they repeat it over and over again while real information is stuffed into the memoryhole.

The sad thing is that while the Cancer is inflaming the public out in the open, these pathogenic individuals can use Freedom of Hate speech as defense, and wrap themselves in the flag as they foment revolution.

Exactly. It's not a freaking accident, it's directed, by specific people, with specific interests.

I did Hume's genealogy recently. Members of his immediate family connected to DC government & banking back to the 1800s.

He, Obama & the Bullitt family (Kentucky, DC, Seattle) share a common ancestor.

i chose it because of the theft of 2000.

to implement a certain PNAC plan......but no I am the crazy tinfoil hatter so what did I know.??;.

Nah, (PDF, what stinking PDF?)

:-)

such as a new Pearl Harbor."

Not the exact quote... but very close.

yes, that is me, feel free to quote me... oh my... actually that is pretty good... I guess I will use it in novel

You eeren't paying attention to the other half of what was going on.

I've never heard of a "coincidence Theorist" and you quickly switch from a conspiracy theory, which would seem to be just the opposite of coincidence. The items you list were known to be true virtually at the time that they were occuring.

"Coincidence Theory: By sheer chance things just happen repeatedly and coincidentally to benefit their interests without any conscious connivance by them, which is most uncanny. There is also: Stupidity Theory, Innocence Theory, Momentary Aberration Theory, Incompetence Theory, Unintended Consequences Theory and Innocent Cultural Proclivities Theory."

- Michael Parenti

is brilliant. i need to read more of him.

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=parenti :hi:

i'm bookmarking this thread so i don't lose it...thank you! :yourock:

they were occurring, but that is staggeringly false.

I know. I was speaking out about these things and, while a very few "knew them to be true", 99% of people and even 70% of DUers, did NOT.

I KNOW. I was here and speaking out about them. Not just here on some anaonymous message board but out in the Real World.

How 'bout you? Were you warning people we were going to return torture to Iraq BEFORe the Iraq War>

I was.

Again, how glibly and easily you say that all thiose thing were known to be true as they were happening.

Let me say it clearly, there could be nothing more false than what you said unless you said, "1 + 1 = 132".

99% of people, at the time they were happening, did NOT believe these "Crazy Conspiracy Theories".

I will go back and add the definition of Coincidence Theorist to my original post. Thanks for pointing that out.

Stolen Elections in 2000 and 2004.

I'm not sure what part of this you think wasn't known at the time. We knew about the conflicts, the removal of the names from voter rolls, the spoiled ballots, Katherine Harris, etc. What are you alluding to here?

WMDs in Iraq.

Hans Blix virtually said as much.

Torture.

At what point? It was one of the concerns of setting up a Gitmo to begin with.

Disabling Iraqi Oil Pipeline Meters and leaving them disabled.

I might give you this one other than to ask who didn't know that "needed" to know.

Handing out $100 bills to Afghani warlords.

I'd heard about that one virtually as we were cooperating with the supposed "Northern Alliance". One of my concerns from the outset was that we were (once again) allying with people that subsequently wouldn't be all that interested in working with us.

Shipping 330 tons of $100 bills on massive palates to Iraq, where the money promptly disappeared.

Again, the stories were wide spread of officers with "bricks" of cash on their desks almost like paper weights. Exactly what "lag" in this story are you claiming?

The fact that 85-99% of a given populace disbelieves something makes it consensually believed to be true?

To use one example of the lie you just told, "Hans Blix said as much."

Well, duh! The point was that FEW BELIEVED HIM. Way to beg the question and miss the point.

Are you being willfully obtuse? Because pretending not to understand what "consensually believed to be true" means allows you to twist into a pretzel to make your point.

Good God, what did the vast majority of the populace believe at the time?
Yeah, we knew. But did anyone not digging like crazy for the truth amid the bullshit, or just casually watching CNN, believe them to be true?

NO WAY! I'll not do your research for you, but plenty of polls prove me correct about WMDs (2002-2003) and all the rest, though not all were polled.

To twist it into a pretzel and say that a handful knowing they were true stands in for the fact that, even TODAY, polls show approaching 50% STILL think Iraq had something to do with 9/11.

People never fail to astonish. The pretzel-like, Rush-like crazy that people will twist up into, just to make their point, is staggering.

That is why I think the tyrants love you, because you're always the last to know. So naive. So willing to go all loopy and tell basically 100% lies in the service of defending your ego.

Don't stop there. make up some more stuff. How about, "Everyone knew Watergate was a real crime in 1972, just after the story broke."

How about, "Everyone knew from 1941 on that the Germans were industrially extreminating Jews, ad the Death amps surprised NO ONE when they were broken into in 1945."

Don't stop now. tell me "1 + 1 = 3" and that disproves me.

Are you willfully ignorant, or just desperate not to yield?

How's about you try to understand me. I'm saying I see no connection between "coincidence theory" and the things of which you refered. The information was freely available at the time and the reason people did, or did not, understand or believe the information has nothing to do with such a theory, but merely a case of poorly placed trust. Try doing something Bush never did, make your case.

What makes a "conspiracy theory" a "conspiracy theory", whether it turns out to be true or not, is that very few believe it.

I am trying to understand why you can't or won't acknowledge that?

Can you not see that your last line is not only a Catch-22, but a logical fallacy of the highest order?

How oculd I make my point with something Bush never did, to make a case for things that were "conspiracy theories" that later turned out to be true?

If they were never done, would they not then be fully "conspiracy theories", and incorrect? I'd be making YOUR point, if I brought that up.

THAT'S why I am reacting to you as I am, because increasingly it's like trying to argue with a Rush-listener, albeit a very nice, polite one.

You want me to prove my case of "conspriacy theories that increasingly turn out to be true" by citing a case of a "conspiracy theory" that turned out to be false?

:wtf:

"Poorly placed trust"? :wtf: Irrelevant. The only question here is, what did the vast majority of people believe at the time? Nothing more, and any twisting you do drags us further and further away from my original point.

THAT is why I am reacting to you the way I am, not because we disagree.

I already made my case, illustrated by the YouTube of yet ANOTHER "wacky conspiracy theory" that turned out to be completely TRUE, that Bush was planning a full-blown Nazification of the nation, even if he never got the chance to implement his designs.

Not to worry, if people remain as steadfastly convinced as you that the last 8 years was a bunch of "stupid failures" instead of brilliant successes, (to the Bushies, not to us) which we delude ourselves into thinking were "stupid failures" because it's too painful to acknowledge the truth, then we assure that the Bushies will be back to finish the job with a bunch more "stupid mistakes".

"What makes a "conspiracy theory" a "conspiracy theory", whether it turns out to be true or not, is that very few believe it."

A conspiracy theory is one of two things. At its most simply, it is an explanation of an outcome of events based upon a hypothesized coordination, in secret, between people who are intent upon hiding their involvement or responsibility. Alternately one could say it is the supposition of the previous in the absence of any evidence. The degree to which people do or do not "agree" with it is inconsequential. There are boat loads of folks that believe Kennedy was killed by the CIA, that the moon landing was faked, that the Rothschilds control all the money, and that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.


Everything after that extends from this basic misunderstanding, which is why I started out trying to figure out how you got from a conspiracy theory, to a "coincidence theory".

We should probably stop conversing. There is clearly a fundamental misunderstanding here.

Again, you are splitting hairs. You said, "There are boat loads of folks who believe Kennedy was killed by the CIA."

But are they in the majority, or anywhere NEAR the majority. Would you feel comfortable announcing such a view to people you had never met before or would you be embarased, thinking it amkes you look crazy?

It's exhausting, this neverending hair-splitting of yours. I have to be honest. Minutiae and sophist semantics. Wrangling over the meanings of things that have already been made clear.

You're not an angry or aggressive guy. You haven't smeared me nor spoken to me with anything but civility, and so I do apologize in those places if I unwarrantedly smeared you out of temper.

But, there's really not much more to say Fundamental misunderstadning and I simply cannot go 'round and 'round with you splitting semantic hairs. Exhausting in the extreme.

This conversation is literally going nowhere. Let's end it.

You don't correct fundamental misunderstandings by not speaking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory

The above lays out a set of definitions of conspiracy theory. None of them make particular reference to the numbers of people, must less a majority, who particularly agree or accept the assertions. Quite honestly, you're the first person I've ever encountered that connected such a definition to the expression. Can you give any objective reference to any source that agrees with your definition of a conspiracy theory? This isn't splitting hairs, it is a fundamental difference in definition. On many of the topics I listed, a "majority" of people would have no opinion at all, and many would not have any knowledge what so ever.

I like your measure of "would you feel comfortable". An interesting metric, because regardless of the depth or breadth of support, there is a social stigma associated with a particular point of view. Using that metric, in 2002-03 I would have felt quite comfortable stating "I'm concerned that Bush has over stated the case for WMD's and that Hans Blix and others aren't nearly as convinced". Even more honestly, I stated several times that "when the inspectors were thrown out in the early '90s, they were still finding stuff". I was given the kinds of uncomfortable reactions by my peer group that you suggest. There was a definite sense at the time that Bush was inflating the case to make a case for war. I'll admit, it was less because they "believed" Blix and more because they already had a healty mistrust of Bush.

Here we are again, splitting hairs over what "conspiracy theory" means.

Sigh. First off, I looked at the wiki explanation, and I am going to put aside my general distrust of wiki where it is a statistical certainty that, at any given time, X number of entries are going to be wrong, awaiting correction.

Even ignoring that, the wiki definiton is weak in the extreme and anything but definitive. That is because the term "conspiracy theory" not unlike the term "fascism", is very undefined. And fascism, unlike "conspiracy theory" HAS an "Oxford definition".

Look, you're a nice person, but every time I answer one split hair of yours, you lay another on me.

So, rather than waste time elaborating on this split hair, so that you can move onto the next one, I am going to repeat that I am sick of splitting hairs, that is all you have done for so many posts running, and I am exhausted.

You are trying to apply metrics to a term that has not even been defined fully. I have explained myself in several different ways, and your replies, polite and civil as they are, are like wrestling with a giant ball of bubble gum.

How many definitions are we going to argue over? How many times must you split hairs, I then reply, then you move on and split another hair?

What's the definition of "is"?

Listen, like I said I have nothing against you, and would have no problem or issue with you on discussing another topic.

Maybe the fault is mine and I am too impatient. It doesn't matter. I'm tired of splitting hairs and clarifying the explanations of my every word.

I feel like I am in Philosophy 101 again, debating wheteher life is all a dream or not.

You have been civil and polite. I have tried to do the same, and apologize if I failed.

But this is going nowhere and it appears that there is no end to the "misunderstandings", so I am ending it.

However, I accepted your alternate definiton of the social acceptable nature of the explanation. Even that definition does not seem to support your conclusion that WMD's or the 2000/2004 elections were conspiracy theories. The 2000 election had virtually everyone with an opinion and I can't see how that can be described as either a extreme minority view, or that there was some socially unacceptable position that you are now claiming is socially acceptable.

You are trying, if I understand your original point, to make the case that the previous administrations goals were to convert the country into a totalitarian type state. You use as support of that the case that they produced justifications (most clearly illustrated in the recently released memos) for their actions which had totalitarian methodologies to them. However, does it not occur to you that 1) they failed and 2) they withdrew those justifications and in fact as of yet it is unknown the extent to which they actually were comfortable using them? Unless their plan is either to "rise again" or for the personnel the "burrowed" into the various departments (not popularly understood but still not a conspiracy theory) to complete their nefarious plans, they are either catastrophic failures or extremely incompetent.

My view was merely that it was NOT their intent to create a totalitarian state, and that they were merely careless. We were aided in that they were also incompenent because despite their intent, cunning folks could have achieved the same without trying. And this is the basis of my stupidity vs cunning comes from.

To share air or breath together. Which is an allusion to the act of conspiring-speaking closely or in hushed tones.


The reason we are talking about 'coincidence-theory' is that so much of what was labled 'conspiracy theory,' by the right wing pundit brigatd and by stupidly conventionalist-centrist-corporate "journalists," and indeed reinforced by Stockholm syndrome suffering DLC democrats, has turned out to be true.

'Coincidence Theory' is a way of rubbing their faces in it for the way they have ignored casaulity and reverted to using the term 'conspiracy theory' as a means of dismissing any action from actually having an intention behind it. It is a way of questioning the logic of people that seem to ascribe null motivation to events that are, by their nature planned, and therefore have planners.

I am absolutely sick to death of this hair splitting nonsense as well. If so much of this was done in secret, then the perpetrators, whatever bone-headed and absurd intentions we ascribe to the actions, must have known the action to be legally questionable. Because it took the actions of more than one to create, enact, and carry out theses actions then we have a conspiracy. I don't know how it could be clearer.

it was so obvious that their was a power play made by the W administration that it should not even be considered conspiricy, it was done out in the open..

that they let a lot of BS slide to preserve their mental picture of how the would was structured with the US govt. being good. to do otherwise would have made the US govt evil and destablized their worlds mentally, so whether they knew it or not they bought on to some hardcore BS.

with a small group of like-minded people.

it was a tremendously unpopular stance; people mostly believed the propaganda, or kept their mouths shut.

maybe it's the people who kept their mouths shut who now say they "knew".

why didn't you speak up when it might have made a difference, you s.o.b.s?

it cost me to do so in small-town conservative america.

(slowly if necessary)..

All of these were considered conspiracy theories at one time till people persevered to get to the truth


The gagging of Sibel Edmonds
The outing of Valerie Plame
The war in Iraq
COLLUSION: INTERNATIONAL ESPIONAGE AND THE WAR ON TERROR.
Iran/Contra - George Bush Sr.
BCCI
Tuskegee Syphilis Study
IBM and the Holocaust
Operation Mockingbird
The Manhattan Project
The Catholic Church covering up the pedophilia by priests
Enron
Watergate
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident
Vietnam and Other American Fantasies (Culture, Politics, and the Cold War)
Live American POWs in Vietnam
Internal Combustion
philanthropies launched a national campaign of ethnic cleansing in the United States
"Fixing" of intelligence around the desire to invade Iraq --- October Surprise
"Black Box Voting" and computer hacking of elections -- See: VOTESCAM
Operation Gladio
MK-ultra.
COINTELPRO: The FBI's War on Black America
Watergate -- including "black bag jobs" and "The Huston Plan"
Operation Paperclip
CIA coups on democratically elected leaders all around the world ---
CIA-backed death squads in El Salvador
Operation Northwoods
Savings & Loan Theft and Embezzlements
The Drug War is also an obvious conspiracy
CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine connection
Operation Phoenix, torture program in Vietnam
GULF WAR ILLNESS
Control Room -- Propaganda of the Iraq War
Watergate
The Other Side: An Interview with William Blum
1990 Testimony of Nayirah:
The Mafia
The Dreyfus Affair
Echelon
Ashcroft stopped flying on commercial aircraft before 9/11
Corporatocracy
Hitler really was out to exterminate Jews.
Bernard Ebbers convicted of fraud and conspiracy 180 billion dollar loss to investors.
Secret CIA Prisons
Secret Bombing of Cambodia
Operation Midnight Climax
Operation PBSUCCESS
Operation Ajax
General Motors streetcar conspiracy
De Beers was charged by the United States Justice Department with Sherman Antitrust Act
Indonesian occupation of East Timor
USS LIBERTY
Suppressing Sarkhan
London Police Found Guilty of Health and Safety Failures in Brazilian's Shooting Death
Brzezinski What's most important to the history of the world the Taliban or collapse of Soviet Empire
Curveball REVEALED!!
Subpoenaed: Rice, Hadley et al. in espionage case

That is not a conspiracy.

It's not a conspiracy NOW. In 1943 America, it sure as shit WAS a crazy conspiracy theory, not believed by a VAST MAJORITY of the populace.

Sorry to be so harsh, but read a history book.

It surely WAS a conspiracy theory. Right up until the Allied soldiers broke open the camps and got the proof.

Look it up.

Mein Kampf laid it out in black and white. Just because people chose not to believe Hitler, doesn't make it a conspiracy. He did precisely what he trumpeted that he would do.

I believe there's a couple on line it's easy try it

serious medication for serious delusions.

I think you are trapped in the modern-inevitable. It was Not widely known that the holocaust was going on in the public mind. It was kept a secret by the Nazi's (as best they could keep such a thing a secret).

Propaganda films were even made to explain the disappearances where it was implied that these were all work camps and distant ghetto's where Jewish people would be 'reformed' or 'made to work honestly' or whatever other foul nazi propaganda they were spewing that particular week.

I'm a little stunned that you would suggest someone read a book when you seem to be so completely in the dark about the gradual transition to genocide that occurred there. Mein Kampf did not spell out a processs for extermination or elimination. It did lie, blame, scapegoat, and generally demonize the Jewish people. But honestly this was little worse than the later life writings of Martin Luther (and actually found roots in the foulness of pre-existing antisemitism and xenophobia).

To suggest it was all perfectly clear from the begining to all who could see is folly and oversimplifies the path things took to get there and the rationalizations and lies that had to be told to the public. I would not say that it was a well kept secret and it is obvious that some people knew of what was occurring but then, most of the crimes of the Bush administration were also known by people they intended to keep it from as well.

including the attempts to cover it up by the Nazis. I'm aware of Therienstadt and other shams perpetrated by the Nazis. However, although Mein Kampf did not lay out a blueprint for genocide, Hitler did indeed speak of exterminating the jews in that not so august tome.

I simply don't think that it was a conspiracy.

There was a crime? check.

There was a plot to committ said crime? Check

There was an attempt to keep some part of this crime secret? Check


I am not clear how this is not a conspiracy.


Just because a portion of the population happened to agree with the evils of Nazism does not make it less a conspiracy. Thus far your arguments have not been terribly involved and you seem to dismiss any part of history that does not conform to your position.

Not only have I read extensively about the holocaust, I even took coursework in college about this. The holocaust did not start and end in Mein Kampf, and as venemous and horrible as Hitlers language (and undoubtedly his intents) with regards to the Jewish people, even in that book language was veiled and there was enough vaugeness to allow propagandist the wiggle room to suggest 'removal' was their goal.


But beyond your semantical squirming:

I think you are trying to save the term 'conspiracy' from actually being applied to something that actually happened. I have no idea why you would do this. It makes absolutely no sense. Is the modernistic dismissive insult so important to you that you would ignore the english (and latin root) of the word?

I just don't understand what your position is.

Is the thesis of the original post so hateful to you that you cannot bear to have it ranked in the history of foul conspiracies committed by organizations against the population at large?

Did not the "Nut-roots" decry Bush's anti-democratic fascist creep? Were we not proven right in the deludge of documentaion that has come out prior to and after Bush's departure from office?

Honestly, what the hell are you kicking about here?

The first time I ever read the PNAC document Rebuilding America's Defenses the first impression that I got was that I had just read Mien Kampf-The Sequel.

i also missed the part where most americans knew about it.

i also missed the part where no one conspired.

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It's just no longer a theory.

theory business re the extermination of the Jews right out of the water.

See above.

:-)

For both the brits and the US... as well as the Soviets, to a point

They went clear on it faster, since they had a use for this

Ain't propaganda great? I mean the use of a tragedy in such

But hey the fascist pigs (read Germans) had to die...

OTOH, while the Soviets went there earlier than the rest, they still staid on the sidelines during the 1944 liberation of Warzaw and only came in until all sides got exhausted

Way too much inside baseball I know

Any time you have 2 or more people conniving to commit a crime, it is a conspiracy.

Or, as Webster would put it: 1 a planning and acting together secretly, esp. for an unlawful or harmful purpose. 2 -- the plan agreed on; plot 3 -- the group taking part in such a plan 4 -- combining or working together

they colluded to commit mass murder and you say that is not a conspiracy? what am i missing?

eta?

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

before it was proven true

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Scored as "would be high ranking SS officer" on the "would you be a Nazi?" test yesterday.

No objective evidence of test accuracy, but he actually posted his results on the thread.:crazy:

I was totally bummed because I didn't make the resistance.

I missed it.

Expat, also. Not blindly patriotic enough to take up arms - just get the hell out of Dodge.

I had to borrow a computer to take it myself, the site either uses a script that violates my security, or needs .net, another verboten M$ aberration.

I scored as an escapee (expat)

gad, some of you are lame. Let me be specific, dear. I was poking fun at the very concept of such a quiz- just as I do on ALL those lame on line quizzes. It was utterly predictable that DUers would score themselves as valiant resistance fighters or ex-pats.

I'm a cynic. You're awfully gullible, and yeah, I know you think I'm an evil Nazi type- to my great amusement.

you'd be burning up the phone lines reporting suspicious activity at every opportunity.

Saying the WTC was intentionally destroyed by the Bush Administration is a Conspiracy Theory. Saying that Bush knew about it beforehand and let it happen anyway, is not.

Saying the WTC was intentionally destroyed by the Bush Administration is a Conspiracy Theory. Saying that Bush knew about it beforehand and let it happen anyway, is not.

"Saying Bush knew and let it happen ISN'T a Conspiracy Theory," or at least painted as such by the Coincidence Theorists?!?

:wtf:

Try selling that at DU, where at east 50% will rise up to call you a conspiracy theorist wackjob.

Try saying that in the Real World in a mixed group of people and you'll be laughed out of the rioom.

To 99% of people, even today (maybe it's down to a mere 85%, though I doubt it), with so much virulent tyrannical Bushie mendacity laid out for all to see, they are BOTH Conspiracy Theories, and wacky ones, too, to most people.

You need to get out and try this little experiment. Not in a group of DU-types, though as I said, most of them will laugh at you or excoriate you, but in a truly random, mixed group of people.

You'll be laughed out of the room, and then maybe you'll understand a little better why I made this post.

99.99% certainty. You'll be laughed out of the room, or have scorn heaped upon you. Go ahead. Try it. I dare you.

you know that I know that

:-)

But you are right, I'd like to see that one...

Ah the glories of MIHOP\LIHOP and the dungeon...

Some say both mihop and lihop are conspiracy thoeries. are you saying you have definite proof that one is true and not the other?

all the warnings

i also remember the stand down order that MUST have been given.

that is patently untrue?

What the fuck has happened to American education?

As it turned out, his maladministration had a very great deal to gain.

They can talk about Bush's WMD lies in on breath and dismiss any given "conspiracy theory" in the next.

It's called authoritarianism.

IF my theory is true that "the more totalitarian a nation or cabal is, the more 'wacky conspiracy theories' turn out to be true", it also stands to reason that, no matter what, it is unlikely that ALL conspiracy theories are true.

I often characterize this as "The Dilmena of the a Citizen of the Soviet Union", in which it becomes apparent that many of the old assumptions we lived under are gone.

Assumptions like, "If it happened, it would eventually come out in the press."

I don't know if that was ever totally true, but it seems very untrue now.

At any rate, a citizen in a nation which can't be at least reasonably confident that something would "eventually come out", is suddnly presented with a great dilemna.

What to believe? The Russian "hippies" handing out filthy mimeographed sheets on streetconers or the Russian version of "FOX News"?

But I am getting off topic. You are correct in your assertion and you are correct about authoritarianism, IMHO.

But, as the conventional M$M breaks down, Samizdat and samizdat-like thinking, fills the void.

It's a dilmena, to be sure, but one which everyone has to find their own way from within.

I'd say thanks to Obama for unmasking just a tiny bit of the Bushies' TRUE Nature, with these lastest tyrannical memos, but if this thread is any indication, none of it matters, anyway.

It's STILL a wacky conspiracy theory, even though the memos outlineit chapter and verse.

================================================================================

Denial. Is. Perhaps. The. Most. Powerful. Driving. Force. For. Humanity.

More powerful than sex, is our ability to turn away from unpleasant truths again and again and again.

How could the Germans live two miles away from Auschwitz and not figure out what was going on?

Easily. So very easily.

K & R

As the elections happened, and we witnessed another peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another, I myself don't perceive the times as extreme as you, or posters on the Ready Rapture boards, or the subscribers to Bomb Shelter Magazine may find it. But that's only me...

"Please give us your definition of extreme"

Posters on the Rapture Ready board, and like-minded individuals who fantasize about a post-apocolyptic dystopia based off hack-authored, badly written, sub-literate science fiction novellas, all the while feigning actual concern and implying that the sky is falling...




Although I realize that was merely two examples rather than a classical definition...

You weren't what an example of extremism was?

You were asked, if a global economic catastrophe isn't "extreme", then what GLOBAL SITUATION would you consider extreme?

If I was your professor, I would give you an 'F', for completely failing to answer the question that was asked of you.

Sorry to seem so harsh, but next time, please answer the question you were asked.

Sorry, professor-- Your grades are just a little less than irrelevant to me.

As it seems that every generation, since at least 1066 has a peculiar ineffectual but loud demographic that screams about the falling sky, world-wides floods, international calamities spelling doom for humanity, deities calling followers home, etc, I've simply gotten to the point where I give the members of this unique demographic no less, nor no more less credibility than they are due...

Sorry to seem so harsh... ok-- no, I'm not sorry-- that would be a lie.





Oh dear-- I received an "internet F". Is that akin to scoring a 150 on an "internet IQ test", or getting an email from an "internet hottie" selling viagra... or is one more valid than the other? :rofl:


Ed: spelling-- hoping to bring that bad boy up to a D- :rofl:

of hackneyed platitudes you just mentioned?

We have the capacity, unlike those others who you mentioned and who every dumb slob with nothing else to say mentions (yawn), to utilize science to measure and observe our world.

Were they able to measure global ice mass in 1066? How 'bout CO2?

Try thinking for yourself. If a tired platitude that has been repeated billions of times over thousands of years is the best you can do, then you definitely need some further education.

See I would rather be arrogant occasionally, like me, than so ignorant that my debating skills are only capable of rehashing some tired bullshit that has been said a million times over, like you.

I'd rather be capable of recognizing when things change such that a tired old platitude becmes irrelevant due to changing conditons or technology.

Which brings me around to the ultimate point of my OP.

But what's the bother, you won't understand any of it, anyway, either through willful, purposeful ignorance...or maybe just pain ignorance. It deosn't matter why, only the results.

Go ahead, repeat another tired platitude. How well you repeat platitudes! Can you do any other tricks?

:rofl:

Plus, you STILL didn't answer the question. If Global Economic Catastrophe is not "extreme", then what is?

Ahhh, nevermind. If I want more tired old platitudes, I can look themn up myself.

:rofl:

Bless your little heart, professor. Feel validated now? All better? Sure you are.

And I'm still waiting my own answer as to the relevance of an "internet F". Guess we'll both simply wait until the world explodes in what, three or four days due to the Extremity of the Situation? I better build a bomb shelter and stock up on duct tape and tuna!!!!

yet rest assured professor Quixote, you may take the final, clever dig if you so wish as Revelationists truly intimidate me on an intellectual level-- there's simply no way I can hold a candle to anyone who give out internet grades (that's like monopoly money, yes?)




I know, I know... the sky really *is* falling this time, and you wear the sandwich board to prove it... :nuke:

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after all, the last time we had such a serious economic crisis, there was this little thing called WW II

Heard of it?

Look it up...

Chiefly look up for oh I don;t know, the photos of the damage and the casualties of the war

Unfrlgging amazing

Even the most basic of connecting dots can't be done

Won't give you a grade though... won't waste my time

I guess this is why, when the weather service announces an incoming tsunami, thousands of people head down to the beach.

Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be just fine.

The big mistake was underestimating Cheney. He had been studying and plotting since the Nixon years to try to exert executive power if he ever got the chance. His daughter Liz even wrote a paper on it in college.

He was involved in every area of government and at every level. Cheney knew what he wanted to do and some parts it would have happened even without 9/11.

and the Jewish banking elite for pushing a NWO?

Conspiracy theorists must have their hands and heads full these days.

Good job on the idiotic smear, though.

Better luck next time.

no one mentioned anything like that but YOU. That tactic is for the dungeon where it is allowed

You truly believe that everybody in the world is involved in a conspiracy to persecute Jews.

But on a positive note, I guess you're the only one to demonstrate that conspiracy theories are sometimes just that.

I've been annoying myself lately by reading the Alex Jones forums. Global conspiracies are for shit.

Notice how he tried TWICE the same stupid bullshit.

Guilt by association.

Not worthy of a response, other than contempt.

in the dungeon

...or you could just shut up.

But it IS perfectly OK for a Jewish or non Jewish person to criticize any particular Israeli administration, just like it is OK to criticize any American administration. Check the assumptions at the door, please.

You might also look up the "business plot". Again, few if any, Jews.

Them protocols are funny, RIGHT?

Thanks for proving Tom's point brilliantly though

Your riposte is a CLASSIC

Some of us smelled rats instead of roses...right down the line we did.

with the exception of the 2004 election, was well documented and known by most well-educated Americans shortly after they occurred. The mainstream media covered most all of them. To use well-documented events that rapidly became common knowledge for justifications for belief in unfounded conspiracy theories is strange. I cannot think of any of those that ever were "conspiracy theories," with the exception of the 2004 election, which is still only seen as "stolen" by fringe conspiracy theorists.

AND MSM time after time after time

Sadly

Selective observation; another common trait among the "coincidence theorists".

With the exception of 2004, which is still in conspiracy-theory-ville, none of those were ever considered conspiracy theories except by the most deluded of the right wing.

The original reply stands. Each and every one of them was/is dismissed by the coincidence theorists.

Who here claimed that the Bush administration did not torture? Who here claimed that the Bush administration never lied about WMD? The only people who have ever claimed such are freepers. Surely you are not so deluded you cannot tell freepers from DUers who disagree with you.

Here's what I see as an unfounded conspiracy theory: Bush did 9/11. Bush is about to attack Syria. Bush is about to attack Iran. Bush stole 2004. Bush is going to steal 2006. Bush is going to steal 2008. Democrats are all secretly working for Bush. The Boxing Day tsunami was caused by Bush. Katrina was an excuse to secretly execute 5,000 prisoners. Bush is secretly blackmailing Democrats. An office fire in Cheney's building is an excuse to destroy documents. World oil prices are controlled by Bush. World food prices are controlled by Bush. The stock market is controlled by Bush. Etc. Etc. Etc. It's intellectually dishonest to grab on to things broken by the NYTimes or by pictures released to the public and then try to equate those with your insane fantasies.

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The WTC's were taken down by mini-nukes.

Sid

:banghead:

One does not have to believe in the wildest theory to NOT believe the propaganda the powerful want us to believe.

You wouldn't take away the ONLY thing they have to say, would you?

What would they say if not guilt by association and contempt?

(cue crickets chirping)

are just that?

"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." - Carl Sagan

Similarly with Conspiracy Theories.

Sid

And Carl Sagan is one of my heroes, but that doesn't mean I adore all his other fans

Gotta love Carl Sagan. Always with his "Baloney Detector" on and always reday with an excellent , easily understood explanation. Love that quote.

Having said that, I am well-aware that some of what I am saying is at odds with Sagan's teachings. As I pointed out elsewhere on this thread, it is a dilemna that anyone in a nation under totalitarian threat (and in spite of Obama's election, I still believe us to be under long-term threat of totalitarianism).

Maybe it was I who failed to make my point well enough in my OP.

The more totalitarian a nation or a cabal, like the Nazis or Bushies threatening a nation is, the more often "conspiracy theories" turn out to be true.

I'm guessing, that even in Nazi Germany EVERY conspiracy theory wasn't true.

But most of them were.

but with the proviso that "Crazy Conspiracy Theories" which turn out to be true were rarely "Crazy Conspiracy Theories" to begin with.

Sid

Right up until the tanks broke down the barbed wire.

Look it up. I'll not waste time listing the many "crazy conspiracy theories" that turned out to be true.

Can't you see that once a "crazy conspiracy theory" is proven, it becomes not a "carzy conspiray theory" in the minds of most?

That's the Catch-22 you are selling here, but I am not buying. Look it up, Hitler's industrial extermination of the Jews WAS considered a Crazy Conspiracy Theory in 1943 and 1944 in America.

It is insanity to think that a nation in the midst of a war for it's very life owuld divert such large amounts of resources to an endeavor which detracts from their war effort and production of materials to such a poitnless end as the extermination of a people.

See? It's easy for people to say that everything proven was NEVER a Conspiracy Theory.

But someone had to take that Conspiracy Theory and investigate it, before you could claim many years later than it was never considered a conspiracy theory to start with.

But look it up. I stand by my words. In 1943 and 1944, even among some of the remaining European Jews, Hitler's industrialized slaughter of Jews was a crazy conspriacy theory.

Look it up.

They thought it was propaganda. Hell, if we hadn't liberated the camps, would anyone have believed the Wansee Protocol, especially as we only found one surviving copy?

believed any of it.

Had Hitler not overextended himself and tried to take over the world, he would have easily exterminated every single Jew he could have gotten his hands on.

Want to know how it would have been? As some Nazi SS Guards said to their victims,

"The SS guards took pleasure in telling us that we had no chance of coming out alive, a point they emphasized with particular relish by insisting that after the war the rest of the world would not believe what happened; there would be rumours, speculations, but no clear evidence, and people would conclude that evil on such a scale was just not possible"
--Terence DesPres, The Survivor

It would have been like that. It would have been JUST LIKE THAT.

Read this thread through, and tell me it wouldn't have been. Even WITH the Bush "Nazi" memos revealing the full extent of their planning, so many in denial. They're just "stupid" and "incomptent".

Yeah, just like everyone said the Nazis were stupid and incompetent...at first.

It would have been JUST LIKE THAT DePres quote. Don't kid yourself.

They were relatively stupid, and several of them, especially Hitler, were quite incompetent. They were also extremely evil people. Stupid, incompotent and evil are neither mutually exclusive, nor synonomous.

close we came. There were so many small decisions that, presumably, Hitler made that if he had gone the another way or even done nothing, he would have won.

The fate of the world, so often, turns on such seemingly meaningless choices, yet here we are, still arguing over what has been proven and known for centuries...

Most academic exercises on that topic tend to discuss that Hitler was effectively doomed to fail in his objectives. He didn't have the resources to dominate as large an area as he intended. Furthermore, he was a poor tactician and any particular success would have in effect merely set him up for the next failure.

It is interesting to note that Hitler was the "worst" of the facist dictators of the day. Mussolini was no saint, but his worst nature was amplified by his relationship with Hitler. Franco was probably the most "reasonable" (of course the bar is pretty low here) one of the three and as such lasted the longest. A conclusion can be drawn from this that the worse the dictator, the more likely his ultimate defeat. Stalin probably being the exception that proves the rule (although one can also make the case that in both Stalin and Mao's case, the fact that their countries so markedly moved away from their leadership after their deaths indicates that they were unsuccessful in some measure).

happening around them today. But that's neither here nor there, and there are plenty of military experts (people that actually fight and plan war) that disagree with the statement of what "most academics" believe.

The greater threat that Hitler posed was, not whether he was more extreme in his brutality, but a vast technological superiority. Almost everything the German military had was superior to what they faced as it was, had he taken Chamberlain's deal and sat on what he took for a couple of years before continuing his campaign, for example, England probably would not have survived and America would have been completely committed to the war against the Japanese. Had he started his march eastward a month earlier, or let Russia continue to destroy itself, and concentrated on capturing the oil in the ME. He/They understood that they were a small nation with limited resources in the beginning, that's why they developed and used the Blitzkrieg, and it worked.

There are so many options that would have caused dramatic changes.

Hitler's primary problem was that he was fighting a logistical war, and he was a lousy tactician and logician. I'm not sure why you would suggest that 2 years would have helped him defeat Britain. Depending upon what other variables you are keeping constant, it only gives Britain additional time to develope their resources as well. (Better radar, better spy networks, more code cracking, etc.) Hitler had succeeded in driving out much of his education resources and it hampered him throughout. The Russian campaign is the one that most folks suggest could have been a major differentiation. Earlier attack, sticking to his original plan to circumvent St. Petersburg, limiting himself to capturing the oil fields, etc. are the kinds of things that are often argued. Again, this presumes that somehow Hitler can resist his own short comings and make no serious mistakes after these decisions. Nothing in his history suggests such a history. He was lousy in his tactics and making one or two changes isn't going to change that. If anything it will embolden him to think he is even better than he already did.

People often mention Hitler declaring war on the US after Pearl. Again, I'm not sure how one presumes that Roosevelt, who was already hoping for a fight with Hitler doesn't go to war against Germany (part of the Axis and a Japanese ally) anyway.

Many folks tried to conquer Europe, none really succeeded. It is a stretch to presume that Hitler could have somehow been successful where all others had basically failed (unless one wants to consider the Pope some sort of total european ruler in the middle ages).

Your consistently lengthy non-replies throughout this thread are quite revealing. Reminds me of a Monty Python skit.

Enjoy your stay.:hi:
:kick:

People tend to take a point by point response as hostile, so I tend to avoid them and merely try to respond to the larger point someone is trying to make. Personally I prefer specific references to the points I make, but it doesn't seem to be a popular method around here.

Despite the FACTS and mountains of hard, physical evidence, and witnesses, there are STILL people, some in positions of authority or influence, who deny and dismiss it as CONSPIRACY THEORY.

Everyone and their brother now has a cell phone that can take pictures. Do you think Auschwitz and Treblinka would have been viewed as "crazy conspiracy theories" in today's information age? Abu Ghraib was exposed pretty quickly. Hell, some guard was even able to photograph Saddam Hussen's execution.

Secrets were more likely to be kept in a world without streaming video and Twitter.

Sid

to reflect this new reality.

This article explains much of it:

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/20080515_chalmers_johnson_on_our_managed_democracy/

Again, it is difficult to predict specific events, and easier to observe trends.

It is possible that this technological difference may yet prove to be a deciding factor in whether or not the Bushies achieve their penultimate goal of unchallengable, tyrannical power over America (IMHO). I hope it will be.

:hi:

Sid

See you 'round the boards!

:hi:

it's conception and belief that it would work, coupled with the conspiracy, or collusion, of ensuring the players paid no price for their treason.

Crazy, yet still fact.

And not long ago.
:evilgrin:

Just cuz something isn't known right now...

They just don't get it.

That is probably because it works.Unfortunately.

I strolled thru the dungeon the otherday to check it out and came across the mininuke theory.It amazed me how many got sucked into wasting their time with that particular CT.It was pretty obvious that it was a broadbrush campaign to meant to portray CTers as loony.

We came to the edge of fascism, and are slowly slipping into oblivion. Now that you have exterminated any hope for a better future, I will be going to stick my head in the oven, your prize of strychnine-laced cookies will be on the counter. (I can't send them in the mail for obvious reasons.) See you in the funny papers.

Nice cutting line, though.

You think my point is that we should all GIVE UP?

Hell NO, if anything, we should redouble our efforts. What I am asserting here, overall, is that clinging to old notions can make one blind, and people blinded by their own denial are pretty much the best friends a tyrant could have.

Like the sucker who brings boxing gloves to a gunfight.

I am NOT suggesting give up. I am suggesting that we'd better pull our heads out of our asses and UNDERSTAND what is currently on the other side before it is too late.

Why are the Bushies RAMPING UP their isolating craziness when it would seem to be the dumbest thing possible electorally?

Sure, it's possible that they really are dumb, but the probability of that diminishes every time something like these Nazification-Bushification memos are released. The followers are dumb as any authoritarian followers ever, but the LEADERS and the PROPAGANDISTS are not dumb. Not even close.

Anyway, if you take "giving up" as the point of this or any other of my posts, you are badly mistaken.

My point is for people to take their heads out of their asses, since having our collective heads up our asses allowed maybe the most horrific criminal spree the nation has ever known.

As they say, "The first step to solving a problem, is recognizing what the problem is."

(Takes too long to heat up anyway)

So that I'm clear, you think that the Bushies/Neocons/Psycho RW'ers are isolating in the hopes of creating a wholly undemocratic extremist movement in order to launch a coup d'etat like was done against Allende in 1973?

This is possible, and considering the rise of groups such as Xe (formerly Blackwater) all the more dangerous, as they have their trained and fully armed freikorps to do the real dirty work, while their willing freeper stormtroopers go out and bust heads like good little cannon fodder.

Is this what you're saying? If so, you're not half as crazy as I gave you credit. I may be keeping the cookies for myself after all.

:scared:

I hold out hopes that our election of Obama will play out politically in the Old American style we have grown accustomed to. That increasing Bushie craziness will further marginalize them from power for 20 years or more.

As to the details of HOW it will play out, I can't guess. An Allende-style coup, or just waiting for the next election and hoping, as in Germany, Great Depression will lead to heightened acceptance of what would be considered insanity in more prosperous times?

I cannot guess for certain EXACTLY what it would look like, nor how it will turn out.

I just know that when a Battering Ram of Will is specifically constructed, and Bushies-Nazis start to very casually accept that Liberals are EVIL, just by virtue of their being Liberals, and start rationalizing committing crimes against Liberals "because they are so evil it's justified", then conditions are possibly setting up for tyranny in the people who have deliberately cultivate dthis mentality among their followers.

Did you watch the Youtube I linked to? If you haven't, please do.

It will further show you I am even less crazy as you initially gave me credit.

A little crazy? Who wouldn't be? How'd you like to be the one who saw Hitler for what he was in 1923 and have everyone tell you you're nuts, even as time and time again the things you said would happen, happen just as you said? More than two-dozen times now, I calculate, and there is a partial list somewhere in my journal.

Who wouldn't be a little crazy, not just from playing Cassandra, but from knowing that, for most people, it simply doesn't matter how many times you get it right? You're still crazy.

With the exception of the last 6 weeks, my entire adult life has been defined by the Bush Administration, I think anyone whose eyes were open during this period went a little crazy, it was the only way to stay sane.

Hitler was appointed, not elected (though his appointment was unavoidable, unless all the other parties in the Reichstag came together to oppose it, as the Social Democrats and the Communists hadn't been on speaking terms since 1919, and the Catholic Center party had gone far right, with the Conservatives in league with the Nazis, so it was impossible.) But we've now had an appointed president before, by virtue of the Supreme Court, so we'll see.

Obama's success will be judged by his ability to marginalize the far right. If they are fringe party, without a mass following, they will be dangerous, but ultimately not a threat to democracy, as they will have no backing beyond a few fools in the hills. The trick will be keeping them at that level, and in order to do so, Obama has to make our economy turn the corner. Absolute collapse=Right wing resurgence with a vengeance, and the anointing of scapegoats to be purged from the body politic. We are living in interesting times indeed. I hope that, many years to come, we will look back on the fears of these years and see them as the fruit of panic and paranoia, but no, I cannot write off your fears as mere will-o-the-wisps, I have seen too much to deny a fundamental malignancy in the right wing of our politics.

legally so, in 1933

After that

Kudos

"...the release this week by the Justice Department of the "secret memos" sought valiantly by the ACLU confirms that Bush's legal architects were building up the framework for something even scarier than our most anguished projections."


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5182758&mesg_id=5182758

"And you *are* an alarmist. You are saying that *this* must lead to *this*, and you can't
prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don't know
the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you.
On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left
with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.

"But your friends are fewer now. Some have drifted off somewhere or submerged themselves
in their work. You no longer see as many as you did at meetings or gatherings. Informal
groups become smaller; attendance drops off in little organizations, and the
organizations themselves wither. Now, in small gatherings of your oldest friends, you
feel that you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from the reality of
things. This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent to-
to what? It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must
*make* an occasion to do it, and then you are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and
you wait.

"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with
you, never comes. *That's* the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime
had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have
been sufficiently shocked- if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in '43 had come
immediately after the 'German Firm' stickers on the windows of the non-Jewish shops in
'33. But of course this isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of
little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by
the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at
Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

~snip~

"Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or,
more accurately, what you haven't done (for that was all that was required of most of us:
that we do nothing). You remember those early meetings of your department in the
university when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A
small matter, a matter of hiring this man or that, and you hired this one rather than
that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised
beyond repair."

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45
-Milton Mayer

can turn it back before it returns like it was never gone and picks right up where it left off.

Fingers crossed. Mixed signals early on, some hopeful, some worrisome. But that's better than what was under Bushler.

Better late than never.
:kick: & R

doesn't mean that every one is true.

than the average citizen or even the average DUer, believes.

what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine."
-William Blum

several times on this thread already.

it becomes apparent more and more every day that the "crazy" people were right.

WAKE UP for goodness sakes

this is the New World Order and they are stealing and pilaging along the way

I remember the feeling I had on 9/11-it was on west coast time for me. Tuesday was our day to go shopping-in the morning-we only had one car-and one baby and then my husband would go to work. I remember trying to shop and looking at people in the store and saying out loud-do you know what this means-do you know what "they" will do? I knew then it was the end of something. Little did I know it was the end of America, how I feel about America being better, that this can't happen here.

Well it was worse than I imagined that day-but that feeling was the beginning. Torture. Surrendering of liberties. Wars made up out of whole cloth.

And what should bother me more-finding out this was exactly what they planed-or the fact that the Bush cabal didn't actually have do any of the real bad stuff to Americas-hell no! all they had to was lie (the big lie-Iraq) and others (America doesn't torture) and have their minions-(still have them fox, limbaugh, coulter, ABC daytime Teevee with ms. hasslebeck, nightime with Stossel, firing of Rather, of Donahue, endless op ed "opinions" defending Bush's legitimacy) spew and they had to do nothing MORE-with the propaganda, and the compliant congress, and John Kerry surrendering, and no real disent from the media or anyone else that was supposed to represent US and the constitution.

What should bother me more? That they didn't have to suspend civil liberties but were planning to-because we surrendered them willingly?

I still am waiting for Mr. Obama to address this. AND stop the next dictatorship that could follow after he leaves. Executive privilege, powers, state secrets, when, when does it end? It hasn't yet.

Basically, he just released pretty good proof that George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney (and John Yoo and many others, no doubt) were GUILTY of planning HIGH TREASON against these United States of America.

For there can be no other name for the planning of a dictatorship, suspension of the 1st Amendment and probable cause, etc.

NO OTHER NAME FOR IT.

First, Obama releases the memos, and the next batch. Good God, what could be in THEM? Plans for Slave Labor Camps? Details of what those Halliburton Camps are REALLY FOR?!?

Given this batch of memos, anything, literally anything, is conceivable.

How many "Crazy Conspiracy Theories" have to come TRUE before we realize these are extreme times?

Isn't it amusing how the same people always line up to hold high the banner of THE OFFICIAL STORY? Oh, how they love to repeat (bleat) the official talking points. JFK, RFK, MLK, Gulf of Tonkin, WMDs, WTC - they will tell you with great enthusiasm and commitment that the official story is what happened, and any other belief is the dreaded "conspiracy theory."

Conspiracies are common. Uncovering them is uncommon. Those are two facts the authoritarian groupies cannot process.

and by extension "The Official Story", is so prevalent among all human populations and political divisions, even among those who should know better?

That is probably most worrisome of all. We complain that the Freepers and their ilk would make good Stromtroopers and Good Germans, but how many DUers would make excellent Good Germans themselves?

I still think we don't have many Stormtroopers at DU, but obviosuly there are PLENTY who would happily wipe off the greasy soot on their Auschwitz Villahge windowsills while convincing themselves The Official Story about the camp was true...at least until Patton frogmarched 'em through the Death Camp.

And that is scary, because ultimately, what it means is, if the Bushies ever regain power and begin whatever will be their Final Solution to the Liberal Problem, MANY DUers will believe The Official Story all the way.

Yes, even many DUers. That's scarier than all the Bush DOJ corruptions put together, quite frankly.

If something truly horrible happens, like what is described in the Yoo Memos as the Bushies appear to be no more than a quarter-century away from implementing (and perhaps much sooner), then at least half of "our side" will look away in an orgy of Good German Denial.

Some things don't change much at all throughout human history.

I think one thing we can all agree on is that we hope Obama can somehow turn this back or permanently defang or disgrace the Bushie Totalitarian Movement.

it almost did... they were THIS CLOSE

And the Denial fans are still refusing to see that this is not just a river in egypt.

I got this from Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World", so it is not an original thought of mine, but of his.

His idea was supported by an elaborate bamboozle he and James Randi (The Amazing Randi) cooked up to demonstrate certain "principles of the bamboozle" down in Australia.

I won't go through the details of the elaborate bamboozle, except to say that it worked EXACTLY as Sagan predicted. Great masses of Aussies fell for it and stayed fallen for it.

Most amazingly, when his "hired charlatan" came forward and exposed the fraud on national TV, many people PERSISTED IN BELIEVING THE BAMBOOZLE.

Wow. But it clearly illustrates Sagan's assertion that eventually, the bamboozle (or any other denial people are fooling themselves with) eventually reaches a point where even acknowledging the bamboozle is so painful that people cling to their belief in the bamboozle at all costs, in ego self-preservation.

Wow, aren't people amazing?

Think there's some of that on this thread? I think there is.

on a mostly unimportant subject, aka diets

We have been told one thing for 50+ years, you should know the research of the last five that turns all that on its head is mere ju-ju and something in the water

:-)

Same working theory of the human mind

I call it magical thinking, and we need to hold onto it for our psychological sake, at least 99% of the time

KNowing it does not mean we don't become don quixotes... MY LANCE SANCHO!

"The illusion of freedom in America will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre."
-- Frank Zappa, 1977

Try this on for size:
http://practical-vision.blogspot.com/2009/02/quick-refresher-on-conspiracy-theories.html

You are also conflating "conspiracy theory" with institutional criticism/analysis. The two are not even remotely the same. The latter would have gotten you enough information to be at a place where none if this "newly" disclosed information would be surprising at all, as you would already have enough information to understand the basic mindset - if not all the particulars - of how the bush/cheney institution functioned....

....while the former is just idiotic.