Conspiracy theory sickos
We’re all familiar with the crazy ideas of the “9/11 Truthers”, who claim that the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were a great conspiracy by the Bush Administration to push their agenda and get public support for invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. The entire topic has consumed many blogs on this site, and whole issues of Skeptic magazine, and need not be rehashed here. The simplest retort to the “9/11 Truthers” is the gross incompetence of the Bush Administration, and the fact that they couldn’t get their act together on things we know they were doing. Yet the supposed “Bush conspiracy” worked like a charm (except for the passengers of Flight 93 crashing their plane when they overpowered the hijackers), and not a single leak from all those people allegedly involved in that Byzantine plot has ever emerged. Given how many leaks have occurred since those events on many other failed Bush and CIA policies, it’s impossible to believe that they managed to keep this big a conspiracy secret for over 12 years now.
The same goes in Britain for the “7/7″ bombings of several buses and other sites in downtown London; there is a clique of conspiracy nuts mainly in England who could be called the “7/7 Truthers”. For the same reasons, they claim the “7/7″ bombings were orchestrated by the British government, even though they did not have the motive of Bush and Cheney to push the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. There are actually a wide range of other bizarre conspiracy advocates out there, and they all seem to form a large, poorly organized group of paranoid conspiracy nuts who believe that the U.N./Trilateral Commission/ Illuminati/ Freemasons/whatever big organization is out to get us, with their “black helicopters” and secret sleeper cells, ready to take power in the U.S. when the signal comes.
If that wasn’t crazy and paranoid enough, guess what? There is a whole gang of even crazier people out there who believe that the Obama Administration orchestrated the Newtown, Connecticut, massacre! Yeah, you read that right. And what is the supposed motivation for arranging this elaborate conspiracy to perform such a heinous act? Allegedly, the Administration wanted a national outcry over a massacre so they could push for gun control. The Obama Administration, which has avoided the gun issue like the plague both during the campaigns and during its first four years, suddenly decided to go after our guns. This at a time when it already faces more than enough political challenges with the debt ceiling, the immigration issue, and so many other important topics on its agenda that are better uses of its post-election capital in a government prone to stalemate due to the GOP hold over the House. In fact, a lot of political commentators have remarked that the gun control issue is poorly timed for Obama, distracting the voters from issues he had planned to push after the inauguration, and expending a lot of political capital he needs elsewhere. Only in the mind of a gun crazy/conspiracy nut does this make any sense, but then these people already are scared of the U.N., the Trilateral Commission, and the “black helicopters”.
Their evidence for this bizarre notion? They claim that one of the little girls killed in Sandy Hook is still alive! As explained by Alex Seitz-Wald:
The girl in question is Emilie Parker, a 6-year-old who was shot multiple times and killed at Sandy Hook. But for conspiracy theorists, the tears her family shed at her funeral, the moving eulogy from Utah’s governor, and the entire shooting spree are fake. Welcome to the world where Sandy Hook didn’t really happen.
There are dozens of websites, blog posts and YouTube videos extolling the Emilie Parker hoax theory. If you Google her name, the very first result is a post mocking her father for crying at a press conference after the shooting. One popular video, which already has 134,000 views, was made by the producers of a popular 9/11 Truther film. “Just as the movie ‘Operation Terror’ shows the 9/11 attacks were a made-for-TV event, so too were the mass shootings … There can be no doubt that Sandy Hook was a staged event,” the narrator intones. He goes on to say that the adults who participated in the media coverage of the shootings “should be prosecuted as accessories after the fact in a mass murder” — i.e., the parents whose children were murdered in the massacre should be thrown in prison.
The crux of the theory is a photograph of Parker’s sister sitting on President Obama’s lap when he visited with the victims’ families. The girl is wearing the same dress Emilie wore in a pre-shooting photograph of the family shared with media, so she must be Emilie, alive and well. “BAM! I cannot believe how idiot these people are [sic]… That’s her,” one YouTuber exclaims as he watches the two images superimposed on each other. (Apparently missed by these crack investigators is the possibility that the sister wore Emilie’s dress and that they look alike because they are sisters, after all.)
The supporting details to the hoax theory explanation are reminiscent of the arcana of any well-developed conspiracy theory. What about the car? What about the rifle? Why does someone off camera allegedly tell Parker’s father to “read the Card” (as in a cue card) before he goes on CNN? Why is he laughing? Who is the guy running into the woods? Why is there police audio referring to multiple shooters? Why does one boy who survived the shooting tell Dr. Oz it was like “a drill”? Why was the principal quoted by a local paper after she died? Why do some of the parents look like some of the victims of the Aurora shooting — are they “all actors”? All of these questions have simple explanations, but in each case, the theorists have sided more with less likely, but more nefarious possibilities.
One man has taken it upon himself to catalog all of the theories at SandyHookHoax.com. By way of credentials, creator Jay Johnson explains: “I am the only person in the world to solve LOST,” he writes (yes, the TV show).
In an email exchange with Salon, Johnson said he initially “wanted to help the kids express their feelings and memorialize the victims … But then I saw how the local paper interviewed the principal after she was dead, and I realized it was 99% odds another psychological operation that was going on,” he explained.
Noting that he started the website on “12/21/12” he explained, “since I am the New Age Messiah, with my Look Your Heart in the Mirror™ as the new revelation from the Goddess Tefnut, aka Ma’at, of Egypt, I thought the date was significant.”
But the hoax theory has even earned the backing for some presumably more credible sources. James Tracy, a tenured professor of communications at Florida Atlantic University, sparked controversy this week after he wrote a blog post suggesting the parents were “crisis actors.” “While it sounds like an outrageous claim, one is left to inquire whether the Sandy Hook shooting ever took place — at least in the way law enforcement authorities and the nation’s news media have described,” he wrote.
Websites owned by Alex Jones [yes, the same clown who embarrassed himself in the national media last week with his foaming-at-the-mouth attack on Piers Morgan], the conspiracy theory pundit who helped start the 9/11 Truther movement and has millions of readers, are a virtual one-stop shop for Sandy Hook “false flag” miscellanea. So far, mainstream conservative figures haven’t hopped on board, though Gun Owners of American head Larry Pratt told Jones this summer that he thought there was a good chance the Aurora massacre was perpetrated by government agents.
Then there’s just the downright bizarre subgenre of theories. One posting on the community forum of Jones’ website connects Sandy Hook and Emilie Parker to Satanism, postulating that the school was a “recruiting center” for the Church of Satan. There’s even a low-budget slasher flick called “Sandy Hook Lingerie Party Massacre” — could that be connected?
Whether there is a connection or not, we can count on the Internet’s conspiracy theorists to find one, even if it means denying the legitimacy of the mourning families’ grief.
And if this were not enough, the conspiracy crazies are harassing and threatening Gene Rosen, the Good Samaritan who took in a bunch of the first graders when they fled the school after their teacher was killed, and sheltered them until their families could come find them. This kind, gentle man, who did a simple good deed from the heart, is now being harassed and threatened non-stop by these sick bastards who don’t want to believe any of the truth in this story.
And that is the sickest, most perverted part of it all. Never mind that these crazies are accusing our President and the people who work with him with the cruelest and most outrageous of criminal acts, all based on zero evidence and lots of crazy thinking and false pattern recognition. The President and the Administration can take care of themselves. The real victims in this demented view of the world are the Good Samaritans like Gene Rosen, or the poor families of the victims, who are not only grieving for their very real loss, but are now being accused of being actors, and hoaxers whose children are not really dead. Haven’t they suffered enough? At long last, conspiracy wackos, have you no shame?
Conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones said the Oklahoma City bombing was a conspiracy to go after right-wing militias. Now the government is coming after everyone’s guns. I suppose the timing coincides with the upcoming UN conference on the Arms Trade Treaty.
As far as Sandy Hook, the conspiracy theories are crazy, but the media did get facts wrong, and we shouldn’t turn off skepticism whenever a story is emotional. First, they named the brother as the alleged shooter, then the stories of two teachers got mixed up.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/newtown.asp
IMO, there is good evidence that the shooting of Muhammad al-Durrah was a Pallywood hoax, even though there was an emotional public funeral for him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_al-Durrah_incident
BTW – Alex Jones is a insipid, bloviating dunce. Proof? For those unaware of his history, some thought his rant with Piers Morgan was a plant by the anti-gun to discredit whatever the pro-gun has left in the department of halfway intelligence.
Are you saying we shouldn’t take the first accounts of the media in a chaotic situation like this? Then I can agree. There were several mistated fact. However, this is normal when new outlets are trying to get out a breaking story like this when the facts just aren’t known.
Or are you saying that we should be skeptical of the entire event? That this is a flase flag? If so you are crossing the line into loonie toon land.
I said the Sandy Hook conspiracy theories are crazy, but only because they’re ridiculous, not because they’re an insult to the victims. Early on, people were angry that news reports said “alleged” shooter when “we know it was him.” Turns out it was mistaken identity. Speaking of mistaken identity, turns out Manti Te’o’s girlfriend who supposedly died of leukemia turns out to be some kind of hoax. And cancer survivor Lance Armstrong is some kind of sociopath.
The point is that it’s fine to talk about the emotional toll of crazy conspiracy theories after debunking them, but the appeal to emotion by itself doesn’t debunk them.
Thanks for the clarification, when reading your post, I agree, you need show how the theory is crazy, appeal to emotions isn’t a good way to deal with things.
On your other point, the whole thing with Manti is rather insane, and I have difficulty getting my head around this. It’s hard to tell if he was in on the hoax, or if someone actually punked him. I’d give him the benefit of the doubt, but it’s hard to believe that someone in his position could be so easily conned.
Check with Mr. Edwards to see if maybe Bain Capital is part of this conspiracy.
You’re a rather tiresome, one-trick pony, aren’t you?
I am not re-watching the slanderous propaganda video and I wasn’t taking notes until around the 8 minute mark. So here’s what I have…
8-9 – Robbie Parker laugh. Easily could be he was nervous about being in front of a camera and was using a little nervous or self-depreciating levity before the gravity of what he had to talk about hit him. The interesting part about my assertion is that I admit it is speculative, no more or less so than the video.
10 Min – Emile Parker Fund. Clearly not set up by Robbie Parker that morning as “Alan Prothero & I” set up the fund for the loss of the “beautiful girl” in the post highlighted by the video. A later post simply shows that they were unsure if the child was killed or injured. Looks like they were simply trying to be honest with donators while reports came in.
11 – The girl is wearing her sister’s dress and the youngest is against Obama’s leg. The video tries to make it seem like the kid on the right is also one of the Parker’s and it is quite clear it’s not.
11:50 – Gene. The commentary on the video nor the interviewer video note when this interview took place. Should the firehouse down the street still be abuzz with lights and sirens the next day? Is the commentary on the video expecting us to believe that the authorities involved called this guy within 30 minutes to explain everything they didn’t even yet fully know themselves. They are trying very hard to pull apart details of a fast and chaotic 30 minutes. We have no idea what list he’s talking about. For all we know it could be anything from any one of the media outlets, not an official list. The next segment shows him talking more on what happened and in both cases it’s clear we are only getting snippets of video.
15 – The muted audio video… For all we know they were talking wistfully about a wonderful time they shared. Pure speculation on narrator’s part. Apparently he is an expert on the minute by minute grieving patterns of people he doesn’t know .
After that the video goes into full attack mode on the Medical Examiner in a strange series of clips. The awkward chuckle-joke stuff is not an indictment on its own but is often a mechanism people who deal with death and horror use… just ask any emergency worker.
The whole there’s no footage stuff is crazy as that would mean the whole town with school age children was in on it. How is that even believable? The boy who heard “kicking sounds”… we have no idea where he was in that building and which gunshots he heard.
21 – We have no idea when this footage is from but I do find it interesting that before the breath of “no ambulance” is out of his mouth there are clearly three in the intersection at exactly 21:00 minutes. “Does that sit well with you?”
By the way… if there is an active threat, ambulances are to be staged blocks away. I know, I‘ve done it. The idea is they don’t need more victims, especially coworkers. It’s that simple. But again, I do not know what time this footage is supposed to be at.
The FEMA stuff is nonsense because there are always classes going on usually for education credits. If you look at their calendar (which they have not taken down) you’ll see there are many classes any given month AND that specific course (be sure to add serious voice when announcing the course number) was offered on the 3rd, 6th, 14th, and 17th… among other courses. Oh, yeah and “2. Class size is limited to 30.” 30 seems a little low to create such theatrics, no?
“The girl is wearing her sister’s dress and the youngest is against Obama’s leg.”
If you look at the original family portrait, Emilie and her sister are wearing the same or similar dresses – she doesn’t even have to be wearing Emilie’s dress, she could be wearing her own “fancy dress” outfit.
Halliburton!!!!!!! It all happened because of Halliburton!!!!!
I suspect that it may be a psychological defense mechanism for some “Truthers.”
In other words the event is so horrific that a counter-narrative is invented to stave off a breakdown.
I think that the other factor, specific to Newtown, is that many conspiracy theorists are avid gun proponents. Having to face reality would mean also having to justify their position on lazze faire weapons policies, and possibly have to admit that their worldview was flawed.
Or maybe it’s as simple as the millions of people that own guns don’t like to be treated and smugly derided as potential mass murderers or being lumped in with conspiracy theorists.
And the notion that there is a lazze [sic] faire weapons policy in the US is absurd.
Wait,are you suggesting that the Newtown conspiracy is a rational response to proposed gun control? That’s what we are talking about here.
The gun debate is a different issue,but is definitely being woven into the Newton tragedy by these conspiracy people that are paranoid about a government takeover.
I thought we were talking about the conspiracy theorists and gun nuts, weren’t we? Not the normal-level headed people, right?
Are you suggesting that the consiracy theorists are actually part of an anti-conspiracy conspiracy? Would that mean that you would have to have an anti-anti-conspiracy conspiracy to cover up the fact that you are using the anti-conspiracy conspiracy to make conspiracy theorists look like the wing nuts they are?
The mind boggles.
You’re actually referring to the “just world” phenomenon, where people think that only bad things happen to bad people. It’s a known defence mechanism, and is held by most people to one extent or another. It’s strongest among the most religious because they believe that their god gives them a pass on the bad things in the world.
The truthers are an extreme version of this, so much that they think that something this evil has to be carried out by the extremely evil forces, which, of course in their minds, in the goverment.
This group of morons are the truly evil ones as they are the same type that will stone a girl to death for being raped.
Here is an excellent piece explaining the “inconsistencies” that “truthers” latch onto, and interpret as “proof” of conspiracy: http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/information_cycle_of_violence
It’s funny, the conspiracy theorists are actually the real “sheeple”. Seems like the person who believes in one conspiracy theory, believes in them all — moon landing, JFK assassination, 9/11, and now, apparently, Sandy Hook. The overlap is astounding. Talk about people who will blindly believe in anything.
Amen Daniel! I made this identical point on a previous blog about this.Anyone who agrees with me must be right ;)
This is known as crank magnetism
Very true. It’s like the cool kids thinking they are individuals when they are buying a mass produced image manipulated by a multi-national corporation. It’s funny on that scale, but scary when it involves conspiracies.
They’ll even believe in mutually exclusive conspiracy theories.
http://www.livescience.com/18171-contradicting-conspiracy-theories-mistrust.html
“Once again, people who believed bin Laden was already dead before the raid were more likely to believe he is still alive.”
This is a shame. Bottom line. I have three small children, two of them attend grades 1 and 2. How anyone can sit there and try to downplay the events of Sandy Hook for personal benefit and to increase their own stature in the Conspiracy Theory community is beyond me. They should all be ashamed of themselves. If they are so convinced it is all a cover-up, then go to the town itself, and check the facts if you need to…
At Daniel: I’m pretty sure I didn’t call gun owners conspiracy theorist, or mass murderers. That was your assumption.
And compared to other countries like Great Britian, Canada, Switzerland and the like, we do have some lax laws.
Switzerland requires a criminal background check, psychological evaluation, mandatory training, and recertification on use and safety, and will even, in some instances, allow people to have certain weapons in their possession but not the ammunition, and with all that in place still has one of the highest gun related death numbers in Europe. Even still their numbers are way lower, per capita, than the U.S.
Both Wikipedia, and nation masters have the data.
That said gun violence is a specific kind of violent crime, which in and of itself is correlated to economically stressful times. Simply put, violence of all kinds goes up when the economy sucks.
I think this kind of encapsulates the debate, as it currently stands: http://www.businessinsider.com/jon-stewart-gun-control-nra-fox-news-daily-show-2013-1
I take the statement, “I think that the other factor, specific to Newtown, is that many conspiracy theorists are avid gun proponents” as associating gun owners with conspiracy theorists, but if that’s not what you meant, I’ll accept that.
Re the “NRA”, it isn’t like that organization dropped from the sky or is at the mercy of a tiny secret cabal of people. It has a very large membership, perhaps the largest behind the AARP, that have joined together to lobby against legislation they disagree with.
Otherwise, the gun issue has been discussed ad nauseum, so I’ll try to leave it at that, although probably unsuccessfully.
This is all as a result of the dumbing down of America. Because of the media (all kinds, not just TV) saturation, many Americans live in a weird virtual world. America has become a stupid nation.
Are you speaking for yourself, or just other people?
Without sites like Skeptoid we would really be down the tubes. I refer you to my friends and acquaintances, and in some instances that has changed their outlooks radically. Keep up the good work, and please don’t die young!
This does not mean I don’t understand what you meant by “Are you speaking for yourself, or just other people?”
I don’t think we are all dumb here. I am certainly not an idiot or stupid. I do believe we are a bit on the slow side when it comes to mathematics and science, though. :-/
I’m sorry Steven, of course not all Americans are dumb – it’s just that stupidity and irrationality, and not just in America, seems to be winning.
Point well taken, and I do agree to a point. I can point to more than 80% of my family EASILY that would fall into the irrational thought category. They either fall for everything they see (think Mona Vie, colloidal silver (or whatever it’s called), etc) or are extreme believers in creationist mythology such as I.D (Although, I do admit, there are a few literalists in my line… minus flat-earth, of course…). But I grew up in that lifestyle and would be one of them today if it wasn’t for my grandfather (an “Ashes and Palms” catholic) who told me I have a right to question… and I ran with it. I wish more Americans would do the same. Maybe we can get on par with some of the other countries in terms of science and math (would be nice if we switched to Metric, eh)…
And, and apology accepted sir.
There are probably as many gullible people now as there were in the good old days. Media saturation just makes you notice them more. As Yogi Berra said, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Anecdotally, you can actually say things are a little better these days.
Case in point is the prosecution of Clay Shaw by Jim Garrison for supposedly being part of the JFK assassination, which is portrayed in Oliver Stone’s film. I encourage people who aren’t familiar with it, to read up on it. The lunacy behind it is astounding. An innocent man was actually put on trial for conspiring to murder the President based on the testimony of a heroin addict who claimed to see Shaw in a park in New Orleans in the middle of the night with another supposed conspirator, and an insurance agent whose testimony was induced through hypnosis.
Yes, today we have conspiracy theorists that are as nutty as Jim Garrison, and there are a few politicians that tend to say stupid things and propose whacky legislation. But we’re not at the point where supposed conspirators to great tragedies such as 9/11 and Sandy Hook are being put on trial.
Yogi might have uttered that phrase at some point,but it has been attributed to Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr.
“plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”
“It’s not getting any smarter out there. You have to come to terms with stupidity, and make it work for you.” — Frank Zappa
I used to be an NRA member back before it became a lobbyist organization for gun manufacturers. I actually remember when they used to be pro-gun control laws.
I do recommend its safety classes to all new buyers. (Simply the best out there, IMO)
I don’t know if the NRA was so much pro gun control, as they did everything they could to avoid having the Second Amendment litigated in the courts for strategic reasons, and preferred to fight it out in the legislatures. The NRA was very Johnny come lately with the Heller lawsuit, and still is not particularly litigious for a lobbying organization.
And if the NRA is at the behest of gun manufacturers, they must have secretly funded the Obama campaign through Swiss bank accounts. Guns are flying off the shelves and NRA membership has seen a huge spike.
I read what you said about the conspiracy theorist/gun owners association a little more closely, and realized what you were trying to say.
One might get the feeling that the NRA is exploiting the Sandy Hook tragedy to increase gun sales and membership…
nah,that would be crazy talk!
The NRA didn’t really need to do anything to get gun sales to increase. Believe it or not, gun owners and people who want to own scary looking guns are not automatons that do whatever the NRA and Fox News tells them to.
They don’t need to “tell them”, just scare them.
Mission accomplished.
tmac57: Question (and a serious one) do you personally know any gun owners? If so, how many of them are easily controlled by the NRA?
When the President and state legislatures all over the country are proposing or have even passed sweeping gun control laws, it’s a pretty logical conclusion for someone who wants to own certain types of guns to fear that they won’t have the ability to do so in a relatively short period of time.
Yes,I know many gun owners,and their viewpoints differ,but most of them parrot NRA propaganda uncritically instead of engaging in a fact based dialog.
What laws are you specifically worried about?
Has anyone proposed taking away guns as opposed to banning new sales of specific types?
Are the relentless comparisons of Obama to Hitler (cue ominous music)and Stalin etc. reasonable talking points in this debate?
Do you think Obama is trying to become a tyrannical dictator,and wants to take away all of our guns as part of that plot?
The fear that I see being whipped up is of the kind that I allude to in my last two questions,not the more reasonable one that you are asking.My Facebook page and inbox are being flooded by such nonsense daily.
tmac57: It sounds to me that ultimately your position boils down to that there’s no case to be made against any new gun control legislation that’s being proposed, and the only way that people would do so is because they’re being brainwashed by the NRA. I respect you, but this is a very small-minded view to have (and no, I don’t think I’m erecting a strawman here).
I haven’t stated any definitive position,but much of the opposition to proposed gun legislation is not coming from a fact based or rational mind set.
It is coming from a gut level and sometimes,let’s face it,a dishonest manipulation from the NRA.And I will also throw in the Tea-Party as well,though I suspect they are becoming one and the same.
I will concede that there is a lot of gut level reaction as well from the other side,which is why I think we need better data and research on gun violence,but the NRA is also against that.
Not helpful.
It’s a logical flip-flop: “Liberals tend to eat organic, therefore all people who eat organic are liberals.”
Or
“Conspiracy theorists tend to be avid gun advocates, therefore all gun advocates are conspiracy theorists.”
I was simply pointing out that that demographic “conspiracy theorist” tend to also be gun advocates, but that in no way means that all gun advocates are conspiracy theorists, or mentally unstable.
Here’s a pretty good history. I actually remember this, my uncles, and grandfathers got into a huge debate over it: http://m.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-nras-true-believers-converted-a-marksmanship-group-into-a-mighty-gun-lobby/2013/01/12/51c62288-59b9-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_story.html
I think it’s important to view the political context in the late 70’s is important. John Birchers were making inroads into the Republican Party, and starting the great purges. Liberal and moderate republicans were being labeled as RINO’s (Republican In Name Only) and thrown out of the party.
With the tea party, it seems history is repeating itself. Only this time, it seems to be people external to the party, such as Limbaugh and Fox, who are defining the RINOs.
I’m probably speaking to a little of both. ;-) If you’re referring to me, that is?
Sorry I guess Daniels and my conversation is a bit off subject.
Peter: I’m not sure if there ever was a Golden Age of Rationality. Not that you claimed that there was or anything. I think things have always been like this. A constant struggle between rationality and irrationality, and it will probably be this way for a very long time, if not forever.
The goal is probably best expressed as “Ever vigilant” as opposed to rationality winning out at some future time.
Speaking of crazies accusing our President and the people who work with him with the cruelest and most outrageous of criminal acts…
“For the same reasons, they claim the ‘7/7′ bombings were orchestrated by the British government, even though they did not have the motive of Bush and Cheney to push the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.”
What was their motive to invade Afghanistan again? To steal their heroin? Their natural gas, what with them having the world’s 65th largest reserves and the U.S. in 5th place?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_gas_proven_reserves
That’s ok, you can always blame any military action anywhere on the military-industrial complex, similar to blaming disease on Big Pharma.
Yep.
I was in Afghanistan, and I got a ration of three kgs of heorin a moth to sell. I also got paid for helping put a pipeline through the country from Russia. Not.
I have no clue where nut jobs come up with these paranoid delusions. Maybe, Big Pharma spiked their water?
Now I think they’re on to the rare earths deposits that were discovered in Afghanistan a few years ago. Of course the US has large deposits of rare earths too, just doesn’t get mined for whatever reason.
And we all know that you can’t spell “rare earths” without “the government, the trilateral commission and the illuminati perpetrated 9/11 and faked the moon landing.”
Right, they wanted the rare earths that weren’t discovered yet. Reportedly $7.4 Billion worth, about the cost of three weeks of the war.
The US has one of the largest rare earth deposits in the world, at Mountain Pass Mine in California (you see it on I-15 at the top of the last mountain range before you descend east into Nevada). It is mining 24/7 to keep up with global demand. We are net exporters of rare earth elements; only China has more. REEs are important for a lot of industries, especially electronics, which is why China was able to extort Japan a few years ago into doing its bidding by the threat of withholding REE. But it’s no incentive for the US to be in Afghanistan, nor any other nation that’s not a major electronics manufacturer.
Donald,are you sure that they are mining rare earth metals there in Calif? That could be a cover for FEMA building a death camp ;)
point of order, it was one bus and four trains that were bombed on 7-7
Every country has its nutters but we often despair at the nutters in the US because America also happens to be the most powerful country in the world and supposedly the most advanced.
It would be better if these conspiracy people put their efforts towards fighting corruption instead of living out their deluded fantasies.
True, but some are being elected to public office. Tea Party comes to mind, or some of the far-left in the 70’s.
It’s the apocalypse minded ones that scare me the most. They have the desire to bring one about, as well as the means (should enough of them attain the right positions in government)
Never waste a crisis. The Obama administration did not orchestrate Newtown, but they are sure as hell going to exploit it for all its worth.
Can you explain what you mean by exploit? Obama has done nothing to show he wanted stricter gun control, he even allowed people to carry guns in a national park.
If he wanted to exploit a crisis, he had plenty of opportunity before with the Virginia Tech masacre, and the Colorodo theatre shooting.
I am just going by their own words. The adminstration has stated that they need to move quickly to do something so they take advantage of the massacre.
Meh. That’s just a fact of life. The public gets distracted so quickly,that it’s hard to sustain their interest in finding solutions to problems(not that I think that they really have one here).
If you want real exploitation, how about Bush using 9/11 to invade Iraq? Sandy Hook pales in comparison.
I do agree with you that Bush exploited 9/11 to invade Iraq. That still doesn’t justify Obama using murdered children as props to push a political agenda that he would not push otherwise.
That’s an unwarranted cynical way of framing the situation,obviously colored by your ideology.
I think you would benefit from watching this video clip,but you probably won’t:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show#50489268
I watched about half of that. I am not a big fan of partisan talking heads. I am glad they do their thing though. Keep stirring the pot and keep the crips and bloods fighting so hopefully niether side can get anything done.
It’s always the other side that exploits something for political gain.
I disagree. In this thread we have clearly established that it is both sides.
The Virginia Tech massacre was in 2007. It prompted Bush to sign the first major federal gun control measure in more than 13 years, authorizing up to $1.3 billion for states to track the mentally ill like Cho. The NRA backed the measure, but apparently mental health lobbies and Veterans groups opposed it because it stigmatized the mentally ill.
At least it would’ve prevented Cho from buying guns at a gun store. Banning assault weapons didn’t prevent Columbine, and probably wouldn’t have prevented Sandy Hook.
When I think of this conspiracy theory, I imagine a conversation that went something like this:
President: So the operation will go down on Friday, and then we’ll do the photo op with the victims on Monday.
Staffer: Mr. President, I’m not sure the photo up on Monday is a good idea.
President: It’ll be fine. We’ll schedule something small for me to cancel so it looks like I’m dropping everything. Thanks, everyone. That’ll be all.
It’s like you were there.
It has gone too far. It is one thing to question things or dispute facts of the official story but to harass families of deceased children is beyond deplorable. The truthers are calling anyone that don’t agree with them sheeple. Trust me I don’t believe much that the media reports and granted CNN made a total mess out of everything by reporting the wrong shooter and the wrong facts. But can’t you just have some common decency in the event that families actually lost their children. I think the bodies were not shown and the children were not shown due to there age. The black Honda civic was registered to Nancy Lanza look up her tax records. I listened to the police scanner and I will agree with the truthers that I heard a police officer say end Adams life. Which they had a right to since he was shooting six year olds. I realize nobody trusts the media and with good reason! I also get many don’t trust our government and also with good reason! But please don’t take it out on the twenty six families who lost children and parents! I know the people in the United States are better than that!
This article is well written! It is so on point with these people. I would research their questions for them. Just for them to turn around and say no one is answering them. Holy smokes! Did I waste four days. They have picked apart everything and honestly found nothing. They have stated John goodman was the coroner. The Parker’s have claws not hands. The list goes on and on. What a true mess they are!
“the gross incompetence of the Bush Administration” is the simplest retort to the 9/11 Truthers? I don’t think it’s a very intellectually honest one. Sounds more like a political joke at the expense of Bush.
Was that administration any more or less competent than any other in the past 50 years? I don’t think so. It was average. They’ve almost always been average. A person waking up from a 10 year coma today wouldn’t be able to tell if a Democrat or Republican were the President. Nixon’s administration can be characterized as incompetent; it ended in a resignation. Certainly Buchanan and Pierce were the most incompetent. It’s hard to know who’s worse between the two of them. Probably Buchanan. Pierce was an alcoholic. Buchanan was sober and a disaster.
Today, 4/3/13 I caught yet again another hour of nonsense by Bonnie Faulkner on her Pacifica radio station (KPFA in Berkeley, CA) this time talking with the director of the film Operation Terror and playing cuts from it. She also talked about Paul Cross whom she had on a few weeks ago declaring no plane hit the Pentagon and he should know because he was there!
We subscribe to Skeptic and Skeptical Inquirer so have all the great articles run on the 911 nuts, but I was looking for specific critiques of this film, and the one Cross did, Severe Visibility, and cannot find any. Can you please direct me or provide contacts? Thanks so much, and thanks for thinking critically!!! Jayne