BrandonD » Sun Jun 22, 2014 4:21 pm wrote:In the case of 9/11, especially in the beginning if someone dared to publicly challenge the official story then our authority figures charged them with "attacking the victims of the tragedy". Quite clearly, the goal was to make the person feel shame so that he would shut up. There is no better word for this than 'intimidation', and from my perspective that is exactly what was taking place on the crisis actor thread.
Yeah, let's talk about the case of 9/11.
In the beginning, those who dared to publicly challenge the official story of 9/11 did so alongside (and with the authority of) many of the relatives of the victims. It was through the persistent lobbying of the Family Steering Committee that a 9/11 Commission was appointed. The FSC later rejected the 9/11 Commission Report. They were attacked as widow gold-diggers by the likes of Ann Coulter, it is true. But possibly the worst "intimidation" they experienced came from bogus "conspiracy theorists," crazy people or very possibly plants who accused family members of being actors (!!!) exactly as we are seeing with the disgusting and repulsive "crisis actor" disinformation in the case of the Boston Marathon.
The 9/11 truth movement was very much destroyed from within, by a miniature "9/11 hoax" movement who intentionally said the most ridiculous and inhumane things (attacking Mark Bingham's mother, for example), and by the laziness of the majority who tolerated this and accepted alliances with the likes of the "9/11 hoax" people (as well as with Alex Jones and his merchandisers' ilk).
"9/11 hoax" types teamed up with the O'Reillys of the world to target the groups who had the most standing to question the official story in public: they directly attacked the families, the firefighters, the witnesses and whistleblowers. You think this wasn't a plan? If anyone talked about politics and official foreknowledge of the events, the "9/11 hoaxers" attacked them and called them CIA. If we followed the money and the connections with regard to the hijackers, we were called supporters of the official story, since hijackers (or alleged hijackers, or patsies) weren't supposed to exist at all. Instead of Bush and FBI and CIA and foreknowledge and rehearsals and the military war games, we were supposed to talk about "Harley Guy."
This was a point on which the "9/11 hoaxers" and their supposed antagonists, the faux-skeptics of JREF and the like, were in full agreement. Rational questions were to be shut down. Only the most ridiculous ideas were to be debated. Never mind "Bush Knew," what about the Federal Reserve running the whole operation? "9/11 hoaxing" turned into an art form, as the disinfo artists and shameless commercializers (or perhaps: actual crazies, like "Webfairy") came up with increasingly ridiculous ways to impeach the evidence.
The "Pentagon hole" was almost rational; the "flash and the pod" of "In Plane Site" and "Loose Change" were better. All gave way eventually to that post-modernist, post-reality masterpiece, the "no planes" theory -- which had the advantage also of impeaching the entire city of New York (where the highest concentration of 9/11 skeptics could be found, for obvious reasons). While this claim seemed to be as ridiculous as possible, but it certainly had a logic when a Morgan Reynolds said that the New Yorkers on the street downtown on 9/11 were not to be trusted, since New York is full of actors. Since this appears designed to discredit and intimidate and alienate all the people who might have built a movement, I am willing to entertain (and incline toward) the idea that it is intentional.
So we've seen this history -- which either you don't know or are ignoring or distorting. I have every right to point out active disinfo operations when these are being pushed on this board, and I'm not going to be artificially polite with people who are pushing them. There really isn't a polite way to say you think something is disinformation. People pushing it can show they're honest by changing their minds when they get refuted on logic and facts. If not, then they have chosen, as I've said, to lay down fire for the enemy in an information war.
Your response is this: "Quite clearly, the goal was to make the person feel shame so that he would shut up." This is what you do, in effect. No, you will not intimidate me and you will not shut me up.
I would consider Jack an authority figure here (maybe I am mistaken?),
Yeah, this reminds me a bit of right-wingers complaining that the corporate media is "liberal."
RI is not a feudal society. Any authority I have here comes from my words, sir. If I earned it by way of logic and factual presentation, then maybe you should try it yourself. It is clear why you and a few others are now reduced to pushing the idea that I am some kind of powerful authority around here, or else trying to discredit me, not through refutative argument but through personalized psycho-babble. The actual facts of the case aren't in your favor. This should be shaming and embarrassing you. People here are choosing to NAME and defame randomly chosen
victims of the Boston Marathon bombing as "crisis actors," and accusing them of being accomplices to murder. That is a kind of intimidation, sir.
and lots of overblown accusations were thrown around on that crisis actor thread, such as "you are raping that poor woman's reputation". I see those sort of hyperbolic emotional trigger phrases as intimidation, exactly as in the above example
No, see, raping that woman's reputation is a lot worse than speaking plainly about it. This is another cheap trick, to complain about vigorous language. Which is worse?
But intimidation - discouragement of open dialogue - will not ever deter an intellectual person from investigating a subject that they find compelling.
Great. Let's open up a dialogue, based on your unbelievable posts on RI, about how you are probably a "crisis actor" working for the oil companies.
my issue was more with the underlying structure of a forum whose very purpose is to discuss ideas that are already discouraged in regular society.
This becomes impossible if no standards of logic or humanity or empathy apply. Go back to my OP: there is a case for skepticism about the Boston Marathon attacks. The shameful hoax narrative actively prevents that discussion.
