***DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND OUTED AS A RIGHT-WING FRONT***

[Jeff]

So they're spooks. Damn them to hell.

If so, not very smart ones. Smart spooks would have immediately conferenced, said they're onto us! and sacrificed the expendable avatar to maintain the fiction of an opposition.

More likely, I think, is that Skinner and his posse are simply much more conservative and inclined towards conventional thinking than most of DU's membership. This is particularly true of old-time members, of whom few remain active. They're embarrassed by "conspiracy theory" and don't want to know about it, which prompts them to overindulge those members who fill the role of "debunkers," even when one is found out to be a Republican.

That's ugly enough, because it's a business model based on hypocrisy and administered by ignorance. I don't think we need to ascribe it to "spooks."

[MacCruiskeen]

The thing is, Jeff: If they're not spooks, then they're functioning exactly like spooks. So, actual spooks or mere wilfully-ignorant hypocritical cowards, it boils down to the same thing. They're policing left dissent and ensuring that no real threat to ruling-class power can flourish in their presence.

Smart spooks would have immediately conferenced, said they're onto us! and sacrificed the expendable avatar to maintain the fiction of an opposition.

Yes, I did think of that point, and I couldn't think of a 100% convincing answer to it. But I was having too much fun calling them spooks to stop.

- STOP PRESS! Really smart spooks would have preserved the illusion that they were not spooks, but merely bumbling, wilfully-ignorant, hypocritical cowards and true leftists. With whom one could still have a conversation.

Ha! They're spooks.

[Jeff]

The thing is, Jeff: If they're not spooks, then they're functioning exactly like spooks. So, actual spooks or mere wilfully-ignorant hypocritical cowards, it boils down to the same thing. They're policing left dissent and ensuring that no real threat to ruling-class power can flourish in their presence.

I can see your point, but I think it's important to retain precision about such terms. Otherwise we'll sound paranoid - They're all spooks! If you disagree you must be CIA! - which invites people to not take us seriously.

After the Kennedy assassination there was a huge falling in line by America's gradient circles of power. Some of that we know now was due to the CIA's penetration of the media. But not all of it. A good deal of it was simply because power and privilege doesn't want to rock its own boat. What looks like "selling out" may be rather "buying in" - kind of a protection racket of devalued ideals to preserve one's place, even if that's just a Google ranking. That's what I think, anyway, when I think of DU.

[MacCruiskeen]

Otherwise we'll sound paranoid - They're all spooks! If you disagree you must be CIA! - which invites people to not take us seriously.

[Emphasis added]

Ah now Jeff, I don't do that and have never done it. "All"? No, of course not. And if I do it, finally, in this thread, about DU in particular, then for reasons I have stated, with lots of supporting evidence, which is not easily ignorable:

Now we find out that one of those persistent "debunkers" is a military man and a self-described "right-wing reactionary" who says, on his own website, that the Dems must never be allowed to run the country, and who insults Democratic Underground in his very link to their website. DU's response? They delete the evidence, they permit him to stay, and they lock a second thread on the same topic, without explanation.

[MacCruiskeen]

Also:

we'll sound paranoid - They're all spooks! If you disagree you must be CIA! - which invites people to not take us seriously.

I hate to say this, but that is exactly DU's argument for consigning 9/11 scepticism to an obscure dungeon and allowing boloffin and his half-dozen pals to take a dump on it there, day in, day out, for years on end.

[Jeff]

I hate to say this, but that is exactly DU's argument for consigning 9/11 scepticism to an obscure dungeon and allowing boloffin and his half-dozen pals to take a dump on it there, day in, day out, for years on end.

Like John Judge says, not all conspiracy theories are created equal.

I have a rule here for 9/11 threads that prohibits promulgation of no planes/TV fakery theories. In my judgement they're unequivocally products of disinformation and uncritical thinking (and in some cases, mental illness), and I see nothing to be gained by permitting them to have the floor here. DU's 9/11 dungeon is riddled with them, and Skinner has no problem with that because they only help to discredit "9/11 Truth" as a serious concern.

So yes, I think how we present ourselves is important. Not because we might embarrass ourselves, but because we might discredit our efforts.

[MacCruiskeen]

Can I ask you, Jeff: Do you think I'm discrediting Rigorous Intuition with this thread?

(It'll be a couple of hours till I get back to you, because I have to catch a football match, which has already started now...)

[Jeff]

No, of course not.

I think I may be prone to speaking in generalities which you interpret personally.

[Et in Arcadia ego]

The thing is, Jeff: If they're not spooks, then they're functioning exactly like spooks. So, actual spooks or mere wilfully-ignorant hypocritical cowards, it boils down to the same thing.

Ding a ling!

That's the best way of doing business; have the ignorant march forward with your flag nailed to their mast.

And cheap, too! Nobody gets paid for that shit!

I'm going into the Spook Business.

[Et in Arcadia ego]

Not because we might embarrass ourselves, but because we might discredit our efforts.

Neither being mutually exclusive, of course, where on a majority of occasions, they tend to go hand in hand.

[MinM]

I hate to say this, but that is exactly DU's argument for consigning 9/11 scepticism to an obscure dungeon and allowing boloffin and his half-dozen pals to take a dump on it there, day in, day out, for years on end.

Like John Judge says, not all conspiracy theories are created equal.

I have a rule here for 9/11 threads that prohibits promulgation of no planes/TV fakery theories. In my judgement they're unequivocally products of disinformation and uncritical thinking (and in some cases, mental illness), and I see nothing to be gained by permitting them to have the floor here. DU's 9/11 dungeon is riddled with them, and Skinner has no problem with that because they only help to discredit "9/11 Truth" as a serious concern.

So yes, I think how we present ourselves is important. Not because we might embarrass ourselves, but because we might discredit our efforts.

To that point -- if there is anything 'spooky' going on there -- it would more likely come from that angle.

[stickdog99]

So they're spooks. Damn them to hell.

If so, not very smart ones. Smart spooks would have immediately conferenced, said they're onto us! and sacrificed the expendable avatar to maintain the fiction of an opposition.

More likely, I think, is that Skinner and his posse are simply much more conservative and inclined towards conventional thinking than most of DU's membership. This is particularly true of old-time members, of whom few remain active. They're embarrassed by "conspiracy theory" and don't want to know about it, which prompts them to overindulge those members who fill the role of "debunkers," even when one is found out to be a Republican.

That's ugly enough, because it's a business model based on hypocrisy and administered by ignorance. I don't think we need to ascribe it to "spooks."

That's basically my diagnosis as well. Not spooks so much as establishment (DLC) Democrats doing their damnedest to reign in anti-corporate activist types. But we are splitting hairs.

[MacCruiskeen]

Bump, in commemoration of seemslikeadream's expulsion from the CIA's Skinner Box.

[agitprop]

If I wanted to discredit RI, I wouldn't dismiss Conspiracy Theory, I'd log on with the most convoluted crazy ass bunch of connect the dot weirdness I could muster. I'd post over and over and over, until the more credible posts were lost in a sea of gibberish. For even more effective propaganda, I'd mix the most credible info up with the craziest, to vaccinate the reader from the truth.

That's the most effective way. Some people have a natural genius for doing this and don't have to be spooks, just nutcases. The two that come to mind are David Icke and Richard Hoagland, the face on Mars guy. They could be spooks though. They are thoroughly effective in neutralizing the topics of shape shifting and Martian civilization.

[stefano]

They are thoroughly effective in neutralizing the topics of shape shifting and Martian civilization.

Those are two topics that neutralise themselves, for me.

I don't know who Richard Hoagland is but Icke neutralises all the other topics he touches because of shape shifting. Just a while ago I was talking to an English mate of mine about 9/11, and he said "yeah, and the Queen is a shape-shifting lizard." Quite hard to keep trying after that. Lots of people have that reaction. I don't think Icke's malicious but he wouldn't be a household name if he only talked sense.