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Re: [Poll] A sticky thread for "'CT' in the media"?

PostPosted: Thu Mar 06, 2014 1:59 pm
by MacCruiskeen
Am I talking to myself? Very well, then, I am talking to myself. Do I repeat myself? Very well, then, I repeat myself:

Jamey Hecht wrote:THE TERM ‘CONSPIRACY THEORY’

This phrase is among the tireless workhorses of establishment discourse. Without it, disinformation would be much harder than it is. “Conspiracy theory” is a trigger phrase, saturated with intellectual contempt and deeply anti-intellectual resentment. It makes little sense on its own, and while it’s a priceless tool of propaganda, it is worse than useless as an explanatory category.

http://www.911inquiry.org/Presentations/JameyHecht.htm


QED, again again again:

Ukraine crisis: bugged call reveals conspiracy theory about Kiev snipers

[You couldn't make this shit up. "Reveals conspiracy theory" - is that even English? Barely. But who cares. What was "revealed" here? A "theory"? Nope. Nothing even remotely resembling one. (Look the term up in the dictionary.) In fact, a conversation was revealed, in which a European foreign minister voiced some well-founded suspicions about who was responsible for a possibly world-shaking crime; to which an even higher European politician replied that this claim was interesting and merited investigation.

But simple English words such as "suspicion", "claim", "conversation" and "investigation" naturally won't suffice for a hack, toady and timeserver of MacAskill's high-flying* ilk. For reasons of state, he just has to deploy that priceless tool of Establishment discourse pre-emptively, in the headline itself. Thought must be stopped before it even gets started.
]


Estonian foreign minister Urmas Paet tells EU's Cathy [sic] Ashton about claim that provocateurs were behind Maidan killings

Ewen MacAskill

The Guardian, Wednesday 5 March 2014 19.06 GMT

Jump to comments (681)

A leaked phone call between the EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and Estonian foreign minister Urmas Paet has revealed that the two discussed a conspiracy theory that blamed the killing of civilian protesters in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, on the opposition rather than the ousted government.

The 11-minute conversation was posted on YouTube – it is the second time in a month that telephone calls between western diplomats discussing Ukraine have been bugged.

In the call, Paet said he had been told snipers responsible for killing police and civilians in Kiev last month were protest movement provocateurs rather than supporters of then-president Viktor Yanukovych. Ashton responds: "I didn't know … Gosh." [And that was the most important part of her reply, was it, MacAskill?]

The leak came a day after the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said the snipers may have been opposition provocateurs. The Kremlin-funded Russia Today first carried the leaked call online.

The Estonian foreign ministry confirmed the leaked conversation was accurate. It said: "Foreign minister Paet was giving an overview of what he had heard in Kiev and expressed concern over the situation on the ground. We reject the claim that Paet was giving an assessment of the opposition's involvement in the violence." Ashton's office said it did not comment on leaks.

During the conversation, Paet quoted a woman named Olga – who the Russian media identified her as Olga Bogomolets, a doctor – blaming snipers from the opposition shooting the protesters.

"What was quite disturbing, this same Olga told that, well, all the evidence shows that people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides," Paet said.

"So she also showed me some photos, she said that as medical doctor, she can say it is the same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it's really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don't want to investigate what exactly happened."

"So there is a stronger and stronger understanding that behind snipers it was not Yanukovych, it was somebody from the new coalition," Paet says.

Ashton replies: "I think we do want to investigate. I didn't pick that up, that's interesting. Gosh," Ashton says.

Russia Today, reporting the call, said: "The snipers who shot at protesters and police in Kiev were allegedly hired by Maidan leaders, according to a leaked phone conversation between the EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and Estonian foreign affairs minister, which has emerged online."

Last month, a recording was leaked in which US state department official Victoria Nuland was heard venting the White House's frustrations at Europe's hesitant policy towards pro-democracy protests. Speaking to the US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, Nuland was heard to say "fuck the EU."

Asked about the emergence of a second embarrassing phonecall, a spokesperson [sic] for the US state department said: "As I said around the last unfortunate [why?] case, this is just another example of the kind of Russian tradecraft [sic] that we have concerns [sic] about."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/m ... urmas-paet


*
Profile

Ewen MacAskill is the Guardian's defence and intelligence correspondent. He was Washington DC bureau chief from 2007-2013, diplomatic editor from 1999-2006, chief political correspondent from 1996-99 and political editor of the Scotsman from 1990-96

http://www.theguardian.com/profile/ewenmacaskill


Anyway, the conversation with "Cathy" [sic - Eweny's old pal, presumably] Ashtony was recorded on the 24th of February, i.e. ten full days ago. So what's happening with Cathy's plans?

Ashton replies: "I think we do want to investigate. I didn't pick that up, that's interesting. Gosh," Ashton says.


Any progress there, Guardian? Any reason why that investigation should not be taking place? Anyone thought of actually asking someone at the EU? How about you, MacAskill? Any other hacks on the job? Hmm? I mean, it's only a fucking casus belli we're talking about here. There must be room for it somewhere in the Guardian, in amongst all those risotto recipes and in-depth Lady Gaga analyses.

Incidentally, Eweny says nothing about the fact that Cathy herself appears to take this conspiracy theory seriously. Is Cathy really fit for such high office? Is she not, rather, a "tinfoil-hatter"? Perhaps it's time Petery Mandelsony got his old jobby back.

Re: [Poll] A sticky thread for "'CT' in the media"?

PostPosted: Thu Mar 06, 2014 3:44 pm
by RocketMan
McCruiskeen wrote:You couldn't make this shit up. "Reveals conspiracy theory" - is that even English? Barely. But who cares. What was "revealed" here? A "theory"? Nope. Nothing even remotely resembling one. (Look the term up in the dictionary.)


Yeah exactly my thoughts. The term is just shoehorned there without regard to proper syntax. It comes off as a bit panicky, actually.

Re: [Poll] A sticky thread for "'CT' in the media"?

PostPosted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 4:08 pm
by MacCruiskeen
bump for obvious reasons

edit: to wit (all on the front page of GD as of this moment) -

Gawker.com outs Wall St genius "conspiracy" theorist

Latest MSM Crack at "Conspiracy Theory"

In Defense Of Conspiracy Theories

Re: [Poll] A sticky thread for "'CT' in the media"?

PostPosted: Sun Apr 13, 2014 2:52 am
by conniption

Re: [Poll] A sticky thread for "'CT' in the media"?

PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2014 4:15 pm
by Wombaticus Rex
Written by Kurt Eichenwald ... of course

Image

Re: [Poll] A sticky thread for "'CT' in the media"?

PostPosted: Fri May 16, 2014 2:14 am
by justdrew
well one of the "stars" of "the Americans" tv show just causally mentioned on colbert that the CIA reads and signs off on every script.

Re: [Poll] A sticky thread for "'CT' in the media"?

PostPosted: Fri May 16, 2014 7:58 am
by JackRiddler
Please clip or transcript for that, thank you.

Re: [Poll] A sticky thread for "'CT' in the media"?

PostPosted: Sat May 17, 2014 2:04 pm
by MinM
justdrew » Fri May 16, 2014 1:14 am wrote:well one of the "stars" of "the Americans" tv show just causally mentioned on colbert that the CIA reads and signs off on every script.

In the dvd commentary one of the producers recalls a scene where Steven Spielberg added his input. Which I thought was odd given that Spielberg has no official capacity with the show. At the time I thought that he must be a big fan of The Americans. Now it's obvious that he was acting as a conduit between the progamme and the CIA (HMW™).

Re: [Poll] A sticky thread for "'CT' in the media"?

PostPosted: Sat May 17, 2014 2:26 pm
by justdrew
well they have a "former cia" consultant on staff to make sure they write "realistic" or "quality" tradecraft elements, and the cia vetting the scripts is presumably to make sure their own guy doesn't include something he shouldn't. bizarre. not sure who the cuntsultant is, probably the famous one, the cia's man in hollywood I'd guess. forget his name atm.

there's only a few things I see from tv (and this show isn't one of them), but even so, I think I'm getting ready to set tv down and slowly back away. Even the best shows have little real "take away"

Hugh's .. "Perfect Storm" ???

PostPosted: Wed May 21, 2014 8:30 am
by MinM
Coen Brothers to Write Steven Spielberg's KGB Movie for Tom Hanks
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/c ... rgs-706024

viewtopic.php?p=426847#p426847

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=15332
» Sat May 17, 2014 1:04 pm wrote:
justdrew » Fri May 16, 2014 1:14 am wrote:well one of the "stars" of "the Americans" tv show just causally mentioned on colbert that the CIA reads and signs off on every script.

In the dvd commentary one of the producers recalls a scene where Steven Spielberg added his input. Which I thought was odd given that Spielberg has no official capacity with the show. At the time I thought that he must be a big fan of The Americans. Now it's obvious that he was acting as a conduit between the progamme and the CIA (HMW™).

Re: [Poll] A sticky thread for "'CT' in the media"?

PostPosted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 2:24 am
by Forgetting2
I know this isn't really the right thread to put this in, but I couldn't find what I thought was the exactly right thread for this sort of meta discussion of the various attitudes towards so called conspiracy theories. I was under the impression that the CT in the media topic never found a separate home.

Anyways, I ran across this Cambridge project to study conspiracies on iTunesU, where it's called History and Conspiracy under Cambridge University. Don't know how I would link to that, but it should be easy to find.

Here's the website for the project, called Conspiracy and Democracy. Funded by something called Leverhulme?

I've only listened to the talks called "History and conspiracy", "Near and Distant Neighbours", and "Rational enchantments" so far, and it's pretty freakin' tedious, especially that last one, but I hold out hope that something interesting may pop up. In the one History and Conspiracy, one of the founders of the website 'Lobster,' which has sometimes featured Peter Dale Scott, was one of the two speakers, and he mentions PDS a bit. I thought it was going to get interesting, but overall not really.

So mostly an FYI on how some academics are struggling to frame, or attempting to frame what they refer to as conspiracy theories and theorists. Some of the mental gymnastics (so far) are a little interesting, but I'm not really sure it's worth the effort slogging through this. I guess I imagined I might find some of the reasoning, distorted or otherwise, which might serve as underpinnings of a lot of the nonsense one sees in the mainstream media.

Re: [Poll] A sticky thread for "'CT' in the media"?

PostPosted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 6:19 am
by zangtang
that would probly be Robin Ramsey - of Lobster magazine, pretty innfrequent, dont know if still current........as i recall he's extremely rigorous.

pre-eminent authority on the right infiltration of the left (uk)

Re: [Poll] A sticky thread for "'CT' in the media"?

PostPosted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 8:30 am
by elfismiles
zangtang » 31 Jul 2014 10:19 wrote:that would probly be Robin Ramsey - of Lobster magazine, pretty innfrequent, dont know if still current........as i recall he's extremely rigorous.

pre-eminent authority on the right infiltration of the left (uk)


Yeah, I've hoped to chat with Mr. Ramsay over the years but hasn't happened yet. He's rigorous and skeptical of the less-rigorous CT.

Past RI Threads mentioning Robin Ramsay who also writes for Fortean Times magazine:
search.php?keywords=robin+ramsay

Re: [Poll] A sticky thread for "'CT' in the media"?

PostPosted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 12:36 pm
by Forgetting2
I went back to look. Actually it was Stephen Dorril.

Re: [Poll] A sticky thread for "'CT' in the media"?

PostPosted: Mon Sep 08, 2014 5:14 pm
by MacCruiskeen
ffs... bbc, p.1 today:

Enduring mystery

Why does flight MH370 draw so many conspiracy theories?


Click on the link and you enter a square acre of thought-free dumbfuck boilerplate by some journalist-impersonator called Tom de Castella. It's bulked out with a dozen exceptionally pointless photos and an inevitable guest appearance by that dependably sound chap David Aaronovitch. Count how often the Beeb deploys what Jamey Hecht calls "that priceless tool of Establishment discourse":

8 September 2014 Last updated at 11:08 GMT Share this pagePrint
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Malaysia Airlines MH370: The persistence of conspiracy theories
By Tom de Castella
BBC News Magazine

Six months after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 it is still the subject of a slew of explanations. Why has this tragedy prompted such a wave of conspiracy theories?

Sudden, dramatic events often provoke conspiracy theories - particularly where the official version is disbelieved. Think JFK, Princess Diana, 9/11.

But in the case of MH370 there is not even an official version. Nobody knows what happened to MH370. It's a modern mystery.

"It is very rare to be able to proffer no convincing answer for an event," says Times columnist David Aaronovitch, whose book Voodoo Histories tackles conspiracy theories.

...

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29083905


Why would they be bothering with such a propaganda offensive? Any ideas?