I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that this is not unfortunate fringe phenomena of the conspiracy subculture. It's inherent in the whole mindset, and can be found in any more than superficial examination. It's in the very DNA of the whole tendency. Modern conspiracism started with clueless French aristocrats and religious obsurantists who couldn't understand why the "lower orders" hated them so, or why intellectual wise asses insisted on contradicting them when they said the earth was flat. Predictably, they decided it was the Jews. As modernity continued to traumatize them, the list of phenomena to be "explained" in this manner came to include women who talked back and enjoyed sex (look at the supersized role of Madonna or Lady Gaga in all these speculations), racial minorities who inexplicably objected to being lynched, workers who thought they had the right to organize to defend their interests, and so on. This is the big conspiracy, folks. On the other hand, if you think some or all of these things are awesome, thank your local illuminatus.
Nazi Sympathy and Racism in Alt Media, Roundtable discussion with Thomas Sheridan, Tom Secker, Adam and Aaron, TRR#121 Tuesday, 03 March 2015 03:41
This is a special roundtable discussion featuring Thomas Sheridan, Tom Secker, and Adam of Themes and Memes. Aaron Franz hosts, and the topic at hand is the rise of Race Politics in the alternative media. Why is it that alt media has taken such a dark turn, and what can the rest of us do about it?
topics include: racism, alternative, Truth Movement, psychology, frustration, psychic energy, Russell Brand, Adolf Hitler, National Socialism, midlife crisis, no resolution, masculine and feminine, dialectic, far right politics, Nazi Sympathy, revisionist history, personal values, obsession with disaster, sincerity, drug addiction, White Nationalism, division, mainstream recognition, self destruction, complexity, human nature, dogma, simple identity, reassessing self, need to belong, extended adolescence, The Greatest Story Never Told, emotive music, Hallmark commercial for Third Reich, Transformers score, WW2, narrative, Stalingrad, German people, Poland, distorted logic, truth documentaries, futurism, Nazi flying saucers, Nazi Bell, propaganda, Goebbels, taking allegory as literal, cults, ideals, synchronicity, Walpurgis Night, confronting history, ideological vacuum, idealizing the past, virility, doublethink, confusion, Nuremburg Racial Laws, play the victim, race politics, slavery, preserving culture, multiculturalism, cultural laws, authoritarian government, complexity, sectarianism, Downfall film
there is no video version of this podcast at this time
elfismiles » 02 Mar 2015 20:47 wrote:Not sure if I should put this in another or its own thread ... maybe a "Shooting Sprees that Didn't Happen" thread or ... idiots who shore up the "crazy conspiracy theorist" or "racist conspiracy theorist" memes.
How a Father With a Twitter Account Stopped a White Supremacist Terrorist from Shooting a Bunch of School Kids 9/11 truther spewed terrifying and hateful threats, and one dad could not let it go. By Paul Rosenberg / Salon March 2, 2015 http://www.alternet.org/media/how-fathe ... chool-kids
Re: Red Ice Creations
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 4:14 pm
by BrandonD
yathrib » Tue Mar 03, 2015 1:01 pm wrote:I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that this is not unfortunate fringe phenomena of the conspiracy subculture. It's inherent in the whole mindset, and can be found in any more than superficial examination. It's in the very DNA of the whole tendency. Modern conspiracism started with clueless French aristocrats and religious obsurantists who couldn't understand why the "lower orders" hated them so, or why intellectual wise asses insisted on contradicting them when they said the earth was flat. Predictably, they decided it was the Jews. As modernity continued to traumatize them, the list of phenomena to be "explained" in this manner came to include women who talked back and enjoyed sex (look at the supersized role of Madonna or Lady Gaga in all these speculations), racial minorities who inexplicably objected to being lynched, workers who thought they had the right to organize to defend their interests, and so on. This is the big conspiracy, folks. On the other hand, if you think some or all of these things are awesome, thank your local illuminatus.
The idea that antisemitism or racial prejudice is inherent in the whole conspiracy mindset is entirely absurd.
Conspiracies exist, they are the norm in fact. The majority of our world leaders can be defined as wealthy powerful people acting in collusion with one another to protect their own interests, generally in a manner of which the public would not approve - and so many of their actions are done in the shadows, outside of public scrutiny. This is just the nature of power when it is so unequally distributed.
Bigotry towards a certain group requires a belief in the empirically unsupported notion that an arbitrary classification of human beings somehow possess inherently better or worse traits. Any depth into conspiracy studies or anthropology, or common sense for that matter, dispels such notions.
Racial or cultural prejudice is only common in the shallow end of the conspiracy pool - and it is drifting there among a *gigantic* amount of other totally unsupported notions. If one believes that ideas such as antisemitism are inherent in the conspiracy mindset, this could mean that he has never left the shallow end.
Re: Red Ice Creations
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 4:26 pm
by Searcher08
yathrib » Tue Mar 03, 2015 6:01 pm wrote:I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that this is not unfortunate fringe phenomena of the conspiracy subculture. It's inherent in the whole mindset, and can be found in any more than superficial examination. It's in the very DNA of the whole tendency.
I cannot find any distinction between this mindset and that approach to the subject bounded by the twin lines of 'Nothing to see here' and 'Paraculture as Mental Illness'
Fantasia on a theme of Cass Sunnstein.
Re: Red Ice Creations
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 4:29 pm
by coffin_dodger
Brandon said:
The idea that antisemitism is inherent in the whole conspiracy mindset is entirely absurd.
...and an extremely fortuitous meme for those in power to use as a weapon against anyone questioning the System. You are a conspiracy theorist, ergo you are an anti-semite, ergo you are the most disgusting of racists imaginable, ergo anything you say or think is tainted.
Re: Red Ice Creations
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 4:41 pm
by yathrib
Nice ideal. But it seems to be one that recedes further into the distance the longer one engages the "conspiracy community." Can you name a single conspiracy researcher, podcaster, etc. who is not either a card carrying far rightist, or a useful idiot for same? EDIT: I accept the truth of the prosaic Chomskyite reverse wealth redistribution conspiracy, if it can be called that.
Bigotry towards a certain group requires a belief in the empirically unsupported notion that an arbitrary classification of human beings somehow possess inherently better or worse traits. Any depth into conspiracy studies or anthropology, or common sense for that matter, dispels such notions.
Re: Red Ice Creations
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 4:51 pm
by Wombaticus Rex
yathrib » Tue Mar 03, 2015 3:41 pm wrote:Can you name a single conspiracy researcher, podcaster, etc. who is not either a card carrying far rightist, or a useful idiot for same?
You can't?
Anyways: Peter Dale Scott, Christopher Simpson, William Blum, Jim Hougan, Tim Shorrock, Greg Palatine, Douglas Valentine, Doug Henwood, Daniel Yergin, Alfred W. McCoy, Gerald Colby, Charlotte Dennett, Walter Karp, HP Albarelli, Nick Bryant.
That's a single shelf of "books" in my office. Podcasts, I can't speak for, I listen to music.
The idea that antisemitism is inherent in the whole conspiracy mindset is entirely absurd.
...and an extremely fortuitous meme for those in power to use as a weapon against anyone questioning the System. You are a conspiracy theorist, ergo you are an anti-semite, ergo you are the most disgusting of racists imaginable, ergo anything you say or think is tainted.
It is based on an underlying symbolic language structure of contamination pathogenicity infection poison death pandemic virulence uncontrollable spread transmission by contact transmission by proximity virology
as regards the ideas / memes
and
mutation corruption decay infectivity unholiness disease by association moral turpitude
of those who have been exposed.
In some ways it is playing out a similar symbolic structure to that of Christian Fundamentalists who see AIDS as God's Righteous Anger against sinners.
For more on how metaphors shape human communication, see
The idea that antisemitism is inherent in the whole conspiracy mindset is entirely absurd.
...and an extremely fortuitous meme for those in power to use as a weapon against anyone questioning the System. You are a conspiracy theorist, ergo you are an anti-semite, ergo you are the most disgusting of racists imaginable, ergo anything you say or think is tainted.
It is based on an underlying symbolic language structure of contamination pathogenicity infection poison death pandemic virulence uncontrollable spread transmission by contact transmission by proximity virology
as regards the ideas / memes
and
mutation corruption decay infectivity unholiness disease by association moral turpitude
of those who have been exposed.
In some ways it is playing out a similar symbolic structure to that of Christian Fundamentalists who see AIDS as God's Righteous Anger against sinners.
For more on how metaphors shape human communication, see
Regarding a conspiracy researcher not on the far right or a useful idiot, I recommend reading Jeff Wells. He has an interesting blog and a fun book. Just dont go to the forum, because it is full of weirdoes!!!
Re: Red Ice Creations
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 5:31 pm
by yathrib
I acknowledge most of those names, but these are not as a rule believers in secret societies or occult influences. Also, most of them are super old, even by my standards. The JFK generation.On reflection, I'll even add one: Peter Levenda. But he is generally pretty shy about speculating beyond the data, and even he is full of it on occasion. I consider most of these to be political researchers or even investigative journalists. These are not people who sit in front of their computers searching for hidden meanings in the latest JZ offering. To equate these earlier researchers--most of whom are unknown to anyone under 50--with the current crop who have arisen since the early 2000s is like equating Meister Eckhardt with Pat Robertson. EDIT: Jeff Wells. Where's he been lately? I thought he was finally disgusted with the whole thing.
We should start a thread on idle speculation on what Jeff does these days. I think he has taken up new form of yarns...
Re: Red Ice Creations
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 5:49 pm
by seemslikeadream
I hear he's on a bowling league
Re: Red Ice Creations
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 5:56 pm
by Iamwhomiam
Like those of us posting here don't? A bit insulting to yathrib and entirely unnecessary, slad.
Yathrib, don't project what you don't know about Jeff Wells. It only unnecessarily harms your credibility when you do.
Admittedly, there is some truth to what you claim, but let's not call those who are repulsed by Israeli aggression towards a captive population who are of a different faith, antisemitic. They have a right to air their feelings, too. That some here might hold such prejudicial feelings as you suggest should not strike you as odd; we a sampling of people from more than one country who may have developed different cultural identities and prejudices. I used to long to visit the middle east with all its history; now I could care less - the Holy Lands have become everything but Holy.
Re: Red Ice Creations
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 6:00 pm
by seemslikeadream
it wasn't an insult to anyone ...it's the truth and he probably wanted to spend more time living it than posting on a blog or watching over all of us
please don't read into it more than the couple of words I posted..they weren't aimed at anyone...it was the truth about Jeff as I believe it to be...he has a life and I am sure he is living it
