Stuff like this scares me

[shinigamiinochi]

So, yesterday my mom and I were in the car and she was listening to some republican radio show where they were bashing Obama. I'm not a fan of his, but when they kept carrying on about him not being uber patriotic and how great america was and how everyone should feel that way, I got a little pissed off. Yeah, America's nice, but there are some things about us that are pretty sucky, like healthcare. We aren't the best country or the only country that can help the rest of the world like everyone was saying on this show. Sure enough, this morning my friend sent me this link:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/2.../697/536/613742

My mom is constantly telling me that the war is a good thing because of the terrorist attacks and how we are preventing them. I say that we don't have to worry about other countries attacking us when we have this shit on our own land. The part that scares me the most was that I wasn't really shocked when I read this. What pisses me off is that this was not made an important story on the news, though, once again, it doesn't surprise me. Personally, I think Obama's full of himself, but if he thinks that America needs some major reworking, I'm in agreement. At the very least, AMERICA shouldn't be some damn full of itself.

[DemonGoddess]

What you have are a bunch of politicians blowing hot air like they always have done. As far as the mainstream news goes, they haven't done REAL reporting on this crap for quite a few years now if you think about it. Brings to mind past history and yellow journalism, ya know?

What's really sad, is when all this started, I found myself surfing for news reports from outside the country, because I kinda figured we weren't being given anything but what ever it was they wanted us to hear. What made me angry then, and still does, is that it turned out I got more accurate news from outside of the country, then from our normal news sources.

[PorkChopExpress86]

The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers. This, apparently, is what the scare tactic political campaigning of John McCain's supporters has led to -- Americans perpetrating a terrorist attack against innocent children on American soil.

really? REALLY? john mccain's political campaign directly resulted in this? come on...

Also, I watched that DVD and found it was a pretty accurate and balanced presentation. they spent a good 10 minutes of that hour stressing that they were speaking about muslim fundamentalist terrorists and not all muslims. There was very little that was incendiary, unless you say video clips of a man bathing his infant in blood from a knife and praying that he grows up to be a martyr is incendiary. The whole dvd was about moderate muslims calling out other moderate muslims to speak out about this kind of crap and to show the world that if indeed the extremists are a small minority, then the vast majority needs to show its not supportive of this kind of barbarism.

[greenwizard]

While I haven't seen this video, you said they spent ten minutes saying they weren't talking about all Muslims. So, how long was the entire video. I live in PA which I've been told is a swing state, though I'm a registered Democrat so they may not bother with me. *shrugs*

And have you noticed that every time someone disagrees with Bush and his cronies they suddenly get accused of not wanting to protect our families? Or they get fired.... It's a fear tactic that seems to work. What I have noticed is now Obama is running ads that outline his plans, and McCain is running ads that are a carbon copy of the negative ads that Obama was running except that he added new taxes. His slogan is now 'Change is Coming'. I just find it odd that he's mimicking his opponent and not coming up with anything new on his own.

As for the attacks, it wasn't just McCain's campaign. Repuclicans have been doing this since the wart started. Every election year their smear campaign is that anyone against the war doesn't want to protect us. The thing is, you can't fight terrorism. All you can do is do everything in your power to prevent their attacks, and that doesn't include invading other countries.

Here's a question I've been wondering about. What in the hell gives Bush the idea that this country has the right to 'police' the world. We are one of the younger countries, and actually, not all that powerful in the world market. The CIA has a website that has every bit of information you could ever want to know about every country in the world.

In the Middle East... well that is where civilization began. Why does the President of a young country think he should tell the people of one of the oldest countries in the world how to live?

[PorkChopExpress86]

The video is about an hour long. it starts off with the disclaimer that it isn't speaking about all muslims and ends on the same note.

yeah, that happens and it would have happened if al gore was president. check world war 2 propaganda. "When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler!" It's a politically convenient attack on the opposite party and everyone does it. Obama is running ads that outline a plan?? O.o clearly we're not seeing the same ads. All i'm seeing is "here's a vague idea of the things that need to be worked on." If he wants to clearly explain something to me have him tell me how he's going to "lower 95% of the people's taxes" when 40% of people don't pay any. Is he going to give them a credit? Wait, isn't that what Bush did?

U.S. income tax system is so bad and increasingly reliant on a shrinking number of Americans to pay the nation's bills, that 40 percent of the country's households pay no income taxes at all, says Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary, and president of Ari Fleischer Communications.

Our tax system comes up short in a lot of areas; however, the one place where it does excel is at redistributing income, says Fleischer:

* According to a recent study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), those who make more than $43,200 (the top 40 percent) pay 99.1 percent of all income taxes.

* Those who made more than $87,300 in 2004, the top 10 percent, paid 70.8 percent of all income taxes.

* In other words, 10 percent pay 7 out of every 10 dollars and their share of the burden is rising.

And those super-rich one percenters? Their share of the nation's income has risen, but their tax burden has risen even faster:

* In 1979, affluent individuals made 9.3 percent of the nation's income and they paid 18.3 percent of the country's income tax.

* In 2004, they made 16.3 percent of the nation's income but their share of the income tax burden leaped to 36.7 percent.

* As for the middle class they make 13.9 percent of the nation's income and their share of the nation's income tax dropped to 4.7 percent.

* In 1979, they made 15.8 percent of the nation's income and paid 10.7 percent of the nation's income tax.

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?page...rticle_ID=14434

And yes you can fight terrorism. It's a military strategy called Total War. Decimate them. Make being our enemy so unpalatable that they would never begin to oppose us. The west controlled the Islamic world for centuries and yet there was almost no terrorism prior to the later half of the 20th century. why? because British colonials didn't tolerate that shit. Why didn't the Confederate states, well armed and well trained, conduct guerrilla warfare? Because Sherman's March to the Sea took all the fight out of them. Why didn't the Japanese, so keen to crash their planes into our decks during the war and commit mass suicide in Okinawa rather then be taken prisoner, not form armed resistance groups during the occupation? This was another group of people who had divine backing for their suicide missions. But they knew that after firebombing 95% of their urban areas and then nuking 2 strategically unimportant cities just to show them what the score was, they were better off playing ball. See also Dresden, Germany. But no, we engage in this hands off, bullshit form of war and all we do is get our troops killed. We stick around and rebuild their shitty ass country so that they can have the convenience of sniping us from their mosques.

we are the most powerful militarily and economically in the world. Look at the asian markets yesterday. The dow dropped and, as anticipated, the nikkei dropped. Today the dow bounces back, the nikkei bounces back. When the US has tough times economically, the entire world does. We are the backbone of the world economy.

"TOKYO (Kyodo)--Tokyo stocks rebounded Wednesday from the previous day's dive to the lowest levels in more than three years as investors were heartened by Wall Street's overnight rally on optimism the U.S. Congress will soon pass the White House's revised financial bailout package aimed at stabilizing the battered financial sector in the United States. " http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/

But as far as policing the world goes, I actually agree with you. I'd prefer we stick with the Monroe Doctrine. We make the rules for the Western Hemisphere and we leave other spheres of influence alone. Let the Brits dominate Europe, build up the Japanese and give them back their Greater East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Hell, we can even give Russia their Iron Curtain back. The Cold War was a hell of a lot more fun then this war on terror. At least then James Bond had sexy women to seduce.

[shinigamiinochi]

I'm sorry, but just destroying a huge group of people doesn't stop terrorism in general. Actually, it can cause more terrorism. The real solution to terrorism? Just kill everyone else but yourself. Even in one's own country, you have citizens using terrorism against each other. I think that was my whole point, even if we somehow, through some bizarre miracle, win this war in Iraq and pull out, we still have terrorist attacks by our own damn people! So, should we just decimate ourselves and be done with it? Humans have been creating ways to seperate and hurt each other since the dawn of time; gender, religion, politics, race... While it is true that I didn't see any definite links to John Mccain here and I didn't see that DVD, I don't either were necessary for this attack to happen. Both Obama and McCain have been using scare tactics, a lot of politicians do it, this is not a reason for people to attack each other's children. A note on Bush: doesn't anyone else think it's hysterical that when that whole Russia invading another country fiasco happened that he came out and literally said that in this day and age, NO country has the right to invade another? Honestly, I bust a gut when I heard him say that. But, yeah, I'm in total agreement that terrorism can't be solved anymore than murder or rape or war can. Also, the site did say that there wasn't a solid connection between the DVD and the attack besides that it happened in the same state. However, even the slightest connection between Muslim and terrorism can create panic in people. I'm not saying that it is the DVD's fault or John McCain's fault this happened. People are just stupid and violent in nature and they have never needed an excuse to hurt one another. What I'm saying is that it is very easy, especially nowadays, to influence people through fear. Isn't that a part of terrorism, using fear to motivate people? That's what I think whenever I see one of those ads on TV. It happened to my parents, the second they found out that a group of Muslims didn't like us, they immediately asked me if any of my friends were Muslim and when I said yes, they said 'good'. Now, my parents would never go out and gas children, but they were afraid and still are and are distrustful of anyone they assume could be Muslim. One thing that annoyed me about that site was the lack of concrete information about why that person believes that McCain is responsible for this attack and why the DVD could have been a motivator. If you're going to spout ideas like that as fact, you need something to back it. Other than that, I was glad that my friend sent me the link. I don't watch the news because I know that it isn't really 'news'. Hell, half the time it's about some celebrity I've never heard of! What kind of news is that? I asked my mom, who watches the news religiously, if she had heard about this attack last night. She hadn't. I think something like this is pretty damn important. But, then again, a lot of Americans stopped caring about the truth a long time ago, just ask my current American History professor.

[greenwizard]

Yep, Bush, who invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, and wants to invade Iran said that no country should invade another. I did a double take at that. Either he really is as stupid as people say, or one of his speech writers really doesn't like him. He tends to say things that suit what he wants regardless of whether or not it is actually true.

Also, didn't Georgia attack Russia first? How can you condemn a country for fighting back? This is just nuts. I saw a video today that says Pentecostal Christians believe that the end will come when Russia invades Israel. The person who made the video seems to think it's connected.

[foeofthelance]

In regards to the original post; While I agree that this is a sad fact of reality, there are idiots out there, and America actually gives them a better chance of pulling off shit like this. Much as some people like to think otherwise, we're not a facist police state hellbent on destryoing personal freedoms. So getting the knowledge and materials to build a homemade gas weapon isn't really all that difficult. Where DK screws up is trying to blame this on "McCain Campaign scare tactics". Seriously, what? The Republican line about hitting back hard against terrorism has been on the air pretty much since 9/12, and this is quite an isolated incident. While it is more harmful in its actual consequences, this is really no different than burning crosses on front lawns or spray painting swastikas in front of temples. There are bloody stupid morons out there who hate people just because they are different, and just because this particular asshole decided to target muslims does not mean this can be laid on the doorstep of any one particular party. Or are all hate crimes now the fault of xenophobic republican conservatives?

On Bush, wars, and invasion; kettle, pot, black, let's cook steaks. Afghanistan was invaded as a response to a terrorist attack. A couple of real bastards decided to take commerical airliners and turn them into weapons of mass murder. We went after the people who were responsible, and in the process got rid of a whole bunch of similiarly sick bastards. Now we've got a fairly friendly ally who is trying to be a better place to live all around.

Iraq: We invaded Iraq way back when in 1991. There were actually two seperate operations. Operation Desert Shield was intended to be a defensive action should Iraqi forces invade Saudi Arabia or another friendly nation. Operation Desert Storm was the operation that kicked Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. At the time there was a large presence of weapons of mass destruction; they'd been used by Hussein in the Iraq-Iran war in the 80s, and quite a large number of them got destroyed by the U.N. in the 90s. Unfortunately, around 1998 Hussein gets stubborn and starts odering out the inspectors. This leads to Operation Desert Fox in 1998. Guess what? Clinton was president for that one. Hussein agrees to let the inspectors back in, and manages to go for a few more years. Then he tries to play chicken with the recent Bush Administration, and loses big time. It should be noted that at the point of the invasion just about every major power with an interest in the region thought he had or was working on more WMDs.

Georgia- Russia starts making noise about possible attacks on peacekeepers who are there to safeguard russian nationals living in another country. (This is what happens when you decide to transplant portions of your population when a major communist nation.) There may or may not be hints that the region of Georgia in question might or might not be thinking the way the Southern states were in the 1800s. Russia invades. (About the same if Great Britain had invaded the South in the name of protecting British colonists/nationals living there). It turns into a major international debacle.

The point? Invading hostile dictatorships who have or had actively threatened your nation or allies is pretty much SOP for most nations. Invading minor democracies a portion of your size over some people who may or may not want to be a part of your nation? That tends to raise eyebrows.

[DragonGoddess]

Personally, I see this as another scare tactic in the time of an election. Those people were refugees fleeing a war, and came to the country that is fighting against their own people. Does this condemn them to a life of hate and violence being thrown at them? No, it does not, but take a look at history and you will see a very similar circumstance. Back in the 60's and 70's when blacks were fighting for their rights, they were attacked night and day because they were who they were and were discriminated against by everyone. Crime rates doubled in just those ten years in Alabama from 1,222 incidents on various occasions in 1960, to 2,479 in 1970. Violence increased from racist attacks and the government pushing scare tactics at the time

The US government made it known in 2001 that they were going after Afghanistan, but then suddenly turned away from them and went to Iraq instead. My question is why make plans to attack one country, then not even three years later, turn a blind eye to that country and go after another country that had no prior reason to be attacked, except for the leader being an enemy of the President's father, and being suspected of having weapons of mass destruction? It is quite obvious when you look at it that President Bush meant to originally go after Iraq in the first place, but if that is so, then how is it that the country comes under an attack in the same year that Bush becomes president?

Either way you look at it, it is a scare tactic of some sort. Whether it be someone who wants to scare those people into going back to their homeland because they are racist, or it being just because they want to keep them in fear while living here just for the hell of it, it is a scare tactic.

As for fighting terrorism and destroying it completely, that is completely impossible. Anyone can be considered a terrorist by anyone else. To be classified as a terrorist there has to be the use of violence and threats to intimidate and place fear upon a person. If you are racist against someone and attack them to strike fear into them and their family/friends of the same race/religion/beliefs you are considered a terrorist because of this. Terrorism has been around forever, and it will always be around no matter what form it is in. If you intimidate someone or simply make them fear you, they are a victim of terrorism.

[PorkChopExpress86]

i can redefine terms in an overly broad manner too. but if you want to have an actual argument then why not focus on the terms as they are understood by the majority? Terrorism in this case refers to non conventional warfare carried out by a small force against one that is far superior with the intent of changing the policy or attitudes of the government that controls the larger force.

If you really think the events described in the article are politically motivated you need to reexamine the situation. if it was in any way orchestrated by a candidate there would be many more of them and they would be of larger scale. I know I’m wasting my breath here since you stated there was a link between Bush's election and the 9/11 attacks, but do you really believe that some small cabal of right wing politicians engineered the largest attack on this country in 50 years so that they could have more oil wealth then they could spend in 10 lifetimes despite already having... more oil wealth then they could spend in 10 lifetimes? There would be relatively little to gain and everything to lose if there was ever a link discovered. But logic isn’t really necessary when we’re spinning conspiracy bullshit is it? FDR let the Japanese bomb pearl harbor too, didn’t he? And some small fraternal organization created in Bavaria three hundred years ago is now controlling every political, economic and social action undertaken by western democracies right? Failing that, Jewish bankers are the ones controlling the media and governments, huh?

One attack on a muslim minority in this country is hardly an example of terrorism. it is a criminal matter, more specifically it is a hate crime. KKK attacks against blacks in the Jim Crowe South were terrorism because they were a relatively small group fighting in a systematic way against the policies of the federal and state governments that allowed blacks to live in a way they did not agree with.

No one is arguing that you can destroy the idea of terrorism completely. You can however, in the manner outlined above and backed up by historical example, crush the resistance of a people in a specific place and time. No one fought Saddam Hussein over there after he utterly annihilated large groups of Kurds. But they know the West is too squeamish to do what needs to be done, so they shoot at us while surrounded by women and children.

[DragonGoddess]

What I meant when I referred to 9/11 was that it was a scare tactic to show the USA that it is not as invulnerable as it seems, and Bush used the opportunity to turn the tables and go after the country and man his father originally went after.

As for terrorism, yes, the USA will not attack men and warriors surrounded by women and children, but yet they will allow our guys to be shot at and killed. Even while the terrorists video tape them decapitating and killing our soldiers and civilians in their own country to show us they are not backing down, we fight them still, but the generals have said we are not winning, and Bush still thinks we are.

With the views put in the American minds since 9/11, any arabs living in the USA is seen as a terrorist, and it is sickening, but if the person immigrated from one of those countries recently, there is no way to tell if they are a terrorist or not as well, so being on the watch can either damn or improve this country in the process.

The attack on the mosque was obviously a hate crime, but to pull in a political stand point is beyond ludicrous and completely uncalled for. It was a simple attack on a group of immigrants that were not considered "socially acceptable" in the eyes of the person who caused the incident. To say McCain was behind it is like saying Bush also was the one who organized 9/11 and all of that and the wars completely before he got into the office just to fuck this country over.

[foeofthelance]

Dragon Goddess, there's a major difference between a scare tactic and a terrorist action. A scare tactic is something along the lines of "Vote for me, or Bugaboos will eat you're children!" It basically amounts to a threat.

A terrorist action is not a scare tactic. It serves one of two purposes: it either convinces a major political body to change its policies, such as the train bombings in Spain managed to get Spain to pull out as much from the Middle East as it could, possbly even altering the outcomes of the Spanish elections. Or it serves to provoke a retaliation from the target that is in much greater proportion to the original attack, hopefully gaining sympathy for the people responsible in the first place.

The first is the easiest to accomplish; its little more than large scale hostage taking, and after a certain point the public or government in question is simply unwilling to accept the amount of casulties they are facing and caves in. Again, see the Spanish example. Compare it to the British example, that happened around the same time. In one case there is a strong case that terrorist actions, and the threat of terrorist actions strongly influenced the fate of a government; in the second all it did was provoke a series of crackdowns on suspected threats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_March_2004..._train_bombings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings

(Wikipedia, while not normally a good cite for most things, is actually rather good at summarizing events.)

Now, I don't think I need a cite for what comes next, but when it comes to provoking reactions, 9/11 was a rather clear case. 3000+ dead lead to the innvasion and toppling of two different nations, one directly and one indirectly. The reason it didn't gain any sympathy for those who carried it out is because they decided to use civilian aircraft to attack civilians. Had they stuck to previous patterns and attacked embassies and military establishments, the responding counterattacks would have been more proportional, as they were in the past. However, when you basically anounce and carry out a threat that no one is safe from you, it is an equally safe bet that everyone is going to pile on you in a quick manner.

[greenwizard]

You know, the 9/11 terrorist attacks were attempted 9 times under the Clinton administration. It was caught and stopped all 9 times. The first time it was tried under the Bush Administration it succeeded. Why? Only those actually involved can say for sure. Of course that event led us to where we are now. I see Bush for what he is, a power hungry opportunist. Gatta love Porkchop and people like him that believe Bush and his people are telling the truth. There minds won't be changed until the ultimate betrayal of their trust happens.

[PorkChopExpress86]

You know, the 9/11 terrorist attacks were attempted 9 times under the Clinton administration. It was caught and stopped all 9 times. The first time it was tried under the Bush Administration it succeeded. Why? Only those actually involved can say for sure. Of course that event led us to where we are now. I see Bush for what he is, a power hungry opportunist. Gatta love Porkchop and people like him that believe Bush and his people are telling the truth. There minds won't be changed until the ultimate betrayal of their trust happens.

you realize you're in the vast minority here right? 3/4 people have no problem with the official report of events. Speaking of clinton, he let osama bin laden get away.

The tape proves the Clinton administration was aggressively tracking al-Qaida a year before 9/11. But that also raises one enormous question: If the U.S. government had bin Laden and the camps in its sights in real time, why was no action taken against them?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4540958/

Now lets talk about people who believe there is a grand conspiracy by the government.

I deal regularly with people who have various levels of physiological abnormality in their brain. Through an unfortunate series of events--their genetics; random biological mutations; or the deliberate use of mind-altering substances that activate the latent psychosis; etc. etc., these unfortunate souls start out with or unknowingly stimulate a defective physiology which causes a dysfunction in their cognitive faculties. Their defective brain works hard to integrate events and make sense of the world, but it is at a serious and overwhelming disadvantage because its neural pathways don't work properly. Hence, auditory or visual hallucination; bizarre delusions; complicated conspiracy theories; disorganized thinking; and an impaired critical thinking capacity in general--all of which lead to pervasive misperceptions of the world and the people around them.

We rightly call such people mentally ill. For the most part (except for the substance-induced psychotics) the only choice they have in the matter (and this, too is often dependent on whether or not the insight they have into their illness has been spared the physiological degeneration that effects other parts of their brain) is whether to regularly take the medications that give them some hope of being able to accurately perceive reality.

The people I am concerned about in this post are as close to being mentally ill as it is possible to get. Oh, they have the same catastrophic physiological disruption in their brain that the paranoid schizophrenic has; it's just that they came to it via a different route. They probably weren't born with much of a physiological vulnerability for becoming detached from reality....no, they had to have repeatedly traveled down the psycho path to reach their final delusional destination. It is likely that at first they mentally got lost and accidentally took a wrong turn, leaving the main highway. It was always within their cognitive power to return to the main road (unlike those with mental illness who are biologically trapped on the false path); but at some point they chose to stay on their present course.

The world of politics attracts paranoia, conspiracy theories and paranoids like flypaper attracts flies. And it is deeply disturbing to observe.

http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2007/04/paran...rikes-deep.html

This from a PhD of psychiatry. Now here’s another account.

Of all the people in those buildings that morning, no one -- no one -- saw any wires anywhere? No one asked why the drywall was torn down and replaced with grey stuff duct-taped into place? None of the firemen rushing into those burning towers, checking all those floors for survivors -- none of them noticed the building was rigged to explode? That it might possibly be worth a small call on the radio?

My father was interred at Arlington National Cemetery in 2002. I will never forget that day. It changed my life, and it was the event that started me writing here at Eject! Eject! Eject!

The man who coordinated that service was on a hill about a half-mile from that side of the Pentagon on the morning of September 11th, 2001. He told me that they had been informed that something was going on in New York that morning. Then he heard something that he said he thought was a missile attack -- a roar so loud and so far beyond a normal jet sound that he looked up at that exact moment expecting to die.

What he saw emerge from the trees overhead, perhaps a hundred feet above him, was American Airlines Flight 77 as it went by in a silver blur, engines screaming in a power dive as it hit the near side of the Pentagon. He told me -- to my face -- that body parts had rained down all over that sacred field. Just like red hail on a summer day. Those body parts are buried in a special place at the base of that hill.

Now. If Rosie O'Donnell and the rest of that Lunatic Brigade is right and I am wrong, then that man -- that insignificant Army chaplain and his Honor Guard of forty men -- are all liars. He is lying to me for Halliburton and Big Oil. That Chaplain -- and all of those decent, patriotic young men in the Honor Guard, and all the commuters on the roads who saw an American Airlines jet instead of a missile -- all of those people are liars and accessories to murder. And all of the firefighters who went into buildings rigged to explode were pre-recruited suicide martyrs dying for George W. Bush's plans for world conquest. Remember: NOTHING that happened on September 11th needed any more explanation than what was obvious from the second impact... namely, that Islamic terrorists hijacked four American aircraft and flew three of them into their targets. To try to convince people of missile attacks and rigged explosives and mystery jets is nothing more than an intentional assault on reason and common sense, one that damns the innocent and protects those mass murderers with our blood on their hands.

It's an obscenity. It's a filthy, God-damned, criminal obscenity. Nothing less.

http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000140.html

Check out this study.

Goertzel identified three traits as being correlated with a belief in conspiracy theories:

anomia, the respondent stated a belief that he/she felt alienated or disaffection relative to 鍍he system;・

a tendency to distrust other people; and

a feeling of insecurity regarding continued employment.

Citing Volkan5, who suggested that insecure and/or discontented people very often feel a need for a tangible enemy on which to externalize their anger, Goertzel notes that conspiracy theories may serve to provide an 兎nemy・to blame for problems which 登therwise seem too abstract and impersonal.・He further observes that conspiracy theories also provide ready answers for the believer痴 unanswered questions and help to resolve contradictions between known 素acts・and an individual's belief system. The latter observation seems to be verified by the widespread acceptance within the Muslim world of the contention that the September 11 attacks were the work of Israel, in conjunction with the Bush Administration, in order to increase anti-Muslim sentiments abroad.6

Surprisingly, Goertzel found that there was no correlation between race, age, and economic status and the latter two traits. Although he did not suggest that the two latter traits mentioned above may be self-perpetuating (people who have experienced employment difficulties in the past may be more distrusting of others which, in turn, may lead to future interpersonal issues that can have a negative impact on employment), intuitive reasoning suggests that this could be possible.

In summary, I accept the published findings and opinions of Goertzel et al as being at least subjectively valid. Successful conspiracy theories are those that to some degree empower the believer against what are perceived as external forces that he/she blames for some unpleasant or undesirable facet of their lives. In addition conspiracy theories serve to absolve the individual of some degree of self-accountability since, if the individual is being 登ppressed・by some powerful conspiracy, the individual痴 efforts at self-advancement will always be futile and thus become nothing more than 殿 waste of time.・Sadly, it seems that conspiracy theories and their advocates are now deeply engrained in the popular psyche and without prospects for their ultimate refutation.

http://www.world-mysteries.com/newgw/gw_rmd1.htm

Take a good long read of each of those articles and then ask yourself why you feel the need to believe Bush is out to get you.

[foeofthelance]

Careful, PorkChop. Better to stick to debating events and history when it comes to politics, rather than psychology. Its a rather stick prospect that no one ever walks away from unscathed. If you want to argue against conspiracy theories, bring evidence from the events themselves to the table. Please?

[PorkChopExpress86]

Careful, PorkChop. Better to stick to debating events and history when it comes to politics, rather than psychology. Its a rather stick prospect that no one ever walks away from unscathed. If you want to argue against conspiracy theories, bring evidence from the events themselves to the table. Please?

I am refuting the theories. look at the links, particularly EjectEjectEject, he does a pretty good job of destroying their positions. Besides the burden of proof isn't on me, it's on the person that says Bush, someone with nothing to gain and everything to lose, allowed a few planes to be hijacked and thousands of his countrymen to be killed, then bribed tens of thousands of witnesses, rank and file employees of numerous government agencies, and civilian companies to cover up for him for the rest of their lives, and willfully brought about an economic downturn sparked by the loss of major capital in downtown New York (the fiscal heart of the country) all so that... he could do... something...

Or maybe a bunch of religious fucktards got pissed off because their sheeplike mentality and utter contempt for human life fostered by a life of indoctrination and hatred allowed them to rationalize hijacking a few planes and crash them into symbols of American power because their sandy shit hole countries suck and they were promised 72 virgins in the hereafter by their vengeful and sadistic god.

What’s more reasonable to believe when it comes to conspiracy theories like "9/11 Truth" bullshit? The stories spun and perpetuated by the people described in the links above, which provide research and expert opinions, who are desperately in need of personal validation and seek attention by positing a highly unbelievable series of events that fly in the face of reason and plausibility, or the actions that have been repeated a thousand times in the middle east by islamic terrorists? Occam's Razor. Apply it.

[foeofthelance]

I'm not arguing that; I actually agree that most of that is bullshit. My problem with it was more that it came off as an attack rather than an arguement. You won't win a debate by calling the other side crazy. You win a debate by proving the otherside wrong. In the end it doesn't matter why they believe what they believe, just so long as you have the evidence to support your arguments and can persuade those who are listening that you're in the right.

[PorkChopExpress86]

I'm not arguing that; I actually agree that most of that is bullshit. My problem with it was more that it came off as an attack rather than an arguement. You won't win a debate by calling the other side crazy. You win a debate by proving the otherside wrong. In the end it doesn't matter why they believe what they believe, just so long as you have the evidence to support your arguments and can persuade those who are listening that you're in the right.

you can't win arguments against them because they are who they are. as described above they are unable to accept the facts that have been proven and corroborated. The facts have been presented ad nausuem and are widely available. when they choose to throw all of this out the door because they want to be able to pin it on the government, aliens, the illuminati, or the jews, the only thing left to examine is their state of mind.

MIT engineering professor Thomas W. Eagar was at first unwilling to acknowledge the concerns of the movement, saying "if (the argument) gets too mainstream, I'll engage in the debate." In response to physicist Steven Jones publishing a hypothesis that the World Trade Center was destroyed by controlled demolition, Eager stated:

"These people (in the 9/11 truth movement) use the "reverse scientific method"… they determine what happened, throw out all the data that doesn't fit their conclusion, and then hail their findings as the only possible conclusion."[48]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_Truth_Movement#Criticism

Thus exposing them for the irrational and flagrently demented people that they are is necessary to winning over the people who are in the middle. If left unchecked this kind of irrationality spirals out of control see Krystalnacht.

And who was attacking who?

Gatta love Porkchop and people like him that believe Bush and his people are telling the truth. There minds won't be changed until the ultimate betrayal of their trust happens.

[DragonGoddess]

You know, the 9/11 terrorist attacks were attempted 9 times under the Clinton administration. It was caught and stopped all 9 times. The first time it was tried under the Bush Administration it succeeded. Why? Only those actually involved can say for sure. Of course that event led us to where we are now. I see Bush for what he is, a power hungry opportunist. Gatta love Porkchop and people like him that believe Bush and his people are telling the truth. There minds won't be changed until the ultimate betrayal of their trust happens.

I agree with Porkchop that yes, there are facts that were given about 9/11 that cannot be disputed, but, there are facts from both sides that cannot be disputed either. As for what you said about the first time this happened with Bush, it succeeded, let it be a reminder that Bush was at a school at the time of the attacks, and as stated in the news, there was no way to know where the planes were headed.

When the planes turned direction there was no set path as to where they were headed, and even the "conspiracy people" said that there were fighter jets ready to take the plane out, but the order was never given. Yes, the jets were ready to take out the plane, but to make an attack on US soil like they were supposed to, they could not shoot the plane down immediately. "The approaching fighter doesn't immediately shoot down the bogey: It can first rock its wingtips to attract attention, or make a pass infront of the plane, or fire tracer rounds in its path." It also can talk over the radio to the plane as well, which obviously wasn't mentioned. If there was no reply, they would most likely try another option then get confirmation for an attack. The people at NORAD knew the plane was hijacked, but had no idea of where the airplane was headed until after the first attack, which gave them some idea for the 2nd plane, but they also did not mention the third plane as well until 29 minutes later, far too late for anything to be done.

Here's the timeline and some facts that I found online that seem kind of unexplainable though.

American Airlines Flight 11 was flown into the World Trade Center's North Tower - 8:46 a.m.

United Airlines Flight 175 was flown into the World Trade Center's South Tower - 9:03 a.m.

American Airlines Flight 77 was flown into the Pentagon - 9:37 a.m.

The F-15A has a Cruise Speed of 466,79 Mph and a maximum speed of 1649,75 Mph.

According to a news release from NORAD on September 18^th, 2001, the FAA notified them about the hijacking of the first airliner (flight 111) at 8.40 AM. Subsequently they ordered to scramble two F15’s from Otis Air Force Base at 8.46 AM, which were airborne at 8.52 AM.

Otis Air Force Base is 153 miles away, which means the planes would have taken a max of about 10 minutes to get to the 2nd plane if going at max speed, which they were said to have been doing, but they were there in 18 minutes instead.

I'm not stating something was a conspiracy here, but these are facts stated by FAA/NORAD commanding officers. I looked at both sides, and there are facts from each side that have facts in them that do not stand up to calculations and or basic knowledge.

[bookworm51485]

Personally, I think Obama's full of himself

I think most politicians, and people in the public eye, are full of themselves so I don't really think that's something that could/should be counted against him and no everybody else.

[Psychostorm]

Now lets talk about people who believe there is a grand conspiracy by the government.

google Project Northwoods

[greenwizard]

You know, I'd like it if people were to actually read what I type, and not read all kinds of crap into it. I said something I was told by someone with some connections. I can't say any more than that, and I don't know any more than that. The person who shared that information with me doesn't really have any interests on either side of the debate. We were just talking about it shorty after it happened. She told me this, and I wasn't supposed to tell anyone, but it's been years, and it's not like I've told everyone I've met or anything.

I even said I DON"T KNOW what happened exactly. Could Bush have let it happen? It wouldn't surprise me, though I don't think it was this grand conspiracy some people are trying to make it out to be. I think he just didn't do anything to stop it, the end.

It's also possible that someone was asleep at the wheel. Right after this happened there were lots of reports about how mismanaged the Bush administration was along with other government agencies. It's always possible I guess.

Why is it that you call me crazy because I don't live in your happy little box and don't believe the government is telling us the truth? I've recently come across the term 'sheeple' and I really think it fits those that believe everything they hear. I like to think for myself and question things thank you very much.

[foeofthelance]

Greenwizard, its not that you don't "live in our happy little box", or that we're sheeple who are automatically taken in by whatever we're told. Its quite the opposite, really. The problem is that you are basically accusing the Bush Administration of being culpable in the deaths of more than 3,000 people to achieve some political end. Is it possible? Yes. Just as it is possible that they weren't aware of what was going to happen, and mismanaged things because of human error.

I said something I was told by someone with some connections. I can't say any more than that, and I don't know any more than that

This, however, is not proof. This is not a cite, nor an argument. It's a Foaf, a friend of a friend. (Ok, second hand direct in this case.) We want some facts to actually look at. When DragonGoddess posted those facts on the F-15 fighters, I immediately checked them on Wikipedia. Ok, not entirely the best source, but there was also a massive gulf between her figures and the figure there, so I can see it taking almost twenty minutes for the planes to catch up, especially factoring in things like air resistance, turbulence, and having to match velocities. "I say so!" doesn't cut it, however. And yes, I took PorkChop to task on the same thing. As far as I know he's not a psychologist, and a few theories do not a diagnosis make for you.

In the immortal words that never were, "Just the facts, ma'am."

[Guest Zyx]

[Psychostorm]

That won't be necessary, no empire lasts forever and America has already started is downward spiral.