Wednesday, February 28, 2007

The Road to Hell is Crazily Paved with Best Intentions

In spite of my best intentions, I've been somewhat preoccupied these last few days with the 9/11 thing.

However, through accident or design, every time talk of 9/11 seems to be reverting to background levels something has come along to knock the volume back up a couple of notches


The established UK press sure has a hard-on for 9/11 at the moment

Which, in a way, is a shame as I have been distracted from documenting the results of my latest research into staring at famous London buildings whilst holding my breath until I see hidden messages in their architecture, plus I had a great title for a post after reading the news that Cressida Dick had been promoted to Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Sadly, the moment passed and so the title...



will never see the light of day, except for here, obviously


London is about to get a lot more Dick. Phwoar! Angelina Jolie eat my your heart out


There was a cracking quote from
Len Duvall at the MPA...

“Unprecedented circumstances surround one of the officers we have confirmed as Deputy Assistant Commissioner. Consequently I have decided to take the unusual step of commenting on matters that would normally remain confidential.

“Having considered these circumstances we are satisfied that our decision to confirm promotion is the right one to take at this time.

“The MPA is keenly aware that the people of London must have confidence in the police who work, in what are often difficult circumstances, to protect them. By confirming this promotion we are making it clear that the officer retains our full confidence.”

... which you could interpret in a couple of different ways, depending on just how cynical you happen to be feeling at the time

Anyway, I was hoping to put 9/11 out of my mind for a while and then I came across a link to this (admittedly 2 month old) post on the BlairWatch website

Listen guys, you've posted the same thing time after time on Blairwatch. We do not believe the theories based on the evidence you present. We're also concerned that you also appear to get a lot of your 'evidence' from neo-nazi sites.

You are welcome to post here on other subjects, but we're bored of the same old story you're spamming us with.

Therefore we will delete any further posts by yourselves on 9/11 and 7/7.


Delete posts about 7/7 as well as 9/11?


Equate 7/7 scepticism with being a neo-Nazi?

I have to say, there's something about being accused of being an insane, moronic Nazi, infected with a mental virus that can really win a guy over to other people's point of view.

7/7 has become an absolute cornerstone of the Blair government's 'security' agenda. 7/7 and 9/11 are frequently cited as the primary evidence to justify all sorts of heinous shit that would otherwise be rejected out of hand

...and a site called
Blairwatch is going to delete posts relating to scepticism about the official account of 7/7?

So, presumably investigation into any possibility of complicity on the part of the security services - ranging from direct involvement to merely hyping up the terror threat - goes right out of the window?

For fuck's sake

(edit: a commentator from Blairwatch (I think) has chipped in their penny's worth at the end of this post and fair play to them for taking the time to do so)

I appreciate that some of the people advocating 9/11 and 7/7 conspiracy theories are sometimes, how can I put it, 'enthusiastic' about promoting their ideas and very often a tad more 'imaginative' than your average person but that's not the same thing as demonstrating there are no issues there.

And, as The Antagonist reminded me in a post about Mark Thomas wanking on at the No Trident protest last week if there's one thing we can be sure of, without recourse to any conspiracy theory, it's just how ineffective and plain crap the mainstream left in UK politics has been in recent years...


"You're all doing very well... and now I'm asking you to do just that little bit more and SMS the world into being a better place (Calls Cost £1.50, normal network charges apply. Please ask a grown-up for permission beforehand)"


crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap

crap

The embarrassing truth about Left wing politics in this country is that the fundamental changes imposed on our civil liberties and corporate ownership and control of our social infrastructure under the current Labour government far exceed anything that happened in the Thatcher years

So, tell me again, who are the moronic twats living in a fascist fantasy world? I'm having trouble keeping up to speed with that one.

But hey, just one more march, just one more petition, one more free concert, one more text message, will turn things around and it will all be over by fucking Christmas

Bollocks

That would be the 'Surge' theory of mainstream left wing activism

There's a line from an old war movie I watched once and it went something like

'Never reinforce failure. Failure reinforces itself'

Too bloody right


Tony Benn speaking at the Troops Out - No Trident demo ... just like Groundhog Day but without the jokes


At times like these I'm reminded of a couple of quotes from the Great George Monbiot

Democracy is sustained not by public trust but by public scepticism. Unless we are prepared to question, to expose, to challenge and to dissent, we conspire in the demise of the system for which our governments are supposed to be fighting...

.. If we are to preserve the progress, pluralism, tolerance and freedom which President Bush claims to be defending, then we must question everything we see and hear...

In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, there's a fundamental belief that still persists even on the political left, that our leaders are basically decent, honest people, the same as the rest of us and when they do something wicked it's always the result of an honest mistake. Never anything darker than that.

And that's the fundamental reason why 'Conspiracy Theories' are so maligned and will continue to be maligned even if the entire neo-nazi space-alien contingent disappeared (was abducted?) overnight.


The debunkers guide to spotting mentally ill, mentally retarded, neo-nazi plague carriers - ouch, I think I've just cracked a rib laughing so hard


A conspiracy theorist is basically saying 'Someone is responsible for this and should be held to account'. The opposing point of view is 'Shit happens'. In reality, the 'Truth' usually lies somewhere between the two extremes; with arguably more weight on the 'someone is responsible' side of things than is currently admitted in the mainstream.


And the sooner a few more people start looking at our government and the bulk of our media as entities that willfully act in the interests of a small minority; rather than as a collection of idiots staggering from one unforeseen fuck up to another, the better.

If that assumption is made, or at least entertained, it totally changes your view of what are and are not viable tactics to deal with the excesses of that minority.

It doesn't even really matter if an ultra cynical view of government is 100% 'True' or not. I doubt that it is. The point is that the existing paradigm for popular activism just isn't delivering results and more of the same old crap thinking isn't likely to either.

Of course, no such changes are going to happen for a while yet. A lot more 'perfectly honest' mistakes will have to be made and things will have to get a lot more fucked up first.

.

15 comments:

Unknown said...

the conspiracy theorists have been somewhat disengenious with their link. that was posted by us on december 18 last year - and it is only today that they are bringing it up. funny that.

we mentioned the neo nazi sites for the simple reason that, in a discussion about holocaust denial the same three people that posted hundreds of near identical links about 9/11 and 7/7, added a series of comments denying the holocaust, and when we examined their sources we found that they were uncritically quoting, and citing, nazi sites.

what is saddening is that they're criticising us deleting their repetative comments but on their sites they don't even allow comments!

Stef said...

I appreciate that this happened a couple of months ago and I have no truck with neo Nazis - and, yes, some proponents of 9/11 conspiracy theories do promote hatred of Jews but...

Is that all it takes to close down discussion of an important issue?

What's to stop someone opening up a few sock puppet accounts and deliberately buggering up discussion of a subject like 7/7 simply by posting a little hate around? How hard would that be?

I've seen examples of what could very possibly be that kind of premeditated behaviour on a few sites

Should people abandon subjects just because others are creating an artificial stigma around them?

There's absolutely no intrinsic association between being sceptical about 7/7 and the domestic war on terror and holding Nazi or anti-Jewish beliefs.

Anyway, fuck Nazis, fuck shills. The bigger question is does anyone who has thought things through really believe that a change in Prime Minister, a few more marches or paying a quid fifty to download a shite cover single is going to make things right?

Wolfie said...

Sadly such methods of discrediting rational argument through extreme ad homeniem is not restricted to the blogosphere. I think we'll be seeing a lot more of it and the more vociferous it is the closer to the truth you may be.

Stef said...

@quarsan - I've updated the post to include a reference to your comment.

Unknown said...

hi stef, i am the quarsan from blairwatch.

we have never said that the 9/11 conspiracy theorists are linked to nazis. indeed we were suprised in a thread on holocaust denial that the same three people started linking to nazi sites such as stormfront and anti-semitic sites like jew watch.

it is odd that they treat any information from the mainstream media with extreme skepticism but accept claims made by neo-nazis uncritically.

we banned their repetative comments on 9/11, indeed we didn't even delete all of them and let comments on other matters stay. we think this is more than reasonable.

they seemed to accept this for almost three months but have now decided to launch a campaign against us. their idea of free speech is to harass anyone who disagrees with them.

we also agree with you, there are bigger questions. marches and songs aren't in themselves going to change the way we are governed, but it is part of a consistent platform that we have advocated for several years and will continue to do so.

Anonymous said...

To change the subject NNT has updated his web page; for example and is book is due out in May (April in the US).

Anonymous said...

quarsan said
", in a discussion about holocaust denial the same three people that posted hundreds of near identical links about 9/11 and 7/7, added a series of comments denying the holocaust, and when we examined their sources we found that they were uncritically quoting, and citing, nazi sites.


quarsan,
Can you provide such names & links. I am certain that these have nothing to do with the J7 Truth Campaign

Stef said...

@quarsan

just to be clear

I'm not part of or advocating any campaign against Blairwatch or any other site.

Nor am I claiming that it is easy to deal with some of the more lunatic CTers who I freely admit are out there

I have made reference to your comments in the main body of the post and anyone who has waded through that will presumably read them

Stef said...

@anon

thx

Mr Sock said...

Bullcrap!

I bet you'll be claiming Elvis shot JFK next

Anonymous said...

NONSENSE!!! EVERYONE KNOWS THE ILLUMINATI ARE THE MEN WHO WILL NOT BE BLAMED FOR NOTHING!!!

Anonymous said...

Read Mein Kampf! Hitler knew what he was talking about and had to be silenced!!!

Mr Sock said...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder

thinblueline said...

Have you died ?

Stef said...

Not that I'm aware of...

I'm not sure what you're getting at but judging by your ID you're involved with law enforcement in some way

Just to be clear on something

I've no particular axe to grind about ordinary policemen. A decent police force is arguably a prerequisite for any safe society. If it is done properly police work is very difficult and potentially dangerous work indeed

I never want to see wedges driven between ordinary people and the police force which is to supposed to protect them and the creation of a Them and Us mentality. That's one of the hallmarks of a true police state

The Met is, however, currently run by a bunch of politicised fuckers