10 Characteristics of Conspiracy Theorists (to avoid)

[greyl]

I added the parenthetical because I don't wish to turn off those who post here which aren't conspiracy theorists.

10 characteristics of conspiracy theorists
A useful guide by Donna Ferentes
..........

7. Inability to withdraw. It's a rare day indeed when a conspiracy theorist admits that a claim they have made has turned out to be without foundation, whether it be the overall claim itself or any of the evidence produced to support it. Moreover they have a liking (see 3. above) for the technique of avoiding discussion of their claims by "swamping" - piling on a whole lot more material rather than respond to the objections sceptics make to the previous lot.

8. Leaping to conclusions. Conspiracy theorists are very keen indeed to declare the "official" account totally discredited without having remotely enough cause so to do. Of course this enables them to wheel on the Conan Doyle quote as in 4. above. Small inconsistencies in the account of an event, small unanswered questions, small problems in timing of differences in procedure from previous events of the same kind are all more than adequate to declare the "official" account clearly and definitively discredited. It goes without saying that it is not necessary to prove that these inconsistencies are either relevant, or that they even definitely exist.

9. Using previous conspiracies as evidence to support their claims. This argument invokes scandals like the Birmingham Six, the Bologna station bombings, the Zinoviev letter and so on in order to try and demonstrate that their conspiracy theory should be accorded some weight (because it's “happened before”.) They do not pause to reflect that the conspiracies they are touting are almost always far more unlikely and complicated than the real-life conspiracies with which they make comparison, or that the fact that something might potentially happen does not, in and of itself, make it anything other than extremely unlikely.

10. It's always a conspiracy. And it is, isn't it? No sooner has the body been discovered, the bomb gone off, than the same people are producing the same old stuff, demanding that there are questions which need to be answered, at the same unbearable length. Because the most important thing about these people is that they are people entirely lacking in discrimination. They cannot tell a good theory from a bad one, they cannot tell good evidence from bad evidence and they cannot tell a good source from a bad one. And for that reason, they always come up with the same answer when they ask the same question.
The whole list

Some info about the site on which this list appeared:

The site has grown organically over the years and has no preset agenda or long term set aim.

Similarly, urban75 has no affiliation with any political party, philosophy or campaign group, whether they be mainstream, independent, overground, underground or wombling free.

For that reason we haven't got a snappy 'mission statement'. That tends to confuse people, so we get called all manner of things, like:

"http://urban75.com - the naughty corner of British politics" - The Register
"anti-globalisation site" (New Statesman)
"a website mainly subscribed to by people who live in Brixton because they value the bohemian liberality of the area" (Independent)
"anarchist site" (Daily Mail)
"anarchist site" (Sun)
"extremist anarchist site" (Sunday People)
"website about anarchy and drugs" (BBC)
"one of the leading political discussion and campaigning sites in Britain" (Jeremy Paxman, BBC Newsnight)
"The premier uk direct action e-zine" The Guardian
"Vogue Loves... logging onto urban75.com" Vogue magazine (!)
"Brixton-edited street-culture magazine website" (Independent)
"alternative website" (BBC2)
"site well known for discussions of direct action and anarchism" (Independent)
"agitprop website" (Sun)
"subversive website" (Big Issue)
"website devoted to discussing direct action protests, anarchy and drug issues" (Mirror)
"radical alternative website" (Standard)
"renowned for its coverage of direct-action protests, drugs and anarchism" Standard
"underground site" BBC Radio 5
"community action website" (BBC)
"protest website" (Telegraph)
" a radical online website" (Guardian)
"a website some regard to be subversive and anarchic" (BBC Radio 4)
"a website run by anarchists" (The Sun")

www.urban75.org/info/about1.html

[The Lone Groover]

1. Whatever...

They do not pause to reflect that the conspiracies they are touting are almost always far more unlikely and complicated than the real-life conspiracies with which they make comparison

More complicated conspiracies than the ones listed don't happen - everyone knows that - its impossible.

Anything you like mate... pffft.

Oh.. did I fail the test?

[BeFree]

12. Fail?

Yes! Negative 100,000 points on you. You are a bad bad boy.

But seriously... the OCTers should look that list over very carefully, they will see much of themselves between the lines. And I am proud to say that the truthers I have read here are not to be found between those lines. They have, for the most part, avoided inclusion, but the OCTers are being played like a violin.

[CGowen]

2. Using previous conspiracies as evidence to support their claims.

* In the Colonies, we issue our own paper money. It is called 'Colonial Scrip.' We issue it in proper proportion to make the goods and pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power and we have no interest to pay to no one. In this manner, by creating ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay, to anyone. You see, a legitimate government can both spend and lend money into circulation, while banks can only lend significant amounts of their promissory bank notes, for they can neither give away nor spend but a tiny fraction of the money the people need. Thus, when your bankers here in England place money in circulation, there is always a debt principal to be returned and usury to be paid. The result is that you have always too little credit in circulation to give the workers full employment. You do not have too many workers, you have too little money in circulation, and that which circulates, all bears the endless burden of unpayable debt and usury.
o Benjamin Franklin Autobiography


* If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in North America, shall become endurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains, and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.
o Hazard Circular ~ London Times 1865


If congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to use themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations.

* US President Andrew Jackson (On January 30, 1835 an unsuccessful attack occurred in the United States Capitol Building; it was the first assassination attempt made against an American President. Jackson was crossing the Capitol Rotunda following the funeral of South Carolina Congressman Warren R. Davis when Richard Lawrence approached Jackson and attempted to fire two pistols, which both miraculously misfired.)


The government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers. By adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity.

* Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President (assasinated)


* Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce.
o James A. Garfield, 20th US President (assassinated)


This Act (the Federal Reserve Act, Dec. 23rd 1913) establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President (Woodrow Wilson) signs the Bill, the invisible government of the Monetary Power will be legalised... The worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency Bill.

* Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr (1859 ~ 1924) Congressman (father of the famous aviator)


Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders... The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and... manipulates the credit of the United States.

* Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ)


Those people are clearly nuts


http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Money

[The Lone Groover]

4. Anyone who...

..thinks that the world's rich and powerful don't take actions behind closed doors to ensure they stay rich and powerful is a nut job.

Anyone got the minutes to the last Bilderberg meeting?

I haven't got a fucking clue what they get up to - have you?

But we all know large conspiracies don't exist.

[Twist_U_Up]

5. On June 4, 1963

JFK signed Executive Order No. 11110. With this Order JFK was on his way to putting the Federal Reserve Bank of NY out of business. 11110 gave the Treasury the power to issue silver certificates. If enough silver certificates circulated they would have eliminated the demand for Federal Reserve notes. Perhaps JFK's assassination was a warning to future presidents who try to eliminate the U.S. debt by eliminating the Fed's control over the creation of money.

[CGowen]

10. There is good movie about the quotes above

http://video.google.com/url?docid=-8753934454816686947&esrc=sr1&ev=v&q=money+masters&vidurl=http://video.google.com/videoplay%3Fdocid%3D-8753934454816686947%26q%3Dmoney%2Bmasters%26hl%3Den&usg=AL29H22113WR3KBtVQo9QFnXcKAbPV4DuQ

http://video.google.com/url?docid=-2665915773877500927&esrc=sr2&ev=v&q=money+masters&vidurl=http://video.google.com/videoplay%3Fdocid%3D-2665915773877500927%26q%3Dmoney%2Bmasters%26hl%3Den&usg=AL29H232figUR8aMdHEIrt8i0eY9E4SitA

[Bolo Boffin]

14. Wow, we are getting around the CT universe here now!

Bilderberg, Federal Reserve, JFK, 9/11...

What's everybody's opinion on the Holocaust? How's the Fourteenth Amendment working out for everyone?

Don't you wish Neo-Nazi White Aryan Christian Identity bullshit artists would j*st fuck off and die?

[CJCRANE]

15. The Holocaust was a state-sponsored crime

on a massive scale. There's no denying that.

[CGowen]

16. You should ask the Bushes about their

success and IG Farben investments while at Brown Brothers Harriman

[The Lone Groover]

19. You're such a trusting soul Bolo...

...you live in a nice world.

Bilderberg involves at least hundreds in not thousands. What are they up to? How do they keep it secret?

I haven't a clue myself... but I don't trust them.

There is absolutely no question... NONE WHATSOEVER... that the World's rich and powerful take measures behind closed doors to ensure they stay rich and powerful.

If you think otherwise you're mad. Or do you think they leave it all to chance?

[JackRiddler]

24. Every official conspiracy theory of 9/11 employs prior conspiracy claims

You won't find a longer general treatment of 9/11 from the 19-hijackers-did-it-without-US-state-facilitation-or-foreknowledge school that does not include a timeline of terror attacks attributed to Muslim fundamentalists, al Qaeda or OBL. These will tend to include WTC in 1993, the Embassy bombings, etc., but often the incidents included are merely examples of analogy rather than attributable to those accused of doing 9/11 (i.e., the attack on the US Marines barracks in 1982 in Lebanon by the Shia proto-Hezbollah).

Naturally, those arguing for complicity, facilitation or orchestration theories of 9/11 as "inside job" or false-flag also present timelines of precedents, which might analogies like the Reichstag fire or examples of direct US-sponsored covert terror actions like the Salvadoran death squads, the Gladio bombings, etc.

In both cases, framing allows one to make sense of a case that must otherwise support itself. The device of citing precedents is common in law and history, and in itself proves nothing.

[seemslikeadream]

3. You are a man on a mission

no doubt

[naboo]

6. what is that second picture?

seems like a dream?

[Make7]

7. Annette McLeod, wife of Cpl. Wendell McLeod...

Annette McLeod, wife of Cpl. Wendell McLeod, center, flanked by Staff Sgt. John Shannon, left, and Spec. Jeremy Duncan, testifies before a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, Monday, March 5, 2007.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2007-03/06/content_820329.htm

- Make7

[seemslikeadream]

9. Thanks Make7

[seemslikeadream]

8. It is what happens when unresolved scandals take a back seat to a domestic agenda?

They were testifying in front of the Senate hearings on Walter Reed. It was incredible testimony. Oh what burying the truth has done. The human price is overwhelming. Everyone should be made to listen to them. This is not a game, I'm not playing a game of gotcha here with the bullies on the playground. People's lives are being destroyed while folks here make snarky diversionary comments, trying to keep us all in the dark dungeon. They don't want LIGHT.


Though sometimes the truth can hurt, Clinton and the Democrats should understand that covering up the truth can hurt even more. As Clinton’s folly with the Reagan-Bush scandals should have taught, the Democrats may hurt themselves worst of all when helping the Republicans cover up the truth.


What happens when unresolved scandals take a back seat to a domestic agenda?

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/111106.html

My book, Secrecy & Privilege, opens with a scene in spring 1994 when a guest at a White House social event asks Bill Clinton why his administration didn’t pursue unresolved scandals from the Reagan-Bush era, such as the Iraqgate secret support for Saddam Hussein’s government and clandestine arms shipments to Iran.

Clinton responds to the questions from the guest, documentary filmmaker Stuart Sender, by saying, in effect, that those historical questions had to take a back seat to Clinton’s domestic agenda and his desire for greater bipartisanship with the Republicans.

Clinton “didn’t feel that it was a good idea to pursue these investigations because he was going to have to work with these people,” Sender told me in an interview. “He was going to try to work with these guys, compromise, build working relationships.”

Clinton’s relatively low regard for the value of truth and accountability is relevant again today because other centrist Democrats are urging their party to give George W. Bush’s administration a similar pass if the Democrats win one or both houses of Congress.

Reporting about a booklet issued by the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank of the Democratic Leadership Council, the Washington Post wrote, “these centrist Democrats … warned against calls to launch investigations into past administration decisions if Democrats gain control of the House or Senate in the November elections.”

more......

[BeFree]

13. In the dark

...and in the dungeon. They got us that far but I think I see a jail-break coming on soon.

The force of our power will overcome - there are way too many good people who are waking up.

[oblivious]

11. Since surely everyone on earth believes in one or more conspiracy theories...

Donna Ferentes is generalising about the human race.

What a clown!

But then people like her don't call their pet theories conspiracy theories I guess. So this only applies to everyone they disagree with.

She's probably one of those boneheads who says everyone who disagrees with her doesn't know how to think critically.

Thanks for the morning laugh.

[dflprincess]

17. Last night Colbert had Michael Specter on who has written an article

(for the New Yorker I think) about the strange deaths of so many who have opposed Putin. Strange, isn't it, that if a foreign leader is accused of such things no one starts telling the author he's a conspiracy nut. But suggest that elements of the American power structure could have been involved in that sort of thing and you're crazy.

We could have film of Poppy Bush putting a gun to JFK's head and pulling the trigger and we'd be told we were crazy to think JFK died of anything other than a cerebral hemorrhage.

[Bolo Boffin]

18. Strange that when you suggest the towers fell on their own how...

you get accused of suggesting that elements of the American power structure could do no wrong.

Does anyone actually suggest that JFK died of a cerebral hemmorage, dflprincess? Don't you think you're hyping the situation just a tad?

[dflprincess]

23. Ya think?

I guess I should have added :sarcasm:

[Contrite]

20. Of course, the official story itself is a conspiracy theory

...and the characteristics cited apply to those who adhere firmly to it.

Arrogance (everyone who doesn't support the OCT is illogical, insane or an idiot), relentlessness (NIST has already explained everything-stop questioning their reports!), inability to answer questions (why exactly did WTC7 fall at freefall speed? What about those put options?), fondness for certain stock phrases (leading/true scientific experts have all agreed that . . .), inability to understand and employ Occam's Razor (gaping holes in logic exist on both sides of the story), inability to tell good evidence from bad (NIST's sagging floors and unexplained global collapse), inability to withdraw (NIST was right--insert links here--and we will not accept alternatives), leaping to conclusions (just like NIST did?), using previous conspiracies as evidence to support their claims and it's always a conspiracy (yes, of course, Arabs conspired against us, bin Laden organized an incredible feat from his cave, and Saddam really was a threat and was out to get us with WMDs...but hey, it's not always a conspiracy, right?).

A person who always says the same thing, and says it over and over again is, of course, commonly considered to be, if not a monomaniac, then at very least, a bore. NIST, NIST, NIST, NIST, NIST.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

21. Pretty much sums it up...

sad when your own "logic" proves to be your undoing.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

22. Amazing how whenever a nerve is struck (as in truth is exposed)

the misdirection of the OCT's (the real CTists) begins to elaborate on the Titanic, Kennedy, MLK... in a juvenile attempt to forgo a legitimate discussion of the new evidence provided to them.